by L J Goulding
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The Shadow of the Beast – L J Goulding
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The Shadow of the Beast
L J Goulding
It had become habit, Hornindal realised, to stand before the great lancet ports of the observation deck and measure his breathing against the urgent thrum of the ship’s engines. The adamantium null screens were locked firmly in place, so he could see nothing of the void beyond. Moreover, his eyes were closed.
He gripped the forward rail with both hands, his boots planted squarely on the deck beneath him. Tension gritted his teeth and made a taut rod of his spine.
Habit. Nothing more. It served no purpose.
Even had he been able to see beyond the crystalflex ports, it was unlikely that the sight would have satisfied his desire – nay, his demand – for haste. Warp space was tricky and dangerous stuff, and rarely gave any sense of real forward momentum; depending on the prevailing currents, it might seem to him as though the Xenophon were utterly becalmed. Or worse still; travelling sideways, or in reverse.
Immortal and beneficent Emperor, grant us speed enough to answer this call.
Hornindal wanted to feel the wind upon his scalp, the crush of inertia pulling him back as they hurtled onwards. He wanted the reassurance that they were making the best possible speed. He wanted to see it with his own eyes.
And since he could not, he stood alone on the shielded observation deck and imagined all of these things. He needed that distraction. He had not slept in a long time.
He knew that it was only right and proper that he be burdened so; Hornindal stood apart, both philosophically and oft-times literally. He was the bedrock of his brethren; the presence of the Emperor’s guiding light made flesh. He was the example to which they all might aspire. He would not, therefore, demonstrate feelings of doubt or uncertainty, nor give voice to any such concerns. They would arrive in time. Of course they would arrive in time, by His grace.
We are His sword, we are His shield. His benevolence. His wrath.
The vox-bead hung loosely from Hornindal’s ear – though he knew that the Chapter serfs of the small crew were among the best in the fleet, he could no longer listen to the comm-traffic. They worked diligently, burning the ship’s reactor white hot in their attempts to coax more speed from the engines, yet to his transhuman ears their mortal prattling made them sound… inefficient. Amateur. Unworthy of the duty that might soon fall to them, if his most dire projections were proven to be accurate.
It had been almost a year since Captain Theodosios had taken the Fifth Company out onto the periphery – astropathic reports of unrest and civil disobedience to the galactic south-east had prompted their noble Chapter Master Thorcyra to make a show of force, hoping to restore order before it could grow into any real rebellion. But as the weeks turned into months and more desperate calls began to come from across the sector, Thorcyra himself had taken his honour guard and the First and Second Companies into the north, towards the stricken worlds of the Saphir Cluster.
It was as though the Eastern Fringe was erupting into madness, and to those who had witnessed such things before, it was a grim portent indeed. When the final, garbled communication was received from Theodosios and the Fifth, a general recall was issued to the entire Chapter spread throughout the Ultima Segmentum.
‘Sons of Sotha, return home with all haste.’
The entire Chapter. Every last battle-brother, every last serf and retainer.
Not lightly would they be summoned back. Not lightly would Chapter Master Thorcyra have his warriors abandon the myriad crusades and conflicts to which they had been set. As Reclusiarch, Hornindal had been engaged in the liberation of the reliquary world of Egottha, and in his fiery rhetoric he had sworn that this was the gravest duty to which the Scythes of the Emperor could be called. Would Thorcyra now make a liar of him?
It was true that the enemies of the Imperium were many, and strong, and while he and his brothers had nev–
A tremor ran the length of the Xenophon’s hull, and Hornindal’s eyes snapped open. He felt a slight rise in the note of the engines.
The lumen strips on the observation deck flickered and went out, followed by another tremor. With a series of creaking judders, the ship began to list to starboard – the drunken roll of a rudderless wetland skiff.
Without thinking, he replaced the vox-bead in his ear.
‘Shipmaster Kaeron, report immediately.’
No response. Only a cacophony of frantic exchanges. Warning chimes. Tinny, distorted screams.
The Navigator. The Navigator was dead.
An almighty bass rumble shook the deck, echoing through the tortured superstructure, and klaxons blared. The heavy doors ground shut, sealing the chamber and the various other compartments of the ship, and Hornindal felt a familiar electric pressure in the base of his skull as the crew made an emergency jump back into realspace.
He gasped, sensing the unclean touch of the warp as it slithered away from his mind and off into the ether, before being almost pitched from his feet by the ship’s sudden deceleration. Natural laws reasserted themselves, though it took him only a moment to recover, and he threw back the deep hood of his robe.
His vox-bead crackled.
‘Lord Reclusiarch, to the bridge!’ came the shipmaster’s voice. ‘We’re moving to evade hostile… objects.’
The twin slaved servitors at the helm chattered wordlessly as they made correction after correction, binaric cant tumbling from their withered lips and only occasionally slurred by ropes of drool. Since they were almost completely immobile in their wired thrones, their increased vocalisation was the only way to gauge the speed of their actions and reactions. For all their vacant, slack-jawed appearances, their internal systems were processing the manoeuvres at incredible rates.
The howl of proximity alarms was deafening in the enclosed space. As the null screens slowly retracted, Kaeron bellowed his orders to a crew that were trying hard not to be transfixed by the horror blooming in the darkness before them.
‘Take us between them! Hard to port, hard to port!’
Behind the command dais, Sub-lieutenant Goss stood bathed in the ruddy glow of the bridge’s emergency lighting, a data-slate gripped tightly under his arm and his mouth agape.
‘Holy Terra,’ he muttered. ‘What are they?’
The shipmaster whirled around to face him.
‘Deck officer. Return to your post immediately,’ he barked over the din.
Another minor impact reverberated through the lower decks, and Goss snapped back to attention. He thrust the data-slate at Kaeron and reached for the edge of his tactical console, hauling himself through the ship’s weakened gravity.
‘Someone call up the system charts. I need local cartography, right now.’
The main bulkhead to the bridge opened with a swirl of equalising pressure, and Goss saw the robed giant Demetrios stride through. The Chaplain made straight for the central dais, but stared all the while out through the armoured viewports before the helm. His eyes were wide and unblinking.
Not in alarm, but in pure, unbridled hatred.
Where Goss and the rest of the bridge crew might be gripped by fear, this mighty hero of the Chapter was filled with a righteous indignation. It was clear enough in his fiery glare and the grim set of his jaw – what right did these monstrosities have to exist in the Emperor’s own universe, let alone to present a direct threat to a ship of the Adeptus Astartes?
As the stars wheeled beyond the frontal ports, the thin
gs hung in the void – great organic medusae, each the size of a large hab-block and trailing sickly tendrils hundreds of metres long that grasped at the frozen nothingness. Their livid bodies were bloated and bulbous, ridged with what looked like horned chitin, and yet they each pulsated with an obscene internal rhythm. Even as Goss and the other crewmen looked on, the closest of the things convulsed spastically and swept its tendrils out in a flailing arc, which only narrowly missed the Xenophon’s bladed prow as she banked away.
The helm servitors were running at the limits of their programming merely to avoid each new collision as the things drifted closer. There were thousands of them, and precious little clear space between.
‘Void-born filth!’ Demetrios spat, gripping his rosarius tightly in one hand and pointing defiantly through the main viewport. ‘Shipmaster, ready all weapons.’
Kaeron did not take his attention from the data-slate.
‘My lord, we are too close to obtain a firing solution. I’m working on–’
‘Too close?’ the Chaplain interrupted him. He stalked around the shipmaster’s command throne, gesturing out with a broad sweep of his fist. ‘With all respect, Kaeron, we’re right on top of them! Open the voidlock and I could smite them myself.’
Kaeron held up the data-slate, though Demetrios regarded it coldly. ‘With all due respect, my lord, that is precisely why we must not open fire.’
‘Explain yourself. The Emperor’s will demands that we end these abominations.’
‘Our auspex is still clouded, but short-range scans would suggest that these constructs contain a highly volatile atmosphere within their bodies. Explosive even. If we launch torpedoes or fire the main batteries then I am confident that we could easily destroy them, but the resulting blast would tear this ship apart. Each one of them is almost as wide around as the Xenophon is amidships.’
As if to illustrate his point, the ship soared beneath another raft of tendrils which slithered and twitched over her starboard flank. The contact rang dully through the superstructure, a slew of sensor vanes breaking free of their mountings and clattering against the Xenophon’s armoured skin before they tumbled away into the darkness.
‘And so you allow these unspeakable things to caress our hull, shipmaster?’ Demetrios growled. ‘I will not tolerate this sacrilege.’
Goss glanced over the data scrolling down his console screen. His heart was pounding in his chest.
‘Master Kaeron, the objects are beginning to close in on us. It’s like they’re trying to block our–’
‘Power down the engines.’
All three of them turned to the open bulkhead portal, and Goss saw Reclusiarch Hornindal hunched down beneath the reinforced lintel. He was staring out at the bloated constructs, a look of grim acceptance on his face, almost as though he had been expecting to find just such a nightmare waiting for them.
‘Do it now. They are drawn to the heat and motion.’
Kaeron nodded, and brought the vox-hailer to his lips. ‘This is the shipmaster. Cut main thrust immediately.’ He called out to the enthroned servitors. ‘Helm, set a final escape vector. Short correctional bursts only.’
The pair halted their burbled cant and spoke in eerie mechanical unison.
‘Compliance.’
The vibration of the engines through the deck fell away to almost nothing, and Kaeron silenced the alert klaxons. The Xenophon careened onwards, seeking any gap through which they might make their escape.
Seemingly in response, one of the constructs pulsated one last time before detonating like a gigantic fleshy mine in the void. The blast hurled out cartilaginous shrapnel and slathers of bio-acid in all directions, in a kilometre-wide burst of green flame that licked hungrily at their void shields and rocked the ship from side to side.
Hornindal stepped in behind the shipmaster’s throne. Even as the Xenophon dropped in a slow spiral through the encroaching swarm, he did not let his eyes fall from the grasping, heaving things that reached out towards them as they passed.
‘Shipmaster Kaeron, bring us clear. We must send word to Sotha.’
Kaeron turned to him. ‘Of course, Lord Reclusiarch. It is…’ He paused, appearing unsure whether to speak the words aloud. ‘It is the Great Devourer, is it not?’
Demetrios rankled at the mention of the name. Hornindal merely nodded.
‘Aye. The xenos have returned. Of this alone, I am certain.’
Goss started at the sudden chime of his vox-link, and he realised that he had been holding his breath for several long moments. He listened for a moment. ‘Master Kaeron, I have a report from the sergeant-at-arms. His team cannot gain entry to the Navigator’s chambers. Her killer has likely barricaded himself inside.’
Hornindal shook his head.
‘There is no killer. None but the Navigator herself.’
Another of the giant mines detonated off to their port side, taking out three more in a rapid chain of linked explosions, but the Xenophon had slipped beyond their reach.
‘My lord? Do you mean to say that the Navigator took her own life?’
Ignoring Kaeron’s query, Hornindal placed his immense hand on Goss’s shoulder.
‘Sub-lieutenant,’ he said, grimly. ‘Have the sergeant’s team secure the choir chambers. The astropaths will also be at risk.’
‘At risk from what?’ Kaeron demanded, rising from his seat.
‘See for yourself,’ growled Demetrios, gesturing to the frontal ports.
Cries of dismay and horror spread across the bridge. Goss envied those crewmen who laboured below decks, those who would be spared the sight.
As the Xenophon approached the edge of the vast, living minefield, the kilometre-long Hunter-class destroyer was cast into the shadow of a monster – a true terror of the deep, like the leviathans of legend. It clawed at the void fore and aft with great tentacular limbs many thousands of metres in length, spines running the length of its segmented body and trailing clouds of unwholesome vapour.
‘A hive ship,’ said Hornindal. ‘I had hoped never to see another in my lifetime.’
Lesser vessels clung remora-like around the beast’s great fanged maw, clearly visible even at such immense distance. As the Xenophon’s auspex pulled clear of the minefield, thousands of smaller sensor returns chimed across the board. The space around the hive ship was alive with xenos activity.
Kaeron sank back into the command throne. ‘The void…’ he murmured. ‘It crawls.’
Straightening, Hornindal looked to Demetrios.
‘Brother-Chaplain, call the squads to arms.’
Deep within the belly of the Xenophon, more than thirty Scythes of the Emperor had been billeted for the return journey to Sotha. The Chapter dormitories were sparse and functional, as befit the ethos of the Adeptus Astartes. Each warrior was assigned only a sleeping pallet and an arming post. Their empty suits of power armour would stand silent vigil over them on the rare occasion that they entered a full sleep-state, their weapons lying clean and freshly oiled beside them. The scent of incense and lapping powder hung in the air, though it failed to mask the heady aroma of transhuman hormones and acrid sweat that followed them no matter how often they bathed.
Where the human crew filled their own bunk spaces with personal effects and Imperial devotionals, the Space Marines knelt in silent prayer upon the bare floors. Where the Chapter serfs might seek distraction, recreation or sleep during the long hours of the night watch, their masters sparred relentlessly and ate only sparingly, like the ascetics and penitents of monastic tradition.
Many months ago, they had been dispatched across the sector to Egottha, where the bones of Segas, the Chapter’s first honoured Chaplain, had lain in state for centuries. Reclusiarch Hornindal had ignited their faith and led them down to the surface of the contested planet, only to receive word from Sotha of the general recall on the very eve of battle.
Like a bolt pistol primed and ready to fire, the Scythes had been holstered once more without unleashing their righteous fury upon the foe.
So it was, that when Chaplain Demetrios summoned his warriors for combat, they were only too ready to respond.
Three full squads now stood assembled in the marshalling hall, in an interlocking sickle formation with armourer serfs scurrying between them. Thirty of the Chapter’s finest, their yellow-and-black battle-plate gleaming in the chamber’s flickering light; casting giant shadows upon the deck.
It was in the shadow of these giants that Milus Ogden felt that he had lived his whole life.
As the Xenophon’s sergeant-at-arms, he and his team had been summoned to the hall along with their Space Marine masters, though it had felt almost like a courtesy. An afterthought. As if they would not also be required to fight and to die, when the time came.
They had abandoned their efforts to break into the Navigator’s chambers, though he had left a pair of his men to watch over the quaking, bleating astropaths in the chantry. At Shipmaster Kaeron’s command, the psykers had attempted to establish communion with noble Sotha, but as they had opened their minds to the warp they began shrieking and wailing, prostrating themselves upon the deck and begging for deliverance from the insidious alien presence that overwhelmed their thoughts.
Even as Ogden stood in the shadow of the Chapter, so now did the shadow of the beast hang over them all. It had blinded them, and silenced their cries in the darkness. Most chillingly, it was possessed of an undying, insatiable hunger, the haggard chief astropath had assured him in no uncertain terms.
It meant to devour every last one of them.
The arched bulkhead doors at the head of the marshalling hall slid open on heavy motors, and Reclusiarch Hornindal entered with Demetrios and a handful of robed Reclusiam serfs. Though their faces were bare, the two Chaplains were decked out in their ebon plate, Hornindal also framed with a great ceremonial cloak of ochre velvet embroidered with the Chapter’s twin-scythe emblem. The thud of their armoured boots upon the deck rang throughout the chamber; every one of the assembled Space Marines stared ahead with impassive ruby helmet optics as they passed, though Ogden could feel the sense of expectation in the air.
