Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

Amberley shook her head, with a trace of puzzlement. ‘They’re moving too fast for that.’

‘And they’re past,’ the auspex operator said, surprise and relief contending for control of his voice.

‘What just happened?’ Captain Addie asked, relief most definitely in the ascendant. ‘They had us cold.’

‘They’re going for the orbital dock,’ Amberley said. Sure enough, no sooner had she spoken than a volley of torpedoes streaked away from the eldar raiders, impacting on our intended destination, though so far as I could see they’d barely be able to scratch the paintwork of the city-sized structure.

‘Then we’re not,’ I said. I turned to Captain Addie. ‘Get us into a stable orbit, inside the defence batteries. It’ll take longer to offload everything by shuttle, but at least we won’t get shot at while we’re doing it.’

She nodded. ‘I like the way your mind works.’

I tapped my comm-bead again, selecting Kasteen’s personal channel. ‘Regina,’ I began. ‘There’s been a slight change of plan…’

Editorial Note:

The following extract is appended in order to place some of what follows in a wider context. As ever with such accounts by minor members of the local nobility with pretensions to scholarship, some analysis is over-simplistic, and some of the events which we of the Inquisitorial ordos have deemed better left unknown to members of the public are conspicuous by their absence, but it covers the basics competently enough.

From The Eldar: a History of Their Presence in the Ultima Segmentum, and Some Musings Upon Possible Means of Their Eradication, by Baltazar Thromp, 997 M41

The eldar attack on Ironfound was, like most such acts by xenos pirates, unprovoked and merciless in its savagery. The first intimation the populace had of their incursion was an astropathic warning sent by Commissar Cain, the renowned Hero of the Imperium, who had been gallantly leading the resistance to the eldar’s initial onslaught in the Halo Autonomous Zone, where little damage of any consequence had been done – thanks, no doubt, to the martial expertise of this legendary warrior.

Apprehending that Ironfound itself was the reivers’ true target, its wealth being immeasurably greater than that of the halo colonies, the gallant commissar lost no time in marshalling the forces of the Imperial Guard and – transporting them with all due despatch to the true centre of the Ironfound system85 – began to undertake its defence.

And not a moment too soon. For no sooner had he left Drechia, the aptly named capital of the fringe colonies, than the black-hearted eldar began their assault, setting off in pursuit of the Imperial Hero and his dauntless allies. To no avail, their ramshackle vessels incapable of catching – let alone overhauling – the finely crafted fruits of the Imperial shipbuilders’ arts. Indeed, only three of them, more foolhardy than even their fellows, attempted to do so; when their intended prey successfully eluded them they vented their frustration on the nearest of the orbital docks, inflicting minimal damage to its defensive batteries before being forced to flee by the sheer volume of retaliatory fire.

The commissar’s warning had preceded his arrival, however, and the system defence fleet of Ironfound swiftly mobilised to counter this intolerable challenge to His Divine Majesty’s stewardship of that blessed world. Within days a flotilla of the finest fighting vessels in the entire system had left the orbital anchorages, sallying forth to meet the challenge.

This they did to great effect, destroying or crippling several of the smaller vessels, and inflicting sufficient damage on one of the battleships to force its withdrawal, returning whence it came in ignominious defeat.

Alas, however, it was a victory dearly won. The gallant defenders were significantly outnumbered, and though their strategy of concentrating on the smaller and weaker vessels was undoubtedly sound,86 it left them vulnerable to the powerful weapons aboard the enemy battleships without much chance to retaliate effectively.