Salamander

'This one had ocular implants?' Dak'ir asked.

'No, sir.'

The eyes, then, had been torn out. Gore streaked from the ruined sockets that were deep and red and visceral. Dak'ir regarded the abomination sternly.

'Assessment?'

Emek paused, weighing up his words, until his sergeant faced him to demand an answer. 'I believe the ship turned on itself, though I don't know how or why,' he said.

Dak'ir remembered the view of the

Archimedes Rex

through the

Fire-wyvern's

occuliport; in retrospect, the weapons damage was strange. It was possible that the ship's crippling had been self-inflicted. It might also explain why they had encountered one single magos - he was the last standing, having killed the rest. The cryo-vault was sealed, not against foreign invaders, but to keep the rest of the ship's inhabitants out.

'What about the servitors?' Dak'ir followed his line of reasoning out loud.

'They aren't sentient like the magos and the other adepts. Perhaps they weren't affected in the same way.'

Dak'ir took one last look at the mutilated adept in the tank. His salvation had come too late. Sealed in the cryo-casket, and with nothing to attack, he had evidently turned on himself.

'Keep looking for survivors,' he said, turning, glad to avert his gaze from the gruesome spectacle.

As he walked back down the access stairway, Dak'ir's comm-feed crackled to life. It was on a closed channel with himself and Tsu'gan.

'Brother-sergeants.'

Dak'ir looked over at the sound of Pyriel's voice. The Librarian maintained his vigil over their dubious allies. The cause for his words was obvious. The Marines Malevolent had opened up the blast doors. When he reached the Librarian, Dak'ir saw inside the chamber the other Astartes had been so fixated on. It was a massive storage room, akin to the one they'd discovered earlier only much larger. Also unlike the smaller munitions store, this one had a vast cache of manufactured arms and armour: Mk VII battle-plate hung in suits from overhead armatures; bolters sat in racks like parade soldiers, pristine and unfired; ammo crates brimming with sickle mags for the guns were piled in pallets of a hundred, a thousand clips per crate. Materiel spanned the hangar-like room in an unending slew of grey-black.

The Marines Malevolent were already emptying it, positioning guns, ammunition and power armour directly outside the chamber within an invisibly delineated area.

Dak'ir then realised what Lorkar and his battle-brothers were doing on the

Archimedes Rex.

The fledgling weapons were the perfect replacements for their arcane militaria. The Marines Malevolent were re-supplying; appropriating the materiel cache from the forge-ship for their own purposes.

One of the yellow-armoured warriors, the shark-helmeted Brother Nemiok, had been in brief concert with his sergeant and afterwards removed something from a large belt pouch. It was a bulky device, hoisted into position atop the centre of the small arms cache by a thick handle, and consisted of a narrow-necked tube with a lozenge-shaped tip that contained a beacon, appended with small pistons that powered a ribbed compression cylinder.

Though crude and out-dated, Dak'ir recognised it at once. It was a teleport homer. En route to the

Archimedes Rex,

the Salamanders had neither seen nor detected another vessel. Dak'ir could only assume the

Fire-wyvern's

sensor arrays lacked the range to discover it, for he was sure now that the Marines Malevolent had a cruiser nearby, its teleportarium primed for the stolen Mechanicus haul.

Tsu'gan stormed towards the ring of yellow-armoured Astartes that had formed just in front of the teleportation zone.

'What do you think you're doing,

brother!'

he growled, ignoring the others and addressing Lorkar directly.

The sergeant was directing two of his battle-brothers hefting the equipment out of the storage room and didn't look at Tsu'gan when he answered.

'What it looks like, Salamander. I am re-supplying my Chapter.'

'You steal that which is not meant for you,' he countered, clenching his fists. 'I did not realise the Marines Malevolent were honourless pirates.'

Now Lorkar turned, and his previous nonchalance crumbled away.

'We are true servants of the Emperor. Our integrity is beyond reproach. We seek only the means to prosecute His wars.'

'Then honour the pact made between He and the Mechanicus. We Astartes have no call to pillage and ransack the stricken ships of Mars. You are no better than carrion snapping at the flesh of a corpse.'

'What concern is it of yours, anyway?' Lorkar returned, a slight tilt of his head suggested a glance at something behind the Salamander. 'Stay out of it.'

Tsu'gan felt the lightest pressure on his pauldron when he turned swiftly, seizing the wrist of the Space Marine attempting to surprise him and twisting until the bones snapped and he forced his assailant to one knee.

'Attempt to rise and I shall shatter your kneecap,' Tsu'gan promised, addressing the skull-faced Marine Malevolent with the plasma gun. Despite the obvious pain he was in, the yellow-armoured Astartes looked to his sergeant before he would relent.

Ba'ken stirred from his sentry position, as did the other Salamanders on overwatch, together with those manning the cryo-caskets.

'Remain where you are.' Pyriel's curt command arrested any further escalation.

Ba'ken seemed about to press anyway, when a glance from Dak'ir warned him off and he merely watched instead. Of the Marines Malevolent, only Brother Rennard had broken ranks, doubtless in response to an earlier directive from his sergeant.

Lorkar's fists were clenched as he considered what to do next. It was as if time had frozen. The tension in the room was strained; a little more pressure and it would break out in bloody violence. Dak'ir noticed that Harkane had switched the gun platform from dormant to active, the red targeting matrix hazing in the cryo-gas.

He thought about disabling the Techmarine. He still had enough charge in his plasma pistol for a wounding shot. It took less than a second for Dak'ir to decide against it. So delicately poised as the situation was, any unexpected move could be disastrous. Tsu'gan had the lead for now and he had to be content with that. A degree of insurance would be prudent, though, and it was with this in mind that Dak'ir issued the sub-vocal command into a closed channel of the comm-feed.

'Do you really want to do this?' Tsu'gan still had his back to Lorkar, glaring down intently at the Marine Malevolent under his control.

Lorkar exhaled slowly and released his clenched fists. 'Brother Rennard, stand down,' he ordered reluctantly, and the skull-faced Astartes relaxed. Tsu'gan let him go, facing Lorkar again, an awkward stand-off in prospect.

'These weapons can either gather dust on this wreck or be put to use