The Beast Arises

Riding at high anchor, stationed far above the civilians, was the Autocephalax Eternal. It was almost as large as the biggest conveyors, a majestic cathedral of war. But it was isolated, separated from the others of its kind with the exception of a few escorts. The Militant Fire was in the midst of a vast concentration of allies.

So many ships. So much strength. Narkissos drank in the spectacle and thought, we are an armada.

And when he looked to port, he needed the strength of that thought. Terra’s new moon hung in the void, waiting to swallow the Armada. Its maw gaped wide. There were no lights on its surface, no flights of enemy ships sallying forth. It was silent, inert as a skull, but as full of implication. When his eyes fell on the star fortress, the fleet lost substance. The thing should not be, and so it altered all existence with its obscene reality.

To his horror, Narkissos knew that this impression was not an illusion. Everything revolved around the moon, even Terra itself. The orks had become the centre of the Imperium. The magnificence of the Armada existed only because of the monstrousness it had been called to confront. Every act, every thought, every moment of what life remained to Narkissos was utterly determined by that inarticulate, unspeakable thing. Narkissos didn’t have the words to describe what he felt before the sight of the moon. Yet it shaped his language. He, like every other soul in the Imperium, was caught in a gravitational field that reached across the galaxy.

There was no escape from the ork moon’s pull. There was no shield from its presence. There were no walls behind which he could hide. They had all fallen.

The one act left, the one thing that kept alive at least the illusion of agency, was to charge at the horror. In that charge, he was becoming part of the new wall behind which the rest of Terra sheltered.

To attack the moon was to believe it could be destroyed, and without that belief, there was nothing. Narkissos understood the need for the Crusade now. He needed it even if he was superfluous. He was even more frightened than before. He was also more proud than he had ever been in his life.

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. He gave the crew time to see everything. There was no need to explain. Either they would know the same need, or they would not. When faces began to turn back to him, he said, ‘So, this is what we have come to fight. We will be taking on troops, and we will be part of the great attack. Our goal will be to land our passengers on the surface of… of that.’ He pointed without looking.

‘Will we even get close?’ one of the enginseers asked.

Narkissos smiled. ‘What do you think?’

Kondos said, ‘We’ve made difficult runs before. Been a few years, but it will come back to us.’

‘Possibly,’ said Narkissos. ‘Or we could be blown apart in the first minutes. I’ll say this. I don’t see a choice. We attack, and likely we’ll die. Or we don’t attack, and we die when the orks sweep over us all. I know which end I prefer. If I’m going to die, I want to die a hero. The Militant Fire is part of the Proletarian Crusade until death or victory. I won’t impose my choice on the rest of you, though. If anyone wants to run, go ahead. I don’t know where you’ll go, but I wouldn’t have you at my side.’

No one moved. He hadn’t expected they would. The silence that fell was one of unanimity.

Narkissos looked out at the Armada and the star fortress again. It was the most compelling sight he had ever witnessed, the most horrific and the most exhilarating. The emotion in his chest, too large to be articulated, emerged as a single, grieving laugh. Then he said, ‘We’re mad, aren’t we? All of this is mad.’

‘Completely,’ Kondos agreed.

‘Isn’t it glorious?’

The crew’s cheers filled the dome. Terrified joy reached out to the void.

Seven

Terra — the Imperial Palace

There were three of them in the Octagon. Veritus, Asprion Machtannin and Namisi Najurita sat on the lowest of the three tiers. For all the studied, wood-panelled pseudo-intimacy of the space, Veritus was conscious of how cavernous it was for such an encounter. Perceptions were important. He needed Najurita’s to be the correct ones.

He had little choice about the meeting place, though. The Octagon’s security systems, whether sigil-based or technological, did not only shut down the possibility of attack in the room. They also enforced privacy. The situation was beyond delicate. The unfolding disaster was pushing Veritus towards a decision he did not want to make. If he could avoid that contingency, he would. To that end, he sought total control over the words that were spoken and the ears that heard them.

‘Where is Inquisitor Wienand?’ Najurita asked.

‘We don’t know,’ Machtannin said.

‘Your answer tells me that you’ve lost track of her, meaning that you were hunting her.’

‘She is a danger to the proper task of the Inquisition.’