Battle for The Abyss (10 page)

‘I do not believe you, brother,’ said the Thousand Son with certainty. Zadkiel smiled mirthlessly.

‘Then I shall give you the truth. Great deeds are unfolding, Captain Mhotep. Lines will be drawn. Flame and retribution is coming, and those who are on the wrong side of that line will be burned to ash.’ Zadkiel paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in.

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Mhotep remained impassive. The Thousand Sons were quite the experts at concealing their true emotions.

‘We are on a secure channel, Captain Mhotep, and the Legion of the Word have ever been supporters of your lord Magnus. The events of Nikaea must rankle.’ That got a reaction, near imperceptible, but it was there.

‘What are you suggesting, Word Bearer?’

Hostility now, the icy reserve was thawing at the mention of what many in the Legion regarded as Magnus’s trial and that what happened at Nikaea was performed by a council in name only.

‘Lorgar and Magnus are brothers. So are we. What side of the line will you stand on, Mhotep?’

The retort was curt. The Thousand Son’s face was set like stone.

‘Prepare to be boarded,’ he said.

‘As you wish,’ replied the Word Bearer.

The vox link to the
Waning Moon
was cut.

‘Master Malforian,’ said Zadkiel, levelly.

The ordnance deck flashed up on the viewscreen, a deep metal canyon beneath the prow crowded with sweating ratings hauling massive torpedoes.

‘My lord.’

‘Fire.’

A spread of torpedoes flew from the
Furious Abyss
towards the
Waning Moon
, which had positioned itself before the massive ship’s prow. Starboard, a bank of laser batteries lit up at once, and beams of crimson light stabbed into the void. They struck the
Fearless
and the frigate was broken apart in a bright and silent flurry of blossoming explosions.

‘THRONE OF TERRA!’ Cestus could not believe what he was seeing through the
Wrathful
’s viewscreen. Powerless, and be-numbed, he watched the
Fearless
fragment like scrap as a firestorm ravaged it, hungrily devouring the oxygen on board and turning it into a raging furnace. It was over in seconds, and after
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the conflagration had died all that remained was a blackened ruin. Then the torpedoes hit the
Waning Moon
.

‘SHARKS IN THE void!’ cried Helms-mate Ramket from the sensorium on the bridge of the Waning
Moon
. The crew were all at battle stations, carefully monitoring the actions of the Word Bearer ship. The lights in the elliptical chamber were dimmed as was protocol for combat situation, and the tiny blips that represented the ordnance launched by the
Furious Abyss
glowed malevolently on one of the bridge’s tactical display slates.

‘Evasive manoeuvres. Turrets to full! Withdraw boarding parties to damage control stations!’ Mhotep scowled and gripped the lip of the command console in front of him. Shields were use-less against torpedoes; he had to hope their hull armour could bear the brunt of the
Furious Abyss
’s opening salvo.

‘At your command, my lord,’ came Ramket’s reply.

Warning runes flashed on multiple screens at once, presaging the missile impacts. Mhotep turned again to his helms-mate.

‘Open a channel to the
Wrathful
,’ he ordered as the first of the torpedoes hit, sending damage klaxons screaming as a massive shudder ran through the bridge.

‘Mhotep, what’s happening out there?’ asked Cestus over the ship-to-ship vox array.

‘The
Fearless
is gone. We are taking fire and attempting to evade. The Word Bearers have turned on their own, Cestus.’

A burst of crackling static held in the air for the moment combining with the din of relayed orders and cogitator warnings.

When he finally spoke, the Ultramarine’s voice was grim.

‘Engage and destroy.’ ‘Understood.’

THE BRIDGE OF the
Wrathful
moved to battle stations, Kaminska barking rapid orders to her subordinates with well-drilled precision and calm. The professionalism of the Saturnine Fleet’s officer class was evident as the weapons were brought to bear and shields focused prow-ward.

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‘How shall we respond, lord Astartes?’ she asked, once they were at a state of readiness.

Cestus fought a cold knot of disbelief building in the pit of his stomach as he watched the spread of blips on the tactical display move into attack positions.

The Word Bearers have turned on their own.

Mhotep’s words were like a hammer blow.

His
words, the words that Cestus had spoken earlier on the training deck to Thestor and Antiges, of brotherhood and the solidarity of the Legions, suddenly turned to ash in his mouth. He had admonished his brothers for even voicing mild dissent against a fellow Legionnaire, and now, here they were embattled against them. No, they were not World Eaters. They were not the murderous, blood-letters that Antiges had described. They were the devout servants of the Emperor. Ostensibly they were his most vehement and staunchest supporters.

How far did this treachery go? Was it confined merely to this ship, or did it permeate the entire Legion? Surely, with the vessel crafted by the Mechanicum it had the sanction of Mars. Could they be aware of the Word Bearers’ defection? Such a thing could not be countenanced. With these questions running through his mind like a fever, Cestus could not believe what was happening.

It did not feel real. From disbelief, anger and a desire for retribution was born.

‘Break that ship in two,’ Cestus said, full of righteous conviction. He could feel the ripples of shock and disbelief passing through the non-Astartes as the full horror of what they had witnessed sank in. He would show them that the true servants of the Emperor did not tolerate traitors and any act of heresy would be summarily dealt with. Cestus’s feelings and the ramifications of what had transpired would have to wait and be rationalised later. ‘Relay astropathic messages to Macragge and Terra at once,’

the Ultramarine added. ‘The sons of Lorgar will be held to account for this. Admiral Kaminska, you have the helm.’

‘As you wish, my lord.’ Kaminska said. Trying her best to maintain her cold composure in the face of such developments, she
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swivelled the command throne as the screens around her shifted to show every angle around the ship. ‘Captain Vorlov, are you with me?’

‘Say the word, admiral.’ Vorlov’s enthusiasm was obvious, despite the static flickering through the fleet’s vox array.

‘Take the lead behind the
Waning Moon
. If they stay on the Astartes ship, swing up in front of them. Give them a bloody good broadside up the nose, and scramble attack craft. Keep their gunners busy. I’ll send what’s left of our escorts with you. In the name of Emperor!’

‘At your command, admiral,’ replied Vorlov with relish. ‘Main engines to full, all crew to battle stations. Watch my stern, admiral, and the
Boundless
will pick this swine apart! In the name of Emperor!’

‘Mister Castellan,’ Kaminska barked, terminating the vox link with the
Boundless
. The
Wrathful
’s Master of Ordnance appeared on screen, toiling ratings just visible behind him on the gun decks.

‘A lance salvo to their dorsal turret arrays and engines, if you please,’ said Kaminska. ‘Load prow plasma torpedoes, but hold in reserve, I want something up our sleeve.’

‘At your command, admiral,’ came the clipped response from Master of Ordnance Castellan, who snapped a curt salute before the screen blanked.

CESTUS WATCHED AS the organised chaos of battle stations unfolded. Every crewman on the bridge had his own role to play, relaying orders, monitoring sensorium and viewscreens, or making minute adjustments to the ship’s course. One of the tables on the bridge unfolded into a stellar map where holographic simulacra were moved around to represent the relative positions of the ships in the fleet.

‘Traitorous whoresons,’ snarled Brynngar, ‘it’ll be Lorgar’s head for this.’

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Cestus could see the hairs on the back of the Space Wolf’s neck rise. In this fell mood and with the dimmed battle stations gloom, he took on a feral aspect.

‘Scuttle her and I’ll lead the sons of Russ aboard,’ he growled darkly. ‘Let the wolves of Fenris gut her and I’ll tear out the beating heart myself.’

Brynngar hawked and spat a gobbet of phlegm onto the deck as if what was transpiring in the void had left a bitter taste. There were a few raised eyebrows, but the Wolf Guard paid them no heed.

Cestus’s reply was terse. ‘You’ll get your chance.’

Brynngar roared, baring his fangs.

‘I can no longer sit idle,’ he snapped savagely, turning on his heel. ‘The warriors of Russ will make ready at the boarding torpedoes. Do not make us wait long.’

Cestus couldn’t be certain if the last part was a request or a threat, but he was, for once, glad of the Wolf Guard’s departure.

His mood, since they’d hit the void and encountered the Word Bearers had grown increasingly erratic and belligerent. The Ultramarine sensed that the wolves of Russ did not relish such encounters. The fact that Brynngar was so eager to spill the blood of fellow Astartes only caused Cestus greater discomfort.

At war with our Legion brothers,
the very idea scarcely seemed possible, yet it was happening.

Cestus watched the space battle unfold with curious detach-ment and felt his sense of foreboding grow.

THE
WANING MOON
had burned its retro engines to kill its speed, and fired all thrusters on its underside to twist upwards and present its armoured flank to a second torpedo volley shimmering towards it.

The first torpedoes missed high, spiralling past the ship to be lost in the void.

A handful detonated early, riddled with massive-calibre fragmentation shells from the defence turrets mounted along the flank of the
Waning Moon
.

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Several found their mark just below the stern. Another streaked in with violent force, and then two more amidships. Useless energy shields flared black over the impact points as hull seg-ments spun away from the ship, the torpedoes gouging their way through the outer armour.

‘Damage report!’ shouted Mhotep above the din of the bridge.

‘Negligible, sire,’ Officer Ammon answered from the engineering helm. ‘What?’

‘Minimal hull fractures, my Lord Mhotep.’

‘Sensorium definitely read four impacts,’ confirmed Helms-mate Ramket watching over the readouts.

Embedded deep in the hull of the
Waning Moon
, the outer casing of each torpedo split with a super-heated incendiary and six smaller missiles drilled out from their parent casing. They were ringed with metallic teeth and bored through the superstructure of the strike cruiser as they spun. Drilling through the last vestiges of hull armour, the missiles emerged into the belly of the vessel and detonated with a powerful explosive charge. With a deafening
thoom-woosh
of concussive heat pressure, the gun decks were ruined. Ratings and indentured workers died in droves, burned by the intense conflagration. Heaps of shells exploded in the firestorm, throwing lashes of flame and chunks of spiralling shrapnel through the decks. Master Gunner Kytan was decapitated in the initial barrage, and dozens of gunnery crew met a similar fate as they scrambled for cover as the gun-decks became little more than an abattoir of charred corpses and hellish screaming.

THE
WANING MOON
shuddered as explosions tore through its insides. A destructive chain reaction boiled through the upper decks and into crew quarters. Stern-wards, detonations ripped into engineering sections, normally well shielded from direct hits, and ripped plasma conduits free to spew superheated fluid through access tunnels and coolant ducts.

Damage control crews, waiting at their muster points to douse fires and seal breaches, were torn asunder by the resultant car-72

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nage from amidships. Orderlies at triage posts barely had time to register the pandemonium on the gun decks before the blunt bullet of a warhead thundered through into the medicae deck and annihilated them in a flash of light and terror.

Chains of explosions ripped huge chunks out of the
Waning
Moon
’s insides. Like massive charred bite marks, whole sections were reduced to smouldering metal and hundreds of crewmen were lost to the cold of the void as the vessel’s structural integrity broke down.

‘REPORT THAT!’ ORDERED Mhotep, clinging to his command throne on the bridge as sections of the ship collapsed around him, revealing bare metal and sparking circuitry. The lights around the bridge were stuttered intermittently as the
Waning
registered power loss and damage across all decks. Mhotep’s crew were doing their best to marshal some semblance of order, but the attack had been swift and far-reaching.

‘Massive internal and secondary explosions,’ replied Officer Ammon, struggling to keep pace with the warning runes danc-ing madly over the engineering helm, and snapping off further reports. ‘Plasma venting from reactor seven, gun crews non-responsive and medicae has taken severe damage.’

‘Tertiary shielding is breached,’ said Mhotep as the ship-to-ship vox crackled into life.

‘Mhotep, report your status at once! This is Captain Cestus.’

The impacts had shaken the vox array and the Ultramarine’s voice was distorted with static.

‘We are wounded, captain,’ said Mhotep grimly. ‘Some kind of Mechanicum tech that I have never seen before burned our insides.’

‘Our lances are firing,’ Cestus informed him. ‘Can you stay engaged?’

‘Aye, son of Macragge, we’re not done yet.’

A further crackle of static and the vox went dead.