Jotunn touched the spirit stone, and a glow appeared within it – as if there were a firefly trapped inside – that slowly faded again.
Nergui found the xenos object disgusting. He stroked his moustaches and said, ‘It was no failure.’
‘What do you mean, no failure?’
‘You have not heard?’
Jotunn’s fangs showed for a moment. ‘No. I have not heard.’
‘Kill Team Primus found something.’
There was a pause, and the ancient Space Wolf moved towards him. Nergui could see his eyes gleaming with reflected candlelight, like a cat’s, and bared fangs as the Space Wolf growled.
‘What?’ he rumbled.
‘They found something that the tau do not want us to know even exists. The xenos cleaned the site of the battle. They destroyed the Troilus and towed it out past the Mandeville point, into dead space. They scoured the system and thought they had left nothing that could leave a trace. And they were almost successful.’
‘Almost?’
‘Yes. But they overlooked this.’ He held up the gold-plated simian skull that Ellial had used as a totem. The red crystal eyes glittered. ‘Ellial’s presence remained. Domitian communed with him. I saw what he saw.’
The Lone Wolf was like a ghost in the darkness. ‘What did he see, White Scar?’
Nergui described the large complex, the number of buildings, the gun emplacements and the hab zones, and the Lone Wolf listened patiently. At the end Nergui said, ‘And there was a type of battlesuit we have not seen before.’
‘Describe it to me.’
‘Larger than their usual battlesuits. They carry the same calibre railgun as their ships, but shoulder-mounted, on a suit that can deploy onto the battlefield via jump pack or aerial insertion. I saw one being deployed. It looks like a Titan killer.’ He drew himself up. ‘I would class them as an extreme threat. And what is more, there were nearly a hundred of them, with at least twelve separate sept markings, including Vior’la, Ke’lshan and Sa’cea.’
The Space Wolf sank back into the shadows. ‘The finest warrior worlds of the tau, working together?’ His fangs showed once more. ‘What could this be, this secret base that disappears when we find it? That is protected so well, my finest warriors are wiped out? That has so many of these new weapons of war? And where the septs cooperate? Nergui. You have done well. We know the base is no longer on this moon. But where could it be?’
‘It did not appear to be a production facility.’
Jotunn nodded. ‘No. Not with so many septs working together. Then what do you think it was?’
‘I do not know,’ he said. ‘Unless, perhaps, it is a training facility.’
‘Where pilots are brought to be inducted…’ Jotunn growled. ‘Whatever it is, Nergui, if the enemy value it, you must find it and destroy it.’
Nergui bowed. ‘I shall, commander.’
As he marched back across the dark and empty chamber, Jotunn called out after him.
‘What about Kill Team Orion? Where are they?’
Nergui turned and faced the Space Marine. ‘I do not know.’
‘You stopped looking?’
‘I thought the appearance of these battlesuits meant I had to return here. To consult with you.’
Jotunn’s fangs were bared. ‘I might be able to help. We had an astropathic signal while you were gone, from the strike cruiser Robidoux. Two weeks ago.’
Nergui started forwards. ‘Tell me.’
‘Yes. Leonas led them in a boarding action of a tau emissary craft that was heading towards the Sexton Sector. Leonas and his team were trapped. The captain of the Robidoux was heading for the Mandeville point. If she ever got there, I do not know.’
‘The Sexton Sector? So they would use the route through the Distaf Nebula? I will go and see what I can find,’ Nergui said.
Jotunn nodded.
Nergui turned back to the darkness of the hall. His enhanced vision could make out the xenos trophies that stretched up to the vaulted ceiling, weapons and names as ancient as the Imperium of Mankind itself. His was a fight that seemed endless, unwinnable at times. But all that mattered was the fight itself.
Without war, there was no hope.
Chapter Five
‘Last’ Leonas refused to die.
He spat fresh blood from his mouth. Bile burned his throat. No, it was not bile, it was the shots that had wounded him. He kicked and moaned as he relived that moment. The knowledge that he was alone and surrounded by tau.
It was supposed to be an ambassador’s ship. Lightly defended, a respectfully sized bodyguard – easy, in short, to overwhelm. It should have been easy.
Half the squad were in Terminator armour, the other half in power armour, so that they could keep moving, rocking the enemy back with lightning body punches.
Their Thunderhawk had come in unseen and blasted its way into the docking bay. It landed long enough to drop the kill team, as its own automated weapon systems knocked out bulkheads, ripped through tau drones and shredded the first team of fire warriors who came sprinting into the hall, their commander shouting orders as his warriors knelt and fired.
The mission itself had gone well. They’d cut a path through the ship, leaving dead tau slumped against bulkheads and lying in heaps where they had fallen. The bridge been taken after a brief assault, and they’d killed all within and torn the databanks from their cases.
It was the fight out that had gone badly. How were they to know that this craft was carrying a tau ethereal? They had carried the xenos tech, battling their way back out against twice as much opposition as they had faced on the way in, and each moment they were slowed meant the enemy could bring more warriors to bear. The fire warriors fought with a tenacity and resolve that was exemplary.
Leonas and Brothers Aslon and Brand had dragged themselves wounded to the Thunderhawk. Leonas’ magazines had clicked empty as he stood on the ramp and covered the retreat of the Terminators. The three of them had strode slowly backwards, shoulder to shoulder, assault cannons tearing up the mobile tau bulkheads, as plasma rounds made the air crackle with ozone.
It had all gone wrong when the Thunderhawk lifted and a lucky shot ignited a fuel cable in the gunship’s second engine. A small fire spread in seconds, until the whole wing was ablaze, and he remembered the face of Branstonio as the Thunderhawk crashed.
‘Throne,’ he had said. ‘Let’s get out there and die with honour.’
They had fought a three-hour battle across the landing zone, trapped, encircled, running low on ammunition, without hope of rescue. They’d used the wreckage of their own Thunderhawk as cover until one by one his brothers had been picked off. Aslon and Branstonio were incinerated when the Thunderhawk’s port-side fuel tank exploded. He had no idea what killed Brand, but Solovax of the Black Guard died cursing the xenos.
Leonas had taken a plasma bolt to the side, and something big enough had hit him on the side of the head, making an egg-shell dent in his skull. His clips were empty, but still he had fought on, battering the foe with the butt of his weapon – bucking, snarling, clawing at faces, tearing off helmets, breaking bones in his grip. He had killed ten, a score, he had lost count, and then the world had become fire.
It did not matter. All that mattered was that he stayed alive. He could not die.
Leonas was the last. He would not die, he could not die.
Leonas twitched as the dreams tore like old curtains and reality pushed her ugly snout into his consciousness.
He moaned and tried to turn back over into his delirium, but he could not. There was light in his eyes, his nose was full of scabbed blood, one of his hearts had failed and the other one was skipping beats, sending dizzy palpitations through his wounded body.
The plasma had seared a hole straight through his chest. He could feel fluids dripping into his core as his body tried
to repair the seared innards of his flesh, despite the fact that the edges scabbed and the pain was…
…bearable. He was of the Adeptus Astartes. He was the weapon that had conquered the whole galaxy on behalf of the Emperor of Mankind. He could conquer pain. All it took was concentration. He slowed his breathing. He concentrated.
He knew the xenos observed him from behind the armoured glass screen. He could feel their wonder as scabs formed on his wounds and he came back to life, when they were sure that he had died. But he did not care. He had to survive. He was the last. He could not die.
A door opened. One of Leonas’ eyes was bruised shut. The other opened just enough for him to see the room. It was plain, cream, smooth, unmistakably alien.
He took in the bulkhead’s location, the way it opened, sliding to the left, in case he had to prise it open. A figure walked towards him. It was a human, female: a short, plump woman with a stud in her nostril and long blonde hair. She wore what looked like the grey flak armour of an Imperial Guard major, but underneath she wore a suit of xenos design. Where she would have worn the aquila was the round black-and-white symbol of a tau sept.
‘Can you speak?’ she asked. She was trembling. He wanted to kill her for her treachery to her species, and it took a moment’s concentration to hold back the desire to reach out.
‘Lord, can you speak?’ she asked again.
He lay still for a long time.
‘If you speak, I can help you,’ she said. He saw that she kept well back out of arm’s reach. She had that much sense at least.
‘I am Major Jerym,’ she said. ‘Of Sept Bork’an.’ She came forwards a little.
Leonas had picked up enough to know that Bork’an was the centre of learning for the tau, and the chiefmost of their military academies.
She came a little closer still. ‘We thought you were dead.’
He laughed at the idea. It was simple. He could not die.
‘When you started moving we brought you here. It is for your good. It is for all our good. You’ll understand that at some point. It is better that way.’
Leonas opened his good eye fully. He could tell from the look on her face that it was a baleful sight, looking into the red eyes of a Black Consuls Space Marine.
‘Better for whom?’ he spat.
She took a step back. He could smell her fear. It sparked something within him. Confidence. Violence. The pride of his kind. He slowed his heart. It had enough to deal with. He tried to smile, but the left side of his face was swollen. There were bits of teeth still in the bloody recesses of his mouth. His right hand twitched for a bolter or a blade.
‘You are disarmed,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘If you were just a little closer I would break your neck.’
‘You’re sick,’ she told him.
‘I’m not sick. I’m wounded. There’s a distinct difference.’
‘Rest. I will speak to you later. We’re taking you back.’
‘Back where?’
‘You will see.’
Leonas laughed, even though it hurt, and it brought a gout of fresh blood from his mouth. ‘Look what you made me do,’ he said, as he struggled to lift a hand to wipe the blood away.
‘You will understand,’ she said, ‘or we will have to hand you over.’
‘Who to?’
‘To the others,’ she said. ‘We have claimed the first right. But there are others. Younger, brasher. They want to have their chance with you. They will not be as kind as us. It would be easier if you conform.’
Leonas spat at the word ‘conform’. The acid hit her full in the face, and she screamed and stumbled back.
He pulled at his restraints, but he was held fast. The door opened. He had a brief glimpse of a thin, grey-skinned tau dressed in long white robes with thick cuffs that were turned back.
‘I cannot do anything with him,’ his interviewer hissed.
After that a team of tau came in with pain-prods and stun-shields. They surrounded Leonas and beat him down, and the electrocharges in the spiked ends brought grunts of startled pain through his clenched teeth.
When he woke there was fresh blood oozing down his face and from his ears. His hands had been bound. There were tubes in his arms, a tube up his nose. His heart was more erratic. Another of his teeth was broken, his arms leaden. Even opening his good eye was an effort.
And then he saw why. They were pumping something into his veins. Sedatives. Pacifiers.
He closed his eyes.
He wanted to retch. He wanted to sleep. He wanted it to be over.
No, a voice within him said.
You are the last, Leonas.
You cannot die.
The next interrogator came after hours of flashing lights and blaring sirens. He came in the darkness, as if that would hide him from the Space Marine’s sight, padding stealthily into the room, as if Leonas could not hear him. Then he spoke. A human, but one with a slight accent that Leonas could not locate.
‘You will die, here, Space Marine,’ he whispered. ‘Look at you! You are weak, and broken! All your brute strength could not save you against the united power of our forces. You think you are strong, but you are weak. We shall break you all. One by one, as we destroy your corrupt empire. We bring the Greater Good! We shall triumph. All that you hold dear shall be washed away. There will be nothing left. Not your Chapter, not your Emperor, not even the Golden Throne upon which He rots. We shall replace the darkness with light. Terror with peace. War with Trade. We are the servants of the Greater Good.’
The lights returned with a sudden hum of lumens. Leonas tried to lift a hand, but it had been strapped down. He felt the lights’ heat upon his face as his pupils shrank to pinheads within his green eyes. He blinked for a moment as his enhanced physique responded.
Human male, buck-toothed, mid-forties according to standard Terran years, no visible weapon, no armour, grey uniform, Sept Ke’lshan – and just beyond the reach of his boot.
The man glared down at Leonas.
‘Look at you! Tethered like a beast. You are worthless. You are stupid. You are crude and brutal. What do you know of the Greater Good? You like your life in darkness. You think the light of a candle flame is illumination. You could not understand what it is to live in the bright light of day. The light of knowledge and understanding. Your Imperium is dead. It is worthless. It is rotten to the core. We are the future…’
Leonas closed his eyes as buck-tooth kept up his tirade. Just a little closer, he thought, and I shall have you. One kick and I will stave this buck-toothed fool’s skull in.
‘Are you done yet, traitor?’ Leonas said in the end. ‘Take your tricks away. I do not fear you! You try to hide in darkness and light, but I see your face, and I shall remember, and I will take vengeance.’
Buck-tooth laughed at him. And the sirens and flashing lights started up again.
They lasted a week this time.
On the eighth day a third man came in. He was dressed in a double-breasted yellow jacket, fastened with buttons that carried the sept badge of the Elsy'eir. He held up a hand and cleared his throat, and the noise and flashing stopped. A single gentle light lit the room. Leonas forced himself to sit up, woozily shaking his head.
They had increased the dosage, and his body was struggling to counter its effects.
His hands were clamped down with leather straps about his wrists and forearms. He shook his head slowly, like a stunned bull that has one last charge in it.
The man waited. He was a neat little figure, sitting there before him. He drew up a three-legged stool and sat down, hands folded precisely on a data-slate in his lap. He had a thin neck, large head and grey hair swept across his wide forehead. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Please don’t glare at me. I am here to help you.’
The man waited as Leonas sat up and opened his good eye before spea
king. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name is Roboute.’
‘You’re called Roboute?’
The man seemed nonplussed. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Leonas could not hold back his laughter. He could imagine telling Branstonio that he had met a traitor named Roboute. He could picture the Ultramarine’s fury.
The man continued a little peevishly. ‘Now can we get along? We don’t have much time.’
Leonas was still laughing. ‘No?’
‘No. I’m the last.’
‘The last what?’
The man gave a thin smile. ‘The last chance. Your last chance, in fact.’
‘Chance of what?’
‘Life.’
Leonas laughed once more. ‘My life is mine. You cannot take it from me.’
‘Oh, but I can.’ The man seemed incredibly pleased with himself. ‘You see, I am the last. If you do not agree to talk to me, then we shall vent you out of the nearest airlock.’
‘And you think that will kill me?’
‘Yes,’ the man said, simply. ‘If you keep your mouth shut then, yes, I am reliably informed so by our scientist brothers – a poor translation of the exact word, but never mind. If you are voided and keep your mouth shut I am told that the air in your lungs will expand at such a rate that it will tear you apart from the inside. That would be almost instantaneous death. Even with the ribcage you possess, the air will find a way out. The softest way, generally. Through your stomach, or your neck. It will tear through the soft organs and turn you inside out within moments. Seconds. A second, really, to be precise.
‘If you don’t hold your breath you may survive a few seconds. I suppose, before cold and the void kill you. A normal human would survive seconds. You might survive minutes. But yes. It will kill you.’ The man forced a smile. ‘So. Perhaps you will cooperate.’
Storm of Damocles Page 4