Saturnine

by Dan Abnett

  ‘My things are here, because I’m working here,’ Land replied. ‘As I am sure you can readily see.’ His artificimian chittered a scathing threat display at the Imperial Fists officer from the cluttered laboratory bench. ‘Your Praetorian charged me, me, in person, to assist with the war effort. I think you were there. Have you taken a blow to the head since? I am doing the Praetorian’s work, as I was asked to do.’

  ‘You are, magos.’ said Thane.

  ‘Uhm… technoarchaeologist. Or “sir”. “Sir” is perhaps easier and more appropriate. “Good sir”, even.’

  Thane grunted.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, as though the honorific was a supreme hurdle to overcome. ‘You are doing the Praetorian’s work. For which all of Terra is grateful, I’m sure. You’ll just be doing it somewhere else.’

  ‘It’ll take days to dismantle and transport this apparatus!’ Land snorted.

  ‘Someone else will do that,’ said Thane.

  ‘No, I will. I need it. To develop the defensive potential of lockcrete, I-‘

  ‘Someone else will do that too.’

  ‘I… Wow. Wow. Bring them in. I want to meet this exceptional genius,’ said Land.

  ‘I am ordered to take you back to Munition Manufactory Two-Two-Six, where you were being so useful before. Armament production is the priority now.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Land, trying to pull the gloves off. ‘I’ve moved on from that.’

  ‘Strange to tell, our war has not,’ said Thane. ‘Get your things. You’ve been awarded official clearance to work at MM-Two-Two-Six, which I appreciate will come as a shock.’

  Land shot him a withering look.

  ‘So… get your things, sir,’ said Thane.

  Land sighed. He peeled off the crusted, thickening gloves, and dropped them into a disposal container.

  ‘Oh,’ said Thane, as he waited, ‘that brother of the Ninth you were asking about. Zephon? As a gesture of… Anyway, I pulled some strings, and located him for you.’

  ‘Good. Where is he?’ asked Land.

  ‘Now?’ asked Thane. ‘The stasis core at Bhab. He was killed in action at Gorgon Bar a few days ago.’

  * * *

  Keeler heard the footsteps. The clink of keys. The echo of plated boots striking their way along the cell block of the Blackstone. She got up off her cot, and waited for her cell door to open.

  The footsteps passed by.

  ‘Amon?’ she called. ‘Custodian?’

  Amon Tauromachian heard her, but ignored her. He continued along the cell block in the darkness, and drew open the door of Fo’s cell.

  ‘Alone today?’ asked the little prisoner. That’s a bad sign. You’ve come to kill me, haven’t you? You’ve thought about what I said, and now you think I’m too dangerous to live. A quiet execution in a cell. But you don’t want her to see, because she likes you.’

  Amon tossed him a dataslate.

  ‘Write it down,’ he said.

  ‘Write… what?’

  ‘You know.’

  Fo picked up the slate, and frowned. ‘It’s not as simple as that…’ ‘Write it down.’

  ‘I need a laboratory,’ said Fo. ‘Dedicated bio-technical apparatus. Access to all data archives. Time to plan it precisely, so I can verify my process. It’s not just something you jot down.’

  ‘Just the basics,’ said Amon. The principles. The fundamental elements. The details can come later. Write it down. All of it.’

  * * *

  The cubicle was small and simple. Candlelit, a smell of lapping powder in the air. Enough room for a simple cot, a repair unit and the warplate rack. Sindermann had to stand in the doorway. Every now and then, the distant boom of a casemate trembled the floor, and made dust skitter down from the ceiling.

  ‘Did it bring you any satisfaction?’ Sindermann asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Loken replied. He had laid out his blades on the cot: three of them now, the Imperial Fist’s chainsword, Rubio’s old gladius, and the other one. ‘You?’

  ‘No,’ said Sindermann. ‘I recorded a detailed account, which I’m sure will never be seen or read. Which is, to my mind, a strange use of history. But I’m not the one deciding history. Just watching it pass.’

  Loken nodded. He was working his new blade. Mourn-it-All had a frosty gleam.

  ‘Will you use that?’ Sindermann asked.

  ‘A good weapon is a good weapon, Kyril,’ Loken replied.

  ‘But three swords? Garviel, I hesitate to point out the number of hands you have…’

  Loken looked at the old man. ‘And I hesitate to point out the number of enemies there are,’ he replied. He put the sword down and picked up another, then fished a whetstone from the oiled box.

  ‘What will you do now?’ Sindermann asked.

  ‘Go back to the wall,’ said Loken.

  ‘Aren’t you tired of it?’

  ‘That’s not an option,’ Loken said.

  He ran the whetstone along the blade. Then he stopped, and looked at his old mentor.

  ‘I learned things, Kyril,’ Loken said. ‘On the killing floors. They were things I thought I already knew, but I didn’t really. Not fully. I saw exactly what our enemy has made our brothers into. The weapons he has fashioned out of them. And I saw that the Emperor has done the same.’

  The same?’ asked Sindermann.

  ‘In a way. A different way, I suppose. I understand my place. Just like the Sons of Horus are conduits for Lupercal’s twisted power, I’ve become a conduit for His will.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Sindermann asked. ‘You always were.’

  Loken held Rubio’s sword up to the light, and examined its edge.

  ‘Not like this,’ he said.

  * * *

  The sun rose over the Guelb er Richât. Clear light. A sky of cornflower blue. Good desert winds.

  Good sailing weather. A propitious day to cast off and begin a voyage, even in a desert.

  The neck-bells of the stock clunked as the grazers trotted down the ridge away from the approaching figures.

  She had used her sunstone to confirm the readings of John’s torquetum.

  ‘How accurate do we think this is?’ John asked her.

  ‘In leagues or weeks?’ Erda replied.

  John sighed. ‘But we think he’s there?’ he asked.

  ‘By every means I know,’ she said, ‘that’s where he’s gone. I have consulted the sun, the stars, the cards, the Red Thread and the black mirrors. The cards were the most insistent, others were more reluctant to commit to an answer. But they all agreed. Ollanius is there, two weeks away from now.’

  ‘Right then,’ said John. ‘I’d best go and get him.’ He took out the wraithbone shears, checked his pockets, and kissed Erda on the cheek.

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘I don’t know why I did that either,’ John said. He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Are you coming, or what?’

  Leetu nodded. ‘If it’s that important,’ the legionary said.

  ‘I will keep safe until you return to me,’ Erda told Leetu.

  ‘Just saying, I’m the one who’ll need keeping safe,’ said John. He looked at Erda. ‘Right. See you later.’

  ‘Or before,’ she replied.

  * * *

  Niora Su-Kassen turned in her command seat. She lowered the slate an ensign had passed to her.

  ‘No, Master of Auspex,’ she whispered. Most of the personnel on the vast bridge looked around at her. Phalanx had been on silent operation for months, with scarcely a word spoken anywhere on the vast fortress-ship. Silence within, as silent as the void without. That a vessel of their magnitude had to operate so stealthily spoke of the potential harm that awaited them everywhere in the Solar Spheres.

  The sound of a human voice, even a whisper, shocked almost every one of the five hundred crew and staff present.

  The officer standing on the tier of the deck below her shrugged
awkwardly. Grand Terran Admiral (Acting) Su-Kassen rose to her feet.

  ‘Use words,’ she instructed.

  ‘Trace confirmed, my lady,’ he whispered back.

  Su-Kassen looked up at the immense oriel and arched ports that spilled light across the bridge chamber. The stained glass had been tinted to reduce the soft brilliance of Saturn’s rings, the radiant plains of light and colour beneath which they sheltered. Mighty Phalanx, and the rest of the Solar fleet it dwarfed, including the massive flagship Imperator Somnium, were in turn dwarfed by the Saturnine expanse. Its mass, and radiation bands, and magnetic fields, concealed them all like a sheltering father.

  Since the ravages of the Solar War, she had moved the remnants of the Imperial fleet in from the system edge, creeping into traitor-held space, evading enemy eyes. It was a desperately risky gambit, but it put them closer to strike range, or closer to a rescue run if such an unthinkable thing became necessary. All the while, they were watching for any sign that the reinforcement and relief they had been hoping for had finally arrived.

  ‘We hold-‘ Su-Kassen said, then stopped and cleared her throat. Talking was so unfamiliar, even whispering. ‘We hold, away from all Terran navigation lanes, civilian or military. I chose the vector personally. We are to evade the eyes and ears of the traitor fleets for as long as we can. Or until He calls for us. Any contact signal could make us vulnerable.’

  ‘Agreed, admiral,’ whispered the officer. ‘But the trace profile-‘

  ‘Show me full detail.’

  The Master of Auspex motioned to one of his subordinates. Data rolled across Su-Kassen’s command station’s primary repeater screen.

  ‘Definitely a fleet,’ she murmured. ‘In military formation. Aetheric wash suggests it’s just made translation beyond the system rim.’

  ‘They haven’t seen us, lady,’ hissed the Master of Watch.

  ‘Those ship profiles are unmistakable,’ whispered the Master of Auspex.

  Su-Kassen looked at the Officer of Vox. ‘Hailing channel,’ she said.

  Tight beam, direct.’

  ‘Aye, lady. Done.’

  ‘This is-‘ she started to say. No. No identifiers. Keep it simple. ‘You

  are in our gun sphere. Identify yourself.’

  ‘Incoming visual.’

  ‘Display it,’ said Su-Kassen.

  ‘Display, aye.’

  An image unfurled, at giant proportions, cast above the vault of the main bridge by hololithic plates.

  A face. Black armour. Unmistakable black armour.

  ‘I am Corswain of the Dark Angels,’ the vox-speakers crackled. ‘We come to stand with Terra.’

  AFTERWORD

  The Horus Heresy series is about Warhammer 40,000.

  What I mean is, in its simplest terms – and let’s be fair, there’s very little about the Horus Heresy that’s ‘simple’ – but in its simplest terms, the Horus Heresy novels, and their culmination, the Siege of Terra books, are an explanation of why Warhammer 40,000 is the way it is. They present the core mythology that underlies the society of the 40K Imperium, and also shapes the mindset of everyone living in it.

  The series does this in a number of ways, the most obvious being a straight recounting of the things that we ‘know happened’. The events, the people, the places, the sequence, the lore: first and foremost, every writer who steps up to this plate must study the vast amount of (often contradictory) detail that has been written about the Horus Heresy over the last few decades, and make a good account of it. We will get in trouble if we leave bits out. Or, you know, change stuff.

  But we’re going to get in trouble anyway, because it is very contradictory. The background lore was never written cohesively. It was embellished and added to over the years, with odd details thrown in because they sounded cool, and other concepts revised because they no longer fitted the evolving incarnations of the game. The background lore was only ever ‘colour text’, something we so casually refer to as ‘fluff’: it was intended to provide an atmospheric, impressionistic background to the game, inspiring and exciting the imagination. No one was ever supposed to sit an exam on it.

  There have, of course, been significant efforts to formalise the lore, most notably the Visions of Heresy, but the Heresy novels (and Forge World’s Heresy books) are the first serious attempt to rationalise everything into a seamless long-form version.

  On top of that, everyone – and by ‘everyone’ I mean all the players and readers and fans out there – has his or her ‘own version’ of what happened. Just check out the forums, message boards and various online wikis if you want proof of that (and bring a packed lunch and stout walking boots because, boy, it’s a long trek). This state of affairs isn’t wrong: it’s exactly the way things are supposed to be. Warhammer 40,000, the game, is a hobby. It was specifically designed from the outset to be something that you could become part of, but that you (and your friends) could also evolve and customise so that it suited you. There are lots of grey areas, and gaps to fill in, and places that have been left deliberately blank to give your imagination space to roam (the two missing Legions would be a perfect example of this).

  So, what I’m saying is, we’re going to get in trouble anyway. No matter which ‘version’ we choose to follow, which path we decide is the ‘right’ one, someone’s not going to like it. I understood that from the outset, when I sat down to write the first book in the series, Horus Rising, some years ago, and it’s become more and more apparent the further we’ve gone. And it’s not just that there isn’t ‘one true version’, it’s because the lore’s full of gaps anyway. Even the ‘detailed’ bits. We know the big beats, but we don’t necessarily know how (or, more particularly, why) they link together. I found this when I was writing my first few Warhammer 40,000 novels, even more years ago, books like Xenos and First and Only. The 40K universe seemed so detailed and well worked-out (and it was!), but there were still so many things that no one had ever considered, primarily things that lay away from the battlefield (tabletop) experience, yet which would be vital to a writer tasked with sustaining a long piece of prose. What, for example, were everyday things called, the things you were going to mention time and again? This is one of the reasons that I coined, very early on, words like ‘vox’ and ‘promethium’, just to fill in the essential vocabulary.

  Let me pause for a second and emphasise that I’m not complaining. I’m not saying, ‘oh, it’s really hard!’ and looking for sympathy. I love this stuff, and that kind of gap-filling, sense-making work is part of the job. In fact, I’d rather you just read the novel. A book shouldn’t need an explanation. However, for these editions, we’ve been asked to write afterwords that discuss the writing process, and here we are. If I’m pointing out things that you have been smart enough to spot for yourself, skip this part.

  For those of you still here, let’s delve.

  The Lore

  Do you know what I did last Easter weekend? I made a map. I sat at my desk, surrounded by references, and made a massive, annotated map of the Palace of Terra, with accompanying gazetteer, all of which I forwarded to the writing team for feedback. I loved doing it. It also had to be done.

  We already knew what was in the Palace: we had composed a long list. And we knew what the Palace looked like (certainly by the time the map was composed for Guy’s The Lost and the Damned, though other maps already existed). But there was the question of where the things on the list were on the map, and how far apart they were, and so on. I needed a map – we needed a map – so I made one, and the other writers came back with excellent suggestions and revisions, so we were all happy.

  It was only when I had the map that my plot began to make sense. Like all the authors working on the Siege of Terra series, I had a timeline of events to cover. The others have spoken about this in their own afterwords. The team meets regularly for long, and often very amusing, and sometimes downright inspiring, brainstorms. We had broken the Siege timeline down,
and worked out what needed to happen in which book. Rough guides – ‘you cover this bit’. We also talk a lot, by phone, and Skype, and email. As I worked on Saturnine, I compiled the responses from our ongoing email thread, which went back and forth almost every day, and this compilation turned into a hundred-plus page ‘bible’ full of questions and answers and reminders.

  The map, and the conversations, allowed me to fill in the flesh of my timeline. The key thing I had to cover was the fall of the Eternity Wall space port (an ‘established’ event, part of the lore). Only when I looked at the map did I realise that there were questions that needed to be answered. Like… why are Perturabo and the traitors trying to take Eternity Wall Port, which is over here (*points*) when they already have Lion’s Gate Port, which is right next to the Palace front door? Why are they even bothering with the outer areas of the Palace sprawl (the size of Belgium, since you asked) when they already have a stranglehold on the Inner Palace (Sanctum)?

  In explaining that – in explaining the geographic puzzle – I suddenly had my plot. I had a plot about Dorn running the siege, and the strategies he was obliged to follow, the sacrifices he would have to make. I had a plot that illuminated the grim experience of being under siege, and emphasised the fact that the loyalists were pinned with finite resources. Dorn couldn’t win everything – he didn’t have the manpower. What could he afford to lose, and what did he simply have to hold on to?

  Thus, Saturnine was born: a story of simultaneous battlefronts, of give and take, of playing one thing off against another, of decisions driven by necessity. The pieces began to make sense.

  Scale

  So, I’m up and running, writing a novel about four simultaneous main battlefronts. The scale is huge. How do you emphasise that scale without just repeating the words ‘really big’? You zoom in and out, from the loftiest primarch to the lowliest lasman, and everyone in between. You jump between a cast of hundreds. You show people in horrible situations, who have no idea what’s going on, and people in fairly nice situations who have every idea how horrible things are.

  And there’s a lot of fighting, so how do you avoid that being repetitive (because, no matter how much you dig bolter-action, it will be)? You switch it up, and make each strand different: Colossi (cavalry and ‘magic’), Gorgon (classic siege warfare on the walls), Eternity Wall Port (hopelessly overrun), Saturnine (ruthless covert ops).