by Gav Thorpe
‘Aye, captain, carry on!’ Price replied with a wave of the hand.
Outside the armoured confines of the bridge Kulik could immediately hear sounds of fighting echoing along the corridor. Shouts and small-arms fire rang from the metal walls. He broke into a gentle run with Shaffenbeck at his heel, heading for the closest stairwell down to the deck below.
‘Mister Cabriot,’ he barked, lifting his cuff-piece communicator to his mouth, ‘with the admiral’s assent, have helm move us away from the attack ships, and order all weapons batteries to target them as soon as they come to bear. Let’s cut off the flow of reinforcements if we can.’
‘Aye aye, sir,’ came the crackling reply.
It took less than a minute to reach the top of the stairs but there was no sign of Sergeant Latheram and his armsmen. Kulik made towards the steps but Shaffenbeck grabbed his elbow and stopped him.
‘We need to wait for the armsmen, sir,’ said the lieutenant.
‘That could be another five minutes, we’ve got men fighting and dying right beneath our feet, man!’
‘All the same, sir, we can’t do anything for them yet, unless we want to join them in the Emperor’s locker box.’
‘This isn’t like you, Saul,’ said Kulik, pulling free his arm. ‘Never seen you back down from a fight, not in all the years we’ve served together.’
‘It’s the admiral, sir.’ Shaffenbeck looked away, ashamed.
Kulik knew the mannerism well; the lieutenant wanted to say something but considered it too far outside his remit to utter the thoughts.
‘Out with it, you know you can trust me, Saul. What about the admiral?’
‘I don’t trust him, not with the Colossus. He’s been acting odd ever since Lord High Admiral Lansung arrived. No, before then. This feud with Acharya, that’s what started it off.’
‘Price is a decorated and capable commander, lieutenant,’ Kulik said sternly. He saw a sudden fear in Shaffenbeck’s eyes. Not the fear of the physical but fear of reprimand, of failing in honour or duty. It softened the captain’s mood immediately. ‘There’s a lot at stake, you heard what Lansung told him. Price is under a lot of pressure.’
‘I think he’s buckling…’ Shaffenbeck let the thought drift away as boots clattered on the stairs above them, heralding the arrival of Sergeant Latheram and his armsmen.
‘Reporting as ordered, captain.’ The gaunt warrant officer snapped off a salute. ‘Got fifty men from the lance crews, sir, with shotters and boarding gaffes. Shall I lead the way, captain?’
Kulik could hardly refuse as the wiry man almost pushed his way past and shouted to his men to follow.
The armsmen of the Colossus wore the same deep blue as the officers, with red stripes on the legs and piping of the same on their plasteel-mesh-reinforced jackets. Their wore full-visored helms and rebreathers, and carried stubby shotguns and lascarbines – short-ranged but effective weapons perfect for the brutal and bloody work of shipboard combat.
Kulik started down the steps not far behind Latheram, with Shaffenbeck right behind him. The sergeant turned left at the bottom of the steps, heading aft, where the sounds of fighting were louder.
‘Captain, we have two more teleport registers close to your position. One astern of c-section, one in the prow sensor access tunnels,’ reported Lieutenant Cabriot.
‘Sergeant, we need to head for’ard. There’s another lot of greenskins attacking the sensor arrays. If they take them offline we’ll be blind and deaf.’
‘Right you are, sir,’ said the sergeant. He performed an abrupt about-face, power maul on his shoulder, pistol in his other hand. ‘This way, lads. Don’t dawdle!’
Flashes of gunfire shone from the bare bulkheads a couple of hundred feet ahead of the party – the watch lieutenants on each deck were issued with keys to the firearms lockers when a ship went to general quarters. There were sporadic snaps of laser fire, but far more bass cracks and bangs from the orks’ slug-throwers. Bestial growls and roars, punctuated by the wet slosh of blood, the snap of shattering bones and howls of pain, made Kulik glad he had listened to Saul and not dashed headlong into the melee.
In the light of the gunfight large, brutish shadows were thrown against the walls ahead. Kulik counted at least a dozen bodies strewn along the passageway before them, contorted and battered so badly they were barely recognisable as human. With a sinking heart the captain counted no orkish casualties amongst the dead.
‘Captain, the tech-priests have locked down the sensor chambers and secured the prow bulkheads, but they say that the orks have brought cutting gear with them. They’ll be through in a matter of minutes.’ Hartnell sounded calm enough over the comm, but Kulik could imagine the tension on the bridge. Fighting a battle was bad enough, but doing so while hulking alien brutes were rampaging through your ship – and capable of teleporting an attack seemingly at will – was probably testing the nerves of even the bravest officers.
‘Do you think they know what’s in there, sir?’ asked Shaffenbeck, looking paler than usual.
‘I hope not,’ said the captain. ‘Because if this is a deliberate attack to cripple our sensors, the orks know a whole lot more about our ships than I’m happy about.’
‘Best we stop them, eh, sir?’ suggested Shaffenbeck with a forced smile.
‘At the double, please, sergeant.’ Kulik tried to exude confidence with his voice but his words sounded slightly shrill. ‘Let’s kill these orks before they cut through into the sensorium.’
As the company broke into a run, Kulik and Shaffenbeck surrounded by armsmen and shotgun-wielding ratings, the captain’s hands started sweating profusely. It was odd, considering how dry his mouth had become.
They rounded a corner into the corridor leading to the first bank of scanners. Fortunately, for all their guile in targeting the ship’s engines and trying to disable the scanning array, the orks were not so advanced that they had thought of leaving a rearguard. In fact, only about two dozen of them had stayed with the spark-spitting cutters at the bulkhead outside the sensor chambers. Presumably the others, having safely delivered the cutting crew to their objective, were off looking for more butchery and fun. Kulik would have breathed a sigh of relief had he not been out of breath from the running; commanding a capital ship was not always the most physically taxing of jobs and though he had made efforts to stay in shape, age was catching up with him. A glance at Shaffenbeck showed that the first lieutenant was at least reddening in the face a little.
One of the orks glanced back at the sound of tramping boots and let out a noise somewhere between a cry of alarm and a whoop of joy. Responding, the other greenskins turned as the first armsmen opened fire with their lascarbines, filling the passage with red bolts of light and the scent of ionising air. A few orks fell casualty to the salvo, but a plethora of pistols and stubby-nosed automatic weapons rose like a thicket around the survivors. Kulik slowed his run as he stared into the multitude of gun barrels.
The clatter of the orks’ return fire combined with the boom of shotguns, deafening Kulik in the enclosed space. The captain fired his pistol into the face of an ork about forty feet in front of him. The las-blast ricocheted off the side of its head, leaving a scorch mark in its green flesh but doing no greater damage. Bullets screamed and whirred past Kulik – inches away, it felt.
Saul was yelling encouragement, urging on the ratings as more and more of them fell to the scything ork bullets.
‘Up and at them, men of Colossus!’ roared Kulik without really understanding what he was doing.
An armsman just in front of the captain fell sideways, his head and helmet scattering bloodily across the corridor. Two orks wielding the ramshackle cutting devices turned their equipment on the charging humans. Lightning arced, catching Sergeant Latheram and three more men in a tempest of black and green energy.
An unthinking rage fuelled Kulik as he thumbed the
power switch of his sword. A flickering energy field flowed along the blade, casting bizarre, jolting shadows on the walls. A tiny, more rational part of the captain’s mind screamed in terror, but it erupted from his mouth as a wordless bellow of defiance.
Around their captain, long boarding pikes held level, the lance gunners charged too, driving the tips of their gaffes towards the greenskins. Shaffenbeck had his sword in hand, its blade the near-transparent blue of tempered plasteel alloyed with ardamite crystal threads.
One-on-one the men of the battleship would have been no match for the bestial greenskins, but as a mass they pressed in, following their officers, united in purpose and momentum. Years spent working the aiming gears and exchanging the energy cells of the immense lance cannons had made the ratings tough, muscled men, and with the force of desperation and the shout of their lord and master ringing in their ears, they drove home their spears with irresistible force.
The orks crashed heavy mauls and cleavers against the metal-sheathed hafts of the boarding pikes, but to little avail. Pinioned in many places, the closest orks were pushed back into their companions, the men behind the pikes twisting the shafts as they had been taught, to drive their weapons even deeper through flesh.
Kulik stabbed the tip of his sword into the eye of a transfixed alien, ramming half the blade into its head to be sure. On his right, Shaffenbeck slashed the guts out of another greenskin. There was no room for parry and thrust, cut and riposte. The captain lashed out almost blindly; it was impossible to miss, his only care to avoid his crewmen with his wide swings. It was not so much swordsmanship as it was butchery skill.
Miraculously, Sergeant Latheram had somehow survived the strike from the electro-cutters, though his chest, left arm and half his face were a mass of burns. There was smoke drifting from his hair and the ragged remains of his clothes. A single eye stared wildly from the mass of scorched tissue, filled with such loathing that it scared Kulik. The sergeant brought his glowing power maul down onto the skull of an ork, crushing it with a single blow. Another sweep caved in the chest of another.
Kulik felt the armsmen surge again around him and was happy to be pushed back away from the melee for a moment, lashing out one last strike across the throat of an ork that was trying to bite the head from one of the pikemen. Shotguns barked, lethal even to the orks at this close range, shredding bodies and obliterating heads and limbs.
Kulik stumbled out of the side of the fighting, coming up hard against the bulkhead, almost collapsing as his head crashed against a stanchion. As ever, Shaffenbeck was just a step behind, in time to grab his captain to stop him falling over.
Wincing, stars dancing across his vision, Kulik turned his back to the bulkhead and eased himself against it, taking gasps of warm, sweaty air. The corridor was filled with battle-din – noises more animal than human or ork, shouts and sounds of flesh being ruined as the last of the aliens fought ferociously against the inevitable. Glancing around, Kulik could see at least a score of his own men dead, piled on the decking where they had been shot, cut down or clubbed to death.
It then fell eerily quiet, the only sound ragged panting and the groans of the wounded ratings and armsmen. There was the bark of a shot. Men with shotguns and boarding pikes moved amongst the ork fallen, cutting and shooting off their heads to ensure they were dead. Kulik could see a few of the survivors tending to the casualties; an armsman whose arm had been ripped off was helped away as he numbly searched amongst the blood and gore for the missing limb.
‘That’s the last of them, sir!’ Shaffenbeck said with a weary grin.
‘No it isn’t,’ the captain replied, heaving in another breath. ‘A whole bunch have split off and the Emperor alone knows where they’ve got to.’
A huge shudder along the hull almost knocked Kulik’s head back against the bulkhead, reminding him that defeating the orks aboard was only one of his concerns. They were still in the midst of a massive space battle. He needed to get back to the bridge – Shaffenbeck was right that Price was not one hundred per cent capable at the moment – but he didn’t want to abandon his men to the fraught ork-hunt through the corridors of the battleship.
‘I’ll coordinate the purge from here, sir,’ Shaffenbeck said, reading the conflict in his superior’s expression. ‘Get back to the bridge where you can do the most good.’
‘Very well,’ Kulik replied gratefully. ‘Keep an eye out, I don’t want to have to go looking for another officer, do you hear? Sergeant Latheram, I commend your bravery but I am also ordering you and all other wounded to report to the surgeon’s halls. Call in more men once the flight decks have been secured, Mister Shaffenbeck.’
The armsman sergeant looked about to argue, but thought better of it and accepted his captain’s command with a stiff salute, the action of which sent a ripple of pain across his face. Two men stepped up to helped their injured leader but he waved them away and started off aft under his own power.
‘You know,’ said Shaffenbeck, watching the sergeant leave, ‘with men like that, we might just win this damned battle.’
Kulik was too tired to admonish Saul for his cursing. He pushed himself upright, sheathed his sword and holstered his pistol. Straightening his coat and his back with equal effort, the captain started back towards the bridge. Medical orderlies were coming down the corridor and he gave them a nod of appreciation as he passed.
Action shaped thought, and by acting reserved and disciplined some of Kulik’s calm had returned by the time he was back at the bridge. The adrenal rush of the hack and slay of combat was ebbing away, but as he had told Shaffenbeck, they were nowhere near the end of this fight yet.
The bridge doors groaned open in front of Kulik and he stepped back onto the command deck. It took him a moment to adjust from the frenzied shouts and sweaty gore of hand-to-hand combat, to the rhythmic chatter of servitors and the soft exchanges of the bridge crew. Behind the armoured doors seemed a different world and Kulik felt almost dizzy with the dissonance. He was brought back to focus by Price.
‘Ah, there you are, captain. I hope you enjoyed yourself disposing of our unwanted guests.’
‘It’s being dealt with.’ Kulik took in a sharp breath. ‘Admiral.’
The captain assumed his usual position and passed a quick eye over every screen and console. The ork ships with the teleporters had been destroyed and the squadron of cruisers assisting Colossus had broken through the orks. Three cruisers were crippled and that many again destroyed from the flotilla. The rest of the rimward fleet was not quite so badly mauled, having had extra time to respond to the ork ruse. The coreward flotilla, which made up the starboard axis of the attack, was almost unscathed. The patrol flotilla ships were now in a position to turn back and trap a large part of the ork fleet against the main line of the rimward fleet. Price seemed to be in the middle of ordering the relief attack, and half the flotilla had already started the manoeuvre.
‘Communication from the flagship, captain,’ reported Lieutenant Hartnell.
‘Accept transmission,’ Kulik replied, crossing his arms.
A sub-screen enlarged, filled with the static of a vid-comm burst. The face of Lord High Admiral Lansung glared down at the men on the bridge.
‘What are you turning around for, Price?’ Lansung demanded. ‘The route to the ork star base is open. You will rendezvous with Commodore Semmes and continue the attack without delay. That is my command.’
Price stepped back as if struck, brow knotted. He signalled for the comms officer to switch to transmission.
‘This is Admiral Price. If we abandon the rimward fleet now, they will suffer badly at the hands of the orks. They’re taking on pretty much all of the enemy on their own at the moment. We must provide assistance.’
The admiral turned away and started to pace while he waited for a reply. Kulik stopped him at one end of his perambulations.
‘Sir, I think the Lord Hig
h Admiral is right,’ the captain admitted. ‘We have to push home the advantage while the attack moon is virtually unguarded. The orks have been trying to keep us away from the base as hard as they can, and I don’t think it’s as invulnerable as they want us to believe. The flight wings of the Colossus are needed for the attack, along with the rest of the carrier group.’
Before Price could answer, Lansung’s message arrived through the aether. He looked calm, but his voice was edged with rage.
‘Admiral Price, I have given you a direct order. Colossus and all attendant ships are to join the attack on the ork star fort. Failure to obey will be mutiny.’
‘Ignore him,’ snapped Price. ‘Continue to come about.’
‘Belay that!’ Kulik felt Price’s glare like a slap across the face and flushed red with shame, but there was no other option. ‘Admiral, we must obey and join the attack.’
‘Officer of the watch, have the armsmen attend to the bridge and place Captain Kulik in custody. He is under arrest for insubordination.’
‘Belay that order,’ growled Kulik. The officers around the bridge looked on, horrified as they watched their two commanders arguing. The captain laid his hand on the hilt of his sword and stared at Price. He was shaking, scared more by this confrontation than by the bloody fight with the greenskins. ‘This is my ship, admiral, and I have received a direct order from the Lord High Admiral. You will remove yourself from my bridge and remain in your quarters until such time as you have recovered your composure.’
Price bridled, lip quivering with indignation. Kulik leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper.
‘For the sake of the men, do not require me to summon the armsmen, sir. Let us act like officers.’
Kulik’s words seemed to strike a chord somewhere in the admiral’s mind and a hint of realisation crept into his expression. He nodded mutely, confused, and then shook his head. Kulik thought Price was going to argue again, but the admiral’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
