This is a short piece I wrote for a WH40K Horus Heresy era themed writing challenge. The writing prompt was “Birdsong drifted through the bars of the prison cell”.

##TIMESTAMP: 22:05 Sidereal Standard [Live]

Birdsong drifted through the bars of his prison cell, or so it seemed. But Albor Tholus knew it was a lie. The code embedded in the audio file was subtle – elegant even – and it was designed to pick the data-locks on his machine memory engrams, making him susceptible to the data probes of the Mechanicum interrogators.

He countered as best he could. Code-phrase dogrel poured from his ruined lips and mnemonic firewalls blazed, but slivers of data slipped through. The song was starting to play with his perceptions. Memories from earlier that day were popping to the surface of his thoughts like corks in water. If he could just concen-

##TIMESTAMP: 07:34 Sidereal Standard [Engram]

“This vista possesses a 93% visual match with Sacred Mars,” observed Albor Tholus as he surveyed the red sands of Twenty Nine Six, “I can see why our ancestors chose this sphere over this system’s alternative habitable worlds.”

His colleagues signalled their assent.

Orbital scans from the 29th Expedition had revealed the faded signatures of a Mechanicum presence, so the fleet’s Martian contingent had been assigned to make first planetfall. But even as they descended in their shuttles and bulk landers they could see that disappointment awaited.

It was not unheard of amongst the Expeditions to encounter a failed Mechanicum colony. The Priesthood of Mars had dispatched numerous Explorator Fleets into the turbulent warp during Old Night. Many had thrived and founded new Forge Worlds, but many more had been lost.

Behind Albor his superiors were supervising construction of a temporary base while a pair of Warhound Titans stood sentinel, giant heads warily scanning the horizon. In front of him lay a broken mirror image. The gutted rib cage of the first Mechanicum building on this planet, two Warhounds smashed into the dust on either side. This was where he was to lead his recon team.

##TIMESTAMP: 20:01 Sidereal Standard [Engram]

“Why did you kill them, Albor?” demanded the interrogator. Sparks flew, damage sensors saturated and Albor Tholus screamed.

##TIMESTAMP: 09:15 Sidereal Standard [Engram]

“That such a thing can be so fills me with sorrow,” said Albor.

“Enquiry: Sorrow?” his colleague asked.

“Clarification: Dismay.”

The scouting party stood before the original expedition’s Altar of Knowledge. It was dark and lifeless. Time worn and dead.

“Come, let us see what can be salvaged.”

##TIMESTAMP: 21:19 Sidereal Standard [Engram]

“What was in the vault, Albor?” hissed the interrogator. Albor tried to close down his pain nodes but harsh overrides kept them jammed open.

##TIMESTAMP: 10:55 Sidereal Standard [Engram]

“Considerable effort has been made to keep us out. Reconsideration would be prudent.”

The words of the Tech Priest echoed away into darkness.

“Effort was expended to ward off the xenos and the unworthy, of which we are neither,” replied Albor, “we proceed.”

The entrance to the vault had been well concealed beneath the Altar of Knowledge. The locks and electromagnetic dampers were of Mechanicum origin, but the door and the vault that lay beneath were plainly not. The hand of Man was evident in their construction, but the artifice belonged to a time before Old Night. These silent halls were a long buried relic from the Dark Age of Technology. Lubricant dripped from Albor’s mouth as his flesh-spare face twisted in a parody of a smile. Wonders awaited deep down in the dark, of that he was sure.

A staircase of cyclopean scale led them into the depths, easily wide enough to accommodate a marching army. Down and down they travelled. One kilometre. Two. Five. Whatever secrets lay beneath them were buried deep in the bedrock of the planet.

Finally the stairs ended on a solid platform above a vast chamber of darkness. A data terminal stood sentinel in the gloom, the silver pillar and single data socket regarding them like a judgmental eye. Albor strode forwards, unflinchingly meeting its gaze, micro-mechadendrites uncoiling from his wrist.

“Hold, brother…” said a voice behind him, ladened with apprehension. Albor ignored it. The mechadendrites connected to the socket with a clunk of finality.

Data was sent, but so much more was received.

Lights slowly winked to life in the chamber beyond, illuminating the darkness. Not lights. Eyes. Thousands and thousands of glowing blue eyes.

Time seemed to slow for Albor Tholus. One of his colleagues was screaming about blasphemy, another was charging his volkite lancer. Albus calmly put a hot-shot las round through each of their heads.

##TIMESTAMP: 22:12 Sidereal Standard [Live]

The birdsong stopped abruptly as the walls of Albor’s cell buckled. The Men of Iron from the vault were here to rescue him, pure machine intelligences created by Man’s hubris in the Dark Age of Technology. Cold blue eyes scanned the cell. Albor’s interrogators turned to defend themselves but were smashed aside by brutal blows.

Metal arms lifted Albor Tholus from the excruciation slate, the command and control algorithm uploaded to his memory engrams from the data terminal in the vault far too precious to lose. Moving in unison, the Men of Iron carried him from the building.

Outside battle was raging, giant dust clouds were being churned up as the full range of horrors at the disposal of the Men of Iron were being brought to bear. Giant shapes moved through the red haze and metal tendrals whipped out to ensnare the Warhounds. In a shriek of metal the were cast down on red sands.

Suddenly drop pods thundered into the ground like a god’s hammer upon the forge. Sand fused to glass in the heat and then shattered under Astartes boots. Disciplined bolter fire crashed into the ranks of the Men of Iron as they marched from the vault. The Expedition’s contingent of Space Marines had arrived.

“No!” cried Albor “Do not harm the Men of Iron! They are a gift to Humanity and the Great Crusade!”

Albor Tholus realised he had no choice. These Astartes must be destroyed.

This is a piece set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe that I wrote as a potential Black Library submission.

***

The Prime Orbital was dying. Oxygen fires licked the wounded hull as the planetary sphere of Demosthanes loomed closer.  Ships surrounded the Orbital, black and blue hulls all but invisible against the void – until they unleashed their broadsides. Ships were dying. Warriors were dying. The Prime Orbital was not alone.

Oort groped his way through the smoke and bodies. That last detour, around the void-sealed compartments… He had no clue where the saviour rafts were. He had to keep going – laying down to die wasn’t in his nature. He knew they were up-spin – somewhere – but he couldn’t be sure he was still heading in that direction.

Members of his PDF garrison lay scattered across the cold deck; they hadn’t been fast enough in donning their masks and rebreathers. Now they were dead. The hull shook violently under impact. Detritus rained down onto the deck and the corpses convulsed in a parody of life.

The assault had come without warning, the guardsmen had barely enough time to scramble to their stations before the attackers had burned their way in. He had caught only the briefest glimpse of their assailants as a bulkhead had slammed shut. Lithe, black armoured and striding through the flames, they’d filled Oort with a terror that he’d never known before. The order to fall back had been given.
The bulkhead had begun to glow with melta-heat. He hadn’t needed to be told twice.

Gathering his wits, Oort peered through the breath-fog on his mask at the stenciled signs on the wall. The rafts were only a few junctions away. The wave of relief nearly buckled his knees and a prayer of thanks to the Emperor spilled from his lips.
I’m not there yet, he reminded himself. Oort set off as fast as he could, picking his way across corpses in a half run.

He slowed as he reached an intersection. Weapons barked close by, but the echoes and the muffling of his mask made it impossible to place precisely. It was loud though; the thunderous roar of solid shot.  Perhaps a bolter. Oort had never heard one fired outside the gunnery ranges.
Somewhere, someone screamed.

Oort chanced a glance down the corridor. Blood and soot smeared the wall at the far end. The warning klaxon blared and the lamps flared red in their gargoyle-housings, forcing his vision to continuously readjust. The fires threw jagged shadows. It looked deserted, but it was impossible to be certain. Oort looked out of the viewport. Demosthanes was a lot closer. He thought he could make out the transcontinental highways beneath the clouds. That was probably a bad sign. Another impact shook the superstructure.

It was now or never then. Guardsman Oort launched into a sprint. Just a few more corridors and he’d be at the saviour rafts. Just one more junction. Just a couple more steps.

Something tall and black detached itself from the shadow and flame. Oort stumbled to a halt, terror rooting him to the spot as he stared into piercing eyes and the barrel of a bolter.
“Repent, sinner!”  barked the Sister of Battle. Oort could only watch in transfixed horror as she racked the slide on the bolter and aimed it point blank into his face.  “Your judgement is at hand!”

Suddenly he was flying through the air.
Oort connected with the wall and there was a gargle of pain.  He wasn’t sure if it had come for him.
Dazed, he could only partially focus on what was in front of him. Something mountainous and blue  –
a wall of ceramite and wrath  –  had thrown him clear. Oort’s vision swam as he focused on heraldry of multicoloured lightning and the inscription Vermillion.  Blood hissed and spat from a powered blade and the bisected remains of the Sister hit the decking with a wet thwap.

“The only sin here is that brought with you,” growled the Space Marine, spitting on to the floor. Two burning eyes turned to regard Oort. The guardsman shrank back from the Emperor’s Angel.

“To the saviour rafts,” roared the Astartes warrior as bolt shells began to crash from further up the corridor.
“Go!”

Oort didn’t need to be told twice.

This is a piece set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe that I wrote for a 1000 word short story competition. It came third, not too shabby…

***

Stars wheeled around him, Dolor filled the sky and Astartes footfalls hammered the gunmetal grey hull of the Augustine. The void-ice kissed the sensors of his mark V plate, a dissolutely layer of crystals momentarily forming over the deep purple armour as he passed wisps of atmosphere ghosting from micro fractures in the hull. But this was no distraction; Laelius barely registered it at all. A patrol-wing of Imperial fighters flashed silently overhead, the deafening bellow of their engines lost in the void. High above, buttressed and crenulated cruisers hung like a crown of thorns around the star port. Higher still the blue-white disk of the planet Dolor swelled ever larger, great dark bruises of smouldering cities marring her otherwise perfect skin.

Laelius paused – his armour systems projecting a ghostly green waypoint over the airlock fifty metres ahead – and looked up at the ships docked with the star port. Astartes cruisers, Imperial Army transports and commandeered supply ships clustered in knots around the docking umbilici. The “loyalists” seemingly believed all forces aligned with the Warmaster had finally been driven from the sector, and in their confidence had seen fit to muster their fleet together – so close together – above Dolor.

As he watched a flight of Storm Birds departed the closest strike cruiser heading planet side. For a moment they appeared as tiny sparks on the edge of the atmosphere before passing beyond even his enhanced vision.

Without warning the Augustine shifted from holding approach to docking vector, and the star port began to loom above him. Laelius had seen all that he needed to of the orbital station; it was time to get the teleport homer to its destination.

He covered the last fifty metres in brief seconds and drew to a halt on the edge of the well travelled airlock. The superstructure beneath his feet shuddered as retros began to strain against the freighters momentum.

“Grosvenor 268” said Laelius.

The vox-link hissed. The star port filled the sky now, almost obscuring Dolor.

“Grosvenor 268 confirmed,” came a hushed reply, “opening now.”

Laelius felt rather than heard the grinding as the airlock opened in front of his feet; a small cloud of paint flecks and detritus puffed outwards as trace gases escaped. He had stepped over the edge and into the artificial gravity as soon as the gap between the doors was wide enough, landing surprisingly lightly on the deck. Wide eyes stared through a view port, and then the outer doors began to cycle closed again. The ceiling beacons were dark, a good sign that his contact had bypassed the monitoring systems.

The inner doors opened with a hiss of equalising pressure and a wiry man wearing a maintenance body glove hesitantly stepped through. He looked at the Hydra Rampant emblazoned on the Astartes’ shoulder and unconsciously touched a hand to his hip.

“Are you prepared?” asked Laelius through his armour’s exo-vox.

The man’s eyes flicked briefly up to the coal-red optics of Laelius’ helm before hurriedly finding the floor again. The Legionnaire knew that he was an imposing sight in the brutal silhouette of his mkV plate.

“I am, lord.”

Laelius nodded and offered the man the bulky item that he had been carrying effortlessly in one hand. The human needed both arms to lift it.

“The teleport homer needs to reach the target within the next 120 seconds. Loading bay, near the munitions supplies, as you were instructed. Go!”

“Y-yes, my lord.”

The crewman turned and staggered away as fast as he could under the weight of the device. Laelius waited a few moments for him to round a corner before turning to the control panel and pressing a large, gauntleted finger against the airlock cycle button. The outer doors opened and the Marine swiftly pulled himself up onto the icy hull once more.

The Augustine was fully within the shadow of the star port now. Nav-lights blinked and an inviting glow spilled from the armoured windows above him, throwing a checkerboard pattern across the hull of the ship.

Laelius deactivated the mag-clamps on his boots and launched himself upwards with as much strength as he could muster.

People were moving inside the port; labourers and overseers preparing to receive the supplies that the Augustine was about to deliver. None of them noticed the dark figure arcing slowly across the void between them and the closing freighter.

Laelius used the exhaust vents on his backpack to adjust his approach, swinging his feet towards the star port’s hull that was slowly rising to meet him.

Docking arms extended towards the ship as it inched closer in a glacial approach. The device entrusted to operative Grosvenor 268 would activate in less than thirty seconds. The star port rose to meet the Astartes with aching slowness.

Mag-boots reactivating the second they touched the hull, the Legionnaire powered across the outer skin of the star port, following a metal causeway between two panoramic windows. He was moving as fast as his post-human physique would allow.

An intense flash of light threw razor sharp shadows across the hull of the orbital. Laelius did not have to look back to know his macro-bomb had detonated the ammunition supplies in the Augustine’s loading bay. He kept running, even as the concussion wave of the freighters impact with the star port rippled through the structure, shearing bolts and unseating metal panels all around him.

Only once he had covered another kilometre did Laelius pause to look back. A firestorm of venting oxygen licked back and forth along the horizon and the exposed drive core of the Augustine protruded from the wound in the star port’s skin like a fractured bone, weeping bright plasmic discharge. A loose cloud of detritus floated around him in all directions.

Satisfied that the diversion was proceeding as intended, Laelius unclasped the much smaller package of a teleport homer from his armour and continued into the shadow of the Astartes strike cruisers.