Nemesis

And Soalm… Jenniker. The purpose of a Venenum poisoner was as part of the original exit strategy for the Execution Force. The detonation of several short-duration hypertoxin charges would sow confusion among the human populace of the city and clog the highways with panicking civilians, restricting the movements of the Astartes. But now they would do without that – and Kell felt conflicted about it. He was almost pleased she was not here to be a part of this, that she would not be at risk if something went wrong.

The echo of that thought rang hard in his chest, and the press of the sudden emotion surprised him. He remembered the look in her eyes when she had entered the room in the Venenum manse – the coldness and the loathing. It was identical to the expression she had worn all those years ago, on the day he had told her he was accepting the mission to find mother and father’s killer. Only then, there had also been pity there as well. Perhaps she had lost the capacity to know compassion, over time.

He had hoped, foolishly, he now realised, that she might have come to understand why he had made his choice. The killing of their parents had been an aching, burning brand in his thoughts; the need for raw vengeance, although at the time he had no words to describe it. A deed that could not be undone, and one that could not go unanswered.

And when the kill was finished, after all the deaths it took to reach it… Mother and father were still dead, but he had avenged them, and the cost had only been the love of the last person who cared about him. Kell always believed that if he had the chance to change that moment, to make the choice again, he would have done nothing differently. But after looking his sister in the eye, he found that certainty crumbling.

It had been easy to be angry with her at first, to deny her and hate her back for turning her face from him, eschewing her family’s name. But as time passed, the anger cooled and became something else. Only now was he beginning to understand it had crystallised into regret.

A slight breeze pulled at him and Kell frowned at his own thoughts, dismissing them as best he could. He returned to the mission, made his hide, gathering his gear and assembling what he would need for the duration in easy reach. Backtracking, he rigged the stairwells and corridors leading to the laundry room with pairs of trip-mines to cover his rear aspect, before placing his pistol where he could get to it at a moment’s notice.

Then, and only then, did he unlimber the Exitus longrifle. One of the Directors Tertius at the clade had told him of the Nihon, a nation of fierce warriors on ancient Terra, who it was said could not return their swords to their scabbards after drawing them unless the weapons first tasted blood. Something of that ideal appealed to Kell; it would not be right to cloak such a magnificent weapon as this without first taking a life with it.

He settled into a prone position, running through meditation routines to relax himself and prepare his body, but he found it difficult. Matters beyond the mission – or truthfully, matters enmeshed with it – preyed on him. He frowned and went to work on the rifle, dialling in the imager scope, flicking through the sighting modes. Kell had zeroed the weapon during their time with Capra’s rebels, and now it was like an extension of himself, the actions rote and smooth.

Microscopic sensor pits on the muzzle of the rifle fed information directly to his spy mask, offering tolerance changes and detailing windage measurements. He flicked down the bipod, settling the weapon. Kell let his training find the range for him, compensating for bullet drop over distance, coriolis effect, attenuation for the moisture of the late rains still in the air, these and a dozen other variables. With care, he activated a link between his burst transmitter and the Lance. A new icon appeared a second later; the Lance was ready.

He leaned into the scope. The display became clearer, and solidified. His aiming line crossed from the habitat tower, over the stub of a nearby monument, through the corridor of a blast-gutted adminstratum office, down and down to the open square the locals called Liberation Plaza. It was there that Horus Lupercal had killed the crooked priest-king that had ruled Dagonet’s darkest years, early in the Great Crusade. There, he had expended only one shot and struck such fear into the tyrant’s men that they laid down their guns and surrendered at the sight of him.

A figure swam into view, blurred slightly by the motion of air across the kilometres of distance between them. A middle-aged man in the uniform of a PDF troop commander. As he looked in Kell’s direction, his mouth moved and automatically a lip-reading subroutine built into the scope’s integral auspex translated the words into text.

He’s coming, Kell, read the display. Very soon now.