by Ben Counter
'Then we will have to land them somewhere else.' said Sarpedon. 'Any ideas?'
It was Sergeant Luko who stood up, smiling. 'Commander, I believe I may have an answer for you. The atmosphere thins out in patches further across the globe, specifically here.' The view switched to a sickly scattering of islands. 'You will have been briefed that there was once a civilization on this world, probably human. These islands formed one of its centers.'
'If they were human, are there any left? And what are they like now?' asked Graevus gruffly. Sarpedon noticed he was flexing and unflexing his unnaturally long, powerful fingers. 'It's not them I'm interested in, sergeant.' continued Luko. 'It's what they left behind.'
The scans were more accurate through the thinner atmosphere so the view could be zoomed in. Contours appeared, gnarled knots of basalt and cold, rippled lava flows. Luko picked out a section of coastline on the second-largest island and shifted the holo into a close-up of a large natural harbour.
'Commander, we have no logistical structure on this planet and the Thunderhawks cannot stop off for fuel if they are over the ocean of a primitive planet. But whoever lived on this world before it fell to the dark powers had their own ways of getting around these.'
They could all see them. Ships, three of them, large and dark, singularly ugly vessels built for stability and resilience rather man speed. Each was big enough to have been a major cargo vessel or troop transport.
'There look to be some very basic settlements on the islands.' continued Luko, 'but it's clear they're devolved far from the people who built them. We won't know until we get closer but the ships still look intact-'
'So we sail in.' said Sarpedon with a smile. 'Well done, Luko. Trust you to come up with the must unorthodox tactics possible.'
'One which will leave us on an enemy-held planet an ocean away from the nearest support.' said Dreo from the other side of the room. 'What happens afterwards?'
Sarpedon gave him a withering look. 'It does not matter, sergeant. Even if there will be no afterwards, if there is a way we can get there we must take it. I relinquished our choice in this matter when I took the Emperor as my guide.' He turned to Varuk. 'We could refit the ships with engines from the Thunderhawks and travel under power. Can it be done?'
'We would have to take a number of serfs with us to accomplish it, and they would be unlikely to survive for long given the environment. But yes, it could be done.'
'Good. Varuk, Luko, I shall require a full tactical sermon in eight hours. If the details are sound we shall proceed. I want some better scans of the archipelago and a full survey of potential drop zones. Fall out, brothers.'
THE CHAPTER LIBRARIUM was as old as the Chapter itself, and in many ways older, for it had stemmed from the conclave of Librarians in the Imperial Fists legion in the time of Rogal Dorn. Every novice who showed psychic potential was tested rigorously by the librarium - those who passed were trained in the control of their powers, more art than discipline, alongside the combat skills of a Space Marine. What happened to those who failed was irrelevant, for failure equalled death. It was a gruelling process that none ever mentioned but none ever forgot - novices kneeled before a council of three Librarians and had to keep their mind closed against the most brutal psyk-interrogation. Sarpedon himself had gone through this process, and had passed with some distinction, for instead of just shutting his mind against the assault he had reached out and woven a web of confusion amongst the interrogators. Every novice who made the grade did it differently, some blasting their tormentors across the interrogation chamber, others building an unbreakable wall of mental power. More than one had immolated themselves with mental fire and let the pain block out the probing, to wake up in a synthiflesh incubator with the assembled librarium applauding their success.
When not in battle the Librarians acted as an independent advisory body to the Chapter Master, and it was in this capacity that Sarpedon had commanded them to build up a picture of the threat that awaited the Chapter on the unnamed planet. There were seventeen Librarians left in the Chapter, not including Sarpedon himself, who had survived the violence the Chapter had done to itself in the past months, and in their days-long meditative sessions they had carefully probed the psychic maelstrom that lay beneath the storm-laden clouds.
It was a nightmare. Aekar had died, his eyes pools of streaming jelly and his organs burst and raptured, when he had peered with the psyker's sixth sense into the boiling mass of madness. The others suffered hideous nightmares, some-(times waking visions, of purple-black firestorms and canyons brimming with corpses. When they probed the darkness they could make out a location, the largest of a string of black coral islands forming an archipelago. There was something down there, burning bright with malice, wallowing in a pool of life. They could not give it a form or divine its powers, except that it was strong, and held the planet under its thrall by force of will alone. Its will extended from the highest wisps of atmosphere to the depths of the oceanic trenches, and every living thing was corroded until it was mindless or enslaved.
There was one thing more, gleaned even as Sarpedon and Yser were addressing the assembled strike force in the new cathedral of Dorn. Tyrendian had found it as he forced his consciousness deeper into the wailing madness than any had dared go save Aekar, risking his sanity in the hope he would find something, anything, that might give them a clue as to what they were facing.
He heard them, millions of them crowding the black coral cliffs, chanting. Chanting its name: Ve'Meth.
SOMEWHERE ACROSS THAT half-sighted horizon lurked Ve'Meth, a daemonic power of vast brutality, corrupt and merciless. Commander Sarpedon had told them of its evil and of the Architect's wish for them to put it to the sword, but none of them had really needed telling. They could feel it, a great horror throbbing beneath the deck of the Thunderhawk, watching them. For months it had been disturbing their dreams.
Brother Zaen saw the unnamed planet for the first time through the open rear hatch of the Thunderhawk gunship as it screamed down low over the dark waves. The sky was purplish grey, like an old braise, a massive heavy ceiling of rain-laden cloud. The sea roiled beneath in sharp waves, breaking against the scattered black rocks as the gunship roared at full tilt towards the island that formed their objective.
Zaen had made airborne drops before, dozens of times in his still-short career as a Soul Drinker. But not like this. They had always known something about the foe they were facing, even if it was only who they were - unclean hordes of orks holding the refineries on the ice caps of Gyrix, secessionists who had taken over the manufactoria of Achille XII. Here, they had only a name, and an assurance that the foe was terrible indeed.
The air swirled in the back of the Thunderhawk and Zaen instinctively checked the survivability readouts reflected onto the crystal of his helmet's eyepiece. He could breathe the air but his lungs would have filled up with phlegm and his eyes would have started streaming after half an hour - armour discipline was to be made paramount and helmets were to be worn.
Closer now, and the dead volcanic peak rose like a broken tooth from the crags of the island. Half-formed ruins, rotted by corrosives in the air, clung to the rocks. They had once been majestic, but now they were like the mouldering skeletons of civilization.
One last check of the seals around his flamer's fuel cylinder. One last whispered word to the ever-watchful Emperor, and to the vigilant Rogal Dorn whose blood flowed in Zaen's veins.
Squad Luko would be first out, and Zaen had the point where his flamer could buy a half-second if they found themselves facing danger. Zaen had been in the same position when they dropped into the demiurg positions at the Dog's Head River, and two aliens had died in the wash of his flame before Squad Luko's bolters had began to open up.
Was there fear? No, there was none. What lesser men felt as fear, a Space Marine felt as a high-tensile readiness, a state of rarified awareness that let him act faster, think quicker, hit harder where it counted. So were written the wo
rds of Daenyathos - for a Space Marine shall know no fear.
The razor-sharp rocks hurtled by beneath as they headed over the coast, black-grey shot through with streaks of quartz. The Thunderhawk lurched to one side and flew in a broad curve as it descended, losing speed, dropping over a ridge on the final approach.
The landing zone was a broad bowl of broken rock, a short run from the harbour but far enough away from the nearest ruins. The Soul Drinkers would have to secure the landing zone before the Thunderhawks could land, which meant the gunships would have to stay in the air while the Space Marines swept the area. The engine pitch dropped as the Thunderhawk reached bale-out level, four metres above the ground. Zaen jumped.
They were still travelling at a fair pace when he landed but he had done this many times before, rolling on and coming up on one knee, flamer braced, head jerking as he swept for contacts. For a second or two he held fast as the remaining nine Marines of Squad Luko hit all around him, the sergeant coming down halfway through, lightning claws spread like skeletal wings as he fell.
'Squad Luko down, no contacts.' he heard the sergeant voxing to the command Thunderhawk. The acknowledgement blip sounded and Luko raised a hand for them to follow.
The storm-swept island seemed devoid of life. Indeed, it seemed hard to believe that anything could survive here. Zaen could see nothing moving save the Marines and the incoming Thunderhawks, and could hear nothing beneath the white noise of the ocean, the pounding of boots and his own double heartbeat.
Squad Luko moved at a jog towards the harbour, careful to keep their feet on the cracked strata of rock. The harbour itself was like a bite taken out of the rock, and beyond it the ocean reflected the grim dark grey of the sky. The volcanic peak of the island loomed to the rear of the landing zone, the sorry ruins zigzagging up the dark rock. Everything was covered in sea spray, glistening in the weak light.
'Movement!' called Brother Griv on the squad vox. 'North-north-east!'
Zaen saw it a second after, something pale and spindly darting amongst the rocks in front of them. He knew that Squads Graevus and Dreo would be dropping some distance away to form the two ends of the Marine line. Squad Luko was in the centre, and the next squads would fill in the rest of the line. They had twenty seconds, perhaps, on their own before the rest arrived.
'First blood, men!' shouted Luko.
Griv fired on the move and missed. Three more bolters took his range and hit - something thin and humanoid flailed in pain and another shot took off what must be its arm.
The name of Squad Luko would be inscribed in the Chapter records as taking first blood of the enemy on the unnamed planet. Zaen knew Luko took pride in such things, and to tell the truth Zaen felt the same. His hands were fairly itching to get close enough to use his flamer.
'Command, this is Squad Luko. Positive contacts, repeat, contacts.'
Zaen glanced back and saw Lord Sarpedon himself disembarking with Givrillian leading his command squad. Sarpedon was majestic, his strong taloned legs carrying him swiftly over the rock, bolter barking at the figures scurrying towards the Marines.
Zaen saw the enemy properly for the first time - humanoid and perhaps technically human, but shambling, with sloped gaits and lolling mouths. Luko slid into cover behind a lip of rock and fired a burst from the bolt pistol worked into the back of his right lightning claw gauntlet. The squad followed him into cover.
'I want bolter discipline, men, and I'm counting every bullet!' he yelled. 'Fire!'
There were more now, a dozen, reaching out from deep furrows in the rock where they had taken shelter. Their eyes were wide watery saucers and their skin streaked with blood and filth.
This was what had happened to the human peoples that once called this planet home. They had perhaps been proud and noble, until Ve'Meth came. Now, maybe generations later, the daemon's influence had robbed them of intelligence and left them slack-jawed primitives, cannibals clutching clubs of human bone and chunks of sharp flint.
Bolters chattered and a dozen fell, their soft, light-starved flesh coming apart. Zaen heard their moans of pain and anger beneath the gunfire. With their dead as cover still more poured from the cracks in the ground: twenty, fifty, a hundred.
'Hold, brothers, and close on my lead!' called Luko, the vox cutting through the jabbering of the humanoids and the crackling bolter-fire.
The creatures were within a half-dozen strides, clambering over the dead and jabbering with anger, their teeth gnashing and eyes glaring wetly with fury at the invasion of what passed for their home.
Luko vaulted over the ridge of rock and three of the enemy were dead before he landed, their torsos sliced to thick bloody ribbons with a swipe of his lightning claw. A follow-up swipe tore another one into strips lengthways in the flash pf a discharging power-field. The howls were screams now, the creatures a wall of sallow flesh rearing over Luko on a tide of broken bodies.
By then, Brother Zaen was at his side, and Luko stepped back, dripping with watery blood, to let him do his work.
Zaen took the split-second to check range and target density. Close and packed. Perfect. The pilot light on the tip of the flamer nozzle flickered hungrily, and Zaen issued a silent prayer to the watchful primarch as he squeezed the trigger handle in his gauntleted hand.
The blue-white cone of flame ripped through the closest bodies sure as any bullet, rending four or five hapless subhumans into shrivelling, flailing limbs half-glimpsed in the flame wash. Those further away fared even worse, coated in a cloak of burning petrochemical that ate through their skin and left screaming, flaming skeletons spasming as they died.
The closest survivors, many half-aflame, screamed in pain and shock and ran. They took their fellows with them and soon the subhumans opposing Squad Luko were in full rout, Luko himself laying into the closest with his shining claws, the squad's bolters thudding shells into the disintegrating flesh of the fleeing pack. Zaen washed the ground with flame, scouring the few survivors into burning ash, melting the flesh of those who had fallen in their flight.
'Squad to me, regroup!' came Luko's order, and the squad strode over the sticky, burning remains of the cannibals to where their sergeant stood, the power field around his claws flickering as the residue of muscle and bone burned off. Zaen knelt to the squad's fore, ready to answer another ambush with a burst of burning justice.
He could hear the crackle of gunfire as the fleeing creatures blundered into the fire zones of the other squads, and were cut down in short order. There was a flash of light as the psyker-lightning lanced out and shattered a swathe of fleeing bodies - it was Tyrendian, the Librarian, lending his mental artillery to the fire of his battle-brothers. Zaen knew the fleeing subhumans wouldn't return, not after so many of them had suffered the white heat of his flamer, the speed and savagery of Luko's claws and the massed gunfire of the Soul Drinkers.
They had taken first blood. The omen was good, one of the best, for it promised the Soul Drinkers would meet the enemy face to face and bring their superior quality to bear. But these cannibal creatures were no kind of resistance. Just looking at the bruised sky and the murderous, polluted ocean promised that the real test was ahead, and the sternest of tests it would be.
Zaen might not survive. Zaen didn't care. To die while partaking in the destruction of such evil was a victory in itself, and whatever happened, his name would be inscribed along with his brothers in the tales of the first true battle of the only free Chapter in the galaxy.
He checked his flamer tanks. They were still nearly full of fuel - the weapon had barely cleared its throat yet. But he did not need the words of Daenyathos to tell him that soon, he would need every drop.
SARPEDON SCUTTLED UP a rise of rock, watching the patrol squads cutting down the few straggling half-humans with placed gunfire. Assault squads saved ammunition and used their combat knives - Tellos, easy to spot even at a distance with his bare pale-skinned torso, was using them as practice for the complex twin-sword techni
ques he had found in the ancient combat records of the Chapter archives.
Sarpedon was pleased. It hadn't been much of a fight, truth be told, but his Marines had responded with every bit of discipline and sharpness a Chapter Master of the Soul Drinkers could expect of his men. Squad Luko had faced the largest mass of them and Graevus had found his unit nearly surrounded, but in each case the enemy had been broken rapidly and totally, then pursued to destruction.
That had been three days ago, in which time Sarpedon had kept up aggressive patrols against the island's natives. He knew that activity as much as rest was needed to keep his troops battle-ready, and they would need nothing less than total focus. The Soul Drinkers were heading into an uncertain enemy, who might well have control of the battlefield in the most literal sense if the librarium conclave was to believed. It was not a situation he had not faced before or that his Marines were not trained and experienced for, but they all knew those uncertainties multiplied the danger a hundredfold. This was an operation that, if it were not carried out by the Soul Drinkers, could not be carried out at all.
He could see the three ships in the harbour, lit by showers of sparks as serf-labourers fitted the power systems of the Thunderhawks into the hulls. The ships were well-made and the years had done surprisingly little to rot their hulls - they were made of some splendidly light hardwood and banded with quality iron. The sails had long since disintegrated in the foul winds but the Soul Drinkers didn't need them, and indeed the masts themselves were being felled to reduce the profile of the ships against the horizon. These craft were a testament to the sophistication of the peoples that once called this world home, and to the utter degeneracy that Ve'Meth's influence created.
Tech-Marine Varuk was in charge of the engine conversions. Under his watchful eye the Thunderhawk propulsion systems were becoming powerful waterjet propulsion rigs that would send the ships carving across the ocean faster than the winds had ever sent them. The Thunderhawks, four of them stripped down for parts, stood on the open rocks, lashed to the stone with heavy chains.
