The captain’s hand ran over his jaw again. It was a nervous gesture and one that didn’t even begin to hint at the sense of extreme caution that was beginning to eat away at him. They had been told that to traverse the Gildar Rift without an escort or without some sort of acknowledgement to a patrol vessel was a blatant admission of piracy. But there was no escort present and try though they might, no ships were answering their frequent hails. Abramov would be damned before he drifted idly in space, a sitting target for any actual pirates who might chance their arm.
He had always hungered for the autonomy of his own command and so when the opportunity to invest his dead father’s money had come along, he had grasped it with both hands. The years of managing his own contracts and pulling together the best crew he could afford had given him a wealth of experience. Thus it was from this pool of worldliness upon which he now drew.
The choice as he saw it was reasonably straightforward, yet far from simple. He could either maintain his current position and wait for the Silver Skulls to arrive – or he could order engines to quarter speed and continue towards Gildar Secundus. It would not take them long to enter the planet’s atmosphere and Abramov had every confidence in his crew’s combined skill and ability to get them there in one piece. Exactly how the taciturn Captain Arrun would react to such a breach of verbal contract, he had no idea. He could hazard a reasonably well educated guess.
In the end, compromise won out.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We will hold position for three hours.’ He dropped back down onto the command throne. ‘If we have received no word from our escort by then, we continue onwards to Gildar Secundus. At the slowest speed we can manage.’
‘Aye, captain.’
Abramov let out a rushing breath. With luck, he would not need to risk the wrath of the Emperor’s Angels.
Sleep had been elusive during the journey to the Gildar system and Abramov had taken advantage of the grace period to retire to his quarters in an attempt to catch up on some much-needed rest. There had barely been opportunity for his eyes to close and for him to fall into a deep sleep before he was rudely dragged awake by the bellowing scream of the ship’s alert system. Scant seconds later he felt the ship lurch beneath him. The suddenness of the movement tipped him ungraciously from the bunk, leaving him sprawled on the ground.
‘Captain Abramov to the bridge,’ an insistent female voice was saying across the ship-wide vox system. ‘Proximity alert. Repeat, captain to the bridge.’
‘I heard you the first time,’ he grumbled. Roused into full wakefulness, Abramov hauled himself off the floor and rubbed sleep from his eyes. He caught a passing glimpse of himself in the tarnished mirror above his sink and immediately wished he hadn’t. He was looking dishevelled and tired, many years past his Terran standard complement of fifty. He hardly cut the figure of authority he had always at least attempted to maintain.
He was still pulling his overalls on over his clothing as he strode through the door to the bridge.
‘Report.’ He stifled a yawn and glanced at the ship’s chronometers. He regretted that almost as much as he had when he’d looked in the mirror. He had been asleep for barely any time at all. ‘Is it the Silver Skulls? Have they arrived?’
‘No, I’m afraid not.’ Telyna, his pilot – and the most competent woman he had ever met in his life bar none – turned her head to study him with casual indifference. ‘Debris field dead ahead. Mostly small asteroids, fortunately. I’m doing what I can to avoid the worst of it.’
Telyna’s words made their way through his muzziness and snapped him back almost immediately to full alertness.
‘Evasive manoeuvres? Yes. I could tell by the way you woke me up.’
Telyna tossed her long, blonde plait over one shoulder. It was a simple gesture, but there was a lot of suppressed aggression there. ‘Well, captain,’ she said, with heavy sarcasm, ‘I could have just let the remnants of that ship hit us. Would you have preferred that?’
Their eyes locked for a moment and it was Abramov who looked away first, a slight smile on his lips. He considered for a moment. ‘They never showed, then?’
‘No. We’ve been travelling towards Gildar Secundus for the best part of an hour. Hence...’ She gestured expansively, a means of indicating the debris field that lay ahead.
‘Can we not simply go around?’
‘Something’s stirred up the field,’ she reported, turning away from him and this time pointing out of the forward viewscreen. ‘There’s enough junk outside to ensure that no matter which direction we take, we’re going to encounter obstacles of one form or another.’ Telyna fell silent for a moment or two, concentrating on the matter at hand. ‘Most of what’s out there looks pretty old. But we’ve already seen at least one complete vessel. Recently disabled according to the preliminary scans.’
‘Probably the last ship that didn’t follow Arrun’s orders,’ Abramov muttered, then shook his head. Probably better not to let himself wander down that line of thought. ‘Maintain course and heading. Be alert and prepared for anything. It’s a deathtrap out there.’
‘I am well aware of the dangers, captain.’ Telyna’s voice was so insulted that despite his weariness, Abramov’s face split in a broad smile.
‘I love you, Telyna, did I ever tell you that? Even if you do wake me up just to prove how damned clever you are.’
‘You tell me constantly.’ She returned the smile with one of her own. ‘I thought you would want to be awake in the event that I get things wrong and you can say “I told you so” as we’re ripped apart.’
‘Your concern for my ongoing welfare is noted.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
The brief, companionable exchange over, Telyna turned her attention back to the console. Someone, Abramov was too distracted to notice who, put a steaming cup of recaff in his hand and he muttered his thanks. He sipped the bitter liquid with a wrinkle of his nose. If he were brutally honest, he despised the taste of recaff, but its stimulating effects were certainly welcome at this time. He studied the printouts that had been placed on the arm of his command throne.
His feet settled firmly on the floor, unconsciously reaching out for the pulse of his ship’s engine. Its ever-present hum was there, only just felt beneath the soles of his boots. It was a connection of the simplest kind, but it was a habit he’d never broken. Like most captains, Abramov had his own private superstitions. Like a warrior who would cup a handful of dirt before a battle, he stuck to them rigidly. As long as his ship still had a heartbeat, they would be fine.
Their speed now greatly reduced, Telyna concentrated on avoiding the debris outside the Endless Horizon as best she could. There was certainly a lot of it. Machine parts, chunks of metal, even several human corpses drifted by in an endless parade of the merciless nature of this part of space. Wide-eyed and rimed with a thin skein of ice, the corpses seemed to scream silent warnings to the crew of Abramov’s ship. It was the stuff of nightmares and several of the crew were clearly unsettled and a little distressed by the sight.
For what seemed like an age, the freighter moved with excruciating slowness, its progress painstakingly measured. Telyna’s eyes were watering with the effort of staring from the viewscreen to the console at her command and Abramov’s headache was getting no better. There seemed to be no end to it at all and tempers were beginning to fray.
When the rear port thrusters began to fail, Abramov knew about it several moments before the message came up from the engineering deck. His unconscious connection with the ship’s harmonies and rhythms whispered the news through the vibrations beneath him. Normally, the loss of one of the rear thrusters would have been something easily dealt with. In clear space, he would have sent service drones outside to deal with the problem. In this chaotic cluster though, he wouldn’t risk losing one of his crew – soulless or not – to a glancing blow from the passing flotsam and jetsam. Not to mention that coming to a stop at this point was also no longer an option. If they mainta
ined position, they’d likely be pulverised. He felt irritated more than concerned.
The dull monotone of the servitor’s voice confirming the problem irritated him still further.
‘We’re almost through the field,’ Telyna said between gritted teeth. Her jaw had been clenched so hard for so long that it ached terribly. ‘If I can just use the remaining thrusters to stabilise our position... our shields should deflect the smaller stuff. I just have to avoid the rest of it.’
‘Our shields should deflect, yes,’ said Abramov grimly. ‘They should – and I don’t doubt that they will. But they won’t do so indefinitely.’
‘Do you have a better plan, captain?’ Again, the rising sense of hostility on the bridge deck was detrimental to the situation and the captain bit back the harsh retort. He gripped the arms of his command throne until his knuckles turned white. All it would take would be a single big hit to their shields, enough to break through. Once that happened, they would be torn apart and join the unfortunate dead that they had observed already outside the ship.
‘Anticipated time to exit this accursed junk pile?’ His question came out as a bark. Before she could answer, Telyna let out a string of blasphemous expletives. At her outburst, several of the bridge crew hurriedly made the sign of the aquila, their faces horrified. When she spoke, Abramov merely nodded as though he had expected this to happen.
‘New contact.’ She looked round at him and her face was a picture of abject terror. ‘Xenos raiders, sir.’
They were practically drifting, with very little in the way of firepower to defend themselves. If they didn’t collide violently with the debris and junk that threatened their path, then they would be blasted apart by the pirates, or worse, crippled and boarded.
All at once, the calmness of the bridge descended into a discordant babble, a far cry from the orchestrated glory of earlier. Voices spoke over one another, but with the ease of the years, Abramov filtered out what was important and added his own orders to the tumultuous noise.
‘Front starboard thrusters are also starting to fail. Transferring power from port thrusters to compensate.’
‘Shield generators still holding steady. Ninety-eight per cent.’
‘Power to fore thrusters stabilising. Levelled at sixty per cent.’
‘Time to exit?’
‘Fifteen minutes.’
‘Maintain current pattern. Telyna…’
A staccato of sound, a counterpoint of voices that rose to a crescendo of noise. Cutting across it all, the whispered, fervent litanies of each crew member as they prayed with due diligence to the distant God-Emperor of Mankind to get them through safely. The uproar continued.
‘Incoming. Dead ahead.’
‘Enemy ships are moving to intercept. There are two of them. No, not two. Three, sir! There are three of them! Holy Terra...’
‘I’m trying to... damn it!’
‘Impact in ten... nine...’
‘All stations, this is Abramov. Brace for impact. Channel whatever power we have into the guns and fire on the xenos ships. If we’re going to go down, we’ll not go quietly.’
The three xenos vessels were manoeuvring their way with practiced ease through the field of destruction. The freighter captain had seen them before... eldar. In days past he had fought against them. ‘Nightshade’ was the human designation for the three vessels bearing down on them with silent menace. But they were now officially the least of their immediate worries. Let the eldar launch their torpedoes. It would be a violent, sudden death, but at least there was a chance of obliterating them outright. Better by far than what could happen.
The captain leaned forward, his hands clasped in silent prayer as he stared through the Endless Horizon’s occulus. Their demise was spinning towards them: a twisted, unrecognisable hulk of girders, conduits and crushingly dense hull plating. Something so warped and broken had absolutely no right to be pirouetting with such majesty through the airless vacuum of space.
‘Eight... seven...’
In seven seconds, it would strike their void shields. It was big enough to burst through the Endless Horizon’s shields like its protective layer was nothing more than an ephemeral bubble. One good, solid hit and the freighter vessel would be ripped apart. Unlike the flare of pain and death of an explosion caused by a torpedo strike, they would be helpless as their ship was torn apart. They would be adding their corpses and destroyed ship to everything else that lay outside the hull.
‘Six.’
We haven’t got a hope. Abramov’s confidence fled in the face of his imminent demise. For a fleeting moment, he despised everyone on the deck with him. Hated them for being here with him. Blamed himself for their deaths.
‘Five.’
So this is how it ends, then.
‘Fo– incoming vessel! Extreme proximity. It’s... it’s powering up its weapons, sir!’
Abramov should perhaps have been feeling terror, or at least a modicum of fear, but there was nothing. His heart was like stone. Instead of being atomised by a chunk from a long-destroyed ship, they were going to be vaporised by a hostile vessel. There wasn’t time to ask why it was that nobody had picked this new threat up on sensors. Indeed, Abramov wouldn’t even question that until much, much later. The moment was now, and he was irrevocably caught up in it.
The eldar raiders simultaneously turned; impossible angles that the bulky, practical transports of the Imperium could never hope to achieve and launched their torpedoes at the new arrival. There were three sudden blossoms of light as the projectiles detonated harmlessly against their target’s shields.
A second later, light lanced from the ship that had apparently come out of nowhere, destroying the chunk of wreckage in a silent spray of molten metal. A second shaft of searing brightness incinerated one of the eldar ships immediately. The intense glare temporarily blinded the bridge crew of the Endless Horizon and Abramov turned his face away. Gradually, as the intense brightness dwindled away and vision returned to normal, the shape of their surprising saviour could be made out.
‘Gladius-class frigate,’ Abramov observed. An Adeptus Astartes escort vessel. Of course it was. Despite himself, a smile tugged at his lips. It seemed that their chaperone had arrived. Late, but perfectly timed nonetheless. The frigate banked slightly and moved away so that it was running alongside them.
Of the other two eldar ships, there was no sign. Abramov did not know if the Gladius had destroyed them or if they had fled. Either way, they had gone and that was a perfectly acceptable outcome. There was a crackle, a hiss and the ship-to-ship vox spat into life.
‘Endless Horizon, hold your position. Slow your engines and wait for further instructions.’ It was a clearly human voice; not desensitised and changed as one would expect from one of the Emperor’s Angels. Doubtless it was one of the Silver Skulls Chapter serfs serving aboard the craft.
As quickly as the channel of communications was opened, it was silenced again. A reply was not invited, not that any of Abramov’s crew could have found words anyway. The crew of the Endless Horizon drew a collective breath when the Gladius-class frigate veered sharply away allowing another vessel clear passage through.
It was an ugly thing on first glance; a closed-fist of a vessel with a prow bombardment cannon clenched menacingly at its fore. Uniformly painted in serviceable machine grey, it was possible at this proximity to pick out some of the painstakingly worked lettering on the ship’s exterior. It was huge, a gargantuan monster of metal that filled the viewscreen completely as it placed itself between the ailing freighter and the punishing debris field.
The unseemly appearance of the front of the strike cruiser gradually tapered into a long, graceful neck and ultimately resolved into a veritable fortress astern. Abramov couldn’t help but gaze at it with awe.
‘They’re forming a barrier!’ Telyna leaned forward on the console as she stared up at the seemingly endless grey ship. ‘They’re shielding us from the onslaught.’ Her voice was filled with astonish
ed reverence, a far cry from her usual casual manner.
Abramov nodded, grimly. Ship-to-ship vox communication channels remained closed but he knew well who this monstrosity belonged to. The gold and silver worked insignias that could be made out on the grey ship’s edge displayed quite clearly the Imperial aquila, the Chapter emblem of the Silver Skulls and the vessel’s name.
The Dread Argent.
Abramov cleared his throat, which suddenly seemed to have become completely dry.
‘Then we had better hail them,’ he said. ‘And we had better make it formal.’
Captain Daerys Arrun, Master of the Fleet and Commander of the Silver Skulls Fourth Battle Company loomed in front of Luka Abramov. His closely shaven head did nothing to hide the mass of scar tissue on his skull; something that on a human would be considered disfiguring, but which on a Space Marine could only be a mark of honour. His face was covered in swirling whorls of dark ink that all but obscured his flesh; the battle tattoos of the warriors that all commanding officers of the Chapter earned the right to. If his sheer breadth and height and forcible presence hadn’t been fearsome enough, the tribal-like brandings would have done the job admirably.
Eyes that were ice-blue and just as cold pierced into Abramov for a while before Arrun spoke, his voice a deep and sonorous rumble.
‘There are a thousand things I can think of that might have encouraged you to act against your very clear and very specific instructions, Captain Abramov.’ Arrun held up a massive hand to forestall any protest. ‘And yet for every one of those, I can think up another reason as to exactly why you should not have done it. I trust that you have something to tell me that will prove my thousand theories wrong?’
The Dread Argent had run alongside the Endless Horizon for some time, deflecting the worst of the debris field as though she had been flicking insects away. In time, the message had come that Captain Daerys Arrun would be boarding the freight vessel to speak to Abramov. An explanation, it was communicated, was in order. The Endless Horizon would also be subjected to the standard check for smuggling at the same time. Abramov was not worried by the latter. He had nothing to hide.
The Gildar Rift Page 2
