by Andy Hoare
Sarik’s vox-bead came to life. ‘Ancient Mhadax to Sergeant Sarik,’ the machine-modulated voice of a Scythes of the Emperor Dreadnought said. Sarik spun the cupola around one-eighty degrees, and saw the hulking walker containing the mortal remains of the celebrated Captain Mhadax striding along two hundred metres behind. To the White Scars, internment in the sarcophagus at the heart of the mighty war machine was anathema, for the Chapter far preferred to let its mortally wounded heroes die, their spirits to return to the wide open steppes of Chogoris, than to keep them alive indefinitely in such a manner. It was always a trial to contain such notions when confronted with Dreadnoughts from other Chapters.
‘Sarik,’ he replied. ‘Speak, honoured one.’
‘My prey-sense augurs are detecting movement amongst the structures up ahead, sergeant. Be warned.’
‘My thanks, Captain Mhadax,’ Sarik said, deliberately using the ancient’s rank, though the vast majority of those interred in the iron body of a Dreadnought relinquished their right to command. Sarik was technically Mhadax’s commander, but it would be hubris of the worst kind not to accept his words.
‘All commands,’ Sarik said in the vox. ‘Prepare for contact, minus twenty to plus twenty.’
Sarik’s driver allowed the Rhino to fall back slightly as two Predators growled forwards, one bearing the black and yellow livery of the Scythes of the Emperor, the other the jade green of the Subjugators. Both trained their heavy weapons on the structures on either side of the road as they pressed on, their commanders riding high in their cupolas so as to spot any sign of movement in the shadows.
‘Sarik!’ Ancient Mhadax’s machine voice cut in urgently. ‘Zero-seven high, twenty metres. Beware!’
Sarik spun the cupola round to the position the Dreadnought had indicated, tracking the storm bolter up the side of a tall structure. The barest hint of movement caught his eye and he swung the weapon upwards sharply…
With a blink of muzzle flare, something fired from a shadowed recess high on the side of the rearing structure. An instant later, an energy bolt zipped past Sarik’s head, so close it made his scalp sting. The round impacted on the Rhino’s rooftop hatch.
‘Contact!’ Sarik bellowed, but he had no need to issue any more orders, for his force was already reacting. Bolt-rounds were stitching through the air, tracing death across the shadows of the building’s flank. Another enemy shot whined past, only missing him because the Rhino had bucked sharply at the last possible instant. This time Sarik caught the exact location of the firer, and zeroed his storm bolter on the shadows.
More energy bolts rained down on the Space Marine vehicles, and Sarik knew that multiple firers were engaging the Space Marines. Settling the storm bolter on the patch of shadow where he knew his assailant to be hiding, he squeezed the trigger and loosed a rapid-fire volley.
The rounds exploded as they plunged into the target’s position, the backwash of their detonations casting hellish, strobing illumination on the sniper’s nest. A body was flung backwards against the wall behind, then flopped forwards over the edge to plummet the twenty metres to the ground below. Sarik saw instantly that the body was not that of a tau, but of one of the savage alien carnivores he had encountered in the plantations what seemed like a week before.
As the alien’s gangly body crunched to the hard surface below, Sarik brought his storm bolter around, seeking other enemies lurking in similar hiding places. The Predators were already passing the building, and slowing slightly. Their sponson-mounted heavy bolters coughed to life as the commander of the Subjugators tank came on the vox-net. ‘Brother-sergeant, multiple xenos carnivores ahead. Engaging.’
‘Carnivores’ was the term by which these savage aliens were becoming known amongst the crusade’s army, and it described them well. From his position, Sarik could not yet see the targets of the Predators’ fire, but he could well picture the vile creatures as they threw themselves onto the tanks’ guns. While he had come to afford the tau with a certain amount of respect and ascribe them something akin to honour, these other aliens were something else entirely. They were possessed of a fearsome degree of fieldcraft, Sarik granted that, but their habit of consuming the flesh of the fallen cast them beyond redemption.
‘Kill them, sergeant,’ Sarik growled to the Subjugators tank commander. ‘Show them no mercy.’
As the Predators’ fire redoubled in fury, Sarik opened the channel to address the entire column. ‘All commands, heavy contact ahead. All squads dismount to repel enemy infantry, but do not allow yourselves to get bogged down. Out.’
As Sarik’s Rhino closed on the two Predators, he got some idea of how many carnivores must be inbound. The tanks’ turret autocannons were belching round after round of explosive shells, tracking back and forth as they gunned down the alien horde’s front ranks. The heavy bolters mounted on the flanks of each tank were keeping up a constant, thunderous fire, a continuous stream of spent shell casings ejecting from side ports to clatter across the hard white road surface.
Still, Sarik’s view of the horde was obscured by the tanks and the fyceline haze thrown up by the heavy weight of weapons fire. ‘Brother Kjanghis,’ Sarik addressed his driver over the transport’s internal vox. ‘Halt here.’
‘Yes, brother-serg–’ the driver began, before a sound like a piledriver hammering into the side of the Rhino cut him off. The Rhino lurched violently under the impact, throwing Sarik forwards in the cupola. A sharp metallic clatter sounded from the right-side track nacelle, and Sarik knew instantly the transport had been struck hard on its tread unit and thrown a track.
As Sarik righted himself, the driver brought the Rhino to a halt, the right-side track unfurling behind and the foremost road wheels grinding into the road surface with an ear-rending squeal.
Sarik dropped down inside the vehicle. ‘Brother Jek,’ Sarik nodded to one of his warriors waiting in the troop bay. ‘Aid Brother Kjanghis with the track. The rest of you, with me.’
The warrior nearest to the Rhino’s rear punched a bulkhead-mounted command rune and the rear hatch thumped downwards to form an assault ramp. The squad was out in seconds, Brother Qaja’s plasma cannon sweeping left and right as the Space Marines secured the immediate area.
The air roared as a solid round sheathed in blue energy thundered from the smoke up ahead and passed directly through the Space Marines’ formation without striking one of them. Sarik traced the shot’s trajectory back towards its source, offering a silent prayer as he did so that the huge round had not struck any of his battle-brothers. The round had been of a type the Space Marines had not yet encountered, some kind of solid projectile encased in the seething blue energies fired by many of the tau’s weapons.
As the following Rhinos ground to a halt behind Sarik’s squad, Space Marines pounding down assault ramps to take position around their vehicles, Sarik waved his warriors forward. He kept his gaze fixed on the arc the projectile had come in from as he ran forwards into the smoke, his battle-brothers close behind.
The squad plunged into drifting banks of stinking smoke, made all-enclosing in the dark night. The thunderous report of the Predators carried weirdly through the dense smog of battle, and the ringing of brass casings pattering across the ground was almost louder than the sound of the weapons firing. Then Sarik heard another sound – a gruff snuffling. A low, birdlike chirrup followed, and the first sound ceased. The bird sound was undoubtedly that of a carnivore, but Sarik could not place the other.
He raised his hand to indicate a cautious advance to contact, allowing Brother Qaja to come level with him. The squad moved forwards with weapons raised to shoulders, spread out with each battle-brother covering a separate arc.
Then a gust of wind ghosted across the scene, and the haze thinned for just a moment. Sarik and Qaja both saw the beast at once as it reared on stumpy hind legs, its apelike forearms raised high overhead.
For an instant, both
battle-brothers took the creature for a rokchull, a demonic beast of their home world’s most ancient legends. Its body was grossly muscled, its face low between massively humped shoulders. That face was grotesquely akin to that of the alien carnivores, as if the two were but strains of the same xenos genealogy. Its face was dominated by a huge, beak-like mouth, the lower jaw protruding so its jagged edge formed an underbite. Its beady eyes were aglow with dumb malice and it opened its mouth wide as it reared on its hind legs.
As Sarik and Qaja brought their weapons up as one, they saw that the beast had a rider. A single carnivore was clinging onto the creature’s back, manning an overlarge, crudely manufactured projectile weapon lashed to the mount’s shoulders by strips of cured hide. It was that weapon that had fired the solid round at the Space Marines.
Sarik had no need to issue Qaja the order to fire on the beast with his plasma cannon while he targeted the rider with his boltgun. Qaja’s weapon completed its power cycle an instant after Sarik’s boltgun spat a full auto burst that thudded a line of rounds into the rider’s torso. The alien was torn apart in a welter of gore as the mass-reactive rounds detonated, its arms still flailing as its limp, broken body toppled backwards from its saddle.
A high-pitched whine announced that the war spirit within Qaja’s plasma cannon was ready and eager to slay its foes. The weapon’s containment coils blazed a livid violet, and then the blunt nose erupted as a concentrated ball of super-heated plasma cascaded forth. The beast was so close it had no chance to avoid the shrieking ball of energy. It was engulfed in seething arcs of raw plasma, its beak gaping wide as it threw its arms out as if in denial of its imminent death, roiling energies spilling across its muscular form.
Then it exploded. The beast was torn apart as the raging power of the heart of a sun transformed the solid matter of its body into another state entirely. Sarik and Qaja were blasted by a wave-front of black ash, all that remained after the hideous transformation. The air was filled with the flash-stink of body fluids turned to super-heated steam and the blast wave scoured away the smoke of battle.
Sarik and Qaja looked to one another in the wake of the explosion. Each saw that the other was a blackened mess, his face streaked with bloody soot. Both warriors’ proud white and red livery was almost entirely obscured, and Sarik’s armour was blistered and deformed down one side.
‘You look like a ghak-sifter, Brother Qaja,’ Sarik grinned, his white teeth bright in the midst of his blackened face. ‘You’re a disgrace.’
‘And you look like a midden-herder, Brother-Sergeant Sarik,’ Qaja replied. ‘If I may be so bold.’
Sarik’s brow creased as he considered Qaja’s words. ‘A midden-herder?’
‘Aye, brother-sergeant.’
‘Hmm,’ Sarik said, as he turned towards the horde of at least a thousand screeching carnivores thundering towards the Space Marines.
‘Glad we’ve got that settled.’
Lucian saw staccato lightning a kilometre up ahead, and lowered his prey-sense goggles to get a better idea what was happening at the head of the advance. He was riding in the turret of the Chimera, the vehicle lurching and jolting so hard he could barely keep the image through the goggles steady.
Activating the goggles, Lucian’s world became a grainy, green wash, but he could now see something of the Space Marine column where before all that had been visible was smoke, shadow and muzzle flare. Advanced elements of the 2nd Armoured were pushing through the middle distance, and beyond them, the Space Marines’ Rhinos were formed up and stationary, their rear hatches down. The battle-brothers were spreading out and forwards while the column’s support vehicles ground to a halt behind the Rhinos.
Guessing that the Space Marines had dismounted to deal with some threat they could not either bypass or smash straight through, Lucian shouted down to the vehicle’s commander. ‘Slow down! The Space Marines are engaging on foot, we need to give them space.’
The commander nodded, and relayed the information to the company officers of the Brimlock 2nd Armoured. The Brimlock tanks up ahead slewed off the road to either side and ground to a halt, and a moment later, the Chimera that Lucian rode in did the same. Behind, the entire regiment was strung out in a line of tanks, transports and support vehicles three kilometres in length. And that was just the first regiment of nineteen, all of which were pushing hard for the star port at the heart of Gel’bryn.
Tracking his goggles from the view up ahead to the nearest tau buildings, Lucian saw a cluster of luminous blobs moving across the flank of a tall, sail-shaped structure. With a twist of a dial at his temple, he increased the magnification. The side of the building was swarming with long-limbed and nimble figures, scuttling across the surface like insects.
Lucian activated his vox-link at the same moment as he swung the pintle-mounted heavy stubber around. ‘Contact right, high.’
The turrets of two dozen nearby tanks and armoured transports swung around to the right in response to Lucian’s warning. He squeezed the stubber’s trigger plate with his thumbs, thumping off a three second burst that would tell the gunners exactly where the enemy were. Tracers streaked towards the enemy, and Lucian was surprised to see several of the carnivores blown to bloody chunks as his un-aimed fire thundered in. Realising they had been detected, the remainder of the carnivores redoubled their speed as they crossed the surface, jumping down to the ground as soon as they reached a safe height to do so.
Then C Squadron opened fire. Twelve Leman Russ battle tanks fired as one, the flaming discharge from their battle cannons turning night into day. The shells slammed into the side of the building the carnivores had been scaling, blowing out the entire façade in a mass of blossoming explosions. Clouds of pulverised resin swelled upwards, illuminated by raging inner fires, and then the whole face collapsed, burying the aliens beneath tons of debris.
‘Contact left!’ a tank commander from B Squadron called.
‘Contact right!’ D’s squadron sergeant-major called.
‘Movement rear!’ B Echelon’s commander reported.
‘All units,’ the voice of Colonel Armak cut into the channel, his code overriding the transmissions of his subordinates. The colonel’s tone was measured and calm, exactly what his men needed at that moment. ‘We’re surrounded on all quarters by large numbers of xenos carnivores. We can’t push forwards until the Space Marines get going again, and I’m sure as hell not going to be the first commander in this regiment’s history to order a retreat. All units, prepare to address! Don’t stop firing ’til they’re right on you, then up and at ’em!
‘Good luck.’
‘Battlegroup Arcadius,’ Lucian said into his command-net once the colonel had finished his address. ‘Dismount. Keep well clear of the tanks while they fire, then address as the enemy close. Out.’
Closing the channel, Lucian tracked the heavy weapon back and forth, seeing movement in the darkness. He magnified the view through his goggles, penetrating the thick banks of smoke drifting across the scene. What at first appeared a blurred, undulating mass resolved into the front rank of a thousand-strong horde of alien carnivores. The gangly xenos were bounding forwards in great leaps, their dreadlock-like head spines erect like the hackles of an attack canine. They bore their long, primitive rifles, firing from the hip as they advanced, though not with any accuracy. Their beaks were open wide as they hissed and screeched, their vile war cries filling the air.
‘Enemy at three hundred metres!’ Lucian called down to the Chimera’s crew. ‘Prepare to–’
‘Father, this is Korvane,’ the voice of Lucian’s son came over the vox. ‘Father, do you receive?’
Settling the heavy stubber’s aiming reticule over the front rank of the advancing aliens, Lucian replied, ‘Korvane? This isn’t a good time. Can it wait?’
‘No, father, it cannot!’ Korvane replied. There was no mistaking the urgency in his voice. Lucian’s son
had been raised in the rarefied atmosphere of the high court, and was not given to inappropriate shows of emotion. If he was spooked, there was a damn good reason.
‘Go ahead,’ Lucian said, as the aliens surged forwards, his fists tightening on the stubber’s twin-grips.
‘Father,’ Korvane continued. ‘You have to get off the surface, right now…’
‘What?’ Lucian said as the vehicles on either side opened fire, their deafening reports drowning out Korvane’s voice and flooding the channel with interference. ‘Repeat last!’
‘I repeat,’ said Korvane. ‘You must evacuate, now. All of you… everyone!’
‘Why?’ shouted Lucian over the sound of heavy gunfire. ‘Calm down and tell me what’s happened.’
There was a pause as Korvane got a grip, then carried on. ‘Father, Grand has brought forward the deadline. The Exterminatus is–’
‘What?’ Lucian cursed. ‘And he was going to tell us when…?’
Another pause, before Korvane replied, ‘He wasn’t, father.’
‘Understood, son,’ Lucian replied as the alien horde closed and he opened fire with the heavy stubber. The thump of the weapon firing and the bloody ruin it inflicted on the aliens’ lanky bodies drowned out the rage rising within him…
A gnarled, scarred hand caressed a sleek, black form, its owner cooing words of power that penetrated the armoured housing and reverberated through the cell-hosts. Death heard those words, and heeded their meaning. A trillion murder-cells quivered with hungry life, as if each and every one tasted the scent of their prey, far below.
The vessel of death, the Exterminatus torpedo, waited, held securely in a cantilevered launch cradle. The hand receded, and the words of power fell silent. Wait… death was told. Wait, and soon you shall feed…
Chapter Nine
Brielle pulled the hatch closed behind her, the hiss of the saviour pod’s life support systems engaging filling the small space. The sound of alarms and the shouts of emergency response crews receded behind the armoured panel, and everything was suddenly very quiet.