Battlefleet Gothic Armada Pdf -
The void was on fire.
Lord Admiral Caspian heard the news in the strategium of the Dominus Bellorum , his Emperor-class Battleship. The astropathic choir’s message was a fractured scream of static and terror. “...Furia-class... emergence... Gellar Field collapse... Port Maw demands immediate reinforcement. The Archenemy has come to Scarus...” The system of Periphery was lost. Not to Orks, nor to the insidious tendrils of Hive Fleet Kraken, but to the Despoiler himself. Abaddon’s 12th Black Crusade had pried open the Cadian Gate, and a splinter fleet, led by the ancient and corrupted Despoiler-class Battleship Blade of Antwyr , was carving a path toward the vital shipyards of Port Maw.
The Dominus Bellorum limped into Port Maw’s dry-docks, her hull scarred, her crew count reduced by a third. Lord Admiral Caspian walked the main hangar deck, stepping past medicae shuttles and the burned-out husks of fighter craft.
The shell crossed the void in two seconds. It struck the cruiser’s midsection, just aft of her main bridge. The explosion was a silent, white flower of pure, absolute annihilation. The Righteous Wrath —its sins, its crew, its screaming—vanished. Reduced to a spreading cloud of quarks and regret. battlefleet gothic armada pdf
The lieutenant hesitated. “But my Lord, we fired the—”
“Return fire! All batteries on the Despoiler!” Caspian roared.
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 void was on fire
The Dominus Bellorum ’s immense broadsides spoke. Six macro-cannon shells, each the size of a hab-block, slammed into the Blade ’s bow. For a moment, its corrupted shields flickered. The Righteous Wrath added its own lance batteries—twin beams of focused sun-fire that stabbed into the wound.
A young lieutenant approached, holding a data-slate. “Casualty report, my Lord. The Righteous Wrath … all hands, twelve thousand souls.”
The Chaos fleet paused, momentarily confused by the self-inflicted cataclysm. It was the opening Caspian needed. Port Maw demands immediate reinforcement
“All ships, emergency reverse. Set a collision course with the debris field of Praxis VI. Gunnery, target the gas giant’s core fragments.”
“Signal the Righteous Wrath ,” Caspian said. “Code: Mercy .”
“Contact! Enemy squadrons altering course. They have us, my Lord,” voxed Commodore Vance, the fleet’s taciturn second.
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 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.