The Beast Arises

Quesadra eyed him. ‘So the command will be yours.’

‘Yes.’ Bohemond was being as direct as Koorland could not be.

‘I see.’ Issachar was still carefully neutral. ‘And what would your campaign plan be?’

‘To take the war to the orks. We cannot think in terms of defending systems. We will attack the star fortresses, beginning with the nearest.’

‘As simple as that?’ Quesadra asked.

‘There is no front,’ said Thane.

‘Exactly.’ Bohemond continued to address them all, rather than answer Quesadra directly. ‘The ork bases are appearing everywhere. They are not advancing along any discernible path. We cannot think in terms of blocking them. We must attack to eradicate.’

‘You are proposing a crusade on a scale that we haven’t seen in living memory.’ Issachar sounded impressed.

‘And what of Terra?’ Thane asked. ‘It is defenceless. There is no wall there any longer.’

‘Admiral Lansung has been keeping his precious Navy out of harm’s way. As much as I am disgusted by his actions in the Aspiria System, they have had the effect of preserving his strength. If Terra is attacked, there will be more than enough vessels readily at hand. Our move must be to await the arrival of our fleets, and then attack.’

‘We will be abandoning countless systems to their fates.’

‘Those losses are inevitable. Better to pull our forces from hopeless battles to forge them into a weapon that can actually win.’

Thane didn’t look happy, but Koorland couldn’t disagree with the premises behind Bohemond’s strategy. He thought Quesadra and Issachar were on board as well. The problem was that any unity between the Chapters Masters of the Crimson Fists and the Black Templars would be provisional. At the first opportunity, Quesadra would challenge Bohemond’s command. There was accord on a single tactical decision, not on the larger question of leadership.

The discussion moved towards the finer issues of deployment and the choice of a target. The closest ork moon was in the Illuster System. Koorland took part in the discussion, but did not try to drag it back towards the crucial issue. Now was not the moment. There would be some time before the other ships arrived, time he could use to convince the Chapter Masters, his brothers, of the path that must be taken.

It wasn’t the need for glory that pushed him. He was resigned to the fact that all glory for him was in the past. In the future lay only atonement and the struggle to keep the doom that had fallen upon the Imperial Fists from also striking down the Imperium. It was also more than his experience with the orks that urged his claim. Thane had at least as much direct contact with the enemy.

It was more, too, than the position of the Imperial Fists as foundational Chapter. The leadership of this crusade could not rest on something as intangible as a simple right of seniority. As he read the currents of power and rivalry in the council hall, he realised the vital uniqueness of his position. He was Chapter Master without a Chapter. There was no agenda for him to push, nothing to seek for his warriors. He could present a perfect disinterest. There would be no partiality to his decisions. The only dictates would be the needs of the campaign.

He would fight for what had to be. But for the moment, the terrain was not his to contest.

At the conclusion of the council, Castellan Clermont escorted him to his quarters. He did not stay in them long. He taught himself the layout of the Abhorrence

and learned where the other delegations were stationed, and where the Black Templars had put Magos Biologis Phaeton Laurentis. He looked for encounters of opportunity.

He had one when he found Quesadra alone in an observation chamber. It was one of the smaller ones on the ship, constructed in the form of a chapel. Rows of iron pews sat before the stained glass viewport. Phall Primus dominated the perspective. The gas giant’s bands of colour were filtered and changed by the tinting of the viewport. Above the frame was an inscription: The Galaxy Transformed by the Hand of the Emperor.

Quesadra stood close to the viewport. The tapestry of colours washed over the deep blue of his armour, and the bloody hue of his left gauntlet. He glanced over his shoulder at Koorland.

‘Our brothers the Black Templars have taken to heart the full conception of a crusade,’ he said.

The implied worship of the setting disturbed Koorland. ‘Yes,’ he said, noncommittal. He wasn’t sure what Quesadra’s views on the matter were, and a doctrinal dispute would serve no purpose. He joined the Crimson Fist at the viewport.

‘You don’t think Bohemond should be leading us,’ Quesadra said.

‘I don’t.’

‘And who would you prefer in his stead? Yourself?’

‘It isn’t a question of preference.’

‘Oh? One of destiny, is it?’

‘I didn’t say that, either.’

‘Do you deny it?’

Koorland chose his words with care. ‘It doesn’t matter whether it is destiny or chance that has placed me in this position. What is important is the position itself.’