Urien, it turned out, had been busy. It was easy to dismiss the Rogue Trader as a mere barbarian and forget he had survived for years in the cut throat world of Imperial politics. Rather than using his men as a single unit, he had used them to take over one group of Fraternus militia at a time, then detached them with his own men to act as cadre. Even more ingenious, if somewhat less ethically, he had broken into every church and reliquary he could find and looted whatever relics he found within. Each group had then carried the relic at the head of their group like a banner, drawing dozens of pilgrims along in their wake as a mob of poorly armed but highly enthusiastic warriors. In this way he had swept through the city, gathering up no fewer than five of the missing Primate, some even of their own free will. He deposited them in the care of Primate Von Mandlebrot, a fact likely to ensure they voted, if not their consciences, then in a way Hadrian was likely to find acceptable.
We had returned to Von Mandlebrot’s palace. I stripped out of the Sororitas armor not so much to preserve my identity, but to avoid outraging a high churchman. Hadrian was openly wearing his Inquisitorial rosette now, a fact which had made Von Mandlebrot turn an even paler shade of white. I took a quick shower and changed from my sweat stained arming clothes into a quilted black and red checkered body glove, covered with a gown of sheer silk. I donned a gauzy veil weighed down with small religious icons to complete the look, though I didn’t have time to undo the severe Sororitas stye braids.
“We should call for a vote at once Salavere,” Von Mandlebrot declared to the Principal of Electors as he finished moving tokens across his lacquered counting board, the white pegs indicating a slim majority. Salevere gave an elaborate bow.
“They shall be cast at sundown your eminence,” the monk replied. There was a trifle more respect in his voice now that he was looking at a prospective Cardinal than there had been when Von Mandlebrot was just one of several contenders.
“Surely if you wait for news of Primate Hingaberg’s death that will make your victory greater?” Clara asked, perplexed.
“A great deal of… uhh targeted charity has already been arranged to ensure this result,” Osten Von Mandlebrot explained, “delaying will merely give my brothers of the cloth a chance to … reconsider the value of earthly things?”
I snickered and Hadrian made an unhappy face. I had spent more time with the aristocracy than he did, but he clearly understood that the election of a new Cardinal involved bribery and backroom dealing on a generational scale. Few of the bribes would be anything as crude as cash, it was more in terms of benefices, custody of certain relics, the promotion of one prelates' protege rather than anothers. There were doubtless clerics still howling into their pillows at what they had lost out when Rasini had been killed by the assassins blast. There was no point in allowing another candidate to emerge and muddy the waters, or for one to be manufactured for the sake of additional bribes. Hadrian was not naive about these things of course, but I think in his Mono-dominant heart he would have preferred that the Emperor's work proceed without earthly graft.
Further discussion of the political situation was halted as Lazarus threw open the ornate wooden doors of the office and strode in, scattering a handful of acolytes and servo skulls like so many pigeons.
“The shuttle reached the High Rhodes a half hour ago,” Lazarus said, “it docked with a Rogue Trader named the Even Chance.” We all stiffened, having expected our foe to go to ground somewhere on the planet.
“The Even chances is a Paralax class star trader built on the hull of the Sword model frigate. It is registered to Barabus Stoyman, officially credentialed Rogue Trader. She was built in the yards on Keffia in M39.532 before accidents linked to…” Hadrian made a chopping motion with his hand to cut off the former Skitarri, having recognized the tone which meant he was quoting from his internal databanks, a feat that he could and would continue for as long as there was relevant data. Relevant to Lazarus at any rate however tangential it might appear to the rest of us.
“He is running,” Hadrian declared, on his feet in an instant.
“Clara, get Urien and his men assembled for immediate recall to the Caledonia. Lazarus call the ship, have the tech adepts begin their blessing for departure. Get orders out to all local patrol ships, they are to fire on the Even Chance if she attempts to…”
All eyes cut to the windows as blossoms of fire began to light the night sky. They were faint, like the twinkling of particularly bright stars. Lazarus let out a string of binaric curses that I’m sure would have made me very uncomfortable had I been able to understand them.
“What is going on?!” Von Mandlebrot demanded, able to tell we were agitated but not understanding why.
“The Even Chance just opened fire on shipping in the void anchors,” Lazarus confirmed in a voice all the more terrible for the fact it lacked any emotion. Three massive fireballs were already beginning to form where the pilgrim barges, gutted by macrocannon and lance fire, began to fall burning into the upper atmosphere. As I watched one broke up in a silent explosion that threw burning debris over an area the size of a moderate hive city. Further blasts followed on its heels.
“The Emperor protect us,” someone breathed, and then a billion tons of burning metal rained from the sky.
My memory gets a little hazy after that.
Not hazy maybe, so much as fragmented. We got outside before the first debris came down. The initial stages of the Calamity, as it would come to be called, were silent as billions of pilgrims watched what appeared to be a particularly spectacular meteor shower. But as the wreckage rained down, flaming white with heat and trailing clouds of burnt air and sublimed metal, it tore tortured screams from the air. The first impact I remember as a piece of burning metal the size of a small titan smashing into the side of a fluted tower a dozen stories tall. The elegant structure seemed to hang for a second before making the decision to fall, showering blocks of masonry that alone must have killed thousands. There was fire everywhere as Hadrian and Clara shoved me along. Hadrian and Lazarus were screaming into the vox units, trying manfully to salvage any kind of order from the wreck. I watched a wheel of iron three stories tall, a drive nozzle I thought with irrelevant clarity, roll down a street reducing every structure it touched to an expanding cloud of dirt and gravel. There was smoke and fire everywhere and the greasy smells of hot metal and burning flesh were everywhere. At one point we reached a great square a few moments before a rain of fire fell upon the assembled pilgrims. Their white penitential robes blazed like so many embers from a kicked campfire, each one setting fire to others as they fled in mad panic.
Horror followed horror, until at last we were staggering up the ramp of our Aquila, miraculously undamaged in the holocaust around us. Urien and his men were there, firing into the crowd that surged in behind us, desperate for the safety they imagined the shuttle represented but more than enough to swamp the sturdy craft in their desperation. Two sharp cracks as Clara hurled her fragmentation grenades into the pack. Then we were lifting away and the ramp was closing. Cool reprocessed air flowed over me and I came back to myself as I looked out over the Cathedral world. It was burning from horizon to horizon. Hadrian thumped his fist into the bulkhead.
“How many?” he ground out between gritted teeth, “how many just to cover the escape of one heretic?”
I opened my mouth to answer but was interrupted by violent maneuvering as Urien’s pilot began making evasive maneuvers. Dozens of shuttles were lifting, as many descending from the wreckage of the orbital Rhodes, orphaned when their motherships went up. There were hundreds of pin pricks of light above us now, and I realized to my disgust that the carnage on the ground was only a secondary effect of the Even Chance’s callous butchery. Every ship that could get underway was lighting her drive, desperately trying to flee the tight packed orbital space before debris, panicking shipping or fire from the enemy added their ships to the funeral pyre. The Even Chance had deliberately provoked the panic so it could flee among the panicking minnows.
Fortune was with us in one regard, the fact that the Caledonia had arrived late into the election meant that it hung at one of the highest void anchors, untouched by the trouble and chaos below. After a tense half hour we rendezvoused with the ship, drives already lit and on an intercept course with our quarry. There was no way the scattered patrol ships could intercept the Even Chance before she hit the jump limit, but it was just possible, that the Caledonia might.
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