The Ultramarines Omnibus

by Graham McNeill

  The grass was freshly cut, the scent of its fragrance reminding Uriel of the mountains back on Macragge. A simple headstone marked the final resting place of Inquisitor Ario Barzano. Beneath his name, a short inscription was engraved in a flowing script:

  Each man is a spark in the darkness. Would that we all burn as bright.

  Uriel had carved it himself: he hoped that Barzano would have approved.

  He rose to his feet as Mykola Shonai entered the garden. The wounds he had suffered fighting in the deep of the world were healing, but it would be some weeks yet before he would be fully fit.

  Shonai’s hair spilled around her shoulders and she clutched a small garland of flowers in her hands.

  Three guards accompanied her, but kept a respectful distance as she approached the headstone.

  She nodded to Uriel and knelt beside grave, placing the flowers gently beside the stone. She straightened, brushing the folds from her long dress and turned to face him.

  ‘Captain Ventris, it is good to see you,’ she smiled, sitting on the marble bench. ‘Please, sit with me awhile.’

  Uriel joined the governor on the bench and they sat in a companionable silence together for several minutes, neither willing to spoil this moment of peace. Eventually Shonai inclined her head towards Uriel.

  ‘So you are leaving today?’

  ‘Yes. Our work here is done and there are more than enough Imperial forces to maintain order.’

  ‘Yes, there are,’ agreed Mykola Shonai sadly. Imperial Guard transports had landed four days ago, the soldiers and tanks of the 44th Lavrentian Hussars turning the city into an armed camp. Ships of the Adeptus Administratum and Adeptus Ministorum had also arrived, their purpose to restore a measure of political and spiritual stability to Pavonis.

  Preachers and confessors filled the streets with their words, taking renewed pledges of piety and devotion from the populace.

  At the recommendation of Lortuen Perjed, the Administratum had permitted Shonai to remain as governor of Pavonis, on condition that at the end of her contract of service, she never again stand for political office. Lortuen Perjed was appointed permanent Administratum observer to Pavonis, replacing the criminally negligent Ballion Varle, who Jenna Sharben, the last surviving judge in Brandon Gate, had arrested and shot.

  The rebel PDF troopers rounded up by the Shonai cartel were even now being transported onto a freshly arrived penal barge, bound for warzones in the Segmentum Obscurus.

  The future of Pavonis had been assured, but it would no longer be under the autonomous regime of the cartels. The governmental system of Pavonis had been found lacking and would now fall under the watchful gaze of the Administratum.

  Uriel could understand Shonai’s frustration. She had come through the worst ordeal of her life and now, when they had won the final victory, everything was being taken from her.

  ‘I did mean to come here before now,’ explained Shonai, staring at the grave, ‘but I was never sure quite what I would feel if I did.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I owe my world’s survival to you and Ario, but had things been different, he would have destroyed Pavonis and killed everything I hold dear.’

  ‘Yes, but he did not. He gave his life in defence of you and your world. Remember him for that.’

  ‘I do. That is why I came here today. I honour his memory and I will ensure that he will be forever known as a Hero of Pavonis.’

  ‘I think he’d enjoy that,’ chuckled Uriel. ‘It would appeal to his colossal vanity.’

  Shonai smiled and leaned up to kiss Uriel’s cheek. ‘Thank you, Uriel, for all that you have done for Pavonis. And for me.’

  Uriel nodded, pleased with the governor’s sentiment. Noticing her serious expression he asked, ‘What will you do when your time as governor is at an end?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Uriel. Something quiet,’ she laughed, rising to her feet and offering her hand to Uriel. He stood and accepted the proffered hand, his grip swallowing Shonai’s delicate fingers.

  ‘Goodbye, Uriel. I wish you well.’

  ‘Thank you, Governor Shonai. May the Emperor walk with you.’

  Mykola Shonai smiled and walked away, vanishing back into the shattered edifice of the palace.

  Uriel stood alone before Barzano’s grave and snapped smartly to attention.

  He saluted the inquisitor’s spirit and hammered his fist twice into his breastplate in the warrior’s honour to the fallen.

  Uriel marched to the edge of the garden where Pasanius awaited his captain, flexing the unfamiliar tendons of his new, mechanical arm. The massive sergeant looked up as his commander approached.

  ‘Still doesn’t feel right,’ he complained.

  ‘You’ll get used to it, my friend.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ grumbled Pasanius.

  ‘Are the men ready to depart?’ asked Uriel, changing the subject.

  ‘Aye, your warriors are ready to go home.’

  Uriel smiled at Pasanius’s unconscious use of the phrase ‘your warriors’. He rested his hand on the pommel of Idaeus’s power sword and clenched his fist over its golden skull.

  With the rebellion over, he had scoured the battlefield outside the prison complex, at last finding the broken blade. He had intended to repair the weapon, but for some reason he had not. Until now he had not realised why.

  The weapon was a symbol, a physical sign of his previous captain’s approval for the men of Fourth Company to follow. But now, in the crucible of combat, Uriel had proved his mettle and he no longer needed such a symbol. It had been Idaeus’s last gift to Uriel and he knew that it would find a place of honour in the Chapter’s reliquary.

  He would forge his own sword, just as he had forged his own company in battle.

  It was his company now. He was no longer filling the shadow of Idaeus or his illustrious ancestor, he was walking his own path.

  Captain Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines turned on his heel and together he and Pasanius marched towards the city walls where a Thunderhawk gunship awaited to take them aboard the Vae Victus.

  ‘Come, my friend. Let’s go home,’ said Uriel.

  EPILOGUE

  SEVENTY THOUSAND LIGHT years away, the star known to Imperial stellar cartographers as Cyclo entered the final stages of its existence. It was a red giant of some ninety million kilometres diameter and had burned for over eight hundred million years. Had it not been for the billowing black shape floating impossibly in the star’s photosphere and draining the last of its massive energies, it would probably have continued to do so for perhaps another two thousand.

  Normally, it generated energy at a colossal rate by burning hydrogen to helium in nuclear fusion reactions deep in its heart, but its core was no longer able to sustain the massive forces that burned within.

  Powerful waves of electromagnetic energy and sprays of plasma formed into a rippling nimbus of coruscating light that washed from the star in pulsing waves.

  The Nightbringer fed and grew strong again in the depths of the dying star.

  WARRIORS OF ULTRAMAR

  PHASE I – DETECTION

  PROLOGUE

  LOW CLOUDS SCUDDED across the dear blue sky of Tarsis Ultra, drifting in the light breeze that bent the fat stalks of corn stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see. The air was warm, scented with the pungent aroma of crops ready for harvest.

  A tall, high-sided vehicle lumbered through the gently waving fields on a road of hard-packed earth, flashing blades on extended tilt arms efficiently scything the crops on either side into a huge hopper on its back. The sun had yet to reach its zenith, but the hopper was almost full, the harvester having set off from the farming collective of Prandium before dawn’s first light had broken.

  Smoke from the harvester’s engine vented through a series of filters and was released in a toxin-free cloud above the small cab mounted on its frontal section.

  The harvester lurched as it veered to one side before one of the cab’
s two occupants pulled the control levers away from its more reckless driver.

  ‘Corin, I swear you drive this thing like a blind man,’ snapped Joachim.

  ‘Well I’m never going to get any better if you keep taking the controls from me,’ said Corin, throwing his hands up in disgust. He ran a gloved hand through his unruly mop of hair and stared in annoyance at his companion.

  Joachim felt his friend’s glare and said, ‘You almost had us in the irrigation ditch.’

  ‘Maybe,’ admitted Corin. ‘But I didn’t, did I?’

  ‘Only because I took over.’

  Corin shrugged, unwilling to concede the point, and allowed Joachim to continue driving the harvester in relative peace. He removed his thin gloves and flexed his fingers, attempting to work out the stiffness in his joints. Holding onto the juddering control columns of a harvester and trying to guide it around the huge fields was punishing work.

  These gloves are useless,’ he complained. ‘They don’t help at all.’

  Joachim grinned and said, ‘So you haven’t padded them out yet?’

  ‘No,’ replied Corin. ‘I was hoping your Elleiza would do it for me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath, she already runs after you like she was your wife.’

  ‘Aye!’ chucked Corin, ‘She’s a good lass. She looks after me well, so she does.’

  ‘Too well,’ pointed out Joachim. ‘It’s time you got your own woman to look after you. What about Bronagh, the medicae in Espandor? I heard that she was sweet on you.’

  ‘Bronagh. Ah, yes, she’s a girl of rare taste,’ laughed Corin.

  Joachim arched an eyebrow and was on the point of replying when the world exploded around them. A thunderous impact struck the side of the harvester and both men were hurled against the cab’s interior as the giant vehicle lurched sideways. Joachim felt blood on his scalp and reached for the controls as the harvester began to tip.

  He pulled back on the column, but it was too late, the left track slid from the road into the ditch and the entire vehicle rolled over.

  ‘Hold on!’ yelled Joachim as the harvester toppled onto its side with a crash of twisted metal. Broken glass showered them and Joachim felt a jagged edge slice open his temple. The harvester slammed down into the field, hurling giant clouds of corn and dust into the air as it toppled onto the dry earth. Its enormous tracks ground onwards, churning air as the engine continued to turn over.

  Almost a minute passed before the side door of the cab swung open and a pair of booted feet emerged. Gingerly, Joachim lowered himself out of the cab and splashed down into the knee-high water of the irrigation ditch that ran between the road and the field. He landed awkwardly and cursed, clutching his braised and gashed head. Corin groggily followed him into the ditch, cradling his arm close to his chest.

  Wordlessly, the two men surveyed the damage done to the harvester.

  The hopper was a twisted mass of buckled metal, smoking fragments and the stinking residue of burned corn all that remained of its centre section, where it appeared that something immensely powerful had struck.

  ‘Guilliman’s oath, what happened?’ asked Corin, breathlessly. ‘Did someone shoot at us?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ replied Joachim, pointing to a pillar of white smoke billowing skyward some hundred metres further into the field. ‘But whatever it was, I bet it’s got something to do with that.’

  Corin followed Joachim’s pointing hand and said, ‘What the hell is it?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if it’s a fire, we’ve got to get it out before the whole crop goes up.’

  Corin nodded and clambered painfully back into the harvester’s cab, unclipping a pair of fire extinguishers from its rear wall and dropping them down to Joachim. With some difficulty they climbed the sloping rockcrete wall of the ditch, Joachim turning to pull Corin up as he reached the top.

  Hurriedly, they made their way through the field, their passage made easier by virtue of the long, dark scar gouged in the earth that led towards the column of smoke.

  ‘By Macragge, I’ve never seen anything like this,’ wheezed Corin. ‘Is it a meteor?’

  Joachim nodded, then wished he hadn’t as hot stabs of pain thundered in his head. ‘I think so.’

  They reached the lip of the crater and pulled up in astonishment at what lay within.

  If it was a meteor, then it didn’t look anything like either man imagined it might. Roughly spherical and composed of a leprous brown material, it resembled a giant gemstone rippling in a heat haze. Its surface was smooth and glassy looking, presumably from its journey through the atmosphere. Now that they could see it clearly, the two men saw that it wasn’t smoke that billowed from the object in stinking waves, but steam. Geysers of the foul smelling vapour vented from cracks in its surface like leaks in a compressor pipe. Even from the edge of the crater they could feel the intense heat radiating from the object.

  ‘Well it’s not on fire, but it’s still damned hot,’ said Joachim. ‘We need to cool it down or it could still set light to the crop.’

  Corin shook his head and made the sign of the aquila over his heart. ‘No way. I ain’t going down there.’

  ‘What? Why not?’

  ‘I don’t like the look of that thing, Joachim. It’s bad news, I can feel it.’

  ‘Don’t be simple all your life, Corin. It’s just a big rock, now come on.’

  Corin shook his head vehemently and thrust the fire extinguisher he carried towards Joachim. ‘Here. You want to go down there, then go, but I’m going back to the harvester. I’m going to vox Prandium and get someone to come out and pick us up.’

  Joachim could see there was no arguing with Corin, and nodded.

  ‘I’m going to take a closer look,’ said Joachim. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Slinging an extinguisher over each shoulder, he picked his way carefully down into the crater.

  Corin watched him until he reached its base and turned back the way they had come. He touched his wounded arm, wincing as pain flared just above his elbow: it felt broken. He glanced over his shoulder, hearing a loud hissing, like water being poured on a hot skillet, but continued walking.

  The hissing continued, followed by an almighty crack.

  Then the screaming started.

  Corin jumped, spinning around as he heard Joachim shriek in agony. His friend’s scream was abruptly silenced, and a keening screech cut the air, utterly alien and utterly terrifying.

  Corin turned and sprinted back towards the harvester, fear lending his limbs extra speed.

  There was an autogun in the cab, and he desperately wished he’d brought it with him.

  He stumbled along the gouge torn in the earth, tripping on a buried root and falling to his knees. The thump of heavy footfalls sounded behind him. Something large and inhumanly quick was speeding through the corn. He could hear snapping stalks as it came nearer and nearer: Corin was in no doubt that it was hunting him.

  He moaned in fear, stumbling to his feet and running onwards. He risked a glance over his shoulder, seeing a blurred form ghost from sight into the swaying corn.

  The tread of something large seemed to come from all around him.

  ‘What are you?’ he screamed as he ran.

  He ran blindly, bursting from the corn and yelling as he fell headlong into the irrigation ditch. He landed hard, cracking his elbow against the rockcrete, swallowing a mouthful of brackish water as he screamed in pain. He scrambled backwards, spitting water and shaking his head clear.

  He looked up as a dark shape blotted out the sky above him.

  Corin blinked away the water in his eyes and saw his pursuer clearly.

  He drew breath to scream.

  But it was on him in a flurry of scything blows that tore him apart before he could give voice to it.

  A lake of blood spread from the dismembered corpse. Corin’s killer paused for the briefest second, as though scenting the air.

  It scrambled easily up the slope of the
ditch and set off in the direction of Prandium.

  PHASE II – APPROACH

  ONE

  THE BASILICA MORTIS was home to the Mortifactors.

  The ancestral home of the Mortifactors Chapter of Space Marines rotated slowly in the wan light of Posul and her faraway sun, its surfaces craggy and mountainous.

  For nearly ten thousand years, since the Chapter’s founder, Sasebo Tezuka, had been led here by the Emperor’s tarot, the Mortifactors had stood sentinel over the night world of Posul, and since that time, these holy knights of the Imperium had trained members of their warrior order within the walls of their orbiting fortress monastery.

  In appearance, it resembled some vast mountain range cast adrift in the void of space. The Imperium’s finest tech-priests and adepts had come together to create this orbiting fortress: the Basilica was a marvel of arcane technical engineering that had long since been forgotten.

  For millennia, the Mortifactors had sent warriors from the Basilica Mortis to fight alongside the armies of the Imperium in the service of the divine Emperor of Man. Companies, squads, crusaders and – three times – the entire Chapter had been called to war, most recently to fight the orks on the blasted wastes of Armageddon. The honours the Chapter had won rivalled even those of such legendary Chapters as the Space Wolves, Imperial Fists or Blood Angels.

  At full occupation, the monastery was home to the thousand battle-brothers of the Chapter and their officers, with a supporting staff of servitors, scribes, technomats and functionaries that numbered seven and a half thousand souls.

  Vast docks jutted from the prow of the adamantium mountain, spearing into space with slender silver docking rings rising from the jib. Two heavily armed Space Marine strike cruisers were berthed in the docks, with smaller, Gladius frigates and Hunter destroyers either returning or departing on patrol throughout the Mortifactors’ domain. Battle barges, devastating warships of phenomenal power, were housed in armoured bays deep in the bowels of the monastery, terrible weapons of planetary destruction held in their silent hulls.