[X] Gain the Trait Little Anathema.
[X] Focus on repairing the shipyards.
[X] Focus on upgrading the equipment of the Federal Army.

It is seven years since the Violent invaded Excalibur that the Federation of Bladus faces its next threat as an Ork fleet jumps into the Bladus system. With almost three scores of warships, the Ork fleet is a roughly even mix of cruisers and escorts and outnumbers the Federal Navy just shy of three to one.

Yet the battle is far from decided and the Federal Navy might lack in quantity, it makes up for in quality. You have vastly superior warships and you have three battleships to their zero. The Orks may be numerous, but they'll also die numerously.

Mum may technically be in charge of the Federal Army and the one running the defence, but in practice, you have surpassed her. You have a sharper mind, quicker reflexes and your expertise in naval combat is superior to her own. Your own experiences combined with your superhuman nature just means that Mum is unable to keep up with you and she is willingly to readily acknowledge your superiority in the face of the enemy even though she is far more grudging about it off the battlefield.

You have three battleships, you have a trio of First Line cruisers and four First Line escorts, you can see the enemy coming and you have some time to manoeuvre. Everything is going fine until the first message from the Ork leadership arrives.

"I am Warboss Mugshredda an' I am back for annuver fight 'umie," declares a very familiar Ork as they appear on the viewscreen.

"I killed you," you reply, the words slipping out as you try to process this.

"I got bettah," answers Mugshredda with a shrug.

"I caved your skull in with my fist," you half-yell.

"Ma Mekboy fixed me up real gud," explains Mugshredda as he taps the crude cybernetics on his face with his power claw.

"Your corpse was left on my mother's ship," you point out, wondering if this is an Ork thing.

"I don't know wot dat 'as ta do wit' anyth'n," replies Mugshredda, "Now 'umie, yer're gunna give me a real gud fight like last time. WAAAGH!"

And with that, the Ork warboss cuts the connection and you are left with more questions than answers from that exchange. You don't know how Mugshredda is still out there, leading this invasion when you killed him and his corpse was left aboard the Pendragon, but he is here.

Taking a deep breath, you focus on the upcoming battle and begin to manoeuvre your scouts into position.


You use the extremely speed and agile Tiamat-class Destroyers as my scouts, having them get close enough to get accurate sensor data on the Ork fleet whilst remaining out of range of the enemy warships. A few of the Ork escorts attempt to engage, but under strict orders to avoid battle right now, your scouts just zoom away when the greenskins start to get a little too close.

The out of position escorts are easy pickings for the first volley of nova cannons, their chase having left the warships clustered together as conveniently close targets. None survive and the Orks apparently learn their lesson as there are no more pursuits of the scouts. Not that it saves them as the second volley of nova cannons smashes apart the Ork fleet and in the gaps, the Tiamat-class Destroyers unleash deadly salvos of torpedoes.

The invaders lost another ten escorts, almost all of that they brought with them, and five kill kroozers are here. A couple well-placed nova-cannon shots crippled a squadron of three warships whilst the torpedoes punch hulls in a fourth kill kroozer and butcher a fifth, causing its plasma drive to overload.

A cruiser destroyed, four more damaged and three quarters of its escorts wiped out before the Orks have even entered their firing range. Yet you cannot count this battle as already won because the Orks are most dangerous at close range. You could butcher the Orks at range and the survivors could repay the favour in kind if you let them get near enough.

Your longest ranged lance and plasma-macros open fire as the nova cannons are readied for a third volley while the scouts pull back to your battleline. You continue to strip away the enemy escorts, picking off the last half a dozen. There will be no screens for the enemy capital ships, no nimble and viciously armed escorts that you need to keep an eye upon.

As your warships continue to open fire, adding more batteries to the fray, the Orks finally get close enough to return fire with their own lances and marcos. They are unfortunately accurate in their firing, causing some hull damage to both the Regalas and your sole non-Promethean cruiser whilst two enemy warships are similarly damaged in kind. The nova cannons add their own bite to the fray and when the dust clears, a damaged kill kroozer has been fully eliminated whilst another one has sustained severe damage.

The Orks carry on their advance, coming ever closer as the battle and the firepower being thrown about continues to intensify. Several void shields on your ships collapse and one of the Promethean-class Cruisers takes a noteworthy pounding once her shields go down. Still, the Orks are getting the worst of it. One kill kroozer breaks up into three chunks, a second is reduced to a drifting wreck, two more are crippled and several more take significant damage. You are able to push the offensive when the enemy does something very unexpected.

"Ya are tougha dan ya look 'umie an ya don't fight fair," declares Mugshredda over a surprise transmission, "But dat iz okay 'cos i'll juz kome back next time an' krump yer real gud."

"What are you-?" you start to ask as you glance at the displays and you realise that all of the warp drives are charging up.

Damnable Ork scum is trying to escape with most of his cruisers intact. Not if you can help it and you direct the fleet to attack in an attempt to take out a few more kill kroozers before they escape. Something that quickly proves to be a mistake as it means closing with the Orks. You lose two escorts, a Sword and a Havoc, to concentrated barrages of short ranged firepower and boarding pods slam into a Promethean-class Cruiser that gets too near to the Ork warships. You should be able to save the warship by reinforcing her with marines from the rest of the Federal Navy, but it quickly becomes too late to inflict more pain upon the Ork forces. Some additional damage is done before they warp out, but nothing meaningful, nothing that Orks can't fix up in, well, you assume they have shipyards.

In any case, the last of the kill kroozers escape to the Warp and you are left to count the price of this victory. A price that proves to be rather low. A couple of escorts lost, four capital ships damaged in exchange for the destruction of four enemy cruisers and almost two dozen escorts not to mention that another dozen kill kroozers suffered meaningful amounts of damage. Those escorts can be replaced and those capital ships can be repaired with ease and the Federal Navy will continue to grow stronger.


"I'm glad to see you made it through the battle," says Mother as she, Mum and yourself gather around the family dinner table, "I always worry about it. First when you went off Ulyssa and now I have to worry about Drake doing it too."

"We're fine, dear," says Mum as Mother dishes up tea, "We command battleships, which is the safest place to be."

"Except Drake goes rushing off to personally partake in boarding actions or teleports down to the surface to engage Bloodthirsters in single combat!" retorts Mother, "A Bloodletter is supposed to be a deadly threat not chaff and Bloodthirsters should require extremely heavy and concentrated firepower to slay."

"Our little Drake is growing up," says Mum with a shrug, "We knew he wasn't going to be normal and I would be more surprised if he wasn't extraordinarily good. I'm just grateful he takes after each of us."

"You don't get how ridiculous that is, Ulyssa," complains Mother, "Killing a Bloodthirster on your own, it is like…it is like taking out a battleship with a destroyer."

"Can be done and if anyone is going to, it would be our Drake," answers Mum without missing a beat.

"That's not the point and he did it eight times over," says Mother, "It is ridiculous."

"And Drake is ridiculously good," replies Mum in a matter of fact tone and Mother sighs.

It is times like this that you appreciate, the chance to be at home with your parents, the two wonderful women who raised you. Enjoying yourselves without having to worry about the rest of the world and the horrors of the galaxy.

"So how is Jen getting on in her training, Mother?" you ask, deciding to change the subject as we begin to eat, "She has told me that they are going well, but I just wanted to make sure."

"Jen is doing excellently," answers Mother, "She is advancing smoothly in my Telepathy training and she is doing even better with her Biomancy training. By the time that she is forty, she will have mastered both and I expect she will begin branching out into the other disciplines before then. As I'm sure you are aware, the only real things she needs to worry about is not overdoing it or getting overconfident with her powers and not losing her grip on reality. The more powerful a psyker, the more likely to be out of touch with the Materium and Jenivere is an extremely powerful young lady."

"That means you need to keep your girlfriend grounded in reality," declares Mum, half-joking and half-serious.

"Don't worry, I will." you answer.


It is less than a year before the next threat raises its head as the Warp Rift opens up once more, just eight years after it last spat out a daemonic invasion. While last time it was the Violent who invaded Excalibur, this time it is the Excessive. Half a dozen Keeper of Secrets, six times that in Heralds of the Tempter and over twenty thousand Daemonettes of the Excessive supported by thousands of the Tempter's Fiends and Seekers.

A worthy force that might be enough to overwhelm the planet's defenders in their weakened state. The government might have equipped the survivors of the Federal Army with the best equipment around, but the Federal Army is still gutted from fighting the Violent and the Federal Militia has yet to be rebuilt after it was destroyed.

Unlike before, the Tempter's legions move swiftly instead of milling around like the Violent's did. With the first five lines of fortification still in need of repair, it is the sixth line that receives the initial assault and the defenders are still getting into position when daemonettes begin to overrun them.

Caught off-guard, you are not in a position to get involved with the initial clash and the Federal Navy, while positioned nearby on your orders, are too far away to effectively contribute. Your warships do their best, but the sheer speed of the attack means they are unable to effectively target the Excessive's daemons.

The battle for the seventh defensive line goes just as poorly. Orbital bombardment is still of limited effectiveness and while the Federal Army isn't overwhelmed quite as badly this time around, they are still forced to withdraw to the eight line of defences. Even your own presence isn't enough to inflict meaningful damage on the Tempter's forces and you are fortunate just to ensure that more of the Federal Army survives the rout. You do your best, but in the end, you are forced from the field with serious wounds.

The third day of the fighting goes better. The eighth line still falls at the end of it, but the battle is much closer fought this time around with the Federal Army stemming the daemonic forces long enough for an orderly retreat to the ninth and second to last line of defences. As for yourself, you find yourself tested against the Greater Daemons of the Excessive. Fighting against two different Keeper of Secrets that day, you find yourself in both a physical and mental battle as you fight with them in body whilst engaging them in a psyker duel. In both cases, you win enough to land a fatal blow with your Force Sword, severing their warp presence from their physical manifestation and sending them back to where they came from.

It is at the ninth line of fortifications that the Federal Army makes their stand and turns things around. Still reeling from your rather successful intervention, the surviving forces of the Tempter mill around at the eighth line with the Federal Navy keeping them pinned in place with death from above. They don't inflict any meaningful casualties with their orbital bombardment, but they ensure that only small assaults get launched, all of which are repelled by the Federal Army with ease.

As for you, you got headhunting as you lead a Federal Marine task force in search of more Keeper of Secrets to slay. Two more die to you on that day as you carve your way through daemonettes to reach the Greater Daemons. While the first two days were clear defeats and the third day was mixed, it is undeniable that the fourth day of the invasion was a victory for the Federation of Bladus.

The fifth day continues that trend as the remnants of the invasion force launch a full scale attack on the ninth line and are butchered for their efforts. The Federal Army guns down the Tempter's daemons before they can close the distance to melee range while you hunt down the last two surviving Keeper of Secrets, a task that proves easy as they are personally leading the attack. Both die upon your blade after a couple of challenging battles and with the last of the enemy senior leadership dead, you turn your attention to killing the surviving lesser daemons, the last of which are dealt with by sunset.

With the incursion over, the Federation of Bladus is once again left to pick up the pieces.

No plan voting.

With the shipyards rebuilt, what does Drake have them build?
[] A Gloriana-class Battleship.
[] Several Promethean-class Cruisers.
[] Many Tiamat-class Destroyers.
[] A few Promethean-class Cruisers and several Tiamat-class Destroyers.

The scientists and researchers of the Federation of Bladus have finalised an interesting new concept.
[] A new warship design using first line technology.
[] A new heavy power armour design for marines and army.
[] Limitation replication of Drake's supersoldier nature.


Update is finally done. Sorry about how long it took, but writing has been something of a struggle for me recently and I got a bit stumped on the middle part of the update. Anyway, you had a couple of invasions this time and the Federation of Bladus will be taking the opportunity to rebuild and the vote options should be self-explanatory.

Please point out any spelling or grammar mistakes that you spot. Please quote them in the thread and explain what you think is wrong so I know what you are referring to.