by Andy Clark
‘You think those ships just happen to be flying past, Klem?’ asked Shas. ‘Hm? You think they’re winging their way through the ether, they just happen to see all this? Think to themselves, you know what the Emperor wants, is we keep our mission in the other hand while we come help fight the greens?’
‘The probability does appear vanishingly small, captain,’ said Klem.
‘Hah!’ barked Shas. ‘About the same damn odds of you growing a proper Valhallan beard. Not going to happen.’
‘Wouldn’t want to show you up, now would I, captain?’ asked Klem, his noble features unreadable. Shas barked a laugh.
‘What I think, is these koshnova have been waiting here all along,’ said Shas. ‘I don’t know why, don’t want to either. But I don’t think they’re about to lend their aid. If we have to, I think we go and get in their way.’
‘I’m not sure that Commissar Hauptvier would agree with your assessment, captain,’ said Klem quietly.
‘I think you’re not wrong,’ said Shas. ‘And I think chances of cutting our way through all this carnage in time are pretty slim anyway. Especially with only ujovskae Bastion Ships for backup. Never stopped us before though, hey?’
‘No, captain, that’s true,’ said Klem with the ghost of a smile. He tapped the holstered las pistol at his hip gently. ‘I’ll be ready, if you give the word. It is heroic of commissars to face the dangers they do, especially when one considers the accidents that can happen in the white heat of battle.’
‘Good man,’ growled Shas, then raised his voice to a sudden bellow. ‘All right, you bunch of whimpering conscripts on this bridge. You’ve all seen Imperial ships before, why are you staring now? Look fierce! There’s orks to slaughter!’
Still, the captain’s eyes lingered on the trajectory of the menacing Inquisitorial ships, and the chron cycling swiftly down on his displays. They would enter geosynchronous orbit within minutes, and Shas had an inkling suspicion of what might happen then.
Northrise Battery was wreathed in smoke and flame. Pegasson and Draconis aircraft streaked back and forth overhead, dropping bombs and sending streams of gunfire to strafe the orks. Gunfire spat down from the battlements, hammering the shields of the Knights fighting to gain entrance. Greenskin forces swarmed over them, Stompas leading waves of tanks and infantry against the Imperial force.
The Knights of House Pegasson strode in long, swift arcs, torsos twisting and guns hammering as they circled the towering ork Gargant. The machine was ablaze, secondary systems and armoured compartments blown to ruin. Yet its flickering force fields kept springing back to life, and with every cumbersome salvo of return fire it left another steed sprawled as wreckage on the Valatane.
The Knights of House Minotos had succeeded in blasting a breach in the battery’s walls, but with enemies coming from every side they were hard-pressed to capitalise on their achievement.
‘Damnation!’ roared Grandmarshal Kurt. He stepped his steed backwards, barely evading the churning teeth of a Stompa’s chainsword. He clenched his haptic gauntlets, tensed in his throne and swung a return blow. Gustev’s Revenge responded in bellicose style, swinging its Minotane hammer in a meteoric arc. The huge weapon connected with the Stompa’s jaw and tore its head clean off.
Sparks flew and flames leapt as the war effigy tottered backwards, decapitated. Kurt drove Revenge forward, slamming his battered shield into the Stompa’s gut and overbalancing it completely. With a mighty groan the ork war engine tipped backwards and crashed down on its back. Secondary explosions rippled through it, blasting loose hull plates and deforming its mangled hull.
‘Knights, report,’ snapped Kurt as shots splashed from his ion shield. The battle was brutal, and he had a dark sense that they were losing.
‘Sire,’ came Wilhorm’s voice through the vox. ‘We’ve lost another two Knights. They’ve pushed us back on the right, and blocked the breach with more damn Stompas.’
‘Marchioness, what’s your status?’ asked Kurt, switching channels.
‘Stalled,’ came Lauret’s reply, delivered through gritted teeth. ‘This Throne-damned Gargant will not die! Energy readings suggest its primary weapon is almost charged.’
‘You’ve got to destroy it,’ said Kurt. ‘Emperor alone knows what that thing does, but–’
‘I know, Grandmarshal,’ snapped Lauret. ‘I’ve lost six Knights to this abomination already. We’re directing all of our fire into it, but it simply will not stop.’
Kurt checked his strategic overlay, and felt a fresh surge of fury at the sight of yet more greenskin runes spilling around the fortress towards his beleaguered Knights.
‘Where are they all coming from?’ he cursed.
‘Irrelevant,’ said Lauret. ‘We need to do something to turn this battle in our favour or Adrastapol is lost.’
‘Sires Gastaurn, Colchin, Willer, with me,’ said Kurt, mind racing. ‘We’re going to punch through the breach. Everyone else, covering fire, be ready to follow us in the moment the way is open.’
Assent runes flashed back to him. Vox speakers still booming their war arias, the Knights of House Minotos swung into action.
Kurt charged, enemy fire rebounding from shields. Sires Gastaurn, Colchin and Willer, Gallant pilots all, formed lance on him, striding heroically towards the towering Stompas that held the breach.
The lead Stompa fired a spread of huge rockets that streaked down to explode amidst Kurt’s charging force. One warhead hit his steed’s slablike shield and rebounded, Revenge stalking on through the resultant fireball. Another slammed straight into Sire Gastaurn’s steed and blew it apart.
Kurt swore furiously as energy beams stabbed down from the artillery on the walls, converging to saw a leg from under Sire Willer’s Knight.
Gatling rounds and battle cannon shells stitched the Stompas blocking the breach, causing them to shudder with detonations. The ork war engines opened fire again, the sheer volume of fire stealing Kurt’s momentum and forcing his steed to a grinding halt with its shield held before it.
He fired his melta cannons, carving a glowing hole through the chest of the closest Stompa and causing its magazines to detonate. Still the other two war engines kept shooting, and Kurt cried out in dismay as Sire Colchin’s steed suffered a string of hits to its torso that left it a gutted, blazing wreck.
‘My liege, pull back!’ voxed Sire Wilhorm.
Kurt forced his steed forward another pace, and another. Shells hammered his ironclad shield, chewing chunks of metal from its edges. More shots splashed from his ion shield, forming a perpetual blue haze. He growled in frustration as warning runes flashed across his intruments.
‘My liege!’ urged Wilhorm again.
‘Grandmarshal,’ barked Lauret. ‘Curb your wrath. Withdraw, and try another approach.’
Kurt swore vociferously, walking his steed back from the looming Stompas as shots continued to batter his steed.
‘What do you suggest, my lady?’ he asked. ‘Time is running out.’
‘Pull back and help us finish this monster off,’ said Lauret. ‘Perhaps with our forces combined we can–’
Kurt frowned at Lauret’s pause, turning his steed towards the towering Gargant and flashing runic commands to his subordinates.
‘My lady?’ he asked.
‘Look, Grandmarshal,’ said Lauret, and in her voice he heard a note of hope. ‘The Draconspire. The orks are fleeing. And behind them…’
Kurt magnified his vid feeds, and barked a fierce laugh.
‘The High King!’ he said, his voice booming through the vox channel to inspire Knights of Minotos and Pegasson alike. ‘Danial Tan Draconis lives, and he’s riding to our aid. For the sake of our world, we cannot let him down!’
Oath of Flame crossed the Valatane at a loping run, pennants flowing in the wind. Lances of Knights followed in its wake. Draconis steeds, all those that
the Sacristans could awaken. The Knights of Houses Pegasson and Minotos. Luk and the Exiles stormed into battle on Danial’s heels, alongside Suset, Markos and Percivane.
Vehicles roared in their wake, the Vesserines’ Tauroxes escorting a wedge of Sacristan Crawlers and the few remaining Draconis tanks and transports, with as many militia as could fit packed into their holds and clinging to their flanks and roofs. Danial knew that Jennika was amongst them, riding with a colonel who served Luk. He had had scant time to grasp the full situation, just a few moments while the medicae pumped him full of painkillers and stimms, and fitted a servo-brace to his shoulder so that he could pilot. But he knew enough.
With every moment, the fight around Northrise Battery grew closer, and looked more desperate. The remaining dregs of the greenskins fled before his force, yet those around the battery still fought furiously.
‘All Knights,’ said Danial over the open channel. ‘Understand that there is no price too high for victory here. By Inquisitor Massata’s reckoning, we may have a matter of minutes to save our world. We must smash the xenos aside, and allow High Sacristan Polluxis and his brothers access to the battery’s vox. Succeed, and we save this world for the Emperor. We earn a chance to win this war. Fail, and we die by fire. But Knights of Adrastapol, we will not fail!’
Vox horns blared and autopennants were raised. Overhead, wings of Adrastapolian aircraft fell into formation, ready to support the attack.
‘Sire,’ voxed Markos. ‘The Gargant. That’s the monster that banished our machine-spirits during the siege.’
‘Energy build up around the war effigy’s primary weapon is prodigious,’ voxed Polluxis. ‘I would posit that its crews are readying to fire another such energy blast. Were they to succeed in this it would reduce our chances of success to virtually nil.’
‘Then it dies first,’ said Danial. ‘All Knights, long guns and missiles to target the Gargant. Assist the Marchioness.’
The charging Knights opened fire. Shells, energy blasts and missiles filled the air, converging upon the ironclad mountain. The war machine’s force fields collapsed one after the other, each one blowing out with a thunderclap of displaced air. A battle’s worth of ordnance struck the Gargant’s head, chest and arms. Explosions flared and wreckage spun away.
The engine’s belly cannon buckled and was driven barrel-first into the ground. Its gun decks exploded one after another, and fire danced about its portholes and gantries. The machine’s skull was staved in, explosions blossoming from its mismatched eyes as its command crew were atomised. Still, energy gathered around its immense main gun, static squealing and streamers of lightning dancing around it as it prepared to fire.
‘For Adrastapol!’ cried Marchioness Lauret. ‘Concentrate all fire on the primary weapon!’
She and her warriors opened fire as one, the Knights of House Minotos joining them. A second wave of fire hit home, and suddenly the weapon’s energy was arcing wildly, leaping out to crawl across the Gargant’s hull. It shuddered and smoked, the flares of white light growing more frenetic by the second.
‘Evade!’ ordered Danial.
Kurt and Lauret’s forces responded, their steeds turning or backing away with their shields raised.
There was a blinding flash of light, from which raced an expanding shockwave of crackling energy. Danial cursed as his auspex crackled with static and his steed’s power fluctuated wildly.
‘No!’ he cried, fearing the worst. Then his readings stabilised, and as the blast faded, the wreckage of the Gargant crashed down around them.
Its explosive demise had left a smoking crater a hundred feet across, scattered with the burning remains of the Gargant. It had toppled several Knights and left others crippled. Most importantly of all, it had blasted a huge, ragged breach in the fortress wall.
‘There’s our way in,’ said Luk.
‘Marchioness, Grandmarshal, report,’ said Danial.
‘We’re alive,’ came Kurt’s reply. ‘My steed’s down, Lauret’s is in shutdown, and nearly lost her reactor. Don’t worry about us, just end this.’
‘Understood,’ said Danial. ‘Lady Suset, Lady Eleanat, bring your lances with me. We’ll spread out and run interdiction against the ork forces. Luk, Markos, you have the breach. Break their defences wide open and get Polluxis to that vox array.’
‘Whatever happens, Danial, it’s good to fight beside you again as a brother,’ said Luk.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to start all this nonsense again,’ said Markos. ‘There will be time for making maiden’s eyes at each other later. With me, Knight of Ashes. We have a world to save.’
Luk and Maia led the way through the breach. Their thermal cannons flashed, tearing through a Stompa that was trying to lumber into their path, leaving it as blazing wreckage. Crimson Death, Duty Unending, Percivane’s Firestorm and Markos’ Honourblaze followed. The Knights opened fire at the ork horde boiling from within the fort, sowing explosions through them as more Knights followed them into the fight.
Ramshackle tanks came at them and were blown to pieces. Hulking walkers stomped forward, firing salvoes that tore limbs from Knights and left them as fire-gutted wrecks. In return, the Imperial forces let fly with everything they had and hammered the ork war engines to scrap.
Luk saw a Pegasson Knight explode to his right. He strode past its flaming wreckage and vaporised its killers with a blast from his cannon.
Behind him, Ekhaterina swore vehemently as an ork Dreadnought managed to ram its power saw through her steed’s knee joint. She swatted the machine away, leaving it a heap of tangled wreckage, but Luk could see she was stranded.
‘Bloody hobbled,’ she spat. ‘Sorry, Knight of Ashes.’
‘Just keep shooting, my lady,’ he said, storming onwards with Markos, Maia and J’madus at his side.
The battery itself was an orbital gun emplacement whose cannons had been wrecked early in the invasion. The main fortress sat within a compound dotted with support structures and encircled by the high, battlemented walls.
Now the orks that had garrisoned the inner buildings spilled forth in great numbers.
‘Firing line,’ ordered Luk. ‘Blast them back to whatever hell they crawled from.’
‘We’ll have to make it quick,’ said Markos, bringing Honourblaze to a stop. More Knights drew up to either side of him, even as the Sacristan crawlers rolled through the breach at their backs. ‘Break their charge, then drive them back and wipe them out.’
Around Luk, the Knights of Adrastapol opened fire, and the Exiles joined their barrage. Orks were annihilated as explosions flared in their midst and hails of shots chewed through their lines. One last time, the Knights stood firm against the xenos charge. One steed fell as energy beams tore through it. Another was toppled by the headlong charge of a greenskin walker. A third was destroyed as orks swarmed up its legs and tore them apart with claws and explosives.
‘Keep firing!’ shouted Luk. ‘They’ll break.’
And suddenly, as though his words had wrought it, the nerve of the ork horde collapsed. With their ranks decimated and word of their warlord’s death spreading, the greenskins began to lose heart. One or two fleeing mobs compelled more to run, panic spreading and a rout breaking out.
‘Forward,’ barked Markos.
The Knights advanced, footfalls pounding the ground and guns roaring. Inside Luk’s cockpit, ammo runes flashed red. He continued firing as ork corpses started to pile high and outbuildings collapsed, gutted by exploding shells.
‘It’s working,’ voxed Luk. ‘Wrath Inescpable, Lancepoint, force passage to the battery.’
Lady Maia’s assent rune flashed on his retinas and her steed accelerated, striding ahead with guns blazing. Polluxis’ crawlers followed her, flanked by Tauroxes. As they sped past, Luk saw the top hatch of one of the transports swing open. Jennika emerged, pulling herself up into the cup
ola and saluting him as she swept by. Luk raised his reaper in reply, then continued his advance.
‘All yours, my lady,’ he voxed.
As Gesmund’s Taurox skidded to a stop outside the battery’s main gate, Jennika was already vaulting out of the cupola. She hit the ground at a run, unsheathing and igniting her draconblade.
The door slammed open and a bellowing ork barged out, firing his pistols wildly. Jennika cut the greenskin down, shouldering its corpse aside and lunging through the doorway.
As she went, she pipped her vox-bead.
‘Inquisitor, it’s time,’ she said.
‘I am on my way,’ replied Massata. ‘We may already be too late.’
‘We’ll make it,’ said Jennika, impaling another ork as it lunged from a nearby doorway. ‘Just get here so you can operate the damn vox.’
Gesmund and his Vesserines stormed through the doorway behind her, guns up and sweeping. With Jennika leading, they cut down the few orks that tried to challenge them, and stormed up the battery’s cast-iron stairways to the command deck.
Hacking her way through a gaggle of cowering gretchin, Jennika stormed into the chamber. She stopped, and her heart sank.
‘The place is a wreck,’ she voxed. ‘They’ve pulled everything apart.’
‘Looks as though they’ve been using the command deck as some kind of workshop,’ said Gesmund. ‘Throne alive, is that the vox array?’
‘What’s left of it,’ said Jennika, looking despairingly at the tangle of scrap and wires that jutted from the central mezzanine.
Behind them, Sacristan Polluxis swept into the chamber.
‘It’s too late,’ said Jennika, numbly. ‘Sacristan, they’ve defiled it.’
Polluxis stopped, stock still. For a moment, Jennika took it for shock. Then the High Sacristan moved again, gliding up to the mezzanine with robed acolytes in tow.
‘Sufficient holy circuitry remains, Lady Jennika,’ said Polluxis. ‘In the Omnissiah’s wisdom, he concealed much of this device’s workings deep beneath the floor of this chamber, where heathen hands could not reach. It is merely the interface that has been damaged, and with data-choristry and binharic prayer, that problem can be bypassed.’