These specimens have been stripped of their strength and their weaponry, the Sister-Commander signed. But they are still dangerous.
‘These, now, are but feral creatures,’ Thane said. ‘The ones we will face on Ullanor have blades and blasters, armadas of attack ships and gravitic technologies of mass destruction. They will have armoured moons at their disposal and hordes without number at their command.’
A howl of metal made Kubik turn suddenly. In its fury, one of the orks had managed to bend one of the bars of its cage just enough to squeeze its hand through, and was grasping with a malformed claw at the Fabricator General’s robes. Lady Brassanas snatched her silver-bladed sword from her belt and lopped the broken claw off at the wrist, prompting the ork to retract the gushing stump of the limb.
‘Well, I’m convinced, Chapter Master,’ Drakan Vangorich told him. ‘What do you need to ensure the destruction of the Beast and its forces on Ullanor?’
‘Everything we have left,’ Thane told the Grand Master honestly. ‘I will not repeat past mistakes and overestimate my own forces while underestimating yours. My plan is to leave the Last Wall protocol in place, so that Terra remains protected by the sons of Dorn. I will personally lead the entire Chapter of Imperial Fists to Ullanor in the Phalanx, with the aim of storming the Beast’s palace and cutting the ork hordes across the galaxy off from their command structure. Without their leaders, the invader fleets will fragment. Armies will turn on themselves. Their warlords should revert to observed behaviours, fighting for supremacy amongst their ranks. This should give us time to reform, regroup and raise an expanded Deathwatch to enact a plan of eradication.’
‘But…’ the Fabricator General said.
‘But,’ Thane echoed, ‘we cannot do that without the full commitment of Imperial forces in support. We need everything that’s left. Beyond the Last Wall protocol and a skeleton force providing a sentinel defence of the core systems, I’m going to need whatever remains of the Imperial Navy, the Mechanicus fleet, the Astra Militarum, the god-machines of the Adeptus Titanicus and the skitarii legions. Naturally, Lady Brassanas has already pledged her Sisters of Silence to the assault.’
‘And leave the core systems and Terra exposed?’ Kubik said.
‘They are already exposed,’ Vangorich said.
‘The Grand Master is right,’ Thane agreed.
‘An Assassin knows when to commit his full resources to the attack,’ Vangorich said.
‘An attack that must, of course, succeed,’ Thane said. ‘Or the Fabricator General’s fears will become reality.’
The Silent Sisterhood will do what we have always done, the Sister-Commander signed. We will stand between the Emperor and His enemies. Dying, if we have to, in order to see the Master of Mankind safe.
‘They, along with the deployment of these alien psykers,’ Thane said, ‘will be essential in disorientating the Beast’s vast army of defenders and bodyguards. If the last attack taught us anything it is that the ork psykers draw their destructive power not just from the numbers of their kind in the vicinity but the length of time they are exposed to them. Like batteries, we need to give them time to charge their energies before unleashing them to create a backwash of psychic power. This will give my Space Marines the opening they need to fight their way through the palace and obliterate the Beast.
‘We will need vessels to punch our way in through the fleets of attack ships swarming the Ullanor System. We will need Titans to occupy gargants and ground forces to keep a planetary horde of orks off our backs. Even your Assassins will be needed, Grand Master.’
‘The talents of my Temples will be at your disposal, Chapter Master,’ Vangorich said.
Thane, Lady Brassanas and the Grand Master looked to Kubik.
The Fabricator General’s optics whirred and turned slowly in his hood, as though his cogitators were handling changing numbers of great size and importance. Finally the Fabricator General spoke.
‘The Adeptus Mechanicus have not forgotten the lessons the Veridi have taught us in fire and thunder,’ Kubik said. ‘The Ordinatus Ullanor might have been decimated by the monstrous machines of the alien but the priesthood of Mars can do better than vessels, Titans and Legions. You will, of course, have whatever the forge world principal and its empire can provide. But let me confide in you the questionable, as you have confided in me. Since encountering the Ullanor orks and their unique weaponry, my priesthood have been hard at work studying and attempting to replicate their technologies. We have met with some limited success and have managed to adapt and manipulate the orks’ gravitic weaponry to displace large asteroids and small moons.’
‘Displace?’ Drakan Vangorich echoed, his voice trailing off in amazement.
‘Yes,’ Kubik said. ‘In tests conducted within uninhabited systems, our technologies managed to knock small planetoids out of their orbits and propel them towards other planetary bodies. Inertia and the natural pull of gravity do the rest.’
‘You have this much mastery of the aliens’ technology?’ Thane asked.
‘A limited application,’ Kubik cautioned. ‘In a specific time and place. We could, for example, launch asteroids and small moons from the system’s edge, to smash through the greenskin fleets and impact upon the surface of Ullanor with varying degrees of accuracy. By the time your Adeptus Astartes arrive, Chapter Master, the defences of Ullanor will have been dealt a significant blow.’
Thane extended his gauntlet. The Fabricator General took it with the bionics of his own master-crafted appendage. The Chapter Master looked to Lady Brassanas, who nodded her agreement. Vangorich had a weak smile for the Space Marine, a little of his dark confidence returning. Thane returned the gesture.
‘In a few minutes,’ the Grand Master said, ‘we have managed to get more agreed than a century of Council meetings and Palace intrigue.’
Thane’s smile thinned. He didn’t like the sound of that, or the precedent it set. It was too late to go back, however. There was too much at stake in the present to worry about the future.
‘One thing,’ Kubik said. ‘How shall the Lord High Admiral and the Lord Commander Militant be similarly compelled to lend, without question, their remaining ships and soldiers to this venture?’
Drakan Vangorich’s wolfish smile widened further. He looked like a watch dog who had, at long last, been let off the leash.
‘Leave that to me,’ the Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum said.
Six
It was evening. The sun was setting and thin cloud hung like a veil across the skies. Above, the lights of orbital plates, stations and upper atmospheric skyforts twinkled through the haze. Below them a sundered world turned. Hive cities had crumbled and crashed to the ground, blanketing the lower districts in dust. The ork attack moon might have been destroyed but millions had died in the defence of Terra. Death hung in the air. Shadows seemed longer and the darkness deeper.
Spirits too had been broken. News of failure and successive tragedies had plunged the hearts of billions into abyssal dread. It was a terror all but the most ancient had never known. The Astra Militarum and the Imperial Fleet — the Imperium’s bastion amongst the stars — had been smashed. The military might of Mars and the Red Planet’s Titan Legios had met their match. The Emperor’s Angels had failed to bring the Beast to his knees and even a primarch had been lost to the green tide as it came sweeping in to swamp the core sectors and drown Holy Terra in a deluge of alien savagery and destruction.