[Rogue Trader 02] - Star of Damocles Read online

  Lucian grunted and put the fool out of his mind. He resumed his passage down the curved, stark white corridor of the tau orbital station, the armoured door rolling into the wall in near silence as he approached it.

  Beyond the round portal, Lucian could make out the huge hall that the crusade council had commandeered for its latest session. The circular chamber, its ceiling entirely illuminated and glowing white, was home to a round conference table capable of seating two dozen and more delegates in the high-backed, shell-like seats mounted around it. The far wall was one sweeping window, affording an impressive view of the purple landmasses and turquoise seas of the world around which the station orbited.

  As curious and attentive as Lucian was to such matters, however, the primary focus of his attention were the figures filing in to the chamber from a dozen other portals. The crusade council was made up of some of the most influential men on the Eastern Rim, each attended by a flock of scribes, servants and functionaries of indeterminate purpose.

  Lucian stepped through the portal, unaccustomed to the stark white light illuminating the scene. The chamber, he was informed, had been the meeting place of the high council of the tau rulers of this place until mere hours before. A wide bloodstain smeared across the centre of the table attested to the fact that the station’s previous owners had not relinquished it willingly. Lucian appreciated the theatrical conceit inherent in holding the council in such a place. He strongly suspected, in fact that whoever had decided upon doing so had ordered that the bloodstain remain in place, only to be washed away once its message had been well and truly imparted.

  The drop-pod’s assault ramps burst open on explosive bolts the instant the vessel struck the ground, its ten passengers disembarking with a clatter of armoured soles before its drives had even shut off. Sarik looked around, comparing the scene that greeted him with the tactical display overlaid on his vision by his helmet’s systems.

  “Squad!” he bellowed over the scream of more incoming drop pods. “To me!”

  Sarik scanned the landing zone as his cohorts took up position around him. Each Space Marine was a giant, his enhanced physique far taller and broader than any normal man. Each wore a suit of all-enclosing armour, capable of withstanding the harshest of environments and of protecting him from the fiercest of enemy fire. That armour was painted the white with red trim of the White Scars Chapter of Space Marines, the wild, proud sons of Jaghatai Khan, children of the feral nomads of Chogoris, and one of the most celebrated and feared Chapters in the Imperium.

  The scene before Sarik and his squad was one he had witnessed many times before. He gave silent thanks to the war spirit of the drop-pod for delivering them safely through the world’s atmosphere, to this place in which he would serve the Emperor, and if called upon to do so, die in his service.

  The landing zone was atop a high plateau, a flat expanse between two spurs of the world’s largest mountain range. The air was cold and clean, and low clouds scudded across the contrail streaked sky. The ground underfoot was rough and uneven, strewn with loose boulders, but of no hindrance to a Space Marine. It had been selected for one reason and one reason only: it was the site of the world’s alien government, the single organ that, if excised, would spell the immediate death of the entire body. The Space Marines were the Imperium’s terror troops. Their mission was to strike at the very heart of the Imperium’s enemies, to rip that still-beating heart out, without mercy or delay, and in so doing to slay the enemy utterly, that none might rise in his place ever again.

  “Objective Primus, five hundred, fifteen east, moonrise. On me!” Sarik used the battle-cant of his Chapter, a series of clipped commands that his men understood without hesitation, but which any enemy able to intercept them would find entirely unintelligible. Sarik advanced, his men formed behind according to his orders. All eyes were fixed on their objective, a fortified building at the very edge of the plateau, melded into the nearest of the mountain peaks. Surface-to-orbit missiles streaked upwards from automated turrets atop the fort, while bright tracers spat incandescent death across the plateau. Sarik heard the ultra-high velocity rounds sing as they split the air nearby. He looked into the skies, to see more drop-pods descending upon columns of fire, retro thrusters screaming. Soon the squads of the Iron Hands and the other Chapters would join his own, but for now, he thought with a feral grin, the White Scars were at the very spear tip of the assault on Sy’l’Kell.

  “Sons of Khan!” he bellowed, unashamed of the joy and pride audible in his voice. “Let us show our brothers how the White Scars fight!”

  “I declare!” Lucian winced as the cardinal’s booming voice filled the chamber, “Our mission here anointed by the Most Holy God Emperor of Mankind! The Damocles Gulf shall be crossed, the darkness pierced! So it has been decreed, and so it falls to us to enact!”

  The Cardinal of Brimlock, Esau Gurney, had risen from his seat to pronounce the council in session. Lucian knew that he would proceed in such a manner for long minutes, declaring the benefaction of the Emperor upon the crusade’s undertaking. He would make it abundantly clear, much to Lucian’s chagrin, that it was through the cardinal’s own authority that such benefactions were granted.

  Lucian sighed inwardly and glanced around the table, the cardinal’s words receding into the distance. He had heard the exact same speech on at least a dozen occasions now, Gurney’s ranting tone growing more and more strident each time the council had sat.

  The cardinal was placed directly across the huge, round table from Lucian, a flock of scribes and minor Ecclesiarchy officials clustered behind him. Those that were not engaged in recording their master’s every word in spidery script across flowing parchment seemed intent upon producing a bank of cloying holy incense from wildly swinging burners. Such displays were not in Lucian’s nature; he had been reared an Emperor fearing man, but placed little value in such ceremony. The Emperor, Lucian believed, helped those who helped themselves, ignoring those undeserving of his attentions.

  To the cardinal’s left sat a man for whom Lucian had far more respect. The hooded figure appeared capable of finding a shadowy space even below the direct lighting cast by the brightly illuminated ceiling above. This was Inquisitor Grand, an agent of the Ordo Xenos and no doubt the single most dangerous man in the entire crusade fleet. The inquisitor, for reasons Lucian had not yet determined, had chosen to ally himself with the cardinal. He preferred, it seemed to Lucian, to remain, literally, in the shadows. The man sat at council, casting his vote with the rest of the cardinal’s faction, but rarely made any overt show of power. Such a man was to be watched closely, Lucian had determined, and watch him he most certainly would.

  Looking to the inquisitor’s left, Lucian exchanged a glance with General Wendall Gauge. A hard, battle-worn man from the death world of Catachan, Gauge had been appointed the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Guard regiments assigned to the crusade. Lucian considered him a sound choice, and had liked the taciturn old veteran the instant they had met, mere weeks after the pronouncement of the crusade. The General had until recently been serving as adjutant to the noted Lord Marshall Holt in his prosecution of the Wendigo Gulf rebellion, but had, he told Lucian, grown tired of the so-called “great man’s” shadow. He had not expounded further, but upon hearing of the founding of the crusade, had exerted considerable influence to gain his rank.

  Lucian saw in Gauge a potential ally on the council, through whom he might gain power over the cardinal and his faction, though he knew he had a long way to go before he could bring such power to bear.

  His mind brought back to the cardinal, Lucian focused once more on the stream of oratory that Gurney was spewing across the table.

  “To us falls the most holy task of eradicating these foul xenos beasts, of putting down the heresy of their existence. We who pledge allegiance…” The rant went on, Lucian deciding it was safe to ignore the man once more. He regarded the figure next to the general.

  Admiral Jellaqua appeared to be in hi
s early fifties, but must have been far older given his rank as commander of the Imperial Navy vessels assigned to the Damocles Gulf crusade. He was stout with a broad chest; a goatee beard and sly eyes his most striking features. Like the general, Lucian saw the admiral as a potential ally, one he would have to work hard to court, but a man whose aid would no doubt prove invaluable in the conflict to come, against the tau and the cardinal both. Jellaqua was a man who brooked no nonsense or affectation from any around him, whether subordinate or peer.

  As the cardinal’s address droned on, Lucian’s glance passed to the empty seat to the admiral’s left and his own right. It was the position in which Captain Rumann of the Iron Hands Space Marines would ordinarily have sat. Lucian had never before encountered the brethren of that chapter, though he knew them to be cold and methodical in their approach to war, and to bear an unusual amount of cybernetic enhancement. Rumann was absent, leading the Space Marine forces as they assaulted the tau centres of power on the world below, fighting and no doubt shedding their blood even as the council sat and the cardinal ranted. The crusade force was fortunate to be attended by detachments from a number of Space Marine Chapters, and the captain of the Iron Hands had been elected by his peers to represent their interests on the crusade council, and was as such the most senior ranked Space Marine in the fleet. Rumann was a man the like of whom Lucian had seldom met. He was as aloof as any other Space Marine, but far colder and more distant than any Lucian had encountered. He really could not tell whether Rumann might prove a sturdy ally or a terrible enemy, or even whether the Space Marine had any awareness or concern of such matters. Lucian determined to pursue the matter further at the first opportunity.

  To Lucian’s left was an empty seat that belonged to the second Space Marine on the council, also absent, leading his forces in battle on the world below. Veteran Sergeant Sarik of the White Scars Chapter had been elected Rumann’s second, and in Lucian’s opinion provided the perfect counterpoint to the taciturn captain. In common with his kin, Sarik was hot-blooded and wild, yet surly and stubborn in the pursuit of victory. The White Scars hailed from the windswept steppes of the feral world of Chogoris. He preferred not to dwell on the savage beauty of that world, for it was the place that had given birth to his first wife, and the world upon which Brielle had been raised amongst the ruling classes of that race of noble savages. He cast the memory aside as quickly as it came to him, glancing instead to the next seat along.

  Here sat the Magos Explorator Jaakho, a hooded figure whose face was almost entirely lost to a hissing cluster of pipes and cables, his eyes only barely visible as red-lit, cybernetic discs glowing from the depths of the explorator’s hood. Jaakho was the fleet’s most senior member of the Cult Mechanicus, the brotherhood of the Machine God, disciples and prophets of the innermost mysteries of technomancy and psience. It fell to the Magos to direct the crusade in its encounters with the technologies of the foe, to identify what might be exploited, and to combat that which must be resisted and destroyed. Lucian saw in Jaakho’s position a potential ally, for the tech-priest’s stance must surely be the opposite of the cardinals. Where Gurney preached that the tau and all their works must be ground to dust, reviled as unholy anathema, the Magos might look to exploit or to study new technologies discovered along the way. If such a possibility existed, Lucian determined that he would exploit it. Then he moved on, glancing to the next man at the table.

  At Jaakho’s left hand was Pator Sedicae, the most senior Navigator in the crusade, and the man ultimately responsible for the safety of the entire fleet. In common with many Navigators of his age and rank, Sedicae suffered from the genetic curse of his strain. The Navigators were a unique strand of humanity, gifted with the witch-sight that allowed them to see the ebb and flow of the tides of the warp, through which they guided their vessels, navigating by the ever-constant light of the Astronomican on distant Terra. As each grew older, and more powerful, he was afflicted with terrible mutations, often causing him to retire from public view and devote himself entirely to his task from the lonely sanctuary of his navigation blister. Sedicae was quite unique in Lucian’s experience, for his curse had not caused him to retire, though some would prefer that it had. Sedicae’s skin was disturbingly translucent, his blood vessels, muscles, bone and pulsing organs plainly visible. The effect was ghastly, but it in no way impeded the Navigator in his duties, and so he went about his business, sitting on the crusade council and representing the interests of the other Navigators serving the fleet where a compatriot of a like age might be rendered unable to do so by the extent of his mutation. Lucian found the man hard to read, no doubt, he mused, due to the rigorous defences the Navigator, by necessity, surrounded himself with when traversing the daemon haunted depths of the warp.

  To Sedicae’s left sat a man for whom Lucian had felt a deep, abiding dislike the instant they had been introduced at the outset of the crusade. Praefect Maximus Skissor of the Adeptus Terra was a tall, hawkish man, whose haughty nature had infuriated Lucian from the off. Skissor was tasked with the political governance of the crusade, of overseeing the installation of new planetary governments, and of coordinating the crusade’s efforts with the strategic concerns of the entire Ultima Segmentum. To Lucian, Skissor was a man promoted way above his abilities, due no doubt to some debt owed him by a compatriot, called in to buy him a seat on the council and to make his name along the way. Lucian had no problem with ambition, he welcomed it in the right sort of man, but here was ambition entirely divorced of potential, and Lucian had seen much death and destruction brought about by such a combination. He had already decided that when Skissor fell, for fall Lucian knew he would, he would not take any of the Arcadius with him. Lastly, to Gumey’s right sat Logistician-General Stempf of the Departmento Munitorum. If Lucian disliked Praefect Maximus Skissor, he positively loathed Stempf. The task of organising the crusade’s logistics, of ensuring its supplies of ammunition, fuel, foodstuffs and a thousand other items would never ran out, fell to the logistician-general. He was, Lucian believed, the worst possible crossbreed of autocrat and accountant, politician and statistician, warmonger and profiteer. Lucian’s dislike of such men was bred into his line since the time of Maxim Gerrit, the ancient ancestor upon whose legacy the entire Arcadius dynasty was built. Well, Lucian thought, old Maxim would turn in his icy grave at the thought of an Arcadius having dealings with such a man, and as such, Lucian would have nothing to do with the logistician-general. He suspected that the man would throw his lot in with the cardinal anyway, and had long since written him off as a source of support.

  “…should pledge his unconditional support in this matter,” Gurney was saying as Lucian turned his attention back to the cardinal’s ranting. He became aware that an unusual silence had settled upon the council, and that each member was looking in Lucian’s direction.

  “You will, of course, support us in this matter?” said the cardinal, directly to Lucian.

  His mind racing, Lucian cursed himself for a fool. He had let his mind wander whilst the cardinal ranted, and had missed some important point on which Gurney sought to entrap him. He heard a soft cough from behind him, and subtly turned his glance towards Kor-vane, who sat at one of the many seats arranged around the outer circumference of the chamber. With the slightest shake of his head, Lucian’s son told him all he needed to know.

  “I advise caution in this matter,” said Lucian, fully aware how glib his answer must sound, but determined not to allow the cardinal to win any victory over him, no matter how minor.

  “Caution?” retorted the cardinal, sitting himself down and exchanging a silent glance with the inquisitor at his side. “You would cast doubt upon the divine right of mankind to rule this region? You would suggest that these xenos filth enjoy a higher place in the holy order of existence than we do?”

  So that was his game. Lucian saw then the point the cardinal was trying to push through the council.

  “My dear cardinal,” Lucian replied, warming to the co
nfrontation now that he had the measure of his opponent. “I have travelled from one end of the Emperor’s Domains to the other. I have travelled far beyond of the realm of the Imperium. Though I have encountered many and various civilised xenos races, I have yet to discover one that is not of more value to us alive than dead.”

  A murmur rippled around the table, some councillors evidently agreeing with Lucian’s statement, others disagreeing and others still uttering noncommittal niceties. Within scant seconds, Lucian saw a new balance of power form, perhaps one that would ultimately shift the council in his favour. He saw that Jellaqua and Gauge agreed with his position; the tau should not be wiped out indiscriminately, but should be conquered for the benefit of the Imperium of Man.

  Lucian’s position on this matter was the product of his unique upbringing. As a rule, humanity was jealous of the galaxy’s other races, for most were dire threats to the continued existence of the human race, and besides, felt that theirs was the right to rale the galaxy and not man’s. Rogue traders, however, were unusual in that it was their duty to go out in to the dark places beyond human controlled space and to exploit what they encountered. In some cases this meant trading with alien races rather than destroying them outright. Rogue traders often held the view that not all xenos should be exterminated on first contact, a view at odds with the teachings of the Imperial Creed, the dogma the cardinal held as sacrosanct.

  “What use to let them live?” asked the cardinal, now addressing the entire council. “What use their continued existence? What might they teach us? What might they provide us?”