by John French
Our steps clanged dully as we approached the dead machine at the centre of the gloom-filled chamber. I glanced at Tyr, but his eyes stayed fixed on the isolated circle of bright light. The chamber had been an ordnance magazine. Its walls were three metres thick, and its triple-layered blast doors sealed by stratified layers of cipher codes. The machine sat alone under a buzzing stasis field, a specimen pinned out for display and then locked away from sight. Automated gun turrets twitched at our approach, and then cycled to stillness. It was as if we had passed into a shadow world that had formed like a cyst around a secret.
We stopped and looked at what the search teams had pulled from the ocean of Phall II. The machine glistened under the stab lights, water beading its bare metal body, the stasis field tinting the drops to sapphires. It had suffered severe damage, but its form was still clear: a blunt-edged cube of metal, studded with thruster vents and ugly protrusions. Its shell had been cracked open, first by jagged wounds that to my eyes looked like impact hits, and then by the smooth cuts of a melta torch. The tech-priests had dissected it and left it with its innards exposed. I could see a jumble of cables and clusters of glass blisters like lidless eyes. Dribbles of yellow fluid hung unmoving from severed tubes. Shattered crystals had spilled over the stained floor. At its heart was something grey and soft, like a corpse bloated in lightless water. I could see a spine under pale skin, and above that a nest of cables haloing a head, its eyes and mouth stapled shut. There were no arms or legs, just stumps. A thick smell of ionised air filled my nose, and my teeth ached in time with the field’s hum.
I had seen countless servitors created by the Mechanicum, and had waded knee-deep through mutilated bodies, but there was something about the machine and the amputated torso that was utterly repellent. I had examined it before, when the search teams first brought it aboard, but without the crowding tech-priests and labour servitors it felt different. It felt like going to a grave’s edge to look down at the remains of a secret atrocity.
Tyr let out a carefully controlled breath beside me. ‘What is it?’ he said, his voice echoing in the empty chamber.
‘We don’t know, at least not with certainty,’ I said. Tyr was moving around the edge of the stasis dome. ‘The search units I sent to Phall II found it floating in the oceans, but it has clearly been exposed to the void. The adepts tell me that the machine components have several purposes.’ Tyr gave a small nod, but was silent as I pointed to different portions of the wreckage. ‘Most of it is made up of high-gain augur arrays and broad-spectrum sensors effective over a relatively short range. Then there is the human component. Apparently it would have been in a state of hibernation, kept alive with minimal power usage. Their assessment is that it was in orbit around Phall II, suffered damage and fell to the planet’s surface.’ Tyr was still staring at the grey remains of the human in the machine. I glanced at it then away; it made me want to shiver.
‘Some form of servitor-controlled sensor vehicle? An asteroid survey unit, perhaps?’
‘The adepts think it unlikely. In addition to the sensor equipment some of the systems seem to be a form of psy-amplifier.’
Tyr looked up. ‘This created the psy-attack?’
‘This and others like them. There were hundreds of energy signatures detected. There are most likely many more.’
‘We need to find and destroy them; they could trigger again at any moment.’
‘This one fell through the ocean planet’s atmosphere as its orbit decayed. Our search teams would never have found it without the flare light of its re-entry.’ I looked back at the broken machine and its pitiful occupant. ‘It sustained damage but the adepts say that most of its system had already burnt out. Its occupant was already dead.’
Tyr shook his head, his face taut with an emotion I could not read. ‘They were killed once they had been activated,’ he breathed. There was a note of disbelief and rage in his voice. ‘Objects this size, now dead and without power; we could sift this system for a decade and find nothing. With no population on the planets there is no way of knowing who put them here or why they attacked us.’
‘You are correct, but it was no attack.’
‘You say that now?’ I could see the months of dispute and controlled animosity straining at his will. After the psychic attack Tyr had not dropped his calls for the fleet to try and break the storms. If anything his attitude became more unyielding. As had mine. I had hoped that he would have seen the full implication of the recovered machine, and that my decisions had been correct. It was a weakness, and like everything built on weakness it was doomed.
‘Look at it, brother.’ Tyr’s eyes flicked back to the machine, skimming over its broken form. ‘The sensors, the augur and communication sifters. The psychic screams we all felt were not attacks. They were a message.’ He looked up at me and I saw that he understood at last. ‘It was no attack, brother. It was a prelude to one.’
The Imperial Palace, Terra
Silence followed the messenger. The click of her staff echoed through the corridors as she approached the planning chamber. Figures pulled back before her, their eyes following her steps, their whispered conversations stilling as if they could sense the weight of the news she carried. Four gold-plated Custodians flanked her and black sentinels followed in her wake like armoured mourners.
Within the planning chamber Sigismund caught the movement from beyond the chamber’s open door and looked up. He saw the approaching messenger and the look on the astropath’s withered and blind face. Something cold ran over his flesh at the sight. He knew the astropath: her name was Armina Fel. She had served the Imperium for three decades. That service had bent her spine and turned her hair to the white of raw cotton. She had brought countless messages to Dorn. Most of the news was bad, some frustrating, but none of it had required an escort. It was almost as if what she brought needed to be guarded like a prisoner in case it slipped its bindings and ran free.
Sigismund turned to look at his father, but if Rogal Dorn had seen the approaching procession he gave no sign. Vadok Singh was outlining his proposed fortification of the Imperial Palace. The war mason paced amongst the broad pillars, perfumed smoke puffing from his mouth as he sucked on his long-stemmed pipe. Dorn stayed in the centre of the room, frowning down at the plans spread across the table at the room’s centre. Brass projection apparatus hung from the ceiling, scattering images of Singh’s plans across the chamber’s sandstone walls. The room seemed almost peaceful, but Sigismund knew that this short moment of calm was a lie. He had returned from Mars to find the atmosphere of uncertainty and fear growing stronger with every day. It was as if the whole of Terra was holding its breath and waiting to see where the next blow would fall.
‘The Dhawalagiri Elevation?’ said Dorn, scowling at the sprawling schematics. ‘You think that necessary?’
‘Not necessary,’ purred Singh. ‘A necessity, Rogal.’ The war mason flicked a skeletal finger at one of his silk-robed slaves and the man changed the focus on one of the projection lenses. ‘Look at the inherent weakness in the alignment of the outer elements. You of all people must see that if this section of the palace is to hold we must remake it, and remake it now.’ Normally the war mason’s familiarity would have angered Sigismund, but he barely heard the words.
The procession was at the chamber’s open doorway. Behind Sigismund, Dorn gave a low snort.
‘Necessity is a word that makes me suspicious, old friend,’ said Dorn.
Sigismund watched Armina Fel and her escort pause on the threshold. The astropath brought her hand up to the empty pits that were her eyes. Pearls of moisture glittered on her cheeks. She is crying, he realised. Beside her one of the Custodians brought the butt of his spear down three times on the stone floor. The sound of the blows rippled through the pillared chamber.
Dorn raised his head slowly.
‘There is news,’ he said in a flat voice, and looked at Armina Fel. For
a moment Sigismund thought he saw an unreadable expression flicker across his father’s face. ‘It is all right, mistress. Please tell us what you must.’
The woman’s lips were trembling.
‘There is word from Isstvan, my lord.’ She took a ragged breath. Dorn stepped forwards, his black robes falling back from his arms as he reached out. He gently raised her face until her empty eyes looked up at him.
‘Mistress,’ he said softly. ‘What has happened?’
Armina shook herself, poise and strength returning to her features, as if some of Dorn’s stillness and strength had flowed into her. She began to speak, her voice the monotone drone of precise recall.
‘Imperial counter-strike massacred on Isstvan V. Vulkan and Corax missing. Ferrus Manus dead. Night Lords, Iron Warriors, Alpha Legion and Word Bearers are with Horus Lupercal.’
Nothing moved in the chamber. The black sentinels and Custodians stood like statues of jet and gold. Vadok Singh simply stared at Armina, the ember in the bowl of his pipe cooling to grey ash. For a moment Sigismund felt nothing, as if what he had heard had stripped all sensation away. A primarch dead. Two lost. Three Legions gone, and four gone from friend to enemy in the space of a handful of words.
This is it, thought Sigismund. As she showed me. This is the true beginning of the end. If four more Legions can turn against us, then why not more still? They shall come here, and here we must stand, and stand alone. He realised that he was shaking, taut muscles vibrating under scarred skin. For a second he wondered if it was fear, if that long-dead emotion had returned to him after so long. Then he recognised the sensation: it was hate. Hate so bright and focused that he could almost see it. Let them come. Here my father stands, and I will stand with him.
Dorn’s hands fell from Armina’s face. His eyes were black holes in a facade of stone. Hard control radiated from him like cold from glacial ice. He looked at Sigismund. For an instant Sigismund thought he saw a reflection of his own anger in his father’s eyes, a flash of rage, quickly hidden.
‘Find any remnants of the new betrayers that remain in the system.’ Dorn’s voice was a hoarse growl. ‘Use whatever and whoever you need. Take them or destroy them as you must. Do it now, my son.’
Sigismund began to kneel, but Dorn was already turning back to Armina. The astropath flinched as his eyes fixed on her.
‘Get a message to the Retribution Fleet. They must return here immediately.’
Armina swayed as if the words were a storm wind. ‘Lord Dorn, we have had no word from them.’ She swallowed. ‘They may have reached Isstvan V before the massacre. They may…’ Her voice trailed away as Dorn took a step closer.
‘If you have to burn through a thousand astropaths you will reach them.’ Dorn’s voice was low but it seemed to fill the room. ‘Bring my sons back to Terra.’
The Isstvan System
‘This information is accurate?’ Golg’s question broke the silence, but the tension remained. The only sound was the hum of armour and the dull rumble of the Iron Blood’s reactors. Golg shifted, his hunched augmetics hissing nervously. The other Iron Warriors captains kept their eyes on the luminous surface of the holo-table, their shapes casting bloated shadows onto the walls. They were the senior commanders of their Legion, those that had the primarch’s countenance. Forrix, his gaunt face framed by a hood of vulcanised rubber. Berossus, his pale eyes glittering above a sneering half-smile. Harkor, in Terminator armour still black with soot from the slaughter on Isstvan V. Dargron, his face hidden behind a slot-eyed face plate. Varrek, his face so twisted by scar tissue that it looked like chewed meat. None of them looked at Golg. They were waiting to see how Perturabo would respond. They had all known others who had presumed the Lord of Iron’s favour and paid for their mistake.
Golg raised his eyes from the luminous columns of data. Perturabo was watching him, his gaze unmoving. Golg felt the danger in that glittering gaze, the force of destruction behind the oil-black eyes. A hammer, as tall as Golg himself, rested head down under Perturabo’s hand. The black iron head gleamed in the ember light that lit the chamber. Perturabo made the smallest of movements towards the illuminated table.
‘It comes from the Warmaster,’ said Perturabo, his eyes moving from Golg to the other captains. None met his gaze.
Golg ran his eyes down the glowing data runes. What it represented left his mouth dry. Over three hundred warships caught in a backwater system like fish in a whirlpool. A fleet of ships pinned in place and waiting for extermination, and here were all of those ships’ dispositions and characteristics, listed and laid out in cold light. It was too perfect, too neat. How could even the Warmaster achieve such a thing? It was daunting in its implication. There was possibility here, though, the possibility to rise high in the sight of the primarch. Golg knew that the other captains would be thinking the same. They would be judging how much power they could gain, and how high were the risks. Golg opened his mouth to ask another question but Forrix spoke before him.
‘This information was gathered first-hand?’
Perturabo nodded once.
‘By scout elements in the system.’
Golg managed to hide his surprise at Perturabo’s words.
So this was no random event, he thought. This was planned before we came to kill the weakling Legions on Isstvan. But then what else would he expect from the Warmaster and the Lord of Iron? He thought of the massacre they had just committed, of the Legions they had butchered. They were weak and destroying them had been nothing more than another task to be completed. But the Imperial Fists were rivals of old, arrogant pretenders to honours and reputations they had bought with lies. Golg felt himself smile. The possibility of breaking Dorn’s sons was a prospect so rich he could almost taste it. Was this part of the price of our allegiance to Horus, he wondered? The chance to break one enemy bought by the deaths of others?
‘What of the storms?’ asked Harkor, eyes hooded by a frown. ‘If they cannot penetrate them, how will we?’
‘Our passage will be possible. The Warmaster guarantees it,’ said Perturabo. That anyone could make such a guarantee staggered Golg. He caught Forrix’s eye as he glanced up, held the first captain’s cold gaze for a second and then looked down again.
‘If they suspect the possibility of an attack they will be prepared,’ said Forrix, extending an armoured hand to the table surface to flick between details of ships.
Berossus shook his head at Forrix, his lip curling. ‘If it is Sigismund who commands them, he will not sit patiently in his cage. He will make attempts to break through the storms. That will make them less prepared, and more vulnerable.’
Perturabo turned his head slowly to stare at Berossus. The commander of the Second Grand Company seemed to shrink in spite of the size of his reinforced armour.
‘Sigismund has command,’ growled Perturabo, his voice heavy with disgust. ‘My brother will not have trusted this fleet to another.’
Berossus straightened, eagerness clear in his face. ‘Lord, with an equal number of ships I will break them with the first attack. I will–’
‘No.’ The word hung in the air. Perturabo stepped forwards until he was looking down at the glowing lines of data frozen on the surface of the holo-table. Golg could see the cold blue glow glittering in the primarch’s eyes, like starlight on a blade’s edge. ‘No. They must not simply be broken. They must be ground to nothing. Dorn does not deign to come himself, but his favoured pup will bleed for him. All of the ships currently under your command will go.’ He looked up, his gaze moving between them as he spoke. ‘And I will command the attack myself.’
The eve of the Battle of Phall
The Imperial Palace, Terra
Dusk shadows filled the Investiary, pooling at the base of the amphitheatre’s wall and spreading from the statues ringing its centre. A sky of fading blue crossed by thin cirrus clouds domed the quiet space. Cooling air, tinged
with the smell of evening dew on stone, licked Sigismund’s skin as he stepped from one of the wide doors at the amphitheatre’s edge. Lumen globes were kindling atop wrought-iron posts, but the open space was still a place of half-light, on the boundary between day and night. The Great Crusade had scattered to the stars from that spot, forged by the oaths sworn there.
So many of those oaths now broken, thought Sigismund. He looked up at a figure towering against the sky, its white marble features caught somewhere between nobility and determination. Guilliman. Still with us for certain, he frowned. As far as we know, as far as anything can be certain. There had been twenty, twenty replicas of the primarchs carved from white marble by the last of the Pendelikon artisans. Two were gone, their ouslite plinths empty, and their Legions consigned to oblivion. Nine hid beneath pale fabric, their faces swathed as if to conceal the shame of their treachery. In the distance he could see a golden figure standing still at the base of a statue. Something about the figure seemed to draw the eye, as if it held a greater scale than could ever be captured by chisel and hammer. He began to walk towards the distant figure of Rogal Dorn.
Sigismund had seen something change in Dorn since news of the Isstvan V massacre, as if internal structures of will and strength were realigning within the primarch. Dorn moved from briefing to briefing, watching as the labour armies began to tear down and remake the palace, pressing the astropaths for news and connection with the worlds beyond the solar system, consulting with Valdor and the Sigillite in sealed chambers. In the brief moments in between Dorn had taken to walking the parapets and silent places of the palace. Sigismund did not know what weighed on his father’s mind, but he did know that what he had to tell him would only increase the burden.
He wondered again why he had decided to tell his father the whole truth. Guilt? Yes, guilt was part of it. Guilt at having deceived him, at having relied on his trust while knowing he would not understand the truth. I am sorry, father, but you must know. I cannot keep it from you. You must see. He thought of one of the basic laws of strategy, a dry line of insight that now seemed charged with new significance: The first axiom of defence is to understand what you defend against.