The plan was heresy incarnate. He would not fight Abaddon’s flagship. He would drown it in a star.
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 Valiant and the surviving frigates poured fire not at the Chaos ships, but at the unstable plasma eddies orbiting the dead planet. The chain reaction was immediate. A sheath of stellar fire erupted from the gas giant’s corpse, expanding outward at a million kilometers an hour.
The fleet translated into the Periphery system at the Mandeville Point, a full day’s emergency burn from the primary shipyards. Auspex returns were immediate and chilling. battlefleet gothic armada pdf
“Contact! Enemy squadrons altering course. They have us, my Lord,” voxed Commodore Vance, the fleet’s taciturn second.
“Return fire! All batteries on the Despoiler!” Caspian roared.
Then, the first mistake.
But the Blade of Antwyr was the true terror. It did not fire lances. It vomited a cascade of warp-lightning that boiled through void shields like tissue paper. The Stalwart took a glancing blow. Her shields collapsed, and her dorsal battery was fused into a single, glowing scar of molten ceramite.
From the bridge of the Dominus Bellorum , Caspian watched the holographic plot. Red runes for enemy contacts flickered like a plague. At least eight escorts, two Idolator-class raiders, and the monstrous shadow of the Blade of Antwyr —a vessel whose prow was a screaming, brass-ribbed maw.
“Signal the Righteous Wrath ,” Caspian said. “Code: Mercy .” The plan was heresy incarnate
“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.”
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.
“Fire.”
The Chaos fleet paused, momentarily confused by the self-inflicted cataclysm. It was the opening Caspian needed.
The lieutenant saluted and fled.