‘Meaning, unsurprisingly, Janic has never considered infiltration by his own Legion,’ Setebos said, raising his brow. ‘You have re-run the cogitations, my lord?’
‘Yes,’ Omegon told them. ‘Tenebrae is no different from any other target. Standard Legion tactics apply. Probabilities of success increase in line with multiple approaches and avenues of attack. We have to hit Janic’s garrison from every angle – keep our brethren busy while we complete the operation.’
‘Sir, if I may,’ Isidor said. ‘It is likely that there are operational elements that Commander Janic has withheld from the logs. Definitely from operational personnel, like the Artisan Empyr, and possibly even from his own legionnaires. He’s Alpha legion, my lord. He will have some surprises waiting for us. Something we haven’t anticipated.’
‘Indeed,’ the primarch agreed, nodding his head thoughtfully.
Operatus Five-Hydra: Elapsed Time Ω2/004.89//TPATenebrae Installation
‘Sergeant Setebos reports heavy resistance on the dormitory level,’ Volion reported from his vox-link. ‘Tarquiss is down.’
Omegon was about to reply but the order stuck in this throat.
There was something wrong. Something out of place.
Striding up the penitorium passageway towards the hub with Xalmagundi and Volion, the primarch’s focus was on the skitarii forces sealing off their exit. But as they passed a side passage it became apparent that they were not alone in the corridor – he caught the briefest impression of movement and the dull glint of ceramite.
Time seemed to slow. The flash of muzzles lit up the dungeon gloom. The crash of boltfire was everywhere, like thunder rolling up the passageway.
‘Suppressing fire!’ Omegon ordered as he grabbed Xalmagundi and tore her out of the crossfire. Volion responded with a withering hail from his bolter, directed down the side passage – Alpha Legionnaires were moving up towards them, using the recessed cell doorways for cover.
Emerging low, the primarch gunned down the nearest three legionnaires before disappearing back around the corner. Almost immediately, Volion’s suppression fire resumed, giving Omegon precious moments to think. He adjusted the channel on his vox-link.
‘Sergeant,’ he called. ‘Report!’
Across the vox he could hear the incessant bark of exchanged bolt-fire.
‘We’ve been outmanoeuvred on the dormitory level, sir,’ Setebos admitted. ‘Taking casualties. Exits blocked.’ The sergeant was drowned out by his own pistol for a moment. ‘The dormitories don’t exist on this level. The schemata misled us. We walked straight into a firefight.’
Omegon felt his lips curl into an involuntary snarl.
Also missing from the base schemata had been the secret entrance to the psi-penitorium through a dummy cell at the bottom of the side passage. Presumably to facilitate the retaking of the level in the event of a containment breach, garrison legionnaires had used the hidden portal to answer Ursinus Echion’s initial calls for reinforcement in the penitoria hub. Now the ambush Omegon had planned for the requested legionnaires had been thwarted by a counter-ambush – mixed in with feelings of anger and frustration, the primarch couldn’t help but feel a sting of pride at Janic’s tactical prowess.
Explosive bolts tore up the walls and floor around Omegon and Xalmagundi. The skitarii forces flooding the hub had started working their way down the main passage, leading the way with optimistic blasts from their weapon-limbs. Once again, the primarch had to pull the delicate psyker out of harm’s way, shielding her with his ceramite bulk.
‘Reload!’ Volion called. Instead of offering covering fire with his bolt pistol, Omegon unclipped a pair of grenades from his belt and tossed them down the side passage.
The twin blasts rocked the corridor, killing two more garrison legionnaires outright and knocking several more from cover and into Volion’s deadly sights.
This could not continue. With Space Marines closing on the junction from one direction and skitarri sentinels from the other, the only fallback position was Xalmagundi’s open cell, but Omegon had no intention of returning to the soul-sapping darkness. He was battling his own Legion: surprises were to be expected. It was time, however, to wrestle back the advantage.
‘Xalmagundi!’ he shouted, loosing a flurry of bolts. ‘Time to rattle some cages!’
The psyker understood.
Lowering her head and closing her big, black eyes, Xalmagundi concentrated on her immediate environment. A new sound joined the din of gunfire: the shriek of metal contorting; locks shredding and hinges warping.
A thick cell door close to the junction blasted out of its reinforced frame and struck the opposite wall with crushing, unstoppable force, followed by another, and another. It was as though pressure was building in each successive cell down the passage, reaching an explosive crescendo which burst the psi-plate shielding from the walls. As the booming force worked its way through the penitorium, ripping doors from containment cells on both sides of the corridor, the advancing troops halted. The doorways that had provided them with much-needed cover were now like horrible pressurised deathtraps.
Garrison legionnaires were crushed against the walls, or knocked from their feet by the impacts. Those fortunate enough to be between doorways were now caught out in the open, and more fell to Volion and Omegon’s renewed fire.
As the final cell door smashed into the wall, they worked their way up through the carnage, stepping over the armoured bodies of crushed legionnaires. Where their brethren had survived the explosive telekinetic assault, Volion and the primarch kicked weapons out of reach and put their blades through smashed helmets with deadly precision.
In the cells, the prisoners began to stir.
The building insanity of the tormented echoed in the darkness of ruptured doorways. Witchbreeds were hissing, cackling, sobbing and speaking to themselves in dark tongues. They knew they were free, but seemed suspicious of their sudden freedom.
Omegon saw emaciated men, women and mutants emerging from the supposed safety of the shadows. Ducking into the only cell whose door was open rather than missing, he almost trampled a waif of a young girl, who had a grotesquely enlarged skull and misty eyes.
‘Go!’ Xalmagundi urged him, motioning the primarch past the child-witch and into the open cell. At first Omegon thought the she was going to embrace the child out of some kind of maternal instinct or mutant solidarity, but instead Xalmagundi threw her out and slammed the cell door shut, and put her back against the draining black metal.
Volion activated his suit lamps and made for the caged ladder that led both up through the ceiling and down through the floor of the dummy cell. The primarch shook his head in irritation – the shaft seemed to run through all levels of the Tenebrae base, but hadn’t been part of the original schemata. Infiltration would have been a great deal easier with knowledge of that, he mused.
As Volion pointed his bolter up the ladder and began to ascend, they heard the sound of gunfire beyond the cell door. The skitarii sentinels had evidently worked their way down to the abandoned junction and opened fire on the emerging witch-kin. However, the sound of tech-guard weaponry was soon replaced with the harrowing shrieks of deviant psykers unleashing their fury and myriad talents upon their attackers.
Omegon couldn’t even imagine what the witchbreeds were doing; the various ways in which their terrible vengeance might manifest. Something particularly vile was happening right outside the door, he was certain of that. It sounded like bones breaking... or stretching.
‘Sergeant, are you still with me?’ Omegon called across the vox as he and Xalmagundi climbed up after Volion.
Setebos crackled back through the din of combat at his end. ‘Receiving you.’
‘Status, sergeant?’
‘We’re another legionnaire down, my lord,’ Setebos reported. ‘Janic misrepresented the schemata. There was no dormitory, only a Legion
ambush.’ Again the sergeant’s voice was drowned out. ‘Krait has used the last of his melta bombs to break through the walls to the assimularum and the refectory. This level is flooded with garrison troops. Janic is throwing everything he has at us.’
Omegon listened grimly to the sergeant’s report. Arvas Janic had been more than equal to the task of securing the base. The commander had withheld information even from his closest allies. He had had dummy tactical objectives constructed and had organised reactionary gauntlets and ambushes, in order to stall any attempt to conquer the Tenebrae installation.
The game wasn’t over, however. The primarch had not played his trump card.
‘Sergeant,’ Omegon returned down the fragmenting vox-link. ‘I appreciate your difficulties. Rest assured that we have encountered a few of our own. Your orders are to extricate your squad by any means necessary and return to the lifter shaft. Make your way to the surface. We’ll meet you there. Commander Janic might be throwing everything he has at us. We, however, have barely begun.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Setebos replied with cold assurance.
‘And, sergeant – tell Krait it’s time to fire the detonators.’
‘Received. He’ll be pleased about that, at least.’
As they climbed, Omegon felt a string of deep, shuddering vibrations in the rungs of the ladder. Beyond the shaft he could hear the havoc that they had unleashed throughout the base: Space Marines were engaged in desperate firefights, using the base like a giant tactical training ground, Alpha Legionnaire against Alpha Legionnaire. The corridors and stairwells echoed with the footfalls of the Geno Seven-Sixty, bolstering sentries and creating hold points. Witchbreeds were out of their cells and tearing through the penitoria, using the full extent of their devastating powers upon their Mechanicum gaolers.
The installation superstructure itself was trembling.
He switched vox frequencies.
‘Artisan Empyr...’
‘My lord, thank the Omnissiah,’ Auguramus replied over the channel. ‘You must assist me. I’ve been discovered.’
‘You are not the only one, Volkern,’ Omegon replied coldly.
‘The Seven-Sixty are trying to gain entry to the security nexus,’ Auguramus babbled.
‘Are you secure?’
‘For now. I see from the pict feeds that they are bringing in cutting equipment for the bulkhead.’
‘Listen to me carefully, Auguramus,’ Omegon said.
‘I’m trapped in-’
‘Artisan!’ the primarch roared. ‘We are working our way to you. I need you to stay focused.’
‘Yes, lord,’ Auguramus replied miserably.
‘Re-route all sentry guns on the dormitory level to support Squad Sigma,’ Omegon told him.
‘I don’t know if I can do that from here,’ Auguramus told him, panic creeping back into his voice. ‘I fear that they have locked out some of the-’
‘You will find a way, Artisan Empyr,’ Omegon assured him as he climbed.
‘The penitoria hub reports being overrun.’
‘And I want that chaos to spread. Contact Strategarch Mandroclidas and your senior skitarii tribune, and inform them that the witchbreeds have escaped containment and used their powers to enslave the Alpha Legion.’
‘They won’t believe that.’
‘Auguramus,’ Omegon told him with an adamantium edge to his voice. ‘You will make them believe it. There is little the unknowing won’t believe about the unnatural. Play on their prejudice and fear. Besides, the base is in danger and the Legiones Astartes have been compromised. You are the ranking operative. The commanders will, of course, check in with each other – the skitarii will independently confirm the containment breach. Strategarch Mandroclidas will report Alpha Legionnaire hostilities.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Omegon could almost hear the artisan’s mind working through the possibilities.
‘Do this, Auguramus. We will be with you directly. Omegon out.’
Above him, Volion stopped climbing without warning.
‘What is it?’ the primarch enquired.
‘High-tier operations level,’ the legionnaire said. ‘Security nexus, base command, and the Astropath chantry.’
‘If the schemata are to be trusted,’ Omegon cautioned.
Turning a pressure wheel in the wall of the shaft, the primarch opened a duct hatch and peered through. The corridor onto which it opened was empty.
‘Legionnaire, take this ladder straight to the surface hangar. The mission continues according to plan. It is imperative that no legionnaire escapes Tenebrae 9-50 to tell of our intervention here. Take out the hangar sentries, and provide covering fire for Xalmagundi – she can use her gift on the Stormbirds, shuttles and Mechanicum lighters.’ He turned down to the psyker. ‘I mean it, Xalmagundi. Take no chances. When I get up there I want to find nothing but scrap.’
‘You can count on it,’ she assured him.
Omegon checked his chronometer. ‘How soon could you start working on velocity and trajectory?’
‘As soon as I can see what I’m manipulating and where it’s going,’ the psyker reminded him.
‘Both will be hard to miss once you’re up there,’ the primarch said.
‘I told you, I’ve never handled anything of this size before.’
‘I have faith in you, Xalmagundi,’ Omegon said. ‘Now go, both of you. Time is against us.’
‘What about you, my lord?’ Volion asked.
‘The chantry falls to me.’
‘That was Vermes’s responsibility.’
‘Aye, it was,’ Omegon replied.
‘Let me accompany you, my lord,’ the legionnaire insisted.
The primarch climbed up and out of the portal. ‘No. Get Xalmagundi to the surface. Only she can complete the mission. You have your orders, legionnaire.’
Closing the hatch on the Space Marine’s impassive optics and Xalmagundi’s underworlder eyes, the primarch slipped back into the Tenebrae base.
Operatus Five-Hydra: Elapsed Time Ω1/-214.12//XXUXX Legion Strike Cruiser Upsilon
‘So Xalmagundi wrecks the hangar and Vermes’s blade silences the choir of Astropaths,’ Sergeant Setebos confirmed.
Omegon nodded. ‘The Tenebrae installation must disappear like the light from a snuffed candle. We cannot risk survivors. We cannot risk craft fleeing the base. We cannot risk astrotelepathic reports of our operation.’
‘With any luck, the garrison won’t know what to report,’ Arkan offered, ‘and they’ll certainly think twice before reporting that the base is being hit by their own Legion.’
‘We can hope,’ the primarch said.
‘Assuming we can infiltrate the installation and confound the garrison,’ Isidor put to him through the spectral shimmer of the hololithic display, ‘how do we actually scratch the base?’
‘Demolitions,’ Krait volunteered immediately. ‘Clean. Simple.’
‘Or we could overload the generatorum magnareactors,’ Tarquiss offered. ‘That worked well enough aboard the Carnassial.’
‘Or, instead of confounding the garrison,’ said Volion, ‘we could slit their throats one by one and then destroy the installation at our leisure.’
‘I think you underestimate what you’re dealing with,’ Auguramus suddenly piped up, his voice a metallic echo through the micro-vox.
‘Explain,’ Setebos hissed.
The Artisan Empyr looked to Omegon, who nodded slowly.
‘You talk of detonations and overloads,’ Auguramus went on. ‘This isn’t a rockcrete bunker or ammunition dump. The Pylon Array is a colossal artefact of ancient xenos design, built to exact specifications and using materials the properties of which we are only now just beginning to appreciate-’
‘What was this abomination constructed to achieve?’ Isidor interrupted.
&
nbsp; Omegon adjusted the focus of the hololithic display. Pulling out, Squad Sigma was treated to a phantasmal representation of the asteroid, which the primarch turned about its ungainly axis. The rock was a pockmarked vision, dominated on one side by a deep and well defined crater, the result of some ancient collision in which Tenebrae 9-50 had come off as the victor. Closing in, Omegon revealed phase field generators constructed about the hollow’s circumference, and the sheen of an energy barrier cutting off the space within the crater from the void. Within the crater wall, a surface hangar had been excavated, and the rocky regolith of the crater floor was dominated by smaller security structures.
These were centred around the colossal reach of the Pylon Array.
It was like a great needle or obelisk, reaching for the stars but blacker than the void itself. The broader base of the abominate construction was fussy with scaffolding, but its tall, tapering pinnacle pierced the environmental containment field and reached out from the crater like an antenna sprouting from a parabolic reception dish.
‘Imagine, for a moment that you understood anything about empyreal immetereology,’ the Artisan Empyr continued. ‘We consider the warp a reality alternate to our own and consisting wholly of raw energy. An ocean immeasurable. Powerful. Unpredictable. Deadly.’ Auguramus cast his gaze down the line of identical faces. ‘But also, useful. Mankind has sought to brave the dangers of the warp in order to build an empire and embark upon a crusade of galactic conquest.’
‘You remind us of a history of which we are a part,’ warned Braxus.
‘A crusade mounted and an Imperium held together by the promise of communication and cooperation. Our thoughts and our vessels traverse this tumultuous realm. When storms wrack the warp, then the immetereology becomes unstable – both destructive and obstructive. Astrotelepathic communication and navigation become impossible.’
‘Get to the point.’
‘Within an ordinary meteorological system,’ Auguramus went on, ‘like an atmospheric weather system, there are areas of high and low pressure. Storms form in response to the extreme pressure differences in these areas.’
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