Apocalypse - Josh Reynolds Read online

  ‘I was promised a glorious crusade. If I’d wanted to patrol the same stars day in and day out, I would have remained at Armageddon. At least there, I could be sure that there were orks to fight.’

  Calder looked at him. ‘If you had remained at Armageddon, there is every possibility that you would be dead, and of no further use to the Imperium or the Lord Commander.’ Armageddon had been swallowed by the edge of the Great Rift, and what few reports escaped the embattled system were not positive.

  Suboden laughed. ‘Careful, lieutenant.’ He wagged a chiding finger. ‘Show me the respect due my rank, if you please. I am very sensitive.’

  Calder frowned, and was glad that his helm hid his expression. ‘I meant no disrespect, khan,’ he said, emphasising the title. ‘But to answer your question – I do not know. Our orders were the same as yours… to make all haste to the Odoacer System, and put ourselves at the disposal of the cardinal-governor.’

  Suboden laughed again. ‘And isn’t that a pretty thing? Do you think he will know what to do with us, this priest-king?’ He shook his head, and tapped his amulets. ‘Why they let such petty shamans rule entire worlds, I cannot fathom. Nothing good ever comes of it.’ He turned. ‘What say you, shadow-brother? Come, sit by the fire and share your thoughts.’

  Calder looked past the White Scar. Karros had freed himself from his restraint throne as well, and stood silently nearby, studying the data-feed. Like Suboden, he wore no helm, and his pallid features looked almost ghostly in the light of the projection. ‘Insurrection?’ Karros murmured, not looking at either of them. He gestured to the feed. ‘Systematic insubordination, acts of sabotage… protests on the outlying worlds. A revolt.’

  The Raven Guard spoke with a terseness that Calder appreciated. Karros was not one to waste words. Calder nodded. ‘I have considered that possibility. But the data shows instability, rather than open insurrection. The system is well within the margin of error.’

  ‘That’s a no, then,’ Suboden said.

  ‘It is unlikely,’ Calder said. He paused. ‘On the matter of instability, we should discuss the chain of command.’

  Suboden grinned. ‘I wondered whether you would broach that topic, brother.’

  ‘It seems sensible to do so now,’ Calder said. ‘The khan outranks me, and you, Karros, are my peer. I am therefore open to the possibility of a more… fluid command structure than might otherwise be considered.’

  ‘Politely stated,’ Suboden murmured.

  ‘I am… aware of the difference between us,’ Calder said carefully. ‘I am Primaris, you are not. I am an Imperial Fist, you are not. Our ways of war are not incompatible, but they are different. The strategies I enact might be at odds with your own.’

  ‘Guilliman put you in command,’ Karros said.

  Suboden nodded, his smile gone. ‘And that, in the end, is that, brother. Have no fear that we will undermine you, even unintentionally.’

  ‘I know no fear,’ Calder said.

  Suboden laughed. ‘And that is how I know that we are more alike than not, brother.’ He gestured absently. ‘It is you the primarch put in command. I am no builder of walls, or great defender of them. Nor, I think, is our honourable third, Karros?’

  Karros straightened, as if suddenly recalling their presence. ‘War is a storm-fraught sea, and bastions but hapless ships, captive to wind and wave.’

  Calder looked at Suboden. ‘That’s a no, I think,’ Suboden clarified.

  ‘I have no taste for garrison work,’ Karros added.

  ‘Which, again, is doubtless why the primarch put the son of Dorn in command.’ Suboden looked at Calder. ‘I tender my heartfelt sympathies, brother. The burden is yours.’

  ‘Then I will endeavour to bear it with honour,’ Calder said. He smiled, briefly. ‘Thankfully, I have you two to aid me.’

  ‘That is a significant advantage,’ Karros said, no hint of amusement in his voice. ‘I am quite skilful at war.’

  Suboden chuckled. ‘And I am even better.’ He laughed more loudly, at the affronted expression on the Raven Guard’s sallow features. ‘Cheer up, brother. I meant no disrespect.’ He pointed to the projection. ‘Now that is settled, let us get back to more important matters. We are not many, for such a task,’ he said. The glare of the projection made his hawkish features resemble a skull. ‘Three brotherhoods…’

  ‘Demi-companies,’ Calder corrected, absently. Suboden smiled and touched his brow, in a gesture of acknowledgement.

  ‘Demi-companies, then. Half-strength, at best. We are a frayed rope pulled taut.’

  ‘A strong enough knot can hold anything.’

  Karros grunted and looked at the projection. His black eyes narrowed. ‘We are not ropes or knots and we cannot defend the entirety of this system. Or even this world.’

  ‘No,’ Calder agreed. ‘But we can make it inhospitable.’ He looked at Suboden. ‘I have calculated fifteen potential landing zones around Almace that an enemy can make optimal use of, given the rough telemetry we have to hand. More will likely reveal themselves after we begin our preparations.’

  ‘Then you do think this system will be attacked,’ Suboden said. His eyes lit up, and his smile was wide. ‘Excellent.’

  Calder gestured, causing the projection to change position. ‘I think the probability is well within acceptable parameters. The Lord Commander would not have sent us, if he believed that the probability was negligible. Therefore, it is best to assume an assault on the system is imminent, if not already underway.’

  ‘If it was underway, wouldn’t we know?’

  ‘Communications grow patchy further from the core,’ Calder said. ‘The Odoacer System is immense – empty space, asteroid fields… If the enemy are not here, they may well be elsewhere, but still nearby. This system has been attacked multiple times – it is conceivable that those assaults were preliminary engagements.’

  ‘And which enemy is that, do you think?’ Suboden stroked his chin. ‘Orks?’

  ‘We will find out in due course, I expect.’

  ‘The landing zones,’ Karros said, bringing them back on topic.

  Calder nodded. ‘I am calculating optimal/sub-optimal comparisons. We will find the best landing zone for our needs, and attempt to render the rest unworkable. If we are successful, the enemy will be forced to use the path we give them, should they invade.’

  ‘No point in waiting, then,’ Suboden said. ‘Send the necessary telemetry to our command frequencies, and we can begin as soon as the preliminaries are out of the way.’ He paused. ‘Speaking of which… at some point, we should also alert someone that we’ve arrived. I’d hate to have to kill anybody we might need later.’

  ‘Already in progress,’ Calder said. ‘I sent out a standard compliance request five hours ago. They are in the process of responding.’ He frowned. ‘Liturgical rhetoric is an inefficient method of communication.’

  ‘Best not to mention that to them,’ Suboden said. He looked at Karros. ‘Well, Karros… ready to turn this world into a murder-trap?’

  ‘Start as we mean to go on,’ Karros murmured. ‘I’ll take the first seven potential landing points and you take the remaining eight?’

  Suboden nodded. ‘We could dice for the fifteenth, if you like. Just to be fair about it.’ He smiled. ‘I will provide the dice, of course.’

  Karros snorted and turned back to the projection. Suboden laughed and looked at Calder. ‘Had much dealings with the Ecclesiarchy then, brother?’

  ‘Some. On Terra.’

  ‘Then you know what awaits us.’ Suboden’s smile was hard and sharp. ‘A wolf-pit, most likely. They will not be happy to see us.’

  ‘We were invited,’ Calder said. But he knew Suboden was right. The Adeptus Ministorum had a tense relationship with those they venerated as the Emperor’s wrath made manifest. Few Chapters viewed the Emperor with the same piety as
the Ecclesiarchy, and that made for difficult dealings, on occasion.

  ‘No, they asked for aid. Guilliman chose who to send. Have you asked yourself why? No, don’t answer. I suspect so. So have I. So has Karros, come to that. Three less pious Chapters you could not ask for. And yet, we are of the First Founding. There is stature, in such things. Our shadows stretch further than the sun allows.’

  ‘Politics,’ Karros said, not looking at either of them.

  Calder shook his head. ‘If that is the case, we will deal with it.’

  ‘You will deal with it, you mean,’ Suboden said. He turned as a new klaxon sounded within the compartment. The vox crackled as the gunship’s pilot spoke in Calder’s ear.

  ‘Making our final approach.’

  ‘We’ve arrived,’ Calder said. The projection winked out as the compartment shuddered. The pitch of the Thunderhawk’s engines had changed. They were descending. The restraint thrones deactivated as one, and Calder rose to his feet, the servos of his battleplate making little sound. He looked at Suboden and Karros. ‘Ready yourselves. It is time to meet our allies.’

  ‘Such as they are,’ Suboden murmured. Calder ignored him and checked his sidearm. Around him, Space Marines stood as the compartment shook with the reverberations of the gunship’s landing. Warriors in yellow, black and white readied themselves for disembarkation. Calder’s Intercessors moved to the front. He took note of the looks they received from some among the White Scars and Raven Guard. Wariness, tinged with what might have been resentment.

  ‘Status of the landing zone?’ Calder asked, pushing the thought aside.

  ‘They’ve rolled out the honour guard,’ the pilot said. Calder could hear the hint of a smile in his words.

  ‘Good. That means they’re taking this seriously.’

  The compartment shuddered again as the gunship touched down. The echo of turbines cycling filled the air, as the magnetic clamps of the forward ramp released. As the ramp descended, a wash of noise and scent filled the compartment. Music and incense, the smell of human sweat and gun oil, the sound of boots striking stone. The cheers of a crowd, lapping at the edges of his perceptions, like the crash of waves against a distant shore.

  Calder was first down the ramp, and the auto-senses of his battleplate instantly compensated for the difference in light and temperature. He stopped at the centre of the ramp and scanned his surroundings, letting his armour’s sensors build him a map of their immediate location. The gunship had landed atop one of a dozen immense, flat plinths that jutted upwards from the city’s highest point like the peaks of an orderly mountain. The city itself stretched in all directions – a vast spiral of towers and hab-blocks that encircled a massive cathedral-like edifice that reached almost to the stars.

  ‘Babyl,’ Karros murmured, over the vox. The Raven Guard had donned his helm.

  ‘Yes,’ Calder said, understanding the reference.

  ‘What?’ Suboden growled. ‘What am I missing?’

  Calder glanced at him. Like Karros, Suboden wore his helm, its horsehair crest spilling across his shoulder-plates like a mane. ‘A child’s fable, from Terra – a tower built to reach the stars,’ he explained. ‘To reach the gods.’

  ‘And what happened to it?’

  ‘It fell,’ Karros said.

  Suboden grunted. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That’s it,’ Calder said. ‘Come. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.’

  The landing platforms were connected to the cathedral-like structure by immense covered walkways of raised stone. Each walkway was lined by enormous columns of marble and gold, and decorated with busts of saints, angels and other iconography. From the columns were hung great banners, bearing the seals of the Holy Synod, and the battle-banners of the Adeptus Ministorum. The columns stretched from the landing platforms back to a series of semicircular porticos, which were similarly decorated. Through the curtain of rippling banners, Calder caught sight of a massive archway, easily twice the height of a Primaris, and crafted from jasper and jade. The doors housed within the archway were opening slowly, and Calder detected the faint throb of pneumatic pistons.

  Along the walkway before them, soldiers in red and white had assembled in four disciplined rows, two to each side. Their uniforms were the colour of blood, and their armour as white as that of Suboden and his warriors. A standard Cadia-pattern issue, Calder noted, though of considerably more expensive manufacture. Their lasrifles were chased with gold, and were of similar high quality to their armour. All bore the sigils of the Adeptus Ministorum prominently upon their uniforms.

  Overhead, cyber-cherubs flitted, swinging smoking censers to sweeten the air. Priests in red moved through the ranks, murmuring softly to their charges. As Calder set foot on the platform, the troopers stiffened and raised their rifles in salute. The vox-casters built into the columns began to blare a static-laced hymn in High Gothic. The sound swelled, as the troopers lent their voices to the effort.

  ‘Are they singing for us, do you think?’ Suboden asked, as he joined Calder.

  Calder didn’t reply. From somewhere below the walkway, he could hear the roar of a crowd – they were singing as well. A sensor pinged and he turned, glancing up at a cherub crouched atop the gunship. The tiny creature had a pict-recorder built into its infantile skull. The lens whirred and flashed, and he realised that what it saw was being broadcast elsewhere, likely to the crowd below. More cherubs, similarly burdened, circled overhead, their tiny wings thrumming uselessly as cybernetic anti-grav units held their foetal shapes aloft.

  ‘Ugly little things,’ Suboden said with distaste.

  ‘But useful, I suspect.’ Calder started across the platform. Karros and Suboden walked alongside him, the Intercessors padding in their wake. Behind them, the rest of their honour guard assembled at the foot of the gunship, and followed.

  The hymn rose in volume, and at the opposite end of the walkway, the doors had opened. The cardinal-governor’s delegation had arrived – a dozen men and women in robes, some clutching a staff and a crozius, others swinging golden censers in slow, stately circles. Cardinal-Governor Vell Eamon was easy to identify, clad in the silk and silver vestments of the Holy Synod, and clutching a heavy, sheathed blade across his chest.

  As Calder strode to meet him, he studied the man. He was tall, for a mortal, and well built beneath his robes. There were few signs of indolence on his features, and he moved with a casual grace, rather than arrogance.

  ‘I expected him to be fat,’ Suboden muttered across the vox. ‘They’re always fat, these ones.’

  ‘Or very thin,’ Karros added.

  Calder said nothing. He had studied the available records on Eamon on the journey to Almace. The cardinal-governorship was hereditary, which was unusual. Members of the Adeptus Ministorum rarely had families. The Ecclesiarchy often didn’t allow it, though special dispensation could be granted, in the right circumstances. Keeping the Odoacer System under Ecclesiarchial control probably counted.

  Eamon had been trained from birth to rule, and his ascension to cardinal had been without obstacle. And he had ruled well, by the standards of the Ecclesiarchy. Tithes were collected, and civil unrest kept to a minimum. The system was a backwater, almost intentionally so. And yet… something was missing. There were gaps in the records. Missing moments, scattered throughout Almace’s history. Not just in regard to Eamon, but his predecessors as well.

  Calder was not, by nature, suspicious. He studied available facts and came to the best conclusions possible. But here, the facts did not quite add up. And so, he observed Eamon closely, gauging his body language, the look on his face, his heart rate and temperature. Adding to the picture he’d assembled. Seeking the flaw that he felt, but could not identify.

  As the cardinal-governor drew close, the ranks of troopers closed behind him, still singing. Suboden grunted. ‘A pretty drill.’

  ‘Symbolic,’ Calde
r said. ‘They are the walls of the city, closed to us until the cardinal-governor welcomes us in.’

  Suboden glanced at him. ‘They make for tiny walls.’

  ‘But there are many of them.’ Calder stopped at the midpoint of the walkway.

  The cardinal-governor proceeded until he and his party reached Calder and the others. Eamon was sweating beneath his vestments. All of them were. Idly, Calder checked the temperature, and realised that it was quite high. His battleplate prevented him from noticing such things, mostly.

  ‘I bid you welcome, honoured guests,’ Eamon began. His voice was strong and carried far, thanks to the vox-caster carried by one of his companions. Cherubs circled like carrion birds, fighting for space in the air directly above them. ‘I am Cardinal-Governor Vell Eamon the Sixteenth, Master of Almace and Lord-Interceding of the Odoacer System.’ He turned slightly as he spoke, so that the watching cherubs could more easily record his face.

  The spiel continued for some time. Calder tuned out, and spoke quietly with the others across the vox. ‘We are being recorded from thirty-seven different angles,’ he said.

  ‘Pict-feeds are being broadcast below,’ Karros said. ‘This Eamon seems to believe in public displays of power.’

  ‘He’s being smart,’ Suboden said. ‘Showing that we are here may calm any unrest before it begins. Cunning.’

  ‘Or desperate,’ Calder said. Eamon was gesturing. The preliminaries were coming to a close. He focused on the cardinal-governor. ‘I was under the impression that the Ecclesiarchy was not allowed to maintain a standing army,’ he said out loud. ‘Or does the Decree Passive not apply to heads of state?’ The statement was designed to throw Eamon off.

  The cardinal-governor gave a startled smile. ‘I– what?’ A murmur rose from those accompanying him. Calder had interrupted the ritual, thrown off the rhythm of the procession. He gestured to the troops.

  ‘This is an army, is it not?’

  Eamon licked his lips, but laughed. ‘I can see why it might seem so. But you are mistaken, I assure you. Each member of the Holy Synod is allowed a contingent of bodyguards, equivalent to his status and responsibilities. As I am a cardinal-governor, and my responsibilities include this system and everything in it, my bodyguard is quite… substantial. Strictly out of necessity, I assure you.’