Legends of the dark ange.., p.39
Legends Of The Dark Angels, page 39
The battlewagons returned fire, tracer bullets whipping past the Devastators’ position. A blossom of fire and smoke from a turret presaged the impact of a shell, giving the Space Marines enough warning to duck back as the impromptu barricade exploded in a cloud of splinters and dirt. Falling stones rattled against Nestor as he glanced around, checking for any injuries.
Another shell exploded close to the other Devastator emplacement. As more rounds fell screaming onto the ridge it became apparent that the first strike had been a lucky hit. Explosions erupted all around the Space Marines but none were close enough to be anything more than a distraction.
While the heavy weapons of the squad continued to fire, Nestor helped Scalprum and the other brothers rebuild the barricade as best they could out of the broken remnants of the ammunition boxes and storage crates. It provided little protection against the bullets converging on them with increasing fury, but it would hamper the orks if they tried to storm the position.
More shells from the battlewagons engulfed the line, hurling shards of rock into the air. Out of instinct Nestor glanced across to the other combat squad and was taken aback by the sight. Two of the Space Marines lay draped over the barricade, one of them missing an arm, the other with his backpack ripped away, armour rent open.
Nestor sprinted across the divide as more detonations rocked the ridge. The shockwave from a nearby impact sent him off balance. He stumbled and crashed shoulder first into a jutting boulder. Righting himself in an instant, the Apothecary continued his run as the hoarse ork shouts and zing of bullets sounded ever closer.
‘Who has fallen, brothers?’ Nestor demanded as he leapt over the spilled dirt and broken wood from the ruptured barricade.
‘It is Hasrien and Anduriel, brother,’ came the reply.
Nestor attended to Hasrien first, the Space Marine who had lost his right arm and seemed most likely to survive. The shell detonation had ripped away the whole limb, leaving a ragged hole in Hasrien’s shoulder. Blood leaked slowly from shredded blood vessels despite the Space Marine’s quickly clotting blood. The Apothecary blotted out the sound of bolters adding to the din and concentrated on the task at hand. It was important to preserve as much of the existing skeletal, nerve and blood vessel structure as possible if a prosthetic replacement was to be viable.
Hasrien’s system was pumping Larraman cells through his bloodstream, which would harden into a protective layer on contact with the air. The downside of this rapid healing with major wounds was the possibility of air bubbles being trapped in the blood vessels, leading to necrosis and cell death if the Space Marine did not receive proper treatment swiftly. Nestor applied a thinning agent to slow the process and then used the cauteriser to seal the broken vessel more completely. After injecting a cocktail of anti-inflammatory and cell-growth drugs, the Apothecary doused the open wound with a compound that would boost the scabbing effect of the Larraman cells coursing through the Space Marine’s system. Within seconds the whole area was encrusted by a quickly hardening scar.
Nestor realised Hasrien was talking, an incomprehensible stream of words spilling quietly from his lips.
‘The green wave of fire brings the black reproach… The retribution flame cleanses the impure… A sky swirls with delight, bringing the stench of justice…’
Carefully turning the Space Marine’s head, Nestor found a wide gash carved into his helmet by a piece of shrapnel. The wound did not appear to be deep, and already the scab was thick and infection-proof. The Apothecary activated his interpersonal comm.
‘Brother Hasrien? This is Brother Nestor. What do you feel?’
‘The whiteness of fraternity bonds with the black wall,’ came the hushed reply. Hasrien’s good arm twitched, his fingers forming a fist.
Conventional brain damage seemed unlikely: the wound had barely scratched the Space Marine’s hardened skull. Nestor searched through his memory, recalling all of the rites of diagnosis, but there was nothing that matched this symptom.
The only thing that was remotely familiar was a malfunction in the catalepsean node – a small organ implanted in the cortex to allow a Space Marine to rest different parts of his brain without sleeping. The dream-like whispering would be explained by damage to that organ. Perhaps the blow had involuntarily activated it or somehow displaced it. As it was, Hasrien was in no fit state to fight: the catalepsean node was only employed on extended duty as it obscured the focus required for effective combat.
At a loss concerning what else to do, Nestor helped Hasrien sit up. There was no function of the narthecium that would help. With nothing else springing to mind, the Apothecary brought his fist down sharply against the uninjured side of the Space Marine’s helmet, jolting his head to the side. Hasrien slowly turned his head to the left and right and then looked up at the Apothecary, the lenses of his autosenses focussing on Nestor’s face.
‘Brother Nestor?’ said Hasrien. ‘I thought it was you.’
‘What is your name? Where are you?’
‘I am Brother Hasrien of Squad Scalprum, Third Company of the Dark Angels. Present location is Koth Ridge, Piscina IV, Piscina System.’ Hasrien looked to his right and then back at the Apothecary. ‘I appear to have lost an arm, brother, or did I just dream that?’
Nestor grabbed the Space Marine’s remaining wrist and helped him to his feet.
‘You have lost your arm, brother, but there is still fighting to be done,’ said the Apothecary, slapping his bolt pistol in Hasrien’s remaining hand. ‘The Emperor expects you to fight until you can fight no more.’
‘Thank you, Brother-Apothecary,’ replied Hasrien, a finger curling around the trigger of the pistol. ‘I shall speak your name to the Lion when I am next in chapel.’
Nestor watched the battle-brother rejoining the three other members of his combat squad, pistol at the ready. A moment later Hasrien was firing into the approaching orks, showing no after-effects from his strange episode.
Nestor turned his attention to Anduriel.
The Apothecary assessed the damage clinically, but was forced to conclude that Anduriel’s condition was best described as ‘a bloody mess’. Skin, fat, muscle, bone and organs had been mashed together by the blast; the damage to the Space Marine and his armour was such that Nestor assumed he had taken a direct hit from the battlewagon shell. Nestor activated the interpersonal link again.
‘Can you hear me, Brother Anduriel?’
The Space Marine’s reply was barely a whisper, wheezed between laboured breaths.
‘You sound far away, brother,’ said Anduriel. ‘I can feel nothing and everything is dark. Are my battle-brothers safe? I tried to shield them from the explosion.’
‘Your brothers are still fighting,’ Nestor told him. ‘I cannot heal your wounds, brother.’
There was a long pause before Anduriel spoke again.
‘I understand, brother,’ he said. ‘I have yet to pass on my gene-seed. Please recover it for the Chapter.’
‘I will, Anduriel, I will,’ Nestor said, straddling the face-down Space Marine. ‘There will be no pain.’
‘I feel nothing at all,’ said Anduriel as Nestor set to work.
The Apothecary chanted the canticles of mercy as he removed Anduriel’s helmet and laid it to one side. Placing his left palm on the back of the Space Marine’s head, he fired the narthecium’s pneumatic spike, plunging twelve inches of reinforced alloy through the Space Marine’s neck and into his brain. It was the quickest and least painful way to despatch an Astartes – a Space Marine’s boosted immune system and enhanced physiology would fight against lethal injections, causing discomfort and distress.
Nestor checked that Anduriel was truly dead and set about his next task. With scalpels and saw he cut away the spine and tissue obscuring the progenoid gland located at the base of the Space Marine’s neck. It was a delicate process, but Nestor’s armoured fingers worked with the practiced ease of five decades’ experience. He took a zero-vac containment vial from his belt and opened it, placing the jar in the dirt beside Anduriel. With two more cuts and a twist, he pulled the progenoid free. Grey and glistening, it sat in the palm of his hand. Within, the gland contained all of the DNA material of the Dark Angels, dormant and sterile, ready to be grown into fresh organs for a future recruit. Nurtured inside a battle-brother, it was the greatest gift to the Chapter a Space Marine could give.
Quickly placing the progenoid into the flask and sealing it, Nestor considered the best course of action to retrieve the twin organ in Anduriel’s chest. It would be quicker to cut through and retrieve it from behind the Space Marine’s thick breastplate, so Nestor set about cutting away sections of the spine and ribs, slicing away at the anterior muscles until he could see into the chest cavity. There were a few organs in the way, which Nestor efficiently cut free and placed to one side. As before, he readied a containment flask and removed the progenoid from its cluster of blood vessels, securing the precious gene-seed at his belt inside a rigid pouch. He placed the parts he had removed back inside the Space Marine’s body and sealed the gaping hole with bio-foam. Anduriel would be returned to the Chapter as whole as possible. Honour and dignity demanded it.
Standing up, Nestor looked around and to his surprise realised the battle was won. He had been so engrossed in his gory work he had paid no attention to the roar of tank engines cresting the ridge or the boom of cannons ripping apart the ork lines. Looking east, he saw two battlewagons careering away down the slope, followed by a few dozen orks on foot. The black bikes of a Ravenwing squadron raced after them, gunning down more of the greenskins as they fled.
The Apothecary looked down at Anduriel and commended the fallen warrior’s spirit to the Emperor and the Lion. It seemed a shame that Anduriel had not lived to see the victory he had helped to achieve. Such was the fate of all Space Marines eventually, whether young like Anduriel, or as old as the veterans of the Deathwing.
Nestor took heart from the fact that his ministrations of the day had ensured two battle-brothers would survive to fight again. To become lost in regret and mourning would be a disservice to those who had given their lives for the Imperium across the ten thousand years of the Dark Angels’ existence. Anduriel had fought well, with skill and courage, and now he knew the peace of death. Nestor hoped that when it was his time, he would pass with equal honour.
Though the orks had suffered terribly as a result of their assault on Koth Ridge – estimates placed enemy casualties at seventy-five per cent for a relative few Imperial fallen – the news from Kadillus Harbour was not so encouraging. Nestor listened as Master Chaplain Uriel explained the situation to Brother Sarpedon and Colonel Haynes of the Free Militia.
‘The orks are stubbornly resisting any attempt to dislodge them from the docks,’ said Uriel. ‘Twice in the last day they have attempted to break out of our cordon, and both times they have been held back by the slimmest of margins. Ghazghkull is probably unaware that this attempt to link with the city has failed, but if there are more orks to the east we can expect them to try again. Even with the Piscina defence force, there are not enough warriors to effectively garrison both the city and Koth Ridge.’
A shout from a picket of defence troopers down the slope interrupted the Chaplain. Nestor turned with the others to see what was causing the commotion. A vague shape emerged from one of the narrow gulleys a few hundred metres away and resolved into the figure of a Scout-sergeant, cameleoline cloak tossed back over one shoulder. As the bloodied and dirty warrior strode up the slope, Nestor recognised the new arrival as Sergeant Naaman of the 10th Company. He carried his bolter in both hands and had a sniper rifle slung over one shoulder. Of his squad and the Ravenwing squadron that had accompanied him into the east, there was no sign.
Nestor hurried down to Naaman, noticing the Space Marine had a limp and that some of the blood that stained his armour and uniform was his own. The Scout-sergeant waved away any attempt at assistance.
‘Thank you for your concern, brother, but I have a more urgent need,’ said Naaman. His eyes were intent through the mask of dried blood that covered his face. ‘I need a long-range comm. I must speak with Master Belial.’
Sarpedon joined the pair and escorted Naaman to Uriel’s Rhino, where the Master Chaplain was already stabilising the command link. Naaman took the proffered pick-up from Uriel and slumped down onto the transport’s ramp, bolter cradled in his lap. The battered-looking sergeant coughed once, took a deep breath and thumbed the activation rune.
‘Brother-Captain Belial? This is Veteran Sergeant Naaman, requesting permission to make my report.’
THE TALE OF NAAMAN
SHADOW WARRIORS
Master Belial listened without interruption while Naaman delivered his lengthy account of what had happened in the east. Naaman simply laid out the facts of the mission: the times, places and sightings of the enemy. He held back his observations on what this information might mean to the Dark Angels’ strategy and allowed Belial a few minutes to digest the information and consult with his advisors.
He waited close to Uriel’s Rhino for the master’s return signal, watching the Piscina defence troopers digging shallow graves for their fallen comrades. Several dozen more arrived along the road as dusk darkened the ridge. Some of the men were detailed to assist Apothecary Nestor as he removed Brother Anduriel’s remains from the field. The eight men lifted up the dead Space Marine with as much dignity as they could muster, but the strain soon cut through their solemn expressions and they were puffing and sweating by the time they lowered Anduriel into the back of one of the Rhinos.
One young trooper caught the sergeant’s eye. He leaned against the hull of the transport, mopping the sweat from his face with his sleeve, raking his fingers through his thick blond hair. There was dust and blood on his uniform, which didn’t fit well: tight across his wide shoulders, baggy along his short legs.
Naaman wondered what it was like to face something like the orks as a normal man. Like his battle-brothers, the sergeant saw himself as a military asset, and the preservation of his life was a tactical objective: the preservation of force. Several times in the past day he had come close to dying, but it was the potential of failing his mission that had motivated him to survive, not an emotional attachment to his continued existence. He knew that his deeds and his memory would live on through the Chapter – and quite literally through the gene-seed he had incubated within his body – so he felt none of the sense of ending that other men might feel about death. Even his name was something that Naaman was only borrowing from the Dark Angels; he knew the stories of twenty-six Brother Naamans that had come before and also knew that the twenty-eighth Brother Naaman would learn of his actions.
The young trooper, on the other hand, went against the enemy not knowing if he would be remembered or forgotten, or even noticed. He was just one amongst many thousands – Naaman was one amongst a thousand – and there was little chance his acts, heroic or cowardly as they might be, would ever be recorded for posterity. Millions of men like him died every day to protect and expand the realm of the Emperor. Looking at the blond-haired youth, Naaman was reminded of an Imperial saying: for every battle honour, a thousand heroes die alone, unsung and unremembered.
Naaman strode across the ridge to the group of troopers catching their breath. They turned and stared at him as he approached. The sergeant ignored their surprise and raised his fist in salute to the blond-haired trooper.
‘What is your name?’ he asked.
‘Trooper Tauno,’ the man replied hesitantly. ‘Can I help you, er, sergeant?’
‘Just remember to do your duty and fight as if the Emperor Himself watches you,’ said Naaman.
‘I will, sergeant,’ Tauno said, his gaze flickering nervously to his companions.
Naaman nodded and returned to the command Rhino, ignoring the confused whispers that erupted from the squad. Naaman could have heard them if he so decided, but it was better for the men to have their gossip to themselves.
The comm rune was blinking when he returned and he snatched up the handset.
‘This is Veteran Sergeant Naaman.’
‘Naaman, this is Master Belial. I cannot risk the Unrelenting Fury for a sensor sweep of the East Barrens geothermal plant. In your estimation, what is the strength of the remaining ork forces to the east?’
‘Any figure I could tell you would be a wild guess, brother-captain,’ replied Naaman. ‘It seems that the majority of the force I witnessed was destroyed earlier today, but whether that accounts for all, some or only a small part of the enemy army is unknown.’
‘It occurs to me that you would have seen any ship capable of holding a much larger force.’
‘I am not sure that the geothermal station was the landing site, brother-captain. It may simply have been a staging area for a ship further into the Barrens. The lack of heavier vehicles, particularly large battle fortresses and war machines, suggests that as remarkable as it may seem, we may have only encountered a vanguard of a much larger force.’
‘I find it hard to agree with that assessment, sergeant,’ said Belial. ‘We have already encountered two sizeable ork armies. It is highly unlikely that several vessels made it planetside without detection.’
‘It is improbable, brother-captain, but not impossible. Without any confirmation regarding the size and location of the landing zone, any observations are pure speculation.’
There was a pause; Naaman assumed the company commander was deciding what to do. He did not envy Belial the choice ahead of him. There were no troops to spare from the fighting in Kadillus Harbour, but if there was still a significant threat from the east, the battle in the city would be rendered pointless.
