by Phil Kelly
Numitor staggered back into the mulch, choking steam boiling from the mud under his jump pack’s exhausted turbines. Four battle-brothers slain in a single shot. Cover was no use against such staggering power; to advance cautiously was to die.
‘Close!’ shouted Numitor. ‘Get within its reach before it recharges!’
A bluish blur flickered in Numitor’s peripheral vision; Sicarius was leaping and bounding towards the warsuit with his blade drawn. A pair of missiles hissed in, detonating hard upon the sergeant’s chest and hip. Sicarius sprawled in a heap of limbs, an expression of pure rage on his face.
There was a clanking hiss as the giant warsuit disengaged its stabiliser pistons and raised a clawed foot directly above Sicarius. The spears of light lancing down onto the dappled floor of the jungle were blocked out by the titan’s sheer mass. With a cry, Sicarius rolled sidelong into the lee of a moss-clad boulder at the last moment. The giant foot crunched the upper portion of the boulder into rubble, but failed to crush the Space Marine beneath.
Numitor took his chance, scrambling from his hiding place to race into the creature’s blind spot. He saw a chance of victory, slim but definite – an elder thornoak leaned drunkenly, one side chewed away by the blinding energy backwash of the warsuit’s main cannon. Numitor bunched his fist and swung, his upper body’s entire weight behind the blow. There was a loud crack as the tree shattered at its weakest point. The smell of burning wood filled Numitor’s nostrils. As the upper portion of the tree toppled, Numitor disengaged his power fist’s disruption field, grabbed a stout branch and pulled the trunk over with all of his weight. The tree’s downward course changed, bringing it crashing onto the giant warsuit’s shoulder.
The machine, having disengaged its stabilisers in an attempt to crush Sicarius underfoot, staggered backwards under the impact.
And struck not a tree, nor a rock, but a wall of nothing at all.
A flicker of light ran coursing into the distance, the false jungle’s reaches fizzing and glitching to reveal smooth beige walls that curved around a wide periphery. Numitor’s eyes widened in hope. They had reached the edge of the testing zone, its endless depths nothing but a hologram intended to simulate a wider environment.
Here was the key. Here was escape. Perhaps had the Eighth been able to muster a combined assault on the goliath, with supporting fire from Squad Antelion, they could have brought it down. The kroot they could certainly overcome, even with their muscular beasts of burden and hunting hounds. But with the giant on one side and the xenos mercenaries on another, escape was fast becoming their only chance of survival.
‘Here!’ shouted Numitor. ‘Squad Numitor, Squad Antelion, charge it!’
Within moments his brothers had come crashing through the jungle, darting forwards whilst the goliath suit struggled to bring its guns to bear once more. Numitor leaped, power fist hammering into the warsuit’s stabiliser array with such force that the entire hydraulic anchor was torn free. He glanced back to see Gaelocor kneeling by a fallen log, the blunt tube of his missile launcher glinting in the emerald gloom. There was a hollow thump and a whoosh as a krak missile rocketed out, detonating hard on the giant machine’s sensor-head and tearing it free in a confusion of fizzling wires.
Natoros was already sprinting under the war machine’s blind spot, meltagun tight against his body. Numitor aimed his bolt pistol wide and sent a mass-reactive shell into the jungle where the warsuit had crashed into the invisible wall. The bolt’s detonation caused concentric circles of energy to flash across the wall’s hololithic camouflage. Natoros needed no more prompting. He shot not at the warsuit, but at the barrier beyond – the distinctive hiss of his melta shot grew to a screaming crescendo as the thermal weapon turned a wide area of the holo-plated wall into a mess of bubbling black plastic. Through the smoking hole shone a wan light, and an amber horizon that reminded Numitor of the Vespertine wastes.
Kaetoros, Glavius and Veletan were already rushing forward, jump packs trailing greasy black smoke. The rest of the Eighth weren’t far behind, taking their chance to sprint forward whilst the goliath warsuit was still reeling from Gaelocor’s krak missile. To the right, Sicarius came crashing through a thicket of carnivorous plants in a spray of thick plant sap. A trio of kroot hounds snapped on his heels. The sergeant span in a low crouch, the tip of his tempest blade taking one beast in the jaw and another in the throat. The last one pounced, but met Sicarius’ fist coming the other way, the xenohound’s beak coming apart as the ceramite gauntlet smashed home. The sergeant spat on the thing’s remains.
‘Cato!’ shouted Numitor. ‘For the love of the Emperor, get over here!’
The rear wall was swathed in billowing smoke. Natoros’ melta had torn a wide oval portal, its edges still glowing amber, through to the room beyond. Numitor cried out in elation as he leapt over a fallen tree, ducked another, and swung around a thicket of grasper-vines to reach the hololith wall. He was the first to plunge straight through the bubbling aperture and into the environment beyond.
The sergeant came face to face with a crest-helmed Ultramarine, bolter raised. The gun’s muzzle was a few feet from his unprotected face.
‘Wait, brother,’ said Numitor in confusion. ‘We are of the Eighth!’
Then the Ultramarine fired, and the sergeant’s world came apart.
Chapter Eight
REFLECTION/TRIAL BY DOPPELGANGER
‘Resourceful, these ones,’ said O’Vesa to himself, his data wand skimming over the sea of information that poured across the myriad screens of his analysis cradle. ‘Resourceful, and lucky.’ He mentally chided himself at the very idea. ‘Although that is a barbaric notion unbecoming of the earth caste,’ he muttered.
The test subjects had shown an incredible degree of aptitude. No doubt it was the legacy of their maker’s stringent genetics program, complemented by a comprehensive training regime – luck had nothing to do with it.
‘Remain calm,’ O’Vesa whispered. ‘Remain rational. Superstition is the enemy of the Tau’va.’
In truth, an unfamiliar emotion was coursing through his mind, hot and uncomfortable. The feeling was frightening and strangely empowering at the same time. The intruders had overcome not one but two of his most prized prototypes, and badly damaged the holographic suite of the Pech hostile environment program in the process. Nothing that could not be fixed, and the rich harvest of data he had gleaned would more than make up for their loss. Also, he reminded himself, no tau lives had been lost. Even Helper Ob’lotai’s program could be recovered from the compromised KV120 prototype. All in all, his initiative had proven a worthy sacrifice and a noble furtherance of the Greater Good.
So why did he feel like smashing his fist into the screen?
‘They seek to escape,’ O’Vesa muttered to himself. ‘Right into the arms of their brethren. Escape, oh yes.’
His lips turned upwards in a thin smile as a suite of twenty identical datasigns spiked under his wand.
‘But perhaps not the kind they would hope for.’
Sicarius shoulder-charged Numitor hard, smashing him aside and taking the killing bolt on his pauldron instead. It was not the first time he had taken a hit from a bolt shell, but its detonation still hurt like hell. He turned with the impact and pivoted in a sweeping circle, his tempest blade lashing out to take the barrel from the Space Marine’s bolter before he could fire another shot.
‘We’re on the same side, damn you!’ shouted Numitor as he scrabbled upward from the sand. Shock and protest mingled in his voice. Nine more unidentified Ultramarines were converging on their positions, bolters raised to the shoulder. Sicarius readied his blade. That was the gun-stance of tau line infantry, not that of the Adeptus Astartes.
These were not allies, this was not a case of mistaken identity: this was the twisted science of the tau writ large.
Sicarius read the battlefield at a glance. In the middle distance
, the silhouettes of incoming Assault Marines were getting closer, gaining on the much closer Tactical Marines. They were hurtling over a wasteland of crushed amber and verdigrised brass, vaulting bombed-out ruins that jutted at odd angles. Sicarius remembered the crunch of that shattered amber underfoot, the memory fresh from when he had crossed swords with the tau for the first time. The war zone was a perfect replica of Vespertine’s suburban desolation. Now, however, it was his own brethren he would fight.
Sicarius noted with satisfaction that Numitor was still hesitant. So be it; he would lead instead. Lead as he was born to do.
The sergeant stepped in close to the Space Marine he had just disarmed even as the warrior reached for bolt pistol and grenade. He could hear the pin slide from the grenade’s collar with a tiny chink. The air filled with the din of thudding gunfire as the Space Marines ahead opened fire, but Sicarius was already under the disarmed warrior’s guard. By dropping low and putting his shoulder under his foe’s breastplate, he lifted him bodily from his feet, cutting the hand that clutched the grenade from his wrist with a quick lateral slash of his sword. He felt his improvised shield shudder hard as a bolt volley took its toll, gouging great holes in the Space Marine’s power pack and dense flesh alike.
As the disembodied hand clutching the live grenade dropped towards the dust, Sicarius punted it hard with the toe of his armoured boot. It hurtled into the tight ranks of the bolter-armed Space Marines ahead before detonating right on cue, punching five of them from their feet in a storm of frag-shrapnel.
It was all the chance the Ultramarines needed. Diving through the aperture that Natoros had made in the wall, Squad Sicarius fanned out and mounted a massed charge. Covering fire came from those members of Squad Antelion still beyond the impromptu portal, bolter muzzles flashing in the gloom. Their aim was true. Three more of the oncoming Space Marine gun line took bolter rounds to the head and neck, pitching them into the dust. Those still standing opened fire. A bolt winged Sicarius in the thigh, sending a burst of vivid pain through the old war wound in his knee. He channelled the pain into a roar of anger, hefting the dying Space Marine he was using as a shield as he charged. The enemy assault squad was bounding in close now, their movements uncannily synchronised. Sicarius felt raw hatred at the sight. It was a parody of Ultramarine battle doctrine, paper-thin and devoid of any true tactical awareness.
‘Robots, sergeant?’ shouted Glavius, a note of confusion in his voice.
‘Simulacra!’ bellowed Sicarius. ‘Lethal force, no mercy!’
The false Assault squad opened fire with bolt pistols as they flew in, chainswords revving. Four of the Space Marines Sicarius had taken down with the frag grenade had assumed gun crouches now, their bolters still held in rifleman positions.
‘Jump!’ shouted Kaetoros just before the enemy squad opened fire in unison. Glavius and Veletan vaulted high over the low volley, the servos in their power armour boosting their formidable strength. They cleared five feet even with their jump packs holding nothing but fumes, landing with a crunch to charge on without breaking stride. Swiftly, Kaetoros closed in from the flank, flamer gouting a long tongue of promethium that caught the four closest Space Marines in its fiery embrace. The volatile, sticky fuel clung to their power armour as it burned with the ferocity of an industrial furnace. Three went down, swathed in rippling waves of violet flame. Kaetoros grunted in satisfaction before pulling a krak grenade and hurling it backhand toward the fourth. The Space Marine turned, bolter outstretched, only for the krak grenade to detonate upon him, ripping half his torso away and sending him toppling backward. Gouting black fluid and greenish-yellow lubricant poured from the crackling cavity of his chest.
Then the rest of Squad Sicarius joined the fight. Veletan kicked aside the bolter that was swinging towards him, knocking it wide and stepping in to place the muzzle of his bolt pistol under the helm of his adversary. He fired a bolt straight up, blasting apart his foe’s head from the inside in a storm of ceramite and bone.
To Sicarius’ right Denturis cleaved low with his paired chainswords, taking the legs from two of the false Ultramarines. Stepping forward, he reversed his grips and knelt to drive the gnawing, blunt points of his blades downwards, one through each of the fallen warriors’ gorget seals. Throats and spines were torn apart in a double spray of black blood. Nearby, Colnid barged another to the ground before putting one bolt pistol shell into the gut and one through the eye socket.
‘An insult to the primarchs,’ he said.
‘Look up,’ ordered Sicarius. ‘You have incoming!’
A roar from above, and a pair of the fake Space Marines smashed Colnid from his feet, their own chainblades screaming a high-pitched whine that put Sicarius’ teeth on edge. Another two landed close by with a crunching thud, bolt pistols booming. Colnid was sent skidding through the dust as the explosions tore into him. Sicarius saw a spray of crimson jet out as the second explosive bolt found its mark, tearing his squadmate’s leg from his hip in welter of blood. Colnid did not cry out, but instead took a shot with his own bolt pistol that slammed into the side of the closest Space Marine and sent him spinning away.
From Sicarius’ left came Magros, his battle cry mingling with the throaty roar of his inherited eviscerator. The great blade came round hard, chewing right through one of the fake Assault Marines to send the gory halves of his body tumbling to the sand. Magros kept swinging, the blade juddering into the spine of the next Space Marine. There was a metallic screech as the eviscerator caught hard in the ceramite armour of the warrior’s flank. Magros was yanked forward, but kept his grip, shoulder-barging his adversary with such force he knocked him over before freeing the protesting blade. Numitor heard a loud snap as Magros stamped on his foe’s helm, sparks crackling from a gorget bent at an unnatural angle.
Two more false Ultramarines slammed down, intent on the kill. Hurling aside his bolt-chewed corpse shield, Sicarius span around to bat the barrel of his plasma pistol into the flat of the nearest foe’s chainsword, forcing it out wide. The Space Marine pushed back hard on reflex, his strength impressive, but he only succeeded in putting the plasma pistol’s barrel in line with his helm. Sicarius laughed harshly as he pulled the trigger of the ancient weapon, taking his foe’s head from his neck. Spatters of molten flesh and metal sizzled across the sergeant’s armour with a pleasing hiss.
Sergeant Sicarius felt a crushing impact as a red-helmed sergeant veered from the sky to slam into his flank. Together they barrelled into the confusion of corpses littering the sands. The flash of a bolt nearby blinded Sicarius for a second, and the enemy sergeant brought his boot down onto the tempest blade, pinning it flat. Sicarius brought his plasma pistol round instead and pulled the trigger. It was still recharging from its last shot, and yielded nothing but an annoyed buzz. His adversary’s chainblade revved loud as it came down hard towards his unprotected face.
To die sprawling upon the blade of an impostor puppet would be a grave ignominy.
There was a flash of azure, and Numitor’s power fist slammed into the enemy sergeant with such force it all but ripped him in two. The blow sent him sideways with a mauled flank and a broken spine. Sicarius’ vision filled with red light as Kaetoros knocked the last of the enemy Assault Marines from the sky with a spear of ignited promethium. The stink of the volatile chemical seemed almost pleasant. Numitor stepped past Sicarius to shoot the enemy sergeant’s chainsword from his hand in a puff of dark fluids, kicking the bolt pistol from his adversary’s grip. Rising, Sicarius severed the warrior’s arms with artful flicks of his tempest blade. All around the two sergeants was the high whine of Squad Sicarius’ chainswords chewing through ceramite, and the grizzling growl of those that had made it through to the flesh and bone beneath.
In seconds, the battle was over.
‘He’s all yours, if you want him,’ said Numitor, backhanding the enemy sergeant into the sand and sending his helm spinning free.
‘Just kill the blasted thing,’ said Sicarius. ‘And it’s not a ‘he’. It’s a facsimile, a test-servitor. It’s not worthy of my blade.’
Numitor grinned. ‘The blade that was under its boot a moment ago? Still, as you wish,’ he said. A chopping motion ended whatever poor excuse for a life the simulacrum had called its own.
Sicarius got to his feet, taking care not to put too much weight on his knee. Glancing down at the mockery of a Space Marine in the dirt below him, Sicarius felt a sickness in his soul. The face that stared back, glassy-eyed and dense, was a lacerated slab of flesh as dull and devoid of wit as a dead ogryn. Something in its jaw, in its broad forehead, was far too close to the face he saw in the mirror after his meditations.
He shot Numitor a dark look.
‘These tau must die,’ he said coldly. ‘All of them.’
‘If this is what the tau believe the Emperor’s finest to be,’ said Glavius, ‘it’s no wonder we’re making gains across the planet.’
‘Making gains?’ said Numitor, ‘how do you know that?’
‘We’re Space Marines,’ he said, his expression one of mild affrontery. ‘The Angels of Death. You should take pride in that, Numitor. Let it inform your philosophy.’
Numitor cast a wary glance back at the ragged hole of burned plastic that led back to the mock jungle. Ionsian stood on guard, the big man as unflinching as a servitor, but he still half-expected the sound of tau missiles to fill the air at any moment. He turned back to Glavius, shoulders straight.
‘The fact I don’t let complacency interfere with my awareness is a large part of why I am sergeant, Brother Glavius, and you are not.’
‘And yet your squad now numbers only four, to our seven.’
‘Have a care with your tone, Glavius,’ said Numitor. ‘It’s more like six and a half, anyway.’
Nearby, Colnid was cauterising the ragged stump that had once been his leg with the hissing barrel of Duolor’s plasma pistol. ‘I heard that, sergeant,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Where’s Apothecary Drekos when you need him? I’m making a real mess of this.’
