Spear of Ultramar Page 6

  ‘But that will not be forever.’

  ‘No. So we hit them as hard as we can for as long as we can. We need more than your storm as it is now, chaplain. We need a maelstrom.’

  ‘Our sacrifice will truly begin, then.’

  ‘Ours will not tarry long behind,’ says Khrossus.

  ‘No,’ the chaplain agrees. ‘And it will be a small price to pay to behold such glory.’

  ‘Farewell.’

  ‘Farewell, warsmith.’

  Khrossus lingers as Ker Vanthax immerses himself once more in his trance, chanting words fit to make stone scream. The colours intensify. The snickering mist spins more violently around the Word Bearers. It thickens, too. The edges of their cloaks seem ragged, as if they are dissolving into the mist. Above, the dome twists. Khrossus dares one more glance upwards, and it is as if he is looking through the eye of a cyclone. The power of the Word Bearers’ summoning grows, and it demands much of them. They will never leave this circle alive, but what they have called upon will be monstrous.

  Word comes that the defence lasers have been taken, and Guilliman orders the Ultimus Mundi and its escorts to head back to position themselves above Siderius. The ships have not even begun to move when Prayto staggers. He grips the railing of the strategium hard enough to crack the brass. He winces in pain, and blood trickles from his ear.

  ‘A pulse of warp energy,’ Prayto gasps. ‘The warp activity is massive.’ He is struggling to form words. ‘The storm…’

  ‘Auspex,’ Guilliman calls. ‘System sweep. What is happening out there?’

  He barely needs to ask. Something rises from over the horizon of Carchera, in the direction of Siderius, and shoots into the void. It is a braided geyser of non-light, and the materium cracks around it. Tendrils of warp insanity spread out from the cracks, spectral fingers reaching around the planet, exploring and tasting reality, and eroding it.

  The ships are halfway back over the ocean to the land when the scans are completed. ‘The warp storm is spreading,’ says Kallan. ‘It has extended far beyond the Mandeville point. Its speed…’ She shakes her head.

  ‘Is impossible,’ Guilliman finishes.

  ‘It is spreading around the system.’

  ‘The enemy seeks to plunge the entire system into the warp,’ says Prayto. He straightens, recovering his strength.

  ‘How much time before that happens?’ Guilliman asks.

  ‘Two days,’ Prayto answers. ‘Perhaps less.’

  ‘Long enough,’ says Guilliman, though he feels the grains drop through the sandglass with dizzying velocity. If the fleet is still in the system two days from now, that will be a most terrible defeat. It will not take two days for Aquila to take the space station, and it will not take Corvo two days to defeat the Iron Warriors fleet. The situation on Carchera is more uncertain, but the Destroyers will do what they must.

  As if reading his thoughts, Prayto says, ‘And if Hierax cannot reach his target in time?’

  ‘He will,’ Guilliman says. He will not give voice to the darker eventuality just yet, though he will be bringing the squadron into position to carry out their worst. He would not sacrifice Carchera, but now he must face the possibility of a lesser price, but one that would still be a stain upon his conscience.

  The orbital bombardment of Siderius looms in his future.

  The Destroyers make good progress at first. The road is still intact for several kilometres. The first rockfall would have blocked all vehicular passage. The legionaries, however, climb over it almost as fast as they march. The first legionaries to reach the top of the barricade provide cover for their battle-brothers coming up behind them. There is no attack, and the company moves deeper into the pass.

  The latest vox message from Iasus weighs on Hierax’s mind, and urges him forward. The system is falling to madness, and the rapid capture of the keep feels less and less like a victory, and more like a pointless delay on the way to Siderius. He is determined to reach the hive and defeat the enemy. He can extrapolate the fate that might befall the city if he fails, and he will not have that happen. The tactics of his company are the most brutal in the Legion, but only and always directed at the enemy. They destroy in order to save, and they will save Siderius.

  And Carchera.

  And Terra.

  But then, suddenly, to the rear, comes the rumble of mechanical thunder. The sound is immense. A great machine has come to life, and though kilometres distant, it is so deep and vast it is as if the jaws of the planet itself are grinding open. At the same moment comes a string of explosions, and then the booms of the very mountains crumbling. In the distance, towards the entrance to the pass, a huge dust cloud rises, and Hierax knows the way back is closed.

  As the tumult of rockfall fades away, Hierax makes out a new sound. Echoing through the pass comes the marching of metal feet and the crunching of treads over stone.

  The second enemy, the one Hierax had sought but did not find, is coming for him.

  Four

  Closing Jaws

  ‘Incoming torpedoes,’ one of the enslaved officers aboard the Barbican reports.

  Darhug watches the salvo define itself on the pict screens. It is wide and heavy. The squadron must have fired from every tube. The torpedoes are staggered. Some come in clusters, and others are isolated. And there are so many. If the las-fire he has directed at the distant squadron has caused any damage, it has done nothing to affect the vessels’ power to strike.

  Savarran is defiant and confident. ‘They’ll have to do more than that to cripple this station.’ The legionary’s sneer is the surface expression of a hatred so deep Darhug can almost hear it thrum. It is as if Savarran seeks victory through sheer force of anger, an anger caused by the certainty of defeat and the refusal to countenance that end. Darhug will use that anger. He will use whatever he can to destroy the hope of the Ultramarines.

  ‘Some of those are boarding torpedoes,’ says Darhug. ‘They are the true purpose of this attack. We don’t know which ones hold the enemy, and they know we can’t destroy every target in a barrage this big.’ He thinks for a moment, then orders, ‘Hit the clusters fast. Kill as many torpedoes in those groups as possible, then focus on the lone targets. Priority to the left and right flanks.’ The stragglers, he thinks – the individual threats that can be ignored, versus the clusters that must be dealt with if the station is to avoid major damage – those are the targets that might hold the Ultramarines.

  The station’s batteries redirect their aim away from the vessels and towards the torpedoes. The targets are small and moving quickly. They challenge the auto-targeting sensors and the skill of the crew. There is a distant flash, a faint boiling of gases as the lascannons hit the clusters. Then the defensive fire turns to the missiles on the edges of the salvo, the ones that would appear to be trying to arrive unnoticed.

  The boarding torpedo is at the rear of the cluster, and the chain of explosions buffets it, sweeps over it, and then it flies on towards the space station.

  ‘We are doing well,’ says Legionary Vascas, who is piloting the torpedo. He is a compact figure for a Space Marine, strong as a clenched fist, but precise as a dagger.

  ‘To come this far, yes,’ Aquila agrees. ‘But this accomplishment will be meaningless if we do not reach the target.’ And how many of us will make it there? he thinks. He has no way of knowing how many other boarding torpedoes still survive. He has ordered complete vox silence during the run. There must be no way for the Iron Warriors to determine which torpedoes are the real threat until it is too late.

  ‘They are no longer firing on us,’ says Vascas. ‘They are doing what you predicted, captain.’

  ‘What I hoped,’ Aquila corrects. His practical is based on as reasonable a theoretical as he has been able to form, but too much of what will happen in the next few minutes relies on chance. His gamble is that the Iron Warriors will se
ek the torpedoes that are harder to find, harder to see, and view them as the danger. So all the boarding ships are part of the clustered shots, trailing the other torpedoes by just enough distance that they will not be destroyed in a chain reaction.

  Chance governs the flight of the torpedo, and governs its success. Aquila has done what he can. His cold blue eyes have seen more than their share of the vagaries of chance as its currents run for the Ultramarines, and then against them. Guilliman has taught the Legion never to disregard chance in the construction of practicals. To dismiss it is to court disaster, yet it escapes the grasp of the most rigorous analysis. It is the variable that is always there, always beyond control. Aquila feels the strength of chance now. He feels its control, its grasp. It holds his boarding torpedo and those of the rest of his company. Perhaps it holds the fate of the Legion once more.

  Through the viewing blocks of the torpedo’s pilot compartment, he sees the web of Iron Warriors’ fire cut the void to ribbons. The torpedo is getting closer to the Barbican, and from this distance, still it appears that there can be no possible approach. The concentration of las from the station and the orbital platforms looks too intense for anything to get through. And in the near space of the gigantic weapons network, it seems like nothing does.

  Explosions flare, a constellation of splashes of light in the void. A random streak of las sears past the bow of the torpedo.

  ‘Maintain course,’ Aquila tells Vascas. Any deviation in the torpedo’s straight line would give away its nature.

  ‘Not much point in evasive manoeuvres, is there?’ says the pilot.

  ‘There is not,’ Aquila agrees. Coming in straight, they are subject to no more than the general defensive fire of the station. Should they attempt to change course, they will draw a concerted attack.

  The boarding torpedo passes into the space between the weapons platforms and the space station. The Barbican looms ahead. It is massively defended, but it is not impregnable. And the Ultramarines torpedoes are aimed at the bridge.

  Darhug’s lips pull back in a silent snarl. The lascannons have taken out many of the torpedoes, but some are getting closer. The hits against the station are about to begin.

  Noticing his expression, Savarran says, ‘We have destroyed most of the targets.’

  ‘Anything less than all is not enough,’ Darhug snaps. ‘The odds are high that any of the torpedoes that reach us will be filled with Ultramarines.’ Darhug has little respect for chance, but he does have a grim, spiteful belief in fate. Though he knows what his will be on this day, he will fight against it until he draws his final breath.

  ‘Impact, starboard flank,’ one of the crew warns.

  This is the first torpedo to slip through the fire. It hits and explodes. The void shields shimmer, absorbing the blast. A few moments later, a second torpedo hits close to the same spot. It overloads the void shield and punches into the armour plating of the Barbican. The damage reports come in moments later. The torpedoes have done little, but Darhug already felt a kind of relief when he heard the explosions. He has no fear of this kind of missile.

  The turrets of the Barbican rotate back and forth, sweeping across the firmament, setting it ablaze. The big clusters of torpedoes are all destroyed. Most of the flanking weapons are too. Darhug knows the station will take more strikes, but now, in disbelief, he wonders if just maybe the las barrage has succeeded in destroying the boarding torpedoes.

  Then an officer cries, ‘Convergence!’

  The moment is a brief, cruel answer to Darhug’s reluctant flare of hope. A group of torpedoes, leftovers of clusters all coming in at different angles, are streaking towards the same point. Darhug realises these are what he has been seeking. Only they are inside the station’s arc of fire. He sees them coming. He has known all along they were coming. But he sees them too late.

  ‘All weapons focus on the convergence,’ he orders, for all the good it will do. He looks at where these torpedoes will hit, and he turns to leave the bridge, Savarran at his heels. ‘The enemy is boarding,’ he voxes his legionaries. Behind him, the viewing port is filled with a sudden bright glow. One of the torpedoes has died just short of its goal.

  When Darhug reaches the hall, he feels thudding vibrations come through the decks, and the grinding of the torpedoes’ heads cutting through the hull.

  The Ultramarines have arrived.

  ‘This is not a retreat,’ Vûrtaq mutters. ‘It is an attack.’ He has been whispering this mantra to himself since the fleet of the XIII Legion began its pursuit of his squadron. ‘Not a retreat. An attack.’ His knowledge of Khrossus’ strategy has not helped. All that he has felt is a visceral sensation, the shame of fleeing.

  Until now.

  The Iron Warriors ships are closing in on Himera. The rocky planet looms large in the viewport of the Warforged. Now the warsmith’s battle plan seems less abstract.

  ‘Make for the far side of Himera,’ Vûrtaq orders. ‘Lowest possible anchor.’

  As the planet draws nearer, Vûrtaq’s hatred for the Ultramarines does not subside, but it is joined by a resurgent determination. Today will not mark the end of his company. Not after the blow he is about to strike.

  The shame of retreat evaporates. The true attack is about to begin.

  On the bridge of the Glorious Nova, Lucretious Corvo eyes the hololithic projections displaying the relative positions of the fleet and the squadron.

  ‘It feels wrong,’ says Corvo.

  ‘What does?’ Sergeant Ancevan asks.

  ‘This chase. Everything about it. Iron Warriors do not retreat.’

  ‘What could one squadron do against a fleet?’ says Ancevan.

  ‘Nothing,’ Corvo admits.

  ‘Anything other than a retreat would be suicide.’

  ‘You underestimate the indomitability of the Iron Warriors. When they set their minds to confront an enemy, they will do so until nothing is left of one side or the other. Yes, retreat is the only rational course of action here, but why put themselves in this position in the first place? Sending a single squadron against an entire fleet?’ Corvo shakes his head. ‘A hit and run? That kind of tactic is foreign to Perturabo and his sons.’

  ‘Perhaps they expected the fleet to be caught by surprise and much diminished by the ambush.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Corvo concedes reluctantly. The hypothesis does not sit well with him. The actions of the Iron Warriors are both logical and nonsensical. Flight is their only option. The situation, though, is out of keeping with the IV Legion’s philosophy of war.

  ‘This could go on for a long time,’ says Ancevan. The distance between the fleet and the squadron has been shrinking very slowly.

  ‘The chase will not last forever. Our more powerful ships are gaining on them.’ Corvo has been sending a steady stream of las and cannon shells and torpedoes at the strike cruiser. It will not be long now before the Iron Warriors vessel comes within effective targeting range and is destroyed. ‘They will have to do something.’ If there is one thing Corvo cannot believe, it is that the Iron Warriors will simply flee until caught.

  ‘Perhaps they’re drawing us away?’

  ‘From Carchera? Possibly.’

  The spreading warp storm is disrupting communications, but not entirely. The vox officers are kept very busy, every message to and from the other arms of the Ultramarines fleet requiring multiple attempts. Even so, enough is getting through to give Corvo a sense of the broader battlefield, including what is happening on Carchera. Diverting the rest of the fleet from Carchera is a plausible explanation, but Corvo is unsatisfied. From what he knows of the situation on the ground, the presence of the entire fleet would make little difference. The only new option would be a massive land invasion, exactly the kind of tactic that would take too much time to stage. Ancevan’s suggestion is a workable hypothesis. It does explain the actions of the Iron Warriors, but the explanat
ion is a weak one, and does not truly fit the character of the IV Legion as Corvo has come to know it.

  The gap narrows further, but not quickly enough for Corvo to prevent the squadron from disappearing around the far side of Himera. Runes surround hololiths of the squadron on the tactical screens, warning of the speculative nature of the indicated position. A few minutes later, the Iron Warriors disappear from the screens. All that remains is a single rune of uncertainty, blinking on the far side of the schematic of the planet.

  ‘Auspex?’ Corvo asks.

  ‘No sign,’ says the officer. ‘The enemy has not moved off. The ships would appear to be in low orbit.’

  But where and why? Corvo wonders.

  ‘Detailed scan of Himera completed, captain,’ the auspex officer says, anticipating his next order.

  Corvo and Ancevan turn to the tacticarium table. A magnified hololith of Himera floats above it. Data streams down the table’s screens, providing a detailed portrait of the world. Less than three thousand kilometres in diameter, Himera is airless, the system’s sun little more than a bright blue point. Himera is a dead world. It was never colonised, though mining stations dot its surface. The extraction of ore is a difficult, painful process here, one that would be abandoned if not for the commanding need of resources by Carchera and the wider Imperium.

  The mining stations are dark, barely registering on the scans, radiating nothing but residual energy. Either the miners have fled Himera, or they are all dead.

  ‘Using the planet as a shield?’ Ancevan muses.

  Corvo drums his fingers on the table. ‘A defensive game isn’t in the character of the Iron Warriors either,’ he says. ‘At least they’re not running any more.’

  ‘How long do they think they can hide from us?’

  ‘They’re wrong if they think they can hide at all.’

  Corvo moves to the pulpit. ‘Orders to the fleet,’ he says. ‘We encircle the planet. Attack pattern Delphi.’