Dark Imperium: Plague War
Page 26
Not slowed by lesser men, the Space Marines picked up speed, following vox directions when they could and the tremors of battle ringing through the decks when they could not. Twice they made tense detours around enemy groups too large to tackle, negotiating service tunnels or creeping along companionways over the heads of the foe.
Others they fell upon without mercy, slaughtering boarders yet to join with their parent formations.
In this way they eventually came to bulkhead doors sealed against further atmospheric loss, guarded by machine-spirits and hyper-vigilant weapons. Novamarines passcodes gained them entry, and they emerged through armoured airlocks into stale ship’s air.
From there, they went on for further hours. All the while they came closer to the central hub, until, weary and battle sore, they arrived at the Crucius Portis II.
Great gatehouses guarded the four principal radial corridors leading into Galatan’s hub. The other roads stopped at the walls. There were no ways in to the centre except through the Crucius Portis redoubts. The core was almost a battlestation unto itself.
A pair of towers projected from the station’s adamantium-clad inner wall. Wide battlements looked down onto a killing field two kilometres across. Weaponry more commonly employed on the exterior of a void structure filled their outward faces and gathered around their bases: giant macro-cannon turrets, missile batteries, and direct energy weapons so large that if they were emplaced within a smaller construct and fired, they would risk punching clean through the hull.
Galatan was large enough to take such punishment.
The final of the station’s concentric ringways went around the central core, broadening out gently around the killing fields, and narrowing to half a mile across once away from them. The inner station curtain wall was studded all around its circumference with weapons points and shooting balconies. Every mile smaller castles projected out into the road.
The hub of Galatan had been forged in the Dark Age with technologies inconceivable to the tech-priests of the present day. The armour around the heart was one hundred metres thick, and made of pure adamantium cooled in such a way that the crystals of its structure were all of uniform size, and interlocked perfectly. It was a single-piece construction that could only have been made upon a forge built from a star. Teleport baffles laced its structure, and upon its outer faces were inscribed, also by ancient art, warding symbols that were proof against any warp entity. The technoarchaeologists who probed Galatan’s secrets theorised that these were much later additions, dating from the fall of Old Night.
Justinian led Brucellus, Achilleos, Donasto, Michaelus and Maxentius-Drontio across the vast metal plain before the closed gates. Automated turrets tracked them, their crossfires designed to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy.
There was no challenge to their approach. A postern in the main gates opened a crack, spilling yellow light across the field. Their identities were discerned from afar. If they had been found wanting, they would already have been obliterated.
From behind the gate a line of Terminators cast giants’ shadows down the long tunnel of the postern. Behind them were the tanks of the Novamarines.
‘Enter, brothers,’ a voice boomed out. ‘And be quick. The enemy is coming.’
There was little time for rest. Justinian and his men were resupplied. Sourcing the rare ammunition for their bolt rifles sent a tattooed human quartermaster of the gate off with a scowl on his face. He returned an hour later with three plasteel crates.
‘That’s all there is, my lords,’ he said, his annoyance at having to find the unusual bolts fighting with the shame that he could find no more.
‘Thank you,’ said Justinian. The man made troubled apologies, his tattooed face contorted with embarrassment.
Justinian and Maxentius-Drontio handed out the ammunition.
‘There is more than enough here for the six of us,’ said Maxentius-Drontio.
‘Were it there were ten of us still,’ said Justinian, ‘and we were shorter of bullets.’
Shortly afterwards, Sergeant Amarillo was sent elsewhere. He and his surviving squad members left the group with the curtest of farewells. Neither he nor Justinian had much heart for words. Both had lost many brothers. Neither understood the other.
‘The Novamarines are quiet in their grief,’ said Achilleos.
Justinian nodded absently. He was still confounded by the Chapter’s dour character.
The reduced Squad Parris was ordered to take station in a room in the right-hand gatehouse tower overlooking the prime quadrant killing field. From their vantage point four storeys up, the metal kill zone looked starker than it had at ground level. Turrets constantly roved back and forth in endless cycles of target acquisition, though for the time being the radial way they covered remained free of the enemy.
A switchback corridor from their bunker led through the metres-thick walls of the inner station. This was blocked in the centre by a quintuple-layered door, opening up onto more corridor, at the end of which was a mirror of the outer bunker overlooking the fortress’ inner bailey. The radial corridor was significantly narrower on the inside of the gates. A line of four Land Raiders barred the way into the fortress’ heart. The forces arrayed against a potential gate breach were impressive, for a Chapter. Sixty Terminators formed a living barrier in front of the tanks. Three tactical companies close to full strength manned the gatehouse. Nine Assault Squads waited in reserve behind the Land Raiders. Many of the Novamarines high command were deployed around the area. Six thousand mortal troopers of various regiments reinforced them. Here was concentrated the greater part of Galatan’s might. Chapter Master Dovaro had commanded it to be so. The enemy showed all signs of massing for single, concentrated assault on the Crucius Portis II.
The remainder of the fort’s defenders had been pulled back to defend the three other gates and wall. Dovaro abandoned large swathes of the outer station to protect the core where the fort’s main drives, reactors, command centres and – most importantly – the banks of ancient weaponry were housed. Justinian knew then that Tesseran and his ilk would most certainly die.
Justinian and Maxentius-Drontio took themselves away from their brothers for a moment to confer in the inner bunker. They removed their helmets, glad of a respite from their own rebreathed air.
‘Hold them, push through their fleet, aid Guilliman at Parmenio whether we have forced the enemy back or not,’ said Maxentius-Drontio, observing the assembled Novamarines. ‘It was a risky strategy that should have taken into account the possibility of Typhus’ attack.’
‘Needs must,’ said Justinian. He had no access to the command datasphere – the systems were overwhelmed – but he could imagine the casualty counts among Galatan’s population if the Chaos forces decided to attack its lesser weapons batteries and ring engines instead of driving for the core. ‘If we do not hold the centre, we will be dead in the void. Our course is set. The traitor fleet cannot stop us moving unless they wrest control of the hub. Nor can they disable our primary weapons. We can arrive swarming with heretics, and still tip the battle in the primarch’s favour.’
‘We have a grave duty ahead of us.’
‘We have powerful allies.’ Justinian pointed out of the firing slit into the bailey, where silver-armoured warriors waited in the shadows. ‘What do you know about these grey brothers?’
‘Not much,’ said Maxentius-Drontio. ‘They call them the Grey Knights. They are specialists, daemon hunters. Psykers. They keep themselves to themselves. It is best not to ask questions about them.’
‘That is all you know?’
Maxentius-Drontio nodded.
Justinian looked out again. ‘Disappointing. That is all I know also. I have fought in fourteen separate engagements alongside their Chapter before. I have never spoken with one of them. Do you know what else?’
‘Edify me,’ said Maxentius-Drontio.
‘As intriguing as these questions are, we are not the ones to answer them,’ said Maxentius-Drontio.
Justinian looked at his second. ‘You will be wanting my sergeant’s skull-mark soon, with talk like that.’
‘It is my duty to help you do yours,’ said Maxentius-Drontio humourlessly.
‘Then I thank you,’ said Justinian.
‘See,’ said Maxentius-Drontio, pointing over his shoulder. ‘Lord Dovaro comes.’
Neither Justinian or Maxentius-Drontio had met the Chapter Master, and they watched his arrival with interest. Dovaro came out from the darkness behind the Land Raider line and went among his men. He was taller than the average Space Marine, and the bone-and-dark-blue quartering of his Terminator armour was heavy with adornment celebrating his many accomplishments. His left pauldron bore the spiked nova-burst and skull of their Chapter, the right an ornate shield decorated with his personal heraldry halved with a crux terminatus. A servo-skull linked to his armour by ribbed cabling bobbed over his head, single red augur lens glaring. A pair of mortal serfs carried a wooden sled bearing Dovaro’s massive two-handed power sword resting on a velvet cushion.
Dovaro went to the centre of the inner bailey, and began his speech. It was what one would expect before a battle. Justinian had heard many before, and given several himself. He remained unmoved despite its passion.
‘His words appeal again and again to brotherhood,’ said Justinian to Maxentius-Drontio. ‘I confess I do not yet feel it for these warriors.’
‘It will come,’ said Maxentius-Drontio. His tone gave no indication of whether he suffered feelings of alienation like Justinian. ‘This is a noble Chapter.’
‘Here is a third of its strength, at this one redoubt,’ said Justinian, aware he was straying into dangerous territory. ‘How small it looks when compared to the Unnumbered Sons.’
‘Those days are gone, brother,’ said Maxentius-Drontio. ‘The Lord Guilliman obeys his own law, as set down in his Codex, that no man shall command more than one thousand Space Marines.’
‘He does,’ said Justinian. ‘But at what cost?’
‘That is his concern, not ours,’ said Maxentius-Drontio, the warning clear in his voice.
‘How long have you been with the Novamarines?’ asked Justinian.
‘Four years, standard,’ said Maxentius-Drontio. ‘Around twenty relative. The Chapter travels a lot.’
‘And do you feel brotherhood for them?’
There was a pause. ‘I understand what you are asking me, Brother-Sergeant Parris,’ said Maxentius-Drontio carefully. ‘Leaving the brotherhoods we had in the Unnumbered Sons, being seconded to Chapters whose history we do not share, and who rightly look upon us as their replacements, it is hard for some.’
‘Is it hard for you?’ asked Justinian, hoping for some reflection of his own sorrow.
Maxentius-Drontio turned to face Justinian. ‘In truth, I do not care. I have my duty. It was what I was made for. Where I do my duty is irrelevant to me.’
Justinian, abashed, changed the subject. ‘Dovaro is a great warrior, by all accounts.’
‘Many of them are,’ said Maxentius-Drontio. ‘You will see, in time.’
In the bailey, Dovaro finished his speech and the Novamarines cheered.
Maxentius-Drontio fastened his helmet in place.
‘Speech is over,’ his vox-grille growled. ‘It is nearly time.’
‘Leave the bunker door open, the wall divider too,’ Justinian said, glancing around the inner bunker as they left. ‘We will have need of this place soon enough. Every fraction of a second will help us.’
The first sign that the enemy approached was that the turrets upon the killing field ceased their roving, stopped and aimed at the same point of the radial corridor.
Seconds later, the chants of Nurgle’s followers reached their ears as a distant, irritating buzzing.
Justinian strained his eyes down the way. The perfectly straight corridor sides seemed to touch in the distance. Then he saw that the end appeared to be getting nearer.
‘They are coming,’ he said to his squad. His words prompted the clatter of bolt shells racked into firing chambers.
‘All units prepare for engagement,’ voxed Dovaro to his Chapter. ‘The enemy is upon us.’
The great guns of the bastions opened up, roaring destruction down the length of the corridor. Galatan shook to the punishment it meted out to itself. The growing war-drone of the foe was drowned out.
Shortly after, the smaller weapons of the field turrets began to fire. Long-range las weaponry and macro cannons at first. The many autocannons and heavy bolters waited for range confirmation and clear target locks.
Through the explosions boiling down the corridor, the end still appeared to be getting closer and closer. The hordes of Nurgle advanced behind a wall of slowly moving siege mantlets. They were so tall that their tops scraped away the tubes and pipes that festooned the station ceiling, and so thick the shots that got through to them were turned aside. Most never reached the metal, exploding well ahead of the mantlets on a shimmering energy shield.
‘Terra’s dust,’ said Maxentius-Drontio. ‘Look at the size of those things.’
‘The Emperor alone knows what powers them,’ said Achilleos.
They awaited revelation, fingers tense on the triggers of their weapons.
The mantlets ground onwards on squealing iron wheels. They were nine in number, smooth, black with recent forging, showing few of the signs of decay that afflicted all things used by the Plague God’s minions. The bombardment from the walls increased its tempo, targeting the intersections of the energy fields where their waveforms would be most spread and weakest.
The two-mile killing zone glared with reflected fire. Ruby las beams cut through the air. In the enclosed space the harsh smell of fyceline and promethium discharge built quickly, filling the air with thick battle smoke.
A defence laser blasted the energy shield at what was point-blank range for a weapon of that size. The field flickered for a brief moment, long enough for a slamming tattoo of shell and las-fire to drum into the leftmost mantlet, sawing it in half. It turned aside, and fell, revealing the semi-mechanical daemon thing pushing it. An opening made, the defences of the wall targeted the engine, obliterating the creature.
Smoking pieces of metal and meat rained down over the killing ground. An indistinct horde of things behind was revealed, a multitude of twisted bodies and horned heads and helms.
Locking on to the foe, the lesser turrets joined in the crash and roar of war. The whine of assault cannons cut through the smoke. Autocannons added their tuneless clatter to the chorus. The triple bangs of heavy bolters ripped out in quick series. Despite the thunder of the Imperial defences, the enemy continued to advance. Their voices rose up in praise of their dark god.
Still the mantlets pushed on, their impetus so great they crushed the outermost of the lesser defence turrets beneath their massive wheels. They were huge, easily a hundred metres tall. The enemy came within a kilometre of the gatehouse, then three quarters. Another mantlet, this one near the centre, was brought to molten ruin. The gap closed with leaden slowness as the remaining seven advanced. Imperial heavy weapons reaped a high tally from the monsters coming behind.
At half a mile, a baleful fanfare blared, and the enemy came out from behind their shields.
Masses of armour rumbled from the shelter of the mantlets, opening fire as they drew themselves up into formation. Ungainly siege tanks lobbed shells over the horde that crashed into the hub’s outer walls, spraying superacids over the defences. A poisonous fume arose as metal dissolved and gun barrels crashed from their mountings. Land Raiders in numbers no loyal Chapter could field concentrated lascannon fire upon weapon after weapo
n, blasting them to pieces. Daemon engines loomed behind them, their warp cannons spitting lightning that rooted infection in the walls and gates.
The mantlets picked up speed towards the gates. The traitors blasted away at the defenders’ guns, silencing many, though their rotting tanks paid a heavy price, and soon the field was cluttered with burning wrecks whose smoke smelled of charring flesh. A dismal, stinking mist was rising from the horde, occluding the killing field further.
The enemy were a few hundred metres away, within a bolt rifle’s effective range.
‘Open fire!’ ordered Justinian. His squad aimed their bolt rifles carefully, ensuring every shot was a kill. From the walls came a rain of las and bolt. The enemy were riddled from above. Many fell.
The mantlets parted, pushed sideways to shelter the assault from enfilading fire. Thousands of Plague Marines angled up their rusting weapons and opened fire. Bolt shot raked the loops and slits of the Crucius Portis II, and the screams of dying men within the fortress added to the cacophony.
A device four hundred metres long was brought forward. It was as much flesh as machine, streaming with rot. The stench of it was unbearable. Its smoke-belching engines were inadequate to the task of pushing it, and thousands of diseased slaves laboured under the lashes of the Death Guard to turn its hundred wheels and help it on.
The front was a long snout, part organic, pointing upwards at an angle of twenty degrees. Jawbones showed through metal and necrotic flesh, dripping with filthy slime. Rows of teeth were visible through holed cheeks, but were fused, being nothing but a mounting for the array of melta cannons protruding from the throat. The rear was a mass of bulbous engines. Yellowed plastek tanks all along the spine sloshed with brightly coloured bile.