Calgar's Siege

by Paul Kearney

  ‘Of course, my lord. But my crew–’

  ‘Your crew will of course stay with you, and your ship may well prove to be a useful asset.’

  Something in Morcault bridled at the easy way Calgar laid claim to his friends and his ship all in one breath. ‘My lord, I am not so sure that–’

  ‘If you have a problem with that, you may tell it to the orks,’ Calgar said shortly. ‘Let me know when we are one minute from landing.’ He turned to leave the bridge.

  Morcault slumped. ‘I will.’

  Calgar paused, stooped in the doorway. He smiled slightly. ‘Impressive servitors, by the way. Such models must be hard to come by in this part of the Fringe.’

  Then he was gone, his heavy tread echoing in the companionway beyond.

  Jodi Arnhal spoke up, his voice a little unsteady. ‘Morcault,’ he said, ‘I have some advice for you. Try not to piss off the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines. For all our sakes.’

  Morcault wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘I shall bear that in mind,’ he said.

  Hester had not looked up from her console once. ‘Approaching the ork lines. Let’s hope their anti-aircraft batteries are asleep.’

  Morcault thumbed the vox and slid his fingers slowly across the frequencies. Squawks and screeches echoed through the bridge, the grunted gargle of the orks, here and there the desperate transmissions of men cut off from the city. A world of pain flashing out into the aether. At last he settled on the code for Zalathras’ military. Fennick had given it to him years before, the better to ease his comings and goings into Lascelle’s Landing. But the spaceport was outside the walls now, overrun no doubt. The Mayfly would have to alight somewhere else.

  ‘Zalathras air defence, this is the Mayfly, inbound to your location in figures two zero. Respond please,’ Morcault said hoarsely.

  They came back at once. ‘This is Zalathras air control. State your entry code or stand off. We will fire on you if you do not validate.’

  ‘This is Omega Mark Six Three Two, Mayfly civilian transport inbound your airspace in figures one nine, Ghent Morcault commanding. Please give us a landing site. Urgent. Acknowledge.’

  There was an interminable hiss of static. The three of them sat on the bridge watching the blank, rain-battered viewports to their front while the ship bumped and swayed under them and lightning strikes flashed up in the thunderheads all around. But there were other lights in those clouds now also, bright yellow and red flares flashing silent in the storm, like lightning streaking up from the ground below. One exploded five hundred yards ahead in a black flower, and as they arced through it they heard the tink and clatter of shrapnel bouncing off the ship’s hull.

  ‘Ork flak guns. Someone down there has their eyes open,’ Hester said tautly.

  At last Zalathras came back on the vox. ‘Omega Six Three Two, your code is confirmed. Set down on Dromios Square. Do not deviate from your current course or we will fire on you.’ A pause, and then a different voice.

  ‘Morcault, is that really you?’

  ‘Fennick?’ Morcault asked incredulously.

  ‘I can’t believe that tin can of yours is still in the air,’ they heard the governor’s voice say.

  ‘Only just. Listen, Fennick, we have a priority cargo on board. Request you meet us in person on landing.’

  ‘Impossible. You do realize there is a war on?’ The attempt at humour sounded flat and forced. Fennick’s voice was blurred with tiredness and tight with strain at the same time.

  ‘It will be worth your while, my lord governor, I guarantee it,’ Morcault told him.

  ‘Very well. But if I find you have wasted my time, Morcault, you will live to regret it…’ There was a sigh. ‘Sending course corrections now… It is good to hear a friendly voice on the vox, Ghent. We thought we were all alone.’

  ‘You are not alone, not by a long shot,’ Morcault said. ‘Landing in figures one six. I will see you soon, Lucius. Morcault out.’

  ‘Friendlier than usual,’ Hester said.

  ‘A friend in need,’ Morcault told her.

  ‘Strap in, old man. We have another delightful landing ahead of us.’

  They came in as low as they dared, cutting a fine balance between impenetrable raincloud and clusters of anti-aircraft fire. For Morcault, the two or three minutes they spent on the final approach to the city were among the longest of his long life. They were guided in by air traffic control on the Alphon Spire, and directed to land right in the middle of Dromios Square at the foot of the hive. As they flashed over the city, Morcault could see the broken buildings and ruins smoking in the rain, the craters of artillery bombardments, and here and there a fire left to burn itself out. Zalathras had been taking a pounding, but the walls were intact, and the massive Vanaheim Gate, once considered a mere vanity project, was now reassuring to see, towering over the formations of ork infantry that were teeming across the muddy plain to the north of the Dromion River.

  Their numbers were numbing. Morcault’s old eyes could not quite take in the full spectacle of the ork army, but they were at the very least in the many tens of thousands, the host straggling for miles back down to the river and swarming up to the very walls in places. He thought of the solitary specimen that Scurrios had dissected aboard this very ship, and the spores that it carried. There would be millions upon millions more now dropped upon the fertile soil of Zalidar. The world he loved would never be the same again.

  The Mayfly dodged through the desultory barrage of flak that lanced up from the ork encampments – the enemy did not seem to think that the little freighter was worth firing upon – and Hester brought her down gently upon the paved expanse of the great square that dominated the Alphon district of the city.

  As the retros died away and the ship settled on her gear, Morcault sank back in his seat with a sigh. It was done then. He had brought Marneus Calgar to Zalathras. The rest was up to others.

  As he had promised, the governor of Zalidar was out there with a large escort of militia, all standing in the rain with their weapons ready, surrounding the ship as if they thought it might at any moment disgorge a horde of orks.

  Morcault unbuckled. ‘Come on, you two,’ he said to Hester and Jodi. ‘I want to see Fennick’s face when he finds out who we have aboard.’

  The cargo bay doors were just grinding open when Morcault and the others joined the rest of his crew in the hold. The Adeptus Astartes stood watchful, bolters poised, and at their head Calgar himself was poised, a lethal giant. Looking at him, Morcault understood for the first time why the Space Marines, upon landing amid primitive societies, were often worshipped as gods.

  The rain swept in and there was a crack as the ramp came down on the rockcrete paving of the square. Calgar strode out of the ship with his brethren behind him, bolters levelled, and in the rear the Astra Militarum came bearing their two wounded on makeshift litters.

  Morcault and his crew stood at one side. Hester pulled a raincloak over the old man’s shoulders and he thanked her absently, all the while watching Lord Fennick’s face. It was white and livid in the lightning flashes that came and went, and the militia were dumbfounded. Several dropped their weapons and held up their hands as though surrendering. Gortyn gave a smothered laugh at the sight.

  ‘Governor Fennick, I presume?’ Calgar said, his voice somehow amplified – it must be the armour he wore. It carried easily over the hissing rain and the crump of artillery that rumbled under the storm.

  Fennick’s reply went unheard. Morcault saw the man master his shock, and then the wild flash of hope that lit up his eyes as he stared at the Chapter Master and the towering Ultramarines who stood with him.

  Macragge had come to Zalathras at last.

  II

  The Siege

  Twelve

  Fennick thought he understood now why Imperial architecture was so brutally massive. He stood before the map
table in the palace and that great chamber now seemed perfectly proportioned to those who stood within it.

  Marneus Calgar bent over the maps and studied them with an eye that missed nothing. Behind him, two more Ultramarines stood rigid as statues, power axes at their sides. Their ornate armour was scored and pitted and dulled with hard usage, but there was still an archaic sense of grandeur about them. These were members of the honour guard, veterans of a thousand battles.

  But more unsettling even than them was the Adeptus Astartes Chaplain who was off to one side, his helm a white skull, his armour black as night. He had not spoken since entering the room, but stood resting his fists on his staff of office. None of the ordinary humans in the room would so much as look at him.

  All of the Ultramarines radiated brute physical power, and it was difficult not to be cowed by their mere presence. And their lord was in a different class even from these.

  Taller and broader in his artificer armour than any of his brethren, Marneus Calgar was the only one of them who was unhelmed, his own helmet maglocked to one thigh, a bolt pistol on the other. The massive power fists he had worn on arrival had been removed, the Space Marine Chaplain standing guard over them now as they sat upon a table at the corner of the room.

  Calgar spoke quietly, did not raise his voice, and saw no need to assert his own authority over that of the Imperial governor. He simply assumed that he would be taking over control of the city, and Fennick did not for one moment feel like contradicting him. The sheer authority that emanated from the Lord of Macragge brooked no questions, allowed for no doubt.

  This, standing a mere few feet from Lucius Fennick, one-time sergeant of the Guard, was one of the great figures of his time, one of the few names that were known and renowned across the entire human galaxy.

  I finally got him here, Fennick thought. I never for a moment imagined it would be in circumstances like these, though.

  Now he knew that Zalidar and Zalathras would at last make their mark upon the chronicles of man, not because of what they were, or what had been achieved here, but because this giant figure had come visiting, and had stayed to fight.

  ‘And so the city is entirely invested on all sides, yes?’ Calgar was saying in that calm, resonant tone of his. Fennick collected himself.

  ‘Yes, my lord. The main force of the enemy appears to be opposite the Vanaheim Gate, but they have warbands all around the circuit of the walls. Their artillery is emplaced several miles to their rear, and they have also been working on what we believe is a landing pad for supply ships. Our own spaceport is outside the defences and was largely destroyed in the initial fighting. Our guns overlook the ruins.Nothing could fly in or out of there without being brought down.’

  ‘What about the garrison – what do we have to work with?’ Calgar asked.

  ‘Boros?’ Fennick said.

  Colonel Boros stepped forward. He was less stocky than he had been; his broad face had become gaunt and his tan had faded. He wore standard Imperial body armour over his old leather harness and was as down-at-heel-looking as a private soldier except for the grimy badges of rank upon his shoulders. He stared up at Calgar from sunken eyes.

  ‘We had a full division lined up to welcome you, my lord, as the initial assault took place. That worked in our favour. We were able to throw them straight into the fray and hold off the enemy long enough to secure the walls, but we lost heavily those first days.’

  A trace of impatience showed on Calgar’s face. Boros went on hurriedly.

  ‘At present, we have inside the city the elements of five divisions of militia, but all of them are hugely understrength, with only light to medium weaponry. We number some sixteen thousand trained troops in all, and last week we opened the armouries and conscripted thirty thousand male citizens to make up our numbers. But these are soldiers in name only. They have received almost no military instruction, and can be counted on only to stand upon the wall and fire a lasgun.’

  ‘Artillery?’ Calgar asked.

  ‘We have a battery of six Basilisks, only four of which are currently operational. We are trying to repair the other two as we speak. Also, a dozen Centaurs with heavy stubbers, and some sixty mortars, all of which have been emplaced at strategic points near the midpoint of the city, so they can bring fire down in any direction to protect the approach to the walls. We also have one Colossus heavy gun, but at the moment it is little more than a wreck. I have my artificers working on it.’

  Calgar frowned. ‘What about wall guns? What do we have in the towers?’

  ‘There is a defensive tower every two hundred yards along the wall, my lord, and in each there is emplaced a heavy bolter, an autocannon or a multi-melta.’

  ‘Vehicles? Do we have the means to make a sortie?’

  Boros cleared his throat. He could not keep the keen penetrating gaze of Calgar’s sword-pale eye.

  ‘Sentinels and Chimeras, a dozen of each, of which two-thirds are runners, the rest–’

  ‘Undergoing repair. I get the picture, colonel. You are not overly resourced on this planet, and no mistake. What about the fleet? Do any ships survive?’

  Boros was about to speak, but now Rear Admiral Glenck stepped forward and interrupted him.

  ‘The fleet, my lord, was largely destroyed in a valiant effort to aid your ship, the Fidelis, on the first day of the invasion.’

  ‘And yet its commander stands intact before me,’ Calgar said, and there was something in his tone which chilled them all. Glenck’s flabby face went as white as marble. ‘I was on the ground, my lord, coordinating. We managed to salvage a squadron of Furies. These now are stationed on the main avenues leading up to the Alphon Spire, hidden in the shells of large buildings.’

  ‘No transports, light lifters, scout ships?’

  ‘None worthy of the name. A single Sword-class frigate is still at large, somewhere in the system. It was detached from orbital duties by… by me before the assault began. We have not as yet been able to re-establish communications with it.’

  ‘Make that a priority,’ Calgar said. ‘At present, any and all means of communicating the situation here to Ultramar must be utilised.’

  ‘What of your own ship, lord?’ Fennick asked.

  ‘You know as much as I do, my lord governor. When last I was in contact with the Fidelis, the ship was about to make a warp translation for Ultramar.’

  ‘I believe they may have succeeded,’ Glenck spoke up. ‘Certainly, something disrupted the enemy fleet long enough for some of my Furies to get away.’

  ‘To make it into the warp is one thing. To get out again, after such an unscheduled and hurried entry, is quite another,’ Calgar said. And his granite visage hardened further.

  ‘We cannot count on the Fidelis getting through. It could be lost in the warp for months or years, if it survived the translation at all. No, gentlemen.’ He straightened from the map table and loomed over them all. ‘We must rely on our own ingenuity and will, if we are to prevail here on Zalidar.

  ‘My absence will not have gone unnoticed, but the fighting companies of my Chapter are engaged in their own separate campaigns as we speak, and it will take time for them to disengage and redeploy. We are talking weeks, if not months, before we can hope for relief on this world.’ There was a pause as this sank in. Calgar looked around them all – Fennick, Boros, Glenck and the cluster of young militia officers who stood stiffly to one side. Each commanded a division. Each looked barely old enough to need a shave.

  ‘In the meantime, we must endure, and if possible attack the orks with all means necessary. A passive defence does not suffice when fighting greenskins. They will engulf us. We must be ready to strike out every time we see an opening, and keep the enemy off balance.’ He paused, and once again let his cold stare range over the humans who stood before him.

  ‘You have done well, these last weeks, to hold on here as you have.
But this thing is only beginning.’ He looked at Fennick. ‘What is the population of Zalathras?’

  Fennick blinked, grasping the numbers from his head.

  ‘Some eight million, my lord.’

  ‘And how do we stand for weaponry in the city arsenals?’

  This time it was Boros who spoke.

  ‘We have light weapons only, lord. All the heavy stuff is already up on the walls. I daresay there are enough lasguns to arm another couple of divisions’ worth, but no more body armour or uniforms or vox equipment.’

  ‘Men with guns, colonel,’ Calgar told him. ‘That is what we want, as many of them as we can get. It does not matter what they wear – it is not even crucial that they have good communications. We have a large perimeter to defend, and every inch of it must be covered by fire. If the orks gain a lodgement within the walls, then it is all over. Take volunteers first – young, able-bodied. My presence here should galvanise a few who were missed by your initial wave of conscription. Start instructing them at once in weapon use. You must establish a training cadre of experienced men – Lieutenant Janus and his surviving Guardsmen will help you.’

  Boros bowed.

  ‘I want the Basilisk battery to be made fully operational as soon as possible, and I want it keyed to my personal vox. It will be part of our reaction force. Six Basilisks will be a great help in disrupting any advance the enemy makes. The other vehicles will report to Lieutenant Janus. He will form a regiment of men who will become firefighters, ready to reinforce any threatened portion of the perimeter at a moment’s notice. Are we agreed?’

  They all nodded.

  ‘What manufactoria do we have in the city that are germane to the war effort?’

  Fennick was ready for this one. He consulted a list. ‘The manufactorum district lies here in the shadow of Alphon Spire. We have three facilities for the production of light ammunition and power cells, and enough raw materials to keep them running at full capacity for eleven weeks.’