Ben Counter - Soul Drinker

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++Subject: Traitors and Executions++

++Author: [Rus]Incubus – Scrivenor-in-attendance to

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++Thought for the Day: To cheat is both cowardly and

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More Ben Counter from the Black Library

SOUL DRINKERS

SOUL DRINKER

THE BLEEDING CHALICE

CRIMSON TEARS

OTHER WARHAMMER 40,000

DAEMON WORLD GREY KNIGHTS

A WARHAMMER 40,000 NOVEL

SOUL DRINKER

Ben Counter To Helen

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2002

This edition published in 2005 by

BL Publishing,

Games Workshop Ltd.,

Willow Road, Nottingham,

NG7 2WS, UK.

10 987654321

Cover illustration by Adrian Smith.

Black Library, the Black Library logo, Black Flame, BL Publishing, Games Workshop, the Games Workshop logo and all associated

marks, names, characters, illustrations and images from the

Warhammer 40,000 universe are either *, TM and.'or ® Games

Workshop Ltd 2000-2005, variably registered in the UK and other

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 13: 978 1 84416 162 1 ISBN 10: 1 84416 162 5

Distributed in the US by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, US.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bookmarque, Surrey, UK.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior

permission of the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in

this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or

incidents is purely coincidental.

See the Black Library on the Internet at

www.blacklibrary.com

Find out more about Games Workshop and the world of Warhammer 40.000 at

www.games-workshop.com

CHAPTER ONE

In the silence of the vacuum the corvus assault pod tumbled towards the star fort, the curved metal of its

hull studded with directional jets that fired once, steadying the descent. The pod had been fired on a

trajectory that took it halfway across the orbit of the planet Lakonia, which hung bright and cold below. The

battle cruiser which had housed it, along with the half-dozen other pods glinting against the blackness of

space, was on the other side of the planet. No one in the star fort would have any idea they were coming.

And that was just how the Soul Drinkers preferred it.

Inside the drop-pod, Sarpedon could hear only the soft song of the servitor choir and the gentle hum of

armour. The battle-brothers were quiet, contemplating the fight to come and the many years of warfare that

had forged them into the pinnacle of humanity.

They were thinking of Primarch Rogal Dorn, the father of their Chapter literally as well as figuratively, and

his noble example they strove to follow. They thought of the favour the Emperor had bestowed upon them,

that they might travel the stars and play their part in a grand plan that was too fragile and vital to place in

the hands of lesser men. They had thought such things a thousand times or more, readying their minds for

the sharp intensity of combat, banishing the doubt that afflicted soldiers falling below the standard of the

Space Marines, of the Soul Drinkers.

Sarpedon knew this, for he felt the same. And yet this time it was different. This time the weight of history,

which refined the Soul Drinkers' conduct into a paragon of honour and dig-nity, was a little heavier. For

there was more at stake than a battle won or lost. Soon, when the fight was over, they would have reserved

a place in the legends that were taught to novices and recited on feasting nights.

The choir's delicate faces, mounted on brass armatures, turned to the ceiling of the corvus pod as the note

from their once-human vocal chords rose. The Soul Drinkers Chapter used the mindless, partly-human

servitors for all menial and non-skilled labour - those making up the choir were little more than faces and

vox-projectors hardwired to the pod. Their presence was a tradition of the Chapter, and helped focus the

thoughts of the battle-brothers on the battle to come.

They were close. They were ready. Sarpedon could feel the brothers' eagerness for battle, their concern

for proper con-duct and their scorn for cowardice, mixed and tempered into a warrior's soul. It shone at the

back of his mind, so strong and unifying that he could receive it without trying.

The pod juddered as it encountered the first wisps of Lakonia's atmosphere, but the thirty battle-brothers -

two tactical and one assault squad strapped into grav-ram seats, resplen-dent in their dark purple power

armour and with weapons gleaming - did not allow their reverie to waver.

His brothers. The select band that lay between mankind's destiny and its destruction. The tune of the choir

changed as the pod entered the final phase, almost drowning out the hiss of the braking jets. Sarpedon took

his helmet from beside his seat and put it on, feeling the seal snaking shut around his throat. New runes on

his retinal display con-firmed the vacuum integrity of his massive armour. Every Space Marine had spent

many hours on the strike cruiser observing the strictest wargear discipline, for they could be fighting in a

near-vacuum before entry points were secured.

He activated a rune on the retinal-projected display and his aegis hood thrummed into life. Handed down

the line of senior Librarians of the Soul Drinkers, its lost technology warmed up to protect Sarpedon as he

led his brother Space Marines into Chapter history.

Close. Closer. Even if the choir and the corvus pod's alert systems had not told him, he could have felt it.

He could feel the star fort's bulk rearing out of the darkness, its bloated shape creeping across Lakonia's

green-brown disk as they approached. The braking jets entered second phase, and the grav-rams flexed to

cushion the Marines' weight against the deceleration.

'Soul Drinkers,' came Commander Caeon's voice over the vox-channel, clear and proud. 'I need not tell you

why you are here, or what is expected of you, or how you will fight. These are things you will never doubt.

But know now that when the youngest novices or the most scarred of veterans ask you how you spent your

time serving this Chapter, it will be enough to tell them that you were there the day your Chapter proved it

never forgets a matter of honour. The day the Soulspear was returned.'

Good words. Caeon could tap into the hearts of his men, use the power of those traditions they held sacred

to will them on to superhuman feats.

Lights flashed inside the corvus pod. The noise grew, the servitor choir matching its harmonies, a wall of

sound growing, inspiring. The metallic slamming that rippled through the hull was the sound of the docking

clamps forced out of their cowlings, ceramite-edged claws primed to rip through metal. Sarpedon could see

the star fort fresh in his mind, planted there by the repeated mission briefings - it was ugly and misshapen,

probably once spherical but now deformed. Docking corridors would be stabbing out from its tarnished

surface, but the attack had been carefully timed.

There was no cargo on the star fort and no ships docked -no way out for defenders. The Van Skorvold

cartel and its rumoured private army believed their star fort to be a bastion of defence, its weapon systems

and labyrinthine interior pro-tecting them from any attack. It was the Soul Drinkers' intent to turn the place

into a deathtrap.

Long-range scans had only penetrated through the first few layers of the star fort. It had been difficult to

plan an assault route when there could only be guesswork about what form the inside of the fort might take,

so the mission was simple in principle. Go in, eliminate any opposition, and find the objectives. Where the

objectives were, or what that opposi-tion might be, would be discovered as the mission unfolded by the

leaders of the individual assault teams. In the case of Sarpedon's squads, that was Sarpedon himself.

There were three objectives. Primary objectives one and two were means to an end - that end was

Objective Ultima, and its recovery would emblazon the names of every Space Marine here on the pages of

Chapter history.

Sarpedon checked his bolter one last time, and clasped a hand round the grip of his force staff, the

psyk-attuned arunwood haft warm to the touch. Faint energy crackled over its surface. The other Space

Marines were making a last sym-bolic check of their wargear, too - helmet and joint seals, bolters. The

plasma gun of Givrillian's squad was primed, its power coils glowing. Sergeant Tellos's assault squad,

stripped of their jump packs for the star fort environment, unsheathed their chainswords as one. Sarpedon

could feel Tellos's face behind his snarl-nosed helmet, calm and untroubled, with a hint of a smile. All Soul

Drinkers were born to fight - Tellos was born to do so with the enemy sur-rounding him at sword-thrust

range, daring to take up arms against the Emperor's chosen. Tellos was marked for great things, the upper

echelons of Chapter command had said. Sarpedon agreed.

The choir suddenly fell silent, and there was nothing in the Space Marines' minds but battle. The docking

charges roared in unison, and they hit.

The corvus pod's doors blew open and the air rushed out with a scream. The flesh on the servitor choir's

faces blistered and cracked with the sudden cold. There was silence all around, save for the hum of the

power plant in his armour's backpack and the almost-real sound of his brothers' minds, washing back and

forth like a tide as they snapped through the orientation/comprehension routines that had been implanted on

their minds during psycho-doctrination.

Sight - the swirling smoke through the blast doors, frag-ments of ice and metal spinning. Sound - nothing, no

air. Movement - none.

The Space Marines unbuckled their harnesses, ready to rush the breach. Tellos would lead them in, his

men's chainswords primed to rip through the first line of defenders. Sarpedon would be in the middle of the

tactical squads on their heels, ready to unleash the weapon that boiled within his mind.

Sarpedon only had to nod, and Tellos bolted through the breach.

'Go! Go! With me!' Tellos's young, eager voice broke the silence like a gunshot as his squad followed. Then

the sergeant's breath was the only sound. Every Space Marine lis-tened with augmented ears for the first

contact with the enemy.

The tactical squads were unbuckled.

'Clear!' called Tellos.

The Tactical Marines plunged into the smoky breach, their power armoured bulks dropping through into the

darkness. Givrillian was in the lead, Brother Thax with the plasma gun at his shoulder. Sarpedon followed,

bolter ready, force staff holstered behind his armour's backpack. As he ducked into the breach he caught

sight of Lakonia, a glowing sliver of a world framed in the gap between the pod's docking gear and the star

fort's hull. The pod had come in aslant and the docking seal had not adhered, the atmosphere within the pod

and immediate environment beyond venting out into the thin near-void.

An assault craft of lesser forces would have been forced to disengage then and there, its blast doors

clamped shut, to drift vulnerable and impotent until second wave craft picked it up. But the Soul Drinkers

cared nothing for such things - power armour's sealable environment made a mockery of the dangers of

vacuum. And there would be no second wave.

The smoke cleared and Sarpedon got his first look at the star fort's interior. It was low-ceilinged to a

warrior of his superhuman height, dirty and ill-maintained - they had hit a derelict section, of which there

were probably a great many in the fort. Oil and sludge had frozen on the pipes that snaked the ceilings and

walls. They were at the junction of two corridors - one way was blocked by a lump of rusting machinery,

but there were still three exits to cover or exploit. Two curved away into the dimness and one ended in a

solid bulkhead door, guarded by half of Tellos's assault squad, ready to blow it with melta-bombs.

The lack of immediate resistance was explained by the two bodies. Probably maintenance workers, they

were unpro-tected when the local atmosphere blew out. One had been thrown against a stanchion by the

explosive decompression and had burst like a ripe seed pod, his blood bright like jew-els of red ice on the

floor and walls. The other was stretched pathetically along the corridor floor, mouth frozen mid-gasp,

staring madly up at the breach with eyes red from burst blood vessels. Sarpedon's keen eyes caught the

glint of an insignia badge on the body's grease-streaked grey overalls, a retinal rune flashing as the image

zoomed in. Stylized human figures, twins, flanking a golden planet. The Van Skorvold crest.

The Tactical Marines fanned out around him, bolters ready, enhanced senses scanning for movement.

'Breach the bulkhead, sir?' Tellos voxed.

'Not yet. Flight crew, get that seal intact. I don't want any decompressions throwing our aim.'

'Acknowledged.' came the serf-pilot's metallic voice from within the corvus cockpit. Vibrations ran through

the dull metal grating of the floor as the clamps edged the docking seal true to the breached hull.

Sarpedon contracted a throat muscle to broaden the fre-quency of his vox-bead. 'This is Sarpedon. Squads

Tellos, Givrillian and Dreo deployed. Nil contact.'

'Received, Sarpedon. Confirm location and move on mark.' The voice was Commander Caeon's from his

posi-tion some way across the bloated bulk of the star fort. Along with Caeon, Sarpedon and their squads,

six more corvus ship-to-orbital assault pods had impacted on the spaceward side of the star fort and

disgorged their elite Soul Drinkers complements. Three more were following carrying the remaining

apothecaries and Tech-Marines, along with a pla-toon of serf-labourers kitted out for combat construction

duty, ready to support their brethren and consolidate the landing site bridgeheads.

Three whole companies of Soul Drinkers. A battlezone's worth of the Emperor's chosen soldiers, enough to

face any threat the galaxy might throw at them. But for the prize that shone deep within the star fort, it was

worth it.

Sarpedon pulled a holoslate from a waist pouch and flicked it on. A sketchy green image of the corridors

immedi-ately surrounding his position flickered above the slate, with lines of data circling it. The star fort

was based on a very old orbital defence platform, and the platform's schematics had been supplied in case

any of the assault pods hit a section of the original platform.

'Subsection delta thirty-nine.' he voxed. 'Redundant cargo and personnel route.'

'Received. Consolidate.'

Sarpedon's fingers, dextrous even within the gauntlet of purple ceramite, touched runes along the holoslate's

side and the corridor system was divided into blocks of colour, mark-ing the different routes out of their

position. Crosshairs centred on a point that flashed red, indicating the conver-gence of the three routes two

hundred metres further into the fort. Barring enemy concentrations elsewhere, their immedi-ate objective

was the primary environmental shaft head, a grainy green curve at the edge of the display. Once taken, it

gave the Marines an option for a larger thrust into the oxygen pumps and recycling turbines, and then

through the mid-level habs into the armoured core that surrounded primary objec-tive two. A messenger

rune flickered on his retinal display, indicating the docking seal had achieved integrity.

'By sections!' he ordered on the squad-level frequency, indicating the holo to his squad sergeants. 'Tellos,

the bulk-head. Dreo, left, Givrillian right, with me. Cold and fast, Soul Drinkers!'

The squads peeled off into the darkness, leaving two Space Marines from each of the tactical squads to

hold the bridge-head and cover the arriving specialists assigned to Sarpedon's cordon. There was the thud

of melta-bomb detonations and the whump of air re-entering the area as the bulkhead fell.

Sarpedon led Givrillian's unit through the side corridor into a cargo duct, broad and square, with a heavy rail

running down the centre for crate-carts or worker transports. Thax swept beyond the entrance.

'Nothing.' he said.

'Unsurprising,' said Sarpedon. They weren't expecting us.'

No one ever did. That was how the Soul Drinkers worked. Cold and fast.

They felt the faint report of bolter-shots in the thinned air. 'Contact!' came Dreo's voice.

Sarpedon waited, just a moment.

'Enemy down.' said Dreo. 'Half-dozen, security patrol. Autoguns and flak armour, uniforms.'

'Received, Sergeant Dreo. Proceed to rendezvous junction.'

'Mutants, sir.'

Sarpedon's skin crawled at the mere concept, and he could feel the disgust of his brothers. The evidence of

illegal mutant dealing had been damning enough, but there had been sto-ries that the Van Skorvold cartel

had skimmed off the most useful of their illicit cargo and formed them into a private army. Now it was

certain.

'Move the flamer to the rear and burn mem. Squads, be aware, mutations include enhanced sensory organs.

Some of those things might see as well as you. And there will be more.'

Degenerate, dangerous individuals but cowardly at heart. His powers would work well on such foes. But

first they had to find them.

'Heavy contact, cargo hub seven!' Luko's call-sign flick-ered. Luko's squad was part of the strike force

from another corvus pod, one which had come down nearby and just before Sarpedon's. Sarpedon knew

Luko would be itching to tear into some miscreant flesh with his power claws, and it was right that he

should the first into the bulk of the enemy.

'Sarpedon here, do you request support?'

'Greetings, Librarian! Come on over, the hunting is good!' Luko always had a laugh in his voice, never more

so than when the foe dared show its face.

Givrillian led them down a side-duct, cutting across the unassigned sectors delta thirty-eight and

thirty-seven. A flash of the holoplate showed Luko's auspex data - red triangles, unknown signals, skittering

across the edge of delta thirty-five. 'Dozens, sir.' said Givrillian. 'I can see that, sergeant. Suggestion?'

'Tellos'll be there first, so their first line will be engaged. We go in with light engagement fire pattern, get in

right amongst them. Don't let them get dug in.'

'Good. Do it.'

They all heard Tellos as he called upon his brother assault troopers to slay for the Emperor and for Dorn,

and the famil-iar sound of chainblade into flesh. The bolter-fire from Luko's squad stitched a pattern of

sound into the air every Marine had heard a million times before. Givrillian burst through an open hatchway

into the cargo hub that made up sector delta thirty-five, picked a target and loosed off a hand-ful of shots

from his bolter. Thax was a footstep behind and a pulse of liquid plasma-fire burst white hot from the

muzzle of his gun, power coils shimmering.

Sarpedon cocked his bolter and followed, and saw the enemy for the first time.

The hub had once been dominated by the tracks at ceiling-level, which moved huge crates of cargo around

the immense room between the duct entrances and pneumo-lifters. The forest of uprights which had held

up the system had mostly collapsed or fallen askew with age and poor maintenance, and it was these that

the mutants were using for cover.

In that split-second Sarpedon picked out a hundred unclean deformities - hands that were claws, facial

features missing or multiplied or rearranged, spines cruelly twisted out of shape, scales and feathers and

skin sheened with ooze. They had autoguns, some las-weapons, crude shotguns. There were implanted

industrial cutters and saws, and some with just brute strength, all in ragged stained coveralls in the uni-form

dark green bearing the Van Skorvold crest.

There must have been a thousand of them in there, crowds of baying mutants behind their makeshift

defences. Their leaders - those with the most horrific mutations, some with massive chitinous talons or vast

muscle growth - had either communicators or slits at their throats that indicated crude vox-bead implants.

This was an organized foe.

Tellos's men were vaulting the first barricades and laying in with chainswords - limbs lopped off, heads

falling. The sergeant himself was duelling with something hulking and ugly that wielded a recycler unit's

harvester blade like a longsword. If it wasn't the leader the creature would at least form a lynchpin of

morale for the degenerates that crowded around it - Tellos was good, seeking out the target that would

damage the enemy most if eliminated, using his duelling skill to the maximum. If he took a fine trophy from

the beast, Sarpedon would put in a word for him to keep it.

It took Sarpedon half a second to appreciate the situation and decide on his plan of action. The enemy had

over-whelming strength and the Soul Drinkers had to neutralise the threat before a proper line of defence

could form. There-fore they would attack the enemy's prime weaknesses relentlessly until they broke.

He loosed a couple of shots into a crowd of mutants and workers that were sheltering behind mouldering

cargo crates from Luko's pinning fire. The bolter's kick in his hand felt good and heavy, and somewhere in

the heart of the enemy two red blooms burst - a stream of autogun fire crackled towards him and he

ducked back into cover.

First blood. Sarpedon had made his mark on the battle and could join with his brothers in pride at its

execution, accord-ing to the Chapter traditions.

'Givrillian, sweep forward and engage. Watch for Luko's crossfire. I will follow.'

'Yes, sir.' Sarpedon could hear the smile in the sergeant's voice. He knew what was coming.

Sarpedon slammed back-first against an upright stanchion for cover while he focused. The enemy's

weakness was moral - there might be many hundreds of them but they were degenerates and weak in

mind, not least those untainted by mutation's stain but who nevertheless stooped to associate themselves

with the unclean. His augmented hearing picked out the grind of chainblade against bone above the gunfire,

as Tellos wore down the mutant he had sought out. The beast's death would weaken the enemy's capacity

to fight. Sarpedon would finish it off.

Givrillian's squad flowed around him and he heard the plasma gun belch a wave of ultraheated liquid into the

enemy flank, skin crackling, limbs melting.

What did they fear? They would fear authority, power, and punishment. That was enough. He shifted the

grip on his bolter so he had a hand free to draw the arunwood force staff from its leather scabbard. Its

eagle-icon tip glowed as its thaumocapacitor core flooded with psychic energy. He con-centrated, forming

the images in his mind, piling them up behind a mental dam that would burst and send them flood-ing out into

reality. He removed his helmet and set it on a clasp at his waist, taking a breath of the air - greasy, sour,

recycled.

He stepped out into the battlezone. Givrillian's squad had torn the first rank of mutants apart, and they were

now crouched in firepoints slick with deviant blood as return fire sheeted over their heads. Mutant gangs

were scuttling and slithering through the debris, moving to outflank and sur-round them. Tellos had the

beast-mutant on its knees, one horn gone, huge blade chipped and scarred by the assault sergeant's

lightning-quick chainsword parries.

Sarpedon strode through it all, ignoring the autoshells and las-blasts spattering across the shadowy interior

of the hub.

He spread his arms, and felt the coil of the aegis circuits light up and flow around his armoured body. He

forced the images in his head to screaming intensity - and let them go.

The Hell began.

The closest mutants, at least two hundred strong, were thirty metres away, firefighting with Givrillian's

Marines. Their firing stopped as they stared around them as tall shrouded figures rose from the floor,

carrying swords of jus-tice and great gleaming scythes to reap the guilty. Some bolted, to see hands clawing

from the shadows, hungry for sinners to crush.

Bat-winged things swooped down at them and the mutants ran screaming, knowing their doom had come to

punish their corruption at last. They heard a deep, sonorous laugh-ter boom from somewhere high above,

mocking their attempts to flee. The waves of fire broke as the mutants fled back through their own ranks,

sowing disruption amongst their own for a few fatal seconds.

Sarpedon leapt the barricade with the nearest of Givril-lian's Marines and stormed across to the mutant

strongpoint. Most of the enemy still gawped at the apparitions boiling out of the darkness. A swing of his

force staff clove through the closest two at shoulder height - he could feel their feeble life-forces driven out

of their bodies even as the staff tore through their upper bodies with a flash of discharging energy. The

burst of psychic power knocked three more off their feet and they landed hard, weapons dropped.

The Hell. A weapon subtle but devastating, striking at the minds of his enemies while his brother Marines

struck their bodies. In the swift storming actions that the Soul Drinkers had made their own, it bought the

seconds essential to press home the assault. It worked up-close, in the guts of the fight, where a Soul

Drinker delighted to serve his Emperor.

Three of Givrillian's Marines, more than used to Sarpedon's conjurations after years of training and live

exercises, pointed bolter muzzles over the mutants' makeshift barri-cade and pumped shells into the fallen,

blasting fist-sized holes in torsos. Several more Space Marines knelt to draw beads on the hordes of

mutants thrown into confusion by the sudden collapse of their front line. Shots barked out, bod-ies dropped.

A tentacle flailed as its owner fell. Something with skeletal wings jutting from its back was flipped into a

somersault as a shell blew its upper chest apart.

Sarpedon stepped over the defences and swung again, swiping a worker/soldier in two at the waist as he

tried to scramble away. Givrillian appeared at Sarpedon's shoulder, his bolter cracking shots into the backs

of fleeing enemies. Assault Marines leapt past them and sprinted towards the mutants ranged towards the

back of the hub. Tellos's armour was slick with black-red gore.

A hand clapped Givrillian's shoulder pad - it was Luko. In an instant the two tactical squads had joined up to

form a fire line and chains of white-hot bolter fire raked around the Assault Marines, covering them as they

did their brutal work. Some mutants survived to flee - most died beneath the blades of Tellos and his squad,

or hammered by the fire from Givrillian and Luko. Their screams filled the hub with the echoes of the

dying.

The enemy had broken completely and the spectres of the Hell strode amongst the panicking mutants as the

Marines slaughtered them in their hundreds.

It was how the Soul Drinkers always won. Break an enemy utterly, rob him of his ability to fight, and the

rest was just discipline and righteous brutality.

Givrillian caught Luko's hand in a warrior's handshake. 'Well met,' he said. 'I trust your men are blooded?'

Givrillian removed his helmet, glancing around. 'Every one, Luko. A good day.' Givrillian had lost half his

jaw to shell fragments covering the advance on the walls of Oderic, and he scratched at the swathe of scar

tissue from cheek to chin. 'A good day.' He looked out to where Tellos's Marines were picking their way

across the heaps of mangled dead. The kill had been immense. But now, of course, the whole star fort

would know they were here.

'Sergeants, your men have done well thus far.' said Sarpe-don. 'We must not give the enemy pause to

recover. How are we for an advance on objective two?'

'The cargo ducts to port look better-maintained.' replied Luko, gesturing with his clawed hand. 'Enemy

forces will be using them soon. If we bear to starboard we'll avoid contact and give them less time to form

a defence around the shell.'

Sarpedon nodded, and consulted the holoslate on the speediest route to the sphere. As the other Soul

Drinker units thrust deeper into the star fort their hand-held auspex scan-ners were piping information about

the environment to one another, so each leader had a gradually sharpening picture of the star fort's interior.

The holoslate display now showed a wider slice of the star fort, and several paths through the tan-gle of

corridors and ducts were tagged as potential assault routes towards primary objective two.

Intelligence on the objective was slim. Its most likely loca-tion was a shell, an armoured sphere suspended

in the heart of the station, two kilometres from their position. The star fort had once been an orbital defence

platform, and the shell had protected its command centre - barely large enough for one man, the Van

Skorvolds were probably using it as an emergency shelter.

Primary objective one was being dealt with by forces under Commander Caeon himself - responsibility for

objective two fell to Sarpedon. This was to enable him to make command decisions regarding the use of his

psychic powers, which were considered essential in an environment such as the star fort. Sarpedon

absolutely would not countenance a failure to take objective two, not when the prize was so great. Nor

when Commander Caeon had given the responsibility to the Librarian when he could easily have picked a

company cap-tain or Chaplain for the role.

Once the two primary objectives had been taken, the infor-mation gleaned from them should be enough to

allow for the final thrust on to the Objective Ultima.

And if it was Sarpedon who took the prize... He fought here for the Chapter, for the grand plan of the

Emperor of Mankind, and not for himself. But he would be lying if he told himself that he did not relish the

chance to see the true object of their attack first, to take off his gauntlet and hold it as Primarch Dorn had

done.

The Soulspear. For the moment, it was everything.

'We pull Dreo's squad back from the environment shaft,' he began, red lines indicating paths of movement

on the holoslate's projection. 'They are our rearguard. Tellos takes the lead into the starboard ducts and

through the habs.' The holoslate indicated a series of jerry-built partitions, possibly quarters for lower-grade

workers, possibly workshops. 'There's a channel leading further in, probably for a mag-lev personnel train.'

'We could take it on foot if we blow the motive systems.' added Givrillian.

'Indeed. There's a terminus a kilometre and a half in. Our data thins out there, so we'll meet up with the rest

of the sec-ondary force and work out a route from there. Questions?'

'Any more of those?' asked Tellos, jerking a thumb at the steaming, bleeding hulk that he had left of the

mutant-beast.

'With luck,' said Sarpedon. 'Move out.'

The secondary elements - an apothecary, Tech-Marine and dozen-strong serf-labour squad - were already

arriving at the beachhead near the hull. Sarpedon voxed the Space Marines left stationed there to join up

with Dreo at the rendezvous point and follow his advance.

The Space Marine spearhead moved out of the cargo hub at a jog, leaving thousands of mutant corpses

gradually bleed-ing a lake of blood across the floor. It had been slightly over eight minutes since the attack

began.

Neither the Soul Drinkers' Chapter command nor the Marines in the assault itself knew anything of the Van

Skorvolds save intelligence relevant to the strength and composition of any likely resistance. Everything else

was beneath their notice. The Guard units transported by the battlefleet knew even less about their

opponents, knowing only that they were part of a hastily-gathered strike force readied to act against a

space station. But there were those who had been watching the Van Skorvolds very closely indeed, and

through a number of clandestine investigations and carefully pointed questionings, the truth had gradually

emerged.

Diego Van Skorvold died of a wasting disease twelve years before the Soul Drinkers' attack on the star

fort. His great--grandfather had purchased the star fort orbital defence platform at a discount from

Lakonia's cash-starved Planetary Defence Force, and proceeded to sink most of the Van Skor-vold family

coffers into converting it to a hub for mercantile activity in the Geryon sub-sector. Succeeding generations

gradually added to the star fort as the manner of business the Van Skorvold family conducted became more

and more spe-cialised. Eventually, there was only cargo of one type flooding through its cargo ducts and

docking complexes.

Human traffic. For all the lofty technological heights of the Adeptus Mechanicus and vast engineered

muscle of the battlefleets, it was human sweat and suffering that fuelled the Imperium. The Van Skorvolds

had long known this, and the star fort was perfectly placed to capitalize on it. From the sav-age

meat-grinder crusades to the galactic east came great influxes of refugees, deserters and captured rebels.

From the hive-hells of Stratix, the benighted worlds of the Diemos cluster and a dozen other pits of

suffering and outrage came a steady stream of prisoners - heretics, killers, secessionists, condemned to

grim fates by Imperial law.

Carried in prison ships and castigation transports, these unfortunates and malefactors arrived at the Van

Skorvold star fort. Their prison ships would be docked and the human cargo marched through the ducts to

other waiting ships. There were dark red forge world ships destined for the servi-tor manufactoria of the

Mechanicus, where the cargo would be mindwiped and converted into living machines. There were

Departmento Munitorium craft under orders to find fresh meat for the penal legions being bled dry in a

hundred different warzones. There were towering battleships of the Imperial Navy, eager to take on new

lowlives for the gun gangs and engine shifts to replace crew who were at the end of their short lifespans.

And for every pair of shackled feet that shuffled onto such craft, the Van Skorvolds would take their cut.

Business was good - in an ever-shifting galaxy human toil was one of the few commodities that was always

much sought after.

And then Diego Van Skorvold died, leaving his two chil-dren to inherit the star fort.

Truth be told, there had been rumours about old Diego, too, and one or two of his predecessors, but they

had never come to anything. The new siblings were different. The tales were more consistent and hinted at

transgressions more grave. People started to take notice. The rumours reached the ears of the

Administratum.

Pirate craft and private launches had been sighted sneaking guiltily around the Lakonia system. The star

fort's human traf-fic was conducted under the strict condition that all prisoners were to be sold on only to

Imperial authorities; allowing pri-vate concerns to purchase such a valuable commodity from under the

noses of the Imperium was not to be tolerated.

And there was worse. Mutants, they said, who were barred from leaving their home world, were bought

and sold, and the cream skimmed off to serve the Van Skorvolds as body-guards and work-teams. There

were even tales of strange alien craft, intercepted and wrecked by the sub-sector patrols, whose holds

were full of newly-acquired human slaves. Cor-responding gossip pointed darkly to the collection of rare

and unlicensed artefacts maintained by the Van Skorvolds deep in the heart of the star fort. Trinkets paid

by alien slavers in return for a supply of broken-willed humans? It was pos-sible. And that possibility was

enough to warrant action.

Matters pertaining to the star fort fell under the jurisdiction of the Administratum, and they were concerned

with keeping it that way. The Van Skorvolds had been immensely success-ful, but the persistence of the

rumours surrounding them was considered enough to constitute proof of guilt. The accusa-tions of

corruption and misconduct indicated that the control of the prisoner-trade lay in the hands of those who

broke the Imperial law, and so it was deemed necessary that the Administratum should take control of the

star fort and its business.

The Van Skorvold siblings were not so understanding. Repeated demands for capitulation went

unanswered. It was decided that force was the only answer, but that an Arbites or, Terra forbid, an

Inquisitorial purge would do untold damage to an essential and profitable trade. The flow of workers and

raw servitor materials was too important to interrupt. It had to be done as discreetly as such things can be.

In the decades and centuries to come, Imperial history would forget most of these facts when relating the

long and tortuous tale of the Soul Drinkers. Yet nevertheless, it was there that the terrible chain of events

began, in the drab dusty corridors of the Administratum and in the decadent hearts of the Van Skorvold

siblings. Had the Van Skorvolds picked a different trade or the Administratum persisted with negotia-tions

and sanctions, a canny scholar might suggest, there would be nothing but glory writ beside the name of the

Soul Drinkers Chapter. But, as seems always the case with matters so delicately poised, fate was not to be

so kind.

'Everywhere... fraggin'... everywhere...'

'...crawling all over the sunside... armour, guns... mon-sters, all of them...'

On board the Imperial battle cruiser Diligent, the trans-missions from the Van Skorvold star fort were

increasing in number and urgency. The tactical crews clustered around the comm consoles on the bridge

were tracking a dozen bat-tles and firefights, as a small but utterly ruthless force cut their way through the

mutant army of the Van Skorvold car-tel.

They were the sounds of panic and confusion, of death and dying and shock. There were screams, sobs,

orders shouted over and over again even though there was no one left to hear them. He could hear them

fleeing - they were the sounds of bolter shells thunking into flesh and chainsword blades shrieking their way

through bone.

They were also the sounds of Iocanthos Gullyan Kraevik Chloure getting rich. It wasn't about that, of

course - it was about safeguarding the economic base of this sector and rooting out the corruption that

threatened Imperial author-ity. But getting rich was a bonus.

And, of course, most of them were only mutants.

Consul Senioris Chloure of the Administratum could see little evidence of the carnage within the star fort

through the viewscreen that took up most of the curved front wall of the Diligent's bridge. Magnified inset

panels appeared in the cor-ners to pick out something the cogitators decided was interesting - plumes of

escaping air and squat ribbed cylin-ders of large ship-to-ship assault pods emblazoned with the golden

chalice symbol of the Soul Drinkers Chapter.

Space Marines. Chloure had spent decades in service to the Imperium and yet he had never seen one,

confined as he was in the drudgery and isolation of the Administratum. Grown men talked of them like

children talk of heroes - they could tear men apart with their bare hands, see in the dark, take las-blasts to

the chest without flinching, wore armour that bullets bounced off. They were three metres tall. They never

failed. And yet Consul Senioris Chloure, in charge of the mis-sion to cleanse and seize the Van Skorvold

star fort, had managed to engineer their presence here and let them do the job for him. Chloure had a

three-cruiser battlefleet supported by one Adeptus Mechanicus ship, and if he played this right, he wouldn't

have to use them until it came to cleaning up.

There was a moment of gloom as the screens and lights on the bridge dipped to acknowledge the figure

arriving on the bridge. Chloure looked down from the observation pulpit to see Khobotov, archmagos of the

Adeptus Mechanicus, enter flanked by an honour guard of shield-servitors, another gold-plated

microservitor scurrying in front paying out a long sea-green strip of carpet for the magos to walk on. Three

or four of those damned sensor-technomats droned in the air on hummingbird wings, trailing wires like

cranefly legs - Chloure hated them, their chubby infant bodies and glazed cherubic faces. They were

sinister in the extreme and he felt sure Khobotov affected them to inflict uneasiness on who-ever had to

meet him.

Chloure had spent long enough in the Administratum -that huge and complex institution which tried to

smooth the running of the unimaginably vast Imperium - to know the value of politics. The Adeptus

Mechanicus had wanted a part in the subduing of the rumoured heretics of the Van Skorvold cartel, and the

representative they sent to join the battlefleet was Archmagos Khobotov and his ship, the 674-XU28.

Chloure had been willing to suffer Khobotov's inclusion in the mission to grease the wheels between the

Administratum and the Mechanicus, but he had begun to wish he hadn't. The Mechanicus was essential to

the running of the Imperium, constructing and maintaining the arcane machinery that let mankind travel the

stars and defend its frontiers, but they were so damn strange that their presence sometimes made Chloure's

stomach churn. The 674-XU28 was almost entirely silent, so the first warning crews had that Khobotov

was pay-ing them a visit was usually when the archmagos swept onto the bridge.

Chloure rose from the pulpit seat, smoothing down his black satin greatcoat. He took the salute of Vekk, his

flag-captain, as he trotted down the main bridge deck with its swarms of petty officers and lexmechanics.

Khobotov him-self was a complete enigma, swathed in deep green robes with ribbed power cables leading

out behind him from beneath the hem. Tiny motorized sub-servitors held the cables in silver jaws and

whirred around, keeping the cables from snagging on the rivets and consoles jutting from the deck of the

Diligent's bridge. This caused the cables to slither like long artificial snakes, which was another thing that

struck Chloure as gravely unpleasant.

He supposed he should be grateful it was the Mechanicus who had insisted on coming along. The puritans

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Ben Counter - Soul Drinker

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