by John French
Sigismund watched Rogal Dorn until his outline vanished into the gloom. Alone he knelt, gripping the hilt of the sword with both hands. He breathed slowly, resting his forehead on his gauntlets. The darkness of the Investiary surrounded him. His pulse slowed. He thought of all the battles he had fought, all the enemies cut down by the sword he knelt before. The restless ferocity, the focus of complete certainty guiding his every blow; all gone, all wiped away by his choice on the Phalanx.
‘You have questions,’ she had said. She had just been standing there, quiet, still.
‘No,’ he had said. She had smiled. He had been going to order her back to her quarters but the thought seemed to fade in his mind, to be replaced by… questions. ‘How will this end?’ he had said. He did not know where the question had come from, or why it had come to his lips now. But as he said it he knew that it was the reason he had wandered the decks of the Phalanx while his father brooded and raged.
‘As it must,’ she had said.
The sword felt unfamiliar in his grip, as if the weapon that he had borne for decades was his no longer.
You are not my son.
‘You will be needed before the end,’ she had said. ‘Your father will need you.’
He raised his head. Above him the stars were crystal fragments against sable.
‘You must bear whatever will come,’ she had said.
I am still alive, he thought, and I still serve.
He stood, pulling the sword from the stone floor; its edges glittered like sharpened obsidian.
‘I will not fail,’ he said. In the quiet of Terran night the words sounded like a vow.
Above him, Sigismund could hear the shrouds of traitors flapping in the wind.
The day of the Battle of Phall
The Phall System
I was with Calio Lezzek when it began. The old astropath had been teetering on the edge of death ever since the psychic onslaught had washed through the Phall system. Barely conscious, he could do little more than mutter a few words of greeting. Each day that I visited him he was weaker, a step closer to death and further away from life. He often slept, his acolytes wiping mucus from his lips as he twitched in the grip of dreams. I am not sure why I visited. Perhaps it was guilt, or maybe because he was the only person on the Tribune who did not look to me for purpose and strength.
On that day Lezzek had not woken, and I had been about to go when his hand gripped my arm. I looked at him. His mouth was moving, cracked lips trying to form words. I leant forwards, dipping my ear close to the old astropath’s mouth. His lips moved but I could hear nothing. I leant closer. Lezzek took a breath that rocked his entire body but when he spoke it was in a whisper that only I heard.
‘They are coming.’
He went still and collapsed back onto his pallet. I straightened. I knew what it meant. The bow wave of ships approaching through the warp presses on the minds of psykers. They can feel a large ship or fleet draw close, like lightning rods sparking before a storm breaks. A dead ice feeling had numbed my body. My thoughts felt sluggish as I turned to the door. I had taken no more than one step when the sirens began to call.
She is a good ship, thought Pertinax. Only three decades had passed since Hammer of Terra’s burnished hull had slipped the docks of Mars. Some amongst the Legion said that these Martian craft had a more aggressive temperament than those of Inwit, as if their character mirrored the more impatient age into which they were born. Pertinax never thought of his ship in such terms. To him she was as she was, and he knew her every quirk and strength.
The bridge below him moved with order and precision. Servitors whispered to cogitators in clicking whispers. Human officers exchanged spoken orders, data-slates and spools of parchment. Tech-priests crouched in their bronze niches, silent until the machine heartbeat of the ship required their attention. The bridge was the mind of a warship, and the vessel it controlled was a battle-barge. Eight kilometres long, crewed by thousands of serfs and servitors, its weapons could pound civilisations to dust. She carried three hundred Imperial Fists, a might almost equal to that of her guns. Hammer of Terra was her given name, and like all of her kind she had a single purpose: to dominate war amongst the stars. A warship was made as much of flesh and discipline as it was of metal. That truth pleased Pertinax. It was an appreciation he knew he shared with Fleet Master Polux.
Though a few amongst the senior captains and battlegroup commanders might chafe at Polux’s orders, Pertinax could not fault the fleet master. The fleet was vulnerable, and an attack was likely. In such a position one needed to create a solid defence and conserve fighting strength. Polux’s deployment addressed all of these needs with a direct elegance. Pertinax had even favoured the younger fleet master with a nod of approval when he had seen the plans. The Retribution Fleet formed a sphere close to the ocean world of Phall II. Each commander in the fleet led a battlegroup of smaller vessels. Every battlegroup moved on a precise looped course. Together the whole resembled a cage spun from the tails of comets. The Hammer of Terra and its battlegroup of twelve lighter ships were on the outer surface of the sphere formation, close to the system’s edge.
Close to the Hammer of Terra, the black sheet of stars bulged. Lilac and green light spread across the swelling distortion, as cracks spread across the void.
On the bridge of the Hammer of Terra officers began to call alerts; a second later alarms sounded from multiple areas. Pertinax took in the flow of information rolling across his augmented eyes and weighed the possibilities. Something was punching into reality from the warp. It could be an enemy, a friend or something unknown. Until they knew which it was all would receive the same greeting. He nodded once to himself and gave the order the ship had been waiting to hear.
‘Battle readiness.’ The Hammer of Terra shuddered in sympathy with the words. As he felt the ship wake to full life, Pertinax could almost see the plasma flushing into the exchange ventricles deep in the battle-barge’s hull. The green glow of holo-screens and red of alert lights filled the bridge as metre-thick shields descended over the viewports. Pertinax knew his ship would be at full readiness in less than ten seconds. Ready statuses were already coming in from the dozen strike cruisers, destroyers and frigates in his battlegroup.
He looked towards a pict-image of the system’s edge in time to see the stars fracture. A hole opened in space. Ringed with lightning, its centre a sickening swirl of colour, it widened like a mouth opening to vomit. A vast iron arrowhead stabbed from the opening, dragging a vast crenellated hull behind it as it split the wound wider. It was a battle-barge, slab-hulled and dull-armoured. Weapon batteries lined its sides and serrated its spine. Pertinax recognised the emerging ship: her name was the Contrador. She was a capital ship of the Iron Warriors Legion. For a second his thoughts spun with confusion, his clarity failing at the sight of an old rival and ally.
The Contrador fired. Detonations spread across the Hammer of Terra’s bow. Its void shields held, energy coiling across their surface in oily ropes. On the bridge Pertinax’s voice was shaking with rage as he gave the order to return fire. The Hammer of Terra began to bring its own guns to bear.
Around the Contrador space bubbled like boiling tar as ship after ship burst into reality at the same moment. The first hundred Iron Warriors ships fired as one and the Hammer of Terra became a brief smeared sun.
When I reached the bridge the Hammer of Terra was already a spreading globe of gas and glowing debris. The warship’s death filled the pict-screens, burning in silence above the hundreds of servitors and crew that filled the cavernous space. The sight of it made me freeze for a second, my eyes locked on the image. I thought of Pertinax, captain of the Hammer of Terra, a warrior who had already fought in a hundred campaigns by the time I became part of the Legion. I remembered his green augmetic eyes watching me steadily, and the soft accent of Europa that had never left his voice.
I shook my head, a
nd the noise of the bridge washed over me. Officers were shouting at each other as servitors and machines spat out reams of data. Raln was at my side, already calling orders to the serfs. I needed to get hold of the battle before it spun further beyond my grasp, but there was one fact missing I needed to know.
‘Who is the enemy?’ I asked. Raln half turned to me, the red lenses of his helmet briefly meeting my gaze as he spoke.
‘The Iron Warriors,’ he said and turned back to issue a stream of rapid orders to the bridge officers. For a second I stood still, like a man with a bullet hole through him yet to fall. Then I nodded and snapped my helmet over my head.
The holo-projection above spun, showing me battlegroup and enemy positions, auspex readings and tactical data in growing clusters of glowing runes. Screeds of data from my helmet display overlaid the projection: inter-ship communication, links to the battlegroup commanders, the Legion-contingent details from each ship. To a Space Marine not conditioned to process such levels of information it would have been bewildering. To a normal human it would have been overwhelming. I took a deep breath, felt the focused calm enforce itself through my body and mind. Training and conditioning blanked out every other instinct. I was the centre of a storm, a clear point of will and strength.
‘Bring us above the plane of attack,’ I called to Raln. I felt the ship judder. The holographic projection blurred and flickered for a second. I glanced back to the raw data of the battle that floated in front of me. Four minutes had passed since the Hammer of Terra had died. We had lost ten ships, thirty were crippled; forty-six had suffered severe damage. Ordnance had degraded to sixty-two per cent across the fleet. We were close to disaster.
The Tribune was taking fire. I could read it in the flow of activity on the bridge as if it were the movements of my own body. Shields were down across the forward batteries. Power had been diverted to bring them back up. Plasma reactors were straining to maintain output.
Inbound enemy bombers.
Batteries firing.
Dorsal line accelerators approaching optimal fire angle.
Turn at thirty per cent.
Course correction…
I let out a slow breath, and blanked out the details of the Tribune’s situation. I was the fleet master. The Tribune was under Raln’s hand, and was only one part of the battle. I focused on the information in front of me; the hololithic projection was a tangle of trajectories and amber engagement makers.
The position was clear and chilling. The enemy fleet had penetrated a third of the way into our lines. Their formation resembled a jagged cone, the largest vessels set back from screens of escorts and heavy-hulled strike cruisers. It had punched into our fleet and was moving towards the centre of our spherical formation. To my eyes it looked like a fanged worm eating to the core of a ripe fruit. It was methodically brutal in its ugly efficiency. So typical of the Iron Warriors.
The Iron Warriors. Our enemies are the Iron Warriors. The thought was like a sliver of ice thrust into my guts, as if that fact had only just registered in my mind. They had scrambled their communications but I recognised their ships. These were vessels we had fought beside, crewed by warriors I had bled with and called brothers. If the Iron Warriors were with Horus, then how many others might be as well? Could more have turned on the Imperium? Terra might have already fallen. The Imperium might already be no more. Our fleet might be the last fragment of loyalty surviving. The possibilities made my head swim, as if my mind was screaming after the dead Imperium as it vanished into an abyss. For a moment I felt the old crack in my strength, the weakness that had nearly made me curl up and accept death on the ice of Inwit.
I cannot fail now, I will not fail. My eyes flicked across the projected sphere showing the battle, green and blue smeared with red like leaking blood. The contingency plans I had made over the long months surfaced in my mind, aligned with the possibilities of the present. I could see it, a way not only of recovering but fighting back. If we bleed, I thought, so will they.
Thirty-six companies of Imperial Fists died in those first moments without seeing their enemy or firing a shot. They died running for assault boats, locked in the cockpits of Stormbirds and on the command decks of ships. They died without knowing the hand that killed them.
Within seconds of the death of the Hammer of Terra twelve of its sisters followed, consumed by nova-shell explosions and torpedo spreads. The grand cruiser Sulla fired a single salvo before macro-shell fire stripped its shields and its hull became molten slag. The six destroyers clustered around it ended in the explosion of its plasma reactor. The Crusader and Legate lasted scant seconds longer. They and their escorts took a trio of vortex warheads and vanished into the hungering dark.
Twenty-four grand cruisers and battle-barges made up the tip of the Iron Warriors fleet. In close formation around the Contrador they moved as one. They rammed through the debris of their kills, fire and molten metal smearing their prows. Turbolasers, macro cannon and plasma annihilators scoured the void around them. Bombers and assault craft swarmed through the void behind the warships, killing crippled craft with thousands of small explosions.
Seen from a distance the opening minutes of the battle would have been a scattering of bright flashes against blackness. Closer in, so that the planets of Phall loomed large, the view would have been of hundreds of gleaming shards moving in patterns and groups like swarming fireflies. It would still have been impossible to tell the difference between Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists, but after watching for a few minutes patterns would have emerged. The first pattern was an empty sphere, spun from the curving paths of golden ships. The second was a tapered wedge that grew longer and thicker as more ships pulled themselves from the warp. Where the two formations met explosions flared brighter than the distant stars.
The Imperial Fists fleet fragmented under the attack. Flame-wreathed battle-barges pulled back, trying to outpace the guns of the Iron Warriors. Heavy cruisers staggered their flight, first one taking fire then the next, while faster strike cruisers tried to cover the heavier warships as they pulled away. As the golden fleet broke into pieces the Iron Warriors continued to press forwards. Smaller ships crippled targets, and then larger ships delivered the killing blows. It was methodical and merciless, like a siege drill eating through rock.
Directly in the path of the Iron Warriors a lone battleship turned to meet its enemy. Forgotten hands had made the Oath of Stone under the light of a sun far from Terra. It had been old before it served the Imperium, and it had aged in scars and honours since. Its guns blazed, filling the closing space between it and the enemy with fire.
Its target was a grand cruiser that bore the name Stheno. The Iron Warriors ship faltered, its void envelope peeling back as it pushed forwards through the storm of fire. Lance beams spat from the Oath of Stone and suddenly the Stheno was burning, a glowing gouge running from its spade-shaped prow to its fins. The Oath of Stone surged forwards to finish its kill, but the Stheno was only one ship amongst a closing fist of iron.
Three heavy cruisers fired. Energy crackled across the Oath of Stone’s void shields as they burst like oily bubbles. Shells and missiles hammered into the old ship. Its armour cracked and glowed. Crenellated gun towers sheared off, scattering clouds of stone and metal in their wake. Hundred-metre armour plates flaked off its hull. Deep inside the hull fire ran between compartments, suffocating those it did not burn.
Trailing wreckage, the Oath of Stone continued to close and fire on the Stheno. For a moment it seemed as if it would face down the might of an entire fleet and survive. Then a line of turbolaser fire cut its engines in two. Building-sized thrusters fell away as explosions kindled in the wound.
On its bridge a human officer stood. Blood covered his face and chest. He looked at the armoured corpse of the ship’s master; the Imperial Fist had died with his hands still gripping the arms of the command throne. The man nodded as if to someone who was not the
re, and gave a single order to the surviving crew.
With the last of its momentum and guttering engines’ power the Oath of Stone rammed the Stheno. It hit the grand cruiser in the belly, its prow ramming through the iron ship’s spine. The Stheno shuddered, transfixed like a fish on a spear. Gas and fluid sprayed from its hull. For a moment the two spun on, locked together in death. Then the Oath of Stone’s prow ripped free of the Stheno’s hull, and pulled the guts of the grand cruiser with it. Discarded and dying the Stheno drifted on, turning end over end, like a broken spear thrown at the night sky.
The rest of the Iron Warriors fleet did not even slow down.
His master was staring at the lights of battle as Berossus approached. The Iron Blood had no viewports. There was no need for them, or so Berossus had heard Perturabo say. Why would you need to look at the void? War in space was a matter of calculation, sensors and firepower. That or hacking your enemy apart in spaces so small you could smell their blood. Windows onto the void were a weakness indulged for vanity. In spite of this sentiment Berossus found his master on the deck of a launch bay, its blast doors open to the vacuum. A thin layer of frost covered the deck and walls and had crept up Perturabo’s armour.
Berossus knelt, his breath loud inside his helm. He was aware that being adjutant to the primarch for this battle held danger as well as honour. He would never claim to understand the Lord of Iron, but he wondered if at that moment his master needed to see the reality of his fleet hammering the longed-for rebuke into the flesh of Dorn’s sons. It was a triumph, but Berossus knew that his master had never been more dangerous than at that moment; he could feel it like a razor lying on his skin.
‘Is the fleet fully deployed?’ Vox-static laced Perturabo’s voice.