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  The colossal size of the orbital plate put it into an altogether different target category. As Arcus’s approach swiftly became the unstoppable force to the gun-skiffs’ immovable line of defence, a chorus of consternation rose from the gathered crowds upon the battlements and platforms of the Palace.

  From the flight deck of the Aeriax, Stentonox could survey the under-plate of Arcus. Leaving the sentinel-securitas to manage defence readiness about the Palace, Stentonox had accompanied the Chief Custodian up to the gun-skiff. Constantin Valdor had been in hololithic conference with Demetrius Katafalque of the Imperial Fists for only a few minutes, but the Captain-General was already infuriated. Pledges of mutual respect and fraternity descended quickly into a debate as to what was in the best interests of the Emperor’s security. Katafalque claimed that his primarch’s word was inviolable. Valdor reminded the captain that the Imperial Fists were welcome guests on Terra, but that the Emperor’s security – and that of the Imperial Palace – had ever been the principal concern of the Legio Custodes. Anger got the better of men who should have been above such pettiness. Insults fell from noble lips. Threats were exchanged. Punishments were promised.

  ‘He’s gone again, my lord,’ a deck menial reported as the link was cut.

  ‘Damn the Legiones Astartes and their upstart pride,’ Valdor seethed. ‘If it were not for such audacity there would be no need to fortify the Emperor’s Palace at all.’

  ‘Indeed, Chief Custodian,’ agreed Stentonox.

  ‘No service,’ Valdor said, ‘even one assumed in a master’s name, should imperil the master served.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘It is madness,’ Valdor muttered, almost to himself. ‘It’s officious madness, and it must be stopped.’

  ‘What are your orders, Captain-General?’

  Valdor stared out across the flight deck of the Aeriax. The sky was gone. There was only the orbital plate – its stratomoorings, skydocks and platforms creeping irresistibly towards them, dominating the deck view. ‘The tugs and tenders?’ he asked.

  ‘I have gunships standing by to board or cripple them,’ Stentonox reported. ‘But in truth, inertial drift alone will carry Arcus to anchorage above the Fourth Ward.’

  ‘Then let us not waste time with that,’ Valdor said. ‘Opinion, shield-captain?’

  ‘Calibrated reversal of Arcus’s gravitic drives will slow the orbital before bringing it to a stop.’

  Valdor nodded gravely. Nobody on the flight deck spoke as the Chief Custodian weighed danger against danger. The decision did not come easily to the Captain-General, but when it did it was delivered with confidence and grim determination.

  ‘Shield-captain?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Seize the plate.’

  In a slow broadside of gold, their grav-attack craft streamed away from the launch bays of the Legio Custodes ships; the stately battle line was a vision to behold as it closed upon the great gravitic engine column and passed below the orbital under-plate. Through his transport’s gunnery embrasure, Shield-Captain Stentonox caught sight of thousands of indentured workers watching in horror from the projecting observation decks. Stentonox could only imagine the confusion of the common man, as the reverent servants of the Emperor went head to head in the skies over Terra.

  He would preferred to have made a more direct insertion, but could not risk taking his grav-transports any closer to the structure. The powerful inverse fields fluxing about the gravitic drives and suspensor vanes would play havoc with the polarity of their own power plants. Stentonox had been warned that the grav-attacks could literally drop out of the sky – therefore, a safer, if less convenient, insertion site had been identified. The Legio Custodes would simply have to advance through the generatorium decks and take the engineering section at the head of the column by force.

  ‘Custodian,’ Stentonox said to Gustus Doloran, his Cataphractii sergeant-at-arms. ‘Extend Captain Katafalque my compliments and inform him that I intend to fire upon Arcus. Tell him that for the safety of his warriors, he should withdraw from the shell sections and platforms about the engine column.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ Doloran replied from the depths of his golden Terminator plate.

  Stentonox was confronted with an almost impossible task – here, on the orbital plate, he would need to combine his many years of both combat training and diplomacy. Constantin Valdor had commanded that Arcus be taken, but Stentonox was fully aware that in these times of distrust and rebellion, he could not afford to slaughter the VII Legion above the Imperial Palace. Like the pugilist paid to throw the fight, he would have to pull his punches.

  Unlike the pugilist, he still needed to win. A victory swift and unequivocal.

  The impending action was a logistical and diplomatic nightmare. It made the shield-captain’s mind ache with the unruly possibilities of chance.

  ‘No reply from the plate, sir,’ the sergeant-at-arms reported.

  Stentonox nodded. ‘Tell Captain Ambramagne that he is cleared to fire.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘And open a channel to our attack craft, if you please.’

  ‘Open, shield-captain.’

  ‘Custodians, this is the Master of the Watch. We have a daunting task ahead of us, a task I expect you to carry out with your usual precision and determination. The Space Marines aboard Arcus are our allies, but they are operating outside their jurisdiction. It falls to us to assert the supreme authority of the Emperor of Mankind, even amongst his most loyal servants. We will do this by force, if required. Your Captain-General has ordered the orbital plate taken. It will be so, but you will take no life in the execution of such orders. There will be no killing. Those are my orders. I am invoking battle proprieties. As our comrades-at-arms, I want all Imperial Fists classed as decora-intelligenta. Come the conclusion of this unfortunate action they will be questioned, and they will be debriefed, but they will be alive. But while you should consider their lives sacred, their blood is not. Punish them as your pride dictates. We may break them, but we will not butcher them. The galaxy has witnessed enough of such endings.’

  ‘Aeriax firing, shield-captain,’ Sergeant Doloran informed him.

  ‘Stand by,’ Stentonox voxed. ‘Ten seconds.’

  A storm of fire erupted from the presented cannons of the skiffs and gunships, hammering into the shell plating of the engine column. Thick beams and blasts turned the generatorum decks of the column into maelstroms of light, sound and twisted metal. With the gunners’ aim avoiding any of the critical systems keeping the orbital plate afloat, the grav-attacks of the Legio Custodes followed the bombardment in through the surface shielding and the wreckage of the hull superstructure.

  Arcus wasn’t a military installation, and boasted no defensive weaponry of its own, but the atmospheric locks and thick metal shell of the exterior still presented an obstacle to arriving forces. In ordering the barrage, Stentonox had removed that obstacle.

  ‘Custodians, disembark.’

  The brazen doors of the grav-attack craft slid open. Foot knights, Custodians and Aquila Terminators stepped out into the inferno raging between the ruined decks. The reflected flames turned each warrior into a spectacle of blinding gold. Striding through the destruction, their towering helms scraping the ceiling and guardian spears cutting wreckage confidently from their path, the Custodians assumed formation on the blazing decks.

  ‘Pattern Draco,’ Stentonox ordered.

  Moving away from the destruction and into the narrow corridors of the generatoria chambers, the invaders assumed a demi-sheltron formation, with foot knights hunkered and advancing through the engine column behind their thick, gilded shields, Custodian Guard squads aimed the boltguns of their power halberds across their comrades’ pauldrons. Between them, Custodians in Cataphractii Terminator plate settled the barrel lengths of aquila-nozzled incinerators. Not only
did the formation create a shield-wall for its conquering advance, but also extended a wall of flame that drove back potential defenders.

  Moving with his command squad through the generatorium complex, Stentonox had Doloran relay his cautionary commands while Sergeant Memnon coordinated the advance.

  ‘Anything?’ Stentonox asked. It took a moment to recall confirmations from the advance teams spread out through the occupied decks.

  ‘No contacts on auspex,’ Doloran told him. ‘No sightings.’

  Stentonox grunted – that was either very good, or very bad. Demetrius Katafalque, confronted with the reality of an atmospheric assault and occupation of the plate, might have reconsidered his former bullishness, although Stentonox thought this unlikely. The Imperial Fists were experts in siege warfare, and in even the short window of opportunity provided, they could have mounted a determined defence. The narrow corridors of the generatoria were not without strategic virtue and Katafalque had, if he required, millions of indentured innocents to put between himself and the Custodians. With the passageways and engineering sections empty, it seemed that Katafalque had decided to make use of neither.

  As he advanced, the shield-captain’s unease grew. Following their explosive entrance, the Custodians’ unimpeded progress had taken them through the silent decks, almost halfway to their destination. Even if Katafalque had acknowledged his courteous warning and withdrawn everyone from the outer sections, Stentonox would have expected some resistance by now. At this rate, their mission would be completed within minutes and Arcus force-anchored to a dead stop.

  Stentonox’s mind raced. This wasn’t right.

  He thought of Demetrius Katafalque, his predicament no more comfortable than the shield-captain’s own. The Imperial Fists captain wanted loyalist blood on his gauntlets no more than Stentonox did. Like the shield-captain, Katafalque would recognise the conflict as a diplomatic nightmare; perhaps, like Stentonox, he had also prohibited the use of deadly force. Taking the orbital plate under such restrictions was difficult enough. How could–

  ‘Captain Katafalque’s compliments, sir,’ said the sergeant-at-arms, announcing the opening of a new vox-channel.

  ‘Connect us,’ Stentonox said, as they entered the engineering section.

  ‘Shield-captain.’ The Imperial Fist’s dour voice echoed about Stentonox’s high-helm.

  ‘Captain.’

  ‘I extend the same courtesy that you did me,’ Katafalque said. ‘Withdraw your men from the engineering section. Now.’

  ‘Demetrius, wait,’ Stentonox called, but a burst of static told him that the captain was gone.

  As step after armoured step took them closer to their objective, Stentonox tried to put himself in Katafalque’s position. How would he stop the Custodian advance, without the wilful spilling of blood?

  The shield-captain’s steps slowed. His visored helm drifted towards the deck.

  ‘Sergeant-at-arms...’

  ‘Yes, shield-cap–’

  The detonations came from above and below. They were probably seismic charges, transported in with the indentured labour force for the Warmason’s excavations, set into the perimeter of the structural deck and floor plating.

  Metal groaned. Beams fractured. Secondary blasts erupted.

  Six floors in the engineering section – through which the different Custodian teams were advancing – simply fell out of the orbital plate.

  The timing was perfect. The deadweight of girders, decking and industrial machinery was dragged instantly downwards. There was no time for orders. No vox-transmissions.

  As the deck fell away and the buckled ceiling came down to meet him, Stentonox fought against every instinct and moved towards the detonations. Two steps across the falling floor took him to within leaping distance of the chamber’s edge – the jump was heavy and awkward, but it gave the shield-captain the lift he needed. Clawing at the wall with his gilded gauntlets, he latched onto a ragged ledge where the structural supports had been ripped away.

  Hanging by his fingertips, Stentonox looked down. The mass of wreckage buckled and crumbled into sections, falling away with the damaged plate hull. Custodians scrambled. Some found their way to the outstretched gauntlets of their anchored comrades. Some were snatched back by rearguard warriors who had yet to enter the engineering section. The rest tumbled with the descending wreckage, holding on to floor sections or machinery as it fell through the bottom of the under-plate.

  The shield-captain’s arm shot out for a flailing foot knight toppling from the deck above and still clutching his shield. Stentonox snatched him out of the air, the digits of his gauntlet like a grapnel that buried themselves in the plates of the Custodian’s armour. Heaving the warrior up to a hold on the ledge, Stentonox adjusted his own precarious grip. It reminded him of the Espartic Wall – that torturous climb of one of the Palace’s most challenging fortifications. Many veterans among their number been forced to scale such obstacles as part of the ritual Blood Games. Stentonox could only hope that their training had not been forgotten.

  ‘Name?’ Stentonox put to the foot knight beside him.

  ‘Vega, sir.’

  With one hand the Custodian took off his helmet and stared down at the dizzying vision of Terra that had opened up before them. He was shorter than most among the Legio Custodes, but squat and hungry for action. He spat his shock and disgust into the open void below.

  Like other Custodians about the empty chamber’s ragged perimeter, Stentonox heaved himself up to a more secure perch, and Vega did likewise. The wind howled about them. Beneath the orbital plate – kilometres beneath, in fact – the shield-captain could see the distant Himalazian landscape. Even from this height, he could make out the conurbatia bordering the concentric outer walls of the Imperial Palace.

  The wreckage of the engineering decks disintegrated as it fell, crashing down along the busy architecture of the column’s starboard side, scattering grav-foils, aerials and suspensor vanes. Stentonox tried to imagine the horror of those poor souls on the ground beneath them, looking up at this unfolding nightmare. He also watched his gold-plated Custodians tumble and fall through the descending debris, their crimson cloaks whipping violently about them as they grew smaller and smaller to his eyes.

  The immense energies of the gravitic drives exerted their pull upon the wreckage as it reached the strongest part of the conical field beneath Arcus. Shrieking and grinding, and in total defiance of the laws of physics, the remains of the shattered decks billowed outwards, scattering the last of the tiny golden figures towards the column’s surface before settling into a lazy, listless tumble around it. Rather than plummeting all the way to the surface and inflicting untold devastation at ground level, the debris began to orbit the orbital.

  It was an incidental effect of the plate’s construction, but one that would save the lives of Stentonox’s men. For now, at least.

  Some tried to angle their descent and kick away from twisted support struts and heavy metal decking. Instead of falling through screaming emptiness, they smashed through nests of antennae and vanes on the gravitic engine column itself. The shield-captain was horrified at those velocity-arresting impacts; the rending and crumpling of armour plate as Custodians came to a precarious stop, tangled in the busy column sensoria. One warrior outfitted in heavy Cataphractii plate crashed straight down through the mesh of several maintenance platforms before clawing his way to a halt on the shell plating of the column’s lowermost point.

  Then Stentonox saw Doloran, the sergeant-at-arms clinging like a bulky, brazen gargoyle to what was left of the ruined deck immediately below them.

  ‘Transports,’ the shield-captain called out across the vox. ‘This is Stentonox. Custodians overboard. I repeat – Custodians overboard. Track suit signatures and attempt a vectored rescue. Advise caution, wreckage in the air.’

  ‘Shield-captain,’ a Custodian aboard one
grav-attack replied. ‘The fields about the gravitic column…’

  Stentonox smacked an armoured fist against the metal of the wall section. ‘Damn you,’ he barked back. ‘You will attempt an intervention. You will not put Legio Custodes transports or personnel at risk.’

  ‘Received.’

  Within moments, Stentonox saw the small swarm of transports dropping into view, their hulls turning with the vectored descent and the gravitic acceleration of their own engine coils.

  ‘Custodians on the column,’ Stentonox called across the open channel, with no idea if they could hear him or not, ‘you are authorised to shed your plate, if required.’ It was largely pointless advice, but it was all that he could give them. It might provide the warriors with something to concentrate on other than their impending death. ‘In the event of freefall, use–’

  Bolter fire suddenly cut through the cold air before the shield-captain. On the far side of the wind-screeching emptiness created by the missing engineering section, Imperial Fists Space Marines were assuming cover at the cranked doors and airlocks on each of the decks that had formerly led to the demolished section. Sparks showered Stentonox as another stream of disciplined fire impacted about him.

  Stentonox shook his head. Demetrius Katafalque was a cold bastard. Even now, diplomatic protocols between the Legiones Astartes and the Emperor’s Custodians should be maintained. Stentonox, the sergeant-at-arms and the rescued foot knight were all easy targets, clinging to the shattered walls – no challenge at all for the lethal aim of the Imperial Fists. Return fire from Custodian guardian spears hammered back at the sons of Dorn, mauling their blasted cover.

  ‘Kill classifications are still in force,’ Stentonox ordered across the vox. At the opposite end of the ruined section, foot knights with their shields provided cover for Custodian marksmen in the gaping passages and demolished decking.

  ‘But captain–’ Sergeant Memnon began.

  ‘Battle proprieties, sergeant,’ Stentonox returned. ‘Those are my orders. Suppression fire only.’