by Dan Abnett
‘Nostramo was once the very model of a pacified planet, Shang,’ said Night Haunter. ‘Its populace was kept compliant through fear of the harsh punishment I would mete out to any who broke my laws. Every citizen knew his place and to break the law was death.’
‘I remember, my lord.’
‘And now we return to this…’ said Night Haunter, sweeping the cards from the lectern to reveal a slowly scrolling list of text. ‘A murder every eleven seconds, a rape every nine seconds, violent crimes increasing exponentially every month, suicide rates doubling every year. Within a decade, there will be nothing left of the ordered world I left behind.’
‘Without fear of reprisal, humanity reverts to its basest instincts, my lord.’
Night Haunter nodded. ‘This is it, Shang, the ultimate proof that the Emperor’s belief in the goodness of mankind is folly of the worst kind.’
Shang hesitated before speaking again. ‘Then you intend to go through with the attack?’
‘Of course,’ said Night Haunter, staring at the doomed planet. ‘Only the most extreme measures will serve as an example of our strength of will. Nostramo is dead to us now. We have come for you all…’
The primarch marched along the central walkway of the strategium to stand beneath the image of Nostramo. The moon was emerging more fully from behind the planet and reflected light glinted on the hulls of the Night Lords’ fleet – a half century of vessels arrayed in battle formation above the diseased, corrupt boil that was the labyrinthine, crime-ridden spires of Nostramo Quintus.
Far below was a great wound in the surface, a plunging chasm his fiery arrival had smashed in the planet’s crust. Since he had emerged from its hellish depths he had known pain and suffering the likes of which others could not even guess. He had borne the pain of his tortured growth and lived with the awful self-knowledge of his own death.
And his brothers wondered why he appeared moribund…
He heard a commotion beside him and even before the word went out. Night Haunter could feel the tearing pressure of scores of ships emerging from the gates of the Empyrean with senses beyond the five possessed by his minions.
‘Too late, my brothers…’ he whispered. ‘I will be gone before you can stop me.’
Night Haunter took one last look at Nostramo and said, ‘All ships. Open fire.’
INCANDESCENT SPEARS OF blinding white light leapt from the barrels of uncounted batteries, stabbing down at the world below. Converging and multiplying their energies, the power of a thousand caged stars coalesced into a pillar of light thicker than the widest spire of Nostramo Quintus.
The great beam dispelled the darkness that shrouded Nostramo, the skies bathed in light and fire blooming into life as the awful heat of the Night Lord’s bombardment ignited the air for kilometres in all directions.
The blinding lance of pure energy penetrated the impermeable adamantium crust of Nostramo through the ancient fault line torn by the primarch’s arrival. Unimaginable energies tore downwards through the planet’s layers until they reached the core in a cataclysmic explosion the likes of which the galaxy had rarely seen.
NIGHT HAUNTER WATCHED the death of Nostramo with calm detachment, feeling the enormity of the action he had just taken settle upon him like a dark shroud. Strangely, it was not the burden he had expected. As he watched tectonic plates split apart and the molten heart of the planet ooze up to swallow the landscape and away burn the atmosphere, the only sensation of which he was conscious was intense relief.
The past was dead and he had shown that the creed he lived by was more than just empty words. The shockwave of this terrifying act would reverberate around the Imperium and come to the attention of those who, like him, understood the sacrifices needed to preserve the galaxy for humanity.
Nostramo burned and Night Haunter said, ‘I take this burden of this evil upon myself and I will not fear it, for I am fear incarnate…’