n. pl. in·cu·nab·u·la (-l)1. A book printed before 1501; an incunable.
2. An artifact of an early period.
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Excerpt from Inexpressabilis Cultus believed destroyed along with its author [identity withheld] with fire and holy word by Inquisitor Mabben of the Ordo Hereticus, 281.M38:- Synu Volcica, Sons of the Heavenly Wolf, Pais Lupus Diabolica, Children of Hunger – the most popular names for a series of related heretical cults that thrived for a period of about three centuries in the Segmentum Tempestus (~400.M36 to ~600.M36), were thought eradicated In Extremis by my colleagues in the Ordo until a resurgence in ~600.M37, with continual low-level activity since that date across the Segmentum. The long-term aims of the cult are unknown despite close questioning of surviving cultists, beyond the usual desire to spread fear, panic and death throughout Imperial society. The rituals of the cult are particularly distasteful, even to a student of the arcane, revolving primarily around the worship of obscure lesser daemons known collectively as the Children (sometimes 'Spawn' or even 'Hands') of Phenrys, and the frenzied consumption by possessed cultists of putrefied or diseased flesh, most often human in origin. The nature of these lesser daemons has been much debated among my colleagues, since they appear in cult records only until ~600.M37, after which all efforts to summon them appear to fail, including my own I regret to record. For posterity here is the ritual, although from my own experience I would add that care should be taken when removing the skin as large unblemished sheets are clearly preferable to smaller scraps, and sedation of the live subjects is actively discouraged in the literature for reasons that become apparent as one proceeds. ***END EXCERPT*** 792.M41 “Steady, mister, keep it centred. Don’t lose that trace,” said Keir quietly, bending over the glowing chart-table. The Anteus was running stealthed, all light sources visible from outside extinguished. The quarterdeck was plunged into a velvety blackness, lit only by the tiny stablights held by the officers around the chart table and the electron glow of the data-screens and slates, which only made the darkness seem deeper. The huge viewports showed nothing at all. Pointing away from the sullen glow of the Greater Clouds now lying to stern there was no light source visible to them in the Argo-Navis system at all at this depth, just limitless and featureless blackness. Keir’s face was bathed in the crystal radiance of the vis-screen set into the chart table, the chaotic swirl and fuzz of false colour output by the long-range auspex occasionally clearing even through the intense rad-storm to reveal to him the tell-tale signs of another vessel approaching their position from up-system. “Still no transponder signal, eh?” asked Keir. “No, sir”, replied K’eto. Keir nodded slowly, possibilities racing through his mind. “Show me the stern view.” The light falling across his face changed to a deep red, shot through with russet and ochre bands; the Greater Clouds, glowing right behind them. Keir checked that the patch of cloud the Anteus was silhouetted against was still relatively dark. Good, he thought, it was. He could hold position here a while longer. While this storm held there was a very good chance the other vessel had still not seen them, even if they had known where to look, and would not be able to see them until they were too close to escape. Keir turned away and began to pace around the front half of the quarterdeck, considering his options silently. The vessel seemed to be alone, with no escort, his records did not show any of the Combines, Houses or Amalgams with mining ships heading into this area, and although the lack of a security transponder signal was no real guarantee in this much interference, it was all pointing in just one direction. Very well. “Clear the decks for action and beat to quarters, Mr K’eto.” “Clear for action, aye. Beat to quarters, captain, aye.” # The loudhailers and voxcasters around the ship began to blare an insistent, martial rhythm. Those not on watch leapt or, in the case of the startled convict crewmen, were pushed out of their cots and ran to their positions, hurriedly fastening up their overalls and stumbling over boots that were only half on. Already eyes were wide and breathing shallow amongst those who had never seen action before. Proctor Brenner strode into the Arbites’ quarters, somehow already in his carapace armour, as his troopers pulled theirs on silently and efficiently and freed their combat shotguns from the open rack on the bulkhead. He planted his shock maul on the bare decking in front of him with a crash. His bloodshot eyes, deepset in his lean, heavily-lined face, watched the men as they drew to attention. “Squads form up,” he bellowed, speaking quickly. “Alep One and Two to the turrets, fore and aft, this is no drill. Beht One with me, and Two – unlock the small arms and get the crew ordnance laid out. Be ready to man the new plasma cannon should the Captain give the word, Beht Two. The Emperor commands and -” “- WE OBEY!” shouted the ranked troopers immediately, their vox units amplifying the cry. “Now move!” As the Arbites hustled past him in squads he stopped Trooper Thurl with a bark. “Thurl! Put that flamer back in the rack. You know this captain don't like flamers, boy. That's it, take the launcher, son. Now move out!” Brenner knelt quickly before the Banner of Justice, making the sign of the Aquila as he did so, picked it up and followed after his squads. The PDF crewmen assembled rapidly in the staging areas along the flanks of the Anteus, getting into their bulky evac-suits as the midshipmen and lieutenants arrived to marshal their assigned gun crews. # Keir paced on the quarterdeck. The vessel was almost within visual range. He gave the order to intercept. “Ready port and starboard batteries, First. I think we might get a chance to roll and rake her as she peels off.” In the dorsal observation blister Roke put down his vellum sheets and stylus, his exacting sketches of the Greater Clouds forgotten in the din. “What in the name of all that's holy is that noise?” he muttered to himself irately, as he slid inelegantly off the cross-bracing he had perched himself on, scattering the last three days drawings as he did so. He made his way down the chimney-like access ladder, stopping frequently to extricate his cane from the rungs, and stepped off into bedlam. Crewmen were running down the transverse, in both directions, some carrying laspistols, others carrying flopping evac-suits and others what looked to Roke like fire-fighting gear. There was a loud hissing sound coming from pipes running along the ceiling that were dripping with moisture, loud enough to make itself heard above the blaring voxcasters. The air rang with shouted orders as Roke cautiously made his way forward, waiting for someone he recognised to pass so he could find out what was going on. “Boarding crews get to the bloody arms locker! This is not a sodding drill!” “Do I look like a fecking data-slate? Find it yourself you -” “- decomping gun-pits twelve to eighteen starboard, aye sir.” “No, no, no collar-boy – it goes that way.” Roke grabbed a passing rating whose rotting teeth he had torn out and replaced earlier in the week. “Excuse me, Crewman Drewyr. What in the blue hell is going on? And what is that bloody racket? Has the ship gone mad, man?” Drewyr made a quick sign of obeisance. “Clearing for action, doctor, we're beating to quarters. Got a hull up-system.” He ran on. Roke watched him disappear in the hurrying throng. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much.” He decided to head for the quarterdeck where, hopefully, everyone still spoke Low Gothic. After finding one of only two transverses not now sealed every ten metres with bulkheads he eventually reached the thick double hatches to the quarterdeck, still dark as the void outside, just as the infernal klaxons ceased. “Ah, doctor!” said Keir. “I think we can promise you a decent show today.” He leaned in close to Roke. “Try and, eh, you know, stay out of the way. Over there, perhaps.” “Seven hundred kloms.” Roke could not see the speaker in the gloom, but it sounded like young Ramifer. He edged backwards and leaned awkwardly against the steeply angled brace-girder behind him and tried to work out what was happening. He could feel the engines surging, the girder at his back thrumming with the distant power, still getting stronger. He could also feel the far-off sub-sound echoes of very heavy pieces of metal moving with purpose, micro-tremors quivering the deck plating. The fabled great guns, perhaps, moving into position. “Six hundred kloms”. It was Ramifer, a midshipman, up on the balcony. Keir's pacing brought him back to Roke's position. “We have a hull on the auspex, Doctor. Almost certainly a black marketeer doing a runner for the Great Cloud just astern. She goes in there we'll lose her. She's probably armed, but the Anteus should be a match for her, especially since she probably won't even see us until we open fire. Your medicae ward set up to receive casualties?” “Shouldn't we -” “Five hundred kloms.” “- shouldn't we, I don't know, hail it? Ask them to surrender? Find out who they are?” Keir laughed. “Even if they are a licensed vessel, they are on an unlicensed course without a transponder. I'm entitled to take a shot at them without asking questions, but they are black marketeers, I can feel it. I have nothing against them, personally, they are miners after all, but this is the price they pay for defying the Emperor's authority. We are the law out here, Evan, this is what we do.” He turned to go, and then added. “We'll get a good look at them anyway, as we get closer the auspex will resolve enough to tell us if they are friendlies. That screen there. We'll have visual soon, too.” Keir waved at the viewports, and moved off to confer with K'eto. “Four hundred kloms.” Roke moved over to the wall-mounted vis-panels Keir had indicated. He could see a blurry shape, slowly getting larger, although thinning in the middle, in the centre of the screen. Green trace-lines criss-crossed the display showing range, attitude and course, as well as a host of other information Roke could not decipher. “Reverse the engines, Mister Fuyrance and start to sync velocities,” he heard Keir call out behind him. “We don't want to shoot past her before we have a chance to shoot her, eh?” The change in timbre and volume of the thrumming in the surrounding superstruture changed almost immediately, ramping to a crescendo and then changing tone again. Pandemonium broke out behind Roke. “Sweet Throne -” “- two of them!” “Damnation, side-by-side -” “- almost touching -” “- not seen us, pull away -” “- handle two at once!” Keir's voice cut through the din, ending it instantly. “Enough! Auspex – the distance between the vessels!” “Two hundred – two hundred and fifty metres, sir,” Ramifer replied immediately, although Roke could hear the quaver in his voice. He was rattled. “Both miners, sir.” Keir paused for a heartbeat. “First, any signs they've seen us? Are they breaking off? Changing course?” “No, sir. They might be carrying out a cargo exchange at that distance. If so their attention may be on that, captain.” “Three hundred kloms.” “Maintain course. Cut the engines, just attitude control.” Keir keyed his vox. “Gun-captains, report in.” The voxcasters on the dark quarterdeck crackled into life. “Port forward ready, aye.” “Port aft ready, sir.” “Starboard forward gun crew ready, sir.” “Starboard aft ready, sir.” “Arbites turret crews ready, willing and able, captain.” Keir keyed his vox again. “Listen carefully. We're going to pass between them, there's just enough room. You'll be firing at pointblank range as we pass, and at a fair speed too, but I don't want to just blow holes in them. Gun-captains, make your aim the auspex and vis blisters on the bow and the flanks. Fire as they bear. Turret crews too. Auspex blisters only. Brenner – get a squad onto the plasma cannon. The Emperor protects, and he will guide your hand.” Roke watched all this, and also the surprised looks Keir had just attracted from his officers as he gave his orders to the gun-captains, with a dry mouth,. He could tell something had gone badly wrong, but was not clear what it was. Keir walked up to him. His broad, heavy-set face was cold and deadly serious. “Best you get to your medicae ward, Doctor, we may have casualties for you soon enough.” “Yes, of course. Can you tell me what's -” “Two miners, so close together it looked like one on the auspex. Damnable luck. I'm going to try and end the engagement before it begins, but if I fail, we will have one heck of a fight on our hands against the two of them. Make sure you're armed, Doctor. If this goes badly, we will be lucky just to get boarded. Now go.” “Two hundred kloms.” Roke hurried off the quarterdeck, and glancing back his last sight before the double hatches closed was of Keir standing ramrod-straight before the viewports, his hands clasped behind his back. # The two mining ships were visible now, black shapes only just apparent against the slightly-less black background, growing rapidly. Keir, running the figures in his head without the need for a data cogitator, tracked the three ship's positions, speeds and attitudes. His ability to do this had amazed his Lieutenants in his early career in the PDF, since numerical ability seemed otherwise to be completely beyond him. The two miners were coming up fast, with a space only twice as wide as the Anteus between them. His plan, when there had only been one miner, had been to slow the Anteus and then punch her into reverse just before the miner came alongside, giving his gun crews plenty of time to sweep her with a broadside as she passed. He would have ended up behind her, she would have peeled off in panic, and if he guessed the direction right – and he was confident he would have – he could have rolled and fired his second broadside at her rear, raking her from stern to bow. That plan was now discarded. Instead the Anteus had stopped reversing her engines and so still had quite a bit of forward speed of her own. He would pass between the two miners, far more quickly than he had originally planned, but with the aim of carrying out much more precise gunnery. There was a lot that could go wrong, thought Keir. The miners could notice the Anteus too soon and pull apart, although they still gave no sign of having seen him. The gunnery could fail to hit the targets. There could be something between the ships the auspex could not resolve – if they were exchanging cargo the Anteus might run right into it. “Forty kloms.” The collision warning hailer shrieked into life, and was quickly silenced by Ramifer. “Thirty kloms.” Keir took a quick look at the officers gathered on the quarterdeck, all of them tried and tested under fire, but not under him. Not yet. “Twenty kloms”. Keir took his cap off, slung it under his arm and wiped his brow. It had been two years since he had last stood in command of a ship about to go into battle. He offered up a silent prayer to Saint Taliesyn as the black shapes swelled to fill the viewports. “Ten kloms.” The damn fools still hadn't seen the Anteus. What were they doing over there? Holy Throne, this might actually work, he thought. “All guns, fire as they bear!” barked Keir into his vox. He felt the decking under his feet jump fractionally before he heard the rolling thunder of the first guns begin to swamp the quarterdeck with noise. The adamantine-tipped rounds hurtled across the void invisibly fast towards their targets. Designed to punch through heavy armour plating and rad-shielding, auspex blisters were like puffs of smoke before a hurricane, and blasted apart under even a glancing blow. Where the shots missed their targets they punched smooth, rifled holes in the hardened ceramite thick enough for a man to climb through. Or to fall through, should the shells breach a pressurised compartment. The Anteus sycthed between the two miners, blasting hard rounds into their exposed flanks with a precision and a fury that brought a grim smile to Keir's face. The entire ship rocked as the plasma cannon added its triple barrage to the destruction, scoring deep craters along the main sensor pods on the vessel to port. There was no time for a second firing, and Keir voxed the starboard gun-captains to target the same pod on the vessel racing past them. Suddenly Keir was almost knocked off his feet as the Anteus yawed fractionally to port with a lurch, like a boxer struck by a glancing blow he had failed to see coming. At the same time a resounding clang echoed throughout the vessel, ringing it like a bell. Damage and fire picts began to flash insistently, as decomp hailers wailed. Keir took a hurried look at the slates on the chart table, wondering if one of the miners had possibly gotten off a shot, and quickly confirmed what K'eto had suggested. There had indeed been a cargo transfer going on, or something like it, and they had just hit it. “Fire suppression teams to the port forward thruster housings. Activate fire suppression systems in those areas, Mister K'eto.” Keir, like most ship commanders, had a pathological fear of uncontrolled fire onboard. The rolling roar of the guns finally faded away as the black, vertiginous hulks of the miners disappeared off the side view from the quarterdeck viewports. Looking at the vis-slate on the chart table Keir could see them racing away on the rear view, silhouetted now against the Great Clouds, their huge, stern-mounted storage tanks and flaring engines blotting out large chunks of the glowing plasma to starward. Keir could just make out the debris field starting to form between them from the pounding they had both just taken. A pounding that, however brutal, had utterly failed to cripple either of them. “Bring us about, sir?” asked K'eto. “No,” said Keir. “No engine activity whatsoever. No thruster flares. Maintain full stealth profile.” “But – Captain – they know we're here, sir,” K'eto said, slightly hesitantly, unwilling to appear to be stating the obvious to his commander. “Hah! Are you sure?” asked Keir, half-smiling now, his anxiety not showing on his usually expressive face, but his hands fidgeting behind his back as he paced rapidly up and down. He was loathe to admit it, but he was not sure either. The miners clearly hadn’t seen the Anteus approach from out of the eye of the storm, their attention clearly on the cargo transfer, or whatever it had been. Once between the two ships, with the great guns blazing, nothing whatever would have been visible. Now, with their auspex and vis out, well, they couldn’t tell that their companion vessel was just as badly damaged as they were. And that had been the key to Keir’s plan. “They're panicking right now,” said Keir, “They didn’t see us, but someone hit them and for all they know will hit them again very hard and very soon, and there's only one other ship within a thousand kloms it could have been-” Keir stopped, and grinned, as the two mining vessels lit up in twin flares of activity, brilliant flashes of light spearing from one to the other, a new debris field exploding out between them as their own weapons batteries targetted the apparent traitor alongside them. Keir made the sign of the Aquila and muttered a blessing, and then shouted, “By the Emperor, is that not a beautiful sight? Bring us about Mr K'eto, smartly now. Get the engines back on line – doesn't matter if they see us now. Anyone care to lay odds on which one is crippled first?” Words of congratulation echoed around the quarterdeck. He keyed his vox. “Gun-captains – excellent work. Your crews have done you proud. Stand by, we should have two crippled vessels to deal with in a few minutes. Arbites and boarding squads to the boarding rams and the ship's boat. We have served the Emperor well today.” He stood for a moment, watching the withering exchange of fire now coming into view through the tall viewports as the Anteus turned hard to port. The engines on one of the miners flared brightly; it was probably trying to disengage, he thought. He was calculating a new course to intercept the ships should they veer off together, locked in mutual destruction, when the whole quarterdeck was lit up in sudden, intense blue light. Keir turned his head aside instantly – although the clear ceramite reacted and darkened even quicker - and instinctively raised his hands to shield his eyes, unwelcome memories flashing in his mind as he did so. The icy blue flare died as quickly as it had bloomed, only to be followed an instant later by another, identical – and identically brief – burst of light. Stony-faced, Keir watched the glowing debris spheres spread out, pinpricks of super-heated ceramite and steel rapidly cooling to black invisibility in the void. He waited until the Anteus' hull started to ping and clang with the impact noises before walking off the now silent quarterdeck. # Out of the corner of his eye Roke registered Keir enter the medicae ward, but he was busy trying to locate and tie-off an arteria magna that was bleeding freely inside crewman D'Verre's partially-defleshed thigh. He saw Keir moving quietly around amongst the injured crewmen; a word here, a word there. The mysteries of command had always interested Roke. He had assumed Keir's confident, direct and energetic persona would translate into a captain who sought comradeship or friendship with his crew – the kind of leader who was 'just one of the men' - perhaps even sought approval, although even Roke knew that would be fatal. Instead, Roke was intrigued to see the captain stern – almost forbidding – when interacting with the men, now perhaps more so than at any time since he had come aboard. What perplexed him was how the men responded; they hung on his every word, however few those words were; they made an effort, he saw, to hide their injuries, to mask any pain they were in. Intriguing, thought Roke, as he secured the errant blood vessel and heat-sealed the end with a med-stylus and a wisp of smoke and steam. He quickly rinsed his hands in decon fluid and moved on to the next cot – full thickness burn injuries and an unconscious, collared crewman, whose screams before losing consciousness had been audible long before his gun-crew mates had dragged him to the medicae ward. Keir exchanged words with an white-faced but smiling Salem – a broken arm and collar bone, nothing serious, Roke would see to him in a few hours provided he could stop Salem trying to return to his duty before then – and walked over to Roke's side, looking down at the glistening, cracked and blackened flesh that would spell almost certain death for the patient. “Crewman Gruu. Will he fight his gun again, doctor?” asked Keir quietly. Roke was surprised Keir knew the man's name, there were over two hundred souls aboard, but said nothing. “I can control his suffering, but he has served the Emperor for the last time, Captain.” Keir growled softly, and lowered his voice. “So. What is the butcher's bill?” Roke did not look up, but nodded his head at a data-slate perched on top of an anbaric stimulator, next to a snub-nosed laspistol. “Three men dead, the unlucky Gruu not included, another eight injured. I expect all eight to survive, fortunately.” There was a pause. “You don't approve, Doctor.” “There are a lot of things I don't approve of, Captain, yes. The food the men receive, the liquor they consume, the punishments meted out by Freyderick and his thugs – yes, thugs, the explosive collars seemingly half the men wear and the generally cramped and insanitary conditions in which they live. Oddly enough,” and he stood up and faced Keir, the strong counter-algesics now steadily pumping into Gruu's failing vascular system, “the men seem to approve of all these things, so I appear to be in a minority of one. Hold this please.” Roke wiped his hands on the towel at his waist, and then took his costal separator back from Keir. “I actually have no objections about all this,” he went on, nodding his head at the crowded medicae ward in general. “This is a fighting ship and I expect casualties. From what you led me to believe on the quarterdeck, we got off lightly indeed. The men coming in here have been – to a man – proud of what this ship, what you, have just accomplished. Victory from the jaws of defeat – am I wrong? Perhaps I just expected you to be more – triumphant, is that right? Forthright in victory. Would the men, especially ones who have just given their flesh and blood, not want to see their captain glorying in the victory their efforts have bought him?” Keir sighed. “You must have heard that we lost a great prize – two mining ships slipped right through our fingers not moments ago. We won, yes, and we prevailed, yes, but to lose so much in prize money so suddenly affects the men. You see that, surely? It may seem strange to you, but the men feel unlucky right now, unfavoured by the gods - they are a superstitous lot, your PDF crewmen. They will drink tonight to console themselves, not to toast a victory. In time they will all count this day as one of their finest, I can assure you. Just not right now.” “There is also the matter of the miners’ crews,” he went on. “Both have lost all hands – close on five hundred men. Some among the Anteus’ crew may – probably did – have relatives, friends aboard. Argo-Navis is a small place when it comes to it. And although they were unlicensed I take no joy in so many lives ending pointlessly like that. There but for the grace of the Emperor, and all that.” “So what happened to them? Did those storage tanks rupture?” asked Roke, adjusting the flow of meds to Gruu. “How long have you been aboard now? They were heading in, not out. Honestly, Doctor. The tanks were empty – it was a plasma coolant failure. The engines overloaded, almost certainly took a hit either in our pass – although I doubt it – or hit by the other miner. One went up and took the other with it. Blasted bit of luck, really, although – no, never mind.” “So now what? We haunt again and wait for some more?” Keir picked up an unusual looking ocular spatula. “Yes. No. Well, I'm not sure yet. You see, I had a good idea that -” Roke was sure Keir was about to say something more but changed his mind. “- well, it was a lucky guess picking this spot, but I doubt we'll be so lucky again.” Keir made a show of looking around the medicae ward, and waved the spatula vaguely. “This certainly looks very different from the last time I saw it – that was the day I met you, remember? The Feast of Saint Taliesyn?” “You haven't been in here since?” Roke noted but accepted the change of subject without comment, but he did take the spatula off Keir before he broke it. Keir shook his head. “Can't stand medicae wards – no offence, of course. Healthy eating and a strong mind, eh? All a military man needs. Although I can't pretend to teach you anything, Doctor!” “Well. We perhaps need to have a word about the healthy eating some time.” “Nonsense. Meat with every meal, Doctor, everyone knows that. Strong as a grox. Anyway, you didn't answer my question.” Keir picked up some vials of anhydrous tincture of valerian and began swilling the contents around. “You didn't ask one, Captain. Excuse me.” Roke recovered his vials with a frown. “'Course I did – where'd you get all this -” a waved hand encompassed the suite of rooms, “- all these holy machines and – so on? Not on your wages, eh?” grinned Keir. Roke turned away and busied himself with some data-slates, recording vital stats from the fading Gruu, but also to prevent Keir picking them up and accidentally deleting the contents. “One of the medics at Primor had some equipment he said he could spare – donate – and I was lucky enough to be first in line. I have been helping out there, you know. Perhaps my contributions inspired some latent generosity of spirit.” Keir gave a grunt of disbelief. “That lot? I doubt it. Who was it, though? I ought to thank him personally, next time we void-anchor there. I know most of the medics on Primor, bet you didn't know that, eh?” “I think his name was Reitch.” “Reitch? Man-with-the-hands Reitch?” Keir briefly simulated the medic's ingratiating habit. “The same. Seemed he was of independent means.” Keir frowned, picking up a cerebral las-scalpel and flicking it on and off. “Reitch, eh? I heard he got sick, did you know? No? Went to see him about – something – just before we shipped out, turned out he was in a bloody coma. Took some dodgy meds, I was told. I'd just sent him some money but it had turned up back in my account, wanted to find out what had happened. You didn't know?” “I was only passingly familiar with him, I did not know of his misfortune. A most generous man, it would seem. The station will surely pray for his swift recovery. Please, Captain.” Roke rescued his scalpel. “Right. Yes, of course. Well, I have to take a look at the damage, of course, and a million other things. Reports and more reports to fill out, ANDU loves its reports. Better get a move on. Take a run around the Anteus in the boat and find out how badly we were hit.” “What was it hit us?” “No idea.” said Keir with a grin and a shake of his head. “Cargo transfer of some kind, perhaps, I think K'eto was right about that, although what they were transferring this deep is a bit of a mystery. Hit their shuttle, I expect. I would love to know what was so important they would risk a transfer just shy of the Great Clouds.” “Won't you find out when you're out in the boat?” “Evidence, you mean? A clue?” Keir laughed, and put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. “That only happens in pulp policia ficts – surprised a man like you'd watch nonsense like that! No – whatever it was is in a million pieces in a sphere about thirty kloms wide now. By the way,” Keir leaned in close to Roke, and nodded towards the anbaric stimulator. ”I wouldn't leave your sidearm just sitting there, Doctor. First thing you know it's gone, and the next thing it's been used to settle some score on board. Or to punch a hole in some officer – or me. Wouldn't be the first time, eh? There's a reason the Arbites keep the crew sidearms under crypt-key. Anyway, you have your own reports to do I'm sure. I'll see you later.” Keir left the medicae ward as Roke moved to pocket the laspistol. # The damage to the port shielding was relatively minor; whatever had struck had mostly glanced off. Keir had Bosun Freyderick guide the boat slowly around the damaged area, while Ramifer played the arclight over the pitted and scored hull of the Anteus. Some buckling of the thinner pieces was evident, but one of the larger plates had been rammed backwards by the impact several metres. This is what had caused the casualties, and the fire, Keir thought. The shielding had penetrated the thruster housing, causing a small explosion which had in turn damaged gun-bay number one on the port side, as well as the shell conveyor assembly. The fact that the gun-bay was in vacuum at the time had obviously prevented greater casualties, but that was why the crew fought the guns in hard vacuum in the first place. No fires around the guns, no over-pressure waves should the gun-bay take a hit, no explosive decomp to worry about. All in all, things could have been worse, and certainly would have been much worse had those two miners not taken the bait and slagged each other for him. He was not confident he could have fought both at once, even with the element of surprise, and the thought of turning tail and trying to make it to the Greater Clouds for cover was not something an officer of the PDF should ever officially entertain. Especially, thought Keir, with those damned new political officers on board, although he knew he was partly to blame for that unwelcome development in ANDU standing orders. That incident on the Lamahd III two years ago had, in retrospect, had all sorts of interesting and unforeseen consequences. He had been on the verge of saying something to Roke about how quickly – how oddly quickly – the first miner had gone up, but had held his tongue. It was a bitter lesson, but he was a good learner – keep your suspicions to yourself until you could prove them, and even then be very, very careful. He had acquired a reputation recently – he knew this was true – as someone who had been in-system for too long, someone who should be put out to pasture, a liability. His supposedly ludicrous report on the Lamahd III had started that ball rolling, and he had been expertly and thoroughly ridiculed and undermined by silent and underhand means ever since. 'Crazy Keir' was just one of the too-loud whispers he had overheard from people who thought mad meant deaf. Many officers quietly refused to serve with him – he knew that was one of the main reasons the Anteus had been short of key positions. His 'luck' in finding the illegal miners was already suspiciously good as it was, certainly to anyone who knew the real chances of a random encounter in the deeps where long-range auspex could mean as little as five hundred kloms. For some reason he had almost said something to Roke about that as well. There was a quietness about the man, he thought, a stillness that seemed to encourage conversation in the same way that a grav well encouraged falling, when he would be best advised to keep quiet. The last thing he needed was the officers – especially ones he valued like Roke – who were willing to serve with him wondering whether the rumours were true after all. Despite his own advice, however, he found himself more and more wanting to tell Roke what was really going on, or at least as much of it as Keir knew. He had never been a great judge of character, granted, although he could tell what a ship’s captain would do nine times out of ten just by watching him for five minutes, but Roke was an outsider and a learned man, a bookish man, who certainly knew more about the Imperium than Keir and who might, just might, not condemn him out of hand as a lunatic. Was it worth the risk? Keir snapped his mind back to the issue literally facing him. Repairs were needed, and although the crew could virtually rebuild the ship on their own the systems were so primitive, it would go much quicker if he could get to some manip-arms and mag-lifters. Uttapar Refuelling Station was less than a day away, and it also offering a chance to replenish the Anteus' supplies of shells for the weapons batteries. All that drilling while they escorted the convoy had taken its toll on the ammo levels. Uttapar it was, then. # The playthings called it Fhenrier, and many other make-names besides although they had only ever seen its children, but it knew it was simply and forever The Eater-of-Worlds. It surged and seethed in the churning maelstrom that was the Immaterium, its gross form ebbing and flowing with the raw energies that surrounded it and that gave it a mis-shapen mockery of life. Its pseudopods and dendrites were now anchored in hundreds of pain-filled tears in the warp that caused it to writhe with revulsion, revulsion without end, without equal. It could feel the hard, icy grip of the hateful Materium upon it, the loathsome solidity trapping it, hurting it, numbing it, stopping it from rampaging freely though the warp that was its home and its right and its birthplace. Stopping it from eating, from splitting and eating again. Fhenrier was hungry, the hunger consumed it. But it was anger that it felt most of all, anger not at its confinement or its starvation but at the hideous glare not far off in the warp, the cold, alien light that should not, must not, be there. And it was the thought of revenge, the revenge promised it by so many weaklings and foodlings and playthings upon the hated light that filled its being. It would eat soon. It would eat very soon. # “Ah, getting a solid transponder signal now, Lieutenant,” reported Salem from the raised walkway, his dressings almost invisible beneath his uniform, and Doctor Roke now confirmed in his mind as a miracle-worker. “It's an, ah, older signal but a valid one. The Iohantch - a Cessorian Combine deep miner. Captain F'thul commanding. Ah, still making full speed, sir, no sign she’s seen us.” Now about a day out from the edges of the Greater Clouds auspex and vis had improved slightly, and the Anteus had caught the transponder beacon of a licensed mining ship, on a parallel heading, apparently also making for the resupply station. “Any other hulls showing on the ‘spex?” asked K’eto. “Ah, negative, sir.” “I shouldn’t have to ask, Midshipman. Very well. Pass word for the Captain.” K’eto thumbed his vox, head bent as he watched the vis-slate on the chart table, his voice clipped and businesslike. “MV Iohantch, this is MPV Anteus, in-system on your port side. Prepare to receive a small boarding party. Your transponder codes are out of date, and we need to verify. Cut your engines and stand to.” There was a long pause, as static hissed out of the voxcasters around the quarterdeck. When the reply came it was full of rad-interference, but audible. “Anteus?” There was off-vox sound of numerous, jumbled voices, and then, “Dear God Emperor, Anteus are we glad to see you! Do you have the bastard on auspex? Did you get ‘im?” K’eto glanced over at Salem, who looked down at his own slate and shook his head, mystified. “Negative, Iohantch. We only show one hull. Explain yourself. And who is this speaking?” “This is ship’s Master Bhirtle, Anteus. He’s been right on us –“ “Where is your Captain, Master Bhirtle?” interrupted K’eto loudly. “Dead. You’d best be keeping an eye out for that murderous son of a bitch, Anteus, she’s close aboard, make no mistake.” K’eto thumbed the vox link to mute and said to the quarterdeck at large, his voice making clear his intention to be funny, “I assume he means another vessel, and not the unfortunate Captain F’thul.” Polite laughter greeted this uncharacteristic effort at humour. By the time Keir reached the quarterdeck and ordered the crew to beat to quarters, K’eto had dragged some sense out of the shaken ship’s Master, mostly by shouting at him and hinting unsubtly at imminent personal violence, and was able to give Keir a decent account of the Iohantch’s apparent escape from a privateer, the Sword of Anticlus. She had picked up the Iohantch just as she came out of one of the Greater Clouds, but instead of trying to cripple her engines had fired across her bow and tried to board. The Iohantch had reversed course into the cloud, and avoided the docking embrace, but not without first taking a few withering broadsides from the Sword. One of these had evidently seen to Captain F’thul. Iohantch was certain the Sword had picked up their trail when they re-emerged from the cloud at a different location, as one of the starboard engines had been hit and was leaking plasma fuel – easily traceable – and that the Sword was close by. A reasonable assumption, agreed Keir. By now the Anteus was close enough to see the damage to the Iohantch was real enough, although her vast and almost full plasma storage tanks were untouched – good gunnery by the Sword, thought Keir – but Keir ordered the crew to stay at quarters in case the Sword should make an appearance. “I’m going aboard, First, with the boarding party. Yes -” he said, putting a hand up to forestall K’eto’s predictable objections, “- I know, I know, but I want to talk to the Master of that ship in person, and you know I would need to have him bloody dragged off that hulk by force if I wanted to talk to him here – not that I wouldn’t, but I want some information out of him. I’ll take a couple of Arbites squads.” And a bottle of Resac to gin-up the Master wouldn’t be a bad idea, thought Keir. “That should keep you happy, eh? K’eto acknowledged his orders, realising any objections would be fruitless. “You have command, Mister K’eto. Keep an eye out for that privateer – and get the miner’s auspex records voided over, if they have any, try and find out what class she is. With any luck she’ll turn up, eh? Salem, Freyser – with me.” Keir strode off the quarterdeck, humming a choral piece from the last on-board service. Midshipman Salem tried his best to hide his grin as he hurried along beside Freyser, but failed. # Keir had Bosun Freyderick take the long way round to the Iohantch’s primary crew hatch, so he could get the full measure of the damage she had taken. Not inconsiderable – she would be a week under repair, if not more. He was still taking Master Bhirtle’s account with a pinch of snuff, not that he disbelieved the broad thrust of the story. He was hiding something, probably some petty illegal activity onboard, and Keir would use it to get what he really wanted out of him. Keir was pleased to see that Master Bhirtle was present with a crew detail to greet him in the miner’s marshalling yard as the boat docked, and that he had remembered to properly vox-pipe a visiting captain aboard. He was also pleased to see that Bhirtle was not drunk, which he had strongly suspected he would be, and that the old man, with his drooping mouth, hook nose and bulging eyes looking remarkably like a startled and ugly bird, visibly quailed at the sight of the ten Arbites troopers looming behind Keir. It was always best to turn up with the biggest gun in situations like this, thought Keir, as long as you didn’t start waving it around. He decided to put the man a little further off-balance, but also pay him a compliment in front of his crew. Before Bhirtle could make the customary sign of obeisance – ship’s Master not being an officer rank on a mining vessel – Keir threw him a formal salute. Surprised, Bhirtle froze for a second, before slowly and appreciatively returning the salute. Good, thought Keir. Job done. This man’ll give me his first born if I ask nicely. “Captain Keir, welcome aboard, sir.” “Master Bhirtle. Do you have many casualties? I have an excellent surgeon onboard the Anteus – a real medicae, would you believe! The only one in the service. I’ll send the boat for him, although you may want to ship your wounded over. The doctor has some excellent equipment in his med-bay not found on even the finest mining vessels.” That was laying it on a bit thick, thought Keir, but it was all to a purpose. He had years of customary rivalry to wear down, rivalry between PDF and miners and rivalry between officers and non-comms just to name two, before he could get some reliable information out of this man. If he just jumped straight into it, the man would clam up. “Thank you kindly, sir, that’d be very welcome. Our surgeon is at the limit at the moment.” A comment that could be taken a number of ways, thought Keir. “Mister Freyser will see to it. Salem – if you would check the ship’s auth codes? DeVere, you and your squads remain here, if you please. To business, Master. Come. Did you manage to hit the Sword? Did you wing her at all?” Keir had started walking briskly towards the transverse, heading in the direction of the command levels, and Bhirtle trotted along beside him. “We fired, sir, but the main guns were – not fully ready, sir.” Balls, thought Keir. They had probably not been maintained properly and simply misfired. Bhirtle didn’t want to bad-mouth his ship, which was fair enough. “I think as we got a couple of hits, sir, couldn’t say for sure as they was firing at us quite handily, sir. Hard to see in all the confusion, sir.” Keir could see signs of the confusion all around him, equipment and tools dropped in the panic, all the hallmarks of a leaderless crew and men who looked ready to drop from exhaustion and adrenaline burn-out. “And the Captain?” “Killed stone dead, sir, almost immediately. Got knocked about the head by a bracing what came loose.” “And the PDF vessels on station outside the cloud?” “Sir?” “You ran for the refuelling station, Master, nearly a day away at full burn. I would have ran for the PDF vessels escorting my convoy, personally.” “We didn’t have time to find them, we just had to run. Thought the Sword might be between them and us, as it were.” Ah, now we get to it, thought Keir. You were bloody claim-jumping, in another convoy’s cloud. That’s why you had no idea where the PDF vessels were – they weren’t your escorts so you didn’t have their co-ords. And you forgot to call me ‘sir’ in your haste to explain it away. “Of course, Master Bhirtle, of course.” Keir smoothly and expertly palmed his vox-bead, and as he walked and listened to Bhirtle talk on he tapped out a message to Salem in combat-code. He wanted to know immediately if this ship’s auth-codes were false. # Fehnrier felt the weakness appear once again, the bright mind of a special plaything shining through the membrane. This one had not been prepared, like the others had, to relive its boredom, but it had been in this one before. This one was important, it knew that, and this one shone very brightly indeed. Fehnrier extended a child and birthed into the light, revelling in the feel of soft, wet flesh once again; weak, weak flesh that somehow stopped the Materium from forcing Fehnrier's child back into the warp. It was good to be here, and it ate a little of the light, in celebration. Fehnrier was careful not to allow its child to eat too much, because Fehnrier wanted to be able to come back again and again, but it was hard to stop when Fehnrier was so hungry. Fehnrier's child settled into the light and reached out, to see what else it could touch. # The quarterdeck was a mess, and had clearly taken at least one direct hit. Emergency shutters were in place over the viewports, floor decking was warped and buckled and temporary, hydraulic bracing-struts secured repair panelling to bulkheads in several locations. The men from the Anteus were assured, however, that ox and rads were at acceptable levels. Compared to the Anteus, the Iohantch’s quarterdeck was smaller and more angular, although the absence of the rear walkway was a symptom of damage, not design. Few of the vis-panels and data-slates worked, but Salem managed to find a data-cogitator and confirm the vessel’s auth codes as genuine. Keir tapped to the Arbites the code to stand down, and surreptitiously clipped his vox-bead back in place. He then made a show of tapping it. “Mister K’eto. Any sign of our friend’s pursuer?” The crackling and hissing reply confirmed the auspex was still clear, but that Uttapar Refuelling Station was now in range. “Master Bhirtle,” said Keir, sweeping debris off the now-tilted chart table, and waving Salem over to set his chunky data-slate down on it. “We don't have much time, sir,” said Salem. Keir stared at him. It wasn't so much what he had said as the way he said it. Either Keir really was going crazy or he had sounded like a child for a moment there. “You all right, Salem? You been taking your counter-rads?” Salem looked momentarily confused. “Ah, I. That is, ah, yessir. I'm fine sir. Sorry, sir. I, ah must have been thinking about the Sword, sir, and just blurted something out. Very sorry, sir.” Keir actually felt sorry for him. The lad looked thoroughly embarrassed. He clapped a hand on Salem's shoulder, remembering just too late that it was the one Roke had patched up the day before. To Salem's credit, he didn't make a sound. “Never mind. Anyway. We’ve got your convoy orders here, Master Bhirtle – punch up the schematic if you will, Mister Salem. Good, good. Once we dock at Uttapar perhaps you can show me where you encountered the Sword, which cloud it was, you know, for the logs, eh?” Inwardly Keir grinned as Bhirtle nodded, ashen-faced. The last thing Bhirtle wanted to do was show Keir the co-ords of the cloud in question, since it would prove the ship had been claim-jumping. He would let Bhirtle simmer for a bit, and then pluck him when he was ready. In the meantime he would let them dock at Uttapar. Uttapar was one of twenty or so refuelling stations in close orbit around Argo-Navis. They were manned, after a fashion, but the sorry souls who got lumped with the duty had to put up with crippling isolation in the almost total blackness for their six month tour of duty, cut off without comms and usually without resupply themselves, massive doses of rads and thus massive doses of counter-rad meds day in and day out, the constant threat of attack from black marketers seeking to raid their supplies and dealing with miners who treated them as a convenient place to cut loose on a day’s shore leave. Since the stations were usually stripped-out and repurposed observation platforms from the Imperial Navy, there was precious little room for any cutting-loose, which only made it twice as bad for the dozen or so men stationed there who had to clean up afterwards. Such duty was not much sought-after. Keir watched the crew of the Iohantch make contact with docking control on Uttapar, and begin to shepherd the wounded giant into range of the docking cramps. He was slightly surprised to hear over the vox that Uttapar control were directing the vessel to one of the secondary docking cramps. There were no other ships docked at Uttapar, according to the auspex. He waved a hand at Bhirtle, interrupting him in his convoluted discussions over docking fees. “Ask them what’s wrong with the primary docking ring. Are they saving it for Anteus?” Keir listened to the Master ask the question, and then frowned at the response coming from Uttapar. He scythed his hand in front of his neck, and Bhirtle cut the open vox channel. “Collision damage? Bring up a vis of the primary docking ring over here,” he ordered Bhirtle. Bhirtle finally found a working auspex that was pointing in that direction and brought up the output. It looked like collision damage, thought Keir, but he wheeled the hi-zoom anyway, on what whim he could not tell. He stared at the vis-panel for a moment, mind racing. The inner hatch had clearly been ground-off by a boarding-cutter, there was no mistaking the jagged ring of adamantium the toothed tool left behind. It had been covered up reasonably well so that it looked like collision damage, but not on close inspection. Uttapar was in privateer hands, and this was turning into a trap. Correction – they were already in the trap and it was about to be sprung. He flicked quickly through the various external vis-views, swearing at the number damaged in the engagement with the Sword, until he found what he was looking for. The station’s weapons batteries, slightly damaged but clearly functional. And pointing, but not obviously so, in their general direction. He cursed himself. He should never have stepped off the Anteus with an enemy vessel around. His eagerness to speak to the Master had clouded his better judgement. With one bellowed order he silenced the quarterdeck and, now the focus of everyone's undivided attention, keyed for ship-to-ship over the quarterdeck's voxcasters. “K’eto. Expect to be seeing the Sword any moment now. Uttapar has been taken and we’re under their guns. I expect a large, armed welcoming party is waiting on the other side of the hatch we just cramped onto.” Everyone on the miner’s quarterdeck stared at him in horror. “Acknowledged, sir.” Came K’eto’s quick and calm response. “There’s nothing on the auspex. Will you be requiring a bombardment of Utta –“. There was off-vox chatter, brief and rapid. “We now have a hull on the auspex, sir, a large contact bearing down on your position, reasonable to assume it's the Sword. Sorry, sir. Looks like you’ll have to sit this one out.” Even through the popping and hissing Keir could hear the mounting excitement in K’eto’s voice. It was rare indeed a First Lieutenant had command in a combat situation. He cursed himself once again. “Ok, Commander K’eto,” – might as well let the man enjoy his opportunity, and he was technically a commander in position if not rank right now anyway, “- meet him as far away from here as you can. Try and draw him off if possible. I don’t want to get into a three-way shooting fight with us stuck between the station and the Sword, not with almost full plasma tanks sticking out like this. We’d go up like a nova. The station won’t fire on us unless we try and leave, I expect. It will take them so long to cut through our main hatch you should be done by the time they get through, and then we can re-take Uttapar together, eh? We'll hold out.” “Acknowledged, sir. Turning to intercept. Good luck, sir.” “Same to you, Mister K’eto. Watch over my ship, and my men. The Emperor protects.” Keir pulled his bolt pistol out, walked smartly up to Bhirtle and put the muzzle under his chin. The old man's eyes bulged even more than usual, and Keir could have sworn he squeaked. “Tell me you knew nothing about this, Master Bhirtle.” Bhirtle's mouth pumped, futilely, no words coming out. Eventually he managed, “N-, n-, no, s-, sir.” Keir stared at him, his dark eyes hard as anthracite, until Bhirtle looked away. He lowered the pistol. “I just wanted to hear you say it, Master Bhirtle. As you were.” Keir keyed his vox again. “DeVere. Get your squads to the main docking hatch on the double, and secure it. Some of the crew will turn up to seal extra bulkheads in place, let them through. We have to sit this one out while K’eto has all the –“ Just then the vox-hailer on the quarterdeck burst into life. “Iohantch. Iohantch. This is Anteus. Be warned. Three boarding torpedoes are en-route to your location from the Sword. Repeat, three boarding torpedoes at ramming speed. We cannot move to intercept in time.” There was a short, static-filled pause. “Sorry, sir.” The vox went dead. K’eto had his own battle to fight, Keir knew, and that was the last help he could expect from that quarter. Boarding torpedoes, though? They could carry up to fifty men each. Just how big was the Sword? K'eto might be in more trouble than he knew. Keir prayed to the Immortal Emperor that K'eto knew when – and how – to cut and run, political officer be damned. He checked the rounds in his bolt pistol, and tucked a few extra clips in his belt for quick access. He then sighed, as he had once again forgotten to bring his armoured flak-jacket. No matter. He'd be very lucky to get out of this with his skin intact either way. He keyed the vox. “Iohantch. Attention all hands, this is Captain Keir of the Anteus. I am assuming command, effective immediately. Arm yourselves and prepare to receive boarders.”
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