James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

He turned the object between his fingers and held it up to the lamplight. A matrix-etching of the Emperor

stared back at him, beneficent and all-knowing. He pocketed the icon in a belt pouch. With it there were dog-eared papers held together by a worn strap. In places they had been taped where they had become ripped. Some of the pages were on different kinds of paper, some handwritten, some from a crude mimeo­graph with words smudged and blurry from hundreds of reproductions. Garro found sketchy illustrations that made little sense to him, although he could pick out recognisable elements, iconogra­phy of the Emperor, of Terra, repeated again and again. 'Lectitio Divinitatus', he read aloud. 'Is this what you kept from me, Kaleb?'

Garro knew of the sect. They were common people who, despite the constant light of the secular Imper­ial truth, had come to believe that the Emperor of Mankind was himself a divine being. Who else, they argued, had the right to crush all other belief in gods, than the one true deity himself? Was not the Emperor a singular, god-like entity?

Despite his open rejection of such beliefs, the Emperor instilled such dedication and devotion. Immortal and all-seeing, possessed of the greatest intellect and psychic potential of any living human, in the eyes of the Lectitio Divinitatus, what else could he be but a divinity?

Yes, now Garro saw it, he realised Kaleb's connec­tion to the Cult of the God-Emperor had been there all along, simmering beneath the surface. A hundred tiny words and deeds suddenly took on new meaning in the light of this discovery. He had decried Grulgor on the gunnery deck for speaking blasphemy against the Emperor, and before in the murk of his healing coma, Garro had heard the invocation from Kaleb's lips, the entreaty for protection. 'You are of purpose,'

he intoned flatly, the housecarl's final words return­ing once again. 'The God-Emperor wills it. His hand lies upon all of us. The Emperor… the Emperor pro­tects.'

He knew that it was wrong to go any further, that it went against the letter of the Imperial truth he had dedicated his life to, but still Nathaniel Garro read on, absorbing the words of the tracts, page by tattered page.

Although he would never have showed it openly, the passing hours had shaken him to his core. He had always imagined himself as a blade in the Emperor's hand, or as an arrow in mankind's quiver to be nocked and sent tearing into the heart of humanity's foes, but what was he now? All the blades were blunted and twisted upon one another, the arrows broken about their shafts.

The firm ground Garro's beliefs stood upon was turning to quicksand beneath them. It was almost too much to contain within his mind! His brothers, his battle lord, his very Warmaster all ranged against him; the blood of a Death Guard on his sword and much more to come; the foreboding pall at the boundaiy of his thoughts; the omen of the blinded star, the smug prophecy of the dead xenos child and Kaleb's dying plea.

'It's too much!' Garro shouted, and sank to his knees, the papers tight in his hand. The horrible taint of this knowledge was a poison that threatened to shrivel his soul. Never in centuries of service had the Astartes felt himself to be so totally, so utterly vulner­able, and in that moment, he understood there was only one to whom he could reach out.

'Help me/ he cried, offering his entreaty to the dark­ness, 'I am lost.' Of their own accord, Garro's hands

found the shape of the aquila, palms open across his chest. 'Emperor,' he choked, 'give me faith.'

Behind his eyes, Garro felt something break loose inside him and leap, a sudden release, a flood of energy. It was beyond his ability to describe it, and there in the gloom of the half-lit alcove, he felt the ghost of a voice brush over the edges of his psyche. A crying woman, pale and elfin, strong and delicate all at once, was calling him: the voice from his dream.

Save us, Nathaniel.

Garro cried out and stumbled backwards, fighting to recover his balance. The words had been so clear and close, it was as if she had been in the chamber with him, standing at his ear. The Death Guard recovered his composure, panting hard, and got back to his feet. He sensed a peculiar, greasy tang in the air, fading even as he noticed it. The stroke upon his thoughts had been like the jorgalli's intrusion into his mind, but dif­ferent. It shocked him in its intimacy, and yet it did not feel wrong like the telepathic touch of the alien. Garro took a shuddering breath. As quickly as it had hap­pened, the moment vanished like vapour.

He was still staring at the bundle of pages in his hand when Decius stormed into the chamber, anger tight on the younger man's face.

Solun Decius watched his commander stuff a fold of papers into a belt pouch and turn away, as if he wasn't ready to look the Astartes in the eye. 'Decius,' he man­aged. 'Report.'

'Resistance was encountered,' he growled. 'I… We dealt with the remainder of Grulgor's men. They made an attempt to reach the landing bay. We suf­fered some casualties as they were repelled.' Decius's face became a grimace. 'It was a slaughter.'

Garro eyed him. They would have done the same to us, if we had given them the opportunity. Why else do you think that Typhon placed both Grulgor and me aboard this ship, if not to have my command ter­minated when the moment came?'

Decius wanted to snap out the angry reply boiling in his thoughts, to say that maybe that was true, but perhaps it was only Garro who had been on the tar­get list. He stared angrily at the deck. What exasperated him more than anything was that he had not been given the choice! His fate was tied to the battle-captain's now, whatever happened. Yes, per­haps this might have been what Decius would have chosen had he been given the opportunity, but the sheer fact he had not made him rebel against it!

His mentor read the emotion on his face. 'Speak plainly, lad.'

'What would you have me say?' Decius retorted hotly.

'The truth. If not here and now, then you may never get another chance/ Garro replied, keeping his tone level. 'I would have you speak your mind, Solum'

There was a long pause as Decius worked to frame his resentment. 'I put down three men wearing my own colours back there/ he said, jerking his head at the corridor and the ship beyond, 'not xenos or mutants, but Death Guard, my brother Astartes!'

'Those men ceased to be our brethren the instant they chose Horas's path over the Emperor's.' Garro sighed. 'I share the pain of this, Solun, more than you can know, but they have become traitors-'

'Traitors?' The curse exploded from him. 'Who are you to decide that, Battle-Captain Garro? What authority do you have to make such a determination, sir? You are not Warmaster, not a primarch, not even

a first captain! Yet you make this choice for all of us!' Garro watched without responding. Decius knew that daring to take such a tone with a senior officer was worth punishment and censure, but still he raged on. What… what if it is we who are the traitors, captain? Horus will no doubt paint us as such when he learns of what you have done.'

You have seen what I have seen/ said his comman­der evenly. 'Tarvitz, Grulgor, the kill orders from Eidolon and Typhon… If there is an explanation that would undo all of that, that would make this all go away, I would give much to know it.'

Decius advanced a step. 'There is something you fail to consider. Ask yourself this, my lord: What if Horus is right?'

He had barely uttered the question when the com­bat alert sirens began to wail.

'Say that again!' snapped Temeter, pulling the Astartes holding the long-range vox towards him.

With the constant drumming of shellfire back and forth between the Death Guard assault force and the Isstvanian defenders, it was difficult to hear the man's words. Another blistering salvo of vulcan bolter fire from the Dies Irae roared over their heads, blotting out everything else as the Titan continued its slow advance.