The Death of Antagonis (Space Marine Battles) by David Annandale

Author:David Annandale [Annandale, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

PARSING REVOLUTION

Even when viewed from orbit, Aighe Mortis couldn’t hide its essential ugliness. Some hive worlds glittered like spiked jewels from a distance, the cloud-piercing turrets of the elite creating a mirage of beauty. Others had mountain chains and oceans that defied the feature-eradicating virus of humankind. But Aighe Mortis was honest. It looked like an infected boil. The lance of Exterminatus might almost be a mercy. But the Black Dragons came to liberate, not to annihilate.

The atmosphere was a sluggish, brown-grey sludge. Where the clouds parted, which was rare enough, the urban blight of the surface was visible. From space, there was no architectural majesty to be seen. There was no detectable quality, only an endless, soul-numbing quantity. The impression Aighe Mortis presented was of a planet-wide scrapyard composed of clusters of rusted nails. The filth of the planet was so palpable that the strategium’s hololith seemed to carry a stench.

As the Immolation Maw approached, and the planet filled the bridge’s occulus, Toharan was struck by the irony of striving for purity in any form in such a place. It was, in fact, such a perfect irony that there could no longer be any doubt, he thought, that destiny was unfolding. He was staring at a test. He would be found worthy.

Volos looked at the planet and felt pity for its inhabitants. During the voyage here, he had spoken at more length with Tennesyn about what he had seen of the insurrection. Tennesyn’s analysis of the planet’s economy was depressing. No matter what happened here, its people were doomed to a squalid end. That this civilization’s endgame brutality made it a fruitful recruiting planet for the Black Dragons filled him with shame.

It wasn’t shame, though, that sent an unpleasant tingling down his fingers. Premonition was casting a long shadow before him. The awful conviction he had felt just before arriving at Antagonis was back. He could feel the blood of the innocents slicking his hands. There was an atrocity coming, and he would own it. His mouth was dry. He was Adeptus Astartes, and he knew no fear. But he did know horror.

The question in the strategium was where to make planetfall. There were no open spaces to speak of anywhere on Aighe Mortis. Vox traffic from the surface was a hopeless mess of fragments, conflicting voices, and garbling static. Some of the voices that came through were not human. Toharan ordered the reception terminated. There was no point in indulging the Chaos interference.

The Immolation Maw joined the Imperial Navy fleet at high anchor. The command ship was the Irrevocable Fate, an Overlord-class battlecruiser. Toharan hailed its commander. Admiral Keilor Hassarian radiated frustration over the vox. The Mortisian Guard had landed troops in the tens of thousands with the goal of taking and holding the government centres. The men had disappeared into the smog of war. Hassarian had no idea what progress, if any, had been made, though the state of communications did not bode well. Nor did the constant flashes that lit the clouds from below.

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