‘We can serve. We will not be wasted. Please, open the hangars.’
She looked up, over to where Jubal was roaring out new orders. The commander was fully occupied now, consumed with the business of bringing the Legion’s still formidable firepower into line. There was still much to accomplish, and in the greater scheme of the fighting even a hundred warriors was an acceptable loss to bear.
And yet the Khagan had not returned. They would not complete the manoeuvre and lock in final combat status – not while he remained on Dark Glass.
‘Come alongside,’ she said. ‘Hangar Forty-Five. You have ten minutes. Caution – the target will be moving fast.’
There was a confident laugh, then the link cut.
Ilya removed the comm-shroud, stood up again and looked back towards Jubal.
He would not like it. He would not be easily swayed.
‘But I did it before,’ she said to herself, setting off to waylay him, to make the case. Perhaps that would always be her role in this damned Legion – to speak truth to power, to temper the foolishness of the brave. ‘And I can do it again.’
The Khan reached the Stormbird hangar. One gunship had already taken off, and was holding position just outside the void-doors, ready to lead the escort. The others were all powered-up, their atmospheric engines whining within the station’s restored gravity bubble.
Namahi went on ahead. The Khan cycled through the hundred comm-bursts his armour’s systems were picking up, thrown out from the fleet and detailing all that was transpiring. The first shots had already been fired, and the engagement was racing towards finality.
He had to be there.
‘Khagan, we are ready,’ voxed Namahi from the Stormbird’s cockpit.
The primarch moved up the embarkation ramp. Across the apron, other squads were returning, filing towards the waiting gunships. As the Khan ducked under the shadow of the Stormbird’s inner bay, he noticed one more warrior stumbling across the hangar’s desolate expanse.
‘Wait,’ he ordered.
Arvida looked wounded. The sorcerer limped his way to the primarch, his vox-grille emitting a hoarse scraping intake.
‘Alone?’ asked the Khan. ‘Where is Yesugei?’
Arvida tried to collect himself. He looked half-dazed. ‘He is not here yet?’
The Khan ushered him inside the gunship. The Stormseer would have to take the next one. ‘No time remains. He will follow.’
They took up position within, the keshig lumbering after them, the ramps hauling closed and the Stormbird powering cumbersomely from the deck. Arvida collapsed against the interior of the inner hull, holding his head in his hands. The Khan remained on his feet, riding the tilt of the deck as the gunship rotated towards the exit.
Then they were out, boosting hard, angling steeply under Dark Glass’ lowering mass. The escort gunship came with them, as did the interceptors, leaving the remaining three behind to lift the last of the boarding parties clear.
The Khan watched the void station recede. It would have been better to have explored it further. Whether or not Ilya’s contact had ever held the promise of a path through the mazes of the warp, there was surely some secret buried in the station’s reaches, one that linked back all the way to Terra.
Arvida coughed violently and pushed his head back. The Khan moved over to him. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked.
It took a while for the sorcerer to answer. When he did, it sounded like his throat was constricted. ‘The warp,’ he croaked. ‘In that place.’
‘Aye. We knew that. Can you resist? I will need you.’
Arvida snapped out a bitter laugh. ‘Yes, I can resist. Just a little more. Then the end comes.’ He stared up at the primarch. Arvida’s helm-lenses looked odd, as if they were running with condensation on the inside. ‘But I have seen it, my lord. I have seen what waits for mankind.’
The Khan stooped to Arvida’s level. The Stormbird was now speeding at full power, its void-thrusters roaring. ‘What did you see?’
‘Different defeats.’ Arvida’s gauntlets were twitching. ‘Two sides of a card, each one blank.’ His speech was slurred at the edges. ‘They were all dead. Now they live. What does that mean? If I had stayed, would I be with them now?’
Dozens more comm-signals clamoured for attention across the Khan’s helm-lenses. The Swordstorm was fast approaching.
‘I do not understand you,’ he said.
Arvida looked directly at him, seeming to shiver uncontrollably. ‘I am already corrupted,’ he said. ‘But I am not alone – it comes for all of us. Even you. I saw it. I saw what we are building.’ He hacked up more wet coughs, and the Khan saw thin lines of blood leak from his gorget seal. ‘Do you hear me, Master of Chogoris? There is no victory. No victory.’
The Khan placed his heavy head on Arvida’s shoulder. On another day, he might have slain a warrior for saying such words, but he had seen the sacrifices the sorcerer had made for a Legion that was not his own. The warp was thrumming from every surface around them, tainting all minds.
‘I do not doubt your visions,’ the Khan said, quietly.
The thrusters began to decrease in power, the slowdown before the passage through the crystal barrier. Arvida’s shivers diminished.
‘But what do they change?’ the Khan asked. ‘Shall we stare up at the shadows and let our blades fall from our hands?’
Arvida’s tremors began to ebb. The further they went from the void station, the quicker the recovery.
‘Know this, son of Magnus,’ said the Khan. ‘There is more under the arch of heaven than victory and defeat. We may fall back, but not forever. We may feint and we may weave, but not forever. We may yet be doomed to lose all we cherish, but we shall do so in the knowledge that we could have turned away, and did not.’
First vox contact with the Swordstorm came through. The docking cycle began.
‘We remained true,’ the Khan said. ‘They can never have this, not if they burn all we ever built and scorn us through the dancing flames. You hear me? We remained true.’
Arvida made no response for a moment, then his head dropped. He seemed to shrink, as if his body inside his armour had somehow relaxed, pulled back into itself.
‘The rift…’ he began, his voice more like it had been, though thick with weariness.
‘I know it – feel no shame.’
The Khan looked up, out through the narrow viewports. The Swordstorm was visible now, foremost among the other great line battleships, its proud lines as majestic as they had ever been. Just laying eyes on it brought a pang of joy to him, just as he felt when taking a fine weapon from the rack and balancing it in his grip.
‘But recover yourself swiftly,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I want you with me. I want your witchery alongside my zadyin arga.’
He felt his hearts-beat pick up, preparing him, steeling him.
‘My brother Mortarion is here,’ the Khan said. ‘And this time he does not come to convert us.’
For a moment, Yesugei had believed he was real – a flesh-and-blood presence before them. It took a few seconds to realise that Achelieux was a hololith, projected up from the centre of the machine-chamber – another sign, if one were needed, of how weakened his mind was by the warp’s poison.
The apparition stood before them, lifelike save for a hint of translucency around the edges. The Novator was just as Arvida had described him – holding a black staff with a white stone, his robes adorned with sapphires. His face was almost without flaw, and the colour of sun-dried earth. He was not looking at them. He was looking, as hololiths always did, into the middle-distance, his eyes out of true focus, and with an intelligent smile on his attractive face.
‘I can guess what you wish to learn,’ the hololith said. ‘What happened here, why you had to come to find out. The answer is simple – weakness of will. You will know that
we expended much labour on selecting the crew for this, knowing the risks. For the most part, that labour was rewarded. I take some pride in that. Fifty-two years and no disturbance, no hint of betrayal. Consider it – the Seethe lies within sight of this place, open as a wound, and still we endured. I hope, when all is taken into account, that will be remembered. I do not see it as a failure... I see it as resolve beyond all expectation.’
It was hard to know how long ago the projection had been recorded. Veil had withdrawn to the far side of the chamber, his attention fixed on the speaker. Yesugei could not see his face well, but spied that his eyes were wide with something like fascination.
‘I am unsure what caused the change,’ the Achelieux-spectre continued. ‘I must surmise the cause – the Paternova, who has ever been against this policy. If I could have been here all the time, I might have prevented it, though we must have been infiltrated at last. If there is fault to be admitted, it lies with me. I acted too late. When it became clear the situation had gone beyond my power to contain, I enacted the protocol and flushed the station. I am alone now. They did not succeed in disrupting the programme, for it has now reached a stage where I can control the Gate without aid. A fortunate chance.’ Achelieux paused, looking briefly troubled. ‘Yet do not think me a monster. To open this place to the raw Seethe, to see those with whom I laboured for so long dragged into the immaterium, both friend and enemy – that was not an easy sight. There was no other way.’
Yesugei began to piece the events together. The lack of bodies, the bloodstains – there had been some kind of rebellion on board, triggered up in the command levels. Somehow Achelieux had employed the proximity of the warp to end it, and somehow had preserved himself. The place had been scoured, stripped of all but the inert metal, its very structure made toxic.
‘Nonetheless, we have done as you asked,’ Achelieux said. ‘Know this, it works. Trans-Geller harmonics are operative, the principles of stratum-breach are sound. There are matters that are less clear-cut, of course – the via sedis remains the province of mental acuity, of force of will. I am aware of your intentions for this place, and accept that only the nominated primarch has the strength to maintain an active link, but I am also aware of the war, and my observation of this leads me to believe that he is in no position to fulfil that role now.’
Via sedis. The way of the Throne. What did that mean? Which primarch?
‘So, being isolated here and with little hope of timely rescue, I take this thing upon myself. The rift grows, my dreams are bad, and so my time grows short. I will dare it, knowing the risks. I fear it, of course I do, but we must all dare that which we fear. You would agree, I think. I make this record in the hope that you will witness the results, and that despite the rebellion, your faith in the Gate has been amply rewarded, and that this place and all that was done here yet has the power to turn the tides.’
Achelieux smiled. It was a confident, pleasant smile. Yesugei found himself understanding how such a man could have had influence over others, and why Ilya had been quite so anxious to find him again.
‘So I dare the infinite,’ Achelieux said, making the sign of the aquila. ‘Ave Imperator!’
Then the hololith snapped out. The lumens faded, and the chamber returned to darkness.
For a few moments, no one spoke.
‘Who was he speaking to?’ asked Yesugei, vocalising his thoughts.
Veil shuffled over to the dormant hololith projector node. ‘To the one who sent him.’ His voice had changed. It had been variously wheedling, arrogant or fearful before – now it was calm. He reached into his suit, searching for something in the recesses. ‘The Master of Mankind. Or had you not worked that out for yourself?’
Veil’s manner had completely switched. As one, the legionaries around the chamber lowered their bolters. Yesugei fed power to his staff.
‘Do not, please,’ said Veil, bringing out two vortex charges, one in each hand. ‘These are quite capable of destroying this chamber and everything in it. If I loose my grip, they will both go off.’
Yesugei reached out with his mind and met a wall of blank psychic force. That was interesting – he had not detected that before, and neither had Arvida.
‘No, that will not help you either,’ said Veil. ‘The Paternova finds ways to ward his agents.’
‘So I see.’ Yesugei relaxed. ‘Then this is feud between your Houses – we have no part in it.’
‘No, you do not.’ Veil backed away, moving clear of the nearest White Scars legionary, his hands held out clear of his body. The one encased with bandages was clearly strong enough to keep a grip on a charge. ‘I told your general that there were different schools of thought. It was your misfortune to stumble into one such disagreement. You should have left me on Herevail.’
‘Where you are sent, from Terra, to track Achelieux’s progress,’ said Yesugei. ‘But you don’t make it to Dark Glass. Did he suspect you?’
‘He barely knew I existed.’
‘So what happen here?’
‘Betrayal.’ Veil’s voice was fervent – he really believed that. ‘We were faithful. We were the guides. We built the Imperium around you all, and so might have been trusted a little more.’
Yesugei probed, gently, with his mind, searching for weakness. Veil had been given some kind of psychic aegis, possibly an implant he could activate at will. The charges were powerful, as he said – comfortably enough to turn the entire chamber to a soup of null particles, and even power armour would be little defence.
Veil’s erratic demeanour, his alternate arrogance and timidity, had been his greatest weapon, one that should have been seen through earlier. Now things were delicate.
‘I do not understand,’ said Yesugei, speaking evenly, playing for time.
‘How could you?’ asked Veil. ‘You have not been on Terra for a long time. There are secrets murmured in the Palace, and the Paternova has keen ears for them. Where is the Emperor, do you suppose? Why does He not travel to meet Horus in the void, to lay waste to his armies before they near His greatest fortress? Perhaps there is some task that keeps Him shackled to His walls of gold.’
Something was jamming Yesugei’s comms, preventing him from sending a signal. That might have been the case for a long time – he had been sloppy. The psychic aegis around Veil was powerful, enough to damp down all but the bluntest attack, the violence of which would only trigger the charges.
‘There are other paths,’ said Veil, bitterly. ‘Deeper paths. Certain among the xenos have known of them for aeons. They carved ways through the aether’s foundations. Do you see what that means? Under the storms. No Astronomican, no warp drives, no creatures of living nightmares scrabbling at your portholes. There is a foul doctrine, a perverse doctrine, that claims this realm for ourselves, that would end the reign of the Houses and cast us out as mutants whose long age has passed. Machines have been created. The greatest of them, the sedem auream, is complete, and the universe screams against it. But there were others. There were prototypes.’
Yesugei could sense the fervour in the man’s voice. He was ready to die. Keeping him talking was the only way, just until he could find some way to disarm him.
‘Prototypes of what?’ he asked.
‘Gates. Gates into hell. You are standing on the threshold even now, and still you do not see it. Achelieux was never charting the warp – he was creating the means to bypass it. They built this place here, away from Terra’s trillions of souls, to perfect their abomination while the Crusade marched across the void. If the war had not come it would no doubt be in use by now, but come it did, and that has forced his hand.’
‘Achelieux said he dares the infinite. What did he mean?’
‘That he is dead.’
‘Then your task is over. You have done what you were ordered to.’
Veil smiled sadly. ‘The Gate exists. His words remain.’
&n
bsp; Yesugei prepared himself. Veil was protected, but the man was no psyker – he could not prevent the manipulation of matter. ‘We are not your enemy.’
Veil’s smile remained regretful.
‘No,’ he said. ‘You are not.’
Yesugei moved first. His reactions were far quicker than a mortal’s, and his staff blazed as power flooded through it. Twin bursts of matter-ripping energy thundered out from his clenched gauntlets, crashing into the two grenades in Veil’s open palms.
One of the charges, the one held loosely in Veil’s broken hand, was caught within an imploding sphere of fractured real space, cast out of the realm of physics and hurled into nothingness, all before Veil could so much as twitch in its direction. But striking truly at two targets within a fraction of a millisecond, even for one of Yesugei’s gifts, in that place, with the malign effluent of the warp leaking out of every molecule of the station, was nigh impossible – Veil’s other hand snatched back, evading the barrage for the split-mote of time needed for his thumb to slip from the microdetonator.
With a sickening snap of reality cracking apart, the charge went off.
Twenty-One
The Endurance crashed through the aether-barrier. Its engines dragged it up towards the centre of the raging battlesphere, trailing enormous gouts of smog. Its ranks of broadside guns were slammed out, deck after deck, hauled by toiling crews of menials working chain-lifters and rail-shunts. White Scars war vessels hove into range instantly, raking its shields in close-range attack-runs, and the defensive gunnery teams were soon knocking them out of the void with smother-patterns of flak.
Mortarion stood on the bridge, his Deathshroud arranged about him, his crew working frantically to compensate for the difficult passage and to adjust to the hail of incoming fire. The flagship’s entire structure shook as it thrust steeply upwards, absorbing the hits, powering its heavy weapons arrays for the first strike.
On the far side of the unfolding void battle, the Proudheart emerged from the cloud-banks, its hull alight with las-beams. It had broken through at higher speed, and was already rolling over to expose its cannon broadsides to the V Legion attackers racing into close quarters.
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