Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

by Warhammer 40K

  The plans drew no criticism. The goals were ambitious but realistic, uninspired but tactically sound. A series of implacable advances preceded by Sentinels and sniper teams, to secure defensible structures within each notable district nearby. At one point, Lockwood and Maggrig debated the merits of dividing the Reclamation forces so thoroughly.

  ‘I’m not disagreeing, lord general,’ said Lockwood. ‘But we’re all aware that the forces we command here are just the Reclamation’s spearhead. We have a mere month left before the main attack force arrives in support. The regiments en route should be made aware that they’ll be landing in a hot zone with several outposts along an urban front line rather than the single stronghold they’re expecting.’

  ‘Duly noted,’ said one of Maggrig’s colonels – a handsome, unscarred man in his mid-thirties.

  ‘Is there a final count of the arriving regiments?’ Thade asked. The rumours circulating put the numbers at the wildest outcomes.

  ‘An additional two hundred thousand men in total,’ the same colonel said. ‘They entered the warp earlier in the week, and are currently estimated between twenty-five and forty days distant.’

  Thade nodded, while Lieutenant Darrick whistled low. ‘Throne,’ he said, ‘now we know they’re taking this seriously.’

  ‘This is a shrineworld to the God-Emperor and one of His blessed saints,’ said Maggrig. ‘Nothing could be more serious.’

  Thade wasn’t done. He’d been waiting for this. ‘Will the 88th be allowed to return to Cadia to fight there, once the main forces arrive?’

  ‘I will make my decisions based on deployment data at the relevant time, captain,’ Maggrig said.

  The meeting proceeded, with the officers ignoring the hustle of the meeting room as they talked on. Adepts and junior officers leered into the eye-straining, flickering screens of wall cogitators, absorbing streams of jade green letters and numbers spilling across the black screens. Regiment positions, lists of the dead, city plans – data in all its relevant forms.

  Only one new arrival broke the briefing’s flow.

  They heard his footsteps before they saw him: resounding clunks of heavy metal that thudded on the plasteel decking of the prefab command structure. When the newcomer came through the doorway (after needing to duck to do so), the head of every officer present was turned to see the man make his entrance.

  In his armour, Brother-Captain Corvane Valar was just over two and a half metres tall. ‘Massive’ barely described him. He was broader than even Osiron, whose bulky body augmentations in many ways mimicked the suit of powered armour worn by the brother-captain. He was also almost half a metre taller than Ban Jevrian, the tallest officer present, and Jevrian was tall by anyone’s reckoning.

  Corvane’s bulk was alien, threatening, and spoke of raw power no mortal man would ever achieve. While Osiron’s augmetic joints clicked and whirred according to their own intricate, arcane workings, there was no over-complex devotion to the Machine-God in the armour of the Astartes warrior that now stood among the Guard officers. The thrum of his power armour’s joints was an angry murmur – an agitated growl that buzzed with a waspish edge.

  The armour itself was the un-colour of onyx or jet, somehow as dark as volcanic glass without obsidian’s sheen. Every man’s vision seemed to bore into it, as though trying to see deeper, the way the eyes stare hard into the worrying black of a lightless room, a depthless ocean or a moonless night, seeking any detail at all to cling to.

  The Astartes’s face was hidden behind his helm, a muzzle-mouthed bone-white relic reverently maintained down the millennia. Red eye lenses regarded each man in turn.

  The Astartes made the sign of the aquila, his oversized gauntleted hands banging against the carved white stone of the Imperial eagle on his breastplate. A Hadris Rift captain flinched at the loud snarl of servos from the giant’s armour joints.

  ‘I am Brother-Captain Corvane Valar,’ the giant said. His helmet speakers, mounted into the muzzle of his relic helm, rendered his voice distorted and harsh. ‘Commander of the Fifth Battle Company of the Adeptus Astartes Raven Guard Chapter.’

  Matters of rank and seniority between the Imperial Guard and the Astartes were far from straightforward. The Astartes Chapters were autonomous servants of the Imperium, and answered to no authority but their own. And yet technically, the lord general held rank here. It was a tension repeated countless times across millennia. The Adeptus Astartes operated under a mandate from the God-Emperor – their genhanced bodies marked them as his chosen sons, living on as shadows of his image. Yet the Imperial Guard answered to Segmentum Command and, in turn, the High Lords of Terra. Cooperation was common between the Guard and the Astartes, but conflict was hardly unheard of.

  The Cadians, as if on cue, returned the sign of the aquila immediately. Tionenji was a moment behind them, as were the Hadris Rift officers. Overseer Maggrig bowed his head in a shallow nod, made the sign of the aquila himself, and smiled in what he hoped was a superior, yet warm, expression. He assumed it hid his nervousness to be before one of the Emperor’s chosen. In that, he was wrong.

  ‘Welcome to the war council, brother-captain.’

  ‘Good to see you again,’ said Colonel Lockwood. The giant in black nodded, taking several moments to stare before replying. Thade wondered if the Astartes was scanning the colonel.

  ‘Cadia. The siege of Kasr Vallock. Colonel Josuan Lockwood, Cadian 88th.’

  ‘Good memory, brother-captain,’ smiled Lockwood. ‘And I thank you again for your Chapter’s assistance in the defence of my home world.’

  ‘Dark days. I remember them well. But not fondly. Much of my Chapter’s strength is still garrisoned there. My own force will be returning as soon as we are finished with our duties here.’

  ‘That’s good to know, captain.’

  That seemed to be the end of the conversation. Maggrig continued discussing his plan. The Astartes was content to listen, standing still as a statue but for the occasional turn of his helmeted head to regard another part of the cityscape map.

  ‘There.’

  Several of the officers started at his sudden voice.

  ‘Brother-captain?’ Maggrig asked. He’d been pointing at a district towards the centre of Solthane, housing the great Cathedral of the Archpriest. It was there that the bones of Saint Kathur were laid to rest.

  ‘There,’ the Astartes repeated. ‘That is where the Raven Guard will focus its efforts. I will dispatch scouts immediately to prepare the assault. The Fifth Battle Company will link its intelligence with yours, lord general.’

  ‘We would be honoured,’ Maggrig said. He was flushed with pleasure and pride to see an Astartes officer showing such respect to him before his own men. This would surely spread through the ranks…

  ‘It is the disposition of your own forces that necessitates our deployment.’ The giant pointed a brutish hand at two points in the cityscape. ‘The Cadians and Vednikans are your principal source of veteran strength. They are here and here, respectively.’

  Here, the Astartes turned to look at Captain Thade and his command team.

  ‘The Raven Guard Fifth has served with the Vednikans and the Cadians before. We have judged their characters as a planetary people, and assessed their prowess as regiments in service to the Emperor.’

  He turned to Maggrig, those blood-red eyes staring without mercy. ‘They are the claws of your plan. They are the killing talons sharper than all others at your disposal. Therefore, we will unleash our fury and the anger of our weapons elsewhere, where they will most assuredly be more needed.’

  Silence greeted this. Thade and several of the Cadians nodded in respectful thanks.

  ‘Whatever you see fit,’ Maggrig murmured.

  ‘Then I am done here,’ the giant said. Someone cleared their throat at that moment. Unseen servos growled in the joints of the Astartes’s armour as he inclined
his head to Seth.

  ‘You. Sanctioned psyker. You would speak with me?’

  ‘Yes, lord.’ Seth’s voice was a wet whisper.

  ‘Brother-captain.’

  ‘Yes, brother-captain.’ A little more strength to his tone this time. Thade noticed Tionenji’s hand inching towards his own holstered laspistol as Seth spoke. He read caution in the gesture, not aggression, and said nothing. But it still aggravated him.

  ‘Speak. I have no wish to seem rude, but my time is limited.’ The eyes of every man present fell on Seth now. What in the hell was he thinking?

  ‘I am given to understand the Adeptus Astartes have… individuals… that share my talent.’

  ‘It is so. We name them Codiciers and Epistolaries, depending on rank. Again, forgive the implied insult, but their powers eclipse those of an unenhanced human psyker by a great degree.’ The Astartes paused here and Thade, for some reason, imagined him smiling behind the impassive muzzle.

  ‘You delay the deployment of the Emperor’s finest to question me on trivia?’ asked the giant. His voice was different now: less stern, despite the vox-speakers distorting his tone. Maybe he had been smiling, after all.

  ‘No, sir,’ Seth said. ‘I would ask if you have one of these men among your force here.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘May I speak with him?’

  The Guard officers stared in silence. Was this an affront? An insult? A breach of decorum, certainly. Thade tongued his teeth, trying to think of something to say should the Astartes take offence. Looking up at the towering black figure with its snarling joints and red-eyed mask, absolutely nothing came to mind. Not a Throne-forsaken thing. Tionenji’s pistol had cleared its holster now.

  ‘Tell me why,’ the giant said, his tone still neutral.

  ‘Matters of the Emperor’s Tarot.’

  The awkward silence returned, intermittently broken by a curious addition. A series of muted clicks came from within the Astartes’s helm. Vox-clicks, Thade realised. He was using his suit’s internal vox to speak with someone.

  ‘It is done,’ the Astartes said only a moment later. ‘Brother-Codicier Zauren is aboard our strike cruiser, The Second Shadow. He will make planetfall in fifteen minutes to attend to your request.’

  Seth bowed deeply. ‘A thousand thanks, brother-captain.’

  The Astartes made the sign of the aquila to all present. Once more, his oversized gauntlets banged on the stone eagle across his breastplate.

  ‘I will leave you to your planning. We will meet again, should the Emperor will it.’

  ‘Victory or Death,’ said Lockwood. That made the giant pause.

  ‘A very fine memory, Colonel Lockwood.’

  The colonel smiled. Without another word, without even waiting for their replies or salutes, the giant in black stalked from the room, parting the clusters of busy headquarters staff before him like a curtain. They scattered from the doorway as he neared.

  Seth leaned on his staff in the silence after the Astartes had departed. ‘If you will excuse me, lord general?’ He addressed the Overseer but his watery eyes were locked on Thade, almost bleeding significance with an intensity that would be comical if it were any other soldier in his unit. Thade gently inclined his head. Message received. You still need to speak with me.

  It was obvious to all of them that Maggrig had no idea what to say. The Overseer just nodded, and Seth left to keep his curious appointment. Only then did Tionenji’s laspistol find its home back in its brown leather holster.

  ‘The psyker,’ Lord General Maggrig said with narrowed eyes. ‘He must be watched.’

  ‘He is,’ replied the commissar.

  ‘He always was,’ added Thade.

  The gunship was the same deep and glossless black as the armour worn by Brother-Captain Valar. It came in low, throwing up a storm of dust as its thrusters howled and belched fire. Landing claws extended in a smooth dance of well-oiled technology, biting into the grassy soil as the Thunderhawk gunship came to a rest. The roar of the great turbines and engines faded as they cycled down.

  Seth’s eyes fell upon the great white symbol painted along the gunship’s flank, repeated in smaller relief on the wings. A stylised white raven, wings outstretched. Heavy bolters trained left and right from the Thunderhawk’s cheeks and wingtips. Seth was put in mind of a great bird of prey, powerful beyond words but sitting uneasily, alert to the possibility of foes even within the sanctuary of its nest.

  And this was not its nest, of course. That was back in the cold of orbit: an Astartes strike cruiser named The Second Shadow, Seth recalled. Poetic, he thought, and marvelled at the notion of such brutish, war-bred men being able to choose a name with such nuance. He admired (or at least respected) the Astartes for the living weapons they were, but pitied them their lack of culture and humanity. Of course, it did not escape his attention that most Imperial citizens thought the exact same of the Cadians. That thought made him smile.

  It humbled Seth for a moment to look upon this huge, dark instrument of war. It was almost certainly thousands of years old, still flying, still fighting, still shedding blood in the name of the God-Emperor. So much of Cadia’s technology was forever new. New soldiers bearing new rifles and driving new tanks – all to replace men, weapons and resources lost in the planet’s endless wars against the raiders that spilled from the Great Eye like unholy tears.

  The Thunderhawk’s mouth opened, the gang-ramp several metres under the cockpit lowering on whining pistons. Seth’s mouth was suddenly dry. He’d had no idea if the psykers of the Astartes read the Emperor’s Tarot, but rather than feel reassured by the brother-captain’s answer, he now found himself worried. What if this codicier’s own readings were so strong, so accurate, that Seth’s visions were disregarded entirely? He had never fully trusted his erratic talent, but it was one of his senses as surely as the capacity to see and touch. If the Astartes psyker banished Seth’s faith in his own abilities, it would be like living half-deaf and never being able to trust what he heard.

  The thought made his skin crawl. Maybe this was a mistake. Yes, hell yes, this was all a mistake, and it took all Seth’s resolve to remain where he was.

  The Astartes psyker, Brother-Codicier Zauren, walked down the sloped gang-ramp. His armour was as dark as Valar’s had been, but instead of the off-white helm sported by the brother-captain, this Astartes warrior wore a helm of midnight blue with a mouth grille. Seth was no expert on the armaments of the noble Astartes Chapters, but he recognised the shape of the helm as a newer mark of armour, perhaps only several hundred years old.

  The giant approached, his heavy armoured boots crunching soil and gravel underfoot. Sheathed across his back was a two-handed blade as long as Seth was tall. The Cadian doubted he could lift it unaided. He doubted even Ban Jevrian could fight for long with that beast in his hands.

  ‘You are the sanctioned psyker attached to the Cadian 88th Mechanised Infantry, are you not?’ The Astartes’ voice came in the same toneless vox-speech as the brother-captain’s had.

  ‘I am.’ Seth looked up at the giant’s helm. The eye lenses staring back down at him were golden.

  ‘Excellent,’ the giant said. ‘I am Brother-Codicier Zauren Kale. You may call me Zaur, if it is not uncomfortably familiar for you to do so.’

  ‘I… I…’

  ‘A moment, please,’ the Astartes said, and reached up to do the very last thing Seth had been expecting.

  He removed his helmet.

  ‘Where are you going?’ the commissar asked as they emerged into the dim daylight.

  ‘Maintenance,’ said Thade. He clenched and unclenched his bionic hand as he walked, and Tionenji wondered if the Cadian even knew he had that habit.

  ‘Overseeing the honoured enginseer’s work?’

  ‘Osiron? He’d never put up with that. This is pleasure, not business.’

&n
bsp; ‘Pleasure? In maintenance?’ Tionenji fixed him with a bewildered look that perfectly matched the incredulity in his flowing Garadeshi accent. ‘I am relatively well-informed, culturally speaking, on the Cadian people. I understand that you regard rifles as more precious than your wives, you’d rather kill someone than make love, and that you’re only happy when bragging about the most recent time you remained awake for five days straight to win a war with your hands tied behind your backs.’

  ‘You know us well.’ Thade grinned, his violet eyes bright below the black widow’s peak of his hair. ‘But not that well. Seventy-five per cent of the planet’s adults and children are under arms, and most Cadians don’t marry. We have breeding programs to maintain the population.’

  ‘Is that a joke?’

  Thade kept grinning. He didn’t answer.

  ‘Even so, captain, never in my most uninspired dreams did I imagine your idea of leisure would be to watch tech-servitors repair your tanks.’

  ‘You don’t have to follow me,’ said Thade, knowing that was a lie. Tionenji smiled.

  ‘And miss entertainment of such magnitude? Never.’

  ‘I knew you’d be game. And no, we’re not going to watch them repaint the tanks and tune the engines. We’re going because I’ve been getting word since last night that Rax was ready.’

  ‘Who, or indeed what, is Rax?’

  Thade smiled again as he neared the towering form of the Cadian bulk lander. Machine sounds of maintenance and repair echoed out from the open bay doors.

  For a moment, he looked on the edge of boyish. No easy feat for a man who’d been fighting the Archenemy since he was fourteen. Thade wasn’t quite thirty. Tionenji felt the captain could all too easily pass as a man nearing forty.

  ‘Rax,’ Thade said, still smiling the rare, warm smile, ‘is my dog.’

  Zaur was pale, the pale of pristine marble. Not that Seth had been expecting much overt humanity in the oversized body and face of an Astartes warrior, but the ice-white skin tone was another layer of surprise. And his eyes were black. That unnerved Seth to no small degree. He’d never heard of such an… alteration.