fleets, accordingly, as fresh data was transmitted into them. Augustine was so used to their
movements that he barely registered their presence; they were merely part of the ship; one more tool
to help him with his strategy.
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Two other cruisers with squadrons of smaller escorts clustered in front of other populated
worlds, the agri-world Perse, and the mining moons of Perdus Skylla and Perdus Kharybdis, rotating
slowly around the uninhabitable gas giant, Calyptus.
Small, featureless scale models, representing a host of transports and carriers engaged in the
evacuation efforts, were positioned touching the inhabited worlds. Several other models
representing similar transports were positioned en route to the blockade. Almost two hundred
million people were being evacuated from this system alone. Already, there had been problems with
some of the mass transports associated with the fleet, as riots had broken out within the civilian
populations already evacuated. He pushed these thoughts out of his mind; it was his job to enact the
strategy laid down to him and see the worlds evacuated safely, not to police those populations once
they were safely onboard the mass transport ships.
As he watched, an Imperial light cruiser was placed on the table on the lee side of Perdus Skylla,
and then removed. The arm of the servitor jerked spasmodically, and it placed the light cruiser back
down upon the table.
“What’s that?” asked Admiral Augustine, pointing towards the ship, which was once again
removed from the table.
One of his aides, a junior lieutenant, shrugged.
“It’s been doing that for the past hour, admiral,” he said, “interference from the hive fleet, or a
radiation field, perhaps. The flag-lieutenant thinks it may be nothing more than a technical glitch in
the servitor unit. He is speaking to the enginseers about it.”
Admiral Augustine raised an eyebrow and regarded the peculiar behaviour of the servitor with a
frown. Once again it put the ship back on the table, and then removed it.
“Useless bastards,” said Cortez, shaking his head as he extricated himself from the enginseers
and walked to Augustine’s side. “They say the unit was serviced last week.”
The servitor-unit seemed to be operating as normal, again, and the phantom ship was nowhere to
be seen on the table.
“Give me an update on the evacuations, Cortez,” said Augustine.
“Circe is almost completed, admiral,” said Cortez. “The Valkyrie will be disengaging and
pulling back within the hour.”
The flag-lieutenant was a stocky man of indeterminable age. A livid scar tracked across his chin,
and a gleaming, bronze-rimmed lens stared from the hollow socket of his left eye. He was a natural
officer and Augustine’s closest confidant, the one and only man that he would class as his friend.
“And the evacuations of Galatea? And the Perdus moons?” asked the admiral.
“Galatea goes well; the moons of Calyptus less so. There are not enough transports. It’s going to
take those transports that are available three trips to complete the evacuation of Perdus Skylla and
Perdus Kharybdis.”
“Three trips,” mused Admiral Augustine. He hissed through his teeth, gauging the position of
the moons and the advancing enemy hive fleet. “It’s going to be tight.”
“If the evacuation is not completed before a ground invasion commences, anybody still on the
moons must be forgotten,” said Cortez, moving to the opposite side of the table to the admiral.
“We shall buy the moons as much time as we can,” Admiral Augustine said, “but you are
correct, I cannot risk the fleet for the benefit of two moons. Our orders are clear.”
His orders were clear, as much as they rankled with him. They were the same orders that all of
the fleets engaging Hive Fleet Leviathan had been issued, and he knew that they were being
enforced all across the war-front.
The tyranids were a deadly menace, there was no disputing that, but it sat badly with the admiral
that they were giving way before the xenos forces rather than making them fight for every bit of
Imperial space. Of course, he would not allow his personal feelings to colour his judgement, and he
would never go so far as to voice his feelings in front of his officers. Their orders were clear. He had
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sent an astrotelepathic message to the lord admiral on receiving the dictate, but once confirmation of
the order had been returned, his path was set.
The new tyranid advance was potentially more catastrophic than any ever seen before, and the
strategy that had been decreed to be used against it was similarly extreme.
It was genocide. Those worlds that were already suffering under the first waves of ground
assault were effectively condemned to death, along with their Planetary Defence Force and any
force of the Imperial Guard that could not be extricated.
Admiral Augustine knew that the political ramifications and backlash from this modus operandi
would be devastating, but he also knew that no fleet captain would fail in his duty. They would carry
out their orders, and leave the politicking to the bickering bureaucrats of the Administratum.
Cortez cursed, and Augustine shook his head slightly as the malfunctioning servitor unit once
again placed the phantom Imperial light cruiser back on the table.
“Have a destroyer do a sweep around the moon, just to be sure,” said Augustine, and Cortez
nodded his assent, even as he was shouting for the enginseers to be returned to the bridge.
Augustine’s gaze focused on the spherical representations of the twin moons of Perdus Skylla
and Perdus Kharybdis.
The evacuation of the moons would continue, and he would hold the fleet in position for as long
as possible. However, looking again at their position, and the advance of the tyranid fleet, he knew
instinctively that it would not be long enough.
Before the week was out, he would be ordering their Exterminatus.
The chamber was a shrine to death. Part of Marduk’s personal quarters within the labyrinthine
lnfidus Diabolus, its high, domed ceiling was formed from the ribs of sacrifices, and eight pillars,
each constructed from thousands of bones, rose into the gloom. Oily candles had been set into the
hollow craniums of the skulls set into the pillars, and an infernal glow exuded from fire blackened,
hollow sockets.
Braziers of black iron burnt low, and black, acrid smoke rose from the smouldering coals.
Hunched figures, their abhorrent faces hidden from view beneath deep cowls, stalked the darkness
outside the circle of pillars, swinging heavy censors from which thick, heady incense spilled.
Inside the pillars, the floor was rough granite, carved into the image of a holy eight-pointed star,
the symbol of Chaos in all its guises. A massive figure stood at its centre, his augmented arms raised
out to either side as he was prepared for the forthcoming ceremony.
Marduk was silently fuming, still angry at Magos Darioq’s inability to unlock the secrets of the
Nexus Arrangement. Silently incanting the Nine Levels of Enlightenment, he forced himself to
calm. From the archive facility of Kharion IV, the magos had identified the location—a backwater
Imperial moon called Perdus Skylla—of the one whose knowledge would release the artefact’s
power, and Marduk forced himself to breathe evenly. Be patient, he reminded himself.
More than a dozen hooded figures, stunted creatures that stood not even to the mighty warrior’s
chest, clustered around their master, making him ready for the ceremony. Their eyes had been
ritually sutured closed with thick staples, for it was regarded as a sin for them to look upon such a
revered warrior. They brushed his blessed armour with sacred unguents, and fixed icons and holy
charms to his armour.
Marduk, First Acolyte of the Word Bearers Legion, acting Dark Apostle of the Host, stood over
two metres tall, his limbs encased in thick reinforced plate the colour of congealed blood. His holy
power armour had been worked upon by the artisans of the Host in recent months, the plates rimmed
with dark meteoric iron, and battle damage repaired.
Marduk had meticulously scrimshawed hundreds of thousands of words across them in tiny
script, scriptures and sacred litanies of Lorgar that he knew by heart. The entire third book of the
Tenets of Hate was inscribed around the armoured vambrace encasing his left forearm, and the titles
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of the Six Hundred and Sixty-Six Enumerations of Erebus were carved across the curved mass of his
left shoulder pad.
The left shoulder pad had been dutifully painted black, as had those of the entire Host, in
mourning for the loss of their revered leader, the Dark Apostle Jarulek. That Marduk had been
integral to Jarulek’s death made the symbolic act particularly ironic, and he smirked.
Over his painstakingly worked armour, Marduk wore a bone-coloured robe, tied at his waist
with chains hung with icons of dedication to the dark gods of the ether. A book of hymnals and
battle-prayers from the Epistles of Lorgar hung at his side, its dusty pages bound in human leather.
His head was bare. A bolt round fired by his former master, the Dark Apostle Jarulek, at pointblank
range had rent the helmet beyond repair, and Marduk’s features bore testament to the damage
that shot had wrought. The entire left half of his face had been blasted away, and it had taken all the
skill of the Host’s chirurgeons and chirumeks to rebuild his facial structure.
Adamantium had been fused to his skull, and he had grinned as the procedure had taken place.
Pain, it was taught, was a blessed gift that fortified the spirit and brought one closer to the gods. As
such, it was a sensation to be welcomed. No proud warrior of the Legion would ever consider
allowing a chirurgeon to distance him from the blessed pain of his battle wounds with narcotic
opiates or psychotropic injections, for such a thing was regarded as blasphemy.
His shattered left cheek was rebuilt, and the muscles and tendons of his face re-grown or
replaced with bionic implants. Marduk’s skin had yet to grow across this new facial structure, and
the ceramic gleam of his sharpened teeth could be seen through the strands of muscle tissue that
linked his upper and lower jaws.
His left eye socket had been blasted to splinters, and the eye turned to molten jelly by the
concussive force of the bolt round. Once the socket had been reconstructed, a replacement eye
grown in a culture of amniotic-fluid infused with warp energy was surgically attached to his brain
stem. The daemonic flesh hybrid replacement stared out from his adamantium eye socket, an angry,
red, lidless orb. The pupil was little more than a sliver, like that of a serpent’s eye, reflecting all that
it saw.
For all his reconstructive surgery, Marduk’s face bore the patrician features that spoke of his
genetic ancestry. Every warrior in the Legion bore the genetic makeup of his lord, the blessed
daemon primarch Lorgar, and the similarity between them was marked, characterised by their pale
skin, their noble profile, their proud bearing and their hair, which was as black as pitch.
Marduk’s long black hair had been combed and oiled by his robed attendants, before being tied
into a long braid and secured behind his head, atop the duster of cables that entered his flesh at the
base of his skull. A cloak of matted fur, skinned from a blood-beast that Marduk had slain on the
death world of Anghkar Dor, was draped over his shoulders and fixed to leering, daemonic bronze
faces on his breastplate. The inside of the fur was lined with velvet, and symbols of Chaos
resplendent had been scorched into the fabric.
Holy scriptures of Kor Phaeron, cut into the flayed flesh of innocents, were driven onto the
spikes rimming his shoulder pads, and fresh blood, drawn from the bodies of mewling sacrifices
artificially bred in vats on the lower decks of the Infidus Diabolus for that sole purpose, was daubed
reverentially onto his gauntlets.
One of the attendants lined his right eye with coal, and smoke rose from the holy mark of Lorgar
on Marduk’s brow as the servant’s withered hand brushed it. The stink of scorched flesh rose from
the attendant’s hand, and it pulled it back sharply as smoke rose from the mark. Marduk growled in
annoyance, and the attendant was dragged away into the darkness by two of its kin. Its flesh would
be consigned to the cleansing fires, its body fed to its kin and its soul, if it had one, subject to eternal
torment for displeasing its master.
Marduk’s eyes lit up as his weapons were brought forth, led by a procession of censer-bearing
attendants. They were the tools with which the Dark Faith was delivered to the heathen masses of
the galaxy and as such, they were borne with reverential care. They lay upon black cushions, and
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were carried upon the backs of creatures whose flesh was completely swathed in black cloth to hide
their obscene forms.
Marduk picked up his customised bolt pistol, its squat barrel protruding from the carved maw of
a daemon. It felt natural and light in his hand, though a mere mortal would struggle to bear its
weight, and he rammed a sickle-shaped clip into place before holstering it at his hip.
Even in times of relative peace the brothers of the Host bore live weapons, for though they were
disciples and custodians of the Dark Creed, they were holy warriors first and foremost, and it was
part of their tenets to be always reminded of the Long War against the cursed Imperium, to be ever
in readiness for holy battle. Bitterness fuelled their beliefs and passion, and the holy bolter and
chainsword were the tools with which the proper order of the galaxy would be instated. No warrior
could forget the betrayals of the Corpse Emperor, or the fallacy of his church, while they held their
sacred weapons.
Next, he lifted his archaic chainsword from its cushion. His grip closed around the hilt of the
weapon, and he felt the familiar rush as it bonded with him, barbs piercing the flesh of his palm. The
power and rage of Borhg’ash, the daemon eternally bound within the chainsword, surged through
him, and he restrained the urge to lash out, to feed the beast’s hunger. The blood of thousands had
been shed beneath its biting teeth, and it was with some reluctance that he sheathed it, allowing the
locking clamps to secure it at his waist.
“Soon you shall feed, dear one,” said Marduk to appease the daemon, and he felt a twinge of
