by Paul Kearney
‘Could it affect the Rex?’ Galenus asked Remion instantly.
The shipmaster shook his head. ‘We are a large vessel, captain, well-powered and forewarned. We should have no difficulty in standing clear. The Iax patrol craft was too small and too weak – and it got too close. It was drawn in to crash-land on the surface, like many before it.’
‘Some of the wrecks I can make out – they are of Imperial design, but on ancient lines,’ Brother Sergeant Greynius said. ‘I would swear I can see a Dauntless there, back broken, but recognisable. And others that seem like something out of a history slate.’
‘The wrecks closest to the surface will be the most recent,’ Brother Salvator told him. ‘But close to the core of the hulk, they could be of immemorial age.’ The Techmarine turned to Galenus.
‘Captain, this hulk is highly dangerous, but at the same time, it could be an immense opportunity.’
‘For what?’ Galenus asked Brother Salvator, although he knew. ‘Archaeology?’
‘Of a sort. The hulk almost certainly houses technological relics from another millennium. So much has been lost over the centuries, so much of what mankind once knew.’ Salvator looked back at the screen, the slowly turning hulk broadcasting bands of colour across his pale face. ‘Some of what was lost may be aboard that thing, hidden in the shadows. We cannot ignore this possibility. At the very least, the Adeptus Mechanicus should be informed.’
‘This is an Ultramarines matter, not for your friends the tech-priests of Mars,’ Murtorius snapped balefully. ‘You forget yourself, brother.’
‘With respect, Brother Chaplain, I don’t believe I do,’ the Techmarine answered, unchastened. ‘Captain, at least relay the latest augur scans to Macragge. Let Lord Calgar decide. This is too great a decision for even a company captain to make on his own.’
Galenus felt his own pride flaring into anger at Salvator’s presumption, but he knew the Techmarine was right.
They were all looking at him, all those peerless warriors. The decision was his to make, but he did not want to overstep his authority. Nor did he want simply to pass a decision up the chain of command, to abdicate his own role in events. That was not how the commander of Fifth should behave, even one who had been in place barely a year.
It will come to me in time, I suppose, he thought.
How much easier it was simply to lead his brothers in open battle. Battlefields were something he understood. This was... complicated. And his brethren waited still in the launch bays, ready for his word.
‘I will send this information to Macragge and ask for the instructions of Lord Calgar,’ he said at last. ‘But we will not simply sit out here staring at this thing. I must have more data on what we face. We will attempt a void insertion, a single squad to make an initial reconnaissance. Brother Starn of First Company will lead, along with three of his veterans. Brother Sergeant Greynius, you will stand by with two more line squads as a quick-reaction force. The Rex Aeterna will move up to full battle readiness.’
He felt Brother Salvator’s eyes on him – the Techmarine badly wanted to go along, but he had been indulged quite enough for now. Galenus ignored his silent entreaty, and turned to Greynius. ‘Set it in train, brother. As soon as Starn is prepped, he may proceed on his own initiative. He is to be escorted by two gunships, and all pilots are to be made aware of the gravitic anomalies they may encounter closer to the hulk. That is all.’
Brother Greynius clashed his armoured fist against the aquila on his breastplate in salute and then turned and strode off the bridge. The war klaxon began to sound throughout the immense compartment, and the human personnel of the cruiser dashed around them, taking up battle stations. Galenus tapped the hilt of his sword absently. The orders had been given. Now he would have to live with their consequences.
The three Thunderhawks swooped down across the surface of the hulk, the flight in an arrow formation with the two gunships on the wings. The lead pilot, Brother Odyr of the Thunderhawk Penitent spoke to his wingmen in a low, conversational tone.
‘Ease it up now, brothers. Turbulence here – gravitics are unstable.’ The Thunderhawk lurched, and for a moment the blunt nose of the craft was dragged down towards the hulk. Brother Odyr pulled on the yoke, lifting the Thunderhawk, and spoke up for the benefit of those listening back on the Rex.
‘Captain, we have wells of gravity at irregular intervals. It would seem that some of the grav generators on the wrecks are still running and are exposed to the void. It is akin to flying through heavy atmospheric turbulence but I am compensating. All systems are nominal, and auspex is coming up empty. The Arnaeus crew which went down here must be dead. I see no life signs anywhere. Will finish sweep of insertion point in three minutes.’
‘Affirmed,’ came back Captain Galenus’ voice. ‘If the landing zone is cleared to your satisfaction you may commence with insertion. Brother Starn, are you ready?’
The reply came echoing from the spacious hold of the Penitent. ‘My brethren grow impatient, Galenus. Give us somewhere to plant our feet and let us be at it.’
On the bridge of the Rex Aeterna, Galenus smiled. He and Brother Starn had been sergeants together for many years, and had fought side by side times beyond count. There was no Ultramarine he trusted more. Starn was a man of few words, the summit of his ambition to wear the Crux Terminatus in the hallowed ranks of First Company. Now that he was part of that august band of warriors, he had no wish to be anywhere else.
Brother Odyr spoke again. ‘Setting down in three… two… one. Captain, this is Penitent on the surface. We are four hundred yards on a bearing of one twenty from the Arnaeus crash-site. Opening bay doors.’
‘We are feet down,’ Brother Starn came back a few moments later. ‘Squad is out. Take her up, Odyr.’
‘Penitent lifting off. Good hunting, my brothers. We will maintain geosynchronous overwatch. Throne – that’s rough. Brother, give me more power. This damn thing wants to suck us down.’
Galenus listened silently along with the rest of the company senior officers on the bridge of the Rex. No one spoke.
‘Penitent away clear,’ Odyr came back on the vox. ‘Turbulence is surprisingly strong. Heavy gravitic interference. My readings are of a thin atmosphere, mostly methane and ammonia. Heavy metal contaminants, and radioactive trace elements. The surface of the hulk is pure poison, captain. It may also be corrosive.’
Brother Starn’s voice sounded out, distorted but perfectly intelligible. ‘Acknowledged, brother. Nothing we cannot handle. Reminds me of a fine day on Parrenon. Only without the acid rain. Auspex calibrated. Heading on a bearing of two-four-zero from insertion.’
Galenus watched the progress of the Terminator squad from his position by the pulpit, a vid-stream coming through from Brother Starn. The First Company veterans were armed with storm bolters and power fists. They made slow progress, battering aside thickets of wreckage as though they were thrashing their way through a metallic jungle. He saw the energy readouts on their suits rise as they utilised their fists to create a passage through the chaotic junkyard that was the surface of the hulk.
Brother Starn grunted over the vox. ‘Ceramite, plasteel, ferrocrete. Captain, these are definitely of Imperium origin… One moment.’ There was a pause, and up at the head of the nave the vid-feed steadied. ‘Are you getting this?’
A blurred grey image, which steadied after a few seconds, though it was still bisected by lines of interference. Galenus could make out a familiar shape. Below him, Chaplain Murtorius peered up and tapped the butt of his crozius emphatically against the deck of the Rex. ‘That’s an Imperial aquila, or I know nothing.’
The two-headed eagle of the Imperium of Man, stencilled onto a broken piece of plating. Starn kicked it aside. The vid-feed scrambled again as he continued on his way.
‘Electromagnetic interference is intense,’ Brother Salvator said. ‘I am reading weak energy fl
ashes all over the surface of the hulk. Some ship drives are leaking radiation and the gravitics are slowing its dispersal into the void. It is like a post-atomic wasteland down there. It should not constitute a problem for Tactical Dreadnought armour, however – or for standard power armour.’
‘I am relieved to hear it,’ Galenus said dryly. The Techmarine seemed wholly absorbed by his readouts, and he fairly radiated impatience. Clearly, he wanted nothing more than to be down there with Starn’s squad. But he kept his tone professional as always. He may have spent thirty years on Mars, but in the last analysis, Salvator was an Ultramarine.
‘At the crash-site now. Investigating,’ Brother Starn said.
‘They came down hard.’ Galenus heard the veteran suck air in over his teeth. ‘The crew are still in their seats. No survivors. There has been no interference with the wreck that I can see.
‘May they know the Emperor’s Peace.’
The Company Librarian, Brother Ulfius, spoke up. ‘Brother Starn, look for a means to enter the hulk, or to go deeper at least. The surface is dead. We can expect to find nothing of interest unless we go below the uppermost stratum of wreckage.’
‘Acknowledged, brother. We will do as you suggest. The wreckage seems fairly stable in this area. There are holes everywhere, but none nearby that are big enough to admit a Terminator. There is a large spire of wreckage half a mile away, bearing one five five from this location. It appears to be more or less intact. We will try there. Setting out now.’
The four Ultramarines Terminators began heading what might be called south east, picking their way through the carcasses of broken voidcraft. Once they halted, and the vid-feed caught a strangely familiar outline.
‘That’s a Stormbird, I think,’ Brother Salvator murmured.
‘The Imperium has not used such craft in centuries,’ Galenus said, shaking his head.
‘Traitor Chapters have been known to keep such ancient Imperial craft in use,’ Brother Murtorius told them stonily. ‘Brother Starn, watch your step.’
‘I always do, Brother Chaplain,’ Starn said with mordant humour. And to his squad he said: ‘Weapons free, brothers. Consult your auspex.’
On the bridge of the Rex Aeterna, Captain Galenus resisted the urge to stride up and down, to vent some of the impatience that was bubbling up in him. He settled for inspecting each of the various technical stations along the nave, absorbing the information being relayed by each one in a matter of seconds. He stopped at the astropath’s cubicle, and Brandon Clemente, the psyker inside the featureless room, made the sign of the aquila as soon as he realised the Space Marine captain was looking in on him. The astropath’s face was half-hidden in the hood of his green robe, but Galenus caught a pale glint of his blind milk-grey eyes.
‘Be ready to respond at once to any request by Brother Starn for teleportation off the hulk,’ he told Clemente. ‘It may come at any time. He is under orders not to risk his squad.’
The astropath raised his head. ‘Captain, I am ever watchful, and my brethren in the Choir stand by to augment my powers, down in the Relay.’
Galenus nodded. How he hated this. Sending his brothers on a mission that once he would gladly have undertaken himself. This was one of the aspects of the captaincy he had yet to become accustomed to.
He climbed the steps of the great dais at the end of the nave, above which the vid-screens and data banks flickered like the stained-glass windows in a cathedral of Old Earth. Here, there were fewer servitors, and more human fleet personnel, and the shipmaster, Remion, bowed slightly as Galenus joined them.
‘The void is clear, captain,’ Remion said. ‘I have rerouted a grain convoy bound out of Iax which would have come through this area, and First Landing now has orders to quarantine the entire grid with their Arnaeus squadrons.’
Galenus said nothing. He looked up at the vid-feed from Brother Starn. It was fizzing and whiting out every so often, a grey lightning-split storm of static. He could not account for the great and mounting unease that was troubling him. He felt a sudden urge to recall the First Company veterans, to stand off and order in cyclonics from Calth – to eradicate this monstrosity from the realm of Ultramar, as Chaplain Murtorius had advised. As a sergeant in a line company, that would have been his instinct. As commander of that company, he knew that there were other things at stake, larger issues, complications.
Master of the Marches he might be, but he had not yet been truly tested in that role. He did not intend to lash out blindly, no matter his own misgivings.
Throne, guide me, he thought, unsettled and irritated by the unaccustomed presence of doubt in his thinking.
But his face remained serene, implacable, stern as that of a statue in the Temple of Hera. No one watching him would have thought for an instant that there was any doubt in his mind at all.
Brother Starn’s voice came over the vox again, echoing the length of the nave. ‘We are at the spire. It seems to be the prow of an ancient warship, embedded stern first in the surface of the hulk. If I had to make a guess I would say that it is Sword-class, a frigate of Mars manufacture. Definitely from the Imperial Navy, but of indeterminate age. There are large apertures in the base of the prow. I intend to enter there. Captain, should we need to teleport out, this is the rendezvous point. Do you acknowledge?’
‘I hear you, brother. We will keep the waypoint under surveillance,’ Galenus said.
The four Ultramarines disappeared one by one into the wreck, which towered like a lopsided sheer mountain over the surface of the hulk. As they did, their signals weakened. The vid-stream cut off, and static roared out grey and loud from the bridge vox, interspersed with a phrase here and there.
‘–hollowed out, as though there has been salvage work done here,’ brother Starn’s voice stuttered through the interference.
‘There are signs of machine–’
‘–auspex is down–’
‘–going deeper. Leading down. I shall–’
Then there was just the grizzling grey static.
‘We need a vox relay on the surface to boost the signal,’ Galenus said. He switched to the company vox and called up the rune for the veteran banner bearer Brother Ameronn.
‘Brother, board a full squad. Take a Thunderhawk and set up a vox relay on the surface, fifty yards from the waypoint I am relaying to you now.’ He called up the teleportation rendezvous that Brother Starn had made.
‘Brother Salvator will join you.’ He blinked, and the neural relays implanted in his skull and in his right eye came up with their runes and protocols. Salvator’s rune flashed acknowledgement and the Techmarine left the bridge for the launch bays without a word.
‘It shall be so, captain,’ Ameronn replied. The veteran Ultramarine’s rune flashed twice as he acknowledged the order.
‘Shipmaster,’ Galenus said to Remion, ‘clear Thunderhawk Victris for immediate launch.’
‘Launch clear in three and a half minutes, captain,’ Remion said formally.
The fourth of the Rex Aeterna’s nine Thunderhawks blasted free of the strike cruiser soon after, and powered towards the surface of the hulk. The Penitent, Sinbreaker and Carenus maintained overwatch as it landed and Ameronn’s Ultramarines deployed. Then the Victris took off again and joined the rest of the flight.
‘Squad in place,’ Brother Ameronn’s voice cut through the static. ‘Brother Salvator is setting up the relay now.’
‘Are you in contact with Brother Starn?’ Galenus asked the banner bearer.
‘Negative, captain. But interference is playing havoc with vox down here. It should improve once the relay is operational. I will try again in four minutes.’
There were now sixteen Adeptus Astartes down on the hulk, four of whom were out of communication. It was not a situation that Galenus liked, but as yet there had been no sign that their presence had been registered by whatever intelligence Br
other Ulfius had surmised was hibernating aboard the structure.
There was just that feeling in his gut; that they had all to tread very carefully here, for something slept below them. Something it would be better not to wake.
Four
One did not interrupt the Chapter Master of the Ultramarines when he was at prayer. Especially when he was kneeling before the shrine of his primarch in the Temple of Correction.
Librarian Tigurius stood near the great closed portals of the temple, and let the quiet serenity of the immense space above him calm his soul. The great glass dome of the temple reared up to an impossible height above his head, and enclosed a space so great that clouds had been known to form within it when it became crowded at times of pilgrimage. It would then rain on the tens of thousands of marvelling pilgrims below – The Tears of the Emperor, they called the phenomenon, the Lord of Mankind weeping for His fallen son.
Yet now it was empty but for the shimmering shrine of Roboute Guilliman, and the figure, small with distance, that knelt in unadorned blue robes before it.
Tigurius turned and read over some of the names that had been chiselled into the walls of the temple. He saw many there he recognised out of the thousands that ran in lines between the pillars.
The Ultramarines dead, immortalised here all around their fallen leader.
One day his own name would join them, and he would be part of a long and noble history that stretched unbroken back into the unimaginably distant past, when the Emperor Himself had walked among normal men, and had led in person the Adeptus Astartes who were His creation. Before the shadow fell.
The distant shape of Marneus Augustus Calgar finally rose to its feet, and the Chapter Master bowed to the mortal remains of his great forbear. Then he turned and began walking back to the main doors of the temple, which were ninety feet high, shining with adamantium and embossed with the sigil of the Ultramarines. They weighed many tonnes apiece, yet were so well poised on their noiseless hinges that an ordinary man might have pushed them open without breaking sweat.