[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour Read online

  A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

  EXECUTION HOUR

  Battlefleet Gothic - 01

  Gordon Rennie

  (An Undead Scan v1.0)

  It is to our eternal regret that, whilst many previous—and, dare I say, less academically rigorous—chroniclers of the Gothic Sector Wars have preferred to concentrate their limited scope on the already well-detailed, if admittedly grandiose, events that occurred during the latter stages of that most tumultuous of struggles, there are many notable actions from the earliest stages of the conflict that have not yet received their due and proper examination. Certainly, I do not speak of those justifiably celebrated actions such as Compel Bast’s heroic defence of Orar, or Admiral Varus’s defiant last stand at Platea, for, Emperor knows, these events have been examined many times already, with seemingly each new chronicler finding something both less interesting and original to say concerning them than the one previous to him. (Although, esteemed and studious reader, pray hope that I do not flatter myself unduly when I tell you now that I intend to defy and reverse this sorry fashion when I come to examine these events myself, in those relevant later chapters.) No, I speak now of several of the many smaller actions which took place in those earliest and darkest days of the war, as the carrion fleets of the Despoiler fell upon the lax and unprepared forces of Battlefleet Gothic. While it may seem perverse to examine actions involving duels between single opposing ships when set against the background of a stellar conflict that would later involve fleet-sized battles on a scale not witnessed since the age of the Horus Heresy, the serious student of the Gothic Sector War will, I pray, come to realise my interest in but one of these smaller actions when I reveal now that it involves two names that would later feature significantly not merely in the history of Battlefleet Gothic, but also in the annals of Battlefleet Segmentum Obscuras itself. I speak, of course, of Leoten Semper and his vessel, the Lord Solar Macharius…

  —Scribe Emeritus Rodrigo Konniger,

  Into the Jaws of Death, Into the Mouth of Hell: Notable Actions of the Gothic Sector War, 143-149.M41

  PART ONE

  BAPTISM OF FIRE

  “Good Hunting, Macharius.”

  They were the first words that anyone had heard spoken aloud on the bridge of His Divine Majesty’s Ship, the Lord Solar Macharius for hours. There was no such thing as silence on an Imperial Navy warship, where the decks shook with the ever-present rumble of the massive plasma engines and every corridor, work-bay and compartment echoed with the sounds of the more than ten thousand specimens of toiling, sweating humanity that made up its crew. Still, the mood aboard the Dictator class cruiser was eerily quiet, and even here on the bridge the command crew spoke only in muted whispers as they relayed orders and status checks between themselves and over the internal comm-net to hundreds of other points throughout the ship.

  Standing at the nave point of the bridge, Captain Leoten Semper heard a polite cough and the shuffle of booted feet behind him, followed by the clipped accent of his flag-lieutenant, the young officer maintaining a carefully neutral tone to his voice.

  “Signal from the Indefatigable, captain. Do you wish us to acknowledge?”

  Semper turned to face the young officer, studying his second-in-command’s refined features.

  Hito Ulanti, he thought. A Necromundan aristocrat’s name. Strange to find one of his sort serving aboard a navy ship. And aristocrats are always ambitious. This one may bear watching, Semper noted, wryly remembering that assassination had once been a viable means of advancement for ambitious young navy officers during the dark days of the Age of Apostasy.

  Semper snapped back to the situation at hand, remembering that as captain of one of the Emperor’s warships, he now had little time for such moments of quiet musing.

  “Acknowledge the signal from the Indefatigable, Mr. Ulanti. Our compliments to its captain and officers, and our sincere hopes to see her again when we return home once again to Stranivar.”

  The flag-lieutenant clicked his heels in the approved navy style and nodded for the standard acknowledgement to be returned to the escort vessel.

  Semper turned to look out of the command deck viewing bay, seeing his own reflection staring back at him. It was an image almost identical to any one of the dozens of ancestral portraits displayed in the family manor house back home on Cypra Mundi—the same severe and hawk-like features of the elite Cypra Mundian officer class, the same proudly-worn battle scars (the one which marked his face was the result of a boarding action assault he once led on an ork ship as a young junior lieutenant), the same resplendent uniform of a senior officer of the Imperial Navy of the Segmentum Obscurus—but it was to the gleaming captain’s stars on the collar of that uniform that his eye was most drawn. There had been Sempers in the Imperial Navy since before the Age of Apostasy. The very latest in the line wondered if, unlike most of his illustrious ancestors, he would ever live long enough to return to Cypra Mundi to see the portrait of himself now hanging there along with all those others. He shook his head, focusing his vision on the starfield beyond, his experienced eyes picking out the tiny moving dot of light that was the Indefatigable. As he watched, the light flared brighter as the Sword class frigate fired up its engines and veered away from the Macharius to rejoin the picket line of scout ships and defence monitor vessels now patrolling the fringes of the Stranivar system.

  He cursed, asking himself yet again where such precautions had been when the Chaos ships had swept out of warp space and caught most of Battlesquadron Stranivar helpless in space-dock. The attack had been devastating—two-thirds of the squadron crippled or destroyed—but it was only in the aftermath that the full extent of the disaster became clear, as reports of similar sudden attacks come flooding in from all over the Gothic sector. This was no isolated event. The Eye of Terror had opened to unleash an invasion armada and all of Battlefleet Gothic was now at war. If they were not to lose the whole of the Gothic sector, it was essential that the Imperial Navy counterattacked in force as soon as possible, and Lord Admiral Ravensburg had ordered every spaceworthy ship under his command to assemble for immediate deployment. As the only ship in the squadron to survive unscathed, the Macharius was the first to put out of space-dock, on orders to rendezvous with a squadron of Cobra destroyers in the uninhabited Dolorosa system before travelling on to join the battlegroup currently gathering in the Bhein Morr system. It would be there also that the ship would take on its new complement of Fury and Starhawk deep space attack craft to replace its aged Interceptors and Marauders. Slipping its moorings, the Macharius had seemed like a thief in the night as it glided past the drifting hulks of those ships destroyed in the attack and leaving behind the crippled remnants of the rest of the squadron.

  His was a troubled ship, Semper knew. There was anger and a desire for revenge, but there was something else too: fear. Fear of what was waiting for them out there in the warp, and of their new captain’s ability to deal with it. This was Semper’s first command, and the onset of war on a scale not seen since the Horus Heresy ten thousand years earlier would scarcely ease the traditional problems encountered by all new captains straggling to master an unfamiliar crew and vessel. This war would be a baptism of fire which would see them either forged together in the heat of battle—or swept away in the firestorm of conflict now raging through the Gothic sector.

  Semper turned, seeing the dozens of faces staring at him expectantly. “Astrogation!” he barked, in the same tone of command that had first been drilled in to him decades ago at the cadet training colleges on Cypra Mundi. “Estimated time to the beacon?”

  “One-point-three hours, flag-capta
in,” came the reply, the officer at the astrogation lectern checking the flickering symbols on the rune screen in front of him.

  “Very good,” Semper nodded, gesturing for the nearest signals officer to open up a comm-net channel. “Captain Semper to Magos Castaboras. Warp jump in one-point-three hours. Commence preparations immediately. “Acknowledge.”

  A pause, and then the reply from the ship’s most senior Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priest, his voice distorted either by the hiss of comm-net static or one of the cybernetic implants with which all acolytes of the Machine God equipped themselves. “Acknowledged.”

  Heads looked up at Semper’s next words. “One more thing, venerable Castaboras. I don’t know what my predecessor’s feelings were on the matter, but as captain of this vessel, I expect the presence of either its Technis Majoris or one of his most senior adepts on the bridge at all times. You and your brethren are part of this ship’s crew, and will act accordingly. Do I make myself clear?”

  There was a longer pause, and then the tech-priest’s reply, the terseness in his voice detectable even over the crackle of the comm-net. “As you wish, my lord. I will join you on the bridge shortly.”

  Semper noticed the silent nods of approval from many of the officers on the bridge. The navy depended on the knowledge of the Adeptus Mechanicus to operate its vessels, but the relationship between fleet officers and Mechanicus adepts was never an easy one.

  A warship has several would-be masters, but only one captain, Semper remembered his mentor, Admiral Haasen, once saying. To be in true command of your vessel you must show your crew that you are the only master that matters.

  Semper’s eyes swept the bridge, his gaze passing over the rows of silent servitors manning the console stations in the recessed choirs that lined the raised nave of the command deck. The captain’s pulpit lay in the centre of the nave where it met with the bridge’s transept wings, and from where he could consult with his senior officers and oversee the vital gunnery, astrogation, ordnance control and surveyor sections of the command deck. Looking up, he saw tier upon tier of busy servitor drones and tech-priests attending to the operation and adoration of the ship’s ancient logic engines, each subsection of a dozen or more servitors and their tech-priest overseer responsible for the monitoring of just one small part of the mighty machine-mind which inhabited and animated the battlecruiser’s systems.

  The monitor galleries stretched almost up to the bridge’s vaulted ceiling some twenty metres above, but Semper found the figure he was looking for on one of the lower levels, standing on a walkway which spanned the breadth of the central nave and from where the command deck activity could be closely watched. The light from the nearby screens picked out the gleaming silver skulls on the figure’s black uniform, and Semper noticed that few of the other crew members approached that area of the bridge. Having already asserted his authority over the Magos Technicus, it was time to deal with a far more intractable challenge to any captain’s command.

  “Commissar Kyogen!” Semper called up to the figure in the shadows above. “It is my intention to conduct an inspection of the ship and crew prior to warp jump. Would you care to join me? Mister Ulanti, the bridge is yours.”

  The Ominous Arrowhead shape of the Contagion floated in space near the still-burning wreck of the Cobra class destroyer. Of the other three vessels from the squadron, all that remained were three fading clouds of super-heated gas and dust several thousand kilometres distant. It was dark on the command deck of the Contagion—its captain found normal lighting levels uncomfortable after his eyelids and much of his skin had atrophied—but many of the command no longer had need of their eyes anyway. That same captain—Hendrik Morrau, once one of the most famous names in the history of Battlefleet Gothic—passed one withered hand over the rune screen in front of him, his eyes reading the battle report statistics which flickered across it. He grunted in pleasure, satisfied that he could not have fought the battle any better. Closing in on the burning destroyer, its air supply venting out into the vacuum of space in bright plumes of fire, it had been his intention to use the vessel for simple target practice, but then close-range surveyor scans had offered the possibility of a far more diverting pleasure for his crew: prisoners. The remnants of the Cobra’s crew were trapped in airtight compartments aboard the doomed ship.

  Morrau had immediately despatched boarding parties: chittering daemon-things specially bred for this purpose and usually kept confined in the Contagion’s festering hold. Ship-bound by his mutations, Morrau envied the creatures their sport as they searched through the wreck for pockets of life, and he had eagerly listened to the screams and pleading human voices as each group of survivors was found and slaughtered in turn.

  Morrau would not deny his crew their spoils of victory, but he gave strict orders that some of the humans be taken alive and brought back for interrogation. The commander smiled at the thought, knowing that those taken alive and delivered into the eager hands of the ship’s surgeon-interrogator would soon wish that they had been butchered aboard their vessel with the rest of their comrades.

  As if on cue, Morrau heard the distinctive shuffling footsteps behind him. Ever since his body had started fusing with his captain’s chair, bony spires and wire-like tendrils growing out of him and connecting him to the daemonic mind of his equally transformed ship, it had become impossible for Morrau to leave his chair. However, he didn’t need to be able to turn round to recognise the approach of his surgeon-interrogator, Adolphus Torque. Torque stopped behind his captain, his heavy foetid breath only adding to the miasmic foulness that passed for a breathable atmosphere aboard the Contagion. Morrau was secretly glad that he was unable to turn to face his old crewmate; the nature of some of Torque’s mutations were unpleasant in the extreme, even to the captain of one of the Plague Lord’s best warships.

  “The prisoners were to your satisfaction?” Morrau asked.

  “Most satisfactory,” Torque slurred, his writhing worm-tongues finding difficulty in forming the normal sounds of human speech. “And one of them revealed something most interesting, lord. The ships we ambushed were not recharging their warp drives as we imagined. They were waiting to rendezvous with an Imperial capital ship.”

  Morrau’s nostrils flared with excitement, savouring the myriad stenches that circulated through his ship. In the aftermath of battle, when the ship released the waste products of its own spent power emissions into the air systems, the atmosphere aboard the Contagion took on its own distinctive and highly charged aroma. To Morrau, veteran of hundreds of space battles, it smelled of nothing less than victory.

  “The name of this ship?”

  “The Lord Solar Mac… Macharius, captain,” Torque replied, his Chaos-altered speech patterns stumbling over the name of one of the Imperium’s greatest heroes.

  “The Macharius…” Morrau breathed, resting back in his chair and searching his long memory. He dimly remembered fighting alongside a ship of that name in a fleet action against a force of Fra’al raiders in the Osiris cluster. The Contagion had still been called Vengis then, and the name of the captain of the Macharius had been Rutgen Jago, but that had been over six hundred years ago as the humans of the Imperium reckon time, and so much—oh yes, so very much indeed!—had changed since then. Whoever the master of the Macharius was now, he could never match the ability and experience of the Contagion’s captain.

  “And the record of the prisoners’ interrogation?”

  “Preserved for your entertainment, captain,” rasped Torque, a taloned hand snaking out to offer his captain the data crystal, still slick with human blood. Morrau fed the crystal into one of the weeping blister ports on his command console, which opened to accept it with a wet sucking noise. He would review and enjoy the scenes recorded on it while he planned the ambush and destruction of the Macharius.

  Leoten Semper could feel the sharp beginnings of a headache, always a sure sign of an approaching warp jump as the vessel’s ancient warp field generators powered up
and sent out unpredictable psychic vibrations into the minds of its crew. All around him, preparations were underway for the jump into the immaterium. In their engine section sanctum the tech-priests would be striking runes upon the workings of the ship’s mighty warp drives, while Semper could smell the sickly-sweet scent of burning incense that told him the Adeptus Ministorum confessors were at their work, moving through the ship and bestowing protective blessings upon the crew in anticipation of their journey into the daemon-haunted realm of the immaterium. From their position on the gantry platform overlooking the metal cavern of the forward starboard gun-bay, Semper and Commissar Kyogen could see work teams of hundreds of sweating ratings hauling the massive gun batteries back along the tracks to their standby positions or turning the huge gear wheels to close thick blast shields over the bay’s viewing ports.

  Semper looked at the brooding shape of Koba Kyogen standing beside him. The commissar was a giant of a man, well over two metres tall. Semper knew that the uniform of a fleet commissar—gleaming black leather jackboots and pistol holster, thick black felt overcoat with polished silver skull buttons and laurel wreath insignia and high peaked cap with burnished Imperial eagle emblem—was designed to intimidate and inspire, but even without it the commissar would still have struck an imposing figure. Semper glanced at the row of decorations on Kyogen’s chest, noting the distinctive bright starburst cluster of the Order of the Gothic Star, identical to that pinned to the breast of Semper’s own tunic. The skin of the commissar’s face was disfigured with the tell-tale marks of white-hot plasma splash, and one half of it was twisted into a permanent snarl by a crude skin-graft which Semper recognised as a typically makeshift piece of battlefield surgery.

  Medals and battle scars worn proudly, Semper thought to himself. He’s no coward, this commissar, but how far can I depend on him?