The capsule shuddered, AI chiming in alarm and thrusters struggling to realign. Angry light bloomed in the viewportal, little more than a flicker that was gone in a moment. It happened again and he frowned, confused. Above, high on the architectural mountain, bright pinpricks of las-fire and shrapnel flak stabbed from the vessel’s vaulted, pitted hull, detonating spectacularly around the ghostly arrowheads of tau fighters that soared past, burst cannons dissecting great blocks of obsidian armour. Another petal of fire oozed past him, close, and he realised with a quickening heartbeat that the gue’la were firing at the hail of capsules as well as the fighters.
He’d imagined this, tau’cyrs ago, after the simulations. He’d imagined rumbling artillery, a constant drone of blossoming explosions and the shuddering chaos of running the firebelt gauntlet, watching helplessly as his comrades were plucked from the air like irritating insects, wondering whether he’d be one of the lucky ones.
He hadn’t imagined the silence, the stillness. At any moment he could fly apart in a suffocating ball of shrapnel and fiery laser heat — singeing and freezing and detonating all at once — and he’d never see it coming. Until then he was a rodent, sealed in a s’peiy-bottle and cast adrift at sea, never knowing if it would reach the shore or perish, always expecting but never anticipating the jaws of a t’pel shark around it.
Drift with the current. Be not concerned with that which you cannot control.
A snippet from the D’havre meditation. He’d never remembered the rest.
“Ten raik’ans.”
He took a final, heartstopping glimpse through the viewportal as the launch bay swallowed him, a gun-metal blur of tunnel lights and shadows. The capsule chimed, volume growing.
“Brace,” it chirped, the artificial voice sounding bored.
It shuddered heavily, passing through the field generator separating the atmosphere-rich interior of the hangars from the hard vacuum beyond. There was silence for a brief moment before the capsule hit the deck with a galaxy-splitting crump. It bounced and skidded.
There was noise and pain. There was tumbling and spinning and splintering. There was nonsensical, blurring insanity through the viewportal.
And finally, after an eternity of madness, there was stillness.
Librarian Delpheus’s prediction had been correct, it would seem.
Ardias armed his bolt pistol with a cold rasp and stamped into the briefing hall. A servitor’s mechanised drone piped again and again across the vessel’s internal vox.
“All hands to repel boarders. All hands to repel boarders. All hands to repel boarders. All hands to—”
Ardias punched the speaker and resisted the urge to grin savagely as fragments of plasteel tumbled past him. Even in wanton destruction there must be discipline.
“Aal... nds to re... borrrrrrr... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzkk.”
“I heard the first time.” he grunted.
The assembly of company sergeants and veterans chuckled under their breaths, arranged in a perfect line. He turned to face them, gratified that their mirth instantly hardened to resolve.
“Brothers... Do you stand ready for battle?”
“Aye!” they chorused, clashing weapons against breast plates in perfect unison, faces glowing with martial pride.
“The company?”
Veteran-Sergeant Mallich took a clipped half step forwards. “It stands ready, brother-captain. Chaplain Mulvarius is intoning battle rites as we speak.”
“Good.” It had been a hundred years since his elevation beyond the rank of sergeant, but Ardias slid back into the posturing, parade-ground-inspection routine with ease. He kneaded his knuckles thoughtfully. “Brothers... In consulting with Admiral Constantine I have made a troubling discovery. We are not alone in our secondment aboard this vessel.” A few brows dipped, confused. “A full company of Space Marines of the Raptors Chapter, it would seem, shares our assignment.” He sighed, annoyance palpable to the listeners. “I neither understand nor care why we were kept ignorant of this, but questions will be asked of the Navis Nobilite, you may count upon it. One does not attract the Ultramarines with claims of goodwill, then insult them by bolstering their strength with lesser warriors. I know little of the Raptors, brothers, but their reckless disregard for the Codex is legendary.”
The veterans shook their heads angrily, muttering beneath their breaths. The Codex Astartes — composed by their Chapter’s primarch Roboute Guilliman — detailed the correct conduct and attitude of a Space Marine in any given circumstance. To Ardias and his kin it was more than a behavioural manual; it was sacred.
“They have been petitioned by the admiral to guard strategic points of the vessel. Engines, generarium, command deck and so on.”
The veterans’ discontent grew, flashing angry glances at one another, clearly insulted. “Captain? Why them?”
“A pertinent question, Sergeant Mallich — and one to which I have no answer. The Raptors were clearly forewarned of whatever trouble these navy fools have landed themselves in. They requested — and were granted — operative duties, before I was even made aware of the situation.”
“They’re unreliable, brother-captain!”
“I share your ire, brother, but we must be calm in the face of this insult. We must demonstrate that one does not garrison a company of Ultramarines then ignore them, Emperor’s tears!”
The veterans’ chant pounded at the air. “Aye!”
Ardias narrowed his eyes, voice suddenly cold. “When the Raptors make mistakes — and they will, brothers, have no doubt — we must be there to lead the way. We must show the children of the Imperium that a single Ultramarine, with his mind and heart filled with the words of blessed Guilliman, is worth any twenty firebrand Raptors.”
The storm of assent was deafening, the officers roaring and calling out prayers in the Emperor’s name, ringing their fists against their armour. Ardias basked in it, letting it wash over him.
“I want squads positioned at strategic points throughout this ship. Stay in contact and avoid confrontation with the Raptors. If you find yourself challenged, refer them to my vox. True warriors of Macragge brook no interference from loose cannons with no respect for the Codex! Is that clear?”
“Aye!”
“That’s all, brothers. Courage and honour! Move ou—”
Wait!
Ardias turned to the doorway with a frown. He disliked interruptions.
Librarian Delpheus staggered into the briefing room clumsily, supporting himself against the wall. His face was pale and wan, sweat collecting on his cable-pocked brow. The psychic hood glowed dully, like a faltering illuminator. Ardias’s ire turned immediately to concern and he rushed forwards to support his comrade.
“Delpheus? Brother, what’s wrong?”
“Another vision...” The librarian was gagging on his words, eyes rolling. Ardias had never seen him like this. “M-more signs. More pictures. The masked fiend, revealing itself...” He was sweating, suit’s thermal regulators struggling to equalise his temperature.
“Brother... I don’t understand. You’re not making sense.”
“The masked fiend. The masked fiend. The masked fiend...”
Ardias glanced at the sergeants, watching the display with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. Delpheus’s goggle-eyed loss of dignity was far removed from the Ultramarine way of life, and suspicion towards mutants — even those of incalculable value to the Chapter — was deeply ingrained in the creeds of the Codex.