‘As you requested, Master Thane,’ Tychor said. ‘The High Lords await your pleasure in the palace reception hall.’
‘I am indebted to you, brother,’ Thane said. ‘You may return to the Phalanx. There is still much to be done. Captain Oberon will have need of you.’
‘Thank you, Chapter Master,’ Tychor said.
As two Excoriators gunships lifted off from the plaza, turning the silo into a swirling haze of dust, Thane walked between a pair of palatial barges — system craft usually reserved for High Lords and visiting dignitaries. It had been these craft that Tychor’s gunships had escorted to Luna. Baroque wonders of beauty and excess, the barges came with their own security details. While the first was surrounded by ceremonial cybernetic soldiers, garbed in glorious, gold war-plate and crimson cloaks, the second was all but unattended. A single muscular figure waited on the colossal ramp, dressed in black bodyglove and hooded cloak. He sheltered from the lung-shredding dust just within the palatial compartment-quarters.
At the silo barbican, Thane and his Fists Exemplar passed a pair of sentries. Sisters of Silence in half-helms, bronzed plate and furs nodded their acknowledgement to the Chapter Master. Within, Thane saw two High Lords of Terra, standing with Lady Kavalanera Brassanas, commander of the Silent Sisterhood. Kavalanera, standing in her plate of ancient crimson, signed a greeting. Since retaking their vows, the Sisters communicated only through their own language of subtle signs and hand signals. Not unlike the battle-sign used by the Adeptus Astartes, it hadn’t taken Thane and his officers long to master the basics.
As he got closer to Brassanas, Thane felt a part of himself wither inside. A shiver ran through him — an unusual sensation for a Space Marine, let alone a Chapter Master. As a member of the Silent Sisterhood, Brassanas was a blank, what psykers called an untouchable. While they were highly trained warriors in their own right, the mere presence of a Sister of Silence was an anathema to all witchbreeds and daemons whose powers flowed from the warp. Brassanas’ own ability to nullify psychic energy was considerable — Thane wasn’t even a psyker and still, proximity to the Sister-Commander made him feel strange. Uncomfortable even. He personally liked Kavalanera Brassanas, but being around her filled him with a bottomless sensation of spiritual revulsion. As he arrived, the Sister-Commander nodded a silent acknowledgement.
The first High Lord was Kubik, the Fabricator General of Mars: an ornate fusion of man and machine, whose augmentations were lost in his rust-coloured robes and the darkness of his hood. The Fabricator General sensed Thane’s approach and turned, his revolving optics changing colour and orientation. Drakan Vangorich, meanwhile, was dressed in the sombre finery of a High Lord, the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum favouring blacks, greys and robes with room to conceal the tools of his trade. Gone was the quirk of the Grand Master’s lip or the knowing glint of his eye — features that had been in evidence the last time Thane had seen him. Something had changed in Vangorich. He looked every bit as serious as a man should be having attained his station.
‘My lords,’ Thane greeted them as his Fists Exemplar peeled off to stand to one side. ‘Lady Brassanas. Thank you for meeting me here. Mars or the Phalanx would have been inappropriate, given what has happened previously and what I intend us to discuss. The Imperial Palace, even more so.’
Brassanas signed an acknowledgement. With his haptic translators, Kubik had no problem understanding the Sister. Similarly, Vangorich with his trained talents had wasted little time in familiarising himself with the Sisters’ sign language.
Thane looked to the Fabricator General, but Kubik seemed as cold and consistent as the machine he mostly was. Given the recent conflict between the Adeptus Astartes and the priesthood of Mars, Thane had expected some haughty indignation at a summons, perhaps even outrage. At very least a rehearsed objection.
‘Proceed, Chapter Master Thane,’ Kubik said simply, the metallic echo of his voice accompanied by the brief flicker of revolving optics. As Thane looked to Vangorich, the Grand Master extended his arm as an invitation to speak.
‘Would you walk with me?’ Thane asked. ‘I have something to show you.’
Lady Brassanas led the way through the palace installation. Within an elevator of mirrored metal that dropped down below Luna’s surface, Thane turned to the others.
‘You have heard, of course,’ he said, ‘of the death of Chapter Master Koorland.’
‘With the loss of the primarch and our failure to destroy the alien Beast, a triptych of woes,’ Vangorich said.
Tragedy upon tragedy, Lady Brassanas signed.
‘Despite their best efforts, the Imperial Fists failed the Imperium and themselves,’ Kubik said. The words were difficult for Thane to hear, but hear them he knew he must if he were to bring the High Lords together.
‘As I believe the Imperium failed them,’ Thane said. ‘Our efforts against the Beast have been the thrust of a spear, with the Imperial Fists as the tip of that spear. Except everyone else behind that thrust let go, believing some other group or institution would be there to follow the strike through. This is why the Beast lives on, our killing thrust wasted. It is why the spear tip shattered and the Imperial Fists were lost.’
‘The Adeptus Astartes,’ Kubik said, ‘have a history of rash action and reaction — as had the primarchs that gene-sired them. The priests of Mars are slow to act but effective in their execution.’
We have much to learn from each other, Lady Brassanas signed, if we are to defeat this threat.
‘For me,’ Drakan Vangorich said, his lips unsmiling and face unusually taut, ‘direct action is the remedy for the myriad afflictions ailing the Imperium. For a long time I waited for such action. I do not blame Chapter Master Koorland or Primarch Vulkan for their failures. At least they tried. I, like billions of other Terrans and countless Imperial citizens, wait again. We wait for a man who will act. Who will step forth and do what needs to be done. History records many such men. The bold and the resolute, who push to the fore just as the Imperium needs them. Are you such a man, Chapter Master Thane?’
‘I am,’ Thane told Vangorich, with steel in his eyes. ‘Lady Brassanas is, of course, right. If history can teach the sons of Dorn anything, it is humility. We cannot act alone. The Adeptus Astartes are one piece in the great puzzle that is the Imperium. Without others at our side, we are nothing — as the Imperial Fists are now. Every brother of the Last Wall aches to avenge his brothers but I take the Fabricator General’s view. It is better to take a little time, gather our strength and act as one.’
‘But we have no time,’ the Grand Master of Assassins told him. ‘Another attack moon could appear over Terra at any moment. The Beast’s fleets invade the core systems. The orks will swamp us.’
‘But we have a little time,’ Thane pressed as the elevator rumbled along the deep shaft, ‘and I intend to use it wisely.’
‘How?’ Vangorich asked, his words like a presented blade. ‘For if the Adeptus Astartes will not act — decisively — then other steps will need to be taken, to ensure all institutions play their part in the dark times to come.’
‘And they will, Grand Master,’ Thane told him, ‘for I go to the High Lords not to appeal for their assistance — for the full weight of their power, influence and forces they command — I go to demand it.’
‘Koorland and Vulkan could not achieve that,’ the Fabricator General said. ‘What makes you think you can? Now, with a First Founding Chapter lost and the faith of the people broken?’
‘Firstly,’ Thane said, ‘I do not intend to make the loss of the Imperial Fists public. As you observe, the morale of the people and their leaders is fragile. We don’t want panic.’