by Guy Haley
‘We will not submit!’
‘We shall not abandon our sovereignty. How many times must you be told?’
‘Aegis reversal awaits your command, lord primarch,’ said the chief adept of reflex command. His own augmetics were deactivated, and he moved with difficulty.
In the hololith, another lord spoke up. ‘Your forces are too few to take our cities. We will stand united, our fleets together, and repel you. You cannot prevail. Depart, and never come here again. We are no threat to you. We have no expansionist tendencies. Leave now. Let there be peace between our civilisations.’
‘You cannot defeat us!’ said another.
Corax rose to his feet.
‘Drop reflex shields. Bring reactors to full power. Fleet to converge and adopt spearhead formation. Let us shock these stubborn old men into obedience.’
The command deck leapt into action.
‘Ready, my lord,’ said the master of communications.
Corax leant forward onto the rail around his dais. ‘Execute.’
Power flooded back onto the bridge. Machines activated. Lumens flickered back on all across the ceiling. Servitors, slumped inactive, came to sudden life. The crew were talking rapidly, attending to a hundred systems woken from dormancy. As the Saviour in Shadow opened itself to the wider world, the hololiths took on finer definition and the figures they projected moved more smoothly.
Corax let his primarch’s nature show through his everyday facade. The effect was lessened only a little by transmission through the hololith. On every one of the artificial worlds, the Ravenlord’s visage was broadcast in massive form, and his black eyes looked deep into the beings of a thousand recalcitrant lords.
‘I am Corvus Corax, primarch of the Raven Guard Legion, the son of the Emperor of Mankind and the Saviour of Deliverance. Your time is up, my lords. Submit. You have nothing to fear if you do.’
On the tacticarium, scores of Raven Guard ships blinked from red to green as their reflex shielding dropped, their plasma engines already pushing them into formation with their lord’s flagship.
Silence gripped the figures in the hololith, Fenc included.
After a time, a lord shorter and fatter than the rest, though still attenuated by Terran standards, ventured to speak. ‘You will not destroy our cities,’ he said. ‘You need us as a stepping stone to your further conquests. Why not make a treaty? We have presented it before, we shall present it again. We shall allow your ships to resupply here, you may continue on. We propose an alliance that benefits us all.’
‘We shall use your facilities,’ said Corax, ‘for your cities will be part of the Imperium of Mankind.’
‘The Imperium of Terra!’ snarled Agarth.
‘We will not capitulate,’ said the shorter man. Corax read his head beads. He was Gwanth, of Oppositional Negative-4.
‘Then you will die,’ said Corax.
‘So you will slaughter us like you did the people of Hartin,’ said Dereth.
‘Your people will be left in peace once the war is finished, that I swear, but you lords have had your chance. You will all die,’ said Corax. He paused to let his promise sink in. ‘I regret your coming deaths, but individual lives cannot be held above the survival of humanity.’
‘We endured the long terrors of Old Night without you, why do we need you to survive now?’ asked one of the lords.
‘Together we stand,’ said Corax. ‘Disunited, we will all eventually fall. Maybe not now, but one after another the lights of human civilisation will fail, and our species go into extinction. We bring you renaissance. I come here as a herald of mankind’s second dominance of the galaxy, and you have rashly turned it down. If we allow you to refuse, others will follow your lead, and our kind will slip back into the darkness, leaving nought but mysteries and bones to be puzzled over by those who come after us.’
‘He avoids the answer!’ said one of the lords.
‘They still do not have enough warriors to conquer us all,’ said Hord. ‘Congratulations, primarch, you have succeeded in uniting us where hundreds of others have failed before.’
‘We shall fight together!’ said Dereth.
Acclamations of support were given by most of the rest.
‘I have thirty thousand Legiones Astartes here, in this system,’ said Corax. ‘You see my fleet. Sixty thousand soldiers of the Imperial Army are a day’s warp travel behind me. That is in addition to the fleet already here.’
‘He’s bluffing. If they can conjure a ship from nothing, they could be baffling our machine’s senses. This is a play,’ said a wizened ruler.
‘There is no bluff,’ said Corax. ‘I am here because the Emperor, my father, desires that this system and all its peoples enjoy the fruits of the Age of Enlightenment. He has pledged not to let one single human being endure the night alone. You must comply.’
‘We will not,’ said Agarth.
‘Nor shall we,’ said Thorern.
‘We stand with them,’ said Gwanth. On it went. None accepted Corax’s offer. They either outrightly refused or remained silent. Corax’s expression hardened.
‘Your defiance will be noted in the history books,’ said Corax. He sat back into his throne and stared at the leaders of the Thousand Moons. ‘We shall meet again only once. My face shall be the last you see.’ He gestured regally. ‘End transmission,’ he said to his deck crew. ‘Hail Admiral So-Lung Fenc. We must meet with him to formulate strategy. This compliance has taken long enough already.’
Admiral So-Lung Fenc faced the ornate doors of his flagship stateroom, his captains arrayed in full dress uniform at his side. He had prepared himself to give up his command hours before, but now the moment came he awaited it with trepidation.
The primarch of the Raven Guard was coming to usurp him.
The room was aglitter with reflected light shining from polished glass, steel, bronze and gold. Fenc and his captains were a row of pristine white and black uniforms. Leather shone with polish. Were Fenc to draw his sword, the scintillas from its gleaming blade would be sharper than its edge. Marble floors danced with light refracted through crystal chandeliers. The doors were giant slabs of black coal carved with the mythic beasts of Fenc’s home world. Everything but the metals was lustrous black and white, but neither dominated the other. The ratio of colours was precisely harmonised.
A carillon blew outside. The doors were opened inward by richly uniformed honour guards. Outside, Corvus Corax strode down an avenue of trumpeters, accompanied by thirty or so of his officers and various other Imperial personnel. His Legiones Astartes wore black with accents of white, but the black dominated, and once they entered the room they upset the balance. Congruity was gone from the careful composition of form and hue.
Fenc tried not to shake as he looked Corax in the face. Charisma preceded the primarch like a bow wave. He was a shadow hunter. They said he could not be seen until he struck. Fenc wondered how such a being could possibly ever hide.
Corax’s skin was pale as snow, his black hair long and free-flowing. Its lustre was reflected in eyes of purest black. No sclera was visible, and if he had irises, they were as dark as his pupils. Those eyes saw Fenc, they bored right into his soul, and his stomach clenched.
‘Dim the lights,’ Fenc ordered. His voice wavered. The wargear of his captains rattled as they trembled.
The lumens dipped their radiance and the dazzling display surrounding Fenc’s command staff was snuffed out. Half-light took its place. Corax’s eyes were engineered by the Emperor Himself, and could tolerate ranges of light far beyond the human norm, but Fenc had heard he preferred the shadows, and he wished to show every courtesy to his new commander.
As one, he and his officers got down to their bended knees, leaving the honour guard stationed around the room standing, still as statues. It was a feat made all the more impressive by the fact of the primarch’s presen
ce. It disturbed the humours of them all.
Fenc’s staff bowed their heads.
Fenc took a deep breath to calm his nerves. ‘I, Admiral So-Lung Fenc of the Twenty-Seventh Expeditionary Fleet, humbly greet the Primarch Corvus Corax, and hereby relinquish command of this armed force to his Imperial person.’ He held up his sword.
There was a profound silence. Fenc stared at polished, chequerboard tiles, but he imagined Corax surveying the kneeling men. What thoughts could go through that mind? Corax was not Fenc’s first primarch, but the feelings upon meeting them never lessened in intensity.
Abruptly, the threat of coming storms receded, leaving the air cleansed as after rain. ‘Keep your sword, Admiral Fenc, and your command,’ said Corax. ‘We will be here only until this compliance is finished, then we will be away to a new war. You may all rise, please. We are equals here, engaged on the same glorious adventure to unite the realms of humanity. No man or woman need kneel before me.’
Fenc got to his feet. Leather creaked as his shipmasters and captains followed suit. He looked into Corax’s face. The sense of dread had gone. Corax had diminished from awesome to impressive, as if he had reined in his aura. His face was that of a man now, albeit a giant, but not a supernatural being. And though he remained huge and his scrutiny bore down on Fenc hard, the admiral wondered if he had imagined his awe.
‘We have been expecting you, Lord Corax. I am gratified you answered our call for assistance. The Carinaeans are intransigent, and the forces I have at my disposal here are unsuitable to bring this campaign to a swift conclusion. That is why we have taken so long. That is why–’ He was babbling. He slowed his speech. ‘That is why we are at an impasse.’
Corax placed an immense hand on the admiral’s shoulder and smiled. Fenc’s legs tensed against the force of even so gentle a touch to prevent himself being pushed to his knees.
‘Forgive my lack of communication when I arrived. I wished to appraise the current situation before I revealed myself.’
‘You did so most powerfully, my lord.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Corax. ‘My hope was to cow them into submission. It is to the detriment of their people that they would not listen. Now we must get down to the bloody business of death. I regret it. This campaign has the potential for high civilian casualties.’
‘Please, my lord, follow me.’ As per their rehearsals, the lords-general of the Twenty-Seventh Expedition parted, forming a second human avenue to a second set of doors. The moment Fenc gestured at them, the doors opened smoothly onto a dining hall, where a round table groaned under a feast sourced from a dozen worlds. ‘We have prepared refreshments.’
‘Not necessary,’ said Corax blandly. ‘We have simple tastes.’
Fenc cursed himself for his mistake. Corax was prison raised. Luxury did not interest him. He was probably offended.
‘I am sorry, my lord. If you would prefer–’
Corax silenced his apology with another smile. His teeth were whiter than his skin, perfectly even and flawless. ‘Simple tastes can be indulged from time to time. I am grateful for your hospitality. I only wish to make it clear you need make no special efforts on my behalf. As I said, you are to view us as your equals, not as your lords.’
Fenc bowed. The group filed into the hall. Reinforced, oversized seats were provided for the legionaries, and the table was high to accommodate them. The humans were shown to chairs made higher than the norm, so that all the group might dine in equality. Corax had a throne that could be meant for no one but he it was so huge, like something stolen from a monument to a mythical king.
Once seated, Corax began to introduce his companions by indicating two warriors with almost identical faces seated near him.
‘These are commanders Branne Nev and Agapito Nev,’ he said. The two nodded at the admiral. They were young, for their kind, but already of high office. ‘This is Nasturi Ephrenia.’ He pointed out a female of middle years, forty-five maybe, then another legionary. ‘This warrior here is Gherith Arendi, head of my Shadow Wardens. Most of the people you see here have been at my side since the days of the liberation of Deliverance. They are among my most trusted friends and loyal advisors. Whatever you have to say to me may be said freely to them. In this room there shall be no secrets.’
There were others, introduced with similar levels of regard. All of them were followers of Corax of long standing. It struck Fenc that so few of the officers were Terran, a feeling that intensified as he introduced them in polite yet cold fashion. Only one of the Terrans, a grizzled captain with dark skin that Corax announced as Soukhounou, did the primarch appear to have any affection for. Finally, Corax moved on to the remainder of the mortals accompanying him.
Strange, thought Fenc, that he included Ephrenia in the first round of introductions among the legionaries.
Corax’s astropath primus was present, as was the Navigator of the Saviour in Shadow, his fleet logisticians, four shipmasters of his capital ships, and the heads of several auxiliary regiments, the chief of which was named as Caius Valerius, praefector of the Therion Cohort. The Cohort were already well known for their ties to the Raven Guard, and it did not surprise Fenc that Valerius was seated at Corax’s left hand.
Fenc was several seats around from the primarch. If a compass had been superimposed over the table, Corax would have been at north, Fenc at east, and Ban-zen, the lord general of the Twenty-Seventh Expedition’s army contingent, at the west.
A variety of liquors were served. Fenc had commanded a special cup be made by the fleet’s finest artisan for the primarch. Corax appeared not to notice the workmanship, but at least, thought Fenc, the goblet, made of gold and cast with many artful carvings, looked fitting gripped in Corax’s ebon gauntlet. A touch of his earlier awe returned.
‘We will not spend long discussing strategy, lord admiral,’ said Corax. ‘Iterator Sentril has briefed me thoroughly. There is no effective central government here. Despite the Carinaeans’ insistences of unity, the Thousand Moons are distant from one another in geographical terms, and isolationist in attitude. They will be overcome.’
‘My lord,’ said Fenc. ‘If I may.’ He picked at exquisite food he had no desire to eat. In truth he had been looking forward to the feast, it was better than the meals he was accustomed to on campaign, but his stomach was a hard ball in his gut. Fenc felt responsible for the delay in forcing Carinae’s compliance. Corax surely thought the same, whether he showed it or not. ‘As we have been here, the moons have begun to organise. The fleets of the Sodality now present a united front to us, under the command of the wayfarers of Aphelion-Nine. Alone, we could pick the fleets off, but together they are too numerous to be tackled head-on and are now well organised. I fear they have been playing for time all along. The intersections of fire the moons can plot risk cutting any major offensive to pieces. This is why I have not ordered an attack myself. They would hold us in place, and bombard us from every quarter. I presume to inform you, for which I apologise, but the situation here is fluid and has changed.’
‘A commander should always speak his mind,’ said Corax. ‘But you are right, I am aware of these factors. This system will not fall to a grand assault.’
Fenc looked at his plate of food.
‘I am also aware that you called for the aid of my brother, Curze. Terror would serve here, but it is costly. His methods have their place, but I shall show you a different way.’
‘You have a plan?’ asked Fenc, and immediately felt foolish for asking. Of course he had a plan. He was a primarch.
If Corax inferred an insult, he did not show it. ‘I do. We shall attack key moons to disrupt these fire patterns your fleet fears so rightly. We shall do it quickly and silently. They will not know where we shall strike from until my warriors hold guns to their heads. In bloodless conquest, we shall show the peoples of this system the truth of our words. We shall make their leaders fear us. There is n
o need for indiscriminate violence. Once a few have fallen, more will capitulate. Careful selection of targets will disrupt their ability to organise, in case they do not.’
‘My lord, it is a good strategy, but they are stubborn.’
‘They can be overcome. Stubbornness is no defence against stealth and none against fear.’
‘May I ask what my forces will be required to do?’
‘The Imperial Army and Fleet will hold back. Your men,’ said Corax, looking at the assembled commanders and the lord general, ‘will be required for garrison duties once each moon is taken. This kind of void assault war is unsuited to your troops, as I am sure you realise, else you would already be masters of this place.’
Fenc tensed. Was he being criticised?
‘You shall all, however, be useful in the conquest, and your contribution in garrisoning and duties of final action will be invaluable. To begin with, I require that you make a cordon. The fleet will hold off the Sodality’s armada and prevent it from disrupting our operations. I expect the first targeted moons to fall easily, but the trick will be harder to perform a second time if the thousand lords do not relent once the first wave of conquests are done.’
‘Very well, my lord. Perhaps if you could furnish my officers with–’
‘Later,’ said Corax. ‘You have the outline of what I propose. Let us eat this bounty you have provided.’ He smiled, not terribly convincingly. ‘My comrades will find it interesting to experience how rich men live,’ he said, contradicting himself for Fenc’s benefit, the admiral was sure. Fenc nodded gratefully and pretended not to have seen through Corax’s somewhat clumsy attempts to humour him.