Shadowbreaker - Steve Parker

by Warhammer 40K

  Very soon now, he would leave this damned world behind. How he hated Tychonis.

  His posting here had been a grievous insult from the start. Only the presence of Aun’dzi had ever made it worthwhile. They both deserved better. He would make sure the Aun was called to T’au, was recognised, was given his due. He would not leave his beloved leader to languish here.

  Ahead lay honour and a brighter future for both.

  Ahead lay priceless redemption and vindication.

  Ahead lay the salvation of their race, their glorious destiny.

  Shas’O T’kan Jai’kal would not be denied.

  Fifty-four

  Androcles dived left, hitting hard.

  It saved his life.

  The Riptide’s shot scythed across the ground and wiped one of the Elysian stormtroopers, Hamlin, entirely from existence. Not even his boots remained.

  Spear Team Three had already lost Nichs, Vint and Norlund in the fighting at the eastern landing field. And now Hamlin. Only two men remained – Sergeant Grigolicz and Corporal Lunde.

  The Arcturus people were remarkable, as worthy as any human warriors Androcles and the rest of Sabre Squad had known, but they were sick from exposure to radiation and severely outgunned.

  For all his efforts, Androcles hadn’t been able to keep them alive.

  Just up ahead lay the blackened wreckage of Reaper Three. Though scant and inadequate, the wreckage offered the only cover available. Androcles pushed himself to his feet and ordered everyone into sheltered positions behind it. From there he swiftly surveyed the battle up ahead.

  The fighting was intense. Talon Squad were a storm of murder on the t’au, but the blue-skins were many, and in the presence of Coldwave – who else could be piloting that Riptide? – they fought with a ferocity he’d not seen in their kind. They were desperate to effect the escape of the spaceship and their shas’o.

  And the ordo traitor. She is aboard.

  No sooner had he thought the word traitor than, as if invoked, Kabannen and Lucianos appeared, jumping down from a hatch in the ship’s starboard side to add their fury to the fight.

  Androcles’ eyes locked hard on Kabannen. His blood boiled. He had to hold himself back, suppressing a powerful urge to rush from cover with a battle-cry.

  He had to get closer first. The traitors were in full power armour. He and his brothers were not. A reckless charge was not the right play here.

  Someone should have told Striggo and Gedeon.

  The Carcharadon and the Howling Griffon exploded out from behind the wreckage and burst into a full sprint, Gedeon with bolter raised, Striggo with short power swords shimmering.

  Kabannen and Lucianos did not see them at first, intent on spotting Talon Squad in the melee.

  Space Marines at full sprint cover ground fast.

  Striggo was already leaping into the air, swords raised, when Lucianos’ senses pricked. He spun around at the last instant and found himself about to be sliced apart.

  Fast as he was, his reflexes every bit the equal of the Carcharadon’s, there was no way he could avoid the blades at this range. Striggo’s eyes flashed with the certainty of the kill.

  There was a bright flash, a hiss and sizzle, twin bursts of white sparks.

  Striggo stared in disbelief.

  Lucianos had thrown up his left arm. It had stopped the blades dead. That arm should have been lying on the ground, and the blades buried deep in the traitor’s torso, but it was not so.

  Briefly, the two Space Marines stood frozen in the moment, their minds catching up with their reflexes.

  Then Lucianos kicked Striggo hard in the chest. The blow knocked him back three paces.

  Striggo glared at him, confusion giving way to understanding when his eyes settled on the storm shield. The small, plate-like deflection-field generator was attached to Lucianos’ left pauldron where it met his breastplate.

  ‘You fight me shielded, like a coward.’

  The deflection field would falter if Striggo’s blows could overload it, but he knew now that a single, clean kill-stroke, the beautiful vengeance he had envisioned, would not be possible.

  Lucianos ignored the barb. ‘You live, brother. I had thought–’

  ‘I am not so easily ended, traitor.’

  Lucianos looked genuinely pained at that.

  Striggo began circling him, hunkered over in a predatory half-crouch, blades ready to lash out again without warning.

  ‘I never sought your death, Striggo,’ said Lucianos, ‘nor death for any of you. It burned me to watch the blue-skins take you away. It sickened me. But what could I do? Epsilon gave orders. You sided with Androcles and disobeyed them. It is you who broke your oaths to the Watch and the ordo. Androcles never understood the importance of what she does here. I warned you not to listen to him, to view things so simplistically. Now we go where you cannot follow, though I would have it otherwise. It is not too late. Join us. Once you understand the–’

  Striggo snarled and lunged, a savage lateral swipe. Lucianos slipped it. Striggo followed through, putting his momentum into a whistling backhand slash that, with another inch, might have taken Lucianos’ head.

  There was a triple burst of bolter fire from the left.

  Striggo barely managed to raise his blades in time. The bolts exploded on the flat of his swords. The impact sent Striggo skidding six metres on his side, his left arm peppered with tiny shards of shrapnel.

  Kabannen stepped over the freshly slain body of Gedeon and marched straight towards Striggo. The Howling Griffon’s skull was a hollowed-out mess. Kabannen’s boots tracked dark red blood on the ground as he closed in.

  ‘The others,’ boomed the Iron Hand. ‘Who else survived the fall of the prison? And how?’

  A stutter of rounds struck his right pauldron, exploding there. They should have bitten deep gouges in the ceramite, destroying the white icon of the Iron Hands Chapter that graced it, but they did not.

  Light flickered at the points of impact, Kabannen’s own storm shield nullifying the attack.

  The Iron Hand turned and saw Androcles striding towards him, scout-armoured only, just like Gedeon and Striggo, but undaunted. Hardly a fair fight, but Kabannen cared little for fairness right now. Outcome was all that mattered.

  Androcles’ Stalker bolter was zeroed on his former Alpha’s head.

  ‘Betrayer,’ hissed the massive Space Marine. ‘Oath-breaker.’

  Kabannen smirked. ‘Neither, oaf. Your interpretations are in need of considerable adjustment.’

  Pelion and Roen were sprinting off to the left and right, trying to flank the two traitors.

  Lucianos saw them, saw Striggo push himself up. Shaking his head in resignation, he levelled his bolter at Striggo and began moving left to cut off Pelion’s flanking.

  Kabannen faced Androcles. ‘You survived.’

  ‘I survived,’ said Androcles. ‘You won’t.’

  Kabannen shook his head. ‘Look around you. You fight a hopeless battle. Turn around now, don’t interfere, and I will let you walk away.’

  ‘What worth, the words of a traitor?’

  Kabannen looked left and right emphatically. ‘No traitors here, brother. Just two Adeptus Astartes who see the wider view. I tried to tell you. You had every chan–’

  Androcles fired again, his rounds aimed straight at Kabannen’s forehead. The Iron Hand whipped up his left hand, palm out, and again, the bolter rounds exploded without effect, their force nullified by the storm shield.

  ‘Don’t be a fool. You cannot win. Withdraw. Return to Talasa Prime. Or to Damaroth.’

  ‘Honour demands that we fight, Kabannen. Or have you forgotten honour? And we both know I can beat you. You have seen it for yourself. The stories about my Chapter are true. Some call ours the Cursed Founding, but it is no curse. The Sons of Antaeus have never
been defeated on solid ground. You will not best me here, despite your wargear.’

  ‘You are flesh,’ grunted Kabannen. ‘And flesh is weak.’

  He slung his bolter, flexed his augmetic arms – each a powerful titanium prosthetic – and drew his long black combat knife.

  ‘You question my honour. That, I will not forgive. Let us do this up close and personal.’

  Androcles lowered his bolter reverently to the ground. He drew his combat knife from the sheath at his lower back.

  Kabannen grinned, supremely confident.

  They closed on each other, circling slowly.

  ‘What are you doing?’ demanded Roen over the vox-link. ‘He is in full plate! You cannot think–’

  ‘It will not avail him, Roen. You will see. Deal with Lucianos quickly and lend aid to Talon. The Riptide must be slain. Time is against us. Hurry, brothers. Hurry.’

  His peripheral vision shrank as Kabannen moved into lunging range. The fury of battle all around the ship became a muted, distant thing, still there in his awareness but a background only. The universe contracted until all it encapsulated was the space in which they fought.

  Each dropped into stance, blade arm forward, free hand placed for the quick parry.

  Androcles was a giant of a Space Marine. Even unarmoured, he stood as tall and almost as broad as Kabannen did in full plate. His strength was prodigious, his training and experience comprehensive.

  He trusted to that now.

  Kabannen snorted. ‘Let’s be at it. I have a flight to catch.’

  Their blades flashed towards each other.

  Sparks flew.

  For one of them, the last fight of his life had begun.

  Fifty-five

  ‘Scholar!’ voxed Rauth. ‘The ramp!’

  Karras turned, saw the ship opening its rear hatch like the jaws of some ocean leviathan.

  Abruptly, the fire cadres all around them turned the pressure right up, becoming bolder, more ferocious.

  Talon Squad found themselves pressed back into cover behind rows of crates, unmanned loaders and other t’au machinery.

  The air all around was filled with fire, ionised particles sharp in Voss’ nostrils as he said, ‘Hemmed in here. Lots of targets in close proximity. Wouldn’t now be a perfect time to fry them all, Scholar? As you did the ’stealers back on Chiaro?’

  Karras and Rauth glanced at each other.

  The Geller field generator was obviously on the ship, activated, isolating its contents from the warp. Standing forty metres from the hull, Karras could feel its effects, the field pressing against his soul, its resonance stemming the flow of power from the immaterium to his mind. The effect was much more localised than at Alel a Tarag, and far denser as a result. Epsilon, he guessed, must have configured it to the ship’s shape and size in readiness for their voyage.

  Her specimens were definitely on board.

  Even if he could have summoned a storm of witchfire as the Imperial Fist had suggested, he would not have taken the chance. No horror he’d ever known had compared to the battle for his soul. A battle he’d not won alone, he reminded himself sourly, and not won by much, either.

  He might be First Codicier of the Death Spectres, his gift considered powerful beyond all but that of Athio Cordatus, but he was no longer willing to put his soul on the line. Never again would he be so reckless, so dependent on the warp, throwing open his inner gates completely to the full flow.

  Rauth had been all too clear – if Karras’ purity was threatened again, the Exorcist would execute him, and rightly so.

  ‘My gift is diminished, brothers,’ he said. ‘The Geller field generator is on that ship. Epsilon hides within, hoping to run out the chrono. Let’s crush that hope.’

  ‘The Riptide will have us the moment we try for the ramp, Scholar,’ said Solarion.

  ‘Then you will distract it,’ said Karras. ‘I must get inside.’

  ‘Big ship,’ said Voss. ‘Lot of t’au in there.’

  Karras reached up and touched the grip of Arquemann where the force sword protruded over his right pauldron. He couldn’t feel the weapon’s war-like spirit, the link between them severed in the presence of the suppressing field, but the flawless blade would make short work of any t’au at close range regardless.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Karras. ‘My sword has yet to be bloodied.’

  ‘I’ll handle the Riptide, Scholar,’ said Zeed. ‘The rest of you can enjoy the show.’

  Voss grunted. ‘Milk-skinned idiot. It already clipped your wings. You’re only alive because you rolled under the hull.’

  ‘Jets at seventy per cent efficiency, you over-muscled ape,’ replied Zeed. ‘More than enough.’

  Solarion pointed to a tall stack of supply crates on the edge of the battle. ‘High ground. I’ll be there.’ He did a quick check of the rounds in his rifle’s magazine and slapped it back into place.

  ‘I’m going after the Riptide with paper-face,’ said Voss. ‘Two will cause it a lot more trouble than one.’

  Zeed shrugged. ‘Do your worst, cannonball. The kill will still be mine.’

  ‘Watcher,’ said Karras.

  The Exorcist threw him a dark look.

  ‘Fine. You’re with me. Just stay out of blade range once we’re inside,’ said Karras. ‘That Riptide will have advanced optics and sensor arrays, but let’s throw smoke anyway. I’m counting on the three of you to keep him off us. Don’t go getting killed.’

  Voss leaned out from cover and said, ‘T’au infantry moving up, trying to flank.’

  Squads were converging on them from three directions.

  ‘Let’s get on with this,’ said Solarion.

  ‘Optics to multi-spectrum now,’ said Karras.

  Talon Squad blink-clicked their helm lenses to enhanced-vision mode.

  Karras nodded to Rauth and the two fired smoke grenades from their under-barrel launchers. Voss and Solarion tossed grenades by hand. Great clouds of dense grey billowed up, cloaking everything.

  To the Adeptus Astartes, the world around them was still perfectly clear, defined now by heat, radiation and air displacement instead of visible light.

  ‘Go,’ said Karras.

  Zeed’s jets flared white hot. One moment, he was there, right among them, the next, only a churning vortex of smoke remained.

  Voss sidestepped straight out of cover. He sighted on a broad line of approaching fire warriors, pressed the trigger of his Infernus and began cutting them down with heavy-bolter rounds.

  Solarion set off at a run for the high ground he had marked.

  Karras and Rauth sprinted for the ramp, now fully lowered. T’au were spilling out of it by the score, ignoring the smoke, their own helm optics cycled to thermal to negate it.

  The Space Marines ran headlong towards them, their silenced bolters coughing death at close range, gunning down the clustered enemy in swathes. Soon, the two Deathwatch brothers were leaping over crumpled bodies and bounding up the ramp into the gaping vastness of the rear hold.

  Up ahead, earth caste t’au were securing tanks and crates to lugs set in the floor.

  Karras mag-locked his bolter to his thigh and slid Arquemann from his back. He and Rauth strode forward, hulking black avatars of death that made the t’au look like children. Their footfalls shook the plating on the floor.

  The earth caste technicians turned too late. Arquemann flashed in the light as Karras cut them down, their blood splashing the walls and deck.

  He and Rauth pressed on down a broad central corridor. There were doors off to the left and right, most too small for a Space Marine to squeeze through. Ahead, a set of stairs ran upwards to the next deck.

  The two Adeptus Astartes surged up them, emerging into another large hold filled with rows of cryogenic pods. A dozen larger pods stood to the sides, secured to the walls,
arranged vertically. All were sealed and covered.

  Hybrids on the floor, thought Karras. Purestrains at the sides.

  Among the pods, earth caste workers moved back and forth, fastidiously checking readouts on the top of each. Beyond them, a tall, slender shape in black stood tending to a waist-high machine, a thing of strange, ugly geometry and unnatural energy. It was a distinctly Imperial construction, out of place in a t’au ship surrounded by t’au constructions and t’au workers. Just looking at it caused Karras’ skin to prick. He felt a stabbing pain somewhere in his head, just behind his eyes.

  It’s the Geller field generator from her ship.

  The woman turned, sensing eyes on her. Black hair shimmered like silk around a pale, narrow face.

  ‘Whatever you do, Deathwatch,’ she told them, placing a hand on the surface of the machine, ‘do not damage this. You understand what would happen.’

  Karras marched towards her, sheathing Arquemann on his back. Earth caste techs scurried out of his way, faces tight with fear. Rauth stayed back, bolter raised, glaring at them through red lenses, daring them to make a move.

  ‘We are leaving,’ Karras told Epsilon.

  She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. She was beautiful by the standards mortal men assigned to such things. He couldn’t read her aura within the Geller field, but he hardly needed to. There was a cold, ruthless cast to her features.

  She is most definitely a creature of the Inquisition, thought Karras. She reminds me of Sigma. Any means necessary, and honour be damned.

  He removed his helm.

  The woman was unintimidated by the murderous scowl on his colourless features. ‘Come with me, Deathwatch,’ she said simply. ‘Come with me deep into t’au space, to a place left long abandoned, and I will show you the need for all of this. If you judge me wrong then, you may take my life. But I tell you now, once you see it, once you understand, any price will seem a paltry sum, and all I have done will be justified in your eyes.’