Series I - So It Begins

Episode V - Aftermath

Iudex gasped for air and got a mouthful of sand. She retched and threw it up, only for more to take its place. A few more gulps and she would be dead, her lungs filled with the stuff. There was no time to think of Caldus or Diconius. There wasn't even time to realise the depth of the fear filling her bones. No: the only thing to do was dig. She began frantically scrabbling to find purchase, pulling her arms through the sand and loosening its grip. With a grunt of effort she pushed upwards and broke through the top of the dune into the clear air.

The wind hit her immediately. With no sail in the way, she was exposed to its full force. Tiny particles lashed against her dark skin, marking her head with a hundred tiny cuts.

"Caldus!" she cried, in the open at last. "Diconius?"

No reply came, though the gale was so loud that she probably wouldn't have heard it anyway.

She felt adrenaline course through her veins as she remembered the hideous creature she had seen before cutting the sail open. The mere thought of it disgusted her. It had been so implacably animalistic and brutal in its nature, as if there could never be any hope of reasoning with it.

A fountain of sand erupted from the dune further down the skyscraper from her. It was quickly dispersed by the storm and its origin became clear.

Diconius angrily hauled himself up, hefting his bolt pistol.

Hearing it fire, Iudex looked ahead of him. She couldn't see anything for him to be aiming at. To her horror, the very air itself became thick with explosions and showers of purple blood. An ear-splitting howl broke over the thundering wind. The creature was there, but it had cloaked itself.

Diconius slotted a fresh magazine into place and drew his power sword.

"Come at me, you abomination!" he roared.

And there it was, every inch as foul as it had ever been, rearing up before him with the scything talons above its shoulders ready to strike him down.

Iudex had a sinking feeling she was about to watch a Space Marine die.

A tiny blue dot appeared on the creature's temple – at least, she assumed it was a temple – and a deafening bang rang out across the wreckage. It recoiled with a yarl of pain as a bolt of the purest blue seared straight through its head.

"Damn right," Diconius said, emptying his pistol into it as it staggered away. "One for all!"

"One for all!" came a reply from behind Iudex.

She whirled around and immediately recoiled.

A shimmering blue field sprang up where the sail had been, blocking the force of the wind and the sand carried with it.

Once her eyes had adjusted to the brightness, she lowered her hand and saw the figure standing at its base. She had never been so relieved to see an alien in her life.

Fi'as was a Tau Pathfinder, an elite scout who made an art out of moving unseen and laying down sniper fire. He wore plates of orange armour over dusty, sand-coloured robes that allowed him to blend in perfectly with his surroundings.

"Quick," he said, in Gothic. "We must leave before it returns."

Iudex looked back towards Diconius. His leg had been badly injured by the flesh hooks the creature had fired. Now he was on his feet, but it was the armour that was keeping him up, not his strength alone.

"I will follow," he promised, sensing her concern.

"Make for the ladder," Fi'as ordered. "Ta'la will protect you."

A Tau recon drone hummed past them and moved into position at the head of the ladder. Its burst cannon was already spinning up to speed, ready to be put to use if the creature came back.

"It has a name?" Iudex couldn't resist asking.

"There can be no time for questions," Diconius snapped, as he mounted the ladder. "Follow me."

His armour was whirring audibly as it bore his immense weight and allowed him to move properly.

Iudex beckoned to Caldus to follow her and began the descent towards the room far below.

Fi'as took the opportunity to examine the comms array one last time. A series of flesh hooks, carried off-course by the wind, had torn through its machinery. Additional supplies would be needed to repair it and the area was not safe. There would be no chance of re-establishing communications with the city, or any of the ships in orbit. Hearing a vicious roar on the wind, he hurried to the ladder and slid all the way down to the others.

A mental command from Diconius' implants retracted it back into its housing.

Fi'as unslung his rail rifle and used it to shoot the mechanism out so they couldn't be followed.

None of them spoke as they slowly made their way back to the command post Bastion Squad had set up. It was a long and mournful journey. They were well aware of the cost the mission had inflicted upon them, and of the changing parameters of the fight. It appeared they were fighting far more than just separatists, as they had initially thought. Their trip was made all the more difficult by Diconius' relatively slow pace. His armour was capable of making up for his injuries, but its movements were a little clunky and mechanical, unsuited to shuffling over sand and debris.

The command post was empty except for Matthias Conant, who was dutifully working away at a cogitator when they arrived. The six arms of his servo-harness were each interacting with a different screen. He did not look up as he heard them approach.

"Ah, so you have returned," he said. "I have been attempting to find a way of contacting Legion command but it appears fruitless."

"Perhaps there are more urgent matters to attend to," Diconius suggested, his voice a little unsteady.

Conant turned and saw them.

"Ex machina," he breathed, reaching up to remove his helmet. "What happened?"

Iudex took the time to record his face as he spoke. It was the first she had seen of it. He was something of a halfway house between man and machine. What little skin was left had been stretched thin over circuitry and wiring. Both his eyes were bionic, as was his lower jaw. When he spoke she could see a set of artificial vocal cords at the back of his mouth.

Diconius slumped against the wall and lowered himself to the floor.

"You would not believe me if I told you," he said. "Where are the others?"

"Aemerith and the Lieutenant set out for the reactor level to meet with Apothecary Herron," Conant explained, as he put his helmet down and crouched next to him. "Your injuries?"

"To the shoulder and the leg," Diconius explained. "Only the latter is serious."

He raised his knee then slid a gauntlet under it. When he withdrew it, the grey paint was clearly stained with drops of blood.

"I saw what happened," Iudex ventured. "You should be bleeding far more than that."

Fi'as unclipped a medical kit from his belt.

"His Larraman cells will already have sealed the wound," he said. "I can handle the rest."

Iudex was impressed with his knowledge of the Astartes' physiology.

The recon drone hummed into the command post, hovering on a cushion of blistering air, and faced along the corridor they had come from.

"Thank you, Ta'la," Fi'as said, sparing it a glance.

It bleeped in response.

"Someone needs to tell me what happened," Conant observed.

Diconius did not wince as Fi'as reached into the tear in his suit's padding and sewed the wound up.

"The situation has changed," he said. "And in more ways than one."

"Is there any good news?" Conant said.

Diconius chuckled weakly.

"The separatists have clearly reached the building's armoury," he said.

"That is the good news?" Conant asked.

"Everything is relative, brother," Diconius joked. "And perhaps I spoke out of turn. We should stop calling them separatists. It would be more accurate to use the term cultist."

"Cultist?" Iudex repeated. "Belonging to the cult of what?"

"It is not as simple as that," Diconius told her.

Conant was shaking his head. His disbelief was clear.

"Brother," he said, "Surely you cannot be correct. We thought they were confined to . . ."

"We were wrong," Diconius interrupted. "At least now we know why the Remembrancers are here. The Primarch must have suspected this would happen in advance."

"Of course," Conant said.

Iudex was thoroughly sick of their ignoring her.

"So we know why we're here," she said, gesturing to Caldus. "Perfect. Since he and I are apparently so involved in whatever this is, can one of you give us the truth?"

There was a pause.

"You know there is no point in concealing it any longer," Fi'as said.

"Tell them, then," Conant said.

Fi'as snapped his medical kit shut and clipped it back into place. Satisfied with his work, he crossed to the holographic display table in the centre of the room. A code allowed him access to the files and he brought up a series of screens. Each one was filled with data. Among them was a map of the Imperium with several locations highlighted upon it.

"They are known as the Tyranids," he said. "Up until this point, all information concerning their biology and prevalence has been considered highly sensitive. But if Primarch Corax knew of their presence on Venvax in advance and sent journalists to record our mission, he must be ready to put it in the public domain. They have been responsible for a growing number of incidents over the past decade."

"What do you mean by incident?" Caldus asked.

"Does the name Lacrimosa mean anything to you?" Fi'as said.

"The lost planet," Iudex said. "Everyone knows of it. It was devoured by a black hole."

"A fabrication," Fi'as told her. "In reality it was lost to the Tyranids. They strip entire worlds bare before moving on in search of new prey. Everything about them is engineered for consumption."

"And now they're here on Venvax," Iudex said, "Which the Primarch already knows?"

Diconius pulled himself up. He was no longer unsteady on his feet.

"He cannot have known for sure," he said. "But he must have thought it a likely explanation for the bombing. Concordance is not a place known for its civil unrest. Often Tyranids will infiltrate local populations in advance of an invasion. If their brainwashing has been successful enough to cause a terrorist attack, it is only a matter of time until they arrive in force."

"We must warn Legion command," Conant said.

"Indeed we must," Fi'as agreed. "But that is not possible. The comms array was destroyed."

"So we find another way," Conant concluded.

Diconius gave a heavy sigh.

"There is no other way," he said. "All we can do is wait until the next supply shipment arrives. That will be tomorrow morning, the same time as today's was."

"One thing is clear, at the very least," Conant said. "The stakes have been raised significantly. We can no longer treat this mission as one of exploration. It is a defence."

Diconius walked over to one of the crates and pulled its lid up. It was filled with weaponry.

"Here," he said, handing Iudex and Caldus a las-pistol each. "You know how to use these?"

They both nodded.

"Good," he said. "Because indoctrinated humans and Tau are far from the worst threats in these ruins. That creature is still out there somewhere, and I would wager it is not alone."

Fi'as brought up a new screen.

"It is known as a Lictor," he said, gesturing to the readouts. "But that is about as much information as I can offer. We simply do not have enough measurements to work out how to fight them."

Iudex's eyes brightened as an idea came to her.

"Maybe we do," she said, enthusiastically. "Synch the table to my neural implants."

Fi'as entered the command.

Using her mind, Iudex brought up the footage she had captured during their encounter on the building's topside. It was shaky but coherent enough. More than once it provided a clear shot of the Lictor.

"Perhaps you are of some use after all," Diconius admitted.

"More than some," Fi'as said, watching it. "This is incredible. It's the clearest film anyone's ever captured of one of these things. We can learn a lot from it."

"Then you had better start analysing it," Conant said. "There is no time to waste. Without comms, we cannot spread ourselves thin. I will go down to the reactor level and summon the others here."

"I will put up defences," Diconius offered.

Iudex looked around at them.

"What about me and Caldus?" she said.

Fi'as reached up and removed his helmet. He was far younger than she had expected, with a thin face, keen eyes and a longer nasal slit than most.

"I'll need your help with this footage," he said. "If you're willing."

Iudex nodded firmly.

"Let's get to work," she said.