The First Heretic

Evidence of the human crew’s demise was everywhere to behold. Argel Tal, bred without the capacity to feel fear, was not immune to disgust nor shielded by his genes from feeling regret. Each corpse he passed watched him with a lifeless stare and open jaws. They screamed in silence. Shrunken, yellowed eyes accused him with every step he took.

‘We should have defended them from this,’ he murmured the words aloud without realising.

‘No.’ Xaphen’s tone invited no argument. ‘They were naught but resources for the Legion. We do the Legion’s work, and they were the price we paid.’

Not the only price, Argel Tal thought.

‘This decay,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’ The captain’s pace was increasing with each step he took, and the closer he came to the bridge, the nearer he found himself to running. Strength flooded him, its presence a welcome contrast to the weakness only minutes before.

The hallway was a major thoroughfare running along the ship’s ridged back like a spinal column. At all hours of day and night, it was busy with crew members going about their duties.

Except now. Now it was silent but for Argel Tal’s footsteps, and his closest brothers with him. Rotting bodies lay gaunt and withered along the decking, husked by the dry, stale air put out by the ship’s oxygen scrubbers.

‘These bodies have been dead for weeks,’ said Xaphen.

‘That’s not possible,’ Malnor said. ‘We were unconscious for no more than a handful of minutes.’

Xaphen looked up from where he knelt by the desiccated corpse of a servitor. Its bionics had shaken loose of the withering organic limbs, and lay pristine on the floor.

‘Unconscious?’ he shook his head. ‘We were not unconscious. I felt my hearts burst in that beast’s claws. I died, Malnor. We all died, just as the daemon said we would.’

‘My hearts beat now,’ the sergeant replied. ‘As do yours.’

Argel Tal saw the same. Retinal displays didn’t lie. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘is not the time. We need to get to the bridge.’

The warriors moved again, stepping over the dried corpses that grew more frequent as they neared the command deck.

Eighty-one dead bodies waited for them on the bridge.

They lay sprawled or sat hunched, with several locked foetal on the floor, while others were cringing, curled, in their seats.

‘They knew what was happening,’ said Xaphen. ‘This wasn’t fast. They felt something as they died.’

Argel Tal hesitated by the twisted figure of Captain Janus Sylamor, curled in her throne as if she sought, in her last moments, to escape something that prowled nearby. Her sunken features, almost mummified, told him all he needed to know.

‘Pain,’ he said. ‘What they felt was pain.’

Dagotal was already by one of the drive consoles, dragging an officer’s body off the controls. The cadaver slumped to the decking, only to find its rest further disturbed by Xaphen, who set about examining it – carving into it – with his combat blade.

Dagotal swore in back-alley Colchisian. ‘I drive a jetbike, sir. I can’t fly an Imperial warship, even if we had the slaves necessary to feed the engine furnace.’

Argel Tal turned from the ship captain’s husk. ‘Just give me an overview.’

His voice still didn’t sound, didn’t feel, quite right. As if someone nearby was speaking the words in unison with him, in mocking chorus.

‘We’re dead in space,’ Dagotal adjusted more controls to no effect. ‘Power hasn’t been restored to all systems. Not even close. The Geller Field is enabled, but we lack void shields, plasma propulsion, energy weapons, projectile weapons, and life support on half the decks.’

‘Manoeuvring thrusters?’

‘Sir,’ Dagotal hesitated. ‘We’ve drifted significantly in the storm’s tides from where we came to all stop. Taking that into account, and lacking warp flight... On manoeuvring thrusters it will take us at least three months to break clear of the... nebula.’

‘It’s not a nebula,’ Xaphen murmured. ‘You’ve seen what’s outside. It’s not a nebula.’

‘Whatever in the name of hell it is,’ Dagotal snapped back.

‘Hell is a good enough word for it,’ Xaphen muttered, still distracted in his work.

Argel Tal lifted the body of Captain Sylamor from the oversized Astartes command throne, laying her to rest at the edge of the command deck. When he returned, he took her place, his armour clanking against the metal of her seat.

‘Fire the thrusters,’ he ordered. ‘The sooner we begin, the sooner we’ll be back with the fleet.’

‘Bloodless,’ Xaphen announced. He rose from his knees, blade in hand, the grisly dismemberment complete at his feet. Vox-officer Amal Vrey’s autopsy would never enter any official record, but it was unarguably thorough.

‘The bodies,’ Xaphen said, ‘they’re bloodless. Something leeched the blood from their veins, killing them all.’

‘Ingethel?’

‘No, Ingethel was with us. Its kin did this.’

Its kin. The daemon’s words resurfaced in Argel Tal’s aching mind. ‘Yes. One of my kin. It comes for you.’