Galaxy in Flames (2 page)

‘They do not see the falsehood of such a belief. His hand lies upon all of us, and every one of us owes him our devotion. In the depths of the warp, the Emperor’s mighty soul does battle with the dark things that would break through and consume us all. On Terra, he creates wonders that will bring peace, enlightenment and the fruition of all our dreams to the galaxy. The Emperor guides us, teaches us, and exhorts us to become more than we are, but most of all, the Emperor protects.’

‘The Emperor protects,’ said the congregation in unison.

‘The faith of the Lectitio Divinitatus, the Divine Word of the Emperor, is not an easy path to follow. Where the Imperial Truth is comforting in its rigorous rejection of the unseen and the unknown, the Divine Word requires the strength to believe in that which we cannot see. The longer we look upon this dark galaxy and live through the fires of its conquest, the more we realise that the Emperor’s divinity is the only truth that
can
exist. We do not seek out the Divine Word; instead, we hear it, and are compelled to follow it. Faith is not a flag of allegiance or a theory for debate; it is something deep within us, complete and inevitable. The Lectitio Divinitatus is the expression of that faith, and only by acknowledging the Divine Word can we understand the path the Emperor has laid before mankind.’

Fine words, thought Sindermann: fine words, poorly delivered, but heartfelt. He could see that they had touched something deep inside those who heard it. An orator of skill could sway entire worlds with such words and force of belief.

Before Cassar could continue, Sindermann heard sudden shouts coming from the maze of corridors that led into the chamber. He turned as a panicked woman hurled the door behind him open with a dull clang of metal. In her wake, Sindermann could hear the hard bangs of bolter rounds.

The congregation started in confusion, looking to Cassar for an explanation, but the man was as nonplussed as they were.

‘They’ve found you,’ yelled Sindermann, realising what was happening.

‘Everyone, get out,’ shouted Cassar. ‘Scatter!’

Sindermann pushed his way through the panicking crowd to the front of the chamber and towards Cassar. Some members of the congregation were producing guns, and from their martial bearing, Sindermann guessed they were Imperial Army troopers. Some were clearly ship’s crewmen, and Sindermann knew enough of religion to know that they would defend their faith with violence if they had to.

‘Come on, iterator. It’s time we got out of here,’ said Cassar, dragging the venerable iterator towards one of the many access corridors that radiated from the chamber.

Seeing the worry on his face, Cassar said, ‘Don’t worry, Kyril, the Emperor protects.’

‘I certainly hope so,’ replied Sindermann breathlessly.

Shots echoed from the ceiling and bright muzzle flashes strobed from the walls. Sindermann threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the bulky, armoured form of Astartes entering the chamber. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of being the enemy of such warriors.

Sindermann hurriedly followed Cassar into the access corridor and through a set of blast doors, their path twisting through the depths of the ship. The
Vengeful Spirit
was an immense vessel and he had no idea of the layout of this area, its walls grim and industrial compared to the magnificence of the upper decks.

‘Do you know where you are going?’ wheezed Sindermann, his breath coming in hot, agonised spikes and his ancient limbs already tiring from exertion he was scarcely used to.

‘Engineering,’ said Cassar. ‘It’s like a maze down there and we have friends in the engine crew. Damn, why can’t they just let us be?’

‘Because they are scared of you,’ said Sindermann, ‘just like I was.’

‘A
ND YOU ARE
certain of this?’ asked Horus, Primarch of the Sons of Horus Legion and Warmaster of the Imperium, his voice echoing around the cavernous strategium of the
Vengeful Spirit
.

‘As certain as I can be,’ said Ing Mae Sing, the 63rd Expedition’s Mistress of Astropaths. Her face was lined and drawn and her blind eyes were sunken within ravaged eye sockets. The demands of sending hundreds of telepathic communications across the galaxy weighed heavily on her skeletal frame. Astropathic acolytes gathered about her, robed in the same ghostly white as she and wordlessly whispering muttered doggerel of the ghastly images in their heads.

‘How long do we have?’ asked Horus.

‘As with all things connected with the warp, it is difficult to be precise,’ replied Ing Mae Sing.

‘Mistress Sing,’ said Horus coldly, ‘precision is exactly what I need from you, now more than ever. The direction of the Crusade will change dramatically at this news, and if you are wrong it will change for the worse.’

‘My lord, I cannot give you an exact answer, but I believe that within days the gathering warp storms will obscure the Astronomican from us,’ replied Ing Mae Sing, ignoring the Warmaster’s implicit threat. Though she could not see them, she could feel the hostile presence of the Justaerin warriors, the Sons of Horus First Company Terminators, lurking in the shadows of the strategium. ‘Within days we shall hardly see it. Our minds can barely reach across the void and the Navigators claim that they will soon be unable to guide us true. The galaxy will be a place of night and darkness.’

Horus pounded a hand into his fist. ‘Do you understand what you say? Nothing more dangerous could happen to the Crusade.’

‘I merely state what I see, Warmaster.’

‘If you are wrong…’

The threat was not idle – no threat the Warmaster uttered ever was. There had been a time when the Warmaster’s anger would never have led to such an overt threat, but the violence in Horus’s tone suggested that such a time had long passed.

‘If we are wrong, we suffer. It has never been any different.’

‘And my brother primarchs? What news from them?’ asked Horus.

‘We have been unable to confirm contact with the blessed Sanguinius,’ replied Ing Mae Sing, ‘and Leman Russ has sent no word of his campaign against the Thousand Sons.’

Horus laughed, a harsh Cthonic bark, and said, ‘That doesn’t surprise me. The Wolf has his head and he’ll not easily be distracted from teaching Magnus a lesson. And the others?’

‘Vulkan and Dorn are returning to Terra. The other primarchs are pursuing their current campaigns.’

‘That is good at least,’ said Horus, brow furrowing in thought, ‘and what of the Fabricator General?’

‘Forgive me, Warmaster, but we have received nothing from Mars. We shall endeavour to make contact by mechanical means, but this will take many months.’

‘You have failed in this, Sing. Co-ordination with Mars is essential.’

Ing Mae Sing had telepathically broadcast a multitude of encoded messages between the
Vengeful Spirit
and Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal of the Mechanicum in the last few weeks. Although their substance was unknown to her, the emotions contained in them were all too clear. Whatever the Warmaster was planning, the Mechanicum was a key part of it.

Horus spoke again, distracting her from her thoughts. ‘The other primarchs, have they received their orders?’

‘They have, my lord,’ said Ing Mae Sing, unable to keep the unease from her voice.

‘The reply from Lord Guilliman of the Ultramarines was clean and strong. They are approaching the muster at Calth and report all forces are ready to depart.’

‘And Lorgar?’ asked Horus.

Ing Mae Sing paused, as if unsure how to phrase her next words.

‘His message had residual symbols of… pride and obedience; very strong, almost fanatical. He acknowledges your attack order and is making good speed to Calth.’

Ing Mae Sing prided herself on her immense self-control, as befitted one whose emotions had to be kept in check lest they be changed by the influence of the warp, but even she could not keep some emotion from surfacing.

‘Something bothers you, Mistress Sing?’ asked Horus, as though reading her mind.

‘My lord?’

‘You seem troubled by my orders.’

‘It is not my place to be troubled or otherwise, my lord,’ said Ing Mae Sing neutrally.

‘Correct,’ agreed Horus. ‘It is not, yet you doubt the wisdom of my course.’

‘No!’ cried Ing Mae Sing. ‘It is just that it is hard not to feel the nature of your communication, the weight of blood and death that each message is wreathed in. It is like breathing fiery smoke with every message we send.’

‘You must trust me, Mistress Sing,’ said Horus. ‘Trust that everything I do is for the good of the Imperium. Do you understand?’

‘It is not my place to understand,’ whispered the astropath. ‘My role in the Crusade is to do the will of my Warmaster.’

‘That is true, but before I dismiss you, Mistress Sing, tell me something.’

‘Yes, my lord?’

‘Tell me of Euphrati Keeler,’ said Horus. ‘Tell me of the one they are calling the saint.’

L
OKEN STILL TOOK
Mersadie Oliton’s breath away. The Astartes were astonishing enough when arrayed for war in their burnished plate, but that sight had been nothing compared to what a Space Marine – specifically, Loken – looked like without his armour.

Stripped to the waist and wearing only pale fatigues and combat boots, Loken glistened with sweat as he ducked and wove between the combat appendages of a training servitor. Although few of the remembrancers had been privileged enough to witness an Astartes fight in battle, it was said that they could kill with their bare hands as effectively as they could with a bolter and chainsword. Watching Loken demolishing the servitor limb by limb, Mersadie could well believe it. She saw such power in his broad, over-muscled torso and such intense focus in his sharp grey eyes that she wondered that she was not repelled by Loken. He was a killing machine, created and trained to deal death, but she couldn’t stop watching and blink-clicking images of his heroic physique.

Kyril Sindermann sat next to her and leaned over, saying, ‘Don’t you have plenty of picts of Garviel already?’

Loken tore the head from the training servitor and turned to face them both, and Mersadie felt a thrill of anticipation. It had been too long since the conclusion of the war against the Technocracy and she had spent too few hours with the captain of the Tenth Company. As his documentarist, she knew that she had a paucity of material following that campaign, but Loken had kept himself to himself in the past few months.

‘Kyril, Mersadie,’ said Loken, marching past them towards his arming chamber. ‘It is good to see you both.’

‘I am glad to be here, Garviel,’ said Sindermann. The primary iterator was an old man, and Mersadie was sure he had aged a great deal in the year since the fire that had nearly killed him in the Archive Halls of the
Vengeful Spirit
. ‘Very glad. Mersadie was kind enough to bring me. I have had a spell of exertion recently, and I am not as fit as once I was. Time’s winged chariot draws near.’

‘A quote?’ asked Loken. ‘A fragment,’ replied Sindermann. ‘I haven’t seen much of either of you recently,’ observed Loken, smiling down at her. ‘Have I been replaced by a more interesting subject?’

‘Not at all,’ she replied, ‘but it is becoming more and more difficult for us to move around the ship. The edict from Maloghurst, you must have heard of it.’

‘I have,’ agreed Loken, lifting a piece of armour and opening a tin of his ubiquitous lapping powder, ‘though I haven’t studied the particulars.’

The smell of the powder reminded Mersadie of happier times in this room, recording the tales of great triumphs and wondrous sights, but she cast off such thoughts of nostalgia.

‘We are restricted to our own quarters and the Retreat. We need permission to be anywhere else’

‘Permission from whom?’ asked Loken.

She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. The edict speaks of submitting requests to the Office of the Lupercal’s Court, but no one’s been able to get any kind of response from whatever that is.’

‘That must be frustrating,’ observed Loken and Mersadie felt her anger rise at such an obvious statement.

‘Well of course it is! We can’t record the Great Crusade if we can’t interact with its warriors. We can barely even see them, let alone talk to them.’

‘You made it here,’ Loken pointed out.

‘Well, yes. Following you around has taught me how to keep a low profile, Captain Loken. It helps that you train on your own now.’

Mersadie caught the hurt look in Loken’s eye and instantly regretted her words. In previous times, Loken could often be found sparring with fellow officers, the smirking Sedirae, whose flinty dead eyes reminded Mersadie of an ocean predator, Nero Vipus or his Mournival brother, Tarik Torgaddon, but Loken fought alone now. By choice or by design, she did not know.

‘Anyway,’ continued Mersadie, ‘it’s getting bad for us. No one’s speaking to us. We don’t know what’s going on any more.’

‘We’re on a war footing,’ said Loken, putting down his armour and looking her straight in the eye. ‘The fleet is heading for a rendezvous. We’re joining up with Astartes from the other Legions. It’ll be a complex campaign. Perhaps the Warmaster is just taking precautions.’

‘No, Garviel,’ said Sindermann, ‘it’s more than just that, and I know you well enough to know that you don’t believe that either.’

‘Really?’ snarled Loken. ‘You think you know me that well?’

‘Well enough, Garviel,’ nodded Sindermann, ‘well enough. They’re cracking down on us, cracking down hard. Not so everyone can see it, but it’s happening. You know it too.’

‘Do I?’

‘Ignace Karkasy,’ said Mersadie. Loken’s face crumpled and he looked away, unable to hide the grief he felt for the dead Karkasy, the irascible poet who had been under his protection. Ignace Karkasy had been nothing but trouble and inconvenience, but he had also been a man who had dared to speak out and tell the unpalatable truths that needed to be told.

‘They say he killed himself,’ continued Sindermann, unwilling to let Loken’s grief dissuade him from his course, ‘but I’ve never known a man more convinced that the galaxy needed to hear what he had to say. He was angry at the massacre on the embarkation deck and he wrote about it. He was angry with a lot of things, and he wasn’t afraid to speak of them. Now he is dead, and he’s not the only one,’