Orphean War - Orbital Battle: With its task accomplished and the Undying Legions of the Maynarkh now deployed onto the surface, the Necron fleet turned its attention to interplanetary space, leaving Amarah Prime's atmosphere shrouded in black storms. That blackness was illuminated only by the fiery trails of the debris reentering the atmosphere after the destruction of orbital defence stations Sentinel 1 and 2. But the Imperial armada was ready for the Necrons, and raced at full burn towards Amarah Prime.When the Necron warships began to stir, the Imperial captains swore, believing that the enemy would run before their gathered might and leave them bereft of their only chance to avenge their previous failure. They were wrong. Turning with almost contemptuous grace, the black fleet formed a perfect crescent-shaped attack formation and locked onto an intercept trajectory that would take them straight into the heart of the Imperial Battlefleet. With a sudden acceleration none of the Imperial ships could match, the Necron starships picked up momentum and rushed right into the path of the Imperial armada.On the bridge of his flagship, the pride of Battlefleet Orpheus, the Apocalypse-class Battleship Arica Dominus, Knight-Commander Grand Admiral Georg Carew watched the tactical holo-sphere of the bridge relay the movements of the Necron fleet with apprehension. Although he desired nothing more than to make up for his failure and avenge the losses of Battlefleet Orpheus and the slight made upon its honour, unlike many officers and ship captains under his command, Carew would not let himself be blinded by his wrath. He commanded the greatest battlefleet ever assembled within the sector, a gathering of Imperial might unknown in the history of the Orpheus Sector and whose firepower was unimaginable--a mere fraction of the fleet's massed strength was already enough to shatter worlds.By conventional wisdom the Imperial fleet outnumbered and outclassed the Necrons at least four to one. With the fleet's Auspexes repaired, Carew could finally draw a precise picture of the enemy fleet's makeup. Not only did the Necrons field less than a quarter of the starships he possessed, but most of their craft were considerably smaller than his own vessels and would correspond to Escorts in Imperial terminology. The larger vessels, identified as Scythe-class Harvest Ships thanks to the intelligence provided by the Ordo Xenos, numbered only twenty and were led by the two crescent-shaped behemoths of Cairn-class Tomb Ships. These Tomb Ships were gigantic, each one over fifteen kilometers in span and surmounted with strange pyramid-like structures whose energy readings baffled even the highest-ranking Magi of the Imperial fleet.Designated the Sun Killer and the Dead Hand, these two monsters were the priority targets for the Imperial fleet, but Carew was confident in the abilities of his eleven Battleships to overcome the foe. The fleet arrayed against him represented the largest concentration of xenos vessels in Imperial records and what Carew had gleamed from the heavily censured reports of previous encounters with the Necrons was that their warfleets should not be underestimated. Carew conferred with Asterion Moloc, the sinister Chapter Master of the Minotaurs Chapter and requested that he keep his Adeptus Astartes support close at hand.The Minotaurs' mighty relic assault-ship, the Deadalos Krata, led its own echelon of a dozen Strike Cruisers and no less than three Battle-Barges. This second echelon was deployed some way behind the armada's main battleline, ready to deliver the killing blow after the fleets had clashed or poised to intercept any vessel breaking through the Imperial line if the enemy decided to punch through rather than face the Imperial fleet. Carew issued a direct order to all vessels to maintain formation and engage only as directed, on pain of death. The battle-hungry captains of many destroyers and cruisers balked at the order but knew they faced summary execution by their own Commissars should they disobey the admiral's order.With frightening speed, the Necron fleet closed the gap to the Imperials. Before any additional orders could be given, they entered extreme weapons range and Admiral Carew knew he could not hesitate. Upon Carew's order, the Imperial fleet was first to attack, launching hundreds of torpedoes from the launch tubes of the massed destroyers, frigates and cruisers. The weapons blazed straight and true on great pillars of flame. The Necrons came on undeterred and made no attempt to evade the wave of ordinance bearing down upon them. No evasive manoeuvres were taken and no defensive fire threw up a curtain of fire to thin out the wave of incoming missiles. On the flag bridge of the Arica Dominus, all eyes remained fixed on the holo-sphere and were watching breathlessly as the little blue icons representing the torpedoes entered terminal range.Suddenly, only hundreds of kilometers from impact, red alarm glyphs flashed frantically. Scores of torpedoes simply ceased to function, their thrusters cutting out and the inert cylinders simply tumbling in the void, their warheads deactivated by some strange technology the Imperial Auspexes could not even detect. Others inexplicably self-destructed or largely veered off-course as if suddenly blinded. Only a few--far too few--flew true, and these the Necron vessels avoided with contemptuous ease. While the Tomb Ships took a few hits, their impassive black hulls easily absorbed the atomic spite of the torpedoes. Blacker than the surrounding darkness, the Necron ships came on.Mere solar minutes after the spectacular failure of their first volley, the Imperial armada and the Necron fleet entered Lance-range, but this time it was the Necron warships that opened fire first. On every Imperial ship, alarm sirens began to howl as massive gravitational distortions were detected, closing fast at sublight speed. No countermeasures or evasive manoeuvres could be taken. Unlike the Imperial torpedoes, this volley flew true. Only too late did the struggling Cogitators and Machine Spirits of the Imperial fleet identify the nature of these projectiles--they were comprised of solar matter, the fragments of dead stars. Made of pure plasma, these bolts of oblivion shattered Imperial Void Shields with bright actinic flashes, tearing open starships with unsettling ease. All along the Imperial line, warships--both great and small--vanished into oblivion, flashing out of existence.Alongside the Arica Dominus, the honoured Battlecruiser Richtenback, which had served the Imperium even before the Great Crusade, was struck amidships and exploded, showering Carew's flagship in fire and debris. While all around him the Arica Dominus shook, Admiral Carew bellowed his next orders despite the tumult that reigned on his bridge: the Imperial fleet was to come about to broadside and fire at will. Soon, the void between the two fleets became a blinding storm of blazing Lance beams, plasma fire, Macrocannon shells and roaring missiles, whilst the Necrons answered with a fury of emerald and amber light. The two fleets interpenetrated and then parted, raking each other mercilessly.Carew could only watch in horror at what the tactical data of the holo-sphere showed him. After the initial chaos, details came flooding in, as did the casualties, for the moment a flickering list of Mechanicus-cant only a trained and augmented Tech-priest could read, but which was translated rapidly. Fully a quarter of the Imperial fleet was either destroyed or crippled whilst the Necrons had lost only a few of its vessels. Horror mounted on horror as after their pass, the Necron fleet arrested its inertia and turned, coming right back at the Imperial warships, engaging them from their vulnerable rear.The second Imperial engagement with the Necron fleet was even more murderous than the first pass, as many ships had not recharged their depleted Void Shields or had already suffered damage at the first clash and were now attacked from the blindspot created by their own thrusters. Dozens of Imperial starships perished not knowing what had attacked them, including the Mendicatus and the Retribution-class Battleship Talisman of Grace, which was cut in two by the Sun Killer’s fire. Assailed by the smaller Necron vessels like a great pack-beast torn apart by predators, the heavy cruiser Mendicatus was mercilessly pulled apart.The Imperial battle-line soon began to fracture, starships exploding in the void or gutted by fire as all cohesion was lost. Ships came about, firing wildly or pouring waves of fighters and bombers into the void, only adding to the slaughter when many pilots were gunned down by their own vessels' weapons. Frantically ordering his ships to disperse and break formation, Grand Admiral Carew ordered the Arica Dominus to turn as tightly as its veteran crew could manage, zeroing in on an isolated Harvest Ship and unleashing the full might of its broadside upon it.The Necron ship soon succumbed and disintegrated in a flash of green flame under the cheers of the Arica Dominus’ bridge crew, but that joy proved short-lived. Stripped of its Void Shields, the Arica Dominus was assailed by a trio of Necron Escorts which deeply wounded the ship, breaking the vessel's starboard hull open and leaving it gushing atmosphere into the void whilst disabling its manoeuvering capacity, leaving the relic battleship to helplessly tumble, its engine deck on fire.The loss of the Arica Dominus was a terrible blow to Battlefleet Orpheus, while the twin behemoths of the Dead Hand and the Sun Killer glided majestically and inviolate in their midst, annihilating every Imperial ship that crossed their path. Those fighters and bombers finding the courage to attack the great Tomb Ships soon found their own spacecraft bereft of power, their machines becoming cold, drifting caskets where they would eventually freeze to death or suffocate once the air reserves had run out. It was into this bloody melee that the Minotaurs charged headlong.