Sons of the Hydra Read online

  Perdita looked between Freydor Blatch and the Seventh Son co-pilot.

  ‘Scramblers?’ she said, her adopted voice deep.

  ‘Scramble augur returns,’ Blatch blurted across the open channel, attempting to hide the fact that he had forgotten. ‘All craft – engage scramblers.’

  Minutes passed in heart-thumping silence as the cultist flotilla followed the Serpent’s Egg in on its clandestine approach. Despite the acid burns running along its flank and scaffolded sections bearing bite damage caused by something like a colossal beak, the capital ship was an imposing sight. Perdita could see macrocannons, fusion beamers and hull-mounted plasma projectors, the monstrous barrels of which were all aimed forward at the approaching flotilla. With such weaponry, it would take nothing for such a craft to wipe the Redacted clean from the face of the void.

  ‘Brothers,’ Perdita heard the High Serpent say across the open channel, his voice echoing through the cargo holds of bulk lighters, modified haulage brigs, hump shuttles and assault boats. ‘Serpents. Seventh Sons all. We make our final approach – our mighty lords, as they do in all things, leading the way. The Emperor’s servants hide within the thick hulls of their battleships and behind the towering walls of their fortresses. In doing so, they prove themselves unworthy of Him. As the Master of Mankind sacrificed himself for humanity’s continued survival, so we sacrifice the weak upon the altar of his efforts. For the Imperium deserves only the strong. The enduring of flesh. The certain of mind. Those resolved in body and spirit to do what must be done – no matter the cost – to realise the Emperor’s true and manifest destiny…’

  As the Dreadclaw sizzled through the atmospheric screens of the launch bay, the flotilla drifting in behind, its presence hidden from augur arrays and unnoticed by Adeptus Mechanicus constructs hard at work on exterior repairs, Blatch released the vox stud. ‘Etcetera, etcetera…’

  β

  Spitting Venom

  Occam the Untrue knew the Assiduous to have a glorious tradition of victory. It had fought broadside to broadside against the Despoiler-class battleship Sacrilegionary on the edge of the Maelstrom, destroying the Chaos flagship – long lost to Slaaneshi deviance and mutiny over five thousand years before. It had rammed aside greenskin space hulks of the Octarian Empire during the Volvox Wars. It had survived the tyranid hordes and great devouring bio-ships of Hive Fleet Leviathan. Not even the successor sons of Guilliman, with their ritual and stale strategies, saw the Alpha Legion coming.

  ‘Stand by for high-speed insertion and impact,’ Occam told the legionnaires of the Redacted. He heard the creak of tightening cradle supports and straps. He felt the Serpent’s Egg buck and wobble as the wicked tips of the pod’s outstretched landing claws made contact with the battle-scarred craft waiting on the polished flight deck. Cycling through the casters, Occam watched the kaleidoscopic progress of the Dreadclaw. Like a bullet entering flesh and bouncing off bone, the pod ripped and ricocheted its way through the busy launch bay. The unchecked velocity of the Serpent’s Egg battered Thunderhawks aside, toppling the venerable craft. Orbital transporters were hooked and torn from their landing gears and cable restraints, smashing into tracked trundles of munitions and equipment. Claws pierced the hull plating of Adeptus Astartes landers and lighters. The craft were catapulted across the bay into acid-splashed Land Raiders and armoured personnel carriers, newly chained down into their transport and diagnostic positions.

  Occam felt the forces tear through his genetically engineered body. After the silky absence of gravity in the void, the sensation was unpleasant. The machine-spirit of his plate registered its protestations while the Dreadclaw clunked, screeched and thundered its way through the unfolding havoc of the launch bay. The warband were thrown violently this way and that by the impacts, directional changes and brutal deceleration. The cradle inertials and the hydraulics of their plate took the worst of the punishment. Each legionnaire had been blessed with the constitution of a demigod. Slabs of muscle and the resilience of black carapace and bone absorbed forces that would have torn an ordinary man apart.

  ‘Retract landing claws,’ the strike master told the machine-spirit of the Serpent’s Egg. Through the cracked runescreen, Occam saw sparks shower after the drop pod like the tail of a comet as it made contact with the flight deck. The troop compartment was filled with the excruciating reverberation of metal scraping against metal.

  Before long, the Dreadclaw left the pandemonium of upturned gunships, smashed tanks and scattered supplies behind. Occam’s gauntlet hovered by the manual ignition of the deceleration thrusters. Ordinarily, such systems would be used for atmospheric stability and landing. Occam found, however, that bone-jolting collisions and the friction created by the bay floor were enough to bring the drop pod to a halt.

  Like an egg twirling slowly on its side, the Dreadclaw came to a slow halt. As it did, the surviving pictcasters told Occam all he needed to know about the havoc he had caused outside. As planned, the approach of the Serpent’s Egg had gone unnoticed. The Dreadclaw’s landing, conversely, was a bombastic announcement. The launch bay was littered with battered attack craft bearing the colours and markings of the Marines Mordant. The Adeptus Astartes themselves, however, were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the flight deck was decorated with the broken bodies of bonded servitors and Chapter serfs. Servo-automata and winged cherubim that had been working on the gunships as part of flight deck crew drifted over the lifeless bodies.

  Occam could feel the detonations of upskittled munitions and shattered landers through the hull and flight deck below. Through the remaining casters he could see that fuel from impact-breached promethium barrels had caught light and was cloaking the disordered flight deck in a black haze. Klaxons were sounding, summoning serf sections from other parts of the battle-barge. While the smashed servitors remained on the deck, waiting for the assistance of compatriot constructs – as protocol dictated – Chapter bondsmen were already getting to their feet. Clutching shattered limbs and bleeding down their flak tabards and hooded tunics, the bondsmen were resilient. Occam knew them to be devoted servants of the Chapter cult and as such they would respond swiftly to the attack. He also knew each one to be an unsuccessful Space Marine aspirant. They were living embodiments of failure and untapped potential. The Alpha Legionnaires of the Redacted would be more than a match for them.

  ‘Prepare to open hatch,’ Occam said, prompting the machine-spirit of the Dreadclaw to release the pressure seals with a clunk. At the same time, the locks of the descent cradles cleared, allowing the Alpha Legionnaires caged within to extricate themselves with economy.

  Lying on its side, the drop pod was not oriented for an effective dispersal. Climbing down through the cradles, the Redacted joined Occam as he knelt on the shattered instrumentation of the drop pod wall. The legionnaires dropped to one knee with their strike master. Each was a clandestine nightmare, garbed in renegade plate and clutching weaponry that was a heretical fusion of Imperial and xenos technologies.

  The six renegades waited, clad in tarnished viridian. Their ghoulish forms were airbrushed in the neon-blue radiance of their plasma guns while adapted optics burned red in their serpentine helms. A cameleoline cloak was draped across one pauldron, while the other was emblazoned with the dread symbol of the three-headed hydra. The surface of the legionnaires’ stylised armour was crafted to appear like scales, each plate sizzling with the static of an advanced optical field that shimmered across the cool ceramite.

  ‘Ready hatch, aye,’ Ephron Hasdrubal said, the Alpha Legion sergeant taking position at the egress. His helm was lost in the darkness of a cameleoline hood, with only his optics visible.

  ‘Ready, aye,’ Arkan Reznor and Carcinus Quoda confirmed, flanking the sergeant, the Alpha Legion warpsmith and sorcerer waiting for the order to disembark. While both were armed with their own equipment, the pair carried squad weaponry at their strike master’s insistence. At a glance, at least, the Redacted were to be one: uniform in darkness, identical in
purpose and indistinguishable in the sights of the enemy from one another.

  ‘Aye,’ Vilnius Malik said behind Occam, the young legionnaire clutching his combi-plasma gun in tight to his shoulder. The hulking Autolicon Phex knelt beside him but said nothing. Quetzel Carthach had cut Phex’s tongue out and had done a lot worse to the legionnaire. Phex acknowledged his strike master with a tweak of his plasma cannon’s coil regulator, causing the searing hum of the heavy weapon to die away briefly and then return to intensity.

  ‘For the Emperor,’ Occam the Untrue hissed, ‘who knows not what is done in his name. Positions.’

  The Redacted gathered about Autolicon Phex, who jangled with grenades and spare hydrogen canisters. Occam nodded. Sergeant Hasdrubal popped the manual release on the hatch. Like a fanged mouth, sections of the hatch began to retract, revealing the launch bay beyond. The tactical displays of Occam’s helm zeroed in immediately on moving targets outside the drop pod. With each glowing blink of the lenses, augur-overlays cycled briefly through different spectra – infrared filtering, ultraviolet resonance, motion sensors.

  ‘The welcoming party,’ Arkan Reznor said, selecting three small servo-automata that sat like grenades on his belt. Their serpentine skulls were gilded, while their repulsor housing was a small clinkered shell. Like a child winding up a clockwork toy, the warpsmith activated his retinue of drones designated Beta, Zeta and Theta. Hanging in the air on powerful repulsors, the servo-automata allowed a small nest of mechatendrils to uncoil and writhe with serpentine motion.

  While broken-backed servitors, auxilia and bondsmen littered the launch bay, deck serfs in Chapter colours ran forward from the section blast door, thumbing bolt shells into assault shotguns. Intent on repelling the boarders, the serfs converged upon the Serpent’s Egg and hammered the Dreadclaw’s hull and opening hatch with pump-action blasts.

  ‘Introduce us,’ Occam commanded as the hatch clunked open and a bolt-round shot by his helm. With a hiss of sub-molecular conversion, Autolicon Phex unleashed a raging blast of plasma out of the Dreadclaw. Almost as broad as the hatch opening, the furious orb shot out across the flight deck like a blue sun, leaving behind a glowing trail of hydrogen. The impact was devastating. The globe of plasma would not be stopped, blazing through throngs of Chapter serfs and wiping them from existence. The robes of those nearby caught fire at the intense heat of the blast’s passing and became thrashing blue infernos.

  ‘Away,’ Reznor said, allowing his servo-automata to swoop out of the hatch.

  ‘Centrobaric formation,’ Occam ordered. ‘Establish position and draw them in.’

  ‘Aye,’ the Redacted returned, lowering their helms and jumping through the hatch. Dropping down to the flight deck with a flourish of their cloaks, the renegades immediately set to work driving back the closing ranks of Chapter serfs. Rapid, staccato blasts sent small orbs of plasma far across the deck with unerring accuracy. Burning straight through bondsmen in their flak and fabric, the raging balls put attackers down on the deck, turning them briefly into mounds of thrashing agony. This didn’t last long.

  Arkan Reznor had long had a weakness for the heretical genius of xenos technologies. Such passion was evident in the Redacted’s plate and weaponry. With the core warband only numbering six legionnaires, the squad favoured hard-hitting plasma guns over the ubiquitous bolter – associated with so many of their dark brotherhood. Occam also had the warpsmith adapt the weaponry for more effective operational use. Fusing forgeworld fare pillaged from the armouries of the defeated Nova Legion, with the martial technologies of xenos breeds carving out empires on the Eastern Fringe, Reznor had managed to solve the plasma gun’s propensity to overheat and increased both the weapon’s range and fuel economy.

  ‘Brother Malik,’ Occam said, allowing bolts to detonate against the retracted landing claws he was using for cover. He smirked to himself behind the fanged faceplate of his serpent helm. ‘Bring the night.’

  The joke was specially meant for Vilnius Malik, who was not an Alpha Legionnaire by genic heritage. A restless renegade, gifted beyond his years with boltgun and blade, Malik had been a willing recruit for Night Lords operating out of the storm of the Emperor’s Wrath. Gene-sired and trained in the arts of terror, Malik lived to win but had a healthy distrust of corruption. Abandoning his Night Lords brothers as they increasingly became things of twisted logic and flesh, Malik wandered the core sectors.

  Lending his talents to warbands of renegade Space Marines, like the infamous Hounds of Horus and the Slaughtersworn, he inevitably survived them all. Occam the Untrue had encountered the promising killer when the Redacted worked in a joint action with the Shadow Pact against the Vindicators at Karpathia Corona. Surviving them also, Malik accepted Occam’s offer to join the Redacted and take his place amongst lost brothers searching for similar purpose.

  As Sergeant Hasdrubal ran through a hail of bolts spat from assault shotguns, he gave the young legionnaire furious cover fire from his plasma gun. Vilnius Malik, who carried the scoped length of a long-shot plasma gun, took a knee and shrugged his cloak off his shoulder.

  ‘Power distribution nexus,’ Occam heard Arkan Reznor tell the former Night Lord. ‘Far bay wall. It distributes power to non-essential systems in the section. Look for the heat signature.’

  Malik didn’t even flinch. The warpsmith knew more about the capital ship’s systems than the Marines Mordant Techmarines tending to them. Lining up the advanced optics of his helm with the scope, Malik sent a succession of plasma blasts up through the middle of a charging crowd of Chapter serfs. The crackling orbs blazed into the piece of nondescript equipment that Reznor had indicated, cutting between the bondsmen with incredible accuracy and timing. The distribution nexus flashed and sparked as it overloaded. Without local power, the huge blast door separating the launch bay prow section and the thorax gun decks crashed to the floor. The bulkhead came down with a boom, cutting off the thousands of servitor gun crew and deck serfs stampeding down the length of the cannon battery sections to reinforce their cult brothers in the launch bay.

  The powerful lamps lining the ceiling of the bay flickered and then died, plunging the colossal chamber into a hazy murk of smoke and starlight. Promethium fires burned in the bay and the beams of boarding craft cut through the obscurity. Occam the Untrue felt both the impact of landing gears on the flight deck and the hammering footfalls of loyal serfs charging through the darkness. The blasts of the Redacted’s plasma guns lit up the bay around the Dreadclaw in ghoulish blue. The glowing orbs revealed the faces of bondsmen, fiercely loyal to their cult masters in the Marines Mordant and intent on repelling boarders.

  ‘Save your fuel,’ Occam ordered across the squad vox. ‘Dissemble.’

  The deck became drowned in darkness. Onwards the serfs came, their charge slowing to a twirl of confusion as they blinked at the blackness, searching for renegade Space Marines who had been there moments before.

  Like the members of his warband, Occam had become one with the darkness. About him he could hear the whine of his suit, dropping to low power – all non-critical systems shutting down in readiness for snap-rebooting. His optics had blinked to blackness, while his cloak had helped to break up the outline of his armour. The scales of the heretically enhanced plate had changed colour. Like a chameleonic lizard, the suit replaced the dishonoured colours of the Alpha Legion and flushed to the dirty darkness of its surroundings. Occam enjoyed the confusion of his enemies. He was close enough to slice their throats but they could not see him.

  In the murk, an Alpha Legionnaire suddenly appeared amongst the small army of Chapter serfs. Shotguns were pumped and bolts unleashed as the serfs spun around and fired at the phantasm. The hololithic representation crackled and warped as a hail of bolts passed through it. In the darkness, Occam heard the screams of serfs blown apart by bolts in the crossfire. As the ghostly legionnaire faded, the representation being projected by Beta – the servo-automata hovering above the battle – another appeared on the far fla
nk. Fewer serfs fell for Zeta’s deception and even fewer for Theta’s. Adapted bolts still shot wildly through the darkness, however, with one almost blasting the fanged servo-automata to raining shrapnel.

  The distraction had served its purpose. Boarding craft that had put down on the deck some distance away kicked on their floodlights and emergency landing lamps. In the smoky light, the Alpha Legionnaires of the Redacted were transformed into silhouettes. They were not the only ones. Hordes of death cultists were among them, sprinting deftly from the ramps of lighters and assault boats. In their masks and clutching wicked blades and needle pistols, the Seventh Sons joined the fray. Like a river coursing about a set of boulders, the death cultists ran around their armoured masters and threw themselves at the deck serfs of the Assiduous.

  ‘Onwards,’ Occam announced across the vox, his modified suit systems rapidly firing back up to full functionality. The black shapes of the warband walked through the carnage. Shotguns barked bolts into the charge, while Seventh Sons cut through the loyal serfs with envenomed blades and flash-blasts from their needle pistols. Aiming for exposed flesh and faces, they ducked and weaved through the havoc. The Alpha Legion acolytes left serfs crashing to the deck and doubling up behind them, clutching wounds and writhing in the agony of fast-acting venom.

  ‘Strike master,’ Ephron Hasdrubal said as they left the vicious boarding action. The sergeant was drawing attention to the blast door closing off the launch bay from the cavernous gun decks. The sheer weight of numbers behind the section bulkhead – deck serfs, servitor cannon crew and hereditary auxiliaries – was lifting the door clear of the floor to flood the darkness with light and repelling forces.