by Dan Abnett
“I thought I should bring it to you at once, sir.”
Locked in place, Esquine’s head could not turn, but his pallid eyes glanced sidelong at Valdeemer for a moment.
“Of course.” Esquine’s gaze returned to the slate, and a servo-arm moved in to offer up another for comparison. “The reinforcement fleet is approaching. That worm Lugo will be pleased, no doubt. Let us prepare. Ensign, step onto the throne plate.”
Valdeemer blinked and looked down. He was standing on the outer decking of the command pulpit. The throne itself was set on a raised disc of polished plasteel in the centre. He quickly stepped up onto the edge of this inner platform.
There was a slight vibration. The disc began to move, sliding backwards. The adamantine bulkhead wall behind the throne parted with a hiss of disengaging magnetic locks, and the entire throne platform — and Valdeemer along with it — retracted through the opening space.
As the shadow of the bulkhead passed over him, Valdeemer felt the retracting throne-platform begin to rotate too. It turned them through one hundred and eighty degrees until Esquine’s throne was now facing into the secret, armoured chamber behind his pulpit. The strategium.
The bulkhead shutters closed, sealing them in. Valdeemer felt a rush of excitement. This was the first time he had been invited into the inner sanctum of command.
The dim, heavily buttressed chamber was ovoid. Tech-priests and senior deck officers stood or sat at console stations built into the walls between the buttress stanchions, and seven more perched at high podium consoles facing inwards around the actuality sphere that flickered and glowed in the centre of the room. There was a constant background murmur of vox chatter, cursor chimes and machine language.
Commander Velosade was in charge here. He snapped to attention as the throne rotated in and called out, “Captain on the strategium.” Everyone made formal salute.
“At ease and continue,” said Esquine. “Display the warp perturbation, if you will.”
Velosade cracked his ringers, and a dimple of mauve light appeared in the lower hemisphere of the actuality globe.
“Reduce scale and give me tactical,” said Esquine.
The actuality sphere flickered, dissolved and reformed, slightly wider and sparer in detail. Valdeemer recognised immediately they were looking at a 3D verisim of the entire inner system. There, the bright fuzz of the local star, there Herodor, and the other four inner planets, the bright band of the asteroid belt. The mauve dimple lay outside this inner group, as far from Herodor as Herodor was from its star.
“Overlay tactical!” Velosade ordered.
A geometric grid graphic flowed into the sphere, graphing its dimensions, and the disposition of Esquine’s vessels — along with the myriad pilgrim and merchant ships — appeared as slowly drifting, numbered light-points.
“Astropathicae report parameters verified. Perturbation reads at warp modulus eleven two nine nine seven, nine AU out. Tracking cogents. Concordance estimated at ninety-three minutes. Awaiting confirmation.”
Velosade turned and looked at the fleet captain. “Orders, sir?”
“Remain as they were, commander. Warmaster Macaroth has charged us to exercise extreme caution. Move a frigate up in front of the modulus point, fighter screens up. They can greet arriving friends… or deny arriving enemies. The remainder of the fleet stays as vanguard.”
A flutter of Esquine’s fingers made cursor points appear on the glowing sphere. Valdeemer knew the commander was using the word “fleet” ironically. An officer of Esquine’s rank — and a ship like the Omnia Vincit — could normally expect to have a considerable attendant fleet in support. However, Esquine’s battleship, with only two frigates in attendance, had been sent to carry Lord General Lugo to Herodor by the War-master as a mark of special respect, and the recently arrived Tanith had brought only one frigate and one heavy cruiser as escort vessels. Three frigates, a cruiser, a ship of the line, and fleet tender vessels — not too shabby as far as a flotilla detail went, but badly under strength in terms of fleet engagements.
“Inform the surface,” Esquine continued, “and alert the civilian traffic that there is a manoeuvre, code magenta, and that we expect their cooperation and their careful station-keeping for its duration.”
Velosade nodded, and started growling orders. All the strategium crew began working, many of them suddenly speaking loudly and urgently into their vox-links.
“Your choice of frigate, sir?” called Velosade.
“The Navarre,” replied Esquine without hesitation.
“The Navarre is occupied, sir,” Veldeemer said suddenly and winced at the sharp look the commander gave him for speaking out of turn.
“Let him talk, Velosade,” said the fleet captain. “Occupied how, ensign?”
“A mercantile mass conveyance in difficulties, sir. The Navarre signaled it was moving to assist.”
“Let them carry on,” said the fleet captain. “Charge the Berengaria instead.”
“Sir,” affirmed Velosade.
“Well appreciated, ensign,” said the fleet captain softly to Valdeemer. “A slight diversion I hadn’t accounted. You read sphere tactics well.”
“I like to stay on top of things, sir.”
“Keep it up,” said Esquine.
Valdeemer felt a flush of pride run through him.
Its vast engines cycling up to one tenth power, the frigate Berengaria moved away from Herodor, prowling forward into the interplanetary gulf. Though only classified as a light cruiser, it was massive by any standards of measure: a long, fortified, angular vessel, its barbed hull dull green. Frigates of the Berengaria’s pattern were fast and well-armed, the blade-edge of any serious Navy group.
“We have broken orbit and are advancing to the advised modulus,” Captain Sodak said quietly, standing in the actuality sphere of the Berengaria’s bridge.
“Signal sent and noted by fleet command, sir,” an ensign replied.
“Flight decks?”
“Fighter screen reports ready aye.”
“So noted. Cycle up the launch ramps.”
“Aye, captain.”
Sodak looked at the warp dimple in the depths of the impressed-light sphere in front of him. It was getting larger and darker.
“Order is launch.”
“Order is launch, aye!”
Tiny specks of light darted from the flanks of the Berengaria. The specks raced ahead of the massive warship, catching the backscattered light of the distant sun as they fanned out into a cloud like dust-flies at twilight.
They were Lightning-pattern fighters, swift and deadly one-man craft, spat out of the frigate’s launch decks by mag-catapult. In wide formation, they spread out before their mighty parent craft.
Squadron Leader Shumlen, a thrice-decorated ace and flight commander of the Berengaria’s fighter wing, dropped his heads-up scope into place and gunned his Lightning forward into the apex point of the fighter screen. Despite the physical rush of launch and the metabolic rush of the prospect of combat, Shumlen’s vitals-reader showed that his cardiac rate was astonishingly level and calm.
“Keep it spread,” he said unhurriedly over his vox-comm.
“Concordance in forty-two minutes and counting,” vox-link from the frigate reported.
The Navarre shivered as its docking clamps secured the mass conveyance Troubadour. On the frigate’s bridge, alert sirens rang and hazard lights flashed.
Kreff cancelled them with a wave of his wand. He took the vox-horn from a waiting servitor.
“Open the hatches. Boarding parties to ready. Transfer the wounded out. Medical, stand by to receive injured.”
“Sir?”
“What is it?” Kreff snapped impatiently.
“That heat source sir, on the Troubadour…” The aide looked confused. “It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Faded, sir. I guess they could have got the fire under control…”
Kreff looked at Zebbs.
“Go!�
�� he said, and the soldier was running to the bridge exit.
“Shall I alert the captain?” asked the aide.
“No!” Kreff halted.
“Yes, yes. Wake him.”
A detail of Navy armsmen was waiting for Zebbs in the prep-chamber of the mid-starboard air-gate. The colonel was pulling on his armour-jacket as he entered. The detail stood to attention, bulky in their emerald green armour suits, their combat shotcannons held ready, their faces hidden behind tinted visors.
“Safeties, but let’s go careful!” he said, taking his own shotgun from his number two.
He racked the grip of his powerful weapon and stepped to the gate.
“Open up mid-two!” he shouted.
The hatch ground open. There was no one on the other side. No sirens, no alarms, no smell of fire or scenes of panic.
Zebbs stepped through. His armsmen hurried in after him, spreading out.
The hallway was dark, and it smelled of stale air as if the scrubbers were malfunctioning. Zebbs wasn’t surprised. This was an old ship, poorly maintained. It was a wonder it had ever made a warp-transition.
“Floor’s wet, sir,” popped one of his men over the inert vox.
“Coolant leak,” said another, his voice punctuated by the crackle of the link.
“You think?” said Zebbs, looking down. The deck was awash, about two centimetres deep in dark liquid. It looked for all the world like-There was a little splash as something landed in the liquid and rolled towards them. It ended up between Zebbs and his point man. They both looked down at it.
It was a grenade.
“Shit,” was all Zebbs had time to say.
“Zebbs? Zebbs? Colonel, report!” Kreff yelled into the vox horn. He’d just heard a loud and suddenly cut-off roar over the channel that had wiped signals out. Now there was only a dull murmur of static.
“Clean it up!” Kreff shouted at his aides. “I want Zebbs on the link now!”
They rushed to obey. A second later, from a different vox source, they tuned in the sounds of shouting. Confused, demented shouting. And the smack of gunfire.
Kreff lowered the vox-horn in dismay.
“Sever the dock-clamps! Break us off!”
“Clamps are locked out, sir!”
“What? What?”
“Docking clamps one through nine are locked out, sir,” said his aide.
“Holy Throne, no!”
“Is there a problem, Kreff?”
Kreff turned to see Captain Wysmark striding towards him across the bridge.
“We’ve… we’ve been boarded, sir,” he said.
Wysmark, tall and saturnine in his green dress uniform, seemed unflustered. He took the vox-horn from Kreff’s trembling hands and spoke into it.
“Armsmen to all active airgates. On the double. Repel boarders. Repeat, repel boarders.”
Space buckled. Space shimmered, and tore. Out of the splitting dark fabric, the inscrutable light of warp space flashed and seared.
Out of the breach, ships thundered into view.
They came fast at first, as if flung out of the Chaotic reality, and then slid down to a more dignified drift. Imperial ships. Three Munitorum conveyances, then a Navy frigate, then four more heavy transporters.
“Open formation,” Shumlen ordered. “They’re friendlies. Repeat, they are friendlies.”
The fighter screen broke around him, spreading wide and zipping like tiny silver reef fish along the lengths of the ponderous new arrivals. The vox-channels were suddenly busy with hailing signals.
“Request permission to return to carrier decks,” Shumlen voxed.
“The frigate Glory of Cadia sends greetings and compliments,” Sodak’s ensign reported.
“Respond as per form, ensign.”
“The perturbation is not dissipating, captain,” called a tech-priest.
Sodak would have been surprised if it had. According to the watch briefing, they were expecting something in the order of sixteen ships, and the actuality sphere showed only eight newcomer vessels. A fleet disposition emerging from warp space often came through in several waves.
“Instruct the Glory of Cadia to escort its charges into Herodor high anchor. Inform fleet command that we will remain on station to await the next wave.”
“Yes sir.”
“Fighter screen, captain?” asked the flight controller from his raised, glasteel-bubbled console station.
“Keep them aloft,” replied Sodak. He was a cautious man. Without that caution, he’d never have lived long enough to become a warship’s commander.
A crew-servitor, short and broad with circuitry glinting across its black metalwork, turned from its station and handed Valdeemer a data-slate. The ensign immediately hurried it across to the fleet captain’s throne. Esquine was watching the fleet arrivals at the concordance point.
“Distress report, sir,” said Valdeemer anxiously. “The Navarre.”
“Show me,” said Esquine softly.
“They are under internal attack,” said Valdeemer, handing the slate to one of the fleet captain’s grasping servo limbs. “Captain Wysmark reports intruder hostiles attempting to board from the merchant ship.”
“Signal Wysmark. Ask him if he requires assistance.”
Hard rounds whined down the companionway and rattled off the metal partitioning, causing the armsmen in Sublieutenant Epsin’s team to duck for cover. Something was wrong with the deck lights. Only the frosty green auxilary lighting panels were illuminated and, from the smell of the air, the circulators were out or dying too.
There was a buzzing noise too, very faint, that came and went. Cabling fritzing out, Epsin thought.
Another volley of shots. Epsin saw the deformed slugs bounce onto the deck plating and roll. They looked like the crushed butts of lho-sticks.
It was sweep-fire. Random auto-bursts fired around corners and down blind halls to clear a path.
“Hold fire,” Epsin whispered. “Let ’em think the way’s clean…”
Hunched down along the companionway behind bulkhead stanchions, his men shifted uneasily, their shotcannons raised ready.
The enemy appeared. Three… then four, five… man-shadows hefting short-pattern autoguns, hurrying down the hallway ahead.
“Repel,” Epsin whispered.
His cannon boomed, barking out a bright white flash in the dim green light. Other shotcannons around him did the same. The shadows ahead collapsed, hurled back violently by the heavy firepower. Acrid smoke filled the air and, without the circulators in operation, stayed there.
“Forward!” Epsin ordered. The armsmen party hurried ahead, hugging the metal walls of the companionway. Almost immediately, more hostiles appeared around the junction turn ahead, rattling auto-fire in their direction. Epsin’s pointman let out a cry and slumped sideways against the wall. The man behind him recoiled, bent double and collapsed on his face.
“Bastards!” Epsin yelled. “For the Emperor! For the Navarre!” The shotcannon bucked in his hands as he blasted with it. His team had almost fought its way to the intersection leading down to the nearest airgate.
It was just then, above the roaring gunfire, Epsin heard the buzzing again.
“The fleet captain enquires if we require assistance, sir,” said Kreff.
Captain Wysmark looked up from the situations monitor at his exec. “What do you think, Kreff?”
“I think we’re in for a hell of a dirty fight along the airgates, sir. But I hardly think the fleet captain wants to lose another fifth of his flotilla to a boarding action when we’re at magenta stand-by awaiting arrivals. We can manage. The Navarre’s armsmen are the best in the fleet.”
Wysmark smiled slightly. “My reading exactly. Signal the Omnia Vincit so. We’ll have this contained in another fifteen minutes.”
Kreff turned smartly and instructed the signals officer. He turned back to his captain’s side.
“What was that?” Wysmark asked.
“Sir?”
�
��That buzzing. Did you not hear it, Kreff?”
“No sir.”
Wysmark shook his head and returned his attention to the monitor. “This is the price we pay for wet-nursing the pilgrim craft.”
“Sir?”
“A mass of unregistered, unregulated traffic, filling orbit, packed with citizens it’s our duty to protect. The odds were high there’d be infiltrators and heretics amongst them. We’re obliged to help a ship in distress, even if it turns out to be a trap. All part of the job, Kreff.”
“I was wondering, sir…”
“What?”
“Why now, sir? If there are heretics aboard the Troubadour, then they’ve been here in orbit for three days. Why choose this moment to act?”
“I was thinking that myself. Coincidence that we’re at magenta standby and thus stretched?”
“There’s no such think as coincidence, captain.”
Wysmark nodded. “Get me a verisim link to the fleet captain.”
“Incoming verisim!” Velosade called. “Captain Wysmark of the Navarre!”
“Display,” said Esquine.
A half-size holoform image of Wysmark appeared like a pale red phantom in front of the fleet captain’s throne, projected up from the holo-emitters in the strategium’s decking.
“Wysmark?”
“I wanted to advise extreme caution, fleet captain,” Wysmark’s voice crackled over the vox-relay. “The boarding action we are enduring would seem pointless unless it is part of a larger scheme.”
“The enemies of mankind are not famed for their tactical brilliance,” said Esquine.
There was a slight time-lag delay before Wysmark’s image nodded and smiled at the fleet captain’s remark. “Agreed, sir. But I fear this is a strategy to take the Navarre out of useful disposition.”
“I see.”
“I simply wished to advise caution.”
“So noted. Thank you, Wysmark.”
The holoform faded. Esquine fixed Velosade with his hard, pale eyes. “Wysmark is a sound commander not given to over reaction. Arm the main batteries, captain.”