Tergum Cultro Chapter 13
Deep underground there was a large Atrium, with broad concourses, graceful pillars and bold statues of imperial heroes. Its existence so far underground had once been a testament to previous Governor's hubris but now its only purpose was that of a battlefield and it rang with the screams of dying men. Across the space figures in black and figures in red ran and blasted at each other. Hellguns tore through armour with ease and over a dozen men had already fallen, the rest lurked in cover blasting away blindly. From behind one statue appeared a floating red box ,inching out to hold up an astonishingly rare Volkite Serpenta and firing off streaming blasts of energy. One lucky shot caught a man full on and incinerated him in a heartbeat, spraying hot ashes all over his comrades yet they held firm and continued firing.
Into this space charged four Space Marines, their armour was greyed, scored and rent but they were ready for battle. Yet the second they emerged from the tunnels half the weapons on the field swung towards them and inundated them with Hellgun fire. Coherant light punched into their ruined armour and seared their flesh. Instantly they dived into cover as the beams soared overhead in a strobing storm of lasfire. It was galling for a Space Marine to seek cover but their armour was a wreck and the weight of fire was remarkable.
Sergeant Toran assessed the situation in his mind, calculating the angles with Transhuman speed and he did not like the results. The hard fact was that the four of them could not beat this many opponents in a three-way fight. That they might die was barely a blip in the equation but that one of the Traitors could escape was unacceptable. Toran risked a glance over the rubble and his head was nearly taken off by a well placed blast, he ducked down and gritted his teeth. They were trapped, pinned between two foes and with no way to change the odds he could see.
Toran couldn't see his enemies but he could here them and called, "Canesh! How could you do this?!"
From behind a fallen pillar Canesh yelled, "I make no apologies, you are too indoctrinated to see the truth. I will not be bound by dogma and short-sightedness, I will do whatever is necessary to pull mankind out of the squalor."
From the other side of the atrium Castabore's boxy form emerged from behind the statue and spat, "Sergeant do not discourse with this Heretek, she has stolen precious STC designs and attacked the Omnissiah's faithful. You must help us defeat her!"
Toran was startled to hear such an appeal and snarled, "You expect us to help you? You who started this rebellion. You betrayed us, you betrayed the Emperor!"
Castabore was incapable of facial expressions but her voice resounded with confusion as she replied, "That statement is a fallacy, this rebellion has endangered irreplaceable Mechanicus relics. I informed you that my mission is to protect those relics, I would never do something so counter-productive!"
"Then why did you abandon us in mid-battle?" yelled Toran.
Castabore's answer sounded almost matter of fact as she called, "I received an alarm that a Mechanicus shrine had been penetrated and the seals were being violated. I calculated an eighty-seven percent probability that your combat prowess could overcome the odds with only minimal attrition of life. The relics were a higher priority, so I acted."
Despite everything Toran inexplicably found himself believing her, the Magos truly did not care about anything other than the relics. He had heard enough of the Tech-priests to know that to them honour and brotherhood were a distant second to efficiency and logic. Yet this only deepened the mystery, what was truly going on here? Then something nagged at Toran, some tiny detail he had missed before now floated up the surface of his mind and made him replay his first conversation with Canesh over in his eidetic memory. Then suddenly everything snapped into sharp focus as the truth hit him.
He turned back to Canesh and shouted, "You called the Magos a man at first, because you had never even heard of her until we told you about her! The Magos wouldn't need a rebellion to cover her tracks, the only person here who would need to start a rebellion... is you!"
He roared, "Tell me Canesh: did Castabore betray the Emperor or did you?!"
"Kill them!" screamed Canesh as the Strom troopers intensified their fire.
Toran was forced to duck lower as Hellgun blasts chipped away at his cover and yelled, "Magos, we must work together!"
Castabore processed the change in variables in an instant and ordered, "Suppressing Fire!"
Instantly the Skitarii rose up and unleashed a relentless volley. The beams smashed into the Stormtrooper's cover and created a storm of lightning. The Inquisitorial troopers were good, professional soldiers but they were still only men and could not help flinching for moment. In that instant the Space Marines were up and running. They charged across the distance at a sprint and before any man could react they dove in amongst the Stormtroopers. Lashing out with fists and bolter stocks to break bones and crush chests.
Novak leapt over a fallen pillar, using boots and fists and shatter all resistance, he was swift and deadly with his bare hands but somehow looked incomplete without a blade. At the same time a pair of Stormtroopers broke cover and ran screaming at Halis with bayonets fixed. He saw them coming and then he took two steps to the right, watching as they were riddled with Hellgun fire from the Skitarii. Meanwhile Jediah grabbed a Stormtrooper and pulled him into a bear hug, the razor sharp remains of his jagged breastplate puncturing the carapace armour of the man. They stood there like old friends as the man was impaled on a dozen knife edges and blood ran freely down his legs to drip onto the cold ground.
While his brothers were dealing with the mortals Toran was charging straight towards Canesh with his Chainsword roaring. She rose up and whipped out her energised sword to met him blade to blade. Toran brought up his chainsword expecting to overpower the slight woman but he had not reckoned upon the master crafted lethality of her power sword. The lighting wreathed edge of the blade met the spinning chainsword and in one smooth movement cut straight through it with barely any resistance at all. A sword that had served faithfully for nine centuries was broken and Toran was left holding half a blade as the motor spluttered and died. He almost lost his life in that moment as Canesh followed through and tried to disembowel him. Only his genhanced reflexes kept him alive as without conscious thought he twisted awkwardly to avoid the blow.
He had no time to counter before Canesh struck again, launching a series of strikes, any one of which should have ended him. She was good: precise, skilled and fast enough to hint at subtle augmetic enhancements under her armour. Toran had seen her in combat before but never so ruthlessly and focussed, never fighting with such skill and fervour. Toran was forced to fall back, stepping between blows and deflecting with the blade's killing edge with his vambraces, every impact making his ceramite hiss and smoke. In theory Toran should have easily bested her, he had reach, strength and bulk enough to crush her. Yet her energised blade could cut through ceramite effortlessly and she knew exactly how to use it.
A lucky strike caught Toran's arm with the edge of the blade and carved a deep furrow into the surface, a few degrees more and he would have lost his hand. He almost fell over backwards, his guard dropping and that was when Canesh made her first mistake. She pulled back with her sword and thrust point first to ram her blade up the hilt in Toran's abdomen. A mortal man would have fallen in screaming agony but he was a Space Marine and the pain of the blow meant nothing to him. He felt his inside burning but fast as lighting his hand flew out and clamped onto Canesh's wrist, locking her in place.
The Inquisitors' eyes opened wide in shock but before she could react Toran's other hand whipped out and smashed across her face, sending teeth flying in bloody showers of shattered enamel. Canesh staggered drunkenly from the hit and in that vulnerable moment Toran grabbed her around the throat. With a heave he lifted her bodily off the ground and Canesh let go of her blade to thrash at Toran's arms and kick at the air but it was useless, she was in Toran's grasp and nothing could make him let go.
Slowly Toran wrapped both his hands around Canesh's neck and felt the hatred burning in his heart. This woman had betrayed every bond and oath she had taken for the sake of power. He looked into her eyes and saw the arrogance and contempt seething within and realised how rotten her soul had become. Her veneer of loyalty was a sham, Toran realised, she only served her own ambition, it was all she had ever served. Toran saw her mortal fear and dread at the knowledge her soul had forsaken the light of the Emperor. He could practically taste the terror oozing out of her sweat and it was heady indeed. For a moment Toran understood his brothers' urgings to make her suffer, to take joy in the moment of the kill. This woman deserved every agony and torment he could inflict and Toran realised deep down there was a tiny corner of his heart that wanted to watch this woman suffer. No, it was fouler than that, he wanted to make her suffer with his own two hands. Some part of him knew just how good it would feel to close his grip millimetre by millimetre and laugh at her futile struggles as he choked her slowly and painfully. He wanted to taste her fear and savour the light fading in her eyes.
In that moment he saw a new future stretching out before him, one stripped of honour but full of bloodlust and slaughter. A future where he cared for nothing save the spilling of blood and the ending of life. He would become a butcher lord, pretending to fight in the Emperor's name but in truth serving only his own pleasure and amusement. He saw his future reflected in Canesh eyes, a future where he did not serve others but carved his own path to glory and at the end of that path waited a Throne of Skulls and a roaring red god.
Toran snapped back to reality and was filled with horror and disgust at himself. To abandon his honour and duty would betray more than the Emperor and the teachings of his Primarch: it would be to betray the nobility within himself. Such a future would take him from honour, making him no the best Marine he could be but the worst. He was ashamed that such potential existed within his soul and swore to himself that he would eternally remain a servant of the Emperor and a son of Roboute Guilliman. Toran vowed that he would always and forever choose death over before life without honour. He gathered himself up and looked the Inquisitor, still feebly beating on his arms, then in one swift movement he jerked his fists and snapped her neck. The death was quick and painless, filling the demands of duty and honour without undue suffering.
Canesh was dead but it was done the right way, the honourable way. The way of the Storm Heralds.