Betalis III Campaign - Battle for the Betalis System: The early warning systems on the Watchful Saviour, Betalis III's primary orbiting defence platform, burst into life as the Aeldari Corsair armada crossed into the system's outer reaches.As one of the dour, robed figures of its choir rose up from their ornately carved wooden stalls and began to chant the Canticle of the Observant Son; the low droning call to arms was a sombre contrast to the shrieking sirens that had also been triggered by the approach of the enemy ships.Far above them in the Watchful Saviour's towering spires, its gun crews prepared for battle. Scores of Imperial Navy indentured workers heaved the platform's massive Macrocannons and lance weapons forward into their firing positions; the bundles of chains they hauled them along with cutting deep into their hands and shoulders as they strained with the mammoth effort required of their task.Many levels below, deep in the core of the platform, Adeptus Mechanicus adepts blessed the workings of the station's plasma generator, the long black filaments of their elector-brushes smearing holy oils and unguents thickly upon its age-stained cogs and arcane gears.Then, only when they were satisfied they had bestowed upon them sufficient blessings and anointments, did the worshippers of the Omnissiah each take hold of one of the generator's primary valves and, with a softly whispered prayer, awaken the dormant Machine Spirit within.Two solar hours after its sensors had detected the approaching Corsair ships, the gun crews of the Watchful Saviour opened fire at maximum range, their blinding beams of light slicing deep into the flight path of the oncoming fleet.Their efforts went unrewarded thought as the beams harmlessly dissipated beyond the swarming ships. Again and again the crews fired but to little effect, the defence lasers glowing red hot as their crews laboured to track and hit the elusive targets whose holo-fields redirected and dispersed the shots with ease.Then, from behind the second moon of the Ice World, the system's Imperial naval fleet joined the battle -- dozens of Fury interceptors, defence monitors and system ships, their numbers pitifully few in comparison to the massed Aeldari craft.The Fury interceptors accelerated once they were clear of the moon, the fastest in the small fleet their orders were to lure the Aeldari off their current course and onto the guns of the slower but better-armed-and-armoured system ships. In response the first wave of Corsairs immediately engaged them.Twisting and spiralling through space, the Aeldari craft flew directly at the oncoming formation, paying scant regard to the barrage of lascannon shots and missiles the Imperium's interceptors fired as they closed the range. Then, each turning their sleek vessels through near impossible angles, they arced back round upon the flanks of their prey; the xenos pilots obliterating most of the Imperial Navy squadrons in a synchronous attack that was as perfect in its coordinated execution as it was deadly.With the first wave devoted to destroying the remnants of the Fury squadrons, waves of Aconite and Hellebore frigates advanced to engage the Imperium's system ships and defence monitors formation; the long, elegant xenos escort ships stubbed with pulsar lances and torpedo launchers.The Holy Retribution, one of the few system ships assigned to the Betalis fleet, was the first to suffer their attentions. Weapons battery after weapons battery was fired by the Holy Retribution's gun crews; the ratings and indentured workers inside the ship preparing the next volley the instant their weapons were discharged.Then, as the ship's trajectory curved past the moon, the long-range lance fire of the Watchful Saviour joined its salvos. Caught within the firestorm dozens of Corsair craft were laid to waste; their blasted remains soon drifting amongst those of the Fury interceptors that had been destroyed minutes before.For almost a solar hour the battle raged. First the Corsairs edged ever closer towards the ship and in return would be caught up in its intense gunfire or trapped within the lancing beams of the Watchful Saviour.But as time wore on Aeldari weapons fire took its toll upon the Holy Retribution. With insufficient Fury squadrons to protect it, the agile and powerful Aeldari Darkstar fighters inflicted enough damage to overload its shield generators, and dove in to strafe its gun decks and command spire the moment they failed.With external bulkheads compromised and the fractured metres-thick panels of armour-glass surrounding the command deck threatening to breach any moment, the Holy Retribution's commander, Flag-Captain Mevuen, gave the order for his dying vessel to be turned towards the one area of the system's outer reaches that all Imperial vessels had so far given a wide berth.Entering the region with the Corsairs still strafing his vessel, Flag-Captain Mevuen opened up the ship wide vox-network and started to recite the Common Prayer of the Fleet, the sound of the centuries old ship tearing apart clearly audible around him.The venerable flag-captain had not gotten far through his sombre liturgy when an Aeldari Darkstar fighter, its alien identity not recognised by the remnants of the minefield seeded in the Betalis System centuries before by the Divine Unification, triggered one of the abandoned mines.As the power generation crystals on the Aeldari craft shattered and its hull fragmented, its debris field set off further mines, critically damaging the Holy Retribution and scores of other Corsair vessels that had swarmed around the dying ship.The explosions tore through the Holy Retribution, causing its shields to fail and its bulkheads to be ripped apart, sending thousands of Imperial Navy crewmen into the cold vacuum of space. In the few areas of the vast ship where the crew were not immediately ejected into the void, men fought amongst themselves for places in the few undamaged salvation pods.Those fortunate to escape were either immediately targeted and destroyed by Aeldari Corsair vessels or slowly drifted through the system until they reached the safety of one of the inhabited planets.Whilst the destruction of the Holy Retribution played out across the edge of the Betalis system, the rest of the Corsair fleet maintained their course towards the Watchful Saviour and the last few remaining Fury squadrons and system ships that now stood guard over it.Virtually unopposed, the first wave of Darkstars scored multiple direct hits, their shots punching through its shields and critically damaging the platform's gravitic-stabilisers.With a sickening motion, the massive platform began to list, and anything not securely fixed down began to roll and slide across the decks, crushing all in its way as the Watchful Saviour tilted and began to drift out of its geo-stationary orbit.The effects were devastating. Gun crews and ratings were drowned as the huge vats of chemicals that hung over the defence lasers, their toxic contents used to prevent the weapons from overheating, broke free from their mountings, engulfing the frantically fleeing men in an acidic tidal wave.In the apothecarium, the Watchful Saviour's surgeon-master was near-fatally maimed when shelves storing surgical implements tipped over him mid-operation, their razor-sharp blades slicing him from head to toes with scores of incisions.A worse fate though was to befall the crews who worked in the bays permanently exposed to the outer void. As soon as the Watchful Saviour had begun to list, the bulkhead doors leading to the open sections of the platform automatically sealed shut.With their escape routes cut off, hundreds died when the protective energy field between the crew and space fluctuated for a few seconds, exposing them to the intense radiation of the Betalis System's star.Volleys from a third Corsair wave finished off the stricken platform, its return fire slackening as pyres raged within it and its compartments flooded with toxic smoke.With defeat imminent and his guns falling silent one by one, Flag Captain Basas, the Watchful Saviour's commander, ordered the platform's evacuation. Salvation pods were frantically loaded with the wounded and the lucky few unscathed survivors and the ejected towards the planet below.The few Imperial Navy ships that had survived the first assault retreated into the outer regions of the Betalis star, its radiation shielding them from the sensors of the Corsair fleet that now dominated the Betalis system.Having won the battle for the skies above Betalis III, the Aeldari immediately turned their attention to the planet below.