Horusian Wars: Resurrection

by John French

  ‘Hold above the storm’s eye,’ he said. ‘Shields to maximum. We will weather whatever they send our way.’

  ‘They are launching gunships,’ called Viola from behind him.

  ‘Heading?’ he called.

  ‘Towards the surface, closing on the Reliquary Tower.’

  ‘Talicto?’ he asked, and turned to look at Viola. She glanced up from the data screens. Her face was pale, the skin pinched on her forehead. She nodded.

  ‘Signals are just coming through the storm, full shield and reactor failure in the tower. They are under attack, forces unknown. He must have known we were coming for him. The frigate must have been waiting among the rest of the fleet elements.’

  ‘I hate it when you and Covenant are right about these things,’ he said, and turned back to the rest of the bridge. ‘Launch fighters. Tear them from the void!’

  ‘Fighters away, weapons hot.’

  ‘Fleet elements in orbit have picked up the signal,’ called Viola. ‘We have about ten minutes before something a lot bigger than those monitors comes to see what is happening.’

  ‘Engine output spike from the frigate!’ came a shout from the sensorium. ‘They are closing fast.’

  ‘Hostile auspex locked onto us – they are going to fire.’

  ‘Well…’ breathed Cleander. ‘This has got interesting.’

  Five

  Covenant. Josef.+ The thought voice halted Josef. Beside him, Covenant dropped to one knee, boltgun held ready to fire, sensor pod pivoting through slow arcs. They were in a tunnel junction somewhere between the meeting chamber and the doors to the main landing pad. Passages curved away from a wide space that had been ringed with stands of candles. Now the iron stands lay toppled, the candles strewn on the powder-covered floor. They had killed five more of the rag-swathed attackers to get here. They had seen others too, figures in robes and armour crumpled on the floor, shrouds of dust already gathering over them and soaking up their blood. The main lights had failed just as they had broken clear of the hall. Darkness and dust choked the passages of the Reliquary Tower now, broken by the dim flicker of red alert lights. A part of Josef found the conditions reassuringly familiar.

  Josef held the iron bar low as he looked back in the direction of Covenant’s aim. His bionic ear clicked as it filtered out the background sound of the wind. The space around them had become suddenly quiet, the sound of fighting held back beyond a veil.

  ‘I hear footsteps,’ he said, ‘Three sets, moving fast.’

  Covenant’s sensor pod stopped moving, its main lens extending.

  ‘I see them.’ He raised his eye from the iron sight of his gun, but did not lower it. ‘It’s Idris.’

  Three figures stepped around the curve in the passage, backlit for an instant by the red blink of the alert lights. Josef recognised Severita’s posture and fluid movement before he saw her face. The other two came into blurred sight when they were within a pace of him.

  Covenant rose.

  ‘Talicto–’ he began.

  ‘The tower’s shields are down,’ said Idris, cutting him off. ‘The null fields too. That means they have control of its generatorium.’

  ‘The plasma reactors,’ breathed Josef. ‘He means to…’

  ‘He means to leave this place as molten rock, and burn every soul in it,’ snapped Idris.

  ‘Insane,’ said Enna.

  ‘Clever,’ said Josef. ‘He wipes the board clean, anyone who has the knowledge or power to oppose him gone in a single instant. But even he… The scale of this is…’

  ‘He will not escape,’ said Covenant. ‘He will be making for the landing pads if he has not already reached them.’

  ‘Landing pads?’ said Idris, reaching out to catch Covenant’s arm as he turned to move down the passage. ‘This is not about justice now, Covenant. It’s about stopping the heart being ripped out of the Inquisition in this sector.’

  Covenant looked at her, the two of them silhouettes in the blink-blink of red.

  ‘It’s the same thing,’ he said, and shrugged his arm free of her hand. Idris took a step back, shook her head.

  ‘I am going to the generatorium chamber,’ she said, after a long moment.

  Josef watched as she began to turn away.

  ‘Josef,’ said Covenant, and Josef glanced around. ‘Go with them. Severita, with me.’

  Josef stepped to Idris as Severita moved past him to stand beside Covenant. Idris looked from Josef to Covenant, then jerked her head at Enna.

  ‘Go with them,’ she said. Enna frowned, but Josef saw a flick of Idris’ eye, and for a second fancied he could feel the subtle murmur of the thought passing between them. Enna stepped next to Covenant and Severita.

  ‘Emperor’s strength and speed, my friend,’ Idris said. No reply came from Covenant. Idris had turned and begun to run towards a passage opening. Josef followed her, falling into a gut-shaking jog. When he glanced over his shoulder he could see neither his lord nor Severita or Enna. They ran on down into the strobing red and black beneath the tower.

  The Battle Sister stepped into sight at the opposite end of the corridor. Koleg froze where he had landed on the passage floor. The Sister was fifty metres away, stepping backwards, eyes locked on the passage out of Koleg’s sight. Koleg saw the shells rip from her bolter as she slid to her knees. There was blood on her armour, wet gloss on the red lacquer. The light of the muzzle flash lit the junction of the corridor and blazed into the space beyond. Slivers of crystal struck her greave and shattered on the ceramite. She fired again, the burst of rounds sawing out.

  For a second he considered going to her aid. He dismissed the notion. He had a purpose to fulfil, and that did not require her survival. His quarry would have to come through this set of passages to reach the landing pads. Given the ferocity and surprise of the attack, he reckoned the chances of this lone Sister surviving were low. And besides, she was buying him time.

  Metal plating lined the passage before him. Bolt heads studded the walls and ceiling, and mesh grating covered the floor. Besides the duct hatch in the ceiling that Koleg had just come through, the only other way out at this end of the passage was the hazard-striped doors behind him. Those doors led to the main landing pad. Anyone wanting to reach that pad, and not wanting to use the circuitous route Koleg had just used, had to come down this passage.

  Koleg began to unfasten charges from his harness, laying them before him on the grating, glancing up at the Sister still kneeling in the junction fifty metres away. Her fire paused. The empty magazine clattered to the floor, and she had a fresh one in place and was shooting again before Koleg could blink.

  But the pause had given something an opening. Frost flashed down the walls behind her, as an invisible force lifted her up and slammed her against the ceiling. Bolts sprayed wildly from the gun. Her armour cracked, blood bursting from her lips as her head snapped back. She fell to the floor. He saw her try to rise, but something struck her head and she slumped and was still.

  Two figures in rags came around the corner. He fired. The hyper-fast burst of shells from his macrostubber almost sawed the first of the figures in two. He fired at the second, but it was fast and had ducked back as its fellow was slain. The second burst ripped into the wall behind where it had been. He unclipped a grenade, primed, and threw it in a single fluid motion. It struck the wall and rebounded around the corner.

  Blinding light flashed out. Koleg’s visor blinked to black for a second. He moved forward, pistol braced in both hands as he cleared the corner. A figure in rags was rising from the floor where it had fallen. Koleg put a burst through its chest and snapped the empty ammo drum out of his gun as he stepped over the corpse. The plan and application of tactics changed in his mind, like a cog device flicking over between settings. He would not be able to cut Talicto off with a static ambush; he needed to move to meet the inquisitor as he approached
. If he did not, he would be pinned down and killed just like the Sister of the Bloody Rose he had watched die back at the junction.

  There were more corpses in the corridor, ten at least, limbs and bodies ripped apart by the Sister’s bolt-rounds. He moved down the corridor, steps swift and silent. A twitch of ragged fabric in a door, and he dropped to one knee. The figure that came around the door took a burst of rounds in the chest, and hinged back like a puppet with snapped strings. Koleg glanced at it and was about to move past it when he stopped.

  The cloth mask covering its head had slipped upwards, exposing a sliver of neck and chin beneath. The mask itself was similar to all the others that covered the heads of the corpses in the corridor behind him: rough hessian, crudely stitched with holes torn through the fabric for the eyes. Koleg knelt, back against the rivet-covered wall of the corridor, and carefully tugged the mask off the head of the corpse. He stopped and blinked. The face looking back at him was that of a man of middle years. Age lines gathered at the corners of his eyes. A slight weight of fat under the chin spoke of good meals. Greyed stubble covered his chin, as though he normally took a razor to it every day but this morning had forgotten. Dark hair faded to grey hung from his scalp. The man’s lips were slightly open. He had all his teeth, and between them glinted a silver coin.

  Koleg stared at the coin. The cough of gunfire somewhere in the distance made him raise his eyes, but then he looked back at the corpse. Slowly he lifted the corpse’s empty left hand. Frayed strips of the same hessian as the mask crossed the palm and wove inbetween the fingers. Abrasions covered the exposed skin, as though the outer layer had been ground away, but the skin under the cloth wrappings was soft, like that of a clerk or merchant. And that was exactly as it should be, because that was who the face he was looking at belonged to: a somebody who was nobody, the face of a man who kept records that no one would ever read. It was not the face of a man who attacked a fortress guarded by the Sisters of Battle and housing a gathering of inquisitors.

  Koleg glanced behind him at the torn bodies in the corridor. He wondered what faces would look back at him if he pulled off the bloody rags of their masks. A glint caught his eye as he turned, and he saw the weapon that the dead man still had clutched in his other hand. It was a shard of crystal as long as his forearm. Its edge was ragged, the substance of its rough blade threaded with cracks and shot through with milky imperfections. Drying blood marked its length, as well as the hand that still grasped it by its leather-bound base. Koleg reached out for it.

  ‘Don’t!’ came a shout from close by. His head and gun came up. A figure was blurring towards him down the corridor. His finger squeezed the trigger. Hard rounds breathed from the pistol barrel, but the figure jinked, kicked off the wall and slammed a hand into his arm. Bullets sparked from the metal walls. Koleg rose from his crouch, ducked under the blow that he knew would be coming next and brought his pistol up to this new enemy.

  ‘Be still, Koleg,’ came another voice further down the corridor. Koleg froze, pistol levelled at a woman in form-fitting armour and split-fronted black robes. Silver coins glinted from the hem of the hood, which framed a slim face. She held a bolt pistol in her left hand, and her right was poised to grab Koleg’s own empty hand. He did not lower his gun or break his gaze.

  ‘Master,’ he said, and heard his voice echo flat from the speaker plug of his mask. Covenant came up behind the woman, who had also not moved or broken her gaze at Koleg.

  ‘This is an ally, Koleg,’ said Covenant, looking down the corpse-strewn passage, and then at the unmasked figure at Koleg’s feet. ‘Her name is Enna Gyrid.’

  Koleg gave a single nod, and lowered his aim. The woman called Enna bent and picked the crystal blade out of the corpse’s fingers. Koleg noticed that she was holding it by the leather grip and lifting it as though it were a snake that could strike out in an instant.

  ‘Venom crystal,’ said Enna, turning the blade over. ‘Highly effective, too. Curiosity can get you killed.’

  Covenant’s sensor pod pivoted around, its lenses focusing on Koleg.

  ‘Talicto,’ said Covenant, still watching the corridor.

  ‘His shuttle and escort are destroyed,’ said Koleg. ‘To reach the landing pads he would have to come this way. I have been sweeping corridors – no sign.’

  He looked around as Severita slid into sight at the far end of the passage. The sensor pod swivelled to her; she shook her head. Covenant remained where he was, eyes moving over the distance, bolter in hand, face fixed.

  Koleg felt his fingers twitch on the casing of his gun.

  ‘We would have found him in the passages leading into the rest of the tower,’ said Enna, still holding the crystal blade. She glanced at Koleg. ‘If he did not get past you–’

  ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘If he didn’t,’ she continued, ‘then where can he have gone?’

  The trio of Lightning fighters trailed fire from their wings as they cut the atmosphere. Viola watched the surface of Ero grow in each of the machine’s sensor clusters. The whipped peaks of the hurricane clouds blurred beneath them.

  ‘Targets in sight,’ came the clipped voice of the lead pilot. ‘Weapons free.’

  The pilots, like those of the gunships, and the troops inside them, were vassals of the von Castellan dynasty, mercenaries bound by hundred-generation contracts. They were good, and the wealth of a rogue trader meant that they had the finest equipment.

  The four enemy craft were specks on the line of the horizon. Red target icons painted them with clusters of data. Beyond them and lower in the dome of atmosphere were the three Valkyrie gunships that the Dionysia had launched first. Viola glanced at the cascade of speed and distance data. It was a chase now, pure and simple: would their gunships reach the storm’s eye first as it went over the Reliquary Tower? Would the hostile craft try to engage them or try to reach the tower themselves?

  ‘Gladius squadron,’ she said to the lead gunships, ‘hold pattern for surface descent. Sicaro squadron engage hostiles.’

  ‘Gladius confirmed, three minutes to dive.’

  ‘Sicaro confirmed, engaging now.’

  Missiles kicked free of the fighters. White contrails sliced across the pict-feed from the lead interceptor. The trio of enemy craft scattered. Flashes of light glittered in their wake.

  ‘They have launched counter-measures.’

  Viola saw the icons of the hostile craft arc wide.

  ‘Dionysia, this is Gladius, we are above the storm’s eye. Two minutes to dive.’

  Fire splashed the distance in front of the fighter’s pict-feed.

  ‘Missiles splashed wide,’ came the voice of the lead fighter pilot. ‘Break and engage, break and engage.’ The fighter squadron split. Afterburners lit. The pict-feed from the interceptors blurred with speed. This fight was a three-way dance now: the Valkyries ready to dive into the heart of the dust storm, the enemy gunships and fighters trying to kill and outrace the first group, and the fighter squadron hunting them in turn.

  ‘Storm’s eye opening above tower,’ said the Valkyrie squadron leader. ‘Commencing dive.’

  The gunships looped high, twisting above the cloud tops. Beneath them a column of clear air plunged down through walls of wind and dust. They stabbed down through the opening. Lines of las-fire reached for them as an enemy fighter arced over and down into the storm’s eye after them.

  A lurch shook Viola’s view of the dogfight. She looked up. Cleander glanced at her.

  ‘Our ability to hold this position is becoming questionable,’ he said, still smiling the smile that was the greatest lie he had ever learned to tell.

  ‘Covenant said to hold no matter what.’

  ‘I know what he said,’ called Cleander. ‘I just wanted to say something out loud.’ He turned his grin to his command crew. ‘All batteries fire when charged. Mistress Ghast, slide us against the gravity
well – let’s not make this easy for them.’

  ‘Kill one,’ came the voice of the lead interceptor from the vox. The Dionysia shook as Viola looked back to her display in time to see the storm’s eye loom wide around the fighter. Flashes of lightning lit the storm wall, and las-fire stitched the air beyond it as aircraft spun down the throat of the hurricane. A spreading splash of debris tumbled in the air ahead and beneath them as the black needle of the Reliquary Tower slid from the dust to point at the clear circle of sky.

  ‘We are getting signals from the tower!’ shouted an officer. Viola turned at the note in the man’s voice. He was still, hand pressed against the bionic implants in his ears. Viola reached out and keyed the controls to catch the main signal feed, but the officer was turning, face pale.

  ‘Total failure of security, casualties unknown, reactors are in overload.’

  There was a beat of time. The deck shook again. Then Viola was opening the vox to the gunships.

  ‘Gladius, Sicaro, mission parameter evacuation, repeat, evacuation.’

  ‘Confirmed, Dionysia,’ came the reply. Alarms blared over the bridge. Shield failure sirens added to the cacophony.

  ‘Taking fire!’ shouted Void Mistress Ghast. ‘Impacts on decks thirty-four through seventy-eight.’

  Cleander gave a calm nod of acknowledgement and then turned to Viola.

  ‘That frigate,’ he said, the smile cold on the flesh of his face. ‘It isn’t just here to get Talicto out, is it?’

  Viola met her brother’s gaze and shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s here to make sure that no one else gets out.’

  Glavius-4-Rho woke to the sound of desecration. Alarms boomed through the generator chamber. Coolant fog laced the air. The metal deck under his body was vibrating to the roar of wounded machine spirits. Data-links meshed a second later. Warnings and alerts poured into his consciousness. What had he done? What had he been made to do?