Cadia Stands

by Justin D Hill

  The two-headed axe held them at bay, but the damage had been done.

  As the Space Wolf charged a meltagun flared. The shot punched a hole through the warrior’s armour, and came out the other side with a hissing steam of super-heated blood and viscera.

  The bearded Space Wolf staggered for a moment as if his axe weighed him down, but he would not fall. Not until he was dead.

  Zufur strode forward.

  His warband had done their job. The melta shot would have killed most warriors, but the Space Wolves fought harder than any others he had known. The suit of warplate was scratched and dented, there were oily fluids leaking from its joints, and the warrior’s left leg was slowing as the power armour began to fail.

  The Space Wolf removed his helmet. Zufur was not so foolish as to return the honour.

  ‘You can’t take every pylon from the planet!’ the ancient warrior shouted. ‘I am Ottar the White, and I will rip out your throat! I will tear your guts out and tie you to the pylon with them!’

  Zufur let the Space Wolf swing at him. Each time he stepped aside, leading the Space Wolf on. Then, quite suddenly, he stepped within the arc of the giant axe and plunged his sword through the grey chest-plate. The move was sudden, unexpected and deadly. The blade he carried tore through the Space Wolf’s ceramite armour as if cutting through cloth. It rattled in his hand, like the mouth-tubes of his pilot, as it feasted on his enemy’s insides.

  The look on Ottar the White’s face was one of pain and hatred as Zufur’s sword sucked his soul from him. At last Zufur pulled the blade free and Ottar the White fell dead.

  Five

  Observation Post 9983

  The kasrkin burst into the room. There was black snow on their carapace armour. They moved with tough, precise, well-drilled movements, fingers poised on triggers.

  The men of the 101st kept well back. The kasrkin colour sergeant wore a Cadian-issue power fist; it crackled with wandering threads of blue light as he ran a stern eye about the room. He wore a vox-bead on his chest. ‘Safe,’ he announced.

  Five more kasrkin swept in, power swords drawn. There were staff officers and adjutants. And then he entered.

  Creed appeared not to have shaved for weeks. He seemed both smaller and harder. It was as if the weight of command had compressed him. His handshake was firm, his gaze intense. ‘Major Bendikt, much has happened since we stood on the observation platform of the Fidelitas Vector.’

  ‘Lord Castellan!’ Bendikt said. He was lost for words. ‘There’s been a monumental cock-up. We’ve been stuck up here…’

  Creed listened with a careworn and weary air, then put up his hand. ‘Don’t worry. There is a plan. Mine, in fact.’

  Bendikt stammered. ‘But the war. We have sat here and we’ve done nothing!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Creed said. He patted the back of Bendikt’s hand. ‘Don’t worry, we are about to change that.’

  Creed filled any room he was in. All eyes were on him as he paced up and down. He was more than their commander. He was everything to Cadia: leadership, inspiration, hope. For Bendikt, he was also the prophet.

  ‘You knew that something was afoot,’ the commander of the 101st said.

  Creed paused. His eyes were bloodshot. The skin beneath was heavy and baggy, but within them a fierce light shone. ‘Yes. But even then I did not foresee the manner or the method of attack. Tyrok Fields… Well, we were all surprised. For a while. But plans had been made, against the unforeseen. Even so, the battle has been…’ Creed paused as he looked for the word he wanted. ‘Hard,’ he said at last.

  ‘We heard,’ Bendikt said. ‘But all this time we were here, helpless. We could not do anything but listen. We’ve been listening to the vox traffic dying off… We feared that all were lost.’

  Creed nodded slowly. He put his cigar stub to his mouth. It appeared to have gone out, but he puffed on it anyway. ‘It is not lost. In fact, things have not looked so good for a long time.’ Bendikt looked surprised, and Creed smiled briefly. ‘We have weathered the storm. The enemy has nothing left to throw at us. It is time for us to counter-attack. The swing is in motion – Cadia is readying her counter-punch. The 101st are part of that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re at full strength?’

  Bendikt nodded. They had taken on a company of Whiteshields three months before embarkation back to Cadia. ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Good,’ Creed said. He was clearly preoccupied with something.

  Bendikt spoke quickly. ‘Excuse me, sir. But I don’t understand. We have been waiting here, without word or command. How can we help you? We have no tanks.’

  There was an amused light in Creed’s eyes. ‘You don’t know what this place is, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Bendikt said. He took a guess. ‘It’s not an observation post?’

  Creed shook his head. ‘No. It is not an observation post. This is Salvation 9983.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Creed puffed on his cigar. ‘Let me show you, Major Bendikt, and then I think you will understand.’

  They found the old man praying at the shrine. Rivald stood and took in the squad of kasrkin about Creed. He made the sign of the aquila and bowed. It was a simple and elegant gesture. ‘We thank you, Lord Castellan, for all you have done for our planet,’ the old man said.

  Creed nodded but kept moving briskly forward to where the great doors stood in darkness.

  The name ‘Salvation 9983’ was dimly visible from the distant lights at the stairwell.

  ‘Kell,’ Creed said. The colour sergeant looked up. ‘Hand me the master key.’

  Creed took a long brass wafer from his colour sergeant and walked towards the locking panel. His fingers found the opening and he slid the wafer into place. The effect was instantaneous.

  All about them, sleeping machine-spirits woke from their amniotic and engine-oil dreams. The mountain began to hum as long-dormant maintenance engines came back to life. There was the distant sound of clangs and wheezing machinery; the sound of lift shafts rattling behind the quarried stone; the muffled automated speech of servitor-lifts; slow winding cog-wheels; the slow and steady hum of immense generators starting up.

  At the far end of the vaulted hall, strip lumes blinked back to life. Creed’s office staff looked up and about in wonder as the chamber’s cathedral-painted ceiling, which had lain in darkness for an age, was revealed.

  The view was sublime. Murals showed the years of Cadia’s founding before the kasr were built, with open cities of wide boulevards. A place of peace and safety. A picture of a different age and a distant mind-set.

  They stood in wide-mouthed wonder. ‘What is this place?’ Bendikt asked, and as if in answer the door mechanisms before them unlocked with a dull clunk. An alarm rang, the ground beneath their feet started to tremble, then the vast ceramite doors began to move. The word ‘Salvation’ split slowly and inevitably apart as each panel slid into mountain recesses. Light shone through the toothed intersection, throwing a slab of widening light onto Creed, Bendikt and the others.

  There was a gasp of air on their faces, like that of a long-sleeping man coming suddenly awake. Warm yellow light spilled through the widening gap. The sight within took Bendikt’s breath away.

  Creed grinned. ‘I give you tanks!’

  Bendikt walked through the opening and saw row upon row of Leman Russ battle tanks. They were painted in Cadian drab, unused, apparently fresh off some ancient production line.

  He looked about. Most were main-line variants, but there were many rarer Executioners and Vanquishers.

  Colour Sergeant Daal walked around the side and knocked the promethium drums at the back with his knuckle. ‘The fuel tanks are full,’ he called. One by one they went along the line. ‘They’re all full,’ Daal said in wonder.

  Bendikt did not quite believe it. He pulled himself
up onto one machine and found the cabin hatch open. He peered inside, half expecting to see a crew, but the Leman Russ was empty, though the systems were alive. He gave Daal a look, then slipped inside and tried the controls. Fuel tank full, batteries charged. He leaned back from the driver’s seat to the cabins at the back of the cramped space inside.

  The magazine door slid back, and there each shell lay in its tube. Frag on one side, krak on the other. All through the room tank crews were selecting vehicles and climbing in. The noise of their laughter echoed with the roar of promethium engines being started.

  He pulled himself up, slid down the side, landed on the floor and spun around in astonishment. There was everything an armoured company could want, or dream of: support Salamanders, Trojans, Atlas recovery tanks, Samaritan-pattern Chimeras, fuel transports. Ancient suits of carapace armour hung in rows against the wall. Vast stacks of neatly ordered lasrifles. Battery packs, winter camo suits, boots, belts, webbing, dry rations, backpacks stuffed full of musty-smelling medicae supplies: sutures, bandages, phials of pale blue liquid, syringes.

  Creed slapped him on the back. ‘Happy?’

  ‘Speechless,’ Bendikt told him. ‘But how do we get them out of here?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Creed said. ‘It’s all taken care of.’

  ‘We’re not flying them out?’

  ‘No. You’re not flying out.’

  Colour Sergeant Kell stood by the door. He was getting impatient. At that moment he put his hand to the vox receiver in his ear. ‘General Creed. They’re calling for you.’

  Creed checked his chronometer and pulled a face. ‘Sorry. I’m needed,’ he said to Bendikt, and started walking towards the stairs that led to the landing pad. He talked all the way about the battle, the war-fronts, commanders whom they both knew.

  Bendikt took it all in. In less than a minute the lift had brought them back to the parapet level. The door to the outside was open. Flecks of black snow were blowing inside. Valkyrie engines were warming up. Bendikt followed Creed and Kell up the steps to the doorway.

  Bendikt could no longer hold himself back from asking: ‘But what is this place?’

  Creed paused. ‘In the early days of the Imperium of Man, great minds foresaw a moment such as this when we would be alone and fighting the full might of the enemy. They ensured Cadia should always have a second force that could be hidden away, fully supplied, until their strength was needed. This is one such facility. Cadia is seeded with them.

  ‘You and the 101st are part of a reserve army. We have taken all that the enemy can throw at us, and now I am about to unleash you on our foes.’

  With those words, Creed ducked outside, and Bendikt followed him out onto the parapet.

  There was nothing distinctive about Creed’s Valkyrie. It was painted with plain Cadian drab, a standard pattern armed with multi-laser and two yellow-tipped Hellstrike missiles slung under each wing. The black hose lay on the landing pad, with a small puddle of promethium dribbling out onto the floor.

  It had just been refuelled. The masked faces of the two crewmen were uplit by the green dashboard as they looked down to the consoles before them. They were running through the last instrument checks. Colour Sergeant Kell led them along the narrow parapet to the landing pad. The gusts of wind were gale force. Bendikt put his hand to his head to keep the wind from blowing his helmet off. The Valkyrie’s side doors were open. The sponson heavy bolters were covered with a simple tan tarpaulin. The gunners were standing waiting. An orderly in the plain green drab of the Cadian 8th placed a set of steps under the Valkyrie door. Creed ignored them and used the handle to pull himself up into it. He stood in the doorway and had to shout to be heard over the whine of the engines. ‘I nearly forgot.’ Creed pulled something from inside his jacket. ‘Here!’

  Bendikt grabbed the tightly bound cloth and pressed it against his chest.

  ‘There’s fifteen regiments who’ll be joining you. Take command. Understand?’

  ‘Yes–’ Bendikt started.

  ‘Strike south towards the Elysion Fields. Engage the enemy with extreme violence.’ Creed grinned. ‘I have other men that I am calling on. I had to come and see you in person. But fear not, we’re going to deal them such a blow that their teeth will rattle!’

  The whine of engines grew so loud Bendikt’s words were almost drowned out. ‘Thank you, sir. But why me?’

  Creed paused. ‘I saw you fight on Relion V!’

  The Valkyrie door was thrown shut, and Bendikt stood alone for a moment as the flier lifted up from the landing pad. There were a few seconds as the pilot struggled against the winds, then he engaged the thrusters, turned the gunship’s nose away from the mountain, and she fell into darkness.

  The lights of Creed’s Valkyrie quickly dwindled.

  Bendikt threw the door closed behind him. In his hand was the bundle that Creed had given him. He held it up, wondering what it could be. Black cloth. He unwrapped it. Gold braid. He looked up. Only Mere was there, sitting by the vox and starting to power it down.

  Mere saw the expression on Bendikt’s face. ‘What is it, sir?’

  Bendikt showed him what he held in his hands.

  Mere walked towards him. His eyes widened. ‘Well. Congratulations, sir!’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Looks pretty plain to me. He’s just promoted you.’

  Creed had brought him hope. Bendikt held it in his cupped hands, protected from the storm. He started towards the stairs, but Mere said, ‘You should put those on, General, sir.’

  Bendikt felt foolish.

  ‘Here, I’ll do it,’ Mere said. He removed the major’s epaulettes with due care and replaced them with those of the general. ‘There,’ he said, and held up the red sash to put it over Bendikt’s shoulder, but Bendikt laughed. ‘Let’s waste no more time. There is work to be done.’

  Within an hour the entire Cadian 101st Armoured Regiment had selected and named their vehicles, and each crew was loaded up and ready.

  Bendikt’s Executioner tank moved forward, down the vast ramps that zigzagged into the roots of the mountain, and behind him, in threes, the 101st Armoured Regiment moved towards their sally port.

  General Bendikt stood in the cupola, red sash with gold band across his chest, and broadcast on all channels. Our enemies think they have knocked us down, he thought, but Cadia has stood back up again.

  All fights are won by the man who refuses to lie down.

  Part Three

  Counter-Attack

  One

  Bastion 8, 17th Army Headquarters, Myrak River Front

  There were few places on Cadia still under the direct control of Cadian High Command. Bastion 8, on the Myrak River Front, was one such. It was still resisting, even though half of the 17th Army Group were pinned down in the Myrak Salient, in danger of being cut off. For three weeks the neck of the salient had been drawing closed, like a noose. Now, it seemed to the fighters on this front that the moment of decision had come.

  The man who had led the defence of this front was General Grüber. He was the kind of commander who built his name on the bones of his soldiers. He would spend the life of every Guardsman under him if it got him further up the command chain. He had held his front with a mixture of discipline, bloody-mindedness and a stubborn lack of imagination. Grüber’s strategy was simple: defence in depth, and for him, that meant thirty miles of minefields, artillery kill zones, anti-tank strong points and trench upon trench, supported by hundreds of heavy weapon emplacements. For months, heretic assaults had stalled within this mire. The foremost units had lapped up against the Martyr Walls of Bastion 8, then flagged and stalled and been thrown back.

  His bloody-mindedness had stood him in good stead in his hundred-and-fifty-year career within the Imperial Guard. But this was not necessarily a quality that allowed him to perform the task he now knew he had to achiev
e, which was to mount a dazzling series of attacks.

  But Creed had issued his orders, and Grüber had to obey.

  Now he stood in the command bunker and stared down from the raised dais, his aquila-tipped cane of office tucked neatly under his arm. There was a strained silence as the brigade commanders filed in. His units had been defending and retreating for so long they had a numb, beaten air to them. Grüber knew he had to pull off the speech of his life. He had no idea where he was going to start.

  He waited for the doors to be closed before putting his hand to his mouth and effecting a brief cough. There was silence as he stepped forward, his smartly polished boots clip-clipping on the wooden planks of the dais.

  ‘Fellow warriors,’ he announced. ‘The time we have been waiting for has come.’

  His words were met with a dull silence.

  Grüber paused, the metal fan shutter of his augmetic lens whining as it focused on prominent faces about the room. He felt he needed to say more. ‘We have faced an assault from earth and sky. We have faced the wrath of the Archenemy, and we are still alive. We are still fighting. That is a victory in itself.’ He took half a pace forward. ‘We still have faith.’

  Silence, again, the general noted, though he could tell that they were warming up a little. He took another pace to the side, clipped his heels together, removed the staff of office from under his arm, rested the silver aquila in his palm and paused, looking down at the faces of his commanders. He had the odd sensation, not for the first time, that his men were looking for something that he did not possess.

  Creed was the problem. The young upstart had, in the short time that he had been Lord Castellan of Cadia, changed the way that Cadians expected to be led. Being authoritative, being professional, being stern – these things were no longer enough. Cadians wanted a commander to inspire them now, and Maximus Octavian Grüber III had never, ever, in his entire one hundred and eighty years of life, been accused of being an inspirational leader.