Though many of the fleet’s officers gathered on board the Diligent were of old naval aristocracy stock and would never admit weakness in front of the lowly logisticians and petty officers, in truth they were quietly terrified.
A holo-servitor in the middle of the bridge, its torso opened like fleshy petals to reveal a pict-array, projected a huge image in front of the viewscreen.
It was the first Space Marine most of them had actually seen outside the stained glass windows and script illuminations of the schola progenia or cadet school chapels. His face was scarred, not with obvious wounds such as the sort many naval officers wore like badges of office, but with dozens of tiny wounds accumulated over the years to form a face battered by war like a cliff face battered by the waves. It was impossible to guess his age, for there was youthful strength there alongside the wear of a lifetime, eyes brimming with both experience and childlike fanaticism. The head was shaven and from the high collar of his massive purple-black armour curved an aegis hood. The chalice symbol of his Chapter could be seen on one shoulder pad, echoed in the cup emblem flanked by wings proudly emblazoned in gold across his chest.
‘We have the star fort,’ he was saying in a voice that filled the bridge like thunder. ‘We can defend it indefinitely. I do not have to tell you how unwise any force on your part would be.’
He had called himself Commander Sarpedon, and though his booming voice was coldly disciplined, he was clearly beyond rage. His eyes burned out from the viewscreen, pinning the assembled officers to the deck, and the corded muscles of his neck strained with anger. ‘If you want your prize, consul, you have two choices. You can come and get it, in which case you will fail. Or you can return our prize to us, which was taken as our victor’s right.’
Consul Senioris Chloure was a diplomatic man. He had spent a lifetime negotiating the most delicate deals where a whole planet’s economy might rest in the details. He hoped it would be enough now. ‘Commander Sarpedon,’ he began, trying and failing not to be awed by the huge image glowering down at him, ‘you must understand that the Adeptus Mechanicus are but nominally under our–’
‘Our attempts to communicate with the Mechanicus have failed!’ boomed Sarpedon. ‘They stole what was ours, fled to their ship and jammed all contact. This falls to you, consul. If you cannot control the elements of your own fleet, that is your problem, not mine. Return the Soulspear to us or return to port without your star fort. This communication is over. Do not make us wait for a reply.’
The image winked off and the holo-servitor whirred closed. For a few seconds there was silence on the bridge of the Diligent, the after-image of the huge grizzled face still bright in the officers’ minds.
‘Sir?’ asked Flag-Captain Vekk. ‘Your orders?’
A Space Marine. Chloure had been so proud that he had managed to engineer their presence here. It was to have been the crowning achievement to justify the comfortable future he sought. And now he was forced to accept the possibility that it was going very wrong, very quickly.
But that did not mean he had to let it all fall apart. He had dealt with conflict and stubbornness before, for many years. He had spent decades negotiating the Emperor’s share. He told himself he would just have to do it one more time.
‘They hold the star fort. But they have nothing else. Their fleet is tiny, probably only a couple of strike cruisers. We have more, and a blockade should be simple. They will be without supplies and support, and they cannot leave the place without our permission. If it comes to a blockade they will have to back down eventually.’
‘They are Space Marines, sir. They don’t need supplies…’ It was Manis, Vekk’s Master of the Ordnance, who spoke.
‘We have all heard tales of how they can survive on nothing but thin air and faith, Manis. But the Emperor has chosen not to make men who do not need to eat or breathe – the fort is based on an old-pattern orbital defence platform that requires new recycling filters and liquid oxygen supplies to maintain a survivable atmosphere. If we must we will simply wait until they see sense and ask to be allowed to return to their fleet.’
‘It would be simpler by far, dear consul, if we were merely to return this trinket,’ said Kourdya languidly. Kourdya was the captain of the Hydranye Ko and had, allegedly, won his ship with a particularly dazzling hand of five-card raekis.
‘I am assuming that will be the solution we arrive at, Captain Kourdya. But I don’t think any of us here can truly guess what these Marines are thinking, and there is no shame in planning for all eventualities.’
They were still there when a petty officer – the same flustered-looking lad who had woken Chloure several hours before – scurried up to the knot of officers in front of the holo-projector.
‘Officer on the bridge, sirs,’ he said. ‘Archmagos Khobotov.’
The bridge blast doors opened apparently of their own accord and Khobotov swept in. He was flanked by a dozen tech-guards, in rust-red flak-tabards and toting weapons of exotic design. The drones were drifting above like fat loathsome insects.
‘I trust,’ said Chloure, interrupting Khobotov’s entrance, ‘that you heard all of that.’ Chloure gestured at the space where Sarpedon’s face had hung an hour before.
‘Indeed,’ droned Khobotov.
‘Then you are aware we have some questions.’
Vekk, seeing the tech-guard, had silently summoned a squad from the Diligent’s naval security battalion, who were silently filing onto the bridge. Chloure knew enough about the Imperial Navy to appreciate that captains didn’t like anyone lording it on their bridge. Vekk might be insufferable sometimes, but Chloure was glad then he had the man on his side.
‘We monitored the transmission,’ said Khobotov. The tech-guards around him were tightening their formation as the black-armoured naval security troopers formed up. ‘Commander Sarpedon’s views have been noted.’
‘Do you plan to do anything about it?’
‘Commander Sarpedon’s force is small and ill-supplied. They are not equipped for defence. It is unlikely they can hold out against a concerted assault from the Imperial Guard and Adeptus–’
‘We are not going to attack them, Khobotov,’ said Chloure sharply. As ever, he couldn’t tell if Khobotov was serious or just stalling. Would he really throw the battlefleet’s combat units against Space Marines? They said tech-priests started thinking differently when there was more machine in them that human, but surely Khobotov wouldn’t throw away so many lives. ‘We’re going to give them what they want and then forget all of this. You are still under the command of this battlefleet, archmagos, no matter how you may wish otherwise. The next time Sarpedon contacts us I want to tell him where the Soulspear is and how long it will be before we give it back to him, so I ask those questions to you now.’
Chloure had dealt with awkward customers before. He had negotiated his way through whole planets full of hostiles. But he had never had to gauge the reactions of a man who might not have been a man at all in the physical sense. Chloure had gained a feel for the tone of voice and body language that very few could conceal, but Khobotov betrayed none of those things. He would have to be firm and direct, and hope that Khobotov’s view of the situation approximated Chloure’s own.
‘Very well.’ Khobotov looked right at Chloure, who could just pick out the gleam of a lens deep within the cowl. ‘The Soulspear is currently on board a high-speed heavy shuttle within warp route 26-Epsilon-Superior.’
‘Destination?’
‘Koden Tertius.’
Koden Tertius was a forge world, a planet owned and run by the Adeptus Mechanicus as a centre of manufacture and research. Specifically, Koden Tertius was half a galaxy away and famed for the robustness of the war engines it supplied to the Imperial armies of the Segmentum Obscura. It was also the name stencilled on the side of the 674-XU28 and from which Khobotov’s tech-guards were recruited. Archmagos Khobotov was sending the Soulspear to his home world.
‘I see,’ said Chloure coldly. ‘Would it be pointless of me to demand its return?’
‘It would, consul senioris. Communications are impossible with the vessel in the warp. Once at its destination the contents will fall under the jurisdiction of the Archmagi of Koden Tertius, not your battlefleet.’
‘That’s why you were here in the first place, isn’t it?’ said Captain Kourdya from somewhere behind Chloure. ‘Sly dog. You only showed up so you could steal your little toy.’
‘I had imagined Consul Senioris Chloure would have deduced this for himself and hence would not need informing of the fact.’ Somehow the tech-priest sounded mocking even with his monotone voice.
Chloure couldn’t keep the chill out of his blood – the Soulspear was gone and this situation was dangerously close to being more than he could possibly handle. The truth was that Khobotov could do pretty much anything he liked – Chloure could not monitor his communications or exert direct authority when the 674-XU28 possessed unknown but probably superior capabilities.
It would probably be beyond even Chloure’s abilities to magic the Soulspear back from Koden Tertius. But he was here to do a job, to secure Administratum control of the Van Skorvold star fort. He would see it through to the end, no matter how long it took. And then, he told himself, he would truly deserve his reward.
‘I don’t think we need to know anything more,’ said Chloure. Flag-Captain Vekk gestured and the security troopers took a step back as the tech-guards stomped off the bridge. Khobotov was already on his way out, moving deceptively fast. He didn’t walk – he glided, his robes swishing along the floor behind him. The pudgy corpse-drones followed him, attentive cherubs trailing wires.
A heavy hand was laid on Chloure’s shoulder, and he smelled stale smoke and age.
Druvillo Trentius, hoary and generally disagreeable captain of the Deacon Byzantine, glared down at him with liquor-shrunk eyes.
‘Complete gak-up this, Chloure.’ They were the first words he had spoken on the bridge that day.
As the fleet’s officers gathered their lackeys and headed towards their respective shuttles, Chloure fought off the feeling that Trentius was right.
Yser didn’t look like much. The man was on the wrong side of middle age, thinned and harrowed by malnourishment. His hair and beard were matted rats’ tails, his nails blackened. He had evidently made some effort to keep himself clean, but the effect had been merely to highlight the pallor of his skin. He was dressed in rags, almost bare-chested. Yet around his neck was a heavy pendant, doubtless from some decoration scrounged and punched to accept a chain – an Imperial aquila, with an eye drilled through each of its two heads so it stared out in two directions. Forward and back, the past and the future. The icon lent the man an air of holiness and purpose that Sarpedon couldn’t shake from his head.
They were standing in what Yser called his church. It was a supply hopper, a massive round-ended cylinder set into the very guts of the star fort, where light was sporadic and breathable air hung in pockets around recyc-line leaks. The place had once held towering stacks of food and other supplies which would be winched up by means of an enormous cargo crane, but the supplies had long been used up or reduced to a level of detritus that filled the bottom third of the hopper. The great four-clawed metal hand of the crane, fallen from its mountings, formed the church itself, and cargo containers had been salvaged for pews and side chambers. Tattered banners, frayed wrappings sewn together and daubed with simple symbols like children’s drawings, hung from the plasteel girders. The place was strangely serene, lit by the twilight of halogen work-lamps high above them, and with the soft breeze of convection currents tugging at the banners all around.
‘You are Yser?’ said Sarpedon. He stood in the shadow of the makeshift church and towered over the scrawny man, who seemed to show little of the fear that men normally did when confronted by a Space Marine.
‘I am.’
‘A priest, you say?’
‘Yes, ministering to my flock. We are few, but the Architect turns His light upon us all.’
The Architect of Fate – the Emperor, it seemed. Aspects of the Divine Emperor were worshipped all over the Imperium, where He might be the god of the seasons on a primal agri-world or the Chooser of Warriors in a gang-infested underhive. Such things were tolerated by the Adeptus Ministorium as long as they acknowledged the primacy of the Imperial cult. To Sarpedon, such fragmentation showed the inability of lesser men to comprehend the true majesty of the Emperor and His primarchs. But this man did not seem at all feeble-minded.
‘Our church is not much, I grant you,’ continued Yser. ‘It is all we could do to survive in the depths of this station, when the cull-teams were sent down. But no longer… you have come and swept them away in turn.’
Vorts’s squad was searching through the church and debris piles. As the squad who had been approached by Yser in the first place, they had been given the church and its immediate area to search and appraise. There were many useful – if derelict – recyc-lines and cargo ducts radiating out from the supply hopper that made it worth fortifying. Most of the other Soul Drinkers were prepping and manning the many macrolaser emplacements and missile clusters that were still operational, and Sarpedon wanted to ensure that routes through the station were open and secure for redeployments.
It wouldn’t come to that, of course. They were up against Administratum pen-pushers and Guardsmen, who would soon back down when they considered the quality of soldier they were daring to cross. But if the star fort was to be made ready for a battle, it was worth doing properly.
Givrillian’s squad were in guard positions covering the many exits to the hopper. They were functioning as Sarpedon’s command squad as he moved from one part of the star fort to the other – over the last few hours he had overseen preparations on the sunward and orbitside firing arcs, and in the maglev terminal where Tellos was in command of a mobile assault company to react to any boarding actions.
Not that it would come to that. But it was worth being sure.
‘I have long known that He would send His chosen to save us, to complete His plan,’ Yser was saying. ‘I had never thought I would see it my lifetime – but the things I have witnessed in my dreams are coming to pass.’
‘How many of you are there?’
‘Perhaps four dozen. We make our homes in the dark corners of this place, and gather here to worship.’
‘Escaped prisoners?’
‘Mostly. And one or two Van Skorvold men who grew sickened by toil in the service of corruption.’
‘Ah, corruption. It is good that you and I see it in the same places here. My men are to fortify this station and we need to know of any defences we may have missed. If you wish to serve your Emperor, you will share your knowledge of the star fort’s layout.’
Yser smiled. ‘You are the Architect’s chosen, Lord Sarpedon. I have seen you when He places His visions in my mind. Anything you ask shall be delivered as far as we are able.’
Visions. Normally talk of visions and prophecy was dangerous – Sarpedon had seen the darkness of the psyker-taint when it ran unchecked in the weak-willed and malevolent. He had seen the arcs of green lightning spearing down from the heights of the Hellblade Mountains and heard the gibbering screams of a hive-city driven mad, and known that renegade witches were responsible. Such men claimed visions and voices from their gods.
But it seemed Yser was different – thrust into the belly of this dark place, he had responded by clinging to his faith until it granted him visions of holiness. Perhaps the years here had taken too much of a toll, or perhaps he really was blessed by the Emperor’s light. For now, Sarpedon was glad only that he seemed to have an ally here at last.
‘I shall consult with my flock. We should be able to divert power back to some of the guidance domes, and uncover some of the servitor emplacements. There may be more – you shall know shortly, Lord Sarpedon.’
‘Good. Sergeant Vorts will send his men with you.’
Yser nodded and smiled, and hurried away through the debris. It was as if he had been expecting the Soul Drinkers, and was at last able to fulfil some goal now they had arrived. Sarpedon wondered for a moment what would happen to Yser when the Marines had reclaimed the Soulspear and left. He would probably be consigned to the fate he had tried to escape – mind-wiping and incorporation into a biologically-powered servitor. A shame? Perhaps. But he was only one man, and protocol forbade anyone to set foot on a Soul Drinkers’ ship who was not a member of, or owned by, the Chapter, so he could not come with them when they left.
A thought occurred to Sarpedon. ‘Yser!’ he called out. ‘You were a prisoner. What was your crime?’
‘I was a thief,’ replied the prisoner-priest.
‘And now?’
‘I am whatever the Architect of Fate makes of me.’
The Adeptus Mechanicus ship 674-XU28 was just under one thousand years old. Every hundred years to the day it was refitted in the dockyards of Koden Tertius with the latest rediscovered and re-engineered archeotech and machine-spirit augmentations. A fighting force was maintained on the craft of tech-guard, siege engineers and other, more exotic forces, that needed constant upgrading and replacement of parts if it was to operate at full potential.
For some time this work had been done under the supervision of Archmagos Khobotov, for he was three hundred years old.
He believed in the primacy of the machine as the building block of human civilisation. Machines were efficient and tireless, and possessed cold, analytical, unfalteringly loyal personalities of the kind that Khobotov himself was proud to rejoice in. Their dedication to the completion of the Omnissiah’s lost masterwork of knowledge was the equal of his, and through their example he would create a microcosm of human perfection.
Apart from the tech-guard units, the 674-XU28 was crewed entirely by servitors and tech-priests whose industriousness and knowledge-obsession reached Khobotov’s exacting standards. Between them the Mechanicus magi that crewed the ship had barely enough flesh on their bodies for a single man – the rest was augmentation and improvement. Khobotov himself had lost track of how much of him was real and how much synthetic, and he was glad, for it was one less distraction from the Omnissiah’s work. In the massive crypto-mechanical entrails of the ship, in the corridors of gleaming glass where the ancient machine-spirit dwelt and amongst the forests of rail driver cannon and sensorium tines, the map of human knowledge was rebuilt. Between the magi and the servitors, Khobotov’s own rigorously disciplined personality and the dark throb of the ship’s machine spirit itself was built a web of learning that would grow and mature until the Omnissiah saw in it a part of Himself. The critical knowledge mass would be reached, a point where the learning contained in the ship would render it capable of unlocking any secret, fearing nothing, travelling beyond the prison bars of the real universe. One day, one day, when the ship and the crew and the knowledge within it would be as one, that distant day when all that had been lost in the perversions of the Dark Age of Technology would be regained…
The ship was still young. A thousand years was not nearly enough to begin such a task. And he was always busy, so busy. Sometimes it seemed too far off to even contemplate.
But then, that was just the human in him.
Khobotov glanced across at the huge muscular piston array that stood poised to wrench a vast section of hull off the underside of the 674 and cast it bleeding into space. Sometimes he was sorrowful for causing such a wound in the craft of which he was an essential component, but he knew it was for the good. The machine-spirit agreed with him, rattling the hydraulic rams and breach-charges in eagerness.
There were few servitors in the area for the near-vacuum caused their tissues to degrade, and so it was tech-priests and more senior magi who performed the rites required. This was not as delicate an operation as the most holy teleporter’s activation had been, but a job was still worth doing well. Some were dark, robed figures, hunched or inhumanly shaped. Others were bright and gleaming, with the bodies of young men and jewelled decorative attachments of glass and chrome.
Let it not be said that Khobotov was an unfeeling man who had lost contact with his human instincts. He knew well the ways of ordinary men – like children or animals, they were quick to anger and quick seek comfort. They needed encouragement to commit acts of logic, and in some cases, they needed fear.
They said the Space Marines knew no fear. But they were still human. Khobotov was a man of such immense knowledge that he had no doubt he could read their actions and resolve the situation they had stubbornly created. It was simple. Give them no option but to back down. They believed themselves to be the elite of the Imperium, and so the logical way to determine their path was to give them only one option that would not require them to take up arms against that same Imperium.
He could let it go. He could return to Koden Tertius to study the Soulspear, and leave Chloure to deal with the Space Marines himself. But that would leave the Adeptus Mechanicus looking like cowards to the Soul Drinkers, and like thoughtless thugs to the Administratum. These things were not important in themselves, but Khobotov understood that they were important to other Imperial authorities. He was not a politician but the ways of humanity were simple enough for him to grasp – if he forced the Space Marines to back down they would respect the Adeptus Mechanicus as brave and powerful. The Administratum would welcome the possibility of future alliances. But these results would be beneficial to the Adeptus Mechanicus overall. It was almost childlike the way they acted, but Khobotov had to remind himself that one day, before he had trod the path of the Machine God, he had been motivated by similar concerns of politics and saving face.
So he would not let it go. The Space Marines would relinquish the star fort and the Administratum would take it over, and Khobotov would help them do it, because that it what would be to the greatest benefit to the Omnissiah’s servants.
His plan was simple. The Soul Drinkers would have no choice but to give up the star fort and return to their fleet under terms of truce. Any other course would require they fight Chloure’s battlefleet or Khobotov’s forces themselves. They would not choose these options. They would back down.
It was simple.
Satisfied that the necessary rites and preparations had been made, Khobotov impulsed his desire to return to the archivum and continue his manifold researches. This problem, having been set up to resolve itself, would require no more of his attention. And he was so busy…
‘Sensor sweep turned up something,’ said Brother Michairas. ‘What do you think that is?’
Michairas was one of the Soul Drinkers manning the sensoria that studded the surface of the star fort. For the past few hours he had pulled a shift in the tiny transparent bubble looking out onto the star field and great glowing disk of Lakonia. The Administratum and Mechanicus fleet was formed of glinting silver shapes hanging in space. The object of his concern was a bright burst of white against the black.
Brother Michairas had voxed for the Tech-Marine as soon as he had seen it. A flare, again centred on the Mechanicus ship, but different this time – purely physical, like an explosion.
‘How long?’ Tech-Marine Lygris clambered up into the cramped sensor shell, assisted by the clamp-tipped servo-arm reaching up from his backpack.
‘Three minutes.’
‘Hmm.’ Lygris tapped the large curved surface of the clear bubble. ‘If it is a secondary explosion from attack, it is catastrophic. But these are deliberately vented gases. Not air. Pneu-retros, or air rams. And a spray of ice crystals, there are hydraulics in there too.’
‘Meaning?’
Lygris glanced down at the many tarnished instruments and readouts, noting figures that confirmed his suspicions. ‘Meaning they are launching something. Something big.’
Captain Vekk had a habit of yelling at the servitors on the bridge of the Diligent. They didn’t answer back, so it didn’t matter that the blank-eyed thing was merely delivering the best guesses of bridge logistician corps.
‘I need more than that!’ he shouted. ‘Is the 674 hit?’
The explosion was bright on the viewscreen above him, the image inset with different views from the fleet’s other craft. The Adeptus Mechanicus ship was spewing a white cloud of vapour from its hull, a huge mass of gas and liquid growing by the second. Then he saw it. First a tiny sliver in the brightness, then growing and gaining shape. Something huge and flat – a section of the hull? A huge, intact hull section, just ripped off by an internal blast? Or…?
‘I want specs on that thing, now! Size, orientation, class!’
‘It looks like wreckage, sir…’
Vekk glanced at the petty tactical officer who had spoken. A glare was all it took. ‘It looks like nothing of the sort. I was at Damocles Nebula, boy, I know what it looks like when you blow a chunk off a ship. I want it scanned and classed, and I want it double-quick. Move!’
It was growing more defined now. Yes, he was sure. It could be good, it could be bad. It all depended on what that cyber-freak thought he was doing.
‘And somebody wake Chloure!’
The Geryon-class orbital artillery piece found brief favour amongst the forge worlds bordering the halo zone, given that the form of warfare there often involved opposing or unknown forces blundering upon one another in the depths of space. In such a situation confusion and disruption are potent weapons with which a withdrawal can be covered, or a potential enemy can be stalled while more information is sought. The Geryon-class was conceived from the start to take advantage of this with the rapid and forceful deployment of electromagnetic and magna-frag weaponry alongside conventional munitions.
It was an ordinatus-level macro-artillery piece, a huge cannon that lobbed disruption shells through the depths of space to detonate in the midst of attacking spacecraft. When mounted on an orbital platform it was the size of a small spacecraft itself. However, the Geryon-class sadly lacked any edge in conventional engagements compared to similarly sized, less specialised pieces. Its use gradually declined with the increased tendency of commanders to simply blast their way out of uncertain situations and concern themselves with niceties only after the enemy was drifting and ablaze.
It seemed that Archmagos Khobotov, however, had some fondness for the Geryon-class. Because that was what had detached itself from the 674-XU28 and was now descending into geostationary orbit several thousand kilometres from the star fort, riding on a standard artillery platform as big as a medium-sized island.
Sarpedon speed-read this information from the data-slate handed to him by Tech-Marine Lygris, and brooded. They had been at an impasse – that was bearable, because he knew his Space Marines could hold out for as long as it took. But this changed everything. This meant the Administratum fleet had the upper hand.
They knew they couldn’t take the star fort, not against the Soul Drinkers. So they were going to lob macro-shells into the station until the Soul Drinkers were broken and scattered before ramming hordes of Guardsmen in to take the place. They knew they couldn’t face the Emperor’s chosen, but they were so petty and preening that they couldn’t back down and lose face – they would rather massacre humanity’s finest than admit they were wrong.
‘An insult to us is an insult to the Emperor, for we are His chosen and Dorn was His foster-son,’ said Sarpedon.
‘Agreed, commander,’ replied Lygris.
‘Then these men have insulted the Emperor.’
‘Indeed they have, commander.’ Lygris talked in the curt, clipped way of most Tech-Marines, his voice echoing slightly in the maglev terminal which was now cleared of mutant corpses. ‘Have you spoken of this with Caeon?’
‘Caeon is dying, Lygris. I cannot trust him to be in full possession of his faculties.’
‘A bad death.’
Sarpedon snapped the data-slate closed. ‘There are too few good ones.’
But what to do now? Their ships were was on the other side of Lakonia, and would never survive an engagement with the sub-battlefleet and the Ordinatus. Extraction was simply not possible – that, of course, was the plan the Administratum and Mechanicus had doubtless concocted, to trap the Soul Drinkers like rats and butcher them from afar. Curse them, that did such evil in the Emperor’s name! The Soul Drinkers were the best men of the Imperium, and yet the Administratum and Mechanicus had first stolen from them, then dared to threaten violence to keep their prize. What could they be thinking? Didn’t they know what the Soul Drinkers were, what they stood for?
Was the Imperium truly the instrument of the Emperor’s will, when it was peopled by such lesser men? When the battleships and fighting men were wielded in the Emperor’s name, to humiliate those who most closely followed the Emperor’s plan? Sarpedon had long known there was corruption and indolence in the very fabric of the Imperium, but rarely had he seen it so starkly illustrated, and never had it put his life and those of his battle-brothers at such immediate risk.
When the Geryon-class ordinatus cannon spoke, the Soul Drinkers could be lost, all so the Administratum and Mechanicus could save face. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen. But how would Sarpedon find a way out? They were effectively trapped on the star fort with a massive orbital artillery piece bearing down on them and several thousand Imperial Guard waiting in the bellies of the battlefleet.
There was little doubt that Consul Senioris Chloure and Archmagos Khobotov intended to do violence to the Soul Drinkers if they did not relinquish the star fort, Soul Drinkers would not back down, not while Sarpedon still breathed.
Would they have to die, to prove that they would not accept an insult unanswered? Was that as petty as stealing the Soulspear and refusing to return it? That was not the issue here. The Soul Drinkers were the superiors of anyone the battlefleet might boast. They expected to be treated like the elite that they were.
If the Soul Drinkers had to die to show the galaxy how seriously they took the martial honour that made them what they were, then so be it.
Yet there was hope. Not because he had hit upon a plan, but because a Space Marine is a stranger to despair. There would be a way, even if it would only let them face death as warriors. The legends were true – Marines never failed, even in death.
Givrillian, who was maintaining the terminal perimeter, jogged up to Sarpedon, breaking his thoughts. ‘Commander, we have a communication from Squad Vorts.’
‘Routine?’ Sarpedon had better things to worry about.
‘No, sir. The priest, Yser, was showing them some of the orbitside workings and… well, he remembered something. Something old. He suggests you and Lygris come immediately and see for yourselves.’
When Sarpedon arrived he found Tech-Marine Lygris surveying what Yser had shown the Soul Drinkers. Given the decadence and ill-maintenance of the star fort it was almost the last thing Sarpedon would have expected to find. It was a fully functional, fully stocked, flight deck.
Lygris was primarily an artificer, overseeing the maintenance of weaponry and armour in the forge-ships stationed with the Chapter fleet. But like every Tech-Marine he had been appraised during novicehood as possessing a certain skill with all manner of technology, and had been thoroughly schooled in myriad branches of combat tech. He therefore knew a thing or two about attack craft.
‘Hammerblade-class,’ he was saying, mostly to himself. ‘And Scalptakers. Throne of Earth, these should be in a museum…’
And the place could have served as a museum – a flight deck within the orbital platform architecture, like a thin horizontal fissure through several decks of the star fort, low and broad. There was very little air here and Yser had been given a rebreather array by the serf-labourers, while the Marines wore their helmets.
Where breathable air had seeped in the metal was corroded and treacherous, but most of the flight deck was intact, scorched comfortingly black with blast scars that were still there after centuries. Vivid black and yellow strips marked out complex taxi routes across the gunmetal deck, and islands of refuelling equipment surfaced here and there, hoses coiled, some with tanks still marked full.
And all around stood the craft. Some were hulks of rust, others had been stripped of anything that could pried off the fuselage. But there were plenty that looked intact – sleek and noble compared to the blunt killing weapons of more recent times, with ribbed superstructures and swept-forward wings tipped with lascannon. The Hammerblade boasted a great underslung plasma blastgun while another variant bristling with close-quarter megabolter turrets was a Scalptaker-class superiority fighter. These marks had been flagged as obsolete more than a thousand years before, when the Soulspear had yet to even be lost, and had been relegated to patrol duty around Lakonia before the platform was acquired by the Van Skorvolds.
‘There was some talk from the Van Skorvolds of using them again,’ Yser was saying, his breath misting against the rebreather mask. ‘But it would have cost too much, I suppose, and who amongst them could have flown one of these? I and my flock used this place as a shortcut sometimes, when the air was good.’
There were other variants, too – a bloated nearspace refuelling craft, a fighter-bomber with a single-shell payload bolted to its back. Great chains of ammunition were racked at intervals across the deck, and the noses of warning-marked missiles poked up from pods below decks. Ships, fuel, ammunition…
Sarpedon had thought they were trapped, and had been ready to defend every metre of the star fort against attack. But here was another option, and suddenly he saw the possibility of his Soul Drinkers doing what they did best. The philosopher-soldier Daenyathos had written that the surest way to defend a place was to attack the enemy until they were incapable of attacking what you wanted to defend. On the flight deck was the means to put Daenyathos’s words into actions.
Sarpedon turned to the Tech-Marine, and saw he was thinking the same thing. ‘Lygris? Can you do it?’
The Tech-Marine gazed at the mechanical playground to which Yser had led them. ‘Not on my own. Pull the others off the weapons systems and give me all the serf units, and I’ll see about making some of these spaceworthy.’
‘It shall be so. Vox for what you need.’
‘Yes, commander. May I ask what you are planning?’
‘The obvious.’
As Sarpedon was assembling his force and the serf-labour units were breaking backs in the halogen glare of the fighter deck, Commander Caeon died.
Chaplain Iktinos delivered the death rites all but alone. There were few required to attend when the death had not been a glorious one, and there were preparations elsewhere that had to be made. Michairas was there, and Apothecary Pallas. The rites were simple given that they were on an active battlefield – a recitation of Caeon’s condensed chanson in Iktinos’s monotone, detailing the moments of Caeon’s fine life that had been judged fit to be recorded in the epic that every Marine compiled to record his deeds. The ceremonial taking of Caeon’s gene-seed, and the reclamation of his weapons to be sealed and archived in the armoury until it was their time to enter the hands of a novice. The weapon’s history would be revealed to this novice when he ascended to the position of full Marine, and would serve to emphasise the gravity of his calling which bore him on his way into Chapter history.
There was nowhere Caeon could be buried, so a cairn of rubble and wreckage was erected, blocking the door to the chapel. There they left him, and returned to their posts.
Less than twenty minutes after Lygris had given his word that the fighter deck would be operational within hours, Tellos and a full hundred Soul Drinkers were assembled around Yser’s church in disciplined ranks. There was an air of reflection about them, for every one of them was fully aware of the star fort’s situation and the lengths to which they would have to go to protect themselves.
But the death of Caeon and the loss of their prize had steeled their minds, and he could see the pride in their eyes. Perhaps they felt distaste at raising arms against those they had once fought with – but they were all certain that honour, and in this case their very survival, were paramount. Sarpedon felt they all hoped, as he did, that once the assault began the Adeptus Mechanicus would realise the gravity of their folly and relinquish their grip on the Soulspear. Then the Soul Drinkers would take their prize and return to the fleet, honour satisfied.
Sarpedon was grateful for Sergeant Tellos’s presence. His exultation in battle was infectious, and he was a talisman for the assault squads who formed the core of this force. Givrillian, too, would accompany Sarpedon, a solid dependable voice at his shoulder in case the madness started. Most of the Tactical Marines would maintain the defences of the star fort – the attacking force, consisting of most of the assault squads and a handful of specialists, was amongst the most swift and deadly Sarpedon had ever seen.
And it was his force. He was in command. That Caeon had to die was a tragedy, but now he was gone and such things should not be dwelt upon. These were his brothers and he was leading them even if only to provide the threat of force, and he was proud. He had felt the swell of pride when he first joined the ranks of the Soul Drinkers, and to think that such men were now looking up to him as he had looked up to Caeon, and to Chapter Master Gorgoleon himself, was more than he could describe.
His psychic talents were not tuned to receiving from the minds of others but he could still feel that the men standing before him were eager to put the fear of the Emperor into their opponents. They had all felt the slight of the Soulspear’s loss and wished nothing more than to send the Mechanicus crew quailing before them. And if a tech-guard or machine-priest dared resist them, they would use every ounce of force at their disposal to teach them what happens when you raise arms against the Soul Drinkers.
‘Lygris here, commander.’ The Tech-Marine’s voice crackled in Sarpedon’s comm-bead. ‘The fighters are old but spaceworthy, and there’s enough fuel for a one-way trip. We can take about one hundred and twenty Marines if we strip out most of the weapons systems.’
‘We’ll have about a hundred, spread out across the craft, so don’t skimp on the firepower. And select pilots if you haven’t done so already. How long do you need?’
‘Two hours.’
In two hours borer shells could be gouging their way through the star fort’s hull to explode, or magnacluster bombs could be raining frag torpedoes across its surface. ‘You have one.’
‘Yes, commander.’
‘Sergeant Tellos!’ barked Sarpedon, turning to the assembled Marines. ‘I want squads of eight, at least one plasma weapon in each and as many melta bombs as you can carry. I leave squad organisation to your discretion. You will be prepared within the hour.’
Tellos saluted and began carving the assembled squads into self-contained fighting formations, each with its leader and many with a Tech-Marine or apothecary. They were facing possible combat in a largely unknown and unpredictable environment where each element had to be able to survive on its own unsupported.
It would be Sarpedon’s first full command, and he knew there was a risk. If the Adeptus Mechanicus fought, there could be terrible bloodshed, and if that happened not all his battle-brothers would return.
But even if such an unthinkable thing happened, the Soul Drinkers would fight on, acquit themselves with honour, and win back the Soulspear. No matter what, there would always be hope that the insult would be redressed, that the affair would be put behind them and Sarpedon could return to the Soul Drinkers’ flagship with the Soulspear in hand.
As Daenyathos wrote – when all is darkness and every way out is lined with blood and lit with the fires of battle, there is still hope.
But it wouldn’t come to that. The Mechanicus wouldn’t fight. These were Space Marines, the best of the best, no one would dare actually fight them face to face.
It wouldn’t come to that.
It was a man’s life in the Sixers. The regiment’s proper name was a twelve-digit string of letters and symbols that indicated its size, composition and base camp location on board the 674-XU28. It was only the tech-priests and magi of the crew, and the senior officers who might one day be accepted into the tech-priest ranks, who could remember the whole thing in full. The logic-string happened to begin with the number six, and so it was as the Sixers that they knew themselves.
Kiv had been a Sixer all his life, as had most of the tech-guard. On his rare forays out onto inhabited worlds he would be alarmed and dismayed at how so many people seemed to have nothing around which they built their life. He had his grenade launcher, entrusted to him as a child when the neurojacks were first sunk into the back of his skull and he was upgraded to a member of the tech-guard. He had learned its exact rate of fire down to tenths of a second, and the range at which the electromagnetic pulses and photon glare would be effective. He knew that at that particular angle he could lob a haywire grenade over two partitions on the Geryon platform’s muster deck and drop it right down the throat of an attacker. It had been stripped and repaired so often that none of the original components remained, yet it was the same because it was bound by the weapon’s spirit, to which Kiv spoke thrice-daily as the Rites of Maintenance decreed. He knew that the shadowy figure of Archmagos Khobotov had a similar affinity with the unimaginably vast and complex ship itself, which must have given him a deep and holy understanding of the ordered universe the magi laboured to create.
It was something that tied him to the great spirit of logic that stood against the random chaos of the universe – the Omnissiah, Machine God, the defender of reason and knowledge. He assumed that the Omnissiah and the divine Emperor were different sides of the same coin, although the magi he had asked found some way of avoiding the question. The answer must involve concepts beyond his understanding, he guessed.
‘Heads up, Sixers! Combat protocol ninety-three, defence in depth and repel!’ Colonel-priest Klayden’s voice was artificially amplified so every Sixer on the muster deck woke from their reveries. ‘Action stations, dogs, action!’ The klaxons started up a second later – Klayden’s rank allowed him access to the simpler levels of the ship’s own machine-spirit, and he was able to anticipate the more important decisions it made.
A whole Sixer battalion had transferred to the ordinatus platform before it had been launched. Every one of them was suddenly up and aware, throwing open ammo trunks and pulling on their quilted flak-armour. There were even units stationed on the Geryon itself. The huge barrel of the cannon was high above, jutting above the upper hull of the platform, but the immense recoil-dampeners and ammo feeds were housed in the centre of the muster deck and it was on this steel mountain that tech-guard squads were preparing defensive positions.
Combat. Kiv had seen it many times, and was chilled by the randomness of it. It was something akin to righteous determination with which the tech-guard and the other forces of the Adeptus Mechanicus would take up arms and strive to win the fight, so that the supreme logic they built could be preserved and the disordered tide of battle turned back. Kiv shrugged himself into the heavy flak-tabard and strapped up the knee-high boots that would protect his feet and legs from the backwash of haywire chaff released from the disruptive grenades he could fire. He hefted the cylindrical metal bulk of the grenade launcher that was as familiar to him as another limb. He drew the jack-lines from the targeting array and pushed them into the sockets in his skull, feeling the orientation of the launcher through his own sense of balance, the barrel temperature through his skin, the ammo count through the fullness of his stomach. The augmentation was a simple one compared to the near-total prosthesis of the tech-magi, but it gave Kiv a taste of how it was to be truly at one with the Machine.
‘Subsystem nine! Muster and deploy!’ came Klayden’s amplified voice. Subsystem nine was Kiv’s unit, a mobile defence squad, equipped to hunt down attackers and expel them.
The other tech-guard of Kiv’s unit hurried past bearing melta-guns, plasma rifles and hellguns. Each one would fulfil a particular role in the fight, where the confusion of Kiv’s haywires, destruction of the energy weapons and precision of the hellguns would combine to form an efficient combat machine.
There was fear. But it was a good fear, like a diagnostic rite, running through his mind and checking for flaws of cowardice. There were none. He had been a Sixer all his life, and Sixers never died. They just broke down.
‘Multiple signals, tracking,’ boomed the machine-spirit voice. The machine-spirit on the platform was a part of the 674-XU28 itself, and spoke with the ship’s authority. ‘Approach vectors confirmed. Prepare for boarding on platform twelve.’
The enemy, whoever they were, would probably think they were making a surprise attack. But the sub-spirit that controlled the Geryon platform was as cunning as its parent on the 674-XU28, and no one could approach without the platform, and then the tech-guard, knowing about it. The attackers would be met by a fully-prepared tech-guard battalion and the weapons system of a fully-aware orbital platform.
High above the muster deck other tech-guard units were scrambling over the vast loading rams and ammo cranes, prepared to sell their lives rather than have disorder infect a masterpiece like the Geryon.