‘This position is barely defensible,’ Imren said.
She was right. Holding off the natural predators of Caldera was a simple matter. An ork attack would be something else again.
‘We are not here to defend Laccolith,’ Koorland said. ‘This is the point from which we launch our assault, and that will be as soon as we have a target.’
‘The strategy of the Veridi giganticus is puzzling,’ Arouar said. His voice box clicked and whistled with snatches of binharic. He was poised over the strategium table. It displayed a map of Laccolith, the surrounding region, and what had been recorded of the greenskins’ positions during the landings. ‘Their behaviour is anomalous.’
‘Everything about these orks is anomalous,’ said Thane. ‘That is their norm.’
‘Agreed. However, many of their non-normative actions are unusual because of their advanced technology, considered strategy and intelligent responses. Characteristics strange in the Veridi, but logical by any other sentient measure. The ambassador caste contradicts our understanding of the race, but not the conduct of war.’ His left arm unfolded. He spread his hand, telescoping its digits until they corresponded approximately to the various ork armies marked on the map. ‘Here I observe behaviour both anomalous and nonsensical. The Veridi have abandoned Caldera’s capital, its pillage incomplete. There are no significant population centres in the directions they are pursuing. There are no targets of strategic worth.’
Imren said, ‘They aren’t conquering the planet. They’re tearing it apart.’
‘But they must have had some reason to come down,’ Koorland mused.
‘The primarch?’ Thane asked.
‘I refuse to believe they knew about his presence here before we did.’
‘And yet Ullanor…’
Koorland shook his head. ‘Even so, that is a leap too far.’
Thane did not pursue the point.
‘I agree the supposition cannot be supported,’ Arouar continued. ‘I would suggest their presence on the surface of Caldera is connected to the use of the planet we have already observed. This is the first time we have seen the construction of an attack moon.’
Koorland found the speculation unsatisfying. ‘Even if Laccolith was a target of opportunity, why abandon it before they were finished with it?’
‘Quite.’ Arouar made a fist and spread his fingers, suggesting a purposeless radiation of the ork hordes.
‘Puzzling,’ said Imren. ‘Does it help us with our mission?’
‘I don’t know,’ Koorland admitted. ‘I won’t discount its significance, though. We should also speak with local survivors.’
He met with several of them a few minutes later. They were escorted onto the base by a squad of Lucifer Blacks, and waited outside the command tent. Their uniforms were almost as ragged as their bodies, patched with strips of leather and reinforced with scrap metal. The insignia of the Laccolith Defence Militia were still visible: two converging spears creating the silhouette of a volcano. One man had carved the lines into his forehead, wearing his pride on his flesh. They were young, but their faces were lined with the sudden age of brutal experience.
‘I salute you, citizens,’ Koorland told them. ‘You have resisted well. You are alive, and so is your city.’
‘Thank you, lord,’ the man with the carved forehead said.
‘How did you drive off the orks?’
‘We didn’t,’ said a woman. ‘We were saved.’
‘By whom?’
The mortals shared a look of religious awe.
‘We don’t know,’ the first man told Koorland. ‘We only saw him at a distance.’
‘He wore power armour,’ Koorland guessed.
Blank silence from the mortals.
Koorland tapped his chest-plate. ‘Like mine.’
They all nodded.
‘But greater,’ the woman said. ‘He is a giant. Taller even than you, lord. And he cannot die.’
More nods. More awed looks.
Curious, Koorland asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘He fought so many. He should have died. I saw an entire hab fall on him.’
‘A rocket landed where he was standing,’ the scarred man said.
Every one of them had witnessed these and other moments that would have meant death for any being who fell within these mortals’ conception of human.
‘He never died,’ the first woman said. ‘We all saw him die, and we were always wrong. He always returned. Never close to where we thought he’d died. Always somewhere else. In the end, he drew the greenskins away from us.’
‘They didn’t care about Laccolith anymore,’ said the scarred man. ‘They went after him. Their entire army.’
Koorland pictured Arouar’s hand gesture over the map. The illogical pattern now made sense. He thanked the group. They left to continue rebuilding Laccolith’s defences.
And if we find the primarch, Koorland thought, and we depart with him, what happens to these people?
He knew the answer. There would be no one guarding Laccolith. All of its walls had fallen. And as the orks sent more and more of the planet’s crust into orbit to join the attack moon, the point could very well come that volatile Caldera tore itself apart.
He turned around. Thane was a few steps away. His face mirrored Koorland’s thoughts.
‘We’re fighting to save the Imperium,’ Koorland said.
‘I know. I have to wonder when the sacrifices will be enough.’
‘They are all too great.’
The Finality’s starboard broadside took out the midsection of the ork cruiser as it turned to make a ramming charge at the Absolute Decree. Admiral Zdenek Rodolph savoured the moment. He saw the greenskin vessel’s own ammunition reserves trigger still larger explosions. The upper portion of the hull blew outwards. The ship continued on its trajectory, bleeding flame and wreckage, its shape distorted as if being devoured by a greater beast.
‘Come on, damn you,’ Rodolph muttered. ‘You know you’ve been killed. Die.’
The engines had been ruptured by the spreading catastrophe. They erupted now, swallowing the rest of the ship with light of their destruction.
Rodolph grinned. And then the proximity alert tocsins wailed. Captain Groth yelled, ‘Portside! Brace!’
All too late. An ork frigate in full disintegration slammed into the side of the Finality’s command structure. The impact hurled Rodolph over the command pulpit. He bounced off a workstation. His right arm snapped and he landed on the deck with his limb twisted at the elbow and folded beneath his body. Slabs of plasteel from the bridge’s vault plunged to the deck, crushing equipment and officers. Power flickered, then surged. Electrical fires started in the smashed stations.
‘Admiral!’ Groth called. She helped Rodolph to his feet. His breath hissed through clamped teeth as his arm swung loose.
‘Get me back up,’ he said. He coughed, breathing smoke and pain.
Groth led him back up the stairs to the pulpit. As she did, the auspex master warned of more vessels incoming.
‘Bring us above the Decree,’ Groth ordered. ‘We’ll shield each other.’
The edges of Rodolph’s vision greyed. The rhythm of the grand cruiser’s barrage was muffled. He tasted blood in his mouth. This was more than a broken arm.
Someone was giving a damage report, but he couldn’t make out the words.
‘Are we…’ he started to say.
‘Still in the fight, admiral,’ said Groth.
Rodolph leaned against the pulpit. He gripped the aquila’s wing with his left hand. ‘Get me Broumis,’ he said. The feel of the iron in his hand grounded him. His head spun, but he could think.
A moment later, the captain of the Absolute Decree was on the vox.
‘Our position is untenable, admiral,’ Broumis said. ‘The orks are…’ An explosion drowned his words.