Darghastri passed the flame before the view-slit of the metal casket. The misty eyes of the psyker within lit up, and the girl let out an abysmal shriek of excitement and terror. The thrill of light in the darkness. The dread of what she was about to do.
Suddenly everything became light and noise. Thunder crashed through the empty telepathica matrix station. Girders tore. Decks shattered. Flames roared through the antechamber and the access corridor. Zerberyn watched as his Fists Exemplar were taken from him, swallowed by the rolling inferno that felt its way through the starboard section of Arx Meridia.
And then, without warning, they returned. Delivered from destruction, the Space Marines found themselves washed clean of the plate-scorching flame. Sucked back through their number, the firestorm disappeared. In confusion, Zerberyn turned around to see the flames recede. About him the station superstructure was shaking violently, prompting him to grab for a pipe-lined wall with his gauntlet.
With the fire went the airlock and the antechamber’s exterior wall. Flame and shearing sections of station hull were sucked out into the void. With the wall gone, Zerberyn could see the hull of the Athymian Astra. Explosions rippled down the length of the Black Ship, sweeping through the command deck, quarters, engineering and containment. As flame briefly blossomed through the vessel’s decks, the ship collapsed in on itself.
The station’s atmosphere howled past Zerberyn. He felt Reoch lifted off his feet by the fury of the evacuating air and the failing artificial gravity of the damaged section. He grabbed for the Apothecary, Zerberyn’s ceramite-clad fingers reaching out for Reoch’s own. Hooking the fingertips of their gauntlets together, the First Captain anchored himself to the wall. Hauling the Apothecary close and allowing him to gain purchase on the pipes also, Zerberyn watched the wreck of the Athymian Astra peel away from the station.
‘Lock boots to the deck!’ Zerberyn called across the vox to the Fists Exemplar. Engaging the magnetic soles of their armoured boots, the Space Marines resisted the venting atmosphere and the cold embrace of the void. As the decimated Black Ship fell away, Zerberyn watched Inquisitor Darghastri and his psykers disappear into the blackness of space, the deck tearing asunder beneath them.
‘Captain,’ Lasander called back across the vox. ‘The station is destabilised. I am struggling to maintain pressure and docking integrity. You must withdraw. I have brothers waiting for you at the airlock.’
Using the magnetic soles of their boots, the Fists Exemplar made the difficult journey back through Arx Meridia. All about them, Zerberyn and his Space Marines could hear the agony of the station. The superstructure groaned and the orbital facilities began to turn out of their alignment. Rolling out of the protection of its stellar shielding, the station increasingly became exposed to the monstrous heat of the sun. Its hull glowed white and sections disintegrated before the fury of the star, flame flooding halls and complexes. With the unfolding inferno at their backs, Zerberyn led the Fists Exemplar off the shattered station and through the main lock of the Dantalion. Space Marines and serfs in environment suits waited to assist them there.
‘We’re on board,’ Zerberyn told Lasander across the vox, catching his breath. ‘Detach.’
‘Detaching,’ Lasander reported back. ‘Captain.’
‘What is it?’ Zerberyn shot back with annoyance. So much had happened aboard the station that he just wanted to be alone with his thoughts — even just for a moment.
‘Long-range augur scans reveal ork attack craft closing on our position,’ Lasander told him.
‘What are the Iron Warriors doing?’
‘They’re leaving the system,’ Lasander said. ‘They’re making for the Mandeville point.’
Zerberyn looked at Apothecary Reoch and the Fists Exemplars with him in the airlock.
‘Follow them,’ he ordered.
Five
The Thunderhawk Pharosian dropped down towards the bleak, grey dust-deserts of Luna. Flying over mountains and the towers of installations, the scorch-plated gunship roared across void-black skies. Luna had a history stretching back almost as far as Terra, and the grand gothic architecture of its sun-baked facilities and installations seemed in a constant state of renewal and improvement. Derelict fortresses and the ruins of palaces dating back to the Heresy provided the foundations for newer, baroque structures that had sprung from the decimation to reach for the stars. Everything was covered in a harsh dust, the colour and consistency of gunpower, while the searing orb of Sol reflected off the moon-rock architecture.
The Pharosian banked down between towers and palace spires, then streaked across a desert sea towards the Somnus Citadel, the Inquisition’s base of operations. Leaving behind a disturbed trail of dust, the Thunderhawk sizzled through the citadel’s atmosphere shielding before weaving between its towers and fortifications. Great defence lasers tracked the Pharosian’s progress, while Inquisitorial gunships were scrambled to escort the Thunderhawk around restricted facilities. Accelerating across the sprawling expanse of the citadel installation, the Space Marine craft left the gunships in the wake of its afterburners.
Beyond the towering indomitability of the Inquisitorial citadel, the Thunderhawk dropped towards a much older structure. Shimmering in solar radiation, the gothic ruins of a minor palace rose up to meet the Pharosian. A circuit around the structure revealed that it was not merely another derelict and long abandoned facility. Light shone from within the crumbling structure of its austere halls and the glassaic of its window-ports. Shuttles sat in its domed crater-silos. Now that the Silent Sisterhood had returned to Luna, these ruins were serving them as a basic facility.
Dropping down through the atmosphere shielding of the pressurised dome, the Thunderhawk came in to land. Like the sealed-off sections of the derelict palace, the silo-crater benefitted from an atmosphere and artificial gravity. As the Thunderhawk touched down it created a small storm of grit and dust about it. Its nose ramp began to open, revealing Chapter Master Maximus Thane. Like the Thunderhawk and the two Space Marines escorting him, the Chapter Master wore the colours of the Fists Exemplar. As the gunship touched down, Thane stepped off the ramp and crossed the silo landing plaza. Crunching through the dust, he strode with power and purpose. It was not just that time was of the essence. Thane now knew what he was going to do with the time he had left. The days, weeks or months before the Beast made his monstrous push for Terra. With the green tide rising up through Segmentum Solar, flooding core systems with apocalyptic alien ferocity, the arrival of further attack moons or the convergence of ork armadas into some kind of super-fleet seemed inevitable.
As he marched across the plaza, Thane could see the towers of the palace framed in the light of Holy Terra. The glorious, besmirched jewel at the heart of the Imperium, Terra hung defiantly in Luna’s austere skies. Its smog-streaked cloud cover was pierced by capital hives and smothered by orbital plates, geo-synchronous stations and star forts. The blizzard of monstrous vessels about the planet gave the impression that it was being viewed upon a static-laced screen. Even so, the sight stirred his heart. Everything Thane had done, and more importantly was going to do, was in service of the Throneworld and the God-Emperor who ruled an empire from its modest magnificence.
As Thane passed another Thunderhawk, this one clad in ivory, battle-scarred plate, he was joined by Sergeant Dathan Tychor. Like the Chapter Master, the Excoriator had recovered from his wounds. While his battered armour was the same, his bionic arm — repaired and reattached — gleamed in the lunar sunlight.