The Hunt for Vulkan Page 7

  Adnachiel’s quarters were monastic. The small chamber was dark, a single lumen globe shining on a desk in one corner. The rest of the space was empty, a place of black stone and meditation. He closed the iron door behind him, strode to the desk, and picked up the vox-unit. It was not linked to the company network. Instead, it had a single line that received transmissions only from other equivalent units on other ships. It was a means of dialogue between Company Masters, and only between them.

  Adnachiel thought he knew whose voice he would hear. What surprised him was that he was not speaking to the Grand Master of the Deathwing from the bridge of the Herald of Night.

  ‘Master Adnachiel,’ said Sachael.

  ‘We are coming to your aid, Master Sachael. We are entering the asteroid belt now. We have your position marked. We will attack from the orks’ rear within the hour.’

  ‘No. Reverse course. Do not let the enemy detect you.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ The battle-barge Reprisal had been cornered by a large ork fleet as it attempted to close with the attack moon nested in the Astorias Cloud. If the system had ever had planets, they were fragments now. The asteroid belt was wide and dense, and mineral-rich. Some of the planetoids were so near to one another that mining concerns had linked them with webs of plasteel, facilitating passage and arresting the chance of collision. The ork gravity weapons had turned Astorias into a killing field. Planetoids smashed into one another. Webs became lethal tethers, yanking the bodies together. The Reprisal had attempted to close with the ork station through the maze of Astorias, but it had been caught by the fleet while still on the far side of the system’s star. Sachael was holding, but trapped. He had called for aid. The Herald of Night had answered.

  Now the answer was being refused.

  ‘We have new information,’ said Sachael. ‘Proceed to Terra. Answer the call for aid. There will be a joint operation.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘The request was sent to the Blood Angels, Ultramarines and Space Wolves as well as ourselves.’

  ‘The Space Wolves.’ Adnachiel liked what he was hearing less and less. ‘Terra,’ he continued. ‘The Inquisition could be involved in that appeal. Its agents are thick as maggots on a corpse on Terra.’

  ‘We are aware of this, Company Master. But we are called. We will not fail Terra a second time. There is more. The combined forces are destined for Ullanor.’

  An ill omen. The past reaching out to the present to carve new wounds. Even so, Adnachiel understood now. Over and above the principles of honour, there was a mystery that could not be ignored. The past was danger and tragedy, but it must be confronted. ‘Is there evidence of any–’

  Sachael cut him off. ‘We know nothing of that kind. All we know is that we are going to Ullanor, and this cannot be mere chance. Your vessel is not in combat. You must go.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘We will survive, or we will not. That is not your concern.’

  ‘The sacrifice of my brothers is always my concern.’

  ‘Believe me, I have no intention of being such a sacrifice.’

  ‘I believe you, Grand Master.’

  Sachael broke off. Just before the connection ended, Adnachiel heard the grumble of blasts in the background, and a sound like a heavy wind.

  Fire.

  He returned to the strategium. He gave the orders for the new course. And he told his command squad of their destination. None of his brothers said anything. There was no need. The significance of Ullanor was enough.

  As the Herald of Night veered off from the Astorias Cloud, the Master of Auspex picked up inbound hostile squadrons. The strike cruiser had been detected.

  Good, Adnachiel thought. If he had to fight his way out of the system, he might draw enough of the enemy to ensure there would be no sacrifice.

  Not yet.

  The Imperium came to Caldera. Koorland and the Last Wall were aboard the Alcazar Remembered with Thane’s veterans. Flanking the Adeptus Astartes vessel were two of the Imperial Navy’s grand cruisers, Absolute Decree and Finality. Their troop holds carried regiments of the Lucifer Blacks. There were other regiments too, patchwork commands made up of the remains of the Orion Watch, the Jupiter Storm, the Granite Myrmidons, the Auroran Rifles, and more. They were the reserves of the Imperial Guard regiments that had been left behind at the time of the Proletarian Crusade. Their comrades had died in humiliation and futility. Koorland’s mission offered the possibility of restored pride as well as the hope of a myth. The reserves still on Terra were little more than a token now. It would be up to the Imperial Navy, led by Lord High Admiral Lansung’s battleship Autocephalax Eternal, to hold off an invasion.

  On the bridge of the Alcazar Remembered, Thane said, ‘Your thoughts appear troubling.’

  ‘I’m thinking about an attack in our absence.’

  ‘You don’t like the odds of the High Admiral fighting it off?’

  ‘Do you?’

  Thane grimaced.

  The Autocephalax had become a symbol of failure and tragically empty gestures. Imperial Navy reinforcements had arrived in force. Koorland respected the power of the vessels shielding Terra. But he knew what the orks could do.

  There had been little time to make repairs to the Alcazar Remembered. The Decree and Finality bore scars too, as did their escorts. But there were many vessels in the fleet that were undamaged. They had come from Mars, a gigantic mobilisation ordered by Kubik. The scale had pleased Koorland, and also taken him aback. Kubik had been eager to send the Mechanicus to Caldera, and Koorland wondered if he should read a desire for redemption in the Fabricator General’s rush to cooperate.

  Pict screens lit up with data on the enemy dispositions. The attack moon was visible in the oculus, surrounded by ork vessels except for the face it showed to the planet. Another large fleet was positioned some distance from the moon and was sending landing ships down. Koorland watched the distant flares of engines descending to the atmosphere. That, he thought, is what the process of infection looks like. He burned to purge the disease from Caldera.

  We can’t, he reminded himself. Keep focused. We are here to find the myth. All this strength is so we can accomplish that single task.

  ‘Auspex,’ Thane called from the command pulpit, ‘any traffic from Caldera?’

  ‘It’s fragmentary, Chapter Master,’ said the officer. ‘Short bursts and lots of static. Nothing coherent, but there are attempts. The interference is severe.’

  ‘It would be,’ Koorland said. He was looking at what the moon was doing to the planet.

  ‘Yes,’ Thane agreed. ‘Is that what happened to Ardamantua?’

  ‘No. This is different. So is that moon.’ It looked misshapen, even by the crude standards of the greenskins. It was not a sphere. It was a thick crescent.

  Thane ordered a magnification on the planet’s agony.

  The moon lashed Caldera with gravity whips. The atmosphere below it was a boiling cauldron of red and black and grey. Huge masses emerged from the storm and rose towards the moon.

  ‘Are those mountains?’ Thane asked.

  ‘They might be,’ said Koorland. ‘They are now.’ He followed the flight of one of the rock formations. It slowed as it approached the moon, then merged with the larger body. Now the shape of the moon made sense. It was incomplete. The orks were building their battle station by yanking up chunks of Caldera’s crust.

  ‘If we could destroy it before its construction is complete…’ Thane muttered.

  ‘Yes,’ said Koorland. ‘If we could. If we would not expend our strength in doing so. Destroying that moon would be a diversion. One we had fallen into. It would do nothing for the wider war. It would not get us to Ullanor.’

  ‘Agreed. So where does the search begin?’

  Koorland thought for a moment. Then he asked the auspex operator, ‘Is there any
pattern to the traffic you are detecting?’

  ‘Most of it is concentrated near the capital, Laccolith.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Thane asked.

  ‘Orbital defences are down. The orks have a free hand here.’ He moved to the strategium table. It displayed a hololithic map of the eastern hemisphere of Caldera. ‘Laccolith is very close to being beneath the secondary ork fleet.’

  Thane joined him. ‘But not directly.’

  ‘No, which is odd. And there are still signs of life, however slight.’

  ‘I’ve never known the greenskins to leave anything functioning in a population centre they attacked.’

  ‘Exactly. This is anomalous.’

  ‘And so as good a starting point as any,’ Thane concluded.

  Koorland pointed to the ships launching the landings. ‘That is our target. Punch through and make our own landings, disabling the ork invasion in the process.’

  ‘That will buy us some time to search.’

  ‘So I hope.’

  Koorland turned from the display to the oculus, and watched the orks steal the being of a world. The scale of the engineering feat was staggering. It was only right that a legend should exist on a world where the impossible was already at play.

  ‘Is this channel secure?’ Egon Broumis asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Illaia Groth. ‘I’m taking this in my quarters.’ The captain of the Finality sat at her desk and watched the hololithic representation of her counterpart on the Absolute Decree. The image jumped and flickered, but she could read the worry on Broumis’ face well enough. He was a few years older than she was, but his greying, jowled features were misleading. He looked like a well-fed Administratum official. There was little to suggest he was the veteran of dozens of engagements, but Groth had served as his lieutenant before achieving her own command of the Finality. She knew what Broumis was worth. It was out of respect for him that she had consented to take this communication without the admiral’s knowledge.

  ‘What do you think of Rodolph?’ said Broumis.

  Zdenek Rodolph, the admiral in command of the Imperial Navy fleet escorting the Adeptus Astartes mission to Caldera. Younger than either Broumis or Groth. The son of privilege and the ward of powerful connections, Lord High Admiral Lansung not least among them. He had reached his rank with less than a quarter of the field experience of the captains. And now he had been picked by Lansung to lead the Navy on this endeavour.

  ‘Too early to tell.’ Groth shared Broumis’ concern. ‘We haven’t seen him tested.’ She shrugged. ‘He knows his way around a bridge.’

  ‘I’m not reassured. This crucial mission is in the hands of an untried politician.’

  Groth’s concern took another direction. ‘What are you thinking?’

  Broumis hesitated. ‘That we may have to be prepared… to take extraordinary measures.’

  ‘That’s mutiny.’

  Broumis shook his head. His image broke up, then re-formed. ‘That’s not my intention. But if he leads us to disaster, we have to be ready, even if we’re executed for the actions we take. This is too important.’

  ‘The decision isn’t ours to make.’

  ‘Do you trust the judgement of the people who did make it?’

  Groth said nothing.

  ‘I’m not suggesting you walk onto the bridge and shoot him,’ said Broumis.

  ‘Good.’

  Broumis sighed. ‘All I’m asking is that we remain watchful. That we act as the battle and the needs of the mission dictate.’

  Groth looked off to the side. ‘I should be on the bridge.’

  ‘Will you think about what I said?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘That I can guarantee.’ She ended the communication before Broumis could ask her what she meant.

  She would not have been able to answer.

  The Imperial attack began with a single shot, long before the ork fleet came within conventional range. It was made by a weapon the battle-barge had been modified to contain. The hull of the Alcazar Remembered hummed as the coils of the weapon’s gravimetric impellers charged. The gun was the length of the ship. The projectile was the size of a Titan. The battle-barge’s enginarium corps struggled to maintain even a minimum of stable power to the ship’s vital sectors. The strength of the void shields dropped. Across the bridge, every pict screen except those at the weapons station went black. Aloysian was in the enginarium, appraising Thane of the ship’s condition second by second. The weapon would be dangerous to use if the Alcazar was undamaged. Firing it now was madness.

  Everything about this war is madness, Koorland thought. If our acts must be too, let their madness be a grand one.

  Even this weapon could not pierce the protection the orks generated around the moon. But their fleet was vulnerable. Any ship was vulnerable.

  The hum became a tremor. A spine-knotting whine grew. Koorland felt the entire ship reduced to a single purpose. There was nothing but the gun, nothing but the shot.

  ‘Now,’ Thane said.

  The nova cannon fired. As the shell travelled the length of the barrel, it accelerated to near the speed of light. Its kinetic energy built up to a level defying measure. It shot out of the Alcazar Remembered. At the moment of recoil, power failed across the ship for a full second. The bridge went dark. Koorland waited in the blackness, picturing the flight.

  The hull groaned as the ship snapped back to its normal state. Power returned. Vox-casters sprang to life with competing damage reports.

  In the oculus, a star screamed through void towards the orks. The Alcazar had fired less than a single light-minute away from the fleet but the greenskins had detected the arrival of the Imperial ships. Some of the cruisers were pulling out of low orbit to meet the challenge. However, the formation was still concentrated.

  Devastation was an art. The timing of the warhead’s deto­nation was crucial. Caldera was in the line of fire, and the blast would devastate the surface if it went off too late. The nova cannon was not a weapon suited to precision.

  Aloysian had taken charge of the arming. He promised accuracy. Thane trusted his judgement, so Koorland did too.

  The star flashed into the centre of the ork fleet, and then there was light, the light of creation’s birth and death, the light of a pure and searing end. It filled the oculus. Filters shielded the bridge from its full power, and still Koorland’s lenses snapped shut. They opened again after a few moments, and the light had become the fury of a sun. The shockwave travelled back through the Caldera System, striking the approaching Imperial fleet. It hammered void shields. The Alcazar Remembered shook with the thrum of its passage.

  The raging sun became a fireball thousands of kilometres in diameter. The light faded to red and its effects became visible. The ork vessels at the centre of the blast had vanished. Others were reduced to fragments. Giants tumbled through the void, dark shells lit only by the pulse of internal explosions. One cruiser seemed to be intact and still moving to engage the Imperial force. As Koorland watched, its bow and stern halves separated, drifting off into the darkness. Other ships still had power. They tried to escape the fireball, dying before they emerged from its reach.

  The fire dissipated, leaving a dull glow behind. It backlit a cemetery of colliding fragments and massive tombs. There was no counting how many smaller ships had died.

  It was a blow that had broken entire enemy navies. Here, it left behind an armada. Haloed by flame, venting gases, bristling with ballistic anger, the orks left the orbit of Caldera. They came on in a single, massive wave.

  They encountered a storm of Imperial torpedoes launched in the wake of the nova cannon. The fleet from Terra formed a wide spear tip, leading with the Alcazar and the grand cruisers. The Mechanicus vessels spread out on either side. Lance and cannon fire streaked towards the orks. Even clustered, they covered a wider area. But the line ha
d thinned.

  The two forces closed, running into the teeth of each other’s weapons. Evasion was pointless. There was only the hope of shields standing up long enough for the spear to punch through the wave.

  A massive ork battleship angled in on a direct collision course with the Alcazar. Its prow was a battering ram a thousand metres wide and three times as long. The Absolute Decree and the Finality joined their fire to the battle-barge’s. Lance fire, rockets and torpedoes struck the ram. The accumulated blasts wrapped the battleship in flame. It came on, now on course for a head-to-head collision with the Alcazar. The three great ships hit it with a fury that could turn hive cities into craters. The ram was solid metal, as dense as a single ingot.

  Four Mechanicus vessels, faster but more lightly armoured, pulled ahead of the body of the fleet, flanking the ork ship. Batteries of eradicator beams sheared into the sides of the prow where it fused with the ram.

  The barrage of the Imperial ships heated the ram red.

  Escorting Brute ram ships, tiny beside the battleship, flew into the Mechanicus vessels. Ork and Imperial ships disappeared, their explosions washing over the leviathan.

  Seconds before the collision, the centre of the ram turned white and split. Explosions rocked the battleships further to stern. The entire vessel seemed to swell before Koorland’s eyes, as if it were a monster taking a breath before consuming its prey.

  The intake of breath never ended. The ship continued to expand, driven apart by the internal pressure. Incandescence outlined gigantic plates. The battleship turned into a dying roar of flame, and the Alcazar Remembered plunged into the furnace of its death. The oculus showed nothing but the inferno of an erupting, disintegrating war machine.

  The battle-barge emerged. Before it now were only smaller enemy ships, which fell before the Alcazar’s withering fire. On the sides, the movements of the remaining ork ships became disordered as they tried to manoeuvre for a counter-attack. The vessels changed direction without coordination. There were collisions. Imperial broadsides punished the orks further. The fleet maintained formation, its salvoes a continuous, disciplined wave of devastation, radiating outwards. The greenskin vessels, already damaged by the nova cannon, came apart.