Echidna's Children

[Mazer Rackham]

++ ECHIDNA’S CHILDREN ++

1: LAUGHING HEADSMEN

Theoretical. A term used by the Primogenitors, and before them, the XIII Legion, a rhetorical device to prepare the mind for action, for the execution of a preferred eventuality. Tirian Mahlo found the latter disproportionately amusing, since it succinctly underscored his current predicament.

 

The chainaxe bit into his shoulder.

 

Scarlet runes in Mancoran Dialect helpfully informed him of the Practical as adamantine teeth driven to a blinding whirr, made contact and began to harrow his alabaster warplate. He couldn’t hear the weapon growling, since Khymara IX was utterly devoid of atmosphere, but he did notice the grey-green dust from the world’s surface clogging where it mixed with Astartes blood from previous victims.

 

He had about three seconds to live.

 

Then again, so did the bastard trying to kill him.

 

With a jarring parry, Mahlo knocked the weapon back with his elbow, provoking sparks and flecks of ceramite to skitter across his visor before pinging off to oblivion in the low gravity. The clack-slam of his Reductor went right through the flexsteel of the Executioner’s neck, aimed at a point Mahlo was all too familiar with. Behind it lay the arteries and meat of the Space Marine’s absurdly well-designed neck, but also the fleshy gobbet of a single Geneseed cluster. The sickening noise as Biscopean cartilage parted for the invading metal never failed to force clenched teeth, when he powered through, severing the cervical vertebrae and the vital nerve clusters.

 

A rune spoiled his vindictive moment with a green pulse to indicate the death-blow, and incidental geneseed recovery, was successful. It was a first. He used the corpse as a shield to hide from supporting fire given by the Scions of Dorn who called the meatbag comrade. More Astartes plate was turned into flinders by the hurricane of fire as they tried to bring him down; just as aware as Mahlo that the man he was holding was dead.

 

This was an utter shambles, the Howling Griffons stationed here called for recovery of their wounded, and Mahlo was forced to leave the protection of his Rhino APC, clearly marked as an Apothecarion Transit, to enter the bunker complex which comprised of four stations, housing an augur array, telecoms units, and a remote surveillance drones.

 

What was left of them.

 

He fought the Executioners with bursts from his Umbra-Ferrox bolter, mindful of ammunition consumption, the bolt hammering a predictable chugging that tallied in his mind along with the cortical-interface in his visor.

 

The enemy were clad in almost as motley a panoply as his own Brothers were, some in gleaming blue-steel, others marked with dark lozenges of Codex disruptive patterns, more still in the blue-white lunar amoeba. His fashion sense was abandoned when his power plant hit the door sill leading to the under-complex.

 

Abandoning his erstwhile, now limbless shield, he banged twice, tossing a krak grenade out with the corpse. A blast of displaced grit and pressure warnings eclipsed as the door opened to admit him, staring into the muzzles of two bolters clasped by Griffons he didn’t know.

 

+ Peace, brothers,+ he assured, although it was both hollow and pointless, since his Cerberus IFF would have already painted him as friendly.

 

Perhaps this was the bedside manner Kordus was so keen for him to develop.

 

++++++++++++

 

Just a quick blurt that was supposed to launch into another short-story, but I couldn't get my teeth back into it. Can't remember if it's in the Google Drive, but at least it's on the board for perusal.