Descent of Angels (39 page)

Those techs and emergency personnel who had not yet reached safety were instantly blown into space, their bodies frozen and ruptured. Their screams were swallowed in the roar of escaping air.

Zahariel watched as the Saroshi shutde spun away from the
Invincible Reason,
and he was suddenly blinded as the warhead secreted within it detonated.

Outside, in the cold unforgiving darkness of space, it seemed as though the battlecruiser had given birth to a miniature sun. In less than a thousandth of a second, a brilliant ball of light appeared at its flank, flared to incandescence, and was gone.

Despite having been designed to withstand hostile bombardment by enemy guns, many of the view-portals on the ship’s hull shattered, fragments of toughened glass raining out into the void like glittering diamonds.

The blast wave thundered towards the ship, and only its automated damage control systems prevented further loss of life. Reacting to the abrupt decompression, blast proof panels slammed shut all along the ship’s length.

The ship shuddered as though in the grip of a great leviathan of the deep, yet more klaxons and warning lights coming to life in the wake of the explosion. The blast wave rolled over the ship, and Zahariel felt as though every bone in his body was being shaken loose.

At last, the terrible juddering ceased, and he collapsed to the deck, exhausted and groaning at the pain of his burns. He lay there for several minutes, the sirens, flashing lights and shouts of rescue crews sweeping over him without understanding.

‘Brother, are you injured?’

Zahariel turned his burned head and smiled as he saw that Luther was still alive.

‘I thought you were dead,’ said Luther, shouting to be heard over the shrill warning klaxons.

‘My armour saved me,’ he said.

‘It is a good thing you are lucky, Zahariel.’

‘What? Lucky? How do you come to that conclusion?’ asked Zahariel, his voice slurring as the balms of his armour sought to counteract his fierce pain.

‘Look around,’ gasped Luther. ‘Those Saroshi bastards nearly managed to kill the entire command hierarchy of the fleet, but you stopped them.’

Zahariel could only look at the broken bodies littering the deck and feel rage at the atrocity he saw before him, but as quickly as the emotion surfaced, he suppressed it. The mental conditioning the Astartes went through helped them to control their emotions and make the optimum use of them when they were needed.

Rage had its place in the heat of battle, but this was a moment for a cooler head. He pulled himself to his feet with Luther’s help and leaned on the wall, gasping for breath in the frigid air of the restored atmosphere.

Luther adjusted the comms-frequency of the wall vox-station, patching into the
Invincible Reason
’s command-net.

‘This is Luther of the Dark Angels,’ he said. ‘Multiple casualties sustained on the embarkation deck! I want medicae teams sent here immediately! Bridge command, are you receiving me?’

‘Aye, this is bridge command. Receiving, sir,’ said a grainy, static-washed voice. ‘We have reports of a hull breach on your level. Instruments record it as under control.’

‘That’s correct, bridge command,’ confirmed Luther. ‘The breach was the work of the Saroshi delegation brought onto the ship half-an-hour ago. The Saroshi shuttle on the embarkation deck was… was rigged with an atomic warhead. Any Saroshi forces left on board are to be arrested immediately. Lethal force is authorised.’

Luther spared a look at the destruction around them and whispered to Zahariel, ‘As of approximately one minute ago, we are at war with the Saroshi people.’

Another voice cut in over the voice of bridge command and Zahariel instantly recognised it as belonging to the Lion.

‘I want a strategium meeting with all commanders and seconds-in-command onboard the
Invincible Reason
in half an hour’s time. Is that understood?’

‘Understood, my lord,’ said Luther, sharing an uncomfortable look with Zahariel.

T
HE ATTACK ON
the
Invincible Reason
was just the beginning.

All across the fleet, and in the cities and lands of Sarosh, the Imperials found they were suddenly attacked by the people they assumed regarded them as heroes. They had come to liberate the Saroshi from their ignorance, to deliver them from Old Night. They had come to bring them the wonders of the Imperium, to show them marvels.

But the inhabitants of Sarosh had rejected the Imperium and everything it stood for. They rejected it with great violence, perpetrating appalling deeds of horror and bloodshed. They carried out dozens of atrocities, unleashing all manner of acts of terror.

More than a thousand Imperial Army and Naval personnel were on shore leave, enjoying the delights of the carnival, when the uprising began.

Some were murdered, but most of those affected were the victims of abduction. They disappeared into the night, gone without trace, leaving no evidence behind of where they had been taken or who had kidnapped them.

The situation was clearer when it came to the fate of the Imperial institutions already present on Sarosh. In the space of twelve months, even with compliance yet to be fully certified, a dozen different organs of government had been transplanted from the fleet onto the planet’s surface.

Naturally, Lord Governor-Elect Furst had established a residence in an appropriately palatial building in the administrative district at the heart of the capital city of Shaloul. Similarly, in preparation for the eventual transfer of powers, various offices of liaison had also been established in the vicinity.

At around the same time as the Saroshi shuttle exploded, an angry mob attacked the governor’s residence on Sarosh, as well as the nearby Imperial offices. Quickly overwhelming the few Army troopers who had been left on guard duty, the riot’s ringleaders dragged the Imperial functionaries out onto the streets and hacked them to death with axes and knives as the crowd bayed for blood.

Their bodies were spat on and dismembered, and then condemned to the fire as the mob set light to the Imperial buildings and cast the evidence of their outrage into the flames.

A few of the Imperials present on Sarosh managed to escape being murdered or abducted. Later, when these survivors told their tales, it would become clear that the entire population of the planet had exploded in a frenzy of bloodletting every bit as sudden and dramatic as the blast that nearly tore through the
Invincible Reason
.

The survivors would talk of a primal savagery that descended on the people of Sarosh without warning. One minute, the Saroshi had been their normal charming selves. The next, they had erupted into shocking, ferocious violence.

Yet, at the same time, there was never the suggestion that this violence was in any way wild or out of control. According to the survivors’ accounts, the opposite held true. There was a terrifying calmness in the manner in which the Saroshi went about the killings.

They were highly organised, as though each and every one of the thousands of rebels had earlier agreed on a specific role in the conspiracy, as well as an exact timetable by which all these tasks would take place.

Most frightening of all, and many who believed in the Imperial truth would find this especially troubling, was the almost machine-like perfection of this timetable. There would never be any definite proof of communication between the conspirators on Sarosh and their confederates elsewhere, yet, they appeared able to synchronise their actions to the very second.

Even when some part of their plan failed, their remaining agents seemed capable of adapting to new circumstances quickly, despite having no apparent means of communications with the rest of the rebels.

It was an enigma, though it was hardly the most pressing issue commanding the attention of the Dark Angels.

‘M
AYDAY
! T
HIS IS
Bold Conveyor
. Our hull is ruptured and we are leaking atmosphere. Request transfer of all available work crews and medicae teams from other ships in the fleet. We need help here!’

‘This is
Wrath of Caliban
calling the flagship! We demand an immediate update on the current status of our commanders. Over.’

‘
Intrepid
calling! Mutineers have been subdued and the situation is under control.’

‘
Arbalest
, this is
Invincible Reason
. Retreat from high anchor position at once and relocate to anchorage beta or you will be fired upon as a hostile vessel. This is your final warning.’

The bridge of the
Invincible Reason
was alive with a confused babble of voices. As Zahariel entered the command area with Luther beside him, he was immediately struck by the tension in the air.

A dozen officers and ratings sat nervously at their stations, issuing terse instructions or holding conversations by inter-ship comms with the other vessels in the fleet. Zahariel recognised controlled desperation in the voices of the men around him.

It was the same sound he expected to hear in the voice of an army commander whenever the situation was fluid and the progress of the battle was uncertain. It was the sound of men holding fast to their duties even when they suspected that war was about to render their duty, even their lives, irrelevant.

It was the sound of warriors on the verge of panic.

That sound ceased as a rating called out, ‘Master on the bridge!’

Zahariel looked over to where another door to the bridge had opened and the Lion strode in, his face thunderous, and his sword bared and bloody. Zahariel had never seen the master of the First Legion looking so angry and he felt a kernel of apprehension stir in his belly at the thought of the war that such a fury might unleash.

Nemiel walked alongside the Lion, his expression similarly furious, as they marched towards an officer in the uniform of a fleet captain, who stood talking to the ship’s astropath. Zahariel and Luther made their way painfully over to the conference of senior officers.

The fleet captain turned at the Lion’s approach and saluted sharply.

‘Captain Stenius,’ demanded the Lion without preamble. ‘What is the situation? I want an update.’

The captain turned to the blind woman beside him. ‘This is Mistress Argenta, the fleet’s senior astropath. I am happy to see you, Lord Jonson. I was hoping you would—’

‘Now, Captain Stenius,’ said the Lion, the tone of warning in his voice unmistakable.

‘Of course,’ said Stenius as he bowed and turned to the servitor manning a nearby bank of instruments. ‘Raise the shutters.’

A click, followed by a distant whirring noise, sounded as the blast shutters protecting the bridge’s observation blisters slid back into their recessed bays to reveal the scene out in space.

‘We lowered the shutters as a precaution,’ said Stenius. ‘What with the failed attack on us and the attack on the
Bold Conveyor
I decided it best to take the fleet to general battle stations. Fortunately, the worst of it seems to be over.’

‘The attack on the
Bold Conveyor
?’ said Luther. ‘What attack?’

The Lion turned at the sound of his brother’s voice and his eyes narrowed as he took in the wounded state of Zahariel and Luther. He said nothing of their condition, clearly filing it away to ask about later.

Zahariel looked through the observation blister into space, horrified to see bodies floating in the cold of the void. Hundreds drifted slowly past the ship’s observation blisters like some grotesque form of parade inspection.

‘We’ve had attempted mutinies on three ships,’ said Stenius. ‘In each instance, small groups of no more than half a dozen men launched attacks on the bridges of their ships. Mostly, the mutinies were suppressed before they could do any real damage, but on the
Arbalest
the mutineers managed to let off a torpedo salvo. They hit the
Bold Conveyor
and damaged her. The bodies you can see outside are casualties from the
Bold Conveyor
. Once the shooting started, I ordered the fleet to different stations to put more distance between each ship. Some of the bodies from the
Bold Conveyor
must have got caught in the backwash from our engines. That’s why they’re in orbit around us.’

‘How badly was the
Bold Conveyor
damaged?’ demanded the Lion.

‘Hull rupture,’ explained Captain Stenius. ‘Most of the dead were Army troopers who were sucked out into the vacuum when the torpedo hit.’

He shrugged. ‘It could have been worse. I’ve sent extra repair crews to the
Bold Conveyor
via shuttle. Early reports indicate that the damage isn’t bad enough to threaten her space worthiness, though it’s likely to be a few days before she’s fully operational again.’

‘So the situation in space is under control?’

‘For the most part, yes,’ answered Stenius, ‘but according to Mistress Argenta, that’s the least of our worries.’

A
CONFERENCE WAS
held in the
Invincible Reason
’s staterooms, the senior members of the Dark Angels gathering to hear the words of Mistress Argenta. The Lion and Luther spoke in a huddled corner, their words unheard by anyone, though the intensity of their conversation was plain for all to see.

Brother-Librarian Israfael stood beside a robed member of the Mechanicum, and a number of servitors accompanied them both. The atmosphere was tense, and Zahariel could sense the urgent need in every man gathered here to strike back at the Saroshi.

He and Nemiel sat at the briefing table trying to make sense of the last few hours that had seen brother turn on brother and former allies take arms against them. Initial theories suggested that the mutineers on the Imperial ships had been dragged and rendered open to treacherous suggestion by a concoction distilled from the perfume of the plants that thronged every building and surface of the capital city.

This was a morsel of information to be digested later, for a much greater threat was apparently arising in the dusty hardpan of the deserts in the north of the main continental mass of Sarosh.