Deathwatch

by Steve Parker

  ‘The Ultramarine crossed the line, sergeant,’ he told Kulle, ‘but my response crossed it further. I will endure whatever punishment I must.’

  ‘We shall see,’ said Kulle. ‘For my part, I say he had it coming, but I shall have to consult with the council.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Now,’ said the Silver Skull, ‘get your team down here and prep for the next run. You’ve got six minutes.’ After a pause, he added, ‘I’ll have to work out how to report this.’

  Karras halted on the stairs, unable to believe what he was hearing.

  ‘Are you serious, sergeant?’ he asked. ‘We’re to run the exercise again?’

  ‘I don’t joke about kill-block training, Librarian. Not ever. Get down here and prep for infil. We’ve still got five seconds to cut!’

  9

  Captain Dozois’s farewell surprised Varlan with its brevity. She had gotten deeper under his skin than she had realised. He was bitter and angry, and he struggled visibly to keep it in check. During a descent that felt much longer than it was, he refused to look at her. When addressed, he clenched his jaw and offered only one-word answers or made short, mumbled comments mostly directed at himself. That suited Varlan fine. She was relieved when they finally hit groundside, knowing the moment she would be free of his company was close at hand. Even then, however, with the cargo shuttle settling on its thick metal feet, Dozois sat tense, barely looking at her across the craft’s well-appointed passenger cabin. She half expected him to order her out.

  There was the matter of his fee, of course, and for that, he finally had to engage her directly. Varlan, or rather Lady Fara as she was still known to him, presented a black case made of a hard, light ceramic. Dozois placed the case on his lap, entered the code exactly as the lady instructed, and opened it. The gems within sparkled in the light from the overhead lumes. He called a child-sized servitor out from an alcove in the wall and had it run a substance analysis. Emeralds from the vaults of House Devanon, just as agreed. Superb quality. Everything checked out. Paid in full, he closed the case and handed it to his first officer, Sarapho, whom he ordered to await him in his quarters.

  When the doors hissed shut behind Sarapho’s back, Dozois stood stiffly and offered his hand. ‘Our business is concluded, Lady Fara,’ he said coolly, meaning to dismiss her without further ado.

  Varlan stood, much amused by the change in his demeanour since earlier in the day, and took the outstretched hand. She noted that he did not give hers a playful squeeze this time. He had abandoned all hope at last. Throne knew, it had taken long enough. If only the captain of the Macedon had been a woman, Varlan thought to herself.

  ‘Will you be staying groundside for long, captain?’ she asked.

  ‘A week, perhaps,’ Dozois replied, not quite meeting her gaze. ‘Maybe two. We’ll secure provisions, fuel and such – see what the locals have to offer by way of trade goods. I have other concerns awaiting my attention, however, so I can’t dally overlong on this rock. I doubt our paths will cross again before I return to my ship.’

  ‘Oh, how regrettable,’ Varlan lied, and did not care that he knew it. ‘Still, such is the busy life of a starship captain. I shan’t keep you. I shall simply thank you again for your hospitality and wish you every success.’

  If it was a polite smile Dozois attempted, he failed. It came out as a bizarre sort of anguished sneer.

  ‘Emperor guide you and watch over you, lady,’ he said without feeling, and promptly released her hand.

  Varlan turned and strode to the cabin’s forward exit. Before she passed beyond it, she stopped to nod her thanks one last time, half expecting the captain’s eyes to be on her as usual. But Dozois was already making for the other exit in the far wall.

  She didn’t quite know if she felt perversely disappointed or satisfied, or both.

  One week, she thought. Maybe two. Will this operation be concluded by then? I’d not travel with him outwards unless so ordered. Better to wait for a Mechanicus ship, though the next won’t be due for months.

  She’d know better after consulting with the Ordo’s assets on the ground.

  Minutes later, descending the shuttle’s ramp to the black rockcrete of the landing field, Varlan was met by her aides, Oroga and Myrda. The twins fell in behind her, walking in step, lens-eyes scanning the tall stacks of cargo crates for any sign of threat. Their heavy arm-augmetics were concealed by coat sleeves and kratyd-skin gloves. Knives and stunners were likewise well concealed. To the untrained eye, they would have seemed mere aides. To the trained, they would have appeared bodyguards, for they moved with a predator’s balance and grace. In truth, they filled both roles, allowing Varlan to maintain such a small retinue that she tended to draw far less attention than she otherwise might. Accountability was forever an issue in her work. She was under no illusions about that; drawing an excess of scrutiny by storming around cities with a large, intimidating group of oath-bonded warriors and agents would render her far less useful to His Lordship. While her false identity remained solid, she had undercover access to Imperial social strata beyond what could normally be reached. Lady Fara Devanon had as comprehensive and verifiable a history as any member of a minor House, even if it was entirely fabricated. Varlan would do nothing to jeopardise that. Which is why, when a gaggle of short men in blue tunics walked out to meet her from the space port’s main arrivals building, she hid her irritation. She had suspected this might happen. From the moment Chiaro GDC had received the Macedon’s passenger list, her name would have been flagged. Nobility always drew note. Sure enough, the local governor had sent his agents to greet her, and here they were.

  The men, of which there were four, stopped in Varlan’s path and bowed low. She sensed Oroga and Myrda readying themselves for violence – a subtle repositioning apparent only to her. The twins were as adept at concealment as she was. Their readiness to kill was a thing sensed on the air rather than seen. It seemed that the men in blue tunics did not sense it. They paid no heed whatsoever.

  Or perhaps they do, and are themselves adept at concealment.

  An interrogator took nothing at face value.

  As the men emerged from their bows, one spoke. ‘Do I have the honour of addressing the notable and esteemed Lady Fara Devanon?’ he said, his tone high, slightly wheezy, like wind in a hollow reed.

  ‘To whom would I be responding, sir?’ replied Varlan with a demure smile.

  The man returned the smile broadly, though the gesture did not reach his eyes. Varlan thought it gave him the aspect of a frightened ape.

  ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘we are aides to the Lord High Arbitrator Nenahem Sannra, Planetary Governor of Chiaro under His Holiness the Emperor of Mankind. My name is Suliman, though you may call me Sul if it pleases you. I am Aide Primaris to the Lord High Arbitrator.’

  ‘Then I bid you well met, Sul, and I ask what business you have with me. I have only just arrived from a seven-week warp journey. You will understand if suitable lodgings and rest are my current priority.’

  Sul dipped his bald, liver-spotted head. He was not a young man. ‘Indeed, ma’am,’ he said. ‘But perhaps, on that very matter, I can speak to your benefit, for my lord has sent me to ask that you and your party take accommodation in his Cholixe apartments. So fine and noble a visitor is rare on Chiaro, and my lord wishes to extend to you his hospitality. He tells me that the Houses of Sannra and Devanon may actually be related through a distant link with House Nandol.’

  Varlan allowed herself a smile at that, well aware that her own master had arranged for this false information to be inserted into the relevant archives during her voyage here. ‘Indeed. My paternal grandfather mentioned such to me once, as I recall. We lament the passing of House Nandol. Much was lost when they fell into ruin.’

  Sul’s expression spoke of a sorrow unfelt, but well feigned, ‘Much was lost,’ he echoed, ‘but perhaps not all if a distant connection would persuade you to accept my lord’s courtesy.’

  Varlan
had already decided it suited her to accept. Whatever lay ahead for her, currying the favour of the supreme authority on the planet ought to prove valuable. If not, it would further cement her false identity at the very least.

  ‘Then the offer is accepted with gratitude,’ she told Sul. ‘However, I have certain commercial interests to which I must first attend. They should not take up more than an hour or so.’ Here, she gestured to the tall stacks of metal crates to the left of the drop-shuttle – her cargo, already unloaded by the space port’s servitors and slaves. Each crate bore the interlocking three-moon design of the seal of her purported House. ‘Confer with my aide,’ she said, indicating Myrda. ‘When my business here is concluded, we shall be glad to follow your directions to the Lord High Arbitrator’s estate.’

  ‘You need follow no directions, my lady,’ said Sul. ‘We have armoured transports awaiting your leisure. We shall take you to my lord’s apartments ourselves if you’ve no objection. But, please, do not hurry yourself on our account. We are instructed to wait as long as need be.’

  Armoured, thought Varlan. He needn’t have said that. Interesting that he chose to. It seems all is not well on Chiaro, and the planetary governor is aware of it. Let us hope he is as free with his tongue as he is with his accommodation.

  ‘Your master’s kindness is much appreciated,’ Varlan told the little man. ‘As is your service. Myrda? If you would, my dear.’

  Myrda stepped forwards, introduced herself to the men in blue, and herded them away from the interrogator. Varlan maintained a grateful smile until their backs were turned. Then she spoke in urgent undertones to Oroga, who remained by her side.

  ‘The cargo?’ she asked.

  ‘It will be taken to a storage facility close to the city centre,’ answered Oroga in his deep baritone. ‘The port servitors will start loading it onto freight cars as soon as you give the word. The buyers’ representatives will inspect it this evening.’

  ‘Have the servitors start loading at once. As for the buyers, encourage a bidding war for the sake of our cover. The sale itself is in your hands. Allow it to drag on if you can. We’ve no idea how much time we’ll need here. If matters on Chiaro require our attention long-term, we’ll have to contrive a solid pretence. Have you contacted the asset?’

  Oroga nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am. He was waiting for us nearby. I received a coded burst transmission three minutes after we landed. He seems well informed. He has secured a meeting place and awaits you there now. Access is by a small equipment storage hut to the left of the main arrivals building. It’s just over there. You should be able to slip inside without drawing attention. Use the building’s shadow. I’ve remotely disabled the appropriate lumes.’

  Varlan turned and looked over at a little concrete block with a metal door, hardly discernable at all but for the lamps around the landing port’s perimeter and the lit windows of the arrival and departure buildings.

  Cholixe is so dark, she thought. Eternal twilight. No true day. No true night. That ought to serve us well. Always in shadow are the affairs of the Inquisition conducted.

  ‘Neither myself nor Myrda had time to green-light the structure, ma’am,’ said Oroga. ‘Give the word and I shall go in your stead.’

  ‘We’re sure Asset 16 sent the message?’

  ‘Identicode verification was immediate. It was a Thanatos-level code. Those codes are still listed green. They have not been compromised.’

  ‘Then I will go alone.’ She tapped her throat three times and Oroga nodded. He reached up and tapped his own twice. In her ear, Varlan heard the clicks.

  Good. We have line-of-sight comms at least.

  The implanted vox-comms augmentation she shared with her two aides was working as intended for now. She’d test it from inside the rendezvous structure to verify non-LoS capability. She didn’t hold out much hope, however. Chiaro’s rare metals were known to cause problems with small-scale, non-shielded communications devices.

  ‘We’ll take advantage of the Lord High Arbitrator’s offer for now,’ she told Oroga. ‘See where that leads us. I’ll know more once I debrief Asset 16. Now, walk with me towards the arrivals building. When I break away for the rendezvous, keep walking to the main door, then wait for me in the shadows there. I’ll vox if I need you.’

  ‘I’ll be ready,’ said Oroga, falling into step.

  ‘I know you will,’ said Varlan, and she set off across the dark rockcrete.

  Having dismissed his pilot, ordering the man to get some rest, Higgan Dozois used the cargo shuttle’s forward vid-picters to watch Lady Fara discreetly from the cockpit. On the main monitor, he saw her strike out for the arrivals building, then peel away from her aide, the male one, as they entered thick shadow. For a moment, he lost sight of her there. Then he saw movement – a door quickly opened and quickly shut, a slender figure passing within. He would not have seen anything at all but for the very dimmest orange glow of a work-lume somewhere inside the small square structure.

  That was a utility hut. What was she doing? Why hadn’t she gone straight to passenger processing?

  From that moment, he discovered a burning need within him, a fire fed by seven weeks of frustration. There was something strange about Lady Fara Devanon, he convinced himself. He should have seen it before. She was not right somehow.

  He decided a foolish thing then.

  He decided to make her business his own.

  10

  Hour after endless hour the Space Marines drilled; over and over again in every conceivable form of close combat and small-unit special operations. The programme was organised into ten-hour cycles. First, the trainees would assemble in the main chapel for fifteen minutes of litany led by a senior Watch Chaplain called Qesos, a tall Space Marine of the Revilers Chapter with an unusually narrow frame and gaunt features. Despite his somewhat spare physique, his words smote the dank air of the nave like hammer on anvil, firing the blood of the assembled Space Marines for the rigours of the exercises to come.

  After prayers, in which they petitioned the Emperor and the primarchs for increases in their already formidable skills, the Space Marines would assemble in the East Auditorium – a large skylighted hall hung with banners and pennants recalling the most glorious endeavours of those who had been trained here in days past. It was here, in this auditorium, facing the newest oath-takers on the tiered stone benches, that the Watch captains would announce the cycle’s squad allocations and outline the training ahead. After this, there would be stern reminders, if any were needed, of the codes and strictures under which all those accepted into the Watch were expected to operate. During these, there were no small amount of side glances cast between bitter rivals. Already, Brother Keanor of the Dark Angels had engaged in unsanctioned combat — too artful to be labelled brawling — with brothers from not one but three other Chapters. Likewise Brother Iddecai of the Minotaurs had been involved in his fair share of violent encounters, though in his particular case, it was clear to all that Iddecai had been the instigator each time.

  The Watch Council punished these infractions through a combination of verbal denouncement – a stain on the honour of those involved – and something far, far worse. For as many cycles as was deemed necessary, the transgressor was incarcerated in a Penance Box – essentially a coffin, of height and width barely greater than his own. Locked in and fitted with a heavy psychostim helm, he was forced to endure sensorium feeds in which brothers from his own Chapter faced off against overwhelming enemy forces. These feeds had been recorded during real wars in days long past, and the penitent Space Marine sentenced to endure them now was helpless to do anything as he saw and felt those around him – his blood, his kin – cut to pieces by enemy fire or torn to red tatters by claw and fang. It was a terrible punishment, for it struck at the very heart of the those who received it.

  Brotherhood: was there anything more important to a Space Marine? One fought for the Emperor, true. But one died for one’s brothers.

  Even Iddecai, forced to e
xperience the three hundred years-past slaughter of over sixty fellow Minotaurs at the hands of a vast eldar host, found the burning anguish too much to bear. It quickly dampened his hunger for picking fights with other Deathwatch trainees.

  Karras had wondered if he, too, would be punished after the incident with the Ultramarine. But, due in great measure to the phrasing of Kulle’s report, it did not come to that. At the end of the exercise at kill-block Ophidion, Kulle had ordered him to the apothecarion so that his implant might be examined and, despite appearing to function as expected, be replaced.

  Karras had accepted the new implant in cold silence tinged with a mixture of resentment and lingering shame.

  With prayers and tencycle squad allocations over, the Space Marines would leave the East Auditorium, moving to pre-arranged assembly points in the groups to which they had been assigned. There, a Watch sergeant would brief them further and accompany them to the relevant training facility. Most of the Deathwatch training in those first hundred cycles centred around the kill-blocks. There were over thirty of them, each of varying size and complexity, each configurable to a given scenario. No Chapter in all Imperial space boasted such fine training facilities, but then no Chapter placed such singular emphasis on covert anti-xenos operations. Stormraven drops, special weapons and equipment training, fast-roping, stealth infiltration, asset recovery, assassination – all this and much more, the new arrivals studied and practised over and over until it came as natural to them as breathing. They learned fast, for even among Space Marines they were the chosen elite, and here were taught the skills that separated Deathwatch operatives from all others. This was a war fought not face to bloodied face on the battlefield, where superior force and top-down strategy won the day, but behind the lines, from the shadows, sudden and brief and scalpel-precise.