The Vorkaudar’s flanks enveloped them, throwing shadows over the viewports. Yesugei felt the soft clunk of docking rods extending. ‘What you call it, then?’
Xa’ven got to his feet, ready to activate the crew berth doors.
‘Faith,’ he said, quite seriously.
The Swordstorm broke free of the warp on the system’s outer limits and immediately powered up the sub-warp drives. As it thrust clear of the jump-point and into real space, more ships of the fleet ripped into existence in its wake. The curve of the void’s edge shook as it was pierced, throwing coronae of multi-hued light spilling out into the dark. Every vessel crashed into the realm of senses at speed, spearing into existence and powering up to full velocity.
The Khan stood upon the Swordstorm’s observation balcony, fists clenched, staring at the forward oculus viewscreens. In the bridge’s tiered levels around and below him, servitors and mortal crew hurried silently to bring the ship’s systems online and run forward augur sweeps.
Qin Xa stood next to the primarch, flanked by armoured members of the keshig. None of them spoke, none of them moved. Data streamed in, glowing in rune-patterns on crystal lenses.
‘Ship signatures,’ said the primarch softly. ‘Quickly.’
From far below, the telltale whine of lances powering up could be heard. The Swordstorm’s decks shuddered as the sub-warp drives reached maximal velocity. Void shields rippled across the forward viewers even as the warp shutters clanged open and the Geller field fell away.
‘Nothing in range, lord,’ came Jian-Tzu’s voice over the bridge-vox.
‘No signals on augur sweep,’ confirmed the sensorium master, a dour and efficient Chogorian called Taban.
‘And the planet?’ demanded the Khan. He was adorned in his full battleplate with its pearl-white ceramite and gold trim. His dao blade hung from his side, the scabbard encrusted with rune-studded leather. He felt battle-tense.
‘Will be in range imminently.’
Tech-priests in the sensorium pits chattered and swayed in their long red robes, slotting mechadendrites in and out of feeder nodes.
Qin Xa’s eyes narrowed as he studied the incoming data. The only signals on the proximity spheres bore White Scars markers, fanning out into a battle spread in the Swordstorm’s wake.
‘Nothing,’ he said softly. ‘No transports. No energy-trails.’
The Khan nodded. A major system like Prospero ought to have had thousands of ship-spores hanging in the void, the chemical residue of void engine release, but the routes inbound from the Mandeville point were sterile. Unease spiked in his stomach, and he quelled it.
I will see it with my own eyes. Until then, no judgements.
The planet swam into extreme forward sensor range. Blurry pict-feeds flickered into life, clarifying rapidly as servitors adjusted the image gain logic engines.
‘It’s black,’ said Qin Xa.
‘I see that,’ said the Khan.
Prospero had once been a jewel of a world, a pale-blue orb the colour of a Terran dawn, banded with lilac and under-lit by glistening ice caps. From space it had been pristine, untouched by the industrial hyper-sprawl that had turned the Throneworld into a grey-tinged ball of rockcrete and iron.
Now it was mottled the colour of burned charcoal.
As the images picked up definition, the Khan saw vast swirls of drifting cloud, as thick and dark as those that had swept across Ullanor.
His fists clenched the balcony railing. ‘Any signals?’
‘None, lord.’
The Khan felt anger swell up within him. He had been right to come.
‘Bring us into orbit,’ he ordered coldly. ‘Instruct the fleet to blockade, then prepare for planetfall. Maintain the sweep and broaden. If you detect anything with a Fenrisian marker…’
Even then, he hesitated for a moment.
‘Kill it,’ he growled.
‘It’s black,’ said Ilya, staring hard at the viewer.
Halji did not reply. He looked grim.
‘Seriously, Halji, the whole world’s black. I’ve seen slate records of Prospero and it was beautiful. What could do that to a planet?’
‘A Legion,’ said Halji. ‘A Legion could do that.’
Ilya felt sick. ‘How many people lived there?’
‘You are our woman for numbers, szu.’
Ilya probably could have dredged the figures up from somewhere, and knew that she did not want to. Prospero had not been a death world like Barbarus, with a few hardship-maddened inhabitants clinging to their hellish lives. It had been civilised, urbane, paradisiacal.
It must have been billions.
Billions.
Her throat tightened with anger. ‘They will be punished. If this was one of ours, they must be punished.’
‘They will be, if it is in his power.’
‘We have to know, Halji.’ Ilya rounded on him. ‘We have to know who did it.’
‘We already do.’
‘I will not believe that. Could... could xenos have penetrated this far?’
Halji shook his head. His usual cheerfulness had gone. ‘What xenos? They’re all dead or dying. Nothing remains that could harm us.’
With a shock of recognition, Ilya remembered saying exactly the same thing, back when she had first met the Khan in orbit over Ullanor.
Nothing remains that could harm us, the Khan had replied. I wonder, Yesugei, how many times, and in how many forgotten empires, those words have been spoken.
It all seemed horribly prescient. She turned back to the viewport, and saw that hateful, chem-scorched orb hanging in space like a grave marker.
‘There’s nothing for us here,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘We should never have come.’
‘He had to come.’
‘Then we should go soon. Back. Somewhere, anywhere but here.’
Halji rested his immense hand upon her shoulder. ‘Calm yourself. The answers will be on the surface.’
She drew in a shuddering breath, and reached out for the sill of the viewport. ‘I’m not going down there.’
‘You do not have to, but the Khagan will rely on you. Fleet needs ordering. We already receive orders for deployment.’
Ilya did not want to hear that. For once, she wished that they would just get on with it for themselves. For once, she felt as old as the chronos told her she was.
‘Route them to my station,’ she said, absently, unable to tear her eyes from the portal.
‘It will be done.’
‘Ensure, if you can, that the blockade is in ch’ang-pattern.’
‘It will be done.’
‘How will this end, Halji?’
The warrior looked back at her, with no hint of a smile on his hide-brown, white-scarred face.
‘Szu, this is just beginning,’ he said.
By the time the Swordstorm reached geostationary orbit over Tizca, there was no longer room for doubt. Atmospheric readings streamed in, adding to the visual evidence, and Taban’s tally made for grim listening.
‘Substantial tectonic activity, lord,’ the sensorium master said, looking fixedly at his data-slate. ‘Atmospheric pollution levels far in excess of mortal tolerances. A result, we surmise, of heavy bombardment consistent with mass drivers from orbit, followed by secondary trauma.’
‘Secondary trauma?’ asked the Khan. ‘Which is?’
‘Unknown. We are working on it. Background radiation levels are high, but there are other… things. Cloud cover at one hundred per cent, formed largely of particulates from earlier destructive phase. Acidic residue. Toxins across a wide spectrum present in lethal quantities, and extensive volcanism across equatorial zone.’
The Khan flexed his arms. It was hard to know how to feel. For some reason he wasn’t angry – more numb. He kept expecting some grand illusion to be unveiled. Magnus might have been capable of it. If anyone could hide the true state of an entire planet, he could.
‘Life signs?’
Taban shook his head. ‘Im
possible to read.’
‘Then we go down.’
‘We cannot, my lord.’
The Khan glared at him. ‘Cannot,’ he repeated, infusing the word with contempt, as though such a thing would deter a primarch.
Taban swallowed. ‘There is a barrier. Something in the upper atmosphere – an aetheric field, a truly massive one. We have already run the simulations. Landers will not survive it, nor drop-pods.’
The Khan shook his head. ‘Impossible. There must be a way.’
‘The world is dying, lord. The phenomenon is still growing, perhaps a result of what happened here. One does not kill an entire planet without aftershocks.’
The Khan looked over to Qin Xa, who stood waiting for orders. He had said nothing throughout the exchange. ‘Thoughts, Xa?’
Qin Xa lifted his head. ‘There is an obstacle in the troposphere,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘What of below?’
‘Hard to say,’ replied Taban. ‘We get almost nothing from the surface.’
‘But the field is confined to the upper atmosphere?’
‘It is.’
Qin Xa glanced over at a hexagonal area towards the rear of the bridge. Eighteen pillars of pure adamantium enclosed an obsidian floor, each one carved with a Chogorian rune of warding. The Khan followed his gaze, saw what he proposed and nodded with approval.
‘Excellent, Xa,’ he said.
The sensorium master made a final effort to dissuade them. ‘It will be unstable,’ he protested. ‘We may not be able to extract you, or even make vox-contact.’
‘I have every confidence in you,’ the Khan said calmly, before turning to the keshig. ‘Ready?’
Qin Xa nodded. ‘On your command.’
The Khan reached for his ornate, gold-crested helm. The faceplate was decorated with a Qo-era dragon mask in florid curls. ‘Let us go.’
The twelve Terminators stomped from the observation balcony.
‘What of the fleet?’ Qin Xa asked, his helm already donned.
‘Hasik can handle a blockade. Transmit him the authority signal. And tell him to consult Ilya – we brought her in for these things.’
Qin Xa bowed, and the Khan heard the faint click of his helm-vox switching channels.
Taban hurried after him. ‘The air is toxic, even to one blessed with your particular gifts, lord. Please do not remove your helm.’
The Khan nodded perfunctorily, taking his place at the centre of the translation grid. ‘Thank you for your concern.’
‘The terrain around the city is volatile. At the first sign of activity–’
‘You will wait for my order,’ said the Khan coolly, watching as Qin Xa joined the others.
Taban bowed. ‘Some readings were… anomalous. Would a weather-maker–’
‘Generate a locus for the heart of the city,’ ordered the Khan, ignoring the master and speaking directly to the teleportation operators.
‘It is done, lord.’
‘Activate translation.’
Taban withdrew, as did the rest of the crew still within a few metres of the teleportation chamber. A force field crackled into life across the pillars, hemming in the hexagonal space between them. The bridge disappeared behind a curtain of writhing static.
A second later, it was gone.
A chill raced through the Khan’s body, just as it always did. For a fraction of a heartbeat, he had the half-awareness of being suspended over the chasm of infinity. The sensation had always been oddly reassuring, as if that were where he truly belonged.
Then the lights ripped away. He felt solid earth under his boots and real air filtering through his facemask. Even mediated by his armour, it tasted foul.
His keshig stood about him. Qin Xa stood at his shoulder. They all drew weapons – flamers, disruptor-shrouded blades, combi-bolters.
The Khan kept his sword sheathed.
Ahead of him, a scene of devastation stretched away under a darkened sky. Slivers of lighting licked against the horizon, while thunder cracked and growled in the far distance. A tangle of steel struts and crumbling rockcrete extended off in every direction. Towering frames of inferno-hollowed structures loomed up against the dull skies like skeletons. Dust drifted across what remained, heaping in grey dunes like sand. It all glinted faintly in the gloom.
The Khan knelt down and scooped some dust up in his gauntlet. Tiny shards of glass ran through his fingers. Far above, the boiling clouds scudded in an unbroken layer.
The keshig moved off, going slowly, their boots crunching through the residue. The low grind of their battleplate matched the tenor of the planet.
The Khan looked over to his left. The remnants of a vast pyramid still stood amidst the ruins, its flanks broken open and its carcass thick with grime. An immense battle-engine, a Warhound-class Titan, lay in the rubble, prone upon its back with its armour blistered and blackened. It looked as though it had been thrown down and torched.
Everything smelt of burned metal. The whole city reeked of it. The Khan’s armour sensors told him that the surfaces around him were still warm from the afterglow of whatever apocalypse had overtaken Prospero.
Qin Xa, just a few metres away, turned to face him.
‘Where first, Khagan?’ he asked.
The Khan got back to his feet and let the glass-dust rain to the ground.
It had all gone. All of the libraries, the repositories, the arcana. If the Space Wolves had truly done this, then perhaps their power did match their boasts.
‘There were caves,’ he said. ‘He told me of them. Under the city.’
He drew in a deep, filtered breath, heedless of the ash-taint that remained on the air.
‘We start there.’
The first thing Yesugei noticed as he entered the vault chamber was the light. It was everywhere, dancing across the obsidian and reflecting from the antennae of the machine. Lines of brilliant electric force snaked and snapped before spiralling up into the huge empty space above.
Henricos spread his arms wide as Yesugei and Xa’ven entered. ‘Impressive, no?’
The three of them stood in the shadow of the device and gazed up at the projected illumination. An immense galactic swirl shimmered above them, thirty metres across, picked out in gold points. The collection rippled and flickered as the machine’s power units thundered away.
‘A stellar hololith,’ said Xa’ven, sounding disappointed.
‘A damned big one,’ replied Henricos, affronted. ‘You know how much power this is drawing?’
Yesugei wandered to the machine’s edge. A series of brass spheres hung from a spiked iron frame, all crackling with black lightning. ‘What are these?’
‘No idea.’ Henricos stomped over to join him. ‘Thought you might be able to tell me.’
‘I am not tech-smith.’
‘No, I know, but it’s not machinery. Not any that I recognise, at any rate.’ Henricos held his gauntlet up to the lightning, and it passed through the ceramite effortlessly. ‘This stuff is not here. Not physically. It doesn’t register on any of my instruments. Still, it’s doing something.’
As soon as the Iron Hands legionary spoke, Yesugei saw the truth of it. The lightning was an overspill from something taking place on the far side of the veil. Somewhere, deep inside the machine, warp energy was being channelled.
‘Is impossible,’ Yesugei said, though the evidence of his inner senses told him otherwise. ‘Cannot shackle to a machine.’
Henricos snorted. ‘Well, they did. You can see it, I can see it. I was hoping you could unlock it – it’s clearly designed to be used.’
Xa’ven joined them. Waves of light played across his green armour, glistening over ink-black helm lenses. ‘I would not recommend it.’
Yesugei paused. He could feel the aether boiling away within the machine. The barrier between the worlds was thin, dissipated somehow by the apparatus in front of him. He watched the coolant tubes gurgle, saw the runes glow on the housing and wondered how they had done it.
‘All
we have is a galactic map,’ said Henricos, stalking back across the floor. ‘It can do more.’
Xa’ven followed him. ‘It is a sorcerous device.’
‘I guess it is.’
‘I thought you hated those.’
Henricos turned. ‘I do. I hate everything about this ship, but you asked me to find out what it was, so I did.’
Yesugei looked up at the shimmering hololith as it gently rotated. The scale of it was impressive enough, but Henricos was right – that was not why it had been made.
‘I can reach into it,’ he said quietly.
Both Xa’ven and Henricos turned to face him.
‘Safely?’ asked the Salamanders legionary.
‘I do not know.’ Yesugei pressed his palms against the machine, angling his head as though the sounds he sought were physical ones. ‘I can hear… voices. Languages. Just like in warp. What Navigators hear.’ He pressed his gauntlets harder against the metal. ‘Something is alive.’
‘What is it for?’ asked Xa’ven. ‘Can you tell that?’
Yesugei could almost hear what the thing was thinking. Fragments of thoughts brushed against his consciousness, as fleeting as sunlight on water.
‘Is communications device,’ he said slowly. ‘I think. Long range, aether-borne.’ He removed his hand, which tingled as it was withdrawn. ‘Like star-speakers, more powerful. Uses warp directly. I think is very old.’
Henricos nodded. ‘It was built before this ship was.’
‘Can it help us?’ Xa’ven sounded doubtful.
‘Yes,’ said Yesugei. ‘It recognises me. I can unfold it.’
Xa’ven moved pensively towards the near wall of the device. Bloody scrawls covered its surface. A rust-brown handprint stood out among the streaks.
‘I do not like the way this feels.’
‘Damn you, then!’ spat Henricos. ‘Why did we take this ship? You want a way through the warp, they’re giving us one. But if you want to throw it–’
‘I understand, Bion,’ said Xa’ven, calmly. ‘I know what we are doing. But is there any other way?’
The Iron Hands legionary shook his head. ‘Nothing else I’ve found. If you don’t want to activate it, then we should leave, scuttle the ship and take our chances in the others. That’s it.’
Horus Heresy: Scars Page 22