by Andy Hoare
The tau vessels closed in for the kill, their turrets locked on their target’s wound. Lucian held his breath, scarcely able to believe the destruction wrought this day.
However, the coup de grace was never delivered.
A searing, white light erupted to the fore of the Rosetta, Lucian throwing his arm across his face before the viewer even reacted by dimming automatically. Cautiously, he lowered his arm, and saw the remnants of a detonation of stunning magnitude, roiling energies spreading out in a searing bow wave.
The Rosetta was scoured by the explosion, the mighty vessel propelled away by the blast wave and spinning slowly clear. The tau vessel too was caught in the explosion, its entire starboard side erupting in secondary explosions as it was pushed by gargantuan energies across space. Lucian watched as the tau vessel spun clean through its four sister ships, each veering desperately to avoid it. At the last, the tau vessel collided with the Borealis Defensor, the two ships grinding inexorable together, twisting and melding together to form a terrible amalgamation of human and tau starship. Incredibly, neither vessel exploded outright, although plasma fires danced crazily across the surface of both, welding them together for all time, making a blackened tomb for thousands of men and aliens even as they perished within.
Lucian wasted no time mourning the xenos tau or the treacherous dogs of Luneberg’s crew. He was more concerned for his son. The Rosetta was drifting, her drives clearly dead, and a hundred fires had erupted across the side of her hull that had borne the brunt of the explosion.
Worse, she was drifting across the bows of the remaining tau vessels. Lucian weighed the odds, immediately deciding upon his course of action.
‘Helm, cross the Rosetta’s stern at ninety,’ he ordered.
‘Aye, sir,’ Helmsman Raldi replied, a savage grin on his face, and Lucian saw that his helmsman had understood the order fully.
The Oceanid powered on, Lucian seeing that the remaining tau vessels were coming around for a salvo against the Rosetta’s aft section. Within minutes, his vessel was drawing across the Rosetta’s stern, crossing the T with the other ship’s drive section.
‘All stop!’ Lucian bellowed. ‘Starboard batteries, prepare to fire on my order.’
Lucian crossed his hands behind his back, counting off the range to the tau vessels. He knew they would open fire any second.
‘Sir!’ the helmsman shouted, collision-warning sirens screaming into deafening life across the Oceanid’s bridge. The ship pitched beneath Lucian’s feet, throwing him to one side as he fought to keep his balance.
‘Report!’ he shouted.
‘It’s the Fairlight, sir,’ Raldi replied through gritted teeth as he wrestled with the Oceanid’s helm. ‘She’s crossing our starboard bow.’
Lucian turned to see that the sight of the Fairlight coming alongside, entirely filled the starboard viewing port. He turned, looking to the holograph, to see that the alien fleet was veering off.
Thanks to Brielle’s untimely and inexplicable manoeuvre, the aliens had escaped the wrath of the Oceanid’s broadside. Lucian fumed. His daughter might have thought she was aiding him, but she had cost him the potential opportunity to catch the entire alien fleet in one, devastating volley.
She would have some explaining to do, once he had seen that his son was safe.
‘All stop,’ Brielle ordered, the Fairlight coming to a stately halt two hundred metres to the Oceanid’s starboard. She stretched, catlike, in her command throne, and turned to the hooded figure standing beside her.
‘One good turn deserves another, eh Naal?’ she said, crossing her legs across the arm of the throne.
‘Indeed, my lady,’ the man replied. ‘My masters will have much for which to repay you.’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Shall we, then,’ Lucian said, standing centre stage before Droon’s throne, flanked by his son and his daughter ‘discuss payment?’
‘Payment?’ replied Imperial Commander Zachary Droon, his courtiers and advisors fussing around him. ‘I think you will find that the terms of the contractual arrangement between your son and me–’
‘I think,’ interrupted Lucian, a finger held out before him to silence the Imperial Commander, ‘that you will find that I have decided to, alter, the terms of that arrangement.’
Droon’s advisors erupted into outraged splutters of indignation, the reason not entirely lost upon Lucian. He chuckled inwardly, savouring the irony that, once again, a partner had altered terms on them.
‘Now,’ continued Lucian, ‘this is how we are going to settle this.’ He waited for any sign of dissension from Droon, continuing only when he saw the Imperial commander sit down upon his throne, resignation on his ascetic features.
‘My son,’ he placed a hand upon Korvane’s shoulder, his son standing to his right, ‘pledged the service of the Arcadius in the defeat of the traitorous forces of Mundus Chasmata. That pledge has been delivered upon, has it not?’
Droon nodded in reply, Lucian continuing before he could go any further. ‘For that service alone I judge that you are in my, not inconsiderable, debt. However, there is the matter of the harm done to the person of my son,’ he turned to Korvane, whose face and body bore the dreadful wounds done as, Lucian had since discovered, the family torpedo had detonated. Korvane’s wounds would heal, of that Lucian was certain, but they would leave behind severe scarring, even disfigurement. ‘Not to mention,’ he continued, ‘the large scale damage inflicted upon the Rosetta and the Oceanid during the course of the action.’
‘That was hardly…’ Droon spoke up, about to object to the fact that the damage to the Rosetta had been self-inflicted, and that done to the Oceanid had been caused in no small part by the weapons of the Mundus Chasmata Primary Orbital.
‘Your fault?’ Lucian growled. ‘It was “hardly your fault” that you conspired with xenos to reject the just rule of the Adeptus Terra? It was “hardly your fault” that you did so entirely to settle an ancient grudge with a neighbour with whom you should have been cooperating in harmony?’
‘What, then, are your terms?’ Droon replied.
‘Glad you asked,’ Lucian grinned, handing a data-slate to a nearby page, who carried it across to Droon.
Droon read the slate, his eyes widening as he took in the enormity of the figures listed there. The Imperial Commander swallowed, hard, before handing the slate back to the page. ‘And if I cannot settle on these terms?’
‘Well, my dear commander, there are a number of reasons why I really think that you will. For one, my astropath has been monitoring the declarations of independence issued by every world in this region. You have been fooled, Droon: the tau were not fighting for your cause – they were fighting to stir the likes of you to rebellion. I can guarantee you that every other Imperial Commander on every other world in the Timbra Subsector and beyond has been approached, in one way or another, by these aliens’ agents. Evidently, most have fallen to the temptations offered to them. In Luneberg’s case it was exotic goods – his world was crawling with them – and weapons with which to equip his vessels. In your case it was mercenary service.’
‘My astropath has picked up a new voice,’ Lucian continued. ‘The Imperium, Droon, has already heard of the situation out here.’ He paused, allowing that to sink in, gratified that Droon’s entire court had fallen to absolute silence. ‘On my word, he can inform the very highest of authorities of the part you had to play in all this. You know what will happen then, Droon?’
When Droon did not reply, Lucian went on. ‘If you are lucky, a Guard army of occupation will arrive and you will be executed quickly. If you are unlucky, it might be the Astartes. They don’t do occupation Droon, they go straight to the head and cut it off. It might even be the Inquisition. If it’s them, you will not be executed quickly. They will execute very slowly, and very painfully.’
‘Very well, Lucian Gerrit,
’ replied Imperial Commander Zachary Droon. ‘I will have my factors draw the necessary bonds.’
Lucian suppressed a grin, clapping his son’s shoulder, and catching the wry glance cast his way by his daughter. Following her manoeuvre: the manoeuvre that had allowed the tau fleet to escape, he had threatened to ship her off to take control of a grox-lard processing plant on Chogoris in which he owned a controlling interest. I still might, he thought.
The Arcadius had emerged triumphant, and the price he had exacted upon Droon for his not turning the Imperial Commander over to the first Imperial Navy warship he encountered would go a very long way to restoring their fortunes. Yes, Lucian thought, the Arcadius are back.
The Rosetta, restored to a semblance of running order, to the Oceanid’s port and the Fairlight to her starboard, Lucian stood upon the bridge of his vessel. He had been about to issue the order to make warp, when his astropath, Master Karisan, had rushed onto the bridge, breathless, and interrupted him.
‘Speak, Karisan,’ Lucian ordered distractedly, ‘but make it fast and get back to your quarters. We make warp any moment.’
The astropath stood before Lucian, blocking the forward viewing port. The old man fidgeted and wrung his hands, a motion that instantly irritated Lucian.
‘Report, man,’ Lucian barked.
‘Well, it’s this…’ Karisan cleared his throat before continuing. ‘Not only has every world for twenty light years announced its secession from the Imperium of Man,’ Karisan said, evidently catching his wind, and barely able to contain himself. ‘Almost every such world has announced its joining of a new…’ he paused.
‘…empire.’
‘Go on.’ The astropath now had Lucian’s complete, undivided attention.
‘The forces of these aliens are even now flooding the entire region – everywhere to the galactic east of the Damocles Gulf. The secessionists are announcing, to all who will hear them, their joining of this alien empire: this tau empire.’
‘But,’ Karisan continued before Lucian could interrupt, ‘but, I have been monitoring the distant voices of the Imperium.’
‘What of them?’ Lucian asked, sensing that life in the Timbra subsector was about to get very interesting indeed.
‘A crusade!’ The astropath’s voice cracked as he yelped with something resembling religious ecstasy. Lucian had never before seen the old man so animated.
‘A crusade is being preached even now my master. Cardinal Gurney preaches war against the tau. He denounces their lies and already, others have pledged aid or service to him.’
‘Who?’ Lucian’s mind raced as he considered the possibilities unfolding before him. ‘Who pledges aid to this Gurney against the tau?’
‘Why,’ replied Karisan, ‘the fleet, of course, and Brimlock musters even now. Five regiments and more.’
‘Five regiments of Guard have no hope of–’
‘Not just them,’ Karisan interrupted. Lucian let him continue. ‘Inquisitor Grand of the Ordo Xenos! The Astartes! The Iron Hands! The Emperor’s Scythes. Even,’ and here the astropath leaned towards Lucian, ‘the White Scars.’
Lucian leaned back in his command throne, feeling an exhilaration that he had not experienced for many years wash over him. Thoughts of the tales of old Abad and the others came to him, tales of his ancestors penetrating the outer dark at the head of vast, all-conquering fleets, Navy, Guard and Marines rallied to their Emperor-given banner.
Here, now, he, Lucian Gerrit of the Arcadius found himself uniquely placed to make such a thing a reality once more. This preacher, this Cardinal Gurney might prove troublesome, but Lucian could scarcely believe his luck that a contingent of the White Scars Chapter was present. The White Scars, those savage sons of Chogoris, who called the very same world home, as had Brielle’s mother, and he was not without contacts there still.
‘Master?’ Helmsman Raldi turned towards Lucian, his hand still gripped upon the Oceanid’s tiller. ‘Are we to make way?’
‘What?’ Lucian’s attention was brought back to the here and the now. He looked to his helmsman, before addressing the whole bridge. ‘Belay my previous order. We are not to return to the west.’
‘Your orders then, my lord?’ Raldi asked. Lucian saw the glint in his eye.
‘East.’ He glanced at a star map, taking in those systems that Karisan had indicated were now in the sway of the alien tau. He picked one.
‘Kleist.’
As the bridge crew went about the business of enacting their new orders, Lucian smiled to himself. Perhaps the Arcadius would stay around for a while. It looked to him as if the Damocles Gulf was about to become a very interesting, and very profitable, place for a man such as he.
Cold Trade
The Adeptus Astra Cartographica listed the world by the short form designator SK0402/78Φ, but the locals called it ‘Quag.’ It was an unpleasant little name for an unpleasant little world, but Brielle Gerrit, daughter of the infamous rogue trader Lucien Gerrit and next in line to inherit the Arcadius Warrant of Trade, had good reason to visit it. The corner of her mouth curling into a covetous grin, Brielle’s hand was subconsciously drawn to the hidden pocket in her uniform jacket and the small object nestled within. Her costume was similar to that worn by the highest ranked officers of the Imperial Navy fleet of a sector very, very far away, and she most certainly did not bear the commission that granted her the right to wear it. But that just made the wearing of the deep blue frock coat with its shining gold epaulettes and fancy braiding all the more fun.
‘Commencing final approach, mistress,’ the pilot announced from the cockpit, snapping Brielle’s attentions back to the here and now. She was seated in the astrodome of her Aquila-class shuttle, a small vessel configured as her personal transport and clad in the red and gold livery of the Arcadius clan of rogue traders. Really, she should have been strapped safely into her grav couch in the shuttle’s passenger compartment, but she had always preferred to witness atmospheric interface first hand rather than relayed through a pict-slate. Her pilot, Ganna, was a trusted retainer of the clan and he had given up objecting to his mistress’s habits years ago.
‘How long?’ Brielle said into her vox-pickup, the sound of Quag’s atmosphere fusion-blasting the shuttle’s outer skin making normal conversation impossible.
‘We’ll be through the upper cloud layer momentarily, mistress,’ Ganna replied, the faintly mechanical edge to his voice betraying the latest of the machine augmentations he had recently been fitted with, at his own instigation. ‘Stand by…’
Brielle gripped the handles beneath the armoured glass dome and raised herself upwards to look out. As she did so, the flames licking the shuttle’s outer skin wisped away, and the scene opened up before her. The surface of the world below lurched upwards as Ganna brought the shuttle onto a new heading, the landscape resolving itself from the swirling mists.
‘What a dump,’ Brielle sneered, flicking her head back sharply as a stray plait fell across her face. ‘Where’s the settlement?’
‘Just over the horizon, mistress,’ Ganna replied. ‘And if I might say so, I agree. It is a dump.’
‘Hmm,’ Brielle replied, settling in to watch the final approach, even if it was the final approach to an absolute festering boil of planet. As the shuttle gradually shed velocity and altitude, the landscape came into focus, not that Brielle paid it much attention. The surface of Quag was, as its name suggested, dominated by endless tracts of swamps, bogs, marshes and pretty much every variation on the theme of stinking, bubbling foulness. The planet’s shallow seas were only distinguishable from its landmasses by the relative lack of trees, and even on the so-called land, these were twisted, stunted things that resembled skeletal limbs grasping for the wan skies. It wasn’t pretty.
As the shuttle descended still lower, bucking sharply as it ploughed through the occasional pocket of atmospheric disturbance, Brielle caugh
t sight of several small clusters of lights, out in the swamps and none closer to its neighbour than a hundred kilometres. The grin returned to Brielle’s lips as she regarded the lonely, twinkling pinpricks. She knew exactly what they represented, though she would save that information for later.
At the exact moment that a burst of machine chatter spewed through the vox-net, Brielle located the shuttle’s destination. Quagtown, some of the locals called it, while others preferred the settlement. Brielle’s word for it wasn’t fit to be expressed near those locals, though most would secretly agree with her general view of the badland town that even now was hoving into view. If the planet of Quag was a cesspit, then its only major settlement, below them, was the sump.
‘Three minutes, mistress,’ Ganna announced. ‘Transmitting key now.’
As machine code blurted harshly in the background, Brielle watched Quagtown grow nearer. The first thing she saw was the towering rock column on which it was perched, a natural formation that looked anything but. The column was the only feature of its type on the entire world, resembling a flat-topped stalagmite rearing a kilometre into the air. At the summit was clustered the settlement itself, its oldest quarters built on the cap and the later ones clinging precariously to its sides. From this distance, the town looked like so many layers of festering metallic junk piled randomly on top of one another, and to be honest, it didn’t look much different close up.
Both Brielle and Ganna remained silent as the machine chatter burbled away, and Brielle fancied she could discern the to and fro of electronic conversation in the atonal stream. After a minute or so, during which the shuttle continued its approach to the ramshackle town, the chatter ceased, to be replaced by a solid, grating tone.
‘Did they go for it?’ said Brielle, her gaze fixed on the command terminal before her. A small data-relay slate showed a line of text, but while Brielle was relatively conversant in such things, the code was unknown to her.