[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 18] - Deliverance Lost by Gav Thorpe

Author:Gav Thorpe [Gav Thorpe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781849700610
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2011-12-31T11:00:00+00:00

PART TWO

RECONSTRUCTION

TEN

Return to Deliverance

Unlocking the Gene-tech

Caesari

THE LANDSCAPE OF Deliverance was dominated by a kilometre-high needle at the centre of the workshops. Once this had been the infamous Black Tower, the main citadel of Kiavahr’s guards. Now it was called Ravenspire. Spotlights from dozens of gantries pierced the black void, shining down upon transportways and sprawling mineheads. Defence turrets studded its surface, guided by gleaming sensor-lenses in armoured niches, arrayed like the eyes of a fly. Corax’s Stormbird descended over the sprawl of the ancient prison towards one of the eight landing aprons that jutted from Ravenspire like grey fungi on a black stalagmite, each surrounded by the pale glow of an energy field.

Looking at the maze of prison wings and guard houses, it would be an observer’s first thought that the moon’s facilities were in disrepair. Rockcrete housings and metal panels covered the surface of the buildings like patchwork, while some areas were left blasted and burnt, open to the airless vacuum of space. Force domes glittered in the starlight, protecting clusters of high-rise cell blocks, fuel storage tanks and ore transport hubs.

The appearance of Deliverance was deceptive. All damage caused during the rebellion and the subsequent counter-attack by the guilds had been fully repaired. Not a crack leaked air nor a door seal was broken. By order of Corax, the settlement bore its scars as reminders of those who had died to free the moon-colony from the oppressive tyrants on the planet below; as long as such affectations did not compromise safety or security.

As Corax gazed down through the port of the Stormbird, he could remember every single rupture and ruin, as if they had been wounds on his own flesh. The drop-ship passed over Wing Eight, where he had lived with Antonu, and where the rebellion had truly begun. The once-majestic Twelfth Gate that linked Wing Eight to the Ravenspire bore the marks of the bombs that had been planted by his guerrillas to trap the guards who had come flowing out of the central spire, welts of darker plasfoam that filled the cracks like scar tissue. Naphrem Solt, a thirteen year-old girl, had sacrificed herself to detonate the last of the charges to bring down the arching gateway on the reinforcements.

Wing Seven was all but a ruin. Burnt-out cells with empty windows stared into the blackness. Four thousand inmates had perished there, scourged by a fireball unleashed when the guards detonated the main gas supply. Corax had not anticipated this, and it was with bitter memories that he looked down at the blackened shell of the prison wing. It had taken more than a year to recover all of the bodies from the ash, babes and elders for the most part, Wing Seven having been a low security administrative complex.

Corax had scoured the security logs to find out the man responsible and had tracked down Corporal Theod Norruk four days later. The primarch’s revenge had been drawn out, a moment he was not proud of, but which had brought him a small sense of satisfaction at the time.

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