Bleeding Chalice Part 4

Sarpedon skittered on his altered legs close to Sergeant Krydel. Krydel was a tactical squad sergeant whose squad had distinguished itself when the Daemon Prince Abraxes had manifested on the Brokenback, and he had a reputation for utter unflappability. From the front Sarpedon could see the huge marble architecture opening up into a central gallery, exposed to the darkening sky and surrounded by elegant columns of jade. The open s.p.a.ce was several hundred metres across, and in the centre was a raised circular structure of white stone. 'Solun?' voxed Sarpedon.

'The auspex reads plenty of activity,' replied the Techmarine. 'There's a lot of electronics beneath us. This place must have its own power source.'

Sarpedon led the Soul Drinkers across the stone, leaving a handful of Marines as a rearguard. Graevus hauled Phrantis Jena.s.sis to the front alongside Solun.

'Open it.' demanded the Techmarine.

'What do you want with it? What are you?' gasped the patriarch.

'Permission to do this the old-fashioned way?' said Graevus, unclipping a handful of anti-armour krak grenades from his belt.

'Granted.' replied Sarpedon. Phrantis was hauled away as Graevus planted the grenades at seams between the blocks of the circular structure, then fell back.

The grenades went off with a sound like a string of gunshots, kicking a haze of marble splinters into the air.

Phrantis whimpered as the stone sh.e.l.l of the Galactarium, wonder of the Imperium, fell away The Galactarium was an extremely complex con-struction of strange dull grey metal and glistening black psychoplastics, nests of concentric circles and spinning globes on delicate armatures. Slowly it unfolded like the legs of a spider, rings spinning, sections rotating, like a huge armillary sphere that blossomed to fill almost the whole courtyard. Beneath the gathering clouds the rings and arma-tures spun faster and faster until points of light began to shimmer in the air as if conjured. Strange shadows played around the a.s.sembled s.p.a.ce Marines as stars and constellations bloomed into existence above them.

'Hastis, secure this structure.' voxed Sarpedon. 'Solun, get to work.'

The Techmarine ran beneath the spinning mecha-nisms towards the centre of the Galactarium. Already the map was solidifying in the air - a star map, the largest and most comprehensive ever con-structed. The Imperium was too vast to ever be properly mapped, and no one had ever managed to even catalogue its inhabited worlds. But attempts had been made, and the Galactarium was the clos-est thing to success the Imperium had. There were few places not represented on the immense stellar map now spherically projected around the Galac-tarium.

The Galactarium was the pride of House Jena.s.sis; it was spoken of with reverence amongst fellow Navigators and the Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator commands alike. It was a dangerous target because taking it left the Soul Drinkers momentarily visible and vulnerable, but it was the Chapter's only hope.

'Commander?' came a vox. It was Sergeant Hastis, leading his squad back across the grounds from the palace. 'We've got contacts. Arbites, coming in from the dome entrance. I count seven vehicles heading for the palace and five moving towards your posi-tion.'

'Understood. Do not engage, get back here and help maintain our perimeter.' 'Acknowledged. Hastis out.'

Sarpedon did not want to kill anyone here. There was no need. But if he had to, he would, and he knew his battle-brothers would do the same.

Solun drew threadlike cables from the interfaces in his armour and plugged them into the base of the Galactarium. The huge map display was flicker-ing and a new image was ghosting over the starscape. It showed a low building set into frozen tundra, obscured by gun smoke and ringed by ditches and barricades.

It moved jerkily as the recorder moved closer, explosions flashing, armoured alien figures returning fire and spasming as silent bullets. .h.i.t them.

Purple-armoured Marines moved across the bat-tlefield. They were Soul Drinkers, from the lost days before the break with the Imperium. The Marine carrying the recorder glanced up at the night sky...

...The night sky above was clear and cold, and through it streaked a missile from Squad Veiyal...Solun paused the image. The night sky of the planet was transposed over the Galactarium map to form a smeared mess of stars. The Galactarium stars suddenly whirled and Solun's eyes went blank as the mem-plates on his armour filled up with stellar data and his mind was flooded with star maps.

Solun would have to be quick. Sarpedon didn't even know if he could do it. Techmarine Lygris was one of Sarpedon's most trusted companions, and Lygris himself couldn't have done it. He had rec-ommended Solun for the mission instead, knowing the younger Techmarine was an expert in informa-tion and its manipulation. If Solun's mind was unable to cope with the storm of information flooding through it, he would be reduced to a drooling infant in a Marine's body.

'Taking fire.' came a vox from Hastis. Light auto-matic fire chattered in the background.

'Squad Krydel will cover you from the temple.' replied Sarpedon.

'I see them.' voxed Krydel from amongst the columns at the front of the temple. 'We've got a hundred plus, Arbites riot officers with five riot con-trol APCs and light vehicles.'

Sarpedon grabbed the cowering Phrantis Jena.s.sis and hauled him with him as he sprinted towards the sound of bolter fire, the seven chitinous talons and single plasteel bionic clattering on the marble. He saw them through the columns, a dark line of Adeptus Arbites lining the crest of the depres-sion, spread between the trees. Adeptus Arbites officers maintained the laws of the Imperium and were equipped with fearsome anti-personnel weaponry and body armour. They were well drilled and ideologically motivated.

They could not just be broken, they had to be thoroughly defeated.

Gunfire flashed down towards Squad Hastis, the ten-man tactical squad running down the tree-lined path towards the temple. Sergeant Krydel yelled an order and his squad's bolters opened up as one, sending lances of fire stripping leaves from the trees and keeping Arbites ducked below the ridge.

Squad Hastis reached the temple and added their fire to Krydel's. An Arbites APC, based on the Rhino APC pattern, rode over the crest and opened fire with twin heavy stubbers. Bullets kicked fragments from the marble columns and rang off Marines' armour.

Sarpedon watched as a command APC emerged from between the trees, a large antenna dish revolv-ing on its roof and twin banners flying - one for the Arbites, one for House Jena.s.sis. The top hatch opened and a judge emerged, eagle-crested helmet silhouetted against the grey sky.

'Cease fire!' yelled Sarpedon. The gunfire stopped.

A vox-caster was brought out of the APC and mounted on the vehicle's roof. The judge took the handset.

'Intruders!' boomed the voice from the vox-caster. 'Cast down your weapons, release your captives, and surrender to the Emperor's justice!'

Sarpedon glanced back into the temple. The Galactarium map was pulsing, closing in on one star system at a time and then wheeling to show a different one. Solun was twitching as information seethed through him.

The battle-brothers had to buy him more time.

Sarpedon strode out from between the columns. He knew what he looked like - the Arbites would see a mutant. And they were right. He wore the gold-chased armour of a s.p.a.ce Marine Librarian and carried a nalwood psychic rod in one hand, with an artificer-crafter bolt gun and the Imperial eagle still emblazoned across his chest - but Sarpe-don was still a mutant. He hoped the Arbites wouldn't open fire on principle alone.

He motioned for Squads Hastis and Krydel to stay in cover as he moved into the open, still dragging Phrantis. He counted about thirty Arbites sheltering in the trees, with many more doubtless waiting on the reverse slope. Another APC rumbled into sight, this time with a breech-loader that would fire a sh.e.l.l large enough to leave even Sarpedon a smoul-dering crater.

'We will fight you if you make us,' called Sarpe-don, his voice booming through the heavy silence. 'Every single one of you will die. Or you can turn around and leave. You have no business with us, we are no longer beholden to Imperial law.'

'Release your prisoner and come out unarmed.' replied the judge on the vox-caster.

'Graevus?' voxed Sarpedon quietly. 'Do we have a match?'

'Solun's close,' replied the a.s.sault sergeant. 'He's got a lock on three stars.'

Sarpedon glanced over his shoulder. He could just see the whirling circle of stars that filled the Galac-tarium chamber. Turning back to the a.s.sembled Arbites, he dragged Phrantis Jena.s.sis out from behind him and held him down on the ground in front of him with his front two legs. He took his boltgun from its holster and pressed the tip of the barrel against the back of the Navigator's head.

This man is worth more than all of your lives put together.' called Sarpedon. 'If we leave, he will sur-vive.

If you bar our way, he will not.'The judge did not reply. He ducked back into the APC for a moment before the hatch opened again. This time, it was not the helmeted judge who appeared but an astropath, one of the powerful telepaths who provided faster-than-light communi-cation across the Imperium. Sarpedon's enhanced sight picked out the man's blind, sunken eye sock-ets and the puckered, prematurely aged skin of his face.

The astropath's voice wavered as he spoke into the vox-caster. It was clear from the artificiality of his tone that the voice he spoke with was not his own.

'Commander Sarpedon.' spoke the voice. 'Do not end it with such futility. These men are under my authority and will kill you at my order. You and your battle-brothers are under arrest by the author-ity of Inquisitor Thaddeus of the Ordo Hereticus.'

FOUR.

For all they cared, Teturact had always been there. There had never been anything else. If they had any recollection of their lives before the plague took them, it was just a washed-out memory, whereas now their lives were illuminated by the light from Teturact, the saviour, the way.

On a hundred worlds he had come to them, and saved them from the ravages of disease. He had taught them not to fight it but to accept the plague, to make it a part of themselves and draw on its power. The agent of their death had, with Teturact's word, become the foundation of their life. To forge worlds, hive planets and feral worlds he had come and saved them all. And they would follow him to the end of the galaxy. Because of him they were no longer dying but br.i.m.m.i.n.g with life, so full of seething vitality that it wept from their pores and seeped from the cracks in their skin.

Teturact had first appeared to them on the Imper-ial Navy dockyard world of Stratix. Now, all those who could be spared made the pilgrimage to the seat of his power. It was a world of gargantuan s.p.a.ceship docks supported on great stone and metal columns riddled with hive setdements, and now followers poured from the cultist-held s.p.a.ce-ports towards the throne plaza of their saviour. Millions pa.s.sed his throne in a seething pestilent throng, gazing up with their cataracted eyes to the top of the black stone pillar that lifted him above the ma.s.ses. Teturact looked back down from a palanquin held aloft by four ma.s.sively muscled bearers, immense muscles rippling, their bodies subsumed to Teturact's will. The brute-mutant bear-ers contrasted with Teturact's own frail, wizened body, and yet power seemed to flow from him. His thin, ancient-looking face radiated wisdom and his long, fragile fingers reached down benevolently as he bestowed his blessing on the ma.s.ses.

Teturact ruled an empire a dozen systems across, and he ruled them utterly. His servants carried orders to whole worlds of the faithful, who obeyed as one, without question. The Imperium, who had betrayed and abandoned them, was trying to reclaim their worlds but Teturact, in his awesome wisdom, was calling upon his followers to mire the Imperial armies in planet-wide battlezones and give up their lives for the glory of their saviour. The fleets of warships docked at Stratix had been turned into groups of fast raiders and fireships, breaking up the Imperial Navy spearheads. The Imperial armouries were stripped and used to turn hordes of grateful infected into loyal armies that rose up to slaughter the Imperial Guard that approached their cities. With their deaths, they would keep the empire of Teturact inviolate. There was no better way to die.

The empire included the Stratix system itself, and the forge worlds of Salshan Anterior and Telkrid IX. It encompa.s.sed the mineral-rich asteroid fields that circled the blue dwarf star Serpentis Minor. From naval shipyards, to agri-worlds that produced enough to feed those of his followers who still needed to eat, Teturact controlled enough resources and manpower to force the Imperium into a war that could last for centuries. The empire of Teturact was not due to fall for a very long time.

The empire of Teturact flickered by on the grand Galactarium, its diseased star systems whirling around the superimposed image from the pict-recording. Gradually individual stars locked in place over the image, until the star map and the night sky recorded over the outpost were identical. Sergeant Graevus ran over to Techmarine Solun, who was reaching feebly for the wires plugged into the back of his head. Graevus unplugged the wires and Solun's eyes flickered back into focus.

'Did you find it, brother?' asked Graevus.

'Stratix Luminae.' said Solun. 'Oudying the Stratix system. It's still there untouched, it was never setded.'

The Arbites have caught us up. Can you fight?'

'Always.'

'Good. Follow me.'

Sergeant Graveus and Techmarine Solun were still heading from the Galactarium chamber towards the front of the temple when the gunfire began.

Sarpedon had known the Inquisition would find them eventually - the Soul Drinkers were excom-municate,and Sarpedon had personally killed the Inquisitorial envoy who had delivered the sentence to the Chapter.

But if the Ordo Hereticus could only have stayed off the scent just a little while longer, instead of finding the Chapter at their most vulnerable.

But they were implacable and intelligent. Inquisi-tor Tsouras, who had been outwitted by the Chapter in their escape at the Cerberian Field, had been lit-tle more than an enforcer, a thug who used his authority to bully and coerce. Thaddeus, though, must be a subtler and more patient man. It was an enemy Sarpedon did not need, not now when the whole Chapter needed to act with speed and secrecy. But Sarpedon had always known he would have to face the Inquisition again.

The first shot was from an Arbites sharpshooter, a cold-blooded killer and a good officer. His sniper-fitted autogun sent a bullet through the right eye of Phrantis Jena.s.sis, blowing the back of the old man's head apart and leaving him a dead weight in Sarpe-don's hand. The order had probably come from Inquisitor Thaddeus himself - the hostage repre-sented Sarpedon's sole advantage, and that advantage had to be removed. The authority of the Ordo Hereticus exceeded even that of the Navigator House to which the Arbites precinct was bound.

Now the other officers had no reason not to open fire on the mutant who faced them. The pintie-mounted weaponry on the APCs sent shots raining down and Sarpedon scutded to the side just in time to miss a cannon shot that ripped a hole in the ground and nearly blew him clean off his talons. The Arbites were mostly armed with short-ranged shotguns designed to break up riots, but those with longer range used them - sniper fire and shrapnel from grenade rounds spattered off his armour and lacerated the skin of his legs as he dropped the twitching body of Phran-tis Jena.s.sis and ran to the cover of the temple.

The body of Phrantis Jena.s.sis flopped to the ground. His ragged turban fell off and his glossy black warp eye, now blind and harmless, stared blankly at the sky.

'Thin them out and fall back!' Sarpedon ordered Hastis and Krydel as he headed back towards the Galactarium.

Gunfire ripped out of the front of the temple and scoured the slope as the Arbites advanced. Their shotguns were useless over open distance but once in the temple they would be ideal for blasting around cover, so the riot details advanced through the bolter fire coming from the two Soul Drinker squads. Sarpedon had given his Marines time to pick their targets, but a cannon shot blew one of Squad Krydel to pieces and volleys of small arms fire from the sharpshooters and APCs soon made it impossible to size up targets at will. As the first shotgun blasts sent splinters of marble showering from the pillars, Hastis and Krydel yelled at their men to fall back into the body of the temple, following Sarpedon towards the court-yard.

The Galactarium was frozen, its sphere now show-ing only the night sky of Stratix Luminae. It was strange to finally give the place a name. But if the Soul Drinkers could not get that information off Kytellion Prime, it would mean nothing.

Graevus's squad was at the edge of the courtyard, with Solun alongside them. Solun was apparently alive and capable of fighting, which was just as well. If the Arbites judge had any sense he would send officers with grenade launchers onto the roof of the temple to rain frag and krak grenades onto the Soul Drinkers as they fought the Arbites coming in through the front. And in a spot like that Sarpedon needed all his battle-brothers fighting.

'We will defend this s.p.a.ce and try to break them. Hastis and Krydel will be the front line - Graevus, you are our reserve.' Sarpedon pointed towards the machinery of the Galactarium. 'Destroy it.'

Graevus yelled an order and an a.s.sault Marine ran towards the Galactarium, unhooking a large metal canister - an anti-armour melta-bomb - from his backpack. Squads Krydel and Hastis were a.s.sembling at the entrance to the courtyard, shotgun shrapnel following them as Hastis stopped his squad, turned them, and began to direct their fire against the Arbites storming in between the columns. Sarpedon added his own fire, snapping a shot into the stomach of one officer and sending others ducking back behind the columns with a volley of bolts.

A series of ma.s.sive explosions ripped from the front of the temple, throwing a cloud of earth and marble dust into the interior. Squad Krydel was caught in the storm of shrapnel and fell back, pur-ple armour chalked with the white dust.

'Demolition charges.' voxed Hastis. 'They've brought down the front of the temple.'

'More cover for the advance.' replied Sarpedon. 'We have no fields of fire. We'll have to fight them toe-to-toe. Graevus?'

'Commander?'

'Counter-attack on my word.'

'Understood.'

There was a pause as the dust cleared. In the pause Sarpedon could hear the creaking as themelta-bomb's detonation seared through the machinery of the Galactarium and sent the huge metal construction sagging. The image twisted and flickered, and suddenly the star field was gone, to be replaced with the marble architecture of the temple. Sarpedon quickly scanned the edge of the roof around the opening to the courtyard - no Arbites waited there, but they would appear soon, to keep the Soul Drinkers pinned down while the other officers engaged them through the rubble.

Gunfire erupted between Squad Krydel and Arbites using the fallen chunks of marble to close with the Marines. Sarpedon saw Sergeant Krydel, power sword flashing, wading into the fight. Squad Hastis was backing them up, snapping bolter shots into the Arbites who ducked out of cover to loose off shotgun blasts.

Sarpedon holstered his bolter even as a scatter-ing of blasts scored the floor armour him. He gripped his nalwood force staff with both hands and felt the psychic fire spiralling around him, forming a circuit of power that ran from the heart of his brain to the squirming nalwood in his fist. He was still a little nervous of the power inside him - he had always been strong but since the ter-rible events on the unnamed world and the Brokenback his psychic powers boiled hotter than ever, bubbling away in his subconscious and demanding a release.

A release like this. Like the h.e.l.l.

He focused his psychic power and forced it out-wards, trained by the lens of his mind into images created to inflict pure terror. Shrieking, bat-like shapes dropped from above to tear through the Arbites on trails of crimson fire. Sarpedon concen-trated and forced more from his mind until a whole swarm of them coursed through the Galactarium temple.

'Daemons!' someone yelled. The Inquisition probably suspected the Soul Drinkers were wor-shippers of Chaos, and had warned the Arbites to expect a daemonic threat. If they feared daemons, that was what Sarpedon would give them.

The h.e.l.l, the psychic power that had caused Sarpedon to enter the ranks of the Chapter's librar-ium, ripped into the Arbites. It was a storm of nightmares, drawing images of terror from the minds of its targets and sending those terrors swarming around them. Sarpedon was a telepath who could transmit but not receive, and his power had been honed by the librarium and his own willpower into a mental weapon the likes of which few Librarians had ever possessed. Physically it was harmless, but psychologically it was devastating. In the wreckage of the temple the effect was magnified, as Arbites out of sight of their fellow officers were pounced on by flying horrors that howled as they whipped their coils through the air above them.

Arbites were firing into the air. Many were panick-ing - Arbites were ideologically trained to a degree that the best Imperial Guard units could not boast, but few of them had faced daemons. Or, for that matter, a psyker as trained and powerful as Sarpedon.

'Graevus!' yelled Sarpedon 'Attack!'

Squad Graevus ran through Squads Hastis and Krydel, and Sarpedon went with them. Sarpedon had seen to it that all Soul Drinkers had been trained against the h.e.l.l through simulated battle-fields on the Brokenback, so they would not be broken by it as their enemies were. Graevus sprinted into the enemy, power axe flashing in his mutated hand. His a.s.sault Marines sent sprays of bolt pistol fire into the Arbites that was followed up with their chainblades, cutting through riot armour as if it wasn't there.

Sarpedon was in a split second later, his altered legs carrying him over a chunk of fallen marble and into the Arbites sheltering behind. He focused his power into the force staff and swiped the weapon through the first knot of Arbites he saw. He saw himself reflected in the black gla.s.s visors of their riot helmets as he sliced right through two of them at once. One officer still stood - Sarpedon impaled him with his forward leg, the bionic one, punching through his chest and flinging him back over his head.

Sergeant Graevus darted round the slab of marble and cut down the officer trying to bring his shotgun to bear on Sarpedon. All around bolter sh.e.l.ls were blazing, cutting orange traces of fire through the air.

The din of battle was hot in Sarpedon's ears - he could hear Arbites officers yelling, trying to find one another, give orders, or just scream at the monsters hurtling at them from the air.

Squad Graevus cut through the Arbites savagely. Arbites on the roof fired down not into battered, pinned Marines but into Squad Hastis, who returned fire instantly and sent the broken bodies of launcher-armed Arbites falling to the floor of the courtyard. By the time Squad Graevus reached the front of the temple, well over a hundred Arbites were dead, wounded, or hopelessly scattered.

The Soul Drinkers followed the fleeing Arbites out of the temple and into the grounds, knowing there were still enough officers left to regroup and attack again if they were given the chance. Squad Graevus quickly disabled the Arbites APCs with krak grenades while Squad Krydel took pot shots at the Arbites scattering into the gardens.

'Leave the crews.' said Sarpedon. 'I don't want more dead than there have to be.' He spotted the commandAPC on the slope near the ridge and quickly crossed the bullet-scarred earth. He hol-stered his force staff and ripped the side hatch off the side of the APC.

Inside sat the astropath. The old man showed no fear.

'You have one more message to send.' said Sarpe-don. Tell Inquisitor Thaddeus that we are not what he thinks we are. I know he cannot let us go free, but ultimately he and I are on the same side. If it comes down to it, I will have to kill him in order to continue our work. He will understand what drives us, because it is the same thing that drives him.'

The astropath nodded silently. Sarpedon left him in the APC and voxed his squads in the temple.

'The fighters cannot reach us in the dome. We need to get out onto the surface for pickup. Follow me.'

Sarpedon let the lifesign runes for the three-squad force flash onto his retina. Squad Krydel had lost two Marines, while Squad Graevus had lost one in the thick of the fight with the Arbites. Three more that could not be replaced within the foreseeable future. Sarpedon knew that many more would be lost before the harvest could begin and the Soul Drinkers could rise again.

But now they knew, at least, where they had to start. Stratix Luminae. With that information, they were one step closer to survival.