Deathwatch

by Steve Parker

  There was a flash from one of the lead craft’s under-wing weapons pylons. Something streaked forwards and hit dirt, burying its harpoon-like nose in cold, dead rock. At the tail end of this missile was a pod. It opened like a black flower, spreading steel petals to form a communications relay dish. In the centre of the dish, an antenna emerged, a tiny blue light blinking at its tip. Lower on the pod, a hatch opened, and a small floating object emerged, the size of a human head, trailing a length of thin silvery cable – a communications hard-line.

  With its tiny motors throbbing quietly, the head-sized object floated forwards and descended into the black mouth of the shaft in the centre of the crater.

  A voice spoke over a vox-link.

  ‘Reaper One in place. Vox-relay deployed. Opening hatches.’

  Four doors levered smoothly open on that first craft – one in either side of the short hull, another in the nose, another below the ship’s tail. Zip-lines dropped, snaking off into the deep darkness below. Four shadowy shapes emerged, heavy and heavily armed, only the dull light of their visor slits giving them any detail. They dropped fast on the lines, vanishing quickly into the yawning mouth of the old ventilation shaft that gaped at the crater’s centre.

  Seconds later, a fifth figure slid from the rear hatch and shot downwards on its line. Slung over its neck and shoulder was a sword.

  Moments later, a sharp voice reported, ‘Infil site secured. Ready for Six’s drop.’

  ‘Reaper flight hears you, Alpha. Prepare for delivery.’

  The first Stormraven tilted to the left and slid away from the shaft. Reaper Two moved in to take up position.

  ‘Deploying Talon Six,’ voxed the pilot.

  At the back of the second Stormraven, winches began to whine, spooling out thick, high-tensile, advanced polymer cables. Something big and improbably blocky was lowered into the mouth of the shaft. Impatient growls emanated from within, amplified by the vocaliser grilles on its sloping, thick-armoured front.

  Moments later, an irritated bark sounded on the vox-net.

  ‘I’m down.’

  ‘Withdrawing lines,’ replied Reaper Two.

  Magna-grapples disengaged with a clunk. Cables whipped back up into their reels at speed.

  ‘Reaper Three now moving into position. Dropping mission support package. Stand by.’

  A large metal container descended slowly into the darkness beneath. A hundred and twenty metres down, it hit the ground with a clang. One of the dark figures – the shortest and broadest – moved to its door, guided by the glow of its rune panel. Plated fingers tapped in the access code. The door unlocked, jerking forwards a few centimetres as the seals released, then sliding backwards and upwards with an oily, pneumatic hiss. Five gun-servitors rolled out in a line, chest-embedded readouts lighting their grisly faces from below in red. They were ugly things – half machine, half corpse; mind-wiped undead slaves kept alive, so to speak, by nutrifluids and electrical subsystems. Their human arms had been removed at the shoulder, replaced with heavy weaponry fed by the ammo drums riding high on their steel-plated backs. At their waists, their flesh gave way to a chassis with tank-treads in miniature. They chugged and rumbled quietly, and twin trails of greasy exhaust smoke issued from the pipes at their rear. Augmetics sat in place of facial features, their original eyes, nose, lips and tongue having long ago rotted to nothing.

  For all their crude appearance, and despite being unable to think beyond basic targeting and threat assessment, they offered solid support in a firefight. They made convenient ammo mules, too.

  And they were expendable.

  Once the servitors had all emerged, Maximmion Voss went into the container and began hauling out sealed cases. These he lay side-by-side, then tapped a rune to close the cargo crate’s door.

  ‘Talon Four confirms support elements unloaded. Take her up.’

  ‘Understood, Four. Deployment complete. Reaper flight wishes you happy hunting, Talon. See you back here for exfiltration. Reaper One, out.’

  The Stormravens’ jets flared again as they rose high above the crater. Then, in triangular formation, they swung north and roared off into the darkness, turbines throbbing, until they were too far away to hear. The silence and the stillness of the frozen surface returned. Starlight was all that lit the rocks once more. It was as if the three powerful assault craft had never been there at all.

  At the bottom of the shaft, proof of the drop remained: six Deathwatch operatives with a mission and the weaponry to achieve it.

  Or so they hoped.

  2

  Karras scanned the broad, circular chamber into which they had descended, his helm optics whirring as they struggled to apply low-light mode to such utter dark. Even a little starlight would have been enough; his upgraded visor technology could have worked with it to make the chamber as bright as a cloudy day, at least to his gene-boosted eyes. But no light reached the bottom of the Inorin vent shaft at all.

  ‘I can’t see a damned thing in here,’ said Solarion, tapping his helm as if this were a technical problem. ‘I thought they finished the vision mode enhancements before we left the Watch fortress.’

  ‘They did,’ replied Voss. ‘I watched them do it.’

  ‘Talon Squad,’ said Karras. ‘I want bolter lights on. Lowest setting. We don’t want to announce ourselves by throwing shadows all over the place.’

  Four dim lights winked on. Four only, for neither Voss nor Chyron, the Dreadnought, carried bolters like the others. Voss carried a flamer, but he would not light the blue flame of the igniter until he was in combat. Chyron was armed with a heavy power fist boasting a small under-arm flamer of its own. His main armament, however, was the formidable assault cannon fixed to his chassis’s right shoulder socket.

  The rest of the squad gripped bolters that were far from standard, boasting a triple-rail system which allowed for the addition of tactical attachments. On this particular mission, that meant a side-mounted flashlight – now put to use – a small laser range-finder, and an under-barrel grenade launcher, the special rounds for which were stored on the ammunition belts around the Space Marines’ plate-armoured waists. Together with the mounted magnoscope on top of the bolter and a shorter barrel length more suited to Deathwatch operations, the gun almost looked like a different weapon to the one most Space Marines were used to, but in every important way, it was essentially the same.

  There was a humming noise in the dark, just above Karras, as the servo-skull that accompanied the kill-team moved forwards on its tiny suspensors. When it was five metres in front of the team leader, it stopped. There was an audible click. Its own light – little more than the power of a small candle – formed a hazy sphere around it. The floating skull rotated, lens-eyes surveying the chamber just like the eyes of the Space Marines.

  It was an equal mix of geometric and natural forms, this dark, echoing place. Human construction, with its straight lines and sharp angles, speared out from mounds of rough, black, ice-encrusted rock. The floor was flat, or rather, almost flat. Centuries of human passage and the grinding wheels of heavy autocarts had worn tracks into the stone. Karras’s eyes followed the tracks to a dozen arched tunnel mouths, only a few of which remained completely clear of rubble. The others had suffered some kind of collapse, blocking them up with thick piles of tumbled rock and great iron beams.

  ‘Machinery,’ said Voss from off to Karras’s left. He stepped close to the nearest piece, a bulky cargo-lifter toppled on its side, one rigid leg sticking out in the air at an angle. It was a big machine, clumsy-looking and crude, almost as large as Chyron but painted yellow where the temperamental Dreadnought was black. ‘Preserved by the ice,’ said Voss. ‘Not even rusted.’ He moved closer and peered into its metal guts. ‘No power core and no subsystem control boards.’

  There was similar detritus all around them. The kill-team’s lights played over hills of twisted metal and boxy shapes. Solarion looked at a dark mass of plasteel and cable in front of him, then began walking in
a wide circle, half crouching, the beam of his light pointed to the ground. After a minute, he said, ‘This place was abandoned years ago, Karras. No recent tracks. No one has been through here.’

  ‘It’s dead,’ said Zeed.

  ‘Where is the foe, Alpha?’ boomed Chyron. ‘I wish to kill something, and I wish to kill it now.’

  ‘This is no purge, Six,’ said Karras sharply. ‘You know that. You’ll kill when I give you leave to kill. Not before.’

  Chyron rumbled something to himself, then said, ‘The sooner the better. We may not have been sent to purify, Librarian, but there will be killing. Mark my words. More than enough for all of us.’ The Dreadnought pivoted on his mechanical legs, seeming to address Siefer Zeed directly as he said, ‘There always is with tyranids.’

  None could mistake the hatred in the Lamenter’s voice as he snarled that last word. Did he believe he had found a kindred spirit in the Raven Guard? Certainly, they both hungered for battle, but what Space Marine did not? Even Karras had to acknowledge that part of him which looked forward to the rush, the heightening of senses, the dizzying satisfaction of seeing one’s foes cut down.

  He glanced up at the servo-skull hovering nearby. Thoughts of glorious battle suddenly dropped away. His brow furrowed beneath his helm. Via the skull’s instruments, Sigma could hear all, see all, record all, even take action if need be. To all intents and purposes, that yellowed floating mish-mash of brain, bone and ancient tech was Sigma, though the inquisitor’s actual physical body remained safely in orbit aboard the Saint Nevarre.

  Karras thought back to the mission briefing they had attended on that ship, the first and only time they had ever set eyes on the man to whom their solemn Deathwatch oaths had bound them in fate and service.

  The briefing room was striking but simple, almost chapel-like with its high arched ceiling some twenty metres above the cold black flagstones of the floor. There were no windows or viewports anywhere, just hydraulic bulkhead doors set in the port and starboard walls. These were so large that the five Space Marines could have walked abreast as they passed under them, if they had wanted to. They were large enough to cause Chyron no trouble. In fact, when the rest of Talon Squad arrived for the briefing, they found the Dreadnought already waiting, his chassis idling with a quiet rumble.

  ‘A tad over-eager, aren’t you, Old One?’ Zeed jested.

  ‘The inquisitor wished to greet me personally,’ boomed the big warrior. ‘At least someone on this ship recognises and respects the value of age and experience. Unlike others.’

  ‘I respect you, brother,’ replied Zeed. ‘I just wish you didn’t smoke up the place so much. And you’re noisier than a battle tank with a bad axle.’

  Chyron growled, but there was no menace behind it. ‘One day, little raven, you will be glad to hear that noise. That will be the day Chyron saves your worthless life.’

  Zeed laughed aloud. ‘I think your own fumes have gone to your head.’

  The Lamenter had taken a liking to the Raven Guard. Darrion Rauth and Ignacio Solarion, on the other hand, had not. Solarion threw the long-haired Space Marine a withering glare, wishing he would shut up.

  Zeed, as usual, ignored it.

  Karras turned on a boot heel and took in the room.

  Six weeks. Six weeks aboard the Saint Nevarre with no sign of the man who had brought this kill-team together. And now they were in the Ienvo system on their way to the site of their first operation, and the inquisitor had, at last, deigned to call them together. It was the first time any of them had been in the briefing room.

  Only one wall bore any real decoration beyond the regularly spaced alcoves in which bowls of scented oil burned, their orange light dancing, causing the room to pulse and move. That wall was dominated at its base by a semi-circular dais on which sat a tall throne of exquisitely carved skulls in black marble. It was a work of fine craftsmanship, but there was something distinctly odd about it; the seat was sized for a normal man, but the height of that seat, roughly three metres above the uppermost level of the dais, meant that no man could easily place himself on it. Clearly, its height was intended to convey status and authority over those assembled below it. As yet, it remained empty.

  Behind the throne, the wall bore a towering relief of a somewhat narrow man in hooded robes flanked by huge Space Marines in an armour design dating back to the dark years of the Heresy and its immediate aftermath. The distinctive staff which the hooded man carried marked his identity clearly: none other than Malcador, known as the Sigillite, founder of the Holy Orders of the Inquisition in days when the Emperor still led the Space Marine Legions he had created.

  ‘None were trusted more,’ quoted Rauth from behind Karras, ‘Unquestioning he was. And unquestionable his faith.’

  ‘His body turned to dust on the wind,’ replied Karras, quoting from the same ancient text, Echto’s Dreamer Unsleeping. ‘But his will and his sacrifice took form everlasting in the legacy he left all men.’

  ‘An overrated work,’ said a new, unfamiliar voice. ‘Ibramin Izavius Echto was born over seven hundred years after the Sigillite’s death and held only mid-level clearance in the Great Librarium. His writings are sensationalist speculation and melodrama. Nothing more.’

  The voice was clear and sharp, higher than any Space Marine’s, but somewhat modulated, given an almost artificial quality by the machinery that transmitted it. The words emanated from small vocaliser grilles in the sculpted eye-sockets of the throne’s many skulls. The attention of Talon Squad was drawn to the throne now, for a figure had suddenly appeared there, seated high atop it – a pale, deep-chested, muscular man with a full white beard and piercing blue eyes. He wore black breeches over a bodyglove of black titanium scales, with golden bracers on his forearms and golden greaves on his shins. A red cloak with a high collar hung about his shoulders, fixed there by two silver clasps bearing a heavy skull motif. Between the skulls hung lengths of thick silver brocade. His fingers were spread over the domes of the two black skulls which formed the end of his throne’s armrests.

  He looked down at them and smiled, but it was a smile as flat and artificial as his voice.

  ‘We meet at last, Talon. I am Sigma and I will be your operational commander until the end of your service with the Deathwatch. You will forgive me for not making a personal introduction sooner, but I prefer to hold my briefings only in the relative security of real space.’

  ‘Then you should have introduced yourself after we boarded at Damaroth,’ said Solarion, indignant as ever. ‘One does not keep Space Marines waiting, inquisitor or otherwise.’

  The bearded man’s eyes found him. ‘It suited me better to observe you first, son of Guilliman. A handler ought to know his assets’ personalities and individual capabilities before he deploys them. For your part, however, you need only know your mission parameters. The burden is lighter on your side, is it not?’

  A thrumming sound began, building slowly, coming from a wide circular aperture some five metres across, cut in the centre of the floor. The hole had a railing of black plasteel around it. Maximmion Voss moved to the railing and looked down into the space below.

  ‘That’s an impressive hololithic array.’

  Three metres below the aperture, a large black hemisphere glittered, its surface pocked with shimmering projection lenses. Even as Voss admired it, a massive three-dimensional object resolved into existence before him, hovering in the air above the hole. It was the icon of the Inquisition rendered at extreme resolution, two metres tall and one across. It looked no less real than anything else in the room.

  ‘Gather before the projection, Talon,’ said Sigma. ‘It is time you learned some of the details of Operation Night Harvest.’

  ‘Some?’ challenged Karras, but the inquisitor did not answer.

  The skull-and-I vanished and was replaced by the strangest planet Karras had ever seen. It looked like an egg laid on its side, its axis of rotation pointed straight at its sun. The tapering sunward hemisphere wa
s bright and riddled with deep volcanic rifts, while the rounded rimward hemisphere was as black as oblivion. Around the planet’s equator, a shadowed gouge extended; a vast canyon spanning the entire circumference of the world.

  ‘This,’ said Sigma, ‘is the planet Chiaro, a mining world in this very system. A world to which you will soon be deployed.’

  He had told them of the intelligence the Ordo had gathered to date, told them of the ranking agent he had sent and of her sudden disappearance. White Phoenix, he called her. He spoke of the augmetic implant in her head and of the critical intelligence it carried. He talked of duty and loyalty, and of getting her out alive. She had always served the Emperor and the Inquisition well, and now she needed help.

  Night Harvest, then, was not a kill-mission. It was a tactical rescue and recovery.

  Chyron groaned. Zeed shook his head.

  Then the inquisitor told them of the nature of the xenos infestation.

  Tyranids.

  That changed Chyron’s mood. He flexed his vast metal fists restlessly.

  The hololith of the planet disappeared to display a range of sickening xenos forms in unpleasantly sharp detail and colour.

  The Dreadnought growled and twitched as he looked at them, seeming on the verge of storming forwards to swipe in murderous hatred at their mere image. It was tyranids, after all, which had all but wiped his Chapter from the face of the galaxy.

  Sigma rattled off a series of facts and figures supporting the operation and giving the kill-team estimates on enemy strength. The numbers were staggering. No six-man kill-team should rightly have been sent to face such a force, but again he reminded them that this was, for the first half at least, a stealth operation. They were not to reveal their presence until absolutely necessary. To this end, he ordered that Karras suppress his psychic gifts. His ethereal signature had to be muted almost completely.