Lords of Blood, page 89
He idly flicked a few switches. ‘Whoever shut this down did a thorough job, there is no residual energy at all. All the batteries are drained, secondary power supplies are offline. This is definitely sabotage.’
‘It could be a scuttling,’ said Arael.
‘I do not think it is.’
‘Explain your reasoning,’ Arael said. He never missed an opportunity to teach. It annoyed Teus, even though he was wise enough to see how invaluable Arael’s experience was.
‘If you were going to scuttle your ship, then it would be best to blow the reactor, to harm your enemies and to prevent the ship falling into their hands,’ said Teus.
‘The same could be said of sabotage,’ said Arael. ‘So why is it sabotage?’
‘The nature of the opponent. There has been a battle here,’ Teus said. He stepped over the body of a tech-priest. Transmechanic specialisation badges showed through the coating of frost. The man had been torn apart. Afterwards, something had taken the time to sort his mechanical components and his organic parts into two distinct piles. ‘Very quick. They were taken by surprise. No projectile weapons loosed in here, melee only.’
‘What did it? Think it out, Teus.’
He went further around a corner. Piles of stripped bones were scattered over the deck.
‘The dead have been devoured.’
Alien bio-markers blinked on in his retinal displays.
He brought up his gun, raising the barrel until it pointed to the ceiling.
‘Genestealers,’ he said. ‘That is why the ship is intact.’
He recognised them as soon as he saw them. Two legs, four arms, a pair of hands that were horribly human, a human face on a bloated alien skull. He had fought them upon the Arx Murus before his apotheosis. His memories of the days before he was dragged from the sarcophagus were a jumbled mess, but he remembered these things, and he hated them.
They were hibernating out their transit across the stars, waiting for the moment some blundering salvager or incautious pirate woke them up to start the whole insidious cycle again.
One of them stirred. Yellow eyes opened in a corpse-white face. Clawed feet opened. Powerful legs bunched, and it pushed off from its perch. It turned as it came down at him, four arms outstretched for a deadly embrace.
Teus blasted it to pieces, then turned his gun on the others.
Chunks of xenos flesh ricocheted off the walls. Bright alien blood froze upon his armour. The genestealers died before they woke, their bodies floating in pieces around the enginarium. The detonations of bolts reduced them to chunks that spun and bounced as chaotically as the rocks in an asteroid field.
Teus didn’t stop firing until his magazine was empty.
Fyceline smoke floated across the enginarium, making strange patterns in the microgravity that showed as hot oranges in Teus’ heat sight.
‘Teus? Teus? Respond!’
‘I live,’ he said. He looked over his kills. ‘Four dead xenos. Ironic that they chose to come to Baal.’
‘There will be more,’ voxed Arael. ‘We cannot take on an infested ship on our own. Return to me immediately. We shall leave and call in a cruiser to obliterate it.’
A faint signification note sang in Teus’ helm. He brought up the details on his helm display.
‘Wait,’ said Teus. ‘I have a life signal, dormant, but human.’
‘Ignore it and return.’
A dozen more bio-signs were flashing into life, further out, all xenos. He calculated the distance between himself and the survivor.
‘I can make it.’
‘Negative, brother. Return.’
‘It is close by. I will investigate. It is our duty to save those we can.’
‘Teus!’
Teus ignored his mentor. The signal was faint, coming from outside the enginarium. He was forced to double back through the entrance, losing the signal in the process. He kept his guard up, his senses straining for any immediate sign of the xenos, but he found none. The alien markers in his bio-scanner remained far away. He took the starboard corridor, and soon regained a sensor return on the survivor, breaking into an awkward, maglocked run.
He went outwards, towards the edge of the ship, and stumbled upon the site of a massacre. There were bodies in the corridor – man, alien and twisted mixes of the both. Human soldiery in unfamiliar uniforms were iced together with the creatures that had killed them.
‘Soldiers,’ he voxed. ‘Looks like some sort of guard unit, ornate uniforms. Lots of dead xenos too. There was a big fight here.’
‘Teus…’ Arael replied. ‘I have multiple indications of hostile activity on the ship’s augur. Return!’
Life signs sang in Teus’ helm.
‘I see them. They have not spotted me yet. They’re still waking. I’m nearly there. The human bio-sign is at the end of this corridor.’
‘It could be a trap.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
The bodies were so tightly packed he was forced to disengage his maglocks and haul himself along the wall, his bolt carbine held one-handed before him. The bodies mounded up, forcing him to bend double. Thereafter they sloped suddenly away, half burying a makeshift barricade. There were fewer dead on the far side, and his way became easier.
The corridor terminated in a large airlock, the kind ships of that size used to dock with larger craft or void stations; big enough for cargo pallets, small enough to take passenger umbilicals.
It was closed, its orange paint covered with arcs of arterial spray. A lone soldier sat with his back to it, his legs stretched out in front of him. They were ruined by claw strokes. Pooled blood frozen black as tar glued him in place.
The man had his gun clasped to his chest. His head lolled forward, and his shako had fallen over sideways. A feathered cloak iced with blood clung to his flesh.
He wore a nameplate upon his hat. Teus read it.
‘Sergeant Ebasso.’
Teus nudged the dead man gently with his boot. He was solid with ice.
The signal was coming from inside the airlock. He peered through the small window set into the door. Inside was a pristine salvator pod wired up to some sort of equipment.
‘I’ve found the source of the signal,’ he said. Once more he was forced to hook himself up to the ship’s dormant systems. The door creaked loudly as he opened it. The dead man would not come loose and broke in half at the waist. Then the door slid open fully and his upper body was knocked free. It floated into the gap between the doors before bumping into them.
The noise was heard. Threat alerts flashed in Teus’ retinal display. Stealthy footsteps, automatically enhanced by his auto-senses, played loud in his ears.
It wasn’t much of a warning, but it was all that he needed. He pushed through the door, shoved the dead man aside, and pushed his hands hard against the metal.
According to his armour senses there were a dozen genestealers running at him, far too many for him to stop. He didn’t try. He’d kill a few and then they would swamp him. He had seen what their claws could do to Adeptus Astartes battleplate.
The unpowered doors ground closed slowly. The genestealers were luminous patches in the dark, moving swiftly. He looked up and his suit light glanced off a snarling face, quickly gone. Then the first of them was close by, scuttling along the wall. It leapt for him. With a final heave he slammed the door shut. The genestealer crashed into it, its hideous hissing deadened by the thick metal. It smashed its arms against the glass a few times, before a change came over it. Its face smoothed, and it dropped out of sight.
A sound of claws rasping at metal began.
‘Teus, report,’ demanded Arael.
‘I’m in the airlock. I have a dozen enemy. They are attempting to dig through.’
‘You should have obeyed me.’
‘It’s too late for that.’
‘Keep your head.’
‘I will not lose my head, brother,’ said Teus. He felt cold inside, dispassionate. He still expected fear. He felt none.
‘I can’t get a solid data link to your auto-senses. Describe what you can see.’
Teus turned around to examine the object he’d risked himself for. ‘There’s a salvator pod, an advanced unit with full animation arrest. The man inside is in suspension.’ He peered through the frosted glass. ‘Must be highborn. He looks young, richly dressed. There’s a battery hooked up to the pod, still live.’ Teus looked at the outer door of the airlock. ‘I have an idea. Get to the ship, bring it around.’
Arael made a sound of exasperation. ‘What number airlock are you in?’
‘Four,’ said Teus. ‘Fifteenth deck, aft section. It’s a big one.’
The noise of the genestealers hammering at the door was getting louder. Teus heard them screeching at each other, fighting for places at the metal facing so they could be first at the prey. Arael heard them too.
‘Be quick, or you’ll die.’
Teus yanked out the power feed from the salvator pod. Lights on its front flickered from green to amber. The pod’s power supply was exhausted, he didn’t have long before the emergency revival system kicked in. It didn’t matter. Either this would work, or they’d both be dead.
There was a socket in the door for power input and output. He twisted the battery feed into place, waited for the door console ready lights to activate. He pulled out a length of rappelling wire from his utility kit and looped it around the pod’s retrieval handles, tying it fast. He’d have to catch the pod if they were vented into space, or it stood a good chance of smashing into him and breaking open his armour.
The airlock system showed ready indicators. He pressed the release button. An error signifier showed on the small screen. An ugly noise accompanied it.
Teus looked behind him. The metal was being pushed inwards. Raised lines appeared on the door where claws scraped at it. A loud slam sounded. Three raised points appeared where a claw had nearly punched through.
‘They are almost in. The outer door is malfunctioning. I am going to have to crank it open.’
He searched for the manual release. He wasn’t familiar with the model of airlock and it took valuable seconds to find, during which time the pounding on the interior door increased. The metal deformed.
He opened the manual release by the simple expedient of crumpling the metal door in his fist and wrenching it off the wall. Inside, a small crank handle was held in place by a pair of brackets. A socketed wheel took the end. It was sized for human hands, and his mild wonder at his own strength was replaced with frustration as he tried to manipulate the fiddly object. It clicked home. He forced himself to wind it slowly in case he broke it in half.
The door cracked open. The small pocket of air contained within the airlock was sucked out instantly. Sound changed. The banging on the inner door receded to muffled thumps conveyed through the metal. He was confined in a silent world defined by his battleplate’s hum.
The door opened mercifully quickly. Within seconds it was wide enough for him to squeeze out, if he shed his power plant. But the pod would not fit. He had to get the doors open completely.
His auto-senses picked up a high-pitched whistling. Teus continued to crank the handle as he looked behind him. A claw tip had punched through the door and a white plume of gas geysered through the hole, hitting the far wall with some force. Teus cranked faster. A claw jammed into the hole, working at it dextrously, slicing it open like a knife would a ration tin.
Another breach in the door. A three-clawed hand punched clean through behind Teus. A blast of howling air buffeted him, knocking his hand off the delicate crank.
The holes widened. A bulbous alien head thrust through into the airlock, snapping its teeth, ovipositor sliding in and out of its jaws. Its face was covered with frost, but the vacuum and the cold had no effect on it. Genestealers could live for hours in hard vacuum, and would fight until they died from exposure if they had to.
The door ratcheted open. Teus grabbed the drag handles on the salvator pod. It was ten feet long, four wide, and massed at least a ton. He maglocked his boots to the floor and heaved. Air continued to howl out of the holes in the airlock, and would until the ship was voided. There were no functioning machine-spirits and no power to close up the ship’s bulkheads.
A genestealer forced its way half through the gap, tearing open its pallid flesh on the jagged edges. It screeched plumes of hot breath into the frigid void. Teus lifted his gun one-handed and put a bolt through its head. Its fellows immediately began to tear it apart so they could get at their prey.
The salvator pod refused to move. Teus yanked back hard, stressing his limbs and his war suit. He wished then for the greater strength boost Intercessor armour provided. Muscles tore. His armour whined loudly in his ears. He disengaged its safety parameters. Alarms peeped as fibre bundles overtaxed themselves and broke.
The salvator pod shifted on the metal. Teus leaned back from the movement, hauling for all he was worth, building up the momentum of the pod so that it finally came free. Getting it moving was the hard part. He grunted as he swung about and slung the pod into space.
He disengaged his maglocks before the line tethering him to the pod snapped taut, yanking him out into the open void. Billows of frozen atmosphere whirled him around. He fired off his bolt carbine on full automatic, the resulting force accelerating him away from the ship, but the line snapped tight again, and he and the pod began to orbit each other in a rapid spin.
The genestealers burst through the inner door, launching themselves straight out into space. It was said that genestealers were as intelligent as men, but they were slaves of the hive mind, and the needs of the tyranid whole compelled them to sacrifice themselves without a second thought.
A heavy body banged into him, jarring his gun from his fist and sending his orbit around the pod into wild swings. A moment of desperate fighting ensued. The xenos beast tried to wrap its lower arms around him while the upper, wickedly sharp claws smashed into his battleplate. Only their spinning saved him. The genestealer struggled to hit him accurately. The tips of its plate-breaking claws skidded off his armour.
Teus punched the thing in the midriff, cracking its chitinous exoskeleton with the force of his fist alone. Somehow, he got his combat knife out of its sheath and rammed it up through the creature’s chin, skewering the brain.
The pod continued spinning. The ship blurred past his vision, each revolution granting him the sight of genestealers floating out of the ship, arms waving like those of insects trapped in oil, and gas spewing from the side of the vessel, the force of it sending the ship into a slow spin also. He sent out bursts from the stabilisation jets mounted on the top of his backpack, but their force was too feeble to counteract the mass of the wheeling pod. Every reduction in speed was minute, and followed by the line snapping taut and hurling him out again.
He was racing away from the craft, into the depths of interplanetary space. He lost sight of the vessel. The bright dots of the Baalian trio and distant Kheru blurred by.
‘Arael, Arael!’ he voxed. ‘I am outside the ship with the survivor. Arael! I am drifting.’ He felt no fear of death. The Sanguinary Priests had promised him he would not feel fear of any kind. They were right, but he was ashamed that he should die in so ignominious a way.
Something bright flared at the edge of his vision. A proximity alarm wailed in his helm. A mag grapple clanged onto his armour, bringing him to a rapid, painful stop. The rappel line yanked hard and snapped, sending the pod racing away on its own course like a bullet released from a sling.
‘I told you to come back to the ship,’ said Arael. ‘I’m winding you in. Then let’s get after this survivor you almost died saving. I cannot abide a wasted effort.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE CHAPTER COUNCIL
As the master of ceremonies read through the names of all present in the Chamber of the Great Red Council, Dante let his mind wander. A hundred concerns troubled him, problems of the mind that accompanied the hundred aches and pains of his injured body.
Most of the faces on the Chapter Council were new. It had been several months since Cawl’s Gift had brought the Chapter from the brink of extinction to full strength, and although Dante was learning the foibles and talents of each of his new captains quickly, as yet he felt he did not have the measure of them. What was true for the Blood Angels was equally true for their successors. Ranking officers in the system were invited to the council meeting. Most of the Chapter Masters and captains among the Blood were replacements, either Primaris Marines arrived with the crusade, or veteran brothers promoted out of the ranks, and in both cases Dante knew them little. Members of the reinforced Flesh Tearers, Angels Encarmine and the Angels Sanguine predominated, with representatives from several other Chapters besides.
Dante had commissioned the Chamber of the Great Red Council for the gathering of the Blood before Leviathan struck. It had been despoiled along with the rest of the Arx Angelicum. Little was contained within its huge hall that would have been of interest to a predator, but the tyranids had treated the Chapter spitefully. No piece of art or commemoration was left untouched. Everywhere they had torn down the monuments and destroyed the art. Large sections of the chamber were screened off. There was centuries worth of work in the Arx Angelicum to repair the damage.
Those who believed the tyranids to be beasts put the destruction down to animal savagery. More enlightened souls suggested the hive fleet saw, without understanding, ways to break their prey’s morale. These sages maintained emergent behaviour drove everything the hive fleets did, produced by interactions between uncountable components: intelligent, but unthinking.
Dante knew differently. He had seen into the hive mind. He knew it was sentient. He knew what had happened to the Blood Angels was vendetta, and that the invasion had been launched for reasons of vengeance as much as strategy.
