by Guy Haley
But she could still fight. She painted the wall of the city in her mind, wide casting the information to her mongrel maniple. To honour her, they waited for her to fire first.
The reactors engaged, letting out the hearty thrum of energy channelled to destructive purpose. This might be the very last time she heard it, she thought. In life, one expects to do something for the first time, but one never anticipates a last.
Releasing the energy stream was sweet sorrow.
Volcano cannon beams, outmatched solely by defence laser beams and a voidship’s lances, sprang from her metal fists. Volcano cannon beams could melt through mountainsides. They were limited in range by the curvature of the planet, nothing else. So close, their effect was predictably devastating. Rockcrete glowed white and ran, great gobbets of molten material flowing down the wall and pooling on the ground.
The others fired then, laser blasters, sunfury cannon and other volcano beams breaking the wound wider, chipping away at the forty-metre-thick walls with tools of superhot gas and coherent light.
Her volcano cannon’s machine-spirits trilled. They were close to overheating. With a thought she shut them down and flushed out their focusing chambers with a burst of precious coolant.
Atranican moved in towards the glowing wall face, its drill bits already spinning. As it strode, its weapons moderati set the great ball swinging. It was an unwieldy weapon that required rare skill to wield.
As Atranican approached the wall a dozen cannons opened fire upon its stalking form. Displacement flare from its shields earthed itself into wrecks and naked stone. On it walked, swivelling its torso so that the ball whipped back. At the perfect distance, the wrecking ball swung forwards, crashing into the section blackened by the maniple’s attack.
The disruption field went off with a crack like nearby thunder. The wall shook. A fall of false stone rumbled from the upper reaches, tearing off the broken teeth of the crenellations. Atranican stepped back and swung again. In the lee of the wall, it was safe from the defenders in the hive, and there were none upon the walls when it began. Those that came to repel the Titan were shot by Atranican’s comrades. When not defending the Titan directly, they added to the damage the fortifications had already taken.
The work settled into a hypnotic rhythm. Mohana Mankata Vi fired her weapons, flushed out the great cannons, waited for them to cool, drew more gas from the atmosphere, waited for it to compress, fired again.
The first notice she had that there was something amiss was a flight of Blood Angels gunships streaking overhead so fast they were crimson blurs against the burning sky.
A frantic voice followed. ‘All forces fall back!’ it called. ‘The Anvil is falling!’
There was no other warning. She did not see the station’s reactors blow out in a final, vindictive act of sabotage. She did not see the debris hit the atmosphere and glow with the heat of re-entry. All was hidden by the towering cloud of smoke billowing from the dying hive.
Static swelled in her vox. The voice of the Legiones Astartes strategic liaison spoke one more time before it was lost.
‘Run!’
The Titans turned about and strode away from the wall, their work unfinished. In long-range augur senses, Mohana Mankata Vi saw a fall of debris spreading like a hand to grab at the city.
‘All power to locomotors!’ she commanded, while urging the Titan into a heavy run. ‘Clear the area!’
They could not run far enough. Glowing chunks of the Anvil roared down from on high. The first drove like a smoking fist into the walls around the hive’s feet, sending up a plume of debris half the way to its point of origin. The ground rippled like water. Titans staggered. Then more debris came.
Through the screaming meteor shower, Mohana Mankata Vi ran. She ran like she did that day with Hamaj, so long ago. There was no decision to make now, no fateful turn of events one way or another. There was survival, or death.
Burning lumps smashed into the ground and the hive, more deadly than any cannon bombardment. They screamed so loudly through the air their passage was audible in the czella, in her tank; a roaring, inferno blast accompanied by an almost human shrieking. Explosions ripped up the ground, and the largest pieces had yet to fall.
An enormous chunk of the station filled up Luxor Invictoria’s long-range auspex. It fell with such speed nothing could hope to outrun it, and fear gripped both the Titan and his mistress. A ball of fire venting streams of smoke and vapour crashed into Nyrcon City, opening up the hive wall like a knife guts a fish. The blast of energy it released was as great as the combined ordnance of a battlefleet. White light sheeted over the plains, and was followed by a tsunami-wall of overpressure nothing could resist.
Luxor Invictoria ran before it. The plain was upended. The walls blew out in a hundred places. The surface of the earth lifted up. The carcasses of Titans leapt high like insects shaken from a blanket. A rolling wall of dust and stone engulfed Luxor Invictoria, and the void shields went down under an irresistible onslaught of stone and metal. Rubble rang off the armour plating. The Titan stumbled, tripped, and came crashing down.
Mohana Mankata Vi was ripped free of the manifold. She heard the shouts of her crew, the alarms of the machines. The Titan tumbled over and over, the forces ripping at her barely cushioned by the tank.
Luxor Invictoria came to a rest face down. A hurricane howled over the downed god-engine. Mohana saw nothing but the indistinct flicker of power arcing from broken electronics through her sustaining fluid. All she felt was the sluggish movement of her amnion dripping from a crack in the armourglass.
She was dying.
These external stimuli faded as the machinery supporting her went offline. Starved of aid, her senses blacked out, and she moved into the internal spaces of her mind.
A soft wind blew over her skin.
She stepped free into the darkness.
Thirty
Legio First
Wet snow splattered Domine Ex Venari, obscuring the feed from the Titan’s auspexes. Visibility was further limited by blasts of light flashing through the storm with every lance strike against the Carthega Telepathica. Having judged their initial position to be of no use to the defence, Second Maniple were descending the mountain to attack the enemy. The Legio Mortis swarmed the walls, punching through the opening made by the eight possessed Titans of the Legio Vulpa. There were dozens of them, the most feared engines of war in all the galaxy. Esha could do nothing but kill as many as she could before Domine Ex Venari was inevitably destroyed.
‘Pan left, ninety degrees,’ Esha ordered. The torso of Domine Ex Venari swung around, bringing a vanguard machine of the Death’s Heads into their line of fire. Five rockets from their precious supply detonated on its void shields. It drew off at speed, surprised by the emergence of Second Maniple from the mountain heights.
‘Chase it down,’ Esha ordered.
Os Rubrum and Procul Videns set off in swift pursuit. Cursor Ferro, Steel Huntress, Domine Ex Venari and Velox Canis continued their descent.
At the third line, the fortifications no longer encircled the mountain completely, but were made up of individual bastions interconnected by roads wide enough for Titans to patrol. Esha Ani Mohana’s aim was to find some useful place there to bombard their attackers from. In a smaller war, her decision could have won the day, but the action around the needle was apocalyptic, and Second Maniple’s part was therefore small. The snowstorm glowed with the reflected light of the burning defence lines a thousand metres below. Esha’s auspex returns were crowded by hundreds of engine signs. Legio Mortis was at close to full strength.
If the whole of our own Legio were here, we’d still have no chance against them, she thought. She kept this assessment to herself.
Horus had more than war engines attacking the mountain. Drop pods streaked down from orbit, blowing all their propellant only metres from the ground and co
ming to a near instant halt. Only the enhanced bodies of the Legiones Astartes could withstand such punishment. The Sons of Horus were taking to the field. On the mountain they had the advantage over the Titans, infantry being more able to scale its steep faces. They sought out high positions and commenced firing heavy weapons at the god-engines. To start with, they were an annoyance, but as the Legio Mortis closed in and void shields began to fail, sustained attack by infantry-borne heavy weaponry began to pose a problem.
Energy beams from Horus’ war fleet lanced repeatedly down. For now they let the loyalist engines be, targeting instead the base of the giant tower. Its void shields had lasted for an hour or so. Now each blast carved molten scars in the needle’s fabric.
The blizzard whipped past in horizontal lines of snow. A keep atop a mountain spur appeared suddenly from the murk. ‘Here, we hold here,’ ordered Esha. They took places upon the marshalling ground. The castellum was ablaze, the roof replaced by a column of fire and every window lit from within like a vast lantern. It overlooked the main access road rising up to the base of the needle, where the enemy concentrated their advance. ‘Power down reactors. Stealth running. Wait for my signal.’
She wished they had time to cover their machines in their cameleoline meshes. The screens were fragile, and would be burned off by any kind of hit, but for ambushing the foe, for taking that first, vital shot before they were aware of the Imperial Hunters’ presence, they were invaluable. They were a signature part of the Legio’s equipment, but like everything else they were out of supply.
She’d have to rely on the storm to hide them. Esha struggled to see through the driving snow. Her auspexes were fouled by enemy countermeasures, the vox was virtually unusable for anything other than maniple communication, and the Titan’s vid lenses strained against the storm. Wet lumps of melting ice streaked her sight, whether viewed inside her own mind or upon the visual plate at the czella front. Her auspex feed jumped and stuttered. There were too many engines to accurately count. In the graphics overlaid upon the vid feed, their signatures clumped into a river of red, like lava flowing in reverse up the mountain towards her.
She found movement in the snow, and tracked it visually. The shape of a Warlord resolved itself from the blizzard and the strobing flares of weapons fire. It marched upwards, firing its weapons at the base of the needle, accelerating its destruction. It was as yet unaware of her maniple.
‘Stand ready,’ she voxed her unit.
They waited. Two Warhounds and two Reavers were more than a match for a Warlord. But timing could save them from its retaliation.
The Warlord carried on up, passing within two hundred metres. The enemy’s augur soundings rang in Esha’s mind, each questing machine sense given a different noise, so that it sounded like a jungle chorus. The Warlord’s detection systems were at the forefront of this aural warning, but there were others coming, adding depth to the symphony of the machines.
‘More enemy approaching. It has to be now. Strike, and withdraw.’
Four reactors spiked, feeding energy into weapons. Half-dormant shields sprang to full strength. The Warlord detected them instantly, and swung its torso about to bring its main weaponry to bear.
Chimes rang in rapid succession. Domine Ex Venari’s weapons were ready, then Steel Huntress’ and the Warhounds’.
‘Fire,’ she ordered.
Velox Canis and Cursor Ferro opened fire first, their vulcan megabolters stripping the void shields of the Warlord back. It fired in return, raking the lip of the plateau the maniple occupied with blinding las-beams. Cursor Ferro took a hit that cost it a void, but the Warlord had a poor firing angle, and the rest of the volley grazed the rock or shot skywards without harm.
The Reavers fired next. Their lasblasters took down the last of the Warlord’s shields. Only when the augurs sang out that it was shieldless did Esha unleash her volcano cannon, Durana Fahl following suit. Too late, the Warlord saw what peril it was in, and began to step backwards down the slope. The shots hit home, punching through its chest armour and opening up its reactor chamber to the air.
The reactor went critical. The Titan vanished in a blinding ball of light. A sphere of clear space was carved out of the blizzard for a second, before the snow flew in to fill it again.
Esha ignored the crowing machines confirming engine death.
‘Withdraw,’ she said.
Through hit and run attack and ambush tactics, Second Maniple stung the enemy. They caught a Reaver in a defile and gunned it down. They closed roads with triggered rockslides. The pace of action was unrelenting. An hour felt like a week.
Reinforcements from Beta-Garmon II began to arrive. It was a panicked response. Drop-ships approached without clear landing vectors. Those that evaded the attention of the enemy fleet were attacked by the massed fire of the Legio Mortis. They set down badly, often ablaze, landing gear scraping at the rock as they skidded down the mountainsides. They crashed and burned, the surviving engines inside fighting their way out of the wreckage to join the fray. As many died in the attempt to relieve the forces defending the mountain as made it down safely. A mad panic had set into the Imperial forces now the Warmaster’s plans were clear.
All the while the Legio Mortis pressed upwards, swarming around the mountainside like ants. Where the walls were not destroyed they were assailed by the Space Marines of the Warmaster, and their tower guns fell silent. When the main defences were taken care of, Titans loyal to Terra became the primary focus of the enemy’s attention, and then began to die.
Second Maniple kept moving. Steel Huntress was struck by a starship weapon and halted, dead, most of the crew slain, and Durana Fahl left badly injured with no hope of rescue. Velox Canis fell to the volleyed rockets of a flight of enemy gunships; Soranti Daha died screaming as the Titan was engulfed in flame and exploded. In time, only Esha Ani and Jehani Jehan were left alive in their small group. No contact came from Abhani Lus or Toza Mindev. They turned surely from the hunters to the hunted.
They did what the hunted always did, and headed for high ground, moving cautiously, always at risk. Defending the needle was no longer their consideration, only survival, and they headed away from the mountain and into its sister peaks.
They came upon Terent Harrtek’s rabid machine quite by chance, within the arena of a corrie carved out by glaciers when the planet’s climate ran without humanity’s interference. Esha chose it for the sheer drop on one side: easy to defend, and providing a solid platform to fire upon the enemy below. She hoped to slay a few more engines before the end came.
Her last battle arrived sooner than she’d expected.
They entered the concavity before they saw Harrtek, by which time it was too late. A phantom auspex return in the storm became a solid presence, and then there he was, coming out of the blizzard right at them. Nuntio Dolores howled to see such choice prey set before it, and broke into a run.
‘Encircle,’ said Esha, as soon as Nuntio Dolores appeared.
Jehani Jehan went immediately wide, looping out of harm’s way while riddling the Warlord with her guns. The enemy Titan had lost its voids, and the shots hit home, but the Warlord kept on coming, too fast and fluidly for a war engine of its size. After the hard climb, Domine Ex Venari had no power to spare for its volcano cannons but fired wildly with its laser blasters. The shots cratered the stone around Nuntio Dolores’ feet – a few hits scorched its greaves, but did no harm.
‘Get around behind him,’ Esha voxed Jehani, shouting over the discharge of her Titan’s guns.
But Jehani Jehan ran away towards the corrie entrance, vanishing into the dark and the snow in the final betrayal of their friendship.
Cursor Ferro’s signum marker winked out.
Esha faced Terent Harrtek alone. His engine stared at hers, pawing the ground like a beast. It radiated a sense of wrongness, engendering a sick animal fear that made her want to ru
n. She felt it in her crew. They were tensed, ready to bolt. If they did, they would die.
Domine Ex Venari stared at Nuntio Dolores. Metal pinked as it cooled in the mountain storm.
‘What are we going to do, Esha?’ Yeha Yeha asked. ‘Jehani’s gone. We’re alone. He’s just waiting.’
‘She wouldn’t just leave us, not like that,’ voxed Odani Jehan, refusing to believe her sister would abandon her and Jephenir.
‘Well, she has!’ shouted Yeha.
‘He wants us to make the first move,’ said Esha. ‘He wants me to run.’
‘Maybe we should,’ voxed Nepha Nen from her station.
‘Say that again and I’ll shoot you myself,’ Esha said, and meant it. ‘A hunter never runs before her prey. Omega-6, get me as much power as you can. I’m going to need it all.’
‘There will be one last beneficent act from the Machine-God,’ the magos responded. ‘I will ensure it.’
Esha eased her hand off the manual throttle and flexed her stiff fingers. ‘Yeha, lean over and give me widecast. All frequencies. Let’s see if he talks.’
Yeha Yeha looked at her.
‘Just do it!’ Esha ordered. Yeha Yeha leaned over to the oratorius desk and punched a sequence of buttons.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I hope this works.’
Esha paused before depressing the voxcaster button, but when she spoke she did so firmly. ‘Harrtek. Listen to me!’ Esha voxed. ‘We do not have to fight. We can both live. Remember that we were comrades. Remember that.’
‘Is that it?’ said Yeha Yeha.
‘What else do I say? Apologise for lying to him?’
Interference crackled over the vox. It was a desperate gambit. If Harrtek had been in possession of all his faculties, then it might have worked, but he was not.
Nuntio Dolores howled with bestial belligerence. It lifted its face to the sky and roared.