Chapter 29

                                    

                                          
An: WOOOHHHH I am on a roll baby! Two updates in a month! Enjoy a much larger 3.5k chapter!



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	"Squadron 4 and 7, keep firing in those positions. I want long range and secure kills only. Don't waste your shots! 13 and 2, slow down your rotation by 7%, you are burning fuel as it is!" A round of acknowledgment echoed from the bridge as Vröshtien watched as the war of attrition unfold.
	With the aid of the asteroid belt, save for the segment the Imperial fist had destroyed earlier, the battlefield was favorable. It was not the best, but after the continued retreat and failures during their retreat at the Cadere sector, this was nothing short of a miracle.
	Finally, for once in a century, their luck is turning around! Vröshtien did not know why they had such bad luck, especially when they had the Lamenters, an entire astarte chapter on their side, but she thanked the Emperor for a relief they are long overdue.
	Advantage in power, range and speed? It almost made Vröshtien cry. The veteran Cadian admiral had to deal with the reality bending curse of the archenemy, the unreasonable logic of the greenskins and even arcane sophistry of the eldar. 
	Not once in her life did she ever had the pleasure of simply engaging a rebel scum or pirates whose tactics, knowledge and technology to be inferior to hers. It always had to be the greatest threat of mankind. But now? Now she was in paradise.
	A single shot was all it took. Even their smallest vessels, their sword and firestorm frigates, can take down the xenos smaller warships and even cripple their much heavier capital ships. Her ship, The Ire of Cadia, is an old but still vicious battleship that can take down seven or more on its own without breaking a sweat.
	Adding the relative stationary positions of the xeno's, it was a paradise for her. All she needed to do was set a constant rotating hit-and-run shots within the asteroid field and it will bleed the alien dry, even if they were outnumbered more than 1 to 25. Everything was perfect... except.
	"Plasma torpedo is at 15%" Their dwindling ammunition.
	"Fire 5 more and save the rest! Do not spend everything you dolt, or so the Emperor helps me!" Vröshtien curses. Their most heavy hitting shots, the nova canons, cannot be used in fear of getting the planet within its crossfire. The admiral did not want to test how devastating its radiation would be to the garden world's atmosphere.
	And so, they were forced to take the larger fleet down through conventional means. It was working, but they were bleeding their supplies fast. What made it worse was the alien was not moving an inch. Sure, they returned fire and do evasive maneuvers, but they never got in close range where their much larger supply of close range ammunition could be put to use.
	Eliminating boarding actions and ramming maneuvers, Vröshtien was slowly losing her fuse as their long-range weapons begin to run dry. They will need to rely on medium range and its accuracy when that well runs empty.
	The only saving grace she had were the safety of their unarmed ships. A trillion souls was able to escape the battle. Vröshtien allowed a small measure of relief to flood through her. She only needs to focus on the battle now, no shattering regrets whenever a transport full of civilians being destroyed.
	Setting up the battle was the easiest part of this strategy, but its continued pressure was another matter entirely. One wrong move and it could all spell their doom. Void shields or not. "Admiral!" Vröshtien snapped out of her trance as she turned to see her counterpart. Admiral Kaiden.
	"Report admiral." Vröshtien smoothly replied as she continued to watch the flow of battle.
	"Reya and Claire are pushing it, but so far, we can keep up!" Another good news. The veteran admiral was skeptical at first. She heard how these machine spirits would work and increase their efficiency in battle. She and several other captains were skeptical about these things to even keep up, not say how reliable they were inside their head.