Atlas Infernal

by Rob Sanders

  ‘I thought that the portal was damaged,’ Klute said finally, giving voice to what Torqhuil was thinking also. ‘You said that our exit strategy was compromised.’

  ‘Compromised, but not broken,’ Czevak said triumphantly. ‘The shock wave of negative psychic energy released by the Omega-Minus knocked out the gate as it knocked out the daemonhost and your warp-seer. They all just needed to reboot, as it were. You should spend some time with the Bonesingers of Iyanden. Alien architects. They taught me much of runes and wraithbone.’

  ‘I’m a little busy at the moment,’ Klute came back mordantly.

  ‘The wraithfield integrity of a dimensional threshold is not maintained by physical parameters,’ Czevak explained with authority. ‘They are merely a marker of the field’s influence.’

  ‘I’m sorry I asked,’ Klute told him and looked at Torqhuil.

  ‘The field is maintained by some property of the barbs and bulbs,’ Torqhuil guessed.

  ‘Irrespective of damage to the other parts of the wraithbone architecture,’ Czevak smiled. ‘He gets it.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Klute said, his voice indicating that it was anything but. Hoisting Hessian onto his shoulders he started marching away. ‘You can tell us all about it on the way.’

  ‘We are a clunky, functional race,’ Czevak continued. ‘The eldar are the galaxy’s aesthetes. It is in their flourishes you find their function.’ It was going to be a long discourse.

  Groaning, Klute said, ‘Somebody, anybody, please shoot me now.’

  Exeunt

  ACT III, CANTO III

  Archeodeck, Rogue trader Malescaythe, The Eye of Terror

  Enter CZEVAK with KLUTE and FATHER followed by BROTHER TORQHUIL who carries EPIPHANI and HESSIAN

  To Klute’s amazement the rogue trader’s medicae team and chief chirurgeon were assembled on the archeodeck waiting for them. The medics had been sitting upon a nest of crates and barrels to one side of the Lost Fornical of Urien-Myrdyss. As the medics went from dumb-struck amazement to sudden animation, Czevak and his henchmen were set upon with stretchers, instruments and dressings.

  Uncomfortable with further medical attention, Czevak ordered the chirurgeon not to fuss and directed her to Torqhuil and their unconscious comrades. As the Techmarine deposited the lank bodies of Epiphani and Hessian onto presented gurneys, Klute fell straight back into medicae jargon and protocol, triaging the patients, directing the infirmary technicians and explaining to the ship’s chirurgeon the more exotic aspects of both the wounded and the circumstances under which they were wounded.

  Czevak, meanwhile, was rune-locking the Lost Fornical and attempting to place a strange sensation he felt in the soles of his feet and the pit of his stomach.

  ‘Doctor Strakhov tells me you voxed through to the sick bay before we left and ordered a medical team to wait by the portal,’ Klute said, wiping Torqhuil’s blood from his hands with a clean towel.

  ‘The warp-seer’s garb,’ Czevak answered, absent-mindedly. ‘She knew she was heading for a battle even though she could hardly have predicted the part that she would play in it.’

  ‘You’re full of it,’ Klute told him before adding, ‘my lord.’

  ‘Must we go over the same ground again?’

  ‘You knowingly walked us into a trap,’ the inquisitor accused, ‘a trap you brought us along to spring so that you could get your hands on that damned stasis casket.’

  ‘All true, and if you ask me if I would do it again then I would. I’m sorry if that disappoints you Raimus, but contrary to a glance at the stars the universe is not black and white. Decisions are not always right or wrong – they are difficult but sometimes simply must be taken in the service of some greater good.’

  ‘My people had a right to know,’ Klute insisted solemnly. ‘I had a right to know.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Raimus. I truly am.’

  ‘The damned thing is – if you’d told us I think that there would have been a fair chance we would have accompanied you anyway.’

  Czevak smiled. ‘And you’re all the more fools for it. Walking into a top secret Inquisition fortress and pillaging their reliquaries for heretical artefacts? Even I’m surprised we walked away with our lives – and I’m usually pretty optimistic about our ventures.’

  Klute shook his head, reliving the nightmare of Nemesis Tessera. ‘I’d call it luck.’

  ‘Well,’ Czevak smiled, ‘does fortune not favour the bold?’

  Klute nodded, smiling also. ‘You know, this is only going to work if you trust me. I know I can’t be privy to every thought you have but you might grant me some of the more basic information you’re tempted to keep to yourself, like where we are going and if we are likely to die there.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ the High Inquisitor said whimsically. ‘If you put an end to this fanciful notion that the Holy Ordos would want us back for anything other than the secrets they would tear from our skulls.’

  Klute rocked his head from side to side in mock hesitation.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said finally, but Czevak had already walked away. ‘Czevak?’ the inquisitor called. As Klute turned, he took in the grandeur of the open hangar. He suddenly realised that the medical team hadn’t simply been gawping at the Fornical in amazement before rushing to their aid. They had already been staring at something else. As Klute drew level with Czevak the High Inquisitor spoke.

  ‘I felt it, as soon as my boots hit the deck. Couldn’t immediately put my finger – or rather, my stomach – on it. The ship is moving.’

  The ship was moving. A violent banking turn. Heinus Regula, a barren, rusty, crater-dashed orb of a moon fell away from them and the Malescaythe’s starboard side rolled around to face the ice world of Nemesis Tessera. A hidden sun peeped out over the horizon of the world’s curvature like a diamond ring. While undeniably beautiful, the far sun cast the ice world’s bleached slush fields and roving blizzards in an ominous darkness that seemed an appropriate hiding place for a top secret Inquisition fortress. It wasn’t the scenery that bothered the inquisitors. It was the small fleet of equally dark vessels, glint-smeared by the burgeoning sun and closing on their position from a myriad of other secret sentry-docks in the system that demanded their attention.

  The ship rocked forward as though shunted by some colossal force. Klute fell at Czevak who half-caught him and helped the inquisitor right himself. Alarms fired off all over the hangar, archeodeck and rogue trader, flooding the corridors with light and sound.

  ‘Battle stations…’ Czevak murmured before looking at Klute.

  ‘Bridge?’ the inquisitor said.

  ‘Bridge,’ Czevak concurred.

  The run and brief elevator ride up to the command deck was a blur of ear-splitting cacophony and flashing deck lamps. Mercantile serfs raced past with frightened eyes but the determination and purpose of a well-drilled crew. Savlar Chem-Dogs, liberated from the detention decks, were assuming boarder-repelling formations while enginseers and technicians bolted aft to see what they could do in the damaged areas of the ship.

  Klute nearly ran into Reinette Torres’s ensign, the boy blurting out, ‘By the Throne, there you are. The captain requests your presence on the bridge.’

  Klute didn’t wait and continued up through a throng of gunners heading for the Malescaythe’s port battery. As the boy looked from the disappearing Klute to Czevak, who had slowed, he was seized by the High Inquisitor who grabbed him by the shoulders. Under the jarring shriek of the alarms, Czevak pulled the side of the ensign’s head to his lips and issued an order before pushing the officer off in the direction of his new objective. The ensign gave Czevak an uncertain look before a grave nod from the High Inquisitor sent him off.

  When they arrived, the bridge was cloaked in an ominous hush. The rumble of a vessel pushed to its sub-light speed limit transferred up through the decking and transept architecture. The bridge crew, like their captain, sat in grim belief – as if raised voices or a status report might break the spell of possib
ility. The possibility of the Malescaythe’s escape. As Klute and Czevak walked across the bridge and flanked the captain’s throne the rogue trader vessel soared across the pole of another dusty moon.

  ‘Rear view pict feed,’ Captain Torres ordered. The moon disappeared as the lancet screen displaying it dissolved into static before presenting a rear view of the ship. Nemesis Tessera and Heinus Regula were now well behind them – the Malescaythe’s thundering engines carrying her at maximum speed away from the site of the secret Inquisition base. A pack of system ships and defence monitors were bearing down on the rogue trader from different hidden locations. Their role was simple: dissuade uninvited ships from cruising anywhere near the secret Inquisition fortress-world. They were perfectly outfitted for such a responsibility. Without the bulk and inconvenience of warp engines, the defence monitors could afford to sport powerful sub-light equivalents, monstrously thick armour and grotesque lance weaponry that protruded from the prows of the vessels like ugly bowsprits and could cut another vessel in half with a single discharge. Among them were a plethora of other vessels of varied forms and patterns: recommissioned Imperial Navy frigates, armed freighters and the occasional vessel of xenos origin. These Klute recognised as the personal vessels of individual inquisitors who had clearly been eager to join the pursuit, desperate for the honour of bringing down heretic prey like the Malescaythe.

  ‘Prow power signatures building again, captain,’ a lieutenant in an eye-patch and Navy dress like Torres called across the command deck, from a bank of runescreens.

  ‘Evasive manoeuvres!’ Torres shouted. ‘Pitch minus four thousand and a port yaw roll as we descend.’

  The rogue trader captain didn’t acknowledge the inquisitors standing beside her. She was too busy saving her ship. All Klute and Czevak could do was look on as fat beams of lethal energy blasted up the side and across the bow of the rogue trader. Klute grabbed the pulpit rail as he felt the ship answer and the lance blasts rage by.

  ‘Torpedo lock!’ the lieutenant called with fearful formality.

  ‘Damn it, I need that freak witch up here, now!’ Torres hissed at Klute.

  ‘Epiphani’s in the sick bay,’ Klute said.

  ‘I don’t care if that warp-sow has broken a nail, I need a jump plotting like ten minutes ago,’ Torres called.

  ‘She’s unconscious. And yes, it is my fault,’ Czevak said.

  ‘It usually is,’ the rogue trader spat with disgust.

  The rear lancet screen showed a pair of torpedoes streaking up between the converging monitors, adamanticlads and Inquisitorial Black Ships. The vessel that fired them blazed up in their path. The system ships and exotic ordo vessels parted to allow the larger craft through.

  ‘I have a partial identification for you, captain,’ the one-eyed deck officer announced.

  ‘Spit it out, lieutenant,’ Torres ordered, not taking her eyes off the closing torpedoes or the vessel that launched them.

  ‘A-A-Astartes Hunter-class,’ the officer stammered, ‘designated Justicarius – Grey Knights Chapter.’

  Torres grumbled something to herself, then said, ‘The others?’

  ‘Signatures are ordo encrypted, captain. We don’t have that information yet.’

  Torres clicked her throne vox to a different channel. ‘Ready turret crews,’ she called.

  The whole bridge ground to stillness as the torpedoes raced across the lancet screen and careered towards the ship. A violent blaze of turret fire lit up the blackness of space around the Malescaythe which grew brighter still as a lucky shot detonated the second torpedo en route. The ship rumbled. The first torpedo seemed determined to reach the rogue trader and managed to streak up through the tangled maze of turret fire offered by the Malescaythe’s gun crews.

  ‘Brace for impact!’ Torres called across the bridge and open vox channels. Czevak grabbed the back of the throne and Klute was winded by the pulpit rail as both men were thrown forward by a blast into the back of the ship. Logic engines and banks of instrumentation went crazy across the command deck, followed swiftly by a flood of chatter from servitors and bridge officers reporting damage and casualties.

  ‘Lieutenant, damage report,’ Torres snapped.

  ‘Still coming in, captain.’

  ‘What do you have now?’ she demanded as the officer side stepped along the cogitators, attempting to collate a clear picture of the danger the ship was in. ‘Is the hull breached?’

  ‘Yes, captain. Impact and detonation has damaged the main cargo hold,’ the lieutenant reported and he digested further data. ‘Detention decks east, in fact most of the lower decks have been hit and have been ordered sealed off.’

  ‘What about the sick bay?’ Klute asked.

  ‘I have no information about that, my lord.’

  ‘The archeodeck?’ Czevak added impatiently.

  ‘Archeodeck intact,’ the lieutenant confirmed after an agonising delay and consultation with a flashing runescreen. ‘Hang on,’ the officer begged of them, tuning into his vox headset. ‘Enginseer Autolycus has confirmed some minor damage to the warp drive. Mechanicus technicians are on scene.’

  ‘I need that damn girl up here,’ Torres stormed. ‘We need to make that jump while we still can.’

  ‘If we still can,’ Klute said unhappily. ‘What about an emergency short range jump – unguided?’ Klute had known captains to do such things unaided when the distances were very short and immaterial navigation not required.

  ‘The jump point seems calm enough but we’re too close to the Eye for that. There’s no such thing as a safe, short range jump here.’

  ‘Torres,’ Czevak called turning around her throne from behind. The elevator door was open to the bridge and the ensign Klute had almost run into on the corridor below was now wheeling a gibbet cage onto the bridge on a cargo trolley. Czevak had ordered the insane Navigator Rasputus Guidetti to be summoned to the command deck. ‘We have another option.’

  ‘The hell we do,’ the rogue trader captain said looking from Guidetti to the High Inquisitor. Pursing her lips the captain thumbed a vox-switch on the arm of her throne. ‘Enginarium, prepare for a short range jump.’

  The harsh, metallic burr of Enginseer Autolycus came back over the vox but between the chaos in the enginarium and the tech-priest’s mechanical voice it was hard to make out. Torres scowled at her lieutenant.

  ‘The enginseer needs six or seven minutes to re-route power around the damaged sections and reinstate full power to the warp drive,’ the officer translated, prompting Captain Torres to spasm in fury and slam her back violently into her throne. ‘He can maintain the Geller field but regrets the void shield generators will also be down during this time,’ the lieutenant added.

  All Torres could manage was an incredulous gawp.

  ‘You know, this was not exactly the welcome I’d hoped for inquisitor,’ she told Klute, her words thick with accusation.

  ‘Did you run across a patrol?’ Czevak asked.

  ‘No. Your idea of hiding behind Heinus Regula was a good one, but you weren’t the first to have it. We ran straight into a defence monitor also hiding in the scan and comms blackout area.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Klute asked.

  ‘What do you think I did, High Inquisitor? We were attacked on sight. I destroyed it.’

  ‘Justicarius closing,’ the lieutenant announced. ‘They’re arming torpedoes.’

  ‘Torres, you’ve got to give the enginseer time,’ Czevak said, kneeling down beside her throne.

  ‘Those torpedoes won’t wait,’ she reminded him harshly.

  ‘Then put something between them and your ship,’ Czevak encouraged her. He pointed up at the swirling stormball of Gerontia, a gas giant spinning like a bad omen near the top of the main lancet screen. Gerontia supported an equally giant ring system, an expanse of rock, ice and celestial metal, all tumbling through space like a ragged belt around the host planet’s colossal belly. Inclined as it was, the system looked like a vox-disc turned on its
side, displaying messy rings and narrow divisions. As she followed the path of his finger she realised that he was talking about the ring system rather than the planet itself.

  ‘Czevak,’ Klute warned.

  ‘Aren’t we in enough danger already?’ Torres said.

  ‘Absolutely,’ the young inquisitor agreed. ‘All I’m suggesting is good manners. Let’s not be greedy. Let’s share some of that danger with our pursuers.’

  Torres took a precious few seconds to think it over.

  ‘Helm,’ she ordered. ‘Execute an immediate course correction. Make for Gerontia – zone equatorial.’

  ‘How will we make a warp jump from within the ring system?’ the deck officer panicked.

  ‘With added danger and difficulty,’ the captain replied bleakly.

  The Malescaythe’s prow rose taking the rogue trader toward the lethality of the ring system debris field that orbited silently above. The ring haze was largely created by tiny particles of dust but as the vessel neared it became apparent that colossal bergs of ice and rock rolled and tumbled through the void at different angles and velocities.

  ‘Torpedoes away,’ the lieutenant updated the bridge. Two bright streaks rocketed across the blackness at the Malescaythe, but the Justicarius was slowing – the Space Marine captain of the vessel not enthusiastic about joining them in the orbiting maelstrom.

  ‘Ready turret crews,’ Torres ordered.

  ‘Helm,’ Czevak added. ‘Take us in as close as you dare to the debris field.’

  The captain rolled her eyes, then, ‘Make it so.’

  Once again it was the second torpedo that caught the worst of the gun crews’ fire, the first slipping through the spider’s web of turret beams. The second missile detonated a safe distance away from the fleeing Malescaythe. The first came in under the rogue trader’s unprotected belly. Torres took the prow of her ship up through a curtain of ice and metal fragments, the rogue trader’s armour plating awash with the sparks and tiny detonations of small impacts. The torpedo reared up for the kill but upon attempting to the pierce the same curtain slammed into a large shard of irregular nickel. Once again, the rumble of the detonation passed through the superstructure of the rogue trader.