Annellus’s pale face darkened. ‘I don’t accuse,’ he snapped. ‘I uphold the will of the Legion!’
‘As do I!’ Kano shot back, his ire building. ‘And I do so by putting my life in harm’s way for Sanguinius and the Emperor, not by second-guessing the intentions of my brothers!’
The force of his words gave the Warden pause; when he spoke again, Annellus’s annoyance was burning cold. ‘I have only your best interests in mind.’
Kano knew he should turn away and end this conversation where it lay, but he found that he could not. ‘I don’t think you understand the interests of men, Warden. Our great Imperium? It is a collection of individuals, of different people coming together to build something incredible. And each of them has a different heart and soul, different wants and needs. I think perhaps you have spent too long looking at the great tower, and not the stones that form it.’ The last he said in a deliberate attempt to echo Annellus’s earlier hectoring manner, before finally turning to return to the bridge compartment.
‘The individual who does not conform risks censure,’ said the Warden, calling after him. ‘That is fact, whatever you may want or need, whatever your heart and your soul tell you.’
What little remained of Kano’s temper snapped and he spun back, raising his hand, jabbing an angry finger. ‘You–’
‘Adjutant!’ The shout came from behind him, hard and loud like the flat bang of a bolter discharge. Captain Raldoron strode through the open hatch and approached the two of them, his eyes narrowed. ‘Report!’
‘Kano was just explaining something to me–’ began Annellus, but the First Captain silenced him with a look.
‘I wasn’t addressing you, Warden,’ he snapped. ‘Whatever you were distracting my legionary with, you’re finished for now.’
Those words made it clear that Raldoron had heard some, if not all of their conversation. Kano did not dwell on that, and made his report. He explained quickly about the events of the ork psyker’s assault, and the destruction of the control unit. The captain listened stoically, offering no comment, and only when Kano was done did he speak again.
‘Regroup with the wounded men, fall back to the boarding craft. We have orders to deploy thermal charges aboard this hulk and obliterate it.’
‘And the other ork ships?’ said Annellus.
‘There are no other ork ships left,’ Raldoron told him, with a grimace. ‘Alpharius has finally communicated with our primarch. The Alpha Legion state they have fully exterminated the alien infestation in the Kayvas Belt, and are grateful to the Blood Angels for their
co-operation. This blockade is over, and the death of this monolithic wreck will mark the end of it.’ He reached for his helmet, to raise it up and settle it over his head. ‘The Angel commands us to return to our warships and make ready for our next mission.’
‘Is there any hint as to where?’ Kano asked, his crossed words with Annellus forgotten for the moment.
Raldoron’s helm snapped into place. ‘A place where we can fight a proper war, I hope.’
On every deck of the warship Andronius, the Emperor’s Children prepared to make war. Under the direct authority of Fulgrim’s assigned representative, the Lord Commander Eidolon, the warriors of the III Legion Astartes made ready their blades and their armour. Their ranks massed for the engagement to come; ahead lay the Isstvan system and the objective of the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet. Led by the Warmaster Horus Lupercal, the combined forces of legionaries from the Sons of Horus, the Death Guard, World Eaters and the Emperor’s Children were gathering to prosecute the dissident worlds of Isstvan.
That was one truth; another lurked below, swimming in shadows and conspiracy, but it would not be revealed for some time.
For now neither matter, of the coming battle or the larger plans of the Warmaster, impinged on the thoughts of the Apothecary Fabius. While others of his Legion would prepare themselves for the fight in their own ways – in the practice cages, by meditating or engaging in the ephemeral arts – he found peace of mind here, in his laboratorium.
The chamber was sparsely lit but not gloomy with it. The illumination cast by the cogitator screens and bio-capsules ranged around the compartment gave it a cool cerulean hue that Fabius found calming. Here he could work on the puzzles of flesh and genome that so fascinated him without fear of interruption, or the questions of the less inquisitive and more conservative of his brethren.
Others might have been irritated by the means and method open to him, to be forced to work here in this secret place, out of sight as if his experiments were something aberrant and wrong. But he knew what men of limited understanding would say if confronted by his endeavours. Sometimes it was necessary for genius to toil in the shadows, and if it took a thousand years or more for Fabius’s artistry to be acknowledged, then so be it. He was already enhancing himself to ensure he would live that long, and more.
The Apothecary paused and admired his work. A delicate patch of human flesh, carefully excised from a living donor, modified and altered using gene-engineering methods to more closely resemble the epidermis of an armoured serpent. Given time, this process might be transferable to a subject outside the laboratory environment, toughening their skin beyond even the fortitude bred into the original organic template of the Space Marines.
Fabius folded back the micro-optical lenses of the headset he wore and muttered a new log entry into the vox-thief holding the data for this experiment.
When he looked up, he was no longer alone. There, out of the glow of the screens, half-hidden in the shadows cast by the stasis pods along the far wall, stood a figure in power armour.
‘Lord Commander?’ Fabius’s first assumption was that it would be Eidolon.
‘No,’ came a voice. ‘Your commander is busy marshalling his forces and polishing his armour.’
Fabius put down the beam-scalpel in his hand and stood straight, alarm rushing through him. The laboratorium was deliberately secluded, a secret facility concealed beneath the great vestibule of the Andronius’s central apothecarion. Access was only granted to a select few, by means of a concealed trapdoor hidden in the vestibule’s ornamental mosaic.
‘Identify yourself,’ he demanded.
‘Do not be troubled, Fabius. The secrets of the Emperor’s Children have always been safe with me.’ The figure came slowly into the light, palms open in a gesture of sincerity, and the Apothecary immediately recognised the granite-grey armour of the Word Bearers Legion.
‘Erebus.’ At once he felt a conflict within him, an easement of concern at being discovered mingled with the uncertainty of the so-called First Chaplain’s insouciant approach. ‘How did you get in here?’
The Word Bearer nodded towards the spiral staircase leading back up to the vestibule. ‘I did knock. Perhaps you didn’t hear me?’ He kept walking, eyeing the contents of chemical baths as he passed them, and the organ matter arranged carefully on Fabius’s work station. ‘You did seem very engrossed.’
‘Who gave you permission to enter?’ he demanded.
‘Does that matter?’ Erebus halted in front of a series of tall stasis pods, each of them sealed behind plasteel shutters. ‘It’s true what I was told. The work you are doing here is quite incredible. Few men would have the courage to tamper with the Emperor’s great design.’
‘I do not tamper,’ Fabius retorted. ‘I enhance. I improve.’ He frowned; the Word Bearer was attempting to deflect him. ‘You should not be here. This is Legion business.’
Erebus shook his head. ‘Come, Fabius, don’t limit yourself. Your work has meaning far beyond the bounds of the Emperor’s Children, you must admit. Perhaps you haven’t dared to truly consider the full ramifications of that, but you know it to be true.’ When he didn’t answer, the Chaplain went on. ‘I know there are some who would consider your… unsanctioned research distasteful, but not I.’
Slowly, Fabius found himself coming around to the question that Erebus was waiting for him to ask. ‘What do you want?’
>
That earned him a thin smile. ‘Only a favour.’
Fabius grimaced, wondering what scope – and what cost – any such favour would encompass. ‘Why would I wish to assist you?’
Erebus’s false smile stiffened. ‘Because if you do, I would be in your debt. And I assure you, Apothecary, it would be better for you to have my obligation at hand, rather than my enmity.’ He held the silence for a moment. ‘I would count you as a friend among the Emperor’s Children, just as I have other friends among other Legions.’
‘Other friends,’ Fabius echoed.
‘Yes,’ Erebus said with a nod. ‘We are on the cusp of great change. Old rules and structures torn down, swept away. In the aftermath, the bonds between men of vision will be of great importance.’ The Word Bearer walked to one of the shuttered capsules and tapped it. ‘This is what I want. Something from your collection.’
He pulled the capsule’s lever, and the slats folded back to reveal the body of a legionary inside, floating in a thick, oleaginous fluid.
The warrior seemed dead at first glance. Pallid and corpse-grey, his naked body was a ragged mess of cuts and contusions. Down his right side, chunks of flesh had been ripped away with animal brutality; pieces of him torn out along his ribcage, hip and upper thigh. His right arm ended just below the elbow in rags of sinew and skin. More savage gouges were visible across his neck and sternum.
The warrior’s face was hidden from view behind a monitor mask clamped over his nostrils and lips like a suffocating hand, and unkempt blond hair formed a rough halo around his head. He bore service studs in his brow and several battle-tattoos across his chest and shoulders. Most prominent was the Legion sigil of a crimson blood drop borne on wings of white.
Erebus studied the Blood Angel in the tank with dispassion. ‘This was done on the planet called Murder,’ he pronounced. ‘I recognise the work of the megarachnid.’ He turned back to face Fabius. ‘Tell me, how did you manage to get him off the surface without alerting his Legion?’ When the Apothecary didn’t answer, he smiled again. ‘It doesn’t matter. The Blood Angels must believe him dead, or else they would not have stopped looking.’
The warrior was alive, of course. Not in the sense that Fabius and Erebus were alive, but buried deep in a comatose state that resembled the quietus of the grave. So severe had been the Blood Angel’s injuries that his body shut itself down, the bio-implants within him trying desperately to heal the damage.
‘Have you taken all you wanted from him?’ Erebus asked, without weight.
Fabius coloured. ‘I harvested what little was left of his gene-seed, but the majority was already destroyed. I have DNA and bio-templates.’
‘And yet you still let him live.’ The Chaplain studied the Apothecary. ‘Why? The stasis container holds him in a non-state, unable to either fully heal or succumb to his wounds. Some might consider that torture.’
It was Fabius’s turn to give a cold reply. ‘I never dispose of anything that might come in useful.’
‘And your wisdom has been proven right. I will take this one, and you will have my gratitude.’ He turned to summon a silent auto-servitor from a holding pen across the chamber, but Fabius interrupted him.
‘Why do you want this half-corpse? What use is it to you?’
‘That’s not your concern.’
‘Suppose I make it my concern.’ The Apothecary casually laid his hand upon a medicae needler resting on his work station. Employed as a weapon at close range, the device could be as deadly as an eldar shuriken gun.
Erebus’s tone did not change, and that made the threat that followed all the more chilling. ‘Then the full scope of what you are doing here would come to light. Not just the genetic modifications, the splicing of Emperor’s Children gene-code with that of xenos strains and other Legions… But also your systematic and clandestine seizure of injured warriors from the battlefields of the Great Crusade, for your own experimentation.’ He nodded at the other shuttered capsules. ‘Angron, Mortarion, even the Warmaster… Do you think they would overlook your abduction of their legionaries?’
Fabius sneered. ‘Take what you want and get out.’
‘Many thanks,’ Erebus replied, as the blind servitor detached the capsule and mounted it on a wheeled transport pallet. ‘And I promise that this gift you give me will help bring another Legion to the Warmaster’s banner.’ He smiled again. ‘At least, that is one option.’
TWO
Gathered in Question
Acolyte
The Face in the Smoke
Within and without, the Red Tear was a shipwright’s work of art. The vessel carried the flag of the Blood Angels whenever the primarch left the Legion home world, and like Sanguinius himself, his craft was a sight to behold.
Viewed from the bow, the battle-barge resembled an arrowhead ten kilometres from stem to stern, lined in bright copper, bronze and crimson steel. The maws of nova cannon, mega-lasers, mass-drivers and torpedo hives encrusted the forward quarter, presenting an arsenal comparable to that of a whole fleet of smaller vessels. Acres of towers ranged away down the length of the craft, extending out from the dorsal and ventral hulls. In the fashion of Imperial starships, modelled on the deck-by-deck design ethic laid down for the Red Tear’s ancient, ocean-going ancestors, a massive citadel rose from the aft quarter. This huge conning tower resembled a gigantic fortress, an outer keep of soaring adamantium walls and glassaic windows forming the base and a wide cylindrical donjon rising higher still. At its apex, among the saw-tooth battlements and point-defence batteries, a massive transparent dome looked out into the void like an unblinking eye.
Similarly, beneath the central plane of the main hull, a blade-like keel dropped away, thinning to a wicked point. Here were many of the battle-barge’s secondary cannons and the hangars for the warship’s auxiliary craft. Cavernous docking bays, large enough to house and maintain a brace of escort frigates, ran the width of the vertical structure.
But it was from above that the true martial glory of the Red Tear was revealed. If an observer could place themselves at a point high up over the centre of the warship’s hull, looking down they would see that the ship gave iron reality to its name. The battle-barge was built around the form of a great ruby teardrop, and from its port and starboard sides, winglets bearing engine clusters and troop bays reached outwards, mimicking the design of the Legion sigil of the Blood Angels. Against the black and infinite dark, the Red Tear was a sculpture that showed the proud defiance of humankind. It was at once monument, weapon and fortress of the sons of Sanguinius – and a worthy chariot for a primarch.
Other vessels, ranging in tonnage from gunboats to grand cruisers, moved in formation with their command ship. Around them, Hawkwing and Raven interceptors maintained a wide security cordon about the flotilla. There was a new energy in the fleet, a reinvigorated sense of purpose. After month upon month of standing post in a relatively unchallenging campaign, to a man the Blood Angels were eager to quit this sector of space and rejoin the fuller glories of the Great Crusade.
Word spread fast through the ships of the IX Legion, carried by the human crews and Legion serfs, even the contingent of civilian remembrancers assigned to document the fleet’s mission. Rumours were voiced, whispered in hushed tones over mid-meal or spoken out of earshot of senior officers. Even the legionaries themselves were not immune to the speculation that was rife. The combined Red Tear fleet was on the move, courses already being prepared to make space along the line of a distant warp beacon; out in the deeps, the eternal lighthouse of Terra’s Astronomican had become vague and hazy in recent weeks, requiring the use of the secondary waypoint markers commonly used by Imperial Navigators as points of rendezvous.
The question of their mission was on everyone’s lips.
Beneath the solar dome at the top of the great tower was a magnificent reception hall. Pillars of red marble mined from the fiery lands of Baal’s equatorial regions ranged from floor to ceiling, holding up veils of silk that were fine
ly worked with intricate detail. The hanging banners were battle records, showing every engagement the Blood Angels had fought, from the final skirmishes on Terra during the twilight of the Unification Wars, through two centuries of the Great Crusade to the present day.
As he entered the chamber, Captain Raldoron searched the hangings and found the newest threading of words: Kayvas Belt. He smiled grimly. The servitors had wasted no time in committing the name of the mission to the cloth, almost as if they were just as impatient as he was to put it to rest, and move on to greater glories.
He skirted the pillars, crossing over the outer edge of the tiled floor. He glanced down and saw the familiar shapes of Terra and Baal, a relief of the two planets laid one atop the other. For now, Baal was in the ascendant, the photonic tiles showing the eastern hemisphere of his home world as if lit by a warm sun. The Chalice Mountains and the Great Sear passed beneath his boots as he walked, and in a small way he felt a sense of reconnection with his place of birth. Terra peered out over the shoulder of Baal, its scarred and city-bound surface visible as if it were an eclipsed moon. The mosaic seemed fixed and static, but that was an illusion. The closer the Red Tear came to Terra across the galactic plane, the more the planet would wax while Baal waned, and vice-versa. For now, they were nearer home, and that sat well with Raldoron.
In the centre of the chamber were the rest of the captains from the companies of the Three Hundred present in the fleet. Each of them met his gaze as he passed, greeting him with a respectful jut of the chin or a brisk salute. He returned each with the same nod. Raldoron was a veteran captain just as they were, but he was commander of the First, and his promotion to Chapter Master placed him in a special class of seniority that few other warriors of the Legion could claim. He wore the honour with pride and humility, as was the Blood Angels way, but the captain knew it forever set him apart from his fellows.
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