Breughal was right, he thought, snapping his bolt pistol from his thigh, I am far too hard on my wargear.
He fired the pistol at point-blank range into the eye lenses of another Punisher, and used that one’s corpse as cover, holding it against himself as a volley of bolter fire blazed into him. He felt the ricochet of rounds striking his pauldrons, and he was sure one clanged into his powerpack as it careened off the bulkhead. A red light began to wink on his helm display. He ignored it. He had fought on with a whole galaxy of red lights blinking in his sight before now.
The bolter rounds chewed up the corpse he held in front of himself. The corridor was narrow here, and full of smoke. Even infared was little use in the hot staccato flash of gunfire.
But it was all in silence. The corridor was open to vacuum, running fifty metres back to the entry-point where they had cut their way into the enemy ship. There was gravity, and the blood no longer floated in glistening spheres about his head as it had in the first compartment, but there was no atmosphere to conduct the savage sounds of battle and bolter fire. It was oddly disappointing.
The rest of Primus Squad were behind him, Finn March fuming at his back, but there was no room for them to deploy. If Simarron had got his coordinates right, then this was an access corridor which led to the bridge of the enemy ship. Another fifty metres or so and there would be a door, and beyond it, the means to cripple the vessel.
Only one thing to do, Fornix thought. Advance. But I need some space.
‘Finn,’ he said over the vox, ‘are you busy?’
‘Get the hell out of my way and I will be, Fornix.’
‘Toss a grenade over my shoulder, there’s a good fellow. We need to ventilate this place a little.’
‘Mind yourself – it’ll be close.’
‘No good if it’s not.’
The grenade was tossed over Fornix’s right shoulder. It struck the bulkhead and then spun into the ranks of the traitors who were blazing away five metres ahead.
Fornix lowered his helm into the broken metal shell that was his enemy, feeling the rounds thump heavily into the corpse’s armour. He glimpsed a white face in the shattered helm, an eye milk-white, veined and bulging as though about to pop in the airlessness.
Remember me? he thought, staring at that eye in savage triumph. We met a hundred and fifty years ago, and now we meet again.
Then he was staggered by the blast of the grenade, and felt the kiss of the shrapnel. The shock of it forced him to one knee and tore the corpse out of his grasp. His helm display was nothing but buzzing lines for a moment, and he stood up again, blind, and fired a full magazine down the corridor, feeling the bolt pistol kick up in his hand.
His vision steadied. The three Punishers were down, two still moving feebly. He reloaded, strode forward, and put two rounds in each of their skulls. The smoke was thick, but infared was working better now. The way was clear. The corridor was littered with scraps of armour and body parts and weapons. Blood painted the maggot-grey steel of the walls.
‘Brother Heinos,’ he said over the vox. ‘We have an armoured hatch ten metres to my front. I want it open.’
‘Acknowledged.’
The bulky Techmarine came forward, scraping past his brethren in the confined worm-cast of the corridor. His midnight-blue armour was striped with Mars red, and the servo-arm at his back rose up like a scorpion’s tail.
Fornix did not know Heinos as well as he would have liked; as with most Techmarines, he was always a little apart from his brethren in the line companies.
‘Can you do it?’
‘Tougher than the hull,’ Heinos said, scanning the hatch. ‘And booby-trapped. But crudely. Yes, I can do it. It will take me four minutes.’
‘Good, get to it, and don’t blow yourself up.’
The Techmarine knelt before the hatch, and began feeling around the rim of it with a long pointer he had snapped free of the tools he held maglocked to his thighs and shoulderguards. Utterly absorbed, the moment he began his work he seemed to forget that the rest of his brothers existed.
That’s what you get from time on Mars, Fornix thought.
He tapped his own helm. Two red sigils winking at him now. The armour’s powerpack was damaged, and he was overheating. The myriad dents and bulletholes all over the ceramite plates were of no interest to him, though one knee joint felt stiff and slow.
I should let Finn go in first, he thought. That would be the logical tactic.
But he knew he would not. He had a lot of hate to work off, and he had barely begun.
‘Captain, this is Fornix, can you read me?’
‘Barely, brother. The electronics in the hull are interfering with the vox.’ Kerne’s voice was faint and broken, but intelligible.
‘We are at an armoured hatch which should lead to the bridge. Eleven enemy dead thus far – they’re Punishers all right – I remember the livery, or lack of it. Black and yellow, like a wasp of Terra. Entry in approximately four minutes, if Brother Heinos has it right.’
‘Casualties?’
‘None but my chainsword.’
‘Command is coming in, Fornix.’
‘You might want to wait one on that, Jonah – it’s pretty crowded in here.’
A pause. Fornix knew what his captain was thinking. If it were himself, he would be going quietly mad out there, listening to the fight on the vox and not a part of it.
‘Very well. Nureddin and Secundus Squad are already on the bridge of the second destroyer, meeting heavy resistance. If you need the reserve, let me know.’
‘I will, brother.’
There was a bright flare as just in front of him Brother Heinos ignited the fyceline torch in his servo-arm and began cutting into the plasteel lock of the hatch.
‘Ninety seconds, first sergeant,’ he said calmly.
Fornix’s vision was fizzing. He thumped the side of his helm irritably, and the red sigils steadied. It was becoming hotter inside the armour.
Better make this quick, he thought.
Jonah Kerne thumped his fist against the bolt pistol at his thigh. The weapon was still unfired, and his chainsword hung at his waist, switched off.
‘Brother Kass,’ he said suddenly to the young Librarian, ‘can you feel anything from the crew of this ship that might help our boarding parties?’
Kass was wearing a plain Mark VII helm under his psychic hood. He did not answer for a moment but the hood began to glow slightly, bright against the black void behind him.
‘There is intelligence there, and a black storm of hatred. Hatred for each other as well as for us. But something binds them together – a great will – I–’
He staggered forward a step, his boots lifting and then sucked back in place by the maglocks in their soles.
‘It is an ancient malevolence that drives them, empty and hungry as the void itself. But there is a familiarity to it, captain. These things were once like us. I hear echoes of what they once were – Legiones Astartes.’ He clenched and unclenched his fists. ‘It is… unholy. They teem in their thousands, as restless as a swarm of locusts.’
‘The warp spawns them, vomits them forth,’ Brother Malchai said with deep distaste. ‘They are the gangrenous cells in the galaxy’s body. I feel them too. Their souls howl at me from the warp.’
‘They crave oblivion, and wish to take us all with them into the darkness,’ Kass said. His voice shook. ‘I have never looked into such a pit of hate before.’
‘Hate makes you strong,’ Malchai said. ‘Focus, brother.’
‘Yes, Reclusiarch.’
Up on the vox came Fornix again. ‘We are on the bridge, Jonah. Two brothers down. Hot work.’
‘Do you want the reserve?’ Kerne asked instantly.
‘Negative. Wait out.’
The vox clicked off. Fornix was back on the squad net. Jonah listened to it intently, hearing the grunted commands – that was Finn March and his brothers snapping out warnings to each other.