Iron Hands by Jonathan Green

Author:Jonathan Green
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

ARAKEN

The forces of warp space rage like the mightiest ocean, and if a mortal could perceive the sound of that realm, he would hear every noise in the universe voiced simultaneously, and would be driven utterly and profoundly insane by the experience.

– The heretic Elijah of Mephisto V

NINE

GHOSTS OF THE WARP

In high orbit over Herod

‘Commander on the bridge!’ the yeoman of the watch announced in a strident bellow as Iron-Father Gdolkin strode into the command nave of the Iron Hands strike cruiser Ajax, bodyguard-servitors Joab XIII and Ishmael 192 following two paces behind. There was the crashing ring of the Space Marines present coming to attention as the thrall-technicians and hard-wired servitors continued with their work about the bridge.

Gdolkin acknowledged Brother Lagan of the watch with a curt nod and then, before doing anything else, approached the bronze statue of the great primarch. Ferrus Manus’s hands were plated silver, as was traditional with icons of the Chapter. Gdolkin made his obeisance, making the sign of the aquila over his chest as he did so. Then he rose and approached the main command pulpit of the bridge.

‘As you were,’ he said, and the Iron Hands went about their business again.

Hovering in front of the pulpit was the unmistakable form of Iron-Captain Strake, the true commander of the Ajax. He had been with the vessel since the Grailsword Campaign against the alien eldar one hundred and eleven years previously. At that time, however, he had still had his legs. It wasn’t until three years later, when during its darkest hour the Ajax had been crippled and almost destroyed in battle against a tyranid hive-fleet, that Captain Strake had suffered appalling disabling injuries to match.

The whole of the left-hand side of his face was disfigured by bio-acid burns, giving it an almost skeletal appearance. This, married to the fact that the other half of his head was now made up of iron-plated augmetics, meant that Strake’s face looked not unlike the Machina Opus cyborg-skull symbol of the mighty Adeptus Mechanicus.

As well as having his legs shorn off by a splinter of bone shrapnel from a tyranid spore mine, so great was the damage caused to his spine by the bio-acid that it would have been almost impossible to equip Strake with bionic legs. And besides, the itinerant captain did not feel that a pair of legs was the most practicable thing he needed as commander of an Astartes battleship. At his request techno-surgery had been performed to fit him with an anti-grav assembly, beneath his waist, not unlike those used in the manufacture of servo-skulls.

In Strake’s mind the machine was the ideal, and if the physical was not good enough, why keep to the pattern set by inadequate biological forerunners? Whilst others were thrown about by shuddering impacts or the turbulence created by spatial anomalies, he was able to keep a clear grip on the situation, no longer in physical contact with the floor. No matter how much the Ajax might pitch or yaw he stayed forever upright.

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