[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

  “I understand the governor-regent’s desire to remain here with his people for as long as possible,” said Byzantane, pointedly addressing the occupant of the governor-regent’s throne rather than figure of Judda Kale standing before the throne dais. “Still, as a servant of the Emperor it is also his duty to survive, since the Emperor in his mercy has commanded all his most valued servants here on Belatis be spared from the power of this new enemy weapon. As the most senior agent of the Emperor’s law here on Belatis, it falls to me to ensure that the evacuation of the Emperor’s faithful subjects proceeds without delay. I am here today to warn the governor-regent that he cannot delay his departure any longer. The Imperial Guard forces of the 48th Valetta and the 123rd Tyre-Minos regiments are already embarking aboard their transports. My Adeptus Arbites garrison is the only Imperium force remaining on Belatis, and I have just received word that we too have been ordered to pull out.”

  Byzantane paused, looking directly at the portly figure of the governor-regent sitting on his throne. “If the governor-regent wishes to remain here along with the rest of his subjects to face the arrival of the Despoiler’s terror weapon, or to hold out to the last against the renegades currently laying waste to his capital, then I commend his majesty’s loyalty to his planet and people, but I tell him now that he shall do so alone and without the protection of the Adeptus Arbites and the Imperial Navy.”

  Almost on cue, a heavy salvo impacted against the palace defence shield, sending tremors running through the stonework of the ancient building and causing many of those present—courtiers and the anonymous faces of Belatis minor-ranking nobility, clustering to the presence of the governor-regent in the knowledge that he was their sole chance of escape—to cast nervous glances around them. Clearly, few amongst this aristocratic elite shared their governor’s apparent desire to see their world’s death agonies out to the bitter end, and most if not all of them already wished they were aboard one of those orbiting transports. The dank and confined holds and compartments of an Imperial transport were a poor substitute for the grand and spacious fineries of the governor-regent’s palace, but at least they were safely out of reach of the cultist artillery barrage.

  “We thank the marshal for his warning, but we remind him that we too hold adeptus rank equal to his own, and that as His Divine Majesty’s governor of this world, the final order to leave it and abandon it to the enemy must come from this palace and not from the Arbites’ courthouse.” The governor-regent’s strangely thin and reedy voice rang through the high-ceiling throne room, and he glanced nervously around him as he spoke, seeking encouragement from those around him.

  Byzantane fought down an outburst of angry frustration. Even now, with his world just days away from destruction, this fat fool wanted to play politics, to put on a show for the assembled nobles that he would not be so easily dictated to by the Imperium. Before Byzantane could react, however, a dark blue-habited figure stepped forward from the ranks of courtiers near the throne. In instinctive recognition of the simple yet distinctive robes of a member of the Adepta Sororitas, the nobles and guards stepped aside to let her pass.

  “The governor-regent is of course correct, but his adept rank is that of the order of Adeptus Civitas. As a member of the Adeptus Arbites, the marshal is of the order of the Adeptus Militaris. In all situations pertaining to war against the enemies of the Imperium of Mankind, it is the Emperor’s holy will and the command of the High Council of Terra that the word of the members of the Adeptus Militaris take precedence over that of all others.”

  The silver-haired member of the Sisterhood of the Adepta Sororitas bowed to the planetary governor and stepped back, casting a brief glance over at Byzantane. The Arbites marshal nodded to her in silent thanks, glad of the presence here of at least one other agent of the Imperium. Sister Apponia belonged to the Order Famulous of the Adepta Sororitas, assigned by the Ministorum to organise and maintain the governor-regent’s household, serving as an advisor to the lord of Belatis and, should he require it, a constant reminder of his subservience to the higher authority of the Imperium.

  Vittas Sarro was not a bad man, Byzantane thought: he was in his own way a loyal enough servant of the Emperor, but he was a weak and foolish one, subject to petty vanities and too dependent on the opinions and manipulations of others. Others such as First Minister Judda Kale. Or the stolid, glowering figure of General Brod, commander of what was left of Belatis’s planetary defence forces, who glared in open hostility at Byzantane from across the floor of the throne room. Or, if the word of agents that Byzantane had amongst the palace staff was to be believed, the figure sitting on the lesser throne beside that of the governor-regent’s. Even as Byzantane watched, Sarro leaned over, accepting both a goblet of wine and a few whispered words from his beloved sister, the alluring Lady Malissa.

  Installed in the place of the ruthlessly expunged clan of the rebel Lord Tarsus, the Sarros had been the rulers of Belatis for the past four hundred years, each Sarro planetary governor carefully adding the word “regent” to his title in acknowledgement to the Emperor, the true lord of Belatis and in whose name they continued to rule with the approval and protection of the Imperium. The House of Sarro had served the Emperor well in those four hundred years, their loyalty recorded in the frescoes of the dubiously over-heroic battle deeds of previous governor-regents which decorated the walls of the throne room. All around were epic battle scenes of the Sarros’ ancestors routing the Tarsus rebels or defending Belatis from foul alien attackers, but the bloodline had clearly degenerated over the four centuries, and statues and noble portraits of Sarro’s honoured ancestors gazed down on the governor’s throne in what might have been stern disapproval of its present incumbent.

  Sarro gulped nervously at the wine goblet proffered by his sister, and Byzantane added likely intemperance to the governor-regent’s many failings. Studying the Lady Malissa—her graceful patrician features, her obvious shrewd intelligence necessarily masked by the dictates of court protocol—as she stroked her brother’s face comfortingly, Byzantane again cursed the local hereditary customs, wondering again if Belatis’s slide into anarchy and civil war would have been so steeply rapid had it been the Lady Malissa and not her younger, weaker brother who had ascended to the governor-regent’s throne after the death of their father eight years ago.

  “Can the situation really be so bad?” stammered Sarro, draining the last of the wine. “We can still call in more troops to maintain order and defend the palace. As governor-regent, the people will look to me for leadership in this dark hour. It is my duty to remain here with them for as long as possible. They will want to know that, though our world may soon be gone, its memory and spirit will live on, for as long as the House of Sarro itself endures.”

  No, not a bad man, thought Byzantane. Just weak and foolish. And completely deluded.

  “More troops?” asked Byzantane, struggling to temper the scathing tone of his voice. “From where, my lord? Your barracks are empty. Your entire troop reserves are either deployed in the field or have abandoned their posts. Many of them, whole regiments, even, have gone over to the side of the enemy.”

  Byzantane broke off here, sparing a withering glance to General Brod and his adjutants; it was now apparent that the ranks of the planetary defence force had been successfully infiltrated months or even years ago by Chaos cultists and sympathisers. As word of the impending disaster leaked out amongst the people of Belatis, more and more Chaos cults had emerged from hiding in almost every major population centre across the planet’s surface, spreading fear and dissent amongst a populace already terrified by the first whispered, horrified rumours of their world’s imminent destruction. Many of the first local defence force units despatched to quell the cult-inspired uprisings had in fact sided with the enemies that they had been sent to destroy, their officers and NCOs now known to have been the corrupted followers of the powers of the warp. In other units it had been the rank and file troops who rebelled, executing their officers
and opening their armouries to the ever-swelling ranks of the followers of Chaos. The cult leaders preached that only those that swore themselves to the Dark Powers would be spared when the Planet Killer hung in orbit over their heads and the wrath of the Despoiler descended upon their doomed world. The terrified inhabitants of Belatis had flocked to the cause of Chaos in their millions, desperate to grasp at any chance of survival, when faith in the Emperor apparently now offered none. The wave of defections and conversions to the side of Chaos spread at a terrifying rate amongst the population, starting primarily amongst the planetary defence force.

  At Byzantane’s order, Korte had carried out an investigation amongst the higher echelon ranks of the governor-regent’s armies, identifying sixteen officers on Brod’s command staff, including the general’s own second-in-command, whose incompetence and laxity had contributed to the army’s failure to contain the situation. Justice for those sixteen had been swift and summary, but the investigation had been necessarily hurried, and Byzantane was troubled by a worrying suspicion that there might still be Chaos agents hiding amongst the planetary defence force command staff.

  And perhaps higher than that, whispered a voice inside him, giving rise to a second even greater and more worrying suspicion as he looked round the throne room and studied the faces of the assembled ranks of the great and the good of Belatis’s aristocracy and government. Here was not the time and place to act on those suspicions, he knew. Later, when they were underway in the warp and he had them all isolated aboard an Adeptus Arbites strike cruiser, would be the time to start asking questions about how Belatis had descended into anarchy so easily and so quickly; how much was due to laxity and incompetence, which, as those sixteen executed PDF command officers could testify were themselves considered crimes against the Emperor in the eyes of the stern guardians of his Law, and how much was due to a crime far more heinous.

  Treason. Betrayal. Heresy and connivance with the powers of the warp. Crimes for which there could never be a great enough punishment.

  But first Byzantane knew he had to get everyone here off this world. First must come the evacuation, and, only after that, possible judgement and punishment. Stifling his natural anger and frustration, he adopted a more conciliatory tone, remembering an expression used by the hunters of his homeworld as they patiently lay in wait, sometimes for days on end, watching over the traps and snares they laid by the game-trails and watering holes of the dense forests that covered the face of Skyre.

  First the bait, then the blade.

  Byzantane looked at the figure occupying the throne chair. “All here know you to be a true and faithful servant of the Emperor, honoured Governor-Regent Sarro. Be assured that that you will be accorded all the honours and tribute due to you as this world’s Emperor-appointed guardian. Tell me what you wish, honoured governor-regent, and I will make it so.”

  THREE

  “I tell you, I swear it sounded like Kerner.”

  The other two planetary defence force troopers peered cautiously through the bunker’s forward observation slit, scanning the shifting mists that covered the rain-soaked mud in front of their position and listening to the eerie silence that enveloped the scene. Bodies, dressed in the now familiar black-cloaked garb of the Chaos cultists and splattered with mud and blood, lay scattered around everywhere outside. The three PDF troopers had held out for four days so far. They still had food and water, and ammunition supplies for the bunker’s heavy bolter turrets were still plentiful, but after days of probing enemy attacks, their nerves were shredded, and resolve and determination were at a premium. The bunker was part of the ring of fortifications guarding the powerful defence laser batteries and missile silos based here in the hills above Madina, protecting the capital from orbital attack, but their communications had been cut two days ago, and they had no other means of communicating with their central command point or even the nearest neighbouring bunker that was probably no more than two hundred metres away. Occasionally, they heard chattering bursts of heavy bolter fire sounding through the mists—proof that they were not the only defenders still left—but they had not heard even that in the last few hours.

  Maron, the eldest and most experienced of them, scanned the mists one more time before drawing back into cover again, looking at the young look-out in clear irritation. “I don’t hear anything. Whatever you heard—if you even heard anything, mind—it wasn’t Kerner. Forget about Kerner. Kerner’s dead. Or deserted. Either way, he’s not coming back to help us.”

  “Kerner wouldn’t abandon us!” protested his younger comrade. “He promised us he would come back with reinforcements!”

  “Aye, and perhaps he even meant it at the time,” said Maron, “But maybe it was a different story if he actually did make it past those black-cloaked bastards. Kerner’s got a wife and two kids down in Madina, and he probably figured he’d rather face the end with them than with me or either of you two fools. Hell, I don’t even blame him. I’ve got family too, back home in the outskirts of Rabas. That’s another continent away from here, but if I thought that I even had half a chance of getting back there in time, you think I’d still be sitting here with you?”

  Maron shook his head in disgust, and then checked himself. The young trooper had fought well over the last few days, but he was barely older than Maron’s own lad back home. He was frightened, and tired. All three of them in this bunker were going to die, if not now at the hands of the Chaos cultists hiding somewhere out there in the mists, then in a few days’ time when the enemy fleet and its terrible world-destroying weapon arrived in the Belatis system. Perhaps, thought Maron, he should be easier on the lad. Perhaps—

  “Out there! There’s someone in the mists! It’s Kerner! Emperor’s oath, it’s really him!”

  Alerted by the other young recruit’s excited shout, Maron snatched up his lasgun, using its infra-red sighting scope to pierce the veil of mist. He saw a figure emerging out of the distant tree-line, staggering towards the bunker. It was wearing the bloodstained blue serge uniform of the Belatis planetary defence force, and seemed to be limping from a leg-wound. Maron retrained the scope settings, zooming in on the blood-smeared features of the figure’s face. It was Corporal Kerner, alright—through the scope, Maron could see Kerner’s mouth moving, and from inside the bunker he could hear his comrade’s cries for help, pleading with them not to fire upon him—but still, something about the scene made the veteran trooper hesitate. Something, a sense of disquieting doubt, called out in warning to him.

  Then, suddenly, there was the sound of crackling bursts of gunfire, bullets and las-bursts throwing up small gouts of muddy earth in the area around Kerner. Maron saw dark figures moving amongst the cover of the tree-line, and the soldier in him reacted instantly and instinctively.

  “Covering fire! Give him covering fire!”

  One of the other troopers manned the bolters, sending a stream of heavy calibre death into the cultists’ hiding place, expertly panning the twin-mounted weapons back and forth along the tree-line for maximum effect. Maron watched, nodding in approval. At the start of the dry season this one had been a raw recruit, but the last two months of fighting, as Belatis tore itself apart around them, had turned the young trooper into something close to a seasoned veteran.

  Maron took aim with his lasgun, sending precise and carefully judged shots into any black-robed shape foolish enough to show itself to his gunsights. An urgent hammering sounded from the thick, armoured door at the end of the cramped bunker space. Kerner, pleading to be let in. One of the youngsters moved to disarm the booby-trapped door systems and let him in. Maron readied his lasgun, expecting the cultists to make a suicidal charge across the open ground and towards the bunker door as it opened, but instead he saw them falling back into the sheltering shadows of the surrounding forest.

  Again, that mental voice of disquieting doubt called out to him in warning. Too late, he turned seeing the youngster already opening the door.

  Seeing Kerner in the door
way.

  Seeing the bloody marks of the eight-pointed Chaos sigil that had been carved into the flesh of his face.

  Seeing the laspistol in his hand; seeing as he raised and fired it at point-blank range into the chest of the youngster who had opened the door for him.

  Seeing the rows of explosive charges strapped to Kerner’s chest; seeing the trigger device gripped in Kerner’s other hand.

  Maron reached for his lasgun, knowing that he would never be able to aim and fire in time; praying that, when the end came in a few days’ time for his wife and children, it would be just as sudden and painless as this.

  Khoisan the Faceless, champion of Chaos Undivided, watched in grim satisfaction as the aftermath of the explosion swept across the clearing, mud and debris raining down in its wake. Around him, the line of black-cloaked cultists crept out of cover. Khoisan barely spared them a glance. They were mere rabble, barely fit to serve amongst the lowest dregs of the Despoiler’s armies, but here on this world they were adequate for the purpose, just as the captured prisoner had in the end adequately carried out his purpose.

  The fool had willingly carried out his task, believing in doing so that his death would ensure that his family would be spared in the coming catastrophe. Khoisan almost laughed at the thinking behind such folly, knowing that all around him were other fools who believed the same: who believed that in serving the cause of Chaos they would be saved when the Planet Killer arrived. It was the will of the Despoiler that all on this world be annihilated, and that was the purpose of the mission Khoisan was now on.

  He raised a hand, signalling to a cultist nearby armed with a grenade launcher. Seconds later, a bright starburst shell exploded high overhead, summoning the main body of cultist troops gathered on the lower slopes of the hillside.

  The last bunker in this section of the defence chain was gone. The way ahead to the laser batteries and silos was clear.