The Beast Arises

Koorland had his command tent set up at the edge of the crater, out of the way of the landers and manoeuvring vehicles. He and Thane met with General Marga Imren of the Lucifer Blacks and Tech-Priest Dominus Alquist Arouar. The Lucifer Blacks made up the largest contingent of the Astra Militarum cohort, giving Imren supreme authority over the combined Guard regiments. She was visibly uncomfortable in the presence of Arouar. There was little of the Adeptus Mechanicus leader that suggested he was human at all. His body was a collection of multi-jointed limbs and metallic tentacles. His silhouette defied the eye. It recalled an ancient avian, stooped, but moved with the floating, scuttling grace of the arachnid. In her dark uniform, Imren had the rigid posture and cold pride earned by the regiment that supplied the Imperial Palace’s honour guard. She was the human at its most disciplined. Arouar was the human at its most absent.

‘This position is barely defensible,’ Imren said.

She was right. Holding off the natural predators of Caldera was a simple matter. An ork attack would be something else again.

‘We are not here to defend Laccolith,’ Koorland said. ‘This is the point from which we launch our assault, and that will be as soon as we have a target.’

‘The strategy of the Veridi giganticus is puzzling,’ Arouar said. His voice box clicked and whistled with snatches of binharic. He was poised over the strategium table. It displayed a map of Laccolith, the surrounding region, and what had been recorded of the greenskins’ positions during the landings. ‘Their behaviour is anomalous.’

‘Everything about these orks is anomalous,’ said Thane. ‘That is their norm.’

‘Agreed. However, many of their non-normative actions are unusual because of their advanced technology, considered strategy and intelligent responses. Characteristics strange in the Veridi, but logical by any other sentient measure. The ambassador caste contradicts our understanding of the race, but not the conduct of war.’ His left arm unfolded. He spread his hand, telescoping its digits until they corresponded approximately to the various ork armies marked on the map. ‘Here I observe behaviour both anomalous and nonsensical. The Veridi have abandoned Caldera’s capital, its pillage incomplete. There are no significant population centres in the directions they are pursuing. There are no targets of strategic worth.’

Imren said, ‘They aren’t conquering the planet. They’re tearing it apart.’

‘But they must have had some reason to come down,’ Koorland mused.

‘The primarch?’ Thane asked.

‘I refuse to believe they knew about his presence here before we did.’

‘And yet Ullanor…’

Koorland shook his head. ‘Even so, that is a leap too far.’

Thane did not pursue the point.

‘I agree the supposition cannot be supported,’ Arouar continued. ‘I would suggest their presence on the surface of Caldera is connected to the use of the planet we have already observed. This is the first time we have seen the construction of an attack moon.’

Koorland found the speculation unsatisfying. ‘Even if Laccolith was a target of opportunity, why abandon it before they were finished with it?’

‘Quite.’ Arouar made a fist and spread his fingers, suggesting a purposeless radiation of the ork hordes.

‘Puzzling,’ said Imren. ‘Does it help us with our mission?’

‘I don’t know,’ Koorland admitted. ‘I won’t discount its significance, though. We should also speak with local survivors.’

He met with several of them a few minutes later. They were escorted onto the base by a squad of Lucifer Blacks, and waited outside the command tent. Their uniforms were almost as ragged as their bodies, patched with strips of leather and reinforced with scrap metal. The insignia of the Laccolith Defence Militia were still visible: two converging spears creating the silhouette of a volcano. One man had carved the lines into his forehead, wearing his pride on his flesh. They were young, but their faces were lined with the sudden age of brutal experience.

‘I salute you, citizens,’ Koorland told them. ‘You have resisted well. You are alive, and so is your city.’

‘Thank you, lord,’ the man with the carved forehead said.

‘How did you drive off the orks?’

‘We didn’t,’ said a woman. ‘We were saved.’

‘By whom?’

The mortals shared a look of religious awe.

‘We don’t know,’ the first man told Koorland. ‘We only saw him at a distance.’

‘He wore power armour,’ Koorland guessed.

Blank silence from the mortals.

Koorland tapped his chest-plate. ‘Like mine.’

They all nodded.

‘But greater,’ the woman said. ‘He is a giant. Taller even than you, lord. And he cannot die.’

More nods. More awed looks.

Curious, Koorland asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘He fought so many. He should have died. I saw an entire hab fall on him.’

‘A rocket landed where he was standing,’ the scarred man said.

Every one of them had witnessed these and other moments that would have meant death for any being who fell within these mortals’ conception of human.