[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

  Semper called out to Maxim. “Petty Officer Borusa, we can’t have the lord adept wandering off and getting himself injured. I’m detailing you to watch over him. Make sure he never leaves your side, no matter what happens.”

  “Gladly, sir,” growled Maxim, grinning down at Hyuga, relishing the adept’s fear. Maxim had been at the mercy of men such as Hyuga all his life, the high and mighty lords of the Imperium, who decided the fates of millions, often on an apparent whim. On Stranivar, it had been men such as Hyuga who had sent the Arbitrators downhive to conduct a brutal cull of the population of the lower levels. Tens of thousands had been killed, thousands more rounded up and consigned to the labour camps on the prison moon Lubiyanka, Maxim amongst them. And again, it had been a Munitorium official such as Hyuga, perhaps even Hyuga himself, who had issued the orders that would have eventually led to Maxim being press-ganged into the Imperial Navy and ending up aboard the Macharius, as the gulag camps of Lubiyanka were emptied to provide fresh fodder to try and stem the ever-increasing crew casualties suffered by Battlefleet Gothic.

  Men such as this had always been in command, controlling Maxim’s destiny from afar. Now, at last, he was able to look one of them in the face. He was not best impressed with what he saw.

  “Cheer up, lord adept,” he grinned at the cringing senior bureaucrat, unaware that he was almost directly echoing the earlier words and sentiments of Commissar Kyogen. “Fight well, and maybe you’ll die earning the right to wear one of those fancy baubles on your chest. Who knows, if you put up a good enough fight, maybe I’ll even think about giving you some bullets to load into that gun I just gave you.”

  Nearby, amongst the remaining nobles and dignitaries, one mind did not share the same concerns as the others around it. Those other, lesser, minds were filled with a mixture of emotions. Fear. Confusion. Pious devotion. A grim determination to do their duty to the bitter end. This mind felt none of these things. It only thought of how it could escape this situation or turn it to its advantage, as it had turned so many other accidents and incidents to its advantage, and to the advantage of the powers of the warp.

  Yes, something had clearly gone wrong, realised the owner of that most cold and incisive of minds. That fat fool Sarro had delayed their escape from the palace too long, and, somehow, missiles that should have been targeted at the evacuation transports and the Arbites courthouse had instead been sent to destroy the governor’s palace, and the owner of the mind had almost been killed along with so many others. Particularly galling was the fact that it was only through the clandestine efforts of the mind’s owner that the forces of the Faceless One even had the arming codes that had allowed them to re-target and fire the missiles in the first place. Lesser, more feeble, intellects would have suspected betrayal—one of the tricks and falsehoods that the fools of the Ministorum would have all believe were typical of the of the powers of the warp—but this mind knew better. It simply had too much to offer its new masters, and, once safely away from this miserable, warp-begotten rock, would yet prove to be an invaluable agent to the cause of Chaos, working from within the ranks of the Imperium to ensure the final victory of the forces of the Despoiler here within the Gothic sector.

  For the traitor had no doubt that it would escape the fate that would soon befall the rest of Belatis, just as it had no doubt that Chaos would finally prevail in this war. The escape from the palace had been a close thing, but it realised now that its survival had all along been pre-ordained. The Powers of Chaos were watching over the life of their new and faithful servant, for it was, it knew, simply too valuable an asset to their cause to be left to die with the rest of these fools.

  And, of course, the Faceless One was still here, and it was clear that a being as cunning and powerful as a champion of Chaos would not allow itself to be destroyed along with the rest when the Planet Killer finally hung in the heavens above the doomed world. The Faceless One would have his escape already prepared, and would take his most useful and valuable allies with him, the traitor was sure of it.

  All it had to do, it knew, was be patient and wait for whatever means of escape its new Chaos masters had prepared for it.

  From all over Madina they came, like rats scurrying through the rains of the dying city, to answer the call of the Faceless One. The insane and the blood-crazed, subsuming themselves completely to the aura of madness that now hung over the doomed world; the weak and the foolish, still believing against all available evidence that the Powers of Chaos would somehow spare them in return for their new-sworn loyalty; the faithful and devout, commending their souls to the ever-hungry powers of the warp, all too eager to give up their lives at the whim and command of their uncaring daemonic overlords.

  Khoisan the Faceless did not care why his army of followers came to die—and die they would, either now or in less than a day’s time—just as long as they did so obediently and at his command.

  Looking out over the corpse-strewn rain of the cathedral square, he sensed the invisible energies stirring around him. Through the warp, bleeding through the surface skin of reality, he felt the rippling currents of energy that announced the presence of the Planet Killer, now within the planetary system and approaching its target. Inside him, he sensed his body preparing for its final, glorious transformation, the rhythms of this imminent metamorphosis building in synch with the growing, almost palpable, sensation of the Planet Killer’s approach.

  And now, from across the square, from amongst the milling, pitiful throng of the defenders of the house of the false Emperor, Khoisan sensed something else, perhaps the reason some intuitive sense had drawn him here in the first place. Some other, new task was expected of him here, Khoisan realised. The powers of the warp still required one final act of obedience to their will before his ascendance would be complete.

  Khoisan concentrated for a second, allowing that aspect of the Blood God which he had accepted into his flesh to manifest itself. He smiled, running a long, drooling tongue over newly-formed lips and fangs, relishing the hot rush of blood-lust that welled up unbidden from within him. He raised a hand that had now been transformed into a scale-covered, blood-dripping claw, pointing the blade of his power sword at the line of defenders sheltering behind the cover of the barricades. “The Blood God is angry. He awakens and calls for nourishment,” he snarled in an string of guttural barks that no human throat could ever have produced. “Go, feed him.”

  As one, their minds filled with a growing bloodlust that their master had deliberately infected them with, the dense wave of cultists moved forward out of cover. Seconds later, the first sounds of gunfire rang out across the wide square.

  Gunfire… He could hear gunfire coming from somewhere below. The cathedral square, perhaps, but why would there be gunfire coming from there? Perhaps Lito would know… He would ask the boy when he finally got here… And where was that Emperor-forsaken young fool, anyway? Sobek had been ringing the bell to summon his novice servant for what seemed like an eternity, and there was still no sign of—

  Lito. In his mind’s eye, the astropath saw the face of his novice initiate, his screaming features suddenly illuminated in a flash of star-hot light. He saw plasma fire engulfing the barbican towers of a star vessel, and then he remembered.

  Lito was dead. Belatis was now without the light of the Emperor, had been abandoned to the enemy. The Planet Killer was here, now almost upon them. Sobek could feel its leviathan presence pressing against the barriers of his mind, its all-consuming shadow blotting out the greater part of his mystic vision. The aftermath of its arrival out of the warp—psychic Shockwaves rippling out to touch the minds of every sentient being in the Belatis system—had almost overwhelmed Sobek’s formidable mental defences. A less experienced astropath might have been killed by the experience, and, as it was, Sobek knew that he had suffered a stroke—several, perhaps—triggered by the effects of the psychic shockwave. He knew that he was probably dying, that parts of his mind were already dead or dying; that his memory and mysti
c vision were already starting to fail him.

  Still, aged as he was, he was a psyker, his power fortified by the agonies of the soul bonding rites with the mind of the God-Emperor himself, and a psyker was far more than mere weak flesh and blood. The Emperor still required one more task of him before he was allowed to die. Gathering his failing strength, Sobek staggered to his feet, making for the doorway out of his chamber and the corridor beyond. His inner vision was dimmed, its clarity and range curtailed by the spreading damage to his brain, but he had walked this way countless times before. He knew every flagstone beneath his sandaled feet, every turn of the corridor and worn step of the descending stairs beyond. He had walked these chambers and halls for the last sixty-eight years; even truly blind and without his psychic gift, he could have found his way through them with ease. Now he travelled this way for the last time, leaving the chamber where he had lived for nearly seven decades and heading down towards the main body of the cathedral.

  Towards the sound of the gunfire.

  THREE

  The wave of cultists swept across the rain-soaked square, trampling underfoot the torn and blasted bodies of their erstwhile comrades from previous attacks. Volleys of gunfire rang out from the frateris defenders sheltering behind the cover of the barricades, finding easy targets amongst the first ranks of the attackers. Figures screamed and fell, joining the litter of corpses on the ground; those unlucky enough not to be instantly killed by the gunfire would soon be crushed to death by the stampede of feet.

  The fire from the barricades increased in intensity as the cultist attack came within full range of most of the defenders’ guns. Increased—and then suddenly faltered and almost died away completely as the frateris defenders realised what it was they were firing at.

  The heretics were employing new tactics. They had found themselves an army of human shields. A living wall, fully five ranks deep. Women and children, the sick and infirm, none had been spared, all of them rounded up in their hundreds from their hiding places amongst the rains and pressed into the service of Khoisan the Faceless. Lines of blood-maddened cultist killers followed close behind the packed ranks of the shield wall, howling their devotions to the powers of the warp, shooting and stabbing their weapons into the backs of the captured civilians, driving them forward in a terrified stampede into the gunsights of the cathedral defenders.

  A low moan of collective despair rose up from the line of frateris defenders. They were prepared to die, they were eager to die fighting the Emperor’s enemies and to take as many of the heretic traitors as possible with them. They were not prepared for this.

  Semper and Devane saw the danger immediately. Every second the human shield survived brought the cultist attack wave a step closer to the cathedral defences. Intact, it would quickly overwhelm and sweep aside the defenders on the barricades. Nervous frateris brethren cast questioning glances at the two Imperial commanders. Both men knew what must be done, but both men hesitated to give the required order.

  It fell to Maxim Borusa, hive-scum criminal and killer, to do what was necessary.

  “Open fire!” he bellowed, charging up and down the line of defenders and lashing out in anger at them with his heavy jackboots. “Open fire, you bunch of prayer-mumbling sob sisters! They’re good as dead anyway. We all are! So what are you waiting for!”

  The gunners on the eastern side of the square opened fire at the hiveworlder’s command, many of them whispering silent prayers for forgiveness as they pressed the triggers and firing studs of their weapons. Moments later, there came a second, answering crash of gunfire from the northern side of the barricade defences as the frateris gunners there followed suit. A hail of bullets and las-fire smashed into the human wall, cutting through flesh, blowing apart bone and tissue.

  In the forefront of the firing positions, Semper saw and heard the pitiful screams and pleas for mercy as the living components of the human shield wall were mown down in their hundreds. He saw a lone child—probably no more than six or seven years old—standing alone amongst the carnage screaming for its parents, only seconds later to disappear beneath the crushing weight of the bodies charging forward from behind it. He saw a mother protectively clutching a swaddled bundle of cloth that could only be an infant baby just as a burst of heavy bolter fire ripped through the ranks of the living shield wall, mercifully obliterating her from view.

  Semper saw all this, and then tried to blank it all from his mind, tried to see nothing else but target objects and the vile enemies sheltering behind them as he fired his laspistol over and over again, sending shot after shot of searing las-fire into the screaming, pleading mass of humanity.

  Semper kept firing, until there were no more of the target objects left standing before him, only living enemies. The laspistol’s plastic and metal grip burned against his hand and the whole weapon was dangerously over-heated, its power pack almost fully depleted from cyclic over-firing. Semper discarded it without a second glance and drew his sabre, knowing what would come next. As a young and ambitious officer, Leoten Semper had led many boarding assaults on enemy vessels or commanded repulsing counter-assaults on enemy boarding attacks on his own vessel. Always he had been first into the fray, always he ended up fighting in the thick of the action. It had been years since he had taken part in this kind of vicious close-quarters fighting, and, before this, he might have doubted whether he was still capable of that kind of bloody-handed savagery again. Now, seeing the lines of loathsome, black-garbed enemies charging forwards towards him, seeing the cultists ruthlessly cutting down the few remaining civilians who stood in the way between them and the barricade defenders, Semper knew that he would be more than capable of the required level of blood-thirsty savagery. Killing scum like this would be a distinct pleasure, over and above being his duty to the Emperor and Imperium.

  “Stand ready!” he called, brandishing his sabre as he scaled the lip of the barricade. “Give them a greeting to take back to their masters in the warp.”

  With the shield wall gone, a second hail of fire rang out from the barricade defenders, ripping into the mass of heretics. Dozens of them were killed in seconds. Hundreds more, unharmed, charged on, weathering the storm of gunfire, crashing against the barricade like a living wave.

  Maddened with fear and bloodlust, the first ranks of cultists threw themselves at the makeshift bulwark of the barricades, fighting amongst themselves to be the first to scale over it.

  Those who succeeded were instantly met and attacked by the frateris defenders waiting there. Other cultists tore at the barricade foundations with their bare hands, trying to pull sections of it down, or thrust gun barrels through any available apertures or breaches in its structure, firing blindly in the hope of hitting those hiding on the other side.

  In front of Semper, the black-cloaked followers of the powers of the warp swarmed over the top of the barricades, falling on the defenders. Semper thrust his sabre point through the throat of the first wild-eyed madman to come at him, stepping back sharply to avoid the man’s falling body. Another killing thrust with the sabre dispatched the next enemy in line, but more bodies pressed forward to take the places of the men Semper had killed. A hail of rag-lit, promethium-filled glass bottle and clay pot missiles—which side had thrown them, it was impossible to tell—landed all along the top of the barricade, engulfing attacker and defender alike in a blanket of flame and instantly setting ablaze sections of the barricade. Men, soaked in burning promethium, rolled across the rain-slick cobbles on the ground in a vain attempt to put out the hungry, chemically-fuelled flame now consuming them. Semper silenced the screams of one man with a stab of his sabre, not knowing whether he had killed another enemy or mercy-killed a fellow servant of the Emperor.

  More black-cloaked figures scrambled over the barricade top, leaping through the wall of flame, many of them setting themselves alight in the process and running amok, still burning, through the ranks of the defenders, their screams of pain and joy an insane epiphany to their daemon mast
ers. One of the burning figures ran shrieking at Semper, waving a fiery scythe weapon above its head, only to be pulled down seconds later by a group of frateris secondary defenders. They hacked at it with knives and makeshift tool weapons until its thrashing and shrieks finally ceased, although even in its death-throes it proved a deadly opponent, spitting one of the frateris on the cruel blade of its burning weapon.

  Glancing round, Semper found it impossible to tell how the battle was going. Everywhere he looked, he saw chaos and confusion, the ordered lines of defence falling into a bloody struggle for survival as the tide of cultists continued to sweep across the now-broken barricade defences.

  Rain fell unceasingly from the skies, muffling the sounds of screams, cries and gunfire from all around, mixing with the gory detritus of battle to form treacherous, blood-filled puddles on the cobbled ground.

  A cultist stepped out in front of him, a brace of severed heads hanging from the braided human hair belt around his waist. The man giggled insanely, swinging a gore-dripping cleaver at the Imperial Navy commander. Semper parried the attack with ease, splitting the heretic butcher’s skull with his return blow.

  A deformed hand thrust a pistol muzzle towards Semper’s belly. Semper severed it with a sabre blow before it could pull the trigger.

  A young woman leapt at him, reaching out for his face, eyes and exposed throat with fingers twisted into long cartilage-formed talons. Semper ran her through with his sabre, using her own momentum to impale her through the heart.

  He pulled the blade free as her body tumbled to join the others on the corpse-littered cobbles. All around him, he saw the black- and brown-cloaked figures of the heretics and frateris. Nowhere did he see the navy blue of any of his own crewmen. Rahn had been with him minutes ago at the beginning of the battle, faithfully watching his back, but Semper had not seen him since the battle had descended into this bloody and confused melee. Grimly, he wondered if he was the last surviving crew member of the Macharius left on Belatis, and then the next wave of heretics swarmed forward, calling his attention back to more immediately urgent matters.