by David Guymer
‘I am seeing some unusual immaterial extrusions centred around the ork carrier,’ Thane said.
‘Teleporter activity,’ Kale explained. ‘High volume over short distances.’
‘It is unlike orks to evacuate. Or to run.’
‘This leadership caste we’ve been hearing about?’
Thane cupped his chin in his hand as the deck around him shook. But why run?
The movement in the viewer was so subtle that it took even Thane’s sharpened senses a moment to pick it up. The carrier’s fin-like primary weapon was cleaving through the wreckage field. Thane saw coils charging, energy gathering in glowing capacitors along the massive cannon’s length. For a moment, he was looking straight down its barrel. Alcazar Remembered was too big to move out of the way. Anything else was a stubborn act of futility.
An ember struck up within the splayed bore of the cannon, vibrating, caged within a magnetic field. Coming from within that debris cloud it looked more like a birthing sun than a weapon. Thane saw a glint, the tip of the sunbeam that lanced towards him, then it blinked like a shooting star as the beam shot across the bows.
A miss. Thane eased his grip on the armrests and let out a breath. In their panic, the orks had wasted their shot. That was his first instinct, based neither on evidence nor on past experience, and as such he was unusually loath to relinquish it, even once it became clear that the carrier wasn’t cutting off the beam. In fact, it was intensifying.
Vandis.
At first, the red giant seemed to shrug off the beam boring into its surface, but after a few seconds, a dark sunspot began to form around the drill site. Bubbles of core matter broke the surface as the sunspot began to sink. It became a blister, then a bruise, a black canker that bored deeper into its parent body and pulled more stellar matter in. The bottomless black of its event horizon garnered a halo, brilliant, burning white.
The accretion disc of a black hole.
Thane slowly rose, watching with a very raw, very human awe. The orks had transformed one of the most stable and intransigent forces in the universe into a weapon, and simply to keep Magneric’s information from reaching Terra they were using it to demolish a star.
A star!
What could any man – even an angel of death – do in the face of such reckless power?
The carrier itself, the most massive ship by far, was the first to feel the effects. Already backsliding, it stopped firing as its cannon was yanked out of alignment, and then slowly bent. In its shadow were two more Black Templars cruisers that had been disabled and seized by grapnels rather than destroyed. Drifting and helpless, they began to come apart. Hull plates crunched, compacted down, atmosphere squirting out as hardpoints tore loose and spun away to be devoured by infinity. Chastened, just sliding into tractor range, drove her reverse engines to maximum and just about managed to remain still. She came about in order to bring her main drive to bear. Thane saw what her shipmaster was trying to do, but manoeuvring thrusters couldn’t compete with the black hole’s pull and she was dragged, side-on, until gravity overwhelmed structural integrity and she blew in a hideously compact explosion.
A shuddering groan passed through Alcazar Remembered.
She was more powerful than her frigate escorts, more than the Black Templars cruisers, but she was also larger, more susceptible to the gravity waves lashing at her hull. Each shudder came with a bang, as though the bulkheads were having their rivets pulled and then being physically snapped. A barrage of high-intensity radiation blinded the viewscreen and killed shipboard communications.
‘Full reverse!’ Thane roared, a string of bolts bursting along a seam from the bulkhead behind him on a scream of inrushing air. ‘All hands prepare for emergency translation! Get us out of here now!’
Nine
Terra – the Imperial Palace
Vangorich knew that his rivals on the Senatorum, and even some of his friends, such that he possessed, had his apartments under surveillance. In recent days it had come to the point where there was rarely a moment in which the agents of two or more lords wouldn’t pass each other on the street. The increasingly erratic behaviour of the likes of Mesring and Zeck had exacerbated matters. The staged attempt on Veritus’ life had certainly not helped.
Even at this early hour, the artificial twilight of the Palace was thronged, the sun as removed from the reality of these people’s own small lives as the love of the God-Emperor of Man.
There was the catering shift bound for the Imperial Fleet College of Strategy, extravagant in pressed white shirts and black tails. Talking quietly amongst themselves, they paused just outside the gated compound while one of their number crossed the street to buy a pack of lhos from the kiosk. Then there was the pretty young girl – fifteen, maybe sixteen – selling soap and devotionals from a stand beneath a humming bronze extractor unit. She smiled pleasantly, chatting to the workers gathered with their bowls under the electrical warmth. There was the street confessor, the work detail that had been picketed on top of the deactivated transformer substation for the better part of a week, the two-man unit assigned to the corner by the Adeptus Arbites to pre-empt that particular ‘flashpoint’, the scrivener hawking his services, the servitor detail carting steel barrels of imported water for the Administratum silo in the neighbouring ward. By comparison, the street sweep working around the Navy men’s feet was a little obvious, if only because it was such a classic.
And if nothing else, Vangorich appreciated vintage.
That was not to say there were not times when an out-of-the-way office deep in the labyrinthine quiet of the Inner Wards was appealing, but it generally suited him to be seen where tradition expected the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum to be. It kept everybody honest, and prevented misunderstandings.
And so it was that the appearance at the gate of a man of medium height, medium build, and middle years caused more of a stir than so nondescript an individual might rationally expect to generate.
Vangorich was happy enough to let those agents make their reports. Partly because it would be a phenomenal waste of energy to stop them all, but primarily because at the time that his body double was deactivating the security system, he was sitting quite comfortably in the eighth level suite of a fortified tower overlooking Bastion Ledge, several lines of latitude away. The armourglass window offered a limited view of the Water Gardens and of the sunrise over the Imperial Palace. At least two-thirds of the offering, however, was taken by the automatic weapons arrays, surveillance jammers, and psychic null-generators that cloaked the compound. The Inquisition was commendably zero-tolerance in their attitude to security.
‘Some wine?’ he asked, leaning across the low-slung reception table and proffering the bottle.
‘Thank you, sir, no,’ said Krule, raising his hand. ‘Never while I’m plotting.’
Vangorich smiled and reset the bottle on the table.
It had a yellowing label inscribed in a curling script too obtuse for Vangorich to make out. He doubted it was actually Terran, but it looked old. Rigil Kentaurus perhaps, or Prospero. The Inquisitorial Representative’s suite had suffered a reversion to the minimalist since Wienand’s brief departure. The soft furnishings had been retired, or rearranged for more efficient effect. The priceless artworks and artefacts that had adorned the walls and tabletops were now warehoused in whatever vast silo the Inquisition must employ for such purposes. It was remarkable what a cull at the top could accomplish.
He took a sip from his glass.
Fruity. Woody. It smelled floral, the way he imagined a functioning ecosystem must smell.
‘Where were we?’
‘Mars, sir.’
Vangorich knew that, of course. He had an eidetic memory, a product of extensive training and cognitive therapies, and of certain genetic gifts. The same could have been achieved with implants, but they had their own drawbacks. Keeping track of the
byzantine comings and goings of the Officio was not a simple matter of memory capacity in any case. It needed a human touch.
‘How many operatives do we still have there?’
Krule picked up a slate from the several spread over the table between them.
‘Red Haven cadre. Saskine Haast of Temple Vindicare. Mariazet Isolde of Temple Callidus. Clementina Yendl of Temple Vanus. Tybalt of Temple Eversor. And Raznick of the Inquisition if you choose to count him as one of ours.’ He read on a way. ‘It looks like Yendl had managed to cultivate a useful resource on the Mechanicus’ project to replicate the orks’ teleportation technology, before she lost contact. We’re assuming the worst, I presume?’
‘The official line from his supervisor is “reassigned”. Yendl’s looking into it, but it’s not the end of the world. Her pride is a little scratched, but there are other avenues of investigation under way.’
‘Translating a planet,’ said Krule, lowering the slate and gazing out of the window. ‘Damn, that would be a thing to see.’
‘The trial data is all in Yendl’s intelligence log. The so-called Grand Experiment is proving as much a dead end for Kubik as it is for us.’
‘But if it could be made to work…’
Krule let the implications hang. They were so encompassing, so fundamental, that it was difficult to take the necessary step back to see them. Assimilation of the orks’ propulsion technology would strike at the very pillars of Imperial stability. With such a power, the Mechanicus would be able to move anything, anywhere. The Adeptus Astronomica would be no more, the Navis Nobilite cast down at best and persecuted by a vengeful Inquisition at worst. The fleets of Mars would render the Navy and the Chartists obsolete at a stroke.
Schism. On a scale not seen since the Age of Strife.
Vangorich nodded darkly.
‘Merely pointing out, sir,’ said Krule, breaking the sombre mood, ‘if this intelligence log were somehow to find its way onto Sark or Gibran’s desk then you’d have all the Senatorum backing you could want to take Kubik’s head.’
‘If it comes to it, but safer to keep something so inflammatory to ourselves if possible. I gather that Haast and Isolde have managed to successfully integrate into Kubik’s household on Mars. What about when he is here on Terra – habits, and so on?’
Krule picked up another report from the stack.
‘A creature of routine, as you’d expect. Getting to him shouldn’t be an issue. The problem would be the windows available. He doesn’t seem to sleep, keeps to public places by and large, and he’s always accompanied.’ He shrugged, apologetic. ‘They don’t give much consideration to privacy.’
‘What about when he travels?’
‘Mechanicus lighter operating out of Daylight space port. The Mechanicus provides their own pilots and ground crew as well as a skitarii cohort. Knowing the Mechanicus, it’s probably better armed than it looks.’
Vangorich conceded that with a slight tip of his glass.
‘Just how formidable is the Fabricator General, assuming that an example needed to be made?’
‘Assuming?’ Krule sat back, crossing his muscular arms behind his head along the back of the low couch, as comfortable in someone else’s private space as only a man his size could be. ‘I could take him.’
‘Have you ever killed one of the Mechanicus?’
‘You’d know if I had, sir.’
Vangorich smiled.
‘Have you, sir?’ Krule asked.
Vangorich considered a moment. No one else would have dared ask their Grand Master such a question. It mooted the possibility that ‘no’ could be an answer. Another person might have raised it privately out of concern for Vangorich’s professional competence, but not Beast. He knew better.
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Do you want me to set things in motion?’
Vangorich took a deep breath and shook his head, staring at the slush pile of slates, info-logs, and reports. Selecting a member of the Senatorum Imperialis who had acted with sufficiently witless culpability to warrant death was not difficult. It was, to borrow his favourite Navy aphorism, like launching a torpedo and hitting space. No, the challenge, the surgical art, was to identify that member whose untimely removal would most effect improvement in the rest.
He released the breath. Slowly. Deliberately. He massaged the stiffness from his neck.
‘Udo,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Tell me about the Lord Commander.’
Krule rummaged for the relevant slate just as a minor earth tremor rattled the pile on the table. Only Vangorich’s cat-like reflexes spared the Inquisition’s carpet a wine stain. The hivequake lingered for a few seconds, and then passed. Vangorich transferred his glass to the other hand and lapped wine from his wrist, then stood and moved to the window. An orange glare lit his face. A hab-block was falling away from the Palace skyline, gutted by the ignited gases that were spraying from its exposed, ancient piping. Even through the reinforced armourglass, Vangorich could hear screaming. The long, hapless whine of tocsins spread slowly across the Imperial Palace.
Something had to be done.
He turned to find Krule checking a security alert on his wrist chrono. Krule silenced the audio sounder, then drew a bulky plasma pistol from the concealed holster inside his jacket. He rose quickly and quietly from his chair, gestured to Vangorich to take cover behind the table, and moved out of line from the door, pistol raised and trained.
Doing as he was bidden, Vangorich dropped onto one knee.
He hooked one arm over the table, partially to shelter his face behind it if need be, and pulled the silenced, slender-barrelled hellpistol he carried from his boot. He took aim at the door and glanced at the access panel on the wall beside it. An amber light was pulsing across the display, left to right and occasionally spiking in the middle, like a heart rate monitor. An intruder should have triggered a red alarm. Amber meant that someone with Inquisitorial clearance had entered the suite, effectively placing the automatic weapon turrets and intruder denial systems built into every staircase and corner space into a temporary ‘standby’ posture. Vangorich’s office had all the specifications. The intruder had ninety seconds to provide the correct form of physical identification and the required codes to one of those access panels before things started to get anxious.
The panel display turned to green and flatlined.
Vangorich cleared his mind, stilled his heart. His field of view became the doorframe.
There were, as his own interest in the matter proved, plenty of individuals on Terra with the motive and means to rid themselves of the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum. Vangorich doubted there was a security system built that the adepts of the Mechanicus could not break. Lansung and Verreault undoubtedly commanded personnel with the skill set required to break a triple-aquila-rated secure facility, but neither struck Vangorich as desperate enough to try. The Ecclesiarchy, too, maintained a cadre of highly trained and conditioned operatives, and against the warp-touched abilities of the Navis Nobilite and the Imperium’s sanctioned psykers, even the Inquisition’s defences would come out second best as often as not.
Were any of them the match of Beast Krule?
Vangorich doubted it.
The door handle dropped with a click, and the door swung open.
Vangorich eased himself a little lower against the table and relaxed into the trigger. He angled his body for a headshot. Unless they were really, really good, he would get at least one shot.
As it turned out, he didn’t.
With a hiss of air cyclers and magnetised joint hydraulics, Veritus strode through the open door. He came with a waft of cinnamon-scented oils and a hint – a disguised nasal sting – of preservatives. His cream-coloured power armour blinked with indicator lights and protective runes; it had been rubbed down with powdered silver and fluttered with freshly transcribed
papyri. The Inquisitorial Representative’s mummified face managed to express enough surprise to stay Vangorich’s hand.
‘Drakan? What are you doing in my apartments?’ Veritus’ voice was a dry wheeze, like a legacy recording from a scrivener-cherub left to decay over a thousand years of storage.
Vangorich lowered his pistol to the table and stood as the door slid smoothly shut behind the inquisitor. He shrugged.
‘It is the most secure location on Terra.’
‘So my aides were at pains to point out to me.’
‘If it helps, I was informed equally reliably that you’d not be returning from the Inquisitorial Fortress until tomorrow. An attack moon in orbit is just one more excuse for a slip in standards, isn’t it?’
Veritus smiled slightly, an odd, grisly re-interpretation of human amusement. He looked tired, Vangorich realised. More worn out than he had ever seen him. It was as if the Inquisitorial Representative had merely dropped by his suite with no grander intention than a few stolen hours of peace and quiet.
Vangorich wondered if he still wore that armour, even when he thought he was alone.
‘You are slipping, Drakan,’ said Veritus. ‘Udin Macht Udo convened an emergency meeting of the High Twelve last night.’
‘He did what?’
Veritus glanced sideways at Krule. The Assassin had lowered his plasma pistol, but only marginally.
‘Have him put it away, Drakan. You have my assurance that I could do it for him just as easily.’
Krule raised an eyebrow, but nevertheless stowed and reconcealed his weapon at Vangorich’s nod.
‘Shall I leave you, sir?’
‘Thank you, Krule.’
Veritus peered down over the lip of his high gorget collar as Beast Krule moved past him and ducked out. Again the door slid shut and clamped. The hiss of air breathed against the inquisitor’s brittle lashes. His expression was unreadable.
‘The Lord Commander proposed a motion to suspend the Inquisition from the High Twelve.’