All around us the command deck hummed, but it was a bleak parody of the way things had once been. There had been a time when reports would have been coming in from hundreds of distant worlds scattered throughout an entire sector of the galaxy. Now they were concerned only with this one world and its occupants. It showed the terrible narrowing of focus as the energies of the crusade dissipated in internal strife.
Now the holo-sphere showed only the great murky orb of Loki and the two satellites that orbited it, the huge skull moon and the tiny, speeding lesser one. Inquisitor Drake studied them intently as if by staring hard enough he could somehow divine the course of the future. The rest of the commanding officers watched warily. Macharius smiled grimly to himself, in possession of a secret that only he knew, but which would decide all of our destinies.
‘Niflgard is once more in the hands of our enemies. It seems we will be starting again from scratch,’ said Drake. He was fishing for information.
‘It will not be so for long,’ said Macharius quietly. ‘Once Richter and his staff have fallen.’
Drake shot him a puzzled look. ‘What do you mean?’
Macharius gestured to a tech-adept and the view zoomed in to show the area over which we had fought so long and hard previously. Massive armoured citadels lay in a fortified ring. Each was a fortress city holding tens of millions of people. Each had the industrial capacity to supply a dozen armies.
‘Niflgard was to be an advance base for a conventional campaign. We needed its hive factorums to provide munitions and material, to supply our war machine, to compensate for the long supply lines. We wanted the world’s resources. We don’t need them any more. What matters most is that we settle matters with Richter and the powers that stand behind him.
‘Previously we got bogged down in endless warfare fighting the way our enemies wanted, to our own disadvantage. Not this time. This time we attack Richter directly.’
‘But that ring of citadels is impenetrable. It is impervious to the most potent orbital bombardment of the greatest fleet. You yourself said we would need to take it on the ground.’
‘I was wrong,’ said Macharius. ‘There is another way. We will drop from orbit into the centre of the ring and strike the head off the monster.’
Drake looked at him as if he suspected Macharius had gone mad. I could understand why.
‘We don’t have twenty Chapters of Space Marines,’ the inquisitor said. ‘We will die like flies on the ground. You said you no longer wanted to waste the lives of our soldiers. Do you intend to throw them all away at once in some grand gesture, to martyr yourself for the Imperium?’
There was an odd tone in the inquisitor’s voice, as if he did not entirely disapprove of the ideas to which he was giving voice. I noticed that the Naval officers nearby were listening intently, a kind of calm curiosity written on their faces. They could afford to feel that way. They would not be trying to force a beachhead on the surface of Loki in the teeth of the defences of those fortified mountains.
Macharius laughed. It was a merry sound with no hint of madness in it but it did not reassure me. ‘I am not ready for death yet, my friend,’ he said. ‘Not until I have settled scores with all my enemies.’
Looking back now, it seems to me that he gave Drake an odd look when he said all my enemies. At the time what I noticed was that the calm assurance of his words made all the listeners shiver. He was completely certain of what he was doing. It was like listening to the old Macharius who had always been the still centre of the storm of battle around him. The difference was that I had changed. I no longer shared the Lord High Commander’s self-belief. I had allowed myself to doubt my complete faith in him, and once that had happened there was no going back to the old ways.
‘We are going to destroy those fortresses,’ said Macharius. ‘And here’s how.’
He outlined his plan, crisply and clearly. It sounded like madness, but as I listened I found myself starting to believe again. It might, after all, just work.
The sorcerer-enginseers of the Adeptus Mechanicus had finished their work. Their ships departed from the surface of the lesser moon. I stood beside Macharius and Drake and the others and watched their ships return to join the body of the fleet.
‘How long?’ Drake asked. His voice was sombre.
‘The drives will be activated in the next cycle, then we shall begin.’ He turned to speak to his staff officer. ‘I want everyone ready to go within the next twelve hours.’
‘All troops are on standby. The shuttles are ready. We await only the coordinates for landing, sir.’ He stood tautly to attention and was clearly waiting for Macharius to reveal the landing point.
‘Very good,’ said Macharius dismissing him. ‘I want my personal shuttle ready to spearhead the attack on the ground. I want all the men to know I am going with them. I will be on the ground, sharing the risks.’
I listened intently. Anton caught my eye. His face was a blank mask but I could tell what he was thinking. If Macharius was going to be on the surface, I was going to be there too, and so were Anton and Ivan.
Macharius issued the final orders and then we were left alone with him and Drake. ‘You are playing this close to your chest,’ Drake said. ‘Do you still suspect there is a traitor among us? Another Crassus, or something worse?’
Macharius shrugged. ‘I do not know where we will be landing… yet. I will not know until the divinatory altars tell us where we can set down and that won’t be for another four hours.’
The hours crawled by. Macharius and Drake and his upper echelon of command sat in his grand stateroom and surveyed the greenish, polluted outline of the world below them. They smoked and drank like condemned men. I think all of them felt that Loki was going to be their graveyard. It had been an unlucky place for Macharius, the crusade and the Lion Guard. We had fought there for so long and to so little effect that no one quite believed that this time it was going to be any different.
And yet, for all that, they sat there tense and drawn, ready to respond to any command. No matter how the rest of the crusade now felt, these men were still ready to follow Macharius to their deaths.
‘What if it doesn’t work?’ Inquisitor Drake asked. He sounded worried. All of the officers gathered in the chamber looked at him as if he were expressing a heresy.
‘It will work,’ Macharius said. ‘I have every faith in the Adeptus Mechanicus. Their scholars have performed every calculation a thousand times. All of the engines are placed correctly. There will be no mistake.’
At that point the moon was on the far side of the planet, hurtling along its final orbit. I looked at the chrono on the wall and realised that very soon now we would find out whether Macharius’s plan was going to work or whether his final desperate gamble was going to fail. The man himself showed no sign of being worried. If there were any doubts in his mind there was no clue to that fact upon his face. He glanced around at all of his sub-commanders and smiled.
‘There is no need for all the long faces, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I want you all to be prepared to descend upon the surface of Loki at a moment’s notice and to destroy the heretics there with complete and utter ruthlessness. Now is not the time to have any doubts. Now is not the time to show mercy. Now is the time to seize victory for the Imperium with our own hands and to show the watching worlds that the crusade is still a force to be reckoned with.’
One by one the officers around the table appeared to relax. One by one they became infected with the confidence that their leader showed. It was just like the old days when Macharius had seemed invincible and just for a moment it seemed that he was once again the unbeatable strategist that we had believed him to be.