Unspoken
Guy Haley

 	‘Thirty minutes to extraction. I will be entering vox silence, commander. Confirm?’
 	Captain Sulnar held his breath to hear the voice in his earpiece. The Thunderhawk pilot spoke softly, as though he feared to be overheard.
 	And well he might be. Their furtive communications were conveyed over clandestine frequencies unique to their clan, but the Warmaster seemed to know everything.
 	‘Confirm. We’re close to escaping this death trap, so I’m not taking any chances.’
 	‘Acknowledged. Leave your beacon active or I’ll be coming in blind.’ A click, small but definite, came over the vox. ‘Engaging wide band vox suppression in five… four… three… two… one…’
 	The vox crackled out. Sulnar set a chrono-counter running in his helmet display. The numbers ran down, hundredths of a second tumbling, seemingly frantic to be spent.
 	Still, too slow.
 	He searched the sky for some sign of their extraction craft, but nothing moved up there. Somewhere beyond the blank night sky, vessels still loyal to the Imperium orbited the world. How, he had no idea. He decided it best not to question miracles.
 	There were five of them left, the survivors of the attack at Purgatory. He sat propped up against a rock, his mangled legs projecting in front of him. The others were secreted in the rocks overlooking the beacon they had taken from the gunship.
 	They operated on a closed vox-net, at the shortest range and narrowest frequency. Their identification markers were deactivated, their armour powered low. They were taking no chances.
 	Tarkan cursed.
 	‘Report,’ Sulnar ordered.
 	‘Movement five hundred metres up.’ Tarkan spoke quietly, with minimum exhalation. His battleplate would prevent any disturbance to his aim, but Tarkan was meticulous. ‘Four, maybe five or six. We tagged them on the motion sensor.’
 	‘And?’
 	‘We lost them. And the sensor.’
 	Sulnar breathed out through his teeth. Traitors. They had found their sensor and blinded it. He blink-clicked his long-range vox open again. He did not use his neural interface to activate it. It was working, unlike so many of his armour’s systems. He felt so limited without the use of his legs, and blinking the vox on was at least a physical act he could perform. It made him feel like he was doing something, not simply lying out of the way like so much dead meat while others watched over him.
 	‘Spear of Truth, come in.’
 	Did he warn the pilot? If he were in his position, he would not risk an approach if there were traitors on the way. The decision was irrelevant. There was no reply. Not even static hiss. The jam held.
 	He checked the positions of his men. With their markers deactivated, the only thing he had on his visor’s tactical display was their last locations. Slight energy spikes and mild thermal differences told him that they were still there, but had he been unaware of their presence he would not have found them.
 	Unless he were looking very carefully. He hoped that the traitors were not.
 	The irony of the current situation was somewhat ridiculous. They had set up the trap for their enemies, only to guide friends to them for one final, desperate rescue attempt. And now, the efficacy of their trap threatened to kill them just as they seemed to have found a way out.
 	‘Vogarr, I can see your energy signature too easily. Power down your motive systems a further twenty per cent.’
 	‘My apologies brother,’ said Vogarr. ‘I have erratic power delivery. I will see to it when we are safe.’
 	Yes, thought Sulnar. Like I will repair my bolter, and see to my legs. He longed to be back in the fight.
 	There was a tension in them all. Rescue had seemed impossible for so long. They had given their all to destruction and to vengeance, and now this… They were on edge, far more than when only death had awaited them.
 	They waited now in turn.
 	‘How long?’ asked E’nesh, the Salamander. The other four of their group were all Iron Hands, all members of Clan Sorrgol. E’nesh was an outsider, but he was their brother. They all had the clock running. Perhaps E’nesh asked because he did not believe it. Sulnar was not certain he believed it himself.
 	‘Nineteen minutes,’ he said.
 	Kortaan, the last of their number spoke. ‘I think I see something. Movement, coming down the slope. Can you get a shot, Tarkan?’
 	‘I could, but they’ll scatter,’ replied Tarkan. ‘That’s a Scout’s grasp of tactics, Kortaan. Keep it together. We open fire as we planned, when they are close and grouped.’
 	‘Yes, brother.’
 	Information rolled across Sulnar’s visor. He patched through to Kortaan’s visual feed. Three shapes, still small in the view, picking their way to the ravine floor. They had no identification markers.
 	‘Should we hail them?’ asked Tarkan.
 	‘Negative,’ said Sulnar. ‘Might be a scouting party. Could have blind-hunters waiting, up behind.’
 	‘The slope is too steep for constructs,’ said Kortaan.
 	‘No, it is not. If it was, then we’d never survive. Take them by surprise, Tarkan.’
 	The figures disappeared from sight, enhanced or otherwise. They were coming to the beacon’s position now, drawn in by the lure. It was ten minutes at a cautious pace.
 	When they came, they were dealt with, and Captain Sulnar discovered that Isstvan V had one last horror to inflict upon him.
 	The Thunderhawk arrived three minutes after that.
 	I have been sleeping. I have been dreaming of the massacre, and have brought my dreams into the waking world. I am fully awake now, at this moment. The events of Isstvan V are still with me. They do not fade as nightmares will, for they are not nightmares. Oh, how I wish they were.
 	I cannot speak. I do not know why. The words will not come. 
 	I sit upon the edge of the examination table and await my fate. My wounded arm is hot where the regeneration clasp works upon torn flesh. Already I can move my fingers again.
 	The warriors of the Iron Hands stand in judgement over me, discussing me as though I were a broken machine. Like a machine, I can say nothing in my defence, and I do not know why.
 	The Apothecary gestures to me. ‘No, captain, I am not saying there is anything the matter with him. I am saying that there is nothing wrong with him at all.’
 	Upon the glass overlay are displayed parts of my anatomy. They are naked, revealed to plain sight by the artifice of the medical scanner. Part of me wonders how it works. A little of the hunger for the craft is within me yet, then, but it is an ember, dying under a black, sodden weight of persistent realisation. Realisation should be a transitory state. What was not known before becomes known, and is processed accordingly.
 	But the enormity of the knowledge that chokes my soul will not allow its easy resolution. Each moment, I relive that first instant of sickening revelation. 
 	Vulkan is dead.
 	Every time I think upon this truth, a wave of nausea and… fear? It cannot be. I have forgotten fear.
 	But I never forgot grief. That I feel keenly, and I know it for what it is.
 	Our father is slain. Ferrus Manus also. These Iron Hands have suffered the same loss as I have. Those around me speak and operate, performing their duties with the cold efficiency their Legion is known for. It is not obvious that they are damaged, but they are not undamaged. Far from it.
 	‘Do you understand me?’ one of their leaders asks. His insignia is that of a commander, I think. Their rank system differs from ours. His armour is battered, his countenance fierce, twisted by pain and fury, like a dragon in a trap. He has a bionic arm – the right. It is uncovered by his battleplate, displayed for all to see, as is their custom. This too is damaged. The gleaming metal is torn and blackened around the elbow, heat bloom surrounding the wound to the prosthetic, purple fading through green to yellow. It is an iridescent bruise. When he moves his hand, it clicks. The three lower fingers no longer flex.
 	I nod without hesitation, but only once. I blink, putting out the forge-light of my eyes for a second, to show deference. What happens over the next few minutes is of the utmost importance.
 	The captain turns to the Apothecary. The medicae chamber of a strike cruiser is small and cramped, and this one is full of wounded Iron Hands. More wait on gurneys outside.
 	‘He will not answer you, brother.’
 	‘I can see that.’ The commander turns again to the Apothecary, impatient. ‘I do not care if he can speak or not. What I need to know is whether he can fight, Brother Vraka.’
 	Vraka glances at me. His eyes have been replaced with augmetics; a medical diagnostic model. They whir as they focus on my face.
 	‘Commander Tayvaar,’ says the Apothecary patiently, ‘they found him with two others. He would not have made it that far up into the mountains if he could not. I’d say he can fight.’
 	‘The others?’ asks the commander.
 	Vraka shakes his head. The news of what happened to Go’sol and Jo’phor is too shameful to voice.
 	I cannot speak, but yes, I can fight. I grip the edge of the examination table with my hands. It is strange to be out of my armour after so long. If I could, I would put it back on again.
 	The captain looks down at me. It takes all my effort of will not to look away. I nod. I so desperately want to fight. 
 	‘Very well,’ Tayvaar says abruptly. ‘When he is rested, send him to me. All who can fight in the Shattered Legions will do so. And send for Brother E’nesh. Get him assigned.’
 	E’nesh was one of our ambushers. I follow him down the spinal corridor of the ship. Its unwieldy name is the Voluntas Ex Ferro. Before I left the apothecarion, a wild-eyed Iron Hands legionary explained to me that the ship arrived late in the fleet chasing Lord Manus to the system, after the Avernii were all but annihilated and the primarch slain. The Warmaster had his victory and eventually moved on, leaving the dregs behind to finish us off on the surface. And so the Voluntas was one of the few that managed to creep back, months later, looking for survivors. He was crazed as he recounted all this, evangelising an unpalatable truth, as if he still could not believe that he had not died alongside his father.
 	There are one hundred and sixty-seven Space Marines on board. The Voluntas Ex Ferro is designed to support just over half of that, and so it is crowded. There are not enough quarters for all, and many of those on board are wounded.
 	I suppose I am one of the lucky ones. My body is whole, even if I cannot speak.
 	This is a Legion ship. There are few human serfs left on board. They are the indentured servants of the Medusans and of a phenotype unfamiliar to me. The Imperial Truth holds that humanity is as one, but one only has to look to see that humanity is many. Seeing the unenhanced suffering the shock of betrayal makes me wonder if we were right ever to try and reunite them. They do not meet my eyes. The Warmaster’s actions have affected them more than us, at least superficially.
 	On a deeper level it may be worse for us in the long term. They are weak, and therefore pliable – what is bent can be returned to shape. But the strongest metal does not bend, it shatters. I look into haunted transhuman faces as we walk to the gunship launch deck, and see so much broken iron.
 	Brother E’nesh leads me to Hangar Two. This is to be my berth.
 	‘The other hangar,’ he says, the first words he has uttered since he collected me from the infirmary, ‘is full of the wounded.’ He smiles, knowing of my affliction. He is trying to put me at ease, but his smile is full of pain and shame. ‘They have only two operational Thunderhawks remaining.’
 	We pass them. They are scored by weapon impacts and re-entry wounds, and crowded around by servitors. Three Ironwroughts and an Iron Father minister to them, directing the cyborgs and a dozen of the less technically-gifted Iron Hands to heal the machine. Brilliant blue sparks shower onto the deck as damaged armour is cut free.
 	I think on ceramite. It is durable and versatile. But it will crack. The heatshielding armour of this Thunderhawk, for example, subjected over and over again to the stresses of re-entry, will begin to fail. It may look whole to the naked eye, but the molecular structure will be host to a thousand micro-fractures. It will serve and serve and then, one day – perhaps suffering the smallest impact, and for no obvious reason at all – it will shatter.
 	That is why we have the rituals of maintenance. This is why all components are tested and replaced when they have been subjected to out-parameter stresses.
 	There is no one to replace these Iron Hands. Not any more.
 	A third Thunderhawk is not currently flight capable. The deck around it is torn, the result of a hard landing. The gunship has been turned around, cradled by cranes, supporting it where its feet no longer could. From the right, missing landing claws aside, it appears fine – less marked, even, than its brothers. As we pass, I turn my head to see the port engine and wing assembly missing. I silently salute the skill of the pilot who brought it in. I wonder if it can be salvaged at all.
 	Beyond the crippled gunship the other five landing bays are empty. With the Voluntas so crowded, the area has been temporarily rigged as a barracks. There are places for us to sleep. Many cots, and a work bench next to each one. The Medusans are kin to us Salamanders in their love of mechanisms. Just as well, for not one of the legionaries I have seen has a fully functional set of wargear. It would take the few adepts on this ship years to repair it all.
 	E’nesh leads me to a repurposed administrative desk. I can see that it is intended for me, for my armour is there. The plastron and left vambrace are neatly laid out on the work surface. The rest is upon an arming frame.
 	He is embarrassed. ‘I am sorry that your battleplate is not within the armoury or martial chambers,’ he says, ‘but, as you will have guessed, there is no space.’
 	I run my hand over the breastplate. It has been polished free of carbon bloom. Deeper marks in the metal have been smoothed and prepared for repair. I look to E’nesh, and his eyes drop.
 	‘Forgive me. I thought to make a start on your wargear while you were being seen to in the infirmary. I had only the night. It was the least I could do after…’ His voice trails away. The fire-light of his eyes has an odd colour to it.
 	I scratch around the regeneration unit bound to my arm. The wound was grave, nearly enough to necessitate amputation. I was lucky it did not. It will heal. My muscles itch maddeningly as the cells replicate. The shot might have come from E’nesh’s own gun. My three comrades – Go’sol, Jo’phor, and Hae’Phast – are all dead. Two of them slain by our allies, after having survived so much.
 	If I believed in such things, I would say fate was cruel.
 	I would thank E’nesh for the work he has done on my armour. It is neat and precise. But I say nothing. The silence between us yawns, a gulf I cannot bridge.
 	‘Well,’ he says. ‘I will see you. My cot is there. There were already half a dozen of us on the ship. We Salamanders are all berthed together.’
 	I nod, though I cannot smile to reassure him. It is not his fault, the deaths of our brothers. He turns away, unsuccessfully trying to conceal a shame that I know he will carry forever.
 	It is already killing him.
 	Time passes, time I spend working on my armour. If this were the old days, when we travelled in glorious fleets that laid the galaxy at the Emperor’s feet, I would junk half of what is here and request replacements from the armoury. That is no longer possible. Materials are in short supply. I am, however, given another helmet, as I lost mine shortly after the massacre. It is brought to me by Osk’mani, one of my six brothers here, while I work. The helmet is newly forged, dull metal. It is of an unfamiliar pattern and inferior manufacture to my original, but the armour is thick. Three additional layers, with lamination achieved through the use of molecular bonding studs.
 	Osk’mani feels the same way about it as I do. He rests a hand on my shoulder. ‘It is all they can do, brother. The internal systems are poor things, but the thickness will provide additional protection against mass reactives. Be thankful the rest of your armour is salvageable.’
 	I set the helmet on the stand, looking at my work.
 	I wish I could work faster. My brothers are all armoured, at full battle readiness. I can finally wear my plastron and backplate. I have replaced the power cabling running over my plackart and repaired the interfacings at the chest and spine. Luckily, the circuitry required only minor repair, for the complexity of the machinery there is such that a full renewal would require the knowledge of a Techmarine or Mechanicum priest. I am merely an artisan.
 	My right arm is also finished. This I leave off so as not to hamper my work. But the fibre bundles of both legs need replacing; it is intricate work, but not beyond me. The rerebrace of my left arm assembly is beyond salvaging. My power plant is open. One of the cooling coils is black and friable to the touch. Osk’mani looks over my shoulder at it all, making a noise in his throat as if to say he would not wish to undertake this task himself. He leaves me alone.
 	I am still working on my armour six weeks later when we are hailed by other survivors, and we join them.
 	In the following week, still more come, joining a flotilla that hides itself in the raging photosphere of a dying red star.
 	Commander Sulnar strode across the docking tube, his new legs clanging on the deck plates. He felt empowered, full of grim purpose. Commander Tayvaar strode beside him. Behind them came eight legionaries, four from each of their clan-companies. The commanders saluted the Avernii guarding the entry hatch to the other ship.
 	‘Commander Ishmal Sulnar of Clan Sorrgol.’
 	‘Commander Rab Tayvaar of Clan Vurgaan.’
 	The veterans inclined their heads, and shifted the bulk of their Terminator-armoured bodies aside to open the way. ‘Be welcome, Commander Sulnar, Commander Tayvaar.’
 	Representatives of four clans crowded the briefing room. Elements of twenty-two companies of the X Legion were present in the fugitive fleet, but together added up to little more than eight in actual fighting strength. A Raven Guard ship flew alongside them. There were also a demi-company’s worth of Salamanders scattered across the various ships. None of them, however, had been invited to the meeting.
 	Three Iron Fathers held the floor. Their leader, Frater Juraak, addressed the lost sons of Ferrus Manus.
 	‘There should be no hastily appointed leader,’ he proclaimed. ‘For the duration of this crisis, the Iron Fathers will advise each company-level commanding officer individually. There will be a moot of all the clans called on Medusa, and there it will be decided who shall lead the Legion. Though not now, and not here. Not like this.’
 	‘Why?’ asked a grim-faced captain of Clan Ungavarr. ‘There are warriors who are up to the task.’
 	A commander of Sorrgol stood and banged a bionic hand hard on his chestplate. ‘I will not be dictated to by Ungavarr!’
 	‘Nor I,’ growled another.
 	‘And that, Commander Uskleer, is precisely why our warriors are divided and scattered,’ said Frater Grivak. ‘To set one clan over another at a time like this will lead to dissension.’
 	‘Or open conflict,’ added Frater Vrayvuus.
 	‘There is one who could reunite us,’ came a voice from the back of the chamber. ‘Shadrak Meduson!’
 	‘Meduson? He acts without forethought and without guidance!’ said an Ironwrought in Grivak’s retinue.
 	‘And yet I have heard that many already follow him,’ Sulnar whispered to Tayvaar.
 	‘Most of the clan-fathers are gone,’ said Juraak, raising his staff. ‘Only we Iron Fathers may now stand outside the Legion’s structure, in accordance with the old laws of Medusa. Rashness doomed us. Listen to our wisdom. This is how Warleader Meduson would have the Iron Tenth prosecute this war.’
 	‘Then what are we to do?’ asked Tayvaar, speaking up for the first time. ‘You bring us news of Meduson and others of our Legion. Where are they?’
 	‘We do not know,’ said Vrayvuus. ‘Deliberately so.’
 	‘This is the wisdom we bring,’ said Grivak. ‘All survivors of the Isstvan Massacre are to divide into splinter cells. Battle-brothers from any Legion are welcome in our ranks, if they can prove their commitment to the cause. We cannot attack the traitors directly, but we can harry them. We shall spread ourselves far and wide, attacking their supply lines and depots, and bringing news of the treachery to whoever we can.’
 	Sulnar’s hand involuntarily tightened. To be separated once more from his brothers would be too much. ‘Frater, we have little strength in such small numbers,’ he said. ‘What can we do?’
 	‘Ask yourself instead, Sulnar, what could we do all together? Our Legion is a fraction of its former strength. Much of the 52nd Expedition is lost, and the rest of us are scattered widely. If we all came together, in one place, we could still likely do nothing useful against the enemy’s superior numbers.’
 	‘We would instead present Horus with a single target,’ said Grivak. ‘We would be pursued, and annihilated.’ 
 	‘Our father is dead – do not let his legacy die too,’ Vrayvuus urged them all. ‘If you would follow Shadrak Meduson to war, then do it on his terms. You must fight for him, but not with him.’
 	Tayvaar agreed. ‘There is sense in this plan. Separately, we are more agile, harder to pin down and attack. Spread out across a broad front, we will tie up as many of the enemy by forcing them onto their guard as we will by actually attacking them.’
 	‘As it should be,’ said Juraak. ‘Our disposition will be examined and reordered. We will not expose the warriors under our command to the truth of our Legion’s inherent weakness. It is a secret shame that we will not share.’
 	‘And that weakness is what?’ 
 	‘That our primarch was wrong.’
 	Silence fell, full of foreboding.
 	‘Very well then,’ said Sulnar, keen to break the moment. ‘What is our first move?’
 	‘This,’ said Vrayvuus, producing a data-slate.
 	Sulnar took it, and frowned.
 	‘A staging post?’
 	‘An astropathic relay station, and Legion supply point. Theta-class planetoid with attendant base units. At the time of sending, fifty-three fleet resupply vessels were there. We have coordinates. It was discovered by a small contingent of Clan Atraxii fleeing the battle at Isstvan.’
 	‘Sending?’ asked Uskleer. ‘Have them return to us, and share their findings in person.’
 	‘There are multiple command structures operating in parallel,’ Grivak explained. ‘It is taking time to gather intelligence upon all the disparate elements of our Legion. Not all of them are heeding our call – Clan Atraxii are particularly intransigent. Iron Lord Hrottaavak openly defies Warleader Meduson, in fact.’
 	‘But not this company?’ asked Sulnar.
 	‘Our brothers appear to see sense,’ said Grivak.
 	Sulnar passed the slate on, and Tayvaar looked over the information. ‘Is not the key in such asymmetrical warfare to keep each cell in ignorance of the actions of the other?’
 	‘Yes,’ said Frater Juraak. ‘And among those of us who chose to work with Meduson before we came to you, there is a prohibition on contact in all but the most exceptional circumstances.’
 	‘Such division suits our temperament,’ Uskleer murmured.
 	‘And these are exceptional circumstances?’ Tayvaar persisted.
 	‘Lone elements reach out to the rest of the Legion, as though it were still whole. They too seek to slake their thirst for revenge. They cannot do this alone, or without guidance.’
 	Tayvaar nodded. ‘The outpost is well defended by the Twentieth Legion.’
 	‘Bombardment?’ suggested Sulnar. ‘We have the ships.’
 	‘We can’t waste those supplies on the ground,’ said Uskleer. ‘We should launch a full combat drop. Boots on the ground.’
 	Tayvaar smiled unpleasantly. ‘And what if it is a trap?’
 	Grivak waved a hand dismissively. ‘If it is, we will surprise them. We have sufficient numbers in this group to destroy them outright, and scatter any ambush. It is the wish of the Iron Fathers that we proceed to our brothers’ aid, and turn any trap back upon the traitors. We have fought our way out from harder places.’
 	‘The time for weakness is over,’ said Juraak. ‘We will charge into peril as our father did. They expect it. Let us run at them. Let them underestimate us, and we will turn it to our favour.’
 	My armour is almost repaired by the time we go into battle. All systems check out perfectly. I am pleased with my work. I have repainted most of the plates, but not my left shoulder. There, I must renew my Legion heraldry. I sit down in my new arming chamber several times to do this, but find that I cannot.
 	It is still incomplete, scorched by the betrayal of Isstvan, when we attack.
 	We come out from the warp like rage itself, right on top of our target without thought for safe distances, matter interlacing or proximity translation interference. The Iron Hands are eager to destroy the enemy, and will have the element of surprise at all costs. The bow-wave of our emergence sends the tenders around the asteroid wallowing as space convulses about them. Several are caught in brutal temporal eddies and are torn into fragments.
 	The guns of the station are upon us quickly, tracking the Voluntas Ex Ferro, high-rate macrocannons casting ultra-high explosive rounds. They aim at where we will be. Our path and theirs intersect, void combat’s geometry of destruction executed as expected. Explosions bloom all along the ventral facing of the ship. Void fields flicker with otherworldly energy.
 	They hold, and my brothers and I are away, the Voluntas falling up above us.
 	Our Thunderhawk – the third I saw, somehow coaxed back to life – hurtled at the station without restraint or caution. The surface of the station rushes up to us. Forty per cent of its mass is of human construction. The rest is rock into which the artificial components are embedded. A thin regolith of pulverised stone coats the surface, fine as lapping powder.
 	Our target is the astropathic relay. It arches up on a soaring buttress, fantastical architecture that would be impossible on a Terran-standard world. The gravity of the asteroid is negligible, but I feel it pull nonetheless, a growing heaviness as we approach.
 	Ships explode in the sky around us. This is the work of the Raven Guard, stealing ahead. Our commanders play to our strengths.
 	‘Stand ready!’ commands Chosen Vra’kesh. There are twenty of us now, brought together from all over the flotilla, and we have a leader in the Terminator-clad Vra’kesh of the Firedrakes. ‘We will secure the relay station. Our primary target is this access port.’
 	The port flashes on our visor displays. We know it well. We have studied it and every battle possible contingency for the last three days.
 	‘We will rendezvous with the Iron Hands of Clan Vurgaan,’ says Vra’kesh. ‘It is an honourable duty.’ 
 	There is tension amongst their clans. They hope, I am sure, that overtures from another Legion will be better received.
 	Ten of us bear breaching shields. These are loan-gifts from the Iron Hands. There has not been time to repaint them, and so we bear their emblem. Vra’kesh has a small shield of his own crafting, an ingenious device around which crackles a power field, its discharges as lively as lightning. In his right hand he bears a power maul in the shape of a roaring salamander’s head. I smile to myself, and imagine the killers of our kin smashed down by it.
 	There is a determination to us. Vulkan told us to endure, and so we must. But there is a grim joy also. The newcomers to our group brought news…
 	The primarch’s body was never found. He might live.
 	I am sure he does. I know it somehow. I feel it in my chest, a truth that warms both my hearts, like a growing fire in a forge left cold for too long.
 	The Thunderhawk touches down for a handful of heartbeats. The pilots blow open the assault ramp without venting the atmosphere, and we emerge rimed in void-frozen gases. Our guns are firing before the ship takes off again, blasting the dust around us. Between the gas cloud and the debris, we are blind for crucial seconds.
 	‘Lock shields!’ calls Chosen Vra’kesh.
 	‘Distance to primary target, thirty metres,’ E’nesh reports.
 	Those of us in the first rank bring our shields up as the mess clears, carried off by momentum. We run in a shuffling gait, skating on the loose material cloaking the surface. To push down too hard here is to risk death. The gravity is so weak it would not hold a shove from power-armoured legs. Our feet kick up more dust that moves outwards in strange burst patterns, unrestrained by atmosphere.
 	‘Contact! Contact!’
 	Threat indicators in my helm go wild. Seven of our traitorous kin are moving to engage.
 	I hold my shield in front of me and brace. Bolt-rounds burn at us, their propellant loads bright in the vacuum. They rattle across our front like hail, the noise of their impact and detonation conveyed to my ears through the metal. Their combined impetus threatens to knock us over. Osk’mani stumbles. I move my breaching shield to cover him a fraction, saving him from the next volley. The rounds batter against the plasteel. He offers no thanks as he rights himself. Brothers-in-arms do not need thanks.
 	We return fire. The Alpha Legionnaires of the XX are arranged loosely, and we pick them off with concentrated fire. Only one of ours falls. A good exchange.
 	Our formation tightens again, and we are at the door. It is plain plasteel, a modular design common across the Imperium. It is set at an angle into the ground. In less terrible times, I have visited many such places but I never thought that I would have to fight my way into one.
 	Chosen Vra’kesh pushes his way forward. Bolts spark from his heavy armour. They veer into space; some become embed and explode in the ground, others are caught and detonated by the energy field of his small shield. He has mag-locked his power maul to his thigh, and in his other hand he hefts a melta bomb. He marches through a storm of bullets and slams it hard at the join in the centre of the doors. The rest of us form a semicircle around him as he sets the charge.
 	Battle rages across the surface of the planetoid. The Iron Hands fall upon the Alpha Legion with terrible savagery. They ever were furious in battle, and the death of their primarch has made them more so. But where once the Iron Hands would have marched in step with us, their allies, now they run ahead, as careless as Angron’s World Eaters.
 	I realise for all their grimness and rigid comportment, their Legion has changed. They fight here as if they do not care for their own losses, so long as they kill the enemy. Their lives have become meaningless. Their attack began in unity, but their vanguard is soon fragmented. They assault singly or in small groups. I see a wildness in them. They barely keep themselves in formation, and fight with unrestrained violence.
 	A lightning flash of an explosion comes from the torus of the station, and a docking array floats away as if gently nudged. Short-lived fire spews into space. Two tenders decouple violently, trailing strands of metal. Bodies shoot from the gaps – unarmoured, human crew. Particulate matter wreaths them in shining clouds.
 	Bolt-rounds streak across the airless battlefield. All I hear is brought to me by vox, but my augmented hearing and my suit systems work hard to damp it down. The cacophony of battle is more disorienting when delivered secondhand.
 	The bulk of the traitor force is on the surface. Many wear void harnesses, or Anvilus power packs with spread venting arms, directing the out-gassing of their cooling coils through their stabilisation jets to manoeuvre. This gives them an advantage in agility, but we have the advantage of fury. The Iron Hands fight with the strength of the insane.
 	‘Clear!’ shouts Vra’kesh.
 	We admit him into our shield circle and withdraw. The fusion bomb glows white-hot. A large part of the door follows suit, collapsing inward like melted plastek. The charge gives out, the metal cooling slowly. Space is cold, but with no medium to carry the heat all must be lost via direct radiation.
 	Venting air rushes from the breach. A spray of blood and matter as someone is sucked through the too-small hole. Bolts streak outwards after it. We cover ourselves with our shields as Tu’vash and Juphat move up to force the doors wide with spreading claws. Displaced items and screaming Legion thralls are sucked into the vacuum’s silence, bouncing from our shields. They wheel away to join the cloud of debris growing about the station.
 	Then we are inside.
 	The station has white corridors, brightly lit by lumen panels in the roof. Colour coded banding designates the sector. Here it is red.
 	Gravity plating gives an approximation of Terran norm. We do not rely on it, and engage our boot mag-locks in preparation for its failure. Sure enough, it is deliberately disengaged by the enemy the moment we are through and into the complex.
 	The inner voidlock has not been sealed. There are five Alpha Legionnaires within. We can advance only three abreast, so cannot easily bring our numbers to bear. They back away from us, firing as they go.
 	It is a stately assault. We proceed in slow formation behind our shields, leaning into the decompression winds. The traitors retreat to match our pace. We pass humans gripping onto emergency grab-bars, struggling against the gale. Their eyes are wide with fear and their faces purple. I wonder if they understand what they do. Do they follow the Alpha Legion through loyalty or through fear? Do they even know what is happening at all? Not all of them could have the black hearts of traitors, surely? These thoughts came to mind during the Crusade from time to time, but I put them aside as we cleansed one non-compliant world after another. They seem more pressing now. The unwitting humans might be saved from themselves, if they knew the truth of this war.
 	These questions do not trouble our Iron Hands kinsmen. They pour in through the breached doors behind us and slaughter every­one they come across. 
 	The wind drops. This section has breathed its last.
 	Two of the remaining enemy legionaries break for a side corridor, covered by the last of them. One ducks back, his bolts punching holes in our breaching shields. They may be traitors, but they are still Space Marines and their combat discipline is impressive.
 	My suit systems find something of interest in the vox chatter and present it to me. Voices from both sides jabber away in our helms. The station has been breached in several areas.
 	‘Proceed to the main objective! Let the Iron Hands finish clearing this area,’ orders Vra’kesh. ‘Secure the astropathic relay.’
 	Resistance is light. We pick up the pace. We pass through an unlocked door into an area with thin residual atmosphere. The difference is mostly aural. Sounds are carried by more than just the vox here.
 	‘This way,’ says Vra’kesh, pointing with his power maul.
 	The corridor opens out. We enter an armourglass dome looking out into the void. The relay post is visible through the curved roof. The Emperor’s eagle finials on the relay have been beheaded, and baleful red lights shine from its windows. Burning ships and wreckage tangles frame it.
 	There, at the double doors that lead to the access spur, Iron Hands fight with Alpha Legionnaires. Iron Hands who were not of our assault group.
 	‘To their aid, brothers!’ Vra’kesh orders.
 	We break into a run, shouting out the newly-minted battle-cry of our Legion.
 	‘Vulkan lives!’
 	Shoulder to shoulder with the Iron Hands, we slaughter the enemy. There are seven of them, bearing the sigils of Clan Atraxii. Standing amongst the dead, their armour is battered. They are the ones, then, who brought word of the installation to us. Two of them turn away and walk through the door leading to the relay without a word.
 	Their leader steps before us. ‘Thank you for your assistance,’ he says, earnestly.
 	And then the rest of them turn their guns upon us. 
 	Brother Kraydo goes down, his helmet hollowed out by a bolt. Juphor falls, hands failing to stop the crimson gushing from his ruined gorget. Once, we would have reacted to such an attack with shock and disorientation.
 	No longer. We have become inured to treachery.
 	We are close in. We grapple. There are more of us than them, and we are tired of betrayal. Vra’kesh proves the leveller. His power maul swipes wide, caving in the breastplate of one. A flaring of his shield’s power field halts the downward arc of a chainsword, and another of their number dies.
 	I wrestle with my opponent. Our guns are gone. I pin his right arm, and he kicks my legs out from under me and we both fall, he on top of me.
 	Through his red helm lenses, I see a fervid glee in his eyes. He grips at my shoulder guard and shakes it hard. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, you fool,’ he growls. ‘And we are not your enemy.’
 	I see the krak grenade in his hand just in time. Twisting, I throw him hard enough to send him into the armourglass beyond. The detonation obliterates his left arm and the window.
 	The corpse is sucked outwards by the explosive decompression. I follow, but E’nesh grabs my arm. He is mag-locked to the floor and holds me easily. Klaxons blare and blast shielding clangs shut over the shattered window pane. The gale drops with it.
 	The false Iron Hands are all dead. But they have achieved their apparent goal.
 	At the end of its slender white bridge, the astropathic relay goes down in flames.
 	Vra’kesh is stunned by the sight, his power maul sinking to the floor.
 	‘I do not understand,’ says Brother Ki’shen.
 	‘Infiltrators,’ says Da’eev. He kicks one of the corpses. The rest appear to be wearing actual Iron Hands plate, but not this one. The paint is new. Revealed by scratches, Alpha Legion blue shines.
 	‘But why pose as Iron Hands to get us to attack their own outpost?’ asks E’nesh incredulously.
 	‘Perhaps ours are not the only shattered Legions, brother,’ mutters Ki’shen.
 	Vra’kesh shakes his head. ‘If they were loyal, why then turn their guns on us? It makes no sense.’
 	‘He said something to Brother Donak,’ says Da’eev. ‘What?’
 	‘I did not hear, brother,’ said Ki’shen.
 	The others reply similarly.
 	‘What did he say?’ Vra’kesh demands of me.
 	I do not reply. The Firedrake marches up to me. In his Terminator plate, he is taller and far more imposing.
 	‘What. Did. He. Say?’ he asks again.
 	But I cannot say, and so the truth of it remains unspoken.
 	For now at least.
 	After more delay, I settle to finish painting my second pauldron. Once this is done, then my armour will be compliant with my Legion’s heraldic code. It is an important moment. Clad in this battle­plate, I will be the Donak of old on the outside. But I fear that I will never be the same within, and so do not stop in reverence or contemplation.
 	I key the brush on. The pistons of the pump chirr quietly. Spray mists the air.
 	Within a few seconds, the pauldron is a glossy Salamander-green, as it should be. I feel something within me – a budding optimism, perhaps? I key the paint to a yellow, wait for the brush nozzle to clean itself, then begin to rough in the stencilled outlines of flames along the bottom edge.
 	This takes me a quarter of an hour. I am lost in my work.
 	When I am done, I stop. I should add the great emblem now. The drake’s head.
 	I pause. Something is not quite right.
 	I set the paintbrush down and take up my combat knife from the table. Gripping the pauldron as hard as I can, I dig into the metal with the tip of my blade. The paint scratches, but I must go deeper, I must mark the metal as I have been marked. The blade squeals on the ceramite skin covering the plasteel beneath. The metal is strong, but I am stronger. I clench my teeth as I force the point into the otherwise flawless metal, ruining what only minutes ago I had set to rights.
 	The ceramite curls beneath the blade. Millimetre by millimetre I etch the salamander’s head into the metal directly. Of course, I could use my engraving tools and have the emblem done in minutes, but that is not the point.
 	The struggle is the point.
 	‘Brother, what are you doing?’
 	I turn, Osk’Mani is behind me with E’nesh. They appear troubled that I am vandalising my wargear, but I ignore them and turn back to my work. I am nearly finished. I do not care if they do not understand. They must also do this.
 	The last scruff of metal drops away. I hold up the pauldron. The emblem is sound, albeit rough. The hard scratches of it catch the light, making it appear to move.
 	It is what Jo’phor would do, I want to say. On Isstvan, he carved salamander heads such as this into the armour of our enemy, to make them aware that those faithful to the Emperor still lived, and would bring vengeance for their treachery. I do it to honour him, and to remember our cause. Jo’phor was right. We stand now in numbers, and together we might conclude what we began on Isstvan V.
 	It is a fitting tribute, and the renewal of a promise to pursue vengeance.
 	But I cannot speak. Not yet.
 	I look at my brothers, imploring them to understand. E’nesh nods and rests a hand upon my shoulder.
 	‘Vulkan lives,’ he whispers.
 	I nod. Whether it is true or not, we shall endure.
 	I turn back to my work. 
 	I have blunted my knife. I must sharpen it again.