James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

'Eisenstein', ventured Sendek, rolling the word over his lips. 'It is a word from an old Terran dialect, of the Jermani. It means "iron-stone". It is fitting.'

Carya nodded. 'Your warrior is correct, Captain Garro. It also shares its name with two noted men from the Age of Terra, one a remembrancer, the other a scientist.'

'Such history for a mere frigate,' Decius opined.

The shipmaster's eyes flashed for an instant. 'With respect, lord, in the Warmaster's military there is no such thing as a mere frigate.'

'Forgive my battle-brother/ said Garro mildly, 'he has grown too comfortable in the spacious bunks aboard the Endurance'.

'A fine ship/ Carya replied. 'We'll do well to match the battle record of so illustrious a vessel.'

Garro smiled slightly. 'We're not here to win acco­lades, shipmaster, just to do our duty' He approached the front of the bridge, where rows of consoles and operator pulpits glowed with the actinic blue of pict-screens. What is our status?'

'At station-keeping/ said Vought. 'The Warmaster's orders were to hold at these co-ordinates until all Astartes were aboard, then await further commands'

The battle-captain nodded. 'I am afraid that we may not be making much history today. Our pri-march has ordered that we maintain orbit here at high anchor and watch for enemy ships that may attempt to escape Isstvan III under cover of the ground assault.'

Garro had barely finished speaking when a bell chime sounded from a shadowed nook off to the star­board side of the bridge. A heavy sound-curtain was bunched up to one side of the dim recess, held open by a thick silver cord. It was a vox hide, an alcove where important communications could be received in relative privacy during combat operations. A gan­gly young officer wearing a complex signalling collar and holding a data-slate in his hand stepped out into the light and snapped to attention. 'Machine-call message, prioris cipher, expedite immediate.' He wavered, looking between Garro and Carya, unsure of who to address. 'Sir?'

The shipmaster offered an open hand. 'Let me have it, Mister Maas.' He glanced at Garro. 'Captain, if you will permit me?'

Nathaniel nodded and watched Carya page quickly through the data. 'Ah/ he said, after a moment. 'It seems Lord Mortarion has decided to make a differ­ent use of us. Vought, bring manoeuvring thrusters to standby'

Garro took the slate as the deck officer carried out her directions. 'Is there a problem?'

'No, sir. New orders.' The shipmaster bent over the helm servitor and began giving out a string of clipped commands.

The data-slate was curt and to the point. Directly from the vox dispatch nexus aboard the Vengeful Spirit, marked with the signet runes of the Death Lord and Horus's equerry Maloghurst, the fresh directives were for Eisenstein to depart from the current naviga­tion point and drop into a lower orbital path.

Like all Astartes of senior rank, Garro had training and experience in starship operations and he fell back into the learning drilled into his mind by hypno-conditioning as he read, figuring the status of the frigate once the new co-ordinates were reached.

He frowned. Typhon had told him that Eisenstein was to act as an interceptor for Isstvanian absconders, but once settled at this new posting, the ship would be too close to the edge of the third planet's atmos­phere to react quickly enough. To function correctly in their assigned role, the frigate had to stay high, giv­ing the gunnery crews time to spot, target and destroy enemy ships. The drop in altitude only narrowed their field of fire. Then he studied the corresponding planetary co-ordinates and his concern deepened. The orbital shift would put the Eisenstein directly over

the Choral City, and Garro was certain that no void-capable craft had been left intact down there.

He handed the slate back to Maas, his frown deep­ening. Had they been carrying drop-pods and Astartes for a second assault wave, then the reasoning behind the orders would have been clear, but the frigate was not configured for those sorts of operations. It was, in the most basic sense, only a gun carriage. Decked with weapons batteries that emerged from her flanks in spiky profusion, Eisenstein's only function when ranged so close to a world was one of stand-off plan­etary bombardment, but such an action seemed unthinkable. After all, Horns had already eschewed Angron's demands to blast the Choral City into ashes at the war council. The Warmaster would surely not change his mind so quickly, and even if he had, there were hundreds of loyal men down there.

Garro became aware that Carya was looking at him. 'Captain? If you have nothing to add, I'm going to execute the orders.'

Garro nodded distantly, feeling an ill-defined chill wash through him. 'Proceed, Master Carya.' The Death Guard stepped closer to the main viewport and stared out through the armourglass. Beneath him, the cloud-swirled sphere of Isstvan III began to drift nearer.

'Something wrong, lord?' Decius spoke in a sub-vocal whisper, below the hearing of the crewmen.

'Yes,' said the battle-captain, and the sudden hon­esty of the admission surprised him. 'But by Terra, I don't know what it is.'

Kaleb shrank deep inside the folds of the ship-robes and moved with care along the edges of the service gantry. Over the years he had become quite adept at being unseen in plain sight and to an outside

observer the housecarl would have resembled noth­ing but a common serf. His badge of fealty to the Death Guard and the Seventh Company was swad­dled beneath the grey material. There was a part of his thoughts that cycled an endless loop of anxious warn­ings against what he was doing, but Kaleb found himself moving forward despite it, going onward.

How had he changed so? What he was doing had to be some sort a criminal act, masquerading as an Eisenstein crewman instead of openly walking with his real identity visible, and yet, he felt filled with the Tightness of his actions. Ever since the Emperor had answered Kaleb's prayers in the infirmary and saved his master Garro, the housecarl had become embold­ened. His orders were coming from a higher power. Perhaps they always had, but only now was he sure of it. The battle-captain had told him to follow the Stormbird's cargo, and he was about it. If it was Garro's wish, then this was the Emperor's work, and Kaleb would be right in doing it.

After the men of the Seventh had left the landing bay, Kaleb had placed himself where he could give directions to the frigate's servitors but also observe the last Stormbird. It had only been a few minutes before one of Grulgor's men had returned to the bay – the boorish one, Mokyr – and drawn off a work gang of serfs to unload the shuttle's cargo. Kaleb watched the heavy steel cubes roll out of the vessel, and then watched the serfs bind them to chain car­riages and shift them towards the aft. The containers were identical: blocks of dull metal scarred and pit­ted from use, detailed with the Imperial aquila and stencilled warning runes in brilliant yellow paint. They could hold anything. From this distance, Kaleb could not read the lading scrolls fixed to the flanks.

He watched with interest as one of the helot teams fumbled and a crate slipped on its moorings, falling a metre before the men caught the slack and stopped it slamming into the deck. Mokyr stormed over to the foreman and backhanded him to the floor. Over the constant noise of the bay, Kaleb could not fathom the words he spoke, but the tone of the Death Guard's ill-temper was obvious.

In a steady train, the crates shifted up and away. Kaleb watched them, hesitating. He had orders to supervise the equipment transfer, yes, but Garro had also demanded information on the nature of the Stormbird's cargo. Kaleb convinced himself that the latter was the more important command.