An order is a damned order.
They jump.
Guilliman is almost rigid with fury. He’s got a stylus out, a pen, and he’s at the bridge windows, recording everything he can see on his data-slate. Ship losses, dispersement. Formation.
The moment the flagship’s system reboot and power comes to active yield, he wants data he can act on.
‘I want that link!’ he yells over his shoulder, sketching the relative placements of the Cornucopia and the Vernax Absolom.
‘Do we raise shields?’ asks Gage.
‘The moment you have them,’ Guilliman replies. ‘Communicate that to the whole fleet the moment we have capability.’
Gage nods.
‘Do we return fire?’ he asks.
Guilliman looks at him.
‘This is a tragedy. A tragedy, a mistake. As soon as we can protect ourselves, we do that. But do not make this worse. We do not add to the death toll.’
Gage’s jaw tenses.
‘I would kill them for this,’ he says. ‘Forgive me, but this is a crime. They must know this is wrong. They shame us–’
‘They are hurt,’ Guilliman says. ‘They believe they are under mortal threat. All their fears are real to them. Marius, we do not compound their folly. We do not add our mistake to theirs, no matter what the cost.’
‘We have a link!’ Zedoff cries.
Guilliman turns. ‘Lithocast?’
‘Barely. Principally audio.’
Guilliman shoves the data-slate to Gage and moves to the hololithic platform.
Light blooms around him again. It is not as healthy as it was before, not as stable. There are figures that aren’t quite there, crackling phantoms at the edge of resolution. Guilliman sees only the outline of Argel Tal, the shadow of Hol Beloth, a skeletal sketch of light that might be Foedral Fell.
Only Lorgar is visible. His resolution is black and white, jumping and interrupted. His eyes are in shadow, his head down. Wherever he is standing, there is a very local light, a glow just above him that casts his face in inky darkness.
‘Stop this,’ Guilliman says.
Lorgar does not answer.
‘Brother. Cease fire now!’ Guilliman says. ‘Cease fire. This is a mistake. You have made a grave error. Stop your reprisal. We are not your enemy.’
‘You are against us,’ Lorgar whispers, his voice made of white noise whine.
‘We have not attacked you,’ Guilliman insists. ‘This I swear.’
‘You turned on us once. You shamed us and humiliated us. You will not do so again.’
‘Lorgar! Listen to me. This is a mistake!’
‘Why in all the stars would you presume this to be a mistake?’ asks Lorgar. He still does not look up.
‘Cease fire,’ Guilliman says. ‘We have not attacked you, nor allowed you to be attacked. I swear this, upon our father’s life.’
Lorgar’s reply is lost in a crackle of noise. Then the image of him vanishes too, and the hololithic platform dies.
‘Contact lost,’ Zedoff announces. ‘He’s refusing our attempts to restore the link.’
Guilliman looks at Gage.
‘He’s not going to back down,’ Guilliman says. ‘He’s not going to stop this unless we stop him.’
Gage can see the pain in Guilliman’s eyes, the enormity of what this means.
‘What was that thing he said, my primarch?’ Gage asks. ‘That last thing?’
Guilliman hesitates.
‘He said, “I am an orphan”.’
Gage straightens up and glances at the senior crew.
‘Your orders, sir?’ he says firmly.
‘Issue the instruction as best you can,’ Guilliman says, stepping down from the platform. ‘To all XIII Legion units and auxiliaries, upon my authority code. Priority one. Defend yourselves by all means at your disposal.’
Gage clears his throat.
‘My primarch, I need your confirmation. Have you just authorised actions up to and including return of fire?’
There is a long pause.
‘Return of fire is so ordered,’ says Guilliman.
Zedoff and the senior gunnery officers start barking orders. Gage turns to the rubricator waiting ready at his station beside the shipmaster’s throne.
‘Officer of record,’ he says. ‘Start the mark.’
The rubricator nods and activates his cogitator.
‘Initiating XIII Legion combat record, elapsed time count,’ the rubricator says. ‘Count begins. Calth mark: 00.00.00.’
SYSTEM // KILL
‘It is necessary under some circumstances, even – in extremis – actions of compliance, to methodically destroy an opponent’s infrastructure along with the opponent himself. Sometimes an emphatic military victory is not enough: sometimes the very earth must be salted, as the ancient texts put it. The principal arguments for this kind of action may be psychological (against a defiant people or species) or a matter of security (in that you are purifying a region of something too dangerous to exist). Neither of these arguments is especially comforting to a pragmatic commander. War is about accomplishment as well as victory; it should not be about supreme destruction. This kind of total war, this process of razing, is most commonly seen with shock or hyper-aggressive forces. The warriors of Angron, my brother primarch of the XII Legion, refer to it as Totality, and even they employ it rarely to its full extent. From my brother Russ, and the Wurgen war-cant of the Vlka Fenryka we borrow the term Skira Vordrotta, which may most usefully be rendered as System Kill.’
1
‘My brother, hear me. Warriors of the XVII Legion, hear me. This violence is against the code of the Legiones Astartes and against the will of our father, the Emperor. In the name of the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, I implore you to cease fire and stand down. Open communication with me. Let us speak. Let us settle this. This action is an error of the most tragic kind. Cease fire. I, Roboute Guilliman, give you my solemn pledge that we will deal with each other frankly and fairly if these hostilities can be suspended. I urge you to respond.’
Guilliman puts the speaker horn down and looks at Gage and the Master of Vox.
‘As soon as we are able,’ he tells them, ‘transmit that message on repeat. Cycle transmissions. No interruptions.’
‘Yes, sir,’ says the Master of Vox.
Leviathans stir. Bigger than the human mind can comfortably conceive, starships move through the burning clouds of dust above Calth. Their dark hulks emerge from glittering banks of debris, through swirling flares of ejected energy, like marine monsters surfacing for air.
They are flying blind. They are fighting blind. They scream challenges and threats into the burning void through shorted vox systems and blown speakers. They detach themselves from the super-massive gantries, derricks and anchorages of the yards, some shearing cables, lines and airgates in their desperation to run free.
A moving target is harder to hit. That’s the logic. In truth, a moving target makes itself alone and vulnerable.
The warships of the XVII Legion make the kills appear effortless. Coasting, almost stately, they run forward, shields lit, creating bright halos around their hulls as dust and particulate matter burns off the fields. Their snarling gunports are open, their primary weapons extended in their silo bays. Charge batteries and plasma capacitors seethe with power, ready for lethal discharge. They are supposed to be deaf and blind too, but they are not. Detection and target systems beyond the darkest imaginings of the Mechanicum peer out into the noisy darkness and alight upon the scattering cobalt-blue vessels of the Ultramar fleet as though they were hot coals on cold ash. They find them, and they bind them, tracking them relentlessly, scrutinising them in lascivious detail, weighing and assessing their shielding and hull strength, while weapons batteries train and align, and munitions loads are ordered up. Bulk magazines chug and clatter as projectile shells and missiles are conveyed by automatic loaders, through-deck hoists or ordnance chutes.