Koorland smiled stiffly and gestured Bohemond to his seat. ‘I welcome it, brother.’
It was only then, as he pulled out his own chair at the head of the table, that Koorland noticed the expectancy that hung over them, camouflaged beneath the quiet. All eyes, all ears, were on him: the Emperor’s finest, all hanging on his word. Leading the Senatorum had been little preparation. These were people he respected.
‘Where is Euclydeas?’ Tyris asked before Koorland had sat down. ‘Antares and Iaros of my squad took the third ork psyker to the Soul Drinkers’ rendezvous coordinates. Iaros was to become sergeant of the new Kill-Team Ultima.’
‘The best we can assume is that for some reason the Soul Drinkers never received our message, or that their voyage against the Green Roar has proven longer and more turbulent than ours.’
The absence of a third of the combined fleet’s strength sunk in with a moment’s solemnity. The worst that they could assume needed no reminder from Koorland. He had been exacting in assigning the Black Templars and Soul Drinkers to rendezvous coordinates in the most strategically unimportant and underpopulated sectors in the vicinity. But the Segmentum Solar was close to being overrun. The possibility that Euclydeas had been killed or had destroyed the meme-bank containing the coordinate fragments to prevent its capture could not be discounted.
That was why he had separated the fleets in the first place.
‘What we have will suffice. It will have to, because there is nothing else. We are already out of time.’ His gaze moved down the table, two opposing rows of hardened faces. ‘Most of you will have observed the test on Incus Maximal. Some,’ a nod to Tyris and Issachar, ‘witnessed it first-hand. Others,’ a glance to where Wienand and Bohemond sat, ‘will have received the logs.’
A pantherish panting, something like a laugh, came from Kjarvik’s throat. He leaned forward, bone-braid dreadlocks knuckling across the table. ‘And impressive watching they were. It surprises me to say, but it actually made the effort of capturing them in the first place worthwhile.’
‘Agreed,’ said Tyris, to much solemn nodding from his brothers-in-black.
‘Incus Maximal was a test,’ Koorland said and the approving mutters dropped away. ‘Densely populated, lightly defended, but numbers enough to make any undertaking by conventional forces too costly to contemplate. Until now, of course. Laurentis, please.’
The magos rose slightly, not sitting so much as squatting into his tripod. ‘Magos Urquidex and I have thoroughly analysed the results of the first test detonation. Impressive though the results were, and in accord with our expectations from the Dzelenic IV data, my colleague and I are in agreement that the output could have been greater. The trial subject suffered a grievous injury in the moments prior to detonation, which we conclude may have dampened its connection to the ork psychic field. Furthermore, the greenskins native to Incus Maximal were not the largest specimens thus far encountered, nor was Lord Issachar’s force given the resources or the remit to stoke the orks’ psychic strength more fully. It is our conclusion that complete planetary wipe-out could be a possibility.’
‘You mean to cleanse a planet — good.’ Asger Warfist nodded approvingly. ‘Which is to be the lucky world?’
‘Magos,’ said Koorland and gestured with an empty hand across the table.
Laurentis pivoted on the spot and and telescoped a digital manipulator to activate the panel of switches mounted on the wall behind him. The lumen points dimmed. The hololith crystals in the table flickered and began to brighten, emitting a fuzzy white light from which emerged the ghost shape of a rotating spheroid. It was a planet, and the stuttering projection slowly began to stabilise as it spun about its slightly tilted axis.
Shocked murmurs from around the table. Even the Adeptus Astartes had not been engineered beyond a mortal’s capacity for surprise.
The planet was crenellated, buttressed, ironclad, mountains of rockcrete and plasteel rising from the pole-to-pole spread of inhuman habitation where mountains had no natural right to stand. Vast orbital rings of manufactories, dry docks and weapons platforms girdled the planet’s equator like crude analogues of the great space ports of Mars. Power fields and atmospheric distortions induced by the planet’s artificial seismology were displayed as periodic washes of colour. As the cogitators built into the table warmed through, the hololith filled in the projection with surface definition. Brackets locked on to features of interest, turning with the world as it spun: field projectors, megabatteries, a tangle of wire-trace lines showing tectonic boundaries where powerful xenos technologies could manoeuvre those surface plates to effect the rearrangement of whole continents or the rapid redeployment of billions.
Ullanor.
‘Vulkan threw everything the Imperium could give to him at that world and he failed,’ said Asger, voice soft. ‘What do you hope to achieve by trying again with a fraction of what the primarch had?’
‘There is no denying that the Imperium no longer has the men or the ships to launch an invasion on that scale again, or that there can be no replacement for Vulkan. I am not he. Those of us that are left to try and succeed where those heroes failed must become more than the numbers we bring with us.’ Koorland spread his hands to gesture not just to those present, but to the ships beyond and the many thousands they carried. The misshapen leer of the Beast, built in colossal facsimile into the very face of his throneworld, glared from the hololith with each rotation. ‘Here is where mankind stands. Or here is where it falls.’
‘I’m almost afraid to ask,’ said Wienand. ‘But how?’
‘I have to agree,’ said Kale. ‘We have less than a tenth of the fleet strength that the primarch commanded. Ullanor’s ground-to-orbit batteries will cripple us before half our troops can be moved planetside.’
‘Those weapons were devastating only because we were unprepared, an element of surprise that they will not enjoy a second time.’ Koorland turned to Asger. ‘We know the location of the orks’ defences, and it will be the responsibility of the Deathwatch to neutralise them.’
‘I’d like to help coordinate that, if I may,’ said Wienand, to a few chuckles from the Deathwatch sergeants sat nearest to her. Her expression in reply was frosty.
‘Ullanor will be no place for civilians,’ said Koorland. ‘Certainly not for High Lords.’
‘I am not the highest Lord in attendance, Lord Commander, and I know how to look after myself.’
Asger grinned through his fangs, looking sideways at the inquisitor. His chuckle was rather more approving than that of his subordinates, but then the Space Wolves had always been impressed by nerve. ‘She has you there, Koorland. What is that now, twice?’
‘Very well,’ said Koorland. ‘If you must, then on your head be it. You will take your lead from Asger. What commands he gives, you follow.’
‘Of course.’
Asger nodded to the hololith. ‘If the fleet is to remain out of weapons range then we will not be able to deploy from drop pods.’
‘We have gunships.’
‘What of the brute-shield?’ spoke Dominus Gerg Zhokuv, the voice arising from the waxen-faced servitor that stood by his pteknopic vessel. ‘It was impenetrable, and undoubtedly restored to full operation by now.’
‘As we discovered, the orks must lower the shield for a few seconds each time they fire their guns. While the bulk of the fleet remains out of range, some… sacrifices will need to be made to ensure the orks lower their shields. Long enough for a gunship to get through.’
‘Do not neglect their fleet-based defences, brother.’ Issachar pointed to the weapon silos and fighter launch bays that studded the hololithic world’s orbital ring.