In the void, Farsight's relief fleet had arrived. Leading the charge was one of the legendary Eight: Commander Bravestorm, the warrior eternally entombed within his life-sustaining crisis suit.
"Foolishness! Stand your ground!" Bravestorm's voice crackled over the command net, a metallic roar born of centuries of indomitable will. "Deploy Barracuda fighters to intercept immediately! Main fleet, advance! Target the enemy capital ships!"
Under Bravestorm's iron resolve, the retreating T'au vessels coalesced with the reinforcements. Forming a spearhead led by five Custodian-class Battleships and screened by twenty-three Emissary-class Cruisers, the T'au unleashed their signature heavy ordnance upon the Skaven armada.
The six twin-linked heavy railcell batteries and dual heavy ion cannons of the Custodian battleships hummed with building energy before lashing out, carving paths of absolute destruction through the vacuum.
The Skaven fleet, a loose confederation of rival clans, lacked cohesive discipline. Several glory-hungry clan-ships had surged forward prematurely, eager to claim the xenos vessels as their own political capital. They were met not with fleeing prey, but with a wall of superior firepower and a vengeful counter-attack.
Squadrons of Barracuda fighters launched from the carrier decks. Piloted by members of the Air Caste, these craft and their pilots far outclassed the frantic Skaven chattering in their cockpits. Against the technical precision of the T'au, a single glancing hit on a Pup-class Torpedo Boat triggered a catastrophic, irreversible chain reaction of green Warp-fire.
Even the veteran pilots of the Farsight Enclaves, hardened by centuries of war against the Imperium and the Tyranids, found the new enemy's tactical reliance on sheer biological mass absurd.
Whoosh—
An Air Caste ace banked his Barracuda in an elegant arc, slicing across the trajectory of a Pup-class suicide craft that was tumbling through the stars like a mad meteor. A burst from his rail-gun clipped the sphere's flank, detonating it in a brilliant emerald bloom.
The pilot banked again, settling his sights on the next target. He shook his head inside his flight helmet. "This is a 'turkey shoot,' as the Gue'vesa would say."
With the fighter screen clearing the way, Bravestorm's main line drove like a stake into the heart of the Moulder Hive-ships. The over-extended clan vessels were systematically liquidated, reduced to clouds of frozen debris.
"Lord! Great Lord—no-no! We bleed-die! The Skryre-things gave us junk-trash, yes-yes!"
Several Skaven Warlords scrambled onto Throt's bridge, prostrating themselves and wailing. In the blame-shifting culture of the Under-Empire, attributing failure to Clan Skryre's faulty technology was always the safest political move.
"SILENCE-SHUT UP!" Throt snarled, his whip cracking across the face of a particularly loud Warlord, who collapsed into a whimpering heap.
Throt's attention was elsewhere. He stared at the translucent vats where several Kroot specimens floated in Warpstone solution, already deep in the throes of genetic harvesting. He was in no mood for distractions.
The deck beneath him shuddered violently, snapping him back to reality. On the tactical displays, the green icons representing his fleet were scattering in a panicked rout. Throt was a master of biology, not a fool of strategy; he recognized the tipping point. Moulder had not yet mastered the Tyranid bio-ship sequences, and relying on these erratic Skryre-built hulls was proving to be a poor investment.
"This-this place... not enough biomass-meat! Withdraw! Pull back-back! As for the ones on the surface... I hope they can dig deep-fast, hehehe!"
Without a shred of hesitation, Throt abandoned the rat-swarms still besieging the T'au spaceport. Compared to the life-teeming sector the Grey Seers had prophesied, this system was a barren wasteland.
While high-ranking Master Mutators, Packmasters, and essential test subjects were prioritized for extraction, the common rats on the ground remained blissfully unaware, still celebrating their temporary occupation of the city.
"Move-move! Floor the throttle, you idiot-thing!"
Amidst the screams and curses of their masters, the Rat-Nest pilots engaged their Warp-drives. These ramshackle fleets, possessing a chaotic affinity for the Immaterium, tore open rifts in reality almost instantaneously, a transition speed that would have made the Adeptus Astartes envious.
Seeing the prey escape, Commander Bravestorm bristled. He ordered his fleet to accelerate, detaching a pursuit squadron of five Frigates to pin the enemy down. But even as the T'au moved to intercept, the junk-ships vanished into the Warp one by one, like rats scurrying into a sewer.
T'au sensors, despite their sophistication, could find no trace of the fleet. The Skaven Warp-engines were a maddening paradox: built of scrap and Imperial salvage, yet overclocked with Warpstone to achieve a speed and agility unmatched in the galaxy.
Left with no targets in the void, Bravestorm vented his fury on the vermin remaining on the surface.
Orbital strikes rained down like the wrath of gods. Bravestorm led the drop himself, leading tens of thousands of battlesuits in a planet-side purge. Utilizing his Onager Gauntlet, the legendary hero of the Eight smashed through the ranks of the Skaven, shattering the skulls of Rat Ogres with single, earth-shaking blows.
Under this overwhelming pressure, the T'au regained their footing in the city center. Fire Warriors landed to consolidate the lines and begin the grim search for survivors.
The battle reached its climax when Bravestorm engaged the ranking Skaven Warlord, a creature stitched into the back of a mutated Rat Ogre. A green Warp-talon tore a gash in Bravestorm's armor, and a killing blow aimed at his life-support system was only deflected by a Shield Drone operating at maximum capacitor.
Bravestorm seized the opening. His plasma rifle melted through the Rat Ogre's chitinous hide, and with a roar, he brought the Onager Gauntlet down, pulverizing the Skaven Warlord's head into a red mist.
With their leader dead, the rat-kin broke. They fled like a receding tide, vanishing into the subterranean depths of the city. Bravestorm ordered a pursuit, but as soon as the battlesuits entered the lightless tunnels, several units went silent.
The Commander was forced to halt the advance. He looked down into the dark, realizing that clearing this infestation would require a much longer, more grueling campaign. He had to learn how to smoke the rats out of their holes.