by Gav Thorpe
Do not avoid the question. Admit your crimes. Tell the truth and be set free.+
The gnawing became more insistent. To distract himself he stared at the apparition floating just in front of his face. The eyes of the wolf were growing larger, engulfing him, mesmerising. The desire to confess was strong. The panting of the wolf revealed itself as his breaths, coming sharp from bloodied lips, become vapour in the chill air.
He shuddered.
‘They had chased us from orbit. There they had spat their hate upon us, spewing fighters from burning flight decks. Like a storm of swords they fell upon our station. We manned the defence batteries. Macro-cannons and mass-fusillade laser barrages. A wall of fire, a barrier of lightning and plasma and missiles to fend off the rage of a demigod.
‘Somehow they made it through. Torpedo bombers targeted us, destroying the cannon galleries and upper platforms. Assault pods crashed into the lower decks. We stayed at the guns as long as possible. We had orders and followed them. We would make the traitors pay. Slay them. Teach them that we would never again be slaves.
‘We fired until the power cells melted. We fired until the barrels of the rotary cannons glowed. We fired even as bulkhead after bulkhead was breached and the foe swarmed towards us.
‘When the enemy was at the door we stopped firing and took up our bolt pistols and power swords for close work. Landevort had a volkite carbine he had kept since the Two hundred and thirty-first Expedition. Took it from the dead hands of an Ultramarine. “For the battle to end all battles,” he used to say when he polished it and gloated to the newer recruits.
‘And that battle was upon us, we knew.
‘We opened the doors and charged. Bolt pistols barked, swords hissed and Landevort’s carbine spat archaic fire. They had not been expecting a counter-attack. Up we fought, up through seven decks of death and hell and the clamour of close battle. Six of us made it to the saviour pods, and not before we had accounted for twenty of the foe. The station was lost. We knew it would be.
‘Fight hard, withdraw quickly, form the line again. That was the strategy. We would keep back the rage of a whole empire as long as one of us remained to keep up the fight.
‘Even as we sought to leave a fresh onslaught fell upon us. Hadreus was the best of us, master of blades, and he leapt to our defence while others of the garrison departed in the saviour pods. His chainsabres held the door for three full minutes. There was a lull and we called for him to come back. We would not desert him. But then we saw who led the foe and knew that Hadreus had left it too late.
‘Arch-traitor, once the noblest of us, who should have stood at our lord’s right hand. Caliban’s glorious son. Now lickspittle to the filth of Terra. Paladin. Pure Blade. Houndlord. Dread Corswain.
‘In beast’s mantle he approached, a greatsword in his grasp, its edge spilling white fire. Where such a sword came from, what debts he owed for its gifting, who would dare say? Hadreus knew better than to wait for the attack. He threw himself at the Pure Blade and his guard. Corswain was there in a moment. His sword rose and met Hadreus’s descending blades. The ring of their clash echoed back to us and we knew that Hadreus had swung his last strike.
‘Corswain moved in a way I have never seen any warrior move. Even encumbered by his armour, he was past Hadreus in an instant. His sword parted our companion from gut to nape in one blow.
‘It was always part of the plan to leave the station. But I admit, freely, that we saw Corswain look upon us in that moment and we fled, for to remain was to die.’
Your cowardice needs no confirmation. We have a list of those that held true and those that fell. Your treachery is all the proof we need of your low moral courage.+
He found himself in those dark forests on Caliban that he had called home. Darker even than he remembered. The trees crowded close together, leaving nothing but slanted shadows and moonlight. Hot breath steamed in the still. Eyes of golden fire gleamed in the night.
He started to run. The panting grew louder and his hearts hammered with effort. He could feel hot breath at his back. He blurted a confession, hoping it would allay the pursuing beast.
‘It was dishonourable to destroy the station! Scorched earth, that was the command. Leave no pursuing foe. The reactor was set to overload from the moment the battle started. It was not an honourable blow, but we were desperate.’
The wolf’s growl was so close, right behind him. He made the mistake of looking back. No wolf now, the apparition had become a monster outright. Its flesh was scaled, body sinuous, claws and fangs burning with golden flame. A beast of Caliban Lost, like he used to hunt as a knight of the Order. The monster’s roar was inside his head, a pain that threatened to split his skull apart.
Lies! You are damned if you do not confess all! Not the victim, the brave defender. Murderer, cold-blooded slayer of brothers. Admit your sins and be free.+
The monster sunk its talons into him and the pain released a memory, torn from the depths of his mind.
Starfire!+
The word echoes in your thoughts. You hope that you will never hear it. A single word, dripping with so much meaning. But for all your regrets, you do not hesitate. That one word sets you into action.+
Lured close by your fake protestations of surrender, a strike cruiser approaches your station. The others look to you, their leader. Even now, with so much at stake, you have a chance. Obey the order or stand down. They trust you.+
Starfire!+
You choose to listen to the lies of your lord rather than the oaths you had sworn to the Lion.+
“Open fire,” you tell them. “Full barrage. Let these fawning oafs know that Caliban will die free!”+
And the cannons open fire and the shields of the strike cruiser burst into red blossoms. Blasts from other platforms overload the shield generators and the target starts to turn away. But you are not satisfied with driving them off. There will be no mercy. The bombardment continues. The strike cruiser cracks, its armour pierced, the welter of hammerblows upon it from laser and shell too much to bear.+
“No relent!” you cry. What a perversion of that great motto of your gene-father. “No relent.”+
And your brothers die in their hundreds by your treacherous hand.+
The pain was all-consuming. He was engulfed by it. He could stand no more and realised that the shriek of the splintering warship was the scream from his lips.
A robed figure looked at him, one eye glittering with gold, the other a biomechanical replacement. It was his last vision as sanity faded and skull-faced armoured giants entered to drag him away.
The attack was going well. Elements of the Second and Fifth Companies of the Dark Angels had created a significant foothold on the rebel space station known as Port Imperial, and with a storm of firepower were pushing towards the central habitation and command spires. Though one might not have considered a star fort the ideal battleground for the bikes and Land Speeders of the Ravenwing, Port Imperial was more akin to a city in space, its halls and tunnelways more like plazas and streets than the confines of a starship’s chambers and passages.
With speed and daring, the Dark Angels had seized several landing zones and now the warriors of the Second Company were racing ahead to fracture the enemy resistance whilst the infantry of the Fifth Company secured what gains had already been made. The foe – pirate scum that presented barely a threat to the power armoured Dark Angels Space Marines – were being driven back, their prepared defences circumvented by the insertion of squads and squadrons by Thunderhawk and boarding torpedo.
Sergeant Cassiel and his bike squadron were amongst those at the forefront of the fighting. Having been thrown into the heart of the enemy star fort, theirs was a simple mission: rove the station sowing death and discord wherever they encountered the enemy.
Cassiel had not been drawn into the ranks of the Ravenwing for blindly following orders, but nor
had he reached the rank of sergeant by second-guessing the intent of his superiors. His initiative had been enough to attract the attention of Grand Master Sammael and seen him initiated into the Rites of the Raven, but there his curiosity ended, making him an ideal squadron leader for the Second Company. He did not, therefore, wonder too much what brought the Ravenwing and their comrades in the Fifth Company to Port Imperial, but assumed that the anarchy the Dark Angels had discovered on the world of Piscina IV was somehow connected to the pirates.
Grand Master Sammael had explained that it was likely the pirates were led by a renegade of the Legiones Astartes, a traitor who had turned on the Emperor right at the birth of the galactic Imperium. Cassiel had been in the Ravenwing for seventy years and knew well enough what this meant; the Ravenwing would secure this renegade so that he could be taken back to the Chapter and face punishment for his crimes.
This was privileged information, known only to those in the Ravenwing. It was his task, along with the veteran Black Knights that served as Sammael’s inner cadre, to ensure that the Fifth Company were not unduly exposed to the machinations of the renegade. Sometimes Cassiel envied the warriors of the Fifth Company, and those like them that did not have to suffer the spiritual taint of the Truth. A careful facade was maintained by the Chaplains to ensure that the majority of the Dark Angels remained blissfully unaware of the taint that could touch even the soul of a Space Marine. On occasion, when afforded time for reflection in his squadron’s dormer, Cassiel was wistful for the days before he had been introduced to the Truth.
Today was not such a day. Cassiel was proud to be part of the spearhead that would bring the renegade to justice. He led his squadron secure in the knowledge that they honoured the memory of their primarch, the Lion, and did service to the Emperor through their deeds.
As such, the squadron had penetrated more than a kilometre from their insertion point and were making ground quickly towards the more heavily defended interior of Port Imperial. Auspex readings from his bike, Incitatus, had located a group of pirates trying to assemble for a counter-attack. Cassiel led his warriors directly into the ill-judged ambush, securing a large elevator unit to bring the fighting to the heart of the concentration of enemy signals. Las-fire and bullets criss-crossed the conveyor shaft as the squadron ascended in the open cage, stopping just one floor beneath the mass of enemy.
When there was just enough room between the opening cage door and the wall of the elevator, Sabrael hit the throttle and surged out of the carriage, his bolters blazing into the enemy waiting in the chamber outside, bike slamming through their falling bodies. With just enough room to pass Cassiel and hit the gap Annael accelerated from behind the sergeant, exiting the car a second before the sergeant could follow.
Cassiel paused for a moment longer to assess the battlescape. The elevator had deposited them in a warehouse-like chamber, several hundred metres square, and enemy fire descended like a storm from gantries above and behind. Below the walkways more pirates used bulky cargolifters and metal-cased extractor vents as cover, poking out to snap off shots that were wide of their targets more often than they hit.
Ahead, Annael rode over a pile of fallen pirates, cries of pain cut short indicating that at least two had still been alive. The wheels of his bike throwing up a spume of body parts and crimson, Annael hurtled into the mass of enemies while unleashing a constant hail of bolts into the broad space where the foe had lain in ambush.
Remarkably, a man beside the elevator door had been missed by both Sabrael and Annael and he hurled himself at them with a chainsword, the teeth of the weapon sparking across Annael’s backpack. The biker braked and hauled his steed sideways, using it as a weapon; the pirate disappeared beneath the rear wheel, the man’s remains pulped into the metal decking.
Cassiel whirled his bike around, the bolters at maximum elevation as he cleared a gantry above the elevator door, while Sabrael was racing to the far end of the chamber, his weapons gunning down several foes that were making a break for a stairwell up to a mezzanine floor. Fire from Zarall and Araton announced the opening of the other elevator door behind the sergeant as they broke out into the other part of the chamber.
Cassiel shifted his gaze and accelerated, the bolters mounted in the fairing of his bike adjusting their aim to where he looked. He pressed the firing studs and a hail of fire cut down two pirates lurking in the shadow of a large crate, the bolts puncturing flesh and snapping bone with their detonations. To the sergeant’s right Annael slewed his machine around and fired at a handful of foes skulking beside a bulk-hauler, the flash of bolts sparking from the upraised lifting blades on the front of the vehicle. Las-fire snapped back as he cruised across the warehouse, still firing, the fusillade puncturing balloon tyres and severing hydraulic hoses.
Annael’s next salvo struck a pool of leaking fuel. A blue fireball engulfed the load-hauler and several pirates, who staggered from their hiding places with clothes and hair aflame. Cassiel had no time to finish them off as he turned his bike to the left to confront a trio of foes clambering down one of the mezzanine ladders. Metal splinters filled the air as Incitatus’s guns blazed again, shredding the vulnerable pirates. Their ragged corpses flopped to the deck as Cassiel continued to the ladder, one hand on the handlebars, the other pulling a grenade from his belt. He primed the charge and tossed it up through the ladder opening, accelerating away before the explosion scythed down more enemies trying to seek cover above.
‘Maintenance access, quadrant four, high,’ Annael reported sharply.
Cassiel switched his gaze to the left and saw more enemies issuing from a metre-high crawlspace. One of them was dragging a heavy stubber into view as a companion set up a tripod for the machine gun. Sabrael responded first, cutting back along the storage hold, bolt pistol in hand. He fired up through the mesh of the walkway, tearing the legs from the renegade with the stubber and sending another pitching back into the bulkhead minus his left arm.
Trusting that the threat would be dealt with, Annael was continuing his circuit, picking up speed as he curved across the open ground in the centre of the warehouse, Cassiel turning his bike to a counter-circuit of the space. The pair of them opened fire in brief bursts, driving the pirates further back into the darkness behind the stores.
Annael brought his bike to a stop facing a pallet laden with metal drums and fired on full automatic as Cassiel crossed past him. The sergeant noticed a movement in the shadows and directed his volley into more crates and drums lining the far wall, the bolts punching through the metal containers with ease. Cassiel fired again to ensure nobody survived behind the containers, the thrum of the bolters echoing loudly as the din of battle grew quieter.
Cassiel slowed, sensing the enemy were all but wiped out. As he looked back over his shoulder for a quick sweep, he saw there were only a handful of foes left.
One of them had a final surprise for the Dark Angels. A blue plasma bolt shrieked down from overhead, smashing into the rear of Incitatus. Molten metal, ceramite and hardened rubber sprayed into the air and the sergeant was flung from his mount as it careened past Annael, trailing sparks across the floor.
Pain surged up through Cassiel’s right leg and his helmet display was alight with warning runes, a high pitched alert whining in his ear. The plasma blast had thrown him from his mount, and the sergeant’s first glance was to check the condition of his steed. The whole back fairing armour had been melted through, the rear wheel turned to a slag of silver and black. Half a metre further forward and the plasma bolt would have struck the sergeant full on.
Incitatus was wrecked, and as he checked himself, the sergeant saw that his right leg was missing below the knee. The plasma had cauterised the wound with its own energy; no immediate danger. Pulling free his pistol, Cassiel located the plasma gunner, who was skulking behind a support pillar while his weapon recharged. Increasing the magnification of his autosenses, the sergeant picked out the glow of
the plasma gun’s combustion chamber. A single bolt penetrated the shielding and the plasma gun detonated, enveloping the pirate in superheated gas. Skin blistering, flesh sloughing away from the bone, the man toppled over the walkway rail and spun crazily to the floor, his impact punctuated by another small detonation.
‘Brother-sergeant?’ Zarall drew his bike to a stop beside Cassiel, shielding the sergeant from the fire of the few remaining enemies.
‘I will signal Command with my position. My steed is no more, anyway. Araton, you have the lead.’ The sergeant looked down at the remnants of his leg, his augmented blood clotting the injury further, the spurts of dark red slowing to a trickle. ‘It looks like I will not be riding with you for some time. Not until we return to the Rock and I can have a bionic fitted.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Sabrael as he and Annael turned their bikes’ bolters on the remaining enemy. ‘You can still ride gunner in an attack bike. I will drive for you.’
‘I am obliged for the offer, brother, but if I am to be at the mercy of another’s riding, I will choose Zarall or Araton. You are too fast for my liking!’ Cassiel made light of the injury, knowing that he was in no immediate danger from the wound. More deeply felt was the damage to his steed, and his pride. Speed was one of the best defences of a Ravenwing biker, and Cassiel knew he had slowed too early, giving the plasma gunner an easier shot.
The last of the opposition died when a burst from Sabrael cut him in half across the chest. The warehouse suddenly fell quiet save for the throb of idling engines, the ping of cooling metal and the clink of settling shell cases.
‘Area clear,’ Annael announced. He joined the others as they gathered around Cassiel. Zarall dismounted and helped the sergeant across to the gantry stair where he was able to sit down, the metal steps sagging slightly under the Space Marine’s weight.
‘Keep pushing hubwards and then come around to sector four to meet up with the Grand Master’s advance,’ Cassiel told them. The ruined stub of his leg was now a black and brown mottled mass of coagulant and Larraman cells, the scab thick and leathery. Reloading his pistol, the sergeant gestured towards the wide warehouse doors. ‘No delays. Get moving.’
