"Two angels dwell within us. One who lives light, the other who waits in shadow and blood. Victory demands that we are both."
-Chaplain Rafael, IIIrd Company, Captain Orpheo's Command Squad, Blood Angels
Chapter Two:
The First Day
The sun had replaced the shattered moon in the dawnlit skies of Moravius Secundus as five Astartes stepped foot past the damaged gates of an Imperial Guard Fortress. The rockcrete walls were chipped and pitted, smears of black soot and crimson blood speckled across the inner surface.
The ground was covered in corpses. Bodies, hundreds of bodies, some of them stacked and pushed into impromptu defensive positions, littered the ground. A rapid check confirmed that all of them were Imperial Guardsmen of the Krieg Regiments, Commissars, and Tech Priests of the Martian Cult.
"Sweep, back to front. I will guard the main access point until the all clear." Philemon voxxed to the others as he took position, blocking the plasteel doors shut with a massive boot and his body.
The four others fanned out and began their search, wading through chunks of rockcrete, heavy bolter shells, pits in the dirt, and bodies. No living thing was found. All of the corpses showed signs of either blast injuries, puncture wounds, or burns.
Vaccaro confirmed each of their deaths with a grim determination, sweeping his Auspex over piles of corpses, shaking his head as he went. Grimaldus knelt as he finished his sweep, and prayed over the many lost souls. "The Emperor shall welcome you. All of you. In Death, your shame is forgiven."
"Sweep Completed. On our way to you." Jabari spoke to Philemon as they formed together and made their way back to Antiochus.
Nearing the sealed doors, Jabari gave the waiting Retributor a nod. Philemon stepped away as Orreste took up position in front of the doors. The Apothecary maglocked his Bolt pistol to his side, replacing it in his grip with a Grav-pistol.
"Anyone got an argument against me removing these doors the old-fashioned way?" He asked as he raised his weapon.
"We can worry about it later." Jabari replied.
Orreste was milliseconds from pulling the trigger and crumpling the doors, when they opened.
"BLYAT! HOLD YOUR FIRE!" The man, standing where once was two thick plasteel doors, raised his arms wide. "You do not need to be shooting me, I am thinking. You are Imperial Space Marines, I can tell this because you do not look like some insane freakish creatures, or some sex-fiend perverts in Ceramite Armor!"
Grimaldus tensed. That voice. He knew this man. "Andrej Valatok, of the Steel Legion, 703rd Storm Trooper Division."
"Well, it is actually the 985th Krieg Siege Regiment now, and I am no longer a Storm Trooper, in name at least. Now, I am a Grenadier. And a damn good one, I am thinking. But that is not important. You are Space Marines. I know one quite well. He is Grimaldus, you may have heard of him. Hero of Helsreach! I saved his life, twice! He even nearly made me a martyr, which sounds nice, except that I wasn't getting paid for it."
"Andrej." Jabari could tell by the tone of his voice, Grimaldus was quickly losing patience.
"That is my name, yes. Please use it as much as possible, all these Kriegers ever do is call me Sir or Colonel, and it gets boring." The Guardsman replied, his arms lowering to a more relaxed position.
"Andrej!" Grimaldus was louder now, and the man turned to look at him. A quizzical look passed over the Colonel's face.
"I am thinking, I have heard this voice before, yes? Have we met somewhere?" Andrej asked innocently.
Philemon snorted over the vox. Jabari simply smiled. He could feel the stress and anger floating off of Grimaldus.
"We have, in fact, met before, Trooper Andrej." Grimaldus answered. Andrej's eyes widened.
"No. You still haven't died yet?" Andrej's smile widened. "Grimaldus of the Black Templars!"
"I am he." Grimaldus replied. Philemon was laughing now, as was Vaccaro and Petrus. Jabari simply looked on, intrigued by this exchange.
"Who else would you be, you tough bastard! You don't look a day over thirty! Ah, rather, your helmet doesn't."
"You look well for your own age." Grimaldus replied after several moments of silence. "I see the Guard has treated you well."
"Oh no, I've been treated horribly. These men, at least I think they're men, you can't tell behind the masks and coats, are worse than servitors. At least a Servitor is supposed to act like they do. These Death Korps of Krieg? No. And the casualty lists these people generate, Ayah! Makes our war on Armageddon look like a casual Saturday evening."
With the promised safety of five Space Marines, Andrej and two of his surviving command squad members were able to move a surviving Leman Russ tank in front of the firebase's main gate. From there, the collection of Imperials made their way into the Command Bunker.
"Is the Communications Array within the Command Bunker still operational, and is it capable of interplanetary communications?" Grimaldus intoned as the group passed several corridors, barracks, and storerooms.
"I must be honest, no, it is not. But among our survivors is our Astropath, so we can communicate. Why do you ask, Reclusiarch?" Andrej answered as he and his command squad made their way into the Command Complex, Andrej at his side. Petrus took up the rear, his massive bulk in Terminator plate nearly filling the wide corridor.
"Are they capable of sending a message?" Jabari spoke up, walking just to the right of Grimaldus. The five space marines ducked as they entered the primary command and control center, and the entire group spread out across the room. Orreste joined the Kriegskampfchirurg, and the two made their way to the Apothecarion that lay deeper within the complex.
"They are, good Lion. I will summon her at once. While we wait, I must ask you, how are the Celestial Lions? I remember, Grimaldus and myself fought to help save your chapter on Armageddon. That's where I saved his life for the second time!" Andrej replied with no small measure of joviality as he took a seat on stacked ration crates, kicking his feet up upon the hololith table in the room's center. "That was also when the Black Templars kidnapped me, after marking me as dead, and therefore causing my pay to be cut."
Philemon roared with laughter at this, and Jabari grinned, subtly enjoying the knowledge that Grimaldus was tensing with annoyance within his armor. "We are well, Guardsman Andrej. The Lions of Dorn live on, and our service to the Emperor continues."
"I like Andrej." Philemon spoke over the vox, in between snorts of laughter. "He's the only human I've ever witnessed talking to one of us like that and getting away with it."
"He's more than earned it." Replied Grimaldus. "But I'm not going to tell him that."
"You don't have to. He already knows." Philemon replied, going back to laughing. Grimaldus sighed. He felt a headache coming on. As far as he knew, Astartes were not supposed to have headaches. Yet without fail, Andrej managed to make that rule null. Every, single, time.
"You summoned me, Colonel?" a new voice spoke. The four Astartes turned to see a small woman enter the control chamber. She was clothed in Imperial Guard fatigues, over which she wore a robe of Grox leather. In her hand, a staff with the Sigil of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica was held. Her skin was an olive tan, borne of a childhood spent upon a sunkissed world. Her hair was a deep red, and she had small, pouting lips that trembled at the sight of four of the Emperor's Angels.
"Yes, Indeed I have, Miss Josephine Aldin. These Space Marines, one of whom I am good friends with, have need of your services." Andrej answered, grumbling as he opened his pack of Lho sticks, and, finding all but one of them crumpled, spit out a curse. "Pizdec!"
"A-as you command, Co-" Josephine began, only to be cut off by the now irate guardsman.
"Andrej. It is Andrej. My mother gave me that name. It was meant to be used. The legends are to be filled with the name 'Andrej Valatok, commander of the Steel Legions of Armageddon, second hand to Colonel Commissar Sebastian Yarrick, nay, The Old Man will be my second hand! Together, we will crush the enemies of Mankind! They will make statues of us on Terra! Mine will be bigger though. And I'll get medals! And promotions. And, most importantly, more pay!" The man ranted as he lit his Lho stick, flicking the match out and tossing it somewhere behind him. "Is it really that much to ask, funny girl. Just use my name. You're the closest thing to a normal person here besides Grimaldus. Hell, even Wilson is more normal than you, and he's a Techpriest! A COGBOY! How is he more normal than you, blin!?"
"I-I don't…" The Astropath stammered, her small body beginning to tremble. Grimaldus sighed, Jabari joining Philemon in his laughter as the Templar gathered his patience.
"Psyker." The High-Chaplain uttered, momentarily tempering his disdain for the witchkin. Under the tutelage of Reclusiarch Mordred, he had learned to hate her kind. 'Hate the Witch. Abhor the Witch. Burn the Witch.' His late mentor had taught him. But Grimaldus was no longer the young, hot blooded brother initiate, taken from the High Marshall's Sword Brethren for induction into the Chaplain Brotherhood.
His years serving the Chapter as its soul and heart, his meeting with the Ultramarines Primarch, and the many, many deaths he had seen, blessed, and presided over, both ally and enemy, had tempered his rage. Where once he would look to even the sanctioned psykers of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica and the Militant Psykers of the Imperial Guard as enemies to be slain, he now saw them for what they had been purposed for. A tool. A tool that held within itself a priceless consequence when misused, but when directed, controlled, and properly monitored, could turn the tides of a war.
This by no means meant that Grimaldus would look upon Josephine with anything other than disdain. She was a Psyker. The neverborn spawn of the Four beat at her psyche with every ticking second. He had seen, time and again, what would happen if she ever lost control. If she ever began to listen to the whispers in her head. Worlds would burn. Either torn apart by the powers of unreality, or the war that would follow, as the legions of Daemonkin spawned from her corpse covered the planet's every surface.
"Y-Yes Milord Astartes?" Josephine stammered quietly, grimacing at her lack of volume. Grimaldus paid it no heed.
"You will contact the Inquisition warship 'Relentless Intolerance'. You will tell them to forward a request to the Raven Guard enroute to bring with them a Communications Array for this firebase. Further, you will send the following words with no alteration or transliteration." Grimaldus instructed, picking up a dataslate from the holotable, and keying in a short phrase. "Is this within your capabilities?" He asked, handing her the dataslate.
Josephine took the dataslate from Grimaldus. Her soft, delicate fingers brushing the thrice blessed silver ceramite of his left gauntlet. The memories she saw within them flung a warm, electric shiver down her spine that made her judder sharply. Her eyes widened, breath catching in her throat, as she peered into the memories Grimaldus' armor contained.
"Psyker!" The vox-lined growl tore her from her visions, wherein she saw monsters that defied reality, beasts that imagination could not fabricate. She shrunk in on herself in burning embarrassment, looking up towards the silver skull of Grimaldus' faceplate.
"Forgive me, Milord Astartes." She answered quakingly, bowing lightly. "I will complete the task you have set for me. Do you wish for me to notify you upon completion?"
For several moments, Grimaldus was silent, and an uneasy tension filled the room. Josephine noted, her knees almost giving out from fear at the sight, that Grimaldus' fist was wrapped around his Crozius Maul, finger hovering over the activation rune. When the giant spoke again, her knees did give out, just for a moment.
"No. Notify me or the Colonel if there is a response. Otherwise, rest." The Chaplain answered. Josephine bowed again, and scurried off rapidly, her whole body shaking, skin dripping from a cold sweat forming as utter terror gripped her.
As she left, those still within, Astartes and Guardsman, turned to look at Grimaldus in silence. In the minds of everyone save for Grimaldus, what had just occurred was the almost death of Josephine Al'Din, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica's representative to the 985th Krieg Regiment.
"What?" Grimaldus asked, confused. Philemon was the first to break the silence, a laugh upon his lips, as was almost always the case. Grimaldus frowned beneath his helm, though Philemon couldn't see it. The Reclusiarch had the sudden thought that even if Philemon knew that his laughter annoyed him, he would continue.
Golden godrays of sunlight split the pleasant shadows of the mid morning as Petrus and Philemon made their way back to the landfall point. Chewing the earth beneath wrought iron tracks was a Chimera Armored Transport, piloted by Magos Alpha Priorus WL-20N Theta, nicknamed 'Wilson' by Andrej.
The rather mundane form of the Krieg Regiment's Enginseer was deceptive. His many blessings of the Omnisiah's blessed steel lay folded beneath robes of crimson, face covered by an archaic rebreather system that mutilated the man's voice into a warbling, growling eruption of noise. His eyes had long ago been rendered unusable by age, and had been replaced by fibre-optic augmetics that shone a baleful green, multiple points of visible light peeking from beneath the hood of Wilson's Robe.
"ASTARTES." Wilson's voice interrupted the quiet calm of the vox network. Neither Astartes paused in their march forwards. It was Petrus who answered, after a moment of silent deliberation between the two that Wilson couldn't hear.
"Yes, Magos?" The Lamenter replied, his eyes scanning the spaces between each red-leafed tree around them.
"We are approaching the topographical coordinates provided by your sergeant. I have detected no lifesigns via auspex sensorium arrays, however, we must move rapidly in securing your equipment. This chimera, Omnissiah bless its spirit, runs low on fuel and final-drive lubricant oils! Resupply has ceased since our out of atmosphere communications array was damaged, and we have been unable to request resupply for exactly seven months, eleven days, fifteen hours, nine minutes, twenty one seconds." Wilson elaborated as the three hardcrates of ammunition, rations, and communications equipment came into view around a bend in the path.
"Understood Magos. We will load the hardcrates, while you provide overwatch." Petrus answered the Martian priest, taking a knee to read the data slate attached to each hardcrate. "Nothing has been damaged, crates haven't been opened since we closed them on the 'Relentless'."
Wilson nodded slowly, engaging internal auspex systems as well as those on the Chimera. "Compliance!" he voxed, panning the turret mounted Heavy Bolters right and left.
The troop access hatch on the rear of the Chimera lowered with a dull machine whine of hydraulics, and Petrus joined Philemon in hauling the supply hardcrates into its empty troop compartment. The Third crate had been heaved into the now extremely full transport, the hatch closing, as the now manic voice of Wilson split the silence over the vox.
"Meat detected, permission to make it 'Not Meat'?!" The Enginseer asked, a psychotic glee to his words. Petrus looked to where an infrared targeting rune blinked on and off. A small, dusty crow, sitting quietly on the branch of a tree, seventy yards from the Imperial trio's current location.
"It is just a bird, Wilson. Let it do bird things in peace." Philemon replied with a chortle of amusement. "More likely than not, we've interrupted its search for small squishy bugs to enjoy."
Wilson let out a displeased burble of Bhinaric, but the targeting rune blinked out of sight all the same. "The lack of violence and the reduction of meaty creatures to base molecules displeases me greatly, Astartes."
"That is most unfortunate, Enginseer. I do not much care." Petrus sighed in exasperation as they made their way back towards Firebase Reclamation. "Keep your eyes peeled. I'd rather not become food for some annoying monstrous xeno beast."
Harsh, mechanical laughter came from the direction of the Chimera's driver hatch. "Blink blink blink goes the targeting rune. Blink blink blink. Omnissiah cannot describe the euphoria greasing my gears at the thought of some fleshy-meat-thing to turn the blink blink blink into bang bang bang!"
One of the Engineer's clawed metal fists slammed into the armored ring around the driver's cupola. "By the Omnisiah's massive oil barrels, when do I get to push the button!?" The now irate Magos lamented.
Philemon and Petrus shared a look. "This implies something about the Omnissiah that I do not like…" Petrus mused. "Blasted Vostroyans…"
Philemon turned to Petrus. "What exactly is that?"
Petrus gained a far off look. "The Lamenters once aided a force of Vostroyan Imperial Guard on a world overrun by the Tau breed Xenos. They often spoke of their loved ones, but there was one individual they all seemed to share great love for. I never learned her name, but from picts they showed me, they all seemed very interested in her rather large mammary glands… I have a feeling that the Enginseer is of a similar mind."
Philemon stared impassively for several moments, before eyeing Wilson. "For one who says he hates the flesh, how do you explain this?"
The only response the Astartes received was psychotic mechanical laughter, and the cycling safety of the Turret mounted Heavy Bolters.
Inquisitor Heinrich Weisser, Ordo Xenos, was bored. This did not bode well for the Grimm that were currently running for their life. Beowulves and Ursai scrabbled at blackened stone as the Psyker-Inquisitor shredded swathes of the creatures in a matter of seconds, swooping claws of Balefire flowing around the shrewd man like white-capped surf waves.
Behind him, black armored Kasrkin followed the Inquisitor, planting supercharged Hellgun blasts into the bodies of injured Grimm that somehow escaped death at the Inquisitor's hand.
"Bored." Heinrich grumbled to himself. "I am bored bloody of this scheisse. Have we found anything of tactical value?"
The Kasrkin's squad leader approached the Inquisitor. "Nothing of note yet, Milord. But the Beacon is here. The signal has only strengthened since we landed on the Moon's dark side. She reported, consulting her handheld auspex.
Heinrich swore, turning from his Kasrkin guard, and, in a fit of frustration, flung a ball of congealed Balefire towards the side of the Crater they currently stood inside of.
A deep, reverbating, metal clang echo tore through the odd artificial atmosphere of Moravius Secundus' moon. Dust filled the air as chunks of calcium rich rock fell away from the wall, boulders the size of men falling towards the Inquisitor and his retinue.
"Piss! Get back, you fools! The wall is coming down!" Heinrich swore, grabbing the Kasrkin's leader and bodily throwing her forwards out of the danger zone as they ran. The scattering Imperials made it to the safety of the crater's opposite side as the last of the stone fell away, and the dust began to settle.
Heinrich caught his breath, the Squad Leader beside him doing the same. She smiled after several moments, letting her Hellgun hang from her sling. "Thank you, Milord."
"Think nothing of it." He replied, tilting his neck until several satisfying pops left his neck and shoulders. "Far be it from me to let a loyal servant of the Emperor die like a shrub."
The squad leader laughed as she lifted her Hellgun again. "Of course, Lord."
Heinrich turned to his retinue to get a headcount, but froze as his eyes found what replaced the wall of calcified moon rock of the Crater's wall.
Massive metal doors, a Kilometer High and half as wide, lay bare to the Imperials. On its rusted surface, an ancient symbol rested. The head of a Raptor, underneath which were two crossed lightning bolts. The Raptor Imperialis.
"Captain Saveloy." Heinrich said, his voice barely above a whisper. The Squad Leader stepped closer, her eyes wide in shock as she stared at the Emperor's Seal.
"Lord?" She breathed. Heinrich's gaze met her own, his cobalt blue eyes set in dangerous, solid determination.
"Vox ahead to the 'Relentless', tell them to have the Lord Regent on the other side of a vox or holographic communications terminal by the time we return."
"L-Lord Guilliman!?" Captain Saveloy stammered even as she complied with the Inquisitor's order.
But the Inquisitor had already begun walking back to the Corvus Blackstar shuttle, each stride faster than the one before it. "Leave a complement of Stormtroopers here as well! Nothing in or out! NOW!" He shouted as the Captain caught up to him.
Whatever lay behind those ancient doors, only a Primarch had the authority to investigate. Lord Inquisitor Heinrich Weisser, Ordo Xenos, approved the confirmation request from the Communications Officer aboard the Inquisition Warship 'Relentless Intolerance' as a spear of cold dread made his ancient heart ache.