Descent of Angels

by Mitchel Scanlon

  ‘Then why are you back here?’

  ‘I ordered everyone out of the embarkation deck and walked away,’ said Luther, one hand covering his eyes as he spoke, ‘but I hadn’t gone more than a few steps before I knew I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Then you’re here to stop it?’ asked Zahariel, relieved beyond words.

  ‘I am,’ nodded Luther, ‘so you can stop reaching for your blade. I realised that it was an honour to serve a warrior as great as the Lion, and that I was the luckiest man alive to be allowed to call him brother.’

  Zahariel turned back to the shuttle and the deadly cargo it contained. ‘Then how do we stop it?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Luther, ‘that, I don’t know.’

  ‘YOU GO TOO far,’ said the Lion, his hand going to the ceremonial sword at his side.

  ‘No, you do,’ responded the high exalter. ‘You are abominations, all of you,’ he snarled, his fat jowls wobbling. ‘The only reason I bear your presence is because I have been granted the honour of pronouncing the judgement of my people upon you. Your Imperium is the work of evil men,’ said the lord high exalter. ‘Your words are falsehoods. You are craven and dishonourable, and your angels… your angels are the worst, the product of rutting beasts. You are liar angels. You are loathsome and unclean.’

  ‘Enough!’ roared the Lion.

  The commander of the Dark Angels Legion was enraged, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword so tightly that his knuckles were white. ‘By the Emperor—’

  ‘I spit on your Emperor,’ said the fat man, and the gathered Imperials gave a collective intake of breath. ‘And I spit on you, Lion El’Jonson!’

  The high exalter stretched out his arms, laid three fingers from his right hand on top of the five fingers of his left and touched them to the symbol painted on his forehead.

  ‘You are not men, nor worthy leaders. You are—’ He was not allowed to finish the sentence. Before the lord high exalter could say another word, the Lion drew his gleaming sword and clove through the fat man’s shoulder and down into his ample gut.

  ZAHARIEL LOOKED DOWN at the device in the shuttle’s front section, as the blinking lights suddenly began to speed up, and a single pulsing red light lit up in the centre of the sphere. The engines of the shuttle coughed to life and a rising whine of ignition built from within. ‘Damn,’ said Luther.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE SEQUENCE OF lights was speeding up, and a second red light had winked into life on the sphere at the centre of the device. A rising hum, felt in the bones as well as heard, built from the sphere, penetrating even the screaming roar of the engines as they gathered power.

  The heat from the engines and the device was growing, and Zahariel and Luther were forced back from the shuttle as it began to lift from the deck as automatic systems kicked in, responding to some remotely activated signal.

  ‘How do we stop it?’ cried Zahariel over the roar of the shuttle’s engines.

  ‘I don’t know,’ shouted Luther, pointing at an inter-ship vox station on the wall of the embarkation deck, ‘but we have to warn the Lion!’

  Zahariel nodded in understanding as Luther fought to reach the shuttle through the rippling heat haze that surrounded it and the growling wash of superheated air billowing from the engines.

  Emergency lights flashed to life and a wailing siren sounded as deck systems registered the massive build up of heat and radiation.

  ‘I can’t get near it!’ shouted Luther.

  Zahariel slammed into the wall of the embarkation deck and pressed the ‘all-decks’ stud, sending a warning to the entire ship.

  ‘Embarkation deck one reports hostile vessel on board!’ he yelled over the screaming din of sirens and the ever-growing roar of the shuttle’s engines. Even as he watched, the shuttle lifted from the deck in a blast of heat. Zahariel heard a scream of pain, and Luther staggered away from the… missile… for he could no longer think of it as simply a shuttle.

  ‘Repeat?’ said a voice through the vox-station. ‘Hostile ship?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Zahariel. The Saroshi ship! It’s a missile or a bomb of some sort!’

  Luther staggered over to him, his armour blistered and scorched by the heat of the enemy weapon’s engines. Zahariel looked over to where the missile had lifted off, its nose angling as though homing in on some unseen beacon… some unseen beacon aboard their ship.

  Blast doors rumbled open in response to the alarm, and work crews and emergency fire-fighters rushed onto the embarkation deck. Orange jumpsuited techs threw up their arms in response to the intense heat flooding the compartment.

  Zahariel felt his skin blistering under the intense heat, and knew that they had seconds at best before the enemy missile’s primary thrusters ignited, filling the deck with killing plasma and thrusting its warhead deep into the belly of the ship.

  In that instant he realised what he had to do.

  He left Luther at the vox station and ran for the control panel further along the wall, ignoring the pain as his hair was burned from his scalp. Already his armour was bubbling as the paint melted, and his steps were becoming leaden and heavy as the heat fused the joints.

  He pushed grimly onwards, knowing that he would only get one chance to save the ship and everyone on board.

  His steps became slower and his armour heavier, but he fought the pain to reach the wall-mounted deck controls.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see the missile fix on a point that would send it deep into the vitals of the ship, right where the Lion was meeting with the lord high exalter.

  At last, Zahariel reached the deck controls and smashed his fist through the plexglas panel in front of the emergency controls. Desperately, he gripped the lock-down lever and hauled it shut. The blast doors at the deck’s perimeter began to rumble closed, but before they had even reached half way to the floor, Zahariel hammered his fist on the integrity field override stud.

  More blaring sirens joined the ones already filling the embarkation deck with noise, but this one was louder and more strident than the others. A booming voice from overhead speakers blared into the deck.

  ‘Warning! Integrity field shutting down! Warning! Integrity field shutting down!’

  Zahariel pressed the stud again, holding it down in an attempt to hurry the shut down procedure. Emergency crews ran for the closing blast doors in panic.

  ‘Warning! Integrity field shutting down! Warning! Integrity field shutting down!’

  ‘I know!’ shouted Zahariel. ‘In the name of the Lion, just shut down!’

  As if in response to his words, the fizzing glow surrounding the generators along the edges of the wide entrance bay faded and the rippling haze of the stars steadied.

  A howling gale engulfed the embarkation deck as the atmosphere and everything not fixed in place was explosively vented into space.

  The sudden rush of air grabbed them like leaves caught on the wind and dragged them towards the opened bay.

  ZAHARIEL GRABBED ONTO the railings that ran around the edge of the embarkation deck and held on for dear life as the howling rush of air bellowed towards the open bay. Crates, boxes of tools and gurneys of ammunition careened through the bay, spiralling towards the void of space as it decompressed.

  The instant before his feet left the ground, he activated the magnetic soles of his boots, and the weight of his armour slammed to the deck, fixing him in place. Fuel pipes writhed like pinned snakes, and loose cabling waved and sparked in the gale.

  The rigged Saroshi shuttle was caught in the rush of air, the power of the decompression gripping it tightly and hurling it from the ship just as its engines fired. Spiralling out of control, the missile corkscrewed wildly as it tumbled away from the ship.

  Those techs and emergency personnel who had not yet reached safety were instantly blown into space, their bodies frozen and ruptured. Their screams were swallowed in the roar of escaping air.

  Zahariel watched as the Saroshi shutde spun away from the Invincible Reason, and
he was suddenly blinded as the warhead secreted within it detonated.

  Outside, in the cold unforgiving darkness of space, it seemed as though the battlecruiser had given birth to a miniature sun. In less than a thousandth of a second, a brilliant ball of light appeared at its flank, flared to incandescence, and was gone.

  Despite having been designed to withstand hostile bombardment by enemy guns, many of the view-portals on the ship’s hull shattered, fragments of toughened glass raining out into the void like glittering diamonds.

  The blast wave thundered towards the ship, and only its automated damage control systems prevented further loss of life. Reacting to the abrupt decompression, blast proof panels slammed shut all along the ship’s length.

  The ship shuddered as though in the grip of a great leviathan of the deep, yet more klaxons and warning lights coming to life in the wake of the explosion. The blast wave rolled over the ship, and Zahariel felt as though every bone in his body was being shaken loose.

  At last, the terrible juddering ceased, and he collapsed to the deck, exhausted and groaning at the pain of his burns. He lay there for several minutes, the sirens, flashing lights and shouts of rescue crews sweeping over him without understanding.

  ‘Brother, are you injured?’

  Zahariel turned his burned head and smiled as he saw that Luther was still alive.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ said Luther, shouting to be heard over the shrill warning klaxons.

  ‘My armour saved me,’ he said.

  ‘It is a good thing you are lucky, Zahariel.’

  ‘What? Lucky? How do you come to that conclusion?’ asked Zahariel, his voice slurring as the balms of his armour sought to counteract his fierce pain.

  ‘Look around,’ gasped Luther. ‘Those Saroshi bastards nearly managed to kill the entire command hierarchy of the fleet, but you stopped them.’

  Zahariel could only look at the broken bodies littering the deck and feel rage at the atrocity he saw before him, but as quickly as the emotion surfaced, he suppressed it. The mental conditioning the Astartes went through helped them to control their emotions and make the optimum use of them when they were needed.

  Rage had its place in the heat of battle, but this was a moment for a cooler head. He pulled himself to his feet with Luther’s help and leaned on the wall, gasping for breath in the frigid air of the restored atmosphere.

  Luther adjusted the comms-frequency of the wall vox-station, patching into the Invincible Reason’s command-net.

  ‘This is Luther of the Dark Angels,’ he said. ‘Multiple casualties sustained on the embarkation deck! I want medicae teams sent here immediately! Bridge command, are you receiving me?’

  ‘Aye, this is bridge command. Receiving, sir,’ said a grainy, static-washed voice. ‘We have reports of a hull breach on your level. Instruments record it as under control.’

  ‘That’s correct, bridge command,’ confirmed Luther. ‘The breach was the work of the Saroshi delegation brought onto the ship half-an-hour ago. The Saroshi shuttle on the embarkation deck was… was rigged with an atomic warhead. Any Saroshi forces left on board are to be arrested immediately. Lethal force is authorised.’

  Luther spared a look at the destruction around them and whispered to Zahariel, ‘As of approximately one minute ago, we are at war with the Saroshi people.’

  Another voice cut in over the voice of bridge command and Zahariel instantly recognised it as belonging to the Lion.

  ‘I want a strategium meeting with all commanders and seconds-in-command onboard the Invincible Reason in half an hour’s time. Is that understood?’

  ‘Understood, my lord,’ said Luther, sharing an uncomfortable look with Zahariel.

  THE ATTACK ON the Invincible Reason was just the beginning.

  All across the fleet, and in the cities and lands of Sarosh, the Imperials found they were suddenly attacked by the people they assumed regarded them as heroes. They had come to liberate the Saroshi from their ignorance, to deliver them from Old Night. They had come to bring them the wonders of the Imperium, to show them marvels.

  But the inhabitants of Sarosh had rejected the Imperium and everything it stood for. They rejected it with great violence, perpetrating appalling deeds of horror and bloodshed. They carried out dozens of atrocities, unleashing all manner of acts of terror.

  More than a thousand Imperial Army and Naval personnel were on shore leave, enjoying the delights of the carnival, when the uprising began.

  Some were murdered, but most of those affected were the victims of abduction. They disappeared into the night, gone without trace, leaving no evidence behind of where they had been taken or who had kidnapped them.

  The situation was clearer when it came to the fate of the Imperial institutions already present on Sarosh. In the space of twelve months, even with compliance yet to be fully certified, a dozen different organs of government had been transplanted from the fleet onto the planet’s surface.

  Naturally, Lord Governor-Elect Furst had established a residence in an appropriately palatial building in the administrative district at the heart of the capital city of Shaloul. Similarly, in preparation for the eventual transfer of powers, various offices of liaison had also been established in the vicinity.

  At around the same time as the Saroshi shuttle exploded, an angry mob attacked the governor’s residence on Sarosh, as well as the nearby Imperial offices. Quickly overwhelming the few Army troopers who had been left on guard duty, the riot’s ringleaders dragged the Imperial functionaries out onto the streets and hacked them to death with axes and knives as the crowd bayed for blood.

  Their bodies were spat on and dismembered, and then condemned to the fire as the mob set light to the Imperial buildings and cast the evidence of their outrage into the flames.

  A few of the Imperials present on Sarosh managed to escape being murdered or abducted. Later, when these survivors told their tales, it would become clear that the entire population of the planet had exploded in a frenzy of bloodletting every bit as sudden and dramatic as the blast that nearly tore through the Invincible Reason.

  The survivors would talk of a primal savagery that descended on the people of Sarosh without warning. One minute, the Saroshi had been their normal charming selves. The next, they had erupted into shocking, ferocious violence.

  Yet, at the same time, there was never the suggestion that this violence was in any way wild or out of control. According to the survivors’ accounts, the opposite held true. There was a terrifying calmness in the manner in which the Saroshi went about the killings.

  They were highly organised, as though each and every one of the thousands of rebels had earlier agreed on a specific role in the conspiracy, as well as an exact timetable by which all these tasks would take place.

  Most frightening of all, and many who believed in the Imperial truth would find this especially troubling, was the almost machine-like perfection of this timetable. There would never be any definite proof of communication between the conspirators on Sarosh and their confederates elsewhere, yet, they appeared able to synchronise their actions to the very second.

  Even when some part of their plan failed, their remaining agents seemed capable of adapting to new circumstances quickly, despite having no apparent means of communications with the rest of the rebels.

  It was an enigma, though it was hardly the most pressing issue commanding the attention of the Dark Angels.

  ‘MAYDAY! THIS IS Bold Conveyor. Our hull is ruptured and we are leaking atmosphere. Request transfer of all available work crews and medicae teams from other ships in the fleet. We need help here!’

  ‘This is Wrath of Caliban calling the flagship! We demand an immediate update on the current status of our commanders. Over.’

  ‘Intrepid calling! Mutineers have been subdued and the situation is under control.’

  ‘Arbalest, this is Invincible Reason. Retreat from high anchor position at once and relocate to anchorage beta or you will be fired upon a
s a hostile vessel. This is your final warning.’

  The bridge of the Invincible Reason was alive with a confused babble of voices. As Zahariel entered the command area with Luther beside him, he was immediately struck by the tension in the air.

  A dozen officers and ratings sat nervously at their stations, issuing terse instructions or holding conversations by inter-ship comms with the other vessels in the fleet. Zahariel recognised controlled desperation in the voices of the men around him.

  It was the same sound he expected to hear in the voice of an army commander whenever the situation was fluid and the progress of the battle was uncertain. It was the sound of men holding fast to their duties even when they suspected that war was about to render their duty, even their lives, irrelevant.

  It was the sound of warriors on the verge of panic.

  That sound ceased as a rating called out, ‘Master on the bridge!’

  Zahariel looked over to where another door to the bridge had opened and the Lion strode in, his face thunderous, and his sword bared and bloody. Zahariel had never seen the master of the First Legion looking so angry and he felt a kernel of apprehension stir in his belly at the thought of the war that such a fury might unleash.

  Nemiel walked alongside the Lion, his expression similarly furious, as they marched towards an officer in the uniform of a fleet captain, who stood talking to the ship’s astropath. Zahariel and Luther made their way painfully over to the conference of senior officers.

  The fleet captain turned at the Lion’s approach and saluted sharply.

  ‘Captain Stenius,’ demanded the Lion without preamble. ‘What is the situation? I want an update.’

  The captain turned to the blind woman beside him. ‘This is Mistress Argenta, the fleet’s senior astropath. I am happy to see you, Lord Jonson. I was hoping you would—’

  ‘Now, Captain Stenius,’ said the Lion, the tone of warning in his voice unmistakable.

  ‘Of course,’ said Stenius as he bowed and turned to the servitor manning a nearby bank of instruments. ‘Raise the shutters.’