by Nick Kyme
Tsu'gan stiffened at some unseen slight, but allowed Lorkar to continue.
'Do you bear your dead captain's armour still?' he asked.
Dak'ir weighed in on his fellow sergeant's behalf. 'No. It was incinerated, rendered to ash in keeping with our native customs.'
Lorkar looked nonplussed. 'You destroyed it?' His tone suggested consternation. 'Was the battle-plate entirely beyond repair?'
'Some could have been salvaged,' Dak'ir admitted. 'But instead it was offered to the mountain of fire on Nocturne, our home world, so that Kadai could return to the earth.'
Lorkar shook his head. 'My apologies, brother, but we of the Marines Malevolent are unused to such profligacy.'
Tsu'gan could restrain himself no longer. 'Would you have us bastardise our captain's armour instead, as you do?'
The Marine Malevolent glared back at him sternly. 'We only mean to honour our fallen brethren.'
Tsu'gan straightened as if stung. 'And we do not? We pay homage to our slain heroes, our lamented dead.'
The churning report of the blast door finally prising open prevented any caustic reply from Lorkar. Instead, the sergeant merely got to his feet and went to his Techmarine.
'And what is your business here, Sergeant Lorkar? You haven't told us that,' said Dak'ir as the Marine Malevolent was leaving.
'My orders stay within the Chapter,' he replied tersely, ramming on his battle-helm and rejoining his battle-brothers.
'It is more than protocol that stays his tongue. They are hiding something,' muttered Tsu'gan, before turning away himself, a dark look directed first at Lorkar and then Dak'ir.
Once Tsu'gan had gone, Dak'ir whispered, 'Keep your eyes open.'
Ba'ken's gaze was fixed on the departing yellow-armoured sergeant. He nodded, releasing his grip from the piston-hammer.
A thin mist drifted over the deck of the cryogenic vault like the slow passage of a tired apparition. A gaseous amalgam of nitrogen and helium combined to produce the chemical compound that would catalyse the cryogenic process, it rolled languidly off a series of semi-transparent tanks situated at one end of a large metal room. A high ceiling still carried the ubiquitous censers and there were small Mechanicus shrines set into alcoves in the walls. Exposed hosing, cables and other machinery were also prevalent. It was as if they were the excised innards of some mechanical behemoth, and this room was part of its mech-biology. The dense agglomeration of pipes and wires extruded from the room's perimeter and fed to a series of cryo-caskets that dominated a pair of raised, arc-shaped platforms in the centre. Both platforms were approximately two metres off deck level and reachable via a grilled metal stairway on two sides. A deactivated lifter plate was also evident, delineated by a rectangle of warning chevrons. The natural passageway between the two platforms led to the vault's only exit, a huge blast door sealed shut by three adamantium locking bars.
Brother Emek wiped his gauntleted hand across the thick plexi-glass of one of the cryo-caskets, breaking up a veneer of hoarfrost.
'No outward vital signs,' he muttered after a few moments. 'This one is dead, too.'
The liquid nitrogen run-off pooled around the Astartes's armoured boots, curling around his greaves. It spilled off the edge of the platform where Emek was standing to hang a few centimetres above the lower deck of the vault like a ghostly veil.
At the aft-facing end of the room Harkane worked at releasing the blast door, the low hiss of his plasma-cutter a dulcet chorus to the machine-hum of the stasis tanks. Half his Marines Malevolent battle-brothers were clustered around him - Lorkar's combat squad - intent on the Techmarine's endeavours as if whatever lay beyond the door was of profound interest to them. The brother-sergeant was locked in almost constant conference with his battle-helm's comm-feed now. Whoever he was getting his orders from was issuing regular instruction and demanding progress reports. The rest of Lorkar's troops were silently guarding the forced entry point and, unless Dak'ir's instincts were off, watching him and his battle-brothers.
The Salamanders' first concern was the possibility of survivors. The Marines Malevolent's disregard in this had not gone unnoticed, but was left unchallenged. Whatever the other Astartes' mission, the Salamanders were not privy to it and it was not the place of one Chapter to question another for such flimsy reasons when all the facts were not known. Pyriel was determined it would not affect their own rescue efforts, however.
Two groups of five Salamanders, chosen from each of the two squads by their respective sergeants, were tasked with investigating the forty cryogenic chambers. Emek led one group; Iagon the other. Two ranks of twenty dominated the raised deck space, situated opposite the blast doors against either wall. Within were human adepts. Some had amputated limbs, fused stumps trailing insulated cables and wiring; others had hollow eye sockets, ringed with pink scar-tissue and tiny puncture marks where the installation pins had gone in and then been retracted. The crew's constituent mechanical components - bionic eyes, arms, mechadendrite clusters and even a half-track for a double leg amputee - were locked away in transparent armour-plas receptacles, stamped with the Mechanicus cog and fastened to their individual cryo-caskets. So far, eighteen of the forty were dead.
For one the freezing process had malfunctioned, atrophying his body, ice crystals infecting his lifeless skin like a contagion; another had simply drowned in the solution that had failed to catalyse when the casket was activated, the adept's eyes wide with frozen panic, a forlornly beating fist held for eternity stuck to the inner-glass. The others had succumbed to cardiac infarction - possibly brought on through shock during the cryogenic process or at the separation of their mechanised limbs and augmentation - hypothermia or other, unidentifiable, mortalities.
One thing was clear. The steps taken to preserve the crew, what few still lived, had been conducted in haste.
'Brother-Sergeant Dak'ir,' Emek's voice came over the comm-feed in his battle-helm.
'Go ahead, brother,' Dak'ir returned. He was standing on the lower deck alongside Brother Apion who was trying to raise the Vulkan's Wrath through a ship-to-ship comm-device set up in the room. Thus far he'd had no success - the strike-cruiser was obviously still out of range.
'I need you to see this, sir,' Emek replied.
Dak'ir instructed Apion to continue. A self-conscious glance at Tsu'gan revealed his brother-sergeant to be intent on Lorkar and his warriors at the blast door. A cursory examination of the Salamanders' other forces showed that Pyriel was similarly engrossed, though Dak'ir suspected the Librarian's awareness went far beyond that of his fellow brother-sergeant. Those battle-brothers not engaged with checking the cryo-caskets were keeping sentry. The Salamanders mixed with the Marines Malevolent directly and the tension between them was almost palpable. Ba'ken, in particular, caught Dak'ir's attention positioned next to a Space Marine who was almost his match in sheer bulk. The Marine Malevolent bore a skull-faced battle-helm, the beak nose sheared off and sealed in order to promote the cranial analogue. Not like a Chaplain's, masterfully wrought to resemble bone, the battle-helm's decoration was painted on. He also carried a plasma gun, and held it with the sureness of a warrior born. The two massive Space Marines were very alike, but stoically refused to acknowledge one another. Dak'ir hoped it would stay that way as he reached the top of the stairway and the cryo-caskets.
Emek was a third of the way down the sub-group of four he was analysing when he saw his sergeant approach. Evidently, it was slow going.
Most of the associated instrumentation of the cryo-caskets was damaged, so there was no way to tell how long the stasis-sleep had lasted. It also retarded the assessment of vital signs, but the Salamanders engaged in that duty did so exhaustively and methodically. The majority of the bio-monitors situated beneath the caskets were no longer operating, either, or were simply too encrusted with ice to be readable. From the corner of his helmet lens, Dak'ir noted Iagon using his auspex to ascertain life signs in certain cases. The battle-brother acknowledged him from across the small g
ulf between the platforms, and Dak'ir felt his guard go up instinctively.
'Sir,' said Emek with a slight nod, once his sergeant had reached him.
'Show me, brother.'
Emek stepped back to allow Dak'ir to move in and get a better look. 'See for yourself, sergeant.'
Emek had smeared away the rime of ice crystals obscuring the view through the casket's plexi-glass frontis. Dak'ir peered through the ragged gap in the frost and saw the remains of the adept inside. It was difficult to discern at first: the nitro-helium solution was tainted with blood, lots of blood. Other things floated in the tank too, held fast in the stagnant liquid.
'Flesh,' Emek said from behind him. 'Bone chips too, if I'm not mistaken.'
'Mercy of Vulkan…' Dak'ir breathed. His voice was made even hollower through his battle-helm.
'Self-mutilation, sir.' The explanation was hardly necessary. Deep lacerations ran down the adept's torso, arms and legs, four-pronged as if dug by fingernails. The stark evidence of the adept's hands supported that theory - they were stained with blood. Three of the nails had been ripped off, revealing the soft red membrane beneath; the rest were clogged with shreds of flensed skin.
'This one had ocular implants?' Dak'ir asked.
'No, sir.'
The eyes, then, had been torn out. Gore streaked from the ruined sockets that were deep and red and visceral. Dak'ir regarded the abomination sternly.
'Assessment?'
Emek paused, weighing up his words, until his sergeant faced him to demand an answer. 'I believe the ship turned on itself, though I don't know how or why,' he said.
Dak'ir remembered the view of the Archimedes Rex through the Fire-wyvern's occuliport; in retrospect, the weapons damage was strange. It was possible that the ship's crippling had been self-inflicted. It might also explain why they had encountered one single magos - he was the last standing, having killed the rest. The cryo-vault was sealed, not against foreign invaders, but to keep the rest of the ship's inhabitants out.
'What about the servitors?' Dak'ir followed his line of reasoning out loud.
'They aren't sentient like the magos and the other adepts. Perhaps they weren't affected in the same way.'
Dak'ir took one last look at the mutilated adept in the tank. His salvation had come too late. Sealed in the cryo-casket, and with nothing to attack, he had evidently turned on himself.
'Keep looking for survivors,' he said, turning, glad to avert his gaze from the gruesome spectacle.
As he walked back down the access stairway, Dak'ir's comm-feed crackled to life. It was on a closed channel with himself and Tsu'gan.
'Brother-sergeants.'
Dak'ir looked over at the sound of Pyriel's voice. The Librarian maintained his vigil over their dubious allies. The cause for his words was obvious. The Marines Malevolent had opened up the blast doors. When he reached the Librarian, Dak'ir saw inside the chamber the other Astartes had been so fixated on. It was a massive storage room, akin to the one they'd discovered earlier only much larger. Also unlike the smaller munitions store, this one had a vast cache of manufactured arms and armour: Mk VII battle-plate hung in suits from overhead armatures; bolters sat in racks like parade soldiers, pristine and unfired; ammo crates brimming with sickle mags for the guns were piled in pallets of a hundred, a thousand clips per crate. Materiel spanned the hangar-like room in an unending slew of grey-black.
The Marines Malevolent were already emptying it, positioning guns, ammunition and power armour directly outside the chamber within an invisibly delineated area.
Dak'ir then realised what Lorkar and his battle-brothers were doing on the Archimedes Rex. The fledgling weapons were the perfect replacements for their arcane militaria. The Marines Malevolent were re-supplying; appropriating the materiel cache from the forge-ship for their own purposes.
One of the yellow-armoured warriors, the shark-helmeted Brother Nemiok, had been in brief concert with his sergeant and afterwards removed something from a large belt pouch. It was a bulky device, hoisted into position atop the centre of the small arms cache by a thick handle, and consisted of a narrow-necked tube with a lozenge-shaped tip that contained a beacon, appended with small pistons that powered a ribbed compression cylinder.
Though crude and out-dated, Dak'ir recognised it at once. It was a teleport homer. En route to the Archimedes Rex, the Salamanders had neither seen nor detected another vessel. Dak'ir could only assume the Fire-wyvern's sensor arrays lacked the range to discover it, for he was sure now that the Marines Malevolent had a cruiser nearby, its teleportarium primed for the stolen Mechanicus haul.
Tsu'gan stormed towards the ring of yellow-armoured Astartes that had formed just in front of the teleportation zone.
'What do you think you're doing, brother!' he growled, ignoring the others and addressing Lorkar directly.
The sergeant was directing two of his battle-brothers hefting the equipment out of the storage room and didn't look at Tsu'gan when he answered.
'What it looks like, Salamander. I am re-supplying my Chapter.'
'You steal that which is not meant for you,' he countered, clenching his fists. 'I did not realise the Marines Malevolent were honourless pirates.'
Now Lorkar turned, and his previous nonchalance crumbled away.
'We are true servants of the Emperor. Our integrity is beyond reproach. We seek only the means to prosecute His wars.'
'Then honour the pact made between He and the Mechanicus. We Astartes have no call to pillage and ransack the stricken ships of Mars. You are no better than carrion snapping at the flesh of a corpse.'
'What concern is it of yours, anyway?' Lorkar returned, a slight tilt of his head suggested a glance at something behind the Salamander. 'Stay out of it.'
Tsu'gan felt the lightest pressure on his pauldron when he turned swiftly, seizing the wrist of the Space Marine attempting to surprise him and twisting until the bones snapped and he forced his assailant to one knee.
'Attempt to rise and I shall shatter your kneecap,' Tsu'gan promised, addressing the skull-faced Marine Malevolent with the plasma gun. Despite the obvious pain he was in, the yellow-armoured Astartes looked to his sergeant before he would relent.
Ba'ken stirred from his sentry position, as did the other Salamanders on overwatch, together with those manning the cryo-caskets.
'Remain where you are.' Pyriel's curt command arrested any further escalation.
Ba'ken seemed about to press anyway, when a glance from Dak'ir warned him off and he merely watched instead. Of the Marines Malevolent, only Brother Rennard had broken ranks, doubtless in response to an earlier directive from his sergeant.
Lorkar's fists were clenched as he considered what to do next. It was as if time had frozen. The tension in the room was strained; a little more pressure and it would break out in bloody violence. Dak'ir noticed that Harkane had switched the gun platform from dormant to active, the red targeting matrix hazing in the cryo-gas.
He thought about disabling the Techmarine. He still had enough charge in his plasma pistol for a wounding shot. It took less than a second for Dak'ir to decide against it. So delicately poised as the situation was, any unexpected move could be disastrous. Tsu'gan had the lead for now and he had to be content with that. A degree of insurance would be prudent, though, and it was with this in mind that Dak'ir issued the sub-vocal command into a closed channel of the comm-feed.
'Do you really want to do this?' Tsu'gan still had his back to Lorkar, glaring down intently at the Marine Malevolent under his control.
Lorkar exhaled slowly and released his clenched fists. 'Brother Rennard, stand down,' he ordered reluctantly, and the skull-faced Astartes relaxed. Tsu'gan let him go, facing Lorkar again, an awkward stand-off in prospect.
'These weapons can either gather dust on this wreck or be put to use destroying the enemies of mankind. We will not abandon them.'
Pyriel's voice invaded the deadlock. 'You are wrong. They will be returned to the Mechanicus for proper
allocation,' he said. 'You are outnumbered by a superior force. Neither of us wants a conflict here. Relent at once or face the consequences.'
Harkane shifted, about to do something he would later regret, when he staggered a little as if stunned.
I would collapse your mind before your finger squeezed the trigger!
Dak'ir heard the psychic impel that was meant only for Harkane, and it chilled him.
Lorkar, who had not been privy to the mental threat, continued undeterred, nodding with assertion. 'The weapons and armour are leaving this ship—' he paused mid flow, slightly bowing his head again as instructions were relayed through his comm-feed.
'Let us all hear your orders, Malevolent,' Tsu'gan growled contemptuously. 'Or is the voice on the other end of that comm-feed too craven?'
Rennard had got to his feet and was supporting his broken wrist, when he spoke up. 'You disrespect a captain of the Astartes!'
Tsu'gan turned on him next.
'Show me this captain,' he demanded. 'I hear only a whispering coward hiding behind the pauldrons of his sergeant.'
Ba'ken loomed suddenly behind the belligerent Rennard, who was slightly crouched with his injury and wise enough to make no further move, merely seething behind his macabre battle-helm.
Dak'ir nodded to the bulky Salamander, who returned the gesture.
'Well then?' Tsu'gan pressed, focused on the Marine Malevolent sergeant. 'Where is he?'
Lorkar stalked forwards, the ring of armour parting to let him through as he unhitched an item from his belt and came face-to-face with Tsu'gan. Going to his fellow brother-sergeant's side at once, Dak'ir noticed Pyriel making a similar move as Lorkar whispered:
'As you wish…'
Brace yourselves!
II
Purgatory
It was the last thing Dak'ir heard as the cryo-vault disappeared in a brilliant magnesium flash. Then came pain, so raw and invasive it was as if his organs were twisting inside out, as if the very molecular structure of his being was breaking down in a nanosecond, atom by atom, reforming and disintegrating again a moment later. Sulphur and cordite wreathed his nostrils, so overwhelming he couldn't breathe. The acrid taste of copper filled his mouth as all notions of time and existence bled away into a soup of primal instinct, like being born. The tangible gave way to the ethereal as all meaning fled from his senses.
