Sin of Damnation

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The Blood Angels 1st Company approach the Sin of Damnation.

The Sin of Damnation was a notorious Space Hulk assaulted by the Blood Angels Space Marines. In 996.M40 in the Secoris System the Blood Angels Chapter assaulted an unnamed Space Hulk. This campaign ultimately proved disastrous, with the Blood Angels facing an unending tide of Genestealers and finally retreating with only fifty Battle-Brothers surviving from their entire Chapter. Six hundred Terran years later in 589.M41, the Blood Angels made a second assault on a Space Hulk, this time confirmed as the Sin of Damnation. Under the command of 1^st Company Captain Michaelus Raphael, eighty Blood Angel Terminators slaughtered over 40,000 Genestealers and this time captured the Hulk for the Imperium.

History

Disaster at Secoris

In the year 996.M40, an Imperial Navy patrol passing through the Secoris System detected a large Space Hulk drifting in-system, drawn by the star's gravitational pull. The fourth world of the Secoris System was a populous Hive World, inhabited by more than fifty billion humans. It was a hub of commercial and military activity and the threat posed by the closing space hulk was immense. Way of boarding the vessel with his crews, the commodore commanding the flotilla sent an astropathic message to the nearby Fortress-Monastery of the Blood Angels on Baal. The Chapter responded in full, led by Lord Commander Sangallo, and within three solar weeks, the full might of the Blood Angels had come to Secoris.

The sheer size of the space hulk and its proximity to busy trade routes through the system precluded any kind of systematic bombardment -- debris would pose a serious threat to navigation. Instead Lord Commander Sangallo led a full-scale boarding action. The initial stage of the boarding went with little problem, but soon the Blood Angels encountered growing resistance as they attempted to take possession of functioning engine rooms and control chambers. Within thirty minutes, Genestealers were rousing from their hibernation in great numbers and Sangallo committed his reserves to bolster the defensive perimeter around the boarding site, leading the reinforcements himself.

Unable to secure their objectives, the Blood Angels diverted their attention to the inner areas of the ship, seeking the dormant Genestealers. Their attack only served to hasten the awakening process and soon thousands of Genestealers had encircled the advancing Space Marines. Under the covering fire of the 1^st Company Terminators, Sangallo tried to extricate his surrounded squads and was eventually forced to send forward the Blood Angels protecting the landing zone to provide a safe 'corridor' back to the boarding craft.

The Genestealers attack relented for a short while and it seemed as if the Blood Angels would be able to withdraw in good order and re-establish their beachhead. However, the calm was short-lived, as the Genestealers had noted the Space Marines' tactics and now attacked to separate them from the ammunition and support personnel at the boarding site. The battle descended into anarchy as some squads attempted to break through to their objective while others fell back towards the boarding torpedoes. Divided, the Blood Angels were picked off, squad by squad, swamped by the overwhelming numbers of their foes.

The battle ended when Sangallo had no choice but to order a general retreat. Though kill estimates put enemy slain at close to 12,000, there seemed an unstoppable tide of the creatures. Of the entire Chapter, only fifty Space Marines, including Captains Dante and Kadeus survived. Kadeus would go on to take Sangallo's place as Chapter Master and lead his Chapter from the brink of extinction. The action had been a catastrophe for the Chapter. The shame of defeat would last far longer than the losses inflicted.

Redemption

"Bountiful fate has presented us with the means by which we might repair those wounds upon our souls caused by the weakness of centuries past. It is not only our duty but our right to face the darkness again; to stare into the abyss of the unknown. This time we shall be the cleansing light in the shadow, the burning beacon of righteous war. Restore the honour of the shamed fallen through the death of your foes!"

— Lord Commander Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels

Perhaps it was fate, the will of the Emperor or the machinations of the Chaos Gods, that the Blood Angels were contacted by the Rogue Trader Borrak Vorra, captain of the Windrush, a little more than six-hundred years after the disaster at Secoris. By cosmic coincidence, the Rogue Trader had dropped out of Warpspace almost on top of a gigantic space hulk only a few light years from the Blood Angels' home system of Baal. When word came of the new space hulk the Blood Angels seized the opportunity to redeem their past failure. Under the leadership of Captain Michaelus Raphael of the 1^st Company, the Blood Angels sent a task force to intercept and investigate the vessel.

Dubbed the Sin of Damnation by the Blood Angels, the space hulk was large, made from the wrecks of nearly a dozen different vessels. Scans performed by the Windrush crew revealed there were high concentrations of alien lifesigns aboard and Captain Raphael treated the entire vessel as hostile territory, suspecting a large Genestealer presence.

Strike Cruisers of the Blood Angels transporting the 1^st Company and supporting troops broke Warp close to the Sin of Damnation and launched boarding torpedoes. While the assault craft blazed through the æther, scanners bathed the vessel with low-power multi-spectral analysis, to provide overall layout data and identity the concentrations of the dormant aliens. Stronger scanners risked alerting the hibernating Genestealers before the Terminators were aboard, so Captain Raphael deployed autonomous recon devices known as Cyber-Altered Task units, each teleported to a strategic point aboard the space hulk to collect vital information.

The scans showed that the majority of the space hulk was powerless and lifeless, exposed to the open vacuum of space. The bulk of its vast, chaotic architecture served no function at all. Inside was a seemingly random labyrinth of empty mess rooms, access corridors, dormitories, loading bays, storage chambers, command decks, maintenance bays and other facilities. The haphazard maze was criss-crossed by energy lines, power relays, pipes, cables, communication trunks, venting ducts and other crawlspaces. It would have taken years to clear every last nook and cranny.

Raphael's Strike Cruiser orbited the space hulk at a safe distance, their bombardment cannons and torpedoes primed to reduce the Sin of Damnation to atoms at the first sign that the Genestealers were escaping or that the mission was failing. Every warrior was under immense pressure that day; it was a matter of honour that the Blood Angels scoured the Genestealer threat from the space hulk and allowed archeotechnologists and other Tech-Priests to conduct a full survey of the ancient vessels that comprised it. Anything else would only serve to further crush the Chapter's self-regard, stripping them of all respect and authority. For the sake of the Chapter, Captain Raphael and his warriors could not afford to fail.

Boarding the Space Hulk

"It is our duty to reclaim the past, for only by rightful victory can the blemish of defeat be purged. Six centuries of pain, six hundred years of living with imperfection, and on this day the chance to cleanse our conscience with the flame of the Emperor's wrath."

— Part of the Oratio Penitentiae spoken by First Captain Michaelus Raphael before the Blood Angels' first assault.

Closer analysis of the life scan data showed a huge concentration of Genestealers in the cargo hold of an ancient merchantman. Though it was impossible to get anything like an accurate number, due to the low level of the scan and the dormant metabolisms of the aliens, Captain Raphael's technicians informed him that there were at least 40,000 Genestealers aboard, probably more. Any other commander might have baulked at such odds, but not Raphael. He was a Space Marine of the Blood Angels and the pride of his Chapter rested entirely on his shoulders. He gave the order for the boarding torpedoes to complete their final approach. The battle would begin very soon.

With painful memories of the Blood Angels' defeat at Secoris, it was decided to commit only the Chapter's Terminators against the enemies aboard the Sin of Damnation. Over long centuries, the 1^st Company had been rebuilt and Terminator Armour repaired and constructed. Roughly 80 warriors in total were involved in the fighting, under the command of Captain Raphael, the company commander.

The majority of these Space Marines were organised into five-man squads. With information scarce, Raphael deployed his warriors using boarding torpedoes, rather than putting his trust in the vagaries of teleporter technology. Huge missile-like boarding craft blasted through the ether, punching through the outer hull of the space hulk. The Space Marines disembarked from their assault craft and swiftly established guard positions against counter-attack.

With the breach made, a perimeter was established inside while Techmarines and other support personnel could be moved aboard the space hulk. This base of operations would be essential to the Blood Angels' success, providing ammunition and ongoing repairs to the Space Marines as they pressed outwards from the landing site.

In order to retain command overview, Captain Raphael remained on board the Strike Cruiser Angel's Sword. From here he was able to pass on strategic objectives to the squads in the space hulk, leaving individual missions to the initiative, training and experience of the squad sergeants. By removing himself from direct fighting, Captain Raphael was able to maintain a degree of strategic oversight that was lacking in the Blood Angels' encounter at Secoris, ensuring that the Space Marines and their support resources were effectively deployed in a hazardous and ever-changing battle.

Exterminate

While establishing a beachhead to defend their boarding torpedoes, the Blood Angels detected a bank of functioning lifeboats aboard one of the ships. It was a priority that these were rendered inoperable, before any Genestealers could use them to exit the space hulk and evade destruction. Though the orbiting the Strike Cruisers had weapons trained on the hulk to eliminate any escaping craft, such fire would disrupt the Space Marines' operations and was not 100% assured.

The large bank of escape pods was controlled by a central release mechanism located in a control chamber a short distance away. None of the saviour craft were capable of launching until a system override was released on the main controls. Squad Lorenzo was tasked with the mission of destroying the controls completely, in order to prevent the lifeboats ever launching. The control chamber was several hundred metres from the established perimeter and it was Captain Raphael's expectation that Squad Lorenzo would suffer heavy casualties. Such was the importance of containing the Genestealer infestation the commander judges this a price worth paying, even at this early stage of the battle.

With Lexmechanics studying the layout of the space hulk and the early movements of Genestealers, Captain Raphael was able to predict the route of the alien attack with some accuracy. The first Genestealer assault was likely to come from the main hibernating cluster, located less than a kilometre from the landing zone. It was imperative that the Space Marines maintained the momentum of their assault rather than be pushed onto the defensive at the very outset.

The expected attack route forced the Genestealers to pass through a key junction where the hulls of two ships had been compressed together. Sergeant Gideon and his squad were despatched to cover the junction and kill all aliens attempting to pass. The first Genestealer assault was effectively countered and the Space Marines were able to expand their perimeter to a position from which they could attack the dormant Genestealers.

Sources

• Space Hulk: Missions Book (3rd Edition), pp. 2-33, 42-45
• Space Hulk: Missions Book (2nd Edition), pp. 7-20
• Warhammer 40,000 Compilation (2nd Edition), pp. 88-115
• Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (1st Edition), pg. 211
• White Dwarf 113 (UK), "Space Hulk" by Richard Halliwall, pp. 29-34
• Sin of Damnation (Novella) by Gav Thorpe
• Sanguinius Irae (Short Story) by Gav Thorpe
• Space Hulk (Board Game) (3rd Edition)