by Various
'Contact! Contact!'
Threat indicators in my helm go wild. Seven of our traitorous kin are moving to engage.
I hold my shield in front of me and brace. Boltrounds burn at us, their propellant loads bright in the vacuum. They rattle across our front like hail, the noise of their impact and detonation conveyed to my ears through the metal. Their combined impetus threatens to knock us over. Osk'mani stumbles. I move my breaching shield to cover him a fraction, saving him from the next volley. The rounds batter against the plasteel. He offers no thanks as he rights himself.
Brothersinarms do not need thanks.
We return fire. The Alpha Legionnaires of the XX are arranged loosely, and we pick them off with concentrated fire.
Only one of ours falls. A good exchange.
Our formation tightens again, and we are at the door. It is plain plasteel, a modular design common across the Imperium. It is set at an angle into the ground. In less terrible times, I have visited many such places but I never thought that I would have to fight my way into one.
Chosen Vra'kesh pushes his way forward. Bolts spark from his heavy armour. They veer into space; some become embed and explode in the ground, others are caught and detonated by the energy field of his small shield. He has maglocked his power maul to his thigh, and in his other hand he hefts a melta bomb. He marches through a storm of bullets and slams it hard at the join in the centre of the doors. The rest of us form a semicircle around him as he sets the charge.
Battle rages across the surface of the planetoid. The Iron Hands fall upon the Alpha Legion with terrible savagery.
They ever were furious in battle, and the death of their primarch has made them more so. But where once the Iron Hands would have marched in step with us, their allies, now they run ahead, as careless as Angron's World Eaters.
I realise for all their grimness and rigid comportment, their Legion has changed. They fight here as if they do not care for their own losses, so long as they kill the enemy. Their lives have become meaningless. Their attack began in unity, but their vanguard is soon fragmented. They assault singly or in small groups. I see a wildness in them. They barely keep themselves in formation, and fight with unrestrained violence.
A lightning flash of an explosion comes from the torus of the station, and a docking array floats away as if gently nudged. Shortlived fire spews into space. Two tenders decouple violently, trailing strands of metal. Bodies shoot from the gaps unarmoured, human crew. Particulate matter wreaths them in shining clouds.
Boltrounds streak across the airless battlefield. All I hear is brought to me by vox, but my augmented hearing and my suit systems work hard to damp it down. The cacophony of battle is more disorienting when delivered secondhand.
The bulk of the traitor force is on the surface. Many wear void harnesses, or Anvilus power packs with spread venting arms, directing the outgassing of their cooling coils through their stabilisation jets to manoeuvre. This gives them an advantage in agility, but we have the advantage of fury. The Iron Hands fight with the strength of the insane.
'Clear!' shouts Vra'kesh.
We admit him into our shield circle and withdraw. The fusion bomb glows whitehot. A large part of the door follows suit, collapsing inward like melted plastek. The charge gives out, the metal cooling slowly. Space is cold, but with no medium to carry the heat all must be lost via direct radiation.
Venting air rushes from the breach. A spray of blood and matter as someone is sucked through the toosmall hole. Bolts streak outwards after it. We cover ourselves with our shields as Tu'vash and Juphat move up to force the doors wide with spreading claws. Displaced items and screaming Legion thralls are sucked into the vacuum's silence, bouncing from our shields. They wheel away to join the cloud of debris growing about the station.
Then we are inside.
The station has white corridors, brightly lit by lumen panels in the roof. Colour coded banding designates the sector. Here it is red.
Gravity plating gives an approximation of Terran norm. We do not rely on it, and engage our boot maglocks in preparation for its failure. Sure enough, it is deliberately disengaged by the enemy the moment we are through and into the complex.
The inner voidlock has not been sealed. There are five Alpha Legionnaires within. We can advance only three abreast, so cannot easily bring our numbers to bear. They back away from us, firing as they go.
It is a stately assault. We proceed in slow formation behind our shields, leaning into the decompression winds.
The traitors retreat to match our pace. We pass humans gripping onto emergency grabbars, struggling against the gale. Their eyes are wide with fear and their faces purple. I wonder if they understand what they do. Do they follow the Alpha Legion through loyalty or through fear? Do they even know what is happening at all? Not all of them could have the black hearts of traitors, surely? These thoughts came to mind during the Crusade from time to time, but I put them aside as we cleansed one noncompliant world after another. They seem more pressing now. The unwitting humans might be saved from themselves, if they knew the truth of this war.
These questions do not trouble our Iron Hands kinsmen. They pour in through the breached doors behind us and slaughter everyone they come across.
The wind drops. This section has breathed its last.
Two of the remaining enemy legionaries break for a side corridor, covered by the last of them. One ducks back, his bolts punching holes in our breaching shields. They may be traitors, but they are still Space Marines and their combat discipline is impressive.
My suit systems find something of interest in the vox chatter and present it to me. Voices from both sides jabber away in our helms. The station has been breached in several areas.
'Proceed to the main objective! Let the Iron Hands finish clearing this area,' orders Vra'kesh. 'Secure the astropathic relay.'Resistance is light. We pick up the pace. We pass through an unlocked door into an area with thin residual atmosphere. The difference is mostly aural. Sounds are carried by more than just the vox here.
'This way,' says Vra'kesh, pointing with his power maul.
The corridor opens out. We enter an armourglass dome looking out into the void. The relay post is visible through the curved roof. The Emperor's eagle finials on the relay have been beheaded, and baleful red lights shine from its windows. Burning ships and wreckage tangles frame it.
There, at the double doors that lead to the access spur, Iron Hands fight with Alpha Legionnaires. Iron Hands who were not of our assault group.
'To their aid, brothers!' Vra'kesh orders.
We break into a run, shouting out the newlyminted battlecry of our Legion.
'Vulkan lives!'
Shoulder to shoulder with the Iron Hands, we slaughter the enemy. There are seven of them, bearing the sigils of Clan Atraxii. Standing amongst the dead, their armour is battered. They are the ones, then, who brought word of the installation to us. Two of them turn away and walk through the door leading to the relay without a word.
Their leader steps before us. 'Thank you for your assistance,' he says, earnestly.
And then the rest of them turn their guns upon us.
Brother Kraydo goes down, his helmet hollowed out by a bolt. Juphor falls, hands failing to stop the crimson gushing from his ruined gorget. Once, we would have reacted to such an attack with shock and disorientation.
No longer. We have become inured to treachery.
We are close in. We grapple. There are more of us than them, and we are tired of betrayal. Vra'kesh proves the leveller. His power maul swipes wide, caving in the breastplate of one. A flaring of his shield's power field halts the downward arc of a chainsword, and another of their number dies.
I wrestle with my opponent. Our guns are gone. I pin his right arm, and he kicks my legs out from under me and we both fall, he on top of me.
Through his red helm lenses, I see a fervid glee in his eyes. He grips at my shoulder guard and shakes it hard. 'I am the Alpha and the Omega, you fool,' he g
rowls. 'And we are not your enemy.'
I see the krak grenade in his hand just in time. Twisting, I throw him hard enough to send him into the armourglass beyond. The detonation obliterates his left arm and the window.
The corpse is sucked outwards by the explosive decompression. I follow, but E'nesh grabs my arm. He is maglocked to the floor and holds me easily. Klaxons blare and blast shielding clangs shut over the shattered window pane.
The gale drops with it.
The false Iron Hands are all dead. But they have achieved their apparent goal.
At the end of its slender white bridge, the astropathic relay goes down in flames.
Vra'kesh is stunned by the sight, his power maul sinking to the floor.
'I do not understand,' says Brother Ki'shen.
'Infiltrators,' says Da'eev. He kicks one of the corpses. The rest appear to be wearing actual Iron Hands plate, but not this one. The paint is new. Revealed by scratches, Alpha Legion blue shines.
'But why pose as Iron Hands to get us to attack their own outpost?' asks E'nesh incredulously.
'Perhaps ours are not the only shattered Legions, brother,' mutters Ki'shen.
Vra'kesh shakes his head. 'If they were loyal, why then turn their guns on us? It makes no sense.'
'He said something to Brother Donak,' says Da'eev. 'What?'
'I did not hear, brother,' said Ki'shen.
The others reply similarly.
'What did he say?' Vra'kesh demands of me.
I do not reply. The Firedrake marches up to me. In his Terminator plate, he is taller and far more imposing.
'What. Did. He. Say?' he asks again.
But I cannot say, and so the truth of it remains unspoken.
For now at least.
AFTER MORE DELAY, I settle to finish painting my second pauldron. Once this is done, then my armour will be compliant with my Legion's heraldic code. It is an important moment. Clad in this battleplate, I will be the Donak of old on the outside. But I fear that I will never be the same within, and so do not stop in reverence or contemplation.
I key the brush on. The pistons of the pump chirr quietly. Spray mists the air.
Within a few seconds, the pauldron is a glossy Salamandergreen, as it should be. I feel something within me a budding optimism, perhaps? I key the paint to a yellow, wait for the brush nozzle to clean itself, then begin to rough in the stencilled outlines of flames along the bottom edge.
This takes me a quarter of an hour. I am lost in my work.
When I am done, I stop. I should add the great emblem now. The drake's head.
I pause. Something is not quite right.
I set the paintbrush down and take up my combat knife from the table. Gripping the pauldron as hard as I can, I dig into the metal with the tip of my blade. The paint scratches, but I must go deeper, I must mark the metal as I have been marked. The blade squeals on the ceramite skin covering the plasteel beneath. The metal is strong, but I am stronger. I clench my teeth as I force the point into the otherwise flawless metal, ruining what only minutes ago I had set to rights.
The ceramite curls beneath the blade. Millimetre by millimetre I etch the salamander's head into the metal directly. Of course, I could use my engraving tools and have the emblem done in minutes, but that is not the point.
The struggle is the point.
'Brother, what are you doing?'
I turn, Osk'Mani is behind me with E'nesh. They appear troubled that I am vandalising my wargear, but I ignore them and turn back to my work. I am nearly finished. I do not care if they do not understand. They must also do this.
The last scruff of metal drops away. I hold up the pauldron. The emblem is sound, albeit rough. The hard scratches of it catch the light, making it appear to move.
It is what Jo'phor would do, I want to say. On Isstvan, he carved salamander heads such as this into the armour of our enemy, to make them aware that thoste faithful to the Emperor still lived, and would bring vengeance for their treachery. I do it to honour him, and to remember our cause. Jo'phor was right. We stand now in numbers, and together we might conclude what we began on Isstvan V.
It is a fitting tribute, and the renewal of a promise to pursue vengeance.
But I cannot speak. Not yet.
I look at my brothers, imploring them to understand. E'nesh nods and rests a hand upon my shoulder.
'Vulkan lives,' he whispers.
I nod. Whether it is true or not, we shall endure.
I turn back to my work.
I have blunted my knife. I must sharpen it again.
THE EITHER
GRAHAM MCNEILL
I
SHIPBOARD HOROLOGS SHOWED that three years had passed since the infamy of Isstvan. It felt longer. Much longer.
Three bloody years hunting the mewling scraps of Legions culled on the black sands. A duty he hadn't relished, even as he recognised its necessity.
Three years the XVI Legion spent earning glory without him, fighting at the forefront of this newbirthed war.
That hurt. That hurt a lot.
But he was nothing if not a true son, and he knew the value of obeying orders. So much time apart from his brothers and Lupercal was akin to a hot blade cutting pieces of his soul away.
Leaving a void like the one gouged by Verulam Moy's death.
Was this what the warriors of the X Legion felt, knowing their genesire was dead? Hollowed out and empty. In need of fresh purpose to fill that void? Was that what drove them to keep fighting in the face of certain extinction?
A yearning for purpose when there was no purpose?
He had described his feelings to a fleshspare warrior of the Iron Hands they'd captured a year ago in the airless hulk of the last remaining Momed voidhive.
His name was Tharbis of Clan Felg, but that was about all he ever told them. Interrogating one of the Legiones Astartes through pain was an exercise in futility. Doubly so with an Iron Hand.
Instead, he sought to break Tharbis with words of Ferrus Manus.
'I saw your genesire die on Isstvan,' he would say on one of his frequent visits to his captive's cell. 'I watched the Phoenician weep as he clove his brother primarch's head from his shoulders. And do you know what else I saw as he fell?
I saw the fight wither in the Iron Hands still standing. They simply gave up. One by one, they laid down their weapons and were slaughtered like swine. All so they might die next to their father. Quite noble in its own way.'
All inventions, of course he had seen nothing but dying Salamanders on Isstvan but they cut Tharbis deeply. Over and over he sought to break his captive with hopelessness and despair, yet even to his last, metallic, oilrich breath, Tharbis had defied him.
The last word to pass his lips had been a curse and a threat all in one. A name, he had since come to learn.
Shadrak Meduson.
He had laughed as Tharbis died, leaning close so that the last thing the warrior would hear would finally crush him.
'Haven't you heard?' said Tybalt Marr. 'I've already killed Shadrak Meduson.'
THE SKIES OVER Dwell burned hot. Reentry cones painted it in fire. Tybalt Marr was bringing his ships and his warriors back to the Warmaster. They'd translated insystem seven days ago and made all speed for the fifth planet. Only the ruins of the ship schools, battery plates and drifting siegehulks locked in everdecreasing orbits forced them to exercise more caution in their approach.
The Sea of Enna shone like an elliptical mirror of brass, reflecting the low sun and the skyborn atomic fires. It reminded Marr of the great amber eye at the centre of Lupercal's breastplate.
He guided the Stormbird lower, circling the haphazard collection of dwellings that made up the city of Tyjun, a disordered collection of eclectic structural forms filling a shallow rift valley like the leavings of a tsunami.
Only a vast ochre necropolis atop an overlooking plateau presented any unity of form. He'd learned it was known as the Mausolytic, and that it predated the Imperium by millennia.
Fitting that this reunion would be held in the shadow of a house of the dead.
Marr overflew its blocky immensity, keeping the proud nose of the Stormbird high. A flyby to honour Lupercal and to announce the triumphant return of one of his true sons. Wasteful not to simply land, yes, but he and his warriors had earned the right to preen a little.
A dangerous warleader was dead by their hand, his host broken. That was worth a little grandstanding.
Ten Stormbirds flew in formation with Marr's craft, roaring overhead with a legacy of victory carved into their entryhot flanks. Marr made one more circle before finally issuing the order to land. Coming in from the north, the septentrional aspect he had always favoured, he transitioned his gunship to vertical flight.
He brought the heavy craft down hard, a war landing.
Leaving the postlanding checks and protocols to a Legion thrallservitor, Marr decoupled from the controls and made his way back through the crew bays.
Kysen Scybale already had the squads on their feet. Scybale was a sergeant, Cthonian to the core. Old guard, but with sense enough to move with the times. A man of his experience should have been made captain by now, but Scybale knew where he fitted best.
One look into his flinty grey eyes, lit from within by Cthonia's dark fire, and even captains found themselves taking an unaccounted step back.
Marr's chosen warriors formed up, eager to rejoin the Legion. Scybale stood at Marr's right hand, Cyon Azedine on his left. The Company Champion's hand never strayed from the leatherwound grip of his mortuary sword, its baskethilt reworked to bear the death mask of the Iron Hand who had borne it before him.
'Don't we all make a pretty picture?' asked Scybale.
Marr grinned and gave the sergeant a nod, locking his transversecrested helm into the crook of his arm as the forward assault ramp lowered with a squeal of pneumatics.
Russet light poured in on a gust of air, hot with propellant from the Stormbird's exhausts.
Marr tasted Dwell.
Dry, spiced atmosphere. Saltrich wind from the sea and a low range of stillsmouldering heavy metals. A lingering taste of acrid preservatives.
He marched down the ramp, his stride sure and confident, purposeful in a way it hadn't been for a long time. He emerged from the shadow of the Stormbird onto a newlyconstructed apron of scorched plascrete at the edge of the plateau. Gunships squatted like scaled raptors in hot clouds of vapour to either side.
