Indomitus, p.19
Indomitus, page 19
‘Then we will proceed with the plan as agreed,’ said Aeschelus.
‘I have a proposal, brother-captain,’ said Nemetus, realising that this would be his last opportunity to put forward an idea. ‘I will lead a force to the surface of Orestes III to combat the xenos attack already taking place.’
‘Afraid you’ll miss some action staying aboard with me?’ Praxamedes gave a short laugh.
‘We are not making best use of our resources, brother-captain,’ Nemetus pressed on, flashing an irritated glance at his fellow lieutenant before returning his attention to the captain. ‘If you insist on leading the boarding action personally–’
‘I do.’
‘Then we will still have a sizeable complement of the ship aboard. We do not have enough gunships to carry every Space Marine in a single wave. There is little they can do on the Ithraca’s Vengeance, but on the surface we could make a difference.’
‘So, you’ve thought this through, brother?’ said Praxamedes. ‘What do you hope to achieve on the surface?’
‘Three things. Firstly, we must pass within orbital drop range to engage the enemy. Deploying to the surface will mask the onward intent of the ship to attack the enemy fleet. The drop attack may force the enemy into manoeuvring into a more vulnerable formation. Secondly, if the enemy wish to support ground forces, or attempt their removal, they must remain within orbit. This will hamper their ability to respond to the void attack. They are already caged by the presence of the orbital palaces on the far side of the planet.’ Nemetus paused, not sure if he should bring up his example. He decided it was worth the possible censure. ‘It is the same trick that was used against us by the traitor Despoiler battleship. Use the enemy forces as a tether.’
‘You said three reasons, Nemetus,’ the captain prompted.
Nemetus was not sure exactly how to phrase the next part. He decided to plunge ahead and just speak as plainly as possible.
‘It is not wise to stake all of our forces in a single action, brother-captain. Should the attack on the capital ship fail, there is need to prosecute a lengthier war. Our presence will bolster the defence. We have seen that not only will our military potential act against the foe, our fortitude against the null-effect extends to those around us. The space station crew were able to respond more fully after some time in our presence. My force will catalyse a greater resistance and act as a focal point for counter-attacks.’
‘A well-reasoned plan, brother,’ said Praxamedes. ‘I’m sorry for my humour.’
‘The mockery has been earned by past behaviour, brother,’ Nemetus conceded with a smile.
‘Even if my attack is successful, we may not be in a position to retrieve you for some time,’ said the captain. ‘Once you deploy, you are on your own for the effective duration of the campaign.’
‘I understand, brother-captain.’ Nemetus lifted a fist to his chest. ‘Do I have your approval to assemble the remaining squads into a strike force?’
‘You do.’
‘We’ll be in drop range within the hour, brother,’ said Praxamedes. ‘The Emperor’s strength goes with you.’
Nemetus departed as the rest continued to discuss the finer points of the ship-to-ship action. As he strode across the strategium to the secondary door, he voxed Chaplain Exelloria. Some spiritual support against the xenos would be welcome.
The stain of life was being cleansed from this world. Zozar welcomed every death not for itself but as a step towards the grandest of all goals – the eradication of all sentient life. Each individual existence was a miniscule part of the whole, but its elimination was final. There was no return from the oblivion of death. He was numbered amongst those that had tried to avoid that fate, but they had failed. This existence was not life nor death but a limbo of torment.
Such was his mission that the skorpekh lord wielded his slaved warriors with the same ruthlessness that he wielded his own weapons. His Destroyers were a single entity driven by the shared desire to kill, steered by his will. Bound together by that fate, Zozar was each and every one of them, even as they were him and also nothing.
The world was proving a troublesome hunting ground. In his haste to begin the slaughter, Simut had not been diligent in his preparations. The humans were scattered across the globe, and Zozar’s force had been deployed with little thought as to how they would chase down their prey across four continents and three oceans. The skorpekh commander had dispersed his legion into hunting teams, a mix of skorpekhs, warriors and skimmer-Destroyers in each. They were given autonomy to find and slay anything they detected. Zozar used these scouting groups to locate the greatest concentrations of targets and then converged on them with overwhelming forces. Though he was not able to be present at every slaughter, he made his influence known through the cryptek network that bound his corrupted legion together. Physically, he might be on another continent, but in thought he was there, guiding through the protocols slaved to his demands.
Now his force had come to a marshalling settlement where goods were gathered for transport to orbit. It was largely automated, the great star elevators still rising and falling with empty cars, the crews that manned them distracted by the effect of the overnull. Its soul-crushing presence was weaker here, though. A few hundred armed humans had mustered an approximation of a defence at the outer walls of the facility, banded about some cult leader dressed in ornate robes and a tall hat, waving a staff tipped with a bird of prey device. The man’s exhortations seemed little more than platitudes to Zozar as he had listened in to the ranting speech, but the humans were moved by it. More precisely, the motivating oratory seemed to dissipate the effects of the overnull in the vicinity of the speaker.
The development was interesting but nothing more.
Zozar split his local army into two forces. The first was the warrior phalanx. These he sent directly against the settlement, drawing the defenders to one side of the wall. The swifter Destroyers and skorpekhs he commanded to loop about the wall seeking a weak point to exploit.
As he made these distant manoeuvres, his physical form was engaged in a far more direct conflict. A group of humans had shut themselves in a storage building. They had blocked the entrances with large ground vehicles and manned the upper windows with crude but accurate bullet firers. Zozar had only his first tier of skorpekh elites with him – twenty tripodal warriors armed with a variety of long-range energy weapons and dimensional phase blades.
It was enough, he was sure.
He split his consciousness between the two fights, while a background loop monitored other developments across the world. As shots spat down from the muzzle flare of the defenders above him, a solid wall of concentrated light beams leapt out from the perimeter of the lifting facility. His phalanx began their relentless march, forty warriors in step, gauss rifles at the ready. The hum of anti-gravitic motors carried the Destroyers aloft while their skorpekh allies broke into awkward yet swift runs after them.
Zozar lifted his beam cannon towards the humans, targeting symbols appearing over each one as his weapon protocols noted their locations. He opened fire as he raced forward, snakes of lightning leaping from the weapon to turn each target into a dissipating cloud of particles. His skorpekh minions fired with him, unleashing a volley of bright green beams against the defenders. Some vaporised the humans, others missed their marks, punching neat holes through the stone-like building material. Bullets pattered off his form, a few of them leaving welts that disappeared as his living metal body rejuvenated itself. Magnifying his light sensors, Zozar spied several heavier weapons being set up on the roof – as yet out of range of his cannons. He broadcast an alert to the skorpekh guard but there was nothing to be done except be aware of their arcs of fire.
The phalanx was now in range of the wall at the lifting station. Emerald lightning crossed with pulses of red laser, turning the air into a kaleidoscope of energy. Here and there a warrior fell, overwhelmed by several synchronous hits, the living metal unable to reform fast enough to preserve vital systems. The casualties on the wall were far higher. Gauss lightning crept along the ramparts, leaving atomic scatter in its wake. Gun emplacements that roared with larger projectiles and rapid-firing light beams fell silent beneath the excoriating assault of multiple gauss blasts.
To his right, a missile coughed into motion, flaring down from the storage building roof. One of his skorpekhs was too slow to avoid the hit, taking the explosion of the missile in the torso. Appendages flew from the body, parted by the vehement chemical reaction. The skorpekh attempted to continue but its remaining two legs were ill-positioned for balance and it toppled sideways. Still filled with the need to kill, the skorpekh dragged itself forward with its remaining arm, its cortical field pulsing with hatred for the living.
With the others close around him, Zozar reached the shelter of one of the large ground transporters that had been parked across the entryways. Adjusting his mass-profile, he started to scale the slab side of the tracked machine, still firing as he clambered past the driver’s cab and onto a lower roof. His skorpekhs followed, copying their lord as they unleashed a new barrage of fire from their higher vantage point. More missiles and bullets swept down into them, thinning their numbers by two more, the mangled remains hurled from the transporter by the explosions.
Resistance was fiercer here than Zozar had been expecting. He suspected that one or more of the fiery orators was located within, bolstering the nerve of the defenders and intercepting the overnull field. He leapt at the wall, claws digging into the porous material to secure his vertical advance. Now directly below, his skorpekhs fanned out along the wall to either side to clear each other’s fields of fire; the necrons were a far harder target for the men and women at the windows, and virtually hidden from the roof-dwellers.
The flanking force at the lifter station was almost in position. A secondary delivery gate was located at a right angle to the main attack, providing a perfect opportunity to break into the facility and attack the defenders from within. Zozar was about to order them forward when sensor feedback from the skorpekh node-leaders demanded closer attention.
Skorpekh Amehon-destruct: Receiving input signalling from orbital craft.
Skorpekh Photorion-decimate: Enemy presence detected. Incoming craft have entered atmosphere.
Skorpekh Amehon-slaughter: Trajectory estimates place landing point at our location.
Skorpekh cluster-thought: Continue kill-sequence. The living must be exterminated.
Reaching the lowest of the windows, Zozar focused his primary field on his immediate surroundings. His phase blade lopped the protruding hand and weapon from the nearest human, an instant before the skorpekh lord heaved his bulk into the interior, glass and wooden frame exploding around him. His momentum carried him forward, metal claws skidding on a tiled floor, the body of the human falling beneath his bulk. Defenders were turning their weapons on Zozar, but this left them defenceless against the other skorpekhs bursting into the broad hall from both sides, guns stripping their foes down to nothing, blades cutting with the precision of surgeons.
KILL THEM ALL.+
Zozar stabbed a foot into the chest of a charging human, living metal sharper than any blade honed by hand or machine. The human stared in disbelief while lifeblood spurted from the wound, slipping without friction along the silvered sword-limb that transfixed her. Zozar slid his claw free and beheaded the human with a swipe of his phase blade, its edge a shimmer as it dimensionally shifted to ignore the hardened breastplate collar that protected his victim’s neck. The head rolled sideways, her body hitting the floor at Zozar’s feet.
The Destroyers had smashed through the secondary gate at the facility, the skorpekhs following behind, targeting enemy squads stationed at guard towers to either side. Impending energy signals from above grew sharper and sharper. Zozar took control of one of the Destroyers, spinning it around on a gravitic plume so that he could look up into the sky.
A cluster of fiery dots grew closer and closer.
A sudden impact on his rear thorax region forced Zozar to concentrate his cortical field back into his form. A condensed light weapon of some power had hit him, slashing away a portion of his main body. The molten remnants hissed and spat as a puddle on the floor, useless for reincorporation. Nevertheless, he sent a signal to the canoptek attendants and cryptothralls that had gathered outside to attend the damaged skorpekhs. While his fellow Destroyers rampaged across the machine-filled hall, Zozar turned his beam emitter on the heavy weapon gunner. A single blast turned both human and cannon into dissipating molecules.
A quick sensor sweep confirmed that the human resistance was broken. Energy readings showed a few clusters holding out, but most were dead or attempting to flee. He took off all shackle protocols and allowed his skorpekhs to pursue freely, their own urge to slaughter the only imperative they needed now.
Directing his consciousness to the lifting facility, the incoming orbital craft almost at impact point, Zozar felt less confident about ongoing developments.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Rather than altering the timeflow while Zozar cleared the world of enemies, Simut whiled away the time in a mixture of reminiscence and daydreaming. Whether through imagination or recollection, he pictured the great feast days when the king summoned his full court and the skies were lit with polychromatic displays that lasted a full rotation.
A much-welcomed distraction from the spread of the sun-blight that was crippling their people. Beyond the garland-hung walls, the city seethed with discontent, only kept in check by the brutal presence of Phetos and his wardens. Locked in the high towers the greatest minds laboured at a cure for the flesh-devouring malaise that was running rampant across all of the kingdoms.
For a privileged few, for just one turn of dawn to dawn, there was release from the misery, to give thanks for another orbit survived.
One day they would return to the flesh, freed from both the sun-curse and the soul-theft. Such celebrations as the king would hold in the future would make the year-day banquets seem like a peasant’s spring feast. When he stood at the shoulder of King Szarekh, his stellar kingdom forged by his own hand, Simut would be a lord greater than any that–
‘Lord of the Stars, Eagle of Victory, Sun of the Dynasty.’ Phetos’ platitudes were like a thunderburst over Simut’s parade, ripping him back to the desolate reality of his tomb ship.
‘Why must I incur these disruptions to my musing? Can I not contemplate the mysteries of the cosmos in peace?’
‘Apologies, my lord, but you should monitor this exchange among the boundary patrol.’
‘Very well, transfer it to my cortical feed.’
Barque, Star of Natarun-4: Unknown vessel detected.
Barque, Star of Natarun-1: Qualify statement.
Barque, Star of Natarun-4: Unknown vessel detected on closing course.
Barque, Star of Natarun-3: Ridiculous. There is no– Where did that come from?
Barque, Star of Natarun-1: What are you addressing? Confirm from central scanning field; there is no unidentified vessel. Some kind of refractive glitch. Recalibrate sensors, you fools.
Barque, Star of Natarun-3: It is there, I can sense it. Plasmic signature, human design.
Barque, Star of Natarun-4: I detect it clearly. It appears unwelcoming.
Alarmed, Simut thrashed through Phetos to interact directly with the barque squadron, shunting the royal warden’s consciousness aside.
‘Where?’ he demanded, filtering the escorts’ sensor data through the matrix of the tomb ship. ‘What are you seeing?’
There was nothing. A glitch, as the squadron leader had surmised.
‘Further reports of incoming enemy vessel, Lord of Hosts,’ said Phetos, reasserting his presence on the matrix. ‘Triangulating position from reports, but it is not showing up directly on our scan grid.’
‘Impossible.’ Simut withdrew from the link even as he recoiled on his throne. ‘The humans do not possess that kind of technology.’
‘Their technological progress is idiomatic and isolated, Heavenly Hawk. Perhaps this is a unique vessel, an experimental design?’
‘Where is it now?’ Simut demanded, ripping the data from Phetos to throw it onto the main display.
A large ship, almost as big as the tomb ship, had crossed the orbital threshold from the far side of the planet and was now closing at speed.
‘Some aelderite sorcery, stolen by the humans or volunteered?’ pondered the overlord as he recalibrated the sensor sweep to draw its data from the secondary craft of the fleet.
‘A small astromantic presence detected, my authority, but nothing significant,’ said the royal warden. ‘I suggest arming all weapons.’
‘See to it,’ snapped Simut, who had more pressing matters to worry about. If there was an alliance between the humans and the ancient enemies of the necrons, that posed a far greater threat than one vessel.
‘Escort fleet requires directives, Lord of the Eight Seals,’ said Phetos. ‘Other enemy system craft are closing. Shall they engage?’
‘No. My ship is more than a match for this intruder. Let us not waste more craft than necessary. Have them withdraw and stand ready to counter-attack once we have mastered this brute.’
At the urging of the royal warden, the escorts peeled back from the approach of the onrushing enemy, circling around behind it once it was beyond weapons range.
‘Its weapons are targeting us, my lord,’ announced Phetos. ‘Energy beams, focused plasma and a large bore chemical reaction cannon.’
‘Is that all?’
The fusillade hit the tomb ship along the rightward outer curve, lashing laser and shell into the exposed structure. The main turret gun of the human ship opened fire, a single high-velocity round smashing into the wound opened by the initial attack. Simut winced as though wounded, though his cortical connection with the ship was purely one-way.
