Fire Warrior (warhammer 40,000)

by Саймон Спуриэр

  Tapping at a small control on his wrist (mercifully undamaged), a small tube flicked into position alongside his mouth and he sipped gratefully on a high-energy soup of j’hal nectar, imagining it spreading through his body like a warm lattice of glowing tendrils. It felt that way.

  “‘A well-maintained warrior’,” he said aloud, not feeling foolish, “‘is an effective warrior.’ Sio’t meditation twelve, lesson four.”

  A series of explosions, somewhere nearby, rocked the drop pod lightly — like a faint wind. He scowled and put it out of his mind, not prepared to deal with that reality yet.

  He picked up the burst cannon, examining its smooth lines. It was pitted and scratched in places, and as he drew a gloved finger along the barrel he was careful to avoid such imperfections, as if by refraining from any contact with the brutality of his memories he might successfully eclipse them. The dull report of distant explosions grew more frequent — stuttering gunfire and moaning aircraft engines entering the general background hum.

  “‘A single blade of grass’,” he recited loudly, blocking the sounds of war, “‘will bend and falter in the lightest wind. But where grass grows in pasture, in field or savannah; each blade feels but a fraction of the wind’s full force. It prospers due to the common purpose of its fe—’”

  “Xeno? Are you undamaged?”

  Kais stopped, startled.

  The voice had sounded like it came from behind him. He fought the irrational desire to spin on his spot, looking for the speaker. He already knew the pod was empty. He coughed and started again, even louder.

  “‘A single blade of gr—’”

  “Xeno? Xenogen, are you receiving this?”

  This time the voice was impossible to ignore — more clear than previously and full of urgency. It spoke directly into his ear in the gue’la language. He resolved to ignore it.

  “Guilliman’s oath, alien! If you’re there, answer me!”

  “Who is this...?” he whispered, cold sweat gathering inside his helmet.

  “Ah! You’re alive.”

  “Who is this?”

  “What do you mean? It’s Ardias, of course.”

  The memories came tumbling in, and this time he couldn’t turn away from them.

  At the height of the madness there’d been a voice in his head. This Ardias, he realised. The blue-suited Space Marine, with his grey on grey scarred features, his grizzled frown and his no-nonsense voice, helmetless and scowling. Instructing him how to destroy the weapon stacks, talking him through the worst of the murder rage. Part of his madness, he’d surmised. A gue’la in his ear.

  “Ardias,” he said, trying out the sound of it. For some reason it was hard to visualise anyone other than Lusha at the end of the comm.

  “That’s right. What’s your status?”

  “Landed. I’m on the surface.”

  “Obviously. I meant, whereabouts on the surface?” The voice was thick with impatience.

  Struggling against the inertia, Kais dragged himself towards the gaping exit of the pod and peered out. The desire to withdraw and wrench closed the door was almost overwhelming.

  A Barracuda shrieked overhead, heavy weapons throbbing at the air. Sooty arcs of dust and debris fountained skywards all across the horizon, bulbous mushrooms of flame and red-black smoke rising upwards at their hearts. A gue’la city spread out before him, crude earthen buildings of angry right angles and flat topped mundanity stretching away into the distance. He recognised certain landmarks — here and there the tall steeples of prefabricated chapels, erected by the book to mirror one another exactly. A serried rank of blocky factories and vast hangars cast a long shadow across the district. Somewhere behind him, long since deserted, were the trenchways where the madness had begun.

  The drop pods came down like meteors hurled out of space, glowing red hot from the descent. Shrieking out their plummet like a tide of banshees, they ripped from the clouds and pummelled the city. Buildings dissolved to mud and dust, belching their pulverised walls air-wards. Streets were gouged and dented, succumbing to an artillery bombardment that spawned dizzy, shell-shocked passengers, gue’la and tau alike. They crawled from craters and wreckage groggily, clutching at heads and weapons and each other.

  “There...” Ardias voxed. “We have a fix on your position. Stay out of the pod — it interferes with your communicator.”

  Kais wasn’t listening. He’d seen something.

  They came along the street like walking tumours. Armour articulating fluidly, dragging chains and horsehair capes behind them, ugly weapons chattering and crooning into the devastation. One of them had daubed seven-pointed stars across his armour using tau blood, opaque and bright against the matt-black shell.

  Its private constellation of gore dripped and ran together as it killed. One wore no helmet, and its face was a bloodless white maggot-mask with eyes like embers. A nearby gue’la shot it, screaming out a prayer at the top of his voice, and ripped off the monster’s ear. Blood the colour and consistency of oil snaked along its neck and it smiled, enjoying the sensation.

  One ripped open a building with a greasy krak grenade, laughing and cackling as the dust blossomed around it. It stalked into the wreckage and dragged the building’s mewling occupants into the street.

  Then it...

  It...

  Kais watched until the civilians were all dead. It took a long time.

  Mont’au Marines. Twisted versions of the blue-armoured colossus on the comm. He’d seen their kind on the Enduring Blade, of course, his memories were thick with their cruel laughter, but in that decaying ship tomb, overcome by the rage and the bitterness, he’d been beyond speculation. In the grips of the Mont’au he’d seen only beings to be destroyed, never differentiating between enemy or ally, never asking the question that now settled on him heavily.

  “What are they...?”

  “The enemy?” Ardias voxed, sounding matter of fact. “Chaos. Evil.”

  Kais sought for words, hunting for resolve that he didn’t feel.

  “The sio’t teaches us that evil is a falsehood,” he said, clutching at the display wafer in his pouch. “A-all truth is subjective. Evil is just valour, regarded from a different perspective.” He tried to put conviction into his voice, attempting to believe the dogma.

  “Spare me your heresy!” the Marine voxed, angry. “How can you doubt the evidence of your own eyes?”

  “How... how can we fight this?”

  “A question that only a coward need ask, alien.”

  Kais’s temper snapped, horror becoming anger in a flash. “Answer me! How do you fight this?”

  “Ceaselessy, xeno. Ceaselessly.” The voice sounded tired suddenly, sighing heavily over the bolterfire chattering in the background of the channel. “This thing... this ‘Chaos’. You need to forget everything you know when you fight it. Do you believe that superior numbers matter? Do you think the calibre of your weapon, or... or the strength of your armour will avail you now? They won’t. There are no longer any rules. There are no approved tactics. All you can do, xenogen, is the best that you can.

  “Anyone with a trigger finger and a pair of eyes can fire a gun — even those beyond the Emperor’s grace. But it takes more than that to fight Chaos.”

  “I don’t underst—”

  “Why would you? Listen to me, and remember: the greatest weapon you can possess in this struggle is not a plasma gun, or a bolter, or an entire armoury of tanks and cannons. It’s in your head, do you hear me? You need faith.”

  Kais couldn’t conceal his scorn. “Faith in a shrivelled corpse? That’s your advice, is it? That’s your mighty power?”

  The pause stretched out uncomfortably. When the gue’la spoke again, his voice was brittle and cold. Alien. “There will be a reckoning between us at the end of this. Is that clear?”

  Kais just grunted, choosing not to enforce his point.

  “You touched down in Lettica’s eastern district,” the Space Marine said, voice returning t
o its businesslike growl. “I have need of your assistance.”

  Kais cocked an eyebrow and lifted his gun. He needed time to think, to sort through his mind. This gue’la prattle was a distraction. “Whatever it is, do it yourself.”

  “My company was deployed to the south. It will take us too long to circle round.”

  “I won’t be at your command, gue’la. I don’t take orders from the ignorant or the unenlightened.”

  “And the Codex is unusually clear on the subject of refusing the assistance of abominations. Nonetheless — it has been a day of firsts; I suggest you learn to adapt.”

  “Not likely.”

  “You have something better to be doing?”

  Kais frowned. He wanted to say: I’ve had enough. He wanted to collapse in the pod and let it all wash over him. He wanted to bury his head in the sand and forget about blood and killing and violence and chaos and... and his father’s eyes.

  But it was too late, now. The Mont’au thing was awake in his mind and he couldn’t rest until it — or he — was dead. Besides, there was something...

  Think. Why are you here? Killing was never your goal. It was a by-product. A symptom. You kill for a reason, remember!

  “The ethereal!” The answer hit him like a warhead, splitting his world and filling him with sudden adrenaline, a shaft of light cutting through the confusion and madness. “I have to find El’Ko’vash!”

  “You need to focus upon your priorities,” the voice said, thick with scorn.

  “The Aun is always the priority!”

  “I haven’t the time to contest the point, alien. Your ethereal is lost. If you don’t help me now then there won’t be another chance to find him.

  “If you do not comply, xenogen, then by the Emperor’s grace we shall all be dead within the hour.”

  “What is this job?” Kais asked, indecision wracking him.

  “I shall brief you en route. Get moving.”

  Something nagged distantly at Kais’s mind, spilling into his throat unbidden. “Why me, gue’la? Why would you trust me to do this thing?”

  “The counsel of an old friend. You would not understand.”

  “A friend?”

  “He is with the Emperor now. I’m sending coordinates. Don’t fail me, xeno.”

  El’Lusha settled into the carapace gratefully, reacquainting himself with the padded interior like a meeting of old friends. A web of cool air drifted past his face and along his spine, chasing away the nascent feelings of stifling warmth.

  “Geneprint acknowledged,” a pleasant AI voice — feminine in its cadence (at his request)—trilled. “Welcome, Shas’el T’au Lusha.”

  He grinned at the greeting, relaxing. The familiar flurry of claustrophobia and suffocation tension, natural responses to incarceration within such limited space, drained quickly away. A HUD faceplate — slightly larger and more complex than that of a line trooper’s helmet — descended into position above his face and swung forwards. He let his eyes accustom to the bright multi-spectral world and waited until his optimal focal distance was reached. An incautious setup could result in squinting, eye strain and migraine, none of them particularly desirable in the middle of a pitched battle.

  “Stop,” he commanded. The creeping faceplate settled to a halt and locked off with a pleasant chime. He noted with some irritation that it was fractionally closer to his eyes than for his last mission and mused sadly to himself upon the nature of growing old. He’d have to visit the fio’uis to see about some bionics, soon.

  “Status checks,” he grunted into the microphone array, tensing the muscles of his arms and legs rhythmically to prevent cramps. A group of spongy restraints like knuckled digits closed around the back of his skull, gently but firmly restraining his head. The comm toned serenely.

  “Vre’Tong’ata. Optimal performance. The new upper-left limb is perfect.”

  “Vre’Wyr. All good.”

  “Vre’Kol’tae. Coolants are a little unbalanced, but the AI can regulate it.”

  Lusha clucked appreciatively as glowing icons representing his team mates imposed themselves over a radar plan. “Good. I’m reading a flawless status too. Next — kor’vesas. Report.”

  The clipped tones of his attendant battledrones piped up.

  “Kor’vesa 12.A #34 (Combat). Optimal diagnostic. Full ammunition load.”

  “Kor’vesa 921.H(s2) #01 (Artillery). Optimal diagnostic. Full ammunition load.”

  Their icons — glowing green discs — faded into being over the HUD. They orbited the stationary team slowly, like binary moons.

  “Very well...” Lusha took a deep breath and grinned, appreciating the rush of anticipation. He’d been too long away from combat. “Lock down and interleave. Interface insertion in five raik’ans.”

  The battlesuit’s servos came to life with a quiet nimble, quickly fading to near silence. A low whine came from behind him, complex machinery sliding on well oiled rails into position. He winced, preparing himself. He hated this part.

  A needle, little more than a monofilament sliver of metal, punctured his skull three tor’ils above the terminus of his cir’etz scales and entered his brain.

  The nausea ran its familiar jig through his guts, forcing another wince. His fingers and hoof joints curled in reflex as their connections to his motor neurones were temporarily interrupted. The feeling, he reminded himself, was not unlike falling asleep.

  And then he was the machine. He flexed a limb experimentally, enjoying the sensation of reasserted control as the nausea faded. His arm — his real arm — remained limp by his side, nestled snugly in its padded bindings. Instead, sensed rather than seen, a heavy fio’tak ablative armature, complete with wrist-slung fusion blaster, flexed from the massive shoulder of the suit. He resisted the urge to chuckle.

  He moved the muscles of his neck, mentally commanding his skull to rotate and allow him the opportunity to look around. His vertebrae remained straight and immobile but the optic cluster perched atop the suit oscillated and flexed — a replacement cranium just as responsive to his neural commands as the real thing. Flicking through spectral filters was as simple as blinking.

  He examined his surroundings. The dropship hold was a cavern of pale, liquid smooth surfaces, unadorned by the paraphernalia of deployment seats and shas’la weapon racks. The four suits hulked in its centre.

  Built like upright tanks, supported by tall, ankle-jointed lower limbs and flanked by their broad-shouldered arms (complete with retracted manipulatory digits and overslung weapons mounts), they moved their extremities with athletic grace, twisting and flexing in refined subtlety with none of the inelegant jerkiness of gue’la machinery. The primary sensor dusters, wedge boxes supported at the crest of the suits, peered around in interest. Vre’Kol’tae caught him staring and dipped her suit’s “head” in a nod — a bizarrely organic mannerism from such artificial surroundings.

  To his left, Vre’Wyr’s suit raised its right limb, heavy flamer fuel lines automatically slackening to compensate for the movement, and ignited its pilot light with a quiet hiss. The cool glow cast a gallery of soft edged shadows across the walls, bulky jetpacks reduced to smooth crescents of shade.

  The battledrones were a pair of satellite discs, held aloft on thrumming anti-grav fields, diagnostically manipulating the heavy weapons slung to their bellies, checking targeting facilities and functionality.

  “Interface successful,” Lusha grunted, instinctively running through his missile pod tracking checks and practice locking on thin air. “Confirm preparations.” A series of affirmations tumbled across the comm.

  He took another deep breath, thinking back to the ill-fated infantry deployments at first light, all those long decs ago. How had Kais felt, he wondered, standing on the brink, staring down into an abyss of unknown horrors and glories? He remembered the advice he’d given. The advice the boy’s own father had given him, tau’cyrs earlier during the be’gel incursions.

  Don’t make the mistake of thinki
ng you’re ready for this.

  But Kais had been ready. More than ready. Too ready The youth had sounded... broken, when last he spoke from the Enduring Blade. There was no other word for it. The comm-line had gone dead and his bio trace had blinked from the scans with a solitary blip. He’d stared into the abyss and it had opened up and swallowed him whole.

  He was dead, then.

  The tau’va preached pragmatism over indulgence. In the face of loss, the sio’t espoused, an efficient tau was expected to nod in acceptance, recognise that there was nothing to be done and no sense in sorrow, and simply get on with things. It was easier said than done.

  “Kor’vre?” He pushed the unsettling thoughts from his mind and opened a channel to the dropship pilot. “Ready when you are.”

  “We’re at a safe altitude, Shas’el. Splitting the deck now.”

  The world fell away beneath his feet. Dividing along a central connection, the floor of the drop bay swung open — two halves of a giant trap door hinging apart in unison. As always a wave of dizziness surged over him, filling his mind with the clouds racing below: wave-borne froth vaguely concealing a dark seabed. It was an enthralling sensation.

  The certainty of plummeting through the yawning hole to tumble and spin, shrieking, into the gulf of air, was a falsehood: thick connector joists held the battle-suits securely to the drop hold’s ceiling. They began to extend with a piston hiss, the four hulks lowering from the belly of the dropship like string-suspended wind-chimes. Lusha marvelled at the strangeness of it all: his mind was convinced it could feel the cold air rushing past despite the chassis’ encapsulating presence.

  “Status checks,” he commanded.

  “Ready.”

  “Ready.”

  “Ready.”

  He grinned. “Kor’vre?”

  “Standby, Shas’el... Umbilicals will disengage in five, four, three, two, one...”

  The connector parted from the upper chassis of the battlesuits with a half-heard click. There was a jolt, spinning the world sideways. A half-formed impression of the dropship sailed overhead and was gone. And then gravity reached out and pulled, tumbling madness overwhelming his senses. The ground was on all sides at once.