‘You destroyed one ork moon,’ Juskina Tull said. The Speaker for the Chartist Captains had preserved all the glamour of her raiment in the flight from the Praetorian Way. When she had stood with the others to welcome Lansung as a triumphant hero, the beauty of her dress seemed an acknowledgement of the importance of the occasion. Now it gave her an air of command. ‘You know how to do it now, don’t you?’ Her tone was sharp. Vangorich heard in her question the expectation, perhaps even the hope, that Lansung would respond in the negative.
He did not disappoint her. ‘The fortress we fought was a fraction of the size,’ he said. ‘If this one’s orbit were as close to Terra as that of the one over Ardamantua, the tectonic upheavals would have been devastating. Meanwhile, our resources are nothing compared to what we had at Port Sanctus. If we launch an attack, the orks will swat us from the void. The least bad choice is a defensive posture. We can hope to hold the orks at bay until our main force arrives.’
We can hope. Vangorich noted the phrasing. An invitation to engage in wishful thinking, and nothing more.
‘But the orks could be here within hours,’ Mesring said. The Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum, Lansung’s other ally, now deserted him. ‘How long do you expect us to hold?’
‘If you know of a way to accelerate warp travel, I’m eager to hear it,’ Lansung shot back.
‘If the orks have the temerity to land, they will be repulsed,’ Abel Verreault said. The Lord Commander Militant of the Astra Militarum was the junior member of the High Lords. Since succeeding Lord Heth, he had been sidelined, his forces given no role to play in the campaign run by Lansung. His pronouncement was met by a few seconds of uncomfortable silence. Everyone on the dais wanted him to be correct. But the orks had destroyed the Imperial Fists in ground combat.
‘There is little that can be done while anarchy reigns beyond these walls,’ Udo declared. He looked at Vernor Zeck, Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites. They all did. Vangorich sensed an unspoken, barely conscious consensus to shift the spotlight onto Zeck. It was plausible to view the panic as the first urgency. If it was not already worldwide, it would be within twenty-four hours. There was a real risk of a total collapse of order doing the work of the orks for them.
Even so, Vangorich seethed at the naked abdication of responsibility he was witnessing. If action depended on Zeck restoring order, then the other High Lords were absolved of the need to make any critical decisions of their own until the forces of the Adeptus Arbites had quelled the panic.
‘No other action is proposed?’ he asked.
‘There is none to take, beyond the preparation of orbital defences,’ Udo said, giving Lansung a significant glance. No one contradicted him.
Zeck did not respond. He hadn’t moved since taking his seat. His augmetics were so extensive that he was barely more human than Fabricator General Kubik. Neither had reacted to anything the others had said, remaining statues throughout the session. The Lord of the Mechanicus was an insect-like collection of metallic angles, sensors and tubes. The Provost Marshal was a squat hulk, a machinic and organic embodiment of the necessary violence of the law. He turned his attention from the stream of reports fed to his bionic ear with visible reluctance.
‘The situation is fluid,’ he said.
‘It can’t remain so,’ said Mesring. ‘Disorder is heresy.’
Zeck turned his head to stare at the Ecclesiarch.
‘Perhaps you’d like to address the crowds outside?’ When Mesring didn’t answer, Zeck rose. His awareness had been beyond the Great Chamber, calculating the vectors of perhaps the greatest exercise in crowd control in human history. Now he was realising that the situation had given him the whip hand. The other High Lords had, for the moment, surrendered their agency.
Opportunity, Vangorich thought. You can’t resist its scent, can you?
Verreault began, ‘The Astra Militarum—’
‘Is not a police force,’ Zeck cut him off.
The Lord Commander Militant reddened. He was not much younger than Heth had been, but he had come through his battlefields with little visible scarring. He was short, and his wiry physique appeared slight in his uniform. He was fighting the perception that he was a toy soldier. Zeck’s correction did not help.
‘If you’ll excuse me,’ Zeck said to the rest of the Twelve, ‘I have work to do.’ He strode away from the dais.
‘How will you pacify the entire planet?’ Ekharth called after him.
Zeck gave no sign he had heard.
Vangorich eyed the fuming Verreault, and felt the weight of his own helplessness. He’d spent months fighting to get the High Lords to act in time to staunch a lethal threat to the Imperium, and he had failed. The Officio Assassinorum had no forces to offer against an invasion of Terra. Was there anything left for him to try in the defence of the Imperium? He could watch the deliberations. He could evaluate the efforts to fight the orks. He could, perhaps, just perhaps, head off more disastrous decisions.
Like you’ve been doing so well, he thought. How are you any better than these other fools?
For the moment, he had no answer for himself.
The fire raced to the tenement blocks. Walls impregnated by centuries of oil smoke and rotted by poverty ignited. Haas hesitated in her advance. Within seconds, her target became a wall of flame. Another variation joined the chorus of the great scream. The inhabitants shrieked, and were incinerated. The burn became a firestorm. It spread to the left and right along the Avenue of Martyrs. It leapt along the vaulting arches overhead and travelled on the backs of pilgrims, turning them into running torches. Soon, both sides of the Avenue were ablaze.
The Arbitrators stopped. Haas’ plan disintegrated. The people tried to retreat from the flames, but the flames were everywhere, their crackle growing to a snapping roar, a wind with jaws. The pilgrims shrank from the heat and bunched towards the centre of the Avenue. They became a solid barrier of flesh. The crush was such that even those rendered unconscious by the shock mauls were held upright by the bodies around them.
‘We’re not going anywhere,’ said Kord.
‘Make a circle!’ Haas called.
The Arbitrators moved into a tight formation. Their linked lockshields became a perimeter wall, a shelter against crowd and fire.
‘We’re too close,’ Baskaline said.
It didn’t matter that he was right, that the centre of the Avenue would be better.
‘Can you move?’ Haas asked him.
‘No.’
‘Then this is where we stand.’
The tenements disappeared in an explosive combustion. Haas sweated beneath her riot armour. The shields blocked the direct intensity of the flame, but the fire shone through the viewports of the lockshields with daylight brilliance. The thunder-roar of the fire was joined by the cracks of failing masonry and the crashing of collapsing wood. ‘Here it comes!’ Haas warned.
The near facade came down with avalanche fury. Portions of the building fell in on themselves. Other sections of the wall smashed onto the Avenue of Martyrs, crushing the pilgrims, making them into burned offerings. Haas and the other Arbitrators crouched, angling their shields into a protective roof. Blazing wreckage crashed against the ceramite. Haas crouched lower, absorbing the shock of the blows with her arms and legs. A heavy, burning hand tried to drive the Arbitrators into the pavement. They pushed back, shoving the rubble aside.
The roar of the fire had lessened. Through her viewport, Haas saw that the worst of the conflagration had been smothered by the collapse. Hundreds of pilgrims had been crushed. She had no idea how many thousands had died in the buildings themselves.