Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  Cyrion cast a glance over his shoulder as they walked, his painted lightning tears splitting his helm’s cheeks with what seemed like jagged relish.

  ‘He is not Nostraman.’

  Mercutian, never given to laughter, actually smiled. ‘Almost half of the primarch’s Chosen were Terran, Cyrion. Do you remember when First Captain Sevatar fell? Do you recall the Atramentar breaking up into scattered packs, because they refused to serve Sahaal? There is an example in this. Think on it.’

  ‘I liked Sahaal,’ said Uzas, from nowhere. ‘I respected him.’

  ‘As did I,’ Mercutian allowed. ‘I had no affection for him, but I respected him. And even when the Atramentar disbanded after Sevatar’s death, we knew their resistance to Sahaal was born from something more than simple prejudice. Some of the First Company were Terran, the oldest warriors in the Legion. Even Malek was Terran. There was more to it than Sahaal’s birth world. Being Terran, Nostraman, or born of any other world has never mattered to most of us. The gene-seed blackens our eyes the same, no matter the world of our birth. We divide because with the primarchs gone, that is every Legion’s fate over time. We are warbands in a shared cause, with a shared legacy and ideology.’

  ‘It is not so simple.’ Cyrion wouldn’t be moved. ‘Variel’s eyes are not black. He carries Corsair gene-seed in his throat and chest.’

  Mercutian shook his head. ‘I am surprised you cling to the ancient prejudice, brother. It will be as you wish, for I am done with this discussion.’

  But Cyrion wasn’t, not yet. He vaulted a guardrail, dropping the ten metres to the platform below. His brothers followed in a pack.

  ‘Tell me something,’ he said, his voice less edged now. ‘Why did the First Company refuse to follow Sahaal?’

  Mercutian drew in air between clenched teeth. ‘I had little chance to speak with any of them. It didn’t seem to be because of any flaw with Sahaal as Sevatar’s replacement, and more due to the fact no one would ever live up to the true First Captain. No one could live up to him. The Atramentar would serve no other leader after Sevatar died; he’d made them into what they were, a brotherhood that couldn’t be broken any other way. Just as the Legion would serve no single captain after the primarch died. It is not our way. I doubt we’d even follow the primarch now. It has been ten thousand years of change, of war, of chaos, of pain and survival.’

  Uzas was trailing the inactive blade of his chainaxe across the iron wall, breeding a scraping shriek of metal on metal.

  ‘Sevatar,’ he said. ‘Did Sevatar die?’

  The others shared chuckles and snorts as First Claw’s wounded remnants walked on, deeper into the darkness that filled their home.

  Talos watched the moon come apart. In times past, he might have marvelled at the power he commanded. Now he watched in silence, trying not to overlay the image of the disintegrating moon with the memory of Nostramo dying in the same way.

  Rubicon-grade cyclonic torpedoes weren’t enough to annihilate an entire world, but they ate into the small moon with voracity and speed.

  ‘I want to hear the Shriek,’ he said as he stared.

  ‘Aye, lord.’ The Vox-mistress tuned the bridge’s speakers to project the aural aspect of Deltrian’s jamming field. Sure enough, the sound matched its name. The air was filled with ululating cries of sonic resonance, hateful and somehow organic. Beneath the cries, beneath the screams of rage and vox-crackling torment, a lone man’s voice fuelled it all.

  The tech-adept had been exquisitely proud of designing the interference projector, and Talos was accordingly grateful for it. The Shriek made hunting so much easier, when enemy vessels were rendered auspex-blind, feeling their way through the cold void without scanners. The power drain was significant, though. The Shriek cloaked them in their prey’s blindness, but suckled strength from every generator on the ship. They couldn’t fire their energy weapons. They couldn’t move at anything less than a half-speed crawl. They certainly couldn’t raise void shields – the deflector screens operated on similar tuning to the Shriek itself, and siphoned power from the same sources.

  Talos wondered what had happened on the enemy bridge, once the Shriek had caressed their systems. Secure in the cover of the moon’s shadow, had the Chapter serfs panicked when they lost contact with their masters in the boarding parties? Perhaps, perhaps not, but no Adeptus Astartes vessel would be crewed by weaklings. Those officers and servants would be the pinnacle of unaugmented human possibility, trained in war academies reminiscent of those on the worlds of Ultramar.

  The entire operation was flawlessly conducted according to their wretched Codex Astartes, from the precision first strike, through the meticulous and savage

  deck-by-deck fighting, to the cruiser’s withdrawal to buy its warriors more time.

  Victory would come by changing the nature of the game. Talos knew this, and never hesitated to cheat. Some cyclonic-grade weaponry ignited a planet’s atmosphere when used in conjunction with other orbital bombardment. This moon had no atmosphere to speak of, and no population to burn, making such weapons useless even if the Echo of Damnation had possessed them.

  Other cyclonics buried melta or plasma charges into a world’s core, triggering fusion effects to either force cataclysmic tectonic activity, or birth a lesser sun at the heart of the world. Either way, no world would survive. Most died within minutes, taking their populations with them.

  Rubicon-grade torpedoes were lesser examples of this latter breed. They were all Talos required. One would almost certainly be enough, but two would ensure the deed was done.

  First, he had blinded the enemy by the Shriek. They had no way of tracking the torpedoes cutting towards them, and no way of sensing their impact on the moon until it was too late. Within minutes, the burrowing missiles had done their work. He’d seen no need to destroy the entire moon in a pinpointed spherical detonation at its core. To that end, the cyclonics had struck high in the northern hemisphere, drilling into the salt flats of the barren polar caps. Rather than detonate in the planetoid’s core, they’d tunnelled through the moon’s scalp, inspiring tectonic instability as they exploded in a series of timed chain reactions close to the world’s far side, facing the enemy ship.

  The moon came apart. Not neatly, by any means. A quarter of its surface shattered, bursting out into the void with such speed that the Echo’s own hololithic display lagged in displaying the changes taking place. No more than three minutes after the torpedoes struck the moon’s surface, huge chunks of debris began to break free. Ravine-cracks cobwebbed across the satellite’s surface, disgorging an atmosphere of dust into the moon’s nearspace.

  ‘Kill the Shriek,’ Talos ordered. ‘Raise shields, arm weapons. All ahead full.’

  The Echo shivered as it came back to life, pushing though space with a shark’s hunger. The strategium deck fell into its familiar organised chaos as officers and servitors attended to their battle duties. The rattle and clank of levers mixed with the murmur of voices and the clatter of fingers on clicking keys.

  ‘Any sign of the Genesis cruiser?’ Talos asked from his central throne. On the occulus, the scalped moon was a sorry looking ruin, already half-surrounded by its new asteroid field.

  ‘I see them, sire.’ The Master of Auspex drew in a wet breath through his rebreather mask. ‘Rendering on the hololithic now.’

  At first, Talos couldn’t make out the vessel from the debris. The hololithic flickered with its usual unreliability, offering a scene with hundreds of targets. The moon’s ruptured edge was a ragged curve at the image’s side. Rocks of all shapes and sizes decorated the space above, along with a hazy mist representing particulate debris too small for focus on individual locks.

  There they were. The telltale forked prow of an Adeptus Astartes warship, and the runic signifiers of its weapons firing into the void. Talos watched the hololithic ship as it manoeuvred, suddenly finding itself at the heart
of an asteroid field, unloading its weapons on the surrounding rocks as it sought to cut its way free.

  He was almost disappointed they’d not been destroyed in the initial burst, but at least he could witness it first-hand now.

  ‘I cannot help but feel a moment of pride,’ he said to the crew, ‘You have done well, all of you.’

  The drifting rocks tumbled through space, crashing into each other and shattering into yet more rubble. Talos watched the hololithic display as several large chunks collided with the flickering ship. The primitive imaging program displayed little of the immense damage such impacts must be inflicting.

  ‘Bring us in for a visual confirmation.’ Talos knew that would involve a wait of several hours to close the distance, and an idea took root to pass the time and tip the odds further against the Genesis warriors on board.

  ‘Hail the enemy ship, and filter the feed so every vox outlet on the ship transmits the words we speak.’

  Vox-mistress Auri did as she was told. The bridge had fallen quiet after the Shriek was deactivated. Now it rang again with the voices carrying from the enemy cruiser. Monotone servitor voices formed a background chorus to the crumpling thuds of rocks impacting on the hull, and a resonant voice speaking breathlessly.

  ‘I am Captain Aeneas of the Diadem Mantle. I will not listen to your taunts, heretic, nor to your temptations.’ An explosion cut the Space Marine’s words off for a moment, punctuated by distant screams.

  ‘This is Talos of the warship Echo of Damnation. I will speak no taunts, merely truths. Your assault has failed, as has your flight from our vengeance. We are watching you die on our auspex hololiths even as we speak. If you have any last words, speak them now for posterity. We will remember them. We are the Eighth Legion, and our memories are long.’

  ‘Filthy, accursed traitors,’ crackled the reply.

  ‘He sounds angry,’ a nearby officer joked. Talos silenced him with a wordless glare.

  ‘Talos?’ came the captain’s voice again.

  ‘Yes, Aeneas.’

  ‘May you burn in whatever hell awaits the damned and the deceived.’

  Talos nodded, though his counterpart had no hope of seeing the gesture. ‘I am sure I will. But you will reach there before I do. Die now, captain. Burn and be mourned, for a wasted life.’

  ‘I fear no sacrifice. The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Imperium. In Guilliman’s name! Courage and hon–’

  The link went dead. On the hololithic display the runic symboliser of the enemy warship blinked out of existence at the core of the brutal asteroid storm.

  ‘The Diadem Mantle,’ said the Vox-mistress, ‘lost with all souls.’

  ‘Bring us closer to the debris field, and annihilate whatever remains with a volley from our prow armaments.’

  ‘Aye, lord.’

  Talos rose from his throne, weary and aching. ‘The entirety of our speech was broadcast across the ship?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye, lord.’

  ‘Good. May it dishearten the Genesis bastards still alive, to hear their captain die and their warship burn.’

  ‘Lord,’ began the Master of Auspex. ‘The use of torpedoes… That was a fine plan. It worked beautifully.’

  Talos paid him scarce heed. ‘As you say, Nallen.’ He gestured to the closest officer. ‘Kothis. You have the bridge.’

  The named officer didn’t salute. The masters paid no attention to such formalities. Still, he knew better than to sit in the lord’s throne. Instead, he stood by it, taking control over those hunched below him.

  Talos moved to the edge of the strategium, and lifted Xarl’s corpse onto his shoulders.

  ‘I am going to bury my brother. Summon me only if the need is dire.’

  It took almost an hour for First Claw to reach any of the other squads. Their journey through the Echo’s labyrinthine decks took them through chamber after chamber, tunnel after tunnel. At times they passed through crowds of idling slaves hiding in the dark, while other chambers were filled with the bustle of efficiency, as the Legion’s servants went about their duties. Minor repair crews and teams of menial slaves were in the majority. Several they passed looked mauled from encounters with the Genesis Chapter, and Cyrion had the uncomfortable feeling that the final crew casualty lists would number in the thousands.

  Mercutian was clearly thinking the same. ‘They hit us even harder than the Blood Angels hit the Covenant.’

  Cyrion nodded. Given the numbers of crew lost that night at Crythe, he’d not been keen to witness another boarding assault. Still, the Echo had the resources and manpower to compensate for such a grievous mauling; the Covenant hadn’t.

  As they walked, each of them grew aware of a moist, soft sound crackling over the vox. Uzas was licking his teeth again.

  ‘Stop that,’ Cyrion warned him.

  Uzas either didn’t hear or didn’t care. His blood-palmed helm didn’t even turn to regard the others.

  ‘Uzas.’ Cyrion resisted the urge to sigh. ‘Brother, you are doing it again.’

  ‘Hnh?’

  Despite Mercutian’s earlier lecture on prejudice, Cyrion didn’t think of himself as a petty creature. However, the endless run of Uzas’s tongue along his teeth was enough to make him grind his own.

  ‘You are licking your teeth again.’

  Variel cleared his throat with gentle politeness. ‘Why does that cause you irritation?’

  ‘The primarch did it. After he’d filed his teeth to points, he’d ceaselessly lick his teeth and lips while thinking, like some kind of animal. He’d often cut his tongue as he did it, and the blood would flow over his lips, driving us on edge with the scent.’

  ‘Intriguing,’ the Apothecary noted, ‘that a primarch’s blood should have such an effect. I have never envied you your existence in their shadows, but that sounds fascinating.’

  The others said nothing, showing just how much they cared to discuss that particular subject again.

  ‘I smell intestines,’ Uzas grunted as they entered another chamber.

  ‘I smell the Bleeding Eyes,’ said Cyrion.

  ‘Hail to First Claw,’ cawed a voice from above.

  They raised their bolters as one, aiming into the roof of the domed chamber. The room itself was a hollowed-out mess, signs of abandonment in every direction. A supply room or crew barracks, was Cyrion’s guess. Four hunched figures squatted in the rafters, barely visible between the tendrilous forest of chains hanging from the ceiling.

  Six Genesis warriors dangled, limp as broken marionettes, from hooks on the dirty chains. Their armour was torn open across each stomach – power cables split and layered ceramite shredded, pulled open by clawed hands. The flesh beneath was similarly mutilated, allowing their innards to rain in a slopping spill onto the decking below. Blood still dripped from three of them.

  Against his instincts, Cyrion lowered his bolter. These wretches were barely his brothers, but they were murder in a fight, and the warband was fortunate to have them. The problem was keeping them in the fights they joined. First in, they always claimed, and that was true enough. The fact was also true that they were also first out.

  ‘You have been busy,’ he said. Despite the distance, he caught a glimpse of one of them without its helm on. Blood coated its hands and what little he could see of its face, as it fed upon the organs of the hanging warriors. A scalp of black veins and misaligned bone was immediately covered by the traditional sloping, daemon-shrieking helm.

  ‘Throne of Lies,’ he swore.

  ‘What?’ Mercutian asked, keeping his voice low.

  ‘The warp beats in their blood more than I realised.’

  The Raptors shared a series of clicks and growls, passing as discussion between the pack. One of them hissed at the Night Lords below, the sound breaking off into a rasping vox-cackle.

  ‘This deck is clean, First C
law. We cleaned it of enemy heartbeats.’ The Raptor’s head jerked twice, on a twitching neck. ‘You seek Lucoryphus?’

  Cyrion shook his head. ‘No. We are moving through to the Hall of Reflection. We seek Deltrian.’

  ‘Then you seek Lucoryphus. He stands with the machine-speaker.’

  ‘Very well. Our thanks to you.’ Cyrion waved his brothers forward. First Claw walked around the hanging bodies, giving them a wide berth. The Bleeding Eyes never reacted well to others interfering with their kills, or with the feasts that followed.

  As First Claw passed, one of the Raptors ignited the thrusters on its back, diving down from the ceiling with a thrust of smoky engine flare, sinking his claws into the exposed meat of a dead warrior’s torso. First Claw paid no heed, and moved ahead without a word.

  The man was only a man in the loosest, most physiological sense. He had no comprehension that he’d ever possessed a name, nor was he truly sentient beyond an ability to express the same tortured emotion over and over again. His existence was divided into two planes of experience, which his strangled mind interpreted as Torpor and Scourging.

  In moments of Torpor, which lasted for oceans of time between Scourges, he drifted in a milky haze of numbing sensation, doing nothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing but an eternity of weightlessness and the taste of salty chemicals in his lungs and throat. The only thing that could be generously interpreted as thought was the faint, distant echo of anger. He didn’t feel fury itself, but rather the memory of it: a recollection of once knowing rage, without knowing why.

  When the Scourging came, it came in a storm of pain. The anger rose again, sparking through the veins of his head like misfiring power cables. He’d feel his jaws opening, his tongueless mouth silently screaming into the cold nothingness that cocooned him.

  After a time, the pain would fade, and the false anger it brought would drift away with it.