III: Potential
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The efficiency of the Mechanicum always took the breath away, as Magos Hybos secured a thin, rubberized umbilical around the cherry-red breach in the xenos vessel in moments. His skitarii assisted wordlessly, watched over by Astartes standing crisply at the ready. The melta charge had revealed what was likely an interstitial space, criss-crossed by thick support frames like the marrow of a bone, empty of any foes.
Everything was too bright and too stark, harsh chiaroscuro in the bald, unfiltered light of the local primary. Zalthis kept flicking his eyes toward long, ink-dark shadows cast by roughened bands of obsidian coral humped up on the hull, imagining motion and shapes cohering into snarling vong warriors. Ralroost was close, the Republican battlecruiser the size of Zalthis' thumb at arm's distance, bright and reflective, pulsing out violent blue hyphens with precision, snapping ion blasts at the nose and tail of the miid ro'ik, leaving electrostatic discharge to crackle and snarl across the living vessel.
He remembered the 'blasters' they were made to use, set to stun, and imagined the battlecruiser as one far outsized, stunning the living warship again and again with ionic punishment. Zalthis imagined he could feel spasmodic trembles of muscle beneath his heavy tread, lip curling at the thought of an entire living vessel.
He, Solidian, Tercinax and Varian anchored the points of the compass around the working Magos, the five neophytes a step back and behind. There was little chance of any counter-boarding action, but the vong xenoform was still mostly unknown. Better to act in anticipation, than be caught unawares. Still near the Stormbird, Sergeant Optarch's stood with helmet canted to the side and he was silent, though his vox-link burned an active rune before Zalthis' eyes. Informing the Republicans of their breach, no doubt.
'Secured,' Hybos burred. 'Connection: nominal.'
Optarch's helm rose and his red lenses looked to the Magos for a moment.
'Then we may begin.'
The umbilical ran from the nearby dropship, which locked to the rocky surface of the warship by magnetic claws, both digging into the coarse coral like talons and binding to the high ferric content of the ablative hull armor. A collapsible hatch frame allowed access to the umbilical and the skitarii filed through first, then the neophytes, dropping down into the darkened interior one at a time. Optarch was last, clapping Zalthis' pauldron to urge him in first.
Inside the vong warship the glare of the local star illuminated only a scrap of coral, soon cut off when Sergeant Optarch sealed the umbilical behind them, plunging the chamber into total blackness. Helmet lights clicked on, piercing the stygian gloom with harsh white light and crawling shadows. Skitarii lit harsh sodium lamps, dangling at their belts.
'Tercinax, breach. Zalthis, Solidian, support. The rest - breaching formation. Magos, if you would remain behind us.'
'Optimal,' Hybos agreed.
Together they clambered over joists and around pillared growths of knobbled bone until they reached where the floor of the chamber sloped up into a rounded wall - more of a convergence of ceiling and floor. Auspex clicked and pinged, sketching hazy estimations of nearby chambers, appearing as ghostly green voids superimposed onto Zalthis' sight.
He could summon and dismiss them with a blink, he could refine them by temperature gradient, he could send active scry-pulses in whichever direction he wished. Compared to his old scout helm, with its limited datalinks that relied on handheld auspex, connections to nearby Astartes plate or simple sonagraphic detectors, Zalthis again wondered how he ever managed with such limitations.
All the better to train with, he supposed, to force initiates to rely on their own cunning and assessments and not that handed to them. Shrewd, and no doubt the design of the Primarch.
Tercinax unhooked a melta charge from his belt, one of three, placing it against the chamber wall.
'Shields,' Optarch ordered.
Tercinax rejoined the rest and five ceramite and plasteel shields came together in an impregnable phalanx. Bolt pistols aimed over pauldrons. Radium rifles were leveled, eerie faerie-light flickering in the gloom.
'Breach,' Tercinax said. There was no noise, only thunder through Zalthis' boots and then the sudden roar of atmosphere that rushed in, repressuring the chamber.
No bellowed challenges, no storm of hurled and buzzing bugs.
Just another outer chamber, filled with the same cross-bracing spars of bone and rock.
'Forward,' the Sergeant intoned and ten sets of Ultramar-forged ceramite boots thudded against onyx coral.
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They breached two more of the outer chambers before the first vong was sighted. Varian opined the chambers were likely a sort of dampening construction, to absorb shock against the hull and to act as compressive zones before the more delicate interior vitals were threatened. A sound, if pointless theoretical, though it explained the lack of contact.
Optarch chose to breach through the floor, punching down into what auspex hinted was a narrow hallway, and the first vong seen was a smear of ash on the wall.
Tercinax grunted, gesturing at the greasy leftovers with the edge of his shield.
'Does that count?' he asked.
'Barely,' Varian denied. 'You'll have to try harder to match our little brothers here.'
The larger Astartes grunted and Zalthis grinned, glad for his helmet to hide his pride. Their little brothers. Little brothers who had fought this new xenoform and claimed a tally that had their older brothers envious. Sol bumped his pauldron against Zalthis', no doubt having the same thought.
Shields up, they advanced down the narrow corridor, neophytes and skitarii behind.
The vong vessel was rather unlike anything Zalthis had experienced before. Though, as a neophyte, he had only trained on Parmenio and accompanied his Sergeant on short rangings within the bounds of Ultramar, hypnoconditioning gave him memories he'd never formed and experiences he'd never had. In some ways, he saw hints of ork roks in the craggy ceilings, made of exposed coral rough and sharp enough to cut flesh. The way no passage was truly straight, always wending a little, meandering left and right in unnervingly organic ways. The brutal simplicity of the ork rok ruined the comparison, as Zalthis' boots stomped on threadbare yet surprisingly intricate and colorful rugs underfoot. Twitching banners marked with unknown symbols dangled from walls that themselves bore pigment, even if it was faded and scratched. Clusters of glowing crystals and luminescent fungi shed sufficient light that even these corridors, close to the outer hull and clearly aged, were no dark and shadowed warren.
A few small chambers they passed, peering inside, had nest-like corners that likely were some form of bedding, alongside clam-like shells embedded in the walls. Neophyte Altraedar broke one open with a swift blow of his fist, surprising them all as what seemed to be tunics spilled out. Living storage. Off-puttingly mundane.
The ship quaked and trembled, still hammered by ion bolts to keep it stricken and helpless and Zalthis was surprised there was no alarum raised, no sirens, no alerts. Had an Imperial vessel been breached and boarded, armsmen would already be swarming the breach point to buy time with their lives until the enemy was repulsed or the Ultramarines arrived to throw back the interlopers. Was it a byproduct of the living nature of the vessel? Were no alarms necessary, as the vessel felt the pain of intrusion and spoke in unknown ways to the masters of the vessel? That could be a strength - to lull the invader into complacency, thinking themselves undetected, while forces massed carefully to ambush.
Yet as the corridor met another, larger one, and still no foes were sighted, Zalthis doubted that theoretical. Multiple viable points for ambush had been passed. Allowing an enemy to penetrate this deeply held no tactical value. The vong had no inkling that the object of this intrusion was plunder, rather than destruction. Had they borne a cyclonic warhead, they could already be back aboard the Stormbird and detonation would be moments away.
No, perhaps instead the living nature of the vessel worked against it. Perhaps the outer hull bore no nerves, serving like scutes or a keratinous carapace, leaving the vessel deadened to sensation, and the Yuuzhan Vong had, in their arrogance and lofty imaginings of their own superiority, never considered a foe would be so bold as to dare set foot aboard their warships.
Whichever theoretical proved true, Zalthis felt a measure of disappointment as they paused again for Magos Hybos to take scrapings and a few las-cut samples of a fleshy orifice that served as a hatchway. Sol and he had agreed it would be good to face the vong again as full Astartes, to take their measure now that they were no longer neophytes and make practical the theoreticals they had gamed out since Obroa-skai.
Sergeant Optarch had even asked their thoughts and their opinions, quizzing them about the nature of the vong and their weaponry.
It was why along with their breacher shields, each Astartes, even the neophytes, bore a power sword, a gladius from the stores of Macragge's Honour. An honour indeed - barely through their ascension and already granted a blade from the vaults of the Primarch's own flagship. Though the reasoning was sound, as an amphistaff would cleave to ruin any chainblade, just the feel of the wire-wrapped hilt and the ozone-crackle of the active disruptor field saw Zalthis' hearts beat faster.
All five Astartes had them unsheathed now, held low and ready.
'Next chamber,' Sergeant Optarch gestured toward the next hatch-orifice, sealed tight like puckered lips. He broke from the line, shield still held at the ready, and plunged his crackling gladius into the flexible, opaque flesh. Like the others, as the blade whispered without resistance through tendon and cartilage it sighed open, relaxing as it was 'slain'.
Unlike the others, however, a veritable swarm of bugs met the Sergeant as the hatch-orifice gaped open.
The Republicans called them thudbugs and razorbugs. Uninspired but accurate, as both Zalthis and Sol could attest to from Obroa-skai. Thudbugs thudded. They were weighty little creatures, large enough to fill the palm of a mortal man's hand, and before they struck a foe they tucked tight wings to impact with bone-cracking force. They could even be recalled to be thrown again. Razorbugs appeared of the same clade, but where the thudbug had dense and durable chitin, razorbugs' carapace thinned to a vicious edge all around the insect, sharp enough to slice through armorweave underlayer like the neophytes wore. To a mortal, they could claim limbs and clip bone.
Against plasteel and ceramite shields, they made a mess of cracked chitin and oozing ichor, staining the noble Ultima but leaving only cosmetic scratches.
Qario, right behind Zalthis, cracked off shots past Zalthis' head with his boltpistol, sending vong warriors scrambling for cover. The other neophytes added their own bolts to the barrage, then the skitarii opened up with their radium shotguns.
The firefight was brief but telling. Magos Hybos chittered to himself, metallic fingers weaving through a dead vong's spilled viscera while Sergeant Optarch wiped ichor from the lenses of his helm. Not a single injury, even among the less armored and more vulnerable skitarii.
Nineteen dead yuuzhan vong warriors and it was all over in less than ten seconds. Overkill, total overkill. Most were in pieces.
Just like Obroa-skai. The vong could not contend at range. Against even simple weaponry, they could be stymied. It was in the range of melee that they became truly dangerous, skilled and swift enough to press Jedi and even threaten Astartes, given sufficient numbers.
'Take your fill, Magos,' Optarch ordered. 'Varien, make sure all those snakes are dead.'
'Destruction: inefficient,' the Magos snapped, wrist-deep beneath the ribcage of a vong. Its living armor was shattered open, burst from within by a mass reactive. 'Venom: preserve. Purpose: antidote. Samples: essential.'
Sol looked up, a writhing amphistaff in one fist, the biot wriggling and lashing. He squeezed, once, and it hung limp.
'As ordered, Magos.'
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Tgeln Ulk loped past chittering chazrach. One wobbled too close, in danger of impeding his path. His amphistaff lashed out, claiming a hand and the reptoid reeled away, clutching at its spurting stump. His cadre was with him, elbowing and shoving through the press, barking harsh commands that had the little slaves genuflecting and scuttling away. Harsh reports echoed strange in the tight confines of the warship, making it hard to determine from which direction they originated, but the villip at Tgeln's shoulder led him true.
'Aft-wise, Subaltern. The infidels fight fiercely, the strength of your arms is needed.'
'I hear and obey, Subcommander.'
That heathen feet trod the gods-blessed halls of Redshriek filled his mouth with venom and he spat to clear his palate. Others in his cadre made their fury known, claiming oaths to the Slayer and wringing hands about amphistaff. Even the living blades writhed with uncommon eagerness, fangs glinting as they yawned. Across his broad chest Tgeln wore a hiving belt, nestled with a dozen tsai hul. He brushed fingers across them, savoring the tug at his fingertips as their razored edges caught. Not now, he thought. Slumber and accept this offering.
Other subalterns confirmed - nang hul and tsai hul proved impotent to the dead metal of the infidel boarders. He would not shame these creatures by wasting them.
Reverberating bangs grew louder, now intermixed with hissing pops and throaty war-cries.
'We close,' Tgeln called, his cadre tightening closer. A snap of his wrist saw his amphistaff stiffen and flatten, ready to claim limbs and lives. 'As the pincer of the radank, Eschu and your lance, to the right. My warriors, we occupy and distract. Doro-ik vong pratte!'
No sooner had the words left his fringed lips then Tgeln leapt through a half-closed hatch sphincter, the organ hanging slack and leaking lymph.
The infidels were passing through a chazrach slumber grotto. Like a terrestrial cavern it was broad, low ceilinged and expansive. Wending passages opened into the grotto from every direction, giving warriors ample directions to strike in against the embattled infidels. A kill-zone and a coliseum all at once. Tgeln, in moments, saw a warrior fall, gutshot, his insides erupting strangely as his vonduun crab burst. Another warrior stumbled, skin sloughing away from his skull. Chazrach formed little humped piles of corpses here and there, macabre obstacles that Tgeln used to dart this way and that, gaining ground on the encircled infidels.
His heart thundered in his chest - he could see them. He could see those that dared to soil Redshriek - their blood would not be enough to purify the vessel. Slaves and sacrifices, yes, those would be needed too, to appease the mighty warship and seek forgiveness for their failure. Glowing red eyes glared from flat-faced helms, light-from-machine and Tgeln's rancour grew. Machine things, built things, unlife, daring to be here - here! - in the heart of a sanctified miid ro'ik.
Then he laid eyes on the other invaders and sense fled him.
They had flesh exposed, as best he could see, pale and withered and wasting, so they were not made-things like the red-eyed devils, but -
Masks hid faces. Dead metal limbs propelled them. Sutures and wires and - Tgeln's sanity slipped a little - thinking machines sprouted like tumors. They fired glowing carbines that made the hair on Tgeln's neck rise and he forgot his promise made moments ago, ripping tsai hul from his bandolier and hurling the bugs, howling meaningless sounds. They had to be destroyed, they had to be purged, the galaxy itself groaned at the existence of these devils-
Tsai hul splattered on flat metal shields brought about too quickly, too swiftly, too fast, faster than Tgeln could see and then one of the machine-men, the spindliest and strangest, hunched with whipping tendrils of dead metal - mockery of the yammosk, his teeth rent his own lips and he tasted salt and iron - raised a short-barreled carbine and then Tgeln was no more, just wisps of dust and glowing ash.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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Magos Hybos cocked his head, peering at the volkite serpenta in his third hand.
'Efficiency: high,' his flat voice confirmed.
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The warship became a killing ground. A labyrinth of death. Corridors were long and winding, switch-back and convoluted, as if they followed veins in the rock instead of the designs of thinking beings. Astartes jogged down well-trod ways, shields up, skitarii scuttling along behind. A hatch-orifice: gladius flashed, membrane sagged, krak grenade thrown through. Shrieks of rage, surprise - a flash, bodies thudded to the floor. Sometimes, a neophyte would lean through and finish off the fallen with a bolt or two from their pistol.
Chazrach came from apertures in the ceiling, in the rounded join of wall and deck. Varien opined these passages might be some form of ventilation system, which Optarch considered and agreed with. Magos Hybos ordered skitarii to empty a few clips into the next holes the Imperials came across, sowing searingly radioactive coral dust and chips into the system. Now Zalthis' rad-counter clicked ominously each time they passed one of the vents.
Sergeant Optarch led them deeper into the vessel, their track behind them unspooling as a wireframe of green lines in Zalthis' hololithic visual display, winding all the way back to where the Stormbird waited. There was no goal nor direction in mind - merely the prosecution of death and the collection of the Magos' most desired prizes. Zalthis struck down a warrior with a clean cut, gladius separating head from body. The warrior's head, still within his helm, had not yet come to rest on the deck when a skitarii scooped it up, handing it off to the Magos who turned it this way and that. Another skitarii joined the Magos, radium shotgun up and ready. This one bore a frost-rimed case bolted to his back, encrusted with piping and flexible tubing that hissed and gouted plumes of steaming nitrogen. Hybos placed the decapitated head reverently in the case, yet another gruesome trophy tucked away.
Sometimes warriors came in ones and twos, sometimes as a squad of ten or more.
'They are not so impressive,' Varien called, backhanding away a warrior that grabbed for his shield, the creature pirouetting twice before falling boneless, head spun about one hundred and eighty degrees
'Eleven,' Tercinax muttered, standing over the bloodied body of a vong, then stepped forward to meet a second frothing warrior with the edge of his shield. Void-hardened plasteel met mouth and neatly bisected the creature's skull. 'Twelve.'
'Perhaps not, though their frenzy does them disservice.' Optarch replied.
More warriors came from ahead, proving the sergeant's words true. A dozen, with chazrach trailing, yet instead of acting in unison, they hooted war cries and leapt into motion, becoming a thronging mob more than trained warriors. Neophyte Altraedar took one with a bolt to the shoulder, blowing off its arm and slapping the vong down to the deck. Qario put two cracking shots into the chest of another, the first rupturing living armor and misting blood, the second coring the alien's body. White-hot hyphens flickered the corridor in eerie green. Where bolts, aimed well, could puncture the vonduun armor of the vong, the radium slugs proved less capable.
Instead the smearing green bolts splattered and flattened against vonduun armor, each shot past Zalthis ticking loud alarms within his helm. The effects were swift, and savage. In short order warriors started to stumble, confused, retching tissue-flecked blood that dribbled from beneath helmets to run black and shining down their fronts. Some tore off their helmets, bruising mottling their faces and eyes clouding.
Rad-counters clicked loudly from the Astartes warplate.
Hybos' serpenta flared again and again, searing chazrach and vong alike into ashen statues that crumbled apart. Bolts cracked and punctured carcinate armor. Gladii lashed, claimed limbs, heads, clove hearts, brains. The inefficiency of the defender's response sickened Zalthis. A ship of this size no doubt held thousands, yet they came in fits and starts. On Obroa-skai, the vong warlord Malik Carr had been cunning and careful with doling out assaults. He harried them with diversionary ambushes, he sent in chazrach in hordes to attrit ammunition and weary limbs. Then he would send kill-squads of warriors to attempt to overwhelm and if they did not - they slowed down the infiltrators to allow for new ambushes and assaults to be readied.
And on Obroa-skai, the final ambush had nearly succeeded. The warlord learned about his foe and, Zalthis had to admit, seemed to understand their measure. He knew an Astartes was worth a hundred of these vong warriors, so he did not spend them frivolously. He knew that Jedi were superlative foes, but ultimately mortal, so Malik Carr waited to tire them.
Whomsoever commanded this warship was a fool, and a wasteful one.
If their commander wished to waste the lives of heathen, fane-worshiping xenos, then by all means - let them. Though the tactical inefficiency still nibbled at him.
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Black blood sizzling on his gladius, Optarch finally called a halt.
'There's little point in continuing. Magos, I cannot make sense of anything I have seen or the auspex results. Can you provide any insight?'
Hybos' fourth hand fiddled away at the Magos' serpenta, held in his third hand, while his second hand gestured in the air.
'Gravitic readings: all-encompassing. Energetic discharge: non-centralized. Radiative emissions: minimal. Data for conclusion: minimal.'
Optarch nodded.
'My conclusion as well. I can detect no equivalent to a reactor or drive core, as what might be found on other, more conventional warships. This maze has given us little insight to the layout of this vessel. Moreover, we are deep and far from entry. Ultramarines, we return.'
'Sergeant,' Zalthis intoned.
'Sergeant,' Varien, Tercinas and Sol said.
'Sir,' the neophytes chorused.
'Collection: satisfactory. Decision: approved.'
'I believe it's time for this, then.' The sergeant unlocked his shield from his forearm, handing it off to Neophyte Tolon. From its strap over his shoulder, Optarch hefted a flamer with both hands. Its pilot light clicked on and the faintest scent of prometheum managed to infiltrate Zalthis' helm.
With Optarch in the rear, squeezing off jets of searing flame into each chamber they passed, the Ultramarines retraced their steps.
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Their withdrawal was not unopposed. Though backtracking, past those they had slain, now they clashed against the vong that had been in pursuit. Warriors hooted and howled as they spent their lives freely, flinging now explosive jellies that burned and clung like tar. Few bugs were tried, either expended or lessons learned. Other biots now came to play, like the flaming jellies or even some meter-long insectoid creatures who soared on flickering wings.
Zalthis braced his shield, letting the creature slam into it, hearing its clawed feet scrabble for purchase. More emerged from ahead, skittering along the walls and ceiling. Compound eyes caught helmet-lamps and became dazzles of gemstones, cold and emotionless. Mandibles twitched and trembled.
'Zal!' Sol shouted, surging forward to smash his shield into Zalthis' own, bursting the clinging insect before Zalthis could bring his sword to bear.
He stumbled from the impact, frowning.
'Throne alive, Sol, what was-'
'Look, Zal,' the other Astartes pointed. Peering past the lip of his shield, he saw not just the mashed body of the insect slowly peeling away, but glutinous, stringing saliva that hissed and popped. Before his eyes, the plasteel pitted and bubbled.
Cursing, he ran the edge of his gladius along the pane of the shield, disruption field hissing and crackling, disintegrating the saliva into a noxious, smoky plume.
'Grutchin,' Optarch cursed, seeing what Zalthis and Solidian did. Softened plasteel and ceramite had become a liquid slurry, dribbling down the shield, revealing at least a fingerwidth melted away in gouged craters just the size of the insect's jaws. The rest of the beasts were culled swiftly as the skitarii joined in, radium rounds popping bodies crisply, spraying legs and disjointed wings about. Magos Hybos collected one entire creature, keeping his many hands far from its still-dripping mandibles, handing it off to a skitarii that seemed entirely uncaring about the virulent acid so near.
'Anti-starfighter biots,' Optarch said, turning one over with his boot, then stamping down on its thorax. It popped wetly. 'An unpleasant use, but a smart one.'
The nearer they came to their entry, and thus, exfiltration, the more the vong seemed to open their stores. Hybos disintegrated half of a lumbering, six-legged creature the size of a grox before it could do much else than low pitifully, but the thermal readings coming from within the beast and the congealing, molten rock that oozed from its charred corpse portended far worse.
Most strange was a kind of viscous gel that spread of its own accord, lashing out pseudopodia and tendrils that proved remarkably durable and perilously clinging. Neophyte Petran, cursing in Low Gothic, hacked at it with his humming gladius, but it merely divided along each cut and redoubled its efforts to encase his boots and greaves, anchoring the Neophyte to the deck.
'Sergeant!' he cried, in surprise and some concern. 'I can't pull free, this jelly, it's-' Petran reached down to pluck it from his boots, serving only to adhere his gauntlet to his foot.
'Stand aside,' Optarch ordered. The Ultramarines instantly did as ordered, while Hybos stalked closer in contravention.
'Biot variant: impediment. Significant resilience. Sample.' Optarch paused, flamer half-raised.
'Go on, then.'
Petran glowered as one skitarii reached out, digging metal fingers into the jelly and coming away with a clinging handful. Servos creaked and ground as the cyborg tried to open its fist, failing utterly to do so. Hybos clove the appendage away with an arcing flash of a welder, the skitarii taking the sudden amputation without hesitation. A single burp of prometheum scorched clean Petran's ceramite boots, the neophyte hissing in pain.
'Apologies, Petran.'
The jelly crumbled to ash as the neophyte shook carbonized chunks from his boots, armorweave fatigue trousers scorched black, but intact from the brief exposure.
'I am Astartes, Sergeant. I'll endure.'
'Too right you will, Petran.' Sol clapped the neophyte on the shoulder and where they had been the same but weeks ago, Zalthis saw Petran nod solemnly, banishing his grimace of pain and standing straighter in front of Solidian.
Had I been just like that? He thought of Ascratus, in his cape and with his plumed helmet under one arm, the way he dreamt of himself in those boots. He had been. He still was.
'Come along,' he ordered, gesturing to the other neophytes, leading them away from the remnants of the jelly as Optarch purified the rest.
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Hybos disconnected the umbilical from the stormbird, the hatch irising shut and then everything was dark and red-lit and quiet again. Almost numb, Zalthis eased back into his seat, hearing the whine of the Stormbird's reactor come to full draw, the quiet words exchanged between pilots. Skitarii clipped themselves back in smartly, Hybos anchoring himself with mechadendrites.
It was as if nothing had happened. Were it not for bloodless slashes on some of skitarii, a few mangled limbs, sparking here and there, and gouges that marred battleplate, he'd daresay that it had all been a vivid, vivid dream.
How was this possible? Obroa-skai had been an ordeal, a true test of skill, blood-soaked and desperate at the end. Ascratus had died there. A veteran sergeant. One of the Jedi fell crippled. Even at the end, he and Sol had been exhausted, despite their enhancements.
Did that final step make all the difference? He peered at his hands, behind thick, ultramarine gauntlets. He imagined his fingers through the ceramite, superimposed. Slowly he made fists, relaxed, made fists again. He didn't even feel particularly strained. In fact, if put to question, he would swear that the five of them, just the five without the neophytes, without the skitarii, could take on the entire ship. And another.
Was this what it meant to be Astartes? Truly Astartes? Is this how Ascratus felt, even at the end, when he made his sacrifice? Did he feel as if he could still take on the entire library world, and made the attempt to do so?
It was not his place to doubt, but the disparity sat so strangely.
No losses. No deaths. Some skitarii were injured, surely, but they were as much machine as man. They could be repaired more than healed. Petran had surface burns on his shins, but that would fade within the day.
'Sergeant,' he ventured. Optarch's helmet turned, fixing red lenses on Zalthis.
'Brother Zalthis?'
The Stormbird trembled as its landing claws retracted, engines rumbling louder.
'I don't wish to sound -' he sought the right word '-petulant, but was this not…too simple?'
Tercinax huffed a laugh that was more a snarling growl.
'Youth,' he grumbled. 'Not every fight has to be life or death.'
Zalthis glanced around the hold, to the neophytes, to his brothers.
'We are Astartes,' he tried.
'We are. When the worst comes, we meet it. Today was not the worst.' Tercinax shook his head, then reached up and unlatched his helm. Beneath, the old Astartes' face was weathered and craggy, tanned by countless suns and creased by scars. Two service studs glinted at his brow.
'Brother Tercinax is terse, but correct. Do not feel slighted - you have all performed admirably. Neophytes, I will support your elevation.' Optarch also removed his helm, revealing short, curly blond hair and patrician features - a classic Ultramarine. 'They did not plan for us coming, Zalthis. This is not like Obroa-skai. Today we struck the vong when they did not expect it and could not counter us. This will not happen again.' Blue eyes speared into each of the Astartes present, even Tercinax bowing his head to the much younger sergeant.
'You have all been selected by our Lieutenant. He sees in you potential, which means the Primarch does too. Zalthis, you question our victory. Continue to do so. Tercinax, you spoke of the worst. That is what we are for, more than any of our brothers. We are to expect the worst, and plan for the worst. The Lieutenant earned his mark by daring to imagine the unimaginable and speak what others proscribed, and he saved the life of our father because of it.'
Zalthis looked down at his shield, mag-clamped to the weapon rack that ran the center of the bay. Pits and gouges caught his eye, red lighting slithering blood-like across the surface. He imagined those grutchin, unleashed in hordes or lurking in the pitch-darkness of the interstitial spaces below the outer hull. He imagined them, instead, bursting out of the vents instead of ineffectual chazrach. He thought of those feckless 'razorbugs', then imagined them as keen as the edge of the amphistaff.
His mouth dry, he sat back, reaching up for his own helmet clasps. The moment had passed, neophytes quietly but eagerly speaking amongst themselves at the news. Varien made a comment to Solidian, who smirked and moved his hands to describe some clash. Tercinax had his eyes shut, head back against the cowl of his armor. Zalthis looked toward Optarch, finding the sergeant had been watching him.
'Potential, Zalthis,' Sannad Optarch said again.