‘We’ve got to end this, now,’ Makaal told Cytha as he caught up with her. ‘We don’t have time to get bogged down.’
‘Agreed,’ the fighter replied, peering around the edge of a barrel. ‘What’s your plan?’
There was only one solution. He limbered his hellgun and drew a long blade from his belt. Seeing his intention, Cytha stowed her own firearm, and drew a wickedly sharp stiletto blade. She raised the weapon to her lips and kissed it tenderly. ‘Ready when you are,’ she whispered.
‘Go!’ Makaal ordered, springing from the cover the two had shared.
The three guards had made the cover of the crate and were even now raising their weapons over it, only their heads and arms visible. Bys and Rund worked their way around the chamber’s edge, each firing as they went, taking advantage of what little cover was provided by stanchions and pipe work. The two men’s fire was forcing the guards to keep their heads down, to a degree at least, but Makaal knew that would not last long.
Makaal and Cytha closed on their targets together. Cytha was fastest, the fighter leaping atop the crate with the speed of a hunting predator. Coming down into a nimble crouch, Cytha kicked out at the nearest guard, snapping his neck. In an instant, Makaal was vaulting past her. He slashed downwards with his blade as he passed the second guard, gouging a deep, red wound across his shoulder.
The last of the guards was too involved drawing a bead on Rund to react to Makaal and Cytha’s assault, and Rund had allowed himself to be distracted by the sight. The guard squeezed the trigger of his lascarbine, and the weapon spat an incandescent line across the chamber. Rund went down heavily, before Cytha was upon the firer. Her stiletto punched into his right ear, the man transfixed as the tip emerged from the left side of his head. For a moment, the ghastly tableau was frozen, before Cytha withdrew the blade with a jerk of her arm, and the guard dropped to the floor.
‘Bys!’ Makaal bellowed. ‘Check Rund.’
Praying that the lay-technician was not fatally injured, Makaal turned angrily towards the guard he had wounded. The man lay sprawled across the crate he had taken cover behind, and was even now reaching for his dropped carbine. Makaal lifted a foot and brought it down across the man’s wrist, forestalling the attempt to regain the weapon.
‘You,’ Makaal spat through gritted teeth, ‘I name traitor.’
Unlimbering his hellgun one-handed, Makaal brought its barrel down, its end centimetres from the man’s face. He looked into the wounded guard’s eyes and saw only hatred and anger. Part of him had hoped that the traitor would, at the last, see the error of his ways and perhaps even beg Makaal’s forgiveness. He did not.
Makaal looked away as he pulled the trigger, the weapon’s sharp report filling the chamber. Cytha looked on dispassionately, seemingly unaffected by the callous yet necessary execution.
Bys was helping Rund to his feet. ‘He’ll be fine,’ the big man said, his eyes flitting to the mess at Makaal’s feet before he looked back. ‘But we need to hide those and get moving.’
For the last thirty minutes, Makaal had been conscious of a slowly building, bass hum in the air. The rock floor of the dark service tunnel the fighters crept along was faintly vibrating, and the hair on the back of Makaal’s neck was standing on end. The very air he breathed tasted somehow metallic, and every now and then a static charge would snap from a pipe or stanchion to sting his flesh as he passed.
‘We’re underneath the primary capacitors,’ whispered Rund from behind.
Makaal had little idea what such a device was, but he could detect pain in the man’s voice. Bys had applied a dressing to the chest wound Rund had sustained in the brief fight against the palace guard, but he would need proper medical attention if he were to survive. If any of us escape, Makaal thought.
‘Another hundred metres then,’ Makaal replied. ‘Is everyone ready?
Each of the fighters nodded. He had scarcely needed to ask, but felt the burden of command weigh heavily as the cell neared its destination. These people had followed him of their own volition, and he had little doubt that they would all die because of it.
As if shaking off a premonition of his own death, Makaal crossed his hands across his chest in the sign of the aquila. His comrades did the same, and moments later he was leading them cautiously towards their final objective.
As Makaal approached the end of the service tunnel, Cytha by his side and Bys and Rund close behind, the air became increasingly charged. Blue light flashed intermittently from the chamber beyond the tunnel, each discharge accompanied by a harsh crack of the air being split by titanic energies.
‘Both of you know your objectives,’ Makaal whispered.
Moving forwards to the mouth of the tunnel, he stole a glance into the chamber. The teleportarium was a huge, domed space, dominated by a raised, circular platform at its very centre. Banks of pulsating, glowing machinery lined the walls, actinic sparks and whiplash energies playing up and down tall copper shafts. Fat cables snaked across the stone floor. Hundreds more looped down from above or crawled across the walls, linking each and every item of machinery together in an insane web of crackling energy.
Makaal mouthed a silent prayer to the God-Emperor. Never before had he seen such a thing. Indeed, he had only recently heard that such machines could exist, though he was assured that they were so rare they could command the ransom of an entire planet. The teleportation device had rotted away for millennia beneath the governor’s palace, all knowledge of its operation and maintenance long since forgotten. No one knew what the device had been used for, or who had built it. Over the centuries it became a temple the tech-priests would worship in. Only with the coming of Voldorius had the chamber been restored to its original use and the machinery returned to a working state by the ministrations of the rogue Mechanicus who served the daemon prince.
And one of those fell individuals stood nearby, his back to the fighters as they peered out of the tunnel.
The rogue tech-priest was unnaturally tall, as if the limbs beneath his ragged crimson robe were attenuated and disjointed. Despite his height, the priest’s back was bent and he stooped almost double, bending down to attend to a machine console. A dozen mechanical tentacles writhed from the grotesque hump on the priest’s back, each with an implement, tool or weapon at its end. Some of those tentacles worked the levers and dials of the console, while others moved about seemingly of their own accord like snakes waiting for unwary prey to wander near.
Tech-priests had always made Makaal uneasy, for their affinity with machines was far beyond the ken of ordinary men. That the individual in the chamber was an outcast of his sinister order made Makaal’s skin crawl. Technology was a thing to be respected, revered and even feared, yet this vile servant of Voldorius had reneged on his oaths to the Cult Mechanicus to use technology only as prescribed by the Emperor. The reasons for killing the renegade were legion, and Makaal was pleased to be the instrument of the Emperor’s justice.
Makaal raised his hellgun, lining up the iron sights with the back of the tech-priest’s hood. Even as he did so, the machinery lining the chamber walls began to whine, white lightning spitting at the periphery of his vision.
‘I think someone’s…’ hissed Rund.
Makaal’s finger closed gently on the trigger and one of the mechanical tentacles at the tech-priest’s back whipped around, a green glowing lens at its tip staring directly at Makaal. Disgust welled up inside him as he realised that the lens was an eye. Through it, the renegade was looking directly at the fighter, somehow entrancing him with fell power.
In a second the spell passed and Makaal got a grip of his thoughts, but still the malignant green eye floated before him, filling his vision. But the tech-priest had already turned, and was advancing across the chamber towards the resistance fighters.
‘Kill it!’ Makaal bellowed, and all four of the resistance fighters opened fire as one.
Makaal’s aim was true, but the blast of his weapon was halted before it struck the te
ch-priest. Waves of blue energy rippled out from a point in the air a metre in front of the renegade, settling to nothing after a second. A squeal of harsh machine gibberish screamed from a grille mounted where the priest’s mouth should have been. Three more green lenses glowed from under his hood above the grille.
Makaal gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to drop his weapon and cover his ears lest they burst under the hideous sonic assault.
‘Again!’ he shouted. This time only three shots rang out, telling Makaal that either Rund or Bys must have been incapacitated by the machine howl. Two of the shots were stopped by the energy field, but one – Makaal could not tell whose – passed through, and struck the renegade’s left arm.
The shot blasted a ragged flaming hole through a crimson sleeve and a shower of sparks went up. The priest staggered under the impact and a second machine squeal sounded. This time however, it was a scream of pain and rage.
‘Full auto!’ Makaal ordered, thumbing the selector switch above his weapon’s grip. He braced the hellgun against his shoulder, drawing a bead on the renegade’s chest as the roaring figure bore down upon him.
Squeezing the trigger tight and holding it down, Makaal unleashed a torrent of blinding shots. The field absorbed half, but the remainder slammed through, stitching the renegade’s torso. The priest stumbled back, but now he was close. The writhing mechanical tentacles whipped forwards, one striking Makaal across the side of his body. Pain flooded his senses as he felt several ribs crack sickeningly and he was propelled through the air to crash ten metres away on the rocky floor.
Fighting to remain conscious, Makaal looked up in time to see Bys wrestling with the tentacles, one gripped in each hand. In that split second, Cytha stepped inside the tech-priest’s reach and her stiletto flashed upwards, catching the renegade’s throat and sinking up to its hilt. The machine-howl was abruptly silenced and the tentacles fell limp in Bys’s massive hands. Both fighters stepped backwards and the renegade tech-priest fell forwards. The sound the body made as it struck the rock floor was not flesh hitting rock, but ironwork shattering into a hundred pieces.
Rund was at the console the tech-priest had been manning. ‘Someone’s coming through!’ he shouted, an edge of panic rising in his voice.
‘Bys, Rund,’ Makaal said as he crossed the chamber. ‘You know what to do. Make it fast.’
There was little that Makaal or Cytha could do now, for their role in the mission had been to get the cell safely to the teleportarium. He watched as Bys unlimbered bandoliers full of explosives and followed Rund. The lay-technician took a moment to gather himself before indicating a dozen points around the chamber to the larger man. Nodding, Bys crossed to the first, a machine of copper coils, shafts and pipes, and got to work setting his explosives.
Rund was soon back at the console. ‘I can’t stop it!’ he called over his shoulder to Makaal.
‘How long?’ the leader asked. ‘Do we have enough time?’
The lay-technician’s hands turned a series of dials and after a moment he looked back at Makaal. ‘If we detonate the explosives manually, we might–’
‘Half set!’ Bys’s voice rang out. The man had placed six of his charges in the locations Rund had indicated and was almost done with the seventh.
Makaal understood immediately what the lay-tech was saying. ‘Give me the detonator. This is my burden.’
Rund hesitated, distracted by the flashing lights of the console and the reams of data scrolling across its screens. Then he reached into a belt pocket and took out the small, boxlike detonator. He tossed it to Makaal.
The fighter caught the device in his raised hand. He crossed to the console facing the raised metal platform in the centre of the chamber. Cytha appeared at his side, her dark eyes glaring at the same point.
Makaal checked his weapon’s status reader. The full auto blast had cost him a third of his remaining charge and the focusing ring had come dangerously close to overheating. It would never be enough. Their only hope of success was the charges that Bys was even now finishing setting.
‘Stand by!’ Rund called out.
Even as the lay-technician shouted his warning the air in the chamber became so charged that Makaal felt every centimetre of his skin crawling as if a million insects skittered across his body. A sharp pain split his head, and his vision swam. The towering copper shafts around the chamber erupted with blinding white arcs of unknowable power and the air split like the centre of a thunderstorm.
The once dark and shadowed chamber was now flooded with pulsating light emanating from a point in the centre of the raised platform. The illumination was diffuse at first, with no direct source. A blinding singularity blinked into being above the centre of the platform, arcs of ragged lightning splitting the air between it and the copper coils at the chamber’s edge.
Makaal placed his thumb on the stud in the centre of the detonator box. Not yet, he told himself. Wait until you’re sure. The point of light expanded into a blazing orb, its base touching the metal of the platform. The orb flickered and then expanded still more, until it became a semicircular archway over the entire platform.
So blinding was the light that Makaal made to raise his arm across his face, but found himself paralysed, his body refusing to respond to his will. He felt the crush of impossible energies, as if the very air of the chamber had become solid, trapping him as a fly in amber.
And then, at the centre of the glare, three silhouettes appeared.
The central figure was massive, tall and broad shouldered with wings folded at its back. The second was not quite so large, but still a giant compared to mere men. The third was stooped and crooked, the fabric of its robes flaring in an etheric wind.
‘Makaal.’ The fighter heard Cytha speak his name, but could not turn his head to face her. ‘Do it, Makaal, now!’
Makaal waited until the silhouettes had resolved in the middle of the blazing white light. Then, with a supreme effort of willpower, he pressed his thumb down hard on the detonator’s control stud.
Nothing happened at first, for the chamber was already churning with the energies of the teleportation device. Then, the pure white light the three figures were silhouetted against flickered and stuttered. Time slowed for Makaal, even the beat of his heart becoming frozen in a single instant. The white orb collapsed in on itself, plunging the entire chamber into total blackness.
Then, a dozen of the machines lining the chamber wall exploded as one. The light of the detonations illuminated three figures on the raised platform. Orange flames danced at their feet, before another light entirely sprang into being.
A vertical, crimson-purple scar appeared behind the three figures, as if the air itself were splitting apart. The line became a wound etched in the surface of reality. Still unable to move, terror flooded Makaal’s soul. From the wound emanated a ghastly, pulsating light, the colour of blood and guts.
The three figures attempted to move away from the horror that had appeared at their back, but they too must have been entrapped. Despite his terror, Makaal felt a moment of hope. Not for himself, for he knew now that he was doomed, but for his home world. Whatever process the destruction of the teleportarium had instigated, it looked like it would claim Voldorius and his servants as well as the fighters.
The terror consuming Makaal’s soul was now tempered by vindication, the two emotions converging into something approaching madness. Though his lips would barely move, inside Makaal roared within with an unholy blend of joy and horror. He screamed his hatred at the daemon, raged his denial of his own death and shouted his joy at his victory. The wound grew larger still, a deep gash in the flesh of reality, bulging outwards as if tainted organs were at the point of bursting forth.
And then, the wound ripped open.
The chamber was suddenly filled with the sound of a trillion souls wailing their damnation as one. In an instant, Makaal’s soul was torn asunder, yet still the core of all he was looked on. The crimson scar split open, spilling writhing
energies into the chamber. Thrashing coils of crimson ether quested outwards, wrapping themselves around the three figures on the platform as if to drag them back through the wound.
More of the writhing coils spread outwards, snaking around the chamber until they came upon Makaal and his comrades. His mind now shattered into a thousand shards, Makaal was incapable of feeling the terror that had consumed him before. He merely looked on as ghostly intestine-shaped tentacles wrapped themselves around his fellow resistance fighters, lifted them into the air, and drew their bodies towards the ragged hole in the fabric of reality.
Only then did what was left of Makaal realise that he too was being carried towards the impossible wound. What had been a jagged line was now a swollen, gaping maw, beyond which swam uncounted… things. Mouths and eyes formed from the boiling energies, then dissolved and dissipated to re-emerge elsewhere. The eyes radiated hunger and pain, while the mouths slobbered and gibbered and wailed in eternal anguish. Makaal knew that he would be joining that churning mass.
Makaal was drawn closer to the three figures. Voldorius was braced against raging etheric winds seeking to suck him into the vortex. Vast coils were wrapped about his armoured legs and arms, yet he resisted with a strength that was entirely inhuman.
Nearby, the second figure wrestled with more of the binds. This must have been one of Voldorius’s lieutenants, for he too wore the blue-green power armour of the Alpha Legion. The warrior was fast, dodging and weaving as he sought to escape the writhing intestines.
The last of the figures was a robed human whom Makaal recognised as Voldorius’s equerry. The man stood no chance of resisting the thrashing coils and he was being dragged into the maw as inexorably as Makaal himself. As the equerry was dragged nearer to the wound, his flesh began to blister. Soon it was boiling off in great streams of red vapour, sucked away on impossible winds of damnation.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 9