It wheezed like a perforated lung as Heka’tan slowly crushed it. The integrity of the creature’s mimicry was breaking down with the onset of its death. Personas strange and familiar raced across its form and countenance like the changing of the seasons.
‘What was your purpose here?’ Heka’tan growled, bearing the lacrymole down, for it could be no other xenos abomination. ‘What greater evil are you masking?’
Vampiric shapeshifters, the Emperor and his Legions had taken great pains to ensure the annihilation of the lacrymole and yet, like the Terran atom-roach, they refused to become extinct.
Even its true form was nebulous, a conglomeration of wrongly shaped limbs and distended flesh-parts. Its eyes were discernable, however – pitiless black pinpricks of endless hate.
It died laughing, a hot, wet sound more choke than mirth.
‘What I cannot fathom,’ uttered Heka’tan when it was done and the broken sack of muscle and bone shards slid from his forge-smith’s grasp, ‘is how it could emulate a Custodian?’
Arcadese mashed the lacrymole’s quivering cranium with his boot. The bionic force he applied was enough to pulp it. The lacrymole needed to taste their prey, absorb them, before they could copy them biologically. To emulate one almost perfectly, it meant this alien had somehow bested and consumed the biological matter of one of the Emperor’s lions. Such a thing didn’t seem possible.
The Ultramarine shook his head. ‘What did it mean, “You are the ones that are undone”?’
Planetkill
I
The answer came with the thunderous boom that shook the flagstones of the auditorium floor. The explosion emanated from far beneath them, in the lowest levels at Cullis’s nuclear hub.
Subdued by the death of the assassin and the relief that brought, the trapped Bastionites started to panic anew and hammered at the door again.
Another explosion rocked the chamber and a crack formed underfoot. A clutch of senators disappeared into the darkness and in the plume of fire that spewed up after them.
One of the clave-nobles had broken free of his bodyguards and was tugging at Arcadese’s robes. ‘Save us... please.’
The Ultramarine looked down on the man with disdain.
Heka’tan interrupted his response. ‘We have been doubly deceived, brother.’
A twitch below Arcadese’s right eye betrayed the pain of the injuries the Ultramarine had sustained in the fight with the lacrymole assassin. He was angry at being duped. ‘A saboteur?’
‘Willing to destroy an entire planet to keep its secrets,’ said Heka’tan. Another tremor shook the chamber. A column split from its dais and crushed more of the civilians. There would be no hope of restoring order now.
‘Then these minor explosions are merely a preamble to something much bigger.’ The clave-noble was still scrabbling at the Ultramarine’s garb. He pushed the human away. ‘Begone! By holding court with Horus you have doomed yourself and your world.’
‘Perhaps not...’ Heka’tan was looking past the frightened crowd to the door. The broken masonry had fallen against it. The column had been heavy enough to put a wide crack in the door’s surface.
Some of the trapped civilians were even now pulling at it.
‘Stand aside,’ Arcadese bellowed, ‘in the name of the Legiones Astartes!’
The frightened throng parted for the two warriors who reached the door and each taking a side of the fissure, which was deep enough to get their fingers in, pulled. The stone door came away in chunks now that its structural integrity had been compromised. The crack widened.
Bullied to the front by his entourage, Vorkellen was right behind the Legionaries.
‘Get us out,’ he pleaded in a small voice, clinging to Heka’tan’s arm. ‘I too have been deceived.’
The Salamander looked down at him like he was the intestinal remains of an enemy he’d just gutted. ‘Where is your ship?’ he demanded, before the majority of the auditorium floor collapsed into a fiery chasm. Most of the senators went with it. Only those clustered next to the exit were spared death by fire.
‘Close, at the end of the gangway just outside,’ said the iterator. All of his suave self-assurance was evaporating before the prospect of his imminent demise.
Debris was falling from the ceiling, killing Bastionites by the score.
The gap in the door was wide enough for the Legionaries to squeeze out, which meant it was also large enough for the humans too. There were precious few left, just the clave-nobles and a handful of senators and marshals, and the iterator with his cronies of course.
Arcadese was first out and began waving the others on. Heka’tan was last through just as an almighty conflagration swept across the sundered auditorium. Smudged silhouettes in the smoke cloud screamed for rescue but the Salamander closed his senses to them.
‘They’re good as dead,’ he said as he met the hard gaze of the Ultramarine. It wasn’t an easy choice to make.
II
Then they were running, even as Cullis was collapsing around them. Portions of the city were giving way under the chain of incendiaries planted by the Iron Warrior. Out in the slums, great cracks were opening up in the ground, pulling in vast tracts of sump-ash. Distant landmen drove their hauler-trucks in crazy arcs to avoid the growing fissures. On the horizon behind them, the super-rigs and megaliths of other Bastion cities burned.
Out on the landing platform the air hazed. Ash and flesh-smoke baked on the hot breeze. Girders and gantries groaned in protest as they buckled and fell in the expanding conflagration below.
They were fleeing across the exit strip that led to the deck where Vorkellen’s ship was still anchored when a fuel hopper burst and sent a plume of fire and force into the air.
Several of the civilians were thrown off the narrow companionway and plummeted screaming.
Leading, Arcadese, turned to see another group crushed by a collapsed comms tower. They died without uttering a sound.
Heka’tan was missing. Just a few more metres to the ship and he’d lost the Salamander. Vorkellen, too, was nowhere to be seen. Smoke and fire dirtied the view.
The Ultramarine waved the few survivors on. ‘Into the ship.’ He seized one of the iterator’s cronies by the arm as he hurried past. The scrivener had a cut to his forehead and looked dazed. ‘Wait for us,’ Arcadese told him. After the scrivener had nodded feebly, the Ultramarine let him go and went back into the smoke cloud.
‘Heka’tan!’ The pall was thick, getting thicker. Arcadese wished he still had his battle-helm; the task of finding his battle-brother was made more difficult without it.
Below the belt of charcoal-grey, the Ultramarine saw four grasping fingers. They were black, like onyx.
Arcadese cried, ‘Hold on!’ and rushed to the ragged lip of the companionway. He thrust his hand down but Heka’tan slipped and fell another half-metre. Gripping a twisted metal rebar, he looked up at the Ultramarine. There was blood on his face and one of his eyes was swollen shut.
‘Save him.’ He had to shout above the roar of the flames boiling below.
Arcadese’s gaze flitted to Vorkellen, who was also stranded and clinging on desperately. The iterator peered down intermittently, white-faced and clammy.
The Ultramarine shook his head and reached harder, farther. ‘You first. Reach up.’
‘Protect the weak,’ Heka’tan told him. ‘No matter who that is.’
In no mood to debate, Arcadese growled, ‘Reach up. Now!’
Still holding on with one hand, Heka’tan swung up the other and stretched. Their fingertips could almost touch.
‘A little more…’
‘It’s too far. Get out while you can.’
Arcadese shook his head. ‘We are so close…’ he said. His face was wrenched with effort. He leaned and found purchase on Heka’tan’s fingers…
…just
as the Salamander’s hand began to tremble. As the nerve tremor took hold it shook Arcadese’s grip free. Heka’tan was flailing now. The explosions, the smoke and fire – he was reliving Isstvan all over again.
‘Steady yourself… I can’t…’ Arcadese snatched at Heka’tan’s shaking hand, but was unable to get a grip. ‘Steady yourself, brother.’
Their eyes met, the reflection of the destruction trapped in the Salamander’s locked there forever.
‘Let me go,’ he said, lowering his quivering hand. His voice was calm, his mind decided.
Arcadese raged, gesturing frantically. ‘I can lift you. What are you doing?’
‘Going to join my brothers.’ He let go.
Bellowing denial and utterly powerless, the Ultramarine watched Heka’tan plummet for a few metres until he was swallowed by the explosions. Arcadese thumped the companionway, splitting the rockcrete. Nearby, Vorkellen was screaming.
‘Don’t let me die, please don’t let me die…’
Bereft of all pity, of any feeling, his organic flesh as inured as his augmetic implants, Arcadese grabbed the iterator’s wrist and dragged him up.
Just a few seconds later, a column of fire erupted skywards from where Vorkellen had been swinging. The human staggered to his feet. He was weeping uncontrollably. Arcadese picked him up and threw him over his shoulder.
Then he ran as the world of Bastion submitted to its death throes behind him.
III
From the shuttle hold, Arcadese looked down upon the ruination of a world. Cooking off in the wake of the incendiaries, Bastion’s thermo-nuclear stockpiles were tearing the planet apart.
Long chains of fire stitched the world’s surface like its seams had been unpicked and were slowly being burned apart. Continents cracked and mountains sank. The oceans boiled to gas and the cities were consumed. Billions would look to the artificial nuclear sunrise, their retinas seared away in seconds, the skin of their bodies flaking like parchment only to become as ash on the wind. And even that was ephemeral, torn apart and scattered to oblivion by the blast wave that followed.
A small armada of ships had managed to achieve orbit; others had been swallowed up in the chaos, failing to achieve loft and put enough distance between themselves and the rapidly unfolding cataclysm.
They were headed for the Imperial starship at anchor on the edge of the system. Arcadese had already voxed a warning to its captain but no attack had come from any vessel affiliated with the Warmaster. The work here was done. The Iron Warrior had achieved his mission. Whatever the purpose of the schematics Heka’tan had described, it would not be discovered until it was too late. The message was sent. Horus wanted the galaxy to know, he had used Bastion as an example.
Ally with the Imperium and die.
Neutral planets would go down on bended knee for the Warmaster now, the threat of reprisals too real and absolute for them to ignore.
Heka’tan had believed in the possibility of a peaceful solution. Despite everything, he dared to hope that the Traitors would adhere to the rules of engagement.
Now, the Salamander was dead, slain like so many of his Legion.
Arcadese muttered an oath for the Nocturnean beneath his breath. ‘You will not be forgotten, brother,’ he promised. ‘You shall have vengeance.’
The one responsible would be brought to account. Arcadese might have no place on the front line, but he could do that for a fallen brother. He could do that for all the forgotten sons of the Imperium.
The Last Remembrancer
John French
‘In an age of darkness the truth must die’
– Words of a forgotten scholar of ancient Terra
They murdered the intruder ship on the edge of the Solar System. It spun through space, a kilometre-long barb of crenellated metal, trailing the burning vapours of its death like the tatters of a shroud. Like lions running down a crippled prey two golden-hulled strike vessels bracketed the dying ship. Each was a blunt slab of burnished armour thrust through space on cones of star-hot fire. They carried weapons that could level cities and held companies of the finest warriors. Their purpose was to kill any enemy who dared to enter the realm they guarded.
This star system was the seat of the Emperor of Mankind, the heart of an Imperium betrayed by its brightest son. There could be no mercy in this place. The ship had appeared without warning and without the correct identification signals. Its only future was to die in sight of the sun that had lit the birth of humanity.
Explosions flared across the intruder ship’s hull, its skin splitting with ragged wounds that spilled dying crew and molten metal into the void. The two hunters silenced their guns and spat boarding torpedoes into the intruder’s flanks. The first armoured dart punctured the ship’s command decks, its assault ramps exploding open and disgorging amber-yellow armoured warriors in a roar of fire.
Each boarding torpedo carried twenty Imperial Fists of the Legiones Astartes: genetically enhanced warriors clad in powered armour who knew no fear or pity. Their enemy bore marks of loyalty to Horus, the Emperor’s son who had turned on his father and thrust the Imperium into civil war. Red eyes with slit pupils, snarling beast heads and jagged eight pointed stars covered the hull of the ship and the flesh of its crew. The air had a greasy quality, a meat stink that penetrated the Imperial Fists’ sealed armour as they shot and hacked deeper into the ship. Blood dripped from their amber-yellow armour and tatters of flesh hung from their chainblades. There were thousands of crew on the ship: dreg ratings, servitors, command crew, technicians and armsmen. There were only a hundred Imperial Fists facing them but there would be no survivors.
Twenty-two minutes after boarding the ship the Imperial Fists found the sealed doors. They were over three times the height of a man and as wide as a battle tank. They did not know what was inside but that did not matter. Anything kept so safe must have been of great value to the enemy. Four melta charges later, a glowing hole had been bored through two metres of metal. The breach still glowing cherry red the first Imperial Fist moved through, bolt pistol raised, tracking for targets.
The space beyond was a bare chamber, tall and wide enough to take half a dozen Land Raiders side by side. The air was still, untouched by the rank haze that filled the rest of the ship, as if it had been kept separate and isolated. There were no jagged stars scratched into the metal of the floor, no red eyes set into the walls. At first it seemed empty, and then they saw the figure at the centre of the room. They advanced, red target runes in their helmet displays pulsing over the hunched man in grey. He sat on the floor, the discarded remains of food and crumpled parchment scattered around him. Thick chains led from bolts in the deck to shackles around his thin ankles. On his lap was a pile of yellow parchment. His hand held a crude quill made from a spar of metal; its tip was black.
The sergeant of the Imperial Fist boarding squad walked to within a blade swing of the man. More warriors spread out into the echoing chamber, weapons pointing in at him.
‘Who are you?’ asked the sergeant, his voice growling from his helmet’s speaker grille.
‘I am the last remembrancer,’ said the man.
The nameless fortress hid from the sun on the dark side of Titan, as if turning its face from the light. A kilometre-wide disk of stone and armour, it hung in the void above the yellow moon. Reflected light from the bloated sphere of Saturn caught in the tops of its weapon towers, spilling jagged shadows across its surface. It had been a defence station, part of the network that protected the approaches to Terra. Now the treachery of Horus had given it a new purpose. Here in isolated cells suspected traitors and turncoats were kept and bled of their secrets. Thousands of gaolers kept its inmates alive until they were of no further use: until the questioners were finished with them. There were countless questions that demanded an answer and its cells were never empty.
Rogal Dorn would be the first primarch to
set foot in the nameless fortress. It was not an honour he relished.
‘Vile,’ said Dorn, watching as the void fortress grew nearer on a viewscreen. He sat on a metal flight bench, the knuckles of his armoured gauntlet beneath his chin. The inside compartment of the Stormbird attack craft was dark, the light from the viewscreen casting the primarch’s face in corpse-cold light. Dark eyes set above sharp cheekbones, a nose that cut down in line with the slope of the forehead, a down-turned mouth framed by a strong jaw. It was a face of perfection set in anger and carved from stone.
‘It is unpleasant, but it is necessary, my lord,’ said a voice from the darkness behind Dorn. It was a low, deep voice, weighted with age. The primarch did not turn to look at the person who spoke, a grey presence standing on the edge of the light. There were just the two of them alone in the crew compartment. Rogal Dorn commanded the defence of Terra and millions of troops but came to this place with only one companion.
‘Necessary, I have heard that often recently,’ growled Dorn, not looking away from the waiting fortress.
Behind Dorn the shadowed figure shifted forwards. Cold electric light fell across a face crossed by lines of age and scars of time. Like the primarch, the figure wore armour, light catching its edges but hiding its colours in shadow.
‘The enemy is inside us, lord. It does not only march against us on the battlefield, it walks amongst us,’ said the old warrior.
‘Trust is to be feared in this war then, captain?’ asked Dorn, his voice like the growl of distant thunder.
‘I speak the truth as I see it,’ said the old warrior.
‘Tell me, if it had not been my Imperial Fists that found him would I have known that Solomon Voss had been brought here?’ He turned away from the screen and looked at the old warrior with eyes that had vanished into pits of shadow. ‘What would have happened to him?’
The flickering blue light of the viewscreen spilled over the old warrior. Grey armour, without mark or rank, the hilt of a double handed sword visible from where it projected above his shoulders. The light glittered across the ghost of a sigil on the grey of his shoulder guard.
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