by Various
Our armsmen guard opened up, shotgun muzzles flaring as they fired into the dark. The noise was like a ragged, rolling bellow. In the jagged light of muzzle flare I saw my enemy standing on the ramp of the shuttle. His armour was dark, mottled by patterns of scales. In one hand he held a toothed axe, in the other a bolt pistol. He stood still for an instant as the shot rattled from his warplate, looking at us with glowing green eyes. Behind him stood a figure in a silver mask and storm coat. In that brief moment I thought that the empty eyes in the silver face were looking into mine.
The armsmen had closed ranks around Velkarrin and I, forming a deep circle of bronze armour. I aimed and fired, but Phocron was already gone, moving through muzzle flash, a whirlwind of slaughter caught through blinked instants.
He hit the first armsmen with a downward blow. I heard the scream of motorised teeth meeting metal and flesh.
He was two strides nearer, an arc of dismembered dead at his feet. I heard a yelp of fear close by, recognising the admiral’s voice by its tone.
The bolt pistol flared and roared, three armsmen dying in an oily flash of light. He was three strides away. There was a smell of offal and meat in my nose. Beside me, I heard Velkarrin turn to run and thud to the deck as his feet slipped on something slick and soft. The plasma pistol whined in my hand.
I raised my pistol, lightning dancing across its charge coils. Phocron was above me, chainaxe raised, scale-patterned armour glistering with blood. He brought the axe down in a diagonal cut. I pulled the trigger and plasma flared from the barrel of my pistol.
I missed, but the shot saved my life. Jerking aside to avoid my shot, Phocron missed his target. The teeth of the chainaxe met my gun arm just below the elbow, the back-swing slicing through Velkarrin as he tried to stand.
The lights came on as shock hit me. Blood was spilling from the chewed stump of my arm. I staggered a step before my legs gave way, and I collapsed to the floor in a clicking whir of gears. People moved, shouting. I was aware of a lot of weapons surrounding me very quickly.
I looked around, trying to focus through a pale fog that seemed to be floating across my vision. Blood glistened under the bright lights. The ramp of the shuttle was still open. Later, I would find out that none of its crew or the boarding party had returned from the smuggler ship; the voices in the vox-chatter and reports had been perfect mimicry. Of Phocron and the man in the silver mask, there was no sign.
One month ago
The war council overseeing the Ephisian Persecution gathered on board the Unbreakable Might. Generals, war savants, vice-admirals, magi, bishops militant, palatines, commissar lords and captains of the Adeptus Astartes; all came to my call. The strategium of the battle cruiser was a two-hundred-paces-wide circular chamber of raked seats carved from granite. I waited at the centre, under the eyes of the gathering worthies, and watched.
They came in small groups, looking for faces they knew, judging where it was their right to sit, who they had to avoid and who they had to greet. It was like watching the shifting gears of Imperial politics and power play out in miniature. There a Sparcin war chief in burnished half-plate and white fur cloak, trailed by a clutch of tactical advisers. Here a psykana lord, a withered white face within a hood of cables, sat next to a spindle-limbed woman in carmine robes, the cog-skull of the Adeptus Mechanicus etched on the brass of her domino mask. Servo-skulls moved above the assembling throng, scanning, recording, sniffing the air for threats and spreading incense in thick breaths.
Amongst the crowd I saw some of my own kind, inquisitors or their representatives, moving amongst the rest like imperious masters, or remaining still and silent on the edges. I had invited none of them but they came anyway, my reputation enough to bring them. Some even called me ‘lord inquisitor’. Rank within the Inquisition is a complex matter. No formal structure exists amongst this shadow hand of the Imperium that answers to none but the will of the Emperor. Lordship is a matter of respect, a title of acknowledgement granted by peers to one who has earned it by the power of their deeds. My war against Phocron had pulled respect and renown to me like a flame gathers insects. As the greatest masters of war in this volume of space gathered at my call, I could see why some might call me lord.
I sat on a high-backed chair at the centre of the chamber. A symbolic hammer rested beneath my left hand, my right on the black iron of the chair’s arm, fingers of polished chrome clicking softly on the dark metal. It had been a year since I had lost my right arm in the ambush that had killed Admiral Velkarrin and nearly claimed my life. The bionic replacement still ached with phantom pain.
In that year, I had not been idle. Following his attempt on my life, Phocron had simply vanished. No trace of him could be found on the ship or on the smuggler vessel. This, and the sudden loss of light at the moment of attack, could only mean that his network of traitors extended deeper and higher in our forces than I had considered possible. Trusted acolytes and agents of my own had gone to work, and now I gathered together the leaders of the Persecution to share what I had found. A few knew what was about to happen, most did not.
I watched as black-visored troopers sealed the doors to the chamber and waited for the grumble of conversation to fade. When it had, I stood.
‘There is much to speak of,’ I said, my voice carrying up the tiered seats. I saw some shift at the lack of formal greeting or acknowledgement of the honour and position of those gathered here. I let myself smile at the thought. ‘But first there is a matter that must be dealt with.’ I gave a slight nod as if to emphasise the point, and those waiting for that signal acted as one.
Even though I was prepared for it, the psychic shockwave made me stagger. On the tiered seats, a dozen figures convulsed as the telepathic and telekinetic power enfolded them in a vice-like grip. I felt an oily static charge play over my skin. There was a sound like wind rustling through high grass. The needle slivers hit the convulsing men and women, and one by one they went still as the sedatives overrode nerve impulses. There was an instant of shocked silence.
‘Do not move,’ I shouted as the black-visored troopers moved through the crowd. They clustered around each of the stricken figures. Null collars and monowire bindings were slipped over necks and limbs, and the bound figures were dragged across the stone floor like sacks of grain. The shock in the rest of the crowd was palpable; they had just seen a dozen of their senior peers, men and women of power and distinction, overcome and dragged away. You could almost feel the thought forming in all their minds; traitors in our midst. The pale-faced psykana lord nodded to me and I favoured him with a low bow of thanks. A murmur of anger and fear began to build in the chamber.
‘Our enemy is among us.’ I raised my hammer up and brought its adamantine head down on the granite floor. Silence gathered in the wake of the fading blow. ‘It walks amongst us, wearing faces of loyalty.’ My voice was soft but it carried in the still air. ‘Our enemy has used our strength against us, directed us into traps, mired us in blood and shackled our strength with lies. A year ago, on this ship, that enemy came close to ending my life with his own hand. That such a thing was possible is a testament to his ability and audacity.’ I paused, looking around at the faces watching me, waiting to see what would come next. ‘But I survived, and in that attempt he exposed the extent of the treachery within our forces.’ I pointed to the dozen spaces on the tiered seats. ‘Today I have removed the heads of the hydra from among us.’ I paused as murmurs ran through the audience.
The traitors had been difficult to find without arousing their suspicion. It had been delicate work to find them, and more delicate still to prepare to remove them in a single instant. The twelve taken in the chamber had been the most senior, the most highly placed of Phocron’s agents and puppets. Some, no doubt, had not known what end they served; others, I was sure, were willing traitors. There had been generals amongst them, senior Munitorum staff, an astropath, a confessor and even an interrogator. At t
he moment they had been taken, parallel operations had gone into action throughout the Persecution’s forces, cutting the corruption out from among us. Most of the infiltrators would be killed, but many would be taken and broken until their secrets flowed from them like blood from a vein.
‘The enemy has blinded us and led us by the hand like children. But at this moment he has also handed us weapons with which to destroy him. Knowledge is our weapon, and from the traitors who walked among us we will gain knowledge.’ I stood and picked the hammer up, its head at my feet, the pommel resting under my hands. ‘And with that knowledge, this Persecution will cut the ground from under the feet of our enemy. We will wound and hound him until he crawls to his last refuge. And when he is crippled and bleeding, I shall take the last head of this hydra.’
Twelve hours ago
A hundred warships came to bear witness to our victory. They ringed the jagged space fortress, their guns flaring as they hammered it with fire. The Hydra’s Eye turned in its orbit around the dead world like a prize fighter too dazed to avoid the blows mashing his face to bloody pulp and splintered bone.
In the end, it had been the words of a traitor that had betrayed Phocron’s refuge. One of those taken from the strategium of the Unbreakable Might had known of another agent in Naval command. That agent had been taken in turn, and his secrets ripped from his mind by a psyker. That information had been added to fragments gleaned from others, winding together to make a thread that had led to the system of dead planets in which the Hydra’s Eye hid. That it was the current refuge for Phocron was implied and confirmed by many sources once we knew where to look. Once I had the location of Phocron’s base, I ordered an immediate attack.
The Hydra’s Eye was truly vast, an irregular star of fused void debris over fifteen kilometres across at its widest point. Its hull was a patchwork skin of metal that wept glowing fluid as macro shells and lance strikes reduced its defences to molten slag. There had been enemy ships clustering around the irregular mass of the space fortress like lesser fish beside a deep-sea leviathan. Most had been pirate vessels, wolf packs of small lightly armed craft. All died within minutes, their deaths scattering light across the jagged bulk of the Hydra’s Eye. Our guns went silent as a cloud of assault boats and attack craft swarmed towards the wounded fortress. I had not watched as Phocron’s last means of escape died in fire. This was the end of my war and I was ready to strike its last blow myself. When the first wave of attack craft swarmed towards the space fortress I was there, my old body wrapped in armour forged by the finest artisans of Mars.
An animal is at its most dangerous when wounded and cornered. Phocron’s followers did not fail to hammer this lesson home. The forces on the Hydra’s Eye were a mixture of piratical scum and renegades inducted into Phocron’s inner circle. They spent their lives without thought, their only care being to make us pay many times over for each of them that we killed. I could see Phocron’s vile genius in their every tactic. Some hid in ceiling ducting or side passages, waiting for our forces to pass before attacking from behind. Others pulled Guardsmen quietly into the dark, strangling them before taking their uniforms and equipment. Dressed as friends, the renegades would join our forces, waiting until the most advantageous moment to turn on the men beside them.
The structure of the fortress itself spoke of a twisted foresight. Dead ends and hidden passages riddled the structure. Passages and junctions seemed to split and channel us, portioning our forces so that they became divided. We had bodies enough to choke every passage. We would win, that was without doubt, but every inch cost blood. Those bloody steps had led me here to this chamber and this final battle.
Yes, every step had cost blood; every step for a hundred years, from the mustering fields of Ephisia, through the Burning of Hespacia to here, where I will face my enemy for the last time. I am alone, the rest of the Imperial force lost behind me in the bloody tangle of the Hydra’s Eye. So I will face my enemy alone, but perhaps that is as it should be.
Phocron moves and cuts, his blow so quick and sudden that I have no chance to dodge. I raise my arm, feeling the armour synchronise with the movements of my ageing muscles. My fist meets his strike in a blaze of light. For a second, it is his strength against mine, the energies of weapons grinding against each other. I am looking into his face, so close that I can see the pattern of finer and finer scales on his faceplate. The deadlock lasts an eye blink. I fire my storm bolter a fraction of a second before he moves. The burst hits him in the chest at point-blank range and spins him onto the floor with the sound of cracking ceramite. I spray his struggling form with explosive rounds as he tries to rise.
I take a step closer – a mistake. He is on his feet faster than I can blink, spinning past me. The tip of his sword glides over my left elbow as he moves. The energy field sheathing my fist vanishes, the power feeds severed with surgical care. I turn to follow him. His sword flicks out again, low and snake-strike fast. The tip stabs through the back of my left knee. Pain shoots up my leg an instant before it collapses under me. Tiles shatter under the impact. He is gone, moving into blind space behind me. I try to twist around, my targeting systems searching. He is going to kill me, one cut at a time. Despite the pain, I smile to myself. The Alpha Legion do not simply kill, they bleed you bite by bite until you have no doubt of their superiority. But that pride is their weakness.
A cut splits the elbow of my right arm. I do not even see where it comes from. Blood is running down my alabaster-white armour and dribbling across the crushed tiles. My right arm is hanging loose at my side, but I hold on to my storm bolter through the pain.
He walks into my view. There is a casual slowness to his movements. He has stripped me of my strength, crippled me and now wants to look into my eyes as he kills me. He stops two paces from me and stares down at me with green eyes. The tip of the blade rises level with my face. His weight shifts as he prepares to ram the sword into my eye.
This is the death stroke, and it is the chance I have been waiting for.
I bring my left arm around in a swing that hits him behind the right knee. The fist has no power field, but it is still a gauntlet of armour propelled by a layer of artificial muscles. It hits with a dry crack of fractured armour and bone.
Phocron falls, the hand gripping the knife splayed out to the side. I pull myself to my feet, gripping my storm bolter with the last of my strength. It does not take much. All I need to do is squeeze the trigger. Fired at point-blank range, the explosive rounds shred his arm. Before he can react, I move and squeeze the remainder of the storm bolter’s clip into his left arm.
He flounders in a pool of blood and armour fragments. I put my knee on his chest and grip the horns of his helmet with my left fist. Seals squeal and snap as I wrench the helmet from his head. For an instant, I expect to see the face of a monster, a monster that created me, that drove me to become what I am. But the face under the helm is that of a Space Marine; unscarred, dark eyes looking up at me from sharp features. He has a small tattoo of an eagle under his left eye, the ink faded to a dull green.
I reach up and take my own helmet off. The air smells of weapons-fire and blood.
‘Phocron,’ I say. ‘For your crimes and heresies against the Imperium of Mankind, I sentence you to death.’
He smiles.
‘Yes, you have won. Phocron will die this day.’ There is movement at the edge of my vision.
I look up. There are figures watching me from the edges of the room. They wear blue armour, some blank and unadorned, some etched with serpentine symbols, others hung with the sigils of false gods. They look at me with green glowing eyes. Amongst them is a normal-sized man wrapped in a storm cloak, his face hidden by a silver mask. The image of a figure in a mask stood against the burning backdrop of Hespacia, and caught in muzzle flash on the Unbreakable Might flicks through my memory.
The man steps forwards. His right hand is augmetic and holds a slender-barre
lled needle pistol. There is a clicking purr of gears and pneumatics as the masked man walks towards me. I start to rise. The masked man reaches up with his left hand and pulls the silver mask away. I look at him.
He has my face.
The needle dart hits the inquisitor in his left eye and the toxin kills him before he can gasp. He collapses slowly, the bulk of his armour hitting the tiled floor with a crash.
We move quickly. We have only a few moments to secure our objective, and we can make no mistakes. The inquisitor’s armour is stripped from his body, piece by piece, the injuries he sustained noted as they are revealed. As the dead man is peeled from the armour I remove my own gear and equipment, stripping down until there are two near identical men, one dead and bleeding on the floor, the other standing while his half-brothers finish their work.
My augmetics and every detail of my re-sculpted flesh match the man who lies dead before me. Years of subtle flesh-craft and conditioning mean that my voice is his voice, my every habit and movement are his. There is only the matter of the wounds that were carefully inflicted to injure, but not kill. I do not cry out as my Legion brothers cut me, though the pain is nothing less than it was for him, the dead man whose face I wear. The wounds are the last details, and as the blood-slick Terminator armour covers my skin, all differences between the dead inquisitor and I end. We are one, he and I.
They take the inquisitor’s body away. It will burn in a plasma furnace to erase the last trace of this victory. For it is a victory. They take away our crippled brother who was the last to play the role of Phocron. A corpse is brought to take his place, its blue armour chewed by bolter-rounds and crumpled by the blows of a power fist. A horned helmet hides his face and a shimmering cloak hangs from his shoulders. This corpse is the final proof that the Imperium will require to believe they have won this day: Phocron, dead, killed by his nemesis. Killed by me. The Imperium will see this day as their victory, but it is a lie.
