Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  Behind the possessed cruiser blasted a flotilla of other vessels, Chaos escorts and freighters – twisted and heretically altered – eager to descend upon the daemonship’s leftovers. Beyond the length of the trailing column, Czevak could see the permafrost and deep ocean splendour of the Cadian fortress-world. Since the Despoiler Warmaster’s 13th Black Crusade had begun, the skies of Cadia had been dark with vessels, fleets Imperial and Traitor alike, swarming above the gateway world and contesting its future in blood and broadsides. Czevak had met with Admiral Quarren, the Imperial Navy’s ranking officer in the sector and found him to be a surprisingly imaginative and competent officer, giving the High Inquisitor hope for Cadia’s future. Daily, however, Warmaster Abaddon’s united legions poured from the Eye, through the Cadian Gate and straight at the sitting fortress-world. Czevak had read plenty about Ezekyle Abaddon and his threat to the galaxy in the Black Library of Chaos and could feel little but pity for the billions of Cadians upon which the Warmaster’s disciples were descending.

  As the Bucephalus surged past the length of the Indomitable’s laser batteries, Czevak could make out the dreadful damage they had done to the daemonship’s unnatural structure. This had no doubt allowed the battle cruiser to pull away, but that tactic would end with the sabotage carried out on the Imperial vessel’s engineering decks. Czevak couldn’t bear to think about the Indomitable in the clutches of the monstrous thing.

  The daemonship’s revolting claw-prow yawned open once again, this time revealing a sphincter bay within the pincer’s recess. The possessed vessel spasmed and a throng of Swiftdeath fighter craft shot from the prow.

  ‘Kieras!’ Czevak called down the vox.

  ‘I see them, inquisitor. Stand by for evasive manoeuvres,’ the Harakoni returned. Czevak nodded silently to himself as the twisted fighters razored their way up the Imperial battle cruiser’s colossal starboard side.

  Laser banks on the Swiftdeath’s narrow wings danced fire off the Indomitable’s ornate hull as Kieras tried his best to make use of the cover fast flying by. The lightstorm intensified as the swarm of fighters closed the gap. Like the Navy grunts in the passenger bay, Czevak’s fingertips cut into his harness as the Swiftdeath fighters rocketed up behind the stately pace of the Arvus lighter.

  At the last moment, Kieras threw the craft to starboard, away from the protective influence of the battle cruiser’s side and out into the exposed blackness of empty space. Czevak lurched as the Chaos fighters flashed past on their original, unswerving course. The High Inquisitor watched in sickening disbelief as the Swiftdeaths drifted wide themselves and then gracefully cornered. The Bucephalus made its own less graceful turn as Kieras threw the Arvus immediately back at the battle cruiser’s superstructure, surging up rather than along the Indomitable’s flank.

  Czevak followed the response of the Swiftdeaths as they careered around and shot up after the shuttle. It was difficult enough for Czevak to keep track of the lightning bolt movements of the Traitor fighters but the inquisitor thought that his ancient eyes were playing tricks on him as he saw the dozen craft suddenly melt into a miasma of smaller, even faster moving objects. Then it hit him.

  ‘Missiles!’ Czevak yelled.

  ‘Preparing countermeasures,’ Kieras said, amazing Czevak with his composure.

  The cloud of missiles streamed along the Bucephalus’s wake.

  ‘Firing countermeasures!’ the young Harakoni pilot called and the shuttle bucked as it launched its one and only chaff cloud into space. ‘Hold on!’ the interrogator bawled as he intentionally threw the Arvus shuttle into a tight spin – a manoeuvre that the craft was clearly not designed for.

  As the missiles detonated in the cloud of countermeasure chaff, the Chaos pilots sliced through the blaze. Kieras must have predicted such a move, Czevak reasoned, as the Bucephalus indulged a vomit-inducing continuous roll. The slashing fire from Swiftdeath wing banks cut through the open space between and around the Arvus’s spinning wings.

  For heart-stopping moments, the shuttle felt out of control. Kieras attempted to maintain their life-saving rotation yet simultaneously rolling with the curvature of the Indomitable, as both the Arvus lighter and the Swiftdeath swarm blasted across the topside of the battle cruiser. Despite the interrogator’s brave manoeuvre, several las-blasts clipped the rear of the Bucephalus, blasting out the passenger compartment lamps and rocking the shuttle.

  Suddenly, the need for the Harakoni to regain control became even more acute as the hull of another vessel surged up from the port side of the Indomitable. Czevak recognised the lines of an Inquisitorial Black Ship immediately. The corvette was passing dangerously over the battle cruiser in a desperate attempt to reach them.

  This time it was the sluggish top velocity of the Arvus that saved their lives. Slamming the protesting craft into a gut-renching reverse thrust, Kieras awkwardly took them out of the spin, using the remaining centrifugal force still aching within the structure of the shuttle to turn them away from the corvette’s armoured side. Several of the Swiftdeaths were not so fortunate, Czevak noted from the dizzying view of the observation window. The Traitor pilots’ speed freak ways taking them into the brief blaze of thunderbolt impacts fired from the vessel’s hull. Two more attempted a suicidal wrench on the stick and tried to ride out an attempt to fly over the Inquisitorial ship only to mangle themselves in the purity seals and high wrought decoration of the vessel’s side. The remainder made their turn and rocketed away – clearly outclassed, but as the corvette heaved itself over the battle cruiser its turrets lit the darkness of space with thick beams that cut a path of oblivion through the half-swarm and scattered the rest.

  As Kieras forced the Bucephalus into a blunt course correction, aiming for the hangar bay of the moving Inquisition corvette, he began to struggle.

  ‘We have a problem,’ he reported, his calm slipping. ‘I’m losing control.’

  ‘We have a fire!’ Lieutenant Van Saar called, unbuckling himself in the tight confines of the bay and reaching for a compartment extinguisher. Czevak watched from the observation window throne as acrid smoke filled the tight space. The Swiftdeath firepower had found its way to something essential and the Bucephalus was fading fast.

  Then Czevak heard the words he had been dreading.

  ‘Impact positions!’ Kieras screamed.

  ‘There’s a fire!’ Van Saar called back, somewhere in the maelstrom of smoke, foam and limbs.

  The High Inquisitor found himself fading as the poisonous fumes seeped through the lungs in his aged chest. He began to cough and wheeze. The observation window suddenly flashed with hangar bay lighting. The Arvus lighter hit the deck and then hit the wall. It all happened so swiftly that there was little time to think. Although the throne, its belts and its buckles kept the High Inquisitor’s frail body in place, the compartment itself was smashed this way and that. Czevak couldn’t tell which way because the passenger bay and observation window were thick with smoke and the flash of flame. His ancient body wouldn’t tolerate such treatment however, and the High Inquisitor felt his hip jar and fracture. Czevak howled in agony.

  As everything ground to a nauseous halt, panic and a base survival instinct began to set it. Navy grunts were burning and screaming. There was shouting, some of it relating to the fact that the lieutenant was badly injured. Someone was shouting that the hydraulics that lowered the passenger compartment and opened the door were not working. Czevak couldn’t be sure but he suspected that the Bucephalus was at an odd angle. It had probably lost one of its landing gears in the crash and had a wingtip to the deck. That probably explained why the compartment couldn’t lower. The vox simply bled static and in the confusion and alarm it was all Czevak could do to pathetically claw at his throne straps and gulp for air.

  Searing light was suddenly everywhere. The unbearable sound of torched metal accompanied the blinding brilliance. Specks of molten hull sizzled into Czevak’s robes and skin, then suddenly the gush of fresh air. There were hands on the Hi
gh Inquisitor and knives to his throne straps. Czevak was roughly hoisted from the choking chamber and passed through a succession of arms, until he was unceremoniously deposited on a stretcher carried by two burly Ordo Hereticus serfs. He roared in pain as his broken hip was twisted from side to side. The serfs buckled thick belts across the stretcher, ensuring that the inquisitor was firmly strapped down.

  Czevak could see black smoke gushing from the hole where the observation window had been. The Naval security detail were screaming for their lives inside and the rear of the Aquila lander was las-smashed and in furious flames. The cockpit was even worse, having crunched into the side of the hangar. Much of the Bucephalus’s nosecone, weaponry and port side was mangled into the wall and with miserable dismay, Czevak saw Kieras’s head and body resting against the shattered armaplas of the blood-splattered canopy.

  ‘Seal it,’ a voice sailed over the gurney.

  ‘What!’ Czevak finally managed through a fit of coughing and lung wrenching convulsions. ‘What are you doing?’

  The Inquisitorial serfs who had cut him out of the shuttle wreckage proceeded to replace the observation window and plasma torch it back into place, with the Navy grunts still trapped inside.

  Czevak yanked himself from left to right, wriggling in his restraints, shouting incredulously at the figures atop the smashed lighter and then at the figure who’d come to stand over him.

  She was a member of the Adepta Sororitas, Czevak was certain of that, although the absence of power armour and weaponry marked her out as a member of one of the Orders Minoris. She wore a ribbed, leather body glove and a carnodon fur cloak; the only armour she did wear was decorative plates of ceramite on her shoulders and crafted around her bust. Her gloves, boots and decorative loincloth were all intricately flame lined in gold thread. She looked down on Czevak through a wire spectacle assembly, building in a multitude of different lenses – presumably for close work. Her long, grey hair was wound into buns on either side of a youthful face that had clearly benefitted from rejuvenation work but had failed to remove the sly droop of one side of her rouged lips.

  As the Ordo Hereticus serfs completed their welding the screams inside the downed shuttle reached a crescendo. Czevak wrestled against his restraints as the shrieking and pleading died away. As it finally went silent, the Sister nodded for the hangar extinguishers to be brought in to handle the exterior flames.

  ‘Why?’ Czevak demanded in a wheeze.

  The Sister didn’t answer, then into a handheld vox-link she said, ‘Captain, inform the Indomitable that we have received the High Inquisitor. Wish them good luck and the God-Emperor’s speed. Once you’re clear of the Bast moon and the battle you may make your warp jump. Voightdecker, out.’

  ‘Voightdecker…’ Czevak repeated. He was sure that he’d heard that name before.

  ‘Sister Archangela Voightdecker, Order of the Eternal Candle. Pleased to meet you at last, High Inquisitor Czevak,’ she said with no little pedantry.

  The Order of the Eternal Candle, Czevak did know. The Sister’s Order specialised in the reclamation of ancient Imperial relics and artefacts for the Ecclesiarchy.

  ‘I want to see the ranking ordo representative on this vessel, right now,’ Czevak seethed.

  ‘Inquisitor Malchankov is indisposed as we speak, but he has set aside some time for the both of you later.’

  Malchankov. Something died inside Czevak.

  The Sister directed the Ordo Hereticus serf bearing Czevak’s weight to lift him again. ‘Take the High Inquisitor to his quarters. Ensure that he is comfortable.’

  Half the ship away, through a maze of dread, dark decks and long corridors, the serfs walked the restrained Czevak into a lightless chamber in the bowels of the Inquisitorial Black Ship. Dropping the stretcher on the harsh, filthy floor of the cell, the serfs left Czevak, howling in his restraints, in hip-fractured agony. As they closed and locked the door, the deep cold of space began seeping up through the frozen floor and into the High Inquisitor’s defeated body.

  Solus

  ACT II, CANTO I

  Infirmatory, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror

  Enter KLUTE

  After the clamour on the bridge, the infirmatory was a haven of peace and silence. Once again, Klute had been asked to arbitrate in a disagreement between Captain Torres and Epiphani. As a warp-seer, Epiphani could read the currents, movements and dangers of the Eye in a way that a Navigator never could. Klute had trusted her to take the Malescaythe safely to the destinations he had given her in the most perilous of places and the inquisitor felt that the girl required some genuine credit for this. Epiphani could be childish and erratic, however, and liked nothing more than upsetting Reinette Torres. The captain had her ship, crew and future as a rogue trader to worry about and it couldn’t have been easy entrusting all of those to an infantile warp addict. When Epiphani directed the vessel through the Heigel Rapidity instead of the safer but more circuitous San Korvus Cascades, Torres had been furious. This had resulted in the captain bawling at Epiphani on the bridge regarding her hazardous fancies, while the warp-seer gave her provocation in the form of a glazed, Spook-addled grin. Again, Klute had been forced into the unenviable position of acting as adjudicator and parent. This, on top of the guilt with which Klute was already racked, as a result of ordering the vessel back to Nemesis Tessera at all. It was Czevak discovering that the Malescaythe was en route to Imperial space that Klute dreaded. That was when the sparks would truly fly.

  The only sparks flying in the infirmatory presently were those from Klute’s pipe flint. The inquisitor was only an occasional pipe smoker, usually indulged in moments of relaxation or contemplation. The tobacco blend was his own – mostly a mixture of medicinal and nectared – that was sometimes effective at taking away the pounding headaches with which the inquisitor was occasionally afflicted.

  Drawing on the pipe and ensconced in a cushioned chair, Klute put the heels of his boots up on Czevak’s cot. The High Inquisitor had been unconscious ever since they had returned to the Malescaythe. Klute closed his eyes – alone with the throb in his head – but his peace did not last long.

  Czevak was awake. With a sharp intake of breath, the High Inquisitor sat upright – eyes alert, mouth unsmiling.

  ‘Where is it?’ were the first words escaping his downturned lips.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Klute said, fluttering his eyes back to wakefulness and chomping down on his pipe.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Czevak insisted coldly.

  ‘You never were a good patient,’ Klute said before taking Czevak’s Harlequin coat and throwing it to the High Inquisitor. Czevak thrust his hand into the inside pocket, tensed and then relaxed. The Atlas Infernal was safe.

  ‘I took good care of it for you,’ Klute insisted. ‘The damn thing saved your life.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have been the first time,’ Czevak mused. The High Inquisitor twisted his torso from side to side with a face full of expectation.

  ‘I braced the ribs and gave you a morphia shot straight into the marrow. You won’t feel them for a week.’

  Somehow, Czevak found his way hesitantly to unfamiliar words. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What I should have done is broken a few more to restrict you to a bed,’ Klute told him. ‘That – on Arach-Cyn – that was close.’

  ‘If that thing had wanted us dead, very little would have stopped it,’ Czevak informed the inquisitor regarding their encounter with the Rubric Marine.

  ‘Very little did stop it,’ Klute reminded his friend. ‘And you were shot. Looked like it definitely wanted you dead.’

  ‘Thousand Sons Marines are excellent marksmen. That was just an unlucky shot. Xarchos wants me alive – as a prize – to take back to his unholy master.’

  ‘Ahriman,’ Klute nodded.

  Czevak raised his eyebrows and slipped out of the blankets on his infirmatory cot.

  ‘Talking of Arach-Cyn,’ the High Inquisitor began, rubbing his chest and probing his ribs
with fingertips. He slipped his Harlequin coat on over his bare back and drawstring infirmatory slacks. ‘How did we get back to the ship?’

  ‘Your ranger friend,’ Klute informed him. Una Belphoebe and the remainder of her rangers had escorted Klute and his beaten retinue through the myriad tunnels and junctions of the webway, back to the Lost Fornical. What was a labyrinthine nightmare of similarities and inter-dimensional perplexity seemed a fairly straightforward journey for the eldar rangers. Torqhuil carried the High Inquisitor’s unconscious form over one shoulder and two of the Pathfinder’s rangers carried the precious sarcophocrate that Czevak had purchased.

  ‘She was returning to Iyanden, but she had a message for you,’ Klute said.

  ‘Would it be something like, turn myself into the Harlequinade – for my own protection,’ Czevak hazarded.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘And the sarcophocrate.’

  ‘On the archeodeck.’

  Czevak immediately started barefoot for the infirmatory bulkhead. Klute shook his head as the High Inquisitor left.

  ‘I’m fine, by the way,’ Klute said to himself. He took a long draw on his pipe. ‘Just a few cuts and bruises. Nothing serious, thank the Emperor – but thank you for your concern.’

  ‘Gather your people,’ Czevak called back up the corridor, his voice growing more distant with every step. ‘And I’m going to need some more clothes.’

  Taking a further couple of puffs on his pipe, Klute rubbed his temples. The thunder in his head was getting worse. He flicked the deck vox-switch on the wall nearby.

  ‘Klute to bridge. Captain Torres, would you be so kind as to meet me on the archeodeck in five minutes. Please have Epiphani bring Hessian down from the chapel. I trust Brother Torqhuil is already there. Klute out.’

  By the time Klute had found his way to the archeodeck, Czevak already had the derelict sarcophocrate open and was rifling its contents. The inquisitor wasn’t happy with the way his people were similarly gathered about the crate, taking the vacuum-sealed texts and small artefacts that Czevak was handing them. Torqhuil was re-stacking them on an itinerant table for ease of transportation to the archeodeck reliquaries. The Space Marine checked them against the sarcophocrate’s inventory while Father hovered nearby and catalogued the items. Torres was standing on the other side of the table, perusing the texts and relics for worth while Epiphani and Hessian knelt by the box in front of Czevak, flicking through the damned, priceless tomes before handing them to the Relictor Space Marine like bored students in a library. Epiphani had changed – yet again – prompting Klute to consider where they might be going, the prognostic opting for a rubber jump suit – verdigris and copper coloured and ribbed throughout. It made the warp-seer look like some forge-world menial but Klute was sure that the outfit was the height of fashion somewhere. She completed the outfit with shiny hip boots and a poncho of layered plas.