The Beast Arises

Cracks became chasms.

The world groaned.

In the centre of the rift, the energy discharges were maddened. Arouar’s throne vibrated, presaging worse tremors to come.

‘Proceed,’ the dominus commanded.

The connections were made.

He screamed. His larynx was no longer capable of such a sound. His vocalisations had long been purged of any trace of emotion. Yet he screamed, emitting a wailing stream of binaric. His senses lit up with electric fire.

He became a god maddened by the pain of his own power.

Duty to the Omnissiah was his lodestone. His one focus was the coordinates of the ork attack moon.

In an act of prayer, he flexed his power.

And he lifted a mountain.

‘Admiral.’

The voice was distant. Rodolph could barely hear it. His body was growing cold and numb. He was dying along with his ship. He had to keep his attention on the oculus, on the sight of the moon. If his mind drifted, if his will failed, all would be lost.

‘Admiral.’

The voice was insistent. Then a hand shook his shoulder. The movement shot pain through his abdomen. He winced and looked away from the oculus.

Groth was beside him. The bridge was filled with smoke, but his crew was still on station. The Finality was still fighting. It was still approaching the moon.

‘What is it, captain?’ he managed.

‘Look, sir.’ She pointed to the auspex screen on his right.

Rodolph looked. The sensor array had picked up another mass rising from the planet towards the moon. Rodolph blinked. The mass was coming far too fast.

He grinned.

The mass became visible through the oculus a few moments later. It had risen with such velocity it was heated to red by its passage through the atmosphere. It spun end-over-end, thousands of metres long, trillions of tonnes of rock, a missile hurled at the exposed heart of the ork base. Rodolph watched it disappear into the uncompleted face of the assault moon.

It was small by comparison to the target, but so was a bullet fired into the body of a man. In the next instant, a fireball bloomed from the interior of the moon. It expanded far beyond the crescent edge, spreading until it was almost as wide as the moon. It was a sudden tumour, its uncontrollable growth killing the host. Fissures appeared across the partial globe. Fire leaked out of them. The moon was in agony.

‘Finish it,’ Rodolph said. ‘In the Emperor’s name, finish it.’

Much of the ork fleet had broken away from the Finality and formed a blockade around the open face. It was vaporised in the explosion. The path was clear for the battleship to complete its run and launch its full armament into the glowing interior.

Rodolph’s head cleared still further. He felt strength return to his body with the flush of victory.

But not all the orks had left. Those who remained kept on the attack. When the torpedoes slammed into the stern, Rodolph knew the worst before Groth told him. He felt the blow like a knife between the ribs.

‘The warp drive,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Groth answered. ‘Breached.’

‘How long?’

She spoke into the ship’s vox. Rodolph was surprised there were any survivors left in the enginarium to answer her.

Groth looked at the oculus, then back at Rodolph. ‘Not long,’ she said. ‘But long enough.’

Rodolph nodded. They understood each other. ‘Better than any ordnance,’ he said.

‘A definitive blow. A fine victory, admiral. Well fought.’

‘And you, captain. And you.’

‘Signal the Mechanicus vessels,’ Groth called. ‘They should rejoin the Alcazar Remembered. Helmsman,’ Groth called. ‘Take us in. For the Emperor!’

The crew echoed her. ‘For the Emperor!’

All batteries firing their last, marking the void with the purging light of the Imperial Navy’s power, the Finality plunged through the remaining ork vessels, completing its run, fulfilling its destiny. Rodolph watched the open face of the moon reveal itself. He saw a honeycomb of madness, construction on a gargantuan scale burning, shattered, pulsing with mortal fire. The Finality entered the maw of the wounded giant, warp reactors about to go critical. It travelled through an immensity of caves natural and artificial, of hangar bays for entire armadas, bearing with it a sun about to be born.

Rodolph gazed at what was about to be destroyed. The price he had paid for this vision seemed very little.

When the end came, in furious light, he was ecstatic.

He had taken one action. He had struck one blow. The power was building, raging, a beast about to slip its tether. Arouar’s grip on his omnipotence slipped. One more move, and then he must disengage. One more move, the one to bring an end to the power. The one Koorland had ordered him to make regardless of the situation in the canyon.

Arouar had no knowledge of the war below now. He had no knowledge of anything except the blinding absolute. So he took the action.

The Machine is all. Death to the blasphemy of the xenos machine.