Deliverance Lost

THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN the commanders and Corax had lasted for several hours. Bra

As he stalked towards the conveyor down to Alpha Dock, he was met by Controller Ephrenia. She held a data tablet in her hand, a sight that Bra

‘A moment of your time, please, commander,’ said Ephrenia.

‘Walk with me,’ Bra

‘We have found several odd signals, commander,’ she said. Bra

‘Commander Agapito’s cha

‘No, commander, not this time,’ said Ephrenia. She handed Bra

‘So we’ve found out how the guilders are communicating? Good work. Can we stop it?’

‘I already have, commander,’ said Ephrenia, looking a little hurt by the implication. ‘One such transmission that was hijacked was a routine upload from the infirmary core in Ravendelve. In picking apart the entwined codes, it became apparent that the core log had been tampered with. The log was accessed and then the access was crudely wiped.’

‘There are only a handful of us with access to that log,’ said Bra

‘Digital markers indicate that it was Commander Agapito,’ Ephrenia said, her voice hushed. She stepped closer to Bra

‘Thank you, controller,’ said Bra

Bra

The chambers were empty, and showed no sign that Agapito had returned here after the command council. Bra

‘Spire command, can you locate Commander Agapito?’

‘One moment, commander.’

Bra

His communicator chimed.

‘Commander Agapito authorised a pilot and Stormbird for launch, commander,’ the Legion functionary in the command chamber told him. ‘Course logged was for Ravendelve.’

‘When?’ demanded Bra

‘Two and a half hours ago, Terran standard, commander.’

Bra

‘What are you doing, brother?’ he asked the empty room. Two hours was enough time for Agapito to already be at Ravendelve. Bra

THE SCANNER TICKED monotonously, every pulse accompanied by an image on the screen in front of Alpharius. He turned his chair and checked the audio pick-ups, seeing nothing detected except for the wind. The gun towers had been constantly ma

The chair creaked as he leaned back, laying his hands in his lap. Behind him in the control room, Sergeant Dor was cleaning his bolter, cloth and tools laid out on an instrumentation panel. Marko was also there, monitoring the communications station.

‘Time for another visual sweep,’ said Dor, not looking up from his work.

Alpharius said nothing as he stood up and moved to the reinforced door. He keyed in the security code and the door extended out and slid to one side. Stepping into the airlock, he sealed the door behind him. He took his helmet from his belt and fitted it before opening the outer seal. Wind rushed in, bringing the acrid taint of pollution.

Stepping out onto the rampart, Alpharius glanced down at Ravendelve. Searchlights from the towers and walls scoured the surrounding ground, their beams lost in the hazy air no more than a hundred metres out. He could see armoured figures patrolling the walls beneath him, their eye lenses bright yellow dots in the gloom. Unslinging his bolter, he walked around the rampart, passing under the shadow of the huge twin-barrelled ca

He performed a point check, using the magnification of his auto-senses to inspect the gatehouse, armourium doors and other points of entry. All he saw were Raven Guard, patrolling tirelessly or standing sentry. One thousand Talons had been sent down from Ravenspire to reinforce the garrison, taking the place of the Raptors who had succumbed to the genetic corruption.

It had pained Alpharius to see the tainted legionaries, some of them wracked with agony, all of them a perversion of the Legiones Astartes. It would be a mercy to kill them, and when the time came, the Alpha Legion would surely grant them swift release from their torment. The Raven Guard were enemies, but Alpharius had a great deal of respect for the warriors of Deliverance, having shared in their tribulations.

He continued on his circuit, moving to the outside of the tower to look out over the rad-wastes. He already knew from the sensor reports that there was nothing out there, but the Raven Guard were highly suspicious of guild-tech and left nothing to chance. It was possible that the insurgents possessed something that might mask them from the sca

There was nothing to see, only a tortured landscape of flattened buildings and cratered rock.

He started towards the door to complete one loop around the tower, but stopped at the corner to look into the far distance. To the north-east, five kilometres away, the outskirts of Nabrik jutted from the bank of red fog like the fingers of a drowning man breaking the surface of the water. Lights blinked from their rooftops and the lamps of armoured airships passed sedately between them.

Alpharius was about to turn away when he noticed a flickering in the gloom, close to the base of one of the towers. A series of flashes illuminated the fog. Moments later, a dirigible erupted into flames, the mangled remains of its gondola sent plummeting into the city. A second or two later, the Alpha Legio

Astounded, he watched tracer fire erupting from several of the cloudscrapers at the heart of the city, and more explosions billowed into life further into Nabrik. He thought it to be just another insurgent attack at first, targeting the Mechanicum following recent defeats against the Raven Guard, but then several things happened at once.

Two huge detonations rocked one of the soaring towers, almost cutting it in half. The upper storeys crumbled and toppled, crashing into the streets below in a huge cloud of flame and smoke. Alpharius’s first thought was that it was a bomb, but his amazement grew as a gigantic figure appeared silhouetted against the growing column of fire. It was at least ninety metres tall, its right arm a massive multi-barrelled ca