Victories of the Space Marines by Chris Wraight

Author:Chris Wraight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

BUT DUST IN THE WIND

BY JONATHAN GREEN

The Thunderhawk gunship dropped through the planet’s exosphere like a star falling from heaven, its scorched and scarred hull-plating glowing hot as molten gold. Beneath it lay a vast shroud of cloud cover and beneath that the frozen world of Ixya.

Clouds boiled and evaporated at the caress of the burning craft, and as the vessel continued its descent, those on board were afforded their first view of the snowball world at last.

Ixya might look no more than a vast planet-sized chunk of ice drifting silently through space at the far reaches of the freezing depths of the Chthonian Subsector, but according to the data the Chapter’s archivists on board the Phalanx had been able to coax from the ancient Archivium’s cogitators, it was the foremost provider of essential ores and precious metals to the forge worlds of the Chthonian Chain.

Platinum, iridium, plutonium and uranium were all found buried within the crust of the planet, even though it was compressed beneath ten kilometres of crushing ice in some places. Iron ore was found in vast quantities in great seams running practically the entire circumference of the planet’s equator and it was the only attainable source of a number of rarer elements for twelve parsecs.

But all that was currently visible to the Thunderhawk’s pilot was kilometre after kilometre of fractured ice sheet, crawling glaciers and frost-formed blades of frozen mountain ridges.

‘Any lock on the source of the signal yet?’ Sergeant Hesperus enquired of the battle-brother piloting the craft.

‘Triangulating now, sir,’ Brother-Pilot Teaz replied via the vessel’s internal comm.

There was a pause, accompanied by an insistent pinging sound as the Fortis’s machine spirit gazed upon the blue-white world through its auspex arrays, seeking to pinpoint the source of the distress signal. Mere moments later, the servitor hard-wired into the gunship’s systems in the co-pilot’s position began to burble machine code, its eyes glassy and unblinking as it continued to stare perpetually out of the front glasteel shield of the Thunderhawk’s cockpit.

‘Scanners indicate that it is coming from a location three hundred kilometres from our current position. Signs are that it is uninhabited. But...’ Teaz trailed off.

‘What is it, brother? What else is the Fortis telling you?”

‘Very little at that location. But there is a large settlement – a Mechanicus facility of some kind two hundred kilometres from here.’

‘The miners,’ Hesperus mused. ‘And the distress signal isn’t coming from there?’

‘No, brother-sergeant.’

‘And yet the facility is inhabited?’

‘Reading multiple life-signs, sergeant. Cogitator estimates somewhere within the region of three thousand souls.’

‘And are you reading any other settlements of comparable size anywhere else upon the planet’s surface?’

‘No, sir. This would appear to be the primary centre of human occupation.’

‘Then I think we should pay our respects to the planetary authorities, don’t you, Brother Teaz?’

‘Shall I hail them, sergeant?’ the pilot asked.

‘No, brother, that won’t be necessary. Besides, I am sure they already have us on their scopes and if they don’t already know of our imminent arrival, then they soon will. I think it only right that we meet with those charged with the care of this world face to face.

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