The Last Wall

by David Annandale

  Bohemond said, ‘Second Captain Koorland is correct, though. The orks have the unity and direction that we lack. A divided Imperial response is doomed. We have too much evidence of that already.’

  ‘And the Fists Exemplar,’ said Thane, ‘have direct experience of the virtues of combined efforts. Marshal Bohemond convinced me, I am happy to say, of the pointlessness of fighting alone, and in a lost cause.’

  Koorland nodded. ‘I wish we had had such a chance.’

  ‘I’m not disputing the need for coordination,’ Issachar said. ‘I am questioning the viability of the second captain’s proposed integration. If we are to have a single command, who will be that commander?’

  The third silence. A short one. Koorland said nothing. He wondered if, when duty had called him to Terra, he had been contaminated by the political manoeuvring of the High Lords. He wanted to be direct. He wanted to state what was necessary. But his position was weak. He had to think tactically. He waited for Bohemond to speak first, as Koorland knew he would.

  ‘The coordination of joint operations and the recall of crusades has been through the Black Templars,’ Bohemond said. ‘Continuity should be preserved.’

  Quesadra eyed him. ‘So the command will be yours.’

  ‘Yes.’ Bohemond was being as direct as Koorland could not be.

  ‘I see.’ Issachar was still carefully neutral. ‘And what would your campaign plan be?’

  ‘To take the war to the orks. We cannot think in terms of defending systems. We will attack the star fortresses, beginning with the nearest.’

  ‘As simple as that?’ Quesadra asked.

  ‘There is no front,’ said Thane.

  ‘Exactly.’ Bohemond continued to address them all, rather than answer Quesadra directly. ‘The ork bases are appearing everywhere. They are not advancing along any discernible path. We cannot think in terms of blocking them. We must attack to eradicate.’

  ‘You are proposing a crusade on a scale that we haven’t seen in living memory.’ Issachar sounded impressed.

  ‘And what of Terra?’ Thane asked. ‘It is defenceless. There is no wall there any longer.’

  ‘Admiral Lansung has been keeping his precious Navy out of harm’s way. As much as I am disgusted by his actions in the Aspiria System, they have had the effect of preserving his strength. If Terra is attacked, there will be more than enough vessels readily at hand. Our move must be to await the arrival of our fleets, and then attack.’

  ‘We will be abandoning countless systems to their fates.’

  ‘Those losses are inevitable. Better to pull our forces from hopeless battles to forge them into a weapon that can actually win.’

  Thane didn’t look happy, but Koorland couldn’t disagree with the premises behind Bohemond’s strategy. He thought Quesadra and Issachar were on board as well. The problem was that any unity between the Chapters Masters of the Crimson Fists and the Black Templars would be provisional. At the first opportunity, Quesadra would challenge Bohemond’s command. There was accord on a single tactical decision, not on the larger question of leadership.

  The discussion moved towards the finer issues of deployment and the choice of a target. The closest ork moon was in the Illuster System. Koorland took part in the discussion, but did not try to drag it back towards the crucial issue. Now was not the moment. There would be some time before the other ships arrived, time he could use to convince the Chapter Masters, his brothers, of the path that must be taken.

  It wasn’t the need for glory that pushed him. He was resigned to the fact that all glory for him was in the past. In the future lay only atonement and the struggle to keep the doom that had fallen upon the Imperial Fists from also striking down the Imperium. It was also more than his experience with the orks that urged his claim. Thane had at least as much direct contact with the enemy.

  It was more, too, than the position of the Imperial Fists as foundational Chapter. The leadership of this crusade could not rest on something as intangible as a simple right of seniority. As he read the currents of power and rivalry in the council hall, he realised the vital uniqueness of his position. He was Chapter Master without a Chapter. There was no agenda for him to push, nothing to seek for his warriors. He could present a perfect disinterest. There would be no partiality to his decisions. The only dictates would be the needs of the campaign.

  He would fight for what had to be. But for the moment, the terrain was not his to contest.

  At the conclusion of the council, Castellan Clermont escorted him to his quarters. He did not stay in them long. He taught himself the layout of the Abhorrence and learned where the other delegations were stationed, and where the Black Templars had put Magos Biologis Phaeton Laurentis. He looked for encounters of opportunity.

  He had one when he found Quesadra alone in an observation chamber. It was one of the smaller ones on the ship, constructed in the form of a chapel. Rows of iron pews sat before the stained glass viewport. Phall Primus dominated the perspective. The gas giant’s bands of colour were filtered and changed by the tinting of the viewport. Above the frame was an inscription: The Galaxy Transformed by the Hand of the Emperor.

  Quesadra stood close to the viewport. The tapestry of colours washed over the deep blue of his armour, and the bloody hue of his left gauntlet. He glanced over his shoulder at Koorland.

  ‘Our brothers the Black Templars have taken to heart the full conception of a crusade,’ he said.

  The implied worship of the setting disturbed Koorland. ‘Yes,’ he said, noncommittal. He wasn’t sure what Quesadra’s views on the matter were, and a doctrinal dispute would serve no purpose. He joined the Crimson Fist at the viewport.

  ‘You don’t think Bohemond should be leading us,’ Quesadra said.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘And who would you prefer in his stead? Yourself?’

  ‘It isn’t a question of preference.’

  ‘Oh? One of destiny, is it?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, either.’

  ‘Do you deny it?’

  Koorland chose his words with care. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it is destiny or chance that has placed me in this position. What is important is the position itself.’

  ‘Is this what you intend to say to Marshal Bohemond? I doubt he’ll be receptive.’ Quesadra snorted. ‘You might challenge him to a duel for the leadership, if you aren’t too attached to your right arm. Issachar might have thoughts for you.’

  Koorland wasn’t amused by the reference to the Excoriator’s bionic limb. ‘If that is what it takes, I will.’

  ‘You’re serious.’

  ‘The High Lords have failed the Imperium with their trivial, self-interested political struggles. I would like to believe that the Adeptus Astartes are better than that.’

  Quesadra didn’t answer at first. ‘We should be,’ he said at last, thoughtful.

  Koorland left the conversation there. Not long after, word came of the Imperial Navy’s victory at Port Sanctus. The news confirmed the soundness of Bohemond’s proposed strategy. It also made the wait even more frustrating. But the other fleets weren’t far. Then, even as the mustering of four Chapters began, the near space of Phall Primus filling with strike cruisers and battle-barges, came the cry from Terra.

  The second meeting in the council hall was more solemn than the first. Bohemond briefed the other Chapter Masters on everything that was known.

  ‘The orks haven’t attacked at last report,’ he concluded.

  ‘When they do,’ Issachar said, ‘there is no point pretending what the outcome will be, what with the bulk of the Navy still at Port Sanctus.’

  ‘There are no forces close enough to help?’ Thane asked.

  ‘None,’ said Bohemond. He tapped the data-slate on the table. ‘For all we know, the attack has already begun.’

  The worst truth, though unspoken,
thundered. Terra may already have fallen.

  Now, Koorland thought. He stood.

  ‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you regarded my arrival as an ill omen.’ He paused, thinking of Lieutenant Greydove’s religious awe. The rest of the Chapter perished, but you survived, he had said. That makes you not remarkable but miraculous. He did not share Greydove’s belief. But he was duty-bound to accept that he was more than just a single Space Marine now. Being the last Imperial Fist made him a symbol, and one that had now taken on an even greater significance.

  ‘We know better than that,’ Thane said. ‘You are not the cause of this catastrophe.’

  ‘No,’ Koorland said, ‘but I can stand for it, and I will. The Imperial Fists do not exist outside of this chamber. The final wall has fallen, and now Terra is on the verge of falling too.’ Then he chose to speak the obscene. ‘Perhaps it has.’ He paused again. ‘But what I said a moment ago is a lie.

  ‘How can it be? Because the Black Templars stand. The Crimson Fists stand. The Excoriators stand. The Fists Exemplar stand. I stand. The sons of Dorn in their thousands are gathering to begin their greatest crusade since the Heresy. The Imperial Fists live on in me, in you, and in the war we are about to wage. If Terra falls, the Imperium must and will live on. We will avenge Terra. We will reclaim Terra, and annihilate every last xenos brute who has dared walk its surface.’

  He beat his fist once against his breastplate. He had not yet sought to have any repairs done to the visible damage on his armour. He used its scars now. When the Successor Chapter Masters looked at him, they saw the worst thing that could happen, and they saw the survival beyond that worst thing. ‘I said that we must form a single fist with which to strike the orks. So we shall. I will direct those blows. I claim this right not in my name, or by any personal authority, but in the name of Rogal Dorn, and in the name of the Seventh Legion, whose spirit we uphold in our every act and thought.’

  He finished. He waited. Bohemond glared at him. The Marshal took a breath. He rose. Before he could speak, Thane stood also.

  ‘Brother,’ he said to Koorland. He walked around the table to stand before the Imperial Fist. ‘Chapter Master.’ He held out his hand. ‘My captain.’ He clasped forearms with Koorland. ‘The Fists Exemplar will be honoured to follow you into combat.’

  ‘Thank you, brother,’ Koorland said.

  ‘I see no fault in Chapter Master Koorland’s logic,’ Issachar said. The Excoriator didn’t stand. He was watching Bohemond and Quesadra. ‘The rights he speaks of are real. We are bound to acknowledge them. Besides,’ he continued without taking his eyes off the two rivals, ‘I can’t believe that he would be unwilling to listen to sound military advice.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Koorland said. He wasn’t sure if Issachar was completely convinced by his speech. His agreement might have been more pragmatic, a way of heading off conflict between the Black Templars and Crimson Fists.

  Quesadra was impassive. His eyes were hooded. The gaze that pried all secrets from others now hid the thoughts of its owner. All he said was, ‘Agreed.’

  Are you siding with me, or sabotaging Bohemond? Koorland wondered. He pushed his concerns about motivation to the side. What mattered was the result.

  Bohemond mustered a grim smile. ‘I will not break the unanimity at this table,’ he said. Then he too walked around to grasp Koorland’s arm. ‘Lead us well, brother,’ he said.

  The implied test was clear. If Koorland did poorly, what he had managed to create in the last few minutes would collapse. He accepted that condition. If he failed, he would deserve far worse.

  But was there an undercurrent of hope in the Marshal’s tone? Koorland thought there was. If he was right, then there would be real strength in the wall he was building.

  What he couldn’t know was whether there would still be anything left for the wall to defend.

  Five

  Terra – the Imperial Palace

  The days passed. The orks did not come. The star fortress hung in the sky above the Imperial Palace with dreadful imminence. It refused to change its threat into action.

  The orks hardly needed to bother invading, Vangorich thought as he walked towards the Great Chamber. The panic the moon’s appearance had created had killed hundreds of thousands, and brush fires of frenzy continued to ignite despite Vernor Zeck’s massive mobilisation of enforcers. Give us enough time, Vangorich wanted to tell the greenskins, and we’ll do the job for you.

  He had never felt more helpless. In the depths of sleepless nights, he faced the idea that, once the threat had arrived on Terra’s doorstep, the Officio Assassinorum had become irrelevant. Why should he worry about influencing the political life of the Imperium or checking its excesses when there would soon no longer be any politics left?

  He didn’t like questions he could not answer. He would not stop fighting for the Imperium until he no longer drew breath. But all his struggles over the last months had been worse than useless. He had failed to forestall the crisis, and the crisis was on a scale he would have dismissed as laughable. He had been guilty of the same complacency as the rest of the vain puppets who called themselves the High Lords. His sins were, by some measure, even greater. He had been pleased to believe he knew better.

  He’d been an arrogant fool. And now here he was, off to take his place like a good puppet on the stage for what might be the last performance before the curtain was brought down.

  The uproar that greeted Vangorich as he entered the Great Chamber was tremendous. If this was indeed the final performance, it was going to be a spectacular one. The great scream had finally reached the ears of the High Lords. The Chamber was full for the first time in decades. In their tens of thousands, the lesser lords, petty governors and bureaucrats with leverage filled the tiers. They had come, ostensibly, for answers. But they weren’t listening. Every voice was raised in argument, hurling questions, demands and meaningless threats. Some were weeping. Others had abandoned all pretence at dialogue and their shouts had become inarticulate howls. Vangorich walked the gold-inlaid marble avenue towards the dais. It was like making his way through the maw of a wounded, raging beast. The Chamber, to his grief, no longer held a government. He hoped that what replaced it was not the death cry of a civilisation.

  A phalanx of Lucifer Blacks guarded the approach to the dais. On either side, the floor was a roiling ant hill of serfs and messengers. They rushed on errands whose meaninglessness was disguised by urgency. Vangorich was surprised when Veritus’ power-armoured form emerged from that press, brushing past the startled Blacks to walk by his side the rest of the way.

  ‘There are less inconvenient ways of meeting,’ Vangorich said.

  ‘I had other business.’ He gave Vangorich a hard look. The eyes in that aged, lined skull burned. ‘You have been interfering in matters that don’t concern you.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘I am doing you the rare courtesy of giving you a warning.’

  Vangorich stopped walking. He was delighted to find that he could still laugh. ‘Really? You’re warning me. And here I was looking forward to a long and prosperous retirement, reading by the light of an ork star fortress. Anyway, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘The Inquisition won’t tolerate intrusions into its affairs.’

  ‘You speak for the totality of the Inquisition, do you? And by the way, have you officially taken over as Inquisitorial Representative?’

  Veritus glared.

  Vangorich shook his head. ‘Inquisitor, if you can’t stay on top of your internal politics, I don’t see how you can expect the rest of us to do so.’ He started walking again.

  Veritus strode beside him. ‘I am trying to speak to you, Grand Master, because I know that you, at least, are not a fool.’

  ‘I’m tempted to interpret that as meaning you do not have a high opinion of the High Lords.’
r />   ‘I do not.’

  ‘All such opinions may well be moot.’ Vangorich wondered if he sounded as tired as he felt.

  ‘I don’t believe that. This obsession with the orks is a mistake.’

  Vangorich kept his face straight. ‘I can’t imagine why the orks should be commanding so much of our attention,’ he muttered.

  They reached the dais. As they took their seats, Ekharth went through the motions of calling the session to order. There was too much uproar for anyone beyond the circle of chairs to hear him, but the sight of the debate beginning brought a measure of calm to the Great Chamber. Half a million people strained to listen. Vox-casters carried the debate to all corners of the vast space.

  Vangorich gestured at the mass assembly. To Udo he said, ‘I rejoice to see the Great Chamber so lively.’

  ‘As do I, Grand Master.’ The Lord Commander sounded quite genuine.

  Vangorich swept his gaze over the Twelve. He judged that some of them, like Lansung, would have preferred the council to be private still. The High Admiral, in particular, was facing massive public humiliation. Others, Udo among them, apparently saw the involvement of the full Chamber as a way of spreading the blame for whatever happened next as widely as possible. The High Lords were behaving as if they were facing nothing worse than an especially acute political crisis, not extermination.

  Then again, the orks had not attacked. Every other system where a star fortress had intruded would have long since been burning or enslaved.

  The anomaly wasn’t lost on the other Lords. ‘Why haven’t the greenskins invaded?’ Ekharth asked Lansung.

  The High Admiral shrugged. Defeat was corroding him further each day. ‘I have no idea,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps the Fabricator General can enlighten us,’ Vangorich said.

  ‘We have no satisfactory answer to give,’ said Kubik. ‘The behaviour is anomalous. One can construct scenarios wherein the means necessary to transport a body of that mass to the heart of the Imperium are such that the Veridi giganticus must rebuild energy stores prior to further action. But this is mere speculation, an inevitable result of our lack of data. Since this behaviour does not conform to any previously seen in the orks, the inevitable conclusion is that it is not simply their technology that is undergoing dramatic evolution. Perhaps even cladogenesis is possible. We can rule out nothing. The situation is an interesting one.’