The smaller pieces hit the planet like shooting stars, burning up in high orbit. The main fragment was as large as a moon. It hit the stratosphere and its edges started to burn. It plunged down, an incandescent missile, tearing across the atmosphere above Cadia Tertius and Secundus and whipping up whirlwinds behind it.
The vacuum it created caused a sonic shock that crushed tanks. The impact caused a crater two hundred miles wide and the shockwave sent gales and tremors that levelled everything for a thousand miles. Millions of tons of earth were thrown up into the atmosphere, creating a mushroom cloud that filled the mesosphere with enough dust and debris to cause a millennia-long ice age. Concepts like day and night no longer had meaning. Huge cracks rippled through Cadia’s crust. The tectonic plates of Cadia Prime began to break and blister as shockwaves thundered out, like ripples from a brick hitting a pool of still water. Tsunamis of magma broke the mantle of the planet.
Rockcrete bastions were thrown to the ground, ancient kasr were levelled, but worst of all, the forests of Cadian pylons, which had held back the warp for so many millennia, were thrown down in ruin.
At this the Eye of Terror began to reach out for Cadia and seize it. The Cadian Gate was not just breached. It had ceased to be.
The cess pool of the warp now rushed through the gap, swamping all in its path.
The Dark Gods laughed.
As storms wrapped Cadia, the last Black Legion kill squads fled the planet, chasing their flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, as the ancient battlecruiser retreated. They left the heretics and cultists to their fate: the populations of entire hives, entire worlds that had fallen to the despair and treachery of the Dark Gods. What did they care if the millions of slaves died? The Imperium of Man could supply many more.
Without their Black Legion masters to guide them, the cultists fell upon each other in berserk blood rites, ritual slaughter, or scenes of debauched cruelty. They made easy targets for the disciplined Cadians, and surviving units mounted fighting withdrawals as they made their way to the nearest evacuation stations and left the planet.
The few remaining astral choirs tried to pierce the warp to alert Holy Terra. Their screams died as Black Legion death squads homed in on their positions and murdered them in the inner sanctums.
Cadia’s evacuation plans had first been drawn up in the aftermath of the Second Black Crusade. As the order worked its way through the surviving servitor networks, embedded protocols took over the programmed functions of cyber-organic creatures. Cogitators that had been devoted to maintenance systems or planetary defence networks switched their focus to calling in landers from orbit, assessing unit strengths on the ground and directing loyal forces to the best evacuation point. Mind-slaved servitors stopped working and stood in slack-jawed silence, trying to mouth the word: evacuate.
But much had changed in the generations since the plans had been set down. The caution of Cadia’s forebears was viewed with mistrust and suspicion, as if even the contemplation of evacuation was treachery. Over the generations, the evacuation protocols had been updated occasionally and haphazardly. The effects were sporadic and ill-conceived. Confusion reigned across Cadia, made only worse by the terrible ruin that had been made of the northern hemisphere of the planet.
Units of the elite Cadian 4th, who had been fighting guerrilla campaigns in the polar snows of Cadia Secundus, found their nearest evacuation station was on the far side of an Iron Warriors plunder camp. With no choice, they launched a full-frontal assault on the trench defences, and found them abandoned, except for a handful of enslaved feral warriors.
The 103rd Mechanised endured the tempest and earthquakes from within their Chimera armoured personnel carriers. Once the evacuation order came, they were confident of making it to their extraction point, which was only twenty miles away. But the land between had been so broken and reformed that it was impassable to tanks, and they were forced to abandon their vehicles and foot-slog it through the crazed patterns of the lava fields, only to find, when they reached the evacuation point, that it had been swallowed in vast pools of bubbling red magma.
The 46th Rifles were over a hundred miles from their evacuation point. They force-marched through the night, abandoning any who were unable to keep moving, only to find that their evacuation point no longer existed, but had been flooded by the collapse of the Ukulov Dam.
Other regiments found their extraction points located within massive warzones, or firmly held by units of the enemy, or that they were the victims of a cruel glitch within the system and they had been given erroneous details.
Some found their evacuation sites in good order with a clear command structure, ordered queues waiting for their landers to arrive. The truth dawned on them, as the hours and days wound on, that no one was coming to take them to safety.
For them, the long war was over.
Any attempts to resolve the confusion through the planet’s vox networks fell largely on increasingly hysterical ears as commanders who had kept their men alive over the last three months finally gave vent to their fury and frustration and impotence – voxing it out into the ether, for any who might hear.
But the ears of the galaxy were closed.
Even those who arrived at the extraction points understood that they were far from safe as the warp reached out to embrace Cadia. The walls of the Immaterium had begun to shred, the laws of physics and order and reality no longer held, and the world began to fill with shapes and sounds and colours that defied human categorisation. And the Dark Gods laughed.
Ten
Cadia Secundus
Point 29.443 had once been part of a ridge of round-topped hills, with rocky crags falling down towards the plain, but Administratum landscapers had long since flattened the hills and spread the displaced earth out to create a wide, level place for planetary landers to pick up troops. Now it had been designated as Evacuation Point 57B.
It lay in the middle highlands of Cadia Secundus: a broad level area, two miles square, sealed with thick slabs of rockcrete. Before the War for Cadia, the edges of the slabs had been marked out by tufts of grass and old grox-droppings. It had long mystified local grox herders, or bands of frozen Whiteshields, stumbling lost through night exercises in the Mewlip Hills and finding their feet on level ground.
But now it offered the only hope of salvation to all the loyalists within fifty miles.
First to arrive was Sister Heloise, Mistress of Repentance of the Sisters of our Martyred Lady. She had seven surviving Sisters Repentia with her. They had been scouring their sins away in battle with a warband of Black Legionnaires, but the Adeptus Astartes had disengaged an hour before the impact and left the Sisters hurling curses in their wake.
They had struggled through the gales, hacking at packs of mewling daemons. And now they had to secure this place.
‘Minister to the wounded,’ Heloise ordered her Sisters Repentia.
Repentia Beatrice refused to move. One eye was covered by a black patch, the stubble of her scalp was sore and flaking, there were splatters of gore up her arms and thighs, and her eviscerator was resting on her shoulder. She looked out from the high plateau, saw the war and flames in the distance, and stuck out her chin. She had to shout over the roar of the gale. ‘We’re warriors, not wet-nurses. There is war out there!’
Heloise’s pain-lash caught Beatrice across the shoulder and her knees gave way. ‘Why are you being punished?’ Heloise demanded.
Beatrice’s pale cheeks flushed. ‘For disobedience, mistress.’
Heloise’s face thrust forward. ‘Exactly. The war here is almost done. It is our duty to serve, Repentia. And we are needed here. When the Cadian warriors have been taken safely off the planet, then we can remain and continue the fight.’ Heloise pulled the mask from her head, and her black bob fell free, sweat-soaked and streaked with grey. Her face was drawn. ‘But I am the one who decides that. Understand?’
She cracked her whip and caught Beatrice a second time. Repentia Beatrice ground the words out. ‘Yes,’ she said, reluctantly. ‘I will minister.’
She used her eviscerator to push herself up again and slung the great weapon across her back.
Beatrice was a warrior; ministrations were not natural to her. The first band of survivors was staggering up the hill. It was a band of thirty Cadians, some bootless and limping, others bandaged, striding through the storms. Their faces were pale and drawn.
Beatrice clenched her hands into fists as she stared at them. In her heart, she saw them as failures. They were all failures, but she remembered her orders.
‘Welcome, brothers,’ she called as they came forward, but her words were clumsy and unpractised. She was better at singing war hymns, not offering consolation. ‘You have reached Evacuation Point Fifty-Seven-B.’
The men stared, eyes numb, minds pushed beyond their limits. Beatrice stepped forward and offered a hand to them, but her manner was as stiff as a block of wood. The men shuffled forward, taking up their position, but at the back two men lingered – one with his arm draped over the other.
‘Move along,’ she told them, and pointed which way they should go, but as she did so the man being helped along by the other staggered and fell. Beatrice stood over him. ‘Get up!’ she commanded, but the man groaned and half-rolled to the side.
If she’d had a pain-lash with her she would have used it on the Guardsman, but she looked up and saw the harsh gaze of her Mistress Repentia on her. She moved forward and put a hand under the man’s armpit.
‘Up!’ she told him, but he did not move. ‘What is wrong with you?’ She knelt next to him, her black knee-greaves grating on the rockcrete surface, and prodded the body with her gauntlet. ‘He’s dead,’ she said.
She stood and faced the man who had carried his friend. His eyes were rimmed with dirt, his lips were chapped; it looked like he had not slept for days. She saw a refusal to believe, and from somewhere, from deep within her, and from long ago, she felt a brief spark of pity.
‘What is your name, Guardsman?’
‘Nazar,’ he said.
There was almost a touch of gentleness as she put a hand to his arm. ‘Nazar. You have reached safety. Have faith in the Emperor.’
As the hours wore on, surviving units trickled in and were assigned one rockcrete block to each regiment. It helped to organise the scattered units.
Some of the rockcrete squares were half full of surviving troops, others had only a handful. All the time the skies grew darker and darker. The howl of daemons rang out. Men’s fingers began to tremble. The hearts of veteran Guardsmen began to beat faster.
Repentia Beatrice pulled her eviscerator from her shoulder. Mistress Heloise cracked her whip and brought all the Guardsmen together. She started to sing a hymn named Be Thou My Armour.
The Sisters Repentia sang with her, their voices high and beautiful. ‘Sing!’ she ordered the Guardsmen. One of them wasn’t singing. She slapped him across the back of the head. ‘Sing!’ she shouted, and as she patrolled up and down, the discordant voices of the Guardsmen joined in.
Evacuation Point 88A, near Bastion 8
In the foothills behind Bastion 8 Lord Commissar Grake took command of Evacuation Point 88A. He arrived with the remains of the Cadian 77th Airborne, who had covered over eight miles from where they had been managing a fighting retreat. His men were fearless in their dedication and so far he had only shot three men in the entire hundred-day campaign.
As daemon-light began to flicker in the skies above them, he knew that only the most severe discipline would keep them alive. When the next company of men arrived, nearly a hundred Cadians, they looked dead on their feet.
‘Halt!’ Grake shouted. His black leather jacket flapped in the cold breeze as he paced towards them. ‘Attention!’ he ordered, and despite their exhaustion, the men straightened up as they realised that they were being inspected. They straightened their tri-dome helmets, holstered their lasrifles. Some even rubbed their boots on the back of their calves as Grake stalked along the line.
He stopped before a man with a bandage on his head.
‘You!’ the commissar said. ‘What is your name?’
The small man stepped to attention. He had a thin moustache, and a week’s stubble on his cheeks. ‘Guardsman Pape!’ the man said, and saluted.
‘Where is your rifle?’ Grake demanded.
Pape looked about him. ‘I dropped it, sir.’
Commissar Grake pulled out his pistol. One of the men in the second rank stepped forward to speak for him. From his uniform, he was the major.
‘Sir!’ he said. ‘The lasrifle was broken. We had wounded men to carry. I commanded him to drop his weapon.’
Commissar Grake turned on him and shot the major in the head.
He went down like a grox, the bolt-round throwing him backwards against the men behind him, who were splattered with bits of skull and brain and gore. Grake swung round to where Guardsman Pape stood, and fired again. Pape fell against the men behind him.
Commissar Grake holstered his pistol. ‘Now, who is in command of this shambles?’
The Guardsmen looked about for the highest-surviving ranking officer. Two men exchanged glances, trying to work out which was the senior officer. Eventually the older of the two stepped forward, his augmetic leg wheezing.
‘Major Luka,’ the old man said, and saluted. ‘Retired, twice. Now serving as commanding officer of the Fifty-Sixth Rifles.’
Commissar Grake looked at the old man. ‘This unit is a shambles. Bring them into proper order. Understand?’
Major Luka saluted. ‘Yes,’ he said, with an insolent pause, ‘sir.’
The black figure of Commissar Grake strode out to meet each squad of arriving Guardsmen, bolt pistol holstered at his side, one hand to his peaked hat, his black leather coat flapping wildly in the wind. Within the space of half an hour, he had shot over thirty men.
The mood of the 56th Rifles was already aggrieved, but with each retort of the bolt pistol, their resentment turned to hatred. ‘Someone should shoot him,’ one muttered.
Major Luka caught the man’s eyes and gave him a warning look. ‘Hush,’ he said. Accidents could happen, but it was better not to talk about them first.
Homing beacons marked out the landing zone but the skies were ominously dark.
The troops huddled close as the gales whipped dust and soot into their eyes. The sky was growing constantly darker. Sudden gusts of rain lashed their faces, then changed to bouncing, stinging black balls of hail. Their home was a graveyard. Now it was turning into hell. They willed a lander to appear, to lift them safely off-planet – and when the flashing yellow lights of a transport finally did appear in the air above them they stood as one, arms raised as the white bar of a searchlight stabbed down towards them.
The whipping clouds gave brief glimpses of the lander’s pale belly, its cruciform shape, sponson weapons panning for enemy contacts. The landing gear was down. One of the ramps was already half open, and the men could see figures silhouetted against the inner light.
The Cadian refugees stood and rushed forward. Some of the younger troops waved.
‘Back!’ Commissar Grake ordered them. ‘Back!’
The lander settled fifty yards from Major Luka. It was a standard ground-to-void shuttle: a broad, squat body, and two pairs of short, back-flung wings. The dark upper surface was scarred with the bare blisters of autocannon rounds, but the craft looked sound. Smaller landing ramps lowered from both sides.
The rear ramp came down in a series of three irregular jerks. A Navy rating ran forward, head low against the thrust of the lander’s jets, the gales buffeting him sideways.
‘Who is in command here?’ he shouted, one hand on his hat.
‘I am,’ Grake said. The Lord Commissar stepped forward, his black lea
ther coat flapping in the wind.
The rating turned to him. ‘We only have fifteen minutes, sir. Enemy fighters inbound.’
‘Queue!’ Grake ordered them, waving his pistol. He stood on the landing ramps as the troops filed on. ‘In regimental order. Leave equipment behind! Hurry. Ten minutes until we leave.’
Half of Major Luka’s 56th Rifles made it onto the lander, just as Grake signalled to the Navy rating. The ramp began to rise.
‘You cannot leave them!’ Luka shouted, but Grake turned on him.
‘You dare to tell me my business, major?’
‘Sir, I just want to say that these men should not be left behind. There is space on the lander. Let them on.’ Luka stared back at the faces of the men they were leaving behind.
It seemed that Grake was about to relent, but then a daring Guardsman caught the lip of the ramp and started to haul himself up. Grake put a bolt through his forehead. He shot two more who tried to clamber aboard. Major Luka turned away. He felt sick. They should have killed this commissar.
The ramp closed with three jerks, slowing for the last few feet as the door seals engaged. Major Luka stared out as the view of his home narrowed to a handspan, and then bare inches. The last image he saw of Cadia was through the whipping gales, thousands of pale faces looking up, their expressions vivid in the white flash of the searchlight.
Then the ramps closed with a hollow clang, a hiss of air and the clunk of the void-seals engaging, and the noises of the storm were stilled.
The lander was three-quarters empty.
‘We should have taken more,’ Major Luka said.
Cadia Stands Page 14