Years of dogged service aboard armed transports and system boats had finally been rewarded with a promotion to an actual expeditionary fleet, and while the Death Guard’s exploits were not as glamorous or renowned as those of other Legions, it was a step up for Maas’s ambitions. He coveted command, and there wasn’t a day that passed when he didn’t think of a future where it would be Shipmaster Tirin Maas at the throne of a cruiser, running a vessel like his own private kingdom.
Now, all of that was in danger of crumbling away. The posting he had been so euphoric to be granted was turning into a millstone around his neck. First this high-handed Garro had taken command and set things awry, and now Carya himself was following the fool’s insane orders! If what he had gleaned was true, this Death Guard had already murdered several of his own, allowed another turncoat to escape destruction and willfully destroyed a dozen fighters! Maas felt as if he was the only sighted man in a room full of blind people.
He looked around the bridge for any glimmer of expression on the faces of the other officers, anything at all that might have shown him they felt as he did, but there was nothing. Carya and his arrogant executive had them all playing along! It was inconceivable. The shipmaster had defied the decrees of Horus himself, and then Vought had compounded things with her falsification of signals. Maas had tried to reason with Carya, and what had he got in return? Censure and violent reproach!
He shook his head. The vox officer felt soiled by the willing piracy unfolding before him. They had sworn an oath to the fleet, and Horus was at the head of that fleet. What did it matter if the orders the Warmaster gave were distasteful? A good captain did not question, he served! But Tirin Maas would never get to do that now, not after Carya’s rebellion. Should he survive, Maas would be tarred with the same brush as the shipmaster, labeled disloyal and doubtless executed.
The young man stared at the vox unit. He had to take steps. Already, he had broken protocol and secretly disabled the enunciator circuits so that the bridge would not be alerted to incoming signals unless he wished it. That alone was a flogging offence, but Maas saw it as necessary. It was clear that he could only trust himself, and that meant he alone bore the responsibility to warn the rest of the fleet of the duplicity brewing aboard the Eisenstein. He raised the communicator to his lips and drew back into the vox alcove. Maas was afraid, that was undeniable, but as he began to speak in a careful whisper, a sense of purpose and strength came to him. When this was done he would have the gratitude of Horus himself. Perhaps, if Eisenstein wasn’t destroyed as an object lesson after the rebellion had been put down, he might even solicit the Warmaster for command of the ship as his reward.
‘REPEAT YOURSELF,’ DEMANDED Typhon. He loomed over the Chapter serf at the vox console, the broad form of his armour dark and menacing.
The helot bowed. ‘Lord, the message comes from a person claiming to be Eisenstein’s communications officer. He says that Grulgor is missing, and that the ship’s command crew are in revolt. He claims treachery, sir.’
The first captain rocked back, and in his mind the pieces of an unwelcome picture fell into place. ‘The bellicose idiot failed me! He tipped our hand to Garro.’ Typhon spun in place and barked out orders to the ship’s crew. ‘Sound general quarters! Power to the drives and the prow lances! I want an intercept course to Eisenstein, and I want it now!
‘Captain, the vox officer,’ said the serf, ‘what shall I tell him?’
Typhon smiled grimly. ‘Send him my gratitude and the commiserations of the Warmaster. Then get me a link to Maloghurst aboard the Vengeful Spirit.’
GARRO SAW THE brief flicker of fear on Carya’s face as the sing-song siren call blared from the forward command console. Vought was already at the station, punching control strings into the keyboard.
‘Report!’ said the shipmaster.
Vought paled. ‘Sense-servitors are registering a distinct thermal bloom emanating from the drive blocks of Terminus Est, sir. In addition, there are readings of possible bow configuration changes in line with lance battery deployment.’
‘He knows,’ snapped Qruze. ‘Warp curse him, Typhon knows!’
‘Aye,’ agreed Garro, facing Carya. ‘It’s time. Give the order.’
The naval officer swallowed hard and threw a nod to Vought. ‘You heard the battle-captain. All decks to combat stations, release drive interlocks and make for maximum military speed.’ He gestured to a junior rating. ‘Get below and alert the esteemed Severnaya to prepare himself for the jump. I want him ready to go.’ Carya saw the question in Garro’s look. ‘Severnaya, the Navigator,’ he explained, pointing at the deck. ‘Two tiers below us. Spends his days meditating inside a null-gee sphere. I’ll warrant he doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s going on up here. He lives only for the thrill of the jump, you see.’
Garro accepted this. ‘The warp is stormy. Do you think he will baulk to enter it when your order comes?’
‘Oh, he’ll go all right,’ said Carya, ‘but what I fear is whether he will survive the leap.’
Vought broke in to the conversation. ‘What about the gun batteries, sir?’ she asked, her voice taut with tension.
Carya shook his head. ‘Make them ready, but I want all available power to be on hand for the void shields and the engine clusters. What we need is strength and speed, not firepower.’
‘Aye sir, all ahead full,’ she replied, and went to work implementing the orders.
Garro felt a faint shudder through the soles of his boots as the frigate’s decking trembled with the abrupt application of velocity. Chimes and bells from the enginarium relays sounded as Eisenstein went instantly from a stately drifting course to a full battle pace.
‘Terminus Est is moving from her orbital station,’ said Sendek, reading the data from a pict-screen repeater. ‘Turning now, swinging guns to our bearing.’
‘Any other ships following suit?’ asked Garro.
‘I don’t see them, lord,’ he replied, ‘only Typhon.’
‘Captain Garro,’ Vought called, ‘we have no records of the warship’s capabilities. What can Typhon field against us?’
‘Sir, if I may?’ broke in Sendek. ‘Terminus Est is a unique craft, not of a standard template construct pattern, well armoured but ponderous with it and very burdensome on the turns.’
Carya nodded. ‘That we can play to our advantage.’
‘Indeed, her forward armament is formidable, however. Typhon has an array of bow-mounted lances, and more in turrets that prey abeam and ahead. If he pulls alongside us, we’re finished,’ he concluded grimly.
‘We’ll keep the behemoth out of our baffles, then,’ said the shipmaster. ‘Watch the reactor temperatures!’
‘How did he guess?’ Decius snarled at his commander. ‘Could it not be a coincidence? Perhaps he is only taking the ship to another orbit?’
‘He knows,’ Garro repeated Sendek’s words. ‘This was inevitable.’
‘But how?’ demanded the younger Astartes. ‘Did he have a seer pluck your intentions from the ether?’
Garro’s eyes strayed to the vox alcove and met those of the man cowering there, his face pale and sweaty. ‘Nothing so arcane,’ said the battle-captain, reading the truth in the naval officer’s expression. In three swift steps he was across the bridge chamber and dragging Maas to his feet. The vox officer appeared to have been crying. ‘You,’ growled Garro, his eyes turning flinty. ‘You alerted Typhon.’
Hanging there in his grip, Maas suddenly jerked and flailed at Garro, weak blows rebounding off his power armour. ‘Traitor bastard!’ he shouted. ‘You’re all conspirators! You’ve killed us with your duplicity!’
‘Fool!’ Carya retorted. ‘These are the Emperor’s men. It’s you that’s the traitor, you arrogant dolt!’
‘My oath is to the fleet. I serve the Warmaster Horus!’ Maas bellowed as he started to weep. ‘Until death!’
‘Yes,’ agreed Garro, and with a savage twist of his wrist, the Death Guard broke the vox officer�
�s neck and let him drop to the floor.
There was only a breath of silence after the killing before Vought’s voice called out across the bridge. ‘Lance discharge, port rear quadrant! We’re under attack!’
The crew turned their faces away from the viewports as a dazzling sword of white light crossed over the frigate’s bow. The shot was a miss, but the edges of the lance’s energy nimbus crackled over the exterior hull. On the bridge a handful of stations flickered and popped as the backwash raced through the control systems.
‘I think he wants us to heave to,’ muttered Qruze.
‘A request so politely phrased as well,’ said Sendek. ‘We’ll show him our exhausts by way of reply.’
‘Look sharp!’ snapped Garro, turning away from the man he had just executed. ‘Warn Hakur and the others to be ready for impacts and decompression! I want those civilians kept alive—’
The next shot was a hit.
AT THE PERIPHERY of its range, the lance fire from the Terminus Est was at its weakest, and yet the collimated beams of energy were still enough to inflict serious damage on a ship with the tonnage of Eisenstein. The bolts cut through the void shields and sent them flickering. They raked over the dorsal hull at an oblique angle that tore decks open to space and ripped several portside gun turrets from their mountings.
Puffs of gas and flame popped and faded. Cascade discharges vaulted down the corridors of the frigate, blowing out relays and setting combustion. In a single secondary explosion, an entire compartment on one of the tertiary tiers became a brief, murderous firestorm as stored breathing gas canisters ignited.
A handful of Garro’s men left there to stand guard died first as the air in their lungs turned to flames. The back draft flooded over their bodies, torching the living quarters and sanctum of Eisenstein’s small astropathic choir. Safety hatches slammed shut, but the damage was done, and with no more air to burn, the chambers became dead voids of blackened metal and ruined flesh.
Some of the impact transferred into kinetic energy that staggered the ship and made it list, but Carya’s officers were battle-hardened and they did not let it turn them from their course. Terminus Est was moving upon them, the massive battleship filling the rearward pict screens with its deadly bulk.
‘AN EXPLANATION, TYPHON,’ growled Maloghurst over the crackling vox link, ‘I await an explanation as to why you saw fit to draw me from my duties during this most important of operations.’
The first captain grimaced, glad he did not have to look the Warmaster’s equerry in the eye. There was no great esteem held between the Son of Horus and the Death Guard, a holdover from an incident years earlier when they had disagreed fiercely over a matter of battlefield protocol. Typhon disliked the man’s insouciant manner and his barely restrained arrogance. That Maloghurst was known by the epithet ‘The Twisted’ was, in Typhon’s opinion, an all too accurate description. ‘Forgive me, equerry,’ he retorted, ‘but I thought it important you be informed that your primarch’s grand plans are in danger of faltering!’
‘Don’t test my patience, Death Guard! Shall I call your primarch to the vox to have him chastise you instead? Your ship has left the formation. What are you doing?’
‘Attempting to excise an irritant. I have received warning that one of my battle-brothers, the lamentably conservative Captain Garro, has taken control of a frigate called the Eisenstein and even now attempts to flee the Isstvan system.’ He leaned back in his command throne. ‘Is that matter enough for your attention, or should I address myself directly to Horus instead?’
‘Garro?’ repeated Maloghurst. ‘It was my understanding that Mortarion had dealt with him.’
Typhon snorted. ‘The Death Lord has been too lenient. Garro should have been allowed to die of his wounds after the battle on Isstvan Extremis. Instead Mortarion hoped to turn him, and now we may pay for that folly.’
Maloghurst was silent for a moment. Typhon could imagine his unpleasant face creased in thought. ‘Where is he now?’
‘I am pursuing the Eisenstein. I will destroy the ship if I can.’
The equerry sniffed archly. ‘Where does Garro think he can go? The storms in the warp have grown fiercer with every passing hour. A small vessel like that cannot hope to weather a journey through the immaterium. He’ll be torn apart!’
‘Perhaps,’ admitted Typhon, ‘but I would like to make sure.’
‘I have your course on my data-slate,’ said the other Astartes. ‘You’ll never catch him in that cumbersome barge of yours, he has too much distance on you.’
‘I don’t need to catch him, Maloghurst. I just need to wound him.’
‘Then do it, Typhon,’ came the reply. ‘If I am forced to inform Horus that word of his plans has been spread unchecked, it will be you who feels his displeasure soon after I do!’
The first captain made a throat-cutting gesture and his vox attendant severed the connection. He glanced down from his command throne to where the shipmaster of the Terminus Est was bowed and waiting.
The man spoke. ‘Lord Typhon, the Eisenstein has altered her course. It’s traveling at full burn towards Isstvan III’s satellite, the White Moon.’
‘Come to new heading,’ snapped Typhon, rising once more. ‘Match Eisenstein’s course and get me a firing solution.’
The shipmaster faltered. ‘Lord, the moon’s gravity well—’
‘That was not a request,’ he growled.
‘STILL WITH US.’ Vought read the distance vectors from a pict-screen. ‘Aspect change confirmed. Terminus Est is following, no other signs of pursuit.’
‘Just so,’ said Carya. ‘Continue on a zigzag heading. Don’t make it easy for Typhon’s gunners to get a firing angle.’
Garro stood directly behind the shipmaster, looking over his head and out of the viewports. The stark, chalk-coloured surface of Isstvan III’s largest moon steadily grew larger as he watched it, craters and mountains taking shape on the airless surface. To an untrained observer, it might have seemed like the frigate was on a collision course. ‘Be honest with me.’ Garro spoke quietly, so only Carya could hear him. ‘What chance is there that Vought’s computations will be in error?’
The dark-skinned man glanced up at him. ‘She’s very good, captain. The only reason she hasn’t been given a ship of her own is because she has a few issues with fleet authority. I have faith in her.’
Garro looked back at the moon. ‘My faith is in the strength of a starship’s hull and the power of gravity,’ he replied, but even as he said the words, they seemed hollow and incomplete.
Carya eyed him curiously. Perhaps he sensed the captain’s disquiet. ‘The universe is vast, sir. One can find faith in many places.’
‘Coming up to first course correction,’ called the deck officer. ‘Stand by for emergency maneuvers.’
‘Mark,’ said a servitor in a toneless voice. ‘Executing maneuver.’
The frigate’s deck yawed and Garro felt the motion in the pit of his stomach. With all the available energy channeling into the drives, the ship’s gravitational compensators were lagging behind and he felt the turn more distinctly than usual. He gripped a support stanchion with one hand and put his weight on his organic leg.
‘Thermal bloom from their bow,’ warned Sendek, having taken it upon himself to assist the bridge crew at the sensor pulpit. ‘Discharge! Incoming fire, multiple lance bolts!’
‘Push the turn!’ shouted Carya. He said something else, but the words were drowned out as heavy rods of tuned energy struck the aft of the Eisenstein and pitched her forward like a ship cresting a wave. The compensators were slow again, and Garro’s arm shot out and grabbed the shipmaster, halting his fall towards a console. The battle-captain felt something in Carya’s wrist dislocate.
‘Engine three power levels dropping!’ shouted Vought. ‘Coolant leaks on decks nine and seven!’
Carya recovered and nodded to Garro. ‘Increase thrust from the other nozzles to compensate! We can’t let them gain any ground!’
The ship was trembling, the throbbing vibration of a machine pushed to the edge of its operating limit. Sendek called out from his station. ‘We’re entering the White Moon’s gravity well, captain, accelerating.’
Carya gasped as he snapped his augmetic hand back into place. ‘Ah, the point of no return, Garro,’ he said. ‘Now we’ll see if Racel is as good as I said she was.’
‘If her calculations are off by more than a few degrees, we will be nothing but a new crater and a scattering of metal shavings,’ Decius said darkly.
The moon filled the forward viewport. ‘Have faith,’ Garro replied.
‘LORD, WE HAVE been captured by the lunar gravitational pull,’ reported Typhon’s shipmaster. ‘Our velocity is increasing. I would humbly suggest we attempt to evade, and—’
‘If we break contact now, the Eisenstein escapes,’ the first captain said flatly. ‘This vessel has power enough to pull free, yes? You’ll use it when I order you to and not before.’
‘By your command.’
Typhon glared at the gunnery officer. ‘You! Where are my kills? I want that frigate obliterated! Get it done!’
‘Lord, the ship is agile and our cannons are largely fixed emplacements’
‘Results, not excuses!’ came the growling retort. ‘Do your duty or I’ll find a man who can!’
On the giant pict screen over his command throne, Typhon watched the trails of fumes and wreckage spilling from Eisenstein and smiled coldly.
RACEL VOUGHT BLINKED sweat out of her eyes and pressed her hands on the flat panel of the control console. The reflected ivory starlight from the White Moon’s surface illuminated the bridge with stark edges and hard lines. It was a funerary glow, devoid of any life, and it seemed to draw her energy from her. She took a shuddering breath. The lives of every person aboard the frigate were squarely in her hands at this moment, gambled on a string of numbers she had hastily computed while Isstvan III had died before her eyes. She was afraid to look at them again for fear that she might find she had made some horrible mistake. Better that she not know, better she hang on to the fragile thread of confidence that had propelled her to this daring course in the first place. If Vought had made any miscalculations, she would not live to regret it.
The Flight of the Eisenstein Page 20