Aboard the Opportunity
591 days after the Emperor’s death.
‘I am initiating Protocol Omega Point Four,’ Captain Malistrum said.
The officers leaned back in their chair and considered his carefully. The Omega protocols were a set of doomsday scenarios for a situation which the strike force would have been unable to handle in conventional ways. Every single one of them acknowledged that a single ship with a hundred battle-brothers could not have achieved victory, yet some strategic objective made it necessary for them to fight on regardless.
The ancestors of the Fatemakers listed all possibilities in their rational yet paranoid style. Protocol Omega Point One described a suicide run through a numerically superior enemy battlefleet, which included sending boarders over to approaching vessels, shooting and ramming their way through the rest only to blow up the Warp-reactors of their own ship when they felt they fought their way into a suitably tight formation of hostiles. Protocol Two set up various ways to tie down a massive land-based army in one place, only for the Astartes ship to bomb the entire area at the right moment, killing every single Space Marines in the process. Protocol Three was more like an engineering plan, examining ways of landing the strike force ship on a planet, forever wrecking it, but allowing the survivors to use the hull as a veritable fortress, allowing them to fight with the entire world, if necessary. Protocol Four…
Of all the various plans, up to Protocol Eight – necessitated by the Neodevourer Wars – number Four was the only one which did not explicitly include the deliberate destruction of the strike force itself. The Chapter had implemented this plan twice before, and although the battle had been won in both cases, the strike forces had to be re-organized because there had not been enough survivors to execute any further missions. Strike Force Four itself had never used any of the Omega Protocols, Number Four or otherwise. There had never been any need for it up to this point.
There was great potential in an Astartes company, greater than men credited them for, even though Space Marines had always been formidable warriors. If a strike force decided to forgo all safety precautions, call for any reserves, unleash all their armour, mobile artillery, aircraft, all specialist weapons they had accumulated over long centuries; if they organized all their serfs, many of whom had so hard training they were probably the equivalent of any veteran Guard force; if the commander ordered to deploy the ancient, relic-like weapons of his Chapter and gave energized, plasma- and melta-weapons into the hand of every warrior, human or post-human; if he donned all his battle-brothers into the best Terminator-armours and made a Devastator out of everybody else, the level of destruction they could do would be legendary. For the duration of the battle, the strike force would become an army, capable of defeating other massed armies, like the old Legions from the Emperor’s Great Crusade.
And then the strike force would burn out and die. There was a reason why Space Marines did not fight alone as separate armies any more. In any engagement, especially one which involved macro-weapons, attrition was an unavoidable fact. Those original twenty Legions could deploy tens of thousands of Astartes warriors in problematic battlefields, but they must have also lost them by the hundreds. Hundreds of lost battle-brothers would have meant the crippling of any modern-day Chapter, forcing it out of action for decades. Striking fast and hard was the motto of the Space Marines of the 42nd millennium: exposing themselves for the duration of a strike, moving on by the time the enemy could mass up against them, hitting key targets only and let regular human armies kill the rest of the enemies.
Malistrum had the right idea. The heretic Mechanicus forces were well-prepared for a frontal assault, which was what this mission needed now. Then three Warhounds made everything infinitely worse. Titans were army-killers; perhaps the small and agile Warhound less so, but the three of them could very well massacre the entire company without on their own. Strike Force Four could not hold back anything.
‘I don’t have to tell you what it means,’ Malistrum continued. There was tension in his voice, and he did not try to hide it. ‘We will sacrifice a lot in the coming battle. Perhaps all. Our endurance will be tested, the loyalty of our allies will be tested. I have faith in both. I cannot say that we have beaten worse odds than this because we have not; but I know we will beat these odds. We will beat them because there is no other option before us.’
He gestured towards his men. ‘When the battle is over, we will count our losses, and decide if the prize makes up for our sacrifice. All of you have your tasks: study it, and prepare you men as well.’ He hesitated for a second. ‘The Emperor is no more,’ he said, ‘but we still have our souls. I leave it up to you how and with whom you want to make peace before we go to war.’
He nodded. ‘I am done here. The pre-battle meeting will start in exactly thirty hours.’
There was some clamour as the men stood up and left, one by one. Akichi also stood up, but he did not move. Malistrum’s eyes narrowed. He said nothing until the last officer had gone out, then nodded to the Librarian.
‘Speak your mind,’ he simply said.
Akichi seemed unusually edgy. His mouth moved as if he was about to say something, but he could not make himself say it. Malistrum waited patiently.
‘Protocol Omega Point Four involves the culling of the human contingent, my lord,’ he finally managed.
Malistrum sighed. Of course this was the problem.
‘This is the hardest part of it all,’ he answered. ‘There aren’t enough armsmen aboard to deploy proper formations out of them. There aren’t enough Ogryns either. The residents are the only solution.’
Akichi remained silent for a few seconds.
‘These are the same people you charged me to literally protect their souls,’ he said. ‘We kept them alive so far, and now we will kill them.’
‘The enemy will kill them, not us,’ Malistrum reminded him.
‘They will not survive. I mean, even if they do survive, they won’t.’
‘I know,’ Malistrum agreed. It was obvious that he had to force himself to say these words, but the fact remained that he said them anyway. ‘These people are resources. Just like us, just like this ship. When the situation arises, we use our resources. We consume them.’ he stepped closer and placed a hand on Akichi’s shoulder. ‘We have spent too much time with them, and we obviously forgot that in the end, we are all expendable. Life is harsh.’
He took his hand off the Librarian, and moved towards the door.
‘My lord?’ Akichi called after him.
Malistrum turned.
‘Two weeks ago you said you would eventually betray your people’s trust,’ the Librarian said quietly. ‘I believe this is what is happening now.’
The commander did not react.
‘I believe you said two weeks ago that you would eventually follow me to Hell itself,’ he finally said in a sad, painful voice. ‘I believe this is what is expected of you now.’
And with these words, he left the room, leaving the Librarian behind.
Captain Malistrum’s debate with Librarian Akichi was hardly the only emotion-laden conversation on the ship that day. Strike Force Four reached a turning point in its course, and a lot of people felt they needed to talk to someone. The conversations varied; some were arguments, some were more like monologues with another person listening. The crew of the Opportunity took a symbolic deep breath as they were preparing for the great attack, as if they had known that not all of them would return – in fact, they would not even set off as the same person.
Perhaps the largest group of Astartes gathered in one of the smaller training chambers. There was only one access corridor to it, which made it ideal for someone who did not want to be herd by any intruders, and the people present knew it for a fact that the cameras observing this area were still severely malfunctioning after the noosphere attack of the Vetrix-class pirate ship.
Even so, the gathering would have been suspicious under normal circumstances. A surprising number of officers and specialists, as well as a good number of ordinary battle-brothers were crammed up in the room. They were all listening to one person talking.
‘This is going to be it,’ Scout-Sergeant Essen said. His voice was even, and his face did not show any emotion whatsoever as he uttered the words. ‘We cannot go any further. This attack will cost us too much.’
The others listened in silence. There had been other conversations before where everybody had said everything he wanted to say. Now they only needed confirmation.
‘This will be the Ablathea-campaign that the strike force could never do,’ Essen continued. ‘The battle which cripples us so bad we will need a re-haul and a few years of building up our strength. Except we won’t be able to do so now. We will be lesser things after this or we die out all together.’
‘Explain to us, then, why we won’t make our move before the attack,’ a voice growled from the back.
Essen cast a hard look at the speaker. ‘I thought we had an agreement. I thought you were in on this. We make our move now, and it will end up in bloodshed, except it is our brothers’ blood that we will spill. And they will spill ours in return. I will not do this favour to those heretics out there.’
‘Did you change your mind about them?’ a second voice asked.
‘I still don’t care about them,’ the Sergeant shook his head. ‘But I would like to see what information we will find about our reserve fleet down there. And before you ask,’ he lifted a finger, ‘I no longer care that much about their fate, either. But we need closure. We didn’t do that when the Fatemakers were created from our ancestor Chapters. We buried our past, and it crawled out from the grave just a few weeks earlier. Now we are the bad people, and our enemies, the Twilight Monks, are the good ones. I intend to leave a clean sheet to those coming after us.’
‘Which is why I need you to cooperate,’ he stated. ‘With me, and with the Captain. We cannot hold back. We have to go and kill and bleed and die for that information. Of that, I am sure.’
The others did not seem to be so sure. Essen saw the doubt on their face, and he could not blame them. He himself had a difficult time accepting the fact that he had to move against his own Captain – against the old Chapter in a way. He had no choice. He was fighting for the same thing as Malistrum – the survival of the Fatemakers – but their preferred paths were getting mutually exclusive.
He was a Space Marine. He needed to act, and he needed to switch off his emotions when the situation demanded it. As an Astartes, he was capable of doing so, even against his own Captain.
May the Emperor forgive him. Except He no longer lived, and so His forgiveness was impossible.
May the Emperor forgive him. Except He no longer lived, and so His forgiveness was impossible.
Sergeant Andorias was sitting in a very similar training chamber as the one the conspirators occupied, although this one was empty, just life most of the deck where it was founded. He preferred it that way. There was no need for witnesses for his preparation.
He was brandishing his chain-sword in his hand. The rest of his battlegear was arranged on the floor in front of him. He had already checked the bolt pistol and the jump-pack, and, as usual, he found no fault in the mechanism of either of them. He knew he would not. He had done the same preparation countless times before, although those times, he also said the ritual prayers to the spirits of the instruments as well as the Emperor Himself.
He was doing neither this time. The Emperor was dead, requiring no further prayers, and the machine spirits would not approve of what he was planning to do anyway. It was enough if they simply worked.
You would have to die for that first, and this is the part which worries me more, Uskovich told Captain Malistrum on that fateful day. ‘You hold us together. Who could take over your place?’
Andorias remembered it all. He also remembered the day itself: the battle where he was forced to kill Astartes for the first and only time in his life. He fought hard for Strike Force Four that day, and, partly owing to his contribution, the Opportunity could continue her journey.
Killing fellow Space Marines hurt. It hurt more than he showed, but at least he still had a clear purpose then. The world was simple and clear-cut: he had his place in it, and he served his function well. Everything else had its purpose around him as well: his superiors who would give him orders, his subordinated whom he could give orders in return, and his fellow officers who, in theory, were his equals.
There are always some who were more equals than the others. Some rise while others stay in their place, where they belonged. He thought he had figured it out a long time ago.
His Captain had proven him wrong. We need a strong one for this task, Malistrum explained to Chaplain Uskovich while he was preparing for the duel with the leader of the Howling Griffons. He was not sure if he would survive the coming battle. It was a strange and unsettling thought that one day, Andros Malistrum would cease to be and another person should take his place.
But not him. Not him, no, never, NEVER!
Andorias’s fist clenched around the handle of the chainsword. He looked at his own grip, and forced himself to loosen his fingers. It took him some time to do that, and this was a worrisome prospect. He was losing it. He would not remain a functional Astartes officer much longer.
He exhaled loudly. Where did it start? When he had accidentally overheard the conversation between the Captain and the Chaplain? Aboard the Sororitas ship? Even before that, when he had first learned of the demise of the Emperor?
There were others too, he knew it. Chaplain Uskovich himself had fallen far from the implacable warrior and preacher he used to be. Other officers and even Battle-Brothers had shown symptoms of exertion. Hemethor and his squad were in a terrible shape. It would have been impossible to imagine that a fellow Space Marine could murder his own squad-mate and then commit suicide. Who else would follow his example.
Sadly, he knew the answer. Essen was planning something, something which the Captain would not have approved had he known about it. Andorias did not know exactly what he was about to do, but he knew enough. Before the Scout-Sergeant acted, he himself had to make a decision.
In the end, it was not that hard a decision. Andorias knew himself enough to know that he could not follow his Captain’s succession plans. In the end, everybody had their limit, and he knew he had reached his own.
He was still himself, at least for a little while. Before he got lost in a red-hot mist of violence and anger, before his Captain would pass his leadership own publicly, before Essen himself acted, he had one chance to make new fate for at least two men in the strike force. They used to be friends when they were little, before the Chapter had taken them from their hab-block. They used to do everything together, even if they no longer liked remembering it.
It seemed fitting that they would end their path together too.
Andorias slowly pulled his finger along the flat surface of the chain-sword. The metal dimly reflected his visage, but he could not recall his own features in the distorted image.
He finally looked up.
‘You will die down there,’ he told the emptiness in his room.
It took several long seconds for the door-panel to slide aside. When it did, Akichi stepped forward.
‘I wanted to…’
He stopped as he looked at Chaplain Uskovich.
‘…talk to you,’ he finished. He took a good look at the Astartes standing in front of him. ‘Am I disturbing?’ he asked.
Uskovich looked at him for a while. ‘Come in if you want,’ he finally said and stepped away from the door.
Akichi hesitated for a moment before he accepted the invitation. He stepped in the Chaplain’s room.
Uskovich was the spiritual leader of the strike force, but he did not possess much more than the rest of the Astartes aboard the ship. He had his bed, his weapon and armour rack, his chest for his personal belongings, a cogitator in one corner and a small shrine to the Emperor in the other one. These last two objects were the only things which made the room stood out among all the other chambers the Fatemakers occupied.
Akichi wondered how an almost empty room could be so messy. The bed had tiny creases on the surface as if the owner had been turning left and right while sleeping on it. The chest was open, and the lock was casually thrown next to it. Uskovich had taken off his armour – which was strange in itself – and although he had put every piece in its proper place on the rack, the pieces were hanging there in disarray. A Space Marine’s armour rack with the armour on usually looked as if the rack was wearing the armour itself: every piece was meticulously arranged in the exact same way it was worn: shoulder pads looking inside, gauntlets hanging with their fingers arranged along straight parallel line. Uskovich seemed to have taken off his armour and simply put it on the rack without any further arrangement.
The Chaplain was completely naked. His face may have been youthful and pleasant to look at, but his body was scarred and torn just like any other brother in the strike force. There were burn-marks on him, and cuts and gashes too; his fused ribcage had a slight irregularity in it: this suggested a massive blunt trauma which had broken the reinforced bone with such a force it had not knotted together properly later on.
The face was still the most terrible. The Chaplain looked weak. His eyes were blood-shot, he was a shade paler than he used to be, and his expression was somewhere between tiredness and bleakness, none of which was a regular visitor on his face. His movement as he went back to his bed and literally fell on it was painfully slow. Wounded brothers moved this way, and the Chaplain was sound – at least in body.
Uskovich turned his head and looked at the Librarian, who was standing uncertainly in the middle of the room. ‘Yes?’ he asked.
Akichi made an uncertain movement around the room.
‘What happened?’
‘I took off my armour,’ the Chaplain answered in a tired voice.
‘I see that, but…’
‘But?’
‘Why did you pout it away so messily?’
The Chaplain turned his head again to see what Akichi was talking about. ‘Oh, that,’ he said. ‘Well, I was feeling tired. Sleepy. Do you remember what it feels like to be sleepy like a mortal?’
‘No,’ the Librarian frowned. ‘I could bring forth the memory if you want to, but…’
‘Don’t bother,’ Uskovich waved with his hand. ‘I didn’t remember myself. You don’t sleep for a few decades like normal people do, and you tend to forget it, right?’ He chuckled mildly. ‘But I’m no longer a conditioned brother like you are. I can still meditate, and I remember the mental exercises, but it takes me hours to get into the proper mental state, so I no longer bother. Anyway, as it turned out, we can only do a perfectly precise job when we really concentrate on it. You lose concentration, your mind wonders, and suddenly, it doesn’t matter how you put your bloody helmet on its place any more. I was so tired I had to concentrate not to fall asleep while standing at the rack. You see, I need rest and sleep now.’ he looked away. ‘God-Emperor, I hate to be a human.’
Akichi was not sure how to answer that.
Uskovich continued. ‘And when I finally took off my armour, I realized something else. Did you know that we smell when we get out of our armour?’
The librarian was taken aback. ‘Smell?’
‘Body odour,’ Uskovich explained. ‘Even if we don’t perspire as much as regular people, we get dirty and grimy under all that ceramite. I did not take off that armour over there for two weeks, and now I did and I stank. I stank so badly I could not start to sleep.’ He sat up on his bad, and looked up. ‘When was the last time you took off your armour?’
Akichi suddenly felt uncomfortable. ‘Last week I took it off to check and maintain it. Three more weeks before that.’
‘There you go,’ Uskovich waved towards him. ‘We are lucky we don’t show up in front of the crew without our armour. We feel the smell, but we ignore it because we are conditioned to do so. I’m not, and the stench got up my nose.’
Akichi remained silent for a moment. ‘Uskovich…’
‘I went to the Apothecarion on this level because it has a shower to clean the patients’ body,’ the Chaplain continued, ignoring his fellow Astartes. ‘I soaked my body in water, and I used disinfectant gel to remove the dirt. Then, as I put on my gown, I realized that I was wet, and my gown got wet too as I came back to my room. I think mortals have a piece of cloth to wipe their bodies after soaking it. I had nothing. I had one single gown, which I used to wipe off the water, and then I put it back in the chest because I don’t have a rack to hang it up on, and I cannot close the top of the chest because the gown has to get dry and I don’t know how to dry it.’
Akichi tried to interrupt him again.
‘Uskovich…’
‘And even so, I cannot sleep,’ the Chaplain continued. ‘I cannot sleep because I keep thinking of how the world is coming apart around us. The Emperor died, the Imperium is falling apart, our Chapter is well on its way to become a pirate fleet and the Twilight Monks turned out to be more righteous than we are. Do you ever think about how this is all wrong?’
The Librarian shifted. ‘I do,’ he admitted. ‘Sometimes. Then I…’
He could not continue, and Uskovich nodded. ‘Then you use your conditioning, and you force your mind to turn towards other issues. I envy you for that.’ He leaned back on the bed, and closed his eyes.
Akichi remained still. ‘I worry about the Captain,’ he finally said.
Uskovich opened his eyes and looked back at him again, although he said nothing.
‘He is making bad decisions now,’ the Librarian continued.
‘Is he?’ Uskovich asked.
Akichi took a deep breath. ‘The Omega Protocol will kill our crew.’
The Chaplain nodded. ‘We all know this. They will be told what we expect from them.’
Akichi leaned forward. ‘We are effectively sacrificing them. What would this make of us?’
‘The Captain made a hard decision. Not a bad one, a hard one. Believe me, I know he is still holding it together.’
Akichi shook his head, and Uskovich frowned. ‘Didn’t you come because you wanted reassurance?’
‘I did,’ the answer came. ‘But now I look at you and I wonder…’
Uskovich looked up right into his eye. ‘Tell me if you believe I am no longer capable,’ he said levelly. ‘You saw my mind. You saw it break and you saw me go on. Tell me if you believe I am still broken, faulty or incapable.’
The Librarian’s pressed his lips together. He knew about the Chaplain’s mental condition. Uskovich looked tired and battered; he had clearly lost his Astartes conditioning; he was not wearing any cloth. Yet his eyes were ice cold. Akichi no longer saw the Astartes behind those eyes, but he still saw a man with steel-like determination.
‘You are… still capable,’ he admitted. ‘This only makes me wonder why you side with our Captain.’
Uskovich rubbed his temple again. ‘You don’t want to lose the mortal crew in this battle,’ he stated.
‘No,’ the other answered, ‘I do not. I have no idea why he agreed to this. We are supposed to protect these people, not…’
‘…use them?’ Uskovich finished his sentence. ‘Actually, we are. We are supposed to use them as war material. We feed them, we train them, we give them equipment, but the aim of their existence is to fight our wars. Surely you remember this.’
Akichi snorted and started to pace up and down.
‘These are the same people whom we gave modified Eldar soulstones,’ he said. The Chaplain followed him with his eyes as he was walking aggressively on the room. ‘We devoted time and energy to saving their souls. They are more to us than a simple asset we can exploit.’
‘No, they are not,’ Uskovich interrupted. ‘They are important for you. This is the problem. Two years ago, you would have not hesitated to spend their lives for a worthy cause.’
The Librarian stopped and stared at him. ‘And what do you mean by that?’
The Chaplain sighed, stood up and went to his chest. ‘Are these people important to you? Miklas? Dmitrija? Yeverick? Do you care about them?’
‘Of course I do!’ the other snapped.
‘And why?’
‘Because they are people! People we are meant to protect. They have always been with us, and they are still following us. If any of them die, we cannot get a new mortal. They are the only thing left for us…’
‘And now we are at the real problem,’ the Chaplain raised a finger. He reached into the chest and grunted with dissatisfaction.
‘It is still wet,’ he remarked. ‘No matter. As for you,’ he continued while taking his robe from the chest, ‘you are worried for them because you don’t have anything else left. We Astartes are not meant to exist on our own. We would turn renegade very easily that way. We need something to focus on, someone to protect.’
Akichi was taken aback. ‘And you think I am focussed on the mortals?’
‘Why not?’ the other asked back. ‘What else is there for you? You must find some stable point in your life, or you go mad, and you cannot exist in battle-condition because it would ruin you as it almost ruined me. You do remember what our future is set for us, don’t you?’
The Librarian slowly nodded. ‘We will fail,’ he said. ‘The Chapter will be destroyed… our brothers die… I will be the last Fatemaker.’ On a mortal’s face, the expression he was wearing may have been taken for fear. ‘I will travel back in time, and I will be killed by my past self.’
Uskovich winced. ‘With all of us dead and forgotten. You will be the last of us, and so far we have not seen anything that could prevent that future.’ He smiled sadly. ‘But if you have to be the last Fatemaker alive, all the other Fatemakers must die first.’
The two of them stared at each other. ‘This battle has the potential to destroy us,’ Uskovich murmured. ‘You will definitely survive, we know that for sure, but who else? If we die here or even get decimated here, the first half of the prophecy will come true. Then you only need a time-travelling accident,’ he added with a sarcastic expression, ‘and you may face yourself within a few days.’
A muscle twitched in the corner of the Librarian’s mouth. ‘So this is my motivation? No altruistic feelings, just a fear of change because it might destroy me?’
‘Maybe,’ the Chaplain shrugged. ‘Why else would you suddenly become so picky? Shouldn’t your Astartes conditioning prevent you from dwelling on things which may hinder our mission?’
Akichi slowly looked away.
‘I don’t want to end like that,’ he finally said. ‘I don’t want to look up the bolter muzzle of another Akichi. It was a mistake to kill myself, and now I wish I could prevent it.’
Uskovich studied the face of his friend. ‘Why did you do it, then? Why did you decide to shoot your future self? Was there really no other way to prove your dedication?’
The Librarian went to Uskovich’s bed with heavy steps. ‘There may have been,’ he admitted, ‘but I wanted to deny that future in the most drastic way possible.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I believed I would have a higher purpose in life, and that the future my older self told us about was just a mistake.’ The Librarian sat down heavily on the bed. ‘I refused to believe that this was my lot in life.’
Now the two of them were reversed: the Chaplain was standing, looking down at the other, and the Librarian looked weak and desperate.
‘I witnessed the death of the Emperor, and I survived,’ Akichi said. ‘Can you imagine what a shock His death caused if another Segmentum felt it? I walked away from it, and I stayed sound enough to survive your exorcism after it.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘I could come up with no better explanation than that I was somehow chosen, that I would have some more purpose in life. And then I show up from the future and I tell Captain Malistrum that we are doomed and the only purpose I could find is to simply go back and tell ourselves about our failure – not because I wanted to warn us, but because I have done it once anyway and I might as well close the circle. There is no higher purpose in that.’
Silence descended on the two after Akichi’s speech.
‘The Emperor no longer protects,’ Uskovich finally started to talk. ‘I have been preaching in His name, secure in the knowledge that He is all powerful. It turned out… it turned out that He was just a man in the end. An incredibly powerful man, but a man nonetheless. We cannot venerate Him any longer because He is no longer an absolute.’
‘But we need an absolute in this world,’ he continued, ‘because the only absolute remaining now are the Gods of Chaos, and I will never acknowledge them. Not even if they win in the end. By now, everybody on this ship has found a new purpose, a new goal, a new god if you like. The crew found us. In fact, they have long abandoned the idea of His absoluteness, and replaced Him with us in their heart. You believed that you served a purpose, and your only remaining absolute was the ship and its crew. Not the Chapter, but this ship and the people aboard.’
The Librarian looked on, but he did not deny this.
‘The Captain has his mission. He needs it because the Chapter is no longer an absolute for him, and he cannot go on without a purpose. For this goal, he will sacrifice the rest of the crew if needed, and it is needed now. He can abandon the mission and lose faith once more or close his eyes to the plight of his people and use them knowing that the same people have long authorized him to do with their lives as he sees fit. They agreed to it a long time ago.’
After the Chaplain had finished his speech, Akichi shook his head. ‘This should not be the way,’ he said. ‘We could… stop.’
‘Stop?’
‘Abandon the mission.’ He stood up and faced the Chaplain. ‘We could dismantle the Chad-Okhlam, take everything we could use and let the reserve fleet go wherever it pleases. We could find some Imperial stronghold and fortify it. We would not need to die needlessly.’
The Chaplain made the tiniest of smiles. ‘And you would not have to live in a future where you would be killed by your younger self.’
‘Yes,’ Akichi snapped. ‘Yes, damn it, that’s exactly what I mean. I am no coward. I have faced terrible enemies, I have risked my very soul, I am going to risk it again if I have to. I will kneel and let the past Akichi kill me if I see the sense in it. But there is no sense any more. We have no god, we have no purpose. When I killed that other Akichi, it seemed like a sacrifice, an ultimatum to the Universe. Not it seems like suicide. I don’t want to die that way.’
‘This sounded very selfish,’ Uskovich remarked. He was now cool and observing, reminding the Librarian of the old, conditioned Chaplain.
‘It is,’ Akichi agreed, ‘but my selfishness would save lives now. We could still consolidate some part of the Galaxy. We could still have a purpose.’
There was some silence after that. The Chaplain closed his eyes and contemplated what Akichi had said, while the Librarian was waiting for his answer impatiently.
Finally, Uskovich opened his eyes and shook his head.
‘It is too late for anything else,’ he said. ‘Forget the fact that it would be hypocritical to abandon the mission now. We could have done so at Faramuntibus, in the Ogoliant Triangle, Saint Menthas, even in Cephola. We could have gone on to solve the Ablathea conflict. All these places needed us, but we never stopped. All right, we could stop now, start something new. I am telling you, the strike force would not survive a month past it.’
‘What do you…’ Akichi started, but the other did not let him finish.
‘Do you really think you are the only Astartes with problems? That I am the only Space Marine who suffered a mental breakdown? That Pelidor’s suicide was unique and it would not happen again? I am still a Chaplain, and I still have eyes. Dozens of our brothers are struggling to live on from day to day. We survived the Withdrawal, and our souls are as secure as they can be, but here,’ he knocked his forehead, ‘we have deep problems. Our god is gone, the world is doomed, our brothers are turning pirates or worse, and we have a prophesy from your own mouth which clearly states that we will fail. Captain Malistrum and the mission is what keeps them focussed. If they lose even that, we will fall apart.’
Akichi stood immobile. ‘Is it that bad?’
Uskovich nodded. ‘We can see the signs. Essen is arguing with half of the ship officers. Something is clearly eating Andorias inside. The Captain spends every free moment in his private room. He has a pict-recording of the ship, and he watches it day and night. No doubt he is trying to find a way to cheat our destiny. If we admit that we followed a flawed path so far, all these problems will come to the forefront. There will be suicides. Perhaps even murders. The crew will lose faith in us. We will have to oppress and cull them.’ He shook his head again. ‘No, our way is set. The Captain set us on when he decided to follow the reserve fleet, I set us on when I supported him, you set us on when you killed yourself, even the Chapter Master set us on when he abandoned us without explanation. We started to walk the circle, and I don’t think this is the point where we can leave.’
After a moment of hesitation, Akichi turned and went to the door. Before stepping out, he looked back once more.
‘You said everyone needs a definite in his life. What is yours?’
‘The Captain and his faith in the mission,’ Uskovich answered. ‘I no longer have faith of my own, but as long as he goes on, I will follow him.’
‘Would you sacrifice the crew in his stead?’
‘Without hesitation.’
Akichi nodded, and left. Uskovich fell back on his bed with a painful expression. His head started to hurt again.
‘May I have a moment of your time?’
Magos Brakk turned back and found himself facing Techmarine Guztav. They were in the main vehicle depot; dozens of various tanks and warmachines were standing along the walls, including a few Land Raiders, various Predator variants and even a Demolisher. The whole depot was busy. The entire vehicle reserve was to be deployed in the coming engagement – something which had not been required for almost seventy years – and the entire Mechanicus cadre and all the drivers were busy preparing and equipping them. There was noise and hurrying people everywhere, as a stark contrast to the silence and contemplation on most of the ship.
The Land Raider Magos Brakk was checking, however, was silent. Magos Brakk was the leader of all Mechanicus personnel aboard, and although nobody feared him, he had tremendous respect among his lesser brothers. Wherever he was, the others kept a respectful distance, which was why the Techmarine could approach him without being noticed in the first place.
‘Techmarine Guztav. I can direct attention towards you, but I cannot abandon my current duties,’ the Mechanicus leader said.
‘That will be sufficient,’ Guztav answered. He could always speak with the Magos a little easier than the other Astartes, mostly because he was a Mechanicus initiate himself. He took no offence when the Magos turned his upper body and head to face him, but his mechadendrites on his back were still working on the side panel of the Land Raider. He knew that the Magos was listening to what he had to say.
‘I have a crisis of faith,’ he admitted.
The mechadendrites of the Magos were moving at a leisurely pace.
‘Brother-Chaplain Uskovich is more suited to discussions about faith,’ he said.
‘Normally, I would turn to him,’ Cuztav said, ‘but my crisis concerns those Iron Men we had to fight aboard the Chad-Okhlam.’
The mechadendrites slowed down.
‘We may share similar impulses on that matter.’ His voice was perhaps a tad softer than usual.
‘They are soulless intelligence. They…’ He sighed. ‘I fight against the Ruinous Powers any day. I know I put my life and soul at risk, and I can accept that. But those things had no soul.’
‘No, they are not. They are everything our order opposes,’ Brakk agreed.
‘I have known similar things existed once,’ Guztav murmured, ‘but knowing about it is not the same as experiencing it.’
‘It is the difference between raw data and empirical evidence,’ Brakk said. ‘This is something even a Magos would do well to realize.’
‘We know nothing about the world around us.’ The Techmarine was looking straight into what he supposed were the eyes under the Magos’s hood. ‘Machines may exist without an organic sentience behind it. Time-travel is a possibility. The Emperor… the Omnissiah’s avatar…’ he swallowed. ‘If nothing in our life is true, what if there is no point in going on and suffering?’
The Magos’s mechadendrites stopped moving all together. ‘You are having a crisis of faith, Techmarine Guztav,’ he stated. ‘Although I still do not understand why you came to me with it. Have you lost faith in Brother-Chaplain Uskovich as well because his conditioning was broken?’
‘No,’ Guztav answered firmly. ‘I accept his judgement, but I know his reasons, and I doubt anybody has asked your opinion on the matter. When the Emperor died, it also meant that the personified Omnissiah died with Him as well. How did you take it?’
The Magos pulled his mechadendrites back under his red robe, and folded his real arms in front of his chest. ‘Technically, the Omnissiah encompasses all creation, and the Emperor was only a vessel of power,’ he said. ‘Nevertheless, you are right. When we confirmed the death of the Emperor, we held a separate noosphere conference with my brothers to re-assess the situation.’
‘And what did you find?’
‘Nothing. We were not prepared for such an eventuality.’
‘I was afraid that you would say that,’ Guztav sighed. ‘Did you make any decisions as to how you would continue after this?’
‘Yes. With the recent changes in our view of the world, we have to adhere to the two principles which remained untouched.’
‘What are those two principles?’
‘Mankind and the continued existence of the Chapter. Mankind survived the Emperor, although the observed social and psychological changes after the Extinction are not promising. It is even more imperative, then, that we work for our current goals: to link up with the reserve fleet and start rebuilding as much of the Imperium as we can.’
Guztav hesitantly rubbed his forehead.
‘Are these goals enough?’
The Magos stepped closer to him. ‘We are all essentially human,’ he said, ‘even if we tech-priests tend to forget it. I have just observed the consequences of abandoning humanity, and I am convinced that the future these Iron Men offer is just as bad as the possible victory of the Ruinous Powers. As men, we are prone to despair when facing insurmountable odds. As a Magos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, I can look at our current odds and realize how low our chances of success are. I could make rudimentary projections about all the possible outcomes of the Extinction, and even though we do not know all the variables, the figures would show the same every time. Our species will go extinct.’
‘Then why fight on?’ Guztav asked.
‘Because chances can be improved,’ the answer came. ‘The Extinction proved that the Emperor was not omnipotent, yet He was able to hold the Imperium together for almost twelve millennia. We do not have His talent, but we would be able to hold parts of it together for a while. It may be another ten thousand years, a thousand year or perhaps only a hundred. The length is irrelevant at this point.’
The Magos made a gesture with his real hand towards the rest of the depot. ‘The chances of Mankind surviving alone are below five per cent,’ he said, ‘but the chances of winning this battle are above fifty per cent and the chances of finding useful information about the reserve fleet is more than seventy. Those chances are good. Your Fatemaker brothers have a general motto which is appropriate in our present situation. You want to give people a fighting chance. I understand that goal, and so I can still work for it, even in a godless Galaxy. We know the Universe itself will eventually die, but it will happen so far in the future that it does not concern us. We also know that Mankind will die out eventually, but we can prolong it so far that it would not concern the current generation of people. There is nothing else that could be expected from us.’
Guztav pondered over this. ‘Would that be enough?’ he finally asked.
‘There is nothing else,’ Brakk said. ‘I know that I do not want to exist in a world where either the Warp or a soulless intelligence consumes my species. You Astartes refuse both these fates, and so I will fight for you.’
Guztav slowly nodded. ‘Thank you for your time, Magos.’ He turned away when something came to his mind. ‘How far would you go to secure the future you prefer?’
‘All the way,’ the Magos answered.
Mediator Dmitrija appeared at the door exactly at the appointed moment, where, to his great surprise, he found Captain Malistrum waiting for him.
‘My lord,’ he bowed.
‘We can leave the formality, I think,’ the Astartes Captain waved with his hand. His voice seemed to be somewhat weaker than usual, although Dmitrija could not be sure, especially in his current state. ‘I read the reports and I found out that you have been chosen.’
‘I have, my lord,’ Dmitrija nodded.
Malistrum looked at him with sad eyes. ‘I cannot make an exception,’ he said. ‘Not even in your case.’
‘I understand that, my lord,’ Dmitrija said. He was pale, he knew, but the Captain did not mention it.
‘Still, I wanted to talk to you before you enter. Do you know what is expected of you?’
Dmitrija slowly nodded.
‘Have you been informed about all aspects of this change?’
There came another, somewhat slower nod.
Malistrum sighed. ‘You have been serving the Chapter and Mankind faithfully, Mediator,’ he said. ‘You did not shy away now either. I cannot say ‘thank you’ for this because it is expected of you to make even this sacrifice if necessary.’
‘Yes, my lord.’ Dmitrija was whispering now.
Malistrum places his hand on his shoulder. ‘I wanted to tell you that you have always fulfilled your duties expertly and faithfully. The Chapter will not forget what you will do for us today.’
The two of them were standing immobile for a while. The Captain was almost twice as tall as the Mediator, and almost twice as bulky as well. Dmitrija looked like a child with Malistrum holding his shoulder in his gauntleted hand.
The two men had never seemed so apart from each other than at this moment.
‘Go,’ Malistrum finally said and pushed Dmitrija towards the door.
‘Yes, my lord,’ he murmured softly as he went in.
The Apothecarion seemed a lot colder today than usually. An Apothecary was waiting for him with a hooded Mechanicus servitor and Chaplain Uskovich. The two Astartes were masked.
‘You are late,’ the Apothecary said.
‘I was talking outside with Lord Malistrum,’ Dmitrija retorted.
The two Astartes looked at each other. ‘Are you prepared?’ the Apothecary finally asked.
The temperature dropped even lower, and somehow the voices became more muffled in Dmitrija’s ears. ‘I am.’
He knew what was expected of him. He knelt down in front of Chaplain Uskovich, who opened the book in his hand to confess him. Dmitrija listened, trying to block out the noises made by the Apothecary and his assistant as they arranged the instruments on the operating plate.
Imperator nobis, qui nos protegit…
Small craft hangars aboard the Opportunity
598 days after the Emperor’s death
Miklas was standing next to his Land Raider and watched the various fighting groups embarking into their spacecraft.
The Opportunity would stay quite empty, he dimly remarked. In all the years of his service, he had never seen such a gathering before. Every Space Marine would be deployed with Thunderhawks and Caestus boarders as well as all the armour and every other human auxiliary. His own vehicle had already been attached to a Landing Craft with three others, waiting to be carried down onto the surface.
It would not be an easy fight, he knew that. The enemy would realize that a hostile force was approaching them. They were too well equipped with sensors, and although Sergeant Essen’s scouts could penetrate their lines, they would be alerted to so many people, especially now that the Opportunity was moving towards them as well. A direct confrontation was the only answer.
A direct confrontation needed a lot of warm bodies, and the Fatemakers now had it in abundance. Miklas had seen the Ogres in their cumbersome power armours climbing into a separate vessel, and he had seen the ship’s human soldiery waiting for their turn at the back of the hangar. He had seen whole squads of Space Marines equipped with various heavy weapons, he had seen bulky Terminators and Assault Marines with their jet-packs, mostly already sent down the surface to clear the landing zone; he had caught a glimpse through the shield-protected open hangar gates of the various fighter craft as they made a preliminary descent to the planet in case there was any initial resistance down there.
He cared about none of that. He had been waiting for the group which had just arrived. He reached into his shirt and bit in his lips.
The Mechanicus contingent was now the most numerous fighting force in Strike Force Four. They had the Magi and their old servitors, of course, but even the mighty adepts needed foot-soldiers in such an engagement, and Captain Malistrum had given them what they needed to accomplish this.
Protocol Omega Point Four was not a subtle one. The Astartes needed a big and capable fighting force, and they got it. An average human needed at least six weeks of training just to learn how to maintain his gear and how to perform at least rudimentary fighting action. They also needed experience so they would not break at the first sight of an enemy.
The adepts did not have six weeks. They did have, however, the technology and experience to modify the brain of an average human. Reaction time could be shortened, better aiming could be achieved and even survival instincts could be dimmed with the right implant – or through tinkering with or even removing the parts of the body which were not deemed necessary in battle conditions.
The Mechanicus contingent had outdone itself in the past eight days. They successfully servitorized more than one thousand one hundred humans in just a little more than a week. These people were selected based on their medical data, and they were modified with the precision and speed of a Factorum assembly line of a major forge world.
Servitors were usually not made so quickly. Creating so many complete servitors would have taken almost as much time as the training of these people. Cutting time had its separate price, of course: the operation was completely irreversible, and the subjects’ body would reject the implants in almost any case. Even if the implants had worked in the long run, the nerve system of the patients and the wiring in the implants were not fused perfectly. In one more week, these semi-servitors would al experience glitches and faulty motor functions, and in another week, they would all die.
The subjects knew about this. The Fatemakers had always been frank about the dangers awaiting for their servants. Even so, none of the humans had objected when they had been told what was expected of them.
How could they object? Their gods had spoken.
Miklas tensed. The servitors went past him. They looked terrible; not because they had signs of the operation – they had received helmets and body armour which concealed any possible scars – but because their face lacked any emotion or even remote sign of life. The Mechanicus might as well have led dead people into battle.
Miklas finally saw him. His heart missed a beat.
His son did not recognise him. He did not even make any reaction: he simply marched on with the others, treating his own father as if he had been a piece of lifeless equipment in the hangar.
Miklas looked after the marching servitors until he heard the signal calling for his unit; he was grabbing the soulstone under his shirt as if he was trying to gain strength from it – or wishing to throw it away. Then he turned and crawled up into his vehicle to fight the battle of his masters – a battle which he personally had already lost.
.