Soul Drinker

by Ben Counter

  The blade thrummed past Sarpedon's ear, and he could feel the keenness of the edge as it cut through the air. He ducked back and drew his own force staff just in time to parry the blade's backswing.

  K'Shuk was skilled to a near-supernatural level, with the kind of speed and finesse that comes from being trained from birth. Tsouras probably had a stable of infants he could have raised as interrogators, and every now and then, he would find one like K'Shuk.

  Sarpedon was on the back foot, the blade slicing at him like an arc of lightning, K'Shuk's movements swift and slick. A cut down towards Sarpedon's throat was turned onto his shoul­der pad and the blade bit deep through the ceramite, slicing through it as if it wasn't there. K'Shuk dropped a shoulder, span, lashed a reverse cut towards Sarpedon's torso which was parried with a wild swing that left Sarpedon wide open.

  K'Shuk span again and this time the sword hit home, the massive broad blade carving up into Sarpedon's abdomen. Red pain stabbed up from the wound, but Sarpedon knew he would survive, knew he would go on fighting. He had taken a thousand wounds, and knew which ones would slow him down.

  What was more, he knew how he could win. K'Shuk was lightning-quick and his sword was a weapon of a type Sarpedon had never faced before, but his skill came at the expense of variety. Whatever ancient fighting system the interrogator followed, it was one which relied on intricate set patterns to allow its adherents to wield the suspensor-blade in anger. There must have been a million variations on a thousand patterns, but they were there in the move­ments of K'Shuk's feet on the worn flagstones and the bright shapes made by the lashing blade. A half-step back was a cue for a lateral cut, an overhead strike from the force staff was met with a broad circular parry leading into a counter-thrust to the solar plexus. There were basic principles built into every movement, and if Sarpedon could learn them...

  Gradually, as Sarpedon met K'Shuk's blows, he saw the fun­damentals of the suspensor-blade art. On an upward cut the blade could take flight thanks to its anti-grav units and spiral out of the wielder's hands, so K'Shuk's upward swings were limited. It was difficult to change the direction of the blade suddenly, so every sequence of attacks had to be made up of strikes mat flowed into one another - it was fast and no doubt pretty to watch, but it cut down K'Shuk's options. The inter­rogator compensated with speed, but Sarpedon was fast, too.

  Sarpedon reminded himself that though he had never fought anyone like K'Shuk, the reverse was also true. K'Shuk had probably killed hundreds of skilled opponents, heathen aliens and warp-strengthened heretics, but he had never faced anything as deadly as an angry Space Marine comman­der fighting for his honour.

  The wounds were opening fast - a deep thrust right through the meat of Sarpedon's forearm, a lunge that put the blade's tip dangerously close to his secondary heart. The blade was broad and wounds bled terribly in spite of the Marine's rapidly-clotting blood, and K'Shuk could win sim­ply by wearing Sarpedon down with debilitating cuts. Sarpedon's time was limited - he had to break the code of K'Shuk's skill soon, or he would be too slowed by his wounds to stand a chance.

  Sarpedon blocked a blow to the side and knew what would follow - K'Shuk had the option of an upward cut that promised a killing strike up underneath the jaw. Sarpedon ducked back and sure enough the blade swept up a hair's breadth from his face

  K'Shuk needed a precious fragment of a second to arrest the blade's upwards motion, turn it and bring it swinging down. In that fragment of time he was open, and Sarpedon struck.

  The hit to K'Shuk's stomach didn't penetrate the massive bronze armour, but the butt-end of the force staff left a mas­sive dent that must have raptured K'Shuk's organs. He was sent him stumbling backwards, blade dragged down to guard. Sarpedon followed up with a lunge over the blade ringing off the armour above K'Shuk's collar bone.

  Sarpedon stabbed again, and struck home. The end of the staff passed right through K'Shuk's throat, spearing out through the back of his neck. Sarpedon stepped to the side, reached behind the interrogator, and grabbed the blood-slick end of the staff. He pulled, drawing the whole length of the staff through K'Shuk's neck, until the eagle-winged head of the staff ripped through the throat in a shower of blood.

  K'Shuk tried to turn but his spinal cord was in tatters. His legs collapsed and he sent one final accusing glance at Sarpe­don as, nearly decapitated, he clattered to the ground. The suspensor blade escaped his grasp and fluttered like a leaf to the floor where, with delicate slowness, the monomolecular blade sunk up to half its length in the flagstones.

  There was only a faint oozing sound as K'Shuk's blood flowed. The rest was silence.

  Sarpedon holstered the force staff at his back. He looked around the Hereticus troops and K'Shuk's warband, and the Marines of Squad Givrillian, arrayed around the room. This, it occurred to him, could be awkward.

  'Cut the fuel lines of their shuttle,' he said. 'Set them adrift.'

  He could hear the fingers easing off the triggers of the Hereticus troops' hellguns.

  Squad Givrillian moved to surround the troopers and acknowledgement runes flashed in Sarpedon's vision to confirm that serf-labourers were heading to cripple their shuttle.

  He could have killed them there and then, with the guns of Squad Givrillian chattering against the wall of the audience chamber as the Hereticus troopers and scum of K'Shuk's war-band died for daring to set foot on a Soul Drinkers' ship. But they would have shot back and Sarpedon could have lost good Marines. And, besides, there were protocols for this sort of thing.

  IN THE LECTURE auditorium on board the Diligent, a holo dis­play projected a room-filling image of the Cerberian Field, the asteroids a grainy haze of orange specks. The battlefleet of the Lakonia Persecution was represented by a host of blue icons at one edge of the large circular room. Between the fleet and the edge of the asteroid field were two dagger-shaped purple icons, the Gundog and the Unendingly Just, heading rapidly through the air towards the field.

  Many of the Diligent's bridge crew were seated around the room, watching the display as it re-enacted the scene several months before as the Soul Drinkers had first been chased to the edge of the Cerberian Field.

  Well separated from the crew was Inquisitor Tsouras, watching impassively from the back of the room. The inquisitor was grudgingly admiring of the skill the Soul Drinkers showed in keeping their cruisers ahead of a large and well-provisioned battlefleet for so long. Very grudg­ingly.

  Twin Shockwaves burst at the nearest edge of the cloud, sending the tiny orange specks tumbling out of the way. The daggers flew into the space created as the obstacles closed again behind them, just as several blue squares pulled up suddenly as the field knitted itself back together around the Soul Drinkers' cruisers.

  'Gravitic torpedoes?' asked Inquisitor Tsouras.

  'We do not believe so,' replied Senior Tactician Talaya, pausing the holo display. 'We suspect the torpedoes the Soul Drinkers used were improvised. Probably assault torpedoes loaded with munitions - the blast would spread in all direc­tions.'

  'Their flying was reckless indeed, then.'

  'Insane.' agreed Talaya. 'It is likely they suffered minor dam­age once within the Cerberian Field but it is impossible to verify. The extremely hazardous nature of the manoeuvres evidently reflects the desperation of their flight.'

  'Presumably your forces have been unwilling to replicate such hijinks, consul?'

  'Their strike cruisers are much more athletic than any of our craft, my lord inquisitor.' said Chloure, with a touch of nervousness he couldn't hide from Tsouras's sharp ears. 'It would have been suicide for us to follow them.'

  'Of course.' Tsouras didn't like Consul Senioris Chloure. He was wet, gutless, and utterly out of his depth. A decent com­mander, being aware of what was at stake here, would have sent an expendable ship in to test the waters and make sure there was no way a direct assault could have been carried out. There were enough captains and crews here that were only good for sacrificing.

  It was good he
had arrived when he had. An operation like this was more than capable of disintegrating completely. He had seen it happen, and incompetence had been the most common justification on his lips as he gave the order for exe­cution.

  Not this time, though. This time it had been treachery in the extreme, Grand Treason Imperial. And for the first time, his order had not been carried out. His executioner, Inter­rogator K'Shuk, had not returned or made any communication of success. It was a shame, for Tsouras had harboured some hopes for K'Shuk, who was as cold-blooded a killer as Tsouras had ever come across. But at least there was no doubt now as to what Commander Sarpedon and the Soul Drinkers really stood.

  'As you can imagine, inquisitor.' continued Talaya, 'our cur­rent tactic is to enforce a blockade while exploring alternative options. It is very probable to our tactical corps that privation will eventually render the enemy defenseless, allowing us to begin a campaign of pioneering through the Cerberian Field to reach them.'

  'And in this time there will be no actions taken by the enemy that could possibly catch you by surprise?' said Tsouras. 'No way in which they could bring the fight to you? Perhaps when your crews were so dogged by fatigue and indiscipline that their threat reactions will be slow and con­fused? Such things have happened to fleets far greater than this. They become lazy. Indecisive. Space Marines, on the other hand, do not. They will be razor-sharp right up until the end, when they are exulting over the burning corpses of your ships.'

  Talaya was silent. Chloure squirmed uncomfortably, and Tsouras reflected that he had little reason to let the consul survive. 'We act now, and decisively. No matter how many we lose, every second we wait gives them further advantage. They do not sleep, gentlemen. They need to eat or drink only rarely, and even if for whatever reason they have no supplies they will have the underlings of their Chapter to live upon if necessary. They are not an ill-led rabble. They will not decide to break for your benefit. We must break them ourselves.'

  'It is debatable.' said Talaya, apparently unflapped, 'whether entry into the Cerberian Fields will even be possible for either main craft or assault waves.'

  'There is no debate, tactician. The Marines had to blast their way in without gravitic warheads. We do not have to suf­fer that hardship. My ship carries more than enough gravitic weaponry for our present purpose. In any case, having seen the quality of leadership here I shall be taking command of the operation personally. Every captain on this fleet will have every available assault wing fully bombed up and ready to launch. Perhaps you can claw back some semblance of dig­nity by refraining from screwing it up this time.'

  Heresy. Why did they not understand? It was like a plague of vermin, near-impossible to eradicate unless you were pre­pared to destroy much of what you were trying to save. Once a world was tainted by unchecked heresy you could cover every square metre in smouldering craters a man's height deep, and still there would be some dark-thinking traitor ready to poison what was left. Inquisitor Tsouras knew this because he had tried it himself.

  And now there was a Chapter of Marines that had fallen from grace, and these officers dithered here like nervous chil­dren while the cancer grew. At least the sentence of Excommunicate Traitoris had given him free rein to do what­ever he wanted to bring the Soul Drinkers to the Emperor's justice.

  He stood, drawing himself up to his full augmented three metre height. All of it, the skeletal elongations, the bronze ram's head shoulder pads, the thick studded leather cloak and tabard and the blank yellow-grey eyes, had been affected solely to intimidate weaklings like these. They were simple, cosmetic augmentations, far from the complex bionics that the Mechanicus were rumoured to have developed - but they seemed to work. Only Tactical Officer Talaya seemed unper­turbed, from which Tsouras concluded she was a rather more stupid woman than her codex-quoting speech suggested.

  He swept out of auditorium dramatically, leaving the tacti­cal holo display frozen with the battlefleet's blips impotent outside the orange sparks of the asteroid field.

  Marines. Soul Drinkers, no less, who by all accounts had never been the most genial of the Emperor's servants. He couldn't wait to see the faces of his allies and enemies when he brought a thousand grizzled heads back to the Ordo Hereticus conclave-sermon. This would make him. They would teach his example to interrogator pupils as how one man might defy a legion of the galaxy's most murderous war­riors, if only he has faith and justice on his side.

  But there was still much to do. He had to ensure the gravi­tational warheads were loaded and primed. They were delicate and ancient technology, not to be trifled with. He would not let carelessness rob him of his finest moment, not when the loss of his executioner had already illustrated the venom of the foe.

  Even now, his astropathic choir would be transmitting the sentence of Excommunicate Traitoris throughout the Imperium, and not one inquisitor would be ignorant of the importance of Tsouras's mission. Behind him, the battle-fleet's useless officer class would be watching him and quaking, knowing that to obey his every word might just be to secure their lives. They would be lost, frightened, dispos­able. Those few who knew anything of the Inquisition would have only heard tales of implacable crusaders, prepared to torture and kill whole populations at once, who let nothing stand in the way of the moral purity of the Imperium.

  Most of those tales were true.

  Inquisitor Tsouras smiled.

  THE ORDERS WENT out immediately, with the highest Inquisi­torial authority. The attack craft of the Lakonia Persecution were fully armed and fuelled within three and a half hours of Tsouras's declaration, ranked up with engines idling and crews on board, ready for their call signs to be broadcast.

  The first bomber wing launched from the flight decks of the Penitent's Wrath. It was not anticipated that there would be any interceptors to oppose them, but they went with full fighter escorts anyway, just to be sure.

  They were followed by dozens of other swarms, from Avengers and Praetorians with their bellies swollen with bombs, to control craft trailing salvoes of semi-smart torpe­does, to the delta-winged gloss-black nightmares that swept from the flight bays of the Inquisitorial ship itself. The flight assets of the Lakonia Persecution had not been accurately totalled, and the number of fighters and bombers launched was uncertain. Estimates made it a thousand, give or take.

  The first waves, though they did not know it, were to test the density of the Cerberian Field. Their engines clogged with micrometeorites and their hulls were punctured by ice frag­ments or buckled by the gravitational forces of superdense ferrous asteroids. The fleet logisticians under Tsouras's orders used the data of their death throes to calculate where best to strike. When a hundred had been sent crashing against the wall of broken rock, the gravitational salvo erupted from the wedged nose of the Inquisitorial ship.

  The torpedoes' size indicated their age, for they were ancient indeed, to the degree that the secrets of their manu­facture had long since been lost. They had cost much both in funds and favours. But Tsouras had known they would be worth it.

  Slowly, with the nearest bomber wings banking wildly to avoid them, the shoal of impossibly valuable torpedoes det­onated and the edge of the Cerberian Field began to collapse. Ripples of electromagnetic power drew the tumbling rocks closer and closer in a gravitational trap. Clumps of asteroids dragged into the epicenters in turn drawing in more matter until a chain reaction had begun, the field contracting into single lumps of rock.

  More warheads exploded further in and the effect travelled deeper, melting a path towards the Soul Drinkers' position in the heart of the asteroid field. Attack craft followed in their wake, and many had to sight their target visually as their nav-cogitators broke down amidst all the interference. To them, the Gundog and the Unendingly Just were barely visible, picked out by the sharp-eyed as twin patterns of silver against dark purple against black. They were both on all-stop so there was no engine flare to lock onto - the bombers would have to get in close and do things the old-fashioned way.

/>   'WE ARE HERE for a reason, children.' Yser's voice was inspira­tional as ever, this time quieter and more reflective. 'The Architect has seen to it that all we do for good or ill has led us to this point. If we are to die here, we know it is because He has chosen it as our punishment or reward.'

  It was first lesson of the Architect of Fate. Any who dedi­cated their life to following His plan would be sent through the Architect's weaving of fate to the end they deserved. Yser knew he had done his best, for the Architect had spoken to him and he had done all He asked - founded his church, protected his flock, enlightened His chosen warriors. If he was to die here, it was for the good. It was what should be.

  The first bombs that hit sounded like rolls of thunder deep in the heart of the Gundog. The men and women of the flock shook with both fear, and with the cold caused by the reduc­tion of life support to give the ship the lowest possible energy profile. Vapour steamed off them as they huddled in the armoury chamber, Yser at their centre, the focus of their faith.

  The armoury housed no weaponry any more, and it was one of the toughest parts of the ship. But that would not save them if the ship's reactors went critical or there was a massive structural failure. Or the power could shut down completely and they would be entombed here, to freeze or suffocate.

  And if, by some miracle, the ship was lost but they sur­vived, they would each die a thousand heretic's deaths. Their crime, of associating with Space Marines declared Excommu­nicate, would doubtless require the ritual purification of their flesh before they died. They would be unlikely to remain sane under such punishment.

  Could he bear that? Yser had undergone many privations as a poor man, a thief and a prisoner, but was there a point when he would give up on his faith again? Would he renounce the Architect of Fate and admit to the foulest of treacheries under the torturer's blade? He honestly didn't know. It was said that a man would be known by the manner of his death - Yser hoped his was quick and sudden, in a flare of nuclear light or the lethal shock of the void.