by Andy Hoare
And then, Lucian saw movement at the top of the pylon, a number of circular shapes, each roughly a metre in diameter, detaching themselves from the structure to circle steadily about its flanks.
‘General Gauge?’ Lucian said.
Gauge had not yet seen what Lucian had, but Cardinal Gurney had. ‘I am quite sure, rogue trader, that the mighty Astartes require no aid from us,’ the cardinal sneered.
Though no professional soldier, Lucian was not a stranger to the battlefield, and as he watched it became clear to him that the White Scars had yet to detect whatever was deploying on the far side of the pylon.
‘Wendall?’ Lucian said, deliberately using General Gauge’s first name. Gauge nodded smartly in response.
‘Give me that,’ Lucian said to the nearest staff officer as he grabbed the vox-set from the man’s head. ‘Patch me through,’ Lucian said as he placed the set on his own head and adjusted the pickup. ‘Now.’
‘I really think–’ Cardinal Gurney interjected, before General Gauge shifted sideways to block his view.
‘Vox-communion established, my lord,’ the staff officer reported.
‘Sarik?’ Lucian said, his eyes fixed on the screen as he spoke.
‘Gerrit?’ the response came back a moment later. ‘Make it quick. I’m a little busy.’
‘Understood,’ Lucian replied, not wasting time with formalities. ‘You have company. Two four, high, from your location.’
‘Thank you, Lucian,’ Sarik’s voice came back. ‘You just can’t help it, can you…’ The channel went dead as the Space Marine closed the link.
‘You really should stop doing that,’ came the amused-sounding voice of Admiral Jellaqua, who had crossed to stand beside General Gauge. The admiral was a large man bedecked in reams of naval finery and his jowly face was split by a friendly grin as he spoke. ‘You’ll only annoy him.’
‘I know,’ said Lucian. ‘But someone has to…’
‘The scythe-wing strikes at dawn!’ Sarik yelled, his battle-cant warning providing the White Scars with more information than any formally composed order could have done in the scant seconds it took to issue. Two-dozen boltguns were raised towards the direction indicated, while the heavy weapons troopers braced themselves to open fire with heavy bolter and missile launcher.
Scanning the jade sky for contact, Sarik caught sight of movement near the pylon’s summit. Within seconds, a fast-moving swarm of disc-shaped objects was swooping down, angling towards the White Scars.
‘Gun drones!’ Sarik called out, recognising the machines instantly, for he had faced them in the opening ground battle of the crusade. ‘Aim for the undersides!’
As the drones descended towards the Space Marines, the twin-weapons mounted beneath their dish-shaped bodies opened fire. More of the blue energy bolts spat towards the White Scars, but before the tau machines could find their range, the Space Marines were following Sarik’s order. Bolt-rounds filled the air, the force’s heavy bolter adding the weight of its firepower a moment later. In seconds, the alien machines were blown apart as bolt shells penetrated the weaker armour of their undersides, detonated within, and scattered burning wreckage across a wide area.
The last of the debris pattered to the dry ground at his feet and Sarik activated his armour’s strategium uplink. Runes blinked across his vision, and a stream of text told him what he needed to know. The battle-brothers of the Scythes of the Emperor were reporting their objective ready to take, the threat of another Space Marine force completing their objective first bringing a feral growl to Sarik’s throat.
‘Brother Kharisk, bring the melta charges,’ Sarik called out. ‘I want this place wrecked, now!’
Gauge’s chief of staff looked up sharply from his command terminal, one hand to the vox-set at his ear. ‘Enemy flyers!’ he shouted over the noise of General Gauge’s command centre. ‘Inbound on all objectives!’
‘Status?’ General Gauge replied.
‘Sergeant Sarik reports ready to place charges, estimate detonation within five minutes,’ the officer replied. Lucian breathed a silent sigh of relief that his warning had got through in time, and the White Scars had been ready when the gun drones had attacked. By all accounts, the other pylons had been similarly defended, and the other Space Marine contingents had not fared so well. The Ultramarines had suffered one casualty, and the Scythes of the Emperor two, though none of the injuries was life threatening. To a Space Marine, few injuries were.
‘Ultramarines ready to detonate charges,’ the officer reported. ‘Scythes still facing resistance from enemy infantry.’
‘Gentlemen,’ General Gauge addressed the gathered members of the crusade council as he turned from his chief of staff to face them. ‘We arrive at the point of decision, the point at which all may be decided, the entire crusade. Given the previous… disagreements within the council, I would take this opportunity to show resolve, and to demonstrate that we are united in our purpose.’
‘I propose the final order to begin the landings be put to a formal vote of the crusade council. Right here, right now.’
Lucian kept his expression outwardly calm, but inside his mind raced. The general had surprised even his closest allies on the council, as the expression on Admiral Jellaqua’s jowly face confirmed. Perhaps he had done so as a precaution against the other faction, centred on Cardinal Gurney, catching wind. Inquisitor Grand was known to be a powerful psyker, and even if he did not resort to tearing the thoughts directly from the minds of his rivals, there were few secrets that could be kept from one who bore the Inquisitorial Rosette.
At the beginning of the crusade, before the mighty fleet had crossed the Damocles Gulf and plunged blindly into the region claimed by the tau empire, the council had consisted of twelve members. Three of that number, however, had been slain at the height of the crusade’s last space battle, the ships on which they had chosen to travel lost, scattered to atoms in the void. Replacing those three councillors was a task the body had yet to undertake, but it would need to be done, and soon, if the council was not to become dominated by the likes of Cardinal Gurney. Two more members were absent, for they represented the Space Marine contingent of the crusade: Captain Rumann of the Iron Hands Chapter was aboard his vessel, the Fist of Light, directing his ground troops, while Veteran Sergeant Sarik of the White Scars was leading his own warriors from the front, as ever he did.
That left General Gauge, Admiral Jellaqua, and Lucian himself on one side of the council, and Cardinal Gurney, Inquisitor Grand and Logistician-General Stempf on the other. Ordinarily, Lucian would have been able to count on Sarik’s agreement, not because the Space Marine had allied himself to a particular view, but because the two were simply of a similar mind most of the time. Captain Rumann was less predictable, keeping his own, inscrutable counsel in most matters.
‘What motion do you propose, general?’ said Inquisitor Grand, his voice low and threatening. ‘And what is the alternative, should it be rejected?’
So that was Gauge’s ploy. The tough old veteran, born on the Deathworld of Catachan and elevated through the ranks on the power of his will and the strength of his arm, was attempting to force the council’s hand once and for all. In previous sessions, it had seriously been suggested that the crusade turn back, to return later with a fleet so vast it could reduce the entire tau empire to ruins. Thankfully, saner counsel had prevailed. While Lucian sought to profit from the enterprise, his allies sought honour, and neither outcome would be possible should the tau be completely obliterated.
‘I propose the motion that we vote on authorising the landings or we withdraw the fleet,’ Gauge said.
Silence settled upon the assembled council members, but each was painfully aware that the enemy’s flyers were closing on the Space Marines on the surface below, every second bringing them closer to their targets.
‘I second the motion,’ Lucian stated. ‘Le
t each cast his vote, while we can still make it count.’
‘Very well,’ rasped Inquisitor Grand, barely containing his displeasure. Why, if he was so displeased, did he not simply brandish his Inquisitorial rosette? The astropathic transmission relayed in the council chamber came back to Lucian’s mind, before the inquisitor gave his answer. ‘I vote in favour of the motion.’
Now things were really getting interesting, Lucian thought, his glance meeting that of Admiral Jellaqua for a fleeting moment.
‘As do I,’ said Cardinal Gurney, who stood beside the inquisitor. ‘And I,’ added the Logistician-General.
Within moments, Lucian, Gauge and Jellaqua had all indicated their agreement with the motion, and the vote was sealed. For the first time in the long months of the crusade, the entire council had, to all intents and purposes, presented a unanimous front. Even if the two Space Marines had disagreed with the motion, which was inconceivable, it would have been carried by a majority. But Lucian could not help but wonder what the vote had achieved, unless Gauge sought to demonstrate power over the rival faction.
Lucian’s thoughts were interrupted as Gauge’s chief of staff spoke up. ‘Enemy flyers closing on White Scars objective. Contact in one minute.’
Sergeant Sarik hauled himself onto the platform at the top of the towering sensor pylon, directly below the structure’s antennae mast. The platform was circular and ten metres across. It clung to the side of the pylon precariously, the dozens of spear-like antennae above swaying slightly as a stiff breeze rushed through them.
‘Brother Kharisk,’ said Sarik as a second White Scar climbed up onto the platform behind him, one more battle-brother following close behind. ‘Get to work. High command reports we have enemy flyers inbound.’
Nodding, the Space Marine crossed the platform to stand directly beneath the antennae mast. Assessing the structure with an efficiency that Sarik had come to value highly throughout his tenure as the warrior’s squad leader, Brother Kharisk unclipped three bulky, tubular melta charges from his belt, and set about placing them where they would do the most damage.
With Kharisk deploying the charges, Sarik turned to the next Space Marine to climb up onto the platform, Brother Qsal. The warrior carried a stubby missile launcher, which he handed to Sarik as he hauled himself up. Sarik took the weapon in one hand, and with the other aided his battle-brother onto the platform. Despite the additional strength afforded the brother by his power armour, Brother Qsal was carrying a double load of ammunition for his launcher, consisting of additional krak missiles to combat enemy aircraft.
‘You know your duty,’ Sarik said as he handed the missile launcher back to Brother Qsal. The warrior shouldered his weapon, and crossed to the platform’s edge to begin his vigil.
With both of his warriors in place, Sarik took the opportunity to examine his surroundings. The surface of Dal’yth Prime spread out below Sarik, his vantage point several hundred metres up affording him a stunning view all the way to the distant horizon. The land was dry and sandy, and dotted with tall, flat-topped mesas of dark red rock. Over the curve of the western horizon, beyond the area that had been designated as the crusade’s landing zone, were clustered a number of small cities. Assaulting those areas, General Gauge had claimed, would draw the tau to defend them, allowing the crusade to dictate the terms of battle. Sarik prayed the general was correct, for he had faced enough aliens to know that their reactions could rarely be predicted in such human terms. To the north, the dry land rose to form the foothills of a distant mountain range, which, it was hoped by the general, would protect the crusade forces from attack from that quarter as they carried out the landing operation. Again, Sarik determined not to put all of his trust into such a presumption, although the basic notion was sound.
Fifty or so kilometres from the pylon, the arid landscape gave way to the sea, which was a deep, blue-green band across the entire eastern horizon. The only vapour clouds in the jade sky were far out over that sea, and as a son of the wild steppes of Chogoris, part of Sarik’s mind pondered what natural process kept them from sweeping in over the land and watering the parched earth. If it were true that the tau preferred their worlds dry, perhaps they used some form of planetwide atmospheric engineering, just as there were polluted industrial worlds in the Imperium where rain was made to fall at the end of each work shift to wash away pollutants.
Towards the south lay nothing but desert, dotted with the flat-topped, dark red mesas. The crusade’s high command had discerned no threat from that quarter, ascertaining that the desert was empty and no enemy was likely to threaten the landings from that direction. The thought that the tau might prefer their worlds arid came back to Sarik’s mind…
Brother Kharisk stood back, the melta charges all set at the base of the antennae mast.
‘Brother Qsal,’ said Sarik, his eyes fixed on the clear skies to the south. ‘Do you detect anything out of the ordinary?’
‘No contact, brother-sergeant,’ Qsal replied, panning his weapon slowly across the skies.
‘South, high,’ Sarik said, a sense of foreboding welling inside of him. ‘Maintain overwatch.’
Brother Qsal turned in the direction Sarik had indicated, and resumed his watch, though the skies looked empty. Perhaps the war spirit residing in the missile launcher’s machine core would detect what the eye could not.
‘Brother-sergeant?’ Brother Kharisk said from behind him. ‘Charges set.’
Command runes blinked across Sarik’s vision, telling him that the other Space Marine contingents were also reporting that they were ready to begin the final phase of their assaults.
‘Understood, prepare to…’ Sarik answered, before he was suddenly struck by the notion that something was very wrong. He turned a full revolution, his eyes scanning the panorama intently. ‘What was that…?’
‘Brother-serg–’ Qsal began, and then Sarik’s world exploded around him.
A storm of blue energy bolts ripped into the platform, tearing great chunks from the white material. The air was filled with the ultrasonic whine of the bolts ripping through the air, and for a second, Sarik could hear nothing else. Sarik threw himself to the deck as a second blast of energy bolts ripped into the platform around him.
Something large screamed overhead and was gone before Sarik could identify it. He rose and looked about for the aircraft, but there was nothing to be seen, the jade skies as empty as they been but a moment ago.
The sharp scent of burned resins filling his nostrils, Sarik turned to his brothers, ready to order Qsal to locate the enemy flyer and engage it. He saw that the attack had chewed great wounds from the platform but left the sensor antennae masts completely intact and functional, a testament to the skill and the intent of who or whatever had fired on the Space Marines. Then Sarik saw that Brother Qsal was dead, torn into ragged chunks as dozens of the energy bolts had cut him apart. Brother Kharisk was simply gone, thrown from the high platform by the sheer weight of fire.
Sarik’s next thought was for the mission. He would leave his mourning until later, as any good leader should. With Brother Kharisk gone, the melta charges could not be detonated remotely, for the warrior had carried their control device. Sarik would have to set the charges’ timers manually, and get clear before they detonated. But such thoughts were instantly driven from his mind as a high-pitched whine caught his attention.
Following the sound, Sarik looked southwards, and caught sight of a rippling in the skies above the desert. Focussing on the sound, the source of which was travelling rapidly from south to east, Sarik saw it again, this time far closer, and knew what he must do.
Not taking his eyes from the subtle rippling in the air, Sarik went down on one knee, and without looking located and picked up the missile launcher Brother Qsal had carried. A moment later, the tube was at his shoulder, and he was squinting through the sights as the whine increased in pitch and volume, growing closer
to the pylon as the seconds passed.
With a flick of his thumb, Sarik lifted the cover over the firing stud. Even as he did so, the air before him rippled, revealing for a brief moment the sleek, predatory form of a tau aircraft beginning a strafing run on his position.
Even as Sarik pressed down on the firing stud, the tau aircraft opened fire. The air was suddenly filled with a hundred blue energy bolts, stitching the platform at Sarik’s feet or ripping through the air scant inches from his body. The moment his missile fired, Sarik threw himself to his right, diving into the cover of the base of the antennae mast as the platform disintegrated under the relentless tide of fire.
With a deafening whine, the enemy aircraft passed by overhead, its form fading again as it disengaged its weapons systems, shunting power back to whatever xenos-tech cloaking system had previously hidden it from the eye.
The tau flyer might be invisible to the eye, but it was not hidden from the senses of the machine-spirit guiding the krak missile that even now streaked through the air in the aircraft’s wake.
The missile banked left, following hard on the heels of the invisible flyer. Then it banked suddenly right and dived straight down towards the ground, matching the invisible alien pilot’s desperate efforts to evade death.
And then the missile exploded in mid-air, and whatever alien technology was hiding the flyer from view failed. Sarik voiced a feral war cry as the now visible aircraft shuddered and began to disintegrate. At the last, the main fuselage was torn apart as its drive section detonated, a thousand pieces of flaming wreckage plummeting to the ground several hundred metres below.
Sarik howled an ancient Chogoran victory chant, giving thanks to his ancestors that the human-forged weapon had bested the perfidious alien war machine. ‘Command to Sarik,’ the Space Marine’s earpiece suddenly barked, interrupting his impromptu celebration. ‘We read multiple additional flyers closing on your position, over.’