by Ben Counter
It was the first time Ultis had been able to truly appreciate the vessel’s gigantic size. Like a city of crenellated towers, arching spires and fanged fortress-like decks, it dwarfed the puny dock, easily clearing the highest antennae and cranes. The book, resplendent upon the Furious’s prow easily eclipsed the observation building in which Ultis was standing.
‘We are in control,’ Ultis voxed privately through his helmet array, the dock master busied at his consoles with the massive ship’s sudden arrival.
‘Good,’ said Zadkiel, back on the ship. ‘Did you encounter any resistance?’
‘They accept the authority of the Astartes like the dutiful and deluded lapdogs they are, my lord,’ Ultis replied, looking around at the Scholar Coven.
These warriors had been assembled from the Word Bearers under Zadkiel’s command who showed the greatest adherence to Lorgar’s Word. They were all more recent recruits to the Legion, all from Colchis and all dedicated scholars of Lorgar’s writings. They were motivated not by the glory of the Great Crusade, but by the ideology of the Word Bearers. Zadkiel greatly valued such followers since they could be counted on to support the Legion’s latest endeavours, which would be sure to bring the Word Bearers into conflict with elements of the Imperium before long. Ultis looked over at the man he would soon kill, once preparations were fully underway, and reasoned that the conflicts were already beginning to come about.
The fact meant absolutely nothing to him. Ultis had no loyalty save to the Word. There was nothing in the galaxy in that moment, other than that which was written.
The novice smiled.
This day, his destiny would be etched in the Word for all time.
NINE
Infiltration
Ambush
Sons of Angron
THE ASSAULT-BOATS docked quickly and without incident, the pilot having avoided radar and long-range scans to insert the Astartes squads outside the main thoroughfares of Bakka Triumveron 14.
Antiges, clad in the blue and gold of his Legion’s honour guard, was first out of the assault-boat, speeding from the embarkation ramp. Chainsword held low at his hip and adopting a crouching stance, he moved stealthily across an open plaza of steel plates, flanked by towering cranes and disused craft in for non-urgent repairs. The few servitors meandering back and forth on tracks and slaved to an aerial rail system ignored the Astartes. Working through pre-assigned protocols as dictated by their command wafers, they were not even aware of their presence.
Close behind the Ultramarine, one of the World Eaters, Hargrath, gave the servitors a wary glance as he piled through the open channel with his battle-brothers.
‘Pay them no heed,’ Antiges hissed, looking back to check on his charges.
Hargrath nodded and continued on his way towards the massive crimson horizon ahead, visible across the entire length of the shipyard: the Furious Abyss, the largest vessel any of them had ever seen.
‘Keep in cover,’ said Antiges as the plaza gave way to a maze-like refuelling and maintenance bay full of passing loaders and stacks of drums. The Ultramarine was careful to keep his squad out of the view of the labouring indentured workers and other menials busying themselves at the dock. They clung to the shadows, using them like a second skin.
Once they had reached their destination, their targets would be the engines and ordnance ports. The Ultramarine checked a bandoleer of krak grenades at his hip. There was a cluster of melta bombs flanking it on the opposite side and as the Furious Abyss drew closer, he hoped it would be enough.
BRYNNGAR WAS FESTOONED with trophies and fetishes: wolfs’ teeth and claws, and a necklace of uncut gem-stones, polished pebbles carved with runes. If he were to go to war at last against his brother Astartes then he would do so in his full regalia. Let them witness the majesty and savage power of the Sons of Russ in their most feral aspect before they were torn asunder for their treachery.
The Wolf Guard was focused on the battle ahead, crushing all thoughts of his altercation with Cestus to the back of his mind for now. There would be time for a reckoning later. It was only a pity that the Ultramarine had eschewed the mission in favour of overall command aboard the Wrathful. Brynngar wanted to think him cowardly, but he had fought alongside the son of Guilliman many times and knew this not to be the case. It was probably a display of the XIII Legion’s much vaunted tactical acumen.
The Space Wolves’ aspect of attack was a narrow cordon riddled with junked carriers used for spare parts. It was more like an open warehouse with machine carcasses piled high and banded tightly together to prevent them toppling when stacked. Servitors slaved to loaders hummed back and forth amongst the towers of rusted metal like bees harvesting a nest. If they cared about the Space Wolf captain and his Blood Claws, tooled up with broad-bladed axes and bolt pistols, and weaving crisscross fashion through their domain, they did not show it.
Brynngar knew that he would spill blood this day, and it would be the blood of his erstwhile brothers. This was no fight against mere heathen men, misguided in their beliefs, nor was it foul xenos breeds ever intent on corralling the human galaxy to their yoke. No, this was Astartes against Astartes. It was unprecedented. Thinking of the devastation the Word Bearers had already wrought, the Space Wolf took a better grip of Felltooth and vowed to make the traitors pay for their transgressions.
‘THEY ARE MAKING their final approach towards the dock,’ said Kaminska poring over the hololithic tactical display in front of her command throne. Having been preparing the other Ultramarines for potential combat and distributing them around the ship accordingly, Cestus had returned to the bridge and joined the admiral at the tactical display table.
Hazy runes moved over a top-down green-rimed blueprint of Bakka Triumveron 14, indicating the progress of the three attack waves heading for the immense swathe of bulky red that represented the Furious Abyss. The ship’s magos, Agantese, had tapped into one of the satellite feeds of the orbital moon and was using it to re-route images to the Wrathful’s tactical network. It had a short delay, but was an otherwise excellent way to keep track of their forces on the ground. Even so, Cestus felt impotent, directing the action from the relative safety of real space where the cruiser lingered to stay out of radar and sensorium range.
‘Antiges, report,’ he barked into the ship’s vox, synced with his fellow Ultramarine’s boosted helmet array.
‘Assault protocol alpha proceeding as planned, captain,’ Antiges’s voice said after a few seconds delay. The reply was fraught with static. Even with the boosted array rigged by the Wrathful’s engineers, the gulf of real space between them impinged greatly.
‘We will be making our initial insertion onto the dock in T-minus three minutes.’
‘Well enough, Brother Antiges. Keep me appraised. If you meet any resistance, you have your orders,’ said Cestus.
‘I shall prosecute my duties with all the fury of the Legion, my lord.’
The vox cut out.
Cestus sighed deeply. To think it had come to this. This was no foray into the jaws of alien overlords or the misguided worshippers of the arcane, not this time. It was brother versus brother. Cestus could barely bring himself to think on it. Fighting across the gulf of real space was one thing, but to be face-to-face with those who had betrayed the Emperor, those who had killed warriors they once called friend and comrade in cold blood, was indeed harrowing. It felt like an end of things, and the sense of it caught in the Ultramarine’s throat.
‘Admiral Kaminska,’ said Cestus after the momentary silence, ‘you have risked much in the pursuit of this mission. You have done, and continue to do, me great honour with your sterling service to our cause.’
Kaminska was clearly taken aback and failed to hide her shock from the Ultramarine completely.
‘I thank you, lord Astartes,’ she said, bowing slightly, ‘but if I am honest, I would have chosen to undertake this duty, although perhaps of my own volition,’ she added candidly.
Cestus’s gaze was mild
ly questioning.
‘I am the last of a dying breed,’ she confessed, her shoulders sagging and not from physical fatigue. ‘The Saturnine Fleet is to be decommissioned.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, captain. It doesn’t do to have such an anachronism on the rostrum of the new Imperium. All those gentlemen in their powdered wigs talking about good breeding, it hardly speaks of efficiency and impartiality. Our ships are to be refitted for a new Imperial Navy. I’m a part of the last generation. I suppose I should be glad that at least Vorlov didn’t see it. You see, captain, this is really my last hurrah, the last great journey of the Wrathful as I know it.’
Cestus smiled mirthlessly. His eyes were cold orbs, tinged with a deep sense of burden and regret.
‘It might be for us all, admiral.’
SKRAAL’S ASSAULT FORCE sped down the central channel of the dock, a loading bay for fuel and munitions tankers, with reckless abandon. The berserker fury was building within the World Eater captain and he knew his battle-brothers were experiencing the same rush. They were the sons of Angron and like their lord they were implanted with an echo of the neural technology that had unlocked the primarch’s violent potential. At the cusp of battle, the Astartes warriors could tap into that font of boiling rage and use it like an edged blade to cut their enemies down. After several bloody incidents, the Emperor had censured the further use of implants in the false belief that they made the World Eaters unstable killing machines.
Angron, in his wisdom, had eschewed the edict of the Emperor of Mankind and had continued in spite of it. They were killing machines, Skraal felt it in his burning blood and in the core of his marrow, but then what greater accolade was there for the eternal warriors of the Astartes?
Though the orders of the Ultramarine, Antiges, had forbidden it, Skraal encouraged his warriors to kill as they converged on the Furious Abyss. A spate of bloodletting would sharpen the senses for the battle to come. The only directive: leave none alive to tell or warn others of their approach. The World Eaters pursued this duty with brutal efficiency and a trail of menial corpses littered the ground between the assault-boat insertion point and their current position.
Such reckless slaying had not, however, gone unnoticed.
‘MY LORD,’ HISSED Ultis into the vox array of the observation platform.
Zadkiel’s voice responded from the Furious.
‘It seems we are not alone,’ Ultis concluded.
The novice in command of the Scholar Coven consulted a holo-map of the entire dockyard. His gauntleted finger was pressed against a flashing diode near one of the many refuelling conduits.
‘Where is that?’ he demanded of the dock-master, still engrossed in the refit and refuel of the vast starship.
‘Tanker Yard Epsilon IV, my lord,’ said the dock-master, who looked closer when he saw the flashing red diode. ‘An emergency alarm.’ The dock-master moved to another part of the console and brought up a viewscreen. Warriors in blue and white power armour were visible in the grainy resolution surging through the tanker yard. Prone forms, dressed in worker fatigues, slumped in their wake surrounded by dark pools.
‘By Terra,’ said the dock-master, turning to face Ultis, ‘they are Astartes.’
The novice faced the dock-master and shot the man through the face point-blank with his bolt pistol. After his head exploded in a shower of viscera and bone-riddled gore, his streaming carcass slid to the deck.
The rest of the dock crew on the observation platform had failed to react before the rest of the Scholar Coven had taken Ultis’s lead and shot them, too.
‘The Astartes have tracked us here and move in on the Furious Abyss as we speak,’ said Ultis down the vox. ‘I have eliminated all platform personnel to prevent any interference.’
‘Very well, Brother Ultis. You have your orders,’ said Zadkiel’s voice through the array.
Ultis looked down through the building’s windows to the expanse of the docking stage. Baelanos’s assault squad was standing guard there.
‘I shall show them what fates are written for them,’ said Ultis, drawing his sword. ‘Educate them,’ replied Zadkiel.
THE BATTLESHIP DOCK looked like a tangled web of metal as Skraal and his warriors forged onward. Beyond that the massive Furious Abyss loomed like a slumbering predator in repose.
The stink of blood from the previous slaughter was heady through the World Eater captain’s nose grille as he raced towards the end of the channel and the open dock beyond. The cordon tightened ahead and the Legionaries were forced together as they rifled through it. Just as Skraal was feeling confident that they had not been discovered, a group of Word Bearers in crimson ceramite emerged before them to block their path.
Bolter fire wreathed the opening, lighting up the half-dark of the channel with four-pronged muzzle flares. Kellock, the warrior next to Skraal, took a full burst in the chest that tore open his armour and left him oozing blood. Kellock crumpled and fell, both his primary and secondary hearts punctured.
The combat squads were pinned on either side by fuel drums, stacked against bulky warehouse structures. Fleeing menials and mindless servitors, alerted by the commotion, wandered into their path and were cut down with chainblades or battered by shields as the World Eaters sought to close with the foe and wrest the advantage back. One of the drums was struck by an errant bolter round and exploded in a bright bloom of yellow-white fury. A fiery plume spilled into the air, like ink in water, and a wrecked servitor was cast like a broken doll at the edge of its blossoming blast wave. Three World Eaters were shredded by the concussive force of the explosion and smashed aside into the metallic siding of a warehouse unit. The siding didn’t yield to the sudden impact of massed flesh and ceramite, and the two warriors were crushed.
Skraal felt the heat of the explosion against his face even through his helmet as the warning sensors went crazy. He staggered, but kept his footing and yelled the order to charge.
ANTIGES WAS STALKING through the refuelling bay when he heard the explosion from across the dock and saw fire and smoke billowing into the air. They were close. The Furious Abyss, a dense dark wall, filled the Ultramarine’s sights.
‘Antiges, report,’ Cestus’s voice said through the helmet vox, the tactical display obviously registering the sudden influx of heat.
‘An explosion in the central channel. I fear we are discovered, brother-captain.’
‘Get over there, unite your forces and push on through to the Furious.’
‘As you command, captain,’ he replied and ordered his combat squads through a maze of piping that connected to the central channel where he knew Skraal and his insertion team were placed. As they moved, Antiges at the lead, a shadow fell across the Ultramarine, cast by the vast observation platform overlooking the dock above.
Out of instinct, he looked up and saw the line of crimson armoured warriors bearing down on them with bolter and plasma gun.
Death rained down in a hail of venting promethium and spent electrum. Antiges rolled out of its way into the shadow of the docking clamp. Hargrath was distracted and a fraction slower. He paid for his laxity when a bolt of searing plasma blasted a hole in his torso, cooking the World Eater in his armour. He fell with a resounding clang, the wound cauterised before he hit the ground. Several of his brothers heaved his body towards them, but to act as improvised cover, rather than out of any sense of reverence for their dead comrade.
Antiges replied with barking retorts of his bolt pistol, half-glimpsing the target above between bursts of chipped plascrete and metal as the docking clamp was chewed up around him.
The rest of the World Eaters followed his lead, stowing storm shields and drawing bolt pistols, their weapons adding to the return fire.
Menials, put to flight at the start of the attack, and spilling into the rapidly erupting war zone were ripped apart in the crossfire. The roar of gunfire and the shriek of shrapnel mangled together with their screams.
Antiges pressed up agains
t the closest docking clamp and looked around it, gauging the terrain leading the rest of the way to the Furious Abyss. The docks formed a landscape of narrow fire lanes between clamps and fuel tanks. Above was the observation platform, strung on metal struts, and beyond that rings of steel holding fuelling gantries, defence turrets and bouquets of sensor spines.
Antiges slammed himself back against the steel of the docking clamp as bolter fire continued to pin them.
‘Captain, we are ambushed!’ he yelled into the vox, in an attempt to overcome the din. Despite his volume, the Ultramarine’s tone was calm as he cycled through a number of potential battle protocols learned by rote during his training.
There was a moment’s pause as the message went through and his captain assessed the options open to him.
‘Relief is incoming,’ came the clipped reply. ‘Be ready.’
AFTER A SECOND bout of return fire, a chain of small explosions erupted across the observation platform, showering frag.
Beyond the destruction and across the dockyard, embarkation ports were opening in the side of the Furious Abyss.
Antiges was on his feet and bellowing orders before the resulting smoke had cleared.
‘Don’t give them time! Hit them! Hit them now!’
The Astartes broke cover and charged, leaving the dead in their wake.
Two hundred robed cohorts in the crimson of the Word Bearers emerged from the Furious Abyss, and charged right back.
‘Open fire!’ shouted Antiges. The Ultramarine felt the immediate pressure wave of discharged bolt pistols behind him as the World Eaters obeyed.
The effect was brutal. Lines of the crudely armoured Word Bearer lackeys fell beneath the onslaught. Bodies pitched into their comrades, jerked and spun as the munitions struck. Blood sprayed in directions too numerous to count and the corpses mounted like a bank of fleshy sandbags, tripping those following. There was only time for a single volley, and the disciplined Astartes holstered pistols before closing with the first of the Furious’s cannon fodder.