by Various
I could not credit this from such youths. ‘You do not know,’ I told them. ‘You have never seen the full Chapter deployed in battle. Squad after squad standing proud in their armour, bolters raised. Reciting your battle-oaths with one voice and then marching forwards, knowing your brothers are there for you as you are there for them. You draw such strength from them, being not one warrior fighting alone, but one of a thousand fighting together. Ten hundred bodies forming a single weapon. Until you have experienced that… you do not really know what it is to fight as an Astartes.’
The neophytes were silent. I felt my words had reached them at last.
‘You are right, honoured sergeant,’ Pasan said. ‘We do not know. We have never experienced that. But then, when will we?’
‘When you are full battle-brothers,’ I said.
‘Will we? Even if we do as you say. We leave here now, with you; we survive to take a place in the Battle Company,’ Pasan glanced at his brother-Scouts for support. ‘When will we ever march into battle a full Chapter strong? How long will it take us to recover before we do anything more than nip and pinch at our enemies? A hundred years, two hundred? How much more will be lost to the devourer by then?’
Pasan stood forwards and Vitellios stepped with him.
‘I know you think little of me,’ the hive-trash said. ‘That I don’t take being a high and mighty Astartes seriously. But there’s one thing I am serious about. My life. I joined to scour our galaxy of the alien bastards that slaughtered my world. I didn’t raise myself up from hive-trash, put myself through all the trials to be chosen as a Scythe so I could dig through the dead and grow old training the next generation. I didn’t do all I’ve done just to become an antiquated relic…’
‘As I am, you mean?’ I snapped back. I was beyond anger, I was furious. I raised my hand and Vitellios braced himself for the blow, but Pasan stepped in front of him.
‘Why are you against us?’ he cried. ‘We all know that this is what you truly want. We’ve heard you rail to Gricole often enough.’
‘Now you are spying upon me as well?’ I said, incredulous.
Hwygir grunted in the corner, ‘A small craft, our transport.’
‘You are not the only one with an Astartes’ senses,’ Vitellios chipped in, but Pasan cut him off.
‘No excuses, honoured sergeant. You wanted us to hear. You wanted us to know how much you resented this mission, resented us for what we took you from. Now here is your chance. There is the enemy. We can reach it. We can kill it. Yes, some of us, all of us may die. But is this not the chance for glory you want?’
All four of them were standing now, united against me, yet united in favour of everything I believed. The anger that had flared inside me vanished.
‘Yes, it is,’ I agreed with them. ‘More than you know. Every sinew and muscle in my body craves to carry the fight to the xenos without caution, without restraint. To serve as an Astartes should serve.’
‘Then you are with us!’ Pasan shouted.
‘But then…’ I continued. ‘I look deeper than my muscle, I look into my bones. And there, inscribed a thousand times, is the oath I took to the master of this Chapter to obey his orders and the Emperor’s word therein. It is an oath that I have never broken, and never will. As for the rest… I give it up.’
I swept my arm up and pointed at them. ‘You are my witness! You hear me now! I give up my glory, I give up my revenge, I give up my hope of what I could have been,’ I shouted even though they were close, but I knew I was not addressing them. ‘I accept it cannot be as it was! A battle where no brother falls is glory enough!’
I saw their faces, they thought me mad, but in truth I was healed. The weight of the loss of my brothers, the weight of my rage that I had survived when they had not was lifted. I took a breath and breathed free for the first time since Sotha.
‘No glory,’ I finished quietly, ‘is greater than the future of our Chapter. We are not greater than it, none of us. Any Astartes who thinks they are… there is a word for those…’
‘Renegades,’ Cassios said from behind me. ‘But which of us is the renegade, brother? You, who defend our Chapter’s crippled body or I, who defend its soul?’
‘It’s starting to move…’ Narro reported.
‘Then we shall as well,’ Cassios gestured to the Scouts, once my wards, now his men, then turned back to me. ‘I offer you the chance to fight as a Scythe should, with his hand, his oath on his lips and his brothers by his side. If you do not come, let it be upon you.’
‘It shall be upon me,’ I stated, ‘but I shall come. I take this oath now: you may take these children to their deaths but I shall bring them back again.’
It was to be the final insertion of the 21st Salvation Team. The ship, the offspring, was grinding itself forward down the lifeless channel. We blew a hole through the young, unhardened skin as close to our target as we could manage. If the offspring noticed our pinprick at all its reaction was lost amidst the wild throes of its agonising birth. The chambers inside could not be more different than the dead, dark halls of its parent. Luminescent algae lit our path, the ground was springy beneath our boots, the wall-skin taut, the door valves firm, and the noise… each chamber and tunnel vibrated with the screeching noise as the offspring pulsed and squirmed out into space, but below that you could hear the hum, the pulse, the beat of its life all around you. The life the Scythes were here to take.
We moved quickly. Cassios led the way, allowing his warrior instincts to draw him towards the creature’s heart. The Scouts followed a step behind; their excitement did not dull their skill, and nor did their fear. They moved easily, not in a single formation, but always shifting from one to another, running, covering. First Vitellios would run, as Pasan protected him, then Narro as Vitellios did the same, then Hwygir would charge up, bursting as ever with pride at being entrusted with the vital heavy weapon. They protected one another. For two years I had tried to find one amongst them suited to be their leader; at that moment I realised that they did not need one. They fought as one: as Hwygir reloaded, Narro shot into the tyranids to keep them from recovering; as Narro was caught by a tendril, Pasan forced his gun down into its maw and blew its brain out; as Pasan forced open a door-valve, Vitellios destroyed the creature lurking above it; as Vitellios ran quickly back from a new rush of ’gaunts, I lent my fire to his to halt them where they stood.
Our foes were not the fearsome monsters of Macragge and Ichar IV. The ship had grown only its most basic defenders: termagants, other ’gaunts and the like; and it itself was focused on its struggle towards freedom. However, its plight, its vulnerable state, triggered a response from the creatures barring our path that was all the more visceral. Cassios did not care, he simply battered them aside. These tyranids, who had overwhelmed countless star systems with force of numbers, now found themselves overwhelmed in turn by Cassios’s simple force. Every chamber we encountered he stormed, every ’gaunt in his way fell to the shells of his pistol or the curved edge of his power sword. He gave them no chance to gather, but charged into the thick of them, relying on his speed to spoil their aim and his thick armour to protect his flesh. That it did for him, but it did not for the rest of us and we suffered our first loss.
‘Brother!’ Hwygir shouted after Narro as he stumbled. One of the shots of bio-acid aimed too quickly at Cassios had flown past the commander and struck Narro. Across the vox, I heard him clamp down on his scream. Hwygir had already raised the heavy bolter and was struggling across to check on him.
‘Keep us covered!’ I yelled at him and shoved his weapon around to face the closing enemy. I heard his frustrated roar as he fired, but my focus was on the stricken Narro. He was still breathing. I rolled him and saw his arm clutching his side. Without ceremony I pulled the arm away to see the wound and discovered that the arm ended at the wrist. His hand had been eaten away.
His eyes snapped op
en, he looked down in shock at his stump and breathed in to holler in pain. I punched him sharply in the chest and he gasped instead, winded.
‘Overcome it!’ I shouted into his ear. ‘You shall build yourself a new one.’
He struggled to nod as his Astartes metabolism kicked in and dampened the shock and the pain. I took his weapon and handed him my pistol.
‘Sergeant!’ Hwygir called back as he released the trigger for a moment. ‘How is–’
I looked up as Hwygir turned his head to ask after his brother. I saw the shot hit the back of his helmet and the blood splatter on the inside of his face-plate as the tiny beetles of the bio-weapon bored through his skull and ate the flesh of his face from the inside. The savage fell and, in that instant, I felt the loss of a brother.
I dived towards his body firing wildly to force his killers to scuttle back. I cannot claim any sentimentality – I had fought too long to allow such feelings cloud my reactions – it was solely his weapon I was after. I rose and aimed the heavy bolter. I had not fired one in battle since the long retreat from Sotha. I pulled the trigger, felt the reassuring recoil and watched as its shells blew a line of bloody death across the ’gaunts’ first ranks.
The offspring lurched suddenly to one side and all of us, tyranid and Space Marine alike, were knocked from our feet. Hwygir and the ’gaunt bodies rolled away. I hefted the cumbersome gun and scrambled back where Cassios and the rest of the squad had regrouped.
‘It’s accelerating,’ Cassios said without a glance back towards where Hwygir had fallen. ‘We have to move faster.’
‘Does it matter?’ Vitellios asked. ‘We’re inside it now, it’s not getting away!’
‘Every second we delay gives it time to call in more beasts.’
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ he jumped up, ever the fearless one, and smashed the butt of his shotgun against the next door-valve. The valve shrank back and he led us through. He made it a single step before a set of jaws within the valve snapped shut, razor-sharp teeth puncturing the length of Vitellios’s body from his ankle to his head. I grabbed his arm, wedged the barrel under his shoulder and fired into the darkness, into whatever monster lay beyond. The door-mouth rippled in pain and slid back into the walls. It was too late, though, for Vitellios. His face was fixed in an expression of surprise, no last witticism to give. The hive-trash fell and I felt the loss of a brother.
It was then that we truly understood that it was not just these ’gaunts: every single piece of flesh around us wished us dead. The wall algae blazed brightly as we came near to draw the beasts, bulbed stalks burst and covered us in spores that sought to burrow into our armour, cysts showered us with bio-acid, even the muscles of the floor rippled as we fired, to disrupt our aim. It would have been enough to stop any human warriors, but we are Astartes. The Angels of Death. And all the offspring’s efforts could not keep us from our quest’s end.
‘We are close,’ Cassios declared, as another ’gaunt lay in pieces at his feet.
‘How close?’ I shouted as I delivered another volley of fire against the creatures pursuing us.
‘Can’t you hear it?’
I could hear nothing over the explosions of the bolt shells and the roar of the offspring’s progress. It must be close to birthing now, but I did not care. Gricole would see it as soon as it emerged, he would know to carry a message back to the fleet. Others would know, they just would not know what had happened to us.
‘I hear it!’ Pasan cried, and then I heard it too: a deep throbbing sound.
‘Brothers!’ Cassios announced. ‘I give you the heart of the beast!’
The single organ, if it was just one, filled the chamber beyond. It was a giant column, surrounded by red bloated chambers. From the top of each chamber split massive leeches that surmounted the top of the pillar and descended into the centre. It looked as though eight great Sothan phantine beasts were drinking from a pool. The entire structure constantly pulsed and shifted as gallons of fluid pumped through it each second. It was the energy cortex, and it was covered by tyranids. Smaller ’gaunts with bio-weapons, larger ones with great scything claws, a few at the top even had wings.
‘It’s a trap,’ Pasan gasped. ‘It let us get this far…’
‘It’s not a trap if we know it’s coming,’ Cassios told him.
No, it’s insanity. I glanced at Cassios again; his eyes were at peace. Perhaps he really had been tainted, perhaps all he had done was in service of some xenos impulse inserted into his brain. Perhaps all the while we had been inside the offspring, the offspring had been inside him.
‘Why don’t they attack?’ Pasan whispered.
‘Maybe… maybe…’ Narro’s mind raced, he was feeling the disorientation worst of all. ‘Maybe they did not wish to risk fighting here, risk damaging the cortex.’
But then the great thundering of the offspring as it climbed out the channel of its parent reached a crescendo and went silent. It was out. It was into space. My faith was with Gricole. He would do what needed to be done. It just remained for me to do the same, call this assault off, to save the lives I could. But Cassios was already advancing, a brace of mining charges in his hand. I stopped him and held one of the charges up.
‘It’s set to instant detonation,’ I told him.
‘Of course,’ he replied and we locked gazes for the last time.
‘Then we stay here. They deserve the chance, Cassios. Give them that.’
He shrugged, uncaring. This was to be the epic of his death; whether others were with him did not matter. I looked at my last two wards – Narro quickly nodded agreement with me, and so too, slowly, did Pasan.
‘Cover him,’ I told them, as Cassios raised his power sword high and cried:
‘For Sotha! For the Emperor! Death! Death! Death!’
My wards and I fired in unison: heavy bolter, boltgun and pistol together, blowing holes in the ranks of the tyranid. The tyranids responded in kind, releasing a volley of borer-beetles, bio-acid and toxin-spines against Cassios as he charged.
Cassios slammed to a halt and flinched, drawing his cloak around him. I saw his mighty frame collapse under the onslaught.
‘No!’ Pasan shouted and sprinted after him, spraying fire wildly as he went. The hormagaunts had already leapt from the energy cortex and were surging towards the downed commander. I did not call to bring Pasan back, I saved my breath, he would not come. I had lost him long before. Instead I trained the heavy bolter to clear his path. The first of the hormagaunt wave exploded as my shell hit home, the one behind stumbled and was knocked down by those behind it, pushing forwards, the third leapt and my next shell caught its leg and its body cart-wheeled away in pieces. The fourth reached Cassios and took the brunt of Pasan’s fire. The next rank sprang, arcing high to clear the bodies before them. Two fell to my shells, one to Narro’s, but three fell upon the son of Sotha. One sliced through his gun and then his arm, the second caught his knee and cut deep into his side and the third split his head straight down the middle. The son of Sotha fell and I felt the loss of a part of myself.
Then, in a crackling arc of light, the three ’gaunts were carved apart themselves. Cassios rose, his cloak dissolved, his armour cracked and scarred. Blood streamed from the split in his armour at the neck. He spun to face the approaching horde and threw himself into their midst.
He was beyond our help now. I might have only seconds to fulfil my oath and save who I could. I turned to Narro, the last of my wards, and told him:
‘I never thought it would be you. But it is best that it is.’
He looked at me, confused. I shook my head and pointed to our escape. This one at least I would save, I thought, the most brilliant of them. Perhaps, I thought, that would be enough. But I was not to be allowed even that. Above us, I heard a familiar bestial scream, first one, then a second. Without thinking, I brought the heavy bolter up straight into t
he ravener’s face.
The brutal claw carved through the heavy bolter even as I pulled the trigger. The round rocketing down the barrel suddenly struck bone and exploded. Shrapnel burst through the barrel-cover and flew at me. I stumbled back, dropping the useless heavy weapon and clutching my face. I pulled the ruined helmet off, blinking to catch the ravener’s next attack. I looked and saw it collapsed on the ground, its claw blown off, its face a mass of blood and bone. The second still held Narro’s body impaled upon its scythe-claws as it twisted towards me. I drew my falx. This was to be the end.
The second ravener leapt, its two scythe-claws high. I dove forwards. The scythes came down but I was inside their reach and they glanced off my shoulders. My falx was already embedded through its chestbone. Its mid-limbs plunged through my armour and unloaded its venom as I twisted and pushed it off my blade. I staggered back, holding my guts inside my body, I was still not dead. Neither was it. It flew at me in one last attack, my falx came up and caught its scythes as they came down and pushed them to one side. As its blades went down mine cut back across its gaping mouth and sliced its head open.
I felt its ichor splatter my face, I tasted it as my mouth opened to roar my defiance. At that moment, somewhere behind me, a dying hand released its grip upon the mining charges and the chamber was filled with the Emperor’s wrath.
I woke aboard a dead ship, a ravener my bedside companion. I rolled the corpse away. I dragged myself to my feet and began to search about the dark and lifeless chamber. Whether the tyranids had fled or died on the spot from the psychic shock I did not know. I was searching for something else. I found it. I thought it impossible for any one, any Astartes, to live through that. I was right. The body of Commander Cassios was a shell. But I was not there for sentiment, I did not do that. I was there in the hope that something inside him survived. I grimaced in pain as I felt the bite of the ravener poison. A stronger dose this time, from a young beast, rather than a stale relic. I took the reductor from my pack and placed it first against Cassios’s throat and then against his chest, and took from him the Chapter’s due.