Alaster found himself in the unfamiliar position of watching a battle but not being part of it. It was odd. He felt vaguely superfluous. It wasn't entirely welcome.
The Navy cruisers approached the Tyranid behemoth slowly and carefully. They were marked on the right screen as two yellow triangles. The Nid mothership, if that was what it was, was marked with a blinking purple icon.
As the Navy ships moved out, the comms techs fed through a feed from their tactical relays. Lightspeed delay was on the order of a few seconds, increasing as the ships moved out, but it was as close to real time as could be managed under the current circumstances. Voices spoke over the speakers, crackling with interference and static. There was a steady stream of operational chatter, as the crews relayed information.
As the feed began, the sounds of the bridge quietened. Many ears were listening in and a sense of tension built. Alaster found himself gripping his weapons harder, unconsciously preparing himself for an attack. He noted the odd nervous glance cast in his direction, crew faces looking slightly reassured as they noted the vigilant presence of the Space Marine. It seemed there was some morale value in his presence after all!
Still, Alaster felt the growing tension too. At one point he tensed his recovering leg too much, and he was rewarded with a sharp stab of pain. He carefully un-tensed the muscle.
Kodos, Lakon and the Inquisitor remained by the captain's throne. The two Space Marines watched the screen impassively, but Alaster noticed Lady Sharrow quietly reach into her robe. His suspicion was proved – she removed a metallic bottle. He heard something slosh as she took a deep gulp. Her face was set in a calm mask, but there were definitely tense lines around her eyes.
A kind of quiet settled over the bridge. The main sounds now were the faint, repetitive whine of the air systems and the voices talking over the speakers.
'Closing on Bug One,' one of them reported. 'Bug One' was the Navy's somewhat-unimaginative code for the gigantic vessel. 'Range fifty thousand clicks. Repeat, range five zero kay. No contacts.'
The second ship reported in. 'Range five six kay. No contacts here either.' The second ship was hanging somewhat behind the first one, and off to the side.
Alaster peered at the screen. There were now a lot of satellite-points around the main Tyranid ship, but the alien ships weren't firing.
'What are they playing at?' Lady Sharrow said quietly, staring at the screen. Her brow was furrowed. 'Why aren't they firing?'
'Advance confirmed,' the lead ship announced. 'Moving forward. Will hold at four five kay, repeat, will hold-'
The voice cut off. In the middle of the main screen, a silent blossom of white light appeared. It billowed out, unfolding petals of glowing plasma and debris. Then its edges reddened and began to fade, curling in on itself. The voice over the speakers cut off with a brief howl of feedback and then a steady wash of static.
Lady Sharrow stared. 'What's going on? What's happening? Damn it, someone tell me what's going on!' She sounded angry, confused and even a little shrill.
There were flashes of light on the screen, little greenish sparkles here and there, imposed in front of the bulk of the alien ship. Alaster saw a new flash, the whiter light of an Imperial plasma cannon. He realised a fight had broken out. He leaned forward, his interest piqued.
'This is the Vengeance,' the other ship's spokesman announced. The man sounded tense. 'There are mines! Repeat, there are mines! There are drifts of mines, orbiting the mothership! We are under attack. Repeat, we are under attack! This is the Vengeance, requesting reinforcements-'
His voice broke up in a howl of static.
Alaster stared at the screen. A heavy shooting match was under way. The Imperial ship was being attacked from all sides. He realised they didn't have much time. His hand clenched on the hilt of his chainsword. He felt appalled and frustrated. He was watching the deaths of brave men, stood here uselessly! His breathing was fast and ragged. He could hear the sounds of the bridge all around, chairs creaking, fingers clattering on keyboards and the ventilation above.
He stared, shocked at the screen.
Lakon titled his head, as if listening to something. Alaster noticed an ear-and-mike set on his head, a single earphone sat in one ear. Lakon looked back up. 'The Navy's moving in to engage,' he announced.
'That's mad,' Kodos said. 'What about the mine fields? They have no intel!'
'They'll know where they are soon enough,' Lakon said grimly.
'What's the plan?' Lady Sharrow asked. As if by magic the bottle reappeared. She didn't seem to be aware that she was holding it. Alaster heard the cap screw off and this time he actually heard the contents slosh as she tipped it back.
Her hand was shaking a little, he noticed.
Lakon was still staring at the screen. 'I don't think there is a plan,' he said. 'A full-on attack isn't in the general orders I've seen.'
'What are they thinking of?' Kodos exploded. 'This is insane! They're just going in all guns blazing! This is what the Nids want!'
Lakon nodded. 'You may be right, Brother.'
'It's their pride, isn't it?' Kodos said. 'Their pride's been injured.'
Lakon nodded slowly. 'Admiral Kutuzin can be impetuous sometimes. You could be right, Brother. The Bugs have tricked them into losing a ship, and they're angry.'
'So they're throwing more into harm's way!' Lady Sharrow sounded angry. 'The fools, the utter Emperor-forsaken fools! It's a trap! By the Throne, it's a trap!'
Lakon looked at her. 'What do you mean?'
Lady Sharrow slapped her forehead. 'Why didn't I see this sooner? It's obvious! Why did they choose to reveal their mothership now? It doesn't make sense … unless they've guessed what we're doing! They've seen the evacuation, the trains and the planes and the shuttles! They need the biomass on Minoris, they need to stop us taking it away! And to do that they need to destroy the Navy fleet. So they bring in a nice juicy piece of bait … oh, Emperor help us all! We've been gamed – again!'
Kodos sounded horrified. 'That – by the Emperor, you might be right!'
Lakon nodded, a shocked look in his eyes. 'I think you might just be, my Lady. I wish you weren't, but this has surprise attack written all over it. You think they can take on the Navy?'
Lady Sharrow took another long gulp from the bottle. She screwed the cap on the bottle. 'It wouldn't make much sense to take it on if they didn't think they could.' She put the bottle away. 'You have a direct line?' she asked Lakon.
He nodded.
She held out a hand. 'May I?' she asked pointedly.
With the hand that wasn't inside his power fist, Lakon removed the headset. He passed it to her. She held the earpiece to her ear and spoke into the microphone.
'This is Inquisitor Sharrow. Repeat, this is Inquisitor Sharrow. Pull back – you aren't ready for this!' She paused. 'Damn it, that is an order! What part of the word 'order' don't you understand?'
Then she fell silent for a moment. Alaster saw a spasm of rage wash across her face. She ripped off the headset and threw it to the ground. There was both fire and ice in her eyes. She stared at the headset, with a look composed equally of fury and revulsion. In a deadly quiet voice, she said to it, 'What do you mean, "No"? What is this "no" you speak of?'
Then, with a brutal motion of her foot, she stamped on it. There was a crunch. Bits of plastic sprayed out and there was a quick crackle as some electrics sparked. She looked up. Her mouth was a tight line. She was shaking. Her fists were balled at her sides.
The bridge had fallen silent. A lot of nervous people were watching the tableaux. Suddenly the place smelt, just a little, of sweat and fear.
Lakon, being a Space Marine and thus only knowing of fear through a distant chain of mutual acquaintances, looked straight back at her without flinching. 'Were they … less than helpful, my Lady?'
She opened her mouth. She closed it. She opened it again. Finally she managed to grate some words out past the anger. 'Yes, Brother-Captain. They were indeed less than helpful. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they were unhelpful. In fact, they refused an order. They. Refused.'
A tick had started up in her left eyebrow.
'I see,' Lakon said after a moment. 'I suppose they believe that victory will sanctify their actions?'
'They may believe that,' Lady Sharrow agreed coldly. 'Sadly for them, their agreement is mistaken.' She turned her head. Her eyes swept the room. She somehow managed to make eye contact with every watching face. For a moment, her eyes locked right onto Alaster. He actually felt like she was staring straight through his helmet! Her gaze was ice cold and as sharp as a drill. She was so very, very angry. 'And I can give you all my word on this. When this farce has ended, whatever the outcome, I will have words with this admiral. And he will find my words rather painful.'
There was a flash of light on the screen behind them. It was followed in quick succession by another one. Two white explosion-blossoms, expanding silently into the vacuum.
'Two more ships,' the woman sensor tech reported – the same one Alaster had listened in on earlier. 'Both destroyed.'
Lakon looked soberly at the screen. 'Let us just hope the admiral survives to hear your words, my Lady.'
Lady Sharrow looked back at the screen. 'It's looking unlikely, isn't it?'
Another silent white blossom exploded into view.
'What are your orders?' Lakon asked.
She nodded, just a little. Some of the rage subsided, just a bit. 'The Astartes fleet - I want it pulled back to the two planets. We need a defensive cordon. If the Navy asks for help, I am ordering you – repeat, this is an order! – not to respond. The Nids are trying to destroy as many of our ships as possible, and adding more wood to the fire won't help us. When they're done with the Navy, there's going to be a full-scale assault against Minoris and Majoris. I can see what they're doing here – they're moving to crack us open.'
'What should we say to the Navy?' Lakon asked.
'Tell them I order them to pull back,' she said. 'Tell them their commander has exceeded his authority, and as of this moment the Imperium rescinds his commission. Tell them he is no longer their lord. Tell them to get back here and help us rescue something from this mess.' She paused, then added, 'The lives of every single man, woman and child in this system rests on this. It's not just Minoris now but the quarter of a trillion people on Majoris too.
'If we lose right here, right now, everyone will die.' She spat the words.
Another silent fireball blossomed on the screen.
'This is as bad as it can get, isn't it?' Kodos said.
He was about to be proved wrong.
Contrary to common perception, the Hive Mind was a finite entity.
In the minds of the Imperial warriors fighting it, it had taken on something of the quality of a demonic intelligence. A fiendish being of almost-supernatural power, unbounded by the normal rules of time and matter. An unknowable but malign intelligence that could strike where and whenever it wished. Truly alien. Truly terrifying. Utterly inhumane – and always hungry.
As was often the case, the Imperium was somewhat mistaken. It was right about the Hive Mind being alien, inhumane and hungry. However, the perception of infallibility was exaggerated.
It had to be acknowledged that the Hive Mind was capable. Millions of Tyranid brains, running in parallel and psychically-linked, gave it an enormous reservoir of cognitive ability. Its telepathic faculties were so vast that they actually overwhelmed the Warp, creating the Shadow. Its ability to spawn new servant-creatures could run at a remarkably high speed. Its biological inventiveness was enormous, and it was a master of mutation and DNA manipulation.
However, and this was a crucial point, it was still finite. It had limits. The limits might be wide, but they were there. And the Hive Mind was running close to those limits.
It was currently engaged in fighting not just in orbit near the planetary binary, but also elsewhere throughout the system. It was fighting skirmishes and engagements across a region of space nearly five light-hours across. That was a huge volume. In addition to that, it was co-ordinating the actions of millions of newly-spawned Tyranid organisms on Minoris itself, as it built its strength up again for a fresh assault on the embattled north. It was also constantly watching the neighbouring planet, in case something should change there. It kept sending out spore-pods toward Majoris, testing its defences. So far the missile-interceptors were holding up admirably, but the Hive Mind considered it to be only a matter of time before a pod found its way through. And then the ground assault could begin on the larger world.
But all this meant the Hive had, in the colloquial, a lot on its mind.
When people are distracted, when multiple events demand their attention, when their resources are spread thin, that is when mistakes happen. And in this respect, the Hive Mind was no different from any other intelligence. It was running millions of bug-slaves and thousands of ships. It was silently guiding vast drifts of bio-mines toward the approaching Imperial ships. It was probing the well-defended neighbour-world.
The Imperial forces had made many mistakes in the Riothrian System. It was past time for the Hive Mind to have its own little slip too. And when it did, it happened in spectacular style.
The Hive Mind was directing one of its bio-ships to engage an Imperial craft with plasma, in the hope of forcing the Imperial ship into a drifting cloud of bio-mines. However, it was so focused on this engagement that the locations of some of the mines were briefly neglected. The mines were small and had only the most rudimentary nervous systems – their telepathic signature was negligible. They were easy to overlook.
One of them collided with the bio-ship.
The explosion sent the bio-ship into a spin. Pain flaring through its nerves, the space-going creature desperately tried to right itself. Then the Imperial ship fired on it, briefly blinding it. Trying to regain control, the ship fired its engines.
And as it couldn't see, it didn't realise that it was pointed right at the Tyranid mothership.
The bio-ship regained its sight a few seconds later. But by then the enormously-powerful bio-plasma thrusters were already running at somewhere north of a fifteen-Terra-gravity acceleration. It didn't have time to stop itself before it slammed into the surface of the mothership.
The Imperial suspicions about the enormous potato-shaped alien craft were entirely correct, as it happened. It had indeed journeyed here from Andromeda. It had indeed spent an unbelievable length of time in the frozen night between the galaxies. As such, it carried an enormous volume of reaction mass, both as propellant and as food for the long, slow voyage. It still had more than half of its original mass, consumed during a vast feeding frenzy in another galaxy in the distant past.
And the out-of-control bio-ship collided with one of the mothership's thruster-sphincters. An instant after collision, the bio-ship exploded. Its explosion ripped the sphincter open. A plume of highly-reactive biomass sprayed out. That biomass encountered the plasma-shockwave from the bio-ship's accidental kamikaze run. And the plume was destabilised. It too exploded.
The explosion propagated back into the mothership itself. Billions of tons of volatile biomass were ignited. A huge, reddish orange fireball burped out from one side of the mothership. The fireball expanded in all directions, bringing with it a wash of kinetic energy.
The mothership was pushed to one side.
A lot of its propellant was gone. Its manoeuvring system was severely-damaged. And it was on a new orbit. A slightly different orbit. An orbit that portended no good for anyone, whether human or Tyranid.
Up ahead in the sky, bluish-white against the darkness, the crescent of Minoris gleamed with the hopeful glow of a life-bearing world. It was a hope that would very shortly be ended.
Lady Sharrow stared at the screen. 'Okay – what just happened?'
'Looks like the Emperor just answered our prayers,' Lakon said, sounding awed.
Everyone on the bridge was looking at the screen. Even the people busy with ship-related duties kept sneaking amazed glances. Alaster was staring too. What he was seeing was unbelievable.
'Was that the Navy?' Kodos asked.
On the screen, the purplish potato of the Tyranid vessel was wreathed with an expanding cloud of fire. A vast explosion had just erupted somewhere on the far side of it. They'd actually seen its wrinkled, leathery surface convulse! It was now backlit by a cooling and reddening spherical plume of destruction.
One of the sensor techs spoke up. 'No,' the voice said. 'That wasn't the Navy. Repeat, that wasn't the Navy. One of the Nid ships crashed.'
'Skak,' Lakon remarked. 'It must have hit something important.'
'Well,' Lady Sharrow said, sounding very surprised, 'maybe at last we have some good news. What's the rest of the Nid fleet doing?'
'We're getting mixed reports,' someone else put in, 'but they seem to be disorganised.'
Schematics blossomed on the screens. Alaster and the others watched the Nid fleet as it scattered backward and forward. The motion of the spacecraft was disoriented, almost random. It was as if they were all suddenly concussed, lurching drunkenly back and forth.
'The Hive Mind,' Lady Sharrow guessed. 'The Hive Mind's stunned! It's lost control!'
Kodos's helmet nodded in sudden understanding. 'It's been nutted!' he said. 'The explosion on the mothership – it's taken a knock to the head!' He sounded delighted.
Someone on the bridge started cheering. Suddenly everyone was joining in, a spontaneous eruption of emotion. Even Alaster felt swept along with it. He waved his chainsword above his head triumphantly. Now this was good news! Everyone was cheering and laughing and clapping each other on the back. Faces were wreathed in smiles and hands were shaking. Inside his helmet, he was beaming too. Finally – a concrete blow to the alien menace!
Then he noticed something that stopped him in his tracks.
The Tech-Priests had lowered their incense-censers. Instead of sonorously-swinging them, they had gathered around a console. They were conversing quickly in low voices. Alaster couldn't quite catch what they were saying. But something about it chilled him. He heard what sounded like a small gong. Puzzled, he looked around for it, but he couldn't quite see where the sound had come from. His eyes tracked back to the front of the bridge.
He looked up at the screen.
Something caught his eye. Was it just his mind playing tricks, or did the hive mothership appear to have moved, just a little? And was it just his mind acting up, or was the orientation different? Did it seem to be pointed a bit more toward them?
Yes, it did. The potato looked more circular than oval. He was staring down it, not across it, he realised. Suddenly, even as people carried on whooping and cheering around him, Alaster felt uneasy.
It spurred him into action. Space Marines didn't just stand there when questionable things happened. He lowered his chainsword and walked over to Lakon, Kodos and Lady Sharrow. Technically he shouldn't leave his station, but he had feeling it might be important.
Lady Sharrow noticed his approach first. Just for a second he caught her eyes as she glanced over the name engraved on his collar. She was very quick, he had to acknowledge.
'Brother Alaster,' she said. 'What is it?'
He pointed at the screen. 'My Lady – forgive me but I don't think this is good news.'
Kodos and Lakon had noticed his arrival. Lakon looked quizzical and Kodos sounded annoyed.
'What the skak is this, Karo?' the sergeant asked. 'Get back to your post!'
'Let him speak,' Lakon said. A look of faint concern had entered his eyes.
'The potato – the ship,' Alaster said. 'It's pointed toward us now. It wasn't before.'
Lady Sharrow frowned. Then she glanced at the screen, and an eyebrow rose. 'He's right,' she said. 'So it is.'
Kodos and Lakon looked too. Then, Kodos said, 'Has someone changed the magnification?'
Lakon shook his head. 'The screen's already on maximum, I believe.'
'What is it?' Lady Sharrow asked.
'Is it just me,' Lakon said, 'or does it look just a tiny bit bigger?'
'It does, doesn't it?' Kodos said, sounding sombre.
'I can't see it,' Lady Sharrow said.
'It looks bigger to me as well,' Alaster said. 'With respect my Lady, you don't have our enhanced eyes.'
'No,' she said, 'I suppose I don't. Three Space Marines versus a middle-aged woman's knackered eyeballs. I'll accept your opinion, then. But what does this mean?'
'It's pointed our way,' Kodos said, 'and it's looking bigger. Either the object itself has physically-expanded – which seems unlikely – or…' He trailed off.
'It's incoming,' Alaster said.
Lady Sharrow regarded them, a sober look in her eyes. 'Remind me,' she said slowly. 'I seem to recall being told that monster is fifty kilometres across?'
Lakon nodded. 'That's right.'
'And it appears to be headed our way,' she said. 'Toward us. And we're currently in low orbit around Minoris, aren't we?'
'That is correct,' Lakon agreed.
Lady Sharrow nodded, slowly. She looked toward the console with the Tech-Priests. 'Is it just me, or are they huddling and looking even more furtive than they usually do? No, it's not just me, is it?'
'They've worked it out too,' Lakon said.
'We need to talk to them,' Lady Sharrow said. Without another word she swept imperiously toward the Tech-Priests. The marines found themselves towed along in her wake.
By now the bridge crew were beginning to twig that something wasn't quite right. The euphoria was rapidly evaporating, and worried eyes were looking toward the procession as it moved toward the huddle of red-robed Tech-adepts.
The room fell silent as they approached.
Lady Sharrow stopped, a couple of feet from the console. She looked at the Tech-Priests. They looked back. She said nothing.
One of them stepped forward. 'Your Ladyship-'
'The Tyranid mothership,' she cut him off. 'It's moving this way, isn't it?'
The Tech-Priest's hood bobbed up and down. A green light glowed in the darkness inside it. A toneless and polite voice spoke. 'Yes, your Ladyship. We've just performed the Rite of Laser Dopplerimetry on it. The radial velocity is confirmed. The explosion has kicked it inwards.'
'Toward us,' Lady Sharrow said.
'Yes, Ladyship.'
'Show me,' she said.
The Tech-Priest reached out and touched a key on the console.
The left sidescreen flickered and changed. Now it too displayed the same schematic of the solar system – except there was an additional pink line, running from the original orbit of the mothership. It curved inward. Alaster followed the curve, with horrified realisation.
The line, gradually bending in the two suns' gravity well, twisted in toward the blue epicycle that marked the orbit of the planetary binary. Alaster followed it on, silently praying that it wouldn't do what he thought it would. But there was something inexorable about it. He was reminded of the curve of the dam, the one his squad and the Wolves had destroyed to foil the Nid advance. The dam had been curved too – it had had the same sense of geometric power, of enormous force pent up behind it. And when that concrete curve had given way, the consequences had been just as violent as this.
No. There was no hope, he saw. There was no chance of evasion. There was no chance of re-direction. There was no possibility of escape. The unthinking and uncaring laws of celestial mechanics had taken over. It was just like the eclipse they had witnessed on Majoris, the planets racing toward their preordained appointment. Just as the Space Marines had offered no quarter during their assault on deCopelberg, so too space itself showed no mercy. The cold gods of momentum and gravity demanded a blood sacrifice, and what they called for, they would receive.
That sacrifice was to be a planet called Riothria Minoris.
'It's going to strike the planet, isn't it?' Lady Sharrow said.
She was correct. The coloured lines intersected on the plot, a death sentence written in brightly-chromatic thread.
The Tech-Priest nodded. 'Yes, your Ladyship.'
'And what will the effect be?' she asked.
'In standard units, the object has a kinetic energy of around four times ten to the twenty-fifth power,' the Tech-Priest explained, 'or five percent the combined per-second output of the two suns-'
'In Gothic, please.'
'An ending,' the Tech-Priest said simply. 'It will be the end of Minoris. When the object strikes, it will melt the crust. The mantle plume will smash the continental plates. The input of heat will boil the oceans. And the shockwave will rip off the atmosphere.'
Someone on the bridge gasped.
'And the people on the surface?' Lady Sharrow asked. 'What about bunkers? Shelters? Basements?'
'They won't help,' the Tech-Priest said bluntly. 'This event is not survivable. Surface conditions will not approximate the range tolerable by human beings.' He paused. 'The planet will be unable to support any form of life for at least another ten million years. A new crust will need to solidify, and volcanic action will be needed to restore an atmosphere.'
For a moment, a long and chilling moment, there was silence on the bridge.
Lady Sharrow nodded. 'I take it there is no chance of diverting this meteor?'
The Tech-Priest shook his head. 'Not on such a short timescale, no. The object is too big, too heavy and too fast.'
Lady Sharrow reached into her robe and produced the bottle. She glugged down another long draught. She gave no sign of caring who saw her do it. She then lowered the bottle. She wiped her mouth with her free hand. 'Well,' she said, 'I suppose I can hardly complain, given that I ordered an Exterminatus. But there is one more question I must ask.' A gallows smile crossed her face. 'Call this the billion-crown question, if you will.' There was a desperate intensity in her eyes. And, to Alaster's shock, he saw some sweat beaded on her brow. She was tense! 'How much time do we have?'
The Tech-priest said, calmly and impassively, 'Thirty hours. Thirty hours and thirty-five minutes, with an error region of plus or minus two point nine minutes.'
The bottle fell from Lady Sharrow's hands. It crashed to the floor. It clanked on impact, rattling as it fell to its side. A plume of alcoholic-smelling liquid sprayed out from the miniature impact.
He empty hand spasmed and shook. She didn't appear to have noticed.
'Thirty hours?' she screeched. 'Thirty hours? What in the name of the Emperor are we to do in thirty hours?'
'There are more than a quarter of a billion people left on that planet,' Lakon said, staring flatly at the Tech-Priest.
The adept raised his hands defensively. One of them was entirely mechanical. 'For what little it is worth, we extend our condolences,' he said. 'And we have faith that the Omnissiah will accept their wisdom when they pass over.'
'Is there no hope?' Kodos growled. 'Can we do nothing?'
The Tech-Priest pointed at the screen. 'We are sorry. But the computations are rigorous. We have accounted for all the sources of error. We have factored in all the parameters.' He gestured to the console. On the side of it Alaster noted a line of three votive candles, in white, black and red. At the end was a small gong, upright in a wooden frame – so that was where the sound had come from! 'And we have performed the Rite of Calculus. We lit the candles of Understanding, Enlightenment and Analytical Mechanics. We rang the Gong of Gnosis, to invoke the spirits that conserve momentum, energy and charge. We have left nothing to chance. All the sacred rituals have been performed, in the manner handed down to us from the Ancients.
'There can be no mistake. In Thirty hours, or thereabouts, Minoris and all who remain upon her will die.'
