Rogue Trader

by Andy Hoare

  Glancing towards the melta charges at the base of the antennae mast, Sarik replied ‘Understood, command. Detonation in three minutes.’

  ‘Be advised,’ Sarik added as he scanned the jade skies. ‘Enemy aircraft are utilising some form of optical shielding. They’re invisible to the naked eye.’

  ‘Understood,’ the voice replied. ‘Disseminating to all commands.’

  ‘The order is given,’ announced General Gauge, the pict screen relaying the top-down scene of a vast mushroom cloud climbing into the air, marking Sergeant Sarik’s destruction of his objective. Addressing his chief of staff, Gauge said, ‘Commence landing phase.’

  Scores of Imperial Guard staff officers and Departmento Tacticae advisors set about their preordained tasks, each relaying orders into vox-horns and putting into motion the planetary assault on Dal’yth Prime. This was the moment the crusade had been building towards for so long, from the earliest sessions of the crusade council when all of this was little more than a dream. Countless cogitation terminals lit up with rapidly scrolling lines of text, status reports flooding back and forth, describing the drama unfolding in orbit above the tau planet.

  Lucian felt relief that his friend Sarik had completed his mission, though two of his warriors had fallen during the assault on the sensor pylon. Of the other Space Marine contingents undertaking their own missions against other pylons, a handful of injuries and two more deaths had been reported, all of which spoke volumes of their courage and dedication, and of the tau’s readiness to defend their world. With the primary sensor pylons destroyed, however, the landings could commence, safe in the knowledge that the tau would be blinded to the true extent of the Imperium’s invasion.

  Lucian was reminded of the deeds of a number of his ancestors, those bold men and women who had earned the Arcadius Warrant of Trade and forged the clan’s fortunes, carving its name into the annals of Imperial history for all time. The name of one of his forbearers rang especially loud, that of old Abad Gerrit, the hero of the Scallarn Pacification. As a child, Lucian had been enthralled by the huge holochrome rendition of old Abad, depicting the scene of the rogue trader leading an army of ten thousand followers against the orks that had enslaved the entire Scallarn Cluster.

  At that moment, Lucian realised that above all else, he desired to be a part of such battles, to earn such glories for the Arcadius clan as had his predecessors. As much as he tried to dismiss the notion, his mind raced as he considered the possibilities. To join the crusade on the ground, to take part in its battles, would have both the immediate effect of elevating his position on the council, and of further securing the clan’s long-term fortunes. Maybe someday someone would sculpt a holochrome of him, side by side with Sergeant Sarik as they conquered tau space…

  As the landing operation began in earnest, Lucian marvelled at the sheer spectacle of the event. Dozens of screens showed fleet assets moving into position as lumbering troop transports prepared to disgorge hundreds upon hundreds of drop-vessels. These ranged in size from ships ferrying a single squad or platoon to the surface, to those carrying entire companies of armoured vehicles. The greatest and most impressive were those of the Adeptus Mechanicus, by which the mighty god-machines of the Titanicus would be deployed to the surface. For each man that would land on the surface, another hundred at least supported the action, each forming a vital link in the chain. In truth, the Damocles Gulf Crusade was a relatively minor undertaking in the grand scheme of the Imperium’s wars, yet here and now, at the heart of the command centre, it had all the grandeur of any of the great battles of the last ten thousand years.

  General Gauge stood at his command postern, surrounded by his cadre of staff officers, listening to a constant stream of reports and status updates. The central pict screen now showed the view over the landing zone as seen by a sub-orbital spy-drone a dozen kilometres overhead. Reams of data scrolled across a dozen smaller screens, each contributing to the general’s picture of the grand invasion.

  A winged death’s head icon appeared in the centre of the main screen, indicating the successful landing of the first wave. That force was made up of a composite company of Space Marines drawn from several different Chapters. A second such company landed, via two-dozen drop-pods, five kilometres to the west of the first. It immediately deployed as a blocking force to intercept any tau ground forces that attempted to counter-attack along the road network that led to the western cities.

  The operation unfolded over the following hours, General Gauge scarcely needing to issue any further orders, for the landings had been planned in meticulous detail. Regiment after regiment made the drop. While the elite Space Marines landed in small, five-man drop-pods, the Imperial Guard deployed in far larger drop-ships, each capable of ferrying an entire infantry company and its equipment, a troop of Leman Russ tanks, or an armoured infantry platoon mounted in Chimera carriers. The landings were not unopposed, however, for while the tau pulled back what ground units were near the landing zone, they committed large numbers of flyers to contest the landings, which General Gauge’s force was hard-pressed to counter.

  The tau air force launched sortie after sortie against the landing forces. The initial attacks were directed against the two composite companies of Space Marines, but that allowed the first wave of the larger transports to land largely without incident. The Space Marines withstood dozens of attacks by enemy flyers so fast that they stood little chance of engaging them. Nonetheless, the Space Marines did manage to shoot down a handful of aircraft using their missile launchers, each successful engagement being met with a hearty cheer from the staff of the command centre.

  With the tau flyers concentrating on the Space Marines, the Imperial Guard were able to land several mobile air defence companies of Hydra flak tanks. Though one transport was engaged as it plummeted through the atmosphere and shot down with the loss of a dozen tanks and several hundred lives, the remainder were able to deploy successfully. Within three hours the landing zone was covered by an air defence umbrella that made it impossible for the tau to harass subsequent waves. With the immediate airspace secured, infantry companies from the Rakarshan Rifles and the Brimlock Dragoons pressed outwards to secure the ground in all directions. The bulk of their number headed west to establish dominance over the road network leading to the coastal cities.

  At the last, satisfied that the landing zone was secure, General Gauge ordered the deployment of the crusade’s heaviest units, the vast landers from which the mighty engines of the Legio Thanataris would walk. With the Deathbringers’ fastest moving machines, their Warhound Titans, pressing forwards, the ground war could truly begin.

  The view from the flat top of the rocky mesa was quite stunning, allowing Sergeant Sarik to take in the awe-inspiring scale of the landing operation. Several kilometres behind Sarik, the sensor pylon still burned, its once pristine white form reduced to a twisted, blackened mass as a column of choking smoke rose high in the atmosphere. The landings were well and truly under way, the white sun of Dal’yth setting in the rapidly darkening jade sky.

  Having destroyed the sensor pylon and ordered the tending of his dead and injured battle-brothers, Sarik had linked his force up with the other Space Marine contingents to assist in the securing of the landing zone. The tau units in the area had swiftly disengaged, however, and mounted an impressively coordinated withdrawal before the Space Marines could engage them effectively. Sarik was forced to admit that the tau warriors were worthy opponents, and that they fought with honour. The aliens’ fast-moving tactics reminded Sarik of those employed by the nomads of his home world of Chogoris, whose use of swift mounts allowed them to launch lightning raids before withdrawing in the face of enemy counter-attack. Already, Sarik had disseminated this point to the other Space Marine units of the crusade, and advised them how such tactics might be met, and countered.

  The flat desert below the tall mesa was now swarming with troops and armoured vehicles. The f
irst Imperial soldiers Sarik’s White Scars had linked up with were the veteran light infantrymen of the Rakarshan Rifles. They moved quickly to press into the surrounding desert, and had begun aggressive patrolling in order to repel any enemy that sought to observe or interfere with the operation. The Rakarshans were followed by the crusade’s more heavily armed and equipped units, whose tanks, mobile artillery and armoured carriers were even now filling the air with the roar of their engines, the grinding of tracks and the smoke of their exhausts. As more and more heavy landers touched down, the first streams of men and vehicles swelled to become rivers, until thousands of Imperial Guardsmen and hundreds of tanks were pressing outwards.

  All the while, the tau flyers continued to contest the landings, and though few had penetrated the air defence umbrella the Hydra flak tanks had established, those that had been able to slew scores of men with each strafing run. Fortunately for the operation, only a handful of the flyers were equipped with the stealth field Sarik had faced on the pylon. The Departmento Tacticae advisors surmised that these were an elite wing of the tau air force. The Imperium would be ready for them next time.

  Sarik’s chain of thought was interrupted as he became aware of a deep, rumbling drone sounding from above. The heaviest lander yet was descending upon a column of fire and smoke. The vessel came ponderously in to land, and another three followed in its wake. The roar of the vessel’s landing jets was deafening, even from several kilometres away. In basic form the lander resembled the drop-pod Sarik and the other White Scars had made planetfall in, yet its scale was truly vast. The vessel was three or four times taller than its width, its hull configured in a hexagonal form above the largest retro thruster Sarik had ever seen on a ship capable of atmospheric operation.

  As the lander descended, an invisible anti-grav field was projected below it, an arcane and ill-understood system that would ensure the vessel’s precious cargo was deployed with all possible care. The anti-grav field pressed down upon the earth as the vessel neared the ground, the invisible forces crushing everything beneath it flat, including a tracked cargo tender which failed to evacuate the landing zone in time. The grav field dampened the area so effectively that the clouds of dust that should have been thrown up by the retro-thrusters were crushed downwards to form a carpet of sand across the land.

  As the first lander touched down, Sarik felt the desert beneath his feet tremble as millions of tons of steel and ceramite ground into the bedrock. It felt to Sarik as if he witnessed a primeval contest of the elements: that wrought in the forges of the Adeptus Mechanicus battling against the raw stuff of Dal’yth Prime’s continental plates. The contest continued for long minutes, until eventually the tremors faded away, leaving Sarik with the impression that the world beneath his feet would remain scarred by the coming of the Titanicus forever. Soon, a dozen of the landers had touched down, each towering a hundred metres and more into air that shimmered with the residual heat of atmospheric entry.

  The anti-grav fields deactivated, contingents of tech-priests and their servitors emerged from dozens of hatches and busied themselves around the heavy landers. Prayers and chants filled the air as the tech-priests supplicated themselves before the vessels, which in themselves were a manifestation of their Machine-God, the Omnissiah. The cloying scent of holy lubricant and incense oil drifted across the desert, mixing unpleasantly with the scent of burning resin blowing in from the ruined sensor pylon.

  Finally, the sides of each lander lowered downwards like the petals of a titanic ceramite flower, accompanied by the grinding of metal gears and the thud of the huge ramps striking the earth. Vast clouds of dust were thrown up as the ramps hit the ground, and through them emerged a group of loping Warhound Titans of the Legio Thanataris. Each was a towering war machine bearing weapons of the scale normally only seen on starships. Though far from the heaviest of the Titans the Legio could field, these had the speed to range ahead of the crusade’s ground forces, moving swiftly with a characteristic stooped gait, to engage anything the tau might be able to field. As they formed up into a predatory pack on the blackened earth of the landing zone, the Warhounds’ heads, each sculpted to resemble a mighty wolf-like face, tracked back and forth across their new hunting ground. It almost appeared as if the Titans sniffed the air as they sought the spoor of their prey.

  Sarik mouthed a prayer to the spirits of his ancestors, thanking them for the part he would enact in the coming battles as his heart yearned to begin the fight. Limbering his boltgun, Sarik turned to make his way from the mesa, filled with anticipation for the glory the coming battles would surely bring.

  Deep in the bowels of the heavy cruiser Oceanid, Lucian and his son Korvane approached the mighty armoured portal of the vessel’s armoury. This was no conventional store of arms and munitions, but the inner sanctum of the rogue trader dynasty, the holy of holies that kept safe some of the most prized of Lucian’s possessions. Only the ancestral stasis tomb beneath the blasted surface of sacred Terra held more valued treasures, such as the Arcadius Warrant of Trade and the holy banner of the line’s founding.

  Lucian’s mind was made up; he had decided to travel to the surface of Dal’yth Prime. He would lead a battle group of Imperial Guard units against the tau defenders, and in so doing bolster his position on the crusade council whilst continuing the glorious traditions of his line.

  ‘Father,’ said Korvane, the inheritor of the clan, as the pair halted before the armoured portal. Though a handsome man, Korvane’s features lent him a shrewd aspect many found disquieting. Lucian’s son wore the same style of clothes as his father, a dress coat styled after that of the Imperial Navy officer classes, though he had always eschewed the more overt forms of finery and naval affectation. While Brielle had been raised at Lucian’s side, literally standing beside him on the bridge of the Oceanid as soon as she was able to walk, Korvane had been brought up in the refined surroundings of the Court of Nankirk, learning his trade in the cutthroat circles of the upper echelons of Imperial aristocracy. His experiences had taught him to conceal his passions and his thoughts, to shield them from potential rivals lest he reveal some exploitable weakness. Lucian knew that Korvane would disapprove of his plan.

  ‘I really must–’

  ‘I know, son,’ Lucian interrupted, as hidden gears engaged and the portal ground slowly upwards. ‘I know. But this is something I have to do.’

  ‘Something you want to do,’ said Korvane, as the pair stepped through the open portal and into the darkness beyond. As they passed over the threshold, hidden mechanisms detected their presence, confirmed their identity, and activated the lumens. The darkness fled as row upon row of arms and armour were illuminated.

  ‘And what if I do?’ Lucian countered, crossing to a row of armoured suits as he spoke. ‘You were raised in the court, son, and I’m glad of it, for the skills you amassed there have served us well. Many of our battles of late have been fought with words, and others with lance battery and broadside. But sometimes, our battles must be fought in the traditional manner. Up close, and personal.’

  ‘And General Gauge,’ said Korvane. ‘He agrees to this?’

  ‘That he does, Korvane,’ said Lucian. ‘Gauge is a veteran of more battles even than Sergeant Sarik. He understands the value of one of our faction getting involved, of being seen to get involved, at the front line. I think he may be a little jealous, actually…’

  ‘But what will it actually achieve?’ Korvane replied. ‘What good will this do our cause on the council?’

  ‘Much,’ said Lucian, selecting a suit of ancient power armour. Its scarred and pitted surface was polished to a sheen that reflected the overhead lights. ‘Grand and his lap dog cardinal would have us exterminate the tau out of hand. They even state they have the means to do so, though I have yet to see evidence that any of the crusade’s vessels is carrying anything like a virus bomb. If the landings go well, that position will become less tenable, and we can steer e
vents to our own ends.’

  ‘Which are?’ Korvane pressed.

  ‘You know as well as I, son,’ said Lucian. ‘Whatever happens, however the crusade is concluded, we must come out of it in the ascendant. The concessions we could win, the charters we could earn… Emperor, if we play this right, Korvane, we could end up as viceroys of this entire region!’

  When Korvane did not respond, Lucian turned from his examination of the suit of power armour to face his son. ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Has it not occurred to you, father,’ Korvane said darkly, ‘that you might not return from this grand adventure?’

  Lucian sighed, placing a hand upon his son’s shoulder. It certainly had occurred to him.

  ‘Son,’ said Lucian. ‘Before I depart for the surface, I have something for you. Just in case.’

  Korvane turned his back on his father, but Lucian pressed on regardless. He raised his hand, palm upwards, to reveal a simple ring in its centre.

  ‘You must take this,’ said Lucian.

  Korvane looked at the glinting ring held out before him. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is the most valuable thing on this ship.’

  When Korvane appeared not to understand, Lucian continued. ‘It’s a gene-keyed cipher bearer. The crystal contains the access codes for the Clan Arcadius stasis vaults.’

  ‘On Terra?’ Korvane said, the full import of Lucian’s words slowly dawning on him. ‘The warrant?’

  ‘Indeed, son,’ said Lucian. ‘Should I fall upon Dal’yth Prime, it’s yours, all of it. But not,’ he raised his hand to Korvane, ‘without this.’

  For a long moment, Lucian thought his son would refuse the ring. After a pause, Korvane reached out and with obvious trepidation, gently took it.