“How selfless of you,” Rafen replied, and squeezed the trigger plate. On its finest setting, the humming accelerator coils atop the weapon glowed blue-white and discharged a thin rod of superheated plasmatic particles. The plasma bolt sliced into the top of a servo-arm waving from Zellik’s spine, and turned it into a twist of slagged iron. After hundreds of years of inaction, the gun was hungry to fire on a new target.
The tech-priest screeched in binary and crashed to his knees, piston-legs chugging with the painful feedback.
Noxx made an appreciative noise in the back of his throat. “Still works well, then. A fine weapon indeed.”
“I want my relical!” Zellik shouted. “It is mine! You cannot take it from me! A dozen man-lifetimes it has taken me to gather it all—”
“But only a day to lose it,” Rafen broke in. “Come now, Magos. Surely you expected this to happen? Beslian foresaw it, and he knew less than you. You know that death is the only coin paid to traitors.”
“Traitor?” The tech-priest shook his head. “Perhaps I have interpreted the laws of my order with some laxity, yes, but I am no traitor! I am a staunch servant of the Machine-God! A devoted citizen of the Imperium of Mankind!”
Noxx tapped the flaying knife on his palm. “Haran Serpens.” He sounded out the syllables of the name.
The name caught Zellik off-guard. “What?”
“He’s dead,” Rafen explained, working the plasma gun again. “It appears he has been dead for at least three solar years, in point of fact.”
“Impossible,” snorted the tech-lord, but the denial seemed half-hearted. He was about to say more, but he halted, clearly fearful of incriminating himself still further.
“His identity was appropriated,” Rafen went on. The maw of the plasma gun was glowing white-hot, vapour seething from the emitter channels. “Stolen by an agent of Chaos. A most foul and hated enemy of the Imperium you say you venerate. I’m sure you know the name Fabius Bile.”
The prisoner blurted out an exaggerated splutter of scorn, his silvery flesh wrinkling in dismay. “Fabius Bile is a myth! A monster from the dark past created by over-zealous preachers in order to terrify the masses!” Zellik strained at the manacles as Rafen closed the distance to him. “These accusations are lies. Lies spread by my enemies. Did the ordos send you, is that it? Were they so terrified to take me on themselves that they sent Space Marines to be their tools?”
“You are the one that has been used, Zellik,” said Noxx. “Tainted, even.”
With slow care, Rafen reached out and gathered up a fistful of Zellik’s robes. The tech-priest was shaking, his cyberlimbs rattling against the manacles. “You will tell us about your dealings with the man who pretends to be Haran Serpens. You will tell us where he lurks within the Ghoul Stars.”
Zellik’s clockwork eyes clicked and switched from Rafen to Noxx. The Flesh Tearer gave a thin smile. “You must be very afraid to look to one like me for support. Do you really think you’ll find it?”
Rafen held up Aryon’s weapon, streamers of incredible heat coming off it in waves. “I am not an inquisitor,” he said. “I do not have an array of clever tools to induce you to speak truth to me. And I have neither patience, nor time. I am Astartes, and what I know best is how to kill. With speed… and without.” Rafen held the gun muzzle close to Zellik’s flawless machine-face, and the chrome skin began to blister and darken. “I will burn the answers I want from you. You will give them to me.”
He leaned closer, and the lowing screams began anew.
The gas-lens viewer first sketched an orb, then filled it with lines of detail, one upon another, like the hand of a ghostly artist.
“The fifth world of the Dynikas system,” announced Mohl. “Several parsecs out along the spinward edge of the Ghoul Stars. Our target.”
Rafen stood to one side of his squad, his arms folded across his chest. From the corner of his eye he saw Kayne glance at the plasma gun on his hip, and then at his face. The unspoken question was in his gaze, but his commander did not answer it.
Across the Tycho’s tacticarium, Mohl went on, watched by Noxx and the rest of his fellow Flesh Tearers. “From what we have been able to determine with data drawn from the Archeohort’s cogitator arrays, Tech-Lord Zellik supplied equipment and materiel of a scientific and manufactory nature to this world.”
“Enough for someone to build a laboratory,” added Noxx.
Mohl nodded. “The extant census records on Dynikas V are poorly drawn. The most detailed is that from a passing long-range scrying, by a vessel of the Imperial Navy engaged in a fleet action against the Cythor Fiends. The planet is determined here to be an ocean world with a few small island landmasses.” The hololith took on the blurry, lurid tones of a false-colour sensor image. “A high content of metals was recorded, along with an apparent abundance of aquatic life forms. Ministorium adjuncts to this report indicate that the planet was classed as suitable for agricultural exploitation. A commerce flotilla was apparently dispatched, but records past this point were lost during the 9th Black Crusade.”
“That’s all we know?” asked Eigen, frowning.
“There is more,” Mohl explained. “This next data set was drawn from Zellik’s personal stacks.” The image flickered and shifted. Now the patches of colour in Dynikas V’s oceans were dead and hollow, flat expanses of white and grey instead of the riot of reds and oranges on the original scan. “This is a more recent long-range scan. Zellik sealed this datum and prevented its upload to the Mechanicus codex-network.”
“It looks dead,” said Ajir. “If it was teeming with enough fish for the explorators to set up a farming colony there, then what happened to it?”
“No radiological returns, no signs of planetary bombardment,” noted Kayne.
“Bio-weapon,” suggested Puluo.
“In a manner of speaking,” offered the Techmarine. “Zellik’s data also revealed this pict-relay of debris in high orbit of the planet.”
A new pane of imagery opened, dropping like a curtain. The flat display picked out a thick halo of dust and particulate matter collected into a sheer accretion disc.
“That wasn’t there in the Navy’s scry-scan,” said Eigen.
Mohl glanced at his battle-brother. “No. It’s the remains of a later destructive event. Zellik’s hypothesis is that it is the residue of a battle between the notably territorial Cythor Fiends and a tyranid hive fleet splinter.”
“Tyranids?” Gast spat the name like a curse. “But those xenos freaks are unknown in this sector.”
Turcio peered at the display. “The evidence would suggest otherwise.”
“If you’re willing to trust the word of that lying cog.”
Rafen considered what he was hearing. “It would explain the ravaging of the planet’s ecosystem. And the silence from the explorator flotilla.”
“Another question occurs, cousin,” said Noxx. “Are the tyranids still there? Hive ships often eject spores towards the nearest planetary atmosphere at the moment of their destruction. Are we to believe that the renegade has built a bolt hole on an infested world?”
“Even Fabius Bile would not lay his head amid a pit of Fire Scorpions,” said Kayne. “It would mean death for any being to venture down there, even for a champion of the Ruinous Powers.”
“There is only one way to be certain,” Rafen moved from where he stood. “Have the navigators aboard our ships commune with those of the Archeohort. A course will be computed. Once repairs are complete, we will make space for the Dynikas system.”
“Do you really believe that the renegade is there, sir?” Kayne fixed him with a questioning look.
Rafen nodded once. “The God-Emperor shows us the way, brother. We take the fight to this monster and we make him pay for what he has stolen from us.”
In the arming chamber, the Blood Angel completed the ritual of reconsecration with a final act. He cut his palm with his combat blade, and before the Larraman cells in
his bloodstream could act to clot and knit shut the shallow wound, he wiped a smear of his vitae across the golden skull on the breech of the plasma gun.
With that, the machine-spirit of Captain Aryon’s weapon was appeased, and the weapon’s stewardship was now Rafen’s. Perhaps it would be taken from him when he returned to Baal, if others judged that a more senior Space Marine was deserving of such a relic, but until that time, the sergeant would give it the liberation it deserved.
Rafen stood up in his arming chamber, the light of kolla tallow candles flickering over his power armour where it rested upon its racks. He pulled back the hood of his robes and glanced over his shoulder. “You’re slipping. I heard you coming this time.”
Ceris’ lip curled. “I beg to differ, lord. You only heard me because your thoughts were not clouded on this occasion. You have the clarity you sought.”
Did he detect some sense of accusation in the words? Rafen faced the Codicier with a level glare. “Once again, you come to me with something to say, Ceris. Will this be a habit? I tell you now, if so my patience will quickly grow thin. I want warriors in my squad who will follow my orders and lend me their skills, not those who lurk and second-guess me at each turn.”
“Is that what you think I am doing?”
Rafen’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “And I tolerate those who dissemble my words even less.”
“Because of who you are and what you have done, you should not be surprised that your conduct is being watched, brother-sergeant,” Ceris said mildly. “Some say my Lord Mephiston is gatekeeper for the soul of our Chapter. His interest spans all who are a part of it.”
For a moment, the warrior considered a rebuke; but then he snorted and turned away. “Say what you want to say and then leave me. I am in no mood for semantics and obfuscation.”
“There is word from the prize crew aboard the Archeohort. Magos Zellik will survive. The medicae serfs managed to keep him alive after your… interview.”
“Some might consider that a waste of effort and good narthecia.” He ran a finger over the casing of the plasma gun.
“Some? Like Brother-Sergeant Noxx?”
Rafen blew out an exasperated breath. “What are you implying, psyker? That I have adopted the ways of the Flesh Tearers in order to gather information?”
“I did not say those words.” Ceris inclined his head. “You did.”
Rafen glared at him. “We do not shrink from the difficult choices, brother. That is why we were made. To do the things that mortal men cannot, to transcend what others might see as the lines of morality, in the name of a larger power.”
“Indeed? It is said we Blood Angels are the most noble of the Adeptus Astartes. But to torture a man to within an inch of his life, even a criminal… Is there nobility in that, sir?”
“You think I could have found another way, is that it? Perhaps you feel I did not give all due respect to the esteemed Magos, despite his dalliance with Chaos!”
“Zellik is no servant of the Dark Gods, we both know that. For all his genius, his greed and his conceit blind him to the reality of his misdemeanours. He believes he is loyal to Mars and Terra with every fibre of his being, even as he lies to them to swell his coffers.”
“Self-deception is a common trait of the weak,” Rafen retorted.
“And often of the strong as well,” Ceris countered.
“I feel no guilt for what I did to Zellik,” said the sergeant. “I would do so again a hundred times over, if my service required it. Do not presume to judge me, psyker. You do not have the right.”
“I would never be so bold, my lord,” came the neutral reply. “I only wanted to hear you say those words.” He turned to go, then hesitated. “You will cross many lines, Brother Rafen, before this duty is brought to its end. These are just the first.”
The sergeant turned his back, ministering to his weapons. “When you have something of substance to tell me, Brother Ceris, I will hear it willingly. But until then, keep your riddles to yourself. My tolerance is finite and you would do well to remember that.”
Rafen expected an answer, and when it did not come, he glanced over his shoulder. He was alone in the chamber.
CHAPTER FIVE
The mirror moved through the darkness, bending about it the ghost-glows from far distant stars and the soft rains of radiation soaking the vacuum. A vast, curved kite shield of metals forged by long-forgotten science, the mirror told lies to the void around it, hiding its truth behind layers of energy-shunt circuitry, malleable lakes of superfluid surfactants and long, arching ribs of impossibly thin metals.
The mirror told the void that nothing was here. It lied by drawing in the wavelengths of visible and invisible energies all about, computed them and gently projected back returns that even the most advanced suites of scrying gear would read as little more than a few stray molecules of free hydrogen.
At its thickest point it was barely the width of a human hair, and yet it could withstand a lascannon hit if one were set towards it. The mirror was another of Zellik’s great and secret treasures, a device that had enabled him many times to move the Archeohort’s great mass by stealth, right under the noses of his enemies. On the far side of the curved kite, at its midpoint, the Mechanicus construct moved on inertia, thrusters silent and cowled ever since it had entered the Dynikas system. Flanking the Archeohort like pilot fish swimming with a whale, the warships Tycho and Gabriel kept in tight, exacting formation. The flight was straining their commanders to the limit, as all the crew-serfs knew that a single error of motion could send their cruisers outside the protective halo of the mirror—which would mark the end of both their clandestine approach and any chance of the mission’s success.
Power systems across all three vessels were set as low as they dared; it was the same tactic the Space Marines had used to approach the Archeohort via boarding torpedo, but writ large. It had worked then; it would work now, if the grace of the God-Emperor favoured them.
The planet had two moons, both bulbous, misshapen asteroids captured by Dynikas V’s gravity well. The far side of the larger was the flotilla’s destination, baked by the sunlight of the hard orange-white sun. The primary moon was big enough to conceal all three vessels from any observers on the planet below. Dropping out of sight behind it, the mirror shroud began to fold away in a complex dance of shifting matter and clever machinery.
The Archeohort’s actual command deck bore no resemblance to the fake that the ship’s machine-spirit had attempted to trap them in. Ajir had been aboard many naval vessels and seen their bridges—the ornate stages for officers and ranged pits below filled with junior ratings and servitors, the windows that looked out from control towers across the prows of battle-ready warcraft. This was nothing of the like. The command space was a series of square terraces, balconied and cornered rings ranged one atop another, each smaller in dimension than the last. The effect was one of a pyramid turned inside out, the steps of a ziggurat falling down to a dais several levels below. Each terrace was lined with consoles of profuse complexity, and minor enginseers and lexmechanics worked at them, heads buried under hoods or wired in via festoons of wafting mechadendrites. Some of the terraces were fitted with rails that the tech-priests rode on rollered feet, endlessly circling around and around.
The smell of ozone and electricity was sharp in the air, and a constant rattling rush of whispered machine code assailed the Blood Angel from every side. He stood behind Rafen, along with a few of his battle-brothers—as ever, the penitent Turcio among them—and the Logis Beslian, atop a hexagonal platform balanced between a pair of robot arms. The platform walked down the levels of the command pit by fixing itself with one limb, then swinging the opposite to another anchor point, then repeating the function anew. Beslian seemed to control its movements without any outward sign of direction.
“This is, to use an organic metaphor, the beating heart of the Archeohort,” said the tech-priest. The saggy flesh elements of his face sh
owed slight disgust at his own terms. “From here we may read data from any of the construct’s systemry.”
“Your passive auspex sensors have analysed returns from the planet,” Noxx said curtly. “What do they reveal?”
Beslian rolled his hooded head on his piston neck and the platform arrested its movement, shouldering over to the corner of a nearby terrace. “Observe,” he began, beckoning a pict-screen on one wall to extend out towards them on a gimbal.
The display buzzed and displayed a flickering rune-prayer before reforming into a grainy real-time image of Dynikas V. Indicator overlays projected on to lenses swung around into position. Hot lines of red appeared, dots of varying size and lividity scattering themselves over the planet’s dayside.
“Thermal blooms, lords,” explained Beslian. “Trace patterns of waste gases ejected into the air through bio-processes. Feeding, and the decay of corpses, I would warrant.”
“I thought this planet was dead,” growled Sove, another of Noxx’s Space Marines.
“It is,” said Mohl. “What we are seeing is evidence of xenos, brother. Tyranids, marooned on this world, living off each other after their hive was destroyed.”
Rafen was grim. “They must have eaten everything else.”
“I do not understand,” said Kayne. “Is it not the tyranid way to gut a living world, then build new bio-ships and move on to the next? If Dynikas V is bereft of all native life, then why are these monstrosities still here?”
Beslian inclined his head, favouring Kayne with a nod. “The Blood Angel is correct. But this behaviour is not uncommon. It has been seen before, when a nest is denied the governance of one of their command organisms.”
“You speak of a hive tyrant,” said Turcio.
Ajir’s lips thinned. That much was obvious.
“Correct,” said Mohl. “I hypothesise that there is no such beast on the planet below. As such, the extant tyranid warrior-organisms resident there revert back to their base natures. Killing and reproducing. Given a dozen generations, if this new ecosystem was not interfered with, it would probably eat itself into extinction.”
Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 90