‘You will forgive me, my lords, if I devote myself to the workings of the ship for a few minutes to come,’ Massaron said. ‘We are about to leave orbit.’
‘By all means, shipmaster,’ Kerne said, and then watched with keen interest as Massaron, his human officers and the unblinking servitors stirred the gargantuan bulk of the Ogadai into trembling wakefulness.
The heavy cruiser was over four kilometres long, and had a crew of some twenty thousand humans and many thousands more servitors. Its main weaponry was a series of heavy plasma weapons known as lances, the most powerful of which, the Voidsunders, were mounted in the bow. Lesser versions were echeloned in broadside all down the angular sides of the cruiser, along with torpedo banks and short-range lasburners.
The Ogadai, given time, could blast through any void shield in existence, and had been known to cut enemy vessels clear in half. But it was unwieldy when it came to short-range actions, vulnerable to boarding. The cruiser carried its own soldiery in the form of the shipguard (they could not be known as marines), but it relied on its escorts to see off any smaller craft which sought to close. These escorts were a trio of ageing destroyers, the Arbion, the Beynish, and the Caracalla. They hovered protectively within a few hundred kilometres of the capital ship, their powerful augur radar sweeping out on all sides, searching for threats.
‘Coming round,’ Massaron said quietly. ‘Arbion, match course when I give the signal. Beynish, starboard flank, eight hundred. Caracalla, port one thousand.’
‘Acknowledged.’
‘Enginseer Miranich, you may engage main engines.’
A binaric crackle in response, and then in recognisable Low Gothic the servitor said, ‘Main engines, acknowledged, sir.’
They could feel the thrum of the ship’s power increase. The very atmosphere in the command chamber seemed to thicken about their faces. Minute changes in the artificially generated gravity field came and went. Jonah was able to sense the acceleration, and the long, slow wheel away from the planet below.
‘Arbion, stern three thousand,’ Massaron said. He looked over the towering screens and dials and blinking digital outlays which reared up before him like the ornate backdrop to an ancient altar. Beyond them the tall viewports soared up to reveal the utter dark of space, and the turning, distant course of a billion stars.
‘Steady, quarter flank. Course as set.’ Massaron was looking up at the viewports now, for a moment something like sheer joy written across his closed face. The vibration in the command chamber steadied, dulled somewhat. The Ogadai settled into its course, a creature of the stars in its element. Even Jord Malchai’s brow lifted as the great vessel began its departure from the Phobos system, leaving Phobian thousands of kilometres farther behind with every second.
‘We will be in interstellar space in four planetary hours, my lords,’ Massaron said. He adjusted his midnight-blue tunic, tugging it down over his torso to smooth out invisible creases.
‘Nicely done, shipmaster,’ Fornix said. ‘I felt nary a bump.’
Massaron bowed slightly, then caught Jonah’s eye. ‘If Mortai’s captain would indulge me, I would like to walk him through the ship and perhaps discuss some topics which our rapid departure has raised.’
Malchai opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Senior Reclusiarch of the Chapter he might be, but now they had left Phobian, Kerne was in command; and there was no gainsaying that.
Jonah Kerne nodded. ‘Fornix, you might want to inspect our brethren in the troop holds. My lord Malchai, I would appreciate your presence there also. Our brothers would, I am sure, relish a sermon at this time. For some of them it is their first time off-world.’
Malchai met Jonah’s eyes with flat displeasure. ‘It is both my duty and my honour to do your bidding, captain.’
‘Follow me then,’ Fornix said. ‘I know the way. This thing is easy to get lost in.’
Malchai took his helm and deliberately set it on his head. There were several tiny hisses as the power armour locked it in place, and what there was of his humanity disappeared entirely. In its place was the ceramite sculpt of a grinning skull, the badge of his calling, white as ivory save for the two red lenses burning deep in the eye-sockets.
‘Lead on, first sergeant,’ his voice said, augmented slightly by the suit systems, but perfectly recognisable.
The two warriors left, stalking down the nave of the command chamber like massive gleaming statues brought to agile life.
‘I have not had the honour of the Reclusiarch’s presence on my ship before,’ Massaron said.
‘Quite an honour it is,’ Jonah said wryly. ‘What would you have me see, shipmaster?’
‘If you would follow me, captain. I think better when I am walking.’
They left the Command by a circular side-chamber in which pairs of servitors and human personnel sat side by side staring into what seemed to be identical screens.
‘The fire-control room for the forward lances,’ Massaron explained. ‘Every system is duplicated several times over, and can also be rerouted to secondary command, and even to engineering if that should become necessary.’
‘I have seen Voidsunders in action,’ Jonah said. ‘They are fearsome weapons.’
‘Yes, but slow to recharge. The Ogadai was designed to operate as part of a fleet of capital ships, each protecting the other. Since the Dark Hunters no longer possess a fleet of heavy vessels, the ship has been extensively redesigned over the centuries to meet the… rather more specific needs of the Adeptus Astartes.’
‘The troop holds.’
‘Yes. Much of the lower hull was gutted, and a lot of broadside ordinance removed so that the bottom holds could be enlarged to accommodate several flight decks and holsters for the drop pods.’
They walked along an endless glim-lit corridor with heavy sealed doors on their right.
‘These lead down to the broadside batteries,’ Massaron explained with a wave of his hand. ‘Lasburners and torpedoes in most cases, with lighter plasma cannons for close-range work. Each battery is wholly self-contained, and is crewed by some three hundred men, plus the servitors.’
‘What about the Voidsunders – what is their complement?’ Kerne asked, rather more interested than he had expected to be. He had walked these corridors before, but almost a century in the past, and they were unfamiliar to him now.
The Ogadai might not have changed very much externally, but its interiors had been in flux for generations as the tech-priests and the servitors of the fleet worked endlessly on repair and refit and redesign. If the Primarch himself, mighty Jaghatai, were to come back after his centuries of absence, he would not know the ship which had once belonged to the White Scars.
‘We have two of the heavy lances in the bows,’ Massaron went on. ‘Each has a crew of some eight hundred. Fire control remains, as you have seen, with Command. In the last extremity, the lances can be either ejected from the main hull of the ship, or set to destruct in the case of an enemy boarding.’
‘Shipmaster, I have not seen any tech-priests on board ship.’
Massaron looked up quickly at the towering Space Marine. ‘They have a shrine at the heart of the Ogadai, and usually only travel the ship in cases where severe damage needs to be repaired, or new components are being outfitted.’
Kerne nodded approvingly. The Dark Hunters had endured a problematic relationship with the Adeptus Mechanicus since the days of their Founding, when the Blind King and his Titans had almost destroyed the Chapter. It was one of the reasons that the Hunters were so poorly provided for in starships and heavy armour.