by Dan Abnett
'I want the Gudrunite survivors.'
'Why?' asked Brytnoth.
'Because whatever their combat inexperience, they've seen a tetrascape. Those are the men I want at my side.'
Madorthene and Brytnoth exchanged glances, and the procurator shrugged. As you wish.'
As for the others, like I said, don't stint on the training regime.'
'We won't!' he chuckled, mock-outraged at the idea. The drill masters will work the regiments so hard, they'll yearn for real battle.'
'I'm serious/ I said. 'Every man that deploys on to 56-Izar - the venerated Deathwatch chapter included, Emperor bless them - should be ready to lose control of his senses, his judgment, his fortitude and even his basic mental faculties. They're going to be hit hard, but in an insidious way. I don't care if every man jack of them forgets his own mother's name and wets himself, they must still know how to hold a line, fire and reload, adore the Emperor and respond to orders/
'Succinctly put/ Brytnoth said. 'I will, of course, temper your proposals before I put them to my battle brothers/
'I don't care what you tell them/ I chuckled, 'as long as you don't let on who it came from/
'Your anonymity is assured/ He smiled. A wonder, that. I consider myself one of the very few mortals to have made a librarian of the Adeptus Astartes smile. To have seen a librarian of the Adeptus Astartes smile even.
Brytnoth pushed his slate and stylus aside and looked over at me with curiosity. 'Mandragore/ he said.
The bastard child of the Emperor? What of him?'
'I'm told you killed him yourself. In single combat. Quite a feat for one such as you - and I mean no disrespect/
'No disrespect is taken/
'How did you do it?' he asked frankly.
I told him. I kept it simple. Brytnoth made no reaction but Madorthene was quietly agog.
'Brother-Captain Cynewolf will be fascinated/ Brytnoth said. 'I promised him I'd find out the details. He was dying to ask you about it, but he didn't dare/
Now that was funny.
We prepared ourselves for the approaching war. It was going to be arduous, and, unlike most campaigns, not divided into two sides. I observed training sessions, impressed by the efforts and the discipline. I even had the terrifying pleasure of watching Captain Cynewolf s kill-team conduct a target-decoy hunt through the hold levels. We were ready. Ready as we'd ever be.
In the ninth week of transit, Lord Inquisitor Rorken and Admiral Spatian issued a joint declaration, officially enforced by will of the Ecclesiarchy A Mandate To Purge 56-Izar, as the term and parameters are understood in the Imperial codes. That was the seal on the action. There was no turning back now. We were heading through the immaterium at high warp to invade and, if necessary, destroy the saruthi world.
Through my weeks of convalescence, I dreamed little. But on the last night before our arrival at 56-Izar, the blank-eyed, handsome man returned to stalk the landscape of my dreams.
He was talking to me, but I couldn't hear his words, nor understand his purpose. He led me through drafty halls in a ruined palace, and then departed silently into the dream wilds beyond, leaving me alone, naked, in a ruin that tottered and crumbled down onto me.
The saruthi were in my dreams too. They rose through the brick debris of the collapsed palace effortlessly, finding angles and pathways that I could not see. The multiple nostrils on their swaying heads flared as they got the taste of me. Their skulls coruscated with energy...
* * *
I woke, soaked with night-sweat, more out of my wide bed man in it. Dislodged bolsters were scattered over the floor.
The vox-link on my night stand was beeping.
'Inquisitor Eisenhorn?'
'Sorry to wake you/ said Madorthene. 'But I thought you'd want to know. The fleet exited the immaterium twenty-six minutes ago. We are entering invasion orbit of 56-Izar/
T W E N TY-T H RE E
Invading the invasion.
Bent angles.
In the gardens of the saruthi.
The war had already begun.
56-Izar hung like a pearl in space, milky white and gleaming. Vivid flashes and slower blossoms of destruction underlit its translucent skin of cloud. The heretic fleet had arrived two days ahead of us, and had begun its assault of the planet.
I kept thinking of it as Estrum's fleet, but it wasn't of course. I'd made certain of that. This was Locke's battle fleet now, I was sure.
The thirteen ships had blockaded 56-Izar in a non-standard but effective conquest pattern. Serial waves of their fighter-bombers, interceptors and dropships rained down on the planet and the orbiting heavies bombarded the surface wim their entire batteries.
They detected our battle-pack the moment we came out of warp. Their picket ships, the heavy destroyers Nebuchadnezzar and Fournier, wheeled round to protect their hindquarters. Admiral Spatian held our battle-pack off orbit and chased the frigates Defence of Stalinvast, Emperor's Hammer and Will of Iron straight in to clear the way.
On their heels, he sent out the massed fighter squadrons of the expeditionary force, and diverted the battleship Vulpecula to engage the enemy flagship, a heavy cruiser named the Leoncour.
The Emperor's Hammer and the Will of Iron pincered and torched the Nebuchadnezzar after a brief but fierce exchange. The explosion lit the void.
The Defence of Stalinvast and the Fournier locked each other tightly in a longer, slower dance of warships, and eventually slammed together, squeezing boarding parties and naval security units into each other's hulls.
The locked ships tumbled away, in an embrace of death.
The Vulpecula raced forward and misjudged the Leoncour's evasion, suffering a trio of broadsides. Coming about, spilling debris into the gulf, the Imperial battleship raised its guns and hammered the Leoncour so hard and so furiously that the enemy flagship broke up and blew out like a dying sun.
Limping, the Vulpecula turned slowly and began its long-range harrying of the enemy ships closer to the target world's atmosphere. Spatian committed the rest of his group then, ranging them forward in a three-pronged division, of which the central and largest was headed by the majestic Saint Scythus.
Distances closed. The near-space of 56-Izar was awash with fire patterns and the streaking comets of missiles. Now the ferocious, high-velocity small ship phase began as waves of interceptors and light bombers from both fleets met and buzzed around each other like rival swarms of insects. The tiny lights whirled and danced in the void, faster and more numerous than the unaided eye could follow. Even the tactical displays overwhelmed the senses: pict-plates flickering with thousands of type markers and flashing cursors, spinning, overlaying, vanishing and reappearing.
The heretics had seeded a buffer zone behind their deployment with mines, and the Emperor's Hammer, spurring forward in a fleet intruder role, suffered heavy damage and was forced to break away. Heretic interceptors fell upon the stricken ship like carrion flies on a dying beast.
The Will of Iron moved past the Emperor's Hammer and began to sweep a path through the mine zone with its specialised clearing devices. Triggered by probing force cones, the floating weapons began to detonate in their thousands.
Spatian's intent was to cut a wedge into the enemy's wide formation and bring at least some of his ships within range of the planet's surface. Once that bridging objective was achieved he could begin to unleash the planetary assault, confident of providing the dropships with some covering fire.
The Saint Scythus was first to secure such a position. Its main guns mercilessly disposed of the heretic cruiser Scutum and forced the carrier frigate Glory of Algol into a desperate retreat.
Hundreds of dropships rushed like a blizzard out of the battleship and the two frigates and the Inquisitorial black ship that had moved in behind it.
Most of the dropships were the grey landing boats of the Imperial Guard, jets firing as they hammered down into the cloudy atmosphere of 56-Izar. But scattered among them were a handful of scarab-blac
k landing craft and drop-pods of the Deathwatch chapter.
The counter-invasion had begun.
* * *
Within the first hour of the war, we managed to land more than two-thirds of our one hundred and twenty thousand Mirepofx Light Elite Infantry on the surface of 56-Izar, almost half of the motorised armour brigades, and all sixty Adeptus Astartes warriors of the Deathwatch.
Sensor sweeps showed 56-Izar to be a bland, unremarkable world beneath its heavy veil of atmosphere. Vast, low continents of inorganic ooze punctured by ranges of crystalline upland and surrounded by inert chemical oceans. The only signs of advanced life - of life of any kind, indeed - were a string of city-sized structures arranged in a chain along the equatorial region of the main continent. The nature and composition of these structures was virtually impossible to read from orbit. The heretics had concentrated their invasion efforts on the three largest structures, and Admiral Spatian was targeting these areas, judging that the enemy would not be wasting time invading unviable sites.
Losses were high. The approaches were thick with enemy interceptors, micro-mines and the fire of surface to air defences. All of this was human warfare. There was no sign or hint of any saruthi participation at all.
Behind the main landing force came the Inquisitorial squads, five specialised assault units designed to follow the military in through the opening they made and oversee the primary objectives: the capture or destruction of the heretic conspirators and the obliteration of any further Necroteuch material. I had control of one squad; the others were led by Endor, Schongard, Molitor and Lord Inquisitor Rorken himself. Voke was too ill to command a squad, and his emissary, Heldane, accompanied Endor's party.
My own force, designated Purge Two, was made up of twenty Gudrunite riflemen, Bequin, Midas and a Deathwatch Space Marine called Guilar. A member of the Astartes had been seconded to each inquisitor. Fischig had demanded to accompany me, but he was still weak from his injuries and surgery and I had turned him down with a heavy heart. He remained on the battleship with Aemos, who was, by any standards, a non-combatant.
Our transport, an Imperial Guard dropship, left the Saint Scythus directly behind the force designated Purge One, in Lord Rorken's lander. We rode out the vibrating, shuddering descent strapped into the g-chairs of the troop bay.
Jeruss's men sang as we dropped. Their standard-issue Gudrunite uniforms had been augmented with fresh body armour from the fleet stores, and they had sewn inquisitorial emblems onto their sleeves next to the regimental badge of the 50th Gudrunite Rifles. They were in good humour, eager and determined, encouraged, I believe, by the faith I had shown in selecting them. Madorthene had confided to me that they had scored consistently above average in the adverse training program. They joked and boasted and rang out Imperial battle hymns like veterans. Their experiences since the founding at Dorsay had baptised them very quickly indeed.
Bequin had also been transmuted by experience in the months since I had first met her on Hubris. A hard, serious woman had replaced the
scatty, selfish pleasure-girl from the Sun-dome, as if she had at last found a calling that suited her. She had certainly thrown herself into her new life with dedication and vigour. I considered the changes a distinct improvement. Many are called to the service of our beloved Emperor, and many are found wanting. Despite the ordeals, Alizebeth Bequin had proved herself. If there was a point at which her transformation could be identified, it was the plateau. The sight of Mandragore's corpse had exorcised her fears.
Dressed in a black, armoured bodyglove and a long black velvet coat, she sat in the seat next to me, scrupulously checking her las-carbine. The chastener had trained her well. Her gloved hands made swift, professional movements over the weapon. Only the trim of black feathers around her coat's collar betrayed a vestige of the painted, frocked and decorated girl of old.
Midas sat the other side of me, ill at ease. He made a lousy passenger and I knew he wanted to be up in the dropship's cockpit instead of the navy pilot. He wore his cerise jacket, despite the objections of the dour Guilar, who considered its brash colour 'unsuitable for combat'. His needle pistols were holstered, and his long Glavian rifle rested across his knees.
I wore brown leather body armour and my button-sleeve coat for the assault, a trade off between protection and mobility. The symbols of my office were proudly displayed on my chest above my sash. Librarian Bryt-noth, in a gesture that honoured me, had sent a bolt pistol for my personal use. It was a compact, hand-crafted model with a casing of matt-green steel. The rectangular-pattern magazines slid into the handgrip, and I had one locked in place and another eight in the loops of my belt.
After eight minutes of violent descent, we levelled out and the vibrations diminished. Guilar, seated next to the ramp-hatch, made the sign of the aquila in the air and locked his helmet into place.
Twenty seconds!' the pilot announced over the cabin vox.
We soared down free of the clouds and into the fire and darkness of the near-surface warzone, moving at full burn towards one of the orbitally identified city structures. The site was ringed by a series of what seemed to be colossal lakes or reservoirs, and the liquid they contained was ablaze, with raging walls of fire reaching up thousands of metres. Night-black smoke fanned from the fires and blocked the immediate daylight, and the world below was amber-lit by the seething flames and the crossfire of weapons.
The dropship shook as the braking jets fired, and we lurched around in a drunken yaw before settling. Guilar thumped a wall-stud and the ramp-doors opened with a yowl of metal on metal. Cold air and smoke blew into the cabin.
We came out onto a wide, glistening flat of white mud that squelched wetly under our running, jumping boots. The mudflats lay between two of
the burning lakes, and we could feel the heat of the immense fires on our faces. The coiling flames reflected in dazzling patterns off the wet mud.
Burning debris from a crashed lander littered the white flats, as well as the charred bodies of several Mirepoix. Las-fire cut the air above us. A kilometre ahead there were the familiar shapes of raised, hoop-like arches, 'tetragates' as they had been dubbed by the fleet's tech-priests, some shattered and broken by the assault. Beyond them rose the pearl-white flanks of a great edifice, the target structure, curved and segmented like a gigantic sea-shell, spotted with a thousand tiny scorch marks and blast-scars.
We advanced behind Guilar. The air smelled of fuel-vapour and another rich scent, like liquorice, that I couldn't readily identify.
'Purge Two, deploying on surface at chart mark seven/ I reported over the vox.
'Understood, Purge Two. Purge One and Purge Four report safe landing and deployment.'
So Rorken and Molitor's groups were down. No word yet of Endor or Schongard.
As we pushed past the first of the shattered hoops, Guilar faltered, pausing to shake his helmeted head. I could feel the wrongness already, the insidious twisting of the saruthi environment. It seemed likely the effect was being accentuated by the broken tetragates. These silent devices projected and sustained the saruthi tetrascapes, and they were now faulty and incomplete.
The Gudrunites noticed it too, but seemed unfazed.
Take point!' I told Jeruss, and Guilar looked at me sharply.
'You need time to get used to this, Brother Guilar. Don't argue.'
Jeruss and three Gudrunites moved into the vanguard. Even they were having trouble, shambling awkwardly as if intoxicated. The angles of space and time were truly bent and twisted here.
Behind us, thrusters retched and our dropship rose off the gleaming mud, its ramp and landing struts folding up into its belly. It was barely sixty metres up when a missile struck it amidships and blew out its mainframe. The burning cockpit section tumbled away from the airburst and fell into a lake of fire. Metal debris from the destroyed main section peppered the white mud below.
But for the grace of the God-Emperor, we could all have been aboard it.
Moving at an u
nsteady trot, we came to the saruthi edifice. Its great, luminous form was the size of an Imperial hive and its foundations ran down beneath the white mud. I tried to get a sense of the structure, but it was no good and I quickly gave up rather than risk disorientation. It was like an ammonite with its polished segments and perfect curves, but my human eyes could not read its true shape. The overlaps and edges did not meet as one would expect, and conjured distracting optical illusions when any attempt was made to follow them from one point to another.
We reached the foot of it. There were no doors or entrances, and those who had come before us had tried to blast their way through the lustrous surface, only to find it apparently solid within.
I moved my squad back from the barrier and we retraced our approach down the line of the tetragates. Those nearest to the structure were still intact.
As I had anticipated, we stepped through the last one and were immediately inside the edifice, as if we had passed through the pearly walls.
Inside, there was a low radiance shed by some source inside the walls. It was warm, and the smell of liquorice was more pungent and intense. The floor, translucent and pearly, was concave and flowed up into the curve of the walls.
We moved forward, weapons ready. The corridor - and I use that word in the loosest sense - seemed to describe a spiral, like the inner form of a great conch or the canals of a human ear, but at no time did we feel anything but upright.
Opening into a horn-like cone, the spiral gave out into a huge, almost spherical chamber. It was impossible to estimate its true size, or define its true shape. It seemed to be some kind of ornamental garden or even farm. Silver walkways, suspended invisibly by gravity or some other force, ran between curving tanks of liquid that formed beds for huge, multi-coloured cycads and other bulbous, primitive plants. The fleshy growths towered around us, dripping with moisture and swathed in creepers and climbing succulents. Ropes of vine and beards of flowering foliage hung from invisible fixtures in the air above the beds. There were insects in here, flitting between the swollen bell-shapes, crescents and columns of the gigantic vegetation. One landed on my sleeve and I swatted it, noticing with revulsion that it had five legs, three wings and no symmetry.
