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Forgotten Sons (Short Story)

Forgotten Sons
Forgotten-Sons.jpg
Author Nick Kyme
Publisher Black Library
Series Horus Heresy Series
Collected in Age of Darkness

Cover Description

The planet Bastion must decide whether to remain loyal to the Emperor, or side with the rebel Horus. The Warmaster's case is presented by an iterator, a master of persuasion. The Imperium has sent the Space Marines. Heka'tan and Arcadese must set aside their warlike natures and learn to be diplomats, or risk losing the world. But Horus wants the world, and a plan is in motion to ensure that the Space Marines fail in their task...

Synopsis

Two loyalist Space Marines, Heka'tan of the Salamanders and Arcadese of the Ultramarines, arrive on the planet Bastion which has remained neutral in the civil war to act as the Imperium's ambassadors. Their landing ship is shot down, and they along with human ex-remembrancer Persephia are the only survivors. Arriving in Bastion's capital city on foot they surrender their weapons and stand against Horus's ambassador Vorkellen in the city's court. Arcadese tasks Persephia with retrieving their weapons in case things go wrong, but she stumbles across a single Iron Warrior conducting sabotage beneath the city and is killed. Heka'tan leaves the debate to check on her and kills the Iron Warrior after finding her corpse, but meanwhile Arcadese loses his temper in the debate chamber and the governors of Bastion prepare to side with Horus. At the last minute Heka'tan and Arcadese foil an assassination attempt on Vorkellen by a lacrymole shape-shifter who shot down their ship and was hired to implicate the Imperium in underhand dealings, but Bastion begins to come apart as nuclear bombs primed by the Iron Warrior start to detonate beneath the planet's crust in a plan to intimidate planets into joining Horus by showing the consequences of courting the Imperium. Arcadese and Heka'tan hunt down and kill the lacrymole and escape with the surviving dignitaries to Vorkellen's ship, but the landing pad collapses and Heka'tan sacrifices himself to save the enemy ambassador. Flying away from the dying world, Arcadese swears to avenge his death.

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