Throneworld

by Guy Haley

  Why would this be easy? One cruiser lost, two outposts, half his Great Company. Kalkator’s week had been disastrous.

  ‘Caesax! Take half the company, secure the hangar rear. Derruo, take four squads outside. Shift the landing site ten kilometres out, somewhere clear where we can’t be ambushed. Meratara will ferry the supplies, let the others take them to orbit. Unloading and reloading will take extra time, but we cannot risk the gunships, and a few more crates of supplies is better than no more. As soon as you raise him, have Attonax send down more servitors and brothers to speed the extraction, both here and at site beta. Ostrakam, what indication of numbers?’

  ‘None, my lord. None of the other scouts report anything. It will not be alone.’

  ‘They never are,’ said Kalkator. ‘We have no indication of an infestation of the planet. It may be a scouting group. Send my order to Attonax. Intensify scans of the surrounding void. If there’s a ship out there, we must find it. In the meantime, redouble our efforts. I want every scrap of usable materiel stripped from this depot and aboard the Palimodes before they find us.’

  ‘Too late, my lord! I have Attonax.’

  ‘Patch his vox-feed through to me.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Attonax’s voice came through crisply, boosted by the nuncio-vox of Kalkator’s master operator over the angry grumble of the planet’s tortured magnetosphere. ‘Fifteen contacts emerging from the shadow of the third moon, my lord. They have seen us.’

  ‘No more?’

  ‘No, warsmith. It appears to be a scouting group, ork pirate scum looking for easy kills or planets to plunder. They are weak, and will not be on our position for two hours, give or take.’

  Gunfire sounded from deep in the complex. Reports of ork engagements on three fronts came in on a sudden wave of vox-noise.

  ‘We will not abandon the supplies! Attonax, keep the planet between you and the orks. Begin evacuation immediately. Everyone else to the rear of the hall.’

  Kalkator unclipped his pistol and unsheathed his sword. His servo-arm unfurled as he strode past the serfs sweating in their rebreathers as they dragged out supply pallets on pneumatic jacks. ‘I tire of running from these creatures.’

  Thirteen

  Iron and faith

  Like a shark following the scent of blood in the water, the Obsidian Sky came hard out of interplanetary night, streaking towards the fourth planet of the Dzelenic System, the battle there lighting up its auspexes and augurs.

  ‘Well?’ said Magneric.

  ‘We have them in our sights, Marshal,’ reported Ericus eagerly. ‘There are orks here, but a paltry number.’

  The oculus was closed for battle, and so Ericus ordered the hololith lit. The display burst into life, bathing the faces of all aboard the command deck in dancing light. Auspex data crowded a true pict of the planet. A strike cruiser stood embattled in the sky over the dead world. Explosions in miniature flared in the space of the bridge as ork attack craft detonated messily.

  ‘Behold, the Palimodes,’ said Ericus.

  ‘I recognise it of old,’ growled Magneric. ‘At last, Kalkator shall face justice!’

  ‘Your orders, my lord?’ asked Ericus.

  ‘We should stand back and watch the orks destroy them,’ advised Ralstan, ‘then slay the surviving orks. That would be the most tactically astute action. We might then locate the Iron Warriors on the surface, and deal with them at our leisure. If we attack now, we shall find ourselves with not one foe, but two.’

  ‘And afford Kalkator the luxury of escape?’ bellowed Magneric. ‘No! The craven traitors will surely flee as soon as they catch sight of us. We will attack both ground forces and the Palimodes simultaneously. Prepare all drop-craft. We assault the surface immediately. Sword Brother Rolans?’

  Sword Brother Rolans stepped forward, the black of his armour thick with the red crosses of the Black Templars veterans. ‘My lord Dreadnought-Marshal,’ responded Rolans.

  ‘Take one-third of the crusade. Choose your own men. Equip them for ship-to-ship combat. I bestow upon you the honour of assaulting and taking the Palimodes.’

  ‘It will be done gratefully, my lord,’ said Rolans.

  ‘Master Ericus, you will drive through the orks attacking the Palimodes, and bring the ship within boarding range. We shall take back their ship, purify it, and re-induct it into the rightful service of our Lord the Emperor.’

  ‘Praise be!’ shouted the Black Templars and their bondsmen.

  The shout of praise was silent on Ralstan’s lips. Mis­givings plagued him.

  ‘My lord,’ he said tentatively. ‘I beg of you not to attack two enemies at once. Let them expend their strength upon one another. See here, Magneric. The orks are deploying aircraft and personnel to the surface.’

  Ralstan had the hololithic display zoom in to a fat ork carrier craft. Its sides were riddled with hangars and launch tubes. From these a steady stream of smaller ships issued, turning downwards into the planetary gravity well. ‘If there are no orks on the ground yet, soon there will be thousands.’

  ‘The orks are of no concern!’ roared Magneric. He turned his massive suit of armour on his lieutenant. Magneric raised his vox-amplifiers to maximum. ‘All battle-brothers proceed to drop-craft. Heed my commands, gunnery control. Upon flyover of the Iron Warriors’ planetside positions, find and target the transports of the traitors. Destroy the ships. Strand the Iron Warriors, so that we might face them blade to blade. They will taste our anger – no swift demise in fire for them! I will see them beg for forgiveness. Kalkator will not escape me this time. Shipmaster Ericus, move to engage the Palimodes directly.’

  ‘As you command, my lord,’ said Ericus.

  ‘My lord Magneric…’ said Ralstan.

  ‘Castellan Ralstan!’ said Magneric, his metallic voice enthused by the prospect of battle. ‘The way prescribed by our founder is always forward! We shall not hang back like jackals while the lions fight! You have your orders. With me unto battle, bold soldiers of the Emperor! We shall destroy these paltry orks, and take the Palimodes, and return to our Chapter with it as a trophy of war! I go now to ready myself for drop in the basilicus.’ He leaned over Ralstan, and lowered his voice. ‘I will brook no more dissent, castellan, be warned.’

  Magneric thundered out of the command deck.

  ‘By the will of Magneric, make so his orders!’ commanded Ralstan. Forcing down his own disquiet, he began to make preparations for planetstrike.

  A squawking of surprised messages burst from the vox-station as the Obsidian Sky slid down towards the Palimodes.

  ‘Master Divulgatus, silence that noise.’

  ‘Aye, shipmaster, initiating wide-band vox-jamming now.’

  Ericus leaned forward, the weight of the cables plugged into his neck shifting on his shoulder. ‘We will pay no heed to the words of the traitors. Open fire on the orks and prepare to clear the way. Prow lance batteries to mark these targets and fire upon my command.’ He indicated his priorities on the hololith. ‘Primary gun batteries sweep the flanks. Spinal turrets fire at will. Scour the void. We shall shield Lord Magneric’s landing and then proceed to take the Palimodes.’

  ‘Drop-tubes loaded,’ reported the Master Egredorum.

  The ship’s void shields flickered as the first of the orks noticed their new foe, and turned their guns upon them. Energy beams hit out first, cutting like searchlights across the dark. Across the command deck, bells tolled gently, bringing soft notice of the clouds of deadly projectiles following on behind.

  Ericus settled himself into his command throne. He reached out and grasped his sword; a servant of the Black Templars always fought with a weapon in his grasp.

  The command deck, rarely full of needless chatter, took on a focused air. Orders and commentary were the only words spoken. Servitors sighed and muttered quietly. Cogitators clacked in thei
r housings. The crew of the ship was minimal, most of the work done by mind-wiped servitors or vat-born things that had never known a name, plugged directly into the ship’s systems. The fifty unaltered men who manned the command deck were sombre with the privilege bestowed on them.

  ‘Range to the Palimodes six thousand kilometres and closing,’ relayed the Master Augurum.

  ‘Open hangar bays and drop-tube shielding. Drop countdown commencing in three, two, one. Mark.’ The number 120 appeared on the hololith and began to rapidly count down, its colouring turning from green to red as it approached zero.

  ‘Turret pins released,’ said the Ordinatum Secundus. ‘Main ordnance ready for firing. Lance batteries one through four are charged and await your command, Master Ericus.’

  Fifty years had passed since Ericus had fallen at the second obstacle in his bid to become a member of the Black Templars. Despite his high suitability, his genetic code proved incompatible with the Chapter gene-seed. The memory of that day haunted him forever, and yet here he was, armed and glorious, a mighty warship at his command. The lives of his masters were under his care. There was no greater duty.

  ‘For the glory of the Emperor, launch,’ he said.

  ‘Praise be,’ intoned the crew as one.

  The distant rumble of rockets firing vibrated the deck plating. The ship shifted infinitesimally at the release of such large amounts of mass.

  ‘Correctional thrusters firing,’ reported the Master Egredorum. The ship pushed back against the jettisoning of its drop-vehicles. ‘Our lieges are away. Five minutes to touchdown. Praise be.’

  Light flared in the hololith as an ork assault craft exploded. The Palimodes, shields twinkling with orkish fire, had rotated about its centre, presenting its stern to the Obsidian Sky. This was a ship’s most vulnerable aspect, but they were close to the horizon – one good burn would put them out of sight, leaving the Black Templars entangled with the orks.

  ‘The Iron Warriors are running. Proceed towards the Palimodes,’ ordered Ericus. ‘We will accomplish Magneric’s orders. My lord Sword Brother Rolans, you may prepare your boarding party. Helm, run the traitors down.’

  Kalkator gripped the ork’s head in his servo-claw and squeezed. The thick skull cracked, deforming the ork’s already hideous alien features. Still it fought on, until Kalkator jammed his bolt pistol into its mouth and blew the back of its head off.

  The last few pallets were being removed hurriedly from the hangar, the rest having been dragged out under fire. Ork bodies lay about the hall, intermixed with luckless serfs and servitors caught in the crossfire. Otherwise, casualties were light. Kalkator had lured the orks into the hangar, where they were pinned between carefully planned fields of fire and gunned down without mercy.

  The orks were odd specimens. They had the look of infiltration specialists to them, executed in that clumsy, slightly comical way the orks had with everything they did. Their weapons were oversized, the camo patterns they wore jarring, but their faces were blackened, their weapons burned dark, and their equipment – nightsight goggles, grenades, charges and the like – seemed serviceable enough. As his scorn rose, he reminded himself they had successfully infiltrated the complex.

  Kalkator had his squads report in. No more contacts with the enemy were reported.

  The orks were dead. After several dispiriting days, Kalkator’s spirits were uplifted.

  ‘Bordan, raise the Palimodes!’ he ordered. ‘All squads prepare for immediate extraction.’ He strode out of the hangar back into the pale day of Dzelenic IV. The last of the supplies were being loaded into the Thunderhawks, the undersides of the ships glowing orange with repeated, rapid ascensions and re-entries.

  ‘I cannot raise the Palimodes, my lord,’ said Bordan.

  Kalkator tapped his gun impatiently against his leg. ‘Then try again.’ The space beyond the clouds was lit occasionally by the false-lightning of low-orbital battle. ‘Surely they have not been overwhelmed?’

  ‘No, my lord, there is a blanket denial broadcast preventing communication.’

  ‘From the orks?’ said Kalkator.

  ‘I cannot discern the location of the broadcast, my lord. It could be the orks.’

  ‘Or…’ said Kalkator. He fell silent a moment. ‘Magneric,’ he whispered. ‘We will ascend and deal with the problem at source. Board the transports!’

  Kalkator marched up the gangway of the Meratara, his serfs, weaklings before his armoured form, scurrying out of his way. His warriors fell back out of the emptied complex, covering their fellows squad by squad. For a moment Kalkator was transported by the efficiency of his Great Company, back to a time when they fought for a master other than themselves.

  He slapped his palm against the ship, quashing his nostalgia. Iron Warriors ran up the ramp as it closed. The engines whined loudly. Turning from the dead world, Kalkator went to the flight deck.

  ‘Lerontus.’

  ‘My lord,’ acknowledged the pilot.

  ‘Remove us from this place.’

  The ground dropped away, rapidly becoming a hazy caramel nothingness, a void that could contain anything. Kalkator stared at it, remembering the world it had been.

  A sudden jolt brought him back to the present.

  ‘Incoming fire!’ shouted Lerontus.

  ‘Origin point?’

  ‘Orbit, Lord Kalkator! Lance strike!’ Lerontus grunted and heaved hard on his flight stick. A beam of coruscating energy stabbed down, glassing the ground one hundred metres ahead of them. The Meratara bucked as it rode out the shock wave. The Adamantine was not so blessed. Its starboard wing trailed streamers of fire, loosened panels shaking in the airstream, and it began a rapid emergency descent. Lerontus dodged the damaged craft, sending the Meratara leapfrogging over it and accelerating ahead, leaving the Adamantine to disappear into the haze-cloaked dunes. Another blast seared through the sky, carving a pillar of clear air through the smog. Thunderous shock waves boomed out after each strike.

  ‘Standard suppression pattern,’ grunted Lerontus, piloting the Thunderhawk through the agitated air. ‘The orks are copying Imperial fire protocols.’

  Kalkator’s boots locked to the floor, and he bent forward to peer out of the top of the Thunderhawk’s canopy.

  ‘They are not orks. That was a precursor barrage to a drop assault,’ said Kalkator. He pointed upward to where the clouds swirled around the track of the orbital strikes, discharge-lightning crawling along their undersides. The beam strikes cut out, and the sky lit up with multiple flashes. ‘Magneric must be hot with fury at my continued liberty, if he tries to hit gunships in atmosphere with lance fire,’ he said. ‘If he tracked the others to the Ostrom System, he will have gone to Klostra, and from there, he will have come here.’

  ‘Sounds like Magneric,’ said Caesax. ‘He is tenacious.’

  ‘It is Magneric, almost certainly,’ said Kalkator. ‘He has dogged my footsteps since the end of Horus’ war. I hear he continues his crusade from beyond the grave. So you can imagine, Caesax, it will take more than an ork Waaagh! to dissuade him.’

  ‘I do not need to imagine it, my lord. They are coming.’

  Bright meteors burst through the clouds, streaking groundward to the east. They came down rapidly, their snowy vapour trails scoring the yellow-brown sky. ‘We must leave. I will see if Vorstrex and his command can be recovered.’ Kalkator switched his vox-channel, seeking out the downed Adamantine. He cursed at discovering the range of his battleplate’s vox insufficient, and switched his communications feed through the Thunderhawk’s own systems.

  A wider world of sound greeted him: the garbled chatter of the Black Templars’ communications, overlaid atop the hissing of the dead world’s voice. He scanned through multiple channels, seeking out his comrades.

  A blip, and a tumble of shouted squad communication burst into his earpieces.

  ‘Vorstrex,
this is Kalkator. Respond.’ There was no reply. Kalkator tried again, without success. It was clear the leading sergeant of the men aboard the Adamantine could not hear him. Kalkator heard him shouting urgent orders. The banging of bolter fire crackled over the vox, and with it he heard the roaring of orks.

  ‘It appears there are now orks also upon the planet in large numbers,’ said Kalkator leadenly. ‘They attack Vorstrex.’

  ‘There is more, warsmith,’ said Lerontus. ‘Enemy gunships have deployed and will move against us. They will be deep enough into the atmosphere to begin pursuit and intercept within five minutes.’

  The tactical display of the Thunderhawk was crowded with icons denoting the Black Templars forces. Out of the window, curling contrails pulled away from the gracefully curved descent lines of the drop pods.

  ‘Five of them, and we are just the two,’ said Kalkator.

  ‘Long odds,’ said Caesax.

  ‘I have endured worse. Alter course. Put some distance between us and the Black Templars. Head for that ruin.’ Kalkator pointed at a squat building jutting from the sands some ten kilometres away. ‘We shall make our stand there. Let them blunt their ire upon a sea of orks. When they are done, our guns shall be waiting.’

  ‘Prepare forward lance batteries!’ commanded Ericus. ‘Spinal turret array stand by for my command. Reopen the oculus.’

  ‘Compliance,’ mumbled a servitor. Motors grumbled as they pulled the massive blast shields back from the window.

  Ericus looked from the oculus to the hololithic tactical display. On the display the Obsidian Sky’s immediate environs appeared crowded with combatants, swarms of green signifiers clustering around both Imperial and traitor vessels. Through the armourglass of the grand window, space appeared anything but: a huge expanse of black, the light of the stars outshone by the albedo glare of Dzelenic IV. Near space sparkled with dancing motes, all that was visible to the human eye of their xenos enemies. Beyond this shifting cloud, the Palimodes was a punctuation mark of light.

  The command deck was a murmur of idiot servitor queries and reports, overlaid with the terse, efficient battle talk of the Chapter servants.