The Beast Arises

The castellan stopped speaking as static erased his words like ripple patterns on a beach as the moons pulled the tide higher.

Gorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorka.

‘They must have been in the materium when they received Obsidian Sky’s transmission,’ explained the vox-liaison. ‘Most likely they would have received the complete message.’

Zerberyn nodded his understanding. ‘Your strength and situation, brother?’

Gorkamorkagorkamorka.

‘Eleven ships… Crusade… spear in the belly… boarded… push us hard… not show the xenos our backs.’

The spit and pop of bolter fire imposed itself over the background crackle, but neither that nor the orkish chatter could quite disguise the Black Templar’s uncomplicated disdain for the alien.

‘Lord captain, sir,’ mumbled Marcarian. ‘Auspectoria confirms several hundred large-mass warships, twice that in escorts and support craft. It’s inconceivable that one ship could have survived.’

‘And yet the battle rages on.’

Zerberyn thought back on the picket fleet the orks had positioned to hold the Mandeville point, and presumably the other that the Black Templars had broken through. The incredible mobilisation of materiel to run down one ship.

It was the work of a moment, a moment in which the command deck buzzed with a thousand and one operations.

‘Bulwark and Faceless Warrior coming astern.’

‘The orks are pulling back their fighters. They’re breaking off.’

‘Orders from the Chapter Master to hold this line while Noble Savage takes Paragon under tow.’

The image on the main view had switched again, this time to a starboard shot. Dantalion’s broadside lit up with detonations as her macrocannons opened fire in unison. Zerberyn felt the battle-barge pushed several metres to port. Void flares and feedback flashed across the viewer as Dantalion

traded fire with a pair of brutish ork battlecruisers, box-jawed with weapon blisters and extraneous plating. The astern battlecruiser came apart under a volley of prow lances and void torpedos as Bulwark slid into position.

There was some reason the orks wanted to keep the Obsidian Sky inside this system.

‘I have them,’ cried Vox. ‘Obsidian Sky and one other vessel. Her spirit resists divulging her identity, but energy profiles and mass ratios suggest an Adeptus Astartes cruiser.’

The turret augmitters fizzed with vox-corruption. ‘Incoming… Throne… massive… protects—’

‘Castellan? Castellan?’

Gorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorkagorkamorka.

‘Cut it off.’

The augmitters hissed like the animated dead, and then went silent.

‘Should I apprise Alcazar Remembered

, lord?’ asked Marcarian.

‘Of course, but first signal to Bulwark and Faceless Warrior.’

‘To what end, lord?’

An appalled exclamation drew Zerberyn and his shipmaster’s attention towards the chart desk before he could answer. Strategium serfs backed away from it as though afraid that it was one of them that had damaged it. A small portion of the display had been blacked out: a sphere of unidentifiable darkness moved slowly through the glowing hololith field towards the highlighted wedge of Black Templars ships, ork icons disappearing as though swallowed by a black hole.

‘The incoming vessel that the Interdictor reported,’ Zerberyn concluded.

Marcarian looked to him, aghast. ‘What kind of monster does it carry?’

‘Contact Bulwark and Faceless Warrior. Advise them to break formation and follow us.’

‘But lord, Thane’s orders—’

‘Are subordinate to an Exemplar’s judgement. We must protect the Obsidian Sky.’ Zerberyn glanced back to the chart desk, the auspex shadow that was slowly spreading across it. He could almost hear the challenge of the Beast roared across light years. ‘We must engage that ship.’

‘Try again,’ commanded Maximus Thane, Chapter Master of the Fists Exemplar. ‘I want my ships back in formation.’

‘They’re not responding, lord Chapter Master.’

‘Is Zerberyn ignoring me?’

‘It’s the interference, lord. It’s getting worse and Dantalion’s already out of contactable range. I’m not getting a reply from Bulwark or Faceless Warrior either.’

Maximus Thane leaned forward, one hissing, armoured boot up on the seat of his command throne as though being seated was a transient luxury that he might abjure at a moment’s notice.

In the auspectoria turret below, void-suited serfs bent over the crowded scanner table, wielding protractors and slide rules with the prowess of champions at the Festival of Blades, calling out number strings to their colleagues mobbing the chart desk at the neighbouring strategium turret. The blisters of colour-coded ork markers at the desk’s extreme range were beginning to drop off the hololithic display, and operators shouted across one another in their efforts to explain why.