‘Kant?’ Castellan Clermont called, but before the Techmarine could confirm the threat, several greenskin vessels gunning down on the battle-barge formed a train of explosions. One after another, drawing closer and closer to the Abhorrence, the junkers detonated.
The train of destruction ended with the Sodalitas. One moment the the strike cruiser was there. The next it had been replaced by a streaking implosion of ignited fuel and hallowed wreckage. Its armoured prow and thoraxial gun decks had been smashed straight back through its engine columns and immaterial drives, as though an invisible fist had crashed through the vessel. No one on the Abhorrence had seen the atrocity, but every member of the battle-barge’s crew felt the swell of the explosion ring through the decks.
‘Starboard evasive!’ Clermont called. The battle-barge lurched and banked sharply.
‘Commander Klein of the Bona Fide reports the Sodalitas destroyed,’ a bondsman called from where he was clinging to his rune bank.
‘Confirmed,’ the castellan reported. ‘Strike cruiser Sodalitas is lost. Forty-one battle-brothers and two hundred and sixteen bonded crew dead, marshal.’
The report struck Bohemond like a physical blow. He turned to Chaplain Aldemar. The Chaplain said nothing. He sank slowly to his armoured knees on the command deck and began his murmured obsequies and the sacraments of the fallen.
‘Kant, I need that—’ Clermont began.
‘Some kind of gravitic weapon,’ Kant called back. ‘Vectored and directional. The planet-smasher the attack moon must have used on Aspiria.’
‘Marshal?’
‘Have all Chapter vessels and Navy attendants form up behind the battle-barge,’ Bohemond ordered.
‘Sir, we are outnumbered—’
‘And what means that to the Black Templars?’
‘The enemy has the advantage,’ the castellan attempted to continue.
‘You have just summarised the beginning of every worthy battle in which the Black Templars have fought,’ Marshal Bohemond declared proudly.
‘Every worthy battle that Black Templars survived, marshal,’ Clermont replied. ‘But this will see us all dead before we can scratch them.’
‘Steel yourself, brother,’ Bohemond said. ‘These thoughts proceed from some cowardly corner of your soul.’
‘No such place exists, my lord.’
‘Well it must, Castellan Clermont,’ Bohemond roared back, ‘for I hear the suggestion of a retreat in your guarded advisements.’
‘Brothers!’ Techmarine Kant called, but he wasn’t calling for reconciliation. A chain of explosions were ripping through the void. Greenskin salvage-clads and gun-hulks formed a thunderbolt of sequential detonations, terminating in an assault on the Black Templars battle-barge. Bohemond was thrown from his pulpit-throne and Chaplain Aldemar from his devotions. Rune banks, augur stations and cogitae spat sparks and crackled with overloaded energy. Two Chapter bondsmen lay dead, while injuries and malfunctions had been inflicted upon a number of servitors and bridge crew. Smoke soaked up the bloody menace of the emergency lamps and klaxons screeched their urgency.
The Abhorrence had taken a direct hit from the attack moon’s gravitic planet-smasher on its intensified forward void shields. Proximity warnings joined the din of alarms on the bridge. Falling away from its surging course into a drunken drift, the battle-barge almost collided with the Sword of Sigismund.
‘Damage report,’ Clermont managed, clawing himself up a console station and back to his feet. A ragged gash ran parallel to the service studs stamped into his forehead. Kant, with his bionic adaptations and extra weight, had been the only unsecured member of the bridge crew not to end up on the deck.
‘Datastreams struggling to carry reports and diagnostics,’ Kant said. ‘So far I have some structural damage and electrical fires.’
Clermont moved between the bondsmen and servitors, who had fortunately been buckled into the station-seats. He cast his eyes across their flashing runescreens.
‘Seventeen fatalities reported amongst the crew,’ the castellan said, ‘mainly impact damage. No battle-brothers. Captain Ulbricht reports the Thunderhawks Smite and Purgator’s Dawn damaged and battle-unworthy.’
‘Void shields are down to twenty-two per cent nominal capacity,’ Kant said.
‘Brother,’ Clermont urged, turning to Bohemond.
‘The Abhorrence cannot withstand another hit like that,’ Kant added grimly.
‘Marshal,’ the castellan said, marching forwards. ‘We must withdraw.’
Bohemond was back on his feet. Despite having fallen, his gaze had barely left the hated attack moon.
‘It is cowardice…’ Bohemond hissed through his teeth.
‘No more, my lord,’ Clermont assured him, ‘than when I defer battle to adorn myself with plate and recover my blade and bolter.’
Bohemond looked at his castellan.
‘These beasts will keep,’ Clermont told his marshal. ‘We shall return, as we have before, in greater number — in greater fervour — with the tools to finish this job. Aspiria is lost. Since translating in-system, Master Izericor has received numerous mortis-cries but also requests for aid.’
The astropath, toppled also, had somehow found his way back to his sandalled feet and his staff. Noticing him, Bohemond’s expression resumed its former hostility.
‘It is true, marshal,’ Izericor said. ‘The hive-world of Undine is besieged — but then so are the hive-worlds of Plethrapolis and Macromunda. The Gormandi agri-worlds are under attack. The Mechanicus invoke ancient treaties and concords. They are losing the twin forge-worlds of Incus Maximal and Malleus Mundi to the invader.’
Clermont went to interrupt, but the astropath hadn’t finished. ‘The First Quashanid storm troop — the so-called Immortals — are holding the fortress-world of Promentor. The penal world of Turpista IV is also holding out longer than expected. Both have requested assistance. Both have proven that they would make excellent holdpoints. Your brethren of battle and blood, the Fists Exemplar, fight for their fortress-monastery and their world, Eidolica. The list goes on, my lord.’
Clermont and Bohemond locked gazes, Templar to Templar.
‘The rimward sectors call for the Emperor’s Angels,’ the castellan told his marshal. ‘They call for the Black Templars. We have no world to defend. We have crusades. We have only wars and the worlds upon which we choose to wage them. The green plague is upon the segmentum. Isn’t there enough of the invader to go around?’
Bohemond turned to the Chaplain, who was on his knees and at one with his devotions.
‘Aldemar?’
The drone of cult litanies from within the Chaplain’s helm came to a stop.
‘Choose, brother,’ Aldemar told him.
Bohemond of the Black Templars looked to his friend and castellan.
‘Order the flotilla to break up,’ the marshal commanded. ‘Multiple targets will give individual vessels the best chance against that monstrous weapon.’
‘Yes, Marshal.’
‘All crusader contingents to rendezvous at the Mandeville point.’
‘Yes, marshal.’
‘All vessels, make preparations for immaterial translation.’
‘Yes, marshal.’
‘Do you have a destination in mind, sir?’ Castellan Clermont asked.
‘Yes,’ Marshal Bohemond replied. ‘I do.’
THIRTEEN
The Adeptus Mechanicus survey brig Subservius drifted in orbit around Ardamantua, eventually becoming lost in the shadow of the Amkulon. The cruiser was a shattered wreck, a reminder of the power and ferocity visited upon Ardamantua by the xenos weapon. The gravitational disturbances about the planet continued to subside, but slowly. Although the Amkulon was useless for salvage — even the greenskins had left the radioactive wreck behind — it did provide the smaller survey brig with an anchor-point of stability, created by the natural gravity of the derelict cruiser’s own tumbling form.