by Paul Kearney
Long before they came down to the cavernous launch bays of the flight deck, they could hear the bellow of the Thunderhawk engines warming up and the clatter of ordnance loaders. The Rex Aeterna was flexing its muscles, coming to roaring life under their feet.
They came to a halt within the launch bays, and peeled off, squad by squad, following the red-helmed sergeants. Here, they found the Devastator detachments of Ninth awaiting them, for they were quartered closer to the lower decks, and here also there stood a single group of four First Company veterans, clad in Terminator armour that towered even over the line warriors of the Adeptus Astartes. These were the cream of the Chapter, with centuries of battle experience behind them. And yet they had all been elevated to First in the last sixty years, for not one member of that mighty company had survived the onset of Hive Fleet Behemoth.
The leader of these warriors was Brother Sergeant Caius Starn. He had not yet donned his helm, and stared out appraisingly at the line squads as they marched past him, his eyes bright as wet flint, a stubble of black hair standing like a brush on his skull, his forehead lined with service studs. Even among the Ultramarines, he had a reputation as a savage fighter, one who would never retreat, but would stand to the end. He had once been a battle-brother of Fifth, but had been promoted some thirty years before. He nodded at Tersius as they marched past him; Starn had once been the squad’s sergeant.
With the elite Terminator veterans stood the company banner bearer, Brother Gerd Ameronn. He bore no banner now, for it was not carried when the likelihood was of void combat, but he carried Warspite, a power sword of great lineage, at his hip, and honour seals gleamed red as clots of fresh blood on his armour. Like many of the veterans, he wore a Mark VI Corvus helm with an embossed laurel wreath in white, and the beak-like nose of it turned this way and that as he watched the squads file in, under the shadow of the growling Thunderhawks.
Over a hundred Ultramarines now stood in the launch bay, filed in squads, weapons ready, and around them the fleet personnel of the Rex Aeterna hurried to load up the Thunderhawks with fuel and weaponry and ammunition. But as yet, none of the company command or staff save Brother Ameronn had arrived. Fifth Company stood ready, and waited.
Captain Caito Galenus stood, fully armoured, at the head of the long table which dominated the briefing room. Made of Macragge liveoak, it was a reminder of the home world. Aside from a cogitator terminal, there was no other furnishing to the compartment.
But on the bulkheads around him were stencilled dates, and names; many hundreds of them – perhaps even thousands. They were the dates that the Rex Aeterna had seen action, and the names of those who had died in those actions. When the compartment was not being used by the Ultramarines, any member of the crew might wander in here at will, to stand and stare at the dates, the names, the long litany of the dead.
Standing in the compartment now were four other Ultramarines besides Galenus, fully armoured except for their helms, which graced the tabletop before them. Galenus looked them up and down without speaking, and they repaid his scrutiny with the disciplined silence of their kind.
Veteran Sergeant Greynius was there, his ice-cold gaze missing nothing, tall even for one of the Adeptus Astartes, and with a fine strategic mind that might well earn a captaincy for him one day, if he survived. Galenus could not have wished for a better second in command. They had won their stripes together in the Behemoth fighting, and had fought side by side in the border battles with the eldar craftworld Karan-Ske.
Next to Greynius stood Brother Philo, the Company Apothecary, his stark white helm on the table before him, one pauldron also painted white and decorated with the helix of his calling. Like all the rest of Fifth however, that pauldron was outlined in sable, the company colour. His narthecium was already on his wrist, and the point of the drill it carried glittered cruelly in the overheads.
Philo was a lean, cadaverous-looking fellow with a face that Galenus had heard described like that of a hungry dog. But he had surprisingly expressive eyes, large in that thin visage, and as brown as the wood of the table before him. He had a quirky smile, lopsided due to the scar that pulled it askew at one corner, but his face was grave now as he awaited his captain’s words.
Brother Murtorius was a different type altogether. He was clad in tar-black armour, and his helm was an ivory-white skull. He had been Company Chaplain these last fifteen years, a man with a thick neck, an angry cast to his broad face, jutting brows that were surmounted with black, beetling hair, and scriptural texts tattooed down his neck. He was nicknamed the Bull, and accepted the honorific with good grace, even a kind of pride. Oddly enough, he and Philo were close friends, and on more than one battlefield it had been the sardonic Apothecary and the angry-eyed Chaplain who had held the line together when all had seemed lost. The Bull was renowned for his impatience and his quick temper, but he waited now with an appearance of equanimity alongside his battle-brothers.
Last was Brother Ulfius, the Company Librarian. A much older Space Marine – older than any of them here – the shorn hair on his skull was grey as frost, and the black contusions in his eyes bore witness to decades of combating the denizens of the immaterium. He had confronted the forces of the Ruinous Powers in battles beyond count, and it had taken a toll. One of his arms was prosthetic, a bionic appendage to replace that which he had lost to a tyranid lictor at Cold Steel Ridge, decades before. His face was grey and worn as weathered stone, and it gave away nothing. Even Galenus sometimes found it hard to endure the stare of his deep-hollowed, black-veined eyes.
Galenus himself set one fist on the hilt of his power sword and faced his brothers squarely. Recently promoted, he bore the honour seals from five different campaigns on his blue armour, and the white laurel wreath of one who had performed acts of bravery outstanding even among the Adeptus Astartes. That had been against the eldar, when he had commanded Task Force Cestus some fifteen years before. His entire line career had been spent in Fifth, the Black Company of the Ultramarines as they were sometimes known within the Chapter.
He knew the men standing before him as well as if they were his own family – which they were, by blood and by long association. As veteran sergeant, he had commanded large contingents of the company before, on detached duties; but the Rex Aeterna deployment was the first time he had commanded all of them together, as a whole.
Eighteen years ago he had been made veteran sergeant of Fifth, after old Toll Grimion’s death at the hands of the T’au. Now he was captain, Master of the Marches no less – Marneus Calgar had selected him for the captaincy personally a year before, because of his extensive void-combat experience and the way he had helped hold the line squads together after Captain Fortunus had been incapacitated in the Karan-Ske boarding battles. Those had been bitter times, but Fifth Company had prevailed, and the losses they had taken back then had since been made good.
The company now was stronger than it had ever been, and Fortunus, subject to wounds that not even the Chapter’s best Apothecaries could heal, was still with them, down in the Rex Aeterna’s arsenal. After years of hovering between life and death, he had finally been committed to the ceramite sarcophagus of a Dreadnought hull, and now he awaited the day when Fifth would need him again. Before his interment, he had been briefly conscious, long enough to bless the choice of his successor, something which Galenus had found humbling beyond belief; he had always revered his captain.
But that was in the past. Events were pressing on, even as they stood here. Galenus snapped out of a reverie that had lasted only a split second, though it had seemed longer in his mind.
‘Three hours ago,’ he said, ‘the vox team at Primarion Optis on Iax lost contact with a routine patrol craft some two and a half million miles out from the planet. While trying to re-establish vox with the ship, they picked up a fragment of a transmission originating inside the system, which they cleaned up and then sent to me.’
Galenus took
a small voxcorder from his armoured harness and thumbed it. The briefing compartment was frozen in silence as the words hissed out through the static.
Insanista in Tenebris… The phrase repeated itself, and the vox-technicians of the Rex Aeterna had cleaned it up further. It almost seemed now that there was laughter behind the voice, a gibbering dark mirth which crawled across the minds of those listening.
The Librarian, Brother Ulfius, bared his teeth at the sound of the crackling recording and shut his eyes as though they pained him.
‘There is blasphemy behind those words,’ Chaplain Murtorius growled, his broad face flushed with anger. ‘I smell the stink of it from here.’
‘That is also the opinion of Chief Librarian Tigurius, to whom I relayed this information not an hour ago via astropath,’ Galenus said. ‘I might add that when the astropath, an experienced psyker, tried to send the gist of the message, he had to fight hard to push through a barrier of fear and pain he has not encountered before. As though–’
‘As though there is an evil in the words themselves,’ Librarian Ulfius interrupted, opening his eyes.
Galenus nodded.
‘What do they mean?’ Brother Sergeant Greynius asked, his icy eyes glinting.
‘Brother Tigurius has identified the language as one of Old Earth, a tongue so ancient that it predates the Great Heresy. There are some uncertainties about the exact translation, but roughly speaking it means Fury in the Dark.’
Brother Ulfius made a hissing noise as the breath whistled from his thin lips. ‘Captain–’
Galenus held up one gauntleted hand. ‘Given the context, this is no mere happenstance, it is not just some inexplicable vagary of the warp or the void. Brother Tigurius believes that this, this scrap of vox, is but a harbinger of something greater.’
‘Chaos,’ the Apothecary, thin-faced Brother Philo said. Disgust shone out of his brown eyes and brought colour to his gaunt face.
‘Indeed. Somehow or other, the Ruinous Powers have inveigled an element or agent of their forces into the heart of Ultramar, and that, my brothers, cannot be borne.’
There was a murmur of agreement down the table. Chaplain Murtorius set one black fist atop his skull helm and the table creaked under the pressure he exerted. ‘May our Blessed Father witness that we are here to do His will,’ the Chaplain said formally, the cords standing out in his bull neck. ‘We will cleanse Ultramar of this filth in blood and fire, as the Throne wills it.’
‘As the Throne wills it,’ the others repeated.
‘Our orders have come down from Lord Calgar himself,’ Galenus went on. ‘We are to investigate the grid in the vicinity of Iax whence the transmission originated, and whatever we find there will be met with full force, and if necessary, extirpated from the Guarded Realm. The Rex Aeterna will arrive on location within fourteen hours. The company is already stood-to. We must be prepared for anything, my brothers – either a ship-to-ship fight, or a boarding action. There is no telling what is out there.
‘Brother Greynius, you will hand pick a squad for void insertion if that proves necessary. The spearhead will be Brother Starn and his veterans. All nine Thunderhawks are being prepped as we speak. Brothers, we will meet this taint head-on and wipe it from space.’
‘What of Macragge?’ Murtorius asked.
‘Macragge awaits our word. If it should prove necessary, reinforcements will be sent with all speed. Lord Calgar views this development with the utmost gravity.’
‘Then let us fulfil his faith in us,’ Brother Philo said, touching his fingers to the aquila on his armoured chest.
‘I wish to accompany the initial boarding party, should boarding prove necessary,’ Murtorius said.
‘Negative, brother,’ Galenus told him, and he held the Bull’s formidable gaze without flinching. ‘Your place is here with the bulk of Fifth.’
They looked at one another in silence for a moment, the captain and the Chaplain, and finally Murtorius nodded. ‘As you say.’
‘We will remain on the bridge for now, the better to monitor developments. There is a possibility that this is nothing of consequence, let us remember, an echo, or a remnant of old evil. We will know what to do when we arrive at the transmission’s source. Until then, we stand ready.’
He looked them up and down, keeping his own misgivings well buried. An Ultramarines captain could not allow doubt or apprehension to show in his face or manner – he did not have that luxury. But Galenus felt heavy on his shoulders the responsibility he bore – for his brethren, for the Chapter. This is what it meant to command.
Three
It came up on augur several hours later, and had Galenus not seen it for himself, relayed to the tall vid-screens on the bridge, he would not have believed it.
At first glance, it was an asteroid. Fifty miles in diameter, it was as irregular as a broken boulder, turning in the light of Iax’s star. Fragments of wreckage floated about the main body, drawn to its meagre gravity, and it was surrounded by a faint haze, as though it had some tenuous atmosphere of its own. As the Rex Aeterna drew closer, it was possible to see that this was no construct of nature. There were regular outlines on the surface, angular shapes, parallel lines.
It was no ordinary asteroid, flung into the system by the currents of the void. Parts of it were deliberate constructions, broken and ensnared remnants of other things. As the starlight coursed across its turning surface, the watching Ultramarines could see half-recognised shapes, blurred, half buried, surrounded by vast fields of rubble and mountains of aggregated trash.
‘A hulk,’ Sergeant Greynius said, eyes narrowed.
‘The largest I have yet seen,’ Apothecary Philo agreed.
The Ultramarines stood on the bridge as Shipmaster Remion and his crew brought the strike cruiser in for a close pass, and the servitors sent out augur sweeps, assimilating information, calibrating the senses of the Rex Aeterna as a man would fine-tune the lenses of a pair of magnoculars.
‘The missing patrol craft from Iax has been drawn down to the surface of the – the artefact, captain,’ Remion said. ‘There is a weak gravitic field in play about it, but it shows signs of unpredictable spikes.’
‘He must have got too close,’ Chaplain Murtorius grated, glaring at the shape of the hulk on the vid-screens as though its very existence were an affront.
‘Agreed. Keep well clear, shipmaster.’
Brother Salvator, the Techmarine, had been called up from the launch bays to witness the sight at first hand. So pale his skin was almost grey, he was looking over the figures streaming across the screen in the pulpit, the mechadendrites of his armour folded up like angular wings on his back. His eyes widened slightly, rust-brown. The service studs at his temple shone in the light.
‘Augur tells us that there is a Geller field operational around the artefact, captain,’ he said. ‘It is in slow decay, and whatever is powering it is deep below the surface. Interference is too great to establish whether there are life signs. Mass is at an estimate some nine billion megatonnes. The structure is not entirely stable.’
He looked up. ‘It has drawn in untold numbers of ships and masses of debris in its passage through the void – thousands of vessels and megatonnes of asteroid fragments. It must be truly ancient.’ There was something like awe in his voice.
‘The warp brought it here, vomited it into the heart of Ultramar,’ Brother Ulfius said, his black eyes gleaming. ‘And there is life aboard, you may count on that, brother captain. I can feel it. There is an intelligence aboard that hulk – it is dormant, but powerful. There is something familiar – I sense minds that are close to our own, or that were.’ He shook his head. ‘It is indeed ancient, something from another eon.’
‘Destroy it,’ Murtorius snarled. ‘It is clearly tainted.’
‘It sleeps for now,’ Brother Ulfius went on. ‘Whatever chance brought it here, it is not aware of
where it is, or even when it is.’
Brother Salvator spoke up. ‘Captain, there is no telling what may be aboard that artefact. It has drifted for millennia. It may house relics of technology we cannot even guess at.’
‘It may house abomination,’ Murtorius retorted. ‘It must be obliterated.’
Galenus held up a hand, silencing them all. He turned it over in his mind. His inclination was to side with the Chaplain; a quick, clean strike with a single cyclonic torpedo from the Rex Aeterna, and the thing would be done, the threat averted.
Except that the Rex did not carry cyclonics. The nearest were at the Calth shipyards, days away.
‘We have a window of time here,’ he said at last. ‘Shipmaster Remion, you will take a high orbit about the hulk and probe it as best you may. I want every ounce of information you can glean from augur.’
‘It is in slow movement,’ Remion said. ‘Captain, it is drifting deeper into the system, towards Iax itself. The currents of the void are bringing it in.’
‘There is no propulsive energy aboard the hulk itself,’ Brother Salvator said, looking up at the information that streamed past one flank of the vid-screens. ‘I doubt it has the ability to set a course or adjust its path.’
‘Then what brought it here?’ Brother Philo demanded, his scarred mouth dragged down in irritation.
‘These things happen, from time to time,’ Brother Ulfius said. ‘The warp is a sea of souls, and occasionally it bubbles like a cauldron on a fire. Sometimes it vents pockets of energy, and whatever is caught within them is pushed into normal space.’ The Librarian frowned, his grey hair shining white in the light of the display.
‘Such pockets are not stable. The hulk could be drawn back into the warp at any time, or it could remain here in our own dimension for centuries – going by the debris which makes up much of it, I would hazard that this has already happened many times over the years of its existence. The gravitic field which surrounds it is in part the residual of one such translation. It draws in that which is close by.’
