Celestine - Andy Clark Read online

  ‘A pox on this worthless ball of rocks,’ he muttered as he adjusted the collar of his uniform, double-checked the magazine in his laspistol and straightened out the medals pinned to his chest. Still, it didn’t do to look less than his best, even if there were no higher-ranking officers left to impress.

  Blaskaine emerged into the command bunker to find it swirling with controlled pandemonium. The bunker was wide but low-ceilinged, its smooth stone walls typical of the las-carved chambers and corridors of the Adul. In places they were decorated by bas-relief Imperial angels and soldiery doing battle with mutants and traitors. In every carving, the forces of the Imperium reigned triumphant. If only that were true, thought Blaskaine.

  Electro-lumen globes hung from the bunker’s ceiling, casting cold light over the large strategium-table that dominated the centre of the room. Maps, charts, rolls of parchment and scattered data-slates covered the table from end to end.

  One wall of the bunker was dominated by a huge bank of runic consoles, vox-units, long-range auspex receivers and other machineries of various opaque purpose. Cadian operators jostled elbows as they leant over them, working their controls and speaking in clipped tones into bulky headsets.

  Those men and women looked tired but determined. It was an expression Blaskaine had become all too familiar with over the course of this campaign.

  Junior officers, priests, servitors, signalmen, tech-magi, regimental life-guards, commissars and dozens of other assorted hangers-on bustled around the bunker. Conversations in High Gothic and Low Gothic mingled with binharic cant and plainsong to create a substantial din. Yet all fell silent as Blaskaine strode up to the strat-table. Salutes and genuflections were directed his way. As the last senior ranking officer of the Cadian 144th Heavy Infantry, such was his right.

  ‘Situation report,’ said Blaskaine, pleased to hear that he sounded calmer than he felt.

  ‘Massive heretic assault incoming, major,’ reported Lieutenant Kasyrgeldt, Blaskaine’s adjutant. She plucked a data-slate from amidst the morass on the table and passed it to him. ‘Armour and infantry elements moving up the wadi from the south-east and pushing on Hawk Gate. Scouts have detected a second force circling the mesa to assault Jackyl Gate from the west, and long-range auspex suggests aerial elements inbound on our position.’

  ‘Clearly we merit substantial effort on the enemy’s part, ladies and gentlemen,’ barked Blaskaine. ‘I believe we should be flattered.’

  His words elicited a handful of mirthless smiles, here and there a couple of wry chuckles. These soldiers were under no illusions as to the dire situation, but they were Cadians. With their homes, their families and all they had known torn away from them, what cause had they to fear death?

  ‘Enemy numbers?’ asked Blaskaine as the hubbub of the bunker resumed.

  ‘Substantial would be putting it mildly, sir,’ said Kasyrgeldt. She showed him a parchment print-out, and Blaskaine quirked an eyebrow.

  ‘Throne, Astryd… Tanks, artillery, cultists.’ Blaskaine exhaled. ‘Creed’s ghost, where did they scrounge a Stormlord from? The War Engine is throwing everything at us, isn’t he?’

  ‘It appears so, sir. I think he means to have done with us today no matter what it costs him.’

  ‘What’s our state of play?’ asked Blaskaine, plucking up a mug of recaff and pulling a face as he found it to be cold. Kasyrgeldt passed him a hot one.

  ‘Generatorums two, three and four are still running,’ she said. ‘Sectors two and four still have void shield coverage. Both gates are fully garrisoned by soldiers of the Hundred and Forty-Fourth.. We have sixteen platoons still at fighting strength, if you include the Whiteshields.’

  ‘No one is a Whiteshield anymore, Astryd,’ said Blaskaine quietly, but she pressed on as though he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Forty-two armoured personnel carriers, twenty-eight main line battle tanks, nineteen pieces of self-propelled field artillery including Manticores and Basilisks, and three scout tanks remain. Captain Maklen has, at last count, thirty-four per cent strength of the Cadian Two Hundred and Thirtieth mech-infantry remaining. They’re ready to provide rapid response should a breakthrough occur. The Astorosian Ninth have mustered their engines in the runoff canyons near Jackyl Gate. We’ve substantial assets, sir.’

  ‘But…?’ prompted Blaskaine.

  ‘Candidly, sir, we’ve no strategic options left to us beyond dig in and endure,’ said Kasyrgeldt, keeping her voice low enough that only Blaskaine could hear. ‘The enemy has a planetary population to utilise against us, and all of the materiel they’ve scavenged from a dozen battlefields… Not to mention a formidable manufacturing base to turn out fresh weapons and war machines. The odds are against us surviving the day, sir, but beyond that? They’re even slimmer. And there’s no hope of rescue or escape, not since the darkness fell. We’re cut off, our astropaths are dead or mad, and we’re likely the last Imperial holdout on a world that’s already lost. No matter how determined they might be to die with honour, no matter how angry they might be at finding themselves fighting for another doomed planet, our soldiers know that it is doomed.’

  ‘The commissars and the preachers are doing their part, yes?’ asked Blaskaine.

  ‘They are, sir, but they’re fighting a rearguard action against their own sense of despair,’ said Kasyrgeldt. ‘There’s a worrying streak of fanaticism supplanting good Cadian discipline. I think the soldiery are praying for some sort of miracle.’

  ‘If it keeps our soldiers fighting, we’ll take whatever we can get,’ said Blaskaine, his mind racing. He knew his adjutant’s dire summation was right, and try as he might, the major couldn’t think of a way out of this rat-trap. ‘Honestly, Astryd, it sounds like we could use a miracle right about now. Talking of which, where are the Sisters in all this? I’d expected to at least hear from Meritorius, what with violence in the offing.’

  ‘The Sister Superior voxed word at first chimes, sir,’ replied Kasyrgeldt, consulting another data-slate. ‘They are already at the gates.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ said Blaskaine. ‘Good martyrs all, eh?’

  ‘The Battle Sisters are exceptional warriors, sir,’ said Kasyrgeldt, a note of reproach in her voice. ‘Their example is an inspiration to the soldiery, and frankly, I’ll take the aid of half a hundred warrior women with power armour and bolters any day. Sir.’

  Blaskaine raised a placating hand.

  ‘There is no disagreement here, lieutenant,’ he said. ‘I’ve just never seen soldiers so eager to die in the Emperor’s name. I don’t see the sense in seeking out hopeless fights when one can live to fight another day, and I don’t entirely trust the sanity of those who think differently.’

  Blaskaine cursed himself as he saw Kasyrgeldt’s expression set into a carefully neutral mask.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ she said, and Blaskaine wondered if he would ever entirely escape the ghosts of Cadia’s fall.

  Now was not the time to dwell.

  ‘Carry on, lieutenant,’ said Blaskaine. ‘Have a voxman and a tech-priest attend me at console eleven. I’ve a war zone to coordinate.’

  He turned away brusquely and marched across the command bunker, telling himself for the thousandth time that there was nothing he could have done that day, but that he could do something useful now.

  Sister Superior Anekwa Meritorius stood atop the ramparts of Hawk Gate. Stocky and powerfully built, Meritorius was lent additional bulk by the ornate black and white power armour she wore. Her dark skin and bleached white hair contrasted sharply and, combined with the steely glint in her eye and the wide-bladed power sword sheathed at her hip, ensured she looked every part the stern Imperial warrior. Still, as she stared down at the horde of heretics sweeping towards the Adul, Meritorius felt little of the strength she displayed outwardly.

  Hawk Gate was a towering armoured portal that sealed off one of only two main access points
into the canyons of Tanykha Adul. Its hundred-foot-high durasteel gates were housed within an armoured arch, flanked by a pair of macro-bastion gun towers and overlooked by the rampart upon which Meritorius stood, amidst the Battle Sisters of her Celestian entourage.

  Sister Maria Penitence shot her a zealous look.

  ‘These gates would withstand bombardment by Titan-class weaponry,’ said Sister Penitence, as though Meritorius had asked. ‘Each gun tower is a fortress. Hundreds of Cadians garrison them, Sister Superior, and with our Sisters and the mission preachers spread through their ranks to bolster their faith, they shall not waver.’

  ‘Sister Penitence speaks the Emperor’s word,’ said Sister Constance Indomita. ‘The foe shall have little fortune throwing themselves at these gates, and even less should they attempt to scale the cliffs of the mesa. I believe I saw the Cadian engineers laying sufficient mines amongst those crags to blast an entire army of foes to pieces three times over.’

  ‘Not to mention the automated turret networks that watch over the canyon edges,’ added Sister Elena Absolom. ‘Even with the enemy advancing in such numbers, I believe we shall best them with the Emperor’s blessing.’

  Meritorius found herself irritated by her Celestians’ comments. It had been a hard campaign, and she made no secret of the pressure that had fallen upon her after Canoness Rokhsanja’s demise, but she resented the notion that they might think her spirits needed bolstering. The alternative, that they truly believed what they were saying, seemed somehow worse. Thousands upon thousands of heretic warriors and war engines advanced under Kophyn’s hard cobalt skies. Their ragged red banners filled the horizon, and the dust cloud that rose in their wake resembled an onrushing storm.

  ‘The Emperor has no time for frivolous cheer, Sisters,’ she snapped, fighting off the sense that they were all of a mind and she was excluded from it. ‘Save your hopeful pronouncements for the Cadians.’

  The Celestians exchanged glances that Meritorius chose to ignore, but they fell silent. Not so Preacher Unctorian Gofrey, a robed figure, dark of hair and steely of eye, who stood at Anekwa’s left shoulder.

  ‘Have a care, Sister Superior,’ he said, his voice deep and hard as a ferrocrete slab. ‘The Emperor may not put stock in baseless hope, but he frowns still more upon the craftsman that chips away his own foundations. So it is written in the Creed Imperius.’

  ‘Thank you, Gofrey,’ said Meritorius, voice tight, mouth a thin line. ‘You ensure that we never go wanting for counsel.’

  The preacher made the sign of the aquila, offering a hard smile that didn’t reach his eyes. As was his habit, he touched his hand to his breastbone, where a lump indicated something hanging about his neck beneath his robe. Meritorius had never seen the priest’s Imperial aquila, but she wouldn’t have been surprised if it was scrimshawed from the bones of some luckless relative.

  ‘The enemy will be upon us within the hour,’ said Meritorius, turning away from Gofrey and addressing her Celestians. ‘Go now, Sisters, and take your places amongst the Cadian ranks. I will converse with their senior officers and ensure that our defensive strategy is soundly implemented. Have faith, my Sisters, for whatever fate awaits us this day, we stand tall and strong in the Emperor’s gaze, and we shall not be found wanting.’

  ‘Deus Imperius Eterna,’ they chorused, offering her the sign of the aquila.

  ‘Stirring words, Sister Superior,’ said Gofrey quietly as the three veteran Battle Sisters jogged away to their appointed posts. ‘I hope for all our sakes that you mean them.’

  ‘Don’t you have soldiers to unnerve, Unctorian?’ asked Meritorius without looking around.

  ‘I have the Emperor’s work to do, as do we all,’ smiled the preacher. ‘The fire must be lit.’

  ‘Then go and light it, and leave me to do my duty,’ said the Sister Superior.

  ‘The Emperor watches us all, Anekwa,’ replied Gofrey.

  As she listened to him walking away, Meritorius silently hoped that his insinuations were unfounded. She cast her eyes to the heavens and offered up a prayer to the Emperor, hoping for the thousandth time to feel that spark of the divine that had once been her constant companion.

  There was nothing. There had been nothing since the Great Rift tore its way across the galaxy, since the stars went out and His light was extinguished. Meritorius feared, in the darkest watches of the night, that her faith had been snuffed at the same time, just another candle flame drowned by the shadows. Did anything remain beyond the Rift? Was the Throneworld already gone?

  Was she alone?

  Such were the constant questions that she asked herself day in, day out. They were questions repeated over and again by the warriors she led and the soldiers they had found themselves fighting alongside. Cadia gone. The Rift devouring the heavens. The Astronomican vanished between one breath and the next. How could anyone maintain their faith in the Emperor and His Imperium in such a terrible time?

  ‘And yet, that is what faith is,’ she whispered to herself in a voice heavy with the frustration of having had this conversation with herself many times before. ‘You have to believe despite it all. That’s what gives faith its power, and the Emperor His. Just believe, and if you can’t, then for Throne’s sakes at least don’t let them see you wavering. Not this close to the end.’

  Meritorius heard a door bang open at one end of the rampart. A Cadian heavy weapons platoon spilled out, jogging along the firestep to begin setting up their man-portable lascannons and heavy bolters. Meritorius returned their salutes, radiating steely composure as she activated the vox-link built into her armour’s gorget.

  ‘This is Sister Superior Meritorius of the Order of the Ebon Chalice, calling Major Blaskaine, Captain Maklen, Lieutenant Tasker and Sub-Duke Velle-Marchon. I bring you the Emperor’s blessings and ask your counsel, my fellow war leaders, for the enemy is at our gates.’

  Preacher Gofrey stalked the corridors of gun fortress Hawk-Alpha. He stared steadily at the Cadian soldiers he passed, enjoying how the men and women of the Imperial Guard averted their eyes and offered him the sign of the aquila. Almost, he thought, as though warding away his judgement, or more properly, that of the Emperor. They sensed his authority and they respected it, just as they should.

  He passed squad after squad of warriors gathered before armoured firing slits. Cadians prayed over their lasguns. They clutched gunmetal aquilas as they beseeched the aid of the Emperor, and of the machine-spirits of their weapons. Some reached out to touch the hems of his robes as he passed.

  As Gofrey walked, he preached.

  ‘And yea, though the light of the Emperor may be occluded in this grim hour, His eye is never far!’ cried Gofrey, his voice echoing along arched corridors and through bustling chambers. ‘He expects of us, brothers and sisters. He expects of us and He judges most severely those who He finds wanting.’

  He rounded upon a squad of troopers who were gathered around a battered vox-set and trying to coax the communications device back into life.

  ‘Are you faithful?’ asked Gofrey, his voice cold steel and fire.

  ‘We are, preacher,’ replied their corporal, a squat, pale man with tired eyes and too many scars. ‘We are loyal servants of the Emperor all.’

  ‘Is there taint amongst you?’

  The man’s expression hardened.

  ‘There’s no taint amongst the Cadian Hundred and Forty-Fourth,’ said the corporal.

  ‘Arrogance,’ mused the priest. ‘Is that why the void turned to madness? Is that why the Imperium burns? Is that why your world is no more? Are any of us truly free of taint?’

  A thrill ran through his body as he saw the Cadians bristle with outrage. Gofrey’s hand strayed towards the laspistol at his hip.

  Do it, he thought.

  React.

  Betray himself for a heretic, so Gofrey may cut out another canker.

  He c
entred his mind, focused the power of his will and risked the slightest mental nudge. If these men were impure, surely now they would reveal themselves. A muscle twitched under the corporal’s eye. The man balled his fists, but to Gofrey’s disappointment he held his place. The preacher knew he couldn’t goad the man further; there might still be some amongst this dull flock who were truly faithful. For their sake, he must restrain himself.

  ‘Cadia stands,’ said the man through gritted teeth. ‘And we are loyal.’

  ‘Prove it to the Emperor, not to me,’ said Gofrey almost conversationally, turning and walking away. The Cadians were forgotten already. There was no obvious taint there to excise. They weren’t where his purpose lay. But it was here, somewhere in this den of corruption, and he would coax it loose. The Emperor would show it to him, before the end. He had given Gofrey his gifts for a reason.

  His thoughts turned to Sister Superior Meritorius, as they had many times in recent days, and righteous anger filled him. Gofrey saw the cracks in the façade of her faith, saw the way they radiated outwards to corrupt all those she consorted with.

  Another preacher, Munctian Dunst, met Gofrey on the stairs as he prowled down towards the next level of the tower. Dunst shied away, and Gofrey sneered as the portly old priest hurried past him without a word.

  All of them were faithless, thought Gofrey. All of them were at fault. The mission had always been a poor jest, for how did you bring enlightenment to a galaxy of sinners? They had brought this ending upon the Imperium and now they lived in the ashes of the apocalypse they had wrought.

  Yet there were men here still with the faith to serve the Emperor to the end. Unctorian Gofrey held his secret close to his chest, and the Emperor in his heart, and he would serve his final function before the end of all things. He was the arbiter of the Emperor’s justice, and he would deliver it to all of the faithless, the moment their deeds betrayed them.