Fallen Angels

TEN Hidden Evils

The ground floor of Sigma Five-One-Seven's control centre had been claimed by the plant's small garrison as a makeshift barracks. The squat, thick-walled building was an ideal defensive position, with access to the plant's vox-unit and a comprehensive network of surveyors that streamed real-time data covering the entire facility - all of which made the scene of carnage inside all the harder to understand.

Zahariel stood just inside the control centre's single entrance and tried to make sense of the wreckage strewn across the wide, low-ceilinged room. Three-quarters of the space had been set with orderly rows of desks and logic engines, intended for the plant's supervisors and senior engineers once the site went into operation. The rest of the room had been claimed by at least one of the garrison's Jaeger squads. He could see torn and bloody bedrolls, kicked-over piles of ration packs and scattered crates of spare energy cells. Scorch marks stained the ochre-coloured walls, and the desks were scarred and cratered by lasgun fire.

The Librarian took a deep breath, tasting smoke and the bitter tang of blood. Astelan stood in the middle of the carnage, grimly surveying the scene.

'The attackers came in through the front door,' the chapter master said quietly. He pointed at the wall to either side of Zahariel's head. 'Most of the scorch marks indicate that the Jaegers were firing at the doorway from over there, by their bedrolls.'

'They didn't try to take cover behind the desks, just a couple of metres away,' Zahariel observed.

'Obviously they didn't have time,' Astelan said. 'The Jaegers here were off-watch and likely asleep when the attackers arrived.' He nodded towards a doorway on the far side of the room. 'The platoon's second squad was camped in the next room over, and their area is undisturbed.'

Zahariel pursed his lips thoughtfully, recreating the scene in his mind. 'Second squad is on patrol when the vox-units go out. The attackers deal with them first, then close in on the control centre and surprise the first squad.' He glanced at Astelan with narrowed eyes. 'None of which should have been possible, given that the attackers would have had to wipe out an entire squad of troops in full view of the plant's surveyors, then blast their way through this buildings reinforced door.'

The chapter master nodded. 'We found a great deal of blood upstairs in the control room.'

'Show me.'

Astelan led Zahariel deeper into the building through the deserted offices and echoing hallways of the control centre. The malevolent energies surrounding the site swirled about them as they walked. It was like feeling the eyes of a beast upon you as you were riding through a deep, shadow-haunted part of the forest, and from the set of the chapter master's shoulders, Zahariel suspected that Astelan felt it as well.

They rode a lift to the building's third floor and Zahariel stepped into the plant's large control room. Logic engines whirred and clattered from dozens of empty workstations, and flickering green pict units displayed scrolling streams of data detailing every aspect of the plant's idle machinery. Brother Gideon knelt beside the plant's security station, set in a shadowed alcove just to the right of the lift. He had pushed aside the workstation's chair, which had been built to human specifications and was altogether too frail for Gideon's armoured bulk, and was working industriously at the controls. His right knee rested in the centre of a wide pool of mostly-dried blood.

Once again, Zahariel paused and studied the scene for clues. Most of the work stations were operating in standby mode, except for two others. He quickly scanned the readouts on their screens; both were dedicated to monitoring the operation of the site's thermal power plant. The Librarian glanced back at the pool of blood. 'Someone got close enough to slit the watch officer's throat,' he mused.

'It was mid-afternoon, so that was probably the platoon commander or the senior sergeant,' Astelan said.

Zahariel nodded thoughtfully. 'He would have been the first to die. Then the perimeter patrols would have been eliminated.'

Astelan pointed to the security display. 'The killer likely monitored the ambushes from here - perhaps even coordinated them with teams on the outside. Then, when the time was right, he went downstairs and opened the door to let them finish the job.'

The Librarian clenched his armoured fists. It had been a well-organised and ruthlessly-executed assault. But to what purpose?

'What about the vox logs?' he asked.

Astelan motioned Zahariel to follow him to another alcove, this one situated at the rear of the chamber. Inside, the plant's vox-unit was still operating. Zahariel could hear the faint hum of power coursing through its frame, but the speaker was ominously silent.

The chapter master turned to a display panel and keyed a series of switches. At once, a long string of readouts cascaded down the display. 'There was only one transmission today,' he said. 'The time stamp corresponds to the signal we received at Aldurukh.' Astelan folded his arms. 'Based on the condition of the bloodstain in the security alcove, I would estimate that the signal was sent approximately thirty minutes to an hour after the watch officer was killed.'

'They could have gotten the codes from the vox operator's kit. All they had to do was distort the caller's voice and wait for us to follow procedure.' The last pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and Zahariel did not like the picture it revealed. 'Luther was right. The reaction force was lured into an ambush.'

Astelan nodded. 'It appears that the rebels managed to infiltrate the labour force,' he said.

'But to what purpose?' Zahariel countered. 'They didn't intend to destroy the plant, obviously.'

The chapter master cocked a thin eyebrow at the Librarian. 'They managed to wipe out an entire Jaeger company. Isn't that enough?'

'How do we know the Jaegers are dead?' he asked. 'Have you found any bodies?'

Astelan glanced away. For the first time, the Astartes looked faintly uncomfortable. 'No,' he said. The thought sent a chill down Zahariel's spine. 'We've found plenty of blood, but that's all.'

'And whoever sent that signal also had some way of controlling whatever force is interrupting our vox transmissions,' Zahariel continued. 'Whatever this is, it's not something the rebels have ever used before.'

He turned away from the vox-unit and paced across the room, pausing to study the two functioning work stations. 'What do we know about the labourers?' he asked.

Astelan shrugged. According to the maintenance logs, they arrived about a week ago as part of the quarterly rotation. The Administratum flies them in by shuttle from the Northwilds arcology and houses them in a pair of dormitories on the north end of the site.'

'No sign of them, either?' Zahariel asked. 'We haven't searched the dormitories yet, but I don't expect we'll find anything.'

Zahariel shook his head. 'They have to be here somewhere, brother,' he said grimly. 'Three hundred bodies don't simply vanish into thin air.'

'Chapter Master Astelan!' Gideon cried. 'I've found something!'

Zahariel and Astelan strode swiftly to the security station. The pict displays at the work station were all dark. 'What's this?' the Librarian said.

'I've been checking all of the surveyors and pict arrays covering the site,' Gideon said. 'All of the units have checked out fine up to this point, but the units on level B6 all appear to be dead.'

Zahariel gave Astelan a sidelong glance. They'd all memorised the layout of Sigma Five-One-Seven, down to the smallest detail.

'That's where the thermal vent is located,' the chapter master said.

Zahariel could see the memories of Sarosh lurking deep in Astelan's eyes. They all remembered the vast cavern beneath the earth, filled with millions upon millions of corpses offered up to the Saroshi's obscene god.

Not here, he wanted to say. This is Caliban. Such things do not happen here.

Instead, Zahariel gripped his force staff tightly in his hand and addressed the chapter master. 'Assemble the squad,' he said, his voice betraying nothing of the despair he felt.

Astelan nodded curtly. 'What are your orders?'

Zahariel glanced once more at the dark pict screens. 'We're going to go down there and find out who is responsible for this,' the Librarian replied.

'Then, by the primarch, they're going to pay for what they've done.'

They formed up by the Land Raider as the sun was setting behind the mountains to the west. A thick bank of grey clouds was rolling ponderously towards the site from the south, carrying with it the threat of a storm. The weather had grown increasingly wild and unpredictable over the years as the Imperium transformed the surface of the planet and filled the skies with plumes of smoke from their manufactories. Magos Bosk and the rest of the Administratum insisted that the changes were nothing to be concerned about. Zahariel eyed the looming clouds warily and wondered if Magos Bosk had ever conducted a squad-level skirmish in a raging gale. He confessed to himself that the odds seemed unlikely in the extreme.

They boarded the assault tank and crossed the wide landing field, heading into the deep shadows filling up the alleys and access ways to the east of the site. The plant's massive thermal exchange unit was a black tower - wider at the base, then narrowing a bit at the middle before flaring open once more as it soared high into the sky over Sigma Five-One-Seven. Red and blue hazard lights flashed insistently along its length, warning low-flying aircraft to keep away; when the plant went into full operation the tower would be wreathed in hissing ribbons of waste steam, tinted a sickly orange by chemical flood lamps.

The Land Raider's driver circled around the base of the huge tower until he came upon a wide, low-ceiling entrance at the southeast side. At Zahariel's command, the tank rumbled to a halt a few dozen metres from the opening, then the squad dismounted into the garnering darkness. Immediately, Astelan pointed to three sets of cargo crates, each arrayed in a crescent shape with the closed ends pointed towards the tower entrance. Zahariel recognised them even before he saw the familiar shapes of heavy stubbers aimed at the thermal unit's entrance.

The Astartes approached the makeshift weapons cautiously, sweeping the shadows with their bolt pistols. Dried blood stained the permacrete around each of the positions; Zahariel's keen eyes detected scores of small craters where lasgun bolts had eaten into the pavement around the emplacements. A bloodstained portable vox-unit lay near the centre weapons station, its control panel smashed to pieces.

Zahariel eyed the heavy stubbers. None of them showed signs of having been fired. 'It looks like the reaction force tried to set up a security cordon around the thermal plant's entrance,' he declared, 'the gunners must have been ambushed later, once the others were gone.'

Astelan nodded in agreement. 'You think they realised what was going on?'

The Librarian shook his head. 'They knew only what the enemy told them,' Zahariel said. 'I expect the company commander got off his Condor and found a frantic man or woman in labourer's coveralls who told him that the rebels had taken over the thermal unit and were planning to blow it up. So the captain rushed in there with everything he had, hoping to stop the enemy before it was too late.'

Astelan glanced back at the Librarian. 'And now we're going in there as well?'

Zahariel nodded grimly, raising his force staff. 'Whatever the enemy might expect, they aren't ready for the likes of us.'

The members of the squad readied their weapons in mute agreement. Attias moved up alongside Zahariel, his silver death's-head mask seeming to float eerily out of the darkness. 'Loyalty and honour,' he rasped.

'Loyalty and honour, brothers,' Zahariel answered back, and led his squad inside.

The air inside the thermal exchange unit was hot and humid, gusting like the breath of a huge, hungry beast. Red emergency lighting bathed the interior crimson, outlining billowing clouds of steam and glistening on drops of condensate flowing from overhead pipes and ductwork. Zahariel smelled the bitter reek of corroded metal and freshly spilled blood.

'I thought the thermal exchanger wasn't online yet,' he said aloud.

'It's not,' Gideon replied. 'I checked the readouts myself.' He pulled his auspex unit from his belt and tested it. The screen flickered and then filled with a cascade of data. The Astartes tried several different detection modes, then shook his head in disgust and put the unit away. 'No readings,' he reported, 'or at least, none that make any sense. I'm picking up a lot of interference from somewhere close by.'

'Somewhere,' Attias echoed, 'or something.'

'Tactical pattern Epsilon,' Zahariel interjected curtly, unwilling to let that train of speculation proceed any further. 'Stay sharp, and watch for likely ambush points.'

Within moments the squad was arrayed in a rough octagonal formation, with a warrior at each corner of the octagon and Zahariel and Gideon, the auspex bearer, in the centre. It was a solid formation that drew on the ancient teachings of the Order, and was suited to dealing with close assaults from any direction. Abruptly he found himself wishing that he'd thought to equip the squad with a flamer or two before leaving Aldurukh, but that couldn't be helped now. Once he was satisfied that all of his warriors were in position, Zahariel waved the squad forward.

Drawing on the maps he'd memorised, Zahariel guided the squad through the twisting corridors surrounding the base of the thermal tower. Visibility was limited; even with the Astartes' enhanced senses the plumes of mist and the dim red lighting created illusory patterns of movement and obscured vision beyond more than two metres. Zahariel could not help but admire the courage of the Jaegers who had preceded them; the human troops would have been all but blind as they tried to reach the lower levels of the tower. He doubted that they'd made it very far.

The terrible heat and the reek of corruption increased as they pressed further inside, and the sense of malevolence grew stronger and more focused on Zahariel and the squad. He could feel its weight pressing against him like a smothering cloud, probing his armour in search of a way inside. The cables connecting his mind to the psychic hood grew deathly cold, and a film of black frost condensed on the haft of his force staff despite the cloying heat. He was tempted - strongly tempted - to reach out with his own psychic power and get a sense of the enemy that lay somewhere ahead, but years of training with Brother-Librarian Israfael cautioned against it. Don't waste your energies swinging blind, Israfael had told him many times. Or worse, leave yourself open to a surprise attack. Conserve your strength, maintain your defences, and wait for the enemy to reveal themselves. And so he did, resolutely pushing the squad forward and waiting for the first blows to fall.

There were four industrial-grade lifts that provided access to the tower's lower levels, but they were deathtraps as far as Zahariel was concerned. If the enemy had access to a meltagun - and the Jaeger reaction force had carried two - then a single blast into such a tight space could wipe out half his squad. He had Brother Gideon disable their controls so the enemy couldn't use them either, then they began their descent via one of the tower's four long stairways.

The stairs didn't switch back upon themselves, like in most structures; instead they descended in a long, arcing spiral that wound ever deeper into the earth. The foul presence permeating the air grew stronger with each and every step. Zahariel concentrated on putting one foot in front of the next, recalling the labyrinthine steps that wound through the ancient stone beneath Aldurukh itself. Memories flitted through his mind as he walked; of his initiation into the Order and his long walk through darkness at Jonson's side. Fragmentary images came and went: stone steps and torchlight, the rustle of fabric, Nemiel's presence at his side as they descended a flight of stairs to… where? He couldn't quite recall. The memories were vague and only half-formed, like scenes from a dream. A dull pain swelled in the back of his head as he tried to concentrate on the images, until finally he was forced to push the thoughts away.

More alarming were the cracks that began to appear in the outer walls of the stairwell as they descended deeper beneath the ground. Black roots had forced their way through freshly-laid permacrete more than a metre thick, spreading across the inner surface of the curved walls and spilling black, foul-smelling dirt onto the stairs. Red light glistened on the segmented bodies of insects that wormed and writhed their way among the roots. Ghostly white cave spiders, each as big as Zahariel's hand, rose up from their nests and brandished their long legs in challenge as the Astartes went past.

By the time they reached the lowest levels the stairway was little more than a tunnel of raw earth and dripping plant matter, thick with crawling, chittering life. Strange, misshapen insects, bloated and foul, squirmed amid dense networks of rotting root matter. A long, segmented millipede, nearly as long as Zahariel's forearm, uncoiled like a spring from the curve of a root ball and leapt onto his shoulder, stabbing wildly at the armour plate with its needle-like stinger. He brushed the foul thing away with the haft of his force staff and crushed it beneath his boot.

Still, the squad forged ahead, pressing through the ever-constricting tunnel until Zahariel began to think they would be forced to cut a path with their chainswords. Finally, Astelan and the warrior beside him at the front of the formation came to a halt. The air was stifling, thick with heat and the smell of rot, and the red emergency lights had long since given out. Dimly, Zahariel could sense a vague, greenish glow down and to the right, past Astelan's shoulder.

'We've reached the bottom of the stairs,' Astelan said quietly, casting a wary eye up at the swarms of insect life rustling ceaselessly overhead. 'What are your orders?'

There was no telling what they might find beyond the opening to level B6. Zahariel was surprised the enemy had let them penetrate so far - he'd operated on the assumption that they would encounter resistance almost immediately, which would have at least given him some idea of what they were up against. The time might come very soon when he would have to draw upon his psychic abilities, whether he wanted to or not. He needed information more than anything else at this point.

'Press forward,' he said. 'Drive for the thermal core. It's the largest chamber on this level.'

The chapter master nodded and stepped into the green-lit blackness without hesitation. Zahariel followed with the rest of his squad, bolt pistol at the ready. His feet came down on thick roots and cablelike vines stretching across the floor beyond the stairwell. Draughts of stinking air gusted past his helmet, and the insect noise surrounding the warriors swelled to frantic life.

They pressed on down a low-ceilinged passage for more than a hundred metres, passing numerous cross-corridors as they went. The clinging plant life continued unabated down the passageway, and Zahariel realised the pale green glow came from colonies of bloated grubs that clung tenaciously to the twisted roots. Sounds of restless movement echoed all around them, seeming to grow louder with each passing moment. At one point Zahariel heard the clatter of talons behind a cluster of pipes half-hidden among a network of vines running along one of the walls, but he couldn't catch sight of the creature that made the noise.

'How much farther?' Gideon asked quietly. The warrior's voice was tense. The continual screeching and rustling had the entire squad on edge.

'Fifty more—' Zahariel started to say, just as the air filled with a hideous screeching and dark, armoured shapes burst from the plant life all around them.

He was glancing over at Gideon just as a segmented creature struck downwards at the Astartes from the network of thick pipes running overhead. It was swift as a tree viper but as thick as Zahariel's upper arm, with hundreds of chitin-sheathed legs and a broad head set with a half-dozen compound eyes. In a flash it had wrapped around Gideon's torso and lifted the huge warrior off the ground, lunging and snapping at the back of his helmet with its curved mandibles.

Bolt pistols barked and chainswords howled in the confined space as the squad was set upon from all sides. Gideon twisted in the monster's grip, slashing at its body with his whirring blade. Zahariel blew the creature's head apart with a single shot from his bolt pistol just as a powerful impact struck the back of his helmet and pitched him off his feet.

Zahariel tried to twist his body as he fell, but the creature had his helmet gripped in its mandibles and it was stronger even than he. It drove him face-first onto the floor, wrenching his head left and right as it tried to crack the helmet he wore. Something sharp jabbed at the back plate of the helmet like a dagger, trying again and again to punch through the ceramite. Warning icons flashed before his eyes, informing him of his suit's failing integrity.

With his elbows and knees on firm ground the Librarian flexed his augmented muscles and managed to twist onto his right side. His force staff was pinned beneath him, but he was able to aim behind him at the creature's thrashing body. It took three bolt pistol shots in rapid succession to blow the thing apart, showering him with fragments of chitin and reeking ichor. In the muzzle flashes of his pistol Zahariel could see three more of the monsters rearing up from the walls like snakes, their mandibles clashing as they prepared to strike. Without hesitation, he summoned up the full force of his will and unleashed the psychic fury of the warp.

He had practised the attack countless times under Israfael's tutelage, but the sheer intensity of the energy coursing through him took Zahariel by surprise. It roared through him like a torrent, far stronger and easier to grasp than he'd ever experienced before. A nimbus of crackling energy surrounded the Librarian; he felt each and every vein in his body turn to ice, radiating from the cables of the psychic hood at the back of his skull, and the three creatures were engulfed in a torrent of raging fire that coalesced from the very air itself. They burst apart in the intense heat, their carapaces exploding from within.

Zahariel gave a shout of triumph and surged to his feet. Skeins of crackling lightning played over the surface of his staff, and icy power raged along his limbs. For a dizzying instant his awareness sharpened to a supernatural degree, reaching into dimensions beyond the understanding of ordinary humans. The permacrete and metal of the corridor faded into near-invisibility, while living matter was etched with vibrant clarity. He could see the layers of root and vine blanketing the walls and ceiling, and every one of the thousands of insects living in their midst. He could also see the score of worms surrounding his squad, wrapping about the warriors and biting at their armoured forms.

Worse, he could see the awful, unnatural taint that pulsed through it all. It stained every living thing in the corridor around the Astartes, corrupting them like a cancer. A cancer that seethed with awful, otherworldly sentience.

The sight of it stunned Zahariel. It etched itself indelibly into his brain. This was worse by far than the horrors he'd witnessed on Sarosh. There, too, he had been deep beneath the ground, surrounded by death and corruption, but on Sarosh, the vile, jellylike creature they'd faced had been clearly born of the shifting madness of the warp. This taint, this evil that suffused every root and vine, was inextricably part of Caliban itself.