by Paul Kearney
Then they sidled through the ruins again, as silent as the dust, to the hidden ship which awaited them beyond the walls.
SIXTEEN
Latitat in Umbram
‘They have returned,’ Te Mirah said.
Brothers and sisters, I give you greeting.
Love, and exultation, and baffled anger, all mixed. A mission of both failure and success.
She blessed the ranger team in her mind as she stood upon Steerledge. Callinall was on her way to her, but she knew the tidings the ranger veteran would bring. It was not so different from anything she had expected, but even the emotional gist of it filled her with hope and dismay in the same measure.
‘It is real, Ainoc,’ she breathed. ‘Anandaiah was correct. That blasted waste they now call Ras Hanem – it was Vol-Aimoi once. It was ours.’ She bowed her head.
The tall warlock was radiating anger. ‘And now they squabble across its holy expanse like children fighting over a broken toy.’
Steerledge was as quiet and serene as ever, but now there was a thrumming undercurrent on the great command space of the Brae-Kaithe. An inchoate hope that Te Mirah had not sensed in her people for a long time.
The wraithbone doors opened, and in strode Callinall, still besmirched with the dust and filth of the place she had lately been. She bent and kissed the farseer’s hand. The ranger had thrown back her hood, and the concealment field which she had worn on the surface of Ras Hanem was switched off, the stones on her belt dull. She was a tall, impossibly slim figure in a hooded cloak with a long shuriken rifle slung at her back. Her face was a lean white triangle with brilliant stones for eyes, and a mouth as cruel as the blade of a knife.
‘My lady, it is there, the thing we have dreamed on for a hundred generations. I would wager my life on it.’ Her voice rang around Steerledge.
Te Mirah held up a hand. ‘I must know all, every moment’s detail, Callinall.’
‘My people sensed it even as we landed. It is deep buried, down in the warm dark of that unhappy world, but it still lives. Lady, somewhere in the bowels of the planet an Infinity Circuit of our people is hidden, one of the greatest relics of our race.’
‘You must be sure, Callinall,’ Ainoc said, his face as set and hard as the wraithbone of the Brae-Kaithe. The tall sword at his back quivered with the tension in his taut frame and the warlock’s eyes flashed with cold light.
‘I cannot be mistaken, my lord. It called to us like a song, like music in the bone.’ Callinall’s face was transfigured by joy as she spoke. ‘It was all we could do to tear ourselves away from that music.’
‘The Brae-Kaithe has heard it too,’ Te Mirah said gently. ‘Our ship listens to her lost mother, and keens for her.’
‘With an Infinity Circuit, one could build a new craftworld entire, another beginning for tens of thousands of our people whose souls reside within it,’ Ainoc said. He looked down at his long-fingered hands with the blue nails, and for a moment they came together in prayer. ‘Khaine, red father in our blood, give us strength.’
‘The mon-keigh have driven off their ancient enemy,’ Callinall went on. ‘The warrior fanatics of their elite now hold the capital in force, and are reordering things at their leisure. The fighting has ended.’
‘For now,’ Te Mirah murmured.
‘The Circuit is buried deep in the fabric of the planet – that is how it has remained undetected so long. But the mon-keigh have been mining there for many of their solar cycles, and they have come close to uncovering it – it is for this reason that we hear it calling so clearly.
‘My lady, I believe the way is open – the humans have delved so deep in their greed for ore and alloy that they have come close to the hiding place of the Circuit. This recent war has set back their operations – it could be months, even years by their reckoning of time ere they discover it, but discover it they will, eventually.’
Callinall’s face twisted with disgust. ‘There is a psyker in their ranks, a powerful, well-trained one whose mind touched upon us briefly as we infiltrated the city–’
‘You were discovered?’ Ainoc barked.
‘I believe not, my lord – not directly – but we may have kindled a suspicion in the thing’s mind.’
‘Time runs against us,’ Te Mirah said. She turned, and walked across the white expanse of Steerledge with her sigilled and gem-studded cloak trailing after her, ignoring the eldar crew who stroked the control stones at their stations, whose minds were a murmur at the back of her own.
‘What about the entrance to these mines? How well guarded is it?’ Ainoc demanded.
Callinall’s face fell. ‘It resides in a heavily fortified section of the city where the bulk of their manufactoria reside,’ she said. ‘Aside from their citadel, it is the most frequently patrolled location in their lines. And there is more.
‘The war exterminated most of the population, but many thousands of that rabble were driven underground by the fighting and subsisted in the mines while it lasted. There are still hordes of the things underground, infesting the very shafts and passageways we would have to take in order to reach the Circuit.’
‘As a warrior – as a ranger, Callinall,’ Te Mirah said, ‘how do you assess our chances of infiltrating these mines, and exfiltrating undetected?’
Callinall bent her head, something like a silent snarl crossing her narrow face.
‘I must speak against my heart. The chance is almost non-existent, my lady. I do not believe it can be done.’
‘It does not mean we cannot try,’ Ainoc exploded. ‘Khaine’s wrath, we cannot sit to one side and watch the mon-keigh rape one of the most treasured and valuable remnants of our past, an artefact which is the key to the birth of an entire new world! Te Mirah, let me–’
‘Enough,’ the farseer said sharply, holding up one hand.
There was silence on Steerledge. Te Mirah glided over to the massive shielded viewport. She looked out upon the dark side of a small moon, one of the many in the Kargad system that now lay scourged and lifeless after the legions of the Great Enemy had passed across it. But its bulk shielded her beloved ship from the prying augurs of the Imperium.
It did so now – it could not do so forever.
Time, ticking past her, robbing them all of this glorious discovery, this opportunity beyond price. It could not be borne, the loss of something so precious, when her exiled race had already lost so much.
‘There is something else,’ she said, turning around to Ainoc and Callinall. ‘Something I have not yet shared with you, but which has impressed itself upon my senses ever more clearly in the last few turns of shipday.
‘We are under even greater constraints than you might suppose, my warriors. Callinall, you say the fighting has ended, that the Great Enemy has been driven from the surface of the planet.’
Callinall nodded.
‘You are right. But my mind and that of the Brae-Kaithe looks beyond one planet, one system. It ranges far out into the void, and even unto the dark shadows of the immaterium itself. The warp is still in flux, as restless as a pot on the boil. I see things approaching which are not yet manifest, events to come which are set in space and time as though they were history already written.
‘This war is not over. The Great Enemy retreated from the planet and this system as a deliberate ploy. He was not driven out – he withdrew of his own accord, to suck in the forces of the Imperium and let them believe they had victory in their hands.
‘They are profoundly wrong. It approaches out of the warp, my dearly beloved, like a black star. A vast armada of the night, it is only an eye’s blink away from us, on the other side of the curtain which separates our galaxy from the chaos and evil of the warp. And it will be here soon.
‘The Imperial forces on the planet they name Ras Hanem are doomed. Against that which is coming, even the much-vaunted Adeptus Astartes of their Emperor cannot prevail.’
‘An ambush,’ Ainoc said, and his face twisted with conflicting emotions.
> ‘Yes.’
‘Then we must move quickly, before it is too late.’
‘It is already too late.’ Te Mirah walked up and down, her cloak catching the light of Steerledge in myriad glitters, as though it were bedecked with stars.
‘We must try another way, more dangerous, requiring more patience – and your forbearance, Ainoc.’
‘I will try anything which redeems the Infinity Circuit from the hands of those animals,’ Ainoc said.
‘Even if it means making an attempt to negotiate with those animals?’
Ainoc was speechless.
‘Farseer, I do not understand,’ Callinall, the ranger, said.
‘We have cooperated with them in the past, when it has suited our purposes. As barbarous as they are, they are not creatures of the warp, and on occasion they can be reasoned with.’
‘They cannot be trusted – they are fanatics who wish to see our kind swept out of the stars,’ Ainoc said hotly.
‘Agreed. But they are not without some intellectual subtlety, when it suits them.’
‘Do you think you can persuade them to simply hand over the Infinity Circuit?’ Ainoc asked.
‘I believe that when they are placed in a dire enough situation, they are more willing to negotiate in the sheer fight for survival. If we can somehow insinuate ourselves into their decision-making process, then we may well have the time and space allowed to reach our goal without fighting a hopeless battle.
‘The hopeless battles, Ainoc, we shall leave to them.’
She smiled. ‘There is one approaching. When they are weak enough, and desperate enough, they will be willing to listen, and our presence will be less of an anathema to them – believe me, I have seen it before. Even the Adeptus Astartes have worked with our people in the past.’
‘They will betray us,’ Ainoc said, shaking his head.
‘Perhaps, but my dearly beloved,’ Te Mirah strode up to Ainoc and took his face in her hands.
‘What other choice do we have?’
SEVENTEEN
Miles Mortuus est
Tomas Massaron stifled a yawn. The fleet-ensign snapped to attention before him with all the enthusiasm of the young and handed him the data-slate. He studied the lists and thumbed each one.
His flag lieutenant stood to one side, scanning the towering monitors and glancing now and then through the viewports at the bright ochre-coloured sphere of the planet turning below. Around them, the servitors of the command dais muttered to themselves in binaric and broken threads of Low Gothic. In one corner, Enginseer Miranich extended a fleshless metal arm and plugged into a console. The senior servitor nodded, grunted, and then withdrew the limb.
‘Transport away, shipmaster,’ he said, his artificial voice box flattening the words.
Massaron nodded at the young ensign, handing back the text-tab.
‘I sometimes wonder if Captain Kerne means to transport the entire Ogadai planetside piece by piece, Rob,’ he said to his lieutenant.
‘He has a world to make secure, sir,’ the lieutenant said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s much down there that survived the war.’
Massaron smiled. ‘Correct answer, Lieutenant Gershon. Still, at least he has the manufactoria down there in some sort of order now. If he had wanted yet more munitions from our own little operation, I believe we might well have had to start cannibalising the ship.’
‘It’s true we are running very low on raw materials, sir. I have had to postpone routine maintenance on sections three-four-six and seven.’
Massaron raised his head, calculating. ‘That’s the starboard hatches where we took out the lasburners to make room to extend the flight-deck. Yes, there was some very old stuff in there.’
‘The maintenance will be delayed some five days, sir – they’re sending up raw materials from the Armaments District next week. Shall I reschedule?’
‘No. Their need is greater than ours at present, Rob. But keep it in mind.’ He slapped the console beside him. ‘This old warrior needs constant watching.’
A flash on the vox display. A servitor tapped thin pointed fingers into the tiny rounded buttons there. ‘Priority receipt. Stand by.’
Massaron took the call, looking at the callsign on the board. It was from Arbion.
‘Diez, this is the flag, send, over.’
‘Shipmaster, we are halfway through our patrol and are getting some strange readings on augur in the vicinity of the Dardrek moon.’
‘Define strange, Diez.’
‘That’s the problem, sir. It seems to be some kind of spatial disturbance. There’s nothing rockcrete on augur, but there is a massive energy bloom in that area. Shall I investigate?’
A chill felt its way about Massaron’s heart.
‘Negative. Stand off from the phenomenon and observe only. Diez, could it be a ship coming out of warp?’
‘That was my first thought, sir, but the disturbance is too vast to be something like that – it’s fully half the size of the moon. My navigator speculates that it may be some kind of anomaly, a warp-boil about to burst.’
‘Stand well clear of it and keep me informed,’ Massaron said.
‘Affirmative. Arbion out.’
Diez was a capable commander who had been shipmaster of Arbion for five years, but his combat experience was limited. More than that, he had not been as long in space as Massaron had.
There were many strange phenomena in the void, few of them documented with any scientific clarity.
The strangest encounters were usually investigated by the Inquisition, who had no interest in the physics of what they saw, only the implications it held for Imperial orthodoxy. As a result, many shipmasters chose not to report some of the odder things they chanced across in their travels.
This might well be one more of those events. But Massaron did not like it, all the same.
He tugged at his lower lip, his gaze ranging across the flickering screens and data-monitors of his beloved ship.
It might be nothing – it probably was nothing. But the Ogadai had not survived this long because its shipmasters were complacent men.
Dardrek was three days away at normal cruising speed, but at full sub-warp velocity it could be reached in as little as eighteen hours. That was a very slim margin for error in Massaron’s book.
His voice changed as he spoke, becoming harder. ‘Cancel the next transport to the surface. Begin ignition sequence on main engines. All gun battery crews to their posts. Voidsunder crews are to end maintenance duties at once and ready weapons for firing.’
He paused. Well, it would be a good practice, even if nothing came of it. To get his ship from hatches-open maintenance-mode to battle readiness in the shortest time. But he knew he had to stagger the orders.
‘All compartments, crew to your stations. I say again, all compartments, crew to your stations.’
The flag lieutenant, alarmed, spoke up. ‘Sir, do you mean to go to battle stations?’
‘Not yet, lieutenant. We have too many key personnel scattered about the ship – it’ll be mayhem down on the decks if we go red right now. But as soon as they are in place I want battle stations sounded.’
‘Is it a drill, sir?’
He looked at the vox panel. No word yet from Arbion.
‘This is no drill, Rob. Vox, get me Captain Kerne on the planet.’
The servitor trickled its metal fingers over its board. Then it did so again. There was an edge of almost human puzzlement in its voice as it spoke.
‘Shipmaster, vox is… ineffective. There is considerable interference. Will attempt again.’
Massaron leaned over the console. ‘What kind of interference?’
‘Shipmaster,’ Miranich spoke up. ‘Massive energy bloom detected eleven thousand kilometres off our port side.’
Lieutenant Gershon was peering at the cascading figures on the screens in front of him. He cursed, and looked up with wild eyes.
‘Ship coming out of the warp right on top of us, sir. She�
��s got to be–’
The entire massive length of the Ogadai shuddered and shook, groaning, the ship’s ancient frames creaking under the impact of a massive ripple in space.
‘Augur, tell me what it is,’ Massaron said. ‘Rob, sound battle stations.’
‘Sir, an Oberon class battleship of unknown origin has materialised out of the warp eleven thousand kilometres away and is now launching torpedoes. I count fifteen – twenty – twenty-five inbound at eleven thousand kilometres and counting.’
‘He has Voidsunders in his broadside – they’re powering up,’ Gershon said. His voice was shaking with shock.
Emperor’s blood, who could that be?
‘The enemy,’ Massaron said grimly. ‘Con, bring the ship about ninety degrees to port – get our own lances pointing at the bastard and reduce our profile. Port broadside torpedo bays – do you read me?’
A voice on the shipboard vox. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Launch them as they bear, Lieutenant Tribo. Every tube you’ve got.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Put me shipwide.’ Massaron cleared his throat.
‘This is the shipmaster speaking. We are being engaged by a capital ship at ten thousand kilometres. Enemy torpedoes are inbound. All stations and compartments, do your duty to the Dark Hunters and to the Emperor. My comrades, it is for days like this that we wear Hunters blue, and it is for days like this that we have trained all our lives. I know you will not let me down.’
He clicked off the receiver himself, and then elbowed a servitor aside and punched up the inter-ship vox. ‘Beynish, do you read?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The other Dark Hunters destroyer was on station fifty thousand kilometres out, on patrol.
‘Clem, take to the warp at once. Get back to Phobian. Let them know that it was a trap. We have an Oberon class to fight here, and Emperor knows what else is coming.’
‘Sir, I will not–’
‘You will obey orders, Clem. Get out of here, back to the Chapter. They must know of this at once – do you hear?’