Saturnine

by Dan Abnett

  ‘You little bastard.’

  Perturabo stood up so violently the cargo crate crashed over on its side. Abaddon found himself a metre off the deck, his feet swinging, the Hammer of Olympia’s right hand gripping his throat.

  ‘No one by-blow manipulates me like this,’ hissed Perturabo.

  Abaddon clenched his teeth.

  ‘I sincerely apologise,’ he grunted, slowly choking, ‘and take back any word I have uttered that was not true.’

  Perturabo squeezed his grip more tightly. He was trembling with rage. With a sharp crack, one of Abaddon’s collar seals began to buckle.

  The Lord of Iron spat in Abaddon’s face, then threw him across the chamber like a discarded doll. Abaddon fell into an abandoned monitor station, smashed it, bounced off, and sprawled on the deck.

  He raised himself slightly, small fragments of plastek and glass tinkling off him. He pulled at the broken throat seal that was drawing blood from his neck. He looked at the primarch.

  Pertuabo had turned away. He stood, breathing hard, staring out of the observation port at the polluted darkness outside, staring as thought he could see something, something bright but far away, that only he make out. His monstrously broad back, lined with ancient cicatrix, raw neural plug-ports and the traceries of sub-dermal circuitry, heaved and flexed.

  ‘You’d have your rabble do this, would you?’ asked Perturabo in a low voice.

  Abaddon got up. He wiped the spittle from his cheek.

  ‘It would please the Lupercal if his own loyal sons were the instruments of this act.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ murmured Perturabo.‘A reason, but not a good enough one.’

  ‘It’s a spear-tip lip strike, my Lord of Iron. It is our proven specialty. You are the unrivalled master of military analysis, so tell me, loyalties and grudges ignored, who would you send? Think clearly now. Objective tactical clarity. Who would you send?’

  Perturabo turned his head slowly to look at Abaddon.

  ‘You know the answer to that,’ he said.

  ‘I do. I’d hear you say it.’

  ‘The Sons of Horus. The Sixteenth. No, the Luna Wolves. That’s who I’d sent, if I had them. Hell, but you goad me, captain. As if you had come here to make me kill you.’

  ‘Not that.’ said Abaddon. ‘I came here to make you take me seriously.’

  Perturabo crossed to the table. The shell markers had fallen. He picked them up, set them back in position, then held up the one Abaddon had put down.

  ‘The Luna Wolves are gone,’ he said, ‘and the Sons of Horus are assigned. Here, here and here. I cannot release their strengths. They are tucked into the plan.’

  ‘I don’t need them all,’ said Abaddon. ‘First Company, maybe one other, the Justaerin. The Mournival.’

  ‘A savage execution force, but scarcely a host,’ said Perturabo. ‘Not enough for this.’

  ‘This offers another opportunity,’ said Abaddon. ‘A chance to deal with other problems that you contend with.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We stand unified,’ said Abaddon. ‘Undivided. The greatest war-host in history. Differences and disputes set aside or ignored. But for how long? You know that’s the invisible danger. Our own unravelling. You use every fighting asset at your disposal for maximum effect, but you are also obligated – against, I venture, your temperament – to act with a degree of diplomacy. To keep the multifarious factions content, and your brothers satisfied. It won’t be long before they start to get their own ideas. Lord, to maintain our trajectory towards triumph, you need to keep them all in line.’

  ‘The Phoenician.’

  ‘The Phoenician, yes,’ said Abaddon. ‘He’ll be first. Well, Angron has already snapped your leash, but at least his rampage serves your plan. Fulgrim is your immediate problem. He is wilful, he doesn’t take to the bridle, and his attention span is woefully short. He in growing listless. I know this for a fact. Give him something to do that feels significant, and you can keep him in check.’

  ‘His bastard children are deployed-‘

  ‘Who cares where you’ve placed them, or what you’ve charged them to do? Another few days, they won’t be there anyway. They will have decided for themselves what action to take. But this bright objective would focus their attention, and allow you to channel them to genuine effect. And it would flatter him. He likes to be flattered.’

  ‘I can’t approach him,’ said Perturabo, ‘I can barely stand the sight of him.’

  ‘I can,’ said Abaddon. ‘Through back-channels at company level. I can secure them for this, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘And keep them in line?’

  ‘Long enough to get this done. And once we start…’ Abaddon shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter then. The Third will give us the meat and muscle we need for grand scale assault. Cannon fodder for whatever greets us.’

  Perturabo nodded slightly, thinking. That prospect clearly made sense and, more importantly, entertained him.

  ‘They provide the necessary mass, I provide the scalpel, and you are the glorious architect,’ said Abaddon. ‘And this work is done inside a week.’

  He walked over to the table, took the shell from Perturabo’s hand, and put it back on the chart. The base squarely covered the middle of the words Saturnine Gate.

  ‘If this is some ploy, if you renege…’ Perturabo began, quietly.

  ‘It’s not, and I won’t,’ said Abaddon. This matters to both of us. It’s the achievement we both long for. Forget Dorn’s genius strategies, my lord, forget the prospect of loyalist relief. Time is our greatest enemy, fraying and eroding the patience of your brothers. We must had our where we can, and make those bonds count.’

  Then Perturabo, Lord of Iron, did the most terrible thing Abaddon would ever see him do.

  He smiled.

  FIVE

  * * *

  Leave-takings and dialogues

  Dorn was in the Grand Borealis when Vorst brought him the day’s deployment summary. He took it, and skimmed it quickly. The date at the top, the twenty-first day of Quintus, then almost forty pages of logistic data. Each day, the document took him less than a minute to approve. Apart from any specific requests he made, it was assembled by the War Courts, usually through statistical analysis algorithms.

  He was intensely busy at an augur station, reviewing North Anterior tactical schemes with Master of Huscarls Archamus, Mistress Tacticae Sandrine Icaro, Mistress Tacticae Katarin Elg, and twelve Excertus war-chiefs, but there was one section of the document he wanted to review. He saw the names: companies, regiments, divisions, officers, support cohorts and auxilia. They had been selected due to proximity, mobility, ease of transfer. They had been chosen by cool machine logic. His jaw clenched slightly. He had been waiting for this tight moment of necessary pain.

  He handed the report back to Vorst, and returned to the augur display.

  ‘You were saying, Mistress Icaro, that-‘ He stopped. ‘Wait, I’m sorry.’

  Dorn turned away from the station again, and called Vorst back.

  ‘A problem, my lord?’ the veteran Huscarl asked.

  ‘Just give me a moment,’ said Dorn, scrolling back down the list.

  There it was. It had not been mistake of memory.

  The vast bastion chamber seemed to close in around him, the babble of voices like a mocking, hectoring chorus. He looked around. The others were waiting for him. Old Vorst was attentive, dutiful, but frowning. There was no one Dorn could tell, no one among the thousands present who knew, no one who could know. And Dorn couldn’t leave his post or the review. In the great, uncaring scheme of things it was nothing, a trifle, just a name on a list: a tiny, irrelevant detail compared to the defence of the Palace.

  Dorn saw Cadwalder at station by the chamber door, far away across the sea of faces and urgent activity. Cadwalder knew. He’d been there, and he’d heard it. The Huscarl was the only other soul in Bhab Bastion who would understand.
/>   Dorn caught his eye, and the Huscarl immediately made his way to his lord’s side.

  ‘My lord?’ Cadwalder asked.

  Dorn quietly, quickly, showed him the name on the list.

  Cadwalder nodded.

  ‘You understand the-‘

  ‘Sensitivity, yes, my lord.’

  ‘This bothers me,’ Dom whispered to him. ‘I would appreciate-‘

  ‘I’ll go and see if I can stop it, my lord,’ said Cadwalder.

  ‘I’m grateful,’ said Dorn. ‘Be discreet.’

  ‘I will, my lord.’

  ‘Just… do something about it, if it’s not too late. Safeguard him.’

  The Huscarl put his fist to his chest, nodded, and strode away. Dorn turned back to the waiting chiefs.

  ‘My apologies,’ he told them, ‘I noticed a minor transcription error. Let us continue.’

  * * *

  Leeta Tang had been waiting at the door of Munition Manufactory 226 for nearly an hour. There seemed to be some problem with her warrant. No one cared to explain what. Supervisors came and went in the cold, utilitarian atrium, and she could hear the noise of industry from beyond the inner hatches: the clank of conveyor assemblies, the drone of lathes, the periodic echo of safety sirens. She wanted to get in, perhaps to the canteen. Interviews with munition workers seemed like an ideal starting point. Sindermann had urged them to seek out the ordinary people, the workers, the menials, and hear their stories, stories that grander histories all too often ignored. Almost a hundred thousand people worked at MM226, one of the principal armament factories in the Southern Palatine.

  An Imperial Fist strode into the atrium from the manufactory’s yard. For a moment, she thought it was Diamantis, come to resolve her access problem, but it wasn’t. The Space Marines all looked alike to her, but this one had the laurels of an officer, a company captain, not the ornate plate of the Huscarl detail.

  ‘Sir,‘she said, ‘could you-‘

  ‘Not now,’ the legionary snapped.

  ‘But-‘

  ‘Really, not now.’

  The Imperial Fist spoke to a supervisor, who let him through the inner gates immediately.

  ‘Hey!’ Leeta yelled after him.

  * * *

  ‘What was that about?’ the captain asked the supervisor as they walked down blast-proofed tunnels, past the rhythmic thump of the automated casing press chamber. Smoke-wash from the annealing halls streamed past their ankles, drawn to the floor grates of the manufactory’s humming extractor system.

  ‘A remembrancer, lord,’ the supervisor replied.

  ‘I thought they were a dead breed?’

  They stepped aside to let a steward pass, driving a train of cargo-carts laden with freshly stamped shell casings. Some of the rattling cylinders still glowed pink with residual heat.

  ‘Apparently not,’ said the supervisor, as they resumed step. ‘She has the right warrant. All proper and correct. The mark of the Praetorian. But…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was right to let her in, so I was delaying her. I was worried she might see…’ He shrugged.

  The legionary nodded. He knew what the man was trying to say. Munition plants like 226 were running low, their stockpile bunkers almost empty of explosive, propellant, intermix, charge-powder and alloy. Just a few – a very few – weeks of capacity remained, and then they would be spent, with no possibility of resupply. That was the kind of information that couldn’t be allowed to get out, the kind of information that would damage public morale. No remembrancer could be allowed to wander in to ask questions, or see empty, echoing storage vaults.

  They walked on, in silence, past bustling depots sheathed in rockcrete, the entrances to vast machining halls that rang with the squeal of air-buffers and the clatter of constantly running conveyor lines, and the curtained hatches of eerily quiet filling rooms.

  ‘Anyway, he’s in here, lord,’ said the supervisor at last, as if they had been talking cheerfully for the past several minutes. He ushered the captain through a blast-curtained arch, into a dry room that stank of fyceline. The walls were clad with thick concussion padding and stacks of water-filled bowsers designed to absorb any accidental detonations. Sprinkler rigs and fire-suppression systems hung from the ceiling. Inside sterile and inert priming tents, tech thralls and arachnoid assemblies of servo-arms were precisely measuring charges, and delicately packing them into test canisters.

  ‘Station six, lord,’ said the supervisor, pointing.

  Maximus Thane nodded.

  ‘You!’ he called out. At a nearby desk, a tech-magos looked up, puzzled.

  ‘Yes you,’ said Thane. ‘Arkhan Land, correct? Magos Arkhan Land? I need you to come with me.’

  * * *

  ‘What’s this about, captain?’ asked Arkhan Land as he followed Thane out into the manufactory yard. Acid rain was drizzling across the broad, high walled gateyard, and heavy transporters were backed up to the factory’s loading docks.

  ‘You’re needed for the war effort,’ replied Thane.

  ‘I was engaged in the war effort,’ replied Land, jerking a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘Very much engaged. Vital work. I was refining a new powder intermix, using tetraheldyl in granular form rather than volate-nineteen primer…’

  He glanced at the Imperial Fist, who didn’t appear to be paying any attention.

  ‘Because resources are depleting,’ he continued. ‘We may run out of volate primer entirely in the next eight days. But a viably stable form of tetraheldyl could be used as a coactive accelerant, allowing us in extend the primer supply.’

  The captain still did not respond. He was intently leading the way across the yard to a waiting armoured carrier.

  ‘You don’t know much about the composition of explosive charges, do you? asked Land.

  ‘I know what to do with them,’ Thane replied. He gestured for Land to board the carrier via the rear hatch. Land clambered up, hauling his kitbag after him, balancing his chirruping artificimian on his shoulder. Thane swung in after him, closed the hatch, and banged his fist twice on the metal partition. The carrier spluttered into life, and began to move.

  ‘So,’ said Land, sitting back in the battered, bare-metal compartment. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘I was not,’ replied Thane. He sat facing Land, his helm clutched on one thigh.

  ‘Well, start,’ said Land. ‘I was engaged in essential work. Essential war effort work. And you’re taking me away from it.’

  ‘Your abilities are required elsewhere, magos,’ said Thane.

  ‘I’m not actually a magos,’ said Land.

  Thane frowned. ‘You are Arkhan Land?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, relax. I prefer the term “technoarchaeologist”. I’m not, in any precise or official capacity, an ordinate of the highmost Mechanicum though, of course, I am a true servant of the Divine One. “Magos” is a… what you would call a “brevet” rank, in your parlance. I adopted the title to facilitate my service, attached to the tech-priesthood, for the duration of the war. I am, I assure you, honoured to serve in whatever way I can. Successful prosecution of this hideous conflict is essential so that we can achieve the great goal.’

  ‘The liberation of Mars,’ said Thane.

  ‘Ah,’ said Land. He smiled, and adjusted the goggles on his brow ‘You’re feigning ignorance, captain. You’ve read my file.’

  ‘I have. You are a renegade technicist, and your paramount driver is the salvation of the Mechanicum world.’

  ‘Terra first,’ said Land. ‘The Throneworld must be protected, or there is no hope for Mars. I am entirely committed to the cause at hand. And “renegade”? A little harsh, I feel.’

  There is no record of your assignment to Manufactory Two-Two-Six,’ said Thane. ‘You just turned up there, and took it upon yourself to work in the development department.’

  ‘One serves the Divine One where best one can, captain,’ said
Land. ‘I had appreciated the impending crisis in munition supply, so I thought I should deploy my expertise there.’

  ‘Without asking.’

  ‘Well,’ said Land, folding his arms. ‘If you’re going to get formal about it.’

  ‘I don’t care, Land,’ said Thane. ‘You’re required elsewhere. Formally.’

  ‘Is this Zephon? Did Zephon send you?’

  ‘Zephon?’ asked Thane.

  ‘Captain Zephon, the Bringer of Sorrows,’ said Land. ‘Of the Ninth. A colleague of mine.’

  No,’ said Thane.

  ‘Oh. Where is he?’

  ‘If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you,’ said Thane. This is wartime. Need-to-know basis only.’

  ‘Exactly. I need to know some things,’ said Land. ‘Like where we’re going.’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss anything,’ said Thane wearily. ‘I’m merely your escort.’

  ‘Well,’ said Land. He frowned. ‘I will deduce, then. The Divine One has sent for me. He values my specialist expertise. I’ve met Him, you know? Oh yes. He knows my name. He’s sent for me.’

  ‘You deduce this how?’

  ‘From you, captain… I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Thane.’

  ‘From you, Captain Thane. You’re not merely anything. My escort? No one sends a line captain of the Seventh on a personnel escort duty during time of war. Oh no. A man like you can’t be spared for such a lowly function, unless the Divine One requests it personally.

  ‘I’m flattered, of course. But this wasn’t necessary. He could have simply summoned me.’

  ‘You talk a lot,’ said Thane.

  Land pursed his lips. The psyber-monkey on his shoulder chattered, and grimaced at Thane.

  ‘And I don’t know what that is,’ Thane added, pointing at the artificimian with distaste. ‘You’ll have to get rid of it.’

  ‘I very much won’t,’ said Land indignantly. This is my companion. My familiar, if you will. He helps me think.’

  ‘I’m not remotely surprised to hear that,’ said Thane. He sighed ‘Land,’ he said, ‘I’m here at the behest of the Praetorian. You have been summoned to assist my primarch.’