by Mark Clapham
Reluctantly, he disconnected the cable that linked him into the comms network.
The destruction of the Astropathic Tower meant that no distress signal could be sent out of the Hollow Worlds. Communications within the system were disrupted.
‘Orbital defences?’ the system governor asked. The pause was damning enough. Contact lost.
Dumas Cheng sat back in his control throne. Over his long reign, he hoped that his leadership had instilled some values and resilience in his subjects, that they would prove capable of acting as he would wish even without his specific order.
Now, he was relying on that legacy. The Hollow Worlds depended on the ability of its inhabitants to pull together and resist these attacks, wherever they came from.
Aboard the Might of Huron, it fell to Garreon to inform his lord that the time was at hand. Lord Huron’s Terminator bodyguards parted as the Corpsemaster approached the doors to the Tyrant’s personal quarters, a rare privilege denied to nearly all.
Those quarters were in darkness, as they nearly always were, but Garreon could see the outline of Huron’s throne illuminated by the light pouring in from the door. Blackheart had no need for sleep, and sitting on that throne, adepts under Garreon or Valthex’s command working to maintain his augmetics, was the nearest he came to rest.
The throne was empty. There was little ornamentation in the room. A row of shattered Space Marine helmets and a couple of inhuman skulls were attached to one wall, evidence of former conquests, though Huron’s insatiable lust for power meant he never dwelled on old glories. On the opposite side of the room to these trophies sat a large chest, too large even for Garreon to lift alone, made of unknown alien wood and locked with a padlock of dark, shimmering metal. Even in the shadows that chest seemed to drink in the darkness. Garreon did not know what it contained exactly, but he had seen Huron occasionally open it to consult ancient books bound in scarred hide, or produce a vial of tar-like, unknown liquid. Whatever secrets lay in there were blasphemies beyond even Garreon.
A porthole dominated the chamber, and it was there Huron Blackheart stood, looking out into space. Framed in starlight he was a giant, even compared to his Red Corsairs, his silhouette lopsided due to the mass of the Tyrant’s Claw. Huron did not turn around as Garreon entered the room, but the Corpsemaster could see the red glow of Huron’s augmetic eye reflected in the porthole, watching his reflection.
‘It is time,’ said Huron Blackheart.
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Garreon. ‘Our sleepers will have awoken and done their work. Taemar has had plentiful time to introduce Valthex’s scrapcode. The Hollow Worlds are open to us.’
‘Yet we have no way of being certain of that,’ said Huron, turning to face Garreon. In the darkness his organic eye was invisible, but his augmetic eye flared dangerously.
‘The insektiles are reliable, my lord, I am certain of it,’ said Garreon, fully aware that any sign of doubt would soon see the Tyrant’s Claw locked around his throat. ‘Taemar’s part is entirely within his capabilities.’
If there was any failure, and should the Red Corsairs survive, Garreon was determined that the blame should fall squarely on Taemar. If he survived, the Corpsemaster would sooner face the Hollow Worlds’ fully active defences than the vengeance of his lord.
‘Then we shall make our move,’ spat Huron, marching towards the door. ‘I shall take the bridge.’
Across the silent fleet, noise and light. Engines flared into life, weapons systems activated, and the entire fleet began to move forwards with purpose. On ships large and small, the lowliest slaves hauled mechanisms into place, while those who had offered lifelong fealty to the Corsairs and earned a brand of status moved into battle stations and manned navigation posts.
Huron Blackheart stood on the bridge, Garreon and Valthex flanking him. Around them moved a bustle of Red Corsairs and human crew operating equipment and monitoring auspexes, and the bridge roared with noise as orders and reports were shouted back and forth.
But when Huron issued an order, all went silent, not just on the flagship but across the fleet, his words voxed from ship to ship.
‘Set a course for Laghast,’ he said, his voice a guttural rattle. ‘Man all stations, open our forward sensors to the entire fleet.’
Emerging from the warp too near to the Siren Clouds was suicide, but the slow drift of the fleet had brought them within close range of the Hollow Worlds. As they closed in on the target, approaching the ancient batteries of weaponry that guarded the Hellward Gate on Laghast, those aboard the Red Corsairs fleet who still breathed, whether they be Traitor Marine or human slave, held that breath, and listened to the vox piped into every level of every ship.
If there was an offensive response to the fleet, an alarm would ring out, first a tentative ping and then, once the nature of the response was confirmed, the klaxon that called all ships to battle. In those first seconds of engagement, Huron Blackheart would decide whether to fight or take flight, and their fates would be sealed.
Huron did not move, although the Tyrant’s Claw closed tight. Beside him, Valthex was impassive, while Garreon simply licked his dry lips with a blackened tongue. The few humans on the bridge knew better than to show any reaction unless demanded by the Tyrant, while the servitors welded into their stations had no reaction to give.
Every single Red Corsair, and all the humans required to man a weapon or station, knew from weeks of preparation what they would face. The sensor arrays hidden in a string of rocky planetoids on the approach to the Hollow Worlds. The void shield satellites that, when automatically deployed, would cut any approaching ship to pieces with criss-crossing force fields. The disruptor fields and mines that would scatter if they were detected, destroying the fleet with countless small explosions. The automated laser batteries floating between the planetoids.
After all that, should any surviving ships get within range of Laghast, the missile silos that ringed the Hellward Dock would finish off any stragglers.
The fleet entered the kill zone, passing through where the first sensor arrays were placed. On every bridge of every ship, officers and slaves waited to activate weapons, to defend themselves, to take evasive manoeuvres.
The alert never came. The ships moved on, approaching the Hollow Worlds.
Flickering forward sensors showed the world of Laghast, an algae-encrusted sphere scarred with the great blister that was the Hellward Gate, the entrance to the Hollow Worlds. The facilities of the gate stretched far across the planet’s surface, with a grey sprawl of landing areas where shuttles could descend from the orbital dock that hung over Laghast.
Nearby was Plini, with its chained satellite, and behind both those worlds lay the impassable, looming mass of the Siren Clouds, which registered on all sensors as a solid wall cutting through space itself.
Huron did not stop to register the moment, to congratulate them or acknowledge the danger that had passed. Instead his eyes were hungrily locked on the vision of Laghast before him, and what it represented.
‘Now,’ he said, each word bloated with fierce desire. ‘We truly begin.’
Four
The small, city-sized complex on the outer surface of Laghast known as the Hellward Gate was largely windowless. On a world without atmosphere, it was easier to construct solid, sightless buildings than to include sealed windows that looked either out onto Laghast’s barren surface, or up into empty space. Besides, in the latter case all true subjects of the Emperor knew from birth that there was nothing in space except fearful, alien forces. In such a universe, who wished to look out into the malignant stars? It was unwise to look up, so why provide temptation?
While there was a small Lastrati Guard presence in a barracks to the west of the complex, ready for the unlikely case of a ground incursion, the full-time security of the Hellward Gate was controlled by the Jandarme, the Hollow Worlds’ permanent military force. Reporting thro
ugh the system governor’s hierarchy, the Jandarme were responsible for the defence of the system as well as the quelling of internal unrest and the exercise of violent force for the purposes of imposing the system governor’s justice upon the Lastrati peoples.
Corporal Tusc was one such Jandarme, who had previously been assigned to the streets of Eridano. Since his assignment to the Hellward Gate he had reported to duty and manned a terminal monitoring vox-channels and sensor arrays, waiting for an alert from either the remote defences or a live sentry.
That all had been quiet for a number of hours did not alarm Tusc, or any of his fellow Jandarme in the control centre at the heart of the Hellward Gate, one iota. No ships were scheduled to arrive. Nothing got past the automated defences. Comms with the interior were down, a mass of fuzz and static, as was vox contact with the orbital dock, but this was not remotely unusual – vox-comms were inherently unreliable, especially in a facility adjacent to the effects of the Siren Clouds.
What mattered was the all-clear ping from the sensor arrays, and that continued to chime every minute.
All clear.
Behind Tusc there was a change of duty officer. Lieutenant Kardon was taking the station. Good. Kardon ran a tight shift, but wasn’t the kind of officer to impose pointless rigour for the sake of it, providing the job got done. The rest of Tusc’s shift would likely pass without needless drills.
‘All clear, corporal?’ said Kardon.
Tusc’s internal clock, finely honed over the last year, told him it had been 53 seconds since the last ping.
‘I’ll check, lieutenant,’ Tusc said with a deep frown.
Ping.
‘All clear, lieutenant,’ said Tusc.
‘Glad to hear it, corporal,’ said Kardon. ‘Eyes to your station, please.’
There was a murmur of stifled laughter from around the room.
‘That goes for the rest of you,’ said Kardon, not without humour.
As Tusc turned his attention back to his station, the vox burst into life. What came through was a chorus of obscenity, a thousand voices screaming blasphemous filth into his ears. The chanting made Tusc’s ears ring painfully, like seeping, bitter cold cutting into his ear canals. And through it all, a single message, a single subtext – that they were filth, they were nothing, they were weak, and they would all soon die.
The message came through on Tusc’s monitoring station, but as he tore away his headset he realised it was everywhere, coming out of every speaker and vox-grille in the room. He saw someone at a nearby station collapse forwards, eyes rolling up into his skull as he lost consciousness, and heard someone else vomit. Lieutenant Kardon was on her feet, staring from side to side, as if the owners of the taunting voices were somehow in the room with them.
Tusc knew, as they all knew, that this was no simple act of sabotage. The voices were entirely serious.
Then, silence, everyone in the control centre looking at each other.
Tusc touched one finger to a wet patch beneath his left ear. Blood, dripping from his eardrums.
‘What the hell was that?’ asked Lieutenant Kardon, leaving the other part of the question unsaid: What next?
The message broadcast to the enemy was being fed back into the Tyrant’s own fleet, and as the crew members and Red Corsairs contributed their own oaths to the tirade, so they were fed back into the outgoing signal, a self-sustaining loop of malice, blasted at the enemy below.
Garreon barely raised his voice, instead taking pleasure in the ferocity of his fellow Corsairs, and the terror their oaths would cause. He remained at his lord’s shoulder on the bridge, watching as the main viewscreen showed the Hellward Gate on the outer surface of Laghast. They were closing in now, and the larger ships of the fleet would be within targeting range. On cue, reticules began to appear over parts of the Hellward Gate complex on the auspex, suggesting possible targets.
The Corsairs’ tirade ended suddenly, Huron cutting it short with a gesture, and the shipmasters relayed his order. Huron, with no little help from Garreon, had instilled fear and discipline into this rowdy warband, and Garreon took pride at how fast the Corsairs silenced themselves when ordered to.
Huron took a second’s silence as the vox-channels were adjusted, then spoke again, this time to his fleet rather than his enemy.
‘All ships,’ growled Huron. ‘Sight targets and say aye.’
On the viewscreen, targeting reticules appeared over the main buildings of the Hellward Gate. As the other ships of the fleet found their target, repeated cries of ‘Aye!’ came over the vox.
Doubtless the Imperial lackeys below would have realised that their systems had been fooled, and would be running back and forth trying to regain control of them manually.
‘Let them think they can live,’ Huron whispered, so quietly only Garreon could hear it. ‘Let them have that brief hope.’ Then he chuckled, a guttural, hideous sound.
‘It will do them no good,’ Garreon said quietly in reply.
‘On my order, fire,’ said Huron, louder now, the Tyrant’s Claw raised high.
‘Fire!’ he shouted, his claw swinging down like a wrecking ball, as if he could crush the Imperial forces below.
The onslaught began. The viewscreen was streaked with trails as missiles and shells rained down upon the outer surface of Laghast, targeting specific and sensitive areas.
The missile and laser silos on the surface were obliterated, causing chain reactions beneath the surface of Laghast that shook the entire Hellward Gate. The dome of the Lastrati Guard barracks was also destroyed. Fire consumed large parts of the complex.
As the missiles rained down, one area was spared the devastating assault, a static point in the carnage: the centre, the dome covering the zero-gravity corridor that led from the skin of Laghast to its interior. Access to the corridor needed to be preserved, and the effect of the surrounding bombardment and the untouched centre was that of a halo of destruction scorched into the surface of Laghast.
The first explosion on the surface of Laghast was felt in the Hellward Gate’s control centre. The strike did not register on any of the systems, but Tusc felt it – the sudden jerking motion that moved through the deck beneath his feet, and swept up his body as a tremor. There were shouts of shock and terror from nearby, mostly drowned out by the roar of multiple explosions, loud but also distant. A scattering of dust and algae crumbled down from the ceiling above, clouding the air.
The second and third explosions hit before Tusc could even steady himself from the first.
Tusc swung around in his chair to request orders from the lieutenant in charge.
‘Corporal, report,’ snapped Lieutenant Kardon, as the entire room continued to be shaken by an irregular series of jolts. They were near, but nothing seemed to be striking the control centre itself.
‘Nothing, lieutenant,’ Tusc replied, checking all the readouts before him. It was impossible – something was clearly happening, but it wasn’t registering on any scanner or system. They were at the centre of information for the Hellward Gate, the Hollow Worlds’ eyes out into space, and while the room was shaking from impact after impact they did not even know the cause. Which could only mean…
‘Our systems have been fooled,’ snapped Kardon. ‘Do we have vox?’
‘Still down,’ said a voice nearby. It occurred to Tusc that the vox failure of the last few hours might not be a normal fault after all.
‘Sound the alert,’ said Kardon. ‘I don’t care if we don’t have vox, just ring the damn alarm, and if necessary get out there and shout it. All personnel to stations. I want everyone atmosphere-suited within ten minutes.’
As she issued the orders, Kardon was already beginning to suit up herself, pulling a pressure suit over her pressed green uniform.
‘Tell everyone we’re under attack from unknown hostiles,’ she snapped.
‘My
Lord Huron,’ one of the bridge crew reported. ‘The Crimson Flask and the Shrieking Spear have been destroyed.’
‘A minor loss in favour of a greater cause,’ spat Huron. ‘Garreon will ensure nothing is wasted.’
‘My lord,’ said Garreon, nodding at the compliment, even though Huron Blackheart had his back turned to him. When this battle was over, Garreon’s underlings would scour the wreckage for injured and dead Red Corsairs. Even in death they could be of use to the Corpsemaster’s experiments.
As for the mortals, it was their only purpose to die in service to Lord Huron.
‘Cease fire,’ ordered Huron. The viewscreen on the bridge was blurred by the smoke obscuring the Hellward Gate, but there was no sign of heavy retaliation, or any fire from the ground.
‘All ships prepare to dock then hold,’ barked Huron Blackheart, turning to leave the bridge. ‘I want all landers and pods launched before we take the orbital dock.’
As they marched to the landers Huron turned to Garreon and Valthex, who were in step behind him.
‘We’ll take it all at once,’ snarled Huron, clenching the Tyrant’s Claw. ‘In the sky or on the ground, we’ll take it all.’
The orbital dock above Laghast was a sprawl of metal, branching out into a series of beams and arms, spaced apart to allow ships to dock, locking into place and connecting to the dock via boarding tubes. While landers were used to transport people and cargo down to the planet’s surface, standard maintenance equipment and supplies were loaded and unloaded on the orbital dock as part of the rituals of maintenance and re-fuelling.
Workmaster Strank was shouting at two servitors to prevent a collision between two large cargo containers, when the entire dock was shaken by an explosion. The loading tube shook so severely that a rent emerged in the wall, a gap opening out into space, and air began to leak out.
At this point Strank’s training kicked in and he slammed the helmet of his atmosphere suit down over his head. It sealed with a low hiss, and he began breathing stale air. With his other hand he grabbed hold of one of the handrails that ran down the length of the loading tube.
