Cadia Stands

by Justin D Hill

  Commissar Grake had holstered his pistol. ‘We should all have done more,’ he said, and then turned on his heel and strode up the vast landing ramp, his footsteps ringing out in the hollow metal shell.

  Myrak River

  General Bendikt’s evacuation point was at a levelled plateau named Old Man’s Hill. His tanks were parked in neat lines, dust hissing through the gaps, the tank crews peering skywards.

  The lander touched down a hundred yards away. Navy ratings waved the tanks forward. The troops quickly filed aboard. Twenty minutes in, the engines started.

  Bendikt was standing at the side of the main loading ramp. ‘What’s happening?’ Bendikt demanded as the ramps started to close.

  No one listened to him.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted.

  The Navy rating managing the controls was a small, underfed-looking man, with a baggy uniform two sizes too big for him. ‘We have to leave,’ he shouted. He waved towards the cockpit as explanation.

  General Bendikt looked back at the queues of men. ‘That’s impossible,’ he shouted. ‘Look!’

  There had to be thirty thousand men waiting to load. The rating shrugged. It was all beyond him. He was just following orders.

  ‘Give me five minutes,’ he told the rating.

  ‘Orders,’ the other man said.

  Damn orders, Bendikt thought. He pulled Tyson close enough to hear. ‘Do not let this man close the ramps until I say so. Understand?’

  Tyson pulled his laspistol from its holster and flipped off the safety. ‘Understood,’ he said.

  The rating’s gaze went from one to the other, and then to the laspistol. He looked sick. ‘You’ll have to talk to the captain,’ he said.

  ‘I shall,’ Bendikt said, and gathered twenty men.

  Bendikt led his men to the front of the lander. The cockpit door was unlocked. He stepped inside. The snub-nosed chamber was cramped; the control panels were lit with buttons, levers and green info screens.

  Bendikt stooped. The pilots were strapped into their seats. To the right, by the door, three mind-slaved servitors were already starting the departure protocols.

  ‘This lander is not leaving,’ he announced.

  The pilot did not turn around. ‘Sorry. We have to, or we won’t get off the planet at all.’

  Bendikt put his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. ‘I said, this lander is not leaving. I have an army here. You will stay until all of them are loaded. Is that clear?’

  The pilot turned. He was not used to being spoken to like this. ‘I have my orders,’ he said.

  Bendikt did not flinch. ‘You have your orders, but I have a laspistol. And if you do not do what I command then none of us will leave this planet alive.’

  Lina and Ibsic managed to board the third lander that arrived at their evacuation point, along the banks of the Myrak River. They had driven their tank aboard, and now they crouched by the tracks of Hammer of Tyrok, nauseous with the buffeting turbulence of the higher atmosphere. The craft lurched again and there was a cry of fear through the cramped deck. Even the tanks slid dangerously, and the chains that held them down creaked.

  ‘I hate landers,’ Lina said as she wiped the vomit onto her sleeve. ‘Put me back on Cadia!’

  There were tens of thousands of warriors like them, penned up inside the vast hangars of the landers without any idea of what was happening.

  ‘We’ll never make it,’ Lina said as the lander rattled dangerously.

  Ibsic kept his head down, his eyes closed. The last sight of Cadia had made him sick. All he could see was that vast column of smoke and ash, volcanic fires fountaining into the sky, and all he could taste was the dirt of Cadia in his mouth.

  Across Cadia scenes of panic and order were taking place as fleets of landers descended from orbit, straight to the prescribed extraction points. At some places, troops rushed the landing site and the landers refused to set down. At others, fighting broke out, and half-empty transports lifted free, only to be brought down by a tank shell or melta charge.

  In places, it was Marauder bombers who landed, gunner crews pulling desperate Guardsmen aboard. Some pilots stayed well beyond their allotted time. Others touched down at entirely deserted extraction points, the Navy ratings squinting out into the soot and ash storms and seeing no one to extract.

  Where the fighting had been fiercest, running battles took place with cultists who tried to scramble aboard. The lander crews took as many soldiers as time, orders or opportunity would allow, and lifted off, struggling to rise with the weight of the men and women aboard.

  Once the carriers had lifted off, they had to face the hunter-packs of Chaos fighters and killers. Some had flights of Thunderbolts and Marauders that drove the enemy off, while some were undefended, and the enemy fell on them like hyenas on stray wildebeests, dragging the landers to the ground.

  Some of the evacuation craft reached high orbit, where fleet-based fighters and assault boats were still engaged in a furious battle for the skies of Cadia, and where they had to avoid the deadly impact of Black Legion assault torpedoes and dreadclaws.

  When they were boarded, some Cadians mounted furious defences, cutting down the Black Legion Space Marines with incandescent lasrifle salvos. Others had been ordered to leave their weapons behind. They fought with whatever they had to hand, overwhelming individual warriors with their fists, clubs and bayonets.

  Once they had unloaded, some brave lander crews returned to Cadia, honouring promises they had made to men left behind, and some of them were successful, carrying another load of veterans from the dying world. But increasingly, as daemons began to manifest all over the planet, fewer and fewer landing craft made it off the planet. And soon the flow of escaping men ceased completely.

  General Grüber was on board the last evacuation craft. He had personally supervised the loading of most of his army, and once the window for flight was almost closed he finally agreed to leave the planet.

  He moved along the lander, hand to the walls to steady himself as the craft lurched upwards through the howling storms.

  By the time he had reached the cockpit there were armed ratings standing by the door.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ the nearest said. ‘It’s locked.’

  He was a tall, dishevelled-looking man, with a slight stoop and thick lips, which made his speech indistinct.

  Grüber articulated crisp, aristocratic words in contrast. ‘I would like to speak to the captain. Let me inside.’

  The man touched his hand to his hat in a Navy salute. ‘Sorry, general. The bridge is locked.’

  Grüber bristled visibly. ‘Then unlock it.’

  The man laughed. ‘It’s locked so you and we cannot get in.’

  ‘I am General Grüber, of the Cadian High Command,’ Grüber said.

  ‘Well,’ the sergeant said, with a wry laugh, ‘looks like you failed.’

  Grüber barely understood what had happened until he felt the hands of the ratings on his shoulders, and realised that he had the sergeant by the throat, pinned against the metal sheeting wall.

  ‘How dare you?’ he was hissing, and the sergeant was gasping for breath as Grüber’s thumbs crushed his windpipe. There was a moment’s satisfaction, then behind him he had a brief glimpse of one of the Navy ratings lifting the butt of his shotgun, and it all went dark.

  Grüber’s head still hurt when the lander docked with their warp-capable craft. The air on the ship smelled of oils and the stale, damp scent of purifiers in need of a good scrub. But it didn’t smell of smoke. The absence was as noticeable as the stillness. The only sounds were the muffled groans of the ship’s superstructure: the dull clangs of enginarium shafts, the low hum of atmosphere pumps.

  There were no explosions, no gale, no tearing groan of a planet coming apart. The ship felt almost normal. The Navy ratings worked the airlock, briskly clamping the lande
r into place. Grüber took in a deep breath as the final doors opened.

  He had lost none of his dignity as he led the Cadians onto the ship.

  It was a tub of a craft that had been carrying foodstuffs in its vast hangar bellies and still smelled of slab and fermented protein slop. Grüber had arrived back on Cadia in the personal quarters of Warmaster Ryse and his staff from the Deucalion Crusade. It had been a jolly trip, with axel-wood dining chambers, long tables and the best Arcady Pride from the personal cellars of the Warmaster. It was the kind of transport that Grüber had become used to. He faced this slab hangar with ill-disguised disappointment and took in a deep breath.

  The Imperium had failed them, and this was what the heroes of Cadia were reduced to: being ferried from the ruins of their home in a third-rate food carrier.

  Eleven

  Kasr Myrak

  Without their vox the fighters of Kasr Myrak had no idea that the planet was doomed. There were twenty-five of them left in a guild hall, with their backs to the river. The Volscani were coming at them from all three directions.

  Minka had just shot a flamer-armed Volscani. She was waiting for his partner to show himself round the corner of the building opposite when there was a sudden flash and a roar of noise. She thought for a moment that it was another flight of Marauders passing just overhead. The collapsing buildings did nothing to dispel this idea. It was a Marauder on a bombing run.

  But the roar got louder, and buildings about her began to fall, and then the earth started to shake. Minka pushed herself up. She thought she could stay on her feet, but the tremors were so violent that she was thrown to her face.

  The roof above her crashed down. The wall she was sheltering behind fell outwards into the street. The whole earth was shaking and Minka howled in terror, her voice lost in the tumult.

  The quake went on for an age.

  At last Minka pushed herself shakily to her feet.

  Her city was gone. Statue Square, Divination Street, the Illium Block, even the high crags of Myrak Cathedral, where they had camped for the first week of fighting, were all gone. Everything they had fought for, inch by inch, block by block.

  There was nothing. Not a single brick or block of rockcrete was left standing. All about her was a field of broken rock. Only the city walls still stood, but the hundred-yard-thick rockcrete defences had been broken into sections and scattered miles from where they’d once stood.

  Minka spun around. She looked about in stunned silence. Nothing moved. No one. Only the Myrak River, swollen and full, still flowed east.

  An aftershock passed and a gale began to grow. Then something moved. It was an arm. She picked her way across.

  It was Taavi. He was covered in dust. ‘Throne,’ he swore as she pulled him free. ‘Minka – is that you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where’s Rath?’

  Minka looked around. She tried to guess where the rest of the company were. She picked her way along the top of the ruins. The ground beneath her was rubble and dust. Minka set her foot on a slab the size of a Leman Russ. It shifted under her feet. She paused for a moment, trying to overcome her fear.

  ‘Rath!’ she shouted. ‘Rath!’

  There was movement in the rubble. Minka used her hands to pull the debris away. Fingers were grasping for her.

  ‘Help,’ a muffled voice was saying.

  Minka scrabbled at the rubble, grabbed the hand and pulled. The debris fell away, and in a terrible moment she saw the shoulder plate. It was a Volscani trooper.

  She let go of the hand, pulled out her knife and drove it into the place where shoulder and neck connected. She felt the body tense in pain as she moved the knife around, looking for the artery. Warm blood bubbled up over her hand.

  She pulled her knife free.

  The gusts knocked her sideways, whipped dust storms of grit and rubble low across the ruins. ‘Anyone?’ she shouted to Taavi.

  He shook his head.

  Minka put a hand up to protect her eyes. She’d fought for these ruins for over a hundred days, and now it seemed that a kind of victory had come, with the irony that the city itself had been flattened.

  Taavi’s footing was uncertain as he made his way towards her. He took hold of her arm to steady himself. There was movement beneath them.

  They knelt down and started to pull the bricks back.

  Someone was in there. Minka could hear a voice. ‘It’s Rath!’ she said, and scrabbled till her fingers were raw. ‘Taavi, it’s Rath!’

  The two of them worked furiously. Rath cursed as they lifted the last rocks from his chest. He was grey with dust. He winced as they pulled him up. It was like helping an old man to stand. ‘Throne,’ he said again, and fell back. They draped his arms over their shoulders and Rath hung on them like a dying man. He straightened his limbs slowly, groaning with each movement.

  They carried him to the side of the river and set him down. Minka felt under his arm. He winced as she moved her fingers along his ribs.

  ‘They’re broken,’ she said.

  She knew how to bind his arm to his side, but she had nothing to strap it with. She hunted about for a scrap of cloth. A vast column of black was rising in the northern sky. None of them knew what this all meant.

  ‘What the hell has happened?’ Rath said.

  Taavi looked to Minka.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  Rath sat up. He blinked as if there was something wrong with his vision. ‘What happened to the river?’

  Minka turned. The water was rising at an alarming rate.

  ‘Something has blocked it,’ Taavi said.

  Within a few minutes, the river overflowed its banks. The rising water started to lap across the wharves towards them, dark and thick with sediment. Minka and Taavi dragged Rath a little way up the bank of rubble. They sat as the waters rose, Rath with his arm bound to his side, his face grey with dust and pain.

  Aftershocks kept rippling across the ground. On the hills above Kasr Myrak, fires were starting to grow. They were the red, baleful light of magma pushing its way up through the crust of Cadia. Rivers of fire were starting to flow down towards them.

  They sat waiting, but there were no enemies to shoot, no reinforcements.

  Minka tried to find her way back to Statue Square in the hope of locating their vox, but it was useless. Her city was unrecognisable, the ruin heaps unstable, and she could not tell where Statue Square was… or had been.

  When she got back, Rath was where she had left him, propped up against a piece of rockcrete. Taavi was standing over him.

  Volcanic eruptions were reaching higher and higher into the sky. They cast the only light.

  ‘So,’ Minka said. ‘What now?’

  ‘We hold the city and await reinforcement.’

  Minka gestured towards the strange flatness that had once been Kasr Myrak. ‘What city?’

  She was sitting, staring out over the ruins, when she thought she heard laughter on the wind.

  It came again, from a different direction, then again, streaking across the sky. It was a wild, insane sound.

  Minka looked up into the darkening sky. The temperature began to drop, and Taavi caught Minka and pulled her to her feet.

  Laughter came from a thousand voices, all around them. Minka felt the rubble beneath her shift. She ignored it at first, but then it moved again.

  She stood. ‘There’s someone moving,’ she said.

  They looked down as the rubble shifted again. Someone was clawing their way up.

  Taavi and Minka pulled the stones away. They saw a hand, bloody and raw, reaching up for them.

  ‘Cadian!’ Minka shouted as she saw the cuff.

  Within moments they found an arm, a shoulder, a head of dust-gr
ey hair, and a dusted face was staring up at them. It was Olivet. He thrashed and kicked against the weight holding him back. ‘It’s all right,’ she said as she pulled his arm. ‘You’re free.’

  Olivet pulled at her. He pulled so hard he dragged her towards him. Minka fell forward. He embraced her and turned his face towards her. She thought he was going to kiss her in gratitude, but then there was pain, and he was gripping her so hard that even when she had both hands pressed against him she could not push him off.

  She could hear the shouts of Rath and Taavi, and she screamed when she felt Olivet’s teeth grind down on her ear and tear it.

  There was blood on her hand. He’d ripped half her ear off.

  ‘Calm down!’ she said, and Rath grunted with pain as he pulled her away. Olivet kept thrashing, his body pinned down at the legs.

  He was not kicking against the weight of the rubble, but to get at her, Minka realised. The sight was chilling. ‘Shoot him,’ she said.

  Taavi strode forward. He lifted his lasrifle. ‘Stop, or I’ll shoot,’ he said as Olivet thrashed about, waist-deep in rubble.

  ‘Just shoot him,’ Rath shouted.

  ‘In the name of the Emperor,’ Taavi said, then fired. The shot hit Olivet in the head. But it had no effect. He fired again, and again, pumping the Cadian with las-rounds.

  Half of Olivet’s head had gone by the time he fell back.

  ‘What was wrong with him?’ Minka gasped.

  ‘He was driven mad from being buried,’ Taavi said. ‘He didn’t know what he was doing.’

  Minka pulled her legs away. Yes, she thought. He was driven mad. Throne, they’d all been through enough to be driven insane. Mad, was what they all agreed.

  But then, she felt something move beneath her. Another hand appeared a yard to her side. Then another, twenty feet away. ‘Look!’

  Humps of rubble were starting to rise from the ruins of Kasr Myrak. A Volscani pulled himself up, dragging his foot free, and then charged. Taavi hit him with the butt of his rifle. There was a crack as bones shattered. The blow slammed the Volscani sideways, but he barely paused. He hit the ground and then pushed himself up and came at them once more.