All banks of torpedoes launched. Every battery of cannons opened up. The entire forwards armament of the Sthenelus fired. A swarm of projectiles streaked towards the behemoth. The plasma batteries discharged moments later, their fury timed so their blasts would hit the Veritas at the same time as the ordnance. Khalybus counted the seconds of the barrage. The moment of the first pause came. He shouted, ‘Hard to port and down!’

‘Port and down,’ Kiriktas confirmed.

The view in the oculus changed slowly. The shells and torpedoes and focused plasma blasts hit the Veritas Ferrum before the turn was well underway. The explosions flared in the upper left of the oculus. The flash overwhelmed the view. For several beautiful seconds, the daemon ship vanished, hidden by the incandescence of the barrage. Khalybus watched, willing the attack to have opened a gaping wound in the enemy’s hull.

The flames boiled away. A giant eye in the hull was punctured. It oozed a sea of ichor over the hull, spreading armour. The surface of the Veritas swirled at the impact sites. Storms formed in the daemonic substance of the ship, then passed. There was no breach. There was no damage.

Khalybus witnessed his opening salvo in the void war turn into an empty gesture.

The Sthenelus turned from the site of futility. It angled down and away from the Veritas. It was prey now, and it began the race away from the predators.

‘Captain,’ said Seterikus, ‘auspex readings of the Veritas are changing. There’s a deformation in the lower hull.’

Khalybus turned to the pict screens in the strategium. The rear sensors assembled a hololithic rendering of the enemy. Below the snarling bow, a new spike protruded.

Levannas said, ‘It’s growing a gun.’

‘Hard to starboard,’ Khalybus ordered. ‘All power to the engines. Kiriktas, get us out of its line of fire.’

The deck vibrated with the sudden strain on the engines. Kiriktas, silent now with his entire consciousness melded to the machine-spirit of the Sthenelus, pushed the ship to its limit. The hull groaned with the turn. The manoeuvre threatened to break the frigate’s spine. Klaxons sounded as stress damage spread the length of the ship.

Khalybus exchanged a look with Levannas. The Raven Guard nodded. They braced for the inevitable.

The run had been a long one since Isstvan V. The fight has been a worthy one, Khalybus thought.