by Dan Abnett
Thiel races to the system consoles. The brass cogitation banks of the data-engine chatter and clack in front of him. He doesn’t know where to start.
‘In the name of Terra,’ Guilliman snarls. ‘Thiel, shoot the bloody thing!’
Thiel is out of ammo. But he has his sword. It has one more job to do today.
[mark: 20.20.19]
The control codes release. Tawren sees it happen. She sees the digital sequence suddenly shift across the noospherics. Control suspended (engine failure). Control suspended (engine failure). Control suspended (engine failure). Control suspended (engine failure)...
It is like a moment of data-revelation. A profound data sequence change. All values alter. All authorities reset.
She doesn’t hesitate. Hesst would not have. She runs the killcode directly into the suddenly open system, and watches as it burns through the corrupted numerics of the Octed scrapcode.
The killcode is her vanguard. Her praetorians. Her Ultramarines kill squad. Her Ventanus. She follows it in with her authority codes.
She takes control. She selects the discretionary mode. Thousands of automatically generated firing solutions instantly present themselves. She sorts them using subtle haptics, code-forms and binaric cant.
‘Server?’ Selaton is addressing her. ‘Server?’
Tawren ignores him. She opens a vox-link.
‘Server Tawren, addressing the XIII Legion Ultra-marines, and all forces allied to their standard. Brace for impact. Repeat, brace for impact.’
[mark: 20.21.22]
The first beam-weapon strikes hit Lanshear. They come straight out of the sky, columns of dazzling vertical light. They stream from orbital weapon platforms, platforms that the Word Bearers left intact for their own use.
The beams, generated by lance batteries, particle tunnels and meson weapons, strike with surgical accuracy. They cauterise the city-zone around the guildhall in the northern depot area. They obliterate Titans, dissolve armoured vehicles, and reduce brotherhood and Word Bearers formations to ash.
Sheltering, in some cases, less than half a kilometre from the impact sites, Ultramarines and Army forces are untouched. Their eardrums burst. Their skin burns. They are half-blinded by the light, and hammered by the concussion, e-mag pulse and violent after-pressure, but they endure.
The negative pressure causes the rain to swirl cyclonically around the zone, a whirlpool of smoke and ravaged climate.
Ventanus looks up, dazed by the blast. Hot ash has plastered their wet armour, covering them all; ash that was Word Bearers only seconds before.
The Ultramarines around him look pumice grey, gun metal grey, the colour of the XVII’s old livery.
[mark: 20.21.25]
Tawren has not finished. She deploys the grid elements available to her, she hits other surface targets. Simultaneously, she retasks orbital platforms, and retrains lance stations. She begins to systematically exact punishment on the Word Bearers fleet.
For the first time since the cataclysmic orbital strike, it’s the crimson-hulled warships that explode and die in nearspace. Cruisers and barges detonate in multi-megaton conflagrations, or are crippled by devastating impacts.
This is a dynamic combat shift. This is the game changed. Hesst would approve. Guilliman would approve.
[mark: 20.21.30]
On the auxiliary bridge of the Macragge, Marius Gage sees the first of his enemy’s ships sputter and torch out. He watches as phosphorescent green and white beams stripe out from the orbital grid, spearing Word Bearers vessels.
He looks at Hommed.
‘Statement of yield, please?’
‘We are currently at fifty-seven per cent yield, Chapter Master,’ says Hommed. ‘Enough to transport Empion’s kill squad.’
‘I intend to take rather more direct action than that. Engage the drive and move towards the yards. Raise the shields.’
‘Sir, there are three enemy cruisers clamped to our hull.’
‘Then I imagine they will suffer, shipmaster. Raise void shields. While you’re at it, shoot them off our back.’
The titanic flagship lights its shields. One of the cruisers buckles as it is caught and torn in the void field, blowing out along its centre line and voiding significant compartments to space. Its wrecked bulk remains clamped to the Macragge’s Honour as the flagship surges forward, drives glowing white hot.
A second cruiser falls free, clamps blown and cut. The flagship’s batteries begin to pick it apart before it can stabilise its motion.
The third is pounded repeatedly at close range by the flagship’s starboard guns. Gage refuses to order cease firing until the side of the cruiser facing him is a molten hell, burning up, with inner decks exposed.
The executed cruiser drops away, glowing like an ember, and falls out of the plane of the ecliptic.
[mark: 20.24.10]
The master control room is on fire. Flames and smoke are rapidly filling the habitats of the Zetsun Verid Yard. Thiel and the remainder of the kill squad retreat rapidly towards the transverse assembly deck. They pack tight around the wounded, limping primarch.
‘The flagship is inbound,’ says Thiel.
Guilliman nods. He seems to be recovering some strength.
‘The sun,’ murmurs one of the squad.
They look up through the vast crystalflex observation ports and see the Veridian star. It is stricken, its light ugly and sick. A bubonic rash of sunspots freckles its surface.
‘I think we have won something just in time to lose everything,’ says Guilliman.
Thiel asks him what they should do, but the primarch is not listening. He has turned his attention down, to something he can see on the through-deck beneath the assembly layer.
‘Bastards!’ he hisses. ‘Can’t they just burn?’
Thiel looks.
He can see half a dozen of the surviving Word Bearers. They carry the bloody carcass of Kor Phaeron. Somehow, the wretched Master of the Faith seems to be alive, despite the fact that Guilliman tore out his primary heart. He is twitching, writhing.
Leading the party, Thiel sees the Word Bearer whose helm and skull he cut away.
Tchure turns to look at them, sensing them. The side of his face is gore, teeth and bone exposed.
Thiel draws his boltgun, reloaded with ammunition from a fallen brother. The other Ultramarines start to fire too.
The Word Bearers shimmer. Spontaneous frost crackles out in a circle around their feet, and corposant winds around them. They vanish in a blink of teleport energy.
‘Gage! Gage!’ Guilliman yells.
‘My primarch!’ Gage responds over the vox-link.
‘Kor Phaeron is running. He’s gone from here, teleported out! He’ll have run to his ship.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Just stop him, Marius. Stop him dead, and send him to hell.’
‘My primarch–’
‘Marius Gage, that’s an order.’
‘What about you, sir? We are moving into the yard to recover you.’
‘There are ships docked here,’ Guilliman replies. ‘The Samothrace, a couple of escorts. We’ll board one and be secure enough. Just get after him, Marius. Get after the damned Infidus Imperator.’
[mark: 20.27.17]
The Word Bearers battle-barge Infidus Imperator turns in the debris-rich belt of Calth nearspace, ships dying in flames behind it. It engages its drive and begins a long, hard burn towards the outsystem reaches.
As it accelerates away, raising yield to maximum, the Macragge’s Honour turns in pursuit, its main drives lighting with an equally furious vigour.
It is the beginning of one of the most infamous naval duels in Imperial history.
[mark: 20.59.10]
Fate has twisted, dislocated. Erebus can see that plainly. He does not care, and he is not surprised. Ways change. He knows this. It is one of the first truths the darkness taught him.
Calth is dead. The XIII is crippled and finished. His ritual is complete, an
d it is entirely successful. The Ruinstorm rises, a warp-storm beyond anything space-faring humanity has witnessed since the Age of Strife. It will split the void asunder. It will divide the galaxy in two. It will render vast tracts of the Imperium impassable for centuries.
It will isolate and trap forces loyal to the Emperor. It will divide them, and block their attempts to combine and support one another. It will shatter communication and chains of contact. It will even prevent them from warning each other of the heretical war breaking across their realm. The Ruinstorm will cripple the loyalists, and leave Terra raw and alone, infinitely vulnerable to the approaching shadow of Horus.
But... somehow the enemy salvaged something. They were defeated from the very start, and they remained defeated throughout, and in the aftermath, the Word Bearers can salt the XIII’s scattered bones. Yet they won something back. Some measure of retribution. Some degree of pride. They did not yield, and they forced a surprising price for their lives.
Erebus is sorry to leave any of them alive. They say you should always kill them. Ultramarines. If you make one your enemy, do not allow him to live. Do not spare him. Leave an Ultramarine alive, and you leave room for retribution. Only when he is dead are you safe from harm. That is what they say.
They are fine words. The proud boast of an unfailingly arrogant Legion. They mean little. The Ultramarines are done. Calth has gutted them. They will never more be a force to be reckoned with.
Horus no longer has to worry about the threat of the XIII.
The poison light of the sun falls across the Satric Plateau. Erebus basks in it. He raises his hands. The daemons sing in adulation.
The Dark Apostle feels the rising winds of the Ruinstorm snatching at his cloak. He is finished here. He has carried out the duty that was entrusted to him by Lorgar. It is time for his departure.
Reality has worn thin at the edge of the black stone circle, thin like bleached and ancient cloth. Erebus takes out his own ornate athame dagger, and cuts a slit in the material fabric of the universe.
He steps through.
5
[mark: 23.43.16]
Guilliman watches the rising storm from the bridge of the Samothrace, a replacement command crew at the control stations. Every reliable authority says it will be the worst in living memory.
‘We must translate from the system, my primarch,’ says the shipmaster. ‘The fleet must exit before we are swept away.’
Guilliman nods. He understands the imperative. If nothing else, firm and clear warnings of the daemonic threat must be conveyed to the Imperial core sectors, and to the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.
‘There are still hundreds of thousands down there,’ he says to Thiel, looking at scans of the ravaged planet.
‘We extracted as many as we could, with whatever ships we had, sir,’ Thiel replies. ‘Further evacuation is now impossible.’
‘What about the rest?’ Guilliman asks.
‘They are fleeing to the arcologies,’ Thiel says. ‘There is a good chance that the subterranean hab systems and catacombs will protect them from the effect of the solar radiation. They may be able to ride out the storm until such time as we can return with a Legion fleet to evacuate them.’
‘That could be years.’
‘It could,’ agrees Thiel.
‘If ever.’
‘At worst, years,’ says Thiel. ‘We will return. They will be saved.’
Guilliman nods.
‘You’ll excuse my mood, Thiel. I have lost a world of Ultramar. I have lost... too much. You are not seeing the best of me.’
‘Theoretical,’ replies Thiel. ‘The reverse of that statement is true.’
Guilliman snorts. His face is grey with lingering pain.
‘Anything from Gage?’
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘And of the forces we extracted, was Ventanus among them?’
‘No, sir,’ replies Thiel. ‘He was not.’
[mark: 23.49.20]
Ventanus takes the vox-horn.
‘This is Ventanus, Captain, 4th,’ he begins. ‘I am making an emergency broadcast on the global vox-cast setting. The surface of Calth is no longer a safe environment. The local star is suffering a flare trauma, and will shortly irradiate Calth to human-lethal levels. It is no longer possible to evacuate the planet. Therefore, if you are a citizen, a member of the Imperial Army, a legionary of the XIII, or any other loyal servant of the Imperium, move with all haste to the arcology or arcology system closest to you. The arcology systems may offer sufficient protection to allow us to survive this solar event. We will shelter there until further notice. Do not hesitate. Move directly to the nearest arcology. Arcology location and access information will be appended to this repeat broadcast as a code file. In the name of the Imperium, make haste. Message ends.’
He lowers the device and looks at Tawren.
‘I have set it to repeat transmit,’ she says.
‘Then we must go. There is very little time, server. Disengage from the data-engine.’
‘I do not know about these caves,’ she says. ‘I think it will be unpleasant down there.’
‘Not as unpleasant as it will be on the surface,’ says Selaton.
‘This is not a discussion,’ says Ventanus. ‘It is not an elective matter. We are retreating to the arcologies. We will endure there. End of debate.’
‘I understand,’ she says. ‘You realise that enemy strengths left on the planet will flee underground too?’
‘I do,’ says Ventanus.
‘So what do we do?’ asks Tawren.
‘We keep fighting,’ Ventanus tells her. ‘That’s what we always do.’
6
[mark: 23.59.01]
The world has never seemed so dark. It is impossible to tell where the rolling blackness of the sea ends and the twisted darkness of the sky begins.
Only the star remains, poisonous and fierce, like a baleful eye, gleaming through the smoke and fog.
They ground the skiff off a shingle beach and come ashore. Oll checks his compass. They start trudging up the beach, heading inland.
‘Where are we?’ asks Bale Rane.
‘North,’ says Oll. ‘The Satric Coast. The great plateau is that way.’
He gestures at the darkness.
‘Fine country,’ Oll says. ‘Even been up that way and seen it?’
Rane shakes his head.
‘What are we doing here?’ asks Zybes.
Strange, daemonic voices hoot and gibber in the distance, echoing down the inlet.
Zybes repeats his question with more urgency.
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ he says. ‘We’ve come all this way in that damned boat! Why? It’s no safer here. It sounds like it’s worse, if that’s possible!’
Oll glances at him, tired and impatient.
‘We’ve come here,’ he says, ‘because this is the only place we can get out through. The only place. It’s our one chance to live and do something.’
‘Do what?’ asks Krank.
‘Something that matters,’ Oll replies, not really listening. He’s seen something. Something on the beach by the boat.
‘Who is that, Trooper Persson?’ Graft asks.
There is a man on the beach behind them. He’s following them. He passes their grounded skiff, walking briskly. Another small launch, presumably the one that brought him in, is turning slowly in the black water off the beach, abandoned.
‘Shit,’ murmurs Oll. ‘Get behind me, all of you. Keep moving.’
He turns, sliding his rifle off his shoulder.
Criol Fowst is black on black, a shadow of a figure. Only his face is pale, the drawn skin white and streaked with dried blood from his head wound. He approaches, his feet crunching over the shingle. A laspistol hangs in his right hand. Oll faces him, weapon ready.
‘No closer,’ Oll calls out.
‘Give it back,’ Fowst shouts. ‘Give it back to me!’
‘I don’t want to fire a weapon or
spill blood here,’ Oll warns, ‘but I will if you make me. Go back and leave us alone.’
‘Give me my blade. My blade.’
‘Go back.’
Fowst takes a step forward.
‘They can smell it, you know,’ he hisses. ‘They can smell it.’
‘Let them smell it,’ replies Oll.
‘They’ll come. You don’t want them to come.’
‘Let them come.’
‘You don’t want them to come, old man. Give it back to me. I need it.’
‘I need it more,’ says Oll. ‘I need it for something. It’s why I came here. I need it for something more important than you can possibly imagine.’
‘Nothing is more important than what I can imagine,’ replies Fowst.
‘Last chance,’ says Oll.
Fowst screams. He screams at the top of his voice.
‘He’s here! Here! Right here! Come and get him! Come and feast on him! Here! Here!’
The rifle cracks. Silenced, Fowst falls back on the stones of the beach.
But things are stirring. Things disturbed and drawn by the sound of Fowst’s cry and the noise of the shot. Oll can hear them. He can hear batwings flap in the darkness, hooves scrape on stone, scales slither. Voices mutter and growl abhuman sounds.
‘Hey!’ Oll shouts to his travelling companions, who are cowering in the dark. ‘Come back to me! Come back. Gather round.’
They hurry to him. Krank and Rane. Zybes. The girl. Graft is the slowest.
‘What is that?’ Krank asks, hearing the sounds that the things are making as they close in around them through the darkness. ‘What’s making that noise?’
‘Don’t think about it,’ Oll says, working hard, trying to remember a simple sequence of gestures. ‘Just stay close beside me. It might be all right here. It might be thin enough.’
‘What might be thin enough?’ asks Rane.
‘What’s making that noise?’ Krank repeats, agitated.
‘Something’s coming,’ says Zybes.
‘It’s all right,’ says Oll. ‘We’re just leaving anyway.’
