Deliverance Lost

With this completed, Alpharius took off his helm and shoulder guards and placed them on the armour stand. He removed his gauntlets, vambraces and elbow guards and locked them in place too, before removing the outer greaves protecting his lower legs.

He had eschewed his more formal ceremonial garb for the audience with Horus. This particular suit of armour was the same as that issued to many of his legionaries, bearing no symbols that would mark out Alpharius as anything other than an ordinary warrior of the Alpha Legion. Painted with several coats of blue over the bare ceramite, it was the third such suit Alpharius had possessed on board the Alpha, though he had others on several different vessels, each identical to this. The first had been abandoned on Thiatchin after anti-compliance forces had compromised Alpharius’s desert bunker complex and the primarch had been forced to retreat without it. The second had been half-destroyed during fighting against orks on Actur Three-Eighteen and the battle damage had rendered it easily identifiable. This suit had lasted for twelve years so far, but Alpharius’s meticulous maintenance and attention to the replenishment of the livery and insignia meant that it was as flawless as the day the artificers had created it. There was not a scratch, burr, mark, dent or even brushstroke that marked it out as exceptional, not a detail that might be used to identify Alpharius amongst the other warriors of the Legion.

+I sense a presence.+

The clipped, false tones of his guest’s translating device sounded from the sleeping chamber. Alpharius, now divested of much of his armour, crossed the main room quickly and entered the bunkroom.

The Cabal’s emissary hovered at the foot of the low bunk. At first glance it appearance to be a glass sphere no larger than his palm, filled with swirling yellow and green gases, several digital devices attached to the globe without any obvious pattern. Looking more closely, one could see the creature itself inside its artificial habitat. It looked like a tiny skeletal hand, with seven fingers and no thumb, its sensory organs dark, shimmering lines against the brittle, pale flesh of its body.

Its true name was unpronounceable, its gender uncertain, but Alpharius thought of the alien as a ‘him’ due to the thin, reedy voice emitted by the translator, and referred to the creature by the approximate name of Athithirtir.

Bubbles formed in the gas, though from what orifice Alpharius was not sure, and the translator emitter set at the bottom of the globe rattled into life.

+I sense you have met the Warmaster.+

‘Horus has allowed us to continue with the infiltration of the Raven Guard,’ said the primarch. ‘Everything will proceed as we have discussed.’

+I sense that you are not being forthright.+

Alpharius suppressed a growl of a

‘Horus is suspicious, that is all,’ said Alpharius. ‘He will need to be handled carefully.’

+I sense reticence. Your role is clear. Horus must win this war outright. The Primordial A

The translator let out a stream of incomprehensible high-pitched sounds.

‘From the warp, you mean?’ said Alpharius.

+Such a short word for such a complex phenomenon.+

‘Creatures are being summoned from the warp? You mean daemons, yes?’ Alpharius sat on the end of the bunk and the environment globe lowered, floating level with the primarch’s face, just out of reach. Different coloured bubbles flashed in the depths.

+Wheels are turning. Traps are being laid. Your brothers loyal to the Emperor will face their darkest foes. They must fall.+

‘So you have said before. For the moment we must wait to find out what Corax will do and if your prophecies are true.’

+Not prophecies. Accurate. True. The Raven will meet the Emperor and he will be given a gift that can change the course of the coming war. This must be destroyed.+

‘It seems such a waste, to destroy this gift,’ said Alpharius. He stood up and paced to the door before turning to look at Athithirtir. ‘I think it would be better in the hands of the Alpha Legion than turned to scrap.’

+That is not what we agreed. I insist that you remember our agreement. The device and the Raven Guard will be destroyed. The plan must continue.+

‘I think not,’ said Alpharius. ‘Already my twin brother Omegon is on Kiavahr, the world around which Deliverance orbits. We have allies amongst the people there, old foes of Corax who do not like their new Mechanicum masters and who strive for independence from the Imperium. Rest assured, the Raven Guard will be destroyed, but not before Omegon claims this prize for the Alpha Legion.’

The alien’s words came out as a flutter of untranslatable mechanical shrieks, and its globe bobbed up and down in agitation, the gas roiling within.

‘Settle yourself,’ said Alpharius with a laugh. ‘We wouldn’t want you to break on something, would we?’

+Your dishonesty will be communicated to the Cabal.+

‘When I have the prize in my hands, and Horus is one step closer to overthrowing the Emperor, we shall see if the Cabal disapproves of my actions,’ said Alpharius as he stepped out of the bunk chamber. ‘Until then, you can keep your opinions to yourself.’

He hit the lock switch on the bedroom door, cutting off Athithirtir’s enraged metallic screech.

Everything had been set in motion, and now came the hardest part: waiting. Waiting for his counterpart on Kiavahr, his twin Omegon, to make contact with the anti-Imperial forces on the forge-world; waiting for his operatives within the Raven Guard to make themselves known to Omegon.

Alpharius sat on one of the couches, elbows on knees, fingers steepled at his chin, as his mind went over the plan as it stood. With Horus now set up to play his part, there was nothing to interfere with the smooth enactment of the Alpha Legion’s scheme. Everything would pan out as Alpharius had envisaged.

THREE

A Traitor in the Midst

Blacklight

Corax Makes a Speech

‘PICKET SHIPS DETECTED.’ Ephrenia’s a

‘Three destroyers, overlapping sensor sweeps, detecting plasma trails of three more vessels, probably light cruiser class,’ she continued.

The Avengerwas only two days from reaching translation point, far enough away from the gravitic pull of Isstvan’s star to make a safe warp jump. For the last three days the net thrown up by the traitor ships had been closing in, but this was the closest they had come, only a few hundred thousand kilometres away.

Corax glanced at a screen in the arm of the command throne, showing the relative positions of the vessels. In a moment he had assessed their trajectories and the coverage of the sca

‘Too close to alter course,’ he declared. ‘We will have to make a dash for the translation point. Shut down all auxiliary systems, impose blacklight protocols, divert power savings to the engines.’

A series of affirmatives chorused from the assembled staff and legionaries. The primarch turned his attention to Commander Bra

‘I want you and Agapito to make a stern-to-prow inspection. Ensure all support systems are at minimal output. Pass the word to Solaro and Aloni to enforce the blacklight protocols.’ The primarch raised his voice. ‘I want full energy balance in ten minutes, no later.’