[Tome of Fire 01] - Salamander

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  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.

  The light subsided as an image slowly resolved around Dak’ir. The actinic stench remained, as did the blood lining his teeth and in his mouth. He saw metal, felt it concretely beneath his booted feet. A sensation of nausea followed, supplemented by a bout of sudden vertigo making Dak’ir stagger as the corporeal world reestablished itself.

  He was on a ship. The device in Lorkar’s hand had been a homing beacon, through which he’d teleported them aboard.

  “The nausea will pass,” a grating voice Dak’ir recognised as Sergeant Lorkar’s assured them.

  Dak’ir was standing in a large circular room. It had a vaulted ceiling that led away into unfathomable darkness, and was poorly lit by sodium simulacra-lamps. Around its vast circumference, the room was papered with cloth banners describing numerous victories with rubrics daubed in High Gothic script, yellow-and-black armoured Astartes holding skulls and other grisly talismans aloft to the adulation of a horde. A hundred campaigns or more were arrayed across the chamber’s ambit, each devoted to the Marines Malevolent Chapter’s 2nd Company. The Marines Malevolent were not a First Founding Chapter, they had not fought in the Great Crusade, bringing thousands of worlds into compliance, but on the evidence of their laurels, one could be forgiven for thinking otherwise.

  Accenting the self-aggrandising banners were other trophies — the actual macabre totems depicted on the cloth. Dak’ir saw the flayed skulls of xenos: orks, their jutting jaws and sloped brows unmistakable; the tyranid bio-form he recognised from the Chamber of Remembrance on Prometheus and the wing devoted to 2nd Company recounting their exploits on Ymgarl, when they cleansed the moon of a genestealer infestation. The bleached cranium of a hated eldar also sneered down at him, its countenance as haughty and disdainful in death as it was in life. The graven battle-helms of the Traitor Legions were also present, hollowed out and staring balefully. Disturbingly, he caught sight of a battle-helm that did not bear any Chaotic hallmarks he could discern, though it sparked a pang of remembrance in him. It was difficult to tell in the gloom and he was still fighting off the unpleasant lingering sensation of the recen
t teleport, but it appeared to be stygian black with a bony protrusion punching through the apex of the helmet like a crest.

  “Idiot — you could have killed us all with that stunt.” Tsu’gan’s voice arrested Dak’ir’s attention. His fists were bunched as he directed his wrath at Lorkar. The Salamander sergeant was shaking, though Dak’ir couldn’t tell if it was with anger or if he too was still acclimatising to their sudden transition from the Archimedes Rex.

  Tsu’gan was right, though. Teleportation was a dangerous and inexact science. Even with the benefit of a homing beacon, the chances of becoming lost in the warp or translating back as a gibbering morass of fleshy blubber as your insides became your outsides were still uncomfortably high. To engage in teleportation when those translating had not been primed or were not wearing Terminator armour to protect them from the physical rigours of the process was even more hazardous.

  “I did it to make a point.” The voice was hard like iron, full of power and self-confidence. It echoed from the edge of the room where the gloom gathered, and the Salamanders followed it to its source.

  Bisecting the circle of glory was a steel dais holding up a black throne upon which sat a figure in the manner of a recumbent king. Only the tips of the figure’s boots were visible, together with the suggestion of a yellow greave cast in the corona of light issuing from a nearby simulacra-lamp. His identity was swathed in shadow for now.

  He was evidently a student of war history. Above the throne were numerous maps of ancient conquests and crusades. There were weapons, too: esoteric firearms, blades of unknown origin and other strange devices. The throne room was a proud boast, designed to promote the captain’s obvious sense of vainglory.

  “I am Captain Vinyar and this is my ship, the Purgatory. Whatever control you think you have here, you are wrong. The Mechanicus vessel is mine, I lay claim to all its contents.”

  “Lay claim? You may lay claim to nothing, and will release the Archimedes Rex to our charge in the name of the Emperor,” said Tsu’gan.

  “Cool your temper, brother-sergeant,” Pyriel warned in a low voice, a spectator until now. “You are addressing a captain of the Astartes.” Dak’ir noted that unlike him and his brother-sergeant, the Librarian showed no outward signs of discomfort from their enforced journey.

  “You are wise to rein your sergeant in, Librarian,” said Vinyar and leaned forward into the light in order to show his face.

  The captain’s countenance was as adamantine as his voice. Callous eyes glared out from an almost square head sat on broad Astartes shoulders. Bald, apart from the sporadic tufts of closely-shaven hair infecting his scalp like hirsute lesions, Vinyar had a stubbled chin with a jaw like a hammer-head. Three platinum service studs punctuated a line across his brow above a bloodshot left eye.

  Vinyar wore the yellow and black battle-plate of his brothers. Both pauldrons carried chevrons, the veteran “hazard” markings of the Marines Malevolent, and a ragged cloak of black ermine unfurled from his shoulders like old sackcloth. His left arm ended in a power glove, though the fingers looked to be fused, indicating they could no longer be opened. Dak’ir sensed that Vinyar had no use for gripping with it anyway, and needed it only as a hammer with which to brutalise his enemies.

  A trace of amusement curled up his top lip in the approximation of a smile, but there was no mirth in it. If Lorkar was grizzled, then Vinyar was positively leaden by comparison.

  Dak’ir noted that the hard-faced captain did not bother to ask Pyriel’s or, indeed, any of their names. The fact was evidently unimportant to him.

  “He makes a valid point, though, Brother-Captain Vinyar,” Pyriel asserted, stepping forward as Lorkar was dismissed by his superior.

  “Oh yes…” invited Vinyar.

  Dak’ir noticed armoured figures lumbering in the penumbral shadows at the edge of the throne room, just beyond the walls of victory banners. He recognised the forms as Terminators, but wearing an ersatz variant of the modern Tactical Dreadnought Armour. It was bulky with raised pauldrons surmounting a sunken, box-shaped battle-helm that had a rudimentary mouth-grille. The armour was much less refined with restricted dexterity, though it carried a fairly standard weapons array consisting of a power glove, but with a twin-linked combi-bolter in lieu of the more usual storm bolter. Despite their archaism, the Astartes wearing those suits were still deadly. Pyriel went on undaunted.

  “That you will leave the Archimedes Rex at once and render the forge-ship to us.”

  “You are welcome to it, brother.” Vinyar grinned. Dak’ir likened it to the expression a shark might make if ever amused. “I only desire its contents.”

  “Which you will also yield to us,” Pyriel replied, not rising to Vinyar’s facetiousness.

  Vinyar leaned back and was lost to shadow again, evidently tiring of the game he was playing.

  “Bring it up on the screen,” he said into the ship’s vox-link, situated on the arm of his throne.

  A small antenna poked its way up insidiously from between the cracks in the deck plate a short distance from Vinyar’s throne. Once it had reached two metres in height it stopped and expanded into three metre-length prongs at its apex, between which a holographic image was revealed. It showed the Archimedes Rex, or rather a close up view of a section of its generatoria unseen from the Fire-wyvern’s angle of approach. The pict threw off grainy blue light, and cast Vinyar macabrely in the half-dark.

  “The generatoria you see in the holo-cast provides power to the forge-ship’s life support systems, amongst some others.”

  The image panned out swiftly, showing the end of a scorched cannon turret. “One of the Purgatory’s many,” Vinyar revealed. “Master Vorkan, do you have a firing solution?”

  A disembodied voice replied from the vox-link. “Yes, my lord.”

  Vinyar turned his attention back to the Salamanders.

  “A single lance salvo will critically damage that generatoria, destroying the life support systems and with it any chance of rescuing any survivors aboard.”

  Tsu’gan bristled with barely contained rage. Dak’ir felt his knuckles crack as he subconsciously made fists. Such an act was unconscionable. To treat human life with such flagrant disregard; it made him sick to the stomach, so much so that his objections came out in a grating rasp.

  “You cannot mean to do this. To appropriate arms, to steal from a crippled ship is one thing, but murder?”

  “I am no murderer, brother-sergeant.” Vinyar’s eyes were dark hollows pinpricked by tiny spots of malice as he regarded Dak’ir. “Murder is an assassin’s bullet or a hiver’s blade in the back. I am a soldier, as are you. And in battle, sacrifices must be made. I act out of necessity, in order that my Chapter should prevail. It is your hand that forces mine, not the other way around.”

  “Do that and I will have no other recourse but to order my Astartes aboard the Archimedes Rex to take custody of yours, the outcome of which would not end favourably for you,” said Pyriel, re-entering the fray. “Would you condemn your warriors to that fate?”

  The holo-pict shut off, killing the light as the broadcast antenna retracted.

  Vinyar leaned forwards again, scoffing. “Of course not, they would be extracted before the attack even took place.”

  “How?” Tsu’gan’s tone was scornful. “Even the Raven Guard couldn’t perform such a manoeuvre.”

  Vinyar turned his attention to the brother-sergeant. “In the same way we extracted you. Teleportation is much easier going out than coming in, hence the reason I favoured boarding torpedoes for our initial breach.”

  The arrogant captain allowed a pause. In it, his mood of vainglory seemed to gloss over for a moment, replaced by a veneer of sincerity.

  “We Astartes are brothers. We should not come to blows over this. There is no malice here; it is only war. I have fought in over a hundred campaigns, over hundreds of worlds and hundreds of systems. Xenos, traitors and heretics, witches and daemons of all forms — they have died by my righteous ha
nd. Humanity owes a debt of gratitude to my Chapter, as it does all the Chapters of the Astartes. It is by our will and strength of arms that they are kept safe, ignorant of the terrors of Old Night.” He made an expansive gesture with his arm as if to suggest the universe was contained in his very throne room. “What are the fates of a few balanced against a galaxy of trillions?”

  “Bad deeds are bad deeds,” countered Dak’ir. “There is no scale upon which they can be weighed against your victories, brother-captain, no measure that can account for monstrous acts.”

  Vinyar held up his hand, his voice never more serious.

  “I am no monster. I do what I must to serve the Emperor’s light. But make no mistake…” And like a harsh wind blowing away the ash from a smothered fire, his plaintive demeanour came away. “I am the master here. And it is I who shall dictate what—”

  The crackling of the vox-link on the arm of his throne interrupted him.

  “Yes.” Vinyar hissed with impatience.

  “My lord,” the disembodied voice issued from some other unknown part of the ship, “a vessel is hailing us.” There was a short pause before the voice continued. “It is an Astartes strike cruiser.”

  Vinyar raised an eyebrow as he turned to regard the Salamanders. The exchange between them remained unspoken, and as he suddenly felt his dominance slipping away like earth from a sundered hill, he issued a reluctant command.

  “Broadcast it into my throne room.”

  The link was cut and a new rain of static began as the ship’s communications patched in from another source.

  “Yours, I presume,” Vinyar muttered with bitter disdain.

  Pyriel didn’t even have time to nod as Captain N’keln’s voice rang powerfully throughout the room from concealed vox speakers in the walls.