SABBAT WAR

by Edited by Dan Abnett

  She is going to collapse the cavern instead.

  Automated turrets turn on her as she thunders towards the mooring anchors, hard rounds ringing against the Lightning’s armour plating. The interceptor rocks with every blow. More cracks appear in the cockpit armaglass, so deep that Avery can feel freezing air bleeding through the gaps. Frost instantly rimes the instruments. Her helmet visor. She can hardly see, but she can’t stop, either. Avery settles her grip on the lascannon controls, and bares her teeth in a smile.

  ‘Shido,’ she says. ‘Liza.’ Avery takes a breath. ‘Colt.’

  Avery fires the lascannons in a continuous, bright white torrent. The lasers carve deeply into the ice around the mooring claws, flash-boiling water and sending clouds of steam into the air. Eruptions trigger deep within the ice, sending deep, dark cracks through the cavern walls. Then it all starts to shift. To collapse. The mooring points. The communications hub. The cavern. Everything. It rolls towards Avery like a breaking wave as she turns the Lightning and hammers the burners, heading back towards the cave mouth. The Lightning gasps as it drains the last reserves of its fuel. As the growing cloud of ice and stone engulfs it. The burners gutter out. Then the engines go. The instruments, too. Avery’s world becomes dark, and deafening. She is slammed back in her seat. Slammed into by something. Then it all stops. The collapse. The rush. The slow hiss of the air-mix, feeding her breather mask. Avery manages to reach up and unhook it, breathing the chemical air for the first time. It burns, like fire-whisky. Avery can’t move. She doesn’t really try to. Instead, she settles back in the cradle of the flight chair. She might close her eyes. It’s so dark it’s hard to tell. Somewhere out there in the blackness, and the shifting ice, Avery fancies that she hears those same sounds again. The low, crackling murmur of the old hymn-caster. The clinking of glasses.

  And warm, familiar laughter.

  04

  NOCTUS PRIMARIS.

  789.M41.

  Leana Vidal watches as the Lightning strike fighter is lowered to the floor of the hangar by a mechanical lifting claw. The interceptor settles easily on its stanchions, the dawn sunlight catching the edges of its armour plating and turning the aircraft from silver to gold. The lifter clamps release one by one, and then the claw is retracted altogether, leaving Vidal staring up at the Lightning.

  At her Lightning.

  ‘She’s beautiful, sir,’ Callisto says, from beside her. The kid is just a rookie. Thin, and long-limbed, with an Imperialis tattooed on her shaved scalp and an open, earnest face that Vidal can’t stand to focus on for long. It’s because of that look, she thinks. Expectant. Trusting. Full of faith in the war. In her. Vidal has seen it a dozen times before on the other pilots she has trained. It’s always there in the beginning, but it never lasts long.

  Either it dies, or they do.

  ‘She must be new off the line, sir,’ Callisto says, oblivious. ‘The way she looks.’

  Vidal doesn’t answer. She just limps towards the Lightning and looks up at the bullish front of the interceptor. Callisto is right about the way the Lightning looks. The interceptor’s armour plating is immaculate. Not a mark on it. No battle damage or old scars. Not on the surface, anyway. Vidal reaches out and puts a hand on the silver plating. It is warm to the touch, as though the Lightning is a living thing.

  ‘No,’ Vidal says. ‘The plating is new. The armaglass, and the paintwork. But she is old underneath.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir. How can you tell?’

  Vidal drops her hand away, and frowns softly.

  ‘I can feel it,’ she says.

  At first glance, the cockpit of the Lightning is just as immaculate as the exterior. There is not a single scuff on the control panel. No oil smears, or pieces of tack-tape. No filler or sealant. Every dial and instrument is intact and correctly calibrated. The cockpit armaglass is spotless. Scratchless. Even the seat has been completely refurbished in brown synth-leather. Everything smells of plastek and polish. But as Vidal climbs into the cockpit, she picks out another more familiar smell, too.

  Blood and oil, long soaked-in.

  Vidal lowers herself into the flight seat slowly, her augmetic legs grinding at the hip and knee. It has been the same ever since they were grafted. When she asked about it at the time, Vidal was told that it was a failing in the spinal graft, causing phantom pain. The augmenticians gave her therapeutic exercises to do. Pain meds, and stimm injectors to compensate when the meds couldn’t cut it. When Vidal asked them why they couldn’t just fix it, the chief of staff told her that it doesn’t work that way. That with trauma so severe, there will always be some pain. It’s only now, years later, that Vidal realises how true that really is.

  ‘How’s she looking, Lea?’

  The voice belongs to Kash. Vidal’s wingman is prepping his own Lightning for take-off on the next hardstand along. He is the only one to have flown beside Vidal long enough to get on first-name terms. The closest thing she dares to a friend.

  ‘As if she is too stubborn to lie down and die,’ Vidal replies.

  Kash sounds as though he’s smiling when he answers her. Like her, he has spent years rotating from war front to war front. Kash has been downed, and injured out. He has been counted as MIA. WIA. KIA. Refitted, refurbished and put back on the line.

  ‘One of us, then,’ he says.

  Vidal nods, absently, still smelling that old blood. ‘One of us.’

  She reaches up and unclasps the silver saint from around her neck, then leans forward and hooks it over the airframe so that it hangs in her peripheral vision. Then Vidal reaches into her flight coat and takes out a small, silver tin. She tips out a handful of pain meds and swallows them dry, then injects herself with a shot of stimms. Neither thing really does much to take the edge off. Not any more. It’s just habit, like hanging up the saint. Vidal secures her harness and fits her breather mask, then looks up to see the silver saint watching her with blank eyes.

  ‘What?’ Vidal asks the saint, bitterly.

  Sabbat does not answer. She never does. Not any more.

  ‘Close up, Sabre Two,’ Vidal says. ‘You’re wandering.’

  The response over the vox is immediate, and full of remorse.

  ‘Aye,’ Callisto says. ‘Sorry, sir.’

  Vidal watches Callisto with half an eye as the rookie adjusts her position until she is hanging just off Vidal’s right wing. The manoeuvre is wavering. Hesitant. Vidal breathes out slowly through her nose.

  ‘Callisto,’ she says. ‘You are a qualified pilot, aren’t you?’

  Callisto is hesitant, too, this time. ‘Ah – yes. Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then try to act like it. You’re flying like a washout.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And stop apologising. Just do better.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Callisto replies. ‘I will, sir.’

  Vidal shakes her head minutely. The vox crackles again, but it’s Kash, this time. Private comms.

  ‘You all in the green, Lea?’

  Vidal knows that he is asking about her, not the Lightning. That she is getting at Callisto more than she should, because she is uneasy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Vidal says. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling.’

  ‘About what?’

  Vidal doesn’t have an answer for him. Conditions are perfect. The sky ahead is clear. All red and gold, with the sun rising as a pale white disc at the centre. The wind is at their backs, blowing moderate. There’s not a cloud to be seen.

  ‘Is it the bird?’ Kash asks.

  Vidal frowns. ‘No,’ she says. The Lightning is running like a dream. Engines are firing at optimal. Fuel consumption is optimal. Control response is razor-sharp. No drag, no lag. But Vidal still feels tense. Edgy. She is hyper-aware of that trace smell of old blood. Of the sweat collecting in the small of her back. Of the ache in her legs, and the silver saint, turning slowly with the rumble of the airframe.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Vidal says. ‘Just a feeling.’

 
‘Alright,’ Kash replies. ‘If you say so.’

  Vidal notices then that her silver saint has stopped turning. The tarnished little figure is perfectly still, her blunted sword pointed westwards. Vidal follows the saint’s sword to see a blue-black stain hanging over the mountain line. Cloud, or smoke.

  ‘Heading west,’ Vidal says, into the vox. ‘Do you see that?’

  There’s a moment of quiet before Kash replies.

  ‘I see it. What’s your call?’

  Vidal looks back to the saint. Sabbat is turning slowly again as though she never stopped. Vidal swallows, her mouth paper-dry. Then she switches to the flight-wide channel.

  ‘On me, Sabre,’ she says. ‘We’re going to run the ridgeline.’

  ‘Just a feeling, huh?’

  Kash’s voice is hollow over the vox. Vidal feels it too, facing down the wall of blue-black cloud. It’s not a stain any more. It’s a storm front. A solid, thunderous mass hanging over the ridgeline. Waiting. Growing. Glowering. The wind speed is higher here. More urgent, as though the weather itself is trying to push the storm front away. Even at a distance, Vidal can see that it isn’t working. That the storm front is holding position, like a battleship at anchor.

  ‘It’s standing against the wind,’ Vidal says.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Callisto murmurs.

  ‘No,’ Vidal says. ‘It’s unnatural. Magical.’

  ‘It’s sorcery,’ Kash says.

  Vidal’s heartbeat is deafeningly loud inside her flight helmet. ‘We can’t kill it,’ she says. ‘We have to call it in.’

  Vidal puts the Lightning into a banking turn away from the storm front, Callisto and Kash hanging from her wings. She reaches out and flips the vox-control on the console to engage the long-range comms.

  ‘Delta-actual,’ Vidal says, her voice hoarse. ‘This is Sabre Leader. We have visual on a witch-storm growing over the midland spinal.’

  There’s a howl of distortion, but no reply. Vidal resets the switch and tries again.

  ‘Repeat, this is Sabre Leader. We have eyes on a witch-storm growing over the midland spinal.’

  This time Vidal picks up a fragment of chatter. It takes her a moment to realise it’s not Delta-actual. Not Gothic, either. It’s a glottal tongue. Rasping. Cursed.

  It’s the Pact, scrambling her comms.

  ‘Ah, hellfire!’ Kash voxes. ‘We’ve got company!’

  Vidal looks back to see three enemy fighters scything down from the storm front, coming on high and fast. The Pact fighters are clad in black and dirty bronze. Barbed and brutal, with distinct twin-razor silhouettes.

  Hell Blades.

  ‘Break!’ Vidal yells. ‘Break, now!’

  Kash and Callisto splinter away to the left and right as Vidal hauls back on the stick, boosting her Lightning up into a near-vertical climb before kicking over the nose and falling back the way she came. Back towards the Hell Blades. Two of them streak beneath her, engines roaring. The third is a fraction slower.

  Too slow.

  Vidal opens up with the twin lascannons, striking the Hell Blade across the canopy. It’s a glancing shot, but it’s enough to send the Hell Blade slewing off course and straight into Callisto’s firing arc. The rookie leads too far on the first volley, stinging nothing but the sky. Her second barrage catches the wounded fighter across the wings, shearing away chunks of armour plating. The Hell Blade drops its nose, dragging its shredded wing. It spirals out of sight, leaving a thick trail of black smoke behind. Vidal says the words without thinking.

  ‘Nice tag, Callisto.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ Vidal says. ‘Just stay close.’

  Vidal puts the Lightning into a hard turn as a second Hell Blade screams past her. It’s wounded too, but it’s all surface. Not enough to slow it. The Pact fighter pulls up into a climb, with Kash in close pursuit.

  ‘Little help?’ he voxes.

  ‘On it,’ Vidal replies. Then, to Callisto, ‘If they slip me, you sting them, understood?’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Vidal pulls the Lightning up into another climb. No wingover this time. Just a straight shot that will put her on an intercept course with the fleeing Hell Blade. She hammers the burners, feeling the hard slam of thrust at her back. Her approach vector is good, the angle closing and closing until the Pact fighter cuts into view. Vidal fires her lascannons, stinging the Hell Blade across its curved forewings. That’s enough to slow it. Enough for Kash to catch it. He cuts the Pact fighter apart from underneath, and rockets up past the wreckage even as it tumbles away.

  ‘Where’s the last one?’ he voxes. ‘I don’t see it.’

  Vidal cranes her neck, but she doesn’t see it, either. Not until it is too late. The last of the Hell Blades comes screaming towards her, framed by the white disc of the sun. It opens up with its autocannons, and Vidal braces for impact only for something silver to fill the space in between her and the Hell Blade, taking the shots for her. It’s a Lightning.

  Callisto’s Lightning.

  Vidal yells the rookie’s name into the vox as autocannon rounds rake her Lightning, nose to tail. Callisto’s reply is undercut with distortion, her voice thick and distant.

  ‘You said to stay close,’ she says, as her Lightning comes apart.

  Time seems to slow for Vidal. To stop. She just hangs there frozen as the Hell Blade rolls up and over her, so close it nearly kisses her cockpit armaglass. Vidal stares at it dumbly. It is an old machine. Bronze to the edges, save for gore-red gun mouths.

  And a black arrow streak along the length of the body.

  Vidal blinks. She thinks of red skies and dark iron. Of falling, and fire. Of Eevs and Fontaine.

  She thinks of Sova.

  Vidal slams the control stick hard left, dragging the Lightning’s nose around. She pulls up into a powered climb, burning hard after the Hell Blade as the Pact fighter flees for the storm’s edge. She lights the air with her lascannons, burning off nearly half the charge, but the Hell Blade slips her with cruel ease, yawing and rolling out of her arc. Out of range, even for her missiles. Vidal can’t hold the logis-lock. Not without getting closer.

  Not without following it into the storm.

  ‘Lea,’ Kash voxes. ‘What in the hell are you doing?’

  He’s coming around, too. Hanging off her tail as though he means to follow.

  ‘I’m finishing it,’ Vidal says. ‘You need to break off. Get the intel back to Delta.’

  ‘Are you bloody mad?’ Kash replies. ‘I’m not leaving you–’

  ‘No,’ Vidal says. ‘I’m leaving you.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid! You’ll die in there!’

  ‘It’s the same fighter, Kash. Belshiir Binary. The dockyards.’

  There’s a pause before Kash speaks again. When he does, his voice is softer. Sadder.

  ‘Kill it, Lea.’

  Kash breaks off and banks away as the shadow of the storm falls over Vidal, turning everything inside the cockpit black. Up close, the storm front looks livid. Living. It rears above her, darker than darkness. The Hell Blade cuts straight inside, its infernal engine flaring. Vidal pitches straight after it without slowing. The storm front slams into her Lightning, flaking paint and shreds of shielding from the interceptor’s nose. The engines scream, and the airframe shakes so badly that Vidal thinks it might come apart. That she might come apart, too. Her flesh from her bones. Her heart from her soul. She smells rot. Tastes ashes. She screams, as a momentary flash of light illuminates the cockpit to reveal bloodied figures clinging to it. They scrape their nails and slam blackened hands against the cockpit armaglass in an effort to break through. To get to her. Vidal struggles in her seat. She screams, through her teeth. She tries to look away, but she can’t. Her body is frozen, just like it was after the crash. Paralysed. All that Vidal can do is watch through greying vision as her hands slacken and slide from the flight controls. As her Lightning plummets downwards through the dark, screaming sea. V
idal can’t see the Hell Blade any more. She can’t see anything save for those terrible figures, all clad in tattered flight suits. They all have that look on their faces, even as they burn, and bleed. Their hollow eyes are expectant. Trusting. Full of faith in Vidal, as though she can still save them. As though she has ever been able to save anyone. Vidal feels something run down her face. Tears, maybe. Or blood. She should have saved them. Could have saved them, if only she were swifter. Stronger.

  If only she had spirit.

  Vidal hears something then, filtering through the screams. It’s a bellowing. A powerful, animal snarl. It travels through the Lightning’s bones into Vidal’s own, banishing the ghosts just long enough for her to see the Hell Blade’s single engine, burning ahead of her in the blackness. Long enough for her to understand just why the Lightning feels so alive.

  ‘You,’ Vidal slurs into her breather. ‘I knew it was you.’

  She drags herself from her stupor and takes up the controls, flipping weapons free on her air-to-air missiles. The logis-lock triggers. Wavers. Falters. Then it peals loud and clear. Vidal glances at her silver saint, hanging in her peripheral vision.

  ‘Lend me your sword,’ she whispers, and she thumbs the trigger.

  A pair of Skystrike missiles streak out towards the Hell Blade as the Pact fighter dumps a dense screen of chaff, and pulls up evasive. One of Vidal’s missiles goes wild, detonating furiously amongst the silver shards. The other tracks the Hell Blade as it pulls up and over. As it spirals back towards Vidal. She gets a fractional impression of the brutal, twin-razor shape of the Hell Blade. Of the indistinct shape of the pilot, barely visible through the oily cockpit glass. Of the gore-red gun mouths lighting in the same instant the missile finds its mark. The Skystrike goes off like a thunderclap, filling Vidal’s vision with fire and smoke and pieces of armour plating. The Hell Blade falls away in what seems like half-time, shedding clotted strings of oil, but there’s a dark spot at the centre of Vidal’s vision that sticks, even after the explosion fades. It takes her a moment to realise that it isn’t printed on her eyes. That she is looking at a single, perfect hole in the cockpit armaglass. Vidal glances down at herself drunkenly, knowing exactly what she will see when she does.