Shas'o

by Various

  ‘It?’ I asked. ‘You mean the invaders?’

  ‘No…’ For the first time she sounded troubled. ‘No, I think this was something else.’

  We found the first corpse in the communications room, propped up against the vox-console. Shrouded in heavy crimson robes, the mummified cadaver looked more machine than man. Its face was an angular bronze mask studded with sensors, seemingly riveted to the skull. A pistol was clutched in a bionic claw, the barrel shoved through the broken grille of its mouth. Its cranium had ruptured into a crown of splintered bones and circuitry.

  ‘He shot himself before the intruders reached him,’ Jhi’kaara judged.

  ‘Or because they reached him too late,’ I offered uncertainly. She glanced at me, waiting as I tested the intuition. ‘He’s the only one we’ve found. Perhaps that makes him different.’

  ‘He was certainly different,’ Xanti said eagerly. ‘Judging by his extensive bionics he was a Mechanicus priest, probably an important one. Unlike ourselves, the data techs of the Imperium aspire to become one with their machines.’

  The autaku’s passion surprised me. Abruptly, I realised how little I knew about my companions. We had travelled so far together yet we were still strangers. Was it our castes that divided us, or merely our personal flaws? Uneasily, I put the question aside and concentrated on the facts.

  ‘Perhaps he summoned the invaders,’ I suggested.

  Jhi’kaara considered it. ‘Perhaps he did, waterkin.’

  And perhaps I am not the fool you took me for, I thought.

  The elevator to the lower levels had been demolished and the hatch to the stairwell was welded shut from within, but that was no obstacle to our plasma cutters. Beyond, a metal staircase wound down into darkness.

  Jhi’kaara’s gun drone led the way, levitating down the stairwell as we followed on the spiralling steps, its searchlight diving ahead into the abyss below. As we descended, the walls became brittle and powdery, sucked dry by silvery seams of fungus. In places the filth had erupted into cancerous fruiting bodies, but they were all desiccated husks, seemingly petrified in the moment of blossoming. The stench was dreadful and I kept my filtrator firmly in place. Mutekh and Xanti soon followed suit, but the janissaries suffered stoically, unwilling to show weakness before Jhi’kaara.

  They are like dogs trying to impress their master, I thought.

  At regular intervals we passed access hatches to other levels, and I realised the bulk of the outpost lay beneath the ground, like a buried mountain riddled with tunnels and caves. Some hatches were sealed, other gaped open, but we ignored them all. Exploring the entire complex would take days and none of us cared to linger here. Instead we pressed on, drawn by a collective sense that the answers we sought lay below. But when the drone’s light finally found the bottom of the stairwell we froze.

  ‘Emperor protect us!’ one of the janissaries gasped, but nobody reprimanded him for his atavism.

  Our path terminated in a charnel pit. Dozens of cadavers were piled up below, mangled and contorted by violent death. The walls around them were pitted with deep craters, suggesting heavy gunfire, but it was impossible tell whether it was bullets or chainswords that had cleansed these dead.

  Cleansed. It is another term that sits uneasily with the Tau’va, yet it is the right term, for these creatures were unclean. Despite their wounds and decades of decay, it was obvious they were only superficially gue’la. Their withered flesh was stretched taut across misshapen bones, thickening to gnarled plates at the ribs and shoulder blades. Many had double-jointed legs and scythe-like appendages jutting from their wrists. Their faces were atrophied relics in elongated, almost bestial skulls, the jaws distended by hardened, stinger-tipped tongues. Some still wore shreds of clothing, but most were naked.

  They shed their clothes like redundant skins when the change came over them...

  ‘We should go back,’ I said with utter conviction. For once I suspected the janissaries were with me, but to my surprise they weren’t the only ones.

  ‘Asharil is right,’ Jhi’kaara said. ‘This tomb is best left buried.’

  Mutekh hesitated. He was as repulsed as the rest of us, but leaving a mystery unsolved was anathema to him.

  ‘Unacceptable,’ the cartographer declared. ‘It is our duty to assess, quantify and record this anomaly. The Greater Good demands courage. Has yours failed you, fire warrior?’

  Jhi’kaara stiffened. The tension passed through the janissaries in a sympathetic wave and I saw their weapons twitch reflexively towards the cartographer. Even Xanti noticed it, looking back and forth between the opponents with a confused expression that was almost comical. Only Mutekh seemed oblivious to his own peril.

  ‘I will continue alone,’ he pushed, ‘if you are afraid…’

  I thought she would kill him then. I tried to intervene, to rise to my calling and smooth over the discord, but the words slipped away before I could marshal them. Instead, Jhi’kaara found a reserve of discipline I had not credited her with.

  ‘Fire always walks at the fore,’ she said. Without another word she stepped down amongst the corpses. And sealed our fate.

  We followed the intruders’ trail of devastation through a maze of laboratories and workshops that soon became unrecognisable. The fungal veins riddling the walls had grown ripe here, erupting into groping, ropey strands like calcified viscera. Before it froze, the stuff had entwined itself about everything, melting the rigid Imperial architecture into soft organic shapes.

  We are crawling through a diseased corpse, I thought, but what if it’s not dead, just forever dying? I fought to suppress the absurd notion, grasping for the clarity of the Tau’va, but in this cesspit it seemed a flickering, false hope.

  The blighted dead were everywhere, snarled up in the weave where they had fallen. Shredded, pulverised or charred, they had died in droves as they swarmed against the incursion, and I found myself wondering at the lethality of their slayers. What kind of creature could carve a swathe through such horrors?

  We found the answer in a ravaged infirmary where the invaders had suffered their first casualty. The fallen warrior was almost buried beneath a mound of mutants, but there was no mistaking his stature. Alive, he would have been almost twice my height and countless times my weight. Could it really be?

  ‘Space Marines,’ Jhi’kaara said with something like reverence. ‘And where there is one, there will be others.’

  My breath caught as she confirmed my suspicion. I had studied accounts and pictures of the Imperium’s elite warriors, but they had seemed a distant, almost mythical peril. They were the stuff of nightmares, bio-engineered giants bred to be utterly merciless in the service of their dead Emperor. It was rumoured that a hundred of these monsters could conquer a world.

  ‘What were they doing here?’ I wondered, staring at the dead Space Marine in fascination. A helmet with a sharp, almost avian snout hid his features, but I could imagine the face beneath: it would be pugnacious and broad, with skin like toughened leather and a fretwork of scars and tattoos – a face not merely honed by war, but rebuilt for it.

  Jhi’kaara gestured to the janissaries and they heaved the mutants aside, exhuming the warrior’s void-black power armour. Peculiarly, his left arm looked as if it were cast in silver, its shoulder pad carved into a stylised ‘I’ sigil inset with a skull. More incongruous still was the bright yellow of the opposite pauldron. For all his ferocity, this warrior’s grasp of aesthetics had been woeful.

  ‘I recognise this heraldry.’ Jhi’kaara tapped the angular fist inscribed on the yellow pad. ‘The Imperial Fists are old foes of the Tau Empire, but this…’ She indicated the silver pad. ‘This I have not seen before. And the Imperial Fists wear yellow armour, not black.’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, ‘this second symbol… Isn’t it like the one we found at the entrance?’

  ‘It is similar,’ Mutekh
said, peering at the device, ‘but the inset skull is a significant deviation. There may be a connection, but careless assumptions are dangerous...’

  ‘Does it matter?’ Xanti asked. ‘The gue’la fanatics are all insane. Nothing they do makes sense.’

  ‘Know your enemy as you would know yourself,’ Jhi’kaara said, doubtless quoting some fire caste credo. ‘There is a mystery here.’

  There was certainly no mystery about the Space Marine’s death: his breastplate had been cracked open like a shell and one of the mutants had virtually crawled inside his chest as it disembowelled him.

  ‘The Imperium sent its finest warriors to purge this crisis,’ Jhi’kaara murmured thoughtfully.

  ‘All the more reason for us to leave,’ I insisted.

  ‘No, we cannot.’ She stepped away from the dead giant. ‘Space Marines do not leave their fallen behind.’

  ‘I don’t see the relevance…’

  ‘Do you not? Think, waterkin.’

  ‘I…’ The realisation struck me like ice water. ‘You believe they failed.’

  ‘Whatever happened here…’ she said, sweeping a hand over the mutated horde, ‘we must be certain it is over.’

  The trail ended at the uppermost tier of a subterranean amphi­theatre. Our torches struggled to make sense of the vast space, picking out details but unable to capture the whole, leaving me with the impression of a gargantuan hive woven from grey strands. Hunched in a depression at the centre of the chamber was a pale mound. Thick cords of fungus sprouted from its base, multiplying and tapering as they spread out to insinuate themselves into every surface.

  As we descended, it became apparent the mutants had made their last stand here, throwing themselves between the invaders and the heart of their hive, but one by one the Space Marines had also fallen. The first lay two tiers down, still gripping his chainsword though his head was missing. Like his comrade he wore black and silver power armour, but his right pauldron was completely different.

  ‘A White Scar,’ said Jhi’kaara, pointing out the crimson flash on the white pad. ‘They fought honourably on Dal’yth.’

  ‘There were Space Marines on Dal’yth?’ I was appalled by the idea of the Imperium penetrating so deep into tau space.

  ‘They almost took Dal’yth, waterkin.’ She chuckled dryly. ‘Among your caste some truths are left unspoken lest they wither your faint hearts.’ Despite her words there was no malice in her voice. We had achieved an understanding of sorts, she and I. Of more concern was the possibility that my own caste had lied to me. Was that really possible? Remembering the ancient manipulator O’Seishin, I found little comfort.

  As we continued our descent Jhi’kaara paused beside each of the fallen Space Marines and examined his insignia solemnly: a blue raptor against white… A white buzz saw against black… She recognised neither of them, but she paid her respects regardless, for each had died hideously and heroically, surrounded by sundered enemies.

  ‘Why would they bear different cadre badges?’ I said, seeing how the riddle of their mismatched fraternity troubled her.

  ‘Cha’ptah badges,’ she corrected. ‘Space Marines call their factions Cha’ptahs.’ I frowned at her awkward pronunciation of the gue’la word ‘Chapter’. ‘And to answer your question, waterkin: I do not know. This co-fraternity contradicts everything I was taught about their kind. Space Marines adhere rigidly to their own clans.’

  ‘Perhaps they were forced to fight together,’ I suggested. ‘Maybe it was a penitence for some transgression. Or an honour.’

  Neither theory was reassuring, especially since the dead mutants were growing more fearsome. Some bore no resemblance to the gue’la at all, looking more like the spawn of an entirely different, utterly aberrant race. A few actually dwarfed the Space Marines, their bulk covered in spiny exoskeletal plates that looked strong enough to withstand a pulse-round. All were mottled with a fur of silver-grey mould, but it was impossible to tell whether the fungus had grown upon them or from within them.

  Abruptly Jhi’kaara stopped, gazing at one of the larger beasts. ‘I know what they are,’ she said quietly.

  ‘They are mutants,’ Mutekh declared, ‘evidently the product of some ill-conceived Imperial dabbling…’

  ‘They are Yhe’mokushi, beasts of the Silent Hunger,’ Jhi’kaara said. The reference meant nothing to me and the others looked equally mystified. She nodded, unsurprised. ‘A predatory species the Tau Empire has only recently encountered. These differ from the bioforms depicted in our orientation sessions, but diversity is in their nature. They are living weapons that can steal form as well as substance, becoming whatever suits their purpose.’

  ‘And they are hostile to the Tau Empire?’ Xanti asked uneasily.

  ‘They are hostile to all life save their own. Like locusts they exist only to consume and multiply, leaving nothing but dust and shadows in their wake. It is said the Imperium has suffered greatly from their depredations.’

  We were silent. Here was another ugly truth hidden in the name of the Greater Good. Over the last few months my certainties had eroded away, revealing deception, obsession and horror. What else had been kept from me?

  Down… further down… More dead Space Marines… First a golden beast’s head set against midnight blue, then another raptor, this one red against white.

  ‘You respect these warriors,’ I said, watching Jhi’kaara carefully.

  ‘I respect their strength, Asharil.’

  But I sensed her admiration ran deeper. Jhi’kaara was an outsider amongst her own kind, closer to Fi’draah’s wilderness than the wisdom of the Tau’va. She was drawn to these warriors for their brotherhood as much as their strength.

  By the time we reached the lowest tier we had found eight Space Marines. The last had succumbed at the periphery of his objective, his armour pierced in a dozen places by scything claws. Bizarrely he was still standing, his body wedged on its feet by the mass of corpses pressed against it. Even amongst his brothers he was a giant, but there were other differences. While the rest had painted their left arms silver, both his arms were silver – or more likely some stronger metal. Each was an angular augmetic, one terminating in a slab-like fist, the other in an intricate claw whose purpose was probably manipulation rather than combat. His personal heraldry was black, its symbol a stylised white gauntlet.

  ‘Iron Hand,’ Jhi’kaara declared. ‘Another old enemy.’

  ‘These would appear to be specimen containment units,’ Mutekh said, pointing out a pair of toppled glass cylinders that looked big enough to hold the largest abominations. Ropes of fungus were wrapped around them, squeezed so tight the reinforced glass had fractured.

  ‘The fools brought the Silent Hunger to Fi’draah,’ Jhi’kaara hissed. I was surprised by the fury in her voice. She sounded like her own world had been threatened.

  ‘So this place was some kind of prison?’ Xanti asked.

  ‘Not a prison,’ Mutekh said as he followed the web of pipes running from the cylinders to a corroded bank of consoles. ‘Remember the laboratories we passed through? No, this is a research facility. The Imperials were experimenting on these creatures. Perhaps they were seeking a means of communication…’

  ‘The Imperium does not seek communion with its enemies,’ Jhi’kaara said. ‘They were looking for a weapon.’

  ‘But why here?’ Xanti wondered. ‘Is it just a coincidence they came to Fi’draah?’

  ‘Many of the indigenous fungi are lethal,’ Mutekh speculated. ‘Perhaps they were attempting to synthesize a pathogen.’

  ‘Then they failed,’ Jhi’kaara said flatly.

  ‘We do not know that,’ Mutekh protested. ‘The techniques of the gue’la are riddled with superstition, but…’

  ‘The Yhe’mokushi strain was too strong,’ I said, surprised by my own conviction. ‘When the Imperials infected it… it devoured the fungus
…’

  Intuition, I realised. I am neither entirely a creature of reason nor instinct, but something subtler than either.

  ‘It became the fungus,’ I finished. ‘And then the fungus devoured them.’

  My comrades stared at me, then their eyes wandered to the infested expanse around us. Jhi’kaara broke the silence: ‘Search the Space Marines,’ she ordered the janissaries. ‘Gather their grenades.’

  ‘What is your intent, fire warrior?’ Mutekh demanded.

  ‘We will complete our enemy’s mission.’ She indicated the monolithic puffball. ‘Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is the greater enemy.’

  ‘You will do no such thing!’ Mutekh was appalled. ‘We must ascertain what the Imperials discovered here.’ He looked to Xanti for support, but the young data tech avoided his gaze. ‘Autaku!’

  ‘I am sorry, fio’vre,’ his assistant muttered unhappily, ‘but whatever the Imperials found here… it did them no good.’

  ‘I will search this one,’ I said, heading for the nearest Space Marine.

  ‘I trust you know what a grenade looks like, waterkin?’ Jhi’kaara mocked gently. Then she was gone, heading for the upper tiers.

  ‘Cowards,’ Mutekh called after us. ‘You are all betraying the Greater Good.’

  No, we are serving the Greater Good, I thought fiercely. Even if some of us have come to doubt it.

  Biting down my disgust I dragged a corpse away from my chosen warrior, intent on reaching his utility belt. That was when I noticed the hum. It was faint, but its source was unmistakable: this Space Marine’s armour was still powered. Unsettled, I peered up at his archaic helmet. A flat visor covered the right side of his face, but the left was a tangle of bionics clustered around a jutting optical sensor. Up close he seemed more machine than man.

  Iron Hand, Jhi’kaara had called this one…

  ‘Fio’vre, wait!’ The voice was Xanti’s, its urgency irresistible. I glanced round and saw Mutekh standing beside the puffball, a laser scalpel in one hand and a sample container in the other.