All eyes were on the Prognosticator as he divined the future. He frowned a few times and moved one or two of the wafers into different positions, his head occasionally coming up from his task to consider the other sergeants. The images on the surface of the delicate crystals were not visible to those around the table. The Prognosticator’s eyes seemed devoid of focus, so absorbed was he in channelling the Rites of Divination.
Eventually, Brand allowed himself to focus back on the present.
‘Not Squad Iolite,’ he said. ‘Send Mohave.’ His eyes darted to Arrun. ‘And Ryarus.’ In the heartbeat that followed, he added, ‘it is the Emperor’s will.’
Arrun considered defying the Prognosticator, but to do that would have been to go against everything that the Silver Skulls held dear and to deeply offend Brand for the second time in a day. Pinpoints of colour rose in his cheeks, but beyond that, he didn’t let his anger show.
‘Very well then. Mohave, not Iolite. You and Kyanite squads will deploy to the Wolf along with Ryarus. Assess the situation, get to the bridge and take the ship back under control. Grant our cousins as much aid as necessary. The Sons of Russ have stood at our backs many times. We will not hesitate to assist them now. Go prepared. That ship has been drifting for an unknown period of time. We know nothing about what happened, or its state. As soon as you can, check the condition of the Geller field generator.’
Arrun cast a meaningful gaze around the assembly, checking for understanding. There were universal nods and murmurs of assent. ‘Ryarus – do what you can to help their own Apothecaries. Do not linger, my brother. I need you back here swiftly. We are committed to seeing this damned project through to its end and I need my best men to be here to do it.’
‘Yes, captain.’ The Apothecary rose and descended the spiral stair from the strategium, heading for the apothecarion.
Matteus and Dasan inclined their heads and rose from the table to round up their respective squads and move to the arming chambers where they would begin the rituals of machine rites and weapon blessings. The remaining squad sergeants sat back in their chairs, disappointment obvious in their expressions. Arrun did not keep the smile from his face this time.
‘Your turn will come, brothers. War will come soon enough for all of us.’ Arrun had not yet made the announcement to the crew at large in relation to Argentius’s wishes, but saw here a perfect opportunity to begin the dissemination of that information. ‘When our work here is complete, we will be making a rendezvous with the Quicksilver. We are returning home.’
A murmur ran around the table. Being recalled to Varsavia was, as a general rule, a precursor to preparations for something on a grand scale. It was the most welcome news any of the sergeants could have hoped for. Just from the looks in their eyes and the enthusiastic manner in which they began talking to one another in low voices, Arrun felt a moment’s reassurance. Yes, the old would eventually give way to the young. But the Silver Skulls were a tough breed.
They would prevail.
5
Cry wolf
Sergeant Dasan of Squad Mohave was a reticent soul. Like many of the Silver Skulls, he had grown to young manhood amongst a nomadic tribe. Many of these tribes had their own traditions and customs. In Dasan’s tribe, unnecessary speaking before battle was considered borderline blasphemy. As such, he had a tendency towards being serious and silent, speaking only when necessary. It was the way of his people.
Sergeant Matteus on the other hand, was loquacious enough for the both of them.
Both were of an age; they had arrived at the fortress-monastery at Varsavia within a few short years of one another. They had trained together, fought together and received their promotions almost simultaneously. There was an old rivalry between them, but it was not malicious. It was the sort of rivalry that was encouraged by their superiors. A never-ending urge to be better than your peers drove you to greater and greater feats of strength and courage.
Right now though, Dasan would gladly have used every ounce of his strength to tear out his brother’s voice box if it meant Matteus would cease his endless chatter. His brother filled the silence between conversation with unnecessary observations or words of self-perceived wisdom. Not for the first time since he had become friends with the confident, outgoing Matteus, the sergeant of Squad Mohave found himself irritated by the other. He even considered breaking his ritual silence to say something.
In the event, he did not need to.
‘Still your endless tongue, brother-sergeant.’ Ryarus’s voice came from across the other side of the Thunderhawk. ‘The only words that should be coming from your mouth right now are prayers and litanies.’
‘Yes, Brother-Apothecary.’ Matteus was duly chastened and fell into blissful silence. Dasan heaved a sigh of relief.
The two squads and the Apothecary were traversing the Gildar Rift relatively slowly. With the sheer quantity of debris and asteroids hurtling through the sector, it was a treacherous route that only a fool would consider attempting at speed. Their pilot, one of the Chapter’s human serfs, was supremely good at what he did.
‘Take us on a clear circuit of the ship,’ Dasan said, his low rumble finally breaking the awkward silence that had followed Ryarus’s harsh words to Matteus. ‘That way, we may get a better idea of its condition.’
‘At once, lord.’
Engines whining, the Thunderhawk banked sharply as it went into a turn to circle the prow of the stricken vessel. The starboard side of the Wolf of Fenris was, if anything, worse than the presenting port side.
‘Boarding torpedo damage,’ observed Matteus as he squinted through the tiny porthole-sized window above his seat. ‘Evidence that they’ve been fired on – see all the scoring on the surface? Raiders, perhaps?’
‘Our cousins are fierce warriors,’ Dasan replied. ‘They would not have fallen to an enemy easily, especially not disorganised raiders.’ Matteus and Dasan exchanged looks, sharing a moment of consensus. Raiders generally attacked in small groups and usually homed in on small Imperial transport vessels. To consider raiders attempting to take on something the size of an Adeptus Astartes strike cruiser was laughable.
‘Take us to the rear docking bay, Eryk.’ Ryarus reached for his helm and tugged it on over his head. When he spoke next, all emotion and feeling was flattened from his voice.
‘Squads Kyanite and Mohave... as the captain observed during the moot, this is to be treated as a hostile environment until evidence presents itself to the contrary.’
As he would be the senior warrior present, Arrun had turned overall command over to the Apothecary. Ryarus was steady of purpose and clear-headed. He would lead a search and rescue operation with smooth efficiency and not be distracted by the opportunity to deviate from the captain’s orders in pursuit of some foolish glory quest. Dasan and Matteus were competent, capable warriors but they were content to defer to Ryarus’s superior wisdom and experience.
Throughout the Thunderhawk, the only sound for a few moments was the soft hiss of helmet seals locking into place and the rhythmic creaking of ceramite-covered hands flexing and unflexing as the Silver Skulls ensured the correct functioning of the joints.
‘If none of the crew still live,’ Ryarus opened a vox-channel to both squads, ‘then we stabilise the ship and await the captain’s further instruction. If our cousins are still with us, then we establish what happened and we either bring them back to the Dread Argent for treatment or, if they are beyond mortal assistance, I will personally deliver them into the arms of the Emperor.’
He turned his visored head to scan down the line of battle-brothers. Both squads were presently at full complement, in itself almost a miracle. Each warrior wore his silver-grey armour proudly, the yellow-hued right shoulder pauldrons of Fourth Company glinting in what little light there was in the interior of the gunship. On their left shoulders was the emblem of the Chapter, a stylised skull cast in silver.
Each squad’s emblem had eyes picked out in the gemstone that gave them their name. Blue for Squad Kyanite and purple for Mohave.
Ryarus’s eyes travelled back up the line once more. His ruby-red lenses gave away nothing of his thoughts, and he continued.
‘From what we can see, many areas of the ship are going to be blocked by battle damage. There are obvious hull breaches which will cause spikes in your life support systems. Take note of your armour’s warnings and good hunting. And, my brothers... if we for one moment suspect that there is warp-taint aboard, no matter how minimal, then we scourge whatever we may find. If for any reason we find ourselves outnumbered or outclassed, then – and only then – we leave the Wolf of Fenris and we give the order to have her destroyed.’
Every head dipped in acknowledgement. Steel-grey hands closed around bolter stocks and a faint murmuring of sounds filled the gunship’s interior as each spoke his personal litany, often in the tribal dialect of their birth. Such connections to their lives before ascension to the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes were actively encouraged. The Silver Skulls were proud of their heritage and those who heralded from the Chapter’s home world held on to the traditions and practices of their upbringing stoically.
‘Bringing her round for docking now, my lord,’ announced Eryk.
Ryarus nodded and allowed himself a moment for his own fervent prayers. The God-Emperor willing, their cousins would be living. It was pessimism to suspect otherwise. Ryarus, though, had always held true to a premise a former sergeant had taught him decades ago.
Never expect anything… and you’ll never be surprised or disappointed.
The interior of the Wolf of Fenris told them as little as the exterior had done. There were scorch scars in the walls that suggested heavy fighting had taken place, but it was impossible to say when this had happened. The air was thin and carried the stench of old, dried blood. The fading stains of it were spattered up the walls, across the steel decking and against the sides of the landing craft where they hung lifelessly in their grav-cradles. Spent bolter shells practically carpeted the ground underfoot and there were deep gouges in the side of a Thunderhawk that a closer inspection suggested could only have been made by a chainsword.
What little light there was came from emergency lumen-strips set into the sides of the hangar bay, but they wavered with a faintly audible fizzle. Sparks of electricity spat from ruptured power cables.
‘I’d say we could confirm that there was a fight here, at least,’ Matteus’s voice came across the vox with its regular light-hearted tone and for once, Ryarus didn’t snap at him to be quiet. Each Space Marine dealt with grim discoveries like this in their own way. The gentle attempt at humour did not jar at all, it was just Matteus’s own method.
Dasan crouched and picked up a damaged bolt pistol. The barrel had been blown apart at the point the weapon had failed. Careful inspection revealed that it bore the crest of Fenris. All around, weapons lay where they had been abandoned: some damaged, others seemingly discarded.
There was not a single body in sight.
One of the warriors consulted the auspex he held in his hand. ‘Life support systems are still on-line. Air is breathable but only just. I am guessing everything must have been automatically rerouted.’ He shook his head. ‘I cannot tell you any more without access to a working ship’s cogitator. The vessel is running on emergency power but there is no way of telling how long that has been the case.’
‘Is it possible that the Space Wolves trapped their enemy in here and vented them out to space?’ Matteus, for all his inane chatter, could often be relied upon to postulate possible solutions to the inexplicable.
‘It is a possibility, certainly. But surely the weapons would have gone too.’ Dasan’s logical thoughts put an end to that particular theory.
Ryarus cast a ruby-tinted gaze around the staging area. Runes ran across his retina and the auto-focus was working hard, picking out the rusty hue of the bloodied areas and the weapons that were strewn everywhere. The heat sensors in his visor showed nothing but his battle-brothers. He crouched and like Dasan, picked up a discarded bolt pistol. A cursory examination showed that it was empty.
He dropped it back down to the floor again with a dull thud. Ryarus touched the purity seal at the hilt of his bolter.
‘Mohave, we proceed to the bridge,’ he said. ‘Kyanite – begin proceeding to the engine room. Move with caution, brothers. This whole thing reeks of subterfuge.’
The lingering trace of blood was everywhere.
It streaked up the walls of the ship’s inner corridors. It was smeared on the deck leaving virulent scarlet trails. Brother Temerus, one of Dasan’s squad had tried, without success, to link into the Wolf’s vox-net. All he had met in response to his hails thus far had been static.
With every step that they took, Ryarus’s sense of unease grew. Whatever had happened to the Wolf of Fenris had been devastating and worse, whatever it had been that had committed such relentless slaughter may well still be aboard.
During the flight across from the Dread Argent, one of Matteus’s many observations had been that a complement of more than twenty Space Marines had seemed excessive for a search and rescue operation. Ryarus had quietly agreed with the sentiment. Arrun was being over-careful.
Now, though, he mentally praised the captain’s unerring sense of caution.
So far, they had encountered nothing but signs of battle. No bodies, no injured... nothing. A report from Matteus had detailed a brief diversion into one of the other staging areas which had turned up vast quantities of discarded battleplate. It had been massed into haphazard piles rather than carefully displayed and maintained as was the expected behaviour of a Space Marine. That was all that either squad had encountered.
The Silver Skulls made their way up from the aft section towards midships. The silence was eerie. No sounds of Chapter serfs or servitors, no distant clash of swords in training cages... there was nothing to be heard except for the heavy, metallic footfalls of Space Marine boots as they moved slowly across the fine steel mesh floors of the dimly lit corridors. The Wolf of Fenris creaked around them, the groans of super-stressed metal clearly audible without the usual rumble of the engine.
Tayln, one of Dasan’s squad raised his head to listen to the sounds of the vessel. ‘She sounds wrong,’ he noted. As a promising Techmarine, he had not yet been despatched to Mars for his formal induction into the ways of the Mechanicus. As such, he had undergone his initial training at the hands of the existing Chapter Techmarines. He tipped his head to one side, listening. ‘I can hear… something.’
‘It’s possibly a safe assumption that the engines were badly damaged in whatever battle the Wolf partook in, brother.’ Dasan responded. Tayln held up a hand, stilling any further words from his sergeant. Later, much later, Dasan agreed fervently that it was only because Tayln had told him to be quiet that they had got the early warning of the assault.
‘Listen, sergeant,’ he said, his voice terse. ‘I hear–’
The bark of a bolter stopped his words and every Space Marine present reached for their own weapon. There was no cover in this open, empty corridor and the flare of exploding bolter rounds bathed it in an unnatural glow that reflected off the highly-polished surface of the Silver Skulls armour. A round impacted on Tayln’s shoulder and detonated, sending the young Space Marine staggering backwards.
Instantly, the vox came alive.
‘Matteus, we’re under attack up here...’ Ryarus began to relay the information, but Matteus cut across him.
‘We’ve got our own situation, Apothecary...’
‘Squad Mohave – on me!’
With a combined roar of battle fury that had, in the past, stopped their enemies dead in their tracks, Dasan and his squad began advancing down the open corridor. Their bolters and their spirits were raised high as they unleashed the Emperor’s wrath on those who h
ad dared open fire on His chosen.
Ryarus stared at the reams of data scrolling in front of his retinas, his systems already adjusting from investigative to battle mode. The runes that had previously flashed white before his eyes began to wink urgently. He blink-clicked furiously, his eyes moving with rapid ease. He thumbed at the hilt of his power axe, ready to activate it at a moment’s notice. For now, he opted to maintain a rearguard, holding back from the rest of the squad.
A gout of flame lit the corridor once again as Tayln unleashed the power of his flamer, and not far behind the roar of cleansing fire came agonised screams. Human screams.
Then came an abrupt silence that lasted several seconds.
‘Dasan. Matteus. Report.’ The responses came almost instantly.
‘Human privateers, by the look of their clothing,’ Dasan spoke first. ‘No Space Wolf markings. These bastards weren’t servants of the Sons of Russ.’
‘Same here, Apothecary. We took them down easily enough.’ Matteus sounded angry. Ryarus wasn’t surprised. What did surprise him was the reality of the situation. The numbers must have been exponential to reduce the Wolf of Fenris to a drifting hulk. He kept his uncertainty in check. Both squads were already on edge. He did not wish to fan those flames any more than necessary.
‘And the weapons they’re firing?’
‘Bolt pistols, mostly. Looted, perhaps. They’re all dead now, anyway. But there’s no way a group of humans this size could wipe out an entire ship of Adeptus Astartes warriors. They must be...’
The vox crackled, then went dead. From further ahead, around the bend of the corridor, a familiar Silver Skulls battle cry was met with a sound even more feral and bone-chillingly menacing. Bolters began firing in earnest, the staccato sounds magnified manyfold by the confined space. A sudden sunburst flare lit up the corridor as another belch of red-hot flame spewed forth from Tayln’s flamer. The glow remained steady this time as he trained it on whatever attacked.
Warriors of the Imperium - Andy Hoare & S P Cawkwell Page 40