‘They’re not responding, lord Chapter Master.’
‘Is Zerberyn ignoring me?’
‘It’s the interference, lord. It’s getting worse and Dantalion’s already out of contactable range. I’m not getting a reply from Bulwark or Faceless Warrior either.’
Maximus Thane leaned forward, one hissing, armoured boot up on the seat of his command throne as though being seated was a transient luxury that he might abjure at a moment’s notice.
In the auspectoria turret below, void-suited serfs bent over the crowded scanner table, wielding protractors and slide rules with the prowess of champions at the Festival of Blades, calling out number strings to their colleagues mobbing the chart desk at the neighbouring strategium turret. The blisters of colour-coded ork markers at the desk’s extreme range were beginning to drop off the hololithic display, and operators shouted across one another in their efforts to explain why.
To Thane it resembled a planetary transition; a slow-moving disc that temporily blanked out a small portion of its parent sun.
Compared to the mortal men and women under his authority he was an armoured giant, face stern, battleplate grey as weathered bedrock, enthroned within a cathedra of moulded steel and shock-responsive hydraulics. From the various read-outs and data-displays that sprouted from the armrests, he could monitor every major function of the ship from shield strength to engine efficiency to oxygen pressure. His oversight was total, his command absolute. He was brilliant, naturally, but tactical aptitude could be found at every level of the Chapter. There were plenty, also — Zerberyn or Dentor (Daylight now, he reminded himself) to name but two — with greater prowess at arms. But there were none more stubborn, even amongst the elite ranks of his peers, and his perfectionist streak was as sharp as the high polish of his combat knife.
‘My line of battle, shipmaster. Send forward Grey Ranger to hold Dantalion’s position.’
‘Orders already relayed, lord.’
Shipmaster Weylon Kale was an old hand. He had served in the Crantar VII compliance, duelled ships with Archon M’awrr, and was even rumoured to have been aboard the old Alcazar Astra as a young subaltern during the Eidolican Crash that had cost the Chapter the great Oriax Dantalion. Clasping his hands behind his back, the shipmaster turned to regard the main viewer that dominated the far prow-end of the command deck.
The large multi-screen display currently showed the unaugmented glitter of space and occasional sweeps of static. Without magnification, even a void fight between capital-class warships could lose itself in the deep black between stars. Vandis was the simmering red backdrop to most of the displays. The sun’s surface churned, boiled, vented off the last of its fading heat. It was near enough to the fight to force the orks’ battleships into a looser than usual formation to avoid arcing ejections of coronal matter, an uncommon display of self-preservation that Thane took into tactical consideration. One corner of the display had been given over to a view of the dead Oberon-class cruiser. The frigates Chastened and Noble Savage drove through the debris field, shields stuttering, as they slowly drew the wreck of Paragon out under tow.
A keystroke from Thane reformatted the subscreen to a schematic view of the Fists Exemplar fleet.
Frigates were moving ahead of the main fleet assets to present a picket of anti-fighter and anti-torpedo capability, but had already become mired in close fighting with the orks’ own screening ships. The cruiser Grey Ranger was moving up as ordered to provide close support. Scrolling updates reported shield hits, weapons fire. Of the light ships, only the specialist frigate Excelsior held back, escorted by a pair of attack-dog-like frigates of her own. His fingers brushed the data-display again. The view zoomed out to show three golden aquilae, led by Dantalion, veering off towards the second, smaller Black Templars force that was stuck in the mass of ork warships like a splinter in a grox’s belly.
A low-yield, shield-diffused impact trembled through the hull.
‘What is Zerberyn thinking?’
Kale turned, hangdog face tilting to find Thane’s above the command throne. ‘I would not care to theorise as to the First Captain’s thoughts, my lord. But Dantalion’s last data-burst reported the coordinates of Obsidian Sky and something about an ork flagship of some kind incoming. From his current vector I’d suggest he’s attempting to flank this ship or perhaps lure it away from the Black Templars.’
‘He’s forced my hand.’ Thane shifted in his throne so that both boots were grounded and he was leaning forward. He steepled his gauntleted fingers and growled. ‘So we might as well act before we lose three more ships for no gain at all. Deploy the fleet, shipmaster, attack formation. Objective, the Obsidian Sky and her mysterious escort.’
Without a word, Kale turned on his heels, pointed across the deck to the vox-liaison, and produced a ‘go’ order with a nod. The dozen or so crew-serfs staffing the tiered, organ-like switchboard sprang into activity, routing wires, establishing vox-contacts, all under the close scrutiny of a red-robed tech-adept and a young-looking subaltern named Teal.
‘Dutiful, reporting ready.’
‘Guilliman, reporting ready.’
‘Unbroken, reporting ready.’
‘Grey Ranger, sir,’ said Teal, breaking the litany and looking up from the control board to relay the message herself. ‘The signal’s breaking up, but she’s reporting heavy shelling from beyond the range of her auspex. Requesting permission to break formation.’
‘The orks cannot be actively targeting her at that kind of range,’ said Thane. ‘Permission denied.’
‘Fishing,’ murmured Kale. ‘Hoping for a bite.’
‘And they shall receive one. Instruct all ships, forward on us.’ Thane clenched both gauntlets on his throne’s armoured rests and rose. ‘Ahead full, shipmaster, weapons free.’
Alcazar Remembered was a dominant beast. Her deck plates trembled with the power output required to sustain her formidable array of weapons systems and shields. She did not purr; she growled. It was difficult to stand aboard her as her engine stacks were fired to capacity and not share something of that invulnerability.
Her killing spirit vibrated through Thane’s boots, into the core of his being like the might and will of the primarch himself.
‘Sir.’ The call came from the liaison working at auspectoria. ‘We have visual on Obsidian Sky.’
‘On screen.’
The images currently cycling through the main viewer cut out. The panoramic shot that replaced them was badly pixellated, as though translated from an image intended for a much smaller display. Blizzards of static swept across the screens at intervals. But there was no mistaking what they were seeing. A hush descended. Hazard and proximity alerts continued to bleep. Consoles chirruped for attention. Crew serfs pulled headsets from their ears and stared up at the screen in horror. Thane realised his hand had moved across his mouth.
It was the Obsidian Sky. They were watching her final moments.
In the cold silence of full magnification, a sequence of explosions blossomed from her port stern. Shields were gone. Bits of enamelled black outer hull glittered around her, held to her mass like a miniature ring system around a gas giant. The image shook slightly and fuzzed, as if the force of the blasts had somehow carried over the feed. The static bomb faded slowly. Tracers spat back and forth over the display. Sitting above Obsidian Sky and, relative to Alcazar Remembered, behind it, was another Adeptus Astartes cruiser. Their hulls were as close together as though conducting a last stand: two old warriors, back-to-back and beset by foes. A torpedo hit blasted a chunk from its dorsal spire. A tortured flare of combusting atmosphere raged into the airless void, spraying Obsidian Sky with metal fragments.