Other than a breathable atmosphere, engendered on the planet by early terraforming efforts, and a comfortably standard gravity, everything else on Vernalis had to be brought in via warp from other planetary systems. Food, water, raw materials and so forth—all arrived as regular as a heartbeat at the orbital stations that perched in geosynchronous orbit atop towering orbital elevators. And the refined product of the planet’s innumerous refineries climbed those same orbital elevators, to be loaded in the cargo holds of the visiting craft as soon as the delivered goods had been unloaded. Then the craft delivered the refined petrochem to the neighbouring systems, to be dispersed and disseminated, and a short while later the craft returned with more necessities, sundries and the occasional luxury item to Vernalis.
The arrival of the forces of Chaos had disrupted that delicate routine. Their first targets had been the orbital stations, which had either been exploded, or severed from their orbital elevators and nudged out of orbit, sent hurtling away into the void. Without the orbital elevators to send up their petrochem and bring down their food and water, the inhabitants of Vernalis were left without an easy way to resupply. But given that the stations had been destroyed, the cargo ships which normally plied the Vernalis route were in no hurry to return, if for no other reason than that many of them were ill-equipped for atmospheric entry and planetary landing. To say nothing, of course, of the Chaos forces that still ranged over the world and the surrounding space.
And so Vernalis had been cut off, forced to sustain itself with its ever-dwindling stores of supplies. Their interstellar communications having been largely the purview of astropaths based on the orbital stations, Vernalis was left all but deaf and dumb as well, able to squeak out only mundane radio communiqués in the hope that some passing craft might intercept their messages. And then they waited, huddled in their mountain strongholds, praying for deliverance.
The Scouts of the 10th Company made their way towards the west, descending one flinty hill before climbing the next, their eyes constantly scanning the horizon and their auspex readings in search of any sign of enemy contact.
With the mounds of flint and shale around them blocking out any view of the oil sea or the black-metal scaffolding of the refinery behind them or the mountain which rose ahead, it seemed as though they were surrounded on all sides by an undulating landscape of dead and lifeless grey stone, which recalled to Scout Zatori’s mind depictions of the land of the spirits in the traditions of his native Sipang.
Zatori fancied that somewhere ahead, perhaps over the next rise, he might chance to glimpse the spirit of Father Nei, and discover that this was the land of the spirits. If he encountered his late master now, what would Zatori say? If asked why he had yet to put his murdered master’s spirit at rest, how would Zatori answer?
He glanced over his shoulder at Scout du Queste, who followed him in the advancing line. It was true that he had pledged to see the Caritaigne dead for his crimes, and on those occasions when he had sparred against Jean-Robur he had found it all-too-tempting to lash out with murderous intent. But that was when they were opponents. When they had stood together side-by-side against their enemies, as they had on Tunis and elsewhere, Zatori had not given a moment’s thought to his hopes to see Jean-Robur dead at his feet. In battle, the hated Caritaigne was Zatori’s ally, and if Jean-Robur fell then it might mean failure for their mission, or death for Zatori himself.
When the day came that he would be able to face Jean-Robur in the Arena Restricta, with no holds barred and a combat blade in his hands, Zatori would commit himself to vengeance. But on the field of battle, with the security of Emperor and Imperium to defend, he would not raise a hand against his squadmate. He hoped that the spirit of Father Nei would understand.
As the stealthy Scouts advanced through the flinty scree, the only sound to be heard behind the muffled crunch of their footfalls was the low keening howl of the winds as they whipped around the curve of the hillsides. In the whistle of those winds Zatori felt like he could almost hear the voices of the dead calling out to the living, demanding justice and revenge.
But gradually, like a descant emerging high above the low wail of the wind, another sound could be heard. Like a distant scream in a pitch-black night, it could have been a high-pitched shriek so faint that the listener was tempted to think he might have imagined it. Could the wailing winds be playing tricks on their hearing? But there it was again, and louder now, though still as high and shrieking.
Ahead of Zatori in line, Scout s’Tonan glanced back, as if seeking in Zatori’s face confirmation of what he himself had heard. Zatori merely nodded, remaining tight-lipped and resolute. Taloc returned the curt nod, hefting the bolt pistol in his grip, and turned back to the front.
As the shriek grew louder, more sounds began to fill in the ranges below, first a low bass thrumming like the sound of a massive engine, then piercing shrills that repeated at seemingly random intervals like the beating of an arrhythmic heart.
Louder and louder the sounds grew as they became more numerous, but still it was unclear from which direction they were coming. With the whistling winds baffling their hearing to a greater or lesser extent, depending on their individual mastery of their augmented senses, the Scouts and their sergeants were only able to guess where the sounds might be originating.
But there was no need to guess from what the sounds originated, or rather from whom. That was something which all of the Imperial Fists knew all too well.
It was their enemy.
The forces of Chaos were out there, somewhere. And by the sounds of it, they were getting closer all the while.
During the briefings en route to Vernalis, the elements of Task Force Gauntlet had learned that intelligence about the opposition they would face was patchy, at best.
What little they knew about the forces of Chaos that had descended on the oil-world was derived from the few astropathic communications to make it out of the system before the orbital stations were destroyed, and the grainy visual images which had accompanied the radio transmissions that had been intercepted a few light-days out from Vernalis by a passing ship of the Imperial Fleet, who had then relayed the information astropathically to the Imperial authorities.
“The finest minds of the sector command have examined the visual imagery,” Sergeant Hilts explained to Squad Pardus in their briefing. “Provisional identification has been made of the enemy elements depicted in the visual images, and conventional wisdom is that there are three principal constituents to the enemy forces.”
Hilts displayed a grainy image that might at first glance have been that of an Imperial Guard army after a long and costly battle. And in some ways, that was exactly what they were.
“Once upon a time these wretches were known as the Righteous Blades,” Hilts explained. “Long ago, before the days of the Horus Heresy during the era of the Great Crusade, the Righteous Blades were one of the most decorated and respected infantry units in all the Imperium. Vassals to Fulgrim and his Emperor’s Children of the Legiones Astartes, the Righteous Blades fought on countless worlds in the name of mankind’s Emperor, and won several victories.”
Hilts paused to glare at the figures in the grainy image before continuing.
“But when the Emperor’s Children were led by the Warmaster Horus in turning traitor and dedicating themselves to the Dark Gods of Chaos, the Righteous Blades followed behind. The Imperium lost a proud band of warriors that day, but the Righteous Blades lost their souls, becoming sense-addicted acolytes.”
The display cycled, and the rag-tag human army was replaced by a handful of massive figures in power armour.
“And if those are the Roaring Blades, it stands to reason that these Emperor-forsaken heretics are the Emperor’s Children themselves,” Hilts explained.
He pressed a control stud, and the surveillance image of figures in power armour was replaced by a crisper image of a towering figure, clearly taken in a different setting entirely and from a much closer vantage poi
nt. “Now, this is the arch-traitor Sybaris of the Emperor’s Children Legion. Study his features and learn them well.”
In the image, Sybaris’ armour was enamelled with garish hues, eye-watering purple and squint-inducing gold, and encrusted with garish decoration and filigree like a tree choked with vines run amok. What flesh that could be seen within the armour was pale white, and studded with piercings, needles and rings of all varieties. The eyes which gazed out of that white skull seemed deadened and numb, the pupils so wide and dilated that scarcely any iris was visible. These were eyes that had seen too much and never quite recovered. It was a condition that was like the opposite of blindness—rather than milky orbs that could see nothing, these were black eyes that could see everything, and could never look away.
“There are reports that Sybaris’ warband has been sighted in this sector of space, and if so then it is possible that the Emperor’s Children on Vernalis may be under his direct command. If Sybaris is on Vernalis, locating and destroying him will be one of the primary objectives of Task Force Gauntlet.” Sergeant Hilts paused for a moment before continuing. “But it isn’t just Traitor Guardsmen and Chaos Space Marines that we must account for. It also appears possible that daemons have been incarnated on the surface.”
The display cycled again, and now displayed lithe figures glimpsed only fleetingly, moving so fast that they were seen as little more than blurs of purple-tinged corpse-white flesh.
“It has been speculated that these could be further debased elements of the Roaring Blades, perhaps mutated beyond recognition as human by prolonged and constant exposure to the warp. But it is conceivable that they might be incarnate lesser daemons of some stripe, which might account for their apparent speed. It isn’t considered a very likely scenario, but it’s one we’ll have to take into account. In any case, the most likely conclusion based on the evidence at hand is that there are members of the Roaring Blades Traitor Guard on the surface of Vernalis, either in connection with or under the command of some number of Chaos Space Marines of the Emperor’s Children Legion, and that the possibility exists of daemonic incarnation.”
He paused, his gaze scanning the faces of his squad.
“What we don’t know is how many Roaring Blades and Emperor’s Children are on the planet, how they arrived on Vernalis and what they intend to accomplish in their invasion. There is no evidence of space-faring craft in orbit above the planet, and orbital surveys have found no sign of landings anywhere on the surface. Further, it appears that the indigenous Planetary Defence Forces have been completely routed. There is no indication that any organised resistance remains on Vernalis. We should consider this captured territory, and proceed accordingly.”
Upon emerging from the warp in the skies above Vernalis, the strike cruiser Titus had been able to confirm via orbital reconnaissance that the population centres near the planet’s north pole had been deserted, and that the refineries appeared to be running in fully automated modes, crewed by servitors but without any human staff in place. And while the ground-based batteries of the automated planetary defences appeared still to be in fully functional operation, which could explain why the forces of Chaos had not made an all-out aerial assault on the surface, there was no sign of the Vernalis Planetary Defence Force.
With some effort, the Titus had succeeded in establishing spotty radio contact with a group of survivors on the surface, who had holed up in the mountain stronghold on the planet’s western hemisphere that housed the automated controls of the planetary defence systems. But shortly after contact was established the connection had been lost, though whether the loss was due to interference from the white sun’s radiation, or had been caused by some kind of equipment failure on the ground, or was the result of active jamming on the part of the opposition, no one could say.
Captain Lysander and his task force made planetfall with the intent of rendezvousing with the survivors in the stronghold. With the information they would obtain from the inhabitants, they would be able to ascertain the capacities of the opposition, and the extent and range of their control.
It was not expected that Task Force Gauntlet would make contact with the enemy before first reaching the mountain, but still an encounter was a real possibility. Taking that into consideration, when the squads set out from the landing site on the shore, Captain Lysander had put them on a combat footing, and given the squads autonomy to respond to enemy action as their commanding officers saw fit.
Scout s’Tonan hefted his bolt pistol, resisting the temptation to check the action and rack the weapon for the tenth time since they’d left the shale beach. He felt on edge, his senses strained to their limits, searching out any change in the howling chaos that approached them.
The thrumming and shrieking had grown ever louder, ever closer, without the Scouts or their sergeants getting the first glimpse of the enemy. They had continued on through the rolling grey hills, the flint and shale slipping underfoot as they crunched their way forwards. When they crested each rise, they could see the mountain towards which they marched, looming ever larger in the west, but even the enhanced vision of the Astartes could not see any sign of the enemy.
There were some twenty-nine Imperial Fists in Captain Taelos’ column, taking the Scouts and Veteran-Sergeant Hilts of Squad Pardus together with Squads Vulpes and Ursus, both of which were ten-strong, nine Scouts each commanded by a veteran-sergeant.
Squad Pardus was at the front of the column, and Taloc marched right behind Veteran-Sergeant Hilts in the lead. When Captain Taelos called a halt on the leeward side of a hill’s crest, and called for the three veteran-sergeants to join him for a quick counsel, Taloc was near enough to overhear.
“Report,” Captain Taelos said, and quickly added, “and speak freely.”
“Still no sign,” Veteran-Sergeant Hilts said. “And I’m not getting anything on auspex, either.”
Veteran-Sergeant Karn of Squad Vulpes shook his head, a dour expression souring his scar-cheeked face. “Nor am I. Nothing but rock and empty air, and the other two columns to north and south.”
“I’m in vox contact with the other captains,” Captain Taelos said, “but it’s proving difficult to maintain the connection. It seems that there’s a high degree of particulate matter in the atmosphere, probably mineral and almost definitely pumped into the air as a byproduct of the refining processes. It’s scattering our vox-signals badly, and the more air between sender and receiver, the greater the chance of the loss of signal integrity.”
“Could that be what scuttled radio contact between the strike cruiser and the surface?” Veteran-Sergeant Derex of Squad Ursus asked.
“Possibly,” Captain Taelos answered. “The atmosphere is damned dense, too, which doesn’t help. But that may be the reason we can hear but not see the enemy.”
Scout s’Tonan could remember the tactical indoctrination sessions back on the Phalanx in which Veteran-Sergeant Hilts had drilled them on the situational effects of various environments on combat. At the time, Taloc had wondered whether he would ever in his life visit all of the myriad different types of worlds and habitats that Hilts had described, and here he found himself only months later on a world which conformed with one of the atmospheric types that the veteran-sergeant had stressed. And so Taloc recalled easily learning that things in a dense atmosphere could sound as though they were coming from a short distance off, but could in reality be a day’s march away, or even more.
But Taloc also remembered Veteran-Sergeant Hilts warning the Scouts of Squad Pardus that the effects of a dense atmosphere on sound propagation could be deceiving. It wasn’t that near-seeming sounds had to be coming from far off, but that they could. And a warrior that convinced himself into thinking that all sounds were deceptively far away could pay a heavy price.
Captain Taelos noted Veteran-Sergeant Hilts’ expression, and nodded in his direction. “Hilts, you disagree?”
“Yes, sir. About the enemy’s disposition, at least.” He motioned back down the scr
ee to the narrow valley that ran between the hill they stood upon and the hill they had just descended. “We’re going up and over the rises because we’ve been ordered to value time over stealth.”
“Lysander wants us at the mountain quick,” Veteran-Sergeant Derex put in. “I think he’s still burned that the terrain prevents a nearer landing site.”
Hilts nodded and went on. “That may be so. But there’s no reason to assume the enemy is operating under the same constraints. A sizeable force could easily thread their way through the lowest stretches between the hills, and we wouldn’t be able to see them until we were right on top of them.”
“But if they’re trying for stealth,” Veteran-Sergeant Karn asked, “why the clamour and din? That just advertises their position.”
“Not their position,” Captain Taelos said, “only their presence.”
Hilts gave a curt nod. “Who can know the Chaos-warped mind of the heretic? But if it were me out there stalking us, I’d look to the noise to disorient and distract my opponent, while using stealth to approach and attack from concealment. The opponent would know that I was out there somewhere, but wouldn’t know what direction the attack would be coming from, and would be unable to set up adequate defences, particularly if he were on the move.”
Captain Taelos answered only with a steady gaze, looking from one veteran-sergeant to the next. He did not have to say that which they were all thinking. They were an opponent on the move, and were unable to set up adequate defences as a result.
As if in response, the maddening howls of the enemy seemed to grow even louder, though as the wind shifted it was impossible to say whether the sounds were coming from the east or the west, the north or the south.
For their part, the veteran-sergeants returned the captain’s gaze, their silence all the response he required.
“We gain nothing by standing here and waiting for the enemy to arrive,” Captain Taelos said. “We will continue on in the hope that we reach the rendezvous before the enemy attacks. Be prepared for anything.”
[Warhammer 40K] - Sons of Dorn Page 15
