There Is Only War

by Various

  ‘Wretches! Sanguinius drink you dry,’ Nisroc opened fire, pulverising the nearest enemy with a hail of explosive rounds. There was no place in a Flesh Tearer’s mind for dismay. If he were trapped on Arere, then he would kill his enemies until death came to stop him. The Apothecary dived into cover, throwing himself against a metal container as a slew of bolt-rounds and melta-blasts tore towards him in retort. ‘I’m in the courtyard. The Stormraven’s gone.’ Nisroc’s voice was punctuated with rage as he voxed the update. Movement to the left drew his attention. He opened fire, suppressing a pair of Chaos Space Marines that were trying to encircle him.

  ‘Sanguinius’s blood. What now?’ Harahel snarled over the vox.

  Another torrent of rounds smashed into Nisroc’s cover, forcing him to crouch low as he reloaded his bolter. ‘We fight, we–’

  ‘I know a way,’ Amaru interrupted.

  ‘Explain…’ Nisroc trailed off. The enemy had stopped firing. On instinct, he subvocalised the Cretacian rune for haste to the rest of the squad.

  ‘Apothecary!’ The word rang out in a garbled roar, its syllables tortured by a voice unaccustomed to speech. ‘I will feast on your hearts and savour the seed of your brothers.’

  At the corner of his peripheral vision, Nisroc saw four more Chaos Space Marines, their weapons trained on him. He ground his teeth in frustration. His only option was to face the challenger.

  ‘Not while I draw breath!’ Nisroc drew his chainsword and stood to face his opponent. The Chaos Space Marine was a giant, taller even than Harahel, his bronzed armour covered in egg-shell cracks where it struggled to contain his warped bulk. ‘Tell me,’ Nisroc said in a low growl. ‘Whose blood shall my blade taste?’ The Apothecary activated his visual feed as he spoke, transmitting the locations of the Chaos Space Marines in the courtyard to the rest of the squad.

  ‘Krykhan, Fist of Khorne,’ the traitor growled as he launched himself at Nisroc.

  Amaru sprinted from the corridor firing, Maion close behind him. ‘Fall back to the missile silo.’ The Techmarine dropped to one knee to avoid a plasma round, the arms of his servo-harness whirring as they turned to return fire. The Chaos plasma gunner died in a heartbeat, dissected by the merciless cutting lasers.

  Maion ran past the Techmarine, Micos draped over his shoulders. It irked him to be unarmed, but he hadn’t the time to find a weapon. Bolt-rounds barked at his heels and churned up the dirt as he moved. He spat a curse, desperate for a chance to return fire. Angry runes flashed on his display as shell fragments spattered off of his legs. ‘Where?’

  ‘Back through the armoury.’ Amaru was forced to shout over the din of bolter fire. ‘The rearmost corridor.’

  Harahel felt Barbelo’s body jerk as bolt-rounds hammered into it. Growling, he took cover behind a shorn off section of the Stormraven’s wing. The orphaned appendage stood in the ground like a piece of industrial sculpture. A grenade exploded, showering Harahel in shrapnel. The noise reminded him of a Cretacian thunderstorm. Ahead, he saw Nisroc. The Apothecary was about to die. A massive warrior stood over the prone Flesh Tearer, his murderous intent obvious. Harahel growled, standing to throw his chainaxe into the Chaos Space Marine’s back. The towering warrior roared, pitching forwards under the force of the impact. ‘Get up and kill him,’ Harahel snarled at Nisroc.

  The Chaos Space Marine turned away from Nisroc, reaching for the axe in his back. The Apothecary summoned the last of his strength, shooting upwards to thrust his combat knife through his opponent’s neck. The Archenemy warrior’s body shuddered as his brain died. Nisroc caught the body before it could fall, pulling it around as a shield against the two Chaos Space Marines who immediately opened fire on him. He drew the dead warrior’s boltgun and put down his attackers with pinpoint shots. ‘Harahel, move! I’ll cover you.’

  Too late, Amaru realised a Chaos Space Marine had landed behind him. His servo-harness sparked violently, its arms falling limp as the Archenemy warrior sliced through its control fibres. Amaru hit the release clasp and rolled away, pivoting as he rose to face his enemy. He spun forwards, tearing Blood Cog down through his foe’s shoulder and ripping it from his ribcage.

  A round struck Maion’s pauldron as he cleared the threshold of the armoury. Another hit his abdomen. He fell, Micos toppling with him. He pushed himself onto all fours and tried to focus. Everything was faint, murky, as though he were a long way underwater. Pain forced a growl from his throat. His injuries were severe.

  ‘On your feet.’ Harahel grabbed Maion by his backpack and hoisted him up.

  ‘Micos…’

  ‘I have him.’ Harahel pushed Maion further into the armoury, stooping to gather up Micos.

  ‘Amaru, where now?’ Nisroc backed into the chamber, a boltgun barking in each hand.

  ‘Enter the third launch annex.’ Amaru pointed to the passageway leading from the rear of the armoury. ‘Go!’

  Debris dust drifted into the missile silo, bathing the Flesh Tearers in powdered rockcrete. Amaru had used the last of the melta-charges to bring the corridor down behind them, creating a barricade between them and the Archenemy. He hoped it would give them enough time.

  In the centre of the chamber stood a single, towering missile, its base disappearing down into the earth, its tip several stories above the control deck. A laddered gantry snaked around the missile, weaving between vines of cabling and fuel hoses to connect the deck with its upper reaches.

  ‘We don’t have long.’ Amaru pointed up towards the missile. ‘Quickly, into the nose.’

  ‘What?’ Maion stopped, unsure if he’d misheard the Techmarine.

  ‘It is a Mark-XV defence missile, the nose space is relatively empty.’ Amaru detached a plasma cutter from his pack and passed it to Maion. ‘Make entry with this and seal it once you’re inside.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I will remain here to ensure your withdrawal.’

  Maion made to speak, but the Techmarine held up a hand, ‘The missile will not launch itself.’

  The other Flesh Tearer nodded grimly and took the plasma cutter.

  Amaru grabbed Nisroc’s vambrace as he walked past. ‘Wait.’ He held his axe out to the Apothecary. ‘The Chapter has lost enough this day.’

  Silently, Nisroc clasped his hand to Amaru’s vambrace and took the proffered weapon.

  The nosecone was cramped, only just accommodating the four Flesh Tearers. Nisroc had removed the gene-seed from Barbelo’s body while Maion had cut them an access hatch. They’d left what remained of the sergeant on the gantry. Maion bent the armoured panelling back into shape, heat-sealed it with the plasma cutter and squeezed his bulk between Harahel and Nisroc. Micos was still unconscious, and was only on his feet because there was no room to fall over.

  ‘We’re in.’ Nisroc opened a private channel to Amaru.

  ‘Ensure Tabbris sanctifies Blood Cog. Its spirit is strong; it will serve him well.’

  ‘It will taste flesh again,’ Nisroc answered. Tabbris was Amaru’s pupil, a novitiate Techmarine. That Amaru would cede him his weapon signified his faith in the novitiate’s abilities. Nisroc would see to it that the Master Artificer knew of Amaru’s wishes. ‘Death find you well, brother.’

  Amaru said nothing. Extending a cable from his armour, he plugged into the firing console. Behind him, the forces of the Archenemy had already blasted through the rubble. He could hear them striding along the corridor. There was no time to perform the correct consecration or rites of firing. The missile’s machine-spirit was ancient. He hoped it would not be offended. Launch. Amaru sent the command to the missile. A tremor passed underfoot, rattling a canteen pack off a nearby workstation. Shrill klaxons screamed through the corridor as the warhead powered up. The Techmarine deactivated them. Sensors and bundles of thick cabling detached and fell away from the rocket as pressurised hydraulics moved it into the firing position. More rumbling. Fuel pipes
retracted. Exhaust vents ground open beneath the floor of the silo. Amaru interrupted them, closing the grilles. The engines gurgled into life. More alarms rang out as the compound’s safety systems detected the block in the ventilation, Amaru overrode them, silencing the alarms and pushing the missile up thorough the shaft into the final position.

  ‘For the Chapter.’

  A wash of flame erupted from the missile’s booster like the breath of an angry dragon, propelling it upwards on an expanding pillar of fire. Amaru’s world burned away in an instant, the temperature gauge on his retinal display flashing red as the thruster backwash broiled him. A second warning blinked across his vision for the briefest of instants before he, and everything else in the compound, was incinerated.

  The maglift whispered to a stop. He stepped off into the corridor, his armoured boots making a dull thud as they contacted the deck plating. He paused for a moment while his enhanced eyes strained to adjust to the gloom. They could not. The walkway floated in complete, impenetrable darkness, shrouded by a long-forgotten technology that defied even the keenest of auspexes. To walk the passageways of this level was to know exactly where to tread or to fall to your doom amid the ancient bowels of the ship. He continued along the corridor, making the turns instinctively, following the pattern imprinted in his eidetic memory. His pace quickened as he felt his ire rise, his warrior blood drumming in his veins at the frustrating tediousness of the journey. He stopped and drew a breath, calming his mind. He did not have the luxury of indulging his baser nature. Such things were his burden to bear and some secrets were not meant for the light.

  A door slid open into a darkened chamber. He stepped inside and the door closed behind him. The faint glow of an idling pict-screen cast the face of the room’s single occupant into half-shadow.

  ‘Where did you find them?’ As always, his voice was dangerous, his pensive demeanour only ever a heartbeat removed from the violent rage that made him such an implacable warrior.

  ‘The strike cruiser Jagged Blade intercepted them just beyond the Arere system.’ Captain Araton stepped closer, the light from the pict-screen illuminating the crimson of his breastplate. The serrated blade emblazoned on his armour was thrown into menacing relief.

  ‘Survivors?’

  ‘Only three, lord. The fourth…’ Araton paused, unsure how to continue. ‘The fourth, Brother Micos, was killed in transit.’

  ‘Explain.’

  ‘He succumbed to… a rage. The others were left with little choice.’

  ‘The curse?’

  ‘Perhaps, but Nisroc believed it to be something more, something worse.’ Araton turned to a console and activated the playback on the pict-screen. ‘These feeds were extracted from the datastacks the squad recovered from the outpost.’ The captain stepped away from the screen, retreating into the darkness.

  +Recorder 3: Sanctum: I808++

  The sanctum was alive with motion. Men clambered behind consoles and data stacks as explosions wracked the chamber. A straggler was hit in the back, the force of the blow spinning him through the air, his torso a bloodied mess. The Guardsmens’ fatigues marked them out as the Angorian Rifles, the garrison regiment of Arere. A figure burst into the room, too quick for the pict-recorder to capture fully. It barrelled into a huddle of Guardsmen. They tried to run. A vicious chain-weapon struck out and sent a bodiless head spinning past the pict-recorder lens.

  An officer stood up and screamed, motioning for his men to fall back. His battleplate was blackened and pitted, his creased face caked with mire. Shrapnel danced around him as mass-reactive rounds slammed into the console he was using for cover. He shouted again, dragging the man nearest him to his feet.

  A jet of super-heated flame blew over the console, incinerating both men in a wash of burning promethium.

  +Recording Interrupted++

  +Recorder 7: Barracks: I827++

  Two squads of Angorian Rifles were taking cover behind a row of overturned kit-lockers. The barrels of their lasguns glowed hot as the troopers poured an endless stream of fire towards the doorway. Two objects flew in from off camera and exploded in front of the lockers. Ashen smoke filled the viewer.

  It cleared to reveal a twisted mass of metal, the Angorians’ makeshift barricade in ruins. The corpses of half their number lay slumped lifelessly over the shredded lockers, shards of metal embedded in their flesh. A figure advanced from the doorway, his armoured back filling the viewer. The Guardsmen opened fire. Untroubled, the attacker fired back. The unmistakable muzzle flash of a boltgun illuminated the Angorians as they flipped backwards, torn apart by the mass-reactive rounds.

  The attacker turned his crimson breast plate–

  +Recording Interrupted++

  +Recorder 19: Armoury: I901++

  A crimson armoured warrior was sprinting down the corridor into a hail of las-fire, his breastplate scorched clean of insignia by their attentions. A bright muzzle-flash blazed into life up ahead. Heavy calibre, solid-state rounds began churning up the floor and walls as they stitched a line towards him. One struck his right pauldron. Splintered armour fragments struck the pict-recorder as he spun to the ground. The warrior rolled to his feet and continued into the gunfire, his weapon forgotten on the ground behind him as he disappeared from view.

  The ruined corridor lay empty, battered ceramite flaking to the ground. The intensity of the gunfire lessened, sporadic rounds zipping down to the corridor. Then it died altogether. Within moments, the armoured warrior emerged from the end of the corridor. Blood pooled in the recesses of his damaged armour, which was pitted and cracked like the surface of a moon. His hands and forearms were thick with gore. Blood dripped from his fingertips, leaving a macabre trail behind him as he strode back towards his weapon.

  +I901: Segment Ends++

  +Recorder 12: Courtyard: I873++

  A Flesh Tearer lay slumped against the wall, one of his brothers bent over him. The brother turned, withdrawing the blade he’d driven into the other’s heart. His helmet was gone, his face contorted into a bestial snarl. He made to rise when a searing plasma round struck his chest.

  A shadow fell over the Flesh Tearer’s prone form. He pushed his hands into the dirt and tried to stand when a second plasma round obliterated his head in a stream of sparking gore.

  The shadow grew larger until the Flesh Tearer’s executioner was right beneath the pict-recorder. The man looked up, straight into the lens.

  The image froze as the viewer’s recog-system analysed the man’s face. The image blinked once as data began to scroll down the screen.

  First Commissar Morvant, attached to the Angorian Rifles. Awarded Iron Faith honours for the Ivstyan Cleansing. Last posting Arere, Substation 12BX. Current status: Unknown.

  The image blinked again and playback continued.

  The man’s passive stare didn’t change as he raised his pistol towards the pict-recorder.

  ++Recording Interrupted++

  The viewer clicked off, emitting a faint buzz of static as it returned to idle.

  Silence persisted.

  ‘Destroy it.’

  ‘And Arere?’

  ‘Exterminatus.’ Gabriel Seth, Chapter Master of the Flesh Tearers, turned on his heel and headed back into the darkness.

  He had a world to kill.

  Even Unto Death

  Mike Lee

  The Wolf Scouts flew like spectres down the dark, tangled paths of the forest, their heightened senses keen as a razor’s edge. Red moonlight shone along the edges of their blades, and death followed in their wake.

  Guttural howls and roaring bursts of gunfire rent the night air all around them, echoing off the boles of the huge trees. The orks were everywhere, boiling up from hidden tunnels like a swarm of ants and crashing through the undergrowth in search of the Space Wolves. With every passing moment the cacophony of noise seemed to draw more tightly around t
he small pack of Space Marines, like a shrinking noose. Skaflock Sightblinder tightened his grip on his power sword and led the Wolf Scouts onward, racing for the landing zone some fifteen kilometres to the east.

  Ork raiders had been terrorizing the worlds of the Volturna sector since the end of the Second Battle of Armageddon, slaughtering tens of thousands of the Emperor’s faithful and putting entire continents to the torch. Their leader, a warlord known as Skargutz the Render, was as cunning as he was cruel. He never lingered too long on any world, pulling back his forces and retreating into the void before help could arrive. The Imperial Navy was left to chase shadows, and with every successful raid the warlord’s reputation – and his warband – grew in stature. When the orks struck three systems in as many years, the sector governor appealed to the Space Wolves for aid. A rapid strike team was assembled and slipped stealthily into the sector. Fast escorts patrolled likely targets, waiting for the call to action. Skaflock and his men had been on one such frigate, the Blood Eagle, when astropaths on the forge world of Cambion reported that they were under attack. They and nearly a dozen other small packs of Scouts had been unleashed onto the world via drop pods, to pinpoint enemy positions for the lightning assault to come. The Scouts had slipped close to scores of landing sites and ork firebases, leaving behind remote-activated designator beacons that would allow the fleet to unleash a devastating initial bombardment within moments of arrival.

  The operation had gone according to plan, right up to the point the fleet reached orbit and the initial assault wave began its drop. Then everything went to hell.

  The night air trembled beneath the roar of huge turbojets as a Thunderhawk gunship made a low-altitude pass over the forest, but the assault craft held its fire, unable to tell friend from foe in the darkness below. Skaflock bit back a savage curse and tried his vox-caster again, but every channel was blanketed in a searing screech of manufactured noise. He had little doubt that the fleet couldn’t pick up the designator beacons through the intense vox jamming, it was even possible that their surveyors were blind as well. He couldn’t reach the fleet, much less the assault force his team was supposed to link up with; everyone had been cut off. Instead of catching the ork raiders unawares, they had stepped into a trap.