Two pairs of eyes looked up through the clouds of Terra, as if to pierce the vast distances of the Solar System and the veil of warp space itself. They had looked on more than twice a human lifetime’s worth of death and destruction, and yet what was to come would eclipse everything they had seen before.
He was nearly here. The one that had been called Warmaster. The Traitor.
Horus.
With him came an armada that dwarfed even the largest endeavour of the Great Crusade. Soon, the two heroes amongst heroes would be accompanying their primarch back into space, ready to contest the void against the ships and warriors of the traitor fleets. For now, though, a few rare minutes of contemplation were shared by two battle-brothers who had been apart as much as together yet were bonded in ways neither could explain. The road they had travelled had followed much the same course but ended in two very different destinations.
‘Why us?’ Fafnir Rann asked the emptiness.
‘You know better than to ask such questions,’ replied Sigismund. ‘Madness to search for truths that don’t exist.’
Rann turned his head to look at his companion, mouth half-open, his expression a contested land in a battle between humour and incredulity.
‘You say that, of all people…’ Rann gaped before he saw a telltale flicker in his companion’s eyes. An exceedingly rare moment of jest. He shook his head.
Sigismund’s humour faded as he turned his cool gaze on Rann.
‘Why do you look for meaning?’ he asked. ‘It is not in your nature to question the course of life’s river.’
‘The question wasn’t of the future flow, but of the course already carved.’ Rann took a deep breath. The air was thick with the fumes of war industry and the dust of construction. If he tried really hard, he could pretend he remembered what the chilling, clean air of Inwit’s ice cities tasted like. ‘How did we end up here, on this wall, and not out there with the other Legions?’
‘By the will of the Emperor, of course,’ said Sigismund. He stepped forward to the ferrocrete rampart and looked down. Engines chugging, a line of twelve Leman Russ battle tanks snaked along a causeway from the gate, heading for mustering yards a hundred kilometres to the east. The paint on them was already darkening in the smog. ‘After Ullanor, when the Emperor withdrew to His works beneath the Palace, Dorn was given command of Terra. So here we are.’
‘You still misunderstand me, brother.’ Rann banged a fist on the crenellation. ‘Though it proved bad, we knew at the time why Horus was made Warmaster. The best of the primarchs, it seemed. Forthright, beloved by his brothers, capable. There had to be an equal reason why the Emperor chose Dorn to return to Terra. Why not Sanguinius, whom we all would follow? Or Guilliman? What better primarch than the architect of the Five Hundred Worlds to sit upon the Council of Terra?’ He dropped his voice. ‘Or even Perturabo, if the Emperor were inclined to a castellan who would defend His homelands – though unequal in temperament, one matched almost in accomplishment to our gene-father.’
‘A match that will be tested very soon,’ growled Sigismund.
‘Why any of them, when the Great Crusade was unfinished?’ Rann almost paid no heed now to his fellow Imperial Fist, caught up in his wondering. ‘Malcador as Regent, why bring a warlord, and why the Lord Dorn?’
‘Because He did not want a statesman, or a castellan, or a chancellor. I cannot believe the Emperor had any premonition of the calamity that has befallen us, so it was not for siegecraft that our gene-father was chosen. Have you wondered what our lord’s brothers would have done, had any of them been asked to return to Terra to babysit a council of administrators and tax collectors? Would Guilliman have wanted to interfere with that process? What of the temperament of Perturabo, the paranoia of being overlooked growing stronger ever day? Sanguinius, chained to a palatial cell rather than taking his glory to the far distances of the galaxy?’
‘I see your point.’ Rann rubbed the back of his hand across his scarred cheek, memories stirred. ‘Duty to the Emperor above all else. Our lord proved that at Compliance Nine Forty-Three.’
‘Because he allowed Fulgrim the honour of breaking the ork stronghold? Perhaps, but Dorn proved to the Emperor that he was the most dutiful before then – at Thysson’s Sound, when Angron pursued the enemy into the gulf of stars, and we remained to protect his supply lines.’
‘Being dependable isn’t always about staying behind. Remember when Lord Dorn led the first attack on Epelliant Helos even though the fleet wasn’t fully assembled?’ Rann’s gaze moved to the horizon, remembering those days of bloody urban fighting. The campaign had cut off a burgeoning enemy counter-attack, which would have been disastrous for the Imperial forces had it gained momentum. ‘We lost many legionaries. Lord Dorn knew the cost and still acted.’
‘Rogal Dorn has been the Praetorian of the Emperor for a long time.’ A voice drifted from a shadowed doorway behind them. ‘Long before even he realised it. It was already clear to the Emperor after the Night Crusade, one hundred and sixty-five years ago.’
It could have been a year or a second since the Spaetum assault ram had launched. Ghosting across the void on inertia alone brought a motionless, timeless quality, not even disturbed by the rumble of the ram’s attitude jets now that it was set on its course. There were six other assault craft, three ahead by thirty seconds and two keeping pace with the ram that Rann was aboard. Back on the Terran Messenger there would be frantic activity: void shield generators overloading, crash doors closing, damage control teams racing from place to place. Somewhere ahead, a few hundred kilometres away, the enemy station continued to unleash its ire as devastating blasts of las-energy. But not here. Here, all was silence and stillness.
Sat encased in his armour, in turn cocooned within the thick, armoured hull of the Spaetum, Fafnir Rann kept his eyes closed, resisting the urge to glance at his helm-display chronogauge. For a few minutes there was nothing to do but wait, and he took pleasure in the detachment.
There was nothing to say. His warriors and the other squad sharing the cramped confines of the boarding vehicle knew exactly what to do and when. As legionaries of the 45th Assault Cadre in the Tenth Crusade of the VII Legion, they had been in this situation or similar at least a score of times. Even Rann, new to his position as sergeant, could conduct the initial boarding procedure without conscious thought; conscious thought would slow down the entire action by several seconds.
His mind wandered back to the task soon to be at hand, and it annoyed him. Without distraction, his natural inclination was to his purpose as a warrior of the Emperor. He opened his eyes.
Three minutes exactly until attack velocity.
The two squads were already arranged in assault formation within the body of the ram. The ten Astartes of the breacher squad were held upright in their harnesses, two staggered rows of five facing towards the main assault ramp at the front. They would close and lock shields the moment they were down, a mobile defence as secure as a fortress wall. The Legion tactical squad, Rann’s twenty warriors, were split into two groups, secured on angled benches that allowed them to rise and accelerate out through the flank hatches in two seamless waves.
At two minutes, Rann glanced forward to the breachers. Sergeant Iago raised his power axe in a signal of readiness.
‘Scan data incoming,’ the pilot told them over the intervox. ‘Punch-through at target zone ninety-eight per cent likely. Ingress route direct ahead, elevation standard. First assault wave adjusting target point by fifty vertical to bypass hangar level. No update orders received.’
‘Acknowledged,’ replied Iago, the senior of the two squad leaders and therefore de facto force commander until they linked with Lieutenant Pollux. His next words were addressed to every legionary aboard. ‘We need to get out of the breach zone fast to make up that distance. Adopt pattern Strike-five on clearing the impact site. Specialist gunners to take up point positions.’
Acknowledgements crackled back, including Rann’s. He wanted to contact the pilot to check whether there had been any enemy sensor contact on the incoming boarding force but knew better. If there was something to report, Dagerron would inform them.
Now, time was becoming impossibly slow as each second ticked down. Rann knew it was a side effect of physical changes brought about by his augmented body and stimulant discharges from his war plate. He was experiencing everything at a heightened level and so, conversely, the outside world seemed to drag.
The assault rams had been launched under cover of mass battery fire and torpedo launches, heading towards the largest of the orbital defence stations – the command centre in the estimation of Lord Dorn. Total surprise was the goal, and so far the plan appeared to be working.
Other starbases were being attacked by the fleet of the assembled Legiones Astartes, and Rann wished there were a window through which he could watch the unfolding battle.
‘How’s the war going?’ he voxed to Dagerron. ‘Are we winning yet?’
There was a pause while the pilot consulted the limited scans and reports at his station.
‘Above predicted progress, I’d say,’ he replied. ‘The First, I mean the Dark Angels, have already eliminated two bases in sector four. Massed boarding actions led by the Tribune have cleared sector eleven. The Phoenician’s ships are–’
Iago’s voice cut across the link.
‘Vox clear. Thirty seconds to assault range.’ There was no tone in the words, but Rann felt there was a rebuke all the same. Iago was entitled to be uptight: his squad would take the brunt of enemy attention in the first phase of the engagement.
Time crept along.
Rann tensed, but still the sudden force of the assault jets firing jerked him sideways inside the grip of the harness. Within seconds the assault ram’s fuel burnt out, but it was already travelling at an extra five hundred kilometres per hour. The remaining void space would be covered in less than twenty seconds.
‘Ten seconds to impact,’ warned Dagerron.
Though he was still immobile inside his armour, it seemed to Rann that the whole craft might shake itself apart. The rattle and creak of the hull was joined by a growing hum as the melta-dischargers in the nose built up power for the breaching blast in the milliseconds before contact.
If they failed, or the armoured skin of the enemy starbase was thicker than the scans indicated, the ram would crush itself flat in the next five seconds.
‘For the Emperor!’ barked Rann. ‘For Rogal Dorn!’
Others spoke their dedication and uttered oaths of duty, the confines of the hull resounding with mechanically edged voices. The next few seconds raced past. The meltas fired and the ram ploughed through slag and steam. Iago’s squad thundered out along the prow ramp before it had fully opened. Rann launched out of his seat as the harness snapped back, bolter in both hands, accompanied by the crash of armoured boots.
The enemy were waiting, but it did not matter. Their weapons filled the breach zone with muzzle flashes and bullets, but the shields of the breacher squad were as impenetrable as those of the base itself. The tactical squad fanned out around the centre, plasma gunners and flamers to the fore. The corridors beyond the impact site filled with starbursts followed by sheets of burning promethium.
To the flanks, hidden by the curve of an arterial corridor, another two legionary teams advanced in parallel. Three armoured punches aimed at the heart of the space station. Iago’s force made a hundred metres in the first ten seconds, trampling over the ruptured and charred bodies of the defenders. Rann paid them no heed, attention fixed ahead, bolter ready to cough forth an explosive round when a head or limb poked from cover.
‘Overlapping counter,’ warned Ordera, flashing his auspex screen towards Rann. A tendril of life signals was curving around them towards the impact site. Maybe ten or fifteen of the enemy.
‘Dagerron, you’re getting company. Discharge and disconnect in five seconds.’
‘Understood.’
Iago set a brutal pace with his breachers, securing a stairwell and taking them up three levels at a sprint. A dull thump of detonations and the sudden disappearance of the flanking signals reported the assault ram’s frag launch and departure. Environment detectors in Rann’s war plate warned of dropping atmospheric pressure as the air evacuated through the gouge left in the hull by the craft’s exit.
‘We have contact with the control centre, transmitting coordinates,’ announced Lieutenant Pollux. ‘All forces, converging assault and then maintain cordon, one hundred and fifty metres. Dispositions to follow.’
The control centre would not hold out for long against sixty legionaries, with another ninety to protect against counter-attack. One minute since breaching and the action was almost over. In the void the enemy had been deadly, their ships heavily armed and armoured for their size. Face to face… not so much. In minutes their orbital defences would be overrun. The combined power of three expeditionary fleets was a force that nothing could withstand, and the Scathian System had not proven otherwise. The route to the planet’s surface was open and that left only one question.
‘Who will command the ground attack?’
The question came from Captain Eidolon of the Emperor’s Children and hung in the air with the tri-D representation of his well-formed features. The image flickered while the vid-capture units on the Pride of the Emperor kept track of the warrior as he paced across a deck of the battleship’s strategium.
‘We have elements of four strike forces and support flotillas ready to drop on three major conurbations in the southernmost continent,’ he continued. ‘Every minute we waste gives the enemy chance to prepare.’
As the Master of the Huscarls, Rogal Dorn’s bodyguard, Gidoreas knew his lord as well as anyone could. Seemingly immobile in his bulky suit of Cataphractii armour, he nevertheless watched for a reaction, gauging the primarch’s thoughts so that he might better serve.
Rogal Dorn stood in his full golden war plate with one fist held in the other hand. The fingers flexed slightly in response to Eidolon’s assertion, but the primarch’s face remained as though carved from deepcore ice. His hair was white-blond, short but not close-cropped, unruly despite an attempted parting on the left side. Some would consider him handsome, though his severe expression held a distant, unapproachable quality. Like one of the bastions his Legion erected so swiftly, Dorn’s demeanour was a defence against intrusion and few could breach it. The primarch waited a second to see if anything more was forthcoming and then gave the slightest of nods, accepting the argument made.
‘A sensible proposition, except that Seventh Legion battalions have already cleared orbit over the northern strike area and we are ready to begin mass deployment, not just an insertion attack. My forty thousand legionaries hitting the ground will break their resolve within minutes, forestalling any need for wider commitment and risk.’
Eidolon opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by the third participant in the holo-council. His fair-coloured beard and long hair reflecting ruddy action lighting from the Invincible Reason, Lion El’Jonson, primarch of the First, strode forward, his hand slashing the air like a blade.
‘Unacceptable!’ Green eyes flashed with anger, but the moment passed, and the Lion’s demeanour settled into one of earnest entreaty. ‘We have not bloodied ourselves in the void to relent at the edge of orbit. My ships are breaking through towards the equatorial defence stations, which will eliminate the threat to both your attack and that of the Phoenician’s Legion. My knights will be first on the surface, but I assure you that we will share the battle honours. ...
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