by Nick Kyme
‘Weapons free. All squadrons full burn.’
Galdron ignited his main engine as he came out of the shadow of the moon. His muscles slammed against the back of his armour as the engines screamed. The strait between the moon and Accazzar-Beta sparkled with detonations and weapons fire. Clouds of burning gas marked the largest ships. As he watched, a Nova shell detonation shattered into being close to the planet. It was peaceful in a way, distant, separate.
Targeting warnings filled his ears.
‘They see us!’ came Scarrix’s voice across the vox.
‘All wings, launch torpedoes,’ said Galdron.
Torpedoes cut past him as the bombers loosed their payloads. His strike fighter shook as it burned to keep pace with them. Behind him the bombers were peeling away, breaking for the open void, their work done. Locked into the targeting spirit of each torpedo was a specific component of the planet’s defences. Layers of redundancy were built into the targeting and launch pattern. Even if the defenders shot half of them out of the void, the remainder would be enough. More than enough.
And Galdron had no intention of letting the defenders do even that much damage.
Explosions burst close by, their fire stealing the dark of the void. He saw a glitter as squadrons of enemy fighters launched to meet them.
He opened the vox to Scarrix, and gave his order.
‘Nostraman, your time is now.’
‘As the Warmaster wills.’
Scarrix’s wing dropped and thrust forwards, engines running raw and white. The lead Night Lords craft were strike fighters, all engine power and weapon payload. Behind them were the gunships, their guts heavy with squads of midnight-clad warriors. Their purpose was not precision, or domination; it was anarchy and terror. In the old, murdered age of the Great Crusade they had a reputation that followed them like a muttered curse. Now, in this new war, their skill had earned them a place at the Warmaster’s side.
Galdron cut the broad vox-pickup an instant before it began to scream. Static and corrosive code flooded into the signal manifold as Scarrix’s wing shrieked towards their prey. All order vanished as each squadron chose its own target and bore down on it. Galdron watched as the defenders’ craft split to meet the Night Lords.
Turrets on ships and platforms turned, and hammered the blackness with threads of cannon fire. The Night Lords spun through the fire, bombs and rockets scattering for them as they skimmed the skins of warships. Gunships landed in wounds blasted in cliffs of armour plating, and the murder-terror squads poured in. Screams filled Galdron’s ears as the Night Lords channelled the sounds of slaughter across the vox-net. He switched frequencies.
Scarrix’s delight in massacre was wasteful, but was serving its purpose: all but a few elements of the defence had switched to countering the Night Lords’ onslaught. Galdron and the rest of his flight were free, and the torpedoes they guarded were running true to their targets. They just had a little further to go.
‘Incoming fighters,’ said Galdron into the vox. ‘All squadrons engage.’
His helm was suddenly a swarm of threat markers and target runes. A warning rang in his ears, and he spun sideways an instant before las-fire tore through the space where he had been. A quad-winged craft of chrome and crimson screamed by, tumbling as it skidded past. Galdron’s hands moved before the impulse to kill reached his awareness. His lascannons fired once, and the red-and-chrome craft became a splash of fire. He glanced at his auspex. Lines and runes tangled across the screen. Secondary data pulsed in his helmet display. He assimilated it all in a heartbeat. The torpedoes were running ahead, rockets burning brighter as they sped through the last seconds of their lives.
But even as he watched, a squall of fire reached out from a weapons platform, and touched one of the warheads.
There was a brief, agonising jump in time. Then reality shrieked. A hole opened in space, darker than the void. The sheet of stars and light spun around it. Galdron’s eyes clamped shut an instant later. His hearts were racing, head spinning, throat and mouth filled with the taste of acid and blood. Sound drained from his ears. He was floating, feeling the tug and kick of the interceptor as it corkscrewed on…
And at the back of his thoughts he could hear voices shouting, pleading, crying…
His eyes snapped open. A hole in existence roared in the void where the torpedo had detonated. Beside it the light of battle seemed dim, almost serene in its fury. He pulled his eyes to his sensor displays. The remaining vortex torpedoes were still loose and alive. But not for long. Battery fire poured out from star forts and ships, as the defenders realised what they were facing. Every enemy craft pulled out of their engagements. And bore down on the remaining torpedoes.
‘All squadrons,’ said Galdron. ‘Pull in.’
He was spinning and firing without thinking now. The machine-spirit of his strike fighter began to count down the distance until the torpedoes impacted.
‘Five hundred…’ The sound of his strike fighter’s targeting system filled his ears.
‘Four hundred…’
A fighter exploded in front of him. Debris rang against his canopy as he thrust through the fire cloud.
‘Three hundred…’
Something struck his wing, and suddenly he was rolling over and over, stars and gunfire a blur across his eyes.
‘Two hundred…’
A fuel line exploded, and he felt his tail and wing shear off. The sensor data was still clear in his eyes.
‘One hundred…’
The last thing Galdron saw was a frozen image of stars washed with the fire of dying war-ships and spinning fighters…
Then the first torpedo struck the largest star fort and detonated.
Argonis stared at the battle projection. Where the enemy defences had been there was… a wound. The Warmaster’s twin fleets were through the channels and the defences were blinking out one by one.
Horus turned his gaze from the projection to Argonis.
‘Do you see now?’ asked the Warmaster.
‘How many vortex torpedoes did those squadrons carry?’ asked Argonis, trying to keep the shock from his voice.
‘Sixteen. Thirteen struck their targets.’
‘Galdron’s wings, the fighter craft and gunships…’
‘You know war, Argonis, and you know what is required to do what others claim is impossible.’
Argonis paused, feeling blood pulse cold in his hearts.
‘Sacrifice,’ he said.
‘Correct,’ said the Warmaster, ‘but that is only a beginning.’
Kadith parsed the meaning of the data, but he already knew the truth. The cogitated assessment was just the final confirmation.
Even as he finished he heard the temple structure begin to shake, as the batteries on its roof and spires began to hammer the atmosphere. The lights of the cogitator stacks dimmed as power surged to keep the void shields in place. And all across the planet, machines would be striding out to do war beneath the dome of the burning sky. The doors of forges would be opening to pour hundreds and thousands of tech-thralls onto the rad plains. The Knights would be walking, and the blessed ordinatus would be rolling from caverns beneath the surface.
Kadith waited. He knew the answer. His biological and mechanical components were capable of tactical calculations to the fiftieth order of complexity. But information of a higher fidelity was a blessing of the Omnissiah, and so he waited while the temple’s systems confirmed his doom.
Kadith was silent for a second. It was as he had calculated, though his own probabilities ran slightly higher, and the time it would take Horus to subdue the planet slightly longer. He wondered, as he had before, if that was the influence of the meat of his brain leeching into his logic. No matter, the next step he had to take was the same. He had to make the Warmaster pay as high a cost as possible for taking his world.
Automata marched from the shadows of pillars, and unfolded from niches in the walls. His myrmidons came with them, robes swirling after them as they stalked forwards. They fell in around him, their ranks forming perfect diamonds, squares and circles. The buzz of their charging weapons hummed beside the clatter of code commands. Before them the doors of the temple began to grind open.
The Warmaster looked down on the world. Fire bubbled across its face, crawling in pinprick denotations beneath a shroud of smoke. Space above it crowded with ships and the glowing dots of descending landers and drop pods. The Vengeful Spirit sat over the unfolding destruction like an enthroned queen. Her guns spoke without cease. The flash of their firing blinked across Horus’ face.
‘Almost, but not enough,’ said the Warmaster. ‘Not yet.’
‘My lord?’ asked Argonis.
Horus turned his face from the viewport. The battle projections hung in the air behind them, muted and unnoticed now, their glimpses of battle discarded.
‘I will go to the surface. You will accompany me, Argonis.’
Argonis swallowed, and found his throat dry. The Warmaster was staring at him, his eyes holes in an unmoving face. Shadows and silence had crept over him as the battle had progressed, and the first forces had landed on the surface. Horus had watched and listened to a feed of the first drop pod landing. The sound of the first shots had rung through the throne room, booming and echoing like a gong struck in an empty temple. The blood of the first to die had flicked through the holo-light, bright and clear.
Horus had watched it all, but then turned away and gone to the viewport and said not a word, and beside him Argonis had felt as though something were growing around and beyond him. Something he could not see, but could sense. As though he were feeling heat bleed from behind a furnace door.
‘I commanded you to speak your thoughts,’ said Horus.
‘The battle has only just begun,’ said Argonis, forcing the words to come from his mouth, ‘and you have already said that you will not lead a spear strike against the defenders’ command. If that is so, then why–’
‘I am not going down to this world to kill its rulers. I am going down to destroy it utterly.’
Argonis turned at the buzz of active armour. Figures in black stood around them as though they had stepped from the dark. He saw Maloghurst amongst them, his twisted frame seeming small beside the Justaerin Terminators. Horus did not look at them, but reached out and picked up the red pearl, which had lain on its iron dais since Argonis had entered the chamber. The light around it curdled, and it flickered, its size and shape for a moment impossible to process. Horus closed his fingers around it, and strode towards the throne room’s doors.
‘Follow,’ said the Warmaster.
Myrmidax Kadith stepped from his temple into a burning world. The sky above was a dome of grey streaked with fire. Black smoke hid the distance. Void shields crackled and snapped above the spires of data-shrines and bastions.
Two and a half kilometres away, twelve Knights of the House of Kratogen stood atop the ruins of a bastion wall. Their guns fired without cease, the spirits of their machines calling out as their power drained.
Five thousand and fifty kilometres to the west, three thousand skitarii met the first waves of enemy with a wall of perfectly timed fire.
On the other side of the planet, Magos Hekot-Sul sent a last command to his forge reactors as he died. The explosions swallowed thousands of attackers in an instant.
Kadith knew all this, and knew that his own battle would come.
Horus would come for him. That was the way of the Warmaster, a trait that echoed through the records of his battles in the Great Crusade. He would come to remove Kadith in person, and so end a battle. Kadith would die. But that did not matter. Command would pass down the hierarchy of control, and the next command node would become the will of the Machine-God on Accazzar-Beta. Horus was going to have to take every inch of the planet by blood. And flesh was weaker than iron.
The black-and-gold Stormbird howled as it cut through Accazzar-Beta’s atmosphere. Five interceptors peeled away and began to circle.
Two smaller gunships dropped faster, their guns rotating to lace the ruins around a circle of open ground. Their hatches slid open. Armoured figures leapt into the air, jump packs igniting as they fell. They landed in the ruins an instant before the gunships stopped firing. Creatures clinging to life in the wreckage died.
The Stormbird banked and rocked in the air, hanging on the downdraught of its thrusters. Skins of energy crackled around it as the wind blew cinders into its void shields.
Within its compartment, Argonis checked his weapons for a last time. Horus stood before the assault ramp, unhelmed, Worldbreaker in one hand, the talon blades of the other wrapped around the red pearl.
From this close, the presence of the Warmaster and the pearl were like a hammer beating against the inside of Argonis’ skull. His muscles were vibrating, and he had to swallow the urge to howl. He willed the hatch to open, so that he could see the burning land beyond, and feel blood on his hands…
‘Steady, my sons,’ said Horus, as though hearing Argonis’ thoughts, and spared a glance behind him as the Stormbird dropped lower.
The hatch began to open. Light reached in through the broadening crack, and then a vista of iron spires and glowing fires filled Argonis’ eyes. The Stormbird settled to the ground. Dust billowed into the air. Horus paused for an instant, and then stepped down the ramp, and onto the surface of Accazzar-Beta. The Justaerin charged out, and encircled the Stormbird. Argonis followed them.
It was almost silent, the sounds of battle distant. No gunfire reached from the ruins, and no enemy charged to greet them. Argonis checked his stride.
‘Where is the enemy, my lord?’ asked Argonis.
‘The nearest living enemy is twenty kilometres away,’ replied the Warmaster. ‘This location holds no strategic importance. It is insignificant in every way. Until now.’
The Warmaster extended his taloned hand out in front of him. Red light pulsed between the blades. The air began to spiral. Argonis shivered. Beside him the Justaerin stepped back, turning to look around them, weapons searching for targets. Ghost voices rose on the wind. Argonis felt liquid on his lips, tasted iron on his tongue. Ashes and dust were rising from the ground, and spinning into the air in smears of black and red. The light of the distant explosions grew brighter. Shadows spread across the ground. Argonis felt himself shiver; he felt weak, hunted. The voice of the wind beat down on him. He watched as the Justaerin twitched, their muscles spasming.
Only the Warmaster remained still. Red light was crawling from between his fingers, and reaching into the air. His face was an impression pressed into shadow.
‘Come from the dark, Doombreed. I call you to my side. I give you this world. Come, t
ake it from my hand. Feed.’
Horus opened his hand, and the red pearl fell.
Stillness rushed inwards. High above, the light of orbital battles shone brighter than stars. The red of distant fires swallowed other colours. Shadows became smoke. A reek of burning sugar and raw meat flooded Argonis’ mouth. A shape was rising from the ground before him, forming as it grew. Ash clotted into a vast hound’s skull. Darkness folded into matted fur. The light of fires congealed into muscle. Wings scattered blood as they folded, and beat against the gale. Open jaws tilted upwards, and roared at the sky.
Horus looked up at the daemon, his face unchanging. The daemon’s roar ended, and it looked down at Horus. Fire burned in the holes that were its eyes. Molten iron and blood dripped from its jaws and the head of its axe. Argonis could feel his muscles bunching, and blood running from his eyes and mouth. Horus tilted his head and flicked a finger at the horizon.
‘Go,’ said the Warmaster, ‘and do my will.’
The creature called Doombreed snarled, and it took to the air, wings pulling the gale with it. Cracks opened in its wake. Shapes writhed and tumbled from the wounds, their arms and bodies slick with gore. A thunderhead spread across the sky, its sides flashing with red lightning.
Argonis found that he was stepping forwards, that his hands were twitching on his bolter. He wanted to run after the winged creature, wanted to see the slaughter to come. He wanted to… He would…
‘Come, Argonis,’ said Horus. ‘It is done. We must be gone from here.’ And the Warmaster walked to his Stormbird as the first drops of red rain began to fall on the fires of Accazzar-Beta. ‘Order all our forces back to the fleet. There is nothing left here for those who would live.’
Myrmidax Kadith watched as the storm spread across the horizon. Thunder rattled the cables against his chrome skin. Worms of static were playing across the bodies of the automata.
Only static and null-code answered.
