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Hammer of the Emperor – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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Imperial spaceships, massive and ornate, comparable in size and baroque beauty to the largest cathedrals of Holy Terra, hung together in the infinite dark. They had slid from the warp almost forty days earlier, bisecting the orbits of the outer planets on trails of blazing plasma until finally closing on their ultimate goal. That goal lay somewhere below, on the world that spun beneath them, a world that glowed bright in the glare of the system’s harsh sun.

Golgotha: a planet shrouded in thick, choking cloud, all reds, yellows and browns that swirled and bled together like so many spilled paints. In memoirs dating back thirty-eight years to the last Golgothan War, the celebrated Terraxian Guardsman-poet, Clavier Michelos, had remarked on the planet’s ominous beauty, and with good reason. From high orbit, at least, it was a stunning sight, but that beauty masked an uncompromising nature, for Golgotha was not a world that welcomed men. Michelos had died here, captured and tortured to death by orks. He wasn’t alone in that. The war had been a costly and embarrassing disaster. The orks had crushed everything in their path, and even Commissar Yarrick, the lauded Hero of Armageddon, had been unable to turn the tide of battle. He left Golgotha in bitter defeat with very few survivors at his side.

That was almost four decades ago. Yarrick, now an old man, still fought for the glory of the Imperium. The war with his nemesis, the ork warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, had taken him back to Armageddon, the world that had made his reputation, while Golgotha remained firmly in the hands of the enemy, a dark stain on his record that could never be expunged.

So, why had men returned? The small fleet that hung above the orange sphere lacked even a fraction of the power required to take it back by force, but that was not their mission, not this time. There was something else down there besides orks, something important that had been lost on Golgotha during the last war, something that the Imperium wanted back. It was a holy relic, a symbol so potent that it might turn the tide of Yarrick’s new war. Its name was The Fortress of Arrogance.

The fleet sent to recover it was a mixed force. In the centre, a ship far larger than any of the others dominated the formation. This was the Scion of Tharsis, a Reclamator craft of the Adeptus Mechanicus, the ancient and inscrutable tech-priesthood of Mars without whom none of the ships present would have existed at all. The Scion was flanked on either side by the Imperial Navy’s Tyrant-class heavy cruisers, the Helicon Star and the Ganymede, around which swarmed myriad smaller escort ships and armed transports. It was on one of these transports, an unassuming craft called the Hand of Radiance, that the men of the 81st Cadian Armoured Regiment, known less formally as Rolling Thunder, prepared for war.

‘Form up, you greasy pukes!’ roared an ugly, skin-headed sergeant with a pockmarked face. ‘You know the bloody drill. By the numbers, damn your eyes!’

The floor of the starboard-side hangar clanged with the sound of men snapping to attention. The troopers stood in formation, company by company from the first to the tenth, while their sergeants prowled back and forth like hungry wolves, eyes sharp, hunting keenly for the slightest signs of sloppiness. Hulking drop-ships sat behind the ordered ranks of men, their boarding ramps lowered, internal lights glaring yellow inside dark, gunmetal hulls.

A loud, hydraulic hiss sounded on the right of the massive chamber, and a thick door split down the middle, each half sliding backwards into the wall with a cough of oily steam. The metal floor rang with the crisp, pleasing tattoo of dozens of booted feet marching briskly into the hangar.

‘Officers on deck!’ yelled another of the sergeants. Thick veins throbbed at his temple with the effort of projecting his voice unaided to almost two thousand men.

When the officers had halted and turned to face the assembled troops, the oldest of the sergeants – a stocky man with lumpy scar-tissue in place of his left ear – strode forwards and proudly stated, ‘All men present and accounted for, sir. Vehicles already onboard, lashed and locked. Flight and tech-crews ready for the go. Companies one to ten awaiting permission to load.’

Colonel Kochatkis Vinnemann stood at the centre of the group of officers, hunched as ever, leaning heavily on his cane, but resplendent nonetheless in a smart uniform of deep green with glittering golden epaulets. Today was the last day that he would be able to wear the regimental colours for a while. The duration of the campaign would see everyone clothed in camouflaging fatigues of rust-red.

Vinnemann nodded at the sergeant in front of him and was about to issue the boarding command when Captain Immrich – tall, dark and broad-shouldered – leaned close and whispered a few words in his ear. Vinnemann frowned a little at first but finally nodded his agreement. He stepped forward, accepted a vox-amp receiver from the adjutant on his left, held the mouthpiece in front of his lips, and cleared his throat. The sound echoed back at him from the vast bulkheads.

‘Those of you with me long enough know that I dislike long speeches,’ said Vinnemann. ‘Something best left to your commissars and confessors, I think, to men who have a particular talent for it.’

Commissar Slayte, the regiment’s widely despised political officer, dressed as ever in the black and gold of his office, bowed slightly at the compliment. Confessor Friedrich, on the other hand, a flush-faced priest in his late thirties, merely swayed a little as if standing in a strong breeze that only he could feel.

‘However,’ continued Colonel Vinnemann, ‘as Captain Immrich has rightly reminded me, our regiment faces something unprecedented in its history. If a situation ever warranted a departure from my typical reticence, it is this one, for we are about to set foot on a world firmly and completely in the hands of the hated ork.’

It was Vinnemann’s particular habit to refer to the old foe in the singular. Some of the men did a pretty good impersonation of him, though never with any malice. There was tremendous love and respect for the old colonel among those who had served under him for any length of time. It was well earned. Those men whose jibes contained an edge of genuine insult, especially those that mocked his physical disability, quickly found themselves isolated, cast out by their fellows. Among Imperial Guardsmen, such exclusion was as good as a death sentence.

Vinnemann’s distinctive posture was caused by his augmetic spine. Twenty-four years earlier, while just a captain, he had undergone a life-saving augmentation procedure following the destruction of his Vanquisher battle tank. His body had never fully accepted the implant. Regular injections of immunosuppressants and painkillers eased things a little, but not much. The injury should have killed him, and so, too, the subsequent operation, but his indomitable spirit had kept him alive, that and the care of the Medicae nurse he later married. During his slow, painful recovery, his superiors had offered him the option of an honourable discharge. It seemed to them the only logical choice.

Vinnemann had rejected it without hesitation. ‘A rear echelon position, then,’ they had suggested, but the old tanker had rejected that, too. ‘My duty,’ he had insisted, ‘is to lead my men from the front, no matter what, and, so long as I am able, that is exactly what I intend to do.’

Twelve years later, he had risen to the rank of colonel, taking command of the entire 81st Armoured Regiment.

He studied them now, his brave troopers, during a short pause in his speech. A slim lieutenant at the rear coughed quietly behind his hand. The sound was magnified in the relative silence. Vinnemann drew a deep breath.

‘Some of us have fought the ork before,’ he continued, ‘and with notable success. Our victories on Phaegos II, Galamos and Indara stand us in good stead, though many of you, I suppose, had yet to be born at the time of the latter. Still, the point is this: we know the ork. We know that together, man and machine, tanker and tank, we are stronger than the ork. We know that we can beat the ork. We’ve proved it time after time.’

He found himself stunned by how young some of the most recent reinforcements looked when standing next to their more experienced peers. By the blasted Eye, he thought, some of them are practically children! Was I ever so fresh-faced?

Thoughts of his two sons bubbled up in his mind. Both were serving in the 92nd Infantry Division on Armageddon. They had grown into fine soldiers. Was it too much to hope for their safety? Was it foolish to pray for them? Millions would die to stop the foe on Armageddon, tens of millions, perhaps. Yarrick’s war demanded it. The very heart of the Imperium was at stake. Why should his sons be spared the fate of their comrades? He knew that glory, victory and a good death were the best he could ask for them. It was all that most good Cadians asked for themselves. Besides, were the men before him not also his sons? That was how he saw them sometimes. They certainly made him feel just as proud.

‘Could General deViers be any more fortunate than to have our proud regiment roll out under his command? I hardly think so. Yes, I’ve heard the mutterings among you. I’ve sensed your dark mood. Why send us to Golgotha, you still wonder, when our kin are so pressed on Armageddon? What difference, you ask, can we make out here on a planet untouched by the Emperor’s light? Well, let me tell you something. Listen closely, now, because I want you to understand it. I believe in this operation! Do you hear me? I believe in it. Our success will make a difference to our beleaguered brothers that you can scarcely imagine. Our triumphant return will re-energise them as nothing else can. Those of you who doubt it will understand once you lay eyes on the prize. Until that moment, I know you’ll do whatever it takes, give your every bead of sweat, your last drop of blood if necessary, for the honour and tradition of our proud regiment, for the glory of Cadia, and for the everlasting dominion of the God-Emperor of mankind.’

He scanned their faces for signs of open dissent and found none. Instead, their response to his words was both immediate and deafening.

‘For Cadia and the Emperor!’ they roared and, like his own amplified words, the sound echoed back at him from the hangar walls.

He grinned at them, eager not to dwell on the doubts he secretly carried. ‘Sergeant Keppler,’ he said, ‘get these brave soldiers loaded up!’

‘Aye, sir,’ said the old sergeant with the mutilated ear, and he threw up a salute that was so sharp it could have cut glass. He turned, took a deep breath, and roared at the men, ‘Right you maggots, you heard the colonel. About face! Squad leaders, take ’em in nice and clean!’

Vinnemann watched them proudly as they marched up the ramps and into the bellies of the waiting drop-ships, each company to a ship of its own. Be strong, sons of Cadia, he thought, now more than ever.

He turned and dismissed his officers so that each could go to join his men. Finally, with his personal staff in tow, the colonel moved off to board his own shuttle.

The hangar air began vibrating with the whine of powerful engines as the naval flight-crews began warming up their craft. With a great metallic groan, the massive bay doors slowly opened onto space. Orange light flooded in, reflected from the planet below.

After seven long and troubled months aboard the Hand of Radiance, it was time, at last, to return to war.

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A Black Library Publication

Mercy Run first published in Planetkill anthology in 2008.
Gunheads first published in 2009.
Ice Guard first published in 2009.
A Blind Eye and Waiting Death first published in Hammer of the Emperor in 2011.
Desert Raiders first published in 2007.
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.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mark Holmes.

Hammer of the Emperor © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Hammer of the Emperor, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-78999-855-9

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