[Battlefleet Gothic 01] - Execution Hour Read online

  In coming to this, one of the darkest chapters of the history of the Gothic Sector Wars, when the true extent of the destructive power of the Despoiler’s terrible new secret weapon first became apparent to the beleaguered forces of Battlefleet Gothic, I am reminded of the missionary-brother’s story, and in particular of a fragment he recalled from one of the myth-cycles that the inhabitants of that feral world had constructed around this cosmic terror. Their fear of it is evident, and I find the following couplet strangely evocative when considering the similar dreadful fear that must have filled the hearts and minds of untold billions of the Emperor’s subjects at that time as the spectre of the Planet Killer stalked the worlds of the Gothic sector.

  “I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds!”

  —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 THREE

  OPENING SALVOES

  ONE

  Mesmerised, the Despoiler watched as the planet below entered its final death throes.

  Its oceans had boiled off into space hours ago, laying bare the broken and dried expanses of once hidden sea-beds. Everywhere bright lines of fire criss-crossed the planet’s surface: rivers, lakes, entire oceans of molten magma flowing up through gaping, bleeding rents in the planetary crust as the planet itself began to break apart. The whole southern hemisphere was ablaze, covered in magma as the planet’s molten heart bled out of the continent-sized open wound that the Despoiler’s Planet Killer weapon had burned into it. Giant earthquakes shook the planet from pole to pole, forming and then reforming its burning topography into an ever-changing series of different, fiery visions of hell. The planet’s biosphere was gone—its oxygen-rich atmosphere had ignited at the first firing of the Planet Killer’s awesome weapons systems—and Abaddon assumed that all life on the world was now extinct. Perhaps a few had survived the initial firestorms that had scoured clean the surface, hiding in shelters deep below the ground, but nothing could have survived the resultant seismic catastrophe as the Planet Killer’s coruscating energy beams tore apart the planetary crust and ripped deep into the underlying rock strata, finally cutting through into the planet’s molten core.

  Abaddon smiled, remembering other such moments of triumph, other such spectacles of destruction. He remembered standing by the side of Horus on the bridge of the Warmaster’s battle barge, watching as wave after fiery wave of bioweapon missiles were unleashed at the surface of the world below them. Twelve billion people died in moments during the Scouring of Istvaan III, and the echoes of their mental death-screams had drowned out even the constant warp pulse of the astronomican, but it was only a prelude to the devastation to come.

  “Let the galaxy burn,” had ordered the Warmaster, and Abaddon and the other commanders of the Space Marine legions who flocked to the Warmaster’s cause had done as commanded. Abaddon remembered worlds in flames, planetary systems choked with the drifting wreckage left in the wake of cataclysmic space battles, battle fronts thousands of miles long as Space Marines and the towering war machines of the Collegia Titanica clashed with their one-time brethren on a thousand different worlds, under the light of a thousand different suns. He remembered the howl of triumph from a million Chaos-altered throats as he, Abaddon, First Chosen of the Warmaster, led the sweeping charge over the crumbled ruins of the outer walls of the impostor Emperor’s refuge on Terra and into the sanctum of the Inner Palace itself.

  A tremor ran through the metre-thick ceramite decking beneath Abaddon’s feet, reverberating with a dull boom throughout the armoured hull of the massive vessel and interrupting the Despoiler’s reverie.

  “Warmaster,” bleated a hunchbacked heretic tech-priest thing, shuffling forward to bow before the Despoiler. “The planet’s core is beginning to break up, causing unpredictable and powerful fluctuations in its magnetic field.” It paused, twin worm-tongues nervously flicking out to lick at canker-eaten lips. “Perhaps it would be wiser to order the vessel back to a point beyond the area of danger.”

  The Despoiler hissed in irritation, his thoughts disturbed by the intrusion of the minion-thing now cowering at his feet.

  Sensing its master’s mood, his sword shivered in its scabbard, eager to be unleashed and fed. Abaddon laid a reassuring hand on the skull-carved pommel of the sheathed weapon, soothing the mood of the daemon-thing bound into the warp-forged metal of the blade. Also sensitive to their master’s mood, one of the hulking, armoured figures of Abaddon’s Terminator bodyguard stepped forward, crackling lightning claws sliding out with a low, buzzing sound from its armoured fists as it prepared to remove the source of its master’s irritation.

  Another tremor ran through the deck, underlining the tech-priest’s words, and through the viewing port Abaddon saw a gout of fiery magma hundreds of miles long spurting up from the burning surface and exploding high in orbit above the dying world.

  At a curt gesture from Abaddon, the bodyguard stepped back to rejoin the circle of silent warriors standing round the edge of the chamber. Whimpering in terror, the tech-priest thing scampered gratefully away back into the safe anonymity of the surrounding shadows.

  Turning his back on the viewing port behind him, Abaddon strode into the centre of the chamber, his bodyguard effortlessly moving to reform in a protective circle around him. Tech-priests, acolyte attendants and mewling Chaos spawn abominations scuttled out of the crushing path of the armoured giants.

  At another gesture from the Despoiler, the central section of the floor of the viewing chamber began to descend down through the lower decks of the vessel. Abaddon’s unspoken command was already spreading through the length of the massive Planet Killer vessel, and as the open elevator platform rumbled downwards, those upon it could see the frenzied activity as the ship’s crew hastened to act on those orders. Beyond, Abaddon knew, the crews of the ships making up his Planet Killer’s escort fleet would be doing likewise, their relieved captains no doubt offering up quiet prayers of thanks to the powers of the warp as they manoeuvred to move their vessels away from the violent and unpredictable death throes of the doomed planet.

  It was forbidden on pain of death for any of the vessel’s thousands of slave workers to look upon the face of the Despoiler, and, as the platform descended through the main crew decks, snarling overseers rushed to assure immediate obedience amongst the work-crews of prisoners under their command. Already recognising the tell-tale sound of the descending elevator, many of the slaves cowered in terror, gaze fixed at their manacled feet and their endless slave work momentarily abandoned, as the platform and the dread figure standing upon it moved past them. Others continued working, raising faces in silent question at the sound of the platform’s passing, showing dark empty holes where eyes should be. Assigned to tasks where eyes were deemed unnecessary, these poor wretches had had their sight brutally taken from them by the hands of their overseers.

  One chain-gang member, his still intact Imperial Navy officer’s uniform showing him to have been only recently captured and enslaved into the Warmaster’s service, either ignored or did not understand his overseer’s barked warnings. Risking a glance towards the platform as it rumbled past, he was quickly smashed to the ground by the figure of a slavemaster wearing the dripping sigil-daubed power armour of a World Eaters Chaos Marine. Snarling in rage, the World Eater brought its chain-axe up and in one swift blow summarily decapitated the screaming slave. With solemn ceremony, it reached down to pick up the severed head, holding it up in salute to the passing figure of the Despoiler, the slave’s dead eyes now permitted to gaze upon the sight that had been forbidden to them in life.

  Thus did Abaddon the Despoiler, Warmaster of the Legions of Horus, commander of the so-called “traitor legions” as the servants of the false Emperor called them, pass through the midst of his followers. Not caring whether they lived or died, not caring whether they served him through devotion, just as long as they served him first thr
ough fear.

  The platform descended through the roof of the final deck, entering a large dome-like chamber, its floor and walls hidden in darkness. With a grinding clank the platform came to rest as the centrepiece of a larger platform that hung suspended on thick chains in the centre of the darkness. Abaddon stepped off, a phalanx of waiting tech-priests greeting him with deep bows and impassioned genuflections.

  “Show me,” said the Despoiler, in a voice as cold and harshly unforgiving as the vacuum of space.

  One of the tech-priests ran fingers centuries ago transformed into writhing leech-mouthed tendrils over the crystal controls of a low console column. There was a dull roar of released power from somewhere within the walls of the chamber and suddenly the chamber itself was gone, the darkness around them filled with a brilliant slowly-revolving patina of stars, planets, constellations, supernova dust clouds, meteor fields and a myriad of other celestial phenomena.

  After long hours spent alone in this chamber brooding on the shifting star patterns, Abaddon knew this hologram-projected scene well enough by now. It was the Gothic sector, perfect in every detail, reproduced not merely in three dimensions but also in the fourth, with the arcane logic-engine programs that sustained the projection able to take into account the unpredictable time-dilation effects of the patterns of warp space. Certainly pre-Imperium, and probably non-human—Abaddon neither knew nor cared—the entire chamber had been looted from a drifting space hulk and reinstalled into the structure of his Planet Killer command vessel.

  Abaddon gazed out into the depths of the projection, noting the latest received information on the status and positions of both his own warfleets and those of the enemy. Port Maw was a blaze of blue-marked Imperium-controlled worlds and fleet markers, although the Warmaster noted with satisfaction that the clustered ring of red markers surrounding it showed that the home base of Battlefleet Gothic was still under intense and crushing blockade.

  Constellations of red and blue warfleet markers faced off against each other throughout the Gothic sector, giving little hint of the devastation each such confrontation represented as the rival warfleets laid waste to each other in bitterly-fought battles that would decide the fate of so many strategically vital planetary systems. Abaddon’s gaze found and traced the emerald route patterns of enemy transport convoys making the dangerous runs between the supply worlds and the front-line battle systems. The markers of the elite Chaos hunter-killer vessels which shadowed them through the warp appeared as burning crimson points of light, while the ghostly indigo markers of the wolf pack pirate fleets allied to the Despoiler’s cause lay in wait at points all along the convoys’ routes.

  Elsewhere, Abaddon noted with displeasure the riot of blue markers spilling out of the Orar subsector, pushing back the tide of red in that portion of the map. Bhein Morr also stood out as a bright and growing point of enemy resistance, while most of the Cyclops cluster appeared as a haze of dark shadow standing out in stark contrast against the rest of the projection’s fine detail. A lone marker denoted that part of the Gothic sector to be ork-infested, and so far the unexpectedly high levels of savage resistance shown by the creatures to Imperium and Chaos forces alike had thwarted the Despoiler’s attempts to even properly map the region.

  And then there were the six glowing gold markers spread more or less evenly throughout the Gothic sector. Abaddon’s eager gaze returned to these six points again and again, repeating their names inside his mind like a guilty secret, like a hidden mantra, the meaning of which only he could fully understand.

  Fularis.

  Anvil 206.

  Fier.

  Rebo.

  Schindlegeist.

  Brigia.

  “We await your orders, Warmaster. What is our next target? We have prepared a list of the nearest strategically important worlds still under enemy control—”

  Abaddon’s urgent hiss of displeasure instantly silenced the upstart, who quickly retreated back into the milling ranks of his fellow acolyte officers. The glowing weapon sensor beams of the Despoiler’s bodyguards tracked him as he went, marking him out for later punishment.

  Fools, thought Abaddon, closing his eyes and clearing his mind of all distractions. This vessel is a powerful weapon, yes, but fear is the greatest weapon at our command. With this vessel we shall sow fear and confusion without measure amongst the enemy, for with it we shall strike at random and without seeming purpose. They shall not know where the next blow will fall, and in their fear and confusion they will not see the greater hidden purpose behind all that we have done. Let there be no lists, no predictable strategic choices. Let only the random whims of the powers of the warp guide us in our actions.

  Abaddon opened his eyes, gazing out at the shifting star patterns as they slowly revolved around him. He raised his arm, pointing with one cruel metal talon into a bright mass of stars. At the gesture, the projection slowed and finally stopped, one star amongst the constellation suddenly glowing brighter than its companions. The tech-priest hurriedly made adjustments to the crystalline controls, and the projection’s focus narrowed and zoomed in on a single star. Suddenly, the image of a planetary system filled the void of the viewing chamber, the focus shifting further to find and close in on one planet in particular orbiting within the system’s primary biosphere zone. Abaddon’s lips curled back in a cruel smile of expectation as he saw blue oceans, lush greenery and the obvious signs of a breathable oxygen atmosphere. Half the world was in shadow as the planet’s rotation carried one hemisphere away from the sun’s light and into the hours of night, and Abaddon could see the tell-tale twinkle of lights—each one an entire city—scattered across the face of the darkened globe. Looking closer, he saw patterns of smaller lights—orbiting space docks and weapon platforms—drifting in the void between the world and its one barren satellite moon.

  An inhabited world. An Imperial world. And one far from both the nearest warzone and the Planet Killer’s most recent choice of target. Once again, the guidance of the powers of the warp had served him well.

  Tech-priests bowed in silent acquiescence, realising their master’s unspoken wishes. Already the name and location of their next destination were being relayed to rest of the fleet. The inhabitants of the now-doomed world could not possibly realise or understand it yet, but the hour of their appointed execution had just been set.

  Abaddon watched eagerly as the tech-priests returned the projection to its original sector-wide settings. To his Chaos-altered eyes, those six small points of gold light stood out like blazing supernovas amongst the other beacons and markers of the Gothic sector. Fularis. Anvil 206. Fier. Rebo. Schindlegeist. Brigia. Again he repeated their names to himself, a silent promise to a future only he could yet see.

  Let the galaxy burn, the Warmaster Horus had said, and now at last, after ten thousand years, Abaddon the Despoiler would soon have the means to fulfil his master’s command.

  TWO

  “Clear!”

  The shouts echoed up the streets and alleyways, accompanied by the sounds of splintering plasti-wood as heavy booted feet kicked down doors and smashed through makeshift barricades. The wretches that inhabited these warrens cowered in fear as the intimidating, armoured figures of the Adeptus Arbites troopers forced their way into their homes. Curses and complaints were met with bone-crushing blows from shotgun butts or fists encased in heavy, armoured gauntlets, while centre points of any stronger shows of resistance were pacified with choke gas grenades hurled through doorways and windows.

  Marshal Primus Jamahl Byzantane watched as another group of choking, coughing figures emerged from their gas-filled den, to be met by an impassive line of rebreather-wearing Arbites troopers armed with crackling power mauls and suppression shields. The survivors would be herded into a manacled procession for transportation back to the Arbitrators’ local precinct fortress. What happened to them there was of no immediate concern to Byzantane. Each of the fortress’s cavern-like detention levels was crowded with thousands of hereti
cs, criminals, malcontents and troublemakers taken from the regular sweeps of the crime-infested rat warrens of this world, and a suspect could spend the rest of his life in such captivity, living and dying amongst the brutal convict gangs that invariably formed under such conditions, before his case was ever called before the court of judgement. It was of no consequence that the great wheels of Imperial justice moved so slowly, just as the lives of those crushed beneath them were also of little consequence in the grand scheme of things. All that mattered, the senior Arbitrator knew, was that in the end justice was seen to be done.

  He raised a hand to his face, running his fingers over the patterns of tribal scarring that marked the dark skin of his cheeks, feeling the sheen of sweat that covered his face. He reached up with both hands, removing his visored helmet and shaking free the beaded locks of his sweat-matted hair. The members of the Adeptus Arbites must always appear to the Emperor’s subjects as the stern and faceless guardians of the Emperor’s Law, the Articles of Justice commanded, but it was the middle of the day during this world’s hot, dry season, and Byzantane had no wish for the Emperor’s subjects to see their world’s senior law-keeper collapse from heat exhaustion.