Freefall.
‘Courage and honour!’ we roar as Meto spreads out beneath Squad Pomibius. We file out of the Thunderhawk and into thin air in calm order. Our jump is being made beneath the cloud level, granting us an unobstructed view clear to the horizon.
A rolling vista of deep green meets my visor display, with the hazy blue of the planet’s principal ocean curving across to the north-east. This world has a beauty I feel in my chest. I feel the critical importance of this agri world, a giver of life, ever more precious now in this new dark era for mankind. She looks like home to me, like Iax.
I see the flames a second later. The vast swathes of earth scorched into ash. The great columns of smoke that stretch like blackened fingers pointing accusation into the atmosphere.
My body makes dozens of slight shifts and adjustments by instinct as we drop, maintaining my position within the squad. I have entered enough active warzones in this way that it no longer requires conscious thought. I am perfectly attuned with the spirit of my armour, and we hurtle down with as much grace as is possible for a three-metre genehanced superhuman encased within a tonne of ablative ceramite.
A battlefield sweeps out before the squad, rapidly growing as if rising up to consume us. I see our target, a loose column of crude armoured vehicles rattling towards where the fighting is thickest. They appear as insects, quickly swelling within instants to the size of children’s toys. I run another equipment check, counting my cache of melta charges. My mind runs the unconscious battlefield arithmetic of assigning a charge to each of the targets I see.
A blinding flash fills my vision and I am tumbling. My armour wails at me with a chorus of alarms. Sight returns, awash in a migraine throb, presenting me with a rapidly alternating view of sky, ground, sky.
I cannot find Vybalt. His transponder rune is gone, along with those of Irin, Kyth and Markus.
‘Sergeant!’ I call out, throwing my arms wide as I fight to stabilise myself. ‘Sergeant!’
‘Sergeant?’
Theron looked up from where he sat in the corner of one of the Mare Nostrum’s many armoury bays. An artificer serf stood before him, his reluctance to disturb the Ultramarine from his meditation clear upon his oil-flecked face. Theron’s own expression remained hardened, not allowing the mortal to see the gratitude he felt for the distraction.
‘Are you well, Sergeant Theron?’
Theron remembered then that he was a sergeant, now. The rank rang hollow attached to his name. For thirty years Theron had served under Pomibius, never once questioning an order, always quick to seek his guidance, and never faltering in zeal or fury in battle. Across dozens of warzones they had cemented their bond of kinship in fire and blood. Pomibius had grown increasingly certain in recent years that the time would be short before Theron’s own helm would take the red, and he would be elevated to lead his own squad.
But not like this.
Time moved faster in this new era. Each disaster struck harder and swifter than the last. The Cadian Gate in ruins. Ultramar besieged by living plagues. The galaxy riven in two by the warp and the monstrosities bred within its madness.
Theron’s father, the great risen Guilliman, had awoken to an Imperium that he both did not recognise and did not understand. To read his words, or hear him speak, humanity was an utterly different species to the one he had died to defend. The primarch had declared this Indomitus Crusade to turn back the dying light of mankind, and as his sons the Ultramarines would bleed, kill and die to make it so.
But how many had they lost here, on Meto? How white had the Eighth been bled to win one war for one planet in one campaign against a foe that was not even their greatest enemy?
Theron knew the Ultramarines would never waver, never falter from their duty, for if they did who would be left to stand against the darkness? Who could be trusted, and was not weakened by flaws or riven with secrets like so many of their cousin Chapters? Would there be any left to finish this undertaking, to save the Imperium and rebuild it with purity?
Theron realised the serf was still staring at him, waiting for some response.
‘My armour.’
The man drew in a breath. ‘Ready, my lord. You arrived without weapons, and so requisitions have been drawn, readied and sanctified for your issue. They are prepared as well.’
Theron stood, and they walked over to where the Ultramarine’s war-plate hung on an arming rack. The damage to it had been mended, its surfaces repainted and polished to a mirror sheen with unguents and lapping powder. Theron saw Pomibius’ helm on the table beside it, still bearing the wounds of battle.
‘What of the…’ A tic tugged at the Space Marine’s cheek. ‘What of my helm?’
‘We have completed the repairs and diagnostics,’ answered the serf, grunting as he took the helmet in his arms. He was large and well-muscled, for a mortal, but still its weight troubled him. ‘All of the internal mechanisms are operational and its spirit has been placated. All that remains for us is the cosmetic restoration.’
Theron reached out, and the man offered it to him with a short bow. He held up the helm of Sergeant Pomibius to his face, like some priest clutching a fragment of bone taken from a blessed saint’s finger. He knew it was no talisman – that it was nothing more than a hollow shell of ceramite in chipped red lacquer – and yet it asserted a hold over Theron that he could not readily describe, staring back at him with empty green eyes.
‘There is no need.’
The serf frowned, his eyes falling over the gouges and flame-stripped paint. ‘You are certain, my lord?’
Theron nodded. ‘It is as it needs to be. Now go, I am certain that there are more pressing demands upon your skills.’
The menial lingered for a moment, before giving another hurried bow. ‘As you wish, my lord.’
The thrall departed after Theron did not answer him. Another group of serfs and servitors gathered around the Ultramarine and began the process of machining his wargear back into place. Theron underwent the ritual in silence, his skin pricking at the incense that was wafted over him by a chanting robed acolyte. Once the last pieces were attached the flock of servants departed, moving to the next of Theron’s brothers that required their attentions. He took up Pomibius’ helmet. His fingertips traced the path of a deep gash across the faceplate, before turning it and raising it over his head.
A pixelated view of the workshop resolved before him, sharpening into focus and populating with runes and screeds of relevant data. The spirit within the helmet baulked for an instant, refusing to accept anyone who was not Pomibius as its master, before fully enmeshing with the rest of his armour.
Theron blink-clicked a pulsing rune, and the voice of Chaplain Helios filled his ears.
‘Brother-sergeant,’ said Helios, his voice full of zeal and relish. ‘Meet me within the principal landing bay. Our vessel has arrived.’
Nearly three hours passed before Helios and Theron boarded the Stormraven Pilum to leave the Mare Nostrum. Such was the amount of time necessary for a vessel to translate from the warp at the system’s outer Lagrange point, exchange hails with and have its transponder signature verified by a frigate of the Eighth Company fleet’s edge ward picket, and proceed with it as escort to the main body of the fleet hanging over Meto.
The Pilum had been despatched from this new vessel, a destroyer sent from the Imperial fleet where the primarch himself coordinated the Indomitus Crusade from the vanguard. Once it had arrived, the warship’s master had stopped alongside the outermost ships of the Eighth Company, angling the vessel’s prow back towards the Lagrange point to leave little doubt as to the urgency of the operation Helios had been entrusted with.
Helios stared out of the forward viewing block in the cockpit of the Pilum, its crew of specialised servitors oblivious to his presence as he watched the ship resolve into view. Augur coding identified her as the Light of Iax, and while the newly arrived warship bore the obvious silhouette of a Hunter-class destroyer, the Chaplain could see even from a distance that she was far from standard.
Destroyers like the Light of Iax were escort ships, a kilometre of void-hardened adamantium with a crew that exceeded over ten thousand mortal souls. However, they were small in scale when compared to the floating cities of battleships and Adeptus Astartes strike cruisers. The ship’s hammerhead prow held what truly made her a threat in void warfare: an array of multiple torpedo tubes capable of filling the night with ship-killing ordnance. Helios compared what he was seeing to the standard schematic in his mind, noticing that the number of tubes on the Light of Iax was more than double that of the standard Hunter-class. Combined with the much larger and more powerful engines taking up her aft third and the string of macro turrets studding her spine, it was clear that someone had gone to great lengths to modify this vessel into far more than the ship of the line she had been when she had left the orbital shipyards of Calth.
Seeing such stark change to an ancient design stirred mixed feelings within Helios. He could see the improved capabilities inherent in the warship’s modifications, and thus the greater agency the Light of Iax would have should their mission require the use of her firepower. At the same time, he could not help the sense of discomfort that arose at the alteration of such a sacred template of war, one as vital and unchangeable as that of his armour or his crozius.
How could the priests of Mars have sanctioned something they would consider the gravest sacrilege, and how had the warship’s spirit been affected by such conversion? Could it have been Lord Guilliman who had ordered such a thing done?
Helios put the thought from his mind. If this had been the will of the primarch, then he could do nothing to gainsay it, nor would he have any desire to do so. To doubt his father was as unthinkable a prospect to him as questioning the God-Emperor seated upon the Golden Throne.
One of the servitors began to chitter. The boxy apparatus replacing its lower jaw clattered as hinged stamps clacked against a spool of vellum to record the gunship’s clearance to land aboard the Light of Iax. Helios spared a final glance at the destroyer that had now grown to fill the viewing block like a cliffside of cobalt armour. He saw a rectangle of golden light appear as the vessel’s hangar bay opened.
Helios found Theron in the crew bay, praying to the spirits in his freshly issued weapons. They were new to the Assault Marine, but that hardly meant the same as their being newly forged. The weapons that stocked the armouries of the Ultramarines were as ancient as the Chapter, and in the case of those wielded by the Chapter Master and his chosen elite, some were from the time when the Ultramarines had been a Legion. Over the millennia of war they had been repaired, their component parts replaced and recalibrated, but the animus that inhabited each implement of battle remained.
Theron knelt upon the deck, a chainsword and bolt pistol in his hands. Helios approved of this act of piety, and granted him distance until he concluded his rituals. It was crucial that his brother became one with the spirits in each weapon, that their purposes became joined into an unbreakable bond before they were wielded against the enemies of man.
His prayers concluded, Theron rose, mag-locking his weapons to his hips. ‘It would do me great honour, Brother-Chaplain,’ said Theron as Helios approached, ‘if you would bless my weapons before they are first blooded in my service.’
‘The honour is mine,’ said Helios. ‘There will be ample time to do so during our passage, though I do not anticipate that we will have need of their use in our endeavour.’
‘This task,’ asked Theron. ‘We are to be diplomatic envoys?’
‘Not as such, though we will act as representatives of the Chapter and the blessed primarch.’
Helios crashed a fist with force against his chest, as he always did when mentioning Guilliman, and Theron matched the gesture. ‘And we are to expect no conflict? None beside you and I shall see to this?’
‘I have been told that there is a detachment from the Chapter already aboard the Light of Iax to aid us,’ said Helios. ‘Though the astropathic sending was flawed, and portions of the message lost. I do not know the company from which they hail.’
Theron nodded. ‘Regardless, it will be good to see our brothers from the other companies. The crusade has stretched the Chapter wide across the galaxy.’
‘Indeed. We must always meet the opportunity for fraternity with joyfulness and thanksgiving.’
The deck thrummed beneath the Ultramarines’ boots as the Pilum decelerated. Helios felt the static crackle as the Stormraven passed from the vacuum through the integrity field and into the hangar of the Light of Iax. Dull clunks resonated as the gunship’s landing claws deployed, before a deep lurch shivered through her bones as she landed upon the deck.
‘Come,’ said Helios. ‘Let us meet our brethren.’
Theron collected his battered helm, holding it in the crook of his arm as he stood beside Helios. For his part, the Chaplain’s face remained hidden as always behind his own death mask, a reminder of the ideal that he represented which transcended the individual.
The Pilum’s forward assault ramp lowered to the deck with a smooth hydraulic hiss. Helios and Theron marched down, their internal auspexes alerting them to the group of large armoured figures waiting in the hangar bay to receive them. Helios frowned. His retinal display could not register an established ident rune to any of them. Even their armour was strange, as though it was of a mark that existed outside of those of the Chapter or his own memory.
As he stepped from the ramp, Helios understood why.
‘By the God-Emperor,’ said the Chaplain. The energy coils of Helios’ plasma pistol flared as it gathered charge, a match to the blazing power field that rushed over the blades of his crozius maul. Theron’s helm fell from his hands to clang against the deck as he drew his weapons.
‘What is this?’ barked Theron, as much to the ones waiting for them as to Helios. ‘What are you?’