‘I know how you feel,’ said Sixx, pulling a lever to send the elevator ascending to the upper levels. ‘It seems like an age since I was last here. Can barely remember where anything is.’
‘Too true,’ said Alpharius. A thought occurred to him. ‘I don’t remember you from the expedition on Terra.’
‘No, I stayed on the Avenger,’ said Sixx. ‘I’m Chief Apothecary now, though, so the primarch couldn’t well start all of this gene-tech business without bringing me in. To be honest, even the little of what I’ve seen is way beyond anything I know. Nexin, the tech-priest, will be doing most of the work. I’m just here to liaise.’
‘A solemn duty,’ said Alpharius, ‘and a great responsibility.’
‘One I am entirely unprepared for,’ said Sixx without any hint of humour. ‘My brother Apothecaries suffered badly at the dropsite. It would appear that the traitors set out to target us from the outset. Only seven of us got back, and even with only fifteen years in the Apothecarion, it seems I’m the longest-serving. Now I’m supposed to be running the whole project.’
‘I’m sure Corax has every confidence in you.’ The elevator rattled to a halt and Alpharius dragged open the door. ‘We’re all depending on you, Sixx. You won’t let us down.’
‘The infirmary’s this way,’ said the Apothecary, pointing to the right.
‘Yes, it’s coming back to me now,’ said Alpharius. ‘Thanks for the help. Let me know if I can return the favour.’
‘I’ll find plenty for you to do, have no worry about that,’ said Sixx. ‘If even half of what Nexin says is true, there’ll be no shortage of work for everyone. Rebuilding a Legion is going to be hard work.’
Not as hard as it was to destroy one, thought Alpharius, as he followed the Apothecary along the passageway.
HOLDING THE ELECTROWELDER delicately between his fingertips, Stradon Binalt used his other hand to hold the vent vane in place. Sparks erupted onto his skin, already pockmarked by dozens of similar burns, but the work was so delicate he could not use protective gauntlets. The pain was momentary, barely registered.
The weld complete, he put his tools aside and leaned back on his stool to admire his work. From the other workshops around him came the clatter of pneumatics and the crackle of spark-bonders. The smell of ceramite adhesive was thick, the primitive air filtration systems of Ravenspire’s lower levels unable to cope with the vast quantities of the vapour being released by the work of the armourers.
The armourium of Ravenspire was far better equipped than that of the Avengerand progress had been relatively swift since the return to Deliverance. He hoped it was swift enough. From what he had heard of the progress on the new gene-tech, Lord Corax might be leading the Legion to war again within a few dozen days. He twisted the nozzle across both axes, satisfied with the freedom of movement on the joints. Picking up a rag, he wiped away a small residue on the fuel inlet valves and lifted the vent into place.
‘You said you had something to show me.’
Binalt drew a protective covering over his work as he stood up and turned to see Commander Agapito at the door.
‘Yes, commander,’ said Binalt. ‘Follow me.’
He led Agapito between the open-fronted workshops, where his fellow Techmarines and their non-enhanced assistants laboured in the glare of fluorescent tubes and welding sparks. Rows upon rows of shoulder plates and reinforced greaves hung on the walls. More complete suits of armour were being assembled in a larger space attached to the armourium, where a small army of servitors and attendants worked to fit power cabling and life-support systems into the refurbished suits.
‘This way.’ Binalt directed the commander to a solid blast door on the left. The Techmarine punched in a security code on the pad and the door lifted out of view with a wheeze of hydraulics. Beyond was the test-firing range.
Lights flickered into life as they entered, to reveal a narrow space a hundred metres long, painted white overlaid with a grid of thin red lines. At the far end stood three suits of armour in front of a wall heavily cracked and pock-marked by impacts. Binalt turned to a rack on the right and lifted up a bolter. He took out a box of rounds from a shelf underneath and loaded the weapon before handing it to Agapito.
‘Target the left suit,’ said the Techmarine. ‘Go for one of the shoulder plates.’
Agapito hefted the bolter up and aimed. With the cough of the launching charge, he fired, the bolt-round flaring into life for a second as it raced down the hall. It struck the left shoulder pad of the empty suit. There was another detonation, the crack echoing back down to the two Space Marines. Shards of ceramite scattered across the firing range, but as the dust cleared, the shoulder pad was shown to be mostly intact.
‘That is one of our standard rounds, against Mark IV armour,’ said Binalt. ‘As you can see, the effect is limited.’
‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Agapito.
‘Yet at the Urgall massacre, the traitors cut down thousands of legionaries with their bolters,’ continued Binalt. The words sounded cold, but he remembered painfully the sight and sound of his fellow Raven Guard butchered in the ambush. He had felt helpless, the rounds from his bolt pistol barely scratching the armour of the traitors while their weapons cut through the Raven Guard without mercy. ‘I recovered pieces, fragments of the ammunition used by the enemy, from the armour of legionaries who withdrew successfully.’
Taking the bolter from Agapito, Binalt swapped the magazine for another and gave the weapon back to the commander.
‘I was also able to procure a few experimental rounds our brothers in the Imperial Fists secured from Mars before it was embroiled by division. We haven’t got the facilities to replicate them here, but I think I have devised a close approximation.’
Agapito sighted again and fired. This time, the other shoulder pad of the armour erupted into spinning fragments and droplets of molten ceramite.
‘ Vengeance…’ muttered the commander. He lowered the bolter and looked at the Techmarine. ‘This is impressive, but also profoundly worrying. It means that the traitors had access to Martian developments before Isstvan.’
‘The roots of their rebellion have delved deeply, commander,’ Binalt agreed with a sombre nod. ‘We are not without countermeasures. Please fire at the central suit.’
The middle stand held one of the suits that had been modified by Binalt’s multi-plate, reinforced shoulder pads. This time, Agapito’s shot caught the armour’s shoulder guard flush on the rim. As with the last shot there was a great explosion of debris, but as the ringing died down, both Raven Guard could clearly see that only the outer layer of armour had been shredded; the inner plating was intact.
Agapito was quiet, staring at the armoured mannequins at the far end of the hall. He distractedly handed the bolter back to Binalt, attention still fixed on the damaged suits.
‘What is the matter, commander?’ asked the Techmarine. ‘Is something not satisfactory?’
‘I killed at least a hundred Space Marines on Isstvan,’ Agapito said quietly. ‘They were Legiones Astartes, just like us. Something I had never thought I would have to do.’
The commander shook his head abruptly, breaking his distant stare.
‘This war will not end easily. We must all get used to the idea now.’
THUNDER PEALED FROM Therion’s dark clouds and lightning split the violet evening sky, glittering from the glass walls of the Great Conservatory. Ten thousand panes of glass reflected the tumult in the heavens, bright even against the lights that glowed within.
The hippocants snorted mist in the cold, their shaggy coats thick with moisture as the coach driver urged them on through the strengthening rain. The road ahead was fast becoming a stream, water flowing down from the tree-lined embankments that flanked it as it speared across the estate towards the sprawling mansion. The driver was swathed in oilskins, only his nose and eyes visible as he turned to speak into the grille on the body of the carriage behind him.