The Beast Arises

The command deck shook under a series of escalating blows, and Thane gripped the handrail that encircled the hololith plate. Mass-explosions and slow disintegrations lit the screens of the main viewer as they cycled through shots of the Fists Exemplar fleet. An aegis frigate came apart under a sustained torrent of macro-fire, its hull flaking away like rust. An ork warship vanished in a ball of light. Another lost its shields in a spasm of current, then was engulfed and destroyed. The cruiser Angel Astra split down her centre, metal shearing and snapping and spinning into space, coming apart before the ork assault ship that was ploughing into her spine. Light attack craft burst and died, indistinguishable from static.

‘Magneric. Magneric!’ Static rippled through the loop-array like blast debris in a warpstorm. He waited for a response for as long as he felt he could keep his attention from the needs of his own ship. And then, half-buried in noise, like the blip of an emergency transponder to alert a searching friend that the debris hid survivors, came the voice.

‘The Emperor guided us to Dzelenic Four and showed us the way to victory. Seven centuries I pursued the traitor that calls me friend, and it was for a purpose. Praise be!’

It sounded as though that final coda was carried by other voices in the background, but it was impossible to be sure. To add to the orks’ interference, there was a disconnect of several seconds between what Thane heard and what he saw. Holding a dialogue with the most considered of Fists Exemplar would have been difficult, but it was abundantly clear that carrying on a conversation with the Venerable Black Templar even under the most ideal of circumstances would have been a challenge.

‘Victory, Dreadnought-Marshal?’ he urged. ‘Victory over the orks? Is that why they pursue you in such numbers, for information that you carry?

‘Abhor the witch, deny the witch, destroy the witch!’

Thane tightened his grip over the handrail, hung his head, closed his eyes, and let out an exasperated growl. The shiver of shield-diffused detonations ran through the metal and into his palms.

‘Our faith in Him is our armour,’ Magneric continued, unabated. ‘His divinity is the sword in our hands. Alas for the weakness of my Navigator’s faith, his mind was destroyed when the witch craft pulled us from the warp. Loathe the mutant!’

Thane left the hololithic projection to its diatribe. The Black Templars’ fundamentalist beliefs were subject to hushed discussion among the Successor Chapters, but were nominally a secret nonetheless. To hear them declared so brazenly by a veteran of the Heresy War made Thane uneasy.

Nonetheless. ‘Whatever the Venerable’s state of mind, shipmaster, it is clear to me that he has something of value,’ he said aside to Kale. ‘Anything that the orks work so hard to keep from me is something that I want. Release emergency power to main drive and forward shields. Ram the alien from our path if you must. Divert the necessary power to tractors and teleporters.’

‘No!’ Magneric’s time-delayed static-hiss rumbled from the array like thunder. ‘The Emperor protects.’

‘I do not understand. You sent out a signal for aid.’

The Dreadnought’s bulk pivoted against the enshrouding darkness, turning sufficiently far from his hololith’s field of capture to boom something at a crew serf without Thane’s hearing. ‘I am sending your ship my sarcophagus’ vid-log of the battle. May it lift your heart, brother. Use it gloriously.’

Thane looked to Kale, who looked in turn to the vox-liaison, Teal. She frowned. ‘Data exload from Obsidian Sky confirmed but we’ve received nothing yet.’ A few tense moments passed. ‘Wait… Data packet received, not by us, but by the Interdictor.’

Thane thumped the handrail. ‘Who did he think that he was talking to?’

While he marshalled his frustration, Kale had crossed to the strategium and reformatted the viewer to a split screen. Individual screens on the left-hand side continued to flick between shots of the Fists Exemplar fleet.

The frigate picket was coming apart under an intolerable weight of firepower. The Dauntless, Champion and Noble Savage were destroyed. The Grey Ranger was burning, backup generators spitting emergency power into space.