“By the path...” Fio’el Boran croaked, unable to conceal his amazement.
In no time the flotilla was lost beyond the view from the gallery window and the dignitaries turned to the kor’vre at the chamber’s sole monitoring console. The secondary bridge was little more than an armoured bunker near the lowermost segments of the Or’es Tash’var, but thus far it had proved impregnable. Soon, Lusha suspected, Ko’vash and the others would return to the real bridge — now secured, if reports were to be believed.
The kor’vre studied the complex series of icons and projection vertices lacing the screen. “The flotilla’s slowing to engagement speed,” he murmured. “The gue’la are scattering. Trying to get round without engaging.”
Ko’vash nodded sourly. “They have no stomach for battle. They just want their prize.”
“Aun’el — we’re being hailed by the Tel’ham Kenvaal. Patching it through...”
The console chimed as a channel opened.
“Or’es Tash’var? This is Kor’o Dal’yth Men’he. What’s your status?”
Ko’vash gestured for a transmitter drone. “O’Men’he. Your arrival is most welcome. This is Aun’el T’au Ko’vash.”
“Aun’el! Thank the path! We feared the worst.”
“I live yet, Kor’o. We’ve held them at bay so far.”
“What action, Aun’el? The gue’la are attempting to evade.”
Ko’vash twisted briefly towards Shas’o Udas, who stood staring at the sensor chart with a calculating frown. “Shas’o?”
Lusha watched the general carefully, wondering what discipline he’d consider the most appropriate. He scratched at his chin.
“Ken’rai,” he decided. “Cut off the head, the body will die.”
Ko’vash nodded, pursing his lips, and turned back to the drone. “Harry the fleet, Kor’o. We’ll target the flagship ourselves.”
O’Men’he’s reply took a long time. Lusha imagined him aboard the Tel’ham Kenvaal, gaping at the brazenness of O’Udas’s plans.
“U-understood, Aun’el. For the Greater Good.” The console chimed again and the room descended into silence.
“O’Udas... Do we have sufficient manpower for this?”
“I believe so, Aun’el. The boarding shuttles are operational at least, so insertion shouldn’t be an issue... providing we can knock through the shields, that is.”
“Very well.” The ethereal turned to the console with a deep breath. “Sound the attack.”
++Fleet, this is Admiral Constantine.++
++Do not, repeat, do not engage the enemy flotilla. Focus on the prize-ship. We must take the ethereal.++
[Admiral? Captain Brunt, Purgatus. They’re moving to intercept. Evasion’s not an option any mo—]
++Brunt — you’ll do as you’re told.++
[He’s right, admiral. Forsithe on the Baleful Gaze, here. Unless we engage now they’ll eat us alive.]
[You see?]
++There will be no discussion! We pursue the target vessel, as planned!++
[Sir — this is lunacy!]
++No, this is insubordination, Forsithe. I’ll have your head!++
[Admiral? Captain Tigarus. I’m afraid I concur with the others. We need to return fire.]
[We’re outnumbered two-to-one. Either we fight or we flee. There’s no way around.]
++The first commander that breaks from the chase will be court-martialled for flagrant sedition and executed!++
[Sir — the “chase” may be a moot issue... The prize-ship’s turning.]
++What?++
[By the throne... are they mad?]
++This doesn’t make sen—++
[They’re closing on the Enduring Blade, sir...]
[You may want to evade...]
++They can’t hope to outgun us... They’re mad!++
[They’re... Oh, Vandire’s teeth... They’re launching shuttles.]
[Admiral! They’re trying to board you!]
++They can’t. The shields will h—++
[Picking up plasma fire.]
[Living god! Look at that payload!]
[Terra’s bones!]
++Th... upid... can’t ho... n... astards!++
[Throne...]
++They’ve knocked out my shield! Assist! Assist!++
[I’m engaged. Can’t get away—]
[Oh terra! They’ve g—]
[Shuttles homing on you, admiral.]
[...ammit, the generarium’s brea—]
[...]
[Brace-brace-brace!]
[The Reverus has gone...]
[Sweet Emperor... They’re so fast...]
++Th... This is...++
++All vessels... All vessels engage and destroy!++
++Forget the bloody ethereal!++
++In the Emperor’s name, make them bleed!++
They called it se’hen che lel. Riding the lightning.
Kais had undergone training, tau’cyrs earlier in the battledome. He remembered the first time. He’d been heartily sick afterwards and was somewhat gratified to find his friends equally as green as was he.
The real thing was worse. Strapped into a one-tau pod like an insect moulded into a bullet, the shuttle tube was little more than a vast railgun: linear energies dragging the pod along a frictionless tunnel with a succession of sonic booms. The view through the small window above his face stopped making any sense as the pod’s velocity increased exponentially and the rounded struts of the tunnel became a single tawny-coloured smear. A vibration grew from nothingness into a dreadful quake, threatening to splinter his armour and turn his body to powder. He gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to cry out. Then the roar ceased, the blur of the tunnel was wiped away in a daub of star speckled blackness and he was streaking across the void.
“They’d tried to stop him. First Ju,” then the others in her team, then Lusha over the comm. He’d earned his rest, they’d said. There were more than enough shas’las for the assault. He’d done his duty. He was a hero. Let it be.
Then they’d grown angry, despairing of his obstinate refusal to rest. He’d been shot in the head, by the One Path. Even by the pragmatic unsuperstitious standards of taukind he was pushing his luck. Hadn’t he done enough?
No.
No, he had not. The trial wasn’t over. He felt it in his bones.
He must face the Mont’au devil again and again and again until he killed it or it became him. Then, he supposed, if he hadn’t died first, the trial would be over. So they rearmed and resulted, filled their packs with as much wargear as they could carry, distributed miniature kor’vesa slave drones, strapped each other into hypervelocity capsules and were unceremoniously blasted at the beaked vulture-shape that was the Enduring Blade.
He’d refused to take a new helmet, though he couldn’t exactly explain why.
The dud bolter-shell might detonate at any moment, he supposed, failed gue’la artifices fizzling to life and blasting his head from his shoulders. And, just as easily, he might detonate at any moment, the devil on his back reaching into his heart and snapping the frail chord leading to the tau’va. Parallels and echoes.
It was sentimentality of the very worst kind, and Ju had looked at him like he was insane when he refused the pristine replacement she offered him. It didn’t matter. This was his Trial by Fire and he’d deal with it in his way.
Alone in the capsule the silence was thick, like being suffocated in velvet. Peering through the maddeningly tiny viewport, Kais was barely aware of moving at all, let alone hurtling at dizzying speed. He wondered vaguely how many other shas’las streaked ahead and behind him,
each one immersed in his or her own silent world of introspection and fear.
El’Lusha’s voice startled him, echoing across a multi-band channel.
“Shas’las? We’ve overloaded their void shields but they won’t stay down for long. Shuttle trackers have a lock on their juntas-side launch bays, so that’s your insertion point. Your first priority after splashdown is to knock out the hangar weapons and disrupt their shield generators in the long-term. After that, strategic boarding strategies apply Cripple the engines, capture the bridge, disable the weapons.
“The Aun’el offers his fondest regards and wishes you well in your endeavours. T’au’va be with you, line warriors.”
Before the comm-channel closed, Kais heard the quiet whistle of the bandwidth narrowing. “And La’Kais? Remember the machine.”
With that the comm died and the silence unfolded its wings around him. A bright row of characters at his side dimmed gradually, representing his approach to the target in a chorus of quiet chimes and light levels.
“Thirty raik’ans,” the capsule’s AI trilled. Kais swallowed.
Abruptly his view through the port window changed: the blackness of space was replaced by a ghastly facade of buttresses and spines, vast crenellated towers and spindly steeples, looming towards him. Perspective was impossible to judge; just as it seemed inevitable that he’d smash across the intricate cliff face his senses realigned to accommodate its despicable vastness. Every moment of diminishing proximity was a moment where its enormity became more and more apparent.
The capsule shuddered, AI chiming in alarm and thrusters struggling to realign. Angry light bloomed in the viewportal, little more than a flicker that was gone in a moment. It happened again and he frowned, confused. Above, high on the architectural mountain, bright pinpricks of las-fire and shrapnel flak stabbed from the vessel’s vaulted, pitted hull, detonating spectacularly around the ghostly arrowheads of tau fighters that soared past, burst cannons dissecting great blocks of obsidian armour. Another petal of fire oozed past him, close, and he realised with a quickening heartbeat that the gue’la were firing at the hail of capsules as well as the fighters.
He’d imagined this, tau’cyrs ago, after the simulations. He’d imagined rumbling artillery, a constant drone of blossoming explosions and the shuddering chaos of running the firebelt gauntlet, watching helplessly as his comrades were plucked from the air like irritating insects, wondering whether he’d be one of the lucky ones.
He hadn’t imagined the silence, the stillness. At any moment he could fly apart in a suffocating ball of shrapnel and fiery laser heat — singeing and freezing and detonating all at once — and he’d never see it coming. Until then he was a rodent, sealed in a s’peiy-bottle and cast adrift at sea, never knowing if it would reach the shore or perish, always expecting but never anticipating the jaws of a t’pel shark around it.
Drift with the current. Be not concerned with that which you cannot control.
A snippet from the D’havre meditation. He’d never remembered the rest.
“Ten raik’ans.”
He took a final, heartstopping glimpse through the viewportal as the launch bay swallowed him, a gun-metal blur of tunnel lights and shadows. The capsule chimed, volume growing.
“Brace,” it chirped, the artificial voice sounding bored.
It shuddered heavily, passing through the field generator separating the atmosphere-rich interior of the hangars from the hard vacuum beyond. There was silence for a brief moment before the capsule hit the deck with a galaxy-splitting crump. It bounced and skidded.
There was noise and pain. There was tumbling and spinning and splintering. There was nonsensical, blurring insanity through the viewportal.
And finally, after an eternity of madness, there was stillness.
Librarian Delpheus’s prediction had been correct, it would seem.
Ardias armed his bolt pistol with a cold rasp and stamped into the briefing hall. A servitor’s mechanised drone piped again and again across the vessel’s internal vox.
“All hands to repel boarders. All hands to repel boarders. All hands to repel boarders. All hands to—”
Ardias punched the speaker and resisted the urge to grin savagely as fragments of plasteel tumbled past him. Even in wanton destruction there must be discipline.
“Aal... nds to re... borrrrrrr... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzkk.”
“I heard the first time.” he grunted.
The assembly of company sergeants and veterans chuckled under their breaths, arranged in a perfect line. He turned to face them, gratified that their mirth instantly hardened to resolve.
“Brothers... Do you stand ready for battle?”
“Aye!” they chorused, clashing weapons against breast plates in perfect unison, faces glowing with martial pride.
“The company?”
Veteran-Sergeant Mallich took a clipped half step forwards. “It stands ready, brother-captain. Chaplain Mulvarius is intoning battle rites as we speak.”
“Good.” It had been a hundred years since his elevation beyond the rank of sergeant, but Ardias slid back into the posturing, parade-ground-inspection routine with ease. He kneaded his knuckles thoughtfully. “Brothers... In consulting with Admiral Constantine I have made a troubling discovery. We are not alone in our secondment aboard this vessel.” A few brows dipped, confused. “A full company of Space Marines of the Raptors Chapter, it would seem, shares our assignment.” He sighed, annoyance palpable to the listeners. “I neither understand nor care why we were kept ignorant of this, but questions will be asked of the Navis Nobilite, you may count upon it. One does not attract the Ultramarines with claims of goodwill, then insult them by bolstering their strength with lesser warriors. I know little of the Raptors, brothers, but their reckless disregard for the Codex is legendary.”
The veterans shook their heads angrily, muttering beneath their breaths. The Codex Astartes — composed by their Chapter’s primarch Roboute Guilliman — detailed the correct conduct and attitude of a Space Marine in any given circumstance. To Ardias and his kin it was more than a behavioural manual; it was sacred.
“They have been petitioned by the admiral to guard strategic points of the vessel. Engines, generarium, command deck and so on.”
The veterans’ discontent grew, flashing angry glances at one another, clearly insulted. “Captain? Why them?”
“A pertinent question, Sergeant Mallich — and one to which I have no answer. The Raptors were clearly forewarned of whatever trouble these navy fools have landed themselves in. They requested — and were granted — operative duties, before I was even made aware of the situation.”
“They’re unreliable, brother-captain!”
“I share your ire, brother, but we must be calm in the face of this insult. We must demonstrate that one does not garrison a company of Ultramarines then ignore them, Emperor’s tears!”
The veterans’ chant pounded at the air. “Aye!”
Ardias narrowed his eyes, voice suddenly cold. “When the Raptors make mistakes — and they will, brothers, have no doubt — we must be there to lead the way. We must show the children of the Imperium that a single Ultramarine, with his mind and heart filled with the words of blessed Guilliman, is worth any twenty firebrand Raptors.”
The storm of assent was deafening, the officers roaring and calling out prayers in the Emperor’s name, ringing their fists against their armour. Ardias basked in it, letting it wash over him.
“I want squads positioned at strategic points throughout this ship. Stay in contact and avoid confrontation with the Raptors. If you find yourself challenged, refer them to my vox. True warriors of Macragge brook no interference from loose cannons with no respect for the Codex! Is that clear?”
“Aye!”
“That’s all, brothers. Courage and honour! Move ou—”
Wait!
Ardias turned to the doorway with a frown. He disliked interruptions.
Librarian Delpheus staggered into the briefing
room clumsily, supporting himself against the wall. His face was pale and wan, sweat collecting on his cable-pocked brow. The psychic hood glowed dully, like a faltering illuminator. Ardias’s ire turned immediately to concern and he rushed forwards to support his comrade.
“Delpheus? Brother, what’s wrong?”
“Another vision...” The librarian was gagging on his words, eyes rolling. Ardias had never seen him like this. “M-more signs. More pictures. The masked fiend, revealing itself...” He was sweating, suit’s thermal regulators struggling to equalise his temperature.
“Brother... I don’t understand. You’re not making sense.”
“The masked fiend. The masked fiend. The masked fiend...”
Ardias glanced at the sergeants, watching the display with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. Delpheus’s goggle-eyed loss of dignity was far removed from the Ultramarine way of life, and suspicion towards mutants — even those of incalculable value to the Chapter — was deeply ingrained in the creeds of the Codex.
“Delpheus,” Ardias hissed, uncomfortable. “You must control yourself.”
The Librarian’s oscillating eyeballs fixed on him, clarity returning with a jolt.
“It’s. The ship, yes. There’s something aboard...”
“We know that, brother. Throne-damned xenogens! We must purge th—”
“No! No — something more! S-something else...”
“What?”
Sergeant Mallich, a look of profound distaste creasing his features, lost his patience. “Captain? We should fall out, yes?”
“No!” Delpheus cried, finally dragging himself upright unaided. His eyes, ringed and sunken, prowled from face to face. He settled his gaze on Ardias and nodded, some semblance of reason returning to his features.
“Brother-captain... You must allow the Raptors their commission.”
“But—”
“There will be need for us afterwards. There are worse than tau aboard... I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it, don’t you hear me? I have seen it!”
“Seen what, by the Emperor? Talk sense!”
Fire Warrior (warhammer 40,000) Page 15
