The Beast Arises

Rodolph held the command pulpit and leaned against it just before impact. He remained standing as the hammer blow resounded through the battleship. The depth of the tremors told him how deep the wound was. The oculus showed everything forward of the superstructure disappear in the expanding firestorm. Across the bridge, the dull voices of servitors overlapped as they called out damage reports. Groth, face grim, tapped at the tacticarium screens until a clear summary emerged. Rodolph watched the casualty figures hit the tens of thousands and keep climbing. Power was down across two-thirds of the ship. The void shields collapsed. For close to half a minute they remained down, and ork cannon shells opened more gaps in the armour. When they returned, the shields were at less than forty per cent of their strength.

A rent half a kilometre wide had been torn in the hull. Atmosphere poured into the void. Bulkheads could not seal. Amidships, the top ten decks vented completely.

Still the casualty numbers climbed. Vacuum killed some fires. Others kept spreading, finding more air to burn. Rank upon rank of weapon batteries went dead.

‘Steering?’ Rodolph asked.

‘We still have it,’ said Groth. ‘Barely.’

And he was still standing, breathing and thinking. Still commanding. Barely. That would suffice too.

‘Maintain course for the greenskins’ moon,’ Rodolph said. He took a rattling breath. He vowed he would remain conscious until his vessel’s dissolution. ‘Keep them worried.’

Laccolith groaned with war. It burned. It cried out to wrathful night.

The Fists Exemplar split up, racing along the sides of the avenue towards the walkers. The Mechanicus guns angled their beams towards the monsters’ heads. Along the rooftops of the buildings that still stood, and on the crests of rubble mounds, the skitarii gathered and attacked the ork infantry. The walkers fired to the left and right, bringing down more structures. The power of the ork machines was overwhelming. Yet there could be no retreat from them. There was only attack.

We fight for time, Thane told himself, conscious of how little remained to him. Each second is a victory.

Then the walkers stopped firing. They took a step back. Thane blinked. It was as if the leviathans were retreating before the Fists Exemplar.

‘Chapter Master…’ Aloysian said.

‘I know, brother.’

The walkers turned around. Footstep by thunderous footstep, they headed back down the grand avenue. Beyond them came the snarl of vehicle engines pushed to the limit. The infantry was on the run. The orks were leaving Laccolith faster than they had arrived.

‘How can this be a retreat?’ said Aloysian.

‘It isn’t.’ Thane understood. ‘They’re racing to stop the Last Wall.’

The Honour’s Spear and Triumph of Himalazia flew between the Ascia Rift’s guardian volcanoes. Lava flowed sullenly down the slopes of the peaks. Their eruptions were a slow, constant release of pressure, preventing greater cataclysm. Beyond them, the rift opened up. It was a canyon thousands of metres deep, and less than two thousand across at its widest point. The Ascia valley floor was bright with the light of xenos industry.

Koorland stood with Vulkan at the open side door of the Thunderhawk. His eyes widened as the gunships dropped lower and the details of the construction became clearer. ‘Have they done this only since the assault began?’

Vulkan nodded. ‘I would have known, otherwise. They must have used more troops here than in the invasion itself.’

‘Did they know you were here?’

The idea the orks knew more about the location of the primarch than did the Adeptus Astartes was appalling. He forced himself to ask it. He must not consider anything beyond the reach of this enemy.

‘Not before they arrived, I think. I was aware of something happening in this region first. Then the attack on Laccolith began.’

‘The invasion was a distraction?’

‘An effort to keep me from here, at the least. A successful one until now.’

Koorland felt the scale of the conflict and the tactics on Caldera sink in further. Millions of orks deployed to counter a single warrior. And the orks had known to do this.

‘Still lower,’ he voxed Preco. ‘Get their attention.’

The ork facility occupied the full width of the rift. It ran for dozens of kilometres north and south. Conduits, each ten metres thick, plunged into the bedrock and ran into power junctions the size of manufactoria. Chimneys rose half the height of the canyon. They spewed smoke and ash. Their mouths glowed red. Koorland stared. He pointed. ‘Are those chimneys doing what I think they are?’

‘Yes,’ Vulkan replied. ‘They are dagger wounds in the flesh of Caldera.’ His anger smouldered like the magmatic light from the chimneys. ‘The orks have pierced the crust. They are using the energy of this world to power its own destruction.’