Something caught in Navar’s throat and he coughed. The attendant pointed to a metal bucket on a hook beside the door. An awful stench rose from it.
‘You’ll need to expel some dead tissue from your lungs,’ said the attendant.
Navar hawked and spat a thick clot into the bucket. He took a deep breath and found no other obstruction. The attendant pushed open one of the doors, revealing rows of benches and loose robes. There were several dozen Raptors cleansing their bodies from long troughs, sloughing away blood clots and thick sweaty residue.
Several turned and grinned at Navar, and he smiled in return. If he understood correctly, these would be his battle-brothers within a matter of days, fully grown and combat-ready.
‘Thank you,’ he said to the attendant, and stepped through the door to join the rest of the Raptors.
THE EMPTY FUEL tank ruptured from the impact of Omegon’s fist, a hollow clang resounding around the deserted freight terminal on the outskirts of Nairhub, hidden in the rad-wastes of Kiavahr. With a snarl, Omegon looked to the heavens through the gaps in the metal sheets of the roof; skeletal craneworks jutted up into the cloudy red sky, around them chains hanging from scaffolding and walkways like creepers of an industrial jungle. Pulling his gauntleted hand from the ragged hole he had made in the steel drum, the Alpha Legion’s primarch directed his murderous glare to Magos Unithrax.
‘Do you have an explanation?’ Omegon demanded. He rested one hand on the hilt of his chainsword, and curled the fingers of the other around the grip of the bolter slung at his hip. ‘Another batch of Raptors has undergone transformation without a hitch, and no hint of your virus.’
‘Your operative must have made an error when he attempted to introduce it to the gene-template,’ said Unithrax, meeting the primarch’s anger with a calm, cold stare. ‘Perhaps he compromised the integrity of the viral code.’
‘He followed your instructions precisely,’ Omegon replied. ‘My operative is not at fault.’
‘The viral agent will have mutated the gene-seed if the procedure has been correctly implemented,’ the magos insisted, assured of the truth of what he said.
‘This is not satisfactory,’ said Omegon, calming himself so that he could think clearly. Whoever was to blame could be dealt with later. He had to devise a secondary plan, and quickly. ‘Is it possible the virus is somehow still dormant? What sort of safeguards did you engineer into it to ensure it would not spread out of control and become infectious?’
‘The virus is a common variety, harmless on its own,’ said Unithrax. He shrugged, and a third arm, mechanical in nature, momentarily appeared from under his robes in imitation of the gesture. ‘It is merely a vehicle to introduce the corruptive element.’
‘And what corruptive element have you used?’ said Omegon. ‘Does it need time to activate?’
‘It is warp-based in origin, the stuff of the immaterial rendered into solid form,’ the magos said quietly.
‘Warp tech? It’s notoriously fickle,’ snapped Omegon. ‘Why would you use such a thing?’
‘Not so much warp technology as something more primordial, primarch,’ said Unithrax. ‘The viral agent uses modified daemon blood.’
‘What?’ Omegon snarled the question as he snatched hold of the tech-priest’s robe. ‘You exposed my operative to the taint of Chaos?’
‘A near-synthetic compound utilising trace amounts,’ said Unithrax, unperturbed by the primarch’s outburst. ‘Daemons do not have blood, as such, it is merely a useful euphemism. It contains minimal daemonic power in itself, but its presence is a powerful mutagen. If it was correctly mixed with the gene-template, there will be corruption.’
‘Well, it has not worked,’ said Omegon. He released his hold and began to pace, and then stopped himself, annoyed by the display of agitation. Reaching a decision, he fixed Unithrax with a hard stare.
‘The Order of the Dragon is ready to move?’ said the primarch.
‘Give us the word and we will act,’ replied Unithrax.
‘Good,’ said Omegon. ‘We have delayed long enough; it is time to begin the final phase of the project. I will organise a little testing skirmish for our Raven Guard friends while you begin the coup. Corax will have his eye fixed on Ravendelve and he will not see your preparations until it is too late.’
‘Very well, primarch,’ said the magos. ‘Unless I receive a signal from you, we will make our move at the temple council in three days’ time.
‘Be sure that you do,’ said Omegon. ‘The Seventh and Nineteenth Legion vessels are still at high anchor close to the Lycaeus moon. I will bring the Betastealthing into closer orbit and have my warriors shuttled down, if you can guarantee the protection and secrecy of the agreed landing site.’
‘The Starfall docks belong to the Order of the Dragon. Your troops will arrive without remark or record.’
Omegon dismissed the magos with a wave of the hand, and equally dismissed him from his thoughts. The guilds would not move until they had seen some solid sign of the support of Horus, which would be given to them when the Order of the Dragon turned their weapons on the Mechanicum. Until then, Omegon would have to find some smaller force to attract Corax’s attention and increase the security measures at Ravendelve; measures that he would need to cover the involvement of his legionnaires.
He had the ideal candidate, someone whose loyalty had been assured from the earliest days of the revolution, a man who would not hesitate to lay down the lives of his followers to protect his own. Omegon set up his cipher-net communications equipment and established a signal. A few minutes passed before a connection was made.
‘Greetings, Councillor Effrit. This is Armand Eloqi.’
THE CHEM-CLOUDS WERE thicker than anything Alpharius had seen before, causing him to wonder if the insurgents had some control over their formation. It seemed too convenient that a thick swathe of noxious vapours had swept over Ravendelve only hours before their attack.
Along with the rest of his squad, he stood at the western rampart, looking for targets. Residual fallout was playing havoc with his auto-senses, no matter which spectrum filter he used. Now and then, he or one of the other squad members unleashed a bolt-round or two into the cloud mass, spying a swirl that might betray enemy movement, or aiming at darker patches in the fog.
To his right, Turret Four pounded out a steady stream of macro-cannon shells, the buildings in the distance blazing with detonations that set alight gas pockets and carved fifty metre-wide craters in the heaped rubble. Secondary emplacements roared with heavy bolters and chaingun fire, churning through the thick mist but hitting little.
‘No aerial support available,’ came Commander Branne’s voice over the vox-net. Alpharius was not surprised in the least. Without Thunderhawks or Stormbirds to fly recon, the Raven Guard would be forced to patrol on foot or in Rhinos, exposing themselves to ambush. For a Legion that prided itself on strategic flexibility and the mobility of force, they had been neatly trapped in Ravendelve by the initial attack.
Leaning over the rampart, Alpharius could see the piles of bodies from the first wave: dozens of mangled corpses left by the Raven Guard fusillade. If this was Omegon’s attack to secure Ravendelve, it was very poor. Alpharius could not believe that the long preparations of his primarch would lead to something so desultory, but he had received no instructions. All he could do was stand on the wall and continue to play his part as a loyal Raven Guard legionary. To do anything else would expose his secret without reason.
‘South gate opening, direct fire to cover column,’ said Branne.
Under the sergeant’s orders, Alpharius and the squad moved closer to Turret Four, to set up a fire position covering the blind spot beneath the high tower. There was nothing to see, no targets to fire at. There was sporadic las-fire in the distance though, bursts of energy bolts leaving fiery trails through the contaminated fog. The insurgents had certainly not abandoned their attack.