Duvette stepped up into the Thunderhawk. The heavy armored hatch sealed behind him with the hiss of hydraulic valves, cutting off the noise and firelight of the world outside.
The cabin was filled with the low-frequency hum of engines on standby and a cold, hard sll that belonged to Astartes vehicles specifically: incense and machine oil in equal asure.
He took a fixed seat and buckled the safety harness with practiced ease. Sitting opposite him was the Seventh Company Chaplain.
Under the cabin's narrow overhead lighting, the iron giant in black power armor was a silent and motionless effigy of death. The skull-faced helm was turned toward Duvette. The crimson eye lenses glowed cold in the dim, their attention fixed on the mortal Commissar with a weight that was almost physical.
No emotion in that gaze. Only the absolute assessnt of a Space Marine.
Any ordinary Astra Militarum officer would have been in a cold sweat under scrutiny like that. Duvette found he did not particularly care.
The Thunderhawk's plasma engines opened to full with a deafening roar and the massive airfra wrenched itself skyward.
The silent and savage effigy did not move. After a asured pause, the vox-amplifier below the helm produced a low, tallic voice.
"That such a thing could occur. Allowing alien infiltrators into these sacred arsenals. This is a grave failure of every mortal administrator on Parnio. And of myself."
The gauntleted hand tightened on the crozius arcanum's grip. "This makes extrely angry, Commissar. Once I have confird that everything you have told is true, I will ensure those damned aliens pay the highest possible price."
Duvette nodded. He paused a mont, arranged his thoughts, and decided to give the Chaplain everything he had on the Genestealers without holding anything back.
"Chaplain Casiel, their characteristics are unlike any alien you may have encountered previously." Duvette kept his voice even. He described the Genestealers' combat patterns in detail. "Their most dangerous physical feature is what are known as rending claws — monomolecular-edged mutant appendages. Parting armored plate is trivial for them."
He watched the Chaplain's body lean forward slightly, and pressed on.
"But what makes a Genestealer truly dangerous is not the claws alone. It is the ambush launched from an unknown angle. They are agile assassins with enormous offensive capability and fragile defense — creatures that prefer to lurk in blind spots and dark corners, initiating contact only when they can trade their life for yours. Their entire combat doctrine is built on that exchange."
He stated that this intelligence had been drawn from the direct engagent with the purebred assassins minutes ago.
When Duvette finished, the Chaplain was silent.
After a mont, the Chaplain raised both armored gauntlets and reached for his neck.
With a sharp pneumatic release, Casiel lifted the skull faceplate in both hands and slowly removed it.
For an Astartes Chaplain, this was an exceedingly rare gesture. The skull helm was the symbol by which they maintained their sacred authority. Its removal in the presence of a mortal carried specific aning.
By taking it off, Casiel was acknowledging the mortal Commissar across from him as a field commander worthy of equal dialogue, not an ordinary man to be looked down upon.
What the faceplate had concealed was a face marked by close-set scars, its lines carved hard by decades of combat. Short black hair. Skin of the dark-gold shade common to inhabitants of Ultramar's eastern stellar regions. Every scar was a testant rendered in flesh.
"I thank you for your cooperation and this intelligence, Commissar Duvette." Casiel t Duvette's eyes, and the tone that had carried nothing but cold authority now carried sothing else alongside it. "I will commit this to mory. We will not be taken by surprise by these creatures. We will clear this place as quickly as possible and restore everything to proper order."
Duvette gave a nod. He believed the man. The Ultramarines were not only formidable fighters. Their capacity for organization and administration was exceptional. With the source of the infiltration eliminated, the disorder here would collapse on its own.
Before long the Thunderhawk was crossing the center of a harbor city called Tilos: the true seat of the dead coordinating official's power, where the dispatch hub of the entire network was located.
As the gunship began to decelerate for its landing approach, Duvette's expression went colder without warning. On the strategic map in his vision, dense red contacts were converging on their landing zone with alarming speed from every direction.
He snapped his head up to the Chaplain, who had just reseated the skull helm.
"Don't land yet."
"Why?" Casiel responded imdiately.
Then every alarm in the cabin erupted at once.
A piercing anti-aircraft lock-on warning filled the compartnt. Red warning lights strobed across the cabin interior. An anti-vehicle rocket with a dazzling tail fla launched from below without warning, shearing past the Thunderhawk's wing by a margin that was too close to calculate comfortably.
Genestealer infiltrators concealed within the auxiliary forces. Whether they had received a command or had simply decided to stop maintaining their cover to buy their leadership ti to escape, the result was the sa: they had just fired on an Astartes gunship.
It was an extraordinarily foolish thing to do.
The Thunderhawk's Machine Spirit took the attack personally.
The twin heavy bolters mounted on both wings opened in the sa instant, their combined roar tearing the air, heavy rounds cascading down in a torrent, the muzzle flare half a ter long. Two missiles followed, their flight through the night sky announced by a screaming of displaced air. The firing position below ceased to exist as a structural object and beca a glowing, vitrified crater.
In the distance, the loyal auxiliary forces were already moving toward the location.
"FOR THE GENE-FATHER!"
The Chaplain's battle cry filled the cabin.
When the gunship was still a dozen ters from the ground, the rear assault ramp crashed open. Casiel led six Astartes off the edge. They dropped without deceleration equipnt. Heavy power armor hit the paving stones and sent cracks running through the plaza in every direction.
What followed was not a battle. It was a cleansing.
The Genestealers attempting to converge and encircle fell before the Space Marines' absolute violence as straw falls before fire. By the ti the Thunderhawk settled onto the plaza and the landing gear ca fully to rest, the infiltrators had been reduced to scattered fragnts across the ground.
Duvette ca down the ramp and found the Chaplain already striding toward the arriving auxiliary forces, crozius arcanum dark with fragnts.
Casiel picked an officer from the crowd, soone whose face he recognized as reliable, and his voice struck the square like a blow.
"Find a Magos Biologis of the chanicus. Bring detection equipnt and report to directly."
He found a second senior officer and issued an order with no less force behind it.
"Notify every force currently on this planet's surface. All units are to hold their current positions without exception. Anyone who moves without authorization is to be treated as a rebel."
Maximum martial law. Every defensive position in the city locked down and sealed.
When the Chaplain had completed all of it, he turned. The black faceplate found Duvette across the plaza.
They had a final target to find.
****
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