Nemesis

‘Why did someone fail to tell me there was an armoury aboard this tub?’ Tariel ducked as the Garantine threw his shiv and it buried itself in a stanchion close by. ‘Give me a weapon, now! Feels like I’m bloody naked here!’

‘What a delightful image,’ murmured Soalm.

‘He needs it,’ said Iota, distractedly. ‘He actually feels a kind of emotional pain when separated from his firearms. Like a parent torn from its child.’

‘I’ll show you torn,’ grated the hulking killer, menacing the Vanus. ‘I’ll do some tearing.’

‘Open!’ Tariel fairly shouted the word and the mechanism controlling the lock hissed on oiled hydraulics. The pod split along its length and rolled back, presenting brackets of guns, support equipment and other wargear.

The Garantine’s face lit up with something approximating joy. ‘Hello, pretty pretty,’ he muttered, drawn to a rack where a heavy pistol, ornate and decorated with metallic wings and sensor probes, lay waiting. He gathered it up and hefted it in one hand. Cold laughter fell from his lips as gene-markers tingled through him, briefly communing with the lobo-chips implanted in his brain, confirming his identity and purpose.

‘The Executor combi-pistol,’ said Tariel, blinking rapidly as he drew the information up from a mnemonic pool in his deep cortex. ‘Dual function ballistic bolt weapon and needle projectile–’

‘I know what it is!’ snarled the Garantine, before he could finish. ‘Oh, we are very well acquainted.’ He stroked the gun like it was a pet.

Kell spoke up. ‘All of you, take what you need but make sure you use what you take. Go back to your compartments and prepare your gear for immediate deployment. We have no idea how long we may have between our arrival and the target’s.’

‘He may already be there waiting for us,’ offered Koyne, drifting towards a different rack of weapons. ‘The tides of the warp often flow against the ebb of time.’

The Garantine greedily gathered armfuls of hardware, taking bandoliers of melta-grenades, a wickedly barbed neuro-gauntlet and the rig for a sentinel array. With another guttural laugh, he snagged a heavy, blunt-ended slaughterer’s sword and placed it under his arm. ‘I’ll be in my bunk,’ he sniggered, and wandered away under his burden.

Iota watched the Eversor go. ‘Look at him. He’s almost… happy.’

‘Every child needs its toys,’ said Soalm.

The Culexus gave the racks a sideways look, and then turned away. ‘Not me. There’s nothing here that I need.’ She shot the Venenum poisoner a look, tapping her temple. ‘I have a weapon already.’

‘The animus speculum, yes,’ said Soalm. ‘I’ve heard of it. But it is an ephemeral thing, isn’t it? Its use depends on the power of the opponent as much as that of the user, so I am led to believe.’

Iota’s lips pulled tight in a small smile. ‘If you wish.’

Tariel nervously approached them. ‘I… I do have an item put aside for your use, Culexus,’ he said, offering an armoured box covered with warning runes. ‘If you will?’

Iota flipped open the lid and cocked her head. Inside there were a dozen grenades made of black metal. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Explosives. How ordinary.’

‘No, no,’ he insisted. ‘This is a new technology. An experimental weapon not yet field-tested under operational conditions. A creation of your clade’s senior scienticians.’

The woman plucked one of the grenades from the case and sniffed it. Her eyes narrowed. ‘What is this? It smells like the death of suns.’

‘I am not permitted to know the full details,’ admitted the infocyte. ‘But the devices contain an exotic form of particulate matter that inhibits the function of psionic ability in a localised area.’

Iota studied the grenade for a long moment, toying with the activator pin, before finally giving Tariel a wan look. ‘I’ll take these,’ she said, snatching the box from his hand.

‘What do you have for the rest of us in your delightful toy box?’ Koyne asked lightly, playing with a pair of memory swords. They had curved, graceful blades that shifted angles in mid-flight as the Callidus cut the air with them.

‘Toxin cordes.’ The Vanus pressed a control and a belt threaded with glassy stilettos extended from a sealed drum marked with biohazard trefoils.

Koyne put up the swords and reached for them, only to see that Soalm was doing the same. The Callidus gave a small bow. ‘Oh, pardon me, cousin. Poisons are of course your domain.’

Soalm gave a tight, humourless smile. ‘No. After you. Take what you wish.’

Koyne held up a hand. ‘No, no. After you. Please. I insist.’

‘As you wish.’ The Venenum carefully retrieved one of the daggers and turned it in her fingers. She held it up to the light, turning it this way and that so the coloured fluids inside the glass poison blade flowed back and forth. At length, she sniffed. ‘These are of fair quality. They’ll work well enough on any man who stands between us and Horus.’

The Callidus picked out a few blades. ‘But what about those who are not men? What about Horus himself?’