Defenders of Mankind - David Annandale & Guy Haley

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘Very well, go to it then,’ said Caedis. ‘Why not simply proceed?’

  ‘The sensors operate by measuring the rapid passage of vibrations through the fabric of the gathered mass. By calculating their rapidity, how they slow and accelerate, we can discern what is stone, what is metal, what is void, and so forth. Truly is the wisdom of the Omnissiah great! He is artful and cunning indeed.’ Plosk sighed regretfully. ‘But we require a node for the vibrations, a place from which they may be gathered, triangulated and uploaded for due processing by our logicators and cogitation engines.’

  ‘For the result to be most effective, brother-captain, that source would best be inside the hulk,’ said Clastrin.

  ‘A first mission inside?’ said Galt. He sat forward. ‘You propose a reconnaissance in force.’

  ‘Precisely, lord captain,’ said Plosk with a shallow bow. ‘There are further benefits to an exploratory expedition. While within, other variables could be determined, variables that may well influence the composition and deployment of our – your – forces when it comes to the attack. The distribution of the radioactivity that so fills the hulk, the whereabouts of vacuum, gravitic variance, hull density, presence of atmosphere, the operational status of ships within the agglomeration, whether any of the machine-spirits inside cling to life, the placing of informational caches and other, more esoteric yet highly useful data could be gathered, processed by my tech-priests, and the knowledge gained gladly shared.’

  ‘That is as may be, magos. However, as soon as we enter the space hulk to begin the mapping process, the genestealers will become aware of our presence,’ said Galt. ‘At the present time they do not know of us, and the majority will be in hibernation. To enter the hulk will stir the hornets’ nest. Our few men would be swiftly killed, and then a large force will be waiting, fully wakened, when we attempt the main assault.’

  ‘You have experience of fighting such infestations?’ asked Nuministon.

  ‘A great deal,’ said Galt sternly. ‘Have you, magos?’

  Plosk ignored the retort. ‘Surely the hornets’ nest will be disturbed should you arrive in force? You would not have time to breach their brood chambers and purge them, then. Besides, we know of the location of but a few of their nests. Without a reliable map your efforts will be cogs too small for good gearing. Immediate assault will provoke the xenos in any case, and as an additional hindrance you will have no reliable charts to guide you.’

  ‘A number of small assaults is unlikely to succeed, I admit. Stealth and swiftness are our surety against death in situations such as these. They have often served us well aboard such derelicts, but here?’ Galt clucked his tongue, ‘No. Only overwhelming force will suffice.’ He gestured to pulsing green clusters, the biosigns of uncovered genestealer roosts. ‘They are many, and we are few. Even as two Chapters we are too few.’

  ‘Then I advise stealth first, Lord Captain Galt, the stealth you yourself say is your greatest weapon. And then, why, then the hammer blow, once our intelligence is gathered.’ said Plosk. He steepled his fingers in front of his lips and smiled. ‘Choose your battleground wisely, good disposition is half the battle.’

  ‘You speak sense, tech-priest, and you quote the Codex at me, whose tenets are dear to all who wear the battleplate of the Adeptus Astartes. You are sly, but slyness alone will not sway my decision. Tell me more.’ He sat forward. ‘Where would this device of yours require its planting? Show me.’

  The hulk rotated. Part of it expanded greatly, pushing the hulk out through the chamber walls. The detail became uncertain, with many gaps. In a dark patch, a ruby skull blinked.

  Galt nodded curtly. ‘It is possible. The location is far from the brood roosts. Teleportation is impossible I take it, Clastrin?’

  ‘Regrettably so, brother-captain. Matter patterning will not hold in the face of the sun’s emissions and the energy fluctuations within the hulk.’

  ‘Then entry must be made from the surface. Here.’ Galt pointed a finger at the skin of a starship’s back, exposed to the stars. ‘They will have to cut their way in. Boarding torpedoes will cause too much of a disturbance. One squad of Terminators, two at most. And they will have to move quickly. Three kilometres down. Hmmm.’ Galt sat back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. ‘But yes. It can be done. Lord Caedis, what is your opinion?’

  ‘My Chapter has little recent experience fighting such battles,’ said Caedis. ‘Although we have faced the genestealer threat on many worlds lately, we have not combated them in space for a long time, not for four recruitment generations. I defer to your Chapter’s more recent experience. I propose that you, Lord Captain Galt, should assume responsibility for this initial mission. Choose one of your warriors to lead it. I will provide a squad of my own brothers as support, under your overall command.’

  ‘It is an honour, Lord Chapter Master.’

  ‘It is prudence, lord captain, I am a proud warrior, but I will not let pride come in the way of sense.’

  ‘Cogitator-Lexmechanic Nuministon will accompany you,’ said Plosk.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Galt.

  ‘Necessary,’ said Plosk. ‘I doubt even your Forgemaster has the expertise required to activate our seismic probe and extract the relevant data from it.’

  Galt checked readings dancing close to the mechanism of the Imagifer Maximus. ‘Only Terminator armour is proof against such a high radiation count, lord magos, you will surely perish.’

  ‘I will survive. The flesh is weak, but there is little of flesh about me,’ grated Nuministon. ‘And you will find my armour to possess a sufficient grade of shielding. We have our means.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Galt reluctantly. ‘I will not be held accountable for your fate. You come on your own recognisance, and will suffer whatever befalls you on your own account.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Plosk.

  ‘I will accompany them,’ said Clastrin. ‘My plate, too, is sufficiently shielded.’

  ‘As you desire, Forgemaster,’ said Galt, inwardly pleased that the Techmarine would be there. To have ordered him would have spoken too loudly of his mistrust of the tech-priests, that he volunteered removed his opinion from the equation.

  ‘Who will you choose to lead the mission, lord?’ asked Clastrin in his twin voices.

  Galt did not say. There was only one man who should, even if to attempt this mission might mean his death. One man who had fought against xenos the length and breadth of the segmentum, including five successful hulk purgings.

  Veteran-Sergeant Voldo.

  Chapter 5

  Mission the First

  Galt stood by the window of his sparsely furnished state room. He had removed his armour, and wore the robes of his order. He toyed idly with his pendant. The room’s window lay on the starboard side, opposite to the side facing the hulk and sun. He stared out through his own reflection at a starscape he had come to know very well from every angle over his long lifetime. He knew the ways it changed from place to place in the Ultima Segmentum. The stars always seemed so strong to him out in space, burning with eternal, unwavering light away from the occluding impurities of atmosphere, as if the cosmos were a thing of such cleanliness light could travel unimpeded to its every corner. Experience told him that this was not so, that the pure rays of the stars shone upon uncountable horrors, things that would snuff the life of all of mankind out given but half a chance. The universe was far from kind, no matter the beauty of the stellar light.

  How long ago was it, he thought, before he had been accepted into the halls of the dead, and shown a universe he could not have imagined? Time and many wars separated the adept from the boy he had been, a boy who had believed that the stars were the eyes of the Emperor’s judges, constantly measuring a man by the tally of deeds written upon his skin, choosing the most noble of them to present to the Sky-Emperor himself upon their death.

  He knew differently now, but part of him still believed. He and the others marked their skins for the Emperor even after they had
learned the truth of the stars’ nature. They still expected to be judged by their markings by the Emperor. Just as much as he knew that the Emperor had been a man, a man whose legacy he carried within his altered body, still the Lord of Man was also a god to Galt. He could never distance himself entirely from that belief, and his visits to the Shadow Novum only hardened them. The bonds between the Novamarines and their brothers in Ultramar weakened as all things will weaken over time, as the Novamarines stepped steadily further down the road of veneration.

  He supposed it was no different for the Blood Drinkers; that they too wandered their own path, further and further away from the habits of their primogenitor Chapter. He had no experience of the Blood Angels, and so could not compare their ways.

  ‘Can not a thing contain two natures?’ he muttered to himself. He rubbed at his new tattoo. He hoped it would please the Emperor, on that day he finally saw him for the reckoning of his own deeds, and that he would be judged worthy to join the legions of dead heroes he gathered for the final days. He had a feeling that what occurred here, in orbit around Jorso, would have great bearing on that acceptance.

  He considered again using the fleet astropaths to ask Chapter Master Hydariko for his guidance, but decided against it. The captains of the Novamarines operated alone much of the time, and were expected to use their own discretion. That went doubly so for him, captain of the First Company, and heir-apparent to the Chapter mastership of all the Novamarines. Why he had been so elevated, he did not know. He deserved his captaincy; he was sure of his abilities, but to become Chapter Master? He had too many doubts, he was unsure of too much.

  The watch chime tolled for evening contemplation, but he would meditate later. Galt had other business. Punctually, a knock sounded upon the door.

  ‘Enter!’ called Galt.

  The door slid back and Major-domo Polanczek stepped in. He bowed deeply. ‘Lord First Captain, Lord Veteran-Sergeant Voldo is here to see you.’

  ‘Thank you. Show him in.’

  Polanczek bowed once more and departed. A moment later Voldo came into the room. He wore the sash over his robes Galt had seen in the Shadow Novum. A chill gripped his spine, and he had to force himself to remain composed.

  ‘Veteran Brother-Sergeant Voldo,’ Galt said. He stepped forward and grasped his old mentor’s forearm.

  ‘Mantillio, how are you?’

  ‘I thought all eyes were on me,’ said Galt. ‘Do you not know?’

  ‘Eyes are upon you as they should be upon the one who leads us, as lord captain. But I meant, how are you? How is the man, Mantillio Galt?’

  ‘Captain and Galt… They are one and the same man, brother.’

  Voldo scratched an old scar on his head, one that cut through an abstract image of an alien warrior dying under Voldo’s chainsword. ‘There is always room for yourself, even for the likes of us. If we cease to think for ourselves, we lose our usefulness as tools of the Emperor’s will.’

  Galt shook his head. ‘If you avoid the rank of captain, perhaps.’

  ‘Precisely why I did so,’ said Voldo with a grin.

  ‘Please, sit.’

  Voldo and Galt took seats at the room’s only table. The few pieces of furniture within were fine antiques, a selection from Ultramar and Honourum. Galt took a glass stopper from a thin-necked decanter on the table and poured a yellow wine from it into two small glasses.

  Voldo picked his up, and swirled it round. ‘Carain. A long time since I tasted this.’

  ‘I have only the one flask remaining,’ said Galt. ‘Nearly gone now.’

  ‘Has it been so long?’

  ‘Six years since we last trod the halls of Fortress Novum,’ said Galt. He held up his glass, they rang them together and drank. The sweet taste of heather and clean, moorland water washed over his taste buds. The alcohol in the drink was rendered ineffective by his gifts, but the drink served a finer purpose than intoxication. Galt permitted his mind to slip back home to Honourum, borne upon the drink’s flavour, the chemical signatures he detected brought the memories of the plants that made it to his mind, adding to the richness of his own recollections.

  They sat a moment, savouring the drink and the memory of home and the oath of protection it represented. Galt said nothing to Voldo about his visitation in the Shadow Novum.

  Voldo broke the silence.

  ‘Why did you wish to see me, lord captain?’

  ‘You of all people need never refer to me as such, brother,’ said Galt. ‘We are brothers first and foremost.’

  Voldo shrugged and turned the empty glass around in his hand. ‘We talk the business of the Chapter now. ‘Respect is the foundation of victory’.’

  ‘So said Guilliman in the Codex Astartes.’

  ‘Yes. Holy writ.’ He laughed softly. ‘Although I doubt Guilliman intended us to worship his words, I pay heed to them, and I give you your due respect as lord captain.’

  ‘If anyone deserves respect in this room, brother, it is not I but you.’

  ‘You are not a neophyte any more, you cannot speak so. You are my lord and I am glad for it. I saw potential greatness in you as a boy and I see greatness realised in you now as a captain. I follow your lead gladly, as any master will when his pupil’s talent is fulfilled for all to see.’

  Voldo was old, one of the oldest of all Novamarines, not a millimetre of his skin was uncovered by ink. He was a riot of colour with it, images abstract and realistic, icons, badges, and scripts. Of all men, his soul was the most armoured against the dark, protected by the images that covered his skin. The grey stubble of his hair and the light hair of his arms showed starkly against his ink. Honour badges and citations of every kind adorned him – earrings, service studs, pendants, and badges sewn upon his robes. Engraved silver rings circled six of ten fingers, mementoes of his many secondments to the Deathwatch, as was his sash, embroidered with six Inquisitorial campaign badges. Voldo was highly respected, a living hero, but had always refused promotion. He could have – should have – been captain many times over. Galt had decided some time ago to change this situation should he ever become Chapter Master. He was astounded Hydariko had allowed Voldo to remain a sergeant.

  He suppressed a shiver as cold as the wind of Honourum as he remembered Odon’s words. ‘Death is soon to come for the brother whose phantom so shows itself.’ He debated with himself whether he would be doing the right thing sending him into battle. But who was he to defy the will of the Emperor?

  ‘Tell me what you know of the sons of Sanguinius.’

  ‘Of these Blood Drinkers, lord? Little. They have had precious rare contact with our Chapter, as you have doubtlessly discovered in the Librarium.’

  Galt nodded. ‘They are elegant, and speak well.’

  ‘Pretty princes,’ said Voldo disparagingly, ‘if they are like others of their lineage, obsessed with form and art. I do not know them, but I know their kind. They neglect their true vocation: war, and the contemplation of war. Our way is better.’

  ‘Are you sure of this? They seem eager for the fight.’

  Voldo raised his eyebrows, ‘Oh, I did not say that they were not eager for battle, far from it. A thirst for combat and a deeper understanding of the art of war are not the same thing, lord captain.’

  ‘Tell me, why does their Chief Apothecary hold such an exalted rank? Caedis introduced him as one of his chief advisors. And his title – Sanguinary Master? I have never heard of such. Their markings and ways all speak of close adherence to the Codex Astartes, but this exaltation of an Apothecary is unusual.’

  ‘Aye, lord. That it is.’ Voldo set his glass down on the table. ‘I will tell you this. I have never fought with the Blood Drinkers, nor with the ten thousand-times honoured Blood Angels, but I have made war alongside others of Sanguinius’s sons. Here, ninety-six years ago, on my third secondment to the Deathwatch.’ He tapped an engraved ring on his left forefinger. ‘I was part of a kill-team led by Lord Inquisitor Holm on expedition to the world of No Glory. Damned Dov
arr had overrun the place. They were alert to our presence and proved to be beyond our means, and so Holm brought out his seal and demanded aid.’ He shook his head. ‘Our kill-team fought alongside the Knights of Blood. And they too had their Apothecaries fight at the forefront, and their captains paid much attention to their counsel.’

  ‘Were they bold warriors?’

  ‘Yes lord, bold – bold beyond measure. You speak of eagerness, and well were they eager, but too eager. Granted, they were effective,’ said Voldo. ‘I saw them storm a Dovarr fortress, from above and by ground assault, but they were incautious, throwing themselves forward at the enemy when the Codex would have advised staying back, heedless of the risk and paying no mind to the subtleties of greater strategy. They prevailed, although I expected them to perish, and the cost to them in fallen brothers was not one we of the Novamarines nor the Primarch Guilliman himself would have found acceptable. I will tell you, lord,’ Voldo hunkered over the table, the fine glass tiny by his massive hand. ‘I have never seen such savagery before or since. When the enemy were all dead, I thought they would turn on us, such was their fury. Our kill-team stood, weapons raised, thinking the unthinkable was to occur, until Holm himself stepped in and ordered them back. For a moment I thought they would disobey and that I would have no choice but to kill a brother Space Marine, but their Apothecaries and Chaplains restored some order to them, and they departed No Glory without apology before the campaign concluded. Be careful, lord captain. They say the sons of Sanguinius are noble of appearance and manner, but that something dark hides inside them all.’

  Galt thought on Caedis’s behaviour. ‘Their lord, he seems conflicted. His desire to bombard the hulk was considered, yet it was plain to me also that he wanted to blood his weapon.’

  ‘That is my point, lord captain. I mean no slander, they say those of Sanguinius’s lineage are amongst the most loyal of the Emperor’s servants, and his most accomplished warriors, but still, be wary.’