The Last Wall Read online

  ‘Does that mean there will be time for the fleet to return?’ Ekharth’s wistfulness was childlike. It was picked up by the assembly. The murmur of hope was loud as thunder, fragile as gossamer.

  ‘Unknown.’ Kubik’s brief response was as close to a shrug as the Fabricator General came.

  ‘The orks will let us know,’ Lansung said.

  The crowd rumble grew discontented.

  ‘Is that what you propose?’ Juskina Tull asked. ‘That we wait to find out? That is not acceptable.’

  ‘Do you see an alternative, Speaker?’ Some of Lansung’s old sneer came back.

  ‘We take the fight to the orks.’

  Now Lansung laughed. The sound was ugly with contempt and despair. ‘But of course. How idiotic that no one else thought of that. I suppose you have a brilliant way of doing this in the absence of the Imperial Navy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The one word shut down Lansung’s response and brought everyone up short. The silence of a collective breath being held fell over the Great Chamber. Tull rose from her seat. As she began to speak, she walked along the perimeter of the dais. Her robes were a magisterial red and black. She orated with one bare arm outstretched and punctuating each point with sweeping gestures. She held her left arm across her waist, a fold of her robes draped over it, and she strode the stage of the assembly as if born for this moment.

  ‘The defence of the Imperium,’ she proclaimed, ‘is not just the responsibility of the Navy, the Astra Militarum, or the Adeptus Astartes.’ She paused. ‘It is the responsibility of every citizen, of every human.’ She tilted her head back, as if gazing onto distant battlefields. ‘In this hour of greatest need, the Imperium calls upon all of us. I will not refuse to answer. Will any of you?’

  She waited, and the cries of ‘No!’ came on cue, building on each other and on the anticipated salvation her confidence promised. Though he had no idea where Tull was going with this performance, Vangorich was impressed. Tull had always been a figure of great presence among the High Lords. The peace that had lured the Imperium into its deadly complacency had also denied Tull the opportunity to influence the currents of policy as much as she would have liked. Now she was in her glory.

  ‘The greenskins have their moon. What are the numbers that threaten us?’

  Kubik said, ‘We have as yet no way of properly measuring the scale of–’

  ‘What does it matter when we are billions?’ Tull shouted to the tiers. Her voice rang with strength. It was the sound of defiance. Vangorich had a sudden image of countless iterations of Juskina Tull, stretching back through human history, standing on clifftops and hurling her indomitability at invaders, inspiring the armies behind her to the impossible. The power she had was magnificent. His concern was how she would choose to wield it.

  ‘The orks have weapons,’ Tull said. ‘Don’t we? They have ships. Don’t we? They have the presumption to believe they can invade us? Then we shall invade them! We will flood them with such numbers that the fear they have visited upon our world will pale before their own terror!’

  She took a step back, her face shining, as the crowd’s roar swept over the dais in waves.

  So much hope, Vangorich thought, and Tull hadn’t offered a single concrete detail of her proposed miracle.

  Lansung said, ‘And how is this invasion going to take place without the presence of the Navy?’

  Tull turned her smile on him, and it was eviscerating in its forbearance. ‘We don’t need the Navy.’ She looked back to the assembly. ‘We have the Merchant Fleets! We have ships beyond counting! Right here, at anchor over Terra and in the Sol System, we have more vessels than the orks could ever hope to defend against. I am issuing an immediate recall of all Merchant ships. We shall have a fleet that will fill the void. This fleet will carry our millions to the obscenity in our skies and destroy the orks utterly. This is the hour of the Proletarian Crusade!’

  The clamour that greeted her pronouncement shook the walls of the Great Chamber. If sound could be harnessed as power, the ork moon would have been blasted in that moment. Vangorich saw one of Kubik’s limbs twitch as the sudden peak in sound overwhelmed his sensory inputs.

  When the crest of the celebration faded, Verreault spoke up, indignant. ‘You speak as if Terra has no defenders.’

  The smile Tull favoured him with was different from the one she had given Lansung. It was an invitation to join her in the light of victory. ‘I am not forgetting the Imperial Guard, Lord Commander Militant,’ she said. ‘The Merchants’ Armada will of course transport the full force of the Emperor’s Fist. But we must strike with all the might and anger that Terra can muster. You would not deny the people this great chance to stand for the Imperium?’

  ‘You know I wouldn’t,’ Verreault answered.

  Vangorich was still trying to process the implications of Tull’s plan. The scale of the madness was so vast, it outstripped horror.

  Lansung was having some of the same difficulty.

  ‘How are you going to destroy the fortress with unarmed vessels?’ he asked.

  ‘We aren’t,’ said Tull. ‘As I said, this is an invasion.’

  ‘Ground troops?’ Vangorich said, aghast.

  ‘Yes.’ Orating again, she continued, ‘I will not pretend that great sacrifices do not lie ahead, on Terra and above. Production will suffer. Those who remain will have to do the work of the millions at war. Many ships will be lost in the assault. Many warriors will be lost in the landing and in the storming of the fortress. But the orks cannot stop them all. We are too many.’

  Warming to the idea and the role he would play in the triumph to come, Verreault said, ‘Under the command of the Astra Militarum, the people of Terra will sweep the orks to oblivion.’

  Lansung’s jaw hung open for a moment. Then he sat back, defeated. Unless and until the Imperial Navy was able to aid Terra, he was an irrelevance, and he knew it.

  ‘You surprise me,’ Vangorich said to Verreault. The Lord Commander Militant was more of a political animal than his predecessor. Heth had always struck Vangorich as being more at home in combat than in governance. Verreault, though a veteran, had spent much of his career leading from the strategium table. It was easier for him to see troops as pieces in a game of regicide, and losses as statistics. Vangorich wondered if he realised that he was a junior partner in the alliance with Tull, as the Guard had been when Lansung’s star had been in the ascendant. The plan was Tull’s, as was the armada. Verreault’s share of the glory would be what she permitted.

  Vangorich caught himself. There would be no glory to partition. The proposal was mad. Even a group as prone to self-delusion as the High Lords couldn’t be blind to that fact.

  Yet Verreault was unfazed by his comment.

  ‘Speaker Tull’s argument has merit,’ the Lord Commander Militant said. ‘The regiments of the Astra Militarum stationed on Terra don’t have the numbers we need against an entire world of orks, even with the reinforcement of the Penal Legions. The call has been sent to the entire Imperial Guard. But the Cadians, the Valhallans, the Mordians…’

  ‘They still need to get here,’ said Lansung.

  ‘And they are already engaging the orks.’

  Ekharth spoke up. ‘The mechanics of recruitment will be complex. There is little time.’

  ‘I have no doubt that the Administratum is up to the challenge,’ said Tull.

  ‘It is. This will be a mobilisation to give birth to legends!’ The cheer that answered him wasn’t as excited as the ones that Tull summoned, but it was the greatest Ekharth, a poor speaker, had ever received.

  ‘When great sacrifice is called for, faith and inspiration are more vital than ever,’ Mesring said.

  ‘They are indeed,’ said Tull.

  Vangorich vowed to track down those responsible for giving the Ecclesiarch the antidote to the poison the Grand Maste
r had introduced into his system. Now Mesring would be spreading the toxins of his influence even more effectively. Tull’s strategy was lunatic, but it was also brilliant. At a stroke, she had Verreault, Ekharth and Mesring invested in the plan. Lansung was opposed, but he was a pariah. Udo was eager to distance himself from the High Admiral, so Vangorich expected him to side with Tull also. If Gibran, Sark and Anwar had reservations, they were not voicing them.

  ‘The information such an invasion could gather would be invaluable,’ Kubik said.

  Even Zeck was nodding with approval. ‘The people need something concrete,’ he said. ‘The recruitment should redirect energy. Diminish the fear. Take the wind out of the riots.’

  Then Tull spoke to Lansung, and cemented her pre-eminence. ‘The Crusade will not be possible without the assistance of the Imperial Navy.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The armaments of the Merchant Fleet are light at best. By numbers alone, I know we can overwhelm the ork defences. But with the Autocephalax Eternal leading the way, we will punch through with ease.’

  Lansung stared at her with undisguised hatred. Vangorich would have applauded Tull’s move if he hadn’t been sure that she was leading them all to the slaughter. She had Lansung cornered. If he agreed with her plan, the Navy would be in a position that was even more subordinate to the Merchant Fleet than the Imperial Guard’s. If he refused, he would be offering up the spectacle of the flagship remaining behind, the Navy sitting out a fight while the common citizens came forward at the hour of Terra’s greatest need. He could not refuse.

  ‘The Autocephalax Eternal will be at the forefront of this great endeavour,’ Lansung said. Though he sounded sick, the Great Chamber resounded with more celebration.

  We’re doing it, Vangorich thought. We’re doing the work of the orks for them. And we’re cheering our own destruction.

  ‘What if the invasion fails?’ He heard himself making an effort he already knew was futile. ‘What then? If the bulk of the Terran regiments of the Astra Militarum are lost in this venture, what defences will remain?’

  ‘Your lack of faith troubles me, Grand Master,’ Tull said. ‘The Guard will return triumphant, and the orks will have been routed. There will be no need for defence.’

  Do you really believe that? Vangorich wondered. Do you really think this fever dream will come to pass? Are you capable of seeing beyond the shift in the balance of power that you are orchestrating?

  There were no answers. Whether Tull believed what she was saying or not no longer mattered. Vangorich could feel the machinery of the invasion already in motion. Tull had spoken, and conjured events into reality.

  ‘This course of action is a folly,’ Veritus said. ‘This obsession with the orks will only open the way for the true enemy.’

  His words were swallowed in the applause for Tull. The rest of the Twelve didn’t acknowledge that he had spoken. Vangorich felt something that was not too distant from sympathy for the inquisitor. He might have Wienand on the defensive, but the man’s hand was weak. Insisting that the orks were not the primary threat would make him appear delusional. Veritus was clearly intelligent and driven by belief rather than political gain, yet his dogmatism was causing its own damage.

  When the assembly dissolved, it was in a spirit of jubilation as ferocious as the initial excitement that had greeted Lansung’s victory. But there was an edge of hysteria, too. The hope was brittle. The investment in Tull’s plan was total, but the need to believe in it was even stronger than the belief itself.

  When Vangorich left the dais, Veritus walked with him. The inquisitor’s style of interaction was as blunt as Wienand’s was subtle.

  ‘They are even greater fools than I supposed,’ Veritus said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The path we are on will lead to disaster.’

  ‘The disaster is already here.’

  ‘A worse one, then.’

  ‘What would you recommend, Inquisitor Veritus? Do you see actions that either the Inquisition or the Officio could take that would alter the course that has been set? Would Speaker Tull’s death matter now?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘No, it wouldn’t.’ Too many of the other High Lords were invested in the Crusade. If Tull fell, one of her colleagues would turn her into a martyr and become the new face of the endeavour. ‘Or are you calling for the assassination of the entire Twelve? No, I don’t think you are.’

  In this moment, though, Vangorich felt the temptation of that idea. He walked faster, leaving the other old predator behind.

  As he left the Great Chamber, Vangorich forced himself not to clench his fists in frustration. Once again, he had been helpless to prevent madness piled atop catastrophe. The closest thing he had to hope was the latest report from Krule. If the arrival of the moon had Wienand even more determined to reach the Inquisitorial Fortress, then perhaps there was something there that might be worthy of actual hope. He detested being in the dark, but Wienand, at least, was sane.

  Where did that leave the Officio? At best, assisting an effort about which Vangorich knew nothing. The so-called Proletarian Crusade would march ahead, and the avalanche of events would continue. He stalked towards his quarters, filled with dread and wishing for the punishment of fools.

  Six

  Terra – orbital

  The Militant Fire was not a young ship. When Leander Narkissos had acquired her, five decades earlier, she had been showing her age. The Brutas-class cargo hauler had spent half a millennium making rimward runs, her fortunes declining with each successive owner. Narkissos’ immediate predecessor had not, technically, been a pirate, but the dividing line had been a thin one, and he had finally been forced to divest himself of his business and his ship before the Adeptus Arbites seized both. Narkissos had been starting out then, his trade in goods transportation just showing promising growth, but he had been a long way from wealthy. He was able to acquire the Fire on very favourable terms. He had set about restoring her pride.

  He was pleased to think that he had done well by his ship. Fifty years of work, of endlessly pouring his profits back into renovations and improvements, and it was really only now that he believed the Militant Fire was living up to her name. She was not a large transport, so Narkissos specialised in the delicate and the expensive. The ship’s handsome lines and reborn lustre advertised his expertise. He fulfilled all promises, and as his reputation grew, it burnished the beauty of the Fire still further. Narkissos and his ship were an excellent team.

  He was sorry that they were both going to die.

  First Mate Demetria Kondos walked onto the bridge. Narkissos shook himself from his meditations on the coming end and rose from his command throne. Built into the bulkhead behind the throne was a small room that, with its book-lined walls, looked like a study, but was reserved for holding meetings with small numbers of privileged clients. Its ornamental status was also its vital function. It impressed the merchants he courted with its intimacy and sober elegance. It permitted quiet discussion in a location of high importance. It cemented deals. It served no command purpose on the Fire, yet it helped provide the means for the ship’s existence.

  It was also a good location for Narkissos to have a private word without having to leave the bridge. He nodded to Kondos and she joined him in the chamber.

  ‘So?’ he asked.

  ‘The work is almost done. I won’t say that it’s doing much for morale.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ It wasn’t doing much for his, either. He had ordered the stripping out of all specialised stasis fields and containers. The cargo hold of the Militant Fire was being turned back into a multi-levelled empty space. ‘Can’t be helped. We’re going to be transporting personnel.’

  ‘If we had time to do it right…’

  ‘We don’t.’ The call from Terra had come while they were unloading at Mars. They had returned at full speed, reshaping the hold on the fl
y.

  ‘She deserves better.’ Kondos had an even longer history with the Fire than Narkissos. She had been part of the crew under the previous owner, and had been the lone member who had elected to stay on after the acquisition. Narkissos had been glad of her experience. It was colourful, and much of it not for official consumption. Narkissos cultivated a refined image, but trade in the Imperium could get rough. Kondos was good at spotting trouble before it happened, and just as good at dealing with it when it couldn’t be avoided. In initial meetings with potential clients, Narkissos was the portrait of elegant discretion. She was the face of weathered maturity and relaxed experience. If nothing ruffled her, then nothing was wrong. Together they were the guarantee that the cargo would be handled with sensitivity and security.

  ‘Yes, she does,’ Narkissos said. ‘But the treatment we’re giving the ship isn’t the big problem, is it?’

  ‘No. Her death is.’

  ‘And ours.’

  Kondos shrugged. ‘No, that isn’t going over that well, either.’

  ‘Captain,’ Jasen Rallis called. ‘We’re reaching our designated position.’

  ‘Thank you, helmsman.’ He looked at Kondos. ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Last port of call.’

  ‘Last but one.’

  He managed a grin. ‘If we make it that far. And I don’t think the greenskins are going to be eager customers for our wares.’

  They fell silent. The humour wasn’t working for either of them. Narkissos had played the vox-casts of Juskina Tull’s speech over the ship’s speakers. He and all his crew had listened more than once. He understood the necessity of what was going to happen. But enthusiasm for the Proletarian Crusade had not yet taken hold of the men and women of the Militant Fire.