by C. L. Werner
A squad of Battle Sisters were posted both within and just outside the entrance, their armoured presence doing much to quiet the column of refugees slowly moving into the cathedral. They saluted Trishala as she approached, opening a path for her and Kashibai as they moved out into the square. Standing on the broad steps outside the doors, they surveyed the scene.
The plaza was a sea of anguished faces, rolling relentlessly forwards. Vox-amplifiers fastened to the columns just outside the gate crackled and popped, the white hiss of their over-worked machine-spirit voicing its annoyance. Soon another voice droned over that of the unquiet spirit. In firm tones, one of the priests called out to the crowds, repeating the strictures Trishala had imposed. Because of the constant flow of new refugees into the plaza, the instructions were repeated every fifteen minutes, an endless litany that was forgotten by the crowd the moment they came close to the doors and saw sanctuary within their reach.
‘So many of them,’ Kashibai said. ‘How can we shelter all these people, let alone care for them?’
‘Prelate Azad has taken that burden onto himself,’ Trishala said. ‘The cathedral’s stores of water and victuals have been supplemented by such supplies as the frateris militia could collect from the shops and homes on Mount Rama. Feeding and ministering to these people is the task the prelate has given himself. Ours is to make sure they are safe long enough to get hungry.’ She glanced back into the narthex, pleased when she saw Sister Virika and her comrades moving towards the gate. They only managed a few steps before the lines behind them became snagged again. With a curt wave of her hand, she sent Virika back to restore order.
‘If we only had–’ Before Trishala could finish her statement, Kashibai lunged at her, dragging her to the ground. The next instant the edge of the gateway exploded in a burst of searing light, slivers of stone raking the nearest of the refugees.
The plaza erupted in screams. Even without Kashibai pointing to him, Trishala wouldn’t have had any problem spotting her attacker. Refugees were fairly crawling over one another to get away from the shooter. He was a grisly-looking creature draped in a black dust-slicker and ash-hood, his gloved hands wrapped about the grip of a lascannon. The cultist was of such incredible strength that he hefted the cumbersome weapon up to his shoulder and took aim again.
‘Down!’ Trishala shouted at the terrified crowd in the plaza. She tried to aim for the cultist, but the confusion of the crowd made a mockery of her efforts. If she could be certain of hitting her attacker she’d risk a burst, but to fire blindly into the throng was another thing.
The cultists suffered from no such pangs of conscience. Autoguns and stubbers tore into the refugees as a dozen more cultists revealed themselves and moved to support the hybrid with the lascannon. Again the heavy weapon sent a beam of annihilating light searing into the gateway, burning away still more of its facade, exposing the thick layers of armoured metal beneath.
‘Get inside!’ Kashibai shouted to the nearest of the refugees.
Trishala turned from her foe to bark a hurried command to the Sisters at the gate. ‘No one gets in!’ she told Virika as the Sisters came running out from the narthex. ‘Keep them out!’ Trishala ignored the look Kashibai gave her. Kashibai was letting her revulsion at the refugees being shot down in the plaza cloud her judgement. She was forgetting all the people inside the cathedral and how an attack such as this was just the sort of thing to provide cover for more cultists to slip inside. If not for Prelate Azad, she’d order the Great Gate closed at once and remove the threat entirely.
From up above the gate, the bark of boltguns now sounded. The Sisters deployed on the balconies were taking a hand now, pelting the enemy with quick bursts from their weapons. One cultist with an autogun was sent spinning by a shell that fairly evaporated his head. Another was blown back by a round that exploded in his chest, crashing into the refugees trying to flee from him.
The fire raking the doorway slackened as the Sisters on the balconies took their toll. The instant there was a respite, Trishala was on her feet, plunging down the steps into the plaza. The ground was strewn with the bodies of refugees gunned down in the fighting. The viciousness of the enemy had betrayed them. They’d killed their own best protection. Once she was clear of those survivors streaming towards the gate there was no one between the Sister Superior and her prey.
Trishala’s bolt pistol snarled, loosing a devastating burst into the cultists. She saw one fall, his belly ripped open and one leg severed at the hip. Another was thrashing on the ground, the left side of his chest blown apart. Only a single shell came close to hitting the creature with the lascannon, however, tearing through the foeman beside him. The hulking cultist cackled with shrill laughter as he swung his monstrous weapon in her direction.
Before the lascannon could fire, the enemy holding it was torn in half by a blast of bolter-fire. Kashibai rushed past Trishala, emptying the rest of her clip into the remaining cultists. The violence of her assault saw the last of the enemy turn to flee, even several that had stayed hidden among the crowds now exposing themselves to join the escape route. A good half a dozen of them raced towards the Chastened Road, shoving and shooting anyone in their way.
Trishala and Kashibai pursued the cultists, trying to close the distance with them so there would be no chance of their shots going astray. Before they could, however, the crack of lasguns sounded from the end of the plaza. The cultists had reached the road only to discover that their retreat was at an end.
Advancing up the road, scattering the crowds before them, was a company of local militia. The tan-uniformed soldiers spread out to form a line across the entrance to the plaza, snapping off shots from their lasguns as the cultists moved towards them. The searing beams of light stabbed into the enemy mob, burning through their coveralls and mining fatigues, ripping through the pale flesh beneath. An officer wearing the peaked cap of a captain raised his chainsword overhead. With the signal came a concerted volley from the front rank of troopers. Those cultists still on their feet collapsed under the scorching fusillade.
When the Battle Sisters reached the scene, a sergeant was moving among the fallen cultists, sending a slug from his shotgun into the skull of any he found that had only been wounded by the lasguns. Trishala left the man to his gory labour and marched towards the sword-bearing captain. The officer was relaying commands to his troops, waving a pair of lumbering Leman Russ battle tanks up into the plaza. At Trishala’s approach, he directed a crisp salute to the Sister Superior.
‘Captain Debdan, late of Colonel Hafiz’s staff,’ he introduced himself. He straightened somewhat and added with a touch of pride, ‘Now field commander of the Three Hundred and Thirty-Fourth Composite Battalion.’
‘What orders have you been issued, captain?’ Trishala asked. She turned her gaze to the troops moving out into the plaza. Their uniforms were grubby from dirt and smoke, and several of them sported bloodied bandages. ‘It looks like you’ve seen some fighting even before reaching the top of Mount Rama.’
Debdan nodded. ‘We encountered a pocket of resistance entrenched along the prayer-wrights’ row. Our losses were more severe than originally anticipated. Even after securing the site we lacked the strength to hold it. That’s why we’ve been reassigned to reinforce you here at the cathedral.’
‘Praise the God-Emperor,’ Trishala said, thinking of Prelate Azad and his appeal to the militia for help.
The captain looked past Trishala, a puzzled expression on his face. She followed the direction of his gaze, seeing Kashibai walking towards them. With the fleeing cultists dealt with, she’d gone back to secure the lascannon the hybrids had been using.
‘The cultists were using that?’ Debdan asked.
‘They were taking shots at the gate with it,’ Kashibai said. She held the weapon out to Trishala. ‘This isn’t some scratch-built knock-together. They must have looted it off soldiers they killed.’
Debdan stepped forwards and took the weapon from Kashibai. After a brief inspection, he shook his head. ‘This weapon was never issued,’ he declared. He set the lascannon leaning against his leg and reached to his pistol holster. Holding the gun out to the two Sisters, he indicated a number branded into the side of the grip. ‘When a weapon is taken from the stocks, the identity number of the trooper who receives it is marked on it. This lascannon has no such marking. Not even a blemish where such a mark might have been removed.’
‘Then these mutants are able to make these weapons on their own,’ Kashibai hissed. The thought that the cultists could manufacture armaments as sophisticated and deadly as a lascannon was a far from pleasant one.
‘No, it is a regulation weapon,’ Debdan stated, but his tone was too grim to draw any comfort from.
Trishala understood the implication and why it was even worse than Kashibai’s initial suspicion. ‘A traitor has been smuggling weapons to the cultists.’
‘Right from the arsenal itself,’ Debdan said. ‘It would have to be someone of high rank to both move the weapons and conceal the theft.’
‘And who’s to say how long they’ve been arming the cult,’ Trishala observed.
Captain Debdan nodded. ‘There’s no knowing how many guns have been handed over to the cultists. It would help explain why they’ve been able to mount such a vicious resistance. But there’s a bigger problem to consider. If this traitor has been arming the rebels, what other things might he have done to help them?’
Trishala felt her gorge rise. A traitor, a human in league with these monsters. ‘It isn’t just the things the traitor has done,’ she said. ‘What about the things he may be doing right now?’
Colonel Hafiz felt distinctly uncomfortable sitting in his chair at the near-deserted council table. With Tharsis ablaze with insurrection and reports of other uprisings from a score of smaller settlements across each of Lubentina’s continents, his place was out there, contributing to the fight. There were things he needed to be doing, things more productive than this conference with the Cardinal-Governor.
Adding to Hafiz’s uneasiness was the tension he sensed whenever Murdan stirred in his throne and glanced at Palatine Yadav. Officially the decision to have the astropath send a distress call four days previously had been made by the Cardinal-Governor alone as he reconsidered the scope of the cult uprising. He was putting a good deal more credence in the rumours that it had been Yadav who forced Murdan into the action against the governor’s will. If the Cardinal-Governor reprimanded Yadav it would be an admission that his authority had been defied. Hafiz could well imagine Murdan biding his time until he could retaliate from a position of strength rather than weakness.
‘Certainly I sympathise with the difficulty of these choices. None of them are ideal, or even palatable, but that doesn’t make them any less necessary.’ The speaker was Minister Kargil, one of the very few councillors in attendance. Since the crisis began, Kargil had lost a tremendous amount of weight, the folds of skin drooping from his cheeks somehow giving him a shrivelled aspect despite his still considerable paunch. When he raised a finger to emphasise the point he was trying to make, the rings he wore slid and clattered against each other. ‘Of course we should all like to save as many of the people as possible, but the simple practicality of the situation means sacrifices must be made.’
‘So long as those sacrifices aren’t demanded of yourself,’ one of the other councillors scoffed. The respect of his peers had dwindled almost in tandem with Kargil’s weight.
Hafiz shook his head. For the better part of an hour now Kargil had been trying to sway the rest of the council. Thus far he’d met only revulsion and disgust. The sort of men who would have been swayed were the ones not at the table, the men who’d already fled the city, striking out for other parts of Lubentina. Kargil was proposing something almost incredible in its audacity – using one of the transports at the spaceport to leave the planet. With two-thirds of Tharsis either destroyed or in the control of the rebels, he argued the situation was beyond recovery. It might be years before there was any answer to the distress call Rakesh had sent. By then Lubentina would be lost.
‘There is turmoil enough at the spaceport already,’ Hafiz pointed out. ‘We still have transports bringing thousands of pilgrims to Lubentina, unaware of what is happening here. Each ship that arrives and tries to unload its passengers is immediately beset by thousands of terrified pilgrims trying to get away. The soldiers posted at the spaceport already have problems enough trying to maintain order and control the crowds. Can you imagine the panic if we made any move to take over the ships? It would destroy whatever faith the people have in us to protect them.’
‘One transport,’ Kargil retorted, excitement in his tone. ‘That’s all I’m asking for. One ship. We’re going to need more than survivors to rebuild. It will take money.’
‘Your money,’ another of the councillors snarled.
Kargil spun around, appealing to the men who had once acceded to every whim the minister expressed. Now that he no longer intimidated them the other councillors were bold. ‘Does it matter where the money comes from? We’ll still need it to rebuild once the rebels have been exterminated.’
‘One transport would mean four thousand pilgrims,’ Yadav said.
The minister slammed his fist against the table. ‘And how many have already been abandoned? The militia has withdrawn from three-quarters of Tharsis and are still in retreat! They’re already shooting anyone who tries to get into the spaceport without authorisation and I’ve seen for myself that the perimeter around the Sovereign Spire is being enforced with firepower.’
Hafiz glowered at Kargil. ‘To prevent the rebels from overwhelming us completely, the strategy has been to concentrate our resources in three key areas – the government complex, Mount Rama, and the spaceport. To maintain our control over these sites, it has been necessary to restrict how many survivors we take in. Too many and order will break down. If that happens, we’re lost before we’ve even started.
‘There is also the realistic issue of supplies,’ Hafiz continued. ‘We have no way of knowing when relief will come. We could be looking at months, even years of protracted siege. The supplies here in the Sovereign Spire are assessed at a level to provide rations for ten thousand for a year.’
Murdan shifted forwards on his throne. ‘Coordinate with the outlying settlements and secure whatever stores they possess,’ he told the colonel. ‘Arrange to bring supplies in by air, and let us thank the God-Emperor that these mutants haven’t threatened that avenue of operation.’ There was just a hint of a smile when Murdan looked towards Kargil. ‘As for removing resources from Lubentina, I forbid it. The wealth of Lubentina remains on Lubentina. Nothing will proclaim louder to the Imperium that we will not abandon our world than leaving our treasure here.’
The fatalistic note in Murdan’s words sent a chill through Hafiz’s flesh. If Lubentina was to be saved, the Cardinal-Governor demanded it be saved on his terms.
If the astropath’s message had been heard, if help was coming, then it couldn’t come fast enough.
When tech-savants in the control-turret first detected the craft descending towards the spaceport, Major Ranj voxed the operator to signal the vessel to slow its approach. The haste with which the spaceport was trying to get ships off Lubentina was taking its toll on everyone. The pilots of the ships, the controllers in the turret, the ground personnel waiting to fuel and supply the ships when they landed. Most of all there was the strain being felt by the militia officers trying to impose some kind of discipline on the proceedings. Major Ranj and his staff had been made responsible for keeping the spaceport under control. His troops had to hold the perimeter against not only probing cultist attacks, but from mobs of panicked survivors trying to batter their way through the barricades and reach the ships. It was a hard thing to shoot other Lubentines, but it was essential that order was
maintained.
Ranj looked across the airfield through one of the armourglass windows of the observation tower, watching as a platoon of soldiers forced a crowd of pilgrims away from one of the landing pads and to one of the empty hangars that lined the field. Each of the hangars had been repurposed into temporary shelters for thousands of civilians, holding areas to house them while the local militia tried to wrest back control of Tharsis. Another platoon was posted about the base of the control tower, securing it in the event the crowds became unmanageable.
‘The ship isn’t responding,’ an exasperated controller voxed Ranj. ‘I’ve redirected those transports that were going to make their ascent so they shift around this ship. Those on approach have been told to retard their descent and wait.’
The controller’s tone became even more agitated. ‘That ship isn’t a pilgrim transport. I don’t know what it is.’
Ranj was silent for a moment, staring up at the observation tower’s vid-feed. The strange vessel was drawing closer. Rapidly he considered possibilities, discarding most of them. The ship was a massive vessel, savage in its outline, festooned with an array of vicious guns. It was clearly no civilian ship, that much was certain.
‘Keep trying to raise them,’ Ranj told the controller. Even as he gave the order, cries of horror rose from the personnel in the control tower. Communication over the vox collapsed into a whir of white noise.
Major Ranj gazed at the vid-feed in horror. The upper section of the control tower was a smouldering ruin. Even as he watched, the strange vessel sent another salvo slamming into the structure, bringing it down in a cascade of ferrocrete and armourglass. Ranj whipped around, hurrying to the walkway that circled the outside of the observation tower. He looked up, staring at the mysterious attacker.
The ship that had destroyed the control tower was blocky, almost box-like in its outline. The bifurcated tail was sharp and angular, arching back from the main body like the stinger of a scorpion. Two nubby wings jutted out from its sides, each laden with bulbous weapons pods. The nose of the craft had a wart-like protrusion to one side, a wart that had the muzzles of heavy bolters projecting from it like ugly black hairs. It was unlike any ship Ranj had ever seen, but there was no question of its purpose. It was a military vessel.
