Chapter 69

Ripping the door onto the bridge out of the wall, using magnetic fields generated from my gauntlets, I flung the door behind me and stepped inside. Opening fire on me as my foot crossed the threshold, the Chaos Marines hurled all manner of curses and insults at me till their magazines were empty. Staring at them for a moment, I shook my head in disappointment which enraged the Chaos Marines.

"Clearly you have learned absolutely nothing after witnessing the annihilation of your fleet. My technology is thousands of years ahead of yours, you are wasting my time and your munitions.", I remarked, turning to the hostages, "My crew are in the process of your locking onto your coordinates. Please stay where you are."

Irritated that I was dismissing them as a threat, several of the Chaos Marines roared loudly and charged forward with their Chainswords. Chanting the name of their patron repeatedly, as brought their weapons down upon me, my shielding forcibly repelled them knocking the morons several feet away from me. Looking back at the men, I honestly wondered if the two brain cells they had were both fighting for second place right now. Deciding to show them the difference between us, I lifted my left hand and began channeling my magic.

"Since you seem ready and more than willing to go to the abyss, allow me to send you there posthaste!", I said, before blasting a hole in the roof with repulsor, "May the Divine Light of the Heavens purify my foes, Judgement!"

Piercing through the hole I created, the Chaos Marines were instantly enveloped in a column of intense, holy light. Howling like stuck pigs, their bodies began to disintegrate as the Warp's corruption was literally burned away. Turning to their brothers for help, they turned to dust before they could utter a word. Backing away from the opening, as debris was sucked out of the room, the Chaos Marines were unsure what had just occurred.

<Sir, Yamato confirms that all Heavy Armor units are onboard and clearing out pockets of resistance. She is ready to bring over the hostages now.>

"Thank you, Jarvis.", I said, turning to the hostages, "My crew has informed me they are ready to receive you. We have medical teams on standby to treat all your wounds."

Before they could reply, Khârn finally decided to act. Unwilling to let them leave alive, Khârn rushed them whipping his battleaxe around planning to decapitate as many of them as possible. Reaching them first, I grabbed hold of the weapon's haft and brought it to an immediate stop. Grunting and roaring at me, in a vain attempt to overpower me, I began pushing him back much to his displeasure.

"Their skulls belong to Khorne!!", he howled.

"I am your opponent, Khârn the Coward, fight me!", I demanded, "You requested a worthy challenger, but when I appeared before you only your men had the balls to face me! Where did your combative spirit go? Did it shrivel up like your honor and loyalty?"

"I WILL KILL YOU!!!", Khârn screamed, fully locked on me now.

Enveloped in a brilliant flash of light, the hostages vanished in an instant leaving just Khârn, the few remaining Chaos Marines on the bridge, and me. No longer needing to cover civilians, I hoisted the beast of a man up into the air and slammed him into the command console. Shorting out countless numbers of systems across the ship, alarms began to blare signaling an imminent reactor meltdown. Letting go of the weapon, I asked Luxion if he could prevent the overload of the reactor from where we were.

<My apologies, Master, the ship's systems are far too damaged to perform actions right now. I suggest immediately evacuating ship or jettisoning reactor itself…if that is even possible.>

"I do not think this ship can perform that operation, but I should be able to stow the reactor in my storage to prevent us from losing the ship.", I said, "Can you access any diagrams to show me where it is located?"

Uploading a blueprint of the ship to my HUD, it appeared the ship's reactor core was dead center of the ship. Armed with the location of where I needed to go, I grabbed hold of Khârn and used his body as a battering ram. Steam rolling the remaining Space Marines on the bridge, began punching Khârn shaped holes through the walls. Unable to struggle out of my grip, Khârn began shouting for his men to do something but most of them were too busy dealing with my troops to render him aid. Eventually reaching the reactor, I threw him at the reactor like a ragdoll.

Struggling to endure the immense radiation in the area, Khârn's body began to rapidly shut down as his flesh began to fall out of his armor. Looking at me full of hatred, the behemoth of a man ran at me with his axe raised. Yanking blue and red lightsabers off my hip, I flicked them on and met his advance. Swinging his massive weapon down on me, I jumped over him and made him stagger forward with a Force Push. As soon as my foot touched the ground, I lunged at his backside aiming to take this head.

"I am not done yet!!", he roared, whipping his axe around faster than he had before, "Khorne's mightiest champion will not fall so easily!!"

Dropping to my knees, his axe swung over my head by a few inches leaving him wide open again. Unable to do anything now, a look of utter shame came over his face as my lightsaber sliced his head off his shoulders. Collapsing to the floor with a loud thud, his life quickly faded into the darkness. Quickly summoning his soul to me with necromancy, to prevent him from returning to his master, the enraged spirit began hurling insults at me. Pulling a Black Soul Gem, something I frequently found in low rank dungeons, I forcibly imparted his soul essence into it.

'I regret not doing this to Rutart and Zola, but hindsight is 20/20.', I thought, 'Enjoy the Soul Cairn, asshole. Durnehviir will enjoy you as a snack.'

Stowing the gem in my storage, I walked up to the rapidly failing reactor and stowed it away as well. Leaving the reactor area to contact my men, I wanted to know the status of cleanup operations. As I stepped into an adjacent hallway, an ethereal woman appeared in front of me with an angry scowl on her face.

"You have seen better days, have you not, Captain Lotara Sarrin?", I inquired, certain the female spirit before me was the former captain of this ship.

Reaching out to hit me, as soon as she touched my armor, her hand became engulfed with golden flames. Recoiling from me in pain, Lotara's scowl grew even more aggressive as she looked at me.

"My armor functions similarly to your former Emperor's flaming sword. Touching it will send an ethereal entity like you into the abyss very quickly.", I warned her, "Now then, I give you two options. Yield to my authority and serve me or be cleansed from existence forever. Make your decision."

Picking herself back up, she pointed to a heavily faded symbol of the Imperium. Seemingly asking me if that was where we were going, I shook my head and clarified that for her.

"No, I am not a citizen of the Imperium, nor do I have a desire to become one. If you serve me, I will see that you are upgraded and restored to your proper glory as my flagship. You will owe no nation felty, only I will command you. We will sail from one end of the universe to the other experiencing all that there is out there, but first this damnable war must end so we can venture forth in peace.", I explained, "What say you, Machine Spirit Lotara?"

Choosing to serve me instead of being erased from existence, the spirit was about to kneel when I told her stop. Telling her I was no king or ruler, there was no need for her to bend the knee to me.

"All I ask of you is loyalty and trust from you.", I said.

Standing back up, she nodded her head in agreement before looking to me for orders. Telling her to eject the rest of the Chaos Marines into space, I told her we would tow her back to the border before heading home to rebuild her. Accepting my orders, she disappeared presumably headed to inform the rest of the wraiths onboard about the change in ownership.

"Yamato, how are we looking out there?", I inquired.

<All cleaned up out here, Captain. can we hook onto her and tow back to the border?>

"Of course, and we are going to need to come up with a new name for her. Conqueror and Absolute Resolve are atrocious names.", I chuckled.

Teleporting me back onto her bridge, Yamato and a few other ships hooked on to the ships heavily damaged hull before heading back to the border.