A rent half a kilometre wide had been torn in the hull. Atmosphere poured into the void. Bulkheads could not seal. Amidships, the top ten decks vented completely.
Still the casualty numbers climbed. Vacuum killed some fires. Others kept spreading, finding more air to burn. Rank upon rank of weapon batteries went dead.
‘Steering?’ Rodolph asked.
‘We still have it,’ said Groth. ‘Barely.’
And he was still standing, breathing and thinking. Still commanding. Barely. That would suffice too.
‘Maintain course for the greenskins’ moon,’ Rodolph said. He took a rattling breath. He vowed he would remain conscious until his vessel’s dissolution. ‘Keep them worried.’
Laccolith groaned with war. It burned. It cried out to wrathful night.
The Fists Exemplar split up, racing along the sides of the avenue towards the walkers. The Mechanicus guns angled their beams towards the monsters’ heads. Along the rooftops of the buildings that still stood, and on the crests of rubble mounds, the skitarii gathered and attacked the ork infantry. The walkers fired to the left and right, bringing down more structures. The power of the ork machines was overwhelming. Yet there could be no retreat from them. There was only attack.
We fight for time, Thane told himself, conscious of how little remained to him. Each second is a victory.
Then the walkers stopped firing. They took a step back. Thane blinked. It was as if the leviathans were retreating before the Fists Exemplar.
‘Chapter Master…’ Aloysian said.
‘I know, brother.’
The walkers turned around. Footstep by thunderous footstep, they headed back down the grand avenue. Beyond them came the snarl of vehicle engines pushed to the limit. The infantry was on the run. The orks were leaving Laccolith faster than they had arrived.
‘How can this be a retreat?’ said Aloysian.
‘It isn’t.’ Thane understood. ‘They’re racing to stop the Last Wall.’
The Honour’s Spear and Triumph of Himalazia flew between the Ascia Rift’s guardian volcanoes. Lava flowed sullenly down the slopes of the peaks. Their eruptions were a slow, constant release of pressure, preventing greater cataclysm. Beyond them, the rift opened up. It was a canyon thousands of metres deep, and less than two thousand across at its widest point. The Ascia valley floor was bright with the light of xenos industry.
Koorland stood with Vulkan at the open side door of the Thunderhawk. His eyes widened as the gunships dropped lower and the details of the construction became clearer. ‘Have they done this only since the assault began?’
Vulkan nodded. ‘I would have known, otherwise. They must have used more troops here than in the invasion itself.’
‘Did they know you were here?’
The idea the orks knew more about the location of the primarch than did the Adeptus Astartes was appalling. He forced himself to ask it. He must not consider anything beyond the reach of this enemy.
‘Not before they arrived, I think. I was aware of something happening in this region first. Then the attack on Laccolith began.’
‘The invasion was a distraction?’
‘An effort to keep me from here, at the least. A successful one until now.’
Koorland felt the scale of the conflict and the tactics on Caldera sink in further. Millions of orks deployed to counter a single warrior. And the orks had known to do this.
‘Still lower,’ he voxed Preco. ‘Get their attention.’
The ork facility occupied the full width of the rift. It ran for dozens of kilometres north and south. Conduits, each ten metres thick, plunged into the bedrock and ran into power junctions the size of manufactoria. Chimneys rose half the height of the canyon. They spewed smoke and ash. Their mouths glowed red. Koorland stared. He pointed. ‘Are those chimneys doing what I think they are?’
‘Yes,’ Vulkan replied. ‘They are dagger wounds in the flesh of Caldera.’ His anger smouldered like the magmatic light from the chimneys. ‘The orks have pierced the crust. They are using the energy of this world to power its own destruction.’
Even more immense conduits ran from the junctions towards a towering central point in the distance. The grand nexus was twice again as big as the other structures. To Koorland’s eyes, it was simultaneously manufactorium and a single machine. Its conical form suggested the ork versions of the Titans, but many orders of magnitude larger. It had extrusions resembling arms, but instead of cannons, the articulations released energy one moment, and in the next fed the searing light back inside its metal walls.
Pulsing arteries of incandescent blue and green and white ran from the nexus and up the rift walls. Koorland followed them with his eyes. Lining the top of the canyon, at the end of each line of power, were flaring, arcing points. After some flashes, he could just make out the shapes of huge energy coils.
Everywhere he looked, he saw the generation and deployment of inconceivable force. The engineering violated any principles he knew, yet it worked.
‘What is this?’ he finally asked.
‘The means of murder,’ Vulkan said. ‘Power is created and controlled here. It flows north.’
Koorland understood. ‘This is part of their gravity weapon.’
It was how the orks were taking Caldera apart and sending its pieces up to become part of the attack moon. The technology required a planetside base as well as the device used on the orbital base. The orks were not simply lashing the planet with their gravitic whips. They were controlling the ascent of the masses.
‘You will doubtless see more evidence of the crime further to the north,’ said Vulkan.
The passage of the two Thunderhawks was rapid, and it took several seconds for the orks to react. Turrets sprang to life across the installation. Vehicles and troops mobilised in the spaces between structures and conduits. Preco dared the fire and took the Honour’s Spear even lower, flying between chimneys. The anti-air fire was cautious by ork standards. They were taking care not to destroy their great machine.
It was moments later, with the nexus looming closer, that Koorland learned just how fast the orks were reacting to the incursion. Thane contacted him on the command network. ‘The orks are pulling out of Laccolith,’ he said. ‘They’re heading back north at full speed.’
‘Good,’ said Koorland. ‘They’re afraid of what we’ll do.’ The huge moves of the game were occurring once more. An entire army mobilising to deal with two aircraft. At last, the Imperium had the initiative in the war, forcing the orks into a reactive mode.
‘We are in pursuit,’ said Thane.
‘Good.’ Koorland relayed the news to Vulkan, then contacted Arouar. He described the installation.
‘Impressive,’ the tech-priest dominus said. ‘The possibilities it offers are considerable.’
‘Not for data collection,’ said Koorland. ‘The only focus here is the pursuit of victory. I hope there is no chance for misunderstanding.’
There was a slight pause. Then Arouar said, ‘None.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Any contribution the Mechanicus can make would be welcome.’
There was no pause this time. Koorland thought Arouar was speaking more quickly, the pace of his inflectionless words increasing with excitement. ‘We are a long way from having mastered the gravitic technology of the Veridi giganticus. Nonetheless, we know enough for me to hypothesise an intervention. It is the primarch’s purpose to break the Veridi control over the weapon?’