by Various
The tank-beast did not seem to notice.
‘Back!’ I shouted, appalled, to the others. ‘Back! Firing positions!’
The beasts’ pace had appeared slow from a distance, but up close they ground forwards with surprising speed. On such a slope, it was as if a Land Raider was barrelling towards us, teetering on a single tread.
‘Stay on the curve! Stay high!’ Cassios’s voice blasted into our helmets as we fell back and he stabbed down again. I glanced behind, this time the beast acknowledged the strike with a flicker of its head that nearly threw Cassios off, but then it returned to its path and he regained his grip.
The Scouts stood ready to fire, but I hesitated, fearing the volley would hit the commander.
‘Fire above me!’ Cassios ordered, and we fired a battery of shells and shot over Cassios’s head as he ducked and swung again. He cut to the right side of the beast’s head, on the underside of where he was crouching. This time the beast shied slightly away from the barrage, but again returned to its course.
‘Again!’ He cut. We fired, the beast looming before us as though we were insects.
‘Again!’ he cried one last time before the beast steamrollered over us. We fired and he jammed the sword in as deep as it would go. The beast reacted. It squirmed away from our shot and lazily snapped towards the pinprick causing it pain. Its weight shifted and the upper edge of its body detached from the wall. For the first time we glimpsed the immense pores and suckers that had held it fast. As those came away from the surface, its weight shifted even further and more suckers came loose. With the inertia of a battleship ramming another, it slowly toppled down upon the tank-beast to its side and both monstrous creatures halted for a moment in confusion. Above them, their collision had left a gap. None of us needed to be told what to do.
We raced forwards to pass through before the tank-beast recovered. As we crossed into the valley we had created in the advancing ridge, it regained its grip and lumbered back. The valley’s wall closed in upon us and I willed every last jolt of energy to my legs. The walls slammed shut as we shot from them and skidded upon the deep coating of mucus the tank-beasts left behind. I gained purchase for an instant before Hwygir, out of control, knocked me flying. We slid down the curved wall of the cavern right back into the centre until we finally stuck where the mucus was pooling.
I cut through the groans on the vox, demanding my squad to report. Haltingly, they did so. Slowly, trying not to fall again, I picked myself up from the laden ground and then checked the others. Cassios was rising as well. Hwygir was holding the heavy bolter high in the air, keeping it dry. Narro and Pasan were scraping the fluid off themselves as Vitellios just stood there, a look of horror on his face as he stared down at the mucus dripping off from every part of him.
‘I’ve been slimed,’ he said.
I forwent commenting that such dross reminded me of the grime-swamp where he’d been birthed; I had more pressing concerns.
‘Neophytes, get yourselves up. Check your weapons, check your weapons!’ I chivvied Vitellios. ‘Straighten yourselves and get ready to move.’
I stepped away a little to check my own pistol and could not help but reflect once more on the new depths to which my command had sunk. I saw Cassios stepping around the neophytes, congratulating them individually. It did not matter, as soon as I returned him to the Heart of Cronus I would request transfer to the Battle Company and no one would be able to deny me.
‘What is this place anyway?’ I overheard Vitellios ask the rest.
‘A no good place,’ Hwygir concluded.
Narro was already working on hypotheses. ‘Maybe some kind of alimentary canal, maybe a funnel or blow-hole.’
‘Maybe the barrel of a bio-cannon?’ Pasan queried.
‘One big cannon,’ Vitellios said.
‘Either way, I just hope there’s nothing bigger coming up out the pipe.’
I allowed them their inane chatter this once. I had checked my pistol and by His grace it still functioned. Our weapons last hundreds of years for a reason. I holstered it and then punched the auspex back to life to check the path ahead. I looked at its readings and then punched it again. The readings did not change. My body still moved, taking a few steps forward, but my brain, for this moment, had frozen. There was something bigger coming up the pipe. It wasn’t a tank-beast or a carnifex or even a bio-titan. It was the spark of life that Cassios had claimed to sense. Ahead of us, growing, feeding, ready to be born, was a creature far larger than any we had encountered. It was the Kraken’s offspring. It was another hive ship.
‘Brother Tiresias?’ The lieutenant stopped me as I walked the corridors of the Heart of Cronus.
‘Brother Hadrios,’ I responded, surprised. ‘I thought you were away with Master Thracian?’
‘We have just returned,’ the lieutenant said flatly, his eyes heavy. ‘He wishes to see you. You will come with me.’
He turned away, expecting me to follow. After a moment’s hesitation, I did. The lieutenant offered no further conversation and so we walked in silence. He led me to the Master’s chambers and left me there. The chambers were still dark, the mosaics along its walls unlit, unprepared for their master’s return, much as the rest of us. This was not how I expected matters to unfold. We imagined we would have forewarning when Thracian reappeared, to gather our strength so that we might confront him together and demonstrate our collective will. Instead, he had stolen back like a thief in the night and taken us off-guard.
A line split down the panelling on one side and the chamber filled with light. Hidden in the light, Master Thracian stood. I imagine that I have already created in your mind’s eye a character for Master Thracian. A careful man, a smaller man; lesser than those who came before him. Desperate, perhaps. Petty. Failing. Let me dispel that character from your mind now. No man can become an Astartes without the potential for greatness, and no Astartes can become the master of a Chapter without a part of that greatness realised. Thracian was no exception and he was to achieve even more over those next few years. He was big, big even for one of our kind, but his face had stayed thin. His long hair was still black where Chapter Master Thorcyra’s had turned grey, and he wore his beard shorter. He was wearing a simple robe in the Chapter’s colours and beneath it a vest of ceremonial scale armour, fastened loosely across his chest. I knew him to be a fierce warrior, a master tactician, and brave without question, but at that moment I saw him only as the obstacle to our Chapter finding the destiny it deserved.
I bowed; he bid me stand.
‘Brother Tiresias, welcome. I regret that my absence had to be of such great duration,’ he spoke. ‘I understand that Brother-Captain Romonos has kept the Battle Company busy.’
Busy, yes, with small raids, petty battles and hasty withdrawals.
‘I am told that you brought honour upon the Chapter by your actions during the campaign upon Tan.’
‘My thanks, Master.’ I nodded without emotion, but I relaxed a little. So this was merely to be a little perfunctory commendation. I would humour him and then find Sergeant Angeloi and tell him that our opportunity had come.
‘What did you think of that campaign?’ he asked.
‘It was a great success. A significant victory,’ I spouted what I knew I should say and bit my tongue on the rest.
The Chapter Master regarded me. ‘I have read the reports, Tiresias, I asked what you thought.’
‘Master, I have said already what I think. I do not know what you require from me.’
‘That is an order,’ he said calmly.
Well, if that was what he wished, that is what he would have. ‘The campaign on Tan…’ I snorted. ‘The campaign on Tan was a joke. No, worse, it was a travesty. A few skirmishes, and standing guard throughout an evacuation. Providing support to others instead of leading from the front, where an Astartes should be. It does not even deserve to be calle
d a campaign, let alone a victory.’
I stopped then. I had said too much, far too much. I had breached protocol, discipline, even simple good judgement. I looked at the Master, but his face was without expression.
‘Did we lose any of our brothers?’ he asked quietly.
I knew he knew already, but he wanted me to say it. ‘No, no brothers lost. A few injured. Most minor. One more serious.’
‘Brother Domitios, yes, but he will recover. I know also, Tiresias, that when he fell it was you who went to his defence. It was you who skewered the xenos beast that threatened him. It was you who saved his life.’
I nodded again. It was true, but I did not think it remarkable. Astartes are trained to do nothing less.
‘You acquitted yourself well, brother. Very well,’ the Master continued. ‘You have always done so, even when you have had misgivings about the orders you have been given. That is why I wished you to speak your mind. Why I am talking to you now.’
‘Do not mistake my words, Master.’ I countered. ‘I understand the value of restraint, of retreat when circumstances dictate. We defended the orbital stations, but we did not even try to save that planet. We did not even step foot upon the surface. Before we even entered the system we were defeated in our hearts.’
I paused. Thracian let the silence hang in the air between us for a long moment. ‘You wish for it to be as it was.’ he said.
‘Yes!’ I gasped. ‘Kraken is broken, its fleets are scattered. We do not need to sell our lives merely to delay their advance. If we commit ourselves in force we can win a victory, a true victory. As Calgar did on Ichar IV, as we did at Dal’yth Tertius, and Translock. Yes, I wish to fight as we did, with every weapon, every muscle, every sinew at our command. Come victory or death, to fight as an Astartes should.’
I had not expected to burst out with such sentiments now, to anticipate the statement that Sergeant Angeloi was readying to give him. I expected Thracian to roar back at me, but his reply was very quick.
‘One day, Tiresias, we shall fight like that again. But for now it cannot be. For now, any action where no brother is lost must be victory enough,’ he said simply. ‘I know that it is far easier to say than it is to accept in one’s heart. That is my challenge, one of them at least, to help us understand what has happened to us. How we must change. So many brothers dead; Sotha gone, mere rubble in space. The noble Scythes of the Emperor, loyal reapers of mankind’s foes, cut down ourselves by the Great Devourer. It is not a fate we deserved.’
He stepped away from me, his robe brushing lightly over the polished floor.
‘I understand your frustration, but you must have hope in our future. And that is what I left you to acquire. Here.’
He keyed a sequence into a control and the mosaics along the walls rose smoothly, revealing pict-screens behind. They all displayed images of one of the ship’s hangar bays. It had changed greatly. The fighters had gone; the machinery had all been stripped away. In their place, a bizarre maze had been constructed. Plasteel walls covered and painted to resemble the corridors of a tyranid bio-ship. Inside the maze I could see Space Marines advancing in their squads; not Space Marines, no, they were too small. They were neophytes.
As I watched, one of them trod upon a pressure-switch. A trapdoor in the floor opened and he vanished before even catching his breath to shout.
‘Traps, creatures, combat servitors programmed with tyranid attack patterns. It is as real as we can make it. We have paid close attention to the data we gathered fighting these monstrosities, after all, it came to us dear.’
‘How many?’ I asked, my voice a whisper.
‘Three hundred in total, and more to come. Young, untested, but keen. All orphans of the Kraken like ourselves. All ready to be baptised with tyranid blood.’ Thracian placed his hand upon my shoulder then. ‘They only need leadership, guidance, from brothers like you. Sergeant Angeloi recommended you specifically, Tiresias. Promotion and this, your first command.’
I opened my mouth, but found for once no words were waiting there. Thracian continued:
‘You see, Tiresias, one day it shall be as it was. And it shall not take a hundred years, or even fifty. When the next hive fleet comes to plague these sectors we will be ready to answer the Emperor’s call.’
I stepped back a little, and Thracian’s hand fell from me.
‘I will… thank you, Master. I will be sure to thank my sergeant when I–’
And then I saw a look in Thracian’s golden eyes.
‘I will ensure you will have the chance to send a message after him,’ he interrupted. ‘Brother-Sergeant Angeloi has already departed to join the xenos hunters of the Inquisition, the fabled Deathwatch. Given our experiences, they requested as many brothers as we could spare to help spread the knowledge of the forms of the tyranid blight and how each may best be destroyed. I granted him, and a few others, the honour of carrying our name and our teachings to the galaxy.’
A few others, Thracian said, but in truth over forty brothers had gone already, reassigned to the Deathwatch. They were nearly a third of our strength and each one of them was one of Angeloi’s crusaders. And the chance to compel Thracian to order one last, glorious campaign had gone with them.
‘Now rest a moment, brother,’ Thracian directed me to sit, ‘and allow me to share with you how your new command will aid our Chapter’s salvation.’
I never discovered the truth behind the creation of the neophyte companies. The recruits themselves I knew were, just like Gricole and our retainers, from the worlds of the long retreat. Even before the hive fleet arrived in the Sotha system, even while my squad-brothers prepared the planet’s defences, plans were being made so that the Scythes might rise again.
The best of the youngsters of Sotha had already been secretly evacuated. Each place we turned to make our stand, Miral, Graia, and the rest; while my brothers fought and died, the most promising youths were recruited and rescued. Harvested by us, I suppose, while those left behind were harvested by the xenos.
But the gene-seed, that was the question. Three whole companies of neophytes and more to come, Thracian had promised. How was it possible? There were many theories. A few were sensible; that Thorcyra had been forewarned of the attack on Sotha and ordered the gene-seed to be removed in secret, or that the old Chapter Master had struck an agreement with the Inquisition to return our gene-tithe and whether the Deathwatch Marines were the only price he had had to pay. Other theories were darker, that Thracian had found or purchased arcane or alien tech that allowed progenoids to develop artificially far faster than in a Space Marine, or that most of the neophytes did not receive true gene-seed, they were merely bio-engineered and would never mature into true Astartes. I even heard a whisper that the gene-seed was not ours; that before the Salvation Teams there were squads designated Reaper Teams. I do not credit such thoughts, however; no Astartes would stoop to such measures even if the future of the Chapter depended upon it.
But then, I have had cause to wonder, can you ever be sure what lengths a creature will go in order to ensure the survival of its children?
‘A kilometre and a half long, millions of tonnes, and a face only a hormagaunt could love…’ Vitellios murmured, watching the muscles of the hive ship’s offspring ripple beneath its hull-skin.
‘And it’s trying to get out,’ Pasan said.
This was it then, the source of the ’gaunts we had encountered, the spark of life that Cassios had sworn existed. The bloated biters we had seen were not venturing inwards to wait; they were coming here to feed this offspring on the bio-matter of the corpse of its parent.
‘Very well,’ I decided. ‘As soon as we return to the boat, we will send a despatch to the closest battlegroup, Ultima priority. They will respond to that.’
‘No,’ Cassios said.
I scoffed. ‘I assure you, commander, they will!’ But then, through
the visor of his faceplate, I saw the expression in his eyes.
‘They will still be too late. We are the only ones who are close enough and we are here to kill that creature.’
I had had enough of him. He had challenged my command once already and I was not going to waste my breath diverting him from such vainglorious stupidity.
‘As you wish, commander,’ I told him and gave the signal for the Scouts to gather and follow. ‘I will ensure your final action is recorded with the proper honour.’ I had walked several steps before I realised my wards were not with me.
‘Ensure it is recorded for all of us,’ Vitellios spoke up.
I should have seen it. I should have seen it as soon as I saw them standing with Cassios as he convinced me there were others within the ship that may be saved. They were not looking at me to lead them; they were looking at me to see whether I believed their lie.
‘A second beacon?’ I did not look at Cassios, but rather at Narro. He knew I would have trusted him to double-check the auspex readings.
‘It was not his idea,’ Pasan said. ‘Nor was it the commander’s. It was mine.’
‘Yours?’ I shot back at my acolyte.
It was Cassios who replied. ‘I would have left you back there. It is clear to me that you have failed as their teacher and you have failed even as their leader. But Brother Pasan wanted you here.’
I looked away from him; there was nothing he could say to me. Two days it had taken him, two days to take the loyalties of the wards I had cared for for two years. I looked back at Pasan. ‘Why did you want me here? So that you may see my face as you disgrace me?’
‘No,’ Pasan said. ‘So that you may have the chance to join us.’
‘Join you?’ I exclaimed. ‘For what purpose would I do that? What do you offer but the futile waste of your lives?’
Pasan replied, but the four of them may as well have spoken as one.
‘To know what it is to fight as an Astartes.’