Descent of Angels (38 page)

However, this was no physiological reaction, this was a sure and sudden sense of something deeply wrong.

Worse still was the sense that he was not the only one to realise that something was wrong, but that he was the only one who desired to stop it.

T
HE EMBARKATION DECK
was quiet and that, in itself, was unusual.

Zahariel stepped over the threshold of the blast door and scanned for the normal personnel, techs, Mechanicum adepts and loaders that should be filling the space with life and bustle.

The hiss and creak of the deck and the ever-present thrum that filled a starship were the only sounds, and Zahariel immediately knew that his suspicions had not been groundless.

Something was definitely wrong.

He crossed the embarkation deck towards the Saroshi shuttle and circled it, looking for anything out of place or otherwise unusual. As he had said while talking to Luther, the design was old and practically obsolete, the engines vastly oversized for such a small conveyance.

He ducked beneath one of the wings, crawling on all fours beneath the shuttle, hoping to see what had so unnerved Luther.

The underside of the shuttle stank of engine oil and hydraulic fluids, the plates of metal crudely bolted and welded together with little regard for the quality of workmanship. At first, Zahariel could see nothing unusual, and moved further along the belly of the shuttle.

He ducked his head around a loose plate and…

Zahariel turned back to look at the plate. The hinges holding it were rusted and stiff.

He shook his head as he realised that it was a miracle that this shuttle had even broken atmosphere, let alone expected to return.

As he stared at the open panel he suddenly realised what was wrong with the shuttle, at least partly. This was no orbital shuttle, for there was no heat shielding on the craft’s belly, this was a purely atmospheric craft, primarily designed to fly within the bounds of a planet’s airspace, which explained the oversized engines, presumably retro-fitted to allow their one craft to reach orbit.

Without heat shielding, anyone who tried to descend to a planet’s surface in this craft would not survive the journey. The craft would turn into a flaming comet as the heat of re-entry seared anyone inside to ashes before melting to nothing as it plunged to its death.

The people that had boarded this craft had clearly done so with no intention of ever returning to the surface.

That meant that their mission was one way.

Zahariel crawled from beneath the shuttle, horrified at the idea that they had been boarded by enemies who posed as friends. He looked at the shuttle, seeing it for the vile transport of the enemy it truly was.

‘But what could they hope to achieve?’ he whispered to himself.

Barely a handful of Saroshi had boarded the
Invincible Reason
, hardly enough to trouble even one Dark Angel, let alone a ship full of them.

So what purpose did this visit serve?

Zahariel circled the shuttle, tapping his fist on the battered fuselage, the softly humming engines and its bulbous front section. As he reached the front of the shuttle, he wondered again at the strange design of the craft, for its nose was surely a poor choice of shape for any craft designed for atmospheric flight.

Though he was no aeronautical engineer, he had learnt enough to know that aircraft depended on lift created by their shape and wings to keep them aloft, and that such a heavy-looking front section made no sense.

Looking more closely at the nose, Zahariel could see that it had been a later addition to the craft’s structure, the paint and workmanship different from the rest of the ship. He stood back and looked at the lines of the shuttle’s front, seeing now that the entire section had been added over and above where the original nose of the shuttle ended.

Zahariel took hold of one of the access hatches and pulled.

As he had feared, it was welded shut, but he knew that something dreadful was concealed within. He took a deep breath and gripped the release handle, pulling it with all his might.

Metal bent and buckled, and finally came free, the welded joint unable to withstand the strength of one of the Emperor’s finest. Zahariel tossed aside the ruined panel and stared into the gap he had torn in the front section.

Inside he saw a mass of thick blocks of dark metal fitted around a circular core about a metre across. Thick struts of the same dark metal protected the central core, and a procession of winking lights circled the device hidden within the secret compartment.

‘It’s a weapon of some sort,’ said a voice behind him, ‘an atomic warhead I think.’

Zahariel spun, his fist raised to strike the speaker.

Luther stood before him, his face a mask of anguish and regret.

‘An atomic warhead?’ asked Zahariel.

‘Yes,’ said Luther, coming closer and peering into the opened access panel. ‘I think the whole shuttle is nothing but one giant missile.’

‘You knew of this?’ said Zahariel. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’

Luther turned away from him, his shoulders slumped as though in defeat. He turned back to Zahariel, who was shocked to see tears in his commander’s eyes.

‘I almost did, Zahariel,’ said Luther. ‘I wanted to, but then I thought of what would be mine if I didn’t: the Legion, command, Caliban. It would all be mine, and I would no longer have to share it with someone whose shadow obscures everything I do.’

‘The Lion?’ said Zahariel. ‘His deeds are great, but so are yours!’

‘Maybe in another age,’ said Luther, ‘one in which I did not share the same span of time as a man like the Lion. In any other age, the glory of leading Caliban from the darkness would have been mine, but instead it goes to my brother. You have no idea how galling it is to be the greatest man of the age and have that taken from you in an instant.’

Zahariel watched the words flow from Luther in a flood. For a decade and more, these feelings had been contained within a dam of honour and restraint, but the dam was crumbling and Luther’s true feelings were spilling out.

‘I never realised,’ said Zahariel, his hand sliding towards his sword. ‘No one did.’

‘No, even I did not: not fully,’ said Luther, ‘not until I saw this shuttle. I wouldn’t have to lift a finger. All I’d have to do is walk away, and everything I wanted would be mine.’

‘Then why are you back here?’

‘I ordered everyone out of the embarkation deck and walked away,’ said Luther, one hand covering his eyes as he spoke, ‘but I hadn’t gone more than a few steps before I knew I couldn’t do it.’

‘Then you’re here to stop it?’ asked Zahariel, relieved beyond words.

‘I am,’ nodded Luther, ‘so you can stop reaching for your blade. I realised that it was an honour to serve a warrior as great as the Lion, and that I was the luckiest man alive to be allowed to call him brother.’

Zahariel turned back to the shuttle and the deadly cargo it contained. ‘Then how do we stop it?’

‘Ah,’ said Luther, ‘that, I don’t know.’

‘Y
OU GO TOO
far,’ said the Lion, his hand going to the ceremonial sword at his side.

‘No, you do,’ responded the high exalter. ‘You are abominations, all of you,’ he snarled, his fat jowls wobbling. ‘The only reason I bear your presence is because I have been granted the honour of pronouncing the judgement of my people upon you. Your Imperium is the work of evil men,’ said the lord high exalter. ‘Your words are falsehoods. You are craven and dishonourable, and your angels… your angels are the worst, the product of rutting beasts. You are liar angels. You are loathsome and unclean.’

‘Enough!’ roared the Lion.

The commander of the Dark Angels Legion was enraged, his hand gripping the pommel of his sword so tightly that his knuckles were white. ‘By the Emperor—’

‘I spit on your Emperor,’ said the fat man, and the gathered Imperials gave a collective intake of breath. ‘And I spit on you, Lion El’Jonson!’

The high exalter stretched out his arms, laid three fingers from his right hand on top of the five fingers of his left and touched them to the symbol painted on his forehead.

‘You are not men, nor worthy leaders. You are—’ He was not allowed to finish the sentence. Before the lord high exalter could say another word, the Lion drew his gleaming sword and clove through the fat man’s shoulder and down into his ample gut.

Z
AHARIEL LOOKED DOWN
at the device in the shuttle’s front section, as the blinking lights suddenly began to speed up, and a single pulsing red light lit up in the centre of the sphere. The engines of the shuttle coughed to life and a rising whine of ignition built from within. ‘Damn,’ said Luther.

TWENTY-ONE

T
HE SEQUENCE OF
lights was speeding up, and a second red light had winked into life on the sphere at the centre of the device. A rising hum, felt in the bones as well as heard, built from the sphere, penetrating even the screaming roar of the engines as they gathered power.

The heat from the engines and the device was growing, and Zahariel and Luther were forced back from the shuttle as it began to lift from the deck as automatic systems kicked in, responding to some remotely activated signal.

‘How do we stop it?’ cried Zahariel over the roar of the shuttle’s engines.

‘I don’t know,’ shouted Luther, pointing at an inter-ship vox station on the wall of the embarkation deck, ‘but we have to warn the Lion!’

Zahariel nodded in understanding as Luther fought to reach the shuttle through the rippling heat haze that surrounded it and the growling wash of superheated air billowing from the engines.

Emergency lights flashed to life and a wailing siren sounded as deck systems registered the massive build up of heat and radiation.

‘I can’t get near it!’ shouted Luther.

Zahariel slammed into the wall of the embarkation deck and pressed the ‘all-decks’ stud, sending a warning to the entire ship.

‘Embarkation deck one reports hostile vessel on board!’ he yelled over the screaming din of sirens and the ever-growing roar of the shuttle’s engines. Even as he watched, the shuttle lifted from the deck in a blast of heat. Zahariel heard a scream of pain, and Luther staggered away from the… missile… for he could no longer think of it as simply a shuttle.

‘Repeat?’ said a voice through the vox-station. ‘Hostile ship?’

‘Yes!’ cried Zahariel. The Saroshi ship! It’s a missile or a bomb of some sort!’

Luther staggered over to him, his armour blistered and scorched by the heat of the enemy weapon’s engines. Zahariel looked over to where the missile had lifted off, its nose angling as though homing in on some unseen beacon… some unseen beacon aboard their ship.

Blast doors rumbled open in response to the alarm, and work crews and emergency fire-fighters rushed onto the embarkation deck. Orange jumpsuited techs threw up their arms in response to the intense heat flooding the compartment.

Zahariel felt his skin blistering under the intense heat, and knew that they had seconds at best before the enemy missile’s primary thrusters ignited, filling the deck with killing plasma and thrusting its warhead deep into the belly of the ship.

In that instant he realised what he had to do.

He left Luther at the vox station and ran for the control panel further along the wall, ignoring the pain as his hair was burned from his scalp. Already his armour was bubbling as the paint melted, and his steps were becoming leaden and heavy as the heat fused the joints.

He pushed grimly onwards, knowing that he would only get one chance to save the ship and everyone on board.

His steps became slower and his armour heavier, but he fought the pain to reach the wall-mounted deck controls.

He glanced over his shoulder to see the missile fix on a point that would send it deep into the vitals of the ship, right where the Lion was meeting with the lord high exalter.

At last, Zahariel reached the deck controls and smashed his fist through the plexglas panel in front of the emergency controls. Desperately, he gripped the lock-down lever and hauled it shut. The blast doors at the deck’s perimeter began to rumble closed, but before they had even reached half way to the floor, Zahariel hammered his fist on the integrity field override stud.

More blaring sirens joined the ones already filling the embarkation deck with noise, but this one was louder and more strident than the others. A booming voice from overhead speakers blared into the deck.

‘Warning! Integrity field shutting down! Warning! Integrity field shutting down!’

Zahariel pressed the stud again, holding it down in an attempt to hurry the shut down procedure. Emergency crews ran for the closing blast doors in panic.

‘Warning! Integrity field shutting down! Warning! Integrity field shutting down!’

‘I know!’ shouted Zahariel. ‘In the name of the Lion, just shut down!’

As if in response to his words, the fizzing glow surrounding the generators along the edges of the wide entrance bay faded and the rippling haze of the stars steadied.

A howling gale engulfed the embarkation deck as the atmosphere and everything not fixed in place was explosively vented into space.

The sudden rush of air grabbed them like leaves caught on the wind and dragged them towards the opened bay.

Z
AHARIEL GRABBED ONTO
the railings that ran around the edge of the embarkation deck and held on for dear life as the howling rush of air bellowed towards the open bay. Crates, boxes of tools and gurneys of ammunition careened through the bay, spiralling towards the void of space as it decompressed.

The instant before his feet left the ground, he activated the magnetic soles of his boots, and the weight of his armour slammed to the deck, fixing him in place. Fuel pipes writhed like pinned snakes, and loose cabling waved and sparked in the gale.

The rigged Saroshi shuttle was caught in the rush of air, the power of the decompression gripping it tightly and hurling it from the ship just as its engines fired. Spiralling out of control, the missile corkscrewed wildly as it tumbled away from the ship.