The Lightning Struck Tower - Part 3

Drystan moved in long hurried strides, he had picked up the distinctive echoing thumps of bolter fire about a minute ago, towards the main mess hall. His charges had picked up some basic lasrifles from the corpses of other irregular militias they encountered through the darkened hallways, their expressions becoming more determined. Drystan had his doubts about the effectiveness of such weapons on their true foes up ahead, but he could not deny in his hearts the simple comfort of having a weapon in one’s hands when entering a conflict. While their effectiveness might be limited in potency, if they could distract their opponents for even a few seconds of surprise it would make those weapons worth it. Drystan had cleared rooms of foes in less time...in other, more sane times. The dull thumps were now coming in more sharp retorts, with the equally familiar but less frequent snap-hisses of kine shields being brought to bear as the psykers retorted, usually shortly followed by the tearing scream of lightning, which cast its light into the darkened hallways in a strobe-like display. The roars and commands of combat reached Drystan’s ears a few agonizing minutes later, and he held a massive hand out to halt his wards. He held his other hand out palm forward, and a small orb arced into the hallway, a probe to give his HUD a semi-accurate count of the combatants inside. Roughly sixty combatants were engaged in frenzied combat, a much larger force appearing to hammer against the defences of another force that had decided to take their last stand in the corner of a room to avoid being flanked. Certain that these defenders were his fellow Librarians, but wishing to be certain, Drystan sent a psychic probe, and was immediately met with a response from one of those barricaded in the corner. Not words, the area was too charged with psychic energies to communicate in such a fashion without a proper set-up, but the emotions that came through were primarily rage, with a slight undercurrent of desperation. Drystan had everything he needed, and dark smoke began billowing around him as he focused his psychic might, then stepped around the corner.

He knew what he would find, but was still shocked to see it. There were too many here for it to merely be the Custodians who had gone mad, some of his brothers must have also sided with the golden ones. Still the sight of the Silver Basilisk Chaplains firing relentlessly at a group of a dozen or so of their brothers broke Drystan’s heart; for a solitary heartbeat anyway, after that all that was left was rage, which Drystan used to lethal effect. He vaguely heard the boys behind him shrieking battle cries and curses as they also opened fire, but their attacks were immediately overshadowed by his own, as his psychic enhanced scream blasted a visible preceding shockwave through the room. Many of those amongst the Astartes did not truly understand the Librarians and the powers they wielded, that opinion included some of the less schooled Librarians; they called their manipulation of the Warp “sorcery” and “witchcraft”, when in actuality Librarians were at their best when they worked within the confines of reality, not against it. While lightning bolts and psychic flames were impressive, many Librarians lacked the raw power to make those attacks suitably devastating, Drystan instead chose to let physics do a lot of the lifting for him; once sound gets to a certain level, it ceases to be a solely auditory experience. The shockwave crushed those immediately in front of him flat, while it knocked many more to their knees, then crippled them as Drystan’s scream overloaded their audio-filters. Several Chaplains ripped off their skull helmets, turning dazed towards Drystan, their weapons rising towards him. Drystan leapt forward, engaging his specialized jump pack, his dual power-fists crackling as his lighter *Sarffen*-pattern crossed the distance faster than a normal human’s sense could have even registered. The same could be said for a disoriented Astartes. Two Chaplains were pulped beneath his fists before the first return fire even began to ring out. Drystan watched as three other Chaplains, their eardrums obviously ruptured from his scream judging from the blood, went down in a hail of lasfire, as the acolytes targeted those who had removed their helmets. The surviving Librarians unleashed attacks of their own as well, walls of raw force striking or rending their former brothers, while the more potent of them flung lightning bolts like pagan gods of old. Suddenly caught in a crossfire between an enraged force of nature embodied in a Dreadnought, and equally enraged smaller pieces of nature in the Librarian force, the fight was over in a matter of seconds. Only a couple survivors remained from the Chaplains force, the rest lay decimated in various forms of death poses or splatters on the floor and wall, and the survivors did not appear to have long for this world. Leaving the Librarians to their wounded, Drystan stomped to his rapidly fading captive, letting his bulk loom over them. Astartes were largely immune to fear, but at their heart they were apex predators, and this was a display of dominance.

“Answer my queries and receive a swift death, Chaplains,” Drystans voice rang out, cold and flat; all other activities ceased to be important as heads turned to him. “Why do you attack your kin?”

“You who would betray your oaths, would compound it further Dreadnought?” spat the less injured Chaplain in response.

“Brothers do not chain and murder their kin,” replied Drystan, slamming a foot into the Chaplain’s legs. The Astarte shrieked in agony as the Dreadnought crushed his legs into something that resembled bloody mulch. “I would take care when throwing stones of broken oaths in your own glass house, Chaplain. I know what you and many of yours used to be before donning the skull helm in service to the Emperor. Many of you were chosen to uphold Avalonian values within the Legion, chosen to keep our hearts and minds solidly on the task of ushering in humanity to a new age. You instead tossed it aside for skepticism and the few morsels of authority the Emperor chose to give you.”

“What would have had us do instead, Drystan?” asked the other Chaplain, removing his helmet to reveal a grizzled face, and one that Drystan recognized. “Refuse the Emperor’s command? Commit the treason our father has?”

Drystan stared at the man for a few long seconds, “Would you repeat your question Berniad Vedec?”

“*Chaplain* Vedec,” the man corrected angrily, as he repeated. “*Would you have us commit the treason our father has?!”*

Drystan’s powered fist slammed into the man, removing the top half of his torso and killing him instantly. “You...*DARE!*” he bellowed at the corpse as he flung it across the room, his voice bouncing off the chamber walls before turning to the last survivor and lifting him to eye level. “Do you concur with his assessment, *Chaplain?”*

“Artellion has betrayed the Emperor, and we finally end your sorcerous blasphemy, so commands High Chaplain Ovi-” the man spat, before joining his comrade in a similar crushed state. Drystan screamed his rage to the room, lightning arcing off his chassis and into the various conductors around the vicinity, the remains of the Chaplain embedding itself into the wall in a fiery blur.

“LIES!” Drystan bellowed. “We must alert our father, something foul is afoot here, and he must know what has transpired here. Make those who cannot keep pace comfortable, we cannot take them with us, we make haste for the command center; and by Avalon’s mists am I going to make Omid pay for the duplicity he has committed here today. The fourth has betrayed us.”

He barely noticed as his Flaenors rejoined him in the hallway outside of the barracks, dumping the small arsenal they had magnetized to their frames onto the floor as they sat on either side of his chassis, closing their eyes to rest a moment. The fighting had been frenetic, but of little consequence as Drystan led the survivors to recover what little equipment they could before making their way to the armory. Mainly consisting of the mortal militias that infested The Tower in the days since the Edict. In this moment where he actually had time to reflect, he realized that no matter what occurred here this day, his life was forfeit should he survive. He had killed a Custode, but more than that, he had broken the Emperor’s command. He doubted very much that, despite the duplicity, the Emperor would be forgiving to circumstance; the Emperor was many things, exemplary in so many ways, but mercy was not one of His gifts. Artellion would intercede, he had no doubt, but he knew it would amount to little more than Artellion being furious at the Emperor again, and that saddened him. They were so alike, his father and the Emperor, and that made their relationship...difficult. Never publicly, never where most of the Imperium, even the other Legions could see, but the 15th knew the strain that existed between the two. Not entirely unwarranted in Drystan’s mind, his father was a stubborn man who had ruled his kingdom before the time of Drystan’s great-grandfather, and the Emperor was a stubborn man who had ruled with absolute authority over Terra for many times that, both had principles they would not bend to anyone else for. To Drystan’s eyes though, treasonous and influenced they might be, Artellion had actually done a better job in uniting his kingdom than the Emperor had his. There was not a world in the Crown of Avalon that went wanting, one hundred hand-crafted worlds that gave Artellion’s people all they could ask for and more, but the same could not be said for the Imperium. For all its grandeur, Terra was...a pit. A mire of human suffering, wallowing in its own misery. Drystan had been once, Iestin had taken him to the home he grew up in. It wasn’t much, in fact it wasn’t anything, it had been a small alleyway where he had coerced a small group of urchins to collect, steal, or take enough food to survive. Only after he had been picked up by the Adeptus Administratum and passed into the pipeline for the 15th Legion, did Chief Librarian Iestin Corbenic start on his path to become legendary; but on Terra, he was nothing, less than nothing.

“What a mess,” sighed Edessa, her head resting on one of her dendrites. “Do you worry about what we’ll find in the command center?”

“No,” replied Drystan. “But I’m hoping Omid is there, I would have words with him.”

“He’s got to know you’re coming for him, and we haven’t seen the last of those Custodes either,” she said, chuckling slightly as she turned to look at him before turning somber again. “Are you well, Drystan?”

He regarded her, so small beside him, and felt the anger surging inside him at the question. How could he be well? The betrayal, the hypocrisy, the accusations? *How could he be well*?

“Revered Drystan,” her voice rang out as she addressed him more formally, sharply, her eyes unafraid as they bored into him. “The anger you feel is natural, but there is...worry there too. That is what I’m asking after.”

He sighed, an ancient, tired sound, “We are all dead Edessa, even if we live through this, we die. The Emperor will not forgive this, cannot forgive this. I care not for myself, but I did hope that someday you and Llarawyn would get to serve another. A Dreadnought worthy of both of your talents, instead of this retired relic who stays locked in his room.”

“Cadfael Vymuris Drystan,” she said, enunciating every syllable while rising to her feet, her suit extending, bringing her face level to his. “You will not dishonor my sister, nor I, with such words. It has been our honor and privilege serving and watching over you. Who else would I serve? Who else would Llarawyn serve? You *chose* us, and we fought for you, fought *with* you, and now you sit here in regret? You diminish yourself, and you shame our service with your regret.”

“Apologies, but you did ask,” grunted Drystan.

“Well, it’s my duty to pick you up when you start to fall Drystan.”

“You are not my mother, Edessa.”

“Having actually met your mother,” interrupted Llarawyn, stretching as she also stood. “You should take that as a compliment, Edessa.”

“Oh?”

“She was nice enough, overbearing though, said my suit needed polishing.”

“Really? That seems very overtly rude of her.”

“I think it’s the gene therapy, can make people lose their inhibitions over time in some rare cases.”

“Ladies,” said Drystan, as the other members started filing back into the hall. “Time to go.”

“Do we still need to take...these?” asked Edessa, gesturing to the lasrifles that lay in small piles on the floor.

“No, they are there if they need them, but with this many psykers I doubt very much we’ll encounter resistance that is going to necessitate all of these rifles being there.”

“Great, we were running low on powered cores,” she said, stripping several of the rifles of their relatively fresh cores, hooking them into an apparatus that drained their power into the cores she and Llarawyn used in their custom rifles. Llarawyn meanwhile checked her suit and Edessa’s for any damage they may have gotten in the last skirmish, they both checked over Drystan after clearing their own gear, although his diagnostics revealed no real damage. They burned some of the organic remnants off his chassis, then waited as the rest of their party grouped up around them.

“Come, brothers,” rumbled Drystan, flexing his hands. “We have a traitor to hunt.”

The fight only increased in intensity as Drystan’s growing group marched their way to the command center. He stood at the forefront of a group of psykers nearly a Chivalry in strength, those at the front were those who had managed to have their armaments close by, the kine shield wedges creating a mobile bulwark that allowed for slow, but steady progress. The slow progress rankled him, but one did not rush a position commanded by a Star Guardian; this was Ovid’s element, much more than it was any Silver Basilisk’s. The long, relatively narrow pillared corridors made every intersection in the Tower an ambush, every forward movement a treacherous advance. The fierceness of combat came in waves ranging from withering volley of bolter and las fire, from both heavy and standard weapons, to sporadic hit-and-run guerilla encounters through the hallways; but never, ever, ceasing. This necessitated forming an order of active and “passive” psykers, allowing them to sustain their advance, while saving the majority of their energies for hastily constructed defenses, or the eventual critical moment where Omid was sure to throw everything at the largest group of resistance in the Tower. However, as they approached the final stretch to the command center, the resistance began to lessen, then as the final Chaplain fell to Drystan’s host, stopped completely.

The command center of the Tower was an enormous cavern at the heart of the structure, with a domed bunker that sat over its power core, doubling as both a control and communications center. The bunker itself stood roughly one hundred meters tall, and was easily the most defensible position in the entire edifice, and it was dark. Not only was it dark, but its doors were wide open, the red emergency lights dimly lighting the entry corridors.

Edessa’s voice crackled through the vox channel as she snorted slightly and muttered, “And we’re just going to walk in there, crown of stars we’re stupid.”

“Omid is no fool, a defensible position such as this has the potential to be a meat grinder, but not nearly as much as an obstacle for several hundred angry psykers as traditional troops. I expect a moderate presence, but a majority of his troops are better spent directly guarding the ground-to-orbital defenses from sabotage, which he will need if he’s to stall Primarch Artellion’s fleet when he arrives. I expect that he may be commanding them from a remote location, perhaps personally in control of the bunker’s defenses,” said Drystan. “Besides, he has access to a force that we do not, and they function best as individuals.”

“Damn,” said Llarawyn. “Do you think they’re all in there?”

“No, I doubt they would all sacrifice themselves here, they’re also busy trying to slay our brothers before they can meet up with us here, or form their own large groups,” replied Drystan, issuing mental commands through his cybernetics for roughly half his force to secure the other entrances into this chamber. The rest followed him inside to secure the bunker. “I’d say no more than two, maybe three.”

“Three,” said Edessa, shifting her grip on her Hellrifle. “In close quarters, with a lot of blind spots, and low light conditions until we take the control room. We couldn’t ask for worse conditions.”

“And we could not ask for better,” the words coming from the bunker’s speaker system while the doors hissed closed behind Drystan’s group, their vox channels suddenly screamed loud static as a jamming cut their personal communications. “Come traitors, come and fight the Golden Host, the pride of the Emperor Himself. The Legio Custodes await.”

“The bunker won’t allow us all to stick together,” said Llarawyn, her helmets speakers amplifying her voice slightly. “And you only have one avenue available to you Drystan, although it is the most open.”

“And therefore the safest,” grunted Drystan. “Open routes, even if they are the main ones should be the preferred routes, getting in close with a Custode is a good way to die. They are also going to be the least likely to be sabotaged as they are weight bearing. However, there is another problem, we will need several teams to go and secure the power core, to ensure no further duplicity once we secure this location. Once that is done, and the Tower itself is secure, and we can begin operations to secure the nearby defenses. I have selected sergeants to lead ten ranseurs to secure the depths of this facility, the rest of you will break into squads and attempt to secure the command post, or barring that, identify and neutralize any observed forms of sabotage. For those who live!”

The warcry boomed in the corridor in response, and the nearly one hundred fifty Astartes split into smaller groups, disappearing into side corridors and passageways. The ranseurs went to several disks slightly risen in the floor at the edges of the corridor, which lifted to reveal ladders leading down into the bowels of the Tower. They disappeared without hesitation, and Drystan wondered with a small twinge of regret how many he would lose in those pitch black passageways. He turned to his group of nearly fifty battle-brothers, “I am not familiar with this facility, I have access to the schematics, but I would prefer to let someone familiar with the layout lead us.”

Two sergeants stepped forward, “We are familiar, Revered Drystan, and with respect you should linger towards the back. If they have set any traps at all, we can’t have you stumbling into them.”

“And I would be the most difficult to ambush from the rear in this group, and given there are at least two Custodes in the bunker it would not be a bad idea to have me in a space where I can view the whole group,” agreed Drystan. “Lead on.”

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