Blades of Damocles

by Phil Kelly

  Behind them, Kinosten, Nordgha and the tattered remnants of their command squad emerged from the Vodhjanoi. The survivors of his platoon emerged from the Chimeras after them, their hangdog expressions those of men beaten beyond the point of desperation and back again. A hesitant young private who had introduced himself as Feindhast ran across to a set of olive-hued crates stencilled with ammo codes, delving in to lift out handfuls of lasgun clips with a disbelieving shout.

  ‘Brother Duolor,’ said Numitor, ‘that bulk case next to the fortunate Private Feindhast looks very much like it bears the ammunition code for bolt pistol clips. Open it and distribute them to whoever needs them. If you can find some plasma cells or promethium flasks, so much the better.’

  ‘Understood, of course,’ said Duolor, hastening to obey.

  ‘Brother Magros, find the vox hub, get as much up-to-date veritas as you can, and make a full report. The full truth about the Castellans can wait, though.’

  ‘Aye, sergeant,’ said Magros, nodding before moving away at combat pace.

  A strident voice rang out. ‘And find out who they are considering for captaincy of the Eighth!’

  Sicarius had disembarked from a transport close by, his squad pacing after him as he overtook Numitor and inspected the complex at a glance. No doubt looking for someone to butt heads with, thought Numitor.

  He did not have to wait long.

  A commissar in a billowing black trenchcoat was crossing the beachhead zone, fist clenched around the hilt of an active and well-used power sword that sparked with the energies of an overcharged disruption cell. The officer was huge; his neck was thick and corded, with taut tendons leading up to a bald bullet of a head. Heavy brows loomed over two sunken eyes, dark eyelids pulled back to reveal crystal blue eyes that could pierce a man’s soul.

  Numitor saw Sergeant Kinosten shrink back as if struck as the commissar bore down upon them. Snapping off the briefest of salutes to the Space Marines that stood within arm’s reach, the commissar did not stop until he had walked to within an inch of Kinosten’s nose. To his credit, the sergeant held his gaze, though he looked on the brink of bolting for the safety of his Chimera. The bald officer staring him down was almost as tall as a Space Marine, and with a good few slabs of muscle to go with it.

  ‘And where in seven hells have you cowards been?’ hissed the black-uniformed officer. He raised his power sword and held its point close enough to Kinosten’s jaw that the faint smell of burning stubble reached Numitor through his grilled helm. ‘Desertion is punishable by summary execution, Kinosten. Give me one reason why I should not simply cut your head from your neck where you stand.’

  To Numitor’s shock, it was Veletan that stepped in first.

  ‘For one, perhaps because Astra Militarum field regulations outline such executions should be performed with the pistol, not the blade.’

  The black-clad officer looked askance at Veletan. He unclipped a bolt pistol from under his cloak, his shock at being addressed directly by a Space Marine overshadowed with annoyance at having his interrogation interrupted.

  ‘Two,’ continued the Ultramarine, ‘because these men and women are not traitors.’

  ‘What is your name and company?’ said the commissar, his voice low and dangerous.

  ‘Daelios Veletan, Eighth Company of the Ultramarines.’

  Numitor frowned within his helm, but said nothing. Veletan was the best of them when it came to matters of Imperial law.

  ‘Ontova Platoon is under military arrest, by the authority of the Imperial Commissariat,’ said the officer. ‘With all due respect, I alone shall determine whether or not these fugitives are traitors to the Imperium.’

  ‘Not without hearing the extenuating circumstances first,’ said Veletan. ‘They have good reason for their delay. We are thin enough on troops as it is, let alone good armour. This can all be explained, commissar…?’

  ‘Lord commissar,’ growled the officer, ‘and it’s Duggan.’

  There was a roar of engines in the middle distance, so loud and throaty Numitor felt certain it could only have come from an Imperial war machine. A black-flanked Valkyrie emblazoned with the symbol of the Scholastica Psykana carved overhead in a tight circle, the vectored engines on its wingtips angling as it completed a vertical landing less than fifty metres away. Dust and smoke billowed across Imperial Guardsman and Space Marine alike, forcing the diplomatic standoff to pause until the mighty aircraft had settled.

  ‘Great,’ snarled Duggan, his lips taut across his teeth. ‘The freaks have arrived.’

  Duolor took advantage of the distraction to hand Numitor a pair of bolt pistol clips, passing the rest of his haul to his fellow warriors one by one.

  ‘Brother Veletan,’ said Duggan as he turned back. ‘I believe you were about to tell me why an absent-without-leave platoon has returned to us in the illustrious company of two squads of the Ultramarines Eighth Company.’

  Sergeant Sicarius was next to step forward. ‘Our vox was out. I called for assistance by sending up a smoke signal, and they answered. We were stranded in uncharted territory, and these good men and women were first to attend us. I am profoundly glad they did, for the wastelands are crawling with tau stealthers. Without Sergeant Kinosten and his platoon, it is likely we would not have made back it to Imperial territory at all.’

  Duggan stared up at Sicarius, but detected nothing more than truth in his words – unvarnished, blunt and honest as a battering ram. It was a language the lord commissar clearly respected, for his aggressive stance became more at ease.

  Numitor was impressed, too. He had expected Sicarius to simply browbeat the man with rank and lineage. But this was an Imperial commissar, and a lord at that – a graduate of the Schola Progenium, and one of the bravest men in the Imperium. Intimidation tactics would almost certainly have backfired.

  ‘We learned a vital truth about the tau during that ambush, I believe,’ said Numitor.

  Duggan raised an eyebrow. ‘And before you distract me with that truth, sergeant, would you care to explain why you did not simply long-range vox for aid? And why we could not reach the One Hundred and Twenty-Second with vox imperatives of our own?’

  ‘Xenotech,’ said Numitor and Kinosten at the same time.

  Duggan looked somewhere between disbelief and mounting anger. He was opening his mouth to ask further questions when the side doors of the black-hulled Valkyrie rolled back with a clang, and several greatcoat-clad figures emerged.

  Numitor had never seen a stranger collection of souls.

  At the head of the ragged entourage was a slender, androgynous female with hair braided into an elaborate crown like a blonde basket upon her scalp. A greatcoat with gold frogging flapped around her long legs. Her skin was a warm bronze, and she had a tarot card tattooed on her otherwise spotless forehead. Numitor was surprised to recognise it; it looked like one of the high arcana he had learned of in his classical elucidations upon Macragge. Frowning, he triggered his optic enhancers. Sure enough, the card showed the Shebyte Queen, bedecked in gold catskins as she danced with a skeletal king. The image of the cybernetic female on the card smiled slyly at him and blew Numitor a kiss. He blinked in surprise, and the image was gone.

  ‘Primaris psyker, sir,’ said Kinosten at Numitor’s side. ‘She’s the best on the planet, but we try not to let her faze us. She only plays on it.’

  The tattoo was not the only thing about the woman that was disturbing. Her facial features were symmetrical in every way, to the smallest degree.

  ‘What the hell is Vykola doing here?’ grumbled Lord Commissar Duggan. ‘Gauge must be out of his mind, sanctioning this. I’ll be out of bolt shells before dawn.’

  Behind the gamine woman that led them came a trio of what could only be sanctioned psykers. There was nothing of the soldier about their formation, for each was more peculiar than the last. Holding long staffs tipped w
ith the eye of the Scholastica Psykana, they shambled in Vykola’s wake as she strode towards Kinosten and the ragged remnants of his command group.

  ‘Greetings, gentlemen,’ she said to the gathering of warriors, sketching a small bow. ‘And Malagrea, you old witch, well met.’ The Primaris motioned to the elderly psyker’s crippled limb. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘The tau,’ said the astropath, making the sign of the evil eye with the fingers of her good hand. She pulled the sleeve of her voluminous robes up to cover the blackened claw on the other side, hissing with pain as the rough fabric rubbed upon charred flesh. ‘I made them pay, though. I will do so again.’

  ‘Good luck to you,’ sniffed Vykola. ‘It’s almost impossible to get close to them. Their long-range fire is like nothing I have ever seen, and they’ve taken to withdrawing at the first sign of trouble. Most unsporting.’ The androgyne stepped in close to Malagrea, gently taking her forearm. ‘Give Mamzel Vykola that for a moment, dear heart.’

  Malagrea shrank away at first, but then relented. Vykola took the wizened claw in her long-fingered hands, and started to babble and yammer with a horrible, quiet intensity. A red glow surrounded her hands, so intense Numitor felt his autosenses compensate. The Baleghast Guardsmen averted their eyes, but to their credit, not one of them flinched away.

  Malagrea’s skeleton became visible under the red-amber glow of her flesh, and the elderly astropath gave a keening whine of pain. She began to shake as Vykola’s strange chant reached a crescendo.

  Then it was done. Vykola took her delicate hands away to reveal Malagrea’s crippled limb whole once more, hale and pink and utterly without blemish or wrinkle. If anything, it was more the hand of a young girl than the liver-spotted, veiny equivalent on the other side.

  ‘Good as new, or better,’ said Vykola. ‘Now, I am being remiss. It is an honour to see the fabled descendants of Guilliman in the flesh. Are these proud warriors the ones who requested our presence?’

  ‘Aye,’ answered Numitor. ‘Squads Numitor and Sicarius of the Eighth. I am Jorus Numitor. I requested this rendezvous.’

  ‘It is a most unusual measure for a Space Marine to call upon the services of a Primaris and her entourage. Would the Librarius approve?’

  ‘I have asked Malagrea to contact Epistolary Elixus, but his astropathic signature is not as well known to her as your own. We are unsure of whether he received the psy-missive or not. Time is of the essence, so we may have to act before he arrives.’

  ‘A shame,’ said Vykola. ‘I would relish meeting him.’

  ‘I have a theory about the war we are fighting,’ said Numitor, ‘and how to strike a decisive blow against the xenos.’

  ‘We’re listening, sergeant,’ said Duggan.

  ‘We have fought from the heart of Gel’bryn since the initial landings. In doing so we have lost many of our brethren, but I promise you they did not die in vain. We have gathered critical information regarding the leadership cadres of the enemy.’

  ‘If we have a way to tear these xenos down, let’s use it,’ said Vykola.

  ‘We wounded one of their high-level commanders,’ said Numitor. ‘The one emblazoned upon their propaganda images, night after night. Wounded him critically, we believe. We then monitored the course of the craft that extracted him. It made for what we had previously considered fringe facilities on the far outskirts of Dal’ythan metahex Prime Sec. We were in the process of following him there when we came across the Castellans.’

  ‘These facilities. Medical sites, do you think?’ asked Duggan.

  ‘More than that,’ said Numitor. ‘A commander of that level would not withdraw to a common medical station. He would likely be taken into the care of their high command – and in doing so, betray to us the location of their headquarters.’

  Vykola cocked her head, a strangely avian gesture.

  ‘So… cut off the head, and the body will die?’

  ‘A decisive air drop could work,’ nodded Duggan.

  ‘Especially,’ said Numitor, ‘when we have a way to break their defensive strategies wide open.’

  ‘And how is that?’ asked Vykola. ‘Brute force, I presume?’

  ‘Psykers,’ replied the sergeant. ‘These tau drill advanced tenets of warfare into their warrior caste, but in matters arcane, they come unstuck. Barring a few engagements with Nicassar dhow-ships in the space lanes around Pra’yen, there have been no recorded incidents of psychic activity in our clashes with the tau thus far. It is my belief they place an extremely low importance on esoteric warfare.’

  ‘That tallies with my own experiences,’ said Vykola. ‘They seem not to have any real conception of what is possible when one opens one’s mind.’ She smiled, showing far too many teeth.

  ‘So we capitalise on that,’ said Numitor. ‘A hard, fast strike from the Eighth Company, allowing a concentrated core of psychics to get in close, then we unleash everything we have. They will learn, and quickly – the tau are cunning, as we know to our cost. But if we use that element of surprise at the right time, we could break open their headquarters and slay dozens of command staff in a single strike.’

  ‘Done well,’ said Duggan, ‘that could be enough to tip the balance of the war, maybe break open new fronts across the entire planet.’

  Nearby, Sergeant Sicarius nodded in support. ‘Done well, it may be a turning point for the entire campaign.’

  ‘We intend to find out,’ said Numitor, ‘but we need as many capable psykers as we can muster.’

  ‘Then you had better meet my companions,’ said Vykola. ‘Remnants, castaways and scoundrels all, but currently the best Baleghast has to offer.’

  The primaris twirled on her heel, extending a finely manicured hand towards the strange individuals behind her.

  ‘My fellow biomancer first,’ she said, her tarot card shifting to portray a mannequin-like shaperdoll. She motioned to a waif-like female, curled in on herself, shaking and wide-eyed in a uniform too large for her. Stringy strands of ectoplasm waved around her bald head like the mane of a gorgos from one of Macragge’s ancient mosaics. ‘This is Darrapor,’ said Vykola, lowering her voice conspiratorially. ‘A little afraid of her own power, as so many of our kind are.’ She looked back at the cowering psyker with a beaming smile. ‘But we get the best out of her when it counts, don’t we, dear?’

  The young girl grinned nervously. Thin, waving worms of psychic by-product emerged from the gaps in her teeth. Numitor grimaced, glad his expression was hidden behind his helm.

  ‘Where are Ghurst and Godnis?’ asked Malagrea, ‘I can’t feel their presence.’

  ‘They didn’t make it,’ said Vykola sadly, her ringmaster’s flamboyance replaced with sombre resentment. ‘In fact, they died badly. I will not speak of the matter here.’

  Malagrea bowed her head.

  ‘The other two are pyromancers, I’m afraid,’ sighed Vykola. The tarot card on her forehead became the burning citadel of Infernal Destruction. ‘Unsubtle, but extremely effective.’ She motioned to a spent strike-match of a man, almost drowning in his greatcoat. ‘Cobliaze,’ she said, ‘summoner of dark fires. Burns twice as bright, but half as long.’ Cobliaze nodded in solemn acknowledgement, his eyes sad and old within sunken sockets.

  ‘And this is Mannis.’

  A young redhead with pale eyebrows and milk-white skin stepped forward, nodding in greeting. He held out a hand towards Numitor, grinning as psychic fire drizzled in streams from his fingertips.

  Numitor just gazed down at the psyker, impassive and unmoving as a statue. Next to him, Sicarius turned his head and spat at a bent pipeline that jutted over the aegis line perimeter. The saliva hit the weakest point, its acidic constituents fizzling as it burnt through the weakened alloy. A second later the top half of the pipe hinged down with a loud creak to crunch into the ground half a metre from Mannis’ feet. The sanctioned psyker scrabbled
backward to rejoin his fellows, the rest of them enjoying a smirk at his expense.

  Lord Commissar Duggan, his attention diverted from the Baleghast Castellans, walked slowly behind the trio of sanctioned psykers. He stared at the backs of their heads with such intensity it was as if he was peering into their souls – or choosing where to put a bolt round should one of their number stray from the sufferances of the Commissariat.

  There was a low purr from above, and Numitor saw the distinctive T-shape of a tau fighter pass high overhead, far out of combat altitude.

  ‘Spotter craft,’ he said grimly, pointing upwards. ‘Not a good sign.’

  Duggan was already running. ‘Get those birds up there and take it down! Icarus fire, weapons free! Snap to it!’

  The pilot of the black-hulled Valkyrie carrier was leaning from his cockpit, engaged in a debrief with a Navy attaché. He gave a salute and slid back in, the engines starting up with a coughing roar. Behind the craft, the pilots and gunners of the two Vendettas scrambled to their own aircraft, jamming on their flight helms before bounding up the ladders that led to their cockpits.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Numitor. ‘Lord Duggan, the tau are fond of traps. If this is bait, we could be wasting our only…’

  The roar of anti-aircraft guns from a nearby bastion snatched his words away, a thunderous brakk-brakk-brakk of quad autocannons sending shells high after the tau craft. Tracer fire stitched the skies, but the xenos spotter was already out of range.

  With a lurch the black Valkyrie lifted straight up, the howl of its engines rising as it took off after the spotter craft. Within seconds the Vendettas had followed suit, blasting upwards from their rudimentary airstrip to fall into line behind the Valkyrie. Ruby lasers spat from their prow-mounted guns, two striking the tau aircraft just as it disappeared over the roofs of the domed buildings. Numitor could just make out the tiny disc of a black drone detaching from the wingtip of the spotter craft and flying to safety as the rest went down in flames.