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Meduson: The Ultimate Edition – Extract

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An extract from 'Meduson' by Dan Abnett.

There were no surgical lasers available.

A clustered missile strike over Isstvan V had blown out the Ionside’s flank from the lateral exchangers aft, voiding eight deployment bays and the port-side apothecarion chambers. The smaller medicae annex on the ship’s starboard side was overwhelmed with life-critical cases. Dying legionaries on stretcher boards were lined up along the hallway.

Shadrak had only lost a hand. He reported instead to a makeshift triage station set up in the forward hold. Most of the staff there were frightened serfs drummed up from the ship’s crew. Gorgonson of the Lokopt Clan was the only Apothecary present, the only one that could be spared from the chaos of the medicae annex. He looked at the hand.

‘Excise,’ he instructed the human attendant waiting nearby. ‘Clean down to the forearm bones. Leave some tissue for conjunction and graft. I’ll be back to fit the augmetic.’

Gorgonson didn’t say anything to Shadrak. There was nothing to say.

No. There was a great deal to say – just no words with which to say it.

He treated Shadrak like a piece of broken machinery presented for repair, not as a brother, an old friend or a fellow son of Terra. He didn’t even make eye contact. He just moved on to the next case, a battle-brother whose helm had been fused to his cheek by a melta burst.

The human was a young ensign, freckle-faced and red-headed. His anxiety made him seem like a small boy compared to Shadrak’s bulk. ‘Seat yourself, lord,’ he stammered, gesturing to a commandeered suit-room recliner that had a metal service trolley positioned beside it.

Shadrak didn’t much care for the term ‘lord’. He was a captain, and that word alone was more than sufficient. But he was too tired to correct the serf, too empty. He felt like the tombs of Albia that he had visited as a child: vast and enduring, but long since robbed of the precious things they had once contained.

Using his good hand, he took off his helm and placed it on the deck. Then he unstrapped his weapon belt, so that the harnessed gladius and bolt pistol would not encumber him when he sat. The belt had loops for reload clips. They were empty.

The recliner creaked under his armoured weight. He set his boots on the foot rest, leaned back and placed his ruined left arm on the trolley. It would have been palm up, if he had still had a palm.

The attendant stared at the wound. The hand was missing most of the fingers. It was a bloody mitten of blackened meat, with broken knucklebones protruding like twigs. The wrist was misaligned. The composite ceramite sleeve of Shadrak’s iron-black armour was mangled at the cuff, the torn ends stabbing into his flesh.

‘Is there pain?’

Truth be told, Shadrak hadn’t been aware of any pain – not physical pain, anyway. The other pain was too immense, too entire.

Surprised, he answered, ‘No.’

‘I have no anaesthetic,’ the man added reluctantly. ‘I have some numbing agents, but resources are so–’

‘Just do it,’ said Shadrak. His body had autonomically shut down a great number of his neural receptors at the moment of injury. His left hand didn’t feel much of anything anymore. It was just a dead weight, like a piece of kit he couldn’t unbuckle and remove.

‘There are no surgical lasers either,’ the serf apologised. Shadrak saw he was wiping a manual bone-saw with a sterile swab. The man’s hands were shaking.

Under other circumstances, in other wars, Shadrak would have been amused by the sheer pathos of the situation. But his capacity for amusement was as empty as the tombs of Albia too.

He sighed.

‘You’ll never get through the vambrace with that,’ he said. The man looked as though he was about to panic. ‘Do you have medical training?’

‘I am a junior gunnery officer, lord,’ the man replied. ‘But I have my corpsman certificate.’

Again, the ‘lord’…

Shadrak reached over with his right hand, unclasped the elbow guard and let it fall to the deck. Then he unfastened the clamps in the crook of his elbow and mid-forearm, and tugged the composite plasteel-and-ceramite sleeve off. Parts of the gauntlet were still attached, flapping loose. The buckled wrist seal was impacted into his flesh, and it took a little more effort to wrench it clear. Fluid and flecks of meat spattered the deck.

He stripped away the undersleeve, tearing the fabric. His exposed skin looked as pale as bone, in stark contrast to the mauled mess of his hand.

‘How did this happen?’ the man asked, eyes wide at the fully exposed damage.

‘Horus happened,’ said Shadrak.

He rested his arm back on the trolley. The man approached, gingerly, puffing counterseptic onto the wound from a flask, his hands still shaking. He took a grip on the bone saw, and consulted an anatomical diagram he had called up on the display of his data-slate. Shadrak knew that the man was dying to ask what he had meant, but didn’t dare.

He rested the saw’s serrated edge against Shadrak’s flesh just below his torn wrist. The skin was covered in spots of fast-clotted blood. The serf swabbed them away, and then made the first draw.

There was pain, of course, but it seemed minor and distant.

Shadrak sat back and let it pass over him. He stared at the hold’s gloomy roof, into the darkness beyond the hanging lumens. He let his mind fill with memories – memories from before the pain. He tried to recollect something as far from it as possible. Before this minor discomfort, before the greater injury of the dropsite, before Medusa, before the Gorgon, before the Great Crusade…

He thought of Terra, and the last years of the Unification Wars. He thought of his first days as a Storm Walker, serving under Lord Commander Amadeus DuCaine in the theatres of Afrik and the Panpacific. Back then, justly proud of their fresh, gene-herited might, none of them had known what the Storm Walkers would become, or what revision of structure and loyalty they would have to undergo. And even once they had known, they had embraced it wholeheartedly. It had not been a matter of reformation or repair, though fates knew that the X Legion were especially resilient when it came to repair.

It had been a matter of ascendancy.

It had been a blessing. To be called to your primarch’s side, to become one of his. Shadrak had cast off his Terran surname, a mortal vestige that had fallen into disuse anyway, and taken the name Meduson to demonstrate and affirm his allegiance to his new home world.

He had become Shadrak Meduson of Clan Sorrgol, Captain of the Tenth Company. The Storm Walkers of Unification had become the Iron Hands. They had expected nothing but glory in their future. Even if calamity chanced to overtake the Iron Tenth on the field of war, it would be a glorious calamity in the Emperor’s service.

None of them had ever anticipated this inglorious ruin. None of them could ever have imagined such a measure of raw treachery.

None of them could ever have expected this scale of loss and pain.

‘I’m sorry,’ the man said.

Shadrak opened his eyes.

Despite his clotting factors and vascular shunts, the top of the trolley was running with blood. It was dripping off the edges and making a rectangular, splatter-pattern halo on the deck. The flesh of his wrist was marked with several bloody hesitation wounds. When the young serf had finally found some confidence and purpose, he had opened a gash like a gasping mouth, but the bone was barely nicked.

The man’s hands were shaking more than ever. ‘Your bones are very… very strong, lord.’

Shadrak saw that he was sweating.

‘They were made that way,’ he replied, sitting up. ‘Give me that slate.’

The serf handed him the data-slate, and Shadrak reviewed the anatomical graphic as dispassionately as he might check a mechanical diagram. He made a note of the bone formation, compared it with what remained of his wrist, took note of blood vessels and tendon assembly and paid heed to the recommended link points for structural and neural grafting.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said, handing the slate back. ‘It’ll be quicker.’

The man slowly offered him the bloody saw, but Shadrak had already leaned over the side of the recliner and drawn his gladius. He set the edge of the blade along the clumsy guide cut that the bone saw had scored, paused, and struck his ruined hand off with a single, swift blow. It bounced off the side of the trolley and landed in the pool of blood on the deck. The serf hesitated, as though he felt it would be polite to pick the severed hand up and return it to Shadrak. Then he remembered himself, dropped the saw, and hurried forward to attend with clamps and wadding.

‘If it’s going to hurt anyway,’ said Shadrak as the man worked, binding the stump tightly, ‘it’s better that it doesn’t linger too.’

Good advice, he thought. Applies to so damned much.

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An extract from 'Deeds Endure' by Gav Thorpe.

‘Commence bombardment!’

A second passed.

Then another.

Still there was no sign that the command of Spearhead-Centurion Kratoz had been heard. The gun decks of the Phorcys remained suspiciously silent. On the ship schematic in the lower right corner of the main screen the status display showed the battle cruiser’s torpedo tubes still loaded.

The Iron Hands’ commander turned artificial eyes on his fire control officer, Khrysaor, glinting yellow in the dim light glowing from the panels and screens of the strategium.

‘Sergeant-at-arms, why have we not opened fire?’

‘Forgive me, but our firing solution has been compromised. I was attempting to recalculate.’

‘Compromised? Explain.’

‘Our companions, spearhead-centurion. The Salamanders’ vessel has moved into close orbit, coming between us and the surface of Praestes. If we open fire they will be in the path of our ordnance.’

‘They are in the way? Is Ari’i an imbecile? Does he realise what he is doing?’

‘I would suggest, commander, that he is entirely competent from our recent experience. Adjusting for navigational error would not bring the Hearthfire so close. I would have to conclude that the intercession of his ship is deliberate.’

‘Blocking our fire on purpose? I see. Truly the flesh is weak. Ari’i is mad, not stupid. Let us see if sanity can prevail.’

On board the frigate Hearthfire Pyre Warden Ari’i of the Salamanders considered the possibility that he had just sacrificed the life of nineteen fellow Space Marines, as well as his own, in a pointless gesture. It was an outcome not lost on his second-in-command, Sigilmaster Aka’ula.

‘With much respect, my lord, we have no guarantees that the Iron Hands will not simply open fire regardless.’

‘I do not recall the pyre warden offering guarantees when he asked that we remain with him after Isstvan,’ answered Sergeant Hema from the navigational controls. ‘Can not even the most prodigiously-talented artisan find that his final blow quite unexpectedly shatters the blade he has diligently forged?’

‘They will not fire,’ Ari’i assured them. Not yet, he added silently.

‘They have no sense of brotherhood, my lord, not as we understand it. They cannot be trusted to act in a rational manner.’

‘A grave error, Sigilmaster,’ replied Ari’i. ‘The Iron Hands are exceptionally dedicated to their code, and reason and rationality are prized amongst Medusa’s sons. I am hoping that my irrational act will force them to reconsider. I take it as a good sign that we are still alive to have this conversation.’

The command chamber of the Hearthfire fell silent as the trio of Space Marines waited for the Iron Hands’ response.

A shrill tone drew their attention to the sensorium controls. Hema was closest, turning from his position to tap out an inquiry into the console’s keypad.

‘Aggressive sensor sweep, localised,’ he announced.

‘From the Phorcys?’ asked Aka’ula.

‘Yes. It’s a target lock.’

‘A bluff,’ Ari’i told them, having not moved a centimetre from his place at the central command array. ‘Centurion Kratoz must know that we realise he has enough firepower to destroy us in a single salvo, even without a dedicated target lock. He is simply making a point of it.’

‘Detecting energy surge in the Phorcys’s weapon batteries.’

‘Spearhead-centurion, I submit that it is inadvisable to open fire at this juncture.’

Kratoz ignored his subordinate’s protest and considered having Khrysaor replaced. He offered the sergeant-at-arms one last opportunity.

‘All power to starboard armament, weapons officer. Prepare to open fire on target vessel.’

‘As you command, spearhead-centurion.’ The screens flashed with the redistribution of the main reactor output to the starboard energy grid. ‘I submit that we cannot conclude one hundred per cent that the Hearthfire will not have opportunity to return fire. Salamanders vessels are famed for being up-armed.’

‘They have nothing that can penetrate our shields.’

‘I further submit that our target on the surface is stationary and hence not going to depart any time soon. You could request that they remove themselves from our line of fire.’

Kratoz could no longer glare, not with artificial eyes, and it was an expression he missed on occasions such as this. Despite his borderline insubordinate tone, Khrysaor was correct in his assessment.

‘Very well. Comms officer, hail the Hearthfire.’

The comms-link display situated to Kratoz’s left crackled into life, the screen filling with static for several seconds until the connection was established. A blurry, monochrome image appeared on the display, becoming more focused after another few seconds. In grainy grey and white, Ari’i’s pitch-black skin seemed flat and unmoving. The hoop of ornamentation he wore through his right brow was like a ring of white and his eyes a light grey, though in reality Kratoz knew they were a disturbing scarlet. There was a four millisecond delay between Ari’i speaking, white teeth showing on the screen, and his bass voice coming from the speaker grille beneath.

‘Centurion Kratoz, I trust there is a solid reason for why your ship seems to have locked its weapons onto my vessel.’

‘Why in the name of the Gorgon are you getting in my way? Move aside and allow the Phorcys to open fire on the target.’

‘I cannot do that at the moment, my ally. I am still not convinced that yours is the justified course of action.’

‘You are not convinced? I have gigatonnes of destructive potential pointed at your vessel, that is all the convincing that is required. Move your ship out of my way!’

The brow-piercing swayed as Ari’i frowned.

‘You misunderstand, spearhead-centurion. Perhaps you have forgotten in the six months since our introduction, so let me remind you that I am a praetor of the Emperor’s Legiones Astartes. I do not explain myself to officers of a captain’s rank, no matter how impressive their battle-honorific. Or is it the case that the Iron Hands no longer care for chain-of-command and rank protocol between Legions? Has the loss of your primarch also stripped you of any adherence to the discipline and order for which your Legion was rightly famed?’

Ari’i’s words burned like the acid-etched geometric designs on the back of Kratoz’s hands, deliberately spiteful and yet utterly vindicated. Kratoz touched the fingers of his left to his forehead in apology.

‘My error, kinsman. I spoke in anger. As the Gorgon taught us, the flesh is weak. Shall we let more rational, calmer heads prevail over the vagaries of the heart? I would very much appreciate if you would come aboard the Phorcys to discuss the ongoing action against Praeneste.’

‘Your invitation is welcome. Both of our vessels will hold station for the moment. I will prepare to come aboard at once.’

Kratoz nodded and signalled to the comms officer to cut the link. The screen stuttered into grey and then turned blank, reflecting the spearhead-centurion’s gaunt features where Ari’i’s face had been moments before. His eye lenses looked like circles of pure white against a haggard mass of creased skin.

‘Prepare to receive the pyre warden and his party,’ Kratoz told his command crew, before his voice dropped to a mutter. ‘Perhaps in person he’ll be more tractable.’

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A Black Library Publication

All short stories published in Great Britain in 2015.
Grey Talon and The Either production scripts first published as short stories in 2015.
This edition published in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2016 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.

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