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In Service Eternal - Extract

A Black Library Publication

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In Service Eternal

Matt Smith

It hung there unfeasibly in the foetid air, a black mark on the already ugly aerial landscape. A utilitarian city of giant towers, enormous power generators and vast manufactoria, all held aloft upon dozens of anti-gravity platforms, each the size of battle tanks. Its name was Gamma One and it was one of many of its kind that floated in the upper atmosphere of Antropia, a ball of noxious brown gas around a dense mineral core that sat isolated within the Artran system of the Segmentum Obscurus. The space around the city was in a state of constant flux. Its tallest towers forever inhaled the toxic gases around it, filtered and repurposed them on an atomic level and fed them into the ever-hungering generators. Slaved mining servitors swarmed around helix-shaped ports atop sprawling refineries in their thousands, docking only long enough to unload their meagre cargo of ore before returning once more to the planet’s uninhabitable core miles below. All to feed the Imperial war machine.

Far from the largest of Antropia’s floating cities, Gamma One was still of singular importance as it formed the centre of the planet’s deep-space communications and long-range augur.

Shapes emerged from the dull shadow cast by the city as it blocked what little light had found its way to Antropia from its distant star and fought through the cloying atmosphere. Mere pinpricks against the forge city’s vastness, they broke away from the city’s imposing presence and formed shapes of their own. Short squat trunks carrying pairs of engines upon their backs. Angular sloping wings and long twin tails.

Valkyries.

Embarking on a final shakedown mission, they were flown by pilots of the 41st Antropia Aerial Division, veterans no longer fit for the front lines but whose flying skills could not be left idle, their service to the Emperor still incomplete.

‘All systems green. Confirm,’ said Wing Commander Arden Graves from the pilot’s seat of the lead Valkyrie Assault Carrier. His voice was calm and confident. The sound of a man who knew exactly what he was doing through decades of experience.

‘Confirmed, commander,’ came the clipped response from his co-pilot Corporal Ryker Ness, sat above and behind him in the Valkyrie’s second seat. Despite their physical differences they looked the same now, their features masked beneath helmets, dark visors and respirators, their bodies encased in grey flightsuits that seemed to blend with the dull metal of the cockpit.

‘Get me status reports from the rest of the group.’

‘Yes, sir. Reports coming in now… Gryphonne Five reports sub-optimal power to primary armament. Still within acceptable mission parameters. All other craft report status green. We are ready to proceed, commander.’

‘Thank you, corporal,’ Wing Commander Graves said before opening the group-wide vox channel. ‘This is Gryphonne One to all craft,’ he said, with a casualness born of years of camaraderie with those in the ships around him. ‘Let’s keep it tight out there today and stay alert. Mirehawk sightings are up fifteen percent over last cycle. We don’t want to get caught out like Third Wing.’

Mirehawk was a generous nickname given to Antropia’s apex predators by the Navy pilots. There was nothing hawk-like about them. Leathery, scaled reptilian beasts the size of gunships with claws that could punch through a Valkyrie’s armour like paper. The pilots had become strangely fond of them. Their appearance leant some excitement to often otherwise dull test flights. No one knew where the name originally came from, but somehow it had stuck.

On the Wing Commander’s order, the Valkyries fell into formation. The nine craft were painted a plain dull brown, the same as any built in Antropia’s great forge cities. It served the dual purpose of camouflaging them from the world’s predators and showing the least of the sickly, sticky build-up that always formed upon the hulls after even the briefest exposure to the toxic atmosphere. On the front port side of the hull the insignia of the Antropia 41st Aerial Testing Division, First Wing, had been lazily applied in white, no concern given for markings that would be covered up as soon as the Valkyries were sent off to the front lines. These very craft were destined for Lord Militant Vanderbee’s holy undertaking to hold back the ork horde of Waaagh! Gutslasha in the neighbouring Torpral system.

‘We’re coming up on Waypoint Alpha,’ Corporal Ness dutifully reported.

‘I see it,’ Wing Commander Graves replied as his trained eyes picked out the beacon of flashing red and white lights through the dull haze. ‘Gryphonne One to all craft. Waypoint Alpha. Weapons live. Fire on my order.’

The Valkyries passed the beacon and Wing Commander Graves picked up targeting data ahead. More beacons, larger than the waypoint and enveloped in powerful refractor fields. They hung in threes, mirroring the formations of the Navy.

‘Second Squadron. Target’s dead ahead. Open fire.’ Graves watched out of the starboard side of his cockpit as the three Valkyries on his right flank opened fire, the multi-lasers mounted on the far side of their cockpits spitting streams of bright yellow light through the dull haze and striking the stationary beacons. The shields on the targets flashed wildly as they dispersed the energy of each hit, then faded.

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A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2016
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
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ISBN: 978-1-78572-137-3

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