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Unearthed – Rob Sanders

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A Black Library Publication

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Unearthed

Rob Sanders

Taking his magnoculars, Kiefer took in a 360-degree sweep of the surrounding area. The once-lush fields that stretched for kilometres across the surface of Grendl’s World were now but dust and sand. Slender twisters made their way across migrating dunes, while swarms of off-world vermin jumped and flew alongside the Inquisitorial column in great buzzing clouds. With nothing left to eat, the alien scourge that the Alpha Legion, led by the Traitor Sisyphon Vail, had introduced to this planet had resorted to feasting on each other, turning Grendl’s World into an infested dustball, trapped in a grotesque cycle of rampant reproduction and cannibalism. Kiefer pulled his headscarf across his mouth as the Salamander laboured up a dune and through a cloud of chittering insects.

‘I have a return, interrogator,’ Ipluvian~461 told Kiefer, his modulated voice rising above the Salamander’s gunning engine. The calculus logi was interfaced with the vehicle’s multi-spectral surveyor station, which dominated one side of the command bay. ‘Long-range augurs show a large structure, four degrees south-south-east.’

‘Confessor,’ Kiefer said into his vox-bead. ‘Can you confirm?’

‘Stand by,’ the priest returned, his voice a warping crackle over the channel. High above the column, Kiefer had given orders for the Internecia to hold station and provide support with the cruiser’s instrumentation. ‘Shipmaster Fairuza tells me orbital pict captures confirm the structure as a freighter.’

The interrogator leant across the twin-linked heavy bolters of the Salamander’s turret and banged his fist on the top of the driver’s compartment. Hatches popped and Kiefer found himself looking down at the Salamander’s driver and gunner. Sitting in the nest of levers was a goggled Guardsman, Khoga – one of Captain Sartak’s Attilans. Next to him, his shoulder nestled against the stock of the forward heavy bolter, was Kiefer’s servant, Fenk.

‘Four degrees south-south-east,’ Kiefer called above the Salamander’s roaring power plant. He gestured with a flattened palm. As Khoga hauled at the levers, the vehicle’s tracks churned in the sand. The Salamander turned on the top of a dune, before bouncing down the slope. Within moments, Captain Sartak’s barked orders had his Rough Riders and the Molidor Ogryn Auxilia changing direction to follow the command vehicle.

As the Salamander chewed its way through the wasteland, Kiefer peered through his magnoculars. Before long, blinking through the haze of dust and swarms of alien vermin, Kiefer saw the half-buried outline of a vessel.

‘All stop,’ the interrogator said, banging on top of the driver’s compartment once more. As the Salamander jerked to a stop, the Attilans formed a column of horsemen behind. The ogryns, barely breaking a sweat, ran up beside them – the abhuman warriors were taller than the Rough Riders on their steeds.

‘Can you identify it?’ Kiefer asked Ipluvian~461. ‘What do the auspex scans say?’

Interfaced with the surveyor station, the construct didn’t immediately respond as it concentrated on processing the incoming data.

‘Come on, hurry it up,’ said the interrogator.

‘A small system ship,’ the calculus logi said finally. ‘A pocket freighter.’

‘Crashed?’

‘Landed,’ Ipluvian~461 reported. ‘No doubt abandoned after the infestation took. It appears to be nothing more than a derelict.’

‘Entrances?’ Kiefer asked.

‘The ship has been mostly buried in the migrating dunes. The main cargo hold, however, is open to the elements. Might I suggest that to be the easiest way in?’

Kiefer bit at his lip in thought. They were hunting for the Alpha Legion. His old master, Godefroy Pyramus, had been drawn into an ambush and killed, and the darkness of the open hold screamed trap at the interrogator.

‘Easy isn’t always easy,’ he told the construct.

‘Indeed, my lord,’ Ipluvian~461 said. Kiefer didn’t have to explain his caution to the construct.

‘I need two riders,’ Kiefer called across to Captain Sartak, who drew up on his steed. ‘For a circle of the structure.’

Sartak gestured in mock confusion at the interrogator. The captain could understand Imperial Gothic perfectly well, but liked to make a show for his men. Similarly, the Guardsmen also pretended not to speak any language other their own. The Attilans’ pride in their culture ran deep. Kiefer made several circular gestures with his arm then stabbed a finger towards the downed freighter. Ipluvian~461 translated the order into the Attilan dialect.

As two of Sartak’s best riders trotted off, creating separate dust trails, Kiefer launched Xerxes into the air. The interrogator had had Ipluvian~461 attach a vid-caster and a small auspex array to the bird’s body. Kiefer needed eyes on the top of the half-buried crashed freighter. As the Rough Riders circled the derelict ship in opposite directions, the psyber-eagle soared overhead. Kiefer listened for the bird’s call – any indication of movement or a living presence among the crumbling architecture of the ship. He heard nothing, however.

‘Heat signatures?’ Kiefer asked. ‘Vox-transmissions? Electromagnetic spectra?’

‘Nothing,’ Ipluvian~461 confirmed.

As Sartak’s riders rode back to the column, Xerxes swooped in overhead. With a beat of its wings the psyber-eagle hovered and then landed on Kiefer’s outstretched arm. The Attilan riders exchanged brief words with their captain, which Sartak translated.

‘No signs of life or habitation.’

‘We must search the derelict,’ Kiefer announced finally to the Salamander crew and the Attilans.

Kiefer banged on the Salamander’s hatch again, and the driver gunned the engine. With the horsemen and ogryns forming a column behind, the command vehicle chewed up the deserted wasteland between the dunes and the derelict. Rounding the superstructure of the sand-covered freighter, the Salamander made for the open hold. As it did, Kiefer deposited Xerxes on the rail and took position before the turret. Resting his shoulder against the stock of the twin-linked heavy bolters, he aimed the barrels at the darkness within. Captain Sartak and his Rough Riders took position in two lines either side, while the ogryns milled around uncertainly, looking inside suspiciously.

‘Stay sharp,’ Kiefer said into his vox-bead, as the lamps on the Salamander cut through the dusty darkness of the hold interior. The interrogator found it difficult to relax. Every buried agri-complex and silo they searched felt like an Alpha Legion ambush waiting to happen. The sloping floor was made up of sand that had poured in through the open hold, but the Salamander, horses and hulking abhumans managed to negotiate the incline. The chug of the command vehicle’s engine and the heavy rattle of its tracks echoed about the chamber. Activating lamps on their saddles, a contingent of the Rough Riders urged their steeds carefully into the expanse of the hold. Other Attilans dismounted, leaving their hunting lances in their saddle sheaths. Clutching laspistols and lamps, they made their way across the large hold. Talking quietly to one another, they checked the corroded bulkheads and hatches.

The ogryns were blunt instruments, ill-suited for reconnaissance work. Hating enclosed spaces, they stared about the interior of the hold with brutish suspicion. On board the Internecia, the abhumans had been housed with the Attilan steeds on the livery deck. They stood in their squad, muttering, under the watchful eye of Captain Sartak, who coordinated the search of the hold interior from his saddle.

‘Logi,’ Kiefer said as the Attilans managed to fully crank open a bulkhead leading off the main hold. Ipluvian~461 stepped off the back of the Salamander and released several servo-skulls into the air. Hovering for a moment, the constructs shot off silently through the air, disappearing through the bulkhead.

‘Servo units away,’ the calculus logi said, retaking his position at the surveyor station. ‘Augurs and motion detectors engaged.’

‘Begin a scan of the structure,’ Kiefer ordered. ‘Any evidence of recent habitation or activity.’

As he stepped down, an Attilan replaced him on the turret heavy bolters. Nearby, Kiefer could see commotion, and approached. Several Rough Riders had climbed a large mound in the centre of the hold and called their captain across. It took Captain Sartak and Kiefer some to time to clamber up to reach them. The hill was made of hundreds of cargo containers, all piled in the middle of the floor, as if by a rough landing. Now in a pile of battered angularity on the floor of the hold, they had been all but buried in sand.

‘What have you found?’ Kiefer demanded.

The Attilans were gathered about an open container that had evidently once been pressurised. Kiefer leant in and immediately wished he hadn’t. The stench was unbearable. Within was crammed full of chitinous remains, the rancid corpses of vermin – the same swarming creatures that had laid waste to the agriworld’s precious crops. In several more open containers they found the same pungent putrescence. Thousands – perhaps millions – of voracious creatures had multiplied before expiring.

‘A nest?’ Kiefer put to the Rough Riders. Captain Sartak shrugged with unsmiling disinterest. The two Attilans who had discovered the mound spoke quickly at their captain, however, and then at the interrogator. They were pointing out a container that appeared to still be intact. Kiefer nodded slowly. He began to understand what the Attilans were indicating.

‘Help me,’ he said and the three of them levered it open. Within was the same rotting mess as the others. Kiefer grunted. He could believe that the swarming insects might nest in the sheltered confines of the hold and the boxes. What he couldn’t understand was how they came to be sealed within pressurised containers.

‘Confessor,’ Kiefer said into his vox bead as he made his way down the mound of crates.

‘Yes, interrogator,’ Creech returned from the bridge of the Internecia.

‘I believe we have found the original source of the agriworld plague. The pocket freighter appears to have been abandoned here intentionally. It was carrying the swarm in its cargo hold, to be released. The infestation was intentional. The Alpha Legion were here – and still might be.’

‘May the God-Emperor guide you,’ the confessor said. ‘Be careful, my lord.’

Within moments Fenk was with him, the servant carrying a plasma gun from the Internecia’s armoury.

‘Anything?’ Kiefer put to Ipluvian~461 as he marched past the stationary Salamander.

‘No, interrogator,’ the calculus logi said. ‘The servo-skulls are conducting their sweep. Motion sensors have picked up nothing. No heat signatures registering. No evidence of recent activity on the vid-casters.’

‘Stay with the command vehicle and maintain the search,’ Kiefer ordered.

‘Very good, interrogator.’

‘Secure the horses. Leave the auxilia here,’ Kiefer ordered Sartak and his Rough Riders. The labyrinthine interior of the freighter was no place for horses, and the ogryns hated cramped spaces. ‘I want this derelict searched for any sign of a recent enemy presence. Anything the servo-skulls might have missed.’

The Attilans didn’t like to leave their horses, but obeyed the interrogator’s orders. Taking pommel lamps and readying their laspistols, the Rough Riders began to organise themselves in squads for the search. Sartak strode to the open bulkhead and directed lines of Attilans. Kiefer turned around to see that the captain had left Sergeant Urgamal in charge of the horses and Molidor ogryns.

Khoga stood up, peering out of his top hatch after the interrogator. Ipluvian~461 and the Attilan gunner did likewise. Xerxes let loose a twin screech that reverberated about the hold. With the last of the Rough Riders through the bulkhead opening, Kiefer slipped his bolt pistol from its holster and joined Fenk and Captain Sartak in bringing up the rear.

The freighter was as silent as the grave. Sand and dust had found its way in from the hold, swirling through the ghost ship with the wind, choking the deck corridors and accumulating in the chambers. Kiefer found himself negotiating indoor slopes, wading through sand-swamped openings and stalking through piles of debris with his bolt pistol gripped tight in his gloved hand and his eyes darting between every shadow-choked bulkhead and opening. Every corridor, corner and stairwell had the potential to be an Alpha Legion ambush. Despite the danger, Kiefer and the Attilans pushed on deeper into the downed freighter.

The light of the Guardsmen’s lamps cut through the murk, throwing unnatural shadows across the wrecked interior of the ship. The search was not a natural mission for the Rough Riders, who preferred to carry out their duties outside, in the saddle. As Sartak directed his troops down the corridors and ladderwells, they jabbed their laspistols into the darkness. Fenk stuck to the interrogator like a bad smell, clutching the weight of his plasma gun to his chest. All the while, Ipluvian~461’s servo-skulls zoomed through the structure about them, scanning for heat signatures and movement.

‘They must be here,’ Kiefer growled as they entered the freighter’s gloomy engineering section. He felt the pressure not just of his efforts to locate the leader of the Alpha Legion, Sisyphon Vail, and his renegades, but also to finish everything Godefroy Pyramus had tried to accomplish. Between them they had picked through the detritus of this backwater subsector piece by piece and found only disappointment and death. No less than Sartak’s sullen Attilans, the interrogator wanted this over. It was cold here in the bowels of the abandoned vessel.

Shouldering his plasma gun on its strap, Fenk pulled out the flask of amasec he used to carry for his inquisitor master. He offered it to Kiefer, who stared at the servant with hollow eyes before murmuring his thanks and taking the bottle. As Rough Riders returned from searching the upper decks of the engineering section, muttering, Captain Sartak turned to Kiefer. The Attilan officer played with his greasy moustache, waiting in expectation for the order to withdraw. They had found no sign of the Alpha Legion. It was time to continue the search elsewhere.

‘Alright,’ Kiefer said. As he went to holster his bolt pistol, the Attilans drew to a halt. The search was over. It was time to move on. ‘Prepare to–’

‘Interrogator,’ Ipluvian~461 called across the vox-bead. ‘I have readings. I have signals.’

‘What signals?’ Kiefer said, his heart beginning to race.

‘Auspex returns from the servo units,’ the calculus logi said. ‘Heat signatures and coded vox-streams.’

‘Where?’

‘The engineering sub-levels,’ Ipluvian~461 reported. ‘Just ahead of your present position.’

‘We have them,’ Kiefer growled, bringing up his pistol. ‘They’re here.’

‘Interrogator,’ the calculus logi said. ‘I feel obligated to remind you that this could indicate the presence of pirates, as we discovered on Mimbosa Prime, or perhaps a small group of agriworld survivors, sheltering in the derelict and living off the freighter’s supplies. My calculations indicate a chance that we might have accidentally activated a dormant system during our search.’

‘And what do your calculations tell you about the chances of encountering the Alpha Legion here?’ the interrogator asked, slowly pushing his way up the corridor and through the Attilans.

The calculus logi hesistated. ‘I calculate a fifty-two point four-six-seven chance that the enemy are located here.’

‘Thank you,’ Kiefer snarled, surging towards the returns the servo-units had recorded. He snatched a lamp out of the hands of a nearby Attilan and pushed on through the benighted freighter. The interrogator could feel his sworn enemy in the darkness. Monstrous renegades, hiding in the shadow. Retreating into their lair. Leading with his bolt pistol, Kiefer held his lamp high. He would find the heretics, avenge his master and rid the Imperium of a hated enemy.

Slinking along corridor walls, Kiefer aimed his pistol around corners and threw the light of his lamp into modules and antechambers. With Fenk close behind, and Sartak and his Attilans moving in squads searching side compartments along the way, the interrogator moved ever down into the sub-levels of the engineering section. Kiefer’s boots clunked along one of the many metal companionways suspended above an engineering control chamber. As he saw lights in the darkness, the interrogator halted and aimed both his pistol and the light of his lamp down into the chamber below. The Attilans followed his example as they moved up alongside him.

‘I have you now…’ Kiefer said, but the illumination revealed only a single rune bank, blinking with dull lights and glyphs. Cables running to the console showed how it had been jury-rigged, while one of Ipluvian~461’s servo-skulls hovered above it taking readings. The snarl on the interrogator’s face faded. He thought that he had finally tracked down Sisyphon Vail, but there was still no sign of him or his warband.

The servo-skull suddenly whipped around.

‘Signatures,’ Ipluvian~461 reported across the vox. ‘Heat and motion.’

Kiefer and the Attilans aimed their weapons about the gloom of the large chamber. He could hear the hum of power packs booting from dormancy and the hiss of servos and powered hydraulics.

In the darkness below Kiefer thought he saw movement. Light glinted off the curvature of pauldrons and helms. He could make out ten, perhaps twenty figures in powered plate. Cloaks of flayed flesh clung to the armoured Traitors. Even in the gloom, Kiefer could make out the serpentine swirl of patterns etched into the dirty blue-green plate. Optics burned with expectation. Helmet grilles drizzled breath that misted on the air. The decorative muzzles of boltguns were presented like the gaping mouths of serpents up at the catwalk above.

‘Enemy in sight…’ Kiefer roared, yanking back upon the trigger of his bolt pistol.

Before the blast had left the muzzle of the weapon, however, the grille flooring turned into a cacophonous storm of bolterfire and shrapnel. Stuttering streams of gunfire tore up through the mesh, punching holes through the flooring straight into the Rough Riders crowding the walkway, blowing off limbs and turning the line of Guardsmen into a blood-mulched mess.

Captain Sartak yelled orders at his men and the barbarians moved swiftly, running across the catwalk and racing down a spiral stair that connected to the floor. Dancing through the carnage, they pushed on into the chamber, picking their way lightly through the exploding mesh and merciless bolt blasts. The few Attilans who tried to hold their ground on the catwalk died, blasted apart by enemy fire from below.

The Attilans fought hard. Bolts of energy flashed off renegade plate, leaving glowing craters, but nothing could stop the Traitors.

As Kiefer blasted his own bolt rounds down at them, he cursed the Alpha Legion and their nefarious ways: their traps, their scheming and their dark strategies. They had powered down their suits and lain in wait, as still as serpents, ready to strike. With the Inquisition forces committed, the Alpha Legion had initiated their plan. They had powered up, moved into position, watched Kiefer and the Attilans enter their trap, then unleashed the fury of their weapons.

The interrogator’s bolt rounds crashed down into Traitor Space Marines below. He heard the grunt of an Alpha Legionnaire as a blast from Kiefer’s pistol hammered through his plate.

The catwalk was shuddering beneath their boots. The Alpha Legion were directing some of their firepower towards the joists and walkway supports, and the structure was now on the verge of collapse. He felt Fenk grab hold of him.

The chamber reverberated with the excruciating sound of tortured metal as the catwalk started to give way. Kiefer lost his footing and slid over the edge, but was saved from falling by Fenk, hauling back on his master’s cloak. The servant had reached a stable section of walkway and secured himself there. Attilans toppled down into the gloom of the engineering section, the light of their lamps bouncing about the chamber wildly, screaming as the fall broke bones and shattered limbs.

As Kiefer dangled he saw the Guardsmen grimace through their pain and try to right themselves. The engineering chamber flashed with the frenetic bolts of their laspistols. The Alpha Legionnaires were merciless, however. The Chaos Space Marines marched through the broken bodies littering the floor. The Attilans were fighting for their lives but little could stop the frenetic economy of the warband’s advance. The renegades stamped down on the bodies of prone Rough Riders and ended the Guardsmen with their armoured boots. They aimed the muzzles of their boltguns down at the injured Attilans, blasting off their heads and turning their chests into smouldering craters.

Kiefer could not allow his men to be brutally slain like dogs. He had led them into this. It was his pain and frustration that had led them into the jaws of the serpent. As Fenk tried to help the interrogator back up onto the stable section of companionway, Kiefer deliberately wriggled out of his cloak. He fell away from the servant and the remaining walkway. Bracing himself, the interrogator dropped down to the floor, many metres below. He landed with a jarring crunch, and screamed with pain as his right leg gave way underneath him with a sickening crack. With a groan of agony, Kiefer fell into an ugly roll that saw his bolt pistol bounce away from his grip.

The interrogator blinked the torment from his eyes. Attilans were dying all around him as the Chaos Space Marines carried out their slaughter. Amid the screams, the interrogator felt the floor of the engineering chamber shake with the approach of a heavy armoured form. Looking up, Kiefer saw an Alpha Legionnaire standing over him, his ghoulish plate cloaked with the flayed flesh of his victims. A magazine clunked to the floor as the Chaos Space Marine reloaded his weapon and aimed the serpent barrel down at the interrogator.

Kiefer scrambled desperately for his gun, waiting for the horrible moment when the Alpha Legionnaire would put a stream of bolts into his back. Scooping up the heavy pistol, Kiefer twisted around and put the traitor in his sights. Yanking back on the bolt pistol’s trigger, the interrogator put round after round into the Alpha Legionnaire’s chest and faceplate. With half a magazine blasted into him, the Alpha Legionnaire stumbled back and tripped over an Attilan body – despite the terrible state of it, Kiefer recognised it as that of Captain Sartak. Crashing to the ground, the monstrous renegade fell still.

In the confusion of the fight, Kiefer could hear Ipluvian~461 over the vox, desperately trying to make contact with him, but there was too much noise going on for him to hear what the construct was saying.

‘Send the ogryns!’ Kiefer roared into the vox-bead. ‘Send them in now!’

As a stream of bolt rounds cut past Kiefer’s face and through a screaming Rough Rider, the interrogator turned the remaining wrath of his pistol at the dark, armoured shapes moving through the chamber. Thrusting his pistol this way and that, the interrogator blasted furiously at the traitors as they moved through the fallen Attilans.

‘Come on!’ Kiefer roared. ‘Face me, you venomous traitors.’

The gunfire inevitably drew the attention of nearby Alpha Legionnaires, who aimed their weaponry through the gloom of the chamber. Once again, the engineering section was lit up. Holding the bulk of his plasma gun at his hip, Fenk fired from the catwalk. The weapon bucked and steamed as the servant blazed orb after sun-like orb of plasma down at the Alpha Legion. Many blinding spheres of agitated energy sizzled into the deck, creating craters of spitting brilliance. Several slammed into traitors, however. Alpha Legionnaires thrashed and roared as balls of plasma burned through their plate.

Redirecting their firepower, the Traitors turned the remaining catwalk into a precarious remnant of bolt-mangled wreckage. Fenk backed away from the storm, up the walkway. Kiefer sent the last of his bolts at the distracted Alpha Legion, managing to put one in the side of a traitor’s helm, turning him into a thrashing, brain-mulched mess. The shot of a compatriot traitor, aiming through the wildly waving limbs, punched into the wall and floor next to Kiefer. The explosive impact sent shards of burning shrapnel into the interrogator’s gut. The interrogator felt as if he had been cut in half. His carapace was a ragged, bloody mess and his stomach was a bottomless pit of agony. He went down, face first onto the deck, curling up in agony.

His vox-bead squawked, but he could barely hear the message. ‘…ogryns… ...ching your… …ition…’

Looking up through the pain-fuelled haze, he saw more Alpha Legionnaires advancing along the walkway, up behind Fenk. The servant was swathed in steam from his plasma gun, which Fenk was pushing to its limit, splitting his furious fire between the Alpha Legion in the engineering chamber and those approaching on the walkway.

Despite the onslaught, the Alpha Legion on the walkway continued to move forward, ahead of a helmetless officer. The officer’s plate and cloak had a rancid, understated extravagance compared to the other members of the warband. As Kiefer stared up, the lines of his face taut with pain, he saw the officer glance down. He had a shaven head and a dark nobility to his genetically engineered features, while one blinking eye gleamed yellow and black like a cat’s, indicating some kind of xenos or daemonic corruption. Kiefer knew that he had locked gazes with his opposite. This could be no other than Sisyphon Vail himself.

Kiefer tried to bring up his weapon but couldn’t lift it. Sisyphon Vail levelled his serpentine bolt pistol at the interrogator from the walkway.

Instead of the darkness of death, it was the fury of light and heat that found Raughn Kiefer. Fenk’s plasma gun finally overloaded. The servant had intentionally pushed the weapon beyond its capabilities. Exploding with what hydrogen remained in the weapon’s flask, the eye-scalding inferno of the detonating plasma gun wiped Fenk from existence. An expanding globe of blinding light threatened to swallow the advancing Alpha Legionnaires on the walkway. Sisyphon Vail’s patchwork cloak of flayed flesh caught alight and his plate was scorched black. Kiefer buried his head in his arms as the heat of the detonation washed over him.

The blinding light and noise seemed to last an eternity. Finally bringing his head up and squinting up at the walkway, Kiefer found it all but gone – the detonation had melted the mesh catwalk to nothing. Thunder rumbled through the superstructure of the freighter. Kiefer watched as pieces of wreckage were shaken loose from the remaining walkway.

The ogryns had arrived. Like a herd of stampeding grox, they had pounded through the ruined vessel, drawn on by the sound of gunfire. The catwalk leading from the entrance above was gone, but this didn’t faze the abhuman brutes. They dropped down from the elevated entrance like giants of old, landing with thuds on the engineering chamber floor. Despite the agony of his injuries and the death about him, Kiefer allowed himself a grim smile. His orders had finally brought the agitated, claustrophobic brutes down on the Alpha Legion.

Standing in the carnage with the cratered decking about their feet, they roared their intention to join the battle. Each ogryn was a small mountain of Molidorian muscle. A simple loyalty burned in their eyes, and the sight of Attilan blood all over the deck drove them to distraction. They threw themselves at the Alpha Legionnaires. Holding their reinforced ripper guns with both hands, they blasted the belt-fed automatic shotguns at the Traitors. Some swung their weaponry around like clubs, or even dropped them to physically attack their enemy.

The Alpha Legion responded with indomitable confidence, pouring streams of bolt rounds into the arriving ogryns. Whereas the fury of such an attack had cut straight through the Attilans, the Molidor Auxilia were an unstoppable wall of abhuman brawn. The towering brutes soaked up bolt after bolt, crashing forward like mindless animals.

The storm of shot blasting forth from the ogryns’ ripper guns couldn’t hope to breach the renegade plate but the relentless force of its impact was enough to hold the Alpha Legion at bay momentarily. The Alpha Legionnaires were smashed aside. Ogryns grabbed at them, tore their helms off and twisted the heads from their armoured bodies. Others raised the traitors off the ground, despite the weight of their plate, then threw them back into the floor with bone-shattering force.

Kiefer looked up at the remaining walkway. Sisyphon Vail was beating out the last of the flames that had taken his cloak. His face was a picture of calm displeasure. His inhuman eye blinked rapidly. His remaining Legionnaires were lined up along the walkway, supporting their brothers on the engineering section floor by pouring merciless bolt-fire into the ogryn squad. While the initial attack of the hulking abhumans had surprised the Alpha Legion, the Chaos Space Marines had quickly recovered their discipline. Once again, the tide of battle turned in the engineering chamber as the Alpha Legion started to take their revenge on the ogryns. The fighting intensified, neither side willing to give way.

On the walkway above, Vail slapped a gauntlet against the pauldron of each Alpha Legionnaire in turn, prompting them to abandon their fire support and withdraw from the chamber.

‘No!’ the interrogator managed, crawling arm over arm across the blood-slick floor. He could not allow the leader of the Honourless to slip through his fingers. The plasma explosion and the arrival of the abhuman auxilia had turned the battle briefly in the Inquisition’s favour but now the Alpha Legion were slithering away – ready to fight another day. His leg was shattered, however. This mattered little, however, since below the raging agony of his midriff, he could feel nothing.

Amongst the cacophony of battle, the sound of explosions reverberated through the superstructure of the freighter. After a short, ominous silence, the interrogator became aware of a rough hiss. Suddenly sand started pouring in through the chamber entrances and rents in the shattered decking. It cascaded down from the ceiling and gushed in through corroded bulkheads.

Kiefer spat blood and hatred at the sand accumulating on the floor of the engineering chamber. The detonations had immediately followed Sispyhon Vail’s tactical withdrawal. With his heart thumping in his chest, Kiefer came to the furious realisation that Sisyphon Vail planned to bury the surviving Inquisitorial forces – and even some of his own men – alive.

Kiefer’s throat was already thick with blood, and the haze of dust made it almost impossible to breathe. He gagged and coughed, trying desperately to catch his breath. The ogryns were reacting no differently. They might have been hulking brutes but they still needed to breathe – unlike the Alpha Legionnaires, protected by their armour. By the time the embattled ogryns and Traitors realised the peril they were in, it was too late. The abhumans dug furiously with their big hands but the sand was coming in faster than they could clear it.

Sand was filling the chamber, forcing Kiefer to crawl upwards just to keep himself above the surface. Clutching his throat, one of the ogryns fell and was swallowed up by the rising sands. The air was thick with dust. Towering figures stumbled through the miasma, wildly flailing their arms in fury and panic, seeking a way out.

What little light remained in the chamber came from the Attilans’ abandoned lamps, and even that was fading, obscured by the swirling dust. Asphyxiation and unconsciousness threatened to claim Kiefer, and a cold fury burnt in his chest. He had found the Alpha Legion but had lost Sisyphon Vail. Who knew what calamity the leader of the Honourless would wreak upon the subsector? Kiefer could not let that happen. He had made a pledge, to Godefroy Pyramus and to himself, that he would see the threat of Sisyphon Vail and his vile warband ended.

Crawling arm over arm, the interrogator dragged himself through the sand flooding into the chamber. He grabbed an abandoned lamp and hooked it on his belt. He had spotted a melted breach in the wall, close to the floor, where several of Fenk’s plasma blasts had missed advancing Alpha Legionnaires. Struggling to think clearly, Kiefer made for the hole. Perhaps he could squeeze through the opening and escape the doomed engineering chamber this way. He did not get far, however. The sand was pouring in so fast that he was unable to drag his injured body any further forward. As the sand started to cover his body, he cried out for help and started clawing at the air. In those dark, oxygen-starved moments, he imagined himself buried alive in the freighter – an Alpha Legion trap, prepared and sprung. Then he felt something huge with a vice-like grip grab his leg. His broken leg. The excruciating pain made Kiefer sit bolt-upright, despite the wound in his abdomen, and scream the dust from his lungs.

Before him, the interrogator saw the hulking shape of an ogryn, a solitary abhuman. Grabbing the interrogator by the leg, the ogryn trudged through the deepening sand, instinctively heading for shattered wall of the chamber. The pain kept Kiefer conscious and as they reached the hole he shouted at the ogryn to dig, digging with his own hands to show it what to do. The ogryn knelt down beside the interrogator. It was wearing goggles and the same kind of scarf the Attilans wore around their necks to keep the dust out of their mouths whilst riding. Between them, they had given the ogryn a fighting chance.

Using his great hands like shovels, the creature excavated the area close to the wall, clearing the blasted hole in the metal. Grabbing the broken edges, the ogryn heaved with all his monstrous might, widening the gap so that it was just wide enough for a human to fit through. The interrogator slid head first through the opening. With sand cascading about him, he heaved his torso and legs through the rent. Scrabbling around in the sand, Kiefer reached out for the abhuman. Perhaps he could help the ogryn get through also, but as more and more sand poured in, it became clear that the hulking abhuman wouldn’t be able to get out. He was simply too big. Before long, his great hand – which Kiefer could still see digging back the sand - went limp. Half dragging himself, half swimming through the sand, the interrogator was forced to leave the last of his men to die. He promised himself that he would avenge them.

The crawl was exhausting. Chamber after smashed chamber. Corridor after sand-choked corridor. His shattered leg felt numb once again and his body cold as behind him the interrogator left a smear of blood from his belly. Shrapnel ground his innards with every excruciating movement. He was bleeding badly. For a little while, Kiefer used the sound of distant gunfire to guide him and give him a sense of direction in unfamiliar surroundings.

‘Ipluvian,’ Kiefer coughed into the vox-bead. ‘Command vehicle, come in.’

The sound had been heavy bolters firing. The Salamander must have been under attack by the exiting Alpha Legion. The gunfire and the vox had long been silent. Nothing from the Salamander and nothing from the Internecia. As he made an ugly roll out of an open bulkhead and into the cargo hold he could see why. The Salamander was a smoking wreck. Crawling across the cargo crates, Kiefer found what was left of his driver Khoga and the Attilan gunner smouldering near the remains of the command vehicle. Sergeant Urgamal he found trapped under his bolt-blasted horse, with half of his head missing, in what must have been an execution-style killing. Ipluvian~461 was everywhere, the calculus logi literally blasted apart by bolter fire.

‘Internecia, come in,’ he croaked into the vox-bead, cycling through channels. He heaved himself painfully up against the track of the smashed Salamander. ‘Internecia, respond,’ the interrogator repeated, clutching his hands to the ragged wound in his side. Fading in and out of awareness, Kiefer continued to mumble into the vox-bead until he lost consciousness.

Shuddering awake, Kiefer felt numb, cold and wet. Looking down weakly, he saw that the sand about him was sodden and red. Sitting in a puddle of his own blood, he realised that he had been out for hours, quietly bleeding his life away.

‘Internecia…’ the interrogator managed, his lips barely wrapping themselves around the words. ‘This is Interrogator Kiefer. Requesting immediate… medical assistance. We found them. The Alpha Legion are here. I repeat: Sisyphon Vail is here on the planet. This is Interrogator Kiefer... Answer me, damn it.’

‘Interrogator,’ a voice returned. It was a voice he had never heard before; a voice that sounded like honeyed death. ‘This is Internecia. We receive you. You are wrong, of course – as you always have been. For Sisyphon Vail is not on the planet surface. I am here – on board your precious ship.’

Kiefer’s heart went numb. Sisyphon Vail’s voice echoed about his skull and infected his mind.

‘Vail…’

‘Yes,’ the Alpha Legion commander said, with no little relish. ‘Your ship is mine but unfortunately I cannot spare anyone to assist you. In fact, I’m readying the ship to break orbit. We have a new destination: Constantium Secundus.’

Kiefer slowly closed his eyes. Vail had named the location of secret Inquisition base in the next sector. He now had access to the Internecia’s runebanks and all of the data they contained. Details of inquisitors, deployments, covert operatives and ordo installations.

‘To anyone else monitoring this channel,’ Kiefer said, his words like ice, ‘I am changing to emergency vox channel, now.’

Cycling through the channels, the interrogator slumped down onto the sand.

‘Is anyone receiving… me?’ he said, his voice cracking under the strain and his grievous injuries.

‘Interrogator,’ a voice returned finally. ‘This is Confessor Creech.’

Kiefer groaned in agony and relief. ‘Confessor?’

‘I am here, interrogator,’ Creech replied.

‘You evaded capture?’

‘For now, interrogator,’ the confessor replied. ‘Servitors alerted the high enginseer of gunfire in the launch bays.’

‘The high enginseer…?’

‘He’s with me,’ Creech confirmed. ‘You are wounded, my lord?’

Kiefer nodded to himself, unconsciously moving a hand from his shattered leg to the mess of his stomach. Creech must have been listening to the vox channels.

‘It was an ambush,’ Kiefer told him. ‘All are lost.’

‘Not you, interrogator.’

‘Yes, me too,’ Kiefer said, feeling the cold, numbness moving through his body. He tried to resist it. With gritted teeth he said, ‘Status report.’

‘The Alpha Legion returned in your lander,’ Creech told him. ‘They overwhelmed the ship’s security forces and took the command deck – with Shipmaster Fairuza, the astropath and the Navigator.’

‘They have the broken open the runebanks,’ Kiefer said.

‘Aye, they have,’ Creech agreed.

‘What is your disposition?’ the interrogator asked.

‘The high enginseer and I have about thirty men with us,’ the confessor admitted. ‘Not enough to take back the ship.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In the engine room,’ Creech said. ‘The Alpha Legion have yet to secure it.’

Kiefer gulped. His throat was so dry.

‘Confessor,’ Kiefer said, trying to regain a steely edged authority. ‘The Alpha Legion now have access to the information in our runebanks. With it, they could cripple the ordo’s operations in this entire region and bring death to millions. That cannot be allowed to happen. Do you understand me? Sisyphon Vail and his men cannot be allowed to leave this place, or pass on that information.’

‘Yes, interrogator,’ the priest said finally. ‘I understand.’

‘You haven’t much time. I don’t care how you do it,’ Kiefer said. ‘You must find a way.’

‘The God-Emperor will show us the way,’ Confessor Creech said. ‘The high enginseer is working on a solution right now.’

‘Do it for Godefroy Pyramus,’ Kiefer said.

‘Interrogator,’ Creech replied. ‘We’ll do it for you… May the Emperor be with you. Creech out.’

The channel crackled and then went dead. Kiefer had never felt more alone. Pulling the vox-bead from his ear he tossed it away. He lay there for a moment before deciding that he would like to feel the wind on his face one last time. Rolling over, he heaved his numb, cold body arm over arm across the cargo hold and out onto the desolate sands of the agriworld. When his strength finally failed him, the interrogator rolled over again and stared up into the sky. He lay there and waited for the inevitable. He felt a stagnant breeze across his cheeks. High above, he saw a bird circling. Xerxes, Inquisitor Pyramus’ psyber-eagle. The bird had been driven up into the sky by the battle in the hold.

Suddenly, beyond Xerxes, Kiefer saw a flash in the sky. Something had exploded in orbit. Kiefer was certain it was the Internecia. Perhaps an engine column or drive, sabotaged or rigged to overload or blow at the high engineer’s instigation. Kiefer watched as a flaming wreck plummeted down through the atmosphere at high speed, streaking smoke across the sky. The interrogator closed his eyes and nodded slowly to himself.

‘Got you,’ Kiefer mouthed. He had no more strength for words. It seemed to take an age but finally the doomed vessel hit the surface of the planet. He never heard the distant boom of the crash – the sound of the Inquisitorial cruiser taking its ordo secrets and everything else on board into fiery oblivion. By then, his wait for the inevitable was over.

About the Author

Rob Sanders is the author of The Serpent Beneath, a novella that appeared in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy anthology The Primarchs. His other Black Library credits include the The Beast Arises novels Predator, Prey and Shadow of Ullanor, the Warhammer 40,000 titles Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and Tech-Priest, Legion of the Damned, Atlas Infernal and Redemption Corps and the audio drama The Path Forsaken. He has also written the Warhammer Archaon duology, Everchosen and Lord of Chaos along with many Quick Reads for the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in the city of Lincoln, UK.

Hunted by the alien Eldar, the servants of Ahriman and his own former masters, renegade Inquisitor Czevak hunts an artefact that could be his salvation.

A Black Library Publication

Published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-264-6

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