[Blood Angels 04] - Black Tide

by James Swallow - (ebook by Undead)

  The logis was damned by his own failings. No matter how much of him he replaced with the precision of the machine, he was still Goel Beslian at his core. Still weak.

  He thought of the others, those who had come up through the training regimens of the collegia at the same time as him. They had since attained ranks far above his. He thought of his crèche-mate Lytton, who was now Lord Magos of the Mondasia Forges, of the elegant, waspish Defra who had gone on to take command of explorators, and all the others he had known. Beslian was the least of them all.

  Someone with his talents and a measure of self-confidence could have risen to become the master of a tech-guard division, or even placed in charge of his own elite cadre of archeotechnologists; but instead Beslian had worked in the shadow of greater men, hanging on the tails of their robes. He had always taken the option of lowest risk, the path of least resistance.

  His solid, if unremarkable career in the Adeptus Mechanicus had brought him into the orbit of Matthun Zellik. Perhaps Beslian’s character had been the very reason Zellik had recruited him—perhaps because he needed a second who would not question when his conduct veered outside the rules of the Mechanicus, someone who would never have the strength to dare challenge him.

  And now, after so long, after Goel Beslian had finally drawn together the dregs of his courage, defying Zellik to side with these Astartes… After that monumental effort to show some kind of spine, what was his reward? Did the Machine-God smile on him and grant him the dream he had never been able to voice, of being master of the Archeohort?

  Negative. Instead he had been damned. Each new indignity followed the last. The Archeohort had been shattered and destroyed. Beslian’s skills were mocked and denigrated; and now his life was squarely in harm’s way, dragged along on this insane, suicidal mission.

  He shuddered, thinking of the images he had seen of the Space Marines on the internal monitoria, watching the Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers fighting the lictors with mad abandon. Beslian had always suspected that all Space Marines were psychotic on some level. He had seen nothing yet to dissuade him.

  He took a deep breath. This was where his cowardice had brought him, to this madness where the threat of death was all around him. The adept shrank inside his robes, drawing them in as a feeble gesture of self-protection. All he could hope to do now was to survive this. To live another day, and perhaps, if the Omnissiah was willing to turn a measure of His radiance on him, not to be forsaken.

  “Traitor.”

  Beslian’s head snapped up from his musings at the sound of the word. He glanced around, searching for the source of the voice. “Who said that?”

  The three servitors ignored him. He moved towards the closest of them, a former male, now an engineering helot, third class. It was listing thrust tolerance percentages in a breathy, sub-vocal whisper. Beslian frowned at it. Perhaps it was an artefact of his reverie. His aural processing centres had been mistaken—

  “Traitor.”

  A woman’s voice this time, he was certain of it. Beslian stalked across to the lone machine-slave built from a female donor; it was a reactor monitor, babbling to itself about fluid temperatures and reciting stanzas from the litany of nuclei.

  This time he addressed it with the correct interrogative codes. “Did you speak to me?” he demanded.

  “Negative, Logis.” The response was cursory. He was turning away when it spoke again. “You traitor. Beslian.”

  The adept grabbed the servitor and shook it. “What did you say?” he shouted. “Who told you to say that? Answer me!”

  “Traitor. Traitor.” He heard the echo of the words again, this time from all three of the machine-slaves at once. He let go of the female and backed away. The three helots began to twitch and spasm. Beslian had seen malfunctions like this before, often at the end of servitors’ life cycles when their mental functions had decayed beyond repair and they had to be put down—but this was different.

  Flecks of spittle marked the lips of the helots. “Traitor,” they chorused. “Traitor. Traitor!” An identical cast of anger flooded faces that had been slack and inanimate. The threefold voice thickened and deepened, taking on a familiar cast and meter. “You loathsome, weakling turncoat, Beslian! This is how you repay me?”

  “Matthun?” he gasped the name in shocked recognition. It was then that the adept understood; what he had considered to be fear was not in fact the deepest expression of that state, not at all. What came upon him now was a far greater, far darker measure. The adept cried out.

  As one, the three servitors reached into the pockets of their gear aprons, each producing a single tool—a sanctified wrench, a cutter blade, a notation stylus—before stabbing, bludgeoning and finally beating the Logis Goel Beslian into silence, there amid the thrumming noise of the reactor control chamber.

  When it was done, their faces returned to a neutral, blank cast. With care, the servitors paused to clean off their tools before returning them to their pockets. Then, once more isolated in their own small worlds of duty, task and function, the machine-slaves went back to work.

  Beslian lay inert on the deck between them, sprawled and bloody. They behaved as if he were invisible.

  On the second deck of the Neimos, the lights burned low. Bunk compartments lined the corridor that ran the length of the submersible’s spine, all of them locked down and unused, built for human crewmen on long-duration missions. Neither the servitors nor the Astartes aboard the vessel needed the conventions of sleep required by common crew, however. The empty spaces echoed dully with the report of ceramite boots on deck plates as a red-armoured figure walked towards the bow of the craft, lost in thought.

  “Rafen.” The figure stopped at the sound of his name, and turned.

  Behind the Blood Angel, Brother-Sergeant Noxx almost filled the breadth of the corridor, his head scarcely a hand’s span from the snarl of pipes above, his arms tense at his sides as his heavy shoulders blocked the light spilling from the gantryway beyond.

  There was fresh blood on the Flesh Tearer’s battle armour; Astartes blood.

  Rafen’s expression was carefully neutral. “Noxx. What is Brother Sove’s condition?”

  Noxx’s dark eyes glittered in the dimness. “Gast is ministering to him. He lies in the infirmary, pumped full of anti-shock philtres and counter-venoms. He will live.”

  “Good.”

  “But he will not fight. And now I am three brothers down,” Noxx went on, without acknowledging Rafen’s reply.

  “We are three brothers down,” Rafen said firmly. “This is a joint action, cousin, do not forget. You own Chapter Master demanded it be so.”

  “He told me to hunt and kill a traitor, Blood Angel. He did not bid me to use my brothers as cannon fodder.”

  “If that is a suggestion that I have allowed your kinsmen to take the greater risks, then you would do well to reconsider it. We are all in harm’s way.” Rafen folded his arms, a grimace forming on his lips. “Shall we cut to the heart of this?” he snapped. “I have no time for barbs or sly criticism. Say what you think, Noxx. Let me hear you say the words.” He glared at the Flesh Tearer. “You believe you could do better than I have done.”

  “You seem sure of yourself,” said Noxx, “but answer me this; do you even have a plan, Rafen? Or are you just making this up as you go?”

  The Blood Angel felt a surge of annoyance. “You’ve fought longer than I have against the Emperor’s enemies. Tell me, how many times have you been forced to go into battle with only your wits and the blessing of Holy Terra?”

  “Don’t throw dogma at me, boy,” retorted the other warrior. “Those things alone are not enough! The commander who enters combat without a strategy is a dead man walking.”

  “And you would do well not to presume to teach me tactics,” Rafen shot back. “How often must you test me? I bested you once in the arena on Baal… Do you wish me to fight you again, here and now? Do you want to challenge me for command of this mission?”

  Noxx�
��s body tensed, and for a moment Rafen thought the Flesh Tearer might strike him. “Perhaps I should.”

  “And what a fine example that would set,” Rafen sneered. “At this time, when unity of purpose is what we need the most.”

  “Aye!” said Noxx. “And how can we have that if we do not have trust in our commander?” He took two quick steps forward. “Make me believe, Rafen. Convince me why I should continue to follow you.”

  “We will find the renegade who came to Baal, and we will destroy him,” said the Blood Angel. “Doubt me if you must, but do not doubt that. The Emperor is with us.”

  Noxx arched an eyebrow. “Did the witch-kin tell you that? So tell me, will He step off the Golden Throne and come spear Fabius for us?” He snorted. “Yes, I have fought in His name longer than you, and in that time I’ve learned He helps those who help themselves.”

  “Watch your tongue,” snarled Rafen.

  The Flesh Tearer glared back at him, paying no heed to the warning. “So far you have made a poor showing, cousin. You let that cloud your thoughts. You are still fighting the battles you have lost, Rafen! Dwelling on every circumstance of Bile’s escapes instead of preparing for the fight ahead! And I will not let my brothers die of it.”

  Rafen turned away. “You do not know my thoughts. If you did, you would not question me!”

  Noxx’s hand shot out and grabbed Rafen’s vambrace. “I know what you are thinking, Blood Angel! I know it because I think it as well!”

  “Unhand me,” Rafen growled.

  “What is he doing with the sacred blood?” Noxx threw the question at him.

  Rafen felt ice in his veins, and he stiffened. The shadow of great horror, of a shame and repulsion as dark as old hate uncoiled in his thoughts.

  That question dwelled at the back of his thoughts. It had done so since the moment Rafen had left the company of Lord Dante, after the Chapter Master gave him this mission.

  “That question…” Noxx’s hand fell away. “It robs me of my sleep. Sometimes I wish I were ignorant of all this… If only for a moment’s respite…” All the anger, the chained fury at the heart of the Flesh Tearer waned, and for a moment he seemed almost vulnerable.

  Strangely, Rafen felt a sudden pang of sympathy for his comrade-in-arms. “Aye,” he said. “I hear the question in my own thoughts and I dread to know the answer to it.”

  “We fear it,” Noxx replied. “As well we should. This foul Chaos whoreson, his black sorcery and corrupt science have forged such grotesques. I have heard it said Bile once turned his hand to the creation of a replicae of the bastard-king Horus…” The warrior’s face twisted in disgust, and he spat on the deck. “If he would dare to recreate that lowest of traitors… Then in Terra’s name, what more might he do?”

  Rafen felt sickened. “I cannot wonder.”

  “But you must,” Noxx told him. “You must dare to face that question, or else you go into this fight unready!” He paused. “And if you do that, then you prove me right. No fit commander can turn his face from such dark and terrible uncertainties. It is a price for the laurel. If you want to lead us, you must be willing to lead us into a nightmare.”

  “And do it with eyes open,” Rafen added, with a nod.

  “Just so.” Noxx studied him. “I will say this to you. I am a Flesh Tearer, a Son of the Great Sanguinius, an Adeptus Astartes. Loyal servant of the Golden Throne, and so on and so on. I could stand before you and trot out list after list of my victories and my pious, zealous deeds in the name of Holy Terra. I need not prove myself to you, nor any other man under the stars.”

  Rafen eyed him. “But yet you demand I must attest to you!”

  “That too is a burden of command. You know this. Rise to it, Rafen, or stand down.” Noxx stood before him, waiting. “What is it to be?”

  After a long moment, the Blood Angel released a slow breath. “I have no great scheme,” he admitted. “Every plan we have employed against Fabius, every design to take him has turned to ashes in my hands. He is like no foe I have ever faced. Ten thousand years ago, he was a match for heroes and champions, and time has not dimmed his skills. This monster is a singular quarry, Flesh Tearer. Know that.”

  “I do. We all know.”

  Rafen’s gaze fell to the deck. “I have nothing left now but the blade of my hate, and the fury that propels it. We will close to his island fortress by stealth, and break its walls with our bare hands if need be. Whatever we find within will perish.”

  “And the… the vial of sacred blood?”

  “It will be liberated. In one way, or another.”

  Noxx was silent for a moment. “This mission will be the end to all of us, Blood Angel.”

  “Perhaps.” Rafen glanced at him. “Do you regret joining me now, cousin?”

  Noxx shook his head. “My only regret will be if we do not make that whoreson suffer before he dies.”

  “I need only to get close,” Rafen went on, almost to himself. “Just one strike, no more. Close enough for the kill.” He shook off the moment. “Sove fought well in defence of his battle-brothers and the mission. It is a great pity he was so wounded.”

  “He’s not out of the game,” said Noxx. “None of us are out of it yet.”

  Rafen accepted this with a nod. “So, brother-sergeant. Have I answered the question? Am I worthy of your loyalty? Will you follow me into the unknown, to the jaws of death?”

  Noxx turned to walk away. “Do you recall the words I said to you in the descent bay, just before the Neimos began the drop?”

  “You said… see you in hell, Blood Angel.”

  Noxx nodded grimly. “Then you have your answer.”

  Rafen hesitated; but anything else he would have added was waylaid by the chirp of the vox bead in his ear. He toggled the general channel. “This is Sergeant Rafen. Report.”

  He listened with growing alarm as Turcio described what he had discovered down on the engineering deck.

  Astern of the submersible, a faint wake of distortion melted away into the current of the sluggish Dynikan sea. Slow and steady, with the cold, calculating intent of a true-born predator, a shadowed form followed on behind the vessel.

  Faint phosphor dots, lined in trails along a body of jointed, flexible chitin, outlined the dimensions of the monstrous shape. In mass, it matched the size of the Neimos, and subtle flexions of its flukes and fins allowed it to keep pace with the human craft. The tyranid creature moved through the ocean unseen, unsensed; it instinctively understood the landscape of the waters. It shifted in and out of thermoclines, the great bands of current where waters of differing temperature lay across one another, where sound waves reflected back and away, further masking its careful approach.

  It was perfectly adapted to its killing ground. Generations back down the line of its rapacious evolution, its ancestor-genotypes had torn their way through the life of Dynikas V’s seas and in the process, absorbed what they consumed to emulate and ultimately exterminate it. Trace elements of heavy metals in the waters were expressed in the dull matt sheen of the creature’s natural armour, in the tusks surrounding its oval mouth, and the rings of fangs surrounding every sucker along the manus of its tentacular clubs. It flowed more than it moved, riding the deep tides, inching closer to the intruder in its realm. Along its flanks, a plated eyelid rose to reveal a glassy lens, filled with a dark pupil. Optic matter evolved to sense thermal radiation drew upon the shape of the Neimos, tracking it. Delicate sensory palps that could detect perturbations in magnetic fields wafted on the end of wiry fronds.

  In the slow, sullen pace of the creature’s thoughts, it equated its prey with all the others it had fed upon. Some were organics, of meat and cartilage and genotype of tyranid origin; and sometimes there were others, things clad in hard cases of ceramite or drifting in iron shells that appeared atop the waves. Those it would reach up to, drag down, killing with the brutal pressures of the depths and its own whipcord embrace.

  It had consumed the remains of the selachian-form l
ictors in a single motion, extending wide to draw in the corpses and strain them through grids of metallic baleen. Brain matter was siphoned away to a secondary stomach lined with omophageacic receptor cells and denatured. Chains of ribonucleic acid broke down as memory elements were soaked into the creature’s own biosystems. The tyranid drew on the remnants of sensory input and pheromone recall from the dead, reassembling what it could. Through the eyes of corpses, it experienced their killings and some sense of the meat-life they had tried to devour. Abhumans, like the surface-things, but somehow different. The creature had briefly picked through some of the rain of strange wreckage that had entered its domain from high above; nothing it had found there had any meaning, however. But now it was gathering in an understanding.

  The prey above had never dared to venture beneath the surface before. This was unknown to the tyranid; and in its ponderous mind, its constant hunger gained a new shade of emotion. Anticipation.

  As the Neimos went deeper, so the creature went with it.

  * * *

  The smell came to Rafen even before he reached the infirmary, down the steep steel stairs that led to the tertiary deck. It was thick with the heavy, rusted tang of spilled blood, but his senses picked out other odours in the mix; lubricants and ozone.

  He moved at a pace, aware that his heavy boots dented the steps as he took them hard and fast, two at a time. The deck was at a shallow tilt, the Neimos turning gently to starboard, and he hauled himself on to the upper level with the help of an iron handhold welded to the curved wall. The hatch to the ship’s sickbay was wide open, and hard yellow-white light spilled into the corridor. Turcio stood outside, his expression grave. His bolter dangled from the grip of his augmetic arm. Rafen automatically noted that the weapon’s safety catch was disengaged.

  “Lords,” began Turcio, nodding to Rafen, and again to Noxx as the Flesh Tearer came up after him. “He’s in there. Brother Gast is seeing to him.”

  Noxx made a negative noise deep in his throat and spoke before Rafen could frame a question. “You’re certain of what happened? The adept was weak of spirit… perhaps he was attempting to take his own life.”