Princeps Turnet listened intently as the orders were relayed to him from orbit.
The Dies Irae was coming back to life around him; Cassar could sense the god-machine's massive limbs flood with power and could feel the heavy weapon systems reloading. The plasma reactor, at its heart, beat again, but slower and in tune with the machine.
Even here, among all this unimaginable death and horror, Cassar truly felt the Emperor was with him. The god-machine was the ultimate instrument of His will, standing firm among the absolute destruction. That thought comforted Cassar and helped him focus his mind.
If the Emperor was here, then the Emperor would protect.
"Orders in from the Vengeful Spirit," said Turnet. "Moderati, open fire."
"Open fire?" said Aruken, turning in confusion.
He looked at Turnet, wanting to have the order repeated.
"Sir? The Isstvanians are gone. They're dead."
To Cassar, Aruken's voice sounded incredibly distant, for his mind was completely submerged in the complex electronic systems of the Titan. He was making sure that everything was in order, looking at potential broken systems and the situation with the crew.
However, he heard Turnet's voice as clearly as if the princeps had spoken directly into his own ear.
"Not at the Isstvanians. At the Death Guard," replied Turnet.
His tone was cold and detached, as if he were ordering food or dealing with boring paperwork. So casual, like a thoughtless hello.
"Princeps?" said Aruken, his jaw dropping. "Fire on the Death Guard?"
"I am not in the habit of repeating my orders, moderati," replied Turnet, "and they are to fire on the Death Guard. They have defied the Warmaster."
Turnet left no room for debate. Hearing this, Cassar froze in absolute shock. As if there wasn't already enough mass death on Isstvan III, now the Dies Irae was being ordered to open fire on the Death Guard, the very force of Space Marines they had been deployed to support. It was unthinkable, inconceivable.
"Sir. This doesn't make any sense," he said, his voice trembling as he resisted the neural link.
"It doesn't need to!" shouted Turnet, his patience finally snapping at the hesitation. "Just do as I order."
Looking straight into Turnet's eyes, the terrible truth suddenly hit Titus Cassar as if the Emperor himself had reached out from Terra and filled his mind with the truth.
"The Isstvanians didn't do this, did they?" he asked, horrified as things started falling into place.
"..."
"The Warmaster did."
Turnet's face showed a sinister smile, and Cassar saw the princeps' hand subtly reaching down toward his holstered sidearm. The Moderati, however, didn't give him the chance to get his weapon out first. With adrenaline flooding his system, he reached down and snatched for his own autopistol.
Both men drew their pistols in a flash and fired at each other.
.
Down in the trenches, Alexei transmitted everything that was going on inside the command deck of the Dies Irae to the Space Marines who were standing at his side.
There were mostly Death Guard, but also some of the World Eaters, whom he had managed to save in the nick of time. And compared to what it would have been originally, it was a lot.
"This is the situation. You all heard it. If we don't act now, the Imperator Titan will fire upon us and make our tenacity up to this point useless. I will not see this come to pass. Already, Angron has landed with 5,000 traitor World Eaters to the east from here; if we go there, we will be surrounded. Taking out the Dies Irae takes precedence."
Alexei's words reached his brothers and cousins. Hearing that Angron was already here, the World Eaters started to look in that direction. They were angry, very angry and wanted nothing more than to go over there and kill the father whom they had trusted and who wanted them dead.
"I concur. But how do you imagine we do that, brother?"
"We still have time. Right now, the Moderati and Princeps are on opposite sides, leaving us with a very narrow window to act. If we don't, we will have to deal with an active Titan, and that will be even worse."
"What about the Warmaster?"
"The Warmaster will not initiate orbital bombardment as long as Angron remains on the ground. If they had, they would have already done so. No, they will choose to fight us face-to-face now. Therefore, we must act immediately. Before our Primarch arrives with more forces as well," Alexei said.
The Death Guard agreed, while most of the World Eaters chose to move to where Angron and the remaining World Eaters were fighting. Some agreed with Alexei and remained, but most were Death Guard.
They had jumped to action, taking what remained of the Proteus pattern Land Raiders and Deimos pattern Predator Tanks and moving them in the direction of where the Dies Irae was located. That was undoubtedly the direction from which Mortarion and the traitor Death Guard would land as well, so they prepared for a gruelling and cruel trench and guerrilla warfare.
.
Turnet's shot went high, while Cassar's shot went wide. Jonah Aruken ducked for cover as the bullets ricocheted off the curved ceiling of the bridge. Turnet rolled down behind the command chair, and Cassar, struggling to pull himself up from his own chair, set deep into the cockpit floor and level with the Titan's eye, fired again.
Sparks flew as his autopistol round struck the electronics surrounding Turner's chair.
Turnet fired back, and Cassar ducked into the cover of the depression formed by his own seat. The connectors had torn free from his scalp as he moved, and tears of blood streaked his face, with metallic monofilament wires clinging wetly to the back of his neck.
His mind throbbed from the abruptness of being ripped away from the god-machine.
"Titus!" Aruken yelled. "What are you doing?"
"Moderati, surrender, or you will die here!" shouted Turnet.
"Throw down your weapon and surrender."
"This is treachery!" shouted Cassar. "Jonah, you know I am right. The Warmaster did this. He brought death to this city to kill the believers!"
Turnet fired blindly from behind the thick machinery of his command seat. His head was still hurting greatly, but he pushed it down. He had to succeed, or else the Warmaster would not be happy.
"Believe? You would betray your Warmaster because of this religion? You're diseased, do you know that? Religion is a sickness, and I should have put you down a long time ago."
Cassar thought quickly. There was only one way out of the cockpit: the doorway that led into the Titan's dorsal cavity, where the plasma generator was located, along with the team of engineers who operated it. He couldn't run for fear that Turnet would shoot him dead as soon as he broke from behind the chair.
But the same was true for Turnet; they were both in a stalemate.
"You knew about the bombardment," Cassar said.
"Of course I knew. How can you be so ignorant? Don't you even know what's happening on this planet?" the Princeps said.
"The Emperor is being betrayed," Cassar replied.
"There is no Emperor!" Turnet shouted. "He abandoned us. He left the Imperium which men died to conquer for him. He doesn't care. But the Warmaster cares. He conquered this galaxy, and it is his to rule. Yet some fools fail to understand that. They are the ones who have forced the Warmaster into this situation so that he can do what must be done."
Cassar's mind reeled. Turnet had betrayed everything the Emperor had built, and the chaos within the command bridge mirrored the much larger conflict already unfolding outside. He could only imagine how far this conflict would spread.
Princeps Turnet rose and fired wildly as he dashed for the door, both shots hitting the wall behind Cassar.
"I won't let you do this!" yelled Cassar, returning fire.
His first shot went wide, but Turnet was now struggling with the door's wheel lock. Cassar aimed for Turnet's back.
"Titus! Don't do it!" shouted Aruken, desperately manoeuvring the Titan's primary motor controls.
The Titan swayed violently, causing the entire bridge to tilt like a ship caught in a storm. Cassar was thrown against the wall, losing his chance to take the shot. Turnet, though, managed to pull the door open and threw himself out of the Titan's bridge, escaping Cassar's line of fire.
Cassar scrambled to his feet again as the Titan rocked upright. A figure moved in front of him, and he almost fired before realising it was Jonah Aruken.
"Titus, come on," said Aruken. "Don't do this."
"I don't have a choice. This is treachery. The highest form of treachery."
"You don't have to die."
Cassar jerked his head toward the Titan's eye, through which they could still see some of the Death Guard moving through the death-slicked trenches, while others were actually moving towards them.
"Neither do they. You know I am right, Aruken. You know the Warmaster has betrayed the Imperium. If we have the Dies Irae, then we can do something about it."
Aruken glanced between Cassar's face and the gun in his hand.
"It's over, Cassar. Just... just give this up."
"You're either with me or against me, Jonah," Cassar replied. "Are you faithful to the Emperor, or are you His enemy? The choice is yours."
Aruken's eyes were hollow, and he was sweating under the face of the weapon. Titus Cassar was taken aback to see Aruken's usual, cocky arrogance replaced by fear. Despite that fear, Cassar understood that he could not fully trust Jonah Aruken. Trust was no longer something he could afford, not after what had just transpired.
"This has to end, Titus," Aruken implored. "You don't want to become a martyr, do you?"
"Martyr? That's an odd choice of words for someone who claims not to believe."
A small smile appeared on Aruken's face.
"I'm not as stupid as you think, Titus. You're a good man and an excellent crew member. You believe in things, which is more than most people can manage. So, I'd prefer it if you didn't die."
Cassar didn't respond to Aruken's forced levity. The situation was as dire as it could get right now. This was a pivotal moment.
"Please, I know you're just saying that for the princeps's benefit. I'm sure he can hear every word."
"Probably, yes, but he knows that as soon as he opens that door, you'll blow his head off. So I guess you and I can say whatever we want."
Cassar's grip on the gun relaxed. He wanted to believe in his friend, his partner. He really did.
"You're not working for him?" Cassar asked.
"Hey, we've been through some scary stuff recently, haven't we? I understand what you're going through," Aruken said.
Cassar shook his head.
"No, you don't understand, and I know what you're trying to do. I can't back down; I'm making a stand in the name of my Emperor. I won't just surrender."
"Look, Titus, if you believe, then you believe, but you don't have to prove that to anyone."
"You think I'm doing this for show?" Cassar asked angrily, aiming his gun at Aruken's throat.
Aruken held out his hands and carefully walked around the princeps's command chair to stand across the bridge from him.
"The Emperor isn't just a figurehead to cling to," Cassar continued. "He is a god. He has a saint and miracles, and I have seen them. So have you! Think of all you have witnessed, and you'll realise you have to help me, Jonah!"
"I've seen some strange things, Titus, but--"
"Don't deny them! They happened! As sure as you and I are standing here in this war machine. Jonah, there is an Emperor, and He is watching over us. He judges us by the choices we make when those choices are hard. The Warmaster has betrayed us, and if I stand back and let it happen, then I am betraying my Emperor. Some principles must be defended, Aruken. Don't you see that much? If none of us takes a stand, then the Warmaster will win, and there won't even be a memory of this betrayal."
Aruken shook his head in frustration. He was sweating profusely now, trying to keep up this performance and not get shot.
"Cassar, if only you could see--"
"Are you trying to tell me you haven't found anything to believe in?" asked Cassar.
He turned away in disappointment and stared through the scorched panes of the viewing bay at the quickly assembling Death Guard and their preparations.
"Titus, I haven't believed in anything for a long time," Aruken replied. "For that, I'm truly sorry, and I regret this too."
Cassar turned to find Jonah Aruken aiming his own pistol squarely at his chest.
"Jonah? ... You would betray me? After everything we've been through?" Cassar asked in shock and sadness.
"There's only one thing I want, Titus, and that's command of my own Titan. One day, I want to be Princeps Aruken, and that won't happen if I let you do this."
"To know that this entire galaxy is starved of belief, and to think that you might be the only one who believes… yet still to hold on to that belief despite everything... that is faith, Aruken. I wish you could understand that."
"It's too late for that, Titus," Aruken said.
...
"I'm sorry."
BANG BANG BANG
Aruken fired three times, filling the bridge with bursts of light and noise and informing the Princeps, who had indeed been listening the entire time, that the threat was over.
The door opened, and the Princeps looked at Titus Cassar's corpse with disdain. He walked up to Aruken and nodded.
"You have done well. Now, get the systems back online and aim at the Death Guard."