Greydove opened his mouth dumbly a couple of times, searching for an answer. A desperate look creased his face.
‘Don’t make me assemble the armsmen, captain,’ the lieutenant said, trying to sound stern.
‘I will not think twice about killing your men,’ Koorland said, uttering the words deliberately and slowly so that he would not be misunderstood. ‘There is some chance that your men may succeed in pacifying me sufficiently for my return to Terra. They will not be able to do so without significant casualties.’
The Space Marine tried to reassure Greydove, taking the lieutenant’s arm in a gentle grip.
‘I intend no harm to this vessel or its crew.’ Koorland straightened but did not turn as he heard the distinctive snick of a holster being unfastened. He looked Greydove in the eye. ‘Tell your ensign to secure his pistol, otherwise I will be forced to take it from him.’
Koorland heard an exhalation, saw a slight nod from Greydove and then using the dim reflection on one of the communication screens watched the officer fasten the holster once more. ‘Good. We should avoid any rash actions at this moment.’
‘Translation in five seconds,’ warned the servitor monitoring the warp drive. ‘Four… Three… Two… One…’
There was a lurch inside Koorland as reality and unreality momentarily occupied the same space. Every atom of his being fizzed for a few seconds and in the depths of his mind, somewhere near the base of his brain, a disturbing pressure forced its way into his thoughts.
After ten seconds, the sensation had passed.
‘Translation successful,’ the servitor announced, rather unnecessarily. Had translation not been successful everybody aboard would know about it — or be dead.
‘I–I take it that you are not intending to travel to Terra?’ said Greydove.
‘That would be a waste of time, lieutenant. The Imperium is under threat and a suitable response is required. Honour demands that I continue the battle. I intend to rendezvous with my remaining brothers.’
‘I don’t understand. I was led to believe,’ Greydove dropped his voice to a whisper and glanced cautiously at the other men, ‘in greatest secrecy, that you were the last warrior of the Imperial Fists.’
‘We call it the Last Wall protocol. In the event that Terra should be under grave threat, perhaps even fallen, the sons of Dorn will come together to deal with the matter as one.’
‘But, excuse the question, if you are all dead, who is there to respond?’
‘The Imperial Fists Chapter may have been destroyed, but the old Legion will remember.’
‘The old Legion?’ Greydove was horrified by the concept. ‘But the Legions were broken apart by decree of the Emperor.’
‘Not the Emperor,’ snapped Koorland, more harshly than he had intended. He took a breath. ‘By Imperial decree, yes, but it was not from the lips of the Emperor that the decree came. It matters not. The signal has been sent and I will wait for those who are fit to respond.’
‘But if you are not going to Terra, where are we heading?’
‘The last place our enemies would look for us. A place that lives long in the memory of the Legion. Tell your Navigator to chart a course for the Phall System.’
Nine
After giving the order to translate, Rafal Kulik muttered a few lines of a prayer to the Emperor. He hated this moment, always had. Ever since his first voyage aboard the Furious Pilgrim and that fateful warp jump from Elixis, the process of translating had filled him with a physical sickness and an existential dread.
At least he no longer threw up with each transition. That had been cured by an old recipe from one of the gun captains aboard the Invulnerable Faith, who had taken pity on a poorly young fourth lieutenant he had found evacuating his stomach in the solitude behind the plasma relay dampers. The remnants of an ash-and-ginger biscuit were still sitting in Kulik’s pocket, just in case of a resurgence of the ancient nemesis of nausea.
‘Dear Emperor, please ensure that my ship survives this unnatural voyage, that my crew are delivered from the grip of the warp, and that my soul carries with me into the world of my mother,’ whispered Kulik.
Shaffenbeck was about twenty feet away, ostensibly to keep an eye on the junior officers, but Kulik caught the occasional glance in his direction too. The rest of the watch crew on the bridge knew well enough to give their commander adequate space at this delicate moment.
For his part, Kulik was applying all the will he had not to stare at the transition countdown display, and occupied himself with an intimate inspection of the curlicued decoration of his sword hilt. Meanwhile the depths of his guts churned in anticipation of the shrieking wail of a siren that would warn of a Geller field failure or warp engine malfunction.
Sweat was wetting his over-starched shirt and the soles of his feet were itching — a sure sign that something was going to go wrong.
He barely heard the servitor’s drone conclude the countdown. One moment Kulik was on the bridge of his ship, studying the lines of the basket hilt of his sword, the next moment he was adrift on the void of space, his soul bared to the flare of a billion angry suns, scorching his being from the inside out.
And then they were back in realspace.
Kulik took a long, deep breath, nostrils flaring and eyes wide like a charging bull as he fought back the somersault in his stomach with raw willpower. His hands were balled fists at his side, fingernails digging into flesh.
Finally, the captain let out an explosive breath.
‘Full scan, cycle plasma coils, navigational shields to full power, void shield generators to maximum, targeting grids on full lock. All stations remain at battle readiness!’
The orders were the same every time, issued without effort or thought. Similarly, the watch officers on the bridge, and no doubt the warrant and petty officers in the bowels of the Colossus, were acting even before the words left Kulik’s lips. They had been through the actions enough times on the long rimward patrols that they knew the post-translation drill by heart.
There was a slight cough from Lieutenant Shaffenbeck, and when Kulik looked at his second, the lieutenant shot a glance towards the doors of the bridge. There was another command not so familiar.
‘Oh, and please extend my invitation to Admiral Price to join me on the bridge,’ Kulik added.
As sensor vanes gathered data on the surrounding system, matriculation servitors analysed the information and cross-referenced with their memory stores of the surrounding star field. Saul double-checked the calculations of the lieutenant at helm control — Mathews — and nodded with satisfaction.
‘Confirmed, Vesperilles System. Seventy thousand miles inside the Mandeville point, heading oh-oh-five-seven, inclination thirty-eight.’
‘Captain!’ The sharp call came down from Ensign Daggan assisting Lieutenant Sturmfel at the sensor banks on the level above Kulik. ‘Reading multiple radiation sources, plasma discharge and other ordnance resonance.’
‘Evidence of an engagement,’ said Kulik, striding over to the scanner displays. ‘Boost power, we need more clarity on the full-spectrum scan. Comms, broadcast identifiers and scan battle frequencies.’
Over the following minutes the situation became clearer. Sensor traces showed battle debris and munitions detonations ranging from several hours old to ten days. Residual warp backwash located more than fifty vessels already in-system, but scattered all around the perimeter as they had dropped out of warp space. A cluster of signals almost at right angles to the Colossus’ position on the system plane showed where Admiral Acharya’s fleet was gathering.