“Brother Tsu’gan…” Pyriel’s voice was deep and impossibly loud against the battle din. A tsunami of raw psychic power was coursing through him, encasing the Librarian in a vibrant, fiery aura. “…I am about to relinquish the barrier…”
Tsu’gan had no time to answer. The psychic barrier fell and the warp echoes swept in. Thunder split the heavens and red lightning tore across boiling clouds as the warp storm reached its zenith.
Already, the breach Pyriel had psychically perceived was closing.
“Maintain positions!” roared Mannheim, as his men were being taken. “Keep firing!”
Secessionist fire, freed up from mitigating the Imperial artillery barrage, was levelled at the Phalanx. Mannheim took a lucky las-round in the throat and was silenced.
Tsu’gan watched the officer fall just as Pyriel burst into violent conflagration. Running over to Mannheim, he scooped the fallen captain up into his arms, and watched as a bolt of flame lashed out from Pyriel’s refulgent form. It surged through the void shield, past the unseen breach, reaching out for the minds of the Librarian’s enemies…
Deep in Aphium rebel territory, in an armoured bunker sunk partially beneath the earth, a cadre of psykers sat in a circle, their consciousnesses locked, their will combined to throw a veil across the void shield that kept out the deeds of their ancestors. It was only around Hell Night when the blood storm wracked the heavens and brought about an awakening for vengeance, a desire for retribution, that their skills were needed.
One by one they screamed, an orange fire unseen by mortal eyes ravaging them with its scorching tendrils. Flesh melted, eyes ran like wax under a hot lamp, and one by one the psyker cadre burned. The heat inside the bunker was intense, though the temperature gauge suggested a cool night, and within seconds the psykers were reduced to ash and the defence of Aphium with it.
Upon the killing field, Tsu’gan detected a change in the air. The oppressive weight that had dogged them since mustering out for a second time on Hell Night had lifted, like leaden chains being dragged away by unseen hands.
Like mist before the rays of a hot sun, the warp echoes receded into nothing. Silence drifted over the killing field, as all of the guns stopped. The void shield flickered and died a moment later, the absence of its droning hum replaced by screaming from within the city of Aphium.
“In Vulkan’s name…” Tsu’gan breathed, unable to believe what was unfolding before his eyes. He didn’t need to see it to know the spectres had turned on the rebels of Aphium and were systematically slaying each and every one.
It wasn’t over. Not yet. Pyriel blazed like an incendiary about to explode. The Librarian’s body was spasming uncontrollably as he fought to marshal the forces he’d unleashed. Raging psychic flame coursed through him. As if taking hold of an accelerant, it burned mercilessly. Several troopers were consumed by it, the mind-fire becoming real. Men collapsed in the heat, their bodies rendered to ash.
“Pyriel!” cried Tsu’gan. Cradling Captain Mannheim in his arms, he raised his bolter one-handed.
…you know what you must do.
He fired into Pyriel’s back, an expert shot that punctured the Librarian’s lung but wasn’t fatal. Pyriel bucked against the blow, the flames around him dwindling, and sagged to his knees. Then he fell onto his side, unconscious, and the conflagration was over.
“Tsu’gan. Tsu’gan!”
It took Tsu’gan a few seconds to realise he was being hailed. A curious stillness had settled over the killing field. Above them the red sky was fading as the warp storm passed, and the rain had lessened. On the horizon, another grey day was dawning.
“Dak’ir…”
Stunned, he forgot to use his derogatory sobriquet for the other sergeant.
“What happened, Zek? Is it over?” Mannheim was dead. Tsu’gan realised it as the officer went limp in his arms. He had not faltered, even at the end, and had delivered his men to victory and glory. Tsu’gan’s bolter was still hot from shooting Pyriel. He used it carefully to burn an honour marking in Captain Mannheim’s flesh. It was shaped like the head of a firedrake.
“It’s over,” he replied and cut the link.
A faded sun had broken through the gathering cloud. Errant rays lanced downwards, casting their glow upon a patch of distant earth far off in the wilderness. Tsu’gan didn’t know what it meant, only that when he looked upon it his old anger lessened and a strange feeling, that was not to last in the days to come, spilled over him.
Rain fell. Day dawned anew. Hell Night was ended, but the feeling remained.
It was peace.
COVER OF DARKNESS
Mitchel Scanlon
It was a night made for war by stealth. The night sky was moonless, with an opaque covering of clouds hiding the light of the stars. Cresting a ridge on his bike, Sergeant Kergis of the White Scars paused for a moment and scanned the arid landscape spread out before him. Ahead, the twisting maze of gullies and snaking furrows of the region known as Volcan’s Cradle were bathed in Stygian blackness. To Kergis’ mind, it seemed a favourable omen. Success in their mission was dependent on catching the enemy unawares. Tonight, the darkness would be their ally.
Turning his bike to follow the sinuous curve of the ridge slope as it descended toward the next gully, Kergis spared a glance at the rest of the eight-man squad behind him. His men travelled in single file, the lights of their bikes turned off, their armour covered in a thick layer of dust courtesy of the terrain around them. Occasionally, there was the ominous clatter of falling stones as they dislodged a few small rocks in crossing the slope, but the White Scars negotiated these hazards with the smooth assurance born of a lifetime spent in the saddle.
Reaching the foot of the slope in safety, they pushed on with their journey, following the trail of the gully as it headed northward. Much of Volcan’s Cradle was open plain: a vast dusty expanse of dried lava created by millions of years of volcanic activity. But the need for stealth had forced Kergis and his men to take a circuitous route to their target, hugging the zigzag contours of a series of ravines and gullies in the western part of the region, cut by the effect of rain erosion on the yielding surface of the lava plain. It had made their path through the Cradle longer and more difficult, but given the nature of their mission it was vital they stayed clear of enemy patrols.
“I am reading movement,” Kergis heard the voice of Arik, a fellow White Scar, on his helmet-vox as they sped through the gully. “Several vehicles from the size of the contact. The auspex puts them at six kilometres away, moving towards us on a bearing twelve degrees north-north-west.”
“An interception force?” Kergis voxed back.
“No,” Arik’s voice was confident. “Based on their bearing, I’d say it’s a routine patrol. If we stay to our plotted course and maintain our speed, we will be long gone by the time they get here.”
“Good. We can’t be more than a kilometre away from the geyser field by now. Take the lead, Arik. You will be our pathfinder. The rest of us will follow behind you.”
Throttling back his bike, Kergis allowed the other man to overtake him. Briefly pressing his right fist across his breast in a salute as he passed, Arik took up the sergeant’s position at the head of the line of White Scars and veered eastward as he came to a fork in the gully. Kergis and the others followed suit.
The darkness would have been impenetrable to any normal man, but thanks to their enhanced eyesight and the autosenses of their armour the White Scars could navigate the desolate terrain of the Cradle with equal facility by day or night. The same sharpness of the senses alerted Kergis to the stink of sulphur long before the geyser fields became visible.
During the briefing that preceded the mission, a Techmarine named Goju had attempted to outline the unusual conditions which underpinned the geography of the Cradle. The planetary crust was thin here, he had explained, likening it to a frail wafer laid across a huge broiling sea of lava. In some places, the crust had cracked due to the enormous stresses
upon it, creating a path to the surface for red-hot magma.
In the area the White Scars were headed for, the magma had heated the water stored underground in naturally formed aquifers, causing geysers and thermal springs to emerge in place of lava. Such phenomena were relatively common in the unstable volcanic landscape of the Cradle, but Kergis and his men would be travelling through the largest geyser field in the region, riding tens of kilometres through dangerous territory in the hope of keeping their presence hidden from the enemy.
Following Arik’s lead, the squad of bikers emerged from the gully and sped on through the short distance of open plain separating them from the geyser field. Ahead, a strange and deadly landscape lay ready to greet them.
“Keep your helmets sealed and respiratus systems engaged,” Arik warned as they entered the geyser field. “Leave at least five metres between you and the man in front. And stay on my track. The ground is fragile here. If it gives way beneath the weight of your bike, you’ll be swimming in boiling water.”
According to the Imperial survey maps Kergis had inspected before making planetfall, it was known simply as Geyser Field Septimus. The prosaic title hid a sinister reality. The entire area was dotted with steaming vents and smoking craters. The colours were mostly concealed by the night, but Kergis knew the ground was covered in a thick multi-hued residue in startling shades of red, green and yellow, alongside vast white carpets of glittering salt crystals. The residue and the crystals were accumulated from the minerals leached from the rocks by the underground heat and brought to the surface as tiny particles over thousands of years every time one of the geysers erupted.
Kergis did not doubt the geyser field would be beautiful by daylight, but it was also treacherous. The vapours rising from the vents included deadly gases as well as scalding superheated steam, while the sluggish liquid bubbling in some of the craters was concentrated acid created by the same leached minerals responsible for the coloured residue. Enemy patrols tended to avoid the geyser field with good reason. By any standard, it was a lethal environment.
Carefully staying to the line of Arik’s trail as it twisted between the smouldering vents, Kergis checked his auspex for any sign of the enemy patrol detected earlier. Seeing no trace of them, Kergis was pleased. The range of the auspex on his bike was limited, but even if the enemy were nearby there was little chance of his squad being detected while they were in the geyser field.
The throaty roar of the White Scars’ engines was drowned out by the noises of the vents around them. Listening to the hiss of steam and the cackle of bubbling acid, Kergis was reminded of the sounds of breathing. It was as though they had intruded into the domain of a massive, slumbering beast, an illusion underlined by the occasional whoosh as one of the geysers erupted. The sound brought to mind the sea-leviathans that inhabited the oceans of Chogoris: gargantuan creatures that emerged periodically from the waves to breathe out through their blowholes, emitting great clouds of spray before returning once more to the deep.
Having never seen a body of open water until he was thirteen years of age and already on the path to becoming a White Scar, Kergis had always regarded the sea and its denizens with awe. He was Astartes, so he did not fear them. Still, they impressed him.
Inside Kergis’ helmet, a warning sensor flashed an angry red to draw his attention to the rising levels of poisonous gases in the air outside, already far beyond human tolerance. He ignored it. The geyser field was a labyrinth of death, but the sergeant trusted Arik to guide them through it. Arik had always shown an unerring ability to find the correct trail through any terrain, no matter how difficult.
It was not an uncommon talent on their home world. Countless generations spent navigating the shifting pathways of the endless plains of Chogoris meant that some were born with a special aptitude for finding their way, whatever the circumstance. They were not psykers. It was simply that they took more notice of the subtle clues around them, whether in the landscape, the weather or the stars, relying on the patterns of past experience to guide them onto the best path to their destination.
In Arik’s case he was aided by the fact his bike was equipped with a more powerful auspex unit than the others in the squad, but Kergis had no doubt he could have guided them through the geyser field without it. Even if Arik had never left Chogoris, never become Astartes, he would have been a pathfinder to his people, responsible for guiding his tribe to the watering holes for their herds and the best winter pastures.
As the White Scars moved deeper into the geyser field, the clouds of steam and poison grew thicker. Soon, visibility was reduced to a few metres. Still, they pushed onward, each warrior trusting to the man in front to lead him safely through the miasma.
It was no more than Kergis would have expected. The habit of mutual trust was deeply ingrained between his men. Their bonds of brotherhood were strong; bonds forged and tempered across a hundred battlefields. With it came a sense of debt, of obligation. Kergis did not doubt that any man in the squad would be willing to die for his brothers.
Certainly, it was part of the reason he had come to Volcan’s Cradle.
“Tephra VII,” Jurga Khan had said to him, two days earlier. “It has been an Imperial world for ten thousand years. Our great Primarch Jaghatai Khan, may his memory always be honoured, played a part in its liberation. But a year ago it was all undone. Chaos has seized this place, Kergis. Now, it falls to us to follow in the footsteps of our primarch. This planet will be liberated again. And the White Scars will be the spearhead, the first among the liberators.”
They were standing on the strategium deck of the strike cruiser Warrior of the Plains. A few minutes earlier Jurga Khan had concluded a briefing for the squad leaders under his command, indicating the roles they would be expected to play in the coming invasion. When the briefing was done, the Khan had dismissed everyone except Kergis. Even the Chapter serfs had been sent to perform duties elsewhere on the ship, ensuring the two men’s privacy.
Courtesy of the strategium’s display units, a shimmering translucent globe hovered in the air showing a hololithic representation of Tephra VII. Kergis noticed part of the planet’s power grid had been highlighted, creating a network of fine golden lines that crisscrossed the northern hemisphere.
“We will make our first strike here,” Jurga Khan said, lifting an armoured finger to indicate a city. “The planetary capital, Chaldis, is the main centre of the enemy’s power. If we can defeat them here, in one assault, we will break the backbone of their resistance. But the city is protected by void shields. It will not be easy. We may face heavy losses.”
Kergis nodded. The invasion and re-conquest of Tephra VII was a major undertaking. The Warrior of the Plains was one of nearly thirty Imperial ships massing at the edge of the system. As the only Astartes taking part in the invasion, the White Scars could expect to bear the brunt of the fighting in the crucial opening stages when the enemy’s defences were first breached.
“But there is a way we can lessen some of the price in blood,” his commander continued.
The Khan moved his finger to point to an area several thousand kilometres to the east of the capital. Responding to the movement, the hololithic globe turned to reveal a low-lying plain, surrounded by mountains to form a massive basin. Significantly, the golden lines of the power network all seemed to lead to the same region.
“The locals call this place Volcan’s Cradle,” the Khan said. “Goju will give you an in-depth briefing on the region and its conditions later, but you can take it for granted it is hard country. It’s a desolate, volcanic wasteland. No one would ever go there, except for this…”
The Khan pressed his finger into the surface of the globe. The hololith shimmered and changed as the floating image zoomed in to a three-dimensional representation of a large manufactory complex, evidently based on the data from reconnaissance picts. Studying the image, Kergis realised the facility was situated on the slopes of a smouldering volcano.
“It is some kind of
power generating facility?” he said, comparing the design to similar buildings he had seen on other worlds, even fought over, in his time as a White Scar.
“Geothermal,” Jurga Khan told him. “You are looking at a power plant situated on the Ignis Mons, the largest active volcano in the Cradle region. Goju will explain the particulars to you, but it is my understanding they generate power by harnessing the heat of underground magma. Tephra VII is deficient in promethium and other fuels, so a number of such facilities were built in ancient times to provide for the planet’s needs. The Ignis Mons complex supplies power to almost the entire western section of the northern hemisphere, including the void shields protecting the capital.”
“So, if this facility is destroyed, the shields go down?”
“Exactly. There are supposed to be backup power sources to supply the void shields in the event of an emergency. But the systems are old and it is believed the enemy have been lax in their maintenance. To add to its value as a target, the Mons complex also supplies power to the planet’s sensor array network. If we destroy it, the enemy will be blind as well as shield-less.”
“But the enemy must also be aware of its value. The target will be well-defended?”
“It is,” Jurga Khan nodded. “Including the forces manning a series of sentry points surrounding the area, the enemy can call upon at least two thousand warriors to defend the complex. Added to which, the main access ways into the facility are protected by multiple bunkers and other secure emplacements armed with autocannons and anti-tank weapons. The heart of the facility is situated deep underground, so orbital bombardment won’t work. It would take a major assault to capture the Mons. And not only would that warn the enemy of our intentions, it would divert manpower away from the main assault on Chaldis.”
“But there is another way?” Kergis asked him. The Khan’s briefing seemed to be headed in one direction and he could see its logical conclusion. “A stealth assault by a small team, ideally to be inserted into the area under cover of darkness. It would be their task to destroy the complex, or at least sabotage it to deny its use to the enemy. Given the importance of the mission, and its risks, it is a task for Astartes rather than Imperial Guardsmen.”
Legends of the Space Marines Page 6
