The Beast Arises

She turned to face her judges. ‘Good. We’re all here. We know the situation. We are out of time. The High Lords’ greatest folly yet is under way as we speak. Do any of us expect that venture to end in anything other than disaster?’ She shook her head, establishing the question as rhetorical. ‘We can now count off the hours before Terra is bereft of most of its Astra Militarum defence to go along with the absence of the Navy.’ She took a breath. ‘I have never underestimated the threat the Ruinous Powers present to the Imperium. I won’t start now. But I also know how to recognise a danger that is immediate. Fellow inquisitors, the orks are here. Now. It is clear to me, as I’m sure it is to you, that we have been left with only one option as a response. I won’t insult you by trying to convince you of its necessity, because there is nothing else left to do. So I am invoking that measure now, officially, before you all.’ She turned around, sweeping the assembly with her gaze. ‘So,’ she said. ‘We have work to do.’

And she walked out.

Rendenstein was waiting outside the entrance. Her eyebrows were up. ‘So that’s how it’s done,’ she said. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the uproar that followed Wienand’s exit.

‘Authority derives a lot from perception,’ Wienand said. ‘So I used it.’ She headed down the passage towards the maglev transport. Her next stop was in another wing of the Fortress, and many levels down. She tried not to think about how much distance the Armada would have covered before she could even reach Somnum Hall.

‘We won’t be stopped?’

‘If we are, we are. If we’re not, we’re already wasting time.’

While they waited for the train to return to the Camera Stellata’s stop, Wienand thought Rendenstein looked troubled. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘After you went in, the Castellan relayed some information.’

‘Something you were supposed to pass on to me?’

‘He seemed to want me to know it. I don’t think he cared what I did with the data. It’s part of the latest briefing to have gone Fortress-wide.’

The train arrived. They boarded. They were the only passengers on this leg.

‘So?’ Wienand asked.

‘Intercepts from a Black Templar action in the Ostrom System. The intelligence is sketchy, but it appears an ork star fortress has attacked a system in the vicinity of the Eye of Terror.’

Wienand absorbed this. ‘Kober believes they’ve opened up a second front?’

‘Yes. That the forces of Chaos are now involved.’

‘Well,’ Wienand said. ‘Well.’ She nodded to herself. ‘That will be next, then.’

‘What will be?’

‘That concern, in whatever form it takes.’

‘I see.’

The train slowed as it neared a junction with another large corridor. Inquisitors waited. They’ll stop me or they won’t, Wienand thought. ‘Tell me what’s bothering you,’ she told Rendenstein. She wanted nothing unsaid between them if things went wrong in the next few seconds.

‘If the Ruinous Powers are part of this war…’

Wienand finished the thought for her. ‘Is Veritus right after all?’

The train came to a stop. The inquisitors boarded. A number of them had servo-skulls in attendance. These hovered low on the benches beside their controllers, recording muttered dictation as the train picked up speed again. Wienand recognised one of the new arrivals, Miliza Balduin. Wienand had met her during a joint investigation on Antagonis. She was inflexible, but fair-minded. The inflexibility meant she was a bad politician, and Wienand suspected this was why she wielded less influence than her age should have brought her. She sat in the bench ahead of Wienand and Rendenstein, then turned to appraise Wienand with a flat stare.

‘Well, prodigal,’ she said. ‘You’re here to stir us to desperate measures, are you?’

‘I am. Are the deliberations over?’

Balduin shook her head. ‘Not formally. But there’s no doubt how they’ll end. The word is out. The orks have won you the day.’

‘You’ll be assisting, then?’

‘No. Other duties. You’ll have all the help you need, I’m sure.’ She began to face forward again, caught herself, and said, ‘You’d better be right.’

‘I am.’ Wienand looked at Rendenstein. The other woman was stoic in her concern. ‘Really,’ Wienand told her. ‘There isn’t a choice.’

‘I wouldn’t question—’

‘Yes, you would, and you do. With my thanks.’

‘The risks…’

‘I know them.’

‘If this goes wrong…’

‘I know what you’re thinking. I’m not discounting Kober’s information. We have to ignore it, though. It’s a distraction.’

‘I’ve never thought of Chaos as a distraction.’

‘It is now.’

Fifteen

Sol System

‘We can’t have surprised them,’ Kondos said.