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Embers of Extinction – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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EMBERS OF EXTINCTION

Brandon Easton

After the Battle of Phall…

Perturabo stared at the tactical displays with a sense of disbelief as Captain Vort relayed the names of their capital vessels struck down by the cowardly manoeuvres of Polux and his now shattered Retribution Fleet. The charred, battered husks of the best of the Iron Warriors’ destroyers drifted lazily past the hull of the Iron Blood, their ghostly remnants briefly illuminated by plumes of plasma fire.

The Imperial Fists’ desperate gambit had succeeded – Polux had commanded his engineering corps to detonate the plasma reactors on the Victory-class battleship Tribune as the Iron Fleet was on a path to absolute victory. A victory that would have sent shockwaves throughout the Astartes Legions, eventually reaching the ears of the primarch Rogal Dorn. The thought of Dorn and Polux’s prized vessel being taken by Iron Warriors had promised Perturabo a sense of validation that he could cherish like a precious gemstone. With his hand at Dorn’s throat, Perturabo would dangle the loss of the Tribune before his vanquished foe – like wasting fresh water in front of a man dying of thirst at the edge of a vast desert.

The Tribune erupted in a flash of golden fire akin to the exposed core of a yellow dwarf star. Tendrils of fiery white-hot gas lapped against the reinforced hulls of multiple Iron Warriors ships in a split second. Most were instantly reduced to cosmic ash; the vessels that survived the initial blast had their shields and navigational systems fried beyond repair.

Perturabo silently unleashed a torrent of violent condemnations towards the delusional followers of the Emperor’s will. Not because of their convictions, but because he’d allowed them to inflict a considerable amount of damage against his fleet. He’d considered multiple combat strategies and implemented those he believed would deliver a ruthless, ferocious victory.

That’s what he was known for. His trademark. His legacy. His pride.

Perturabo was also known for his unassailable logic. Not the textbook definition of logic – but Perturabo’s logic: an almost purely mathematical application of brutality, bloodshed and slaughter bolstered by a fearlessness of consequence. Perturabo was not careless, he simply believed in winning at all costs. Some dubbed it ‘The Art of Siege’.

He preached the doctrine of bullets and armour; of the total annihilation of his foes; of the humiliation of the Emperor’s Legions and the unadulterated thrill of marching through the crimson-stained streets of Terra, with the Iron Blood drifting high above in orbit relaying their victory to Horus. Factoring in this problematic loss to the Imperial Fists, Perturabo calculated low odds that he’d lose the confidence of his legionaries. Yet the Battle of Phall would conclude with a mighty dent in his visage of invulnerability.

It was statistically improbable for any creature to be truly infallible, but there was high value in the commodity of perception.

Perception as propaganda. A tactic as old as human conflict, Perturabo thought as he imagined Neanderthals painting unflattering and bigoted depictions of the Cro-Magnons on cave walls shortly before triggering their extinction.

‘None of that matters now,’ Perturabo whispered to himself as the Iron Warriors’ casualty lists swiftly blossomed to unacceptable numbers.

At that moment, Captain Vort’s eyes shifted to Perturabo. Because Vort’s cybernetic body was mainly subsumed into the navigational command station of the ship, his head movement was limited to an angular swivel. If you wanted to read Vort’s mind, his eyes were the proverbial windows to his emotional state.

They showed a mixture of shock and anxiety.

‘Do you have something to report?’ Perturabo said.

Vort nodded, his eyes resting on a tactical display before him.

‘Lord, three Lunar-class cruisers from the enemy fleet did not escape with the bulk of the survivors. It’s the Pylades, the Ramses and the Devastation.’

Perturabo’s eyebrow raised at the mention of the latter ship.

‘Status?’ he said.

‘All three vessels are heavily damaged with limited navigational capability. Their proximity to the warp storm rendered them temporarily invisible to our sensors.’

‘In their zeal to escape, they unwittingly stumbled onto the pathway of ruin,’ Perturabo snorted dryly. ‘Is the Iron Blood capable of pursuit?’

‘Yes, my lord…’ Vort replied as if uncertain of his next words.

‘Where are they headed?’

‘A planetary system known as Tarkovsky Epsilon. Comprised of rogue planetoids and dead moons orbiting the gas giant Tarkovsky II.’

Perturabo’s face brightened with a glint of dark anticipation.

‘Time to intercept?’

Vort’s eyes shuffled side to side, a furrow of discomfort settling upon his brow as Perturabo stared impatiently.

‘I require an answer, captain,’ Perturabo said.

‘At best speed, within the hour. However… we have orders from–’ Vort began to say before Perturabo’s voice firmly echoed through the bridge with a note of finality.

‘Who commands the Iron Warriors?’

The bridge fell silent. The only sounds were the ubiquitous creaking of metal and the distant moan of the engines.

Vort leaned forward as far as his cybernetic assembly would allow. ‘Lord, our engines are operating at ninety-four per cent with all weapons systems fully charged and loaded. Per your orders,’ he said with a reassuring timbre.

‘Plot a course. Only the Iron Blood will engage these stragglers. The rest of the fleet will regroup at these coordinates. This foolishness has cost us time and resources and we must conduct an assessment of our current firepower. Until then, maintain a communications blackout. Is that understood?’ Perturabo said.

‘Yes, lord,’ Vort said as he relaxed into his typical stationary position.

Perturabo smirked as he felt the nearly imperceptible shift of the Iron Blood’s mass as the battleship broke from the protective formation of the fleet. Regrettably, this was not the day he’d have the satisfaction of grinding Rogal Dorn’s jaw beneath his boot or ripping Captain Polux’s still-beating heart through his armour, yet Perturabo took solace in the fact that a good number of Imperial servants would die screaming in horror with his face emblazoned in their fading consciousness.

Such feelings stirred deep reservoirs of nostalgia within Perturabo’s mind. Memories of places he hadn’t revisited in a very long while. Perturabo thought of the forge he had constructed deep within the lower decks of the Iron Blood, an almost perfect replica of his private forge back on his home world of Olympia – one of the few locales in the known universe that offered him a sense of balance and clarity.

He closed his eyes, recalling a past era when the barriers between order, chaos, righteousness and regret were more clearly defined. When the wicked and ignorant knew their place in the social fabric of the galaxy…

While Perturabo commanded the IV Legion, battling an insidious xenos invasion by the hrud, the elites ruling Olympia withered away. Their social order had collapsed quickly after a series of deaths, assassinations and a declining population of youth to rebuild the fractured political infrastructure. Without a figurehead regime in place, Olympia descended into a global civil war that had no organising principle or end in sight. All semblances of civilisation deteriorated into mass panic and anarchy.

Upon their return, Perturabo and the IV Legion scoured Olympia’s cities of rebels and malcontents one by one, delivering swift justice in the form of total extermination for all those considered to be criminal in nature and behaviour. Only after the cities were procedurally cleansed, and the few survivors placed into the most brutal system of slavery imaginable, did Perturabo take a moment to survey the carnage he had inflicted upon the people who once considered him a hero.

Perturabo did not subscribe to self-flagellation or any unnecessary moralistic criticism of past actions or attitudes. He reasoned that needless re-examination of his past atrocities and Imperial defamation could not reverse time, reanimate the dead or eradicate the bottomless, blinding stupidity of the average citizen of the Imperium. He reflected upon his actions in the manner a coroner would following an unsuccessful autopsy. It wasn’t the dissection that troubled him, it was the lack of results. In this case, the desired result eluded him. He wanted to ensnare the galaxy with his brand of order and impenetrable logic. Then demand fealty and compliance with a steady fist to build an empire that conformed to his vision of justice.

His perception. His will. His intellect.

That’s all that would matter in Perturabo’s fiefdom of discipline, logic and technology.

Fully aware that the Emperor would never forgive him for the crimes of genocide and enslavement, Perturabo’s conscience had been soothed by the unlikeliest of scenarios: Horus delivering the thunder hammer formerly possessed by Fulgrim. Symbolising the eternal alliance between Perturabo and Horus, the weapon had become a true extension of everything Perturabo believed about war, the base nature of humanity and the absolute necessity of fealty to iron itself.

In the weeks following Horus’ departure, Forgebreaker did not offer solace or comfort to Perturabo – it had the opposite effect. The hammer had all the benchmarks of Imperial military perfection. When Perturabo held it, he could sense the kinetic energy field imbued within the metal like a coiled electrical serpent ready to release its venomous lightning upon impact. As one of the most powerful weapons in existence, Forgebreaker could smash through Astartes armour as if it were composed of a moth’s wings, and leave a smoking hole in any number of armoured vehicles. In a primarch’s hands, Forgebreaker was the closest a mortal could get to directly experiencing the anger of a god.

It was everything a true warrior could want in a weapon. Yet Perturabo did not believe the hammer was ready for warfare. Not yet. A soldier’s weapon was often the determining factor between life and death.

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A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-347-5

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