Blade of Salvation

The ***Blade of Salvation*** is the flagship of the Angelis Noctem and the Primarch Nocterra, a vessel of unknown providence and class, not being a Gloriana like many of the other Primarch’s took as their own, Solaris included. At sixteen and a half kilometers it is far smaller than a Gloriana, but makes up for this with systems seldom seen in the modern Imperium, most believing it is a ship from the time of the Dark Age of Technology, something that Nocterra has never confirmed nor denied, but is without a doubt, true.

Shortly after being reunited with her portion of the legion, the Angelis Noctem went to war with a people known as the Irathi, a xenos race famed for their crystalline technology, all but unknowable to the minds of the Mechanicum. To most, this was simply to destroy a xenos threat, but to the Angelis Noctem, and the Warders of Rython who flew with them, there was a far greater threat at the heart of that empire.

The true details of the campaign have since been lost or otherwise destroyed, but it is clear the *Blade of Salvation* was recovered during that campaign, Nocterra claiming the vessel as her own, pressing it into service at the head of the small, but potent, Angelis Noctem Fleet.

Wrought from sloping stone and rock rather than metal, mined from an unknown world in ages passed, the vessels armour was laced with technologies whose secrets not even the Mechanicum could fathom, despite their extensive attempts. Its hull plating reacted to damage like living tissue, shell impacts scabbing over with liquid silicates in moments, the damage undone in short order. Only when the damage done was sustained and catastrophic would these systems fail to activate fully, in practice meaning the vessel could not afford to stand toe to toe with other ships of its weight class.

Because of this, the vessel has been modified and refined in other areas, made faster, though not the fastest of its size, so that it may better close the gap with its targets. Banks of teleportarium’s dot its interior, ready to send the Angelis Noctem through the aether the moment enemy shields are dropped by the *Blade of Salvation’s* weapon batteries. Guided by their own psychic prowess, the Angelis Noctem are able to perform relatively accurate jumps, deploying explosives to cripple an enemy vessel, or else capturing critical parts of the ship to force a surrender.

If they are not able to take the ship in short order, the Angelis Noctem will retreat, refusing to be dragged into a war of attrition they do not have the numbers to sustain. As they retreat, great turreted photon thruster weapons will lash out at the ship, discouraging pursuit, even as dozens of boarding bods are launched to slam home into the vessel. Rather than being manned by Astartes however, or even elite members of the Solar Auxilia, these pods are filled with a far more volatile cargo.

Deep within the hull of the *Blade of Salvation* lie hundreds of rows of ancient cryo-chambers, each one occupied not by an Astartes, or even a human, but by a surgically augmented Ogryn abhuman, akin to the Charonites used by the Solar Auxilia, but augmented by devices of the Angelis Noctem’s artifice. Awoken as they are placed within the boarding pods, these augmented creatures will rip their way through the unfortunate vessel, killing all on board or dying in the attempt, either way it occupies the ships attention, allowing the *Blade of Salvation* to slip away, the Ogryn’s rarely being recovered, it being easier to replace them than expend manpower to sedate them once more.

Most who look upon the vessel and the Angelis Noctem themselves assume that the inside will be shrouded in darkness and terror, and while the former is true in a fashion, the second could not be further from the truth. Dim silver light fills the ship, casting long shadows as if on a world beneath a perfect moon, the Angelis Noctem at peace within the vessel, studying both the warp, and what scraps of information from Old Night they have found over the years, helping to plan the next extermination action the legion will undertake against these most terrifying of foes, the Sentinel Council meeting within the hallowed halls.

The greatest action the ship has undertaken, though it would be shrouded in censure and shame, was at the height of the Solar Rebellion, where Solaris and the Supernal Seraph’s turned their backs on the Imperium, the Angelis Noctem, led by Nocterra and the *Blade of Salvation*, rushing to meet them. There, in orbit of Noxim and the *Mantle of Deliverance*, the *Blade of Salvation* clashed with *Sol Invictus*, the two ships not usually evenly matched swinging the other way, Nocterra aboard her flagship, while Solaris had removed himself from his. After a titanic struggle, *Sol Invictus* detonated, it's Kine Shields strengthened by Nocterra in an instant to contain the blast, allowing the rest of the fleet to effect landings across the *Mantle of Deliverance*

In the wake of the battle however, the *Blade of Salvation* underwent a new change, receiving a visitor that had once resided on *Sol Invictus*, Tuchulcha, a sentient warp engine used by Solaris in the years before his fall, now falling into Nocterra’s hands. Using the engine, the *Blade of Salvation* could now make warp jumps of unprecedented accuracy, as well as further enhancing the efficacy of the teleportarium’s of the ship, the Angelis Noctem becoming all the more deadly in the last years of the Great Crusade against the Rangdan, and into the Great War that lay beyond...

## Technical Specifications

* Length: 16.5km
* Role: Rapid Insertion and Planetary Invasion
* Date of Construction: M30.940