Astra Militarum

by David Annandale, Justin D Hill, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell (epub)

  All he could hear were his own bootsteps. All along the walls black marble plaques marked the graves of soldiers from the Cadian Eighth whose exemplary service had earned them this great honour: to be interred in the very fabric of their home fortress.

  Some of them were old beyond memory. Creed claimed to know them all, to have learned each name, each award, each victory, as he wandered the corridors when he was a foundling, the company mascot, just another of Cadia’s many orphans. Kell claimed no such memory, but he knew the way back to his billet.

  He passed Major Galan, M36, Gold Aquila, Lost on Zaga IV, turned left at the gold-edged plaque of Colonel Jerami, Ward of Cadia, Urdesh Reclamation, 771.M41, and gave a brief nod to the long bas-relief with inset candles, which declared in High Gothic that it housed the 207 skulls of the 17th Company, ‘Firebrands’, Merit of Terra – ‘Each Man Gave His All. We Left None Behind’.

  The newest grave was barely a year old. Major S. Shaw-Hedin, Armageddon, M41.998. Kell and Creed had served with Shaw when they were both fresh recruits. They remembered him fondly. He was a tough, mean bastard of a commander, but he knew how to win battles. Whatever it took, he gave it.

  There were kasrkin at each intersection now. They saluted as Kell marched past, all alert, awake and unafraid.

  Kell almost walked past Creed’s office, but he saw the light was on and listened for a moment before knocking quietly. There was no answer.

  He knocked again. ‘General Creed?’ he called out.

  The door was unlocked. The room seemed empty. Creed’s reports lay scattered across the table. One lay at the top from the prison world of St Josmane’s Hope. There was a long report, and a blurred pict-image of a hooded man, a giant, standing amongst a crowd of convicts. The sight made Kell shiver. He looked about. There was a murmur from behind the desk. Kell drew his laspistol.

  He saw the feet first. It was Creed, lying face down, hand raised as if to ward off a blow.

  ‘Ursarkar!’ Kell hissed as he turned the general over. He smelled amasec, and in his irritation he let Creed drop. He straightened and ran a hand through his hair. ‘You idiot!’ he said.

  ‘Drink this,’ Kell said, when he had finally got Creed into bed. He kept a flask of stimms and triple shot recaff for times like this, and those times were getting more and more frequent these days.

  ‘Jarran?’ Creed slurred.

  ‘Drink!’ Kell said.

  ‘They’re idiots!’ Creed said.

  ‘Yes,’ Kell said.

  ‘It’s him,’ Creed said. ‘He’s on St Josmane. He’s come back for me.’

  Kell said nothing this time. Creed finished the flask and fell back.

  Kell left a full glass of water by his commander’s bed, and went to the door. A dark shape in the doorway made him start. He reached for his pistol and stopped himself, thinking it would be Castor. But it was not. Commissar Aldrad stepped into the light, his young face lean and unscarred.

  Aldrad had been with them six months, and he’d spent half of that on a troop transport. He’d been with the Crinan 93rd before joining the Cadian Eighth. The Crinan regiments were drawn from the thick asteroid belts on the spinward edges of Deadhenge. They were tough puritanical mining types that had to be held back from the enemy. Not much call for a commissar there. Not much call for one in the Cadian Eighth either, Kell thought. Aldrad hadn’t shot anyone yet, and Kell was happy for it to stay that way.

  The commissar had proved his worth on the fortress moon on Helicus Rex. Kell didn’t mind him normally, but he didn’t like him being here. Not now.

  ‘Commissar Aldrad. Can I help you, sir?’

  Aldrad looked over at Creed. ‘Is he alright?’

  ‘He’ll be fine,’ Kell said.

  Kell had the suspicion that Aldrad had petitioned for an appointment to the Cadian Eighth so that he could serve under Creed. From Aldrad’s expression it seemed Creed was turning out to be something of a disappointment.

  ‘Has he been…’

  ‘Leave him with me.’ Kell was tense. Too tense. He sighed. ‘It happens.’

  Aldrad looked almost hurt. ‘But tonight of all nights? Will he be fit?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Kell didn’t know what he was talking about, and said so.

  ‘The landings,’ Aldrad said. ‘We’re part of the honour guard.’

  Kell closed his eyes and sighed. All the pomp and meetings and brass band stuff wasn’t his style.

  Aldrad paused in the doorway.

  ‘Creed didn’t tell you?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Kell said. ‘He didn’t tell me. Who is landing tomorrow?’

  ‘The Volscani Cataphracts,’ Aldrad said.

  ‘Never heard of them,’ Kell said. He gently pulled the door to, heard the click of the lock falling shut, let out a sigh. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

  Dawn was throwing a thin light down through the ventilation shafts as Archivist Orsani Rudvald looked up from the leather-bound tome on the carved rosewood stand in front of him.

  The footsteps came slowly, and without any pretence at silence, down the long rockcrete staircase. He knew the tread of those feet and waited till they had almost reached the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Ursarkar!’ He was one of the only men who was allowed to call Creed by his first name. The general came forward into the light. He knew his old mentor would be here. Orsani found consolation in the vaults, amongst the carefully inscribed journals, battle diaries and commanders’ letters. It was so early that the kasr lumens were still set at half-light. One of them, a long way down the stacks of shelves and rolled vellum data sheets, flickered as it tried to light.

  ‘Have you slept?’ Orsani said. ‘You look terrible.’

  ‘I slept.’ Creed winced. He could not remember being this hungover, since, well, the last time. ‘I think. Passed out might be closer to the truth.’

  Creed looked over Orsani’s shoulder. He was reading A Shorter History of the Scarus Sector, Volume III. ‘Good?’ he asked.

  Orsani frowned. ‘There are inconsistencies,’ he said, ‘with what is written in the journals of our commander in those days.’

  ‘Valens?’ Creed said.

  Orsani gave an almost imperceptible tut. He had been teaching and testing Creed since he had found him, under a bed, in the blood-splattered ruins of Kasr Gallan. ‘Wulfic,’ he said.

  Creed slumped down in a leather chair, closed his eyes, and weakly waved a hand. His head hurt too much for history. He thought he might still be a little drunk. He rubbed his face with both hands and looked almost imploringly up at the frail old man. Orsani had taken to growing long military moustaches. They weren’t a Cadian fashion, but something he had picked up fighting alongside the Vostroyans, and now took a perverse delight in. But take away the augmetic eye, the battle-scarring, the long white moustaches, and it was the same gaunt face that had looked down on Ursarkar as a child.

  ‘They’re screwing it up,’ Creed said. ‘I just know it. The top brass. They’re not up to the job.’

  Orsani carefully lifted a red silk ribbon, laid it gently down the middle of the book, and closed it. He sat, letting his augmetic legs wheeze slowly as they lowered him into his cradle.

  ‘Look at the data,’ he said.

  ‘Everything is about data to Porelska. So many millions of troops. So many tanks. So much ordnance. He has a team of pen-pushers running about HQ. There’s not a warrior among them.’ Orsani gave him a look. ‘Well,’ Creed said, ‘not a real warrior. They’ve been on Cadia too long.’

  ‘So they need someone like you?’

  ‘Someone like Ryse. Someone. Anyone who has fought in a battle recently. Porelska must be four hundred years old! When was the last time he held field command?’

  ‘938.M41,’ Orsani said. ‘Hydator Prime.’

 
Creed gestured. ‘Exactly! Porelska and his like are honourable men. But this is a crisis.’

  ‘Crisis,’ Orsani said, and nodded. ‘There used to be a special title, for times of crisis on Cadia.’ He wheezed across to the bookshelf, reached high to bring a tome down, laid it onto the table and gently turned the illuminated pages. ‘It was a special rank. It allowed the bearer to put the governing councils aside and rule Cadia as a general.’

  Creed puffed out his cheeks. ‘One man in command?’

  ‘Ah! There. The bearers were called ‘Lord Castellan’. To answer your question, yes. One man ruling Cadia, answerable only to Terra.’

  Creed rubbed his jaw. He ought to shave. ‘That is how we weather this storm. A commander commanding!’

  ‘It is a serious measure.’

  ‘We should make Ryse the Lord Castellan. How does it happen?’

  ‘I don’t know. This book doesn’t say.’

  There was a long silence. Creed shut his eyes again. He seemed deflated.

  ‘You think a storm is coming?’ Orsani said.

  Creed looked at him. His jowls were heavy, his eyes pink, his cheeks heavily stubbled. ‘I’ve known it for years,’ he said. ‘And I’ve had dreams.’

  The air in the room seemed to grow cold.

  ‘He’s back,’ Creed said. ‘I saw a pict-slate from St Josmane’s Hope. He’s calling himself “The Voice”.’

  ‘You think he is coming for you?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ Creed snapped. He stood up, and paced back and forth. ‘I’m sorry. My head is killing me. I think the stimms are wearing off.’

  High up above, a bell rang. It was the sixth hour of the day. The guard shifts were changing.

  ‘Throne,’ Creed said. ‘We’re on parade today. The Volscani are landing.’ He paused. ‘I’ll try and see Ryse.’

  Creed stood and looked at the frail remains of the man who saved him so many years before. He was the last surviving man of that company, and war had ravaged him. Only his mind was as sharp as ever.

  Creed was half way across the room when Orsani called out, ‘I found this yesterday.’

  He opened a drawer on his reading stand, and pulled out a book. It was the size and shape of the Uplifting Primer, and bound in red leather, such as the kind of book a line officer might keep in his pocket. The spine was unmarked and the marbled boards held the hand-written title De Gloria Macharius.

  He held it out and Creed turned the book over in his hands. This had been his favourite book as a lad. How the men had laughed, all through the Gallan campaign, as the eight-year-old Creed sat barefoot in the corner during bombardments, reading De Gloria Macharius.

  Creed felt tears coming and shook his head. If that boy had known what he would grow up to do, he would have been amazed. So why was it that he had a sense of his life being wasted? He was meant for more than this. He offered it back to Orsani.

  ‘Keep it,’ Orsani said.

  Creed smiled, despite his headache.

  ‘I will,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Ursarkar.’

  Creed paused at the door.

  ‘Do you think Ryse would make a good Lord Castellan?’

  Creed paused. ‘No.’

  ‘You could ask for it yourself?’ Orsani said.

  Creed laughed and held up the book. ‘Thank you for this.’

  ‘That’s a damned fine entrance,’ Ryse said as the shrill blasts of saluting Leviathans drowned out the cheers of ranks of men, horns of Leman Russ battle tanks, and even the honour salute from the 190th and 210th Artillery Regiments. Creed nodded. It certainly was. The whole parade was. Ryse’s Leviathan, Sacramentum, was right next to the Governor’s Excubitoi Castellum. Ryse was suitably proud of the honour and was speaking in a loud, expansive manner.

  The last Leviathans were reversing into position as the landers slowed their descent on full retro burners, touched down, and came to rest before the honour guard of Major Janka’s 840th. The assault ramps slammed down. Volscani armoured companies swarmed out, and from the central lander came a command Baneblade, with two more super-heavies flanking.

  ‘Magnificent!’ Ryse said. He was flush with the pomp and display. Creed looked away, uncomfortable with something, some detail. He was distracted by a flash from somewhere in the fens. He stood at Ryse’s shoulder, shielded his eyes, and wondered what it was. Then it hit him.

  ‘The banner…’ he muttered. No one heard. He took his magnoculars and focussed on the banner that flew from the lead Baneblade. He gagged. It was covered in glyphs that seemed to be moving. He gagged harder. For a moment he almost put it down to his hangover. Then the Baneblade’s turret began to slowly move.

  ‘Back!’ Creed roared. ‘Back!’ The officials in their smart dress uniforms looked as if he had gone mad.

  Void shields down, the Cadian Leviathans were sitting targets. The Volscani tank turrets all swivelled to face the Excubitoi Castellum. Battlecannons, demolisher cannons, lascannons. It was a firing squad. An execution. Kell dragged Ryse away from the edge and Creed fell backwards as Sacramentum rocked with impacts, and suddenly all about him was flames.

  Gunner Lina was sitting in the cramped Executioner-class Leman Russ Pride of Cadia III, playing Black Five with her fellow gunners. She had three blacks, a blue and a red heart, and a pile of cash. She was about to clean Callen out. He was sweating. Linday had a cocksure look. He was bluffing. The tank’s commander, ‘Hot Hands’ Ibsic, was wistfully inspecting the unlit stub of his lho-stick. Gannesh, their driver, was sulking about something.

  The tank rattled as the distant Leviathans sounded off. Engines roared. Linday was trying to peek. Lina curled her cards in, sniffed nonchalantly. ‘Have they landed yet?’

  Gannesh looked up from the prayer logs through the driver’s vision slit.

  ‘Yes,’ he sniffed. ‘They’re unloading.’

  ‘Regent,’ Linday said, putting his first card down. ‘Sure you want to keep going?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lina said. She held his eyes the whole time she put her first card down. He had been flirting with her ever since she had got this promotion to sponson gunner on the Pride of Cadia III. The last person in this position had let his gun overheat, and hadn’t survived the experience.

  ‘Gotta say the prayers right,’ Ibric had told her when she joined the crew. ‘And you got to be lucky,’ he said. ‘Because every so often the plasma tanks just blow up in your face.’ Both his hands were augmetic. He hadn’t been lucky once, though lucky enough to survive.

  She felt the vibrations as the ramps of the landers came down. The tank shook, and fine dust rained down from the plasma reactor. She swept it off and looked to Callen.

  ‘You can quit you know,’ she said.

  Callen bit his lip, picked a card and laid it down almost reluctantly. ‘Black Ace,’ he said.

  Lina swore. The Pride of Cadia III shook more violently. Gannesh slammed the prayer logs closed.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked. Ibsic stuck his head out the top. They could see flashes in the sky through the hatch.

  ‘They’re frekking shooting!’ he said, and ducked down. He had a way of speaking quietly when things got scary. ‘Gun stations. This is for real.’

  Ibsic and Callen went through the routine with practised speed. They pulled the dust covers off the plasma destroyer, slammed the emergency vents open and locked the heat shield in place as the photonic fuel cells began to wine.

  ‘Fuel cells.’

  ‘Check.’

  ‘Secondary vents.’

  ‘Check.’

  ‘Power her up!’

  ‘Check.’

  The space in Lina’s plasma cannon sponson was tight, and it was already getting warm. She sniffed as she locked the heat shield down.

  ‘Port sponson primed,’ she called, and felt a thrill as she be
at Callen to it by half a second.

  ‘Starboard sponson primed,’ he said and made a rude gesture.

  She returned it.

  ‘Say your prayers,’ Ibsic called.

  They intoned the Rituals of Plasma as Ibsic pulled the activation switch. There was a whine as pure energy boiled in the tanks about them. ‘Right, Gannesh, get this baby moving.’

  Gannesh let the throttle out, and the ancient battle tank rumbled forward.

  ‘Reporting in,’ Ibsic called on the vox. It answered with a roar of static. ‘This is Pride of Cadia III! Active. On duty.’

  Sergeant Fesk of Achilles Squadron had left his vox-unit on broadcast so he could shut his eyes and listen to the comms-traffic. It was lonely in the sentinels, especially the armoured tank hunters. It took a certain mentality, which suited him fine. Disconnected voices in a vox-unit gave him just the right amount of company.

  As the Volscani landers came down he was sitting, hunched forward, hand pressed to the side of his skull. His augmetic eye was still embedding. He kept seeing motes of light that weren’t there, and they made his head ache after a while. He had his good eye shut when a cacophony of voices filled his cabin.

  He slammed the volume down on the vox-unit and stood on the seat just in time to see a Leviathan war machine’s plasma core overheat. It filled the sky with fire. He slid down into his seat and flipped his lascannon to live. His augmetic eye blinked for a moment as it connected with the lascannon’s systems. The motes of light were still there, but a blue target eclipsed his vision.

  Searching, the systems reported.

  He started forward, not really sure which way to go.

  At the command post, Aldrad had his pistol out and primed. He was looking for someone to shoot, as the men put it.

  ‘What the hell is happening?’ Aldrad roared. ‘Where is Creed?’

  ‘He went to speak to Warmaster Ryse,’ Castor shouted. They both looked at the plumes of smoke and fire around the Leviathans.

  ‘Damn it!’ Aldrad said. ‘Find him! His position is here. Any failure to return will be a dereliction of his duty!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Castor saluted as another Leviathan began to explode. He picked the headset up again. ‘I’m looking for General Creed,’ he shouted. ‘No, I don’t know where your company is!’ He slammed the hand piece down. ‘I’ll find him. If he’s alive.’