Predator, Prey

by Rob Sanders

  The strategy had succeeded. Despite shattering the fortress-monastery’s superstructure further and rending great rifts in its void plating and architecture, the star fort had been denied to the greenskin invader. Both Space Marines and deck guns were replenished with precious ammunition from the fort’s armoury vaults and for the hours of darkness that followed, the innumerable invaders were kept at murderous ballistic range. Chapter serfs returned to the ramparts with ammunition and supplies, while Apothecary Reoch took the opportunity to down the chainblade that had wreaked such horrific wounds on others and look instead to the wounds that had been visited on his brothers by the enemy.

  Hours passed. About the void deck perimeter a wall of greenskin carcasses steamed. Deck ordnance and gunships thundered. Boltguns blazed. Mist-banks of gore drifted through the desert darkness. The greenskin invaders died in their droves. They kept coming, however. Something primordial and predacious drew them across the dunes to their death. Hourly their numbers were replenished by new monsters, raining down on Eidolica in a shower of wanton conquest. Hulking creatures, fresh in their bestial rage, salivating through tusk-crowded maws and fixing the growing silhouette of the Alcazar Astra with their beady eyes.

  The silhouette was growing because the Fists Exemplar and Second Captain Maximus Thane – ranking officer on the void ramparts and now ranking officer aboard the star fort itself – had reached their objective. The Eidolican dawn. The razorblade sliver of Frankenthal’s Star – the system sun that had once threaten to swallow the fortress-monastery whole – was reaching over the distant western dunes.

  Even with such a meagre shaft of intense light cutting across the skies, the Fists Exemplar home world was revealed. In the still air and black deserts of Eidolica, the eye travelled far. An Adeptus Astartes’ sight travelled even further. Promethium wells raged at the heavens, belching black, oily smoke skywards. Little could be seen of the Eidolican black sands about the fortress-monastery. As far as a Space Marine could see, there were monsters. A sea of alien ferocity, swamping the deserted sands with their filthy presence. The dawn light drew a conqueror’s roar from the beasts and the air trembled with their intention to bring slaughter to the star fort’s defenders.

  Further to the south, across the green sea of doom, rocks and hulks streaked into the promethium fields, thudding into the sands and killing their own – only for twice the number of dead to flood from the crude transits. Between swarms of junk landers descended larger greenskin droppers and tractor-tugs, all magna-grapnels, beam-anchors and rocket engines. These ungainly transports lacked the thunderbolt impatience of other crash transits. Instead they lowered colossal engines of war to the distant planet surface. Brute representations of greenskin gods and their Beast warlord, crafted from mountains of scrap and crude engineering.

  His suit’s auto-senses detected the breeze. Maximus Thane nodded to himself. The rising sun brought with it the movement of air.

  ‘Companies,’ Thane called across the open vox-channel. ‘Conserve ammunition. Cease fire.’

  The chatter of bolter fire died on the wind, swiftly followed by the accompanying boom of Thunderhawk guns and deck ordnance. No longer held back by a wall of skull-shattering bolt-rounds, the greenskins clawed their way over their dead and thundered up the void deck to meet their enemy. Their blades glinted dully, rude and unblooded. Their weaponry crashed wildly at the defenders, showering the deck with sparks and ricochets. Their tusks parted and raucous calls of pure animal aggression built to a rising crescendo in their barrel chests. The ramparts trembled with their bootfalls.

  With boltguns silent about them, the Fists Exemplar stared down their hated enemy. No gauntlet grabbed for sword or pistol. No battle-brother moved from his position on the armoured hull. The invader drew close. The wild fire from their guns drew closer. Axes, mauling blades and chain-choppers came up. The monsters dribbled like mongrels at the expectation of brutality and violence, barbarically realised. Three thunderous strides away. Two. One.

  The tentative twilight of dawn was no more. Great shafts of sunlight erupted over the horizon. Eidolica had turned. Day had broken on the desert world. Night – usually a time of industriousness and mass production across the promethium fields and worksteads – had turned to glorious day. Usually the radiance harvesters and photovoltaic enclosures would take over, harnessing the benefits of Eidolica’s proximity to its parent star. They now sat in shattered, silvery shards on the black desert sands in the wake of the greenskin hordes.

  The sun rose. The dunes about the Alcazar Astra stood naked before the intense heat and radiation of Frankenthal’s Star. The temperature leapt and the sands were baked black in thermonuclear brilliance. The desert world turned, leaving the attack moon behind, and the system sun began its ascendency – its dominion absolute in the Eidolican skies. Maximus Thane’s helmet optics introduced filters to protect the captain’s engineered eyes. Everything became brilliant and white. The enemy hordes became as one. A jagged silhouette. A black wall against the brightness, all tusks, spiked armour and serrated weaponry.

  First there was flame. Anything combustible on the invaders’ bodies – rudimentary clothing, decorative skins and heavy leathers – burned. The intense radiation roasted their tough flesh to charcoal and cooked through their organs. By the time Frankenthal’s Star had done with them and the greenskin beasts reached Maximus Thane and his Fists Exemplar battle line, they were no more than soot and ash, carried away on the breeze.

  The Adeptus Astartes stood out on the void ramparts for a few moments longer, their paintless plate seared in the lightstorm to a chromatic burnishment.

  ‘Companies,’ Thane called across the vox-channel. ‘To the fortress-monastery.’

  The silhouettes and shadows of statuesque Space Marines turned in the still inferno. They stomped through the blinding brightness back to their bays, hangars and barbican-locks, where Thane ordered the star fort’s blast shields down. Great metal shields and defences – that would have been used against the green invader had the situation made it necessary – closed, protecting the Alcazar Astra’s openings and observation ports from the radiation and roasting indifference of Frankenthal’s Star during the deadly Eidolican day.

  With the star fort’s shields down and carrying the burden of a full night’s battle and bloodshed, it would have been tempting for the Fists Exemplar to return to their cells for rest and cult observances. But there was simply too much to do. The fortress-monastery had taken a battering, and it would take more than the full day of radiant preservation they had to repair and fortify it in readiness for the fresh and endless onslaught of enemy forces the next night. On the Eidolican nightside, Seventh Captain Dentor still fought the enemy on the Tharkis Flats. During the stellar disruption of daytime, vox-transmissions were not possible, but Maximus Thane trusted that Dentor would take refuge in the sub-steads and ancient cave networks of the Great Basin, waiting out the enemy as they roasted in the rolling Eidolican dawn.

  As the captain and Mendel Reoch strode through the launch bays, between the anchored Thunderhawks, Thane turned to his Apothecary.

  ‘I give thanks for you, brother,’ Thane told Reoch. ‘Thanks for your nerve and tenacity; thanks for your good counsel,’ the captain managed a half-smile, ‘and mostly thanks for the skill of that damned sword arm.’

  Reoch paused and looked to his captain and friend. With a vox-grille for a mouth, the Apothecary had no smile to return. It was plain he struggled with such appreciation.

  ‘I give thanks for the dawn,’ Reoch said. ‘I suspect I’ll be needed in the apothecarion.’ As the launch bay blast doors boomed to a close behind them, Reoch peeled off to the left. ‘You, Master Thane, will be needed in the tactical oratorium.’

  ‘I’m not Chapter Master,’ Maximus Thane said. The captain was superstitious about such things but, with Alameda and Garthas dead, he was next in the chain of command.

  ‘Might a
s well be,’ Reoch said. ‘With or without the title, the burden of responsibility is just the same.’

  Thane found Honorarius Zerberyn in the oratorium. The Fist Exemplar was a mess of rent armour, dressings and stapled wounds. He had bled over the oratorium floor, which a serf was addressing with mop and bucket.

  ‘Captain,’ Zerberyn greeted him. Thane pursed his lips.

  ‘We have not always seen eye to eye,’ Thane said finally.

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘I have had cause at times to deem you officious, lacking in humility and overly ambitious,’ the captain said. The Honour Guard Space Marine’s eyes fell. ‘But you are capable and served both Master Alameda and the First Captain well. And as ranking Adeptus Astartes, I will have sore need of you also. Would you consent to remain on as my honorarius – for the Fists Exemplar now have but one – and the emissary of my intentions?’

  Zerberyn, whose features were used to hiding some petty notion or unspoken grievance, simply gave the captain a nod of respect and reassurance.

  ‘It would be my honour to serve you, sir, in whatever way I can.’

  ‘Thank you, brother,’ Thane said. ‘Would you begin by asking the Chaplain to attend me in Master Alameda’s chambers, I shall need his guidance. Then assemble both the fortress masters and company captains here in the tactical oratorium. Summon Sergeant Anatoq in place of Captain Hieronimax. Sergeant Hoque for the Second Company. I shall need a status report from the Chief Apothecary on the number of dead and wounded as soon as possible – and also have the Chapter Standard Bearer report to me.’

  ‘Brother Byzander is dead, my lord,’ Zerberyn informed him.

  Thane nodded. ‘I’m sorry for that,’ the captain said. ‘Send for my own bearer Brother Aquino, in his stead.’

  ‘Right away, sir.’

  ‘Then get yourself to Apothecary Reoch, to address your injuries,’ Thane ordered the Space Marine. ‘If he is half as good at closing wounds as opening them, you should be in good hands.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Terra – Mount Vengeance

  Drakan Vangorich took his throne in the crypt-nexus. The temple operations chamber was dark. About the Grand Master were a select gathering of tacticians, sans-expediens, infocytes, temple alternals and officio logistas – but he wouldn’t have known it, for all the evidence of their presence. In the blackness, the Grand Master’s operational staff and advisors were just disembodied voices, echoing about the chamber.

  ‘Initiate,’ Vangorich commanded.

  The darkness flickered to life as the crypt-nexus became the projected site of a chamber-spanning hololithic representation. The three-dimensional image was crisp and rich in colour and texture, but portrayed a first person perspective.

  ‘I can see what he is seeing,’ Vangorich said, ‘but can he hear what I am saying?’

  ‘I am receiving you, Grand Master,’ came the deep voice of Esad Wire – the Officio operative better known to his fellows as Beast. With any good fortune, the crypt-nexus was about to witness some of Beast’s talents at work – relayed directly from the holoptometric implants behind Esad Wire’s cruel eyes.

  ‘Assassin,’ Drakan Vangorich told his living weapon, ‘you are mission affirmative. Do me proud, Beast Krule.’

  Esad Wire cast his gaze at the ground. He was in a wardroom. Starched Naval uniforms hung about lockers and stands, while the bodies they were supposed to adorn decorated the wardroom floor. Officers and ensigns of the First Royal Provost’s Naval Security Battalion had lost their lives in the discovery of an onboard imposter in their wardroom. Beast Krule had made light work of the Naval security armsmen, breaking bones and backs as he swiftly dealt with his discoverers. Sealing off the bulkhead hatch, the Assassin proceeded to select an armsman’s uniform to cram his muscular bulk into and completed the disguise with a ceremonial lasquebus, a monomolecular-edged sabre and Scipio-pattern pistol.

  The ridiculous Naval foppery of his uniform complete, Beast Krule had crushed the bodies into a wardroom ablutory. Closing the cubicle door, he allowed the weight of the bodies against it to provide sufficient deterrent to weak-bladdered ensigns or armsmen curious at the disappearance of their comrades. By the time they were actually discovered, Krule planned on being long gone. Pulling the strap about his chin and the visor down on his broad-top cap, the Assassin left the wardroom and strode out into an ante-corridor.

  Making his steps strident, his back straight and his boots squeak in time with a group of similarly dressed Royal Provost’s men, Krule marched out onto the hangar deck of the Emperor-class battleship Autocephalax Eternal. The hangar housed lines of gleaming starfighters and battalion presentations of what Beast Krule estimated to be two or three thousand armsmen. Like him they were ceremonially dressed and presenting arms in the form of honour-guard lasquebuses. Many were already gathered in tight at-ease formations before the podium and vox-casters at the end of the hangar. Many more were still marching in to take their positions.

  The march was long and dull as the contingent Beast had attached himself to made their way up the length of the rally gathering. Out of the hangar the Assassin could see the byzantine insanity of Ancient Terra slowly turning. The Autocephalax Eternal was stationed in low orbit, flanked by her own ceremonial escort of ancient heavy frigates, hanging like ornate baubles above the hive-world.

  As Beast Krule drew closer to the podium, he went through the simple rituals of his deadly craft. He checked the tools of his trade. The weapons in his possession were next to useless. Both the lasquebus and the Scipio pistol were empty of power pack and ammunition. In the presence of such an important personage, the chance of an accidental weapons discharge – especially under the extra pressure of the ceremonial occasion – could not be tolerated.

  That had been part of the genius of it. Surrounded by thousands of armsmen, the target might well feel safe and let his guard down. Not a single ensign, officer or member of the Royal Provost’s, however, carried live ammunition. This had made the time and location of the operation tempting. The monomolecular sabre was more of a hacking and slashing weapon: a thug’s blade, for all its craft and finery.

  Nothing would give Krule the split-second, single-action kill that was required of the situation better than his own tools: the rippling muscles of his murderer’s arms and the heavy-gauge, plasteel-infused bones of his hands. When formed into fists, the deadweight of the durable metal, propelled by his bulging arms, crashed with ease through skulls and rib cages. When ordinary men pummelled one another, the pair walked away with bruises and bloodied lips. When Beast Krule beat a target to death – his favoured mode of execution and the reason for his brutal moniker – bone shattered, organs were torn free and heads were knocked clean off. Coupled with an expert knowledge of physiology and multiple hand-to-hand combat proficiencies, Beast’s hands had known little idleness in his early service to the Officio Assassinorum.

  The Assassin could hear his target clearly now. He was close enough to be in range of the podium vox-hailers. Many of his contingent had found their places in the neatly formed lines of armsmen before the podium, but Beast walked on up the central thoroughfare, his visor down and both march and stance impeccable.

  ‘…and so I am delighted to order Admiral Villiers and the fighting men and women of the Autocephalax Eternal to the Glaucasian Gulf,’ Lord High Admiral Lansung boomed, ‘to assume command of the Armada Segmenta, gathering above Lepidus Prime at my command.’

  The Lord High Admiral was the very definition of an easy target. Huge in his acres of Naval blue uniform, his red face told of an extended lifetime working out of luxurious cabins, enjoying fine fortified wines and the lavish offerings of a private galley. He looked like he had never drawn a pistol or hanger in his life, having the family and political connections to command without ever having to do so. His sheer bulk meant that during an attempted escape he wouldn’t get far and it wasn’t as thou
gh his security detail of Lucifer Blacks – further from him than usual in the apparent safety of the Naval rally – could lift him and rush him to a shuttle with any great haste.

  At his side was an equally feeble specimen of a man. Like Lansung he had enjoyed all of the benefits of a Naval officer’s existence and none of the hardships. Admiral Sheridan Villiers, His Grace the Void Baron of Cypra Nubrea, had a face that reminded Krule of a horse and a laryngeal prominence in his throat the size of a small asteroid.

  Beast Krule felt his pace quicken. He was closing. He was close. The smaller details of his disguise were no longer needed. He was still just an armsman finding his place at the front of the rally congregation. He could taste blood. He could feel the crack of bones.

  The quick march turned into a run. Lansung was still talking. He was handing over to the Autocephalax Eternal’s gawkish commanding officer. Krule dropped his lasquebus and with a flick of a finger, unbuckled his belt and holster. Carrying the holster, scabbard, pistol and sabre with it, the belt thunked to the deck. Beast Krule was on the steps, his storming strides taking him up two or three at a time. Some alarm had now become evident in the audience. Still confused at the bizarre actions of one of their own, the armsmen simply stared. Villiers’ brow had registered his displeasure – it was his battleship and security battalions on show, after all.

  Lansung, however, betrayed the slowly dawning suspicion that he was in trouble. Krule saw the High Lord’s eyes widen and the arteries in his neck constrict. His security detail were finally on the move. Lucifer Blacks raced from adjoining corridors and cavities in the bay walls. They were too far away, however. Beast Krule had his quarry. The Assassin, his defenceless prey.