Chapter 19: The Generous Father

The bravery and determination of the Plague Fleet—driven by rot and ruin—could not alter their fate. Defeat was inevitable.

Their enemy was led by a Primarch, a living legend of the Imperium, and the morale of the Imperial fleet soared under his command. Officers and commanders strove to fight without error, hoping to gain even a fleeting moment of the Primarch's attention.

The sheer number of Imperial vessels vastly outmatched the Chaos fleet. As the saying went among the void-faring officers: "When the stars favor you, even dragons cannot stop your rise."

Chaos ships, as ever, lacked true unity. Before long, their formation was broken. Imperial forces drove a wedge between them, isolating each ship into a desperate, individual struggle.

"Hold our course. Destroy their flagship. Win this battle," Roboute Guilliman ordered, his gaze locked on the tactical hololith. Amid the corrupted Chaos fleet, a vast and grotesque battleship loomed—its hull coated in filth, rotting flesh, and grotesque mutations.

Warp-born eyes blinked across its surface, twitching and watching the battlefield with malevolent hunger.

The Primarch pointed to it.

"Focus all energy on the forward void shield. First and second battle groups, cease forward pursuit—begin flanking maneuvers. Lock all firepower onto the enemy flagship. Macro cannons, ready. Light lances to full output. Bow batteries—fire at will!"

The bridge of the Macragge's Glory became a flurry of motion. Tech-adepts and senior officers rushed to carry out their Primarch's command. Vox-officers relayed orders. Mechanical priests chanted binaric hymns, reciting the canticles of activation as they blessed and engaged sacred systems.

Below decks, the frenzy intensified.

Junior officers bellowed at deckhands, whips cracking and boots slamming into sluggish workers. Massive shells were hoisted onto elevator lifts, fed into the macro batteries by groaning loading rigs.

Machine-priests worked in silence, maintaining energy conduits and secondary cogitators, whispering their binary litanies to appease the machine spirits.

With the entire Imperial fleet aligning, the final assault commenced.

Guilliman ignored the noise and commotion around him, eyes narrowing at the projection of the enemy flagship. He was searching—measuring—calculating.

A battleship of that size—nearly twenty kilometers in length—could reduce an undefended world to ash. And its size allowed for stronger, layered void shields that could resist direct bombardment for hours.

But Guilliman had no intention of waiting.

He was a Primarch, not a mere admiral. If weakling heretics could stall him here, how could he ever strike down Chaos or crush the greenskins?

Data flooded the hololith. Sensor arrays, auspex scans, energy wave readings—all streamed into Guilliman's neural interface. Where others saw chaos, he saw clarity. A thousand data-points per second were absorbed and processed.

Primarchs—genetically engineered beyond comprehension—could interpret such information in an instant.

He found the flaw.

There. A pulse regulator was misaligned. The void shield flickered inconsistently. The corrupted ship's generators couldn't keep phase cohesion.

"Target these coordinates," Guilliman said, tapping quickly on the interface. Holographic markers flared across the projected image of the enemy vessel, highlighting its weak points.

Across the fleet, targeting cogitators locked onto those coordinates. Confirmation chimes echoed across vox-links.

"All ships have locked onto the designated target," the communications director confirmed.

"Then fire," Guilliman commanded. "End this."

The Imperial fleet closed like a steel net. Coordinated volleys of macro-shells, plasma lances, torpedoes, and nuclear warheads descended in unison.

The Chaos flagship's void shield buckled under the strain. Sparks of failed containment systems sprayed from its surface. Light lances cut through exposed hull plating. Torpedoes smashed into the vulnerable superstructure. Plasma detonations tore open corrupted decks.

Within seconds, the flagship's hull cracked.

A titanic column of fire erupted from its spine. Structural supports failed. Seconds later, its warp reactor exploded—creating a miniature sun that engulfed the ship in a perfect, blinding sphere of golden death.

From the command deck of Macragge's Glory, the glow was so intense that the viewing ports' photochromatic filters shifted to absolute black. Then, slowly, the light dimmed.

Where once stood the pride of the Plague Fleet, now floated only molten debris and drifting wreckage.

"The rest is yours, Commander Brehe," Guilliman said calmly.

The battle in space was over.

But war was not.

Heavy footsteps echoed behind him. Donas, the Librarian of the Aurora Chapter, approached, his psychic presence rippling faintly.

"My lord," Donas said. "We've detected abnormal Warp fluctuations on Sara II. The veil between realspace and the Immaterium is weakening. The enemy is preparing a summoning ritual."

Guilliman's expression darkened.

So that was their plan.

The Plague Fleet had never intended to win the space battle. They'd sacrificed themselves to buy time—to delay the Imperial fleet long enough to complete a demonic summoning on the planet's surface.

Warp rituals.

Guilliman had seen the results of such madness. Few mortals could even witness them without being spiritually scarred. Demonic incursions tore at reality. And the price of summoning was always paid in blood.

"Initiate planetary assault," Guilliman ordered. "We make planetfall immediately."

He turned to the tactical display, eyes cold.

"We will burn their filth from this world—and make the demons of the Warp regret ever crossing into realspace."

Sara II – Surface: Outskirts of Glix Hive

On the diseased soil of Sara II, the last human fortress stood like a beacon against the abyss. Its void shield shimmered, the only remaining barrier between survival and corruption.

Gurlo, a bloated monster encased in rusted Terminator armor, stood just outside the ruined perimeter of Glix Hive. His revolting bulk strained his ancient suit, built in the time of the Horus Heresy, long since corrupted by the touch of Nurgle.

The once-glorious armor was rusted, leaking vile fluids and groaning under unnatural weight.

Gurlo sneered at the distant human defenses.

"These mortals are fools," he said, voice a wet gurgle. "They cling to their false Emperor, blind to the love of the Generous Father."

His fellow Plague Marines, towering and grotesque, stood behind him. Yet even among monsters, Gurlo was the largest.

"They reject His gifts," he continued, "too stupid to see that the Father gives without asking. Old, young, rich or poor—His love welcomes all. But these Imperials offer only defiance."

He gazed at the sky, where the Imperial fleet now reigned victorious.

"The son of the Corpse-Emperor is here. Guilliman." Gurlo spat phlegm onto the ground. "Then we must act fast. The final sacrifice must begin. The ritual must be completed."

He turned to the others.

"Soon this world will bloom. It will become a garden—a paradise of rot and joy. Let us deliver Father's gift."

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