'Report,’ said Princeps Turnet, re-entering the cockpit from the Titan's main dorsal cavity.
'We're sealed,’ said Moderati Aruken on the other side of the bridge. 'The crew's fine and I have a zero reading of contaminants,’
'The virus has burned itself out,’ said Turnet. 'Cas-sar, what's out there?'
Cassar took a moment to gather his thoughts, still struggling with the hideous magnitude of death that he couldn't have even imagined had he not seen it through the eyes of the Dies Irae.
'The Isstvanians are… gone,’ he said. He peered through the swirling clouds of gas at the mass of the city to one side of the Titan. 'All of them,’
The Death Guard?'
Cassar looked closer, seeing segments of gun-metal armour partially buried in gory chokepoints, marking where Astartes had fallen.
'Some of them were caught out there,’ he said. 'A lot of them are dead, but the order must have got to most of them in time,’
The order?'
Yes, princeps. The order to take cover,’
Turnet peered through the Titan's eye on Aruken's side of the bridge, seeing Death Guard warriors through the greenish haze securing the trenches around their bunkers and treading through the foul remains of the Isstvanians.
'Damn,’ said Turnet.
We are blessed,’ said Cassar. They could so easily have been-'
Watch your mouth, Moderati! That religious filth is a crime by the order of-'
Tumet's voice cut off as movement caught his eyes.
Cassar followed his gaze in time to see the clouds of gas lit up by a brilliant beam of light as a blazing lance strike slashed through the clouds of noxious, highly flammable gasses.
All it took was a single spark.
An entire planet's worth of decaying matter wreathed the atmosphere of Isstvan III in a thick shawl of combustible gasses. The lance strike from the Vengeful Spirit burned through the upper
atmosphere into the choking miasma and its searing beam ignited the gas with a dull whoosh that seemed to suck the oxygen from the air.
In a second, the air itself caught light, ripping across the landscape in a howling maelstrom of fire and noise. Entire continents were laid bare, their landscapes seared to bare rock, their decayed popuВlations vaporised in seconds as winds of fire swept across their surfaces in a deadly gale of blazing destruction.
Cities exploded as gas lines went up, blazing towers of fire whipping madly in the deadly firestorm. NothВing could survive and flesh, stone and metal were vitrified or melted in the unimaginable temperatures. Entire sprawls of buildings collapsed, the bodies of their former occupants reduced to ashen waste on the wind, palaces of marble and industrial heartlands destroyed in gigantic mushroom clouds as the storm of destruction swept around Isstvan III with relentless, mindless destruction until it seemed as though the entire globe was ablaze.
Those Astartes who had survived the viral attack found themselves consumed in flames as they desВperately sought to find cover once more.
But against this firestorm there could be no cover for those who had dared to brave the elements.
By the time the echoes of the recoil had faded on the Warmaster's flagship, billions had died on IsstВvan III.
*Р¤*
Moderati Cassar hung on for dear life as the temВpestuous firestorm raged around the Dies Irae. The colossal Titan swayed like a reed in the wind, and he just hoped that the new stabilising gyros the Mechanicum had installed held firm in the face of the onslaught.
Across from him, Aruken gripped the rails surВrounding his chair with white knuckled hands, staring in awed terror at the blazing vortices spinВning beyond the command bridge.
'Emperor save us. Emperor save us. Emperor save us,’ he whispered over and over as the flames bilВlowed and surged for what seemed like an eternity. The heat in the command bridge was intolerable since the coolant units had been shut down when the Titan was sealed off from the outside world.
Like a gigantic pressure cooker, the temperature inside the Titan climbed rapidly until Cassar felt as if he could no longer draw breath without searing the interior of his lungs. He closed his eyes and saw the ghostly green scroll of data flash through his retinas. Sweat poured from him in a torrent and he knew that this was it, this was how he would die: not in battle, not saying the Lectitio Divinitatus, but cooked to death inside his beloved Dies Irae.
He had lost track of how long they had been bathed in fire when the professional core of his mind saw that the temperature readings, which had been rising rapidly since the firestorm had hit, were beginning to flatten out. Cassar opened his eyes and saw the madly churning mass of flame through
the viewing bays of the Titan's head, but РџРµ also saw spots of sky, burned blue as the fire incinerated the last of the combustible gasses released by the dead of Isstvan.
'Temperature dropping,’ he said, amazed that they were still alive.
Aruken laughed as he too realised they were going to live.
Princeps Turnet slid back into his command chair and began bringing the Titan's systems back on line. Cassar slid back into his own chair, the leather soaking wet where his sweat had collected. He saw the readouts of the external surveyors come to life as the princeps once again opened their systems to the outside world. 'Systems check,’ ordered Turnet. Aruken nodded, mopping his sweat-streaked brow with his sleeve. "Weapons fine, though we'll need to watch our rate of fire, since they're already pretty hot,’
'Confirmed,’ said Cassar. We won't be able to fire the plasma weapons any time soon either. We'll probably blow our arm off if we try,’
'Understood,’ said Turnet. 'Initiate emergency coolant procedures. I want those guns ready to fire as soon as possible,’
Cassar nodded, though he was unsure as to the cause of the princeps's urgency. Surely there could be nothing out there that would have surВvived the firestorm? Certainly nothing that could threaten a Titan.
'Incoming!' called Aruken, and Cassar looked up to see a flock of black specks descending rapidly through the crystal sky, flying low towards the blackened ruins of the burned city.
'Aruken, track them,’ snapped Turnet.
'Gunships,’ said Aruken. They're heading for the centre of the city, what's left of the palace,’
'Whose are they?'
'Can't tell yet,’
Cassar sat back in the cockpit seat and let the filaments of the Titan's command systems come to the fore of his mind once again. He engaged the Titan's targeting systems and his vision plunged into the target reticule, zooming in on the formation of gunships disappearing among the crumbling, fire-blackened ruins of the Choral City. He saw bone-white colours trimmed with blue and the symbol of fanged jaws closing over a planet.
'World Eaters,’ he said out loud. They're the World Eaters. It must be the second wave,’
There is no second wave,’ said Turnet, as if to himself. Aruken, get the vox-mast up and connect me to the Vengeful Spirit.' 'Fleet command?' asked Aruken. 'No,’ said Turnet, 'the Warmaster,’
Iacton Qruze led them through the corridors of the Vengeful Spirit, past the Training Halls, past the Lupercal's Court and down through twisting pasВsageways none of them had traversed before, even
when they had been hiding from Maggard and Mal-oghurst.
Sindermann's heart beat a rapid tattoo on his ribs, and he felt a curious mix of elation and sorrow fill him as he realised what Qruze had saved them from. There could be little doubt as to what must have happened to those remembrancers in the Audience Chamber and the thought of so many wonderful creative people sacrificed to serve the interests of those with no understanding of art or the creative process galled him and saddened him in equal measure.