by Ben Counter
The work-serf strained to drag the cutting beam the last few centimetres, black smoke coiling from where the bionics met his shoulder. The Chapter apothecaries and serf-orderlies often practised cybernetic surgery on the work gang augmentations, and they weren't always of the highest quality. But they sufficed here, for a large section of the shell wall fell away with a loud clang.
Sarpedon stepped forward, projecting a crackling aura of power around his head. It was a simple trick, but it worked surprisingly well in cowing the weak-willed. Several of Givrillian's Marines followed him in.
Inside, the shell was clean and well-kept. It was small, enough for one or two men, but it had been stripped of the command mind-impulse units and cogitator readouts, and kitted out as a luxurious bedroom. There was a four-poster bed, deep carpets, and a dressing table with a large mirror that doubled as a holoprojector. Antique porcelain decorated the shelves running around the room, and several original paintings lined the walls, along with a finely-decorated sword that had almost certainly never been drawn from its scabbard. It was evidently intended to ensure the notable forced to shelter here did so in the comfort he was accustomed to.
That notable lay cowering on the bed, trying to hide under sheets although he was fully clothed in a powder blue velvet bodysuit with gold lace trimmings. His periwig had fallen off and lay beside the bed. His face was thin and youthful, with a weak chin, watery eyes and lank blond hair dusted with powder. A faint odour of urine rose from him, plain to Sarpedon's enhanced senses.
Primary objective two: Callismenes Van Skorvold.
Sarpedon was a transmitting telepath, not a receiver - a rare talent, and one that was of little use in dragging thoughts out of a man's mind during interrogation. But Sarpedon suspected he would not need such trickery here in any case.
'Callismenes Van Skorvold.' he began, 'doubtless your crimes against the Imperium are many and grave. They will be dealt with later. For now, I have but one question: Where is the Soulspear?'
HALFWAY ACROSS THE star fort, amongst the tapestries and chandeliers of the garish inner sanctum of the Van Skorvold cartel, Commander Caeon's force closed in on primary objective one. The assault had been near-perfect, storming the hastily prepared defences of the Van Skorvold private chambers from a dozen directions at once, isolating pockets of defenders and annihilating them with massive firepower or lightning assaults before sweeping on to the next opponents.
Hard, fast, merciless. Daenyathos, the philosopher-soldier of Chapter legend, might have written of such an assault when he laid down the tenets of Soul Drinker tactics thousands of years before.
Bolters blazed their way through the last few chamber guards. The guards were professionals, picking defensive points with care and trying to relinquish them in good order when they had been overwhelmed. But their quality as soldiers meant only that they were compelled to die to a man in the teeth of Caeon's advance.
Commander Caeon strode past Finrian's tactical squad, whose two melta guns had burned great dripping holes through the partitions between the drawing rooms, audience halls and bedchambers. His feet crunched through the glass of the shattered chandelier and the splinters of priceless furniture the defenders had tried to use for cover.
All around smoke coiled in the air and flames crackled around the wooden panelling. The opulence of the chambers was in rains, strewn with bodies and riddled with bullet holes. The Soul Drinkers were rising through the gunsmoke as the echoes of bolter fire died away, sweeping the muzzles of their guns across the bloodstained corridors and hunting for survivors.
'Clear.' came Finrian's voice over the vox, as twenty sergeant's icons flashed in agreement on Caeon's retina.
Caeon was an ancient and grizzled man, three hundred years old, and he kicked the bodies of the fallen guards aside with the contempt appropriate to a Space Marine hero. He had fought some of the sharpest actions in the recent history of the Soul Drinkers and taken trophies of the kraken, the ork, the Undying Ones and a dozen other species besides. He peered through the wreaths of bolter smoke, searching for primary objective one.
A couple of parlour slaves were wandering about stunned, ignored by the Marines. A thin, aged woman whimpered as she stumbled over the wreckage, seemingly oblivious to the two hundred-strong Marine force stalking through the area. A pudgy child scampered here and there, as if trying to find a way out. A couple of others were huddled in corners, seemingly catatonic. They barely registered with Caeon.
The place was desolate. There were no reports of the objective being sighted, and he was running out of time. He wanted to secure his goal and get off the star fort before he had to deal with the Administratum minions who considered themselves to be in charge here. He wasn't about to waste time having his Marines chase around like children.
There was a sharp pain in his leg, where the greave met the knee armour. He thought it must be one of his older war wounds, of which he had a score - but glancing down, he saw the pudgy bat-faced girl withdrawing her hand, something long and glinting in her palm.
How had she crept up on him? A child! A heathen serving-girl! He would never hear the end of it - not to his face, of course, but every Marine would know...
He knocked her flying with a backhanded swipe, but though she landed hard she sprang up again, her ugly little face filled with hate.
'Filth! Hrud-loving groxmothers! This is my business! Mine! How dare you destroy what is mine?'
The pain in Caeon's leg hadn't gone. It was a spreading heat winding its way deep down into the muscle.
One of Finrian's Marines - Brother K'Nell, the bone and purple of his armour blackened with melta-wash - grabbed the child by the arm and held her up so she dangled, squealing. The thing in her hand was a heavy ring, chunky gold with a thin silver dagger jutting from it. 'Digital weapon. Xenos, lord.'
A needier. The child had a digi-needler. Where the hell had she...
'Butchers! Bilespawn! K'nib-ratting gorebelchers! Look what you've done!'
The pain had turned cold and Caeon felt himself beginning to sway. He had passed out from massive wounds on the battlefield more than once, but this was different. This time, he wasn't so sure he would get back up.
Before the eyes of Finrian's squad Commander Caeon's massive frame teetered like a great felled tree and slammed to the ground.
'Ninkers! Thug-filth! My home! My life!' screeched primary objective one, Veritas Van Skorvold.
Chapter Two
IT WAS A massive inverted cone of compacted superconductor circuits that speared down from the room's ceiling like a vast stalactite. Though the hall took up a sizeable proportion of the Adeptus Mechanicus ship it somehow felt low-roofed and close, such was the presence of this most ancient of machinery.
Archmagos Khobotov paused a while before beginning the ceremony, as he always did before dealing with a hallowed device such as this, to appreciate its beauty and intricacy. His bionic eyes, faceted like an insect's with scores of tiny pict-stealers, picked out magnified images particularly pleasing in their intricacy and logic. To think that the hands of mere men had made this machine! It was such wonders that inspired the magi, and the tech-priests below them, to prepare the way for humanity's capacity to create them again. It would take many thousands of years of painstaking and dangerous work, but time and hardship were beneath the notice of the Omnissiah and so they were beneath that of the truest magi.
One day the Omnissiah's great masterpiece of knowledge would be complete at last. And this time, it would not be misused as the ancients had done, for it would be protected by the expertise and secrecy of the Adeptus Mechanicus, who did not feel the capriciousness of petty emotions. This was the dream - and a fragile dream it was, for with every scrap of knowledge that slipped into eternal obscurity, humankind stepped a little further from the Omnissiah's vision of a galaxy whose great and terrible forces were controlled by man through his machines.
Yes, there was much to do. There was so little time
, it seemed, and he was so busy...
The chronometers reached the appointed hundredth of a second and the one hundred and ninety-eight ceremonial servitors snapped to attention, their puckered dead skin glowing amber in the warm halo of the machine. Khobotov's artificial joints whirred as he drifted to the gap in the deck floor where a section of plating had been removed to reveal a web of cogs and gears. Khobotov knelt - he felt nothing as he moved, for he had long since cut off nerve-responses from the motive parts of his artificial anatomy - and took a small pot of six-times-blessed engine oil from within his robes. With a finger of matt-grey synth-alloy he placed a symbolic smear of oil on the teeth of the uppermost cog. The mouths of the servitors dropped open and from within their throats came a rasping, clicking sound - the sound of the Omnissiah's praises being sung in binary, the language that it was said most pleased the Machine God.
Khobotov straightened and glided over to the sub-control console wired into the floor. He made the sign of Mars over its verdigris-stained casing and depressed the large flat panel in its centre. The panel lit up and printed prayer-tapes began to chatter from twin slots in the casing, ensuring that the running of even this minor part of the machine was imbued with sacred gravity.
The cogs began to grind and an expectant juddering sound came from the large power conduit running around the edges of the room and into the root of the machine's conical projector. Such was the energy required by the machine that the conduit was to pump plasma into it directly from the Mechanicus craft's engine reactors. Once the coupling system was warmed up, the machine itself could be activated.
The servitors formed a line, then a triangle, then a square, with perfect geometry, as they had been programmed. This machine was old and could not be replicated with the current expertise of the Mechanicus, and so the Omnissiah's favour had to be sought before using it. Geometric shapes and meaningful numbers were pleasing to Him, for He loved the abstractness of logic above all things, and it was right that His pleasure be sought before using His most hallowed devices.
Now, a servitor with its exposed mechanical sections inlaid in gold approached from the shadows in the corner of the hall. It entered the sacred square and handed the control sceptre it carried to Khobotov. The sceptre was a solid rod of carbon inscribed with machine-code legends in delicate scrolling lines, topped with a perfect sphere in which spun twin hollow-centred cogs, symbolic of the Mechanicus and its work. Deep inside the cylinder was a tiny filament of-silicon in which were set threads of an as yet unidentified element, which were as old as the machine and formed the key which allowed its activation. How it worked was a mystery to the tech-priests - doubtless this and all other mysteries would be revealed when the Omnissiah had judged their labour to be sufficient.
Khobotov pointed the sceptre at the activation rune on the surface of the machine's cone, and a gentle choral hum filled the air. The servitors stepped swiftly into a hexagon, then an octagon as the machine charged up. Faint gold and silver shimmers flickered along the superconductor circuits, and the coils deep inside the cone began to thrum. It was these coils, it was believed, that generated the shield against the warp.
Khobotov made a gesture of command and servitor hands three decks below slammed the plasma seals open, sending torrents of energised plasma coursing through the conduit. It was newer, this technology, far less refined than the machine itself, and there were alarming howls and rumblings as the plasma surged on. Drips of plasma oozed from overstressed joints in the conduit and landed hissing on the deck. But the power coupling held and delivered its payload into the heart of the machine.
The sound was a song - a beautiful harmony of coruscating power. The machine was alive.
Khobotov turned and walked towards the ramjet elevator that would take him to the crew muster deck. It was time to fetch the Machine God's servants-at-arms and prepare them for His purpose.
The teleporter was ready. By the end of this day the Omnissiah's masterpiece would be one step closer to revelation.
THEY SAID CAEON was going to die. Looking at him, Sarpedon was forced to admit he believed them. The apothecaries had done all they could but the needier had been loaded with a cocktail of viruses and neurotoxins. Caeon's mighty constitution had held off most of them but there were xenoviruses that had latched on to his nervous system and wouldn't let go. Caeon's immune system was fighting so hard it was beginning to reject the commander's augmentations - soon his replacement organs would fail, the apothecaries said, and Caeon would fail with them.
Caeon lay in a side chapel leading off from the Van Skorvold private quarters. It was a little-used place, for the Van Skorvolds were anything but pious, and it was considered unsullied enough for Caeon's deathbed. Sarpedon had taken Givrillian and Tellos's squad and headed across from the shell as soon as the news of Caeon's injury had hit the vox-net. The other units of his command were holding position around the shell, and guarding a broken Callisthenes Van Skorvold. Elsewhere in the fort the situation was good, considering Caeon's injury had forced a pause in the assault - the mutant army, robbed of Veritas Van Skorvold's caustic leadership, was pinned down in knots between the two Soul Drinker positions of the shell and the private quarters.
The boldest of them had led raids against the Space Marine defences. The boldest of them had died.
Inside the small, sparse chapel the commander had been stripped of his bulky armour, which had been arranged respectfully in the corner. Mighty arms that had torn at the battlements of Quixian Obscura lay immobile at his sides, the veins standing out purple-black with venom. Hands that had broken the neck of Corsair Prince Arcudros were curled into claws of gnarled flesh. His mighty face was sunken-featured with strain. The black carapace implanted just under his skin was livid and red at the edges.
The Soul Drinkers had been on the star fort for one hour and thirty-seven minutes.
'What are your orders, commander?' Sarpedon knew the time for sentiment and mourning would come after. For now, it was cold and fast and nothing else.
'Librarian Sarpedon, I am unable to discharge my duty to the Golden Throne.' Caeon's voice should have been a low rumble of authority, but it was faint and cracked. 'I cannot fight. I am dying and I must submit myself to Dom and the Emperor for judgement. You will recover the Soulspear.'
The Soulspear. Truth be told, Sarpedon had entertained thoughts of the circumstances that could lead to him being the one to finally hold the sacred weapon. But he hadn't wanted it to happen like this. Caeon was too great a man to lose. 'I shall fulfil your wishes and my duty to this Chapter, commander.'
'I know you will, Sarpedon. This is an unkind way to discover whether you are suited to command, but I believe you will serve your Emperor well.' The corners of Caeon's mouth were flecked with foamy blood. 'May I ask that you commend my soul to the ancients?'
Sarpedon hesitated. Caeon was great and he was suffering, and everything should be done to let him know he was dying with honour. But...
'Yours was... yours was not a warrior's death, commander.'
'Hmm. Indeed it was not.' A hint of colour flared into Caeon's face as he recalled with anger the child who had mortally wounded him. 'A treacherous slay. A moment's distraction. Be vigilant always, Sarpedon. As you cannot pray for me, learn your lesson from this. What appears to be a wretched girl-slave may be more. What seems innocent may be deadly. Do not fail as I have done here, for if it costs you your life, too, the prayers of your brothers cannot accompany you to the Judgment Halls of Dorn.'
It was a sad fate. Caeon would be at the Emperor's side in the legion of Rogal Dom when the final battle of the endless war took place, of that there was no doubt. But he would not enter their ranks with the glorious fanfare that was his due, for he had died not by the hand of a deadly foe, but through a second's lapse of concentration. Veritas Van Skorvold was not a worthy enemy to have killed any Space Marine, let alone a Soul Drinker, and still less one of Caeon's rank, and it had been Caeon's lapse far more
than Veritas's needier that had felled him. It was a measure of the man that Caeon did not argue, but accepted the results of the insult done to him in death.
Apothecary Pallas entered the side chapel. With Pallas were two orderlies, Chapter serfs carrying racks of unguent jars which Pallas would use to ease Caeon's journey into the next world. Sarpedon took his leave and stepped out into the remains of the Van Skorvold's private chambers, in which the Soul Drinkers' headquarters had been set up. His headquarters now, he realized.
Veritas Van Skorvold was forty-seven years old. She had a rare and subtle mutation that inhibited her growth and gave her the appearance of a particularly spiteful eight-year-old child. Veritas was as matchless as her brother was weak - she placed efficiency and profit far above morality and the laws of the Imperium, and had masterminded the many illicit dealings that had made the Van Skorvold business born very rich and destined for conflict with the Administratum. She was reaping the terrible harvest of her earlier sins - her punishment would doubtless be grave indeed, and she was in considerable discomfort at that moment, locked as she was in a small side pantry. Her screamed curses were of such venom and inventiveness that her guards had to be changed hourly to prevent their moral corruption.
Outside the chapel waited Sergeant Tellos and Brother Michairas, whom Sarpedon had requested attend upon him for the Rites of the Libation. Tellos was there by virtue of acquitting himself admirably with the slaying of the mutant behemoth in the operation's first stages. Michairas, as a novice, had been attendant upon Caeon for many years before his elevation to the status of full battle-brother, and so brought a measure of Caeon's honour and authority to spiritual matters. Michairas had fought as well as his brothers in the thrust into the Van Skorvold chambers, but it was his connection with the dying commander that caused Sarpedon to seek him out.