Carcharodons: Outer Dark

by Robbie MacNiven

  Most of the pyre-deck’s occupants were on its top platform, standing before the brass railings marking the construct’s edge. They were as eclectic a mix as any gathering of Inquisitorial ­representatives – hunched lexmechanics with auto-quill grafts and calculus logi with bug-eyed magnification lenses stood alongside tonsured, white-robed Ecclesiarchy castigators and pallid, blind astropaths clad in the green robes of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. More martial figures prowled the deck plates as well – half a dozen enforcers and former Guardsmen in flak plate and fatigues, a lithe death cult assassin in a form-fitting black bodyglove, two power-armoured Battle Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas, watching the conflagration below intently. Most shocking of all was the silver-armoured giant who stood near the pyre-deck’s arching prow – a lone Grey Knight Space Marine, his gaze inscrutable behind his gleaming helm.

  Then there were the inquisitors themselves. Some Rannik recognised as she passed – the corpulent Devrain Marcanis, consigned to his mechanical, spider-limbed support-throne and attended by his smock-clad personal chirurgeon, who intermittently administered salves and booster shots to his wheezing master. Further along was Sebastian Grym, towering and unapproachable in his crimson Ignatus-pattern power armour, his bionic eyes clicking audibly as they recalibrated to filter out the smoke and heat haze from the pyre below. Beside Grym, apparently unintimidated by the big, heavily armoured Ordo Xenos operative, was Inquisitor Gwendolyn Aberfairn. She wore a coat of ragged scale mail, her fair, braided hair cascading down her back. Rannik noticed her exposed forearms were tattooed with hexagrammic wards. She gave the arbitrator a cool smile as she passed.

  There were more still who Rannik didn’t recognise, over a dozen in total, some observing the fiery retribution below, others in low conversation with one another. Around them clustered their interrogators, explicators and notaries, wearing the formal robes of their masters, emblazoned with their heraldry and seals.

  Among them she found Nzogwu. He had brought Rawlin and Welt, the former standing alongside the pyre-deck’s railing, ­staring at the fire below with undisguised glee, the latter leaning heavily on his staff as he spoke with his master. When Rannik approached, he stopped and turned to her, the dark holes of his empty eye sockets seeming to look her up and down.

  ‘Welcome back, Arbitrator Rannik,’ he said. She didn’t pause to consider how the blind psyker had known it was her – the witch-sight was something that was best left unexplained. Nzogwu smiled as he caught sight of her, but it was a harried, distracted expression.

  ‘Welcome back, arbitrator,’ he said. He had abandoned his usual overcoat for the formal black-and-tan robes and carapace armour of the Tri-Sector ordos, and he was sweat-streaked and visibly uncomfortable.

  ‘It’s good to be back,’ Rannik said. ‘The rest of our current company excluded. I bring news from Hypasitis.’

  Nzogwu cast a glance at the figures around him and stepped in closer. ‘Not here.’ He took her by the arm and led her away to the opposite railing, the other side of the pyre-deck from where the gathering watched the Arch Recidivist’s demise. Welt remained behind, engaging the auto-cognitist next to him in conversation.

  ‘Has something happened?’ Rannik asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Nzogwu said, glancing back at the assembled retinues and their masters. ‘Lord Inquisitor Hagen called a full conclave assembly almost eight weeks ago. There have been thirteen incidents of heretical disturbances and cult activity across the Tri-Sectors, beta level and upwards. Hagen is calling a purification initiative.’

  ‘That’ll put all inquisitors in the Tri-Sector conclave on high alert,’ Rannik said. ‘Maximum priority assignments for everyone.’

  ‘We’ve already been given our new task,’ Nzogwu said. ‘There have been reports from local Adeptus Arbites forces of cult activity on Piety Five.’

  ‘The shrine world?’ Rannik asked.

  ‘The most prestigious Ecclesiarchy fiefdom in the Tri-Sectors,’ Nzogwu elaborated. ‘Any ordo operations there, even covert ones, risk huge ramifications. I wasn’t the only one given the task of conducting the investigation there, initially. Marquan wanted it too, but Hagen overruled her. She’s being sent to investigate tech-heresy on Cython instead.’

  Rannik glanced at where Marquan was conversing with one of her black-armoured crusader guards. The short, shaven-headed inquisitor caught Rannik’s eye and turned her back, her displeasure at Nzogwu obvious.

  ‘But that’s not what’s got to you,’ Rannik said.

  Nzogwu grimaced, his dark eyes returning once more to his peers.

  ‘I didn’t realise I was being that obvious.’

  ‘A little, sir. You’ve never baulked at a high-priority investigation before, not in the ten years I’ve served you. And pyre-maniacs like Marquan are nothing to be afraid of.’

  Nzogwu was silent before speaking again.

  ‘Tell me about Hypasitis. I received your transmission after we broke from the warp in-system here, but the data burst is still decrypting.’

  ‘Your suspicions were correct,’ Rannik said. ‘The Adeptus Astartes strike force that intervened during the Ghost War were the Carcharodon Astra. I’ve obtained pict scans of over a hundred murals featuring them. Locally they’re known as the Obsidians. My contact planetside seemed to think there could be descendants of those who encountered them in person still on Hypasitis, but he was less than helpful.’

  ‘Was there anything aside from the frescos? Did Frain’s operative offer up anything from his own investigations?’

  For a moment, Rannik recalled the woman in the black dress and the strange scratchings on both the Cenotaph wall and the carrier door. She thrust the memories aside and shook her head.

  ‘No. But I do think it would be worth sending someone back. If what they say is true, it may be one of the few places the Carcharodons have visited and left survivors to tell the tale.’

  The screaming of the burning Arch Recidivist below rose. A crack reverberated across the square as part of the pyre gave way, gouting sparks and smoke whipped away by the air purifier.

  ‘Send someone back,’ Nzogwu said, echoing Rannik. ‘But not you?’

  ‘It’s… a grim place, sir.’

  ‘I know. It’s a lead I’ll follow up in the future. Perhaps Fustis will know more. Or Solomon, with his antique guilder friends. For now though we must begin preparations for Piety Five. I’ve been awaiting your return. I’ll need the best for this.’

  ‘Are we deploying the entire retinue?’

  ‘A good part of it.’

  ‘But not everyone? Why aren’t we able to send someone to Hypasitis…’ She trailed off as realisation broke through her confusion.

  ‘The Carcharodons are connected to the events on Piety,’ she said quietly. ‘Somehow. You’d send operatives to Hypasitis if it were the only lead you currently had on them.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Nzogwu urged, glancing at one of the censer cherubim as it wheeled overhead, leaving a trail of sickly sweet smoke in its wake.

  ‘What do you know?’ Rannik demanded.

  ‘Nothing… certain. It’s Welt. He’s been experiencing aleph-level psy-visions for almost a month now. I thought at one point we were going to have to put him in containment, just before we left Kora. He predicted our assignment to Piety. And he predicted they’d be there.’

  ‘What did he see?’ Rannik asked. ‘What exactly?’

  ‘The descriptions match the nightmares you still have about Zartak. Grey-armoured Adeptus Astartes, pale flesh, black eyes. He’s seen them among buildings I’ve pict-logged to Piety Five, specifically the capital, Pontifrax. He’s never been there before. And there were other signs as well.’

  ‘What signs?’

  ‘He saw the world flooded with black, churning waters. Pallid creatures, like giant, furless rats, that stalked the sewers. A woman, dressed all in black, wit
h a mourning veil covering her face.’

  Rannik said nothing, but had to put a hand on the deck’s ornate railing to steady herself. The final description had turned her blood to ice. For a moment she could see her in her mind’s eye, looming once more on the carrier on Hypasitis. The ongoing screaming of the burning Arch Recidivist dragged her back to the present.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Nzogwu asked.

  ‘I’ve seen her,’ Rannik whispered. ‘The… woman.’

  ‘You’ve dreamt about her as well?’

  ‘No. I mean, perhaps. I’ve seen her twice, on Hypasitis. I may have been sleeping once but… It felt real. It felt like I could…’

  ‘Reach out and touch her,’ Welt said. Rannik and Nzogwu both started. Neither had noticed the astropath’s silent approach.

  ‘What is she?’ Rannik asked the blind psyker.

  ‘I do not know,’ Welt admitted. Beneath the green folds of his cowl, his gaunt face looked even more pale and haggard than ever. The dark pits where his eyes had once been made Rannik shiver – they reminded her of the Obsidians.

  ‘I hope I will have a more comforting answer before we reach Piety Five,’ Welt went on.

  ‘I want to submit to psychic screening,’ Rannik told Nzogwu.

  ‘That is unnecessary,’ Welt said before the inquisitor could answer. ‘It is unlikely that you bear any particular psychic taint. You probably picked up an echo of what I felt. You are the only member of the retinue to have encountered the Carcharodon Astra before. That made your subconscious more likely to mirror my experiences. It is probable we saw her at the exact same time, despite being separated by half a segmentum.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘Think of it like a clap and its echo in a high chamber. I provide the clap and you are its reverberation. There is no danger of you coming to any harm. In fact, spectres such as these are common side-effects for more powerful vision-dreams. And they have been powerful, I assure you of that. I have had little rest this past month.’

  ‘Tell us if you see her again,’ Nzogwu said. ‘I will inform the rest of the retinue to do likewise. If what you say is true, then they may also begin to experience your subconscious psychic backlash.’

  ‘I will do all I can to contain it,’ the astropath said, bowing his head. ‘But there are momentous events on the horizon. Your quest is about to enter a new phase, Inquisitor Nzogwu. Of that I am certain.’

  The Arch Recidivist’s horrid screaming finally trailed off, and the Ecclesiarchy choir reached the crescendo of its repentance dirge. Images of the massed pyre would be disseminated throughout the Tri-Sectors along with small portions of the heretic’s ash, to be scattered in public spaces, a testament to the weight of the Imperium’s authority and the forgiving grace of its God-Emperor. It seemed as though, at the last, the heretic had repented.

  The pyre had been an act of mercy.

  The predators met in the darkest depths, where no light had ever reached.

  It was a gathering the likes of which Sharr had only seen twice before in his many decades as a void brother. They had come from every part of the Outer Dark, to this point of lifeless, featureless space far below the galactic plane. This was not somewhere like Atargatis or the Lost World, somewhere remote that had been forgotten. This was a realm that had never been found, waters with unmeasured depths, seas that existed on no known chart.

  Into it the predators swam. The White Maw and her escorts joined another fleet as it broke from its warp jump point, led by the strike cruiser Silent Judge, flagship of the Fifth Battle Company. Together they approached the grand gathering of warships and supply carriers that was slowly assembling, like some vast shoal backlit against the sea of stars. Strike cruisers similar to the White Maw, lithe and deadly, passed alongside the grey flanks of their larger cousins, the battle-barges of the First and Second Companies. There were other capital ships as well, so ancient and so heavily modified that they defied easy classification, the starlight outlining brazen gun batteries and the sloping grey-and-black surfaces of adamantium glacis-plates and wicked prows. Protected by such warships and their shoals of escort vessels were the non-combat ships of the fleet – lumbering cargo haulers of numerous ages and designs, slaver ships, the great forge vessel Adamantius, smaller agri-trawlers and scout drones. The Nomad Predation Fleet of the Carcharodon Astra was assembling in all its predatory strength, drawn by the call that had gone out through the depths.

  At the heart of it all was the Nicor. She was not the largest vessel in the fleet, but she was by far the deadliest. Nothing could match the speed of her plasma drives, the strength of her guns and the stopping power of her shields and bulkheads. She was an apex killer, a hunter refined by ten thousand years of success. She was the queen in the Outer Dark, and none approached her without permission.

  The White Maw had received that permission. Shipmaster Teko brought the Third Company’s capital ship up alongside the brutal might of the Red Wake’s flagship, and launched a transport shuttle, like a minnow passing between leviathans. It docked in the Nicor’s flank, the void port venting steam that froze in great, glittering clouds around the hull.

  Sharr was aboard the shuttle. Accompanied by Te Kahurangi, Khauri and Korro, he boarded the Nicor and made his way to the bridge.

  The White Maw’s interior was a far cry from the ancient flagship the Reaper Prime now found himself on. Like many Carcharodons, he eschewed the weight of relics and trophies so beloved of other Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. Most void brothers bore no bone reliquaries, purity seals, devotional scrolls or sanctification etchings on their simple, grey armour – their exile markings and the occasional predatory tooth or talon were sufficient. Likewise the White Maw was a spartan place. Its corridors and blast doors were bare, gleaming metal, only the sections of basalt and coral stonework giving an indication that the warship was a unique Chapter vessel.

  On board the Nicor, however, the true age of the Carcharodon Astra became apparent. The service tunnels, gangways and corridors Sharr and his companions traversed were filled with ten thousand years of trophies. The desiccated bones of countless predators from across the galaxy decorated almost every inch of the ship, littering the walls with fanged skulls and ribbing the ceilings with ancient remains. Niches in the adamantium walls either side of the party were interspersed with battered, dusty suits of power armour, all sporting grievous damage – the plate of heroes gone by, broken beyond the ability of even the Chapter’s most skilled artisan-serfs to repair. There were other trophies as well, ancient, age-faded banners, broken pieces of war machinery and weapons of all shapes and sizes. Everything here was testimony to the age of the Carcharodon Astra, and the Chapter’s long vigil in the dark. In a way, it almost reminded Sharr of the Lost Eyrie.

  They made their way to the Nicor’s bridge in silence, the same silence that seemed to shroud the great ship. Their route took them along the gantries of the secondary enginarium, the great plasma coils below them sparking and cracking with blue lightning, and past the immersion tanks, whatever aquatic creatures there were residing within them invisible in the dark waters. Occasionally they passed serfs in the Chapter’s pale robes, shaven heads bowed. They never looked up or made eye contact with the Carcharodons, and the Space Marines barely even registered their passing. Sharr knew that mere feet away, in the sweat-decks below, thousands of slaves toiled just to keep the ancient warship functioning, let alone provide fodder for the rest of the Chapter. It was something he never paused to consider. Without such labour the Chapter would surely have ceased to function during its long exile. And besides, it was tradition, a tradition they had long ago paid the price to defend.

  They arrived at the blast doors that led to the primary bridge, the metal plates inscribed with the great shark crest of the Chapter and hung with the huge incisors of vast, long-dead predators. Two Terminators flanked the entrance, but neither moved
to stop Sharr as he activated the unlocking rune, setting the great doors pulling apart with a grinding of old servos. Even a captain like Sharr would have required maximum clearance to enter the Nicor’s bridge, but the presence of both Te Kahurangi and Korro ensured none stopped him. His void brothers following close behind, the Reaper Prime entered the Carcharodon Astra’s inner sanctum.

  The bridge of the Nicor was akin to the rest of the ship – shrouded in murky darkness and locked in a bubble of silence, its viewing ports sealed and its vox-banks and rune-keys reduced to low clicks. The only light emanated from the hololithic displays, oculus stands and cogitator viewscreens, which cast a dancing, aquatic-like luminescence across the rugged coral that clad the ceiling and much of the walls. The space was structured in tiers, comprising lower communications pits, a main deck featuring the gunnery, enginarium and augur work-blocks, and a raised command dais where the primary cogitators were sited, worked by the chief crew serfs and patrolled by the ominous, shadowed forms of more hulking Red Brethren Terminators. It was to this higher tier that Sharr went, passing between the control stations and the emaciated operators chained to them, none of them daring to raise their gaze from the viewscreens and rune pads they worked at. The entire space resembled some ancient, submerged palace, held entirely in the thrall of one figure.

  That figure stood at the back of the command deck, facing away from the rest of the bridge. If the Red Wake was aware of Sharr’s entry he made no sign of it. The great Carcharodon stood before a sheet of armourglass, clad in his Terminator armour, Hunger and Slake clothing each gauntlet with a dozen wicked edges. His focus was seemingly lost amidst the inky blackness of the waters held back by the vast tank that constituted the bridge’s rear section.

  There was another Carcharodon beside him, and this one stirred as Sharr, Korro, Te Kahurangi and Khauri climbed to the Red Wake’s command platform. His power armour was a dark shade of blue rather than the usual grey, and be bore a bone staff not dissimilar to Te Kahurangi’s, tipped with a shard of black stone. His name was Atea, and he was second only to Te Kahurangi in the Chapter’s Librarius.