A wide smile rested upon what remained of Shipmaster Rodri’s mouth.

It had been an easy win; the Chaos cruiser had not even seen the Wrath of Angels coming, and so had been dispatched with a single volley from the bombardment cannon. It warmed Rodri’s heart to finally have a clear, costless battle. For too long had every victory been bought at a high price. This time, however, Rodri could rest in the knowledge that not a one of his crew had died, and not a scratch had been dealt to his beloved ship.

While a small part of Rodri’s mind relaxed in such pleasant thoughts, the rest was hard at work. He had long ago learned, as all Imperial shipmasters do, that a spaceship was a demanding mistress, one that could never be left alone for any meaningful stretch of time. Thus, he had partitioned away a small part of himself for the purpose of remaining himself amidst the Strike Cruiser that was these days his body. The majority of his brain, both the organic root and the computers which extended his reach throughout every corner of the Wrath of Angels, was otherwise occupied. This thought was concerned with regulating the temperature in the mess hall, that thought was answering a query from the engine maintenance crew. A thousand tasks at once, and not for a moment did Rodri lose his concentration.

Mere functionality was not, however, the extent of the Shipmaster’s actions. He loved his crew; he was their father, they his sons and daughters. Each crewman who died took a piece of Rodri’s heart with him to the Emperor. Each who still lived was his precious treasure. Though he and they still knew their place in the grand scheme of the Imperium, and never would they dare to compromise their duty to the Emperor, Rodri sought every chance he could to protect his crew, and they knew it. To this end, he was very glad to be a son of Baal; some Chapters, especially the despicable Marines Malevolent, treated their crews like mere chaff, hunks of flesh to be used and thrown away without a care. Though the Blood Angels were not the bastions of kindness and love for the common Imperial citizen that, say, the Salamanders were, they still cared for their servants. The Chapter Serfs were well-treated; their quarters were comfortable, good food was always in abundance, and every Serf was educated by Priests and Chaplains of the Chapter. Rodri recalled fondly the lectures he had heard from Alessandro himself, all those years ago. Sometimes the part of the Shipmaster that was still simply human wondered if the Chaplain knew that.

Rodri could never find an adequate answer to that question. On the one hand, Alessandro was one of the mighty Space Marines, that elite cadre which Rodri himself had failed to join. They were superhuman, gene-forged by the Sanguinary Priests and Apothecaries in a tradition reaching back to the Emperor of Mankind in the days before the Great Crusade. To them was entrusted the care of the Imperium; they were the Emperor’s Angels, the manifestations of his Holy Will. Mere men were as beneath them as ants were beneath men. Thus, it was unlikely that Alessandro even cared about, let alone remembered, who came to those lectures. Yet, on the other hand, Rodri, like all Serfs of the Blood Angels, knew firsthand how much the Sons of Baal cared for their charges.

In the end, though the Shipmaster could never find a conclusive answer, he chose to believe that his Space Marine masters saw him as he saw his crew.

At that moment, Rodri’s eyes were all throughout the Wrath of Angels, watching the movements of every man and woman in his crew. He looked to the vehicle bays, where Techmarine Cosimo was performing the maintenance rituals on one of their remaining Baal-Pattern Predator Tanks. With the Techmarine five silent Servitors worked, assisting their master in his techno-religious prayers. Around them bustled the rest of the maintenance crew, three dozen men and women trained by the hand of Cosimo himself in the rituals and practices of the Tech-Priests of Mars, from whom Cosimo had learned, allowing them to safely assist with the repair and maintenance of the ship’s vehicular armoury.

Rodri’s heart warmed as he watched young Rem Sanders worked alongside Konna Hearthfield. The boy was love-struck, utterly enraptured by Miss Hearthfield. For her part, she had been hesitant was hopeful. Rodri hoped it worked out for them. Like any good father, he wanted to see his sons find good wives, his daughters, good husbands, and relationships such as theirs were no oddity on these ships. Some Chapters and Imperial organizations may frown on fraternization within the crew, but this was a proud vessel of the Blood Angels. Rodri himself had dedicated no less than eleven children born on the ship to the Emperor while the Chaplain was busy at war. Seven of them had since grown up to serve in the same crew as their parents. One more was soon to arrive, the child of Mr. and Mrs. Aldin, the latter of whom was making daily visits to the infirmary, just in case.

Mere moments later, Rodri would find himself quite glad that only five children were running around his ship.

The Shipmaster was with his entire crew; he saw the gunnery crews on their decks as they celebrated the destruction of the Chaos cruiser, listened to the quiet poetry club which met regularly in the holds, held his silence with a band of more pious crewmen as they listened to the young girl Taji, who spoke with the fire and faith of an Ecclesiarchal Missionary. He laughed with the off-duty ship’s guard in the mess hall, and wept in the silence of the morgue, where the last of his astropaths was about to be cremated.

Then his heart froze, alone, as his sensors screamed, warning him of a massive flux in the Warp. It was a simple signal, one he had felt an uncountable number of times in his long life. In this case, it was not even the most powerful he had ever felt, far from it. It was, however, the most unwelcome that particular signal had ever been for him.

A fleet had just left the Warp. Rodri set three Servitors to the task, and quickly concluded that there were no less than twenty vessels, seven of them Heavy Cruisers of classes that only the foul heretics of the Chaos Legions used.

Rodri’s reaction took all of a second. He activated the alarm, ordering his crew to their stations. He sent a signal to the engines to feed the
ship’s propelling fire. He raised the void shields. The ships began to come about.

He also considered his odds. Even before the machine spirits and Servitors presented to him their tactical analysis, he knew there was no victory here. The forces of Chaos were too close for flight, and too many for battle. His portion was death, and his only choice was how he faced it.

Thus Shipmaster Rodri straightened what little remained of his human body. His choice was made in an instant, before other options could even be considered. He may have failed the Trials, may have been denied the gift of the Angel’s holy gene-seed, but on this day, Rodri would die like a Blood Angel.

One last, furious charge, a ride to glory or death or both. He would plunge his vessel into the heart of the Chaos fleet and prove forever the truth of its name.

But he could not simply throw everything away. Chaplain Alessandro and his Kill Team were still on the planet below, and would soon need every scrap of ordnance they could find. Every dropship, every tank, every weapon and boltshell would need to be sent planet-side. Such a task would require every method of deployment, from drop pods to tank carrier ships, to accomplish. That was his duty as Shipmaster, to ensure that the Astartes remained well-supplied in this crisis.

His duty as a father, however, was to save the lives of as many of his children as he could.

It was a cruel choice. There were nearly sixty-five thousand souls in Rodri’s crew. Even if he allocated every resource to evacuation, he could not save even a tenth of that number. And he knew he could not do such a thing; to fill the ships with his crew would be to forswear his duty to the Emperor, to betray Holy Terra for his own desires.

Yet he could still try.

One of the more reasonable machine spirits of the Wrath of Angels gave Rodri the analysis. If he loaded the arsenal just so, he could send everything down to the last lasgun battery pack, and still have room to save one hundred lives.

One hundred out of sixty-five thousand. It was a choice no father should ever have to make. Yet it was one he would, for that was what duty demanded of him this day.

Rodri allocated a part of his massive mind to pray to the Emperor in this time of trouble. He needed wisdom, guidance. How was he to choose? He knew every man, woman, and child on his ship by name; many he had known for years, some he had known since birth. They were all as precious to him as Sanguinius had been to the Emperor. He could not rightly choose any one of them over another.

Still, choose he did. A thousand algorithms, a thousand different lists, each vetted by no higher authority than Rodri’s bleeding heart. The machine spirits roared in his mind, each shouting their own opinion.

“The Blood Angels will need warriors!” one shouted.

“Women and children first!” another yelled.

A thousand voices all screaming at once; this one argued for pragmatism, that one for emotion. Back and forth they raged, a thousand factions justifying their own lists and condemning the others.

At last Rodri had his answer; one hundred they numbered, the maximum he could send. He sent his orders while his heart screamed defiance. A great weight fell about the Shipmaster, and he knew he would carry it to his grave.

Fortunately, that would not be long.

The orders were sent, the plan crafted. He knew his course, the only one open to him. All would soon be in readiness.

All this took but a second for Rodri. The reaction of his crew would take much longer.

They scrambled, mugs thumping on the metal floors as their owners rushed to their posts. A poem died halfway through the telling, its end forever condemned to mystery. A sermon was hastily concluded just moments before its climax. A mother screamed in terror, fearing for the fate of her soon-to-be-born child. Workers stumbled over each other, their arms filled with boxes of ammunition.

The last Astartes on the Wrath of Angels rose to his full height and sighed at the order scrawled across his heads-up display.

While the crew rushed to fulfill their orders, the ship turned. Rodri calculated his path, seeking the point where he could do maximum damage. It was a careful task; he would have only one chance, and he still needed time to drop his load.

Within ten minutes the last few drop pods on the Wrath of Angels were filled to capacity with Astartes-grade weapons and ammunition. Rodri deployed them without a second thought.

The transports took much longer.

Servitors were hastily hooked into the controls of the vehicular armoury. Run more by their machine spirits and the grace of the Omnissiah than any skill the Servitors may have possessed, they functioned adequately. Each of the two tank carriers the Wrath of Angels bore took similar loads; they both carried a Baal-pattern Predator and four Rhinos. The sixth tank was their only point of divergence, with one taking a Destructor-pattern Predator and the other an Annihilator. Both carriers were capable of bearing heftier loads, had such loads been present. The Wrath of Angels, however, had been without resupply for over two years of hard fighting, and its stores had not been the best even in the early days of Chaplain Alessandro’s crusade. These twelve were all that remained of their stores. The remainder of the carriers’ bays were filled with more crates of armour, weapons, fuel, and ammunition. When the last of that was finally stored, the hundred evacuees filed in. Cosimo was the last; he stood outside the tank carrier Resolute until the very last of the human crew was safely inside.

Cosimo took one last look at the now empty ship bays. Beneath his helmet, he shed a single tear for the loss he knew was to come.

“Thank you, Rodri,” he said, knowing the Shipmaster would hear him. “Know that you have done all that you could, and that the Emperor is surely pleased with you. May the light of Holy Terra guide you. The Emperor Protects.”

With that the Techmarine stepped inside the carrier at last, squeezing in near the ship’s head cook and one of the engine crew. The bay door slammed shut behind him.

As the tank carriers departed, they were accompanied by the last two Stormravens on the ship. They were loaded to the brim with weapons and ammunition, and carried void-hardened crates in their dreadnought slots. The four ships fell to the planet below.

Rodri would keep an eye on them until his end, though it would be a thin eye; all his processing power was now focused on the matter at hand. This was his final hour. He intended to make it his finest.

“All hands, prepare for battle,” he intoned over the ship’s speakers. “Today began with a victory. We took the servants of Chaos by surprise and slew them before they could even raise their shields. Now more of their unholy kind seek to do the same to us. It will not be so. We cannot run, they have come too close for that. So we will do as the Imperium has done for ten thousand years: we shall fight. Today began with a victory, my children, and though it will cost us everything, by Terra, it will end with another. The Emperor Protects.”

There was little cheering among the crew; they were too busy at their posts for such a distraction. Yet their hearts were enflamed. Rodri was not wrong when he considered himself their father. There was not a one among the whole of the crew who was not proud to have served under him, and under the Blood Angels to whom he was their link.

This was the day of their death, and the day of their glory.

Its cargo at last dispatched, the Wrath of Angels was able to move. All power flowed into the engines, their exhausts blazing like distant stars. Every weapon battery gleamed in the light this alien system’s sun. A fresh magma bomb was loaded into the massive Bombardment Cannon which ran along the ship’s spine. Everything was in readiness. They simply had to get in range.

By now the Chaos fleet had become aware of them. Six Heavy Cruisers sailed towards them, their own weapons batteries glowing, their corrupted machine spirits hungry for the blood of the faithful. Behind them swarmed a menagerie of ramshackle ships. Appropriated civilian transports and paramilitary patrol ships they were for the most part. To Rodri’s horror and sorrow, he recognized one as the Scarlet Heart, once a medical ship belonging to the Sisters Hospitaller, now nothing but a festering hive of Chaos and taint.

Yet another reason for this course, Rodri reasoned. The Sisters of Battle were hard-pressed in these dark times, but he had always respected their faith and courage. It made him glad that he could avenge at least one atrocity committed against them this day.

As the Wrath of Angels approached weapon’s range, Rodri issued his orders.

“Shift all power to the forward void shields,” he commanded. “Arm the remaining magma bombs. Engine crew, prepare for ramming speed.”

There was no tactical scenario in which Rodri could win. He was outnumbered and outgunned. He was not, however, outsmarted. If he was to die, he would exact his price; he would ram his burning corpse into the mouth of Chaos and go to the Golden Throne proud.

The Chaos Cruisers opened fire, batteries of laserfire and plasma cannons unleashing their brilliant payloads across the black of space. Crimson and viridian beams glittered off the bow of the Wrath of Angels, its void shields flaring azure at the impact. Their smaller brethren assisted with a fusillade of cruder armament, massive autocannon batteries and missile platforms. In the back of the fleet, a thousand tiny lights blazed as wing after wing of attack craft launched. It was a barrage that nothing could survive.

Yet still the Wrath of Angels rushed on, dauntless and resolute in the face of its death.

“All weapons batteries, fire at will,” Rodri ordered. There was little point in trying to concentrate fire; there was not time enough for their firepower to bring any major down. This was simply to buy time, and to delay the enemy a moment longer.

At the order, the Wrath of Angels lit up. Its own batteries returned fire, every strike on their void shields given recompense. The void-shielded Hecate Cuisers remained as unaffected by the fire as the Wrath of Angels; mere weapon batteries would take time to weaken such mighty defenses. Even the unshielded Hellfire Cruisers barely flinched. The barrage was too dispersed to do anything more than scratch and dent the armour; even a lucky strike could do nothing but vent a deck into space.

Weapon batteries were not, however, the extent of Rodri’s arsenal.

“Bombardment Cannon, fire on the designated Hellfire,” Rodri said, his command issued over the ship’s comms.

The ship shuddered as the magma bomb launched. It flew like a meteor, and struck with power to put such a thing to shame.

The Hellfire was dead inside of a minute; it had no shields to protect it, and so suffered the full wrath of the attack. Heat sufficient to scour rivers and oceans dry washed over the aging and poorly maintained armour plating. The crew and cultists aboard the ship were simply vapourized, dead before they could even scream. The battle company of Chaos Marines, however, were not so lucky. Their armour and gene-forged bodies, though far from invulnerable, were still strong enough to survive a few seconds. Thus they lived long enough to feel every cell in their bodies catch fire. For a mad, perverted few, it was a good pain. For the rest, it was agony.

The conflagration of the magma bomb took more than just a cruiser. Tongues of flame lashed out from the dying hulk, tearing a half-dozen of the smaller ships apart. Those that survived turned tail, fleeing from the flames as though they were the fingers of the Emperor himself.

Rodri allowed himself the briefest of moments to revel in the kill. It was the last time he ever would.

The Wrath of Angels was in the midst of the Chaos fleet now. If aimed just right, Rodri could likely bring down another Hellfire. Any other day, that would have been his course of action. Today, however, his goals were just a bit grander.

Rodri turned his heading, aiming the Wrath of Angels’ bow firmly at a cluster of three Hellfires. He locked in the course, dedicating the machine spirits to no other goal than a suicide ram.

This would be the end. The void shields had almost failed. Near the stern, where the shields were weakest, both by design and by Rodri’s re-channelling of the barriers, lasers and plasma blasts were punching through, battering holes in the hull. Within no more than ten minutes, they would breach. None of the machine spirits of the cruiser believed it would survive long after that.

It is time, Rodri mused silently. He activated every comm on the Wrath of Angels.

“All hands, prepare to ram,” he said. He paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “This day is our last. There is no other way I can describe the matter. We were doomed the moment these accursed heretics came in sight. Too close to run, but far enough that some could be saved. We are not among them. It rends my heart to think of you, all sixty-four thousand, nine hundred and seventy-four in all, and the end that awaits you. Such lives you might have led, such loves you may have known. Many of you will now never see the world beyond this ship, because of this day.”

Across the ship, not a word was spoken. All mouths were shut, and all ears were focused on the Shipmaster’s words.

“But weep not, my sons, and do not cry, my daughters. We are not foul xenos, for whom death is the final end, nor are we unholy heretics, whose end is torment unending. We are the faithful of Mankind. Death looms but minutes from us, but beyond it lies the Golden Throne and the eternal embrace of the Emperor. Shed not a tear for us, my children. Our suffering is temporary, a wave tossed in the ocean.”

The hearts of the crew began to rise. They were loyal worshippers of the Emperor; his edicts they did not question, his promises they did not doubt. And they were loyal sons and daughters of the Shipmaster, whose word was to them just below the Space Marines and the Emperor. To each of them, what Rodri said could never be a lie, and therefore, it must be truth.

“Aye, our death must come, but what a death to be had! Think, my children, and consider your fellows. How many hivers die, unknown, in the streets of their cities, their lives wasted on drink and vice? How many have toiled their whole lives in the manufactorums or the Agri-Worlds, never to know glory or honour? The Emperor is with you today, my sons, and with you, my daughters, for today we know a glory few mere mortals have ever known.”

Every member of the crew, every last one of the sixty four thousand, nine hundred, and seventy-four men and women who served aboard the Wrath of Angels, was in that moment imbued with a fire the likes of which they had never before felt. Though faced with death and burdened by their labours, they stood tall and proud.

“How many of you have heard the tale of the Astral Knights? They too faced an impossible foe, and could not seize victory unscathed. So they sacrificed themselves, an entire Chapter of Astartes, in conditions not unlike our own. Do you not see, my children? When we lived this morning, we were but mortal men. This afternoon, as we die, we are as Space Marines. Ours was not to bear their holy gene-seed. Ours was not to be true Blood Angels. But on this day, in this hour of our death, Chaos is utterly thwarted. We will not bow in the face of their terror. With the bearing of our noble masters, who have fed us and cared for us all these long years, whom we have served faithfully, and whom we are akin to today, we shall know no fear!”

Rodri paused for a moment to soak in the courage and pride of his crew, his sons and daughters. There were cheers, as yet uncoordinated, among the crew. Workers gave their all, and overseers stepped down from their pedestals to aid in the effort. The Shipmaster sighed. These were his final words, and by Holy Terra, he would make them worthy.

“Rise up, my children, rise to your duty and your posts! Today we die in glory! Today we die with honour! Today we show these accursed heretics how a Blood Angel dies! For Sanguinius…”

In that last minute, in those last words, the entire ship, from the lowliest ammo-loader to the very machine spirits themselves, were as one.

“And the Emperor!”

That last cry carried on as the Wrath of Angels ploughed into a Hellfire cruiser. Rodri activated the remaining magma bombs, the explosion tearing both ships apart.

The sacrifice was just as the Shipmaster had planned; the engines of both cruisers overloaded, adding to the power of the magma bombs. For a brief, fleeting minute, a second sun was born above Equus. Flaming lashes reached out and tore the servants of Chaos from the skies. Ships melted into slag, their tainted crews burning with the wrath of the Angels.

And as he died, a wide smile rested on the mouth of Rodri, the Shipmaster, the Chapter Serf, and the hero.

When the inferno at last was silenced, when the last flame was doused by the vacuum of space, there remained nothing of the noble cruiser. Not one scrap of metal remained of the Wrath of Angels, no physical evidence that it had ever even been.

Yet the legacy of its deeds would be remembered for centuries to come.

Author's Notes:

Meant to include a couple other scenes with this, but it sort of took on a life of its own.
Don't worry, we'll be planetside again next chapter. I have three scenes I'm covering to help set up the next leg of the plot, then we're back to our core cast.
As always, comments and criticism appreciated.