Predator, Prey

by Rob Sanders

  ‘With which vessels do we still keep attendance, castellan?’ the marshal insisted.

  After conferring with the bridge bondsman, Clermont said: ‘The Aquillon – Dictator-class cruiser, Captain Grenfell. The Firebrand – Lancet-class corvette, Commander Ulanti. Neither vessel fields lance decks.’

  Bohemond clasped the arms of his throne with both gauntlets. The alloy of the pulpit-seat creaked beneath the pressure. His good eye was set in an unswerving gaze on the enemy attack moon. The marshal’s face was bathed in red as emergency lamps and alarms erupted across the command deck.

  ‘Kant?’ Castellan Clermont called, but before the Techmarine could confirm the threat, several greenskin vessels gunning down on the battle-barge formed a train of explosions. One after another, drawing closer and closer to the Abhorrence, the junkers detonated.

  The train of destruction ended with the Sodalitas. One moment the the strike cruiser was there. The next it had been replaced by a streaking implosion of ignited fuel and hallowed wreckage. Its armoured prow and thoraxial gun decks had been smashed straight back through its engine columns and immaterial drives, as though an invisible fist had crashed through the vessel. No one on the Abhorrence had seen the atrocity, but every member of the battle-barge’s crew felt the swell of the explosion ring through the decks.

  ‘Starboard evasive!’ Clermont called. The battle-barge lurched and banked sharply.

  ‘Commander Klein of the Bona Fide reports the Sodalitas destroyed,’ a bondsman called from where he was clinging to his rune bank.

  ‘Confirmed,’ the castellan reported. ‘Strike cruiser Sodalitas is lost. Forty-one battle-brothers and two hundred and sixteen bonded crew dead, marshal.’

  The report struck Bohemond like a physical blow. He turned to Chaplain Aldemar. The Chaplain said nothing. He sank slowly to his armoured knees on the command deck and began his murmured obsequies and the sacraments of the fallen.

  ‘Kant, I need that–’ Clermont began.

  ‘Some kind of gravitic weapon,’ Kant called back. ‘Vectored and directional. The planet-smasher the attack moon must have used on Aspiria.’

  ‘Marshal?’

  ‘Have all Chapter vessels and Navy attendants form up behind the battle-barge,’ Bohemond ordered.

  ‘Sir, we are outnumbered–’

  ‘And what means that to the Black Templars?’

  ‘The enemy has the advantage,’ the castellan attempted to continue.

  ‘You have just summarised the beginning of every worthy battle in which the Black Templars have fought,’ Marshal Bohemond declared proudly.

  ‘Every worthy battle that Black Templars survived, marshal,’ Clermont replied. ‘But this will see us all dead before we can scratch them.’

  ‘Steel yourself, brother,’ Bohemond said. ‘These thoughts proceed from some cowardly corner of your soul.’

  ‘No such place exists, my lord.’

  ‘Well it must, Castellan Clermont,’ Bohemond roared back, ‘for I hear the suggestion of a retreat in your guarded advisements.’

  ‘Brothers!’ Techmarine Kant called, but he wasn’t calling for reconciliation. A chain of explosions were ripping through the void. Greenskin salvage-clads and gun-hulks formed a thunderbolt of sequential detonations, terminating in an assault on the Black Templars battle-barge. Bohemond was thrown from his pulpit-throne and Chaplain Aldemar from his devotions. Rune banks, augur stations and cogitae spat sparks and crackled with overloaded energy. Two Chapter bondsmen lay dead, while injuries and malfunctions had been inflicted upon a number of servitors and bridge crew. Smoke soaked up the bloody menace of the emergency lamps and klaxons screeched their urgency.

  The Abhorrence had taken a direct hit from the attack moon’s gravitic planet-smasher on its intensified forward void shields. Proximity warnings joined the din of alarms on the bridge. Falling away from its surging course into a drunken drift, the battle-barge almost collided with the Sword of Sigismund.

  ‘Damage report,’ Clermont managed, clawing himself up a console station and back to his feet. A ragged gash ran parallel to the service studs stamped into his forehead. Kant, with his bionic adaptations and extra weight, had been the only unsecured member of the bridge crew not to end up on the deck.

  ‘Datastreams struggling to carry reports and diagnostics,’ Kant said. ‘So far I have some structural damage and electrical fires.’

  Clermont moved between the bondsmen and servitors, who had fortunately been buckled into the station-seats. He cast his eyes across their flashing runescreens.

  ‘Seventeen fatalities reported amongst the crew,’ the castellan said, ‘mainly impact damage. No battle-brothers. Captain Ulbricht reports the Thunderhawks Smite and Purgator’s Dawn damaged and battle-unworthy.’

  ‘Void shields are down to twenty-two per cent nominal capacity,’ Kant said.

  ‘Brother,’ Clermont urged, turning to Bohemond.

  ‘The Abhorrence cannot withstand another hit like that,’ Kant added grimly.

  ‘Marshal,’ the castellan said, marching forwards. ‘We must withdraw.’

  Bohemond was back on his feet. Despite having fallen, his gaze had barely left the hated attack moon.

  ‘It is cowardice…’ Bohemond hissed through his teeth.

  ‘No more, my lord,’ Clermont assured him, ‘than when I defer battle to adorn myself with plate and recover my blade and bolter.’

  Bohemond looked at his castellan.

  ‘These beasts will keep,’ Clermont told his marshal. ‘We shall return, as we have before, in greater number – in greater fervour – with the tools to finish this job. Aspiria is lost. Since translating in-system, Master Izericor has received numerous mortis-cries but also requests for aid.’

  The astropath, toppled also, had somehow found his way back to his sandalled feet and his staff. Noticing him, Bohemond’s expression resumed its former hostility.

  ‘It is true, marshal,’ Izericor said. ‘The hive-world of Undine is besieged – but then so are the hive-worlds of Plethrapolis and Macromunda. The Gormandi agri-worlds are under attack. The Mechanicus invoke ancient treaties and concords. They are losing the twin forge-worlds of Incus Maximal and Malleus Mundi to the invader.’

  Clermont went to interrupt, but the astropath hadn’t finished. ‘The First Quashanid storm troop – the so-called Immortals – are holding the fortress-world of Promentor. The penal world of Turpista IV is also holding out longer than expected. Both have requested assistance. Both have proven that they would make excellent holdpoints. Your brethren of battle and blood, the Fists Exemplar, fight for their fortress-monastery and their world, Eidolica. The list goes on, my lord.’

  Clermont and Bohemond locked gazes, Templar to Templar.

  ‘The rimward sectors call for the Emperor’s Angels,’ the castellan told his marshal. ‘They call for the Black Templars. We have no world to defend. We have crusades. We have only wars and the worlds upon which we choose to wage them. The green plague is upon the segmentum. Isn’t there enough of the invader to go around?’

  Bohemond turned to the Chaplain, who was on his knees and at one with his devotions.

  ‘Aldemar?’

  The drone of cult litanies from within the Chaplain’s helm came to a stop.

  ‘Choose, brother,’ Aldemar told him.

  Bohemond of the Black Templars looked to his friend and castellan.

  ‘Order the flotilla to break up,’ the marshal commanded. ‘Multiple targets will give individual vessels the best chance against that monstrous weapon.’

  ‘Yes, Marshal.’

  ‘All crusader contingents to rendezvous at the Mandeville point.’

  ‘Yes, marshal.’

  ‘All vessels, make preparations for immaterial translation.’

  ‘Yes, marshal.’

  ‘Do you have a destination in
mind, sir?’ Castellan Clermont asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Marshal Bohemond replied. ‘I do.’

  THIRTEEN

  Ardamantua – orbital

  The Adeptus Mechanicus survey brig Subservius drifted in orbit around Ardamantua, eventually becoming lost in the shadow of the Amkulon. The cruiser was a shattered wreck, a reminder of the power and ferocity visited upon Ardamantua by the xenos weapon. The gravitational disturbances about the planet continued to subside, but slowly. Although the Amkulon was useless for salvage – even the greenskins had left the radioactive wreck behind – it did provide the smaller survey brig with an anchor-point of stability, created by the natural gravity of the derelict cruiser’s own tumbling form.

  Magos Biologis Eldon Urquidex was thankful for the extra stability. His magi physic and artisans cybernetica needed all they could get to carry out the delicate procedures to which they had been committed for the last few hours. The medicae section of the laboratorium was crowded with surgeomats and servitors. On three surgical slabs lay the cocoons recovered from the Ardamantuan surface. The three Imperial Fists. The only surviving Adeptus Astartes of a proud and decorated Chapter. The true sons of Dorn – now butchered, half-living remnants of suspended existence.

  As the last line of defence that their superhuman bodies had to offer, Urquidex thought it unwise to have them cut them out of their membranous sheathing. Instead, he had his magi gathered about the huge bodies and operated on them within their protective cocoons. About the crowded slabs, with multiple procedures being conducted at the same time, Urquidex had summoned every adept on board the Subservius that might be able to offer their expertise. Scanners and field-auspexes monitored the Adeptus Astartes’ life signs, calibrated specifically for their superhuman biology. Their genetic signatures confirmed what their scraps of decimated plate had already suggested – that they were indeed members of the Imperial Fists extermination force dispatched to Ardamantua to destroy the nest infestations of the Chrome vermin-species. Their life signs, however, were excruciatingly low and fading.

  As Magos Urquidex and his team fought to save the Adeptus Astartes, with equipment and consultation exchanged across the bodies, Magos Phaeton Laurentis had been placed on a tracked stretcher-slab, positioned to one side of the surgical chamber. Medicae servitors had stabilised what was left of the tech-priest, while the chief artisan cybernetica had surgically truncated his lower torso and interfaced it for the bionic adaptations that would follow. With the Adeptus Astartes in such critical condition, there had been little time for more superficial repairs and diagnostics. Madness still poured continually from the priest’s ruined lips and his spidery fingers still reached out for objects that were not there. Artisan-Primus Van Auken had ordered Laurentis’ cogitae-core downstreamed for useful code and observational data.

  Van Auken himself observed from an armourglass bubble-port in the thick laboratorium wall. This was habit. The facility was a maximum security laboratorium that up until this point had housed dissections on living or dead specimens of Veridi giganticus. Alpha Primus Orozko of the Epsil-XVIII Collatorax and a skitarii security detail stood with the artisan-primus. Van Auken knew he would be of little help actually in the chamber but wanted to remain in attendance to ensure that Eldon Urquidex followed his instructions regarding the remaining Imperial Fists to the letter. Meanwhile, Van Auken orchestrated the Adeptus Mechanicus survey team’s extraction from the Ardamantuan surface and made final revisions to the data packet he intended to send to Mars.

  The artisan trajectorae had insisted that Urquidex, as the only senior priest not to have completed his report, deliver his data. Van Auken was eager to leave Ardamantua and move the survey brig on to Macromunda, where the xenos invasion was still in its early stages. The data packet needed to be transmitted first and Van Auken felt that the results of the Adeptus Astartes’ resurrection, and if possible their initial testimonies, should be included. Besides, Eldon Urquidex had insisted that the Subservius not be in transit and hold in as stable an orbit as possible while the hours of life-saving procedures were attempted.

  It was not going well. Despite the best efforts of the priests, the Adeptus Astartes were fading away. Their injuries had been horrific testament to the Beast’s savages and the brutality of greenskin weaponry. That the Emperor’s Angels should be smashed and blasted thus was a reminder to all in the laboratorium that the greenskin invader was not to be underestimated.

  For Van Auken, it was a reminder of a power and potency to be studied and harnessed. For if the greatest weapons of Terra’s Emperor had failed – the gene-heirs of warriors who had fought the renegade Warmaster’s forces on the walls of the Imperial Palace – then truly the capabilities of the savage enemy race warranted further study.

  When the first of the Adeptus Astartes died, the laboratorium went into overdrive. As the life signs flatlined, priests and medicae servitors swarmed about the subject. Frantic magi were up to their elbows in gore. Metal receptacles clanged as slab servo-pincers extracted shards of frag and fat bullets, depositing them in rapidly filling scuttles. Surgeomats administered synthetic infusions and stimulants directly to the hearts. The second Space Marine swiftly followed his brother, splitting the magi and servitors between the hulking patients.

  The laboratorium should have been clouded with regret and high emotion. The loss of any subject on the surgical slab would have prompted such reactions from common Imperial medics and planetary doctors. The significance of the event should have raised the emotional stakes higher. Before the priests’ eyes and augmetics, the last of the honoured Imperial Fists Chapter were breathing their last. Bleeding their last. Feeling their last.

  The laboratorium was crowded with priest-subjects of the Adeptus Mechanicus, however, for whom such emotions were meaningless. Their fight for life was a battle with the inevitability of ignorance. If the Adeptus Astartes died then opportunities would be missed, data would be incomplete and further researches impossible. The best the Omnissiah’s servants could summon was the barest suggestion of professional remonstration. Even in failure, however, the Machine God’s acolytes reasoned there were opportunities to learn and make improvements. Autopsies could still reveal secrets of value to the Grand Experiment.

  With two of his patients falling victim to the wounds that they had suffered on Ardamantua, Magos Urquidex brought all of his assistants about the remaining subject. The laboratorium was a cacophony of offered opinions, binary cant, suggested surgeries, the whine of las-scalpels and auspectoria alarms. As the Adeptus Astartes’ life signs faded, the frenetic activity intensified. The subject went into arrest. Tests became increasingly savage and invasive. Brutal cybernetic transplants were attempted. Blood fountained at the laboratorium ceiling.

  ‘We’re losing the subject,’ a magos physic announced.

  As the Space Marine’s life signs evaporated and biological death was confirmed, the procedures doubled in their bloodthirsty desperation. By the time the priests and servo-cybernetica had finished with the Space Marine’s engineered form, it looked like he had been turned inside out. Most of his organs were outside of his body and the protective cocoon was now a shredded and gore-soaked sheath.

  ‘That’s it,’ Eldon Urquidex said finally. ‘Summon the magi concisus: the holy work of the subjects’ design and genetic workings should be honoured. Last rites should be issued before autopsy is conducted.’

  Taking surgical towels from a servitor, Urquidex looked up through the armourglass of the observation bubble as he cleaned the worst of the gore from his hands and appendages. ‘Record the time, date and location, accounting for galactic drift and chrono-dilation. Nobody will ever know, but we just slaughtered the last of the Imperial Fists on our surgical slab.’

  ‘Again, magos,’ Van Auken told him, ‘you must learn to govern your sentimentality. Fellow magi and adepts. Your exemplary efforts have been noted in the mission log. You are dismissed.’

&n
bsp; As the laboratorium emptied of Adeptus Mechanicus personnel, Urquidex and Van Auken continued to stare at one another.

  ‘What did we learn?’ the artisan trajectorae demanded.

  Urquidex deposited his stained surgical towel in an incinerator chute. ‘That the Adeptus Astartes’ chemical therapies and implants were doing a better job of preserving the Imperial Fists than our surgeries, infusions and cybernetic transplants.’

  ‘You think me wrong to insist on your efforts?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Urquidex told him. ‘And I would like my objection noted in the log.’

  ‘Entered already,’ Van Auken said. ‘But I wonder, who are you more concerned for? The subject on the slab, or yourself and your failure to save him?’

  ‘I’m sure that I don’t comprehend your meaning, artisan-primus.’

  ‘Let me put it another way,’ Van Auken said. ‘I think your sentimentality a falsehood. You suffer no less from the vagaries of pride than the rest of the priesthood. We are all judged by our work. You fear the Fabricator General’s disappointment, no less than I. You don’t want to be assigned to some Eastern Fringe dead-world research station for eternity, studying fossilised evidence of silica nematodes. The Omnissiah is willing to forgive failure, given that it is a step on the journey to success. Failing to embark on the journey in the first place is the sin of ignorance, and the Machine God and his servants are less willing to forgive you that.’

  ‘I think you will find the Adeptus Astartes even less forgiving than that,’ Urquidex said.

  ‘Are you threatening me, magos?’ Van Auken said coolly.

  ‘Let’s just hope that the Adeptus Astartes never have reason to visit the Eastern Fringe,’ Urquidex said. ‘Will there be anything else, artisan-primus?’

  The priests stared at each other through the thick observation-port armourglass.

  ‘What of the recovered magos?’ Van Auken said finally.

  ‘Magos Biologis Phaeton Laurentis is now the only official survivor of the Ardamantuan atrocity,’ Urquidex said, turning to where the half-priest lay on his stretcher-slab.