[Battlefleet Gothic 02] - Shadow Point

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

  The old farseer’s words sent a ripple of distress out amongst those gathered on the command deck. If he closed his eyes and concentrated, Kariadryl knew what manner of thoughts his keenly-attuned psychic senses would pluck from the minds of those around him.

  Doubt, confusion and fear, all of them focusing in shock on the bombshell which Kariadryl had quietly allowed to drop.

  The Talismans of Vaul, whispered half a hundred eldar minds on the bridge of the Vual’en Sho. Could such a terrible possibility be true, they asked themselves, in intense fear and unease? Could the followers of the Great Abomination truly have found a means to awaken and mobilize such devices and turn them to its own use?

  It was a thought few eldar minds wished to entertain, and which cast a pall of apprehensive fear over all present on the command deck. As for Lileathon, Kariadryl was quietly satisfied to see that his words seemed to have had the desired effect on the troubled soul of the young firebrand commander.

  “An-Iolsus commands,” she acknowledged, chastened by the knowledge Kariadryl had just revealed. She stepped back, her expression reflecting the troubled nature of her thoughts. Her second-in-command, the older but more cautious Ailill, smoothly took over in her stead.

  “Lord farseer, the humans have launched their shuttle craft and are beginning their descent to the planet’s surface. We have received the signal indicating that they are ready to meet you there.”

  Kariadryl nodded, and looked at the pictskin images swimming in the air above them. He could see the small shapes of the shuttle craft and their escorts falling away from the looming bulk of the human star vessel. He studied the shape of the massive vessel for a moment, his eyes taking in the harsh, unfamiliar lines of the thing, and seeing the rows of launch bays and gun ports which studded its crenellated hull. Others of his race might profess to find the human vessel crude and primitive, a typical product of the barbaric mon-keigh, but to Kariadryl it represented all that he found most secretly terrifying about the humans. Massive and overwhelming, brutal and threatening, it seemed solid and formidably permanent in contrast to the slender, delicate, wraithbone-formed vessels of the eldar. Kariadryl could only imagine how many teeming thousands of humans there were aboard the massive cruiser, but he was all too painfully aware of the far lesser number of eldar—barely more than a thousand—who made up the crew of the Vual’en Sho.

  And the humans had—how many, he wondered—thousands or tens of thousands of such vessels, spread all through the galaxy? In stark contrast, An-Iolsus could only muster a handful of ships, most of which were held in reserve for the defence of the craftworld itself. In his darkest thoughts, Kariadryl strongly doubted that the entire eldar diaspora, scattered as it was across dozens of craftworlds all through the galaxy, could gather its collected forces together in greater numbers than even the size of the single battlefleet group which the humans used to control this sector of their far-flung empire.

  We are a dying race, he mournfully reminded himself: the evidence of our decline is all around us. Each day there are less of us, and more humans. One day perhaps there shall be none of us left at all.

  And who will there be then to guard the things which the elder ones have left behind, he asked himself? That was why this mission was so important, he realised, even if these others did not. The humans were savage and primitive in comparison to the eldar, but they were also the new heirs to the galaxy and its secrets, just as the elder themselves had inherited it from those races who had gone before. It must fall to the likes of Kariadryl to educate this new upstart race and teach them something of the deadly inheritance which might one day yet be theirs.

  I have so little time left, lamented the ancient farseer, and still so much left to do.

  Aware that he had allowed his thoughts to drift—how much he envied his brothers and sisters in the dome of the crystal seers who had all the time in the universe to let their minds drift in endless thought-dreams, and how much he looked forward to finally joining them—he turned his attention back to the present matters.

  “Are the preparations ready for our own arrival on the planet?”

  “They are, lord farseer,” answered Darodayos. “The temporary webway portal is open and stabilised, and I have sent scouts on ahead. They report that the surface area is secure and that there is no sign of any human deception.”

  Kariadryl nodded, and bowed to Lileathon.

  “Then it is time we took our leave of you, honoured craft-master. I thank you for the protection and hospitality you have offered us, and I look forward to seeing you again, sister, when we return aboard at the successful completion of our task.”

  “An-Iolsus commands,” replied Lileathon, returning the bow and giving the customary blessing of farewell. “Asuryan watch over you and our brothers and sisters, and bring you safely back to us once more.”

  “Squad Haller reporting. North Two perimeter secured. No sign of any hostiles.”

  “Squad Hoth. Nothing out here either. Just more bloody rocks and flying dust.”

  One by one, the reports came in from armsmen squads now patrolling the perimeter of the meeting point. Situated in the relative shelter of the strange alien ruins at the centre of the secure zone, Ulanti didn’t envy the armsmen their duty. The planet’s atmosphere was breathable, but endless storms swept its barren surface, and the air was filled with a flying, swirling hail of choking dust and tiny silicate fragments, making rebreather masks and goggles an absolute requirement.

  The journey from the landing zone—a three-kilometre hike across open ground, leaving one armsmen squad and several of Horst’s people behind to guard the waiting shuttles—had been a rude and shocking introduction to the realities of life on Stabia. For the members of Horst’s Inquisition retinue, it had been bad enough, but for the crew of the Macharius, who were experiencing the usual problems associated with suddenly having to readapt to planetary environment conditions after months or even years aboard a space vessel, it had been tough going in the extreme.

  Razor-edged flakes of wind-hurled silicate dust flayed at their exposed skin, dogging up the workings of weaponry and equipment, and finding a way into every crevice and joint in armour and environment suits. The ground was alternately composed of areas of jagged, uneven rock and expanses of deep and treacherously unpredictable dust bowls. Neither environment was particularly easy for booted feet more used to the firm, level decking of an Imperial warship, and twice they had had to interrupt their journey to pull people out of deep dust craters. The prospect of sudden and horrible death was a familiar companion for anyone who served aboard a vessel in His Divine Majesty’s Imperial Navy, but drowning in a bottomless dust-hole on some Emperor-forsaken planet, choking to death as the dust poured into a mouth screaming wide in terror, was no way for a navy man to die, and Ulanti had ordered his people to take the utmost care in this unfamiliar terrain.

  And then they had reached the meeting point co-ordinates indicated in the few brief, terse, coded transmissions they had received from the eldar command vessel, and come across this collection of strange and puzzling ruins.

  It was impossible to tell how old the ruins were, although they were clearly xenos in origin, and just as impossible to determine what catastrophe might once have occurred here. Had this place been destroyed by war or natural catastrophe, or had it been merely abandoned long ago by its original creators, allowing the deprivations of the passing millennia and the caustic environment to take their steady toll?

  Whatever the truth of the matter, the ruins themselves revealed little. The Imperial men had initially mistaken the buildings for natural rock formations when they had first seen them looming out of the shifting curtain of the dust storm. It was only as they drew closer that they saw there was a guiding intelligence to their lines and unusual symmetry.

  Ulanti ran a hand over the stonework beside him, marvelling at the strange, melted wax look of the material. Shot through with rainbow streaks of mixed colour and with an oddly viscous quality,
it was more like plastic than stonework. He took his hand away, disturbed by the faint crackling sensation which he felt, even through the material of his glove.

  “Static electricity, we think,” commented Horst, appearing suddenly beside him. “It seems to repel the dust, which must be why this place wasn’t buried under the stuff long ago. How it’s generated, or how the integrity of the field has been maintained for maybe thousands of years is something none of my people have yet been able to explain.”

  Ulanti snapped to attention in the inquisitor’s presence. Horst settled himself down on a nearby piece of stonework—it might have been the beginnings of a piece of oddly-formed statuary, a chair or the left-over stump of a pillar and signalled the young navy officer to relax.

  “At ease, lieutenant. Your captain and Admiral Pardain aren’t here now, and I’m never one to stand on ceremony once I’m out in the field. I assume your patrols haven’t found anything?”

  If Ulanti felt any discomfort in the presence of this inquisitor, who had been sent to the Gothic sector as the personal envoy of the High Lords of Terra themselves, he didn’t allow it to show.

  “Nothing at all,” he replied. “I’m co-ordinating our patrol efforts with your man Stavka. If anything tries to cross any point along the joint perimeter, we’ll know about it soon enough. No word from the Macharius.”

  The dust storm and the strange composition of the mica fragments it was composed of was making long-range comms transmissions from the planet’s surface something of a problem, not to mention the effects of the unpredictable electronic interference from this system’s binary star pulsar. They had been able to talk to the Macharius since their arrival on the surface of Stabia, but sometimes only intermittently, and all such communications had been an ongoing struggle against the natural forces which ruled the planet Stabia and its solar system.

  “I was able to speak briefly to your captain some minutes ago. They’re maintaining a careful watch on the eldar command ship, but so far there’s no sign of them launching any kind of shuttle craft.”

  Ulanti looked at Horst, both men wondering the same thing. “Which rather begs the question, sir, if they didn’t get here before us and they don’t seem to be in too much of a hurry to get down here by shuttle, then how exactly do they plan to put in an appearance at this rendezvous?”

  Horst nodded. “Tell me the truth, lieutenant, what do you really think of this mission? Don’t be afraid to speak your mind.”

  Ulanti paused, considering his reply carefully before offering it to the inquisitor.

  “As I said to Captain Semper, sir, if I were seeking to lure an enemy into a trap then this system would be perfect for my purposes. And now here we are on a planet within that system, on unfamiliar terrain, bogged down by unfavourable atmospheric conditions, with unreliable communications and waiting for someone who doesn’t seem in too much of a hurry to present himself.” Ulanti broke off, hesitating for a moment, and then looked directly at Horst.

  “If you ask me, inquisitor, this entire mission is just one big ambush waiting to happen.”

  Horst uttered a sharp, barking laugh, and dapped a hand on Ulanti’s shoulder, leaning on him as he hauled himself to his feet again. “Hah, perhaps you should talk more with Stavka, lieutenant, since he’s very much of the same opinion. Well spoken, Hito. The Emperor needs more servants who aren’t afraid to tell a senior inquisitor that he’s most likely walked straight into an obvious trap. If you ever tire of service in the navy, I could always use a man like you in my own organisation.”

  Ulanti opened his mouth to answer, intending to politely decline the inquisitor’s tentative but apparently serious offer, but was abruptly cut off by a strange, hissing scream which came from somewhere close amongst the ruins. The very molecules of the air seemed to vibrate with the force of the thing, and, at the same time, the swirling maelstrom of the dust storm was lit up by a eye-searing flash of light.

  “An explosion!” shouted Ulanti, drawing his laspistol and placing himself protectively in front of Horst. “An orbital strike, possibly. We’re under attack!”

  “More like a teleportation Shockwave,” answered Horst, knowing that even this was not strictly true. Teleportation technology was rare enough—amongst the forces of the Imperium, only the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes were equipped to withstand its potentially lethal rigours and he had found no recorded evidence of its use amongst the eldar. Nevertheless, piecing together many fragmented dues and suppositions, there was plenty of evidence to suggest that the eldar race possessed some advanced form of transportation technology unknown to the Imperium, since there were so many reports of eldar raiders appearing suddenly on a planet’s surface after somehow having been able to completely bypass and elude any orbital or planetary system defences which might have been in place. Indeed, despite the numerous encounters between eldar and Imperium naval forces, and the confirmed sightings of the same eldar ship at points many light years apart from each other, there was a great body of evidence to suggest that the eldar ships were not even equipped with warp drive technology. If they did not have warp engines, how then were they able to travel the distances between the stars?

  There is still so much we do not know or understand about them, Horst thought to himself, drawing his weapon and moving towards the source of the unknown phenomenon. Perhaps I am a fool, then, to have trusted such creatures and to have put myself and these other loyal servants of the Emperor in such jeopardy?

  They were outside now, in a clearing in the centre of the ruins. The figures of armsmen and Horst’s bodyguards appeared from amidst the swirling dust screen, drawing protectively towards Horst and Ulanti. All of them had their weapons drawn.

  On the vox-channels, there was a babble of excited, panicked voices sounding over the crackling hiss of the storm. One of Stavka’s men struggled with the settings of an auspex device, receiving back from it only a static scream which was a lesser echo of the larger sound which still filled the air all around them.

  “Switch that thing off,” ordered Stavka, angrily, striding forward out of the dusty murk, wielding a combat shotgun and issuing commands to those around him. “Use your infra-red filters. Advance in three-man squads. Keep in touch with the squads around you. Find whatever the hell that blast came from, and be prepared to fire upon hostiles.”

  “No! No firing unless you’re fired upon first,” bellowed Horst, countermanding his second-in-command’s order. “I repeat—hold your fire. Whatever comes out of this dust, the first man who fires upon it without provocation will be summarily executed. I speak in the name of the Emperor’s Inquisition!”

  There was a light glowing through the swirling dust ahead of them. From their initial reconnoitre of the ruins, Ulanti estimated it to be coming from an area containing a wide circle of unusual, free-standing monolith structures. The area and the structures had been investigated by Horst’s people, but, as with so much else here, little had been determined about them, including for what purpose they might have originally been constructed. Taking a firmer hold of his laspistol, Ulanti had a distinct feeling that they were perhaps about to find out.

  He felt a presence beside him, and heard a surprisingly familiar voice whispering the words of an Ecclesiarchy-approved catechism of blessed protection. The voice may have been familiar, but the tone of nervous fear in it was not. Ulanti turned in surprise, seeing Commissar Kyogen at his shoulder. The big Ship’s Commissar gripped the handle of his chainsword tightly, staring into the concealing curtain of the dust storm, a look of glassy fear in his eyes.

  Ulanti did not like the cold and detached Kyogen—as far as he was aware, no one aboard the Macharius had ever warmed to the man—but he did not doubt the commissar’s courage or ability. Now, for the first time, he saw fear in the man, and Kyogen’s secret weakness was exposed to him.

  Aliens, thought Ulanti, knowing the fear and horror which Imperial anti-alien propaganda had successfully installed into so many of the Emperor’s s
ubjects. He’s afraid of anything xenos-bred.

  The light was dimming now, fading away along with that hellish sound, and an uneasy stillness fell over the scene. For a few moments, nothing happened, and then they appeared out of the swirling murk of the dust storm.

  One second they were not there, and the next they were. From seemingly nowhere they appeared, tall and graceful figures, long and lithe of limb, clad in armour which, in stark contrast to the functional armour worn by the servants of the Imperium, had been constructed with artistry as much in mind as practicality. They carried weapons whose unfamiliar, elegant lines did not disguise their clearly lethal intent.

  The advance line of eldar warriors stopped, aggressively sweeping the barrels of their weapons in arcs back and forth along the line of human troops. Nervous fingers hovered over gun triggers and firing studs. Mutual suspicion and animosity crackled in the air between the two groups.

  An eldar warrior, taller and more magnificently armoured than the others, stepped forward, taking in the vista of nervous, afraid human faces with one sweeping, arrogant glance. His gaze settled for a moment on Ulanti, and the young navy lieutenant had to restrain the urge to protectively bring his weapon up to bear as he felt the alien’s keen and frigid intellect focussing briefly upon him. A cold, mocking smile flickered across the creature’s delicate, almost albino features, and then it suddenly stepped back. It neither gestured nor said anything to its companions, but Ulanti was left with the distinct impression that some kind of secret communication had just taken place.

  The advance line of eldar opened up in its centre, and another, smaller group of aliens advanced towards the watching humans. Most of them were in armour, clustering protectively around a figure in their centre, and then, at a gestured command from that figure, the rest of the group stopped and grudgingly allowed the figure to advance toward the humans on its own.