The Beast Arises

There was blood on the deck. It seeped from the open doorway to the bridge; the orks were already here. The battle was over. The orks’ debased slave-race were hauling out the corpses of the crew and tossing them in piles lining the corridor walls. They glanced at Lanser. They snickered, then called out to their masters as they scampered back onto the bridge.

Lanser moved forward. He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel his arms, either. His body was a collection of disjointed fragments, all acting independently, all moving forward with no purpose. His brain was numb. He was a servitor, completing a hopeless task because there was nothing else to do.

His left arm raised his pistol. His fingers were clumsy. It was hard to fire. His right arm hung limp, dragging the point of his sword over the decking.

Noises behind him now. Cries, wails, the thudding of boots. Was that the whine of las-fire? Maybe. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. It was so far away.

An ork warboss emerged from the bridge, a giant that had to bend in half to fit under the doorway. The deck shook beneath its armoured feet. It looked like a tank that had learned to walk. When Lanser shot it, its lips parted in a smile, showing fangs the length of his hand, its eyes amused. When it backhanded him, shattering his skeleton and sending him flying back down the staircase, the gesture was casual, maybe even disappointed.

Maybe even bored.

The Expanse of Destiny pulled up. Its nose tilted towards the ork cruiser riding above the cloud of the Armada. The movement was emphatic and slow, a glacier with delusions of ramming. Narkissos was about to order Rallis to stay in its wake when he saw the ork fighters moving away, heading for other targets. The Expanse was not attempting a suicidal attack, he realised. She was already lost. Her new masters were taking the ship out of formation to join with the cruiser.

There was no shelter here now.

The irony of worrying about shelter, given his ship’s destination, passed through his mind for the length of time it took him to draw a breath. ‘Helmsman,’ he said to Rallis, ‘no more hiding. Time to run. Full power.’

‘There are other big ships,’ Kondos said.

‘They won’t be ours long, not at this rate.’

‘Exactly. Look.’

He always paid attention when Kondos made that request. Their shared gifts were the reason the Militant Fire had survived to see this day. He was the improviser. She saw the big picture. She took in the myriad variables of a situation, creating the map for Narkissos to navigate.

So he focused on the big ships. The ork squadrons were thick around them, tearing them open and inserting boarding parties. Away from the giants, the smaller ships were falling prey. Many were boarded. The smallest were destroyed. But the ones closest to the mass conveyors and factory ships were being ignored as the orks concentrated on the big prizes.

‘Port,’ Narkissos said. ‘Down thirty degrees. The Europa Forge.’

‘Behind the engines?’ Rallis asked, already making the course correction.

‘No. Keep up the speed.’ Beneath his feet, Narkissos could just detect the faint vibration in the deck as the Militant Fire

powered up. She was ready to race for her life, for the lives of all aboard, and for the life of any hope of victory. ‘Skim by her. Then the Spreading Word.’ He pointed to the colony ship just beyond the Europa Forge. ‘Understand?’

‘I do.’

‘We have a fast ship, helmsman. Let’s prove it to the orks.’

‘They won’t even see us.’

‘That’s the whole idea,’ said Kondos.

The Militant Fire streaked towards the Europa Forge. ‘Like a stone over water,’ Narkissos urged, and Rallis took him at his word. He took the ship in at a low angle of approach, as if he might really land on the other vessel’s refinery. He passed over the superstructure. The orks were clustered on the flanks of the hull. For a moment, the run looked clear, but then another squadron appeared off the prow, heading straight for the bridge. The Fire was flying level with them.

‘Down!’ Narkissos yelled.

A few decades earlier, Rallis would have questioned such a reckless order. Once, in the early days of the helmsman’s service, Narkissos had forced him at gunpoint to perform a manoeuvre that Rallis had maintained would tear the ship apart. It hadn’t, and they had escaped faster, more agile raiders. Rallis no longer questioned him. He plunged into the insane as if he were piloting a fighter, not a cargo ship.

Rallis dropped the nose. The Militant Fire arrowed at the refinery. A collision could take out a large part of the fleet if the smaller ship punched through the plasma containment tanks.

The surface of the reservoirs came closer. The Fire was below the height of the chimney vents. They rose like a steel forest on either side. Narkissos felt the vertigo of rushing disaster, but he said nothing. He sensed Rallis’ need to pull up, but the helmsman maintained course.