The Flight of the Eisenstein

Where there had been bare deck and scatterings of discarded equipment, now there was a cohort of

stocky, armoured figures in a perfect combat wheel deployment. A ring of eight Astartes, resplendent in battle gear that shimmered in the light of the biol-umes, stood with their bolters ranged at their shoulders, with none of the chamber unguarded.

One of them spoke with a voice clear and hard, in the manner of a man used to being obeyed instantly. 'Who is in command here?'

Garro stepped forward, his weapon at his hip and his finger upon the trigger. 'I am.'

He saw the speaker now, his head bare. He picked out a hard face, a humourless aspect, and behind him… What was that behind him?

'You will stand down and identify yourself!'

In spite of the tension inside him, something in Garro rebelled at the superior tone and he sneered in reply. 'No,' he spat, 'this is my vessel, and you have boarded it without my authority!' Abruptly, all the strain and anger that he had kept locked away inside him over the past few days roared back to the fore, and he poured every last drop of it into his retort. 'You will stand down, you will identify yourself, and you will answer to me}'

In the silence that followed, he caught a murmur and as one, the muzzle of every bolter the boarding party held dropped downward to point at the decking. The warrior who had addressed Garro bowed and stepped aside to allow another figure – the shape he had glimpsed at the centre of the group – to step forward.

Garro's throat tightened as a towering shape in yellow-gold armour came into the light. Even in the feeble glow of the lanterns, the raw presence of the new arrival lit the room. A severe and uncompromising gaze surveyed the chamber from a

grim face framed by a snow-white shock of hair, a face that seemed as hard and unyielding as the mammoth plates of golden-hued brass that made the man a walking statue; but no, not a man.

'Primarch.' He heard the whisper fall from Hakur's mouth.

Any other words died forming in Garro's throat. He found he could not draw his sight away from the warlord's armour. Like Garro's, the warrior wore a cuirass detailed with eagles spread over his shoulders and across his chest. Upon his shoulder pauldron was a disc of white gold and layered to that, cut together from sections of blue-black sapphire, was the symbol of a mailed gauntlet clenched in defiant threat. Finally the diamond-hard eyes found Garro and held him.

'Pardon our intrusion, kinsman,' said the demi-god, his words strong and firm but not raised in censure. 'I am Rogal Dorn, Master of the VII Legiones Astartes, Emperor's son and Primarch of the Imperial Fists.'

He found his voice again. 'Garro, lord. I am Battle-Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Death Guard, commanding the starship Eisenstein!

Dorn nodded gently. 'I request permission to come aboard, captain. Perhaps I maybe of some assistance.'

PART THREE

UNBROKEN

FOURTEEN

Dorn's Fury Divinity To Terra

The men at the gunnery stations stood in salute as they carried out the orders of the primarch. Heads bowed, they made the sign of the aquila across their chests before the commander of the cannonade island on the prow of the fortress placed his hand on die firing lever. The officer paused for a moment and then pulled the massive trigger.

Four high-yield ship-to-ship torpedoes flashed from their firing tubes, thruster rockets igniting to carry them the short distance from the fortress to the frigate. Each one was tipped with a compact but very powerful atomic warhead. One would have been enough to do the job, but after the catalogue of horrors that had walked the decks of the Eisenstein, the overkill was deemed necessary. The ship's duty was concluded, and only in death did duty end.

The Phalanx watched the last few seconds of the starship's life unfold. The massive construct, the

nomadic home of the Imperial Fists Legion, was more planetoid than it was space vessel. It stood at silent sentinel over the ending of its smaller Sister.

The torpedoes impacted at the bow, the stern and at equidistant points along the frigate's beaten and ravaged hull. The detonations had been programmed flawlessly, all four rippling into one seamless, silent flare of radiation and light. The glow illuminated the surrounding vessels of the Astartes fleet, and cast bright columns of white through the windows of Rogal Dorn's sanctorum atop the highest of the Phalanx's towers.

Garro turned his face away from the flash and in doing so felt an odd pang of regret, almost as if he had done the steadfast vessel a disservice in not watching her last moments of obligation to the Imperium. Dorn, some distance away at the largest of the windows, did not move. The nuclear light washed over the primarch and not for one moment did he flinch from it. As the flare died away, the master of the Imperial Fists gave a shallow nod.

'It's done, then.' Behind him, Garro heard Iacton Qruze's remark. 'If any taint of that warp witchery remained, it is ashes now.' The old warrior seemed to stand a little taller now that his power armour had been repainted in the old colours of the Luna Wolf lively. Dorn had raised an eyebrow at the change, but said nothing.

Garro was aware of Baryk Carya at his side. The shipmaster's face was sallow and drawn, and the Astartes felt pity for the man. Commanders like Carya were as much a part of their ship as the steel in the bulkheads, and to give up his vessel like this clearly struck him hard. In his fingers, the man held the brass

dedication plate that Garro had seen bolted to the base of Eisenstein's navigation podium. 'The ship died well,' said the Death Guard. 'We owe it our lives, and more.'

Carya looked up at him. 'Lord captain, at this moment I think I understand what you must have felt at Isstvan III. To lose your home, your purpose…'

Garro shook his head. 'Baryk… iron and steel, flesh and bone, these things are transient. Our purpose exists beyond them all, and it will never be destroyed.'

The shipmaster nodded. Thank you for your words, captain… Nathaniel.' He looked to the primarch and bowed low. 'If I may take my leave?'

Dorn's adjutant, the Astartes captain from the boarding party,, answered the question. 'You are dismissed.'

Carya bowed again to the Astartes and made his way out of the wide, oval chamber. Garro watched him go.

'What is to become of him?' Qruze wondered aloud.

'New roles will be found for the survivors,' replied the captain. His name was Sigismund, and he was a sturdy, thickset man, hair a dark blond with a patrician face that echoed the same austere lines as his liege lord's. 'The Imperial Fists have a large fleet and able crew are always prized. Perhaps the man can be put to use as an instructor.'

Garro frowned. An officer like that needs a ship under him. Anything else would be a waste. If only we could have taken the frigate in tow, perhaps-'

'Your recommendation will be noted, battle-captain.' Dorn's voice was a low thunder. 'I am not usually given to explaining myself to subordinate ranks, but as you are of a brother Legion and your

disciplines differ from that of my sons, I will make this exception.' He turned and looked at Garro, and the Death Guard did his best not to shrink beneath the steady attention. 4Ve are not given to waste time with ships that are wounded and unable to keep up with the Phalanx. Already during this journey I have lost three of my own vessels to the storms in the warp, and still I am no closer to my destination.'

'Terra,' breathed Garro.

'Indeed. My father bid me to follow him back to Terra in order to lend my arm to the fortification of his palace and the formation of a Praetorian aegis, but with the aftermath of Ullanor and all that came from it… we were waylaid.'

Garro felt rooted to the spot, the same tense awe he had felt before Mortarion and in the Lupercal's Court holding him in a tight embrace. It seemed so sUange to hear this mighty figure speaking of the Master of Mankind as any common son would talk of his parent.