Vex Chronicles 3: Hunt

Crumbling plan

Aes Cognis, bridge

"Void shields!" Captain Feh stared at the gun vectors that reached for her void body. "Get the main cannon up! Man whatever batteries we can! And give me a god damn auspex ping. I need to know what is pummeling me!"

"Limited auspex echos," Federim replied. "Identification impossible."

Beams of exotic weapons scattered painfully over Feh's shielding. Void shield generator's protested as they struggled to take the hits. The Aes Cognis wasn't build to withstand such punishment for long.

It was no question who the attackers were. The dark eldar ship must have hidden in the shadow of the starkiller. And their cloaking technology had allowed them to chose when and where to strike.

"Helm, evasive maneuvers," the captain ordered. "Federim, boost the auspex. Give me anything!"

Artillery ship? Battleship? Fast or slow? Feh's mind raced as she played our scenarios in her head. In this very moment she felt so alive – and angry at the same time. It felt so... familiar? Feh had always assumed to have been a void fighter pilot before dark eldar torture had broken her mind. But that just couldn't explain how easy she slotted into the Aes Cognis. Who was she really...?

An incoming signal from the necron fortress cut Feh's thoughts short. "Martisson, put it on my channel."

"...timing is crucial, captain..." Vex's voice was overshadowed with heavy static.

"Repeat," captain Feh demanded.

"Destroy... pillars. But the timing is cru..."

"Open void shield hole and reinforce the vox signal," Feh ordered before turning back to her vox. "Repeat. Shoot down pillars?"

"Acknowl... Transferring Gerrisat's calcula... We need to..." The inquisitor's voice finally cut out with a last sharp crackle. The line was dead.

"Where is my vox?," Feh protested.

"Scrambler field finally reached us, captain." Martisson sounded worried. "All frequencies are dead."

Lights flickered as the machine spirit of the Aes Cognis roared in anger when one of the shield projectors died. And Feh felt its pain as her own. This new bombardment had felt different – many scattering impacts instead of the pain of powerful beam weapons. That meant only one thing: close range batteries. The enemy had already sneaked up on them.

"Reinforce the shields!," Feh barked. "Full throttle evasion! Martisson, what is with Vex's data transfer?"

"We have only fragments," Martisson's hand flew over his keys. "I'll assemble what we have. We have... fire positions for the star fort. But the timing details are fragmented."

Feh hammered on the armrest. "Decode and reconstruct. Helm...," Feh was cut short by the vox. A painful choir of tormented voices was on every channel. And to Feh's disdain, she knew a few of those screams. That were the crew the eldar had stolen from her.

"Martisson, cut the vox," Feh groaned. "Better a deaf ship than this."

"Enemy ship located. Straight collision course." Federim put it onto the main screen.

Feh started at the ship that rushed at her like the tip of an arrow. "Helm, where is my evasion maneuver? Roll! Get me out of their path. Full throttle!"

"Too late, captain," was helmsman Gascrone's dry reply.

"Then turn our prow into them. Full engine burn!"

Feh felt the maneuver thrusters burn. A rumble ran through the frigate and the armored prow rotated into the enemy flight path. But Feh knew that it was too slow. They dealt with the agility of a dark eldar ship.