Praetorian of Dorn

by John French

  ‘Do you ever wonder why they come?’ Boreas grunted. ‘Is it spite, or strategy, or insanity?’

  ‘It does not matter why, only that they do,’ said Sigismund.

  ‘This is no longer a war of hope. This is a war of vengeance and obliteration,’ murmured Boreas.

  Sigismund glanced at the other warrior.

  ‘Strange words, and not your own. Where did you hear them?’

  ‘From a lost friend,’ said Boreas, but added nothing more. Sigismund turned away. Something had changed in Boreas in the time since the war had begun.

  Have I changed as much? wondered Sigismund. What will we be by the time we must fight for the last time?

  ‘What is the battle order?’ asked Boreas.

  ‘Move us to within gun reach. Broadcast orders for them to cut their engines and make their weapons cold. Prepare targeting to hit their engines on my command, and only on my command. If they are hostile, Inwit and Sol battle-groups strike the middle and cross. Fire to cripple, and then we board them.’

  ‘How many ships do you wish to hold back on the line?’

  ‘Acre battle-group. The guns of the moons can handle anything that gets through. Take the engines – if they try to push through deeper in system then execute them.’ He paused. ‘If they are hostile–’

  ‘My lords!’ the shout came from the communication pit to the side of the platform. Sigismund looked in the direction of the voice and saw one of the astropathic relay officers rising from his seat. The man’s face was pale above his black-and-yellow uniform.

  ‘Speak,’ commanded Sigismund.

  ‘The choir has received word from the Third Sphere,’ said one of the other officers. ‘An attack is in progress...’

  Another officer began to speak, hands pressed against the vox connection bonded to her ears.

  ‘The forces of the Fourth Sphere are reporting.’

  ‘Lord Sigismund,’ a voice cut through the others. It was the voice of Anasis, the senior amongst the communications officers and the one directly linked to the Astropath Prime on the Hydra moon fortress – if she asked for his attention it took priority even over the dire news coming from within the Solar System. The other communications officers fell silent, as she looked up.

  ‘Fire on the mountains,’ she said.

  Sigismund blinked once, not needing to question what she had said, or doubt its meaning. Within his mind he saw an old memory of events that had not yet happened: the walls of the Imperial Palace falling in fire, a sky of iron, the dead covering the ground. It had come, at last, as it was always going to.

  He looked up at the pict-feed of the ragged swarm of ships closing from the void. And as he looked, the first of them fired. Alarms cut through the air, shouts rose from the auspex pits.

  ‘All ships engage,’ called Sigismund. ‘Maximum force.’

  Boreas was shouting orders a second later. The Lachrymae shook as it came to full life. Sigismund pulled his helm from his waist and clamped it over his head. The war was here. The enemy was come at last, and he would be the first to face them.

  Docking gantry Gamma-19, Hydra moon fortress

  Plutonian orbit

  The docking collar clanged as it locked into place. Myzmadra glanced at Ashul, but he had lowered the visor of his void armour. Around them the auxiliaries stood, faceless behind masks of brushed plasteel. Between them the caskets of the two dead astropaths sat on a tracked trolley. Her volkite charger felt heavy in her hands, its weight familiar in a way that brought old memories to mind. Her pistols were hidden in a pouch at the small of her back. She shifted her weight. Air began to hiss around the door hatch. Strategos Morhan nodded to her, his exposed face as blank as the masks his subordinates wore.

  ‘Alpha to omega,’ he said, and the words startled her. She blinked.

  ‘Omega to alpha,’ she replied.

  Lights in the docking bridge pulsed. Ashul was a still presence at her shoulder, his finger tapping the casing of his gun.

  Tap-tap... Tap-tap...

  She drew and held a breath. Calm, focused, the next steps clear in her mind.

  She could hear the track units humming beneath the casket.

  A line of blue light arced around the hatch in front of them as it opened. Warm air billowed in and became mist. She felt her muscles begin to tense in sequence. Figures stood in the grey air beyond the hatch. Armour plates bulked the figures’ shoulders. Weapons hung from their hands, pipes and weapon feeds stretching to their backs. Light glinted off gloss crimson-and-white carapace.

  Inferallti Hussars, she thought, as her eyes filtered through them. One of the Old Hundred. Elites. Twenty. Heavy weapons. Loaded and readied. Fingers on triggers. Could have been worse. It could have been the Imperial Fists.

  Tap-tap... Tap-tap...

  She forced stillness into her muscles.

  ‘Your orders?’ A voice came from the ranks of the hussars, the words a growl of speaker static.

  ‘We are the escort for the astropaths from the Throneworld. They died en route. We are here to give the bodies to the astropath enclave.’

  ‘What would they want with corpses?’ asked the hussar.

  Morhan gave a shrug that somehow managed to convey that he thought answering was as beneath him as the questioner.

  ‘That’s their matter.’ A pause. Morhan gave another shrug, arrogance and disdain rippling through him. ‘If you wish to eject the body of an esteemed member of the Telepathica into the void, I am sure it will end well for you in the long run.’

  A pause hung in the pulsing of the lights.

  ‘Clearance?’ asked the hussar.

  ‘You have it already, or we wouldn’t be here. Now either move aside and offer us escort, or start shooting. There are what? Twenty of you red-and-whites... You might even stand a chance.’

  Tap-tap... Tap-tap...

  Myzmadra clenched her teeth; the sound of Ashul’s finger on his gun was like a drum in her ear.

  ‘You may pass within,’ said the voice. The hussars parted, stepping in sync to form a corridor between their guns.

  Morhan executed a perfect salute. Myzmadra and the rest of the squad came to attention. For an instant she felt like she had stepped sidewise into the life she had left behind. Then they were marching forwards, the astropaths’ caskets rolling between them.

  They had gone two hundred paces when sirens began to wail. Amber lights blinked, and the deck began to ring with the sound of running feet.

  Another squad of Inferallti Hussars ran towards them. Myzmadra tensed. Ashul’s finger stilled on the trigger of his gun. Then the hussars were running past them. Morhan turned and called out to the squad’s sergeant.

  ‘What is the alert?’

  ‘Fire on the mountains, sir,’ called the sergeant, without stopping. ‘The invasion has come.’

  Then the hussars were gone, but the sirens and lights beat on.

  ‘Double time,’ called Morhan and the auxiliaries began to pound down the corridor, the caskets rocking on their track units.

  Imperial Fists frigate Unbreakable Truth

  Trans-Neptunian region

  ‘Come on, come on,’ muttered Andromeda.

  Archamus ignored her. His eyes were on the pict screens, watching the feed of information from the frigate’s auspex systems. They had been following the projected path of the scavenger ship for ten hours. So far they had seen no sign of it.

  ‘Doesn’t this thing go any faster?’ she hissed, stamping a foot on the deck.

  ‘We are degrading the plasma reactors with our speed,’ growled Kestros.

  ‘No, then,’ she said.

  ‘Quiet,’ said Archamus. His eyes focused on the screens, where amber runes had begun to spin where before there had been only blue. ‘There it is. Chayo, what is that?’

  ‘Lord Archamus,’ ans
wered Magos Chayo from the column that loomed above the command deck. ‘We are detecting the engine output of a ship. It is consistent with the craft we are pursuing. It is losing speed.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Archamus.

  ‘Its engine output is fluctuating. Sixty per cent probability of engine or reactor damage. Of this we are in concordant certainty.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Our weapons and engines are prepared. What outcome should we facilitate into being?’

  Archamus felt his face twitch.

  Unlike some warships, the Unbreakable Truth was a gift of the Machine Cult to the VII Legion, and crewed almost entirely by tech-priests, servitors and Mechanicum helots. On other ships, officers of different stations would have answered Archamus’ commands, but on the Unbreakable Truth Chayo alone was the voice of the ship and its crew. It was efficient, but also meant that the Magos referred to both himself and every other part of the ship in the personal plural. It had taken a while for Archamus to not find it disconcerting.

  ‘Maintain intercept course,’ he said. ‘Run her down.’ He glanced at Kestros. ‘Boarding assault. Everything within dies. I want visual confirmation that the Alpha Legion are on board. Andromeda, get the prisoner. He comes with us and gives us confirmation of the presence of... of our target.’

  ‘You trust the psyker?’ asked Andromeda.

  ‘I trust him not at all, but I will take whatever advantage we can.’

  ‘And if... he is aboard?’

  ‘We withdraw by snap teleportation and then blast the ship to atoms.’

  ‘By your will.’ Kestros saluted.

  ‘Lord Archamus!’ came Chayo’s voice. ‘Their primary engines have failed. They are firing secondary thrusters to try and turn. We are closing.’

  ‘Why would they turn?’ asked Andromeda.

  ‘Evasion,’ said Archamus, pointing at the tactical readouts. ‘There is a dust drift they could reach, and try to hide in.’ He shot a look at Andromeda and Kestros. ‘Get to the launch decks.’

  They moved to comply, as a notion cut into his thoughts.

  ‘Wait!’ he said, looking back to the data on the screens. Kestros and Andromeda froze. ‘How long ago did their engines begin to fail?’ he called to the tech-priest.

  ‘Just before we made the detection. The engine fluctuations are the reason we saw them.’

  ‘All weapons lock to target,’ said Archamus.

  ‘Master?’ asked Kestros, but Archamus nodded to the tech-priest.

  ‘Fire.’

  ‘Compliance,’ said the tech-priest, and a heartbeat later the ship shook, and shook again.

  Macro cannons, plasma annihilators and turbo lasers hurled their fury across the dark between the Unbreakable Truth and its quarry. The beams of las-light struck first and carved into the scavenger’s hull. The macro shells and plasma streams hit an instant later and split it open in a burst of light.

  ‘What...?’ began Andromeda, but Archamus was already calling to Chayo.

  ‘What craft are logged as passing through this volume in the last nine hours?’

  ‘Compiling and accessing,’ replied Chayo.

  Archamus turned to look at Kestros and Andromeda.

  ‘We should not have been able to catch them. That scavenger craft was faster than this ship.’

  ‘Its engines...’ began Kestros.

  ‘Failed and revealed its location. It should have been far beyond this point already, but instead it is here. Why would it have lost time on us?’

  Andromeda cursed.

  ‘If they had stopped or slowed to meet with another craft,’ said Kestros.

  ‘The monitor craft Implacable bearing two astropaths to the outer system defences, with a contingent of the Fifty-Sixth Veletaris Tercio, of the Second Solar Auxilia Cohort, passed through the zone of potential convergence with the recently destroyed vessel. Projected time of potential meeting between the vessels between two and five hours prior to present. Accuracy of projection is sixty-nine per cent.’

  ‘If we had boarded then they could have detonated reactors and removed us in an instant,’ breathed Kestros.

  Archamus nodded.

  ‘And who would think to track the position of an authorised monitor craft.’

  ‘Where was this ship?’ asked Andromeda.

  ‘You are referring to the system monitor designated Implacable?’ said Chayo.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ snapped Andromeda. ‘Where was it taking these astropaths?’

  ‘To the communication fortress in the First Sphere,’ said Chayo. ‘To the Plutonian moon designated Hydra.’

  Archamus felt a shiver pass through his bionics. Andromeda’s face was fixed in a grin, as though at a joke she had just understood. Kestros met his gaze and completed Archamus’ thought.

  ‘They were never fleeing Terra,’ he said. ‘They were moving towards their strike point.’

  ‘Get us to Hydra,’ said Archamus. ‘Burn the reactors to slag if you have to, but get us there.’

  Astropath Sanctuary, Hydra moon fortress

  Plutonian orbit

  They reached the outer doors of the sanctuary as the sirens rose in pitch. The alert lights began to blink red.

  Active battle footing, thought Myzmadra, as they halted before the door. Four Inferallti Hussars stood either side of the entrance. Her eyes flicked over their weapons: two with drum-fitted shot-cannons, two with rotor cannons, ammo feeds looping to their knees from hoppers on their backs. Augmetic bracing struts ran over their shoulders and torsos, as though they were being hugged by metal spiders.

  Morhan stepped forwards.

  ‘Sanctuary is on lockdown,’ said one of the hussars, a male from the voice.

  ‘No,’ snapped Morhan. ‘These are two of their dead, and you are either going to call one of them out here to take charge of these remains, or I am going to dump them out of an airlock and explain that it was what you suggested we do because you were more worried about a lockdown drill than respecting the custom of the Telepathica.’

  ‘It’s not a drill,’ the hussar said, and raised the barrel of his shot-cannon. The other three all did the same. ‘Back away.’ The hussar released the firing catch on the cannon with a deliberate flick of his thumb.

  Myzmadra swallowed hard, and the sub-vocal mic pressed against her throat activated. Static popped in her vox-bead.

  ‘Stand by,’ she said. She had a throwing blade pressed between her palm and the fore-grip of her gun: a quiet and swift way to kill, and the last thing that the hussars would expect.

  ‘Back away,’ repeated the hussar. Morhan nodded and stepped back, shaking his head slightly as though at manifest stupidity. Myzmadra drew breath to speak the kill command.

  A metallic clank pealed out through the air. The doors to the sanctuary were opening. Piston bolts disengaged one after another, the layers of plasteel pulling back into the walls. The hussars twitched in surprise, but kept their weapons levelled. Myzmadra held the breath she had drawn. The last leaf of armour parted, and a figure stepped out, flanked by two masked soldiers in coal-coloured armour.

  Black Sentinels, she thought, the life-wards of the astropaths within the Solar System. Between them hobbled an astropath wrapped in green velvet and ermine. He carried a silver cane in each hand, and his face was so thin and pale that it seemed like a skull with the skin still clinging to the bone. The astropath stopped and looked up at the corner of the corridor, and Myzmadra saw that the sockets of his eyes had been filled with clusters of rubies. Red light glittered from the jewels as he turned his head from side to side, as though trying to hear something. His tongue flicked to the edge of his lips and then back.

  ‘They said that you have come bearing the body of two of our number,’ said the astropath.

  ‘Honoured one,’ said the hussar. ‘A full lockdown and confinement is in
place–’

  ‘Shut up,’ the psyker snapped, and banged one of his canes on the floor. The hussar hesitated and then fell silent. The astropath turned his blind gaze back to the twin caskets borne between the two lines of auxiliaries. ‘Is this them?’ he asked, but stepped forwards without waiting for an answer.

  He took both canes in one hand and placed the other on the polished metal of a casket.

  ‘You stupid idiots...’ he whispered, close enough for Myzmadra to hear. For an instant she thought he was talking to her, or the hussars, but she saw his fingers tremble on the casket top and realised that he was talking to the corpse within. ‘Why did you not stay in the City of Sight? This is a time of war, and... and...’

  He looked up, and she felt his blind gaze fall on her for a second. It was like a breath of freezing air. She felt a shiver of sympathetic anguish run through her. So the dead astropaths had been people that this other one cared for. She wondered for a second if that had been deliberate, another little detail put in place by the Legion to use if needed.

  ‘How did...’ began the astropath, straightening. ‘How did they die?’

  ‘In their sleep,’ replied Morhan. ‘It was sudden. We don’t know more I am afraid.’

  The old astropath looked at him.

  ‘In their sleep?’ he asked, and Myzmadra felt another shiver of cold on her skin. Beside her Ashul had begun tapping his finger on the case of his gun again.

  Tap-tap... Tap-tap...

  ‘Yes,’ said Morhan.

  ‘You are lying,’ said the astropath simply.