Dan Abnett - Know no fear. The Battle of Calth

The Word Bearers shimmer. Spontaneous frost crackles out in a circle around their feet, and corposant winds around them. They vanish in a blink of teleport energy.

‘Gage! Gage!’ Guilliman yells.

‘My primarch!’ Gage responds over the vox-link.

‘Kor Phaeron is running. He’s gone from here, teleported out! He’ll have run to his ship.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Just stop him, Marius. Stop him dead, and send him to hell.’

‘My primarch–’

‘Marius Gage, that’s an order.’

‘What about you, sir? We are moving into the yard to recover you.’

‘There are ships docked here,’ Guilliman replies. ‘The Samothrace, a couple of escorts. We’ll board one and be secure enough. Just get after him, Marius. Get after the damned Infidus Imperator.’

The Word Bearers battle-barge Infidus Imperator turns in the debris-rich belt of Calth nearspace, ships dying in flames behind it. It engages its drive and begins a long, hard burn towards the outsystem reaches.

As it accelerates away, raising yield to maximum, the Macragge’s Honour turns in pursuit, its main drives lighting with an equally furious vigour.

It is the beginning of one of the most infamous naval duels in Imperial history.

Fate has twisted, dislocated. Erebus can see that plainly. He does not care, and he is not surprised. Ways change. He knows this. It is one of the first truths the darkness taught him.

Calth is dead. The XIII is crippled and finished. His ritual is complete, and it is entirely successful. The Ruinstorm rises, a warp-storm beyond anything space-faring humanity has witnessed since the Age of Strife. It will split the void asunder. It will divide the galaxy in two. It will render vast tracts of the Imperium impassable for centuries.

It will isolate and trap forces loyal to the Emperor. It will divide them, and block their attempts to combine and support one another. It will shatter communication and chains of contact. It will even prevent them from warning each other of the heretical war breaking across their realm. The Ruinstorm will cripple the loyalists, and leave Terra raw and alone, infinitely vulnerable to the approaching shadow of Horus.

But... somehow the enemy salvaged something. They were defeated from the very start, and they remained defeated throughout, and in the aftermath, the Word Bearers can salt the XIII’s scattered bones. Yet they won something back. Some measure of retribution. Some degree of pride. They did not yield, and they forced a surprising price for their lives.

Erebus is sorry to leave any of them alive. They say you should always kill them. Ultramarines. If you make one your enemy, do not allow him to live. Do not spare him. Leave an Ultramarine alive, and you leave room for retribution. Only when he is dead are you safe from harm. That is what they say.

They are fine words. The proud boast of an unfailingly arrogant Legion. They mean little. The Ultramarines are done. Calth has gutted them. They will never more be a force to be reckoned with.

Horus no longer has to worry about the threat of the XIII.

The poison light of the sun falls across the Satric Plateau. Erebus basks in it. He raises his hands. The daemons sing in adulation.

The Dark Apostle feels the rising winds of the Ruinstorm snatching at his cloak. He is finished here. He has carried out the duty that was entrusted to him by Lorgar. It is time for his departure.

Reality has worn thin at the edge of the black stone circle, thin like bleached and ancient cloth. Erebus takes out his own ornate athame dagger, and cuts a slit in the material fabric of the universe.

He steps through.

Guilliman watches the rising storm from the bridge of the Samothrace, a replacement command crew at the control stations. Every reliable authority says it will be the worst in living memory.

‘We must translate from the system, my primarch,’ says the shipmaster. ‘The fleet must exit before we are swept away.’

Guilliman nods. He understands the imperative. If nothing else, firm and clear warnings of the daemonic threat must be conveyed to the Imperial core sectors, and to the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar.

‘There are still hundreds of thousands down there,’ he says to Thiel, looking at scans of the ravaged planet.

‘We extracted as many as we could, with whatever ships we had, sir,’ Thiel replies. ‘Further evacuation is now impossible.’

‘What about the rest?’ Guilliman asks.

‘They are fleeing to the arcologies,’ Thiel says. ‘There is a good chance that the subterranean hab systems and catacombs will protect them from the effect of the solar radiation. They may be able to ride out the storm until such time as we can return with a Legion fleet to evacuate them.’

‘That could be years.’

‘It could,’ agrees Thiel.

‘If ever.’

‘At worst, years,’ says Thiel. ‘We will return. They will be saved.’

Guilliman nods.

‘You’ll excuse my mood, Thiel. I have lost a world of Ultramar. I have lost... too much. You are not seeing the best of me.’

‘Theoretical,’ replies Thiel. ‘The reverse of that statement is true.’

Guilliman snorts. His face is grey with lingering pain.

‘Anything from Gage?’

‘Nothing, sir.’

‘And of the forces we extracted, was Ventanus among them?’

‘No, sir,’ replies Thiel. ‘He was not.’

Ventanus takes the vox-horn.

‘This is Ventanus, Captain, 4th,’ he begins. ‘I am making an emergency broadcast on the global vox-cast setting. The surface of Calth is no longer a safe environment. The local star is suffering a flare trauma, and will shortly irradiate Calth to human-lethal levels. It is no longer possible to evacuate the planet. Therefore, if you are a citizen, a member of the Imperial Army, a legionary of the XIII, or any other loyal servant of the Imperium, move with all haste to the arcology or arcology system closest to you. The arcology systems may offer sufficient protection to allow us to survive this solar event. We will shelter there until further notice. Do not hesitate. Move directly to the nearest arcology. Arcology location and access information will be appended to this repeat broadcast as a code file. In the name of the Imperium, make haste. Message ends.’

He lowers the device and looks at Tawren.

‘I have set it to repeat transmit,’ she says.

‘Then we must go. There is very little time, server. Disengage from the data-engine.’

‘I do not know about these caves,’ she says. ‘I think it will be unpleasant down there.’

‘Not as unpleasant as it will be on the surface,’ says Selaton.

‘This is not a discussion,’ says Ventanus. ‘It is not an elective matter. We are retreating to the arcologies. We will endure there. End of debate.’

‘I understand,’ she says. ‘You realise that enemy strengths left on the planet will flee underground too?’

‘I do,’ says Ventanus.

‘So what do we do?’ asks Tawren.

‘We keep fighting,’ Ventanus tells her. ‘That’s what we always do.’

The world has never seemed so dark. It is impossible to tell where the rolling blackness of the sea ends and the twisted darkness of the sky begins.

Only the star remains, poisonous and fierce, like a baleful eye, gleaming through the smoke and fog.

They ground the skiff off a shingle beach and come ashore. Oll checks his compass. They start trudging up the beach, heading inland.