The Beast Arises

‘Of course not.’ Narkissos wasn’t sitting in the bridge’s command throne. He paced back and forth before the primary oculus. The ork moon was filling more and more of the sky as the Armada drew closer. Its details resolved into mountain ranges and canyons of metal. There was no organisation that Narkissos could see. It was stone and iron come together as if brute force had a geology. It waited in the void for the human ships, silent and dark. There was no response. It was as still as it had been since the moment of its arrival. Narkissos entertained the crazy hope that the orks had somehow destroyed themselves in their journey, then dismissed it.

‘Why aren’t they attacking?’ Kondos muttered. She stood midway between the throne and the helm, leaning against the cargo monitoring station as if she were contemplating leaping forward ahead of the bow.

The oculus’ field of vision was crowded with ships. Narkissos had the impression of an endless rain of metal directed at the orks. Aft of the Militant Fire, there was an even larger portion of the fleet. He had ordered Rallis to take the ship to the leading quarter of the Armada. He wanted to see what happened from the start.

So he told himself.

Hoping to get it all over with right away?

So he asked himself.

No, he answered. We’re going to fight to live and to win.

The Fire was following the great bulk of the mass conveyor Expanse of Destiny. The huge ship, carrying a hundred thousand troops and volunteers, was just slightly to port. It seemed large and solid as a planet. It would be the Fire’s shield. Narkissos felt no shame in his tactic. His duty was to reach the star fortress. He wasn’t Guard, and he wasn’t Navy. He would leave the debates about honour to them.

So far, though, his ship hadn’t needed the shield. The Armada had covered over half the distance to the ork moon. There was no response.

And then there was.

Time split, broken in half by a single moment. On the lost side, there was the calm in the void, and the grand illusion of the Proletarian Crusade in its purest, most realised form. On the other side, in the present that now unfolded with merciless revelation, was reality, and, at last, the orks took action.

At last.

Narkissos realised that some part of him did respond as if something long anticipated was finally coming to pass. The knowledge made him ill. What have they done to us? he wondered.

Gaps opened on the surface of the planetoid, a sudden spread of disease. They lit up with the fire of an endless stream of launches. The orks reached out for the Armada.

‘Take us behind the Expanse of Destiny,’ Narkissos told Rallis.

The helmsman was already changing course, putting the moon into eclipse.

‘Those aren’t rockets,’ Kondos said.

The orks were sending squadron upon squadron of fighters. Some flew straight at the fleet. Others swung wide. They attacked the Merchants’ Armada from every direction, like a grasping talon. From the other side of the moon came two large ork cruisers. They followed the fighters more slowly, and though they were dwarfed by the moon, their aggressive, brutal lines, their massive armour and their arrays of guns made their approach terrible. Narkissos became acutely aware of the lack of any fighting ship in the Armada. How had he ever believed even a single ship would get through?

Evasion wasn’t going to help.

It was also the only defence he had.

‘Get us in tight,’ he said.

‘The conveyor’s engines…’ Rallis said.

‘Yes, I know. As close as you can to their wash.’ They would hide in the nova-glare of the Expanse’s propulsion.

‘And if the orks target the engines?’ Kondos asked.

‘We run.’

The ork fighters fell on the fleet. The space between the Terran ships was filled with a swarm of aggression. Multiple squadrons surrounded the bigger ships. They gathered around the Expanse of Destiny like flies to carrion.

The coherence of the fleet unravelled as the Terran ships responded to the attack. The movements looked more like a dance than combat. The Armada had no guns, and the orks did not fire.

‘Why aren’t they shooting?’ Narkissos wondered.

‘They’re going to board,’ said Kondos.

She was right. The ork fighters were larger than single-pilot ships. Narkissos had thought their bulging hulls contained bombs or torpedoes. Now he wished they did. The swarming craft around the conveyor attached themselves to its flanks. The glare from the engines hid what happened next from him.

‘Can you get us any closer?’ he asked Rallis.

‘Risky, sir.’

‘So is being cut open by the greenskins.’

Warning runes began lighting along the bridge’s control surfaces. A proximity tocsin sounded. Rallis shut it off. The conveyor’s engine flare grew brighter. The battle lost distinction. Its events became more distant.