Deus in Machina (a Warhammer 40K-setting inspired LitRPG)

Angar sat strapped into the fighter's cockpit, its frame locked into the Gulson's sling-rail, his power hammer wedged awkwardly between his back and the seat, ensuring he'd never sit comfortably.

Deli had transferred his comms to the command of all the fighters decorating the Gulson's hull.

He was in a squadron of makeshift pilots. Their job wasn't to engage the enemy in dogfights, only to fly to their target.

Old Guard fighters, synchronized by their Neural Dominion, would shred them in seconds, and their small craft couldn't hope to scratch the shielding fields of heavy-class ships.

None of his flight or squadron or any of the others in this command were gubernators. From what Angar could tell, they were the best warriors of the Sanguineous Sisterhood and the Viscount's forces.

A few of them had a little flight experience, and they caught the others up to speed on the basics as best they could.

It didn't seem overly complicated, at least not complex enough to waste a precious Skill Point on.

Their mission was simple. They were to try and slip into an open bay of an Old Guard ship while real gubernators engaged the enemy.

Once inside, their priority was to find and destroy the ship's Synapse-Engine, the semi-AI neural core that enhanced the Old Guard's hivemind.

Theosis eradicated all true AI across the galaxy, forcing the Old Guard to craft these Synapse-Engines, which increased the capability of the pack's Neuronaut, a biomechanical commander weaving their forces into a singular, relentless will.

The more engines in proximity, the stronger and more formidable the Neuronaut became, amplifying the hivemind's control, and their pack's precision, to terrifying heights in turn.

No one knew which ship housed the Neuronaut. If its vessel was destroyed, the Neuronaut would endure within a sturdy, stealthy, nearly un-targetable sphere, still directing the Neural Dominion.

And the Synapse-Engine was never in the same section of the ship as the Neuronaut.

If Angar succeeded in destroying a Synapse-Engine, his task was then to destroy the ship itself in blaze of glorious martyrdom.

The simplest path would be to overload the ship's drive core in the propulsorium, but if that ship housed the Neuronaut, it'd be impossible, as it'd be located there.

And Neuronauts were protected by elite Reptiloid troops, either Stalkers, Borgs, or Enforcers, each a towering monstrosity of biomechanics and unholy gene-forging.

Each ship would also be captained by one of the Reptiloid Ruler-caste elites, either an Archon, Vizier, or Overlord, already making reaching the Synapse-Engine or drive core a futile attempt.

Angar saw no chance of survival. The Old Guard's Reptiloid pack would obliterate Hidetada's ragtag fleet of mainly repurposed freighters, shippers, and haulers.

He hadn't been let in on the larger plan. He knew nothing of the Zephuros' crew and their role, only his own small part of the strategy.

Their destination was a mystery, too, though Angar reasoned they aimed for the closest major Lumen Anchor, which'd be in the Belted Expanse, the Orion Arm's outermost reach, closest to the galactic Rim.

A Duke Imperator ruled the ancient sector considered part of the imperial core. Close to the fringe, nearer to the system containing Albion and Ierne, there was an Imperial Military megastation. Those always had one of the Holy Empire's mightiest Lumen Anchors.

The Old Guard could tap imperial anchors for their own Lumenstreams, outpacing imperial Lux Aeterna Drives.

He figured Hidetada hoped to reach the megastation to muster a true fleet, but that was a soft prayer in a storm.

The pack would likely intercept them first, their Alcubierre bubbles collapsing the moment they neared a mass-heavy obstacle, stranding Hidetada's fleet in the path of slaughter.

For two days, Angar had been confined to the fighter's cramped cockpit, barely able to shift for meals or relief, waiting to die in a blaze of glory, praying, performing all the psychic power awakening exercises Rusak had taught him.

But the Lumenstream outside gave him a marvel to witness too. Through the cockpit's viewport, far off, the Alcubierre bubble shimmered in a radiant cocoon of warped spacetime, the chaotic edges flowing with golden graviton plasma, like liquid sunlight laced with rippling distortions.

Stars beyond stretched into fleeting arcs, the light bent by the bubble's compression, while the void within glowed with an eerie stillness, as if the Lord Himself illuminated their path.

It was clearer, far more vivid than the murky view from inside the Zephuros. It was a rare thing of beauty, especially having so much time to sit and watch.

Suddenly, Angar's fighter trembled as the Lumenstream's golden radiance collapsed, the Alcubierre bubble unraveling into the stark void.

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The cockpit's viewport flared as stars snapped into focus against infinite black.

Manny's voice crackled through the comms. "Remember, we're holding in place. Be ready."

Angar's hands twitched on inert controls, his untrained eyes fixed on the chaos that was erupting, witnessing his first space battle. Manny was his squadron leader. His flight leaders were Berta and Rajasi.

Five Old Guard heavy-class battleships with biomechanical hulls throbbing like flayed muscle formed a cross-shaped bastion.

Behind them loomed a capital-class leviathan, an unholy colossus of steel and writhing sinew, where this pack's true Matriarch would be.

Each ship carried a Synapse-Engine amplifying the Neuronaut's hivemind control, making its capability swell with every engine in proximity.

Angar's heart thudded with excitement.

Space battles, he'd heard, were distant, calculated duels, lasers and missiles crossing thousands of kilometers, targeting predicted paths over minutes, shielded hulls warding off both enemy fire and the micro-debris that could shred a ship at sub-FTL speeds.

This was just madness. Distances were hard to judge, but both fleets crammed closely, well within sight, a brutal melee defying everything Angar had been taught.

The Zephuros, the spearhead of the ad-hoc imperial fleet, struck instantly, the drive's golden plasma trailing behind it as armaments blazed at point-blank range.

Railgun slugs, various beams, and the flashing lights of other weapons slammed into the central Old Guard battleship, piercing its shielding field in a kaleidoscope of fracturing blues, violets, then blinding white lights.

The ship's core breached, spewing molten flesh and steel in a silent bloom.

Exiting the Lumenstream, the Zephuros was moving fast. It veered upward at high speeds, barely clearing the battleship above, getting close enough that the shielding fields grazed, sparking in a gold-crimson flare.

The leviathan unleashed a colossal crimson beam, its searing arc lancing toward the Zephuros, grazing its shields in a flare of molten light again as it narrowly missed.

The Zephuros loosed its own desperate salvo at the leviathan, sending beams and slugs clawing at its distant shields, which flared, but did no visible damage.

As this happened, a million other things also happened.

Fighters blazed out of all the ships, friend and enemy alike, the Old Guard Neural Dominion synchronizing every move of their own. A few towering mega-mech crawled out too, giant mechs driven by Solder-caste Reptiloids.

The cross formation shattered as battleships pivoted with thrusters aglow, lasers slicing invisibly through the void, trailed by plasma wisps.

Missiles, guided by the Neuronaut, streaked in erratic arcs, hunting enemy vessels. Gunboats and destroyers fired as they maneuvered, their shields blazing like funeral pyres.

Merchant cutters and bulk haulers, barely armed, spat feeble volleys, their fields flickering under strain.

As both forces' ships were slammed with weaponry, fighters continued to fly out of them.

Angar gritted his teeth, watching as a million actions collided with lasers lancing, missiles weaving, barriers blazing, debris shredding the void. This was anything but the patient chess match naval warfare should've been.

The non-military ships were faring far better than he assumed they would. As he watched, he thought he knew why. As they had little to no armaments, all the energy that would've gone to weapons, fully poured into their shielding fields.

His cockpit vibrated, sending his heart lurching, but it was just the Gulson taking some hits.

Through the viewport, he watched the Holy Empire and Old Guard fleets weaving erratic, zig-zagging paths in a three-dimensional dance of survival.

As the imperial ships began maneuvering unpredictably, the Old Guard ships, guided by the Neuronaut's Neural Dominion, synchronized the forces under its command, every twitch of movement done for a purpose.

Smaller imperial ships, the gunboats, merchant cutters, and bulk haulers, as well as some fighters, began spewing streams of sparkling chaff, metallic clouds that flared as invisible Old Guard lasers burned through them, scattering prismatic bursts across the void.

The Sanguineous Sisterhood's shipper barreled down the battle's heart, protected by a heavy bulk freighter, its shielding field a radiant dome as it took hit after hit. The erratic maneuvers made it impossible to tell its goal, but he thought it was heading for an enemy ship.

Another shipper seemed to mirror its recklessness, also protected by a heavy bulk freighter, their shields glowing as smaller crafts swarmed to cover them.

He'd wager the Gulson was protecting the last shipper.

The imperial fighters were falling fast as their shields buckled under the relentless assault of the Old Guard's fighter swarms.

The leviathan's massive crimson beam struck a bulk freighter, its shielding field igniting in a prismatic blaze before shattering in a kaleidoscope of colors.

A moment later, a new beam tore through it, debris being sucked out of the decompressed sections, probably troops too. Then a plasmatic explosion tore the ship apart, sending giant chunks of it ripping into the black.

Angar looked away, watching a lone craft trailed by a dozen enemy fighters and drones, beating the odds and surviving.

As the fighter faced annihilation, it vanished, reappearing a kilometer ahead in a flash of distorted space.

That had to be Hidetada slipping his consciousness into the Zephuros' lone fighter, as crafts couldn't teleport. Only the Class Ability of a Machinilitis could cause one to perform such a feat.

Where the fighter had been, a nova of light erupted as a decoy or mine detonated in a firework-like spray of molten shrapnel, obliterating its pursuers in a silent, radiant slaughter.

Angar scanned the chaos, seeing imperial fighters get burned down too quickly to count.

The biomechanical colossus of the leviathan sent its beam past the bulk freighter, at the Sisterhood's vessel. A gunboat and two bulk haulers intercepted, martyring themselves in a blaze of glory. The beam blasted through them. The Sisterhood's shipper lit up blue then violet.

Angar thought it was done for, but the beam ended, and the shielding field began cooling.

The Gulson was rocked by hits again. He saw missiles slam into the ship, further down its side.

A bizarre brightness lit up the void. He looked over and saw a crackling storm of electromagnetic fury erupting from the Zephuros' hull, engulfing dozens of Old Guard fighters and two mega-mechs, causing their biomechanical frames to spark and rip apart.

Two battleships faltered, touched by the storm, what had to be some sort of EMP.

The defenses dimmed to nothing as the storm crippled their systems. Unshielded, one battleship took the Zephuros' full wrath. Its full weapons array tore through its hull.

As if the move had been coordinated, the other ships fired upon the same target, rupturing its core in a second cataclysmic bloom of flesh and steel, debris scattering all around like offal.

Angar smiled grimly. That was two Old Guard filth down. Sadly, the other battleship's shielding field blazed back as it regained power and control.

His smile ended abruptly as the sling-rail whined, its clamps releasing with a jolt, causing his heart to drop.

His fighter lurched forward, hurling him toward the maelstrom at breakneck speeds.