Salamander

his other hand clutched the strategio-table.

'Pyriel…' N'keln's face was slashed by the intermittent strobe of emergency lighting as Dak'ir pushed himself back up from where he had fallen at the base of the stairs. Still groggy, his gaze went to the Librarian. The pulpit was a mess of sparking wires and scorched metal. Pyriel punched his way out of the twisted wreckage, his mood black.

'We must have translated into a solar storm,' he growled loudly, seizing the ragged edge of the shattered pulpit for balance as the ship was smashed again. Helmsmen in front of the Librarian desperately tried to steer the ship, whilst simultaneously fighting to stay on their feet.

The din of churning servos fought against the fiery thunder assailing the vessel, as the blast shields covering the view-points started to retract. It was an automated system that kicked in as soon as the Geller fields powered down and the ship re-entered realspace.

Dak'ir felt the danger before he saw a thin line of ultra-bright light creeping into being at the bottom edge of the shielding.

'Shut th—'

Horrified screams smothered the brother-sergeant's warning as multiple shafts of super-heated light reached into the bridge. An ensign nearest the viewpoint spontaneously combusted as the deadly solar energy washed over him. Others at the consoles suffered a similar fate. A shipmaster spun, crying for the Emperor's mercy, the left side of his face a blackened ruin. A naval armsman, with enough presence of mind to hunker down behind a console, pulled his laspistol and administered a killing shot between the poor bastard's pleading eyes.

Dak'ir felt the heat against his armour tangibly. It was like wading through a wind tunnel as he fought to reach the blast shield's emergency override lever. Not wearing his battle-helm, the view for Dak'ir shimmered through a heat haze. His naked skin was untroubled by it, though he saw a blistering servitor less resilient to the solar flare. It ravaged the inner walls, setting cables aflame and burning out circuitry.

Pyriel threw up a force dome around the crew, who crawled into it on their hands and knees. The blinded and the burned were dragged, mewling, into the psychic sanctuary whilst the dead were left to crisp and blacken, their bodies becoming human torches in the blaze.

The crack in the shielding was only centimetres thick when Dak'ir reached the override panel and threw back the lever. Agonisingly slowly, the armour plates rolled shut again and the hellish light was cut off.

Pyriel ended the force dome and sagged. His face was beaded with sweat, but his eyes conveyed his gratitude as his gaze met Dak'ir's.

The smoking ruins of men lay all about the bridge, their charred corpses like dark shadowy husks on the scorched deck.

'Medical crews onto the bridge now,' Lok spoke into his gorget, linked in with the ship's communication systems. The edges of his pauldrons were black, as if filmed with a layer of thick soot, and heat emanated off his bald pate.

'Master Argos,' N'keln barked into the throne vox. The fiery roar of the storm had not relented, making it difficult to convey orders. 'Damage report.'

Static filled the bridge's vox-emitters. The Techmarine's voice was strained as it fought to be heard through the interference. Background clamour from the Enginarium deck where Argos was situated impeded the clarity further.

'Hull engines are non-functional, aft thruster banks three through eighteen are showing sporadic power emissions. Shields are down and decks thirteen through twenty-six are showing critical damage, possibly an integrity breach.'

It was a grim report.

'What hit us?'

'The port-side of the ship was struck by a light beam from the solar storm. It burned through our outer armour, took out our shields and strafed most of the sun-side decks. Entire sections were ripped out. The worst hit areas were totally burned. Everything there is ash. I've shut them down already.'

'

Vulkan's mercy…'

breathed N'keln.

Somehow, perhaps through his augmetics, Argos heard him.

'Imagine a melta gun at point-blank range against a suit of ceramite.'

Dak'ir found he had no desire to.

'Give me something positive, brother,' said N'keln, interrupting the sergeant's bleak remembrance.

The Techmarine's response was unintentionally dry.

'We are still aloft.'

The captain smiled without mirth. He was distracted for a moment as the blast doors opened and medicae teams spilled through to tend to the injured and remove the dead. Lok directed them for his captain, as N'keln continued to speak with his chief Techmarine.

'How long will that be the case whilst we are breached?'

There was a delay as the crackling retort of the vox-emitters blighted Argos's reply.

'Not long,' he said at last.

N'keln looked Dak'ir in the eye, his face assuming a stern cast. The breached decks would have to be purged and sealed. Hundreds, if not thousands, of human serfs worked in those areas of the ship - N'keln would be condemning them all to death.

'Alone, they cannot survive,' stated Dak'ir, already knowing his captain's mind.

N'keln nodded.

'That's why you're going to gather your squad - Lok, you too - ' he added with a side glance, 'and assist in the evacuation. Save as many as you can, brothers.

I

will order the decks locked down in fifteen minutes.'

Dak'ir rapped his pauldron, and he and Lok ran from the bridge, the din of their armour clanking urgently behind them.

II Sinner and Saviour

I

agon was pitched

off his feet as a violent tremor rippled across the solitorium. Zo'kar yelped in pain as he was torn from the Salamander's grasp. A low rumble echoed through the chamber, followed by the sound of tearing metal and a crash of steel. Something fell from the ceiling and the brander-priest was lost from Iagon's view. Heaving himself up from his prone position, filtering out the sudden roar invading his senses, Iagon staggered through the half-dark until he came to a pile of wreckage. The ceiling of the solitorium had collapsed. Zo'kar's

pitiful

face, the hood cast back in the fall, could be seen beneath it. Feeble arms pushed against a thick adamantium rebar crushing the brander-priest's chest. Blood was leaking from a wound concealed by his robes, a dark patch spreading over the fabric as he struggled.

'Lord… Help me…' he gasped, his tone pleading, as he saw Iagon standing over him.