Part 6 (1/2)

Governors rea.s.sured their people that the Navy and the Guard would soon blaze into the warzone and puncture the heart of Teturact's pestilent realm. They were also in the throes of preparing hermetically-sealed bunkers in case the plagues reached them.The Imperium was, in many ways, constantly at war - but around the empire of Teturact, war was a stifling, sinister shroud draped over hundreds of worlds and billions of people. Fear swamped the minds of billions. They said that Eumenix had fallen, so who knew where would be struck next?

Interstellar traffic was quiet and the s.p.a.ce lanes heavily monitored. Travel between systems had to be sanctioned by the Imperial authorities, with no exceptions. But there were always those who tried to make themselves exceptions - smugglers running supplies between quarantined worlds that they would sell for a huge mark-up, deserters escaping from the warzone, and the usual criminals and degenerates who fled from the Imperium during routine times. Most were picked up or destroyed, but some as ever got through.

And some were almost completely invisible. It was difficult enough to catch ma.s.sive cargo s.h.i.+ps slipping in and out of the warp in the quarantined systems. It was next to impossible to see them when they were fighter-sized craft - a fraction the size of the smallest Imperial warp-capable s.h.i.+p. But the shoal of craft that slipped through the darkness around the Stratix warzone were not Imperial.

They were alien fighters; their faintly sinister organic lines contained powerful vortex reactors that could push them into and out of the warp. It was dangerous, there was no doubt about it. No one really knew which xenos species had built the fight-ers, and the handful of captured Navigators who directed the squadron through the warp were, through necessity, not the best. But it was worth it. If they achieved what they set out to do, the risk was worth it.

Sarpedon looked out on the star-scattered dark-ness from the first fighter's c.o.c.kpit. He wasn't even sure it was a fighter - when Techmarine Lygris had shown Sarpedon the fleet of bizarre craft on one of the Brokenback's many flight decks, the s.h.i.+ps were empty of any ordnance or weapons save those that could be extruded from the s.h.i.+ps' hulls. Instead, Lygris had fitted out the s.h.i.+ps with grav-couches so each could carry a payload of Marines. It was an enormous risk, transporting almost the entire Chapter on s.h.i.+ps that traversed the warp by means the Techmarines couldn't begin to understand. But it was the only way - the Brokenback couldn't have hoped to slip into the warzone.

Inside the fighter the cold, bulbous forms of the bridge were an odd silvery colour with a sheen of sinister purple. The Chapter serfs at the controls -some of the few survivors of the Chapter's break with the Imperium and the battle on the Brokenback - worked the fighter's instruments by moving their hands through pools of molten metal like strangely-hued quicksilver. The basic readouts had been translated from amorphous alien runes, but most of the information that ran across the irregu-larly shaped readouts was indecipherable. The s.h.i.+p was almost crus.h.i.+ngly non-human - corridors twisted and the mysterious vortex generators were strange organic shapes like seed pods or the sh.e.l.ls of sea creatures. The air was only breathable because of the filters and purifiers that pumped oxy-gen through vents that had once held gases toxic to humans. The inhabitants had evidently been taller but thinner than humans, as the ceilings were high and everything was narrow.

'What are our coordinates?' Sarpedon asked the Chapter serfs.

The serf at the navigation controls didn't look round as he replied. 'We're on top of the meeting point, Lord Sarpedon.'

'Give me the fleet vox.' Another serf dipped a hand into a s.h.i.+mmering pool of metal and Sarpedon was connected to the other nine fighter craft. 'All craft, be on the lookout for Dreo. We cannot wait here long.'

Somewhere in that band of stars across the sky was the corrupt heart of Teturact's empire. Some-where far more distant was Terra, the equally corrupt heart of the Imperium. The galaxy out there was utterly immense, and beyond it was the warp, a whole dimension of horror that bled into real s.p.a.ce every time mankind jumped between the stars. Against it all the Soul Drinkers stood, utterly alone, a little less than seven hundred warriors who were, even after all their alterations and training, still ulti-mately men.

It was almost liberating for Sarpedon to look on the sheer vastness of the fight, and to know that he had made a conscious decision to go on fighting.

'Signals, commander.' came a voice over the vox. It was Techmarine Lygris, who had managed to acti-vate some of the strange sensor devices that jutted from the prow of his fighter. 'It's weak. They must be low on fuel.'

'Do you have a visual?'

A few moments pa.s.sed, and then a film of liquid metal bled across the air and an image swam onto it. A shuttle limped painfully through s.p.a.ce, one of its engines flaring as it died. Its hull was pitted with corrosion and streaked with burns from laser fire. It was a private craft designed for short hops between planets - not agonising hauls between systems. It must have taken months to get this far from Eumenix. There was no guarantee that any normal human could survive such conditions.

'Lygris, direct us in. I'll dock with them.'

'Understood. You realise any one of them could be infected.''If they're infected then the prisoner will be dead, and we might as well be. Besides, I need to debrief them myself Lygris directed the serfs on Sarpedon's fighter to fly towards the battered shutde. A section of the fighter's hull bulged outwards and burst like an ulcer; glob-ules of liquid metal flowing into one another until they formed a smooth tunnel that latched onto the side of the shuttle like a hungry leech.

The metal formed a sharp, biting edge and began to bore through the hull of the shuttle.

A pressurised pocket formed in the hull of the fighter as the metallic bridge became airtight, and the wall formed an airlock. Sarpedon was there as soon as it had fully formed. 'Squad Hastis, Squad Karvik, meet me at the airlock. You too, Pallas.'

The smell of stale sweat exhaled from the flower-like airlock as it opened and the two Marine squads joined Sarpedon. The air inside the shuttle must have been barely breathable.

'Any communication from them?' voxed Sarpe-don.

'None.' replied Lygris from his own craft. They're not receiving, either. Their comms must have gone down.'

Sarpedon peered into the darkness at the end of the airlock tunnel. A figure moved from the shad-ows, and slowly limped into the tunnel.

It was Sergeant Salk. His face - usually youthful compared to the Chapter's battle-scarred veterans -was now sunken-eyed and emaciated. His armour was tarnished and he walked as if it weighed him down.

We lost Captain Dreo.' he said hoa.r.s.ely. 'Karrik and Krin made it. Nicias died in the shuttle. We lost Dreo and the rest on the planet.'

Sarpedon had seen dozens of good Marines die, but his heart still sank. Captain Dreo was perhaps the best shot in the whole Chapter, and a fine level headed soldier. It was his nerve that had held in the confrontation with the Daemon Prince Ve'Meth, and his command that had riddled Ve'Meth's host bodies with bolter fire. That was why Sarpedon had trusted him with the Eumenix mission. Now he was gone, and another Soul Drinker would never be replaced.

And the prisoner?'

'Survived.'

Salk waved forward another Marine - Sarpedon recognised it as Krin, who normally carried Squad Salk's plasma gun. Now he carried the sleeping body of a woman, tiny in his arms. Her clothes had once been the rust-red robes that signified the rank of a Mechanicus Adept but now they were charred and filthy. She was short and boyish with a square face mostly obscured by the pilot's rebreather unit she wore.

Apothecary Pallas took the limp body from Krin. He consulted the medical readouts on the back of his Narthecium gauntlet, the instrument that would enable a blood transfusion and, if necessary, administer the Emperor's mercy to those beyond help. Now it gave him an overview of the woman's condition.

'She's badly malnourished.' he said. 'Semi-conscious. We have enough of an apothecarion on Karendin's s.h.i.+p to help her.'

'Can she speak?'

'Not yet.' I________ Sarpedon recognised her as the much younger woman from the Stratix Luminae files. In them she could be seen ducking in fear from the bolter fire as the Soul Drinkers of a decade ago stormed the labs to drive out the eldar pirates. Now she was much older, with lines around her eyes and her hair shaven at the back of her neck to accommodate the sockets drilled into her skull.

Somewhere in Captain Korvax's mission reports there was a staff roster for the installation, and from these records Sarpedon had learned the woman's name - Sarkia Aristeia. She was then an adept infe-rior, just one step up from a menial but one of the only staff members that the Soul Drinkers could locate. It was strange to finally see her when acquiring her had cost so many lives - she seemed such a small and inconsequential thing. Sarpedon had fought dae-mons and monsttous aliens for over seventy years as a warrior, but she was a vital part of Sarpedon's plan, and without her the Chapter was lost.

Was Sarkia Aristeia worth the deaths of Captain Dreo, of Aean, Hortis, Dryan and the giant Nicias? If a hundred other vital victories were won, then yes. But there was so much still to do, and the hard-est fights were always ahead.

'Stabilise her and take her to Karendin.' said Sarpedon to Pallas. 'I need to question her as soon as possible.'

'Perhaps it would be wisest if Chaplain Iktinos...' began Pallas, with slight awkwardness.

'Of course.' said Sarpedon, realising the Apothe-cary's point. 'She must have seen enough monsters on Eumenix, there is no need for her to see another.' Sarpedon had been imposing enough before he had become a mutant and the sight of him now would probably have knocked Aristeia unconscious again. 'LetIktinos talk to her.'

Pallas carried the woman to the crew compart-ment so he could examine her properly. Karrik emerged from the shuttle, his armour charred black. His face was burned badly and, like Salk's, emaci-ated in a way that was uncharacteristic of a Marine.

'How was Dreo lost?' asked Sarpedon.

'Sentry gun.' replied Salk. 'He blew open the lower entrance of the outpost and was the first in. The Mechanicus had stepped up their security, the whole planet was on the slide by then.'

'And the others?'

'Nicias died on the way here. He had multiple internal injuries and there were only emergency medical supplies on the shuttle. We used those for the woman. Nicias went into half-sleep and never woke up. The rest were killed in the a.s.sault or lost when we broke into the s.p.a.ceport.'

'How long have you been adrift?'

'Three months. According to the mission plan it should have been longer, but Eumenix went downhill fast and we had to get off. Then again, I don't think she'd have survived the shuttle any longer. The food ran out a week ago. The air had been excessively recycled so she couldn't breathe properly and we were down to our last rebreather filter.'

'The astropathic traffic we have seen suggests there was a plague on Eumenix. Do you or your Marines show any symptoms?'

Salk shook his head. 'Nothing. The conditions were bad there but we haven't brought anything back with us.

And it was more than a plague, com-mander. It was something that rotted the mind. The whole hive had gone mad. Maybe even the whole planet. The dead were walking the streets and the living were butchering one another. It was as well we moved when we did. We would never have got Aristeia off the planet otherwise.'

'You have done well, Salk. With Dreo gone your chances were very slim.'

'I cannot help but feel his death was too high a price to pay, commander.'

'High, but not too high. I cannot tell you what we are fighting for, Salk, but you must trust me when I say it is worth anything we sacrifice. Dreo will be remembered for his part in our coming victory, but if we do not win it then none of us will be remem-bered. You and your men should transfer to Karendin's s.h.i.+p with the prisoner. He and Pallas will fix you up.'

The two squads returned to their quarters and the ragged remains of Squad Salk headed for the dock-ing bay where they, along with Aristeia would be transferred to the infirmary.