Nemesis

‘Horus comes,’ said Iota, drawing gasps from some of the soldiers. ‘And we are needed. The chance to strike against the Warmaster may never come again. What can you carry in some iron box that has more value than that?’

‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Soalm replied. ‘You are a pariah; you were born without a soul. You have no faith to give.’

‘No soul…’ Sinope echoed the words, coming closer. ‘Is that possible?’

‘In this chest is a piece of the Emperor’s divinity, made manifest,’ Soalm went on, her eyes shining with zeal. ‘I am going to protect it with my life from the ruinous powers intent on its destruction! I believe this with my heart and spirit, Iota! I swear it in the name of the living God-Emperor of Mankind!’

‘Your beliefs are meaningless,’ Iota retorted, becoming irked by the woman’s irrationality. ‘Only what is real matters. Your words and relics are ephemeral.’

‘You think so?’ Sinope stepped fearlessly towards the Culexus, reaching out a hand. ‘Have you never encountered something greater than yourself? Never wondered about the meaning of your existence?’ She dared to touch the metal face of the skull. ‘Look me in the eye and tell me that. I ask, child. Let me see you.’

Somewhere in the distance, Iota thought she heard a ripple of jet noise, but she ignored it. Instead, uncertain where the impulse came from, she reached up a hand and thumbed the release that let the skull-helmet fold open and retreat back over her shoulders. Her face naked to the winds and sand, she turned her gaze on the old woman and held it. ‘Here I am.’ She felt a question stir in her. ‘Is Soalm right? Can you tell? Am I soulless?’

Sinope’s hand went to her lips. ‘I… I don’t know. But in His wisdom, I have faith that the God-Emperor will know the answer.’

Iota’s eyes narrowed. ‘No amount of faith will stop you from dying.’

5

The ship came out of the void shrouded in silence and menace.

Rising over the far side of Dagonet’s largest moon like a dragon taking wing, the Astartes battleship came on, prow first, knifing through the vacuum towards the combat-cluttered skies. Wreckage and corpses desiccated by the punishing kiss of space rebounded off the sheer sides of its bow as serried ranks of weapons batteries turned in their sockets to bear on the turning world beneath them. Hatches opened, great irises of thick space-hardened brass and steel yawning to give readiness to launch bays where Stormbird drop-ships and Raven interceptors nestled in their deployment cradles. Bow doors hiding the mouths of missile tubes retreated.

What few vessels there were close to the planet did not dare to share the same orbit, and fled as fast as their motors would allow them. As they retreated, they transmitted fawning, obeisant messages that were almost begging in tone, insisting on their loyalties and imploring the invader ship’s commander to spare their lives. Only one vessel did not show the proper level of grovelling fear – a fast cutter in a rogue trader’s livery, whose crew broke for open space in a frenzy of panic. As a man might stretch a limb to ready it before a day of exercise, the battleship discharged a desultory barrage of beam fire from one of its secondary batteries, obliterating the cutter. This was done almost as an afterthought.

The massive craft passed in front of the sun, throwing a partial occlusion of black shadow across the landscape far below. It sank into a geostationary orbit, stately and intimidating, hanging in place over the capital city as the dawn turned all eyes below to the sky.

Every weapon in the battleship’s arsenal was prepared and oriented down at the surface – torpedo arrays filled with warshots that could atomise whole continents in a single strike, energy cannons capable of boiling off oceans, kinetic killers that could behead mountains through the brute force of their impact. This was only the power of the ship itself; then there was the minor fleet of auxiliary craft aboard it, wings of fighters and bombers that could come screaming down into Dagonet’s atmosphere on plumes of white fire. Swift death bringers that could raze cities, burn nations.

And finally, there was the army. Massed brigades of genetically-enhanced warrior kindred, hundreds of Adeptus Astartes clad in ceramite power armour, loaded down with boltguns and chainswords, power blades and flamers, man-portable missile launchers and autocannons. Hosts of these warlords gathered on the mustering decks, ready to embark at their drop-ship stations if called upon, while others – a smaller number, but no less dangerous for it – assembled behind their liege lord high commander in the battleship’s teleportarium.

The vessel had brought a military force of such deadly intent and utter lethality that the planet and its people had never known the like, in all their recorded history. And it was only the first. Other ships were following close behind.

This was the visitation granted to Dagonet by the Sons of Horus, the tip of a sword blade forged from shock and awe.

6