Deathwatch

by Steve Parker

  ‘Captain,’ said the aide sternly. ‘You will proceed to the Macedon as planned. Order your pilot to make haste. We will not be turning back.’

  ‘You can’t be serious, Sul,’ gasped Lord Sannra. ‘This is all tied to that damned woman. We have to turn back. We have to! I’m the Lord High Arbitrator. I can’t be fired on by my own planet’s defenders.’

  The aide moved in a blur that defied his age and apparent frailty. Dozois watched in stunned silence as the little man plunged a knife deep into the breast of his lord and master. There was a wet, wheezing sound. Blood boiled up from between the aristocrat’s lips. Tears welled in his eyes as they rolled upwards, trying to meet those of his aide, asking why, why this terrible betrayal.

  Sul’s expression didn’t change a bit. Even as he murdered the man he had served for more than thirty years, his expression was calm, almost placid, in stark contrast to the violent act.

  The women on either side flew from their seats screaming hysterically. They bolted for the nearest door in a whirl of blonde hair and black fabric. Dozois suddenly wished he was wearing a weapon. With such a prominent passenger on board, he had decided not to, worried that it might send the wrong message. He cursed that decision now.

  ‘What in the Eye of Terror are you doing, man? You’ve just–’

  Suliman ignored him. He turned his eyes to the women and called out, ‘Kindred!’

  The doors to the passenger cabin slid open. Two towering nightmares of chitin, claw and sinew swung beneath them and into the room. They straightened, and their sickening purple-skinned skulls bumped against the cabin ceiling.

  Each was a horror from the darkest nightmares of men, a glistening amalgam of smooth armoured ridges and dark, striated muscle. Their claws were as long as machetes, as black as their soulless eyes and wickedly curved. They looked sharp enough to flense meat from living bone with ease. They stood on two legs, a short useless tail hanging limp behind them, and from their torsos hung four arms, long enough to reach the floor despite their height. But it was their faces that chilled the most – the quasi-human configuration of eyes and nose above a mouth more suited to some grotesque deep-sea monstrosity, the teeth like glass daggers, all set in a head horribly swollen and distorted, veins pulsing at the temples.

  Both women fainted at once and hit the floor hard. Dozois, paralysed with fear, felt a hot wetness spread through his breeches from the area of his crotch. He began to shake uncontrollably.

  The huge, six-limbed creatures bent over the women and lifted them effortlessly into the air. Blonde hair fell away, revealing two graceful, exposed necks. Alien eyes fixed on them.

  ‘Do it,’ hissed Suliman, tugging his knife from the cadaver of his former master. The wound made a sucking sound as the blade came free.

  Dozois saw the monsters open their wide, razor-toothed jaws. He saw grotesque purple tongues whip out and back again, leaving raw red craters in pale human flesh. At the centre of those small, fresh wounds, implanted packets of alien DNA began their work, multiplying, diversifying, rewriting.

  The beasts lay both women aside then turned their terrible black eyes on Dozois.

  Suliman spoke from close by. The captain felt the wet point of a knife at his neck.

  ‘I’m sorry, captain,’ said Sul. ‘I forget to mention my family here would be joining us. They managed to clamber aboard while the cargo was being loaded. I hope you don’t mind, but, you see, we have something of a mission, they and I. We have to reach Melnos, or any populated planet, really, and your ship is the only chance we have. Now, don’t go getting any ideas, will you? You’ve a full life left ahead of you. A full, rich life still left to live. I’ll let you live it, too, so long as you get us to the Macedon quickly and get us out of this system. But I assure you, if you don’t, you will die. And it will be a far more painful experience than poor Lord Sannra’s. Mark my words.

  ‘Well, captain? What say you?’

  The cargo shuttle docked with the Macedon just three minutes later. The body of Lord Nenahem Sannra was left slumped in the shuttle’s passenger cabin, his rich clothes soaked in cold, sticky blood.

  Despite repeated calls from the Navy monitors and GDC to power down, Captain Higgan Dozois, now ensconced in his command throne with Suliman and his restless, kill-hungry monsters standing over him, ordered the warp engines brought online. He had little choice. He kept telling himself there might be a window later, a chance to turn things around, even to escape, but, as he looked out over the bridge at his terrified crew, all of them desperately trusting him, depending on him to keep them alive, he knew he was stuck. There was no way the crew could overpower Suliman’s monsters. When they had first stepped onto the command bridge, two foolhardy ensigns had drawn small-arms and charged the creatures. Dozois had tried to shout them down, but it was too late. The abhorrent, six-limbed aliens had leapt on them, shrugging off their pathetic pistol-rounds without a scratch. In front of everyone, the ensigns had been torn to red tatters by clawed, inhuman hands.

  Resistance was a death sentence.

  They’ll kill us anyway, thought Dozois, or do what they did to those women. As soon as we’re of no further use…

  He wasn’t quite sure what he had witnessed back in the shuttle. The Lord High Arbitrator’s women were certainly still alive – they had groaned as he and his captors had stepped over them – but the welts on their necks meant something. He just couldn’t imagine what.

  ‘Sir,’ called out the chief auspex operator, ‘those Navy boats are only seven minutes out. They’re calling again for us to power down. And I now have three missile contacts approaching. The closest is six minutes off our port side.’

  ‘Engines?’ asked Dozois.

  His helmsman looked up. ‘Engines at sixty-two per cent, captain. We might outrun the missiles, or we could trust to the point-defence turrets to knock them out, but if those Navy ships have forward lance batteries–’

  ‘Warp engines?’ asked Dozois, cutting the helmsman off.

  ‘At full now, sir, but the Navigator needs another four minutes of focus before we can breach.’

  Sul leaned forwards and spoke low in the captain’s ear. ‘We’ll all die together, captain, if you don’t hurry this up. Jump blind if you have to. Just get us away from here. Now.’

  ‘I’ll handle it,’ snapped Dozois. Before Suliman could add anything, the captain rose from his throne and stormed down from the command dais to the floor of the bridge. ‘Mister Sael, step away from your station please. I’ll take this one.’

  The shocked helmsman stepped back with a nod, his mouth open, but no words coming out. Dozois almost never took the helm himself.

  The captain looked at the monitor. It was just as Sael had said. He might outrun the missiles or gun them down. He might even make warp before the Navy ships could open fire. But did he really want to?

  The Ecclesiarchy were always banging on about the Emperor of Mankind and of eternal salvation at His side. Dozois had never gone in for it much. He had always lived for the moment. But at that moment, he hoped, truly hoped, that the priests were right, because he wasn’t going to ship those monsters to another planet full of innocent people.

  Were he to allow the Macedon’s destruction at the hands of the Navy or Chiaro GDC, forever after, people would think of he and his crew as traitors or renegades. But, if he could only summon the courage to take responsibility himself, to pre-empt the very destruction he could not now escape, they would know. They would know someone on board had taken a stand.

  Holy Emperor, you had better be real.

  He hit a quick series of runes, shutting off the ship’s overrides and alarm systems. Then, with a sinking heart, he drew a finger across a dial on the monitor, setting the warp engines, which were already at full charge, to overload.

  Six seconds. It has been an honour and a pleasure, old girl. If there is a life after this…

  ‘All hands,’ he called out, ‘brace for warp translation in five, four, three, two, one�
��’

  The warp core implosion and the resulting explosions that ripped through the Macedon formed a twisting nexus of strange blue light in the Chiaro sky. It lasted several minutes. The people of Chiaro seldom looked up, but some did and wondered at it.

  None would ever know the truth behind the destruction of that ship, not even those aboard the Ventria and the Ultrix, both of which had been close enough to feel the blast ripple through local space.

  But by his last living action, Captain Higgan Dozois – in the eyes of many, a worthless, lecherous, drug-dealing rogue – saved the lives of sixty-four million people, the entire population of the planet Melnos.

  At least, for a time.

  22

  If any had believed Second Oath would mean an easing of the trials faced at Damaroth, they soon discovered just how wrong they were. Kill-team allocations were announced and training resumed almost at once. At first, the Space Marines revelled anew in the upgrades and alterations that had been made to their wargear. The Watch’s Techmarines and enginseers were almost unrivalled in what they could achieve. Enhanced tactical data-feeds and real-time automapping, vastly superior low-light vision modes that needed only the slightest luminance to render everything in crystal clarity, sound-suppressive joint and actuator coatings to muffle excess armour noise by almost ninety per cent; the list went on.

  The greatest marvel, perhaps, was the layer of tiny photo-reactive cells coating every visible surface of their plate. With an operative’s power armour running quiet, stealth systems fully engaged, those cells would absorb and mimic the reflected light, colours and patterns of their surroundings, allowing the wearer to blend into the background like a chameleon. The effect wasn’t perfect, especially when in motion, but it was impressive all the same. Karras had never seen anything like it. Between this and the new armaments available to them, the latest Deathwatch members felt all but invincible. But then the true tests began, and they quickly realised that, as hard as things had been without their armour, they were harder yet with it.

  For Karras in particular, however, things were even harder still.

  The Chief Librarian had opted to handle his squad introductions personally. As he and Karras walked a long, candlelit corridor, they talked of what had passed and what was to come. The suppressor on Karras’s spine had been dialled down, allowing him limited access to his powers once more, but it had not been removed entirely as Karras had hoped it would. Patience, Lochaine counselled. As always, there were good reasons behind it. Karras had heard those words all too often by now, but he resigned himself to them. There was nothing he could do in any case. He was granted deeper access to the archives now, yet many were the times his searches hit a brick wall. A flashing pict-screen with the words Access Denied: Clearance Level Inadequate remained a common and infuriating sight. Many areas of the facility likewise remained off-limits, though the Great Ossuary, where dead xenos specimens were preserved and displayed, and the Black Cenotaph, the Watch’s Hall of Remembrance, were both open to him now during what little downtime he had.

  ‘And you’ll be able to select personally from the sensorium archives for your kill-team’s sessions in the Librarius,’ said Lochaine. ‘I’d recommend you keep it varied for obvious reasons.’

  Because we don’t know what we’ll be going up against, thought Karras. I don’t even know who we are.

  Lochaine sensed the Death Spectre’s thoughts and the apprehension that attended them. ‘There has never been a kill-team without conflicts of personality, Lyandro. That is a reality we have all had to face at some time or another. Our Chapters of origin mark us deeply. They make us who we are. They make us different to those we serve beside when we don the black. It is a difference that should be celebrated, not disdained. It is that difference which makes a Deathwatch kill-team unique, able to handle any crisis, to use the element of surprise, and to employ the unexpected. Though you will doubt it at first, you and your kill-team brothers will complement each other well. It is with this in mind that most allocations are made. In your case, however, things were a little… unorthodox.’

  Karras stopped and stared at Lochaine.

  ‘Unorthodox?’

  Lochaine stopped too and turned, his expression dark. ‘It is high time you were told of this. You are not to serve the Deathwatch as others do, Lyandro. The Inquisition has expressly requested that your kill-team – only yours – be placed under the direct aegis of an Ordo Xenos handler. We don’t know why.’

  Karras gaped. ‘What?’

  ‘It happens, though it is the exception rather than the rule. The Ordo Xenos has great need of our services. Their strength lies in intelligence and subterfuge. Ours… Well, you know ours. We share a common cause. The mutual benefits of deep cooperation are significant. When they ask, we do not often say no.’ Lochaine paused to let Karras absorb this. Then added, ‘Watch Sergeant Kulle was himself assigned to an Inquisition handler. If you have questions, ask him, though there is little he will be able to say openly.’

  Karras remained still, letting this new information sink in.

  An Inquisition handler? I don’t like the sound of that.

  Ripples rolled across his psychic awareness, not presaging a truly prescient vision, for he did not have that particular gift, but warning him that this was a matter of great importance, that being assigned to the Ordo Xenos would play a great part in his destiny, for better or worse. It wasn’t just a feeling; it had the ring of real knowledge, of undeniable fact.

  Lochaine put a hand on Karras’s armoured shoulder and urged him to continue walking. Karras fell into step.

  ‘Who is this inquisitor?’ Karras asked.

  ‘He has many names.’ Lochaine snorted. ‘We know him as Lord Arcadius. An alias of course. Some know him as Lord Moldavius. Others as Lord Dromon. None of these are his true name, so far as we can tell. The Inquisition are even more secretive than we are, if you can believe that. The kill-teams already under his command – yes, there are others – know him by his callsign, Sigma.’

  Karras was perturbed. He had expected to fight under the auspices of the Watch Commander, or, at the very least, a Watch captain. Space Marines took orders from Space Marines. Anything else was…

  ‘You said this Sigma requested my kill-team specifically?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘It bothers you, too,’ said Karras. ‘Something about it bothers you.’

  Lochaine kept his eyes on the corridor ahead. Already, a junction could be seen at its end with grand archways leading off in three directions. ‘The Ordo Xenos do not think of Space Marines as we do. We see brothers, forged in battle, worthy of respect and honour for the trials we share. We understand each other, even beneath all the diversity and bitter rivalries. At our core, we are the same. They see only assets, an armoured fist to hammer down when things are at their worst, expected to act as commanded and ask no questions. They underestimate us. In this, I see great trouble for you.’

  Silence fell, heavy, broken only by the guttering of the flames and the suppressed sound of armoured footfalls.

  Shaking off his gloom by force, Lochaine clapped Karras on the shoulder and grinned. ‘But not as much trouble as you will cause for them, Death Spectre. I’ll take some comfort in that.’

  I won’t, thought Karras dourly.

  They had reached the three arches and Lochaine led Karras through the leftmost one into a small antechamber with worn tapestries on two walls and a set of doors cast in polished bronze, embossed with images of Space Marines in battle. Fine work. In the centre of the chamber was a stone font with simple clay cups set on the rim. ‘Drink if you wish,’ said Lochaine, gesturing at the water in the font. ‘Through that door, your kill-team awaits you.’

  The water looked cool and refreshing, and had no doubt been sanctified by Qesos or another of the Watch Chaplains, but Karras declined. ‘I’ll not keep them waiting any longer.’

  Lochaine nodded. He strode forwards and pushed open the bronze doors. Then
he gestured for Karras to step through ahead of him.

  The room beyond was large and circular, the walls dark red, the stone floor black. A domed ceiling hung high above, supported by columns of cream-coloured marble. In the centre of the room was a round table of polished black crystal, surrounded by massive granite chairs.

  Figures in black power armour now rose from four of these chairs, leaving their helmets on the table’s surface. Just beyond them, on the far side of the table, the hulking angular form of a Dreadnought took two floor-shuddering steps forwards, exhausts venting promethium fumes, engine rumbling, a low growl in a predator’s throat.

  On seeing Karras, one of the black figures swore loud and harsh.

  Karras locked eyes with him, ground his teeth in abject denial, and spun to face Lochaine. ‘You have got to be joking, brother,’ he hissed at the Storm Warden. ‘By the blood of the primarchs, you have got to be joking.’

  Lochaine walked towards the table, arms splayed, presenting the others.

  ‘Lyandro Karras,’ he said, ‘meet Talon Squad.’

  ‘Fear not death, you who embody it in my name.’

  – The God-Emperor of Mankind, Address at Czenoa, 928.M30

  1

  The sky above Nightside was thick with stars. They glittered like shards of crystal while below them, all was absolute, lifeless black. Chiaro’s rimward hemisphere was, on the surface, little more than vast expanses of frozen black rock. If the sun had ever shone here, it was back in the days of the planet’s formation, when its axis of rotation wasn’t yet pointed straight towards Ienvo, the local star. But that was over a billion years ago. Now, the only photons that ever bounced off this barren land were thrown out by the stars above and, today, by the jets of the three Stormravens that screamed in low over the bed of a large circular crater which the old Mechanicus survey maps called Inorin Majoris.

  Above the centre of the crater, the three craft stopped and hung in the freezing air, wing-tip jets blasting downwards, hull nozzles flaring to steady each in position. The second and third hung back while the first adjusted for its drop.