Baruch Neriah
Baruch Neriah is an Imperial Navy Pilot Commander in Third Air Fleet, aka the Circus, and, sometime after the Great Rift's creation, he took part in the campaign against the forces of Chaos on Sagaraya.[1]
Overview
There he piloted the Marauder Spirit of St Pascale, and Neriah's crew was later among those chosen for a desperate mission to destroy a giant Chaos naval carrier on the Ocean World. While an Imperial Naval fleet would advance upon the carrier as well, the twelve Marauders would be on their own and would not have enough fuel to return to the fleet afterwards. Neriah and the other Marauder crews were told that when their fuel ran out, they would need to be prepared to land their vessels onto the ocean. Afterwards, they would then board the life rafts aboard the Marauders and active an emergency transponder that would lead the Imperials to them. Neriah and the others thought that was not likely, with the deadly predators that lived in Sagaraya's oceans, but they knew destroying the Chaos carrier would ultimately ensure the Imperium's victory. When the mission began, the twelve Marauders were equipped with extra fuel tanks and organized into three flights: named Glory, Wrath and Bane, with Neriah in charge of Glory Flight. However his flight was soon down one Marauder, when the pilot of Wind Bird pilot did not compensate for the weight of the extra tanks and crashed after its takeoff.[1]
Nevertheless, the eleven remaining Marauders continued their mission and attacked the Chaos carrier, which was protected by a small fleet. Worse still, the carrier itself was the size of an island and Wrath and Bane Flights were unable to heavily damage it, before they were out of missiles. As they then retreated, Neriah led Glory Flight to attack, but Glory Two was unable to damage the Carrier as well. Neriah told its pilot to escape, while Glory Three, the Soul of the Valiant commanded by his friend Pilot Commander Mar Rossoff, began its attack run. However the Soul of the Valiant was repeatedly struck by the forces of Chaos and was set ablaze by their attacks. Neriah knew that Rossoff, realizing there would be no escape for his crew, would attempt to ram the Valiant into the carrier and brought the Spirit of St Pascale behind the stricken Marauder. When the Valiant then struck the side of the carrier, its fuel and ammo caused a large explosion which rent a hole in the Chaos vessel. Neriah's crew quickly sent a missile into that hole, which caused a massive chain reaction that destroyed the carrier and its fleet.[1]
With their mission a success, the Spirit of St Pascale tried to return to the Imperial fleet, but ran out of fuel, as they had been forewarned, and Neriah was able to land upon the ocean. The Pascale's crew then boarded a life raft, and watched as their Marauder took on water and sank into Sagaraya's ocean. Before they had landed, though, Neriah had used an Auspex and determined they were at least ten miles from the path of the advancing Imperial Naval fleet. With the emergency transponder having only a twenty four hour power charge, he told his crew they would need to paddle the ten miles before they could activate it. Unfortunately, one of the crew members later saw an aircraft and used a signal flare to attract its attention; not realizing until it was too late, that was in fact a Chaos Valkyrie. The enemy aircraft saw them and dived at them in an attempt to riddle them with its firepower. Before it could do so, however, one of Sagaraya's large sea creatures leapt out of the ocean and seized hold of the Valkyrie. It then pulled the aircraft into the ocean, but the creature's descent began to pull the life raft underneath the ocean as well. Though, the Pascale's crew jumped off before the raft sank, they were still pulled under and only Neriah was able to break free and reach the ocean's surface. Now alone, the Pilot Commander drifted until nightfall, when he was able to then use some of Sagaraya's glowing phosphorescent plankton, to signal a passing Imperial aircraft. The aircraft saw him and Neriah raised his arms in thanks and guilt, as he was lifted to safety.[1]
