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entered in-system, but Salamanders were nothing if not thorough.

Veteran Sergeant Praetor was nowhere to be seen. Dak’ir assumed that his bulky Terminator suit precluded

his presence on the bridge and that he remained with his Firedrakes, locked in whatever clandestine rituals

the warriors of 1st Company performed before battle. Perhaps Chaplain Elysius was with them, for he too

was absent.

“Brother-sergeant,” N’keln’s greeting held a tone of inquiry.

Dak’ir saluted, and took it to mean he was allowed to approach.

“Preparations for our landing are already underway?”

“Since before we left Prometheus, brother.” N’keln’s gaze had shifted to the plans that Lok was annotating

with arrows and battle-symbols.

Dak’ir noticed the military aspect to the icons the veteran sergeant was scribing.

“Are we expecting trouble, brother-captain?”

“I neither expect nor doubt it, sergeant. I merely wish us to be prepared for whatever is down there.”

N’keln looked up from the strategio-table when Dak’ir fell silent.

“Impatient for answers, Dak’ir?”

“My lord, I—”

N’keln waved away the nascent apology.

“You’re the third officer in the last hour who has visited the bridge,” he said. “I should admonish such

restless behaviour, especially for a sergeant who ought to be with his squad, but in this case I shall make

dispensations. It is not every day that a Chapter like ours gets the opportunity to discover the fate of its

primarch.” It seemed to Dak’ir that N’keln’s expression grew slightly wistful. “I have seen artistic

representations, of course,” he said, his voice reverent, “rendered in stone and metal, but to see…” He

emphasised the last word with heartfelt vehemence, “…and with my own eyes. Our father, ten thousand

years since his fabled disappearance… It would be like myth come alive.”

Dak’ir’s mood was less ebullient.

“I hope you are right, brother-captain.”

“You do not think we will find Vulkan on Scoria?” N’keln asked plainly. There was no agenda, no careful

probe in his words. Perhaps that was why he struggled at the political side of leadership.

“Truthfully, captain, I don’t know what we’ll find there or what any of this will amount to.”

N’keln’s eyes narrowed and in the pause in conversation, Dak’ir felt the imminence of what was to come

like a stone collar around his neck. The captain’s gaze was searching.

“It is more pertinent for you than most, isn’t it, brother. You found the chest in the Archimedes Rex, did you

not?”

Dak’ir gave his unneeded confirmation. Even though they faced away from one another, he felt the eyes of

the Librarian boring into the back of his skull at the mention of the chest.

“You’ll have your answers soon enough, brother-sergeant,” the voice of Pyriel interjected, as if summoned

by Dak’ir’s thought. “We are about to emerge from the warp.”

There was a pregnant pause, as all those aboard the bridge waited for translation back into realspace.

“Now…” hissed Pyriel.

A massive shudder wracked the Vulkan’s Wrath, a sudden shock wave ripping down its spine. The bridge

shook. Dak’ir and several others lost their footing. A deep roar filled the hexagonal room. It sounded like

fire, but it howled as if truly alive, searching voraciously for air to burn. The human crew, besides the

servitors, covered their ears whilst trying to stay upright. The ship was bucking back and forth, tossed like a

skiff upon a violent ocean. Consoles exploded, spitting sparks and going dead. Klaxons whined urgently,

their warning drowned out by the raging tumult battering the Vulkan’s Wrath from outside.

“Alert status crimson!” N’keln bellowed into the command throne’s vox, gripping the arms tight to stay

seated. “All hands to emergency stations.”

Lok had fallen to one knee, braced against the deck with his power fist whilst his other hand clutched the

strategio-table.

“Pyriel…” N’keln’s face was slashed by the intermittent strobe of emergency lighting as Dak’ir pushed

himself back up from where he had fallen at the base of the stairs. Still groggy, his gaze went to the

Librarian. The pulpit was a mess of sparking wires and scorched metal. Pyriel punched his way out of the

twisted wreckage, his mood black.

“We must have translated into a solar storm,” he growled loudly, seizing the ragged edge of the shattered

pulpit for balance as the ship was smashed again. Helmsmen in front of the Librarian desperately tried to

steer the ship, whilst simultaneously fighting to stay on their feet.

The din of churning servos fought against the fiery thunder assailing the vessel, as the blast shields covering

the view-points started to retract. It was an automated system that kicked in as soon as the Geller fields

powered down and the ship re-entered realspace.

Dak’ir felt the danger before he saw a thin line of ultra-bright light creeping into being at the bottom edge of

the shielding.

“Shut th—”

Horrified screams smothered the brother-sergeant’s warning as multiple shafts of super-heated light reached

into the bridge. An ensign nearest the viewpoint spontaneously combusted as the deadly solar energy washed

over him. Others at the consoles suffered a similar fate. A shipmaster spun, crying for the Emperor’s mercy,

the left side of his face a blackened ruin. A naval armsman, with enough presence of mind to hunker down

behind a console, pulled his laspistol and administered a killing shot between the poor bastard’s pleading

eyes.

Dak’ir felt the heat against his armour tangibly. It was like wading through a wind tunnel as he fought to

reach the blast shield’s emergency override lever. Not wearing his battle-helm, the view for Dak’ir

shimmered through a heat haze. His naked skin was untroubled by it, though he saw a blistering servitor less

resilient to the solar flare. It ravaged the inner walls, setting cables aflame and burning out circuitry.

Pyriel threw up a force dome around the crew, who crawled into it on their hands and knees. The blinded

and the burned were dragged, mewling, into the psychic sanctuary whilst the dead were left to crisp and

blacken, their bodies becoming human torches in the blaze.

The crack in the shielding was only centimetres thick when Dak’ir reached the override panel and threw

back the lever. Agonisingly slowly, the armour plates rolled shut again and the hellish light was cut off.

Pyriel ended the force dome and sagged. His face was beaded with sweat, but his eyes conveyed his

gratitude as his gaze met Dak’ir’s.

The smoking ruins of men lay all about the bridge, their charred corpses like dark shadowy husks on the

scorched deck.

“Medical crews onto the bridge now,” Lok spoke into his gorget, linked in with the ship’s communication

systems. The edges of his pauldrons were black, as if filmed with a layer of thick soot, and heat emanated off

his bald pate.

“Master Argos,” N’keln barked into the throne vox. The fiery roar of the storm had not relented, making it

difficult to convey orders. “Damage report.”

Static filled the bridge’s vox-emitters. The Techmarine’s voice was strained as it fought to be heard through

the interference. Background clamour from the Enginarium deck where Argos was situated impeded the

clarity further.

“Hull engines are non-functional, aft thruster banks three through eighteen are showing sporadic power

emissions. Shields are down and decks thirteen through twenty-six are showing critical damage, possibly an

integrity breach.”

It was a grim report.

“What hit us?”

“The port-side of the ship was struck by a light beam from the solar storm. It burned through our outer

armour, took out our shields and strafed most of the sun-side decks. Entire sections were ripped out. The

worst hit areas were totally burned. Everything there is ash. I’ve shut them down already.”

“Vulkan’s mercy…” breathed N’keln.

Somehow, perhaps through his augmetics, Argos heard him.

“Imagine a melta gun at point-blank range against a suit of ceramite.”

Dak’ir found he had no desire to.

“Give me something positive, brother,” said N’keln, interrupting the sergeant’s bleak remembrance.

The Techmarine’s response was unintentionally dry.

“We are still aloft.”

The captain smiled without mirth. He was distracted for a moment as the blast doors opened and medicae

teams spilled through to tend to the injured and remove the dead. Lok directed them for his captain, as

N’keln continued to speak with his chief Techmarine.

“How long will that be the case whilst we are breached?”

There was a delay as the crackling retort of the vox-emitters blighted Argos’ reply.

“Not long,” he said at last.

N’keln looked Dak’ir in the eye, his face assuming a stern cast. The breached decks would have to be purged

and sealed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of human serfs worked in those areas of the ship — N’keln would be

condemning them all to death.

“Alone, they cannot survive,” stated Dak’ir, already knowing his captain’s mind.

N’keln nodded.

“That’s why you’re going to gather your squad — Lok, you too—” he added with a side glance, “and assist

in the evacuation. Save as many as you can, brothers. I will order the decks locked down in fifteen minutes.”

Dak’ir rapped his pauldron, and he and Lok ran from the bridge, the din of their armour clanking urgently

behind them.

II

Sinner and Saviour

Iagon was pitched off his feet as a violent tremor rippled across the solitorium. Zo’kar yelped in pain as he

was torn from the Salamander’s grasp. A low rumble echoed through the chamber, followed by the sound of

tearing metal and a crash of steel. Something fell from the ceiling and the brander-priest was lost from

Iagon’s view. Heaving himself up from his prone position, filtering out the sudden roar invading his senses,

Iagon staggered through the half-dark until he came to a pile of wreckage. The ceiling of the solitorium had

collapsed. Zo’kar’s pitiful face, the hood cast back in the fall, could be seen beneath it. Feeble arms pushed

against a thick adamantium rebar crushing the brander-priest’s chest. Blood was leaking from a wound

concealed by his robes, a dark patch spreading over the fabric as he struggled.

“Lord… Help me…” he gasped, his tone pleading, as he saw Iagon standing over him.

“Rest easy, serf,” said the Salamander. With his Astartes strength, he could lift the rebar and drag Zo’kar

out. He wedged his gauntleted hands beneath it, testing his grip. But before Iagon took a proper hold he

lifted his head, and his face became an emotionless mask. The Astartes reversed his grip, instead placing his

hands on top of the rebar, not under it. “Your pain is at an end,” he concluded and pushed down violently.

Zo’kar spasmed once as the rebar broke his ribs and pulped his chest and internal organs. A gush of blood

erupted from his mouth, spattering his face and robe in dark droplets. Then he slumped down, his dead eyes

staring glassily.

Something had struck the ship and continued to assail it, that much Iagon knew as he leapt over the

wreckage and fought his way into the outer corridor. Alert sirens were blaring and the vessel was plunged

into emergency half-light. The upper deck was evidently badly damaged. The destruction had spilled over

into its counterpart below, where Iagon was now standing, bringing down struts in sections of the ceiling. He

heard N’keln’s voice coming over the vox, broken by static interference. All Astartes were being ordered to

decks thirteen through twenty-six, whichever was nearest. The ship was breached and needed to be locked

down. N’keln was trying to save the crew.

“Noble, but futile,” Iagon muttered, rounding a corner to find a group of human armsmen huddled around a

spar of metal piercing the deck grille. As he got closer, Iagon saw a warrior in green battle-plate was pinned

by it. He recognised the face of Naveem, one of Tsu’gan’s main opposers. He’d torn off his helmet — it lay

discarded nearby — likely to aid his breathing, judging by the sergeant’s ragged gasps for air. The metal

spar had impaled his chest. Going on the sheer size of it, Iagon reasoned that most of Naveem’s internal

organs were already ruined. The sergeant was hanging on by a sinewy thread.

“Step aside,” Iagon ordered, stalking up to the arms-men. “You can do nothing for him.”

Buffeted by an unseen blow, the ship bucked again, throwing one of the armsmen to the ground and drawing

an agonised moan from Naveem.

Iagon steadied himself against the wall.

“Go to your emergency stations,” he said. “I will deal with this.”

The armsmen saluted then sped off uncertainly down the corridor.

Iagon loomed over the supine Naveem. The sergeant’s mouth was caked with expectorated blood and dark

fluid leaked from the copious cracks in his power armour.

“Brother…” he rasped upon seeing Iagon, spitting out a film of bloody vapour.

“Naveem,” Iagon replied. “You chose the wrong side,” he added darkly.

The sergeant’s expression was nonplussed as Iagon leaned in, taking both edges of the metal spar in a firm

grip…

“Iagon!”

Whatever Iagon was about to do was arrested by Fugis’ voice.

“Over here, Apothecary,” he bellowed with feigned concern, relaxing his grip. “Brother Naveem is

wounded.”

Fugis reached them in moments, narthecium in hand. His attention was fixed on the stricken form of Brother

Naveem — he barely acknowledged Iagon at all.

Crouching over the bloodied sergeant, the Apothecary made a quick assessment. His thin face grew grave.

Carefully disengaging Naveem’s gorget, he took a stimm from his narthecium kit and injected a solution of

pain-regressors into Naveem’s carotid artery.

“It will ease your suffering, brother,” he said quietly.

Naveem tried to speak, but all that came from his mouth was near-black blood, a certain sign of internal

bleeding. His breath became more ragged and his eyes widened.

Fugis pulled his bolt pistol from its holster and pressed the barrel to Naveem’s forehead. An execution shot

to the frontal lobe, point blank, would kill him instantly but leave both progenoids intact. Since the

sergeant’s chest was all but destroyed, that only left the one in Naveem’s neck.

“Receive the Emperor’s Peace…” he whispered. A deafening bang echoed off the corridor walls.

“There was no other choice, brother.” Iagon’s tone was consoling.

“I know my duty,” Fugis snapped, going to the reductor mounted on his left gauntlet. The device consisted

of a drill and miniature chainblade, designed to chew through flesh and bone to get to the progenoids buried