The Beast Arises

‘Captain Allegra to the conn. Urgent,’ the loudhailer repeated. Allegra’s hand fell away from her midriff. She ran the back of the other across her eyes but still found no tears there. She grabbed the support rails set into the alcove sides.

‘Get… up,’ the captain told herself — and she did. Her mind was numb but her legs were moving. She allowed them to take her to the submersible’s conning tower.

There she found a rat’s nest of Marineer officers and support staff, Undinians who moved with frenetic urgency and purpose. Guardsmen and women lost in the emergency, who dared not allow themselves a moment to contemplate the unfolding destruction of their home world.

At the heart of the cramped and darkened command centre, she found the Lord Governor. Borghesi sat in his wheeled chair in silence. Gone was the imperious triviality of petty demands. Also missing was the careless entitlement of a spireborn. The Lord Commander now felt the responsibility of one born to the spire, a man born to rule in the Emperor’s name. He looked almost as wretched as she did. He didn’t avoid her gaze. He didn’t say anything. He just pursed his lips and gave her his sad eyes.

Phifer and Novakovic had lost too many men and too many vessels to feel any particular loss that acutely. Like their frantic personnel, they hid behind what was left of their honour and professional responsibility. Allegra found them standing about the faded hololithic representation of the Great Ocean. Hive after hive had fallen. The greenskin invaders were falling like a curtain on Undine, their descent line moving swiftly across the ocean planet. Presented as such, Allegra could see how the hive-world’s oceans had been their greatest ally, swallowing innumerable savages and filling the bellies of deep-sea megafauna. If Undine had been a world of rock and dirt, the greenskin monsters would have long since swarmed the planet.

This fact did not make Undine’s fate any less desperate. According to the hololith, only the distant western hives of Nemertis, Arethuse and Pontoplex remained untouched by the alien war host. Several isolated patrols were still operating on the turbulent seas of these regions, including the Meridius launch carrier group and the Western Marinine base of operations, Port Squall. The base sported a Thunderbolt contingent and two Marauder wings, including the Marinine 1st and 3rd. It was towards Port Squall that Allegra assumed the submersibles were headed. She was wrong.

Novakovic seemed to notice her for the first time. The aged admiral was dressed in his great coat and rubbers. He gave her a grim nod, and she managed an answering salute. Phifer didn’t acknowledge her at all. He was known amongst the Marineer officer corps to be a cold bastard but a competent one, and he was the only officer that Allegra knew of that had actually fought off-world. He was staring darkly at the hololith and the story it told. It seemed that the general knew the end and he didn’t like it.

‘You sent for me, sirs,’ Allegra said, wishing that they would send her straight back. She did not quite understand what use she could be to them. Her ‘Screeching Eagles’ were gone. Her captaincy an empty formality. Perhaps the Tiamat would reach the Meridius battlegroup; perhaps those Marineers left aboard the submersibles could support the Marinine 1st and 3rd in their protection of Hive Arethuse or make a stand at Port Squall. Hive Arethuse wouldn’t survive the swarms of hulking invaders clawing their way out of the sea. Port Squall could not hope to stand against the monstrous air superiority of the greenskin bomber wings.

‘She sees it,’ Novakovic said through the hololithic static.

Phifer nodded, again without looking at the captain. His face was an unreadable mask, taut and fixed.

‘She does,’ he agreed in his deep, Northern drawl.

‘See what?’

‘The futility of the situation,’ Novakovic said. ‘We cannot stand against the magnitude of this threat.’

‘The Marineers are a planetary defence force,’ Phifer said, ‘and we have defended our fair world to the best of our ability. This is, however, an Imperial world. It is part of the Emperor’s domain. We must look to the Emperor’s faithful subjects on neighbouring worlds to aid us in this desperate hour.’

‘How do we know that they haven’t been invaded?’ Allegra said. ‘That they are faring any better than Undine?’

‘We don’t,’ the aged admiral told her.

‘The Lord Governor has allowed our regimental astropath to use his consular codes and send requests for aid to Zeta Corona, Farhaven and Triassi Prime. We have also attempted to contact the Mechanicus servants of the Phlogistos Forges and sent word to the Vulpius Crusade, passing through the Weald Worlds. The astropath confirmed that the Black Templars Space Marines received our request for assistance. In all likelihood, the Adeptus Astartes are en route.’

‘Sounds hopeful,’ Allegra acknowledged, but her voice said anything but.