James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

Garro bent over the control dais and unwrapped the cloth bundle he had brought with him. In it were a dozen thin slips of paper dense with writing in a quick, forceful hand. The battle-captain handed one to everybody in the observatorium, including Carya and Vought.

The woman frowned at the piece of parchment. 'What is this?'

'An oath of moment,' said Decius. 'We will swear our duty upon it.'

Garro opened his mouth to speak, but the clang of the hatch stilled his tongue. The communications officer blundered headlong into the observatorium and skidded to a halt, mouth agape at the clandestine meeting he had interrupted.

'Maas!' bellowed Carya. 'For Terra's sake, man! Knock before you enter!'

'Your pardon, sir/ puffed the vox operator, 'but this priority signal came in for Commander Grulgor's eyes only. He doesn't answer-'

Carya snatched a data-slate from him and paled as he scanned it. He read aloud. 'It's from Typhon on the Ter­minus Est. Message reads: Weapons free, bombardment to commence imminently. Permission granted to ter­minate any and all impediments to operation.'

All eyes turned to Garro. The subtext of the message was clear. Typhon was handing Grulgor the authority to kill Garro and his men. He held up the paper. 'The oath, then,' he rumbled, pausing to take a breath. 'Do you accept your role in this? Will you dedicate yourself to the safe carriage of the warning to Terra, no matter what forces are ranged against us? Do you pledge to do honour to the XIV Legion and the Emperor?' The cap­tain drew Libertas and held the sword point down.

Hakur was the first to place his hand upon the blade. 'By this matter and this weapon, I so swear.' One by one, the Astartes followed suit, with Decius the last. Then Carya and Vought gave the vow as well, as Maas looked on wide-eyed.

As they filed from the chamber, Decius caught his commander's arm. 'Fine words/ he said, 'but who was there to act as witness to them?'

Garro pointed out at the stars. 'The Emperor.'

NINE

A Prayer

Rain of Death

Refugees

Hewas alone in the barracks compartment. hakur and the others were out about the ship, executing his orders to take Eisenstein under their complete control. Distantly, Garro thought he heard the faint echoes of bolter reports, and his lips thinned. There was only a handful of Grulgor's men still at large on board the frigate. Like his Seventh Company, the majority of the late commander's Second was scattered elsewhere about the fleet, with only a few squads here to oppose Garro's plans. Carya's willing agreement to take the oath of moment had cemented his trust in the ship­master, and through him he had control of the bridge officers. He had no doubt there would be malcon­tents among the naval ratings, but they would quickly fall into line when the Astartes gave them orders, and if they refused, they would not live for long.

By rights he should have been out there doing the job of securing the ship himself, but the thundering

churn of emotion inside him was making it hard for Garro to concentrate. He needed a moment with his own counsel, to centre himself in the face of the events that had been set in motion.

Over and over he thought of the men he had fought alongside in the hosts of the Death Guard and won­dered how and why they could turn their faces from the Emperor. For the most part, his brothers were good and honourable men, and Garro thought he knew the colour of their hearts, but now he doubted that certainty. The awful realisation of it was, not that his kinsmen were ready to shake off the Emperor's commands and embrace treachery, but that most of them were merely weapons. They would not pause when orders came to them, even if those orders were beyond their comprehension.

It was the lot of an Astartes simply to do, not to question, and he felt damned by the understanding that Horus would play that unswerving allegiance to his bitter ends. He had considered briefly the idea of opening up all of Eisenstein's vox transmitters to max­imum power and broadcasting the truth of the treachery across the entire 63rd Fleet. There were noble men out there, he was sure of it, warriors like Loken and Torgaddon in the Warmaster's own Legion, and Varren of the World Eaters… If only he could contact them, save their lives; but to do so would have meant suicide for everyone on the frigate.

Every minute they kept their silence was a minute more for Garro to plan an escape with the warning. Kinsmen like Loken and the others would have to find their own path through this nightmare. The mes­sage was far more important than the lives of a handful of Astartes. Garro only hoped that once his mission had been fulfilled he might see them again,

either back on Terra at the end of their own escape or here once more with a reprisal fleet at his back. For now, those men were on their own, as were Garro and his warriors.

The battle-captain crossed to the arming alcove that Kaleb had set aside for him, seeing the eagle cuirass mounted there on a stand. It was polished and per­fect, as if the armour had come from a museum and not been battered in combat less than a week ago. He laid a hand on the cool ceramite and allowed himself to feel his full regret at the housecarl's death. 'You died well, Kaleb Arin,' he told the air, 'you did honour to the Death Guard and to the Seventh.' Garro wished mat he could promise the man's memory some form of tribute. He wanted to place the serfs name upon the Wall of Memory on Barbarus, give him the credit as if he had been a full-fledged battle-brother, but that would not happen, not now. Garro doubted that he would ever see the dank skies of the Death Guard's home world again, not after the events at Isstvan. Kaleb's spirit would have to be content with the esteem of his master.

Garro's lip curled. 'Here I am, thinking of spirits, talking to myself in an empty room.' He shook his head. 'What is happening to me?'

Next to the cuirass, a bolter lay upon a folded green clouh, and like the armour it too was pristine and unblemished, fresh from the Legion artificers. Garro took off a gauntlet and ran his fingers over the slab-sided breach. The weapon was deep with etchings in High Gothic script, combat honours and battle records listed along the length of it. There were names imprinted here and there, lined in dark emerald ink, each the name of a battle-brother who had carried the gun into war, and perished with it on them. Garro's

weapon had been lost to him on Isstvan Extremis, destroyed by the brutal sonic attack of the Warsinger. Nothing but shattered, brittle metal had been left. This bolter, then, was to be his new sidearm, and it was with bittersweet pride he took it up and held it to parade ready. A new name glittered on the frame: Pyr Rahl. Thank you, brother,' whispered Garro, 'I will take a dozen foes with it in your name.'

As was the way of the Astartes, Rahl's wargear was salvaged and what could remain in use to the XIV Legion did so. In this manner, the Astartes kept the memories of their dead kinsmen alive long after they had perished. Garro's eyes fell to find a carry-sack made of roughly woven fabric, lying forgotten in the corner of the alcove. He dropped into a crouch and took it up.

Kaleb's belongings. He sighed. When an Astartes died, there was always a brother ready to gather up the meagre possessions he might have left behind and see to them, but there were no provisions for a simple housecarl. Garro felt an unfamiliar kind of sorrow over Kaleb's passing. It wasn't the hard fury he had for the death of Rahl or the hundreds of others he had witnessed. Only now that Kaleb was gone, did Garro understand how much he had valued the little man, as a sounding board, as a servant, as a comrade. For a moment the captain considered ditching the sack in the nearest ejector chute and making an end of it, but that would have been ignoble. Instead, with a gentleness belied by his large, heavy hands, Garro traced through Kaleb's effects: utility blades and armoury tools, some changes of clothing, a trinket made from a bolter shell…