Exit Wounds
The ship shuddered, quaking with sudden savage jolts. Erastus pitched forward from his throne, palms out to catch himself as he hit the floor. Rivets dug into his skin and he cried out, rolling as he did. Everything pitched, suddenly. Unsecured data-slates spilled across the floor. Alarm klaxons rang out, shrill and harsh, but dwarfed by the low scream that bled from the vox-speakers.
Egeria, the Navigator, was screaming. Screaming. Screaming, her voice drawn out into one long protracted cry of agony. Erastus pushed himself to his feet, reaching for the nearby vox-horn. Before he could take hold of it, Egeria’s scream died in a wash of static feedback. The dull monotonous drone of a servitor replaced her.
<Mass immaterial transit failure. Mass immaterial transit failure.>
The signal jumped and skipped, like a recording on a wax cylinder, before a secondary message kicked in.
<Engaging Navigator-mediated emergency translation. Ave Omnissi–>
A console exploded, hurling the officer manning it back in a shower of sparks and blood. The lumens flickered and then died, the tubes cracking with the sudden strain. Red emergency lighting engaged, smearing everything into a crimson scrawl of motion. Men and women moved as though underwater, as reality seemed to stretch and dilate. The shaking grew, from the normal pangs of translation to a ceaseless spasm. Everything was in motion, as the crew clung to cogitator banks, chairs, anything that would keep them from tumbling across the pitching deck.
Erastus held on to the arm of the throne, his grip locked around the cold metal. The ship’s juddering passage shifted, and then yawed wide. Every person on the Soul felt the tremendous forces being unleashed upon them, as they were hurled across rooms or face first into corridor walls.
‘Hold us steady!’ Erastus bellowed over the rush of air and the shrilling of sirens. Those still at their stations frantically tried to make adjustments, sprawled across their consoles and jabbing vainly at switches. Finally, the ship’s insane course seemed to steady. The tremble dissipated into the skeleton of the ship until all that remained was the dull thrum of engine and reactor.
Erastus let out a shaky breath and forced himself up off the side of the throne. He bit back pain as he moved.
‘Someone get me a status report.’ He slammed his hand down onto the communications panel of the armrest. ‘Egeria! Throne-damn-and-blast! What happened? Do you live? Tell me what is going on out there!’
‘The fleet,’ she whispered, her voice hoarse and strained. ‘The fleet fell. Gone from out of the warp in a single moment. Their psychic shockwaves…’ Her voice trailed off, before returning, weak and shaking. ‘It was all I could do to maintain cohesion as they dropped out of the warp. There was no time. Only pain. I fear, my lord. I fear for the other ships. Their exit was not as… controlled as ours was.’
‘Keep me posted,’ he said as he cut off the signal. He whirled about, turning his wrath back upon Kaddas at the auspex station. ‘Show me what’s going on out there!’
The auspex painted a grim picture.
The fleet, such as it remained, idled at the edge of a star system, cast adrift amidst rocks and ice, ancient leavings of planetary formation that baffled the sensors, returning ghost readings even as Kaddas tried to resolve them. Every ship save the flagships was ailing, and even the great leviathans of the void were not without their wounds. Debris choked the space around each of the damaged vessels, crowded about their stilled engines. Each of them, from the lowest transport to the mightiest warship, had prioritised power to their shields in place of propulsion or other systems. Every last one of them had primed what weapons they possessed. The Indomitable Soul had stumbled into the middle of a stand-off.
‘Do we have comms?’ Erastus asked, looking at the hololithic representation of the system’s edge, and the pale green streams of data which coursed down it like rain. ‘As soon as we are able I want communion with the Wyrmslayer Queen, the Lustful Paradox or the Steel Amidst–’
‘My lord, the Norastye flagship is not there.’
‘What?’ Erastus snapped.
‘The Steel Amidst Infirmity, my lord. It isn’t there.’ Kaddas checked the auspex again for good measure. ‘None of their ships are.’
He stared blankly for a long moment. The lumens were stabilising, playing over the chromed stations, interplaying with the hololith and turning the light weak and fragile. The ships caught in its patterns juddered and refracted. ‘Could they have come out somewhere else? Or been swallowed by the warp? Throne of Terra, the Steel? The whole of their fleet and house?’
‘Incoming communications from the Lustful Paradox, lord,’ said Atreus, his Master of Communications. The man bowed his shaven head at the interruption, and his headset jabbered with half-heard whispers from the ether.
‘Put it through,’ Erastus said with a sigh. He stroked the bridge of his nose, trying to head off the migraine building behind his eyes. ‘And get someone to check the enginariums! I want status reports on every inch of our ships. Find out what made this happen!’
‘Well, well, well,’ oozed Gunther’s voice from the speakers in the back of the throne. ‘The men of steel prove their weight false, eh?’
‘What?’ Erastus asked with a scowl.
‘Is it not obvious? The Norastye are not here. The ships they tended with such false zeal have been sabotaged.’
‘The bastards,’ Erastus hissed. ‘They spit upon all honour. They cannot presume to–’
‘They can, my lord, and they would, and they have. We have lingered here longer than you have. We have checked our ships, and found their base sabotage. Entire engine districts crippled. Geller fields compromised. Plasma conduits oversaturated. They were comprehensive in their ruin. I would expect nothing less from the cold-blooded sons of the machine.’
‘They planned this,’ Erastus said finally. ‘They ingratiated themselves, said they would tend to our ships, and they repay us with this treason? The bastards.’ He sighed. ‘What are your losses?’
‘Minimal. My ships are crippled, holed through. Whatever they’ve done to the engines may very well be irreversible. I have my own adepts scrambling over it.’ There was a pause, a flicker of near-static that Erastus realised was laughter. ‘All but the flagship. I think Absalom either could not or would not harm them.’
‘He doesn’t have to,’ Erastus sighed. ‘All he has to do is leave us scrambling in the void, trying to save our ships, move our materiel, or otherwise catch up to them. He wanted us dead in the water – choosing between catching him with minimal force, or turning up far too late with a wounded fleet. He has all but guaranteed advantage. To profit, alone and without rival. To return to the Cradle as a conqueror king, with the primarch’s blessing.’
And to think I cast aside the Astraneus for the company of serpents. Erastus scowled. Would the Arch-Lecter have defied me so? Would they have wounded me? I will make peace with them. When this is over I will place my faith in those who can be trusted.
‘Oh do not despair, little bird,’ Gunther tittered, and Erastus’ mind refocused at his words. ‘There is more than one way to skin a cur, when it has turned and bitten you. These matters, though, would be best discussed in person I think. I shall send word to the huntress, and you shall join me upon my humble barque. Yes?’
Erastus closed his eyes, weighing his options as his mind raced. Would you have suffered these indignities, Ev? he wondered. Would Father have let it come to this?
‘I will come to you, lord admiral. Together we shall set our course through this.’ He broke the communion, though he could still hear Gunther’s wry chuckle, even as he rose from the silent throne and walked from the bridge.