"We made a mistake from the very beginning. A grave and fatal mistake."
Typhus spoke into the silence left by Abaddon's last answer. His voice rasped through his helm's corroded grille, carrying easily above the damaged ventilation fans. He turned his helm toward Abaddon, leaving no doubt whom he blamed.
Several Black Legion commanders were already glaring at him, hands shifting toward there weapons. Typhus watched the movement without troubling to reach for his own weapon.
Abaddon remained seated. His gaze lingered on the space below the command dais, where he still felt something ought to have been.
He forced his attention back to Typhus.
"We should never have trusted that sorcerer," the Herald of Nurgle continued, unfazed by the baleful glares of Abaddon's inner circle. "The Corsairs delivered him to you, and suddenly his demands took precedence over every campaign we were fighting. Defend this worthless moon. Abandon that supply route. Send warriors to die protecting a circle scratched into the dirt."
The Red Corsair captain's expression hardened at the mention of his faction. Typhus gave him no opportunity to intervene.
"Whenever the orders contradicted each other, we were told we lacked understanding. Whenever a sacrifice failed, we were told it required more blood." His gaze returned to Abaddon. "And after years of this, what did we purchase? One single Warp rift. That's it."
A cooling pipe knocked inside the wall behind the throne. Somewhere beneath the command deck, a cutting tool shrieked against a jammed bulkhead. No one answered.
The accusation was meant for everyone present. Officers who had dismissed complaints about the ritual now avoided looking at the allies whose warriors had paid for it. The Corsair captain had inherited his place at this council only after his predecessor disappeared during the retreat. Whatever promises Huron's earlier envoy had accepted, the new representative showed little inclination to defend them.
Typhus had no intention of letting the Black Legion turn shared losses into shared responsibility. He commanded his own fleet. As a leader of the Death Guard, he was a "fellow warlord," an ally, not a subordinate. He had accepted Abaddon's direction because the Warmaster had promised that the ritual would make a decisive victory possible.
"It gathered the fleet," one of Abaddon's lieutenants said. "It opened the road to Cadia."
"And delivered us into a battle we did not understand," Typhus continued, his voice a caustic snarl. "We charged into the Cadian Gate like blind fools, utterly unprepared for what awaited us. We expected a fleet engagement and instead found ourselves being torn apart by a superweapon we scarcely understood."
The Red Corsair captain gave Abaddon a hard look. The truth was difficult to ignore: the haphazard rush to Cadia had cost them dearly.
"Enough," Abaddon said.
The lieutenant immediately bowed his head. Typhus did not lower his gaze.
For a moment, the Warmaster studied him with an expression so distant that Typhus wondered whether he had heard any of the argument. Then Abaddon spoke again.
"Then leave. Take your fleet. You've suffered grave losses, gained nothing. But at least... you can still walk away."
There was no anger in the offer. That made it more difficult to answer.
Typhus had expected threats, accusations of cowardice, perhaps another reminder of everything the Black Legion had sacrificed. Instead, Abaddon had placed the decision back in his hands.
Typhus said nothing in return.
A withdrawal order waited on his armor's command display. One transmission would release the surviving Plague Fleet from the formation. The Terminus Est could gather its wounded ships and seek a route away from Cadia, leaving the Warmaster to salvage what remained of his crusade.
The ships already lost would stay lost. Typhus knew that. Remaining merely because they had died would be a fool's accounting.
But departure would also mean abandoning Abaddon's promised support for his own campaign in the Ultima Segmentum. If the Warmaster still had a way to turn this defeat around, Typhus intended to hear it before surrendering his claim.
He left the transmission unsent.
"Tell us what remains worth fighting for."
Abaddon rose. The servos of his Terminator armor sounded unusually loud in the quiet chamber.
"Rather than argue over who shoulders the blame, perhaps we should return to matters of war."
He walked toward the forward viewport. Beyond its warded glass, the fleet's running lights shone through the shifting colors of the Immaterium. The nearest cruiser held position off the flagship's flank, its tow field shimmering where it gripped the Vengeful Spirit. Another vessel's outline disappeared briefly behind a wash of pale light, then returned in almost the same place.
The tactical projection beside the viewport offered a more useful picture.
No escort screen remained. The surviving cruisers had been reduced to scattered groups around the battleships, several too badly damaged to maintain formation without assistance. The heavier vessels had endured more punishment, but endurance had not left them fit for another engagement.
The Vengeful Spirit was among the worst affected. Its main drive could sustain only short pulses, and the ships keeping it moving were themselves running damaged machinery beyond safe limits.
Two large amber symbols remained outside the confirmed formation.
The Blackstone Fortresses.
Neither had reported a successful passage through the rift. Their last reliable positions placed them in realspace, still exchanging fire with the Celestial Engine. Abaddon had no confirmation that either remained intact.
"You call the ritual a failure," he said. "Without that breach, Talon would have trapped us inside its suppression field and destroyed us. We escaped because the road remained open."
"And what good is that?" Typhus asked. "Escape is a poor return on what we spent."
"It is not the only return." Abaddon turned from the viewport. "The rift can be expanded."
"Expanded?" Typhus narrowed his eyes, his tone turning from sarcasm to curiosity.
Abaddon gestured to a waiting officer. The fleet disposition contracted, giving way to a chart of Cadia and its neighboring systems. Several labels flickered as the damaged projector struggled to hold them steady.
"What happens," Abaddon asked slowly, "if we begin destroying the systems around Cadia?"
Typhus studied the chart, his irritation giving way to closer attention. He stepped toward the projection, and the nearest mortal operator edged aside to give him room.
The stars and worlds surrounding the breach helped stabilize the fabric of the Materium. Typhus knew their influence well enough from the need to reach a Mandeville Point, clear of the worst gravitational interference, before attempting a safe Warp translation. Destroying those anchors would thin the boundary between realspace and the Immaterium.
The rift could grow. The ritual's results could be magnified dramatically.
"You believe the ritual has already prepared those systems," Typhus said.
"I believe its work did not end when our ships reached Cadia."
Typhus studied the space between the marked stars. A spreading disturbance could change the next engagement completely. The Celestial Engine had fought them where its suppression field was strongest, with a single breach feeding the Blackstones. A wider region of Warp intrusion would give them other approaches, other places to gather strength, and more than one point the enemy had to contain.
"More power for our sorcerers," he said. "More freedom for the Neverborn. The Blackstone Fortresses, if they return, would become unstoppable."
Abaddon watched him without interruption.
Typhus rested one heavy finger beside Cadia's marker.
"If the breach grew far enough, the enemy would have to suppress the space around every ship it wished to protect. Its iron world could no longer settle the matter simply by sitting in one system."
For the first time since the council began, several commanders leaned closer to the display.
Typhus noticed. He also noticed how quickly hope was making them careless.
"If," he repeated. "And first we must cause that destruction."
His finger moved to the nearest neighboring star.
"Your remaining cruisers can burn cities. Given time and suitable weapons, we can strip a world of life. You are proposing something greater. Planets broken apart. Stars destroyed. With what?"
He indicated the two amber fortress symbols.
"Weapons that have not answered us?"
The Corsair captain folded his arms. "And how long do we remain over each target? Talon can move between systems without waiting upon the same currents we require. Imperial reinforcements are still converging on the Gate. Once they learn where we have gone, we will be attempting this with a pursuit fleet at our backs."
"Even if we finish," Typhus added, "distance remains a problem. A storm around a dead world is of little use if Cadia lies beyond its reach. We could spend the last of our strength destroying an irrelevant system."
He stepped back from the chart.
This was the answer he had stayed to hear. A possibility was not a campaign plan. If Abaddon could not connect the two, the Plague Fleet would cut its losses and depart.
The Warmaster considered the projection for a moment.
"The sorcerer who conducted the ritual once told me something."
"Can we stop bringing up that bastard?" Typhus growled, his patience nearly gone.
Abaddon continued as though he had not spoken.
"He claimed the ritual could extend its effects across a radius of three hundred light-years."
The Corsair captain's arms slowly unfolded.
"From Cadia?"
"Yes."
Abaddon enlarged the chart. A translucent boundary spread outward from the Cadian System, enclosing neighboring stars and the routes connecting them.
"The opening we used was the first breach. According to him, the surrounding systems constrain how much farther the ritual can reach. He called their stars and worlds anchors. Destroy the right ones, and the boundary gives way."
Typhus looked from the chart to Abaddon.
"The right ones. And you possess that pattern?"
"Enough of it to select an initial target. Enough to test whether he told the truth."
That was a more useful answer than another promise of certainty. Typhus still disliked its source.
Three hundred light-years was an immense claim to accept from a creature that had treated sequence and plain speech as optional. The number might describe a genuine limit, a favorable outcome, or nothing more than the size of the ambition it had been sent to encourage.
Yet the rift itself existed. It had gathered ships, sustained the Blackstones, and resisted suppression long enough to let the fleet escape. The sorcerer had delivered something, however badly the warlords had misjudged what would follow.
Abaddon moved the chart back toward Cadia.
"We do not have to reach the limit he promised. We have to enlarge the breach faster than the enemy can contain it."
Typhus considered the lesser possibilities. A rift with a radius of three hundred light-years still sounded like pure fantasy, but even a local opening large enough to engulf a world would transform the war around it. Rituals that currently required careful preparation might become far easier to sustain. A surviving cult, a compromised compartment, or a weakened ward could give his sorcerers a direct foothold inside an enemy vessel.
Typhus's interest sharpened despite himself.
"And if the effect is smaller than expected?"
"We reassess while we still possess ships capable of leaving."
Typhus remained silent for several seconds. The proposal was dangerous, incomplete, and dependent upon testimony he would have preferred to burn out of the Warmaster's memory. Then his anger returned for a different reason.
"Why didn't you say this earlier?" Once again, Abaddon had withheld vital information until it was nearly too late.
Abaddon's jaw tightened.
"Because I expected to take Cadia with the force we had."
"You concealed another use for the ritual while asking us to stake our fleets on the first."
"I expected the Blackstones to hold the Celestial Engine long enough to finish the planet. I did not expect that construct to reach Cadia within days and direct a separate attack against our fleet while fighting both fortresses."
"Kossolax warned you."
"Kossolax told us it had broken his fleet. His account did not tell us how to survive it."
Typhus made a low, unpleasant sound. The distinction did not excuse the failure, but neither could he claim the same reports had persuaded him to withdraw before the battle.
Abaddon looked again at the two unconfirmed fortress markers.
"Had I understood its reach, I would have prepared dispersed attacks before entering Cadia. Those preparations were not made. We proceed with what remains."
At last, Typhus gave a single, slow nod.
"I will wait for the fortresses to return," he said. "Then I will judge what they can still do."
The Corsair captain spoke before Abaddon could answer.
"Huron's fortress remains Huron's."
Abaddon turned toward him.
"Then let us hope you still have one to argue over."
The captain's mouth tightened, but he offered no reply.
Abaddon addressed the council.
"If neither returns, this concentration serves no further purpose. We disperse immediately and take the survivors to repair anchorages. There will be no attempt to return to Cadia with these ships alone."
He gestured toward the command stations. Officers began preparing conditional orders: withdrawal routes, towing assignments, the distribution of surviving repair crews. The fleet would not have to wait for another argument if the last hope of continuing the campaign failed to appear.
Typhus watched the work begin. The departure order remained ready in his armor's command system. He did not cancel it.
Beyond the viewport, the tow cruiser adjusted its position. A tremor passed through the deck as the field took up the strain.
Both fortress symbols remained amber.
....
Some time later…
The Vengeful Spirit's repair crews had stopped the worst of the cascading failures. With the immediate failures contained, crews had begun reinforcing hull patches and restoring damaged control lines.
Abaddon remained beside the forward command station, receiving damage-control updates from the surviving ships.
Then the augur pit sounded an alarm.
"Disturbance ahead of the formation."
The officer's next words were lost beneath a burst of interference. He struck a control stud, isolated the affected feed, and tried again.
"Large displacement. Still resolving its outline."
Beyond the viewport, eight branching lines of violet light spread around a dark central mass. Their tips lengthened, faded, and formed again as the ship's instruments struggled to separate a solid object from its distorted surroundings.
Abaddon stepped closer to the glass.
An immense radial arm pushed into view, its outer surface broken and glowing along a jagged edge. Then another appeared. Ancient blackstone emerged beneath scarred gun emplacements and the wreckage of machinery fastened to its hull.
A Blackstone Fortress.
Its passage through the rift had carried it into the fleet's path with far more speed than the retreating ships could safely accommodate. Helm officers began calling warnings across the command net. The nearest cruisers altered position, dragging damaged hulls out of its projected course.
For one brief moment, Abaddon felt the tension in his chest ease.
The fortress had returned. Whatever condition its weapons were in, the campaign still possessed a chance.
But it was not alone.
A streak of crimson-white light followed it through the disturbed passage. It scraped along a damaged radial arm, throwing off a sheet of incandescent blackstone, then separated from the fortress's wake.
The augurs registered the same particle-energy signature recorded during the Celestial Engine's final attacks. Part of a lance discharge had crossed the threshold with its target, carried through the same distortion that had dragged the fortress out of realspace.
Now it had arrived among the ships that believed themselves beyond Talon's reach.
"Incoming—"
White light swept down the Vengeful Spirit's starboard side and struck its stern.
Two primary drive units vanished from the engineering display.
The impact threw the bridge sideways. Abaddon caught the edge of the command station as its upper display shattered. Far aft, engine housings burst apart, tearing open the adjoining service decks. Escaping atmosphere swept crewmen, tools, and severed lengths of machinery out through the breaches.
The flagship began to yaw. Its towing cruisers fought the movement, their field-load warnings joining the alarms already filling the bridge.
"Two main drive units destroyed!" an engineer shouted over the vox. "Aft plasma feeds ruptured. Isolation is—"
A second voice cut across him, reciting compartment numbers too quickly to follow.
"Seal the aft trunk," Abaddon ordered. "Priority power to the Gellar generators. Have the towing ships adjust to our rotation before they tear their own projectors apart."
The commands reached the surviving control stations. Emergency shutters closed across the stern. Reactor feeds were cut, abandoning ruined drive chambers before their failures could spread farther forward. The deck continued to shudder, but the flagship's rotation slowed.
Abaddon kept his grip on the broken console until the worst of the movement passed.
The weapon he needed had returned at the cost of two more engines. He forced his gaze away from the expanding damage report. The fortress was still there. He had to establish control of it.
"Establish contact with the Fortress garrison. Have them bring it into position," Abaddon ordered.
A lieutenant bent over the communications station. Command ciphers passed through the fleet channels, followed by a tight-beam transmission to the fortress's visible receiver arrays.
No acknowledgment came.
He tried the garrison command frequency, then the Dark Mechanicum control channel. The display showed outgoing signals and an empty return line.
"Repeat it," Abaddon said.
The lieutenant repeated the summons. He used emergency codes, then the reserve frequencies intended for a failure of the main command chamber.
Silence.
The fortress continued past the formation without answering the requests to correct its position.
Abaddon studied its scarred outline. Battle damage could have destroyed its communications. The command crew might be dead. The machinery controlling it might have failed or passed into hands that had no intention of answering him.
None of those possibilities allowed him to treat its return as a recovery.
He needed the fortress's weapons, its crew, and a command system that obeyed. Until he knew what had happened inside it, he possessed only another enormous danger moving among his damaged ships.
He released the ruined console and turned toward his lieutenants.
"Prepare a strike force," Abaddon ordered. "I'll lead a company inside the Fortress myself."
.....
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