The Subsector Project

Caomer Subsector – Placid – 790.M41

  My hands were white, clenched around the handguard and grip of the lasgun that had become my whole world.

The original nature of the building we now defended still eluded me, but so long as it stood before the tidal wave approaching us, its purpose was as our bastion. Four tall, crenelated walls around a central courtyard once accessed by a single gate, which now lay twisted and fractured, as if burst inwards by the fist of the Emperor himself. The walls were thick rockcrete panels, seemingly poured straight from the standard ministorum mould repeated tens of thousands of times on tens of thousands of worlds. Thankfully, such things were built to last, and as the only man-made structure in sight of the mesa road we’d climbed to reach it, it had clearly withstood the elements passably well.

In total, my command consisted of: three Chimera armored transports, two Hippogriff fighting vehicles, three crew-served heavy stubbers, thirty-three members of my regiment, and a pair of hulking combat servitors from the Lord-General’s personal transport. The latter two seemed to be perfectly unfazed by the disappearance of their master, and perfectly content to take instructions on where to stand and what to shoot, which suited me just fine. Camzoul himself had been taken by the two Interrogators into the building which sat at the center of the walled courtyard.

My eyes seemed to instinctively avoid looking at the structure, as if staring into a bright light. While I had taken it for a scholam or shrine, the truth seemed closer to a vault, or one of the machine god’s warehouses. Its bulk was unbroken by windows, and spoke of thick armor plating covering yet more rockcrete. A single, man-sized door led inward, inscribed with a twisting gold-embossed symbol of infinity, whose meaning was unknown to me. It was through this that Camzoul had vanished, into the oily black darkness of the interior.

While such a structure may have offered a more defensive position, no member of my force had voiced the option of using it as a fallback point. It felt to me as if the building itself was pushing us away, bidding us to defend the walls with our very lives but not profane its sanctity with the mud of our boots.

Yet all defenses, even those of the mind, rather than the arm, would be paltry before the seething tide of plague which encroached upon us. Every man could hear the hordes of the archenemy braying from the blufflands, trailing away towards the smoking ruins of the plains. All view of the incandescent orbital destruction beyond was now blocked by massed clouds of soot and ash, although my eyes insisted I could see hulking, unholy creatures through the gloom.

I forced my hand to relax, lest I crack the haft of my lasgun from the force of my stranglehold.

“Maintain fire discipline until you can be assured of a hit, let the cannons whittle down their numbers.” I reminded my squad, trying to keep my voice calm and orderly through the rasp of my environment mask, conscious of my newfound leadership. A murmur of assent mixed with the mumbled prayers from men who already knew their cause was hopeless, yet who’d volunteered for it nevertheless.

Half my force was arrayed on the parapet above the gateway with the stubbers, yellowed flack armor over black fatigues like the beacon of the Astronomicon itself, a statement that Hemlock would beat back the hordes. The other half arranged themselves in the breach below, the soft glow of lho sticks peeking sharply from the gloom. Any hope of reassembling the gates was futile, and we’d instead filled the gap with a makeshift barricade of their twisted metal, along with two of the three Chimeras. I had been loath to cripple the mobility of my forces by committing them to a static position, but their heavy multilasers and hull-mounted heavy bolters would be invaluable in blunting the enemy’s charge. Joining them, the combat servitors rounded out our defenses, grim sentinels standing tall amidst jagged metal.

For a moment the careful arrangement of men, and the mathematical certainty of firing arcs and ammunition counts for each weapon, transported me back to the scholam. Sunlamps buzzing gently, shining through ranks of pupils, rather than the bristle of lasguns. The scent of vellum and the droning recitations of servo-skulls, sheafs of pulp-paper covered in the loose scribblings of learners. I had once been a man of numbers and letters, whose highest calling had been to provide the children of nobility with the tools needed to serve the Emperor.

The day my volunteer chit had arrived, signed by my own hand, I had wept. There is no conscription on Hemlock, only the grim certainty of a future plucked from potential by the ecclesiarchy’s connection to the emperor, and made reality by our faith. It had shamed me at the time, the very act of wondering how a version of myself had given it all up to join the ranks of Astra Militarum martialing for the proving grounds. I had shamed myself again as we fled from battle, and once more when I considered ending myself before Belmon had reminded me of my duty.

I recognized it now, my purpose. I had volunteered to be here, to defend the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition as they completed whatever task lay within the structure. For a moment, I surveyed the redoubt I had created to cast back our foe with pride.

When I am judged by the Emperor before his Golden Throne, let it not be said that I didn’t do my best with the tools I’ve been provided.

  They came suddenly. Even though I’d been looking for their appearance, it still surprised me. Boiling from the roadway we’d ascended only a couple hours before, ruined shapes of men shambled, hobbled, and dragged themselves towards our position in an unceasing tide.

Poxwalkers, a handful of larger plaguebearers, and a slew of pustule-covered cultists, the vanguard of the plague god’s soldiery. I fought the urge to spit my disgust, lest I foul the workings of my mask. Given the virulence of their first attack, I would take no chances for another pestilential incident.

I counted fifty, then a hundred, then two, then I stopped counting, lest it cause my aim to waver. The idea of defending against such a force was ludicrous, and indeed, I heard a sharp intake of breath from my flak-armored compatriots as the mass of decayed and aggravated flesh heaved towards us. Individuality was dissolved in favor of a roiling storm of bile, bony growths, cleavers, and an assortment of mutated maws opened in desire to spill the blood of humanity. Even at a range of a  half kilometer, the stench was almost debilitating even through my mask, and I blinked away tears of disgust.

The forces of our foe were single-minded in their objective, and hard rounds began to ping ineffectually off the regimented rockcrete panels of the walls. Clearly, some of the cultists and pestilence-corrupted guardsmen retained some ability to use their ranged weaponry. I waited precious seconds for their commitment to waver, for the poxwalkers to break ranks and spread out in anticipation of our fire. They did not. Strategy was not a consideration in their cursed, rotting innards.

“Volunteers!” I voxed. “Admonish these beasts for their impudence!”

The response was immediate, a withering rain of heavy las-fire spat from our Chimeras, along with a steady stream of mass-reactive shells from their hull bolters, slamming into the ranks of the howling unclean with wet, gelatinous reports. A moment later, as the following ranks of horrors dragged themselves over their stunned and slain vanguard, the chattering report of our crew-served heavy stubbers joined the radiance, splattering blood, shattering bone, and rending the bodies of the plague legion asunder.

Minutes dragged, and the foetid force began to spread, not from concern for their execution as I’d first anticipated, but due to the slowing from the front of their column, and their impatience to foist themselves upon us. Individuals shrugged off single rounds from the stubbers, seemingly disinterested in the holes burrowed into their torsos and limbs.

My skin crawled with enmity, these monstrous interlopers were truly antithetical to the light of the Emperor’s benediction. As they drew slowly, inexorably closer, lasfire sprouted from both the parapet around me and the barricade below, peppering the wasted flesh seething with unabated fortitude. Indeed, for every thrice-damned creature which fell, two more took their place. Every reload cost us meters, every pause in the coughing stream of the chimeras’ heavy bolter rounds allowed the expanding field of rotting death another avenue to stream towards our fortifications.

At first, I zeroed in on my targets, conscious of ammunition, each shot scoring a kill as my las burned through skulls and organs. Hundreds of yammering, groaning beasts fell to my defenders, bodies bursting in mutilation, disgorging foul gasses and clouds of chitinous insects. Yet still more crested the plateau behind them. I found my shots coming more frequently, then sustained, full-automatic fire hosing down the front ranks from above as they drew close enough to eliminate the possibility of missing.

“Fire at will! Cast back the foes of the God-Emperor!” I snarled into my commbead, sweat dripping down my face in a sheen of concentration and waves of existential dread. The others could feel it too, even as they called priority targets to one another, coordinating fire to eliminate cultists and plaguebearers with relish, I knew they realized the futility of our task.

Impossible. It’s impossible for them to bear such punishment. My mind refused to accept it, yet even as we made them pay for each step, barely thirty minutes into the engagement, our foe had drawn within a hundred meters.

The guardsman beside me sighed, his lasgun falling silent as he slumped forward on the crenelation, gouting lifeblood from his suddenly-missing throat, his armor staining from the golden-yellow of Hemlock to the deep red of gore. More solid rounds whipped around the defenders atop the wall with increasing accuracy. Despite their evident disorganization, the blighted marksmen amongst the encroaching wave of perdition had found their range.

With a curse, I ducked down below the parapet. Three of my squad had already been thinned, men I could not afford to lose to errant shots from the grinning plague cultists, costing us valuable firepower and hastening the creatures towards the gate.

“We’re getting chewed up here!” A voice, the bright young Corporal Brandt, five positions down, shouted as a slug pinged off his flack armor, sending him hard to one knee.

“Redeploy by fireteams, reinforce the barricade!” I commanded. At least down below we would be better-secured from ranged fire. Leaving only the heavy stubber crews, ammo runners, and myself, the remainder of my squad led by Brandt descended ladders fixed into the rockcrete with agility. As they did so, I played my hand, voxing orders to the hammer I had placed carefully perpendicular to my anvil. “Outrider, smite our foes in the Emperor’s name!”

“Hemlock volunteers, Major.” Mayhew, the driver of my command vehicle, growled in affirmation. I could almost hear the Hippogriff’s machine spirit in his tone, as my remaining three vehicles raced from a concealing gully a kilometer outside the walls of our beleaguered fortress. For minutes, the drone of their engines grew louder in absentia, but just as the first wave of poxwalkers reached the outer wall, their hideous claws screaming off the toughened rockcrete, our armored fighting vehicles pounced.

Bouncing over the moor, the pair of Hippogriffs and our third Chimera blasted the bulging horde of malignant infection. The clustered infantry howled as they were torn asunder, wheeling to face the new threat briefly before the armored vehicles plowed into them, scattering their distended carcasses like ninepins.

A cheer arose from my charges, and fire sprang from the barricade with renewed vigor as the plague god’s forces were rebuked. I shouldered my lasgun, focusing fire on those individuals with ranged weaponry, one, then two, then three cultists fell. I felt my heart soar as dozens of poxridden monsters were cut down. The Hippogriffs’ Vigilator Cannons sang with rage, crushing scores of benighted soldiers beneath wheels and hull alike.

The archenemy’s forces reeled as our squadron broke through the opposite side of their lines, like an arrow cast from the Emperor’s own bow. Rotating turrets continued their bombardment, shattering the cohesion of the tide with each heavy shell.

“Watch them falter!” One of the barricade Chimera gunners crowed into the channel. Yet his adulation was short-lived, the foe had reached the barricade.

Plasma fire sang from our pressganged combat servitors, incinerating those foolish enough to enter the opening of the barricade. I personally ensured our supply of grenades was expended to push back the malignant, rotting tide, to steal moments of survival even as our own casualties mounted. The stubbers depressed as far as they could to support the defenders below, hosing the pustulent masses with solid rounds until their belt-fed magazines ran dry.

I felt the wings of thousands of tiny insects on my fatigues as poxwalkers hissed adulation, pushing against the barricade. The pests were eager to burrow into my skin at the slightest opportunity. I was thankful for my thick gloves and environment mask, but others were not as lucky. Screams from one man who had lost his eye protection were swiftly silenced by the Emperor’s Mercy.

Outside the walls, our armor continued to harry the horde with Vigilator fire as seconds ticked into minutes, each breath a blessing from the God-Emperor until-

Blam!

A blast like a forge hammer lit the scene for an instant. In the space of a thought, my command Hippogriff had been reduced to a pile of scrap, rolling forward under its own momentum even as its innards burned with licking promethium flame. With a pang, I felt the loss of my erstwhile driver and gunner. At least it was quick. I bit back the thought, turning to face the newest threat.

A shrieking report followed quickly behind the Hippogriff’s death wail as a hulking tank hauled itself over the edge of the mesa. Its tracks were browned and crackling, like dry, desiccated skin, while its armored plates glistened with thick, milky mucus. It wailed despair from a thousand chattering mouths peeking from its carriage as the turret tracked for another target.

Death, death incarnate. This time, I could not repress my thoughts.

Below, my men fought and died at the barricade to buy minutes, reporting an ever more tenuous position. One Chimera was covered in hissing bile, which slowly melted through seals and armor plating alike, exposing the crew to the burrowing insects. Both servitors were felled in minutes by a thousand polearm blows from cackling poxwalkers. Men and women, loyal to the Emperor, butchered in defense of this outpost.

The hulking beast’s cannon screeched again, punching straight through the rockcrete to my left, sending a crew of lasgun-wielding stubber gunners screaming into the seething horde which rushed to tear them apart. The concussion dropped me prone on the parapet, shock reverberating through my skeleton, drowning out any thought I may have had a moment before. I felt my organs shudder, and my visioned blackened for a moment before restoring itself.

Whatever damned energies fueled it, the chaotic tank fought with power matched only by its alacrity, I hauled myself to a kneeling position in time to watch it outmatch the remaining Hippogriff as its sponsons spurted plasma fire onto the lighter vehicle’s enginarium. I snatched up my lasgun with shaking hands, feeling the weight of trauma on my nervous system.

“Fall back! To the doorway!” I tapped my commbead as I leapt to the ladder, followed by my remaining two subordinates. Beings of mottled, grey flesh tumbled through the rapidly disintegrating wall where the cannon had breached it.

Defense of the wall had become untenable.
The remaining Chimera trundled backwards, its machine spirit buzzing with protest. Brandt and his squad clung to it, firing back towards the barricade as the plague god’s servants swept it aside. Even as they did so, they were pulled down by those who already swarmed into the courtyard with screams of rage, fighting as they went down.

Another blistering scream from outside, another destructive report from the wreckage of our armor. We fought in a bristling withdrawal over the few meters to the doorway, the Chimera shuddering to a halt as its tracks were smote from their housings, still obstinately firing even as its armor was rent by the unholy strength of the plaguebearers’ possessed weaponry.

No cover, no heavy armament to speak of, an enemy which shrugged off our lasgun shots without slowing. An unenviable situation for any commander. We devolved to five beneath the strikes of our slavering foes, then three, then one.

I was alone, truly alone for the first time since I joined the guard. I slashed with my bayonet as grinning, pestilential figures closed in on me, their bodies crawling with insects. The courtyard filled with the overwhelming stench of decay.

A solid round punched into my flak armor at point-blank range, cracking it and throwing me from my feet. The breath wooshed out of my lungs as I clanged against the vast metal plating of the wall. At least three of my ribs cracked. Adjacent to me, the door still stood, resolutely closed. So it will remain if I have blood left in my veins.

“For the Emperor!” I tried to yell, to scream my rage and rebuke the archenemy. My voice would not come, emerging as a dry croak. As I felt my hand close around the grip of my laspistol, I decided it would do just as well to communicate the meaning of my faith.

A wall of flesh reached for me with dozens of hands. Each dripped with pestilence, with The Pox, The Plague, the Sleeping Fever and all other maladies of flesh and mind. I could practically see death, putrefaction, and a rotting of the soul promised by my foes.

If they promised anything else, I did not hear them.

I pointed the barrel, not at myself, but intent on scorching those who had reaved my squad from the Emperor’s sight. This time, I would not disgrace myself. If death came to me, I would face it with fire and blood.

I held down the trigger, boiling away the flesh which reached for me, intent on draining my powercell to the last.

Another scream shattered the skies above me. This time, it was not the foul daemon engine.

The skies were alive. Aircraft flicked by at high speeds, and I saw the green, the blue, the purple of the Royal Aeronauticus of Caomer. Bolter shells, multi-las fire, and the contrails of rockets streaked into the assembled ranks of pox-ridden fiends, their concussions surging through their packed personages.

From above, the air was suddenly pressured, and filled with the angry buzz of hellgun bolts. A midnight-black cordon of infantry touched down lightly around me, as if they’d just dropped from a meter above, rather than a series of circling Valkyrie gunships over fifty in the air. I could not recognize their regimental markings, but one emblem shone red and gold with intent, the symbol of the Inquisition.

My laspistol beeped empty, and I dropped it to my lap. The Emperor protects. As if to confirm my thought, the black-armored soldiers blasted away at the monsters who had seemed invincible a moment before. My vision narrowed, darkness clutching at the corners of my eyes as my concussion sought to steal consciousness away from me. For an instant or perhaps several, it succeeded, until a hiss from beside me returned me to the land of the living. The door was open.

I had to turn my head to fully perceive the familiar shapes. Godrik and Belmon stalked from within the structure, each pumping bolt pistol rounds from their sidearms, cordoning off the door to allow their master to emerge. Both seemed disheveled, wide-eyed and disturbed by what they had seen within the structure. I almost bade them to pause and converse with me, but the third figure following them drew my eye.

The Inquisitor, as it was evidently him, was tall, greying hair receding from his low brow, framing eyes which stared intently down at me. The lines of his face were severe and judgemental, and a servo-skull hovered over each shoulder. He had not bothered to draw a weapon despite the blade slung at his hip, and indeed, clasped his hands behind him as his long jacket flowed down over an armored bodyglove.

For a moment, I recalled the scholam magister who had once been responsible for testing my pupils. This man lacked his half-moon spectacles, and had gained a thick, corded scar on his jawline, but in most other aspects they were similar. Then I met his eyes.

There was a hunger within the man, a deep and abiding desire, an emptiness which could not be filled. I felt it rise, consuming the world around me, tearing me down to the atomic level as he studied my face.

“Help him up.” The man’s voice was crisp and demanding, not unkind, but used to command. A pair of troopers, recently arrived via grav-chute, seized my shoulders and pulled me bodily to my feet, where I was just barely able to maintain my balance. The Inquisitor appraised me again, leaning in intently as if examining a specimen. A microscopic evaluation of my face, my shattered flak armor, my very soul.

A thunderous explosion rocked the landscape as the flights of Avenger Strike Fighters soared low once again, spitting death as the horde retreated. For a moment, the Inquisitor’s focus was broken, and I felt my lungs expand, returning much-needed oxygen to my blood.

Minutes passed sluggishly. More soldiers, whom I later learned were Tempestus Aquilons, arrived by grav-chute. The insects which had flocked around us during the siege were banished by flamers and the pure zeal of inquisitorial purgation. Through all of it, the Inquisitor remained, staring out past the twisted remains of the barricade.

I removed my mask and goggles, retching as the full stench of the battle hit me for the first time. Fresh air, my goal, was clearly not an option. A dull, muted snowfall began around us, ash clouds from the destruction of the Placid Front drifting slowly down upon us.

“The folly of our every effort is in ashes.” This time, the Inquisitor’s voice was a murmur, barely audible over the continued scream of aircraft as they decimated the retreating horde. “Wouldn’t you agree, Alon?” He turned to me, then paused, as if realizing who he addressed.

I did not ask how he knew my name. One must not ask these things of the Inquisition, lest the question be construed as heretical prying, yet he was clearly expecting an answer.

“Ashes, or blood.” I glanced around at the fallen around us, guardsmen, poxwalkers, cultists, all were alike in death. If the Inquisitor heard me, he gave no indication of it, simply motioning to a nearby group of flamer-laden Aquilons to proceed. As it turned out, all burned alike as well.

Slowly, survivors collated around me. Of the original thirty-three members of the Hemlock four-hundred and forty-third Voluntarius seconded to the defense of the facility, five remained: Myself, a burnt and trampled Corporal Brandt (much to my surprise), the Chimera driver and gunner who had pulled their vehicle back from the barricade, and a single stubber-gunner who had been left unconscious atop the wall by the daemon engine’s hammer blow. Conversation was not forthcoming, restricted by the Aquilons flanking our beleaguered group, hotshot lasguns lowered, but prepared.

Belmon and Godrik returned, their rage evidently spent on the killing fields before the facility. Both seemed drained, Belmon’s cybernetics ground sharply with each step, while Godrik’s face was wan and pale. For a moment, they paused before their master, before the three turned to us in a single fluid motion.

“Guardsmen, I am Inquisitor Thaine of the Ordos Malleus.” The Inquisitor intoned, almost conversationally, saving his stammering commissar the effort. “You and your compatriots have given your lives in service of our God-Emperor, and for that, you have my thanks.” His words were soft, comforting, but I saw a flicker in his eyes as if the idea of doing anything but our duty was repugnant. “I offer you the choice that the ordo offers every willing soul with strength of arm and spirit: you may join us in our mission to expunge the demonic fiends who haunt this sector, or you may return to your regiment.” I felt a surge of surprise from my companions- most common sense indicates there would be no return from this most final posting.
“Major-?” Brandt began, but the Inquisitor silenced him with a raised hand.
“Your leader chose to remain here on your behalf, to cast his command into the breach and stem the tides of the unclean, but this decision you must each make for yourselves.” He smiled, but there was no warmth behind his eyes, only the clawing hunger and emptiness I’d experienced before. “If you would become a true servant of the Imperium, please, step forward.”

I glanced at the line of volunteers next to me. Brandt glanced back, then quickly away, but the remainder kept their eyes fixed downward. Perhaps they were thanking their lucky stars, perhaps they were waiting for someone else to make the first move, either way, as when the Interrogators had stopped our column those few hours ago, I would have to force the decision.

I moved to take a step towards the Inquisitor, but my leg twisted as I did so, sending me to one knee. Before I could disgrace my fatigues in the churned mulch of the ground, Corporal Brandt steadied me, leaning forward to wrap an arm around my torso.

“Forward.” I mouthed at him beneath the cover of the stooping step. He blanched at the suggestion, evidently intending to remain with the troopers, but after he steadied me, he did not step back. Faith in his commanding officer was paramount for the boy, and for that, I thanked the God-Emperor. The moment of communication passed, and the two of us stood before the Inquisitor and his Interrogators, a Scholam teacher and a young Guard lieutenant before the limitless powers of the Inquisition.

“Thank you, Alon.” The Inquisitor’s voice was almost fatherly, and for an instant, I wondered at his age. I hadn’t taken him to be particularly old, but with the juvinant treatments available to his ilk, he could be truly ancient.

“Hemlock volunteers.” I coughed, inviting a smile from the man, and a worried look from Brandt.

“It does.” Interrogator Belmon’s voice was soft, his human eye sad and distant as it observed us. I felt he wasn’t seeing Brandt and I, but was far away in time and space.

“Welcome aboard, fresh meat!” Godrik clapped his hands with a laugh, shepherding us towards the gateway. Even as he did so, the sleek form of an inquisitorial shuttlecraft swooped into the sky above us, positioning itself for a landing in the greenspace beyond the wall. A pair of Aquilons joined Brandt, myself, the Inquisitor and Interrogators as we made our way towards the landing craft. Clearly, the Inquisitor was not short on caution.

“Camzoul?” I asked Belmon as we walked away from our remaining confederates, still leaning on Brandt’s elbow. Rows of storm troopers were securing the space, deploying prefabricated equipment dropped from swooping Valkyrie, evidently preparing to conduct some sort of operation within the facility.

Belmon shook his head.

I’d already known it, but part of me was relieved, I didn’t want to have to make good on my earlier impulse to execute him. Service to the Emperor did not usually include assaulting a superior officer, and I doubt it would have been viewed charitably by the Inquisitor. Suddenly, Godrik was beside me, his arm wrapping around to support me from the opposite direction from Brandt.

“Looks like you got trampled by a very angry grox herd!” His face betrayed the strain of the day’s events, but his eyes were cheery where his master’s were empty. “I recommend stepping out of the way next time.” He whispered conspiratorily.

“I’ll bear that in mind for the future, Interrogator.” I coughed, sputtering bloody phlegm from my airway, resulting in a chuckle from the blond-haired man.

“Perhaps instead, simply avoid being in the way.” His tone needled me, but I did not rise to the bait. It would do me no good to antagonize any man who already had Thaine’s ear.

The path through the ruined barricade had been cleared, allowing men to pass by the destroyed Chimera. We emerged from the portal, within sight of the Inquisitorial shuttle, and a swift breeze whipped away the overpowering smell of decay, of blood, and of burning promethium which immolated them all.

I breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the world I’d fought to defend. Despite my injuries, despite the near-total destruction of my charges, my service to the God-Emperor was not over.

Before us, a field of ruin swaths of fire still burned on the plains below, and flashes of light marked the line of a significant Imperial counterpush. I wondered if any others of my regiment had survived. I wondered too, if the retaliation had been commanded by the Inquisitor alone.

It would be years before I asked him, but by then, neither answer would truly matter. The only thing that mattered was continuing to give all I had to maintain the Imperium, be that on the battlefields below, or in boarding the Inquisitor’s shuttle. Wherever the Emperor commanded, I would go. My oath was clear, my mission certain, even if I lacked the foresight to understand it.

Behind us, within the walls of the charnel house which had claimed the lives of my command a series of hellguns sounded, marking the final death of the four-four-three.