by Ben Counter
‘Out of the question,’ said Amhrad.
Venetius slammed a fist into his palm. ‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘Captain Sheherz,’ said the Chapter Master.
Amhrad had primed Sheherz on his role in the communication sent to the bridge. Sheherz switched to the bridge vox-link. ‘Shipmistress, route the tactical readout to the chapel hololith,’ he said.
The hololith device was mounted among the incense burners hanging from the ceiling. It lit up and unfolded, and shapes of static-lined light flickered into being in the centre of the room.
The hologram projected between Amhrad and Venetius was of the Varv system. It had eleven planets, with the seventh from the sun being the sparsely settled world of Safehold over which the fleet was formed. The outermost world was a ball of frozen ammonia that had never known life, but until recently the next two had held chemical mines and pioneer settlements. The World Engine had obliterated the life on those worlds without pausing in its path through the system, puncturing fortified towns with blasts of las or creating masses of rock, like planetary tumours, to rip chemical refineries apart from the inside.
‘The fourth world,’ said Amhrad. ‘I take it you have apprised yourself of its significance?’
The hologram zoomed in on the fourth planet from the Varv system’s sun. It was a blistered and blackened orb, crazed with deep artificial canyons, its surface divided into expanses of rockcrete like grey scales.
‘Varvenkast,’ said Venetius.
‘It is more than just a name,’ said Amhrad. ‘It is twenty-one billion souls.’ Amhrad now addressed all the Space Marines who had come here to speak for their Chapters. ‘We have known for weeks it would come to this. The World Engine has already claimed a dozen inhabited worlds. We have lost Imperial citizens beyond counting. But when the World Engine reaches the hives of Varvenkast, the death toll will more than triple. If ever we are to stop it, we must do so now.’
‘The loss of every innocent life pains me as much as it does you, Chapter Master,’ said Venetius. ‘Guilliman taught all his sons the value of those who toil under the Emperor’s gaze. But every attempt we have made to engage the World Engine has failed. Our weapons cannot penetrate whatever form of shields it has. Our own shields are no proof against its weaponry. We cannot even see what lies on its surface. And the fate of the Perilous shows that even trying to keep pace with it is death. As much as these words are bile in my mouth, we must abandon this engagement and regroup with the means to fight this battle on our own terms.’
‘You would leave the billions on Varvenkast to die?’ asked Amhrad.
‘If we stand and fight, we shall all be lost, and Varvenkast will be destroyed anyway. So yes, Chapter Master, I would leave them to die.’
Sheherz looked from one face to the next. When the Varv Deliverance Fleet had been convened to intercept the World Engine, the lords of the fleet had each consecrated their own shrine in the Chapel of Intolerance and the Space Marine delegates stood before their Chapter’s respective shrines. The Ultramarines shrine displayed the standard of Captain Venetius’s Seventh Company, among the spears and shields of warriors from their home world of Macragge. The Red Consuls displayed an image of Roboute Guilliman taken from a desecrated temple liberated by the Chapter, still stained with the blood of the believers who had fallen defending it. The Invaders had created a shrine of bronze shields, assembled in a gleaming pyramid, a trophy of victory from an ancient battlefield. Sheherz could see no doubt on any of their faces – they had all come to the chapel of one mind, probably led by Venetius in the decision to abandon the engagement and await reinforcements.
It was the word of the Codex, after all. If a battle cannot be won, neither throw away your lives fruitlessly nor flee in cowardice. Rather, create a new battle, one fought under your terms. Roboute Guilliman had written it in the Codex Astartes ten thousand years ago, and every good Ultramarine treated their primarch’s words as sacred.
‘Then you shall,’ said Chapter Master Amhrad. ‘Thus your conscience commands you. The Astral Knights shall not stand in your way.’
‘It is decided,’ said Venetius. ‘My brothers! Return to your commands. Make ready to break formation and…’
‘But the Astral Knights shall not,’ said Amhrad.
‘Damnation, Amhrad!’ called out Lord Zethar of the Red Consuls, who had watched the debate wordlessly but clearly in favour of Venetius. ‘This is not a game! You may have brought your entire Chapter to this battle but you cannot play games of politics when this whole mission is at stake.’
‘No politics,’ said Amhrad. ‘The Astral Knights will fight here. You have the fleet, my brothers, and do with it as the Codex demands.’
‘You play our consciences,’ retorted Zethar. ‘By threatening to throw yourselves into a last stand, you demand we die alongside you!’
‘Not a last stand,’ said Amhrad. ‘I speak of victory. While there is a chance for it, we shall pursue it. I have no intention of exposing you to the risks should we fail.’
‘And what victory will you find here?’ asked Venetius. ‘What weapon have we not sent against the World Engine?’
‘The weapon you stand on even now,’ replied Amhrad.
‘The Tempestus?’ asked Venetius.
‘And a Chapter of the Emperor’s Space Marines,’ said Amhrad.
‘Have you forgotten?’ said Captain Morgrom of the Invaders. His face was a wide, battered expanse of leather, contrasting with the polished deep green of his armour. ‘I sent three squads of Terminator-armoured brothers by teleport onto the World Engine. Its shields sent them back twisted and dead.’
‘The Tempestus will not use its teleporters,’ said Amhrad. ‘As you say, they have been tried and have failed, as have lasers, lances and torpedoes. But we have not tried one of the fleet’s ships itself as a delivery mechanism.’
‘You mean,’ said Venetius, not bothering to hide his incredulity, ‘to crash into the World Engine?’
‘The Tempestus will be obliterated!’ scoffed Lord Zethar.
‘Not so,’ said Sheherz.
The other delegates had forgotten Sheherz was there, and they rounded on him as one as if he had spoken a dire insult.
‘The Tempestus was laid down in the dockyards of Ryza,’ continued Sheherz. ‘Four thousand years ago. Only six such battle-barges were ever constructed, and only three still sail. The secrets of their construction have long been lost. But each of the Ryzan class were renowned for the steadfastness of their construction. They were built to run minefields and asteroid blockades. Impacts that would break another ship apart can be suffered by a Ryzan without destruction. That the Tempestus still takes to the void after the battles she has seen is testament to that.’
‘You could fly this ship into a planet?’ asked Venetius.
‘She would not fly off again,’ said Sheherz. ‘And to my knowledge such a thing has never been done, not deliberately. But perhaps, with great damage, she would retain enough integrity to deliver a complement of troops.’
‘Perhaps,’ echoed Venetius. ‘That is all you can give me, Amhrad? Perhaps?’
‘It is better than definitely not,’ said Amhrad. ‘Once on the surface, my Chapter’s aim will be to disable the World Engine’s shielding. If the rest of the fleet remains close by, it can take advantage of that vulnerability to finally blast the World Engine out of the void. I do not ask that it remains engaged, only that it stays within striking distance.’
‘So,’ said Morgrom, ‘one final flourish from the Astral Knights.’
‘No greater an indulgence than your teleporter assault,’ said Amhrad. ‘And I act for the sake of Varvenkast. I care nothing here for glory.’
‘An Astral Knight not moved by glory?’ said Venetius. ‘Of all the Emperor’s finest, none of us could name a Chapter more moved by laurels and acclaim than the Astral Knights.’
> ‘And what does it matter why?’ said Amhrad. ‘A ram attack will breach the World Engine’s shields as conventional and energy weaponry cannot. A Chapter of Space Marines is as potent a boarding force as exists in this galaxy. There is no greater chance for victory. I would say there is no other chance at all. The Codex demands much of us, but above all it demands victory, and it is to victory I must dedicate every effort unto death. I have not convened us here to ask for your permission, my brothers. I have brought you here that you might know why the Tempestus will shortly break formation, and know how to act according to whatever might follow. I must ask now that you leave my ship, for I would not presume to take you all along to such a destination.’
‘This is no more than a gesture, Amhrad, and you know it,’ snarled Venetius. He took a step dangerously close to the Chapter Master. ‘And I did not risk myself and two companies of my brethren so you could sacrifice yourselves in a grand display of superiority. This strikeforce needs this ship. You have a whole Chapter of Space Marines and it needs them too. This battle will be won, but it will be won by unity. It will be won by all of us.’
‘Do you wish to take command?’ said Amhrad. ‘It is written all over you, Venetius. Isn’t that what the Ultramarines do best?’
‘Better, it seems, than you.’
‘Then take it!’ retorted Amhrad. ‘The Codex is clear on how it is to be done, be it bare hands, or blades, or bolt pistols at fifty paces. Best me and take command of the fleet, and do with it what you will. But that is how you will have to do it, because I will not relinquish the fulfilment of my Chapter’s duty while I still stand. And Captain Venetius Oricalcor of the Ultramarines, take what glory in it you can, because shortly there will be nothing left to command!’
The holo-display shifted to a streaming list of data. It resembled a roll call of the dead from some great battle, but each line did not represent a single soldier. It represented dozens – hundreds, thousands, sometimes millions of lives.
‘The Penitent,’ said Amhrad. ‘The Magna Pater. The Siege of Korv, the Malicious, Sabre Group Omicron. Should I go on? The World Engine will not stop just because you back away and hand it Varvenkast as an offering. And what then? Will you move in to destroy it once it has finished its feasting? Or run again, and watch it devour one world after another? There will be no sudden epiphany that tells you how to defeat it. Your choices will be to yield before it, or stand and fight and be destroyed. I alone have suggested any other choice, and I will take it if I can. But if you wish to preside over this disaster, for that is what it is, then now is the time. We have no lack of weaponry in this room and no shortage of brothers to witness it. Take my command, Venetius, but be sure first that you want it.’
Sheherz did not know Captain Venetius of the Ultramarines. Perhaps he was the sort of man who was willing to cross that threshold, to take up arms against another Space Marine. Perhaps he believed so completely that the fleet would find some way to battle the World Engine without being knocked out of the sky first. If that was the case then the two would fight, because Sheherz knew his Chapter Master would not back down.
Venetius turned away from Amhrad and walked back to join his own honour guard. ‘You’re insane, Amhrad,’ he called across the chapel floor.
‘We all have our reputations,’ Amhrad said.
The moment passed. Sheherz could feel the danger bleeding out of the room. The other delegations could feel it, too, as they released tensed muscles and held breaths. Venetius did not look like a man who had just backed down, but that was what he had done.
The conclave broke up in silence, for there was nothing now left to say. The Astral Knights had chosen their path and none were willing to take the steps required to turn them from it. Venetius led the delegations out, glowering at anyone who looked at him.
‘This is the first battle I will fight today,’ said the Chapter Master at Sheherz’s approach. ‘To these other Chapters it is typical of the Astral Knights to go our own way and expect them to accommodate us. The Red Consuls strip away everything they were before recruitment, they are soldiers and no more. The Invaders have no time for politics at all, they would far rather be up to their elbows in the dead. And the Ultramarines think themselves the model of a Space Marine Chapter and anyone who does not follow the Codex as they do is wayward or worse. We shall have to leave them to their convictions, captain. We do what we must do.’
‘I ran the machine-spirit models of the World Engine’s shielding,’ said Sheherz, ‘and I saw that a low-velocity body might breach it. But I had no idea this was what you had in mind, Chapter Master.’
‘Do you agree with Venetius, that this plan is insane?’
‘Not insane, my lord, but…’
‘But what?’
For a moment, Sheherz could not find the words. ‘The Tempestus will not survive.’
‘Indeed she will not. Even if she retains her hull integrity she will never sail again. If the World Engine is destroyed she will go with it. Is this the basis for an objection to our course of action?’
‘I know it should not stand in the way of our duty. But my lord, the Tempestus is the most ancient of our fleet, and one of the finest ships any Chapter can muster. Her machine-spirit is as old as the forge world where her keel was laid. She has weathered storms greater than perhaps any other ship in the Imperium could survive. Though I shall follow your orders, as every Space Marine must the commands of his Chapter Master, yet I cannot contemplate the death of this ship without feeling as if I am watching the death of a friend.’
‘I understand, captain. The Tempestus has always been as a brother to the Master of the Fleet.’ Amhrad turned to Sheherz – his skin was dark and battered, with a dozen long-service studs in his forehead and a flat, oft-broken nose. His was the face of a pugilist as well as a commander, and it carried as much authority with a glance as Venetius might with a speech. ‘But my orders are my orders. Though they pain me and those who must execute them, they serve a cause beyond ourselves. Place your misgivings at the back of your mind, to be faced when the battle is won. Until then, there is nothing but to serve.’
‘Of course, my lord. If we are to move immediately, I must tend to the machine-spirit. It must be counselled in navigating our approach.’
‘See to it, captain,’ said Amhrad. ‘And it will not go forgotten that few would have the courage to speak of their doubts.’
‘I would not do so before the brothers of my company,’ said Sheherz. ‘But from the master of my Chapter, there can be no secrets.’
The last of the delegates had left the Chapel of Intolerance, hurrying to rejoin their ships before the Tempestus broke formation with the rest of the fleet. Sheherz and Amhrad took different paths, Amhrad towards the command bridge, and Sheherz towards the armoured core deep within the ship.
The magi of Ryza had forged the very first part of the Tempestus around the ancient cogitator that contained its machine-spirit. Even before they had laid the first beams of the battle-barge’s keel, they had constructed a housing for the cogitator that dated back to the pre-Imperial history of Mars itself. Such spirits were rare and irreplaceable, relics of the Dark Age of Technology where other such spirits had, legend had it, became a threat to the very species that had made them. Now only the wisest and most trustworthy had survived the purges of the Age of Strife, and were numbered among the oldest relics of humankind.
Around that spirit had been built the Tempestus, a voidgoing war machine granted by bonds of ancient fealty from the priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes. The ship became the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the Astral Knights, and a succession of Masters of the Fleet took her as their flagship. While her weaponry was of ancient and powerful marks and her structure made sound with alloys and techniques all but lost to the Mechanicus, it was her spirit that made her the weapon she was. Locked in the stacks of datamedium was
battle-wisdom from wars that had vanished from the memory of mankind.
Every move the ship’s crew made was shadowed by the spirit, assisted or even ignored in accordance with that wisdom. The Master of the Fleet had to treat the spirit of the Tempestus as another member of the Chapter or they would find their helm commands ignored as the spirit made its own decisions. When they showed the ship the respect due to such an ancient warrior, they found in the Tempestus an ally as close as any battle-brother.
The cogitator core was kept hot, to maintain the liquidity of the crystalline medium that ran through the cylindrical datastacks. The stacks formed transparent stalagmites and stalactites through which the black datamedium pulsed, so as Sheherz walked between them it seemed he was walking through a set of enormous jaws filled with black fangs. The cogitator’s valve banks rose and fell overhead like floating islands, exuding clouds of steam and scalding droplets.
Sheherz approached the tangle of looped cables and steel spines, the image of an exploding star created by an artist in hot metal and wire. It was the closest thing the Tempestus had to a heart, where the machine-spirit interfaced with the systems of the ship.
‘If you can hear,’ said Sheherz, ‘then I must speak with you. I have never done this before. Perhaps the Masters of the Fleet who went before me have, I do not know. But I would not send a brother into a battle from which I did not expect him to return, without telling him so to his face. And so I must tell you, as well.’
The Tempestus did not reply. The machine-spirit exercised its will in subtle ways, a few degrees of yaw or a per cent higher or lower in reactor output. To respond directly would be beneath the ancient machine.
Sheherz activated a holomat unit on the front of the machine-spirit core. Here was the output for the machine-spirit’s simulations, taking billions of fragments of data and collating them into a prediction of how a fleet engagement would play out. This was the means by which the machine-spirit communicated its wishes and intentions, sometimes constructing wild and improbable simulations, or pointedly demonstrating how a particular course of action would lead to disaster.