Tarkus considered sending one of this squad to assist in crowd control, but then the chittering from the shadows crescendoed to a fever pitch, and a dozen or more tyranid warriors burst from the trees and hurled themselves towards the village.
The sergeant opened fire with his bolter, hellfire rounds ripping into the advancing wave of warriors. The villagers, and their Navy rescuers, would have to see to themselves. The Blood Ravens had other work to do.
ON DISTANT MERIDIAN, light years away from troubled Typhon Primaris, a rogue trader waited in a secured room in the subterranean levels of the governor's palace. The security personnel who'd escorted him from the space port had divested him of his weaponry before leaving him in the room with the case he carried. They'd taken his duelling pistol, his knives, even the holdout that he kept hidden inside his right boot.
They had, of course, failed to confiscate the ornate signet ring that he wore on the index finger of his right hand. But then, one could hardly expect low-ranking security personnel to recognize Jokaero digital weaponry when they saw it. And they didn't for a moment suspect the surprises loaded into the rogue trader's augmetic eyepatch - he would use them only in an emergency, of course, but it was comforting to know that they were there, if needed.
The rogue trader had been kept waiting for the better part of an hour, but was patient, all the same. The man for whom he waited was an important man, with many demands upon his time, but perhaps even more importantly he was a wealthy man, more than willing to make up for a bit of tardiness on his part.
It had been a shame about the seed case from Typhon Primaris. The rogue trader knew that his customer would have paid handsomely to add such a prize to his collection of xenos rarities. But the weapon contained in the case on the table before him would fetch an even grander price, he was sure, especially once the customer learned the circumstances under which the rogue trader had claimed, and just who had wielded, the weapon.
The silence of the room was disrupted by the hiss of a door opening, and the rogue trader smelled the perfumes that wafted ahead of the customer like a cloud. The man always seemed to smell like a hothouse had exploded in his near vicinity in the recent past, the cloyingly sweet scent of flowers wrapped around him like an aromatic shroud.
'Sorry to keep you waiting,' the customer said, his tone making it clear that he wasn't sorry in the slightest. 'I was delayed by the most tiresome of men, yammering on about meteorites, of all things.'
The rogue trader cocked an eyebrow, but the customer brushed past him, angling right for the case on the table.
'So this is the treasure you told me about, is it?' The man licked his lips, like a hungry lupine regarding a helpless lamb.
'Yes,' the rogue trader said, reaching over and unlatching the stays that held the case shut. 'Meteorites, did you say?'
The customer nodded, waving a hand in a dismissive gesture. 'He said that some classless low-hab dwellers on the far side claimed to have seen them coming down from the skies, if you can imagine.' He rubbed his hands together in undisguised glee, as the rogue trader removed the protective covering from the weapon, which was as long as a man was tall.
'Meteorites from the skies,' the rogue trader repeated, his single eye narrowing.
'I insisted that what they had seen was merely weather, which having been born and raised far from the outdoors they could never have hoped to recognize. But who listens to me, I ask you?'
The rogue trader nodded, absently, and removed the last of the protective covering, revealing the weapon in all its glory.
The customer reached a tentative hand out, but stopped with his fingertips only centimetres from the blade. He glanced at the rogue trader, expecting admonishment.
'May I…?' he asked, positively salivating.
The rogue trader nodded, making an expansive gesture. 'By all means, Your Excellency. Assuming, of course, that you authorise payment?'
'Oh, that,' the customer said, as though annoyed at the mention of such a triviality. 'Yes, all right, yes.'
He waved his hand at the data-slate the rogue trader produced, authorising the exchange of funds.
'In which case, it is yours,' the rogue trader said, bowing with a flourish.
'Oooh,' the man said, reaching out and touching the flat of the blade. Even powered-down, it still seemed to crackle with life.
'Now,' the rogue trader said, backing away towards the door, 'with your permission I'm afraid I must excuse myself.'
The customer looked up, faint annoyance flittering across his round face. 'So soon?'
'Yes,' the rogue trader answered. 'I'm sorry, but I have an urgent need to return to my ship.'
'Go, then,' the man said, waving the trader away with an imperious gesture.
The rogue trader started towards the door. He'd get his weapons back from the security personnel, get back to the spaceport, and get back to his ship before…
'Shame about the seed case, though,' the customer said, as the rogue trader was slipping out the door.
'Yes,' the rogue trader answered. 'But who knows? Perhaps you'll get another chance to get your hands on a tyranid again. Perhaps even sooner than you think.'
'Oh,' the customer said, rolling his eyes skyward, 'that I should be so lucky.'
The rogue trader slipped out the door, and as it hissed shut behind him, he allowed the mask of calm complacency he'd forced on his face to slip.
Meteorites from the skies, the rogue trader thought, already racing down the hallway to the exit.
Spores, more likely. Let the security drones keep his pistol and knives and holdout, he could always get more. He knew too well what came in the wake of things that fell from the sky, and he had no intention of lingering on Meridian a single moment longer than was necessary to see it for himself.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SERGEANT ARAMUS STOOD alone at the centre of the empty sparring hall, wearing only a chiton, his arms and legs bare. Eyes closed, he moved through each of the stages of an attack routine, slowly, methodically. Strike, block, punch, kick, block, strike, block - exchanging blows with shadows, concentrating on the sensation of each movement, the pull of muscle over bone and the kiss of wind against bare skin.
The day had yet to begin, with more than an hour until the ship's complement would gather within the company chapel for morning prayer and contemplation. Once Chaplain Palmarius had completed the morning rites, and led the brethren in their daily oaths of loyalty to Chapter and Emperor, then Sergeant Aramus as Commander at Sail would address the brethren, issuing their orders and making any necessary announcements. And had any discipline been required, had any of the brethren, neophytes, or aspirants failed to follow the precepts of Chapter and Codex in the previous day, it would fall to Aramus to dispense summary punishments as required.
Aramus completed the attack routine, then shifted to a defensive rest posture before beginning another set.
With the prayers completed, the brethren would move to the ranges in the ship's armoury to begin the morning firing rites, honing their marksmanship, and then on to battle practice, if time permitted, before their arrival in the Meridian system.
Aramus began another attack routine, this one designed for close-quarters combat against multiple opponents. Starting slowly, he advanced through each of the motions, one after another, his speed increasing as he went. He sparred now with shadows on all sides, and with his eyes closed could almost sense the presence of his imaginary foes.
The sergeant began considering the morning's battle practice, his mind wandering as his body was put through its paces. He thought of the fifteen aspirants currently onboard the Armageddon, a dozen from Calderis and a further three from Typhon Primaris. Chapter protocols dictated that none of the fifteen could advance to the next stages of the rigorous indoctrination examinations until they had successfully completed - and, more importantly, survived - the Blood Trials. But the attacks of the orks on the desert world and the lurking tyranids on the jungle world had prevent
ed the Blood Ravens from conducting their trials. And so, the aspirants onboard were still merely potential candidates, untried and untested in combat. Would it behove the Chapter for Aramus to conduct the Trials onboard the strike cruiser itself, he wondered? Should he do as Chaplain Palmarius had proposed, and bring the fifteen youths into the sparring hall, perhaps during the time set aside for battle practice, issue bladed weapons to each of them and then let the Blood Trials simply commence? Or would it be better to wait until the strike cruiser rejoined the rest of the fleet, and conduct the Blood Trials onboard the fortress-monastery Scientia Est Potentia instead?
With the Fifth Company taking such heavy losses in recent actions, it seemed almost criminal to delay even by a matter of days or weeks the induction of new initiates - despite the fact that they would not be ready for battle, even as neophyte Scouts, for years more to come.
Aramus was still grappling with the question, just as he grappled with the shadows on all sides, when his concentration was broken by the sound of the sparring hall's door opening and closing.
'Have you slept, brother-sergeant?' came the voice of Sergeant Thaddeus.
Eyes still closed, Aramus completed the attack routine. 'Some,' he answered. 'A brief while, perhaps.' He finished his routine, and slowly lowered his hands at his sides. Then, opening his eyes he looked in Thaddeus's direction. 'No, I suppose I haven't, at that.'
Thaddeus walked towards the centre of the sparring hall, like Aramus wearing only a blood-red chiton. 'I have not slept, either. Not since Calderis.'
Thanks to their catalepsean node, Space Marines did not truly need sleep, the implant enabling them to rest half of their brain for brief periods while maintaining awareness with the other half. But even vaunted Adeptus Astartes were required to succumb to the circadian rhythms of sleep from time to time, lest they suffer impaired efficiency, or even the onset of personality disorders. And while during the four hours per night in which he lay in a fugue he did not dream, as such, still a Space Marine could find it difficult to slumber if his mind still raced with the concerns of the day.
Occupied with thoughts of their mission, and of the responsibilities of his unanticipated rise in command, Aramus had found it difficult to still his mind sufficiently for his body to lapse into the fugue, and had instead come down to the sparring hall to find some other release for tensions.
Aramus crossed to the nearest wall, and pulled a towel from the railing. Wiping his face and neck dry of the sweat that grimed them, he took a deep breath, his respiration and heart-rate slowing to normal after his hours-long workout. 'Well, what troubles your sleep, Thaddeus?'
While Aramus leaned against the rail, Thaddeus began doing stretching exercises, limbering his muscle groups one at a time before beginning his own exercise regimen. 'Not troubled, perhaps,' Thaddeus answered. 'Haunted, one might say?'
'Haunted?' Aramus cocked a brow.
'When I close my eyes, I see the face of Renzo before me. Or Loew. Or Shar. Or Davit. Or any one of the other battle-brothers I've lost over my years as leader of Seventh Squad. I've lost four battle-brothers since Zalamis, more than the Seventh has ever lost in such a short span, at least under my tenure as squad leader, and I cannot help but wonder if the losses should not be laid at my feet. Have I failed them, in not having anticipated the dangers which cost them their lives? Had I been more alert, more attentive, might some of them - might all of them - yet live?'
Aramus was silent for a moment before answering. 'I can't help but remember something that Captain Thule told me once, before I was elevated to the command of Third Squad. He told me that command was no honour, but was instead simply another weight to bear.' Aramus called upon the Blood Ravens' fabled memory, which enabled him to recall anything he had experienced since becoming a Space Marine. ''Have faith in your Chapter, in your Emperor, and in your own strength,'' he quoted, ''and your life - and death - will have purpose''. If that is true of ourselves - and I believe it is - then it is no less true of those we lead.'
Thaddeus nodded slowly. 'I know you are right,' he said, 'but still… the losses can be difficult to take.' He paused, shifting into a fighting stance, the initial posture of his shadow boxing manoeuvre. 'So when do we expert to reach the Meridian system?'
Aramus draped the towel around his neck. 'The Lord Principal reports that we should translate back into real space by day's end at the latest, perhaps as early as midday.'
Thaddeus struck the empty air with the heel of his palm, then spun around to deliver a roundhouse kick a dozen centimetres below that spot. 'Strange, isn't it?'
'Hmm?' Aramus raised an eyebrow.
'Returning to Meridian, that is.'
Aramus blinked slowly, remembering the planet of his birth, as well as he was able.
It was a strange irony that a Blood Raven could recall in great detail all that befell him since completing his initiating and becoming a full battle-brother, but that his memories of a time before joining the Chapter were often hazy and indistinct. Perhaps it was the aberration in the catalepsean node that was rumoured to be the cause of their eidetic memory that was likewise responsible for the haze that fell over their earlier memories. Perhaps in changing the way that new memories were stored in the mind of the Blood Raven, older memories were lost. It was symbolic, it always seemed to Aramus, of the forgotten memories of the Chapter itself, the Blood Ravens' own lost beginnings. It was fitting, perhaps, that the individual underwent much the same transformation as the Chapter itself, which now recorded its every action and undertaking in exquisite detail, and yet could not recall with any certainty whence it had come.
'It is strange, at that,' Aramus allowed. Neither of the two Space Marines had returned to the world of their birth since the completion of their own Blood Trials there, more than two decades before. And though they had come from different backgrounds - Aramus from the upper classes in the high-habs, Thaddeus a ganger from the low-hab levels - they had grown in the years that followed to accept one another as more than blood kin, but as fellow battle-brothers in the Blood Ravens Chapter.
'Stranger still to return to her in a time of such crisis,' Thaddeus said. 'I've visited countless worlds in my years of service to the Emperor and Chapter, knowing that any of them might fall before the enemy, if that were their fate. But to set out to do battle on our own homeworld, knowing that if we fail then the lives of everyone we once knew - friends, family, even enemies - would then be forfeit…'
'It does seem a heavier burden to bear, doesn't it?' Aramus thought of Sergeant Tarkus, willing to stay behind, to fight and die in the protection of doomed Typhon Primaris, to expunge his feelings of loss and guilt over the death of his own homeworld, Erinia. If Meridian were to be lost, as well, what price would Aramus and Thaddeus one day be required to pay? 'But as Captain Thule pointed out to me, we already carry a heavy burden as members of the Fated.' He paused, and gave Thaddeus a rueful grin. 'What is a little more weight, added to that already heavy load?'
THE MORNING FIRING rites had not yet concluded when the tremors running through the deckplates and the attendant psychic shock signalled that the Armageddon had transitioned from the immaterium back into normal space.
A short while later, Librarian Niven waited on the command deck for the Commander at Sail to arrive, a determined look on his face. Niven had been in conference with his junior when the strike cruiser had returned to real space, and as soon as they had cleared the warp both servants of the Librarium had perceived immediately what awaited them. The malevolence he had felt ever since Calderis, and which he had days ago identified as a tyranid hive mind, was even stronger here, the interference redoubled. But both Niven and Konan agreed that they could be no nearer to the hive fleet whose rough location had been triangulated from the two ships in orbit above Typhon Primaris, and if anything might even be farther now from the fleet than they had been before. So why was the interference so much stronger here, why was the malevolence so much more potent?
Sergeant A
ramus strode onto the command deck, wearing his full power armour, the bolter at his side still warmed from the rounds fired on the armoury range.
Niven waited atop the command dais for the sergeant's approach, but when Aramus reached his side the Librarian did not pause for formalities but immediately began, all intensity.
'The shadow of a tyranid fleet has fallen over Aurelia,' Niven said, before Aramus had even had the chance to address him. 'Neither Lexicanium Konan nor I can make any astropathic contact outside the Armageddon, not even to the Sword of Hadrian or any of the other ships of the Aurelia Battlegroup. For reasons I've yet to uncover, the interference of the shadow in the warp is much greater here than elsewhere in the sub-sector, though we appear to be no nearer to the fleet itself.'
'Any suppositions, Librarian?' Aramus asked.
'None, I am ashamed to admit,' Niven answered. 'But be assured that neither Lexicanium Konan nor I will rest until we have divined an answer.'
Aramus nodded. 'Understood. Thank you, Librarian.'
Niven withdrew to the shadows at the command deck's edge, to gather his thoughts and extend his senses, while Aramus busied himself with the running of the ship. In only a matter of hours they would reach Meridian itself. Perhaps an answer would present itself to Niven by then.
ADVANCING AT SUBLIGHT speeds, the journey to the planet Meridian occupied most of the remainder of the day, and it was not until after the evening prayers that Sergeant Aramus summoned the squad leaders to the command deck for their briefing. The Chapter serfs who tended the command deck servitors reported that vox communication with the planet's surface was expected at any moment as the Armageddon came within range of the planet-side vox-casters.
Sergeants Avitus, Thaddeus, and Cyrus waited at the Commander at Sail's pleasure when a chime indicated that vox contact had been established, and the Chapter serfs brought word to the command dais that the governor of the sub-sector himself, Governor Vandis, was waiting on the vox-channel to communicate with Sergeant Aramus.
Dawn Of War II Page 18
