by David Guymer
The iron captain struck back with an elbow.
No pain. No surprise.
No weakness.
The materium split to swallow Yeldrian before the elbow hit, and Draevark’s arm punched only through maimed air. A humanoid corposant lit up Khrysaar’s runebank, ten or so metres distant, an instant before a blizzard of alien laser fire bracketed the iron captain.
An eye-lens exploded, laser bolts obliterating the benedictions chiselled into the armaplas as the iron captain ground about and raised a lightning-sheathed gauntlet. Rainwater hissed to steam. Khrysaar rolled from cover as flame jetted from the underslung weapon mount. The runebank wasn’t so graceful. It erupted into a column of fire and debris that stole a temporary outline of the Little Grey from the clouds it hid within.
The shuttle was still circling, presumably with Cullas Mohr now in the pilot’s throne.
Rauth slipped and crawled towards the still form of Captain Harsid as Draevark slowly punished the rockrete between him and Yeldrian.
The Death Spectre didn’t respond. The cavity in his chest plate was a gristly, stringy mess, a waxy white film already partially coating the damaged organs. Mucranoid secretions. Harsid was falling into a sus-an coma, the last resort for a Space Marine injured beyond even a transhuman physiology’s capacity to regenerate. Draevark did that with one hit. Rauth slid his bionic fingers between the Death Spectre’s gorget ring and his helmet, and pulled. With a howl, he tore Harsid’s helmet from his head, the sudden wrenching of its clasps causing it to fly clear over the edge of the platform.
Harsid’s face was coated in more of the same waxy substance. Rauth felt no breath on his hand as he reached across his captain’s mouth to manually activate the vox-controls concealed inside the gorget ring.
‘Mohr, get down here. We need–’
Another gout of flame rolled towards him, and he dropped flat to his chest, the burning wash of promethium dragging the moisture from his face.
‘You. You are an Iron Hand.’ Draevark’s shoulders rolled with the titanic girth of his armour. The sputtering exit wound in his chest plating framed a view of the fire pit behind him, all that remained of Khrysaar’s hiding place. ‘Did Kristos send you? Or was it Qarismi? Did the magos calculi tell you that you would die today? If not his powers of prognostication are not as he professes them to be.’
Rauth held his knife between them as he backed away. Draevark chuckled, a bleak venting of waste air from his doubly reinforced helmet radiators. With a grunt of acknowledgement, Rauth tossed away the knife.
Iron Hands don’t do last stands.
‘We are here for the Dawnbreak Technology,’ Rauth said.
‘The what?’
Rauth opened his mouth to answer, but to his surprise a harsh laugh forced its way through instead. He doesn’t know. He’s iron captain of the Garrsak Clan and he doesn’t know.
‘The sister of the Thennos device,’ said Rauth.
‘The artefact that Jalenghaal and Stronos unearthed there. There was another?’ Another low growl rumbled from his speakers. Lightning rinsed his metre-long claws. ‘Kristos brought it here?’
Rauth backed away until his heels hovered over empty space, nothing at his back but swirling rain.
‘He used my clan to guard it for him, but why, where is the logic?’ The iron captain’s lenses flickered as his helmet displays cogitated the problem. ‘He wishes to remove it before the orks come, as he did on Dawnbreak to the eldar. Of course.’
Quicker than Rauth would have imagined Tactical Dreadnought armour could move, the iron captain had him by the throat. The meat of his neck sizzled. His feet left the ground.
‘He intends for it to be Clan Garrsak that bears the blame this time,’ the iron captain hissed. ‘Kristos underestimates me for the last time.’
Instinct made Rauth attempt to pry the talons away. There was a discharge and a burned ozone smell as the sheathing power field shocked his hands back to his side.
He gurgled on a scream.
‘Yet he sends two scouts to see it done,’ Draevark snarled. ‘A weakling get of Corax and an alien. How best to send Kristos a message? How best to let him understand the depth of his failure?’
The rain beating on the iron captain’s armour began to warp and discolour.
Rauth cocked a bloody grin, but hadn’t the breath to fashion the retort on his lips. Do it, Yeldrian. Do it now.
In an explosion of primary-coloured alien plastek the autarch burst from the rain, striking a decapitating blow. Without turning to face him, Draevark caught the eldar’s blade between the talons of his other gauntlet. The alien’s power field merged with his own, throwing out hissing arcs and tortured bolts of electricity. Yeldrian strained, his Banshee masque melting and reshaping as it probed the iron captain’s psyche for some deep-seated, long-forgotten mortal dread. Draevark did not look as though restraining two combatants was any effort at all.
‘Only one question eludes me – why would you work for Kristos, alien?’
‘I do not,’ Yeldrian hissed, still pushing against his trapped blade. ‘I have been fighting Kristos for two hundred years. The Cycle renews. I was the eldar he took it from on Dawnbreak. I was the one fated to arrive on a devastated world to find my farseer dead and the artefact gone. He divided it into three. Perhaps he knew the significance of the number to our mythology, or perhaps our gods work through him. One part went to Thennos. One part to Mars. One part here.’
‘Where is the Thennosian part now?’ said Draevark.
‘Your home world, I believe. I have an agent there searching.’
‘Tricks and lies.’
A hard turn of the wrist sent Yeldrian’s blade flying and the eldar himself into a controlled cartwheel, landing spread across hands and knees with his laser pistol aimed at Draevark’s damaged helmet. He didn’t fire.
What are you waiting for? Rauth’s senses were starting to retreat inwards. He could feel his multi-lung straining, scavenging every last molecule of unused oxygen still in his body. Shoot him.
‘His name is Lydriik,’ said Yeldrian.
There was a snap of dissipating charge as the talon at Rauth’s throat deactivated, and he gasped, giddy on the sudden intake of breath.
‘I know Lydriik.’ The iron captain turned his scarred helmet towards Rauth, twitching and jerking like a worm in his grip. He emitted a crackling growl-sound. ‘I will not be played like a pawn. Take it. Damn Kristos, and let him know that it was Iron Captain Draevark of Clan Garrsak that did it.’
X
The Dreadnought was down, spiders of haywire energy crawling across his ornate sarcophagus before scuttling into the metal. The warrior within would still be alive, but blind, deaf, dumb and in excruciating pain most likely. Jalenghaal stabbed a teleport homer onto the Dreadnought’s engraved front plating, a mote of empathy floating just out of his mind’s reach. The Venerable had been weak. He had been strong. That was the end to it.
Around him Thorrn and Burr, Karrth and Hugon, the last warriors of his clave shot into the crowd. With Galvarro disabled and the shipmaster slain it was slaughtering livestock, and that was how the Iron Hands preferred it. Burr took the time to cut high-value bionics from the fallen and to salvage Strontius’ lascannon. The warriors’ gene-seed was of lesser concern, and in any case they had no Apothecary. The others withdrew into a defensive ring.
The teleport homer pulsed in rapid sequence. A warning ping went off in Jalenghaal’s brain, and his whole body seemed to clench in anticipation.
A feeling of absolute cold enveloped him as the teleporter dragged his abused soul into the warp.
His iron shell followed a moment later, as though reluctant. The delay was miniscule, but in the dimensionless void of the empyrean all spans of time stretch eternal. A sense of collapse followed, as if he were being driven through a pinhead singularity, as soul and
body reunited in the form that best fit the moment and the caprice of quantum uncertainty.
‘Ave Omnissiah,’ he murmured on emerging, to all available parameters, whole.
The battle-torn bridge of the Shield of the God-Emperor was gone. In its place was a frigid chamber, low-ceilinged and barely lit. Metal slabs crowded the floor space, aggressively polished and shiny despite the gloom. Glass tanks filled with bubbling fluids lined the walls. Bits of metal glinted there. An arm. A leg. Bits of armour. It was the apothecarium. Jalenghaal was back aboard the Omnipotence.
‘Disorientation. Symptomatic of teleportation.’ Apothecary Dumaar looked from the operating slab he had been bent over. It was blanketed in the blueish shimmer of an unstable stasis field. His twin optics clicked and whirred as they focused on the five steaming Iron Hands and the haywired Dreadnought that had materialised before him. ‘Recommend complete cybernetic reconstruction of the vestibular system.’
‘My vestibulocerebellum is already one hundred per cent bionic,’ said Jalenghaal.
Dumaar remained still as he considered. ‘Then I have no recommendation.’
The apothecarium doors hissed open and Niholos and Haas walked in, Magos Qarismi following, his geometric puzzle-staff clicking on the bare decking. At the sight of Galvarro, the magos calculi appeared to grin, but then he always appeared to grin.
‘Minimal damage,’ said Niholos, running his probe-talons over the mezzotint reliefs on Galvarro’s sarcophagus. He shook his head, apparently dissatisfied, but said, ‘It will suffice.’
‘Garrsak concurs,’ said Haas.
‘Preliminary stage, liquefy remains and drain cyborganics.’ Dumaar’s gaze tracked lazily from Jalenghaal to the Dreadnought. ‘The starter feed will ameliorate the effects of stasis shock, and facilitate First Sergeant Telarrch’s uterine attachment.’
‘You speak of a hero,’ said Niholos. ‘Speak his name at the very least.’
Dumaar did nothing to indicate that he had heard.
‘Telarrch will make better use of his iron,’ said Haas, quietly.
‘We do the Imperium a great service today,’ said Qarismi. His skull regarded each of the Apothecaries in turn.
‘The Hospitallers will not see it that way,’ Jalenghaal interrupted.
The light carved the edges of Qarismi’s skull as he turned towards Jalenghaal’s demi-clave. ‘They are emotional creatures,’ he said, as though addressing a neophyte. ‘It blinds them to rationality.’
Jalenghaal did not dispute that. ‘Where is Iron Father Kristos?’
The magos calculi shared a look with the Apothecaries. Or with Haas and Niholos anyway. Dumaar’s transitory attention had already returned to the stasis slab. ‘He is occupied elsewhere.’
‘Are we then released? We should rejoin Iron Captain Draevark on the planet’s surface.’
‘Did you not hear?’ said Niholos, voice bitter. ‘Draevark betrayed us. He surrendered Kristos’ prize to the Deathwatch.’
‘As I calculated that he would,’ said Qarismi. ‘Yeldrian has already left the planet’s surface and returned to a merchant vessel coded the Lady Grey. The Omnipotence tracks her now. A hypothetical terminus of the eldar webway exists approximately six hundred and fifty thousand kilometres out from Fabris Callivant. An intercept vector has already been extrapolated. Draevark and Yeldrian unwittingly deliver the Dawnbreak Technology into Kristos’ lap.’
Jalenghaal had no idea what Niholos and Qarismi were talking about, but he was Garrsak, and Garrsak always obeyed. That he could rely on.
‘Then what are my orders?’
Qarismi grinned. ‘Prepare for boarding.’
Chapter Fifteen
‘It sounds a lot like faith.’
– Barras
I
‘Primus,’ said Baraquiel, tapping his chin thoughtfully as he repeated back to Stronos what he had just been told. ‘Do you think that could mean NL-Primus?’
Stronos nodded.
‘Can you think of another Primus that the spirit of Scholam NL-7 would be referring to?’ Barras stood over the door, a block of armour and frown, combat knife resting against his girdle plating.
‘Better to ask the question and be certain,’ Baraquiel replied.
‘Better to shut our mouths and get on with it.’
‘Fine advice,’ Thecian called over, mildly.
The Exsanguinator was perched on a runebank in the ruined medial tiers of the operations chamber, the crater that Sigart’s bolter had blown out of the sloped casing forming a serviceable seat for someone of Space Marine stature. Without looking up to engage in the argument he had just prevented, he continued to wind the bandage, ripped from a dead lexmechanic’s robes, around his forearm. No one commented on how they had seen him earn the wound, which he appeared to appreciate.
‘The chamber is secure.’
Sigart swaggered down the spoke companionway towards the hub where the others were gathered. He twirled his knife in one hand, occasionally interrupting the unconscious routine to throw and catch it. His bolter hung at his side by the shoulder strap. A bloody spray pattern decorated the entire right-hand side of his surplice. The Black Templar nodded to Barras, who welcomed his gene-brother’s return in kind.
‘It is time to make our next move,’ said the Knight of Dorn.
‘It is time to plan our next move,’ Baraquiel corrected. ‘The skitarii are bringing some heavy firepower this way.’
‘The doors are sealed,’ said Sigart. ‘How did the base crew bring in that kind of support without the magos instructor’s knowledge?’
‘Unless she is part of the plot,’ said Barras, darkly.
‘She is not,’ said Stronos.
‘What makes you so certain?’
‘She is dead.’
Barras frowned. The others were silent.
‘Oh,’ said Baraquiel after a time.
‘I killed the one that did it,’ Stronos added.
Sigart held Stronos’ eye, then nodded. Stronos returned it.
‘Before we attempt to make a plan, there are things you must know.’
‘About Thennos?’ said Thecian, pulling his tourniquet tight, and then drawing his feet in to sit cross-legged. He looked up at Stronos and the others, suddenly engaged.
‘To begin with.’
Barras glanced over his shoulder at the doors. The damage they had sustained kept them from closing fully, about two fingers’ width of separation between them.
‘This is hardly the time for you to grow talkative. We have Baraquiel for that.’
The Angel Porphyr grinned.
‘It will not take long. And it is important.’
With a deep breath, he told them everything.
He told them about the code-corrupted skitarii that the Iron Hands had fought for control of Thennos, how they had discarded mechanical augmentation in favour of implanted flesh. He told of the sigil he had seen there, the Cog Mechanicus inverted, man and machine switched as if to emphasise how easily one could be replaced by the other. When he spoke of the Prophet-Alpha, the de facto leader of the heretek uprising, Thecian peppered him with questions.
‘He was assumed to be a skitarii princeps,’ Stronos explained. ‘But I never saw him, and his body was never found. Presumably it lay amongst the masses. The Iron Hands do not leave survivors.’
With Thecian satisfied, Stronos went on. He spared none of the unpalatable details.
The meddling of the Adeptus Mechanicus. The sclerosis of the Iron Council and of the Kristosian Conclave. He told them of the Dawnbreak Technology, or what he knew of it from his conversations with Ancient Ares and his brief exchange with Iron Father Kristos.
‘I have heard of the planet, Dawnbreak,’ said Sigart. ‘A paradise world. It was before my time, but my crusade fleet were close enough to hear their cry. We could not spar
e the ships.’ He made the sign of the aquila. ‘The next reports were that it had been scoured and then abandoned by the eldar.’
‘Iron Father Kristos heard the same cry,’ said Stronos. ‘And he brought the Raukaan Clan to Dawnbreak. On his arrival he learned of the exploratory excavations that had begun immediately prior to the invasion.’ Barras scoffed, and Stronos continued, quickly now, acutely aware of the time he had already expended telling this story. ‘The eldar struck first and hardest there, although I doubt anyone at the time knew why. Except Kristos, perhaps. He broke the first attack, slew their farseer himself, and while the eldar regrouped to await reinforcement, he took the technological relics that the excavators had unearthed and left.’
‘He abandoned the planet?’ said Barras.
Stronos nodded.
‘I believe it is still marked for recolonisation,’ said Sigart, quietly.
‘The Administratum moves slowly,’ Baraquiel agreed.
‘Perhaps Kristos plays some role in that delay, I do not know,’ said Stronos. ‘He has many allies. The technology he removed from Dawnbreak was divided amongst them, and distributed across the galaxy.’
‘One part to Thennos,’ said Thecian.
‘One part here,’ Barras added, grimly.
Stronos nodded. ‘As a location, the Noctis Labyrinth could not be more perfect. And the similarities to what I witnessed on Thennos are too stark to be coincidence, though I believe we have caught the corruption at an earlier stage.’