“How did they make translocation?” growled Kol Badar, removing his heavy, quad-tusked helmet. “Has your precious Nexus Arrangement failed? Are the gates to the warp open?”
Marduk’s eyelids flickered as he reached out with his soul-spirit. His entire body jolted a moment later as he slammed back into his body.
“No,” he said. “The device remains effective. Nothing could have entered the system through the aether.”
“Well, it came from somewhere,” said Kol Badar.
“Perhaps it does not need the warp at all,” commented Sabtec.
Marduk shrugged.
The Word Bearers continued to study the enemy ship, their silence broken only by the crackling hiss of scanners, and the guttural growls and mechanical wheezing of the piloting servitors hardwired into the controls of the shuttle.
They were almost on a level with the xenos vessel, separated now by the three hundred kilometres of curved space. From this angle they could see three black-sided pyramids rising from the rear of the ship’s crescent shape. Marduk judged them to be its command decks, and it was the largest of these that attracted his interest. He narrowed his eyes, and nodded his head slowly.
“I have seen this ship before,” said Marduk.
“What? Where?” said Kol Badar.
“On Tanakreg,” said Marduk.
“I do not recall seeing any such thing,” said the Coryphaus.
“That pyramid,” said Marduk, stabbing a finger onto the transparent, ice-cold surface of the port window. “We have been inside it, Kol Badar.”
The Coryphaus nodded slowly, realisation dawning.
“Only its tip was exposed,” said Kol Badar. “The rest of the ship was hidden beneath the ocean floor.”
“The gods alone know how long it was buried there,” said Marduk. The roar of the main drive engines subsided marginally, and stabilising jets kicked in, adjusting the Stormbird’s angle of ascent.
“We’ve broken atmosphere,” confirmed Sabtec with a glance at the hissing display screens. As the shuttle came to a new heading and the crescent shape of the xenos ship disappeared from view behind them. Ahead of them, just appearing over the red-tinged curvature of the world, they could make out the dark shape of the Infidus Diabolus, ploughing to meet them.
A veined blister in the ceiling began to blink.
“Transmission,” said Kol Badar, keying a sequence of buttons with the bladed tips of his power talons, his touch surprisingly delicate. “It is from the Crucius Maledictus.”
“Ekodas,” said Marduk. “Ignore it.”
“How many of our brothers made it off the ground?” asked Sabtec.
“Not enough,” said Marduk.
Half a dozen assault shuttles had already docked as Marduk’s Stormbird passed through the shimmering integrity field and entered one of the lower launch bays of the Infidus Diabolus. The deck was a hive of activity, with black-clad overseers and slave-gangs hurrying to attend to the newly arrived craft. Tracked crawlers ground across the floor, loaded high with fresh ammunition and fuel cells. Limping mecha-organics shrouded in black robes wafted incense, and hunched chirumeks attended to the wounded.
As the landing gear of the Stormbird touched down, Marduk marched from the shuttle, attended by his Coryphaus and a bodyguard of Anointed. He saw the burly figure of First Acolyte Ashkanez emerging from a nearby smoking Thunderhawk, Burias and Khalaxis flanking him. Marduk sneered, shaking his head.
Seeing him, the First Acolyte angled his march to meet him.
“I have had contact from Grand Apostle Ekodas,” said the First Acolyte by way of greeting. Marduk did not slow his pace, forcing Ashkanez to fall into step beside him. “Fresh orders. We are to form up with the rest of the fleet and fall back out of range of the xenos ship. If it is Boros Prime that they want, then let them have it.”
“It is not the planet they want,” said Marduk. “It is the Nexus.”
Six slab-sided necron monoliths had formed a perfectly equidistant perimeter around Victory Square.
Thousands of gleaming, skeletal warriors stood in serried, outward-facing ranks between these structures, silent sentinels that guarded all routes leading to the square. They stood in perfect, deathly stillness. If it was their master’s wish, they would stand there for all eternity. They existed solely to serve, any semblance of will long having eroded to nothingness within the cold, lifeless shell of their bodies. Formations of destroyers patrolled the area, gliding soundlessly in perfectly coordinated patterns over the heads of the phalanxes below.
The being referred to in the ancient texts of the Word Bearers as the Undying One was positioned centrally within the square, the beaming light from its tomb ship overhead reflecting sharply off its gleaming, silver skeleton. Alone amongst its undying legions, it moved with grace and suppleness as it stretched its long, slender limbs. Alone amongst its kind, it retained some semblance of its former self, from a time long past, before the rise of man or eldar, when it had been a creature of flesh and blood.
From the waist up the ancient, hate-filled being was humanoid, a deathly parody of what it had resembled in life. From the waist down, however, its body was akin to one of the great tomb spyders that tended the undying legion across the emptiness of passing millennia. The Undying One’s curving spine ran along the top of its insectoid lower body, which was covered in a series of protective armour plates of gleaming black, their smooth surfaces inscribed with intricate geometry. A dozen slender, arachnoid legs hung beneath its bulky dark silver abdomen, the long, multi-jointed limbs narrowing to slender blade-points.
A reflective obsidian breastplate had formed across the Undying One’s thin, cadaverous chest. Upon this lustrous plate were fine, golden lines representing a sun and its life-giving rays. It wore a circlet of gold upon its silver skull, a regal crown of rulership that seemed to burn with the contained power of an enslaved sun. A death shroud billowed lazily around it, as if waving gently in an undersea current, the sheer material glistening with iridescence.
The ancient being’s limbs were inscribed with arcane geometry and hieroglyphs, and it stretched its arms upwards, long, skeletal fingers unfurling. In response, the Undying One’s immortal guardians began to emit a deep, reverberant note, a sound at once mournful and hollow.
A swirling wind picked up, and dust and ash eddied around the Undying One. Its death shroud was unaffected, wafting languidly in the air around it.
As the low bass note continued unabated, darkness descended over the square. The glowing eyes of the Undying One and its minions burned more fiercely in the deepening shadow. Green light spilled from the Undying One’s underbelly, throwing the ancient being’s body into silhouette.
Rolling its deathly head back, the terrifying being began to emit an unnatural shriek, making the air visibly vibrate. A shiver seemed to ripple out across the shadowed square, and filled with diabolic impulse, the wailing cry lifted up into the heavens, reaching out in all directions. Subtle vibrations were sent out like a fine mesh, and deep within the bowels of the Crucius Maledictus, the Nexus Arrangement responded to its master’s summons.
Grand Apostle Ekodas stood at the view portal, his expression unreadable.
“Grand Apostle,” said Kol Harekh, his Coryphaus.
“What is it?” Ekodas said over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the xenos ship in the distance. Despite the distance, it still loomed impossibly large.
“I think we may have a further problem.”
Ekodas turned towards his Coryphaus, who gestured at the Nexus Arrangement, positioned centrally within his circular throne room. The corrupted magos worked feverishly, babbling nonsensically in his monotone drone.
The Grand Apostle stepped over the brutalised body of the White Consuls fool that had somehow managed to penetrate his inner sanctum and moved towards the magos, frowning. There was something happening, but he was not immediately sure what it was.
“The device, it looks unstable,” said Kol Harekh.
Ekodas felt an uncomfortable pressure tugging at his soul, and he redoubled his potent psychic defences.
The kathartes daemons crouching in the alcoves high overhead clearly felt something too, and they began screeching.
“Are you doing this, magos?” said Ekodas.
Darioq-Grendh’al was hissing in agitation, his mechanised limbs shuddering and his mechadendrites a blur of motion as they danced across keypads and control dials. Bloody organic data-spikes were thrust into the cognifiers. A torrent of data, both spoken and clicking binaric cant, spilled from the corrupted magos’ dead lips, a ceaseless flow of noise that Marduk found for the most part indecipherable.
“Previously inert beta power levels surging beyond charted magnifiers, peaking at 99.224952 gamma-parsecs, expanding exponentially, outside source unknown, controlling mechanisms failing to compensate, capacitors levelling out, gone, failure, dead,” blurted the magos, his agitated voice interspersed with frantic clicks and beeps.
“Do something!” Ekodas said. “You are losing it!”
Abruptly, one of the spinning rings that surrounded the Nexus seemed to wilt, the integrity of its shape compromised. Its rotation was thrown out as the ring became ovular in shape, and it began to list around unevenly. The light spilling from the Nexus Arrangement surged, becoming painfully bright, forcing Marduk to turn away.
A keening wail echoed through the room, making the walls and workbenches shudder and vibrate.
“What in the gods?” said Kol Harekh, backing away.
The rings spinning around the Nexus exploded, riven into a thousand shards that burst outwards, embedding themselves deep into the room’s walls, and into ceramite armour plates. Darioq-Grendh’al was thrown backwards, mechadendrites flailing. Two of his tentacles, still attached to control panels with umbilical data-spikes, were ripped from his spine as he was knocked backwards.
Ekodas hissed in pain as one of the shards impaled his thigh, the sliver of metal passing clean through his armour and flesh to protrude out the other side.
The housing that had been constructed to control and temper the alien device was a shattered ruin, electrical sparks leaping across its broken rings.
The Nexus Arrangement hung in mid-air. It was still for a moment. It had reverted back to its seamless orb form, and its violent vibrations had died down, leaving it utterly motionless.
Then, moving at a speed that not even an Astartes could follow, it began to accelerate.
The silver orb punched its way clear of the Crucius Maledictus, moving at tremendous speed, tearing clean through metre-thick bulkheads and countless levels of decking. It ripped straight through everything in its path, causing untold damage. It rent a gaping hole through the engine decks, coming within scant centimetres of penetrating the plasma core. It cut straight through the cavernous expanse of the ship’s cavaedium, instantly killing a warrior brother of the 64th Coterie as he knelt in prayer. It ripped through the lower slave pens, killing dozens, before passing on through the sepulchres, filled with the raging screams of shackled daemon-engines. Down it plunged, until finally it tore out through the thick armour plates of the immense ship’s underhull. Over a hundred slave-proselytes were slain as they were sucked out the fist-sized hole before bulkheads slammed shut, isolating the integrity breach.
With a streaking tail of fire arcing out behind it, the silver sphere hurtled down through the atmosphere of Boros Prime like a shooting star.
Moving at such velocity, were it to strike the surface of Boros Prime it would cause a crater tens of kilometres wide, but before it struck it came to a sudden halt, its velocity arrested instantly.
Glowing with pale light, it hovered between the Undying One’s outstretched hands.
Darioq-Grendh’al went berserk, his body mutating wildly as his stress-levels increased exponentially.
“It is mine!” he bellowed. “Mine! Bring it back to me!”
New tentacles burst from his flesh, barbed and fleshy and dripping with blood. They flailed around him wildly as the corrupted magos railed against the loss of the Nexus Arrangement. Effortlessly, he flipped one of the workbenches bolted to the ground, tearing up sheets of the metal flooring in the process. He hurled it into a far wall, which collapsed beneath the sheer force.
Snarling in anger Ekodas ducked beneath a scything, toothed tentacle that would have taken his head off had it connected.
“Restrain him,” Ekodas barked.
Kol Harekh stepped in close and backhanded the magos across the head, using all of his strength. There was a heavy metallic clunk, but Darioq-Grendh’al was not felled. With surprising swiftness, the two servo-arms that extended over the magos’ shoulders darted down and forwards, taking hold of the Coryphaus by the shoulders. Ceramite armour groaned beneath the pressure, and Kol Harekh was lifted off of his feet.
Kol Harekh’s bolt pistol came up, levelling at the corrupted magos’ head, even as a dozen tentacles altered their form, their tips becoming elongated, barbed prongs, poised to impale.
“Enough!” barked Ekodas, his intonation carefully weighted to convey a portion of his gods-given power.
The magos froze, though he strained to finish his the killing blow.
“Put him down,” he ordered, and the magos gently lowered Kol Harekh to the ground. The Coryphaus lashed out, fingers encircling the magos’ scrawny neck. Ekodas knew that it would take little effort for Kol Harekh to tear the magos’ head loose.
“Don’t do it,” he growled. “We may need him yet.”
The Coryphaus released Darioq-Grendh’al with a snarl.
Ekodas gritted his teeth as he used his psychic powers to drag the length of metal impaling his leg clear of his flesh. His armour squealed in protest. Telekinetically, he lifted the razor-sharp spike up before him. It was slick with blood. Carefully, he ran his tongue along its length before he hurled it aside with a flick of his mind, sending it clattering to the deck.
“My, my,” said Ekodas. “That was quite a tantrum, wasn’t it?”
He walked slowly around the now motionless figure of Darioq-Grendh’al. The magos’ mechadendrites quivered with suppressed rage as he struggled against Ekodas’ will, straining to break loose and unleash their fury.
“Locate the device,” said Ekodas. His Coryphaus nodded and opened a vox-channel to the bridge, barking orders.
Still maintaining his hold over the magos, Ekodas walked to the view portal staring out into the void of space.
“I have a lock on it,” said Kol Harekh, finally.
“Well?” said Ekodas.
“The device is on the planet’s surface.”
“Without the device, we are not going anywhere,” said Ekodas. “Get a hold of Marduk. Perhaps it is time for him to prove himself useful.”
The brilliant light of the Nexus Arrangement reflected sharply off the metallic body-shell of the Undying One. The silver sphere spun impossibly fast, hovering steadily between the ancient being’s elongated fingertips, which tapered to curving needle-like nails. It caressed the air around the device, fingers moving like the legs of some metallic arachnid, and it tilted its head to one side, as if captivated by the device.
For untold millennia, the Undying One had been trapped within the prison of its crypt. So long had it been confined that the heavens it now looked upon were strange and unfamiliar. A billion new suns had been born since the time of its imprisonment, and tens of thousands had burnt out, becoming lifeless, wasted husks or light-sucking black holes. Everywhere, it saw the taint of the Old Ones. Their engineered Young Races were spread across the universe in a verminous tide. Hatred, cold and ancient, burnt within its cavernous heart.
Now released, it w
ould take up the old fight, and finish what had been started millions of years earlier.
With a slow, deliberate movement, the Undying One drew the Nexus Arrangement in towards its chest. The centre of the sun-disc emblazoned upon its breastplate sunk inwards, forming a half-moon depression, and the spinning device slotted neatly into place.
The Undying One’s body was jolted with the force of the connection, its metal spine curving backwards violently, and its head thrown back. A patina of shimmering iridescence rippled across its metallic limbs, and a web of intricate, golden lines burning with hot light crept across its every surface, delicate labyrinthine veins forming shifting, geometric patterns across its living-metal skin.
The solid, silver orb embedded within its chest seemed to blur, its seamless surface melting and reforming to become a series of delicate rings arrayed around a miniature, green-hued sun. Those rings began to spin around each other, liquid metal rotating faster and faster.
The glowing sun at its centre seemed to swell, spilling light outwards in a blinding wave, and as the Undying One threw out its hands, the Nexus Arrangement began to operate as its creator had intended… and a psychic black hole was torn open.
Across the continents of Boros Prime, unaugmented men and Astartes reeled as the effects of the Nexus Arrangement washed over them. Many of them fell to their knees, gasping, as a terrible, aching pain clutched at the very fibres of their being. It felt as though their souls were being wrenched from their bodies and cast into the abyss, leaving them empty and hollow, mere shells.
A terrible, all-pervading pall of utter futility descended upon Boros Prime, affecting even the most fervent and strong-willed individuals. Millions of soldiers and civilians simply gave up, their will to fight fading, their will to even live deserting them. Some, men who moments before had been fighting for their lives, dropped their weapons and sank to the ground, a fugue of hopelessness overcoming them. With haunted, unfocussed eyes they stared into the distance, oblivious or simply not caring about what was occurring around them. Others turned their weapons on themselves, unable to live with this gut-wrenching emptiness in their souls.
[Word Bearers 03] - Dark Creed Page 27