After Calix

'Wolfe... Wolfe, can you hear me?'
The words broke through the dream- the fire, the blood, the faces screaming, burning, dying- and his eyes snapped open. Almost instantly, something didn't feel right. He tried to move, but the feeling didn't come. Not yet.
'Wolfe?'

He tried to focus, and eventually, the indistinct shapes became defined enough to see. A larger figure and a smaller one dominated his view. Behind them, nothing but whiteness. As his vision returned, so did his feeling, and one by one, he flexed his fingers. As he did, he felt the cracked skin split and the warm blood seep to the surface, forming a thick, moist layer on the inside of his gloves.
'Whe-' is as far as he got before he coughed, the bile coming up too fast and spurting up, before falling back to cover his face. He didn't feel anything. Slowly, he sat, and wiped the liquid away with the sleeve of his greatcoat. Again, the touch of the sleeve on his face left no sensation. 'Where am-”

“Somewhere safe.” the larger figure replied, and reached down to lift Wolfe to a fully sitting position. Wolfe made out more features as he moved closer. A thick moustache, and a red scar over one eye. “My name is Van Baalen, and this is Hansfeld.” he gestured to the smaller figure, who bowed. “Now, tell me what you remember.”
“I was on Calix.” Wolfe began, before another dry cough. Every movement brought more pain, more blood, and this time, it was mixed with the memories. Too vivid. “Calix. I was... My men... I failed them...”
And he sank back to the bed, succumbing to the terrible, paralysing pain and the endless nightmare.

***

“With all due respect, sir, are you sure that's the one we're looking for?” Hansfeld asked, as the glass doors slid shut behind him. Van Baalen absent-mindedly tapped the pommel of his power sword, as if in deep thought, before answering.
“He has to be. We're out of options. Things are getting worse. He has to be.”
“But you have doubts?”

“Of course I've got my bloody doubts, Hansfeld.” Van Baalen exploded, his armoured fist halting only moments from the diminutive acolyte's face. “Look at him. He's a wreck. He won't walk for a month, It'll be a miracle if he can fight before the year's out, and Emperor only knows what kind of a mess his mind's in.” He frowned as, on the other side of the glass, Wolfe contorted again, his face curling in a noiseless scream. Van Baalen's frown softened. “Poor bastard.”

“It's your call, sir, but I don't agree. If this goes wrong, there's every chance we lose the whole sector.”
“I am... aware of your concerns, Hansfeld, but I've made my decision. Your objection is noted. Now, we just need to get him sane enough to talk.”

***

“Wolfe, get back! Get back!” It was Elric. Elric who always took the extra shifts, Elric who was never late, Elric who followed every order. Wolfe watched as the flamer sloughed him away to nothingness. He barely heard the crack of the bolt pistol as the heretic was torn apart. Vengeance, but not enough.

Behind him, another, mutated beyond recognition, came at him from the smoke. Wolfe hacked off its arms, one after the other after the other, before removing its head. Before the body hit the ground he'd cut down two more.
It was no good. There were too many. Wolfe estimated that at least two thirds of the Calix PDF had been corrupted, and half of those that remained loyal had been killed by the time he arrived. The only thing he knew for certain was that there were no prisoners.
A grenade somewhere to the left knocked him from his feet, and by the time his vision cleared, he was painfully aware of the metal point in his back. Slowly, it lifted, and he rolled, staring up at the burnt red sky, and beneath it, the man he had once called friend.

Trav was no longer recognisable as a human, or even humanoid. As a man he had been large, but the powers of the Dark Gods had swelled him beyond the limit of human expansion. He was a living, breathing monument to decadence and gluttony, his distended stomach hanging nearly to his ankles and quivering every time an auto-round hit it. Wherever a tear developed in the fattened flesh, swarms of flies darted forth, followed by maggots that sealed the breach. A stray autocannon shell tore right through his abdomen, a wound that Wolfe suspected would have felled an Astartes, and within seconds the pustulent flesh had been replaced by the writhing mass.

“So, Wolfe, we meet again. I can't say it's a pleasure.” Trav gurgled, the words barely distinguishable between belches and drool. “Now, if you'll do me the honour of remaining still, I'll make this quick.”
The axe rose and fell.

***

“Let's try this again.”
“Just get on with it. Say what you have to say and I'll try not to die.” Wolfe croaked, and this time, managed to hold back the coughing.
“Calix fell. You survived. And now we have a new mission. I'm sorry you can't have a longer period to recover, but time is not on our side.” Van Baalen frowned darkly, and glanced at Hansfeld, who seemed to glare back. “You leave for Antor in twelve hours. If you're lucky, you'll be back on your feet by the time you get there. If not, then you'll just have to fight sitting down.” Wolfe noted with some concern that Van Baalen didn't look like he was joking.
“Antor. Antor... Never heard of the place.” He muttered..
“I didn't expect you to have. Backwater world in the outer rim, non-industrial. Mostly just fields with the odd city. It'd make a nice retirement home.”
“I'd appreciate it if you left the jokes aside, sir.” Wolfe said icily.

“Whatever. The point is, it's been existing on the edge of Imperial law for too long. We left them alone because they did as they were told. They fought where we asked, built what we wanted, and died when we needed them to. Good little soldiers.”
“I'm not sure what the problem is, then. After all, if they're dying so happily, why don't you just let them get on with it!” Wolfe hissed, once more the memories flashing back. The axe. That monstrous, brutal axe. He jolted.
“I know you're not exactly happy with what happened on Calix, but you have to let that go.”

“Let it go? Let it go? You weren't there, sir, when I watched men I trusted turn on their comrades and gun them down in cold blood. When I saw people that had never fired a shot in anger slaughtered by beasts from beyond their imaginations. When I saw a whole world torn apart because men like you were too content watching men like me die.” His voice turned black. “So spare me the facetiousness. Get to the fething point.”
“Antor is sick, Wolfe. Sick to the core. We know you hate us for Calix, but I'm giving you the chance to make sure that doesn't happen again. I know you blame yourself, Wolfe, but this is a chance to change that. I can't bring back those men, but I can give you the chance to stop more dying. But I need you to act.”
“I'm hardly in a position to refuse, am I?”
“In that case, it's decided. You're being assigned to the First Antor Rifles, more details of your mission will follow. I'm afraid you can't know more than that. The more we tell you, the more dangerous you are.”
Wolfe nodded.

“Hansfeld.” Van Baalen prompted, and the acolyte stepped forward. Wolfe didn't even feel the syringe enter his neck before he was back in that dreadful, terrifying, inescapable limbo. The last thing he was aware of was Van Baalen leaving.
“Emperor be with you, you poor fether.” He had the faintest idea he wasn't supposed to have heard that last part.

***

Van Baalen didn't even turn as his hulking companion stepped into the bridge of the barge. He watched the sun setting past Calix, and only as the last rays faded over the horizon did he turn and speak.
“Inquisitor Skjor.”
“Inquisitor Van Baalen.”
“The wheels are turning, the game begins.” He said, not looking up at Skjor.
“I read the report. Are you sure the Commissar's the best choice?”
“You don't think he's up to it?”
“Oh no, I'm sure he's up to it. One of the best combat records we've seen for one of his age and experience. Top of the class for tactical ability. Good swordsman.”
“What's your problem, then?”
“My problem is, old friend, that he's a good man. And with what we're asking him to do, that's just not right. We're already monsters, but him? He could be so much more. Those men you told him he could save? What do we do when he finds out the truth?”
“We pray to the Emperor that he has the sense to do what needs to be done.”

***

The axe fell, and Wolfe rolled away, climbing to his feet in time to parry the next swing with his power sword. The impact jarred up his arm, but he ignored it, swinging down and watching as the blade carved through Trav's enormous stomach. As he expected, the maggots healed the gash in seconds, and the swarm of flies darted for his face, biting the exposed flesh and blinding him. By the time he batted them away, another axe blow was swinging towards him. Wolfe brought up the bolt pistol and fired point-blank at Trav's face, tearing away a chunk of flesh and interrupting the attack. Maggots crawled over the wound and Wolfe couldn't stop himself laughing.
“Something in your eye!” he snarled, and thrust the sword forward again, burying it in Trav's chest up to the hilt. The bloated figure staggered back, and chuckled. He wrenched the sword out and threw it aside.

“Funny. You're funny, Wolfe.” Trav waddled forward, swinging the axe in leisurely circles and hacking apart all who came near, friend and foe alike. Wolfe backed up, firing rhythmically at the chaotic General. Every shot achieved nothing more than another swarm of flies and another howl of derisive laughter.
A hundred plans flashed through his mind, and each was instantly dismissed as useless. He reached for the vox.
“Imperial High Command, Calix sector, this is Commissar Wolfe. Priority alpha. Calix VI has fallen. Repeat, Calix VI has fallen.”
What seems like an age passed before the inevitable reply, each second punctuated by a looping swing from Trav's axe.

“Priority Alpha confirmed. Exterminatus inbound. The Emperor Protects.”
Wolfe knew he had seconds before the first of the blasts from the fleet in orbit, and only one thing remained to be done. Trav had to die.
He dropped to the floor and groped desperately for a weapon, his hand closing around the handle of a flamer. He checked the tank: Almost full. Feet planted wide, he took aim, and began spraying promethium at the encroaching enemy, the maggots that surged to the surface instantly turned to ash.
“Come on, then.” He cried, defiant to the last. “Come on then, you heretic son of a mutant bitch!”
Trav's body seemed to shrink as he got closer, burning away faster than the power of chaos could restore him. Within moments, he stood before Wolfe, still towering over him, and raised the axe, aflame with holy promethium. The axe came down and Wolfe dropped the flamer, seizing the haft mere inches from skull. Just a few seconds, and it would be over.
Just a few seconds.

Trav opened his mouth, a swarm of insects spewing from his open maw and engulfing Wolfe, who closed his eyes as they burrowed into his face. The pain reached intolerable levels, and for a moment, he thought his strength would fail.
The Emperor Protects.
Wolfe sank to his knees, half praying, half fighting. A few more seconds.

The first of the blasts hit Calix VI, and after that, nothing.

***

Wolfe stood at the gangplank as the Arvus lighter pulled in over Ursa II. Standing before him, red armour stark against the white of the snow, stood the First Antor Rifles, arrayed in all their might to greet their new commander. He had his orders.
To call them orders, he reflected, was a fallacy. All he had been told to do was lead the Rifles in this campaign and await further instructions. Nothing to go on, and only an empty promise of redemption to go on. He still didn't know why or even how Van Baalen had lifted him, barely alive, from the ruins of Calix VI. He didn't know what precisely it was that he was supposed to save Antor from.
The medicae approached silently from behind and proffered Wolfe the mask Van Baalen had had prepared. A plain brown gas mask, standard issue from the outside, but inside filled with the injectors, inhalers and concoctions that Wolfe needed to survive. He slipped it over his scarred, cracked face, the face that would never heal from Trav's insect swarm, and smiled as best he could. It fitted perfectly, as he knew it would. Van Baalen was leaving nothing to chance.

The ramp lowered and he stepped out, ready to begin his new mission. As the first of the winter sunlight reached his eyes, Wolfe swore a promise, so quietly even the vox transmitter that he knew Van Baalen had installed in the mask would not pick up.
“I will not fail you. Men of Antor, I will not fail you. Men of Calix, I will not forget you. And Inquisitor Van Baalen.” he raised his voice. “I will not forgive you.”