163. Standing In

Hot on battle, his hearts pumping the joy of the slaughter through his veins, Titus fell in behind the white wolf. Corven was busy somewhere to their left and would regroup with them later.
Titus called out to Arrick to announce his presence. A heartbeat later, the captain spun around to his commander. In puzzlement Titus saw Grimfang drop his sword and reach out for him before he was grabbed and thrown over the Space Wolf’s head. In the tiny corridor this was a feat of some coordination and the advanced acrobatics necessary to achieve it took their toll: Grimfang drew his pistol and fired but a fraction of a second too late.
Titus rolled to his feet in time to witness the tragedy. Yes, the warp spiders were unable to perceive him but that also meant they could not avoid him. In the place where he had stood a heartbeat ago, the second spider appeared. On top of Titus’ well-honed senses showing him in all clarity what happened, his Deathwatch hypno-conditioning kicked in and provided him with all the nasty details. The gun the warp spider was holding was called ‘Death Spinner’. A weapon that shot a whole coil of monofilament fibres to entrap a victim and cut through practically anything as soon as they were put under tension.
Titus saw Arrick being wrapped in shimmering death, unable to do anything about it in the shortness of time.
A plasma ball from the white wolf’s pistol hit the Eldar but, even though its wielder went down under it, the weapon worked on its own. I pulled the threads back in and Arrick gave a terrible groan while they cut into him. Blood started to ooze all over his body until finally, Titus managed to turn him around enough, so that he could destroy the dreaded device by shooting it. Arrick gave a quiet sigh and Titus tried to catch him when he fell but the body of the friend was damaged so badly that lumps of it peeled off. They remained in Titus’ hands while the white wolf simply dropped to the ground with an unpleasant squelching noise. His eye was already glazing over.
“Captain down, apothecary to me!”, Titus sent out and stood up.
First, he made sure the damned warp spider was dead enough. Then, he took position over the comrade to defend him.
It took less than a minute for Gerneya and Xavor to arrive. Titus’ hearts gave an unpleasant jolt. Vox must have directed them here, he realised. The beloved had probably not needed his confirmation to know what had happened.
While Xavor joined Titus in opposite guarding positions, Gerneya knelt down beside her fallen captain. She checked on him quickly but when she intoned a ritual Titus knew all too well, he spun around and kicked her aside. The bolt from the narthecium she had put against Grimfang’s head, buried itself harmlessly in a wall.
“Stop!”, Titus snapped to underline his command.
“Aegis!”, the apothecary protested just as Corven appeared at the other end of the corridor. “He’s too badly hurt, he’ll never fight again and all our dreadnoughts are ensouled already!”
Titus gritted his teeth. Of course, he knew that it was bad. Bits of the comrade had remained in his hands as he had fallen. A warrior down and beyond healing was a danger to the warriors who were forced to carry or protect him and he was a danger to the mission for the same reason.
But this was Arrick.
This was the man who had kept Vox alive when Titus had stumbled in his duty. The man whom Vox had chosen to save under great personal risk only a few weeks ago. Whom she had recognized as friend even through the fog of aeons that clouded her mind these days.
Titus stared at the wounded brother in the puddle of blood on the floor. Vox’s affection for the white wolf echoed inside him but it was only a facet in his considerations.
Arrick had switched positions with him without hesitation. He had taken a blow Titus would not have survived if hit unsuspected from behind. He realised that, up until now, he had still rated the brother as a rival but this rival had not stood by to watch him die. This man who bore the same black shoulder guard, had stood in instead.
It was Arrick on the floor.
“Aegis”, Gerneya said soothingly when Titus hesitated for more than a few seconds. “You know how it is! Let me deliver the Emperor’s peace to him and we’ll send him home!” It was this request that swayed his mind. There was no other home for the white wolf with the black shield. And there was no peace.
“Vox, how many left?”, Aegis Titus demanded curtly.
“Six”, his beloved answered immediately and his admiration for her controlled and professional tone sent a wave of heat through him. “They locked themselves on the bridge. Their leader is with them”, she informed him shortly and accurately.
Titus nodded grimly. He knew that Arrick was still alive. Gerneya had tried to put a bolt in his brain to change this, after all.
“Luriel, to me! The rest of you, off board!”, he ordered. “Gerneya, Xavor, you take your captain along and don’t you dare kill him!”
“Aegis, I can’t even move him!”, the apothecary protested. “These threads will cut further into him!”
Titus looked down at the destroyed weapon on Arrick’s chest and thought. The monofilament threads were uncuttable, because they cut back harder, his conditioning told him.
“Do they burn?”, he asked just when Luriel turned the corner.
Gerneya cocked her helmeted head.
“I suppose so”, she said and for the first time, there was interest in her voice instead of strained concern.
“Luriel, do you have anything that can burn these threads away?”, Titus asked. Due to their passage through the water they had been forced to leave flame weapons but she had lit the charges somehow.
“Oh, shit”, the techmarine stated flatly when she saw the bloody lump on the floor. “Not as such, no aegis”, she answered his question then. “But I can knock something together, I think.”
“Hurry”, Titus said. They were rising ever higher over the planet and every metre down limited Arrick’s chances.
Luriel intoned a ritual, praying to the Omnissiah and after a few moments had built something that was little more than two wires she could tap together like very ineffective pliers. She leaned over the still bleeding Arrick and started to cut the threads with them. Each time they connected, there was a strange, clicking sound and the smell of burning material filled the corridor. It took her about a minute to free Arrick of the dragging coil of destroyed death spinner. When Gerneya was able to lift him, she watched in concern how much of her patient was left on the floor. The only good thing to be said was that a lot of the threads had been left behind as well. Careful not to slip on the mess on the ground, she followed Xavor down the corridor they had arrived by.
Titus and Luriel meanwhile turned back to war.
“Chances they’re going to self-destruct?”, Titus asked Vox while they made their way in the other direction.
“Slim as of yet”, she let him know.
It took them a few minutes to reach the cockpit. Vox could give them general directions but the corridors were strangely built and nothing led in a straight line anywhere. At least this way, they heard all the others confirm their exit.
“When we’re inside, let me handle the xenos”, Titus instructed Luriel. “You make a hole in the hull for us to leave.”
“Affirmative”, the techmarine replied.
Once there, she fiddled with her explosives for a moment, portioning them for the two tasks at hand.
The door posed no problem. After she had fused a head-sized hole in it, she levered it open with her third arm. It took mere seconds. When it was done, Luriel drew back and let Titus in as he had ordered.
Under the fire of the xenos, Titus entered the cockpit like the wrath of the god he wanted to help create. His first targets were the two who had their hands on the strange controls in the front of the chamber. Even while he assailed them, he made out the leader among them. He had the most ornate armour and wielded two slender blades.
From the corner of his eyes, Titus saw him doing something. A strange, short dance with flowing gestures and there was the suggestion of resistance in the air. If that was supposed to be a warding spell, it was unable to take hold on someone who carried his own reality. Titus’ axe went smoothly through his two targets at a steep angle. It bit deep into the control panel, spraying xeno blood all over it and an electric shock went up his arm but he managed to retrieve his weapon nevertheless. The remaining four Eldar were obviously horrified about what had just happened and stared at him as if they had never seen a Space Marine before.
One of them tried to flee the cockpit, which resulted in him being crushed against the wall by Luriel’s third arm.
Titus swiftly killed another one but then, something happened to the remaining two xenos. Had the warp workings failed to affect him, they proved far more effective against the Eldar themselves. They started to move absurdly fast and swished around, attacking both Space Marines vividly. In the face of this, Luriel retreated to the door to block their escape.
Without controls or pilots now, the ship started to shudder and sink and Titus actually got into trouble. The blades of the leader were able to cut through his armour to a certain degree.
“Titus stop”, he suddenly heard Vox over the com. He froze in place unthinkingly and waited for a heartbeat.
“Left and up”, she commanded and Titus swung his axe left and pulled it up sharply. He felt the resistance and heard the satisfying crunch of the axe biting into an armoured warrior. He had not hit the Eldar fully, only caused him a large wound in the side but his upwards swing had thrown the xeno against the ceiling and when he fell down, he was easy prey for the close by Luriel.
“Behind you”, he heard Vox’s voice again and spun around to meet both blades of the leader. The Eldar turned the momentum of the strike into a backflip but Titus almost leisurely reached out and grabbed him by one foot.
His axe fell with his full might behind it, splitting armour and Eldar alike. When he looked up, he saw Vox outside the window, waving at him. Her feathers were ruffling wildly in the headwind that pressed her against the ship. Titus was a bit concerned for her. Through the helmet she was wearing to make her transmissions possible in the streaming air, he could not see her face and he dared not ask her anything while Luriel listened. So, he contented himself with laying his massive, gauntleted hand to the window and was glad that she answered in the same way. Their techmarine meanwhile followed her previous orders and was busy fusing a Space Marine sized hole into the wall. When a part of it was ripped away by the turbulences, Titus had finished putting his helmet on. He gave Luriel a head start before he followed. Instead of jumping right away, he climbed upwards onto the roof of the ship to gain a little time.
“Vox, are you alright?”, he finally allowed himself to ask on a private line.
“I am”, she confirmed and appeared on the roof as well. “What about Arrick?”
“He was still alive when I sent him away with Gerneya.”
Vox looked down for a moment.
“He took the blow for you, didn’t he?”, she asked.
“Yes”, Titus confirmed.
“I was counting for him so he’d know when the spider would come”, she said quietly. They had reached the crest of the ship and were blown over the surface. Not crashing into any strange outgrowths on the way took concentration and Vox had to push away soon, while Titus rammed into a curved excrescence. Estimating that they had gained enough distance to the others he moved on to free fall as well. When he opened his parachute, Vox circled close to him.
“I caught myself wishing that I had been there”, she admitted to him. “But I don’t think I could have helped him. Not without taking the whole ship down. It was probably better this way.”
Titus nodded.
“Vox?”, he then asked. “Gerneya wanted to give the Emperor’s peace to him. I stopped her but I’m not sure if I really did him a favour with that.”
Vox looked down at the planet for a while.
“No, I think you did the right thing”, she said. “He laid down his chapter markings. There is no place for him but with us.”
“She said he’ll never fight again”, Titus said despondently. What kind of life would a Space Marine unfit for duty lead?
Again, Vox thought for a long time.
“Let’s ask the Fleet of Destiny if this is really the case, what do you think?”
Titus brightened up under his helmet.
“Vox, you’re brilliant!”, he exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of this? They implanted Tiberius’ leg and I’ve never seen this kind of prosthetic before! They will surely be able to help!”
Vox flew a tight circle and elegantly landed in Titus’ arms. Tenderly she leaned her helmet against his.
“I’m so glad you’re alive”, she said quietly.
“We know whom to thank for that”, Titus replied leadenly and finally the full extent of worry and guilt dropped on his shoulders.
Arrick had stood in for him.