Astra Militarum

by David Annandale, Justin D Hill, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell (epub)

  ‘L-lord General?’

  ‘Do you have faith in the Emperor?’

  ‘Y-yes, sir!’

  ‘At ease. Here. Smoke?’

  Fesk didn’t but he took a lho-stick and inhaled.

  ‘I have to get back to Spaceport,’ mused General Creed. ‘But I should think another six hours.’

  ‘Is that how long we have left?’ Fesk stammered.

  Creed grinned in the light cast by his stub. ‘I think so,’ he said. There was a long pause. ‘You did well today. All of you.’

  ‘I feel like we took a hell of a beating.’

  Creed seemed amused.

  ‘I mean, look at how few of us are left,’ Fesk continued.

  Creed looked around. ‘You think we’re done?’ He savoured a long drag. ‘They are the ones who’re trapped, cadet. They’re bottled up with the quicksand on either side of them, with us in front, and soon we’ll send them howling back to the warp. They are about to face the wrath of the Astra Militarum.’

  Fesk said nothing. He didn’t quite believe it.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Creed said after a while.

  ‘Kasr Ferrox.’

  ‘Ah. There’s a fine minster there. My mother took me there once.’ Creed paused. ‘I must have been six years old. I had never seen such a bastion. Great spires and gun emplacements, and statues of saints at every loophole. I was an Utsider. My father was a hunter in the Gallan Highlands. I think Kasr Ferrox was the first city I ever saw. It would be good to go and see it again.’

  ‘It would,’ Fesk said.

  ‘We should go there when this war is over, when Anckor and his men are dead.’ Creed slipped a lho-stick behind Fesk’s ear. ‘Save that for tomorrow,’ he said, walking off. ‘When this is all over.’

  When Fesk finished his watch he stumbled back to the camp.

  Lina was sitting, smoking a lho-stick. ‘I saw him talking to you too,’ she said.

  He nodded and rolled his jacket up as a pillow.

  ‘What did he talk about?’

  ‘The minster at Kasr Ferrox.’

  She laughed. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No.’

  She pulled out her knife, wiped it on her thigh and slammed it back into its sheath. ‘He’s something else, isn’t he? Did you ever think you would meet someone like that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I hope they come again tomorrow.’

  ‘I’m sure they will.’

  They stood staring out into the night, watching Creed moving slowly around the sentries. Every once in a while they could hear his low bass chuckle, or see the red glow of his stub.

  Fesk started as Lina suddenly stepped towards him. He could smell her proximity, and then without warning she leaned in close and kissed him. A firm, wet kiss.

  Fesk was lucky there was a line of sandbags for him to lean against. He put a hand on the small of her back, and she pulled away out of reach. ‘Tomorrow, let’s kill them all.’

  It was an hour before dawn when Fesk woke with a start. Valkyries were approaching. He sat up and squinted as they landed and kicked up a blizzard of cad-ore. The wind was starting to stir. He smelled stub smoke and sat up. The gunships paused for a minute, and then they veered up and wheeled away. Fesk pushed himself up with his rifle butt and limped along the sandbacks. He felt deflated suddenly. As if hope had blown away on the wind.

  ‘What happened?’ Fesk said when he saw Major Luka standing over him, running a hand over the stubble on his head.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Creed? He’s left us?’ Fesk felt panic quicken his heartbeat. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s a commander. Now he has to command.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen here?’

  ‘I have no idea, cadet. And nor, I bet, do the Anckorites.’

  Major Luka started away, but he turned and put out a hand. ‘You fought well, Cadet Fesk. This should all be over soon. Get some more sleep. We should have a few hours yet. Have faith in General Creed. If anyone can pull this off, he can.’

  Creed jumped from the Valkyrie as it fired its landing jets.

  Kamala, the wiry commander of the local militia, ran in to greet him. ‘We thought you were lost!’ she said.

  ‘Well, I’m here now,’ he shouted over the roar of the engines. ‘What’s the situation?’

  ‘The commissars have rallied the retreating columns. They’re heading to the coordinates you provided. They’ll be in position by 0600.’

  ‘And did you get through to the fleet?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘At last.’

  Creed stood over the maps at headquarters. Kamala had never seen an officer who thought so quickly and in such detail. He made rapid calculations of movements, deployments, unit strengths. An air of quiet intensity filled the place as he shuffled through the maps, checked his timepiece and then looked up.

  ‘Get me the Magister Thine,’ he said. ‘I want to speak to the captain personally. Now.’

  Creed drummed his fingers as he waited. When the link was established he took the handset. ‘Captain Avery,’ he said. ‘I need those lance batteries of yours. The future of this campaign lies on your shoulders. I am going to give you coordinates. You will position your craft above the target and strike them at 0600 hours local time. You will bombard that point for exactly three minutes.’

  He put his thumb on the map, and picked out a series of points below the Incardine Ridge, asked Captain Avery to repeat them and then nodded.

  ‘Good. You have the thanks of the Astra Militarum and of Warmaster Ryse himself, captain.’

  At 0553 hours the order went through Magister Thine to open gunports for ‘collective and concentrated fire’. For kilometres along the length of the grand cruiser, batteries opened, colossal turrets turned to face the planet, vast black gun barrels slowly pointing towards the Incardine Ridge and lances powered up. Gunnery crews, hundreds strong, hoisted vast kilotonne ordnance; power lines hummed as the gantries shook with power lifts slowly slamming the shells into firing position.

  At 0558 silence fell. The gantries and loading decks were strangely still. The clocks ticked down. The order to ‘ready weapons’ came, and dull clicks rang through the ancient linebreaker as firing mechanisms engaged.

  At three seconds after 0600 hours the bombardment was announced. The Magister Thine lurched suddenly in orbit.

  A sudden storm raged in the skies above Besana. The planet trembled. Fissures began to form in the crust of the world as the Magister Thine’s linear accelerators threw magma warheads with adamantine cores deep into the base of the Incardine Ridge. The firing picked out the coordinates, boxing the massed Anckorites in then smashing into their massed ranks with horrible precision. Volcanic eruptions threw up dust storms of cad-ore that would last for months after. Along the Incardine Ridge men threw themselves to the bottom of their dugouts. They shouted to the Golden Throne and could not hear themselves.

  Below them the hordes of Anckorites died, their screams unheard in the maelstrom. The massed ranks were incinerated, the reinforcements turning and fleeing back into the Long Dry, where the escape was blocked by disciplined companies of Cadian Eighth, Ephanlian Hussars, the brightly coloured lances of Saint Percival’s Cavalry and, ranked in echelon formation, the massed grey armour of the 17th Company of the Aquarian Guard.

  The Anckorites stopped and pulled the black rags from their scarred faces and stared in shock at the thousands of muzzles – lasrifle, bolter, autocannon and battlecannon – all trained on them.

  Then a single voice gave the order – ‘Fire!’ – and the Anckorites howled in fury and frustration as they were slaughtered.

  Fesk’s nightmare was of thunder and flame.

  It was later that day when he woke in the back of a Chimera, while the medic injected more stimms into his arm
. There was cad-ore in his mouth, his ears, and it gummed his eyes closed.

  There was a brief sting, the odd sensation of the syringe being emptied into his vein, and then the stimms hit and he let out a sigh. There were voices all about. Calm, professional voices, hurrying back and forth. The medic was busy. He put a wad of cotton on the place he had injected.

  It took an age for Fesk to unglue his lips to speak. When it came, his voice was a dry croak. ‘Did we win?’

  ‘Not yet,’ the man said through his white mask.

  The sound of an autocannon started up somewhere nearby. Then two, and eventually a chorus of them.

  Fesk sat up with a start. He wanted his rifle. He wasn’t going to get caught again. ‘Are we going to die?’

  The medic spoke between clenched teeth. ‘Will you sit still?’ He breathed slowly and Fesk could feel the tug of skin as the needle went in and pulled the wound tight. ‘Creed’s shown them.’

  What had he shown them? Fesk wondered. The drugs took hold again and he lay back and dreamed of Creed, and of Lina and the sudden kiss. Fesk started laughing. He wiped his eyes. He couldn’t help it. He sniffed and shook his head. He felt someone next to him and looked up. It was Yetske. He was staring at the lho-stick behind Fesk’s ear.

  ‘I’d give it to you, but you’re dead,’ Fesk said.

  Yetske didn’t go away. But his face turned into Lina’s.

  ‘Oh, you too?’ he said. ‘You’re dead too?’

  ‘You’re crying,’ she said. ‘Fesk blubbing like a baby?’

  ‘No,’ Fesk said, wiping his cheeks again.

  It was a week later that Fesk – still a little giddy with stimms – slung his kitbag over his shoulder and limped forward to join the file of men waiting to exit Starport Medicae Facility. There were ships out there; he had heard their engines as they landed. Maybe he’d get to write that letter, he thought as he shuffled forward, but now he didn’t really know what to say. He was still alive. That was enough.

  The line was slow. At last he came to the front. A short-tempered Munitorum quartermaster stood behind a high wooden counter. He had a clipboard before him. ‘Name and number?’

  ‘C20004.346. Whiteshield Jasper Fesk.’

  The man flipped a number of pages back and looked up. He found the right spot. ‘Fesk. Uniform, helmet. Yes?’

  Fesk nodded. Whatever they said. The quartermaster walked off and came back a minute later with a neatly folded pile of clothes, with a fresh helmet on. Fesk took it, signed and then moved to the side before realising he’d been given the wrong pile.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he called out, but the quartermaster was already serving the next man. He gave Fesk a fixed look.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You gave me the wrong pile.’

  The quartermaster came forward. He looked like he was going to strike him.

  ‘Fesk. Whiteshield. 20004th Cadet Group. ident number 346. Correct?’

  Fesk nodded.

  The quartermaster put out a hand and lifted the materials. ‘These are correct,’ he said. ‘What is the problem?’

  Fesk held up his helmet. There was no white stripe. The quartermaster was busy and waved him away. ‘Did no one tell you?’ he said. ‘You’re a Shock Trooper now. Cadian Eighth.’

  Fesk looked at the icon on the helmet. A silver skull and Cadian Gate badge, underneath the number eight and a wreath of laurels.

  Fesk looked around. He didn’t know the men about him. They were a mix of all the wounded from the fighting: Mordax Dragoons, Crinan Fourth, Aquarians and a Vostroyan Firstborn with a grey moustache and a white bandage over one eye.

  ‘Are you all right, lad?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a Shock Trooper,’ Fesk said dumbly.

  The Vostroyan had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘I’m a Shock Trooper,’ he said again, holding up the badge.

  ‘Eighth?’ the Vostroyan asked.

  Fesk nodded.

  ‘Never heard of them,’ the man said, and stalked off towards the landers where files of troops, transports, freshly washed armour and gun barrels in their tarpaulin sheathes were waiting to board.

  Fesk found Lina and they stood together. Lina had her jacket thrown over a fresh tank top. ‘Not dead then?’ he asked. He didn’t know what to expect in response.

  All she said was: ‘Eighth?’

  Fesk nodded.

  ‘Me too,’ Lina said. There was a long pause. ‘He got away.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Luciver Anckorite. He let his men die and ran. We’re going after him.’

  ‘Are we?’

  Lina gave him a look. ‘Don’t you listen to anything?’

  Fesk shook his head. ‘I’ve been in the medicae.’

  ‘Oh. How is it?’ She looked down. His stitches pulled, but they were healing. He said nothing. The ground shook as a lander took off about a mile away.

  ‘I hear they got Darkins,’ Fesk said.

  Lina looked away for a moment. When she looked back at him there were tears in her eyes, but they did not fall and the look she gave him dared him to notice them.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Pultin. Yetske. Shanner. Brantsk. All the poor frekkers. They got Garonne too. Skinned him.’ Lina paused. She nodded as she scratched a symbol in the dirt with her toe. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘We should get to the lander.’

  It took a day to load the lander. Fesk and Lina and the other new Shock Troopers bunched together. Major Luka came to say farewell.

  ‘I’m proud of you all!’ he said. ‘Now go out there and kill each and every one of them.’

  ‘What will you do now?’ Fesk asked.

  ‘Teach more gun-babies like you how to survive.’

  ‘That was a tough straw we pulled, yeah?’

  Major Luka looked him in the eye. ‘One of the toughest I’ve ever seen. But you made it. And you held Luciver back. And now you’re Shock Troopers!’

  The crowd drifted off in twos and threes. Fesk lingered. ‘What happened, major?’ he said. ‘I was wounded, and I don’t really remember what was going on around us. Last thing I remember is you telling me to go back to sleep. The rest seems like a dream.’

  Major Luka stopped. ‘You don’t remember the bombardment?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I remember that.’

  ‘Well, our position was critical. We had to hold the causeway. Once Creed had the Anckorites bunched up along the Route Equatorial he had the Navy boys fire on it. I’ve never felt a planet shake before. Besana trembled before the fury of the Magister Thine. The very ground shook. It was the only way we could beat the Anckorites. They outnumbered us ten or more to one.’

  ‘So why didn’t they just flee?’ Fesk asked.

  ‘Ah well. They tried that. But remember all those troops who were sitting on landers waiting to evacuate? Creed landed in the Long Dry behind the Anckorites. He put belief back into them. The enemy were trapped. Desert. Causeway. Imperial armour.’ Major Luka held out an open palm, and slowly closed it. ‘He crushed them.’

  Fesk was numb as he filed up the lander ramps. The Cadians were quartered in container Alpha-Six. He passed containers full of parked tanks and Chimeras, and a gallery of Sentinels, like ranks of giant warriors, eerily still.

  Fesk looked about him. Each Shock Trooper found a bunk. He pictured one in the corner under a massive steel girder. He was quiet and thoughtful, looking about the vast hangar. This was his regiment now and his family. This was his world.

  An hour after boarding, a claxon rang. No one seemed to take any notice. Then the engines lit and the whole craft began to vibrate, and then they were taking off.

  His stomach always lurched when the landers took off. He shut his eyes and prayed that this time he didn’t vomit. Suddenly, Fesk smelled something. He pushed himself off his bunk and walked towards a crowd of me
n. None of them knew him, but they saw a young face and they let him in. They were all Cadians. Someone in the middle was telling jokes.

  Fesk pushed to the front. There was a long table of men. In the middle was a bear of a man, three days of stubble, a greatcoat over his shoulder, a stub in his fingers, empty bottle on the table.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. Creed put his hand out to the table to steady himself. ‘Gentlemen! Meet one of our newest recruits…’

  ‘Jasper Fesk,’ Fesk said.

  ‘Drink with me, Fesk.’ Creed poured an amasec and held it out to him. ‘Arcady Pride!’ he said. ‘Straight from the warmaster’s table!’

  Fesk took the glass. The liquid smelled sweet and strong. He held it up and took in the men about him: young, old, wary, wounded, fierce and friendly. He lifted it to his mouth and drank.

  Creed winked. ‘Just for luck.’

  It had been ten minutes since the astropathic message had reached him, and Ursarkar Creed was still cursing. Colour Sergeant Jarran Kell watched as Creed strode towards the drinks table, picked up a bottle of green spirit and read the label.

  ‘What is this?’ Creed growled.

  Kell stepped up. ‘Zub-rod-ka. It’s amasec, or something like it. Fleet Captain Avery sent it, with his regards. I think he finds having you on board easier when you have good drink around you.’

  Creed grunted, unscrewed the brass cap, poured a measure of the green liquid into a cut crystal glass and knocked it back. From his expression Kell guessed it wasn’t bad. Creed offered the bottle to Kell.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said.

  ‘Not when on duty, eh?’ said Creed. ‘You’re always such a stickler for those kinds of things.’ The general poured himself another drink, rested both fists on the map table and stared down at the spread of system charts. Scarus, Belis Corona, Chinchare, Agripinaa. In the centre was a chart of the Cadian system. Every region was covered with crosses, each one marking an uprising, a rebellion, a lost contact.

  ‘Look at it!’ Creed snapped. ‘It’s clear!’

  Kell looked. It wasn’t clear to him, and he told Creed so.

  ‘Look!’ Creed shouted. ‘Here! Here! Here! Supply routes to Cadia. That’s what this all about. It’s not random – it’s war, and it’s about Cadia. About the Imperium itself. And Warmaster Ryse is so far up his own backside that he thinks his little campaign is all that is going on. Damn him! Damn the lot of them!’