[Word Bearers 02] - Dark Disciple

by Anthony Reynolds - (ebook by Undead)

  Tens of thousands of indentured workers and servitors slaved within the confined gun decks to load and ready the batteries for firing, and Admiral Augustine was proud to know that his gunnery crew, under the stern guidance of his master gunner and master of ordnance, were amongst the most efficient in all of Battlefleet Tempestus.

  He never grew weary of looking out across the Hammer of Righteousness, and he knew in his heart that he never would. Even after all these years of service, the power and scale of the battleship filled him with awe. Set against the sheer scale of space with its untold millions of solar systems, she was tiny and insignificant, but it was her duty to protect Imperial space from all threats, xenos or otherwise.

  Constructed in the Adeptus Mechanicus shipyard moons of Gryphonne IV over a period of a thousand years, Hammer of Righteousness had been in commission, defending Imperial space for nigh-on eight thousand years. Admiral Augustine had served on her for almost one hundred and fifteen years, first as a junior officer before moving steadily up through the ranks. He had served on two other ships after fulfilling his commissioned appointments on the Hammer of Righteousness, first as a flag-lieutenant on the Lunar-class cruiser Dauntless. After a tenure of fifteen years he had been promoted to flag-captain of the recommissioned Emperor’s Wrath, which had recently been reassigned to Segmentum Tempestus. Augustine served aboard this Overlord-class battle cruiser—a famed veteran of the Gothic wars—for ten years, before he was reassigned back to the Hammer of Righteousness, the ship where he had began his naval career.

  He had held the rank of admiral for forty-two years, and at the age of one hundred and sixty-two, he was one of the most experienced officers in the fleet. No one knew the nuances and quirks of the ancient battleship like he did, save perhaps for the ship’s long-serving flag-lieutenant, Gideon Cortez. Only two other ships assigned to Battlefleet Tempestus were of comparable size, and they were facing off against the xenos menace in distant sectors of the segmentum. The eastern expanses were his responsibility, and it was here that he had formed his blockade.

  He could not see the enemy with the naked eye, for they were still millions of kilometres away, but he knew that they were out there and closing on them inexorably. He could see flashes in the distance. From here, they looked almost incongruous, but he knew that more of the enemy bio-ships were being subjected to concentrated barrages of ordnance.

  His fleet was making a good account of itself in this engagement, the most recent of dozens over the last months, having destroyed two dozen hive-ships for no losses. Still, the xenos fleet continued to plough relentlessly on into Imperial space. The losses they had suffered made no discernible impact on the vast tyranid hive-fleet.

  Vile bio-organisms that consumed everything in their path, like the locusts of Augustine’s home world but on a galactic scale, the tyranid menace was a very real threat to the Imperium as a whole.

  Four years previously a new hive-fleet had been identified, dubbed Hive Fleet Leviathan. It was a fitting name. Already billions had lost their lives to its insatiable hunger.

  Admiral Augustine stared balefully out into the darkness. For all his years of service he had proudly defended the reliant worlds of the Imperium from its enemies. Now he was tasked with destroying those same worlds that he had dedicated his life to protect.

  By Lord Inquisitor Kryptman’s order a galactic cordon stretching before the encroaching xenos fleet was formed. The band of worlds directly in front of the cordon were evacuated, and many of them utterly destroyed, in order to deny the hive fleet raw organic matter. Any world already under tyranid invasion was to suffer Exterminatus—the theory being that the xenos would expend much energy in claiming a world, only to have all living things on the world exterminated. The inquisitor believed that by stalling the hive fleet’s advance, it would eventually turn aside, towards more lucrative killing grounds, and thus save the Imperium from devastation. However, it was a cruel and callous strategy, and not one that sat well with Admiral Augustine, even if it was humanity’s only hope of stalling the hive fleet. Billions of Imperial citizens had already been evacuated, their home worlds destroyed, and hundreds of millions had perished, killed by orbital barrages and virus bombs launched by those sworn to protect them.

  He turned away from the observation portal, his movements, like his appearance, crisp and precise. He strode back along the command deck, his expression unreadable. His staff upon the bridge went about their work with practiced efficiency and calm, talking in low voices. Several of them looked up as their admiral passed them by and were greeted with curt nods. Banks of logisticians, hard-wired into the battleship’s logic engines and monitoring a constant flow of technical data, murmured as stylus-fingers traced the mnemo-papers feeding from skull-faced machines. A pair of enginseers were reporting to the flag-lieutenant, Gideon Cortez, and humming cogitator arrays flickered with updates from the fleet, the eyelids of servitors flickering as information was relayed.

  Augustine moved to the holo-table positioned within a sunken recess in the floor, stepping down to look upon the position of his fleet. The table was crisscrossed with a grid of glowing green lines, indicating spatial parameters, and scale models of the entire fleet were positioned across its smooth expanse.

  He took a moment to study the formations. Most of the fleet, seventy-two vessels of escort class and higher, had formed a bulwark spreading across the system with the Hammer of Righteousness at its centre. The cruiser Valkyrie, accompanied by three squadrons of smaller frigates and destroyers, was out in front, slowing the vanguard of the tyranid fleet to enable the pleasure world of Circe to fully evacuate, formless black spheres being placed on the table to represent the known enemy forces. More of them were being put on the table all the time, placed there by lobotomised servitors hanging like twisted marionettes amid the gently hissing mechanics above the table.

  The bio-mechanical amalgamations had no lower torso or legs. Their upper bodies, replete with wires and cables protruding from their pallid flesh, were attached to multi-jointed mechanical armatures that whirred and hissed as they extended and retracted, accurately moving and placing the fleets, accordingly, as fresh data was transmitted into them. Augustine was so used to their movements that he barely registered their presence; they were merely part of the ship; one more tool to help him with his strategy.

  Two other cruisers with squadrons of smaller escorts clustered in front of other populated worlds, the agri-world Perse, and the mining moons of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis, rotating slowly around the uninhabitable gas giant, Calyptus.

  Small, featureless scale models, representing a host of transports and carriers engaged in the evacuation efforts, were positioned touching the inhabited worlds. Several other models representing similar transports were positioned en route to the blockade. Almost two hundred million people were being evacuated from this system alone. Already, there had been problems with some of the mass transports associated with the fleet, as riots had broken out within the civilian populations already evacuated. He pushed these thoughts out of his mind; it was his job to enact the strategy laid down to him and see the worlds evacuated safely, not to police those populations once they were safely onboard the mass transport ships.

  As he watched, an Imperial light cruiser was placed on the table on the lee side of Perdus Skylla, and then removed. The arm of the servitor jerked spasmodically, and it placed the light cruiser back down upon the table.

  “What’s that?” asked Admiral Augustine, pointing towards the ship, which was once again removed from the table.

  One of his aides, a junior lieutenant, shrugged.

  “It’s been doing that for the past hour, admiral,” he said, “interference from the hive fleet, or a radiation field, perhaps. The flag-lieutenant thinks it may be nothing more than a technical glitch in the servitor unit. He is speaking to the enginseers about it.”

  Admiral Augustine raised an eyebrow and regarded the peculiar behaviour of the servitor with a frown.
Once again it put the ship back on the table, and then removed it.

  “Useless bastards,” said Cortez, shaking his head as he extricated himself from the enginseers and walked to Augustine’s side. “They say the unit was serviced last week.”

  The servitor-unit seemed to be operating as normal, again, and the phantom ship was nowhere to be seen on the table.

  “Give me an update on the evacuations, Cortez,” said Augustine.

  “Circe is almost completed, admiral,” said Cortez. “The Valkyrie will be disengaging and pulling back within the hour.”

  The flag-lieutenant was a stocky man of indeterminable age. A livid scar tracked across his chin, and a gleaming, bronze-rimmed lens stared from the hollow socket of his left eye. He was a natural officer and Augustine’s closest confidant, the one and only man that he would class as his friend.

  “And the evacuations of Galatea? And the Perdus moons?” asked the admiral.

  “Galatea goes well; the moons of Calyptus less so. There are not enough transports. It’s going to take those transports that are available three trips to complete the evacuation of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis.”

  “Three trips,” mused Admiral Augustine. He hissed through his teeth, gauging the position of the moons and the advancing enemy hive fleet. “It’s going to be tight.”

  “If the evacuation is not completed before a ground invasion commences, anybody still on the moons must be forgotten,” said Cortez, moving to the opposite side of the table to the admiral.

  “We shall buy the moons as much time as we can,” Admiral Augustine said, “but you are correct, I cannot risk the fleet for the benefit of two moons. Our orders are clear.”

  His orders were clear, as much as they rankled with him. They were the same orders that all of the fleets engaging Hive Fleet Leviathan had been issued, and he knew that they were being enforced all across the war-front.

  The tyranids were a deadly menace, there was no disputing that, but it sat badly with the admiral that they were giving way before the xenos forces rather than making them fight for every bit of Imperial space. Of course, he would not allow his personal feelings to colour his judgement, and he would never go so far as to voice his feelings in front of his officers. Their orders were clear. He had sent an astrotelepathic message to the lord admiral on receiving the dictate, but once confirmation of the order had been returned, his path was set.

  The new tyranid advance was potentially more catastrophic than any ever seen before, and the strategy that had been decreed to be used against it was similarly extreme.

  It was genocide. Those worlds that were already suffering under the first waves of ground assault were effectively condemned to death, along with their Planetary Defence Force and any force of the Imperial Guard that could not be extricated.

  Admiral Augustine knew that the political ramifications and backlash from this modus operandi would be devastating, but he also knew that no fleet captain would fail in his duty. They would carry out their orders, and leave the politicking to the bickering bureaucrats of the Administratum.

  Cortez cursed, and Augustine shook his head slightly as the malfunctioning servitor unit once again placed the phantom Imperial light cruiser back on the table.

  “Have a destroyer do a sweep around the moon, just to be sure,” said Augustine, and Cortez nodded his assent, even as he was shouting for the enginseers to be returned to the bridge.

  Augustine’s gaze focused on the spherical representations of the twin moons of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis.

  The evacuation of the moons would continue, and he would hold the fleet in position for as long as possible. However, looking again at their position, and the advance of the tyranid fleet, he knew instinctively that it would not be long enough.

  Before the week was out, he would be ordering their Exterminatus.

  The chamber was a shrine to death. Part of Marduk’s personal quarters within the labyrinthine lnfidus Diabolus, its high, domed ceiling was formed from the ribs of sacrifices, and eight pillars, each constructed from thousands of bones, rose into the gloom. Oily candles had been set into the hollow craniums of the skulls set into the pillars, and an infernal glow exuded from fire blackened, hollow sockets.

  Braziers of black iron burnt low, and black, acrid smoke rose from the smouldering coals. Hunched figures, their abhorrent faces hidden from view beneath deep cowls, stalked the darkness outside the circle of pillars, swinging heavy censors from which thick, heady incense spilled.

  Inside the pillars, the floor was rough granite, carved into the image of a holy eight-pointed star, the symbol of Chaos in all its guises. A massive figure stood at its centre, his augmented arms raised out to either side as he was prepared for the forthcoming ceremony.

  Marduk was silently fuming, still angry at Magos Darioq’s inability to unlock the secrets of the Nexus Arrangement. Silently incanting the Nine Levels of Enlightenment, he forced himself to calm. From the archive facility of Kharion IV, the magos had identified the location—a backwater Imperial moon called Perdus Skylla—of the one whose knowledge would release the artefact’s power, and Marduk forced himself to breathe evenly. Be patient, he reminded himself.

  More than a dozen hooded figures, stunted creatures that stood not even to the mighty warrior’s chest, clustered around their master, making him ready for the ceremony. Their eyes had been ritually sutured closed with thick staples, for it was regarded as a sin for them to look upon such a revered warrior. They brushed his blessed armour with sacred unguents, and fixed icons and holy charms to his armour.

  Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion, acting Dark Apostle of the Host, stood over two metres tall, his limbs encased in thick reinforced plate the colour of congealed blood. His holy power armour had been worked upon by the artisans of the Host in recent months, the plates rimmed with dark meteoric iron, and battle damage repaired.

  Marduk had meticulously scrimshawed hundreds of thousands of words across them in tiny script, scriptures and sacred litanies of Lorgar that he knew by heart. The entire third book of the Tenets of Hate was inscribed around the armoured vambrace encasing his left forearm, and the titles of the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Enumerations of Erebus were carved across the curved mass of his left shoulder pad.

  The left shoulder pad had been dutifully painted black, as had those of the entire Host, in mourning for the loss of their revered leader, the Dark Apostle Jarulek. That Marduk had been integral to Jarulek’s death made the symbolic act particularly ironic, and he smirked.

  Over his painstakingly worked armour, Marduk wore a bone-coloured robe, tied at his waist with chains hung with icons of dedication to the dark gods of the ether. A book of hymnals and battle-prayers from the Epistles of Lorgar hung at his side, its dusty pages bound in human leather.

  His head was bare. A bolt round fired by his former master, the Dark Apostle Jarulek, at point-blank range had rent the helmet beyond repair, and Marduk’s features bore testament to the damage that shot had wrought. The entire left half of his face had been blasted away, and it had taken all the skill of the Host’s chirurgeons and chirumeks to rebuild his facial structure.

  Adamantium had been fused to his skull, and he had grinned as the procedure had taken place. Pain, it was taught, was a blessed gift that fortified the spirit and brought one closer to the gods. As such, it was a sensation to be welcomed. No proud warrior of the Legion would ever consider allowing a chirurgeon to distance him from the blessed pain of his battle wounds with narcotic opiates or psychotropic injections, for such a thing was regarded as blasphemy.

  His shattered left cheek was rebuilt, and the muscles and tendons of his face re-grown or replaced with bionic implants. Marduk’s skin had yet to grow across this new facial structure, and the ceramic gleam of his sharpened teeth could be seen through the strands of muscle tissue that linked his upper and lower jaws.

  His left eye socket had been blasted to splinters, and the eye turned to molten jelly b
y the concussive force of the bolt round. Once the socket had been reconstructed, a replacement eye grown in a culture of amniotic-fluid infused with warp energy was surgically attached to his brain stem. The daemonic flesh hybrid replacement stared out from his adamantium eye socket, an angry, red, lidless orb. The pupil was little more than a sliver, like that of a serpent’s eye, reflecting all that it saw.

  For all his reconstructive surgery, Marduk’s face bore the patrician features that spoke of his genetic ancestry. Every warrior in the Legion bore the genetic makeup of his lord, the blessed daemon primarch Lorgar, and the similarity between them was marked, characterised by their pale skin, their noble profile, their proud bearing and their hair, which was as black as pitch.

  Marduk’s long black hair had been combed and oiled by his robed attendants, before being tied into a long braid and secured behind his head, atop the duster of cables that entered his flesh at the base of his skull. A cloak of matted fur, skinned from a blood-beast that Marduk had slain on the death world of Anghkar Dor, was draped over his shoulders and fixed to leering, daemonic bronze faces on his breastplate. The inside of the fur was lined with velvet, and symbols of Chaos resplendent had been scorched into the fabric.

  Holy scriptures of Kor Phaeron, cut into the flayed flesh of innocents, were driven onto the spikes rimming his shoulder pads, and fresh blood, drawn from the bodies of mewling sacrifices artificially bred in vats on the lower decks of the Infidus Diabolus for that sole purpose, was daubed reverentially onto his gauntlets.

  One of the attendants lined his right eye with coal, and smoke rose from the holy mark of Lorgar on Marduk’s brow as the servant’s withered hand brushed it. The stink of scorched flesh rose from the attendant’s hand, and it pulled it back sharply as smoke rose from the mark. Marduk growled in annoyance, and the attendant was dragged away into the darkness by two of its kin. Its flesh would be consigned to the cleansing fires, its body fed to its kin and its soul, if it had one, subject to eternal torment for displeasing its master.