Blackstone Fortress

by Darius Hinks

  Glutt could not believe the lies people told themselves to try to stay sane. ‘You’re going take down the governor? What difference will that make? They’ll still massacre the rest of the regiment. The insurrectionists will still control the whole coastline. We’ve still lost.’

  Federak forgot his wariness of Glutt for a moment and laughed. ‘Not destined for high command are you? Think. Before Governor Narbo took control of the insurrectionists, what were they doing?’

  Glutt bit down his rage and shrugged.

  ‘Killing each other,’ Federak elaborated. ‘Always killing each other. Why do you think they used to be so easy to control? They all think they should be in charge. None of them will follow the others. It’s only because Governor Narbo executes his opponents that they’ve become an army. There was no insurrection until Narbo lost his mind and pulled them all under one banner.’ He nodded at the trooper with the rocket launcher. ‘We’re about to remove the glue that holds them all together.’

  ‘But we’ll have nothing left either.’

  Federak shrugged. ‘Once Narbo dies, the insurrectionists will turn on each other. They’ll become a mess of squabbling warbands and high command will send us home with a chest-full of medals.’

  ‘Sorov knew this would happen,’ muttered Glutt. He looked up at the lieutenant. Maybe there was still a man worth following? Maybe he was making a mistake? No. One true man in a legion of liars was not enough.

  ‘Of course,’ said Federak. ‘I don’t know what Governor Narbo was smoking when he decided to join with the insurrectionists, but he should have known Sorov would never let him get away with it. The man has balls of steel.’

  Glutt was about to reply when Federak frowned and looked up.

  ‘Hear that?’ he muttered.

  There was a low, shuddering rumble drifting through the clouds – the unmistakable drone of promethium engines. Overhead, the lieutenant and the trooper with the rocket launcher shifted their position.

  Everyone in the tower held their breath.

  The sound grew louder as a dark smudge appeared in the mustard-yellow clouds. The lieutenant whispered something and the trooper raised his rocket launcher. The shuttle thundered right overhead – so low Glutt could see its markings.

  A deafening blast rocked the tower and the sky turned white.

  Glutt ducked, shielding his eyes.

  Smoke enveloped the gun emplacement.

  ‘Down!’ cried Sorov. ‘She’s down!’

  Glutt raced through the fumes and staggered out into the mud. The others were ahead of him, danger forgotten as they ran towards the downed shuttle lying just a few hundred feet away, engulfed in flames. It was on its back, but the wings were still visible. It was an Aquila lander – the governor’s personal shuttle.

  ‘Quick!’ barked Lieutenant Sorov, dashing through the mud and waving for his troops to approach in two different directions. ‘Make sure.’

  Glutt ran after them, struggling through the mire, unable to keep pace. The excitement of the others was infectious. It threatened to overwhelm him. ‘Through the needle’s eye,’ he whispered.

  Lieutenant Sorov was the first to reach the lander, halting a few feet from the blaze, his laspistol held out before him.

  ‘Governor!’ he cried, dodging from side to side as the ruptured fuselage spat flames at him. ‘Are you in there?’

  Part of the engine cowling collapsed, adding a fresh gout of flames to the blaze.

  ‘Lieutenant!’ gasped Federak. ‘It’s not safe!’

  Sorov ignored him, squinting through the flames, edging closer, waving his pistol at every movement.

  ‘There!’ he cried.

  A hunched shape dragged itself through the inferno.

  The Guardsmen opened fire, launching a blinding barrage of las-shots at the struggling figure. The shape shuddered and fell. Then, as the shots died away, it lurched to its feet and charged, flames trailing from its misshapen head.

  Most of the Guardsmen fired again, but Glutt’s pistol faltered in his grip. The needle’s eye suddenly grew in his mind, expanding and reforming, letting madness flow around it. Sparks flashed – arcing from his brain, splintering his vision, turning the world into a kaleidoscope. He stumbled, teetering, engulfed by colour.

  As the flaming figure dived at the Guardsmen, Glutt staggered back through the mud, his staff rattling in his grip, infused with the energy that was lashing from his face. The others were too busy to notice Glutt’s crisis. The burning figure stumbled through their shots and grabbed a Guardsman by the throat.

  Reality slipped from Glutt’s grasp. His peripheral vision vanished, leaving just the tunnel of garish light, centred on the thing that had emerged from the shuttle. It must have once been the governor. Most of his uniform was burned away, but there were enough scraps left to reveal that he was a high-ranking officer. Whatever he once was, Governor Narbo was now a nightmare. Glutt realised to his horror that this was the vision he had been struggling to hold back for days. Beneath his charred uniform the governor’s flesh had ruptured and split but, rather than blood and viscera, there was a black carapace, bristling with spines, pulsing as it strained against its human cage.

  As skin sloughed from the black shell, the thing snapped the Guardsman’s neck and hurled him to the ground. Glutt howled and light spewed from his throat, ripping through the smoke. The force of the blast kicked him off his feet and he landed in the mud. The governor’s head was lolling weakly from the creature’s back, sagging like an empty hood, but another face had appeared in its chest where the skin had fallen away – a pool of black skin, rolling and bubbling around a canine snout.

  The Guardsmen were still firing at the creature, but to no effect. The shots thudded into its stooped frame but it paid them no heed, lurching on, filling the air with blood.

  ‘Warp spawn,’ muttered Glutt, staggering back towards them, his voice flat. ‘You can’t kill it.’

  The thing discarded its kill and lunged forwards, enveloping another man. The soldier howled briefly, before his cries were smothered.

  Three Guardsmen had died in as many minutes. Two were left, plus Sorov and Glutt.

  The final scraps of Governor Narbo fell away to reveal a coiled, serpentine hulk. It was impossible to make out clearly in the smoke, but Glutt caught glimpses: an insectoid face, twitching as it swallowed gore; a cyclopean eye – featureless and yellow, like an egg yolk, bubbling in tar. It toppled forwards, dragging another Guardsman down into the mud, tearing him apart.

  Sorov and Federak fired furiously and the lieutenant cried out in disgusted rage.

  Over the last few months, Sepus had gradually fractured Glutt’s mind. The last time he had tried to use his gifts they had almost overwhelmed him. He had sworn not to try again until his mind was more stable, but now he saw no option.

  Glutt closed his eyes, pictured the needle and stepped through its eye.

  The immaterium rocked through him, exploding his atoms, whipping his flesh into an empyric storm. Now, finally, he heard the words of his masters from the scholastica psykana. Oaths of protection tumbled from his lips; psychic bulwarks, beaten into him as a child, reared from his subconscious like a suddenly remembered song. It was too late. Warp fire pulsed from his heart and flooded his blood vessels, igniting his flesh as he wrenched himself back into reality.

  The scene was unchanged – the serpent-thing was still wading towards Sorov and Federak, guts draped from its jaws.

  Glutt raised his staff and howled, opening his mind to the full violence of the warp. It ripped through him, rattling his bones, blistering his skin, sparking from his staff. The warp creature reared, but it was too late – Glutt’s bolt had already hit home.

  Spider legs burst from the creature’s sides – dozens of them, scrambling frantically, trying to lift its sagging bulk – but as Glutt abandoned himself to the immater
ium, his staff hurled ever-greater torrents of warp-fire into the struggling horror. Sorov and Federak backed away, guns lowered in shock.

  The world fell into shadow leaving only the column of light, blazing from Glutt’s staff.

  Glutt’s mind linked with the sentience that had mutated Narbo. To his surprise, he felt neither hate nor violence, but something else. For a brief moment, he saw the galaxy from an utterly alien perspective. He tasted ideas that would never have occurred to him: freedom, acceptance, liberation.

  Then it was gone.

  Unreality collapsed and reality returned. Glutt stood, swaying before the shocked faces of Sorov and Federak, then dropped to his knees in a pool of oil, surrounded by scraps of the governor.

  Glutt was changed. He could feel it. There was a new layer of skin beneath his old one, simmering, ready to explode. What a fool he’d been. Holding back for so long.

  ‘Emperor be praised,’ whispered Sorov. ‘You killed it.’ He held out a trembling hand and helped Glutt to his feet.

  They all looked at the remnants of the governor.

  Glutt shook his head, his voice husky. ‘It was never alive.’

  Sorov stared at the pool, pale with shock. ‘The governor’s heresy ran deep.’

  ‘Something found a way into the world through his flesh,’ said Glutt.

  Sorov frowned at Glutt, confused. ‘What? What was it?’ Then he shook his head and recovered his composure. ‘We can talk later.’

  Glutt sensed that Sorov did not really want his question answered.

  The lieutenant seemed unable to think for a moment, staring at the charred remains and muttering under his breath, then he turned to the vox-officer, Federak. ‘Share our news with the insurrectionists. They need a new leader. Set the dogs on each other.’

  Federak looked even more dazed than Sorov, but he nodded and triggered the vox-caster, stuttering as he announced the governor’s death across every channel.

  By the time they made it back to the trench, the vox network was a cacophony of voices, all desperate to know if the news was truth or propaganda. The clamour grew as the governor’s aides revealed that he should have reached Tadmor Ridge by now.

  Sorov did not pause to celebrate his success. He waded through the stagnant pools that lined the trench, muttering calculations under his breath. For ten minutes he said nothing to Glutt or Federak, lost in his own thoughts. Finally, as the pallid sun neared the horizon, he paused and turned to Federak.

  ‘Get me the barracks,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Baranov.’

  The vox-caster whined and screeched as Federak struggled to find the right frequency, then a voice crackled over the speakers.

  ‘Lieutenant. Sergeant Baranov here, sir.’ The voice sounded flat and beaten.

  ‘The governor’s dead.’

  ‘Yes, lieutenant. We heard.’

  ‘He’s dead, man,’ said Sorov, confused at the sergeant’s apparent lack of enthusiasm. ‘Do you know what that means?’

  There was a pause at the other end. ‘We intercepted a message from Commander Ortegal,’ said the sergeant eventually. ‘We know about the orbital strike.’

  ‘Orbital strike?’

  There was another pause.

  The colour drained from Sorov’s face. ‘Tell me, sergeant. Quickly.’

  ‘Sepus Prime has been reclassified, sir. Designated unsafe for human habitation. Contaminated. There’s a plague. Mutations. Linked to the heresy of the insurrectionists. I couldn’t understand all of the terms. They do not intend to…’ The man paused to clear his throat. ‘They mean to leave us here, sir.’

  ‘Even when they start the bombardment?’

  ‘We fall under the same designation, sir. Contaminated. The fleet is preparing virus bombs.’

  Sorov leant against the trench wall, staring at the handset.

  The crackle of gunfire rang out across the network.

  Sorov looked up at the clouds, as though he might see the cruisers overhead, readying their loads.

  Federak took the handset. ‘Is that las-fire? Are you under attack?’

  ‘Suicides.’

  Until that moment, Glutt had been in a kind of dazed trance, revelling in the new power jangling across his skin, wondering at the change he was experiencing. But at the sight of Sorov, winded by shock, staring at the sky, Glutt’s transformation took a new turn. Anger kindled in his palms. He tried to stay in the present, grabbing the lieutenant by the arm. ‘We have to get to the barracks, sir. This can’t be true. Sergeant Baranov must be confused. Commander Ortegal wouldn’t abandon the whole regiment when we have just handed him a victory. He wouldn’t bomb his own men.’

  Sorov stared back at him. ‘Governor Narbo was a heretic. You saw him, Glutt. He was clearly infected by this “plague”. And high command must have already known about it. They must have already been planning this reclassification.’ Something flickered in his eyes. ‘But they never told us.’

  Glutt battled the black despair that was rising at the back of his thoughts. ‘One traitor. They can’t condemn us all for that. They can’t condemn the whole planet.’

  The trench shook so violently that it seemed as though someone had lifted it and slammed it back down again. Beams and girders tore from the walls, and earth slammed into the three Guardsmen, causing them to stagger and cough. The dusk deepened, smothering the trench in gloom. Aftershocks juddered through the mud.

  ‘They’ve started,’ whispered Federak, his voice brittle.

  Sorov nodded vaguely, but he had recovered his composure. He dusted down his coat and raised his chin, looking off towards the horizon.

  ‘No,’ said Glutt as a storm whipped up in his eyes. The needle’s eye was gone. The needle was gone. There was nothing left but madness. It blazed through him. The new flesh forming beneath his muscles burned, furious and unbreakable.

  The booms grew louder. Splashes of silver flicked across the clouds. It might have been a natural storm if not for the ominous rhythm of the hammer blows – the footsteps of a colossus, marching towards them. As the detonations came closer, the noise grew unbearable, mingling with the storm in Glutt’s head.

  Sorov reached into his coat for a hip flask. He drank with his eyes closed, savouring it, then held the flask out to them. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, his words almost lost beneath the approaching apocalypse.

  Federak snatched the flask and took several hungry swigs, unable to match the lieutenant’s calm demeanour, cowering and moaning as he drank.

  Sorov took the flask back and handed it to Glutt. ‘You are heroes,’ he said as Glutt took the flask in his trembling fingers, spilling some of the contents down his chin as he drank. ‘And no hero dies unnoticed.’ Sorov looked up at the tearing heavens.

  A river of flame washed down the valley like gold from a furnace, too bright to watch, incinerating fortifications and bunkers and turning the air to liquid. Sorov was little more than a silhouette by now, but until the very end he held himself with dignity, straight-backed and proud.

  In the final seconds, as Federak started to scream and sob, Sorov raised his hand in a salute.

  The blast hit.

  Glutt howled. Not in fear, but in fury. It was unthinkable that a man like Sorov could be betrayed. Against all the odds, Sorov had led them to victory. Maybe Commander Ortegal could murder the entire regiment, but not Sorov. Not like this.

  The force of the bombs rushed through Glutt, melting and evaporating his flesh, but rather than killing him, they fuelled his rage, transmuting him into a pillar of warp fire – lifting him up, still howling, into the tornado and making him one with the storm.

  The galaxy could not work this way. The universe could not be so unfair.

  As the planet died around him, Glutt recalled his moment of contact with the power that transformed Governor Narbo: that strange, mirrored view of life, so unlike any
thing he had seen before.

  The rock boiled from beneath his feet and Glutt sank into darkness. As he fell, he sensed something flicker at the back of his thoughts – a new consciousness, born from the ashes of his faith.

  He reached out, taking it by the hand.

  1

  A void ship cut through the night, painting artless, lazy spirals through a tide of shattered hulls – looping and falling, reeling like a drunk, spilling fire from its prow. Again and again it battled to find a route. Breaking against the swell. Dancing through the wrecks. Refusing to die.

  Draik watched the display for several minutes, leaning casually against a twisted girder and taking long, languid drags from his lho-holder. Such hope, he thought. He knew the ship’s odds but willed her on all the same. She was a rogue trader by her colours, skimming through the skeleton frames of dead leviathans, burning a furious path towards him.

  Draik climbed through an access hatch and up onto a gantry. He could see most of Precipice from here. It looked like just another ugly wreck, drifting through the wandering stars, but this collision of mooring spars and walkways had drawn a feeding frenzy. Ships from every corner of the galaxy were huddled at its anchorage points, scorched and hungry, their captains all busy chasing the same alluring nightmare. Looming over the ships was the Dromeplatz, a mangled, bloody eye glaring down at its congregation of landers and skiffs.

  Lights flared overhead as the rogue trader’s ship clipped a drifting fuselage. It maintained its trajectory for a few more seconds, then dissolved into a thunderhead, embers and smoke raining down on Precipice, howling over the void screen like a ghost.

  ‘We are a voracious breed, Isola,’ he said, shaking his head in wonder. His attaché was on one of the lower gantries, dragging herself up towards him with a string of darkly muttered oaths. He reached down, offering her his hand.