Carcharodons: Outer Dark

by Robbie MacNiven

  They got halfway towards the other side before the ex-Guardsman stopped abruptly.

  ‘Movement left,’ he said, swinging his lasgun to cover a side tunnel branching off from between two grave slabs. In the same instant Rannik caught a shadow flitting along the wall to the right, its form distorted to an unnatural shape and size by the darting laminator beam. She turned her Vox Legi on it, but there was nothing there.

  ‘We are surrounded,’ Khauri said. ‘Above us.’

  Rannik realised what had happened a second too late. A shriek – unnatural and ululating – rang through the tunnels, and as she tried to bring her shotgun up something struck her from above.

  It was lightning fast. She stumbled, and managed to right herself just in time to catch a flash of claws and blood. Damar went down as he tried to turn his carbine on the thing that had dropped from the ceiling.

  ‘No!’ Rannik screamed, and fired. The crypt resounded with the shotgun blast, followed immediately by the hammer of ­Khauri’s bolt pistol. The bolts missed, but the spread of Rannik’s shot clipped its flank, causing it to stumble as it darted away from Damar. In the light of his fallen luminator, she saw it properly for the first time.

  Genestealer.

  + + Vox transmission 88-3, bandwidth 19-10 + + +

  Reaper, this is Grey One. It is an ambush. The objective was mined and we are coming under heavy fire from all directions. Grey Four has lost contact with Pale One and the two humans – he believes they were caught underground when the charges blew. We have lost their vox-signal and there is no way to shift the debris. My auspex reads thousands of contacts closing on our position. Requesting permission to withdraw. Grey One out.

  + + Vox transmission 88-4, bandwidth 19-10 + + +

  Grey One, this is Reaper. Permission granted. Withdraw on fall-back position aleph-one and rendezvous with Grey Six. Permission to use all force necessary. Reaper out.

  + + Vox transmission 88-5, bandwidth 19-10 + + +

  Reaper, Grey One. Acknowledged, all weapons active. Black Scythe is leading off. Grey One, over and out.

  + + Vox transmissions end + + +

  _________ Chapter X

  Sharr broke the vox-link with Nuritona and mounted the steps of the Cathedra of Saint Solomon. Before him Absolution Square was being cleared. The Third Company had cordoned off the space and were now setting up defensive positions around the towering cathedra’s base.

  The strike force sent into the slums was on its way back, minus Khauri and those among the inquisitor’s retinue who had accompanied him. Sharr had already had Nzogwu on the vox, demanding to know what had happened after he’d lost contact with his operatives. Sharr had more pressing concerns than their wellbeing, or even the immediate recovery of his Librarian. The rising had begun.

  From the reports he had tracked over the frateris communications channels, it had started as several separate incidents. A mob had gathered in the Saint Claudian district outside the Church of the Seculum, protesting over the closing and barring of the shrines. Not long after another group had tried to force entry to the residences of Cardinal Delcharo. There had been spontaneous acts of small-scale vandalism, and at least two bands of pilgrims from the slums had forced entry to the supplicant quarter and were holding public prayer meetings that the frateris were struggling to disperse.

  And now Nuritona’s strike on the slum shrine was withdrawing under the assault of thousands of pilgrims, some of them armed, flocking from all corners of the sprawl that surrounded Pontifrax. Sharr doubted all those involved were cult members, but there was no doubt that the xenos were making their move. He had ordered his armour to block the side streets flanking the cathedra while the majority of the company prepared to receive an attack across its open ground. The cathedra and the Theocratica were both the spiritual and administrative heart of Piety V. If the xenos wished to crush Imperial rule before the arrival of their masters, they would have to storm Absolution Square. The Carcharodon Astra would be ready for them.

  The vox-uplink icon on Sharr’s visor pinged with a transmission from orbit. It was Uthulu.

  ‘The teleportarium is primed, Reaper,’ the Techmarine said, his voice chopped and distorted by atmospherics. ‘Strike Leader Korro and the Red Brethren stand ready for your deployment orders.’

  ‘Acknowledged,’ Sharr said. ‘Contact Chaplain Nikora and proceed to the Bay of Silence.’

  There was a slight pause before Uthulu responded.

  ‘You wish me to begin awakening rites?’

  ‘No, but stand by to. We do not yet know the enemy’s true strength, but from what I have seen thus far I fear it is vast. We are about to enter a battle for our Chapter’s survival. We shall need all void brothers, past and present, before the end.’

  There were three of them. Three purestrain genestealers, hunched, purple-fleshed creatures with bulbous heads and spiny, mottled chitin carapaces. They attacked in the dark, little more than blurs of bared fangs and raking claws.

  Damar was screaming. The alien that had slashed him had been hit in its side by Rannik’s scattershot, and it twisted towards her with talons outstretched. She hit it again, this time face-on. Its swollen cranium exploded in a shower of grey matter, and its corpse barrelled into her, cracking against her flak plate and pitching her to the crypt floor.

  Stinking xenos fluids splattered her, making her retch. Its claws scraped her armour, still scrabbling as she tried to grip its chitin and haul it off. Beside her Damar was writhing in pain, hands clutched to the small of his back. His flesh had been torn by the first genestealer’s claws, and the second was standing over him, its jaws distended.

  The thunder of Khauri’s bolt pistol filled the vaulted space. Rannik saw the xenos hit as the third darted from the side-tunnel behind, just a six-limbed blur in the alternating light and dark of the weapon’s muzzle flash. Alien flesh burst apart and chitin cracked, but it was not enough.

  There were more, more bursting from the tunnels all around and through a fissure in the ceiling, shrieking and hissing as they scrambled down to surround their prey.

  Rannik tried to stand, but Khauri flashed a glance at her.

  ‘Stay,’ he said, the command running deeper than mere words. Rannik felt a sudden pressure against her chest, keeping her down.

  Blue flame burst into life around the Librarian’s stave, and he spun, a blow crashing into the first alien to lunge at him. It was smashed from its feet, but one of its brood-kin was already in past the Carcharodon’s guard, claws digging and scraping along his backpack. He turned, cutting it down with a trio of point-blank bolts, and spun the stave back just in time to deflect another low, raking blow to the back of his legs.

  The things were everywhere, and Khauri was a blur of blue-wreathed motion in their midst. The pressure on Rannik subsided enough for her to raise her shotgun from the floor, and she let out a shout of adrenaline-fuelled fury as she fired into more of the genestealers emerging from the tunnel to her left. The fight became a haze of screams and shrieks, of fanged maws and glassy black eyes lit by the fury of muzzle flashes.

  Rannik’s Vox Legi clicked empty. She realised there were no more targets. As quickly as they had appeared, the genestealers had vanished. She dropped the shotgun and slumped back, panting.

  Khauri was standing in the centre of the crypt, surrounded by smoking, broken bodies and splattered in alien viscera. His fire had reduced to a burning glow that suffused his stave. His armour was shattered – a talon had split his helmet, one pauldron was a mangled mess and his backpack, already damaged by the blast on the shrine stairs, had been split open and was smoking and sparking.

  A groan dragged Rannik’s attention away from the Librarian. Damar was still alive, but losing both blood and consciousness fast. She scrambled onto her knees and knelt beside him. He snatched the edge of her flak plate, hissing between gritted teeth.

  ‘I-it
’s bad.’

  ‘You’re going to be fine,’ Rannik said, gripping him by the shoulder. ‘We’re going to get you out of here.’

  ‘His spine has been injured,’ Khauri said. There was a whir of servos as the Space Marine knelt alongside Rannik, knee plate grating against the stone of the crypt’s floor. ‘He will have to be transported with care.’

  ‘Get out,’ Damar said. ‘I’ll slow you down. You need to get to a surface point before they block them all.’

  Khauri had slipped a small syringe from a port in his thigh plate and now ripped a section of Damar’s fatigues open to drive it home.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Rannik demanded.

  ‘Blood coagulants and painkillers,’ he replied. ‘Normally reserved for my kind, but a half dose should be the right amount. That should keep him quiet.’

  ‘We’re not leaving you,’ Rannik told Damar, taking his head in her hands and focusing his eyes on her. ‘I’ll still be here when you wake up, right next to you. We’re going to get you to Janus and he’s going to patch you right up. Again.’

  Damar tried to reply, but his words were already slurring as the injection took hold. His eyes rolled and he went limp in Rannik’s arms.

  ‘It would be wise to leave him,’ Khauri said. ‘The injection will stop him alerting any more threats to our location.’

  ‘No. I’m not going without him.’

  ‘There is little chance of reaching a medicae soon. He is also likely crippled beyond repair. He will only serve to lessen the chances of our own survival. His blood loss has already been considerable.’

  ‘Then help me stem it!’ Rannik snapped, struggling to ease Damar onto his side and expose the ruin of his back.

  Khauri said nothing, but removed a canister from his belt’s mag-strips. As Rannik applied pressure to the wound he sprayed on a dose of synth-skin, its artificial smell and the stink of counterseptic battling with the alien reek of the genestealer corpses.

  Rannik slid an arm around Damar’s shoulders, her hands red with his blood, but Khauri stopped her.

  ‘It will be better if I carry him.’

  The Space Marine stood and began to disengage latches on his power armour’s backpack.

  ‘It is too damaged,’ he said when he noticed Rannik’s confused expression. ‘It will only be a hindrance to me.’

  He uncoupled the power unit along with the rear plate it was linked to, sealing off the power nodes. The two heavy pauldrons followed. The white flesh of his back was left exposed.

  He laid his stave carefully against the broken backpack before bending and picking up Damar’s limp body. Pale and blood-streaked as he was, it looked as though he were already dead. Khauri cradled him in one arm and retrieved his stave with the other. He turned away from Rannik, towards the tunnel the gene­stealer brood had burst from.

  ‘We must keep going,’ he said.

  The crypt resounded with the cold, clear double-clack of a shotgun’s slide being racked.

  Khauri turned back. Rannik was pointing her Vox Legi squarely at his chest. She was shaking.

  ‘Turn around,’ she ordered. ‘Now.’

  Khauri held her gaze for a moment, his black eyes betraying neither fear nor surprise. Slowly, he obeyed, displaying his pallid back. Displaying the old scars that marked it, circles and dashes.

  They formed a pattern that Rannik recognised, a pattern that had haunted her since Hypasitis.

  ‘What are they?’ she demanded. ‘What do they mean?’

  ‘They are marks I received before my ascension,’ Khauri said. ‘The work of the Archenemy, rendered impotent.’

  ‘I’ve seen them before,’ Rannik replied, trying to keep her voice level and still the quiver in her hands. ‘I’ve seen them everywhere.’

  ‘They do not concern you.’

  ‘You said it yourself, they’re the marks of the Archenemy! You’re a traitor! Your entire Chapter are traitors!’

  Khauri turned back to face Rannik, his expression still unreadable.

  ‘You do not know what we are, human. What we have become. You would be dead without us.’

  ‘Maybe I should be,’ Rannik snarled. ‘Maybe it’s time I was, and you along with me.’

  ‘If that is the case your companion will die also.’

  Rannik’s eyes darted to Damar, cradled and helpless in the giant warrior’s grip.

  ‘He’s your hostage. That’s the only reason you’re not abandoning him.’

  ‘I swear to you, neither I nor my brothers are agents of the Dark Gods. If my words do not convince you, let our actions show our loyalty.’

  ‘You massacre and enslave. If you aren’t servants of the Arch­enemy, you’re little better than them.’

  ‘We serve the Imperium. How many of those like us whom you would call saviour perform the same deeds we do? The Void Father’s works could not continue were it not for such actions.’

  ‘That is a lie. You are supposed to protect and uphold, just like the Adeptus Arbites. We are mankind’s protectors.’

  ‘We are mankind’s judges,’ Khauri said, and now his voice was tinged with anger. ‘When they stray, they are punished. We serve the Imperium, not man.’

  ‘You serve yourselves.’

  ‘Enough,’ the Carcharodon snapped. He cracked his stave into the crypt’s floor, and Rannik felt a force snatch the Vox Legi from her grip, sending it tumbling to the ground. At the same time something cold and insubstantial seemed to flood her lungs. She choked and gagged, hands going to her throat, eyes wide as she struggled for breath. It felt as though she were drowning, though no water had entered her mouth.

  ‘I could annihilate you in the time it takes for you to blink,’ Khauri said, his eyes now burning with the blue light that had surrounded his stave. ‘You are a fool if you attempt to resist me, and an even greater one if you think I mean to betray you. I am going now. If you wish, you may follow. If not, stay here and die.’

  The pressure disappeared, and suddenly Rannik found she could breathe again. She collapsed to the floor, gasping, a hand clutching her aching chest.

  Khauri was leaving, still carrying Damar. Rannik snatched her shotgun and found her feet. For a moment, the urge to level the Vox Legi at the Carcharodon once more was almost overwhelming. But she knew to do so would mean death, at best for her, at worst for Damar. She kept the weapon lowered, and hurried to catch up.

  Khauri said nothing as she rejoined him. They were passing through a burrow-tunnel that seemed to connect to another section of dilapidated sewage chutes. The dark, claustrophobic environment and the towering presence of the pale-skinned warrior was dredging memories Rannik had long suppressed, memories of Zartak – suffocating heat, bare rock walls, red blood on white skin. She felt sick, but she forced herself to keep going. She had to get back to the surface, not just for Damar’s sake. She had to link back up with Nzogwu.

  The sound of more detonations crumped through the maze-like underworld, shuddering through the walls around them. Khauri paused, looking back at her.

  ‘They are still collapsing exit routes,’ he said. ‘Keeping us trapped. They must control the entirety of the slum district.’

  ‘There’s one way out they can’t reach then,’ Rannik said, slowing down as she flashed the stab lumen on the tunnel pocket chart. ‘Less than a mile ahead, though the path isn’t direct. There’s an Adeptus Arbites sub-precinct with a sewer patrol grate. If we reach that I can get us back up to the surface.’

  ‘Very well,’ Khauri said.

  They set off with renewed purpose, Rannik taking point while Khauri carried Damar. The passageways led them through slime-encrusted culverts and broken-through crypt tunnels. Twice they passed secondary tunnels that had been collapsed, munitions planted above shattering the structure of the underground network.

  ‘They’ve been planning this fo
r months,’ Rannik said as they passed into another sewer section, up past their ankles in dark, stinking slurry. ‘It’s as though they knew we were coming to this world. But how could they?’

  ‘The woman in the veil told them.’

  Rannik stopped.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You have seen her, I sense it. She will come for us both before the end.’

  Nzogwu had lost contact with Damar and Rannik. The inquisitor paced the interior of the state room of the Theocratica, given over to him for use as an operations centre. Lexo-archivist Llorens and Preacher Maurus were absent, watching over Rawlin at the medicae suite, but Janus, Ro and Tibalt were sitting watching the viewscreens rigged up to the room’s far wall. Nzogwu had used his authority to route pict-casts from across the shrine-city to the monitors. They currently displayed the mounting tensions gripping Pontifrax. Groups of supplicants and worshippers were gathering outside locked churches and shrines all over the city. In some places they had started to try to break in. Mobs of pilgrims were also moving in from the slums in ever-increasing numbers. The frateris command and control appeared to be deteriorating. Some units had abandoned their posts and joined the ragged bands starting to fill the city’s streets.

  The vox-caster set up in the corner told a similar story. There were reports coming in from the frateris command channels of out-and-out rioting in the slums. Beyond the state room’s arched windows, Nzogwu could see columns of black smoke climbing up beyond the spires.

  And still nothing from Damar or Rannik. The last word he’d received had been from Damar, reporting that the column had come under attack and they were making a move on the objective. Nzogwu hadn’t been able to break into the Space Marines’ own communications, despite Ro’s best efforts, and while the Carcharodons in Absolution Square appeared to be setting up defensive positions outside the cathedra, none would speak with him or tell him where their commander was. They had barred all entry to the cathedra itself.