CHAPTER 1

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Sergeant Allectius sprinted through the trees towards the sounds of battle. Trunks blurred around him as he wove amongst the foliage with superhuman precision. A Space Marine standing by was a terrifying sight unto himself. It was seeing them move, however, that most often sparked ‘transhuman dread’ in mortals. It seemed impossible for something of such size and power to move so swiftly.

A pity, then, that the foe they faced seemed beyond fear.

The forest was filled with cacophony. The thunder of bolt weapons, the howl of chainswords and the odd sizzling whine of the xenos weaponry. The latter made his teeth ache every time he heard it, seeming to vibrate up and down his bones on some odd continuum. The former, however, was a comfort: his men were still alive, still fighting. For now.

Allectius saw the first knot of battle up ahead. Two of his brothers were duelling fiercely with a xenos horror. A skeletal torso surmounted a tripod of legs, skull face leering in its fixed grin. The forearms had been replaced; it had no more use for hands. Great blades ran down the sides instead, crackling with strange energies. Destroyers, they called them. Mindless abominations, whose only urge was to dismember and destroy. Even the necrons treated them like beasts, herding them into the foe. The sun-dappled beauty of their natural surroundings only made the stark horror stand out more.

The sergeant absorbed all of this in a beat of his dual hearts and angled towards the creature’s back. Thoughtless the creature might be, but it did not diminish its deadliness. Even as he approached, one of its hyperphase swords slashed straight through the chainsword of the Astartes on its left. The blade carved on and through his torso, spraying blood across the greenery. His partner seized this opening and lunged forward, chainsword gouging a sparking hole in the monster’s side.

The moment the Space Marine withdrew his weapon and stepped back from a counter swipe, the necron’s wound began to close. Metal flowed together like liquid, sealing the opening as inner workings grew back together.

Allectius was there. It sensed his charge at the last second, turning its head. Too late. He aimed his plasma pistol, powered up to maximal mode, and fired. An incandescent blue-white beam of fury erupted from the sidearm. His war-plate’s systems reported a heat spike just from holding the weapon. The coruscating blast struck the necron in the back and punched clean through the other side of it in an eruption of liquid metal and sizzling fragments. It continued on, scything through several trees before it had spent its ravening energy.

With a distorted, machine-like groan the xenos collapsed. Before it struck the ground, it was already shimmering with viridian light. The sergeant lunged forward, the chainsword in his other hand raised high. He brought it down with all of his might, but it passed through empty air with a whoosh and crunched into the ground. The severely damaged mechanoid had been teleported away. That was the way with the necrons. Only the utterly annihilated were not spirited off, presumably to be repaired and fight again.

Allectius’ own men could not be saved so easily. He strode on to kneel beside the fallen Space Marine. The other man’s in-built armour biodiagnosticator could be accessed via their squad noosphere. Brother Volusius was his name. The wound was serious, even for a Space Marine. A mortal man would have been struck dead instantly. Only the synthetic cells his genetically engineered Larraman’s organ produced were keeping him from bleeding out, clotting faster than natural platelets ever could.

The sergeant activated the locator beacon built into the wounded warrior’s plate, then stood. If the Apothecary reached him in time, he might be saved. If he did not, at least the fallen warrior’s gene-seed could be salvaged.

‘With me, Numonis,’ he said.

‘Until the end, brother-sergeant,’ replied the other Assault Intercessor and fell in on his flank.

They hastened onward. It was not far before they erupted into a clearing that was the site of a raging battle. Two more of the Destroyers were locked in furious battle with the other four members of Allectius’ squad. A third lumbered towards them, its blade-arms outstretched with mindless longing to rend. An insectile figure lurked in the wood line behind it. It had a solid body mounted on long legs, a strange mechanical proboscis waving in the air before it.

‘Join the others, I will deal with the plasmacyte,’ barked Allectius.

Numonis charged into the fray and the sergeant put his brothers from his mind. All were warriors of the Chapter, the finest mankind had to offer. He trusted them absolutely. For now, he had to focus all of his attention on his foe. His plasma pistol hummed in his left hand as his chainsword revved in the right. Distance-devouring strides carried him towards where the xenos machine lurked.

It skittered back into the shadows. Unlike their mindlessly destructive charges, the plasmacytes were often evasive. Their strength lay in the power they could infuse the Destroyers with, not in confrontation. Allectius’ eyes narrowed, he had no intention of allowing it to escape so easily. He raised his plasma pistol and squeezed off a shot, counting on the power of the blast to carve through any intervening cover.

Instead, the weapon gave what could be described as a wheezing cough and powered down. The hydrogen flask was spent. A growing problem as the war for Cassothea dragged out. Allectius holstered the weapon and suppressed a growl of frustration. He would simply have to dismantle–

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden lunge of the canoptek machine. It must have sensed weakness and activated new programming. There was no time to ponder. It was fast now that it was on the attack, lashing at him with the proboscis. The bladed tip was designed to punch through the living metal hide of a necron, and was more than capable of piercing his power armour if it connected right.

It struck at his face, aiming for his optic lenses. He ducked aside as fast as he could, diverting the strike to scrape a glancing hit along the side of his helmet instead. There was no chance to try to seize that machine tendril. It was striking now with its bladed legs. He caught the sweep of one on the edge of his chainsword, whirling teeth meeting the limb in a spray of sparks.

That monomolecular tip was stabbing at his face once more. Allectius was ready for it this time. With superhuman reflexes his hand flashed out and caught the proboscis, then with the other, he brought his chainsword around in a howling arc. It cleaved away in a flare of emerald fire. The machine staggered backwards, a strange mechanical warbling erupting from it.

The sergeant gave it no time to recover. He pushed forward as it retreated, hacking at the body now with the snarling blade. Each blow tore new rents in its mechanical hide, exposing the arcane workings of its innards. The Space Marine did his best to not commit any of that bizarreness to memory. He was no Techmarine, but even he understood that xenos machines were a corruption of technology. They were fit only to be destroyed.

He hacked away one of its legs and it toppled to the ground. The sergeant stomped on it with all his might, staving it in with a last eruption of viridian sparks that sizzled and flared into the underbrush. With a final strangled bleat it went still. He turned and charged back out into the clearing to find the combat there had entered its final moments.

Two of the Destroyers were gone, vanished back to whatever foul tomb birthed them. Haloed with green energies they shimmered into translucence and then were gone. It was not without cost: one of his brothers lay in the grass, dead, his head and arm hacked from his body by necron blades. The last of the twisted abominations found itself under the concentrated assault of all the remaining Space Marines at once.

They attacked in perfect concert, the product of years of elite training. Individually, they might not have been a match for the terrible mechanoid strength of a Destroyer. Yet their foe was a mindless butcher, while they were expert warriors. They carved it apart en masse. Then it was gone just as the others, little more than a green shimmer fading into nothing.

The sounds of battle died away, echoing off among the trees into silence. Allectius rested a hand against a nearby trunk for a moment. Adeptus Astartes did not tire as quickly and easily as mortals did, but the past months had been draining. Endless battle with little opportunity for recuperation. Skirmishes like this might have appeared to be victories to an outsider, but he knew better. The xenos defeated today would be repaired or replaced; their onslaught would not even slow. The Imperials had no such reinforcements on the way. The last allied warship to arrive in-system had been so badly damaged from some unknown catastrophe it had crashed behind enemy lines.

The sergeant let his arm fall back to his side. It would not do to let the men see any weakness on his part. He activated the vox-link to central command.

‘Redoubt Primus, this is Squad Allectius. Our patrol encountered resistance in the Sanral Wood. Destroyers accompanied by plasmacyte. They’ve been neutralised. One of our brothers has fallen and one needs medicae retrieval.’

‘Acknowledged, Squad Allectius.’ Allectius recognised the voice as Dacien, one of the serfs who worked the comms. There was a curious reticence in his voice. ‘Return to base immediately.’

Allectius frowned. ‘Our strength is not depleted, Redoubt Primus. We can continue the patrol.’

There was an extended pause. ‘Negative, Squad Allectius. Come back with all speed.’ There was a note of real distress in that voice.

The sergeant narrowed his eyes. It was possible the serf was exceeding his authority in this matter. It was not an argument to have on the vox, however. ‘Acknowledged. Squad Allectius on the move. We will bring our casualties with us.’ He gave a single sigh and switched his vox-channel back to the squad network. ‘We are to return to the redoubt, brothers. Collect Volusius and Landrian. We shall see them home ourselves.’

Allectius scanned the treeline one last time to make sure there were no further enemies lurking about. In the back of his mind, however, that hitch in the serf’s voice lingered. Misguided the mortal might be, but something had shaken him. With any luck, he would have answers soon.

Squad Allectius walked amongst the skeletons of burned out buildings. Autocarriage wrecks were piled up in the streets, many showing the tell-tale ‘peeling’ of necron gauss weaponry. A stillness pervaded the devastation. It made the heavy tread of the Space Marines seem even louder than normal, echoing from broken glass and crumpled metal. The sound came back strange, set him on edge. He was relieved when he saw the great slab of rockcrete up ahead.

Redoubt Primus was what remained of Cassothea’s capital city. Allectius had been told the name once. Macuth. It did not matter now. It was ruins. They had tried to defend it against the necron onslaught during the first month, but it had been a lost cause from the beginning. The defence efforts contracted with each assault, a shrinking ring that left a growing number of civilians on the outside.

Some rioted. The smart ones fled into the countryside. It was a poor hope, but still a more likely chance out in the wilderness. There, at least, they might go unnoticed by the xenos death-machines that stalked the landscape. Here they were penned in and slaughtered. The enemy had no remorse. It felt no mercy. They had set out to cleanse this world for their obscure purposes, and if any moral compunctions entered their equations then Allectius had not been able to discern them.

All were long gone now. Only the bodies remained. Those who had fallen in the streets had long since mummified. Bodies left in the shade had decayed down to dry bones. Those caught by the most powerful weapons had disintegrated completely. Their dust layered the interiors of the buildings and blew in clouds through the streets. All of them, those the Ultramarines had not been able to protect. Adeptus Astartes were hardened, their minds reinforced by years of hypno-conditioning and training. For all that, it ate at Allectius. A helplessness that he could only express through fury.

The citizenry were evacuating now, transports taking them and any resources they could carry away as fast as possible. That was the purpose of the patrol today, and others like it. Try to find what survivors and abandoned materiel they could and get them off-world. Perhaps if they had known the odds from the beginning, more might have been saved. Perhaps not. The crusade’s leadership had said this world must be saved, and so they had tried. Failure was not something Space Marines were accustomed to.

They were approaching the walls of the fortress now. Allectius had never been to Macragge, the home world of the Ultramarines – awoken from stasis by Archmagos Cawl with the Imperium torn asunder, he had been on crusade ever since. He had seen pict-captures, however. Even the fortifications there were beautiful, built with strength and aesthetics both. There was nothing pleasing about the sight of Redoubt Primus. It was squat and undecorated. Only thick walls could withstand the molecular stripping of gauss weapons.

Tarantula sentry guns bristled from emplacements. They came in a variety of shapes: assault cannons and heavy bolters for the enemy infantry, lascannons and multi-meltas for the armour. There were even missile launchers to help defend against aerial attack. It all looked quite formidable. Unfortunately, looks could deceive. Ammo supplies were running low. Most of these guns would fall silent within minutes of an attack beginning.

The sergeant paused as the auspexes scanned him and his men. He pulled his helmet off with a hiss of depressurisation, the brush of a cool breeze on his sweaty face welcome. Once their identities were confirmed, the great adamantine gates began to slide open. More than a dozen serfs rushed out to help get the wounded inside, overseen by Apothecary Calvus. The white-armoured brother handled the medicae needs of the Space Marines, and when necessary harvested the gene-seed from the bodies of the fallen. Only by carefully preserving the Chapter’s due in this way could future initiates be raised to the transhuman level of the Space Marines.

‘It is good to see you again, Brother Allectius,’ said Calvus.

‘The same to you, Brother-Apothecary,’ the sergeant replied. They clasped gauntlets briefly. ‘Do you know why we were recalled?’

‘I do.’ It was not the Apothecary’s way to mince words. ‘Yet I have work to attend to seeing to your casualties. Find Chaplain Sisenna. He will explain.’

Allectius nodded. ‘I will leave them in your capable hands and seek him out.’ He turned to the rest of his squad. ‘Take the time to resupply. We may be fighting again at any moment.’

Each pressed a fist to their chests in response and the sergeant turned away to stride into the dark of the base. The structure had, by necessity, been sized to accommodate the build of a Space Marine, but the rush of construction left it a tight fit nevertheless. Glow-globes fixed on the ceiling brushed his head as he passed under them, nearly forcing him to duck aside. Most were kept dim; power supplies were just as rationed as everything else these days.

Allectius passed the refectory on his right. It was quiet save the murmur of conversation and the clink of dinnerware. The briny scent of hard rations was on the air – fresh food had become an unthinkable luxury as the xenos noose tightened. He could spot his brothers easily enough, of course; their stature made them stand out if nothing else would. The rest of those gathered were a mix of serfs and locals, but it was becoming hard to tell them apart. Heraldry was greying into unrecognisability by weathering and grime.

The sergeant could not help but notice the reaction his presence drew. A hush of conversation, stares. It added to his disquiet and he hurried on. The sounds and smells faded as he continued, replaced by the growing spice-and-lemon scent of incense.

As he drew closer to the chapel, the hallway began to be lined by posts. Each held a token of some sort. Here, the shattered fragments of a plasma gun. There, a purity seal that had nearly burned away. It had begun as a stop gap, temporary honours for fallen brothers. Whole suits of armour then. Now all that remained was what could not be salvaged and repurposed.

There had been ninety-three warriors in the company when they had arrived at Cassothea. There had been talk of picking up reinforcements before proceeding to the next campaign. That had been fifty-six dead brothers ago. Their totems had overrun the chapel and spilled out into the passageways. There was nothing faceless about their memories. He had known these men for years, fought alongside them. Now they were gone.

Allectius could hear the words now, in Sisenna’s powerful rumble.

Lord Guilliman, Avenging Son,

Guide us in battle.

Steel us against the trickery of the xenos.

Make of us scourges of the Emperor’s foes.

Aid us, O gene-father and primarch,

As we lay our righteous fury upon the alien.

For our enemies are many,

And seek the ruin of all mankind.

The sergeant stepped into the chapel. Six Ultramarines knelt before the Chaplain, their heads bowed. Allectius recognised the men of Squad Two, led by Sergeant Proclus. Another patrol, preparing to continue the search. Sisenna stood before them, a compelling sight in his black armour and skull-mask. His staff of office, the crozius arcanum, was held in front of him as he intoned the rite. He met Allectius’ gaze and gave him a slight nod of recognition. The sergeant returned the gesture and stood to the back to wait.

Each member of Squad Two stepped forward to be blessed, touched on each pauldron by the aquila of the crozius. Then they stepped past the Chaplain to a particular totem. A helmet hung there, surmounted by a crest of once-brilliant red and white. Now it was faded and dingy. The headgear itself would have been salvageable. It had been left in place nonetheless, the only small honour the company could still offer its fallen commander.

Each saluted in turn to the memory of the company commander, and turned to depart. Proclus himself was the last to step forward and accept his blessings. The other sergeant turned when he was done and offered Allectius a sad smile. He paused only to briefly rest a gauntlet on Allectius’ shoulder. He departed with his squad. The Squad Four sergeant watched him go uneasily.

‘Brother Allectius, how are you?’ The Chaplain’s voice brought his head around. Sisenna removed his skull-helm and set it aside. The face revealed was broad and tawny, broken by lighter streaks of a number of scars. One marked through his eye – that orb had been replaced by the cold red light of a bionic.

‘Ill at ease, Brother-Chaplain, if I am to be honest with you,’ replied the sergeant.

Sisenna stepped over to light new incense. The flicker of flame cast his face into a sharp divide of light and shadow. ‘What troubles you?’

Allectius laughed without humour at that. ‘What does not? Our enemy closes in. I am recalled from duty early, my mission incomplete. I am the subject of whispers and stares. Even the Apothecary tells me merely to seek you out.’

The Chaplain turned to face him once more and waited patiently.

Allectius flexed his hands, then the words tore out of him. ‘Is my honour called into question?’

‘Ah, there it is,’ said Sisenna quietly. ‘No.’ He gestured away. ‘We must always strive to do better than the day before. Our calling is the highest. If we are not improving, we are dying. All of that said, you are not here to be reproached.’

The sergeant took a calming breath. ‘Then what is the matter? If we were being reassigned, word would come from the lieutenant.’

‘That strikes to the very heart of the matter,’ said the Chaplain. He paused, an uncharacteristic hesitation, before continuing, ‘Falerius is dead.’

‘No,’ breathed Allectius. Another wound on his soul, another loss to be borne. Lieutenant Falerius had been forced to take command when the senior lieutenant died in the opening days of the conflict. He had held the company together through the tough fighting of the past months. ‘How?’

‘Squad Three was pinned down by hostiles in the city ruins. Falerius led the Bladeguard into battle to rescue them. They could get the brothers out, but the enemy had posted Deathmarks in the surrounding buildings.’ Deathmarks were the deadly snipers of the necron forces. The rest the sergeant could imagine.

Allectius closed his eyes. ‘An honourable death,’ was all he could manage.

Sisenna nodded. ‘It also leads to your involvement. With all the officer cadre dead, command would usually fall to the senior sergeant.’

‘As the Codex Astartes dictates,’ agreed Allectius. ‘I am fully prepared to accept Sergeant Fulgentius’ command.’

The Chaplain shook his head now. ‘That is not to be. Falerius left specific instructions on what should happen in the case of his death.’ He locked eyes with Allectius. ‘He named you, Allectius. You are hereby promoted to lieutenant, pending the confirmation of the Chapter Master to make it official, of course.’

Allectius could only stare at him for a moment. Finally, he managed, ‘What?’

‘You are in command of the company now, lieutenant.’ Sisenna stepped forward and rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘I believe you will rise to this challenge. The sergeants have agreed to abide by the decision. We are behind you, one and all.’

The newly minted lieutenant searched for words. ‘I–’

Before he could find them, something fundamental in the cosmos shifted. An oppressive weight fell upon the very essence of the world. Colours faded and lights dimmed. It hit Allectius like suffocation, as if the air was too still to be able to breathe. He had to force it into his lungs, and could feel his hearts pound. There was no question it went beyond him – he could see that Chaplain Sisenna had staggered a step, his face twisted in his surprise.

That was when his vox-rig crackled. ‘Forgive me, but we need the lieutenant in the command centre right now.’ The communication serf sounded strained, in real pain. ‘We’re getting distress calls from the evacuation ships. Something has gone wrong.’

Click here to buy Nexus & Other Stories

Contents

Cover

Nexus & Other Stories – Extract

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

‘Kraken’ first published in 2012.
‘Redeemer’ first published in 2019.
‘The Test of Faith’ first published in 2019
‘The Darkling Hours’ first published in 2018.
‘Lightning Run’ first published in 2018.
‘Missing in Action’ first published in 2011.
‘The Crystal Cathedral’ first published in 2019.
‘To Speak as One’ first published in 2019.
‘Where Dere’s Da Warp Dere’s a Way’ first published in 2020.
‘Redemption on Dal’yth’ first published in 2020.
‘Void Crossed’ first published in 2019.
‘Light of a Crystal Sun’ first published in 2018.
‘War in the Museum’ first published in 2020.
‘Headhunted’ first published in 2009.
This eBook edition published in 2020 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Mauro Belfiore.

Nexus & Other Stories © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2020. Nexus & Other Stories, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78999-384-4

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

See Black Library on the internet at
blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop’s world of Warhammer and the Warhammer 40,000 universe at
games-workshop.com

eBook license

This license is made between:

Games Workshop Limited t/a Black Library, Willow Road, Lenton, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, United Kingdom (“Black Library”); and

(2) the purchaser of an e-book product from Black Library website (“You/you/Your/your”)

(jointly, “the parties”)

These are the terms and conditions that apply when you purchase an e-book (“e-book”) from Black Library. The parties agree that in consideration of the fee paid by you, Black Library grants you a license to use the e-book on the following terms:

* 1. Black Library grants to you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the e-book in the following ways:

o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

o 1.2 to access the e-book using an appropriate electronic device and/or through any appropriate storage media; and

* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 you attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.