James Swallow - Nemesis

An indicator rune on the control console flared green; Ultio had been sent a lineof-

sight signal from the drive unit. Out there in the wreckage-strewn orbits, the drive

module was awakening, stealthily turning power to its warp engine and sublight

drives. In moments, the astropath and Navigator on board would be roused from their

sense-dep slumber. The Ultio’s descent module needed only to cross the space to the

other section of the ship and dock; then, reunited, the vessel could run for the void

and the escape of the immaterium.

Kell leaned forwards to stare out of the canopy. The only flaw in that otherwise

simple plan was the gathering of warships between the guncutter and the drive

module.

An armada barred his way. Starships the size of a metropolis crested with great

knife-shaped bows, blocks of hideously beweaponed metal like the heads of godhammers,

each one detailed in shining steel and gold. Each with the device of an

opened, baleful eye about them, glaring ready hate into the dark.

At the centre of the fleet, a behemoth. Kell recognised the lines of a uniquely

lethal vessel. A battle-barge of magnificent, gargantuan proportions haloed by clouds

of fighter escorts; the Vengeful Spirit, flagship of the Warmaster Horus Lupercal.

“Pilot,” he said, his voice husky with the pain, “put us on an intercept heading

with the command ship. Put all available power to the aura cloak.”

The cyborg helmsman clicked and whirred. “Increased aura cloak use will result

in loss of void shield potentiality.”

He glared at the visible parts of the pilot’s near-human face, peering from the

command podium. “If they can’t see us, they can’t hit us.”

“They will hit us,” it replied flatly. “Intercept vector places Ultio in high-threat

quadrant. Multiple enemy weapon arcs.”

242

“Just do as I say!” Kell shouted, and he winced at the jag of pain it caused him.

“And open a link to the Navigator.”

“Complying.” The Vindicare thought he heard a note of grievance in the reply as

the guncutter turned, putting its bow on the Vengeful Spirit. The sensors were

showing the first curious returns from the picket ships in Horus’ fleet. They were

sweeping the area for a trace, uncertain if their scry-sensors had seen something; but

the Ultio’s aura cloak was generations ahead of common Naval technology. They

would be inside the fleet’s inner perimeter before anyone on the picket vessels could

properly interpret what they had seen.

Another rune on the console glowed; a vox channel was open between the

forward module and the drive section. Kell spoke quickly, fearful that the

transmission would undo all the work of the cloak if left active a second too long.

“This is Kell. Stand by to receive encoded burst transmission. Release only on Omnis

Octal authority.” He took a shaky breath. “New orders supersede all prior commands.

Protocol Perditus. Expedite immediate. Repeat, go to Protocol Perditus.”

It seemed like long, long seconds before the Navigator’s whispering, papery

voice returned through the speaker grille. “This will be difficult,” it said, “but the

attempt will be made.” Kell reached for the panel to cut the channel just as the

Navigator spoke again. “Good luck, assassin.”

The rune went dark, and Kell’s hand dropped.

Beyond the canopy, laser fire probed the sky around the ship, and ahead the

battle-barge grew to blot out the darkness.

* * *

Close-range lascannons on the hull of the drive module blew apart the paper-thin

sheath of metals hiding the aft section of the ship, and the Ultio’s drive section

blasted free of the station wreck in a pulse of detonation. Fusion motors unleashed

the tiny suns at their cores and pushed the craft away, climbing the acceleration curve

in a glitter of void shields and displaced energy. In moments, the vessel was rising

towards one-quarter lightspeed.

Picket ships on the far side of the Warmaster’s fleet, ex-Imperial Navy frigates

and destroyers crewed only by human officers, saw it running and opened fire. Most

of the ships belonging to the Dagoneti had been obliterated over the past few hours,

and the stragglers had either been forced down to the surface or cut in two by their

beam lances.

Targeting solutions on the odd craft that had suddenly appeared on their

holoscopes behaved unexpectedly, however. Weapon locks drifted off it, unable to

find a true. Scans gave conflicting readings; the ship was monstrously over-powered

for something of its tonnage; it seemed unmanned, and then it seemed not. And

strangest of all, the glimmer of a building warp signature built up around its flanks

the further it strayed away from the gravity shadow of the planet, racing for the jump

point.Warships dropped out of formation, and powered after it, following the

unidentified craft up and out of the plane of the Dagonet system’s ecliptic. They

would never catch it.

243

Alone now on their headless beast of a vessel, the Ultio’s Navigator and astropath

communed with one another in a manner most uncommon for their respective kinds;

with words.

And what they shared was an understanding of mutual purpose. Protocol

Perditus. A coded command string known to them both, to which there was only one

response. They were to leave their area of operation on immediate receipt of such an

order and follow a pre-set series of warp space translations. They would not stop

until they lay under the light of Sol. The mission was over, abandoned.

Weapons fire haloed the space around the ship as it plunged towards the onset of

critical momentum, the first vestiges of a warp gate forming in the void ahead.

The blood continued to stream from Erebus’ nostrils as he shoved his way out of the

elevator car and through the cluster of helots waiting on the command deck. The

fluid matted his beard and he grimaced, drawing a rough hand across his face. The

psychic shock was fading, mercifully, but for a brief while it had felt as if it would

cut him open.

There, in his chambers aboard the flagship, meditating in the gloom over his

spodomancy and mambila divination, he attempted to find an answer. The eightfold

paths were confused, and he could not see their endpoints. Almost from the moment

they had arrived in the Dagonet system, Erebus had been certain that something was

awry.

His careful plans, the works he had conceived under the guidance of the Great

Ones, normally so clear to him, were fouled by a shadow he could not source. It

perturbed him, and to a degree undeserving of such emotion. This was only a small

eddy in the long scheme, after all. This planet, this action, a minor diversion from the

pre-ordained works of the great theatre.

And yet Horus Lupercal was doing such a thing more and more. Oh, he followed

where Erebus led, that was certain, but he did it less quickly than he had at first. The

Warmaster’s head was being turned and he was willful with it. At times, the Word

Bearer allowed himself to wonder; was the master of the rebels listening to other

voices than he?

Not to dwell, though. This was to be expected. Horus was a primarch. One could

no more hope to shackle one down and command him than a person might saddle an