The Horus Heresy. Galaxy In Flames by Ben Counter

Author:Ben Counter [Counter, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: sf

THE SCREAM HURLED Kyril Sindermann from sleep with the force of a thunderbolt and he felt his heart thudding against his ribs in fright.

'What?' he managed before seeing Euphrati sitting bolt upright in bed and screaming fit to burst her lungs. He scrambled to his feet as Mersadie tried to put her arms around the screaming imagist. Keeler thrashed like a madwoman and Sindermann rushed over to help, putting his arms out as if to embrace them both.

The moment his fingers touched Euphrati he felt the heat radiating from her, wanting to recoil in pain, but feeling as though his hands were locked to her flesh. His eyes met Mersadie's and he knew from the terror he saw there that she felt the same thing.

He whimpered as his vision blurred and darkened, as though he were having a heart attack. Images tumbled through his brain, dark and monstrous, and he fought to hold onto his sanity as visions of pure evil assailed him.

Death, like a black seething mantle, hung over everything. Sinderman saw Mersadie's delicate, coal dark face overcome with it, her features sinking in corruption.

Tendrils of darkness wound through the air, destroying whatever they touched. He screamed as he saw the flesh sloughing from Mersadie's bones, looking down at his hands to see them rotting away before his eyes. His skin peeled back, the bones maggot-white.

Then it was gone, the black, rotting death lifted from him and Sindermann could see their hiding place once again, unchanged since he had laid down to catch a few fitful hours of sleep. He stumbled away from Euphrati and with one look saw that Mersadie had experienced the same thing -horrendous, concentrated decay.

Sindermann put a hand to his chest, feeling his old heart working overtime.

'Oh, no...' Mersadie was moaning. 'Please...

what is...?'

'This is betrayal,' said Keeler, her voice suddenly strong as she turned towards Sindermann, 'and it is happening now. You need to tell them. Tell them all, Kyril!'

Keeler's eyes closed and she slumped against Mersadie, who held her as she sobbed.

TARVITZ WRESTLED WITH the Thunderhawk controls. Streaks of bright crimson sheared past the cockpit -the fighter craft were on his tail, spraying ruby-red lances of gunfire at him.

Isstvan HI wheeled in front of him as the gunship spun in the viewscreen.

Impacts thudded into the back of the Thunder-hawk and he felt the controls lurch in his hands. He answered by ripping his craft upwards, hearing the engines shriek in complaint beneath him as they flipped the gunship's mass out of the enemy lines of fire. Loud juddering noises from behind him spoke of something giving way in one of the

engines. Red warning lights and crisis telltales lit up the cockpit.

The angry blips of the fighters loomed large in the tactical display.

The vox-unit sparked again and he reached to turn it off, not wanting to hear gloating taunts as he was destroyed and any hope of warning was lost. His hand paused as he heard a familiar voice say, Thunderhawk on a closing course

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