Dark Imperium: Plague War

by Guy Haley

  Three had fallen to Typhus’ plague fleet. Purposefully targeted and overwhelmed by massive force, their defenders cut down by disease, they had been ravaged and destroyed.

  Nobody expected that fate for Galatan. Galatan was the oldest, and the largest. It was equipped with weapons few understood. None could attack it and survive.

  The order came to prepare for departure from Drohl early in the first watch, before Justinian had entered the training hall. By the end of the second, when Justinian donned his armour and went on duty, preparations were well underway. The great quadruple reactors at the station’s hub were coaxed to full output. Thousands of tech-priests prayed to ensure the task was done with the utmost respect to the venerable machines. All others of the Cult Mechanicus who could suspend their duties did so, wishing to pay their respects as the secret engines of the past were roused so completely.

  The fifth watch saw the reactors operating at peak efficiency. Their thumping throb shook the fortress. Shortly after, main motive was engaged. The star fortress was ringed with engines. All along the side closest to Drohl Magna they flared, pushing the giant away from the planet it had been protecting. Such power was required to move its mass, but more was required to feed the integrity fields and structural bracing pistons that kept the station from tearing itself apart.

  Drohl Magna trembled. Galatan’s movement triggered earthquakes across the southern continent. City buildings, weakened by the war won there by the Novamarines, collapsed. Tsunamis lashed the coasts of Drohl Magna’s many islands. Had the population not been so ­thoroughly reduced by the conflict, millions would have died.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Galatan rumbled away. Its gravity wake displaced the debris of fleet battles. It knocked asteroids from their orbit in the system’s belt. For seven days it lumbered outwards, past Drohl Secundus, Ganymedus, Atoli, and the burned-out hulks of the orbital habitats around Dumar. Seven days it took to travel to the inner edge of Drohl’s Kuiper belt, and the Mandeville point there.

  The point was reached. The star fortress stopped, but there was no time to rest.

  Inside the star fortress, a rising scream set up from the hub, penetrating every part of the vessel. The station’s huge population took shelter in their quarters. For a day and a half Galatan wailed, until finally it was ready to jump.

  With a sucking roar that unnaturally defied the silence of the void, Galatan’s warp engines tore a massive hole in the veil between gross reality and the immaterium. Real space plasma engines shot flares of white hot fire, pushing Galatan into the hole, and the star fortress passed from this reality into the warp.

  The rift closed with a bang. Comets, perturbed from their static positions in the outer belt by Galatan, drifted sunwards. Otherwise there was no sign the fortress had been there at all.

  Chapter Ten

  The Plague Ships

  The Spear of Espandor crusade broke warp and tore without delay towards the centre of the Parmenio System, and the prime world. The fleet was swollen greatly with reinforcements from all over Ultramar. Several were returned taskforces that had completed their missions, driving away splinter forces of the Death Guard and making safe the worlds they had invaded. The rest were reinforcements drawn from across the segmentum. Adeptus Mechanicus formed the main: legions of skitarii, battle robots and three demi-legios of the Oberon, Fortis and Atarus Titan legions. There were dozens of Astra Militarum regiments, convents of the Sisters of Battle, Militarum Tempestus strike groups, and more.

  Guilliman had asked for some of this help, but much had come unbidden, to aid the primarch in the saving of his home.

  From the command deck of the Macragge’s Honour Roboute Guilliman controlled his fleet absolutely. A huge deck of screens was arrayed in a semicircle before the dais where he oversaw everything. His advisers gathered to his right, a horde of functionaries to his left, ready to take his orders wherever they needed to go.

  For a full day the ships had burned engines at maximum capacity, attaining speeds close to one tenth that of light, before sailing through the inner bounds and beginning their lengthy deceleration. Vulnerable transport craft flew at the heart of the fleet formation, protected by lines of escorts. The major warships formed a sharp spear blade, the Macragge’s Honour at the very tip.

  Preparations for the attack were constant. Men and women came and went from the primarch’s side. Guilliman did not move from his station. He took his meat and drink there but no rest. He monitored every operation, his capacious mind processing all, and making constant adjustments. Shipmaster Brahe, tiny in his command throne before the primarch’s station, took as little rest as a mortal man could, only leaving when Guilliman ordered him to sleep.

  Still slowing, they passed quickly in-system, driving hard past worlds ravaged by plague and war.

  ‘The lesser planets of Parmenio suffer much,’ said Tetrarch Felix, Guilliman’s erstwhile equerry. His role was to lead the planetfall upon Parmenio, and he was often elsewhere ordering his warriors, but he spared an hour on the command deck when he could to stand at his gene-father’s side and learn.

  ‘They will be saved in time,’ said Guilliman. ‘Parmenio must be liberated first, or we shall find ourselves playing the role of besiegers. We strike fast and strike hard at the heart of corruption. These outlying warbands can be dealt with easily once my brother is dead. We cannot tarry.’

  No one disagreed with him. They were all grim-faced. Seeing so many perfect worlds of Ultramar infested with the Plague God’s evil saddened them. They had no room in their hearts and minds for anything other than vengeance.

  The steady glint of Parmenio grew. First one light among many, soon it outshone the stars and soon after that it was brighter than the globular dots of its sister planets whirling about the sun. Guilliman disregarded his own written strategies and kept the fleet dead on course for the world, sailing along the plane of the ecliptic in defiance of any projectile that might be hurled their way. He wished to send his brother a message by his bold approach: you are not welcome, depart or die.

  From glint to dot to ball to globe, Parmenio grew under Guilliman’s steady gaze. Three continents graced its surface. Gardamaus was far to the south and alone amid the ocean, while the other two, Hecatone and Keleton, were close to each other and together dominated the northern hemisphere. They were newly split in geological terms, a mere million years apart from each other’s embrace. Divided by the narrow River Sea, spurned Hecatone reached yearning headlands towards Keleton’s bleak, uncaring hills.

  New lights winked into view, curling around the equator from the planet’s nightside on a steady orbital track.

  ‘Enemy fleet in sight, my lord,’ Shipmaster Brahe announced.

  ‘Give me long-range scans and breakdowns of their capabilities, quickly. I want the main augur array to conduct sweeps on the planet immediately,’ ordered Guilliman.

  Guilliman discounted the plague fleet; it was a fraction of the size of the Imperial force, with only three capital ships. Still, it had to be dealt with.

  The craft were in various stages of decay, more akin to the derelicts one might find caught in gravity wells near the sites of old conflicts than functional ships. But they sailed the void still, rusted and battered though they looked, coasting through the debris fields of Parmenio’s shattered orbitals like diseased pelagic predators. Two showed signs of diabolical favour and had been transmuted utterly by Nurgle’s whim. The hulls were soft, coated in exuberant growths of flesh. They looked too rotted to be dangerous, but Guilliman knew better. He issued orders that they be targeted as a matter of priority.

  ‘Mortarion’s flagship is not here,’ said Tribune Maldovar Colquan of the Adeptus Custodes, who alone had not left the primarch’s side throughout their approach, but stood by him, brooding in his golden armour. ‘He may not be present.’

  ‘His ship does not need to be here,’ said Guilliman. ‘Mortarion
is no longer a primarch. He is empowered by the dark energies of the warp. A daemon requires no vessel to travel the stars, and nor does he. He will be here. He has practically informed me of the fact. Do not be deceived by the strength of his fleet. This is an invitation. See, the fleet he has stationed here are not Legion, but the vessels of lesser renegades.’

  ‘It is a lure,’ said Felix.

  ‘It is, but I go willingly to the hook,’ said Guilliman.

  ‘The fallen Chapters are more contemptible than the traitors of old,’ said Colquan. The Adeptus Custodian simmered in his armour. He rarely spoke but when he did he spat his words, an inch away from anger. He ejected every syllable from his mouth hard, each laden with the energy of a bullet. Colquan was ashamed that his order had done so little before the primarch rose from his slumber. Shame affects all men differently. Colquan’s manifested as rage: rage at Guilliman’s near usurpation of the Emperor, rage at the state of the galaxy, but mostly rage at himself. He could kill a thousand enemies, and it would not be enough. Every dead foe reminded him of the thousands more his sword would have cleaved had he not been confined to Terra. ‘They leapt to their damnation with both feet. They saw clearly what was on offer, and accepted it.’

  ‘Their reasons are their own,’ said Guilliman. ‘Do not fixate on ranking their degrees of treachery. We need to concentrate on what they are, and how they fight.’

  ‘They are corrupt. Less skilled in combat than the Traitor Legion,’ said Colquan.

  ‘They are formidable, nevertheless,’ said Guilliman. ‘Attack Group Atticus, peel off and assault the plague fleet. Keep them from us as we near the planet.’

  Men hurried to relay his orders. The attack group, a fleet in its own right, powered out of formation. Lesser squadrons broke off from elsewhere in the flotilla to form a fighting picket between the main taskforce and Atticus to intercept the plague ships should any break through.

  ‘We have identified a potential source of warp energy, my lord,’ Shipmaster Brahe informed him. ‘In Hecaton, the capital of the eastern continent.’

  ‘Show me,’ commanded Guilliman.

  A tacticaria hololith sphere flickered on. Parmenio was presented within as a true-pict graphic. The western continent was untouched, the southern mostly hale looking. These two landmasses were the greens and browns and crystals blues of a healthy, living world, though long dark streaks of smoke tailed off the major cities.

  Hecatone was afflicted, covered over with sickly yellow fogs.

  ‘Reveal it,’ said the primarch.

  ‘Compensating for atmospheric conditions,’ intoned an augury specialist transmechanic.

  The image flickered. Arcane technologies stripped the fog away from the holo.

  The last time Guilliman had seen the world, Hecatone’s fertile plains had been a startling emerald, with circular fields of crops visible from orbit, studded with the brilliant white flashes of marble towns and the grey squares of transit centres. All was gone to filth. On the far eastern side of the mountains dividing the continent in two was nothing but ashen waste, agrilands and urban centres all reduced to dead black ground. On the west, the side nearest to the continent of Keleton, a filthy black marsh had been conjured into being. It swamped the plains of Hecatone right the way to the shores of the River Sea and the port city of Tyros.

  ‘Show me the city of Hecaton,’ ordered Guilliman.

  The tacticaria rotated until Hecaton was in front of Guilliman’s face.

  ‘Close in view,’ ordered the Master Augurum.

  The holo expanded, sucking the viewers down to near ground level.

  Hecaton’s famous stepped plazas built into the mountainside were grey with weeds. The channels between its water gardens were dead black lines. Overlays imposed themselves upon the visual feed, bringing forth fresh colours. The effect was similar to heat vision, or dark sight, but this particular filter was gathered by the ship’s psy-oculus, an esoteric piece of machinery that allowed the mapping of etheric energies.

  With this false witch-sight engaged, Hecaton was replaced by a many-armed vortex rotating over the world. It reached long streamers far out across the planet, and where they touched corruption took root.

  ‘That is certainly where Mortarion’s clock is, in Hecaton,’ said Guilliman. ‘An orbital strike is preferable. We destroy it and break the web he weaves across Ultramar. Determine shielding.’

  ‘Scans indicate the presence of a warp field,’ said the Master Augurum. ‘No voids.’

  ‘Give me control of the main augur array,’ said Guilliman.

  ‘As you command.’

  Guilliman’s fingers danced over numerous gel pads and brass keyboards. He paused every so often, eyes flicking back and forth over multiple displays. ‘Here is the likely source.’ A power complex covered over in fleshy veins appeared as a flat pict in a hololithic orb. ‘It is defended with a warp field. Prepare psyk-out missiles. Breach the shield. The gap will not last. Unfortunately the power source must be destroyed on the ground. Tetrarch Felix, Captain Sicarius.’ Guilliman’s voice was carried out to his warriors’ dropships by a hovering vox-angel. ‘Prepare for immediate deployment.’

  A klaxon hooted.

  ‘Loading psyk-out missiles, my lord,’ announced the Master Ordinatum.

  Guilliman looked to the display where the vanguard of his fleet and the plague ships tussled as numbered triangles in a vectored sphere.

  ‘Await my order to fire. Brahe, full power towards the planet.’

  ‘We have few of these missiles, my lord,’ grumbled Colquan.

  ‘That is why we will not miss,’ said Guilliman.

  The renegade Space Marine fleet saw the Macragge’s Honour pulling away from its escort. A squadron of destroyers managed to break the Imperial cordon and move towards the flagship. Brahe ordered his gunners to cast a wall of mass shot in their path. Their death would be several minutes in coming, but they would die.

  ‘Range to planet,’ said Guilliman.

  ‘Thirty-two thousand kilometres and closing.’

  ‘Reverse thrusters full,’ ordered Brahe.

  ‘My lord, the payload is free and ready for release,’ reported the Master Ordinatum.

  ‘Hold fire until two thousand six hundred kilometres,’ ordered Guilliman. ‘Point defence laser and particle beam turrets stand by to intercept anti-munitions fire.’ He looked to Colquan. ‘We will not miss.’

  The Macragge’s Honour bulled its way through space, debris meteors from Parmenio’s wrecked orbitals igniting a display of localised lightning storms and scintillas of annihilation flare all over the forward void shields. The ship groaned at the twin stresses of deceleration and Parmenio’s strengthening gravity. All was quiet. The crew, whether baseline human, servitor or Adeptus Astartes, were absorbed by their tasks.

  ‘Range, two thousand six hundred kilometres,’ reported the Master Ordinatum. ‘Point defence turrets zeroed and ready.’

  ‘Tetrarch Felix, Captain Sicarius, launch,’ commanded the primarch.

  A hundred plasma lights shoaled away from the embarkation deck and hangars of the Macragge’s Honour. Guilliman waited until the attack craft had cleared the fore of the vessel and were speeding towards the planet.

  ‘Release ordnance,’ he said.

  ‘Release ordnance,’ relayed Brahe.

  ‘Ordnance released,’ confirmed the Master Ordinatum.

  ‘We are too far out for an orbital drop,’ said Colquan. ‘They are vulnerable.’

  ‘Ordinarily, yes,’ said Guilliman. ‘Hundreds rather than thousands of kilometres is the norm. In this position the Macragge’s Honour shields them from the attentions of the plague fleet and is ready to respond to any surprises my brother might have for us. Watch and learn, Custodian.’

  The Macragge’s Honour shuddered ever so slightly, a warship’s equivalent of a gentle exhalat
ion.

  From the plough-blade prow, four massive torpedoes slid free. They were immense, as large as some of the smaller ships in the fleet. Void drives made up the back third. Servitors hardwired into their missile’s extensive cogitation suites guided them. They had their own batteries of point defence weapons, jamming suites and decoy launchers, for the warheads they carried were precious indeed.

  Carried by each was a cluster of caskets, arranged like the slugs in a stub-revolver’s chamber deep inside the missile’s layered armour. There were eighteen, in three rows of six capsules, a small payload for such a mighty delivery system, but devastating to the right target.

  Within the capsules were the refined remains of pariahs, individuals who, like the Sisters of Silence, had a minimal presence in the warp and whose very existence was anathema to the creatures and energies of that realm. It was heretical weaponry according to some, and vanishingly rare.

  Guilliman had no qualms about its use.

  The missiles moved slowly at first relative to the flagship, but their engines accelerated them away towards the planet. A cloud of reflective chaff surrounded them, replenished by the missile’s onboard launchers every thirty seconds, leaving a glittering trail behind them in space.

  Nothing shot at the missiles until they came near to the planet. Defensive fire twinkled on the blighted portion of Parmenio. The torpedoes’ own systems retaliated against those munitions moving slow enough to target. Swift missiles were peppered with hyper-velocity ball shot. Micro lasers burned out shell heads. Enemy las-fire dispersed in the chaff field, beam coherency scattered.

  ‘Three minutes to impact,’ announced the Master Ordinatum.

  ‘Taskforce approaching planetary envelope.’

  The missiles outpaced Felix’s invasion vanguard. Orange flared around their blunt noses. Heat shields shrugged aside the burn of re-entry.

  The Macragge’s Honour’s own guns were rumbling, hurling modest munitions at the world below. Their aim was not to destroy the enemy – Guilliman feared for Parmenio too much to do that from orbit – but to cripple the aerial defence network shielding the complex.