Dark Imperium: Plague War

by Guy Haley

  In support of the two melee Warlords was a monster fitted for long-range fighting designated Poison Master. Bearing a plasma annihilator on the right arm, a volcano cannon on the left, and its carapace mounting two huge laser blasters, its role was to smash a hole through the defences for Legio Mortis’ close combat specialists to barge through. All its weapons spoke together, slamming hard into God’s Doom. Its voids took the impact, shutting off with deafening bangs as they were overwhelmed. The Reaver was moving aside, trailing smoke, when Poison Master opened fire again, scoring bright lines across God’s Doom’s composite plating. It rocked on its feet. Its motivators locked in the left leg, and it limped on.

  ‘Forward!’ ordered Urskein. ‘Take the fight to them.’

  Other princeps seniores followed suit. The Legio Oberon’s game-board line broke up, each maniple locking onto a section of the enemy echelon. Strategically, their bunched formation allowed them to concentrate their weapons on individual targets. The opposing echelon of the foe gave all their Titans clear lanes of fire. To break this advantage and maximise their own, Legio Oberon moved forward in staggered, unpredictable lines of advance, the maniples obscuring one another, thus preventing any one Titan bearing the brunt of too much fire for too long.

  Three missiles streaked out of God’s Wrath’s carapace-mounted array, the engine’s only long-ranged weapon. Twenty rounds were all he had. Dunkel wanted every one to count. His position as princeps of God’s Wrath had been hard in the earning. He wished to live up to the honour.

  The missiles slammed into Poison Master’s shields. Fires washed over crackling purple energy fields, spoiling its aim. God’s Doom limped out of its sight line, fire dripping down its left leg.

  More missiles raced away from God’s Wrath. Blazing pillars of las light slammed into the void shields in reply, the flare they brought dazzling Dunkel.

  ‘Void shield one at twenty per cent. We cannot take too many more hits of that intensity,’ warned Sine.

  ‘Push the reactor. More power to locomotors. Ready the meltacannon,’ ordered Dunkel. He itched to get close enough to use the weapon.

  Mercy of Fire opened up with its gatling laser, belting burning lines at the enemy. Poison Master’s void shields thrummed and snapped in the mist, sectioning it with a skin of light where illuminated water droplets swirled in mesmerising patterns. The Warlord retaliated with a full blast from all its guns. A firestorm erupted from both weapons arms, engulfing Mercy of Fire in a boiling shawl of flames. The Reaver’s initial void shield gave out, the secondary collapsing moments later, then the third and the fourth. A laser blaster shot slammed directly into Mercy of Fire’s chest armour. Urskein’s Retribution was advancing past the damaged Titan, bringing its weapons to bear on Poison Master, but power spikes were showing across Dunkel’s senses as the Poison Master prepared to fire and finish off its target. Two of the three Reavers were out of the fight for the moment, one perhaps permanently. The next maniple moved up closer, drawing fire from Poison Master’s combat partner, and blocking out the fire lane from the enemy echelon. They suffered for it, their void shields blazing with dangerous light.

  A blast from Poison Master slammed into Mercy of Fire, smashing its shoulder armour free and mangling the joint. The arm locked in position, gun drooping uselessly towards the ground.

  God’s Wrath wailed a polyphony of anger at the wounding of its comrade. It lurched forward suddenly, taking Dunkel and Poison Master by surprise, intercepting the next hits intended for Mercy of Fire. Sparks rained over Dunkel’s helm. A servitor jerked in its alcove, smoke pouring from its input ports.

  The engine’s discordant challenge was met by an inhuman screaming from the Warlord.

  ‘Keep back! Dunkel, keep your engine back!’ ordered Urskein.

  Dunkel’s engine was spoiling a clear shot from the princeps seniores’ Titan, but God’s Wrath would not be restrained. Its ersatz animal soul slipped momentarily free from Dunkel’s command. It leaned forwards, accelerating into a lumbering run. The Titan’s belligerence was well known in the Legio, its name deliberately chosen to match, as was its armament. Dunkel was supposed to be the match of its wrath. He was failing.

  ‘Tame it!’ Urskein yelled.

  ‘Activate perceptual dampers,’ commanded Dunkel. He wrestled with the unresponsive manual controls.

  ‘Logic engines are locked out, princeps,’ responded Sine. ‘It will not be dissuaded. This is the will of the Machine-God.’

  ‘Then we go in hard. Open fire, left arm, now!’ Dunkel wrenched himself free of the machine’s mental embrace, summoning enough individuality to target the enemy and order his moderati to engage the meltacannon. God’s Wrath was running. Its systems were bent on the intimate murder of hand to hand combat. The aim was poor. Dunkel selected a point at the centre of Poison Master’s mass and prayed to the Machine-God that it was a hit. Moderati Obersten struggled to bring the arm up. God’s Wrath was fighting against Dunkel, attempting to bring up its close combat weapon to strike, but Dunkel kept it down to stop it from obscuring the shot, and Obersten managed to engage and release the meltacannon fusion beam before God’s Wrath slammed hard into its foe.

  Hitting an enemy engine directly with the meltacannon was the best outcome, for the power of it could vaporise plasteel. God’s Wrath could cripple a larger Titan, even kill it, with a single shot. Active void shields scattered the weapon’s high gain microwaves into the warp, so the next best solution was to take down the shields with the cannon and leave the foe open to blade work.

  The charging of the cannon was sloppily executed, the weapon fired before the fusion focus was properly sighted, and yet somehow, God’s Wrath vented its fiery breath on target.

  The beam focal point fell just inside the void shield. Optimum siting on a shielded engine would have been exactly on the field boundary, but the hit was close enough, allowing a near full fusion reaction to take place outside before wave scattering disrupted the hit. Beams of high lethality microwaves intersected upon the target point. Now the meltacannon was in full discharge, God’s Wrath’s vast array of weapons cogitators keeping the focus constant as the engine moved in to attack.

  Water in the air reacted first, heated to explosive temperatures by the cannon, then the air itself turned into an expanding ball of hot plasma.

  The explosion burst across Poison Master’s void field. Lightning raced all over the energy envelope, earthing itself along crooked lines of energised ions generated by the blast. The explosion, the discharge and the random conduction patterns generated by the agitated atoms of the atmosphere combined to bring Poison Master’s void shields crashing down one after the other.

  God’s Wrath smashed through dispersing aegis and into the body of Poison Master.

  The Warlord had several metres of height on the Reaver, and was massier, but such was God’s Wrath’s impetus that the impact knocked Poison Master sideways. Dunkel relented from his attempts to restrain the machine’s soul, gasping at the pain the effort caused him. He shared the machine’s eager joy as he gave the Reaver its freedom. It roared a haunting wail. Without his or his moderatis’ input the chainfist was rising, the flexible chain of teeth blurring into action. The chain was wider than a tank’s tracks, each tooth as big as man. It scythed down, taking Poison Master’s left weapon arm at the elbow while it was still staggering. Molten chips of metal blasted all over God’s Wrath’s cockpit. Dunkel’s vision shook with the skip and bite of the teeth, the sawing through the metal vibrating the entire machine. The enemy Titan was covered in some kind of organic matter that wept corrosive slime. Patches of rust marred its plates. Its sallow, skull-faced helm cockpit seemed alive in some unnatural way.

  ‘Harder!’ Dunkel roared. He was by now entirely in thrall to the Reaver’s battle fervour. ‘Harder!’

  His mind worked with Moderati Kren and the Titan’s machine-made soul, guiding the huge, lopsided weapon through t
he Warlord’s arm. The Reaver leaned in, putting its entire weight onto its left arm, carving its way through its larger cousin’s limb. A void shield reengaged, enveloping them both.

  Poison Master wailed in pain and outrage, calling to its brothers to aid it. Dunkel had lost sight of the linebreaker Warlords; their melee weaponry would make short work of God’s Wrath, but it was too late now to worry about them. He had to finish the enemy or he would die. Poison Master’s ranged weapons were useless at such close quarters. It discharged them anyway, sending off fountains of plasma. Its missile racks emptied. The munitions roared off almost vertically, disappearing into the sky.

  Dunkel grinned. The enemy Titan was in machine shock, the mind rebelling against its pilots. Vulnerable.

  A flight of naval Marauders roared overhead. Missiles hammered into the Warlord, bringing its void shields down again. A handful detonated on the carapace. Its knees sagged with the blow.

  Point defence lascannons needled God’s Wrath’s side as the Reaver continued its butchery.

  Poison Master’s weapons arm fell, sheets of oil and unwholesome fluid spraying down the smaller Titan’s front. The Warlord was suddenly freed by the loss of its limb and staggered backwards, carapace weapons swivelling to get a lock.

  ‘Dunkel, rein the machine’s spirit in. Get clear of my shot!’ Urskein ordered.

  ‘All power to locomotors!’ Dunkel’s order was half a scream. He seized the mind of his engine again. It fought him every step of the way, wanting nothing but to rend and slash at the rival who had hurt its comrade. Dunkel heaved at the motive levers, using them in conjunction with the manifold to force God’s Wrath forward past the Warlord.

  The enemy machine paced back and swung around, plasma coils on its remaining primary weapon arm lighting up ring by ring as it charged to fire. Pintle lascannons and point defence guns mounted all over it continued to lash out at the Reaver, tracking it as it ran on by, but they could not hurt God’s Wrath through its void shields.

  The plasma cannon could.

  Poison Master locked on to God’s Wrath, targeting the vulnerable rear where the armour was thin. A full power shot would punch through the shields, armour and into the reactor. Dunkel pushed his machine around in a long arc, trying to outpace the turn of Poison Master. Metal gods performed a ponderous, clumsy waltz.

  ‘We are going to be hit,’ he said. ‘Brace for impact!’

  A sudden surge from God’s Wrath saw Poison Master’s shot go wide and glance off the Reaver’s void shields with a harsh thrum. Cabling flashed and caught fire near to Dunkel, burned out by feedback from the overwhelmed shield.

  But they were still standing.

  Battered by the hit, God’s Wrath became pliant again. Dunkel brought about the machine to weather a second strike upon his forward arc.

  Poison Master was dying. Dozens of lesser engines crept up in Retribution’s shadow, joining their fire to the Warlord’s. Three Knights joined forces to scythe off Poison Master’s leg at the knee with combined shots from their melta cannons. Retribution punched through its armour with volleyed shots of its twin volcano cannon.

  Alarms sounded in Dunkel’s cockpit.

  ‘Reactor critical!’ yelled Sine. ‘Get clear!’

  Poison Master’s reactor burst free of its casing in a hemisphere of blinding plasma. Somehow, the power source had remained pure when the engine itself had been corrupted, and its cleansing light burned away all trace of its fall from grace. After all this time, the soul of the engine escaped to be received to the mercy of the Machine-God.

  A Knight fell down bonelessly, systems knocked out by the electromagnetic pulse. It was luckier than its fellow, which was consumed by atomic fire as it turned to run.

  Dunkel had a moment to take stock. He had broken through the enemy line. His was the sole Titan on the far side of it. Mortis’ echelon held, and was bowing back. Oberon’s initial disposition had been teased apart. Though the loyalists were wreaking a great deal of damage, their engine line had been disrupted. Mortis were retreating engine by engine, the halves of each pair taking it in turns to cover their brother machines, peeling back and drawing the engines in. One of the line breakers burned, still upright, a mile and a half to God’s Wrath’s left. They had been a ruse, expensive sacrifices to pull the loyal Legios into the echelon’s full storm of fire. The second line breaker was rampaging through the army, under fire from thousands of tanks. Atarus had been funnelled towards the left-hand side of the echelon. Fortis had been less easy to trick, and was advancing to attempt to outflank far to Dunkel’s right.

  Sprung trap revealed, orders came from high command, demanding the engines halt. Reluctantly, God’s Wrath walked backwards, joining the line of machines opposing Mortis, and commenced firing again until its rockets ran out. It was then restricted to engaging targets that came close enough for its oversized fusion cannon.

  The Legios remained like that for some time, trading blows with their wicked brothers throughout the night and into dawn.

  Guilliman’s command Leviathan ground inexorably across the sodden plain. The weight of the giant machine pushed it deep into the mud, not so much moving across the landscape as sailing it.

  Upon a chart desk, the primarch surveyed the disposition of his ­brother’s forces.

  Sheltered by the engines of Legio Mortis was a huge and malevolent fly, fat and as dominating of the landscape as a geoglyph. A centre made of three interlocking masses of elite troops, each supporting the other, formed a geometric, angular abdomen. The flanks swept back as stylised wings. Skirmishers ranged ahead in long formations, making up the legs and mandibles to the fore and flanks, the rearguard mirroring them. In total there were twenty-one blocks of troops, the pointed ends of each formation fitted together in such a way that they gathered close by the body. The angles of these corners formed a pattern that Guilliman suspected had some meaningless, arcane significance to his deluded brother.

  In the strategium, the lights were dim. Reactive armourglass glazed the slit oculus looking out over Hecatone’s ruined land. Mist blanketed everything and was still growing thicker. Moisture leached sound from the air, and spread the light in a painful, flat glare. To dim this light and the constant strobing of Titan weapons in its swirling depths, the oculus had turned itself to a smoky brown. The interior was consequently gloomy. Pale holo-shine lit attentive faces scrutinising tacticaria; Space Marine, Primaris Marine and unmodified human.

  ‘Why are you waiting, my lord?’ Maldovar Colquan growled.

  Guilliman refrained from rebuking him for his tone. Colquan had been one of his most vocal critics on Terra, which was why Guilliman had ordered him to join his Indomitus Crusade. Keep your enemies close, King Konor had always said, a tenet Guilliman had not always adhered to, to his eternal regret.

  ‘Something,’ said Guilliman. ‘Something less expected.’ He gestured at the line of Legio Mortis’ god-machines, now curled back so far that the right flank almost touched the advancing fly formation. ‘He entices me into a trap. It is a stratagem so obvious it can only be part of a greater play. Mortarion is a fine general, even when he is seeking to prove how indomitable he is. He is there, right in the middle of his army. It is a taunt. He wishes to draw me out.’

  ‘He has not been sighted,’ said Colquan. He paced, rarely still, angry as he always was.

  ‘He is there.’ Guilliman waved his gauntleted hand over the hololith. ‘In this nonsensical formation we have renegades, Traitor Space Marines, enemy Titans, mutants, aberrant abhumans, sellsword Knights, heavy artillery, tracked armour and all the rest. The usual parade of Mortarion’s diseased, deluded followers. What we do not see…’

  ‘…is daemons,’ said Colquan. He leant his heavy, golden gauntlets on the chart. The image broke up around his fists. ‘Where are the Neverborn?’

  ‘It is that which troubles me,’ said Guilliman. ‘Where indeed? Until we
know, I cannot act. Mortarion may be holding them back, waiting for me to commit. Where they are, he will be. What is Galatan’s status?’ the primarch called over to a vox monitor.

  A pale-faced man in a smart uniform turned from his bank of blinking machines.

  ‘The fleet reports the station draws nigh but remains under assault by Death Guard assets. Our own vessels have moved to engage.’

  ‘Distance?’

  ‘Five hundred thousand kilometres and closing, my lord commander.’

  ‘Status?’

  ‘We have lost contact, lord commander. Our signals are being jammed, but the station continues to fire on the enemy.’

  ‘Then it has not fallen,’ said Guilliman.

  ‘It might yet,’ said Colquan.

  ‘It might,’ agreed Guilliman, his attention on the flare and crash of simulated weapons fire emanating from the hololith.

  ‘Then allow me to take my warriors there, my lord, and force the issue in our favour,’ said Colquan. He stopped all of a sudden, tensed, hoping for release.

  ‘No,’ said Guilliman. ‘Galatan is well garrisoned. We must trust to its defenders. We cannot afford to become distracted from the struggle on the ground.’

  Colquan ground his fist into the table in annoyance. ‘Then what is your command?’

  ‘We pound the enemy, hold the line,’ said Guilliman. ‘And we wait.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Defence of

  Crucius Portis II

  The fighting on Galatan continued for hours, time measured in short engagements followed by periods of walking. No more of Justinian’s men fell, though Amarillo lost one of his remaining warriors to injuries. They left him as his body spun its mucranoid sheath and promised him later retrieval. Once the Space Marines crossed the chasm, the Astra Militarum there insisted on accompanying Justinian and the rest. They said they wanted the honour, but Justinian suspected they thought their chances of survival higher. If so, they were wrong. They died one by one, until only Tesseran and a score of others remained. When they came across a half regiment of Ultramarian auxiliaries holding a major transit hub, Justinian ordered the unmodified to join with them, his justification being they might fight better. More probable, Justinian thought privately, they can at least die in the company of their own kind.