spitting streams of acid that melted the side of the Dauntless light cruiser and launching swarms of
smaller creatures, exhaling them from gill-like rents in their sides.
A trio of Sword frigates had nobly moved into the path of the behemoths, seeking to draw them
away from the floundering light cruiser, and two of them were overwhelmed as boarding chrysalides
were excreted from the hive ships, clamping onto and cutting through their hulls before overrunning
their decks with swarms of warrior organisms.
One of the bio-ships was drawn by the bait, and turned on the last remaining Sword frigate,
while its twin closed on the doomed Dominae Noctus. The rest of the fleet had watched in growing
horror as immense hooked tentacles shot forth from the prow of the bio-ships, locking onto the hulls
of the light cruiser and the frigate, drawing them into the immense living beasts. More tentacles
wrapped around their hulls. The Sword frigate was crushed utterly beneath the pressure and ripped
in half. The Dominae Noctus lasted little longer, for the tentacles drew it in close to the hive ship,
and its hull was rent by the immense, bony beak concealed at the heart of the mass of tentacles. For
an hour, the creature gorged upon the light cruiser, its hull almost entirely obscured by the tentacles
that wrapped around it, and Augustine had listened in stoic silence to the screams of the dying as
bio-acid and feeder organisms had been spewed into the interior of the compromised ship.
Augustine had no intention of losing any more of his fleet to the xenos fleet, and the Imperials
were engaging the tyranids only at medium to long range.
The Hammer of Righteousness’s dorsal lance batteries had taken a heavy toll on the advancing
tyranid fleet, but the xenos ships continued on relentlessly, absorbing the casualties they suffered
145
and pushing ever forwards. The bio-ships mortally wounded by the long distance barrages were
devoured by the other hive-ships, who would doubtless use the genetic material to spawn more of
their foul kind.
Augustine felt a shudder beneath his feet as the prow torpedo tubes fired, and he watched with
satisfaction as the six immense, plasma-core projectiles, each almost eighty metres long, powered
through the gulf of space towards the largest of the hive organisms.
Lance batteries from the rest of the fleet stabbed into the closest bio-ships, and other torpedoes
impacted with fleshy bodies several kilometres in length. Tentacles flailed in death-spasms, and
thousands of tiny organisms flew into the mighty wounds in the hides of the immense beasts,
latching onto flesh and each other and excreting a cement-like substance over themselves to form a
living bandage, sealing up wounds even as they were caused.
The largest of the hive ships veered to avoid the flagship’s torpedoes, but its immense bulk
turned slowly, and it was clear that it could not avoid the impacts. Smaller bio-ships interposed
themselves, and three torpedoes exploded prematurely as they slammed into the sides of the lesser
vessels. The last three plasma torpedoes hit their target, and gobbets of flesh the size of city blocks
were blasted from the behemoth’s flank.
“Order the Valkyrie to pull back,” said Augustine to one of his aides. “She is getting too close.”
“Yes, admiral,” came the response, and the order was quickly passed on.
“Ground invasions have commenced on both the Perdus moons,” said Gideon Cortez,
Augustine’s trusty flag-lieutenant, his face grim.
Augustine sighed wearily. He didn’t know how long it had been since he had slept. Plenty of
time to sleep when you are dead, he thought.
He had already ordered the destruction of six inhabited Imperial worlds in this sector, but at least
those worlds had been successfully evacuated before he had been forced to order their destruction.
Trying to give the citizens of the two moons as much time to evacuate as possible, Augustine
had moved the blockade forward, so that the fleet could hold back the tyranid advance for as long as
possible. Now, he looked down upon the twin moons, orbiting the gaseous giant nearby, and he
cursed that he could buy them little more time.
“Percentage of the populations evacuated?” he asked, already dreading the answer.
It had been estimated that the twin moons of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis would require
three journeys of the bulk transport ships available, at the minimum, for a complete evacuation. As
far as he was aware, only one journey had been completed.
“Less than thirty per cent,” replied Gideon.
“How many are left?” asked Augustine. He didn’t really want to know the answer, but felt that
he ought to know how many people he was condemning to death.
“On Perdus Kharybdis, around eighty million,” said Gideon in a quiet voice.
“Eighty million,” said Admiral Augustine in a weary voice, “and Perdus Skylla?”
“No more than twenty million.”
“The evacuations were more successful there?”
“No,” admitted Gideon Cortez, shaking his head. “The population of Perdus Skylla is but a
fraction of its twin, mostly labourers and mine workers.”
“One hundred million loyal souls, and we are going to eradicate them, like that,” said Augustine,
clicking his fingers together.
“Some might say it is a blessing, sir,” said Gideon, “better than being devoured by the xenos.”
“Yes, you are quite right,” snapped Augustine. “They should be thanking us.”
Gideon gave him a hurt look, and the admiral sighed.
“I’m sorry, Gideon,” he said quickly, “that was unfair. How long would it take to do one final
evacuation run!”
146
“The carriers are already en route for a final pickup,” said Gideon, “though they will need an
escort. Six hours, they’ll need, according to the logistics reports.”
“Order the left flanks to close up, with the Cypra Mordatis at the fore,” said Augustine after a
moment of deliberation. “We can buy them six hours.”
Feeling Gideon still hovering behind him, Augustine turned to face his flag-lieutenant, one
eyebrow raised.
“You have something to say, Gideon?”
“Can we really hold them for another six hours?” asked the flag-lieutenant, his voice low to
avoid any of the other crew members overhearing his words.
“I don’t know,” admitted Augustine, “but we owe it to those people to try.”
Gideon still did not look happy.
“You can’t save them all,” he said.
“No,” agreed Augustine, shaking his head, “I cannot.”
The Idolator banked and jinked from side to side as hundreds of mycetic spores, fired by the hive
fleet still some ten thousand kilometres from Perdus Skylla streamed down towards the surface of
the moon. Each of the cyst-like chrysalis organisms was filled with a deadly warrior cargo, which
would scour all life from the doomed world. They fell like a meteor shower through the atmosphere,
their shell-like exteriors glowing hot as they descended at phenomenal speeds.
One of the spores passed within metres of the shuttle, which was pulled to the side by the rush of
air, but the guidance systems of the ship hauled it back on course, narrowly being struck by another
pair of mycetic spores as they roared down towards the surface of Perdus Skylla.
Each of the spores was the size of a Rhino transport vehicle, and a direct hit would cause
tremendous damage to the unshielded Idolator. Engines roared as the shuttle veered sharply to avoid
a collision, but its movement took it into the path of another descending spore, which clipped the
side of the ship, sending it into a spin.
The Idolator rolled through the air, dropping hundreds of metres and narrowly avoiding being
struck by more of the spores, but it came back under control, pulling out of its death spin and
shooting once more skywards, pulling free of the descending shower of chrysalides.
Burias and Kol Badar picked themselves up, the Coryphaus reading the damage reports that
spewed from the mouth of a graven, daemonic face. He swore.
“We are not going to make it to the Infidus Diabolus,” he said, scrunching the thin strips of
mnemo-paper in his fist. “Guidance systems are damaged, and the aft engines are at quarter power.”
Burias was silent while the Coryphaus muttered, his strategic mind working to solve the
problem.
“Do we have enough power to break from the moon’s gravity?” he ventured.
“Yes,” snapped the Coryphaus, “but we’d be drifting. We’ll conserve our power once we have
broken the atmosphere, and fire the engines to take us past the Imperial blockade. We’ll order the
Infidus Diabolus to break from its mooring and come to meet us halfway.”
“The Imperial fleet will be aware of its presence as soon as it pulls out of the radiation of the
sun,” said Burias. “If they turn their fleet…”
“Then we must pray that they do not. Let us hope that the cursed Imperials are too occupied by
the xenos to swing their blockade.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we are dead.”
147
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You are wasting your time,” growled Marduk, blood and spittle dripping from his lips. His head
was held immobile by bladed callipers that had emerged from the floating slab on which he lay,
making any movement of his head or neck impossible. He glared at the eldar tormentor out of the
corner of his left eye, his daemonic right eye rendered useless.
“I won’t break,” snarled Marduk. “You will have to kill me first.”
His torturer did not look up, his utterly black eyes focused on the incisions that he had cut into
Marduk’s neck. He was gazing into them, prodding and poking around the area where one of his
progenoid glands, those sacred glands that contained the essence of his enhanced gene-seed, had
been surgically removed thousands of years previously. As if satisfied, the eldar closed up the
wound, and lifted what looked like a spike-ripped handgun from a pad that hovered at his side.
Marduk tensed, thinking momentarily that perhaps the eldar was going to kill him. The eldar ran
the spiked tip of the pistol along the edge of the incision at his neck, and Marduk hissed in pain,
feeling a searing laser melting his flesh. The eldar replaced the strange implement back on its
floating platform, and Marduk realised that the wound in his neck was sealed.
The First Acolyte stared at the spiked pistol-like piece of apparatus for a moment, and then
flexed his neck from side to side as the callipers retracted from their clamped position around his
cranium. The bladed lengths slid away soundlessly, and came to rest around his head like a razorsharp
halo, leaving him free of their constriction, but still protruding from the hovering slab, just
centimetres from his head.
Marduk hissed as fresh pain seared across his abdomen. Two long cuts bisected his flesh, and
snarling, he leant forwards to watch the monstrous eldar surgeon at work. Doubtless that was the
reason his head restraints had been retracted, so that he could witness the surgery being performed
upon him. His skin was sliced, and the thick black carapace beneath, the implant that allowed his
holy armour to be plugged directly into his body, was cut open with laser-tipped tools.
The biomechanical creature hovering on the pulsing ceiling reached out with four slender limbs,
each of them piercing one corner of his flesh, painfully drawing his sliced black carapace apart to
expose the stomach cavity. The wraith-like eldar began to probe his organs with his slender fingers.
Marduk’s chest had not yet been cut open, but he knew that it was just a matter of time. He had
witnessed two of his brother Space Marines have their organs removed, though Marduk had noted
that the eldar was careful to leave his victims alive, using inferior substitute organs to keep them
going. It had taken some time to cut through the black carapace beneath the flesh of the warriors’
chests, but the tools of the twisted creature were powerful.
“I have no interest in your death,” intoned his torturer, still engrossed in his work. Marduk could
feel the fingers probing within him, handling his enhanced organs. The feeling was uncomfortable,
but he pushed the sensation away, focusing his mind.
“If your intention is not to kill me, what then is to be my fate?” asked Marduk, feigning
weakness in his voice.
The twisted surgeon did not pause in his work, and for a moment Marduk thought he would not
get an answer, but at last the eldar spoke.
“Upon reaching Commoragh,” said the eldar, though Marduk did not recognise the word, “your
savayaethoth, your… soul-flame… will be drained from your body. This soul-essence will be
delivered to Lord Vect, for him to do with as he pleases. Your savayaethoth burns brighter than
148
those of your comrades. Most likely, the Lord Vect will take it into himself. All that you are will be
consumed, utterly and completely, and She Who Thirsts will be denied her claim upon him a little
longer.”
“The soul-extraction,” continued the eldar torturer, “is excruciatingly painful. What you have
experienced thus far is nothing beside it, and I have been known to prolong the process for a week
or more.”
“What will happen to you if I die beneath your scalpel before then?” asked Marduk.
“My master would be displeased,” said the eldar simply, as if he were talking to an imbecile.
“Your master is going to be very displeased, then,” said Marduk, and his primary heart stopped
beating.
Admiral Rutger Augustine stared at the blinking icon in disbelief. Scans had picked up the telltale
sign of a ship moving towards the rear of the Imperial blockade, emerging from within the radiation
field of the system’s dying sun.
“It’s an Adeptus Astartes cruiser, sir,” said his aide in awe. “And it’s big.”
“Yes, I can see that,” snapped Augustine, “but is it friend or foe?”
“You think it may be renegade, sir?” asked the man, looking at him in shock.
“I don’t know. I have received no information of a Chapter of Astartes coming to our aid,
though it would be welcome. That they have not intervened thus far does not bode well.”
“Initial hails have been ignored,” said the aide. “The archives are being scoured as we speak to
identify the vessel.”
“Fine,” snapped Augustine, waving the man away.
“Trouble?” asked his flag-lieutenant, Gideon Cortez, as he strode to the admiral’s side.
“Possibly,” replied Augustine. “Damn it, I need more ships.”
“We could always order the Exterminatus of the Perdus moons now,” said Gideon in a low
voice. “Pull back, and swing to face this strike cruiser.”
