Mike Lee: Fallen Angels

'How many civilians were you able to evacuate?' Zahariel interjected.

The colonel shrugged. 'Thousands, certainly,' he said, 'but I've no way of determining an exact number of evacuees. We're still trying to let people through, but it's extremely difficult at this point.'

'Why?' Luther asked.

Colonel Hadziel took a breath, considering his reply carefully. 'These riots are much worse than anything we've seen before,' he said. 'We'd thought maybe some kind of disease had taken hold in the hab levels - something savage, like crimson fever or rabies. The last reports we got from our squads in the lower levels reported mobs of bestial civilians attacking every living thing in sight. Gunfire didn't seem to slow them in the least short of a las-bolt to the head. The uninfected civilians are panicking and trying to mob our checkpoints in an effort to escape.' The colonel's jaw tightened. 'There have been several incidents of troops turning their guns on the civilians in order to keep the crowds at bay.'

He hit another set of keys and gestured to the holo-image. 'As it is, I've been forced to give up my initial positions and fall back to level fifteen, where there are fewer access points to cover and I can pass orders using runners.' Almost half of the lower levels of the arcology began to blink red. 'Everything below that level, including all the sub-levels, has been lost, which includes the arcology's thermal power plants, water and air circulation and waste recycling facilities. In purely military terms, we're no longer in control of the arcology.' Hadziel spread his hands. 'We're still trying to save as many civilians as we can, but we've got to check every group and make sure they're clean before we can let them through.'

Luther turned to Zahariel. 'Are there any measures we can take to quickly discern living humans from these walking corpses?'

Hadziel's eyes widened. 'Corpses, my lord? Those were reports from panicked troops. Surely you don't believe—'

'Make sure the checkpoints are issued thermal auspex units,' Zahariel cut in. 'Even a thermal lasgun sight will do. The corpses will have a much lower heat signature than the civilians around them.'

'Well, I…' Hadziel began, then took one look at the Astartes and thought better of his protest. 'I mean, I'll send the word out immediately.'

Luther nodded curtly. 'Very good, colonel.' He paused for a moment, studying the display carefully for a moment. 'At this point, I want you to focus your efforts on holding the checkpoints at level fifteen and to continue evacuating civilians out of the hab levels as quickly and efficiently as possible. My warriors will form into strike forces and will pass through these checkpoints—' He indicated seven strategic locations across level fifteen '—and will advance into the contested areas towards the arcology's power plants and life support centres.'

Hadziel frowned. 'My lord, we have no clear estimates on the number of infected individuals on the lower levels, but it certainly reaches into the hundreds, possibly thousands. They will be drawn to your warriors like blood moths to a wounded deer.'

Luther nodded in agreement. 'That's the idea, colonel. My brothers will deal with the corpses and take the pressure off your troops. Once you've completed relocating the civilian population you'll be able to commit your forces to securing the arcology's lower levels. I want you to assign a liaison officer to each of my teams and ensure that their path through the checkpoints is cleared. That's all for now, gentlemen. We'll speak again once order is restored.'

Hadziel nodded and began issuing instructions to his staff officers, who immediately began to draft the necessary orders. Luther turned away from the Jaegers and motioned for Zahariel, Attias and Lord Cypher to join him several paces away.

'Any word from the rebels still inside the arcology?' he quietly asked Zahariel.

The Librarian shook his head. 'They're having no better luck with their vox-units than we are,' he replied. 'There's no way to know if they've found the sorcerers or not.'

Luther nodded. 'Do you believe Colonel Hadziel's estimate of the number of corpses in the lower levels?'

Zahariel shook his head grimly. 'Not in the least. They must number in the thousands, possibly the tens of thousands.'

'An army of the dead,' Brother Attias said in his hollow, synthetic voice. 'But to what purpose?'

'Fuel for the fire,' Luther said, half to himself. 'The sorcerers are using the violence and bloodshed to weaken the barrier between the physical world and the warp and facilitate their master ritual.' He cast a meaningful glance at Lord Cypher, who nodded.

Zahariel scowled at the secret exchange, wondering what secrets Luther had uncovered from the forbidden library. 'Then we have to find a way to strike directly at the sorcerers and their ritual,' he declared.

'If we can locate them in time,' Luther said grimly. 'The ritual must be close to completion at this point.'

'Zahariel can lead us there,' Cypher said. His hooded head swivelled to regard the Librarian. 'You can sense the turbulence in the warp generated by the ritual, can you not?'

'I…' Zahariel paused, glancing from Lord Cypher to Luther. The Master of Caliban was staring at him expectantly. Was he being manoeuvred into something? Israfael's stricken face hovered before his mind's eye like a ghost. He shook his head, as though to clear it. 'That is, yes, I can, but that kind of prolonged exposure to warp energy is not without risk.'

Luther grinned wryly. 'Brother, believe me when I tell you that if we don't stop this ritual we're all going to be exposed to more warp energy than is really healthy.'

A strange, wheezing note blurted from Attias's vox grille. Zahariel turned to stare at the skull-faced Astartes. The sound continued, and it took the Librarian a few moments to realise that Attias was laughing. Cypher started to chuckle, and then Zahariel couldn't help but join in as well, dispelling the tension of the moment.

'Well, brother?' Luther prompted.

Zahariel bowed his head. 'Give me a moment to centre myself,' he said, clenching the force staff tightly and focusing his awareness through his armour's psychic hood.

At once he felt the churning maelstrom of the warp whirling about him. Its energy licked at him like tongues of flame, trying to find purchase in his soul. Jagged slivers of ice dug painfully into the back of his skull as the hood tried to shield him from the storm.

The whirlwind spun about him, drawing him downward towards its locus like a gaping maw. Something lay at its centre, he sensed; a seed of darkness, hungry and impatient for release.

Zahariel staggered slightly at the vertiginous pull of the ritual, holding himself apart from it by sheer effort of will. 'I can feel it,' he gasped. 'The sorcerers are trying to open a path for something to come through. Like Sarosh, only… worse, somehow.'

'Can you lead us to them?' Luther said.

Zahariel concentrated on the vortex, following its currents with his mind. The biting cold in his head increased. Frost spread along the force staff's metal shaft. 'The locus is deep within the earth,' he said with a grimace. 'I'll be able to refine its position more precisely as we go.'

'Excellent,' Luther said. 'We'll have Hadziel unlock a bank of maintenance lifts that will take us directly to the lowest sub-level, then fight our way to the locus from there.'

The Master of Caliban spun on his heel, snapping orders to Colonel Hadziel and to the other three squad leaders waiting at the landing pad. With an effort, Zahariel tried to re-orient himself in the physical world once more. The transition was much more difficult than he expected; even with the buffer provided by the psychic hood, the energies of the maelstrom still plucked at him, as though it had sunk barbs deep into his soul. He felt strangely numbed, unmoored within his own skin, and he knew that the grip of the storm would only grow stronger the closer he came to the centre of the ritual.