Hulk

Launching payloads the Ork cruisers disintegrated under sustained linac fire from the 3 Imperial warships. Hawk gripped the arms of his couch as his pilot fired attitude jets at seeming random intervals to evade the scattering clusters of Ork lobba mines. Inquisitor Hawk's landing ship was designed for atmosphere as well as vacuum work. As a result it was highly maneuverable. The Assault pods crammed with the second wave of Space Marines were no maneuverable at all. The second wave disintegrated in multiple majestically soundless flashes around Hawk's ship.

In the vast hangar the battle was slowly developing a direction. Piles of fallen space marines lay across the centre of the vast airless arena. Slowly the space marines had pushed the Orks back through their awesome fire power. The Orks had become more and more entangled with each other and the dead which had prevented them from mounting a final close combat assault to wipe out the residual marines. Time was now telling against the Orks as their vacuum resistance was running out.

"Bak, yelled Hezakk waving to his surviving Nobs, "Mobbup behind da bulk heads," he screamed at his Mek made kommunicator. He kicked his grots into action to get them to alert his tiring but still blood hungry Orks.

MALAC linac

Explosions sparkled across the slowly spinning body of the space Hulk. The swarm of small attack craft discharged their payloads across the rear of the Hulk close to the engines.The Emperors Will open fire on the closer of these craft destroying several with each blast of its MALAC batteries, matter/antimatter linear accelerator cannons. These twin linked linacs fired matter and antimatter alternately at either a target or close to a target. The blasts of energy as the highly charged balls of matter and antimatter collided were powerful enough to create transient black hole energy with warping gravity waves sufficient to disrupt most hulls within tens of kilometers. A direct hit usually resulted in the complete gravitational collapse of the target unless it was vastly large. The closeness of the engagement meant that the damage repair crews on the Emperors Will and her consorts were constantly in action.

Along with the cannonade the Emperors Will discharged her cargo of landing pods configured and crewed up for boarding.

Prepare for Boarding

“You are destroying my ship,” yelled Pilgrim at Inquisitor Hawk.
“Velocity matching and boarding maneuvers for the “Emperors Will”, plus the “Imperial Holocaust and the “Xenos Extermination”,” replied Hawk to Pilgrim the vox-comms servitor and the helm servitor.

“My apologies, Pilgrim, for usurping temporarily the tactical command of your fleet. There was little time. And I have also taken that into account regarding your claim of ownership of this ship of the God-Emperor.
The visual of the Hulk, on your screen, indicates a state of poor repair indicating that it is likely to contain either an Ork or Tyranid Xenos infestation. Either way if this is the case they must not be allowed to disrupt our planned actions. When I have gained control of the Hulk with the landing parties from these 3 capital ships I will have acquired a significant additional weapon. Remember the Tazim 22 action. A large asteroid was used to destroy the defenders.”

Command and Control

"Recap the situation for me, Captain Pilgrim."
"The fleet is stationed and hidden within the system's twin jovian systems, stealth satellites for both communication with our ground forces and ground surveillance and intelligence are in orbit of the target. A feint reconnaissance in force has podded in using the Belismar Boys Mercenary Dogs Light Infantry and finally Interrogator Hammerhand has been stealth inserted using a powerless drop pod close to the site of maximum energy use on the target."
"So far, so good," remarked Inquisitor Hawk, "now we have the hard part, the wait for information."