Iron Warriors - The Omnibus
Page 46
Shimmering plates of rich blue and gold and pearl identified the star fort as the Indomitable, a Ramilies-class star fort that had served the Ultramarines faithfully since before the Wars of Apostasy. Its design, according to Mechanicus legends, came from the hand of Artisan Magos Lian Ramilies from materials captured in the purgation of Ulthanx. The Indomitable was no longer shackled to the defence of a single world, yet it still served the heirs of Guilliman, though in a far different capacity.
Space around the vast star fort heaved and bucked, its rebirth back into the material realm a tortuous and shrieking translation of protesting reality and tortured physics. At last the star fort heaved its way through, followed by a flotilla of supply ships and yet more escorts towards the outermost planet in the Triplex system, a world named Aescari Exterio.
A striated bronze gas giant largely composed of hydrogen, with a volatile magnetic core of iron and ice surrounded by a thick layer of metallic hydrogen, Aescari Exterio was encircled by a prominent system of rings, composed of ice particles, rock debris, dust and hundreds of enormous asteroids trapped by its gravitational field. Frothing spurts of electromagnetic radiation from the planet’s atmosphere were amplified and scattered by the planet’s rings, making it the perfect place to conceal the Indomitable’s presence.
Or the perfect place to lie in wait for prey.
Rust coloured light filled the command chapel of the Indomitable, situated in the Basilica Dominastus, the mightiest structure at the heart of the star fort, and leering gargoyles on vast corbels watched the bustle of the crew below impassively. Great stone arches supported the enormous domed ceiling, and silver statues of Ultramarines heroes were rendered gold by the fierce light of the ringed world.
Pict-slates hissed with static as the hull surveyors fought to penetrate the hash of interference that surrounded the star fort from its recent translation. Automated servitors clattered and swapped data packets in blurts of binaric code, while mortal crew correlated anticipated star patterns with the information slowly coming from myriad sources.
Overseeing everything from a specially widened bay towards the rear of the chapel was the master of the Indomitable, Brother Altarion, a giant in ceramite, armaplas and steel who viewed the world around him through technology no less sophisticated than that employed by the star fort itself.
‘Translation complete,’ said the pilot, a skeletally thin man seconded from the Omnis Videre. His name was Pater Monna, and he spoke with an ethereal lilt, as though travelling through the warp were no more difficult or interesting to him than walking through a door.
‘Of course,’ said Pater Monna, his truculent tone passing over Altarion without comment. His fingers danced over the clacking bronze keys and a faint blue glow lit his pallid features as scrolling lines of telemetry flickered on the slate beside him.
‘Surveyor gear is still showing interference, but known datum points match up to current locations,’ said Pater Monna. ‘Ninety seven point nine three accuracy of jump,’ he added with just a hint of smugness.
‘Confirmed,’ said Brother Hestian, a warrior clad in gleaming battle plate bearing the colours of the Ultramarines 5th Company. One ebonite-trimmed shoulder guard displayed the white ‘U’ of the Ultramarines, while the other was painted deep red and bore the black and steel cog symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus.
Standing at Brother Altarion’s side, Hestian’s enhanced facility for calculations checked Pater Monna’s figures almost as fast as the Navigator bondsman. ‘We are at the edge of the Triplex system, and are approaching Aescari Exterio.’
‘I am Hestian,’ said the Techmarine without looking up from his work. ‘Lucian attended you over two centuries ago.’
Watching from the centre of the chapel, Brother-Sergeant Olantor watched the familiar dance of technology and protocol that attended every translation of the Indomitable. Like Hestian, Olantor proudly bore the colours of the 5th Company, though he was Ultramarines through and through and owed no allegiance to the priests of Mars.
‘Is that common?’ whispered the slightly-built woman beside Olantor. ‘Brother Altarion seems a trifle… forgetful.’
‘When you have lived as long a life as he has, you’re entitled to forget a few things.’
‘But is it safe?’ said the woman. ‘Surely there are others more qualified for such an important position.’
Momentary anger flared in Olantor’s heart and he turned to face the woman, looming over her in his bulky plate armour. What did one such as she know of the immense sacrifices made by Altarion, or the burden his mighty shoulders carried?
‘Brother Altarion is one of my Chapter’s Old Ones, Mistress Sibiya,’ said Olantor, looking back towards the armoured bay enclosing the hulking form of Altarion. ‘The polished granite of his sarcophagus bears a bas-relief carving hewn from the mountains of Castra Magna. Marneus Calgar himself presented him with the mighty hammer of his left arm after the Battle for Macragge to honour the sacrifice that saw his mortal flesh all but destroyed.’
Olantor felt a surge of pride to be stationed alongside such a venerable hero. ‘As such, he is to be accorded your honour and respect at all times. His word is law on this star fort, and you would do well to remember that.’
‘I intended no disrespect,’ said Sibiya Monserat, Interrogator Tertius of Talasa Prime.
‘Then see that your tone matches your intent,’ said Olantor.
‘Always,’ said Sibiya. ‘I shall see to it that you will never be in doubt as to my intent.’
Olantor searched her face for mockery, but found none. That didn’t surprise him, for Sibiya Monserat was a woman trained in obfuscation and deception by her masters at the Inquisitorial fortress of Talasa Prime. He made a mental note not to underestimate Sibiya just because he could break her in two with a flick of his wrist or that she was a low-ranking soldier of the Inquisition.
Sibiya lowered her gaze. She was a fresh face aboard the Indomitable, though the presence of the Inquisition was far from new. Ever since the decades-old battle to reclaim the star fort from the daemons, the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines had deemed it necessary to have a permanent observer on board to ensure that no lingering taint remained.
It seemed unnecessary to involve an outside agency in the business of the Chapter, but Marneus Calgar and Varro Tigurius had been adamant.
Olantor turned away from Sibiya. His hair was grey and his face pockmarked with the passage of four centuries of service to his Chapter. A career sergeant, Olantor had not the ambition or desire to advance up the command structure, happy with his role as veteran sergeant in one of Captain Galenus’s Tactical squads.
Known as the Wardens of the Eastern Fringe, the duty of manning the Indomitable, had naturally fallen to the 5th Company, and though it was a duty carried out with the customary honour and duty of the Ultramarines, Olantor could not help but feel that his skills were being wasted in guarding a star fort that did not protect anything.
Nearly ten years had passed since Olantor had been seconded to the Indomitable, and he missed the brotherhood of his company with every passing day. With less than a year until his rotation was finished, each day now seemed like a lifetime.
Information passed back and forth across the bridge in various formats: verbal, binaric and noospheric. Though Olantor was not modified to receive noospheric communication, he saw Hestian sifting through invisible streams of data with efficient sweeps and stabs of his haptically enabled gauntlets.
‘Translation complete,’ said Pater Monna in his limp, boneless voice. ‘Navigation systems nominal and local space clear.’
‘Aether degrad
ation is not yet low enough to ignite the shields,’ reported Hestian. ‘I estimate at least six point seven minutes.’
‘You appointed me because I was quicker than Lucian ever was,’ said Hestian matter-of-factly.
Olantor smiled. It was a familiar routine between Hestian and Altarion. Translating from the warp to real space was a dangerous and messy affair with all manner of celestial phenomenon affecting the time it took delicate systems to return to full readiness. Shields and weapons were, unfortunately, the technologies most affected by such violent transitions. Brother Hestian was one of the best Techmarines in the 5th company, and no one could bring the Indomitable back to life faster.
‘Power to weapon systems sequencing now,’ reported Hestian, seemingly untroubled by Altarion’s words. ‘Northern docking pier reports confirmation of readiness. Eastern pier reports readiness in two point four minutes.’
‘Actually, it’s one-nine-three,’ corrected Pater Monna.
‘The bondsman is correct, brother,’ said Hestian, reading the noospheric link from the Navigator’s station. ‘This was translation one-nine-three.’
That was Altarion’s second mistake. One was bad enough, but two…
Olantor felt Interrogator Sibiya’s gaze upon him and tried to mask his unease.
Before he could say anything, a shrill warning bell tolled and panicked screeches of binary spat from the mouths of every surveyor servitor in the chapel.
‘Contacts!’ shouted Pater Monna, all traces of boredom gone. ‘Multiple incoming tracks of sixty-plus fast movers! Torpedoes! Make that seventy!’
‘The rings of Aescari Exterio,’ said Brother Hestian, his voice calm and measured. ‘Pack hunter predators lying in wait.’
‘Lying in wait?’ snapped Sibiya, moving towards the nearest surveyor plotter as it came alive with traceries of light depicting the unfolding tactical situation. Olantor moved alongside her, watching in horror as the incoming track lines slid inexorably towards the blue icon representing the Indomitable.
Olantor took in the details of the torpedo tracks in an instant, knowing that the enemy commander was either incredibly lucky or skilled beyond all comprehension.
‘They’re targeted on the southern pier, and we don’t have any shields or weapons powered there,’ he said.
‘How could they possibly have known where we would translate?’ demanded Sibiya.
No one answered her, for the business of defending against an attack did not allow time to answer superfluous questions.
Olantor turned and made his way from the command chapel, unsnapping his helmet from his belt. Some of the incoming tracks were too slow to be torpedoes loaded with conventional hull-breaking munitions.
Bulk carriers.
Or worse, boarding torpedoes.
All through the Indomitable, alarms sounded, rousing the fifty warriors of the 5th Company from their training rituals and the six thousand Ultramar Defence Auxilia soldiers stationed in their many barracks.
Within a Stormcrow assault boat surging from the debris clouds and electromagnetic soup that churned with flaring bursts of dangerously unstable energy pulses, Honsou watched as the Indomitable went onto a war footing. Flickering bursts of light snapped and fizzled across the star fort’s craggy surface as its void shields fought to ignite in the face of interference from the planet’s unstable field and the normal translation delay.
‘Too slow,’ he said with relish.
A golden wire trailed from the augmetic grafted to the side of Honsou’s skull and plugged into the brass console at the rear of the Stormcrow. Through that wire, information flowed into him from the sensory perceptions of Adept Cycerin, the Adeptus Mechanicus magos he had captured on Hydra Cordatus and infected with a warp-spawned techno-virus.
Honsou kept his remaining eye shut, for the sensation of two optical inputs to his brain induced nausea and dizziness that not even his genhanced physique could counteract.
Though he felt the hard vibrations of the assault boat as it thundered through space towards the Indomitable, heard the droning chants of his warriors and felt its movements beneath him, it warred with the stillness he perceived. Through Cycerin’s multiple senses, Honsou saw this region of space as a three-dimensional sphere of data tracks, information light, arcing trajectories and numerical representations of visual media. Much of it made no sense, yet he felt limbs that were not his own manipulating that information as easily as he might field strip a bolter.
Agglomerations of numbers represented the fleet he had assembled at New Badab, an ugly collection of battered warships, bulk carriers, gunboats, system monitors and captured cruisers. Guided by Moriana’s sorceries, his ships had anchored within the concealing radiation of Aescari Exterio for almost a month before the screaming vat-psykers gibbered in anticipation of the Indomitable’s arrival.
Cycerin immediately plotted the sequencing of the star fort’s activation cycle and brought them in on its most exposed flank, and the attack had been launched. Like the wolf packs of old, Honsou’s fleet surged from concealment, predators striking before their prey was even aware of them.
Honsou yanked the golden wire from his forehead and shook off the vertigo that accompanied his vision returning to normal; all hard edges, solid bulkheads and twin rows of armoured Iron Warriors ready to take the fight to the hated Imperium once more.
Auto-firing defence turrets engaged the Iron Warriors’ torpedo screen as soon as it came within range and space blossomed with massive explosions. To hit something as swift and small as a torpedo was next to impossible, but with enough fast moving debris slashing through space, it might be possible to bring down enough of the incoming weapons.
Without central guidance from the command chapel, these weapons were firing blind, and their chance of stopping enough of the enemy torpedoes to matter was small indeed.
Wave after wave of torpedoes slammed into the southern docking pier. Hull-breaching charges blasted through the thick plates of armour before a secondary motor ignited and thrust the warhead deep into the superstructure. Mushroom clouds of debris and fire bloomed across the surface of the star fort as new suns winked into existence and flattened vast swathes of the mighty bastions that studded its surface.
Hot on the heels of the ordnance came fast moving raiders armed with deadly lance batteries that pummelled the explosion-wracked surface of the Indomitable with raking beams of white-hot energy. Launch bays were targeted with ruthless precision and entire squadrons were immolated on their launch rails before they could take flight.
Flocks of Iron Warriors ships swept towards the battered southern pier and the defences were overwhelmed with volley after volley of punishing battery fire. Secondary explosions detonated in the heart of the pier and defensive architecture crafted in a forgotten age by masters of their art was blasted to dust. Each ship pulled away after its attack run, chased by snap-fired torpedoes and lethal barrages from the fully operational defence batteries mounted on the central basilica.
The assault element of Honsou’s fleet bombarded the docking pier with devastating thoroughness, tearing it open and flattening square kilometres of its structure. The damage was horrendous, and hundreds of bodies tumbled into space, snatched from the warmth of the star fort by screaming decompression. Jets of freezing oxygen and hydraulic fluid gushed into space, forming a glittering dome of sparkling crystal over the ruins below.
While much of Honsou’s fleet directed its violence against the docking pier, a sizeable portion stood off the main assault as the cruisers and escorts tasked with the star fort’s defence came about. Hi
gh above the assault, the Ultramarines escorts dived into the fight with a vengeance. Yet more torpedoes criss-crossed the gulfs between the enemy vessels as they gave battle, and ferocious broadsides battered down shields and smashed open hulls in flaring bursts of pyrotechnics.
That the Ultramarines ships were outgunned meant nothing, their crews would have turned to fight even were they outnumbered a million to one.
Oxygen fires burned brightly and briefly across the southern docking pier, the Indomitable shuddering as it vented its lifeblood into the hard vacuum. Even as the fires died, assault craft were arcing down to the surface, hundreds of troop carriers and heavy bulk lifters packed with armoured vehicles and siege equipment.
The southern pier was wide open, but the rest of the star fort was undamaged. Wounded as it was, the Indomitable was more than capable of winning this fight on its terms.
But Honsou had no intention of fighting on its terms.
To conquer this star fort would require more than naval power, it would require the most determined and skilful warriors on the ground, battering their way to its heart.
The Indomitable was a prize that could only be won by the warriors of Perturabo fighting as they were always meant to fight; with battery upon battery of artillery and thousands of warriors ready to sweep all before them in a bloody storm of iron.
Brother-Sergeant Olantor sped towards the southern docking pier through the echoing cloisters and wide thoroughfares of the Via Rex on a servitor piloted skiff. The wide processional of machine temples housed the generators that provided energy to the lance batteries of the southern pier, and silent snaps of electrical discharge arced between the power spires. Panicked tech-priests and their attendant servitors fought to contain the damage from the bombardment as the skiff raced by.