Ebon Drake - The Voyage of the Ebon Drake: The Ebon Drake 's operational career began in 006.M31, shortly after the bulk of the Salamanders Legion had departed their homeworld of Nocturne to answer the Emperor's call to arm to bring his rebellious son, the Warmaster Horus Lupercal and his allies to justice. The prototype Assault Cruiser had just completed an extensive period of trials and manoeuvres and was ready to enter the XVIII Legion's fleet, which led to its selection for a mission of great importance. With no news of their lord or their legion, the Keeper of Nocturne, Lord Chaplain Nomus Rhy'tan became increasingly restless. Fearing that inaction might mean that he would fail in his duties as Protector of Nocturne and Prometheus, Rhy'tan decided to send out a modest expedition force to ascertain the fate of the Primarch and their Legion. Dictated by necessity, Vulkan having left no more than 3,000 Legionaries behind, this expedition would comprise a single augmented company and a single ship. Given the ships new design and superior technical standards, Rhy'Tan's choice quickly fell upon Ebon Drake. His duties preventing him from leaving Nocturne, Nomus Rhy'tan appointed one of his own students, a promising young officer of Proximal-birth, Lieutenant-Chaplain Xiaphas Jurr as the expedition's commander and the Ebon Drake 's first captain. As the warship's mission was to discover the fate of their Legion, the Lord Chaplain was careful that each of the seven Realms of Nocturne would be represented, choosing the best and most promising warriors from those Neophytes recently inducted as Legionaries. To make up for their lack of experience, Rhy'tan also detached 30 Firedrakes from his own bodyguard to the Ebon Drake, all seasoned warriors whose steadfast courage and determination would bolster the yet unblooded Neophytes' resolve should they meet some unforeseen enemies.Under the impulse of Xiaphas Jurr, the Ebon Drake soon departed Nocturne, the Lieutenant-Chaplain pressing for quick departure as he saw his commission as more than a simple strategic mission, but rather a matter of deep belief in his Primarch -- in other times some would have even called it a sacred errand. From the start of their voyage, Lieutenant-Chaplain Jurr gave his crew no respite, pushing the ship itself, its crew and his Legionaries to the limits of their abilities through a punishing regime of combat-drills. With aetheric interferences and Warp Storms continuously worsening, the crew of the Ebon Drake would not be able to set course directly to its intended location but would need to take a far more circuitous route, only passing short periods of times in the Warp before translating back into realspace to get their bearings. Jurr hoped that this way they might actually gather some useful information and perhaps learn of their Primarch's fate. Unfortunately, much regarding the Ebon Drake 's odyssey has been lost, consumed in the flames of the civil war, or sequestered by writ of the Holy Inquisition. While some on board the Ebon Drake like Jurr himself kept a journal, their knowledge remains untapped. However, a comprehensive search of the Augur logs of the uncounted millions of navigation beacons and astropathic relay stations that dot the Imperium's domains allows at least a partial reconstitution of the route used by the Ebon Drake whose long journey led her across paths rarely trod by other stellar travellers.From what information could be gathered, it is the general consensus of Imperial savants that the first emergence of the Ebon Drake was at the highly industrialised world of Sulis. In response to the growing unrest and rumours of war and civil unrest, the lords of Sulis had chosen to isolate themselves from their neighbours, enforcing their isolation through the use of heavily-fortified gun platforms and lumbering Defence Monitors. While the Ebon Drake approached with messages of support from Nocturne, the Salamanders' vessel was met with insults and weapons fire. Sulis would recognise the Emperor as its ruler no longer, nor would it bow to the authority of the Warmaster, determined to forge its own destiny amongst the stars, or so the Vox-hails from Sulis claimed. While such secessionist tendencies were quite common during the chaos of the Horus Heresy, with no news of the civil war or the Drop Site Massacre, the Salamanders of the Ebon Drake saw such an affront to the spirit of the Great Crusade to be intolerable. Sulis needed to be punished and crushed into submission. Over the next three solar days, the Ebon Drake would use its superior speed and weaponry to knock out one gun platform after another, each orbital station then scoured clean by vengeful Salamanders boarding parties, Xiaphas Jurr leading many of these assaults personally. The world's Defence Monitors and interdiction barges, while powerfully armed for their size, could not hope to match the prototype Cruiser's sheer speed and the Ebon Drake easily evaded all attempts to run her down or surround her. The Salamanders' final objective was Sulis' principal orbital station, which they quickly cleared of the secessionist Solar Auxilia regiment guarding it before crippling the void station's gravity engines, letting the entire facility crash down upon the golden palace-city of Sulis' ruling elite. When the Ebon Drake left the system, she left behind a world that could offer no resistance to the Imperium, little knowing that this would later lead Sulis to fall without struggle into the hands of the Warmaster.