by Guy Haley
‘We should be fighting a better war,’ Lorenz voxed Dante. ‘This scale of action is beneath us. How many colonists were there here? Two thousand? Send more, is what I say.’
‘We are obliged to defend every world of the Emperor, brother,’ said Dante. ‘No matter how small. If they send more people and there is insufficient military presence, they will die.’
‘Commander Milonus should be more selective in responding to requests for aid,’ grumbled Lorenz. He kicked over a charred log in a fit of pique, scattering ashes.
‘Dante, Lorenz, concentrate.’ Basileus cut into their private conversation. ‘No talking, anyone. You’re not so long into your black carapace that I can’t knock you down, and I will if you don’t stay alert.’
Basileus’ suit was artfully decorated where the others’ plate was plain. The style suggested a considered artist. In truth, Basileus was, but he was also an exceptionally angry man. He had to be, to keep the impetuous young Space Marines in check. There had been one older brother in their squad, acting as battle squad leader when the unit split, but as their campaign had proceeded he had been reassigned to other duties, leaving Basileus with a band of hotheads to chaperone alone.
‘I don’t see why we can’t fly,’ muttered Ristan. All of them yearned to. Flight was in their blood, a legacy of Sanguinius’ gene-seed.
Basileus halted. With swift battlesign, he sent his squad out wide either side of him, Lorenz with Dante and Ristan on the right, Giacomus with Arvin on the left. Arvin ran forwards brashly.
‘Easy,’ voxed Basileus.
Runes blinked up on Dante’s faceplate as Basileus took temporary control of the display. A cartograph overlaid the view through his lenses.
The colonia, Basileus communicated via vox-text reinforced with battlesign. Expect resistance. Dante and Lorenz, scout ahead. Provide suitable attack point. Stealth, brothers. Do not alert the enemy.
Dante and Lorenz signalled their affirmatives and stole forwards, sharp orange grasses rasping on their power armour. Despite their heavy armour, their stealth was commendable, the Blood Angels dropping their shoulders so that their jump packs did not knock on the branches of the dwarf trees, the footfalls of their heavy boots close to silent.
A wall of creepers appeared between the trees. Leaves rustled in the warm wind, flashing glimpses of crumbling plascrete.
‘The colonia wall,’ said Dante.
Dante signalled he would take the primary position. Lorenz nodded, took shelter by the earthen spires of some communal creature’s nest and covered his brother with his pistol. Dante approached the covered wall, pulling away the vines. Chunks of plascrete came away with it; the roots had penetrated deeply. The metal fence that would have continued the barrier another five metres upwards had fallen, rusted strands of it providing a framework for plants to climb. Dante crumbled the decaying material between his fingers. On Baal Secundus, structures that had been ruined twelve thousand years were periodically uncovered by the sand, perfectly preserved at the moment of their destruction. Less than twenty years had passed on Ereus V since the colony had gone quiet. Already the stamp of man upon the world was melting away. The power of vital worlds fascinated him. Life was potent.
He looked back to Lorenz and signed that he should shadow him, then proceeded along the wall. Through gaps in the fortification’s length he saw tumbled ruins similarly covered in vegetation.
It was quiet. The landscape lived gently. The sounds of growth and small animals rustling in the undergrowth were crisp in his ear beads. His breathing mask was open, admitting the healthy scents of a vibrant ecosystem. Soft wind played over his armour; the temperature was forty-two degrees. He saw all of this as read-out runes, but felt none of it. Caution forbade him from taking off his helmet. The energy weapons the orreti carried were too weak to penetrate Adeptus Astartes power armour, but they would easily hollow out a bare head.
They came to the gates. A road, made of prefabricated rockcrete sections, led away into the scrub, its flat surface broken up by the actions of tree roots and crowded with waving grasses. Finding the road’s position without the reference to the gates would have been impossible.
Lorenz joined Dante.
‘We have reached the gates, sergeant,’ voxed Dante. ‘We proceed.’
‘Understood,’ said Basileus. ‘Keep vox to a minimum. I am detecting no electromagnetic informational traffic, but prudence is the ward of life.’
The vox clicked out.
‘Basileus doesn’t like us,’ said Lorenz. He kept his voice low, but there was an edge to it through his suit vox-grille that helped it carry.
‘Do you think?’ said Dante. ‘It’s nothing personal. I hear he’s been a sergeant to Assault Marines for a century and a half. If his humours were better balanced, he would have been promoted to captain.’
‘I’ll be a captain one day,’ said Lorenz.
‘We’ve been full brothers for less than four years. You’re getting ahead of yourself,’ said Dante.
They skirted the overgrown road. Avians cawed from their roosts in the wrecked colonia buildings. The rusting hull of a Taurox military transport blocked the road. Dante pointed to blast damage in its side.
‘That’s heavy projectile weaponry damage. The orreti didn’t do that.’
‘How do you know?’ said Lorenz, leaning around the tank and tracking his pistol across the terrain. ‘Nobody knows anything about them. They’re not in the Chapter records.’
‘Because all we’ve seen them wield are weak particle beams.’
‘Maybe they’ve got something stronger.’
‘You were the one that said they were feeble,’ said Dante.
‘That they are,’ said Lorenz. ‘Lord Milonus knew that, otherwise he would have sent more than two squads to deal with them. They’re just another beggar race, picking over the rubbish of better species. This is a waste of our time.’
‘Doesn’t their lifestyle remind you of anything?’ said Dante. They jogged down the street. The purr of their armour blended into the hush of the day.
‘They’re not like the Baalites,’ said Lorenz. ‘Our life made us hard. It made us fit to be angels. These things are weak. We’ll kill them all, and it will be as if they never were.’
The colonia was laid out to a standard settlement pattern dredged out of an STC. A grid of streets with designated areas for industry, governance and habitation. Neatness was inherent to its conception.
‘Hard to believe a hive world can spring from a seed like this,’ said Dante.
‘Maybe they all start out like this. Some must. But this seed died on stony ground. There will be no human domination here for some time,’ said Lorenz.
Dante took a deep breath of the fragrant air. Such clean atmosphere, free of the taint of chemicals. He had recently visited his first hive world and, beneath inculcated indifference, found it profoundly shocking. He struggled to regret the colony’s failure.
‘The centre.’ With his bolt pistol. Dante gestured to the crumbling edifices of Administratum buildings.
‘I see something!’ said Lorenz. ‘There!’
Dante caught a flash of movement darting across the street.
Lorenz raised his gun and sent a spray of bolts shooting after it.
‘By the wings of our lord, I missed the little kreck,’ said Lorenz angrily. Without warning he wrenched his chainsword from his belt, ignited his jump pack and flew down the street. The silence of the ruined town shattered.
‘Wait!’ shouted Dante. But Lorenz was frustrated and his blood was up. He landed, sending up a spray of powdery rockcrete from the road, and charged around the corner firing. The fizzing pop of orreti weapons welcomed him.
Dante opened full vox-channels. ‘Basileus, this is Dante. I have found the rest of the orreti crew. They’re in the colonia centre, these coordinates.’ He sent a datasquirt from his suit’s cogitator.
‘Hold and wait for reinforcement,’ voxed Basileus back.
‘Negative,
sergeant. Lorenz is engaged. I am following.’
Not wishing to receive the inevitable order to wait, Dante ignited his jump engines. He welcomed the push of them as they lifted him from the ground. So powerful, the thrust tugging at his shoulders and waist. His annoyance at Lorenz vanished in the roar of turbines. Both his hearts pumped hard; the anticipation of combat fired the gifts of the Emperor, flooding his system with synthetic hormones. The flight from Angel’s Leap ten years ago was nothing to jumping into combat. By the time he landed his teeth were clamped hard together in a wild grin. He jumped again, daring to burn the pack’s limited fuel reserves to attain something close to true flight. With consummate skill, he swerved around the moss-draped statuary of a building shell and landed in the town centre.
The orreti had laid out large sheets of fabric in the square. Upon them the components of deconstructed machines were set out neatly. Such work suggested the creatures were not aware of the destruction of their scows in orbit, or maybe they were, and this salvage had been intended for a defensive purpose he could not divine. It was pointless trying to second-guess xenos. They were by their nature unknowable, and contemptible.
Lorenz was embattled on the plaza. Dozens of orreti were firing on him from windows. Their energy slashes scorched his armour around his head, turning the yellow of his helmet brown and black. There were larger things in combat with him, three beings twice the height of a Space Marine. They had the same overall shape as the lesser orreti – two long forearms, a stumpy limb-tail and an array of specialised limbs on the chest – but where the lesser things were covered by loose robes, the larger creatures wore plates of iridescent armour. Helmets covered their long heads. They brandished a variety of pistol-type weapons with their chest arms that discharged particle beams. These were as inoffensive to battleplate as the fusils carried by the lesser orreti, but the creatures’ powerful forelimbs were tipped with gleaming blades that did pose a threat.
The aliens reared up on their thrusting limb-tails to drive down and strike at Lorenz. He dodged between their blades. A pair of swords slashed at him and he caught them on the edge of his chainsword. Sparks flew from the weapon. With a grunt he threw the creature back, and was immediately set upon by the other two larger creatures before he could finish the first.
Dante thundered down among them, bolt pistol blazing. Five bolts hammered into the side of one of the creatures, punching through its gleaming armour as if it were paper. Multiple explosions blew out craters the length of its body. Subsidiary arms flew everywhere. It rocked back on its muscular limb-tail, exposing pulsing organs within its ruined torso, threw its head back and died.
Loosing bolts in every direction, Dante slammed into the melee.
‘Brother!’ shouted Lorenz. ‘I may have been hasty.’
‘We should have waited!’ said Dante, aiming a blow at an alien leg. The Space Marines twisted around each other until they were back to back, facing one creature each. He meant to chastise his squad mate, but he was joyous. He did not mean what he said. Who would want to wait when battle beckoned?
‘What by the pits of Baal are these things?’ said Lorenz.
‘Warrior forms? The little ones could be the males and the big females, or vice versa. Does it matter? They’re all trying to kill us.’ Dante raised his gun. A knock from a limb-blade sent his shots wide and jarred it from his hand. Anger seized him at the affront to his wargear. Taking up his chainsword, he roared and threw himself forwards, beating back the alien with a flurry of violent blows.
Lorenz ducked a blade that hummed as it parted the air.
‘These are the females?’ he shouted. ‘Ha! I like this better – their women fight properly!’
Jump packs roared. Arvin slammed into the middle of the fight. If Dante felt fury, it was nothing to Arvin’s rage.
‘Kill them! Kill them!’ he shouted. Dante advanced on the retreating alien, but Arvin knocked him aside. ‘This is my kill! I will deliver the killing blow!’ he shouted. Though furious that his prize had been stolen, Dante was wary at Arvin’s tone and stood back.
The others landed around the melee, peeling off into the buildings. Roofless halls echoed to the reports of boltguns, the squealing of aliens and chainsword song. The volleys of particle beams decreased dramatically. In less than three minutes the aliens were dead. Lorenz had dropped his female. Arvin’s was dead, but he would not stop hitting it over and over again, flinging sprays of blood and ground-up meat up the walls.
‘It is dead, brother, come away.’ Dante touched Arvin’s shoulder. Arvin rounded on him and punched him in the face with the spiked guard of his sword, cracking his helm lens. Dante staggered back. Arvin raised his weapon over his head and roared incoherently.
He wants to kill me, thought Dante.
‘Stop him! Pin him down!’ Basileus was shouting. His brothers joined their cries of alarm to the sergeant’s, but their voices sounded distant, something from a fading memory. Dante was preoccupied by Arvin’s sword swinging down in a heavy, overarm blow. Time seemed to slow. Dazed, he raised his weapon to meet Arvin’s.
Their blades met, teeth shattering, and time resumed its normal pace. The force of the blow staggered Dante. Arvin had the strength of a man possessed.
‘Stop him! Stop him!’ shouted Basileus.
Another blow hammered down on Dante. The chains of both blades ground together again. Arvin’s unspooled onto the floor, Dante’s jammed up the drive unit, causing the motor to ignite. Dante threw the weapon aside in time to catch Arvin as he jumped. Dante grabbed him, bringing them both to the ground.
‘How dare you! You take me away from my prize, my kill, my soul tally!’ Arvin’s combat discipline had gone, and he scrabbled at Dante’s head like a madman. Dante could not retaliate effectively; he was struggling to stop his helmet being torn off.
‘Get off him!’ shouted Lorenz. He locked his arm around Arvin’s shoulder, but was thrown back. He returned. Ristan grabbed Arvin’s other arm, Giacomus grasping the stabilisation vents on his backpack. Together, they hauled Arvin off Dante and threw him down. Arvin lumbered to his feet, ready to attack again. Lorenz tackled him around the midriff and they both crashed to the floor again.
Dante got up. He was physically shaking inside his armour. In part this was due to the shock of his brother’s attack, but largely he wrestled with his own desire to fight Arvin. The kill had rightly been his, not Arvin’s. His brother’s temerity infuriated him. His hearts pounded, his vision tunnelled. Arvin bucked and shouted under the weight of Lorenz and Giacomus.
Reeling, Dante turned away, battling his rising bloodlust. He made himself concentrate on his suit, running through the post-battle checklist.
‘Focus, focus, the first grace,’ he whispered. ‘Be respectful of your battlegear,’ he said. His breath was hot in his helmet. ‘Be mindful of your armour. Restraint, restraint, restraint!’
A shudder ran through him, so powerful his armour whined oddly as it sought to match the movement, and his neural jacks tugged in their sockets.
‘My weapons,’ he said. He had lost his bolt pistol and his sword. He went to retrieve both, whispering calming mantras as he did so.
As he picked up his wrecked sword, he noticed one of the orreti females lived. Its back stump leg was twisted back on itself. One of its forelimbs was broken, the other hacked off at the elbow, leaking purple vitae. The nest of lesser limbs around its chest moved weakly. Dante levelled his gun at its long face. Multiple eyes blinked at him.
‘Peace, peace!’ it said in musical Gothic. ‘Take our salvage. We save for you these things!’ said the orreti, gesturing with bleeding manipulators at the neatly arrayed machinery. ‘We leave. No harm. This dead world we think. But not dead. Is yours. We mistake. We go.’
‘Why did you attack us?’ said Dante, and was surprised at the snarl in his voice.
‘We not attack. You attack.’
Dante’s gun wavered. Feelings of disgust and hot rage battled with those of pity. This w
as a xenos, an implacable enemy of man by its very nature, and yet it pleaded for mercy. Mercy was the third grace. He stared it in the eye. It held its arms up pleadingly.
It was terrified.
Dante dropped his weapon a fraction.
The rest of his brothers were occupied with their raging comrade, but Arvin saw Dante hesitate. ‘Kill it! I will kill it! Let me slay it! Let me drink its blood!’ raged Arvin. He attempted to get at the wounded alien, dragging Lorenz and Giacomus after him. Basileus slammed Arvin in the chest, knocking him off balance so that Lorenz and the others could subdue him. The sergeant ripped off his helmet.
‘Arvin! Calm yourself!’ he ordered. ‘All of you, focus!’
‘Sergeant, this one lives. It calls for clemency,’ said Dante.
Basileus looked back. Savagery had replaced dignity on his face, contorting it into something wild. His eyes were bloodshot, and his fangs extended. ‘What are you doing, Dante? Kill it. It is xenos. It does not deserve to live. Do not hesitate.’
Dante levelled his gun at the thing’s head. The eyes arrayed on its long face widened. He couldn’t stand the sight of its fear. Before he knew what he had done, he had obliterated its face with a shot from his gun to save himself from looking at it. The remaining few eyes shut slowly, and the corpse curled in on itself.
‘Keep him down!’ ordered Basileus. He walked away from the ranting Arvin, and activated the vox-pickup at his neck. ‘This is Basileus. The orreti are dead. I have no indication of any more nearby. I doubt they were responsible for the disappearance of the colonists, but they have stripped the colonia of all useful materials. By their profaning of the Emperor’s world with their unclean tread they earned death. Send extraction for us now. I declare this world cleansed. I will append the report to the Departmento Colonia, suggesting a heavier military presence for the next settlement attempt.’
Arvin was still raging, his strength taxing the three Space Marines trying to hold him in place. ‘Arvin! Brother! It is us! Why do you fight?’ shouted Lorenz. He was panicking. A warrior fearless in the face of the foe, he was frightened by Arvin’s loss of control.