Dawn Of War II

by Chris Roberson

  Mitchels wore a dark expression, and shook his head. 'The news isn't good, I'm afraid, ma'am.'

  'Lost contact, or simply lost?'

  Mitchels glanced at his ever-present data-slate, as though the answer might lurk there. 'Lost, it would appear.'

  The two surviving light cruisers in the Aurelia Battlegroup, Forbes's Sword of Hadrian and Captain Grieve's ship, Trajan's Shield, had continued to harry the tyranid craft, but while they had been able to inflict considerable damage on the enemy fleet, it had not come without a cost.

  'The latest casualty reports, ma'am,' Mitchels said, breaking the momentary silence by handing the data-slate over. 'We've sealed off the portside of deck fifty, but engineering reports that an entire workshift of conscripts was lost when the aft compartments depressurised.'

  Forbes skimmed her eyes along the report, as though she hadn't already anticipated everything it contained. She sighed. 'I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to—'

  She was interrupted by a shout from one of her officers. 'Admiral?' It was the ensign monitoring the medium-range scans, looking up from the crystal of his station, wearing a perplexed expression.

  'Yes, ensign?' Forbes prompted, handing Mitchels back the data-slate.

  'We…' He paused, glanced at the crystal screen, and then looked back at the admiral. 'We've got inbound, ma'am.'

  Forbes leaned forward. 'Tyranid?' Could it be another splinter fleet, or perhaps vanguard elements of this same hive fleet rendezvousing after a scouting run?

  The ensign shook his head. 'No, ma'am.'

  Forbes jumped out of her seat, and leapt down the steps from the command dais to the deck proper. 'Show me!' she ordered.

  She peered at the ensign's display, then straightened and turned to her first officer. 'Signal to Captain Grieve,' she ordered. 'Have the Trajan fall back.'

  'Retreat, ma'am?' Mitchels asked. Forbes grinned, and shook her head. 'No, Mitchels. Reinforcements.'

  SERGEANT ARAMUS AND Sergeant Thaddeus, sons of Meridian and proud members of the Blood Ravens Chapter, fought back-to-back against the tyranid horde, with power sword and chainsword in hand. They had come within metres of the zoanthrope, but found their way forward blocked by the raveners and hormagaunts who fought with the zoanthrope's will. Bolter and bolt pistol spat hellfire at the beasts, but for every one that fell there were three more ready to take its place, the fiery wall of the defensive ring doing little to slow the enemy advance at this point.

  A short distance off, the Thule Dreadnought still grappled with the carnifex, power fist against talons, autocannons against venom cannon. The Thule Dreadnought was besting the tyranid engine of destruction, but the contest was taking time, and time was a commodity which the Blood Ravens had in short supply.

  Via the runes on his helmet's visor display, Aramus could track the progress of the other squads. Sergeant Cyrus and his Scouts had joined the PDF in safeguarding the refugees, whom they had herded into the governor's palace. Sergeant Avitus and his Devastator squad had their hands full with a hive tyrant and its retinue on the eastern approaches. And Librarian Niven and Chaplain Palmarius led the aspirants from the front, taking the fight to the interlopers.

  It was only a matter of time now, Aramus knew. The Blood Ravens would stand and fight, but they had lost too much ground to the enemy to be able to defend the capital city indefinitely, even if they were through some miracle able to best all the interlopers currently within the defensive ring.

  From overhead, Aramus could hear the screaming of a gunship coming in fast and hot from the west.

  Thunderhawk One had been shot from the sky by the carnifex, and Thunderhawk Two was returning from the Armageddon with Apothecary Gordian, who having completed his vigil at the side of Captain Davian Thule was coming to the planet's surface to retrieve the Chapter's due from each of the fallen Blood Ravens. Thunderhawk Three was covering the southern approaches to Zenith, where the line of defence had been weakened by repeated enemy attack.

  So which Thunderhawk was it, then, that was now diving towards the ruined streets of Zenith?

  'Thaddeus?' Aramus glanced up at the sky, while wrenching the blade of the power sword Wisdom from the body of a falling ravener.

  It wasn't one Thunderhawk, but six, a full half-dozen gunships screaming out of the grey sky. And as they fell, they opened fire with lascannons, missiles, and heavy bolters, raining fiery death down on the tyranids who threatened to overrun the capital. And even at this great distance the enhanced vision of the Space Marines could make out the midnight-black raven with a teardrop of blood at its heart - the symbol of the Blood Ravens emblazoned on the hull of each and every one of them.

  'Blood Ravens!' came a voice booming over the vox-comms on an open channel, broadcast to every Space Marine in the area. 'This is Captain Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens Third Company. Do you still require assistance?'

  Aramus could not contain the laughter that burst from his lips. 'Yes!' he voxed back. 'This is Sergeant Aramus, acting Commander at Sail of the strike cruiser Armageddon, and we welcome your arrival, captain!'

  'Then we are pleased to comply, sergeant,' Captain Angelos replied. 'All units of the Third and Ninth Companies, deploy. For the Great Father and the Emperor!'

  'For the Great Father and the Emperor!' Aramus and Thaddeus replied in unison.

  Aramus turned in time to see the Thule Dreadnought deliver the final crushing blow to the carnifex, the massive power fist on the war-engine's left forelimb smashing right through the giant monster's body, sending chitin and ichor raining down on all sides. As the broken carnifex crumpled to the ground at the feet of the Thule Dreadnought, the first of the Third Company gunships swooped low enough to deploy an entire squad of Space Marines with heavy weaponry, already firing on the tyranid horde with melta guns, plasma guns, and heavy bolters before their feet even touched the ground.

  'You did it, Aramus,' Thaddeus called over his shoulder, watching the newcomers deploy. 'You held us together until reinforcements arrived.'

  'I only did my duty, brother,' Aramus replied. 'Too many of our brothers fell to take any pride in the action.'

  Thaddeus hefted his chainsword. 'Then we will remember them when the Bell of Souls tolls, and honour their sacrifice now by winning this world in the Emperor's name.'

  As Thaddeus swung his chainsword at the head of the nearest ravener, throwing himself once more into the contest, Aramus glanced around at the ruins of the capital which surrounded them. It was unrecognizable as the place that he had been born and lived his earliest years, and for a time it had seemed that the battle to save it might be lost. It had looked likely, he knew, that Meridian might fall to the Great Devourer.

  He regarded the power sword in his hands.

  Wisdom had been thought lost, too, for a time, but then found again. So, too, would this world be rescued from the enemy's grasp.

  The battle was not over, Aramus knew. But with two full Battle Companies on hand to join the fight, there was the chance that they might still win the war.

  'Knowledge is power!' Aramus said, raising Wisdom overhead, the battle cry of the Blood Ravens Chapter on his lips as he drove forward towards the enemy. 'Guard it well!'

  EPILOGUE

  THE BATTLE FOR Meridian still raged on the planet below them, and in the black vacuum above Angelos's battlegroup still strove against the hive fleet itself, but on the command deck of the strike cruiser Armageddon, for a moment at least, things were peaceful and still.

  Once Angelos's Third Company and Captain Ulantus's Ninth Company had deployed on the planet's surface, Sergeant Aramus had ordered the beleaguered elements of the Fifth Company to withdraw temporarily, to address their injuries and wounds, repair their weapons, and to replenish their armament and ammunition. Apothecary Gordian had retrieved the gene-seed from the fallen, which he was even now putting into secure storage in the Apothecarion, and Techmarine Martellus had gone immediately to work on repairs to the power armour and weapons of t
he survivors.

  Chaplain Palmarius and Librarian Niven had accompanied the six aspirants to the Apothecarion where Gordian would look after their wounds. Of the fifteen aspirants in their blood-red bodygloves who had come down to the planet, only four had survived, two from each of the recruiting worlds they had visited - Calderis and Typhon Primaris - who had been joined with the two brothers recruited from Meridian herself. Now the six were considered to have survived the Blood Trials, and once the Armageddon rendezvoused with the Fifth Company battle-barge Scientia Est Potentia, they would be inducted as initiates to the Chapter. And then their trials would truly begin…

  Sergeant Aramus stood in full armour on the command dais, the power sword Wisdom sheathed at his side. He had spoken to Captain Angelos before returning to the Armageddon, as Angelos prepared to lead the Third Company onto the field of battle.

  'So you carry Wisdom now?' Angelos had asked.

  Aramus had shook his head. 'Only until I can return it to the Secret Masters. I expect they will present it to whomever is chosen to lead the Fated next. I would think either Sergeant Hyrcleon of the Second Squad or Sergeant Eleazer of the Fourth are the most likely candidates.'

  Angelos, his head bare in the grey light of the Meridian dawn, had given a slight, enigmatic smile. 'Either brother would be a worthy captain for the Fifth, I've no doubt. But such relics are not always carried by captains, it should be remembered. Some of those who have borne Wisdom into battle in its storied history have been mere battle-brothers, but most of them, I think you will find, have been brother-sergeants.'

  Aramus was silent, not knowing what to say.

  'Treat it well, Sergeant Aramus,' Angelos had said with a smile, lifting his helmet onto his head. 'You may carry Wisdom longer than you expect.'

  That had been the last that Aramus had seen of the Third Company's captain before returning to the strike cruiser. He had not yet removed his power armour, but come straight from the launch bay to the command deck. Not until he had received word of Sergeant Tarkus and the others would he stand down and allow the Apothecary to look at his wounds.

  'Sir,' said the Chapter serf who had ascended the command dais, eyes averted. 'We have established vox contact with the Sword of Hadrian.'

  Aramus nodded, stepping over to the captain's chair where a vox transceiver was housed. 'Put it through,' he commanded. ' Sword of Hadrian? This is Sergeant Aramus on the strike cruiser Armageddon.'

  'Sergeant Aramus, this is Admiral Forbes,' came the response, laced with static. 'We are inbound to Meridian, after the Blood Ravens battlegroup relieved us at the front.'

  'Admiral,' Aramus replied, 'I'd hoped for word of the Blood Ravens who remained with you on Typhon Primaris.'

  'You have my apologies, sergeant. In the confusion surrounding the final assaults, well… In any event, Sergeant Tarkus and his men used a boarding torpedo to infiltrate the Hive Ship, and were lost.'

  'Aramus could imagine how Tarkus would have reacted to his Space Marines being called ''men'', and wondered if she had used the same language with him.

  'Understood, admiral,' Aramus said.

  'Sergeant Tarkus and his squad have earned the greatest respect of the Imperial Navy, sergeant,' Admiral Forbes said, her voice tinged with sadness, 'and my own unending admiration. I only regret that the deaths of Tarkus and the others was ultimately in vain, without purpose or gain.'

  'Without purpose, admiral?'

  'That is, in as much as the reinforcements arrived sooner than anticipated, given the vagaries of warp travel, and had nearly arrived at our location by the time that the boarding torpedo punched into the Hive Ship.'

  Aramus could not help recalling everything Sergeant Tarkus had taught him about duty and responsibility, and the lessons he'd learned from Sergeant Cyrus when still just a neophyte. He thought about Captain Thule, now an undying warrior encased at the heart of Dreadnought war machine, forever on the brink of life and death, and the example he'd provided to those under his command. He remembered the words of Captain Thule on Prosperon, so long ago: ''Have faith in your Chapter, in your Emperor, and in your own strength, and your life - and death - will have purpose.''

  'You misunderstand, admiral,' Aramus replied, his voice low but level. 'The lives of the Blood Ravens who fell in the defence of Aurelia - in vacuum, on Meridian, on Typhon Primaris, and on Calderis were not thrown away without purpose, Sergeant Tarkus and the First Squad included. It might have been without gain, I'll grant you, but the purpose was the service of the Emperor, the protection of the Imperium, and the glory of the Blood Ravens Chapter, and there can be no nobler end than that.'

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Blood Ravens in the Prosperon Undertaking

  Captain Davian Thule

  Apothecary Gordian

  Sergeant Forrin

  Brother Vela

  Brother Durio

  Brother Milius

  Brother Qao

  Brother Kraal

  Brother Javier

  Brother Siano

  Brother Quinzi

  Brother Aramus

  Blood Ravens of the Fifth Company in the Calderis Recruitment Mission

  Captain Davian Thule

  Chaplain Palmarius

  Librarian Niven

  SCOUT SQUAD

  Sergeant Cyrus, squad leader

  Scout Xenakis

  Scout Jutan

  Scout Muren

  Scout Tubach

  Scout Watral

  Blood Ravens of the Fifth Company returning from the Zalamis Undertaking

  FIRST SQUAD, TACTICAL

  Sergeant Merrik, squad leader

  Brother Sten

  Brother Xiao

  Brother Mettius

  Brother Eumenis

  Brother Proclus

  Brother Tane

  Brother Nord

  Brother Horatius

  THIRD SQUAD, TACTICAL

  Sergeant Aramus, squad leader

  Sergeant Tarkus

  Brother Voire

  Brother Zach

  Brother Isek

  Brother Cirrac

  Brother Siddig

  SEVENTH SQUAD, ASSAULT

  Sergeant Thaddeus, squad leader

  Brother Loew

  Brother Renzo

  Brother Shar

  Brother Marr

  Brother Skander

  Brother Brandt

  Brother Takayo

  Brother Kell

  NINTH SQUAD, DEVASTATOR

  Sergeant Avitus, squad leader

  Brother Philetus

  Brother Gagan

  Brother Dow

  Brother Barabbas

  Brother Safir

  Brother Elon

  Brother Pontius

  ONBOARD THE STRIKE CRUISER Armageddon

  Techmarine Martellus

  Apothecary Gordian

  Lexicanium Konan

  OFFICERS OF THE IMPERIAL NAVYʹS AURELIA BATTLE-GROUP

  Sword of Hadrian, a Dauntless-class light cruiser

  Fleet Admiral Laren Forbes, commanding officer

  Commander Mitchels, first officer

  Trajanʹs Shield, a Dauntless-class light cruiser

  Captain Grieve, commanding officer

  The Praetorian, a Dauntless-class light cruiser

  Captain Voronin, commanding officer