“Return fire! All batteries on the Despoiler!” Caspian roared.
The void was on fire.
Something on the Chaos ship shrieked. Not a klaxon. A living, agonized howl. battlefleet gothic armada pdf
Caspian turned to the viewport. Outside, the repair gantries were already swarming over the Dominus Bellorum . But all he could see was the white, silent flower of the Nova Cannon’s mercy.
“My Lord,” Vance said, his voice tight. “The Righteous Wrath is requesting fire support. They are overrun. Captain Sulla reports… the boarders are using the crew’s own bones as ramming spikes.” “Return fire
The first wave was a frenzy of claws and torpedoes. Chaos Idolators, sleek and predatory, darted ahead, spewing swarms of boarding torpedoes. Caspian’s Sword frigates met them in a brutal knife-fight, their turrets vomiting tracers into the stygian dark. One Sword, the Viper , was caught amidships by a direct hit. It didn't explode. It screamed —a psychic death rattle that echoed through the fleet’s vox-net as its warp-drive imploded, pulling a chunk of reality into the Immaterium.
“The enemy ,” Caspian repeated, his eyes as cold as the void outside, “destroyed the Righteous Wrath . And I will carry that truth to my grave, along with every name on that list. Now get out of my sight.” Something on the Chaos ship shrieked
Caspian’s own fleet was a shadow of its former glory. The Battle of the Gath Rim had cost him three cruisers. What remained were his flagship, two Lunar-class cruisers ( Valiant and Stalwart ), a squadron of three Sword-class frigates, and the Righteous Wrath —a battered, venerable Gothic-class cruiser whose crew was rumored to still whisper prayers to the God-Emperor through bleeding lips.
The Dominus Bellorum swung its vast, cathedral-like prow. The Nova Cannon—a weapon that fired a projectile at near-light speed—cycled its final charge. The aim was not at the Blade of Antwyr . It was at the drifting Righteous Wrath .
The Righteous Wrath , its ancient plasma reactors cycling inefficiently, bled a micro-flare of drive wash. It lasted less than a second. But in the empyrean-saturated void, it was a lit match in a powder keg.