[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 51] - Slaves to Darkness by John French

Author:John French [John French]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781780309705
Published: 2018-07-04T13:54:24+00:00

ELEVEN

Maloghurst

‘Fleet systems at full alert,’ said Sota-Nul as they hurried through the dark of the Vengeful Spirit’s underworld. Maloghurst was breathing hard. He was sweating blood inside his armour. He thought he could still feel the heat of the burning sky on his face.

‘Why did we come out of the warp?’ he asked as they hurried on. He needed to get to the bridge, he needed to see what was happening. Sota-Nul was siphoning information from the ship’s systems, but it was not the ship or its systems that worried him.

‘As in heaven, so on Earth…’

‘Emergency translation owing to sudden extreme change in etheric conditions,’ said the tech-witch, and coughed a blurt of binaric that might have been an approximation of a mirthless laugh. ‘It threw us back into reality.’

‘And the enemy were just there?’

‘We dropped right on top of an outer system orbital fortress cluster,’ said the tech-witch, her voice sounding all too human as it purred the words. ‘A major one. Five star forts, a beta nine-grade weapons platform network, forty monitor craft and a battle group-sized fleet of warships. I sense the presence of my unenlightened kin and the sons of Rogal Dorn. Do you ever have the sensation that you are being tested/cursed?’

‘You think this amusing?’

‘I think it catastrophic, but not without opportunity.’

‘To lose men and materiel in a pointless fight.’

‘To see if your Legion can kill without the hand of Horus on its shoulder.’

He did not answer. Ten minutes of silence later they reached a primary access hoist. Maloghurst overrode the lockouts and sent the hoist shooting up to the Vengeful Spirit’s aft command cluster. Sota-Nul peeled away as the doors opened, floating above a cluster of lesser tech-devotees as they fell to the floor in obeisance. Maloghurst kept moving, shrugging off the calls of guards and Legion warriors as he strode into the strategium. Shouted orders and the calls of system servitors replaced the blare of battle alarms. Holo-light blinked and spun in the air beneath a domed roof of crystal. The shimmer of reactivating void shields blotted out the light of the stars as he glanced up.

Aximand stood on a stone pillar at the room’s centre. A curtain of light surrounded him, changing as his eyes flicked across it. His mouth was set in the stitched mask of his face.

‘This is not the time for whatever you are here for,’ said Aximand as Maloghurst came to the base of the pillar.

The deck trembled. Maloghurst recognised the sensation of the short-range guns firing.

‘Hold launch of all boarding formations,’ shouted Aximand. ‘Bring everything into formation around us, full weapon overlap.’ He glanced at Maloghurst. The skin of Aximand’s sutured face was sweating. ‘They are already inside firing range. We have no time to calibrate the main guns.’

‘So close?’ asked Maloghurst.

‘We came out of the warp in range of their guns, and they began to move while we were still recovering from the translation.’

‘How long until we can make translation back to the warp?’ asked Maloghurst.

Aximand’s

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