Eye of Terra

by Various

  ‘Are you suggesting I should not be here, sir?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then we are in agreement on one fact.’

  Likane shakes his head. He’s smiling, but out of disgust. ‘More than that, Thiel. Much more. You bring shame to us, to this Legion. You are not an Ultramarine – you’re a mistake.’

  Thiel nods, but shows no emotion. ‘And the listening posts, sir?’

  The captain clenches his fists. But rather than angry, his voice is resigned.

  ‘You are fortunate that I don’t enact a fitting punishment myself. I would enjoy it. But then I’d be fit for the mark too. Take whoever is free and able. But I warn you now, you have sanction to perform a single recon mission. Volunteers only. Do not pull anyone from active duty.’

  ‘That’s a shallow pool, sir,’ Thiel murmurs.

  ‘Yes, it is. You should feel at ease in it. Now, get out.’

  Smoke stings his eyes. His throat is burned raw, and he’s lost his helmet. It takes a few seconds for Thiel to realise he isn’t dead. His bolt pistol is on fire. It scorches the ceramite of his gauntlet as he seizes the grip.

  The tower is down, reduced to a crumbling ruin. Bodies are trapped in the wreckage – the corpses of their enemies, though some of them are still moving. Dazed, they stagger through the fog of agglomerated dust, grit and soot. Lying on his back, Thiel guns them down.

  Inviglio is by his side. So are Venator and Bracheus. Thiel hears Venator shouting coordinates down the vox, and realises what has happened.

  A second missile barrage hits the ruins of the tower. The explosions shake the earth, blooming brightly before black smoke smothers the light. A few more disparate bolter bursts echo, their muzzle flashes like stars of fire, before it’s over.

  Inviglio offers Thiel a hand as Bracheus stays on sentry. ‘Can you walk, sergeant?’

  ‘Recall… everyone…’

  Croaking and hoarse, Thiel does not recognise his own voice. Venator turns to scan the ruins.

  ‘Petronius says we’re clear. He’s on his way.’

  Thiel laughs out loud, and its hurts badly. But he’s alive.

  Inviglio hauls his sergeant back to his feet. ‘At least those bastards are dead.’

  Thiel grimaces as he recovers his blade, and looks back to Inviglio. ‘We need to make sure. You have a knife?’

  ‘Of course, sergeant.’ He cocks his head. ‘Do you intend to stab them?’

  Thiel limps towards the wreckage of the tower. ‘No. I want to see what’s under their damn helmets.’

  As he enters the barrack house where he instructed his recruits to gather, Thiel realises that Likane wants him to fail. There are over two thousand legionaries garrisoned at Oran. The captain has afforded him twenty-two.

  For Ultramarines, they look less than exceptional. Thiel recognises Inviglio and Bracheus, the Calth veterans. The others are strangers, and marked for censure. Pettiness, in Thiel’s opinion, has become the Legion’s singular weakness – every infraction, any deviation, however minor, is met with the red. It’s not a tool for rehabilitation or even punishment. It’s a noose choking the life from the XIII Legion.

  Inviglio meets him at the door. ‘I think Likane has raided the brig…’ he murmurs.

  ‘I see warriors,’ Thiel replies quietly. ‘He has honoured his word. In kind, at least.’

  ‘In eight hours, this is all we could get?’

  Bracheus approaches them, nodding his acknowledgement. ‘You sound concerned, brother. There is no shame in adversity.’

  Inviglio frowns. ‘I feel none.’

  Thiel ignores them. His gaze roams the barrack house instead. ‘Not exactly what I had in mind. But they will serve.’

  He raises his voice.

  ‘You know who I am, and you know what Brother-Captain Likane thinks of you. I have need of men of purpose and skill.’

  ‘For what, brother-sergeant?’ asks a legionary with a peppering of dark stubble across his scalp. He stands with his arms folded. He has shell burns, and Thiel suspects that an Apothecary sheared the warrior’s hair while digging out shrapnel. He nods, but does not salute. ‘Drenius.’

  Thiel notes that Drenius also holds a sergeant’s rank, and his entire squad carries the red mark.

  ‘A remote listening station called Tritus has gone dark,’ he replies. ‘I want to know why. I can’t man the walls at Oran in a polished suit of armour, waiting to be called to arms. I don’t believe any of you can either, or you wouldn’t be standing before me now, your helms striped in red.’

  A hulking legionary at the back of the room raises his voice.

  ‘Standing at the walls, sitting in a cell, it makes little difference.’ He is daubed with the red mark, worn either proudly or dismissively. ‘What is this all about?’

  ‘Purpose.’ Thiel walks the length of the room to stand in front of him, not quite eye to eye. A pugilist’s face looks down at the sergeant, but with intelligent eyes. The red is crisscrossed over his features like an X. ‘What’s your name, Ultramarine?’

  ‘Petronius.’

  Inviglio can no longer hold his temper. ‘The sergeant outranks you, legionary!’

  ‘I see the mark,’ Petronius growls. ‘Do you see mine?’

  ‘Disobedient cur! I–’

  Thiel’s raised hand stalls any further remonstration. ‘You want to leave Oran? I can give you that. Someone told me today that I was not worthy to be an Ultramarine. I think you have been told something similar before, brother. For, make no mistake in this, we are brothers.’

  He looks around the room again.

  ‘All of us. This is our chance to cast off our shame – whether we deny it, whether we confess to care about it. I believe we are under attack, only we have yet to realise it. I hope I am wrong, but I don’t think so. It begins with Tritus.’

  ‘And if we find something there?’ Sergeant Drenius asks.

  Thiel turns to him, and sees in his eyes a need to atone.

  ‘We kill it, brother. But not before we make sure it tells where its friends are hiding.’

  The cuneiform on the dead legionary’s face is Colchisian. Bracheus scowls in disgust.

  ‘Carved with his own blade.’

  Inviglio looks on. ‘That’s how they did it on Calth…’

  Thiel’s face is a mask of cold anger. He taps the dead Word Bearer’s armour with his boot.

  ‘They planned for this. For us.’

  ‘No Ultramarine would fire on one of his own,’ says Bracheus. ‘More false colours.’

  The wounds are still fresh for all of them. The betrayal, the sheer loss.

  ‘Fighting from shadows, behind masks,’ spits Inviglio, casting aside the Word Bearer’s helmet. ‘We hesitated, and nine of us are dead because of it.’

  Bracheus turns to him. ‘And if there’s doubt? If there are other Ultramarines at large out here? Do we fire first and ask questions later?’

  ‘No,’ murmurs Thiel. ‘We adapt.’

  ‘A call sign, then? Something we can–’

  Thiel shakes his head.

  ‘Too ambiguous. And if we’re already engaged, it’s not practical. It has to be instantaneous. Immediate visual recognition.’

  His eyes fall upon the helmet he was given at the Oran garrison – it lies split open on the ground, the red of censure painted across the ceramite. He smiles, only half grimacing in pain.

  ‘It has to be symbolic. We have to be ready.’

  A lone gunship sits in the deployment bay surrounded by menials and servitors. Thiel’s watching the preparations from a gantry, lost in his thoughts, when he notices Inviglio approaching.

  ‘The Spirit of Veridia.’

  ‘Sir?’

  Thiel gestures to the Thunderhawk below. ‘So named for Calth’s lonely star. How it burned…’

>   ‘A few hours and we’ll be airborne,’ says Inviglio. He clearly finds the memory uncomfortable.

  Thiel nods. ‘Aye, and then we shall see.’

  ‘See, brother-sergeant?’

  ‘See what matters more – a red mark or a blue one.’

  A moment of silence passes between them, filled by the drone of industry below. Missile payloads and ammo hoppers are being readied.

  ‘It was Likane, wasn’t it,’ says Inviglio.

  ‘Who claimed I was no Ultramarine? Of course.’

  ‘He’s wrong.’

  ‘I know that.’ Thiel gestures down to the legionaries on the muster deck going through their weapon drills. ‘But some of them don’t.’

  Bracheus leads them, as harsh a taskmaster as Thiel knows – with the exception, perhaps, of Marius Gage. Petronius wields his chainblade with raw aggression, favouring strength and a two-handed grip over skill.

  Drenius stands out for another reason. His sword mastery is exemplary, his form and power without a fault that Thiel can see. Bracheus cajoles and bellows at the other legionaries, but he only nods to Drenius in appreciation of his art.

  ‘Who could ever claim that he’s not a warrior? Not an Ultramarine?’

  Inviglio looks on. ‘Sergeant Drenius fights to forget.’

  ‘We’re all fighting for something, brother.’

  ‘And what if… What if it’s nothing, and there is no great threat within our borders? What then of our purpose?’

  Thiel leans close to Inviglio, keeping his voice low.

  ‘Have you heard of Nightfane?’

  Inviglio shakes his head. ‘What does it refer to?’

  ‘I have no idea, brother, but it came from one of those stations. I don’t think they went dark of their own accord. I think they’re being silenced.’

  Down in the deployment bay, the servitors withdraw and the ready signal is given. Thiel nods to Bracheus, to indicate that their practice is over.

  Now for the real thing. Now for Tritus.

  ‘Let’s hope Likane is right, and those stations going dark is nothing more than it appears,’ Inviglio says with a sigh.

  ‘We’re about to find out, brother.’

  The gunship banks hard. Plumes of smoke are leaking from its portside thruster and there are tears in the fuselage from where the flying shrapnel struck it. Thiel can feel the air venting through where the Thunderhawk’s structural integrity has been compromised.

  ‘So much for leaving the war behind!’ Inviglio laughs.

  ‘We are still in it, brother!’ Thiel calls back. They have barely left Oran and already they are on fire. Auto-defences on Tritus, rigged for anti-aircraft patterns – not an auspicious start. ‘There is no leaving it, brother. There is only war now, or so I’ve heard it said.’

  The air in the gunship shrieks through the breached hull, buffeting the legionaries. Thiel’s boots are mag-locked and he stands, feet apart, braced upon the deck.

  Petronius chimes in from across the hold. ‘I, for one, rejoice.’

  He sits with his chainsword clenched in a firm grip, ever belligerent.

  Venator, a marksman, sits beside him. Like Inviglio, he’s from Konor, but wears his highborn origins like a badge of pride. ‘We know you too well, my pugnacious brother. Patience is not a virtue for you, is it?’

  ‘No. But wrath is.’

  Petronius makes to rise, but Thiel’s stare stops him. Perhaps Likane’s words about the needs of recruitment outweighing a desire for the highest standards carry some mote of truth. In most cases, it is why these men have been censured.

  Disobedience, defiance, insubordination. Shame.

  ‘Quieten down. Once we’re on the ground, I want your attention on the mission – not each other. That turret might not be the only hostile thing on Tritus.’

  ‘All brace,’ the pilot’s voice crackles through the vox, cutting the conversation. ‘Coming in hard, in five, four, three…’

  The engine scream reaches a crescendo, before the heavy lurch of metal takes over. Landing stanchions have already peeled from their housings on the ship’s belly. Thiel hears them strike dirt, a tremor rumbling through the fuselage, shaking men and metal.

  The warning light flashing by the exit turns from red to green. A pneumatic pressure release sounds, and natural light is admitted into the troop hold as the ramp lowers.

  ‘Weapons ready,’ Thiel orders. ‘Move out on my command.’

  He has twenty-two men – three squads, including support armed with heavy weapons. Missile launchers. Another carries flamers, and like stands shoulder to shoulder with like.

  It is the way of the Legiones Astartes.

  A network of battle-scarred structures is revealed through the widening aperture of the rear access hatch. Whatever is out there, Thiel hopes that twenty-two men will be enough.

  The corridor is strewn with the wreckage of improvised barricades. Low light from the legionaries’ suit lamps reveals bullet holes and shell craters in the walls. A lumen strip, half ripped from its casings, flickers overhead.

  Sergeant Drenius cuts a coil of razor wire.

  ‘This must be where they made their last stand.’

  Thiel nods. The ravaged Tritus facility is eerily quiet and to speak too much seems disrespectful to the dead. Something cracks underfoot, and he looks down at thick brass casings scattered across the floor.

  His and Drenius’ squads are advancing down two transit corridors that lead to the core of the listening post. The entire station has seen heavy fighting, but here it is at its worst. Dense shelling, grenades and thermo-incendiaries have taken out most of the internal dividing wall between the transit ways. Thiel and Drenius’ men can see and talk to each other through the ragged gaps.

  The other sergeant in Thiel’s group, Thaddeus, is back at the gunship. His missile launchers are reinforcement only.

  They won’t need them. The battle here is over, the crew of Tritus lost. Mangled bodies litter the place, half drowned by the spent casings. They are the facility staff, including human security officers.

  ‘Chainblade wounds,’ Drenius notes.

  ‘They were facing legionaries.’ Thiel sees a rune crudely carved into a dead man’s face, and scowls. ‘Word Bearers.’

  Inviglio, standing second in the line, shakes his head sadly. ‘Then you were right, sergeant – Lorgar’s Shadow Crusade isn’t over.’

  ‘That’s not what I said, brother. This isn’t the Shadow Crusade at all.’

  The access gate for the main hub is ahead, half torn from its industrial mountings. Drenius points to the gate on his side. ‘We might find some answers in there.’

  ‘There’s one thing we’ll find for certain,’ says Thiel.

  ‘What’s that, sergeant?’

  ‘The dead.’

  Thiel is right. As the Ultramarines break through into the main hub, they enter a killing room. More of the dead crew of Tritus are here, at the site of their desperate stand.

  Instead of just makeshift barricades, the defenders used the heavy metal of their listening stations to hunker behind. The entire hub, a large octagonal chamber, is filled with these bulky communication devices. Desks and chart tables have been turned over. Stacks of hard data cartridges are piled up like sandbags.

  None of it was enough to stop whatever hit them. Most of the equipment is destroyed.

  There is shattered plastek across the floor. Cables and shorn wiring hang from the ceiling in intestinal loops, but cataracts of sparks suggest the generator or its backup still functions. Hololith arrays, large data-corders and banks of vox-transponders lie broken apart, much like Tritus’ engineers, comms-officers and armsmen.

  There are no other bodies. Their killers either took their dead with them or sustained no casualties during the assault.

  Inviglio curses quiet
ly. ‘Have you ever seen such butchery?’

  ‘Been party to much worse,’ Drenius replies, staring at the corpses. ‘Twelfth Legion. I’d stake what’s left of my reputation on it.’

  Inviglio turns to him, inviting further explanation. The sergeant removes his helmet.

  ‘We were under orders. Joint engagement with the Twelfth, late in the Crusade. They hit hard, overran the enemy defences, and cut them down as we followed. A praetor by the name of Harrakon Skurn was in charge.’

  Drenius smiles, but there’s no humour in it.

  ‘Harrakon Skurn. With names like that, how could we not have known what they were? What they truly were, I mean?’

  ‘What happened?’ Inviglio asks.

  Drenius’ war-torn face darkens with memory.

  ‘They kept going, on into the civilian camps. Widespread heavy shelling earlier in the campaign, you see, and the natives had moved their people into fortified compounds for protection. World Eaters couldn’t tell the difference, not with how they were. Perhaps they didn’t want to. Skurn let them, anyway – said they had to burn it out of their blood, or something.’

  Inviglio nods. ‘You broke command. Intervened. That’s why you and your squad were censured.’

  Drenius shakes his head. His voice barely has the strength of a whisper.

  ‘No, brother. Actually, we didn’t. We obeyed our orders and did nothing. That was how we earned the mark.’

  Inviglio has no words, and Drenius no stomach for further questions or conciliation. He walks away, but Thiel is looking at Inviglio.

  ‘Sergeant Drenius has a heavier burden than most,’ he says.

  ‘You knew?’

  ‘I did. I have data-slates from Captain Likane on every legionary in this unit.’

  ‘Is that what this is all about, then? Rehabilitation?’ Inviglio asks.

  ‘No, brother. It’s about doing something that actually matters. I can see Drenius’ shame in his eyes every time he reaches for the bolter that he should have used in defence of those civilians. His red mark is a brand he carries with sorrow. He needs purpose again. So does Petronius, and Venator, Finius. Even you and Bracheus. Even me. Can you honestly tell me you thought you were making a difference on Calth? Can any of us?’