by Unknown
That is why we have the rituals of maintenance. This is why all components are tested and replaced when they have been subjected to outparameter stresses.
There is no one to replace these Iron Hands. Not any more.
A third Thunderhawk is not currently flight capable. The deck around it is torn, the result of a hard landing. The gunship has been turned around, cradled by cranes, supporting it where its feet no longer could. From the right, missing landing claws aside, it appears fine less marked, even, than its brothers. As we pass, I turn my head to see the port engine and wing assembly missing. I silently salute the skill of the pilot who brought it in. I wonder if it can be salvaged at all.
Beyond the crippled gunship the other five landing bays are empty. With the Voluntas so crowded, the area has been temporarily rigged as a barracks. There are places for us to sleep. Many cots, and a work bench next to each one.
The Medusans are kin to us Salamanders in their love of mechanisms. Just as well, for not one of the legionaries I have seen has a fully functional set of wargear. It would take the few adepts on this ship years to repair it all.
E'nesh leads me to a repurposed administrative desk. I can see that it is intended for me, for my armour is there.
The plastron and left vambrace are neatly laid out on the work surface. The rest is upon an arming frame.
He is embarrassed. 'I am sorry that your battleplate is not within the armoury or martial chambers,' he says, 'but, as you will have guessed, there is no space.'
I run my hand over the breastplate. It has been polished free of carbon bloom. Deeper marks in the metal have been smoothed and prepared for repair. I look to E'nesh, and his eyes drop.
'Forgive me. I thought to make a start on your wargear while you were being seen to in the infirmary. I had only the night. It was the least I could do after...' His voice trails away. The firelight of his eyes has an odd colour to it.
I scratch around the regeneration unit bound to my arm. The wound was grave, nearly enough to necessitate amputation. I was lucky it did not. It will heal. My muscles itch maddeningly as the cells replicate. The shot might have come from E'nesh's own gun. My three comrades Go'sol, Jo'phor, and Hae'Phast are all dead. Two of them slain by our allies, after having survived so much.
If I believed in such things, I would say fate was cruel.
I would thank E'nesh for the work he has done on my armour. It is neat and precise. But I say nothing. The silence between us yawns, a gulf I cannot bridge.
'Well,' he says. 'I will see you. My cot is there. There were already half a dozen of us on the ship. We Salamanders are all berthed together.'
I nod, though I cannot smile to reassure him. It is not his fault, the deaths of our brothers. He turns away, unsuccessfully trying to conceal a shame that I know he will carry forever.
It is already killing him.
TIME PASSES, TIME I spend working on my armour. If this were the old days, when we travelled in glorious fleets that laid the galaxy at the Emperor's feet, I would junk half of what is here and request replacements from the armoury. That is no longer possible. Materials are in short supply. I am, however, given another helmet, as I lost mine shortly after the massacre. It is brought to me by Osk'mani, one of my six brothers here, while I work. The helmet is newly forged, dull metal. It is of an unfamiliar pattern and inferior manufacture to my original, but the armour is thick. Three additional layers, with lamination achieved through the use of molecular bonding studs.
Osk'mani feels the same way about it as I do. He rests a hand on my shoulder. 'It is all they can do, brother. The internal systems are poor things, but the thickness will provide additional protection against mass reactives. Be thankful the rest of your armour is salvageable.'
I set the helmet on the stand, looking at my work.
I wish I could work faster. My brothers are all armoured, at full battle readiness. I can finally wear my plastron and backplate. I have replaced the power cabling running over my plackart and repaired the interfacings at the chest and spine. Luckily, the circuitry required only minor repair, for the complexity of the machinery there is such that a full renewal would require the knowledge of a Techmarine or Mechanicum priest. I am merely an artisan.
My right arm is also finished. This I leave off so as not to hamper my work. But the fibre bundles of both legs need replacing; it is intricate work, but not beyond me. The rerebrace of my left arm assembly is beyond salvaging. My power plant is open. One of the cooling coils is black and friable to the touch. Osk'mani looks over my shoulder at it all, making a noise in his throat as if to say he would not wish to undertake this task himself. He leaves me alone.
I am still working on my armour six weeks later when we are hailed by other survivors, and we join them.
In the following week, still more come, joining a flotilla that hides itself in the raging photosphere of a dying red star.
COMMANDER SULNAR STRODE across the docking tube, his new legs clanging on the deck plates. He felt empowered, full of grim purpose. Commander Tayvaar strode beside him. Behind them came eight legionaries, four from each of their clancompanies. The commanders saluted the Avernii guarding the entry hatch to the other ship.
'Commander Ishmal Sulnar of Clan Sorrgol.'
'Commander Rab Tayvaar of Clan Vurgaan.'
The veterans inclined their heads, and shifted the bulk of their Terminatorarmoured bodies aside to open the way.
'Be welcome, Commander Sulnar, Commander Tayvaar.'
Representatives of four clans crowded the briefing room. Elements of twentytwo companies of the X Legion were present in the fugitive fleet, but together added up to little more than eight in actual fighting strength. A Raven Guard ship flew alongside them. There were also a demicompany's worth of Salamanders scattered across the various ships.
None of them, however, had been invited to the meeting.
Three Iron Fathers held the floor. Their leader, Frater Jukaar, addressed the lost sons of Ferrus Manus.
'There should be no hastily appointed leader,' he proclaimed. 'For the duration of this crisis, the Iron Fathers will advise each companylevel commanding officer individually. There will be a moot of all the clans called on Medusa, and there it will be decided who shall lead the Legion. Though not now, and not here. Not like this.'
'Why?' asked a grimfaced captain of Clan Ungavarr. 'There are warriors who are up to the task.'
A commander of Sorrgol stood and banged a bionic hand hard on his chestplate. 'I will not be dictated to by Ungavarr!'
'Nor I,' growled another.
'And that, Commander Uskleer, is precisely why our warriors are divided and scattered,' said Frater Grivak. 'To set one clan over another at a time like this will lead to dissension.'
'Or open conflict.' added Frater Vrayvuus.
'There is one who could reunite us,' came a voice from the back of the chamber. 'Shadrak Meduson!'
'Meduson? He acts without forethought and without guidance!' said an Ironwrought in Grivak's retinue.
'And yet I have heard that many already follow him,' Sulnar whispered to Tayvaar.
'Most of the clanfathers are gone,' said Jukaar, raising his staff. 'Only we Iron Fathers may now stand outside the Legion's structure, in accordance with the old laws of Medusa. Rashness doomed us. Listen to our wisdom. This is how Warleader Meduson would have the Iron Tenth prosecute this war.'
'Then what are we to do?' asked Tayvaar, speaking up for the first time. 'You bring us news of Meduson and others of our Legion. Where are they?'
'We do not know,' said Vrayvuus. 'Deliberately so.'
'This is the wisdom we bring,' said Grivak. 'All survivors of the Isstvan Massacre are to divide into splinter cells.
Battlebrothers from any Legion are welcome in our ranks, if they can prove their commitment to the cause. We cannot attack the traitors directly, but we can harry them. We shall spread ourselves far and wide, attacking their supply lines and depots, and bringing news of the treachery t
o whoever we can.'
Sulnar's hand involuntarily tightened. To be separated once more from his brothers would be too much. 'Frater, we have little strength in such small numbers,' he said. 'What can we do?'
'Ask yourself instead, Sulnar, what could we do all together? Our Legion is a fraction of its former strength. Much of the 52nd Expedition is lost, and the rest of us are scattered widely. If we all came together, in one place, we could still likely do nothing useful against the enemy's superior numbers.'
'We would instead present Horus with a single target,' said Grivak. 'We would be pursued, and annihilated.'
'Our father is dead do not let his legacy die too,' Vrayvuus urged them all. 'If you would follow Shadrak Meduson to war, then do it on his terms. You must fight for him, but not with him.'
Tayvaar agreed. 'There is sense in this plan. Separately, we are more agile, harder to pin down and attack. Spread out across a broad front, we will tie up as many of the enemy by forcing them onto their guard as we will by actually attacking them.'
'As it should be,' said Juraak. 'Our disposition will be examined and reordered. We will not expose the warriors under our command to the truth of our Legion's inherent weakness. It is a secret shame that we will not share.'
'And that weakness is what?'
'That our primarch was wrong.'
Silence fell, full of foreboding.
'Very well then,' said Sulnar, keen to break the moment. 'What is our first move?'
'This,' said Vrayvuus, producing a dataslate.
Sulnar took it, and frowned.
'A staging post?'
'An astropathic relay station, and Legion supply point. Thetaclass planetoid with attendant base units. At the time of sending, fiftythree fleet resupply vessels were there. We have coordinates. It was discovered by a small contingent of Clan Atraxii fleeing the battle at Isstvan.'
'Sending?' asked Uskleer. 'Have them return to us, and share their findings in person.'
'There are multiple command structures operating in parallel,' Grivak explained. 'It is taking time to gather intelligence upon all the disparate elements of our Legion. Not all of them are heeding our call Clan Atraxii are particularly intransigent. Iron Lord Hrottaavak openly defies Warleader Meduson, in fact.'
'But not this company?' asked Sulnar.
'Our brothers appear to see sense,' said Grivak.
Sulnar passed the slate on, and Tayvaar looked over the information. 'Is not the key in such asymmetrical warfare to keep each cell in ignorance of the actions of the other?'
'Yes,' said Frater Jukaar. 'And among those of us who chose to work with Meduson before we came to you, there is a prohibition on contact in all but the most exceptional circumstances.'
'Such division suits our temperament,' Uskleer murmured.
'And these are exceptional circumstances?' Tayvaar persisted.
'Lone elements reach out to the rest of the Legion, as though it were still whole. They too seek to slake their thirst for revenge. They cannot do this alone, or without guidance.'
Tayvaar nodded. 'The outpost is well defended by the Twentieth Legion.'
'Bombardment?' suggested Sulnar. 'We have the ships.'
'We can't waste those supplies on the ground,' said Uskleer. 'We should launch a full combat drop. Boots on the ground.'
Tayvaar smiled unpleasantly. 'And what if it is a trap?'
Grivak waved a hand dismissively. 'If it is, we will surprise them. We have sufficient numbers in this group to destroy them outright, and scatter any ambush. It is the wish of the Iron Fathers that we proceed to our brothers' aid, and turn any trap back upon the traitors. We have fought our way out from harder places.'
'The time for weakness is over,' said Juraak. 'We will charge into peril as our father did. They expect it. Let us run at them. Let them underestimate us, and we will turn it to our favour.'
MY ARMOUR IS almost repaired by the time we go into battle. All systems check out perfectly. I am pleased with my work. I have repainted most of the plates, but not my left shoulder. There, I must renew my Legion heraldry. I sit down in my new arming chamber several times to do this, but find that I cannot.
It is still incomplete, scorched by the betrayal of Isstvan, when we attack.
We come out from the warp like rage itself, right on top of our target without thought for safe distances, matter interlacing or proximity translation interference. The Iron Hands are eager to destroy the enemy, and will have the element of surprise at all costs. The bowwave of our emergence sends the tenders around the asteroid wallowing as space convulses about them. Several are caught in brutal temporal eddies and are torn into fragments.
The guns of the station are upon us quickly, tracking the Voluntas Ex Ferro, highrate macrocannons casting ultrahigh explosive rounds. They aim at where we will be. Our path and theirs intersect, void combat's geometry of destruction executed as expected. Explosions bloom all along the ventral facing of the ship. Void fields flicker with otherworldly energy.
They hold, and my brothers and I are away, the Voluntas falling up above us.
Our Thunderhawk the third I saw, somehow coaxed back to life hurtled at the station without restraint or caution. The surface of the station rushes up to us. Forty per cent of its mass is of human construction. The rest is rock into which the artificial components are embedded. A thin regolith of pulverised stone coats the surface, fine as lapping powder.
Our target is the astropathic relay. It arches up on a soaring buttress, fantastical architecture that would be impossible on a Terranstandard world. The gravity of the asteroid is negligible, but I feel it pull nonetheless, a growing heaviness as we approach.
Ships explode in the sky around us. This is the work of the Raven Guard, stealing ahead. Our commanders play to our strengths.
'Stand ready!' commands Chosen Vra'kesh. There are twenty of us now, brought together from all over the flotilla, and we have a leader in the Terminatorclad Vra'kesh of the Firedrakes. 'We will secure the relay station. Our primary target is this access port.'
The port flashes on our visor displays. We know it well. We have studied it and every battle possible contingency for the last three days.
'We will rendezvous with the Iron Hands of Clan Vurgaan,' says Vra'kesh. 'It is an honourable duty.'
There is tension amongst their clans. They hope, I am sure, that overtures from another Legion will be better received.
Ten of us bear breaching shields. These are loangifts from the Iron Hands. There has not been time to repaint them, and so we bear their emblem. Vra'kesh has a small shield of his own crafting, an ingenious device around which crackles a power field, its discharges as lively as lightning. In his right hand he bears a power maul in the shape of a roaring salamander's head. I smile to myself, and imagine the killers of our kin smashed down by it.
There is a determination to us. Vulkan told us to endure, and so we must. But there is a grim joy also. The newcomers to our group brought news...
The primarch's body was never found. He might live.
I am sure he does. I know it somehow. I feel it in my chest, a truth that warms both my hearts, like a growing fire in a forge left cold for too long.
The Thunderhawk touches down for a handful of heartbeats. The pilots blow open the assault ramp without venting the atmosphere, and we emerge rimed in voidfrozen gases. Our guns are firing before the ship takes off again, blasting the dust around us. Between the gas cloud and the debris, we are blind for crucial seconds.
'Lock shields!' calls Chosen Vra'kesh.
'Distance to primary target, thirty metres,' E'nesh reports.
Those of us in the first rank bring our shields up as the mess clears, carried off by momentum. We run in a shuffling gait, skating on the loose material cloaking the surface. To push down too hard here is to risk death. The gravity is so weak it would not hold a shove from powerarmoured legs. Our feet kick up more dust that moves outwards in strange burst patterns, unrestrained by atmosphere.
Threat indicators in my helm go wild. Seven of our traitorous kin are moving to engage.
I hold my shield in front of me and brace. Boltrounds burn at us, their propellant loads bright in the vacuum. They rattle across our front like hail, the noise of their impact and detonation conveyed to my ears through the metal. Their combined impetus threatens to knock us over. Osk'mani stumbles. I move my breaching shield to cover him a fraction, saving him from the next volley. The rounds batter against the plasteel. He offers no thanks as he rights himself.
Brothersinarms do not need thanks.
We return fire. The Alpha Legionnaires of the XX are arranged loosely, and we pick them off with concentrated fire.
Only one of ours falls. A good exchange.
Our formation tightens again, and we are at the door. It is plain plasteel, a modular design common across the Imperium. It is set at an angle into the ground. In less terrible times, I have visited many such places but I never thought that I would have to fight my way into one.
Chosen Vra'kesh pushes his way forward. Bolts spark from his heavy armour. They veer into space; some become embed and explode in the ground, others are caught and detonated by the energy field of his small shield. He has maglocked his power maul to his thigh, and in his other hand he hefts a melta bomb. He marches through a storm of bullets and slams it hard at the join in the centre of the doors. The rest of us form a semicircle around him as he sets the charge.
Battle rages across the surface of the planetoid. The Iron Hands fall upon the Alpha Legion with terrible savagery.
They ever were furious in battle, and the death of their primarch has made them more so. But where once the Iron Hands would have marched in step with us, their allies, now they run ahead, as careless as Angron's World Eaters.
I realise for all their grimness and rigid comportment, their Legion has changed. They fight here as if they do not care for their own losses, so long as they kill the enemy. Their lives have become meaningless. Their attack began in unity, but their vanguard is soon fragmented. They assault singly or in small groups. I see a wildness in them. They barely keep themselves in formation, and fight with unrestrained violence.