Septimus drew breath to tell the truth, to confess his fears, to admit he was speaking into the ship’s darkness to stave off loneliness. But the fate of Tertius stayed trapped within his forethoughts. Death because of madness. Death because of corruption.
‘Curiosity,’ the slave said to his master, speaking the first and only lie he would ever say in his service.
The sound of booted footfalls drew Septimus back to the present. He moved away from the master’s door, taking a breath as he glanced unseeing down the hallway in the direction of the approaching footsteps.
He knew who was coming. They would see him. They would see him even if he stayed hidden nearby, so there was no sense running. They would smell his scent and see the aura of his body heat. So he stood ready, willing his heartbeat to slow from its thunderous refrain. They would hear that, too. They would smile at his fears.
Septimus clicked the deactivation button on his weak lamp pack, killing the dim yellow illumination and bathing the corridor in utter blackness once more. He did this out of respect to the approaching Astartes, and because he had no wish to see their faces. At times, the darkness made dealing with the demigods much easier.
Steeled and prepared, Septimus closed his now-useless eyes, shifting his perceptions to focus entirely on his hearing and sense of smell. The footfalls were heavy but unarmoured – too widely spaced to be human. A swish of a tunic or robe. Most pervasive of all, the scent of blood: tangy, rich and metallic, strong enough to tickle the tongue. It was the smell of the ship itself, but distilled, purified, magnified.
Another demigod.
One of the master’s kin was coming to see his brother.
‘Septimus,’ said the voice from the blackness.
The slave swallowed hard, not trusting his voice but knowing he must speak. ‘Yes, lord. It is I.’
A rustle of clothing, the sound of something soft on metal. Was the demigod stroking the master’s door?
‘Septimus,’ the other demigod repeated. His voice was inhumanly low, a rumble of syllables. ‘How has my brother been?’
‘He has not emerged yet, lord.’
‘I know. I hear him breathing. He is calmer than before.’ The demigod sounded contemplative. ‘I did not ask if he had emerged, Septimus. I asked how he had been.’
‘This affliction has lasted longer than most, lord, but my master has been silent for almost an hour now. I have counted the minutes. This is the longest he has been at peace since the affliction first took hold.’
The demigod chuckled. It sounded like thunderheads colliding. Septimus had a momentary trickle of nostalgia; he’d not seen a storm – not even stood under a real sky – in years now.
‘Careful with your language, vassal,’ the demigod said. ‘To name it an affliction implies a curse. My brother, your master, is blessed. He sees as a god sees.’
‘Forgive me, great one.’ Septimus was already on his knees, head bowed, knowing that the demigod could see his supplication clearly in the pitch darkness. ‘I use only the words my master uses.’
There was a long pause.
‘Septimus. Stand. You are fearful, and it is affecting your judgement. I will do you no harm. Do you not know me?’
‘No, great lord.’ This was true. The slave could never tell the difference in the demigods’ voices. Each one spoke like a predator cat’s low snarls. Only his master sounded different, an edge of softness rounding out the lion-like growls. He knew this recognition was due to familiarity, rather than any true difference in the master’s tone, but it never helped in telling the others apart. ‘I might guess if told to do so.’
There was the sound of the demigod shifting his stance, and the accompanying whisper of his clothing.
‘Indulge me.’
‘I believe you are Lord Cyrion.’
Another pause. ‘How did you know, vassal?’
‘Because you laughed, lord.’
In the silence that followed those words, even in the darkness, Septimus was certain the demigod was smiling.
‘Tell me,’ the Astartes finally spoke, ‘have the others come today?’
The slave swallowed. ‘Lord Uzas was here three hours ago, Lord Cyrion.’
‘I imagine that was unpleasant.’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘What did my beloved brother Uzas do when he came?’ The edge of sarcasm in Cyrion’s voice was unmistakable.
‘He listened to the master’s words, but said none of his own.’ Septimus recalled the chill in the blackness as he stood in the hallway with Uzas, hearing the demigod breathe in harsh grunts, listening to the thrum of his primed battle armour. ‘He wore his war-plate, lord. I do not know why.’
‘That’s no mystery,’ Cyrion replied. ‘Your master is still in his own war armour. The latest “affliction” took hold while we were embattled, and to remove the armour would risk waking him from the vision.’
‘I do not understand, lord.’
‘Don’t you? Think, Septimus. You can hear my brother’s cries now, but they are muffled, filtered through his helm’s speakers and further constrained by the metal of his cell. But if one wished to hear him with a degree of clarity… He is screaming his prophecies into the vox-network. Everyone wearing their armour can hear him crying out across the communication frequencies.’
The thought made Septimus’s blood run cold. The ship’s demigod crew, hearing his master cry out in agony for hours on end. His skin prickled as if stroked by the darkness. This discomfort – was it jealousy? Helplessness? Septimus wasn’t sure.
‘What is he saying, lord? What does my master dream?’
Cyrion rested his palm against the door again, and his voice was devoid of the humour he’d hinted at before.
‘He dreams what our primarch dreamed,’ the Astartes said in a low tone. ‘Of sacrifice and battle. Of war without end.’
Cyrion was not entirely correct.
He spoke with the assurance of knowledge, for he was all too experienced with his brother’s visions. Yet this time, a new facet was threaded through the stricken warrior’s prophecies. This came to light some nine hours later when, at last, the door opened.
The demigod staggered into the hallway, fully armoured, leaning against the opposite wall of the corridor. His muscles were like cables of fire around molten bones, but the pain wasn’t the worst part. He could manage pain, and had done so countless times before. It was the weakness. The vulnerability. These things unnerved him, made him bare his teeth in a feral snarl at the sheer unfamiliarity of the sensation.
Movement. The god’s son sensed movement to his left. Still pain-blind from the wracking headache brought on by his seizures, he turned his head towards the source of the motion. His ability to smell prey, as enhanced as every sense he possessed, registered familiar scents: the smoky touch of cloying incense, the musk of sweat, and the metallic tang of concealed weaponry.
‘Septimus,’ the god’s son spoke. The sound of his own voice was alien; scratchy and whispered even through the helmet’s vox speakers.
‘I am here, master.’ The slave’s relief was shattered when he saw how weak his lord was. This was new to them both. ‘You were lost to us for exactly ninety-one hours and seventeen minutes,’ the slave said, apprising his master in the way he always did after the seizures struck.
‘A long time,’ the demigod said, drawing himself up to his full height. Septimus watched his master stand tall, and was careful to angle away the dim beam from his lamp pack, casting its weak illumination onto the floor. It still provided enough light to see by, bringing a reassuring gloom to the hallway.
‘Yes, lord. A long time. The afflictions are getting longer.’
‘They are. Who was the last to come to me?’
‘Lord Cyrion, seven hours ago. I thought you were going to die.’
‘For a while, so did I.’ There was the serpentine hiss of venting air pressure as the demigod removed his helm. In the low light, Septimus could just make out his master’s smooth
features, and the eyes as black as pools of tar.
‘What did you dream?’ the slave asked.
‘Dark omens and a dead world. Make your way to my arming chambers and make preparations. I must speak with the Exalted.’
‘Preparations?’ Septimus hesitated. ‘Another war?’
‘There is always another war. But first, we must meet someone. Someone who will prove vital to our survival. We must go on a journey.’
‘To where, lord?’
The demigod gave a rare smile. ‘Home.’
I
NOSTRAMO
A lone asteroid spun in the stillness of space. Tens of millions of kilometres from the closest planetary body, it was clearly no natural satellite belonging to any of the planets in the sector.
This was good. This was very, very good.
To the keen eyes and knowing smile of Kartan Syne, the hunk of rock twisting endlessly through the dead space of Ultima Segmentum was a thing of beauty. Or rather, what it represented was a thing of beauty, because what it represented was money. A great deal of money.
His vessel, a well-armed bulk trader by the delightfully ostentatious name Maiden of the Stars, sat in a loose orbit around the vast asteroid below. The Maiden was a big girl, and she threw her weight around when it came to tight manoeuvres, but while Syne hated a little meat on his women, he loved a little bulk to his ship’s hull. The sacrifice of speed for greater profit was worth it.
Pirates were no issue. The Maiden bristled with weapons batteries, all bought with the profits of his mining runs. Often he’d settle for a finder’s fee, but in cases like this – and cases like this were few and far between – he felt the need to fall into orbit and set his servitor teams on the surface to start digging. They were down there now, lobotomised lords of their own little mining colony. It had only been a handful of hours since planetfall, but already his automated crews were hard at work.
Lounging in his command throne, Syne watched the occulus screen as it displayed the asteroid spinning below, grey-skinned and silver-veined, a massive shard of untapped profit. He glanced at the data-slate in his hand for the hundredth time that hour, reading the figures from the planetary scan. He smiled again as his dark eyes graced the numbers next to the word ‘Adamantium’.
Holy Throne, he was rich. The Adeptus Mechanicus would pay well for a hull full of precious, precious adamantium ore, but better yet, they’d pay a High Lord’s ransom for the coordinates of this rock. The trick would be to leave enough ore here for the Mechanicus’s exploratory vessels to confirm the intense value, but still have a cargo hold full of collateral when he approached them. Given the amount of the rare metal woven through the vast asteroid below, that wouldn’t be a problem, not at all.
He glanced at the figures again, feeling a smile break out across his handsome face. The glance became a gaze, and the smile became a grin. This smirking leer was broken less than three seconds later, when proximity alarms began to ring across the Maiden’s untidy bridge.
Servitors and human crew moved about the circular chamber, attending to their stations.
‘A report right about now would be just wonderful,’ Kartan Syne said to no one in particular. In answer, one of the servitors slaved to the navigation console chattered out a babble of binary from its slack jaws.
Syne sighed. He’d meant to get that servitor replaced.
‘Well, I’m none the wiser, but thanks for speaking up,’ Syne said. ‘How about an answer from someone who isn’t broken?’
Blood of the Emperor, this was bad. If another rogue trader had chanced upon this site, then Syne was entering the murky waters of profit-sharing, and that would end in tears for all concerned. Worse yet, it could be the Mechanicus itself. No finder’s fee, no hull full of rare ore, and no room to negotiate, either.
Navigation Officer Torc finally looked up from his monochrome screen and the bright runic writing trailing across it. His uniform was about as official as Syne’s own, which meant both men would have looked at home in an underhive slum.
‘It’s an Astartes vessel,’ Torc said.
Syne laughed. ‘No, it’s not.’
Torc’s face was pale, and his slow nod halted Syne’s laughter. ‘It is. Came out of nowhere, Kar. It’s an Astartes strike cruiser.’
‘How rare,’ the trader captain smiled. ‘At least they’re not here for the mining, then. Bring us about and let’s have a look at this. We might never see one again.’
Slowly, the view in the occulus changed from a gentle blur of stars to settle on the warship. Vast, dark and deadly. Jagged, long and lethal. Midnight blue, wreathed in bronze trimmings, blackened in places from centuries of battle damage. It was a barbed spear of violent intent: the fury of the Astartes in spaceborne form.
‘She’s a beauty,’ Syne said with feeling. ‘I’m glad they’re on our side.’
‘Uh… She’s on an approach course.’
Kartan Syne turned from the majestic view to frown at Torc. ‘She’s doing what now?’
‘She’s on an approach vector. It’s bearing down on us.’
‘No,’ he said again, without laughing this time, ‘it’s not.’
Torc was still staring at his data display screen. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Someone give me its transponder code. And open a channel.’
‘I’ve got the identification code,’ Torc said, his fingertips hitting keys as he looked into his screen. ‘It reads as the Covenant of Blood, no record of allegiance.’
‘No allegiance code. Is that normal?’
‘How am I supposed to know?’ Torc shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen one before.’
‘Maybe all Astartes vessels do this,’ Syne mused. It made sense. The Astartes were famously independent of traditional Imperial hierarchy and operation.
‘Maybe.’ Torc didn’t sound too sure.
‘How’s that channel coming along?’ Syne asked.
‘Channel open,’ murmured a servitor, its head attached to the communications console via several black cables.
‘Let’s get this sorted out, hm?’ Syne lounged in his throne again, clicking the vox-caster live. ‘This is Captain Kartan Syne of the trading vessel Maiden of the Stars. I have claimed this asteroid and the profit potential therein. To my knowledge, I am in no violation of any boundary laws of the local region. I bid you greetings, Astartes vessel.’
Silence answered this. A pregnant silence, that gave Syne the extremely uncomfortable feeling the channel was still live and the Astartes on board the other vessel were listening to his words and choosing not to reply.
He tried again. ‘If I have erred and claimed a source of profit already marked by your noble forces, I am open to negotiation.’
‘Negotiation?’
‘Shut up, Torc.’
Torc didn’t shut up. ‘Are you insane? If it’s theirs, let’s just go.’
‘Shut up, Torc. Do the Astartes even mine for their own materials?’
Again, Torc shrugged.
‘We have precedent to stake the claim,’ Syne pressed, feeling his confidence ebbing. ‘I’m just trying to keep our options open. Need I remind you that there’s also the matter of over a hundred servitors and several thousand crowns worth of heavy-duty mining equipment on the surface of the asteroid? Need I remind you that Eurydice is down there with the digging teams? We won’t get far without her, will we?’
Torc paled and said nothing for a moment. Needless to say, he’d been adamant in his advice to keep Eurydice on board and curtail yet another of her ‘I’m bored, so I’m going’ jaunts off the ship.
‘The cruiser’s still bearing down on us,’ Torc said.
‘Attack vector?’ Syne leaned forward in his throne.
‘Maybe. I don’t know how these vessels attack. They have one hell of a forward weapons array, though.’
Syne liked to think he was a genial soul. He enjoyed a laugh as much as the next man, but this was getting quite beyond the realm of light entertainment.
‘Throne of the God-Emperor,’ Torc swore in a soft voice. ‘Its lances are primed. Its… everything is primed.’
‘This,’ Syne said, ‘has crossed the border into ridiculous.’ He clicked the vox live again, failing to keep a note of desperation out of his voice. ‘Astartes vessel Covenant of Blood. In the name of the God-Emperor, what are your intentions?’
The reply was a whisper, edged with a smile. It hissed across the Maiden’s bridge, and Syne felt it on his skin – the chill of the first cold wind that always precedes a storm.
‘Weep as you suffer the same fate as your corpse god,’ it whispered. ‘We have come for you.’
The battle did not last long.
Combat in the depths of deep space is a slow-moving ballet of technology, illuminated by the bright flickers of weapons fire and impact explosions. The Maiden of the Stars was a fine enough vessel for what it did; long-distance cargo hauling, deep-range scouting and prospecting, and fighting off the grasping attentions of minor pirate princes. Its captain, Kartan Syne, had invested years of solid profit into the ship. Its void shields were well-maintained and crackling with multi-layered thickness. Its weapons batteries were formidable, comparable to an Imperial Navy cruiser of similar size.
It lasted exactly fifty-one seconds, and several of those were gifts; the Covenant of Blood toyed with its prey before the killing strike.
The Astartes strike cruiser drew closer, opening up with a barrage of lance fire. These cutting beams of precision energy slashed across space between the two vessels, and for several heartbeats, the void shields around the Maiden lit up in flaring brilliance. Where the lances stabbed against the shields, a riot of colours rippled around the trader ship, like oil spreading across the surface of water.
The Maiden’s shields endured this beautiful punishment for a handful of seconds, before buckling under the warship’s assault. Resembling a popping bubble in almost all respects, the void shields collapsed with a crackle of energy, leaving the Maiden defenceless except for its reinforced hull armour.
Kartan Syne had the wherewithal to get his bridge crew together by this point, and the Maiden returned fire. The barrage from the trader’s conventional weapons batteries was monumentally weaker than the lance strikes of the Astartes ship. The Covenant of Blood drifted ever closer, its own shields now displaying the rippling colours of attack pressure, except – much to the unsurprised dismay of Syne – the warship’s shields showed no strain at all. The approaching vessel ignored the minor assault. It was already firing its lances a second time.
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