Neotera paused in the doorway, genuinely admiring the awesome scene. His pause slowly lengthened into a hesitation as he calculated the mass of firepower that was assembled before him and weighed it against the reports of Huron’s insurrection. Despite the evidence en route to the planet, Neotera was not quite convinced that he could trust this Huron, the alleged Tyrant of Badab. But behind him were assembled the finest thirty Mantis Warriors from the 1st and 2nd Companies, veterans and heroes all, and Neotera knew that they would not be cowed by this attempt at intimidation. However, he also realised that this display of power effectively nullified any “trust” that Huron had claimed to show by permitting them to enter his palace armed for battle.
“Chapter Master Khoisan Neotera, Master of the Mantis Warriors and guardian of the realms of Mordriana and Ootheca, I bid you welcome to my hall.” Huron rose as he spoke, his formal words echoing slightly in the high room, and started down the steps of the podium, as though to meet Neotera on the level floor. “I am grateful that you made the journey. Communications are insecure, and it is no longer easy for me to travel far out of this system, as you will appreciate.”
“Master Huron,” acknowledged Neotera with less exaltation, “your reception honours us.” He strode across the marbled floor while the rest of the Mantis Warriors fell into line behind him.
“We have much to discuss, Khoisan,” began Huron as they faced each other and bowed slightly, his eyes burning with a deep and hidden light. “Grave matters of concern for the whole Imperium. The salvation of our brother Astartes rests in our hands—we are the Emperor’s last hope. Can I count on you, brother?”
Neotera was no longer sure how much time had passed. He was beginning to feel the effects of sleep deprivation; his head felt heavier than usual, as though he were concussed, and his thoughts moved like wraiths through smoke. He was not tired, but over the years he had learned to recognise the slight hazing of his mind as the activity of his catalepsean node as it shifted his fatigued consciousness around his brain to keep him functioning without sleep. Judging by the mist that had settled over his thoughts, like the dust that was gathering on the shoulders of his armour, he had been standing on the aquila for nearly seven days. He had not moved in that time, and he could only recall speaking four ill-judged words. His mind was full of the questions and accusations of the council of judges—their persistent and powerful siege of his psyche had gradually permeated his staunch resolve, and he could feel a dizziness caused by the internalisation of his interrogators’ combination of malice and mercy. But he knew that he could not break, not again.
The questions had thrown his thoughts back into reflection, and he had lost himself in the past for a while. But for how long? And how many of his thoughts could the judges see? Were they simply prodding his mind into recollection and then watching his thoughts betray him? There were certainly a number of powerful Librarians in the shadows amongst the faceless judges, but Neotera was not attuned enough to know exactly what might be the dimensions of their powers. Perhaps his resolve not to speak was serving no purpose after all. Perhaps the council could recover the answers it sought without the crassness of language. But then why ask the questions? Why go through the motions of a trial if they could simply empty his brain and sift through his memories themselves?
Unless it was a test. They wanted to see what he would say, whether he would crack, how he would attempt to justify himself, and then measure his words against the inner voice of his soul. Did he believe his own words? Was there deceit in his heart? Did he seek to excuse himself or to blame others? Was there any honour left in him, even after all the horrors he had perpetrated on the galaxy, even after he had violated his most sacrosanct oaths of loyalty?
But he had said nothing. Just those four words: I seek no mercy. He had not tried to explain. Although, he knew, his mind had been racing constantly, questing for answers to the questions they posed, for the questions were his own as well: how had it come to this? Did they have the answers? Had they managed to discern the truth from his fevered reflections? Could they explain it to him? He needed to know as much as they did. More. For it was his soul that was falling into the inferno, not theirs.
If they could see into his mind, he should be told. He needed to know. He deserved to know. His soul screamed for the knowledge.
How did it come to this? I deserve to know. The thoughts hissed out, like gas from a cracked tank.
You deserve nothing, Mantis Lord.
The bitter thoughts mocked his indignation and seeped with disgust. But he knew that they were right: he deserved nothing. His protests, although intended only for his own thoughts and not for the minds of the council, were unworthy of him and the Librarian’s derision was fully justified.
Once again, the pain of self-betrayal wracked his soul, vying with the bottomless horror of his treachery against all that he held to be true and just. It was unbearable, yet he endured. He wasn’t even sure that he recognised himself anymore. How had it come to this? How had he come to this?
A heavy grinding sound told him that the main doors to the hall were sliding open. Keeping his eyes directly ahead, he traced the movement of footfalls as they fanned out into the shadows of the vaulted ceiling around the edge of the chamber. As far as he was aware, this was the first time that the door had opened and anyone had entered or left since the hearing began. But, he realised, he could not even be sure of this petty little fact—he had lost faith in the integrity of his mind. Was he actually being driven mad? Had he been mad from the start? Had he ever truly been loyal to the Emperor?
“Khoisan Neotera, Chapter Master of the Mantis Warriors and guardian of the realms of Mordriana and Ootheca, this council finds you guilty of the most terrible crimes imaginable to the Imperium of Man.” The voice, deep and raw and unused to diplomacy, washed over Neotera like a dark tide. The horror of its words soothed him like a balm: he was guilty; he would not be forgiven. The relief was real and almost physical.
“You have plotted against the light of the Emperor Himself. You have spilt the blood of His most loyal servants, and you have brought Chaos into the very heart of our Empire. You have offered no defence of your actions, no explanations of your deeds, and you have asked for no leniency. It was the intention of this council that you should be executed for your crimes, and that your gene-seed should be cast into the void. In addition, we intended to dismantle the Mantis Legion, to strip your Space Marines of their armour and weapons, to quarantine your home world of Ootheca, and to condemn the remaining Mantis Warriors to live as servitors, rebuilding the worlds that they have destroyed.”
The voice paused, and Neotera could feel a dozen pairs of eyes studying him. He did not flinch or even blink. He bit down on his jaw and focused his mind on the words: he needed to be clear-headed to hear the verdict and he realised that there was more to come. There was a sudden and sinking panic that the judge would revoke his condemnation, and then a shock that he was feeling panic for the first time in his life, since the Blood Trials on Ootheca when he was first inducted into the Mantis Warriors. What had become of him? Had his treachery really pushed him into madness?
We will take Ootheca, insect lord. Your kind will never pollute its forests again. Now it is mine. The unidentified thoughts were faint and torn, as though shredded by malice. Even in his fevered state, Neotera could sense the presence of a self-serving spite once again.
“And yet, Khoisan, there are those on this council who do not believe that your silence shows a lack of repentance. Some who do not find your bearing arrogant. Some, indeed, who believe that your egregious deeds were not motivated by hatred or self-interest, but rather that you were misled by the cunning of others.”
The words seemed like flames. What were they saying? Were they trying to find a way to save him after all? Did they really retain the faith in him that he had even lost in himself? They had used his personal name—nobody had called him Khoisan for over a hundred years. Did they seek to show affection to h
im?
I am a Mantis Warrior. I need no love from you. I seek no mercy. The thoughts whispered desperately through his mind.
“Nonetheless, Chapter Master,” came another voice, “your actions speak eloquently and terribly for themselves. In the end, your intentions do not concern us, except in so far as they help us to understand how one such as you might be turned so completely from the light. And you have offered us no help in that regard.” I seek no mercy.
“Mantis Master,” came yet another voice, the female voice of an inquisitor or Sister Sororitas, “it is the opinion of this council that the Mantis Warriors are not beyond salvation—that they followed dutifully and loyally the commands of their Master, and that their Master was himself convinced that his commands were in accord with the will of the Emperor. The Chapter shall be excommunicated for one hundred years, during which time we expect that they will demonstrate penitence and loyalty enough to be brought back into the sight of the Emperor. As for Ootheca, Mantis Lord, it will never again give birth to your kind—it is yours no longer. The rights of the Mantis Warriors to that place are forfeit forever; should they survive their penitence, they must begin again elsewhere. They must seek rebirth as well as redemption.”
It is mine.
Neotera’s gaze did not waver and he said nothing. An image of the great fortress monastery of Ootheca flickered through his mind, engulfed in an inferno of flames as the emerald banners of the Mantis Legion turned to cinders and blew away in the wind. The loss of his home world tortured his soul, piercing to the very foundation of his almost-forgotten humanity. Yet it was not a terminal end; he could see through the conflagration of horror to the tiniest glimmer of hope that survived the flames. Despite himself, the redemption of his loyal battle-brothers brought him profound relief and happiness. Barely perceptibly, a single tear trickled slowly over the scar on his cheek.
I seek no mercy. For myself, nothing. I seek no mercy. Already this is too much.
But then there is you, Mantis. Even if you were deluded and confused, like a civilian fool being tempted into Chaos with promises of riches, of power, or of fame, then you are little more than a despicable excuse for an Astartes, with a pathetic will and a clouded mind. Your credulity offends the Emperor. His light is not ambiguous or unclear—it is brilliant, pristine and untarnished by doubts or interpretations. Even if you are not evil by intent, your naiveté provides a space for it to grow. This is worse: you make others do evil unknowingly. Your leadership is what dragged your brothers into this war and turned them against themselves. In the end, even the devoted Captain Maetrus mutinied against you.
Consider this, Mantis Lord, your judgement tore your entire Chapter from the fold. You mutinied against the Emperor Himself—this is more than mutiny, it is heresy. And then your most celebrated captain mutinied against you. Civil wars within civil wars. How should we interpret these actions? Should we see Maetrus as evidence that there is yet integrity in your Chapter, despite his disappearance? Or should we conclude that credulity is a flaw in the gene-seed of the Mantis Warriors as a whole? Are you genetically untrustworthy, Mantis? Do you have any place in the Imperium of Man? Can the Emperor gaze on you with anything other than pity, derision, or disgust?
“You will not be executed, Master Neotera.” The voice seemed somehow familiar, but Neotera’s mind was reeling with such nausea after the psychic charges that he could not call a name to mind. And now the vocalised words struck horror into his heart. A terrible despair sank upon him, as though a world had fallen onto his shoulders. Were they going to offer him mercy?
“You will be stripped of your armour and imprisoned in the Penitentiacon. There you will live out your life in darkness and isolation. You will have no distractions from your own conscience, and you will find the truth of your treachery or you will die without ever understanding it.”
Neotera’s mind staggered. The world fell onto his shoulders and crushed him through the aquila at his feet. His constant and resolute gaze began to swim, before he pulled his will together though sheer self-discipline and screaming anguish. He gritted his teeth against the horror of disbelief: he would not be executed for his deeds, but how could he go on living like this?
You asked for no mercy. We offer you none.
ORPHANS OF
THE KRAKEN
Richard Williams
I am not yet dead.
I am only on the brink. I cannot tell anymore how long I have been here. My first heart begins its beat. I count the minutes until it finishes and begins again. I clutch at the sound as long as I can. It is my only reminder that I am still alive.
It is not fear that holds me from the edge. I see what is ahead and it welcomes me. But I have made an oath. Until I have held to my word, I cannot allow myself to fall.
The tyranid hive ship drifted silently in space. I watched it through my window. It was vast and it was an abomination, ugly beyond description, organic but no creation of any natural god. It was also, as best as we could determine, very, very dead.
My name is Brother Sergeant Tiresias of the Astartes Chapter Scythes of the Emperor, and I came here searching for legends.
I command the 21st Salvation Team, and if that sounds like a grand tide men let me correct you now. It is not. There were eight of us at the beginning, myself and seven neophytes. Battle-brothers in training, youths, juveniles, children. I am told that they are our future. I know better; we do not have a future.
By that day I had been in their company, and they in mine, for over two years. Our time together had not been easy, nor without loss. The three empty seats beside me were testimony to that. But the three we had left behind had not disappointed me nearly as greatly as the four who remained. They had slunk to the far end of the assault boat, gathered around one of their number who was making some small adjustment to the squad’s heavy bolter. They spoke softly, thinking they would not be heard.
“There… I think it’ll work better that way.”
“Are you sure, Brother Narro? It is not Codex.”
“Of course he’s sure, Hwygir. Who’re you going to trust? Your brother here who’s been slicing up these vermin as long as you have, or a book written by some hoary old creaker? These bugs weren’t even around back then so the codex is as much use as a—”
“Show some respect, Vitellios,” the fourth of them interrupted. “The sergeant can hear you.”
“Pasan. I tell you, after all he’s put us through, I don’t give a scrag if he does.”
It had not always been like this. At the start, in our first few insertions, their voices had been full of hope and they had spoken of what we might find. They had repeated the stories they had heard during their training: rumours of Space Marines wearing the insignia of the Scythes still alive inside the tyranid bio-ships; stories of naval boarding parties surrounded, nearly destroyed, before being saved by such warriors who then disappeared back into the depths; stories of bio-ships convulsing and crumpling in the midst of battle, though untouched by any external force. Stories. Legends. Myths.
They believed, though. They fantasised that, in every dead bio-ship we sought, whole companies of Astartes waited. That they had not been annihilated in the onslaught of Hive Fleet Kraken at all. That Hive Fleet Kraken, that almighty judgement upon us which had destroyed fleets and consumed worlds, might have simply overlooked them. And so they had survived, forgotten, until these seven brave neophytes arrived to rescue them and become heroes to the Chapter, and become legends themselves.
Myths. Fantasies. Lies. As I already knew and they, once they stepped aboard a bio-ship for the first time, quickly discovered.
“Ten seconds!” the pilot’s voice crackled over the intravox. “Brace! Brace! Brace!”
I braced. Here we went again. Another legend to chase, another myth to find, another lie to unmask. How many more before we finally accept it? How many more until we finally decide to end it all?
My wards advanced cautiously from our insertion point into the ship
. They fell into their formation positions with the ease of long experience. The hivers, the up-spire Narro and the trash Vitellios, took turns on point and edge. The trog savage Hwygir carried the heavy bolter on his shoulder further back as snath. Pasan, one of the few of the neophytes to have been born, as I, on noble Sotha, walked in the tang position to allow him to command.
If our auspices and scanners had not already told us that the hive ship was dead, we would have known the instant we stepped aboard. The corridors were dark; the only light our own torches. As they illuminated our path ahead we could see the skin of the walls sagging limply from its ribs, its surface discoloured and shrivelling. The door-valves gaped open, the muscles that controlled them wasted.
We waded through a putrid sludge. Though it moved like a sewer it was no waste product, it was alive. It was billions of microscopic tyranid organisms, released by the bio-ship at the moment of its death and designed solely to consume the flesh of their dead parent, consume and multiply. More creatures, gigantic to the microbes, tiny to us, floated amongst them, eating their fill, then were speared and devoured by larger cousins who hunted them.
The hive ship was dead, and in death it became filled with new life. Each creature, from the sludge-microbe up, was created to feed and to be fed upon in turn, concentrating the bio-matter of the ship into apex predators that would bound gleefully aboard the next bio-ship they encountered to be reabsorbed and recycled. In this way, the tyranid xenoforms transformed the useless carcass of their parent into another legion of monsters to take to the void. The carcass of their parent, and any other bio-matter foolish enough to have stepped onboard.
Legends of the Space Marines Page 32
