Mark of Calth

by Edited by Laurie Goulding

  She flinches as a squawk of interference barks from the speaker horn of the vox-caster.

  ‘Bloody Mechanicum,’ says her adjutant, Corporal Bartebes. He smacks the grey-steel box with the heel of his palm. ‘Bloody bastards never get anything bloody right.’

  ‘I thought they were supposed to have this fixed by now.’

  ‘And you bloody believed that, major?’ says Bartebes, fishing a lho-stick from his pocket and lighting it with the ease of a professional. Oily smoke lifts from his mouth.

  ‘I thought you quit,’ says Kadene.

  ‘I survived the surface,’ replies Bartebes. ‘If that ain’t killed me, these bloody won’t. It’s boredom that’ll do for me first.’

  Kadene can’t argue with his logic, and though she could order him to put it out, she won’t. They have suffered too much in the last few weeks to deprive Bartebes of his vice. Besides, he’s probably right.

  She shrugs, turning on her heel as she hears the rumble of an engine. A big engine, something industrial. She wonders if there’s something wrong with the sealant or the shuttering that requires a Pioneer work team. She doesn’t feel any effects of surface radiation, but supposes that’s probably why it’s so dangerous.

  ‘Now what’s this bloody noise?’ wonders Bartebes as a heavy industrial carrier lumbers around the corner. Its cargo compartment is draped with a blue tarpaulin, roped down and covering several objects, bulky and oblong in shape. Work tools? Engineering equipment?

  ‘We expecting anyone?’ asks Kadene.

  ‘Not that they bloody told us,’ replies Bartebes, giving the vox another clout. ‘Not that we’d have heard on this piece of junk.’

  The driver’s Army, but she can’t see his unit insignia. Thirty men accompany the carrier, some riding shotgun on the running boards, some marching alongside. They look bored, and Kadene can sympathise. There’s something... ragged about these soldiers, but that’s nothing unusual. Everyone looks a little ragged these days.

  But her soldier’s instincts are telling her there’s more to it than that.

  ‘Find out what they want,’ says Kadene, lifting the vox-horn. ‘I’ll see if I can get some word from on high.’

  Bartebes nods and reluctantly stubs out his lho-stick.

  As he shoulders his hellgun, Kadene says, ‘Eyes on.’

  Bartebes understands immediately and his demeanour instantly changes.

  He leaves the guard post and waves four soldiers to accompany him, bulky in glossy plates of ablative carapace. Each Storm Trooper wears the regimental insignia of crossed lances over a skull on one shoulder plate, a hand-painted black X on the other. With Bartebes at their head, they march out in front of the new arrivals. Bartebes waves his arms in front of him like a crew chief on a landing platform.

  ‘Right, who the bloody hell are you?’ he demands with his customary wit and charm. ‘This is a Cardace post.’

  A man in a uniform that hangs strangely on him detaches from the soldiers escorting the vehicle. He carries an old-style data-slate and holds it out to Bartebes. He says something she can’t hear. Kadene lifts the vox-horn and twists the dial to the assigned command frequency.

  As she does so, her eyes alight on a man partially obscured by the tarpaulin-wrapped cupola of the cargo vehicle. He wears armour, but it takes her a fraction of a second to realise what’s wrong with it.

  The man is dressed as a Cardace trooper, but she has never seen him before.

  Her mouth opens to shout a warning.

  A scream of dissonant noise erupts from the vox-horn, a blast of a million terrorised screams that comes from a place of horror and blood. It paralyses her. Literally paralyses her. Her every nerve is shrieking in pain, but she can’t move.

  Something pours from the vox-horn, a rush of stinking black fluid. It spatters the wall like an oil-filled balloon has just been thrown at it. She sees the men talking to Bartebes pull out flasks of black liquid and throw them to the ground.

  She can’t move. Fluid shapes leap from the black oil. She still can’t move.

  More glass breaks. More viscous darkness erupts like tarry geysers.

  Shifting, formless things of grasping arms, gaping mouths and tearing claws slam into her soldiers and bear them to the ground. The rest of the men in her command drag their rifles to their shoulders, but there are shadows for them all. They slither over the floors, stretch and swell over the walls and loom down from the cavern roof. Men are plucked from the ground and black filth pours into their screaming mouths. It stops up their ears and noses, presses its way into their skulls through their eyes, and invades the entirety of their bodies in the space of a heartbeat.

  Kadene sees all of this, but she still can’t move. Her entire body is shocked rigid by the squalling blast of nerve-paralysing sonics. The vox is laughing at her. The spatter of oil on the wall is pushing itself into a semblance of form. Human, but larger than any man she has ever seen. Bulked out beyond mortal norms, she recognises the fluid-formed outline of Legion plate. The helmeted head has a horn that curls around it, and is formed from glistening matter that stinks like a mass grave.

  It turns its gaze on her and she wishes she could close her eyes. She wants nothing more than to shut this abhorrent monster away.

  The door to the guard post is thrown open. The man Bartebes was talking to enters.

  ‘They’re all dead,’ he tells the horned black torso extruded from the wall.

  Behind him, Kadene sees her men being stripped of their armour and uniforms. The killers garb themselves in the colours of a regiment that, but for her, is now extinct. The dishonour is beyond insult. It is violation.

  ‘You know where to take the device?’ asks the monster, its voice a gurgling wet horror of liquid vowels and drowning consonants.

  The man nods. ‘The statue of Konor in Leprium. Rendezvous at zero-dark-thirty.’

  Kadene wants so badly to reach down for her holstered laspistol. Sweat beads on her forehead. Her hand trembles and, incredibly, she feels a tingling sensation in her fingertips.

  ‘Take three men and dump the corpses at least five kilometres out,’ says the black apparition. ‘The defenders must not learn what was taken until it is too late.’

  ‘It won’t be long before a relief force turns up.’

  The black shape gurgles with what Kadene realises with sick horror is laughter. ‘You wear loyalist uniforms. Welcome them and share the camaraderie of brothers. Then kill them.’

  The black shape on the wall turns to her. A slit of a mouth forms in its impossible helm, a leering grin of anticipation. She feels warm leather at her fingers. The holster is open; she never keeps the press-stud closed. Sweat pours down her face, veins stand out. Her hand shakes as she slides it around the weapon’s grip.

  ‘Such gross betrayal of trust has power beyond measure,’ says the horned monster.

  Kadene draws and fires her pistol with a scream of pain and grief. All she has already suffered and all she has just lost is distilled into this last act of defiance.

  She shoots the monster again and again. Her bolts burn it like a solder through plastek and ignite it like promethium. It burns away into a stinking mist. A sulphurous reek fills the guard post, the stench of voided bowels. She tries to turn her pistol on the mortal traitor, but the weapon is slapped from her hand. A rifle butt slams into the side of her face. Bone breaks and she falls to the ground. Pain shoots around her body and a gut-cramping nausea stabs through her paralysis.

  The traitor drops on top of her, one knee in the chest, another over her throat. He has a black-bladed knife in one hand, the tip scratching the surface of her eyeball. Fluid oozes out over her cornea. His palm rests on the dagger’s pommel, ready to drive it home.

  ‘Just for that, I think you’re gonna come with us,’ he says. ‘Be interesting to see what your new sun does to one of its own.’

/>   VIII

  The heavy adamantium gates of Arcology X rumble closed on rollers the size of Land Raiders, blotting out the venomous blue light of the system star. Booming locks hammer home, shutting the subterranean complex off from the upper world. Thundering recyc-units purge the contaminated dust from the vast airlock chamber.

  Remus Ventanus and the warriors of the Fourth Company stand immobile in the roaring winds as a Mechanicum adept and a host of servitors with hostile environment augmetics come forward with high pressure hoses, to scour them with electrolysed water that runs into specially dug sluices.

  Ventanus has little patience for such processes, but with so many mortals packed into Arcology X, decontamination is a necessary evil of any mission to the surface.

  Selaton and Barkha stand behind him, Barka still clutching the battered pole of the company standard that Ventanus retrieved from the slaughtered honour guard at the Numinus starport. Water drips from the eagle and the Ultima, making both shine brightly in the gloom of the gateway. The symbolism pleases Ventanus and makes the time taken to cleanse their armour feel worthwhile.

  He could have the indentations of the dead warrior’s grip worked out of the metal, but he will not. The dying grip of the Ultra-marine whose name he never knew will be a constant reminder of the Word Bearers’ betrayal.

  Wherever this standard ends its days, it will forever display the mark of its former bearer.

  With the closing of the gate and the completion of decontamination procedures, the defence protocols ease a fraction and servitor-crewed turrets switch their macro-weapons from armed to safe. An internal bulkhead the size of a jungle escarpment rumbles down into the floor with the sound of tectonic plates grinding together. The Mechanicum adept waves the Ultramarines in and leads his servitors away.

  Ventanus marches from the decontamination barbican into Arcology X.

  IX

  Captain Octavian Bruscius makes his way through the neatly arranged lines of beds and temporary shelters housing the groups of civilian survivors packed into CV427/Praxor. Bruscius is a gene-forged post-human, and they are but mortals, yet they are all warriors of Ultramar.

  He feels proud to number himself among them.

  He has fought in the Legion’s battle lines for a century and a half, but fighting within the bounds of the Five Hundred Worlds is something he never expected.

  There has never officially been a theoretical for a war between the Legions, and though Bruscius understands he is simply a line officer, even he recognises that the Ultramarines will never be the same again.

  The Warmaster’s treachery has upset the order of the galaxy, and nothing will ever be the same. He and his battle-brothers of the 24th Company are based in Praxor. Warriors from the 56th, 33rd, 111th and 29th Companies are here too. His group is the largest, boasting two hundred and nine warriors, whereas the 111th has been reduced to a single squad.

  Cut off from the fighting, they are isolated beneath the tumbled ruins that are all that remains of the Persphys and Caela Praefecture conurbs.

  Techmarine Colbya has established contact with sixteen other nearby shelters, as well as Captain Ventanus in what is now known as Arcology X. Bruscius does not know why its name has been changed, and is just glad that Lord Guilliman saw fit to place Ventanus in control of the fight-back.

  The Word Bearers have taken the surface, but the war beneath belongs to the Ultramarines.

  Bruscius forces himself to keep such thoughts tamped down.

  He has more immediate concerns.

  Registration areas have been set up in each of the largest caverns, manned by the few Administratum personnel who escaped below ground. It is a thankless duty, but the citizens of Calth form snaking lines as they await their turn to be processed without complaint. Well over ten thousand people are crammed into this cavern alone, with more pressing in behind. Motorised gurneys drive along cleared lanes between the queues, bearing reams of accumulating paperwork and identity confirmations from the registration booths. The drivers are all Army-helmeted and with rifles slung across their backs.

  Bruscius and twenty of his warriors are here to oversee the registration process and watch for any security breaches, but his company will be rotated onto surface patrol soon. He recognises the importance of this work, but Bruscius wants to kill Word Bearers.

  His eyes roam over the thousands of people in the cavern, pleased to note the stoic determination on every face. These people have seen their world virtually destroyed, but there is no trace of panic or psychosis. They came with nothing but that which they could carry on their backs when the evacuation order came through, yet still stand proud and ready to serve.

  What other citizenry of the Imperium could rally so magnificently?

  Almost all are young. All are ragged and grimy. But no amount of dirt can hide the mottled purple radiation burns with which almost every man, woman and child’s skin is afflicted. The medicae call it the ‘Mark of Calth’, and it is as much a badge of honour as it is an injury.

  Bruscius moves on, traversing the echoing cavern and counting the hours until he can turn his weapons on the enemy. Everywhere he goes, people turn to stare at him, and he finds the attention faintly discomfiting. He is a warrior, pure and simple, yet these people invest him with all their hopes of a better tomorrow.

  It is a heavy burden to bear, one he had not known he shouldered until this moment.

  A woman with a babe in arms clutched tight to her breast approaches him and she reaches out to touch his vambrace. Under normal circumstances, Bruscius would never allow such contact, but these are far from normal circumstances. Another two children hold tight to the hem of her skirt, both so young and fragile looking that Bruscius finds it hard to believe they survived the horrors above.

  ‘Emperor protect you,’ she says.

  Bruscius does not know how to respond and gives the woman a nod. She smiles, and he knows she will treasure the memory for the rest of her days.

  The Ultramarines have become touchstones of hope, living proof that Calth will rise again, that its people will one day reclaim what was taken from them. It has been a humbling experience, and a salient reminder of why the Great Crusade was fought in the first place.

  The woman holds out her hand, and Bruscius sees a small aquila pendant on a silver chain lying flat against her palm.

  ‘Take it,’ she says. ‘Please. You have to.’

  The Ultramarines have standing orders not to accept gifts from civilians. Despite that, their muster spaces and arming points are surrounded by offerings, tokens of gratitude and handwritten messages declaring a readiness to fight for Calth.

  ‘My thanks, but it is not permitted,’ he says, turning away to move on.

  ‘Please,’ says the woman, more insistently. ‘She needs you to have it.’

  Something in the woman’s tone makes him stop and turn back to her.

  ‘Who needs me to have it?’ he asks.

  The woman tilts her head to the side, as though confused at his question.

  ‘The saint,’ she says, almost in tears. ‘You need to see. Before it is too late.’

  Bruscius finds himself reaching for the aquila, though he knows he should not. The woman sighs as though a pent-up breath has just been expelled from her lungs. She looks up at him, and though Bruscius does not easily recognise conventional human expressions, he sees she is surprised to find herself face to face with a Space Marine.

  As his hand closes on the silver pendant, combat reactions surge within his post-human body as chem-shunts within his battle armour flood his system with combat stimms in expectation of battle. His bolter snaps up and his visor is suddenly overlaid with tactical schemata, spatial signifiers and topographical data.

  A vox-link instantly activates between him and his battle-brothers.

  Bruscius has no idea what has triggered this reaction and the wom
an backs away from him in fear as he goes from heroic saviour to lethal, bio-engineered killer in the blink of an eye. He scans for any sign of threat and immediately sees the motorised gurney bearing boxes of administrative documents and the like.

  Two things are immediately obvious.

  First, the gurney is laden with heavy boxes, but is heading towards the registration booths.

  Second, its driver wears Army fatigues, but they are ill-fitting and clearly not his own.

  Bruscius sets off at a run towards the gurney, bellowing for people to get out of his way as a terrible foreboding fills him. The driver sees him coming and grins with zealous fury as he halts the gurney in the centre of the cavern.

  Bruscius pulls his boltgun tight to his shoulder. A targeting reticule fastens on the man’s centre mass. It flashes red in full expectation of a lethal shot. The man stands and shouts at the top of his voice, with his rifle and a black-bladed dagger held aloft.

  ‘Hear the Word of Lorgar!’

  It is all he manages before Bruscius’s mass-reactive blows out his chest and entire upper body in a wet meat explosion. People duck for cover, clearing a path for Bruscius as his warriors close on his position.

  ‘Get back!’ shouts Bruscius, kicking the dead man’s remains from the driver’s seat and hauling boxes from the back of the gurney. As he feared, they were concealment for something hidden behind them – a long, crudely-machined tube of thick metal, sealed at both ends by seamed welds and pierced by a multitude of sheathed connection jacks, electrical buffers and decoy wires. Behind a crystalflex panel, Bruscius sees a pair of brushed steel casings marked with the symbols of his Legion.

  His armour registers a blazing spike of radiation, but it is the only warning Bruscius gets.

  The stolen atomics detonate a second later, filling the cavern with nuclear fire that spreads through the entirety of Shelter CV427/Praxor and kills every living soul within.