Editing Second Battle of Kopt Dara (section)

==The Battle==

Hektor Cincinnatus did not hesitate to order his scattered fleet to change course.  While the great ships of the Imperial squadrons came about, the Primarch held a holo-conference from the ''Monarch of the Void'' to discuss strategy.  Archmagos Yenser was not optimistic.  His squadron, though powerful, had been relying on their Void Shields to compensate for a high velocity trip into the Destoona System, and would now struggle to decelerate for an engagement at Kopt Dara.  Yenser reluctantly suggested that his void ships could come off their warp axis and use their main plasma drive to slow down, but nobody in the conference was enthusiastic about stranding so many powerful warships for the sake of one battle.  Instead, Hektor put forward a complicated plan relying on the Imperial's astropathic communications.  The fleet would form up on an approach course towards Kopt Dara's equator and drop into an orbit running opposite to the Osroene.  The Imperials would then use the bulk of the planet to shield them from their alien enemies while they took up their battle position.  Yenser's squadron would simply use the gas giant's gravity well to bleed off their surplus velocity.  By the time their orbit intersected that of the Osroene ships, the Mechanicum warships should be down to a safe combat speed.  Meanwhile, Hektor's cruisers would sharply change course and come up over Kopt Dara's polar regions to take the Osroene in the flank.

Unlike in many of the Imperial confrontations with the Osroene, there is some data about their intentions during the Second Battle of Kopt Dara.  Signal intercepts from ''Black Joke'''s satellites indicate that the Osroene were aware of the difficulties of their position.  The Xenos commander, identified as Provost Marshal Lerijo, had set attack craft to patrol the area around his fleet's orbit and issued repeated calls for vigilance to his subcommanders.  However, there is little evidence that Lerijo considered taking the initiative.  Confronted with a superior force, the Osroene doctrine called for escape or at least taking up a defensive position, and the Provost Marshal remained true to his training.

The Imperial approach to Kopt Dara went precisely as planned.  The plasma trails from Hektor's vanguard would have been visible to observers on the Osroene ships as a bright flare in the sky before they dipped below the horizon.  Once out of contact, Hektor's ships came about sharply for their attack over the north of the gas giant, while ''Black Joke'' was once again called on to serve as a scout ship.  Markos Priscus manoeuvred the Rogue Trader vessel into an orbit trailing the Osroene and set the ship's astropath to work relaying data from passive scans to the operations centres aboard ''Monarch of the Void'' and ''Capitalis Juventas''.  A second, larger flare marked the course of Yenser's Mechanicum warships as they swept into Kopt Dara's orbit.  Then, for agonising hours, both sides moved around the gas giant.  The Osroene watched all around them, not knowing which vectors their opponents would choose.  Hektor and Yenser had the advantage of constant updates from ''Black Joke'', allowing for minute corrections to be made.

Zorr Yenser's warships were simply too vast to approach by stealth.  As the prow of the lead ship, ''Nostra Machinae'', came up over the horizon on a simple approach vector, Lerijo ordered his captains to launch a wave of attack craft to carry out an advance strike.  Unfortunately for the Provost Marshal, this decision robbed his fleet of scouts that might have picked up the Space Marine cruisers approaching them.  Hektor's ships had pumped their heat sinks to near-zero while shielded by Kopt Dara's bulk, and although they were quickly warming up inside the ships gave off minimal emissions to alert their prey.  While the Osroene bombers tried in vain to slip past the Mechanicum squadron's interlocking point defence fire, ordinance crews on all of the combat vessels counted down to effective range.  To the dismay of Provost Marshal Leirjo and the great satisfaction of the Imperial commanders, ''Monarch of the Void'' and ''Monarch of Luna'' fired the first shots of the engagement, unleashing a deadly close-range salvo of torpedoes.