Rogue Trader

by Andy Hoare

  With a cold outer ruthlessness that belied the disgust within, Brielle drew her bolt pistol, levelled it calmly at the living torch before her and put a bolt shell through the unfortunate’s skull, ending his suffering for good.

  Even as the dull crump of the bolt-round detonating inside the eldar’s skull echoed away, a burst of alien fire scythed through the air around her. Brielle dived aside, the stave still in her hands. She hit the dusty ground and rolled, coming up into a ready stance, to see that the firefight was already over. The aliens who had fired upon her lay dead, or grievously wounded, while the one she had killed with her concealed flamer guttered. Several of her servants were writhing on the ground, suppressing screams of pain from wounds that appeared no more than pin pricks, but had, she knew, probably wreaked havoc upon internal organs.

  ‘The xenos!’ Hep called out. ‘He lives still, ma’am, beware!’

  Brielle looked across to the centre of the chamber, seeing that the eldar lay in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood. His head was raised upon his straining neck as he looked straight at her. Seeing that the dying alien presented little danger, Brielle stood, pulling herself up on the alien stave as she did so.

  ‘Listen to me, human,’ the eldar coughed, blood flecking his lips as he spoke. ‘If you leave this place now, you may still avert a disaster you cannot possibly comprehend.’

  Reaching the place where the alien lay, Brielle looked down upon his broken form. The hiss of venting gases sounded from one of the galleries high above. She knelt at the eldar’s side, and leaned forwards to bear witness to his last words.

  ‘There are forces in this universe you know nothing of,’ the eldar whispered, his fading gaze sweeping the highest of the chamber’s galleries. ‘Minds that have slumbered for aeons turn their attentions upon us once more…’

  A sharp, cackling laugh sounded from behind Brielle, and she was struck by the terrible realisation that Adept Seth’s ravings might have contained something of the truth.

  ‘What forces?’ Brielle said. ‘What minds?’ She turned her head sharply as she thought she caught sight of movement in one of the alcoves nearby.

  ‘My lady…’ Quin said.

  ‘Wait!’ Brielle answered, aware that the eldar’s life was fading before her very eyes, but knowing that she must bear witness to what he had to say to her. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

  ‘Your race will discover, in time,’ the eldar responded, coughing. He vomited blood across his chest. A loud hiss sounded from very nearby, causing Brielle to look to the nearest of the alcoves and the skeletal statue within. ‘But you…’ The alien smiled grimly through bloody lips, fixing his gaze upon Brielle as she turned back to him. ‘You shall find out all too soon…’

  Before the eldar could complete his sentence, the dusty ground on which he lay appeared to subside beneath him. Brielle looked on in frozen horror as the eldar sank into the dust. The alien’s eyes widened in terror as realisation of his fate hit home. A moment later, an area of dust three metres across was sinking, and then, a wide, circular hole opened up. The eldar tumbled downwards, dust cascading after him, and was gone.

  ‘My lady!’ Quin shouted. Brielle stared down into the dark hole that had opened up directly before her, and then turned to face Quin. ‘What?’

  The feral-worlder’s only answer was to look towards the nearest of the alcoves. Within it, a pair of green lights shone. Looking closer, Brielle saw that the eyes of the metallic statue had come alive. She looked upwards, turning as she did so to take in the row upon row of galleries lining the chamber all the way up into the darkness far above. Dimly glowing within every single one of the thousands of alcoves was a pair of lights.

  Brielle brought up her bolt pistol, as a sub-sonic drone sounded from somewhere very far beneath the ground on which she stood. Before her, a lurid green glow appeared in the dark hole in the centre of the chamber. She took a step backwards as her servants appeared at her side, their weapons raised.

  ‘Ma’am I strongly suggest we–’ Hep started.

  ‘I know,’ Brielle interrupted. Anger filled her, along with cold dread. In an instant, her dreams of the riches this place might yield evaporated, to be replaced by the raw instinct to simply survive. She realised with a start that the stave she still held in one hand was now glowing fiercely at its bladed tip, its haft feeling suddenly cold even through the glove of her survival suit.

  And then, a column of blinding green light appeared, lancing upwards from the hole before her. Motes of drifting dust glittered as if trapped by the shaft, and the low rumble rose in volume, the ground now visibly trembling.

  ‘Fall back!’ Brielle called.

  A scream cut the air, almost deafening even over the steadily increasingly sound emanating from the trembling ground. Brielle turned, to see Adept Seth bent double, both hands clamped across his helmet as if the astropath tried in vain to cover his ears. At the sound of the roar of Quin’s boltgun, she turned back towards the column of green light.

  Within the shaft, a figure was rising. At first, all Brielle could make out was a humanoid form wreathed in a pulsating nimbus of light. As the figure rose upwards, she saw that it was floating, as if held aloft by the light itself. It was huge, easily three metres tall, its body a metal skeleton swathed in rags that appeared to writhe as if stirred by some unseen current.

  ‘We leave,’ Brielle ordered as the figure rose to a height of ten metres above the hole. ‘Now!’

  Before her servants could react, the figure’s eyes came suddenly alive, aglow with the same green light that illuminated those of the statues, yet a hundred times brighter. Its death-mask head turned, as if it awakened, and regarded the sight before it.

  That terrible gaze settled first upon the cowering form of Adept Seth. The astropath shrieked once more, and vomited inside his helmet, his face obscured by the dripping fluids. The skeletal figure’s eyes blazed still brighter, and a wet crump sounded from within the astropath’s helmet, the inside of the visor turning in an instant to the vivid red of fresh blood flecked with the grey of brain matter. Brielle watched in mute horror as Seth’s body toppled lifelessly to the ground, a great cloud of dust billowing up from the ground around it.

  Casting off the unadulterated shock, Brielle levelled her bolt ­pistol and drew a shaky bead on the figure’s head. Breathing a silent prayer to the Emperor to guide her hand, she squeezed the trigger. Her shot struck the figure square across its metal brow, but the bolt exploded, leaving little more than a black smear to mark where it had landed. The creature appeared not even to register her attack.

  A moment later, Quin bellowed a savage curse born of the barbaric world of his birth. The warrior raised his boltgun and in scant seconds emptied an entire magazine at his foe. Several dozen bolt-rounds, each sufficient to reduce a normal body to a bloody ruin, glanced harmlessly from the metal form above.

  ‘Quin!’ Brielle bellowed over the deafening roar of the armsmen’s shotguns joining in the fusillade. ‘It’s no use! We’re leaving!’

  But the feral-worlder appeared not to hear his mistress’s words, or was perhaps held in the grip of some barbaric death-frenzy. Brielle reached for his shoulder, but he shrugged her off as he reloaded his boltgun. ‘Go!’ Quin shouted.

  Brielle made to repeat her order, but the savage fury in Quin’s eyes told her that she would be wasting her breath.

  ‘I made a pledge,’ the warrior said, his eyes alight in his tattooed face. ‘I promised your father… Please, my lady, allow me to keep my word.’

  Looking around her, Brielle saw the metal statues in the ground-floor alcoves had come to life and were even now advancing towards the centre of the chamber. She saw too that Quin hoped to buy her time to escape, with his very life. For an instant she considered ordering him to leave, begging him to leave, but she knew that neither course would work. Unable to speak, she nodded silent thanks to the warr
ior, hefting her bolt pistol in one hand and the glowing stave in the other. A small part of her mind prayed the warrior’s sacrifice was worth it, and his death would be a noble one.

  ‘With me!’ Brielle called out as she retreated towards the passageway. Joachim Hep appeared at her side, a laspistol raised before him, followed a moment later by a dozen armsmen. At the sound of Quin’s boltgun opening up once more, she turned to run for the passageway.

  A metallic warrior barred her path. Instinctively, she brought her bolt pistol to bear, opening fire from a distance of scant metres. At the same moment, her companions did likewise, and the foe was rocked backwards as its skeletal body was hammered by round after round of precision fire.

  For a moment, Brielle feared that this enemy’s metal form would prove as impervious to attack as that of the larger figure that floated above in the shaft of green light. She gave heartfelt thanks as she saw angry sparks erupt from within its chest, followed an instant later by a small explosion.

  ‘Again!’ She ordered, firing three more bolt-rounds into the enemy’s chest. The armsmen pumped shell after shell at the foe, forcing it backwards still further.

  And then, the metal skeleton blew apart, ripped asunder by an explosion deep within its armoured ribcage. Jagged metal shrapnel lanced outwards, one piece shattering the armoured visor of Brielle’s helmet, and slashing a deep cut across her forehead.

  Even as blood from her wound ran freely into Brielle’s eyes, she rushed onwards, almost gaining the passageway before turning to take one last look at the scene.

  Quin had stopped firing once more, evidently having emptied another two-dozen bolt rounds into the floating figure. Even as he ejected the spent, sickle-shaped magazine, the figure turned its gaze upon him, as if noticing his presence for the first time.

  Quin slammed home a fresh magazine and looked up into the blazing eyes of his enemy. The figure reached out a metallic skeletal arm, ragged swathes of cloth flapping as if in some aetheric breeze around it. As Quin raised his boltgun once more, his tattooed face a mask of savagery, the figure’s palm blazed with pulsating green light.

  The feral-worlder convulsed, his boltgun slamming to the ground at his feet. Brielle screamed his name, but it was too late. Before her eyes, Quin’s survival suit appeared to melt away. First the armoured plates dissolved, as if the metal were being peeled away, one layer of atoms at a time. Then the fabric too disappeared, to reveal the warrior’s tattooed flesh beneath. For a moment, Quin stood naked before the metal daemon above him, and then the tattoos that covered his body faded, followed an instant later by his skin.

  Quin’s bloodcurdling death-scream split the dusty air of the tomb chamber as his skin dissolved and the raw musculature beneath was revealed. Layer by layer, the flesh was peeled away, atomised to nothing by the awful power of the green radiation. At the last, only Quin’s skeleton stood, silhouetted against the blazing shaft of green light, and in an instant, that too was gone, the last of his marrow reduced to dust evaporating on the unnatural wind.

  Before Brielle could react, the floating horror came fully to life, stepping from the column of green light before descending to the dusty ground with an earth-shaking impact. With a single motion, several thousand of its skeletal minions took a pace forwards, those on the ground level forming a circle around Brielle and her companions. Resigned now to the inevitable, but unwilling to go meekly, Brielle took a deep breath and raised her bolt pistol for one final act of defiance.

  Before she knew it, the metal horror had strode across the chamber, and stood, towering over Brielle. Even as her finger tightened on the bolt pistol’s trigger, it regarded her through blazing green eyes. It extended its hand. Brielle steeled herself for the same fate that had befallen Quin, her skin burning with dreadful anticipation of such a grisly end.

  But instead of that metal hand erupting in green, pulsating light, it appeared to make a gesture. The breath stuck in her throat, and Brielle relaxed her finger, for but an instant. Her mind raced as she sought to decipher the figure’s gesture.

  Then it came to her. The metal daemon was demanding she surrender the stave she still held in her left hand.

  ‘You want this?’ She growled, girding her muscles and bracing her feet on the ground.

  ‘Then have it!’ With titanic effort, Brielle hurled the stave at her foe. The blade flared green as it crossed the space between them, almost blinding her. With unerring accuracy, the tip struck the skeletal figure in the centre of its ribcage, piercing armour that had proven impenetrable to dozens of boltgun rounds. A shaft of green light shot outwards, accompanied by a piercing machine howl, and the stave continued its course, burying itself up to the haft in the figure’s chest.

  The skeletal horror stood transfixed by its own weapon, blinding green light now splaying in all directions from its wound. It stood, unable to move, its hellish death-mask face staring at Brielle as it writhed as if in agony. For an instant, Brielle felt some unutterable hatred of truly cosmic scale turned upon her, and knew total, soul-rending insignificance before that impossibly ancient malice. And then, the moment passed, and she tore her eyes away from the dazzling sight before her.

  Seeing that the skeletal warriors around the chamber appeared to have faltered in their advance, as if they shared something of the pain Brielle had inflicted upon their lord, she saw the chance to escape, and grasped it for all she was worth.

  ‘Hep!’ she shouted above the infernal metallic howl emanating from the transfixed metal giant. ‘Gather the men. I’ve had just about enough of this place!’

  Brielle stood upon the bridge of the Fairlight, Joachim Hep at her side. The wound at her brow was dressed, while Hep’s right arm was set in a sling.

  ‘A close call, ma’am,’ Hep said flatly.

  Raising an eyebrow at the understatement, Brielle turned to face her advisor. ‘Aye, Joachim,’ she replied. ‘And costly. Santos will be missed. But,’ she continued, ‘it may not have been in vain.’

  Hep rounded upon his mistress, unease writ large across his craggy features. ‘Ma’am…’ he started.

  ‘Easy, Joachim.’ Brielle smiled as she raised a hand to forestall her advisor’s inevitable objection to what she was about to say. ‘If what the pathfinder said is true, there must be more of these places, these tombs, out there,’ she nodded towards the void through the viewing port. ‘Just think, Joachim. Just think. We gained entrance to that tomb, and we had no idea what waited for us.’

  ‘Ma’am…’

  ‘That place makes Skard look like a downhive scav-mart,’ she grinned. ‘Just think what the Mechanicus would give to get their hands on that tech. They’d give anything to study just one of those machine warriors… what if we could broker contracts with each of the forges, one sample to each, exclusive rights…’

  ‘Brielle!’ Hep interjected. ‘Your father would march me from the torpedo tubes if I allowed you to…’

  ‘Next time,’ Brielle pressed on, a mischievous light entering her eyes, ‘we’ll know what awaits us.’ Feeling suddenly breathless at the thought of the riches she might bring to her house, she pressed on. ‘Next time, Joachim, no conceited eldar will interfere with our efforts. Next time, we’ll take it all…’

  Savage Scars

  ‘In the year of Our Emperor 742.M41, the most glorious forces of the Imperium launched a crusade of conquest into the Lithesh Sector, to regain control of those worlds so long estranged from the Rule of Terra by warp storm activity and the raids of the pernicious eldar. But woe, for it was discovered that far worse a fate had befallen those benighted worlds. A previously unknown xenos species called the tau had infiltrated and undermined the proper governance of a string of worlds along the edge of the celestial anomaly known as the Damocles Gulf. Foremost amongst those to have discovered this duplicity was the rogue trader Lucian Gerrit, patriarch of the Clan Arcadius.

  The Imperium could not, w
ould not, stand by as more worlds fell from the fold. The firebrand preacher Cardinal Esau Gurney of Brimlock preached a full crusade against the tau, holding that the Gulf must be breached, the tau home world located and the entire species exterminated.

  The call to arms rang out across the sector and beyond, and was answered. The Space Marines of the Iron Hands, White Scars, Ultramarines and Scythes of the Emperor heeded that call, as did a dozen planetary governors who raised new regiments for the Imperial Guard to prosecute the Damocles Gulf Crusade. The rogue trader Lucian answered the call too, his Warrant of Trade earning him a place on the crusade’s command council.

  But so too did the figure of Inquisitor Grand, and the council soon split into two factions – those centred around Grand and Gurney, who desired only the complete destruction of the xenos tau, and those allied to the rogue trader, who sought in various degrees honour, glory or profit, but not dishonourable slaughter.

  The first battles were fought on the nearside of the Damocles Gulf, and saw the world of Sy’l’kell conquered with relative ease and a tau fleet bested at Hydass. But already the council was being torn asunder by internecine rivalries and Gerrit’s daughter Brielle appeared to assault the inquisitor, for reasons unknown, and flee. She was assumed dead thereafter, much to her father’s despair, though he still had his son Korvane to stand by him.

  Having purged the world of Viss’el, the crusade pierced the Damocles Gulf, and fell upon the world of Pra’yen with the righteous fury of the faithful. But disaster almost befell the Emperor’s warriors there, for it proved that the tau were a far greater threat than any had imagined. The tau were not some minor race residing on but a single world, but were possessed of an entire stellar realm.