After Nareth arranged the testing of the new armor, Arsena walked to the cogitator. Arsena and the Forge Lord exchanged nods.
Arsena raised his control rod, and a green holographic projection of the planet appeared.
"The Legion's fleet has defeated the Avenian fleet and established an orbital cordon around Heliosa."
"Heliosa is a mountain world. The Avenian's war-holds, including their Phoenix Court, are built within the high peaks. Orbital bombardment will be of limited effectiveness."
"The main challenge of a planetary assault will be the Avenian's formidable air force."
Nareth nodded slightly. He recalled how the air forces of the Thousand Sons and the Space Wolves had struggled against Avenian resistance.
The Thousand Sons of the five great cults, including Ahzek Ahriman, had taken to the skies in their fighters.
Magnus himself had served as the guiding intellect.
The Cult of the Corvidae, foreseeing the future, were his eyes and ears.
The Cult of the Athanaeans read the minds of enemy pilots, intercepting their routes and maneuvers. Their telepathic communion was Magnus's thoughts.
The Cult of the Raptora's telekinesis was his shield, deflecting enemy fire.
The Cult of the Pyrae and the Cult of the Pavoni were Magnus's fists, causing flames and arcs of lightning to erupt around their warriors.
Only with the Primarch personally leading three thousand fighters from the five cults were they able to destroy the Avenian air force.
'Magnus, you have three thousand psykers piloting fighters; I also have an all-beyonder aerial formation.'
Nareth gathered his thoughts, turning to Flamini. His Chapter was the Shadows of Order's strongest air force.
"The Avenian air force will be the Sixth Chapter's responsibility. You will engage the main enemy formation in the mid-to-high altitudes."
He then looked at Szczesny. "The Ninth Chapter will provide support, establishing control at lower altitudes."
Flamini and Szczesny stepped forward in unison. "By Your will."
Five thousand two hundred Cyclothrathe-pattern Lightning fighters launched from the Sixth Chapter's fleet.
Unlike the Lightning fighters of the other eleven Chapters, which were supplied by the Forge World of Voss, these were manufactured on the industrial world of Cyclothrathe within the Coronid Deeps.
Cyclothrathe's industrial output surpassed all others in the Coronid Deeps, including five worlds in the Cyclops Cluster that produced flyers.
Flamini, the "Winner," had, upon becoming Fate Lord, decided to leverage his advantage and make air power a priority.
For this campaign, the Chapter had committed its main force. Five "Calamity Priests" commanded one-thousand-fighter formations each.
Each formation comprised ten "Lucky Ones," one hundred "Robot," and eight hundred and ninety "Monsters."
The reserve pilots currently numbered three thousand six hundred and ten. They were the most gifted flyers selected from across the Chapter, accumulating flight experience and battle honors, hoping to one day earn a place in their gene-father's Honour Guard.
Their primary duties were piloting Aquila shuttles, Stormbirds, Thunderhawks, and other transport craft for personnel and armored vehicles.
A minority flew older patterns, like Swordtail interceptors, performing air defense duties within the Coronid Deeps.
Five thousand fighters pierced Heliosa's cloud layer, their shadowing wings blotted out the clear sky.
Flamini surveyed his formidable air force on the tactical display, his spirits soaring.
Dense red runes suddenly flickered onto the display.
He moved his mind, and the interface linked to his upper spine transmitted his commands to his aircraft.
The red runes rapidly zoomed in, resolving into white fighters, their wings like razors.
On the right wing of each razor-winged craft was engraved a double-headed bird in flight, similar to the Imperial Aquila.
They spiraled upward, swift as agile birds.
Flamini opened his throat-mic and addressed his two "Winner" lieutenants: "The luck we've accumulated, it's time to unleash it."
The "Winners" pressed their firing buttons in unison. Twelve Hellstrike missiles howled from their wings.
Air-to-ground weapons were slower than air-to-air missiles and usually couldn't hit their targets.
Yet the twelve missiles streaked across the sky, striking the center of the white formation.
In the erupting flames, dozens of white craft were torn apart.
Smoking wreckage tumbled and crashed among the mountain peaks.
The Avenian formation climbed sharply, the noses of their aircraft spewing dense metal fire.
Flamini eased the stick to the left. The Lightning fighter rolled as if through a vacuum, executing an evasive maneuver that would have required sixteen separate steps on an older Swordtail interceptor.
The black fighters dispersed in an orderly manner into their formations. The Punisher-class reactors, more powerful than the Voss-pattern plasma engines, burned fiercely, keeping the iron birds stable at high speed.
The long-barreled autocannons beneath their black bellies roared, raining destruction, shattering the white fighters in droves.
The second formation's thousand fighters dove, their wingtip-mounted laser cannons firing.
The beams ionized the air in a dense crackle of sound.
The soaring white fighters blossomed into gouts of searing flame.
As the black Cyclothrathe Lightning fighters pressed their advantage from altitude, suppressing the climbing white Avenian fighters, great clouds of darkness rose from the jagged mountains. Countless flying creatures of varying sizes swarmed into the sky.
First through the fire came the tiny creatures, insect-sized, living on guano.
Thump, thump, thump...
A series of impacts, they swarmed the black iron birds of the first squadron, surging towards the flaming exhaust.
Boom!
One black iron bird shuddered violently, spitting a cloud of charred, fibrous matter.
Boom!
A crippled fighter slammed into a mountain peak.
Amidst urgent alarms, the "Monster" studied his remote sensing display, still detecting the tiny creatures.
A vision flashed through the "Monster's" mind. He wrenched the stick.
A gust of air blasted the tail, clearing the swarm of insect-like flyers like a windshield wiper.
The "Robot" leader, guided by spiritual intuition, locked onto a fleeting target. His mind raced, calculating the attack trajectory.
The "Robot" worked the controls with furious speed. The black iron bird weaved and spun, its beams lashing out in a spiraling arc, splintering charred clusters of flame like fireworks.
Hundreds of feral pterosaurs howled from mountain caves. They burst through the burning cloud layer, their terrible beaks aimed at the black iron birds.
Bang!
A beak struck the glass of the "Lucky One's" cockpit, cracking it.
It beat its wings, its claws scraping and screeching against the canopy glass.
Blinded, the "Lucky One" instinctively worked the stick. The black iron bird rolled.
Bang!
The pterosaur slammed into a tree jutting from the cliff face. The "Lucky One's" fighter scraped past the trunk, branches scratching a gash across its hull.
Heliosa was an ideal home for flying creatures. Swarms from mountain settlements joined the aerial battle on instinct, allowing the Avenian to break the Shadows of Order's advantage and climb to their level.
Graceful white craft and terrible black craft crossed paths, tearing into each other's metallic bodies.
The commander of the second formation, a "Calamity Priest," opened a comm channel and shouted a warning.
"Avalanche! Explosion!"
After his warning, he pushed the stick forward, diving his black iron bird into the densest part of the enemy formation.
Boom!
A white fighter slammed into a peak.
Rumble!
The mountaintop exploded. Hundreds of tons of rock erupted like a flood.
The black iron bird had long since pulled away. The Avenian pilots were caught unprepared.
As they tried to evade, their heads spun.
Boom, boom, boom...
The Avenian pilots' minds were lost in the "Mindstorm." The "Calamity Priest's" triggered calamity snowballed, engulfing white fighter after white fighter.
Rumble...
The explosion spread from the peak, covering a radius of several kilometers.
The "Calamity Priest" climbed clear, checking his tactical display. He had achieved over four hundred and fifty kills.
Not counting the flying creatures caught in the blast.
....
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