The transport shuddered violently in the turbulence of the orbital exchange, its engines producing a roar that threatened to get through the hull entirely. Duvette sat locked in his restraint harness, both hands gripping the safety straps, his gaze fixed through the narrow viewport on the void beyond.
This was the first ti Duvette had seen the Ultramarines' flagship with his own eyes.
Macragge's Honour.
The twenty-six kilotre length of the Gloriana-class battleship filled the viewport like a Gothic cathedral that had decided it no longer required a planet to rest on. The hull was dense with weapons arrays in every configuration the Imperium's naval architects had developed over centuries of continuous warfare.
The ship was running at full output. The macro-cannon salvoes and lance batteries were laying a web of annihilation across the darkness around it, each discharge bright enough to define the shapes of the vessels nearby. Anything in their path dissolved.
What took Duvette's breath away was not the flagship.
It was what the flagship was fighting.
This was his first direct view of the Great Devourer's void presence, and nothing from his previous existence had prepared him for what that looked like at close range. Hive Ships of dinsions that made the Gloriana-class vessel appear to be working at a disadvantage. Escort organisms filling the viewport in numbers that defied honest accounting. A continuous, surging mass of living void-capable biology covering the stars from horizon to horizon and pressing toward the human fleet from every direction with the inexorable patience of a geological process.
Each salvo the flagship produced destroyed hundreds of the escort organisms. By the ti the next salvo was ready, the space it had cleared was occupied again, filled from behind by organisms that had not slowed for the deaths of the ones in front of them.
Against that, even a Gloriana-class battleship was a vessel fighting its own weight.
The transport bucked and dropped as bio-plasma crossed the approach corridor, leaving scorched streaks across the hull armour. The shaking drove the soldiers aboard into their restraint harnesses repeatedly and without rcy.
Duvette had no doubt that the transport would be destroyed before it reached the hangar. The math of the fire density made that outco seem statistically predetermined.
Through the viewport, the math presented itself directly to him. One after another, several friendly transports in the sa approach corridor were struck by bio-plasma bursts and ca apart: silent explosions against the void, each one becoming a brief fireball and then a scattering of frozen wreckage drifting in orbit.
Whether it was the Emperor's protection or a statistical outlier that would never repeat, the transport carrying Duvette and the surviving soldiers of the 112th cleared the kill zone intact and ca down hard on the deck of Macragge's Honour's massive hangar bay.
The mont the doors opened and Duvette's boots hit solid tal, before he had ti to do anything as human as breathe, a mortal ssenger arrived at a brisk walk.
"Commissar Duvette, Lord Calgar commands your imdiate presence in Strategic Command Room One for an ergency operational briefing."
No rest available. Duvette gave a nod, straightened his greatcoat as well as the dried blood and prothium residue on it would allow, and followed the ssenger at pace.
Strategic Command Room One occupied the core section of Macragge's Honour. When Duvette ca through the heavy tal doors, the room was already filled with senior officers: fleet commanders, Astartes officers, mortal auxiliary commanders. Every face in the room carried the particular expression of people who understand exactly how bad the situation is and are working on solutions regardless.
At the hololithic tactical table, Duvette found Marneus Calgar.
The Chapter Master was not standing. He was seated in a life-support throne that the ship's Apothecaries had rigged from a dicae unit, the configuration clearly improvised and clearly necessary. Several Astartes Apothecaries and servo-skulls worked around him, driving thick infusion lines and high-potency analgesics into his neck ports. The stump of his right arm was sealed with haemostatic gel, the wound treated for transport rather than treated properly. His face was without colour.
His eyes were as they always were. The sa authority. The sa precision. He chaired the eting personally, and no one in the room appeared to have considered any other arrangent.
"Officers of Ultramar."
Calgar's voice had acquired a rough edge from the engagent, but it still covered the room without effort.
"The Shadow of the Great Devourer has thickened to the point of physical manifestation. Our Librarians have suffered catastrophic psychic feedback. All orbital and surface long-range communications have been severed completely. From this point forward, all deploynts will be conducted by blind drop."
He surveyed the assembled officers and continued.
"The fleet's available ground forces will be concentrated on three strategic nodes that cannot be allowed to fall. The South Polar Fortress. The North Polar Fortress. And the equatorial capital: Macragge City."
His remaining hand moved across the hololithic controls and the three locations resolved into detailed projections above the table.
"The polar fortresses are what keeps the Tyranid fleet from driving through the system unchallenged. The ground-based anti-ship plasma batteries deployed at each location are among the very few weapons in our current inventory capable of effectively engaging Hive Ships at range. Without those installations operating, our fleet cannot maintain orbit for the ti we need. The polar fortresses hold."
"And Macragge City." The weight in his voice changed register. "That is our lifeblood. The gene-father sleeps in the depths of Hera Fortress. We will not permit those alien creatures to approach his resting place."
From the fragntary combat reports currently available, the primary Tyranid assault force was concentrated against the two polar fortresses. The equatorial zone around Hera Fortress was under heavy assault from a separate and substantial swarm contingent.
"Cold Steel Ridge held long enough for the main force to extract. The fighting strength we preserved in that action has direct value now." Calgar looked across the faces at the table. "The swarm that drove against Cold Steel Ridge will regroup and redirect against the remaining fronts. Communications between fleet and surface are gone. Despite that, our full complent of nearly one million Ultramar auxiliary troops will be allocated across all three defensive lines."
"The fleet reforms its battle line and provides covering fire for the blind drop at all costs. Every formation reaches its designated surface objective."
His gaze moved from face to face across the room.
"Ti is short. All personnel have a brief window to rest and prepare. Then imdiately to the front lines. For Macragge. For the Emperor."
"For Macragge! For the Emperor!" The response from the assembled officers filled the room. One by one they ca to attention, gave the salute, and moved out with the purposeful speed of people who have been given their orders and know exactly what they an.
Duvette turned toward the door with them.
"Commissar Duvette. Stay."
He stopped. Turned back. The room cleared around him until only Calgar, the Apothecaries, and Duvette remained.
Calgar looked at him, the deep-set eyes carrying the quality of soone who has already worked through the question they are about to ask.
"I intend to assign you and the re-ard 112th to Macragge City. You will hold the first defensive line below Hera Fortress." He held Duvette with his gaze. "I need the most resilient soldiers at the most critical position. What is your assessnt?"
Duvette t the Chapter Master's eyes and gave a slight, steady nod.
"No objections, my lord. The 112th will defend Hera Fortress to the last."
What he showed Calgar was the composure of a commissar accepting a critical assignnt without question. What he felt, behind that composure, was the long, slow release of tension that cos when the worst possible outco has just been taken off the table. The North Polar Fortress, on any rational reading of the tactical picture, was a death assignnt with nothing on the other side of it. Hera Fortress was survivable. And Evan was almost certainly in Macragge City, which ant the assignnt and the personal objective pointed at the sa location.
Calgar gave a brief nod of acknowledgnt and said nothing further for a mont.
"Go and prepare yourself, Commissar." He looked at Duvette with the kind of attention that carries no performance in it. "May the Emperor watch over you."
Duvette ca to attention, brought his fist to his chest, and walked out of Strategic Command Room One.
He understood clearly what this brief reprieve ant and what it did not. The rest period would be short. What waited on the other side of it would be harder than anything the ridge had produced, and the ridge had produced everything it had.
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