by Guy Haley
‘Some consequences are more immediate than others,’ said Clastrin. ‘Argument must wait. We are discovered.’
Weapons fire died away. A dead genestealer fell from the hole in the ceiling, drifting through the air toward the floor, globules of black blood trailing it. A taut silence snapped back into place.
‘Sound off!’ shouted Voldo.
‘Brother Astomar, here.’
‘Brother Curzon.’
‘Genthis.’
‘Alanius.’
‘Gallio.’
‘Azmael.’
‘Brother Tarael.’
‘Eskerio.’
‘Forgemaster Clastrin.’
‘High Magos Cogitator-Lexmechanic Nuministon of Mars present.’
Voldo checked the screen for Militor’s suit pict; a grey snowstorm. The fifth member of his squad was too far away to be hailed and warned. ‘Any signs of movement?’ called Voldo.
‘There is a large group of xenos bearing down upon us, brother-sergeant,’ said Eskerio.
‘I register them also, Sergeant Voldo,’ said Azmael. ‘I estimate twenty to forty genestealers, heading toward us on two vectors. One main body split into two smaller groups, one approaches within the ceiling, the other approaching whence we came. There is a third, smaller group coming down from reference 40.3.21.’
Voldo sent his map skittering to the coordinates. ‘The breach in the ceiling. Brother Gallio, stand ready!’
‘Yes, brother-sergeant.’
‘Brother Astomar, keep that corridor covered.’ Voldo looked around.
‘Despite our angry hosts, we have the advantage of knowing the way back, at least,’ said Alanius.
‘Negative. They are converging to mass along our route, brother-sergeant,’ said Eskerio.
‘By Corvo’s oath! Cousin Alanius, what suggest you?’ said Voldo.
‘Are there alternate routes?’ said the Blood Drinker.
‘One. Perhaps, but it is poorly defined, and lengthy,’ answered Eskerio.
‘Forty genestealers you say?’ said the Blood Drinkers sergeant. ‘A not insurmountable number. I say again, let us fight our way through, Blood Drinkers to the fore, your men can cover our exit should they decide to pursue.’
‘An inevitability, now the nest is disturbed,’ said Gallio.
‘They have yet to taste our steel, my friend, once they have, we shall have the measure of their enthusiasm,’ said Alanius, and Voldo could hear the excitement growing stronger in it. The Blood Drinkers were shifting about, fists clenching and unclenching.
Like the thrice-damned Knights of Blood, thought Voldo, they are too keen for the fight. There was nothing for it. They had to react swiftly, or they were lost.
‘Very well. We depart the chamber. Brother Gallio, cover the door. Brother Astomar, you are to engulf as many of the aliens as the Emperor wills in flame. Brother Eskerio, to the front. Thin their numbers, give our Blood Drinkers brothers the greatest advantage when they engage. Brother Gallio, to me! Keep your eyes on the ceiling, beware the third group. We cannot let them outflank us!’
‘We shall smite them righteously with fist, blade, and boltgun!’ said Brother Gallio.
‘So it shall be,’ intoned the other Novamarines in response.
Voldo’s helmet chimed as his threat indicator passed one level and then another. Flashing icons were converging on the corridor, two splinter groups of a greater whole to the front of his party, funnelling into the corridor the party had taken to their objective, a smaller number moving quickly to the breach in the ceiling. ‘Quickly now!’
The party members lumbered from the machine room, hindered by the mag-locks keeping them to the floor. Voldo stopped by the door, covering Gallio as he walked backwards, his storm bolter never leaving the hole in the ceiling. Alanius moved past him, claws active.
‘What of my machine?’ said Nuministon. ‘It is of great value, it should not be left behind!’
‘Perhaps we would not have to abandon it if you had revealed the full extent of your plans, magos. If we survive, and if this cleansing is a success, then it can be collected along with your archeotech treasures. For now, it remains here. Every one of us must fight,’ said Voldo.
‘I must protest!’ The grinding voice of Nuministon became loud and wheedling.
‘Perhaps the magos would rather remain behind and guard it himself?’ said Alanius, bringing forth harsh laughter from the Blood Drinkers.
Voldo waited until Alanius, Clastrin, and finally Gallio, had filed out of the room. He and Gallio then took up station inside the open door, storm bolters ready.
‘They are here!’ called Eskerio. His bolter barked twice. A shrill scream followed it, hard on the heels of that came the whoosh of Astomar’s heavy flamer. The pict-feed in Voldo’s helmet from Astomar whited out. When the flare died back, he noted five or six flaming forms tumbling through the air, a couple coming forward still despite the fire, and then genestealers were crawling through the hole in the engine room ceiling, carapaces glittering in the beams of their suit lights, and his attention was occupied by his own role as rearguard.
Hunched bodies, over-sized heads, yellow eyes, four arms each, two lower topped with hands in parody of mankind’s own, the upper three-taloned claws capable of punching through adamantium, the genestealers came; deadly enemies each and every one.
‘Fire!’ he shouted. He and Gallio opened up, the muzzle flash of their bolters illuminating the field generation room. The strobing light penetrated only as far as the units, obscuring the view of the genestealers further in. The aliens moved rapidly, their sharp claws digging into metal and pulling them along far quicker than the Terminator’s mag-lock boots could. They flickered nightmarishly in the lightning flash of weapon’s fire, so quick that Voldo was not certain he had hit his targets or not. From over his head, Clastrin fired plasma from his servo-harness’ weapon arm. A glowing ball of gas blazed through the room. Genestealers shrank back from the plasma’s glare. The round slammed into the wall below the rupture in the ceiling, obliterating two of the creatures as they crawled head-first down the wall.
‘Corvo’s oath!’ shouted Gallio. ‘They are at least a score in strength!’
Voldo’s bolter shouted an answer for him.
They shot round after round, blasting genestealers apart in fountains of green-black ichor. From behind them came the relentless chatter of Eskerio’s bolter and the periodic roaring of Astomar’s heavy flamer. The corridor leading away from the engine room burned; metal glowed dull red with heat. Snatches of what was happening to Astomar and the others were revealed to Voldo through the suit cameras and squad sensorium feeds: a flash of teeth; lashing, hollow tongues; claws; scurrying movement from things that seemed too big to move as quickly as they did.
Voldo was unfazed by this. Combat was a frenetic affair, that against genestealers especially. He and they were old foes.
‘Stand fast!’ he shouted. ‘They draw nearer.’
The bolts spat by Voldo and Gallio’s guns felled monster after monster, but each xenos down allowed another the chance to come closer. They advanced screeching, heedless of their losses, pushing through the floating gore, and now the aliens were by the edge of the engines, not more than seven metres away.
Gallio’s gun clicked. A red icon sprang to life next to Gallio’s suit-view in Voldo’s visor, indicating the brother’s gun had jammed.
‘Blessed is my wargear!’ called Gallio. He deactivated his power fist’s energy field and attempted to free the stuck bolt, giant armoured fingers working dextrously and without hurry.
Voldo widened the cone of space he was covering while Gallio unjammed his gun. He felled another genestealer, a bolt piercing its bulbous skull between the eyes. The mass reactor within detonated the round, spraying the genestealer’s brains to float in the air. Its arms folded in on its ribbed chest, and it floated serenely backwards.
The sensorium jam icon by Gallio’s feed flashed twice, went green, and blinked out.
‘Clear!’ shouted Gallio. He raised his gun again, power fist field re-engaging simultaneously. Together Gallio and Voldo fired and fired. Twinned magazines dropped from the bottom of Voldo’s storm bolter. Another icon sprang up next to his own emblem in his suit display. ‘I am out of ammunition!’ An alarm chimed.
A genestealer hurled itself down directly from above the door, feet scrabbling to arrest it from bouncing back into the air. Gallio’s bolter tore half its upper body away before his magazines too emptied and clattered to the floor.
‘Empty!’ The Terminators carried spare rounds in their suit’s stowage, but such was the bulk of the armour that it was impossible to retrieve them and reload in combat. Clastrin’s servo-harness made the dry cough of plasma weaponry still, annihilating genestealers. Those pouring in through the ceiling came quickly forward. Clastrin extended his two lower mechanical arms, those tipped with flamers, and burned the aliens away with a blast of promethium.
‘I have but four shots’ worth of fuel for my flamer, brother-sergeant,’ said the Forgemaster. ‘My plasma cutters must cool also, or they will emergency vent and become useless.’
Past the writhing genestealers, more dark shapes moved, a tide of aliens creeping downwards. One launched itself from the wall, powerful legs sending it through the air toward Voldo.
‘They are coming again!’ shouted Voldo.
Gallio raised his fist. Voldo prepared his blade, and the genestealers were upon them.
Voldo’s world narrowed to a maelstrom of flashing claws and teeth as the leaping genestealer landed on his shoulders. Its four arms wrapped themselves around him, clawed feet scrabbling madly at his breastplate. Its long, hollow tongue lashed at his helmet, seeking to implant him with its vile seed. He drove upward with his power sword, the weapon’s field crackling as it passed through the beast’s chitin and into its gut. Voldo wrenched the weapon and flung his arm out to cast the creature’s body from his armour. Immediately he was re-engaged, two more scuttling over the floor, another imitating the first’s leap.
The genestealers were so fast it was all he could do to match their speed with his sword. He cut and parried, deflecting blow after blow. One riposte severed a genestealer’s lower left arm, and he stepped forward to finish it with a thrust to the neck. A second raked a broad hand, horribly manlike, across his chest eagle, scoring the ceramite. He felt the pain of the machine through his sensorium as a dull throb layered over his body’s native senses. Nothing vital was hit, the claws not penetrating far enough to snag a power line or damage the suit’s fibre bundles. He pivoted, and slew the genestealer before it could bring its heavier upper claws in for a killing blow.
Gallio fought more slowly, the power fist on his suit was a clumsy weapon. He too expended much effort fending off the genestealers’ attacks, but when he did manage to land a blow the effects were devastating, the disruption fields surrounding the heavy gauntlet ripping alien flesh apart at the atomic level with a thunderous crack, bursting the creatures like smashed fruit.
Clastrin waited for a propitious moment before letting off another shot from his flamer. Genestealers dropped writhing, two more fell back, and Clastrin cut them down with his plasma cutter.
And then there were no more.
Voldo panted, body singing with adrenaline. He scanned the room carefully. Nothing lived within. No more shadows flowed down the wall. His helmet was a clamour of alarms, his vision dazzled by icons on his visor. His sensorium filled his mind with further information, the condition of the suit pasted over his own senses as pseudo-pain and phantom sensations. He twisted around, scanning the room with his own eyes and the sensorium of the Terminator armour. The motion tracker was wild with false positives, tripped by the dismembered parts of genestealers floating slowly to the floor all around them.
‘Remain here, brother!’ he told Gallio. Clastrin nodded, and took Voldo’s place as the sergeant turned himself around and lumbered toward the other front of the battle. Clastrin reached for Gallio’s stowage to retrieve a full bolt magazine. He was forced to scrape alien flesh from the clasp. All of them were besmirched with the vile fluids of the xenos.
Astomar and Eskerio had stepped back from the suiting room. Eskerio had his gun trained on a fresh hole in the suiting room ceiling. A dead genestealer hung from the gap, waving as if caught in an ocean current, its black blood wobbling globules that drifted through space. Astomar had retreated around a corner. He was kneeling and had his flamer arm up. He had ejected his promethium flasks from the weapon and was in the process of unclipping a spare from his belt.
What Voldo saw in the corridor beyond the suiting room made the breath catch in his throat. Alanius and his men fought, claws flashing. They were not so fast as the genestealers, but their technique was greater. Energy-sheathed metal blocked alien chitin, and responded with deadly efficacy. The Blood Drinkers were a whirl of motion and blades. Genestealer dead choked the corridor.
The final alien was cut down, a snarl upon its face. ‘We are done,’ shouted Alanius, his voice wild. ‘The enemy are destroyed! Rejoice brothers!’
‘Let the blood flow! Let it flow!’ the Blood Drinkers chanted. ‘Let it flow!’
‘Well fought, oh Adeptus Astartes!’ rasped Nuministon. ‘I knew full well your skill at arms would see us through, and you are all unharmed. A commendable efficiency.’
‘Untrue, magos,’ Astomar said. ‘Cousin Genthis’s suit is damaged.’
Voldo checked the Blood Drinker’s vital signs. The outer ceramite shell of his armour had been cut clean through on his lower chest, but the inner plasteel layers remained intact, and sealant foam bled from the machine’s mechanisms, hardening rapidly to close the tear.
Eskerio held up his power fist, looking to the auspex. ‘There are no more signs of movement. Threat indications are low.’
‘Then our way home is free!’ shouted Curzon. ‘Come, brothers, let us return in triumph!’ He, Tarael, and Azmael turned and marched down the corridor without waiting for guidance from their leaders.
‘We should wait, Brother Alanius!’ called Voldo. ‘We should set our next plans.’
Alanius turned to the Novamarine. His hands would not be still. ‘Your own brother says the way is clear, brother-sergeant. And I could not restrain them now if I wished it. The battle-joy is upon them, and nothing will keep a Blood Drinker back when this is so.’
With that, Alanius cast about, rolling genestealers corpses over until he found one that met with his approval. With a great blow of his claws, he carved the thing’s exoskeleton away from its chest, and quickly cut free its heart. He unfolded a hook on his suit, and pinned it in place.
‘Barbarism,’ muttered Gallio. ‘Suffer not the unclean.’
‘Will you follow with us, brother-sergeant? My men will cut our way through should the enemy return, nothing can halt a Blood Drinker when…’
The hulk shifted. A rumble that built rapidly, and suddenly all was noise and motion.
‘Hulk quake! Steady yourselves!’ called Voldo.
The quake lasted longer than the others. The hulk rolled and groaned like a man in a fever dream. The corridor rippled, its metal twisting as fluidly as cloth. Alanius swayed, feet locked to the floor. Nuministon stumbled against a wall. Bulkheads buckled under phenomenal pressure as the troubled mass of the agglomeration shifted. The floor under Voldo’s feet bent upwards, dislodging his mag-lock, and he toppled forward with a bang, rebounding to hang in the air. The augur feed from Eskerio and sensorium data from the others’ suits jumped wildly. He lifted his head in time to see the corridor collapse.
Tarael was furthest ahead and free. Voldo thought he saw the brother turn and look back as the central section convulsed inwards, Azmael leapt away, stumbling as his suit tried to match his sudden movement and simultaneously deal with the lack of gravity and unstable environment, his claws raking furrows in the corridor walls as he reached out to steady himself. Curzon was not so lucky. The Space Marine had time to look up befo
re floor and ceiling met each other, metal jaws that swallowed him whole.
The hulk convulsed again, and was still.
Voldo checked the suit augurs of his men and Alanius’s. Tarael’s showed a wall of debris, but judging by the way the picture was moving around, Tarael was free and getting to his feet. Curzon’s was active, and his vital signs indicated that he lived under the twisted mass of metal. All Voldo’s own men were unharmed and untrapped. He rocked awkwardly, trying to attain a position from which he might once again bring his boots to the floor, lock them, and stand.
Alanius approached.
‘It appears you were correct. We are trapped, brother Novamarine,’ he said. Black blood from the genestealer’s heart ran down his leg. His voice was thick, ripe with arrogance and violence. ‘What are your suggestions?’
Chapter 7
Caedis
Chapter Master Caedis worked in his chambers. He was stripped to the waist; baggy, blood-red trousers on his lower half, soft black boots on his feet and a black tabard hanging between his legs – the manner of dress all Blood Drinkers affected when out of their battle-plate. The battle-barge was warm, the way the Blood Drinkers preferred; warm as the volcanic halls of San Guisiga, warm as blood. Incense drifted from cyborg creatures that flitted about the vaulting of the room. Gentle music, composed by a long-dead brother, played.
An unfinished stained glass panel two metres tall rested within a cradle before Caedis, tilted slightly so that it was not quite erect. Much of the glass was in place, the intricate framework braced and clamped so that it would not sag and break as Caedis fitted it with more coloured panes.
Caedis’s room was full of such works. Sculptures of past heroes, tapestries of great victories, exquisitely carved furniture and more, all made by his own hands over the centuries. The creation of art was a tonic to the soul, a distraction from the infernal itch of the Thirst. How ironic, thought Caedis, that it should lose its effectiveness as he worked upon an item venerating Holos, the brother who had brought a measure of peace to the Blood Drinkers and saved them from damnation.