Carcharodons: Outer Dark Read online

  So Khauri spent his time in the silent, frigid company of the ancients. A number of other Carcharodons had come and gone since he had entered the chamber, doubtless making their own private observances, but he had barely noticed them. His mind swam in deep, dark places, seeking the silence, seeking the purpose that came with it.

  It felt strange to be disconnected from Te Kahurangi. The Chief Librarian was on board the strike cruiser, but Khauri had sought this communion alone. It was necessary sometimes to remove himself from his master’s presence. In the decade since he had first awoken on the bloody medicae slab, since he had taken his new name-designate and seen his body begin to morph and change under the influence of the strange organs grafted into it, he had only known Te Kahurangi as his mentor. The master of the Chapter’s Librarius was truly ancient – just how old none seemed to know – and he wielded powers that the Lexicanium could scarcely fathom, despite having spent long months studying the scrolls and data-crystals housed within the Librarius’ disparate gen-bay subsections. Khauri understood well enough that his path had only just begun, and the mysteries of the warp were still unfathomable to him, but when he observed the power Te Kahurangi wielded, he despaired of ever attaining even a degree of his mastery.

  ‘You will never truly understand the warp,’ the Chief Librarian had cautioned him on several occasions. ‘If you did you would lose your sanity, and your soul soon after. It is the dark mirror of the ocean we swim in, and its unknowable depths are the home of a billion billion hungry terrors. We are their prey, Khauri, and the moment you forget that is the moment they will consume you.’

  Mika.

  He shifted, clenching and unclenching his hands and toes, trying to work the feeling back into them. The ache reminded him of the pains that had wracked his body for so long during the implantation process. He had been an aspirant and then an initiate for seven years, his body subjected to the scalpels and auto-cauterisers of Apothecary Tama along with the three dozen others taken by the Chapter. From the beginning, though, he had been different. Te Kahurangi had been his constant guardian. He had been kept separate from the other initiates who had survived the gene-seed implantation, not permitted to join their squads in the Tenth Company. He had been drilled more rigorously, his mind and body punished incessantly. Hypno-canting, ice submersion, indoctrination therapy – all this on top of the constant combat drilling and exercises, and the countless hours spent locked in the gen-bays, with only the servo-skull that monitored him for company. The drone had only ceased to record his every movement when he had finally gained his black carapace and joined the ranks of the fully inducted void brethren. Since his first day – and he remembered little from before the first scalpel had cut his flesh – he had felt as much like a prisoner as he had a brother of the Chapter, not far removed from the emaciated slave-hands who served the Nomad Predation Fleet.

  Doren.

  He could not hear the voice. Not here, not so close to the Wandering Ancestors. He sought the darkness, the silence. Emotions were dangerous. He was a lit flame for the creatures in the warp’s depths, and emotions made that flame burn brighter. The danger multiplied further during times such as these, when the White Maw traversed the empyrean’s depths, protected from the ravages of daemons and other warp-spawned horrors only by the throbbing cocoon of its Geller field. All aboard suffered from the writhing, sickening influence of the immaterium that engulfed them; from migraines, nosebleeds, waking nightmares. Khauri had scarcely known sleep since the voyage had begun two weeks earlier. He had relied on Te Kahurangi’s methods of meditation and seclusion to find a degree of peace.

  As he knelt, he focused his mind on the fifty-second Silent Litany, one of the hundreds of Chapter canticles, exile mottos and void vows taught during indoctrination. It stressed the virtue of isolation, of the transience of individual existence and the vital nature of the self-sacrifice that defined the Chapter. Yet as he ran through the words, Khauri felt his thoughts slipping, like pale, aquatic flesh sliding deeper into murky depths. He remembered the shadows beneath the Lost World, lit by Te Kahurangi’s staff. He remembered the beast of carved stone. The monster, with its ravenous maw and hungry eyes. Te Kahurangi’s words came back to him, a rasping whisper in the dark. They were all monsters.

  Skell!

  He surged to his feet, his secondary heart kicking in. The black visors of the great Contemptors seemed to glare down at him accusingly, though they remained frozen. What had he brought down here, to their hallowed resting place? What did he bear inside him? He turned in the water and made for the exit, cracking freshly formed ice, forcing his stiff, numb body to obey him.

  He would find answers, he swore it.

  The sub-reclusiam was dark, lit only by a dozen electro-candles. Here the silence was more complete than anywhere else on the White Maw. The chamber of rough, glittering coral was sited just back from the ship’s prow boarding plates, far from the throbbing vitality of the plasma drives and warp engines.

  The silence was coveted by the Carcharodon Astra, a sacred thing that spoke of the Chapter’s long exile. It emphasised the oblivion of the void, a nothingness that every member of the Chapter sought to apply to their individual self. From the first moments of induction, individuality and ego were stripped away, like faulty parts that no longer served the functionality of the whole. Names were forgotten, replaced with coded number-designates until a void brother proved his worth to the Chapter, to Rangu and to the Forgotten One. Self-sacrifice and dedication came before all else. Such denial of individual importance staved off a multitude of heresies – pride, greed, envy. Such things were without meaning in the Outer Dark. They led only to death.

  The sub-reclusiam of the Third Company reflected such doctrines. It was a spartan place, adorned with only a few relics that had been set into niches in the rock-lined walls. More ostentatious Chapters maintained their holy objects in cases of gold-edged crystalline, with gilt Imperial aquilas gleaming amidst incense smoke swung from the censers of flitting cherubim. Here, however, there was nothing but the rough-hewn stone, and a handful of ancient blades and suits of power plate, hard edges and harder shadows in the flickering half-light.

  One of the relics was out of place, removed from its alcove and brought to the centre of the chamber’s stone-flagged floor. It was a suit of power armour, grey and white, studded with monomolecular brass bonding pins. The helm bore a wicked ceramite crest that ran along its vox-uplink strip, while the visor was inscribed with a white, razor-toothed maw and, over its left temple, the intertwined shark-and-scythe symbol of the Third Company. The breastplate was embossed with the skull and lightning bolts of the Terran Pacification War, the same ancient battle honour worn on the armour of every company captain, and even the Red Wake’s mighty Terminator armour. The suit’s right pauldron likewise bore the sigil of the Chapter, the predatory white crescent of the great carcharodon, master of the void, spiller of blood and bringer of swift, merciless slaughter.

  Once, the battleplate had resided in the ship’s primary armoury, along with the rest of the company’s equipment. Chaplain Nikora, however, had recently deemed that the exploits of its many wearers had earned it a place alongside the battle-scarred items already occupying his chapel. Its current owner, Bail Sharr, had gladly acknowledged the honour.

  The captain sat cross-legged before the venerable armour, his pale, tattooed body clad in the grey robes worn by the void brethren when not geared for battle. In his hand was a cauterising stylo, its white-hot nub smoking gently as he applied it inch by inch to the gleaming surface of the suit’s right greave. The tool left behind white scarring, a pattern that the Reaper Prime was slowly weaving into the flowing design of a fresh exile mark. Such intricate embellishments already flowed over the armour’s vambraces, gauntlets and other sections of the greaves. Sharr was adding one for the first time in almost five years, half a dozen inches of whorling tide-lines that fed into the oceanic pattern alread
y adorning the grey plate.

  He leaned back from his work, letting the heat-etched ceramite cool. He had earned the marking – a brotherhood etching – nine Terran months earlier when the White Maw had abandoned its own objectives to come to the aid of the Fourth Company, embroiled in void combat with a tyranid splinter fleet above the dead world of Anarkis. The Fourth had been saved from annihilation, and its captain, Nakara, had personally recommended Sharr for the honour marking.

  The Reaper Prime had added more designs to the battle-scarred armour over the past decade than its previous owner, Captain Akia, had achieved in nearly a century. The Chapter had been embroiled in warfare the likes of which it had not known for many hundreds of years. A tyranid hive fleet, vast and insatiable, was rising up from below the galactic plane, towards sectors considered well removed from the front of mankind’s incessant wars. The Carcharodon Astra, their Nomad Predation Fleet exiled far beyond the Imperium’s borders, had detected the threat before the rest of humanity. They had been deployed against the xenos ever since, engaging numerous splinter fleets around lonely asteroids and abandoned systems deep below the Imperium’s edge. Thus far the line had held, but at a terrible cost. The Chapter, always struggling to maintain its numbers and equipment in the Outer Dark, was facing extinction.

  The responsibility for halting its decline lay with Bail Sharr. As Reaper Prime his duty, beyond the captaincy of the Third Battle Company, was to ensure the Chapter was constantly supplied with fresh aspirants. That was normally achieved during the Red Tithes, when the Chapter’s Edicts of Exile permitted it to descend on a world and harvest the population. The vast majority of those taken would go on to become slaves and serf labourers in the Chapter’s great fleet, providing the means by which the Carcharodon Astra could continue to function in exile. Those of the right age and temperament, however, would undertake the trials. Few would survive to become Tenth Company initiates. The degree of attrition during the induction process was higher even than most Space Marine Chapters, but it was the unavoidable legacy of the Carcharodons’ unique nature.

  Sharr had conducted two Red Tithes since inheriting his role from Akia, the first in particularly desperate circumstances, when the chosen harvest world had been attacked by Chaos Space Marines of the Night Lords. The Tithes, however, were not the only means of recruitment. During times of desperation they had recourse to another brotherhood, one that, like the Carcharodons, had chosen the path of exile. The Ashen Claws.

  During the darkness of the Heresy not all of the Legiones Astartes had cast in their lot with either the Emperor or the traitor Horus. The Ashen Claws, former members of the Raven Guard Legion’s 18th Chapter, had despaired at the chaos engulfing the galaxy, and their own primarch’s disgust at their slaver practices. They had turned against both the Imperium and the forces of Chaos, unleashing devastation on the Night Lords and their home sector of Nostramo. Afterwards they had slipped away, disappearing from both Imperial space and those records that survived the Heresy’s carnage. Few now living knew they still existed, let alone where they made their home. The Carcharodon Astra were among those few.

  A noise disturbed the perfect stillness – the unmistakable tread of heavy ceramite on cold stone. A shape loomed in the open darkness of the chapel’s entrance arch, a vast shadow of unyielding metal. It stood for a moment beyond the edge of the candlelight, the air vibrating with the hum of charged power armour. Sharr deactivated the stylo, replaced it in its holder, and stood.

  ‘Brother Korro,’ he said. ‘My thanks for coming. You are welcome.’

  The giant stepped into the light. Like all Red Brethren, Strike Veteran Korro remained armed and armoured at all times. The Terminator plate he wore was heavily inscribed with red exile markings and hung with the yellowing predator incisors collected by some Carcharodons. His helmet’s black visor lenses gleamed lifelessly in the chapel’s flickering illumination.

  ‘Kia orrae,’ Korro responded, uttering the Chapter’s ritual greeting.

  ‘Kia orrae, brother,’ Sharr replied. ‘Remove your helmet.’

  Korro did nothing.

  In most Chapters, members of the veteran First Company were often seconded to battle companies to supplement their fighting power. In the Carcharodon Astra they served an additional purpose. Utterly loyal to the incumbent Chapter Master, they were deployed on the most vital missions – usually tithings – to ensure that the overriding objectives were met and the Chapter’s needs satisfied. The Carcharodons’ mode of warfare meant that individual companies could spend years separated from the Nomad Predation Fleet. In such circumstances the Red Brethren were responsible for seeing the orders of the Red Wake carried out.

  The Red Brethren also, however, fell under the command of the captain they were assigned to, and were bound to follow his orders, provided they did not directly contradict the mission assigned by the Chapter.

  Sharr waited. Eventually, Korro reached up and disengaged the clamps from his helmet’s gorget seal. The features revealed were not far removed from Sharr’s – death-pale, black-eyed, angular, almost gaunt. Unlike Sharr, however, Korro had chosen to replace his teeth with metal incisors, each filed to a saw-edge. They gleamed as the Terminator spoke.

  ‘As you wish, Reaper Prime.’

  Sharr inclined his head slightly. The first test had been passed.

  ‘We have never served the Chapter side by side, have we, brother?’ the Reaper Prime asked.

  ‘I fought under Strike Leader Torr when Akia was still captain of the Third. On Ulixis.’

  ‘A worthy campaign,’ Sharr acknowledged. ‘I had just entered Akia’s command squad.’

  ‘We made the traitors suffer on that world,’ Korro said, the ­barest hint of relish colouring his voice. ‘There were no survivors.’

  ‘You are the third strike leader from the First Company to be assigned to me in three priority operations,’ Sharr said. ‘In your own opinion, why do you suppose that is?’

  ‘Because Strike Leader Kahu is dead,’ Korro replied, his metal teeth clicking every time he spoke. ‘And Strike Leader Zatari has been assigned to the Fourth Company for their strike against the xenos moving on Praxor.’

  ‘Zatari was reassigned from this company before we left the Lost World,’ Sharr said. ‘He could easily have remained with us. Instead I have you.’

  ‘This mission is of primary importance, and I have served as a strike leader for longer than Zatari,’ Korro said, clearly opting for the direct approach. ‘Your disagreements with Zatari during the last Red Tithe are well known, as were your difficulties with Kahu on Zartak.’

  ‘Both tried to subvert my authority in favour of more aggressive measures,’ Sharr said. ‘It cost Kahu his life, and Zatari made matters more difficult than they needed to be.’

  Korro said nothing, his black gaze not leaving Sharr’s.

  The captain continued.

  ‘The squad under your command is double the usual complement assigned to company-level operations.’

  ‘We are here to help ensure your protection, Reaper Prime.’

  ‘I already have over seventy void brothers to do that, Korro. This is not a combat assignment, and the Chapter surely cannot afford to remove a tenth of its First Company for a diplomatic foray.’

  ‘Is there a purpose to this meeting, Reaper Prime?’

  Sharr smiled. For all his stoicism, the expression clearly caught Korro by surprise.

  ‘I am testing you, strike leader,’ Sharr said. ‘You have not been to Atargatis before, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have, thirty years ago, under Akia. It is a dangerous place. The Ashen Claws will not treat us with the respect we deserve. Their master, Nehat Nev, will try to provoke not only me, but you as well. He will try to taunt us, divide us, cause us to act rashly, so that our hand in the negotiations is weakened.’

  Korro inclined his head slight
ly.

  ‘They are renegades, Reaper. Without honour.’

  ‘Honour is a dead thing,’ Sharr said, quoting Carcharodons doctrine. ‘But they should not be trusted. Nor should they succeed in drawing out our aggression. The Red Brethren have come close to compromising my missions in the past. I will not permit that to happen again, Korro.’

  ‘We are both here for the good of the Chapter,’ Korro said. ‘Do your duty, Reaper Prime, so I won’t have to. That way there can be no danger of any undue interference.’

  ‘Indeed. I believe we have an understanding.’

  The Terminator departed. Sharr activated his stylo and applied it again to his armour, letting the slow emergence of the fresh, white lines ease his thoughts. A decade ago, when he had first taken command of the company, confronting a strike leader of the First in such a manner would have been an action of last resort. They were the Red Wake’s enforcers, and their attitude was more often than not blunt and uncompromising. Sharr, however, had learned much from the past ten years. Third Company was his, and its successes and failures rested on his shoulders alone. The Red Brethren would not dictate his strategy.

  He finished the armour scarification and paused for a while, black eyes surveying his handiwork. There was peace there, in the flowing patterns, an ebb to the sharpness that surrounded the Reaper Prime. He acknowledged it only for a second before rising and summoning the artisan-serfs who would return the armour to its place of honour. The ship was about to enter the deepest point of its plunge through the warp, and much of the company had already retreated to their numbing void slumber. Cryo-sleep called to Sharr. A last taste of peace, before the waves crashed home with thunder and fury.

  There was no point in denying the approach of that savage tide. It was what Sharr had been bred for.