The Beast Must Die, Page 3

  Amongst the raucous cries and shouts, Valefor heard an undercurrent of another sound, a repetitive noise that grew in volume, taking over the disparate bellows and snarls. Through the roar of bolters, snap of lasguns and the shouts of the wounded and dying, he recognised a single word over and over, a guttural chant in crude Low Gothic.

  ‘Beast! Beast! Beast! Beast!’ The war chant echoed through the ship, accompanied by pounding fists and stamping feet, causing the entire corridor to reverberate.

  ‘They are lost to the Emperor,’ said Marbas. ‘They serve another, more immediate power.’

  ‘There is nothing to be salvaged here,’ snarled Valefor, withdrawing back into the accessway, moving out of the welter of las-blasts and projectiles.

  The Sanguinary Guard followed, stepping backwards as they continued their volleys of bolts. A woman emerged from a hatch to their right, barking madly as she threw herself at Valefor, daggers improvised out of plasteel sheets in her fists. She wore daubs of black face paint, and a headscarf checked in black and white – a pattern Valefor had seen on many an ork banner. The tip of his sword found her throat even as she scrambled to her feet, snarling becoming a death rattle as she folded to the deck. Others were pushing through the maintenance shaft after her. Valefor kicked the first back into the tunnel and tossed a frag grenade into the open hatch. He stepped back as the detonation filled the small space with deadly shrapnel, then signalled to his vessel.

  ‘Sanguinem Ignis. We are ceasing the boarding action. When we are clear, turn this ship to plasma.’

  Thane turned at the sound of the command bridge doors opening. He caught his breath as Vulkan ducked beneath the lintel. Fully armoured, he was as big as a Dreadnought and the battle-barge’s bridge, though large by human standards, seemed barely able to contain his presence. The Chapter Master of the Fists Exemplar stepped to one side as Vulkan took the centre of the chamber.

  Others turned at their stations – those capable of independent thought did. Thane saw veterans of dozens of battles trembling in the presence of the Emperor’s son. Several unaugmented crew muttered invocations and bowed their heads.

  Thane let out a breath he hadn’t realised he had been holding.

  It was the primarch’s first appearance on the command deck since he had come aboard. His presence lightened Thane’s mood, reassuring and strong in equal measure. Koorland followed a few steps behind, his expression guarded.

  ‘Welcome to the Alcazar Remembered, lord primarch. I am sorry I did not get to extend a greeting on your arrival.’

  Vulkan said nothing and eyed the main display.

  ‘A Salamanders strike cruiser arrived in-system yesterday, my lord,’ Thane continued. ‘They requested an audience.’

  ‘No,’ Vulkan replied, still examining the scanner feeds. ‘They will operate as part of the force without favour. Seeing me will only… distract them.’

  ‘They will be disappointed.’

  ‘That is all?’ the primarch said, turning to Thane. ‘A few battle stations and a handful of warships?’

  ‘We can detect no other orbital defences, lord primarch.’

  Koorland stepped forward. ‘I have sent Chapter Master Odaenathus and High Marshal Bohemond to lead the attacks against the orbital platforms. Admiral Villiers and the survivors of the Third Coreward Flotilla are clearing out the remaining starships while Admiral Acharya creates a high orbital blockade.’ He took a breath and his gaze moved between the primarch and the screen and back again. ‘Within ten hours we will have full orbital supremacy.’

  ‘I see.’ Vulkan placed his hands together, palm to palm, resting against his plastron as if in prayer. He did not look pleased. ‘Are we to truly believe that we have seized Ullanor, homeworld of the Beast that has unleashed untold destruction across the Segmentum Solar, within ten days of arrival, and with the loss of only two frigates, one destroyer and less than twenty Space Marines?’

  ‘That is the situation at present, lord primarch,’ said Thane.

  Vulkan accepted this in silence, looking at Koorland expectantly. The Lord Commander ground his teeth in thought for a short time.

  ‘We cannot dispute the facts as they are,’ he said slowly, considering his words. ‘Orbital dominance is assured and the ork fleet is scattered. The Imperial Navy is capable of creating an outer blockade against any counter-attack. The next phase must be surface assault. We need a war council to decide the strategy and plan of attack.’

  ‘Very well,’ Vulkan said with a nod. ‘By my authority, make it so.’

  The primarch left, and with his departure the bridge regained something of its old dimensions, the background mood losing some of its intensity. Thane approached Koorland.

  ‘Why does he not issue the command himself?’ the Exemplar asked. ‘He seems… disinterested in the entire endeavour.’

  Koorland laid a hand on Thane’s pauldron.

  ‘He is a primarch, a son of the Emperor. I do not try to guess his thoughts, but I have no doubt of his motivations. He has brought us here to kill the Great Beast, and that is what we shall do.’

  ‘Then I will share your confidence, brother,’ said Thane. ‘Who shall we bring to the war council?’

  ‘All of them,’ replied the Lord Commander. ‘Chapter Masters and command-level captains, admirals and commodores, and don’t forget Dominus Gerg Zhokuv and whichever subordinates he wishes to bring.’

  ‘And what is to be the strategy, brother?’

  ‘We find the Great Beast, attack with everything we have, and destroy it.’

  The words were simple enough, but the look Koorland exchanged with Thane confirmed the Exemplar’s belief that the execution, literal and figurative, would be far from straightforward.

  The lexmechanic’s voicebox had an irritating static interference that made her sibilants sound like a hissing snake. Koorland tried to ignore the aural tic so that he could concentrate on the tech-priest’s analysis. She was currently pointing with a reticulated mechanical limb at a greyish globe dominating the hololith display that hung in the middle of the briefing chamber.

  The room was dark, illuminated only by the sparse light coming from the projector. The gloom did nothing to alleviate the claustrophobic conditions of a chamber built for half a dozen officers filled with twice that number and their attendants, not to mention the dominating presence of Vulkan looming over them all from beside a blinking bank of strategic cogitators. The primarch had his fingers entwined, his gaze directed off to one side, barely observing the proceedings. Removing the large brushed-steel table had not made much difference, but Koorland was glad of the little extra space that this had afforded.

  He shifted his weight, agitated, aware that many of his companions were barely restraining their desire for more determined conversation, only for the sake of appearances observing the niceties of the technical reports and standard liaison protocols. Everyone had something to say but nobody was saying anything yet.

  ‘Electromagnetic disssturbance in the upper ionosssphere hasss led to much reflective patterning on our initial orbital ssscan data.’ At an unseen command, areas of the slowly spinning globe highlighted in orange, with trails of yellow criss-crossing sections of the remaining whited-out sphere. ‘Much of thisss interference can be traced to masssive orbital intrusssions. The ressst we expect isss generated by unssshielded indussstrial ssstructuresss on the sssurface of the planet.’

  ‘Orbital intrusions?’ The question was asked by Field-Legatus Otho Dorr, strategic commander of the gathered Astra Militarum forces. In terms of raw manpower, when the remainder of the transports completed the journey into orbit he would lead the largest force – nearly ninety thousand soldiers and ten thousand battle tanks and other vehicles.

  ‘Ship descents and ascents,’ explained another of the Cult Mechanicus adherents. He looked much like a crab perched on a hunched human body, a splay of hydrau
lic appendages like a ruff around his neck. ‘Poorly-shielded plasma drives in low orbit, wakes from dirty atomic propellants on shuttle­craft. That sort of thing.’

  ‘A lot of them,’ added the dominus.

  Koorland knew that it was crude to think of martial prowess in purely physical terms. In fact, to equate pure size with military ability was ork-thought. Yet despite being logically aware of this deficiency in his judgement, he could not help but think of the leader of the Adeptus Mechanicus battle congregation as being somewhat underwhelming.

  The dominus was, for the moment, a brain in a glass vessel. An armoured vessel, Koorland conceded, as Gerg Zhokuv continued his detailed explanation of the vacillations and weaknesses of starship augur arrays. Clusters of sensory nodes and rods were mechanical replacements for eyes, nose, ears and skin, linked through spiralling cables attached to sockets in the exterior of the metre-high vessel that two lumbering natal-tank Praetorians had brought to the council room. The biotic fluid inside obscured all but the dark shadow of the organ within, but occasionally Koorland could see there were rods penetrating the naked brain matter. The brain itself was distended, patched in places with inorganic plates, far larger than any normal human skull could contain.

  Most disconcerting was that the dominus’ ‘voice’ actually came from the young, waxen-faced man beside the stand on which the pteknopic vessel was set. By some invisible pathway Gerg Zhokuv controlled the slack-faced servitor’s body – at least the jaw and vocal cords, for all other facial functions seemed inoperative.

  ‘Can you find it?’ Bohemond’s growl cut across the dominus’ lecture. ‘Where is the Great Beast of Ullanor?’

  ‘We have identified several potential locations, hotspots of multi-frequency activity.’ There was a pause while Zhokuv’s attendants manipulated the display, which flickered with runic lingua-technis inscriptions over several broad zones of red.

  ‘Each of those must be several thousand square kilometres,’ said Wolf Lord Asger. ‘And there are four of them. That’s a quarter of the planet’s surface.’

  ‘We need to do better.’ Koorland spoke, sensing growing unease between the Space Marines and Adeptus Mechanicus representatives. ‘We cannot attack the entire world. We are here to kill the Great Beast, not conquer Ullanor. That is a war for another time. Terra itself is threatened. Time is a luxury.’

  His announcement was met with silence for several seconds. Adnachiel, a Company Master from the Dark Angels, spoke next. He pulled back the cowl of his robe and revealed a deeply lined face, grey hair cropped short. Red light glittered in one eye, the lifelike orb hiding a bionic within.

  ‘As nobody else seems willing to raise the point, let me ask the question that is doubtless on all of our minds.’ As he spoke he looked at Vulkan, but his gaze moved to Koorland when he received no response from the primarch. ‘Why is Ullanor so poorly defended?’

  The obvious answer went unspoken for a few seconds before Bohemond offered an alternative.

  ‘We have seen little strategy in the orks’ movements.’ He shifted his weight, his black armour reflecting the yellow and green lights from the hololith projector. ‘Orks do not consider grander plans, they simply attack until victorious or defeated. I am not surprised that there has been no thought given to the defence of their world.’

  ‘That might be true,’ said Asger, ‘but for the recent example of the attack moon. I have seen the reports. The orks on the station above Terra lured in the assault, feigning weakness before striking.’

  ‘Had that attack been led by experienced commanders they would have foreseen the danger,’ said Bohemond.

  ‘And here we are,’ replied Asger.

  ‘So, it’s a trap,’ said Thane. He looked at the assembled officers and commanders, hoping one might offer an alternative. None of them argued, not even Bohemond.

  ‘A trap we cannot avoid,’ said Koorland, his expression sour. ‘Perhaps that is the intent. We cannot destroy the Great Beast without landing forces. If we are not here to kill it, we should simply return to Terra and reconsider our options.’

  ‘There will be no withdrawal,’ growled Vulkan. He moved into the light of the hololith, filling the room, drawing all eyes. ‘The Great Beast dies, or we do. This is how it will be. This is how it should be.’

  ‘What do you mean, Lord Vulkan?’ asked Zhokuv. ‘Pointless expenditure of resources must be avoided. What is to be attained by placing ourselves between the jaws of the enemy if we have no guarantee of success?’

  ‘You wage war with formulae and calculations, magos dominus,’ said Vulkan. He narrowed his eyes and then looked away. ‘The balance of expense versus gain, parsed through algorithms and logic engines. All is rendered into probability. I must ask you to go further. To have… faith.’

  ‘My lord?’ Bohemond was conflicted, his expression vacillating between confusion and eagerness. ‘Faith in what, Lord Vulkan?’

  ‘Ourselves, perhaps,’ the primarch replied. ‘In justice. In vengeance, if needs be. If that does not suffice, then you must have faith in me. We can do nothing more than strive for victory, even if we cannot see how we might triumph. Magos, do not take this as insult, but there are matters that exist beyond the predictable and physical. The hearts of warriors and the chances of war are not easily codified.’

  ‘I have never claimed as such, lord primarch,’ Zhokuv protested. ‘My successes have been built upon adaptation and reaction, the ability to respond to the unknowable when it becomes known.’

  ‘Then we shall have faith in the Adeptus Mechanicus, also,’ Vulkan replied with a placating smile.

  ‘Faith will not bring forth the Great Beast,’ Zhokuv argued through his vox-servitor. ‘Application and endeavour will locate the target.’

  ‘As you say, magos dominus, as you say,’ Vulkan conceded. He looked at Koorland, expecting the Lord Commander to continue.

  ‘Application and endeavour,’ echoed Koorland. ‘We cannot avoid a planetstrike, so we must expend no concern on that front. There is one goal alone that must drive us. To locate the Great Beast. When that is achieved we will bring such force to bear that whatever the orks think they might do, it shall pale in comparison to our fury.’

  There were words and gestures of assent from the gathered council. When the others had dispersed, Thane and Koorland were left with Vulkan. The primarch had withdrawn into himself again and stared silently at the slowly revolving hololith of Ullanor.

  ‘You look troubled, my lord,’ said Thane.

  Vulkan did not move his gaze, but replied softly.

  ‘Rivers follow their course. Animals follow their runs. Events follow required patterns.’ He sighed. ‘Certain confrontations are inevitable. Unavoidable consequences were set in motion the moment we chose to come to Ullanor.’

  ‘What consequences, my lord?’ asked Koorland.

  ‘None that we can evade, Koorland,’ said the primarch. ‘But we must prevail or all is lost. As I said, we must all show a little faith.’

  Following the disappointing council, Koorland sought to find a little time for reflection before returning to the command bridge and the demands of his rank. Ever since he had taken up the mantle of Lord Commander it had seemed that vexation had become his constant companion.

  He walked the corridors and decks of the Alcazar Remembered, but despite recent familiarity with the battle-barge it felt alien and unwelcoming. It was a ship of the Fists Exemplar, the demesne of Thane. As welcome as Koorland had been made, as much as he shared gene-seed with Thane and his battle-brothers, it was still foreign to an Imperial Fist.

  His unthinking route took him away from the main decks and up towards the Navigation suite where the members of the Navis Nobilite were quartered. He did not disturb the Navigators, but turned towards the observation deck aft of their chambers. From the long starboard gallery of armourglass windows he could see Ullanor past jutting gun
batteries below, the edge of a purple-grey hemisphere.

  He looked at the planet for some time, no single thought coalescing, his mind moving from one concern to the next without even seeking solution – simply cataloguing the obstacles that seemed to have amassed in his path.

  The thud of a heavy tread caused him to turn, expecting to see a maintenance servitor or other menial. Instead he met the concerned gaze of Maximus Thane.

  ‘I apologise for the disturbance, Lord Commander,’ said the Chapter Master. ‘The fleet commanders and our battle-brothers have been requesting instruction. Did you learn anything more of use from the lord primarch?’

  Koorland shook his head.

  ‘We have not spoken further. It is clear he wishes me to fulfil the role of Lord Commander. The title is not for decoration alone even with his return.’

  ‘I have issued standard protocols, in your name,’ Thane said, stopping alongside the Lord Commander. ‘Straightforward requests for data, obvious fleet manoeuvres to allow the Adeptus Mechanicus to conduct survey flights. Bohemond and his Black Templars are assuming an aggressive orbital stance. It seems he is volunteering to be the spearhead of an assault.’

  ‘Of course he is,’ murmured Koorland. He waved a hand towards Ullanor and raised his voice. ‘Against what foe should we cast the spear, Maximus? Would Bohemond have us strike without sight? If only I had the eyes to pierce the gloom that shrouds this world.’ He turned away from the view and addressed Thane directly. ‘What matter do you need to raise?’

  ‘Something I think you need to know, though I cannot say if it is important or not. Events at Vandis that have been overlooked. The last transmission of Magneric – it has been gnawing at me. He was willing to risk everything to ensure it was safely conducted to Terra, but the ships had not arrived before our departure. Information so vital an honoured veteran of the Heresy War was prepared to make common cause with accursed traitors!’