The Beast Arises

The Meratara shot up from the clouds. A new vision appeared before Kalkator. Another humiliation, another great power smashing a weaker one. The Scythe of Schravaan was under heavy attack. Squadrons of ork fighters swarmed around it. From the star fortress came an unending stream of rockets. The strike cruiser’s void shields flashed and flashed, surrounding the vessel in an aurora of desperation. Its armaments lit the void with anger. Ork vessels died, and rockets exploded short of their target.

Drops in the ocean. There were so many more orks on the way that the space between the moon and the ship seemed full. The Schravaan’s death was minutes away.

‘Make for the Palimodes,’ Kalkator told Lerontus, the gunship’s pilot. The other strike cruiser, more distant from the star fortress, was holding its own. The orks were amusing themselves with taking down one large prey at a time.

Not all of them were satisfied with the Schravaan. Three fighters came at the Meratara

. Their salvoes hit hard. Warning runes lit up as the hull was pierced in multiple places. Kalkator heard the shriek of atmosphere venting. He drowned it out with his own roar of rage. As Lerontus pulled the gunship up sharply, Kalkator grabbed the controls for the weapons systems.

The fighters looped back for a second pass.

‘Straight at them,’ Kalkator told Lerontus.

‘With pleasure.’ The pilot’s anger was the mirror of his own.

Kalkator held his fire. Lerontus turned the Thunderhawk into a head-on course towards the ork ships. The orks misjudged the relative speed of the approach and the smaller profile the gunship now presented. A few shots still hit. Kalkator ignored them. He would hold the vessel together with his will if he had to.

The orks bunched closer together, jockeying for the better angle on their prey.

Kalkator fired all forward armament. Thunderhawk cannon, heavy bolters and lascannons struck the centre fighter. It vaporised. The blast washed over the other two ships. Their pilots overcorrected and collided.

The Meratara slammed through the cloud of debris, and raced on towards the Palimodes.

The other gunships still in flight were following the same path. The mathematics of defeat cascaded through Kalkator’s mind. How many had headed to the Schravaan first? How many had been taken out before reaching either vessel? How many beyond capacity would Attonax try to take on board? Did he even have to make that decision?

We have been besieged, Kalkator thought. And our citadels have fallen. The bitterness of the reality filled him with frustrated violence. Had there been a serf within reach, he would have torn the mortal apart just to see the blood.

The Thunderhawk was on the final approach to the Palimodes when the end came to the Scythe of Schravaan

. Kalkator didn’t see what caused the fatal blow. It happened on the ship’s starboard, which faced towards the moon. Searing white lit the void. It engulfed the Schravaan’s midsection, a fist of suns. The bow and stern began to move independently, and the light faded, resolving into a halo of individual explosions. A gap formed between the fore and aft halves of the ship before the bow began a spiral away from the stern. The movement was slow, graceful. The lights of the void shields went dark. In their place, lines of flames, the angry red of infected veins, raced down the bow’s length as it fell towards Klostra’s atmosphere.

The reactor blew, a second wound of light in the void. The reach of the blast was enormous, wiping the near space clean of ork fighters. That death-cry bought the Palimodes a bit more time. Kalkator dared to think a portion of the Great Company might extract itself from the system. The loss wouldn’t be total.

Then he watched the Schravaan’s bow become a torch as it hit Klostra’s atmosphere, and he thought he could hear the laughter of the orks even here.

The Palimodes’ engines were going hot as the Thunderhawk docked. Attonax had ordered the run. The ship was racing to the system’s Mandeville point when Kalkator walked onto the bridge. He joined Attonax at the command throne. The other Iron Warrior nodded to him and vacated the throne.

‘The ship is yours, warsmith,’ he said.

For as long as we have one, Kalkator thought. The first rocket hits were beginning. The rear shields were holding strong, though, and the Palimodes

was picking up speed. ‘Set course for the Ostrom System,’ he said.

‘We can’t,’ Attonax told him. ‘We’ve lost it too.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why we returned.’ His face was a patchwork of metal and flesh, iron replacing the mutations excavated from his skull. Expression was difficult. His bitterness was profound, for it to be so apparent. ‘We were retreating.’

‘The orks hit us there too?’

‘No. The Black Templars.’

The Great Company was caught between two fronts. Kalkator’s forces had lost their holdings. He grimaced.