'So these are the heroes of the hour.'

Alaster gawped at the massive terminator. He was impressive. The man's armour was decorated, embossed with scenes of many battles. The plates were trimmed with gold. One of the marine's arms ended in a massive power fist. The other gripped a beautifully-crafted storm bolter. His breastplate bore the Chapter crest, the raven in flight with linghtning. It had been embossed and painted in amazing detail – Alaster could see every feather. Instead of the usual angular bolt, the lightning was drawn like a real bolt, all crackles and sparks. The raven's head was turned to show one beady, red eye. The man was wearing a helmet; its flat top was decorated with a raven in flight, wings outstretched. Red eye lenses gleamed in the sun below the helm-raven's wings.

'Get to your knees, you skakkers,' Kodos growled from beside the three aspirants. 'Show some respect. You have the honour to be addressed by the Raven Lord himself.'

The Chapter Master. By the Emperor! Startled, Alaster dropped to his knees. He heard a thump as Patreus did the same. A moment later, Nasty followed. Typically, the aspirant had waited a beat, just to show that he wasn't overawed.

Kodos, his helmet now off, stared at their poses with dismay. 'No, that's wrong. Not like that-'

The terminator waved his power first dismissively. 'That's okay, Sergeant. You'll have plenty of opportunity to instruct them later. For now, I just need to talk to them. You three – at ease!'

Alaster blinked. Then he realised the Raven Lord had meant to stand. Trying not to look panicky, he struggled to his feet.

In the background three marines leapt out of the portal. Something about their manner suggested satisfaction. They took up stations on each side. They were armed with bolt pistols and chainswords. Their armour was splashed with alien blood. Bits of armour and torn flesh were caught in the teeth of their swords.

A vast shape appeared behind them. An instant later, with a thud that Alaster felt even from over here, the dreadnought climbed down from the portal. The portal was still about a foot off the ground. The huge machine stalked off to one side. Some more Space Marines followed it out.

One of the marines walked over. To Alaster's puzzlement, the helmet turned and looked at him for a moment. The marine twitched slightly, as if in recognition. Then the warrior looked back to the Chapter Master. The marine banged his breastplate in salute.

'The portal has been cleansed, my Lord,' he said. Alaster frowned. That voice – it did sound familiar. How bizarre. He wondered if the heat was getting to him.

The Raven Lord's snout-like helmet turned, to regard the marine. 'And the xenos, Brother?'

'All dead, my Lord. Venerable Brother Ferras-' the marine nodded in the direction of the dreadnought '-destroyed their vehicles. There is naught but wreckage in the corridor.'

'Excellent. You and your men have my thanks, Brother Thaddeus.'

Thaddeus. Oh.

'Yes My Lord!' Thaddeus sounded pleased. He also sounded surprised – he clearly hadn't expected a compliment. 'I'll pass that on, if I may.'

'Be my guest. Dismissed!'

Thaddeus banged on his breastplate again, then he walked away. He rejoined the other marines over by the webway gate. They were gathered around the wrecked apparatus. One of them was examining it with various tools. The corpse of the Originist was off to one side, in a bag with an apothecary. He was busy closing the zips and making some notes on a slate. The whole area was crawling with Storm Ravens – Alaster reckoned there had to be something approaching an entire company just in this area. He knew there were even more outside.

Overhead, four landspeeders hovered over the portal, keeping it covered frome each point of the compass. Any further attackers would find themselves ripped to pieces.

The Raven Lord clicked the safety back on his storm bolter. The little snick jerked Alaster's attention back to the scene in front of him.

'Cadets Karo, Patreus and Shepherd,' the commander remarked. 'Tell me what happened here.'

Alaster blinked. 'Uh, my Lord, I'm sure the sergeant can give you a full report.'

'He already has. I want your version as well. Humour me.'

Alaster felt like a small animal in a car's headlights. Speaking to the lord and master of the Chapter itself just topped off today's weirdness. 'Yes my Lord.' He ran through his version of events. Then Patreus did the same, and finally Nasty.

The Raven Lord considered their stories for a moment. Then he spoke. 'You have done the Chapter and the Imperium a service today. That will not be forgotten. I suppose it's only fitting that you should get to finish this.'

Alaster tried to stifle the frown. What did that mean? 'What do you want us to do, my Lord?' Alaster spoke carefully.

'Push a button. We're have a little present for the Dark Eldar.' The terminator pointed with his gun.

The marines were doing something over by the gate. They were fastening packages to the base of the arch. The packages were wired together. One of the marines was unrolling a reelm of cable, walking backwards toward the portal. He was accompanied by two more marines, one with a bundle of packages and the other cradling a bolter.

They disappeared into the portal, leaving cable behind them.

'Come with me,' the Raven Lord ordered. They followed the massive terminator as he strode over.

As they approached the portal the marines all respectfully banged on their breastplates. 'How are we doing?' the Raven Lord asked.

'Nearly there, my Lord,' one marine reported. He connected a cable to a socket and something beeped. 'Ah – there we are, my Lord. The charges are ready to for priming.'

Alaster wondered what the charges were.

'What is the detonation status?'

'We have a vox-activation, my Lord. We'll set up a relay for it out here, to make sure the signal penetrates into the portal. Once the signal is sent, the primary blast occurs one minute after.'

'And the blast range?'

'The rock should contain most of it, my Lord.' The marine pointed to the walls. 'And the vast bulk of it will be inside the webway. We've rigged up the corridor. There's a junction further down – with any luck the blast should rip that out too.'

'And if the demolition explosives don't damage the corridor?'

The marine shrugged. 'I spoke to the Tech-Priests. They say it will collapse anyway, without the gate to anchor it. The extra explosives are just a precaution, my Lord.'

'Good,' the Raven Lord said. 'I'd like you to give the control unit to Cadet Karo here.'

'My Lord.' The marine sounded surprised. Still, he didn't question it. The helmet turned to face Alaster. Alaster looked up and back, nothing that his legs weren't trembling. He felt proud of himself – he was almost getting used to this.

The marine lifted a small rectangular box from a belt pouch. He turned to one of the other marines. 'The connector, brother.'

The man handed him another cable. The first marine connected it to the back of the box. He flipped a latch on the side of the box. Two handles emerged. They looked a little like thin joysticks and ended in red buttons.

The marine handed the box to Karo.

He handed it to Alaster. 'When the Raven lord tells you, push the two red buttons in. You have to do both to ignite the charges. Have you got that?'

'Uh, yes Brother. Two red buttons.' Alaster managed not to swallow.

'Okay. Keep those in mind. Remember it's both – it's set up that way to stop you setting it off by accident.'

'Yes, Brother-Marine.'

A shadow swooped over them. Alaster heard the rumble of mighty engines.

'There's our ride,' the Chapter Master remarked. 'We'd better move back. The valley outside should do.'

'Yes my Lord.' The marines turned their attention to evacuating the area.

Some time Alaster found himself stood with Nasty and Patreus on the dusty floodbed. The hills containing the portal rose up before them. A length of cable ran off from the box in Alaster's hands, snaking up into the distance. They couldn't see the portal from here. It was lost amongst the scarps and peaks.

Alaster was aware of the weight in his hands. The box was angular and hard underneath his fingers.

Alaster risked a glance behind him. The riverbed was full of Space Marines. Two whole companies, each warrior stood to silent attention. Two hundred Astartes, all looking at the small tableaux at the front. Alaster was trying not to shrink under the attention. He thought he recognised Captain Lakon with them, distinguishable by the silver trim on his shoulder pads and the vicious axe he carried. Alaster didn't know which one was Thaddeus, but he knew the man was in there somewhere.

Kodos and the Raven Lord were with them at the front.

The Raven Lord spoke briefly to the three aspirants. 'Are you ready?'

'Yes lord,' Alaster said.

The terminator stepped back and faced his army. He spoke, the speakers in his helmet amplifying his voice. 'Brothers, we gather here today in victory and in celebration. The xenos threat has been routed. The monsters have been sent back to the hell they call a home. They have failed. We have triumphed. As we have today and in the past, so we shall in the days to come. We are oathsworn to defend the peoples of these worlds and today we have upheld our oath. The foe will never make a liar of a Raven.

'Nonetheless, there is a lesson in today's fight. Wherever we go, wherever we stand, we must always be vigilant. Even on this world, a planet of our own domain, our foe dared to rear its head. Had it not been for the actions of many brave men, they would have gone about their business, silent and unpunished.

'Their temerity will not go without revenge. With my authority as Lord of the Storm Ravens, I am ordering the cleansing of this place. Cadet Karo, please take the firing sticks.'

Alaster was amazed at how steady his hands were. He gripped the sticks, resting his thumbs on the red buttons.

'On three. One. Two. Three.'

He pushed the buttons. They sank in.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Up over the hills, there was a puff of dust. It didn't look much, just like a some dirt blown from a shelf. But the puff kept rising. It spread into a lazy plume, tilting and twisting on the light wind.

Alaster felt it before he heard it. A throbbing rumble, carried through the ground. It rose up through his boots. Then he heard the rising growl of the blast. It peaked, at a painful intensity. Then it faded away, replaced by the distant rumblings of falling rocks.

He looked at the others.

Patreus was staring with awe. Nasty was grinning, ear to ear. 'That,' he said, 'was cool!'

Some hours later, Captain Lakon and the Raven Lord surveyed the damage from close up. They sat behind an observation port of a Thunderhawk as it circled the new crater from on high. The vague outline of the semicircle was still visible. The sides had been softened by inslides of damaged rock. The entrance to the cavity had been entirely destroyed. A fragmented heap of rock marked the final resting place of the gate-arch itself. The glowing runes were gone. Nothing remained of the carved columns on the rockfaces. The setting sun washed the wreckage with ruddy light. Long shadows stretched out from the heaps of rubble. The demolitions charges had done their work.

'Well my Lord,' Lakon remarked, 'I guess that solves that problem.' He tapped his helmet. 'Our Tech-Marine reports the warp field has dissipated. Not a single millithere above background. There is no gate here anymore.'

'With any luck it may have penetrated further into the webway,' the Raven Lord said. 'The more passages it destroyed, the better. That was partly my idea.'

'You wanted to send a message.'

'Yes. Sergeant Kodos's report is disturbing. I've reviewed the audio log of their last encounter. It seems at least some of the Originists may be in league with the aliens. It astounds me – the whole problem with them was supposed to be too much zeal, not too little.'

'The enemy of your enemy?'

'Is still a piece of xeno filth. No, they're not given to unlikely alliances. In fact, one of the things they hold against us is that we will sometimes ally with aliens.'

'Only out of necessity.'

'Exactly. And it makes all this rather ironic.'

'Did the body yield any clues?' Lakon asked.

'Not really. The apothecaries did manage to get a match, from the police databases. A level one citizen from Gamma Tertius, name of Jalos Millick. Apparently he lived in a room in a public house on one of the estates. There was no record of any job. I suspect his means of support wasn't legal.'

'He was a level one? Kodos's video - he didn't look ill or crippled.'

'He wasn't first level due to failure, just by default. He simply never took the Selection. The Originists ban their faithful from doing so.'

'And of course if you don't take it, you can't score above one.' Lakon's helmet nodded. 'And if you only score a one, you can't take any exams, you can't get any qualifications. You can't get most jobs and you can't live outside the public housing projects. The crap end of town, in other words. You're banned from having children. So you're basically screwed. You'll have a short, unhappy life.'

'And it ensures the Originists have a supply of embittered people with nothing to lose.' The Raven Lord sounded cynical. 'One could almost suspect them of farming their faithful for misery.'

'That's exactly what they do,' Lakon growled. 'So, what about the Dark Eldar angle?'

'I almost wish Kodos had taken the thing alive. We could have done with more information.'

'Putting one of them to the question would be futile. Anything we can do to them, they've probably already done to themselves.'

'True. The difficulty is, we really don't have anything to go on. It seemed to imply that they had an intermediary, someone who delivered that machine to the Originists.'

'The person who kept his word.'

'Yes. And sadly, that complicates things.'

'How?'

'It means the Originists might not have known what they were doing. Or at least makes it deniable. They might claim they thought they were disabling the gateway. I suspect this may have been a plot to discredit us. Open the gate, have the Dark Eldar rampage around for a while, then use their little device to shut it again while they charge in and massacre the surviving aliens. They probably thought if they timed it right, they could make it look like they were the true defenders of Octalis.'

'If they got in first.'

'Of course they would. They already knew where the gate was. We didn't even know it was here – it was only chance that Karo stumbled on it. Or the hand of the Emperor.'

'A plot to discredit us,' Lakon said with disgust. 'These people are true schemers. Is there nothing they won't stoop to?'

'They're convinced they have right on their side. They're true fanatics. Collateral damage doesn't bother them.'

'The device itself – do we need to plan for a repeat?'

'We should always be vigilant. The Tech-Marines have been over the device – they took it from the scene, before the blast. They've had our Tech-Priests involved too. Apparently the device is an abomination – not an STC pattern. Possibly part-alien. The recognisable bits are Warp resonance amplifiers. I'm led to understand these are parts of stardrive assemblies. They think the device used them to couple to the gate's stand-by mode, forcefeeding it power to make it open.'

'Alien tech. A further heresy!'

'Indeed. One with a small advantage to us, though.'

'How so?'

'If our Tech-Priests can't replicate the device then I doubt the Originists can either. There is a good chance this was the only one they had.'

'Well that's a small mercy.' Lakon hesitated. Then he said carefully, 'With respect my Lord, I'm starting to think Kodos might be right. These people know no honour. They flout the public order and now they plot with aliens. Maybe we should crack down on them.'

'Mark my words, Brother Captain, this outrage will have consequences.' The Raven Lord was resolute. He surveyed the devastation below them. 'However, I don't think we've exhausted the legal avenues yet.'

'In the last week they've showed total contempt for the law.'

'Yes, and that's their mistake. Okay, we can't prove that they knew for a fact what they were doing, or what was on the other side of the gate. But we have unarguable evidence that they knew about the gate and hadn't reported it. That is treason, Brother-Captain. The courts can't pass that up, even if they've tried to get to them. Nor can the government. Yelessa and her ministers will have to act now.'

'With respect my lord, how can you be so sure?'

'Because I just voxed the video files to the local press,' the Raven Lord replied. 'And a short statement. It'll be all over the evening news.'

Lakon sounded surprised. 'We're going public on this one?'

'Yes. I don't see why not. We're not dealing with Chaos here. If we put out an appeal for information, well, the more eyes turned on a problem the more you'll see. Also, it might help focus some minds. The Home Rule Council, for instance.'

'It might cause a panic.'

'If we went into Primaris, Secundus and Tertius with bolter and chainsword, there'd be an even bigger panic, Brother. No, there's enough uncertainty about as it is. And anyway, we can't keep this one secret. The bomb was a good way to make sure of the portal, but nukes can't be hidden. Nor can battle-barges jumping into orbit and spouting drop pods.'

'Ah. I hadn't thought of that.'

'I'm going to have to give the Council a statement later. They've been trying to get through ever since we arrived. I think they're a bit worried.'

'As they skakking well should be.' Lakon drummed his armoured fingers on the haft of his axe. 'I'm not keen on this idea, but - I was wondering if we should get the Inquisition involved?'

The Raven Lord was silent for a moment. Then, he said, 'I'm not keen on that either, Brother. The Inquisition – well, sometimes you never know what they're going to do next. This mess is partly their fault. If they'd just done the sensible thing and banned this silly sect, we wouldn't have this problem. No, they've been playing politics with this. I don't want them making hay with us. These worlds owe fief to us – they're our responsibility. We can manage. We've weathered far worse then this daft little spat.'

'Yes my Lord. I suppose you're right. But I think we should hold onto it, as a reserve option.'

'True. But I can't see the situation getting any worse.' The Raven Lord pointed out of the window, at the crater below. 'That sends a strong message. Their leaders will understand. We're here and we're not going away. And anyway, they've overplayed their hand. The xeno ploy failed. Their little coup attempt failed. Many of them will soon be in jail. They have no room left to manoeuvre.'

'Still, something keeps bothering me about all this.' Lakon waved a hand at the view.

'What's that?'

'It reminds me a bit of that business in Vandais, last year.'

'Oh yes, the cult on the Moon. That was a bad affair.'

'I still don't think we got the full story on it.'

'I don't think there was much story. A latent psyker wakes up one morning and discovers his powers, like they do sometimes. Then the voices start talking to him, putting ideas in his head. Next thing you know he's founded himself a little coven and they've got big plans. They go on a killing spree and bodies start cropping up. They do a poor job of hiding them, so the authorities notice. We get called in and bang! Problem solved. It's a bit pathetic, really.'

Lakon said nothing for a while. He looked at the devastated landscape below. Finally, he said, 'So what's the follow-up going to be?'

'To the gate? Well, we need to sweep the area, make sure there aren't any more lying around. I've put Kodos's aspirants on the job as well as the scouts. It's the kind of work the aspies can do.'

'What about back-up?'

'We'll be keeping two companies in place, on Gamma. Just in case they're needed. It'll help reassure the populace, too.'

'That's going to leave us a bit thin on Delta, my Lord. We'll be having half the Chapter out for the Fafnir Campaign soon enough. And with the Seventh and Eighth Companies out on deployment elsewhere, that's only going to leave one back home.'

'One and a half. It's only half of the Eighth that's deployed.'

'That's still only a hundred and fifty marines. What are we going to do if there's a problem on Delta?'

The Raven Lord shrugged. 'What sort of problem? A hundred and fifty should be adequate. We're not the police, remember. Delta is more then capable of looking after itself. It usually does.'

Lakon nodded. 'That's a point. My lord – I'm still uneasy.'

'Obviously we'll monitor the situation. I'll make sure we stay in astropathic contact with Delta the whole time. If there's any hint of trouble, we send half the force back there and then.'

Lakon nodded. 'That sounds viable.'

'Glad you agree. Now, I think we should be getting back to the camp. This crater is getting boring, don't you agree?'

Lakon laughed. 'Yes my Lord. It isn't even smoking anymore!'