‘I am, but that’s not what I want to talk about. Bear with me while I indulge in a hypothetical.’

  ‘Yes, lieutenant.’

  ‘Assumption – the enemy created a deliberately inviting landing site for our boarding party.’ Praxa­medes moved to another console and brought up the schematic of the enemy ship. An armoured finger highlighted the original target area. ‘Conclusion – the enemy believed that it would allow them to control the route of the boarding attack.’

  ‘That was Lieutenant Nem­etus’ thought,’ said Lerok. ‘To set an ambush.’

  Praxa­medes stifled a chastising retort, partly because he did not want to risk drawing the attention of the captain and partly because he had known Lerok for several years and her opinion was to be respected, even if given without invitation.

  ‘Please don’t interrupt.’

  ‘My apologies, lieutenant.’

  ‘Apology accepted.’ Praxa­medes examined the ship schematic again. ‘Assumption – the enemy accepted that a boarding action was inevitable. Conclusion – at some point during the void battle the enemy captain conceded defeat and set about minimising the threat of boarding.’

  He noticed that Lerok was struggling not to speak, actually holding her breath to prevent herself intervening.

  ‘Is that wrong?’ Praxa­medes asked.

  ‘Why would their captain believe that we would board rather than simply bombard them until destroyed? A very unlikely gamble.’

  ‘Except that the early damage to their reactor put them swiftly at a disadvantage.’ Praxa­medes moved back through the sensor readings of the other ship as though rewinding time itself. About four minutes into the engagement there was a flare from the reactor decks and an almost instantaneous power loss across many of the ship’s systems. ‘Widespread power failure left them unable to manoeuvre or fire effectively. No longer a threat, at that moment the odds in favour of a boarding attack increased significantly. Conclusion – the captain would prefer to defend against boarding than bombardment.’

  Lerok thought for a few seconds, hands on hips, and shrugged. ‘That would seem logical.’

  ‘I sense hesitancy in your manner.’

  ‘Logical but not sensible, lieutenant. I don’t know all the forces in motion during a boarding action, but there must have been several different ways to ready for the boarding assault. To set up a lure to channel the attackers into a pre-determined point of assault seems overly complex. Why indulge in a very specific subterfuge?’

  Praxa­medes considered this as the dominant servitor groaned that the retrospective analysis was ready for inspection.

  Why indeed?

  The boarding attack was an uncompromising machine of war, cutting through all opposition without pause. At the forefront went the Incursors, their enhanced suit sensors gifting them awareness like mythic seers of old. Walls were no barrier to their auspex-lenses, so that waiting foes could be circumnavigated or caught unawares, and enemy flanking forces found themselves cut off by pinpoint counter-attacks directed by the Incursor sergeants.

  In their wake, the Intercessors advanced in tandem, assault squads moving forwards under the cover fire of their companions, before holding newly won ground against counter-attacks while their bolt rifle-wielding battle-brothers closed up. Nem­etus joined Temerity while Audacity was bolstered by the presence of Judiciar Admonius.

  The Chaplain-in-Waiting was a relentless warrior, cleaving apart his enemies with broad sweeps of his greatsword. While many of the Reclusiam would exhort the battle-brothers with battle-cries and recitations from the Chapter teachings, the Judiciar inspired by presence alone, a silent slayer of the impure. Yet it was not only the Judiciar’s efforts that were bolstered by his enforced silence. Knowing that Admonius’ eye was upon him pushed Nem­etus to greater efforts, conscious that any laxity would be noted and remarked upon later. More than any verbal remonstration, the simple thought of disappointing the great warrior, the merest hint of shameful reluctance, set a fire of battle inside the lieutenant.

  It was hard to prove himself worthy of the Judiciar’s praise against the chaff that clogged their path to the strategium. Scattered and surprised, the traitor crew came at the Space Marines in piecemeal fashion, easily overwhelmed. In the closer confines of hallways and chambers the superior weapons, armour and speed of the Space Marines was uncompromising.

  Even when the force breached into the arterial corridor that ran along the main dorsal structure, they met little organised resistance. Everything was bathed in a ruddy gloom, lit by high lanterns with panes the colour of blood. Clouds of steam and gas issued from broken vents and split pipes, perhaps a sign of a losing battle against the ship’s antiquity. Blue-armoured warriors strode through the swirling vapours and shadows, bolts streaking from their weapons to slay mutants lurking behind buttresses and in archways.

  ‘Press on! Invicta dominus bellicosa! Show no mercy!’

  The war-shouts and oaths of his battle-brothers echoed among the bolt detonations and snarl of chainswords. The enemy crew held their ground and fired in the face of the merciless Ultramarines attack. Their dedication would have been laudable had it not been directed to such ill purpose. Their cries of devotion to the Dark Powers were a twisted echo of the Chapter oaths his brothers bellowed as they cut them down with bolt and blade. It reminded Nem­etus of the Chapter serfs that supported the Adeptus Astartes – unaugmented humans that were nevertheless almost as fanatical in their determination as the Ultramarines themselves.

  The retort of weapons rang back from high vaults, the ceiling lost to normal sight. Yet there was another sound there, a soft creaking and susurrate breaths. When Nem­etus looked up he saw odd shapes clustered in the plasteel braces and arching supports.

  ‘Enemy above!’ He opened fire even as he issued the warning, the plasma bolt of his pistol streaking into the body of a bat-winged creature even as it unfurled its pinions.

  The air erupted with screeching cries as the beasts dropped, leathery wings gliding rather than flapping, serrated beaks clacking. A cloud at least a hundred strong fell as one, lit through by the streak of the Ultramarines’ salvo of bolts, ravaged bodies tumbling amidst the mass, blood drops falling as crimson rain.

  The flock swooped low, razor claws and snapping beaks scratching and clattering against uncaring ceramite. Nem­etus’ shield flared as he smashed aside a diving apparition, giving himself time to swap pistol for blade. Yet in the second it took him to ready his sword, the swarm had moved on, swirling around the Intercessors behind him.

  Suddenly aware that his force was being turned by the threat in their midst, Nem­etus called to the companions around him to ready themselves. Though the beast assault was an ideal prelude to a counter-attack, the mutant crew did not venture from their hiding places but continued to snipe with poor marksmanship.

  Inhuman screeching and the buzz of chainswords sounded from the mists. Blade held high, its gleam lighting his dark armour, Admonius led Audacity in a charge, hacking and sweeping at the winged creatures as they clung and clawed at the battle-brothers.

  ‘Push on,’ Nem­etus told Tenacity, thrusting his sword towards the waiting mutants. ‘Our brothers keep our backs.’

  His shield sparking from autogun bullets, Nem­etus led the way, the enemy’s shells and las-bolts converging and intensifying as he advanced with determined strides along the broad passage. A few rounds zipped past his defence to careen harmlessly from his warplate, while the snap of bolt propellant sounded around him, the streak of his battle-brothers’ fire like a guiding light, bright sparks that intermittently shattered the darkness ahead.

  The mutants held their ground and died where they stood. Their steadfast refusal to withdraw was perhaps strategically unsound, but spoke of a zealotry that was rare to see in the ranks of traitors. Selfishness was a trait that led one to the Dark Powers, but the crew of the enemy vessel seemed not only willing to die for their uncaring masters but perhaps wished for it. Coming upon them with blazing sword, he was happy to make martyrs of them all. None would remember their sacrifice.

  As he hewed down a canine-faced woman, Nem­etus signalled for the squad to halt, before they became separated from their supporting squad of Intercessors. The fight against the flying beasts had broken down into a few scattered skirmishes, the bulk of the Intercessors now reformed and directing fire once more at the pockets of crew arrayed along the passageway and on gantries and mezzanines above.

  Within forty-five seconds of the aerial attack starting, all but a handful of Space Marines were again advancing with purpose.

  Relocating the landing zone had taken the enemy completely ­unawares, it seemed. To Nem­etus’ mind it appeared that the foe had been so intent upon their lure and ambuscade that they were unable to react with any coherence to the real axis of attack. Crew, both mutant and untainted, scrambled to the defence as best they could, but there was no coordinated effort to draw the Space Marines into a more protracted engagement that would slow or halt their momentum until reinforcements arrived.

  ‘Strategium access located, assault command,’ reported Sergeant Lato. ‘Minimal resistance expected. Scattered opposition.’

  ‘Acknowledged, brother-sergeant.’

  Nem­etus drove the tip of his blade through the flak armour of a gang­ling mutant with three eyes, noting with disgust the yellowy fluid that sprayed forth in place of blood. He took the creature’s head off with a backhanded sweep and batted aside the falling body with his shield to fall upon the next foe.

  ‘We have noticed a distinct lack of enemy command figures, brother-lieutenant. No officers encountered, as far as we can tell. No Traitor Astartes higher echelon.’

  Gunfire rattled against the lieutenant from his left. He turned to locate the enemy but one of the brothers from Temerity had already found them, a bolt from his pistol turning the traitor’s upper body to a splayed mess of blood and fractured bone. The mutant slumped sideways, autopistol falling from its grasp.

  ‘Strategium is sealed,’ added Sergeant Dorium. ‘It is possible they have all taken sanctuary inside. However, enemy crew still appear determined and in good morale despite lack of direct leadership.’

  Nem­etus considered the situation for a moment. He did not know if the lack of officers signified anything or was symptomatic of the displacement of forces for the unsuccessful ambush strategy. He had reached the next point of decision: to make for the strategium at all speed with every squad, or a more measured attack with a rearguard. Despite being wrong-footed by Nem­etus’ attack plan, the enemies that he assumed had been waiting around the logistics bay would be redeploying. Four minutes had passed since the first breach, but within four more these corridors could be swarming not with dozens of foes but hundreds, possibly thousands. In such circumstances, the strategium could easily become a mausoleum if he was not prepared.

  On the other hand, they were there to seize data, not the whole ship. The longer the Ultramarines remained, the more embroiled in extended combat they would become. If he was to maximise the advantages gained by the shock landing, he had to act decisively.

  ‘All squads, continue rapid advance. Eradicators, move to the fore of the assault and prepare for breaching action.’

  Whichever way Praxa­medes examined the evidence, he could find nothing to support Nem­etus’ proposition that the breach in the ladening bay was engineered. At the stage of the battle at which the damage occurred, the only motive would have been to invite a boarding action to forestall destruction by ranged firepower. Even then it was an extraordinary leap of logic, or intuition, by the enemy commander. It was a gamble, but a very precise kind of gamble when weighed up against many other strategies, as Lerok had suggested.

  ‘Lieutenant!’

  The deck officer approached Praxa­medes with a dataslate in hand, clearly agitated. Praxa­medes glanced at Aeschelus to see if he had reacted to her overly strident call. The captain was engrossed in the ongoing assault, working with the telemetristika and her servitors to represent the progress of Nem­etus’ boarding action on the main videolith. The lieutenant turned his attention to the simulation playing out on loop across the dataslate screen.

  He saw an outline of the enemy ship threaded through with dotted grey lines, which moved and pulsed along with an advancing time­stamp. Thicker blots correlated with the reactors, engines and gun decks, and he realised he was looking at a representation of the augur data taken of the energy grid of the enemy ship. Areas thinned and thickened as power was diverted to and then used by weapon batteries and void shield generators.

  Most of the lines faded out, leaving the limping, defenceless vessel that now floated in the void just a few thousand miles away.

  ‘Comprehensive, but I don’t see what’s so urgent.’ He attempted to hand the slate back to Lerok, but she did not take it.

  ‘Pay closer attention to the timestamps, lieutenant. I checked with the gunnery files and our surveyor readings. Their void shields fell at four minutes and seven seconds from our first firing. Captain Aeschelus directed fire at the aft sections five seconds later and a targeting solution was laid in at five minutes and seventeen seconds.’

  Praxa­medes chafed at her unconscious rebuke but let it pass. Her agitated state and momentary loss of decorum suggested she had cause for such insistence. He checked the slate again.

  ‘That seems consistent,’ he said, reviewing the advancing timestamp in slower increments. ‘Five minutes and thirty seconds into the engagement, the main reactor is hit and its power output goes offline.’

  ‘Yes, but given the delay between the firing order being issued and the time for our munitions to travel what was then fifteen thousand miles, the reactors went offline before our shells even hit.’

  ‘Augur data also has a delay. This is within a margin of error.’

  ‘If the very first impacts somehow went straight through their armour and hit the reactor immediately.’

  ‘That would be the luckiest shot I’ve ever seen,’ admitted Praxa­medes, viewing the timed loop again. He was so caught up in the nature of the revelation that it took him several seconds before he realised its significance. ‘The enemy deliberately shut down the reactors?’ He looked at Lerok. ‘Damage limitation? It may have saved the ship. Had the reactor been fully operational when breached–’

  ‘It’s faked!’ blurted Lerok. She jabbed at the dataslate in Praxa­medes’ hands, her finger bringing up a closer schematic of the reactor decks. A plume of heat – presumably plasma – shot upwards from the breached ship.

  Or so it had seemed. Now, in the slower time-reel, Praxa­medes saw the sequence more clearly. The conduits were being shut down as the Ithraca’s Vengeance opened fire, and excess plasma was vented to the void. Not a safety measure, but a deliberate act to recreate the appearance of a reactor breach.

  ‘If this was faked, that means the whole ruse with the loading gates was part of a bigger plan,’ said Lerok. ‘That’s what I can’t work out. Is it worth the risk of being blown to the abyss and back just to lure aboard a few squads of Space Marines?’

  ‘Captain!’ Praxa­medes turned away from her, filled with sudden misgiving, and then turned back as thoughts collided with each other and formed a daunting theory. ‘Full augur scan of the plasma trails in the debris field, Officer Catriolis. If the whole engagement has been staged, we have to assume that the location is equally pre-determined.’

  ‘What is it, Praxa­medes?’ Aeschelus demanded. ‘Nem­etus is about to breach the enemy strategium. This is a critical moment.’

  ‘We have to pull them out, brother-captain,’ announced Praxa­medes, discarding his usual caution. ‘This entire engagement is an elaborate trap.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  With the heat of recently discharged melta rifles warping the air in front of them, the Eradicators moved up towards the armoured gateway that barred entry to the main strategium. Intercessors were stationed at important entry points around the position, ready to hold against any counter-attack. The two squads of Incursors were further afield, their scouting role now changed to one of roving picket to bring early warning of enemy dispositions.

  ‘Remember that we need to claim the cogitation banks intact,’ Nem­etus told his warriors as he backed away from the portal. ‘No collateral damage. Mark every target before firing.’

  ‘Understood, brother-lieutenant,’ replied their sergeant as the squad came to a halt facing the gate. ‘On your command.’

  ‘Audacity, with me on breach.’ Movement behind Nem­etus drew his eye to Judiciar Admonius, who hefted his executioner’s relic blade in meaningful fashion. ‘Honoured to fight at your side, brother.’

  He took a moment to assure himself that all was in order. It had been one of the most straightforward encounters he had known – though his frontline experience was limited. Even now the enemy showed little sign of making a concerted effort to stop them accessing the command bridge. Whatever officer corps or Traitor Astartes had commanded the vessel earlier, there was no sign of them now. It was entirely possible that they had fled while the Ithraca’s Vengeance had closed in. A small gunship or saviour boat could easily evade detection at range, using the energy signature and bulk of the ship itself to mask its exit.

  That was an issue for later. Even so, the ease of the boarding started to nag at Nem­etus the same way the open ladening bay had pricked his suspicions. When their trap had failed, had the enemy instigated some other subterfuge that he could not discern?

  Admonius stepped forward, head tilted to one side. Nem­etus could sense the Judiciar’s impatience.

  ‘Awaiting your command, brother-lieutenant,’ said the sergeant of the Eradicators.

  A chrono-check showed Nem­etus that five seconds had passed since the Eradicators had taken up position. Not long in objective turns, but a significant hesitation to a Space Marine.

 

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