Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [77]
‘Good luck, Lucifus,’ the dockmaster’s voiced finished, a moment before the link went dead.
‘This is the situation,’ Colonel Sarren began.
The Forthright Sector dockmaster’s office was, putting it politely, a pit. Maghernus was not a tidy man at the best of times, and a recent divorce wasn’t helping his state of cleanliness. The sizeable room was a hovel of old caffeine mugs that were growing furry mould-masses in their depths, and unfiled stacks of papers were scattered everywhere. Here and there were some of Maghernus’s cast-off clothing from the nights he’d slept in his office rather than go back to his depressing bachelor hab – and before that, back to the woman he’d taken to calling The Cheating Bitch.
The Cheating Bitch was a memory now, and not a pleasant one. He found himself worrying against his will. Had she already died in the war? He wasn’t sure his bitterness stretched quite far enough to wish something like that.
His dawdling thoughts were dragged back in line by the arrival of the Reclusiarch. In battered black war plate, the knight stalked into the room, sending menials and Guard officers scurrying aside.
‘I was summoned.’ The words blasted rough from his helm’s vox-speakers.
‘Reclusiarch,’ Sarren nodded. The colonel’s bone-tiredness bled from him in a slow drip. In his weary majesty, he moved like he was underwater. The officers gathered around the room’s messy table, poring over a crinkled paper map of the city and the surrounding coast.
Room was made at the table as Grimaldus approached.
‘Speak to me,’ he said.
‘This is the situation,’ Colonel Sarren began again. ‘Exactly fifty-four minutes ago, we received a distress call from the Lucifus Platform. They reported they were under attack by an overwhelming submersible fleet numbering at least three hundred enemy vessels.’
The gathered officers and dock leaders variously swore, made notes on the map, or looked to Sarren to provide an answer to this latest development.
‘How long until they reach–’
‘…must move the reserve garrisons–’
‘…storm-trooper battalions to assemble–’
Cyria Tyro stood alongside the colonel. ‘This is what the bastards were doing in the southern Dead Lands. It’s why they touched down there. They were taking their landing ships to pieces and building this fleet.’
‘It’s worse than that,’ Sarren gestured to the portable hololithic table with a control wand, zooming out from the city and showing a much wider spread of the southern coast of the Armageddon Secundus landmass.
‘Tempestus Hive,’ several officers muttered.
Enemy runes flickered as they drew nearer to the other coastal hive. Almost as many as those bearing down on Helsreach.
‘They’re dead,’ Tyro said. ‘Tempestus will fall, no matter what we do. A hive half our size, and with half our defences.’
‘We’re all dead,’ a voice spoke out.
‘What did you say?’ Commissar Falkov sneered.
‘We have done all that can be done.’ The protests came from an overweight lieutenant in the uniform of the conscripted militia forces. He was calm, sanguine even, speaking with what he hoped was measured wisdom. ‘Throne, three hundred enemy vessels? My men are stationed at the docks, and we know what we can do there. But the defences are as thin as… as… damn it, there are no defences there. We must evacuate the city, surely. We’ve done all we can.’
Commissar Falkov’s dark stormcoat swished as he reached for his sidearm. He never got the chance to execute the lieutenant for cowardice. A snarling, immense blur of blackness sliced across the room. With a crash, the lieutenant was slammed back against the wall, held a metre off the ground, short legs kicking, as the Reclusiarch gripped his throat in one hand.
‘Thirty-six days, you wretched worm. Thirty-six days of defiance, and thousands upon thousands of heroes lie dead. You dare speak of retreat when the day finally comes for you to spill the enemy’s blood?’
The lieutenant gagged as he was strangled. Colonel Sarren, Cyria Tyro and the other officers watched