On the walkway above, Vail slapped a gauntlet against the pauldron of each Alpha Legionnaire in turn, prompting them to abandon their fire support and withdraw from the chamber.
‘No!’ the interrogator managed, crawling arm over arm across the blood-slick floor. He could not allow the leader of the Honourless to slip through his fingers. The plasma explosion and the arrival of the abhuman auxilia had turned the battle briefly in the Inquisition’s favour but now the Alpha Legion were slithering away – ready to fight another day. His leg was shattered. This mattered little, however, since below the raging agony of his midriff, he could feel nothing.
Amongst the cacophony of battle, the sound of explosions reverberated through the superstructure of the freighter. After a short, ominous silence, the interrogator became aware of a rough hiss. Suddenly sand started pouring in through the chamber entrances and rents in the shattered decking. It cascaded down from the ceiling and gushed in through corroded bulkheads.
Kiefer spat blood and hatred at the sand accumulating on the floor of the engineering chamber. The detonations had immediately followed Sispyhon Vail’s tactical withdrawal. With his heart thumping in his chest, Kiefer came to the furious realisation that Sisyphon Vail planned to bury the surviving Inquisitorial forces – and even some of his own men – alive.
Kiefer’s throat was already thick with blood, and the haze of dust made it almost impossible to breathe. He gagged and coughed, trying desperately to catch his breath. The ogryns were reacting no differently. They might have been hulking brutes but they still needed to breathe – unlike the Alpha Legionnaires, protected by their armour. By the time the embattled ogryns and Traitors realised the peril they were in, it was too late. The abhumans dug furiously with their big hands but the sand was coming in faster than they could clear it.
Sand was filling the chamber, forcing Kiefer to crawl upwards just to keep himself above the surface. Clutching his throat, one of the ogryns fell and was swallowed up by the rising sands. The air was thick with dust. Towering figures stumbled through the miasma, wildly flailing their arms in fury and panic, seeking a way out.
What little light remained in the chamber came from the Attilans’ abandoned lamps, and even that was fading, obscured by the swirling dust. Asphyxiation and unconsciousness threatened to claim Kiefer, and a cold fury burnt in his chest. He had found the Alpha Legion but had lost Sisyphon Vail. Who knew what calamity the leader of the Honourless would wreak upon the subsector? Kiefer could not let that happen. He had made a pledge, to Godefroy Pyramus and to himself, that he would see the threat of Sisyphon Vail and his vile warband ended.
Crawling arm over arm, the interrogator dragged himself through the sand flooding into the chamber. He grabbed an abandoned lamp and hooked it on his belt. He had spotted a melted breach in the wall, close to the floor, where several of Fenk’s plasma blasts had missed advancing Alpha Legionnaires. Struggling to think clearly, Kiefer made for the hole. Perhaps he could squeeze through the opening and escape the doomed engineering chamber this way. He did not get far, however. The sand was pouring in so fast that he was unable to drag his injured body any further forward. As the sand started to cover his body, he cried out for help and started clawing at the air. In those dark, oxygen-starved moments, he imagined himself buried alive in the freighter – an Alpha Legion trap, prepared and sprung. Then he felt something huge with a vice-like grip grab his leg. His broken leg. The excruciating pain made Kiefer sit bolt-upright, despite the wound in his abdomen, and scream the dust from his lungs.
Before him, the interrogator saw the hulking shape of an ogryn, a solitary abhuman. Grabbing the interrogator by the leg, the ogryn trudged through the deepening sand, instinctively heading for shattered wall of the chamber. The pain kept Kiefer conscious and as they reached the hole he shouted at the ogryn to dig, digging with his own hands to show it what to do. The ogryn knelt down beside the interrogator. It was wearing goggles and the same kind of scarf the Attilans wore around their necks to keep the dust out of their mouths whilst riding. Between them, they had given the ogryn a fighting chance.
Using his great hands like shovels, the creature excavated the area close to the wall, clearing the blasted hole in the metal. Grabbing the broken edges, the ogryn heaved with all his monstrous might, widening the gap so that it was just wide enough for a human to fit through. The interrogator slid head first through the opening. With sand cascading about him, he heaved his torso and legs through the rent. Scrabbling around in the sand, Kiefer reached out for the abhuman. Perhaps he could help the ogryn get through also, but as more and more sand poured in, it became clear that the hulking abhuman wouldn’t be able to get out. He was simply too big. Before long, his great hand – which Kiefer could still see digging back the sand – went limp. Half dragging himself, half swimming through the sand, the interrogator was forced to leave the last of his men to die. He promised himself that he would avenge them.
The crawl was exhausting. Chamber after smashed chamber. Corridor after sand-choked corridor. His shattered leg felt numb once again and his body cold as behind him the interrogator left a smear of blood from his belly. Shrapnel ground his innards with every excruciating movement. He was bleeding badly. For a little while, Kiefer used the sound of distant gunfire to guide him and give him a sense of direction in unfamiliar surroundings.
‘Ipluvian,’ Kiefer coughed into the vox-bead. ‘Command vehicle, come in.’
The sound had been heavy bolters firing. The Salamander must have been under attack by the exiting Alpha Legion. The gunfire and the vox had long been silent. Nothing from the Salamander and nothing from the Internecia. As he made an ugly roll out of an open bulkhead and into the cargo hold he could see why. The Salamander was a smoking wreck. Crawling across the cargo crates, Kiefer found what was left of his driver Khoga and the Attilan gunner smouldering near the remains of the command vehicle. Sergeant Urgamal he found trapped under his bolt-blasted horse, with half of his head missing, in what must have been an execution-style killing. Ipluvian~461 was everywhere, the calculus logi literally blasted apart by bolter fire.
‘Internecia, come in,’ he croaked into the vox-bead, cycling through channels. He heaved himself painfully up against the track of the smashed Salamander. ‘Internecia, respond,’ the interrogator repeated, clutching his hands to the ragged wound in his side. Fading in and out of awareness, Kiefer continued to mumble into the vox-bead until he lost consciousness.
Shuddering awake, Kiefer felt numb, cold and wet. Looking down weakly, he saw that the sand about him was sodden and red. Sitting in a puddle of his own blood, he realised that he had been out for hours, quietly bleeding his life away.
‘Internecia…’ the interrogator managed, his lips barely wrapping themselves around the words. ‘This is Interrogator Kiefer. Requesting immediate… medical assistance. We found them. The Alpha Legion are here. I repeat: Sisyphon Vail is here on the planet. This is Interrogator Kiefer... Answer me, damn it.’
‘Interrogator,’ a voice returned. It was a voice he had never heard before; a voice that sounded like honeyed death. ‘This is Internecia. We receive you. You are wrong, of course – as you always have been. For Sisyphon Vail is not on the planet surface. I am here – on board your precious ship.’
Kiefer’s heart went numb. Sisyphon Vail’s voice echoed about his skull and infected his mind.
‘Vail…’
‘Yes,’ the Alpha Legion commander said, with no little relish. ‘Your ship is mine but unfortunately I cannot spare anyone to assist you. In fact, I’m readying the ship to break orbit. We have a new destination: Constantium Secundus.’
Kiefer slowly closed his eyes. Vail had named the location of a secret Inquisition base in the next sector. He now had access to the Internecia’s runebanks and all of the data they contained. Details of inquisitors, deployments, covert operatives and ordo installations.
‘To anyone else monitoring
this channel,’ Kiefer said, his words like ice, ‘I am changing to emergency vox channel, now.’
Cycling through the channels, the interrogator slumped down onto the sand.
‘Is anyone receiving… me?’ he said, his voice cracking under the strain and his grievous injuries.
‘Interrogator,’ a voice returned finally. ‘This is Confessor Creech.’
Kiefer groaned in agony and relief. ‘Confessor?’
‘I am here, interrogator,’ Creech replied.
‘You evaded capture?’
‘For now, interrogator,’ the confessor replied. ‘Servitors alerted the high enginseer of gunfire in the launch bays.’
‘The high enginseer…?’
‘He’s with me,’ Creech confirmed. ‘You are wounded, my lord?’
Kiefer nodded to himself, unconsciously moving a hand from his shattered leg to the mess of his stomach. Creech must have been listening to the vox channels.
‘It was an ambush,’ Kiefer told him. ‘All are lost.’
‘Not you, interrogator.’
‘Yes, me too,’ Kiefer said, feeling the cold, numbness moving through his body. He tried to resist it. With gritted teeth he said, ‘Status report.’
‘The Alpha Legion returned in your lander,’ Creech told him. ‘They overwhelmed the ship’s security forces and took the command deck – with Shipmaster Fairuza, the astropath and the Navigator.’
‘They have the broken open the runebanks,’ Kiefer said.
‘Aye, they have,’ Creech agreed.
‘What is your disposition?’ the interrogator asked.
‘The high enginseer and I have about thirty men with us,’ the confessor admitted. ‘Not enough to take back the ship.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In the engine room,’ Creech said. ‘The Alpha Legion have yet to secure it.’
Kiefer gulped. His throat was so dry.
‘Confessor,’ he said, trying to regain a steely edged authority. ‘The Alpha Legion now have access to the information in our runebanks. With it, they could cripple the ordo’s operations in this entire region and bring death to millions. That cannot be allowed to happen. Do you understand me? Sisyphon Vail and his men cannot be allowed to leave this place, or pass on that information.’
‘Yes, interrogator,’ the priest said finally. ‘I understand.’
‘You haven’t much time. I don’t care how you do it,’ Kiefer said. ‘You must find a way.’
‘The God-Emperor will show us the way,’ Confessor Creech said. ‘The high enginseer is working on a solution right now.’
‘Do it for Godefroy Pyramus,’ Kiefer said.
‘Interrogator,’ Creech replied. ‘We’ll do it for you… May the Emperor be with you. Creech out.’
The channel crackled and then went dead. Kiefer had never felt more alone. Pulling the vox-bead from his ear he tossed it away. He lay there for a moment before deciding that he would like to feel the wind on his face one last time. Rolling over, he heaved his numb, cold body arm over arm across the cargo hold and out onto the desolate sands of the agri world. When his strength finally failed him, the interrogator rolled over again and stared up into the sky. He lay there and waited for the inevitable. He felt a stagnant breeze across his cheeks. High above, he saw a bird circling. Xerxes, Inquisitor Pyramus’ psyber-eagle. The bird had been driven up into the sky by the battle in the hold.
Suddenly, beyond Xerxes, Kiefer saw a flash in the sky. Something had exploded in orbit. Kiefer was certain it was the Internecia. Perhaps an engine column or drive, sabotaged or rigged to overload or blow at the high engineer’s instigation. Kiefer watched as a flaming wreck plummeted down through the atmosphere at high speed, streaking smoke across the sky. The interrogator closed his eyes and nodded slowly to himself.
‘Got you,’ Kiefer mouthed. He had no more strength for words. It seemed to take an age but finally the doomed vessel hit the surface of the planet. He never heard the distant boom of the crash – the sound of the Inquisitorial cruiser taking its ordo secrets and everything else on board into fiery oblivion. By then, his wait for the inevitable was over.
THE AEGIDAN OATH
L J Goulding
‘I could count myself a king of infinite space,
Were it not that I have bad dreams.’
– from Amulet, Prince Demark
(attributed to the dramaturge Shakespire), circa M2
The strips of parchment darkened quickly upon the brazier coals, the heat curling their edges and setting hungry flames over the illuminated script that marked each one.
As the three Space Marines watched, the words of their primarch were erased. Forgotten. Consigned to the murk of history as surely as if they had never been written.
Indeed, there were those who would deny that they ever had been written. The laws of men had finally overridden the word of the demi-gods, and the universe seemed so much more hollow and uncaring for it.
Oberdeii stared into the fire.
‘I am an oath-breaker,’ he murmured to no one in particular. ‘No matter what happens from this moment on, that truth will remain with me until the end of my days.’
The halls of the orbital platform were dark, the beacon lights spinning reluctantly to life only as the craft passed the atmospheric threshold. Tarpaulins hung from the gaunt silhouettes of several decommissioned shuttles, their frayed edges stirred for the first time in months by the downdraft of the Thunderhawk’s manoeuvring thrusters, with empty storage bins and cargo crates stacked well beyond the operational grid-lines marked out on the deck. The pilot, Brother Wenlocke, eyed each obstacle through the frost-rimed armourglass of the canopy, easing the gunship into position as carefully as he could in the gloom.
One of the landing struts grazed an abandoned tool bench, sending a brace of oily engine parts clattering to the floor as the dropship touched down. The Space Marine cursed.
‘This is a wretched disgrace. Could no one have cleared the landing bays for our arrival?’
Remaining where he stood behind the empty co-pilot’s seat, Segas ran his tongue over his teeth and sniffed. ‘No one knew we were coming,’ he replied, ‘and there are precious few personnel still stationed here, anyway. I doubt that cleaning up their predecessors’ mess was ever high on their list of priorities.’
Cycling the engines down, Wenlocke turned. ‘Forgive me, my lord Chaplain, but we travel with the authority of the Chapter Master himself in this matter. Does that not count for anything? We might at least have let them know the purpose of our visit ahead of time, and they could have prepared what we need.’
Segas shook his head.
‘No, brother. We cannot reveal our purpose, save in person and only to those who must know of it. No physical record must remain of this enterprise, regardless of the outcome.’
The pilot grunted and rose from his seat, moving his armoured bulk sideways through the cockpit to the rear hatch. Segas slid around the unmanned navigation console to meet him, recovering his skull-faced helm from the stowage locker overhead. He ran a finger over the clean edges of the Ultima engraved upon the brow, and considered all that for which it stood.
Wenlocke made to load his bolt pistol sidearm, but the Chaplain stopped him. ‘No. No weapons.’
‘And yet you will take your crozius? I’ve seen you break our foes with it, as often as lead a sermon.’
‘Aye, I will take my crozius. We will have one chance, and one chance only, to put this delicate matter right. Our primarch’s eternal legacy is at stake. That was why Chapter Master Decon sent me in his stead, and why I brought only you.’
Pausing with one boot on the topmost rung of the descent ladder, Wenlocke frowned. ‘What, because you can trust me to keep my mouth shut when awkward questions are inevitably asked? Or just because we’re both old enough to remember what happens to Chapters
that keep dirty little secrets from the High Lords of Terra?’ Without waiting for an answer, he swung his weight out and began to climb down into the gunship’s hold. ‘I did as you said – I purged all navigation data from the system. There is no record of our journey left for anyone to find.’
As the grey-haired warrior disappeared from view, muttering to himself in irritation, Segas considered Wenlocke’s question.
I brought you for all of those reasons, and more besides, he thought. Because you and I may never return from Mount Pharos.
The air was cold and stale, and the deck plates of the corridors felt gritty beneath the Ultramarines’ armoured tread. Segas and Wenlocke met with the skeleton crew of the Sothan orbital, all mortal serf-officers of the Chapter who were long past combat retirement age. The men and women saluted stiffly, and they walked with the stilted gait of humans who had lived all their natural life in artificial gravity. They were tired, and had evidently been forgotten by the Imperium at large.
As tired and forgotten as the orbital platform itself, perhaps?
At the Chaplain’s request, they arranged transit for the two Space Marines on board an anonymous cargo lighter bound for the planet’s surface. The flight was cramped and uncomfortable for warriors of their size, but the need for an unheralded arrival made it a necessity.
Some kilometres outside the ordered coastal city of Sothopolis lay the freight terminals of Odessa, and it was there that they emerged into the first rays of dawn’s light ready to walk the overgrown paths to the mountain.
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