Kantor’s eyes met those of the captain, almost his equal in height. ‘You may go, Drigo,’ he said. ‘You and I shall convene later. There is much we still need to talk about. For now, though, you had best get started. You are dismissed.’
There followed another round of salutes. A moment later, with Drigo’s heavy footfalls ringing through the air of the chamber, Kantor motioned to the others and said, ‘Be seated, brothers.’
The council was quiet, pensive. Even Cortez seemed unusually reluctant to speak.
Finally, Torres asked, ‘How do you plan to distribute the rest of us?’
‘Most of you will command your companies on the walls of our home in accordance with siege defence protocols,’ said Kantor. ‘I will call another session at twenty-three hundred hours this evening to discuss specifics. The moment the ork ships translate from the warp, you will bring your men to full combat readiness. I believe Brother Ranparre will stop them. He has never failed before. But I would have you all ready, regardless. Not one ork must set foot on the hallowed grounds of our home. I would consider that a great and terrible sacrilege.’
‘So would we all,’ spat Caldimus Ortiz, Captain of the Seventh, Master of the Gates. That no enemy should ever breach Arx Tyrannus was his responsibility above all others.
Kantor noted the fire in Ortiz’s eyes at the very thought of the greenskins returning to Rynn’s World. Turning his gaze from face to face, he saw the same dark determination, the cold, hard violence that lay just below the surface in all of them.
This so-called Arch Arsonist has underestimated us, he thought. We will punish him severely for that.
‘You each have preparations to make,’ said Kantor. ‘Tailor all training exercises accordingly. If there are no further issues to raise…’
‘My lord,’ said Eustace Mendoza. ‘There is one more matter before we dissolve this session.’
Kantor turned towards the Chief Librarian. ‘Speak on, my friend.’
‘Forgive me, brothers,’ said Mendoza, ‘for diverging from our most pressing issue, but we have yet to decide the fate of the Scout, Janus Kennon.’
High Chaplain Tomasi nodded grimly. ‘Brother Kennon is, at least in part, clearly responsible for the dark losses our Chapter suffered at Krugerport. Does Captain Icario have anything to say for him?’
Tomasi had removed his skull-helm on entering the Strategium, as was Chapter law. Now, he turned his coal-black eyes towards the unusually quiet Tenth Company captain.
Ishmael Icario could not meet the High Chaplain’s gaze. Instead, he spoke down towards the table, as if his neck was weighted by a great shame. ‘Fellow sons of Dorn, I deserve no small share in Brother Kennon’s culpability. In my rush to put him on the battlefield, to test the true extent of his talents, I ignored the concerns expressed by my sergeants. My own personal hopes clouded my judgement, and for that I am truly sorry. But if he is to be punished, then I too must suffer for my mistake.’
Alessio Cortez snorted and shook his head. ‘If lightning strikes a tree and starts a fire, is that the fault of the forest?’
Icario looked up, surprised. ‘Now you are quoting Traegus to me, brother?’
Cortez forced a grin, and Kantor saw the beaten look in Icario’s eyes mellow, but only for a moment.
‘No one blames you, Ishmael,’ said the Chapter Master. ‘How could we? I, too, had great hopes for Janus Kennon. But talent is nothing without discipline. He did not bear the tenets of the Chapter in mind. A Space Marine who disobeys orders has not fully embraced his psycho-conditioning. He cannot be called a Space Marine. If there was any failing here, it was Kennon’s alone. Did you not also assign Sergeant Mishina to the mission? And did he not earn his company great honour, risking his life to retrieve Captain Drakken’s body from the battlefield?’
‘Aye,’ rumbled High Chaplain Tomasi with a glance over at the Chapter Master. ‘Ezra Mishina is a most worthy brother.’
Kantor could hardly miss the meaning behind the Chaplain’s look. ‘He is, indeed. It is high time he was granted the Steeping. He will join Third Company, the first of many who will be needed to bring their numbers back up over time. I hope this pleases you, Ishmael.’
Kantor threw a rare and fleeting smile at Captain Icario and, at last, saw the beginnings of a reciprocal smile break through the Scout captain’s dour expression.
‘Lord Hellblade honours me and all of the Tenth,’ said Icario, but he paused, and the smile fell away as he added, ‘Still, there is the matter of Kennon’s fate.’
‘How does he bear his guilt?’ asked Cortez.
‘Poorly, it must be said,’ admitted Icario. ‘Despite everything, he stands by his decision to fire, to take the shot while this warlord, Mag Kull, was in his sights.’
There was a grunt of derision from Kantor’s left. Matteo Morrelis, Master of Blades, Captain of the Eighth Company, leaned forward with his forearms on the crystal surface. ‘The sensorium uploads prove his culpability beyond any doubt. We have all seen them. If he cannot respect the chain of command, no matter the circumstances, he is unfit to wear our colours and call himself kin.’
Kantor was about to respond when Cortez slammed a rough hand on the table. Every head turned sharply in his direction. ‘If he had slain the ork,’ Cortez growled over at Morrelis, ‘we would be calling him a hero.’ He turned to Kantor. ‘You would be promoting Kennon to Third Company, not Mishina.’
‘This decision can hardly rest on an if,’ barked Caldimus Ortiz, ‘particularly given that he did not slay the ork, brother.’
Cortez glared back at Ortiz.
‘High Chaplain,’ said Kantor. ‘Have you anything to add before I make my pronouncement?’
Tomasi sounded genuinely sorrowful as he answered. ‘The loss of a captain is always a great tragedy, not just for the Chapter, but for all mankind. Those truly fit to lead are a rare commodity. Brother Kennon has, by disregarding a direct order, played a significant role in the death of one of this Chapter’s finest. Ashor Drakken was a decorated hero with a record of achievement spanning more than two centuries. There is precedent for such a case as this. We have searched the archives.’ Here, he indicated Eustace Mendoza, who nodded once with eyes closed. ‘The punishment for precipitating this disaster,’ Tomasi continued, ‘must be the most severe available to us. As much as it pains us, there can be no other choice.’
Several of the captains bowed their heads at this proclamation.
Kantor did likewise. When he lifted his head a second later, he said, ‘I have made my decision. Judgement is passed. Janus Kennon shall undergo servitor conversion.’
Alessio Cortez loosed a string of quiet curses.
Mendoza nodded. ‘The Librarius will be ready to receive him once he has been informed.’ Turning to Captain Icario, he added, ‘The process of mind-ripping is painful. I shall not lie to you, my brother. But it will be mercifully short. This much, I promise.‘
Ishmael Icario did not answer. He rested his shaved head in his hands, allowing his elbows to support him on the crystal tabletop.
Forgemaster Adon interjected in crisp machine monotone. ‘Kennon’s innate skills may still be utilised. They need not be lost. As a gun-servitor, he will serve the Chapter for a thousand years and, on his decommissioning, will perhaps have expunged the stain on his honour.’
‘Whether or not his guilt shall be expunged is a matter for the Emperor alone to decide,’ said Tomasi.
‘Ishmael,’ said Kantor. ‘Take Brother Kennon to the Librarium at sunrise tomorrow. Do it quietly while the rest of your men are observing the morning combat rituals. Let them learn of it after the fact. I would have this matter seen to and put behind us as soon as possible. It must not linger to cast its shadow over the honour service for the dead.’
‘Sunrise,’ said Icario softly. ‘I will see it done, lord.’
For a moment, silence descended over the crystal table once again. Then Kantor stood and formally ended the session, dismissing the council members. They would be back
here soon enough, he knew.
He and Cortez were the last to leave.
As they walked together through the gloomy, candlelit hallways of the fortress-keep, past shadowed alcoves where the stone likenesses of past heroes stood at eternal attention, Cortez asked his old friend and master a question.
‘Thinking of the glory, of the blow it would strike to the enemy, and unaware of whatever technology was shielding this Mag Kull beast, would you yourself not have taken the shot?’
The Chapter Master frowned. ‘You already know my answer to that, Alessio.’
‘I suppose I do,’ Cortez replied heavily, ‘as certainly as you know mine.’
‘Indeed.’
They walked on, side-by-side, unspeaking for a few more paces, until they reached the junction in the corridor where they would part. Kantor’s private chambers were high in the uppermost levels of the central keep and he had many hundreds of stairs to climb. The act of climbing them often helped to clear his mind, and he knew he needed that clarity of thought now more than he had needed it in a very long time.
Before the two friends went off in different directions, Kantor placed a hand on Cortez’s shoulder and said, ‘In the name of the primarch, Alessio, never put me in that position. To pass judgement over you as I just did over Brother Kennon would destroy me, brother.’
‘No,’ said Cortez. ‘It would not destroy you, Pedro. You have the right strength for such things. It is why you were chosen to lead us.’
Kantor smiled briefly at that, but it was hollow and he knew Cortez could tell. There were no secrets between them. They knew each other far too well for that.
He dropped his hand from his friend’s shoulder, turned in the direction of the great stone staircase at the end of the corridor, and walked off, hoping it would be the last they spoke of disobeying orders for a long time.
Seven
New Rynn Space port, Rynnland Province
The capital awoke to the deep, window-shaking roar of sixteen Crimson Fist Thunderhawks as they swept in low over the sprawling slums that had grown up around the planet’s only space port. Sturdy landing gear emerged from metal hulls. Powerful turbines changed pitch, from a roar to a high, throbbing whine. The Thunderhawks settled on an airstrip that had been cleared for their arrival only twenty minutes earlier.
It wasn’t that the New Rynn Space Port staff were lazy or disorganised. They simply hadn’t been told until the very last moment that the Space Marines were coming. That lack of adequate warning was deliberate. Captain Alvez did not want the people of the city to know. He had no wish to drive through streets thronged with cheering civilians. They did not know what they were cheering for. He was born to wage war. Did they wish to celebrate his gift for slaughter? Did they wish to celebrate the thousands of gallons of blood he had spilled year after year? He doubted it. Most would be sickened by the things he had seen and done. If not sickened, then terrified to the point of madness.
The spaceport was about sixty kilometres south-east from the outermost of the capital city’s great defensive walls, but the noise of the Thunderhawks’ powerful turbines carried all the way to the city centre, a glorious fortified island surrounded on both sides by the waters of the River Rynn. This was the Zona Regis, often called the Silver Citadel, home of the governor and secondary residence to all the members of the Upper Rynnhouse. The Cassar lay within its towering walls, a large keep built by the Chapter after the greenskin invasion of twelve hundred years ago so that a detachment of Crimson Fists could garrison the capital if it were ever threatened again.
It seemed that time had come.
As the Thunderhawks powered down their engines, the sun crested the horizon to the east. Most of the people who had heard the roar, adults and children alike, were already dressing for another day of labour in the fields and manufactora, their sweat and toil dedicated to an Emperor none would ever see save in ancient carvings and frescoes, or rendered as figurines for sale on the stalls of the city’s zonae commercia.
It was not uncommon for the citizens of the capital to hear ships coming and going, no matter the time of day. The spaceport often played host to far bigger, noisier craft than Thunderhawks. Aside from its many ground-level airstrips, the gargantuan structure boasted three vast, thick cylindrical towers, each topped with circular landing plates supported by anti-grav suspension. They could provide berths for even the largest transatmospheric craft. Most of the citizens who heard the noise of the Thunderhawks stopped what they were doing and cocked their heads to listen. There was something different about this sound. Only military aircraft ever approached together and in such numbers.
On contacting the spaceport’s air traffic personnel, Captain Alvez had been adamant that his force’s arrival go unannounced. He told the spaceport’s chief administrator over the vox-net that, if there were any choirs or bands, fanfare of any kind, he would kill the man himself.
Alvez was naturally somewhat angry, then, when he marched down the ramp of his Thunderhawk to find himself being greeted by over a thousand individuals in immaculate cream-coloured uniforms.
The moment they laid eyes on his broad, armoured frame, they dropped to one knee and bowed their heads. A heavy-set officer with golden shoulder-boards shouted out a command, and the kneeling troopers called out as one, ‘All hail the Crimson Fists, righteous sons of Rogal Dorn, hand of the Emperor, saviour of the people!’
‘Dorn’s blood,’ cursed Alvez quietly, eyes panning across the rows of starched soldiers. ‘This is just perfect.’
Behind him, his Adeptus Astartes were beginning to disembark, marching briskly down Thunderhawk ramps, heavy boots striking metal in perfect military cadence. Serfs and servitors followed in great number, hefting ammunition cases, weapons and supplies of every possible description.
Space port servitors shambled forward to assist, and the airstrip was abuzz with activity.
Alvez strode forward and called out to the Rynnsguard, ‘At ease, you men. On your feet. Get up!’
The unsolicited welcoming committee rose smartly. Every last one of them kept his eyes straight forward, not daring to meet the Space Marine captain’s icy glare. It was patently obvious they were at anything but ease.
‘Officer in charge,’ bellowed Alvez. ‘Make yourself known to me. Now!’
The deep, harsh, barking quality of his voice made some of the Rynnsguard jump. After a heartbeat’s nervous hesitation, the overweight officer with the shoulder boards strode forward, arms swinging rigidly at his sides. His chest glittered with bronze, silver and gold starbursts and, above the brim of his starched cap, there was a badge in the shape of a golden aquila.
Alvez noted the polished silver skulls on the man’s tunic collar, and said, ‘Your name, colonel.’
It was phrased as a demand. The colonel bowed at the waist, hands pressed to his chest in the standard Imperial salute. When he stood upright, he removed his cap, fixed his gaze on the centre of Alvez’s gleaming breastplate, and said, ‘Portius Cantrell, my lord, commanding officer of the Rynnland Second Garrisoning Regiment, Soroccan Defensive Operations Group, at your service.’
Alvez wasn’t impressed.
‘I am Drigo Alvez, colonel. I am the captain of the Crimson Fists Second Company, Master of the Shield, and you will do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye when you speak to me. Your reverence has been duly noted, but I would have you address my face, not my armour.’
Cantrell, who, at one hundred and seventy-eight centimetres, came up only as high as the embossed eagle on the Adeptus Astartes captain’s chest, gulped and hastily lifted his eyes.
Alvez glared down at him, unsmiling. ‘That is better. Now tell me what you and your men are doing here. I issued strict orders to this facility’s administrator. He was warned that I would execute him for disobeying.’
Cantrell glanced down at the ferrocrete surface of the landing strip on reflex, then hurriedly returned his gaze to Alvez’s face. ‘Air Controller Celembra did not disobey you, my l
ord. He issued no request for a formal welcome. My men and I, however, were already here on a security rotation. One of my lieutenants was in the air traffic control centre when your message came through. He brought word of it to me, and I took the liberty. Forgive me, lord. I know you were most specific about fanfare, but I thought a respectful military greeting would be appropriate. I could not, in good conscience, have let your arrival pass without some show of respect.’
My orders left room enough for that, I suppose, thought Alvez.
‘Though I was not advised of your coming in time to prepare properly,’ continued the colonel, ‘my men and I are honoured to be at your disposal. Anything you need, anything at all, and we will endeavour to provide it, in the name of the Emperor and of Lord Hellblade.’
At our disposal, thought Alvez darkly. You’ll soon learn the real meaning of that, colonel, but not today. Look at you, so willing to have your men reduced to the level of servants. Fighting men should have more pride.
Alvez hated diffidence, hated the way most humans fawned and scraped in front of him, always so desperate to earn the favour and protection of the Adeptus Astartes. The situation would get worse, he knew, once his forces were established in the city proper. He had been through it all a hundred times and more during the course of his life. The presence of even a single Adeptus Astartes among normal people caused a range of often extreme reactions. From sickening servility to abject terror, he had seen it all.
In most cases, it was standard operating procedure to keep his forces as far from the civilian populace as possible. It didn’t do for the people to get too close to their protectors. Fear and avoidance he could handle – in fact, in light of the alternatives, he welcomed them – but excesses of worship, love and attention soon became a hindrance, with hourly offerings of luxury foodstuffs, expensive silks, religious trinkets, alcohol, narcotics, even women – none of which an Adeptus Astartes had any use for in the slightest.
‘I do not foresee us requiring your services at the moment, colonel,’ said Alvez. ‘If that is to change, rest assured I will alert you. As to the reason for our presence here, you will be fully briefed when I decide it is time. For now, you will clear your men from this airstrip and return to your security duties. We have much to unload, and there may be injuries if you get in the way.’
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 73