“Then get clear, zero-three,” Sarik ordered, “before the Emperor gets bored
of keeping you around.”
“Acknowledged,” Nova-three replied. “Will form up on your trajectory.”
“Negative, zero-three,” Sarik replied. “We’ll catch you up. Out.”
“Sir?” inquired the helmsman, sensing a change in plans. “Your orders?”
“Zero-nine by delta, offset three point five, helm,” Sarik ordered. A series
of unfixed readings scrolled across the lectern readout, indicating the
appearance of a potential new contact.
“Screen the defence platforms?” Conversi Kuro said over his shoulder as he
hauled on the steering levers.
“Aye,” Sarik replied. “Time?”
“Five minutes,” the helmsman replied.
“Nova leader?” Sarik said, opening a vox-channel to the squadron leader.
“What is your status?”
“Augur readings compiled,
Nomad
,” Nova leader replied. “Communing with
fleet now, but I think we have company.”
“I see it, Nova leader,” said Sarik, as a new augur return flashed on the
lectern’s screen. The
Nomad
’s cogitator banks set about analysing the
return, comparing it to vessels the crusade had faced in its previous battles
against the alien tau.
“Medium displacement, brother-sergeant,” Conversi Loccum reported, his mind
impulse link feeding him the raw information before it even appeared on the
lectern screen. “Cruiser analogue, similar to those faced previously.”
“Not something we want to face alone, then,” Sarik growled, the warlike side
of his spirit battling with the veteran warrior-leader side. “Nonetheless,” he
continued, “fleet needs those readings. Helm, bring us prow on with the enemy.
Fire control?”
“Already there, brother-sergeant,” Qaja replied over the internal vox. “Full
yield lance?”
Sarik grinned savagely, his honour scars twisting into a swirling pattern as
he gripped the lectern with both hands. “Aye, Qaja. And make it count.”
Addressing the bridge-serf at the shields station, Sarik said, “Nord, forward
banks to maximum. This might hurt…”
The veteran sergeant had barely completed his remark when a blue pulse filled
the forward vision port. Sarik braced himself, and a moment later, the tau’s
hyper-velocity projectile struck the hastily raised forward screen.
The entire view from the portal exploded with seething white energies as the
enemy’s attack was dissipated against the
Nomad’s
forward shield. Sarik
squinted against the fierce illumination, but his pride refused to let him
shield his sight entirely. The frigate shook violently as the projectors
struggled to shunt sufficient power to counter the attack, warning klaxons
sounding as the bridge lights flickered.
“Report!” Sarik shouted above the banshee wailing of the sirens.
“Shields holding,” Nord yelled back. “But only just!”
Sarik’s grip on the lectern redoubled as he imagined his hands strangling the
life from the captain of the alien vessel. If only he could engage his foe
face-to-face. Snarling, Sarik looked to the lectern screen, confirming that the
pathfinders’ squadron leader was finally coming about on a heading that would
take the vessel back towards the fleet. His gaze followed the icon’s projected
course towards the far edge of the screen, where he saw…
“All stations!” Sarik bellowed. “I want every last ounce of power on the
shields.”
The frigate’s main systems powered down one by one as the crew enacted
Sarik’s order, the siren dying away to silence as all available power was
diverted to the shield generators. Soon, only the shrill whine of the labouring
projectors was audible. Only the harsh light cast by the lectern screen lit the
bridge, the surface laced with racing numerals. A new icon resolved in the
mid-range band, to the
Nomad
’s aft.
“Energy spike!” Loccum reported, his voice seeming shockingly loud in the
sudden near silence. “Brace!”
Sarik didn’t need to be told. Another cold blue pulse filled the portal, a
white pinprick of light in the black void marking its source. An instant later,
the hyper-velocity projectile slammed into the
Nomad
’s forward shield,
and this time, the screen could not contain the terrific energy of its impact.
With a staggering release of blinding energies, the frigate’s forward shield
collapsed. The solid mass of the tau projectile was transformed into raw energy
as it passed through the screen, and struck the
Nomad
’s blocky, armoured
prow.
The gut-wrenching impact passed through the vessel in seconds, the deck
beneath Sarik’s armoured boots buckling with a tortured metallic scream.
Secondary explosions ripped along the vessel’s spine, scores of Chapter-serfs
dying in an instant as ravaging flames scoured entire compartments or the cold
vacuum of space plucked them away. The helm station erupted in a shower of
molten brass, blasting Conversi Kuro backwards even as he was consumed in
flames. The lectern screen died, plunging the entire bridge into near darkness,
the only illumination that of guttering flames.
Bracing himself on the lectern, Sarik drew himself to his full height,
looking around him as he did so to confirm his crew’s predicament. His bridge,
his personal domain over which he was undisputed master, was burning around him.
Why had the conflagration-suppressors not engaged?
Sarik looked down at his dead command lectern, and realised that the impact
of the tau weapon had ripped the soul from his vessel, its core logic engines
and cogitation transmission conduits crippled, or at the very least silenced for
a spell, at the worst possible moment.
The flames picked up as they rushed along the length of the bridge, consuming
terminals as they progressed. Conversi Nord dashed across the deck towards the
sprawled form of the helmsman, Kuro, rolling his body over as he knelt down
beside it. It was immediately obvious that the veteran bridge-serf was burned
beyond aid, the flesh of his face sloughing away in smoking chunks.
Conversi Loccum’s station was as yet untouched, but Sarik saw that it was
directly in the path of the onrushing flames. Hard-wired into his mind impulse
unit, there was nothing Loccum could do to avoid imminent and horrific death.
Having lost one valued servant, Sarik vowed in that instant not to allow the
other to suffer a similar fate. He knew what he had to do.
“Bridge crew!” Sarik yelled over the raging flames and the shattering of
glass terminal screens. Conversi Loccum had closed his eyes, his tattooed face
almost serene in the face of death. “Vacuum protocols, purging now!”
Sarik turned and hauled down on a large brass lever. The manually operated
purge valve mounted in the vaulted ceiling irised open and the hatch to the rear
of the bridge locked shut with a resounding clang. A new siren started up, its
rapid rise and fall specifically keyed to the purge protocol. Those bridge-serfs
not already at their station made quickly for their seats, following
long-rehearsed purge drills. Sarik had no need to strap himself into a seat, his
superhuman grip on the lectern sufficient to hold him against the coming storm
of depressurisation.
Seconds later, that storm erupted.
With explosive force, the air in the bridge compartment was sucked through
the valve almost directly above Sarik’s lectern. He redoubled his grip, screwing
his eyes tight shut and forcing the air out of his lungs to avoid internal
injury. Loose objects were sucked upwards towards the valve, the grate across
its surface stopping them jamming its mechanism. A bone-hewed Chogoran charm
scythed through the air and cut a deep gash across Sarik’s scalp, before
shattering on the bulkhead overhead. Parchment strips affixed to terminals
fluttered wildly in the rush of air, and then fell still. Suddenly, all was
silent. Sarik opened his eyes to see that the flames, starved of oxygen, had
extinguished.
Sarik pulled back on the lever, manually initiating the re-pressurisation
cycle. The purge valve irised shut and the hiss of oxygen inlets filled Sarik’s
ears. He took a deep breath, unaccustomedly pleased to taste the stale shipboard
air. The taste of burned metal would hang in the air for hours, he knew, and a
fine mist was already forming as the newly pumped-in oxygen condensed in the
chill space. Within thirty seconds the bridge was returned to one standard
atmospheric measure, the emergency averted and Loccum and the other bridge-serfs
saved.
“Sound off!” Sarik called out. As a Space Marine, his genetically enhanced
biology was proof against the worst effects of the depressurisation, but Sarik
was less certain how his bridge crew might have fared.
Coughs and splutters sounded from the darkness, before the first of the crew
replied. “Loccum!” the man called out. “Vox-net awakening, but Kuro is down.”
Sarik was filled with relief that Loccum had been saved from a horrible death,
and immeasurably proud at how quickly the conversi resumed his duties.
“Nord,” the bridge-serf at the shield station called out. “Residual only,
projectors down.”
“Understood,” Sarik replied, looking down at the blank, cracked screen of the
lectern. “If you’re out there…”
“Incoming vox communion, brother-sergeant,” said Conversi Loccum, his
terminal awakening even as he spoke. A moment later the bridge was filled with
churning static as the ship-to-ship vox-channel burst to life.
“
Nomad
,” a voice came over the static-laced vox-channel. “Pathfinders
are clear. Get your drives on-line and follow them out. We’ll deal with this.”
Sarik grinned savagely as he recognised the voice of his friend and ally, the
rogue trader Lucian Gerrit, master of the heavy cruiser
Oceanid.
“You’re sure you don’t need help, Lucian?” Sarik replied. “It wouldn’t be the
first time, after all!”
The rogue trader’s only reply was a devastating broadside, which struck the
closing tau vessel amidships and broke it in two. The enemy ship’s drive section
sheered away from its central spine, inertia and residual thrust carrying it
forwards to pass the
Nomad
at perilously close range.
Two competing reactions welled up inside Sarik as he watched the spectacular
destruction of the tau vessel. Part of him knew vindication, revenge for the
deaths the tau had inflicted on his crew and the damage they had done to the
Nomad
. The other part, which Sarik rejected the instant he became aware of
it, knew something akin to jealousy, for it had not been him, but another, who
had dealt the killing blow. Sarik knew the emotion was ignoble, born of his
fierce warrior heritage and nothing to do with the noble traditions of his
Chapter or the Adeptus Astartes as a whole. He would confess his weakness to his
ancestors later, he vowed.
As the flaming debris passed across the view from the bridge portal, Sarik
saw the
Oceanid
move forwards, assuming a vector that would take it into
battle with the three alien defence platforms.
“Lucian,” said Sarik, his momentary weakness replaced by concern for his
friend. “You can’t take those platforms on alone…”
“Don’t worry, Sarik,” the reply came back, and Sarik knew that the
Oceanid
was merely the tip of the spear. “We’ll save some fun for you.”
Sarik moved around his lectern and strode along the length of the bridge,
coming to stand before the armoured glass of the forward port with his hands
gripping the stanchions. As he watched, the entire fleet came into view,
gargantuan battleships and cruisers gliding past in stately procession. In
echelon behind the
Oceanid
came the other two vessels of the rogue
trader’s flotilla, the cruisers
Fairlight
and
Rosetta
. As the
three ships began to open fire at extreme long range against the distant defence
platforms, the majestic form of the
Blade of Woe
, the crusade’s flagship,
came into view. Even Sarik, who had seen the sight many times before and far
preferred to prosecute his wars on land, could not help but be impressed by the
battle cruiser’s vast form. Its sharp prow was sculpted into the form of
sweeping eagle’s wings, and every square metre of its ancient armour was carved
with litanies and the features of revered Imperial saints. Its portholes were
delicate lancet windows, the armoured glass a riot of colours depicting scenes
of glorious battle. One by one, the warships sailed past the
Nomad
,
passing her by on every side and accompanied by their nimble escort squadrons
and swarms of smaller vessels.
And then, the strike cruiser
Fist of Light
came into view. Though
smaller than the
Blade of Woe,
the Space Marine vessel, which belonged to
the Iron Hands contingent of the crusade forces, radiated menace as if the cold
outer steel skin shielded a raging furnace at its heart. Where the Imperial Navy
warships were stately, with sharp prows and covered in Gothic detailing, the
Space Marine vessels were blunt-prowed and unadorned. Their flanks were not
encrusted with devotional statues, but sheathed in the thickest ceramite armour
known to man. The
Fist of Light
was the largest Space Marine warship in
the crusade fleet, the remainder frigates and destroyers. Her armoured flanks
were painted black, white and steel grey, the predominant colours of the Iron
Hands heraldry, and they were pitted with countless thousands of small craters,
each a battle scar earned over many centuries of service to the Imperium of
Mankind.
The fleet crossed the point at which its longest-ranged weapons could open
fire upon the alien defence stations. Initially, these weapons were those
mounted in dorsal turrets, or torpedoes fired from cavernous tubes mounted in
the armoured prows. The
Blade of Woe
’s weapons batteries spoke first, for
they had the longest range, great salvoes of city-levelling ordnance blasting
across the void to smash into the tau stations. Yet, the display was
inconsequential compared to what would follow when the ships’ masters ordered
their warships to turn and present a broadside to the alien platforms. The
Imperial Navy’s battle doctrine dictated that its vessels’ firepower was
concentrated in mighty batteries on either flank. A single salvo could drive
off, cripple or even destroy almost any enemy vessel, as the tau had already
discovered to their detriment.