The circumstances were beyond extraordinary. So was Koorland’s plan.
‘He is asking us to become something new,’ Abathar said.
The squads were born of death, and their mission was death. They would be a lethal blade beaten to a point in the forge of tragedy.
Abathar watched the shadows on his armour, darkness shifting over black. The shadows appeared to him to be the shadows of his lost brothers. The fallen of Ullanor called to Abathar and to all the Adeptus Astartes making ready to wage war in a new way. Look upon us, they said. Witness us, and strike in our name. See our death, and stand guard in our stead. See our death, and visit it upon our enemies.
Born of shadow, Abathar thought, we become shadow. We are the eye of death.
He knew what he must do.
‘Continue,’ he said to the serfs. ‘But the armour needs new colours.’
The man and woman looked at each other, then at Abathar, confusion spreading over their features.
‘Restore the right pauldron,’ Abathar said. It must remain as it was, the icon of the Dark Angels pristine, the pride of brotherhood and Chapter still announced to the universe. ‘Paint the rest black.’
‘Lord?’ the woman said again.
‘You heard me.’
It had been over a thousand years since the Chapter had worn black livery. This darkness would be different, Abathar thought. It was the black of mourning. The black of anger.
The black of the death witnessed and delivered.
Koorland found the Fabricator General in the laboratorium of the Cathedral of the Saviour Emperor. Kubik was examining Magneric’s data-feed again. When he saw Koorland approaching, he gestured to the three tech-priests attending him. They bowed and withdrew through doors at the far end of the chamber, angular limbs pistoning under their robes as they left.
Kubik turned off the feed as Koorland approached. ‘What do you wish, Lord Commander?’ he asked.
‘I want to talk to you about the ork teleportation technology. I want us to use it against the attack moon.’
‘That will not be possible,’ said Kubik.
‘Because it won’t work?’
‘The Adeptus Mechanicus is not the Departmento Munitorum, Lord Commander.’ The voice was flat, mechanical, inhuman. And still it was contemptuous.
‘Are we to rehearse our grievances once more?’ Koorland asked. ‘I had hoped we had put them in the past for the sake of the Imperium. You did not deny us the use of the gravity weapons on Caldera.’
‘That technology was deployed by the adepts of the Mechanicus in that conflict. I heard no mention of their presence in your proposal.’
‘Nor did I make one.’
‘Then we have no more to say.’
‘I’m surprised, Fabricator General. The teleportation of a body as large as the attack moon holds no interest for you, then?’
Kubik’s stillness was the closest thing to uncertainty Koorland had ever detected in the High Lord.
‘You are not planning to use the technology as an augmentation of our current teleportation capabilities?’
‘No. Not primarily. We are going to teleport the moon out of this system.’
Kubik hesitated. It frustrated Koorland that he could not tell if the Fabricator General was evaluating the feasibility of the plan or formulating a lie.
‘The possibility of success is minimal,’ Kubik said at last. But he seemed less resistant now. He was being captured by the challenge of the problem.
‘Why?’
‘Our understanding of the technology is imperfect. Our adaptation is partial. The teleportation of Phobos was limited to repositioning it within its established orbit. The energy expenditure was of a magnitude very rare in a single action, requiring considerable resources on Mars. You wish to move a much larger body a much greater distance. We cannot transport the energy sources of Mars to the attack moon.’ There was a squeal of binary. ‘I amend my estimation. The operation is impossible.’
‘We used the orks’ energy sources against them on Caldera. We tapped into their grid to power the gravity weapon. We will do that again now.’
Kubik straightened in interest and surprise. ‘Employ the attack moon’s power to generate its own teleportation?’
‘Precisely.’ Koorland was aware of Kubik’s optics examining him closely.
‘The proposal is intriguing,’ said Kubik. ‘It has the merit of providing a testing ground for our advances.’
‘It isn’t a proposal,’ Koorland said. ‘It’s an order.’
Kubik regarded him in silence, except for the low hum of servo-motors and calibrating sensors.
‘This is what must be done,’ said Koorland. ‘We will neutralise the ork base once and for all. The Council has been too generous with regards to the desires of the Mechanicus. You had your chance to study it. Now here we are, with the orks on our doorstep once more, and the Navy falling before them. You have no more choice in obeying this order than I have in issuing it.’
Kubik’s digits flexed and curled, flexed and curled. He said nothing.
He was still silent when Koorland left. But he had not refused again.
The initial muster for the kill-teams was held in the Monitus. Abathar had no difficulty in understanding the choice. The hall, with its statues of all the loyalist Legions, represented the ultimate unity of the Adeptus Astartes. He saw meaning in its position, so high above the Great Chamber. It was here, too, that Vulkan had shamed the High Lords. It was a fitting place for the beginning of the new venture, and of a very particular kind of unity. One, he had heard tell, that the High Lords feared.
He arrived alone, following the orders of Grand Master Sachael.
‘You are Dark Angels,’ Sachael had told the survivors assigned to the kill-teams, ‘but for the length of this mission, you will also be something else. You will fight with warriors you might have regarded as strangers, in any other situation. You cannot do so now. You will join them as brothers. So you must arrive at the Monitus alone. In this manner, you are not departing a squad or a company. You are joining something else.’
Abathar reached the top of the Stilicho Tower and entered the Monitus. He slowed as he approached his assigned position toward the centre of the balcony. He was not the first to arrive. A figure was standing at the rail, next to the Ultramarines statue, looking down at the roofs of the Imperial Palace. The right pauldron showed the icon of the Space Wolves.
But the armour was black. Abathar stopped three paces away. The Space Wolf heard him and turned around. Abathar faced the weathered, bearded features of Asger Warfist. The Wolf Lord blinked in surprise.
Neither Space Marine spoke. They acknowledged the importance of the moment with a solemn silence. Then Abathar said, ‘This is not chance.’
Warfist nodded slowly. ‘It is fate.’
When Abathar had entered the Monitus, there had been the low, echoing murmur of conversation. Now the sound was fading. Abathar saw Warfist’s eyes shift, looking past him to the rest of the hall. They widened. Abathar turned.
There were more warriors in black armour. Abathar counted four others. Not many, but enough to be significant. Enough to prove the truth of Warfist’s words. Fate was at work here. Its hand was visible to every warrior in the Monitus.
All conversation ceased. The only sound was the rap of boots against marble as the Space Marines in black moved to their positions. They were the focus of attention in the hall. Abathar felt the force of a dozen gazes fall on him. He was not troubled by the scrutiny, for he was as astonished as everyone else. He stared as hard as any of the others.