THE SOURCE
A Warhammer 40,000 Novella
By
PROLOGUE
‘Heresy is like a tree; its roots lie in the darkness whilst its leaves wave in the sun, and to those who suspect nought, it has an attractive and pleasing appearance. Truly, you can prune
away its branches, or even cut the tree to the ground, but it will grow up again ever the stronger and ever more comely. Yet all awhile the root grows thick and black, gnawing at the
bitter soil, drawing its nourishment from the darkness, and growing even greater and more deeply entrenched. Such is the nature of heresy, and this is why it is so hard to destroy, for it
must be eradicated leaf, branch, trunk and root. It must be exorcised utterly or it will return all the stronger, time and time again, until it is too great to destroy. Then we are doomed.’
- Inquisitor Lord Galan Noirgrim, Master of the Ordo Malleus, prelude to the Abominatus INS Black Manticore
Ultima Segmentum 02:35 (Ship time)
60.982.M41 ~Murder~
It was dark.
Onboard the Mars-class battlecruiser, not a soul stirred on the barracks decks. The four thousand Imperial Guardsmen, reserve regiments awaiting deployment, knew the importance of sleep. Spread either side of the kilometre-long gangway, two ranks of lockers and
cots stretched, each containing a sprawling Guardsman. A cacophony of light snoring filled the air, interspersed with a few mumbles from the deep sleepers. Rigorous drilling and unrelenting exercise had certainly taken its toll on the men; enough to make sure they had at least one good night’s sleep before the looming planetfall. They made the most of it, all too aware that it would be the last decent rest they would have in a long while. Not even the usual whispered conversation or the dull glow of a torch concealed under a blanket disturbed that night’s sleep. On the levels above and below, it was not so peaceful. The upper decks, consisting of lavishly furnished state rooms and luxurious mess halls, were crammed with officers, commissars and tacticians, going over final preparations and tactics, event scenarios and orders. On the lower decks, the thousands of ship hands and crewmen were readying the cruiser for the move to low anchor and disembarkation – refuelling landers, arming support craft, checking bulkheads, the vast engines, and the many weapon systems. On the bridge, the officers of the night shift sat, each with steaming mugs of caffeine, watching consoles and charts with tired eyes, making minor adjustments to the ship’s anchor, maintaining communications with the other ships of the battlegroup.
Barracks decks aside, the ship was as busy as it was during its day cycle. No thought was spared to the thousands of sleeping Guardsmen, recharging their aching muscles for the coming deployment. In the minds of the crewmen and officers, they had it easy. Sleep was a luxury seldom afforded to the members of the Imperial Navy, and the garrison were often begrudged for their perceived excess of slumber. The fact that many of them would be going without rest for the next month they were planetside wasn’t even thought of, and that most of them wouldn’t even return was considered even less so.
It was fair to say that on that particular night cycle, the Guard were held in particular disregard by the remainder of the Manticore’s occupants.
It was just after half past two when Trooper Greaves awoke. In the few blissful seconds before he realised where he was, he stretched, content in his lethargy. He felt the reasonably soft white sheets over his vest, weakly gripped the olive-green sleeping canvas around his waist, and pulled it up to his chin, lazily drifting in and out of consciousness.
Then with a horrible pang of adrenaline, his mind registered the two flanking cots, the dulled ceiling lamps clinging to the network of pipes and grilling five metres above his head, and remembered. He remembered that he was now an Imperial Guardsman, no longer a civilian stable hand back on his home world. He remembered that he was a member of the 141st
Imperial Hussars regiment, recruited not two years ago to combat the enemies of the Emperor. And he remembered that he was currently on a nine-kilometre, Mars class battlecruiser,
holding high anchor above a Tyranid-infested world he had never heard of, preparing for disembarkation on the turn of the next morning cycle.
Annoyed that he was no longer in his bed at home, like his dreams had promised he was, he opened his eyes, unwilling to sleep. His thoughts wandered, from his recruitment to his parents, waving him goodbye whilst he sat on the hard wooden bench in the back of the cargo10, heading for basic. All so distant now, too distant. He had been on this cursed ship for eight months whilst it transported the regiment to Illythia Prime, an agri-world somewhere on the Eastern Fringe, and had hated every moment of it. It was a commonly discussed maxim that Guardsmen never saw their homeworld again, but any world would have been fine for Greaves, as long as he didn’t have to board another ship again.
Sighing, he swung his legs out of bed, feeling the cold, metal grilling dig into his feet. He walked to the gangway, hearing his knees crack with the new movement, and headed for the nearest chemical toilet. Either side of him, Guardsmen in various levels of attire lay spread-eagled on their mattresses, breathing peacefully.
Greaves envied them to the point of hatred.
He reached the cubicle at the nearest intersection of the gangway. To either side, plunged in darkness, were two doors, currently open. Thinking nothing of it in his lethargy, he pulled open the door to the toilet, and began to relieve himself.
A second later, strong hands grabbed his throat. A rag was stuffed into his mouth. He felt urine soak into his legs as he struggled briefly, before something sharp and metallic was plunged into his kidneys and lower back repeatedly.
It had to be a dream. Even as hot, sharp pain exploded through his body, he felt he could see himself from above, squirming in slow motion, his head swimming in a
fanciful, otherworldly state.
He continued to observe, tasting salty tears, feeling warm blood soak into his vest. A million miles away, the knife wormed its way into the base of his spine. He watched, sluggishly intrigued, as it twisted.
PART 1
Chapter 1
“In every man there is a sense of duty, whether it be apparent on the surface, or buried deep in the dark corners of his soul.”
~ Extract from ‘Imperial Verses vol. I’ INS Black Manticore
Ultima Segmentum 06:44 (Ship time)
60.982.M41 ~The Demands of Duty~
Fleet Admiral Kursk arrived on the bridge of the Manticore in a foul mood. As the doors hissed closed behind him on concealed pistons, he took in the wide amphitheatre consoles and fresh-eyed crewmen, and scowled.
‘Report!’ he snapped, arriving at the command pulpit. He gripped the brass railing beneath his white velvet gloves, turning his hands slightly as if he were wringing a neck.
‘The preparations for planetfall are complete, sir,’ his First Officer, Hyrgen said, snapping smartly to attention. ‘The Guard are in the process of falling out. Disembarkation should go through as planned.’
Kursk scowled. ‘Unlikely,’ he remarked, releasing the railing and turning to what the crewmen referred to as ‘The Throne’. It was a simple command dock, with a large, ornate chair,
surrounded by pict displays and whirling holoscreens. Kursk gathered up the folds of his navy blue trench coat and sat down heavily, exhaling as he did so. He was certainly not a young man; pushing eighty, with a shock of white hair and a frail, arthritic form. He had been in the Imperial Navy for seventy years, starting as a lowly cabin boy and working his way to the top in what made for a fantastic story. A story which he was less than inclined to ever tell anyone. ‘I want half-hourly reports on the disembarkation,’ he continued, once satisfied with his seating arrangements. ‘And keep the long range auspex scanning. I want absolutely no surprises this morning. No splinter groups, no stray ships, nothing. Those damned xenos had better get it through their ugly heads pretty quickly that this ship, at least in their eyes, is indestructible. Understand?’
Everyone nodded. There were a few grunts. 'Good.'
He settled back into his chair, flicking through the messages warranting his urgent attention, whilst the crewmen busied themselves with their duties. They knew the mood – it was the same before every move to low anchor. Kursk hated it because it put them much more comfortably within the range of surface-to-orbit ballistics.
The various ship sounds took over the bridge, replacing what had been a dull thrum of conversation before the entrance of the Fleet Admiral; various beepings of the consoles and the distant metallic clamours from the lower decks; staccato bursts of vox chatter and the whine of servitors crammed into the bridge’s sub-deck, drifting up through the metal grilling of the floor. To a stranger, the cacophony would have been extremely prominent and annoying; but to the crew, who had spent the majority of their lives in the amphitheatre, it was akin to
silence.
They continued about their duties in relative quiet for a further ten minutes, whilst Kursk finished reviewing his morning cycle picts. Then something shattered the calm – an expression of disbelief rarely heard from the Fleet Admiral.
A gasp.
Kursk, the staunchest, most foul-tempered man this side of Segmentum Solar, was holding a dataslate with a worried expression adorning his face.
‘Helms, when the order comes through, take us to low anchor,’ he said tightly. ‘Low anchor, aye sir,’ came the response.
Kursk nodded. ‘Mr Hyrgen,’ he continued, ‘come with me please,’ * * *
They marched down the arterial walkway, heading away from the bridge and towards the upper deck state rooms. Hyrgen almost struggled to keep up, slightly amazed at the turn of speed the small old man in front of him could produce.
They carried on past the planning chambers and into the first of the mess halls, where plush cerulean carpeting and wood-panelled walls greeted them. Kursk brought them up short at the large oval dining table centring the room, and pressed the dataslate onto its varnished surface, looking at him expectantly. Hyrgen picked it up, scanning the green letters and numerals lining its surface.
By the time he had finished, he too looked worried. ‘Another one?’ he asked simply. Kursk nodded.
‘That makes eleven this week. Eleven killed or missing. I don’t think I need to emphasize the gravity of this situation.’
‘No sir,’ Hyrgen said. He watched as Kursk turned away from the table, walked away for a couple of paces, and turned back around again, gripping the edge of the hardwood.
‘We can always expect a few deaths amongst the garrison, Clemens. Horseplay that gets taken too far, a prize-fight here and there, an accident on the ranges.’
‘Aye sir,’ Hyrgen nodded.
‘But eleven?’ Kursk hissed, incomprehension screwing up his features. ‘The eleventh man reported AWOL in eight months? It’s a big ship Clemens, but it’s not that big. Someone is killing these men, and I think it’s high time we found out who. Nobody has a clue, and as of yet nobody has had the inclination to get a clue.’
There was a pause, before the Fleet Admiral sighed. He pulled out a chair and sat down, signalling Hyrgen to do likewise, and it was in that moment that the First Officer could see just how frail and tired the Admiral really was. Usually, most Captains by now would either be heavily augmented, or integrated into the ship in a marriage of flesh and machine. Since Kursk was neither, the ravages of mortality were taking their toll on his fragile body. It wouldn’t be long before he had to choose whether he accepted an eternity as part of the Black Manticore, or whether he chose to be retired on the nearest Imperial world and replaced. Hyrgen couldn’t even begin to fathom making such a choice.
Sitting at high anchor, or low anchor or whatever, for months at a time is dreadfully dull, even I’m prepared to admit that. The arrival of the Guard does have its benefits. But something as foul as…well, as far as we can see indiscriminate murder, can make a man scared to do his duty. Imagine, Clemens, if on the way to your station you had to traverse several dark
gangways. Would you be inclined to do that if you knew there was a man – or group of men – on the loose, killing at will?’
Hyrgen shook his head slowly.
‘Of course you wouldn’t. I wouldn’t. It needs to be destroyed at its root, before this ship – the lynchpin of this battlegroup, ceases to function. And I’ll be damned if that happens whilst I’m in command.’
Hyrgen nodded again, unsure of what to say. Kursk took the dataslate back off the table. ‘141st Imperial Hussars,’ he remarked after briefly searching the screen. ‘Either someone has a
grudge against this regiment, or there’s something else at work here none of us are familiar with. Whichever it is, a non-regimental investigation is required. I think duty demands we do at least that.’
‘Who did you have in mind?’ the First Officer asked, leaning forward slightly. ‘An Inquisitor?’ ‘Heavens no, man, an Inquisitor has better things to do. Besides, don’t you think the presence of an Inquisitor would drive our quarry further underground?’
He paused, taking a deep breath.
Chapter 2
‘Praise the day the Emperor gives you work, for you shall soon lament the day when he does not.’
- Inquisitor Brochs, ‘Reflections’
~Charter Pending~
It was the same dream again. Not a nightmare, for he no longer had nightmares. For a dream to be classified as such, it would have to reach beyond the nightly plague of ghostly faces; beyond the taunts and whimpers and cries of rage and hatred that had blighted his sleep since his enrolment in the Commissariat.
No, it was not a nightmare. Just a dream.
It started in the desert, as it had done for the last twenty nights. There was a man with him, a familiar man. Lieutenant Julian Codey, of the 15th Vargonroth. They were both dying of thirst.
A few moments later, Codey’s head split open, down the middle, from an apparent gunshot wound. When he checked his hand, he found himself holding the pistol responsible.
He dropped the pistol and tried to staunch the bleeding, every time without success. His hands scooped clumps of ruined brain back together, but they simply dissolved through his fingers. Rotten black flesh and grey matter bled from the horrific wound, drooled onto the sand and turned the whole desert ebony, as if transformed by the flick of a switch. Above, the sky turned thick with gunmetal thunder clouds, and chaotic vortices whirled into life, each one screaming and cursing his name.
Seconds later, Codey’s chest opened up, a gaping cavern filled with blackened organs and ringed by stained, broken teeth. Flies poured fourth from the spasming cadaver, surrounding him with their incessant buzzing, filling his mouth, his eyes and ears and crawling up his nose and –
Drenched in sweat, Commissar Albrecht Vandemarr woke with a start. * * *
After taking stock of his surroundings, he slid out of bed and made his way to the small kitchen unit on the other side of the room. He searched irritably in a few stained cabinets, and
eventually pulled a bottle of amber ethanec down and placed it on the counter. He then found a tumbler in the rusty sink, poured himself a generous measure, and knocked it back,
grimacing as the strong, spicy liquid worked its way down his gullet. He shook his head, and slammed the tumbler back down on the side. He was angry.
Events had certainly not turned out the way he had wanted them to. After filing for a transferral from the 15th Vargonroth twenty days before, he had found himself only a short
while later living in a miserable basement hab-cell of an Imperial port – quarters a gun-deck slave would turn his nose up at. The walls were marked with great, pale yellow stains where a colony of mould had been steamed off. Everywhere was rust and grime. The bed linen was old and had been sprinkled with anti-vermin powder, the refrigeration unit worked only
intermittently, and the lighting was on a ten minute ration timer. His night vision had never
Farrax-Carthage naval port Ultima Segmentum
21:14 62.982.M41
been so good.
He poured himself another glassful of ethanec and took the three steps back into the bedroom. The noise of heavy machinery worked its way through the thick concrete ceiling and into the hot, stuffy room; heavy hydraulics pumping and grinding away above, swinging docking clamps and arms, engaging the massive warships and attaching fuel hoses and rearmament conveyers. It was a miracle he managed to sleep at all.
He drained the second glass and slumped backwards onto the bed, his attention briefly caught by the multitude of scars marking his torso – adornments from a lifetime of battle. Then his frustration returned, and he dropped the tumbler on the bedside table, amongst the leather wallet containing his identification, and a small black commcaster.
To be disregarded by his former CO with such callous abandon infuriated him. The very mention of his transferral request had been enough for his deposition on the nearest port to the battlegroup – a lifetime of service forgotten overnight. It was perhaps inevitable that many had come to view him as something of a loose cannon after the events involving Captain Garrick and his somewhat chequered court martial. In fact, they were probably glad to be shot of him. Transferrals were, after all, notoriously difficult to successfully pursue.
He let out a long, slow breath. It was unbearably hot in the hab-cell, and the air seemed heavy and close. Had his whereabouts not been known to the Commissariat – who were,
he suspected, more than content to let him slide off their radar – it was likely that he would be almost impossible to trace. He could die then and there and no-one would know for weeks. Such morbid thoughts were routine now. He had hit a low point he didn’t think possible. If the Commissariat didn’t find him a nearby unit to link up with soon, it was likely he’d be forced into a penal regiment – a proposition which only made him angrier. He was better then that. He knew it, and his superiors knew it.
He sighed, and grasped the ragged canvas that passed for his blanket, pulling it up to his hips. A second later, the commcaster bleeped into life next to him, the noise sending a painful shot of adrenaline through his guts. He sat up quickly, grabbed the unit from the table and thumbed it on.
‘Commissar Albrecht Vandemarr?’ came a dreary voice, made tinny and nasal from the static. ‘Yes?’ Vandemarr replied, feeling his heart rate increase slightly.
‘Gortlémund Administratum sector 797/2G, re-routed from Office of the Commissariat, Department of Imperial Justice, Kalen Primo. You have a comms pending from the INS Black Manticore, 702nd Ultima Segmentum battlegroup. Will you accept? ’
‘Yes,’ he snapped impatiently. The background wash increased half an octave, and a barely audible pre-recorded message filled the earpiece.
‘Commissar Vandemarr, this is Senior Communications Officer Grippen of the INS Black Manticore, 702nd Ultima Segmentum battlegroup. Fleet Admiral Kursk requests an immediate
audience. Mission details deemed unsafe for broadcast. Collection point Farrax-Carthage naval port, 62-64th, 982, dock C9/a. Charter pending. End message.’
The line dropped back to its original tone, and the static reduced. ‘Repeat transmission?’ the infinitely bored Administratum clerk asked. But Vandemarr was already out the door.
Chapter 3
‘There is a terrible darkness descending upon the galaxy, and we shall not see it ended in our lifetimes.’
- Inquisitor Czevak on Tyranids, at the Conclave of Har
~Illythia~
As the sun dipped slowly to the west, they came.
Preceded by blood red streaks of atmospheric dust and fingers of striated cloud, the advance horde moved forward with a single purpose; to overwhelm and destroy the beleaguered Imperial defenders.
In the sky, leathery-winged gargoyles clawed through the air, screeching and hawking and bringing to bear their terrible fleshborers. On the ground, hundreds of gaunts and genestealers tore across the once fertile plans of the agri-world, churning the fields and irrigation canals into a tangled mudscape.
Lieutenant Karl August was in the planning and operations tent when the alarms sounded. Old brass horns wailed into life like the death moans of some wounded beast – a sound every Guardsman posted on the continent had learnt to fear from their first day. With a quick glance to the other men surrounding the table, he picked up his lasrifle and jogged though the
doorway.
Outside, hundreds of Guardsmen were running through the camp to the frontline trench, worried expressions marking many of their faces. Helmets were hastily thrust on heads, fresh magazines were slammed into rifles. The alarms were louder outside, piercing what would have been a peaceful summer’s evening on Illythia’s second largest continent. Shouts and orders rose above the rhythmic clamour, directing men and armour. In font of him, a jungle-pattern Leman Russ rumbled past on its giant tracks, its driver scanning the lines with a pair of magnoculars.
August exhaled sharply and fell into step next to a squad of 18th Bavarian Rangers, running
Illythia Ultima Segmentum
17:32 (local) 62.982.M41
down the arterial access passage to the camp’s primary trench. Behind him, the thick, rolling booms of artillery opened up, huge barrels of self-propelled guns and Basilisks recoiling sharply and raining down high explosive death amongst the fast approaching horde.
As he approached the line, he could hear them above the panicked cacophony of the stronghold – the shrieks and screeching and chittering of a thousand soulless aliens, full of irrational, indiscriminate hatred. Above, the first of the fleshborers rained down, hitting the ground with sickening wet thumps and scuttling rabidly into the mud. A Bavarian next to August was hit in the chest, and he writhed and screamed in pain as the beetle scurried into the folds of his chest cavity, pulping his heart. He sank to the ground in a flurry of blood, his dead eyes bulging from their sockets in frozen terror.
‘Keep moving!’ August shouted as some of the younger men faltered, already horrified by the attack. It was the second test of their defences that day, and many of the greener troops had already had their fill of the horrors of Tyranid warfare.
He reached the trench whilst the first of the horde’s runners were still half a kilometre out, but above the sky was thick with gargoyles and their intolerable keening. The phosphorescent blue of high energy las fire filled the air around him, crackling and hissing as hundreds of
Guardsmen fired wildly into the sky. The chopping of a heavy stubber boomed on to his left, its thick, loud shot perforating the dense, electrically-charged air and bringing down several of the proximate aliens. Their ruined, ichor-drooling forms flapped and spasmed frantically as they plunged into the ground, before they were shot to pieces by the Guard lining the trench. August looked to his left and right, but there was no sign of his regiment, the 141st Imperial
Hussars. Bavarian Rangers, instead, surrounded him, their accents and mannerisms almost as alien to him as the Tyranids themselves.
He planted his feet on the duck boarding lining the base of the trench, and rested his lasrifle on the firing shelf, more concerned with the now very close gaunts than the gargoyles above, which seemed to have shifted further west. Now, it was the Termagaunt’s fleshborer rounds that hissed past and slapped into the rear trench wall, sending clouds of dirt into the air and signalling the start of the ground exchange.
August muttered the Litany of Benediction as he pulled back the trigger of his lasrifle, and sent a string of loosely-aimed shots towards the xenos. To the uninitiated, it would have been a terrifying sight to behold. The gaunts, slavering, wretched beasts with great scythed talons, needle-sharp teeth and mouths pulled back into constant and frightening leers; and the genestealers, bipedal, four-armed humanoids, with rigid, bony spines and powerful muscular legs. They clawed and pushed over each other like squabbling siblings, drooling manically and scrabbling across the ruined earth, soaking up the thousands of hard rounds and las shots being poured at them and advancing on their defiant quarry.
Next to August, a Ranger took three fleshborers in the chest and cartwheeled backwards, his thoracic cavity draped over the rear trench wall like some bloody marionette. Further down the line, a belt feeder for one of the heavy stubber nests’ neck exploded, and warm carotid blood ejected from the torn flesh in regular gouts.
He struggled to control his breathing as the unbearable chittering increased, like the squealing, un-oiled cogs of some gigantic grain thresher. Sweat drenched his fatigues as he fired more frantically. Another Ranger dropped, his face bursting out the back of his skull like a blood-filled water balloon. One of the few Hussars in the vicinity fell clutching a messy stomach wound, slippery intestines drooling from the fresh cavity and collecting in a pile on the floor. Something was wrong. Usually these advance hordes were stopped in their tracks by a simple ballistics exchange; but more fleshborers were hissing into soil and flesh, and the aliens were getting closer – much closer.
requests. August quickly fixed his bayonet, and awaited the inevitable wide-band broadcast; ‘All lines prepare for close assault.’
Chapter 4
‘It is a sad thing, time; too much and one becomes frivolous; too little and one becomes overburdened. It is for that reason I no longer wear a watch.’
- Inquisitor Brochs, ‘Reflections’
~Human Again~
Through the metre-thick porthole thrust into the side of the hull, Vandemarr watched the approaching cruiser, and below it, the fertile green orb that was Illythia. Both were
magnificent; one, a whole world ripe with life, thousands of kilometres of rich farmland forming one of the many breadbaskets for the Western Mordant Zone; and the other, a thousand year-old battleship, furnished with ranks of mighty crenelations and spires over a proud gyear-olden hull. He made the sign of the Aquilla, and sat back into the uncomfortable harness-rigged bucket seat. The charter had turned out to be a Navy frigate, rearming at Farrax-Carthage before heading back to support the Black Manticore. Now, however, he was spending the remainder of his journey on a small and entirely uncomfortable short-range shuttle, counting down the hours whilst it waited for the cruiser to manoeuvre back to high anchor. As far as he had been made aware, there had been a drop two mornings previously, on the 60th, and then another on the 61st.
There were a few men in the seats opposite him. One, a friendly Naval Commodore by the name of Aleks Hechter, who had engaged him with a rather lively debate for about an hour and then contented himself with a book for the ensuing four; and a civilian man and his young son, who, as far as he could tell, either hadn’t worked up the courage to talk to him, or simply weren’t interested. Vandemarr had occupied himself by re-reading his order slip; but since that was only about fifty words long, and almost verbatim what he had already heard on his
commcaster the night before, he had simply stared out the window, bored and unwilling to talk.
As he began making a second mental attempt to label everything on the side of the Manticore – fore, aft, the AV cannons, the big bombardment cradles, the disembarkation decks and so on – the brass horn above his head crackled into life, and the various sounds of the bridge fuzzed through into the small personnel hold.
‘We’ve just received word from the SVO that the Manticore has completed its manoeuvres, and so we should be looking at docking within the next hour or so,’ came the tired voice of the pilot. Vandemarr rolled his eyes in silent thanks, and as if the expression had suddenly humanised him, he found himself suddenly accosted by the civilian man.
‘Excuse me sir, I ‘ope you don’t mind my askin’,’ he fumbled in an unfamiliar accent, ‘but what is it that you’ve come ‘ere for? To the ship, I mean.’
Vandemarr looked over at him and the young boy by his side, momentarily thrown off guard by the question. He could see Hechter shift his attention from his book as well, bemused by this new exchange.
‘I am here to…investigate a certain matter,’ he replied, choosing his words carefully – partly due to secrecy protocols, mainly because he hadn’t a clue. He didn’t even know if what he’d said was vaguely accurate. For all he knew, his ‘audience with the Fleet Admiral’ could simply be his transferral order being confirmed in person, before he was stuck on the next drop pod to
INS Varagar Ultima Segmentum
09:32 (ship time) 63.982.M41
the grinder.
‘Ah I see,’ the man continued. He was old, but not by age. Rather, toil and hard labour had reduced the man’s figure to a lean, slightly muscular form, and whichever sun he worked under had left him wrinkled around the face, and his skin leathery and calloused. A typical agri-worker, consigned to the fields for the rest of his life. Vandemarr didn’t envy him.
‘Just bringin’ the lad ‘ere to the ship. The Fleet Admiral says ‘e can take him on as a ship’s boy, runnin’ errands an’ the like, leasts until ‘es old enough to be a ratin’ or summat. The best I can do for ‘im. He don’t want to end up a labourer like ‘is ole’ da.’
Vandemarr watched the man with a slight melancholy. It had probably cost him a lot of money to have his son even considered by a Fleet Admiral, and even more to pay for a naval charter. Decades of a labourer’s wages. In fact, he had probably received the money from some underhive loan shark.
‘A commendable gift,’ the Commissar said, smiling. ‘some of the best Admirals around are ones that started as cabin boys. I cannot think of a better start in life.’
Hechter emphatically nodded his head in agreement, smiling as well. But as he turned back to his book, he caught Vandemarr’s eye, and a grim expression briefly marred his features. Their combined reassurances and words had seemed to cheer the old labourer, but neither man believed in them. A Fleet Admiral would have a lot to do, for hundreds of solid hours at a time, and the boy would have to be very quick, very intelligent and very strong if he was to even survive as a hand. Otherwise he would be condemned to the disease-ridden gun decks in less than a week, working as a slave without adequate food until he died.
As he slowly appreciated what the lad was in for, Vandemarr found himself full of sadness. The father, thinking he was doing the right thing, would probably be murdered in less than a year if he couldn’t clear his debts; and the son, a scrawny young lad, not even in his teens, would know nothing of the tough Naval life ahead – which only became anywhere near tolerable above the rank of Commander. To see such a young life, just one amongst billions virtually condemned to death in front of his eyes, was unbearable to a very old and remote part of Vandemarr – a side of him which he had all but buried long ago. It seemed almost alien to him – expressing emotions, even inside his head, concealed from all but the Emperor’s most holy. Even in its weakest form, his sense of moral duty told him exactly what he needed to do. He cleared his throat.
‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ he said, nodding slowly.
‘So will I,’ Hechter concurred, almost immediately after Vandemarr had finished – having evidently thought exactly the same thing. The Commissar smiled.
‘Why, thank most kindly sirs,’ the old labourer said, relief clear on his face. ‘That’s very good of you – both of you.’
Vandemarr nodded, noting the tears in the man’s eyes. Somewhere deep in his soul, he felt human again.
Chapter 5
‘They have only one purpose, and there is nothing they will not do to accomplish it, no matter how vile or loathsome it might be. These abominations mean to destroy everything proud and
noble, everything we hold dear and have fought so long to achieve.’ - Inquisitor Angmar, on tyranids
~Brief Encounter~
It happened in slow motion.
In front of him, the keening, slavering hormagaunt, its scythe-like talons outstretched, pounced clear of the ground a full ten metres from the front of the trench and shrieked
through the air towards him. Without thinking, August brought his lasrifle up and let out a long stream of panicked shots, no longer conserving his ammunition. The fundamental urge to survive the next ten seconds was far greater than any rational foresight of the coming battle. August watched as the searing hot laser bolts lanced through the thing’s chitin armour plating, cauterising the ichor inside and exploding through its spine in clouds of purple; and with the ensuing, ear-splitting wail, suddenly, everything snapped back into focus.
In a flurry of screeching talons and claws and flesh, the dying, writing alien slammed bodily into him and knocked him off his feet. He landed hard against the duck boarding, the full weight of the gaunt landing on his chest-plate and knocking the wind from his lungs.
‘Throne!’ He gasped, rabidly battering his fists against its head whilst it thrashed above him. Its bony jaws snapped at his face, encompassing rows of needle-sharp teeth stained purple from its haemorrhaging blood vessels, and talons and claws whickered and snatched at his vulnerable body. One of the scythes dug into the wood next to his head, drawing blood from his cheek; he felt his knee pad become entangled in one of its claws and shove down the length of his leg, ending up over his ankle; a second talon slammed into his shoulder pad, raking through the thick armour and touching the duck board below.
August squirmed like a man possessed, adrenaline firing through his body and his heart punching against his sternum. Every second was drawn out into a lifetime, as he lashed out with his fists and feet, punching and kicking with all his strength, knowing that it if he could just hold on, it was only a matter of time before the alien died of its wounds.
But it was still taking too long, and his biceps were tiring. Much longer and its teeth would find his face.
In one last ditch attempt before he resigned himself to death, he closed his hands around its throat –
And recoiled sharply as his fingers pierced the skin of its neck and sank four inches into the flesh below, inadvertently yanking a clump of stringy blood vessels out with them. His hand was smothered and dripping in a green, presumably venomous fluid, and it stank worse than anything he’d smelt. Above him, the gaunt’s shrieking turned to a gurgling, and more purple ichor drooled from its mouth, mixed with the green poison.
Seconds later, it was dead.
Illythia Ultima Segmentum
17:37 (local) 62.982.M41
Sweating and panting, August let his head hit the duckboards, allowing himself a brief moment of relief, before he set to work on pushing the very heavy gaunt corpse off. All around him, las fire spat and whistled through the air, and the larger chopping of heavy stubbers and
autocanons boomed further down the line from sandbagged emplacements; but the chorus of screeching was dwindling, and the trench was, as far as he could see, free of gaunts – and Guardsmen.
With all the strength he could muster from his painfully fatigued arms, he shoved the corpse to the side, rolled over to grab his lasrifle, and stood up, instinctively bringing the weapon to bear.
Directly in front of him, a second screeching hormagaunt was midway through its killing-leap, all six limbs arranged to converge on his upper chest, neck and head.
‘Oh sh-’ he began, but was cut off by a hastily directed burst of stubber fire. Limbs, chitin and ichor splattered into the Lieutenant, followed by the still heavy remains of its thorax, and he hit the back of the trench once more.
‘Throne damn it!’ he shouted, wiping blood from his eyes and firing several rounds into the alien’s thoroughly dead remains. Once he had taken stock of the situation, he calmed his breathing and stood up again, weapon prone.
In front of him, Bavarians and fellow Hussars stood on the ground above and beyond the trench, having evidently counter-attacked the small advance horde. They stood in mixed, ramshackle groups where the shift-defenders had been joined by the sudden influx of troops responding to the alarms, kicking alien corpses and tending to the wounded Imperials. There were some human bodies littered about, and other lumps of flesh and gristle that he couldn’t for the life of him identify as human or xeno; but the vast majority of the dead, to his relief, were tyranids.
That wasn’t to say, he noted grimly, that there were many alien corpses. The large harvester constructs had recycled the bodies of the dead and moved back to the main horde, retaining the DNA and jellying them in vast underground pools so the genetic material could be used again. August shuddered at the thought, before he recognised his Vox Officer amongst a squad of Hussars twenty metres away.
‘Udray!’ He shouted, hoisting himself out the trench and jogging over. He reached the gaggle of men and wearily returned their salutes.
‘Let’s get some stretchers, up front.’ He nodded across to the wounded. ‘And some fresh water.’
‘Aye sir,’ the young man replied – small, grimy, wearing a pair of oversized tank commander’s sun goggles. He pulled the mouthpiece from the side of the bulky voxcaster and began making the Lieutenant’s requests.
‘You three,’ August continued, referring to the Hussars in the group, their regimental green jackets smothered in filth and blood. ‘Where’s your CO?’
They looked uneasy, before one shrugged. ‘Not sure sir,’ he said simply. August cursed under his breath.
‘Who’s your CO?’
‘Uh, Lieutenant Cusken, sir.’
There was a brief pause while he checked the time. ‘You’re not on this watch,’ ‘No, sir.’
‘Find Cusken. Find out your orders. Get some water down you. Understood?’ ‘Yes sir,’ all three muttered.
‘Go on. Shift.’
He watched as they walked off, left with Udray and a pair of Bavarian Rangers. Both sported thick handlebar moustaches and large, bearskin shakos, and spoke in a regional variation of Gothic that had much the same vowel sound as the Hussars’, but a softer edge to the
consonants. August listened for a few seconds, before turning back to Udray. ‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘They want you back in the ops tent,’ Udray said, watching as the medics amongst the regiment appeared on the scene with stretcher bearers. August nodded.
‘Where’s the rest of the regiment?’
‘They’re all in this sector. It’s the Rangers who’ve got it wrong. They’re meant to be waaay further down, on the centre-north line.’
There was a brief pause as the Lieutenant nodded, looking out across the churned fields in front of them. Teams of Guardsmen were piling the tyranid corpses and burning them, sending plumes of stinking black smoke into the evening sky. Two weeks ago and it would have been a very different scene indeed.
‘I’ll have a word with the Captain, see if we can get our distribution sorted.’ He said after a while. In front of them, a chimera with attached dozer blades cleared the burning alien remains into one of the many craters scarring the field.
Chapter 6
‘We are at war with forces too terrible to comprehend. We cannot afford mercy for any of its victims too weak to take the correct course. Mercy destroys us; it weakens us and saps our resolve. Put aside all such thoughts. They are not worthy of Inquisitors in the service of Our
Emperor. Praise his name for in our resolve we only reflect his purpose of will.’ - Extract from ‘Book of Exorcisms; the verses of Inquisitor Enoch’
INS Black Manticore Ultima Segmentum 10:59 (ship time)
63.982.M41 ~Arrival~
With a whining, pneumatic hiss, the docking umbilicus of the Varagar attached to the mooring clamps on the side of the Manticore, and the two atmospheres mixed in a fusion of stale and fresh gasses. Oil, engine coolant, ozone, sweat, metal – a hundred smells reached
Vandemarr’s nostrils as he, Commodore Hechter, the man and his son walked through the cramped umbilicus and into the embarkation level.
‘By the Emperor,’ the man said, both him and his son equally awed by the sheer scale of the battleship. Though Vandemarr was no stranger to the Navy, the embarkation level didn’t fail to impress.
For four kilometres either side of them, ranks of Vulture gunships, Thunderbolt and Lightning attack craft, Valkyrie troop landers and Marauder bombers stretched, manned by scuttling servitor crews and draping fuel hoses and armament conveyances. At regular intervals, a Guard lander depot split the neat lines of atmospheric craft – huge, chunky, almost cubic aircraft each one as big as a hab block. Automated voices echoed from concealed speakers lining the tangle of pipes and wires above, and cargo vehicles hummed across the ground and through the air.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Hechter asked, appearing next to Vandemarr. The Commissar suddenly became very aware of his gawping, and promptly straightened his tunic.
‘Yes,’ he said, smiling at his over-obvious indifference. ‘I suppose it’s…alright.’ He fished in his pocket for his orders and pulled out the foil-thin wafer.
‘Any idea if someone’s coming to meet us?’ he asked.
‘I should imagine so…’ Hechter replied, checking his chrono. ‘Oh. Never mind. It’s eleven o’ clock.’
‘Why? Did someone give you a time to meet?’
‘Three hours ago,’ the Commodore said, rolling his eyes. ‘Emperor knows that shuttle was slow. Not to worry, there’ll be a vox around here somewhere.’
He made to move, but Vandemarr caught his arm.
‘Hold on a second,’ he said, nodding towards the nearest accessway. A trio of naval personnel were marching in quick step towards them, all three clad in cerulean tunics and cream
breeches. Hechter stepped back, bringing a hand to his chin as he took stock of them. Vandemarr noted that a grin had spread across his face.
‘These guys,’ Hechter replied, nodding towards them. ‘You’d think we were under arrest.’ The Commissar snorted as their presumed escort drew up short, snapping off a smart salute. Both he and Hechter returned it, and to their bemusement, the man and his son.
‘We’re here to escort a Commissar Albrecht Vandemarr, Commodore Kurt Hechter and a master Kai Bastian to the Princeps suite,’ said the lead man. He was tall, with cropped brown hair and a prominent nose that angled downwards like a beak. His eyes narrowed on the old man, still in a simple grey labouring smock and woven jacket.
‘You’ve come to the right place then,’ Hechter said, unwrapping some small pink delicacy from a parcel of sugar paper and sticking it in his mouth. The lead man offered a sardonic smirk. ‘I am First Officer Hyrgen,’ he continued stonily, ‘and on behalf of the Fleet Admiral, I welcome you onboard the Black Manticore.’
Vandemarr smiled inwardly. It was clearly a line Hyrgen loathed saying, yet was bound by protocol to wheel it out whenever they had any high-ranking company.
‘I’m sure the pleasure will be ours,’ he said, extending his hand. Hyrgen gripped it.
‘Don’t count on it,’ he said brightly, turning on his heel and heading back down the accessway. Vandemarr rolled his eyes and looked to the man, who was in the process of hugging his boy. ‘You be a good lad now,’ he said, pain straining his voice. ‘Do everything the Admiral tells you.’ The boy was crying as well – Kai Bastian, if Vandemarr had heard correctly. An odd name. ‘If you would accompany me,’ Hyrgen called from twenty metres away, his façade of politeness already wearing dangerously thin. He let the sentence hang.
‘Come on,’ Hechter said. ‘The Fleet Admiral probably has some drinks waiting anyway.’ Vandemarr nodded as he watched the man and his son part ways forever, before turning towards Hyrgen and his ever-withdrawing sidekicks.
‘Suddenly I’m not looking forward to this as much as I thought I would,’ he said, breaking into a jog.
* * *
The Princeps suite was every bit as lavish and expensively decorated as Vandemarr would have expected. Rich, royal blue carpeting with a banner of golden Aquillas covered the floor, and large, deep brown wood panels lined the walls, each one bearing paintings of former Admirals and Generals. The wide, rectangular table in the centre of the room was overhung by a wide crystal chandelier, though it was not turned up to full power, giving the whole room a dark, conspiratorial feel to it.
Around the table, a man who was obviously the Fleet Admiral sat, as well as a second,
considerably younger man clad in a green jacket and fatigues, with a mop of red hair and a red moustache curling over his upper lip. Hyrgen stiffened slightly as Vandemarr, Hechter and Bastian lined up on opposite sides of the table, and the Fleet Admiral stood up to greet them. ‘My lord, may I present Commissar –’
‘Albrecht Vandemarr and Kurt Hechter,’ Kursk interrupted, annoyance screwing up his weather-beaten features. ‘There is no need for an introduction at this point in time, Mister Hyrgen.’ ‘Very good sir,’ the First Officer replied. Vandemarr had to admire him; he contained his frustration excellently.
‘Gentlemen,’ Kursk continued, his eyes momentarily settling on the boy. ‘My name is Aldritch Kursk, Fleet Admiral and commander of the 702nd Ultima Segmentum battlegroup. I hope that
title alone gives you some bearing of how busy I am. We’ve had a very eventful few days planetside, so you’ll forgive me for being a little short with you…’
He paused, leaving his place at the table in favour of pacing the room, hands clasped behind his back.
Chapter 7
‘You are not free whose liberty is won by the rigour of other, more righteous souls. You are merely protected. Your freedom is parasitic; you suck the honourable man dry and offer nothing in return. You who have enjoyed freedom, who have done nothing to earn it, your time has come. This time you will stand alone and fight for yourselves. Now you will pay for
your freedom in the currency of honest toil and human blood.’ - Inquisitor Czevak, Addressing the Council of Ryanti
Illythia Ultima Segmentum
18:02 (local) 62.982.M41 ~That'll be Captain August, sir~
Inside the ops tent, the air was rank with nervous sweat. The majority of the higher ranking Guardsmen – a pair of Generals and a handful of Colonels and Majors – had remained inside the room whilst the attack was beaten off; and though most of them were hardly expected to traipse to the front line with the rest of the footsloggers and risk life and limb for the sake of an advance horde, August could still smell their apprehension.
They all looked up as he knocked the entrance flap aside and stepped inside the dingy tent, the only light provided by a single glow globe dangling from a roof pole. The large, olive-green canvas was centred by a planning table, smothered in well-worn maps, orbital photographs, dataslates and other paraphernalia; and around the edges of the interior, banks of
communications and radar consoles sat in neat lines, each manned by an earphone-wearing Guardsman. Dull chatter filled the close air.
‘Lieutenant August?’ a voice said. He looked across to find himself accosted by Major Johannes, a short, fat man with the customary handlebar moustache that so many of the Bavarian troops seemed to grow.
‘Sir,’ August replied, deftly catching a small parcel of green paper.
‘You’re being promoted to Captain. Three Company. Captain Tamas was good enough to die for you, so I’d thank him later.’
August stood, taken aback as he unwrapped the parcel. Inside were a pair of epaulettes and a rank slide – one of them marked by a small rust-coloured stain. No doubt Captain Tamas’ legacy.
‘Captain August,’ a new voice said – that of Colonel Taschen, Augusts’ new commanding officer. He felt a thrill of adrenaline prick up the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck at the mention of his new rank.
‘Yes sir?’ he said, clearing his throat. He walked over to the table, peering down at the map where Taschen was pointing.
‘It appears we’re having some difficulty with our distribution,’ he said, sliding his white-gloved finger across the primary trench. ‘The Rangers have drifted too far south, when they should be manning the centre-north line up by Galensbad. It means the Hussars’ one, two and three Companies are being pushed too far towards Dugsdale.’
He tapped the second small hab centre, before withdrawing his hand and picking up his mug of caffeine.
‘Any further and we’re in danger of crossing over the Palden line, and then we’ll start getting shot up by five Company. Plus, it’s leaving the Bavarian Light overstretched on the centre-north.’
He took as sip and wandered away from the table to a freestanding map – an enlargement of the surrounding area, complete with all the lines penned in red and black. He jabbed his finger at Galensbad.
‘The Bavarians need to shift their arses back up this way, before the enemy makes good his assault and destroys us from the north down. The problem is, they’re not responding to our signals.’
‘Since when?’ August quickly asked. ‘Since about twenty minutes ago.’ ‘Runners?’
‘Dispatched, naturally,’ Taschen said, ‘but dreadfully slow. Unfortunately that’s not the point.’ August hesitated, deciding to let the Colonel continue rather than ask the obvious question. ‘The point is that we must fear the worst, and that Galensbad has in fact been overrun and destroyed. In which case, it needs reinforcing.’
August nodded. It initially seemed a drastic move, but he could see the logic in it. To lose contact with a stronghold for such an extended period of time, in the midst of twice-daily tyranid attacks was not something to be taken lightly.
‘What are my orders sir?’ he asked, still unable to shake the excitement of promotion. ‘I want you to take three Company to investigate,’ Taschen said simply, ‘and if necessary, to retake it. I’d make sure you take with you functioning vox equipment, seeing as we’ll be in contact quite a lot. If it has been overrun, we’ll send you what we can by the way of reinforcements. If it hasn’t, I want you to give the Bavarian CO there a kick up the arse so hard he’ll be cleaning his teeth with a boot brush. Clear?’
‘Yes sir,’ August said, smiling briefly.
Taschen paused, checking his chronometer.
‘I make it 18:09 now. Four kilometres - you can hitch a ride with the Chimeras when you reach the Gort line…I’d say, twenty minutes?’
‘Aye sir, I’d agree with that,’ August replied, setting the timer on his own watch.
‘Let’s say half an hour for rallying and briefing,’ Taschen concluded, no longer interested in the conversation. ‘First contact at 18:40.’
’18:40, very good sir.’
* * *
Outside the tent, the air was refreshingly clear. The smell of rain on grass and mud met his nostrils – a hangover from about two hours beforehand, though judging by the clouds on the horizon, it wouldn’t be long before they were hit again.
tanks each undergoing servicing of some kind. Techpriests dressed in hooded robes whirred and clicked and intoned words of the Machine Spirit around them, and August watched as he jogged up, pulling a folded, tattered map from his thigh pouch.
‘Udray,’ he said as he approached. The young man turned around. ‘Yes?’
‘We’re moving out, to Galensbad. We’ve only got half an hour to do it in as well, so get Three Company on me, now.’
‘Yes Captain,’ Udray mocked. ‘Where’s Tamas?’
‘He’s dead. I’m the new Captain,’ August replied matter-of-factly. It was then he realised he was still holding the rank slides in his hand.
‘Ah,’ he said, quickly sliding the epaulettes and chest-mount on. Udray did a deliberately dramatic double-take, and let the cigarette slide from his mouth. August scowled.
‘I’m kidding!’ he said, shaking his head and pulling the mouthpiece from the side of the vox caster. ‘Two this is zero, over.’
‘Zero this is two, go ahead,’ came the crackled reply. ‘Three Company report to vehicle pit, sector one, over.’ ‘Copy that zero. Two out.’
Udray slid the mouthpiece back into its cradle and turned back to August. ‘What?’ he asked, seeing the look on his face.
‘You know you put on a funny voice when you talk into that?’ he replied, grinning. ‘Oh shut up.’
Chapter 8
‘Tyranid assaults are characterised by the waves of creatures that pour across the battle field. With each successive attack, the waves of beasts weaken the enemy until they cannot resist
the final, terrible onslaught.’
- Extract from ‘A treatise on the Kraken’, Inquisitor Carrax INS Black Manticore
Ultima Segmentum 11:03 (ship time)
63.982.M41 ~The Problem~
‘You are here, because we have a problem,’ Kursk said to the silenced table. Each man – Hyrgen, Vandemarr, Hechter and the several attending personnel, were as eager as young boys to see exactly what the Fleet Admiral, this shrewd artefact forged from a lifetime of war, had to say.
‘The problem has only very recently become what I would consider a serious one,’ he continued, stroking his chin, ‘but perhaps more fool me for not stemming it sooner.’
He walked round the side of the table, behind Vandemarr and Hechter, and came to a stop behind the boy. The silence seemed to deepen, if it was possible.
‘Murder,’ he said simply, slapping both his hands on the boy’s shoulders and making him jump. ‘Eleven to be precise. Most of them amongst the garrison, the Hussars if I recall; but a few ship hands – which I’m more concerned with.’
Another pause, whilst the news sank in. Kursk continued round the end of the table, and this time, stopped behind Hyrgen. Vandemarr took the short time to run a few scenarios through his head – this time implicating Hechter into the mix, who he had not yet considered part of the investigation. Memories of his former colleague, Lieutenant Codey, flashed through his mind; and in an instant, he acquired an unhealthy suspicion of the Commodore next to him. ‘I have called you both here for a number of good reasons,’ Kursk said, snapping the
Commissar from his musings, ‘all of which will no doubt become clear to each of you in time. For now it will suffice to give you the facts, and what I will request of you.’
Both men nodded their acknowledgement, and both reclined slightly. Hechter was even so bold as to rock back on the hind legs of the chair.
‘It started about four months ago,’ Kursk said, returning to the head of the table. ‘We were half way moving between Oberon Minor, where we’d just handed over the defence to the Marines, and Illythia. No real problems. There are splinter fleets all over this part of the galaxy – an unfortunate hangover from ‘Kraken – but we stayed in warp space for almost the full eight months, much longer than I had originally anticipated.’
‘Who was it on Oberon?’ Hechter asked, breaking Kursk’s monologue. The Feet Admiral looked briefly angry, before regaining his composure.
‘The Tyranids, naturally,’ he said, narrowing his eyes.
‘Why naturally?’ Vandemarr asked, also eager to get his foot in the door.
‘I had two decks full of men who had spent the best part of three months wiping out the damnable things on Oberon. You just can’t buy that kind of experience. Thankfully, Lord Marshall Tartovski was of similar mind, and was willing to wait the extra month or so it would have taken us to arrive, rather then send the nearest regiment which would have invariably been slaughtered. And though I am no great fan of the Imperial Guard, I’m a stickler for efficiency. Understood?’
‘Yes,’ Hechter nodded, ‘although it was risky leaving the planet for an extra month whilst infested with Tyranids.’
Kursk looked at the Commodore like he’d made a pass at his mother.
‘What I think the Commodore is saying, lord, is that the fault lies with the Tyranids, for the very crime of their nature,’ Vandemarr interjected smoothly, ‘which is of course, speed,’ He noticed Hyrgen cast his eyes heavenward in silent thanks.
‘Ah,’ Kursk said, clearly unconvinced but, for once, disinclined to make an issue of it. ‘Well yes, but you have to remember that these splinter groups are not the behemoths – if you’ll excuse the pun – which the great Hive Fleets were. Yes, some ground was sacrificed – but, actually, come to think of it, there was something else which you may find interesting; the splinter group that landed isn’t even behaving like you’d expect a normal horde to behave.’
Vandemarr blinked at the sudden change in the man’s direction of thought.
‘You’ll have to excuse me, Fleet Admiral, but I’m afraid I’m rather unlearned of the ways of the Tyranids.’ he lied, steepling his fingers in front of his mouth. ‘Would you…care to elaborate?’ Kursk took a deep breath.
‘Have you read any of the works of Inquisitor Carrax?’ ‘Yes,’ both Vandemarr and Hechter said in unison.
‘Well,’ Kursk fumbled briefly, slightly put off, ‘he likens the Tyranids to waves, with each successive assault like a wave breaking on the shore. They mass and hit the defenders, and then withdraw with their dead, and then mass and strike again. This is how it has been observed countless times before.’
Vandemarr nodded, feigning enlightenment.
‘But here, they aren’t doing that. Here they’ve actually…hm.’ He paused, evidently trying to think of the words. ‘It seems they’ve set up some kind of subterranean base camp. And they aren’t massing and devouring everything in their path, as is usual; rather they send forward a few hundred at a time, which invariably get slaughtered, and then retreat with their dead. It’s very, very odd.’
‘How many men have you got planetside?’ Hechter asked.
‘About four thousand.’ Hyrgen said from across the table. The Commodore nodded. ‘Have they even come close to overwhelming the Guard?’
‘To be honest, Mister Hechter, what happens on Illythia isn’t much of a concern to us,’ Kursk said, evidently tired of this particular line of questioning. ‘We pick up the odd signal here and there, but unless they want us for something – an orbital strike, a couple for atmospheric fighters or whatever, we seldom exchange. You’d have to speak to the Guard officers on board if you wanted any more information.’
Vandemarr watched the Fleet Admiral in the ensuing silence, and he found himself almost unable to decipher the man’s character. One moment he was open and willing to converse, the next he was irritable and closed-off. His mood changed so quickly that he was almost
impossible to follow.
‘You were telling us what needed to be done,’ he said.
‘Ah yes,’ Kursk replied, as if jolted from some distant memory, ‘the problem. Well, as I have said, it can be stated very easily. Eleven men amongst the garrison have been murdered – well, we assume murdered; we haven’t actually recovered the bodies,’
Hechter made to speak, but Vandemarr stopped him with a kick under the table.
‘Usually we wouldn’t care, but as I said, we’ve lost a few ship hands as well; and as I explained to Mister Hyrgen here, if the crew are aware of a man – or group of men, unchecked and abducting personnel at will, it will certainly make them think twice before traversing that dark corridor – of which there are plenty – to do his duty on the other side of the ship.’
‘So you want us to find out who it is and stop them?’ Vandemarr said, trying to cut a long story short.
‘Exactly,’ Kursk said, a smile briefly crossing his face. ‘I, naturally, am far too busy to deal with it; but Hyrgen here will be more than happy to show you around. He knows everything I know, so I’ll thank you not to bother me during your investigation. Is this clear?’
Both men nodded, though Vandemarr’s right hand balled into a fist under the table. He no longer wished to be in the presence of a man who had such a callous disregard for life. ‘Excellent,’ Kursk continued, as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. ‘In that case, I leave you in the very capable hands of my First Officer. Good luck, gentlemen.’
He turned to leave the room, and stopped just short of the door.
‘Come along, boy,’ he snapped. Bastian, their silent colleague, scramble off his chair and ran towards the Fleet Admiral.
‘Hell, I already dislike him!’ the old man said, by way of a joke. Vandemarr couldn’t even bring himself to fake a smile.
Chapter 9
‘Time is your best currency; spend it well.’ - Imperial Navy maxim
Illythia Ultima Segmentum
18:11 (local) 62.982.M41 ~Battle Plan ~
August swallowed as the four hundred men from 3 Company gathered before him – far more than he’d originally envisaged, and each one having expected Captain Tamas. Indignant in their enlightenment, they watched him grimly as he counted Lieutenants, none of whom had moved to the front rank, and when he was satisfied, he stood on a small crate so that the men at the back could see him. Behind, a purloined map of Galensbad rested on the track of a nearby troop transport, and he held in his hand a pencil nub for a pointer.
‘As you all know, Captain Tamas is dead,’ he half-shouted – as good a start as any. He searched for his next words, and decided that simplicity was the key. ‘And I am Captain August, your new OC ops.’
In front of him, sour eyes narrowed. He could almost hear their thoughts of resentment, though they remained dutifully quiet. Many of them were older than him, that he knew; but he consoled himself with the fact that he must have been promoted for a reason. He was an Imperial Hussar, and to be one meant to be one of a professional elite, a regiment of
Guardsmen whose history and proud traditions stretched back thousands of years. He would earn the respect of these men, on or off the battlefield.
‘It is sad, yes, and many will grieve for him,’ he continued with resolve, though he felt Udray wince at the delivery, ‘but right now we have a potentially large problem to deal with. HQ suspects Galensbad has been overrun, and they want us to investigate, and if necessary, retake it.’
He concluded his opening, and stood off the crate, whilst behind him a thrum of low chatter filled the late evening air. He reached the map and pointed the pencil at his sketchy
annotations.
‘HQ is going to contact us in…twenty-three minutes,’ he said, checking his watch, ‘which gives us about ten to reach the Gort line. From there, you’ll split into fire teams and take half a Chimera each, and deploy into platoons once we reach the southern perimeter fence. From there I want platoons one to seven to sweep and clear the western third of the hold, platoons eight to fourteen to do the centre, and platoons fifteen to twenty-one to sweep the east.’ He circled the three areas as he spoke, and was glad to note men writing them down. It was a very basic plan, and he knew that if they made contact with the enemy then things would go very differently for them; but for now he was more worried about making the stronghold by the deadline set by Taschen.
He checked his watch again.
‘We haven’t got much time, so I’ll assume you all still know how to perform a building
clearance,’ he said, not looking up. There were a couple of laughs. It hadn’t really been a joke, but he was thankful for them nonetheless. ‘In which case I suggest we move out. I’ll be with one platoon all day, so if they could form up one me now…’
He let it hang as the Company formed into platoons and moved out north, towards the Gort line. In front of him, one platoon sauntered up; a group of twenty Guardsmen, each one bearing the traditional strip of cloth on their firing shoulder to symbolise the 141st
Greenjackets. They looked tired and haggard, but at least there was some determination in their eyes. Or was it animosity?
‘I’m Karl August, this is Vox Officer Udray,’ he said, after they had gathered round. He was glad to have Udray with him. ‘I’m very happy to be here, I know that 3 Company is an excellent unit of men.’
If they felt any pleasure at the compliment, they hid it well. Instead they just stood, watching him with unreadable expressions.
‘So we’ll fall out with the rest. I just want to speak to the Lieutenant, now please,’ he said, slightly annoyed and put off by their silence. He suspected that demanding a welcome would only lose him more favour.
He watched as the men moved to rejoin the rest of the Company, and then turned back to the Lieutenant, who had remained where he was. He was as tall as August, with a mop of red hair and a thick red moustache. His face was lined with dirt and scars, and there was a worn look about him, like an over-read book. Like many of the men, he was older than August, though the Captain wasn’t yet sure if the man begrudged him for that.
‘Lieutenant,’ he said, proffering his hand. The man looked at if for a second, then grasped it warmly.
‘Piter Janus,’ he said, briefly smiling. August was immediately taken aback by the man’s good nature.
‘You’ll have to forgive me, Lieutenant,’ he said slowly, breaking into a walk, ‘but why are you the first man to talk to me?’
The man chuckled.
‘We have an old tradition in 3 Company,’ he said, as if he’d been waiting for the question, ‘where no man will talk to a new Captain until they’ve been in combat with him. A silly
outdated old thing now, but a lot of the men, as you have found out, still keep at it. Me, I think it’s impractical.’
August felt a flood of relief flow through him despite his bad mood. So it was some stupid ritual that was stopping the men from talking to him.
‘Don’t worry – they won’t do it when the fighting starts,’ Janus continued, allaying August’s immediate concerns, ‘they’re not stupid. Just old-fashioned.’
‘Where does this tradition come from?’
‘Oh, it’s a long story to do with Orks, and I’m not a good storyteller,’ the Lieutenant continued. August decided not to press him – he had more important things on his mind.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, before ducking under a line of red cord that separated the vehicle repair depot from the surrounding base, and quickened their pace towards the Gort line, where August could already see the plumes of exhaust from the waiting Chimeras. He was tempted to run, but he forced himself to feel a calm that wasn’t
forthcoming.
‘I tell you what though,’ Janus said suddenly, breaking the long silence, ‘building clearance against the Tyranids certainly doesn’t take my fancy.’
August said nothing, but nodded, wiping his sweaty palms on his fatigues. It certainly didn’t take his either.
Chapter 10
‘Better a dagger in the dark, than a thousand swords at dawn.’ - Assassin’s proverb
INS Black Manticore Ultima Segmentum 11:16 (ship time)
63.982.M41 ~Your quarters, sir~
They sat briefly in silence as the Fleet Admiral left. Across the table, Hyrgen, and their as of yet un-introduced companion – a red-headed Hussar – drummed fingers and tapped feet, waiting for either of the investigators to speak.
‘Let’s not waste any time then,’ Vandemarr eventually said, leaning forward. ‘I suggest you show me and the Commodore where we’ll be working and sleeping, eating etc., and then to the rooms of the missing men.’
He turned to their companion. ‘I’m Commissar – ’
‘Vandemarr,’ the Hussar liaison stood, offering his hand across the table. The Commissar took it. ‘Gygory Màhlav, 141st Imperial Hussars. Greenjackets,’ he said, indicating the stiff,
dark-green jacket over his fatigues. At his waist was an ornate sabre, and his epaulettes boasted a Major’s slides.
‘Ah, light infantry,’ Hechter said, standing and shaking the still proffered hand. ‘Kurt Hechter.’ ‘Pleased to meet you both. I’m acting as a liaison for the Hussars, although the Fleet Admiral seems to have overlooked me in his introductions. Probably for the same reasons he’s more concerned with two dead ship hands than nine of the Emperor’s finest Guardsmen,’ he concluded sourly, snatching a sidelong glance at the First Officer next to him. Hyrgen bridled. ‘You’ll all be sleeping and eating on the Officer’s deck, you’ll be pleased to hear,’ he interrupted. ‘The Fleet Admiral has organised it so that your quarters are next to the Vallen suite. It’s away from the bridge, and the engines, so there won’t be much noise to disturb you.’
It was obvious that the First Officer took little pleasure in the announcement, and Vandemarr, ever the politician, accommodated it.
‘Our regards to the Fleet Admiral,’ he said. Hyrgen offered another sour smile, and headed for the exit behind them – a large set of heavy wooden doors with the handles fashioned into a pair of bronze Aquillas. Vandemarr, Hechter and Màhlav dutifully followed, though the
Commodore was walking faster than the others – evidently wanting to press Hyrgen with more questions.
‘First Officer,’ he called as they entered into a wide passageway of white marble flooring, with a strip of luxurious red carpeting marking the walkway. The walls either side were painted green, with a banner of gold Aquillas midway up and were set with gilt-framed portraits.
‘Yes?’ Hyrgen called back, as if it were the hundredth question he’d been asked. If he thought he was going to get away with less, Vandemarr thought, he was in for a rude awakening. ‘Your Fleet Admiral said that the men had been murdered, but how do you know that if you’ve never recovered the bodies?’
