The Beast Arises

Beast Krule suddenly saw a collection of panic-strewn words spill from Lansung’s patrician lips. They were called as an order to those about him. To the closing Lucifer Blacks. To his flag staff. To Villiers and the officers of the Autocephalax Eternal. The Assassin sensed the importance of the order and somehow found his way back to the moment.

‘Firing protocol thirteen!’ the Lord High Admiral screamed. ‘For Throne’s sake: firing protocol thirteen!’

No more words, Beast Krule decided. The fist came down.

‘Hold!’ Drakan Vangorich called.

Obedience. Krule turned his fist aside, smashing its metallic force into the hangar deck.

‘What in damnation is “Firing protocol thirteen”?’ the Grand Master demanded.

The hololithic representation sizzled to darkness and from that darkness temple infocytes, sans-expediens and tacticians came forwards in deference. A wall section started to shudder to one side, revealing a small chamber in a lighter shade of twilight beyond. Esad Wire was strapped to a simulcra slab. His temple-crafted body was needled from head to toe with sensors. Lines ran into impulse links in the side of his skull and fibre threads into the flesh between his ears and eyes, interfacing with the holoptometric implants beyond.

The Assassin sat up, tearing the sensor needles and datalines from his body. The indoctranostic holosimulation was over. The frustration was clear on Wire’s face. The predator had not taken down his prey. He had failed in some way. His temple re-education — his murderous strategic orientation — had been halted by a furious Drakan Vangorich.

‘Again,’ Vangorich said, ‘what is this “Firing protocol thirteen”? That’s new. I haven’t heard of that.’

‘It’s a proxy,’ an infocyte volunteered. ‘Officio operatives aboard the battleship gave us the physical detailing. It’s not a recovered piece of intelligence. It’s a proxy created by the strategium.’

‘A proxy for what?’ Vangorich demanded.

A hooded tactician came forwards.

‘The hypothetical came out of the logistuary,’ the tactician said. She swiftly added, ‘Operative Wire’s encounter with an Inquisitorial tail at Tashkent factored in a greater range of eventualities for the logistas. Firing protocol thirteen is a proxy for a target behaviour based on logical extensions of those eventualities.’

‘Like?’ Vangorich said dangerously.

‘The knowedge of certain Officio Assassinorum installations and their locations,’ the tactician told him, ‘by involved and interconnected factions.’

‘Covert temple facilities?’

‘Such delicate information could be traded between numerous individuals and organisations — the Holy Inquisition, the Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Imperial Navy…’

‘So firing protocol thirteen in this context could be?’ Vangorich pressed.

‘The location of the Mount Vengeance Officio Assassinorum facility,’ the tactician told him.

‘Knowledge of this facility?’ Vangorich confirmed, briefly casting his gaze at a wounded-looking Wire.

‘It’s on a list of five possibilities,’ the tactician said. ‘The target’s behaviour would facilitate a stalemate scenario. The operative would be powerless to execute his mission with the target in possession of such information. If he attempted to do so, the battleship in the simulated scenario would fire its guns from orbit on this location. We have calculated, however, that the true nature of both the weapon’s discharge and the temple location would remain secret. The incident would be recorded as a regrettable accident.’

‘Well that’s a relief,’ Vangorich said sardonically. The import was lost on the tactician. The Grand Master was out of his throne and walking towards the egress-archway. He stopped and turned to the gathered temple staff. ‘I want this facility cleared of temple personnel, intelligence and equipment within the hour.’

‘Yes, Grand Master.’

‘Enough with simulations. Beast Krule,’ Vangorich said, ‘with me.’

Having removed the last of the impulse jacks from his head and the sensor needles from his flesh, Esad Wire followed his master out of the crypt-nexus.

‘What are we going to do?’ Esad Wire said.

‘We’re going to force the Lord High Admiral’s hand,’ Vangorich told him. ‘Gathering an armada in the Glaucasian Gulf will do nothing to protect the core systems from the xenos threat. What I wouldn’t give for a stalemate scenario out there.’

‘Where are we going?’ Esad Wire asked.

‘Somewhere the admiral’s great guns can’t reach us,’ Vangorich told his Assassin.

NINETEEN

Eidolica — Alcazar Astra