“There!” Caparan pointed excitedly. “The Ecclesiarchy cathedral. If it’s like every other one I’ve ever seen then it’ll have a wide, open square around it, maybe even an inner courtyard we can try and touch down in.” He glanced at his co-pilot, suddenly remembering something else.
“And didn’t someone say something about it still being under Ministorum control? Be good to have some friendly Imperium faces around us while we wait for a rescue shuttle from the Mach to come and pick us up.”
Devane woke from a dream-troubled sleep. He had seen himself naked and alone on an empty and barren plain, running from some vast and nameless threat which was close behind and pursuing him.
He dared not look behind him to see what it was, but he could see its massive shadow reaching out towards him, stretching past him to blot out everything around him. The shadow of the thing spread out over the entire world, and no matter how far or how fast he ran, he knew he would never escape it…
It was not the first time he had had the dream in these last few weeks, and he knew from private talks with the members of his adopted flock when they came to share their doubts and worries with him, that many others here had experienced similar nightmares, but tonight the dream had seemed far more vivid. Far more immediate and terrifying.
“Father confessor!” A hand gently but nervously shook him, trying to rouse his still sleep-dulled senses. Devane automatically reached for the power sword lying beside him, assuming that the heretics had returned in force yet again to mount another attack on the barricades, but the frateris elder who was bending down over him laid his hand on the scabbarded hilt of the weapon.
“No, father confessor, not another attack. But there is something outside you must see.”
The Imperial preacher followed the frateris across the great floor of the cathedral, taking care not to step on any of the blanket- or cloak-wrapped figures huddled everywhere around his feet. Many of them were sleeping, trying to snatch a precious few hours’ rest, as Devane had been doing, after the latest heretic assault had been successfully repulsed. Several of the sleepers cried out or moaned in their sleep, perhaps haunted by dreams similar to Devane’s, while from elsewhere around him came the differently pitched moans of the injured and dying. The cathedral infirmary was full to overflowing, and now the white-habited sisters of the Adepta Sororitas Order Hospitalier attended to them out here too, amongst the thousands of other pilgrim refugees sheltering inside the Emperor’s house.
From outside, Devane heard the sounds of distant but powerful explosions, the Imperial Guard veteran in him immediately identifying it as a naval barrage. He was not surprised that the orbiting warships were now firing upon the planet’s surface—to Devane, it was merely a sign that the planet-wide civil breakdown was entering its final agonising stages—merely by the fact that he must have been so exhausted that he, and hundreds of other exhausted frateris fighters, had actually managed to sleep through the noise and earth-shaking impacts of an orbital bombardment.
Frateris brethren crowded the barricades outside, although Devane couldn’t help but notice just how thinned their ranks were compared to even just a few days ago. The heretic attacks, although beaten off for the moment, had taken a heavy toll on his flock. The brethren manning the barricades were pointing in nervous excitement to the fiery glow on the horizon, and Devane could still see orbital barrage fire streaking down from space to strike at whatever hapless target there had incurred the wrath of the mighty Imperial Navy. It was the other glow—closer and brighter—though, that caught his attention. Unless he was much mistaken, it was coming from where the governor’s palace was situated, but…
Suddenly, something else caught Devane’s attention. A thin, whining noise, like the sound of a shuttle’s engines. Distant, but apparently coming closer. “Quiet!” he called. “Listen! Where is it coming from?”
“There!” one of the frateris pointed. “Over there!” Devane saw the running lights of the approaching shuttle, coming towards them, skimming low across the night sky, and almost instantly realised that something was very wrong. As it came closer, he saw why. What he thought were additional, irregularly flashing running lights were flames licking around its tail and starboard wing, and there was a pained, worryingly vulnerable tone to the craft’s struggling engine sound.
It dropped down fast, too fast, towards the cathedral square. Devane saw flame-scorched naval markings on the underside of its wings, and even though its pilot somehow managed to pull it out of the dive and prevent it crashing nose-first into the middle of the square, its tail still clipped and broke against the rooftop of one of the townhouse buildings that surrounded the open forum.
“Look out! Take cover!” shouted Devane, pulling gawping frateris down away from the barricades as the shuttle craft belly-flopped down towards them.
It hit the ground hard, landing on its underside, shattering the cobbled surface and ploughing a ragged furrow across the already scarred face of the square. Fire from the remains of the heretic force still hiding out in the buildings on the other side of the square rattled off its broken, armoured hull, but even the enemy seemed too stunned by its sudden, dramatic appearance to properly bring their guns to bear. Its nose smashed through the barricade on the northern side of the square, the impact snapping off one of its wings and spinning it round in a hull-crashing but highly effective braking motion.
For a second, no one moved, and then the first shots started ringing out from those few brave or foolhardy frateris brethren who had remained at their posts on the barricade, as they opened fire at the scattered line of heretics who were attempting to charge across the square in the wake of the crashed shuttle. More frateris rejoined their brethren on the barricade, and the heretics quickly and wisely retreated back to cover again.
Devane warily approached the crashed wreck of the shuttle, hearing the first groans of pain and sounds of movement from within its split-open fuselage. A human shape—so big that for a split second Devane almost thought it might be a that of a Space Marine—stumbled forward through one of these rents. Nervous frateris raised their weapons in alarm, but Devane recognised the uniform the figure was wearing as being that of a Imperial Navy petty officer, and signalled for them to lower their weapons.
Maxim Borusa nursed his crash injuries, spitting out a mouthful of bloody saliva and shattered teeth fragments as he studied his surroundings, finding himself confronted by an Imperial preacher and the assembled ranks of the frateris faithful.
“Volkk me,” he muttered, favouring Devane and his flock with a savage bloody-toothed grin of impious bemusement. “Either I’m dead, and, despite everything, still managed to end up in the same place as all the rest of you miserable, prayer-mumbling bastards, or I’m alive but still stuck on this rain-sodden dump of a world. All things considered, I’m not sure which idea I like least.”
THIRTEEN
Somewhere far out on the fringes of the Belatis system, something vast and terrible ripped its way out of warp space and back into the realm of the real universe. Following in its wake, dragged through the breach in the fabric of reality by the pull of the object’s massive warp drive field were numerous smaller vessels, some of them formidable weapons of war in their own right, but none of them as terrible and powerful as the object they clustered around. This far out-system, it would take many light-minutes for the energy of the object’s unique and massive warp-burst signature to register on the surveyor screens of the Imperial vessels gathered further in-system, but already the strong but localised disturbances in the currents of the warp caused by the object’s arrival would have been sensed by every psychically-sensitive being in the Belatis system.
On every Imperial vessel amongst the evacuation fleet, astropaths and navigators suddenly reeled in shock and nausea as an overwhelmingly powerful wave of warp-born energy surged through their minds. Even before they had begun to recover from the shock of the assault on their psychic senses, they were already putting through emergency com
m-net calls to their vessels’ captains.
In the deepest reaches of the lowest decks of the Macharius, the growing daemon-thing thrashed in spastic ecstasy, its disease-ridden, otherworldly flesh reacting in instinctive symphony with the waves of invisible warp energy that lashed through it. It blindly realised something of the nature of the object that now sat on the system’s edge, but it also sensed out there the presence of something far more important and personal to it. Something familiar. Something, like it, that was blessed with the gifts of the Grandfather. In paroxysms of joy at this knowledge, the daemon-thing entered the final stages of its transformation.
On the surface of Belatis, on the outskirts of Madina, Khoisan the Faceless turned his featureless visage up to the clouded night sky, sensing the arrival of the blessed object. Another involuntary shudder of imminent and glorious transformation ran through his Chaos-warped body. His moment of ascendance would come soon now, he knew, but he sensed also that there was still one more task required of him. He cast his eyeless gaze around him, studying the darkened horizon of the ruined city. Behind him, the hills to the north were ablaze, still the target of the thunderous orbital bombardment. Ahead of him was the smoking pyre of the governor’s palace. Something further to the south drew his attention, and he saw the dark spires and turrets of another edifice jutting up from amongst the jagged ruins around it.
Khoisan nodded to himself in understanding. The Ecclesiarch cathedral, somehow miraculously untouched by the destruction which had been visited on the rest of the city.
Around him, his cultist followers howled and gibbered in fear and excitement, sensing in their own crude way the arrival of the object on the edge of their planetary system. Khoisan silenced them all with a curt gesture, pointing at the spired peaks in the distance.
“Gather others of our kind from amongst the ruins,” he commanded. “There is still work to be done.”
Sobek let the Imperial tarot pack fall from his hands, seeing in his mind’s eye, even before it happened, the thin, brittle and impossibly precious material of the cards shatter on impact with the hard stone floor. He would have no more need of them now. With one last exception, the time of visions and prophecies was over. The worst was now known, and had finally come to pass.
The Planet Killer had arrived in the Belatis system, and the time to the planet’s imminent destruction could be measured not in weeks or days but now in mere hours.
Riding in the rearguard of the Chaos fleet, the Virulent swept into the Belatis system in the warp wake of the massive Planet Killer vessel. During the journey through the warp, many vessels had joined with or departed from the giant weapon’s escort fleet, either despatched to other tasks or summoned by the will or whim of the Despoiler. The Virulent had joined the fleet from choice, following its own psychic call through the warp which, by coincidence or otherwise, had led it to the same destination as the Planet Killer.
From the bridge of the plague ship, Bulus Sirl sensed the presence of the thing that had unknowingly called out to him through the warp, the thing that had drawn him here in pursuit of his prey. It was one of his own plague-children, birthed from the disease gift that he had bestowed on one of his followers, now hatched out and growing in secret in the belly of the hated enemy vessel Macharius.
The Imperial fleet would flee before the Planet Killer’s advance, Sirl was sure, but there would be no easy escape for the Macharius. Psychically linked to his daemonic plague-child aboard that ship, he would take steps to ensure it. For himself and for Grandfather Nurgle, Sirl would take revenge on the Macharius and its crew for both the destruction of the Grandfather’s warship Contagion and the humiliation of the defeat at Helia IV.
PART FIVE
EXECUTION HOUR
ONE
Like thieves in the night, the evacuation fleet slipped out of orbit and stole away into the stellar darkness, heading away from doomed Belatis.
Aboard the Macharius, the mood on the command deck was sombre and subdued. It had been several hours since the final wave of evacuation shuttles had docked with the cruiser Inviolable Retribution, carrying the last of the planet’s Adeptus Arbites garrison force. In their wake had come a battered, damaged Arbites Eagle shuttle craft, barely managing to limp its way up out of the gravity well. The heavily armoured shuttle, designed for combat operations, had just managed to survive the blast-wave of the explosion that had destroyed the governor-regent’s palace. Its passengers—the Arbites commander and his squad, and a handful of local dignitaries—had been the only ones to escape the destruction. It was now presumed that all the other evacuees, including Captain Semper and the governor-regent, had perished in the explosion.
Ulanti stood at the wide viewing bay to the rear of the command deck, mulling over the comm-net conference that had just ended between the captains of the convoy’s principal warships. The conference had been short and succinct, and had not ended well, at least from Ulanti’s point of view.
“Your request is denied, Macharius. You will take your place in the escort line and continue underway to the jump point with the rest of the convoy formation.”
All Imperial communications had been disrupted since the arrival of the Planet Killer in the Belatis system—just one of the Chaos weapon’s many strange and unsettling technological properties which the Imperium’s tech-priests had so far been unable to explain—but even over the fluctuating comm-channel, Ulanti had still been able to detect the arrogant disdain in the voice of the captain of the Graf Orlok. Titus von Blucher had always been jealous of Captain Semper’s growing reputation within Battlefleet Command. Bitterly, Ulanti had wondered how much von Blucher’s response was part of his maniacal adherence to orders and correct naval procedure, and how much was motivated by personal animosity.
Next had come Erwin Ramas, his rasping, mechanical-aided voice cutting sharply through the blanket of static. “Reluctantly, Drachenfels must agree with Graf Orlok. The safety of the convoy is all that matters now, more than the life of one man, even one such as Leoten Semper. We have advancing renegade ships all over our long-range surveyor screens, and maybe not so far behind them is the Planet Killer itself. Both my vessel and the Graf Orlok are damaged, and it’s still a damnably long way to the system’s edge, especially at the crawling speed those junker transports move at.”
Ramas’s voice had softened for a moment, belaying the popular image of him as the stone-hearted, flint-edged terror of Battlefleet Gothic. “Leoten was a friend of mine, Ulanti, and your loyalty to him is commendable, but it’s been hours now, and there’s no sign of his shuttle returning from the planet’s surface. The last thing he would have wanted would be for his ship to be endangered in some foolish and pointless solo action. Leoten was a fine commander, one of the best I have had the honour to serve with, but a good captain knows when to fight, and when to break off. Semper was a good captain, lad. Honour his memory, and follow his example.”
“Borodino concurs,” spoke the voice of Lupis Fiske. Now captain of the Lunar class cruiser, Fiske had been a comrade of Semper’s since their days together as cadets at the harsh naval training colleges on Cypra Mundi. “There’ll be other battles, Macharius, other times to avenge your former captain’s memory.”
And so Ulanti had given the necessary orders, taking the Macharius out of Belatis orbit to take its place amongst the fleeing evacuation convoy. All upon the command deck had heard the comm-net conference with the other captains, and all knew that he had tried his best, but it did not make Ulanti’s sense of failure any easier to bear. He wanted confirmation that his captain was truly dead before he abandoned his orbital vigil, and now he felt as if he had betrayed both Semper and the ship itself. He watched as Belatis receded into the distance behind the retreating evacuation convoy. It was a tomb now, he thought to himself, not just for Semper but for all still left alive upon it. They had less than a day to live, if the estimates of the astrogation lexmechanics were correct. For, moving through the outer system towards Belatis was t
he Planet Killer, closing slowly but inexorably on its target. Long-range surveyor scans showed that most of its escort fleet were still with it, moving slowly in-system at the same ponderous speed as the gargantuan vessel itself, but other vessels were speeding ahead of the main fleet, rushing to secure the target world in advance of the Planet Killer’s arrival.
Elsewhere out there, closer still, was that Murder class cruiser and its Infidel escorts, shadowing the trail of the retreating Imperial convoy. The Macharius was now bringing up the rear of the group, sending out attack craft patrols to shepherd lines of transport vessels into secure formation. The furthest rearward Starhawk patrols had twice come into contact with Infidels, each time driving them off with fusillades of armour-piercing missiles. The enemy scout vessels were probing the convoy’s defences, testing it for weaknesses as they awaited the arrival of the first reinforcements now speeding to join them.
At its present speed—agonisingly slow by the standards of a warship vessel, but as fast as many of the aged and barely spaceworthy transports could manage—the convoy should be safely out of reach by the time the Planet Killer arrived in-system, but Ulanti still knew that it would be a long and nerve-wracking run towards the new jump point at the system’s far fringes.
“A bad business all round, captain, but all that happens does so by the will of the Emperor.”
Ulanti turned in surprise at the sound of the unfamiliar voice from behind him. Standing before him was the powerful, daunting figure of an Imperial Arbitrator, the gold rank flashes on his shoulder pads and the silver Imperial eagle badge emblem on his carapace-armoured breastplate gleaming under the command deck’s low-key illumination. His helmet was removed, revealing a strong, proud face marked with the faded pattern lines of some kind of ritualistic scarring common amongst many of the less civilised peoples of the Imperium. His dark eyes shone with a keen, shrewd intelligence. The Arbitrators on Necromunda had, for the most part, been brutal, unimaginative killers, often little better than the hive-trash gangers they frequently hunted down and exterminated in the labyrinths of the Underhive. This one, Ulanti realised, was quite unlike such badge-wearing thugs.
[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour Page 24