Shadowbreaker

by Warhammer 40K

‘So we go together,’ said Rauth. As was his way, he didn’t seem to be giving Karras much choice, despite the matter of rank.

  Karras eyed him a moment, then said, ‘Great is the worth of he who would walk beside you into that darkness where no man has stepped before.’

  ‘Cervesta’s White Road to Stramos. Thirty-second millennium.’

  Karras grinned. ‘I can’t seem to get away from you. Perhaps I should feel blessed.’

  ‘No,’ said Rauth. ‘You should not.’

  Karras ordered Morant forward to the door panel. ‘How long?’ he asked as the Elysian pulled a hacking panel and cables from a pouch on his webbing.

  Morant was kneeling, already at work when he answered. ‘Solid encryption. Three levels. Estimating full vator control in four to six minutes, m’lord.’

  The fresh sound of boots on the corridor floor reached Karras’ and Rauth’s enhanced ears.

  ‘Scholar, we’ve got incoming. A lot of them.’

  ‘Carland,’ said Karras. ‘Get into cover with a fire arc on the north corridor. Rauth, cover the west. I’ve got the east.’

  Carland nodded. ‘M’lord’s command.’

  All three got themselves into position.

  ‘If they cluster,’ said Karras, ‘use frags.’

  The first of the t’au squads to arrive began firing from the cover of the corner around which Karras and his Elysians had only just come. Pulse rounds smacked and fizzed on the outward face of the barricade.

  Karras checked his current mag, cocked his bolter and said to Morant, ‘Make it three minutes, soldier. They’re about to throw a lot of pressure our way.’

  With that, he raised himself above the lip of the barricade and took aim.

  Thirty-one

  Guns blazing, the Stormravens strafed the walls and rooftops mercilessly. T’au bodies were ripped apart by the dozen, splashing the walkways blue. Others were punched over the edge by rounds that struck them centre-mass. They tumbled screaming to the unforgiving ground below.

  As the gunships systematically cleared the walls and towers, missiles streaked into the air, leaping up on trails of fire and smoke to try and strike them down. Even so, as the walls and towers were being purged, the lock-on alarms in the cockpit of each Stormraven began to blare less and less frequently. Each time the warning runes lit, the pilots would hit a countermeasures rune, sending out a cloud of flares and irradiated chaff. Guidance systems became confused. Missiles detonated harmlessly in mid-air. Each time they did, however, the pilots threw increasingly anxious glances at their readouts. All too soon, the stock of countermeasures would be gone, and there would be no choice left but to outfly the missiles. At that point, their skills would be measured against their lives.

  It was not a competition any pilot won for long.

  ‘It’s working,’ Solarion told Flight Lieutenant Graka. ‘Keep the pressure on them. The heights are almost clear!’

  The Stormravens hadn’t been able to risk a hover since the moment they had dropped the assault teams. Now, with the t’au threat all but cleared from the walls, it was time for Solarion to take his shot.

  Leaning out of the right-side hatch, he ordered the pilot to circle while he looked for a kill angle on one of the XV8s. Down on the ground, in positions of barely adequate cover between the barracks, hangars and prison blocks, he could see Voss and Chyron more or less pinned down, doing their best to hold fast with the support of Copley’s soldiers. A couple of bodies in black assault gear lay beside them in growing pools of red. Some of the Arcturus operators had already paid the ultimate price in their duty to the Golden Throne.

  One of the XV8s emerged from behind the corner of a barracks building and fired searing blue bursts at Talons Four and Six. Chyron, being the bigger and wielding the most firepower, was the obvious target. He shuddered and staggered backwards as the beams struck his dense armoured chassis. Two glowing craters the size of melons marked his black body now, smoke drifting into the air from each.

  The Dreadnought shook it off and returned fire, but the XV8 had used its jets to dash at blistering speed to fresh cover.

  The shells from Chyron’s assault cannon tore the wall of the barracks to pieces, revealing the plasteel supports beneath the rockcrete, but the XV8s were just too fast for the Lamenter to get a proper bead when cover was so plentiful.

  No kill angle on that one. Not from here.

  ‘Where’s the other?’ Solarion wondered.

  Then, as Reaper Two swung around on the western edge of the battle, with the sky’s first hints of dawn on the far side, he saw movement between the north block and the central tower. It was fast and large. It had to be the other battlesuit.

  He barked orders to the pilot, and the Stormraven swooped in for yet another kill.

  Siefer Zeed’s lip was pulled back over his teeth as he looked at the monitors in the control room of the south cell block. The rest of Talon was deep in combat, already revelling in his beloved dance of death. And where the hell was he? Stuck in a cell block control room, watching it unfold on a bunch of damned holo-screens.

  ‘Enough!’

  ‘My lord?’ asked Corporal Gaman, the most senior of the troopers Copley had assigned to him as support.

  ‘I said it’s enough, by Terra!’ Zeed swung to face him, his flawless white face creased with cold fury. ‘I can’t languish here watching it all from a distance.’

  Gaman, for all his years as a hardened xenos killer, could only look back into those coal-black eyes for a moment. He broke his gaze away to look at the firefight on the monitors.

  ‘M’lord should be out there,’ he said, ‘where the fighting is. You were born for that, m’lord. Go take the Emperor’s wrath to them. We’ – he gestured to the other Elysians in the room – ‘will hold the block until the major orders us out.’

  Zeed was already on his way to the door when he heard Gaman add one more thing.

  ‘We’ll be watching on the monitors, my lord. And if we might ask a favour…’

  ‘Ask it,’ said Zeed.

  Gaman grinned. ‘Make it worth watching!’

  Zeed grinned back, punched the command glyph for the control room doors and broke into a run.

  His blood was already up at the thought of throwing himself into battle. His secondary heart began to pump. Combat chemicals flooded his system, sharpening his senses.

  He moved through the cell block like a freight train, his pauldrons smashing rockcrete from the walls as he rounded tight corners. Soon, all that separated him from the battle outside was a set of metal doors at the end of the final corridor. As he thundered towards them, he felt elation and excitement flowing through him. He flexed his fists eagerly.

  He was just metres from the doors when they exploded inwards – a great wash of fire and heat and deadly debris.

  The blast knocked him from his feet.

  Thirty-two

  The corridors were filled with a smoky haze and the sharp smells of ionised air and t’au blood.

  ‘Carland,’ moaned Morant.

  The sergeant knelt by the motionless body of his fellow operator, cradling his head. No response. Carland was already gone, deep cauterised holes bored through his armour and the flesh and bones of his chest. Smoke still wisped upwards from them.

  The fighting had been fierce, the t’au desperate to prevent Karras, Rauth and the Arcturus troopers from getting below. They had thrown a wall of blistering fire at the Imperials behind the barricade. When that hadn’t worked, they’d tossed smoke and tried to rush them.

  Foolish and desperate.

  Karras looked down at Morant holding his dead comrade. He was conditioned to be cold in battle, but he knew what Morant was feeling. Even Space Marines knew grief. The Death Spectres had faced long odds and come through many, many times, but the price had often been painfully high.

  He cou
ld see colours of deep sorrow and loss, tinged with flickers of survivor guilt, coruscating around Morant’s kneeling form.

  He placed a heavy, gauntleted hand on the Elysian’s shoulder. ‘He fought with honour. His place is assured. Do not grudge him a worthy death just because you must go on without him. This was his time.’

  Morant took a deep, ragged breath and sighed. ‘He was young.’

  ‘Fruit falls when ripe, but a man may die on any day,’ stated Rauth.

  Karras recognised it. The Fourth Book of Thoule by Duris Trant. Trant had been eaten alive by razormouth squid on Ashika while swimming in a lake. There had never been a fifth book.

  Behind Karras, the hacking module Morant had set up chimed. The vator doors gave a mechanical hiss and slid back into their housing.

  Karras turned to see the open vator cage waiting for them. At the same moment, he noted the hurried approach of more booted feet closing quickly on their position.

  ‘Take his tags, Morant,’ he told the grieving soldier. ‘It’s time to go!’

  Rauth strode into the vator, turned and raised his weapon to cover the others. He, too, had heard the rush of feet on the corridor floor.

  Morant grabbed the tags and tugged them from Carland’s neck. ‘See you when it’s my time, Car.’

  He stood, bowed his head briefly and made the sign of the aquila.

  Just as he was turning to the vator, beams of blinding t’au fire scored the air around him. Rounds smacked into the walls on either side of the vator doors. One found its mark on Morant’s left arm, burning away a bite-sized channel of flesh. The Elysian cried out and dropped into a crouch, nerves singing with agony.

  From the cover of the vator doors, Rauth leaned out and sent bursts back at the t’au.

  ‘Scholar!’ he snapped.

  Karras was already moving. He grabbed Morant by the combat webbing on his back and tossed him into the vator. Morant hit the far wall with a moan and dropped to the floor.

  The t’au began blasting away in earnest, rounds peppering the walls in their hundreds.

  Rauth hit a rune on the panel inside the vator and the doors began hissing shut.

  As they did, Karras threw out a hand to stop them. Soaking up several shots on his arm and pauldron, he reached round to the outside of the vator and grabbed Morant’s hacking module. Then he ducked back inside and let the doors resume closing.

  Through the narrowing gap, glowing pulse rounds and burning beams scored the metal of the vator cage’s back wall, but the t’au had missed their chance.

  Whatever lay below, whatever the t’au were hiding here, Karras was about to see with his own eyes.

  Thirty-three

  Zeed shoved a block of rubble from his breastplate with a grunt and pushed himself to his feet. Dust from the destruction of the cell block doors filled the air. The impact had killed the lighting in the corridor. Daylight was dawning outside, but its illumination hadn’t reached the canyon floor on which the Tower sat.

  Space Marine eyes needed only a tiny amount of light, of course, to see perfectly well. Ahead of him, he made out a hulking armoured form on its back. It was half blocking his route out.

  He slung his tactical bolter over his shoulder and slid his fists into the housing of the lightning claws mag-locked to each of his thighs. His weapons of choice. Nothing else compared. No high ever came close to the battle-rush of hand-to-hand combat. He often entered a half-mindless peak state in which his whole body was given over to the ultimate expression of the life-and-death struggle between mortal foes.

  He was different from the others. Duty and honour were important, yes, but it was the battle-high that gave his life meaning. He could never get enough.

  With the claws locked into place, he sent a thought impulse through his armour’s neural connection. A lethal power field activated just millimetres from the metal surface of each claw – a deadly invisible addition that made a mockery of most amour, even that of tanks.

  This done, he moved forward to investigate.

  He found himself standing over a t’au battlesuit with two perfect holes punched in it, each about the size and shape of an armour-piercing bolter round.

  He opened a vox-channel, noting how weak and filled with static it was. Undaunted, he said, ‘I’m down here admiring your handiwork, Prophet. Nice of you to open the door for me.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raven Guard,’ Solarion snapped back. ‘Don’t bother me while I’m busy!’

  One of the Ultramarine’s rounds had struck the XV8’s apparent head dead centre. What looked like a head, of course, was actually part of the suit’s sensor array and control systems housing. Essentially, knocking it out had removed the suit’s advanced sensory feed, fire control systems, even some of its AI-assisted mobility systems, but that wasn’t how one killed an XV8. That was how you winged it.

  The second shot had been the kill-shot.

  The round had lanced straight through the thickest armour plating on the whole suit. If Zeed were to cut that plate off right now, he’d find that the round had obliterated the skull of the pilot inside. The cramped cockpit of the suit was awash with alien blood and bone fragments.

  ‘Hell of a shot anyway, you sour-faced son of a squig,’ Zeed muttered to himself, stepping over the outstretched right arm of the dead machine.

  Now he was outside. The sky was a pale violet, but the facility was still deep in shadow, lit only in flickers and flares by the battle that raged within its walls.

  Zeed wished he had a jump pack. Higher mobility would mean a higher kill count. Alas, he was confined to the ground this time.

  Never mind, he told himself. Still some fun to be had.

  All that gunfire meant it wasn’t too late.

  Over the vox, he called out, ‘Hey, tree stump! What’s your count so far?’

  ‘Forty-eight, not counting vehicles,’ replied Voss. He paused for a moment, then added, ‘Forty-nine. Yours?’

  Zeed had slain twenty-eight t’au soldiers while storming the prison block and taking the control room.

  ‘You’re way behind,’ laughed Voss. ‘Better give it up this time.’

  Zeed was already running towards the sound of the nearest t’au squad. With his armour’s sound damping and photo-reactive camouflage cells, the t’au wouldn’t know he was among them until it was too late. They would be focusing all their fire towards Voss, Chyron and the Arcturus troopers.

  He would claim many xenos lives before the order came to exfiltrate.

  Such a pity the t’au were poor prey without their battlesuits. They were smart and strategic, and their technology and tactics were solid at long range. But to Zeed, they didn’t provide enough sport at close quarters.

  He was thinking this when a massive object struck the dirt right in front of him. A few more metres and he would have been crushed.

  He looked up and found himself staring into the scanner lenses of an armoured figure three full metres taller than himself, all heavy plate and oversized weapons. It was mostly shadow, but red lights on its head and torso winked through the clouds of dust. This close, he could hear the humming of its powerful generator, could feel it vibrating his armour.

  Despite Zeed’s stealth systems being fully activated, the giant, angular form immediately focused on him, trying to bring its weapons to bear. Its advanced sensory suite had picked him up easily at such close range.

  To Zeed, it was as if the universe had just granted him a wish.

  Here was the fight he wanted. Here was a proper challenge where he’d expected none.

  He dropped into combat stance, arms splayed, lightning claws out to either side, blades angled edge forward at his foe.

  ‘My lucky day,’ he said with a laugh. ‘And your last. Don’t disappoint me, blue-skin.’

  Violence exploded. Machine strength and AI-
boosted reflexes clashed with flawless combat genetics, centuries of training and a love of battle that bordered on madness.

  I am an angel of death, thought Zeed as he slipped aside a lethal diagonal swipe and slashed his claws across the battlesuit’s left knee, severing cables and hydraulics. Coolant and lubricant splashed his black cuirass.

  And I will never be beaten at close range. Never.

  Thirty-four

  Karras and Rauth emerged from the vator cautiously, weapons raised.

  It was quiet. Too quiet.

  ‘This is wrong, Scholar,’ breathed Rauth. ‘No resistance? They must know we’re here. Those above would have called it in.’

  Karras had other things on his mind. The force which had been suppressing his gift had been getting progressively stronger the closer he came to this place. Here, he felt the flow of energy from the immaterium cut off from him utterly.

  ‘Karras!’ growled Rauth impatiently.

  Karras raised a hand. ‘Give me a damned moment, brother.’

  Rauth guessed the Death Spectre was working one of his fell magicks, sending some astral projection of his mind along the corridors ahead, perhaps, and kept his silence.

  Morant hung back in the vator cage, adjusting the field dressing Rauth had helped him apply to his wounded left arm. His lasgun was slung over one shoulder. His hacking module was back in its pouch on his webbing. He couldn’t wield the lasgun anymore, but he had a hot-shot laspistol holstered at his right hip and a combat knife with a mono-molecular blade that could cut through standard t’au infantry armour with ease.

  If there was fighting to be done down here, pistol and blade would have to suffice. He was no Space Marine, but he was still in the fight. He would do what he could to support the dark giants in front of him.

  Karras had finished processing some troubling thoughts. He’d come to his conclusion.

  ‘They’re pulling out. That’s why there’s no force to meet us. Whatever is down here, they’re getting ready to leave with it.’