‘Hold!’ Drakan Vangorich called.
Obedience. Krule turned his fist aside, smashing its metallic force into the hangar deck.
‘What in damnation is “Firing protocol thirteen”?’ the Grand Master demanded.
The hololithic representation sizzled to darkness and from that darkness temple infocytes, sans-expediens and tacticians came forwards in deference. A wall section started to shudder to one side, revealing a small chamber in a lighter shade of twilight beyond. Esad Wire was strapped to a simulcra slab. His temple-crafted body was needled from head to toe with sensors. Lines ran into impulse links in the side of his skull and fibre threads into the flesh between his ears and eyes, interfacing with the holoptometric implants beyond.
The Assassin sat up, tearing the sensor needles and datalines from his body. The indoctranostic holosimulation was over. The frustration was clear on Wire’s face. The predator had not taken down his prey. He had failed in some way. His temple re-education — his murderous strategic orientation — had been halted by a furious Drakan Vangorich.
‘Again,’ Vangorich said, ‘what is this “Firing protocol thirteen”? That’s new. I haven’t heard of that.’
‘It’s a proxy,’ an infocyte volunteered. ‘Officio operatives aboard the battleship gave us the physical detailing. It’s not a recovered piece of intelligence. It’s a proxy created by the strategium.’
‘A proxy for what?’ Vangorich demanded.
A hooded tactician came forwards.
‘The hypothetical came out of the logistuary,’ the tactician said. She swiftly added, ‘Operative Wire’s encounter with an Inquisitorial tail at Tashkent factored in a greater range of eventualities for the logistas. Firing protocol thirteen is a proxy for a target behaviour based on logical extensions of those eventualities.’
‘Like?’ Vangorich said dangerously.
‘The knowedge of certain Officio Assassinorum installations and their locations,’ the tactician told him, ‘by involved and interconnected factions.’
‘Covert temple facilities?’
‘Such delicate information could be traded between numerous individuals and organisations — the Holy Inquisition, the Ecclesiarchy, the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Imperial Navy…’
‘So firing protocol thirteen in this context could be?’ Vangorich pressed.
‘The location of the Mount Vengeance Officio Assassinorum facility,’ the tactician told him.
‘Knowledge of this facility?’ Vangorich confirmed, briefly casting his gaze at a wounded-looking Wire.
‘It’s on a list of five possibilities,’ the tactician said. ‘The target’s behaviour would facilitate a stalemate scenario. The operative would be powerless to execute his mission with the target in possession of such information. If he attempted to do so, the battleship in the simulated scenario would fire its guns from orbit on this location. We have calculated, however, that the true nature of both the weapon’s discharge and the temple location would remain secret. The incident would be recorded as a regrettable accident.’
‘Well that’s a relief,’ Vangorich said sardonically. The import was lost on the tactician. The Grand Master was out of his throne and walking towards the egress-archway. He stopped and turned to the gathered temple staff. ‘I want this facility cleared of temple personnel, intelligence and equipment within the hour.’
‘Yes, Grand Master.’
‘Enough with simulations. Beast Krule,’ Vangorich said, ‘with me.’
Having removed the last of the impulse jacks from his head and the sensor needles from his flesh, Esad Wire followed his master out of the crypt-nexus.
‘What are we going to do?’ Esad Wire said.
‘We’re going to force the Lord High Admiral’s hand,’ Vangorich told him. ‘Gathering an armada in the Glaucasian Gulf will do nothing to protect the core systems from the xenos threat. What I wouldn’t give for a stalemate scenario out there.’
‘Where are we going?’ Esad Wire asked.
‘Somewhere the admiral’s great guns can’t reach us,’ Vangorich told his Assassin.
NINETEEN
The company chapel was empty. That was the way Maximus Thane preferred it. His Fists Exemplar — from his captains and masters, to his battle-brothers and their Chapter serfs — were all were too busy with preparations for dusk. Thane’s desperate strategy had saved many Space Marine lives but had cost the Alcazar Astra dearly. Splits and rents in the thick plate of the void ramparts were only the beginning. The star fort had suffered serious structural damage and the generatorium had also experienced damage-inflicted failings. As ranking Adeptus Astartes aboard the star fort, however, it wasn’t Thane’s job to repair ceramite, replenish ammunition or audit the armoury. It wasn’t even his direct responsibility now to ensure that others performed those essential roles — he had given Sergeant Hoque temporary command of the Second Company.
It was Thane’s function to decide which strategy would best ensure the survival of Eidolica. Which strategy would inflict greatest damage on the invader. Which strategy — if any — could possibly combine both.
Even the Second Company’s chapel hadn’t escaped the damage and desolation. Without the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners that the star fort would have benefited from in the void, the chapel — like every other hallowed chamber in the fortress-monastery — had been turned almost on its side. Minor Chapter relics lay smashed on the floor about their cases. Statues had toppled and tapestries had fallen across the altar. Placing his helmet to one side, Thane cleared up as best he could.
Thane’s favourite artefact — one of the reasons he frequented the tiny chapel as much as he did — had also been damaged. Set in a shallow central column, between the altar and the narrow entrance archway, was a small stained-glass window. It depicted Rogal Dorn — not in battle or during the desperation of the Great Heresy, but at deliberation. The window pictured Dorn deep in thought, still clad in his golden armour.
It was the moment Dorn decided to break up his beloved Legion and embrace the Codex Astartes, creating numerous successor Chapters from his stalwart and loyal Imperial Fists. Thane loved the window not least because the Fists Exemplar had been created in that moment. Like all of the Imperial Fists Second Founding Chapters, their character came from the individuals making up their ranks. The Chapter crusaders and zealots gravitated to Sigismund, while to Alexis Polux went the younger, more impressionable brothers. Many of the attrition fighters that would make up the Excoriators had held the Palace walls during the siege of Terra and had found brotherhood with Demetrius Katafalque.
It was well known that the primarch and his genetic sons struggled with the decision to break up their Legion. There were some, however, that came around to Guilliman’s wisdom — as Dorn himself did at last — swifter than others. Captain Oriax Dantalion had spoken for the sense and necessity of such drastic action among the Imperial Fists early in the process. This had initially earned Dorn’s disappointment, and some said enmity. When Dorn himself searched his soul and reached the conclusion that the window illustrated, he remembered Dantalion’s earlier wisdom. He rewarded the captain with a Chapter of his own — made up of progressive battle-brothers not unlike himself. They were deemed exemplars of the new order, and named the Fists Exemplar by the primarch.
Looking at the window, Thane discovered that some of the fragile glass pieces had fallen free of their leadwork. Dorn’s depiction was now marred with hollows and missing sections. Many of the pieces had smashed on the flags of the small chapel during the firing of the engine column. Thane discovered, however, that one piece had survived intact. A section of yellow glass, representing a piece of the primarch’s sacred, golden plate. Picking it up and turning it about in the tips of his gauntlets, Thane slipped it delicately back into place.