In their dozens, the Thunderhawks, Fire Raptors, Storm Eagles, assault rams, assault pods, boarding torpedoes and Stormbirds of the Vlka Fenryka raced across the narrowing gap between the two flagships, carrying three Great Companies into the den of the enemy. Tra, Sep and Tolv were granted the honour of serving their king so boldly. Explosions filled the void around them, seeking to bring them down. Anti-fighter and anti-munition guns added their loads of death to the tempest raging between the flagships. It was a desperate action. Only a general with one goal and no requirement of survival would mount a charge that final. The Vlka Fenryka knew what it meant to cross that gap, but they did so willingly.

Many gunships were lost, cored out by las-beam and shell. The pride of the Vlka Fenryka burned in space. But for every boarding craft lost, another five hundred metres was gained. With the blood of his sons, Leman Russ bought entry into the embarkation deck of the Vengeful Spirit.

They penetrated the void shields at a reckless pace, their velocity close to the speed that would trip the energy field's displacement response. Their pilots howled with battle joy as they passed into the space beyond the shield's protection and accelerated. Behind them boiled a wall of fire where the Hrafnkel's ordnance encountered the void shields' barrier. Ahead the sides of the enemy's flagship rose high. Occasional shells made it through the shields, annihilating themselves against plasteel ramparts in balls of flame, adding to the deep scarring marring the Vengeful Spirit's plating. Turrets swung into action. Streams of laser light and tracer shells converged on the attacking transports. Gunships exploded, their fragments pinwheeling away, casting dead Space Marines into the cold grave of space. The gunships' own weapons remained silent, holding their might back for the defences around the embarkation deck.

The last of the Vengeful Spirit's void shields guttered out in a blaze of violet flame, and the full wrath of the Hrafnkel vented itself against the hull. Dozens more transports followed the first wave. Their path covered by thunderous broadsides, the gunships dropped low, and angled upwards, streaming towards the wide hangar slots of the embarkation deck.

Blast doors covered over the vulnerable entrances. Hails of missiles powered away from the Thunderhawks' wings to remove these obstacles. The attack craft swooped in tightly formed flights, discharged their most potent weapons and peeled away to allow the next formation to take aim. Mounds of flame briefly built themselves up. They fell away like curtains, to show blast doors that had become the mouths of metal caves.

Russ' squadrons now broke apart. Many flew directly towards the embarkation deck, braving the lattices of lascannon fire from the emplacements covering the entrances. The rest peeled away to land parties elsewhere to support Terminator squads teleporting in from the Hrafnkel, or to shoot down fighters chasing boarding torpedoes sent to penetrate the upper decks.