Deliverance Deep-Strike Platform

A part of the overall Red Eyes armoury, the Deliverance was adapted as part of the late-stage of the Great Crusade, in particular in response to the nomand-clans of Firebrand. On that blasted planet the deep-earth networks a natural response came from within the IVth legion, one that would see them embody the essence of the space marine 'shock assault' doctrine, but perhaps in a more reactionary way.

## **History**

It was during a regular compliance effort that the 56th Expeditionary Fleet would run up against a cunning foe.

The world of Firebrand was one of harsh heat, tumultuous storms and endless sand dunes. Here the fleet took up position in orbit as doctrine required, offering the locals a choice; surrender to the coming of a new age, or die. The people of Firebrand chose the latter.

It would not be a swift end however, for all the Legion's might in orbit and their response time was found to be lacking. Having taken the worlds major population centres and mining plateau's they found themselves being constantly harassed as they attempted to establish order. Swarms of Marcoan nomads, the greatest of the war-tribes of the world would frequently ambushed supply trains, destroyed infrastructure and delayed the Imperial hold at every turn. Worst was, every time a counter-attack came, support was called in, they faded into the dunes without a whisper.

This campaign of sabotage continued for several weeks, until a solution came from an unexpected area. Stationed in one of the main supply sites in the southern hemisphere, Maniple Broadsword-Zeta was under orders to defend the newly recovered imaging technology from on of the mining sites. While working on it they had discovered that the sensor package could stream and intense amount of data through it's cogitators as it could accurately scan and identify even individual sand grains when zoomed in. The sheer complexity of such a system gave the Cyber-smith an idea.

During the next raid on the station the Marcoans were drawn into the base itself, intent on damaging the device within. After fighting to the central storage bay however they found their efforts had been in vain. All the containers and analysing equipment had been removed. Figuring it for a trap a quick retreat was ordered, beating their way back to the dunes they were on the verge of escaping when the air fizzled, and a dozen snap-bangs of teleportation events thundered around them.

Now surrounded by the full Broadsword maniple the automata set about systematically gunning down the nomads without mercy, with their magos watching the slaughter from on high. As the Corsair soared thousands of feet above the battlefield the damage was assessed.

In the post battle reports it was noted that the extensive underground tunnel networks were the real reason that the Marcoan tribe had been so elusive. Reaching over most of the surface of the planet they were a perfect way to travel unobserved.

The use of the sighting system, later dubbed 'Medusa' was heralded as a great step forward for humanity, the Legion took to it well, adapting the Corsair Bomber into a wholly different beast to accommodate such rapid reaction forces. It was, however, deemed too unstable to risk the use of mrines thanks to the unstable nature of teleportation, and as such offered to the cybernetica maniples that worked alongside them. From then on it became a stable of Red Eye tactics to employ at least one Deliverance Bomber during compliance actions, able to strike hard and fast in response to any threat.

## **Design**

The first and main alteration made to the base Corsair design is the refitting of the bomb bay. Taking out all of the support struts and internal weapon pylons, that empty space has been turned into a teleportarium instead. The installation of such a complex and powerful piece of equipment demands both and extreme amount of power and an abundance of support systems to make sure it operates properly. With the bulk of the device being on the bottom of the aircraft there is a large square bulge on the underside, increasing drag dramatically. Alongside this, power consumption, even when idle, places strain on the Plasma Reactor, drawing away much of the power normally allocated to the engines, reducing the speed by a third compared to a Corsair.

To accurately target the teleportation device a complex and ancient set of scanning and targeting devices are housed on a ball turret on the belly of the craft. This optical package, nicknamed Medusa, can designate teleportation targets through line-of-sight if there is no homing beacon present. This is considered far more risky than using a homer due to it's inaccuracy, but is very effective as it does not rely on ground troops being present, and allows the Red Eyes to maintain the element of surprise. A backup system in the case that the Medusa is not available, it consists of several small external mounts for guided munitions, but in place of an explosive warhead a teleport homing beacon is embedded. While this does provide a fallback in the case Medusa isn't available the munitions themselves are nowhere near as accurate as the Medusan optics. The bombs themselves are also very costly munitions to create, both in terms of technology and resources, to this end they are only used if absolutely necessary.

A second Techmarine oversees the operation alongside a handful of legion serfs who maintain the subsystems that power and control the device, but there is also a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus present who supports operations as well.

Lining either side of the teleportarium itself are two banks of bays, replete with charging stations, repair tools, diagnosters and cogitators for the repair, encoding and deployment of IVth legion battle-automata. The limited space can only hold 4 maniples of automata, but these range in size from small Thallax units, ancient Vorax robots all the way up to Castellan class automata which are them deployed into the war-zone below.

While these battle-automata are capable of complex tasks and solving problems they are by no means as smart as their Dark Age of Technology brethren, and so their operations are overseen from the aircraft as it flies above the battlefield. A command room is placed adjacent to the cockpit which allows for a marine operator to oversee basic troubleshooting requests from the maniples, while overall command is given to a Consul Praevian. Masters of the battle-automata the Praevian effectively guide the robots, updating various elements of their functions, changing any engagement parameters, search functions and using their firepower and abilities effectively. The control room itself consists of two large chairs with heavy-duty MIU interface ports as well as a bank of screens displaying the camera feeds from the automata and the overhead camera view from the aircraft. Cogitators allow the interface between the commands being input on the ship, and are sent down to the waiting receivers of the robots via a high-powered comms link. A disadvantage of this system is that if there is heavy clouds blocking line-of-sight the communication link cannot maintain a connection. In this case the Red Eyes Praevian would have to pre-prepare commands for multiple scenarios and be ready to assess the situation, and issue the appropriate commands in the instant contact is re-established. While the system overall is a delicate one, the ability to use the Deliverance as a mobile deployment platform/command vehicle provides a focused strike at an enemy, with minimal expenditure of munitions.

Due to extreme overhaul of the airframe the normal role of the Corsair as a bomber has become a secondary mission role, with most Red Eye commanders choosing to use it as a method of stealthily inserting decapitation strikes. While still secondary though, the Deliverance does retain the ability to transport and deploy heavy ordnance, but instead of the storage being internal, it's external. Along the underside of each wing there are 2 pylons that can support the normal variation of weaponry available to the standard Corsair. Externally mounting the ordnance does mean a drop in airspeed and an increase in augur signature, but this is negligible due to the power output of the reactor. Each of these four pylons can house additional weapons as listed below:

* 1 hardpoint can accommodate
	+ 1x Anti-Ship Torpedo
	+ 5x Apocalypse Missiles in a missile pod
	+ 4x Retribution Cluster Bombs
	+ 9x Large Guided Plasma/Melta Bombs on a bomb ejector rack
	+ 36x High Explosive/Incendiary Bombs on a bomb ejector rack

The notable inclusion of the Retribution Cluster bomb to the list has been specifically designed and built by the Red Eyes for their legion's personal use. The Retribution Cluster bomb consists of a main body, equipped with a limited amount of guidance through several control fins mounted at the rear. The front of the munition consists of the main housing, that opens into 3 sections to reveal the cluster munitions beneath. Underneath the housing are 80 small bomblets, arranged in a cylindrical mounting. Each of these individual bomblets -each roughly the size of a melta bomb- can be loaded with any type of munition, with those favoured highly by the Red Eyes such as phosphex or radiation being the standard configuration. The latter third of the bomb are made up of the flight control system and the deployment configuration system, the latter of which controls the specific pattern that a user wants the bombs to fall in. These patterns range from a cone shape, a straight line, randomly scattering or even be set to work in an airburst mode, which has proven particularly effective in tandem with phosphex munitions. These commands are all input by the Bombardier within the cockpit before deployment along with any desired coordinates for the target.

## **Notable Deliverance Bombers**

***Alasan's Fury*** - 9th Company, 7th chapter

***Sky Render*** - 43rd Company, 12th Chapter

***Resonant Rebuttal*** - 37th Company, 2nd Chapter