by Ben Counter
Alaric levelled his storm bolter and blew the head apart with a single shot. Saphentis looked down at his gore-splattered robes in mild surprise.
'Lies,' said Alaric. 'About the daemons at least.'
'Then they are ignorant of their own corruption.' said Saphentis. 'Interesting.'
'They all are at the start.' said Alaric. 'Anyone who conjures daemons and does the will of Chaos goes to great lengths to convince themselves they are anything but corrupt. Chaos is a lie, archmagos. Most of all it makes the heretic lie to himself. The Dark Mechanicus are no different in that respect. What we know as Chaos, they see as some extension of technology.'
'It is a grave blasphemy indeed.' said Saphentis. 'To turn the teachings of the Omnissiah into the justification for such corruption.' Saphentis sat down and for the first time Alaric saw tiredness evident in his bionic limbs.
'I was wrong to suspect you.' said Alaric. 'About Thalassa, I mean. She must have got lost and captured. I thought you had killed her.'
'Because I had expressed admiration of this planet's self-sufficiency?' If Saphentis could have been able to smile grimly, Alaric suspected he would have done 'I did not choose my words carefully. It was natural for you to think little of me, justicar. I wanted to understand this world, as well as carry out our mission, but it was unwise of me to do so. And I should have been more careful with Thalassa. She was not able to cope with the responsibilities I placed upon her here. Her loss was my failure. I can only hope the Omnissiah forgives me my weaknesses.'
'Then we're on the same side?' said Alaric.
'The same side.' replied Saphentis.
'Now that's sorted out.' said Hawkespur, 'we need to keep moving.'
'Agreed.' Alaric looked back at Brother Cardios, who had finished removing the geneseed from Archis's corpse. 'We'll have to leave him. There's no other way. We can pray for forgiveness later. Dvorn, carry Antigonus if he breaks down. The rest of you, stick close and keep your heads down. At the moment we're recon first, combat second.'
The strike force gathered itself, said a silent prayer for the dead and carried on into the titan works, skirting the base of the watchtower and skulking through the fleshy outgrowths and masses of corroded machinery that broke through the rockcrete surface of the works. And in front of them, now stretching between the horizons, were the Titans themselves - towering silent, brimming with destructive potential.
It was an army that could lay waste to worlds. An army just waiting to wake up.
Chapter Sixteen
'Die in failure, shame on you. Die in despair, shame on us all'
- The 63rd Terran Scrolls,
Verse 114,
(author unknown)
REAR ADMIRAL HORSTGELD was down on his belly, his Naval uniform torn and smouldering. He held a naval shotgun close to his body and tried to peer past the pew, through the smoke and burning wreckage that flittered from the ruined ceiling of the bridge.
Gunfire from the Hellforger had shaken the bridge but not destroyed it. Most of the bridge crew were still alive, crouching for cover as they had been since the last major bulkhead fell.
They had been boarded. The worst possible result when fighting the forces of Chaos. That was where the Enemy was strongest - face-to-face where foul magicks and mutations counted for the most and where the very presence of the corrupted could shake the faith of the bravest men.
'Hold!' shouted the bridge security chief, a squat and massively powerful man wearing full forced entry armour more normally used when storming decks held by mutinous crewmen. There were no mutinies on the Tribunicia but Horstgeld had always insisted on full security details on his ships. From the speed with which contact had been lost with contested sections of the ship, though, the security crew had not made a great deal of difference. 'Take your targets before you fire! Line up, then shoot!'
The rest of the bridge crew had hunted down whatever weapons they could as the Chaos boarding teams had spilled through the decks. Some had the naval shotguns of the kind Hortstgeld now cradled, rock-solid weapons designed for filling cramped spaceship corridors with heavy, and mutilating slug shots. Others had the lasguns that the Imperial Guard carried and many had only been able to rustle up their personal sidearms - autopistols, laspistols, even a few slug guns, almost all designed for show and not combat. Horstgeld saw one of the communications crew holding a length of pipe that had fallen from the ceiling as the Tribunicia was rocked by broadside fire, another hefting a large steel spanner. 'Steel your souls, faithful of the Emperor!' intoned Confessor Talas. 'Make His will your shield and His wrath your weapon!' For the first time in their careers many of the bridge crew were actually listening to Talas, seeking some hope in his words.
Sparks showered from the main bridge doors. Something was cutting through.
'Right!' shouted the security chief, unhooking the power maul from his belt and lowering the visor of his helmet before hefting his riot shield. 'Stay tight, stay covered, mark targets and never forget who-'
A massive armoured fist punched through the door and the gunfire began. Blazing, intense, a wall of fire and white noise that sheeted across the bridge from both sides. The viewscreen shattered in a white star-burst and the golden statue of the Emperor toppled. Gunfire chewed through the hardwood pews and the fluted stone columns. Horstgeld yelled and fired almost blind, the shotgun kicking in his hands. He saw silhouettes of crewmen flailing and in the flashes of fire made out the deformed, oversized humanoid creatures forcing their way through the breach. They died in their dozens but more came, toppling over the bodies of their dead, a few making it to the rearmost pews and returning fire with their crude weapons.
A massive speargun shot a barbed javelin that impaled the chief navigation officer. The severed head of the security chief smacked off the column next to Horstgeld. The pew in front of Horstgeld cracked as if something huge had landed on it and Horstgeld scrambled out of the way, feeling hot blood on the floor. Spinning fragments of shrapnel were burning pinpoints on his skin and hands. He frantically reloaded as the return fire thudded heavier across the bridge.
Horstgeld had been in sticky situations before. He had been in boarding actions, even, as a young lieutenant in a boarding party that stormed an ork-infested space hulk. He had seen violent mutinies and pirate raids and had been on more than a few ships wrecked in accidents or under fire. He had seen many men die. He had killed a few up close and countless more from afar as master of the Emperor's warships. But this was the worst. This was the worst by far.
Something was ripping up the pews at the rear of the bridge. Something else flapped overhead and Horstgeld shot at it, blowing a chunk out of one leathery wing and seeing it spiral into the ordnance helm, all slashing claws and teeth. Someone was screaming. Someone else yelled in anger, the cry cut brutally short.
The gunfire was dying down. Now the din was cracking bones and the thud of blades into flesh, the scrape of blades on the floor. Screams and sobbing. Roars from once-human monsters. The killing was close and bloody and getting closer. Horstgeld backed up against the pew and finished loading his shotgun.
The killing was nearly done. Most of the bridge crew were dead, the rest dying.
Horstgeld heard heavy, armoured footsteps, coming closer.
'Captain.' said a voice, deep and thick.
Horstgeld peeked out through the planks of the broken pew. He could just make out a massive armoured form, similar to one of Alaric's Grey Knights but more hulking and malformed, wreathed in greasy smoke.
A Space Marine. Dear Emperor, it was a Space Marine from the Traitor Legions, the arch-betrayers of mankind. So dangerous that most Imperial teachings maintained they didn't even exist any more, because the very idea of a Traitor Marine was deadly to a weak mind.
Horstgeld held his shotgun tight. He was supposed to be brave. To die in the grace of the Emperor. And it wasn't supposed to be easy.
'Rear Admiral.' he shouted in reply, correcting the Marine.
<
br /> 'Ah. Good. A worthy prize, then.'
Horstgeld could see the Marine walking towards him, kicking dead crewmen out of the way. Horstgeld could make out the ancient, tarnished black armour, with the symbol of a single unblinking eye wrought onto one shoulder pad in gold. The Marine held a huge power sword in one hand, its blade writhing as if it housed something alive. His face was old and malevolent, the skin drawn tight, the eyes glinting black, the teeth pointed. An eight-pointed star was branded onto its hairless scalp. Steam spurted from the joints in the armour, which seemed crude and mechanical compared to the ornate armour of the Grey Knights - because this was a Marine from the days of Horus, a link to the Imperium's darkest and most shameful days. Chaos incarnate. Hatred made flesh.
'See!' called out a wavering voice, which Horstgeld realized belonged to Confessor Talas. 'See the form of the Enemy!' Talas pulled himself to his feet, still inside the bridge pulpit. 'See the mark of corruption upon him! The stink of treachery on him! The sound of...'
The Traitor Marine took out a bolt pistol and put a single round through Talas's head. The old confessor thudded to the wooden floor of the pulpit and one of the boarding mutants scampered over. The wet crunching noises that followed could only mean the confessor's body was being eaten.
The Traitor Marine stomped round the pew that Horstgeld was hiding behind. 'You. You are in command.'
Horstgeld nodded. He had to be brave. He had never run before. He would not run now, not give this creature the satisfaction of breaking him.
The Marine slid his writhing sword into a scabbard he wore on his back. He reached down with his free hand. Horstgeld levelled the shotgun but the Marine batted it away before Horstgeld could fire it - the Traitor Marine's reactions were lightning-quick. He was still a Space Marine, with all the conditioning and augmentations that went with it.
The Traitor Marine grabbed Horstgeld round the throat. His armoured fingers easily circled Horstgeld's pudgy neck and lifted him clean off the ground. The Traitor Marine held Horstgeld close to his face. Horstgeld could smell blood and brimstone on his breath. Those gem-like black eyes peered right through him.
'A long time ago I fought your kind.' said the Marine. 'Horus led us. He told us you were all weak. That you deserved to die. And every time I face you, you prove him right. You become more pathetic every time I sail out of the warp.'
Horstgeld would have spat in the Marine's face, but his mouth was dry. 'Horus was a traitor. He was corrupt. A daemon. We beat you.'
'No. We defeated you. We killed your Emperor. And then the conspirators closed ranks. The primarchs. All the bureaucrats and the profiteers. They wrote our triumph out of your history, they branded us failures, when all the time we were just waiting to return. And now that time has come, slave of the corpse-god. The Eye of Terror has opened. Cadia will fall. Look at yourself and ask who is stronger? Who deserves this galaxy?'
'But... you fear us! Why else are you here? If we are so weak, why did you have to come?'
The Marine dropped Horstgeld onto the floor and stamped down on his leg. Pure red pain slammed up from the wound, almost knocking Horstgeld out as the bones of his legs shattered.
'Enough of this.' said the Marine. 'I am Urkrathos of the Black Legion, Chosen of Abaddon the Despoiler. I will kill you and everyone on this ship. Death is merciful. Those who anger me are taken back to my ship and cast into the pit of blood where their souls are made fuel for spells and fodder for daemons. That is the fate I am giving you the chance to avoid. I am not merciful by nature so this offer will not be repeated. Do you understand?'
'Frag yourself.' gasped Horstgeld.
Urkrathos crushed down on Hortgeld's leg again. Horstgeld couldn't help from screaming.
'Where is the tribute?' Urkrathos demanded.
'What... what tribute?'
Urkrathos lifted Horstgeld up again, slammed him against the closest pillar and drew his sword. He stabbed the sword through the meat of Horstgeld's shoulder, pinning him to the pillar like an insect on a board.
'Do not make me ask again, rear admiral.' spat Urkrathos. 'You're here for it just as we are.'
'I don't know.' said Horstgeld, coughing up a gobbet of blood. He could barely see through the pain. The world was a mass of pain with only the face of Urkrathos showing through, his snarling, fanged mouth, his burning black eyes. 'We... we didn't find out...'
'Where is it?' bellowed Urkrathos. 'Where is the Castigator?'
Horstgeld tried to speak again, to curse the traitor. But he couldn't get the words out. His throat was full of blood and he couldn't even breathe.
Urkrathos wrenched the blade out of the pillar and caught Horstgeld as he fell. He lifted the rear admiral's limp body and dashed his brains out against the floor, cracking the man's head over and over again into the flagstones.
He flung the corpse to the floor. His sword had been drawn and it had not drunk deeply enough yet, so Urkrathos stabbed it again into the corpse and let the daemons imprisoned in the blade lap up the man's warm blood.
There had not been nearly enough blood. Every time it got easier to break them. Every ship, every battle - the Imperium had only spared a pathetic parody of a fleet to oppose Urkrathos. It was an insult. It seemed all the best battles were in the past now.
A thought came unbidden into Urkrathos's mind. It wasn't his own thought - it was a transmission from the communications daemon back on the Hellforger.
'What?' thought back Urkrathos angrily. He didn't like the daemons touching his mind. 'If this is not an emergency, you will suffer.'
'Our allies show their hand on the planet.' replied the grinding, bestial voice of the daemon. 'The sky opens for us.'
'Show me.' thought Urkrathos.
An image unfolded. Chaeroneia's atmosphere was a filthy dark grey mantle of pollution, specked with the bright spots that were its attendant asteroids. Urkrathos had guessed the Imperial fleet had been trying to find a way through the asteroids when Urkrathos's own fleet had arrived. Getting onto the planet would be a headache Urkrathos was going to have to face when he had destroyed the Imperials.
The image projected from the communications daemon was shifting. Like ripples in water, shock-waves were echoing out from a point on the uppermost level of the atmosphere, directly above the source of the signal that had promised tribute.
The asteroids were moving. Like a shoal of silver fish, the points of light were spiralling around the epicentre, rearranging themselves. It was powerful magic. More powerful than any sanctioned Imperial psyker could manage.
'What is it?' thought Urkrathos impatiently. 'Who is doing this?'
'This being knows not.' replied the daemon.
A path was being cleared through the field. A way in, large enough for the Hellforger.
Of course. Whoever had promised the tribute to Abaddon must also have been monitoring the situation in orbit. Now the Imperial fleet was destroyed, crippled or scattered, there was no danger of Imperial Guard landing on the world. Urkrathos had succeeded and now the mysterious benefactor of Chaos was welcoming the Hellforger in with open arms.
'Urkrathos to all crew,' voxed Urkrathos, knowing his voice would be transmitted all over the Hellforger and into the communicators of the less disposable boarding crew. 'All boarders disengage. Prepare to cut free.' Urkrathos switched channels. 'Kreathak?'
Kreathak replied from the cockpit of his Helltalon fighter, his voice distorted by the scream of the macro-jet engines and the stutter of lascannon. 'My lord?'
'Disengage and get back to the Cadaver. We're heading down.'
'The Enemy is in full flight. Confirm action abort?'
'Yes, confirm. And be quick about it. Don't waste your time killing them, I want your fighters in close defence patrols.'
'Of course, my lord.' Kreathik switched off his vox-link - if he managed to choke down his bloodlust he would be flying back to the fighter platform Cadaver, ready to defend the gap in the asteroid field while Urkrathos's
ship loaded the tribute.
Urkrathos switched to another channel. 'Come in Desikratis!'
'Lord.' came the titanic, rumbling voice of the Desikratis.
'Pull back.'
'But lord. The prey, it bleeds so.'
'I said pull back. You can toy with it when we are done. I need you to keep enemy fighters away while we head down to the planet. Understood?'
'Desiktratis loves its fun. Loves to make them bleed.'
'And you will. Just not yet. Do not make me punish you, Desiktratis. I have room for more servants on my bridge and you are not so great as to defy the will of the Chosen.'
'Forgiveness.' whimpered the Desikratis. 'I leave the prey. It cannot run. It will still be here.'
'That's right, it will. Now pull back and stay close to the Hellforger. Cover it when I breach the atmosphere. Urkrathos out.'
Urkrathos willed the link closed and felt the communications daemon's mind recoiling from him.
He glanced down at the rear admiral's body. The tiny mouths along the edge of his sword were drinking the blood hungrily. Urkrathos pulled the blade out - it was good to keep the blade slightly hungry, so it would not lose its will to thirst. Urkrathos kicked the corpse across the bridge, spitting in contempt, then turned and stomped back out of the bridge. The boarding troops cowered and whimpered before him as he walked back down to the Dreadclaw boarding craft lodged in the hull of the Imperial ship, which would take him back to the Hellforger.
With most of the defenders of the Imperial ship dead, the boarding troops had only Urkrathos to fear. And that was Urkrathos's favourite kind of slavery - ruling through nothing but fear. There were no shackles on the bestial, devolved things that slavered their devotion to him as he passed. There were no cages on the Hellforger to keep them in line. But they did as they were told solely because they feared what would happen if they did not. There was no more powerful demonstration that the champions of Chaos owned the souls of those lesser creatures - just as they owned by right the souls of every sentient thing in the galaxy.
