The XV8s were the biggest threat to the Stormravens. For missiles, there were countermeasures. For railguns, there were none.
Karras put out a call over the vox alerting all task force elements to the threat.
Muzzle flashes from up ahead caught his eye. A fresh storm of rounds started arcing towards him from the roof of the central building. More t’au squads were streaming out to reinforce their comrades.
‘Reaper One, why are there still hostiles on that rooftop?’ Karras demanded. ‘Clear those xenos out and get me down there.’
Reaper One angled left, dipped its nose and surged forward, bolters blazing. ‘Spear two,’ voxed Ventius, announcing missile launch. From the wing-mounted pods on either side of the Stormraven, a single lethal dart dropped. Rocket fuel ignited. The missiles leapt forward, streaking through the night.
Everything flared white and yellow as payloads detonated on contact. From his place at the hatch, Karras saw t’au bodies cartwheeling off into the dark, falling to the courtyard, their combat fatigues ablaze. A few were left alive on the rooftop, stunned and deafened. They staggered blindly, disoriented by the explosions.
Karras took aim and added his own fire to that of the nose-mounted bolters. He picked them off with ease. Heads snapped backwards. Rounds detonated within alien skulls, blowing them apart. The pilot gunned the engines and the Stormraven surged forward.
Reaper One tilted in over the roof of the central block and settled in to a dangerous but necessary hover. There she hung, roaring and restless, impatient to be off again and laying slaughter on the foe.
Small-arms fire smacked her sides from atop the nearest wall, but at least here, in the centre of the roof, she was beyond the line of sight of the ground-based forces and the two XV8s.
‘In position, Alpha.’
At Karras’ feet, a coil of zipline was already fixed to the floor lug. He wouldn’t need it, but those following him would. He kicked it out of the side hatch.
On the other side of the Stormraven, one of Karras’ Elysian assault team members kicked out another zipline. At the rear hatch, another Arcturus trooper dropped a third.
Now, three ziplines extended down from the hovering gunship. Two operators clipped themselves onto each of those lines. The remaining two would follow them down, and one more operator would precede Karras on his side. The Space Marine would drop last.
Karras moved back from the hatch and gestured to the waiting Elysian. The man nodded and moved into place, clipping himself smoothly to the line.
Karras barked the go order over the fire-team vox-channel. As one, the first three troopers plunged from their respective hatches.
Leaning out again, the Death Spectre watched all three hit rockcrete within milliseconds of each other. He saw them move out from the ziplines, drop to a knee, lasguns to shoulders, and secure the drop zone for those that would follow.
An instant later, two more sets of boots hit the roof. Those troopers quickly moved into covering positions too.
Karras ignored the zipline. He didn’t need it at this height. He stepped out from the hatch and dropped like a three-hundred-kilogram bomb.
He hit the roof heavily, right in the centre of the five-man team, ceramite boots fracturing the surface, power armour shock-absorbers soaking up the impact. He began moving at once, bolter raised, muzzle trained on the open stairway access to which he was running.
‘On me!’
Behind him, the stormtroopers broke into a run.
They had covered half the distance when a squad of t’au with pulse carbines burst from the doorway at the top of the stairs. Whatever they expected, it wasn’t a massive Space Marine in black thundering towards them. That tiny instant of recognition and shock was all they got. With tight, controlled bursts, Karras put bolter rounds into each of them – two shots, centre-mass. The stormtroopers with him didn’t even have time to fire. As the bolter rounds exploded inside each alien chest, the t’au were knocked from their feet, some thrown backwards onto rockcrete, others tumbling back down the stair.
Without breaking step, Karras kept on, ready to pour fire down on any xenos still foolish enough to try to ascend. He and the stormtroopers stacked up at the top of the stair in partial cover of the doorway and leaned in, weapons ready, eyes alert for any sign of movement.
Nothing. Just bodies broken and tangled, the walls around them splashed with blue blood.
Karras descended. His unit followed. They were in the main block now. He just had to establish vox-net contact with Copley and find out where the hell Epsilon was and how to get there.
At the bottom of the stairs, he found himself in a corridor lit by orange lumes. The ceiling was low enough that Karras could’ve reached up and punched a hole in it.
‘Archangel, this is Scholar,’ he said over the tactical command channel. ‘Respond.’
Static.
‘Archangel, this is Scholar. Respond.’
Nothing. Assuming she was still alive, something was wrong with comms. Could the t’au be jamming the vox somehow?
‘M’lord?’ asked one of the troopers.
‘We push on,’ said Karras, ‘and try to pick up a signal as we go deeper.’
Again he cursed the strange barrier here that was stoppering his abilities. What the hell was it? He was certain now that it wasn’t just some type of old anti-psyker ward. It seemed somehow familiar, but…
Right now, all he could do was push on and hope to disable it at the source somehow.
The t’au would have noted the rooftop drops. Reaper flight would continue to harry the forces amassed outside, but fire cadres would be pouring into each block, sweeping floor after floor from ground level up, intending to cut the invaders off as they descended from the roofs. Barricades would be thrown up at key exits. Escape routes were likely being cut off even now. The t’au would try to funnel the assaulting elements into killing zones. How far would they go to prevent Arcturus from securing Epsilon? What was her value to them?
He switched vox-channel. ‘Talon Squad, this is Talon Alpha. Respond.’
Nothing.
He switched channel again as he and his team pressed on. ‘Reaper One, this is Talon Alpha. Respond.’
Again nothing.
No link to the outside at all now.
Despite rotating frequencies and high-level auto-encryption, both standard for ordo special operations, it seemed the t’au had found a way to jam Imperial comms, at least from within the central building.
No access to his talents, and now, no analogue comms.
This keeps getting better and better.
He had to get to Archangel fast. If she still held the facility’s command centre, there might be something she could do.
Because without any ability to coordinate the assault, this op was a lost cause.
Twenty-seven
Solarion squeezed the trigger.
His rifle kicked.
One moment, the Fireblade leader was standing on the wall, yelling and barking like a mad dog, frantically trying to coordinate his squad’s fire on the Stormraven overhead. The next moment, he had no mouth to yell with. The round obliterated his lower jaw and then punched through the back of his neck with such force that it tore the skull free. The body dropped to its knees, then pitched forward, landing awkwardly, limbs at angles, hands still gripping his carbine.
The fire warriors on either side of their slain leader roared in grief and rage and redoubled their efforts to shoot down the gunship. Two of the xenos brought forward rail rifles, easily spotted by their long barrels. Pulse carbines and pulse rifles couldn’t do much against the Stormravens, but if a rail round struck an engine or a fuel line…
‘Brace for missile evasion!’ shouted the pilot over the vox.
Solarion grabbed a grip-rail on the inner rim of his hatch. The Stormraven pitched left viole
ntly. Had the Ultramarine been a second too late to grab on, he’d have rolled straight out the far side.
The missile screamed by him, missing the Stormraven by a scant three metres. The pilot, angered by the close call, dipped the craft’s nose and unleashed the fury of its heavy-bolters. Rounds stitched the courtyard, cutting down a dozen t’au infantry, but the Crisis Battlesuit that had fired the missile was already on the move, leaping to cover on bursts of blue flame from its back-mounted jump jets.
As the Stormraven levelled out, Solarion sighted down his scope, zeroed in on one of the t’au with the rail rifles and squeezed off another perfect shot. The round took the target in the chest, hitting like a meteor.
Without halting to take satisfaction, Solarion aimed at the other rail rifle wielder. He was about to make the kill when Reaper Two lurched high into the air.
‘Brace!’ shouted the pilot. ‘Missile locked onto us!’
‘Damn it!’ cursed the Ultramarine.
‘Launching countermeasures!’
There was a great blinding burst of flares and irradiated chaff. The missiles swerved away from the Stormraven, giving its occupants a moment of relief.
‘Bring us around on that bastard,’ raged Solarion. ‘Get me an angle! We have to stop those XV8s!’
‘They’ve split up, my lord,’ replied the pilot. ‘We’re taking fire from direct front and far right. We have to keep moving.’
‘Then move! But get me a line on one of them so I can make the damned shot before they take us out!’
Zeed made ready to drop from Reaper Three onto the roof of the south block with five of Copley’s killers. At this point, Chyron was still attached by magna-grapple to the back of the Stormraven, so the Raven Guard and his stormtroopers were forced to drop from side hatches only.
Before Zeed leapt, he turned and looked at Voss, who, with Chyron and his own fire-team, would drop into the courtyard to assault the armoury.
‘No rounding up, paper-face!’ said Voss with a grin. ‘Confirmed kills only.’
Zeed grinned back. ‘You’re the one who needs to round up. By my count, you’ve lost the last three.’
They gripped wrists.
‘This one’s mine,’ said Voss. ‘But don’t go embarrassing yourself. Give me a challenge, at least.’
The Raven Guard chuckled. ‘In your dreams, tree stump.’
It was as close as the two friends ever got to telling each other Don’t die out there. They were Adeptus Astartes. They didn’t die easily. But against these odds…
Zeed and his team dropped from the hatches. They hit the rooftop hard and fast, their formation flawless. As Reaper Three swung around, Voss watched his friend and the Elysians make for the stairwell down into the south cell block where the t’au prisoners were held.
Voss pitied the Elysians deploying with the Raven Guard. If they slowed him down for any more than an instant, he’d likely leave them behind. In pursuit of a decent fight, he was likely to go off mission anyway.
Nothing to be done. He had his own team to think of.
He turned his attention to the central courtyard. T’au fire warriors, having witnessed the rooftop drops, were streaming into the main buildings now, aware that the fight had moved inside.
Where Epsilon is sure to be, he thought.
Voss and Chyron weren’t part of that search, but if they failed in their objectives, no one would be flying out of here.
Over the vox, the Imperial Fist addressed the massive Lamenter. ‘Ready to unleash some rage, Old One?’
‘Get me on the ground, brother, and you will see!’
Voss smiled and voxed the pilot. ‘Clear some space and get us down. As near to that armoury as you can.’
He, his fire-team and Chyron would be facing the most resistance, drawing the heaviest and most prolonged fire. For those inside the prison blocks and central tower, the fighting would be corridor by corridor, bloody and close, just the way the kill-team had so rigorously trained in the kill-blocks back on Damaroth.
For the Imperial Fist, the Lamenter and those with them, things would be more chaotic. That armoury had to be breached and any vehicles within either crippled or destroyed. That meant a drop under heavy fire on open ground and, once the armoury was dealt with, the distinct possibility of getting pinned down inside. Chyron was supposed to be the solution for that. Voss was counting on him to keep the bulk of the t’au forces at bay until he and his team could rejoin him outside and push the xenos back.
The moment Reaper Three swung out over the edge of the prison block and back into view of the ground forces, wave after wave of bright rounds blazed up at it.
The Stormraven strafed the ground in response, bolters blazing, cutting down entire squads. Then something screamed past the cockpit, too close for comfort.
‘Missiles!’ warned the pilot.
Voss barked over the vox-link. ‘Prophet! You’re supposed to be taking out anti-air threats. We almost got hit!’
‘I haven’t missed a kill yet,’ snapped Solarion. ‘But there are two XV8s down there and I can only get an angle on one of them. If you can’t stand the heat–’
Voss ignored that and addressed the pilot. ‘Put a missile on the cluster nearest the hanger. Light them up, then drop us in right on top of the bodies. Is that clear? I want Chyron free the moment we have that ground.’
‘They can still get a lock, m’lord. It’s too dangerous while–’
‘We’re not here to play safe,’ growled Voss. ‘We’re here to get a job done. Now light them up and get us down!’
‘Aye, m’lord.’
The craft dipped violently.
‘Spear two, spear two!’
Twin trails of fire and smoke lanced from under the Stormraven’s wings. The two missiles screamed towards a cluster of t’au warriors defending the armoury from hastily deployed barricades. They struck close together. The ground erupted. Fire blossomed into the air. Body parts rained down. The barricades were blasted apart. The ground beneath was blackened in a great ring.
Reaper Three arrested its drop and swung in, taking multiple hits on the hull from enemies on either side. Engines roaring, the Stormraven settled hastily into position, the pilot pulling back on his yoke and hauling the craft’s nose up. It stopped, hovering for just a moment about three metres above the ground. Blinding t’au fire stitched the craft but the armour held. Still, at this volume of fire, and at this range, the risk to the engines and fuel tanks was too much to bear for long.
‘Disengaging magna-grapples!’
Chyron dropped from the back of the Stormraven and hit the ground with a shudder. His piston legs hissed as they took the force of the impact. He swung his armoured chassis around, surveying the enemy ranks before him even as they turned their weapons on him.
His assault cannon cycled up with a whine. A deep, booming stutter erupted from it. Tracer rounds stitched the enemy in a broad arc. Armour shattered. Blue blood sprayed. The weapon’s overwhelming noise drowned out the screams of dying blue-skins.
The Lamenter stomped forward, swinging and firing in sweeps, slaying fire warriors to left and right, ignoring the rounds that smacked into his thick plate. He was utterly intent on clearing the area for Voss and the Elysians to drop in behind him.
‘I have the landing zone, Omni,’ he boomed. ‘Drop and do some work!’
Voss didn’t need to be told. He’d seen everything from the starboard-side hatch. At a gesture, his stormtroopers stepped out from the hold and into open air, dropping on their ziplines. When they had formed a cordon, weapons facing out, already blazing, Voss dropped right in the centre.
Between Chyron’s blizzard of fire and the hail from the heavy-bolters of Reaper Three, the t’au found themselves heavily suppressed. It was enough to allow Voss’ team the drop they needed. No fatalities. No wounds. Now they were down, however, t�
�au rounds began whipping in their direction.
Voss ignored them, even as several smacked into his right pauldron, and led his people at a run towards the armoury. The rolling metal doors were gradually lifting. The t’au were bringing out armour to meet the Imperial assault. He had to get this done now. No mistakes.
‘Tell me you’ve got this, Lamenter! Tell me you can hold!’
‘I have it,’ roared the Dreadnought. ‘Be about your business.’
Voss sprinted, his kill-team right behind him, running full tilt to keep up. Voss had deployed with a meltagun, the better to deal with enemy armour. As heavy as it was, it didn’t slow him. Still, the armoury doors were already at head height when he reached them. He ducked under, barely slowing his pace, and barrelled inside. Before him was a broad hangar, the air within humming noisily with anti-gravitic engines and the powering up of deadly energy weapons.
The t’au were bringing out their big guns to take down the Stormravens. Voss had to make sure they never got that chance.
Fire whipped down at him and his team from gantries and metal stairwells.
‘Drop them!’ he barked.
Hot-shot las-fire cracked the air.
Alien bodies fell limp, their flesh cratered and burned, but the enemy vehicles were powered up now. They began to turn towards him, eager to bring their weapons to bear.
He raced straight for the nearest.
‘Melta charges! Get your backsides in gear!’
The turret of the TX7 Hammerhead at which he was running almost had a bead on him, but Voss threw himself forward onto his back, skidding under it on a trail of sparks, and fired a blast from his meltagun straight up into its smooth metal underbelly.
The massive tank trembled. A gaping hole appeared in its armour, edges glowing white hot. Voss rolled out fast. Underneath a dying tank was not a good place to be. Just as he got clear, there was a dull crump from inside, a secondary explosion. The gravitic motors suddenly failed. The Hammerhead hit rockcrete. A second later, pieces of its curved hull exploded outwards, filling the air with hot fragments.
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