Let The Galaxy Burn

by Marc

  ‘Help me, Lakius. I can’t hold it!’ Egal shouted over the piercing shriek of air being annihilated in the void. Lakius levelled his laser at the magos and shot him in the head without replying. Egal fell back clutching his face. The staff plunged into the rift and exploded with a crack like lightning. Ozone hung heavy in the air as Lakius backed away through the laser mesh spines towards the camp. He spared a glance for his treasured weapon’s indicator jewel, and saw it was dim. His last shot had been at full strength, enough to punch through plasteel. Magos Egal was still moving, standing up.

  ‘Have you any idea how hard it was to get this texture right?’ he demanded indignantly, indicating the side of his face that had been caressed by a steel-burning laser. Charred welts revealed glittering metal beneath, quicksilver curves that betrayed an inhuman, yet familiar, anatomy. Lakius kept moving back, the figure of the thing that had pretended to be Egal was getting reassuringly distant, dwarfed by the solid black base of the alien structure. A pair of Praetorians came rattling forward from amidst the stormbunkers, balefully scanning Lakius with their targeters.

  ‘One life form identified. Classified non-hostile.’ one concluded.

  The magos-thing was at the laser mesh. It leapt suddenly, astoundingly covering the hundred metres to Lakius and the Praetorians in a single somersaulting bound.

  ‘One life form identified. Classified non-hostile.’ the other Praetorian stated.

  ‘Surely you didn’t believe these clattering toys would be able to identify me?’ the Egal-thing smiled. ‘I had thought you one of the more intelligent specimens.’

  Lakius’s mouth was dry with fear, but he managed a curt nod of acceptance before crying out ‘Praetorians! Audio primus command! Overwatch!’ The Praetorians locked their weapons onto the alien with eye-blurring speed, their simple brains entirely devoted to obliterating the first rapid movement they sensed.

  ‘You forget that I spent time repairing servitors after the last battle. I took the liberty of updating their command protocols at the same time.’ Lakius said with more courage than he felt.

  The thing smiled more broadly still, and slowly cocked its head to one side. The Praetorians’ weapons tracked the minute movement faithfully.

  ‘Good for you, Lakius Danzager. You really are a clever one. How did you know I wasn’t human?’

  Lakius hesitated for a moment. The thing before him exuded an almost primal sense of power. It was at his mercy for the present, but his instincts told him it could pounce on him at any moment. The Mechanicus in him yearned to learn what he could about it while his humanity screamed out to destroy it. His curiosity overpowered his instincts for a moment.

  ‘I wasn’t sure, but either you were the thing from the crypt or an insane Explorator who was bent on unleashing something unspeakable upon the world. When I understood that, my choices became clear. How did you replace Egal? Did he wake you in there?’ Icy daggers caressed Lakius’s back as he talked to the thing. Its silver and flesh smile widened even further.

  ‘What makes you think I replaced him at all? I have travelled a great distance since my first waking, walked in many places that have changed so very much since I saw them last.’

  ‘What were you seeking?’ whispered Lakius.

  The thing’s ferocious smile was spread almost ear to ear. ‘Knowledge, mostly. I wanted to know how the galaxy had fared; who was left after the plague. You can’t imagine my surprise on finding your kind and the krork scattered everywhere. I’ve seen you humans trying to forge an empire in the name of a corpse; I have seen your churches to the machine. Racially, your fear and superstition are most gratifying. You make excellent subjects.’

  ‘You are necrontyr, then. You went into stasis to escape a disease.’

  ‘No, your language is inefficient. The plague was not a disease and it couldn’t harm us, but…’ The necrontyr tilted its head back as if dreaming of long lost times. ‘It was killing everything else.’ It looked back at Lakius. ‘And no, I am not a necron. You mistake the slave for the master. You’ll understand better when I take you back inside.’

  It leapt. The Praetorians blazed into it with lasers and plasma, their bolts lashing at the thin form. Lakius was momentarily blinded by the orgy of destruction, and he fled towards the command centre in the hope of finding reinforcements. He looked back to see a silvery figure ripping pieces out of one the Praetorians. The other battle-servitor was smouldering nearby. The figure waved a piece of carapace jauntily at Lakius.

  ‘Sorry, Lakius, I couldn’t resist it.’ the thing called. ‘My race raised what you call “melodrama” to a high art form before you were even evolved.’ It chuckled and returned to eviscerating the Praetorian.

  LAKIUS WAS SPINNING the locks shut on the command centre hatch when he sensed a presence behind him. He turned, too terrified and weary to fight but wanting to see his nemesis. He almost died of relief when he saw it was Osil.

  ‘Osil, it’s—’

  ‘I know, father, I was watching on the monitor.’

  ‘The assassin?’ Lakius gasped as he sagged to the ground.

  ‘I couldn’t reach the ship, it was covered by a swarm of insect machines. I’m afraid they’ll trigger its anti-tampering protocols sooner or later. I searched for something we could use to protect ourselves but there are only components, nothing complete.’

  ‘I fear the thing out there may survive the blast anyway. If so it would be better to—’

  A ringing blow sounded against the hatch, making both Osil and Lakius jump. Then another blow slammed into it, then a third. At the third blow a bulge appeared in the Titan-grade adamantium plate. Silence fell.

  ‘I think we’d better look at those components, Osil.’ Lakius said, struggling to his feet. Osil fussed around him, his fears assuaged by having someone else to think about. He showed Lakius the ready-caskets and crates he had brought.

  ‘I’ve performed the rites of preparation on these pieces, and anointed the calibrators,’ Osil said hopefully. A hissing, popping noise came from the hatch, and a bright heat-spot formed at its centre.

  Lakius looked at the mass of unconnected components and despaired.

  The heat spot had made a complete orbit of the door, leaving a trail of molten fire behind it. As the circle was closed the metal fell inward of its own weight, clanging to the ground and sending up a cloud of reeking fumes. A tall, inhuman figure stepped through the gap.

  ‘Mechanism, I restore thy spirit. Let the God-Machine breathe half-life unto thy veins and render thee functional.’ muttered Lakius, scarcely looking up. Osil gaped at the apparition, sure that his life was over.

  ‘Ah, splendid, both of you.’ it grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been trying to make something to stop me? With all your chanting and bone-rattling it would take days, years!’

  There was a flash outside, and seconds later a titanic roar. The blast wave from the assassinorum vessel’s plasma reactor going critical was a second behind that.

  ‘Don’t worry, I can save you.’ The thing grinned again.

  ‘No need.’ grated Lakius and closed the last connection.

  A dome of shimmering, bluish light sprang into being. It filled the hatchway with the necron-master frozen at its centre. It was a charcoal-black silhouette in the glare of the plasma-flash beyond the field. The rest of the armoured command centre shook and rattled alarmingly but held, its vulnerable hatch protected by Lakius’s improvised stasis bubble.

  After the blast wave had passed there was a long moment of silence before Osil asked. ‘Father, won’t the Omnissiah be angry that you mistreated all those Machine Spirits making the field?’

  ‘Let it be our secret, Osil. Deus Ex Mechanicus. The Emperor watches over us.’

  BUSINESS AS USUAL

  Graham McNeill

  RIGHT AWAY, SNOWDOG could tell that these six, deadhead Jackboys were trying to pull one over on him. Sure, they talked the talk, walked the walk and apparently had some real heavy connections with the High H
ive gangs, but his gut told him that this deal was going to hell. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong. Maybe it was the location the Jackboys had chosen for the deal, too close to the tyranid nests for Snowdog’s liking. Or maybe it was their attitude. They were too cocky, acting like he was some dumb squarejohn who didn’t know the score and Snowdog didn’t like that. Not one bit. It meant they thought they were holding all the cards.

  Like all Jackboys, they wore plain grey boiler suits, pulled in at the waist with a broad leather belt. Every one of them had shaven heads, tattooed with crosses, guns and gang symbols. They wore knee-length, shining jackboots and two carried Arbites combat shotguns, no doubt looted from a couple of dead Bronzes. They looked a bit too ready to use them and if this deal did go ballistic, then he’d have to put those two down first.

  ‘Well?’ said one of the Jackboys. ‘It’s good stuff, yeah? Your boy looks like he’s pretty happy with it.’

  Snowdog had to agree, the Kalma was top notch. Lex was smacked out of his damn eyeballs, sedated by the euphoric drug and grinning inanely, thick ropes of drool dangling from his chin. If some shooting action went down here, Lex would be frag all use in the fight. Thank the Hive Spirit he’d decided to bring Silver and Tigerlily with him. The girls could take on any hardcase and make him wish he’d never been born. He’d seen their handiwork many times and was eternally grateful they ran with his gang.

  Both were dressed in dark catsuits and pistol belts. Tigerlily kept her red hair cropped close to her skull in shaven stripes and wore a baldric of assorted throwing knives and daggers across her chest. Silver’s albino-white hair was tied in a long ponytail and she was armed with two gleaming autopistols, bolstered beneath a long, leather coat. The kind of firepower the Jackboys were packing was beginning to make him wish he’d brought Trask or Jonny Stomp along as well, but he’d wanted to make a point. He’d wanted the Jackboys to know he didn’t need big guns to prove how much of a player he was.

  ‘Yeah.’ nodded Snowdog, conceding the point, ‘it looks like good stuff, but Lex trips out on coffee and ain’t payin’ for it neither.’

  ‘Hey, a free sample only goes so far, you know? You wanna deal or what?’ said a second Jackboy, irritation in his voice. Snowdog’s suspicions racked up a notch. They were too eager to deal. Jackboys usually felt the need to strut like damn peacocks before getting down to the dealing.

  They sat in a junked out factory unit, on the northern edge of the Stank, one of the lowest and most dangerous badzones in Erebus Hive. Not even the Arbites Enforcers would come here without damn good reason. A hab unit had collapsed on the factory a couple of months back, killing all the workers and flattening most of the machinery. It had been abandoned and left to rot; another stinking, sedimentary layer of metal and flesh. There were still tunnels and chambers left in the unit, areas that had escaped the violence of the hab’s collapse. The area they now sat in was low ceilinged and strewn with broken glass and twisted metal girders. The flattened hulk of a milling machine served as their business table.

  A large, sealed petri dish sat on the machine, filled with tiny red capsules. Six hundred Kalma drops, worth a small fortune – enough to get some real heavy ordnance, haul themselves upwards and carve out some more stamping grounds.

  ‘So, you wanna deal?’ repeated the Jackboy.

  ‘Maybe.’ said Snowdog, nodding imperceptibly to Silver.

  ‘Don’t be givin’ me no “maybe”. Yes or no, that’s all I wanna hear. I don’t give out nothing for nothing. Understand, boy? You take our Kalma, we want something back.’

  ‘Hey, I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna deal.’ soothed Snowdog, ‘let’s all just flat-line and be cool. We’re all here to do a little business, not bag ‘n tag each other.’

  The Jackboys seemed to relax at this and moved their hands away from their pistols. They might be hardcases in the High Hive, but they didn’t know jack about how negotiations were handled down here in the badzones.

  Snowdog glanced at the petri dish again. Six hundred Kalma drops. It looked pure as well, the best, not cut with chalk or rock powder. This stuff would make you feel like the inside of your brain had been dipped in honey.

  The cares of the world could all go to hell while you were on Kalma, at least for a while.

  But the good stuff didn’t come cheap.

  No. These boys were setting him up for something and he sure as hell didn’t like the feeling. He’d stayed alive in the Stank this long by trusting his instincts and right now there was a four alarm fire going off in his head. The Jackboys knew he had the connections and the hard cash to pay for this and he also knew they would probably try to keep the drugs and the money… which meant they wouldn’t let him leave here alive.

  Snowdog was not an especially tall man, but his compact body was rangy and muscled and he could fight like a cornered hellcat. His skin had an unhealthy pallor to it, the result of living in the darkness of the underhive and his full features were rugged and careworn. His head was crowned with short, bleached blond hair that was backcombed in short spikes and his brown eyes suspiciously checked out the Jackboys. He wore a pair of black, tiger striped trousers, tucked into a pair of enforcer’s combat boots he’d pulled from a dead Bronze. At his belt hung a long bladed knife and a wire garrotte. His white shirt was printed with a faded holo-patch depicting a rippling explosion that expanded and contracted as he moved. Over this he wore a black leather waistcoat and shoulder holster containing a battered autopistol.

  ‘Look, how much you want for this?’ asked Snowdog. ‘You got a lot of stuff here, probably more’n I can take in one go.’

  ‘Hey, man. It’s cool. We know we got a lot. But we need to get rid of it quick, you know?’ said the lead Jackboy, his pitted face right in Snowdog’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Jackboys with the shotguns quietly ease the safeties off their weapons.

  Snowdog sat back, folded his arms and, unnoticed, loosened the catch on his autopistol’s shoulder holster. He noticed Silver and Tigerlily tensing, readying their muscles for instant action. They knew the drill.

  He locked eyes with the Jackboy and shrugged, ‘Like I said, how much you want?’

  ‘Ten thousand.’ snapped the Jackboy without hesitation.

  ‘Ten thousand—’ said Snowdog, knowing what the next question would be.

  ‘You got that kinda cash?’

  ‘Yeah.’ said Snowdog, sliding his hand towards his holster.

  ‘Then I guess we’ll take all you got!’ shouted the Jackboy, snatching for his gun.

  Snowdog was quicker.

  He whipped out his autopistol and squeezed off a round full in the Jackboy’s face. The ganger screamed foully, tumbling backwards, the top of his head blasted clear.

  The Jackboys with the shotguns were moving. Chambering shells, they aimed and fired. Snowdog dropped, hitting the deck hard and rolling, firing off an entire clip of wild shots. Tigerlily leapt towards the second Jackboy and rammed her elbow into his throat. She spun low and hammered a slender-bladed dagger into his belly, slicing upwards in one fluid motion. The Jackboy gurgled and fell to the factory floor, dropping his shotgun and grasping his crushed larynx.

  Silver calmly fired her pistols, double tapping the second shotgun-wielding Jackboy in the head. Snowdog slid another clip into the grip of his pistol and rose from behind his shelter.

  Bullets stitched a path towards him. He spun quickly and fired twice towards a crouching Jackboy. The man grunted, shot in the chest and fell back, blood pouring from his wounds.

  Snowdog felt a whipcrack sting to his cheek and dived forwards, reaching for the fallen shotgun. He scooped it up on the roll and rose smoothly to a crouch, firing off a succession of shots. The noise was tremendous and he whooped with excitement as the Jackboy who’d fired at him went down, his chest punched clean through by the close range blasts.

  Silver and Tigerlily worked their way towards him, using every bit of cover available. Neither had even b
roken sweat. He smiled at them as silence descended on the factory.

  ‘Time to split, girls.’ he said.

  ‘Damn straight.’ said Silver. ‘Bound to be some more Jackboys nearby waitin’ for us.’

  ‘Figured as much.’

  ‘Only way outa here that ain’t gonna take us into more of these guys is down past the ‘nid nests.’ pointed out Tigerlily, ‘and that ain’t gonna be a barrel of laughs.’

  ‘Nope.’ Silver agreed. She glanced over the debris they’d sheltered behind and said, ‘What about Lex? We just gonna leave him for the Jackboys? They’ll bag’n’tag him for sure, man.’

  ‘Damn!’ said Snowdog. He’d forgotten about Lex. He’d still be lying there thinking that this was some Kalma related trip-out. He could hear the Jackboy talking on a comm-unit. More would be here soon, that was for damn sure. He checked his pistol and also took Silver’s gun, handing her the Arbites shotgun.

  ‘I’ll get Lex. You cover me with this. We’ll be out of here and high n’ dry before you know it.’

  THE STANK DARKENED at their passing. The black, armour-clad warriors charged down the twisting halls, combat shotguns held at the ready across their broad chests. Dark cloaks trailed behind them, gusted by the sputtering oxy-recyc units. The six man Adeptus Arbites Enforcer squad, grim men in fully enclosed suits of carapace armour, cast a pall of fear as they passed the stinking hovels and battered habs of the lower hive.

  The leader of the squad, Captain Jakob Gunderson, scanned from side to side, alert for a Skum sniper, Wyldern snuff gang or any one of the many other dangers that lurked in this place. Travelling in such numbers and at this speed made such an attack unlikely, but in the Stank, if you wanted to stay alive, you never took things like that for granted.

  The Wall of the Dead in the Precinct House was carved with the names of those who had.