Helios knew not what was standing in front of him at the foot of the Pilum’s assault ramp, but he was certain of one thing: they were not Space Marines.
A group of five armoured giants stood waiting upon the hangar deck of the Light of Iax. Their wargear was uncannily similar to that of the Adeptus Astartes, and yet seemed all the more perverse for its differences. The proportions were wrong. The plates of their armour were rounder and denser, with the raised collar of Mark VIII Errant-pattern and the muzzled helm of the Mark IV Maximus. Each of them stood more than a head taller than both Helios and Theron, and held bizarre parodies of Space Marine boltguns with extended casings and elongated barrels across their chests.
Most disorienting of all was the familiar cobalt hue of their war-plate. The Chaplain’s lip twisted in rage as he beheld the ivory mark of the Ultramarines that shone upon their pauldrons.
‘Identify yourselves,’ barked Helios, the power coils of his plasma pistol hissing with building charge. ‘Name yourselves or face destruction!’
The foremost of their number took a slow step forward. Carefully he locked his oversized boltgun to a magnetic strip on his thigh before opening his hands and spreading them wide.
‘I am Brother Seneca.’
‘Why do you masquerade in our colours?’ demanded Theron.
‘Because I too am an Ultramarine,’ he answered.
‘Lies!’ Helios levelled his pistol at Seneca.
‘I tell no falsehood.’
‘The most sinister deceptions are that which our enemies would believe most pleasing to our eyes!’
‘We mean you no harm.’
The stranger took a step towards Theron and the sergeant responded by reflex, his chainsword a blur as he ripped it down from over his head. Seneca caught the blow, grabbing Theron by the forearm. His other hand flicked out, an economical movement that sent the Assault Marine’s bolt pistol clattering across the deck. He tightened his grip, and the ceramite of Theron’s vambrace cracked.
Seneca swung Theron’s arm down, crashing his chainsword against the deck in a shower of sparks, before hurling him back to the foot of the ramp.
The giant reached up, pulling his helm free with a soft hiss. The face that emerged from beneath the snouted helm was the pale olive of those born on Espandor, topped by shorn stubble that glittered gold in the hangar’s light. His face bore no lines or scars: one of an initiate, yet to earn the marks of battle. ‘Forgive me.’
Seneca’s voice was low, a touch lower than that of a Space Marine.
Theron pulled a grenade from his belt, only to find the crackling eagle wings of Helios’ crozius in his path.
‘Speak now,’ the Chaplain growled, ‘on pain of eternal damnation in the eyes of the God-Emperor of Mankind, and prove that what you say is truth.’
Seneca frowned slightly at the Chaplain’s words. ‘Did you not receive the message telling you of our coming?’ he asked, keeping a deliberate softness to his tone.
‘We received word,’ said Helios. ‘But nothing that foretold that we would be joined by mutated doppelgangers in our own colours.’
If the Chaplain’s words had any effect upon Seneca, he gave no outward sign. He stooped down, collecting Theron’s helm from the deck and offering it back to him. ‘Portions of the sending were lost, perhaps.’
‘Convenient that you would be that part,’ said Theron after taking the helmet back.
‘Then let this persuade you.’ Seneca slowly reached for a fist-sized orb of brass at his belt. Carefully, he held it aloft to offer no pretext of deception, and touched a rune on the surface of the hololithic recorder. With a series of soft ticks and whirs of its internal machinery, an image sprang into the air above them, projected from the disc of pale blue glass that peered out from its centre.
Theron was silent, dumbstruck by the image that resolved before them. Twin hammer blows rang out as Helios’ knees struck the deck. His hands followed, palms against the plates as he lowered his skull-faced helm until it touched the metal. The Chaplain abased himself, words working in silent prayer, for though it was but a projection, he found himself in the presence of the God-Emperor’s avenging son.
The Light of Iax cut through the frothing miasma of the warp, a sliver of radiant blue within the shimmering protective bubble of its Geller field. Since the dawn of the Cicatrix Maledictum, travel through the Sea of Souls had devolved from a harrowing plunge through the realm of the daemonic with no guarantee of knowing where or when a ship would emerge, to a near-suicidal undertaking. A staggering amount of the Imperial casualties lost in the opening campaigns of the Indomitus Crusade had occurred not on the battlefields, but rather in transit between them.
Though the world the Ultramarines were travelling to from Meto lay just beyond the ancient boundaries of Ultramar’s Five Hundred Worlds, even this relatively short voyage could not be sojourned safely if done as it had been just years before. Like a skipping stone, the Light of Iax surfaced into reality in a series of short jumps. With each successful return to the real, the ship’s crew reoriented the vessel and adjusted for the passage of time, marking it against the timetable allotted for their mission’s completion.
Theron walked the corridors of the warship in silence. Noise thrummed the air all around him regardless, as thousands of tonnes of machinery laboured to both propel them through the warp and keep them safe from its ravages.
He flexed the vambrace encasing his left arm, feeling the tight squeal as pieces of fractured ceramite ground against one another, and the sound shrank away.
‘Sergeant, come in!’
I fight the vertigo swelling up my skull by finally stabilising my dive. Flak is exploding all around me, filling the sky with dirty bursts of smoke and burning metal. The altimeter in my helm is a blur racing to ground level.
Bracing for the jolt, I fire a burst from my jump pack. The turbines on my back scream as they activate, throwing an upward countering force that hits me like a hammer blow to the chest. I grimace against the pain, but it is enough to knock me out of the terminal velocity that would have seen me end as a smear upon the ground. I will fall the rest of the drop with some semblance of control.
Hurriedly I cycle through visor settings to pierce the smoke and flame. At the same time I pan my head around, straining my auto-senses to their limits as I search for the ident runes of my squad brothers. By the time I differentiate the rattling roar of engine wash from the rest of the noise, it is almost too late.
I manage to twist my body at the last moment before I collide with a greenskin jet fighter. The xenos aircraft is slow enough to avoid killing me outright, but the impact is still sufficient to drive the air from my lungs and send cracks radiating across my plastron.
I feel my multi-lung unfold against my diaphragm and inflate to feed enough oxygen into my blood and brain to keep me conscious. My vision sharpens from the blur, and I realise I am clinging to the abhorrent aircraft’s fuselage, just beneath the cockpit.
The ork pilot is wailing its incomprehensible rage through the bubble of dirty glass encasing the cockpit. It pounds a meaty fist against the canopy, before drawing a heavy calibre pistol, taking aim at me, and opening fire.
The airshield blows out in a welter of shattered armourglass, most of which the wind sends scything back into the cockpit. The ork roars as the jagged slivers cut and embed themselves in its face, yet still it continues to fire the gun, oblivious to any other goal than the one of seeing me dead.
I dig the fingers of my hand into the scrap metal hull of the xenos aircraft, punching my fingers through the first layer of rusted armour to give myself a firmer handhold. Hand over hand, I inch closer to the pilot. A slug cracks against my helm, and I lose vision in my left eye-lens.
I draw my chainsword, revving its track of monomolecular teeth to life, and plunge it down the ork’s throat. Dark blood sprays over me. Now I am blind in both eyes.
The greenskin’s furious howling has distorted into a wet gurgle after I begin to saw my blade from side to side, churning a ragged laceration out through the back of its head. I feel the heavy thud of the dead creature slumping against the fighter’s ramshackle controls, and know that it is time to take my leave.
My chainblade locked again to my thigh, I paw the gore from my right eye, the filmy residue that remains rendering my vision an even darker crimson than usual. I release my hold on the fuselage, and let the howling wind separate me from the rapidly diving ork fighter. I check my altimeter again when I hear more jet engines, smaller but definitely not of Imperial design. I turn as another shape collides with me, all chequered junk armour and broken teeth–
The Light of Iax shuddered through her adamantium bones, bringing Theron back to the corridor. The Assault Marine looked up, his keen eyesight tracking the tiny reverberations running across the vaulted buttresses that framed the passageway’s ceiling. He heard the wail of klaxons in the distance, a chorus of bells sounding another safe translation from the warp. The lingering stink of alien blood and jet fuel faded from his nostrils.
The strange new Space Marines that had met Theron and Helios in the hangar were not the only ones aboard the destroyer. Seneca and his squad, per the orders issued to them, were under the Chaplain’s command. He had been informed that the other new members of his own squad – a concept that still sowed discomfort in the heart of the Assault Marine – were training in one of the unused storage bays of the vessel.
Theron stood before the sealed bulkhead leading into that chamber. After the shock of the hangar bay, the new sergeant wondered if what he would find within would be more like Seneca and his ilk. That, or some other wholly new iteration of the Adeptus Astartes that provoked feelings of abomination he could not shake.
He pressed the rune on the doorway controls, and the bulkhead parted with a low rumble. He stepped inside. A trilling note from his visor display confirmed a total lack of artificial gravity within the large rectangle of open space. Two soft clunks sounded as Theron’s boots magnetically sealed him to the deck.
Theron looked out from a railing across the empty room, watching a pair of genehanced figures in blue bodygloves locked together in mid-air. The two grappled, their limbs blurring against one another as they traded joint locks and counters. They threw one another with practised grace, the thrown one gliding away a short distance before halting their spin and meeting the other back in the centre and throwing him in turn. Their movements were heavy, exaggerated, as though compensating for an imagined weight. Every motion and technique was executed with a closed fist.
For several minutes, Theron watched them in silence. His mind absorbed every detail, analysing the forms and movements of the two warriors as they sparred. It was clear that their skill was abundant, as was an ironclad discipline to adhere to the strictures of their combat system.
One of the fighters, his scalp shorn whereas the other bore a shock of golden blond hair, gained the advantage over his opponent, flipping him and sending him tumbling end over end towards Theron. The fair-haired warrior flared out his limbs, looking to the far wall to halt his momentum.
His eyes widened with surprise as he looked down to find it was Theron’s hand that had halted him in place.
‘My apologies,’ said the warrior hurriedly. His partner kicked smoothly from the far wall of the cargo bay to approach. The two took hold of the railing and swung themselves down, reorienting to stand next to Theron. The sergeant now appreciated that, like Seneca, these two were also taller than he, and their frames more densely muscled. Two more of this new, advanced breed of Adeptus Astartes. And like Seneca, they bore the unmistakable aspect of children, their faces nearly devoid of scars.
‘Hail, sergeant,’ said the two in unison as they thumped a fist to their chests in salute. Theron responded, striking his chest with his cracked vambrace, a motion the pair watched with some interest.
‘I am Sergeant Theron.’
The one with the shaved scalp nodded. ‘I am Brother Melos, sergeant.’
‘And I am Iason,’ said the blond.
‘Tell me,’ said Theron. ‘Explain the purpose of your sparring.’
Iason looked to Melos. ‘We are Inceptors, brother-sergeant. Drop troops. We enter battle from orbit, and as such it is a substantial theoretical that we will engage an oppositional force while in the midst of executing free fall.’
‘Practically,’ said Iason, ‘our training sharpens our abilities in preparation for that eventuality.’
‘How many drops have you executed?’ asked Theron.
‘Fifty-seven,’ replied Iason. ‘Simulated,’ he added, after a slight pause.
‘Simulated?’
‘I have seventy-four, simulated,’ said Melos.
‘Simulated?’ Theron repeated, the word tasting acrid and unfamiliar on his tongue. ‘Neither of you have ever entered true combat?’
‘We have both of us taken lives,’ said Iason. ‘Per our training, death and battle hold no mystery to us. Every measure was taken to ensure our readiness, otherwise we would not have been deemed fit to be placed in stasis.’
Stasis. Theron frowned. There was too much about this new breed of Space Marines that he did not know.
‘I would have the entire squad gathered for weapons training.’
Iason and Melos exchanged a glance. ‘We are the squad, brother-sergeant.’
‘Only two of you?’
‘Inceptor squads are three, sergeant,’ said Melos. ‘Always three.’
Iason looked down, noticing Theron’s crushed vambrace. ‘Do you require an armourer, brother-sergeant?’
Theron flexed his left hand. ‘It is nothing.’ He looked to his new charges. To Squad Theron. The oily discomfort in his gut twisted anew from the thought.
‘Prepare your equipment for inspection,’ said Theron. ‘I will attend to you shortly.’
Helios had sequestered himself within his austere chambers during the initial days of the Light of Iax’s tumultuous transit. Such an extended time of isolation had offered the rare opportunity for the Chaplain to remove his mask. Membership within the Chapter’s Reclusiam forbade him from being seen without it by any but his own order, as they together were the embodiment of the will of the God-Emperor, and no longer the individual men they once were.
This distance he had sworn to keep had never concerned Helios overmuch. His oaths to Cassius were as much a part of him as the beating of his hearts, and no sacrifice or deprivation from the joys of brotherhood was too great for him and his brothers in black to bear.
Helios knelt upon the worn iron floor of his cell, still wearing his armour. He gazed up at the skull-face helm and crozius maul that marked his office as surely as the coal black of his war-plate. On the simple table beside them was a stack of vellum datasheets provided by the Light of Iax’s commanders, as well as the hololithic recorder shown to him and Theron by Seneca.
The Chaplain had watched the recording over and over again, until viewing it had almost become an act of worship in and of itself. It had shocked Helios that these strange new warriors had not shown the slightest reverence to the image of the risen Lord of the Ultramarines. It was one more fact in a dizzying list of reasons to doubt what they were and what they intended. And yet, all of it had been washed away by his father’s words.
Just as you are my sons, the hololithic image of the primarch had said, so too are they.
A tone sounded at the doorway, drawing the Chaplain out of his thoughts. He stood, replacing his crozius upon its chain and sealing his face behind the leering skull of his helm. Before turning to the door, he took the hololithic recorder, and placed it into a satchel of beaten leather on his belt.
‘Enter.’
The door slid aside, revealing Theron. ‘Brother-Chaplain,’ said the sergeant in greeting.
‘Brother Theron.’ Helios inclined his head. ‘How are you finding your first command?’
‘They are,’ Theron paused, ‘exotic.’
The Chaplain rested a hand upon the Assault Marine’s pauldron. ‘I am going to the bridge. Walk with me.’
The two Ultramarines stepped out into the corridor. With most of the mortal crew concentrated on the engineering and maintenance decks or confined to quarters during the Light of Iax’s recurrent translations in and out of the warp, it granted a measure of solitude to the Space Marines, untroubled by the bustle that normally filled its passageways.
‘They are strange, Brother-Chaplain.’ Theron adjusted his helm held in the crook of his arm. ‘They are undoubtedly like us, and yet that only serves to make their differences stand out all the more starkly.’
‘These are times of change and upheaval in all things,’ agreed Helios. ‘I place my trust in our father, and in the God-Emperor. So long as we follow the path they set before us, we shall not be led astray.’
‘You speak truly,’ said Theron. ‘I try to see it as you do.’
Helios’ thoughts went to the orb. ‘Do you doubt that it was our father that we saw?’
Theron shook his head. ‘I undertook the pilgrimage to the Temple of Correction just as you have, just as every brother of the Chapter has. I know our father’s face. There can be no mistake, it was he.’
‘Yet still, your doubt remains.’
‘Not of our primarch,’ said Theron. ‘Never him. In spite of that, I cannot seem to cast aside the misgivings that have arisen within me from all of this. I suppose it is simply a weakness of my faith.’
‘The God-Emperor lays tests along our path,’ said Helios. ‘He does this not to wear upon our spirit or to diminish its edge, but to hone it. A blade sharpened in war will best any that has never known conflict. Offer thanksgiving to Him, that He would grant us the obstacles we need to display our devotion all the brighter against any darkness.’
‘What I would give,’ said Theron, holding his voice low, ‘for my old squad brothers to be here now. For Pomibius to be here now.’
Helios did not approve of his brother’s melancholy, but still he nodded. ‘You forged bonds of brotherhood with those you fought beside,’ he said, clapping Theron on the shoulder. ‘You shall do the same again here.’
‘Yet I never led them,’ Theron replied. ‘Mine has been a graveyard promotion, bequeathed to the one made exceptional by virtue of being the last left standing.’ His eyes never left the faceplate of the helm he held, its charred scarlet lacquer showcasing the full breadth of scars earned through decades of service.
‘I am tasked with leading Brothers Melos and Iason into battle. And with He who rules from Terra as my witness, I shall do my duty and see that they do theirs. I will stand and swear my oaths of moment with them, yet still know nothing of what they truly are.’
‘Perhaps not, brother,’ Helios conceded. ‘But that is not a requisite to fulfil the mandate of leadership. What the soldiers we lead are when first they come to us counts for nothing. They are clay, and it is the example and the guidance of those who command them that will dictate the form they take.’
Helios stopped before they passed through the high vaulted doors leading to the ship’s bridge. ‘These new warriors,’ said the Chaplain. ‘These Primaris Marines, they are clay, Theron. And by our efforts, you and I shall make them into Ultramarines.’