[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

  He reached out, his hand hovering inches above the face of the card, as the priceless psychoactive material from which the ancient cards were constructed reacted to the warp-born power he was channelling through himself. Slowly, an image formed on the surface of the card. A single, baleful, staring eye. The Eye of Horus.

  The Traitor, thought Sobek, gasping in shock. The card occurred frequently for all those consulting the Imperial tarot here within the Gothic sector, where the Imperium was at full-scale war with the followers of the Heretic Warmaster, but never before had he seen it come up as the first card drawn. It was a cursed card, auguring nothing but failure and disaster. Quickly, he drew the rest of the cards, the face of each newly-revealed card coming like a stab wound to the heart.

  The Falling Star, reversed. Ill-fortune, descending from the heavens.

  The Warp, ascendant. Change and flux, beneficial if preceded by any of the blessed Emperor arcana cards; malign and daemonic if preceded by any of the cursed arcana.

  The Angel Primarch. Sorrow and sacrifice. Great loss foretold.

  A sob of fear escaped from the astropath’s lips, and he allowed the rest of the cards to fall unread from his hands, reaching for the bell-rope that would bring running the young novice initiate granted to him as his personal servant. He would send the boy to alert the Master of the Chapel, who in turn would send urgent word to both the governor-regent’s palace and the office of the Cardinal Astral here on Belatis.

  Sobek did not know it, but the terrible secret that had been revealed to him was already known to a small number of Adeptus Arbites. Soon, however, the dreadful burden of knowledge that they all shared would be known to millions.

  FIVE

  “Open missile tubes.”

  The five Imperial warships cruised through the void in a wide spearhead formation, aimed dead centre at the heart of the enemy fleet. On cue, metres-thick blast hatches ground open along the beaks of their heavily-armoured prows, revealing the mouths of a series of ominous silo openings, burning gases flaring from each one as the missiles within powered up their launch thrusters.

  “Launch torpedoes!”

  Simultaneous flame bursts erupted from each opening as powerful engines, assisted by the launch tubes’ own gravitic motors, roared into life, firing the hundred metre-long missiles out of their silo tubes and into the vacuum of space. The torpedo missiles sped away at incredible velocity, their fast-burn plasma engines leaving a trail of burning, blinding-white plasma energy in their wake.

  The aftershock of the torpedo launch rang through the hulls of the Imperial ships: a deep, rumbling shudder that ran through the length of the massive vessels, causing the sweating work crews of ratings to pause for a second in their tasks, many of them whispering oaths in both praise and fear to the awesome destructive power of the ship’s machine-spirit.

  “Torpedoes launched and running,” confirmed the calm, authoritative voice of Master of Ordnance Remus Nyder as the same rumbling tremor ran through the command deck of His Divine Majesty’s Ship the Lord Solar Macharius.

  Leoten Semper stood in his captain’s pulpit, watching the torpedoes’ progress on the data-slate screen of his command lectern, imagining the missiles roaring through space towards their targets. On the other four capital ships within the formation—Drachenfels, Torment, Scipion and Graf Orlok—he knew that his fellow captains would all be doing the same, watching as their vessels’ deadly payload sped towards the enemy. Five ships, launching six missiles apiece. Thirty torpedoes, closing on the enemy pack at a speed of tens of kilometres a second. Semper smiled, imagining the panic amongst his counterparts aboard the enemy ships as they watched the wave of torpedo icons sweep across their surveyor screens towards them. Glancing at his command deck’s own surveyor screens, he could already see the tell-tale energy spike readings that signified vessels powering up their main drives and engaging emergency manoeuvring thrusters as they attempted to get out of the path of the torpedo wave. So far the Imperial fleet’s battle plan had gone as hoped, but now its ultimate success or failure depended on the next few moments.

  “Missiles running true,” spoke an ordnance servitor, communing with the simple machine-minds of the torpedoes’ logic engines and reading and interpreting the data relayed back from the missiles’ guidance and surveyor systems. “Enemy vessels are commencing evasive manoeuvres. Enemy carrier vessel Lord Seth launching attack craft.”

  “A defence screen of fighters to intercept the torpedo wave,” commented Semper’s second-in-command, Flag-lieutenant Hito Ulanti.

  “Standard anti-ordnance tactics, Mister Ulanti,” Semper agreed. “Nothing out of the ordinary. But let us see if they’re expecting our next move also.” He nodded to Nyder, who stood expectantly waiting on his captain’s next orders.

  “Mister Nyder, what is our launch status?”

  “Reloading torpedoes now,” answered Nyder, with typical dry efficiency.

  “Our attack craft squadrons?”

  “Nemesis, Firedrake, Harbinger and Mantis are at full launch readiness,” replied the craggy-faced Nyder, not needing to consult the data-slate presented to him by one of his junior ordnance officers. “Storm and Hornet are in standby positions awaiting orders, and the remainder of our bomber and fighter squadrons are being prepped for second wave launch as we speak. I can give you forty Starhawks with fighter escort launched and burning hard vacuum within thirty seconds, and another three patchwork squadrons ready to go twenty minutes after that.”

  Semper nodded in approval, unsurprised by his ordnance commander’s efficiency. In the long and hard-fought months since the start of the Gothic War, the crew of the Macharius had undergone their bloody baptism of fire and were, their captain truly believed, a match for any other Imperial Navy crew throughout the whole of Battlefleet Gothic. Still, he thought, up until now their experience with the enemy had come as convoy escort battles against the so-called “wolf pack” pirate marauders or long-range patrol encounters with single vessels or small squadron groups. This was the first time the Macharius had taken part in a fleet-sized action of this magnitude.

  Semper looked at his lectern, watching in fascination as the ship recognition codex symbols of the approaching enemy fleet crowded across the screen there. Thirty-four enemy vessels, the surveyor scanners confirmed. Sixteen Capital class vessels and escorts protecting an invasion armada of eighteen troop carrier transports. A formidable force, and one that even the most experienced warship commander might hesitate to engage head on.

  “Helm—continue on course,” he ordered. “Mister Nyder, launch bomber squadrons and signal Storm and Hornet to stand by to engage the enemy’s fighter strength. They must ensure that the torpedo wave reaches the enemy fleet.” He paused, looking at the expectant faces of his assembled command deck officers, seeing in them the same keen intensity and rising sense of excitement that he himself felt.

  “Make ready, gentlemen. Now we go to war.”

  A heavy tremor ran through the fuselage of the Starhawk bomber as the first magno-clamps began to disengage, separating it from its launch cradle. Milos Caparan cast a cautious glance at the status runes on his console. The reassuring rows of green symbols told him that his craft had so far survived the often rigorous traumas of the pre-launch delivery system. Over the bomber’s internal comm-net, he could hear his crew go through the usual pre-launch system checks as well as their own personal rituals. There was the murmuring, machine-tone voices of Tech-Adept Shanyin Ko and the four onboard servitors under his command as they communed with each other in ways only the servants of the Machine God could explain or understand. From the top gun turret came the barbaric-sounding chanting of Gunner First Class Daksha as he prayed to his ancestral gods in the incomprehensible native tongue of his homeworld.

  Caparan neither knew nor cared whether Daksha’s ancestor worship was in accordance with the strict orthodox edicts of the Imperial Faith; he was the best turret gunner that Caparan had ever had, with sixteen enemy fighter kil
ls to his credit, and if the spirits of Daksha’s ancestors were indeed watching over him and guiding his aim as he believed, then Caparan was glad to have them aboard. Meanwhile, a stream of loud and impressive cursing sounded over the comm-link, signalling that Bombardier Georgi Kustrin was also going through his customary pre-mission preparations. A native of the Macharius’s original home-port world of Stranivar, Kustrin was a particularly skilled exponent of the well-known Stranivarite ability to be able to curse in a long and increasingly virulent string of imaginative and highly-detailed expletives without ever once repeating himself.

  Warning icons flashed red as the Starhawk suddenly dropped, released from the crane cradle that had lifted it up into the launch bay. For a few brief but truly sickening moments, the three hundred tonne bomber was in freefall and then its fall was abruptly halted, powerful suspensor fields catching it and holding it in place mid-air within the launch bay.

  “Suspensor fields operating. Preparing to disengage from launch cradle,” confirmed Madik Torr from the cockpit seat beside Caparan, his warning, as usual, coming seconds too late.

  Despite himself, no matter how many times he had done it before, Caparan had still never fully resigned himself to that one moment when he had to put his faith in the launch bay’s powerful but ancient suspensor field generators—Caparan still managed a weak smile at his co-pilot’s customary joke, which was as much a part of their pre-launch preparations as any of the systems checks and tech rites.

  Together, Caparan and Torr carefully powered up the bomber’s four wing-mounted engines, knowing that the slightest drop in the suspensor field’s integrity at this most crucial and dangerous part of the launch process would mean the bomber’s complete destruction. The engines were soon operating at near full power, but the bomber was stationary within the launch bay, held immobile in the invisible but inexorable grip of the suspensor fields as the laws of physics fought against the launch bay’s equally powerful inertial dampener fields.

  The bomber’s entire fuselage shook under the strain, the bomber threatening to tear itself apart any second under the effects of the contradictory forces pulling and pushing at it. Brief seconds stretched out into an eternity as Caparan heard the countdown chimes broadcast over the cockpit’s comm-net link. And then finally the last chime sounded and suddenly—shockingly—the bomber was released from its suspensor field and was surging forward with incredible speed, its engines screaming in relief at being set free from the invisible forces that had held them in check.

  Caparan fought with the controls, aware of the wall of the launch bay streaming past only a few narrow metres from his starboard wingtip; aware of the second craft following at an identical velocity close behind his own; aware of the launch exit opening ahead; aware of the fact that eighteen other Starhawks would be fired out of surrounding launch bays at the same time; aware that the same thing was happening with twenty more Starhawks from the launch bays on the other side of the ship; aware that all of them were exiting at high speed from a carrier ship that was itself travelling at high velocity through space.

  Aware of all this, and the fact that the smallest mistake or miscalculation on the part of any one of the pilots would mean disaster.

  And then there was only the blackness of space around them, followed by the tell-tale pulling sensation and—a split second later—a rumbling shudder as the Imperial bomber passed through in sequence its carrier ship’s gravity field and protective void shields. Glancing at an auspex screen, Caparan saw the view from the rear tail-mounted turret of the vast shape of the Macharius already falling away into the distance behind them, and he felt the customary dual emotions familiar to any attack craft pilot. Relief at the completion of a successful launch, but also apprehension and awareness of the fact that he was now alone in the void and separated from the protection and safety of the giant carrier ship.

  A row of green icons lit up one by one on his command console. Eight… Nine… Ten. All bombers under his command had safely cleared the Macharius and were reporting all systems clear. Caparan activated a rune, opening up a comm-net channel.

  “Nemesis Leader to Nemesis Squadron. Form up into attack formation.”

  The threatening, sickle-winged shape of the Swiftdeath fighter cruised through the void, starlight glinting off its black, diamond-hard, armoured hull. The sole occupant of its cockpit scanned the surrounding void, wire cables plugging into the empty sockets where his eyes had once been, feeding him tactical information direct from his fighter’s onboard surveyor systems.

  Around him, he sensed the rest of his squadron flying in a loose, crescent-shaped intercept pattern. Ahead of them was their mission objective, the bright target shapes of the oncoming enemy torpedo wave and, beyond that, the far more tempting series of secondary target shapes: the distinctive flying pattern and energy signals of an enemy bomber wave approaching in attack formation and with fighter escorts. Encased in ancient flight suit armour that had fused itself to his skin, and enmeshed in cables and wiring that made his body just another component of his fighter craft, Pilot-Champion Vohten Kroll cursed in barely restrained anger. Intercepting the torpedo wave was, he knew, vital in protecting the Chaos fleet from the enemy’s initial attack, but there was little honour and challenge in the all-too-simple destruction of such lumbering and—crucially, for Kroll—crewless targets. There would be greater challenge amongst the bomber formation, Kroll knew: pitting his skill against those of the Starhawks’ pilots and gunners, dog-fighting with their deadly Fury Interceptor escorts. And, after that, when the torpedo and bomber attacks had been annihilated and the Imperium and Chaos fleets met in direct battle, there would even finer sport after the Chaos fleet’s inevitable victory.

  He could see it now: his Swiftdeath fighter swooping through the tangle of drifting wreckage and burning hulks that was all that remained of the Imperium fleet, his finely-honed surveyor senses extended to their maximum limit, seeking and finding life-pod vessels floating amongst the debris. Inside would be survivors from the destroyed enemy warships, and Kroll relished the thought of their helpless terror as his fighter bore down on their doomed and unarmed escape craft. A target was only worth the taking, the Chaos pilot champion believed, if you could imagine the terrified death screams of the human cargo inside it.

  Through his surveyor-enhanced senses, he could see the strong signal patterns of the torpedoes as they sped towards him through the void. He smiled, noticing the surprisingly high energy fluctuations thrown off by the torpedoes’ imperfectly balanced power systems, a fact which would make the missiles all the more easy to lock on to and target with his fighter’s weapons systems. Intercepting and destroying the torpedo wave would now even simpler than ever now, and, after that, his squadron would be free to seek out far more rewarding targets.

  “Enemy escort vessels are moving to protect their flanks. Capital ships are powering up void shields and weapons systems.”

  “Secondary bomber wave being loaded into launch bays. Countdown to launch in ten minutes.”

  “Enemy troop transports are commencing drop-pod planetary assault. Estimate two hundred plus drop-pods deployed in the last five minutes.”

  Semper listened in silence to the ongoing litany of reports from his junior officers as he studied the pattern of icon markers on the main surveyor screen, the screen’s luminescence casting an eerie glow over his hawk-like features under the dim lighting on the Macharius’s command deck. It took years to be able to decipher the ever-changing patterns and symbols as the command deck’s servitor drones received and interpreted the streams of data from the ship’s surveyor systems, but to an officer of Leoten Semper’s experience the complex array of machine-code markings flashing across the surveyor screen was as clear and understandable as simple Low Gothic script.

  Here he saw the icons representing the torpedo and enemy fighter waves move close towards each other, changing colour to an angry crimson in warning of their imminent and conflicting convergence. There he saw the
threatening shapes of the enemy warships manoeuvre round to face the Imperial capital ship formation as it sped towards them. And, beyond the line of enemy warship icons, lay the Imperial fleet’s true objective: the bright cluster of troop transports, blinking alert symbols beside them indicating that they had already commenced their drop-ship invasion of the Imperial world which the Macharius and its sister ships had been sent to protect.

  Again Semper watched the twin converging icons of the torpedo and fighter waves, diminishing rows of tiny rune symbols counting down the rapidly shrinking distance between them.

  Soon, he thought to himself. Soon they would know whether their opening gambit would succeed.

  SIX

  Elsewhere, another captain stood studying the tactical display on his command deck’s surveyor screen, his attention fixed on one enemy vessel marker in particular. For half a day now, his vessel’s gun batteries had been ceaselessly bombarding the surface of the world below. Now the providence of the warp had provided a target far greater than underground missile silos and cities full of cowering, terrified civilians.

  “At last, the Macharius…” breathed Bulus Sirl, plague-champion captain of the Virulent, shuffling the tumour-swollen bulk of his body through the rich, foetid stew of the atmosphere of his vessel’s command deck to closer inspect the image on the long-range augur screen.