Battle of Calth - Master and Commander: With the immediate situation stabilising, Gage was able to gather information from scattered Ultramarines forces and formulate a plan to retake control of the Macragge's Honour. The fate of the Primarch remained unknown and few allowed themselves to dwell on it lest they be overcome with grief and lose what edge they might have retained. Rather, the First Chapter Master ordered the force to make for the flagship's auxiliary bridge, located several dozen levels directly below the destroyed conning tower. This plan was in itself insufficient to gain anything more than the most superficial control of the massive vessel; for that, the skills of an experienced shipmaster would be required, and the flagship's captain, Shipmaster Zedoff, had been slain along with the majority of the bridge cadre.Here, at last, the fates looked kindly upon the Ultramarines. Mere minutes before the loss of the bridge, the Macragge's Honour had recovered a number of salvation craft ejected by the Sanctity of Saramanth earlier in the battle, and amongst the survivors was her captain, Shipmaster Hammed. Gage had no way of knowing if Hammed lived or had been slaughtered along with so many others among the crew, but he knew that in the veteran shipmaster lay the best, perhaps the only hope of regaining control of the beleaguered flagship.It fell to Sergeant Aeonid Thiel to lead the search for the shipmaster, he and his force making for the primary starboard launch deck while Gage and Empion led the remainder of the force towards the auxiliary bridge. The distance was not great and overall the tide of invaders was mercifully receding. Yet many of the warp entities were the equal of a Space Marine and some were considerably stronger, so that even reaching the launch deck cost the Ultramarines irreplaceable losses. When Thiel reached his destination, he found the deck swarming with the same crimson-skinned, horned creatures that he and his warriors had faced in such large numbers at the beginning of the battle. The horde was converging on a single point, which Thiel realised with horror was that occupied by the survivors of the Sanctity of Saramanth. Shipmaster Hammed had survived the destruction of his vessel and the manifestation of an entire army of warp creatures, yet even as the tides of horror receded, the last of the invaders were descending upon him.In an instant, Sergeant Thiel saw his chance to rescue Shipmaster Hammed, but he had to act without even a second's delay. He led his force out onto the launch deck, ordering sustained and rapid fire even though he knew the bolts would do little more than distract the fiends. But distraction was exactly what the sergeant intended, for as the horde turned upon this new threat, the creatures' attentions torn from the cornered shipmaster to the attacking Ultramarines, Thiel ordered the loading deck platform upon which Hammed and the other survivors were standing to be lowered. The Ultramarines had to keep the warp entities engaged long enough for the platform to deliver the survivors to safety and so they poured a relentless rain of bolter fire into the horde, all the while taking measured steps backwards towards the deck entrance. At last the shrieking horde closed to within metres of the firing line, and Thiel judged that the shipmaster was safe. With a final step back, the Ultramarines crossed through the hatch and the blast door crashed down. The enraged howls of the warp creatures were as loud as the impacts of their weapons and claws pounding upon the other side of the portal. Shipmaster Hammed was safe.