by William King
“We would need to abandon the refugee camps,” the Colonel said. “We don’t have enough shuttles to lift everybody up to Orbital or just carry them out of range before the warheads hit.”
Was that what Rax had been aiming at all along, I wondered. Had he encouraged the creation of the refugee camps for just this reason? Was he trying to break out and get off planet?
“We’re going to have to stop him now,” I said. “We need to free as many of the hostages as we can.”
“Agreed,” said the Colonel. “Anybody got anything to add?”
I thought about it for a moment. I thought about that great red ring on the map, and Raximander’s final feint. I thought about all the things I had heard during the council and all the things the Colonel and I had discussed. I saw a pattern. I thought I knew the answer to what Raximander was up to. I might be wrong though.
There was only one way to find out.
“I want bunker buster bombs,” I said. The Colonel stared at me as if I were simple minded.
“You planning on charging down Rax’s throat again?”
“Not if I can help it.”
I filled her in on my plan. She did not look thrilled but she gave the necessary orders.
“You heard the man,” the Colonel told Ordinance. “Break out the explosives and outfit the grunts. The rest of you get busy. I’ve recalibrated your briefing, taking into account Raximander’s new course. Let’s get those hostages freed.”
The assault teams raced to obey. The Colonel and I were left staring at each other. We both knew what she had to do next.
“Orbital, prep the nukes,” she said.
She did not sound optimistic.
I watched things unfold. Our forces moved into position along Rax’s projected route to the spaceport. Realtime feeds showed squads of Goliaths moving into position to block his way. Warbirds strafed the weapon banks along the centivore’s sides. Grunts moved into position in the ruins and buildings along the street. All the time, the hordes of corpse warriors and elites and spiders advanced inexorably, herding the prisoners along with them.
“Looks like he’s still keeping his numbers down,” I said to the Colonel. “Below five thousand still.”
A row of hull down Mastodons unleashed their firepower on the centivore. Its skin blackened and fried but it kept coming. A wave of corpse warriors charged at the tanks and were mowed down by antipersonnel weapons. While that was going on Brood suicide bombers emerged from the buildings on either side and charged the tanks. They detonated as they did so. I could hear the explosion on the videofeed and then a heartbeat later I heard it for real.
Six minutes to go.
Helldivers moved forward, providing Rax with eyes in the same way our drones did for us. Grunts shot at them and they soared away. Doubtless there were other scouts, infected rats and dogs and cats moving through the ruins.
The centivore cruised on, a battleship sailing concrete streets, crushing cars, rolling over burning cybertanks as if they were not there.
A pair of Goliaths strode forth to engage, like knights moving to meet a dragon. Our snipers were in place now. The robogrunts were ready. They had orders to shield any of the hostages with their own bodies if necessary. It would be costly but it was an exchange we were prepared to make.
Four minutes to go. The Goliaths engaged. Their huge weapons blasted chunks out of the centivore. They backed away from the monster, matching its speed. It responded with weapons launches from its embedded turrets. Corpse warriors fired panzerfausts.
A Goliath’s knee joints went. Hydraulic fluid ran down metal like blood. It began to limp. The centivore overhauled it. Its huge jaws opened and it gulped down the robotic giant like a killer whale taking down a seal. A fifty ton battlemech vanished in an instant. It was appalling and impressive. Metal crunched like bone in those massive jaws.
Three minutes.
“Go,” the Colonel said. “Get the hostages.”
Snipers fired. Heads splattered. Elites went down. Warbirds knocked helldivers from the air. From their hiding places, robogrunts, war golems and shuttles raced. They carved their way into midst of Rax’s flanking force and began to drag, pull, push, bully, and cajole the prisoners out. Warbirds hit the centivores’ dorsal turrets to prevent them shooting prisoners.
People sprinted for cover, under covering fire from the buildings. Rax’s minions tried to interfere but they were cut down. Within two minutes most of the hostages who could be got away had been got away. Not enough. There were still men and women and children and babies in there. The Colonel was going to have to decide whether to fry them or not.
Time for the last phase of the plan. I moved forward with my heavily modified squad of grunts.
I watched the centivore crunch ever closer. I clutched my reaper tight and inspected my squad where they hunkered down in cover. Their presence was reassuring. Behind me lay the entrance to the spaceport and our final defensive perimeter, the last barrier left between Rax and getting off planet.
I vaulted over the barrier and stood in the road, reaper held over its head, making sure that Raximander could see me. The rest of the squad did the same.
Things did not look good. We had freed some hostages but Rax’s army was now so close to the spaceport that we had a good chance of hitting the refugee camps with the orbital bombardment. Nukes would get us all. My plan had better work.
The ground shook. Clouds of strange insects filled the air around Raximander. Legions of corpse warriors raced along beside the massive living land-train. Winged mutants fluttered overhead. I held my ground and the centivore ground to a halt. It loomed over me like a massive living mountain. Corpse warriors gazed down at me from the cupola of flesh above its massive mouth.
The Brood army shouted in unison, “Stormtrooper 13. You are in my way. I am going to have to ask you to move, or I will, with great regret, have to crush you.”
“If you do, your clients will be fried.”
There was a brief pause. As I hoped Raximander was distracted. I deactivated my burning skull so he could see that it was really me. I wanted his full attention. “Fortunately there is a way to resolve this.”
I walked right up to him, surrounded by a phalanx of robogrunts. Each of the teeth in that giant mouth was as big as my body. Bits of metal were caught between them. Just a few more meters, I thought.
“What do you mean?” Rax said.
I pointed dramatically at my chest. “You are not fooling me, Raximander. I know what you are up to.”
The nearest corpse warrior smiled as if he was amused. I stood before the mouth of the great beast.
“And what exactly do you think?”
I gave the signal. The robogrunts vaulted over the teeth and into the centivore’s mouth. Reflexively, it closed. Inside were a dozen grunts each of whose chest cavity was filled with a bunker buster bomb. And the insides of the centivore’s body were a lot more vulnerable than its armored skin.
As I sprinted away, I gave the signal to detonate. The whole head of the centivore expanded and then burst. A series of titanic rippling detonations split the whole front half of its body asunder. It flopped to the ground, a broken stinking mass. The rear part kept trying to inch forward but it could not move the broken bulk.
An elite stepped forward through the mass of ripped flesh. “Well played, Stormtrooper 13. You have thwarted my plan.”
“No,” I said. “I am just doing just what you expected.”
The elite tilted its head to one side. It was a curiously human gesture. “Would you mind telling me why you think that?”
“Because you were brought here by the Ishtarians. You somehow convinced them you are on the level. They brokered a deal between you and the Fiscal Loyalists. You attacked everybody but them, and you’ve driven all the other militias out of their territory. I think you’re about to make a heroic last stand in the face of Federal forces and we’ll drive you back. Your presence here will justify Federal intervention, which gi
ves the Loyalists what they want, and takes the planet away from the militias. Hell, they even get to keep their territories because they never left them. Nice feint by the way, making it look like you were going to hit their territory right until the last minute. How am I doing?”
“I am not allowed to say.”
“You are going get in touch with your employers and call off your attack.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t I will nuke Monger and his people.”
“You are mad.”
“I am angry, not mad. I am pissed that some so-called humans have made a deal with the Assimilators.”
“They made a deal with me,” said Raximander. The air vibrated as the huge voice spoke. It came from thousands of throats, some of which were never intended for human speech.
“Same thing.”
“It’s not. I am a free-willed individual.”
“I don’t believe you. And the Armageddon Protocol gives me the authority to nuke everything and everyone here in defense of the greater good.”
“This is all pure conjecture on your part. You can’t prove it.”
“I don’t need to prove it. I am a Federal Stormtrooper in charge of protecting humanity in this sector. If I so decide, I can order this whole city nuked, your employers included and no one can stop me.”
“You’ll be court-martialled.”
“It’s happened before. I will have stopped an Assimilator invasion so I’ll take my chances.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Communicate this to your employers if you have not done so already. Tell them, I will end it for them as well as you.”
There was a pause. “It’s done. I am being told to stand down.”
“Tell your employers to give themselves up. They’ll be put on trial for what they’ve done.”
“My employer has already terminated his life. He has left testimony stating that he acted alone.”
The Colonel said, “We’re picking up incoming from the Loyalists—Monger just committed suicide.”
“That’s convenient,” I said. “Are you going to stand down now, Raximander? Or do you still want to fight, even though there is no point anymore?”
The corpse warriors collapsed, the rest of the host bodies threw down their weapons. Minutes later I found myself facing a single elite. His face was pale and he seemed a little slow.
“We’ve done what you asked,” he said.
“Raximander still has some more nodes though. I am guessing one of those is on the Weapon Ship. His main brain node was always there.”
The elite shrugged. “The Weapon Ship is beyond your reach.”
“It’s heading toward the wyrmgate,” the Colonel said. “Orbital has plotted its course.”
“We’ll meet again, you and I,” Raximander said. “This was just a test.”
“Test of what?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the elite said, and began to dissolve, along with all his companions.
All around silence filled the air. Somewhere in the distance, a solitary voice began singing the BastardForce anthem. It looked like we had won.
“What now?” I asked the Colonel. We stood at the edge of the spaceport, watching the refugees pack their stuff. They were going to be shipped far away until the decontamination teams checked out the city.
“We’ve got a Weapon Ship potentially under control of the Brood, what do you think?”
“We’re going after it.”
“We need to bring it to battle and end things before we have to go through this again on another world.”
“What about this lot,” I said. “We can’t guarantee that we’ve eradicated all traces of the Brood.”
“We’ll need to leave ground troops here, and factory printers and medical nanofabs. You want to stay and be planetary governor?” I could tell she was joking by the way she said it.
“Like I want a bullet in the head,” I said.
“I’ll leave Medved in charge then, and call in more troops from the Core. We need to get back to Orbital fast and get on Raximander’s trail.”
I looked at the refugees. I saw Doctor Olson among them, studiously avoiding looking in our direction. Briefly I toyed with going over to say goodbye, but what was the point?
“I won’t be sorry to see the back of this place,” I said, and I meant it.
THE END
THE HUNT FOR RAXIMANDER CONTINUES IN JANUARY 2017
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About the Author
William King lives in Prague, Czech Republic with his lovely wife Radka and his sons Dan and William Karel. He has been a professional author and games developer for over a quarter of a century. He is the creator of Gotrek and Felix for Black Library. He is also the author of the World of Warcraft novel Illidan. Over a million of his books are in print in English.
He has been shortlisted for the David Gemmell Legend Award. His short fiction has appeared in Year's Best SF and Best of Interzone. He has twice won the Origins Awards For Game Design. His hobbies include role-playing games, board games and World of Warcraft as well as travel.
His website can be found at: www.williamking.me
He can be contacted at [email protected]
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COPYRIGHT © WILLIAM KING 2016
ART COPYRIGHT © TREVOR SMITH 2016