The legionary's head hung loose, lolling as the ship groaned around him. He was part of it now, flesh melded with the steel of the wall. His free arm still clutched a chainsword in a death grip, ceramite-shod fingers locked tight around its leather-bound handle.
"Iron within, iron without," said Myrmand grimly, almost chuckling at the irony. The bastard son of Perturabo that was suspended before him was now more iron than he would ever have dreamed. Myrmand wondered how long it had taken him to die. Minutes at least, as his gene crafted physiology struggled to cope with the fusing of its flesh with steel. A long and agonizing death, he hoped. The curr deserved nothing less.
He turned his gaze along the row of embedded armoured corpses, eight in all, possibly more fully entombed within the wall. Some with half their faces sealed within the bulkhead, their bodies almost fully encapsulated. Others were barely half merged with the metal, limbs still free to thrash helplessly, mouths able scream at their misfortune as their internal organs failed. Whether instantaneous or slow, death had claimed them all.
Teleportation strikes were always risky, flinging yourself blindly into the warp to hopefully emerge intact and on target. Myrmand had taken part in many during the Great Crusade, half dreading, half relishing the crackling sensation as his mind and body were plucked from reality and deposited into raging battle.
Before him, in a mess of melded flesh, ceramite and steel, was embedded the results of a failed attempt, a fate no astartes deserved… At least, not before they spat on their oaths. Now they deserved every horror the galaxy could lay upon them.
A flaw in their teleportarium's systems, Myrmand mused, or perhaps sloppy calculations by their technomagi. It was a delicate science with barely understood technology, a task only the most trusted techpriests were allowed to perform. They must have been either desperate, or driven to haste by unreasonable bloodthirst.
During the retreat at Phall, the Castellan's shields had been brought down by the sustained lancefire of a destroyer wolfpack. Seizing their chance, the Iron Warriors of a nearby cruiser had conducted a lightning strike, teleporting several squads in an attempt to cripple Myrmand's vessel from the inside before it could translate to warpspace. Instead, half of the traitors had materialized with their bodies horrifyingly fused with the structure of the ship. Those that remained whole had been put to the sword by Myrmand's legionaries, and the Imperial Fists had made good their escape.
But to what end? After their disastrous attempt to reach Isstvan and the horrendous losses during the battle at Phall and subsequent retreat, Myrmand estimated that the Retribution fleet was at best at half strength, if even.
Thousands of his brothers dead. Tens of thousands.
He had anticipated the eventually that there would be massive casualties in the war to come. They all had, once that Death Guard captain had brought the news of Horus's treachery. In order to win this new conflict, the Warmaster must be brought to battle, and him and his Legions crushed. But it was still a sobering, almost terrifying thought, that over one in five Imperial Fists were now dead. For over two hundred years the Legions had been invincible. Yes, they took casualties, they lost several battles, they could be outfought and outmaneuvered. But in the end, they always won. No matter how skillful or numerous or dangerous the foe, the Legiones Astartes crushed every enemy unfortunate enough to cross them.
That time was gone. Myrmand had just fought in the largest void engagement he had ever seen, in a backwater system of no strategic worth. They had gained nothing from Phall, and lost so much.
He did not see how the Loyalists could easily win this war. By Terra, he didn't even know who the Loyalists were. Up until Phall, every legionary in the Retribution Fleet had believed the Iron Warriors were their brothers, albeit not on the best of terms. Now, who could they trust? If this madness had taken hold of Horus, Fulgrim, Mortarion, some the galaxy's greatest heroes, who knew who else had fallen?
"Orders Captain?" Myrmand left his troubling thoughts for later and turned to his legionary.
"Brother Borecht." His armour covered in dents and scorch marks, Borecht stood before him, bolter slung, helm under one arm, his slab of a face regarding Myrmand expectantly.
"The bodies Captain. What shall we do with them?"
A gaggle of serfs clad in the yellow livery of the VIIth hovered behind the marine, unwilling to get too close their towering masters.
Myrmand looked back at the row of fused corpses, repressing the urge to spit upon them. Such behavior would be unbecoming of a Legion officer.
"Salvage what arms and armour you can, there's no telling when we'll next have a resupply. Cut the bodies loose of the wall and dump them out an airlock when we reach realspace. I don't envy your task," he said to the serfs. "But cleanse the area as well as you can. It's going to be messy work."
With that he strode on to complete his post-battle tour of his vessel, the Avenger Class Grand Cruiser Castellan, flagship of the 200th company. The vessel had served the Legion from the early days of the Crusade, ever since it had been let slip from the Martian Ring of Iron. Constructed with Legion use on mind, it had been modified from the original STC designs, being even more heavily armoured, outfitted with drop pod launch tubes and specialized strike craft hangars. With its vast complement of powerful broadside macrobatteries, its primary use in the Great Crusade had been as a linebreaker, smashing its way through a defending fleet in order to deposit its complement of marines on a world's surface, or the use of its heavy guns in tandem with Astartes boarding actions.
As he strode through vaulted archways and strengthened bulkheads, inspecting gunnery crews, armsmen squads and labour servitors alike, he was surprised and relieved to find that the Castellan had suffered only minimal casualties and damage. Placed on the rearward arc of Pollux's 'sphere' formation, Myrmand's ship had only joined the battle in its later stages, enfilading dozens of Iron Warrior vessels with a deadly crossfire.
They had had them. They had been winning. If they could have just clenched the fist, they could have denied Horus an entire Legion.
Reminiscing was pointless, worthy only of remembrancers and fools. The past could not be changed. Regardless, Myrmand was still in command of a formidable vessel and a mighty force of Astartes, which gave him the power to shape the future. The hatred of the double treachery burned hot in his hearts, and would only be quenched with the blood of his enemies.
Myrmand completed his tour at the enginarium, its mighty halls filled with mile-long cables and piping, arcane furnaces, extensive machinery and softly humming devices beyond his understanding. This was the beating heart of his ship, that which kept the Castellan moving through the warp and realspace alike. Donning his heavy Mk III helm, he dampened the lenses to inspect the shining plasma coils, administered to by chanting bands of technomagi and sickly irradiated tech-slaves. Hooded techpriests moved among the columns of servitors and crew, gently tending to the delicate equipment under their care.
Sergeant Gonnar greeted him with a sharp salute as Myrmand inspected his men. They wore several marks of armour, each adorned with a variety of crosses, laurels and sigils, badges indicating their veteran status within the Legion. Myrmand had chosen them to protect this vital strategic point, for if the enginarium fell, the Castellan would have been dead in the void.
"Report Sergeant," Myrmand curtly snapped.
"Captain," nodded Gonnar. "One contact with the enemy, forward section second level. Five legionaries, dispatched quickly and cleanly, minimal damage to the equipment, no survivors."
"Casualties?" Myrmand already knew the answer.
"Nothing of note Captain. Bar seven engine-serfs, but Magos Zet-Aran informs me they're replaceable."
The traitor corpses along with their wargear had been laid out neatly on the deck, their armour pock-marked with bolter detonations. Three had been killed by head shots, their helms twisted and ruined. One had taken a plasma bolt through the chest, burning through armour, flesh and bone. The final Iron Warrior, an officer of some sort by the remains of his horse-hair crest, at first appeared unwounded, but the black stains of soot and ash around his armour's joints revealed his grim fate. Volkite was a cruel death. Fitting for traitors.
"If I may Captain," said Gonnar. The sergeant had removed his helmet, revealing a face gnarled with scars gained over a century of warfare. He paused, patiently awaiting his captain's permission.
"Speak," said Myrmand.
"I was under the impression we were fighting Horus, Captain. His treacherous sons and the three bastard Legions with them. The Iron Warriors…" he paused, his eyes narrowed as his gaze swept over the bodies.
"They have turned as well?"
Gonnar's squad had been confined here during the battle, only snippets of information reaching them. Mrymand had had the full, horrifying view of an entire Legion falling upon the Retribution Fleet, their chevron-and-iron heraldry leaving little doubt to their identity as they unleashed their murderous firepower. The first that Gonnar had seen of the enemy were the five fools dead on the deck, the last survivors of their desperate strike.
"That is the obvious conclusion Sergeant," answered Myrmand. "As to the cause of their treachery, I have no idea. Most likely they sided with Horus. Perhaps they have gone renegade, and seek to settle the grudge they have always carried for us. Or they have simply gone insane. There never has been a shortage of madness in this galaxy."
"Mad or not, the VIIth will bring them to heel," declared one of Gonnars men.
"I agree brother," said Myrmand. All that is important is that they are now our enemies, the Emperor's enemies. And we will not relent until they are all dead."
His vox bead sounded with its characteristic crackle. It was Kron, his second-in-command.
"Update from Navigator Uulmo Captain. He has identified a possible calming in storms and is requesting a course of action."
"I'll be there presently Sergeant. Carry on."
"Sir." And the link was cut.
They had been adrift in the warp ever since the retreat from Phall. Myrmand refused to use the words rout or flight. Sporadic contact had been made with several ships alongside them, in the immediate aftermath of the battle there had been scores of of Legion ships adrift in the warp. Now, after a month of battling the ferocious tides, there were less than a dozen. Their wizened old Navigator, Uulmo, had told him that this was to be expected in storms of this magnitude, that the ships had probably been torn out of formation and scattered rather than destroyed. That did not make Myrmand rest any easier. It had been Pollux's theory that the storm was somehow being used as a tool by their enemies, as unlikely and impossible as that would seem. But there was nothing the Imperial Fists could do, other then clench their teeth and buckle down, the same as always.
Myrmand had spent the time in the warp attending to his duties as Captain of both a warship and a Legion company, drilling his crew and astartes regularly and harshly. They would not be found unprepared when they next faced the enemy. He had a feeling that that time was soon.
Cutting his gunnery inspection short, Myrmand entered the Castellan's bridge, the nerve center of his vessel. Kron was on the lower gantry, overseeing the banks of servitors and operations officers, the grease in the workings of an efficient machine.
"Officer on deck!" shouted Kron, the vox grill mounted on the cheek of his helm sharply blaring his declaration over the mortal crewmen, who instantly snapped to attention. Myrmand clenched his fist and thumped his plastron in response, and seated himself in the command throne, the spindly limbs of servo-skulls plugging snaking cables into interface ports.
"Connect me to Uulmo," he ordered.
A dataslate was presented to him, portraying the Navigator's quarters. A swaddled figure was curled in a ball of thick robes, wires and tubing curling out of the folds. Two pinpricks of light peeped out from beneath a heavy hood, spittle flowed over pallid blue lips.
"Erok…" the creature drawled.
Myrmand ignored the informal use of his first name, something he would never have suffered from any subordinate. The status of the Navigator Houses within the Imperium was blurred, the ancient families acting more as partners, serving the Emperor and his Imperium on their Patriarch's terms.
Mutants had always made Myrmand's skin crawl. Their genetics and appearance twisted into unnatural forms, it was bred into him that it was only right to rid the galaxy of such unnatural deviations. The Navigators were different however, and deemed acceptable 'abhumans,' sanctioned by the will of the Emperor. Perhaps someday, when the galaxy was truly humanity's, a scenario which looked a lot more likely a year ago, would humanity advance to a degree that warp travel was no longer needed. But until then, the Navigators were essential to the nascent Imperium, and Myrmand would tolerate them aboard his ship.
"Uulmo. Sergeant Kron informed me that you have news of the storm."
The Navigator hacked a violent cough, spitting a viscous fluid into a bowl held out by a nearby servitor.
"A calming is within our reach. It may only be temporary before the fickle tides close it, but it maybe possible to break through into the materium. However, we must tread carefully, for this maelstrom jealously guards its possessions, and will not give them up willingly."
"We have been trying to make for Terra for some time now," declared Myrmand. "And my patience is wearing thin. Can you determine where we will translate, and what are the risks to our ships?"
"The circumstances are less than ideal, Erok.. We lack a Mandeville point, so we will be thrown out of the Immaterium at a decidedly random location. Deep space probably, but we run the risk of emerging in the heart of a star or core of a planet. Possible, but unlikely."
"So, no." Myrmand paused as the statistics of likely scenarios were displayed before him. The Castellan was a strong ship with a large amount of mass, likely to survive an emergency realspace translation. It was the smaller ships he worried about. The escorts could be easily smashed apart if the maneuver was not executed precisely. But if he wanted to reach Terra, it may be a risk he would have to take.
"Once our location is determined, will we be able to re-enter warpspace and reach the Sol System?"
The bundle of robes moved slightly, indicating a shrug, or perhaps just a convulsion.
"I will need to rework my calculations and consult the charts, which may take some time. Depending on the wildness of the storm."
Myrmand pondered over his options. Continue on through the storm, directionless, hemorrhaging ships and men? Perhaps the maelstrom would abate fully, and they would be able to chart a course for Terra. Probably it would not. If they dropped out of warpspace, they risked even more damage to their vessels, but they would have respite from the surging currents, could get their bearings, regroup and rearm.
"Sergeant Kron." Mrymand beckoned to his second in command. "Your thoughts on our situation. Should we break warp or no?"
"I am no expert on warp currents Captain," replied Kron. "But we received an order from Lord Dorn himself, to make for Terra with all haste. We are obliged to carry out that command and give priority to it in all our actions. It seems to be unclear if staying in the warp or dropping out will get us to Terra more quickly. Now in saying that…" The sergeant paused, and locked his red lenses on the bridges hull, outside of which the currents of warp lashed against the armour plating like fiery whips from some ancient hell. "I think I speak for all the crew aboard. We have had enough of this storm."
Five weeks they had been slogging through the Immaterium. At Phall, they had waited for six months, waiting in vain for the storms to abate.
"I am done waiting," said Myrmand almost to himself. "We may not get another chance." He activated the ship wide vox.
"Broadcasting to all crew, this is Captain Myrmand. Prepare for emergency realspace translation, brace for impact. Repeat, brace for impact." Switching off the vox, he activated a channel to the astropath pit.
"Sildai," he addressed his sole surviving astropath.
"Master…" the sickly being choked, bald head draped in a coat of shining sweat. Sildai had been a young and comparatively vibrant psyker before the Retribution fleet had set out. Now, he was quivering shell, the warp wreaking havoc on his sensitive mind, in turn degenerating his body. At least he was alive, unlike the rest. The storms had been unkind to the psykers, to say the least.
"Sildai, I need you to relay a message to all remaining ships."
"I… I am so weak, Master," replied the astropath softly. I am sorry-"
"Astropath," said Mrymand sternly. "I know the toll this journey has taken on you. But I need you, every man and woman on this ship needs you, to relay this message. I understand it is hard, but I would not order it unless it was of paramount importance."
"I will try, Lord…" came the reply. Myrmand heard sobbing through the vox and swallowed his disgust. Their only remaining astropath, Sildai's inability to communicate effectively with the other ships had plagued them since Phall, reducing them to snippets of vague information every few days. From the staggered replies, it seemed the astropaths on the other ships were faring little better than his own. Realspace would change that, allowing him to assess the fleet's available strength.
"Message to all VIIth Legion vessels, this is Captain Myrmand of the Castellan. I have identified a calming of the warpstorm and am ordering an emergency translation to realspace in ten minutes. Repeat, conduct emergency realspace translation in ten minutes. Mark."
As Myrmand was relaying his order, Kron was conducting the Castellan's bridge crew for the the drop-out. Servitors drawled data as the ship's systems were made ready, officers ordered and reported, not exactly rushing, but with a clear sense of urgency.
"Shall I ready the squads for battle stations?" asked Kron. Myrmand furrowed his brow. The chances of enemy contact were low, but it couldn't hurt to be cautious. If they happened to translate into a hostile system, the Astartes would be their only defence as the ship's shields and guns were readied. After a moment he replied.
"See to it Sergeant. Six squads prepared to launch a boarding action, the rest at ready to repel one."
Kron snapped a salute and began barking orders into his vox. After weeks of inaction, Myrmand imagined the Legionaries would be glad for some activity, even if it was ultimately just a precautionary measure.
"Non-essential systems dormant Captain, the Castellan is ready for realspace translation," called a bridge officer. "Awaiting your signal."
Myrmand took in a last scan of the bridge, his crew hunched over their consoles. The same actions would be taking place in the other ships. They were all in his hands now.
"Take us out," said Myrmand. His voice echoed through the vox casters of servo skulls hovering around the bridge. Immediately the crew set to their task rerouting power from the warp drive to the void engines and monitoring vital systems, ensuring that the ship would survive translation.
The walls of the bridge groaned, a last gasp of the storm desperate to keep hold of them. The crew grappled for any handhold they could find as the bridge shook violently as spasms of warp energy rocked the ship.
"Hold our course!" ordered Mrymand. "Only a little further!"
The fleet swam hard towards the crack in warps wall, gaining momentum as pressure builds from a leak. Time slowed, the bridge before Mrymand stretching and distorting as the madness of the warp gave way to reality. With a snap of aetheric energy they were through.