Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [17]
What kind of question is that? Are they blind? I am one of the Emperor’s Chosen. I am a knight of Dorn’s blood, and a warrior-priest of the Black Templars. Is something wrong?
‘Yes,’ I say to him, to them all. ‘Something is wrong.’
‘But… what?’
I do not answer that question. Instead, I move to walk from the room, not caring that uniformed humans scatter before me like frightened vermin.
With a volume that would put a peal of overhead thunder to shame, a siren starts to wail.
I turn back to the table.
‘What is that?’
They flinch at the rough bark from my helm’s vocaliser. The siren keeps whining.
‘Throne of the God-Emperor,’ Sarren whispers.
ive Helsreach did not have city walls. It had battlements.
When the citywide siren began to ring, Artarion was standing in the shadow of a towering cannon, its linked barrels aiming into the sick sky. Several metres away, the human crew worked at its base, performing the daily rituals of maintenance. They hesitated at the sound of the siren, and talked among themselves.
Artarion briefly looked back in the direction of the tower fortress in the city’s centre, blocked as it was from view by distance and the forest-like mess of hive spires between here and there.
He felt the humans casting occasional glances his way. Knowing he was distracting them from their necessary mechanical rites, he moved away, walking further down the wall. His gaze fell, as it did almost every hour since coming to the hive a week before, on the endless expanse of wasteland that reached to the horizon and beyond.
Blink-clicking a communication rune on his visor display, he opened a vox-channel. The siren rang on. Artarion knew what it signalled.
‘About time.’
From vox-towers across the city, an announcement was spoken in deceptively colourless tones. Colonel Sarren, not wishing to incite the populace to unrest, had tasked a lobotomised servitor to speak the words to the people.
‘People of Hive Helsreach. Across the planet, the first sirens are sounding. Do not be alarmed. Do not be alarmed. The enemy fleet has translated in-system. The might of Battlefleet Armageddon and the greatest Astartes fleet in Imperial history stands between our world and the foe’s forces. Do not be alarmed. Maintain your daily rites of faith. Trust in the God-Emperor of Mankind. That is all.’
In the control centre, Grimaldus turned to the closest human officer sat at a vox-station.
‘You. Hail the Black Templar flagship Eternal Crusader, immediately.’
The man swallowed, his skin paling at being spoken to so directly and with such force by an Astartes.
‘I… my lord, I am coordinating the–’
The knight’s black fist pounded into the table. ‘Do it now.’
‘Y-yes, my lord. A moment, please.’
The human officers of Sarren’s staff shared a worried look. Grimaldus paid no attention at all. The seconds passed with sickening slowness.
‘The Eternal Crusader is making ready to engage the enemy fleet,’ the officer replied. ‘I can send a message, but their two-way communications are in lockdown without the proper command codes. D-do you have the codes, my lord?’
Grimaldus did indeed have the codes. He looked at the frightened human, then back at the worried faces of the command staff as they sat at the table.
I am being a fool. My fury is blinding me to my sworn duty. What did he expect, truly? That Helbrecht would send down a Thunderhawk and allow him to take part in the glorious orbital war above? No. He was consigned here, to Helsreach, and there would be no other fate beyond this.
I will die on this world, he thought once more.
‘I have the codes,’ the knight replied, ‘but this is not an emergency. Simply send the following message to their incoming logs, with no need for a reply: “Fight well, brothers.”.’
‘Sent, lord.’
Grimaldus nodded. ‘My thanks.’ He turned to the gathered officers, and leaned over the hololithic display, his gauntleted knuckles on the table’s surface.
‘Forgive me a moment’s choler. We have a war