The Beast Arises

Pict screens lit up with data on the enemy dispositions. The attack moon was visible in the oculus, surrounded by ork vessels except for the face it showed to the planet. Another large fleet was positioned some distance from the moon and was sending landing ships down. Koorland watched the distant flares of engines descending to the atmosphere. That, he thought, is what the process of infection looks like. He burned to purge the disease from Caldera.

We can’t, he reminded himself. Keep focused. We are here to find the myth. All this strength is so we can accomplish that single task.

‘Auspex,’ Thane called from the command pulpit, ‘any traffic from Caldera?’

‘It’s fragmentary, Chapter Master,’ said the officer. ‘Short bursts and lots of static. Nothing coherent, but there are attempts. The interference is severe.’

‘It would be,’ Koorland said. He was looking at what the moon was doing to the planet.

‘Yes,’ Thane agreed. ‘Is that what happened to Ardamantua?’

‘No. This is different. So is that moon.’ It looked misshapen, even by the crude standards of the greenskins. It was not a sphere. It was a thick crescent.

Thane ordered a magnification on the planet’s agony.

The moon lashed Caldera with gravity whips. The atmosphere below it was a boiling cauldron of red and black and grey. Huge masses emerged from the storm and rose towards the moon.

‘Are those mountains?’ Thane asked.

‘They might be,’ said Koorland. ‘They are now.’ He followed the flight of one of the rock formations. It slowed as it approached the moon, then merged with the larger body. Now the shape of the moon made sense. It was incomplete. The orks were building their battle station by yanking up chunks of Caldera’s crust.

‘If we could destroy it before its construction is complete…’ Thane muttered.

‘Yes,’ said Koorland. ‘If we could. If we would not expend our strength in doing so. Destroying that moon would be a diversion. One we had fallen into. It would do nothing for the wider war. It would not get us to Ullanor.’

‘Agreed. So where does the search begin?’

Koorland thought for a moment. Then he asked the auspex operator, ‘Is there any pattern to the traffic you are detecting?’

‘Most of it is concentrated near the capital, Laccolith.’

‘What are you thinking?’ Thane asked.

‘Orbital defences are down. The orks have a free hand here.’ He moved to the strategium table. It displayed a hololithic map of the eastern hemisphere of Caldera. ‘Laccolith is very close to being beneath the secondary ork fleet.’

Thane joined him. ‘But not directly.’

‘No, which is odd. And there are still signs of life, however slight.’

‘I’ve never known the greenskins to leave anything functioning in a population centre they attacked.’

‘Exactly. This is anomalous.’

‘And so as good a starting point as any,’ Thane concluded.

Koorland pointed to the ships launching the landings. ‘That is our target. Punch through and make our own landings, disabling the ork invasion in the process.’

‘That will buy us some time to search.’

‘So I hope.’

Koorland turned from the display to the oculus, and watched the orks steal the being of a world. The scale of the engineering feat was staggering. It was only right that a legend should exist on a world where the impossible was already at play.

‘Is this channel secure?’ Egon Broumis asked.

‘Yes,’ said Illaia Groth. ‘I’m taking this in my quarters.’ The captain of the Finality sat at her desk and watched the hololithic representation of her counterpart on the Absolute Decree. The image jumped and flickered, but she could read the worry on Broumis’ face well enough. He was a few years older than she was, but his greying, jowled features were misleading. He looked like a well-fed Administratum official. There was little to suggest he was the veteran of dozens of engagements, but Groth had served as his lieutenant before achieving her own command of the Finality. She knew what Broumis was worth. It was out of respect for him that she had consented to take this communication without the admiral’s knowledge.

‘What do you think of Rodolph?’ said Broumis.

Zdenek Rodolph, the admiral in command of the Imperial Navy fleet escorting the Adeptus Astartes mission to Caldera. Younger than either Broumis or Groth. The son of privilege and the ward of powerful connections, Lord High Admiral Lansung not least among them. He had reached his rank with less than a quarter of the field experience of the captains. And now he had been picked by Lansung to lead the Navy on this endeavour.

‘Too early to tell.’ Groth shared Broumis’ concern. ‘We haven’t seen him tested.’ She shrugged. ‘He knows his way around a bridge.’

‘I’m not reassured. This crucial mission is in the hands of an untried politician.’

Groth’s concern took another direction. ‘What are you thinking?’

Broumis hesitated. ‘That we may have to be prepared… to take extraordinary measures.’

‘That’s mutiny.’