Fire Warrior (Warhammer 40,000) by Simon Spurrier

Author:Simon Spurrier [Spurrier, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

— V —

13.30 hrs (sys. local – Dolumar IV, Ultima Seg. #4356/E)

Kor’vesa 66.G#77 (Orbsat Surveillance) chattered to itself, complex energistic movements inside its shell shuttling packages of information from data stream to memory core. A sequence of algorithms interrogated all incoming data for security breaches or hidden frequencies and wordlessly deposited the filtered remains into a carrier package reserved for the por’hui media. These developments would be considered high priority, the little AI quickly established, and sought to edit them into some sort of intelligible sequence.

The guns had stopped. The fighters and Barracudas had pulled back, redocking to fuel and make repairs. The fleets had regrouped: two shoals of sullen, scarred predators, called off by their respective alpha males. Damaged hulls gaped and vented into the starlit void, scattered wreckage tumbling thickly in the nothingness.

A withering selection of message bands and tightbeam commstreams threaded from ship to ship within each fleet; to 66.G’s multifarious senses they were rendered as vivid as glowing plasma cords or superheated cables – a network of pulsing channels that conspired to drown each pack of vessels beneath luminous gossamer threads.

The largest commstream of them all, visible to three of the drone’s filter optics as a conical blast of green light, hung suspended between the Or’es Tash’var and the Enduring Blade.

A personnel shuttle left the tau fleet, enveloped in a solid phalanx of fighters. 66.G ran a routine scan, detecting seventeen distinct lifesigns aboard the central craft. One bore the unique energy signature of an ethereal, and in immediate response the drone’s stabilisers began to charge in anticipation of movement.

The Tash’var’s AI released a quick databurst to the various drones and computer controlled craft lurking at the periphery of the scene: negating directives designed to protect Auns at any cost, their guardianship uncalled for in this instant. 66.G’s engines returned to inertia without having fully powered up and, along with the silent swarms of other drones, returned to its lonely vigil.

Its various optic clusters tracked the personnel carrier carefully, internal processors exploring routes of action and possibility, until the bulbous vessel scooped itself inside the Enduring Blade’s cavernous forward hangar and the fighters broke away. The Aun’s lifesigns, thus shielded beyond the black vessel’s hull, blinked out.

Kais slept.

He dreamed, a little. It was not pleasant.

Constantine stood amongst the wreckage of his bridge and glared sullenly at a stack of viewscreens, distorted images jumping and crackling.

‘Can’t you make them any clearer?’ he snarled, venting his frustration upon the tech-priest manning the monitors. The robed figure scowled and shook its head.

The first screen showed a door, sliding open. They came aboard in a gaggle, different sizes and shapes and uniforms making them seem, from a distance, disordered and cluttered. Only when they began to walk, guided by a white-faced ensign in a singed, torn uniform, did their rigid efficiency become apparent.

The warriors, tan armour spotless and domed, asymmetrical helmets glaring beadily through emotionless optics, fanned out cautiously on either side. There were twelve in all, four on each

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