by Rob Sanders
‘Autolicon,’ Occam called across the vox-channel. ‘Melta bombs.’
Holding the weight of his plasma cannon in one hand, the legionnaire snatched the chunky grenades from his belt and threw them forward through the darkness to Occam, Hasdrubal and Malik. Catching the melta bombs, the renegades twisted their plunger handles back and forth before skimming the grenades across the flight deck towards the oncoming rush.
For a moment, the darkness evaporated and a series of thunderous flashes dominated the bay. The grenades detonated with a sub-atomic whoosh. The flight deck beneath the charging serfs glowed red and then molten white. Unfortunates caught in the thermal blast turned to billowing clouds of fine ash. Others running across the melting deck sank into liquid metal, screaming their lives away before the bubbling flight deck popped like a growing blister and liquid metal gushed down onto the deck below. Bondsmen running near the crater put up their hands to shield themselves from the heat but their flesh caught fire and they turned into thrashing mounds on the floor, smouldering in the reasserting darkness.
Still, hordes of deck serfs and servitors ran on, spilling from the gun-deck blast door with a ferocious desire to see the interlopers banished. Like white blood cells attacking the source of an infection, the bondsmen came at the Alpha Legionnaires. Any ordinary Imperial wretch might have thought twice about such a foolhardy action. To specimens of miserable humanity, Space Marines – even those that had turned from the Emperor’s light and embraced other paths – were veritable demigods to be feared. The Chapter serfs were fanatics of their own following – a cult honouring the Marines Mordant, devoted to both serving and protecting the interests of their Adeptus Astartes masters. The Alpha Legion were an enemy to be repelled, and if possible destroyed. Loyal serfs thought nothing of throwing themselves at such a fearful foe. They would die for their masters – and did so.
‘They’re insistent, aren’t they?’ Sergeant Hasdrubal said.
‘Close quarters, brothers,’ Occam said. ‘Be the mistake that our enemies have made.’
With the exception of Autolicon Phex, who lit up the benighted launch bay with blazing orbs that cut through the ranks of serfs, the Redacted slapped their plasma guns onto the backs of their mag-lock belts. With a fluid motion they snatched up hand-to-hand combat power weapons that hummed to energy-sheathed lethality. With pumped bolt-rounds crashing through the air and the horde of bondsmen hitting the squad like a force of nature, the Alpha Legion held their ground. They advanced through the furious sea of bodies, even. Blasts from Phex’s plasma cannon cleared a path through the attackers, while Occam’s legionnaires stepped, twisted and cut their way through the loyal serfs.
Protecting each other from levelled shotgun barrels, combat blades carried by the serfs and chainswords hastily grabbed to repel the Alpha Legion boarders, the Redacted worked in slick balance – like the cogs of some ancient clockwork artefact. Hasdrubal and Vilnius Malik took the lead, the former Night Lord going to savage work with a pair of lethal power blades.
While he slashed and stabbed, the sergeant produced his own weapon artefact. It was a wicked, xenos blade – more torturer’s device than weapon – recovered from an alien battlefield in the Garon Nebula upon which Hasdrubal had left many dead. The weapon’s many blades sprung, flipped and clacked into place like the butterfly knife or switchblade of a hive ganger. Seizing serfs by their flanks and burying the multi-blade dagger into their bellies, Hasdrubal lifted them off the ground with the force of his stabbing motion. Serfs shrieked horribly as blades embedded with neural wires, energy sheaths and twisting chainblades visited unbearable agony upon each victim before Hasdrubal pressed the mercy switch on the handle that delivered oblivion.
Holding the flanks of the Redacted’s close combat formation were the warpsmith Reznor and Carcinus Quoda – former Librarian and squad sorcerer. With precision movements, Reznor wielded a pair of short-haft Omnissian power axes. The crackling cog blades sheared off limbs and crashed down through the barrels of combat shotguns. Occasionally, the warpsmith’s mechatendrils would slither out and strike, grabbing serfs and tearing them towards him before whipping back between pack and plate. As Reznor wheeled about, his cloak following him around, he threw the axes the short distance into the chests of charging serfs before turning, ripping them out and burying them in another oncoming unfortunate.
Quoda, meanwhile, flushed the azure crystal that formed the many-faceted head of his force sceptre with otherworldly power summoned from the empyrean. With each psychically enhanced blow, Quoda took off heads in a crystal-splattered haze of gore and broke attacking serfs, putting their shattered bodies down on the deck with warp-fuelled savagery.
While his legionnaires cut, bludgeoned and blasted a way through the ever-growing horde, Occam the Untrue unleashed his own nightmare. Snatching a hand-held power scourge from his belt, the strike master thumbed the weapon to life. He wheeled the scourge about his head before lashing out at attacking bondsmen, allowing the multi-tailed whip of joined blades to crackle and writhe. With a sizzle and a flash, the razored tails of the weapon slashed through Occam’s victims. Combat shotguns were cut into sparking pieces. Heads and limbs were sheared from torsos. Shutting off the power at the handle, the strike master bullwhipped the tails of the scourge away, catching serfs in a bladed nest of agony. He brought the weapon back to life and turned his opponents into thrashing puppets of crackling torment. Expertly uncoiling the scourge with a rippling flourish, the strike master allowed his smouldering victims to fall dead to the ground.
Occam sensed more bodies about him. The cultist hordes had caught up to their masters and were meeting the army of serfs flooding in from the gun decks head on.
‘Time,’ Occam ordered, taking note of his helm’s chronometer. ‘Leave these unworthy wretches to the Seventh Sons.’
Accelerating into a powered run, the legionnaires brutally barged serfs aside before slipping down onto their cloaks and the polished flight deck. Sliding across the floor, one by one, the warband disappeared into the darkness of craters left behind by the melta bombs.
Exchanging weaponry mid-drop, the Redacted landed with a power-armoured thunk on the maintenance deck below. The blue glow of their plasma guns lit up the pipe-lined passageway. It bore the filth of age. The Assiduous was an ancient relic of a vessel. The walls were stained and the piping was encrusted with exotic corrosions. Beneath the grille panelling running the busy length of the maintenance corridor, Occam heard the trickle of liquid detritus. Oils and blessed unguents. Coolant and chemical spillage. The blood of Marines Mordant defenders and the ichor of enemy organisms intent on invasion. Across the centuries, filth had trickled down through the battle-barge, drawn on by the insistence of artificial gravity to pool in the bowels of the vessel and run along the sub-chambers and corridors running the length of the keel.
On the floor were several serfs who had fallen into the pit following the explosion. Bones protruded from knees where the ugly fall had broken their legs. Gritting their teeth, they still tried to get to their feet. Their continued efforts both impressed and annoyed the strike master.
‘Malik,’ Occam said. ‘Take care of that.’
Holding his long-shot plasma gun under the breach with one gauntlet, Malik drew a scoped bolt pistol with an extended barrel from his holster and aimed it down at the bondsmen. Thudding silenced Stalker shells into the shaven heads of the serfs, Malik put an end to their agony.
‘As I said, this will work for us,’ Arkan Reznor said. He took several steps up the passage, the blue haze of his plasma gun revealing a mono-task servitor. The drone was all pallid flesh and augmentation. It used a long-handled scraper to shear encrusted alien parasites from the curved walls and piping that were quietly breeding in the foul darkness of the ship’s bowels. ‘These maintenance passageways intersect and run the length of the barge. We can avoid the gun decks and make it to within twelve decks of the command deck.’
Occam the Untrue nodded, walking up towa
rds the miserable servitor. At an instruction from Reznor, his tongue clicking and rasping something approaching binary at his servo-automata, Beta, Zeta and Theta advanced up the passage on their repulsors. Their augurs hummed to a rhythmic scan while they activated socket lamps that lit the way ahead.
‘It is imperative that we take the bridge,’ Occam said, ‘or Lord Carthach’s efforts will be all for naught. He might take the fortress-monastery but this vessel – battle damaged and operating with a skeleton crew – could still level Salina City and the Bas-Silica with one salvo from its bombardment cannon.’
‘Why not take out the cannon instead?’ Malik asked. ‘The dorsal section is closer.’
‘Because that would be too easy,’ Ephron Hasdrubal answered, his tone sharpened with the hint of a remonstration.
‘The sergeant is, as ever, correct,’ Occam said. ‘We are the Emperor’s test. Let our efforts purge the Imperium of the weak, leaving His dominion stronger than we found it.’
‘As you wish, strike master,’ Malik replied.
‘If there is an actual Adeptus Astartes presence on this vessel,’ Occam said, ‘and Codex Astartes protocol suggests that there should be – then it will be found on the command deck. No member of the Marines Mordant is to be allowed to live. Quetzel Carthach demands it, and he is the Angelbane – a living end to the successor sons of Guilliman. If the Emperor wills it, then it will be so. Dissemble.’
Once more, the Redacted’s adapted plate answered. A flush of colour rippled through the ceramite scales. The darkness that the Alpha Legion had previously been was now bleached to Ultramarine blue and silver, with one pauldron and half-suit devoted to each colour: the honoured Chapter colours of the Marines Mordant. Occam pulled his cloak around to hide the legionary markings on his pauldron.
‘Quoda,’ Occam said. ‘The details.’
The squad sorcerer banged the base of his force sceptre against the floor. The azure crystal that made up the head of the weapon rang with mind-aching intensity, the serpentine psi-convector running through it amplified by Quoda’s telepathic powers. The former Librarian stared into the crystal, his faceplate reproduced in the crystal’s many facets. While cloaks and chameleonic plate could hide the Alpha Legion’s identity and give the impression that the renegades of the Redacted belonged to a different Chapter or warband, the devilry was in the detail. Carcinus Quoda used his powers to ensure that those encountering the Redacted saw what they expected to see. Details and expectations drawn from their own minds and therefore beyond reasonable suspicion: appropriate weaponry, insignia and honours, the acid-splash scars from the Assiduous’ battle with the tyranids.
Occam the Untrue stood before the servitor, which had stopped scraping the encrusted walls of the passage. The drone stared up at him, its blank face and oil-black eyes fixed upon the strike master’s plate. Occam waited as what was left of its brain and its simple cogitator processed what it was seeing. Gently, the servitor’s head bowed, as protocol dictated – as it might before one of its Marines Mordant masters.
‘Let’s go,’ the strike master said.
γ
Turning Tail
Captain Sol Ventor moved between runebanks and attendant deck serfs on the bridge, his scar-cracked features furrowed. He looked across the command deck of the venerable battle-barge Assiduous. It was awash with activity.
A small army of robed bondsmen was breaking protocol and calling out from their stations, while serf armsmen stood either side of the bridge elevator doors with their combat shotguns. Console-interfaced servitors blurted in binary while Master Zamander and Techmarine Arkadii collated the datastreams. Brother Arkadii had responsibility for the Assiduous, while Zamander was the Chapter’s Master of the Forge and had taken personal responsibility for overseeing the honoured battle-barge’s punishing schedule of repairs. Zamander was followed around by a small huddle of lexomat servitor units, bringing the computational power of their cogitators to the data flooding into bridge runebanks.
Shipmaster Darrius had reported to the bridge and stood by his command throne, his hood down and shaven head glistening with reflected red lighting. Captain Ventor had just sounded a Vermillion Alert. The shipmaster’s aged features were contorted with incredulity as deck serf after deck serf brought him data-slates of unfolding information. Earpsichor, the battle-barge’s astropath, hovered nearby.
All about them, Ventor’s honour guard stood to attention in their blue and silver artificer armour and ornate helms. Their Marines Mordant plate was decorated with honours and loincloths of leather and chain. One even held a company banner, replete with new recognitions of the Chapter’s encounter with Hive Fleet Leviathan. Each silent veteran held his primed boltgun aimed at the deck, ready to defend the Space Marine master. As captain of the Marines Mordant Fourth Company and master of the Chapter fleet, Ventor warranted such an escort.
The leader of the honour guard was Brother Orthrius – a taciturn warrior and company champion of the Fourth. He stood by his captain with arms folded above a pair of short power swords that criss-crossed at the hilt.
‘What in Guilliman’s name is going on?’ Ventor demanded, running his ceramite fingers through his Vitrean-white hair before reaching for the pulpit rail with his left gauntlet. The captain had no right arm. He had lost it to a tyranid monster that had stormed the corridors of the Assiduous during the horrific boarding action that had sent the battle-barge back to Vitrea Mundi for repairs. Ventor had been so busy with his reports to Chapter Master Pallidax and his responsibilities as master of the fleet that there had simply been no time for the surgery to fit a bionic replacement. ‘Prow section – status?’
‘The boarding action is yet to be put down,’ Orthrius admitted, ‘but the numbers look small.’
‘Pirates?’ Ventor asked. ‘The Tyrant’s reavers?’
‘I’ve never known the Red Corsairs to take such wild risks. Lufgt Huron knows better. He hits with force. Who ever heard of a battle-barge being stormed thus?’
‘The Assiduous is not herself,’ Ventor admitted, ‘and we are fielding a skeleton crew. Tell me this is nothing.’
‘It is,’ Orthrius said, ‘and it will be over soon. Sooner if you let me go down there.’
‘No,’ the captain said. Orthrius gave an imperceptible shake of his champion’s helm before continuing his assessment.
‘The fighting is restricted to the launch bay. The gun decks remain secure. I have reinforced the section with armsmen and crews from the batteries.’
‘How by Holy Terra did they get past our augur fields?’ Ventor demanded. The master was given to cursing and taking, among other things, the Emperor’s name in vain.
‘That I do not know,’ Orthrius grizzled, pointing between runebanks and over the shoulders of bridge bondsmen. ‘It’s isolated and contained.’
‘No, it’s not,’ the battle-scarred Ventor said, surveying data-slates brought to him. He called across the command deck: ‘Report.’
‘Vitrean Planetary Defence Auxilia report the mass movement of people on the streets of Salina City, my lord,’ a deck serf told him, standing up at his station and lowering his head.
‘Orbitals?’
‘Captures and augur scans show a huge cloud of gas or vapour rising from the Great Soda Lakes,’ another robed officer told him. ‘The population are fleeing the city and arriving at the gates of the Bas-Silica for shelter.’
‘How can this be?’ Ventor demanded. ‘How can we be only learning this now?’
‘I fear, up until now, communications from the surface have been blocked or disrupted,’ the deck serf offered.
‘An attack has been unfolding below us…’ Ventor said grimly.
‘And we didn’t even know it,’ Orthrius said.
Ventor turned to a serf at a master vox station: ‘Well, we know it now. Get me the Chapter Master – get him now.’
The serf struggled to raise the Bas-Silica, citing a continued disturbance at the source. In the significant amoun
t of time it took him to establish a static-shot channel between the Assiduous and the fortress-monastery, more bad news had reached the bridge. The astropath Earpsichor and Shipmaster Darrius had confirmed that all other Marines Mordant vessels, system stations and star forts had failed to meet long-range vox and astropathic communication protocols. Outer system defence platforms, patrolling rapid-strike vessels, sub-sector frigates and remaining Marines Mordant-manned star forts, watching over the outskirt regions of the Maelstrom, had all gone silent.
‘Captain,’ an officer bondsman piped up, ‘orbital captures show evidence of explosions and fire fights conducted within the city and the fortress-monastery itself.’
‘Vox station!’ Ventor roared at the attending serf. Techmarine Arkadii, however, had been working at the runebank for some time.
‘Channels are being jammed from the surface,’ he told the captain. ‘I have penetrated the interference and isolated limited vox and hololithics. Chapter Master Pallidax for you.’
‘Chapter Master?’ Ventor called as nerve-shredding static boomed across the command deck. A hololithic representation of Tarro Pallidax warped and sizzled in and out of focus before the captain. Pallidax stood before a throne of clouded quartz in a blue and silver suit of Tactical Dreadnought armour – a relic from the Chapter’s inception. Serfs and Marines Mordant battle-brothers kept moving into hololithic representation, bringing their Chapter Master new intelligence.
Pallidax cut a grim figure. His white hair was cropped short and missing about the long-healed crater in his skull where the Overfiend of Octarius had buried a hammer. Where his eye was missing also, the cold blue of a bionic twinkled lazily. A long time had passed since his crusading days against encroaching ork empires. The Chapter Master’s face bore the deep lines of responsibility and more recent tragedies.
