Chapter 13

  The smoke that rose from the landing zone was black and greasy, the final, profane eulogy for the Thunderhawks. Captain Mikael Fabian stood before the wreckage, his helmet held under his arm, the toxic wind doing little to cool his grim features. The gunships were not merely damaged; they were annihilated. Their ceramite hulls were peeled open like grotesque metal flowers, their engines slagged, their cockpits melted into crystalline pools of fused plasteel and gore. This was not the work of artillery. This was sabotage. Precise. Malicious.

  Around him stood the remnants of his command. Sergeant Chronus, his face a mask of stone, represented the stoic, unbreakable will of the Astartes. Beside him was Magos Dominus Vettius Thrax of the Adeptus Mechanicus, his red robes stained with dirt, his optical sensors flickering as they catalogued the sheer scale of the technological loss. Finally, there was Lord-Navigator Valerius, a gaunt man whose third eye was squeezed shut in horror, representing the now-stranded Imperial Navy personnel.

  “They were guarded,” Chronus stated, his voice a low rumble. “Two full tactical squads. They reported nothing, saw nothing.”

  “That is because there was nothing to see,” Fabian said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. He turned from the wreckage to face his council. “I have received final, fragmented astropathic signals, relayed through the fleet’s few surviving vox-casters before they were silenced.”

  A faint hope crossed the Navigator’s face, only to be extinguished by Fabian’s next words.

  “The fleet is gone. All vessels are reported either destroyed or captured. Before the ‘Blade of Vengeance’ fell, its astropath sent a single, blind message towards Segmentum Command.” He paused, letting the weight of the statement settle. “The message contained five words: ‘Third Company defeated. All is lost.’”

  Magos Thrax made a sound like grinding gears. “A message of such finality will not precipitate a swift response. We will be triaged as a complete asset loss. Help may not come for years. If ever.”

  “Correct, Magos,” Fabian said. “We are alone.”

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  He then looked to Valerius. “The Orks did not execute all who surrendered. The crews and legionaries of the fleet were allowed to evacuate. Their escape pods are landing even now.”

  Valerius stared, aghast. “A gesture of honour? From such beasts?”

  “Not honour,” Fabian countered, a cold light in his eyes. “Strategy. The pods containing you, your fellow officers, and the rest of the command staff were launched with unerring accuracy towards this position. The rest—tens of thousands of armsmen, ratings, and servitors—have been scattered across the globe. The Warboss has burdened us with the very leaders we need to save, and scattered the soldiers we would need to save them.”

  The cunning was staggering. A logistical and moral nightmare, delivered with a parting shot of contempt.

  “How?” Chronus asked, his gaze returning to the obliterated gunships. “How did they accomplish this?”

  “Psykers,” Fabian answered, the word tasting like ash. “The scattered reports from the survivors speak of Orks that shimmered, that vanished from sight only to reappear elsewhere. They did not fight their way through our guards; they simply walked past them, unseen, and planted their explosives. Illusions. Psychic trickery.”

  He let the silence hang for a moment, a testament to their underestimation of the foe. They had prepared for a hammer blow and had been dismantled by a scalpel.

  “The 3rd Company is at forty-seven percent operational strength,” Fabian stated, his voice now the cold, hard instrument of a commander assuming his final duty. “We have lost more than half our number, including the bulk of our 1st and 2nd squads. Most of our veterans are gone.”

  He looked from man to man, his gaze unwavering. “Our situation is this: We are stranded on a hostile world governed by a Warboss of unprecedented tactical acumen. He commands a population that numbers in the millions. We are tasked with protecting what little remains of our command structure, and are morally bound to attempt the rescue of thousands of scattered survivors. The mission you were briefed for is over. The war for this planet has been lost.”

  He took a breath. “So, we will begin a new one. We will fortify this forge. We will consolidate our forces and gather the survivors closest to us. We will begin surgical rescue missions. Our ultimate objective is no longer to merely slay a Warboss or destroy a shield generator. It is the conquest of this world. We will take it from them, piece by bloody piece, or we will die in the attempt.”

  Magos Thrax’s optical lens whirred. The Navigator stared as if Fabian had pronounced their death sentence. Sergeant Chronus, however, simply nodded, his hand resting on the pommel of his combat knife. It was a death mission, they all knew it. But they were warriors of Ultramar. There were no other options.