by Paul Kearney
Riedling was a slight, dark man with a sharp beard and narrow shoulders, but his eyes missed nothing, and there was no smile in them to match the one on his mouth.
‘Marshal Veigh has grave news for us – perhaps you would like to hear it retold.’
Dietrich looked at Veigh, a tall pale ghost of a man, but a passable soldier. ‘Dardrek?’
The marshal nodded, his face as grey as his hair. ‘We are the last remaining Imperial outpost in the system, general. It is likely the enemy are on their way here even now.’
‘We estimate three days at the earliest,’ Dietrich rasped, ignoring the governor, who had opened his mouth to speak. ‘Do you concur?’
‘It may be longer. Ras Hanem is better defended than anything they have hit thus far. They will have to regroup their forces for the assault.’
Dietrich nodded.
‘What are we talking about here, general?’ Lord Riedling broke in, shrill with alarm. ‘An invasion? I thought this was a system-wide series of raids, no more.’
Dietrich regarded the governor with weary patience. ‘They have been too systematic. If it is a raid, then it is one that follows the logic of an invasion. Best to prepare for the worst, my lord governor.’
Riedling sputtered. ‘You tell us they have only light ships. Surely if they were coming here to stay they would need a heavier fleet.’
‘They would, if the system were better defended,’ Dietrich said grimly. ‘My lord governor, we must begin to concentrate our own forces also. The Hanemite Guard is scattered all over the planet. It must be brought back to the main cities. He who tries to defend everything, defends nothing.’
‘The capital must be held. You are right, general. Marshal Veigh, you must withdraw the bulk of your forces here to Askai. It is the only adequately fortified city on the planet – there is no hope of holding the others.’
What a poltroon, Dietrich thought with disgust. But the aggravating thing was that the governor was right. He had arrived at the same conclusion as Dietrich himself, but through cowardice, not any strategic insight.
‘My lord, I must protest!’ Veigh burst out, a little less grey than before – anger flushed his face. ‘It would mean abandoning hundreds of millions to the mercy of, of–’
‘The Great Enemy, they are called by the Adeptus Astartes,’ Dietrich interrupted. ‘This is not some pirate band, or a mob of ork marauders, marshal. Read your history. They were here once before, over a hundred years ago, and they swept the Imperial forces from the system like so much chaff. Were it not for the Adeptus Astartes, they would be here still.’
‘My men know their jobs, general. Do you doubt their ability to repel these invaders?’ Veigh asked with an angry sneer.
‘We must plan for all contingencies, marshal. That is why we have informed Cypra Mundi of the situation. For weeks now, we have been sending out vox messages asking for reinforcements. Some of those messages must have got through. We need only hold on here until the Imperium relieves us.’
‘That’s right!’ Riedling said, slapping his palm with one fist. ‘They cannot let a world as valuable as this one be overrun by… by the enemy. You have the right of it, general. We have only to sit tight, and hang on.’
Veigh looked at his diminutive governor with ill-concealed contempt, and Dietrich, noting the expression, thought that he and the marshal might yet be able to work together.
‘Lord Riedling is wholly correct in his analysis of the situation,’ he said briskly. ‘Galling though it is to admit it, we cannot hold the entire planet – we do not have the men. Marshal Veigh, I recommend you withdraw all your forces to the capital. They can fight side by side with my armour. Askai can be made into a fortress, if we start on it at once.’
‘Once word gets out, the refugees will flock to this city in their millions,’ Veigh said slowly, tiredly. The grey was back in his face again. This was his home world, and dulling his eyes now was the knowledge that most of it was about to be abandoned to an enemy more terrible than any he had ever faced before.
‘If Chaos becomes entrenched on this world,’ Dietrich said quietly, ‘then the Adeptus Astartes will burn it down to the stone, along with every man, woman and child who inhabits it. There is no arguing with the Angels of Death, marshal. We must choose the lesser of two great evils.’
Veigh nodded slowly. He rubbed his eyes. ‘I will give the necessary orders,’ he said at last.
‘But be discreet, marshal,’ Lord Riedling told him. ‘Askai is already a powder-keg of speculation.’
‘I know my job, my lord,’ Veigh snarled. ‘Attend to your own.’
Then, to Riedling’s astonishment, he turned on his heel and strode out of the chamber, calling for his aides to follow him as he went.
Riedling followed his departure with cold eyes. ‘I will not forget such insubordination, when all this is over,’ he hissed.
‘My lord governor,’ Dietrich said wearily, ‘when all this is over, the memory of a moment’s insubordination will be long gone, and perhaps us with it.’
SEVEN
Venerit Infernum
‘Control, this is Crixus One, we are in position two hundred and sixty kilometres from high orbit, staggered formation, augur ranging now.’
‘Acknowledged, Crixus One. Good hunting.’
The sixteen spacecraft of the wing extended across some thirty kilometres of empty space. Behind them Ras Hanem loomed, a glowing ochre ball. In front of them were ten billion stars, and the darkness of the void.
Jon Kadare flipped a series of switches in the darkened cockpit. ‘Missiles armed. Gunner, you have fire control. All Furies, follow my lead. We’re moving out, boys.’
One by one the other spacecraft in the wing acknowledged Kadare. Despite their professionalism, he could hear the creep of excitement in their voices. Most had never been in action before. The most experienced had been through a few dogfights with pirates and marauders.
What was approaching them out of the dark was on a whole other level entirely.
‘Navigator, give me an update.’
‘Nothing yet, skipper.’
‘How far out are you scanning, Klaus?’
‘Maximum range. We are all clear.’
Kadare cursed inwardly, and looked at his fuel gauge. Plenty left to drink, but that did not mean he wanted to lead his wing too far out from the planet.
‘All Furies, course one eight five, level out and keep your intervals. Form on me. Navigators, keep sweeping three-sixty. They are out there, lads – our job is to find ‘em.’
The silence of space. Kadare’s breath seemed loud and hoarse in his helmet. Despite his suit, he was sweating, a cold sweat that chilled his flesh.
The sixteen Fury interceptors cruised farther out into the system, their cockpits dimming automatically as the Kargad sun swung from behind Ras Hanem, creeping along the terminator and blasting bright, soundless light across the void. Kadare’s stomach turned over. The Furies had no gravity generators on board, as this was a local mission, and they had loaded up with extra missiles and fuel. He was glad he had not eaten breakfast.
Sixteen years service, and today I feel as nervous as a recruit, he thought angrily. But as he spoke on the vox again his voice was as calm as if he were on a training run.
‘Third Squadron, ease out to port thirty kilometres. Let’s widen the net a little.’
‘Acknowledged.’ At once, four of the interceptors wheeled off to Kadare’s left, opening out the formation.
‘Stay on augur, Brenner. Keep your ships together.’
‘Aye, skipper.’ Philo Brenner was a good man, but a hard charger. No one better to have your tail in a dogfight though.
‘Fury One, this is Six. I have contacts on augur.’ A swallow, audible on vox, and then: ‘One, I have multiple contacts, bearing one seven two, speed – they’re speeding up, Fury One. I have formations closing, closing fast!’
‘Where the hell did they come from?’ someone sputtered over the vox.
> ‘Voice discipline, Crixus Wing,’ Kadare said sternly, though his own heart was hammering, and he could feel the grip of the pressure suit as it encased his torso, keeping the blood running to his brain.
‘Bear to starboard ten degrees. First Squadron, close in.’
‘I have them, skipper.’ This was his own navigator, Klaus Feydan. They had crewed together for ten years, but Kadare had never yet heard that precise tremor in the veteran’s voice.
‘Seven, eight… no, nine squadrons closing at full speed.’
‘What are they, Klaus – can you make them out?’
‘Swiftdeath fighters, skip, diamond pattern. They’re coming head on.’
‘Head on is fine with me,’ Kadare said calmly. ‘Crixus Wing, squadron teams. Break on my mark. Wait for the command.’
Still nothing to be seen out of the cockpit but the peaceful star-spattered dark of space.
Kadare’s gunner spoke up from his bubble in the nose of the Fury. ‘Missile range in eleven seconds, skip.’
‘Lock on when you can, Mikel.’ He flipped two red lights at his right fist and grasped the yoke more firmly.
‘Lascannons powered up,’ the gunner said.
There, out on the very edge of sight, a tiny silver glint as something caught the light of the Kargad star. It was like catching sight of a fish gleam in deep water.
‘I have multiple missile launches on my twelve,’ someone said.
Sure enough, Kadare could see the minute yellow blooms of flame that sparked out and then died in the chill vacuum dozens of kilometres ahead.
‘Crixus Wing, break, break, break,’ Kadare said, and then yanked back on the yoke while shoving the throttle-levers forward.
The formation exploded as the sixteen spacecraft, each forty metres long, burst into a starlike pattern. Kadare felt the G-force blackening the edges of his sight, the suit squeezing on the blood vessels of his legs to compensate.
‘Klaus, countermeasures,’ he said, and there was a series of bright flashes as the Fury launched a ripple of heat-drones to misguide the oncoming missiles.
‘I have a lock – I have three locks,’ the navigator cried.
Kadare threw the Fury around in the void as though it were a scrap of paper caught in a gale. His heart hammered in his chest. Something bright and soundless erupted close by and the ship shuddered. He heard the clank and rattle of shrapnel on the hull.
‘Missiles away,’ the gunner said, hoarse as a crow.
There were screams on the vox, each lasting only an instant. More bright momentary explosions all around them. And then the red lances of lascannon fire.
There was no up or down. Kadare peered one second at the flickering screens in the cockpit, and then out at the pyrotechnics beyond. Something streaked across his path and he depressed the trigger-switch on the yoke. Spears of las-fire carved an arc in the blackness as he threw the ship on its side, spiralling and firing, the energy bolts winding in a beautiful, deadly pattern.
An explosion, and a rattle of what sounded like hail on the plaspex of the cockpit.
‘Second salvo gone,’ the gunner intoned.
The vox was braying with the voices of the Fury pilots, men screaming, some calmly relaying target information. For three hundred kilometres, the void was lit up with afterburners and missile-streaks, and it bloomed with the transitory yellow globes of fire that meant the death of a ship. Kadare caught his breath – he had forgotten to breathe for the last spiralling dive – and halted the mad spinning of his craft.
‘Gunner, report.’
‘All missiles gone, skip. I reckon five hits, but I can’t be sure.’
‘Take over the lascannons, Mikel. Klaus, give me a situation report.’
His navigator was a disembodied voice that sounded as though it were kilometres away, though Klaus sat directly behind him in the long, narrow crewspace of the Fury.
‘Give me a second,’ he muttered.
‘Talk to me, Klaus.’
‘Acknowledged. Skipper, looks like… looks like we’ve lost half the wing. Brennan is gone, and Marstann. Third Squadron has been destroyed. Skipper, we have seven ships left.’
Eleven crews gone – over thirty men that Kadare had known and lived with for years – all in the space of forty seconds.
The navigator spoke up again. ‘Skip, they’re coming round for a second run at us. I count… Emperor’s blood, I count fourteen squadrons, and there is heavy metal behind them. Cruisers, I think.’
A moment, hanging there in the silent blankness of space, when Kadare was utterly at a loss. He had never in his life before confronted the finality of utter defeat. Strangely, the prospect calmed him. He thumbed the air-to-ground vox button.
‘Control, this is Crixus One.’
‘Control, send, over.’
‘Control, have sustained over fifty per cent casualties. Enemy has not been seriously damaged, and is approaching in overwhelming numbers. I propose to attack with my remaining ships. This is Crixus One, signing off.’
He turned off the vox before the reply came. He did not want to hear it.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said on the wing-vox, ‘it is our honour today to fight and die for our home world, and for the Imperium of Man. Crixus One will engage the enemy more closely, and there will be no retreat. All ships, try and get through the fighter screen and attack the cruisers beyond. Good hunting, brothers.’
A pause, and the vox was silent. Then the gunner spoke up on the ship-frequency. ‘Skip, we have nothing left that will hurt a cruiser.’
‘We have ourselves, Mikel. We’ll ram them.’
One word came back. ‘Acknowledged.’
Kadare slammed forward the throttle-levers and was thrown back in his restraints as the Fury leapt under him. The roar of the engines could not be heard, but it made the entire hull of the ship shake and shudder.
He took the Fury in a high, beautiful arc that snaked above the incoming wave of enemy fighters, and heard the sizzle and crash as las-beams streaked along the hull. The navigator blew the last of the countermeasures, and as Kadare brought the ship round again, swooping like a falcon of Old Earth, he saw below him the clustered formation of the main enemy line of battle. Light cruisers and clouds of interceptors and gunships, twinkling like a new constellation below him.
The bulkheads groaned, but the faithful ship held together. A barrage of plasma and laser fire came up to meet them. Jon Kadare uttered a wordless battle-cry as he slammed down the yoke and took his ship streaking into the midst of the enemy formation like a burning comet. He heard his navigator scream behind him as the rear of the ship was shot away, and the world wheeled with inhuman speed as the Fury spun out of control, a burning star, a falling meteor.
His vision went white for a glorious, blinding instant, and then there was only darkness.
Far below, in the confining heat of the bunker on Ras Hanem, a silence fell, broken only by the crackle of static from the vox-monitors. General Dietrich, Commissar Von Arnim and Marshal Veigh stood as the meaningless blue flicker of the screens before them went on and on, blank and empty. There were over a hundred men in the control room, and not one of them uttered a word for what seemed an unbearable length of time.
It was Von Arnim who ended it. He doffed his peaked cap and bowed his head a moment. ‘Thus do brave men die,’ he said in a low voice.
Dietrich cleared his throat. He leaned on the back of the air-controller’s chair in front of him and stared intently at the screen.
‘Contact the orbital batteries. What is the time to intercept?’
‘I… sir, I–’ The young soldier’s hand flew over the keys of his console.
‘Calm down, son. This is just the beginning. Time to intercept.’
‘Sir, on their current course and speed, the enemy will be in range of Battery Chrosos in eleven minutes.’
‘Let them know, if they don’t already.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘We have one more wing, en route from th
e far side of the planet as we speak,’ Marshal Veigh said stiffly.
‘Call them back. No point sending out more to die like that. We’ll save them for the landings.’
Veigh nodded. He wiped sweat from his face.
‘They’re coming straight for Askai,’ Von Arnim said, replacing his cap.
‘It would seem so, Ismail. They mean to strike at the heart of the defence straight away. Alert the anti-air defences. There will be drop-troops arriving soon. We’ll hammer them as they land.’
Dietrich turned to Marshal Veigh. ‘I must go to my regiment.’
‘You must?’ Veigh seemed alarmed by the prospect. ‘General, surely you can command from here. It would be safer.’
‘My place is with my men. My Baneblade is fully equipped with vox transmitters on all frequencies.’
‘What can tanks do in the midst of a city?’ Veigh said, raising one hand.
It was Von Arnim who snapped back at him. ‘More than you know, marshal. Gather your thoughts, and improve your attitude. This thing has only just begun.’
The marshal coloured, and seemed to grow taller, the stoop leaving his gaunt frame.
‘You will not find me wanting in resolution, commissar.’
‘I know we won’t,’ Dietrich said, taking Veigh’s hand in an iron grip and forestalling Von Arnim’s retort. ‘Ismail, time we were on our way.’
The sirens were wailing across the city as the speeder swooped low over the packed streets, and crammed masses of people were pulsing this way and that as thick as fish in shoal. Barricades had been set up at all the major intersections and there were sandbagged redoubts on every corner, manned by nervous reservists with lasguns and not much else.
On the rooftops of the tallest hives and warehouses, multi-laser batteries poked their barrels at the yellow sky, and lines of vehicles sat in massive jams. First there had been an influx of refugees, then panic had gone the other way and millions had decamped to the countryside. They were unsure if they wanted to go or stay, but it was of no matter, because the adamantium gates of Askai had been closed.