‘Would you rather I let you and your men perish, commissar?’ Veigh asked, and there was genuine surprise in his voice.
‘Yes. We would have died honourably. Now our victory is tainted by your crime. You must summon the Adeptus Arbites here, now, to this room.’
‘We are under martial law – the Adeptus Arbites no longer has jurisdiction here, commissar. I am the supreme commander of all forces, military and civilian, on this planet.’
‘You have forfeited that position with your treason.’ Von Arnim drew his laspistol. ‘I am sworn to uphold the authority of the Imperium. By my life, I cannot see that authority flouted, no matter the conditions or the circumstances.’
Strangely, Marshal Veigh smiled. There was almost a kind of relief on his face. ‘I expected no less of you, commissar. Will you indulge me for one more minute?’
‘Hear him out, Ismail,’ Dietrich said, eyes like stone. He set a hand on his commissar’s pistol and lowered the barrel gently. ‘He isn’t going anywhere.’
‘Thank you,’ Veigh said. He reached for the table and lifted a data-slate.
‘On this is a document I had drawn up this morning. It has already been uploaded to the banks of every cogitator and voxponder in the citadel, and it has been sent in burst traffic to Cypra Mundi itself.’
‘What is it – a confession?’ Von Arnim sneered.
‘Yes,’ Veigh said quietly. ‘I set out my case for killing Governor Riedling, a murder in which no one else of my command had any part. I also formally relinquish command of all forces and other authorities here on Ras Hanem and throughout the system.’
Veigh’s voice was stronger now, and he had straightened. It was possible to see a glimmer of the man he must once have been, a leader to look up to.
‘There is no excuse for my crime, not in the Imperium in which we exist. But I believe it was a necessary act.
‘And that is irrelevant now.’
Slowly, he opened the flap of his holster, and drew out his pistol. He looked down upon it.
‘This was my father’s.’ He handed it to Dietrich, butt-first. ‘It is yours now, general, and with it, the supreme command here on this planet and within this system, until the Emperor or some higher authority relieves you.’
Dietrich took the pistol with great care, as though it were a relic of some saint.
‘I will speak for you, Veigh, when it comes to it,’ he said softly.
‘Do not. I will not taint your career. It is enough to have destroyed my own and to have soiled my family’s good name with my crime.’ Veigh drew himself up, and straightened the medal which hung at his throat. He turned from Dietrich to Von Arnim.
‘Commissar, do your duty.’
Von Arnim paused a moment. ‘A traitor you may be, Veigh,’ he said, ‘but you are a man, at least.’
Then he shot Marshal Veigh through the heart.
TWELVE
Adventu Venantium
The great starship and its consorts moved through the blackness like a vast reptilian predator surrounded by its young. Four kilometres long, a small world in itself, the Ogadai cruised through the Kargad system at manoeuvring speed with the three angular destroyers, the Arbion, the Beynish and the Caracalla, sweeping the emptiness before it for signs of life and death, foe and friend.
The Dark Hunters had arrived at last.
‘Come round to course six three mark nine,’ Tomas Massaron, the shipmaster, said, and his voice echoed in the lofty nave of the Ogadai’s command centre. He stood upon the dais with the instruments of the ship towering on three sides about him like the altar-screen in a cathedral, and beyond them the tall void-shielded viewports were full of stars, and far off, a larger shining sphere of light that was a planetoid or moon.
The ship servitors muttered to themselves in an unending stream of binaric data. Junior officers clad in Hunters blue came and went with the hushed reverence of worshippers at a shrine. Some chose to glance at the giant standing next to Massaron, but most averted their eyes from the bright flint-glare of his unblinking eyes.
‘Arbion reports debris fifteen thousand kilometres on her left flank, sir,’ one of the human officers said.
‘Analyse,’ Massaron told him, his gaze sweeping the dials and monitors like a man scanning a regicide board for openings. ‘Enginseer Miranich, extend augur range to our left flank, towards the moon.’
A metallic click, and the embedded servitor said ‘Acknowledged. Extending range. Range complete. Augur reads no returns.’
‘Very well. Quinn – word from Arbion?’
‘Yes, sir. Debris consistent with small attack craft.’ The young officer raised his head. ‘Not ours, sir. Their composition is inconsistent with anything in our files.’
‘Very well. Signal all escorts, spread out another ten kilometres and extend augur systems to maximum range. I want no surprises, gentlemen.’
The giant at Massaron’s side chose this moment to break his silence at last.
‘How long until we are in high orbit about Ras Hanem?’
‘Approximately seven hours, captain. Do you wish me to sound battle stations?’
Jonah Kerne considered. ‘Negative.’ Battle stations would entail the loading of his warriors into the Thunderhawks and drop pods down on the troop decks. It was too early for that. In a ship-to-ship fight, were it to occur in the next few hours, he needed his brothers to be flexible, not sitting cooped up in their launch-harness. He needed to know what they faced first.
‘As you were, shipmaster. The Ogadai is yours to do with as you will. I am merely here to observe.’
It did not seem that way. The towering Adeptus Astartes in the midnight-damascened power armour dominated the command dais like the statue of a god in a temple. But Massaron nodded, seemingly pleased.
‘My lord, as soon as is practicable, I promise you I will give you and your brethren fair warning of all eventualities.’
He wants me off his bridge, Kerne thought with a small, interior smile. Well, I would be the same. But I want to be here, to see it, not hear about it over the vox on the troop decks.
‘Am I in your way, shipmaster?’
Massaron paled slightly. ‘Not in the least, my lord.’
‘Then proceed.’
There was a smell of machine-incense in the air. Kerne had allowed a blessing of the nave by the tech-priests as they had entered the system the day before. That much was tradition, and was adhered to even by the Dark Hunters.
More than that, the human crews expected such blessings and ceremonies before going into battle. The ships needed them, and it was considered unlucky to forgo the rituals.
Another thing I have grown accustomed to in the last months, Kerne thought. How long has it been? He stretched slightly, widening his shoulders in the armour, the plates moving with his bones.
Far too long. Three and a half months of shooting target servitors and studying maps and battle simulations and listening to Malchai preach. Mortai was heartily sick of shipboard life, not because it was in any way a burden, but because of the tediousness of the routine. Not a bolt fired in anger in over three months.
When one was sharpening a knife, at a certain point one had to stop, because the fine edge was made blunt again by the very act of sharpening.
Mortai was as sharp as Kerne could make it. Now it needed to be used. What was it Fornix always said? The blade grows blunt in the scabbard – that was it. Yes, it was high time Mortai was unsheathed.
There were nineteen Thunderhawks on the troop decks, ready to be launched, and a dozen drop pods for a quick coup de main, should that be needed.