‘Captain, you will delay the...’ Correlan’s voice snapped over the ship-wide vox, but Arrun ignored it.
‘Yes, captain.’
Scant seconds later, the huge strike cruiser hauled herself free of Gildar Secundus’s orbit and began cutting through space, closing the distance between herself and the Infidels with ponderous majesty.
There had been much trade activity in the Gildar system in the past few weeks. Many cargo vessels had come and gone, each without incident, each without question. Gildar Secundus was the usual destination but there were other, smaller worlds in the sector that received regular shipments from all across the Imperium.
None of them had been suspicious. None of them had raised any call for alarm. All of the ships that came into the system conducted their business swiftly and without lingering too long. It was possibly the presence of the Silver Skulls that encouraged such expediency, but it worked. They came, they transacted and they left.
But the ships did not always leave with the same numbers aboard with which they had arrived. Even this was not by itself cause for misgiving. People came and went all the time. Sometimes, larger vessels travelled through, bringing and removing regiments of young men and women to their assignments with the Imperial Guard in other systems. All these were entirely normal activities. Nobody paid attention when a ship came in with two hundred souls aboard and left with one hundred and eighty.
Had Daerys Arrun scraped beneath the surface, he would not like what lay there.
He would have found tiny things. But tiny things that came together to form a far bigger picture. A team of prospectors returning to the habs of Gildar Secundus from the plains had mysteriously disappeared. Local law enforcement officers reporting a spate of murders that shared no apparent reason or commonality. Mechanical failures that caused system shutdowns and rolling blackouts. All small things that happened with systematic regularity on Imperial worlds. There was nothing unusual in it. But thanks to tireless planning and effortless cunning, on the many worlds of the Gildar system, things were beginning to fall into place.
The wind howled around the comms-tower which served the Primus-Phi refinery. It whipped up and bore the endless red dust with it. It pattered constantly against the armaplas of the window, scoring and pitting it. Not that the panel served much of a purpose; during these storms, it reduced visibility to nothing more than a dark red haze. Officer Evett shivered at the thought of going out into the howling dust storm and thumbed the rune that closed the armoured shutters. The interior lumen-strips flickered briefly as the heavy panels locked into place, but at least the eerie screech of the relentless gale outside was instantly muted.
‘Your turn for the recaff run,’ he grinned at his subordinate who lounged back in his seat with a groan.
‘Is it really my turn? Really? I could have sworn that it was yours, sir. I grabbed us some of those seed bar things from the shipment, remember?’ He raised his eyebrows and gave Evett a hopeful look, about as keen as the comms-officer to venture out into the unforgiving storm.
‘Nope, definitely your turn. I picked up the lho-sticks. Recaff. Now. And don’t forget to close that damn bulkhead properly or we’ll be shovelling dust out of the vents for days.’ Evett threw himself into his seat and propped his boots up on the console, confident that there would be little to disturb him until the weather improved.
‘Fine. Just don’t blame me if it’s cold when I get back.’
Evett replied by stretching out an arm languorously and pointed at the stairwell. The engineer groaned and dragged himself down to the maintenance room. He struggled into an enviro-suit, rebreather and visor. The refinery entrance was only a few hundred metres away, but if he had to go out, he was at least going to go out prepared.
The small barracks on the ground floor that housed the militia detachment assigned to the tower was virtually empty, the troopers no doubt engaged on one of their endless and thankless patrols. The engineer didn’t envy them tonight.
‘Going out?’ The voice came from Trooper Bessin, seated atop his bunk.
‘No, Deeko. I’m all dressed up like this for my own personal comfort and entertainment. Why would you even ask that question?’
‘Great,’ the soldier smirked, unfazed by the dripping sarcasm. ‘Grab me some lho-sticks while you’re out.’
The engineer rolled his eyes, executing a theatrical bow. ‘Anything else you would like while I’m out, Oh Glorious Lord of the Imperium?’
‘Yeah, some dancing girls would be nice. And maybe a large bottle of something relaxing.’
‘Amasec?’
The soldier laughed; a raucous sound. ‘You and your amasec! It’s a big Imperium. Why don’t you find something a little more creative?’
The engineer’s reply was short, crude and garnered another bout of explosive laughter from the off-duty soldier. The bulkhead marking the entrance to the tower was whistling softly in the wind and a few drifts of scarlet dust had blustered over the floor. The particulate matter would need to be swept out soon before it started to clog the atmosphere filters, but the engineer certainly wasn’t about to undertake the onerous task. He stumped up to the access panel and punched a few runes.
A second later the heavy portal groaned and slid to one side admitting a blast of freezing wind and dust. Still grumbling in discontent and keeping his head down to avoid the wind, the engineer moved forward. He took barely five steps before he collided with something.
Entirely filling the entrance stood a hulking figure cast in blood and shadow. Too large by far to be one of his colleagues, the engineer raised his head up. Behind the visor of the rebreather, his eyes widened in shock.
The massive creature in the gloom moved slightly and the engineer caught the faintest glimpse of something shining in the sliver of light that came from the door. Transfixed by the fractal edge of the combat knife, Engineer Schafer felt the first, searing pain of the weapon as it opened his throat from ear to ear. Before he had even hit the ground, his life’s blood had already begun to drain from the expertly opened gash.
He died quickly. He was one of the lucky ones.
‘Starboard mark is accelerating to attack speed – her weapons are primed.’
On the Dread Argent, Arrun had taken his seat in the command throne. He leaned forward, his massive shoulders hunched with the tension of the moment. ‘Focus your attention on that one, but do not lose sight of what her sister ship is up to.’
‘She’s training her guns on us, sir.’
The captain sneered. ‘A genuine shame. I’m sure Correlan and his team would have liked the opportunity to strip that ship bare and expose her secrets. Shield power?’
‘Deployed at sixty-eight per cent, captain. It’s the best we can get.’
The Dread Argent was not without her own design flaws. She was old, but she was reliable. In the decades that Arrun had known her, she had never been perfect. He mused on it only briefly before everything once again became a babble of noise.
‘Unacceptable. Divert more power from the port plasma coils.’
‘Compliance.’
‘Cannons loading.’
‘Get me the Head Astropath. I need a message sending to the fleet.’
‘Compliance.’
‘And don’t lose sight of that port ship. Continue tracking.’
‘Augury glitch!’ One of the human crew applied the ritual blow, slamming the palm of his hand against the end of the gas-lens scope that he was using to track the second Infidel. He swore. ‘Tech-priest, I need you here.’
The tech-priest’s subsequent chant, soft and barely audible underscored everything else that was taking place. Arrun’s senses could separate and ignore it through a combination of years of practise and his own mental acuity. The tech-priest blessed the gas-lens viewer and stepped back. The serf checked its functionality and nodded. The tech-priest moved on to his next duty.
‘Infidel Alpha still holding position.’
‘Target Beta is power
ing up her weapons.’
‘Shield power?’
‘Shield generators now at eighty per cent, sir.’
Arrun drew a breath. Eighty per cent would have to be enough. They were an Imperial strike cruiser and the odds were heavily in their favour that they could withstand a bombardment from the Infidel and remain intact. But Arrun had seen odds defied before.
‘What is it that this runt is trying to achieve?’ Prognosticator Brand also leaned forward in his seat. ‘Is it a distraction tactic, perhaps?’ The question was entirely rhetorical, but Arrun turned to face him sharply.
‘A distraction from what?’ His tone was ice-cool and the unease he felt at the Prognosticator’s suggestion was not at all welcome.
‘An objective viewpoint, brother-captain. He has made his move and you have responded by deviating from your orbit.’ Brand studied Arrun carefully. ‘Do you think that may be intentional?’ The Prognosticator got to his feet and moved across to the cogitator banks. His eyes scanned the data that was there. ‘Is there anything – anything at all that might have slipped in behind our backs whilst they were turned?’
‘I... haven’t analysed the data yet, my lord...’ The serf at the controls stared up at the Prognosticator anxiously. His eyes flicked to Arrun and back as the captain rose from his command throne and joined his advisor. The look on the captain’s face was bordering on infuriated.
‘What exactly are you suggesting, Brand?’ The two giants towered above the serf and he visibly cringed at their proximity. The tension generated as the warrior faced the psyker was intense and uncomfortable for the others on the bridge. The sheer challenge in Arrun’s tone was enough for the human serf to desperately want to get out of their way.
As it transpired, whatever the Prognosticator may have been suggesting would have to wait.
‘Starboard Infidel has opened fire. I repeat – incoming lance fire!’ The words were screamed out over the ever-present hubbub of noise in the deck.
‘All hands brace for impact.’ Arrun’s brief anger with the Prognosticator was forgotten in the moment and he crossed the deck in several strides to the weapon bank. ‘Return fire, Meron. Blast that bastard out of the stars.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Meron’s hand slammed down on the runic keyboards that operated the cannon launch systems and the Dread Argent spat her deadly forward payload across the vast reaches of space towards the Infidel.
The impact of the other ship’s attack of chance went barely registered beyond a slight shaking of the Silver Skulls strike cruiser. The void shields crackled and rippled alarmingly. Arrun knew his ship well enough to note that a slight shaking meant a reasonable amount of damage had been absorbed. The Infidel would have no opportunity to shoot at them a second time; the missiles that the Dread Argent had launched would reach it and destroy it before that happened.
‘Impact in three... two... one...’
Time stood still as the occulus blossomed with the glaring white light of the Infidel as her plasma engines detonated. A vast shower of metal debris blasted outwards from the ship, some thrown as far as the Dread Argent itself. Arrun watched the destruction of the enemy vessel with ambivalence. They were strong little ships, certainly – but neither had nor never would be, a match for the might of the Imperium.
‘Report.’ Arrun’s voice broke the silence. He knew what the answer would be, but protocol demanded it.
‘Target destroyed.’ The serf tapped his monitor screen as it flickered rebelliously at him. ‘Confirmed. Target destroyed.’
‘What of the port ship?’
‘It’s fleeing, sir. Should we give the order for pursuit?’
Arrun hesitated and turned his head sideways so that he could see the Prognosticator. Brand had resumed sitting back in his chair, his hood drawn over his eyes once again. It was an affectation, certainly, but it had the effect of lending the psyker an extra air of mystery he little needed. The Prognosticator’s head shook. It was a barely perceptible movement, but Arrun knew it for what it was.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No. We will let them go. The Fates have decreed that our job here is done. I do not believe they will be returning in a hurry now they have witnessed our capabilities.’ The Master of the Fleet dragged a hand across his jaw thoughtfully. ‘But conversely, we must not allow that to make us complacent. I want security on the Gildar system stepped up. I want regular reports from the main comms officers on those worlds. Arrange for the astropaths to spread word amongst the fleet within the Gildar Rift. Have them remain on full alert.’
Arrun strode across the bridge, orders continuing to fall from his lips. ‘I want vigilance on all vessels into the system. Inform those shipping outbound craft that there are raiders operating in the area. Tell them to be on their guard. And send a further message to the home world. Inform Lord Commander Argentius that our return will be delayed a little longer.’
He turned to Brand. ‘Those traitors are a poison that will not be allowed to spread in this system. You and I may not see eye to eye on some things, but this, I am sure, you agree with.’ There was a burning hatred in his eyes. Arrun knew that Brand, just like him, found traitors amongst their own kin to be anathema. ‘We will run them out of this system and those who do not run fast enough...’ He turned back again to the viewscreen and his face twisted in a grim smile. ‘Then they will suffer the consequences.’
He was a creature of the stars, a creature of bloodshed and glory. His long-ago rebirth into a life of war defined him. It was what he had once aspired to become and what he now embodied. This enforced inactivity had been nothing short of torture. Yet his master had decreed he wait until the optimal moment. Taemar had served under his master’s command for long enough to know that what he wanted, he got.
At least he was not alone. There were several of his comrades on this forsaken rock with him, all of whom were suffering the same effects of inactivity. For now, they were hidden, kept far away from the promethium refineries that dominated so much of the habitable areas of Gildar Secundus. They had put down on the planet several days before and as of yet, had received nothing to suggest the plan had been put into action.
‘What is it that you seek, brother? Up there in the endless dark of night?’
The voice came from over his right shoulder and Taemar turned at the formal words and almost archaic tone. His shaved head bowed in a gesture of deep respect for the other.
‘I merely search the stars for a sign, my lord.’
‘Do you doubt that our master will signal us when the time is right? Patience is a virtue, Taemar. You of all people should know that. He will not rush a masterpiece that he has spent so long creating. It has only been days. It will be worth waiting for. The Silver Skulls are predictable and foolish, slaves to their precious routines. They insist upon allowing themselves to be governed by the skeins of Fate. Have a little faith in our leader’s plans. Never doubt for one moment that he will play them right into our hands.’
Lord Apothecary Garreon of the Red Corsairs smiled. It was a slow, cruel smile that held no humour. He was taller than most of his comrades but with a rangy leanness that would have made him seem thin had he not been a Space Marine. Sharp, angular cheekbones stood out prominently in a scarred face whose most striking feature was the eyes. An impassive, unreadable dark brown, the colour of Garreon’s irises were so dark that his pupils were barely visible. His hair was a tawny brown mane that fell to his shoulders, streaked through with grey that hinted at advancing years. It was a face that was filled with great intelligence but was also underlined with obvious cruelty. It told in the play of the quizzical way he tipped his head in a birdlike manner when he spoke. He always seemed to be questioning, even when he was simply conversing. It told also in the way his tongue would run across his thin lips when he was describing an experiment. One of the many battle scars that he bore pulled his expression into a permanent sneer that seemed to suit his manner.
Taemar had seen that face twist in thought and in
satiable curiosity as the Lord Apothecary worked on one of his subjects. He knew how keenly intelligent Garreon could be. He was also acutely aware of how cruel he could be.
The Red Corsairs called him ‘The Corpsemaster’, not because he harboured any desire to see the dead walk, but because he took a pathological interest in the biology of the dying and the dead, both of whom provided him with a harvest of precious gene-seed. He believed, as had many Apothecaries throughout the history of the Adeptus Astartes, that the future of their brotherhood lay in a better understanding of human genetics and xenobiology. He performed regular dissections on enemies and Red Corsairs both – in some cases whilst his subjects were still living. He could keep his victims alive for a phenomenal length of time, reducing them to skeletal, still-living things that begged for a release that was an eternity coming.
Taemar resumed staring up into the star-studded skies of Gildar Secundus. Huron Blackheart’s plans were often impossible to fathom, but that was part of what made him so brilliant. Insane, certainly – but only when viewed from a certain perspective. ‘If I might ask, Lord Apothecary, what is your particular interest in these deluded weaklings?’
‘The Silver Skulls… hmm.’ Garreon ran a long finger over his jaw in a thoughtful gesture. ‘Predominately, their psykers. The particular genetic strain seems to grant them an uncanny ability to perceive the future. Whether it’s a genuine precognition, a true link to the Emperor’s will or simply clever sleight-of-hand and trickery on their part remains to be proven… but history would suggest that they are either well advised, or exceptionally lucky.’
His lips curled upwards into a smile. Taemar, still staring upwards, did not see it. ‘Also, they are dying out. Their numbers grow ever smaller. They are a forgotten, far-flung, distant Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. You don’t recall the Astral Claws, do you Taemar? You were not one of my brothers when things changed irrevocably.’
Taemar made a grunt of affirmation. His roots had not been with the Astral Claws. Once, a lifetime ago, he had belonged to another Chapter. But the less he thought about his own betrayal, the less it bothered him. He’d fought and murdered his way through the Red Corsairs to the lofty position of one of Blackheart’s champions. History suggested that this was no coveted position – death was his only reward and well he knew it.
Hammer and Bolter - Issue 12 Page 7