by Paul Kearney
‘It shall be so. I shall send word to all ships. The Spatha and the Mutatis Mutandis have signalled that they will comply with your directives in obedience to the orders of their principals.’
‘Geller field at ninety two per cent of minimal Imperium standard,’ the augur officer called out. ‘Estimated time until maximum field now three minutes seven seconds.’
‘All Thunderhawks clear of the artefact by eight thousand miles and closing on us – the first will dock in two and a half minutes,’ the operations officer said.
It would be close – very close. Tigurius could feel the thrumming nearness of it, the immaterium drawn ever closer to the bulk of Fury, like a cloud dark with rain about to vent a deluge. The Ruinous Powers had their tendrils in the stuff of the hulk now, reaching out to cradle it, to drag it into their nauseating embrace. He could sense the strength of that dragging, enfolding blackness as it swept ever nearer. This would be a massive translation with enormous power behind it, not just that of a normal warp engine, but with the sorcerous might of unseen and unknown entities adding to the build-up. It would snap into real space with the force of a boulder dropped in a shallow puddle. If the fleet were not well clear soon, they would be caught up in that massive impact, sent spiralling out through the void like leaves, and perhaps even become ensnared in the translation itself.
‘Lord Calgar,’ Tigurius said. The vox link was tenuous now, despite the relays, like trying to speak into a mounting gale.
‘I hear you.’
‘My lord, the translation will occur in the next few minutes.’
‘What of Ixion and Seventh?’
‘They are clear, Chapter Master. They will be back on board the Octavius imminently.’
‘Will you be able to track us in any way, Tigurius?’
‘I will be able to sense your psychic signature for some time – it leaves a trail, like a faint wake, which can be sensed even after you have entered the warp. But it will dissipate quickly. And my lord, I feel that this is going to be a long translation. You may be in the warp for an indeterminate amount of time, and there is no telling where you will emerge.’
‘If we ever do,’ Calgar said, with a bitter laugh. ‘It would seem, Tigurius, that myself and Fifth are about to follow in the footsteps of our lost brethren of the Abyssal Crusade. Rest assured that we shall fight to the end, and if there is ever any way we can relate our situation, our location to you, it shall be done.’
‘I know that, my lord.’ Tigurius bowed in grief over the outspread wings of the aquila pulpit before him. His gauntlets grasped the adamantium until they creaked.
‘And the Ultramarines will never stop searching for you, no matter how long it takes.’
‘In my absence, you will command the fleet. Make sure Iax is safe, and the system is clean. Then proceed to Macragge. Command of the chapter will devolve to Brother Captain Agemman. Counsel him as you have counselled me, and the Chapter will continue to prosper.’
‘Geller field now at one hundred per cent Imperium minimum,’ the voice came down the nave.
‘All Thunderhawks aboard. Launch bays closing.’
Shipmaster Sulla called out in a voice of brass. ‘Afterburners, forward retros. Swing her larboard ninety degrees and then kick in all aft engines. Signal to the fleet – all vessels to make best speed clear of the artefact, fifty thousand miles minimum clearance, immediate execution.’
‘All ships responding, implementing now.’
The tenor of the hum in the nave picked up an octave as the massive sub-warp engines bellowed into life, and all along the immense length of the battle-barge the retros fired, the ship trembling slightly as they shunted her bow away from the hulk and the enormous afterburners in her stern lit up and began to glow like miniature suns. Tigurius felt the thrumming power of the manoeuvre through his hands and feet as he stood there at the aquila pulpit, grasping its shining pinions. Shards and darts of blackness seemed to come lancing into his psyche, like striking snakes; the outlying threads of the encroaching warp. He fended them off, his hood shining with sapphire light.
‘It comes, my lord. May the Emperor guide and protect you–’
Even here, high above the engine compartments, he could hear the savage roar through the towering superstructure of the Octavius as the shipmaster slammed the ship into full bellowing power, her stern facing the hulk now, the flames from her engines flaring out over a mile into space before the vacuum consumed their light.
‘And you, my brother,’ Marneus Calgar replied. ‘Courage and honour.’
‘Courage and honour.’
And then, as the fleet streaked away from Fury, the hulk was enveloped in a vast silver and sable skein of thrashing light, a wicked, beating, pulsing envelope which was nothing to do with the real, rational universe. It grew and expanded, a red glow permeating it, a sickening throb of blood-like warp-plasma. Tigurius watched on the vid-screens of the nave, the entire crew of the bridge silent around him, as Fury lit up like a bloody star, threads and skeins of carmine light spearing out of it for thousands of miles into space.
And then in the next instant, the hulk had disappeared. And where it had been there was only the sickly smeared shimmer of decaying energy, red and silver, consuming itself in the blackness, the stars of Ultramar shining untouched and bright beyond.
Fury had gone. And with it, an entire company of Ultramarines, and the Chapter Master himself.
II
Ocularis Terrorem
Thirteen
The agony of the shift was as intense as any Calgar had ever known, and he was no psyker. For those among the expedition who possessed such powers it was worse.
Inquisitor Drake fell to his knees, and in his pain and delirium he sought to tear his helm from his head. Calgar stopped him, pinning him with one hand, and scanned the rest of the column through the haze of nausea that enveloped his own mind. He fought clear of it, saw some of the inquisitor’s men topple unconscious.
Two of the Adeptus Mechanicus skitarii tore at their own faces with flailing mechadendrites, ripping decayed flesh and metal mouth-grilles free of their bodies as if in an effort to breathe, tearing their scarlet robes to shreds. Further up the column, Calgar heard a bitten-off shout of agony from Brother Librarian Ulfius of Fifth, the psyker fighting to confront the lowering forces of the warp which now enveloped them and permeated every atom of the hulk.
It was a massive translation, a shift so brutal that even the Ultramarines staggered where they stood. Beside Calgar, his two honour guards, Brothers Ohtar and Morent, leaned on the haft of their power axes, and Calgar heard Morent mutter a strangled curse. For several minutes, they were all paralysed, hanging in the gap between real space and the howling depths of the immaterium, like men poised on a cliff edge with the precipice yawning up at them. And then they plunged.
They were engulfed by it, that swirling miasma of proto-plasma which lay behind the normal reality of the universe. Fury plummeted into its depths like a dark star bent on obliteration, and around it an entire other universe loomed up. They were in its currents now, and could feel it, a maelstrom of madness which lay gibbering in every shadow.
But the Geller field was holding. Gravity, which had flickered for several microseconds, was now stabilised. The looming catastrophe of madness that hovered over them receded somewhat. It was still there, like a hound baying behind a closed door, but it was being held off for now.
Something like a kind of normality returned, and the tunnel which Fifth Company was spread through seemed to resume rational dimension again. For a few seconds it had stretched out for miles in shapes and curves that belied all rational analysis, full of roaring noise. Now it was a dark tunnel once more, something that bore their feet, where up was up and down was down. Calgar could still feel the currents of the warp moving through it as the hulk wheeled through the immaterium. They were travelling fast, and now al
l time was meaningless; there was only the present, and the immediate responsibilities.
‘Captain Galenus?’
‘My lord?’
‘Status report from all squads. Apothecary Philo is to personally examine every battle-brother. When that is done, he will do the same for the inquisitor and his entourage. Brother Ulfius, on me. Brother Starn, do you read?’
The veteran sounded as calm and clear-headed as though he were on an exercise.
‘Starn here, Chapter Master. My brethren have secured a crossway two hundred yards ahead of the main body. Nothing to report. All systems nominal.’
It made Calgar grin within his helm to hear the insouciant, clipped tones of the First Company veteran, as though nothing had happened.
‘Hold firm there, brother. We will regroup to your rear.’
‘Acknowledged.’
‘I think you can let me up now, my lord,’ Inquisitor Drake said hoarsely. Calgar’s mighty fist was still pinning him to the ground. The Chapter Master straightened; the knuckles of the Gauntlets of Ultramar had left a welt of shallow indentations in Drake’s breastplate.
‘I thought you would do yourself an injury,’ he said to the inquisitor with sardonic humour.
‘For a moment there I thought I would myself. Thank you, my lord.’
‘You had best see to your men.’
Calgar strode up and down the line. The Ultramarines were unfazed, ready to carry on, but others were not so hardy.
‘Magos Fane?’ Calgar sent out on the vox.
‘Here, my lord.’ The magos sounded shaken, but whole. Calgar saw that the tech-priest was crouching over the fallen form of one of his acolytes, removing components from the body.
‘Casualties?’
‘Two of my party succumbed to the madness of the initial warp onset. They are gone to the peace of the Omnissiah.’ The magos shook his cowled head slowly. ‘Never have I known such a fast and savage translation. The power it would require, to bring it on so swiftly–’
‘We’ll think on that later. We must move on. And magos – I want you to contact your missing team at once.’
‘It shall be so,’ the magos said. He paused a moment and then said, ‘The machine-spirits within the hulk are many and varied, Chapter Master. They have come to life all around us. There is a cloud of code coursing through the artefact now, signals which I cannot decipher without risking infection. My techsorcist, Adjunct-six, is incanting the proper warding rituals as I speak. I shall join him in an Incantation of the Iron Soul presently.’
Calgar cared little for the rituals of the Adeptus Mechanicus at present. He had too many other concerns, unanswered questions, possible strategies. They all vied for consideration in his mind.
‘Anything you discover as to how and why this warp translation occurred will be invaluable, magos,’ Calgar said shortly. ‘Whatever designs you had for the lost tech aboard this thing are now null. That mission is over. Now we must all work together if we are to survive. I trust I make myself clear.’ There was no mistaking the iron in Calgar’s tone.
‘Perfectly clear, Chapter Master.’
Brother Ulfius made his way down the column, his hood a flare of cobalt light above his helm. ‘My lord.’
‘Are you all right, brother?’
‘I was– I was momentarily taken aback by the violence of the translation – I was unprepared. It shall not happen again.’ Ulfius was a veteran of the company. He sounded ashamed of his momentary weakness.
‘See that it does not. Do all you can to pierce the dark which enfolds us. I have a schematic of the hulk’s upper levels, and I intend to proceed with our plan. We shall go deeper, find out where the control areas are, and take them by storm if necessary. Somewhere in this structure there is the equivalent of a bridge or enginarium, where this translation was triggered. I want you to point us at it. Finding it may be our only chance of ever seeing Macragge again.’
Ulfius touched his helm. ‘There are life signs before and under us, my lord, very many of them, scattered throughout the hulk. Their psychic signatures flared up in the wake of the translation. There are several areas which are well-nigh flooded with them.’
‘Numbers?’
‘Hundreds immediately below us. Thousands above.’
‘As well we are not trying to ascend then,’ Calgar said grimly. ‘It would seem that Seventh Company drew off some of the enemy at least. If they start to converge on our location, I want advance warning.’
‘My lord, I cannot be entirely precise–’
‘Then make an educated guess,’ Calgar said levelly. His tone silenced the Librarian. He called up Galenus on the vox. ‘Captain, you will lead the column to join with brother Starn in the vanguard. We are too strung out. Find a more compact space where we can lay up and take stock. It may be we will have to send out scouting parties from the main body. I must have information, captain. Status reports every ten minutes.’
‘Acknowledged,’ Galenus said. He sounded somewhat relieved to be given concrete orders to follow. He was supremely comfortable with squad tactics – there were few better in the Chapter at the coordination of small bodies of Adeptus Astartes.
‘And tell your senior sergeant, Brother Greynius, I want a full ammo count in the next half-hour. From here on in we are on our own. Not a round must be wasted.’
‘Aye, sir.’
Inquisitor Drake had stood watching all this time. He was covered in dust, his armour scratched and dented. ‘By your leave, Chapter Master, I believe I should go back and help the magos regain contact with his missing personnel.’
‘Negative,’ Calgar told him, towering before the diminutive figure like an armoured statue. ‘If they cannot be contacted on vox then we will have to leave them be for the moment. Until we can regroup in a more tactically tenable location, the main body of the expedition must remain together. Once we have set up a base of operations, we will send out parties to reconnoitre the surrounding passageways and chambers, circumstances permitting. At that time, you may help the magos all you want, Drake – if he will indeed accept your help.’
The inquisitor stood silent a moment, and finally said, ‘Very well. There is something in what you say.’
‘Have you psykers with you?’
‘I have one. It would appear he is indisposed.’ Drake gestured to a body on the ground amid his other followers.
‘Get him up. His kind and yours may prove vital to us in the time to come.’ Calgar felt a great, angry energy rise up in him, his adrenal glands flooding his limbs with much needed vigour. The warp translation had been draining; he shrugged off the weariness it had engendered, ignored the spiking pain in his skull and the rolling disgust of his innards. He felt the keen blade of new life surge through him as his superlative armour sent injected stimulants racing through his system.
‘Galenus, lead off. All units, move out. Load the dead and injured on the grav-sleds. We must get clear of these passageways. Brother Starn, move out from the crossway at your own pace. By my reckoning the terrain should slope down to your left. Follow it, and mark each crossroads with flares. We will join you presently.’
He called up the schematic that Magos Fane had uncovered earlier. Incomplete, overwritten and fragmentary, it was nevertheless a guide of sorts, and racing over it his mind mapped out a path which would take the expedition below their current level to a substratum of more open passageways and compartments that seemed as though they might be less ruinous than this.
‘Techmarine Salvator, you will move up and join Brother Starn. I want detailed analysis of the way ahead, composition, alignment and stability. Let us not fall into any more holes, brothers. We are in a deep enough one already.’
The Ultramarines rose from their firing positions and began to move out. Straggling over several hundred yards, the column began to advance once more, all the while fighting the
rush and whirl of the warpstream that coursed around them, infiltrating every corner of the hulk, singing madly in their blood, whispering nightmares in their ears.
The mission had changed indeed. The mission had now been ground down to mere survival.
They travelled perhaps a mile in a straight line, though they walked twice that, and they descended some thousand feet before Brother Starn halted the column and called Calgar forward.
The Chapter Master stalked along the line accompanied by Drake and his honour guards, and found the quartet of Terminators deployed around an enormous gateway which reared up hundreds of feet before them in the darkness like the frontage of a cathedral. Heavily ornate, but much broken, it was decorated with gothic ornamentation, smashed statuary and reams of deeply incised runes. This was genuine stone, not plasteel or ferrocrete; the gateway’s massive blocks had been quarried out of the guts of a planet.
‘I can analyse this material,’ Drake said, examining a fragment in one hand, his stablights playing on it. ‘I will not be able to narrow it down completely, but there are one or two of my retainers who can probably tell what sector it is from, given a little time.’
‘Right now, I would settle for knowing what Segmentum it hails from,’ Calgar said, staring up at the spectacle.
Beyond the gateway the space yawned out in a great womb of darkness. It smelled cleaner, and there were air currents moving through it. The ecology of the hulk was a baffling mystery; it had atmospheric anomalies which seemed to make no sense. After the moist warmth of the tunnels, Calgar registered a dramatic drop in temperature ahead; there were ice crystals floating through the gateway, which turned to droplets of liquid and trickled down the shining magnificence of his artificer battleplate. He was about to order Brother Starn’s Terminators through the arch to scout the ground beyond the gateway, but thought better of it. The Terminators had been in the vanguard for long enough.
‘Captain Galenus, send half of a line squad forward to scout out the area beyond the gateway. They will use maximum caution, and remain in close vox contact at all times. Execute at once.’