[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour Read online

  Ulanti looked up at his captain, who silently nodded for him to continue. “Given our current position and the renegades’ most likely course towards the enemy lines, I believe we will still be able to intercept them—” Ulanti’s finger moved across the rough surface of the chart. The finest and oldest starchart parchments were supposed to be made from human skin, but this felt like some lesser substitute; animal hide, perhaps.

  “Here.” His finger stabbed down on a remote single star well off the normal warp travel routes. The accompanying chart icons identified it as a dying red dwarf star orbited by four barren and uninhabited planetoids. “Delphi. We can intercept them in the Delphi system.”

  Semper leaned back in his chair, smiling. “I concur, and so did Navigator Cassander when I consulted him earlier. To your station, Mister Ulanti. We make the ascent into the immaterium in forty minutes.”

  “Half speed, Mister Kelto. Keep our power emissions down and maintain full outward surveyor scanning,” Pava Magell ordered. The Bellerophon was moving forward cautiously into the star system, its long-range surveyors probing for the tell-tale energy signatures of any other ships in the area. Delphi was a barren wilderness system, just one of the hundreds of such groups within the vast area of space encompassed within the Gothic sector, but the new captain of the Bellerophon was not in the habit of taking unnecessary risks. Those few short but intensely bloody hours of mutiny which had swept through the ship had taken long and careful planning by him and the small circle of other like-minded officers aboard the Bellerophon. The Imperium was losing the Gothic Sector War, Magell had realised, and it had been surprisingly easy to find other young officers who had come to the same conclusion and who were equally frustrated with the stultified thinking and hidebound traditions of the Imperial Navy. Anyone with true insight could see that the power of Warmaster Abaddon and his followers was in the ascendancy. The living corpse imprisoned on the Golden Throne would be powerless to stop the forces now sweeping out of the Eye of Terror. First the Gothic sector, soon the whole rotting body politic of the Imperium itself, Magell thought with a smile—and the Imperium’s new masters would remember and reward those who had been first to realise in which direction the tides of fate were moving throughout the galaxy.

  Magell remembered his own moment of such realisation, recalling the dank stench of the Bellerophon’s ship’s brig and the whispering voice of the captured enemy prisoner who, out of what had then seemed a feeling of morbid curiosity, Magell had gone down to the brig to interrogate. He had made a point of personally executing the prisoner afterwards, mostly to allay the suspicions of the ever-watchful Commissar Brandt, but by then the seeds of insurrection had already been planted in the ambitious young flag-lieutenant’s mind. The prisoner—one of the sorcerer-navigators of Abaddon’s fleets—had cunningly seen the doubts already there and had revealed to him something of the ways and secret recognition signs used amongst the covert groups of followers of the powers of the warp, and it was on a regular stopover on an Imperium mining world that Magell had first made contact with a coven of Chaos worshippers. Again Magell smiled to himself, remembering how shockingly easy it had been to find the servants of the Ruinous Powers, and wondering what Lord Admiral Ravensburg would say if he knew just how many Chaos covens flourished on every inhabited world in the Gothic sector and even in the furthest reaches of the holds and crew decks of many Imperial Navy vessels.

  After that, Magell and his fellow conspirators had set about secretly encouraging and nurturing discontent amongst the crew; not a difficult feat to achieve, considering master of the Bellerophon Captain Aagen Blothe’s harsh and zealous attitude to all matters relating to discipline aboard his vessel. Magell had bided his time, waiting for word from his new-found masters within the Eye of Terror. At last it had arrived, telling him what they required him to do before he would be welcomed into the ranks of the reaver fleets of Warmaster Abaddon.

  Magell settled back into his captain’s chair, his hand touching the control lectern in front of him and the patina of dried blood—belonging to the chair’s former occupant, presumably—which still stained the rune icons there. That old fool Blothe had still been alive when Magell handed him over to the crew, and Magell idly wondered if they had been able to make good on their promise to keep their former commanding officer alive but begging for death for days to come. Magell ran his hand across the pattern of glowing rune icons, thinking of the stolen tech-priest secrets now safely stored within the memory banks of the ship’s logic engines. He had done as his masters had bidden, and when the Bellerophon reached the safety of Chaos-controlled space he would present the information in person to Warmaster Abaddon. Of course, the majority of his crew knew nothing of the true nature of their new allies, but Magell cared little about their fate after—

  “Rearward surveyors detecting an unknown vessel approaching on an intercept course: distance 840,000 kilometres.” The blank emotionless voice of the servitor drone rang out in the quiet of the undermanned command deck, instantly snapping the Bellerophon s new captain out of his reverie.

  “Officer of the Watch, confirm and identify!” barked Magell, not trusting the word of one of the machine-men slaves. Lieutenant Kelto bent over the lectern screen in front of him, the light from the rows of rune-signs scrolling across the screen casting a sickly glow over his nervous young features.

  “Energy output shows it’s a capital vessel. It’s jamming its own vessel recognition codes, but from the reactor signature, I’d say it was an Imperial ship, almost certainly cruiser level or better.”

  Despite the obvious danger, Magell allowed himself to relax somewhat. As a light scouting cruiser, the Bellerophon would be heavily outgunned by any of the standard Imperial cruiser types, but even with the internal damage and heavy crew casualties caused during the mutiny Magell was confident that his faster and more manoeuvrable vessel could still outrun its larger lumbering cousin. In fact, the only way that the other Imperial ship could successfully cut off their escape would be if—

  “Change in the enemy vessel’s energy signature!” Kelto said, panic clear in his voice. “Multiple smaller energy signatures breaking away from it. It’s an attack craft carrier! It’s sending bomber squadrons after us!”

  Squadron Commander Milos Caparan surveyed the instrumentation panel in front of him, intoning a silent prayer of thanks as the status runes representing each of the ten Starhawk bombers under his command glowed a healthy green. Glancing out of the cockpit window, he could see his wingmen taking up position to his port and starboard, each of them tens of kilometres distant but with the bright flares of their multiple mass-reactive engines starkly marking their position against the blackness of space. To his rear the seven other Starhawks of his squadron would also be manoeuvring into attack formation, he knew, and somewhere beyond them the Starhawks of Firedrake, Harbinger and Mantis squadrons would be doing the same, joining up with his own squadron and forming up one large attack wing as they closed the distance on their target. Forty Starhawks.

  Ave Imperator, he thought to himself as he keyed open a comm-link channel. Let the enemies of the Emperor beware.

  “Nemesis One to Macharius. All systems are green. Distance to target: 200,000 kilometres, and closing.”

  +Understood, Nemesis+ came back the reply.

  Caparan recognising the craggy-toned voice of Remus Nyder, the Macharius’s formidable master of ordnance.

  +Macharius bids you good hunting+

  Taking his accustomed place in the central nave of the command deck, Leoten Semper watched with his usual hawk-like intensity as the pattern of glowing icon markers on the main scanner screen displayed the Starhawk attack wave’s progress towards their target.

  “Squadrons within attack range of target,” reported Remus Nyder, his ordnance control area of the bridge now buzzing with activity as teams of junior officers and grey-cloaked tech-priests monitored the streams of data being fed back from the Starhawks. “They’re reporting incoming de
fensive fire from the target.”

  Semper looked over to where his flag-lieutenant stood. “Mister Ulanti?”

  The Necromundan activated a rune on his lectern console, glancing over the information now displayed there. “They may be firing at us, sir, but they’ve not as yet hit anything. We’re His Divine Majesty’s Imperial Navy, not the groundpounder rabble of the Imperial Guard, and we don’t panic at the first sign of danger. Recommend that attack wave proceeds on to close strike distance from target, and deploys missiles from there for optimum effect.”

  Semper nodded in agreement at his flag-lieutenant’s forthright response, and gestured to the waiting master of ordnance.

  “Signal all squadrons to proceed as ordered. Mister Ulanti will give the launch order at his discretion.”

  “Vandire’s teeth!” Milos Caparan cursed, triggering his starboard thrusters and jinking the two hundred tonne attack bomber out of the path of a kilometre-wide explosive starburst which filled the view out of the cockpit’s main viewing port. All around the lead Starhawk, the hard vacuum of space was filled with similar explosions and energy bursts. At this range—still almost one thousand kilometres away from the target—a direct hit was almost impossible, but each energy blast emitted a burst of widespread and high-intensity radiation lethal to both a bomber’s crew and control systems, while each exploding anti-ordnance missile warhead or mass-reactive shell threw out a hail of shrapnel that could cover a volume of space tens of kilometres across.

  Caparan activated one of the runes on his comm-link console, sending out an automated status request to the rest of his squadron. Elsewhere, he knew, the other squadron commanders in the attack wave would be doing likewise. The cockpit’s open-channel comm-link squawked to life as the responses came flooding back.

  +Nemesis Three to Nemesis Leader. Surveyor systems taken offline by that last radiation burst. Missile targeting systems also gone. Tech-Adept Eliphas is attempting to effect repairs now+

  +Nemesis Five reporting. Heavy energy bleed from our power plant. Shrapnel hit must have severed a feed line somewhere. Unable to effect repair. We’ll make it to the target, Nemesis One, but it’ll be a slow and scary ride back to the Macharius+

  +Nemesis Nine… heavy damage… starboard engine gone… reserve air supply …ty percent crew casualties… luck, Nemesis One… kkkkkkkkkkkkkk+

  Caparan stabbed a rune on his console, switching comm-link channels. “Nemesis Leader to Macharius,” he snarled, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “I’m losing bombers here. Request permission to launch missiles!”

  +Macharius to Nemesis+ came back the irritatingly calm-voiced reply. +Proceed to target. Launch order will be given as and when Macharius deems necessary+

  Caparan shared a look with his co-pilot, both men recognising the voice on the comm-link.

  “It’s Ulanti,” nodded his co-pilot, Madik Torr, a solid and dependable veteran with more than sixty combat missions to his credit. “That hive-trash killed Luccian, and now it seems he’s determined to wipe out the rest of us as well.”

  Both men grimly turned their attention to the task before them, trying to second-guess the gunners aboard the Bellerophon as they piloted the powerful gull-winged deep space bomber through the crop of starburst explosions that blossomed in the void between them and their target.

  Eight hundred kilometres. A flare of blinding energy off their port wing. Caparan checked his console readout, seeing the icon representing Nemesis Two stutter and fade out.

  Seven hundred kilometres. A piercing scream rang out over the open comm-channel, a terrified and nameless voice gibbering out a hurried prayer commending his soul to the Emperor before being finally cut off in a scream of static followed by the telling static hiss of dead air.

  Six hundred kilometres. Caparan’s craft was rocked by the concussive blast of an explosion somewhere off its starboard wing. He fought to bring the bomber under control, his mind only barely registering the flashing red icons lighting up all over his instrumentation panels and the ugly klaxon alarm sounding over the craft’s internal comm-net.

  “Hull breach,” warned the eerily calm voice of Tech-Adept Shanyin Ko, sounding barely more human than the four onboard servitor drones under his control. “Recommend you switch to flight suit emergency oxygen supplies until breach has been sealed.”

  Five hundred kilometres. In space combat terms, this was considered near suicidal, a point-blank range. Down in the nose cone section housing the navigator and bombardier, the whine of the payload’s locked-on targeting systems rose to an insistent scream audible over the bomber’s comm-net.

  +Macharius to attack wing. You are granted permission to launch missiles+

  Thirty-five remaining Starhawks launched half their full pay-load at once from a distance of just over four hundred and eighty kilometres. Three of them suffered missile launch failure due to damage sustained in flight, one of them transforming into an cloud of vaporised gas when its activated missiles detonated whilst still fixed in their wing mounts.

  The guns aboard the Bellerophon suddenly fell silent, the ship’s surveyor systems requiring a scanning field free of the radioactive static of explosions and energy bursts as the information they gathered was fed back to the ship’s logic engines. All over the ship, non-vital technical systems slowed to a crawl or temporarily blacked out entirely while the logic engines devoted the greater part of their processing capacity to calculating speeds, trajectories and interception points as the oncoming wave of missiles rushed towards their target at a speed of tens of kilometres a second.

  As the energy levels fluctuated all through the ship, the crew could only cower in the semi-darkness and pray to whatever powers they now followed as they blindly consigned their fate to ancient and barely-understood technology from an era millennia before their own birth. With the missile cluster now only a hundred kilometres and scant seconds away, the Bellerophon activated its final anti-ordnance defences, the logic engines feeding targeting co-ordinates and firing solutions through to these last-ditch automated defences. A gridwork of multilaser turrets, autocannon batteries, plasma throwers and flechette launchers studded the outer hull of the Bellerophon and these activated now, throwing out a short-lived but concentrated curtain of firepower between the vessel and the missile wave.

  Each Starhawk had launched half its full payload of ten plasma warhead missiles apiece. Of these, over thirty per cent had, even at such close range, malfunctioned or failed to acquire their target. Another twenty per cent would be destroyed by the Bellerophon’s anti-ordnance systems. Of the one hundred and sixty launched in the bomber wave, less than eighty would reach their target—and only a fraction of these would penetrate the ancient vessel’s metres-thick armoured hull and do any damage that really mattered.

  It would still be more than enough to achieve the desired effect.

  “Starhawk attack wing reports target well struck,” announced Master of Ordnance Nyder with more than a hint of pride in his voice. “Surveyor scans confirm this—the enemy’s reactor output is fluctuating wildly and its void shield power levels are as naught. Target is crippled and drifting powerless in space. Starhawk wing requests permission to make a return sweep and expend all remaining payload.”

  Nyder looked expectantly at his captain. By long-standing fleet tradition, the honour of the final kill should go to his Starhawk crews, but such a decision was the captain’s privilege alone. It would not be unusual for a captain to choose to finish off a crippled enemy ship with torpedoes or massed weapon fire from the ship’s main batteries, a diplomatic decision which would allow a navy vessel’s bitterly competitive flight and gunnery crews to share equal honours in the victory. If Nyder was at all taken back by what his captain said next, it never showed on the veteran officer’s impassive face.

  “Mr. Ulanti, you have tactical command in this engagement. What is your decision?”

  If Hito Ulanti was at all surprised by the captain’s choice, he showed no sign of it in his
immediate and unhesitant response. “Signal Starhawk squadrons to return to the Macharius, captain. At present Battlefleet Gothic is still seriously under-strength, and the loss of one ship to the side of the enemy hardly helps the matter. But why compound the damage, when instead we can do something to redress the balance in our favour again?”

  “Explain yourself, Mister Ulanti!” Semper barked. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  Ulanti looked up at his captain, a distinct gleam of excitement evident in his eyes. “A boarding assault, captain, which I volunteer to personally lead in the first assault wave. We board the Bellerophon, reclaim it for the service of the Emperor and retrieve the stolen technical information!”

  “Boarding action! Look lively, you scum! Find yourselves weapons and form up into boarding parties!” Bull-necked petty officers stormed up the narrow aisles of the crew decks, savagely kicking or clubbing anyone not moving fast enough for their liking. Maxim Borusa roused himself from his meagre pallet, scratching at the fresh bitemarks from the parasites that infested his bedding, and spat out a well-aimed stream of brown-stained mixture of saliva and tajii juice that narrowly missed the polished boots of his latest nemesis, Petty Officer Dobrzyn.

  “On your feet, Borusa,” Dobryzn grinned down at him. “Time to do your duty for the Emperor and put that magical invulnerability of yours to the test!”

  Maxim sat up, force of habit causing him to rub at the scars on his wrists. It had been months since his status as the sole survivor of a direct hit that had wiped out the two hundred other convict slave ratings in the gun-bay where he had been assigned had turned him into almost a talismanic good-luck figure amongst his fellow crewmen, but Maxim swore he could still feel those metal cuffs cutting into his flesh.