The Beast Arises

‘Esterre…’ Marshall Bohemond roared. His anger echoed about the cavernous command deck.

‘He’s gone,’ a bondsman informed him. ‘Vox-link broken from their end. The Magnificat is hauling off.’

‘Open channel,’ Clermont ordered. ‘All frequencies. Captains and commanders: this is the battle-barge Abhorrence requesting fire support, coordinates three, fifty-six, fifty-two. We are under attack. We are invoking section four-two-seven of the Vortangelo-Heidrich Proclamation signed by Marshal Grigchter and Grand Admiral Hadrian Okes-Martin during the Auriga Wars. This is Abhorrence, requesting fire support.’

Clermont waited. About the battle-barge, turrets cut through boarding rocks and breaching capsules. Broadsides crashed through terror ships and gun-hulks. A sea of wreckage and void mines tested the battle-barge’s forward shields, with the Abhorrence’s prow forced to crash through the crowded chaos.

‘Preservatorio, hauling off, sir,’ a bondsman announced. ‘Thunderfall, hauling off. Falchiax, hauling off…’

Clermont looked to his marshal. Bohemond had slammed his armoured form back into his pulpit-throne.

‘Marshal,’ the castellan said. ‘Without the Magnificat or the commodore’s cruisers, we cannot hope to damage the xenos abomination.’

‘Oligarch Constantius, hauling off,’ the bondsman droned. ‘Ministering Angel, hauling off. Morning Star, hauling off. Tiberius Rex, hauling off.’

‘Marshal…’

‘Who’s still with us?’ Bohemond murmured.

‘Marshal…’

‘With which vessels do we still keep attendance, castellan?’ the marshal insisted.

After conferring with the bridge bondsman, Clermont said: ‘The Aquillon — Dictator-class cruiser, Captain Grenfell. The Firebrand — Lancet-class corvette, Commander Ulanti. Neither vessel fields lance decks.’

Bohemond clasped the arms of his throne with both gauntlets. The alloy of the pulpit-seat creaked beneath the pressure. His good eye was set in an unswerving gaze on the enemy attack moon. The marshal’s face was bathed in red as emergency lamps and alarms erupted across the command deck.

‘Kant?’ Castellan Clermont called, but before the Techmarine could confirm the threat, several greenskin vessels gunning down on the battle-barge formed a train of explosions. One after another, drawing closer and closer to the Abhorrence, the junkers detonated.

The train of destruction ended with the Sodalitas. One moment the the strike cruiser was there. The next it had been replaced by a streaking implosion of ignited fuel and hallowed wreckage. Its armoured prow and thoraxial gun decks had been smashed straight back through its engine columns and immaterial drives, as though an invisible fist had crashed through the vessel. No one on the Abhorrence had seen the atrocity, but every member of the battle-barge’s crew felt the swell of the explosion ring through the decks.

‘Starboard evasive!’ Clermont called. The battle-barge lurched and banked sharply.

‘Commander Klein of the Bona Fide reports the Sodalitas destroyed,’ a bondsman called from where he was clinging to his rune bank.

‘Confirmed,’ the castellan reported. ‘Strike cruiser Sodalitas is lost. Forty-one battle-brothers and two hundred and sixteen bonded crew dead, marshal.’

The report struck Bohemond like a physical blow. He turned to Chaplain Aldemar. The Chaplain said nothing. He sank slowly to his armoured knees on the command deck and began his murmured obsequies and the sacraments of the fallen.

‘Kant, I need that—’ Clermont began.

‘Some kind of gravitic weapon,’ Kant called back. ‘Vectored and directional. The planet-smasher the attack moon must have used on Aspiria.’

‘Marshal?’

‘Have all Chapter vessels and Navy attendants form up behind the battle-barge,’ Bohemond ordered.

‘Sir, we are outnumbered—’

‘And what means that to the Black Templars?’

‘The enemy has the advantage,’ the castellan attempted to continue.

‘You have just summarised the beginning of every worthy battle in which the Black Templars have fought,’ Marshal Bohemond declared proudly.

‘Every worthy battle that Black Templars survived, marshal,’ Clermont replied. ‘But this will see us all dead before we can scratch them.’

‘Steel yourself, brother,’ Bohemond said. ‘These thoughts proceed from some cowardly corner of your soul.’

‘No such place exists, my lord.’

‘Well it must, Castellan Clermont,’ Bohemond roared back, ‘for I hear the suggestion of a retreat in your guarded advisements.’