by Gav Thorpe
‘For the Emperor!’ roared Seraphiel, wing-hilted power sword held aloft as he led the charge down the ramp even as the Thunderhawk slammed into the pockmarked ferrocrete of the landing apron. His autosenses adjusting to the flickering light, Telemenus was greeted with a scene of utter ruin.
The bulkheads to the right had collapsed entirely, filling half of the docking area with a tangled mass of plasteel struts and fractured ferrocrete. Power cables spitting sparks draped over the rubble, while split gas lines and fuel feeds spewed gouts of green and blue flames. The charred wrecks of several large fighter craft had been buried by the avalanche, glinting shards from their crystalflex canopies scattered across the dull grey of the ferrocrete deck.
A quick sweep from right to left showed no living thing except for Telemenus and his fellow Dark Angels. Broken limbs protruded at odd angles from the slag heap that had been a control bastion and dozens more bodies were littered across the apron, dangling from broken gantries and mangled amongst fallen masonry.
The screech of landing pads scraping across the ferrocrete announced the arrival of a second Thunderhawk while the thirty Space Marines from the first gunship swiftly advanced through the piles of rubble. Amanael’s squad were despatched to the right by a terse command from Seraphiel. Telemenus followed on the shoulder of his sergeant, bolter at the ready. His steps felt light as he took a stride over a crumbled pillar, seeming to float for a split second.
‘Artificial gravity is compromised,’ he remarked.
‘Running at approximately ninety per cent,’ replied Cadael. The ignition flame of his weapon burned into life as the star fort’s atmosphere swept back into the bay, the breeze kicking up dust and fluttering clothing on the bodies protruding from the rubble. The otherworldly scene was bathed in blue for a moment as another arc of electricity surged across a mound of rubble ahead.
The chamber, nearly three hundred metres long and almost as broad, reverberated to the roar of gunship thrusters as more Thunderhawks touched down, bringing the rest of the company onto the space station. Telemenus glanced back for a moment, watching thirty more green-armoured warriors pounding across the landing apron, heading towards a half-ruined archway in the left bulkheads.
‘Back!’ snapped Sergeant Amanael, waving for the squad to retreat. The sergeant was looking up and Telemenus followed his gaze. A girder warped by a rift-cannon hit snapped the last threads connecting it to the wall. The heavy strut smashed into the ground a few metres ahead of Telemenus, sending shards of metal pinging against his armour.
Switching on their suit lamps, the squad advanced more cautiously, Cadael moving a little ahead of the others, checking the footing as they clambered atop a mound of debris. Reaching the summit, they could see into the corridors and chambers above where the floor had fallen in. Telemenus saw a blur of movement at the edge of the breach and opened fire, the flare of the bolt-round highlighting the shocked expression on a thin face a split second before the man’s head was blown apart.
‘Enemy above,’ Telemenus warned, transmitting over the company channel, though he saw no further movement for the moment. Amanael covered the opposite side of the hole as the squad passed beneath, and once they were clear and heading down the other slope of rubble Telemenus backed away and joined them. Amanael followed two seconds later, his pistol still trained on the floor above.
‘Opening, grid-east, twenty metres,’ announced Apollon, studying the screen of his auspex. ‘Inoperative pressure door, I think.’
The squad turned their lamps on the opening, revealing a wide portal; a massive armoured shutter lodged halfway down, stopped by a crumbled pile of masonry. Dust trickled across the rubble and a motor whined within the structure of the bulkhead as the emergency door continued to push down on the obstruction.
‘Control panel,’ said Telemenus and pointed to a runepad glowing dimly to the right of the door. A red light blinked incessantly on the display.
Amanael, Apollon, Cadael and Achamenon secured the entrance, bolters trained into the darkness beyond, while Telemenus took his bolter in one hand and approached the keypad, the rest of the squad spreading out to watch their backs. The interface was immediately familiar to Telemenus; he had seen hundreds like it aboard Imperial ships and in buildings all across the galaxy. He prodded a finger into the override key and the whining motor stopped. With a screech of metal gears grinding against each other, the blast door slowly withdrew back up into the bulkhead, revealing the corridor beyond.
Cadael opened up with his flamer, the wash of yellow fire illuminating several ragged-looking pirates who were crawling through a tangle of collapsing ceiling tiles and broken support beams. The three men were dressed in dark-red pressure suits, helmetless; no defence against the ignited promethium streaming from Cadael’s flamer. The renegades’ agonised shrieks lasted a few seconds only as they flailed around the flames and then collapsed, their bodies smoking, the fabric of their suits melting into charred flesh.
‘Clear on this grid,’ Amanael reported, adding his voice to those of other sergeants announcing that their sectors were clear. Now and then bolter fire rang out, isolated shots and short flurries that spoke of minimal resistance.
‘Primary insertion complete and on time,’ Seraphiel announced. ‘All positions secured. Awaiting confirmation of secondary insertion success. Prepare to advance.’
Confusion and Fear
‘In the darkness, we shall be the light.’
Chaplain Malcifer’s words over the comm-net were comforting to Annael as he waited in the dark, crouched over Black Shadow, mount and armour locked into position.
‘In the light, we shall see true.’
Annael focused on the litany, driving other thoughts from his mind; thoughts such as the fact that he and the rest of the squadron were in a boarding torpedo hurtling towards the armoured skin of Port Imperial at several thousand miles per hour.
‘In the truth, we shall see victory.’
Victory. The word resonated through Annael. Victory was all that mattered. His honour depended upon it, and his honour was stronger than weak desire for safety. Courage was truth. Fear was false. One such false fear briefly fluttered on the edge of Annael’s comprehension as something rattled against the outer casing of the boarding torpedoes. Shrapnel most likely. No threat.
‘In the victory, we shall be honoured.’
It was no better or worse than a drop pod, Annael told himself. Whether speeding across the void in an armoured missile or falling through the sky towards an uncaring planet’s surface, his fate was beyond his control. Better to relax, to breathe deep and enjoy the sensation of life. These might be his final moments, his life ended in one of many horrendous ways: the torpedo’s plasma propellant could misfire and incinerate them all; a shot from Port Imperial’s defence batteries could turn their carriage into slag in an instant; the retro-thrusters could malfunction and slam them sideways into their target to crush them instantly; the melta-jets could fail to penetrate the metres-thick hide of the space station so that they crashed against the surface rather than punched through.
‘In the honour, we praise the Emperor.’
The Emperor probably never did this, a rebellious part of Annael thought. Even when he had walked amongst his followers it was doubtful that the Master of Mankind had ever hurled himself at an enemy fortress in what was little more than a guided rocket, astride the large fuel tank of a motorcycle. That privilege the Emperor had saved for his loyal Adeptus Astartes.
‘In the Emperor, we find our protector.’
Annael smiled, fighting back a childish laugh at the thought of the golden form of the Emperor falling upon the armies of Horus riding bareback on a torpedo. Ever since he had learned of Horus from Malcifer, Annael had wondered how the Emperor had slain the Warmaster. If Horus had been powerful enough to destroy the Lion, he had been powerful indeed. Though this thought process took his mind from p
ossible causes of his imminent demise, the route it took led to greater uncertainties than those posed by questions regarding his near-future.
‘In our protector, we claim faith.’
Faith could be in short supply sometimes, Annael figured. When the people of Kadillus had opened fire on the Ravenwing, Annael had felt his faith sorely tested. He had been led to believe the Piscinans were loyal, not only to the Master of Mankind but through oaths of brotherhood with the Dark Angels. What could vex a populace so badly that they would turn on their benefactors and protectors? What force could break the faith of millions so that they would turn their weapons on the Emperor’s Angels of Death? If not respect and honour, fear alone should have stayed the hands of the Piscinan rebels, but something more powerful than fear of the Dark Angels had led them to desperate acts. Had it been the same force that had turned Horus’s hand against the Emperor and the Lion? Had it been desperation and fear that had brought the Warmaster to blows with the primarch of the Dark Angels?
‘In our faith, we are invulnerable.’
When Annael had heard this litany before, it had filled him with zeal, firing his blood for the battles to come. It stirred him still, to think of the Emperor and all that he sacrificed for mankind. Faced with that, Annael could do nothing less than offer his life and death for the protection of the Imperium the Emperor had built, and the countless trillions of humans who came under that auspice. Yet for all that he desired to serve, to bring honour to himself, his squadron, his company and his Chapter, Annael heard something cold and hard about Malcifer’s words. In the darkness, contemplating his death, the Dark Angel felt that his life was incomplete. No more was he satisfied by the notion of a life of battle in the Emperor’s name. He had been ready to die content, but ever since Malcifer had spoken of the Horus Heresy Annael had more questions than answers. It irritated him that he might die before he knew those unfound truths.
‘Brace for impact!’ Sammael’s words cut sharply through Annael’s mind, sweeping away all other musings. The warning sent floods of adrenaline washing through the Space Marine and he forced himself to keep calm.
‘Like a sword into their gut!’ Sabrael said with a laugh, his words edged with battle-mania.
‘Impact in five... four...’ Sergeant’s Cassiel’s countdown was delivered in a measured monotone.
‘For the Emperor!’ Zarall’s bellow drowned out the last of Cassiel’s count.
‘For the Emperor!’ Annael echoed with gritted teeth.
Retro-thrusters still burning, the boarding torpedo sped into the hull of Port Imperial. Seconds before impact fusion-flares ignited, turning the nose cone of the manned missile into a white-hot spearhead. Proximity-triggered melta-charges detonated milli-
seconds before impact, vaporising the first two metres of armour-plate. The fusion flares and diamond-tipped drill-shards churned through the remaining two metres while shockplates splinted and crumbled, disintegrating to dust as they absorbed the energy of impact. The metre-thick outer casing of the torpedo crumpled like foil and slewed away, secondary boosters thrusting the inner missile through the molten ruin of the star fort’s outer skin.
Annael’s eyes and ears were filled with a barrage of pressure and impetus warnings from his autosenses, a blaze of flashing icons and blaring chimes. Sitting nose to tail, the warriors of the squadron slid forwards a dozen metres, their steeds clamped onto shock-absorbent rails that glowed red-hot as ablative ceramite padding shattered and the inner braking pads gripped titanium.
Reaching the extent of their run, the bikes came to a shuddering stop and then recoiled a few metres, sliding to a halt as the torpedo settled into its self-made breach. Assault launchers mounted in the prow of the missile detonated, scattering shrapnel and white-hot filaments into the star fort’s interior, moments before the nose cone exploded outwards, showering even more shards of metal and ceramite.
Activated by the torpedo’s systems, Annael’s armour was flooded with energy once more, the joint lockdown breaking as soon as he moved to sit upright. Explosive bolts holding Black Shadow to the braking carriage beneath detonated as he revved the engine and engaged first gear. Ahead of him, Cassiel launched from the remnants of his carriage, his bike wheeling up momentarily as he roared out into the breach. Zarall was next, a second later, and then Annael gunned the engine and released the clutch to hurtle after his squadron-brothers.
The telemetric display on Black Shadow confirmed that they had breached exactly as planned, the boarding torpedo depositing them midway along a broad connecting corridor between one of the harbour spars and the central spires. The boarding torpedo had struck as a group of turncoats had been heading out from the hub, littering the immediate area around the impact with melta-blasted and shrapnel-ridden corpses. Ash and cooling droplets of metal were sprayed across the deck for nearly twenty metres, and beyond that a scene of carnage; dismembered bodies and severed limbs leaving the transitway awash with blood.
Along the far side of the access tunnel ran a narrow gauge track, bordered by metre-high ferrocrete walls. Bodies were draped over the barricade and scattered across the rails. They were dressed in a mishmash of clothes – some with plated ceramite armour, others with bulky environment suits, most in leggings, shirts and jackets. As his gaze passed over the corpses in a moment, Annael took in details: a broken autogun in the hand of one pirate, pistols stuffed into belts or held in holsters, spare magazines and energy packs carried in bandoliers and spilling from shoulder bags. The enemy were no better armed than the dissidents on Piscina.
Leaving swathes of dark rubber on the metal deck, Cassiel, Araton and Annael slewed hard to the left, heading in-station towards the inner towers. Sabrael and Zarall skidded their bikes to the right and opened fire on a group of survivors fleeing towards the sanctuary of the harbour gate. Red dots of life signals faded on the sensor screen of Black Shadow as the roar of bolters filled the tunnel.
‘Rear clear of enemy,’ announced Zarall, ‘rejoining main advance.’
The exhaust smoke of their steeds was drawn up into overhead extractors as the squadron raced hubwards, the thunder of engines reverberating from bare metal walls. Four hundred metres ahead was a blast door through which they had to pass to gain the inner towers, and a cluster of signal returns indicated that there were enemies at the portal. If they were allowed to bring down the emergency shutter, the attack would stall before it started.
Unleashing a hail of bolts from their steeds, the squadron sped towards the opening, the weight of fire intended to suppress any foe trying to reach the portal controls. Annael fired short bursts every couple of seconds, Black Shadow’s bolters tracking left and right as he passed his gaze from one side of the open blast door to the other, lighting up the darkness beyond with flickering trails and small explosions.
Ahead, Cassiel drew a chainsword, the growl of its whirring teeth lost in the noise of the bikes. The sergeant braked heavily and bounced over the lip of the entrance, hauling his bike to the right as he did so. Annael split to the left, his mount snarling as he leaned over hard, Space Marine and machine crashing sideways through the portal, bolters firing again. Caught in the blaze of fire, three pirates were torn apart where they had been crouching just ahead of Annael. Braking hard, he brought Black Shadow to a standstill, guns pointed past the dead foes down a corridor several metres wide. Behind him, the rest of the squadron came to a halt, awaiting orders from Cassiel.
‘Which way?’ asked Araton.
‘Does it matter?’ asked Sabrael. ‘Either direction will take us hubwards. Our orders are to rove at will, are they not?’
‘True,’ replied the sergeant. ‘We are to sow confusion and fear, keeping the enemy off-balance while the Grand Master and Fifth Company establish a foothold and push on in numbers. Follow me and engage at will.’
Turning his bike about, Annael joined the rear of the squadron as they moved off after Cassiel, passing i
nto an archway-lined corridor that ran for about a hundred metres. They travelled at cruising speed, ready to respond to attack though the scanners showed no enemy readings in the vicinity. Looking left and right through the arches as he passed, Annael saw empty chambers – most likely once used for storage and ship supplies. With time now to consider his surroundings, he noticed that the station was in serious disrepair. Maintenance hatch panels had been pulled off the walls and there was a filth of oil dripping from pipes that ran along the junction of wall and ceiling to his right.
Here and there he passed anti-Imperial slogans daubed on the walls in black and red paint, interspersed with more mundane graffiti boasting personal prowess and sexual conquests. There was rust around rivets and bolt heads, and dark-blue lichen was growing out of one of the storage bays. Through the olfactory filter of his helm, Annael could smell rotting vegetable matter nearby.
‘They live like animals,’ muttered Zarall. ‘It is a wonder that they have managed to keep the station running at all.’
‘Ill-discipline shows in many ways,’ replied Cassiel. ‘It is the mind of the traitor to seek selfish ends, forgoing all other considerations. Their weakness of will makes them poor warriors.’
‘I see more than selfish sentiment in some of these slogans,’ remarked Annael. ‘There is hatred here, and though loathing of the Emperor is misguided it can bring forth stubbornness.’
‘Yet it is ultimately a hollow hatred, born out of insecurity and doubt,’ said Zarall. They came to a halt at the end of the corridor, further progress barred by a metal door. ‘Do not confuse righteous hatred with the nihilism of our foes. We hate out of love for the Emperor. They hate for nothing save hate itself.’
‘Annael, see to the door controls,’ said Cassiel.