Stepping over the corroded remnants of a rail track, Alpharius looked to his right, where the rest of the squad was advancing with weapons ready. The in-vision schematic in the corner of his eye showed that they were seven hundred and fifty metres from the Ravendelve beacon, five hundred short of the patrol limit.

Skirting around a molten heap of slag that had once been a line of rail carts, the squad crossed the cargo yard at a steady pace. Nemron walked a little ahead of the others, bolter in one hand, auspex in the other. Periodically he would declare no contacts.

The patrol was a standard procedure to ensure that the perimeter of the facility was secure, but with the Raptors recruitment stepping up, Alpharius had detected a greater sense of importance in the orders of Commander Branne. It was not a good sign, an indicator perhaps that the Raven Guard upper echelons might have heard something about the rebellion Omegon was inciting. The patrol range had been pushed out by five hundred metres, covering the outskirts of the desolate transport hub.

Another hundred metres further on, the cloud was thickening even further as the squad moved into a depression caused by the subsidence of underground tunnels and hallways. Descending over broken ferrocrete, Alpharius felt something new. There was a small but insistent pressure at the base of his skull, nestled next to the vertebrae in the gap where one of his progenoid glands had been removed.

He recognised the cause immediately and took a sharp breath. The microscopic Alpha Legion implant set into his spine had detected an alert broadcast. Somewhere within a hundred metres was a Legion transmitter.

‘Sweep right, strafe fifty metres,’ he said, pushing the rest of the squad away from his line of advance. ‘Nemron, active scan of that building seventy metres to the right.’

Alpharius stayed on his course, opening up a gap between himself and the rest of the legionaries. The ticking sensation in his neck was becoming more distinct. Glancing at the others, he saw them only as half-seen shadows in the corrosive mist, and was sure they could see little of him.

He stopped and concentrated on the signal the implant was detecting. He sensed a minor increase in the device’s alert tempo as he stepped to his left. Looking around, he saw the remnants of a power pylon, collapsed and folded as if it had been made of wet paper. With one more glance to ensure he was unobserved, he headed towards the pylon, the ticking in his skull becoming quicker and quicker.

He made a quick survey of the rubble around the base of the crumpled tower but could not see any obvious sign of disturbance. He was glad there was nothing to see. He didn’t have to have access to the node station to interact with it. Kneeling down, he opened up the access panel in his right forearm and disabled his squad monitor.

‘Sergeant, losing your signal,’ came the immediate call from Gallid, the vox-link heavy with interference.

‘Rad-pocket, nothing to worry about,’ Alpharius replied in a measured tone. ‘Continue sweep, I will rejoin you shortly.’

The Alpha Legionnaire activated the short-range receiver/transmitter, a small coil of aerial extruding from the back of his gauntlet.

‘Effrit code, omega-nine-hydra,’ came the electronically muffled voice of the transponder. ‘Contact Two. Make report. Action imminent. Ready yourself for commands.’

‘Effrit code, hydra-nine-omega,’ said Alpharius. ‘Contact Two understood. New formation designated “the Raptors”. Gene-tech highly stable. Twenty-three days until first operations of Raptors. Target secure but ingress route has been established. Ready for orders.’

A loud crackle surprised Alpharius, indicating a live link was being established.

‘Contact Two, this is Effrit. Confirm status of Raptor development.’

‘Effrit, Hydra Contact Two. Implantation sequence scaled up. Full processing imminent. Estimate return of enemy to military threat within seventy days. Orders?’

There was a lengthy delay until the reply crackled through. Alpharius guessed that his news had required some deliberation for his master to resolve.

‘Report understood, Contact Two. Orders to stand by remain.’

The link closed with a hiss and Alpharius retracted the transmitter. He was a little worried by the response. Though it was hard to tell through the layers of tampering, the Alpha Legionnaire thought he had detected hesitancy in Omegon’s message, as if he had been taken back by the swiftly moving current of events.

There was little Alpharius could do at the moment, and the standby order implicitly instructed him not to make any attempt on the gene-tech yet, nor to interfere in or obstruct the ongoing recruitment process. He hoped his primarch had a plan and was ready to act soon. If not, the Raven Guard would be well on their way to recreating their Legion.

‘TOUCHDOWN IN FIVE… four… three… two… one. Mark.’

The Thunderhawk rocked heavily and a plume of grit and sand billowed up past the port. Branne was already out of his harness and heading towards the assault ramp. The rest of the thirty Raptors aboard quickly lined up behind him, their newly painted armour gleaming in the combat lighting, their bolters shining with fresh oil.

‘Second strike has crippled eastern defence turret, you are clear for disembarkation,’ announced the pilot.

The ramp lowered quickly, filling the interior of the gunship with harsh blue light. Branne’s auto-senses filtered out the worst of the glare as he thudded down the ramp and onto a wind-swept dune.

‘Standard dispersal, Corron take left flank, Nal on the right,’ snapped Branne.

The Raptors fanned out quickly, their armour dark against the light grey desert. One squad split to either side and the third followed Branne straight ahead. In front of them, the monitoring station squatted beneath a rocky cliff, its flat roof a tangle of communications dishes and sensor arrays.

Three missiles streaked down from overhead, detonating towards the western end of the station, to Branne’s left. Rockcrete exploded outwards from the bunker-busters, showering debris over a sand-choked yard.

‘Breach achieved, third unit moving forwards, second unit provide fire support,’ said Branne.

The sand was shifting constantly, making the ground underfoot unstable. The heavy legionaries surged through the drifts in clouds of grey, weapons aimed at the low building ahead. The scream of plasma jets erupted overhead as another Thunderhawk made a pass, its lascannons punching through heavily shuttered windows on the southern face of the station. Downblast from Branne’s gunship momentarily swathed the advancing Raptors in a storm of grit as it lifted off to take up a covering position above.

‘Targets, point fifteen, third window,’ snarled Branne, seeing armoured figures moving at one of the destroyed windows. A moment later, bolter rounds spat from the inside of the building, streaking towards Sergeant Nal’s squad.

Return fire blazed from Corron’s warriors, a hail of bolter shells and plasma blasts. Branne signalled for the squad accompanying him to lay down their own covering fire as Nal and his legionaries pressed on into the defenders’ fire.

‘Keep them busy,’ said Branne, drawing up his combi-bolter. He fired both barrels simultaneously, sending a hail of bolts through the window and into the twisted metal frame around it. The bark of bolters intensified, joined by the thunderous beat of the squad’s rotary autocannon, wielded by Kavin. The heavier shells of the autocannon ripped out chunks of plascrete from the wall.

Branne realised this was the first time he had fired at other warriors of the Legiones Astartes. Like the Raptors he led, he had not fought on Isstvan, and it was a moment he was proud to share with the new recruits. He wondered if Corax had been even smarter than the commander had realised when he had put Branne in charge of the Raptors. Not having shared the experience of the dropsite massacre and escape, he had found it hard to relate to the legionaries that had. There was no such divide between him and his new command.