Dark Imperium: Plague War

by Guy Haley

  ‘We have been hit hard,’ voxed Maxentius-Drontio. ‘The mortals are shaken.’ He looked over to the seven Astra Militarum survivors in the room. They wore void helms and heavy combat suits, but they were far more vulnerable than the Space Marines. Sweaty faces looked out through yellow plastek faceplates. A dozen more had been killed by the room’s collapse. Those that were not already dead would be soon. The unharmed were brave, but Justinian did not rate their chances in the coming fight.

  ‘Where is your squad leader?’ Justinian asked.

  One of them nodded at a corpse with its head crushed beneath a fallen ventilator.

  ‘Who is in charge then?’

  The man shrugged.

  ‘Well volunteered. Approach me,’ he said.

  The man came over.

  ‘Give me your name,’ asked Justinian.

  ‘I am Tesseran,’ he said.

  ‘You are responsible for the others,’ said Justinian. It was not a question.

  Tesseran nodded, reluctantly accepting the role. ‘If you say so, my lord. What are we going to do?’

  The Space Marines ignored him.

  ‘Has anyone heard from the lieutenant?’ asked Amarillo. ‘All but my squad vox is out.’ He looked over his shoulder at the shattered lenses of his sighting unit. ‘This Throne-forsaken thing is just weight. What about you, sergeant? Let’s see if this much praised Mark ten armour of yours is as good as they say.’

  Justinian tried, scanning over every vox frequency. ‘Squad Parris, Fifth Company, reporting. Heavy damage in our section. Awaiting orders.’ Ghastly moans and the constant humming of flies were his only response. ‘Nothing,’ he said, shutting off the vox-link. ‘The crossway fort is compromised. We are no use to anyone in this box. I propose we get out. First order of business. Orders can wait.’

  ‘First order of business?’ repeated Amarillo. ‘Odd turn of phrase.’

  ‘My father was a merchant, what of it?’ said Justinian. ‘Do you concur or not, brother-sergeant?’ He put too much emphasis on ‘brother’ for it to be sincere.

  ‘Of course I agree,’ said Amarillo. He unclamped a melta-flask from his waist. ‘I was hoping to use this on the enemy. It will get us out of here instead.’ He examined the room for a moment, looking for the best place to site the device. ‘Here,’ he said, running his hand over part of the wall that now faced downwards. ‘We will have to jump.’ He slapped the charge to the wall and stepped back. ‘You. Soldiers,’ he said to the remaining Astra Militarum. ‘Do not look at the light.’

  The melta bomb went off with a roar, the one-use fusion reactor inside turning a man-sized portion of the wall into steam and slag.

  Molten metal dripped away into darkness. As soon as the gap was made, the air rushed out. The glowing, ragged hole was an appropriate frame for the devastation outside.

  The fort was a ruin. The pair of towers on the far side of the square had vanished into a chasm of shattered metal. The footings of their own remained firm, but only ten metres away the deck shelved steeply away into a mess of scrap. The other tower in their pair had been crushed as flat as a stamped-on ration tin, Galatan’s roof pushed down onto it and sealing the circular corridor in that direction. Emergency lumens provided a modicum of light, but many of them were broken. The majority of the illumination came from strobing flashes down the radial corridor. Justinian’s suit lights snapped on. Cones of light projected from around his eye lenses pushed back the dark.

  ‘The station’s open to the void,’ Justinian voxed the others. The station shook with fresh impacts.

  ‘Those are too gentle for explosions,’ said Maxentius-Drontio.

  ‘Boarders,’ said Amarillo. ‘If we are caught here, we are dead.’

  The tower shuddered. The Space Marines swayed as its weight shifted. Metal ground on metal, conveying its pain through the soles of their boots.

  ‘We have to get down. Now,’ said Amarillo.

  The climb was arduous for the soldiers, and the Novamarines were forced to help them down. When they finally gained the wrecked square, they discovered the radial corridor in the direction of the rim was also impassable.

  ‘Two choices,’ said Amarillo as they skirted the chasm cutting through the crossway. ‘Head inwards, or head around.’

  They reached safer ground without incident, and there Justinian reestablished patchy vox contact. Requests for aid were coming from the central hub of the station, fighting their way past buzzing interference patterning and the cacophony of moans. Though not directly commanded, Justinian and Amarillo agreed to take these as their orders, and the Novamarines set out without delay away from the rim towards the centre of the star fort.

  The damage to that part of Galatan was massive. Though the coreward radial corridor could be travelled, it was open to the freezing void in many places, and airless throughout. The rain of constant impacts on their part of the station eased, being replaced by the distant quakes of explosions and the more measured reports of Galatan’s own weapons batteries.

  They were safe from unheralded death cast out by a distant voidship, but that was small comfort. The enemy was targeting other parts of Galatan because their troops had landed close by.

  They moved at a cautious pace, their weapons ready. Amarillo’s Devastators went first, their bulky heavy bolters primed for fully automatic fire. The Astra Militarum marched among them.

  It was not long before they encountered their enemy.

  Kadrian was scouting ahead. Without atmosphere they could not hear battle before they came upon it. Eyes were needed to see when ears could not hear, but the corridor was buckled in several places, obscuring clean lines of sight. The first notice they had were new tremors in the deck plating.

  ‘Combat,’ said Amarillo, glancing at his feet.

  ‘Advance cautiously,’ said Justinian.

  They sent the Astra Militarum to the rear. Justinian’s squad advanced in a fan ahead of Squad Amarillo, screening the heavy bolters. As they approached a crumpled hill of decking the tremors grew in intensity.

  Kadrian ran up the hill, bounding effortlessly over its tortured floor. As he neared the top he slowed and ducked low. He stopped.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he voxed. Justinian patched into Kadrian’s battleplate autosenses.

  The hillock ended in a low cliff of sheared metal. A crevasse at its foot led down into darkness lit by actinic discharge. Beyond it, the corridor was untouched. There a minor wayspace opened up off the radial way, though minor only on Galatan’s terms.

  In the ceiling over the foot of the cliff the blunt mouth of an assault ram came in at an angle. A group of around a dozen Plague Marines were dug into the debris on the near side of the chasm. On the other side, Astra Militarum tanks formed a barrier across the way leading deeper into the station. Most of the vehicles were dead, their hatches blown and weapons hanging loose in their mountings, but a hundred men in armoured void suits still blasted away at the enemy. A number of dead traitors were heaped in the centre of the corridor, but those that remained were more than a match for that number of mortals.

  ‘They will not last long,’ voxed Kadrian. He hid himself carefully while he watched.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked Amarillo.

  ‘A dozen traitors attacking Astra Militarum,’ said Justinian. ‘We are behind them. We can take them by surprise.’

  ‘Then we engage,’ said Amarillo. Without asking for further intelligence, he summoned his men to him, and they marched up the incline. Justinian’s men followed.

  At the brow of the new-born hill the way was crushed down to a few dozen metres across. The broken bedding of the station monorail had been wrenched from its bed, and thrown widthways across the corridor. It made a serviceable barricade. Amarillo had the decency to hold fire until Justinian’s men were in place. Their Astra Militarum followers hunkered down by the heavy bolters.

/>   ‘We shall take up position forward of you, to keep them off your men. Cover our advance,’ said Justinian.

  Amarillo considered. ‘The swiftest route to victory, but it will be costly. It would be better to establish a firing line where Brother Kadrian waits.’

  ‘We cannot afford to become involved in protracted firefight,’ said Justinian. ‘We must get through to the centre. The enemy are occupied. We can be among them before they know we are here. If we advance your gunners too close, the chances are they will spot us. Wait until we are upon them before opening fire.’

  ‘Then go. May Lucretius Corvo guide your hand.’

  The blessing was unfamiliar to Justinian, but he was grateful for the sentiment.

  ‘Squad, advance,’ he said.

  His nine Space Marines fell in after him as he scrambled down the cliff. The traitors were intent on the guardsmen, and they were not noticed until they opened fire.

  The Plague Marines were well sheltered by debris and the corridor mouths. Only one died to Squad Parris’ opening fusillade. The moment they took to react to being outflanked allowed Justinian’s squad to advance a further ten metres.

  Boltgun fire was quickly retrained from the Astra Militarum onto the Space Marines. Kadrian went down, blood spraying from his wrecked chest. Pimento followed quickly after, his faceplate smashed in. Then the flash burn of heavy bolt propellant speckled Justinian’s vision as Amarillo’s squad opened fire and drove the Plague Marines back into cover, and Squad Parris advanced without further losses.

  The enemy were caught, and they knew it. Ignoring the Astra Militarum at their back, they lumbered from their hiding places. Las-bolts flashed on their mouldering ceramite, doing nothing but heating the plate, and they moved in to engage.

  There were more than Justinian had counted. Twenty or so. They drew rusted knives and fired their boltguns one-handed. Three of the enemy were riddled with heavy bolts as they charged, yellow fluids bursting out of their decaying armour. Brother Drusus went down in return.

  An ugly brute who was managing not to suffocate in the airless passage, despite the fact his helm was corroded through and his breathing grille missing, raised a dripping axe in open challenge to Justinian. Another Space Marine from a more choleric lineage might have charged to accept. Justinian placed pragmatism over honour.

  Justinian switched his target to his challenger, placing half a dozen well-aimed shots into the Plague Marine. Only three penetrated, so far as he could see, but that should have been enough. However, the traitor did not go down but slogged on, even though his flesh and battleplate were cratered by the bolts’ explosions. Amarillo’s heavy bolters had a more noticeable effect, mowing down several of the Plague Marines, but they were targeted in response, and one of them was felled by concentrated bolter fire, and the aim of the remainder spoiled as they sought better cover.

  The Death Guard heaved themselves over the rucks in the decking. Two more died before they could connect, then they hit the Primaris Marines with the weight of an avalanche.

  The battle fragmented. Synthetic hormones flooded Justinian’s system, speeding his reactions and slowing time a little, but these foes were sprung from the same roots as he. They possessed those same abilities, and more were given them by their Dark Gods. Melee became a grunted, bludgeoning whirl of blade and fist. A tentacle slapped across Justinian’s face, acidic secretion etching the armourglass of his eye lenses. He rammed his shoulder into the mutated owner, throwing him down. A pig-faced helm stared up at him. Justinian stamped it flat with two strikes of his boot.

  There was a clang, and he was knocked sideways. The traitor without the breathing grille flashed across his vision, and Justinian recovered to face him. The creature’s rusted sword hurtled at his face.

  Bolts slammed into the Plague Marine, blowing out its distended stomach and showering Justinian with its filth.

  Amarillo was coming down the hill, the surviving Astra Militarum from the tower and his two remaining troopers with him. The fight was over. The last Plague Marine fell silently.

  Slowly, Justinian’s biochemical balances returned to normal.

  ‘Costly,’ voxed Amarillo.

  Nearly half Justinian’s squad were down. Dascene joined Drusus, Kadrian and Pimento in death. The survivors went about their tasks without emotion. Maxentius-Drontio was helping take Dascene’s vambrace to replace Achilleos’ broken armour component and protect his wound. From behind the wrecked tanks the Astra Militarum waved their guns in victory.

  ‘Come on,’ said Amarillo. ‘We have a long walk ahead.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Legio Oberon Walks

  Princeps Caleb Dunkel sat back in the command throne in an attempt to find the best position for the coming battle. The angular chair granted great honour, but little comfort. Steel input cables dragged at his head. The manual throttles were a little too far from his hands, the torso pedals a little too close to the seat. These controls were backups, crude mechanical devices intended for use should the mind impulse interface be broken, but they were necessary, and should be firmly grasped at all times. Keeping his limbs in place was uncomfortable. Soon, he would link with God’s Wrath and the sensations of his human body would shrink into insignificance. Until then he focused on what was going on around him to keep cramp at bay.

  Behind him, his moderati primus and steersman guided the weapons crew through their final calibrations. Query and response check cants went back and forth from the cockpit head to the gunnery command chamber. The half-sung phrases of the moderati were punctuated by the gentle click of buttons and the notification chimes of good function.

  ‘By the grace of the Omnissiah, power feeds to chainfist at full capacity. Let the motive force flow,’ said the primus.

  ‘Unto the glory of the machine, do the missile tubes work smoothly. Send shell and explosion to rend the foe,’ replied the weapons moderati by hardline vox.

  ‘Let the mid-range fusion of your melta-cannon slag the unrighteous with blistering heat,’ said the primus.

  ‘So it shall be,’ replied Arrin, the third of his weapons moderati.

  Dunkel let their preparations lull him further into his altered state. The great metal body of his Reaver throbbed momentarily with increased reactor output as machinery was powered up, tested and powered down. Occasional reports from the enginarium buzzed into the cockpit, but nothing could disturb the soothing cant of his crew.

  He shut his eyes, letting the senses of the Titan take the place of human sight and hearing. The discomfort of the manifold hardlines plugged into the back of his skull melted away. Hard seats and awkward physical controls no longer troubled him. All human sensation was as nothing when his mind spread to fill the metal giant. The sense of his own body dwindled, becoming little more than a remembered irritation.

  Dunkel was becoming God’s Wrath.

  His giant feet were planted wide upon the hard standing of the marshalling yards. He felt the electric thrill of gyroscopes keeping him balanced, the minute adjustments the Reaver’s hip pistons made to its posture. All systems operated perfectly. There were none of the catches in movement or stiffness in the machine’s joints he had experienced last time. The overhaul given God’s Wrath on the way to Tuesen had been total. The results were remarkable. The Titan’s machine personality was equally pleased at its rejuvenation, and its bloody soul eager for the fight. Dunkel was apart from it yet. He saw his own mind as a series of layers, each function of his intellect isolated by the manifold so it might be more easily integrated with the greater being of God’s Wrath. The engine’s primitive soul moved beneath the electric ways of the interface, a leviathan mount that waited for Dunkel to grasp its reins. The echoes of its former princeps’ psyches were ghostly priests in attendance to this metal demigod.

  The princeps sank deeper into the mind of the machine, blending his consciousness with mechanical and e
lectronic systems. His awareness brushed on each of the Titan’s hundreds of devices, before they faded away from his somatic control, and their operation became as automatic and unnoticed as the beating of his human heart. The spirit of each mechanism leapt a little at his touch before they quietened, but the machine’s interface smoothed out these interactions, and God’s Wrath remained as unmoving as an idol.

  From its electrical heaven, God’s Wrath reached for Dunkel and his six moderati. Before Dunkel merged with his machine, the crew’s minds bled together at the edges, networking through the glorious technologies of the manifold. Six became one, a sacred number, two times the trinity of the Machine-God. Dunkel exulted in his deepest being, for his was a holy and honourable calling.

  God’s Wrath’s soul was a crimson ocean of violent need waiting for them. Dunkel plunged into it gladly.

  A tremor shook the machine’s war frame.

  ‘Manifold interface finalised. All praise the Machine God,’ Dunkel whispered to himself. But he was no longer Dunkel, he was God’s Wrath. As his mortal body spoke, the words also emerged as a short, rising burst from the Reaver’s warhorn. Somewhere, deep within the mass of plasteel, a scrap of flesh smiled, and was forgotten.

  Like a sleeper rising, God’s Wrath came to life.

  The noosphere drew itself over the conjoined beings of the princeps, moderati and Titan, completing the fusion of man and machine. If he concentrated on his human being, Dunkel was still aware of himself and the individuality of his moderati, but it was a sensation at one removed, akin to looking at a cold-numbed limb, knowing it was part of himself, but being unable to feel it. God’s Wrath was fully awake. With the whine of enormous gears and servos, it moved, swinging its coleopteran head from the left to the right.

  Machine vision painted a world in miniature within Dunkel’s vision centres. His human eyes had opened at some point, and a phantom image of the cockpit and the view through the Titan’s yard-thick occuli imposed itself over what God’s Wrath saw. It was easy to ignore.