[Dawn of War 03] - Tempest

by C. S. Goto - (ebook by Undead)

  Nobody offered any response to Korinth’s objections. They just ignored him, busying themselves with heavy equipment and supplies, loading them into the nearest Thunderhawk and then bracing them into harnesses for the journey. A gaggle of servitors and serfs milled around the hull, directed by sharp shouts from Techmarine Ephraim. They were making some modifications to the structure of the gunship, adding a series of new sensor-arrays and shield relays.

  Korinth turned to Zhaphel, who was standing to one side of the Thunderhawk with his Dorian force-axe slung imposingly over his shoulder. Under his other arm was his helmet. His golden eyes glinted from behind a careless mess of hair, and the mark of the Order Psykana shimmered faintly like a third eye, but he did not turn to meet his battle-brother’s gaze. He appeared lost in contemplation, watching the events unfold before him as though quite detached from them.

  This is a step too far, Yupres. Surely you can see that. It is one thing to have faith in the captain or even to obey him, but it is quite another to condone foolishness or even heresy.

  Very slowly, Zhaphel turned his head towards Korinth, bringing his golden eyes to meet the uneven, red and black gaze of his comrade. He said nothing, but his silence said it all. Nobody ever called him Yupres any more; it was the name that his mother had given him when he was born. It didn’t belong to him any more. The galaxy had changed utterly since the last time that anyone had uttered that name, and he had changed even more.

  We are explorers, Korinth. We are bound by duty and by nature. And that was it. No arguments, just statements of fact. There will be no talk of heresy today.

  A rush of movement from the other Space Marines next to the Thunderhawk’s ramp drew the Librarian’s attention over to the main hangar doors. They rolled open, withdrawing into the ceiling of the docking bay to reveal an unlikely group of figures. Captain Angelos was there with Father Librarian Urelie and Apothecary Medicius. Between them they were carrying a large, heavy throne, in which was slumped the broken and contorted figure of the eldar seer. Even from that distance, Korinth could see the toxic, alien blood coursing out of the wounds that had opened up around the couplings and connectors that had been pushed into the witch’s flesh. If she had been human, Korinth would have given her up for dead.

  Tanthius and Corallis leapt down from the interior of the Thunderhawk and dashed over to assist their captain, pounding across the metal floor with heavy boots.

  As the group approached the gunship, Gabriel and Jonas broke away, letting the others carry the alien up the ramp into the Thunderhawk, trusting that they would take appropriate care of her.

  “Ephraim,” called Gabriel, looking up onto the roof of the gunship to find the Techmarine in the eerie pulsing red light. “You will be needed inside. She is here.”

  “As you wish, captain,” replied Ephraim, vaulting down and swinging himself around into the open hatch.

  At last, Gabriel turned to face Korinth. “I am honoured that you will be joining us, Librarian Korinth. Jonas speaks most highly of your abilities. I am sure that you will be an asset to us in the difficult times ahead.” For a moment, the captain was perturbed by the Librarian’s mismatched, red and black eyes.

  Korinth bowed uneasily. “Thank you, captain.”

  On the fringe of the greetings, Zhaphel nodded his silent assent.

  “Captain…”

  “Yes, Librarian. Speak your mind. There can be no doubts after this. It is a step with no guarantees of return. Besides,” he smiled weakly, “questions are what make us Blood Ravens.”

  Korinth nodded, acknowledging the captain’s integrity despite his prejudices. “I have concerns about this course of action, captain. Placing the alien in charge of the Spirit was further than most servants of the Emperor would be prepared to travel on this road, but I can understand your reasoning. That is why we are here,” he said, implicitly including Zhaphel. “But this is no longer merely a question of accepting the guidance of an alien. This Thunderhawk is simply incapable of functioning in the warp—it has no warp shields and is too small to have any fitted. Even with the best guidance in the world, I do not think that this course of action is anything other than suicide.”

  Gabriel nodded gravely. “I understand your concerns, Korinth, and I share them. I cannot allay your fears with words of reason; I can only appeal to your faith. I know that this will work. My faith is not based on the words of Taldeer, but rather on the certainties of the Emperor’s will. I have… I have seen the Emperor’s approval.”

  Korinth’s uneven eyes flashed with shock, and Zhaphel took an involuntary step towards them. Even Jonas looked pained.

  “You claim to have seen the Emperor’s will?” Korinth made no attempt to disguise his incredulity. He had previously dismissed the whispered rumours about the captain’s visions as malicious lies designed to further discredit the Commander of the Watch. Rumours had a tendency to morph and swell, as though they had lives of their own—scholars had to cultivate a healthy scepticism about them. But Gabriel was not an astropath, not even a sanctioned psyker; to receive any kinds of visions would be grounds for prosecution by the Ordo Hereticus.

  “Do not misunderstand me, Librarian,” continued Gabriel, seeing the change in Korinth’s eyes and feeling the abrupt increase in tension from the other Librarians. He weighed his words, but there was no apology or doubt in them. “This is the intuition of a scholar. The greatest advances in our knowledge have been made through leaps of intuition. Rational thought and deduction can take us only so far—using them we can never move beyond the evidence that we have at hand. Yet it would be foolish to believe that we have in our possession all of the possible evidence about any issue. Even the great Librarium Sanctorum on the Omnis Arcanum has gaps in its records, holes in the historical archive, entire systems about which nothing is known at all. Ignorance of a thing does not mean that it is not real; it means only that we have not yet discovered it. Is it not the task of the explorer and the researcher to discover the undiscovered… to reach for the unknown with the certainty—the faith—that it is there?”

  “This is not a question of faith, Angelos,” said Zhaphel. There was a complicated respect beneath his gruff address. “Not in you, not in the Emperor. This is a question of technology. The Thunderhawk cannot shield us from the daemonic energies of the warp. At best, we will die fighting.”

  “That is always the best that we can hope for, Zhaphel.” Gabriel smiled. “The problem is that the rupture in the webway is too small for the Ravenous Spirit to fit through,” said Jonas, realising that the captain was not addressing the concerns of the Librarians. It was almost as though Gabriel didn’t understand the nature of their concerns, which worried the father Librarian. “The eldar seer has brought us this far, and our trust in her has proven to be justified. Of this much we can be certain, brothers; as you saw, the journey has been at a great personal cost to her. In order to enter the webway and follow it to our destination, we have no choice but to attempt it in a smaller vessel. The Thunderhawks are all we have.” He paused.

  Brothers, I would not ask this of anyone, but you are sworn to complete the Summoning of the Exodus—if Rhamah can still be recovered, then this is our only chance. The tear in the webway was probably caused by his fall. All of our fates lie beyond this choice—we should make this stand together. Who better than the Librarians of the Order Psykana should stand against the warp?

  “The Thunderhawk has been modified according to the specifications of Taldeer. The eldar have superior knowledge of the warp, and we should not be afraid to acknowledge this,” continued Gabriel, aware that his position on this matter was more than controversial. “Seer Taldeer says that she will be able to protect a gunship as small as a Thunderhawk for a short period. The Ravenous Spirit is close enough to the breach in the webway to ensure only a brief exposure to the warp before the Thunderhawk penetrates the structure. Once inside, we will be shielded by the architecture of the webway itself. She will need your support, Librarians. This i
s not an impossible task.”

  “Captain!” The call came from inside the hull of the Thunderhawk. After a couple of seconds, Corallis appeared at the top of the ramp. “The alien is in place. Medicius and Ephraim have installed her, and the Litanies of Pacification have been performed to honour the vessel’s machine spirit. Medicius is about to return to the Implantation Chamber to oversee the next phase of the young Ckrius’ treatment. We are as ready as we will ever be, captain.”

  “Thank you, sergeant,” nodded Gabriel, turning back to regard the Librarians, waiting for their judgment. “Well, brothers?”

  There was a long pause. “It will be as you say, captain,” said Zhaphel finally. He nodded deferentially and then strode up the ramp into the Thunderhawk.

  Korinth watched his battle-brother ascend into the gunship and then dropped his uneven eyes back into the blue-green sheen of Gabriel’s gaze. For a number of seconds he said nothing, simply staring into Gabriel’s eyes, searching for a sign of corruption or of purity. Then he turned slowly to face Jonas. We will see this done. Knowledge is power. He was resolved. Bowing sharply he strode up the ramp after Zhaphel.

  The broken and bloodied bodies of eldar Harlequins littered the floor of the librarium. With their holo-suits and domino-fields destroyed, the aliens looked effete and feeble; their dramatic and menacing visage was reduced to pantomime, and their bright colours were dulled by the ichorous coat of toxic blood. Intermixed amongst the turgid eldar bodies were the magnificent shapes of a handful of Prodigal Sons, each having fallen in the craze of battle in the librarium. A couple of the Marines were still alive, but they had terrible slash-wounds inflicted by the eldar powerblades. Two of the dead Marines were ruined beyond recognition. They had been riddled with fire from the Harlequins’ shrieker cannons, filling their superhuman blood stream with virulent toxins that excited the nervous system into overdrive: their armour had cracked and blown apart from the inside as their bodies had exploded from within.

  Only a single Harlequin remained alive. It had been backed into a dark corner of the librarium, in amongst the book stacks. A knot of five Prodigal Sons were arrayed in a crescent around it, preventing it from escaping, jabbing it occasionally with their blades and shooting random volleys of bolter shells into the floor, walls and ceiling around it. For its part, the alien looked wracked with fear and panic, but it emitted no sound at all. It merely stared, wide-eyed and maniacal, like a caged animal.

  It makes no noise. It looked different from the Harlequins in the rest of the troupe. The colours on its armour were more understated and subtle; its build was even more delicate but its movements were so graceful that they seemed like poetry. Standing in the midst of the corpses, I watched Ahriman stride over towards the prisoner, trampling over the bodies of eldar and Marines without regard.

  Distaur.

  The word floated easily into my mind, as though Ahriman were answering my unspoken questions once again. He showed no sign of paying me any attention, and his back was to me. I wondered whether he was sharing his knowledge with all of the Marines in the room. Distaur—it means “mime.” These are unusual and rare specimens, my sons. We should treat it carefully.

  As Ahriman approached, the formation of Prodigal Sons parted to let him through. With a single stride, the sorcerer brought himself close to the Harlequin mime, watching it squirm and writhe in an attempt to keep some distance between them. For a few moments, Ahriman did nothing; close enough to feel the creature’s breath, he just watched the discomfort of the alien, as though he were studying its reactions. Then suddenly, without provocation or warning, Ahriman’s hand shot out and clasped around the eldar’s throat. He lifted the creature easily into the air, bringing its masked face level with his own unearthly features, feeling its limbs twitching and tensing against the violence being done to its neck.

  Distaur—mime—let’s see whether you are really mute, or whether there is anything you can tell us about this place.

  The glittering Wraithship Eternal Star flashed into the outskirts of the Lorn system, its wings swept back like a speeding raptor. In close formation behind it was the sleek and dark form of the Ghost Dragon, Avenging Sword. The two eldar cruisers decelerated rapidly as they entered planetary space, checking their movement against the complex gravitational forces and suddenly surrounded by chunks of tumbling space debris.

  Deep within the shimmering structure of the Eternal Star, Farseer Macha sat in focussed mediation. Her Wraithship fluttered and flashed in accord with her will, darting and weaving through the outskirts of the system, sliding in between the asteroids and rolling chunks of junk. The cruiser’s movement was organic and fluid, as though it were a living entity, or an extension of the farseer’s will.

  On the bridge of his Ghost Dragon, Uldreth the Avenger kept his eyes on the ethereal gleam of Macha’s vessel. He marvelled at its beauty and elegance. Wraithships were rare and ancient vessels, and Uldreth never ceased to be awed by their bird-like grace—the Eternal Star touched something primeval in his soul, speaking to him of the nature of his people. In comparison, his sleek and dangerous Dragon-class cruiser seemed cold and overly technological; it swerved and manoeuvred with perfect precision in the wake of the farseer’s ship. For a moment, Uldreth realised that his appreciation of the Wraithship was intermixed in his mind with a sense of the beauty of Macha herself. He realised that his heart was still filled with relief that the farseer was alive.

  The Avenging Sword snapped abruptly to one side, rolling over on its axis as though in an evasive manoeuvre. Flicking his attention away from the dancing light of the Eternal Star, Uldreth suddenly realised what had happened in the Lorn system. The whole system was littered with wreckage and debris. Ruined cruisers and gunships tumbled lifelessly through the void. There were clumsy mon-keigh vessels intermixed with the ruined shapes of shattered Shadowhunters. Massive and unspeakably ugly greenskin hulks bled fuel as they slowly disintegrated. Spinning chunks of rock rained past the Sword like asteroids, but they had such velocity that they must have been the debris scattered after a massive explosion.

  As the eldar cruisers approached Lorn VII, a monstrous glowering gas giant of a planet, Uldreth’s heart sank. Emerging from the far side of the planet, locked into a declining orbit by the gravitational pull of the vast planet, the exarch saw the familiar shape of a Dragon-class cruiser, emblazoned with the iconography of Biel-Tan. The long, slender craft was lifeless. Its majestic star-sloop, which projected out of the hull like the dorsal fin of a predatory fish, was torn and holed. The weapons batteries at the prow had been completely blown away, leaving the fuselage ruptured and gaping into the void of space. The entire front end of the once-beautiful vessel had been pummelled into hideousness.

  Uldreth recognised the cruiser at once. It was the Exaltation; one of the most ancient vessels from the Biel-Tan fleet, built so long ago that not even the oldest of the craftworld could remember its origins. Legend told that its name was given in honour of Khaine himself: it was a weapon worthy of his praise; its violence exalted the Bloody-Handed God. It was Taldeer’s ship.

  This is not your doing. Macha’s thoughts were calm and full of compassion, but they pressed forcefully into Uldreth’s mind. She knew him well, and she knew how he would react to these revelations.

  Scans of the rest of the system revealed that there was not a single functioning Biel-Tan vessel, other than the two cruisers. However, the sensors indicated the presence of Yngir technology, mostly in the form of fragmented and inconsistent signals.

  What have I done? Uldreth’s mind recoiled, his sense of guilt overriding his reason until he was unable to engage with Macha’s thoughts. Remorse and regret hammered into his head, obliterating the farseer’s attempts at reassurance. The Yngir were here too.

  Taldeer saw this and she embraced her visions. You could not stand in her way, Uldreth of the Dire Avengers. You sent her with a glorious army at her disposal. You were right. Not even I could see the echoes of the ascension in Lorn.
Not even I could see beyond the battles of Lsathranil’s Shield. We made our choices, and now we are here. You cannot be blamed for a lack of far-sight—if there is guilt here, it is mine alone. But the question is not what we should have done differently in the past; it is rather what we can do to shape the future into our favour. The past is untouchable; the future is yet to be chosen. There was a pause, as though Macha were concentrating. Taldeer’s role in the future has not yet been eradicated. This is not yet over.

  As the cruisers approached the wreckage of the Exaltation they cleared the horizon of Lorn VII. In the distance, in a tight orbit around the fifth planet, Uldreth and Macha could see a small, malformed moon, glinting with metallic menace. Automatically magnified by their viewscreens, they could see that it was no moon. The massive, cumbersome and ugly shape was a mon-keigh vessel—recognisable as a battle-barge. It appeared slightly damaged, but scans showed that it was fully operational. Debris and damaged vessels floated in a loose orbit around it, sometimes crashing against its armour or plunging down into the atmosphere of the planet like a rain of fire. A familiar insignia was emblazoned across the hull: a glistening droplet of blood-red was surrounded by broad black wings. Macha had seen that symbol before. Gabriel.

  Even across the distance of space that separated the two eldar cruisers, the farseer could sense the wave of hostility and suspicion that flooded out of Uldreth’s mind as the mon-keigh vessel appeared on their screens.

  The warp roiled with curdling energies, twisting itself into a thickening mire of congealing clouds and reaching tendrils. The pristine golden tube of the webway was assailed on all sides, as though the daemonic forces could sense that it was a possible route out of their limbo and into the material realms. The little breach in its structure was alive with unearthly colours and violence, as though the warp itself were being drawn through it in a massive swirling vortex.