Read Online Fulgrim by Graham McNeill - Free Book Online
Authors: Graham McNeill
Tags: Science-Fiction
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Bequa Kynska had begun a new opera to commemorate the imminent victory.
First Captain Julius Kaesoron, denied a place in the initial assaults of Atoll 19, was granted the honour of leading the front line troops under the overall command of Lord Commander Vespasian. Though Eidolon held seniority of rank, he had led the forces that had rendered Twenty-Eight Two compliant and thus the honour fell to Vespasian.
The war for Laeran was fought across many varied battlefields, the warriors of the Emperor’s Children fighting on floating atolls and through the ruins of ancient structures that reared from the oceans, while foaming breakers crashed against walls that had once stood thousands of metres in the air.
Underwater cites were discovered within days of the campaign’s opening and detachments of Astartes took the fight to the abyssal darkness of undersea trenches, smashing into structures that had never known the touch of sunlight, in specially modified boarding torpedoes fired from cruisers hovering above the sea.
Solomon Demeter led the Second against the first of these cities, subjugating it within six hours, his plan of attack garnering praise from the primarch. Marius Vairosean fought numerous actions against Laer orbitals that had previously escaped detection, fighting boarding actions on alien vessels, controlled by pilots telepathically linked to their ships in a loathsome parasitic manner.
Julius Kaesoron coordinated the attacks on the Laer atolls, discerning a pattern in their movements that had hitherto been perceived as random. At first, the atolls had been thought of as independent entities that forged their own destinies through the skies of the planet, but as he analysed the patterns, Julius had seen that each travelled within the orbit of one particular atoll.
It was neither the biggest, nor most impressive of the atolls that had been identified, but the more the pattern was studied, the more obvious its importance became. Strategic advisors theorised that it was perhaps a seat of what passed for government on Laeran, but when the pattern was revealed to the primarch, he immediately saw its true purpose.
It was not a place of governance: it was a place of worship.
I CY FLUORESCENT LIGHTS bathed the apothecarion of the Pride of the Emperor in a bright glare that reflected dazzlingly from glass cabinets and gleaming, steel bowls containing surgical instruments or bloody organs. Apothecary Fabius directed his menials as they wheeled a heavy gurney bearing the corpse of a Laer warrior from the chill of the temperature controlled mortuary cabinets.
Fabius kept his long white hair, the mirror of the primarch’s, tied in a severe scalp lock, accentuating the sharpness of his features and the coldness of his dark eyes. His movements were curt, their exactness reflecting his intensity and the precision of his methodology. His armour stood upon a rack in his arming chamber and thus he was dressed in his red surgical robes and a heavy rubberised apron smeared with dark alien blood.
Wisps of cold air rose from the body, and he nodded in satisfaction as the menials halted the gurney next to the stone autopsy slab upon which lay another Laer warrior, fresh from the battlefield. This specimen had been killed by a shot to the head and so the majority of its body was largely undamaged – at least from the fighting. Its flesh was still warm to the touch and it stank with the oily stench of its secretions. Reams of data scrolled on hololithic panes suspended on thin cables from the ceiling, projecting ghostly, crawling images around the bare, antiseptic walls.
Fabius had been working on this warm body for the last few hours and the fruits of his labours had been singular. He had removed the alien’s innards, its organs displayed like trophies on silver trays that surrounded the mortuary slab. The suspicion that had been forming in his mind since the assault on Atoll 19 had been confirmed and, armed with this
First Captain Julius Kaesoron, denied a place in the initial assaults of Atoll 19, was granted the honour of leading the front line troops under the overall command of Lord Commander Vespasian. Though Eidolon held seniority of rank, he had led the forces that had rendered Twenty-Eight Two compliant and thus the honour fell to Vespasian.
The war for Laeran was fought across many varied battlefields, the warriors of the Emperor’s Children fighting on floating atolls and through the ruins of ancient structures that reared from the oceans, while foaming breakers crashed against walls that had once stood thousands of metres in the air.
Underwater cites were discovered within days of the campaign’s opening and detachments of Astartes took the fight to the abyssal darkness of undersea trenches, smashing into structures that had never known the touch of sunlight, in specially modified boarding torpedoes fired from cruisers hovering above the sea.
Solomon Demeter led the Second against the first of these cities, subjugating it within six hours, his plan of attack garnering praise from the primarch. Marius Vairosean fought numerous actions against Laer orbitals that had previously escaped detection, fighting boarding actions on alien vessels, controlled by pilots telepathically linked to their ships in a loathsome parasitic manner.
Julius Kaesoron coordinated the attacks on the Laer atolls, discerning a pattern in their movements that had hitherto been perceived as random. At first, the atolls had been thought of as independent entities that forged their own destinies through the skies of the planet, but as he analysed the patterns, Julius had seen that each travelled within the orbit of one particular atoll.
It was neither the biggest, nor most impressive of the atolls that had been identified, but the more the pattern was studied, the more obvious its importance became. Strategic advisors theorised that it was perhaps a seat of what passed for government on Laeran, but when the pattern was revealed to the primarch, he immediately saw its true purpose.
It was not a place of governance: it was a place of worship.
I CY FLUORESCENT LIGHTS bathed the apothecarion of the Pride of the Emperor in a bright glare that reflected dazzlingly from glass cabinets and gleaming, steel bowls containing surgical instruments or bloody organs. Apothecary Fabius directed his menials as they wheeled a heavy gurney bearing the corpse of a Laer warrior from the chill of the temperature controlled mortuary cabinets.
Fabius kept his long white hair, the mirror of the primarch’s, tied in a severe scalp lock, accentuating the sharpness of his features and the coldness of his dark eyes. His movements were curt, their exactness reflecting his intensity and the precision of his methodology. His armour stood upon a rack in his arming chamber and thus he was dressed in his red surgical robes and a heavy rubberised apron smeared with dark alien blood.
Wisps of cold air rose from the body, and he nodded in satisfaction as the menials halted the gurney next to the stone autopsy slab upon which lay another Laer warrior, fresh from the battlefield. This specimen had been killed by a shot to the head and so the majority of its body was largely undamaged – at least from the fighting. Its flesh was still warm to the touch and it stank with the oily stench of its secretions. Reams of data scrolled on hololithic panes suspended on thin cables from the ceiling, projecting ghostly, crawling images around the bare, antiseptic walls.
Fabius had been working on this warm body for the last few hours and the fruits of his labours had been singular. He had removed the alien’s innards, its organs displayed like trophies on silver trays that surrounded the mortuary slab. The suspicion that had been forming in his mind since the assault on Atoll 19 had been confirmed and, armed with this
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