84 Seconds [40k vignette]

[Feil]

84 Seconds
Feil



84 Seconds

There was only sound. Through the armored walls of the pod, through the air within, through the helmet earpieces, sound. Sound like no sound should ever be; sound that made the corrugated steel of the floor vibrate in resonant motion; sound that rattled dust from seats that had carried fifty generations of the Emperor's Finest into battle; sound that got inside of you, rattling your muscles and stifling your breath. The endless roar of atmosphere, howling high-pitched across the pod's surface was punctuated by spangs and thumps as hailstones and flack rattled against the bottom of the pod. For each of the ten men within, the universe was composed of self and thought and thundering blackness.

So it was for me.

Already, the pod's pristine white surface would be scorched black; it had slammed into the upper atmosphere at just the right angle not to glance back out into space. For fifty generations, the Chapter had retrieved the pod—had soothed its machine-spirit, filed out pits and gashes in its armored hull, repaired damaged armor and burnt-out machinery, restored it to gleaming perfection for its wait until the White Consuls called upon it once again to carry them into battle.

Today, she made one last journey into the heart of the storm.

We must have been a magnificent sight: trailing a bright plume of incandescent fire as we ripped through the cloud cover, sending turbulence and cavitation rippling in our wake. Fitting. On wings of fire we descended from above, the Angels of Death.

I smiled within my helmet, though my teeth juddered together, vibrating in tune with the roaring wind. The battle-anthem of the Praeses hovered on my lips.

They have many things to say about the Astartes. Some say we are Humanity's greatest hope, the sword and shield of the Emperor. Many suggest that we have forgotten our humanity, that we consider ourselves greater than human. Some among the Ecclesiarchy, I have been told, insinuate that we are not human—that we are mutants, that we welcome the witchkin and blaspheme against the Emperor, beloved by all.

Perhaps they are right—about some. Perhaps they all speak truth in a way. Among many—far too many—of our brother-chapters, the truth has been forgotten. But not all.

Not I.

Humanity is all. We who carry the Bolter and Chainsword exist to protect her. To serve her, defend her against her myriad foes.

Why?

We fight for humanity because it is the only thing truly worth fighting for. So the Emperor taught us. So taught us Guilliman, may he return again in glory. Humanity, in its weakness, in its imperfection, its vindictiveness, its pettiness, its folly... in its boundless capacity for faith, for love, for hope and valour, kindness and impassioned rage. Against those who would destroy, enslave, defame and befoul the holy thing that is mankind, we stand.

We, the White Consuls, stand.

Stand, ever-vigilant, in the gaze of the Eye of Terror, gazing back with righteous hate.

Stand ready to fly into battle, fall on wings of fire, to ensure the survival of humanity.

Twenty seconds until impact now.

They say, all of them, that the Astartes know no fear. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps the tightness I felt in my chest was from the rippling roar of sound that filled the pod. Perhaps my worry for my brothers was merely a side-effect of the intense love I had for them all. Perhaps I imagined the creeping dread at the back of my mind that we should fail, that I should fail, that out of failure humanity would suffer.

Humanity, in its frailty, its weakness, its softness, open to the evil we had come to destroy.

Ten seconds.

Perhaps the quickening beat of my double-hearts was caused by revulsion, not fear of the horrific enemy we face. It was possible that the combat-stims of my armor had begun to course through my blood stream already, though I performed the most dutiful and scrupulous of armor-maintenance before the drop.

Five.

On wings of fire we fell, the Angels of Death, the thin line of purest white arrayed against the innumerable forces of Hell.

The only hope for those we have given our humanity to defend. The prayer on the lips of the helpless and the afraid.

Three.

Two.

One.

For a fraction of a second, before the doors crashed open—for the half-second of reverse-burn after which the pod smashed out an impact crater for itself in the hail-lashed land—there was only sound.