He consulted the bio-scanner on his retinal display, looked at the lethal vial of toxin mag-locked to his armour. His enemy was within metres. He should be able to kill it. In any other circumstance, a sergeant of the Firedrakes should have been able to kill it.

The noises from the gloom ahead were getting louder.

It would be soon.

Act!

Nu’mean addressed Brother Ve’kyt. ‘Get the Apothecary to the saviour pods. Ensure he is on his way and return here to the line. I will need you and Brother Kohlogh before the end.’

It was a risk, putting Emek in one of the pods, which was not guaranteed to function. Nor was his rescue assured once he was adrift in the void of space. And with his injuries…This was the only choice. Nu’mean knew what was expected.

Ve’kyt had gone, taking the groggy, half-comatose Apothecary with him.

Nu’mean rested his gauntlet on Kohlogh’s shoulder plate.

‘None shall pass, brother.’

Kohlogh nodded. The ’stealers sounded closer than ever. Vague shapes could be seen in the darkness ahead.

Nu’mean turned and approached the bulkhead door. The activation codes were on his lips.

‘Seal it behind me,’ he said quietly. ‘Do not open it again. Whatever happens.’

‘In Vulkan’s name,’ Kohlogh intoned.

‘Aye for Vulkan…’ Nu’mean answered, the chittering of the approaching beasts rising to a crescendo as he opened the door and entered the cryo-chamber.

He was barely across the threshold, the door sealing shut behind him, when the arc-lightning struck. It was a dull pain at first, intensifying into something much more invasive and burning as Nu’mean took each agonising step.

His Crux Terminatus gave him some protection, but it was his Salamanders tenacity that kept him moving across the fog-shrouded floor.

Like white-hot fingers running across his armour, the psychic lightning probed for flesh and for weakness. Slowly, the joints in Nu’mean’s once-impervious suit were eased apart.

Above the crack of energy, he heard the battle outside. Bolter fire and flamer bursts mingled with the war cries of his brothers and the shrieking of the xenos. It was a fitting requiem to their last stand in this hellish place. This was not the ship of his memory. This abomination was the Protean no longer. Only wraiths lingered here, best forgotten. Nu’mean had learned that too late, but now he would at least finish his mission.

Merely steps away from the cryo-tank, he saw the farseer slumbering, as serene as he had ever been. To look upon the alien, one would not know of the turmoil in his mind as he fought the invader that sought to kill him.

But kill you I will, Nu’mean vowed.

The horrors and cerebral tortures returned when the psychic lightning failed. Faces, rotten and withered by decay, glared at him with accusing eyes. Suddenly, there were hundreds, clogging the path to the cryo-tank, their zombified talons clawing at the Firedrake sergeant. Serfs and crewmen, brander-priests and even fellow Space Marines held Nu’mean at bay with their anger and his guilt.