by Ben Counter
Sarpedon was quickly on his feet, bolter in hand. Zaen had landed heavily and Sarpedon could hear Marines clambering over him to follow - the thrum of a plasma pistol sounded as one of Hastis's Assault Marines prepared for action.
'You!' yelled Sarpedon, rage boiling inside him. 'You! By the Throne, identify yourselves!'
The nearest figure turned. Blank augmetic lenses met his gaze. A wide ribbed cable snaked from a dead-skinned mouth, ferromandibles spreading out from the upper chest and neck like insect legs. Around the hood's edge was embroidered the cog-toothed motif of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and a black-panelled heavy bolter jutted from one sleeve.
Siege engineers. Mechanicus elite. They must have been stationed with the Mechanicus ship in the battlefleet, which had not seen fit to tell Chloure's intelligence of its teleporter array.
But why?
'Nobody move! We are Space Marines of the Soul Drinkers Chapter, the Emperor's chosen, and we are here to do His will' Sarpedon levelled his bolter, and all the Marines crammed into the corridor behind him did the same.
The engineer's heavy bolter whirred level, pointing at Sarpedon's chest. Twelve others had survived the teleporter jump and as one they took aim with lascannon, multi-meltas, and stranger weapons besides, all fitted to hardpoints wired into their bodies. If they fired, Sarpedon and the Marines around him would be shredded.
But firepower had never decided a fight. It was strength of mind, and nothing else, that won victory. Sarpedon had known this all his life. He would not fail here.
'You will return to your ship.' he continued. 'This station is under our control now, and you will be permitted to enter once we have retrieved what is ours and left. I shall assume this is a misunderstanding. Do not prove me wrong.'
Could he use the Hell, if it came to that? What did these people fear? Were they even people at all? What he knew of elite Mechanicus troops had given him an impression of emotionless, cold-blooded warriors, who could march on unconcerned as their numbers were decimated or lay down a curtain of fire for weeks without rest or respite. Did they fear anything at all in the normal, human sense?
The nearest engineer turned away again. At the centre of their number dextrous mechadendrites slid from three engineers' hoods and wrapped around the Soulspear, lifting it from the table.
They had the most sacred relic in the Chapter's history in their cold, dead, wretched grasp. This was dangerously close to blasphemy
A crackling corona of blue light flared and contracted around the room, covering the engineers with a layer of ice-cold fire. Then, with a thunderclap so loud it was felt rather than heard, they were gone.
IOCANTHOS GULLYAN KRAEVIK CHLOURE was asleep when he was woken with the news. For a depressing moment he thought he was back in the Administratum habitat on the agri-world he had served for fifteen years, and that he would have to drag himself through another mindless day reviewing production quotas from the continent-sized grox farm that formed the planet's reason for existing.
Then he saw the glint of Lakonia's bright disc through the porthole of his well-appointed but dingy cabin, and remembered he was on the Diligent, trying to secure a future and serve the interest of the Imperium. And someone was knocking very loudly on his door.
'What is it?' he shouted, hoping he didn't sound too groggy. He had decided he didn't like space travel - sleep was disturbed by the peculiar metabolic uncertainties created by constant half-light and the random vibrations from the Diligent's guts.
'Captain Vekk's orders, sir. Something's come up on the scanners. It's really big.'
Chloure straggled into his plain black Administratum uniform and threw his greatcoat over the top of it. He probably looked disgraceful, but it would be worse not to bother turning up. Vekk seemed a flag-captain of reasonable competence and if this was something important he wanted to know about it. Chloure was in command of the battlefleet and he had to make sure that he was there if decisions were to be made.
'Take me to the bridge.' he told the lad outside his door, one of those young men in a petty officer's uniform who had been suckered into running errands for Vekk's crew in return for a nominal rank.
'They're in the sensorium, consul.'
'Then take me there.'
The lower crew of the Diligent, gangs of rope-muscled conscripts and tarnished servitors, seemed rather more busy than usual, and petty officers barked orders at every turn. They seemed to be gearing the ship up for some kind of defensive station - gun gangs were to stow munitions and the engine crews were pulling another shift off rest to open up the coolant channels. Chloure began to get nervous.
The sensorium was a transparent dome bulging from amidships, braced with gothic ironwork. The view into the void outside was distorted by the many layers of filtration to protect observers when the ship was in the warp, and the stars outside were just grey smudges against the blackness. But there was something sharper - a blue-white blossom boiled sunwards. Even Chloure could appreciate it must have been something major.
Vekk was standing in full dress in the centre of the sensorium deck, surrounded by chattering knots of lexmechanics and logisticians. One of the ship's Navigators was there, looking worried, and Chloure wondered if he had seen the anomaly with his genestrain's warp-eye before the ship's sensors. Two of the ship's complement of astropaths brooded in their robes, sightless eyes wandering. A leisure-servitor, waist height with a broad flat cranium for serving drinks, was trundling around in the mistaken belief that the important crew gathered here represented a social engagement.
'Chloure.' called Vekk. 'Good job you're here. This might be rather important.' Vekk's voice was clipped and alert. Chloure wondered if he ever slept at all. 'We picked up this little curio twenty minutes ago.' He pointed at the anomaly above them. 'It's not on the visual spectrum but the warp-reactive layer lights it up like a firework.'
'What is it?'
'A rift.' It was the Navigator who answered. He was a tall, thin man as all Navigators were. Chloure had not seen him before as, again like most of his kind, he kept himself firmly cut off from the rest of the crew in the armoured shell of his private chambers. 'It's localised, not big enough for a ship. It is also centred on the craft of our Mechanicus allies.'
'Are they damaged?' Chloure didn't want to start losing ships now, not when he was so close.
'You misunderstand, consul. The rift was deliberately created. The archmagos himself caused it to come into being.'
'How?'
'Interesting you should ask.' said Vekk. 'DiGoryan here and I were discussing the same thing. We thought it might be a subspace propulsion rig at first, those solid-state numbers they had docked at Hydraphur a few years back.'
'But that, of course, would cause infra-quantum fluctuations far beyond the range of what we are currently acquiring.' said the Navigator, DiGoryan, folding his long, intricate fingers into a steeple below his chin.
Chloure nodded. He had no idea what they were talking about. He could organize the details of an entire planetary economy, but the vagaries of warp science were simply beyond him.
'We believed it was a psychoportive weapons system powering up.' continued DiGoryan. 'But, of course, the astropaths have detected nothing that might suggest such a thing.'
'Then we realised.' said Vekk conversationally. 'It was a teleporter. The Mechanicus have brought a teleporter along with them.'
Arcane technology might not have been Chloure's area of expertise, but he had some idea of the kind of influence required to acquire a teleporter, even within the Mechanicus. Emperor's throne, what was happening? Was Khobotov attacking? Was he being attacked?
'We've got the fleet on code amber.' continued Vekk, 'just in case. But it very much looks like the archmagos has plans of his own he's not telling us about.'
'I... I shall contact him. We'll find out what he thinks he is doing.' But Chloure didn't get where he was without being slightly sharper than the average wage slave, and in truth he ha
d already guessed.
THERE WERE TWO kinds of operation in which Space Marines might be employed. One was much more common man the other - a surgical strike. A small but - in terms of quality, equipment and leadership - vastly superior force would be sent in, perform a particular task, and get out again. The enemy would be struck hard and the weapon withdrawn before they knew they had been attacked. A foe cannot retaliate if he does not know he is fighting.
Space Marines excelled at such operations - they could deploy in an instant, move with skill and confidence through any terrain, take fire and dish it out. They were the best assault troops in the galaxy. The Soul Drinkers specialized in ship-to-ship and drop-pod actions of this kind, and some even said there were few Chapters amongst the Adeptus Astartes that could claim to match them. Their tactics were based on their own speed and the enemy's confusion, and as the attack on the star fort had shown, they were savagely effective.
The second kind of operation was far rarer, and a far more serious undertaking. Sometimes in the thousands of wars the Imperium might be fighting at any one time, there was an objective so vital that it had to be achieved at any cost. A strongpoint that absolutely had to be held to keep the
Imperial line from breaking. An enemy-held spaceport that could not be allowed to function one minute longer. A fortress that had to fall before the armies of the Emperor were bled white at its gates. These were times when the odds were grave and the enemy undaunted, but the might of the Imperium had to prevail, when strength of mind and faith in the Holy Throne were as decisive weapons as the chainsword and the bolter. Times when Space Marines took their stand and prepared to die to the last man if necessary.
Marines were trained for the first kind of mission. But they were born for the second.
It was this thought that prevented Sarpedon's rage from turning to despair. They had done everything they could have been asked - an assault of surgical precision, far beyond the clumsy posturings of lesser Imperial forces, cutting through the mutants and criminals the Van Skorvolds had put in their path. Caeon had been lost, and a terrible loss it was, but they had secured every objective in rapid time. The warfare tenets of the philosopher-soldier Daenyathos had been followed to the letter - they had been cold and fast, fearless and merciless, just and proud and deadly.
But it had not been enough. Their prize had been snatched from them by those who dared call themselves allies. And now what had been the first kind of mission was in real danger of becoming the second.
'The insult is not done to you.' Caeon's voice was no more than a whisper, for he was slipping away. 'You are the Emperor's chosen. An insult to you is an insult to Him, and is a heresy in itself.' It pained Sarpedon to hear him like this, when once his voice commanded Marines to superhuman feats.
Chaplain Iktinos was also at his side, watching his commander dying through the impassive red eyes of his permanently fixed rictus-mask. When Caeon died - and it was when, not if - Iktinos would help administer the rites due to any Soul Drinker in death while Apothecary Pallas removed Caeon's gene-seed for transport back to the Soul Drinkers' fleet.
Iktinos did not speak. In a moment of crisis, when not battling the Emperor's foes with the crozius that hung at his side, Iktinos was required to observe and silently judge. It was he who would report to the Chapter's upper echelons on the quality of morale and leadership shown here.
'They shall suffer for it, Lord Caeon.' said Sarpedon. 'They will know how the Soul Drinkers answer to slighted honour.'
'This is no place for a final stand, Sarpedon, here amongst the filth and mutant-stench. Do not let them trap you here, and threaten you until you back down. If you must fight, remember what we are born to do, to strike hard and fast and never look back.' Caeon spoke as if with his last breath, and his eyes slid closed. His chest heaved with laboured breathing as the jagged red lines on the pict-screens of Pallas's monitoring equipment jumped alarmingly. The poison had already robbed him of movement, and Pallas said the old hero's lungs were next.
It would not be for nothing. Sarpedon vowed then, to himself and to the ever-watching Dorn, that the Chapter would prevail and honour would be satisfied. They were but a few thousand strong, substandard Guard and Mechanicus troops, and they would quail before the threat of the Soul Drinkers.
Stop. What was he contemplating? Fighting the forces of the battlefleet? There would be little honour in that. He and his Soul Drinkers had to acquit themselves with honour here, for they were Space Marines, the best, and had to act like the best in all things. He could not just fight to get the Soulspear back, like a common soldier. There had to be another way.
The philosopher-soldier Daenyathos, the greatest hero of the Chapter save Rogal Dorn himself, had written of the strength the Soul Drinkers could have by virtue of their mere presence. They did not have to charge into the fray to win wars - sometimes the legend that had grown up around them was enough, and the threat implicit in their existence could force an enemy's surrender without a shot being fired. Such occasions were rare - the Imperium's foes were usually too degenerate and corrupt to countenance backing down. But the Adeptus Mechanicus and Chloure's battlefleet were led by Imperial servants, who would surely understand how dangerous an angry Space Marine would be.
It would not have to be a massive threat. The Administratum, who controlled the battlefleet, wanted the star fort and little more. The Soul Drinkers would hold the fort and demand the Soulspear, relinquishing the fort only when it had been returned to them. They would have to make sure the threat was real, of course, manning the star fort weaponry and preparing defensive positions. But the Guard units and the Mechanicus troops would never dare assault, not when they realised that the Soul Drinkers held the upper hand. There would be some posturing and red tape, but the Administratum consul in command - Chloure, Sarpedon recalled from the mission briefings - would never for one moment contemplate actually facing the Soul Drinkers.
Yes, that was how it would work. They would recognize their folly and give back the Soulspear with obsequious blandishments and the Marines could travel back in triumph, with Caeon's body in state. That was how the Chapter had maintained its place at the head of mankind, by refusing to back down or kneel before the weaknesses of lesser men. They were the Emperor's chosen, and to the Emperor they would answer, not to some half-machine tech-priest tinkerer or desk-bound Administratum bureaucrat.
There had been enough fighting here. All the real enemies were dead and the Soul Drinkers' losses, though few in number, had included one of the best of them. Now it was time to resolve the threatened conflict without bloodshed, and in a way that would ensure the Soul Drinkers retained their honour and returned with their prize intact. This place had cost them enough, and once this unfortunate matter was resolved they could leave as soon as possible.
Sarpedon saluted Caeon and left the chapel, leaving Iktinos to his vigil.
He had defences to prepare.
Chapter Three
THOUGH MANY OF the fleet's officers gathered on board the Diligent were of old naval aristocracy stock and would never admit weakness in front of the lowly logisticians and petty officers, in truth they were quietly terrified.
A holo-servitor in the middle of the bridge, its torso opened like fleshy petals to reveal a pict-array, projected a huge image in front of the viewscreen.
It was the first Space Marine most of them had actually seen outside the stained glass windows and script illuminations of the Schola Progenia or cadet school chapels. His face was scarred, not with obvious wounds such as the sort many naval officers wore like badges of office, but with dozens of tiny wounds accumulated over the years to form a face battered by war like a cliff face battered by the waves. It was impossible to guess his age, for there was youthful strength there alongside the wear of a lifetime, eyes brimming with both experience and childlike fanaticism. The head was shaven and from the high collar of his massive purple-black armour curved an aegis hood. The chalice symbol of h
is Chapter could be seen on one shoulder pad, echoed in the cup emblem flanked by wings proudly emblazoned in gold across his chest.
'We have the star fort,' he was saying in a voice that filled the bridge like thunder. 'We can defend it indefinitely. I do not have to tell you how unwise any force on your part would be.'
He had called himself Commander Sarpedon, and though his booming voice was coldly disciplined, he was clearly beyond rage. His eyes burned out from the viewscreen, pinning the assembled officers to the deck, and the corded muscles of his neck strained with anger. 'If you want your prize, consul, you have two choices. You can come and get it, in which case you will fail. Or you can return our prize to us, which was taken as our victor's right.'
Consul Senioris Chloure was a diplomatic man. He had spent a lifetime negotiating the most delicate deals where a whole planet's economy might rest in the details. He hoped it would be enough now. 'Commander Sarpedon.' he began, trying and failing not to be awed by the huge image glowering down at him, 'you must understand that the Adeptus Mechanicus are but nominally under our-'
'Our attempts to communicate with the Mechanicus have failed!' boomed Sarpedon. 'They stole what was ours, fled to their ship and jammed all contact. This falls to you, consul. If you cannot control the elements of your own fleet, that is your problem, not mine. Return the Soulspear to us or return to port without your star fort. This communication is over. Do not make us wait for a reply.'
The image winked off and the holo-servitor whirred closed. For a few seconds there was silence on the bridge of the Diligent, the after-image of the huge grizzled face still bright in the officers' minds.
'Sir?' asked Flag-Captain Vekk. 'Your orders?'
A Space Marine. Chloure had been so proud that he had managed to engineer their presence here. It was to have been the crowning achievement to justify the comfortable future he sought. And now he was forced to accept the possibility that it was going very wrong, very quickly.