V3 Chapter 89: The End of the Slaughter Fleet
When Guilliman reached the Conqueror's command bridge, all he found were thirteen white-armoured Shadow Wolves of Luna standing around the steel throne.
At the heavy footfalls of the armour of fate, Markus turned first. The Shadow Wolves parted to open a path, then saluted the Imperial Primarch as one.
Duvette stood before the massive gap at the bridge's center.
That section of deck looked as though it had been cut away whole by some force, its edges unnaturally smooth, nothing but impenetrable dark visible beneath it. The Blood Mirror had dried out completely, and traces of clotted blood still clung to the brass structure around it.
Guilliman walked over to stand beside Duvette.
"Where's this ship's commander?"
Duvette glanced up at him, his expression entirely serious.
"He was already gone through this hole before I got here."
Guilliman looked down at the gap for a moment, then back to Duvette.
He'd clearly sensed something was off, but didn't press further. There was still a great deal to deal with right now: the remnants of the Oathbreakers, the corrupted compartments, the Badab War still unfinished. Exactly how Kosorax had disappeared wasn't worth spending time on for the moment.
"That white light spreading through the depths of the hull just now. That was your doing?"
Duvette smiled this time, easing the mood a little.
"That's the purification ability I mentioned before."
He walked over to the bridge console nearby, now lit up again, running his hand lightly over the ancient metal surface. Some of the equipment was still damaged, but no trace of the malice Chaos corruption left behind remained in it.
"I've purified the Conqueror's core machine spirit, along with the most critical control areas."
"The reactor, propulsion systems, void shields, and the Gellar Field's core circuits have all stabilised. There's still plenty of corrupted sections throughout the ship, but they've been isolated. They won't interfere with our control of it for now."
Guilliman was quiet for a moment.
"What do you plan to do about what's left?"
"At least one more large-scale purification, at minimum."
Duvette said. "Next time, we can clear most of the remaining major contamination. What's left after that, hull damage and equipment failures, the Mechanicus will need to work through on its own time."
"This ship will need time before it truly comes back to us."
Guilliman's gaze swept across the bridge, then settled back on Duvette.
"I keep feeling you're holding something back."
"Of course I am."
Duvette laughed once, not bothering to deny the suspicion.
"I'm not ready to let a half-crippled Gloriana-class battleship sail on its own just yet."
Guilliman ignored the joke.
"So what else are you keeping from me?"
"There's someone I want you to meet." Duvette turned, looking toward a holo-projector standing some distance off, still tethered by a few remaining cables. "Lotara Sarrin."
The projector let out a faint burst of static.
A young woman's figure slowly took shape at the center of the bridge. She wore a neat white captain's uniform, a scarlet cloak hanging behind her, the blood-red handprint that had once marked her chest now gone.
Guilliman studied the face before him.
He had never had any real, direct dealings with Lotara Sarrin, but he held a clear memory of the name. During the Shadow Crusade, the Thirteenth Legion had once faced the combined fleet under Angron and Lorgar, and the Conqueror and its captain had naturally held a significant place in the Ultramarines' intelligence archives.
The woman standing before him was that very ship's former mortal captain.
Lotara recognised, in turn, the Primarch clad in blue and gold armour of fate.
She drew herself up and gave Guilliman a standard Imperial Navy salute.
"Lotara Sarrin." She paused briefly. "Former captain of the... Conqueror."
"Awaiting your judgment, Lord Guilliman."
Guilliman didn't answer right away.
He turned to look at Duvette instead, waiting for an explanation.
Duvette gave him a short account of it all: how the corrupted Lotara had fused with the Conqueror, how a fragment of her human soul had been cut away from that fusion, and how he had bound that fragment back into the machine spirit once it was purified.
"She holds the authority needed to keep the Conqueror running."
"But ultimate authority over this ship rests with me. She can't defy my orders. Whatever corruption remains will stay isolated under her watch as well."
Lotara waited until Duvette had finished, then looked back to Guilliman.
"I know what I once did."
"I won't use Chaos corruption as an excuse for the orders I gave, and I won't ask forgiveness for those crimes."
Her voice held to a soldier's composure throughout.
"Duvette has arranged for me to continue in service, until I've paid off what I owe."
"I only want to know whether this sentence has an end to it."
Guilliman studied her for a long moment.
The Lotara before him had regained her reason, but that changed nothing about what had already happened. The civilians dead on Ultramar, the warriors of the Thirteenth Legion who had fallen, the slaughter the Conqueror had wrought across ten thousand years, none of it would simply vanish because of a single purification.
"Marshal Duvette has already passed judgment on you."
Guilliman said finally. "For now, I accept his judgment."
"I will not pardon you. Not yet."
"Continue on. Obey Duvette's command. Let this ship sail for mankind once more. Until that debt is paid in full, or until the Emperor himself decides your fate."
Lotara was quiet for a moment.
Then she saluted once more.
"Order confirmed, Lord Guilliman."
The hologram slowly faded out.
Duvette looked at the space where she'd vanished, then turned to Guilliman.
"Time to bring this battle to an end."
Guilliman nodded.
The Blood Angels Fifth Company and the Salamanders Fourth Company were left temporarily aboard the Conqueror, tasked with clearing the remaining Oathbreaker forces near the core sections. Large numbers of armed ratings, combat servitors, and Mechanicus tech-priests came aboard with the second wave as well, beginning to establish a stable defensive zone.
Imperial engineering crews then cut through the remaining Beast Claw chains.
The massive harpoons still buried in the Macragge's Honour's hull were sealed off one after another, and the ancient flagship finally regained its freedom. Duvette and Guilliman returned to the Macragge's Honour, and turned their attention back to the war still unfinished.
Over the following three days, Duvette resumed command of the ground war on Badab.
With Angron banished, the pull of Chaos over the entire warzone weakened fast. Great numbers of berserkers, still past all reason, kept launching pointless suicide charges, and were destroyed one after another by Imperial artillery and armoured units.
The remaining Chaos Champions, mortal officers, and cultist remnants who still retained some judgment fled into the empty mountains and abandoned structures. Having lost any unified command, they could only scatter into small bands, evading the Imperial forces hunting them down.
No Chaos force capable of holding a coherent front remained anywhere on Badab Prime.
The Titan formations and Knight houses kept clearing daemon engines, heavy vehicles, and landing sites across the Ash Plains. The Astral Claws and the Badab Guard advanced along the hive city's outskirts, wiping out the enemy hiding in the urban ruins, district by district.
The fighting in the void ended even faster.
With the Conqueror seized, the Slaughter Fleet had lost its strongest flagship and any unified command. The three outer Imperial battlecruiser formations had already sealed off the Mandeville points, and the Warp storm left what remained of the Chaos fleet's routes nearly impassable, leaving them almost no chance of retreat.
The Macragge's Honour, its mobility restored, joined the pursuit.
Among what was left of the enemy fleet, not a single warship could withstand the Gloriana-class flagship's fire head-on. Once its main guns locked on, escorts and most cruisers came apart within a single concentrated broadside.
The fleet that had once carried enough strength to bring ruin to the entire Badab system was finally reduced to nothing but wreckage scattered through the void.
Mechanicus tow ships and salvage crews moved in afterward, collecting whatever reactor components, armour plating, and weapon systems still held value. What Chaos hulls couldn't be salvaged were destroyed outright, to keep whatever corruption remained inside them from spreading again.
Duvette stood in the strategic command room, watching the battle reports coming in from every front.
The ground war had entered its final mop-up phase.
The enemy in the void had been wiped out completely.
Now, only the plague still spreading through the depths of the four hive cities remained.
Duvette looked at the red zone marking the under-hive front.
Time to bring the Battle of Badab to a close.
End that plague.
Let this world fall quiet again.