Crippled hulks drifted in high orbit in a decaying trajectory, and the flaring bursts of damaged reactors bled into the surveyor readouts, filling them with hissing washes of static. The deck crew and augur servitors fought to clean the imaging, but a lot of firepower had been unleashed, and such weapons left a brutal afterburn in their wake.
“Damn, but this was a fight and a half,” he said, more to himself than any of the warriors behind him. Varro Tigurius and Severus Agemman stood at parade rest on the hardwood decking, each with their arms crossed across the plates of their armour. Both knew their Chapter Master well enough to know when his statements were rhetorical, and neither intruded upon his grieving anger.
Calgar scanned the debris fields, seeing the remains of at least thirteen ships, four of which were Ultramarines vessels. Such was the dreadfully abused nature of the enemy vessels, it was impossible to know for sure how many wrecks littered this sector of space.
“Reading residual engine signatures,” said Vibius, the Caesar’s deck officer.
“No need,” said Calgar. “I can see well enough which vessels we have lost. Hera’s Wrath, Guillitnan’s Spear, Sword of Ultramar and Grand Duke of Talassar.”
“All four…” hissed Agemman.
Calgar shook his head. “I never thought to see such loss in my time,” he said. “And the planet? Tell me there are life signs.”
Vibius shook his head. “I am sorry, my lord. I detect nothing, but I cannot be certain. The after-effects of the fighting are creating too much interference to be certain.”
“There’s nothing left alive, Marneus,” said Tigurius sadly.
“You’re sure?”
“No, but I’m sure enough,” said his Chief Librarian.
“We will avenge them, my lord,” added Agemman. “On my honour, the 1st will reap a fearsome tally of enemy dead in return.”
“I know you will, Severus,” answered Calgar. “Well, Varro, you said you saw a battle here, but there is no one here to fight. How do you explain this?”
“I do not know, my lord,” said Tigurius. “Divination is not an exact science, but I believe what I saw will come to pass. We will fight for Talassar and we will avenge its dead. Of that I am certain.”
“How can that be so?” demanded Calgar. “Look! All I see is wreckage. Honourable ships of the Ultramar fleet and the blasted hulks of the enemy.”
Tigurius looked deep into the viewer and Calgar was on the point of rebuking him for failing to answer when the Librarian shook his head.
“No,” he said. “The enemy is still here. Hidden and wounded, but still here.”
Calgar turned his gaze back to the viewer as Tigurius rushed over to the surveyor stations and gripped the edge of the plotter table. He saw nothing more than he had seen before, the wrecked and drifting shells of gutted enemy vessels and crippled ships bearing the Ultramarines inverted omega upon their broken, eagle-winged prows.
He joined Tigurius and Agemman at the plotting table, casting his eyes over the shifting patterns coming in and out of focus. Tigurius flipped through varied spectra of search parameters, increasing magnification and zooming in on portions of the celestial battlefield.
Energy spikes registered in the low end of the detection window, little more than the bleeding background radiation one might expect after such a furious exchange of weapons.
“What do you see?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“They’re here,” hissed Tigurius, a faraway light in his eyes. “Oh, they’re cunning, but I’m wise to them.”
Calgar looked over at Agemman, but his first captain merely shrugged, as in the dark as he was. Tigurius flashed through a dozen images, the flat of his palm pressed to the slate of the glowing display, before finally coming to rest on a sector of space hashed with blizzards of nuclear radiation, the fallout from a nova cannon burst. Vast clouds of gently spinning debris filled this area, a virtually impenetrable mist of physical and electromagnetic static that hung like a wedge of impenetrable fog.
“There,” said Tigurius triumphantly. “Vibius, filter out the echo-band rad-spikes and send an active surveyor scan through that cloud. As strong as you can make it.”
“If there’s anything in there, they’ll know we looked for them,” Vibius warned him.
“I know, just do it,” ordered Tigurius.
Vibius looked over to Calgar, who nodded and said, “Do as he says.”
The tension in the strategium ratcheted up as the Caesar’s surveyors sent a surge of reflective energy into the cloud. Much of the energy was scattered by the debris, but enough returned to paint a blurred outline on the plotter table. Though its lines were shimmering and unclear, there was no mistaking the shape that lay behind it. Calgar drew in a breath at the hideously familiar sight and Agemman issued ready orders to his warriors.
“The Indomitable,” said Calgar, seeing a dreadful familiarity in the crenellated lines of the star fort. It had changed since he had seen it last, its once proud and regal form now embellished with brutal redoubts, high towers of fearful aspect and every hateful killing trap known to the military architects of the Iron Warriors.
Vibius studied the returns in more detail. “Energy signatures suggest heavy damage. I’m reading numerous spikes indicative of multiple reactor breaches and warp core damage.”
“They almost got it,” said Agemman. “Damn me, but they almost did it.”
“Then we can finish what they started,” hissed Calgar, his heart a searing furnace of anger. “All ships form on the Caesar, we’re going to take the fight to these bastards and make sure they pay for every life they’ve taken.”
Agemman held out his hand, and Calgar took it. “The 1st Company stand with you, my lord. We’ll finish this together.”
“Aye,” agreed Calgar, feeling the Caesar increase speed, as though eager to be in the fight.
He looked over to the smear of displaced light and radiation, feeling the familiar excitement of going into battle once more.
He would finish a job he should have completed a long time ago.
“This time there will be no stay of execution,” Calgar told the daemon-haunted star fort.
The Caesar plunged into the debris surrounding Talassar, cutting through the swirling radiation storms and electrostatic clouds. It passed the derelict vessels crippled in the furious battles, their sad, cratered hulls grim testament to the uncompromising nature of war in space.
Lord Calgar’s mission was vengeance, and nothing would come between him and that sacred duty. Fresh from a refit in the surface shipyards of Calth, the Caesar’s systems were operating at optimal efficiency and her crew were trained more intensely and thoroughly than any Naval ship of the line. The lights in the strategium burned red, the colour of war, as every weapon system came online.
Far beneath the strategium, Captain Agemman readied his warriors for the fight to come, the Terminators of the 1st Company running the last of their pre-battle drills as Techmarines prepped the Thunderhawks and intoned the ritual blessings upon their hulls and armaments.
Marneus Calgar watched the image of the Indomitable as it drew closer. He remembered leading the 1st Company aboard the star fort sixty years ago. It was a battle he would never forget, much as he wished to, for its outcome had been the one stain on his honour. M’kar had proven impossible to destroy, so he had made the devil’s bargain with Inquisitor Mazeon to trap it instead. What had seemed like the best solution at the time had now come back to visit its terrible wrath upon his sons.
“You endured once,” he whispered, clenching the mighty Gauntlets of Ultramar. “You will not endure again.”
Clad in the Armour of Antilochus, Calgar towered above even the mightiest of his warriors, the enormous plates of his Terminator armour thick and impenetrable. Its every surface was engraved with minute lettering, almost too small for the naked eye to see, the lessons of the Codex Astartes. Hundreds of thousands of words were etched into his armour, but it was still only a fraction o
f the entire tome. The teachings of Roboute Guilliman could not so easily be rendered by mortals, even one as mighty as Marneus Calgar.
“Approaching outer edges of Indomitable’s range,” said Vibius at the tactical plotter.
“Understood,” said Calgar. “Any change in its posture?”
“Negative, my lord. It’s still haemorrhaging energy and its warp core readings are fluctuating wildly. Give it enough time and it will probably tear itself apart.”
“Not a chance,” said Calgar. “This time I will make no mistakes. I will see the body and I will crush the life from it myself.”
“Aye, my lord,” said Vibius. “We’re all with you,” and a ripple of assent swept around the bridge. Calgar smiled, seeing the same determination to strike back at this diabolical foe in every face. Even the servitors hardwired into the automated systems of the ship seemed energised by the nearness of battle.
Calgar stepped over to the plotting table, watching the feeds from the Caesar’s many surveyor systems merge with the current tactical globe. The display was cluttered with rad-flares and washed with static from atomic detonations, but the Ultramarines fleet was clearly picked out in pale blue darts arcing their way towards the red shimmer that represented the Indomitable. It reminded Calgar of images he had seen in the Apothecarion of bacterial invaders in a patient’s bloodstream being targeted by white blood cells.
The metaphor was an apt one, he thought.
“Detecting weapon level ordnance drifting in the debris clouds,” warned Vibius, cycling through the surveyor feeds. “As per Codex manoeuvre protocols, I recommend increasing fleet spacing, my lord.”
“Agreed,” said Calgar automatically. “I don’t want multiple vessels caught by any unexploded warheads before we get there. Issue the alert, and have all captains verify.”
Moments later, the blue darts moved apart on the plotter and crackling confirmation icons flashed next to them. An Ultramarines fleet was a well-oiled machine, one that could be relied on to function exactly in battle as it would in any simulation or battle drill. No sooner had he formed the thought than he knew his order was a mistake.
Reliable was just another word for predictable, and their foes had already shown they knew how to exploit predictability.
“Belay that order!” he yelled as a series of icons blossomed to life across the plotter table.
Incongruously, a number of them were the pale blue of friendlies, and it took him a second to realise why. The Ultramarines vessels crippled in the fighting were not crippled at all, they were in enemy hands!
“All ships, enemy close!” warned Calgar, as yet more icons winked into existence on the plotter table. These were very definitely hostiles, the red of their threat unmistakable. What the surveyors had read as crippled derelicts were coming back to life and plotting firing solutions on the Caesar.
“Torpedo launch!” shouted Vibius, and. “Coming in on bearing one-nine-three. Range six thousand kilometres. Emperor save us, but they’re from Hera’s Wrath!”
“All ahead full, fire manoeuvring thrusters and get us out of their path,” ordered Calgar, though he knew they would be too close to evade. He knew he should rebuke Vibius for his exclamation, but his horror at one vessel of the Ultramarines fleet firing on another was perfectly understandable.
“Plot a firing solution on the return trajectory,” said Calgar, working out the permutations of this unfolding battle. In any normal engagement, the opposing fleets jockeyed for the perfect firing positions, running broadside with guns blazing or crossing the T of an opposing battle line to bring all their weapons to bear while minimising the return fire of the enemy. Such battles were fought at enormous ranges, giving each commander ample time to plot their stratagems and best utilise the strengths of his ships.
This battle was fought at what was, in void war terms, point-blank range, and the enemy had taken the first shots. This was going to get nasty, bloody and messy very quickly.
“Incoming torpedoes now at two thousand kilometres,” cried Vibius. “Close-in defence turrets engaging now.”
“It won’t be enough,” said Calgar, gripping the edge of the plotter table and buckling the metal as the force of his grip increased. “Launch all countermeasures and take us into the upper atmosphere. All vessels follow on.”
“More launches! Indomitable has launched a spread, range sixty thousand kilometres. At least fifty warheads!”
Calgar looked back at the plotting table, seeing the fresh torpedo launches as an incoming wall of red blotches. “Launch counter spread,” he ordered. “Disengage all safeties.”
“Aye, my lord,” intoned the Master of Weapons. “All safeties disengaged.”
Ultramarines vessels could not normally fire upon one another, but with the safety mechanisms removed, any ship was now a target. Though it broke his heart to fire on vessels he had sailed into battle upon, the destruction of yet more Ultramarines ships was the only possible outcome of this fight.
“Escort craft engaging now. Konor’s Gulf taking hits, Ultramar Endures engaging three escort-class vessels, and Prandium Memoriam reports catastrophic engine damage. She’s out of the fight.”
“Brace for impact!” shouted Calgar as the proximity alarms blared throughout the strategium. High up in the bridge, the impacts were felt merely as a faint, shuddering vibration in the deck plates, but the damage to the vessel’s rear quarter would be significant.
“Damage report.”
“Starboard engines took the brunt of the impacts,” said Vibius. “Hull breaches on decks six through seventeen and multiple pressure losses throughout the engineering decks. We’re losing power and the manoeuvring systems are offline.”
“Get them back, Vibius,” said Calgar, with a calm he did not feel. “We’re dead in space without them.”
“Aye, my lord. Damage control teams are already on the scene and all bulkheads to vented compartments have been sealed. Losses estimated to be in the region of six hundred dead.”
Calgar nodded, filing that bleak statistic away for now. Mourning the dead could wait, or else they would all be numbered amongst them.
The enemy ships clustered around them, like wolves around a cornered stag, but their eagerness to strike the deathblow had made them careless. A vessel identified as Sword of Ultramar was coming about before the Caesar’s prow and Calgar smiled grimly as he saw the correlation to the vessels approaching on either flank. From their positioning, he saw they were moments from launching devastating broadsides of raking fire.
“You might have my ships, but you’re not Ultramarines,” he said. His fingers danced over the controls, far more delicately than should have been possible with such cumbersome-looking gauntlets. Centuries of experience, an innate grasp of the vagaries of void war and his enhanced cognition allowed him to plot out the movements of his enemies in seconds.
“Passing multiple firing solutions to you, Master of Weapons,” said Calgar. “Execute them on my mark, if you please.”
“Aye, my lord,” responded the Master of Weapons, a Techmarine named Estoca. “Solutions received and plotted. Vessels to our port and starboard are firing.”
“Vibius, increase bow angle thirty degrees and send as much power as you can to the engines,” said Calgar. “And make it soon.”
“It will be done,” Vibius assured him.
Seconds later, the lights in the strategium dimmed as power diverted to the straining ship’s damaged engines. This time the ship’s protests were felt keenly by the bridge crew as the superstructure groaned with the strain of the manoeuvre. Pressure lines ruptured and emergency sirens blared as the toll taken upon damaged engines rippled outwards, blowing pressurised bulkheads and ripping open its already ravaged hull.
But his ploy worked. None of the incoming fire touched the Caesar, the explosive projectiles passing-harmlessly beneath the venerable warship and hurtling onward. Calgar followed the plots of the shells, and gave a triumphant yell as he saw them impact on the vessels to t
he Caesar’s flanks.
“They have the ships, but they don’t know how to use them except by hurling them at us in great numbers,” he said, storing that morsel of knowledge for another day. He glanced down at the plotter and judged his moment.
“Master Estoca,” he said. “Open fire with the prow bombardment cannon.”
“Firing now,” said Estoca.
Vast projectiles launched from the battle-barge’s main cannons, and the ships to its fore were too close and too committed to the attack to avoid them. One, a sword-class frigate that had seen service in Battlefleet Pacificus, was obliterated almost immediately, torn open from prow to stern by a series of catastrophic secondary explosions. The second, a frigate of unknown provenance, was struck repeatedly and broke into three distinct sections, each one trailing a spray of short-lived flames and freezing oxygen. The power of the blasts combined and magnified as venting plasma and warheads exploded, forming an expanding cloud of explosive debris and a blooming vortex of radiation.
Calgar watched the trajectory of the incoming torpedoes from the Indomitable, holding his breath as the spinning cloud of wreckage and radiation from the two frigates they had destroyed grew to encompass them. The plotter table blurred the whole region of space as the torpedoes flew into the mass of volatile gasses, plasma and debris, but as the seconds passed, he released his breath as he saw that none of the torpedoes had survived their journey through the soup of interference and debris.
“Incoming torpedoes,” shouted Vibius. “It’s Hera’s Wrath again!”
“Damn it,” swore Calgar. “She was a tenacious attack dog when she was ours and has lost none of her fury. Range?”
“Point-blank!” said Vibius. “She’s right on top of us!”
[Ultramarines 6] Chapters Due - Graham McNeill Page 12