Belis Corona Sector - Defence of Laurentix: Hanging in orbit amid the orbital defences and hastily sown minefields above Laurentix, Captain Cobrec Sorensen of the Victory-class Battleship Warspite gazed into his hololithic display with grim anticipation. With Flotilla Incudis on the other side of the system, it would take them more than a week to reinforce Laurentix, and that would likely be several days too late. With Adelphia gone, the sensor hole made it impossible to determine the strength and numbers of the approaching Chaos Fleet, but the coruscating tendrils of light and impossible colour stretching hundreds of thousands of kilometres past the warp point indicated that the Renegade war host was vast. Captain Sorensen resolved to hold this world without Admiral Benadorn and his flotilla. This suited him just fine. Being in command of a Battleship, the next step in his career path was the sunburst and Aquila of an Admiral, with the vaunted badge of commander in charge of his own flotilla of warships. He activated the ship-wide Vox-caster and delivered a stirring speech to his vessel's crew. Should Malleus acquit itself well, he had no doubt his future would be bright, and then that blundering, arrogant son of klepseed farmers Benadorn would see who really was best qualified to lead a battle group. His speech elicited a silent, respectful nod of approval from Commissar Darin Fentress, who like the Captain, fully appreciated the stakes involved here.The tempo of chatter on the bridge suddenly raised excitedly as the Officer of the Watch approached the command pulpit. As he informed his Captain of the encroaching enemy fleet, the hololithic screen on the dais suddenly lit up with a blur of angry, crimson runes indicating the enemy fleet's position. With little more than a nod of acknowledgement, he directed the fleet to close formation and ready for battle. Deep within the bowels of the ship, the archaic weapons of unimaginable power hummed to life, and the Master of Gunnery personally supervised the loading of the awesome Nova Cannon as gangs of men numbering in the dozens opened the thirty-metre wide breech to accept the massive, multi-ton shell being trundled into place by more lash-motivated gangs pulling on an enormous overhead gantry under the careful eye of gunnery chiefs and Mechanicus adepts.The runes began updating and targeting information, and Captain Sorensen ordered the Master of Gunnery to sight on the largest target, which resolved itself to be the Treacherous, the accursed Desecrator-class Battleship of Heinrich Bale, the infamous system-cracker and tactical genius responsible for the deaths of millions by starvation and dehydration with his ironclad, years-long blockade of the Port Maw system during the Gothic War. The Captain mused that he would achieve no such feat here, as he ordered his gunner to centre the Nova Cannon on the hated ship. With a mighty roar that shook the ship, the massive gravitic accelerators hurled the giant round torward the hated vessel as the fleet broke orbit to meet the foe.Rushing to the fore, the Genesis Chapter's Strike Cruisers Victorious and Unyielding under heavy gunship support engaged and grappled with the hated Devastation-class Cruiser Deathbane, crippling it with a fierce series of boarding actions before breaking off. To the starboard side arrived the Endeavour-class Light Cruiser Henderson and the "Torchbearers" escort squadron, the vanguard of Admiral Benadorn's fleet. Though the rest of his fleet was too far behind to affect the outcome of this battle, the supposed "second enemy fleet" alluded to by intelligence sources and astropathic tarot readers was nowhere to be found. In short order the mysteriously re-appearing Chaos Eternus was once again destroyed in a titanic Warp-Drive implosion that tore the fabric of nearby space, and the Treacherous was reportedly venting air into space across several decks. Amazingly, the "Ghost Wing," which until then had performed unremarkably in the series of battles for the system, suddenly pushed through a debris field near the planet unscathed and locked onto a transport convoy attempting to flank around the primary gun line heavily engaging the invasion force. In a mighty fusillade, four transports were destroyed outright, single-handedly turning the tide of battle. Soon afterward, the Chaos fleet turned to disengage, with the Warpsite's ravening lances serving to cripple the Teacherous before it could make good its escape. By the time the reinforcing Chaos fleet arrived on long-range sensors, the invasion fleet was in tatters, with only one Strike Cruiser and the "Torchbearers" Escort squadron taking crippling losses. Sorensen was unsurprised to see the reinforcing fleet turn away, refusing to engage.