Rogue Trader

by Andy Hoare

  Then, Lucian heard a great commotion from the torpedo deck, and he approached the bulkhead door, cautious all the while. Peering gingerly through the porthole, he could make out only a small area of the bay, for the illumination was inactive, yet he caught an actinic flash to one side, followed an instant later by a great arcing bolt of energy that crossed the deck at the speed of light, grounding itself in the centre of the chamber in an explosive shower of sparks.

  ‘Reactor bleed at optimum, my lord,’ the tech-priest announced, monitoring his dials intently. ‘Output shall remain constant until you order core flow resumed, but I advise against maintaining the output at the expense of primary systems.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Lucian, peering through the porthole for any sign of movement within. Another flash, and another arc, and a great whining went up from beyond the bulkhead door. The conduits that would have charged a plasma torpedo were discharging their raw power into the chamber. Lucian could tell that the system was straining to maintain the output that was even now scouring the bay with lashing arcs of raw power.

  ‘There!’ Karaldi shrieked, his voice almost drowned out by yet another burst of lightning from within the chamber.

  As Lucian’s eyes recovered from the massive blast, he caught sight of a figure standing in the centre of the torpedo bay. Its body was charred and smoking, the armsman’s uniform incinerated entirely. Despite the apparent injuries done to its stolen body, the creature stood tall, though, as before, its head lolled to one side as if its neck muscles were weakened, and its mouth hung open, bloody drool pouring forth. The arms were held out wide, almost as if to welcome Lucian to him.

  Lucian tore his gaze from the porthole, and turned to address Karaldi.

  ‘The beast lends the flesh unholy vigour, my lord,’ Karaldi said, evidently anticipating Lucian’s question. Lucian suppressed his annoyance at having his surface thoughts read in such a manner.

  ‘My apologies, my lord,’ Karaldi said, his face deadly serious as he contemplated the creature.

  ‘How long can it last?’ Lucian asked. ‘We cannot keep up the output indefinitely.’

  ‘I feel,’ the astropath said, his voice straining and cracked. ‘I feel…it fights… it draws such power.’

  Lucian turned to the tech-priest. ‘Can you increase the core bleed?’

  The tech-priest cast his mechanical eyes over his instruments, mumbling prayers beneath the hood of his crimson robes. Then he raised his head and addressed Lucian. ‘I can, my lord, but to do so I must control the bleed manually.’

  Lucian knew he was asking a great deal of his crew and of his vessel, yet he saw no alternative. If he did not get this creature of the warp off of his ship, he would have no ship, and no crew to man it. He knew that entrusting the core reactor flow to the tech-priest was incredibly risky, for the function was normally controlled by a hundred different, triple redundant cogitators. He scarcely believed a single, human mind could perform such a task, but he knew that the tech-priest would not have made the suggestion were it not true. The servants of the mechanicus might be taciturn and unimaginative, but such traits were, in times such as these, a benefit.

  ‘Proceed,’ Lucian ordered the tech-priest, gripping the frame of the bulkhead door as he turned his gaze back within.

  The whine of the conduits venting their guts into the torpedo bay grew louder still, their pitch shifting upwards to a shrill howl. Lucian could faintly detect the touch of the tech-priest within the sound, a subtle modulation indicative of the workings of a human mind rather than that of a machine.

  The creature still stood in the centre of the loading deck, but it was now bathed in stark, flickering white light. Around it danced a cage of arcing power, crawling up and down its body. That body blackened and blistered before Lucian’s eyes, the skin slowly vaporising even as Lucian looked on, horrified, but knowing he must witness the creature’s death.

  ‘It fights,’ Lucian heard Master Karaldi mumble at his side. ‘It draws yet more power from the infernal planes.’

  Lucian turned his head to regard the astropath, and was struck by the expression on the man’s face. It was not the normal, crazed visage that Lucian had become used to. There was an unfamiliar calm upon Karaldi’s face, he was almost placid.

  Looking back to the chamber, Lucian could see that the creature was absorbing a staggering amount of energy. The body it wore should have been vaporised in an instant as soon as the reactor bleed was turned upon it, yet somehow, it was keeping the body together.

  Then, Lucian saw that the creature’s mouth was no longer hanging slack. It was smiling, and it was looking straight at him. Though he met its gaze for but a fraction of a second before violently turning his head away from the porthole, Lucian felt his soul seared by the raw stuff of the warp. He fought to remain standing, bracing­ himself with both arms against the frame of the bulkhead door.

  ‘Increase bleed!’ Lucian shouted, gasping as the air pressure increased and the equalisers overhead fought to remain on-line.

  ‘My lord,’ the tech-priest replied, an edge of uncertainty creeping into his normally even voice. ‘Such a thing is…’

  ‘Do it, damn you!’ Lucian bellowed. ‘Do it or so help me…’

  ‘I obey, my lord,’ replied the tech-priest. ‘I can maintain point three variance for no more than forty seconds.’

  ‘Understood,’ replied Lucian, knowing this must surely be his best, and last hope. He dared to raise his eyes to the porthole once more, this time ready to avert his gaze should it meet that of the creature. He saw immediately that the core bleed output had increased even more, and that the creature’s body was entirely black, a vile, greasy smoke rising from it in eddies. Yet still, it smiled, and held its arms out wide as if welcoming its fate.

  ‘It mocks us,’ Lucian scowled, hating the intruder with a depth of feeling he had not realised he could summon.

  ‘Its power fails, master.’ Lucian heard Karaldi at his back.

  ‘How can you be sure?’ he asked

  Karaldi smiled, a trace of his former mania returning to his face. ‘I can hear its thoughts, my lord.’

  How could the astropath bear such a thing? Lucian thought. Just meeting its gaze had brought Lucian to his knees.

  ‘I am soulbound, my master,’ Karaldi whispered. ‘It cannot hurt me. Not the bit that counts, at least.’

  Lucian turned to look at the astropath, and saw that Karaldi held his hands across his chest, the thumbs interlocked and the palms spread wide. It was the sign of the aquila, and Lucian knew that it was meant as far more than a formal salute.

  ‘The soulbinding, in which I received but a portion of the Emperor’s infinite grace, warded me against the likes of this beast. Though it cost me my sight, I gained far more than I can tell you, my master.’

  Lucian nodded slowly, and turned his gaze back to the torpedo bay. The creature’s flesh was steaming from its body, blackened muscles visible as the skin peeled back and fell away in ashen fragments. A weird, guttering light flickered deep within the rapidly disintegrating body as its scorched bones became visible.

  Even as Lucian watched in stark horror, the creature’s body began to crumble. As power arced all around it, it stood as a rigid, petrified and charred statue, its arms still spread wide. A last great arc leapt across the chamber and grounded itself on the creature’s form, and the remains of its body shattered into a thousand blackened fragments. All that was left was a retinal after image, seared across Lucian’s eyes, as he looked on, not able to tear his gaze from the porthole.

  ‘It is too powerful,’ Lucian heard Karaldi mumble behind him as the whine of the core bleed died away. ‘It is too near its home.’

  ‘What?’ Lucian began, blinking to clear his eyes of the retinal burn of the creature’s death. ‘But it’s dead.’

  ‘No, my lord, it is not.’

  ‘Lucian bl
inked once more, realising with mounting terror that the ghostly image floating across his vision was not in fact the after-effect of the creature’s violent death. What he saw was a glowing form standing exactly where the creature had stood, and it was there, in the torpedo bay, looking back at him.

  ‘It’s still…’ Lucian never completed his sentence, for he felt himself shoved to one side, to slam into the frame of the bulkhead door.

  ‘What…’ he began, looking up as he caught himself, to see Master Karaldi struggling with the great locking wheel at the centre of the door. ‘What the hell are you doing man?’ he shouted, raising his voice as a shrill wail escaped through the door’s seams as Karaldi pushed it open.

  ‘Master,’ the astropath called over one shoulder as the other leaned into the door, ‘I have no choice. I cannot let it remain unbound.’

  ‘It’ll eat your soul, man!’ Lucian shouted, pulling himself upright with one hand, and gripping Karaldi’s arm with the other.

  ‘No, my lord! You must let me do my duty!’

  Karaldi turned his eyeless face on Lucian, and although the astropath’s eyes were nothing more then empty sockets, Lucian felt that a fierce light had arisen within, where previously the astropath had radiated an aura of madness and despair. Karaldi shouldered the bulkhead door open, and Lucian relaxed his grip on the man’s shoulder.

  As the door fell fully open, an acrid stink assaulted Lucian’s nostrils and scoured his throat. It was the scent of metal, ceramic and plastic ravaged by unholy powers. And mixed in with the chemical taint was something far worse. Lucian knew that it was the taint of the warp, made real through the destruction of the body in which the creature had infiltrated his vessel.

  And that creature, shed of its mortal shell, stood in the centre of the torpedo bay. It was mighty, standing ten feet tall, its form an ever-shifting mass of dancing energy. It was, Lucian could only assume, made of the very stuff of the warp; souls coalesced in damnation, their eternal anguish giving form and energy to the being that stood before Lucian.

  Even as Lucian watched from the portal, barely able to stand so cacophonous was the sound that roared from the creature’s body, he saw Master Karaldi step before it. The astropath’s steps were at first shaky and uncertain, yet with each, his stance became surer, and he stood more erect. Lucian looked back to the creature, and saw that it was looking around the chamber, as if acquainting itself with a new and entirely foreign environment. Yet, Lucian was astonished to note, it paid no heed to the man that walked straight towards it.

  The creature turned its attention towards specific features in the torpedo chamber. It looked to the array of tubes, the massive hatch over each locked tight against the void. It’s gaze swept upwards and across the ceiling, and then down and across the deck. Lucian realised then that it was not actually looking at the features in the chamber, but through them, sensing, he suspected, the souls of those in the decks above and below.

  Then, the glowing, undulating apparition looked towards the portal in which Lucian stood. Lucian could not help but look back, his gaze drawn with shock and disgust to tiny, wailing faces swimming across the surface of the creature’s insubstantial body. Each soul wailed its pain and anguish, adding its sundered voice to the thunderous cacophony flooding the chamber.

  Raising its arms high to its sides, the creature started towards him. Yet, Master Karaldi stood in its path, his head held high.

  ‘Karaldi!’ Lucian bellowed. He was barely able to hear his own voice above the din, and had no clue if the astropath would hear him. ‘Karaldi, beware!’

  If Karaldi heard Lucian’s warning, he made no reaction, other than perhaps a slight tilt of the head. The creature glided on, as if held aloft by the wailing souls of the infernal regions of the warp, its gaze entirely focused upon Lucian.

  Then, Lucian saw Master Karaldi hold up his right hand, as if to bar the creature’s way. Despair welled up within Lucian, for he knew that the astropath must surely be blasted to ashes at the creature’s touch. Yet, the warp beast continued, apparently uncaring of the astropath’s gesture, intent, it appeared on Lucian.

  As it bore down upon Master Karaldi, Lucian turned his head. He would not look upon the astropath’s death. He made to haul the armoured door closed, knowing all the while that there was no point in doing so. This thing would devour every soul upon his vessel, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Even as he made to slam the door, Lucian became aware of a change in the tone of the creature’s wailing din. He looked back through the half closed portal, to see that the creature towered over the astropath. He watched as Karaldi’s hand came into contact with the thing’s ghostly body, and as it did so, the wailing cut off entirely.

  The chamber was flooded with sudden, and complete silence.

  Lucian dared not breathe. He strained his ears and became aware of a low mumbling. It was Master Karaldi, mouthing the words of the prayer every spacefarer knew, even if he knew no other.

  ‘We pray for those lost in the warp,’ the astropath said aloud, and a new sound rose from the silence. It was the sound of the creature, thrashing in a wild frenzy, its ghostly appendages distorting and stretching, its body arching as the souls trapped within fled from it, one by one. Each was a tiny, guttering spark that sped from the prison of the creature’s form, across the bay to plunge into, and somehow through, the outer hull.

  As the creature’s form dissipated, its thrashing grew more violent, yet still Karaldi maintained his posture, arm held high as if to block the beast’s progress and hold it in place. Though it screamed its unholy death scream, the astropath kept up his recitation of the prayer, his lips working as he mouthed the sanctified words. The creature shook, casting its ethereal limbs about it. Lucian saw that it was seeking, desperately, if it could possibly know despair, to escape the astropath’s touch. At the last, it did, breaking free in an explosion of etheric lightning.

  In the silence that followed the creature’s departure, Lucian was blinded, so dazzling was the sight of its death. Yet he heard a sound any spacefarer knew, and dreaded above all others.

  ‘Hull breach!’ Lucian bellowed. His vision still slow to return, he stumbled through the portal in which he was standing, onto the metal deck of the torpedo bay. As his vision returned, he saw that one of the torpedo tubes had been ruptured, its loading hatch hanging from it, bent and twisted. He all but stumbled over the crumpled form of the astropath, and fell to his knees at Karaldi’s side.

  Bending over the man’s body, Lucian took him by the shoulders and shook him violently. Even as he felt the air pressure drop, and heard sirens beyond the bulkhead door, he gasped in relief to see that the astropath lived yet.

  ‘Up, damn you, Mister Karaldi,’ Lucian cursed, heaving at the astropath’s limp form. ‘You don’t go and,’ he struggled for breath as the air rapidly fled the chamber, ‘do something like that,’ he gasped, ‘and then… die on me.’

  As Lucian felt consciousness slip away, he felt hands grab at his own shoulders, lifting him up as the cold of the void flooded the chamber. ‘Karaldi,’ he mumbled, barely able to form the words as the vacuum stole the last of the air from his lungs.

  ‘He is with us, my lord.’ Lucian heard the voice, barely registering the flat tones of the tech-priest. ‘He is safe.’

  ‘Good,’ Lucian managed as he felt himself dragged through the portal and heard the door slam shut behind him. ‘I think I’ll keep him around.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Lucian stood at the wide viewing port, his arms folded before him. An area of space entirely new to him was arrayed beyond the inches-thick armoured glass. And not just new to him, for this was virgin space. To his knowledge, no human had travelled its depths and returned to tell the tale of what lay within.

  ‘Range to fleet?’ Lucian asked, stifling a wince as he spoke. His lungs had yet to fully recover from the vacuum effects suffe
red on the torpedo deck, but he had no time for extended treatment now.

  ‘Three. Three. Two.’ Intoned the servitor at the Navigation station. Regret stabbed at Lucian’s heart, for Mister Raldi, the Oceanid’s long-serving helmsman should have answered him instead of the servitor at station one. Lucian could still scarcely believe what had occurred during the warp beast’s attack. The effects were still being felt across the vessel. His bridge crew, for starters, would need rebuilding from the ground up, for all bar Mister Batista, the veteran ordnance chief, were slaughtered. The bridge still reeked of blood, despite the attentions of the maintenance servitors. Lucian knew that no amount of antiseptic decontamination would cover that smell. It would linger on his bridge, just as the sight of Raldi transformed into a slavering beast would linger in his memory.

  With an effort, Lucian shoved such thoughts to the back of his mind. He had the here and the now to worry about. He turned his attention once more to the sight beyond the viewing port.

  The region was dominated by vast gaseous nebulae, clouds of stellar matter dozens of light years across. The entire region was cast in the hazy blue light that emanated from deep within the formations. Even though they were many light years distant, Lucian could discern churning energies deep at the heart of each cloud. It was as if the very act of creation were being played out within the nebulae. Lucian felt something he had not experienced for many years, something akin to wonder.

  Lucian also knew that he was not the only one to have reacted thus. He lifted the parchment he held in his hand, scanning its words for the third time since he had received it. Adept Baru, the Oceanid’s Navigator, had submitted his initial report of the voyage across the Damocles Gulf, and his first impressions of the region they had arrived in.