by Gav Thorpe
The Chapter Master’s false hand formed a fist that moved to his forehead, lips and chest in quick succession in a sign of fraternity. Koorland met the gesture with a simple nod.
Behind Issachar stood three warriors, one in the livery of the Chaplains and two that bore markings of the Librarium. The Black Templars occasionally threw menacing stares at the pair of psykers but the Excoriators feigned ignorance of their brothers’ antipathy.
Opposite Issachar was a warrior that Koorland did not know. His armour bore no livery at all, the drab grey ceramite coloured only by heat swirls and splashes of dried blood. Only one Chapter that Koorland knew of did not paint their armour – the Fists Exemplar. The warrior was flanked by a Space Marine bearing the burnt remnants of a trapezoid banner and another with a long spear held in both hands.
Last at the table was Chapter Master Quesadra of the Crimson Fists. The Crimson Fists were almost as numerous as the Black Templars contingent, with two banner bearers, a cup-holder and three more Space Marines with thunder hammers held across their chests.
Their commander’s armour was highly polished, shining in the light that spilled from the chandeliers above the table, shoulder pads inlaid with sapphire-like stones, the red circled fist of the Chapter icon picked out in delicately faceted rubies. Quesadra regarded Koorland in the same manner a warrior might size up a potential foe, mentally measuring his capabilities. To Koorland it felt as if those bright blue eyes were stripping him down to the soul, and he was relieved when Quesadra turned his laser-like gaze on Bohemond.
Faced with the grandeur and panoply of these mighty leaders Koorland felt inadequate in his plain, damaged battleplate. Doubts crowded his thoughts as he advanced across the tiles, the clang of his tread echoing around the large hall. Who was he to call upon these leaders and legends? Greydove was a normal man, easily impressed by those with superior physique and skill. The warriors that awaited Koorland at the table were of an order far above a lieutenant in the Navy.
Koorland realised that his actions were not those of a brave survivor, but those of a foolish, petulant child. How did he dare refuse the will of the High Lords? What did he hope to achieve here? It was petty of him to place his desires above the needs of the Imperium. The worst conceit was the notion that he could still make a difference, that somehow he could single-handedly save the reputation of the Imperial Fists. What arrogance, they would say.
Stopping beside the chair at the bottom of the table, directly opposite Bohemond, Koorland paused and took a deep breath. He looked at the officer from the Fists Exemplar.
‘I am Koorland, of the Imperial Fists. I have the honour of knowing the names and titles of the others assembled here, but I regret that you have me at a loss.’
‘Thane,’ said the Space Marine. He hesitated before continuing, a flicker of a tic in his right eye. ‘Chapter Master Thane, these last few weeks.’
‘By my honour, I make acquaintance,’ said Koorland, bowing before he seated himself.
‘You are welcome, Captain Koorland,’ said Bohemond, his voice booming across the hall. ‘There is sense in us coming together to share intelligence of the foe and strategy for their destruction. We have spent some time appraising one another of our efforts, and I do not wish to waste time repeating such reports, but for the benefit of our new arrival I would make a quick summary of the situation.’
Bohemond looked around the table and there were no objections raised.
‘Good,’ he continued. ‘The orks continue to press towards Terra on all fronts and the situation, already dire, is threatening almost total collapse. Almost. Having extracted our brothers in the Fists Exemplar from their fortress-monastery I have been calling together several crusades still operating in the Segmentum Solar. As you might expect, there is little to appeal to my marshals in these relatively calm systems and so the majority of our crusades are much further from the Imperial centre. It will take time for them to arrive.’
‘Such calmness has occluded proper recognition of the threats at hand,’ said Issachar.
Bohemond scowled, perceiving the comment to be an accusation, but he pressed on with his report without argument.
‘It has fallen to us and the Crimson Fists in particular, as well as Chapters of other heritage, to wage the mobile war against the ork attackers. The Imperial Navy stands almost idle. We have filled the breach as best we can, but we have not the numbers to stand and fight at every contested star system. The orks move closer and closer to Terra each day while the Imperial Guard twiddle their thumbs on their mustering fields and the Imperial Navy watches with disinterest. If I could spare the bolts I would fall upon these traitors myself, but the orks are enough opposition for the moment. When the orks are driven back there will be time to punish those who have so easily forgotten their oaths.’
‘Report arrives daily of another system fallen, another ork incursion, all accounted to the ravages of the Beast,’ said Quesadra. ‘We attack when we can, but we kill hundreds when we need to kill thousands, thousands when we must slay millions. We come to the aid of the Imperium as ancient oaths decree, but the Imperium seems unable to fight for itself. Not since Ullanor have we seen such a greenskin threat. Their numbers are beyond measure and matched by greater cunning than we have ever thought possible. Even as the orks are coordinated and focused, the forces of the Imperium are scattered and beset.’
‘Let us not forget the sacrifice of many brave thousands that have given their blood defending their homes,’ added Thane. ‘They have taken a toll of the alien invaders also.’
A few of the Space Marines bowed their heads in silent thanks. Koorland did likewise, remembering his dead wall-brothers.
‘Yes, but the sacrifices will not be swiftly concluded,’ said Issachar. He glanced at Bohemond and received a nod of permission to continue. ‘The issuing of the Last Wall protocol is a grave matter, but I think it is just this situation for which the Primarch intended it. The Imperium is beset by a foe that will likely triumph over other forces. No Chapter alone can stand against this menace and so the bonds of old, forged by the Emperor’s hand and broken by the dictate of the Lord Commander, must be joined again. The sons of Dorn will stand united once more.’
‘Indeed!’ Bohemond’s voice boomed across the hall. It dropped in volume as he continued with furrowed brow. ‘I was surprised to find that it was not Cassus Mirhen that had sent the herald signal.’
‘The Chapter Master is dead,’ replied Koorland.
‘A tragedy we have recently experienced,’ said Thane, nodding in sympathy. ‘He was a great leader. You are the surviving ranking captain, I assume?’
‘The only survivor,’ said Koorland quietly.
‘And tell me, Captain Koorland, why it is that you come here alone, aboard an Imperial Navy vessel no less?’ asked Bohemond, darting a look of annoyance at Thane’s interruption. ‘Where are your warriors and the rest of the fleet? You call us to the Last Wall and yet you come alone.’
‘You misunderstand me, brothers.’ Koorland bowed his head. ‘I was not the only surviving officer at Ardamantua. I was the only survivor.’
Silence greeted this declaration.
Quesadra started to say something but the words died on his lips. Koorland looked at each of the Space Marines around the table and saw the same emotions in their expressions: hardened warriors brought to a standstill by confusion, anger, pity. It was the last that caused him the most pain and sent him surging to his feet.
‘The Imperial Fists are no more,’ he said, and speaking aloud the fact made the shame of it surge through Koorland. ‘Save for me, they are all dead.’
He swallowed hard. He had faced death without fear a thousand times. He had been wounded, three times grievously, and now ripped back from the edge of oblivion by the ministrations of the tech-priests. Even during the horrors of Ardamantua Koorland had never felt scared, not truly. To stand here and say w
hat he was about to say was the most terrifying experience of his life. He did not know what was going to happen as soon as he uttered the words. The future was a black abyss waiting to swallow him, but there was nothing else to be done but to plunge headlong into its dark embrace.
He looked at each of the Chapter Masters in turn and said the words that no son of Dorn wanted to hear. They were words that signified loss. More than that, a defeat so great, so shameful, that to anyone not of the Imperial Fists or Successors the words might seem trite. Yet to those who had Dorn’s gene-seed it was a statement that would make such honoured blood run cold, an admittance of the worst failure imaginable.
‘The final wall has fallen.’
Fifteen
Port Sanctus – inner system
‘All hands! All hands! Prepare for fleet address! All hands! Attention for the Lord High Admiral!’
Shaffenbeck’s voice boomed out over every internal comms system across the Colossus, and the order was being repeated across the dozens of ships heading in-system towards the ork attack moon. The greater part of the greenskins’ strength still lay ahead, as scores of vessels rushed out from the star base’s vicinity to confront the Imperial attack. The sensor team aboard the Colossus had calculated the enemy strength at roughly forty-eight capital-sized ships and over a hundred smaller vessels.
‘Where did so many ships come from?’ Kulik asked Price as the two of them sat in the communications cabin waiting for Lansung’s speech. Neither of them were excited by the prospect of the Lord High Admiral’s bombastic self-aggrandisement and so they had cloistered themselves away from the main bridge for the moment. ‘I mean, not just here, but all across the segmentum? If every attack moon has a fleet this size, that’s decades, centuries of building.’
‘Yes, but not all of it by the orks.’
Price spread out pict-captures from the fleet of the ork vessels they had destroyed. Many were ghastly constructions, seemingly thrown together as much as they were designed. They sprouted improbably large and armoured gun turrets, packed weapons decks, oversized engines and outlandish decoration.
Quite a few, however, were recognisable as having once been other types of vessels. Kulik saw many Imperial ships, from destroyers up to heavy cruisers, that had been somehow taken by the orks and retro-fitted in their own fashion. Even just amongst those already encountered, there were enough captured Navy vessels to form a sizeable flotilla. There were also dozens of merchant ships that had been up-gunned and up-armoured with the simple addition of weapons turrets and shield generators.
‘That explains it in part, but they’ve got more of our ships than the Battlefleet Solar. How have they not been noticed missing?’
‘It seems the orks have been… stockpiling for some time.’
‘Stockpiling? You mean that the orks have been deliberately building their forces somewhere, waiting for this moment to attack?’
‘I don’t know about waiting for this moment, but the massed fleets, the attack moons, all have arrived almost simultaneously,’ Price said with a heavy sigh. ‘It’s impossible to put this down to coincidence. There is a far grander purpose behind these attacks, I’m sure of it. As to where and how the orks managed to build these things, that’s a mystery for another day. There’re huge tracts of space that have never been surveyed, even with our current Naval strength. It only takes a few systems to slip past us to hide a fleet this size.’
‘But… orks doing this?’ Kulik simply could not get his head around the idea. ‘Orks laying low and strategising in this manner is unheard of. It is, to put it a certain way, totally alien to them. I know we hardly know anything about them really, there’s been few encounters over the last centuries, but they’ve always been aggressive, invasive.’
‘Something has changed, that’s for sure,’ said Price. He gathered up the vid-captures into a pile and stacked them neatly to one side. ‘These damned orks not only have a plan, they have a larger objective, something we’re not seeing.’
‘Other than a steady encroachment, there’s been no pattern to their attacks,’ said Kulik. ‘They don’t seem to be heading anywhere in particular. Some have been strategically important systems, some are backwaters that nobody had heard of until they were invaded. If they’ve been hoarding ships all of this time, centuries probably, surely it would be for something more specific than just a huge jolly war?’
‘I don’t just mean the orks overall, I mean the orks here, in Port Sanctus. This fleet is large in comparison to some of the scattered reports we received. There must be something about the dockyards that they really want, pulling in a whole damned armada to get it. Why did Acharya have to choose this system of all the ones the orks have attacked to prove himself?’
‘It’s self-sustaining, isn’t it? The orks must have known about the shipyards, and if they can take them they know they can build even more ships.’ Kulik glanced at the chronometer. Lansung’s speech would be received shortly.
‘If that’s true, then perhaps it is best that we’re here. There’s no telling how much stronger they’ll get if they keep taking facilities and systems at this rate. Every conquest seems to be fuelling more, but to what end?’
‘I think you’re giving them too much credit, sir,’ said Kulik, standing up. ‘I doubt they even know why they’re doing half of this. Maybe there is a smart ork out there, something more intelligent than we’ve met before, but it certainly isn’t in control. It’s a figurehead, something like that. There’s not an ork in the universe that could prepare and coordinate an invasion like this.’
‘I hope you’re wrong,’ said Price, following Kulik as the captain made his way back to the bridge in anticipation of the Lord High Admiral’s address.
‘How so, sir? Do you really think it would bode well for the Imperium if there was such a creature?’
‘It would be worse for us if there isn’t. If the Beast really is behind this calamity, someone can find it and kill it and bring this invasion to an end. If not… I have no idea what we can do to stop them.’
With this sobering thought in mind Kulik stepped back onto the bridge just in time for Saul’s announcement.
‘Incoming live-feed transmission. Fleet-wide address from the Autocephalax Eternal¸ flagship of Lord High Admiral Lansung.’
‘Open channels for reception, broadcast to all stations,’ Kulik said as he took his place at his usual spot at the centre of the bridge.
‘All hands! All hands! Prepare for fleet address! All hands! Attention for the Lord High Admiral!’
On the big screen Lansung’s face appeared, as round and massive as an ork attack moon. Fortunately for most of the crew they would be receiving audio only and did not have to watch a sweat bead almost as big as Kulik’s fist sliding down the cheek of the Lord High Admiral and into the fold between two of his chins.
‘We are about to embark on a mission that is vital to the continued future of the Imperium,’ announced Lansung. ‘What happens over the next few hours could well determine the course of mankind’s dominance amongst the stars for the next hundred generations. I know you do not wish to spend these next few minutes listening to me babble on about glory, honour and respect. You have all been raised in the finest traditions of the Navy and I have only a short message, which I am sure you will all understand and take to heart.’
Lansung drew in a deep breath and Kulik thought he saw uncertainty in the plate-sized eyes staring down at them. The Lord High Admiral closed his eyes, perhaps in contemplation, or perhaps in resignation, it was impossible to tell. He spoke without opening them.
‘The Emperor expects every man to do his duty.’
As the last word echoed around the bridge the transmission ended. Kulik wondered what could possibly lead a man like Lansung, a man who had demonstrated on every previous occasion a need to hear his own voice at tremendous length, to deliver such a short oration.
&nbs
p; ‘He’s scared,’ whispered Price, as if guessing Kulik’s thoughts. ‘He really isn’t sure if we’re going to win today.’
‘I’ll settle for surviving,’ said the captain. ‘That’ll do me just fine.’
‘I don’t think that’s an option, Rafal,’ said the admiral. ‘If we don’t destroy those orks, none of us is getting out of Port Sanctus alive.’
Comforting, thought Kulik. Just the sort of encouragement I’ve been hoping for.
The captain scratched his chin for a few seconds.
‘Aye aye, sir,’ he growled.
Sixteen
Terra – the Imperial Palace
The moment the door swished open Wienand knew something was wrong.
For a start, an amber light glowed dimly on the entry access panel on the wall to her left. Somebody with inquisitorial clearance had entered her official chambers, other than herself or Rendenstein. In itself this was no cause for undue alarm, but it was unusual for anybody to come here when Wienand was not present.
The second factor that made Wienand stop just inside the door was the silence. Rendenstein was supposed to be here, and that always meant the faint buzz of a digi-reader or the clatter of a terminal keypad, even just the soft tread of Rendenstein as she made her random security checks. There was nothing. The buzzing of the air circulation units had fallen silent. It was part of the defence features of the chambers that all electrical systems would cut out if an energy spike was detected. In this case it was probably a lasweapon discharge, although it could be something as simple as a power cylinder from a plasma weapon or even the field source for a power sword or other energy weapon. Even the crack of a bullet was enough to set off the delicate sonic detectors secreted throughout the offices.
Also, just beneath the keypad of the door security system was the faintest red smudge of a fingerprint. Wienand had instantly recognised it as blood. There was no trace on the keypad itself – wiped clean by the interloper, no doubt – but instinct told her that the blood belonged to Rendenstein.
