The Flight of the Eisenstein (19 page)

'Quickly,' Garro ordered.

'From Lord Commander Eidolon, starship
Andro-nius.
Message reads: Fugitive Thunderhawk is acting against the Warmaster's commands and is to be considered a renegade. All fleet elements are ordered to destroy the ship on sight.'

'Shoot down one of our own vessels?' Sendek was clearly aghast at the mere thought of such an idea. 'Has he taken leave of his senses?'

'The Thunderhawk is turning,' reported the deck officer, 'he's seen our approach. Confirm, the Thunderhawk is closing in on us.' She looked up at Garro. 'He's well within lascannon range, lord.'

Carya's face was stony, and a hard silence fell across the bridge. 'What are your orders, Captain Garro?'

Decius's commander threw him a look, and then turned to Maas. 'Can you get me a ship-to-ship link with that Thunderhawk?'

'Aye, sir.'

'Then do it now.'

'But, lord, the orders-' began Decius.

Garro shot the warrior a sharp glare. 'Eidolon can give all the orders he wants. I will not fire on a fellow Astartes without first knowing why' The battle-captain strode to the mouth of the vox hide and snatched a hand communicator from Maas. 'Thunderhawk on a closing course with the
Eisenstein!
he barked, 'identify yourself!'

Through the crackle of interference came an anxious reply. 'Nathaniel?' Decius saw the colour drain from Garro's face in recognition. 'It's Saul. It's good to hear your voice, my brother!'

'Saul Tarvitz,' whispered Sendek, 'First Captain of the Emperor's Children. Impossible! He's a man of honour! If he's turned traitor, then the galaxy has gone insane!'

Decius found he couldn't look away from Garro's shocked expression. 'Perhaps it has.' It was a long moment before Decius realised the words had been his.

Point of no Return

Sacrifice Oath of Moment

Tollen Sendek prided himself on his orderly mind and his controlled, regimented will. It was a point of honour for him to be logical and intent in his service to the XIV Legion and to the Emperor. He eschewed irrationality and the incautious nature that some of his brethren embraced. Rahl had often made fun of him about it, joking that Sendek took the word 'stoic' to new extremes, but he thought of his dead comrade now and wondered what Pyr would have made of the look on his face, the purely emotional surprise that gripped him.

It had taken only a moment to bring him to this state. The rogue Thunderhawk, the signal from Eidolon, the incredible command to terminate the fleeing vessel and the ranking Astartes officer aboard it... Sendek shook his head, trying to fight off the confusion. Had Decius been correct, was it a test? Some bizarre sort of battle drill to assess the mettle of the

Eisenstein's
command crew? Or could it be true that Saul Tarvitz had indeed turned renegade and was fit only for execution? If it was possible for an Imperial governor like Vardus Praal to go against the Emperor, then perhaps an Astartes might do the same.

Captain Garro gripped a vox microphone in his hand and was speaking urgently into it, his knuckles white around the device. 'Tarvitz? What in the name of the Emperor is going on? Are those fighters trying to shoot you down?'

Sendek flashed a look at the
Eisenstein's
hololith. The answer to Garro's question was self-evident, as the frigate's sensors showed flickers of beam fire dashing from the flight of Ravens, snapping at the Thunderhawk's stern. As he watched, the raptor-like interceptors adopted an attack posture. They were lin ing up to make a final strike.

He heard Garro shout into the vox, demanding some explanation,
any
explanation. 'Be quick, Saul. They almost have you!'

Tarvitz's next words made Sendek's guts knot. This is treachery!' bellowed the captain of the Emperor's Children, desperation filling his voice. 'All of this! We are betrayed! The fleet is going to bombard the planet's surface with virus bombs'

At once, everyone on the bridge in earshot of the vox speaker was shocked rigid. 'What? No!' said Vought, shaking her head. Officers at other deck stations looked up from the command pit in disbelief.

That cannot be,' began the shipmaster, taking a wary step forward.

Decius's face was tense. 'He's mistaken. Our brothers are down there-'

Their voices overlapped one another in loud profusion, and Sendek heard only snatches of Garro's conversation with Tarvitz. 'On my life, I swear I do not lie to you,' cried the captain. Sendek's commander sagged, as if the weight of the man's claim was pressing down on him. He caught Tarvitz's final, frustrated words. 'Every Astartes on Isstvan III is going to die!'

He looked back at the hololith. Tarvitz's life was measured only in ticks of the clock. The Thunder-hawk was wallowing badly, bleeding fuel as the Ravens moved in for the kill.

Captain Garro shoved himself away from the vox alcove and stormed across the bridge. 'Weapons!' he shouted. 'I want lascannon command, this very second!'

Vought's fingers danced over her console. 'Close-quarters batteries are active, sir,' she reported, 'cogitators are computing a firing solution.' The woman blinked. 'Sir, are... are you going to shoot him down?'

'Give me manual control.' Garro waved her away from the panel. 'If anyone is to pull this trigger, it will be me.' The battle-captain gripped the side of the pulpit and then stabbed at an activation rune.

'Firing,' reported one of the toneless servitors.

On the Eisenstein's dorsal hull, a cluster of high-energy laser cannons swivelled and shifted in unison, tracking to face the Thunderhawk and the Ravens. The guns discharged silently through the void, for a single instant filling the dark with a storm of flickering energy. Spears of collimated, coherent light reached out and found their target, tearing through armoured hull metal, ceramite and plastic. Fusion cores detonated in a flashing cascade, a thick cloud of radioactive debris riding out in a perfect sphere behind a wall of electromagnetic radiation.

Sender's eyes narrowed as light flared in through the bridge's viewing slits and the hololith bloomed with a sudden globe of crackling, impenetrable static. The Astartes looked to Garro as his captain stepped down from Vought's console and limped back to Maas's station at the vox hide. 'He killed him.' Tollen's voice was barely audible. 'Blood's oath, he killed Tarvitz.'

Decius eyed him, conflict visible on his face. 'Those were the orders.'

'Those were Eidolon's orders!' Sendek snapped, his usual calm disintegrating. 'You see that eagle carved upon the captain's vambrace? Tarvitz has one just like it, Hakur told me of it! Garro and Tarvitz are honour brothers! He wouldn't just murder him in cold blood!'

'But if Tarvitz had turned...'

The battle-captain gave the communications officer Maas a hard shove and pushed him out of the vox hide. Garro bent to allow his armoured form into the alcove and yanked the sound curtain across the entrance with a savage swipe of his hand, cutting himself off from the bridge.

Sendek heard Vought's question to Carya. What is he doing in there?'

'Reporting back to Eidolon,' suggested the shipmaster.

The Astartes leaned down, almost with his face in the edges of the hololith cube. Flickering storms of energy and colour made it impossible to read. The power of the explosion out there reflecting off the planet's upper atmosphere would fog the ship's sensors for several minutes.

Tollen,' began Decius, 'whatever bond the battle-captain had with Tarvitz, that cannot rise above the duty of the service. Eidolon is a lord commander. He outranks Garro.'

'No.' Sendek shook his head, working the controls on the hololifh's projector podium, spooling back the time index record. 'I refuse to accept he would do such a thing. You know him as well as I do, Solun. "Straight-Arrow Garro", the men call him. He is an archetype for the nobility of the Legiones Astartes! Can you ever imagine our commander agreeing to slay a battle-brother on the whim of one of the Emperor's Children?'

'Then, what happened out there?' demanded Decius. 'You saw the Thunderhawk explode!'

'I saw
an explosion',
countered Sendek. He toyed with the controls and then let the hololith run the brief engagement again in slow motion. Indicators showed the
Eisenstein
turn and fire, the bolts sweep towards the other craft, and then the stormy aftermath. The Astartes nodded slowly. 'He didn't target the Thunderhawk at all. The shots must have struck the lead Raven. The other interceptors were in close formation. The detonation would have caught them all in the Shockwave.'

'Then, where is Tarvitz?'

Sendek pointed at the deck. 'He was close to Isstvan Ill's atmosphere. I'll warrant he's using the sensor disruption to slip away'

Decius glanced around to be sure that the rest of the frigate crew were not aware of what they were discussing. 'So Tarvitz escapes and five pilots are killed in his stead?'

'They were only crew-serfs, not Astartes. I doubt Eidolon will weep over their loss.' Sendek looked across to the vox hide. 'He's not talking to the
Andro-nius
in there,' he said, with grim certainty.

'If you are correct, then we have just witnessed our commanding officer disobey a direct order from his superior. That is dereliction of duty, grounds for severe chastisement at the very least!' Decius frowned. 'You know I have no love for Fulgrim's fops, but if the Warmaster learns of this, it will taint all of us, the entire Death Guard!'

Sendek grimaced. 'How can you be so quick to set your colours? Our captain would never act without conscience! If he has done this thing, then there is no doubt in my mind that he has a credible motive. Will you not at least learn what that is before you begin lamenting for your reputation?'

Decius's eyes flashed. Very well, brother. I shall ask him, now.'

Before Sendek could stop him, Decius rounded the hololith and strode quickly to the vox hide and grabbed the sound-deadening drape. As he wrenched it back, both Astartes heard the battle-captain speaking into the vox.

'Luck of Terra be with you,' he said. Only static answered him.

Garro looked up from his crouch by the communications pulpit and met their gazes. The hollow, broken look upon his face cut Decius to the very core. Even when he had seen the captain in his healing trance after falling on Isstvan Extremis, he had not seemed so empty and ill as he did at this moment.

'Lord?' he asked. 'What is it?'

'The storm is coming, Solun,' the battle-captain said in a dead voice.

8SS

It took great effort for Garro to propel himself out of the vox hide, as Tarvitz's revelations churned in his mind, sapping the will and strength from his muscles like some strange malaise. The things he had said... The import of them was staggering. He took heavy steps away, ignoring the loaded stares of the
Eisen-stein's
crew and the visible distrust radiating from Maas as the comms officer made for his alcove once again.

Garro threw a command at Maas over his shoulder. 'Contact
Andronius.
Tell them that the rogue was destroyed, and the explosion claimed their pursuit ships as well. No survivors.'

'Is that what really happened?' asked Decius accusingly.

'Tarvitz brought me... brought
us
a warning. You heard what he said on the vox.'

'Lord, all I heard was some wild shouting about betrayal and virus bombs. On that alone you have gone against orders?'

Sendek and his brethren moved to the rear of the compartment, instinctively keeping their voices pitched low.

'If Tarvitz spoke of it, then it was no falsehood,' insisted Garro softly.

Decius sneered. With respect, captain, I did not know the man and I do not hold that hearsay is enough to let a direct command be ignored-'

Garro's temper came back in a hot rush, and he grabbed Decius by the gorget and pulled him off balance. 'I
do
know Saul Tarvitz, you whelp, and his word is worth a thousand of Eidolon's!' He thrust his vam-brace up before Decius's face. 'You see this, the etching there? That mark is all the guarantee I need! When you have fought for as long as I have, you will learn that some things transcend even the commands of your masters!' Furious, he released the other warrior and his fists tightened.

Sendek's face was pale with shock. 'If what he said was true, if there are ships in the fleet preparing to drop blight warheads on the planet, it would mean the wholesale slaughter of thousands of our kinsmen.' He shook his head. 'Oath's sake, there is no need to sacrifice men to wipe out the Choral City. Why would Horus allow such a thing to happen? It makes no sense!'

'Exactly,' said Decius, recovering his composure. 'What possible reason could the Warmaster have for doing this?'

Garro opened his mouth to speak, to actually say the words aloud to his battle-brothers for the very first time, and found that he could not. The sheer horror of it, the ripping, echoing void inside his thoughts stopped him dead.
Betrayal.
He couldn't make the word, couldn't force it from his throat. That Horus himself, great Horus, the beautiful and magnificent Warmaster, had done this... The idea of it made him go weak. And with that realisation there came another. If Horus had prepared this treachery, then he had not done it alone, it was too big, too monumental an endeavour even for the Warmaster to have managed by himself. Yes, Horus's brothers would be a part of it too: Angron, ever ready to take any path that led him to more bloodshed. Fulgrim, convinced of his own superiority and perfection over all, and the Death Lord himself, in secret conspiracy with the Warmaster.

'Mortarion...' Garro saw those hard amber eyes once again, remembered the questions and the intent of his primarch.
It is important for my brother Horus to

have unity across the entirety of the Astartes.
He had said those words.
We must have singular purpose or we will falter.

Was this duplicity the purpose Mortarion had alluded to? Garro turned away, pressing the heel of his palm to his forehead, fighting down the conflict inside him. He saw a frantic, shuddering figure come rushing in through the iris hatch of the bridge, face tight with fear. 'Kaleb?'