Purple-armoured Marines moved across the battlefield. 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 recommended Solun for the mission instead, knowing the younger Techmarine was an expert in information 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 automatic 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 control APCs and light vehicles.’
Sarpedon grabbed the cowering Phrantis Jenassis 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 depression, 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 revolving on its roof and twin banners flying - one for the Arbites, one for House Jenassis. 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 Space 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 shell large enough to leave even Sarpedon a smouldering crater.
'We will fight you if you make us,' called Sarpedon, 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 assault 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 assembled Arbites, he dragged Phrantis Jenassis 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 survive. 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 communication across the Imperium. Sarpedon's enhanced sight picked out the man's blind, sunken eye sockets 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 authority 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 brimming 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 Imperial 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 spaceship docks supported on great stone and metal columns riddled with hive setdements, and now followers poured from the cultist-held spaceports towards the throne plaza of their saviour. Millions passed 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 masses. Teturact looked back down from a palanquin held aloft by four massively muscled bearers, immense muscles rippling, their bodies subsumed to Teturact's will. The brute-mutant bearers 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 masses.