The soldiers on the other side of the gates were backing away, eyeing the crowd nervously.
Hundreds of people threw themselves on the barred gates, clambering up onto support struts,
calling after the soldiers or the last citizens that had made it through.
“Open the gates,” shouted scores of voices. Those behind, not yet realising that the gates had
been sealed, that all hope had evaporated, continued to press forwards, crushing those at the front
against the thick bars.
“Just take the boy!” roared Solon, his voice hoarse. One of the soldiers heard him, but shrugged
his shoulders and turned away.
“Squeeze through, Dios,” urged Solon as they were hammered from behind and drove into the
gate with crushing force. Dios cried out as his small body was pressed against the bars.
“Push through, damn it!” shouted Solon, and Dios squeezed one arm and leg through the narrow
gap between the bars. He cried out as he got stuck, and looked around frantically for Solon.
“Breathe out, boy,” said Solon. “You can make it.”
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Dios exhaled all his breath, and Solon gave him a push. The boy was stuck tight, and he feared
that his skull or hipbones would break if he pushed any harder, but the alternative was no more
appealing. Another few minutes in this crush and the boy would be dead anyway.
“Breathe out, Dios!” he shouted again and gave the boy another shove. Dios cried out in obvious
pain, but then his head passed through the bars and he fell to his knees on the other side. His head
was bloody, and Solon realised that it was the blood that had saved the boy’s life, for it had probably
made the bars more slippery.
Dios picked himself up, and looked through the bars at Solon, his face fearful.
“Go!” screamed Solon, pointing behind Dios, where the lucky ones who had managed to pass
through the gates were streaming into the expansive open holds of the mass transport, being herded
by soldiers.
Dios turned and looked towards the ship, and then back at Solon. Solon saw that his face was an
even more unhealthy shade of blue, and his eyes still burned with feverish light.
“Go, Dios!” Solon roared. The press behind him was intolerable, and he clambered up the bars,
stamping on faces behind him.
“Go!” shouted Solon again, and the boy gave him one last look before he turned and ran towards
the waiting mass transport.
Solon remained clinging to the bars until he saw Dios board the ship safely, and the transport’s
massive bay doors were locked and closed behind him. He felt strangely numb, and impossibly
weary. The crowds were dissipating, wandering aimlessly, staring around with hollow eyes. Some
sat down, numb with shock, while others gathered in small groups to pray. Others set about looting
and destroying anything that they could, while some merely lay down on the ground to wait for the
end.
Solon walked through the crowd, feeling hollow and empty. He took comfort in the fact that he
had got Dios to safety, though he knew it was but a displacement of the guilt he harboured for not
having been able to save his son.
He avoided the frenzied priests screaming of the end times, though hundreds flocked to hear
their impassioned, doom-laden sermons.
With no real destination in mind, Solon wandered through the spaceport, seeing misery, fear and
resignation everywhere he looked. After perhaps an hour he found himself at the windows of a
viewing station, and watched the mass transport rise from its dock, as the flower-petal segments of
the dome overhead parted to the heavens.
Solon watched the mass transport as it lifted up and rose from the dome, and he breathed out
deeply, content in the knowledge that Dios was safely aboard.
He had no way of knowing that the boy had been infected by a genestealer and was, even now,
taking that taint further into the heart of the Imperium.
Solon found a place that overlooked the ice flows, and settled down to watch the world die.
“Enemy fighters launched,” croaked the daemon-servitor, and Kol Badar glared at the pict screens
that showed the flock of Fury interceptors and Starhawk bombers being disgorged by the closing
Imperial Dictator-class cruiser. Sword frigates and destroyers were moving towards the Infidus
Diabolus in a flanking formation, and the Coryphaus slammed his fist down on the pict screen. The
plasglass screen shattered, its image distorting as hundreds of spider-web cracks appeared across its
surface.
The eldar ship was slipping out of range of the Infidus Diabolus’s batteries, and Kol Badar
reluctantly ordered the Word Bearers’ ship to pull off its pursuit, and to swing around to face the
new threats. He watched with angry eyes as the eldar vessel darted away, taking the whoreson
bastard Marduk with it. He would have felt much more comfortable knowing that the First Acolyte
was dead, but he would have to content himself with the fact that the eldar had probably already
killed him.
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“Launch Thunderhawks and Stormbirds to intercept the enemy fighters,” said Kol Badar, “and
come to new heading, CV19. This is not a fight we can win.”
Ikorus Baranov threw the Rapture into a spiral as a formation of Imperial attack craft screamed past
the front of the shuttle, their forward-mounted lascannons stabbing through the darkness.
The boxy shapes of larger assault craft the colour of congealed blood roared into view, battle
cannons blasting at the swiftly moving formations of Imperial ships. As Baranov hauled on his
controls, he saw several of the Fury interceptors explode beneath the barrage while those caught on
the edge of the detonations spun crazily, wing thrusters destroyed.
Larger vessels that resembled immense birds of prey swept through the chaotic space battle,
weapons flashing, and more of the interceptors were destroyed. The birds of prey were slower than
the darting Furies, however, and as Baranov threw the Rapture to starboard to avoid a flurry of
lascannon fire, he saw one of them explode in a fireball as numerous strafing runs from the smaller
fighters peppered its dark red hull.
Behind the streaking, smaller ships, Baranov saw the distinctive, heavily armoured prow of an
Imperial cruiser in the distance, a flotilla of frigates and destroyers fanning out to its sides.
Swearing, Baranov dragged on the controls of his labouring ship, and an immense shape hove into
view.
This ship was far closer than the Imperial vessels, and its deep red hull was powerful and
bristling with weaponry and launch bays. It lurched as it turned to face the Imperial battle group,
and Baranov dragged on his controls, not wanting to be caught between them when they began
firing.
“There,” said Marduk, stabbing a finger towards the familiar shape of the Infidus Diabolus. “Take
us there.”
He saw the human wretch, Baranov, give him a sidelong glance, and bared his sharpened teeth at
the man. Baranov paled, and dutifully swung the Rapture towards the mighty vessel.
Attack craft sliced across the nose of the rogue trader’s ship, pursued by the powerful, boxy
forms of Thunderhawks, and defence turrets on the sides of the Infidus Diabolus spread a blanket of
fire out towards the slower moving enemy bombers as they began an attack run against the strike
cruiser.
Baranov dived the Rapture down towards the underside of the Infidus Diabolus, taking them out
of the danger zone as the defence turrets increased the weight of their fire against the incoming
bombers.
“Towards the lower launch decks,” said Marduk, pointing. “There are fewer defence batteries
there, and they have already locked onto the Sunfires. We should be able to enter the hangar bays
unmolested.”
Marduk knew that the enemy bombers and interceptors would take precedence over an unarmed
shuttle, and that the automated guidance systems of the Infidus Diabolus would probably not fire
upon them while being assailed by other more pressing targets.
“That’s it,” said Marduk as they drew ever closer.
A Fury wove across their bow, pursued by a Thunderhawk displaying the leering daemon face of
the Latros Sanctum splashed across its hull, and Baranov hauled on his controls. A bank of
lascannons aimed at the interceptor struck the Rapture in its port thrusters, sending the shuttle
careering off course. Warning lights flashed up, and fire roared through the rear cabins. The air
within the shuttle was suddenly sucked from the ship, and only the safety bulkheads slamming
closed, sealing the control cabin from the rest of the ship, stopped Marduk and Baranov from being
dragged out into space.
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“Take it in, fast,” shouted Marduk, and Baranov dragged the damaged shuttle back under his
control, aiming it towards the gaping launch bay that was looming up before them, filling their
vision.
Assault batteries alongside the launch bay pivoted towards the Rapture as she screamed towards
the ship, and they began to fire. The shuttle was struck twice, shearing one of her wings off in an
explosion of sparks and flame, and then the Rapture was inside the Word Bearers’ launch bay.
Indentured workers scurried from their path as the Rapture slammed down onto the launch bay
landing zone, and a shower of sparks rose as the shuttle skidded and spun across the metal flooring.
It smashed into a wall and ricocheted off, shearing its left side completely away before coming to a
screeching halt.
“Nice landing,” said Marduk.
Two full coteries of Word Bearers Space Marines stood with bolters trained on them as Marduk
and Baranov stumbled from the twisted wreckage of the Rapture. Marduk grinned and slapped
Baranov on the back heavily, knocking the man to his knees.
“It’s good to be home,” he said.
The First Acolyte was still naked from the waist up and his flesh was a tattered ruin, hanging
from his body in bloody strips. The gathered warrior brothers stood with bolters levelled at Marduk,
for a moment, not recognising him, before they dropped to their knees, bowing their heads to the
ground before him.
“The traitor Astartes are attempting to disengage, admiral,” said Gideon Cortez, flag-lieutenant of
the Hammer of Retribution.
“How many have we lost?” asked Admiral Rutger Augustine.
“Two frigates and a destroyer. Another two destroyers have taken severe damage. The captain of
the Implacable wishes to pursue.”
“Order him to disengage,” said Augustine, somewhat reluctantly. “We need those ships to
protect the line.”
“The mass transports have pulled free of the Perdus moons’ atmospheres,” said Gideon, reading
the communiqué from a data-wafer that was passed to him from a subordinate.
“Finally,” said Augustine. He looked out towards the moons. A fierce battle was underway, as
the bulk of the tyranid fleet converged on the doomed worlds, moving into firing range of the main
blockade line.
“Your order, admiral?” asked Gideon.
Augustine sighed.
“Exterminatus,” he said wearily.
Solon watched the rays of dawn lift above the horizon for the first time in over five months,
relishing the sensation of natural light upon his face. The storms had all but cleared, and from his
position he had a clear view across the ice flows. The white glare was almost painful, even through
the tinted windows of the spaceport, and he was awed by the sublime view.
For the past hour he had watched the alien chrysalides falling from the sky. The xenos enemy
could be seen now, approaching Phorcys like a living tide. People were screaming in panic, but
Solon did not bother himself. There was no army here to face the enemy for it had long evacuated
the moon, and there was nowhere left to run.
Above the living carpet of the enemy, trails of fire were roaring down from the sky, as if the
burning tears of the Emperor were falling from the heavens to smite the never-ending xenos horde.
The cyclonic torpedoes, fired by more than a score of battleships in high orbit, slammed into the
surface of Perdus Skylla, and the moon was instantly engulfed in flames.
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Solon and all those who had not managed to secure passage off-world died instantly, and more
than eight million tyranid organisms perished in the hellish conflagration.
“The Emperor’s will be done,” said Admiral Rutger Augustine as he watched the moon ignite from
the bridge of the Hammer of Righteousness.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Beneath a sky of fire and blood, the Basilica of the Word rose impossibly high into the air, hundreds
of barbed spires piercing the roiling heavens. Each spire was more than five kilometres high, and
studded with jutting, rusted spikes. Ten or more living sacrifices were impaled on each spike, and
they moaned in agony and torment as their flesh was torn from their bones by skinless daemons.
Thousands more kathartes circled the basilica, filling the air with their screeches and deathly cries.
The sound of the daemons mingled with the morbid chanting of countless millions of proselytes
within the basilica, their voices accompanied by braying daemonic choirs and the pounding of
industry. Lurid flames burst forth from daemon-headed gargoyles as an endless stream of sacrifices
were slain in the blood-chambers deep within, and the deep baritone of Astartes voices lifted in
morbid cantillation.
Outside the temple, the lines of sacrifices, ten million strong, shuffled forwards, a never-ending
stream of humanity that wound its way through the blood-soaked avenues. Deathly cherubs with
skeletal wings growing from their bloated, childish bodies swooped low over the masses, and foulsmelling
incense billowed from the censors hanging from the chains that pulled at their skin. Ever
more penitents were constantly added to the lines, slaves and odalisques taken from a hundred
thousand worlds on which the Word Bearers had fought, bringing the holy word of Lorgar to all,
willing or not. Most were already utterly corrupted to the worship of dark gods and went to their
deaths willingly, eagerly, yet twisted, black-clad minions of the Word Bearers continued to stalk the
lines, stabbing their needle-like fingers into any that shuffled forward too slowly, urging them on.
Discords floated along the lines, mechanical tentacles waving gently, and the rapturous blare of
Chaos in all its insanity assaulted the eardrums of the condemned from their grilled speakers.
Relentless mechanical pounding boomed from the discords, overlaid with daemonic bellows and
roars, voices whispering of death and the glory of Chaos, weeping of children and hate-filled
