Beyond Sight
by Fuuko no Miko
The world was on fire.
Flames as tall as buildings consumed the once disciplined, peaceful world of Parmenia. The sturctures once stood proudly as the home to military training burned, falling piece by piece as explosions took turns in destroying its subtle serenity.
The Death Guard made sure of that.
Yet The Ultramarines and their proud geneseed father were not going to let them triumph. Not today. Not any other day.
In between leading his charge and pounding his traitor brother's footsoldiers to oblivion, a slight recurring thought crossed the Primarch's conscious thinking.
I hope she's alright.
He did not want her to come with her fellow Mechanicus to the battlefield. It was an extremely dangerous foe that they were facing. But the casualties of the last war rendered them shorthanded and he had to mobilize every single manpower that he can. Her health had been an issue prior, but once she was stabilized she had resumed her work with the Adeptus Mechanicus. She had seen action during the Indomitus Crusade and had been fortunate to have lived through it. She typically stayed in the ships with her fellow Techpriests and performed repairs. From time to time she would be out in the field, tending to those who had needed quick fixes.
She was braver than she allowed him to believe.
The last he had spoken to her she was a day or two ago. She had been violently ill with vomiting and he had sent her to the hospital with one of the hospitaliers. He hoped it was nothing serious that ailed her. The presence of the Death Guard has spread a murderous plague on the planet and the medical centers have been overwhelmed with the sick.
This thought was undone when he heard the powerful fire from an enemy canon.
Like cowards the Death Guard had taken aim on the helpless. For this canon had aimed at one of the few standing buildings in the city.
The hospital.
The building was billowing in smoke. He saw the quick acting members of the Primaris form defensively around the hospital as they protected the damaged wing. Rapidly patients and medical workers evacuated as the structure started to give way. The Primarch turned to see a familiar figure struggling to escape the inferno.
She was assisting an older man as they hobbled through falling concrete.
Roboute Guiliman whipped about, narrowly avoiding the blades swung upon him by a Plague Marine. He punched a quick hole unto his foe's armor before turning towards the slowly decomposing sructure.
He watched in horror as parts of the roof fell upon her and her companion.
"Salvia..." he spoke through his gritted teeth as he quickly glanced to seek assistance. Several of the Primaris rushed to their aid, only to be thwarted by more Death Guards blocking them.
The Primarch barked at his Vox for back-up as flames rapidly engulfed the scene, smoke rising to conceal his vision.
"Where are you going?"
The Death Guard captain swung at the Ultramarines Primarch. Roboute blocked it with his Power Fist, the traitor marine stunned for a moment as the Primarch robbed the swing of motion immediately.
"That is something you do not need to know" he said, before punching through the Death Guard's breastplate with his free hand and tearing out his spinal cord.
The traitor marine flopped like a fish onto the cracked marble floor, his body desperately trying to right itself, but neither Astartes biology nor the boons of Nurgle were enough to compensate for a missing spine. A single bolt from his stormbolter finished the flailing traitor.
He caught his breath as he heard a hundred voices in his helmet. He had filtered them out of his mind but now battle reports from every high level officer was lighting up his vox.
"...Death Guard massing for an attack on the hospital district" a Primaris lieutenant voxed, a staccato of bolter impacts heard in the background.
"Stormhawk and Overlord gunships focusing fire on enemy titan…" came the choppy, mechanical voice of a Techmarine.
"Paragon of Iax and Maccrage's Hammer engaging traitor engine...Primarch, the enemy titan is withdrawing after its first volley...shall we pursue?" the eager voice of a princeps sounded.
"Negative, remain in place and continue covering the infantry in the city" he said with annoyance. "Gunship squadrons keep harassing the damn thing and make sure it doesn't get another shot off. All Ultramarine squads and Chapter armor to the Hospital district. The auxilia has almost finished securing the city and the Death Guard hope to make a breakthrough here to foil our reconquest of Galius Tertio."
Subtle he thought to himself, even as he rushed towards the fallen hospital. Too subtle for the likes of you, my diseased brother. Mortarion was not leading this army and he scowled as he realized he would be denied his brother's head in this battle.
He saw her partially buried under a massive chunk of the wall, trying and failing miserably to get from under it. She turned her head and saw him advancing.
Guilliman saw the vaguest semblance of hope on her features.
"Help..."
A coruscating series of lights flashed before him and Guilliman found himself airborne. Then the shockwave hit him, his body shaking in the armor and his vision temporarily becoming blurry as the force of the blasts slammed into his armoured form. He let his body go limp and did his best to ride out the waves of the explosions, even as the building came down around him. His experience with the armor had taught him that it could protect him from the shot of a volcano cannon and he would be safe from the collapse. For a few seconds, his world became a blurry grey and white as he was covered with debris from the roof. He lay completely still. If he showed any sign of visible movement, whoever was pounding the place into oblivion would intensify the next salvo. He was safe underneath all this rubble for now. Let them think they had killed a Primarch for the moment.
"Lord...enemy predator and Vindicator columns...focusing fire on your location...grav tanks moving to...intercept" the vox buzzed in his ear, the voice belonging to a Primaris Lieutenant. He could hear the hint of worry in his voice.
"I'm fine Decius. Stay on course and keep hitting that enemy armor. Don't try to get me out just yet. The more they're focused on this wreck, the more vulnerable they'll be to your guns"
"But Lord-" the vox chimed in again.
"Follow your orders, Lieutenant" he said with a stern voice. "...and tell Sicarius that he's to continue with his mission to assist the auxilia in capturing the northern reaches. I won't have him waste his effort and men to come to my rescue". He paused before ending his transmission with a firm order. "There are civilians buried under the hospital ruins...get them out." He cut off the vox and gritted his teeth as another barrage of shells hit what was left of the building.
She fought for her life. Crushed under heavy debris she tried to move her legs. She suspected they had broken, as stabs of pain traveled throughout her body. She tried to crawl from under, but the collapsed walls were too much for her strength. The impact had smashed her mechnical arms and she was unable to put them to good use. She tried to roll over as blood gushed from the corner of her mouth.
It took a lot of effort to breathe, she found out the hard way. A sharp shooting pain travelled through her lungs when she inhaled.
Her ears rang. Her muscles ached. Her heart palpitated so hard she was sure it was going to pop out her chest.
Salvia's vision began to falter as the rest of the world grew dark.
Before she lost consciousness she heard voices around her barking orders.
"Sal...hey..."
His voice.
She opened her eyes slowly. She can no longer feel the weight of the wall on her feet, but she was on a gurney. Her eyelids were extremely heavy but she forced to visualize the pale figure before her. His helmet was off. His face was calm but his eyes reflected the worry within him. She felt his armored hand on her wirst.
"Rob..." her voice cracked as she spoke.
Roboute Guillman was a strong man. He had weathered many tragedies in his liftetime, as many as the triumphs he had celebrated. But he can only be strong for so long. He ran to see her the minute the battle subsided. Several of the guardsmen pulled her out from under the debtis. But the Apothecary was not optimistic when he saw how broken she was.
"Stay...stay with me." his voice failed to hide the fact that he was breaking beneath the calm demeanor he had.
She winced when the gurney hit a bump, jarring her insides. Her senses were getting low now. She could barely register his words.
She took his hand, choking as more blood started to trickle down the sides of her mouth. She placed it over her bruised abdomen, having him caress its surface. "I...I don't think we're...going to make it..." she coughed out blood and froth. "I'm sorry..."
"We..." Roboute paused to process what she had meant. He looked at her paste-white features in question, before noticing her pointing towards her lower abdomen."Sal...you are...was that why...you were sick..."
She nodded weakly as the color started to drain from her face. She gripped his gloved hand tight, squeezing it with what little strength she had. "I'm sorry...I wasn't able to protect our...its my..fault..."
"No...don't blame yourself..." he was at a loss for words, the panic starting to surface as her face became ashen. Her eyelids fluttering briefly as the bright aqua of her eyes darkened. "No...no...wait..." he turned to the Apothecary who spoke no words. "Hold on...Sal...please..."
But she could no longer hear him. as her eyes closed for the last time.
Karimah gasped loudly.
She covered her mouth, stifling a scream.
Sweat had covered her forehead, as tears began to well up in her eyes.
No. She can't.
She cannot die.
She is with child.
Their child.
This...this must not happen.
Yet...she did not know who this woman was.
She had to tell him.
Karimah Tahrik very rarely got visions of future events. She can recall having three at most, her entire life.
This was the fourth.
And the most ominous.
Her past visions involved dangerous situations, but none of them involved a gruesome death.
As few as her visions are, they were always accurate. Always.
Would he believe her?
The Lord of Ultramar was a relatively approachable man from what she had known about him. But would he listen to a human psyker he did not even know?
"He needs to know."
Her vision when it occured was extremelty detailed. But by the time she rouses to it, she forgets elements to it, which was why she needed to transfer information immediately.
She needed to tell him.
Roboute Guilliman had stepped away from the small audience he had. He headed back to the table of desserts that sat in the middle of the banquet hall. For all his healthy eating, the Primarch did have a sweet tooth and from time to time indulged in his favorite treats.
"Lord Guilliman." she approached him cautiously. The Primarch smiled warmly at her in acknowledgment as he picked macarons off a multilevel silver tray. "I am Karimah Tahrik from the Order of Remembrancers."
"A pleasure to meet you, My Lady." he nodded, balancing a plate of the treats with one hand and shaking hers with the other.
This was her chance.
For the second Roboute Guilliman touched her hand, he felt it.
Before his eyes it appeared, flashes of imagery. A burning city. Buildings collapsing. Ultramarines battling forces he did not know or recognize.
"Help."
Then the image of a woman, buried in concrete slabs. She bore the outfit of a mechanicus. She struggled to breathe. She was bleeding.
Most curiously, she called him by name.
"Rob..."
She was on a gurney. She held his hand.
And then...she died.
She died and he wept.
He grieved for her.
Karimah pulled her hand away, jolting the Primarch from this vision. He was stunned for a moment, looking at his hand, and then turning his gaze at her.
"You are a Psyker..."
"Yes My Lord." the Remembrancer bowed her head. "I apologize for the abrupt visions Lord Guilliman but I wasn't sure you were going to believe me if I randomly just mentioned them to you."
"I'm...not certain that I do..." he eyed her skeptically as he picked up a pistachio macaron from his plate and devoured it in two bites. "Why did you show me this?"
"You have to save her, my Lord." Karimah spoke firmly.
"I do not know who she is."
"Neither do I my Lord."
"While I am all for saving civilians ...I am curious who this person is..." Roboute noted a brooch on Karimah's person, bearing the symbol of the Thousand Sons. "Did Magnus put you up to this?"
"No, Lord Guilliman." she insisted. "I am a Remembrancer for the Thousand Sons, yes. But this has nothing to do with what I showed you."
Roboute said nothing, as he assessed the woman before him. He bit into a chocolate macaron this time. "I will need time to process what you have showed me, my Lady." he turned towards the dessert table and plucked a few pastry balls from the Croque-en-bouche. "Do you have a name for her? This lady I need to save?"
"You called her..." Karimah paused. She had the young woman's name on the tip of her tongue and now she had seemed to have lost it. "I...I don't remember...it was a short name...and..." she felt frustrated as she tried to recall.
The Primarch picked a few more things from the table before turning about. "I thank for your concern, Lady Karimah. Allow me to think this through. Meanwhile it would honor me if you can join me and my brother Sanguinius at the dinner table...for your recording purposes of course. I'm certain Magnus won't mind. Perhaps then you may remember her name?"
She nodded, hoping then that she could get some memory of her vision. She took a few things from the dessert table before walking back with Roboute to his.
This looks familiar.
Where have I seen this before?
Roboute Guilliman paused so very briefly, surveying the scene as the Ultramarines held their stance against the incoming Death Guard. He issued orders on his vox, just as enemy fire blew right past him and meeting its target on the most vulnerable citizens in this engaged battlefield.
Roboute lost his balance from the impact, as debris from the building that was on the recieving end of the attack from an enemy tank flew across the killing fields.
It was the hospital.
Salvia.
He had taken her there in the last twenty four hours. She had been vomiting the last few days and he had concerned that she had contracted an illness the Death Guard had been spreading. Unlike the other civilians who had responded to his presence, she did not have any improvement in her symptoms.
"All Ultramarine squads and Chapter armor to the Hospital district. " he kept his voice firm but low, angered that his brother's traitorous command would prey on those who were most helpless. "Let us take these cowards down."
"Evacuating the hospital, Lord Guilliman." one of his Primaris lieutenants reported. "They hit the foundations extensively, my Lord. I'm not sure we can get everyone out before it caves in."
The Primarch had been fighting off several Death Guard Astartes who had chosen to pounce at him that very moment. He swung his sword precisely, aiming his stormbolter accurately as a nagging part of his brain questioned why he was having a sensation of deja vu. "Do what you can without compromise, Lieutenant." he responded.
"Enemy's pulling back from the Eastern Sector... they're headed your way sir." another officer came through the vox. "I'm mobilizing the troops to your location."
Guilliman ripped the spinal cord out of the last plague marine who had the misfortune to assault him. He finished him with his stormbolter, just as he turned to the hospital where his Astartes assisted in the evacuation.
The foundations of the hospital began to crumble as the first assault canons' effects tore through its walls. He rapidly scanned the evacuees as they were being pulled out to a safe haven.
She wasn't there.
"Sal..." he murmured under his breath as he charged through a number of enemy troops trying to get closer, amidst the smoke and the falling debris.
The tail of a massive explosion set the Primarch through the air as the rest of the building fragmented around him. He allowed himself to fall limp as he was tossed across the collapsing infrastructure. The roofing fell unceremoniously in a dust heap, the walls pulverized as they crashed with him upon the floor. It was in a haze of fire, smoke and dust that he realized why this scenario felt like he had seen it before.
You have to save her.
The words of the Prosperine Remembrancer echoed through his head.
She's going to die.
Get her out of the hospital.
Help her, Lord Guilliman.
Am I too late?
He cursed, chastising himself that he did not remember sooner.
"Reinforcements have arrived, m'Lord." was the first transmission he heard through his vox. "We're cutting through the enemy defenses. Zeroing in on your position..."
"The hospital." he replied, concealing the concern in his speech he swallowed before he spoke again. "Did we...did we get everyone out?"
The static that followed his question felt like an eternity.
"No sir." he recognized the voice of the Primaris Lieutenant. "I'm afraid we had some civilian casualties."
The Primarch issued some more orders to bombard the rest of the Death Guard and keep the focus off of rescuing him. He crawled through the debris, using the smoke and powder to conceal his escape. By the time he had managed to make it to the outside he saw that the hospital was leveled to the very ground it stood on. A pile of nothing but fire, smoke and rubble.
There was no way anyone who was not rescued was going to survive that. If the smoke didn't kill them, the massive debris would have crushed them.
Roboute felt a massive weight on his chest. He summoned enough strength to communicate to the Primaris officer one last question.
"Lieutenant, is there...is there a Mechanicus amongst the survivors? Female...dark red hair..."
More static.
"No sir. No one by that description among the survivors, my Lord."
The Primarch grew silent.
He thrust his sword through a thick slab of concrete, leaning his tired head against it and closed his eyes.
I failed you.
I have been warned and yet I failed you.
His grip on the sword tightened, cracking the concrete slab in two as his gloved fingers squeezed hard...as though this would take away the tide of pain that seared through his chest that very moment.
He audibly gasped, attempting to relieve himself of this discomfort as more feeds came through his Vox.
"Let's finish this."
He did not want to grieve.
She would have hated that. Hated seeing him despondent and sad.
So he kept his composure as his men started clearing the debris. Those who have perished should at least recieve a proper burial.
He wasn't sure how he was going to respond when they finally do unearth her. He had promised himself after his adoptive father died that he was not going to be as emotionally overwhelmed as he did back then.
You had the chance to save her.
The remembrancer had warned you.
And yet...
One of the Ultramarines pulled out a blood-tinged cloak that he recognized as hers.
The Primarch rubbed a weary, gloved hand over his face.
He took a deep breath as he reached his hand out to ask for the cloak.
It was the colors of his legion. She had sewn it herself, joking that her regular Mechanicus cloak was drab and clashed with the Ultramarines color scheme. There were spatters of blood all over it.
Knowing her she would be telling him what a pain it was going to be to wash the blood off of it. And how it was going to fade the vivid blue if she bleached it.
As the Ultramarines unearthed further, something had caught the Primarch's eye.
Was that...
He leaped downwards, as he spotted a circular, metal object on the ground that appeared to have been moved.
Roboute lifted the heavy, metallic door single-handedly when he realized what it was.
"Rob?"
She leapt into his arms the minute he entered the bomb shelter.
"You're alive." he spoke in respite. The Primarch buried his face on her neck. She was covered in dust, blood and mud but by the Thrones she made it. "You're alive..."
She nodded, tears streaming down her face. "Barely...but my Lord constructs the most durable bomb shelters in all of the Imperium." she smiled as she pulled away, wiping her filthy face.
The look of immense relief registered on his passive features. He cupped her face in his gloved hands, pulling to kiss her quivering mouth. He kissed her deeply, lovingly, happily. She wrapped her bruised arms around his neck to pull him closer.
A mild coughing in the background interrupted their intimate moment.
The Primarch turned to see a Primaris marine sitting on the floor next to a few other medical personnel from the hospital.
He stood up to acknowledge the Primarch, extending his hand in introduction. "Sergeant Jahangir Tahrik, my Lord. From the 3rd company."
"He saved us...all of us." Salvia beamed proudly. "I remember you showing me the drafts for the hospital many years ago, mentioning the Bomb shelter, but it was the sargeant who lead us all in here. That metal door was a little tricky."
"Thank you for your services, Sergeant Tahrik." Roboute shook his hand, squinting as the name seemed to stir a certain memory with him. "Your heroism will not go unnoticed."
"All in a day's work sir." he nodded. "Apologies I could not radio out. My vox didn't make it here with me. "
Salvia shook her head. "I need to put that on the to-do list. We need to make those things more indestructible. I suspect it would need a thicker shell...but that may impede faster transmission...I guess it depends on the material too...mmmmmph."
She was very briefly interrupted by Roboute kissing her again. "How can you think of work at a time like this?"
"Says the pot to the kettle." she laughed as she released herself from his embrace.
One by one they climbed up the short passageway leading to the surface. Salvia allowed the other survivors to go up first as she stayed behind with her Primarch.
"Are you feeling better?" he inquired as he let her walk before him to go upstairs.
"I am...for now." she said. "The Apothecary says its a normal part of my condition...it will subside eventually...for the most part. Some women do not quite get over the whole thing."
"Condition..."
Salvia sighed. Her facial expression was somewhere between repressed joy and unwavering awkwardness. "I don't know how you're going to take this...because I personally am over the moon with it...but you're a busy man and I'm not sure if its..."
"Sal...are we having a child?"
She paused, gauging his reaction. "Yes."
She squealed when he picked her up, embracing her hard and holding her as close to him as his armor will allow it.
"Rob..." she spoke finally as he loosened his hold on her.
"Can we name her Tarasha if she would be a girl?"
"Of course." she smiled, relieved of his reaction with the news. "How about if its a boy? Konor?"
"You know me far too well."
"We do need to get out of here."
"I need to take you to the Apothecary." he noted the gashes on her arms where the blood on her cloak had likely come from. "I can't have you die on me again, silly woman."
"Die again?"
"Nevermind." he laughed as he lifted her out to the exit. He's going to have to relay to her at some point the odd little encounter he had with a Remembrancer ten milennia ago.
1:10 pm 6/10/2017