Victories of the Space Marines

by Christian Dunn (ed) - (ebook by Undead)

  Platinum, iridium, plutonium and uranium were all found buried within the crust of the planet, even though it was compressed beneath ten kilometres of crushing ice in some places. Iron ore was found in vast quantities in great seams running practically the entire circumference of the planet’s equator and it was the only attainable source of a number of rarer elements for twelve parsecs.

  But all that was currently visible to the Thunderhawk’s pilot was kilometre after kilometre of fractured ice sheet, crawling glaciers and frost-formed blades of frozen mountain ridges.

  “Any lock on the source of the signal yet?” Sergeant Hesperus enquired of the battle-brother piloting the craft.

  “Triangulating now, sir,” Brother-Pilot Teaz replied via the vessel’s internal comm.

  There was a pause, accompanied by an insistent pinging sound as the Fortis’s machine spirit gazed upon the blue-white world through its auspex arrays, seeking to pinpoint the source of the distress signal. Mere moments later, the servitor hard-wired into the gunship’s systems in the co-pilot’s position began to burble machine code, its eyes glassy and unblinking as it continued to stare perpetually out of the front glasteel shield of the Thunderhawk’s cockpit.

  “Scanners indicate that it is coming from a location three hundred kilometres from our current position. Signs are that it is uninhabited. But…” Teaz trailed off.

  “What is it, brother? What else is the Fortis telling you?”

  “Very little at that location. But there is a large settlement—a Mechanicus facility of some kind two hundred kilometres from here.”

  “The miners,” Hesperus mused. “And the distress signal isn’t coming from there?”

  “No, brother-sergeant.”

  “And yet the facility is inhabited?”

  “Reading multiple life-signs, sergeant. Cogitator estimates somewhere within the region of three thousand souls.”

  “And are you reading any other settlements of comparable size anywhere else upon the planet’s surface?”

  “No, sir. This would appear to be the primary centre of human occupation.”

  “Then I think we should pay our respects to the planetary authorities, don’t you, Brother Teaz?”

  “Shall I hail them, sergeant?” the pilot asked.

  “No, brother, that won’t be necessary. Besides, I am sure they already have us on their scopes and if they don’t already know of our imminent arrival, then they soon will. I think it only right that we meet with those charged with the care of this world face to face. After all, first impressions matter.”

  “You think they will brave this blizzard to meet us, brother?”

  “If they have any sense, they would brave the warp itself rather than leave a detachment of Imperial Fists unattended.”

  “Very good, sir. Landing site acquired. Planetfall in five minutes.”

  Keying his micro-bead, Sergeant Hesperus addressed the other battle-brothers on board, strapped within the ruddy darkness of the Thunderhawk’s belly hold.

  “Brothers of Squad Eurus, the time has come,” Hesperus said, taking up the venerable thunder hammer that it was his honour to wield in battle along with the storm shield that bore his own personal battle honours. “Lock helmets, bolters at the ready. We make planetfall in five.”

  Like a spear of burning gold, cast down from heaven by the immortal Emperor Himself, Thunderhawk Fortis made planetfall on the snow-bound world.

  With a scream of turbofan afterburners and attitude thrusters—the jet-wash from the craft momentarily disrupting the blizzard sweeping across the barely-visible mass of chimneys, pylons and refinery barns—the Fortis touched down on the landing pad located within the facility’s outer defensive bulwark.

  Power to the engines was cut and the Doppler-crashing white noise of the fans descended to a deafening whine, the craft’s landing struts flexing as they took the weight, as the great golden bird settled on the plasteel and adamantium-reinforced platform.

  By the time the disembarkation ramp descended and Sergeant Hesperus led the battle-brothers of Squad Eurus out onto the hard standing of the fire-base, the Space Marines’ ceramite boots crunching on the ice-patched rockcrete, the welcoming committee was already trooping out onto deck to greet them. The blunt shapes of shuttle craft and grounded orbital tugs squatted on the platform, their hard profiles softened by drifts of snow.

  Three men, diminutive by the standards of the Emperor’s finest, made the long walk from the shelter of an irising bunker door to where Squad Eurus had formed themselves up in a perfectly straight line, ready to receive them.

  Although he was at least half a head shorter than either of his two companions, from his bearing, along with the red sash and ceremonial badge of office, to his straining dress jacket, ursine fur cloak, and polished grox-hide jackboots, Hesperus knew at once that the Space Marines’ arrival on Ixya had brought none other than the planetary governor—the Emperor’s representative himself—to receive them. It was a good sign; Sergeant Hesperus liked to be appreciated.

  The three men faced the nine mighty Adeptus Astartes of the Imperial Fists Chapter, resplendent in their black-iron trimmed golden yellow power armour, the jet packs they wore making them appear even more intimidating. Every member of the welcoming committee had to look up to meet Hesperus’ visored gaze.

  With a hiss of changing air pressures, Sergeant Hesperus removed his helmet and peered down at the shortest of the three. He had to admire the man; his steely expression of resolute determinedness did not falter once.

  The governor had a face that looked like it had been carved from cold marble. His pate was balding but the white wings of hair that swept back from his temples and covered his chin gave him an appropriately aristocratic air.

  The man held the Space Marine’s gaze for several seconds and then bowed, his ursine-skin cloak sweeping the powdered snow from the landing deck.

  “We are honoured, my lords.” He rose again and carefully considered the smart line of Space Marines. “I am Governor Selig, Imperial administrator of this facility and by extension this world. I bid you welcome to Aes Metallum.” Hesperus considered that the man’s chiselled expression did not offer the same welcome his words offered. Governor Selig was suspicious of them.

  A wry smile formed at the corner of the sergeant’s mouth. And so would I be, Hesperus thought, if I were governor and a fully-armed assault squad of Imperial Fists Space Marines arrived unannounced on my watch.

  Governor Selig turned to the man at his right hand, a military man wearing a cold-weather camo-cloak over the uniform of a PDF officer. “May I introduce Captain Derrin of the Ixyan First Planetary Defence Force,”—the man saluted smartly and the governor turned to the towering, semi-mechanoid thing shrouded by a frayed crimson robe to his left—“and Magos Winze of the Brotherhood of Mars who oversees our mining operation.”

  Hesperus noted the huge ceramite and steel representation of the Cult Mechanicus’ cybernetic skull heraldry on the towering facade of the structure before the landing pad, the details of the huge icon blurred by the snow that had settled upon it.

  “Welcome to Aes Metallum,” the tech-priest hissed in a voice that was rusty with age and underlain by the wheezing of some augmetic respiratory function. A buzzing cyber-skull—looking like a miniature version of the Cult’s crest—hovered at the adept’s shoulder.

  Hesperus acknowledged the tech-priest’s greeting with a curt nod of his head.

  “What can we do for you, sergeant?” Selig asked.

  “Ask not what you can do for us,” Hesperus countered, “but what we can do for you.”

  “My lord?”

  “The strike cruiser Fury’s Blade picked up a faint automated distress call being broadcast from this world three standard days ago. Our glorious Fourth Company was en route on the Phalanx, our fortress-monastery, to the Roura Cluster, to bolster the defence of the Vendrin Line against the incursions of the alien eldar. However, it was deemed appropriate to send a single Thund
erhawk and accompanying assault squad to assess the level of threat that had triggered this distress beacon accordingly. I presume you are aware of this distress signal yourselves, are you not?”

  To his credit, Governor Selig’s steely expression didn’t change one iota. “Yes we are, thank you, brother,” he stated unapologetically.

  “An explorator team is currently carrying out a survey of that region,” Magos Winze explained, “searching for new mineral reserves we suspect may be located in the area.”

  “And have you sent rescue squads to investigate?” Hesperus challenged.

  Governor Selig turned his gaze from the looming Astartes to the PDF officer at his side. “Captain Derrin?”

  “No, sir.”

  Hesperus looked at him askance.

  “And might I ask why not?”

  Captain Derrin indicated the blizzard howling about them with a gesture. The clinging flakes were steadily turning the Imperial Fists’ armour from dazzling yellow to white gold.

  “It’s the ice storm, sir,” he said, pulling his cold-weather camo-cloak tighter about him as he shivered in the face of the freezing wind. “We’re only at the edge of it here but further north it’s at its most intense—so cold it’ll freeze the promethium inside the tanks of a Trojan. The planes and armour we have at our disposal are not able to withstand its full force.”

  Hesperus turned from the captain to the tech-priest, the altered adept’s mechadendrites seeming to twitch with an epileptic life all of their own.

  “You can confirm this, magos?”

  “Captain Derrin is quite correct,” Winze wheezed. “Aes Metallum’s been locked down for three days. However, our meteorological auspex would seem to suggest that the storm is moving east across the Glacies Plateau. In two days it should be safe to send out a team to investigate.”

  “Have you had any pict-feed or vox-communication with the explorator team since the storm began?” Hesperus pressed.

  “No. Nothing but the signal put out by the automated beacon.”

  The Imperial Fist on Hesperus’ right, Battle-Brother Maestus, keyed his micro-bead. “Do you think it could be the eldar, brother-sergeant?”

  At mention of the enigmatic alien raiders, Governor Selig’s expression faltered for the first time since he had welcomed the Astartes to Ixya.

  “The distress beacon could be explained by any one of a dozen or more scenarios,” Magos Winze interjected. “A snowplough could have fallen into an ice fissure, or the team saw the storm coming and triggered the distress beacon hoping for a quick extraction. We would not wish to keep you from your holy work, brother.”

  “We may yet be needed here,” Hesperus countered. He turned to Maestus. “Remaining here will not tell us whether the eldar are poised to attack this world as well. It is time we followed the signal to its source.”

  He addressed each of the Ixyan welcoming committee in turn. “Captain Derrin, ice storm or no, mobilise your men. Magos Winze, see that your servants run diagnostics of all this facility’s defences; I want them primed and ready for action. Governor, good day to you.”

  “But—” Selig began before Hesperus cut him off with a curt wave of an armoured hand.

  “It is better that you prepare for the worst and ultimately face nothing than it is to do nothing and reap the bitter harvest that follows as a result of your inaction. Look to your defences. Secure the base. We shall return presently. Squad Eurus, move out.”

  And with that the nine golden giants boarded the Fortis again. Only a minute later, as Governor Selig and the rest of the welcoming committee returned to the shelter of the bunker, the Fortis lifted off from the landing platform, the snow flurries returning as the Thunderhawk was swallowed up by the blizzard.

  The Fortis shook as the freezing winds assailed it, the constant staccato of hailstones pounding its hull-plating like a remorseless barrage of autocannon fire. But the Thunderhawk, as capable of short range interplanetary travel as it was of atmospheric flight, resisted and held firm, Brother-Pilot Teaz steering a course through the hurricane winds and hail towards the spot indicated by the chiming distress signal.

  “This is the place,” Teaz said as the Thunderhawk’s forward motion suddenly slowed, holding it in a hover above the ice and the snow for a moment before bringing it down in the middle of a whiteout so intense that for all the visibility there was, they might as well have landed on the dark side of the planet; if that had been the case, at least then the Thunderhawk’s lamps would have been able to make a difference.

  Squad Eurus disembarked from the craft again, Teaz remaining on board as before, in case there was the need for a hasty extraction or the Space Marines found themselves involved in an encounter that required heavier firepower to resolve it than was carried by the members of Hesperus’ team.

  And yet continued sensor sweeps carried out by the Fortis’ instruments during the short hop from the Aes Metallum facility, now one hundred kilometres to the south-west, had revealed nothing. No signs of life, no indication of an alien presence, nothing at all. It seemed that there was nothing out there beyond the howling ice storm, other than whatever anomalous geological feature it was that had led the explorators here in search of mineral deposits in the first place.

  “Search pattern delta. Battle-Brother Ngaio, I want you up front,” Hesperus instructed his squad members via the helmet comm. He would have struggled to make himself heard by his battle-brothers otherwise, even with their Lyman’s ear implants.

  In response the nine Imperial Fists began to fan out from the landing site, sweeping the snow-shriven wilderness with their weapons, each alike—bolter in one hand, chainsword in the other, except in Battle-Brother Verwhere’s case, who targeted the illusory shapes created by the flurries of gale-blown snow with his plasma pistol. Battle-Brother Ngaio advanced at the forefront, at the apex of the expanding semi-circle of warriors, his chainsword mag-locked to his hip, replaced in his gauntleted hand by the auspex he was carrying.

  Hesperus moved forwards, between Ngaio and Battle-Brother Ahx. Then came Ors and Jarda. To Ngaio’s left were arrayed, in the same formation, Battle-Brothers Maestus, Verwhere, Haldrich and Khafra.

  Not one of them had been born on the same world—Jarda had not even set foot on one of the vassal worlds of the galaxy-spanning Imperium until after he had been inducted into the Imperial Fists Chapter, having been void-born, while Khafra was from the desert necropolis world of Tanis—but they were all brothers nonetheless. They might not have the same predominant eye colour, skin tones, hair or bone structure, but thanks to the gene-seed they all bore inside them now, they were all Imperial Fists and shared the common physiological traits of a Space Marine.

  The Imperial Fists gathered their aspirants from a whole network of worlds, many of which they had visited before in the ten millennia since the Phalanx had set out upon its never-ending quest to bring the Emperor’s mercy and justice to the galaxy. But although the brothers of Squad Eurus might not have come from a common culture or been born of a common ancestry before joining the ranks of the Imperial Fists, since their induction into the Chapter—second only, other agencies claimed, to Great Guilliman’s Adeptus Astartes paragons, the Ultramarines—they were all Sons of Dorn now, the superhuman essence of the primarch having been passed down to them through his blessed gene-seed.

  Hesperus peered through the whiteout, everything coloured now by the heat spectrum of his helmet’s infrared arrays. But even the HUD struggled to reveal any more than he could already see with his own occulobe-enhanced sight.

  Shapes came into relief out of the impenetrable whiteness, ice-obscured objects delineated by the subtle variations in light and shade that existed even within this white darkness. Huge things with tyred wheels and caterpillar track-sections, twice as tall as a Space Marine, and bucket scoops large enough to contain a land speeder emerged from the storm-wracked ice-desert.

  Servos in his suit whirred as Hesperus scanned left and right, surveying the frozen wrecks
of earth-moving machines and the explorators’ abandoned equipment.

  “Where are the bodies?” he heard Brother Jarda wonder aloud over the helmet comm.

  Hesperus had been thinking the same thing. Here were the explorator team’s machines, left to be claimed by the ice and snow, but there was no sign of the crews that had driven the hundred kilometres across the ice sheet to bring them to this place.

  “Sergeant Hesperus,” Brother Ngaio voxed. “I have something.”

  “It’s all right, brother, I see it too,” Hesperus replied.

  “No, I mean there’s a structure, sir.”

  “A structure?”

  “It should be right in front of us.”

  A gust of biting wind suddenly swept the ice sheet all about them clear of snow and—beyond the frozen, broken shapes of the earthmovers and drilling rigs—Hesperus saw it. It was a great rift in the glacier, as if a great cube had been cut out of the ice where the explorators had dug down into the ice, exposing…

  Hesperus tensed.

  It was a pyramid. It was caked in ice, half-buried by the drifts of snow. What little of it that was visible appeared to be made from a seamless piece of some unrecognisable compound that looked like dark silver, but it was pyramidal in form and there was no mistaking its origin.

  “The soulless ones,” Hesperus growled. Not the renegade eldar they had been expecting perhaps, but xenos nonetheless—something even more alien than the piratical raiders. Something utterly inimical to life.

  “Brothers, with me,” Sergeant Hesperus instructed, leading the march down the rutted slope of ice that had been carved from the ice sheet by the explorators’ machines. “Brother Teaz, remain with the Fortis,” he commanded the Thunderhawk’s pilot. “We may be in need of the Fortis’s legendary firepower before too long.”