Nemesis

‘They are like nothing we have ever seen,’ Grohl said darkly. ‘Genetically enhanced superhumans. Living weapons. Angels of death. A handful of them can crush armies–’

‘So what should we do, then?’ snapped Beye angrily. ‘Surrender at once? Shoot ourselves and save them the trouble?’

‘They’ll destroy us all,’ Grohl insisted. ‘The only hope we have is to disband our forces and lose ourselves in the general populace, that or flee off-world before their warships arrive.’ He glared at Kell. ‘Because our salvation won’t be here before Horus, will it?’

‘He’s right, Capra,’ said Jedda, his tone bleak. ‘Against men, we’ve got a fighting chance. But we can’t beat war gods–’

‘They’re not gods,’ Kell snarled, quieting him. ‘They are not invulnerable. They bleed red like any one of us. They can die.’ He met Grohl’s look. ‘Even Horus.’

Capra gave a slow nod. ‘Kell’s right. The Astartes are formidable, but they can be beaten.’ He gave the Vindicare a level stare. ‘Tell me they can be beaten.’

‘I killed a Space Marine,’ said Kell. Koyne’s bland expression flickered as something like surprise crossed the other assassin’s face. Kell ignored it and went on. ‘And I’m still here.’

‘Capra…’ Grohl started to speak again, but the rebel leader waved him into silence.

‘I need to think on this,’ he told them. ‘Beye, come with me.’ Capra walked away with the woman, and Kell watched him go. Grohl gave the Vindicare a harsh look and left him with Jedda and the other warriors following.

Kell picked up the memory spool and weighed it in his hand.

‘Did you really terminate an Astartes?’ said Koyne.

‘You know the rules,’ Kell replied, without looking away. ‘A clade’s targets are its own concern.’

The Callidus sniffed. ‘It doesn’t matter. Even if you did, it’s just one truth among a handful of pretty lies. That one, Grohl? He’s the smartest of all this lot. The Sons of Horus will destroy them, and turn this world into a funeral pyre along the way. I’ve seen how the Astartes fight.’

Kell rounded on the shade and stepped closer. ‘The Warmaster is coming here. That’s all that matters.’

‘Oh, indeed,’ said Koyne. ‘And by the time Capra and the other ones who have decided to trust you realise that’s all we want, it will be too late.’ The other assassin leaned in. ‘But let me ask you this, Kell. Do you feel any remorse about what we’re doing? Do you feel any pity for these people?’

The Vindicare looked away. ‘The Imperium appreciates their sacrifice.’

3

The quarters aboard the Iubar belonging to operative Hyssos were as predictably dull as Spear had expected them to be. There were only a few flashes of individuality here and there – a cabinet with a few bottles of good amasec, a shelf of paper-plas books on a wide variety of subjects, and some rather indifferent pencil sketches that the man had apparently drawn himself. Spear’s lip curled at the dead man’s pretension; perhaps he thought he was some kind of warrior-poet, standing sentinel over the people of the Eurotas clan by day, touching a sensitive artistic soul by night.

The truth was nowhere near as dignified, however. Delving through the morass of jumbled memories he had stolen from Hyssos’s dead brain, Spear found more than enough incidents where the security operative had been called upon to use his detective skills to smooth over situations with native law enforcement on worlds along the Taebian trade axis. The Consortium’s crews and officers broke laws on other worlds and it was Hyssos who was forced to find locals to take the blame or the right men to bribe. He cleaned up messes left by the Void Baron and his family, and on some level the man had hated himself for it.

Spear had extruded a number of eyes and allowed them to wander the room, sweeping for surveillance devices. Finding nothing, he reconsumed them and then rested, letting his outer aspect relax. The fleshy matter coating his body lost a little definition; to an outside observer, it would have looked like an image slipping out of focus through a lens. He sensed a faint call from the daemonskin. It wanted fresh blood – but then it always wanted fresh blood. Spear let some of the remains of Hyssos he had kept in his secondary stomach ooze out to be absorbed by the living sheath, and it quieted.

He sat at the desk across from the sleeping alcove. Laid out over the surface were a half-dozen data-slates, each of them displaying layers of information about the Iubar. There were deck plans and security protocols, conduit diagrams, patrol servitor routings, even a copy of the Void Baron’s daily itinerary. Spear’s long, spidery fingers danced over them, plucking slates from the pile for a moment, putting them back, selecting others. A strategy was forming, and the more he gave it his consideration, the more he realised that it would need to be implemented sooner rather than later.