"Holos up." called Jubal. Instantly the far end of the bridge disappeared, replaced by a holographic display screen as big as a playing field. It went black, the liquid nothingness of simulated space, gridded with glowing lines. Bright drawings of Iconoclast starships appeared on it.
"Six killships," Jubal counted. "Ten light cruisers, Syntyche-class, it looks like. Sneck, are they still using those?"
The view swivelled dizzyingly, changing orientation to show the Iconoclast fleet in relation to the hub.
The Iconoclast ships were moving away from Hermes Alpha. As Red watched, one of them flickered and faded out. "First blood."
"Prepare for terminal deceleration." Jubal reached up and tightened his battle-harness. "On my command. Umbrae Nova, signal your readiness."
Ship icons began lighting up at the sides of the holo. In addition to Persephone and the other seven battleships, Jubal's group consisted of twelve destroyers and twenty corvettes. Red watched as the icons formed up in rows. In a few seconds, all forty were alight.
Jubal nodded. "Drop to realspace in five seconds, mark." He took a deep breath. "Life without death, light without dark, Scarlet be thy name, protect thy servant from the wolves of humankind, let me-"
"I'm standing right here," Red grated. "Stop that."
"Sorry."
Persephone's deck heaved. The holo changed from flat, sterile blackness to a glittering sprawl of stars. A real view from the front of the ship, now they were out of jump.
Streams of antimat fire began carving through space towards them. Red fought the urge to duck aside as one slammed right into the holo display in a wash of fire. The view fluttered and changed angle slightly. One sense-engine had been vaporised, another brought online. "Nice shooting."
"They've improved since Broteus," said Jubal, suddenly quite calm. He was in his element now.
"All vessels, target the hub's weapons systems. Primary force on the hunger-guns, let the Vampyrs have a clear run in. Break formation. Spread out, lock and assault by threes. Luck to us all, in the name of Saint Scarlet. Amen."
Steams of light were pouring away from the holo now, and from either side, converging on a point in the centre. Red couldn't see the hub yet, but the structure must have been taking a pounding. "Jude?"
"Holy one, we are taking heavy damage! The Iconoclast forces are concentrating on the corvettes, and we've lost three already. Xerxes has lost tertiary thrusters..." He broke off, coughing. "The day does not go well, I'm afraid."
On the holo, a point of light appeared beyond the hub, grew to a disc, and faded. "Jude. What was that?"
"One of our battleships, the Castronova."
"Sneck. They're being ripped open out there."
"The Iconoclast killship is a formidable vessel," said Jubal. Two more globes of white light appeared on the holo, fading out slowly. "Although not invincible. I believe the Xerxes has just evened the odds somewhat."
He swung the throne around. "Holy one, it is time. Most of the hub's defences are down. If you could make your way to the boarding craft?"
"On my way, Jubal." She flashed her fangs at him. "Give them hell, okay?"
"In thy name, my Saint."
There was nothing subtle about an Umbrae Nova boarding craft. From the outside it looked very much like an ancient church spire lying on its side, fitted with stubby wings and huge drive nacelles. The long, six-sided prow was massively armoured, its corners set with saw teeth, designed to punch clear through the hull armour of enemy vessels. To help it along, Dathan's engineers had fitted a plasma cannon to the tip.
The inside, if possible, was even less subtle than the outside. Red sat strapped into an impact cradle. Apart from her and Godolkin, everyone else on the craft was wearing the trademark Umbrae Nova battle-armour, multiple layers of slate-grey plastene and hardened ceramic, faces covered by mirrored visors.
As well, everyone but her and Godolkin carried Tenebrae frag-rifles. She'd had him go back to the Hunter for some of her personal weapons, and now two particle magnums were clipped to her belt, held tight against her thighs by the cradle's padding. Godolkin, sitting across the aisle from her, had his holy weapon held tightly across his chest.
There were those among the Umbrae Nova troops who probably didn't like that much. None of them were stupid enough to say it, though.
The craft had no external view, and no dampers. Red held onto the edges of her cradle and felt every buck and jolt as the ship sped between Persephone's launch bay and the comms hub. Although Jubal had assured her most of the hub's defensive weaponry had been taken out, there was still enough to make the craft's pilots fling the ship around the sky to avoid what was being launched at them.
There were a hundred troopers on the boarding craft, and fifteen craft in the assault. Red was just wondering how many would make it when they reached Hermes Alpha.
It was like taking a sledgehammer to the back. Red shouted in pain as her cradle slammed forwards, billowing around her, then rocked back with a hiss of recompressing foam. She felt the latches slapping open, saw the edges of the cradle springing apart, and jumped down onto the deck. Everyone else was doing the same. The craft was filled with the rough clicks of frag-guns being primed.
She hauled out her magnums, caught Godolkin watching her and gave him a wink. Then the front of the craft opened like a flower.
The six triangular facets spread out, ripping through the hull they had pierced with deafening metallic screams. Red could hear another noise too, higher-pitched. The whistle of escaping air. There was no seal between the open craft and the inside of the hub.
It probably didn't matter.
Light was flooding in. Umbrae Nova troopers began spilling out of the prow into a wide, tubular corridor. Red was roughly in the middle of the group, protected by volunteer troopers at the front. They'd stepped forwards willingly to go before her, ready to be blown apart by Iconoclast weapons so that she might live. Which she thought was very sweet, and a little worrying.
There were no Iconoclasts in the corridor, however. The team was able to exit the boarding craft and spread out without trouble.
"All right people," Red called. "We're in. Godolkin?"
"Two craft were destroyed on the way in. The technical team is intact." He was monitoring the Iconoclast internal communications - he knew all their cipher-codes off by heart. "Most of the incursions are on the level above us."
"Okay, people, you heard the man. Team one, you're with me. We'll head to the generators and start laying charges. Team two, join up with Sibbecai's techs. And remember, no bloody heroics! This isn't about taking out as many Iconoclasts as possible - this is about shutting this thing down and bugging out. The more of you are alive when the Conclave starts, the more chance we have of making this work."
Resistance was heavy. The Iconoclast troops stationed on Hermes Alpha were quick to mobilise, and set about repelling boarders with both skill and enthusiasm. Red lost soldiers in stand-up fights, to sniper fire, even one man to a strand of monobond line strung between two pillars in the secondary cloister.
Even in the face of this, the Umbrae Nova fought like demons. Red led them in charge after charge, magnums snarling out bolts of death as frag-shells hammered past her, gradually battering her way through the levels.
Red had never seen such brutality on both sides, such compete and utter hatred for the enemy. The Umbrae Nova fought for her, the name of Saint Scarlet on their lips as they died. The Iconoclasts fought for survival.
Eventually they made it down to the generator level. Red had twelve surviving warriors with her plus Godolkin, and dried blood all over the side of her face from when a marine's skull had been blown open right next to her.
As she rounded the corner she could see there had already been a firefight here. This corridor was also close to the outside of the hub, but too small for an effective incursion. One of the boarding craft had been flung off course and ended up there anyway, ripping through the hull at a sharp angle. Only thre
e facets of the prow had been able to open, vastly restricting the numbers of soldier that had been able to come through at once. An Iconoclast shocktrooper squad had used staking pins on the ones who had made it, and burners on those still in the craft. It was on fire even now, vomiting smoke into the corridor. Impaled corpses littered the deck around it.
At the end of the corridor, rows of pillars surrounded an arched hatchway, which was the entrance to the generator hall. As soon as Red saw it she knew it was trouble, an opinion confirmed when a barrage of staking pins screamed out of it. She dived aside, behind the burnt-out boarding craft. "Get down."
Three of her troopers were already on the deck, staking pins buried in their armour. The pins were as long as her forearm, needle-tipped, blast-fired from holy weapons like that which Godolkin carried wrapped around his right arm.
She raised one of her magnums, sighting along the top. Black armour appeared from behind a column: Red put a shot into it, saw a man's arm explode in a sheet of blood and flame. The Iconoclast tumbled out, shrieking, and took another shot in the chest. His torso detonated.
All hell broke loose. The Iconoclasts behind the pillars abandoned all attempts to stay in cover, and just opened up with everything they had in Red's direction. The Umbrae Nova troopers responded in kind. For a few awful seconds the corridor was a solid mass of staking pins and frag-shells, exploding bodies, jets of cleansing fire.
In half a minute it was all over. One final Iconoclast staggered out from his pillar, his armour on fire from one of Godolkin's burner shots. Red took him down with a head shot.
She switched guns. The magnum she had been using had grown hot against her palm. When she looked back, she could see that almost half her remaining force were down.
"Dammit." She stood up shakily. "Godolkin? What do you reckon the rest of the way's going to be like?"
"Token resistance, mistress. There are few transmissions taking place on the internal cipher. I believe our enemies have been vanquished."
"Great. Hey, you." She pointed at the nearest marine. "Yeah, you. You're in charge of this lot from now on."
"Me?"
"You arguing?" He shook his head frantically. "Take the team and get the wounded back to the boarding craft. Pick up any injured you find on the way there, and then hold position until I get back."
Godolkin stepped towards her, waving his holy weapon to cool it down. "Mistress, what do you intend?"
"The usual." She raised the magnum to vertical. "You and me, some detonex, things going boom... Interested?"
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
10. ACQUISITION: SHALEM REDUX
As she had hoped, the Voice of Pain had arrived at Shalem while Antonia was on Noamon. She saw it on the way in, from the bridge of the Merodach.
It was huge. She had thought the superdreadnought she'd seen in Noamon's angel vault had been big, but Voice of Pain dwarfed even that. Only the Malificarium, the monstrous vessel just commissioned by the holy Patriarch himself, would be larger.
She wondered how much influence Trophimus had had in the decision to give her such a vessel for a flagship. Any vessel at all, in fact.
The ship hung a few kilometres away from Shalem, keeping station with automated thruster bursts. It was mainly one vast, rounded disc, six kilometres across, the rear edge open and studded with drive-bells. There were twin cut-outs at the prow, each as large as that in the forward section of a killship, and flooded with red light. From those openings would emerge Voice of Pain's complement of five hundred daggerships.
The disc was cut through at right angles by a finlike structure as big as a dreadnought, studded with hundreds of hunger-gun emplacements. From the schematics she had been given Antonia knew that the vertical section was where most of the inhabited areas of the ship were located. The disc was taken up with daggership hangars, multiple fusion cores, weapons storage and the all-important damper arrays.
Voice of Pain was huge, solid, brutal. Even in Antonia it inspired awe. To her enemies, it would bring terror.
"Beautiful," she breathed.
The captain looked up from his display boards. "Het Admiral?"
She made no indication she'd spoken. "Captain, take us into the angel vault. I'd like to transfer the flag to Voice of Pain immediately."
"Thy will be done."
On the holo-display, Voice of Pain's port flank was still scanning past her.
In her mind's eye, Merodach passed by that mighty vessel slowly, as if shamed, a minnow sidling past a whale.
The new flagship had arrived at Shalem with a skeleton crew. Antonia's plan was to strip back the crews of some of her other ships, skimming off the best personnel for the Voice of Pain. When the reinforcements she had requested arrived from Curia, she would take the fleet back up to full strength.
Setting up the transfers would take time. Voice of Pain's full crew compliment was six thousand.
As soon as the Merodach entered the vault, Antonia left in a gravity-scow and returned to her chambers aboard Shalem. It was customary for Gordia to go in first to make sure the rooms were secure, but Antonia decided to forgo that protocol for once. She didn't know how much time she had, and didn't want to waste any of it waiting around for her bodyguard to check under the bed.
Besides, she was slightly worried someone might find a pen there.
But time, indeed, could be short. Trophimus would be arriving soon, and Lord Tactician Saulus might already be setting his plans in motion against her. She had put aside her scheme to petition the Patriarch for the moment, and wondered if that would buy her some time with Saulus. He might have other things on his mind than her.
And that oversight, if she could exploit it, might just give her the edge she needed to thwart him.
She sat at her desk and tapped at the polished surface in the exact place to bring up her comms panel. A square of coloured light appeared momentarily under her fingertip, and the panel appeared in holographic form above the desktop. She keyed the cipher to that of Voice of Pain's bridge. "Captain Teresh."
Teresh's face appeared in the holopanel before her. He was a thickset man, quite bald, his lined face partly covered by the sensory helm he wore. One half of the helm curved around to cover his right eye. The organ must have been modified to take data input, Antonia realised.
"Het Admiral," he replied. "I trust Voice of Pain meets with your approval."
"So far, captain, so far. And welcome to Shalem."
He dipped his head. "My thanks."
"Captain, I'd like to come aboard as soon as possible. The crew manifest will not be a quick job - it will go easier if I have your expertise to draw on."
"I'd be honoured, Het. The ship is ready for you, at any time. I can send your personal launch over if you wish."
"Yes, that would be-" She froze. An icon was blinking rapidly at the corner of the holopanel. The emergency communications symbol. "Forgive me, captain, I'll have to get back to you. Continue to make the ship ready. I'll be with you shortly."
"Thy will be done."
She reached up and tapped the icon. A different face appeared, a woman. Hard face, thin, hair dragged back under a glossy black skullcap. An Iconoclast medic. "Admiral Huldah Antonia?"
"That's correct."
"Admiral, I am Physician First-Class Lorca Silvanus, chief surgeon aboard the Gamaliel."
Antonia's breath stopped. Gamaliel was a fast corvette, heavily modified. Trophimus used it whenever he needed to be somewhere in a hurry. "Is there a problem?"
Silvanus nodded. "We are en-route to you at maximum speed factor, Het. Fleet Admiral Trophimus is aboard. I have to tell you that the fleet admiral is gravely ill."
Cold fingers brushed the inside of Antonia's ribs. "Explain," she whispered.
"He collapsed soon after we left. I ordered a return to Noamon, but he overruled me, saying it was imperative that he see you as soon as possible. Soon after that, he lost consciousness. I have been able to do nothing for him except stabilise h
is condition."
"Nothing?" Antonia was on her feet. "You are a Physician First-Class - did you reach that position by doing nothing?"
"Het Admiral, the situation is critical. We will be with you in six standard hours. Please ready your infirmary for our arrival." She leaned close to the pickup. "Het Admiral, I believe-"
The screen fluttered and went blank.
For a second or two, Antonia could only stare at it. Then she started tapping at the controls, trying to bring the picture back up. "Silvanus? Silvanus. Where in hell are you?"
Nothing. Antonia slammed her fist down into the desktop, then switched to the internal cipher. "Tech-Prime Omri."
There was a long silence, far longer than normal. Finally Omri's machine-face appeared on the holo. "Het Admiral."
"Omri, the goddamned comm unit in my snecking chambers just cut off in the middle of a critical message. Is there no maintenance done on this cursed temple-station?"
"Het Admiral, all communications have been lost. There are no broadscan comms entering the station. Quantum inseparability links are showing null returns. Right now, we can't even talk to the ships outside."
Antonia sagged back into her chair. Somehow, Shalem had been cut free from the communications network. Saulus, she thought immediately.
Was this his doing?
"Omri, I apologise."
"Het Admiral? Your thermal signature is modified. Are you unwell?"
"I'm fine. Tech-prime, this is the work of outside agencies, ones who wish us harm."
"Is there another kind?"
"Probably not. Get some kind of comms going between our ships, even if it's nothing more than shocktroopers waving flags. I need to talk to my captains." She cut him off before he could give the customary acknowledgement. Politeness was a complete irrelevance, with time so short.
Short, yet so impossibly long.
Antonia sat at the desk for some time, forcing herself to keep still.
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