[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour

by Gordon Rennie - (ebook by Undead)

  “Your opinion, Mister Ulanti?”

  Ulanti did not turn at the sound of his captain’s voice, but continued to study the Arbites cruiser as it drifted past the Macharius’s port side.

  “A fine vessel, captain. Its main bombardment cannon armament makes it dangerous to ships and planetary targets alike, while its unorthodox main engine array suggests it that it will always have the advantage of speed and manoeuvrability. I almost pity those amongst the enemies of the Emperor who must face such a vessel in battle.”

  “But?” There was a tone to his captain’s voice which a stranger might mistake for angry sharpness. Ulanti, however, knew better. He turned, smiling, knowing what was expected of him next.

  “But I believe that the Macharius would still be the victor in any one-to-one confrontation with it.” Catching Semper’s expectant look, he continued: “Although a fine vessel, it’s still primarily a blockade runner and rock-pounder, designed for dealing with orbital defence platforms and putting the fear of the Emperor into planet-based ground forces, not going up against a cruiser-class warship. I doubt that we could manoeuvre it into a position for a close-range torpedo strike, but its comparative lack of anti-ordnance defences for a vessel of its size would leave it highly vulnerable to attack from our bomber squadrons. Also, our greater reactor output, ability to absorb high crew casualties and superior weapon accuracy at longer ranges would be the telling factors in any extended battle.”

  Semper nodded in approval, pleased with his second-in-command’s shrewd assessment of the theoretical outcome of a battle between the two vessels. As always, Leoten Semper liked to keep his officers on their toes, if sometimes he made even veteran officers feel as if they were Schola Progenium cadets standing before a particularly demanding and exacting Preacher Tutorius taskmaster.

  And, as always, Ulanti noted, the captain had ended his private rest period and reported for duty on the bridge long before he had been scheduled to, this time by some three hours. Frequently restless, the captain had been even more so since the conclusion of the battle of Helia IV and their subsequent reassignment to the evacuation of Belatis. Ulanti knew that something had clearly been troubling the master of the Macharius. He was glad, then, to see his captain apparently in a lighter mood now.

  Semper stepped up to his customary informal command position, midway on the bridge’s central nave, from where he could oversee the operations of the command deck crew. A junior watch officer handed him a data-slate, saluting smartly as he did so, but Semper merely cleared his throat and looked to his second-in-command. “Your report, flag-lieutenant?”

  “The situation is much as it was, captain. The final stage of the evacuation is proceeding, and transport vessels Albemarle, Barham, Brennus, Haruna, Mikasa, Orlando and Tsarevitch have all signalled that they have completed cargo uploading and are ready to be underway. We expect the other transports to be at a similar state of readiness before the end of the current day-cycle.”

  “In-system enemy activity?”

  “Drachenfels and our own attack craft patrols have reported two long-range contacts with enemy Raider class vessels’ answered Ulanti. “Both contacts were in the vicinity of the gas giant belt. Both retreated from any further challenge, although elements of our Firedrake squadron are currently chasing down a third possible enemy contact.”

  Semper grunted in a lack of surprise. They knew this game of old—the Macharius had spent an earlier part of the war protecting transport convoys from the wolf pack pirate fleets that preyed on the main Imperium shipping lanes. Like these enemy vessels, the pirate raider ships specialised in hit-and-run attacks, probing the convoy defences for signs of weakness but retreating at the first sign of challenge from the vastly larger and more heavily armed Imperium warships. At present, it was reckoned that two—possibly even three—Chaos scout vessels had infiltrated the Belatis system, advance heralds for the approaching Planet Killer fleet. Mindful of this, the Imperial Navy ships had spread their strength out accordingly.

  The Graf Orlok and a sister Lunar class cruiser, the Borodino, were parked in close orbit above Belatis, the transport fleet sheltering in the cover of their formidable combined firepower. The Drachenfels and a squadron of Sword class frigates restlessly prowled the system’s outer reaches searching for those elusive enemy scout ships while the Macharius circulated in a wide concentric orbit between the two Imperial detachments, launching bomber patrols in support of the Drachenfels’s vigil and then looping back in-system to offer fighter escort cover for the fleet of shuttles and cargo lifters travelling endlessly back and forth between the planet’s surface and the Imperial transports. So far the operation was proceeding as planned, although the strain of offering near-constant attack craft support was starting to tell on the crews of the Macharius’s Starhawk and Fury Interceptor squadrons.

  “Our current on-board status?” asked Semper.

  “Satisfactory,” replied his second-in-command. “Magos Castaboras reports that the temporary battle damage repairs have been completed and tested to his satisfaction, pending full repair next time we make space dock.” Ulanti paused, Semper instantly picking up on his lieutenant’s hesitation.

  “But there is a potential problem elsewhere, is there not, Mister Ulanti? Tell me what it is.”

  “Ship’s Surgeon Littorio reports an outbreak of disease amongst several crew detachments. So far the outbreak has been exclusively confined to three of the lower decks.”

  Semper frowned in displeasure. Outbreaks of disease and plague were far from uncommon aboard the vessels of the Imperial Navy, especially amongst the squalor and filth of a ship’s lower decks, but he prided himself on running a clean and adequately disease-free ship. “Does the ship’s surgeon know the cause of the outbreak? Was it brought aboard by any of the replacement crew we picked up from the Torment?”

  “That’s possible, sir. Most of the survivors from the Torment were assigned to replace our crew casualties suffered on those decks now affected by the outbreak,” answered Ulanti. “What action do you wish to be taken?”

  “Quarantine the decks in question and send in armsmen squads to find and destroy any identified carriers of the disease,” ordered Semper. “Tell Littorio I expect a full report on the causes and symptoms of this outbreak as soon as possible.”

  Ulanti nodded in acknowledgement, just as a communications officer called out, signalling for the two flag officers’ attention.

  “Captain, the Graf Orlok has just put out a shuttle carrying Adept Hyuga of the Departmento Munitorium. They’re requesting permission to dock with us, and Adept Hyuga instructs that he requires an immediate meeting with you. What orders?”

  Ulanti glanced at Semper, seeing no trace now of the captain’s earlier, lighter mood, and imagining the orders that Semper would probably dearly wish to issue, if he could. Something along the lines of “Arm defence turrets and open fire at will” would probably be close to the mark, mused Ulanti, knowing his captain’s strong dislike of rear echelon bureaucracy in general and Adept Primus Ferdinand Hyuga, the Departmento Munitorium official responsible for overseeing the evacuation, in particular.

  “Permission to dock granted,” sighed Semper. “Send out a fighter escort to bring our distinguished visitor safely to us. Mister Ulanti, form up an honour guard to meet him at the shuttle bay and see to it that he is greeted with all the pomp and ceremony he expects. Find Commissar Kyogen and tell him to join us for a meeting in my private quarters. We look forward to hearing what the honourable adept has to tell us.”

  The lead Starhawk in the bomber formation probed ahead with its surveyor senses, searching for traces of the target pattern of the retreating Chaos raider craft. When last reported, it had been moving at speed, turning away to escape the threat of the marauding lance batteries of the Drachenfels and running for the cover of a nearby gas giant. Since that last contact, the enemy ship had vanished off their target screens, probably cutting its power emissions down to a minimum and drifting into
the obscuring shelter of the planet’s massive surveyor sensor shadow or the cover offered amongst the debris of its orbital rings. The seven-strong Firedrake squadron—there had not yet been time to replace their losses suffered during the recent battle of Helia IV—were coming in on a widespread search-and-acquire formation, forward surveyors boosted to maximum intensity, but they were now dangerously close to their full operational limit away from the Macharius. They must either find their target soon, the squadron leader knew, or turn back now if they hoped to make it back to the Macharius on their remaining fuel and oxygen reserves.

  Inside six other bomber cockpits, the pilots of Firedrake squadron patiently maintained their current course and speed, one eye on their surveyor screens, the other on their fuel and oxygen supply indicators. And then, finally, the order came over the comm-net channel.

  “Firedrake Leader to squadron. Mission is null and void. Break off and return to carrier.”

  In sequence, each Starhawk fired in turn first its braking jets and then its manoeuvring thrusters, following the lead of the squadron commander’s craft and bringing them all on a tight, sweeping turn away from the deep space edge of the Belatis system and back towards their far-distant mother vessel.

  On board the Starhawks, navigator crewmen swiftly switched off or powered down their search surveyors, decreasing their crafts’ tell-tale energy signal outputs and increasing their chances of survival for the long and often danger-fraught journey back to the safety of the Macharius.

  Behind them, his vessel drifting inert amongst the rock and frozen ice flotsam of the orbital rings, the commander of the Chaos Infidel class raider watched in only partial relief as the enemy bomber squadron turned away from its search and headed back in-system towards their carrier vessel. He had been reasonably certain that his vessel’s gun batteries and defence turret gunners could have destroyed the bombers had they come any closer. However, it was likely that the bombers would have been able to send back a warning to their mother ship before they were destroyed, and the Chaos commander was under strict orders to avoid detection by the enemy for as long as possible.

  For there were not just Chaos scout vessels at large in the Belatis system. Hanging on the fringes of the upper atmosphere of the looming gas giant behind the escort ship, masked by the thick, drifting clouds of methane and hydrogen and the massive electromagnetic storms that pulsed through them was not just a full squadron of five more raiders, but also a capital vessel warship: the Murder class cruiser Charybdis.

  All of them had arrived in the Belatis system weeks ago. All of them emerging from the warp at a point far beyond the usual system’s edge warp jump beacons and drifting slowly into the system on low power to evading detection by Imperium patrols. All of them awaiting the arrival of the Planet Killer. All of them watching patiently as the followers of the false, weakling Emperor tried to defy the will of the Despoiler by rescuing what pitiful numbers of their own kind that they could from the doomed world.

  All upon Belatis would die. None would escape. The Despoiler had so commanded, and soon the lurking Chaos flotilla would see to it that the Warmaster’s wishes were fulfilled.

  SEVEN

  Heat. Darkness. Safety. Food.

  These things the entity craved; these things it found in abundance in this, its new home. Its previous home—the living vessel in which it had been transported into these metal bowels of its fine new home—lay discarded somewhere in the darkness behind it. Now barely recognisable as anything once living, the rotting, desiccated remains of its host body had provided it with much needed nourishment in the first few days after its birth.

  It remembered those days only indistinctly now. The host had found a good birthing place, a dark and seldom-visited blind alley amongst the maze of pipes and low-ceilinged metal maintenance passageways. Hiding itself behind a cluster of hissing steam pipes, the host had entered the final stages of its glorious gestation-transformation, deliberately chewing through its own tongue early in the process to stifle its cries of pain. Afterwards, when it had finally died, the heat and moisture from the steam pipes had quickly brought its body to bloated fruition, making it all the easier for the entity which had grown inside it to rip its way out through malleable and rot-ripened flesh.

  The entity had begun absorbing the remains of its host into itself, clothing itself in the suitably reformed flesh of its parent. It was then, as it delicately picked its way through the memory morsels contained within its host’s decaying brain matter, seeking out useful knowledge of its new home, that it discovered its own name.

  Plaguebearer.

  The entity liked the name. It gave it an identity. And it told it what the purpose of its existence was. Thus enlightened, it set about enacting that purpose.

  Although it had lived all of its short life to date alone in the darkness, it knew that it was surrounded by other fleshy vessels similar to the one that had birthed it. As well as its name, it had inherited from the mind of its dead host an overwhelming awareness of the need to hide itself, and so it went about its work cautiously and carefully, taking pains never to be discovered or reveal itself. It laid its spoor in the cramped spaces of air ducts, knowing that the currents would circulate the stuff to areas far distant from where it had been planted. It left traces of itself at passage junctions and other places where many of its prey often passed by. It knew the places where the prey kept their food and water supplies, and it knew that if it could get into these places, then it could spread its plague-seed at a far greater rate. However, it knew also that such places were guarded, and that to reveal itself to its prey at this early stage would mean disaster.

  Still, the time would come for such a move, but it would first have to multiply. And, to do that, it would need more nourishment.

  More food.

  Light and noise from along the passageway alerted it to the presence of danger. It moved fast, jumping upwards and oozing between two power conduit pipes that ran along the ceiling of the passage. It watched, trembling with a fear inherited from its weakling parent-host, as two of the prey creatures came along the passage towards it. They were armed with weapons; the bright lights in their hands were lux-lamps and the strange coverings on their faces were rebreather masks, the memory-morsels absorbed from its host’s brain told it. They scanned their light beams ahead of them along the passageway and into every nook and recess as they came to them. A thrill of fear ran through the entity. It had been cautious in everything it did, but it knew that some of the prey had already been successfully infected by its plague-seed. Had its existence been discovered? Were they now actively hunting it?

  They passed beneath it, one of them by chance swinging its light beam up to peer into the maze of overhead pipes. The entity hiding there reacted with an instinct inherited not from its host-parent but from something far greater and more terrible.

  It lashed down with one dripping claw-hand, catching the prey under the jaw and sinking bony talons deep into the flesh of its throat. One jerk of its arm, and the prey’s jaw and much of its face came away in the entity’s hand. The prey fell backwards, its death-throe spasms discharging the weapon still gripped in its hand. It was the first gunshot that the entity had ever heard, shocking its delicate and still nascent senses.

  Taking fright, it oozed quickly down out of its hiding place, dropping the body of its first kill. The other prey was making muffled screaming noises from within the mask it wore over its face, but still took the entity by surprise by bringing its own weapon up to bear and firing it at point-blank range into the entity’s body.

  The entity felt a scattering of hot metal rip through the flesh of its body, and then felt that same flesh reform and reknit over the bloodless wounds. There was none of the sensation that its host’s dead mind would have identified as pain. The entity surged forward, choking off the prey’s screams with a tentacle-transformed hand that wormed its way down the creature’s throat. With its other hand, it punched through the prey’s chest and pulle
d out its heart. The entity seemed with anger at the false instincts that it had inherited from its host: if it had known that the prey creatures were so easy to kill, it would never have been so afraid of them in the first place.

  Working quickly, it gathered up the remains of its prey and dragged them off into the darkness. Now it had the fresh nourishment it needed.

  To grow.

  To thrive.

  To multiply.

  Reth Zane, awoke suddenly from a troubled sleep. For a few seconds, he did not know where he was, mistaking the night-cycle-dimmed gloom of the quarters he shared with four Fury Interceptor pilots and navigators for his old novice cell back on Sacra Evangelista. He shook his head in an effort to dispel the momentary confusion cast over his mind by lack of sleep and too many extended flight missions in the last few days.

  He slipped out of his bunk, going to the small devotional shrine that he maintained beside his personal locker. From nearby, one of the others—Zane thought it sounded like Lutjens, Altomare’s irritatingly over-garrulous navigator—thrashed in his bunk and mumbled incoherently to himself before lying still again. They sense it too, Zane thought to himself. Even under the effects of the narco-seds taken by most off-duty attack craft pilots to counter the effects of the stimms pumped into their bodies during flight missions, the other sleepers in the room also sensed whatever it was that had awakened Zane from his sleep.

  He knelt before the shrine, studying the small icon images that he had placed there. The three holy faces of the Emperor: Mortal, Ascendant and Divine. The Blessed Helena of the Adepta Sororitas, martyred and defiled by heretic unbelievers but now revered as one of the greatest and most holy Defenders of the Imperial Faith. Zane prayed to her most of all, seeking answers to the growing disquiet within him.