by Andy Hoare
‘More likely they die,’ said Qaja. ‘None of them have surrendered yet.’
‘We haven’t yet given them the chance, brother,’ said Sarik.
‘Understood,’ said Qaja, understanding well that Sarik was referring as much to his own previous losses of control as to the breakneck speed of the advance. ‘I’ll pass the order along. Ten minutes?’
Sarik smiled grimly as he took one last look at the line of bunkers. ‘Ten minutes.’
The instant the Predators and Rhinos moved out, the bunkers opened fire. Twinned cannons spat an incandescent rain of energy bolts from the dozen or so bunkers that had the range and arc to target the Space Marines, hammering the frontal armour plates of the vehicles. Even as dawn edged the horizon a deep jade, the air was lit by livid blue pulses that chased the shadows from the streets.
Sarik had deployed his lascannon-equipped Predator battle tanks and Razorback armoured transports to the head of the formation. Six tanks from four different Chapters ground forwards across the open ground leading to the bunker line, Rhinos fanning out on either side. Energy rounds spat across the two hundred metres between the bunkers and the tanks in constant streams, every round as bright as a tracer, washing back and forth across the tanks. Where the energy rounds struck, they produced a dull wallop and gouged out a lump of armour the size of a clenched fist, but none could penetrate the tanks’ forward plates.
The tanks moved at a stately pace, cautious not to advance too rapidly for Sarik’s squads were following on foot. While Sarik judged the tanks to be all but impervious to the bunkers’ fire, he was less certain about the power armour his warriors wore. What the energy bolts lacked in armour penetration capability, they more than made up for in raw ballistic force, meaning they could wreck a Space Marine’s armour systems and cripple the warrior even without cracking open his protective suit.
Striding along behind the lead Predator, Sarik rued the fact that the crusade’s Terminators were being held in strategic reserve. All of the heavy-armoured veterans belonged to the Iron Hands Chapter, and Captain Rumann had made it quite clear they were being held back for boarding actions should the fleet find itself engaged in orbit. Sarik conceded that he would have done the same thing, though a squad or two of Terminators teleporting into the bunker line would have made the current advance unnecessary.
‘Fifty metres!’ Brother Qaja called out over the roar of the tanks.
‘Proceed,’ Sarik said into the command-net.
Every armoured vehicle that was armed with a lascannon opened fire on its prearranged target. Searing white lances of focussed energy speared the air, slamming into the bunkers and blowing three to atoms within seconds. The weight of fire immediately lessened, but the remaining bunkers swung their fire across to the tanks that had fired, hundreds of energy rounds scything into them with relentless ferocity.
The tanks ground on, their frontal armour plates soon transformed into cratered slabs of smoking ceramite by the constant fusillade. One Predator, the Executioner of the Scythes of the Emperor Chapter, sustained three successive shots to the armour plate immediately fore of the driver’s station, and a fourth shattered the whole glacis. The round passed through the wrecked armour and struck the driver a glancing blow to his left shoulder, rendering the arm limp and useless. Despite his wound, the stoic driver continued with his duty, keeping the Executioner steady while its commander directed round after round of lascannon fire, taking revenge on the enemy in lethal fashion.
As the vehicles closed on the bunker line, a clear breach was opened where three ruined structures smoked and spat fire into the dawn air.
‘Squads forward!’ Sarik bellowed. He had no need to use the vox-link for the Space Marines were pressed in behind the armoured vehicles, ready to move forwards and smash aside any resistance that still stood.
Squads deployed in pairs, one group using their boltguns to cover the other as it rushed forwards to storm the bunkers with bolt pistols and grenades. Sarik drew his chainsword with one hand, and took up a melta bomb in the other. While Qaja and the rest of his squad covered him, Sarik joined an Ultramarines assault squad deploying on foot rather than by jump pack, and joined the charge.
As he stepped out from behind the cover of a Rhino, Sarik located the nearest operational bunker and gestured for the assault squad to follow him towards it. The bunker was low and dome-shaped, with the twinned energy burst weapons sweeping left and right from the fire port. The Space Marines came in at the extreme edge of the bunker’s firing arc, but still the gunner saw them, sweeping his fire in a wide fan that pulverised the ground and sent up fountains of dust. The charge took only seconds, though Sarik was intensely aware of every single energy bolt as it buzzed through the air towards him and his warriors. Seething blue points of strobing light passed by, etching a trail of vapour where they passed. One bolt struck an Assault Marine square in the chest, gouging a deep wound, its edges flickering blue as the warrior went down. Sarik knew instantly the Ultramarine would fight again.
Seconds before Sarik reached the bunker a final burst of defensive fire spat directly towards him, and he dived to one side. The Assault Marine behind him was not so fast to react. A dozen energy bolts slammed into the Ultramarine’s helmet, the first handful destroying the armour, the remainder vaporising the head. The warrior’s body continued to run for several seconds, his nervous system locked on the last imperative it had received. Or perhaps the body was driven even beyond the point of death to serve. Perhaps it was just the armour’s actuators failing to register that the wearer was slain.
The dead Ultramarine only stopped moving when he slammed into the side of the tau bunker, the headless body finally realising it was slain and toppling to the ground in a heap. Sarik was the next warrior to reach the bunker, followed within seconds by the eight remaining Ultramarines. The twinned cannons continued to spit their blizzard of energy bolts, homing in on more distant targets now that Sarik and the Assault Marines were too close to engage. The stream of fire split the air in a thunderous barrage almost within arm’s reach, charging the air and creating small crackles of energy that played across the Space Marines’ armour plates.
Sarik edged around the curved form of the bunker, gesturing for the three closest Assault Marines to follow him. The warriors carried bolt pistols in one hand and frag grenades in the other, ready to storm the enemy fortification the instant Sarik’s melta bomb had cracked it open.
Aware that enemy infantry might be guarding against an attempt to penetrate the bunker, Sarik moved fast. As he cleared the bunker’s rear he looked for an entry hatch, but to his surprise, found none.
‘Thinking machines,’ Sarik growled, realising that the turrets were automated, controlled by the same heretical machine intelligences that animated the tau’s gun drones and other such hated devices. He activated the melta bomb, set it to a three second delay and clamped it to the base of the bunker wall, praying that the charge would be sufficient to penetrate the armour.
The charge set, Sarik retreated back around the wall. He turned to the Assault Marines, and nodded to the frag grenade the nearest was carrying. ‘Krak grenades,’ he ordered, and a second later the melta bomb detonated.
A ripple of nucleonic fire spread outwards from the bomb, eating the bunker’s outer shell and reducing the material to streams of superheated lava. The reaction lasted only seconds and was accompanied by a nigh deafening roar and an instant pressure change as the air was consumed and more rushed in towards the vacuum. When the reaction ceased, the entire rear of the bunker was a blackened mass, a great bite taken out of it to reveal machine systems within.
Sarik had been correct; there were no tau gunners within, merely an automated, machine-controlled gun system. ‘Go!’ he ordered, and three Assault Marines stepped past him and lobbed their armour-piercing krak grenades inside. The charges detonated with the ear splitting report that gave them their name, and the so
und of the twin cannons instantly stopped. Thick black smoke belched from the wound, and the line was silenced.
Now the breach in the bunker line was sufficiently wide for the entire Space Marine force to break through. The Predators ground forwards and assumed overwatch positions, their turret weapons tracking back and forth ready to engage any enemy that counter-attacked from the star port. Rhinos and Razorbacks followed, while the first eight dismounted tactical squads formed two assault groups that pressed left and right along the bunker line to suppress and destroy any bunkers that had the arc and range to harass the force’s flanks. Within minutes the sound of melta bombs and krak grenades being brought to bear on more bunkers filled the air, and the bunkers fell silent.
‘Brother Targus,’ Sarik addressed a Techmarine of the Red Hunters Chapter. The warrior was studying the line of energy shield projectors that lay beyond the bunkers, his articulated servo-arms stretched out from his backpack, the sensors at their ends blinking. ‘Mines?’
The Techmarine’s sensors tracked back and forth for a moment, before the warrior answered, ‘None detected, brother-sergeant. But the xenos may have some method of hiding them from the gaze of the Omnissiah.’
‘Understood, Brother Targus,’ Sarik replied. ‘Please continue your vigil.’
‘Predators forward,’ Sarik then ordered. ‘Breaching duty to positions.’
Five of the battle tanks not standing overwatch moved forwards through the breach, their dozer blades lowered. Behind each, a tactical squad took position, the battle-brothers equipped with extra supplies of krak grenades.
Sarik moved up to join a squad from the Aurora Chapter, the green-armoured warriors in position and ready to advance. ‘Be advised,’ he said into the vox-link. ‘If this is a minefield, it does not register. Advance.’
The Predators gunned their engines and lurched forwards, and immediately a torrent of burst cannon fire rippled through the air overhead. The flyers overseeing the extraction of the last tau warriors had opened fire, but were remaining protectively close to their charge.
‘Your status, brother?’ said Sarik.
Brother Qaja’s voice came back straight away, ‘Enemy infantry have reached the landing pad, brother-sergeant. Crossing towards the lander now.’
‘Let’s get moving then!’ Sarik bellowed, and the Predators began their advance. The tanks moved slowly but surely across the flat expanse of ground between the bunker line and the shield projectors, their dozers lowered and scraping across the packed earth in order to trigger mines that might be waiting just below the surface. Sarik studied the ground at his feet as he strode behind the Predator, looking for tell-tale signs of booby traps amongst the tilled soil.
More rounds screamed in, thudding into the ground behind the Space Marines. The enemy flyers were increasing the volume of their fire, sensing that the tau warriors would soon be overtaken. But the angle was poor and the shots whined harmlessly by over the Space Marines’ heads.
It was only when the breaching group was exactly half way across the open ground that the first mine detonated. The ground a mere three metres behind Sarik erupted in a geyser of dust and a mine spat directly upwards. It exploded at a height of two metres, a blinding pulse of booming energy radiating outwards.
One of the Aurora Chapter Tactical Marines was almost directly beneath the explosion. He was slain in an instant, his armour transformed into a deadly wind of razor-sharp shrapnel that tore into a battle-brother nearby. The fragments buried themselves in the warrior’s armour, penetrating it in a dozen places and passing straight through in several locations. Another Tactical Marine further out from the blast wave was blown clear, his helmet and half of his face torn from his head by the raging energy pulse.
Sarik had time to turn his shoulder into the blast and brace himself against the wave-front. He felt the hot, actinic energies wash over him, his already ruined shoulder plate absorbing the worst of the damage. As he straightened up again, a second detonation sounded from further along the line, right in the midst of Sergeant Rheq’s Scythes of the Emperor tactical squad.
Realising that the mines must have been command operated, Sarik opened the vox-net to address all commands. ‘All overwatch units. Locate enemy spotters. Someone must be calling in the detonations.’
The weight of incoming fire redoubled as the tau flyers sought to pin Sarik’s force down in the open. Ordinarily, an assault group exposed in such manner would be forced to take cover or retreat in the face of such overwhelming odds. But the Adeptus Astartes rarely began an assault they could not complete, and there were precious few such missions.
The advance continued, not one of the vehicle or squad commanders even contemplating halting unless issued with a direct order to do so. Energy bursts spanged from the Predators’ frontal armour and hammered into their turrets, then another mine sprang from the ground and exploded directly above an Iron Hands tactical squad further down the line. The explosion sounded like a sonic boom, the rapidly expanding ball of energy casting a luminous blast wave in a wide circle. Three more Space Marines fell, one of them having sustained a fatal wound.
‘Lahmas to Sarik,’ the voice of the Scythes of the Emperor Devastator sergeant came over the vox-net. ‘Enemy spotter located. Engaging.’
The air above the Space Marines was lit by a hail of heavy bolter fire as Lahmas’s Devastators hammered the position from which the enemy had been observing the advance. But Sarik was not taking any chances. ‘Breaching duty!’ he yelled. ‘At the double!’
The Predators’ engines roared as they lurched forwards at combat speed, the Space Marines behind them increasing their own pace to keep up. Sarik glanced behind him, noting sadly that the broken forms of at least five fallen battle-brothers littered the open ground. He made a silent promise to avenge their sacrifice now, and return for their bodies later.
A sharp explosion halfway up the side of one of the landing pad’s supports drew Sarik’s attention back to the assault. The entire side of the structure was peppered with ugly black scars, the unmistakable sign of massed heavy bolter fire.
‘Spotter neutralised, brother-sergeant,’ Lahmas reported curtly. ‘Resuming overwatch.’
Sarik’s force crossed the remainder of the open ground without incident, weathering the constant hail of fire incoming from the prowling tau flyers. Within minutes, the breaching duty squads had planted dozens of krak grenades on the nearest three energy shield projectors, and the way into the Gel’bryn star port was at last clear.
Sarik dived to the left as a wave of energy bolts screamed in, rolling across the hard white surface of the landing pad and coming up in a kneeling position, boltgun raised. With a flick of his thumb he set his weapon’s shot selector to full auto, and squeezed off a rapid-fire burst at the three tau warriors.
The bolts hammered through hard shell armour and detonated in soft flesh. The first tau was blown backwards into the warrior behind by the impact, then exploded as the bolt-rounds detonated inside his chest, showering his companion with purple gore. The second tau took a round to the throat between helmet and chest armour, his hands grasping the wound instinctively. When the round exploded the warrior’s head was torn right off, and sent spinning across the hardpan.
The third tau tried to fall back, firing as he went, but the last of Sarik’s burst stitched across his shoulder armour and down his right arm, the detonations blowing the limb away in a shower of vaporised blood, and the weapon it had carried clattered to the ground. The warrior turned to run, and two shots to the back took him down for good.
‘Hunters!’ Sarik called into the vox-net as he glanced upwards at the circling tau flyers. ‘Bring them down!’
The Whirlwinds’ commanders acknowledged Sarik’s order, and two seconds later a wave of a dozen missiles streaked in from below the raised landing pad, their engines bright in the dawn sky. The tau flyers saw the danger and began to turn, but not
before the wave of missiles had split into two, each group arrowing in on one of the nearest two targets. The two flyers were struck simultaneously. The first was hit square in the flank, spinning crazily around as its pilot fought for control. Its engines screamed as they fought for lift, and the craft was soon lost to view. The second was hit directly in the cockpit, the entire front of the vessel exploding outwards and showering the landing pad with white-hot debris. What little was left of the airframe appeared suspended in the air as its anti-grav systems remained online a few seconds more, then it simply dropped, like a boulder, straight down as its systems failed. The wreck struck the edge of the landing pad and sheared in two, touching off a secondary explosion before disintegrating.
Only two flyers remained, one circling back and around the opposite end of the landing pad, its chin-mounted cannon sweeping back and forth. Sarik judged it had been ordered to hold back to protect the lander when it finally launched, which Sarik was determined it would never do. The other was moving forwards towards the hatch, its nose dipped as its multiple-barrelled cannon cycled up.
‘Ancient Mhadax to Sergeant Sarik,’ the mechanical-sounding voice of the Scythes Dreadnought came over the vox. ‘Engaging.’
The entire front section of the flyer erupted in pinpoint explosions as the Dreadnought opened up with its assault cannon. So heavy was the fusillade that the craft’s forward momentum was arrested, a thousand solid rounds hammering into it in seconds. The armoured nosecone splintered under the relentless assault and was eaten away in an instant. The Dreadnought focussed its fire on the penetrated segment, a hundred more rounds chewing into the flyer’s exposed innards.
The flyer disintegrated in mid-air as the assault cannon rounds hollowed it out from within, the rounds now passing straight through its ruined frame. The flyer did not even explode – it literally disappeared before Sarik’s eyes, reduced to fragments that scattered wide and fell as hard rain across the entire landing pad.