Soul Drinkers 06 - Phalanx Read online

‘I have nothing to say,’ said Sarpedon. ‘Certainly

  nothing that will change any fate you have in mind for me.’

  ‘I could have executed you on Selaaca,’ said

  Lysander. ‘Remember that the next time you bemoan your

  fate.’

  The window slammed shut. Lysander was correct. He

  had defeated Sarpedon face to face on Selaaca and few

  servants of the Imperium would have had any compunction

  about killing him out of hand.

  Sarpedon turned back to the desk and took up the

  quill again.

  I have seen, he wrote, that our present and future, the

  mark we will leave on the galaxy, depends on the

  insistence of one misguidedly honourable man to execute

  us in accordance with the word of law.

  Is this a mockery by the galaxy, to condemn us by

  the virtues of another? I could decide it is so. I could curse

  the universe and rail against our lot. But I choose to see

  the Emperor has given us this – a stay of execution, a few

  moments to have our say before our peers – as a gift to

  those who served Him instead of the Imperium.

  What can we make of this? What victory can we mine

  from such a thin seam? It is the way of the Astartes to see

  victory in the smallest hope. I shall seek it now. My

  brothers, I wish I could speak with you and bid you do the

  same, but I am isolated from you. I hope you, too, can see

  something other than despair, even if it is only a thought

  turned to hope and duty when the end comes.

  Seek victory, my brethren. I pray that in your souls, at

  least, the Soul Drinkers cannot be defeated.

  ‘THRONE ALIVE,’ HISSED Scout Orfos. ‘Such death.

  Such foul xenos work.’

  The surface of Selaaca rolled by beneath the

  Thunderhawk gunship. Through the open rear ramp the

  grey landscape rippled through ruined cities and expanses

  of tarnished metal, obsidian pillars rising from deep valleys

  choked with pollution and the shores of black, dead seas

  lapping against shores scattered with collapsed buildings.

  The human presence on Selaaca was now no more

  than scars, the ruined crust of a long-dead organ. The

  necrons had built over it, vast sheets of metal, pyramids,

  tomb complexes and patterns of obelisks which had no

  discernible purpose other than to mark Selaaca as a

  planet that belonged to them.

  ‘Dwell not on the xenos,’ said Scout-Sergeant

  Borakis. He was old and grizzled where the Scouts were

  young, his voice gravelly thanks to the old wound on his

  throat, his armour festooned with kill-marks and trophies

  while the Scouts under his command were not yet

  permitted to mark their armour. Borakis leaned towards the

  open ramp, gripping the handhold mounted overhead. ‘It is

  not your place to seek to understand the enemy. It is

  enough to know only that he must be killed!’

  ‘Of course, Scout-sergeant,’ said Orfos, backing away

  from the ramp.

  The Thunderhawk flew down low over a range of hills

  studded with obelisks and pylons, as if metallic tendrils

  had forced their way out of the ground to escape the bleak

  gravity of Selaaca. Patterns of silver like metal roads

  spiralled around the peaks and valleys, and sparks of

  power still spat between a few of the pylons.

  ‘We’re closing in on mark one,’ came the pilot’s voice

  from the cockpit of the Thunderhawk. The crew were two of

  the thousands of Chapter staff and crew who inhabited the

  Phalanx, a vast support network for the Imperial Fists’

  campaigns. Using star maps developed by the Adeptus

  Mechanicus, the strike cruiser Mantle of Wrath had

  penetrated further into the Veiled Region than any Space

  Marine craft before it, to follow up the information extracted

  by the Castellan during his interrogation of a Soul Drinkers

  captive.

  The ground rippled as the Thunderhawk hovered down

  low to land. The landing gear touched the blasted earth

  and Borakis led his squad out. Borakis and his four Scouts

  deployed with the speed and fluidity that years of training

  had given them, spreading out to cover all angles with bolt

  pistols. Borakis carried a shotgun as old and scarred as

  he was, and in his other hand checked the auspex

  scanner loaded with the coordinates the Castellan had

  given him.

  ‘Laokan! Take the point! Orfos, you’re watching our

  backs. Kalliax, Caius, with me.’ Borakis pointed in the

  direction the auspex indicated, over the dead earth.

  Once, these hills had been forested. Stumps and

  exposed roots remained, shorn down to ground level. Up

  close the pylons looked like spinal columns worked in

  steel, blackened by the haze of pollution that hung

  overhead. The obelisks were fingers of a substance so

  black it seemed to drink the light. A faint hum ran up

  through the ground, the echo of machinery far below.

  ‘The xenos have not departed this place,’ said Orfos

  quietly. ‘This world is dead, but these xenos never lived.’

  ‘It is an ill-omened world,’ agreed Scout Caius. ‘I hope

  our work here is quick.’

  ‘Hope,’ said Borakis sternly, ‘is a poisoned gift, given

  by our weaknesses. Do not follow hope. Follow your duty.

  If your duty is to fight on this world for a thousand years,

  Scout-novice, then you will give thanks to the Emperor for

  it. Move on.’

  The squad moved down the hillside into a narrow

  valley where mist coiled around their ankles and the valley

  sides rose like walls of torn earth. The auspex blinked a

  path towards a formation of rocks that would have been

  completely uninteresting if it had not corresponded to the

  location given by Brother Kaiyon under interrogation. On

  closer inspection the rocks formed two pillars and a lintel,

  a doorway in the valley wall blocked by a tangle of fallen

  stone.

  ‘Charges,’ said Borakis.

  Brother Kalliax crouched by the rocks, setting up a

  bundle of explosive charges. The cog symbol on his right

  pauldron signified his acceptance as an apprentice to the

  Techmarines of the Imperial Fists.

  ‘What do you see, Orfos?’ said Borakis.

  ‘No movement, sergeant,’ replied Orfos, scanning the

  crests of the valley ridges for signs of hostiles.

  The intelligence on Selaaca’s hostiles was sketchy.

  The Imperial Fists had fought the necrons before, but their

  inhuman intelligence made the xenos impossible to

  interrogate and their goals could only be guessed at.

  Selaaca’s necrons were, according to the interrogated

  Soul Drinkers, a broken and leaderless force, but there

  were certainly necrons still on the planet and no telling

  how they might have organised themselves since the

  Imperial Fists had captured the Soul Drinkers there.

  ‘Ready,’ said Kalliax.

  The Scout squad backed away from the entrance and

  Kalliax detonated the charge, blowing the blockage apart

&nbs
p; in a shower of dirt and stone. The blast echoed across the

  valley, shuddering the valley walls and starting a dozen

  tiny rockfalls.

  ‘Move in,’ said Borakis.

  Laokan moved through the falling earth, his bolt pistol

  trained on the darkness revealed between the lintels. The

  darkness gave way to dressed stone and carvings inside.

  The walls of the passageway were carved with

  repeating chalices, intertwined with eagles and skulls. The

  squad shadowed Laokan’s movement as he crossed the

  threshold into the passageway.

  The floor shifted under his feet. Laokan dropped

  instinctively to one knee. A line of green light shimmered

  over him and a camera lens winked in the ceiling as it

  focussed on him.

  ‘Bleed,’ said an artificial voice.

  Laokan backed away slowly. The lens stayed

  focussed on him.

  ‘Bleed,’ repeated the voice.

  ‘Stand down, Scout,’ said Borakis. He walked past

  Laokan and drew his combat knife. The blade was as long

  as the sergeant’s forearm, serrated and etched with lines

  of Imperial scripture. Borakis’s Scout armour, much less

  bulky than a full suit of power armour, had an armoured

  wrist guard that Borakis unbuckled from his left arm. He

  drew the knife along his left wrist and a bright scarlet trail

  ran down his hand.

  Borakis flicked the blood off his hand into the

  passageway. It spattered across the walls and floor.

  ‘Astartes haemotypes detected,’ said the voice again,

  the lens this time roving over the sergeant.

  Light flickered on along the passage way, lighting the

  way deep into the hillside.

  ‘We’re in the right place,’ said Borakis. ‘Follow me.’

  Borakis and the Scouts entered the hillside, pistols

  trained on every shadow.

  The Mantle of Wrath had two missions over Selaaca.

  The first was to deliver the Scout squad to follow up the

  Castellan’s intelligence. The other was to begin the

  destruction of the Soul Drinkers.

  The Mantle was one of the better-armed ships in the

  Imperial Fists fleet, but for this mission its torpedo bays

  had been stripped out and replaced with high-yield charges

  normally used for orbital demolitions. The Mantle did not

  have long to wait in orbit over Selaaca before its target

  drifted into view, its massive bulk darkening the glare of

  Selaaca’s sun.

  Few Imperial Fists would ever need more proof of the

  Soul Drinkers’ corruption than the Brokenback. Many a

  Fist had fought on a space hulk, one of the cursed ships

  lost in the warp and regurgitated back into realspace

  teeming with xenos or worse. The Brokenback was as

  huge and ugly a space hulk as any had seen, hundreds of

  smaller ships welded into a single lumbering mass by the

  tides of the warp. Imperial warships ten thousand years old

  jostled with xenos ships, vast cargo freighters and masses

  of twisted metal that bore no resemblance to anything that

  had ever crossed the void.

  Thousands of crew on the Mantle prepared the torpedo

  arrays as the strike cruiser manoeuvred into position.

  Damage control crews were called to battle stations, for

  while the Brokenback was unmanned no one could be

  sure of what automated defences the hulk might have. As

  the Mantle approached firing position, the Imperial Fists

  officers and the unaugmented crewmen waited for the

  space hulk to leap into life and rain destruction from a

  dozen warships onto the Mantle of Wrath.

  The hulk’s weapons stayed silent. A spread of

  torpedoes glittered against the void as they launched from

  the Mantle, leaving ripples of silvery fire in their wake.

  Defensive turrets, which would normally have shot down

  every one of the torpedoes, stayed silent as the first

  spread impacted into the space hulk amidships.

  Bright explosions blossomed against the void, flashes

  of energy robbed of power an instant later by the vacuum.

  Shattered chunks of hulls floated outwards in clouds of

  debris, leaving open wounds of torn metal in the side of the

  Brokenback.

  The space hulk was too big for a single volley, even of

  the high-yield demolition charges, to destroy. The Mantle

  of Wrath pumped out wave after wave of torpedoes. One

  volley blew an Imperial warship free of the space hulk’s

  mass and the ship span away from its parent, trailing coils

  of burning plasma and revealing the twisted steel

  honeycomb inside. Ruined orbital yachts and xenos fighter

  craft tumbled out of the rents opened up in the hull.

  Moment by moment, the whole Brokenback came

  apart. Selaaca’s gravity drew the fragments down and the

  whole hulk rotated. The volley had opened up a weak point

  in the depths of the hulk’s mass and an enormous section

  of the stern bent away from it, dragged down towards the

  greyish disc of Selaaca.

  The Brokenback could not resist orbital decay any

  longer. Its idling engines, which did the bare minimum of

  work to keep it in orbit, failed as plasma reactors collapsed

  and power systems were severed. Over the course of the

  next few hours the stern of the hulk was scoured by the

  upper atmosphere and broke away entirely, followed by

  millions of chunks of debris raining down onto the planet.

  Like a dying whale the rest of the Brokenback lolled over

  and fell into the gravity well of Selaaca, gathering speed as

  it fell, its lower edges glowing cherry-red, then white, with

  friction.

  The Brokenback disappeared into Selaaca’s cloudy

  sky. Most of it, the Mantle’s augurs divined, would come

  down in one of Selaaca’s stagnant oceans, the rest

  scattered over a coastline.

  The Mantle of Wrath had fulfilled one of its duties. The

  space hulk Brokenback was gone, and no renegade would

  ever use it to resurrect the Soul Drinkers’ heresies.

  The only duties keeping the ship over Selaaca was the

  Scout squad currently deployed on their service. Soon

  they would return, and the Mantle would leave this forsaken

  place behind forever.

  BROTHER CIAUS DIED first.

  The walls folded in on themselves, revealing rows of

  teeth lining the inside of a vast bristling throat. Caius had

  been the slowest to react. The rest of the squad threw

  themselves into the alcoves along the tunnel, which each

  contained statues of Space Marines with their armour

  covered in the ornate chalice of the Soul Drinkers. Caius’s

  leg had snagged on the spikes and he had been dragged

  down the throat as it rippled and constricted, the sound of

  grinding stone competing with the tearing muscle and

  bone.

  Caius did not scream. Perhaps he did not want to

  show weakness in his final moments. Perhaps he did not

  have time. When the corridor reformed, Caius’s vermillion

  blood ran down the carvings and no other trace of his body

  remained.
/>   Borakis hissed with frustration as Caius’s lifesigns

  winked out on his retinal display.

  ‘Caius!’ shouted Orfos. ‘Brother! Speak to us!’

  ‘He is gone, Scout,’ said Borakis.

  Kalliax held his bolt pistol close to his face, his lips

  almost touching the top of the weapon’s housing. He

  crouched in the alcove opposite Borakis. ‘Repaid in blood

  shall every drop be,’ he said, face set.

  ‘First, your duty,’ said Borakis. ‘Then let your thoughts

  turn to revenge.’

  ‘This place was a trap!’ replied Kalliax. ‘I should have

  seen it. By the hands of Dorn, why did I not see it? Some

  mechanism, something that should not be here, it should

  have been obvious to me!’

  ‘If you think you killed our brother,’ said Borakis

  sternly, ‘then take that pistol and administer your

  vengeance to yourself. If not, focus on your duty. This

  place was a trap, but it was not placed here in isolation. It

  protects something. That is what we have come here to

  find.’

  The sound of breaking stone came from the alcove in

  which Brother Laokan had taken cover. The remnants of

  the alcove’s statue toppled into the tunnel and smashed on

  the floor.

  ‘Speak, novice!’ ordered Borakis.

  ‘Through here,’ said Laokan. ‘This is a false tunnel.

  Behind this wall is another way.’

  Borakis braced his arms against the alcove walls and

  kicked hard against the statue. The wall behind gave way

  and the statue fell into the void beyond, revealing long, low

  space lit by yellowish, muted glow-globes set into the

  walls.

  ‘Follow, brothers!’ said Borakis.

  Kalliax and Orfos kicked their way through the false

  wall and followed the sergeant into the hidden space. They

  had not yet completed their transition into full Space

  Marines but their strength was already far beyond that of a

  normal man.

  Up ahead of Borakis was a chapel with an altar, at the

  far end of the long room. The ceiling loomed down low,

  hung with stalactites that had formed from water dripping

  down. The altar was a solid block of grey stone topped

  with a gilded triptych depicting Rogal Dorn standing in the

  centre of a battle scene.

  Borakis took the point himself this time. Now he knew

  there was danger here, he had a duty to place himself in

  its way, for part of his duty was to see his young charges

  safely back to the Chapter.