Shadowbreaker

by Warhammer 40K

  Besides, Chyron felt a strange kinship with the Stormraven pilots. Not much of one, but it struck him that each was as permanently a part of his machine as he was himself. In essence, they were all loyal Imperial souls locked in mechanical bodies, living for duty, living through their duty.

  Maybe they were as he was – maybe duty was all they had left.

  Had they lost everything else, just as he had?

  Several streams of pulse fire just missed him. A few of the rounds smacked into the tail of the craft, glowing there momentarily until their deadly energy dissipated, leaving a small black crater.

  Reaper Three dropped a little altitude and angled slightly north. The others did likewise.

  ‘Be ready, Talon Six,’ voxed the pilot. ‘You too, Spear Team Three,’ he added for the Elysians in the hold.

  ‘Drop site in view, and it looks damned hot down there!’

  Forty-eight

  Broden and his kill-team, under cover of the Thunderhawk’s armoured wings and hull, added their fire to the assault craft’s own, helping to buy Spear Teams One and Two the opening they needed to get into the atrium and begin their push to the air control centre.

  Now they were inside and Scimitar needed to be about its own objectives.

  Kurdiza had three large, oval landing fields. Fields One and Three were given over to commercial traffic, surrounded by vast warehouses, refuelling stations and cargo loading bays. Field Two was military, and likewise surrounded, but with barracks and a large armoury. One and Three boasted three large hangars apiece. Field Two had only one, but it was double the size of any other.

  Somewhere in all this, Coldwave and Epsilon were readying for departure, trusting in the fire caste to eliminate the Imperial threat before take-off.

  Broden didn’t know where Epsilon intended to go from here. Further from the reach of the ordo, he imagined, in order to continue her fell business with the t’au.

  It didn’t matter.

  He wasn’t going to let her get offworld. He would do what Talon and Arcturus had been unable to, those unworthy dogs. He was a breed apart, scion of the Black Templars, and he would prove it today for the honour of the God-Emperor and the primarch, Rogal Dorn.

  To the west lay the main transit station serving the spaceport – a t’au thing, some kind of fusion-driven, high-speed mag-rail node that probably served commercial distribution interests most of the time. But it could be used for bringing t’au reinforcements right into the heart of the battle, and he couldn’t allow that.

  Just west, about three hundred metres, lay the closest of the commercial hangars attached to Field One. The search would start there.

  ‘Scimitar to Black Eagle,’ he voxed. ‘We’re clear. Take to the air. Keep us covered as you rise. Once you’re up, I want that transit station obliterated. I need it unusable. Bring it down. Is that understood?’

  Still firing furiously, the Thunderhawk cycled up its turbines. ‘Black Eagle copies, m’lord. Good hunting.’

  ‘Good hunting,’ grunted Broden.

  With Adeptus Astartes battle-sign, he signalled his kill-team – including the Crimson Fist Techmarine, Valo, and his two slaved servitors – to make speed for the first of the hangars.

  Black Eagle was nosing into the air. Scimitar broke from the cover of her shadow and pounded across open rockcrete, Broden the slowest in Terminator armour but moving with all the alacrity that the almost indestructible suit could manage.

  Fire warriors pressed forward, eager to exploit the advantage of having their targets on open ground. They sent a withering hail of fire at Scimitar, only to have their rounds shrugged off, Adeptus Astartes power armour more than equal to the task.

  That eagerness to exploit what the t’au thought was a great opportunity was, in fact, their undoing. From the cockpit of Black Eagle, Tarval saw them and turned his gunship’s bolters on them, shredding the t’au in a wash of mass-reactive shells.

  The landing field became wet with xenos blood. Smoking bodies twitched.

  Then she was up, swinging her boxy nose east, dipping to bring her massive dorsal weapon to bear on the transit station. The turbo-laser destructor’s coils began to glow and an angry buzz filled the air.

  Black Eagle loosed a bright blast that struck the station building dead on, turning it to dust and burning ruins. Then she flared her jets and hauled herself higher into the air.

  ‘Target eliminated, Scimitar. Reaper Three reports arrival in one minute. Black Eagle will stay on station to provide air support for Reaper Three during the drop. With your permission, m’lord.’

  Broden was running full tilt, not stopping to fire at the few t’au left alive as they took shots at him from the handful of barricades that remained intact. ‘Permission granted,’ he replied. Then, over the command channel, ‘Reaper Three, your drop zone is Landing Field Three. Talon Six, you will give fire support to Spear Team Three, who are tasked with searching each of the hangars east of the main terminal building. Be swift, but operate with caution. And stay in contact. Reaper flight will offer close support from the air. All confirm!’

  Responses were loud and clear.

  ‘There are still two Razorsharks up here,’ voxed Ventius of Reaper One. ‘Orders regarding them, m’lord?’

  ‘Don’t let them draw you away from the battle here,’ Broden said. ‘The t’au have yet to show us their teeth. The Razorsharks must have been ordered to hold back for a reason. They may be awaiting more air support, or perhaps some opening we cannot foresee. Watch your auspexes. Keep me apprised. We must be ready.’

  Power armour allowing far faster running than Terminator armour, his Scimitar brothers had already reached the outer walls of Hangar One West. They slammed their backs against it. A moment later, Broden joined them.

  Several thick metal doors led inside. The main entrance was the massive rolled shutter through which aircraft could enter or exit. This was closed and far too heavy to breach.

  No windows to look through, either. Just plasteel-reinforced rockcrete and the metal side-doors, all sealed.

  A simple breach and clear. Broden was used to going in hard. In Terminator armour, impervious to most fire, he would also be going in first.

  ‘Stack up on south, west and north,’ he said. ‘Two to a door. Caenan, you’re with me, but you’ll stay well back until I give the word. Once I’m in, the rest of you will monitor my pict feed, mark your targets and breach on my order.’

  ‘Affirmative, Alpha,’ grated Valo, voice modulated by the permanent augmetics that covered his nose and mouth. The others replied in kind.

  ‘On your say then, brother,’ said Caenan of the Doom Eagles. Bolt pistol in his right hand, chainsword gently purring in his left, he looked more than ready. The Apothecary’s ferocity in close quarters was something to behold.

  Broden stepped out, faced the door, then, having activated the energy field around his power fist, threw a blistering left that exploded it inwards in a shower of hot metal shards.

  He surged inside.

  Immediately, from positions of cover all over the interior of the hangar, from both ground level and upper gantries, a deadly rain of fire began scoring the air in bright white and blue. Plasma rounds struck his breastplate. Pulse rounds scored his greaves and cuisses.

  The barrage was intense, like being caught in a rainstorm. Broden grinned beneath his fearsome ceramite muzzle. Tactical Dreadnought armour was made for far harsher storms than this.

  Far from being pushed back, he boldly stepped forward into the blizzard of xenos rounds, mocking the efforts of the blue-skins to stop him.

  Marking t’au positions pointedly for the brothers following his pict feed, he lifted the nose of his assault cannon and pressed the trigger. The clustered barrels began spinning. A muzzle flare licked out, two metres long.

  The weapon’s unique, deadly whine filled the air.<
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  Rounds began chewing cover apart, cutting the bodies behind it to pieces. Screams were drowned out. Fire warriors died by the dozen, unable to draw back without exposing themselves.

  ‘Breach,’ said Broden almost casually.

  Two other doors exploded inwards.

  Sundstrom’s frag cannon coughed. Van Velden’s heavy flamer roared. The silenced Stalker bolters and bolt pistols of the others made barely any sound at all.

  All too soon, the hangar fell silent. Smoke and dust swam in the air. Blood dripped from gantries above.

  ‘Clear,’ said Broden. ‘Not even a ship in this one. We press on. The chrono is against us.’

  As they were turning to leave, Sammet of the Night Watch, ever the most observant, spotted something on a plasteel support pillar, halfway up towards the ceiling. It was small and dark with the tiniest of blinking lights.

  He looked at the other pillars holding up the hangar roof. On each he found a similar small device.

  He realised the blinking was accelerating. Rapidly.

  He almost managed a shouted warning before the t’au charges detonated, ripping through the hangar, filling the space with bright fire, shearing straight through rockcrete and plasteel.

  Broden and his kill-team barely had time to look up as blazing heat and light engulfed them and the whole structure collapsed upon their heads.

  Forty-nine

  Kurdiza was built by men.

  Its first incarnation was so far back in the colonised history of the planet that records of those days no longer existed. There was a single, simple reason for its location here on the lower edge of the mid-northern latitudes, south-west of the Ghadda mountain range – it was here that the first ever human craft had landed. No one alive on Tychonis today knew this, of course.

  Large sections of the spaceport and the surrounding town had been rebuilt many times. Sometimes, an accident – usually a lifter crash or a plasma generator explosion – was the cause. At one time, it had been the assaults of the dreaded dark eldar in the days before the t’au had driven them off.

  In the years since, t’au efficiency being what it was, only minor changes had ever been made. The blue-skins were content to adapt human structures to their needs. Ugly and boxy as they were, they served their function.

  The air control tower was no different. Much as it contained significant t’au technology and personnel, it was still a typically human place, its layout more or less the same as such towers on countless Imperial worlds.

  From the second-floor admin rooms into which they had crashed via zipline from the roof of the spaceport atrium, Copley had led Spear Teams One and Two up flight after flight of metal stairs, gunning down defenders as they went, ascending at last to the highest level.

  Now, with Spear Team Two stacked against the doorway, ready to breach into the main corridor of the uppermost floor, Copley and Spear Team One hung back, keeping to the landing just below, giving Team Two room to work.

  Copley knew the t’au would have rigged the door on the other side. There would be fire warriors lying in wait, highly alert, senses sharp with adrenaline.

  All the ordo’s cards were on the table now. Coldwave and his forces knew about the Thunderhawk, about Scimitar, about the survival of the force that had attacked Alel a Tarag.

  If the blue-skins didn’t quite recognise the precise level of threat they faced, Epsilon and her traitorous bodyguards certainly did. They knew better than to take an ordo task force and three Deathwatch kill-teams for granted, even with an entire hostile world against them. The inquisitor would make sure Coldwave understood what he was up against.

  ‘Door’s rigged, ma’am,’ Vyggs said.

  ‘Counter charges, captain. You know the drill.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  Vyggs had Willix, his best with explosives, set up small charges on lock and hinges, then pulled everyone back to a safe distance.

  ‘They’ll be in the halls,’ Copley told everyone. ‘Probably barricades at corridor junctions and corners. The control room entrance will be well defended. Expect overlapping fields of fire. They may have gun drones, possibly shield drones. You all know how we deal with that. Questions?’

  She knew there would be none. They knew their jobs, knew the protocols.

  ‘All set,’ she told Vyggs. ‘Give the word.’

  ‘Breach in three,’ Vyggs said, ‘two, one.’

  The charges cracked loud in the stairwell, blowing the door inwards. The t’au charges on the other side immediately detonated, filling the air with the bright, hot flash of a lethal plasma reaction. Pulse and plasma fire immediately began pouring through the blasted doorway, but Vyggs had his people in cover well back from the opening. He signalled two of them, Dewer and Yann.

  They moved up into the hard cover of the doorframe. Yann tugged a grenade from his webbing. Dewer was carrying a grenade launcher and adjusted the round selector on its fat magazine instead. He threw Yann a wink and a nod.

  Yann pulled the pin, counted to three and tossed his grenade.

  A two-count later, the bright flash and snap of a powerful electromagnetic pulse reached them from down the hall.

  All enemy fire suddenly stopped.

  Dewer leaned out and fired a round from his launcher. It exploded right among the t’au, hot shrapnel ripping through xenos flesh where it was least armoured. Cries of agony rang out.

  ‘First fire-team,’ barked Vyggs. ‘Smoke. Optics on infrared. Secure the corridor.’

  Dewer hit his weapon’s round selector and fired again, filling the corridor with heavy smoke. Four storm troopers surged past him, weapons raised and ready.

  The sharp crack of lasgun fire sounded, then died off abruptly.

  ‘Barricade cleared, captain,’ reported Sergeant Vanoff. ‘We’re in the cover of the walls. They have another nest covering this position from right down the hall. Permission to take it, sir?’

  ‘Hold in cover,’ said Vyggs. He led the rest of Spear Team Two into the corridor. Copley and her team held back, still covering the rear, alert for any sign of t’au flankers on the stairwell below.

  Vyggs voxed her after he had assessed things from the first barricade. ‘Two gun drones, but the EMP took them out. Grere, destroy those things before they come back online. Four blue-skin infantry killed. One injured.’ There was a pause, then the bark of a single pistol shot. ‘Five killed. Team Two moving to clear other nest now. Team One clear to move up.’

  ‘Morrow, Caulsen,’ said Copley, turning to two of her men.

  Each nodded their helmed heads.

  ‘Hold here. Razor sharp. You understand me?’

  ‘Razor sharp, ma’am,’ replied Morrow, the older of the two. He slapped the other man’s shoulder. ‘You and me get the dog’s job this time, tough stuff.’

  Caulsen groaned resignedly.

  Copley ordered the rest of her people up and through the breach.

  Vyggs and his team had used the same tactics on the second barricade. So long as shield drones were in grenade range, they could be knocked down briefly with EMP. Outside that range, they were a nightmare, allowing t’au sharpshooters to punish attackers at long range with almost total impunity.

  Thank Terra for close, tight corridors, thought Copley.

  Vyggs confirmed clearance of the second barricade. Copley moved up to join him. With a thin, flexible vid-picter, its tiny lens peeking around the next corner, they surveyed the corridor between them and the final barrier to the tower’s air control centre. On the device’s display, they could see another t’au nest bristling with weapons, shimmering with projected energy shields.

  Copley felt an unpleasant tingle on the back of her neck.

  ‘The main room is right there, ma’am,’ said Vyggs. ‘The corridor goes from here right towards it, but at the door, it splits off left and right, and they�
�ll have squads covering the entrance from both directions. We can take it, but we won’t be clear until we take down both those squads, and that’ll have to be done at once.’

  Copley was silent, trying to work out what had the hairs on her neck standing up.

  ‘Ma’am?’ said Vyggs.

  Copley shook her head. Something was definitely wrong. ‘The t’au don’t sit still if they can help it,’ she muttered, mostly to herself. Suddenly, she grabbed his arm. ‘They’re going to blow the walls! Everyone! Against the back wall, right now!’

  Just a second too late.

  There was a ripple of explosions.

  Some of her people cried out in pain. They staggered and stumbled into the walls, concussed by proximity to the twin blasts.

  ‘Engage! Engage!’ shouted Copley.

  In the smoke and dust, two fire warrior breacher teams spilled into the halls right on top of the Elysians.

  Pulse blasters fired at close range, their rounds biting through armour into human flesh and bone. Arcturus was hit hard. For the first few moments, confusion reigned. Then hard training took over. Well-trained minds switched into reflex and conditioned response.

  Those unhurt brought their fury to bear on the t’au.

  Intense. Messy. Desperate.

  When it ended, six Elysians – Drake, Becker, Ryce, Gaman, Yann and Ludo – were dead. One more lay mortally injured, his life leaving him. Copley knelt beside the wounded man and removed his helm.

  Vyggs had stepped across to cover her back just as a fire warrior unloaded his pulse blaster at her from three metres away. Even as Vyggs’ torso was being hollowed out by the t’au bastard’s white-hot rounds, he managed to fire his lasgun on full auto right at his killer’s head, the beams punching straight into the expressionless, backswept alien helm.

  The captain had saved Copley’s life. The price was his own.

  Copley removed her helm and looked down into his eyes, but the light was already gone from them. They were dull and flat. Gone was that unwelcome intensity with which they had always shone when he looked at her.