Merrik looked with admiration at Sergeant Tarkus. He knew that Tarkus was a man of faith, who unlike most other Blood Ravens regarded the Emperor as a god, and not merely as the mightiest of men. Was it Tarkus's faith that gave him such a dry wit, and the ability to dissolve tense situations with a few choice words? Or was it the other way around?
'The Emperor commands,' Merrik added, 'and we obey. And our orders now are to go down to Calderis and offer what assistance we can.' He paused, and looked from Avitus to the others, pointedly. 'And that is precisely what we will do.'
HOURS LATER, SERGEANT Aramus stood near the forward viewport, looking at the dun-coloured disc of the desert world Calderis as it hove into view. It would not be long now before they would be in range to descend to the planet in the trio of Thunderhawk gunships already prepared and ready in the launch bays of the Armageddon. Too impatient to wait below decks for the call to action, though, Aramus had returned to the command deck to watch their final approach with his own eyes, and not through images retransmitted to a data-slate.
'Greetings, brother-sergeant,' came a voice at his elbow.
Aramus turned to find Apothecary Gordian standing beside him, already dressed for the field in his white power armour with the Prime Helix emblazoned upon the right shoulder-guard and the blood raven upon the left, with his narthecium strapped across his back.
'Greetings, Apothecary,' Aramus answered, inclining his head minutely.
'What is the latest intelligence from the surface?' Gordian asked, coming to stand beside Aramus and peering out the viewport. 'Does our Lexicanium report any astropathic contact with Librarian Niven?'
'No,' Aramus said with a shake of his head. 'But en route from the system's edge, as I understand it, we were able to establish vox contact with Thule's party. The signal quality was weak and the message somewhat degraded, too much so for us to know much about the situation on the ground, but we have been given landing coordinates. Thule's forces are to meet us there.'
Gordian's eyes were fixed on the dun-coloured disc below them. 'I can't help but wonder what has become of Niven.' Gordian paused, and pointed a gauntleted hand at the viewport. 'Aramus, look at that.'
They had come close enough to Calderis now that the planet's small moon was visible, but more than that they could also now clearly distinguish what appeared to be vessels in orbit around the planet, now circling into view. And not just one or two, but some dozen or more.
'Sergeant Merrik?' Aramus said, turning to look towards the command dais where the Commander at Sail stood.
'We see them, brother-sergeant,' Merrik answered, stepping forward to lean on the brass rail that ran around the circumference of the command dais. He shot a glance to the servitors monitoring the ship's sensors. 'Report.'
The servitors sent back a cacophony of binary squeals in response.
'Thirteen ships in orbit, sir,' one of the Chapter serfs translated. 'No, fourteen. Most are civilian registry, but there are three Imperial Navy vessels, Dauntless-class light cruisers.'
Aramus could see the annoyance and curiosity playing across Merrik's face. There were typically few, if any ships in the vicinity of Calderis, or in fact anywhere in the Aurelia sub-sector, much less more than a dozen.
The servitor at the communications station squealed. 'Incoming hail from the lead Imperial Navy vessel, sir,' a Chapter serf relayed.
Merrik considered for a moment, then nodded. 'On speakers.'
An instant later, after another brief squeal, a voice buzzed from speakers mounted in the bulkheads around the command deck. It was a woman's voice, a velvet gauntlet over a fist of iron.
'Space Marines vessel, this is Fleet Admiral Laren Forbes of the Battlegroup Aurelia, onboard the Sword of Hadrian. Please identify.'
Merrik straightened, as though his posture would carry over the vox signal. 'You are addressing Brother-Sergeant Merrik of the Blood Ravens Fifth Company, Commander at Sail of the strike cruiser Armageddon.'
A smattering of static peppered the vox signal, and the admiral had to repeat her next question twice before it was successfully transmitted.
'Armageddon, have you come to offer assistance?'
'In what capacity might you expect us to assist?' Merrik replied, somewhat confused.
'Battlegroup Aurelia is responding to a distress call sent out by the Calderis civilian authority,' Admiral Forbes replied. 'On the authority of Governor Vandis of Meridian, we are in the process of evacuating key members of the planet's civilian population.'
Aramus knew what the admiral meant by ''key members'' of the population, and by the expression on Merrik's face he could see the sergeant did, too. Even with a population as small as that of Calderis, there was simply no way an entire planet could be evacuated, whatever the threat. Instead, those who the admiral was taking off-world would be powerful politicians, noble families with ties to this Governor Vandis, and so on.
'And the civilian vessels?' Merrik asked, pointedly.
The admiral paused a moment before replying. 'We are not in a position to evacuate everyone, of course. Those with resources of their own have arranged for private transportation.'
Aramus could well imagine what that meant. Those lacking the prestige of the planet's political elite, but who had wealth enough of their own to call upon, had contracted civilian merchant trader vessels to whisk them out of harm's way.
As for those who lacked political prestige and wealth…?
Aramus could well imagine what remained for them.
'We have orders of our own to carry out, admiral,' Merrik replied, 'but we wish you good fortune in the successful completion of yours. Armageddon out.'
At a sign from Merrik the vox signal was cut, and the speakers overhead went silent.
'Come, Blood Ravens,' Merrik called to Aramus and Gordian, stepping down from the command dais and heading towards the corridor. 'We have responsibilities to attend.'
CHAPTER THREE
BROTHER-SERGEANT ARAMUS SETTLED into the acceleration chair in the troop transport compartment of the Thunderhawk, checking the safety on his bolter before stowing it at his side. The other members of Third Squad found their places around him, except for Brother Voire, who had taken the Thunderhawk's controls. Sergeant Tarkus had the seat across from Aramus, and was quietly muttering a prayer to the God-Emperor.
Aside from the Third Squad, a handful of Space Marines from Sergeant Merrik's First Squad had joined them, the rest riding in the second Thunderhawk with Sergeant Merrik and with Sergeant Avitus's Ninth Squad, while the third gunship carried Sergeant Thaddeus's Seventh Squad with their bulky jump packs.
'Thunderhawks,' came the voice of Techmarine Martellus over the gunship's vox-channel. 'You are cleared for departure.'
Techmarine Martellus had been left in command of the Armageddon, with every other able-bodied Blood Raven tapped for the planet-side mission. It had seemed to Aramus that Martellus had seemed merely annoyed by the additional responsibility, and that the Techmarine would much rather be below decks in the enginarium, ministering to his precious Dreadnought assembly.
Like most Astartes, Aramus was somewhat in awe of the hermetic knowledge that a Techmarine like Martellus possessed, but also like most Astartes he was likewise grateful that he himself had not been selected to journey to Mars to study alongside the devotees of the Machine God, the mysterious Adeptus Mechanicus. Techmarines, like their brother tech-priests, magi, and adepts in the Cult Mechanicus, revered the Omnissiah, and preached that biological life had no meaning unless married with the mechanical, and that only in the union between machine and man might perfection be approached. The Dreadnought, when bonded to the barely living form of a Blood Raven injured almost unto death, represented the ultimate exemplar of the Mechanicus beliefs.
As for Sergeant Aramus, he was a Blood Raven, and like most of his battle-brothers believed in no god. And unlike most Codex Chapters, the Blood Ravens did not even have a primarch in whose name they fought, and whose example they
strove to follow. Since the Blood Ravens did not know from which primarch or Chapter they originally descended, they revered no one so much as the Immortal Emperor on Holy Terra, supreme master of all Space Marines and mightiest of men.
'All secure?' Voire called back from the flight deck.
The Space Marines in the troop transport compartment sounded off, one after another, confirming they were ready for launch.
'Go for launch,' Voire voxed to the servitors manning the launch bay controls.
A moment later, the launch bay doors opened. Guided by the machine spirit that governed the Thunderhawk's systems, Voire manoeuvred the gun-ship out into the vacuum using only the retro exhaust nozzles, and once the craft was clear of the doors he punched up a full burn. Propellant from the onboard fusion reactor pumped into the combustion chambers in each of the rocket boosters beneath the Thunderhawk's wings, which ignited to produce a high-pressure stream of gases, rapidly accelerating the craft forward.
'Insertion in three,' Voire intoned, 'two. One.'
With a sound like the screaming of the damned, the Thunderhawk hit the outer edges of the planet's atmosphere with a ballistic entry trajectory, coming in high and hot. The outer hull temperature soared as the atmospheric density grew higher and higher, but the ceramite layers and thermoplas fibre mesh employed in the Thunderhawk's construction were more than sufficient to keep the heat of atmospheric entry from bleeding into the interior of the craft.
'About to clear cloud cover,' Voire called back.
Hardly feeling the G-forces of acceleration within the confines of his power armour, Aramus swivelled a wall-mounted data-slate into position before him and called up a feed from the gunship's forward cameras. At first, all he could see was a swathe of dingy white, the heavy clouds that were at present smothering the eastern deserts. A moment later, the clouds parted like a curtain as the Thunderhawk shot downward like a bolter round, and the vistas below were revealed.
Directly below them, Aramus could make out the outlines of the township of Argus, their designated landing coordinates. A few kilometres on a side, Argus was laid out in a haphazard grid, roughly square in shape and aligned more-or-less north and south. It was an unremarkable sight, a small patch of urban development on the otherwise unbroken expanses of rock and sand that stretched out to the horizon in every direction. Or rather, it would have been an unremarkable sight, had the township itself and its inhabitants been the only elements visible on the data-slate.
However, Argus was not the only thing visible. Instead, it was all but surrounded by what appeared at first instance a motley-coloured ocean, a shifting tide of greens, blacks, browns, and reds, that verged on the boundaries of Argus township on three sides, north, east, and south. Smoke rose from that discoloured ocean, and periodically flashes of light flared up from within, signs of weapons-fire.
It was a horde of feral orks, threatening to engulf Argus completely. And it was into this maelstrom that the Blood Ravens were descending.
* * *
CAPTAIN DAVIAN THULE stood at the centre of a cavernous building, reviewing action reports by the dim light filtering in from the gaps in the roofing. It had been more than a week since he'd established a temporary headquarters in the shipping depot at the western edge of Argus, not far from the rudimentary space port that served the township.
Most of the crates and boxes that had filled the structure had been repurposed, in those early hours and days. Originally shipping containers from all over Calderis, from the other worlds of the Aurelia sub-sector and a few from even farther afield, had been stacked as makeshift furniture, arranged as tables and benches for the use of Thule and his people. Those who had owned the containers were in no position to contest their being commandeered - those who had survived the initial waves of the feral ork attacks were too busy trying to flee the planet to waste any time worrying about shipments that would never arrive.
Thule was alone in the depot at the moment, but for his ever-present, always silent companion of recent days. He glanced at the long, coffin-like crate upon which rested the insensate form of Librarian Niven, silent and unmoving.
'Niven,' Thule said in a quiet voice. 'I have found myself returning again and again to your talk of foreboding, the menace you felt brushing lightly at the edges of your awareness.' He paused, his thoughts interrupted by a faint boom, like the sound of thunder in the distance. 'I find it difficult to imagine the menace we now face ''lightly brushing'' anything.'
The data-slate in Thule's hands told the story well enough. With only a handful of Astartes and Chapter serfs at his disposal, aided by the hardier natives who had been willing to stand and fight for their lives instead of merely lying down before the inevitable, Thule was barely managing to hold back the hordes of feral orks which broke like a surging tide against the walls of Argus Township. Thule's forces would not be able to hold out for much longer.
'We could use your agile mind and strong arm at our side, Librarian,' Thule went on.
But the Librarian would not be joining the fray. In the withdrawal from the desert, as Thule pulled his party back within the more easily defensible walls of Argus, Niven had been like the Emperor's own dark angel of vengeance. With his psychic hood serving to dampen any latent pyskers in the ork horde, the Librarian inspired the members of Thule's party from the vanguard, eldritch energies crackling from his gauntlets as his shouted battle cries rang out over the melee's din. Time and again the Librarian's psyker abilities allowed him to blunt the enemies' attacks, and he moved through the carnage with impossible speed, his blade snapping out lightning fast to slash against one greenskin enemy in one instant, then reappearing metres away to parry the blow of another ork in the next. Niven was a relentless combatant, seemingly tireless, lashing out time and again at the unwashed onslaught, striking fear into the enemies' soulless hearts.
But in the end, the overwhelming numbers of feral orks they faced had proved too much even for the Librarian, and as he had been dealing the Emperor's vengeance upon a pair of massive orks, a cadre of others had fallen on him from behind, and the Librarian had gone down beneath their blows. Sergeant Cyrus and a group of his Scouts had come to the Librarian's aid, and picked the orks off him before they were able to inflict terminal damage, but even so the injuries sustained by Niven in the assault had been too grievous for his body to readily repair itself. He had lapsed into a state of suspended animation, his sus-an membrane helping to preserve his body and mind until his injuries could be repaired.
Now he lay in state like a fallen hero, unable to wake himself or to be woken by anyone else, except with the use of the appropriate chemical therapies and auto-suggestion that only a fully-trained Apothecary could deliver.
'Captain?' A voice from the far side of the depot disrupted Thule's reverie, and he turned to see one of Sergeant Cyrus's Scouts approaching, threading through the maze of discarded and destroyed crates at the depot's entrance.
Thule arched a brow in response.
'You asked to be informed when the contingent from the Armageddon arrived? They're touching down now.'
Thule nodded, and set the data-slate down atop a stack of crates. 'Very good.'
The newcomers, Thule knew, brought an Apothecary with them. Perhaps luck would be with them, and just as Sergeant Merrik and his squads served to reinforce Thule's position in the township until the recruitment party had done the needful, so too would the Apothecary help restore the Librarian to full health, strengthening their numbers that much more.
Thoughtfully, the captain crossed the floor in a few broad strides to the place where his bolter and power sword lay, ready for use. He holstered the bolter at his side, and then hefted the power sword. The blade had been presented to him in acknowledgement of valour in combat by the secret masters of the Blood Ravens when he'd still been a sergeant, and squad leader of the Fifth Company's Second Squad.
'Proceed to the landing site, Scout,' Thule ordered, his eyes on the blade. 'I will join you presently.'
The power sword was a relic of the Chapter, a weapon so ancient and honoured that it had been granted a name - Wisdom. It seemed a lifetime ago now that he had first borne Wisdom in battle - and, considering the extended lifespan of the Astartes, it had been a lifetime, or a normal human's lifetime at any rate. Into how many subsequent battles had he carried the power sword, and how often had it served those proud Blood Ravens who had carried the blade Wisdom before it had come to Thule's hand? The captain was hard-pressed to even estimate the answer to the former, and found the latter impossible to guess. Wisdom was an ancient weapon, dating back even to the earliest days of the Chapter's history, and might well have been forged in those dark days now lost forever in the records and remembrance of the Blood Ravens.
Thule buckled Wisdom at his side. With the Scout gone, he was alone again once more in the makeshift headquarters with the slumbering Librarian, locked in his dreamless sleep.
'You spoke of malevolence, Niven, of lurking, lightly-brushing evil.' Thule lifted his helmet from a nearby crate and fitted it over his head. 'I cannot help but wonder if you were sensing something other than this plague of orks which now besets us. And if so, what further horror might the future hold?'
Encased once more in his power armour, Thule was armed and ready for battle.
WITH THULE GONE, only Librarian Niven remained. But the sleeping psyker was not alone in the depot, whatever the captain had thought.
In the shadows that clung to the corners of the building, behind the haphazard pyramids of forgotten and neglected shipping crates, something was stirring. It was still small, but growing larger by the moment, watching from its place of hiding, waiting for the moment to strike.
And the moment to strike would come soon.
AS ORDERED, ARAMUS had mustered his squad on the cracked and pitted ferrocrete of the landing pad, at the southern end of the humble space port. Argus proper rose to their east, with the three Thunderhawk gunships that had ferried them to the surface parked to the west. Sergeants Thaddeus and Avitus had gathered their squads on either side of Aramus's, with Merrik and his First Squad in close formation only a short distance off. And all of them, squad leaders and battle-brothers alike, had their entire attention focused on the Space Marine who stood before them.
Dawn Of War II Page 5