The Last Wall Read online

  ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘Is the plan mad or brilliant?’

  ‘I don’t know. Both maybe. I can imagine it working. If we throw enough ships at the orks, some of them have to get through.’

  ‘Including ours?’

  ‘Did you invest in void shields when I wasn’t looking?’

  ‘I wish I had.’

  ‘Then, no.’ Kondos wasn’t joking now. ‘We’ll be among the first to go. We’ll be the chaff for the ork defences.’

  ‘I feel sorry for the troops we’ll be carrying.’

  ‘Captain,’ Rallis said again.

  ‘What is it?’ Narkissos asked. He stepped out of the chamber, and saw the view from the forward oculus. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  Behind him, he heard Kondos’ intake of breath.

  ‘I should address the crew,’ Narkissos said. His throat was dry and his voice cracked. ‘First Officer Kondos, please call all hands to muster on the observation deck.’

  Kondos left without a word. Narkissos tore his eyes away from the oculus. He needed a few moments to marshal his thoughts without awe overwhelming his consciousness.

  ‘You have the bridge, helmsman,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, captain.’

  Narkissos looked at the rest of the bridge crew. ‘I’ll have the assembly piped in,’ he said. ‘You’ll hear what is said.’

  The observation deck was one level above the bridge. It too was ornamentation with purpose. It was constructed to dazzle. It was large enough to hold a thousand comfortably under a glass dome that rose from floor level. To stand there was to be surrounded by the void, and the sights could be overwhelming.

  Today, they were. Narkissos paused on the staircase that spiralled up to the centre of the deck. He was taking in what might be his last few seconds of mundane reality. Soon there would be nothing but the extraordinary and the terrible.

  He gave in to the trembling. He wouldn’t have that luxury soon. His combat experience was limited to his time with the militia on Elysia, though the need for all ships to evade the system’s pirates had taught him the miracles one could summon from a vessel. Kondos had served with the drop troops, so she would be ready for what was coming. Narkissos, though, was no soldier.

  Yet he was going to war. He would have to muster the courage and dignity that came with the duty. But here, he was alone. He clutched the steel railing of the staircase to hold himself up. The fear took him. He wanted to weep. His breath came in hitching gasps, and he couldn’t find enough air.

  The bottom had dropped out of his stomach back on Mars when he had heard that the orks were on Terra’s doorstep. The lurch had come again when the call to crusade had come. He had thought he understood what was coming. He’d been wrong. He’d been protected by a shield of abstraction. That was gone now. Above him was the reality of his fate.

  It frightened him. He didn’t know if he was up to the challenge of this immense day. Some of the shipmasters at Mars had decided they were not. They had tried to run. The Imperial Navy did not have the vessels to run them down, but the Martian orbital defences had executed summary judgements.

  He heard the echo of boots against decking. His crew was approaching. He ran a hand over his forehead and through the grey waves of his hair. He steadied his breathing. He had a responsibility. He also felt, deep in his core, a stirring of excitement.

  Can I do this after all?

  He had no choice.

  He cleared his throat. He straightened up. Then he walked up the staircase to take in the full sight of what lay beyond the dome.

  He was still awed when the crew arrived. He could function, though. He stood at the bow end of the deck, and struggled to pay attention as the men and women of the Militant Fire gathered and were struck dumb by what they saw.

  The Fire was surrounded by a spectacle of grandeur and horror. On all sides were the ships of the Merchants’ Armada. Thousands of ships. Such numbers that they could have been called a swarm, but there were too many massive presences for so weak a word. There were ships of every size and grade. Private luxury lighters that couldn’t carry more than a handful of passengers. Hulking Goliath-class factory ships whose retrofitting for their new purpose must have been a task worthy of song in itself. Mass conveyors a dozen kilometres long. Freight transports in such numbers that they were ranked in squadrons. There was so little space between the vessels that Narkissos could imagine hopping from one to the next. There was no room for error in the manoeuvring of the fleet and Narkissos felt his chest swell with pride at the skill of the pilots. The Imperial Navy could do no better.

  He corrected himself. The Merchants had done better. They were here. The Navy was not.

  Riding at high anchor, stationed far above the civilians, was the Autocephalax Eternal. It was almost as large as the biggest conveyors, a majestic cathedral of war. But it was isolated, separated from the others of its kind with the exception of a few escorts. The Militant Fire was in the midst of a vast concentration of allies.

  So many ships. So much strength. Narkissos drank in the spectacle and thought, we are an armada.

  And when he looked to port, he needed the strength of that thought. Terra’s new moon hung in the void, waiting to swallow the Armada. Its maw gaped wide. There were no lights on its surface, no flights of enemy ships sallying forth. It was silent, inert as a skull, but as full of implication. When his eyes fell on the star fortress, the fleet lost substance. The thing should not be, and so it altered all existence with its obscene reality.

  To his horror, Narkissos knew that this impression was not an illusion. Everything revolved around the moon, even Terra itself. The orks had become the centre of the Imperium. The magnificence of the Armada existed only because of the monstrousness it had been called to confront. Every act, every thought, every moment of what life remained to Narkissos was utterly determined by that inarticulate, unspeakable thing. Narkissos didn’t have the words to describe what he felt before the sight of the moon. Yet it shaped his language. He, like every other soul in the Imperium, was caught in a gravitational field that reached across the galaxy.

  There was no escape from the ork moon’s pull. There was no shield from its presence. There were no walls behind which he could hide. They had all fallen.

  The one act left, the one thing that kept alive at least the illusion of agency, was to charge at the horror. In that charge, he was becoming part of the new wall behind which the rest of Terra sheltered.

  To attack the moon was to believe it could be destroyed, and without that belief, there was nothing. Narkissos understood the need for the Crusade now. He needed it even if he was superfluous. He was even more frightened than before. He was also more proud than he had ever been in his life.

  He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He gave the crew time to see everything. There was no need to explain. Either they would know the same need, or they would not. When faces began to turn back to him, he said, ‘So, this is what we have come to fight. We will be taking on troops, and we will be part of the great attack. Our goal will be to land our passengers on the surface of… of that.’ He pointed without looking.

  ‘Will we even get close?’ one of the enginseers asked.

  Narkissos smiled. ‘What do you think?’

  Kondos said, ‘We’ve made difficult runs before. Been a few years, but it will come back to us.’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Narkissos. ‘Or we could be blown apart in the first minutes. I’ll say this. I don’t see a choice. We attack, and likely we’ll die. Or we don’t attack, and we die when the orks sweep over us all. I know which end I prefer. If I’m going to die, I want to die a hero. The Militant Fire is part of the Proletarian Crusade until death or victory. I won’t impose my choice on the rest of you, though. If anyone wants to run, go ahead. I don’t know where you’ll go, but I wouldn’t have you at my side.’

  No one moved
. He hadn’t expected they would. The silence that fell was one of unanimity.

  Narkissos looked out at the Armada and the star fortress again. It was the most compelling sight he had ever witnessed, the most horrific and the most exhilarating. The emotion in his chest, too large to be articulated, emerged as a single, grieving laugh. Then he said, ‘We’re mad, aren’t we? All of this is mad.’

  ‘Completely,’ Kondos agreed.

  ‘Isn’t it glorious?’

  The crew’s cheers filled the dome. Terrified joy reached out to the void.

  Seven

  Terra – the Imperial Palace

  There were three of them in the Octagon. Veritus, Asprion Machtannin and Namisi Najurita sat on the lowest of the three tiers. For all the studied, wood-panelled pseudo-intimacy of the space, Veritus was conscious of how cavernous it was for such an encounter. Perceptions were important. He needed Najurita’s to be the correct ones.

  He had little choice about the meeting place, though. The Octagon’s security systems, whether sigil-based or technological, did not only shut down the possibility of attack in the room. They also enforced privacy. The situation was beyond delicate. The unfolding disaster was pushing Veritus towards a decision he did not want to make. If he could avoid that contingency, he would. To that end, he sought total control over the words that were spoken and the ears that heard them.

  ‘Where is Inquisitor Wienand?’ Najurita asked.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Machtannin said.

  ‘Your answer tells me that you’ve lost track of her, meaning that you were hunting her.’

  ‘She is a danger to the proper task of the Inquisition.’

  ‘There was no consensus on that issue,’ Najurita reminded him, ‘never mind on the option of an assassination.’

  ‘She is heading for the Inquisitorial Fortress,’ Veritus put in. Time to calm the waters, if possible. He wanted an ally, not an enemy, in Najurita. She commanded a lot of respect within the Inquisition. Her opinion carried weight.

  ‘And are you planning to ambush her there?’

  ‘No.’ Two failed attempts on her life. The chance of a quick and quiet elimination of Wienand’s influence had vanished. To make matters worse, Veritus’ forces looked incompetent. The very moves that were meant to consolidate his authority were undermining it. Najurita had been at least listening to his arguments before, and had been willing to concede the possibility that Wienand’s relationship with the High Lords was a bit too comfortable. She had not signed off on anything more, and now, though Machtannin was stepping in to catch the blame for the botched operations, it was clear that her displeasure was primarily with Veritus.

  She was not his only possible ally. He would act as he had to alone, if necessary. But he still hoped to avoid the more drastic measures. He hadn’t given up on bringing Najurita around.

  ‘We have friends in the Fortress,’ he said. ‘We aren’t without influence there.’

  ‘Inquisitor Wienand has more.’

  ‘And if she carries the day, the consequences will be tragic.’

  Najurita sighed. ‘You do realise that an ork star fortress is in our skies? Your argument that the orks are not the principal threat isn’t terribly convincing at this moment.’

  ‘I’m not saying that the orks shouldn’t be fought. Of course they are a danger. But the overcommitment of resources to this one endeavour will leave us vulnerable to a greater enemy.’

  Najurita looked at Machtannin. ‘You agree, I take it?’

  He nodded. ‘We can’t afford to take our eyes off the moves of the Archenemy.’

  ‘You know me,’ Najurita said to Veritus. ‘You know that I would never underestimate the threat of the Ruinous Powers. I am fully aware of what the Heresy cost the Imperium. But we triumphed over the Eye. Its activity has been minimal of late. And the orks are menacing us with imminent annihilation.’

  ‘Which is exactly why all the attention given to them is such a mistake. Now is when the real enemy is most dangerous. The Imperium has been weakened, and is distracted. What better moment to strike?’

  ‘That is a hypothetical. The ork attack is real.’

  ‘What ork attack?’ Veritus demanded. ‘Nothing has happened since the moon’s arrival. Where is the ork invasion?’

  The look on Najurita’s face told him all he needed to know. He hadn’t convinced her of anything except perhaps that he was unbalanced. He was disappointed to see that doubt in her eyes. It was one he had seen many times before, one of the costs of the war that was his destiny to wage. One of the great strengths of the Ruinous Powers was their improbability. It was too easy to disbelieve in them, or in their danger, until it was too late. He had made that mistake in his youth. He still bore the scars of that error. His power armour was his defence and it was his weapon, but it also gave mobility to a body that could no longer function outside of its ceramite shell.

  He tried another tack. A last one. ‘The fact remains that Inquisitor Wienand is a rogue player. She must be prevented from causing any further damage.’

  ‘For all we know, within the next few days there will be very little left to damage. Unless Speaker Tull’s crusade turns out to be the miracle she would have everyone believe it to be.’

  ‘I share your doubts about the strategy,’ Veritus said, and waited for Najurita to say something more. Her statement had bordered on the non sequitur.

  Najurita stood. ‘Then we are agreed.’

  The meeting was over.

  Machtannin and Veritus lingered after she left.

  ‘What did that mean?’ Machtannin asked.

  ‘That she does not share our evaluation of Inquisitor Wienand.’

  ‘She’ll oppose us.’

  ‘I don’t think so. She’s doubtful, but isn’t going to throw her strength to one side or the other, at least for the moment.’

  ‘Where does that leave us?’

  ‘We have to try again.’

  ‘Najurita won’t appreciate being lied to.’

  ‘I wasn’t lying. She’s forcing our hand. Wienand has too many friends in the Fortress. Once she’s inside, I’m far from certain that we have the political strength to counter her moves.’

  ‘A third attempt is going to be messy, whether or not it is successful.’

  ‘Still better than the alternative. If she has her way, there may not be any turning back.’

  ‘We still don’t know what she plans.’

  Veritus turned his head slowly. He gave the younger man his coldest stare. ‘Your resolution is lacking too?’

  Machtannin shook his head. ‘You know it isn’t.’

  Veritus did not know this. At this moment, he had only Machtannin’s reassurance. Veritus knew that there was no love lost between Machtannin and Wienand – what he was uncertain about was how fully Machtannin appreciated the threat of Chaos. Veritus respected the record of Machtannin’s battles, but he didn’t know the depths of his commitment now.

  Veritus left the Octagon a few minutes later. He made his way towards his quarters along Proscription Way. It was one of the narrower arcades of the Imperial Palace, less than ten metres across. The vault was so high and the skylights so few and grimed by centuries of smog, that daylight never reached the floor. The passage was a land of perpetual evening. The lumen globes were spaced such that there was enough light to see by, but a walk along the Way was a journey through degrees of shadow. The flagstones of the floor were engraved with devotional sayings. The erosion of millions of footsteps had worn them away until they were patterns of faint lines, fragments of words and suggestions of meaning.

  Thought was being erased from Proscription Way one pedestrian at a time, but it was preserved and given rigour in the gothic honeycombs that lined the passage. The ground floors were emporiums selling prayer scrolls, altar icons and exegetical texts. The Way ran north-south, its
gentle sinuosity carrying on for kilometres, its thousand merchants vying in solemn and twilit quiet for the attention of the faithful. Scholars lived above the vendors. They were the writers of tracts, the commentators of texts, the explorers of devotion. They laboured with the industry of obsession.

  Veritus liked the character of Proscription Way. The scholars had only half the truth. There was no mention, in any of their texts, of the Ruinous Powers. But the faith they extolled was a necessary, if not sufficient, defence against them. The people who lived and worked here were fighting the war, even if they didn’t realise it.

  The las-fire came in a cluster of shots. The first seared his cheek. His instincts reacted before his conscious mind, reflexes taking over. He brought up his left arm to protect his head. The second shot creased his scalp. He lunged to one side of the arcade. The third shot burned down the side of his temple. Then he was against the wall, looking for the origins of the fire. There were too many windows, with too many people visible in silhouette. None were looking at him, none were armed. The sniper had stopped shooting.

  Veritus waited, his laspistol drawn. Nothing. The nearby pedestrians had scattered, crouching in doorways or behind stalls. The sniper’s aim had been excellent. His armour was untouched. His wounds throbbed and he smelt burned flesh. If he had been just a bit slower, if the sniper’s first shot had not been spoiled by whatever random event had intervened…

  No targets, no further attack. He started moving down the Way again, moving backwards until he went around a curve and the point of ambush was out of sight. He turned around and strode down the passage, monitoring all sides for threat. His temple throbbed with anger even more than it did from the wound. He was furious with humiliation. He had been turned into a figure of ridicule: power-armoured, but in full retreat. But he couldn’t attack what he could not find. He hadn’t even been able to gauge the angle of the shots. Even if he could level both sides of the Way, the assassin would be long gone.