Chương 25: Chapter 22

Space of Coruscant before the battle....

A gigantic armada of ships varying in sizes but each is not less than a kilometer and a half. These ships are of Imperium's origin. They're currently warping back to real space. This whole armada consists of different battefleets.

The travel on the string dimension is tedious. It's like the Immaterium but everything is filled with strings, lots of strings. And there's no chaos gods who wanted to fuck with or you nor daemons who wanted to drag you to literal hell. It's like the webway of the Immaterium but better and has logic.

At the very front of the armada was a ship never before seen by anyone. A golden ship of unknown class. It has unknown weapons and was absolutely gigantic, it dwarfs even the largest custodian capital ship. The name of this ship is Imperator Somnium. The Emperor himself decided to join the fun and extract his beloved son from the hands of the despicable natives.

The whole armada advanced and utilized their warp drives to open a tear from space and back to reality.

Inside the command headquarters of the flagship...

"Captain General we're ready to jump back to reality" reported an officer to the Captain General of the Custodes. The Captain General was tasked on overseeing this operations as the Emperor with Constantin Valdor and a couple more custodians was on the room of the Emperor. The Emperor trusts the Captain General so much that he brought his bonsai tree with him on battle.

The implementation of the whole battle plan was in full swing as they got immense success from the rebellion in Naboo.

"Very well, inform every ship to prepare to return back to reality." ordered the Captain General to the officer which immediately complied and relayed the orders.

A corridor on one of the ships...

A squad of Astartes was walking on this tight corridor as their whole body almost covered the width of the corridor. The guardsmen aboard the ship that's taking this corridor made themselves small and gave as much space as possible in respect to the Angels of Death.

Moments ago...

"We'll go with the battle plan once again. We drop on our pods then we secure the perimeter for the Custodians and the Emperor then ensure the perimeter wouldn't have any disruptors while the Custodians and the Emperor rescue the primarch Vulkan." said the squad leader as he did the final briefing for his squad. They're tasked on securing one of the main roads leading to the temple and protect that road from any interferences at all cost. Failure is not an option.

"Do you understand?" questioned the squad leader to his squad. He's afraid not of death but he's afraid of failure.

"Yes sir!" affirmed the space marines in his squad. The squad leader just nodded as he sat down on his seat waiting for the green light so they can move to their drop pods.

He sat there and pulled out a necklace with the Imperial Aquila as its design. This necklace is colored gold and was extremely small looking when it wrapped around the hands of the squad leader. This necklace holds a familiar nostalgia inducing event to him every time he holds it. He can't remember what this lingering nostalgia in his mind every time he holds it but nonetheless, he still treats this necklace with importance and respect as it carry the imperial insignia.

At this moment, they got the green light. The squad leader stood up and started to travel to the drop pods. His squad mates followed after him.

They quickly made their way to their drop pods as the guardsmen give them as much space they can give. The squad leader walked inside the drop pod and let the machineries affix themselves on his armor as to protect him and ensure his safety from the tedious drop from the outer space.

This scene was in almost all ships as the Astartes on their ships was redied to execute the drop from the space.

On the space of Coruscant...

The home fleet of Coruscant which consists of a couple of hundred ships ranging star destroyers to as little as the corvettes. They patrol and was responsible for the defense of Coruscant system and other nearby star systems. They pack a true punch and a battle against them would be costly for anyone that's not the Imperium of Mankind.

At this moment at the edge of the star system was a ripple on space as if something is exiting the hyperspace. The advance detection technologies of the republic managed to sense this anomaly as they immediately reported this to the higher ups.

"This is Republic Officer Honor Salima, the highest commander of the Coruscant Home Defense Fleet. We request orders and information support regarding the anomaly on the edge of the system. Our equipment is malfunctioning as it can't detect what's the ripple." transmissioned Honor Salima to the Coruscant as the anomaly is getting bigger and bigger each second. She had already sent corvettes to try and get close to the anomaly in hopes of unearthing what's the anomaly.

"This is the office of the Supreme Chancellor speaking, the Supreme Chancellor requested to have a talk with you officer Honor Salima." a transmission sounded on the ears of everyone aboard the flagship of the fleet.

"I accept" said Honor Salima as the transmission was redirected directly to the Supreme Chancellor himself, Sheev Palpatine.

"Republic Officer Honor Salima, this is Sheev Palpatine the Supreme Chancellor." the voice of Palpatine sounded and was heard by everyone as Honor Salima ordered it to be transferred to her private channel.

"Supreme Chancellor, as you know there's this space ripple on the edge if the system. I have already sent a detachment of ships to try and closely observe this anomaly." reported Honor Salima to Palpatine.

"Observe the ripple closely, this might just be a normal ripple in spacetime but we better be sure." said Palpatine as he looked at the window outside his office.

"Yes your excellency."

...

"Returning to reality in 3..2..1.." an electronic voice sounded inside a cruiser ship as everyone braced for the initial dizziness.

As the space ripples suddenly tore it revealed a dimension full of strings. On it, ships of unbelievable sizes suddenly exited in speed that a normal human eye can't see.

The crew of corvettes that's near on the ripple was stunned by the scene as they tried to escape desperately. The first cruisers immediately opened fire on the corvettes near the ripple as this corvettes failed to evade and their energy shields has broke under the laser fire of the cruisers.

The laser fire made quick work of the corvettes as they immediately turned into smaller stars when they explode.

"Full speed up ahead!" ordered the female captain of a cruiser. She's part of the battlefleet tasked to be the vanguard of the main armada.

Her crew shouted as they did the orders given. Their cruiser charged on the home defense fleet of Coruscant without fear as the star destroyers and the other ships of the defense fleet also fired their weapons and the starfighters flew to intercept the Imperium's starfighters.

The defensive platforms of Coruscant also lighted up as they fired on the ships indiscriminately.

The flagship of the vanguard fleet, an Emperor-class battleship has finally exited the ripple as it also joined the fray.

"Ha motherfuckers, We've meet again. Now that you've detained one of the Primarchs you truly deserve to get exterminated!" the voice of a woman with a rather broken galactic standard language was heard on the open channel of the ships.

"This is Republic Officer Honor Salami! I order you to cease your fire and surrender to the republic! Or else this will be seen as an act of war!" a reply sounded and the lord admiral also heard it clearly. She has been honing her galactic standard speaking capabilities for the past decade.

"Surrender?" asked the lord admiral in disgust as her eyes turned bloodshot in anger. She slammed the armchair if her seat s she stood up.

"Order everyone to enter the spearhead formation!" she growled at her officers which immediately got to work in fear of havung their heads cut off.

"Also enter ramming speed! Get me close to her, I want to hit her with my sword!" she unsheathed her power sword and turned it on in anger.

"Understood?"she shouted in anger.

"Yes sir!"

...

The cruisers and other ships of the vanguard fleet converged to form a gigantic spearhead formation. They speared through the lines of the defense fleet like butter as the starfighters of the Imperium took care of the defensive platforms and protected the whole formation against the hostile starfighters of the Republic.

With the combined firewpower of the ships of the Republic, they managed to destroy around 50 ships of the Imperium. Most of the ships destroyed are cruisers.

The space tear was still spewing out ship after ship of Imperium's origin as it seemes like to the Republic that the enemy has an infinite supply of ships.

"We need to seal that tear on the space! It's too disadvantageous for us!" suggested an officer to Honor Salami which fell into deep thought.

"Order the ships to open a way, all the star destroyers will pour everything they got to seal that tear." ordered Honor Salami after a thought as she hoped it's the best choice.

"Yes your excellency!"

...

The movements of the enemy didn't go under the radar of the Imperium's vanguard fleet as they immediately changed formations to a more defensive type.

"They wanted to destroy the portal? We'll play with them. Turtle formation!" commanded the lord admiral as her officers immediately complied.

"Lord Admiral! The Captain General has passed down new orders." an officer informed the lord admiral in urgency.

"New orders? Quick tell me what it is?" ordered the lord admiral. She thought that the importance of things like these are on the top. A change on the battle plan must've happened.

"Lord Admiral, it's said here that distract the enemy as they'll open another ripple at the back of them and pincer them successfully." reported the officer.

"Report back that I'll comply." said the lord admiral.

"Order every ship to fall back and create a cordon surrounding the portal. We'll distract them and wait for the pincer!"

...

"Captain General, we're ready to return to reality." reported a female officer to the Captain General nicknamed K...

"Open the portal directly on the top of the planet. We'll strike two birds with one stone." ordered Captain General Ki...

"Yes your excellency!"

A space ripple suddenly formed directly at the exosphere of the planet. The defense force of the planet didn't even detected it properly when the sight of a gigantic golden ship stucked its head out of the portal.

The flagship of the whole Imperium has arrived...