forty standard, though with wind chill it was closer to minus seventy. Banks of spotlights lit up the
ice directly in front of the colossal vehicle. Fog rose from the moon’s surface and the wind sent
eddies of snow and ice particles ripping across the flows, rendering visibility almost non-existent.
The crawler was immense, over fifty metres long and almost twenty metres high. Its wedgeshaped
hull sat upon eight sets of tracks, each more than five metres wide and powered by massive
engines.
High up within the control booth of the crawler, Foreman Primaris Solon Marcabus reclined on
his well-worn padded seat, his heavy boots up on the dash. He sucked in a long drag on his lho stick
and closed his eyes.
“I’ve decided I don’t much like people,” Cholos said, from the steering rig. “Too much damn
trouble. I’ll take transporting ore yields over people any day.”
Solon grunted in response, exhaling a cloud of smoke. The expansive cargo holds below were
filled to the brim with desperate evacuees. Perdus Skylla was being abandoned in the face of
imminent xenos invasion, and it had fallen to the crews of the ice crawlers to aid in the evacuation.
In return, they would receive double pay for this ran. Small comfort, thought Solon, if they didn’t
manage to secure a berth off-world.
The cabin was small and stuffy, and the stink of Solon’s ashtray, brimming with lho stubs, was
strong. He was jolted back and forth as the crawler continued to make its way through the darkness,
but he was well used to that. Rosary beads hung above Cholos, and they swung back and forth
wildly as the crawler drove slowly over an embankment.
“Guilders,” spat Cholos with a shake of his head, “think they are so much better than us. Treat
us like shit all these years, but who is it that comes to bail them out? Us. And do we get a word of
thanks? Nope. Just complaints. “It’s too cold, it’s too hot, there’s not enough room, the water tastes
funny’. You’d think the bastards would be thankful. Makes me sick.”
Solon grunted again.
“That sergeant, Folches, is the worst of ’em,” said Cholos. “Left those people back there to die.
That is one cold son of a bitch.”
“Nice to hear I made an impression,” said a voice.
Cholos visibly jumped. Solon sighed and slowly opened his eyes. He dropped his feet from the
console dash and spun his chair around towards the door to the cabin, though he remained slouched.
He blew out a puff of smoke.
Sergeant Folches stood in the doorway, big and imposing in his black and white Interdiction
body plate. He had removed his helmet, and his thick-featured face glared down at Solon.
“This is a restricted area, sergeant. Rig personnel only,” said Solon. “Be so kind as to get the hell
out.”
“How long till we get to the Phorcys spaceport?” asked Folches.
“In this storm? Two and a half days, minimum,” said Solon. The sergeant swore.
“The storm won’t lift before then?” he asked.
51
“You haven’t spent much time on the surface, have you?” asked Solon, taking another drag on
his lho stick.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Once a storm like this has set in, it might not clear for a month, maybe two,” said Solon,
stubbing out his lho stick.
“You can’t make this heap of crap go any faster?”
“No, sergeant, I can’t.”
Folches swore and rubbed a hand across his head.
“Why don’t you and your boys just settle down and enjoy the ride,” he said, “and try to stop the
guilders killing each other. They’re only women and children, right?”
“Boss,” said Cholos. Solon felt the crawler begin to slow, but he didn’t take his eyes of the
sergeant.
“You ought to watch your tongue, you whoreson bastard,” said Folches, putting one hand on the
autopistol bolstered prominently at his hip.
“Easy, big fella,” said Solon. “All I’m saying is that we are moving as quick as we can, and you
coming up here to throw your weight around ain’t gonna make us go any faster.”
Folches let out a tense breath and took his hand off his gun.
“What’s the problem, anyway?” asked Solon. “Three days and we’ll be off this moon.”
“Something hit the access tunnels leading from Antithon guild to the spaceport.”
Solon frowned.
“Four demi-legions were gone, like that,” said the sergeant, clicking his fingers. “And Emperor
knows how many guilders.”
“Four demi-legions?”
“Four hundred soldiers. The enemy is not on its way to Perdus Skylla,” said the sergeant. “It is
already here.” Solon bit his lip.
“Boss,” said Cholos, breaking the silence.
“What?” asked Solon in exasperation, turning to face his second in command.
“You better take a look at this.”
Solon spun his chair around, turning his back on the sergeant, and peered out of the small, iceencased
cabin window.
The wind was whipping across the landscape at over a hundred kilometres an hour, and virtually
nothing could be seen except the glare of the crawler’s spotlight reflected back at them by the snow
and ice in the air.
“I don’t see a damned thing, Cholos.”
Sergeant Folches leant down at Solon’s side, looking out into the storm, and Solon felt his
irritation rise.
“Damn it Cholos, what am I looking at?”
“Wait for the wind to drop,” said Cholos.
He slowed the crawler further and the three men looked intently out into the storm. At last the
wind fell momentarily and Solon could see a dark, shadowy shape up ahead. It was another crawler,
motionless and dark. Then it was hidden as the winds picked up again with a vengeance.
“That’s Markham’s rig,” said Solon.
“Looks like it, boss,” said Cholos.
“Hail them,” said Solon.
“You recognise it?” asked Folches as Cholos tried to make voice contact with the stationary
crawler with the short-ranged vox-caster built into the dash console.
“Yeah,” said Solon. “It should be at the starport by now. What the hell is it doing out here?”
52
“There’s no response, boss,” said Cholos. The sound of static was hissing from the vox-caster.
“Might be the storm’s interference though.”
Solon swore.
“Right, take us alongside it. If it still doesn’t respond, then it looks like we’ll be getting cold.”
“My squad will come with you,” said Folches.
“That would be appreciated,” said Solon.
The lift halted its ascent and drew to a shuddering halt.
“Restricted access. Band XK privilege required,” croaked the robotic voice of the servitor built
into one of the interior walls of the lift.
Marduk sighed in impatience.
A panel on one wall bore the symbol of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the First Acolyte ripped it
clear, his gauntlet wrenching the metal out of shape as if it were paper. Wires and cables spilt behind
the panel like intestines, sparking and buzzing.
“Open it,” he ordered impatiently.
A mechadendrite tentacle stabbed into the open panel, and Darioq twisted it left and right.
“Access granted,” croaked the servitor as the magos retracted his metallic tentacle, and the lift
doors hissed open.
Kol Badar stepped out of the lift in front of Marduk, swinging his combi-bolter from side to
side. The lift rose a few centimetres as the Coryphaus’s immense weight was removed from the
straining winch mechanics.
“Clear,” the towering Coryphaus growled, raising his combi-bolter into a vertical position. Kol
Badar held the sacred icon of the Host in the power talons of his left hand, the snarling daemon face
of the Latros Sacrum in its centre, slamming the butt of the staff into the ground as Marduk stepped
from the lift.
The First Acolyte took a moment to get his bearings before marching into the guildmaster’s
office.
“Stay, Darioq-Grendh’al,” he said over his shoulder, exerting the force of his will into his
intonation, forcibly commanding the daemon within the corrupted magos.
Burias was leaning casually against a wall, drinking from a bottle that had had its neck smashed
off. His mouth and chin were covered in blood, and a man lay shivering on the floor before him.
The icon bearer drained the fiery liquid from the bottle and smiled at Marduk, wiping his mouth
with the back of one hand.
“Stand to attention when your seniors are present, warrior,” barked Kol Badar, the voxamplifiers
built into his quad-tusked helmet making his voice even more of an animalistic growl
than usual.
Making no attempt to hurry, Burias languidly rose from his slouch and tossed the empty bottle
away. It shattered on the floor.
“Consumption of all but necessary sustenance is a sin that leads to weakness, icon bearer,”
snapped Marduk. “You will submit yourself to three months of fasting and flagellation once we
return to the Infidus Diabolus.”
“I am duly castigated, my master,” said Burias, bowing his head in a show of obeisance and
mock remorse. Marduk’s eyes narrowed.
Burias held a hand out to Kol Badar. “My icon?” he said.
The Coryphaus flicked the heavy icon at the smaller Astartes warrior with far more force than
was needed, but Burias caught it deftly in his hand.
“Enough,” said Marduk. “This is the commander?” He motioned with his chin towards the man
shivering on the ground.
53
“It is, my master,” said Burias, running his hands lovingly over the spiked length of his icon, as
if he had been separated from it for years and was savouring being reunited. “Alive, as you wished.”
Marduk knelt down before the man, who stared up at him fearfully, his face waxy and pale.
“You have something that I want, little man,” said Marduk, removing his skull-faced helmet and
handing it to Burias, “and you are going to tell me where it is.”
“Wha… wha… what is it you want?” managed the man, gritting his teeth in pain, gingerly
cradling his left arm in his hand. He stared up at Marduk, a mixture of fear and defiance in his eyes.
“A person, if you could call it that,” said Marduk. “Someone who was posted here, at this very
facility: an adept of the weakling Machine-God.”
“What do you want with them?”
Marduk reached out towards the man, his movements slow and almost caring. The guildmaster
recoiled from his grasp, but there was nowhere for him to run.
“You are injured, I see,” said Marduk, taking the man’s arm carefully in his hands. “This must
hurt.”
With a slow twisting motion, Marduk turned the man’s hand over, making the shattered bones
grind against one another. The man screamed in agony and Marduk twisted it again. Then he
stopped.
“Do not question me again, little man. This was punishment for doing so. Now, tell me, where
is… What was its name?”
Marduk turned his head around, looking back towards the adjoining room and the lift.
“Darioq-Grendh’al,” he barked. “Come.”
Like a hound coming to its master’s call, Magos Darioq entered the room, his steps slow and
mechanical. Having been allowed to reconstruct his servo-harness, four massive robotic arms
emerged from his back, two coming around his sides, and two over his shoulders, like the stabbing
tails of an insect. Black veins pulsed within the servo-arms as the lines between organic, mechanical
and daemonic were increasingly blurred, and one of the arms twitched awkwardly as he walked.
The guildmaster’s agonised eyes were locked on the magos, who wore a robe of black in place
of his red Mechanicus garb. The red glow of Darioq’s augmented left eye gleamed malignly from
within his deep cowl.
“What is the name of the target?” Marduk asked.
“Explorator First Class Daenae,” said Magos Darioq in his monotone voice, “originally of the
Konor Adeptus Mechanicus research world of UL01.02, assigned to cl4.8.87.i, Perdus Skylla, for
recon/salvage of the Dvorak-class interstellar freighter Flames of Perdition, which reappeared
within Segmentum Tempestus in 942.M41 and crashed onto the surface of cl4.8.87.i, Perdus Skylla,
in 944.M41 after being missing presumed lost in warp storm anomaly xi.024.396 in 432.M35.”
Marduk turned back towards the guildmaster with the hint of a smile on his face.
“How foolish of me to have forgotten its name,” he said. The smile dropped from his face.
“Where is this Explorator Daenae? Tell me now, or you shall be further punished. And I promise
you, the pain you have already experienced will be but a fraction of what you will come to know
should you displease me further.”
“I don’t know who you mean,” hissed the man.
Marduk sighed.
“You are lying to me,” he said, and gave the man’s arm a further twist. This time he did not
relent quickly, and he ground the broken bones of the guildmaster’s arm against each other with
vigour.
Behind Marduk, Burias grinned at the man’s pain.
“The explorator was assigned to this facility,” said Marduk over the guildmaster’s screams of
torment, “therefore you know where it is. Tell me now, or your death will not be swift in coming to
you.”
54
The guildmaster’s eyes were shut tightly against the pain, and he passed out suddenly, going
limp in Marduk’s arms. The First Acolyte threw the man’s arm down in disgust, the bones of the
forearm bent almost at right angles.
“Permission to speak, Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion of Astartes, genetic
descendent of the glorified Primarch Lorgar,” said Darioq.
“Glorified Primarch Lorgar?” asked Marduk with a grin. “You are learning, Enslaved.
Permission to speak granted.”
“With the surgical removal of the inhibitor functions of my logic-engines, and the rearrangement
of the frontal cortex of three of my brain-units, I find…” began Darioq-Grendh’al.
“Get to the point,” interrupted Marduk.
“Summary: it is not required that the location of Explorator First Class Daenae be obtained from
the brain-unit of Guildmaster Polio,” the magos intoned.
“What gibberish does it speak? Who is this Guildmaster Polio?” growled Kol Badar.
“Guildmaster Polio is the flesh unit whose radial and ulna bones of the left arm have been
rendered inoperative and non-functioning by Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion of
Astartes, genetic descendent of the glorified Primarch Lorgar,” replied Darioq.
Burias snorted his amusement, though Kol Badar growled and took a step towards the blackrobed
magos, electricity coursing into life around his power talons. Marduk forestalled his advance
with a raised hand, and looked at the magos intently.
“What do you mean, Darioq-Grendh’al? Speak simply,” he said.
“In order to garner the required information about the whereabouts of Explorator Daenae, all
