The space hulk reached the forward elements of the blockade: the Dictator-class cruiser Cardinal Borza and two frigates. There was no possibility of evasion. Isakov even saw the engines of the Borza flare brighter, Captain Hella von Berne turning the vessel into a five-thousand-metre battering ram. Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus hit the cruiser a few moments before the frigates. The Borza’s bow disintegrated. Its midsection broke in half. Its engines burned a moment longer, slamming the stern of the ship forward into its own immolation. The warp drives ruptured, and the void was torn again by the light of absolute destruction.
Isakov looked away from the oculus, dazzled, as the flare reached into the bridge, stabbing eyes and soul. ‘Full power to forward shields!’ he called, and braced for the shockwave. It came, and there was another flare, this time from the Reach of Judgement’s void shields. They stood for a full second against the Cardinal Borza’s death cry. Then they collapsed, their failure cascading back along the length of the battleship. The Judgement shook like a city in an earthquake. A chorus of flat servitor voices began reciting damage reports. Something exploded in the corridor leading off the main doors to the bridge. Isakov smelled smoke, and the sharp jab to the nose of ozone.
And the fleet kept firing. Shells and torpedoes were launched into the searing white curtain of a plasma and warp drive fireball. That anything could survive being at the centre of the cruiser’s destruction seemed impossible, but the barrage must continue until either the enemy or the last hope was no more.
The light faded. The space hulk stormed through fire and death. It was shrouded by flame, a comet of fire. It was shedding fragments kilometres long. The Borza had inflicted massive damage, but the blow was meaningless. The hulk was too huge. Nothing short of a planetary mass would halt its journey.
Seconds had passed since the initial impact between the hulk and the blockade. Seconds remained before the end. Alveus Alpha Alpha Sextus filled the oculus. This close, it was doom the size of a world.
There was nothing left to try. There could be no victory. There could be no flight. All that remained was the gesture, to seek honour in death, and curse the monster with a new name.
‘Full ahead!’ Isakov ordered. Von Berne had shown the way. Isakov and his hundreds of thousands under his command would shed more ork blood as their own boiled into the void. ‘Vox, tell Armageddon. Tell them the Claw of Desolation reaches for them. Tell them to fight hard. In the name of the Emperor.’
Then he stared at his killer as if his hate itself could stop it. Through smoke and flame, he saw its surface draw near. A graveyard with tombstones the size of hive spires rushed forward to surround his ship.
He saw Death.
Kilometres distant from the bridge, the bow of the Judgement struck the ruined superstructure of an embedded colony ship. The two vessels melded in a storm of wreckage. Then the great explosions began.
Isakov saw the end come in a triumph of fire. The moment before agony was full of awe. But his final thought was bitter, because the sublime destruction meant nothing.
4. Yarrick
The sudden silence from the fleet was followed by silence in the augur station. It lasted almost a full minute, beginning with the final transmission from the Reach of Judgement until the augur operator called out that all contact with the fleet had been lost.
‘What about the Claw of Desolation?’ I asked. I honoured the admiral’s last gesture. What had entered the Armageddon System must be known for what it was, not hidden behind a cogitator’s cataloguing designation.
‘Still a unique, coherent signal,’ one of the augur operators said. ‘The space hulk is intact and moving deeper into the system.’
‘Its course?’ Setheno asked.
We waited as trajectories were recalculated.
‘No deviation.’ The operator’s voice was awed. He was an old veteran, younger than I was but someone who had never had juvenat treatments. He had lost his legs, and his upper body was fused with a mobile plinth. He had seen much. But nothing like this. ‘Its course will intersect with Armageddon’s orbit in less than twelve hours.’
‘So fast,’ I said. I looked at Mannheim. ‘You must warn the hive garrisons.’
‘He will not,’ said a voice behind me.
I turned. Flanked by two of his honour guard, von Strab stood in the entrance to the station.
‘I am surprised to see you here,’ Setheno told him. ‘Shouldn’t you be presiding over the celebrations of the feast?’
Setheno was the only one present who did not fall under von Strab’s authority. The only one he couldn’t order shot for the insult. So he pretended to ignore the slight and responded as if her question had been a genuine inquiry. ‘I am where I need to be. Word has reached me of a crisis. Despite the efforts of those who do not appear to have a proper respect for the chain of command.’ He strode into the centre of the station. His voice echoing beneath the dome, he announced, ‘Let this be understood by all. There will be no operations undertaken without my authorisation. I am the supreme commander of all forces on Armageddon. The defence of our world is in my hands.’
And with those words, the agony of Armageddon began.
1. Kohner
‘Our orders are to make ready,’ Sergeant Hugo Kohner of the Tempestora Hive Militia announced. ‘So make ready we shall.’ He led his squad at a quick march from the barracks towards the hive’s outer wall.
‘Make ready for what, sergeant?’ Bessler asked. Of course he did. He couldn’t just take an order and shut up about it. He was older than Kohner by a good decade and he had resented the younger man’s promotion over him for at least that long.
‘If you’re not told, you don’t need to know,’ Kohner snapped. ‘You do as you’re told. Clear enough? Or do I have to ask a commissar to come calling?’
‘Clear, sergeant,’ Bessler said.
‘Good.’
In truth, he was venting on Bessler his own irritation with the vagueness of his orders. He’d asked the same question of Captain Wendlandt, who had been more forthcoming than Kohner could afford to be. ‘They’re not telling us,’ he’d said. ‘An enemy landing of some kind. Nothing more specific than that.’
‘So what are we supposed to do?’ Kohner had asked.
‘Stand vigil on the walls.’
The order lacked shape, but it was still an action to be taken. So Kohner led his squad with the other soldiers of the militia towards the wall. There were two regiments of militia: twelve companies, over four thousand troopers. They marched through streets reeking of burned excess promethium and coated in the perpetual rain of ash sent up by the Tempestora East and Morpheus manufactoria complexes. They were slowed as they ran into masses of celebrants still marking the Emperor’s Ascension.
A step behind Kohner, Bessler grumbled, ‘Why are all these civilians still out here?’
Kohner said nothing, but he agreed. More signs of conflicting messages coming down from on high. Prepare for an enemy. Honour the Feast. Was no one stopping to think how those two commandments interfered with each other?
His jaw set in frustration, he bulled through the crowds. A preacher cursed him when a jostled procession almost overturned the idol of the Emperor they transported over their heads. Kohner twitched at the near miss with blasphemy, but he kept going.
The outer wall was less than two kilometres from the barracks, but it was an hour before Kohner began to climb one of the iron staircases that zigzagged up its surface, taking him the hundred metres to the parapets. He was out of breath when he reached the top. So were the other squad members. He envied the Steel Legionnaires their rebreathers. The militia troopers took the unfiltered air of Armageddon into their lungs, cutting down on their stamina as well as their life expectancy. Their uniforms were the same ochre as those of the Steel Legion, but lacked the greatcoats. The militia troopers wore the reminders of what they should aspire to become, but were
not yet.
Kohner looked east over the parapet. This was not the Ash Wastelands to the north of the hive, though the land was harsh enough. It was a dry, poisoned plain broken up by gullies that had run dry centuries before, and the topsoil had blown away not long thereafter. The few rivers that still flowed north towards the Boiling Sea were sluggish and brown with contaminants. Thorny scrub grew along their banks. The only vegetation stubborn enough to cling to its hold in the region, it was tall and sharp enough to disembowel the unwary. Even through the ashfall and overcast, Kohner could see dozens of kilometres into the grey distance. The land was empty. No enemy approached.
Two hours later, Bessler came and said, ‘So? What now? How long do we stare at nothing?’
‘Until there is something, or we are commanded otherwise,’ said Kohner. He turned his head to glare at the militiaman. ‘How is this so difficult for you to grasp?’
Bessler didn’t answer. His head tilted up and his eyes snapped wide. His face, always pinched in resentment like an arthritic fist, went slack with awe and paled. Light seemed to shine from it.
No, that was wrong. The light shone down on it from the sky.
Kohner looked up to see the fire descend.
2. Yarrick
Claw of Desolation’s arrival was visible across Armageddon Prime, and as far east into Armageddon Secundus as Infernus. I remained in the augur station after von Strab took over the operations. He withdrew to his quarters, summoning Mannheim and the commanding officers of all Steel Legion regiments to attend his pleasure. He had no use for me. So I stayed to bear witness to the coming of the space hulk.
As the augurs tracked the Claw of Desolation’s trajectory, a terrified quiet descended on the station. Since the warp storm had begun, the flights to and from the spaceports had been reduced to a fraction of their usual rate, being limited to in-system traffic only. Now all ships were grounded, and vessels in near orbit were ordered to maintain their positions unless they were in the path of the hulk. Many of the monitoring servitors lapsed into quiescence, their particular stations having gone dark. The sentient technicians gathered around the augurs that followed the voyage of the intruder. The old veteran at the augur called out the shrinking distance. His gravelly voice rang through the air of the station like the countdown to an execution.
I stood at his shoulder and watched his pict screen. The figures dropped steadily towards zero. As the final hour began, the fear around me turned the air sour. The operator opened his mouth to announce the Claw of Desolation’s latest position and I interrupted him. ‘What is your name?’ I asked.
‘Kovacz, commissar.’
‘You served with the Steel Legion.’
‘I did. Gunner in the 158th Armoured.’
‘Then you’ve killed your share of greenskins.’
He grinned. His teeth were stained yellow from lho-stick use. ‘I have, commissar. They didn’t get my legs cheaply.’
‘I don’t think they’ve finished paying for them. Do you?’
‘No.’ The grin became tight-lipped. His gaze hardened.
‘No,’ I repeated, raising my voice. I looked around the station. The sounds of other activity had diminished even further. Attention was centring on me. ‘You are citizens of Armageddon,’ I said to the entire station. ‘Remember what that means. The steel of this world’s legions does not come from lasguns and tanks. That is common to all regiments of the Astra Militarum. The steel is in the soul of its heroes. I say that that steel is the birthright of every son and daughter of Armageddon. Will you contradict me?’
A few shouts of ‘no’ answered me.
‘No,’ I said again. ‘And that is the steel the enemy will encounter. If I had room in my hate, I would feel pity for the xenos mad enough to set foot on the sacred soil of this world.’
A servitor jerked to life. ‘Orbital defences acquiring target,’ it announced in flat tones.
‘Perhaps they’ll stop it,’ said another operator from across the room. He was much younger than Kovacz. He sounded more frightened than hopeful.
‘No, they won’t,’ I said. ‘Not if the Imperial Navy failed. The Reach of Judgement alone had several times their firepower. We must have no illusions. The enemy will come. The xenos will not be stopped on our doorstep.’ I waited, giving them no comfort in my gaze. Nothing but the coldest truth would serve. There had been too many lies. I had to pierce through von Strab’s veil of self-serving confidence. If the people of Armageddon believed he knew how to deal with orks, then the planet would fall. As yet, I had no true measure of the might of the enemy, other than immensity. Between the omens, the energised orks of Basquit and the devastation of the fleet, I expected a challenge unlike anything we had ever encountered.
I was naïve in my optimism.
‘Our test,’ I resumed, ‘is in our response. Will you despair before the battle has even begun? Will you surrender Armageddon out of fear?’
‘No!’ The answer was staggered, a mix of desperate bravado and hesitation.
‘Will you yield to the greenskins?’
‘No!’ Stronger now, more unified.
Good. ‘Then make ready to fight,’ I said. ‘And prove yourselves worthy of the Emperor’s protection.’
There was fatalistic determination in the faces around me. That was a start. I concealed my own sense of helplessness. There was nothing more I could do until the enemy’s first move.
‘Atmospheric entry,’ said the servitor.
We all looked up through the armourglass dome of the station. We stared at the turgid, discoloured sky. There was nothing to see at first. A minute later, the fire came. It streaked across the zenith, a sword of flame blazing through the overcast, the hulk itself still concealed behind the clouds. I squinted, dazzled by the glare. A wide swath of the sky burned, but there was no sound for several seconds. The Claw of Desolation was still in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the great fire the sign of its distant passage, the flames streaking to the west and disappearing beyond the horizon.
The thunder came now. It reached us through the armourglass and the rockcrete of the tower. It was the deep howl from the throat of a beast as big as the world. It came in a rapid crescendo. It beat at the dome, at our ears, at our souls. It was an endless rage. It was both the shriek of the wounded planet, and the hungry snarl of its tormentor. The entire tower vibrated. I felt the thrum in my bones. People were screaming, but I couldn’t hear them.
I did not cover my ears. I walked to the west side of the augur station, keeping my stride steady even though the floor shook and the structure swayed. I set the example. I glared at the enemy in the sky. I knew my role. I had played it for well over a century. I presented the image of the will to fight.
From the distant west came a still-greater thunder. Then night rose to the clouds, and reached out for us.
3. Kohner
The fire and the great shape it enveloped fell to earth just beyond the eastern horizon. Kohner screamed ‘Down!’ as he threw himself flat. His warning came too late for anyone who wasn’t already taking shelter behind the parapet. The blast wave hit Tempestora. It came ahead of sound, and it banished sound. It was a wall of heat and force. It was a thing beyond wind. It slammed into stone and rockcrete and shook them to their foundations. The air filled with glass as every unarmoured window in the hive city exploded. The troopers too slow to duck, who were foolish enough to stand and watch, were flicked off the battlements like insects. Their uniforms were blasted from their flesh. Their bodies splattered against the higher walls behind.
Sound returned, and it was the boom of a planet being struck with a hammer. Blood flowed from Kohner’s ears. The hurricane tried to lift him from the wall. He curled tighter against the parapet, clutching at the rockcrete. He heard a sharper, shattering rumble and he looked up. A few hundred metres from the outer wall, a towering hab block collapsed. It fell in on
itself at first, and then toppled to the west. It brought other structures down with it, destruction rippling across the streets of the hive.
The winds and the thunder went on and on. Kohner lost track of time, but when the darkness came, it was too soon. Night fell in a rush, and it was choking. Millions of tonnes of pulverised rock, had been kicked up to the clouds on impact. A blanket of dust spread across the sky. In the lower reaches, it sandblasted the stones of Tempestora. It mingled with the ash. It stung eyes and smothered lungs. Kohner coughed up thick, blackened phlegm.
When the wind at last dropped to a mere gale shriek, he rose. He leaned into the rage blowing from the east. There was a glow in the distance, a burning dawn that would never become day.
The troopers of the Hive Militia regained their footing. Shouting over the wind, Bessler asked Kohner, ‘That must have come down close to Uffern?’
Kohner nodded. Uffern was a minor hive, more of an industrial satellite to Tempestora. Its population was a mere ten million.
‘What now, sergeant?’ Bessler asked. He was not complaining now. He wanted guidance.
So did Kohner. Already hundreds of his comrades lay dead. ‘We’ll know soon enough,’ he said.
He was right. Almost as soon as vox communication was restored, the order came to march.
4. Yarrick
I left the spaceport right after landfall. Overhead, the dust turned the clouds black. When the next morning came, I was sure, no corner of Armageddon would see a true day. With the coming of war, the world had fallen into a cycle of twilight and night.
I made my way by maglev train back to the barracks. When I arrived, the parade grounds were full of mustering troops. The regiments of the Steel Legion present in Infernus were making ready. I was puzzled, though, as to why the tanks were still in their hangars. There did not appear to be any mobilisation of heavy armour at all.
I found Brenken in the officers’ quarters. She was in her chambers, sitting on a metal stool, staring at a map of Armageddon on the table before her, but not looking at it. A muscle in her cheek twitched as she clenched and unclenched her jaw. She was lost in anger.
Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon Page 4
