Chapter 49: The Battle of Cadia (Part 1)

Chapter 49: The Battle of Cadia (Part 1)

The Eye of Terror. A vast, churning Warp-scar torn into the fabric of realspace by the birth of Slaanesh. It is a realm of pure Chaos, a sanctuary for daemons and the lost.

From its depths, a thousand cursed warships now moved like ghosts, their goal: the gateway to the Imperium.

Aboard his flagship, the Gloriana-class Battleship Vengeful Spirit, Ezekyle Abaddon, the Despoiler, stood on the command bridge. His eyes, burning with an unholy hatred, were fixed on the shimmering veil of the Immaterium. His topknot was pulled tight. This First Black Crusade was his chance to prove he was the true heir of Horus.

"Translate to realspace!"

His command echoed across the bridge. The fleet's Warp drives roared, and the coven of sorcerers began their dark chant, their power tearing open a rift to the material universe. Like a starving wolf pack, the Chaos fleet plunged through, hungry for the flesh of the Imperium.

But the light of the Astronomican, the great beacon of the False Emperor, was hostile.

For the most corrupted ships in the fleet, the transition was agonizing. The instant the Astronomican's holy light touched their hulls, they began to weaken, like vampires scorched by the sun. Daemons bound to their gun-batteries and engine-cores shrieked in pain as their very essence was seared.

This had no effect on Petros's small flotilla of five ships. They were clean, bearing no daemonic taint or blasphemous sigils. They could, in theory, even lower their Geller Fields.

However, two of those five ships—his prize freighter and the Vagabond-class hauler—had been "requisitioned" by Fleet-Master Valkar and placed in the vanguard.

The suicide position.

"Maintain formation!" Valkar He'en's cold voice boomed over the fleet-wide vox. As the nominal "Master of the Fleet" for the Black Legion, he knew these losses were inevitable. The deeper the taint, the harder the transition. It was one of the reasons Abaddon and the Ezekarion themselves had refused the final "gift" of daemonhood.

The Crusade would proceed. The fleet was a motley assortment of smaller, heavily-modified hulls. They could not match the Imperial Navy's quality, but they had a crushing, overwhelming superiority in numbers.

As the fleet burst into realspace, their target loomed before them: the Fortress World of Cadia.

If the Eye of Terror was the Imperium's wound, Cadia was the fortress-scar that held it closed. It was the first and last line of defense. Its orbit was a web of defensive platforms and gun-emplacements; its surface, a field of bastions.

The Imperial Cadian Shock Troops and the battle-fleet of the Imperial Navy were waiting. This was no surprise. Abaddon had sent astropathic "invitations" to every warband and renegade in the Eye. Even Petros, isolated in the Maelstrom, had received one. The Imperium had surely intercepted them all.

The Imperial fleet, commanded by Admiral Cassian Valdor, was already in battle formation. His flagship, the Retribution-class Battleship Indomitable, led a combined fleet of cruisers and destroyers. Mixed in with the Navy ships were the strike cruisers of several Astartes Chapters, most numerous among them the vessels bearing the black-and-white cross of the Black Templars.

The Chaos fleet was led by the Vengeful Spirit, the cursed flagship that had tasted the blood of two Primarchs. While Abaddon was the Warmaster, the void-war was commanded by Valkar He'en.

This meant nothing to Petros. His three remaining ships hung back, at the rear of the Chaos formation, watching.

Valkar He'en, analyzing the long-range augur-sweeps, knew his advantage: Astartes. He had thousands of Traitor Marines spread across his fleet. The Imperial Navy had, at best, a few companies of loyalists, concentrated on their flagships.

His strategy was simple and brutal: a frontal assault, using the main fleet to screen his boarding craft.

"All ships, advance!" Valkar commanded from the Vengeful Spirit.

As the two fleets closed to extreme range, a silent, lethal exchange of lances and macro-cannon shells began. The first salvos were exploratory, passing harmlessly through the void.

Then they entered killing range.

The Imperial fleet fired as one. A coordinated, disciplined volley of devastating firepower slammed into the disorganized Chaos vanguard. The screen of smaller, expendable ships—including Petros's armed freighter and his Vagabond-class hauler—was instantly vaporized, annihilated in a silent flash of plasma and atomized metal.

Aboard his own bridge, Valkar was unconcerned. The rabble had done its job: they had absorbed the Imperium's opening salvo.

He had his opening. His tactical calculus was clear: he would use his Astartes as a hook, ram them deep into the Imperial fleet's guts, and tear them apart from the inside.

The attack vectors were calculated. The commands were sent via a coven of bound psykers. Each major warband was assigned a target. The chaos of the charge was given a cold, calculated purpose.

The two fleets plunged toward each other, their guns blazing.

The naval battle of the First Black Crusade had begun.