Shield of Baal: Deathstorm

by Josh Reynolds

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Warhammer 40,000

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Legal

  eBook license

  It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die.

  Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

  To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

  Prologue

  Asphodex, Cryptus System, Red Scar Sector, Ultima Segmentum

  The black flesh of the void was torn asunder by a sudden eruption of red as Blade of Vengeance, flagship of the Blood Angels fleet, thundered into real space, weapons batteries roaring out a brutal announcement of arrival. More ships followed, plunging out of the warp like coursing hounds. The massed batteries of the fleet joined those of the flagship in a dull, pulsing war-hymn. The burning remains of the Cryptus System’s defence monitors were swept aside by the song, the detritus of their final heroic stand against the enemy washed away by volley after volley of high-powered energy beams.

  The audience for whom this sudden performance was intended was not appreciative. The vast shapes of the outlying bio-ships of the tyranid hive fleet, their bloated, shimmering forms faintly reflecting the deadly red light of Cryptus’s twin suns, reeled and shuddered like wounded animals as the fusillade cracked their shells and ruptured the soft contents.

  The Blood Angels fleet swept forwards with slow deliberation, bombardment cannons sweeping aside the swarms of escort drones which leapt from the flanks of the massive bio-ships and spiralled into death with unseemly eagerness.

  Such was the considered opinion of Captain Karlaen, as he watched the performance unfold through the massive vista-port of the flagship. Ships moved across his vision, pummelling one another in a grand dance of life and death, duty and instinct, honour and abomination. The arched, cathedral-like space of the vessel’s tacticum-vaults echoed with the relentless song of war. Karlaen could feel the roar of every cannonade through the deck-plates beneath his feet and in the flicker of every hololith display as enemy volleys spattered across the battle-barge’s void shields.

  This battle was merely a microcosm of a greater engagement which now spread across the Cryptus System and the Red Scar Sector. The monstrous shadow of Hive Fleet Leviathan, as the Ordo Xenos had classified this particular xenos incursion, stretched across countless worlds, being enveloping Segmentums Ultima, Tempestus and Solar. Worlds were being scoured clean by the Great Devourer, and even the most sacred sites of the Imperium were under threat, including Baal, home world of the Blood Angels.

  When the bow-wave of Hive Fleet Leviathan washed across the Cryptus System, the Imperium had met it with all of the strength that the Astra Militarum, Adepta Sororitas and the household troops of the ruling Flaxian Dynasty could muster. But orbital defences and massed gun-lines had proven unequal to the task. Within a cycle, tyrannic spores were darkening the skies of every major world within the Cryptus System. And now, at last, the Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers Space Marine Chapters had arrived to deprive the monster of its feast. Though the system was lost, they could at least diminish the biomass that the hive fleet might recycle and use against Baal.

  All of this passed across Karlaen’s mind as he watched the Blood Angels fleet engage the enemy. Battle was a thing of vivid colour and riotous fury, even in the cold, airless void of space, and he felt something in him stir as he considered it – like a persistent, red hum deep below the surface of his thoughts. It had been with him since the day of his Sanguination, but familiarity did not breed affection. His reflection stared back at him from within the slightly shimmering surface of the vista-port. A battered face, blunt and square and lacking all but a trace of its former good looks – acid scars pitted his cheeks and jaw; his hair was a grizzled golden stubble that clung stubbornly to his scalp and his nose had been shattered and rebuilt more than once. A bionic eye occupied one ruined socket, and the magna-lens of the prosthetic orb whirred to life as he examined his reflection, seeking out some niggling imperfection that he could not name.

  He was clad, as was his right and honour as commander of the First Company, in the blessed plate of Terminator armour. It was the toughest and most powerful form of personal armour ever developed by the Imperium of Man: a heavy blood-red shell of ceramite-bonded plates, chased with gilding and brass, reinforced by sections of plasteel and adamantium and all of it powered by thick bundles of electrical fibres and internal suspensor-plates.

  It had taken twenty red-robed Chapter serfs and dull, cog-brained servitors to encase him within it, hours earlier, when the prospect of a boarding action first reared its head – they had worked feverishly, connecting fibre bundles to nodes using spidery, mechanical limbs which possessed the inhuman dexterity required for such a precise task. Others had cleared air and build-up from the pistons and pneumatic servo-muscles that enabled him to move, while the senior serfs, their gilded masks betraying no emotion, polished the ceramite with sweet smelling unguents and blessed oils, awakening the primitive soul of the ancient relic, stirring it to wrathful waking. The armour was heavy and powerful, and, in those moments when he succumbed to the lure of poetry, Karlaen thought that it might be the closest thing going to the Word of the God-Emperor made harsh reality.

  Karlaen raised a hand, his fingers tracing the outline of the Crux Terminatus on his left shoulder plate. It was said that the symbol contained a shard of the Emperor’s own Terminator armour, which had been shattered in that final, catastrophic duel with the Arch-Traitor in ages past. At the thought, Karlaen’s breath hitched in his throat, and his vision blurred, as the red hum grew louder, now pounding where it had pulsed, as if a thousand hammers were beating on the walls of his skull, fighting to be free. For a moment, his vision blurred, and he saw a different face, not his own familiar battered features, but a handsome and radiant face which he recognised but could not name
, twisted in loss and pain the likes of which no mortal could bear, and he heard the snap of great wings, and felt the rush of heat and pain and his fingers touched the surface of the void-hardened glass.

  He closed his eyes. Swallowed thickly. Opened his eyes. He looked up at the stained glass which marked the circumference of the vista-port. It showed scenes from Imperial history – the discovery of Sanguinius on Baal Secundus by the Emperor; Sanguinius, angel-winged and radiant, taking command of the Ninth Legion; other scenes, dozens, hundreds, all depicting the glorious history of the Blood Angels, a history which had shaped Karlaen, and made him who he was today. I am Karlaen, he thought. I am Captain of the First, the Shield of Baal, and I am true to myself. I am not flesh, to be swept up in the blood-dimmed tide, but stone. And stone does not move or yield to those red waters, no matter how they crash. The hum faded, hammer blows becoming taps, and the pressure retreated as it always had. Irritated with himself, he concentrated on the world beyond the curtain of void war.

  Asphodex – it was an inelegant word for an inelegant world. Beyond the shifting, shimmering distortion of the battle-barge’s void shield, behind the bloated shapes of the bio-ships which clustered about its atmosphere like feeding ticks, Asphodex roiled in its death throes. The magna-lens of Karlaen’s bionic eye whirred to its next setting, bringing the world into stark relief. The heavy grey clouds which shrouded the atmosphere were shot through with infected-looking strands of purple, each one squirming with billions of tiny shapes. The lens clicked again, focusing on the bio-ships clustered about the world’s poles. As they moved across the atmosphere, he could see corresponding disturbances in the clouds. Someone joined him at the vista-port. ‘They are feeding,’ Karlaen said, out loud.

  ‘Yes,’ Sanguinary High Priest Corbulo said softly. Clad in crimson power armour edged with white, he was the spitting image of the face which haunted the black dreams and red memories of Karlaen and every Space Marine of the Blood Angels Chapter. His voice, too, throbbed at the roots of Karlaen’s mind, stirring to life ancient thoughts which were not his own. Corbulo was a ghost, though whether of the Chapter’s past or its future, none could say. ‘That is what they do, captain.’

  ‘They will strip the planet of all life soon,’ Karlaen continued. He had seen planets caught in the grip of the Great Devourer before, and had calculated Asphodex’s chances of survival on an idle whim. The planet was doomed. He looked at Corbulo. ‘Why am I here, Master Corbulo? I should be making ready to–’

  ‘To what, Captain Karlaen?’ Corbulo asked. His voice was gentle, but resonant, like the crash of waves against a distant shore. He looked at Karlaen, and his eyes caught and held Karlaen’s own. They were deep and pale and powerful, and Karlaen felt the red hum in his head grow in strength. He looked away. ‘You are exactly where you should be, captain.’ Corbulo spoke with such surety that Karlaen could not help but feel an atavistic thrill course through him.

  ‘As you say, master,’ Karlaen said. He kept his face stiff and still.

  Corbulo smiled, as if he could sense Karlaen’s reluctance. ‘I cannot help but feel as if you doubt me, brother,’ he said.

  ‘Detecting doubt – or worry, anger, or any other emotion for that matter – on Karlaen’s face is a skill akin to the detection of geological shifts on Baal, Corbulo. One must know where to look for cracks in the stone. Isn’t that right, brother?’

  Both Karlaen and Corbulo turned as Commander Dante, Chapter Master of the Blood Angels, strode towards them, his golden artificer armour gleaming in the reflected light of the hololiths that studded the tacticum-vaults. His features were hidden, as ever, behind the golden mask which was said to have been modelled on the features of Sanguinius himself.

  Karlaen inclined his head. ‘As you say, commander.’

  Dante looked at Corbulo. He gestured to Karlaen. ‘You see? Stone,’ he said. ‘Karlaen is the rock upon which the First Company stands.’ He looked at Karlaen, his gaze taking in everything and missing nothing. Karlaen, for his part, could only hold his superior’s stare for a few moments before it became unbearable. Dante was the oldest living Space Marine in the Imperium who could still function outside of the sarcophagus of a Dreadnought, and he carried with him the weight of history wherever he went. Like Corbulo, his very presence stirred the red hum in Karlaen’s head to fretful agitation.

  Karlaen made to sink to one knee, but Dante gestured irritably. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I am in no mood for such gestures today, captain.’

  Stung, Karlaen straightened, the joints of his armour wheezing and hissing in protest. Dante crossed his arms and gazed up at the vista-port. The flagship shivered slightly around them, and the void shield writhed as it was struck. Dante said, ‘Report, captain.’

  On firmer ground now, Karlaen cleared his throat. ‘The first wave of the assault is preparing for their descent to Phodia,’ he said, referring to the principal city of Asphodex. He did not think it tactful to mention that, as Captain of the First Company, he should have been overseeing those preparations.

  ‘You are wondering why you are here, rather than there,’ Dante said. It was not a question. Karlaen looked at Corbulo.

  ‘You see, he is too disciplined to ask, though I have no doubt that curiosity is eating at him.’

  ‘Discipline is the armour of a man’s soul,’ Corbulo said.

  Karlaen looked back and forth between them, vaguely concerned. When the summons had come, he had not known what to expect. Was the honour of leading the vanguard to be taken from him? The question would not have occurred to him, once upon a time. But now, after… His mind shied away from the thought. Shadows clustered at the edges of his memory, and voices demanded to be heard. He closed his eye and shook his head, banishing shadows and voices both. When he looked up, he realised that both Dante and Corbulo were watching him. Corbulo reached out and clapped a hand to his arm.

  ‘I hear them as well, brother. Do you wish to know what they say?’ he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, and his eyes full of quiet contemplation.

  Karlaen ignored the Sanguinary Priest and looked at Dante. ‘I wish only to know what is required of me, my lord. I am the Shield of Baal, and I would serve as you see fit.’

  Dante was silent for a moment. Then, he said, ‘You are still leading the assault, captain. And Phodia is still your target. But I require more than simple battlefield logistics from you this time.’ He looked at Corbulo.

  The Sanguinary High Priest said, ‘Augustus Flax.’

  Karlaen blinked. ‘The Governor of Asphodex.’ Part of his responsibilities as Captain of the First was to know everything there was to know about potential battlefields – everything from weather patterns to cultural dialects was of potential importance when planning for war, and Karlaen had studied and synthesised all of it.

  He knew everything there was to know about the Flaxian Dynasty, and its current head. Augustus Flax had assumed the gubernatorial seat at the tender age of seventeen standard Terran years, after his father, the previous office holder, had been murdered by separatists in a civil war which had briefly, though bloodily, rocked the Cryptus System. Flax was an old man now, and his reign had been an unmitigated success, as far as these things were concerned. Karlaen felt a small stab of pity for the man – the system he had reportedly fought so hard to retain control of and hold together was now being devoured out from under him.

  ‘Yes. I – we – need him found, brother.’ Corbulo looked towards the vista-port. Silent explosions cascaded across the face of the void, as ships continued their duel. Karlaen cocked his head. Questions filled his mind, but he clamped down on them. His was not to question, merely to serve.

  ‘Then I will find him, Master Corbulo,’ he said.

  ‘He or his children will do,’ Corbulo said. ‘Failing that, a sample of their blood.’

  More questions arose, but Karlaen ignored them. If Corbulo was here, and this mission was being undertaken at his counsel, then there could be only one reason for it. Corbulo�
��s overriding passion was no secret. The Sanguinary High Priest had one desire above all others: the elimination of the twin plagues which afflicted the sons of Sanguinius, whether they were Blood Angels, Flesh Tearers or Angels Encarmine. Corbulo had dedicated his life to unravelling the secrets of the Red Thirst and the Black Rage, and had spent centuries on the hunt for anything which might alleviate the suffering of Sanguinius’s children.

  Karlaen bowed. ‘It will be done, on my honour and the honour of the First Company. Or else I shall die in the attempt.’ He straightened. ‘I will need to requisition a gunship, or a drop pod…’

  ‘Speed is of the essence, brother,’ Dante said. ‘Time grows short, and Asphodex dies even as we speak. This world will be consumed by the beast, and we do not have time for you and your Archangels to attempt an entry from orbit,’ he said. ‘Report to the teleportarium. Your men will be waiting for you there.’

  ‘Teleportation,’ Karlaen said. He grimaced. There were few things that could stir the embers of fear in Karlaen’s heart, but teleportation was one of them. There was something wrong with it, with how it worked. There was no control, no precision, only blind luck. He shook himself slightly. He knew that Dante would not have authorised it if it were not necessary. Countless battles had been won with just such a strategy, and Karlaen reassured himself that this time would be no different.

  He looked at Dante. ‘As you command, my lord. I will not fail you.’

  ‘You never have, captain,’ Dante said.

  Karlaen turned away and took one last look at the war-torn heavens and the dying world. There was nothing but blood and death lurking beneath those grey clouds. If Augustus Flax, or any of his kin, still lived, it would not be for long. Yet his orders were clear.

  It was his duty to find Augustus Flax, and the Shield of Baal would see it done.

  One

  Phodia, Asphodex

  The air of the continent-sized city had been thick with black toxicity, even before the arrival of the tyranids. Beneath the choking darkness and roiling clouds, billions had slaved and died in manufactorums and vapour-farms at the behest of the city’s overlords. Now, where man’s industry had once claimed and poisoned the air and ground, new masters set their mark. Alien growths coiled and crawled about the battle-scarred ruins of the Planetary Governor’s palace, and hundreds of fume-spewing spore-chimneys had thrust up through the cracked and broken surface of the ground, masking the faded grandeur of the city skyline in a forest of monstrous growth.