Galaxy in Flames

by Ben Counter

  Maggard spasmed, his huge bulk thrashing briefly, and when he stopped Qruze was looking into a pair of blank, dead eyes. Qruze pushed himself from Maggard's body. 'Face to face,’ said Qruze, breathing heavily with the exertion of killing Maggard. 'Not with treachery, from a thousand miles up. Face to face.'

  He looked at Sindermann and nodded his thanks. The warrior was wounded and exhausted, but there was a calm serenity to him.

  'I remember how it used to be,' he said. 'We were brothers on Cthonia. Not just among ourselves, but with our enemies, too. That was what the Emperor saw in us when he came to the hives. We were gangs of killers as existed on a thousand other worlds, but we believed in a code that was more precious than life. That was what he wrought into the Luna Wolves. I thought that even if none of the rest of us remembered, the Warmaster would, because he was the one the Emperor chose to lead us.' 'No,’ said Keeler, 'you are the last one,’ 'And when I realised that I just… told them what they wanted to hear. I tried to be one of them, and I succeeded. I almost forgot everything, until… until now,’

  The music of the spheres,’ said Sindermann quiВ­etly.

  Qruze's eyes focused again on Keeler and his face

  hardened.

  'I did nothing, Half-heard,’ said Keeler, answering his unasked question. 'You said so yourself. The

  ways of Cthonia were the reason the Emperor chose you and your brothers for the Luna Wolves. Perhaps it was the Emperor who reminded you,’

  'I saw this coming for so long, but I let it, because I thought that was my code now, but nothing changed, not really. The enemy just moved from out there to amongst us,’

  'Look, as profound as this all is, can we get the hell out of here?' asked Mersadie.

  Qruze nodded and beckoned them towards the Thunderhawk gunship. 'You're right, Miss Oliton, let's get off this ship. It is dead to me now,’

  We're with you, captain,’ said Sindermann as he gingerly picked his way over Maggard's body after Qruze. The years seemed to have dropped from him, as if the energy lost in the fight was returning with interest. Sindermann saw a light in his eyes he hadn't seen before.

  Watching the light of understanding rekindled in Iacton Qruze reminded Sindermann that there was still hope.

  And there was nothing so dangerous in the galaxy as a litde hope.

  Turnet's shot went high, and Cassar's went wide. Jonah Aruken ducked for cover as the rounds ricoВ­cheted on the curved ceiling of the bridge. Turnet rolled down behind the command chair as Cassar pulled himself from his own chair, set deep into the cockpit floor and level with the Titan's eye. Cassar fired again and sparks showered as the autopistol

  round hit the electronics arrayed around Turner's chair.

  Turnet fired back and Cassar dropped into the cover of the depression formed by his own seat. The connectors had torn free from his scalp as he moved and tears of blood streaked his face, metalВ­lic monofilament wires clinging wetly to the back of his neck.

  His mind throbbed with the suddenness of being ripped away from the god-machine. Titus!' yelled Aruken. "What are you doing?' 'Moderati, surrender or you will die here!' shouted Turnet. 'Throw down your weapon and surrender.'

  This is treachery!' shouted Cassar. 'Jonah, you know I am right. The Warmaster did this. He brought death to this city to kill the believers!'

  Turnet fired blindly from behind the elaborate machinery of the command seat. 'Believe? You would betray your Warmaster because of this reliВ­gion? You're diseased, do you know that? Religion is a sickness, and I should have put you down a long time ago.'

  Cassar thought rapidly. There was only one way out of the cockpit – the doorway that led into the Titan's dorsal cavity where the plasma generator was located along with the detail of engineer crewВ­men who operated it. He couldn't run, for fear of Turnet shooting him dead as he broke from cover. But the same was true of Turnet. They were both trapped.

  You knew,’ said Cassar, 'about the bombardВ­ment.'

  'Of course I knew. How can you be so ignorant? Don't you even know what's happening on this planet?' The Emperor is being betrayed,’ said Cassar. There is no Emperor,’ shouted Turnet. 'He abanВ­doned us. He left the Imperium that men died to conquer for him. He doesn't care. But the WarmasВ­ter cares. He conquered this galaxy and it is his to rule, but there are fools who don't understand that. They are the ones who have forced the Warmaster into this so that he can do what must be done,’

  Cassar's mind reeled. Turnet had betrayed everyВ­thing the Emperor had built, and the combat within the command bridge struck Cassar as repreВ­sentative of what was happening in the wider conflict.

  Turnet rose and fired wildly as he ran for the door, both shots smacking into the bridge wall behind Cassar.

  'I won't let you do this!' yelled Cassar, returning fire. His first shot went wide, but now Princeps TurВ­net was struggling with the wheel lock of the door. Cassar lined up his shot on Turnet's back. Titus! Don't do it!' shouted Aruken, wrenching the Titan's primary motor controls around. The Titan lurched madly, the whole bridge tipping like the deck of a ship in a storm. Cassar was thrown back against the wall, the opportunity to take his shot gone. Turnet hauled the door open, throwing

  himself from the Titan's bridge and out of Cassar's firing line.

  Cassar scrambled to his feet again as the Titan rocked upright. A shape moved in front of him and he almost fired before realising it was Jonah Aruken.

  'Titus, come on,' said Aruken. 'Don't do this.'

  'I don't have a choice. This is treachery.'

  'You don't have to die.'

  Cassar jerked his head towards the Titan's eye, through which they could still see the Death Guard moving through the death-slicked trenches. 'NeiВ­ther do they. You know I am right, Aruken. You know the Warmaster has betrayed the Imperium. If we have the Dies Irae then we can do something about it.'

  Aruken looked from Cassar's face to the gun in his hand. 'It's over, Cassar. Just… just give this up.'

  'With me or against me, Jonah,’ said Cassar lev-elly. 'The Emperor's faithful or His enemy? Your choice.'

  It had often been said that a Space Marine knew no fear.

  Such a statement was not literally true, a Space Marine could know fear, but he had the training and discipline to deal with it and not let it affect him in battle. Captain Saul Tarvitz was no exception, he had faced storms of gunfire and monstrous aliens and even glimpsed the insane predators of the warp, but when Angron charged, he ran.

  The primarch smashed through the ruins like a juggernaut. He bellowed insanely and with one sweep of his chainaxe carved two loyal World Eaters in two, bringing his off-hand axe down to bite through the torso of a third. His traitor World Eaters dived over the rubble, blasting with pistols or stabbing with chainblades.

  'Die!' bellowed Captain Ehrlen as the loyalists counter-charged, throwing themselves into the enemy as one. Tarvitz was used to Astartes who fought in feints and counter-charges, overlapping fields of fire, picking the enemy apart or sweeping through his ranks with grace and precision. The World Eaters did not fight with the perfection of the Emperor's Children. They fought with anger and hatred, with brutality and the lust for destruction.

  And they fought with more hatred than ever before against their own, against the battle-brothers they had warred alongside for years.

  Tarvitz scrambled back from the carnage. World Eaters shouldered past him as they charged at Angron, but the butchered bodies lying around showed what fate awaited them. Tarvitz put his shoulder down and hammered through a ruined wall, sprawling into a courtyard where statues stood scarred and beheaded by the day's earlier battles.

  He glanced behind him. Thousands of World Eaters were locked in a terrible hurricane of carВ­nage, scrambling to get at one another. At the centre of the bloody hurricane was Angron, massive and terrible as he laid about him with his axes.

  Captain Ehrlen crashed down a
short distance from him and the World Eater's eyes flickered over Tarvitz before he rolled onto his back and pulled himself to his feet. Ehrlen's face was torn open, a red mask of blood with his eyes the only recognisable feature. A pack of World Eaters descended on him, piling him to the ground and working at him as though they were carving up a side of meat.

  Volleys of bolter shots thudded through the walls and the battle spilled into the courtyard, World Eaters wrestling with one another and forcing bolters up to fire point blank or disembowelling their battle-brothers with chainaxes. Tarvitz kicked himself to his feet and ran as a wall collapsed and a dozen traitors surged forward.

  He threw himself behind a pillar, bolt shells blasting chunks of marble from it in concussive impacts. The sound of battle followed him and Tarvitz knew that he had to try' and find the Emperor's Children. Only with his fellow warriors alongside him could he impose some form of order on this chaotic fight.

  Tarvitz ran, realising that gunfire was directed at him from all angles. He charged through the ruins of a grand dining hall and into a cavernous stoneВ­walled kitchen,

  He kept running and smashed his way through the ruins until he found himself in the streets of the Choral City. A burning gunship streaked overhead and crashed into a building in an orange plume of

  flame as gunfire stuttered throughout the ruins he had just vacated and Angron's roaring cut through the din of battle.

  The magnificent dome of the Precentor's Palace rose above the battle unfolding across the blackВ­ened remains of the city.

  As Tarvitz made his way through the carnage towards his beloved Emperor's Children, he promised that if he was to meet his death on this blasted world, then he would meet it amongst his battle-brothers, and in death defy the hatred the Warmaster had sown amongst them.

  Loken watched the Sons of Horus landing on the far side of the Sirenhold. His Space Marines – he couldn't think of them as 'Sons of Horus' any more – were arrayed around the closest tomb-spire in a formidable defensive formation.

  His heavy weapons commanded the valley of shrines through which attackers would have to advance and the Tactical Marines held hard points of rains where they would fight on their own terms.

  But the enemy was not the Isstvanian army, they were his brothers.

  'I thought they'd bomb us,’ said Torgaddon.

  They should have done,’ replied Loken. 'SomeВ­thing went wrong,’

  'It'll be Abaddon' said Torgaddon. 'He must have been itching for a chance to take us on face-to-face Horus couldn't have held him back,’

  'Or Sedirae,’ echoed Loken, distaste in his voice. The afternoon sun hung in veils between the shadВ­ows cast by the walls and the tomb-spires.

  'I never thought it would end like this, Tarik,’ said Loken. 'Maybe storming some alien citadel or defending… defending Terra, like something from the epic poems, something romantic, something the remembrancers could get their teeth into. I never thought it could end defending a hole like this against my own battle-brothers,’

  'Yes, but then you always were an idealist.'

  The Sons of Horns were coming down on the far side of the tomb-spire across the valley, the optimal point to strike from, and Loken knew that this would be the hardest battle he would ever have to fight.

  'We don't have to die here,’ said Torgaddon.

  Loken looked at him. 'I know, we can win. We can throw everything we have at them. I'll lead them in from the front and then there's a chance that-'

  'No,' said Torgaddon. 'I mean we don't have to hold them here. We know we can get through the main gates into the city. If we strike for the Precentor's Palace we could link up with the Emperor's Children or the World Eaters. Lucius said the warning came from Saul Tarvitz so they know we are betrayed.'

  'Saul Tarvitz is on Isstvan III?' asked Loken, sudВ­den hope flaring in his heart.

  'Apparently so,’ nodded Torgaddon. 'We could help them. Fortify the palace,’

  Loken looked back across at the tangle of shrines and tomb-spires. 'You would retreat?'

  'I would when there's no chance of victory and we can fight on better terms elsewhere,’

  'We'll never have another chance to face them on our own terms, Tarik. The Choral City is gone, this whole damn planet is dead. It's about punishing them for their betrayal and the brothers we have lost,’

  We all lost brothers here, Garvi, but dying needВ­lessly won't bring them back. I will have my vengeance, too, but I'm not throwing away the few warriors I have left in a knee jerk act of defiance. Think about this, Loken. Really think, about why you want to fight them here,’

  Loken could hear the first bursts of gunfire and knew Torgaddon was right. They were still the best trained, most disciplined of the Legions and he knew that if he wanted to fight those who had betrayed him, he had to fight with his head and not his heart.

  'You're right, Tarik,’ said Loken. We should link up with Tarvitz. We need to get organised to launch a counter-attack,’

  We can really make them suffer, Garvi, we can force them into a battle and delay them. If Tarvitz got the warning out here, who's to say that there aren't others carrying a warning to Terra? Maybe the other Legions already know what's happened. Someone underestimated us, they thought this would be a massacre, but we'll go one better. We'll turn Isstvan III into a war,’ 'Do you think we can?'

  "We're the Luna Wolves, Garvi. We can do anyВ­thing,’

  Loken took his friend's hand, accepting the truth of his words. He turned to the squads arrayed behind him, scanning the valley through their gun-sights.

  'Astartes!' he shouted. 'You all know what has happened and I share your pain and outrage, but I need you to focus on what we must now do and not let passion blind you to the cold facts of war. Bonds of brotherhood have been shattered and we are no longer the Sons of Horus, that name has no meaning for us now. We are once again the Luna Wolves, soldiers of the Emperor!'

  A deafening cheer greeted his words as Loken continued, *We are giving the enemy this position and will break through the gates to strike for the palace. Captain Torgaddon and I will take the assault units and lead the speartip.'

  Within moments, the newly re-christened Luna Wolves were ready to move out, Torgaddon barking orders to put the assault squads up front. Loken gathered a body of warriors to him, forming a pocket of resistance in the shadow of the tomb-spire.

  'Kill for the living and kill for the dead,' said TorВ­gaddon as they prepared to move out.

  'Kill for the living,' replied Loken as the speartip, numbering perhaps two thousand Luna Wolves, moved out across the tombscape of the Sirenhold towards the massive gates.

  Loken turned back to the valley, seeing the shapes of Sons of Horus moving towards him. Larger, darker shapes loomed in the distance, grinding the battle-scarred shrines and statues to dust as they went: Rhino APCs, lumbering Land Raiders, and even the barrel-shaped silhouette of a dreadnought.

  He felt he should be filled with sadness at the tragedy of fighting his brothers, but there was no sadness.

  There was only hatred.

  Aruken's eyes were hollow and he was sweating. Cassar was shocked to see his normal, cocky arroВ­gance replaced by fear. Despite that fear, Cassar knew that he could not fully trust Jonah Aruken.

  This has to end, Titus,’ said Aruken. 'You don't want to be a martyr do you?' 'Martyr? That's a strange choice of words for : someone who claims not to believe.'

  A small smile appeared on Aruken's face. 'I'm not

  : as stupid as you think, Titus. You're a good man

  and a damn good crewman. You believe in things,

  which is more than most people can manage So,

  I'd rather you didn't die.'

  Cassar didn't respond to Aruken's forced levity. 'Please, I know you're just saying that for the prin-ceps's benefit. I've no doubt he can hear every 1 word,’

  'Probably, yes, but he kno
ws that as soon as he opens that door you'll blow his head off. So I guess you and I can just say what we damn well like,’

  Cassar's grip on the gun relaxed. 'You're not in his pocket?'

  'Hey, we've been through some scary shit recently, haven't we?' said Aruken. 'I know what you're going through.'

  Cassar shook his head. 'No you don't, and I know what you're trying to do. I can't back down, I'm making a stand in the name of my Emperor. I won't just surrender,’

  'Look, Titus, if you believe then you believe, but you don't have to prove that to anyone,’

  'You think I'm doing this for show?' asked Cassar, aiming his gun at Aruken's throat.

  Aruken held out his hands and walked carefully around the princeps's command chair to stand across the bridge from him.

  The Emperor isn't just a figurehead to cling to,’ said Cassar. 'He is a god. He has a saint and miraВ­cles and I have seen them. And so have you! Think of all you have seen and you'll realise you have to help me, Jonah!' 'I saw some odd things, Titus, but-' 'Don't deny them,’ interrupted Cassar. 'They hapВ­pened. As sure as you and I are standing in this war machine. Jonah, there is an Emperor and He is watching over us. He judges us by the choices we make when those choices are hard. The Warmaster has betrayed us and if I stand back and let it hapВ­pen then I am betraying my Emperor. There are principles that must be defended, Aruken. Don't you even see that much? If none of us take a stand,

  then the Warmaster will win and there won't even be the memory of this betrayal,’

  Aruken shook his head in frustration. 'Cassar, if I could just make you see-'

  'You're trying to tell me you haven't seen anything to believe in?' asked Cassar, turning away in disapВ­pointment. He looked through the scorched panes of the viewing bay at the assembling Death Guard.

  Titus, I haven't believed in anything for a long time,’ said Aruken. 'For that I'm truly sorry, and I'm sorry for this too,’

  Cassar turned to see that Jonah Aruken had drawn his pistol and had it aimed squarely at his chest.