‘I have something,’ I whispered, voice weak. ‘Be ready.’

She responded, but I could not hear it, the noise of the battle fading, darkness encroaching on my vision. But I focused on that one pict: the savage embodiment of the ork race, their god manifest in pixel lights.

I released it.

The snarling face filled the skies, its tusks mountains, its jaws wide enough to swallow the armada whole. I let it blaze for a few seconds, enough that every greenskin would see the pict. Then suddenly it shrank, collapsing into a diminutive creature. Still savage, and still an ork, but now a knock-kneed and skinny thing not dissimilar to a runt. Faintly, I could hear the narration overlaying it, though I suspect I was the only one.

‘On the agri world of Bacchus, vile xenos beasts threaten the loyal citizens of the Imperium.’

There was no mother and child, just the creature brandishing its spear, right up until its head was taken from its shoulders by the Aeronautica Imperialis fighter.

Over and over. Each time bursting like rotten fruit.

I did not know how the orks would respond. A least, not until a blast of lightning tore the sky in twain. Literally, as it turned out, the discharge slicing fighter and firmament alike. Pieces of aircraft fell like rain, but still the lightning lashed through the armada, seeking to rip the blasphemous image asunder. Impossible of course, for the pict was composed of light, and though each blast twisted and distorted it, they could not erase it. Not unless they struck Shard.

But she weaved through the horde, slipping between craft, ensuring the defiled image of their god remained unobstructed. Still the lightning lashed the sky. Some I think tried to flee, taking their chances with the surrounding storm. But their cowardice provoked the sky-fortress into even more punishing volleys, the energy arcing through the clouds, its cannons thundering.

The sky was a tempest now, the power nigh uncontrollable. Blasphemous as it might be, I wish I knew the intent of the ork mechanical. Was he driven by blind rage, like a beast? Or religious fervour, believing that the shrivelled deity somehow reflected the failings of his followers? Or perhaps he saw through it all, and sought to silence the source of the deception, heedless of the casualties his own forces would suffer.

I would never know. For at that moment Shard launched her attack, flying straight at the lightning-spewing monstrosity, lascannon spitting bolts of searing energy, and tore into the fortress.

‘Come on!’ she roared through the vox. ‘You see me! Look upon me, beast!’

It did, at that. The green lightning lashed out, but she twisted in the air, hugging the upper level of the fortress and using it to shield her from the lightning emanating from below. She fired continuously, blasting holes through the hull, but doing only superficial damage.

‘Shard, you have company.’

Ork fighters were detaching from the chaos and launching a pursuit.