by Andy Hoare
‘Come on,’ she breathed, shaking Naal’s shoulders in frustration. She knew that the guards might return any moment, and the conflagration still guttering at the end of Cell Block Eta might trigger a real alarm and bring damage control parties down upon them. ‘Come on, Naal, fight!’
‘My lady… I’m…’ Naal’s voice was weak, but Brielle felt overcome with relief as she saw movement return to his limbs.
‘Don’t speak,’ she replied, standing while lending him a hand in doing likewise. ‘We have to leave, right now.’
With a last glance over her shoulder before leaving, Brielle saw that the fire that had consumed the inquisitor was beginning to spread. She looked around and saw the console that controlled the locking mechanisms for the entire detention block. She slammed her fist down upon the master lock release, hearing the cell doors in each of the blocks swing upon.
Seeing the tau prisoners stir, she drew a breath and yelled. ‘If you’re coming, follow me!’ Whether or not they could understand her, she saw that the prisoners were responding, creeping through the shadows to join her.
With that, she hitched an arm behind Naal’s back, lending him what support she could as his strength returned, and left the detention block as fire and smoke engulfed it.
Chapter Five
Lucian winced as a titanic grinding echoed the length of the Oceanid’s drive service deck, the sound of the fleet tender Harlot being made safe alongside, her docking clamps grasping the Oceanid’s holding points with immense force. A glance to his side told him that Korvane had the same reaction, a poor indictment of the quality of the crews of the crusade’s auxiliary vessels.
‘Heave, you worthless scum!’
Lucian grinned as the petty officers below bellowed their orders to the press-ganged ratings crowding the service deck, each hauling on the mighty chains that secured the docking clamps.
‘Well enough,’ Lucian said, turning to the red-robed tech-priest at his side. ‘Commence the operation.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ the adept replied, mechadendrites snaking from his back, the grasping claws of each arm operating a lever on the consoles mounted all around the gallery.
Lucian watched as the toiling crews below completed their work, and the petty officers corralled the cursing men from the service deck. The area below the gallery from which Lucian and Korvane observed was a vast, spheroid chamber, dominated in the centre by a mighty column from floor to ceiling that resembled nothing less than a vast stalactite grown so huge it had merged with the stalagmites below. Pipes and valves dominated the column’s every surface, clouds of steam and other exhaust gases venting from spitting valves, rivulets of run-off pouring down its flanks to pool in great steaming, oily lakes across the deck.
‘I’ve always hated this,’ Lucian said, his son nodding in agreement with his words. Of all the practicalities of void faring, replenishing the warp drives had always been the task he loathed the most. It was quite unlike the taking on of the fuel required by the Oceanid’s myriad plasma generators, although thankfully, it was only rarely required. With the imminent crossing of the Damocles Gulf, all of the crusade’s capital vessels had been replenished, with only the rogue trader vessels remaining to be tended.
The wailing of a siren filled the deck, accompanied a moment later by a low crash of the Harlot’s umbilical probe locking with the service deck’s airlock. Warning lights flashed red as the airlock equalised, atmosphere venting from its release valves in angry plumes. Lucian watched intently, for he knew what to expect next. He heard Korvane mumble a low spacefarer’s prayer, an imprecation against the perils of the warp, and all the dangers that awaited those who would cross it.
A low rumble filled the service deck, and the airlock’s armoured door rose, a cloud of thick mist escaping, to creep across the deck. As the door receded into the bulkhead above, Lucian could just make out the silhouettes within.
A droning canticle emanated from the airlock, as a number of figures emerged from the mist. Soon, a column was snaking its way across the service deck, a funereal procession, the mourners carrying upon their shoulders great lead caskets glittering with etheric frost. Those figures were, even to Lucian who had seen some horrific sights in his time, disturbing in the extreme. Each wore long robes of woven, gunmetal grey metallic thread, and thick, lead gloves upon his hands. The robes were dotted with valves, to which long, pulsing cables were attached, each coiling behind the bearer to disappear into the airlock behind. The head of each bearer was bared, but his eyes, ears, nose and mouth were fitted with the same valves that covered his body. Forcing himself to look closer, Lucian could see that the bearers’ hands, though protected by the thick mitts, gave off an oily smoke, as did the side of the face of each bearer that was closest to the casket he shouldered. Small, humanoid creatures walked at the side of each bearer, vat-grown cyber-constructs, mono-tasked to the whims of their masters.
The contents of each coffin-shaped casket was evidently hazardous in the extreme, for Lucian could see, even from the gallery on which he and Korvane stood, the flesh of each bearer slowly cooking, sloughing from his face to reveal muscle and bone beneath.
As the procession wound its course across the curved deck below, Lucian watched the tech-adepts of his own crew as they worked upon the many dials and levers mounted around the base of the great column at the centre of the chamber. Lucian knew that the tech-priests would have prepared long and hard for their task, for it was the most perilous operation a vessel could undertake, including, Lucian mused, actual combat. The consequences of a mishap were scarcely worth considering, and would cost Lucian and his crew far more than their ship and their lives.
The procession neared the column, and Lucian could see that the body of each bearer was beginning to disintegrate as time wore on, the pulsing of the hundreds of cables snaking behind growing more rapid as, Lucian presumed, some alchemical concoction that prolonged life was fed to them. He mumbled a prayer, as Korvane had minutes before, seeing the open distaste on his son’s face.
The scene became even more ghastly as the first of the caskets neared the column. It’s bearers visibly staggered beneath what must have been a terrible weight to bear. Singed matter trailed behind the bearers, great chunks of burnt flesh having detached from their limbs as they walked, only the ministrations of the horrific machinery keeping them animated as their bodies, quite literally, fell apart. The small attendants gathered the burnt remains into heavy chests carried between some of their number.
At the last, the bearers of the lead casket lifted their burden high upon arms almost bare of flesh. The casket was pushed forward into a gaping socket in the side of the column, the door of which swung wide as the Oceanid’s tech-priests pulled levers and voiced their prayers to the Machine God. With one, final heave, the bearers pushed their casket into the waiting maw, the frost encrusting it vaporising in a cloud of mist as it was slid home. With a crash, the door swung shut. The bearers collapsed, each lead robe almost entirely empty. With an obscene, sucking noise, the cables attached to the remains of each corpse tightened, before snaking back to the airlock, the small attendant gathering up the remains of each bearer, before turning back for the airlock.
‘Emperor preserve us,’ Lucian heard Korvane mutter, and turned to see that his son had developed a severe and quite spontaneous nosebleed. He touched his hand to his own nose, unsurprised to see blood upon his palm as he pulled it away.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ Lucian said, knowing that his duty as ship’s master was done by ensuring that the first of the caskets was safely received. Many more would be delivered over the next hours, but he had little desire to watch the scene he had just witnessed repeated over and over again. ‘Care for a drink?’
‘Indeed, Father, I feel I need one,’ Korvane replied, turning his back on the drive service deck.
Lucian and his son passed through the warren of the Oceanid’s companionways, trying to avoid the are
as most crowded by work crews going about the business of preparing the vessel for the crossing of the Damocles Gulf.
‘The last intake.’ Korvane asked, ‘Have they given you any trouble?’
Lucian chuckled as he watched a gang of ratings struggle to seal a defective plasma run, which, fortunately for them, had been bypassed lest they fail in their task and incinerate themselves in the process. ‘Well, Craven’s Landing provided some veteran crews, not surprising considering the trouble the port’s had with the chartists.’
‘And what of the Kleist intake?’ Korvane asked.
‘There weren’t many left, after Gurney’s courts,’ Lucian replied, his mood darkening at his son’s mention of the Cardinal of Brimlock. ‘Just the dregs whose executions were commuted to service. What of the Rosetta?’
‘The Arrikis Epsilon intake settled down well,’ Korvane replied, referring to the massive draft of unskilled crew that the rogue traders had demanded from the Imperial Commander of that world, replacements for the hundreds of casualties Korvane’s crew had suffered in battle weeks before. ‘There’re a handful that have made bridge crew, and one or two potential officers amongst them.’
‘Hmm,’ replied Lucian, distracted by the actions of the repair crew as they toiled with the plasma run. He saw that they were making a total hash of their work and their overseer was proving entirely inadequate in his role.
‘You!’ Lucian bellowed, the work crew and every other crewman in the area standing to immediate attention. He advanced upon the petty officer in charge of the crew, gratified to see that the man had the decency to go pale at his master’s approach.
‘What the hell are you trying to achieve here? You’ve got a dozen unskilled men screwing up a job that a pair of acolytes could complete to perfection in under an hour. Well?’
‘Sir,’ the man stammered, his uncertainty and fear evident in his voice. ‘Sir, the adepts are all engaged on the drive service deck, sir. We were ordered to secure this plasma run as a matter of urgency though, and we…’
‘For the Emperor’s sake,’ Lucian cursed, ‘I’m afflicted by fools in all quarters.’ Frustration rose within him as he considered that, even though the rogue traders’ fortunes had improved in the wake of the encounters in the Timbra sub-sector, the flotilla was still being operated at something less than ideal levels. Though his crews were now larger, Lucian knew they still had a long way to go before attaining the experience and professionalism taken for granted in the dynasty until very recently.
‘Wait until the adepts are available,’ Lucian ordered the petty officer, ‘but impress upon them the urgency of the task. If that run leaks in transit I’ll hold you, not the adepts, personally responsible. Do I make myself perfectly clear?’
The man could only nod at Lucian’s threat, knowing, as he must have done, the punishment that would await him were any malfunction to afflict the plasma relay. Lucian nodded, and the man took the hint and turned to gather his crew, who skulked off as fast as their dignity allowed.
Lucian watched the work crew retreat down the corridor, and then turned sharply on his heels to continue on his way. As he turned, he almost collided with another junior officer, a member of the bridge crew, though he could not remember the man’s name.
‘What the hell do you want?’ Lucian bawled, the deck officer standing to rigid attention.
‘Message from the bridge, my lord,’ the officer replied, his voice steady in contrast to that of the work crew overseer. ‘Visitor on board.’
‘Who?’ Lucian replied, knowing it must be someone important for the bridge to send a runner to inform him.
‘General Wendall Gauge, my lord. He awaits you in the starboard bridge receiving room.’
Lucian turned to his son, who shrugged, clearly as surprised as he was. ‘Well then,’ Lucian said to Korvane, ‘let’s see what brings the general on board, shall we?’
‘Lord Arcadius,’ the general said as Lucian entered the receiving room, Korvane following close behind. ‘Please accept my apologies for the circumstances of this visit.’ Gauge cut an imposing figure, even in the ornately decorated chamber, though Lucian noted that he appeared uncomfortable in his general staff formal dress. Gauge was broad and muscled in common with all the men of Catachan, his face scarred and dour, a dangerous glint in his steely eyes.
‘Not at all,’ Lucian replied, instantly cautious. ‘I had hoped we would have the opportunity to talk. I take it, however, that a specific matter brings you here, at this time?’
‘Indeed,’ Gauge said, turning his back on Lucian and Korvane, to look out of the brass-rimmed viewing port to the busy space beyond. After a moment of silence, the general spoke. ‘It’s bad news, Lucian, a bad business I’m afraid.’
Lucian caught his son’s glance, before crossing to the general’s side, looking out, as did his guest, upon the blackness of space and the myriad fleet service craft engaged on their apparently endless tasks.
‘Tell me,’ Lucian pressed, his mind racing to predict what council intrigue might have brought the general to his ship. He loathed the feeling of not being in complete control, of waiting upon another.
‘Inquisitor Grand, Lucian. You have not heard?’
‘Heard what?’ Lucian demanded, his frustration growing. Had the inquisitor pulled rank on the council, he wondered? Had Gurney finally convinced him to use the influence he had, to date, held in check?
‘He is wounded, badly,’ the general said, looking Lucian in the eye as he spoke.
Lucian felt sudden guilty elation at the news, tempered an instant later by the realisation that such an event might well have serious implications for them all. He turned and lifted a crystal decanter from a polished wooden side table, and poured a hefty slug for himself and another for the general.
‘How?’
Gauge took the proffered glass and downed the liquor in a single gulp. ‘He was burned, eighty percent of his body. It was a deliberate attack, in the detention block, as he attended to his prisoners.’
‘One of the tau? A break out attempt?’
‘No, although they did escape.’
‘All of them?’ Lucian could scarcely countenance that the tau might have succeeded in escaping from an accomplished agent of the Orders of the Inquisition. ‘They must have been helped. A traitor?’
‘The inquisitor’s staff believe so,’ Gauge said, helping himself to a second drink, and pouring one for Lucian too.
‘Lucian,’ the general turned to fully face his host. ‘What of Brielle?’
Lucian’s breath caught in his throat, for he had not even thought of his daughter for several hours, so busy had he and his son been with the warp drive replenishment. ‘What of her?’ he asked. Though he respected, even liked, the general, Lucian’s guard was fully up, for it was his family of which Gauge spoke.
‘Grand’s staff, Lucian. They have made certain… insinuations.’
‘Korvane?’ Lucian summoned his son. ‘Find her.’ Korvane nodded and left the room in silence, though Lucian noted a familiar glint in his son’s eye. He thought that the old sibling rivalry was rearing its head again, though Korvane’s expression grew darker each time his stepsister’s name was mentioned.
‘General,’ Lucian said, turning back to his guest, ‘please, be frank with me. I count you an honest man, and I believe we are both on the same side. I know nothing of the inquisitor, or it seems, my daughter. Tell me all.’
The general bowed slightly at Lucian’s compliment, a gesture the old veteran rarely performed. ‘Very well. As I said, the inquisitor has been assaulted, and lies in the medicae bay, even now, attended by his household apothecaries. His staff report that the prisoners are gone, and there is evidence of at least one intruder having infiltrated the detention block. Someone entered cell block Eta, attacked the inquisitor, freed the prisoners and escaped.’
‘What has Brielle
to do with this? I see no connection.’
‘Neither do I, Lucian, but the inquisitor’s staff wish to speak to her, and she is not answering hails to the Fairlight. I know not what evidence they might have to link her with the assault, but I do not believe they would ask unless they were very sure of themselves.’
‘Of course they’re sure of themselves,’ Lucian spat, before lowering his voice, ‘they’re the Inquisition.’
‘Lucian, I warn you…’
‘To silence, general? On my own vessel? On this ship, Wendell, I am Emperor, Primarch, Warmaster and bloody executioner. I will not have some…’
‘Lucian!’ The general’s voice was cutting, making Lucian look up and meet Gauge’s eyes. ‘Do not assume the inquisitor, or the cardinal for that matter, is anything less than dangerous in the extreme. We may all hold the same nominal rank, you, I, them and the rest of the council, but we both know what Grand truly represents.’
‘Korvane!’ Lucian bellowed, a moment before his son returned. ‘Well?’
‘Nothing, father.’
‘Explain.’
‘She is not aboard the Fairlight, her duty officer is quite sure.’
‘And she is not aboard the station,’ the general cut in. ‘The inquisitor’s staff are equally sure.’
‘Whatever is going on, everything changes from here on in.’ Lucian was thinking on his feet, his mind plotting a million potential ramifications of the news. What had his errant daughter done, why, and what might the inquisitor’s response be?
‘The council,’ Lucian said, turning on the general once more, ‘lines will be drawn over this. Can I at least assume that you and I shall stand on the same side of those lines?’
‘I would not have come to you like this if it were not so, Lucian.’
‘I thank you,’ Lucian replied. ‘What of Jellaqua?’
The general laughed out loud at the mention of his counterpart in the Imperial Navy. ‘That old bastard? He curses Gurney for a motherless grox, and would oppose him and his allies on sheer principle alone.’
