CHAPTER SIX: A Waiting Game.
One month. In one month the Dark Angels would do battle against the forces of Chaos to put down a Nurgle rebellion. One month. Ariel examined his
options. With the Imperial Army still fighting on the front line outside the markets he had to strengthen his rear defenses.
The coughs, vomits and sounds of disease grew louder every night. The Nurgle army was strengthening. Beyond the woods he could hear them. The sick grew ever more and Ariel had to remain in hiding. If the enemy knew there were Space Marines around they would attack now before back up could arrive. Imperial Army numbers were
dwindling due to the plague the Nurgle plague bearers brought with them where ever they went, this was going
to be a miraculous battle. 'Miraculous.' He didn't believe in the word. Nothing was a miracle. Miracles were small chains of events set in motion prior to a greater outcome. Suri grew weaker.
He spent the days surveying from the outlying forests. It had become routine. He would have to remain incognito at all times, hiding amongst the vegetation. He based himself in the underground cavern where Galil was training him. Every now and again he would enter the forest and find plague bearers scouting. He had to take caution. If he killed to many it would let the commander of the Chaos forces know that the Imperial Army were attempting to fortify their rear lines. At the same time
they were plague bearers. The more he could kill, the less the pestilence would take hold. If they got too close,
he would destroy them. Always in the same method to throw the ones who came looking for the dead off the scent of any suspicious activities. His method was ugly. He would creep up behind them and snap them. Always in the same place, centre spine. He would drag the tooth of forest carnivores across where he had snapped and stab into the area so as to make it look as though the plague bearer
had fallen prey to a mysterious forest beast. He wondered if this is what Caliban was like. If the great Lion
had utilized similar techniques. After this he would return to the archives in the rock and attempt to find out.
Before long, the corpses of the sick dead started to pile up. They were mounded in piles on the outskirts of
the forest. Just before the vegetation of the fields. There
was no room, nor time to bury them. They were stacked openly and burned in a hope that the smell, smoke and
ashes of rotting flesh would trick the forces of Chaos into
miss believing they had dealt a heavy biological blow. Even though realistically they had.
"Your fighters are sick. Your population is dying."
Said Ariel to Galil. "I fear my battle brothers may appear too late."
"We need a strategy." Said Galil in contemplation.
"Our commanders are lazy. We hold the line for now, but our reserves drop every day as the plague grows stronger. Our commanders don't see this."
"Yes." Agreed Ariel. "The cultists are the beginning.
They have scouted the area and have plague bearers forming outside the villages. When the time is right they will ravage the sick village, cut down the market place and
attack your trenches from behind."
"We must get word to my superiors!" Gasped Galil.
"They are stubborn." Ariel said in thought.
"Go to them. I will attempt to extract further information from my battle brothers in regards to their arrival and
as to whether or not they bring the support I have
requested."
Galil nodded in agreement at Ariel's proposal.
"Make haste my friend." And with that, Galil headed off into the dark of the night.
There was more coughing. Closer than the coughing
coming from outside the house. Suri stood in the door way. "Will we be ok?" she asked as she rubbed her eyes and struggled to speak the words with every agonizing breathe. "I…" Ariel stood up to walk over to her. "Thunk", he
hit his head on a support beam. Suri chuckled. She wanted to laugh more at the Space Marine's misfortune but the coughing once more over came her and a brief moment of
joy was lost to the pains in her lungs.
He knelt down to her height. Still too tall. He lowered his head. Still too tall. He looked down at her and
picked her up from under her arms. He'd never held
a child before. "Rest little angel." He said and took her too her room. She coughed over his green
shoulder armour as he carried her in and lay her to rest. He put her down and knelt by her side looking down at
her. He was a Space Marine. He had never known fear. It was not bred into him. Fear would delay him from killing his enemy. He had no fear… For his enemies. Suri was not his enemy. For the first time Captain Ariel felt
fear. Genuine fear. "I'm afraid." Said Suri.
"So am I." He replied. He could never admit such silly notions to anyone else. Especially not his battle brothers. He watched Suri cough in pain and agony. Phlegm
swam in her throat. Sweat beaded down her brow and her
eyes, when she had the strength to open them, turned red. As red as blood because they were filled with blood.
Ariel stayed beside her questioning this new emotion
that for centuries had been foreign to him.
Suri's mother stood in the door way watching him watch over Suri.
"It won't be long now" she said.
Ariel turned around. He had been so overwhelmed with his thoughts he hadn't noticed she was there. His brothers in arms would punish him severely for such a lapse in alertness.
"What won't be long?" he said. His deep voice flooding
through Suri's mother.
"What do you think?" she said. "She is only six years old. She is frail. She can't survive this."
"Then we must survive it for her." Said Ariel, thankful that Suri was no longer conscious to hear the conversation taking place. Suri's mother stepped over and they both looked down at the little one. In his thoughts the Space Marine was questioning his new emotions. Examining them
logically until in his head it finally began to make sense. He was not afraid of the enemy.
He was afraid of losing his little friend to them.
This, he reasoned, would be all the more reason for him to fight harder and to make sure success and victory was theirs! He now had a purpose to fight that was more important than the inter planetary strategies of the Imperium.
"Why are you really here?" Asked Suri's mother.
"Why would your legion send one lone Astarte's for a civil rebellion?" Captain Ariel was reluctant to answer. The night had revealed many inner stirrings to him. Revelations that exposed a weakness he never knew he had. A very human weakness.
He stood up.
"We had reports about the cultist uprising. We thought it
nothing more than a rebellion. Often after planets enter
under the Emperor's guidance and join the Imperium of man, some of those men fear that allegiance. They rebel. In time many of those rebellions burn themselves out. On the grander scale of things, these rebellions are not of our business."
"So what makes this one different?" she said. The coughs in the back ground breaking the pauses of silence between his answers. Suri's own coughs adding to the symphony
of disease.
"We observed irregular warp patterns from this sector." He revealed. "That is all I can tell you."
"Warp patterns?" this made no sense to her. She began to well up. "I sense something bad is coming." She confessed. "Yes." Confirmed Captain Ariel. "The end battle is
drawing closer. I fear your people may not survive." "May not survive?" She said angrily. Tears choked her throat. "The Imperium is willing to watch us become extinct?"
"If it means denying the forces of Chaos a foothold in the galaxy from which they can launch greater attacks on more prevalent populations then yes."
"Expendable?" she said. "That's all we are to you?" "Sometimes it is better for a few to die to save the lives of many." He said. She was crying heavily now
but not loudly. Still mindful of her sick daughter who lay in bed barely breathing.
"I will do my best." He said and left the room.