Editing Confessions of a Wayward Son (section)

==Confessions of a Wayward Son V==

I am not perfect. Far from it.

Humans as a species are fundamentally flawed. We Astartes, though genetically modified to be superior than a mere man, have inherited those flaws. While our strength is many times that of our unaugmented kin, our hearts are very much human. Though our minds were altered to be work faster and with more efficiency, the thoughts that drift through our conscience are still very much human.

Many would argue that a Space Marine has surpassed the frailties of man, and transcended into something more powerful. They call us superhuman. Some go even further, and say we are angels.

I disagree.

While we Astartes have been modified to no longer resemble our weaker brethren, that does not change the fact that within our souls, we hold the same traits that makes mankind great and the same traits that makes us weak.

We make mistakes because we are still in some ways, human.

The [[Horus Heresy]] is the greatest testament to that fact.

I have made my share of mistakes as well. Errors that I wish I could undo. Things that I have come to regret.

My greatest remorse, is not showing my face to a woman who loved me.

I was trailing a warband of Chaos Astartes. My battle barge had sufficient weapons to engage enemy ships in space, but I had no crew to man them. The lance batteries that jutted from my craft's surface and the Nova Cannon that took up most of the prow were inoperable without Mechanicus personnel and servitors. I was forced to wait until the Great Enemy deployed from their transports. Only on the ground were my Rubric Marines effective.

The warband I followed was not large. Barely three full squads. The majority of the raiders consisted of cultists and renegade Guardsmen. As such, their chosen target was a world with few defenses and no orbital support. Their target was a feudal world called Naruon IV, and it was towards this planet I guided my battle barge.

My ship emerged from the Warp almost directly on top of the Chaos strike cruiser. They were caught completely wrong-footed.

Stormbirds brought me and one hundred of my brothers to the planet's surface. The others I sent on boarding torpedoes speeding towards the enemy cruiser, where they would fight for dominance for the ship's bridge. It was a risky manuever, but I had no other choice.

We touched down just as the raiders were in the middle of razing the planet's largest city. The streets were already slick with the blood of the innocent when I met the first traitor Astartes.

His armor was as red as human blood, with patches of black painted randomly across the ceramite. Not one from the old Legion, but I recognized the evil symbols he etched on his pauldrons.

[[Red Corsairs]].

Before he could raise his weapon, thirty bolters thundered at once and ripped his body to shreds.

My brothers advanced stoically over the corpse choked streets, bolters flaring with muzzle discharge.

The cultists and renegade Guardsmen were busy engaging in acts of despoilment and did not notice our approach until too late. They were subsequently cut to pieces by disciplined volleys of fire. Return lasgun shots pattered off our ceramite protection like rain, utterly ineffective. Seeing that resistance was impossible, the traitor humans fled. Almost all of them were hurled from their feet, gaping holes torn into their backs.

No mercy to the enemies of the Emperor. No mercy to those who betrayed me.

We left the streets choked with even more dead.

The Red Corsairs, were a whole different matter. They were Astartes, and they would not run no matter how high the odds were stacked against them. The entire city became a massive scene of raging firefights as the Corsairs fought back. Attacking in small groups, they waged a ferocious defense, striking from hidden ambush points that hours ago, had been used by the warriors of Naruon IV.

There is a twisted irony in that, I suppose.

Had been this been any other army, such guerrilla tactics would have worked. Men, be they mortal or Astartes, would have shed blood for every inch of land gained. My men were souls chained to their suits of armor, and the Corsair strategy was as effective as throwing a rock into an onrushing river in hopes of halting it.

Like a relentless tide, the Thousand Sons drove back the enemy, forcing them to retreat from their hiding holes, feet by feet, meter by meter, block by block.

The last of the Red Corsairs were holed up in the city's palace. A construct of stone and granite, it was the defining piece of the entire city. As Ah'ton battered down the walls with his power fist, it soon became clear that the people of Naroun had fled to the inner cloisters for safety, hoping that the battlements would be sufficient enough to protect them. They were not.

As I strode over the rubble that Ah'ton had battered down, I was greeted with a scene of carnage and butchery.

Dead bodies lie strewn in every direction, frames ruptured from bolter blasts. Some displayed the telltale signs of chainblade lacerations, their forms sundered into unrecognizable ruins. The soil drank deep that day the blood of innocent men and women.

My plated boots took me into the inner sanctum. My brothers followed me as always, silent automatons whose only made noise was the snarling of their armored joints as they moved.

If the palace grounds was a place of butchery, then the inside could only be described as a charnel house.

Men and women lay where they fell, huddled together and in some cases holding each other. Blood flowed down the walls like streams, pooling in crimson puddles.

Four Astartes. That was all that was left of their band of thirty. But they had nevertheless slaughtered near a thousand people in the time it took me to break down the walls.

Sometimes I wonder if this universe would be better without the likes of us existing in it.

The leader of the Corsair band sat upon a throne of polished stone, no doubt belonging to the ruler of the city. His helm sat idly by his foot, green visors glinting malevolently. His revealed face was criscrossed with jagged scar tissue and across one of his cheeks was a tattoo of the eight pointed star. He smiled without remorse as I stepped towards him, my brothers at my back.

The last of his band, three Astartes, stood at his side, their weapons lowered.

Like the rest of the palace, the throne room was akin to a butcher's shop. Bloodied bodies lay unmoving on the tiled floor, crimson life fluid spilling from ruptured frames. These slain men and women were clad in elegant garments, now shredded by shell and monomolecular teeth. The world's nobility.

The Corsair champion saw the direction of my gaze and laughed.

"Men of noble blood deem themselves above their lesser kin," he said, his voice filled with phlegm and sounding of tortured metal, "I tested that theory today and found out their blood was just as red as those of peasant's."

He tossed something at me. It rolled to a halt before my feet. A crown. Stained with the blood of its wearer.

I gazed back at the Corsair, and his smile grew wider.

"The king tried to fight back," he told me, "Defend his subjects. I tore him apart with this."

He flexed the talons of his lightning claw, each adamantium digit dripping with ichor.

"Why?" I asked him.

"Why not?" was his reply.

That was a question I had no answer to.

A psychic order from me caused my brothers to raise their bolters to shoulder level.

"Any last words?" I asked him.

"None," he smiled back.

One hundred boltguns roared as one and sent exploding shells slamming into corrupted ceramite.

When the last shell casing clattered to the floor, all four of the Corsairs were dead. Their leader was slumped over his throne, the smile still etched on his features. I demolished that leering face with a blast from my plasma pistol.

There was nothing left for me to do here. I spun on my heel to leave.

A pitiful cry stopped me in my tracks.

A woman, barely having weathered twenty seasons, dragged herself towards me. Not me, I realized. Her path was towards the lump of destroyed flesh by the feet of the dead Corsair champion. The slain king. She knelt by the butchered man and hugged him close, not caring for the red ichor that splashed onto her white dress. A daughter to the ruler I assumed.

Her wails of lamentation did not move my heart. I am Astartes, born and bred for war. I have heard the cries of grief from both friend and foe for many centuries. What was this one more to the other countless screams and shrieks over a lifetime of war?

I turned once more to leave.

"Wait!" the woman cried out to me in desperation.

She crawled towards me, her leg trailing blood. A bolter round had smashed into the floor beside her, detonating and splintering apart the bones in her thigh with concussive force. She would never walk again.

Her arms locked around my leg in a desperate embrace and I marvelled at the strength humans possessed when in peril. She looked up at me with tears glistening down her cheeks.

"Please," she begged, "Take me away from this place. I beseech you."

I considered the woman's plea.

One part of me refused the idea of bringing her with me. Compassion is not in the mindset of a Space Marine. The Emperor forged us from his own blood and flesh for only one purpose. To destroy the enemies of mankind. What could this woman do to aid me in that purpose? What could this fragile mortal do to help me on the battlefield?

The other part of me disagreed.

War was one purpose in many. The Emperor created us not only to wage war but also to protect mankind. We were made to better the realms of men, and to guard the Imperium from the clutches of xenos breeds. Was it not my duty to protect this woman? Was the guardianship of this fragile thing not my purpose?

In the end, my considerations were unnecessary. The waves of the Great Ocean had already decreed what was to be done.

I gave my staff-blade to a brother to hold. I holstered my plasma pistol.

My hands, armored in crimson ceramite, reached for the woman. She shrank back in fear. She knew what these two gauntlets could do to human flesh. The evidence lay all around her.

I brought the delicate human to my chest. She cried out softly. My hands were not gentle. They had been too calloused by war for that.

In this way I carried her from the place she once called home.

I brought the woman back to my battle barge in orbit. The boarding action against the enemy cruiser had been extremely effective. My two hundred brothers crushed the opposition with little effort. We left the enemy ship a burning wreck in the cold of space.

I carried the female human to the places where others of her kind dwelled. I was promised that she would be cared for. And so, I strode back to the bridge of my ship, the woman forgotten from my mind.

A week later, and I came back to check upon my human charges. I was fortunate in my timing. The woman I had just recently saved was huddled in a corner, a crowd of angry men and women screaming obscenities at her. The crowd had stones in their hands.

My presence halted the woman's persecution.

I asked them why they would do this.

Their ringleader, a middle-aged man with an unkempt mustache, was pushed to the front. He told me that the woman was a witch, a latent psyker who had threatened the others. He was lying. My mind discerned what falsehoods he kept in secrecy in the depths of his conscience. He lusted after the woman. When he made his advances known, she had refused. When he had persisted, she had cried out for others to help. His black heart had hated her ever since.

I was shocked. Shocked that such evil could dwell within the souls of beings I was sworn to protect. This man was willing to kill another out of sheer jealousy and petty spite. He did not deserve to be saved.

I waved a hand in his direction and he screamed. I boiled the blood in his veins, shattered apart every bone in his body, and melted the flesh from his frame. He collapsed, and the others shrank back in fear.

"No more," I told them, and carried the frightened woman away.

From then on, this woman would be my only living companion.

She was too badly maimed by the Red Corsairs to move on her own. The majority of the times I had to carry her in my arms. Over time, I grew used to her delicate arms wrapped around my neck and her fragile weight in my hands. But the one thing I never grew used to, was the smile she showed me every time she rested in my arms.

She said her name was Sylvia. I did not answer when she asked me for my own name.

Our bond grew as the days passed into weeks, and the weeks into months. Warp travel was tedious at best, and the only company I had before, were my silent brothers.

Sylvia was everything I hoped a companion could be. She was intelligent, despite hailing from a feudal world. She had a thirst for knowledge, and would ask me many questions regarding the universe. She was kind and considerate, and would question me on my health every time I returned from a battle. She was also very beautiful, but that to me, is meaningless. I wanted only someone who could reply to my words and listen to my troubles.

Yes. I know. Surprisingly human of me, isn't it? But then again, we Astartes never did fully cast off our humanity.

In retrospect, I should have seen the signs. Many times, she would begin a conversation about love or ask me if I had loved anyone in my past life. Each time, I responded as only a Space Marine can.

Love, to us, is a foreign thing. While we love our fellow brothers in arms, our primarch, and the Emperor, that in itself, is the love of brotherhood. The love a man gives to a woman and vice versa, we could not understand.

I told her this each time she brought up the subject. After my explanation, her smile would grow sad and her eyes would become wistful.

The signs were there, but I did not see them.

The months turned to years, and my companion soon began to age with the passing of time. Where once her hair was a brilliant yellow in color, streaks of grey had begun to appear. Lines had begun to show upon her once flawless face and her eyes grew dim when they once shown with youthful vigor. I don't think I fully realized just how age affected mortals. Astartes are proof to the frailties of normal human beings, and age among with many other things, could not defeat us.

One day, after a hard fought battle against a warband of Khornate Berzerkers, I arrived back on my battle barge's bridge where Sylvia had taken up her residence. To my surprise, she was not there to greet me as she did countless times before. My surprise turned to apprehension as my calls for her went unreturned.

I finally found her in her makeshift bed. Her breathing was shallow and fitful, and her face had grown pallid and lifeless. I sank down on one knee and bent my head to her chest.

Her heartbeats were growing dim with every passing second, and a twisted feeling sprang into my gut when I realized my companion might no longer be there to grace my side.

As I lifted my ear from her breast, her eyes fluttered open. I saw the joy in those blue pupils and was struck dumb at the emotion they contained.

"Thank the Emperor," she whispered through her lips, "I thought I wouldn't make it. But Bless the Throne, you came back in time for us to say goodbye."

I could not reply to that.

"Please," Sylvia begged me, "tell me your name."

"Apophis," I breathed through the vocalizers in my helm, "I am called Apophis."

"Apophis," she smiled up at me, "That is a beautiful name."

"Not as beautiful as you," my words were truthful. It shamed me that it took me so long to see how beautiful she was.

"That is the first time you have complimented me on my appearance, Apophis," her smile grew but the light in her eyes dimmed further.

She drew a shuddering breath.

"Can I... Can I see your face?"

I hesitated at that. I hesitated. Not because it was a strange request. But because of tradition. The Thousand Sons seldom showed their faces to outsiders of their Cults. And so, I hesitated.

Another shuddering breath snapped me from my reverie. I disengaged the gorget locks as quickly as my fumbling fingers would allow. I tore the helm from my head.

Too late.

Sylvia was dead. That last breath I heard had been a death rattle. I flung my helm away with such force that the faceplate dented when it connected with adamantium wall. To this day the dent remains, a reminder of my failure.

I sat for a long time, gazing mournfully at her cold body. She was not my battle-brother. She had not tread upon the same battlefields as I did during the Great Crusade. She had no heroic feats to her name. So why then? Why did I feel for her loss more than the loss of a hundred of my brothers?

I realized then, I had my first taste of love. But this was not the pleasant feeling described by the remembrancers of the Crusade. This was a bitter emotion, a raging sorrow that tore at my heartstrings. Is all love like this? Does all love lead to sorrow and despair? If so, why are humans so willing to praise this empty promise of an emotion?

These questions I have asked myself through the long millennia after Sylvia's death. I have yet to find their answers.