And so Kaleb ran.
‘WHAT’S THIS?’ DECIUS heard the warning tone in Carya’s voice and looked up from the hololithic display and across the frigate’s bridge. The shipmaster was speaking to Maas, the vox-tender. ‘There aren’t any scheduled movements in this battle sector. Did the deployment pattern get altered without my knowledge?’
‘Negative,’ said Maas. ‘No recorded changes, sir. Nevertheless, this signal from the Lord of Hyrus is clear. A craft from the Andronius is on our scopes and it does not register a mission flight plan.’
‘The Andronius is Eidolon’s ship,’ said Sendek. ‘Has he suddenly become eager to join our battle-brothers down on the surface?’
‘Perhaps the scent of all that glory was too much to resist,’ added Decius.
Captain Garro walked back from the far end of the chamber, grimacing a little as he limped. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, addressing his demand to the communications officer.
Maas nodded and brandished a data-slate. ‘Very sure, captain. An Emperor’s Children Thunderhawk is passing through our engagement zone.’
‘A fine way to get yourself shot down,’ murmured Sendek, drawing a wry nod from Decius. The Astartes toggled the hololith to show the data from Maas’s report and his eyes widened. Not only was there a Thunderhawk arrowing through Eisenstein’s patch of space, but behind it was a cluster of Raven interceptors and they were in an attack delta.
Garro was speaking to the woman, Vought. ‘Smells like trouble. Put us on an intercept course.’
Decius looked to his commander as the deck officer relayed Garro’s orders. ‘Lord, is this some sort of test? First we are taken off our assigned duty station and now our own ships are launching without authorisation?’
‘I have no answer for you.’
‘Captain!’ Sendek called out urgently. ‘The fighters trailing the Thunderhawk… They have just opened fire on it.’ The shock was clear in his voice.
‘A warning shot,’ suggested Carya.
Vought shook her head. ‘No. Cogitators are detecting energy blooms on the vessel’s hull. The drop-ship is taking hits.’
The familiar bell chime sounded once more, and Maas emerged from the alcove again. ‘Battle-Captain Garro, I have a message sent in the clear on the general vox channel.’
‘Quickly,’ Garro ordered.
‘From Lord Commander Eidolon, starship Andronius. Message reads: Fugitive Thunderhawk is acting against the Warmaster’s commands and is to be considered a renegade. All fleet elements are ordered to destroy the ship on sight.’
‘Shoot down one of our own vessels?’ Sendek was clearly aghast at the mere thought of such an idea. ‘Has he taken leave of his senses?’
‘The Thunderhawk is turning,’ reported the deck officer, ‘he’s seen our approach. Confirm, the Thunderhawk is closing in on us.’ She looked up at Garro. ‘He’s well within lascannon range, lord.’
Carya’s face was stony, and a hard silence fell across the bridge. ‘What are your orders, Captain Garro?’
Decius’s commander threw him a look, and then turned to Maas. ‘Can you get me a ship-to-ship link with that Thunderhawk?’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Then do it now.’
‘But, lord, the orders-’ began Decius.
Garro shot the warrior a sharp glare. ‘Eidolon can give all the orders he wants. I will not fire on a fellow Astartes without first knowing why.’ The battle-captain strode to the mouth of the vox hide and snatched a hand communicator from Maas. ‘Thunderhawk on a closing course with the Eisenstein,’ he barked, ‘identify yourself!’
Through the crackle of interference came an anxious reply. ‘Nathaniel?’ Decius saw the colour drain from Garro’s face in recognition. ‘It’s Saul. It’s good to hear your voice, my brother!’
‘Saul Tarvitz,’ whispered Sendek, ‘First Captain of the Emperor’s Children. Impossible! He’s a man of honour! If he’s turned traitor, then the galaxy has gone insane!’
Decius found he couldn’t look away from Garro’s shocked expression. ‘Perhaps it has.’ It was a long moment before Decius realised the words had been his.
PART TWO
A SUNDERED VOW
EIGHT
Point of no Return
Sacrifice
Oath of Moment
TOLLEN SENDEK PRIDED himself on his orderly mind and his controlled, regimented will. It was a point of honour for him to be logical and intent in his service to the XIV Legion and to the Emperor. He eschewed irrationality and the incautious nature that some of his brethren embraced. Rahl had often made fun of him about it, joking that Sendek took the word ‘stoic’ to new extremes, but he thought of his dead comrade now and wondered what Pyr would have made of the look on his face, the purely emotional surprise that gripped him.
It had taken only a moment to bring him to this state. The rogue Thunderhawk, the signal from Eidolon, the incredible command to terminate the fleeing vessel and the ranking Astartes officer aboard it… Sendek shook his head, trying to fight off the confusion. Had Decius been correct, was it a test? Some bizarre sort of battle drill to assess the mettle of the Eisenstein’s command crew? Or could it be true that Saul Tarvitz had indeed turned renegade and was fit only for execution? If it was possible for an Imperial governor like Vardus Praal to go against the Emperor, then perhaps an Astartes might do the same.
Captain Garro gripped a vox microphone in his hand and was speaking urgently into it, his knuckles white around the device. ‘Tarvitz? What in the name of the Emperor is going on? Are those fighters trying to shoot you down?’
Sendek flashed a look at the Eisenstein’s hololith. The answer to Garro’s question was self-evident, as the frigate’s sensors showed flickers of beam fire dashing from the flight of Ravens, snapping at the Thunderhawk’s stern. As he watched, the raptor-like interceptors adopted an attack posture. They were lining up to make a final strike.
He heard Garro shout into the vox, demanding some explanation, any explanation. ‘Be quick, Saul. They almost have you!’
Tarvitz’s next words made Sendek’s guts knot. ‘This is treachery!’ bellowed the captain of the Emperor’s Children, desperation filling his voice. ‘All of this! We are betrayed! The fleet is going to bombard the planet’s surface with virus bombs.’
At once, everyone on the bridge in earshot of the vox speaker was shocked rigid. ‘What? No!’ said Vought, shaking her head. Officers at other deck stations looked up from the command pit in disbelief.
‘That cannot be,’ began the shipmaster, taking a wary step forward.
Decius’s face was tense. ‘He’s mistaken. Our brothers are down there—’
Their voices overlapped one another in loud profusion, and Sendek heard only snatches of Garro’s conversation with Tarvitz. ‘On my life, I swear I do not lie to you,’ cried the captain. Sendek’s commander sagged, as if the weight of the man’s claim was pressing down on him. He caught Tarvitz’s final, frustrated words. ‘Every Astartes on Isstvan III is going to die!’
He looked back at the hololith. Tarvitz’s life was measured only in ticks of the clock. The Thunderhawk was wallowing badly, bleeding fuel as the Ravens moved in for the kill.
Captain Garro shoved himself away from the vox alcove and stormed across the bridge. ‘Weapons!’ he shouted. ‘I want lascannon command, this very second!’
Vought’s fingers danced over her console. ‘Close-quarters batteries are active, sir,’ she reported, ‘cogitators are computing a firing solution.’ The woman blinked. ‘Sir, are… are you going to shoot him down?’
‘Give me manual control.’ Garro waved her away from the panel. ‘If anyone is to pull this trigger, it will be me.’ The battle-captain gripped the side of the pulpit and then stabbed at an activation rune.
‘Firing,’ reported one of the toneless servitors.
ON THE EISENSTEIN’S dorsal hull, a cluster of high-energy laser cannons swivelled and shifted in unison, tracking to face the Thunderhawk and th
e Ravens. The guns discharged silently through the void, for a single instant filling the dark with a storm of flickering energy. Spears of collimated, coherent light reached out and found their target, tearing through armoured hull metal, ceramite and plastic. Fusion cores detonated in a flashing cascade, a thick cloud of radioactive debris riding out in a perfect sphere behind a wall of electromagnetic radiation.
SENDER’S EYES NARROWED as light flared in through the bridge’s viewing slits and the hololith bloomed with a sudden globe of crackling, impenetrable static. The Astartes looked to Garro as his captain stepped down from Vought’s console and limped back to Maas’s station at the vox hide. ‘He killed him.’ Tollen’s voice was barely audible. ‘Blood’s oath, he killed Tarvitz.’
Decius eyed him, conflict visible on his face. ‘Those were the orders.’
‘Those were Eidolon’s orders!’ Sendek snapped, his usual calm disintegrating. ‘You see that eagle carved upon the captain’s vambrace? Tarvitz has one just like it, Hakur told me of it! Garro and Tarvitz are honour brothers! He wouldn’t just murder him in cold blood!’
‘But if Tarvitz had turned…’
The battle-captain gave the communications officer Maas a hard shove and pushed him out of the vox hide. Garro bent to allow his armoured form into the alcove and yanked the sound curtain across the entrance with a savage swipe of his hand, cutting himself off from the bridge.
Sendek heard Vought’s question to Carya. ‘What is he doing in there?’
‘Reporting back to Eidolon,’ suggested the shipmaster.
The Astartes leaned down, almost with his face in the edges of the hololith cube. Flickering storms of energy and colour made it impossible to read. The power of the explosion out there reflecting off the planet’s upper atmosphere would fog the ship’s sensors for several minutes.
‘Tollen,’ began Decius, ‘whatever bond the battle-captain had with Tarvitz, that cannot rise above the duty of the service. Eidolon is a lord commander. He outranks Garro.’
‘No.’ Sendek shook his head, working the controls on the hololith’s projector podium, spooling back the time index record. ‘I refuse to accept he would do such a thing. You know him as well as I do, Solun. “Straight-Arrow Garro”, the men call him. He is an archetype for the nobility of the Legiones Astartes! Can you ever imagine our commander agreeing to slay a battle-brother on the whim of one of the Emperor’s Children?’
‘Then, what happened out there?’ demanded Decius. ‘You saw the Thunderhawk explode!’
‘I saw an explosion,’ countered Sendek. He toyed with the controls and then let the hololith run the brief engagement again in slow motion. Indicators showed the Eisenstein turn and fire, the bolts sweep towards the other craft, and then the stormy aftermath. The Astartes nodded slowly. ‘He didn’t target the Thunderhawk at all. The shots must have struck the lead Raven. The other interceptors were in close formation. The detonation would have caught them all in the shockwave.’
‘Then, where is Tarvitz?’
Sendek pointed at the deck. ‘He was close to Isstvan III’s atmosphere. I’ll warrant he’s using the sensor disruption to slip away.’
Decius glanced around to be sure that the rest of the frigate crew were not aware of what they were discussing. ‘So Tarvitz escapes and five pilots are killed in his stead?’
‘They were only crew-serfs, not Astartes. I doubt Eidolon will weep over their loss.’ Sendek looked across to the vox hide. ‘He’s not talking to the Andronius in there,’ he said, with grim certainty.
‘If you are correct, then we have just witnessed our commanding officer disobey a direct order from his superior. That is dereliction of duty, grounds for severe chastisement at the very least!’ Decius frowned. ‘You know I have no love for Fulgrim’s fops, but if the Warmaster learns of this, it will taint all of us, the entire Death Guard!’
Sendek grimaced. ‘How can you be so quick to set your colours? Our captain would never act without conscience! If he has done this thing, then there is no doubt in my mind that he has a credible motive. Will you not at least learn what that is before you begin lamenting for your reputation?’
Decius’s eyes flashed. ‘Very well, brother. I shall ask him, now.’
Before Sendek could stop him, Decius rounded the hololith and strode quickly to the vox hide and grabbed the sound-deadening drape. As he wrenched it back, both Astartes heard the battle-captain speaking into the vox.
‘Luck of Terra be with you,’ he said. Only static answered him.
Garro looked up from his crouch by the communications pulpit and met their gazes. The hollow, broken look upon his face cut Decius to the very core. Even when he had seen the captain in his healing trance after falling on Isstvan Extremis, he had not seemed so empty and ill as he did at this moment.
‘Lord?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’
‘The storm is coming, Solun,’ the battle-captain said in a dead voice.
IT TOOK GREAT effort for Garro to propel himself out of the vox hide, as Tarvitz’s revelations churned in his mind, sapping the will and strength from his muscles like some strange malaise. The things he had said… The import of them was staggering. He took heavy steps away, ignoring the loaded stares of the Eisenstein’s crew and the visible distrust radiating from Maas as the comms officer made for his alcove once again.
Garro threw a command at Maas over his shoulder. ‘Contact Andronius. Tell them that the rogue was destroyed, and the explosion claimed their pursuit ships as well. No survivors.’
‘Is that what really happened?’ asked Decius accusingly.
‘Tarvitz brought me… brought us a warning. You heard what he said on the vox.’
‘Lord, all I heard was some wild shouting about betrayal and virus bombs. On that alone you have gone against orders?’
Sendek and his brethren moved to the rear of the compartment, instinctively keeping their voices pitched low.
‘If Tarvitz spoke of it, then it was no falsehood,’ insisted Garro softly.
Decius sneered. ‘With respect, captain, I did not know the man and I do not hold that hearsay is enough to let a direct command be ignored—’
Garro’s temper came back in a hot rush, and he grabbed Decius by the gorget and pulled him off balance. ‘I do know Saul Tarvitz, you whelp, and his word is worth a thousand of Eidolon’s!’ He thrust his vambrace up before Decius’s face. ‘You see this, the etching there? That mark is all the guarantee I need! When you have fought for as long as I have, you will learn that some things transcend even the commands of your masters!’ Furious, he released the other warrior and his fists tightened.
Sendek’s face was pale with shock. ‘If what he said was true, if there are ships in the fleet preparing to drop blight warheads on the planet, it would mean the wholesale slaughter of thousands of our kinsmen.’ He shook his head. ‘Oath’s sake, there is no need to sacrifice men to wipe out the Choral City. Why would Horus allow such a thing to happen? It makes no sense!’
‘Exactly,’ said Decius, recovering his composure. ‘What possible reason could the Warmaster have for doing this?’
Garro opened his mouth to speak, to actually say the words aloud to his battle-brothers for the very first time, and found that he could not. The sheer horror of it, the ripping, echoing void inside his thoughts stopped him dead. Betrayal. He couldn’t make the word, couldn’t force it from his throat. That Horus himself, great Horus, the beautiful and magnificent Warmaster, had done this… The idea of it made him go weak. And with that realisation there came another. If Horus had prepared this treachery, then he had not done it alone, it was too big, too monumental an endeavour even for the Warmaster to have managed by himself. Yes, Horus’s brothers would be a part of it too: Angron, ever ready to take any path that led him to more bloodshed. Fulgrim, convinced of his own superiority and perfection over all, and the Death Lord himself, in secret conspiracy with the Warmaster.
‘Mortarion…’ Garro saw those hard amber eyes once again, remembe
red the questions and the intent of his primarch. It is important for my brother Horus to have unity across the entirety of the Astartes. He had said those words. We must have singular purpose or we will falter.
Was this duplicity the purpose Mortarion had alluded to? Garro turned away, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead, fighting down the conflict inside him. He saw a frantic, shuddering figure come rushing in through the iris hatch of the bridge, face tight with fear. ‘Kaleb?’
The housecarl bowed shakily. ‘My lord, you must come quickly! Brother Voyen and I… In the ship’s gunnery racks, we discovered…’ He struggled, sucking in gasping breaths of air. ‘Grulgor and his men are loading the main guns… loading them with Life-Eater globes!’
‘Virus bombs,’ said Sendek, in a cold, distant voice.
‘Aye, lord. I saw it with my own eyes.’
Garro pressed down the turmoil within and drew himself up. ‘Show me.’
VOYEN LOOKED ON, aghast. With each new sphere that emerged on the back of the loader crews, he felt his horror plunge deeper. As a trained Apothecary, it was his duty to be knowledgeable in the patterns and pathologies of many types of biological warfare agents, and the Life-Eater was known to him. He wished it was not. He flashed on a moment of memory, a day during his advanced training with the Magos Biologis when the mentors had given live demonstrations on condemned criminals of the effects of various toxins upon unprotected flesh. He had seen the damage a single droplet of the voracious virus could do, watching it eat into a screaming heretic from behind impenetrable armourglass. Out there, in those globes, there were gallons of the thick green transmitter medium, every cupful swarming with countless trillions of the killer microbes. He estimated that the war shots aboard the Eisenstein alone would be enough to wipe out a large city.
Commander Grulgor walked carefully among the loaders and his own men, showing no fear, directing the arming process personally. He was taking responsibility for it, Voyen realised, doing it himself to put his own stamp of perverse pride on the deed.
The Flight of the Eisenstein Page 15
