Heroes of the Space Marines

by Nick Kyme

  Weapons braced, Helena and her battle-sisters fanned out. Cerebus and Fernus moved to an archaic panel of codifiers, and began working to restore the fortress’s power. Chaplain Mathias entered last with the remaining Templars flanking the floating Ark. Reinhart noticed Savaul watching it, the hunger in his eyes warring with nervous anticipation.

  Reinhart had told the interrogator the Ark was a high-yield reactor core capable of powering the fortress’s system of defence turrets, part of the protocol required to reclaim the stronghold. However, it could be used in another capacity. Placed in the heart of Stormhelm, it could be rigged to detonate – the resultant explosion strong enough to destroy the fortress. For the interrogator it was an answer to his prayers: a weapon capable of foiling the Archenemy’s plans in one fell strike. Reinhart only wished he could have told the man the truth.

  They waited in the near darkness until, finally, a series of thumps travelled down the gallery as generators kicked on one by one, causing banks of suspended lumoglobes to flicker to life. Reinhart looked over to the Techmarines. ‘Only quadrant sigma up to the grav lifts. We don’t want the entire fortress to know we’re here.’

  ‘These grav lifts, they will take us to where we can plant the reactor?’ Savaul asked, perspiration beading on his brow.

  Reinhart hesitated; he could not look him in the eye. ‘The grav lifts are as far as we go.’ He turned and motioned Gerard to him. With a slight limp the Space Marine advanced to the Castellan’s side. ‘Take point with Apollos and keep me advised of any contact.’

  Reinhart turned to address them all. ‘I want noise discipline from this point forward. Sister Superior Helena, you and your squad have the rear. The Ark stays between your squad and mine.’

  Helena nodded, her features lost beneath the “sabbat” pattern of her helm.

  From a great distance, the percussive boom of massed ordinance vibrated down through the halls. Captain Vlorn and his men had begun their bombardment as planned. With any luck, it would pull the enemy from the lower levels.

  With drilled precision, the small force moved into the halls of ancient Montgisard.

  FOR WHAT SEEMED like miles, they stalked through the fortress’s lower chambers. Thankfully, they were empty of enemy troops. Vlorn’s bombardment appeared to have done its job in pulling them to the surface levels. Each step took the battlegroup deeper into the nightmare that had once been the Templar stronghold. Everywhere, the walls were awash in horrific glyphs and grotesque scenes depicted in rotting blood and viscera. Even to the Space Marines the stench was nearly unbearable.

  ‘Contact, twenty metres.’ Gerard knelt in the vaulted corridor, the green glow of his auspex tinting his face. Reinhart’s raised fist halted the formation behind him. He moved to Gerard’s shoulder.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘It looks like a patrol; I count fifteen, just around the next junction.’

  Apollos looked over at Reinhart, a hard grin splitting his face. ‘I guess they want to know who turned the lights on.’

  Reinhart motioned to Dorner. ‘Spread the word, contact in two minutes,’ he said. ‘We will take them. The sisters and Savaul will protect the Ark with Cerebus and Fernus.’

  Dorner glanced over his shoulder at the waiting Sororitas. ‘They might not like that.’

  Reinhart drew his ancient battle blade, a massive bastard sword blessed and inscribed with the sacred oaths of his Chapter. ‘Once this begins,’ he said, ‘there will be plenty for them to do.’

  To Apollos and Mathias, he said: ‘We will lead the strike. Gerard, Dorner and Ackolon, you will support us with bolter fire. No one gets through our line, understood?’

  They all nodded. Reinhart stepped to the forefront, flanked by Apollos and Mathias as Dorner rushed off to warn the rest of the battlegroup. The sound of disruptive energy crackled through the air as Mathias triggered his crozius arcanum. Apollos activated his thunder hammer, waves of gleaming power rolling across its surface.

  Moments later, Dorner returned. He nodded to Reinhart. ‘We’re ready.’

  Gerard took a final reading from his auspex. ‘Twenty metres and still approaching.’

  Reinhart glanced to the rear and saw the battle-sisters spreading out in a formation around the Ark.

  Mathias’s voice brought him around. ‘Here they come.’

  The patrol rounded the corner; a dozen lost souls of the PDF clad in armour streaked with gore and marked with foul symbols of Chaos. The cultists stumbled to a halt, shocked at what lay before them.

  With a thunderous roar, Reinhart charged followed closely by Apollos and Mathias. Superheated bolter rounds screamed past them to shred the enemy’s forward rank, exploding flesh, blood and bone. In seconds, the Astartes were among them. The deafening crack of Apollos’s thunder hammer splintered the armour of a former guardsman. To Reinhart’s left, Mathias waded into the fray, his crozius trailing bloody arcs through the air. Snarling, the Castellan ducked a thrusting rifle butt; with a savage two-handed downward cut, he opened the cultist from shoulder to hip. Blood washed the floor. Twirling the blade, he pivoted and swept the weapon in a tight arc, decapitating a charging foe.

  It was over in a heartbeat, the floor littered with the enemy’s crushed and eviscerated bodies. Reinhart whirled to check their rear. He could see Savaul, his white face paler still at the brutal effectiveness of the Sword Brethren.

  Gerard activated his auspex again, his smoking bolter still ready in the opposite hand. ‘I’ve got more, converging from the last junction to our rear.’ He looked closer. ‘And ahead. Throne! They’re crawling all over the main plasma coil chamber.’ Reinhart knew they couldn’t afford to get bogged down in a protracted fight. Pumping his arm, he yelled back to the others through the haze that filled the corridor. ‘The game is up! Expect contact forward and to our rear! We’ve got to punch through to the grav lifts! Move! Move!’

  They broke into a run, Cerebus and Fernus increasing the output of the Ark’s propulsion engines to keep pace. The reverberating thump of the battle-sisters’ bolters exploded from behind them. Reinhart heard a sucking whoosh followed by an eruption of gurgling screams. The air grew hot, the stench of promethium masking that of decay as a Sororitas flamer did its holy work.

  The embattled force stormed down the last few metres of the corridor and plunged through a yawning doorway. Close on Apollos’s heels, Reinhart burst into the seemingly infinite space of the plasma coil chamber. Floor after floor of open gantries ringed the room and stretched upwards into the cavernous void above. Rising from a deep pit, the plasma coil dominated the chamber’s centre: a monstrous pillar of brass machinery that arced and crackled with pent-up energies. Stabilising beams sprouted from its skin like the disjointed spokes of an endless wheel, each strut hung with scarlet rags, banners scrawled with the blasphemous litanies of Chaos.

  Former guardsman swarmed the gantries above, their Imperial uniforms now a mockery of filth and gore. Gunfire spewed down from the heretics’ positions as Reinhart’s force dashed across the room. Firing upwards, the Castellan waved his men past. One Sister stumbled as multiple rounds tore through her armour. Her body twisted under the impacts; unable to stop her momentum, she fell screaming over the edge of the coil’s pit.

  Apollos reached the exit at the far side of the chamber and turned; his bolter blazing, he provided covering fire for the rest of the squad who rushed through. Dorner hurried into position at his side. Together, they answered the cultists with a hellish barrage of their own. Bolters roared, and a gruesome rain of torn and mangled bodies fell from the upper floors.

  Bringing up the rear, Savaul and Helena raced towards Reinhart. The Sister Superior’s helmet was gone, a bloody gash down her face. Both fired blindly behind them.

  ‘Move, Castellan! They’re right behind us!’ Helena yelled.

  Reinhart fell in step behind them, back-pedalling and firing a furious volley into the horde of screaming cultists that burst from the corridor they had just vacated. He grunted i
n annoyance as a lucky shell punched through his shoulder joint, lodging near his collarbone. Already off-balance, a blast of auto fire stitched across his breastplate and sent him sprawling.

  Seeing him fall, Helena and Savaul turned back. Helena slung her bolter and, together with Savaul, dragged the Astartes to his feet. As she did so, she tore a krak grenade from her belt, pulled the pin with her teeth, and pitched it into the oncoming mass. A horrific blast ripped through the horde, pulverising the thronged bodies into a cloud of blood vapour and shredded flesh.

  Together, the three stumbled through the exit hatch between Apollos and Dorner. The Space Marines swung in behind them, letting loose a final round of fire before punching the hatch activator that sent the door booming closed behind them, the hollow thump of rounds continuing to bang against its armoured shell.

  They stood now in another wide corridor, once again, thankfully devoid of the enemy.

  Flexing his shoulder, Reinhart could feel the wound closing with the shell still lodged painfully against his collarbone. He had fought with worse injuries. He looked at Helena and Savaul. The Sister Superior was organising the eight remaining members of her squad. Savaul, attended by Ackolon, was bent against the wall catching his breath and holding his side where a grazing round had cut through. They made no mention of what they had done for him and neither did he.

  Fernus, his red tabard in rags, moved past Dorner and Apollos to the hatch activator. He looked over his shoulder at Reinhart. ‘This door has no locking mechanism; it won’t hold them long.’

  The sudden thunder of a bolter round startled them all. The hatch activator exploded in a shower of sparks. They all turned to see Mathias lowering his bolt pistol. ‘It should hold them now,’ he said. Holstering the weapon, Mathias stepped forward, raising his crozius arcanum. ‘All of you steel yourselves. In this fateful hour, the Emperor’s eyes are upon us. May we all go to Him knowing that we have done our duty and stayed true to His will.’

  Reinhart could not help but think these last words were directed at him.

  BY THE TIME they reached the grav lift chamber the Ark’s shield had died and Reinhart’s time had run out. He could no longer hide the true nature of his squad’s mission. He could see this fact on all his men’s faces as they set up a perimeter around the lifts. They and the sisters had bled together, a bond formed of shared hardship. Savaul and Helena had saved his life. Only Mathias seemed resolute in what they had to do. Reinhart knew he had to follow the Chaplain’s example.

  The Ark waited on the first of three grav lifts: circular pads set into the floor adorned with the Templar cross.

  The battle-sisters had split. Two stood guard at each of the stairwells that emptied into the room’s four corners. The Techmarines worked at a bank of codifiers that controlled the lifts.

  ‘How far up do we have to plant the reactor?’ Savaul asked, watching the Techmarines work. His face was sunken and splattered with dried blood; one hand still clutched his wounded side.

  Reinhart looked behind him. Mathias stood at the foot of the Ark, his manner cold and aloof. Apollos and Ackolon locked eyes on the floor, unable to meet his gaze. Never had he felt the weight of duty as acutely as he did at that moment. He looked back to Savaul. Helena had come to stand beside the injured interrogator.

  ‘We are not going up, interrogator.’

  Savaul’s head snapped around. ‘What? I thought you said the reactor needed to be set near the ground floor.’

  Reinhart hardened his voice. ‘I mean we are not destroying the fortress, Savaul.’ He motioned to the Ark. ‘That is not a reactor and it cannot be rigged to detonate.’

  Savaul turned to face him fully, his voice quivering with rage. ‘What, by the Throne, are you talking about?’

  ‘What I told you was a reactor core for Montgisard’s defences is in fact a sarcophagus housing the body of one of our Chapter’s most decorated Sword Brethren. His name is Ezekial Yesod, and he clings to life by a thread.’

  Helena stepped forward, her face a mask of fury. ‘Then what has all this been about, Castellan? Why have you brought us here, if not to exterminate this threat?’

  ‘My battle-brothers and I have not come here to reclaim Montgisard, Sister Superior. We are here because this grav lift will take us down to the keep’s lowest sepulchre, where one of our Chapter’s most venerated Dreadnoughts sleeps. There, we will inter Brother Yesod so that he may continue to fight in the Emperor’s name.’

  Savaul pushed past Helena, to stand toe to toe with Reinhart. ‘Is fighting in the Emperor’s name not what we’re already doing here? Throne, man! Don’t you realise that by doing this you will condemn hundreds of thousands of His servants to death?’ Reinhart stared down at the trembling interrogator. ‘This world is not yet lost.’ He motioned to the waiting sarcophagus. ‘But thousands of light years away, a battle is being fought. An entire system stands on the brink of destruction, and what lies in Brother Yesod’s mind could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Interment within the Dreadnought is his only chance. The loss of Stygia XII would be a mere ripple in an ocean of lost souls if I were to let him die.’

  He looked past Savaul to Helena. ‘Come with us, all of you. Once our task is done we will return to our battle-barge and explain the conditions here. High Marshal Ludoldus will send aid, and we can return and save this planet before it is too late.’

  Helena shook her head, a look of sorrow filling her eyes. ‘It will be too late, Castellan. The Archenemy will already have opened the warp gate. We must do everything we can now to stop it.’

  Gerard’s voice cut the air. ‘Castellan, contact again, approaching from the stairwells. Ten minutes, max.’

  Reinhart stepped back, called to the Techmarines. ‘Prepare the lift.’ He looked again at Savaul and Helena. ‘I will only offer this once more: come with us.’

  Savaul’s head sank, his shoulders wilting in defeat. ‘Then we are on our own.’

  ‘Unless you come with us, yes.’

  Helena stepped forward. ‘This man Ezekial, you claim that by saving him you will save millions of others?’

  Reinhart nodded. ‘That is correct, Sister Superior.’

  Helena fixed him with a cold stare. ‘You know you used us, you lied to us.’

  ‘If there had been another way…’ Reinhart let the words trail off.

  Helena only smiled. She looked at Savaul. ‘You have command, it’s your choice.’

  Savaul drew in a deep breath. ‘I cannot let this atrocity go unanswered. We must try.’ He looked at the empty lift next to him, then to Reinhart. ‘Send us up and we will destroy the gate or die trying.’

  Reinhart stared at him for a moment. He truly did wish there was another way. ‘Send them up, Fernus,’ he said finally. Savaul turned without another word.

  Helena looked up at Reinhart. ‘Goodbye, Castellan. I ask you to remember one thing: Duty and honour do not always go hand in hand.’

  Reinhart watched them gather on the lift, and then they were gone, shooting upwards into the heart of the keep and into the midst of the waiting enemy.

  He turned. ‘Everyone to the lift, prepare for descent.’

  All of them moved, circling around the Ark. All of them except Apollos.

  ‘Brother Apollos,’ Reinhart said. ‘I believe I gave an order.’

  The young Terminator stared back at him. ‘Castellan… I request permission to follow them, to lend the support of my bolter.’ Reinhart glanced to the others.

  Gerard looked up from his auspex. ‘Five minutes, Castellan.’

  Apollos stepped to the lift. ‘Castellan, Chaplain Mathias said the eyes of the Emperor are upon us. I believe he speaks the truth. I believe you can complete this task without me. Let me help them, Castellan.’

  ‘Brother Apollos,’ Mathias said, his voice edged with venom, ‘Your Castellan has given you an order.’

  Reinhart stepped from the lift. ‘No, Mathias, Brother Apollos speaks true. The rest of you go and we will do w
hat we can to help them. Take the Ark, inter Ezekial, and then get out. If we are unsuccessful in closing the gate advise the High Marshal of what you’ve seen here and return to save this world. It is our duty. This is my final order. May the Emperor go with you.’

  THE CRYPT WAITED for them at the heart of Montgisard’s deepest catacombs. Their approach from the grav lift had been a quiet one, Gerard’s auspex showing no sign of the enemy, but they knew that wouldn’t last for long. Following the schematics downloaded to their personal codifiers, the crypt’s brass doors emerged from the darkness, glinting beneath the stark beams of their armour’s search lamps. The formidable doors were an imposing sight, each at five metres tall and nearly as wide, their brass surface worked with the image of Dorn smiting the forces of Chaos at the gates of the Imperial Palace.

  With Ackolon and Dorner flanking the portal, the Techmarines started to examine the doors but Mathias waved them back. He pulled an adamantium necklace from beneath his armour, an amulet of polished obsidian hanging from its beaded length. ‘High Marshal Ludoldus bestowed this rosarius upon me before our departure,’ he said in an awe-hushed voice. ‘It belonged to Reclusiarch Gideon Amesaris. He served beneath High Marshal Gervhart.’ The Chaplain knelt before the doors. ‘It was he who designed these doors almost four thousand years ago.’ With reverence Mathias fitted the sacred rosarius into an ornate depression within the door. He turned the amulet. A series of clicks answered and with a hiss the doors rumbled open.

  Beyond, statues carved in the grim shapes of ancient Templars holding aloft iron lanterns circled the perimeter of the room. As the doors boomed open the lanterns guttered to life. Their amber glow filled the chamber; its sectioned walls covered in dusty, bas-relief carvings of forgotten battles.

  In the chamber’s centre stood the cyclopean hull of a venerable Dreadnought draped in cobwebs. Its chest plate was open, revealing a darkened cavity within.

  Mathias stood. ‘We must work quickly.’

  Together, the Space Marines brought the Ark forward, resting it just above a low altar at the foot of the colossal war machine. The smell of holy oils and sacred unguents permeated the air. Stepping back, Gerard and Dorner took up posts at the crypt’s threshold while Cerebus and Fernus flanked the Ark.