V2 Chapter 92: The Blood Oath Is Sworn. Fight to the Last.
When the transport shook violently, Duvette looked through the armoured viewport as realspace unfolded itself back into existence around them.
The ship dropped out of the Warp. Warning lights flickered throughout the hull. The Mechanicus voice from the shipboard broadcast delivered its prayers in a flat mechanical cadence. The Gellar Field began contracting in measured stages. The bridge transmitted a silence order to all officer compartments.
They had arrived at an undisclosed system.
Only a handful of senior officers and fleet command staff knew the actual coordinates. All navigation charts had been locked with the Warmaster's cipher. The ordinary crew could see nothing but a string of meaningless designation codes.
The fleet settled into orbit on the dark side of a gas giant. The enormous planet blocked the light of the distant star and absorbed the fleet's thermal signatures and mass readings. Duvette's transport was one vessel among many; more ships held position in the surrounding orbital layers in silence.
Shortly afterward, Duvette received orders to proceed to the flagship.
He boarded a small shuttle, passed through the shadow of the gas giant's far side, and made for the main battleship under Marshal Slaydo's personal command. He had been placed on the Balhaut core conference list, which meant this pre-battle conference required his physical presence.
When the shuttle entered the flagship's landing bay, two officers were already waiting outside the hatch.
"Colonel-Commissar Duvette. Please follow us."
Duvette gave a nod and followed them through layered armoured corridors. As before, the junior officers and ship staff they passed came to a stop, lowered their heads, rendered salutes, and stepped aside.
They did not look at him for long.
Only a few of the younger officers could not help glancing at the dragon-skull staff at his hip before quickly looking away.
After the Sveren campaign, Duvette's name had circulated through the expedition's internal networks at every level. The young commissar was no longer simply the 112th's commanding officer, no longer merely the inconvenient figure drawing scrutiny from the Inquisition and the Mechanicus.
He had become a campaign-level commander named personally by the Warmaster.
A few minutes later, Duvette stepped into the familiar conference hall.
The hall was fully lit. Imperial Aquila banners and the Sabbat Crusade's battle standard hung from the walls. The great circular strategic table at the centre was still dark. More than forty senior officers had already assembled.
They stood in small groups at various points around the room, speaking in low voices. Their uniforms and armour styles differed, but the particular settled composure that belonged to the expedition's core command tier was common to all of them.
Duvette had barely entered the hall when a familiar voice reached him from across the room.
"Long time, Commissar Duvette. Still undefeated, I hear."
Duvette stopped for a half-second. What kind of title was that? Anyone who didn't know better would think he had something growing out of the top of his head.
He turned and found Commissar-General Oktar grinning at him with the same broad expression he always wore. At Oktar's side stood a young commissar with a composed and serious bearing.
Ibram Gaunt.
"What kind of name is that?" Duvette said as he walked over. "Battlefields like nothing better than punishing that sort of reputation."
Oktar laughed and drove a fist lightly into his chest.
"You haven't lost a single engagement yet. That's what they're all calling you."
"I don't think the title suits me."
"Everyone thinks that when other people are making their assessments." Oktar said. "It doesn't matter. Look around you, Duvette."
Duvette swept his gaze across the room as Oktar indicated.
The senior officers assembled here were among those Slaydo trusted most. Fleet admirals, ground force generals, central figures within the Commissariat, and a small number of specially invited theatre commanders.
A significant number of them were looking at Duvette, whether they intended to or not.
Some of those looks carried genuine regard. Others were openly measuring. A few were not particularly friendly. But no one addressed him directly. The results of the Sveren campaign and the engagements before it were the public record; even those who had doubts about Duvette could not dispute that he had just reversed an entire front line.
Oktar leaned in slightly and lowered his voice.
"The divisions within the expedition over your existence are growing."
"Some say you are a miracle, a proof of victory, the sharpest point the crusade possesses. Others say your presence is a liability, a sign of Warp contamination, something that should be dealt with before it moves beyond control."
He gave Duvette a look that carried more than its surface weight.
"Though the number of people willing to say that openly has dropped considerably lately. Word has it that a certain Lord Inquisitor has been taking a personal interest in the loyalty of anyone who raises those concerns."
Duvette gave a slight shrug and did not engage with it.
Instead he looked toward Gaunt.
"What brings both of you here?"
Oktar had just begun to answer when the armoured doors on the hall's far side opened.
Every sound in the room ceased immediately.
Marshal Slaydo and Chief of Staff Macaroth entered the conference hall together.
Slaydo wore his formal dress uniform. At his hip hung the famous power sword Liberatus. His bearing was steady. As his gaze moved across the room, every officer present straightened by instinct.
He stepped up to the lectern, drew Liberatus, and rested the blade's point lightly against the floor.
"Officers."
The Marshal's voice filled the hall.
"We are going to Balhaut."
Four words, and the expression of every person in the room shifted.
Slaydo did not deliver a long address. He spoke of the Sabbat Worlds having once belonged to the Imperium. He spoke of the light of Saint Sabbat having once fallen upon those worlds. He spoke of Nadzybar's existence having delayed this crusade far too long.
Then he began laying out the strategic plan.
The central strategic table lit. The hololithic image of the Balhaut system rose before the assembled officers.
"Everyone present will bear responsibility for the most critical execution elements of Operation Hellstorm." Slaydo said. "Specific coordinates and landing windows will be distributed to your personal access data-slates. For now, I will give you the broad framework only."
He indicated the edge of the system.
"The first wave, designated Vanguard, will be commanded by Admiral Kristor. It consists of fast attack warships and will arrive in the system sixteen standard solar hours before the offensive formally begins, emerging from the Warp on the star's far side."
The stellar map was enlarged. Several fleet markers appeared on the shaded side of the projection.
"Kristor's fleet will use the stellar radiation and mass shadow to conceal their formation from the enemy's planetary detection network."
Slaydo indicated the outer system.
"The second wave consists of troopships: large personnel transports and heavy orbital assault vessels, commanded by Vice-Admiral Gaernhost. They will arrive at the system edge five standard stellar hours after the offensive formally begins and hold position within a nebula cluster on the outer perimeter."
He paused.
"Both the first and second waves must reach their designated positions without being detected. The enemy fleet currently assembling inside the system will generate considerable Warp turbulence in the process. That disturbance will help conceal our own transit signatures and mass displacement patterns."
The image continued to shift.
"The third wave is the main assault warships, commanded by Admiral Shefr. They will translate directly into the inner system when the attack begins and strike the high and low orbital anchor stations and orbital gun platforms."
Dozens of red target markers appeared.
"When Shefr transmits the engagement signal, Admiral Kristor's forces will immediately strike the large orbital shipyard facilities at Balhaut High Station and the Halidon threshold."
Slaydo turned to another set of fleet markers.
"Gaernhost's second wave then begins its push into the inner system, cutting in from behind the enemy warships that are still assembling, to clear the path for the surface assault."
"The fourth wave, commanded by Vice-Admiral Sanlock, will arrive at the system's outer edge carrying a large-scale reinforcement Astra Militarum force."
He looked across the assembled ground force commanders.
"All ground commanders will move to combat readiness the moment orbital superiority is confirmed."
Every data-slate in the room illuminated with an access prompt simultaneously. Duvette looked down at his. His section remained locked, showing only: decrypt upon conclusion of Warmaster's conference.
Slaydo brought the strategic display down.
Under normal procedure at this point in a command conference, a commander would raise a blade and deliver the kind of address that made a hall of soldiers shout. Slaydo did not do that.
He looked at Liberatus in his hand, held the silence for a moment, then lowered the sword.
The officers in the hall registered that something had shifted.
Slaydo descended from the lectern slowly and gestured for the officers to draw in around the circular table.
More than forty senior officers formed a ring in front of the Warmaster.
Slaydo looked at Macaroth.
"Bring wine."
A pause.
"And the ceremonial blade."
Macaroth did not ask a question. He turned and spoke quietly to an aide.
Within moments, a glass was placed in the hand of each officer present, and a ceremonial blade was laid across Slaydo's open palm. The blade was plain in design, carrying only the Imperial Aquila and the sigil of Saint Sabbat engraved into the steel.
Slaydo held the blade and looked around the circle.
"When I was young, I only wanted to win a single battle."
He began speaking.
"Later, I wanted to win an entire theatre of war. And then, later still, I began wanting something considerably more presumptuous."
His gaze settled on the now-dark image of the Balhaut system on the strategic table.
"I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Saint Sabbat, who walked these stars thousands of years before us."
"I wanted the light of the Imperium to fall again across this sector of space."
"I wanted to change the Imperium."
No one in the hall spoke.
Slaydo's voice was not loud, but every word pressed down on the people in the room.
"To reach this day, we have come a very long distance. Many people died on the way here. More will die at Balhaut. Perhaps I will die there as well."
Several officers' expressions shifted slightly.
Macaroth raised his eyes.
Slaydo continued. "Even if I fall, I want each of you to see this crusade through to its end. Do not allow ambition to destroy what we have taken back. Do not allow the Departmento Munitorum's internal disagreements, the fleet's pride, or the old grievances between regiments to tear the expedition apart."
At that moment, Duvette spoke.
"That will not happen, Marshal."
Slaydo stopped.
Every gaze in the room turned to Duvette simultaneously.
He was holding his wine glass, looking directly at Slaydo.
"You will see the end of all of this."
The senior officers around him fixed him with expressions that ranged from sharp displeasure to open outrage. Interrupting the Marshal in this setting was close to a breach of conduct.
Oktar, standing at his side, let his fingers brush lightly against Duvette's sleeve.
Duvette did not step back.
In the history as it was supposed to unfold, Slaydo would not see the crusade's end. He would take a mortal wound at Balhaut, pass the Warmaster's authority to Macaroth, and die.
Duvette had no intention of allowing that sequence to proceed as written.
"You will see the Sabbat Crusade's end with your own eyes." Duvette said. "You will end the disorder that has gripped this saint's domain. I give you my word."
The hall's atmosphere locked.
A Colonel-Commissar making a statement like that. Some would call it absurd. Others would call it arrogance beyond measure.
Someone nearby had clearly drawn breath to speak. Slaydo raised one hand and stopped them.
Then the Marshal laughed.
The sound filled the hall.
Many of the officers stared.
Slaydo looked at Duvette, and the shadow that had been in his expression moved and cleared. The man who looked back now was the Warmaster again, the man above ten thousand, who had led armies across the void.
"You are right, Duvette."
He raised Liberatus again.
"I intend to see the end of all of this with my own eyes."
His voice rose.
"I will crush Nadzybar beneath the iron boot of the Imperium with these hands."
Slaydo placed the ceremonial blade against his palm and drew it across slowly. Blood ran along the lines of his hand and fell into his wine glass.
"I, Slaydo, with the Emperor as witness, in the name of Saint Sabbat, by the blood of the crusade, do swear."
He looked at every person in the circle.
"The Sabbat Worlds will be taken back. The light of the Saint will shine again."
He passed the blade to Macaroth.
Macaroth took it, walked to Duvette, and held it out.
Duvette took it.
He did not hesitate. He drew the blade across his own palm and let the blood fall into his wine.
"I, Duvette Erdmann, do swear."
His voice was level.
"Until the Sabbat Worlds are returned to the Emperor's hand, I will fight to the last."
The blade passed to the next in the circle.
Commissar-General Oktar took it, drew it across his palm, and swore in a low voice.
When the blade reached Gaunt, his bearing remained what it had always been. He looked once at Slaydo, once at Duvette, then let his blood fall into the wine.
General Petrov was among them as well.
As one of the senior ground commanders who had distinguished himself at Sveren, he had been placed on the Balhaut surface assault advisory list. He took the blade, drew it across his palm, and spoke his oath quietly.
Officer by officer, the oath was sworn.
More than forty glasses of strong wine mixed with blood were raised.
Slaydo drank first.
Then every person in the circle drank together.
The liquid burned going down. The taste of iron spread through every mouth. No one called out. No one flinched. There was only silence, and in that silence the full weight of their intent.
The oath had been made.
Fight to the last.