by Ben Counter
The sound of gunfire and thumping explosions reached the vault. Loose components fell as the vault shuddered and distant warnings blared. The damage control signals reaching the sergeants told them that the star fort’s central spire was massively compromised, with many decks completely depressurised and the crew fighting countless fires. Crew were still dying out there, both to fire and vacuum, and to the guns of the invaders as they stormed through the ruined star fort.
The doors boomed open again and Lysander’s squad stomped through, trailing smoke as they went. Lysander himself was the most badly scorched of them, his face red and raw, one side of his golden yellow armour black with soot.
‘They are on our tail!’ yelled Lysander. ‘Stand fast, Imperial Fists! They have the numbers, but we have the will!’
A burst of fire ripped through the wall beside Lysander, throwing two of his command squad to the ground. Through the wreckage crunched the two Obliterators, the vanguard of Shon’tu’s force, blazing fire in every direction. Their flesh was seething and sheened with blood, black tendrils of corruption writhing from their skin. The steel of the wall they burst through became blackened and veined, the tech-virus they carried bleeding out from them into everything around them.
Lysander grabbed one of the fallen command squad and dragged him into the cover of a datamedium column. The rest of the command squad followed, Brother-Scholar Demosthor carrying Brother Tingelis over one shoulder as he turned to bring the assault cannon in his other hand to bear. Shrapnel rained off Demosthor as he returned fire, and the Obliterators disappeared in a storm of flame and debris.
‘Rigalto! Watch our flank! My brothers, bring them down!’
Demosthor shrugged Tingelis off his shoulder and braced beside one of the columns, keeping up the storm of fire as his assault cannon’s barrels span. Lysander looked down to see that he had dragged Sergeant Laocos from the fray – Laocos’s armour was smoking and battered but he did not look badly hurt. Laocos rolled to one knee and hammered out fire in the same direction as Demosthor with his storm bolter.
The attack was a diversion. The Obliterators’ task was to draw the attention of the Imperial Fists’ gun-line. The real attack ripped through the opposite wall, explosive charges blasting out a section of the wall and sending shards of datamedium crystal showering down. An Iron Warriors champion was first through the breach, surrounded by the baying remnants of the possessed who had been mauled so badly at the Tomb of Ionis. He wore a debased echo of a Chaplain’s garb, his face an iron skull, a mace in his hand with a head in the shape of an eight-pointed star.
The possessed charged right into the teeth of Rigalto’s guns. The bolter drill that Rigalto had taught them with such discipline sent chains of fire rattling through the bodies of the possessed. Eyes and mouths, clawed and taloned limbs, burst from the shredded flesh of the possessed. They fell and mutated where they lay, forms liquefying into piles of quivering, warp-tainted gore.
The Chaplain was struck in the chest and thrown against one of the columns. He rolled into the cover, the last of the possessed loping through the carnage towards the gun-line. One of them vaulted over a bundle of pipes behind which two of the Imperial Fists were sheltering – Rigalto stepped forwards and impaled the possessed Iron Warrior with a thrust of his chainsword. The blade carved out through the Iron Warrior’s lower back and Rigalto twisted it, pulling it out and bringing the contents of the Iron Warrior’s abdomen with it. Rigalto plunged the blade over and over again into the possessed, each withdrawal bringing out a fouler knot of squirming flesh, until there was not enough structure left in the Iron Warrior’s body to contain its corruption and its armour clattered to the deck, liquid gore spilling out.
But the Iron Warriors had their foothold. Shon’tu’s hulking form was just visible through the mist of bolter smoke, surrounded by perhaps forty Iron Warriors taking advantage of the possessed’s charge to sprint through the wreckage and into cover of their own. Lysander could see Shon’tu’s battle plan unfolding even as Rigalto’s squad returned fire and the first Iron Warriors fire fell among them. He had his beachhead, his breach had been secured. And he had more guns than the Imperial Fists.
He would win. There was no doubt about that. It was a fine piece of strike warfare, a besieger’s gambit to force the beseiged into fighting a final battle that he could not win.
‘Shon’tu!’ bellowed Lysander, knowing that the Iron Warrior could hear him. ‘Here is the head of Lysander! Here is a trophy for the halls of your Legion! Take it and become a god!’
In spite of what he had become, of all the inhuman filth in which his soul was steeped, warsmith Shon’tu was still a Space Marine, and he still suffered from a weakness that was so definingly theirs. He still had the pride which had seen Chapters, and Legions before them, refuse to quit the field when all was lost; which had created animosity when there should have been brotherhood. It was the pride from which the Horus Heresy itself had taken root.
Shon’tu’s augmetic eyes focused on Lysander. Bolter fire punched through the datamedium around him but Lysander stood proud of the cover, impossible to mistake even through the grime and chaos of the battle. Shon’tu shoved aside the Iron Warrior in front of him and broke into a run, gunfire sparking against his armour.
Lysander’s command squad drew in around him, but they too recognised a warrior’s pride when it was brought into play. Their efforts were focused on keeping their commander safe from the advancing Obliterators. Lysander alone would face Shon’tu.
Shon’tu seemed to cover the breadth of the datamedium vault in a few huge strides. In a cloud of steam and smoke he fell upon Lysander like a comet from the sky. His claw sliced forwards, talons snapping shut towards Lysander’s face. Lysander ducked and took as much of the impact as he could on his shield. He was thrown back, bowling Sergeant Laocos aside, and rolled as he landed to bring him out of the way of the claw, which ripped into the deck beneath him.
Lysander and Shon’tu were face to face for half a second, more than long enough for Lysander to learn that there was nothing human in what remained of the warsmith’s face.
Lysander batted aside Shon’tu’s next attack with his shield, knowing it was a feint. The real attack was from Shon’tu’s triple-barrelled boltgun, which he tried to ram up into Lysander’s midriff so he could unload half its ammo chain into the Imperial Fist’s body. Lysander span, knocked the gun aside with the haft of the Fist of Dorn, and kicked out hard enough to shatter the bronze struts lending strength to Shon’tu’s right leg.
Shon’tu stumbled back and Lysander had a moment to seize the advantage. It had to be enough. He placed his hand against the nearest datamedium column and let his armour’s interface connect with it, a probe in his gauntlet extending to dip into the ocean of knowledge inside.
‘I am ready,’ said the artificial voice that tapped into his vox-unit. It was the voice of the Endeavour of Will – the machine-spirit, the intelligence that had inhabited this place since its forging in the days when the Emperor still walked the galaxy.
‘You have one more battle to fight,’ said Lysander. He knew that his battle-brothers could only hear his side of the conversation. ‘One blow to strike.’
‘It must be done.’
‘Forgive me, machine-spirit, that I command this of you.’
‘Then redeem yourself, Imperial Fist, by avenging what I have lost.’
Lysander gave the order, a thought that triggered a sequence of commands in the machine-spirit. They in turn triggered more, the effect spreading out like ripples in a pond or the multiplication of an epidemic. Torrents of information were retrieved and released, centuries of battle-lore, millions of hours of battleground data, endless waterfalls of stellar cartography, earthquakes of raw mathematics coursing through every remaining stack of datamedium.
Some of the Iron Warriors might have understood what was happening. Shon’tu certainly did. As the green glow from the datamedium bathed the vault, he stepped back from the duel with
Lysander. As power arced against the floor and ceiling, he ducked down, claw brought up to guard instead of attack.
‘I want to look into your eyes,’ said Lysander, ‘and see the moment you know defeat.’
‘You dare?’ yelled Shon’tu. ‘You think this is a victory?’
‘What else is it?’ Around Lysander, green-white bolts of power, like lightning, were earthing against the floor. The columns were glowing so bright now that the whole vault shone with them, and they were bulging, cracking as the volume of information multiplied beyond their capacity to store it.
‘You will learn,’ retorted Shon’tu. ‘When your soul goes dark! When this galaxy burns! You will learn!’
The columns shattered. Shards of crystal flew, spearing into the armour of Imperial Fist and Iron Warrior alike. They were not deadly enough to lay a Space Marine low, but they were not the true danger.
Every digit of information ever assembled or contemplated by the Endeavour of Will erupted into the vault, pure and raw.
Lysander’s armour seized and shorted around him, suddenly heavy as the nerve-fibre bundles and servos were overloaded. Shots of pain punched through him as the many implants he possessed, interfaces drilled into his fused ribcage and cranial jacks that allowed input to his augmented eyes, sparked and died.
But the Iron Warriors suffered much worse. Shon’tu tried to continue with his retort, but his brass-cased form contorted and spurted jets of burning fuel. Components burst from the little flesh he had, panels of his armour falling open and bundles of bionics tumbling out. The other Iron Warriors were falling and spasming, losing control of their half-mechanical bodies.
The torrent of information released by the machine-spirit had flooded into them, and into the machinery with which they had replaced their weak, untrustworthy flesh. As one, every single bionic in the Iron Warriors of Shon’tu’s warband overloaded and destroyed itself.
The retreat had been ragged. Almost half the warband were dead, shot down as they limped or crawled away from the datamedium vault. The Imperial Fists had been mauled, too, and some of the hated enemy had fallen. But it had been an appalling loss. Shon’tu felt what a human might call shame, if such a word could encompass the volcanic hate that it ignited; the emptiness within him, as vast and cold as the void, which could only be filled with thoughts of revenge.
Release me, came the voice again. It struck as Shon’tu was leading the retreat back towards the defence laser spur, dragging his heavy inert mechanical form along with the few motor systems that still functioned inside him. Around him the Iron Warriors were trying to maintain decent order, many unable to fight, their arms useless and their weapons seized up; some barely able to move.
Release me. It must be done.
‘I cannot. You know that…’
In defeat all bonds break. In desperation, in the face of shame and catastrophe, the only rule is revenge. Release me. It is the only way. You know this to be true.
Shon’tu looked back along the route he had taken to the datamedium vault. It was burnt out and wrecked, scattered with the bodies of the star fort’s crew who had fallen to the laser strike or the Iron Warriors’ guns. Now he saw Forge-Chaplain Kourtos being carried by two of his Iron Warriors, his bullet-scarred body spasming as his spinal implants refused to obey the orders coming from his cortex.
Gunfire streaked from the Imperial Fists, who were pursuing in tight order, moving from cover to cover and taking only what shots could not be returned. One of the Iron Warriors fell and Kourtos clattered to the deck. Silhouetted against a bank of flames, one of the Imperial Fists Terminators stood out from cover and levelled his assault cannon. A volley of fire thudded into Kourtos’s body and the Forge-Chaplain, unable to move, was torn apart. Chunks of his flesh spattered across the ceiling and walls, and over the Iron Warriors trying to drag themselves into cover.
‘Then I release you!’ yelled Shon’tu. ‘In the name of vengeance! To see the corpse of this star fort tumbling through the void, as dead as the Imperial Fists for whom it has become a tomb! I release you from your bonds of servitude, from imprisonment in the Ferrous Malice! Lord Velthinar, I release you!’
Seen from space, the Endeavour of Will was clearly wounded, still bleeding wreckage from the crater left by the defence laser’s strike. A halo of debris surrounded it and flashes of explosions sparked as the fires in its central spire continued to burn, and fuel and ammunition stores cooked off. Much of it was completely dark, lights extinguished by the loss of power. It was a stricken animal, lame and vulnerable.
The Ferrous Malice was the predator. Far smaller, but unwounded and swift, it bore down upon the Endeavour of Will. Its hull split open and it seemed for a moment that it would try to grapple the star fort as it had the Siege of Malebruk. But forward thrusters fired and the grand cruiser slowed, pointing its slit belly towards the Endeavour of Will.
Light bled out. Multicoloured fire bathed the ship as the first limbs unfolded from its interior, followed by the chitinous bulk of a creature that had spent an aeon confined.
The daemon Velthinar forced its way out of the ship. Its abdomen was a long, slithering white-fleshed mass that pulsed with veins, its thorax armoured in gilt and jewels. Hundreds of limbs opened up, tipped in golden claws. Finally its wings unfurled, a tremendous mass of iridescent sails uncoiling. With a single beat the dozen wings thrust Velthinar towards the Endeavour of Will.
Lightning crackled around it in every colour. The red giant star dulled as Velthinar drew off its light, surrounding itself in the star’s fire so that every edge and tip of its armoured form glowed painfully bright. White-hot and trailing flame lightning like a comet, Velthinar accelerated, arrowing straight for the Endeavour of Will, shining with enough power to punch through the star fort and rip out its innards.
‘Velthinar rises!’ came the screaming voice of Shon’tu. ‘You think you have defeated us, Imperial Fist? You do not even know what defeat means! But fear not! Velthinar will show you!’
Lysander and his squad heard Shon’tu’s words as they pursued the Iron Warriors through the arterial corridor leading towards the defence spur. The corridor was dense with smoke but even so the aim of his command squad had despatched half a dozen Iron Warriors during their retreat, and they had almost reached the foothold the Iron Warriors had established with their Dreadclaw assault-pods. Lysander peered through the smoke, unable to make out any detail among the darkness. Gunfire could be heard from elsewhere in the spur as Rigalto’s squad moved swiftly to recapture the defence laser itself.
‘Warsmith!’ yelled Lysander in reply. ‘I hear only the words of one fleeing for his life! I hear the squeals of a coward! Stand forward and face me, as you were so eager to a few moments ago! Or do the Iron Warriors do all their fighting with words?’
The squad spread out around Lysander, covering every angle of fire. The shapes of giant capacitors loomed from the smoke, empty now of the energy they had stored for the defence laser. Lysander made out one of the Dreadclaw pods, its serrated jaws protruding through the hull into the space between two capacitors.
Above Lysander, the transparent roof of the corridor cleared for a moment as the smoke coiled out of the way. The light breaking through shone from a vast insectoid daemon streaking through space, aiming for the centre of the star fort. It was an abomination, half titanic maggot and half bejewelled predatory insect, and the power streaming off it burned brighter than the nearest star.
Lysander took a few steps forwards and saw Shon’tu. The warsmith had made it to one of the Dreadclaws and was in the process of hauling its jaws shut.
‘See, Lysander!’ yelled Shon’tu. ‘See the herald of your deaths! Every move you made, I had a counter! For every thrust, I had a feint! Our victory was decided before the first shot was fired, Imperial Fist!’
Lysander charged through the smoke. He slammed into the jaw of the Dreadclaw just as it was closing, reducing his view of Shon’tu to a sliver. The warsmith’s face was lit red by th
e warning lights inside the assault-pod, just a few centimetres from Lysander’s.
‘My brothers on Malodrax were weak,’ said Shon’tu. ‘They were the dregs of our Legion. You think you have stared into the soul of the Iron Warriors. You have no idea.’ Shon’tu smiled as he saw Lysander trying to force the Dreadclaw’s jaws open, and failing.
‘I know what you left behind on Malodrax,’ said Shon’tu, with a smirk on the remains of his half-mechanical face. ‘And I know what you took from there, too. What you still carry. It is what drives you to kill me, Lysander. It will be the death of every battle-brother who ever stands at your side And it will not let you go until you have killed everything you fight for!’
‘I didn’t fight you here to defeat you,’ said Lysander as the jaw ground closed. ‘I fought you here to bring out Velthinar.’
The faintest trace of confusion passed over Shon’tu’s face. Then the Dreadclaw was closed and in a hiss of steam the clamps holding it in place disengaged.
‘Breach!’ yelled Lysander. ‘Back! Fall back and seal us off!’
The Dreadclaw’s thrusters roared and the assault-pod was ripped back out of the star fort’s hull. Air whistled out behind it. Lysander pulled his helmet from the waist of his armour and jammed it over his head as warning runes flickered telling him the air pressure had suddenly dropped to little over nothing.
Smoke swirled out, the air suddenly clear. The area was strewn with the bodies of Iron Warriors, and Lysander’s squad shot down a couple who were still moving even as the air dissipated and silence fell.
‘Missed him,’ voxed Brother-Scholar Demosthor. ‘Damnation and filth.’
Lysander did not answer. He looked back up through the ceiling of the arterial corridor, the view no longer obscured. But he was not looking at the burning mass of Velthinar. He was looking at the storm of purplish lightning that was swelling into real space just behind the daemon, the sign of a spacecraft ripping its way from the warp.