by Nick Kyme
Sturndrang was a heavily industrialised world of vast factorums and massively overly populated hive cities. Utilising the rich mineral deposits of its mines and other subterranean works, the majority of its populace served the Throne through intense manual labour in the production of materiel for the never-ending Imperial war effort. Shells, tank armour, glacis for aircraft, vulcanised rubber, plastek, fuel, teeth for chain-weapons, even rivets were all manufactured on Sturndrang in one of its twenty-three hives.
When they had made their descent through low atmosphere, the Salamanders had been granted their first proper look at their hunting ground, a smog-choked vista of blister-encrusted spires on a plain of irradiated wasteland.
Sturndrang was a war world in many respects, and a standing army was garrisoned on it to protect its highly valuable assets. Amongst the domes and blisters, the sub-spires and annexed mezzanine levels jutting from the ugly sloped flanks of the hives, Agatone had seen bastions and blockhouses. Landing pads, even a sizeable orbital dock were in evidence. Search-lamps strafed the night that gripped Sturndrang in an eternally clenched fist and patrols in light gun-cutters or atmospherically-sealed speeders made regular passes to ensure continued compliance and maximum civilian efficiency.
Agatone had come from a world of industry too. Nocturne, although much less stable than Sturndrang, an alpha-classification death world in fact, was not so dissimilar in its industrial endeavour. It was, however, entirely less like a sprawling slave camp. As they had made planetfall, careful to avoid the patrols and the strafing lights, Agatone found the idea of Sturndrang disgusted him. A quirk of his humanitarian nature, he supposed, but to inflict such squalor and deprivation on a populace seemed little better than tyranny to his mind. It was then he was reminded of just how large and unruly the galaxy was. So many worlds, so many interpretations of the Imperium’s law.
‘So much corruption…’ he had muttered angrily, and without the taint of Ruin in sight.
And beneath these very literal hives of industry were the substrata, those sectors that had been constructed upon to serve the fervent desire of Sturndrang’s overseers for greater production, larger output. Over centuries and millennia, they had sunk deeper and deeper into the earth until few alive could recall what their original purpose and function had been. Here and there, as the Salamanders had descended into the underhive, experiencing the squalor and desperation of its underclasses for themselves, was evidence of former glories. A mosaic floor, an ornate fountain long parched, a marble staircase, a grand hall stripped of its gilding, a begrimed sign bearing some proud industrial motto or rubric. Wars, natural disasters, power grabs, all and more had served to transform Sturndrang during its long history of Imperial fealty. Fortunes and landscape had changed – one thing that had not was the production of materiel.
As Agatone stood by the wreckage of the Malevolents’ ship, one his former battle-brother had somehow guided to this devastated landing his Techmarine now examined, he considered the warren they were searching. Labyrinthine did not even begin to describe its complexity.
He hoped Tsu’gan was dead. He would wish he was dead by the time Agatone finally caught up with him.
CHAPTER FIVE
Heletine, Canticus, Imperial held territory
They reached the laager of armoured personnel carriers where Sepelius had set up his apothecarion. Ahead of Va’lin, Dersius and the injured Naeb, trails of wounded snaked from various medical stations. Most were Cadians, battered and brutalised, tramping wearily in long trains like a coffle of slaves. Some travelled via stretcher; others were covered from sight, being taken for the pyre not the medicae. Entire troop holds of Chimera transports were filled with the dead. Va’lin had seen their bodies. White Shields, troopers, Kasrkin, even commissars. None were spared the Black Legion’s wrath or thirst for blood.
Overhead, the low turbine thrum of engines was a constant drone as slow-moving Stormravens ferried the Salamanders dead and injured. As he looked up at the shadow of one passing over them, Va’lin wondered if Sor’ad was aboard. He also caught Ky’dak’s eye for a moment, following a few steps behind the others, and glanced away.
Munitorum clerks would record the latest Canticus engagement as a victory, but Va’lin and the others who had fought in the battle knew it was a pyrrhic one at best. Zantho’s armoured intervention had cost them ground elsewhere. Where one point of pressure was relieved, another was redoubled. So far, during these first weeks of engagement, all the Imperium had managed to achieve was a grinding stalemate. Va’lin wondered why, and also what the Black Legion wanted with this world, beyond mere bloody conquest. Speculation would have to wait. As they reached the edge of the laager, Sepelius awaited.
Va’lin had already sent the others back to barracks for weapons and armour repair. Without Iaptus, who was still on the recently won battlefield with Zantho, there were only four of the original squad present.
Upon seeing the battered assault squad tramping through his ‘gates’, the Apothecary asked, ‘More meat from the grinder, brothers?’
Dersius handed over Naeb to a pair of medical servitors Sepelius had sent to meet them. The servos of the cyborganic creatures strained audibly as they took the injured Salamander’s weight. Naeb knew little about it. He had been going in and out of consciousness for the last few minutes. Va’lin was relieved his brother would finally be getting some medical attention.
‘Seems I have a butcher’s lot already,’ added the Apothecary in a sibilant voice.
The improvised medical station inside the laager’s armoured boundary was capacious. Warriors from Sixth stood sentinel in stormbolter turrets, and small squads of Cadian 81st patrolled the periphery with fingers poised next to lasgun triggers. An air of unease pervaded on account of a battle barely won.
Nearby, a large area had been staked out and delineated as a landing pad. The Stormraven Va’lin had seen flying overhead earlier had just finished unloading its mortal cargo and was cycling its turbine engines as it prepared to get airborne again.
‘Is that what we are to you, Sepelius… Meat?’
Dersius could not keep the distaste out of his voice.
‘Anything other and I fear the trauma of seeing so much death would unhinge me, brother,’ Sepelius smiled, but it was cold and utterly without humour.
The Apothecary wore predominantly white armour, though it was stained by now with blood and dirt. One shoulder guard displayed his allegiance to the Chapter. Unlike the assault squad’s green drake head sigil on a field of black, Sepelius was part of Drakgaard’s command squad and wore the same drake head against a backdrop of fiery yellow. His face was long, his forehead pronounced. An ugly man in many ways, not that this concerned Sepelius remotely. He was tall also, and marginally looked down on the warriors before him. His hair was shorn close to his scalp, and winter-white much like his demeanour.
‘Just patch him up, Brother-Apothecary,’ said Va’lin, cutting through the needless posturing. ‘I have need of him, as does the grinder.’
The servitors were carrying Naeb away into a busy throng of medics and walking wounded. Sepelius had already established a system of triage and was prioritising Adeptus Astartes over Guard. From the sheer number of injured against the amount of medical staff present, it looked like they had a long night ahead of them.
‘He’ll be ready for death again come the morning, Va’lin,’ Sepelius replied as the other three Salamanders turned to leave. ‘Tell me,’ he called, ‘are your thoughts still troubled?’
Va’lin cursed under his breath, but kept on walking. Against his better judgement, before he knew how caustic Sepelius could be, he had gone to the Apothecary about his experiences in the fire canyons back on Nocturne. Upon meeting the man, Va’lin’s instincts had warned him against saying too much but now Sepelius would not let it go.
‘What’s he talking about?’ asked Dersius with a scathing glance over his shoulde
r at the Apothecary.
Ky’dak said nothing, and kept his eyes forward, but Va’lin could tell he was also intrigued.
‘I confided in someone I shouldn’t have, brother. There’s no more to it than that.’
A spit of flame overhead and the aggressive roar of jump jets interrupted as the descending figure of Sergeant Iaptus prevented any further awkward questioning.
He seemed agitated.
‘Dersius, Ky’dak, rejoin the rest of the squad back at camp. Brother Va’lin, you are with me.’
Iaptus boosted away again immediately and Va’lin followed.
‘Brother-sergeant?’ he asked across the vox, which was now fully functional again.
‘Captain Drakgaard has recalled all officers not currently in the field. Apparently, there has been a change in our war footing on Heletine.’
‘Because of Canticus, and Zantho’s redeployment?’
As they soared over the city, leaping from one ruin to the next, Va’lin was afforded a good view of the fires and the wreckage the war had wrought so far. Canticus appeared as if it had been ransacked, and he wondered again at the motives of their enemies.
Through the darkness and drifting smoke, Va’lin picked out the phosphor lamps of a hexagonal landing pad and the bulky Stormraven there with engines idling.
‘That and something else,’ Iaptus replied as they touched down thirty metres from the waiting gunship. ‘Allies,’ said Iaptus, speaking without the vox as they tramped across the earth. ‘Sisters of the Ebon Chalice.’
‘Sororitas?’
Iaptus turned his gaze on Va’lin.
‘The Ecclesiarchy’s warrior-zealots have come to Heletine for Throne only knows what reason.’
The front hatch of the Fourth Company Stormraven descended to form a ramp. Iaptus and Va’lin climbed aboard to make the remainder of the journey to Escadan and the Imperial encampment.
CHAPTER SIX
Nova-class frigate, Forge Hammer
The ship drifted, night-black against a starless void. Battle-worn, its hull was ragged and bore stark evidence of a recent hostile engagement. Its engines were dormant and without function, cold like a dead star. Its port and starboard facings were dark and no heat trace was present in its systems that, for all intents and purposes, were inert. Ostensibly, the Hunter-class Destroyer that had recently come into close proximity of the Forge Hammer was dead.
Lieutenant Makato’s face betrayed his consternation as he glared at the sensorium feed that described the foreign vessel that had just strayed into their vicinity. His mood failed to improve as he regarded the scratchy pict captures. Incongruity displeased him, and everything about this ship, its sudden appearance and condition, was incongruous. Like a slow-moving ocean predator that plays dead whilst drifting on the currents with the other flotsam, the dark ship had crept up on the larger frigate, as innocuous on the sensorium as an asteroid. It wasn’t until the ship could be seen and identified that the alarm had been raised.
‘How long have you been aware of this?’ Makato asked pensively, smoothing his moustache and beard.
He was looking over the shoulder of a young officer, overseeing the ship’s eyes and ears. The Forge Hammer was currently at ‘silent running’, so the bridge was quiet, the many consoles sparsely attended by a skeleton crew and under-lit with softly glowing lumens.
‘A few minutes, sir. I hailed as soon as I was sure.’
‘Sure of what, ensign?’
‘That it was a ship, sir.’
‘And what’s your assessment now?’
The officer seemed nonplussed. ‘It’s a wreck, sir. A carcass of a ship, really. It must have drifted into the planet’s gravity well and been drawn to us.’
‘You’ve detected no motive power at all?’ asked Makato, whose eyes had yet to leave the screen.
‘No, sir.’
‘No life signs?’
‘Not that we can tell, sir. Biorhythmic activity is difficult to accurately gauge at this range, though, and our instruments are not–’
‘Then we should take a closer look.’
‘Y-yes, sir.’
Makato lifted his gaze from the console at last.
‘Not you, ensign,’ he said, and turned his attention to the broad-shouldered armsman standing at ease behind him.
‘Jedda, summon three of your men trained in atmospheric combat.’
Jedda saluted crisply and departed as ordered. The uniform he wore, like all those sworn to the fire-born aboard the Forge Hammer, was coal black with his rank markings described in grey. Makato’s insignia, as befitted his station, was silver.
‘You,’ said Makato, facing the officer, ‘will vox for Enginseer Utulexx to join us on launch deck six. I want a craft fuelled and ready in twenty minutes.’
‘Us, sir?’
‘Yes, I need to stretch my legs.’ Makato was stalking away when he paused. ‘And tell him to bring the Thallax.’
‘Sir…’ the ensign ventured somewhat hopefully.
Makato paused again. Though he had his back to the lad, the stiffening of his shoulders intimated his annoyance.
‘Should I contact Lord Xarko with news of this discovery?’
Makato seemed to consider this, relaxing for a moment, before stiffening up again and trooping on his way.
‘No, do not. The lord is in his sanctum – we don’t need to disturb him with this.’
An Arvus Lighter was prepped and waiting on launch deck six for Lieutenant Makato as per his orders. So too was a squad of armsmen, all kitted out in atmosphere suits. They stood at attention outside the small atmospheric craft, armed with heavy-gauge lasguns and hand-held plasma-cutters. The atmosphere suits were enhanced rubber and plastek, ugly looking things and cumbersome but they were effective.
Also present was the enginseer. Utulexx had brought his watchdog, which loomed large and threatening behind the robed servant of the Martian Mechanicus. The Thallax was a battle engine, a hulking cyborg that cradled an immense rifle across its armoured torso. It was called a ‘lightning gun’, a blunt yet accurate appellation. Through a series of capacitors and power relays slaved to the Thallax’s cyborganic systems, the lightning gun was capable of producing a devastating energy beam that could incapacitate mechanical targets via an extreme overload of power. For organic targets, the effects were somewhat messier and more permanent.
Between Jedda’s squad and the combat-droid, there was a lot of firepower. In his many years of service aboard the Forge Hammer and the Triumphal before that, Makato had learned to be cautious, especially when stepping into the unknown.
Apart from the lumen array which was lighting up the area around the Arvus, the rest of the deck was dark. There were sixteen launch bays on this deck in total, all lined up on the flanking wall. All but one were sealed and in shadow. Aft launch bay theta-seven was lit by a ring of flashing amber emergency lamps.
This was Captain Agatone’s ship, and while he and the rest of his warriors were off-deck Lord Xarko was in command. In his absence, Kensai Makato ran things. Though by any military standards his rank was modest, he took great pride in his appointed task. He was in service to a Chapter of the Emperor’s Angels; in his mind that was a great and unimpeachable honour. Every serf from armsman to brander-priest was his responsibility. In many respects he was this ship’s major-domo, its custodian and gamekeeper. Any potential threat to its smooth running Makato regarded as his duty to deal with.
This ship was but the latest.
And besides, as he had told the ensign, he needed to stretch his legs. The last bit of excitement they had experienced was several weeks back when the Vulkan’s Wrath had docked with the Forge Hammer letting Agatone and eight of his men aboard. Xarko was already on deck, the Librarian had joined them earlier via shuttle craft. A course was plotted to Sturndrang and the rest was kept need-to-know. For Maka
to that meant their destination but nothing else. Agatone and his charges had seemed agitated, though, but that was the extent of what was shared with any non-Adeptus Astartes personnel.
It didn’t matter to Makato. He knew his duty, and would prosecute it to the fullest. If that meant breaking up the monotony of twiddling his thumbs in low orbit above some dirt world he had never heard of and was less than inclined to visit then so much the better.
Descending via pneumatic pressure lift, Makato reached the deck promptly.
‘All is in readiness, Jedda?’ he asked as he reached the others.
‘Aye, sir,’ replied the gruff master-at-arms. ‘All pre-flight checks have been conducted. Ship is fuelled and at your command.’
‘Then let’s get this done.’
Makato paused on the lighter’s access ramp before going in.
‘You know why you’re here?’ he asked Utulexx.
‘Explorative mission aboard apparently scuppered Hunter-class vessel that has drifted into our immediate vicinity.’ The enginseer spoke through a vocaliser grille instead of a mouth. Underneath his hood, a single optic glowed as its tracking rings focused and refocused on the lieutenant. He was hunched, a result of the heavy cybernetic augmentation his body had undergone during his long tenure, but most of his mechanised enhancements were concealed by expansive brown robes. A Mechanicus sigil, unique to his dominions back on Mars and echoed over the Thallax’s black and gunmetal grey carapace, adorned his priestly vestments.
‘You wish to know what is on board, lieutenant,’ Utulexx concluded.
‘Correct.’
Makato glanced up at the ‘head’ of the Thallax. He had to crane his neck quite far to do so. A diode where its eye might have been glowed green, signifying passivity.
‘Keep that thing quiescent unless it’s needed,’ he warned Utulexx. ‘If there are survivors, I don’t want them eradicated before I’ve had a chance to question them.’
‘And if they are hostile, lieutenant?’ asked Utulexx.