by Guy Haley
‘Where is your fighting spirit, sergeant?’
‘Under control,’ said Hennan. ‘Are you, captain?’
The ship lurched again. The movement was big enough to register against the grav-plating of the ship.
‘You are running out of time!’ said Erwin. ‘Decide. I can save you.’
Hennan stared back, his helmet masking his expression.
‘Very well. We shall try, and, when we die, we shall at least drag millions of these xenos spawn into the warp.’
‘Do you still have shuttlecraft?’
‘A few,’ said Hennan.
‘Then if your hangars are clear, I request that we might borrow them, and return to our vessel.’
Five more Angels Excelsis fell on their way to the Staff of Life’s hangar bays, cut down by genestealers and other, worse things. But Erwin was conveyed to safety and, forty minutes after he departed the Staff’s bridge, he strode back on to the command deck of the Splendid Pinion.
The void outside the ship was crowded with tyranid attack craft, living and dead. The Splendid Pinion was free of assault beasts. The same could not be said of the Staff of Light. A shelled bio-ship had the front of the ship firmly in its tentacles, and was biting at the prow shields with a giant beak. The size of the thing was difficult to comprehend. Few creatures grew to such a size by any natural process, or could withstand the rigours of the void.
‘Send a data-squirt to Captain Asante,’ said Erwin. ‘Inform him we have the Staff of Light under our protection and will attempt a tandem emergency translation.’
‘You are insane,’ said Achemen.
‘Only those who are insane have strength enough to prosper.’
‘Only those who prosper truly judge what is sane,’ responded Achemon.
‘Then you know the Prestican thinkers.’
‘I never said that I agree with them,’ said Achemen. ‘If this works, captain, I swear I shall pay great attention to your every word. If it fails, I would like to say in advance I told you so.’
Erwin looked at his second in command. ‘So you do know how to jest.’
Achemen removed his helmet, revealing a face sheened with combat sweat. His expression was entirely humourless. ‘I do not jest.’
Erwin shrugged. ‘All power to the main drive,’ he ordered. ‘Prepare immaterial drive for emergency translation. Intensify forward fire. Servile Belligerent, remove that creature from the prow of the Staff of Life.’
‘Yes, my lord! Gunnery stations, prepare fusion beamers and plasma casters for maximum discharge,’ ordered the Servile Belligerent.
Erwin’s commands sent his human crew into action. They were tense, but worked efficiently, their fear at imminent death kept in check by their training.
‘Servile of the Helm, take us forward.’
‘Course, my lord?’
Erwin grinned inside his helmet. ‘Into the heart of the swarm.’
The Splendid Pinion’s engines burst into life, their backwash incinerating a score of tyranid vessels attempting a stern approach. Erwin’s vessel slid forward smoothly relative to the Staff of Life. The creature wrapped around the prow spewed streams of gas from vents along the curve of its shell, shoving the Staff of Life sideways. The stress of this movement could snap a ship in two, and the vessel had little choice but to roll with the beast while attempting to move forward.
‘Spinal gunnery stations, standby!’ shouted the Servile Belligerent.
The tyranid beast was huge in the oculus, moving out of view as the Splendid Pinion passed it by. Erwin watched its grainy image captured on the hololith and tacticaria.
‘Fire! Full strike!’ said the Servile Belligerent.
The shells and void-pocked flesh of tyranids all around the Splendid Pinion lit up harshly as a dozen energy cannons let fire. Beams of plasma slammed into the shell of the grappling kraken, charring it through to the core. Fusion beams flash cooked the soft tissue within, then rendered it into ash, but the creature did not die. It convulsed, gripping the ship harder than ever, before a second volley hollowed out the shell. It floated away, keratinous armour smouldering, detached tentacles drifting off, given brief freedom before they too expired. The Staff of Life lumbered around, correcting its course and following the Splendid Pinion.
‘Match speed to the Staff of Light,’ said Erwin. ‘Do not outpace it.’
Guns flared along the flanks of the two ships. The void shields of the Splendid Pinion sparkled as it absorbed thousands of small impacts. The strike cruisers were alone, the rest of the fleet having outpaced the pursuing tyranids. The Staff of Life could only limp along. Bio-ships swarmed the two vessels. By dint of sheer firepower, they kept their side approaches clear of aliens, but the real peril came at them from the front, where the two squadrons sent out to intercept the Imperial fleet had reversed course and were now bearing down directly on the strike cruisers.
‘My lord?’ asked the Servile of the Helm. He looked up from his station and the choir of servitors he directed.
‘Straight at them! Prepare for warp translation on my mark. Activate Geller fields.’
‘We shall have to drop the void shields,’ warned the Servile Scutus.
‘Do it!’ commanded Erwin.
The tyranids drew closer. The void shields dropped, exposing the ship to the impact of living torpedoes and balls of bioplasma. The anti-munitions cannons of the vessel worked ceaselessly. The point defence turrets and interception galleries reeked of overheated machinery, and were ankle deep in hot shell casings.
‘We are not going to make it,’ said Achemen. He pointed ahead. A shoal of many-armed assault beasts was speeding at the vessel.
‘Stand firm!’ ordered Erwin. ‘Launch torpedoes. Full spreads. Reload, fire again. Do not stop.’
Moments later, the prow ejected six heavy torpedoes at the creatures.
The timbre of the ship’s voice changed. Complex harmonics overlaid the rumble of the engines.
‘Translation in fifty seconds,’ intoned a dull machine voice.
The soapy sheen of a Geller field appeared around the vessel. There was no communication between the Angels Excelsis and the Angels Numinous ships, but the Staff of Light’s actions matched that of their would-be rescuer, and their own warp protection popped into being a moment later, flexing the void around it.
‘Translation in thirty seconds.’
‘We will be torn apart by gravitic shear,’ said Achemen. ‘I advise you to change course, captain, and make speed for a different translation point.’
‘The chances of survival are only moderately better,’ said Erwin. ‘The certainty of death to the xenos is only increased by our departure from their midst. Make for the centre of the interception shoal!’
‘Translation in twenty seconds.’
Thousands of spores, seeds, pods and living munitions peppered the oculus, mouths sucking and scraping at the armourglass as they slid off. The first round of torpedoes met their target, blasting apart a kraken ship. The second volley arrived more quickly, the distance between the closing splinter squadron and the escaping cruisers now considerably shortened, but these detonated prematurely, their drives fouled by suicidal creatures and their servitor brains deceived by false information projected by living chaff.
‘We are not going to make it. Damn it, Erwin, you have killed us all.’ Achemen placed his helmet back on and loosened his weapons. ‘All squads, prepare for boarding parties.’
Erwin ignored him. He leaned on the dais rail, hands gripping it so hard the metal bent. There was a chance. Where there was life, there was always a chance.
The chance was rapidly diminishing. Already grasping tentacles were unfurling, diamond-tipped appendages flexed, the teeth on their suckers twitching, ready to snare their prey.
‘Translation in ten seconds,’ said the voice.
‘That is it. They have us,’ said Achemen.
But as the first tentacle brushed the ship, it recoiled. The kraken slowed and broke formation clumsily, turning away from the vessel. One sailed dangerously close to the command tower, a vast, moist eye peered hungrily into the ship, and then it was gone.
‘Apparently not,’ said Erwin.
‘Translation ready,’ said the voice.
‘Close the shutters!’ bellowed Erwin. ‘Brace for translation! Engage warp engines!’
The shutters of the oculus descended, smearing the remains of dead tyranid void organisms across armourglass. Command deck lumens dipped and turned red.
‘Brace. Brace. Brace,’ sang a skull-faced servitor with a beautiful voice.
The ship’s immaterial drive howled at being activated in proximity to so much mass. Reality warping bent perceptions out of true, stretching space-time like spun sugar. The sickening threat of Geller field failure teetered on the cusp of realisation. The crews of both craft experienced a moment of disassociation, a feeling of being adrift in a sea of monsters far worse than the tyranids.
Outside, the black cloth of space balled in on itself. In place of the normally smooth creation of a warp rift, the void rumpled into a cluster of holes, and the veil of reality opened like melting plastek sheeting. Multiple smaller rifts sagged open, interspersed by hard knots of compressed reality. The ships sailed on directly towards the central tear of this cancerous fissure. They shuddered as gravity waves rucked up the void. A hard particle sleet of neutrons and gamma bursts slew servitors and burned out electronic systems, but still they plunged on towards the blazing unlight beyond the uneven rift.
The effect on the tyranids was catastrophic. Their ships were scattered like playthings flicked off a blanket. Those closest to the opening tear imploded messily on themselves, compressed into neutronic diamond, or were smeared bloodily across space.
With a final wrenching noise that echoed in the souls of all living things present, the empyrean was revealed. The ships passed out of reality with a violent flare, leaving the interception shoal in shreds. For thousands of miles around their translation point the tyranid fleet was decimated.
On board the command deck of the Splendid Pinion Erwin released the dais rail.
‘Well done, my servants,’ he said.
Sparks rained down from on high. The smell of cooked human flesh rose from wrecked servitors. Fires burned unchecked on three galleries at the back. But they had survived.
‘Captain,’ said the Servile of Response. ‘I have vox contact from the Staff of Light. They are firmly in our warp envelope and following.’
Erwin looked over to Achemen.
‘First sergeant, you spoke too hastily.’
‘I did not,’ said Achemen, staring ahead. ‘The enterprise was reckless.’
‘Yet you admit we are alive, and we have saved a valuable vessel in the process.’
‘Luck,’ said Achemen.
‘Maybe.’ Erwin stood taller. His pauldrons shifted back. ‘You will report to me later for punishment duty.’ He swept his gaze over his command deck. ‘Never gainsay me like that again.’
Chapter Six
The Archangelian
While the muster gathered, Commander Dante spent much of his waking hours in the throne room at the pinnacle of the Archangelian, a soaring, needle-thin tower upon the Arx Murus. A processional staircase guarded by statues wound its way up the tower’s hollow centre, decorated with a continuous mural a thousand yards in length painted only in shades of red, black and bone. A rich runner, hand knotted by the Blood Angels themselves, carpeted the stair in a single, unbroken length. The rods that held it in place were of pink Baalite granite, the stops of platinum. A hundred thousand bloodstones glinted in the balustrade of the stair. Organ music blasted from the depths with such force it created a swirling draught in the shaft of the stairwell, buffeting the angelic cyber-constructs and the servo-skulls of loyal blood thralls centuries dead that thronged it.
Hundreds of Space Marines ascended the stair in slow unison, their steps timed with ritual precision. Dozens of Chapter heraldries were evident. Most of the supplicants were Chapter lords and captains, Chaplains, forge masters, Sanguinary priests and similarly high ranks. Though members of brotherhoods other than the Blood Angels, they were moved by the beautiful singing of the blood thralls as much as their hosts were, and hearkened to the teachings of the Blood Angels Chaplains stationed on the stair’s wide landings with as much respect.
Mephiston bypassed the ritual line in an unseemly hurry. Rhacelus followed. The appearance of the Lord of Death was greeted with a mixture of emotion by the gathered scions of Sanguinius. Many Librarians acknowledged him. The reaction of their brothers was less favourable.
Mephiston’s uncanny presence provoked fear in all men, even in the hardened hearts and minds of the Adeptus Astartes, and though it was but a shifting unease the Space Marines felt, it was still fear. Of all the sons of Sanguinius, only High Chaplain Astorath the Grim, Redeemer of the Lost, provoked more loathing.
Rhacelus felt the wash of emotion as his master surely must. Mephiston showed not a sign of caring. His will was hard as millennial ice, black as night and strong as iron. Opprobrium or approbation were equally unimportant to him.
Droning chants provided a simple baseline to the complexities of soaring plainsong. Proclamations of Sanguinius’ purity and responses of loyalty from the Space Marine lords added a rhythm. All were entwined with the rumbling organ music. Unity of purpose and of blood bound music and men together.
If this were only a common happening, thought Rhacelus, then nought would stand against us. The galaxy would know peace again. Rhacelus was old, and he had seen many gatherings of the Blood, but he was humbled by this unprecedented display of power and piety coiling its way around the Archangelian.
Mephiston caught Rhacelus’ thoughts.
‘It is impressive,’ he said aloud.
‘The Blood is strong with us,’ said Rhacelus.
‘You have spent too long these last weeks cloistered in the Diurnal Vaults, Rhacelus. Venture onto the Arx Murus and you will see the majesty of the force Dante has summoned.’
They arrived at the top of the stair. Blood Angels in the golden plate of the Sanguinary Guard barred a giant set of carved stone doors leading into the throne hall. Two skull-headed angels were depicted in the stone either side of a giant ‘IX’ picked out in gold, their skeletal hands held up to frame the numeral.
At the head of the line waited Castellan Zargo, the Chapter Master of the Angels Encarmine, flanked by his honour guard. Mephiston ignored him.
‘Let us pass,’ said Mephiston to the Sanguinary Guard.
The guardian angel’s vox emitter rendered his voice emotionless, at odds with the howling mouth of his death mask.
‘Lord Commander Dante forbids entry while he is receiving our allies.’
‘He must see us immediately,’ said Rhacelus. ‘We have news regarding the Diamor taskforce.’
‘I shall contact him when he is done with the lords of the Angels Penitent.’
‘Damn protocol,’ said Rhacelus. ‘This cannot wait.’
The Lord of Death stared into the eye-lenses of the sentry. Power haloed the Lord of Death’s face, the blue wychlight bringing cold accents to the warm gold of the guard’s armour. ‘You will speak with him now.’
‘Very well.’ The Sanguinary Guard fell silent a moment as he communicated on a private channel. ‘You may enter, oh Lord of Death,’ he said.
The Sanguinary Guard parted their spears. Mephiston gazed at them with undisguised annoyance as they swung open the soundless doors.
The throne hall occupied the whole of the tower’s pinnacle. Decorated buttresses leaned in from heavily carved walls supporting the dome of stained glass. Floor to ceiling windows, sixty feet high, gave views out over t
he fortress monastery and the host barracked in the desert. Cowled blood thralls stood motionless in recesses between the windows holding bronze effigies of artists’ tools and small representations of their masters’ weapons. The stone floor was black as the void, its surface flawless and polished to so reflective a shine it was as if a second, inverted dome lurked just beneath its surface.
Ten stylised statues of Space Marines made an inner circle within the room, five to represent the Angelic Graces of honour, humility, mercy, restraint and forgiveness. Set in opposition were the Warrior’s Virtues of strength, savagery, abandon, rage and detachment. Where an eleventh statue might have stood was the commander’s throne. Nine steps of blood-red porphyry led up to a seat far too large for a human being, even a Space Marine, sheltered under a giant bronze ciborium. Sanguinius spread golden wings and arms behind the throne in an effigy so lifelike he looked as if he might take flight.
Another image of Sanguinius sat on the throne, and this one did live. Commander Dante wore the death mask of Sanguinius and, in doing so, became an echo of him.
Commander Dante should have looked small and unimportant in a seat sized for a primarch, but somehow the mask magnified his presence, making a giant of his golden armoured form. He was a vessel for Sanguinius’ grace, and the light of the Emperor’s noblest son shone out of him.
On Dante’s left stood Corbulo, the Sanguinary high priest. On his right was the Paternis Sanguis Ordamael, deputising for the ever-absent High Chaplain Astorath. Either side of them were crescent formations of the Chapter’s highest officials, like blood-red wings. All were bareheaded but Ordamael, whose chaplaincy vows forbade him from removing his helmet in company, and Dante, who habitually hid his face behind that of Sanguinius.
Fourteen Space Marines knelt at the foot of the stairs. Eight were Chaplains, their humanity hidden by cast skulls and symbols of death. The rest wore armour that bore too close a resemblance to that of the Death Company for Rhacelus’ liking. Dark red thorns snaked over the black of their plate.
Rhacelus felt a deep self-loathing radiating from them and, by extension, for the rest of their geneline. Still, they had come to defend Baal.