Carcharodons: Red Tithe

by Robbie MacNiven

  ‘It’s still going in the direction of the sink shaft,’ Kordi said, nodding at the darkness of the freshly unearthed tunnel. ‘And we can’t go back.’

  ‘Vox is down,’ Tonga said. Kordi realised he was right. They were no longer getting any signal. They were completely cut off, and still almost half-buried.

  ‘We go on,’ Ekara said. ‘Either we break through to the sink shaft and re-engage the enemy, or reach the surface and re-establish contact with the rest of the company.’

  ‘Assuming the tunnel leads up, and not further down,’ Kordi said.

  ‘Assume nothing,’ said the strike leader. ‘Trust in the Void Father and the Shade Lord.’

  They began to climb.

  Skell woke up, and tried to scream. He couldn’t.

  There was a shrieking in his head, bouncing around endlessly inside his skull. It was the creature in the dark, the thing that had been stalking him for months. It was inside him now, inside the wounds cut in his back by the giant clad in fresh, flayed skin. They burned with agony. He choked on his gag.

  ‘Relax,’ hissed a voice. It was thick with corruption and decay, like a fat, white rockworm writhing through Zartak’s cloying dirt. For a moment, Skell wasn’t sure if it was actually behind him, or in his head. The screaming ceased suddenly, replaced by a low, drawn-out moan.

  ‘Patience,’ soothed the voice. The flayed giant paced around Skell until it was facing him. It bent down, so that its great, horned helm was level with the boy. It pulled Skell’s head back by his greasy, close-cropped hair, so that he was forced to stare into the burning eye-lenses.

  ‘Are you going to try to run away again?’ it asked in its hideous voice. Skell managed to shake his head. It tugged the gag from Skell’s mouth and removed his bonds. This time he managed to stay upright unsupported.

  ‘Are you afraid?’ the monster asked. Skell looked down at his bare feet, jaw clamped shut as he tried to still the shivers running through his exhausted body.

  ‘Answer me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Skell croaked.

  ‘Do not be. You are blessed. More blessed than any mortal I have met in my ten thousand years of struggle. Few in this galaxy are as privileged as you.’

  ‘Why?’

  The monster gripped him, making him flinch.

  ‘The power of the warp courses through your veins. It has since you were born. You have been touched by the glory of Chaos. I have amplified it with my words and my markings, but it was always there to begin with. A million men would bargain their souls gladly for a sliver of the power you possess.’

  ‘I’m just lucky,’ Skell stammered, tears streaking the dirt on his cheeks. ‘The others, they didn’t understand. That’s all it is.’

  ‘Do not deceive yourself. You are only aware of a fraction of your potential. Much of it has been buried by your subconscious, to protect you. It is well that it was, otherwise I would not have been the first to reach you. I will unlock you in ways the False Emperor’s puppets never could. I will show you just what you are capable of. Then you will truly become a worthy vessel for Bar’ghul. You can hear it already, can you not? Inside your mind?’

  The darkness in Skell’s head cackled, and the boy cried out in fear. The giant placed a gauntlet on his thin shoulder, the spikes that perforated it nicking his skin.

  ‘The Pale Nomad is on his way to take you from us. His blood is all I need to anoint you with. I will have it soon enough.’

  + + Gene scan complete + + +

  + + Access granted + + +

  + + Beginning mem-bank entry log + + +

  + + Date check, 3677875.M41 + + +

  Day 91, Zartak local.

  We have progressed down into the mines proper. The first abnormality was what looks like a cave-in cutting off the sub-precinct from the mine works, listed on the carto-holos as Sink Shaft One. This collapse had been tunnelled through and crudely propped open. We encountered the first serious signs of fighting at the underground rail junction just beyond. There are eleven corpses, all of them Excommunicate Traitoris. My own knowledge of the Traitor Legions is blessedly insufficient for me to be able to identify them, but I will communicate the details to Lord Rozenkranz as soon as I return to the surface.

  My own analysis, and those of Chirurgeon McRane, have identified many of the injuries as indicative of bolter rounds, although vicious wounds dealt in close combat by various forms of chainblades are also apparent. I would assume that the vanquishers of these vile heretics were also Adeptus Astartes, although they have been careful to remove any evidence of their presence. All we have been able to recover are a number of spent bolter shells, which I am sending back to Adept Julio at the sub-precinct for analysis.

  The presence of Traitor Space Marines clearly escalates the seriousness of events here on Zartak. It is difficult to resist the urge to order the immediate incineration of these heretical corpses, but Lord Rozenkranz may yet wish to observe them himself. I will do my duty and leave them be, regardless of how foul they are. Even in death they are terrifying creatures. If any are yet lurking down here I would fear for our chances of survival. We shall press on. Judging by the tracks, whoever won this engagement must have advanced further into the mines. So must we.

  Signed,

  Interrogator Augim Nzogwu.

  + + Mem-bank entry log ends + + +

  + + Thought for the Day: His judgement is unavoidable + + +

  Chapter XIII

  The tunnels were rising again, and the strike force was finally leaving the sweltering heat of Zartak’s heart behind. Rannik was still at the fore, her steps certain even while her mind was not. Her flesh crawled with fear, and the nape of her neck, just below the rim of her helmet, itched incessantly. In her mind’s eye all she could see was the pale countenance of the thing she’d once thought of as a Space Marine, glaring at her, streaked crimson by another man’s blood.

  Her fear came and went, doused just when it started to become overwhelming. Rannik found she could breathe again, and would focus once more on the task at hand. All that mattered was guiding Te Kahurangi, her old friend, straight and true. Who was Te Kahurangi, another part of her consciousness demanded. How did she know the name of the blue-clad giant leading the strike force? The questions never fully registered. They didn’t matter. What mattered was what lay ahead.

  Under-route 1 had changed as it progressed steadily upwards. No more was it a narrow, natural fissure of jagged stone. Now there was evidence of las cutters, and plasteel beams adding structural support overhead. The strike force came to a small junction where the tunnel branched off into three, the intersection lit by an old, flickering lumen orb. Rannik took the right-hand path without thinking. She’d taken this route so many times.

  When have you ever taken this route before?

  She thrust the urgent thought aside. There was no time for such insignificant questions. They didn’t have long.

  A noise reached her, carried down the tunnel’s winding confines. It was a susurration, rising in volume with every step. After a moment Rannik realised it was the sound of running water. Seconds later the stench hit her. She knew what was up ahead.

  ‘Sink Shaft One’s sewer systems,’ she voxed. ‘Directly ahead.’

  ‘They allow us access to the Precinct Fortress?’ Te Kahurangi asked.

  ‘The lower levels, yes. From there we can reach the Centrum Dominus.’

  The flumes and run-offs twisted away from the fortress’ cell blocks and the arbitrator barracks rooms, carried down to the very base of the sink shaft itself, where they formed a lake of congealing effluvium in the cavernous cracks broken into Zartak’s bedrock. The winding tunnel led out to a barred service hatch in the curved wall of one such runoff pipe. The grate covering the hatch was unlocked but rusting, gummed with centuries of slime. Rannik kicked at it until it gave way.

  Her stomach churne
d at the sight of the knee-high filth swilling past, but she found herself compelled into it. The sludge tugged at her lower legs, cloying and cold. She shuddered with revulsion, one hand out to steady herself while the other covered her mouth to ward off the stench.

  Which way?+ Te Kahurangi prompted. It didn’t occur to Rannik that the voice hadn’t spoken out loud, but had come from inside her head. She gestured up the sewage tunnel, not daring to speak for fear of inhaling the putrid air.

  She took them further towards the surface, the strike force’s stab lumens disturbing great packs of deformed, mangy vermin. Their chittering and the squirming motion of their wiry bodies as they writhed past Rannik almost brought her to a standstill, but still the presence in her mind, the knife-edged shadow swimming just below the surface, goaded her on. The light of her lumen reflected back off the dark surface of the sludge below, dancing along the weed-choked, curved ceiling of the tunnel.

  Eventually she found what she was looking for – a ladder set into a straight shaft in the wall. Although rusting and grimy, it was heavy enough to take the bulky servitors that occasionally cleansed the sewer systems of blockages, vermin and escaped prisoners. Rannik signalled to the Space Marines to wait as she began to climb. Above she found an access hatch, covered by a grate that could only be disengaged via a scan block. The Sally Port.

  Rannik slipped her gene-key from a pouch in her bodyglove’s thigh, acutely aware of the Space Marines circling directly below her. The key was her stamp of authority and means of identification. It gave her access to most of the Precinct Fortress. Most, but not all. One hand still on the ladder’s rungs, she reached up and swiped the strip of coded plastek across the grimy scan interface.

  There was a thud, but the grate didn’t shift. She hit it with the palm of her lock glove, once, twice, and the rusty auto-hinges finally engaged, levering the porthole back. Above was darkness, shot through with bars of light.

  Rannik climbed up through the hole, letting out the breath she’d been holding. She found herself in a wide crawlspace, large enough for the maintenance servitors to traverse. It was ribbed with moss-encrusted coolant pipes, pressure valves and electrode cabling bundles. Fat, sightless insects writhed and squirmed in the patch of illumination thrown by her stab lumen.

  The bars of light overhead were filtering down through a secondary grate. There was another scan block, coded for ranking arbitrators and the servitors who cleansed the Precinct Fortress’ guts. Rannik swiped it, praying silently that she had sufficient clearance. The scan block blinked red and gave off an angry bleep. Rannik muttered a curse and swiped again, slower this time. The block chimed green. The Sally Port’s secondary grate disengaged.

  ‘We’re in,’ Rannik hissed back down at the strike team. She had to fight the uncomfortable feeling that one of the pale-faced Scouts was going to snap up at her exposed legs. The memory of the bloody feast in the under-route made her insides squirm.

  She pulled herself up into the light. She was in a secondary corridor, number 3-6, leading off from the main refectorium. It was just as she’d remembered it. How had she forgotten about the Sally Port’s existence? Why had it come back to her so abruptly, in the dead of night?

  She pushed such uncomfortable thoughts away and climbed out into the corridor, unlocking her Vox Legi from her back when she’d gained her feet. The corridor was empty, but she couldn’t help but feel watched by the pict-recorders mounted on the walls. The bright lumen strips and the active security systems emitted a low, disquieting buzz.

  The Scouts came after her, spreading out, pistols raised, hugging the wall panels. The full void brothers followed them up, cera­mite scraping as they pulled themselves through the grate holes. The blue-armoured giant came last of all.

  ‘Which way to the Centrum Dominus?’ he demanded. Rannik pointed down the corridor.

  ‘That way. There’s a refectorium and beyond it a stairwell that leads directly to the control centre.’

  ‘Venerable Librarian,’ interrupted one of the Scouts. ‘Something is scrambling the auspex again. We’re going in blind.’

  ‘We have no choice,’ the blue-armoured warrior said. ‘I will take the vanguard point from here.’

  The strike force changed formation, the Chief Librarian taking the lead. They moved off down the corridor towards the refectorium’s aquila-stamped door hatch, passing it in silence.

  The sight of the deserted refectorium beyond made Rannik hesitate. As in the corridor, the lumens still buzzed brightly. Plastek trays, filled with congealed hardtack and nutrient paste, lined the long, bare metal tables the arbitrators ate at. A rubric describing ‘The Thought for the Day’ was still scrolling across the rota view­screen above the main vitals hatch, and the announcements vox was still on, hissing softly with static. Litany seals and yellowing law-oaths were pinned to the devotional columns that lined the walls, and a copy of the great Lex Imperialis still sat open on the ceremonial justice lectern that dominated the far end of the hall. The place had been abandoned when the warden primary had first issued the stand to. Nobody had been back since.

  The strike team spread out through the room, angling for the door hatch at the opposite end. Rannik followed in the wake of the Scouts, feeling as though she was making more noise than even the giants in their softly whirring battleplate. They crossed the room’s central aisle. She could hear the click-click of inter-squad vox-messages being sent and received via the Space Marines’ helmets, passing on terse communications she was not privy to.

  ‘Wait,’ the Librarian said abruptly, apparently for Rannik’s benefit. The strike team froze, going automatically into crouches that Rannik clumsily mimicked.

  ‘Something’s wrong,’ the Librarian said. The green shard of his bone staff had started to glow, brighter than the unforgiving refectorium lumens.

  ‘They’re coming.’

  The words had no sooner left his mouth than the air above them ignited in a blaze of blue flames.

  The Warp Talons had returned.

  Cull watched the mutated Raptors launch their ambush. He turned to the remaining monitors still showing the tunnels around the loco junctions to the west. What was left of the warband was in position, the Stalk completed, grim shadows waiting in the black-and-white shade of the blinking screen captures. The Prince of Thorns opened the vox.

  ‘All Claws, attack.’

  For a while it had seemed as though they were going down, not up. Tonga had taken the vanguard, leading them through the labyrinthine narrowness of the freshly exposed rathole shaft. It had dipped, and the temperature had risen. Kordi found himself beginning to wonder whether they would be damned to wander Zartak’s underworld forever, like lost, doomed spirits, cursed to spend an eternity in fiery darkness. It was a far cry from the void beyond the stars, the calming nothingness that the Carcharodon Astra replicated within the soothing, numbing waters of their cryo-tanks.

  The shame of dying in Zartak’s hot, earthy embrace was even more real when Kordi considered the fact that if they weren’t able to make contact with the rest of the company before they departed, they would have no choice other than to remain in the deep darkness, burying themselves on the forgotten planetoid forever. It wouldn’t be long before the Imperium arrived to investigate events on the penal colony, and when they did they couldn’t be allowed to discover any of the Carcharodons, either dead or alive.

  Kordi took the vanguard from Tonga. He still had his bolt pistol and chainsword, his armour still functioned sufficiently, and they were still moving. His twin hearts were still beating, and while that held true he would do the Void Father’s will. The injury in his side, dealt by the saw-teeth of the Night Lord’s blade before the tunnel had collapsed, was starting to scab over. His determination seemed to be rewarded when the winding passage finally ceased to dip, and instead became a slender incline. Eventually they started to note improvements in the tunnel’s structure – lu
men orbs returned, as did support braces. Caches of reserve mining equipment and even an overturned ore chute began to populate the otherwise featureless rock walls.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ Haru asked. Moments later Kordi caught the sound.

  ‘Water?’ Ekara wondered out loud. They kept going. Kordi’s auto-senses started to analyse the scents hanging heavy in the close, still air. Judging from the results, he was glad he had sealed his armour during the cave-in.

  ‘Sewer works,’ he reported. Ahead he could see an opening in the tunnel. Foul muck rushed past beyond it, through a circular flume layered with a thick rind of scum.

  ‘We must be getting closer to the surface,’ Tonga said. ‘These have to be the outlets from the sink hole.’

  The sewage pipe was just higher than the rock tunnel, meaning the Space Marines were no longer forced to stoop. Their pauldrons still grated against the circular walls, however, trailing filth. Swarms of vermin, unnoticed by the grey giants, crunched underfoot.

  ‘The upper levels,’ Haru said, using a blink-icon on the shared visor display to highlight a rusting, scum-streaked metal sign bolted to the wall on their left. Carrying on up the flume would allow them to keep moving upwards.

  ‘More noises from ahead,’ Haru reported as they set off through the flow. Kordi set his aural receptor implants to work in tandem with his Larraman’s ear to wipe the rushing of the sewage works from his hearing, leaving only the distant echoes drifting down from the facilities above them. After a few seconds he caught what Haru, trudging up through the waste ahead, had already heard.

  The far-off, yet unmistakable sounds of bolter fire.

  Something moved in the darkness further down the tunnel. Second Squad were on overwatch at the edge of the junction, guarding the main route heading eastwards towards Sink Shaft One. When he caught sight of activity in the tunnel in front of his position, Sergeant Nuritona didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Contacts. Second Squad, open fire.’