The Solar War

by John French

  ‘They have seen us,’ called an officer.

  Jubal Khan read the shock in the humans before he saw the data. The orders that came from his lips did so without hesitation.

  ‘To the wind,’ he said.

  The Lance of Heaven’s engines flared to blue heat and the great ship shot upwards towards the descending armada. The three ships ­riding with it kicked forwards at its side. Thrusters fired down each of the four ships’ lengths, punching them into spiral paths.

  Signals reached back towards their kindred fleets circling the sun and rippled towards Terra.

  ‘Enemy sensors have multiple firing solutions,’ came the call across the Lance of Heaven’s bridge. ‘Approaching estimated maximum weapon range.’

  ‘Choose the mark, and send the call,’ said Jubal, his voice level and calm. A second later the image of a single ship at the front of the armada flickered to being in a cone of holo-light. It was a cruiser, large but not one of the monstrous vessels that rode at its side.

  This was how they lived as warriors, how their primarch and their forebears had fought on Chogoris – the marking of an enemy warrior in the first rank as battle was joined. Not a general, for a strong enemy would never let the arrows hit home, but not a soul without consequence either. The first kill had to be noted by the great, and awe those that followed.

  Jubal watched the marked and chosen ship grow as auspex and cogitators parsed its identity. It was the Fourfold Wolf, a Legion vessel taken as a prize by the XVI when they were but the Luna Wolves. A good mark. A worthy kill.

  Jubal rose, his guandao in his hand. He felt the judder of his ship beneath him as the spirit of its engines called out in fire. On the command screens he saw the enemy horde draw closer, reaching out and out to the edge of sight. A cloud. A storm come from beyond a dark horizon. He realised he was smiling.

  ‘Loose,’ he said.

  Torpedoes burned free of each of the White Scars ships, running straight and true towards the Fourfold Wolf.

  ‘They have range to us!’ called an officer.

  ‘Wheel,’ said Jubal. The Lance of Heaven and its escorts cut their engines for an instant, fired thrusters and flipped over. Their engines ignited again, blazing as they drained power from every other system.

  The lights on the bridge of the Lance of Heaven dimmed. Jubal listened to the rhythm of voice and machine as the Fourfold Wolf realised what was about to happen and tried to turn aside from the torpedoes converging on it. It fired its thrusters, but it was going too fast. The torpedoes slid through its shields like iron arrows through cloth. Red fire blossomed, then grew. It pushed forwards for a moment, its momentum carrying it on even as the explosions sent it tumbling. The ships riding close to it tried to pull clear. Then its guts opened to the void, a red-and-orange flower of light.

  ‘The first cut,’ said Jubal to himself, still smiling.

  Strike Frigate Lachrymae, Trans-Plutonian Gulf

  Fire wrapped Pluto. When the enemy had come to the gates of Terra before, they had come hidden under a cloak of lies. The Alpha Legion had bloodied the orbits of Pluto through deception before they were turned black. This time the defences stood ready, and those that wanted to pull them down had come openly, and with overwhelming might.

  Thousands of warships spun through the void around Pluto. Engagements of hundreds of vessels formed, coagulating in fire and then dissolving back into the dark. The Khthonic Gate itself had been lost to the invaders days before. In the end it had simply been a question of numbers. The attackers lost ships, but for every hull left as molten debris, many more came to replace it.

  The waves of enemy vessels increasingly bore the mark of the warp and the wounds of old battles. Great troop carriers and gun-galleys, their hulls bleeding from the touch of daemons, their vox-transmitters droning unwords. Bit by bit they had enveloped the planet’s orbits. Sigismund’s First Sphere defences were now surrounded, the void on every side swimming with enemies. But the defences held. The Imperial Fists ships that remained moved and fought without cease as the space they cut through grew smaller and smaller.

  The enemy had taken Nix and Charon, and since then the fortress-moons had been firing at each other as they turned around their parent. Battles both small and large had burned hot, lighting the defences with fire. Even as Horus’ forces overran the moons, they found their warrens of passages laced with traps. Key systems failed. On Nix, the plasma conduits running to a quarter of the surface batteries fused and ruptured. On Charon, a cohort of murder-servitors poured into the corridors from oubliettes in the walls and floors.

  But the traitors too had sown seeds of treachery before them. And on the moons and stations still held by the defenders, those seeds blossomed. On gun-studded Kerberos, a senior officer of the Solar Auxilia walked into a communications control room and fired a digital plasma weapon into the primary targeting cogitation cluster before turning the weapon on himself. On Hydra, viral and nerve agent reservoirs, planted in atmosphere scrubbers during the Alpha Legion attack months before, laced the air in the lower vaults with death.

  And on the dance of fire went in the dark without, ever changing, never ceasing. Lance beams tens of thousands of kilometres long flicked between the ships and the fortified moons of Pluto. Millions of tons of munitions poured out of the guns of Kerberos. Explosions blossomed in the dark, growing, fading and lighting again.

  The ships of the First Sphere moved amongst the fortress-moons and Pluto. They powered from engagement to engagement, doing enough to hold the enemy back for a few more hours and then moving on. They had another purpose, too. Bit by bit they were stripping the defences of munitions and troops. It had been long-planned, and the details kept secret, but there were eyes amongst the defenders of Pluto who watched for the Warmaster, and soon the enemy would know that every Space Marine and primary line unit was gone from the fortresses.

  The only hope was that they would not know what it meant.

  On the bridge of the Lachrymae, Sigismund’s hands were tight on the hilt of his drawn sword. Soot, blood and the scars of battle marked his armour. Dozens of oath papers hung from his pauldrons. Some had been half burned away, others were new, the words on the parchment freshly inked.

  In the duty I do, I will be unflinching.

  In the deeds I must do, I will be resolved.

  Though I walk in darkness, I will not falter nor turn aside…

  On the words marched. He had written them himself in the years before this moment, had mixed the ink with the grave-ash of the dead that had fallen. They were the oaths already made, carried with him to this moment and all the moments that would come after.

  Before his eyes, a cluster of nova shells struck Kerberos, stuttered and howled as they burst void shields and tore the skin from half a kilometre of the fortress-moon’s face.

  ‘Fleet strength at sixty-five per cent, and holding,’ said Boreas. The holo­lith of the First Lieutenant had remained silent at Sigismund’s side for the last few hours as the Lachrymae had manoeuvred into place. Every part of the fleet needed to be at a precise location and on a precise vector, and the purpose behind all of it needed to remain hidden from the enemy. It was an act of will as much as skill at arms. Under the hand of any other Legion besides the VII it would have been all but impossible.

  ‘The moment is coming,’ said Boreas.

  Sigismund shook his head after a long pause.

  ‘It is here,’ he said. ‘This is the tipping point. Any more, and there will be nothing left.’

  Sigismund closed his eyes for a moment, his gauntlet tightening on his sword.

  ‘There is time to signal Terra to confirm the order, my lord.’

  ‘This is the will of the Praetorian, of our…’ He paused, hearing again the wind blow across the Investiary as Rogal Dorn looked down at him.

  ‘I am not your father!’ the primarch had roared. ‘You
are not my son,’ he said quietly. ‘And no matter what your future holds, you never will be.’

  ‘… of our father,’ Sigismund continued. ‘It will be done.’

  Boreas bowed his head.

  ‘Of course. But there are other ways. We could–’

  ‘We are not made to question, brother,’ said Sigismund, and heard the edge in his voice, the echo of words that had cut him from every­thing he had ever valued and ever known. He breathed out, and his voice when he spoke again was lower. ‘Our duty now is to obey, to be loyal to the last. No matter the cost, no matter the deeds to which we must turn our hands.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Boreas.

  Sigismund nodded. He looked back to where a spearhead of enemy ships thrust towards Kerberos. The moon’s surface was still writhing with the light of the nova strikes. Beyond the curve of Pluto, Nix was coming into alignment. Flashes pinpricked the fallen moon’s face as it began to fire on its sibling.

  Sigismund turned from the view. ‘As soon as Kerberos falls, send the signal. Full withdrawal, all ships to burn towards the system core.’ He felt the words form bitterly on his tongue. ‘Signal Terra. Pluto has fallen.’

  Battle-barge War Oath, Supra-Solar Gulf

  ‘Take it, boy.’

  The man’s face crawled with flame-light and shadows. Scar tissue had swallowed his left eye, and his breath reeked of meat and still-liquor as he leant in.

  ‘Take it,’ he hissed again, holding out the bone-handled knife. The light of the fires burning in the beaten bowls around the cave stained the polished blade orange and red. The old man moved even closer. His hair was crimson and bound high into a topknot that fell between his shoulders. Muscle covered his shoulders, less than it had in his youth, but still enough to fill his frame. Fire-charred armour covered his chest, iron kill-rings darkened his fingers and mirror-coins clinked on long strings as he moved. Further back, against the cave wall, the throng of warriors that called this man lord stood, silent and watching.

  The boy looked past the old man at the four figures kneeling on the floor. A warrior stood behind each of them holding the chains wound around their necks. There was Gul, her shoulders heaving as she fought to keep herself controlled. Her hands were shaking, and the blackened mirror-coins braided into her hair clinked. Anyone who did not know her might have said it was fear. It was not. It was her trying to contain her rage. Kars was unmoving beside her, long limbs drawn up close, his ragged blond hair hanging over his face. He glanced up, bright blue eyes flashing for an instant before the guard shoved his head back down. Dask looked asleep, his boulder head sunk low on his chest. Graidon was twitching, his fingers flexing as they felt for his knives.

  ‘Take it, Abaddon,’ said the old man who was his sire, then leaned in again to whisper. ‘Do not fail me, boy. You are to be a king. This is the price of crowns and thrones.’ He gripped Abaddon’s hand, placed the blade. ‘Learn to pay it now.’

  His father stepped back. Abaddon looked down at the four who had run with him in the years of his childhood. They had saved his life, he theirs. He knew their laughter and their voices as well as he knew his own. Gul had taught him to trust, and Graidon to lie. Bonded companions, kin by blood oaths, they had grown with him, made him; they were a part of him as much as the hand that now held the knife.

  ‘Now hear, now see,’ called Sekridalla the crone from where she stood behind his father. Soot covered her bald head and arms. Rust powder rimmed her eyes. White ash marked the palms she held up to the shadowed ceiling. ‘At this time, at this place, under the eyes of all, by blood and by right does this son of the Iron Cord come of age. He returns from the time before birth, from the lightless pools and by bloody hand takes his place amongst us. See him as he approaches. Watch his red hand rise.’

  Abaddon looked at the four kneeling on the cave floor. His hand flexed on the bone hilt of the knife. He took a step forwards, level with his father. The old man’s eyes were dark, their edges arcs of reflected firelight. Abaddon could feel the instant grow taut. He turned his head slowly and looked at his father.

  ‘I do not want to be a king,’ he said, and rammed the knife up into the old man’s gut.

  He opened his eyes.

  ‘Fire,’ he said.

  The War Oath roared as the ash-white ships came to meet it. Prow batteries fired. A pulsing spear of plasma caught a frigate and exploded its hull an instant after its shields collapsed. Blasts of energy chased the other White Scars ships even as they turned and burned back into the night.

  ‘Why do they do it?’ said Zardu Layak. ‘They are insects trying to eat a leviathan. What foolish hope burns in their hearts that they come again and again?’

  Abaddon did not answer, but turned to the tech-adept who governed the ship’s communications. The creature was wired into a column of oil-slicked metal. Cables swathed what remained of its features, and a vox plugged the area of its mouth. It reeked of static and spoiled meat.

  ‘Signal to the rest of the fleet to maintain course and speed.’

  The cable-wrapped creature began a clicking acknowledgement, but Abaddon was already moving towards the doors off the bridge. Behind him, the ship’s guns still chased the White Scars craft across the holo-displays and targeting screens.

  He heard the steps of Layak and his bodyguards follow him, and felt anger rise. He stepped from the buzz of the bridge into the gloom and silence of the adjoining atrium. A dome of armourglass and iron capped the open space above – a typical mark of its Imperial Fists makers. The flare of the War Oath’s guns glinted across the starscape beyond.

  ‘You do not watch the engagement,’ stated Layak, still following. Abaddon did not reply, but strode on. There would be a council before the armada divided, and he would need to be ready for that. Every detail of each ship that was going into each fleet lived in his head. It would be simple to trust that all would happen as it must, but that was not how one made war. For as much as victory lived in the sword swing and the death of enemies, it lived too in the preparation of forces, the harnessing of leaders and the measuring of plans. Chosen from amongst his brothers for this task, Abaddon was neither a butcher nor driven by melancholic fatalism. He was a supreme warlord amongst warlords, and that reputation rested as much on his skill as a general as it did the edge of his sword.

  He heard Layak and his two bodyguards halt behind him. He did not pause in his stride towards the door at the far end of the atrium.

  ‘You are never guarded,’ called Layak.

  The words made Abaddon frown, and he slowed and then stopped, turning to look slowly from Layak to the two Word Bearers that followed him everywhere. They never removed their helms, nor spoke. Both wore sheathed swords at their waists. Blade slaves, that was what some called them. Like everything about the Word Bearers, the reek of the warp hung over them like foetor over rotten meat. Layak tilted his head. The red eyes running down the cheeks of his mask were glowing coals under the starlight.

  ‘You have no personal guard,’ said Layak, as though resuming a conversation that had merely been interrupted rather than never having started. ‘Even the Warmaster has his Justaerin, but you, who are his sword hand, walk alone.’

  Abaddon returned Layak’s stare for a long moment, then looked slowly between each of the blade slaves. One of them tilted its head slowly in echo of his master.

  ‘I am not alone,’ said Abaddon, and turned to walk away again. ‘I am never alone.’

  ‘You dislike my presence and my questions,’ said Layak.

  ‘You have found a truth, priest,’ growled Abaddon.

  ‘You dislike me very much, do you not?’ he said at last.

  Abaddon smiled coldly.

  ‘On that we agree.’

  ‘I am a servant of the same ends and masters that we all serve. In that we are brothers.’

  Abaddon held his gaze steady, his body utterly still
.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You are a dog that smells the meat of a kill made by its betters. The carrion eater does not call the wolf brother.’

  ‘Who is the wolf and who is the carrion eater?’ asked Layak. Abaddon thought he saw the iron fangs of Layak’s mask flex, as though the metal itself were breathing. He felt the anger rise then, felt it wash against the ice of his will. One of the blade slaves shifted forwards.

  No, he thought. This shall not pass.

  He made as if to turn away, but then snapped back, closing the distance to the three Word Bearers in an eye-blink of surging muscle and armour. He was wearing standard battleplate rather than the jet-black Terminator armour of the Justaerin elite. His only weapon was a short-bladed gladius hung at his waist. He drew the blade as he charged. The power field lit with a snap of lightning. Layak was moving back, staff spinning to a guard in his hands.

  The blade slaves were faster. Much faster. Both drew their swords. Cracks ran up their arms. Fire and ashes poured from the splits in their armour, as their forms bloated. The swords stretched in their grasps, fusing with the hands that drew them, dragging light and shadow to them as they sliced out.

  Abaddon saw the first blow come, ducked under it and lashed his blade into the base of the sword where it melded with the arm. Blood scattered, blackening to ash as it fell. The sword screamed, and twisted to strike like a snake, but Abaddon was already pivoting to meet the cut of its twin as it lashed towards his head.

  Others that had fought him would have said that he was fast, beyond even the speed common to one of his transhuman breed. That missed the real truth, though. There were others amongst the great warriors who were faster: Jubal Khan, Sigismund, Lucius, Sevatar – even the fool Loken. It was not that Abaddon was fast; it was that he did not think of speed, of parry and riposte, of attack and defence. Living or dying did not matter. Bloodshed did not matter. His life did not matter. All that mattered was victory. That made him more than fast, more than skilled. It made him death.