Editing The Tales of the Emperasque: Part Fifteen (section)

==9-120-001-M42==
The Webway is not secure. The labyrinth dimension between the Warp and reality is cracked and shattered, ripped apart by the birth of Slaanesh, and twisted into whorls by the machinations of Cegorach (and the Emperor, prior to his abandonment of the Human Web project). The darkest recesses of the Webway flood with the whispers of the daemons that lurk in its tunnels, turning wayward travelers to madness…and Chaos.<br>
The Dark Eldar wouldn’t use it if they didn’t absolutely have to. Their race spread to its size only because of the malleability of its construction, allowing for populations magnitudes greater than the real world could support. Thus, when they exit the Webway to prey on realspace, they have to take the uttermost care not to be stranded there. It may be healthier for them, but they find no succor here.<br>
Volgratch station hung in the depths of the Segmentum Pacificus like a hornet’s nest on a tree. Tiny ships darted in and out of its holofield, heading through the Warp and realspace to steal human and ork ships, capture and enslave their crews, haul their plunder into the Webway, and scout out abandoned Webway tunnels besides. It was not heavily armed. It didn’t usually need to be, since its holofields were years ahead of the Imperiums’ means of detecting it. On that fateful day, however, that stopped mattering.

Commodore Romes and his analysts had determined that since Dark Eldar ships have very short ranges in the Warp, since their presence there draws daemons to their positions like iron filings to an electromagnet, they could only be hitting targets sixty light-years from their origin point. By looking within sixty light years of recent pirate raids, and eliminating star systems with no signs of ancient Eldar colonies or plainly-visible surface Webway Gates, they had narrowed the field down to two. The Emperor’s psychic might had detected the station in one of the two systems, and now Jaghatai Khan was nearly giddy with the anticipation of taking revenge for ten thousand years of wasted time.<br>
The Chapter Master of the Minotaurs, Moloc, had not been able to accompany the task force in person, but their Reclusiarch had, and would be leading the Minotaurs in person. The entire force would be personally answerable to Jaghatai, however, not that he was all that eager to resume High Command duties so soon. He had made it clear from the beginning that his role was on the front lines, personally leading the attack, something the Reclusiarch could admit he respected.

The ships kept up their barrage, hammering away at the hull of the station on one side, as the flight of Thunderhawks which had carried the Bikes around the station swooped about, preventing panicked Corsairs from fleeing. The bikes rode over the hull of the station across from the ships, disarming the station, bit by bit.<br>
Inside, it was total bedlam. The Dark Eldar pirates crewing the station scrambled to mount a defense, to fight off the Imperials attacking them, even as their hull emplacements went dark. The collection of human and alien mercenaries on the crew, nearly a third of its population, were better prepared, as most of them were more experienced in space warfare than their ‘allies.’<br>
“Get moving!” the leader of the human contingent roared. “If the Corpse’s men are here, the boarders won’t be far behind!” He turned to glare at the nearest Dark Eldar, who was busily loading his splinter gun. “You! Forget that thing! Corridors this tight, it’s sidearms and buckshot for you!”<br>
“Be silent, mon-keigh filth,” the alien sneered, pausing to look up at the human. “I will take no orders from apes like you.”<br>
The corsair glared at the alien for a moment before neatly bisecting him with his power sword, sending both sizzling halves toppling to the floor. He turned to face the other troops in the room, including his own. “Any other objections?”

Jaghatai slowed his bike, spotting a thermal vent on the hull of the station. Like all Dark Eldar ships, its armor was paltry compared to an Imperial ship of equivalent displacement, but it was still far too tough to take with bolters. A few well-placed explosives, however…<br>
“Riders! Prepare for breach!” Jaghatai called over the comm. The other Attack Riders slowed their rampage across the hull, angling to Jaghatai with great care in the low gravity. Jaghatai tapped his sidecar gunner on the shoulder, and the gunner dropped his satchel charges into the vent as they drove past, tapping the button once they were out of range. The bombs flared and detonated, the tiny oxygen packets laced into the thermate warhead sending a brilliant spark through the dead, black battlefield. The hull was scorched, certainly, but not breached.<br>
That, however, was enough.<br>
Out of the darkness of the interstellar void, a massive block of metal, easily four or five times the size of a Land Raider, slammed into the damaged hull plate, sending shards of metal flying into space. The colossal Minotaur boring drill, usually used to deliver assault pods through armored Hives, cut through the metal like a chainsaw through tapioca, cutting through the heat vents into the interior of the station. Without hesitating, Jaghatai gunned the Bike, driving through the hole, dropping into the interior of the station.

The artificial gravity tugged at the Bike, slamming it down on its wheels with a *clunk* of shattering engine parts. Jaghatai leaped from the saddle, drawing his two heavy bolter pistols and firing them into a frantically running mercenary security team.<br>
“Counter-boarders to the pod deck!” barked the speakers overhead, accompanied by the sudden sounds of several dozen Minotaur bikes and trikes following him and his Scars vanguard through.<br>
“Leave the bikes,” Jaghatai said with some regret, eyeing the narrow hallways of the station.<br>
“Lord Khan, the drill?” the Minotaur leader asked, pointing down the massive hole, to where the drill was still visible, boring away.<br>
“Leave it running until we’re in danger of stripping the head,” Jaghatai said. He raised his voice, lifting a heavy bolt rifle, complete with grenade tube underslung, from the sidecar. “Astartes, our objective is the Webway gate in the main hangar. Move out!”<br>
The human Corsair looked over the room in front of him, and the nearly three hundred mercenaries and Dark Eldar crewers within. “All right, you dregs, we’re up against Astartes here. I know some of you have fought them before, but these are boarding actions, which means close quarters, which means fight smart!” He gestured at his power sword, which he had ripped the hand of a dying Commissar, his own. “Hand-to-hand, Astartes are invincible. That means explosives and shot!”<br>
He gestured at the corridor out of the room, to where the Astartes had landed. “The ships have stopped firing. That means they want the station intact. The Astartes are here to claim it. Hit them with everything you have!”

The Minotaur and Scar teams split up, storming through the corridors in search of the Webway gates. The halls were thick with the smell of fear and suffering, blood and rotting souls. Terminators would have been ideal, of course, for such a battle, but neither Chapter could mount more than a few Terminators on Bikes on such short notice, so only five Scars were so equipped, and Jaghatai was not one of them. The Minotaurs, however, were experienced boarders, and lent the usually more hit-and-run Scars the heavy support they lacked.<br>
“Take it!” Jaghatai snarled, punting a Dark Eldar crewer back into the cabin from which he emerged, tossing a satchel charge in after him. The room flooded with fire and bits of xeno, casting the pile of human bones beyond into relief.<br>
“Lord Khan. We’ve spotted the Archon’s ships returning,” the fleet captain reported into the Primarch’s vox channel.<br>
“If they try to run, burn them. If not, they’ll probably try to open the Webway gate in the middle of the station, and flee into Commorragh,” Jaghatai said, reloading his bolter and readying another satchel charge.<br>
“Aye. The bombardment has succeeded, sir, all power relays and conduits on this half of the station are gone,” the captain reported.<br>
“Excellent. Withdraw a little and launch all craft. Prepare precision lances for surgical strikes on the Dark Eldar ships. They may be slavers. Take them intact,” Jaghatai instructed.