by Various
The Peacemakers were hosing the blood off the promontory and moving among the lingerers in the crowd, scattering the onlookers. The elder was escorted back off the execution ground, her piece said. Devynius noticed how the remaining media crews took pains not to point their picters at the elder as she shuffled past a statue of a past governor and out of sight.
Down among the tombs, the trail had warmed up. Thaxos had lost it in a great necropolis of black stone where ancient kings had been buried thousands of years before. Their saint-king cults remained as the thousands of niche-tombs for the servants and sacrifices buried alongside them, and the monumental heads that lay, split and shattered, which once had glowered across the broken stone lands of Briseis. Thaxos got his last glimpse of the quarry among the fallen features of one pre-Imperial king, and by the time he had scrambled up the broken brow ridge it was gone.
Brother Keltus found the trail again. The quarry had been winged by a bolter round and he spotted the smear of blood on the broken finger of a monumental statue’s hand, long severed from its arm. The enemy had leaned here to catch its breath or patch up its wounds, and had moved on. It was slowed by the action and the Ultramarines had quickened their own pace, for they were closing in.
‘Keltus, report in,’ voxed Thaxos as he clambered over a heap of necropolis rubble and found himself looking across a long black chasm, the depths reaching further into the ancient past beneath Port Memnor. ‘We’re out of visual.’
‘I’m fifty metres down, pursuing,’ replied Keltus. ‘I can see him.’
‘Do not get too far ahead,’ said Thaxos. ‘He’s leading us. There could be more.’
There was a ledge, caused by a shifting of the strata of the chasm wall, barely wide enough for a fully armoured Space Marine to navigate. Thaxos’s boots crumbled chunks of rock from the edge as he began the journey down, spotting Brothers Inigens and Oderac on the other side of the chasm half-sliding down a drift of stone fragments. Thaxos’s fire-team were advancing from all sides to corner and trap the quarry. The Ultramarines fought side by side, like primitive phalanx soldiers, when it was appropriate, but Thaxos’s fire-team could be cunning hunters as well when the situation warranted it.
A river glinted at the bottom of the cavern. The darkness down among the tombs was so profound even Thaxos’s augmented sight could barely make it out as it rushed and foamed.
‘He’s out of sight,’ came the vox from Keltus. ‘But he’s cornered. He’s trapped. There’s no way up.’
‘If there is,’ voxed Brother Venarin, ‘I’ll see him.’ Venarin was a marksman, as fine a shot as Thaxos himself, and his custom bolter was loaded with long-range Stalker shells and a preysense scope. Thaxos could just make out Venarin crouched at the lip of the chasm, sighting down his bolter.
Bolter fire crackled from below. ‘Contact!’ voxed Keltus.
Thaxos scrabbled as fast as he could down the chasm face. The river grew closer and the rushing of its waters louder. He picked out another sound – the high hiss of pulse fire, familiar from the firefight in the council chamber.
‘Multiple contacts,’ voxed Thaxos. ‘Venarin! Do you see them?’
‘Not from here,’ replied Venarin. ‘I am displacing.’
Thaxos stumbled the last dozen metres. Foaming dark water rushed up to meet him and he strode into it, the pull of it trying to drag him down and wash him away. Flashes of crimson light up ahead marked the continuing pulse fire, underscored with the low thudding of bolter volleys. Thaxos’s own bolter was up in front of his face, every eye movement tracked by the barrel as he had been sleep-taught since novicehood.
Thaxos rounded a corner and saw the enemy. They were barely visible in the dark and clamour – their faces were completely hidden in the featureless helms of their armoured suits, the desert camouflage incongruous among the tombs. He spotted two or three of them at the side of the river, the red filaments of their rifles’ laser sights playing across the rock where Brother Keltus crouched. Thaxos fired almost without having to will it, the order coming from the warrior’s part of his brain cultured and trained by sleep-teaching and veneration of Guilliman’s Codex Astartes. A volley of three bolter shells thudded into the torso of one tau, the explosive bolts blasting off an arm and ripping open the torso. Thaxos counted three more visible, scrambling for cover among the rocks.
Keltus leapt to his feet and followed up, two well-placed shots taking down another tau.
These were fire caste warriors, Thaxos remembered. The tau society was based around castes, not just social but physiological – the fire caste had quick aggression and athleticism, the water caste cunning, the earth caste physical strength, the air caste reflexes. The fire caste were trained by the tau cadres as excellent shots and participants in the combined arms manner of tau warfare. They were not trained to face a Space Marine in any context, save down the sights of a pulse rifle.
Thaxos didn’t have to give the order. Keltus was charging even as Thaxos sprinted through the filthy, foaming water, rattling off half a bolter magazine to keep the tau ducking behind the fallen rocks at the base of the chasm. He vaulted over a rock and crashed into the tau sheltering there, crushing the alien’s body beneath all the weight of Space Marine and armour. He brought his combat knife out and lashed it at the nearest fire caste standing – his reach was more than the tau had expected and the blade cut through the front of its helm, the monomolecular edge propelled by augmented muscles. The tip cut through the helm into flesh and the tau reeled backwards. Thaxos was on the fallen tau, plunging the blade into the tau’s throat, hauling the alien into the air and blasting three shots into its chest at point-blank range.
Brother Keltus cracked his quarry around the side of the face with the stock of his bolter. As the alien reeled Keltus shot it in the abdomen and put another round through its head as it fell.
A fire caste leapt out from cover, rifle levelled at Thaxos. The side of its throat exploded and its head snapped to the side before it could pull the trigger. Thaxos didn’t have to look up to know that Brother Venarin had taken it down with a Stalker shot.
‘Where is the target?’ voxed Thaxos, before the last fire caste warrior had plunged into the water.
‘They were covering his retreat,’ said Venarin. ‘There’s a structure up ahead.’
‘Down here? A tomb?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘Forward,’ voxed Thaxos. ‘Tighten up. Take it prisoner if possible, shoot if you must.’
Past the bodies of the fire caste warriors the chasm took a sharp bend, the water rushing over chunks of fallen stone. The tumult almost hid the entrance to a tunnel in the chasm wall, a solid steel frame surrounding a blast door. It looked as out of place down here as anything could.
‘Blow this open,’ voxed Thaxos. ‘Oderac, melta bombs!’
Oderac had a practical and level head, making him the team’s field engineer when no Techmarine was present. He carried the squad’s melta bombs and a demolition charge, and scrabbled down the remaining slope into the water. Venarin remaining overlooking the chasm as the rest of the fire-team took cover and Oderac attached the melta bombs to the side of the door with magnetic clamps.
The bombs radiated tremendous heat, melting deep glowing red holes in the door. Molten steel spat and hissed in the water. Oderac stepped forward again and forced the demolition charge into one of the holes, twisting the primer.
‘Ten seconds!’ he voxed.
‘The alien is perfidious and cunning,’ said Thaxos. ‘But we shall force him to show his hand. No longer will he hide. And when the light of justice is upon them, there is no escape from the sons of Macragge.’
The demolition charge went off. The autosenses built into the Ultramarines’ armour deadened the sound so they were not deafened by it. The door was blown open, torn petals of steel splayed wide enough to allow a Space Marine entry.
Thaxos
took the lead. The other Ultramarines of his fire-team followed him in. Harsh white lights flickered inside, picking out steel floor and white wall panels, and signs in the tau language pointing deeper into the facility.
Ahead was a larger chamber, the walls lined with transparent-walled cages. A large brushed steel table stood in the centre of the room, a smaller table beside it covered in fine silver medical implements designed for three-fingered tau hands. Thaxos glanced at the cells – they had a single drain in the floor and a single slot in the front wall, and nothing else. Against the back wall were two automated guns, cylindrical units containing pairs of pulse rifles. They were deactivated, any fugitive here moving too quickly to turn them on to defend the place.
‘He is desperate,’ voxed Thaxos. ‘He will err. We will not. Be sharp.’
Thaxos waved for Oderac and Keltus to move one way, he, Venarin and Inigens the other. Machinery covered the walls up ahead of uncertain purpose, in the featureless casings typical of tau technology. The antiseptic smoothness of every surface indicated alien minds free of faith, without the guidance of belief in the God-Emperor to guide them. The very cleanliness was unclean.
Thaxos caught up with their quarry in the facility’s interrogation chamber. The purpose of this room was clear given the man strapped, naked save for the harness affixing him to the wall, among a tangle of pipes and cables hooked up to his body. Thaxos took in the detail as he scanned the room for targets and saw one – crouching behind a white cabinet that might have been a cogitator housing or a storage unit for interrogation implements. The hint of movement was enough to draw Thaxos’s eye.
The alien’s limbs were too long to be folded up completely behind the scant cover. It had chosen, in its desperation, a bad place to hide. It had made many mistakes in its life, chief among which was standing against the interests of the Imperium, but its choice of this place to shelter from the Space Marines would be its last.
‘I know you speak Low Gothic,’ said Thaxos. ‘One chance. Surrender.’
‘Please,’ came the reply in the dry whisper of the tau voice. ‘We can coexist. Just listen.’
‘One chance,’ said Thaxos.
‘There is something greater than the war between us. Greater than the pride of our species. You are wise among your people. You have not the narrow minds of its citizens. There is a Greater Good…’
Thaxos took two long strides to the alien’s position and dragged it out from cover. It was one of the water caste, the diplomatic strain of the tau species. It was not built for physical conflict, with its spindly limbs and pigeon chest over which its orange and black robes hung loosely. It had a pistol in its hand, a compact pulse weapon, and Thaxos snapped its wrist with a jerk of its arm so the pistol clattered to the floor. The alien whimpered.
‘Report,’ voxed Thaxos.
‘Clear,’ replied Keltus. ‘Your orders?’
‘Prepare to deny the facility to the enemy,’ said Thaxos.
‘Listen,’ said the alien, its voice hoarse and broken. ‘It is not too late for our species. We two, we can start it. A dialogue. For peace. For truth. For…’
Thaxos threw the alien to the ground and levelled his bolter at it. ‘I think this thing counts as a moral threat,’ said Thaxos. ‘Brothers? Do you concur?’
‘I do, Brother Thaxos,’ replied Venarin.
‘Thank the Throne for that,’ said Thaxos, and shot the alien through the chest. The bolter shell detonated inside it, spreading its shattered ribs out through his back. It was dead before its broken form sprawled onto the ground. Huge black eyes turned dull and glassy in the harsh light of the glowstrips on the ceiling.
‘He’s alive,’ said Brother Inigens. Thaxos turned to see Inigens examining the body restrained against the wall. Now he had time to look closer at the captive he could see the chest was rising and falling, and readouts in the alien alphabet winked steadily on displays set into the wall panels.
The captive’s mouth was obstructed by a gag from which several tubes and pipes ran. Inigens undid a catch on the gag and slid it out, pulling a long slimy tube from the captive’s throat. The captive was a man in middle age, evidently in fit and good health. The fittings around his face came away and Thaxos saw the well-worn features of soldier.
The man coughed phlegmily and his eyes opened, squinting in the light. He gasped back a choking breath in shock at the sight of three Space Marines standing in front of him.
‘You are safe, citizen,’ said Thaxos. ‘The xenos are dead.’
‘Dead?’ spluttered the captive.
‘Very dead indeed,’ said Thaxos, indicating the water caste corpse.
The captive chuckled weakly at the sight of the body. ‘Savages,’ he said. ‘Heathens. We will kill them all.’
Inigens removed the restraints one by one, supporting the man’s body until he could be lifted down from the wall. He knelt on the floor coughing, chest heaving.
‘Your name?’ asked Thaxos, removing his helmet. When dealing with civilians, the more human face was the better one to show. He took out a data-slate and cycled through various intelligence files on its screen.
‘Dwynen Vular Kesseoth,’ replied the captive. ‘Explicator Errant. In service to Inquisitor Vengel Prianze, Damocles task force conclave.’
Thaxos flicked through pages of names. Dwynen Vular Kesseoth was among the Inquisitorial agents known to be operating in the system, deployed in their dozens by the Inquisition to embed themselves in Imperial settlements and watch for signs of xenophile treachery. ‘Your call-sign?’ he asked.
‘Dawnlight,’ replied Kesseoth.
‘Then I hope you are enjoying the sights of Briseis, Explicator Kesseoth,’ said Thaxos. ‘How did they capture you?’
‘The xenophiles had men in the Peacemakers,’ said Kesseoth. ‘I bedded down in the precinct-house, woke up down here. Must have drugged me.’
‘Did you talk?’
Kesseoth looked up at Thaxos. His eyes were rimmed with red. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘Melta bombs set around the entrance,’ voxed Oderac. ‘They’ll bring the ceiling down.’
‘We’ll get you to the surface,’ said Thaxos, helping Kesseoth to his feet.
‘I must ask for a weapon,’ said Kesseoth. ‘They have a lot of xenos down here, that much I know.’
‘Your sidearm, brother,’ said Thaxos, and Inigens handed his bolt pistol to Kesseoth. The weapon was made for a Space Marine and Kesseoth had to hold it with both hands.
‘Stay alert,’ said Thaxos. ‘We have killed all that stood before us but there may be more. The alien could have got a distress call out. Normally I would relish the chance to kill a few more of them but we have a guest to think of now. Move out.’
The Ultramarines left the facility, emerging into the darkness of the chasm. Venarin scouted ahead, Keltus watching their rear.
‘Wait,’ said Kesseoth as they began to forge through the rushing water. ‘There’s a defence system. Drones. They’re stationed across this region. If they were alerted, they’ll come in from overhead.’
‘Eyes up, brothers,’ said Thaxos, glancing towards the distant stone ceiling of the tombs. He could see nothing in the grey-black expanse.
Kesseoth held out the bolt pistol in front of him, barely able to lift it. ‘For the Greater Good,’ he said, and shot Brother Thaxos through the back of the head.
Chapter Four
‘No doubt the vaunted general is confident he knows all that is required to outfight and confound his enemy. No doubt the enemy opposing him knows exactly the same thing.’
– Codex Astartes
The generatorium dominated the west of Port Memnor, its exhaust stacks and cooling towers defining the cityscape. The enormous cylinders of the generators were clad in age-stained rockcrete, criss-crossed with gantries and cranes. The blocky shapes of the turbine were halls cov
ered with industrial gothic flourishes insisted on by the city’s Imperial founders. Shanties crusted around the base of the buildings, nestling precariously on the banks of open industrial sewers.
A short distance away was Port Memnor’s spaceport, enormous hexagonal landing pads served by hundreds of fuel tanks and control towers. Hidden beneath the pads, beneath enormous hydraulic hatches, were the defence lasers that made the spaceport such a valuable asset for the Imperium to take control of. It would allow large space-bound ships to disgorge their complements of Imperial Guard men and tanks, then taken to Agrellan itself on faster armour transports that could weather ground fire from the tau advancing across the planet. But there were xenophiles everywhere, including among the thousands of men and women among the crews of the generatorium and spaceport, and the Imperium could not land its ships until the traitors were rooted out of Port Memnor.
In the heart of the generatorium complex was the personal domain of Magos Skepteris. It was into this web of dark chambers and corridors that the small party from the Thundercliff tribe were admitted, among them the old woman who served as their elder, and a number of men and women inducted into the tribe’s mysteries. They carried tribal fetishes, the shed snake skins and staffs cut from the trees watered by the bloodshed in the beast pit beneath the cliff, and were escorted through the labyrinth of Skepteris’s lab complex by a detail of Peacemaker troops.
Picters followed them, their operators carefully shadowed the Peacemakers. They were not permitted to film details of the complex unnecessary to the broadcast. They passed by the strange exotic machines for generating and transferring strange forms of energy that crackled fingers of electricity between their polished brass spheres.
Magos Skepteris waited in her receiving chamber, a room barely ever used for she was not a diplomat at heart. Banners hung displaying the heraldry of the Priesthood of Mars and an altar of pure carbon blocks was stacked up by one wall, with an icon of the half-skull and cog that was the symbol of the Mechanicum.
