by Gav Thorpe
‘I searched your archives for precedents of this battle,’ Corax said conversationally, attempting to engage Loriark and distract the tech-priest from whatever doom-laden scenarios he was considering. Even so, the primarch’s gaze did not stray from the monitor banks. ‘There was civil war on Constanix during the Long Night, but few details survive.’
‘It is true.’ Loriark’s artificially modulated voice had only one volume and tempo, making it impossible to gauge his mood. ‘Twelve hundred and sixty-eight years have passed since the Years of Peril and much that was known was destroyed in the war. The magi loyal to the purity of the Machine-God’s creed prevailed, but at great cost. Data was lost that will never be recovered. A great setback to our cause.’
‘You have studied the old recordings and logs?’
‘I have spent much of my life with them, lord primarch,’ said Loriark. It was impossible to know for sure, but it seemed that there was chastisement in the magos’s posture and sharp gestures; perhaps resentment that Corax would think Loriark ignorant of his world’s history. ‘I am familiar with the accounts of inter-city battle. It seems destructive and wasteful of resources. The arrangement of the Cognoscenti is a far superior form of conflict resolution.’
‘I agree.’
‘Yet you are a warrior and a general, lord primarch. It is your nature to wage war.’
Corax paused before replying, telling himself that no insult was intended by the tech-priest, only observation. He chose his words carefully, trying to summarise a lifetime’s philosophy in a few sentences.
‘War is a necessity to bring peace. Some of my brothers are warmakers, pure and simple, but I am not. Some, like Rogal Dorn, are architects, both of fortresses and of worlds. Guilliman’s empire stands testament to his abilities as statesman as well as warleader. The Emperor created us as perfect warriors and commanders, but the primarchs are far greater than simple warlords.’
‘And what do you build, lord primarch?’ Loriark’s dark eyes fixed Corax with a long stare. ‘If Horus had not turned, what would your legacy have been, if not a trail of conquered worlds, a multitude of widowed and orphaned people?’
‘I build hope, in the hearts of men and women. I show them that from the Long Night we can emerge into enlightenment. I never persecuted those I conquered and I never refused a surrender sincerely offered. I have shed the blood of the guilty and the innocent, laid waste to civilisations for the cause of the Emperor, but I never brought ruin needlessly. Each death was laid as a sacrifice to a better future, a life free from suppression and tyranny.’
‘Would not a tyrant claim the same? No man believes himself to do wrong.’
‘No tyrant would be willing to give up his power once all enemies were thwarted. I was prepared for just such an eventuality.’
‘I speak not of you, but the Emperor. What makes his vision of the galaxy any purer than that of Horus, or yours, or the Mechanicum’s? You may have been the weapon the Emperor used against a galaxy of foes, but it was his power that wielded you, unleashed your Legion against those that opposed him.’
Again Corax was forced to think for a moment, to formulate his reply so that a knot of instinct and simple knowing could be unravelled into something more reasoned.
‘The Emperor is all the things he wishes to be. He has been both tyrannical and compassionate, merciless and merciful. But I have seen into him, and I have touched minds with him in a way no other can. And at the core of what others see is a man of humility and wisdom and learning. He is a man driven by the rational. A tyrant craves domination, but the Emperor carries his power like a burden, the responsibility for all of humanity on his shoulders. He is everything he must be, not out of desire, but from duty and necessity.’
Loriark said nothing, and it was impossible to know whether he believed Corax or not. Talk of the Emperor always left Corax feeling grateful and humbled.
Grateful for the gene-father that had created him.
Humbled by the power of the ruler who had guided him.
The rebellion of the Warmaster and the primarchs who had sided with him made all the more clear the temptations and perils that came with near-unlimited power. Hunger for glory, desire for personal ambition, resentment and hatred had all taken their toll upon the mightiest creations of the Emperor. What effort of will did it take for the Emperor not to succumb to the same? What inhuman mind could spend millennia seeing the galaxy fall to ruin and yet never once abandon the vision of a greater future? Corax had been sorely tested, from the moment he had awoken in the ice caves of Lycaeus to this very second, but never could he come close to knowing the decisions that weighed so heavily upon his Imperial master.
Wrapped up with these thoughts, he regarded the monitors with some regret. More would die today, soldier and civilian alike. He could not count the numbers dead by his actions over a long lifetime of bloodshed. Billions, surely. Yet just as the Emperor carried the burden of his responsibility without complaint, so too would Corax.
And if ever true peace was to come, then he would look back on his bloody life without regret, knowing that the cause had always been just.
Agapito tapped out a quick beat on the plate of his leg armour as he waited in the confines of the Shadowhawk. He made himself stop, conscious that it might be seen as a sign of nervousness and was probably irritating to the other Raven Guard, though none would ever voice complaint.
Two hours from Iapetus.
Two hours that would crawl past, his thoughts alive with possibilities: his death and the death of his companions; victory or defeat; vengeance or failure. He tried to move his thoughts elsewhere, to rites of battle and the layout of the target city. He mentally recited Corax’s doctrines, but they were no longer the calming mantra they had once been.
Two hours, not of fear, but anticipation. He tapped his fingers not as a response to dread but in excitement.
Two hours until another battle. Two hours until the righteousness would claim him again and he could drown out the haunting cries of his dead brothers with the din of war.
Without conscious thought, his fingers started to tap again.
Five
Over the long decades of the Years of Peril, the barge-cities of Constanix II had evolved through a bloody process of weaponry and countermeasure, attack and defence, so that they had each become near-impregnable to the assaults of the others. Forced by bloody stalemate into consensus, the rulers of the tech-temples had not waged war since. Yet still there remained an ordained way to wage war between cities, a process that Corax had studied carefully, seeking to overturn the dogma of centuries of received wisdom.
The energy shields of Atlas and Iapetus rendered long-range attack a waste of energy and munitions – in order to maximise its capabilities of bombardment in an effort to overload an opponent’s defences, a barge-city would first have to weaken its own shield to allow its guns to fire out, rendering it vulnerable to a swift counter-attack.
Instead of such artillery exchanges, the approach of Atlas to Iapetus was heralded by a battle in the skies.
The energy fields provided no barrier to aircraft and both sides wove tangled trails about each other as they attempted to bring their foundation-penetrating payloads over the enemy city. If one side gained the upper hand they would be able to target the power-field generators of the enemy, neutralising their defences and leaving them open to crushing waves of artillery and the devastating blasts of volcano cannons. Another option was to destroy the engines and grav-matrices that kept the enemy city afloat, but Corax had no desire to see Iapetus plunged into the sea. Not only would the loss of life be incredible, there was no guarantee that Delvere and his allies would not simply escape the destruction of the capital by gunship or other craft.
As the two air forces duelled overhead, scores of strike craft exchanged missile, bolter and heavy cannon fire, both attempting to pierce the cordon and pave a way for
the heavier bombers and ground-attack craft. Explosions blossomed against the dark clouds and the burning trails of wrecked fighters and debris cut downwards towards the tossing ocean.
‘Why are we slowing?’ Corax asked as he noticed the soft nudge of deceleration. ‘I gave no such order.’
‘Until Iapetus’s energy field has been weakened we must stand our ground,’ replied Loriark. ‘Power is being diverted to air defence turrets in case of enemy breakthrough. Delvere’s aerial assets outnumber ours. We must take precautionary measures.’
‘Continue at full speed,’ Corax barked at the gaggle of tech-adepts standing by the city’s engine controls. He turned back to Loriark. ‘I have no intention of waiting while we lose the aerial battle.’
‘On our current course we will collide with Iapetus,’ said the magokritarch, though whether this was a protest or simply an observation was unclear.
‘That is my intent,’ Corax replied. ‘We will treat this as a boarding action. Perhaps the largest the galaxy will ever see. Atlas will ram Iapetus and then we will move ground forces over.’
‘Ram?’ The magos seemed put out by the simple word. ‘It is more logical to render Iapetus’s defence grid incapable and then dock at lower speed to precipitate the ground assault.’
‘War is not always about logic, Loriark,’ Corax said calmly.
‘But if the enemy energy field is still operational, we will have to drop our own defences to prevent a feedback cycle of possibly devastating proportions.’
‘How devastating?’
Loriark turned to the other tech-priests and there followed a brief crackling exchange of lingua-technis as they consulted with each other. Shaking his head, Loriark returned his attention back to Corax.
‘We are unsure. Possibly catastrophic. Highly inadvisable.’
‘War is a series of intentional catastrophes, magokritarch,’ Corax said sternly. ‘Continue at full speed, course set for Iapetus.’
No further protest was forthcoming, though more exchanges buzzed between the tech-priests as the order was carried out. Checking the main viewer, Corax could see Iapetus clearly, only three kilometres distant. The grey of the turbulent seas between the two barge-cities seemed to be growing smaller with a glacial slowness, but in truth Atlas was closing at nearly twenty kilometres per hour. Even if the merging of the energy shields did not cause widespread damage, the impact certainly would.
Alarms cried shrilly in the control chamber, and banks of lights flashed red.
A lexmechanic issued a proximity warning. ‘Two hundred metres to power field overlap.’
Sirens sounded out across the city once more and the comm-net was filled with warnings for exposed troops to brace themselves and take whatever cover was available.
At one hundred metres the ionised air between the two energy shields crackled while the sea beneath began to churn, issuing fountains of acidic steam clouds hundreds of metres into the air.
At fifty metres, arcs of coloured lightning rippled across the narrowing space, the miniature storm boiling between the cities cracking and thundering like an artillery barrage in full effect.
As the outer edges of the two fields touched, a kilometre out from the prow of Atlas, the lightning formed two massive domes, one above each city. The sky seethed with energy and sparks danced over Corax’s skin. Several tech-adepts stumbled and fell, two of them crying out as the electromagnetic charge permeating the atmosphere overloaded parts of their cybernetic bodies.
Loriark’s voice projector emitted a high-pitched wail and forks of electricity coruscated along his bionic arm as he staggered backwards. Corax grabbed the front of his robe to prevent the tech-priest from falling, feeling a surge of voltage up his arm at the contact. Dark veins throbbed beneath the primarch’s pale skin.
The temple was at the epicentre of the electrical storm, a miasma of power swirling about its summit. A twin tempest engulfed the main precinct of Iapetus, and the barge-cities shook as generators set into their foundations overheated.
Finally, they could take no more of the titanic pressure.
Atlas’s starboard field generator exploded first, wiping out two empty tenement blocks and an abandoned manufactorum in a blast that rocketed debris half a kilometre into the air and showered dust and debris across two districts. A second detonation erupted in Seventh District at the rear of the barge-city, roaring out across the ocean, sending a kilometre of dockworks and quays arcing down into the sea. Similar explosions were wracking Iapetus, toppling buildings and sending plumes of flame into the tormented air above the capital.
The combined energy fields exploded out with a deafening boom, sending waves as tall as a Titan rippling out across the ocean. Dog-fighting aircraft were thrown into spins and stalls by the blast.
‘Open fire, all batteries!’ snapped Corax, even as the tech-adepts dragged themselves back to their posts. ‘Target enemy weapon arrays and the city perimeter. I want a blanket of fire to cover our approach.’
From turrets atop the main temple and spread through the city, macro-lasers and volcano cannons roared into action. Shells the size of battle tanks arced into the air towards Iapetus while ruby-coloured beams sprang into life between the two cities. Rocket launchers sent flaring missiles streaming across the gap by the score, twisting and turning towards their designated targets.
Flurries of explosions lit up the nearest sectors of the capital where the beams touched, cutting through armoured turrets and plated embrasures. The shells of the cannons fell, flattening buildings in a line along the port districts. Another second later and the rockets struck home, their warheads punching into the foundation of Iapetus before exploding, rending immense craters from the surface like bullet holes in flesh. Airburst shells and submunitions showered incendiary destruction onto the already wounded city, setting fires as gas lines and fuel tanks detonated while weaponry depots were torn to scattered rubble.
Delvere and his cohort were slower to react; the fourth salvo from Atlas was landing even as the capital’s surviving guns returned fire. Atlas was rocked by the impacts, shuddering under the tonnage of shells descending upon its streets and buildings. Corax gritted his teeth as rockets slammed into the armoured sheath of the temple building, and he was glad that one of his first orders had been to plate over the ostentatious but vulnerable windows. Thick ceramite and ferrocrete cladding held, though the temple shook under the impacts sending several servitors and Mechanicum adepts sprawling.
The stormy exchange of artillery continued as Atlas closed with her target, lessening as counter-battery fire from each city destroyed the cannons and emplacements of the other. For more than five minutes the bombardments continued until both barge-cities were nothing more than ruined wastelands, dotted with shells of buildings like ragged teeth, destroyed power plants and factories belching smoke and fumes.
Corax knew that there would be casualties, but he did not need to know the details. The point of commitment had been reached the moment they had set course for Iapetus; now all that remained was to endure the pain and see his charges through to victory. Later the losses could be mourned, but for the moment his entire intellect and will was bent towards the destruction of his enemies.
Agapito had clambered up to the cockpit to look out of the canopy after the first shell impacts. He had seen many sights in his battle-strewn life, both stirring and dismal, but the sight of two cities blasting each other to pieces pretty much eclipsed them all. Perhaps only a full fleet bombardment from orbit could match the sheer amount of firepower being unleashed.
The jagged, tangled remains of Iapetus’s docks loomed large in his view. The capital was trying to rise up, hoping to avoid the coming collision, but Atlas was ascending also, driving on directly towards the enemy-held city. Only a few hundred metres separated the two gigantic craft and the commander made his way back to the main compartment and lowered himself into the brace ha
rness.
‘Get ready for launch. Pilot, I want to be airborne before these two bastards meet head-on.’
‘Affirmative, commander,’ replied Stanz.
‘This is Agapito to all commands – prepare for assault.’
A series of confirmations echoed back across the vox as he spread his fingers, forcing himself to relax. He pulled his power sword free from the stanchion above his head and laid it across his lap, fingers creating a rattling tattoo along its ebony sheath.
The waiting was almost over.
Agapito felt the Shadowhawk taxiing out of the armoured bunker where it had been hidden, and a few seconds later felt it rising up into the air. He turned his head to look out of the slit-like viewing port beside him. There was almost nothing to see through the haze of fire and smoke, but where the gusting winds parted the clouds, he watched as Atlas rammed Iapetus.
The barrage-ravaged prow of the barge-city ploughed into the equally ruined dockyards of the capital. Spars and the wreckage of loading cranes bent like grass in a wind while armoured plates sheared into each other, sending metre-long splinters spinning through the air. As the cities seemed to drop away beneath him, Agapito could see more – chasms opening up along the roads, splitting the gutted remnants of buildings.
A huge cloud of dust was thrown up by the impact, engulfing the Shadowhawk and sending it lurching to port while debris rattled against the hull.
‘Losing trim. This is going to be tricky,’ Stanz warned.
A moment later the turbulence threw the drop-ship to starboard. Restraining harnesses creaked and the Raven Guard muttered curses as they were tipped over, the hull clanging with impacts, the groan of straining metal reverberating around them.
While Stanz wrestled the craft out of its wild roll, Agapito glanced out of the vision slit again. Tall buildings on both sides of the collision were toppling towards each other, slow and majestic yet terrible to witness. He knew that much of Atlas’s populace was safe deep into the foundation of the city, but had Delvere shown similar concern for the citizens of the capital? It seemed unlikely. In all probability, thousands were dying.
