Nzogwu’s team gathered in the warehouse’s stock-filing annex. Darkness was beginning to fall outside, the room’s shattered skylight admitting the sound of commuter trams and haulage units making their final journeys of the day. Even indoors the air was heavy with the musk of weave-grain pollen and freshly tanned ux horn leather, the scents of an Imperial agri world approaching the height of its harvest season, ripe on the evening breeze.
Nzogwu was late, as was Welt. The rest of the retinue were seated on benches and desks facing a projection beamed by the inquisitor’s servo-skull, all except Tibalt, who was watching the warehouse’s front door.
‘How is it?’ Rannik asked Damar, taking a seat next to him. The former Guardsman glanced morosely at his bandaged arm.
‘I’ve had worse.’
‘Makes a change from sifting through silos of grain chaff at least,’ Rannik said. ‘I was starting to think I’d never get to rack that shotgun slide ever again.’
Damar said nothing. He had been surly ever since the shootout. It was his usual response to having his life saved by Rannik. He claimed it was an Arbites-Militarum rivalry issue, but Rannik suspected he just still hadn’t got used to other people saving his life, especially a thirty-year-old woman. She left him brooding and went to talk to Ro. The tech-adept was running a maintenance scan over the servo-skull, murmuring to it in lingua-technis. He nodded to Rannik as she leaned against the bench next to him.
‘Good evening, Miss Rannik.’
‘Hello, Cogs.’ She gestured at the skull as its projection beam flickered. ‘How frecked is it?’
‘I’m still scanning,’ Ro said quietly. He was the youngest member of the retinue, still a long way from the machine-dominance the members of the Adeptus Mechanicus aspired to. He would have been handsome too, his angular features and brown, almond-shaped eyes distorted only by the cortical implants grafted into the side of his skull. He seemed to have an issue with Rannik, though – whenever she approached him directly he would grow quiet and furtive. She put it down to general tech-priest social difficulties, but Damar joked that it was something more.
‘Joining us for the retaliation strike, then?’ she asked him, half teasing.
Ro shrugged. It was amusing seeing an adept of Mars still able to affect such human responses.
‘I will perform whatever task the inquisitor deems suitable.’
‘Ever shot someone before, Cogs?’
‘You are aware I have now, Miss Rannik. You have asked me that on six different occasions previously.’
‘Just looking forward to your first time, Ro. I bet you’ve got one of those rad carbines stashed somewhere. They can do some damage.’
‘I do not, Miss Rannik. Just my Stygies Mark Three laspistol.’
‘Leave the machine kid alone, woman,’ Janus snapped. ‘I want that damn skull of his fixed.’
‘Eyes not what they once were, old man? You’ll be a servo-skull yourself soon enough.’
Janus’ retort was cut off by the sound of the annex door opening. It was Nzogwu. His expression was grim.
‘Ten minutes more,’ he said, before addressing Rannik individually.
‘Outside.’
The arbitrator joined Nzogwu back out on the main warehouse floor. Her spirits had plummeted the moment she had seen his expression.
‘News?’ she asked.
‘From Legate Frain,’ Nzogwu confirmed. ‘He’s picked up the trail again.’
‘Where?’
‘Hypasitis. A crypt-world near the Ocularis Terribus.’
‘What sort of trail?’
‘For now, it looks like an etching record. Part of the funerary monuments dedicated to those who resisted one of the Throne-damned Black Crusades. The information comes from one of his own agents operating out of Damara. Seems like it was a chance discovery while purging secessionists in the Kelebari subsector.’
‘It’s cold then,’ Rannik said. ‘No direct leads. Just old fragments.’
‘No, but the description is good enough to warrant immediate attention. It’s part of the puzzle, and until all the pieces are in place we won’t be able to truly see them for what they are. When we do, the resources we will be able to bring to bear will make all this worth it.’
‘You’re reassigning me, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. Does that disappoint you?’
Rannik paused to consider her answer. Seven months they had spent on Kora, tracking the subtle scents of heresy through weave-grain silos and ux horn pens, tracing back-room deals and corrupt Administratum tithings. Now the shooting was finally getting started and she was being sent away, literally on the eve of the first combat raid since the start of the investigation. After seven months of stifling agri-collective life, it stung to get pulled at the pivotal moment.
And yet…
‘You’re still having the nightmares,’ Nzogwu murmured.
Rannik nodded, saying nothing. They had been her constant companion for the past decade, drenching her dreams in blood, stalking her with darkness and razor grins and black, pitiless eyes. She would wake up screaming, shaking, sweating, reaching for the weapon she kept by her side at all times. Sometimes the horrors persisted after they had any right to, intruding into wakefulness, and she would imagine a pale spectre looming in the corner of her sleep cell, silent, unmoving, watching her, ready at any moment to explode into a savage, slaughterous frenzy.
‘I’ll go,’ she said.
‘Operation basics,’ Nzogwu said, handing her a data-slate. ‘I’ll have more for you after the briefing. There’s a grain hauler leaving from Saint Dorfin’s tonight. Welt is getting you a transport. Take my seal.’
‘Who’s the pickup?’ Rannik asked, slipping the slate into the rear pocket of her fatigues.
‘An archivist named Sozel. I’m sending word ahead to Frain to make sure he knows where to find you. I suspect he’ll send Vex as the intermediary.’
‘I understand. What should I expect when I get there?’
‘If memory serves, a miserable, grey, wind-blasted tomb world. Beyond that I don’t know. Sozel or Vex should be able to set you up with local resources.’
‘I’ll send word as soon as I’m able,’ Rannik said.
Nzogwu placed a hand on her shoulder, dark eyes holding her gaze.
‘I wish I was going as well.’
‘I’ll make sure you don’t have to. Hopefully you’re right. Hopefully this is the piece of the puzzle we’ve been waiting for.’
+ + Final vox-log of Imperial tithe freighter Solar Wind + + +
+ + Transmitting from the Inax System + + +
+ + Date stamp, 6093755.M41 + + +
+ + Traitor? No, captain, you are mistaken. We are not traitors. I have only ever had one loyalty, to the brothers you see before you, the ones who stormed your bridge and will momentarily relieve you of the supplies you carry.
Maybe it does look like treachery to you. Maybe you actually believe warriors like me – the pinnacle of gene-bred evolution in the galaxy – truly exist only to protect your pitiful life. Maybe you do not know of the others. There are far darker beings out there than those you see before you, captain. Ones as ancient as us, but enslaved to powers beyond your reckoning. We are not them. We will not tear out your soul and feed it to daemons, or bind you to nightmares made flesh. We’ll just kill you.
Maybe we are renegades then, yes. But traitors? Never. Our loyalty has always been to ourselves. I am an Ashen Claw, and I belong to the Ashen Claws, as does your ship, your cargo and your entire crew.
Transmission ends + + +
+ + Logged by Deep Void Listening Post Gamma-16-8, 5939795.M41 + + +
+ + Status of tithe disappearance investigation: still pending… + + +
_________ Chapter III
The ships of the Carcharodon Astra’s Third Company fleet rose from th
e depths of the warp like leviathans surging into the shallows, grey vessels trailing streams of etheric ectoplasm and shafts of purple lightning in their wake. On board the White Maw the silence that usually reigned over the coral-clad bridge was lost amidst the High Gothic chanting of the transitional choir, their ranks swathed in the sickly sweet miasma of incense being swung from cherubim auto-censers. Real space re-entry was always one of the most dangerous times for any ship, the point when the denizens of the warp tried more desperately than ever to pierce its Geller field and snatch away the souls on board before they escaped the empyrean’s grasp. The Chapter’s immortal enemies were clawing and shrieking in the minds of every member of the fleet as they broke free.
Nor were the daemons of the immaterium the only threat. A ship was most vulnerable to corporeal foes in the precious minutes it took to readjust to reality. Every vessel of the fleet was cleared for action as they ripped their way into the Atargatis System, while the Third Company had woken from their cryo-slumber and stood armed and armoured for battle. Sharr, clad in his relic battleplate and with his great chainaxe, Reaper, in one fist, stood beside the coral command throne of the White Maw’s shipmaster, Teko. On the other side of the throne were Te Kahurangi and Khauri, while next to them loomed Korro’s dire bulk, his helmet once more locked in place. The rest of the Third Company’s strike leaders were gathered around the bridge’s holochart below the throne’s dais, eyes on the flickering green display as it came online with updates from the augur array’s returns.
Those returns painted a bleak picture. Aeons before, two of Atargatis’ worlds had collided, shattering into countless fragments and leaving the system a broken, desolate place, choked with shards of dead rock and blasted by cruel, radioactive solar winds. The ruination panned across the fuzzy, sea-green display of the holochart, devoid of life signals or artificial energy returns. It was a miserable realm, ruled by a decrepit red star, without natural resources and far from habitable space. A perfect haunt for pirates, renegades and worse.
‘Warp time variance update,’ Teko reported as more of his ship’s real space systems came online, lighting up the displays on the panels surrounding his throne. ‘The date is 6993885.M41. We are on schedule and are within a five per cent range of our predicted ingress coordinates.’
‘Testimony to your skills and those of Navigator Korwin,’ Sharr said. ‘There are no contacts registering with the sensorium display?’
‘No, captain. We’re still updating, but there are no immediate threats in range. No contacts at all, for that matter.’
‘Set a course for Atargatis Prime,’ Sharr told the shipmaster. ‘Mark three on the engines, keep it slow and steady. And route all power from the weapons batteries to the shields, fore and aft. Transmit the same orders to the rest of the fleet. Maintain our defensive formation.’
‘Understood, captain,’ Teko said, not questioning his commander’s orders. It was an unusual way to approach the heart of any system – while routing energies from the White Maw’s weapons to reinforce the shields would leave the ship well protected, it would also mean they were unable to strike back against any potential ambusher. The unhurried pace of their new course would also negate the speed advantage enjoyed by Adeptus Astartes fleets – it would take time to bring the plasma drives up to full capacity if they were suddenly required.
These were calculated risks. From now on every action would meet with a reaction.
‘We are being watched,’ Te Kahurangi said. ‘I can feel it.’
‘Maintain heading,’ Sharr said firmly. ‘And keep scanning.’
The first contact came four hours after their arrival in-system. There were three in quick succession, hard returns that materialised from behind the bulk of the system’s barren fourth planet. They lit up the holochart and Teko’s displays, and caused an alarm bell to start chiming somewhere.
‘Escort ships,’ Teko said, eyes scanning his throne’s projection readouts. ‘Imperial design, Sword-class. Refitted for speed. Their current course will bring them in across our T-section in under half an hour.’
‘Identity?’ Sharr demanded.
‘No returns. Their keel tags have been wiped.’
‘Vox contact?’
‘Communications channels are all closed.’
‘Maintain current speed and heading.’
‘Understood, captain.’
Ten minutes later a second trio of unmarked escorts – Cobra-class this time – emerged from system debris close to the wreckage that had once been Atargatis’ third planet.
‘Coming up on the starboard side of the Void Revenant,’ Teko reported. ‘They’ll be in range at the same time as the Swords.’
‘Acknowledged. Maintain course.’
Most other fleet commanders would have hesitated at such an order. It was quite clear that the Third Company’s warships were advancing into an ambush. The system’s sprawling debris and jagged radiation flares made concealing hard returns a simple matter, and the deeper the fleet progressed into the system’s ruined core, the more it exposed itself to being outflanked and surrounded.
Still the Carcharodons held steady. Sharr had already briefed the fleet commanders and his strike leaders thoroughly, and most had experienced an Atargatis welcome before, almost three decades earlier. The masters of this broken system would have been aware of their arrival the moment they broke from the warp. In a sense, negotiations had already begun.
‘Third contact set,’ Teko reported. ‘This one has a return.’
Sharr’s eyes were on the readouts. Another vessel was emerging onto the display viewscreens, this time from behind the bulk of Atargatis Prime itself. Unlike the previous contacts though, this one was a capital ship. And going by the readouts, it was vast.
‘Infernus-class battleship,’ Teko said. ‘Logged from the Great Crusade era as the Wicked Claw. Primary command vessel of the Raven Guard’s Eighteenth Chapter.’
‘Flagship of the Ashen Claws,’ Te Kahurangi added.
‘Put it on the pict screens,’ Sharr ordered.
The bank of display panels rigged above the bridge’s viewing port blinked online, fuzzed with static that eventually resolved into the magnified view being picked up from the White Maw’s prow. Teko focused in on the ship moving ponderously towards them from Atargatis Prime, framed by the planet’s barren, grey sphere.
It was a monster. The Infernus class of battleship had been out of commission since the days of the Heresy, one of a number of vessels considered too powerful to be left in the hands of any single commander. The Ashen Claws had clearly preserved theirs, and now it rose towards the Carcharodons fleet. The red light of Atargatis’ grim star picked out its weapons towers, crenellations and macrocannon-studded flanks, the arching crest of its bridge block and, most fearsome of all, the vast, spinal-mounted exo-laser battery that ran down its length. The Wicked Claw was larger even than the Nicor, itself a holdover from the days of the Heresy, and it dwarfed the White Maw. It was a weapon of terrible destructive presence, and it was advancing on a collision course.
Sharr had witnessed it before. The Third Company’s previous expedition to Atargatis, three decades earlier, had been similarly greeted. It was a power play, pure and simple. Even without the escorts hemming in the fleet’s flanks, or the additional craft following in the Wicked Claw’s wake, the great Infernus could have destroyed every one of the ships intruding into its desolate realm.
‘Orders, captain?’ Teko asked, eyes fixed on the approaching monster.
‘Unchanged,’ Sharr said. ‘Maintain heading and current speed.’
The silence that followed his words did not last long. Teko’s hand went up to his earpiece, and several of his displays lit up.
‘Word from the communication pits,’ he told Sharr. ‘We are receiving a vox transmission from the Wicked Claw.’
‘Link to my personal vox and put it on th
e main speakers,’ Sharr ordered. A moment later the vox-horns slung from the communications gantry overhead came online. There was a moment of static, before a voice, broad and bass, came through.
‘Are you lost, little predators?’
Sharr exchanged a glance with Te Kahurangi before speaking.
‘I am Bail Sharr, Reaper Prime and captain of the Third Company of the Carcharodon Astra,’ he replied.
‘I asked you a question, mongrel.’
‘No. We are not lost.’
‘Then why have you returned? You know there must be death because of it.’
‘We always return for the same reason,’ Sharr said. ‘This time is no different.’
‘You are a fool to come back after the last time,’ the voice replied. ‘I could annihilate you with a word.’
‘You could,’ Sharr allowed. ‘But in doing so you would also destroy the cargo we carry, cargo that is of great value to the Ashen Claws.’
There was a moment’s silence. When the voice spoke again it was brusque.
‘Your escorts will change course immediately and withdraw to an anchorage above Atargatis Four, where they will remain. Your strike cruiser will proceed under our own escort to a fixed location in Atargatis Prime’s high orbit. We are transmitting the coordinates to you now. You will keep your gun ports closed and your weapons systems deactivated at all times. Is this understood?’
‘It is,’ Sharr agreed.
‘Landing protocols will be made available when you arrive in orbit, and the rest of your fleet has departed. If you were wise, you would turn back now.’
‘If I turned back now, I would not be a son of the Forgotten One.’
‘You dishonour his name. We have not forgotten him.’
‘And yet you no longer serve him. We do.’
‘Perhaps. We will find that out soon enough, Carcharodon.’
‘He’s broken the link,’ Teko said, as the vox-horns degenerated back into static.
‘Issue the following orders to all escorts,’ Sharr said. ‘New course to be set for Atargatis Four’s high orbit. Hold defensive formation but ensure that weapons systems remain offline at all times. Once they have acknowledged, lock in a new heading for the White Maw using whatever coordinates they provide.’
Carcharodons: Outer Dark Page 5
