Honour Imperialis - Braden Campbell & Aaron Dembski-Bowden & Chris Dows & Steve Lyons & Rob Sanders

by Warhammer 40K

  Las-fire lanced back, enthusiastic but undisciplined, as the tech heretics attempted to secure their prize from the safety of the shadows, hidden in caves of rubble and broken chimneys where the hammering of Vertigo’s heavy bolters failed to acquire them.

  The Redemption Corps major strode across the Warhound’s hull with supreme confidence. Helmetless and with hellgun slung, he pounded across the metal between his killers, feral and unreasoning. The Titan was his now and, like a jealous carnivore happening upon a fresh kill, he was intent upon running off the scavengers.

  Trepkos followed his proud skitarii, hood and cloak flowing after like a vermillion advertisement. His movements were no less determined but mimicked more the stomp of one of his Titan war machines than the stalking, animal gait of the major.

  Bounding up the cliff-face of the Warhound’s throat, Mortensen attacked the climb with fervour, pulling himself up, arm over arm through the hydraulics and ricochets. As Trepkos went to work on mechanisms under the chin of the Ferrus Lupus’s great armoured muzzle and the prayers required to operate them, the major and his men positioned themselves about the cockpit section, weapons ready.

  Rosenkrantz circled as the Mechanicus revolutionaries were drawn from their hiding places. Vertigo itself was now being repeatedly targeted, with several hopeful rockets streaming wide and a multitude of luckier las-blasts scuffing the hull and canopy. The storm-trooper’s surgical insertion and bold advance had initially taken the rebels by surprise but now their territorial desperation was showing with individuals and small groups rapidly closing on the Titan cockpit from across the wrecked landscape.

  With a deep, reverberating thud and a flash the cockpit awning mechanism fired and rolled, carried back by gravity and its great armoured weight. As the smoke cleared, the cramped conditions inside the Warhound were revealed with two stunned moderati and the stricken Titan princeps strapped into the confined space.

  The Redemption Corps major had little time for ceremony and grabbed one of the moderati by his hard-wire lines and cables, traumatically tearing him from both his link with the downed Titan and his seat. A rocket from an advancing heretic, kneeling in a ladder cage that ran up the side of a nearby tumbled smoke stack, flashed before Mortensen’s face. Before the projectile had time to strike the side of the opposing factory wall, the storm-trooper had his chunky autopistol clear of its holster. With a roar the major unleashed the weapon on his attacker, raining a light show of deflections off the bars and rungs of the ladder cage before finding his mark and riddling the trapped tech-heretic with explosive fire.

  Hoisting the protesting moderati onto the shoulder of a nearby corpsman, Mortensen repeated the procedure with the princeps and his other crewman and sent them off towards the leaning smoke stack. Offering Trepkos a meaty hand, the major pulled the skitarii officer up the forward cockpit and directed him after the storm-troopers.

  Mortensen’s men had reached the fallen chimney, which lay at a forty-five degree angle across the Titan’s plasma blastgun and several other demolished towers. With their recovered targets bundled over shoulder and pack, the storm-troopers stomped up the outside of the ladder cage, towards the chimney’s punishing summit. With furious las-fire following them up the incline from pursuing seditionists, Trepkos and Mortensen followed.

  Gliding up behind the escaping corpsmen, Rosenkrantz directed her door gunners to drive the Mechanicus menials back from the base of the smoke stack with a storm of concentrated fire, allowing Mortensen and his men time to get a little bit of distance on their pursuers. Proceeding on up the length of the stack, the flight lieutenant held Vertigo at the relative safety of the chimney top as the storm-troopers endurance-climbed their way towards them.

  Las-blasts struck wildly at the chimney, several glancing off the Redemption Corps’ thick, armaplas carapace and one burning into the back of the Ferrus Lupus’s howling princeps. A rocket was more fortunate, launched from a factory window and burying itself in the base of the smoke stack. The entire structure bucked and a visible shiver ran up the metalwork, almost shaking the storm-troopers loose. Dropping to the mesh of the ladder cage and grabbing on, the corpsmen held and waited as the superstructure groaned and twisted inside.

  Suddenly Mortensen was very animated, waving his arms and pushing his troopers on. Picking up the pace, as well as the extra weight, the armoured figures darted up the remaining length of the chimney and passed their loads in through Vertigo’s side doors. The vox chirped.

  ‘They’re in,’ Captain Rask reported.

  Throwing back the stick Rosenkrantz blasted skyward, away from the toppled Titan and the industrial forest of fallen smog stacks that buried it. Back at the head of the waiting formation of Navy aircraft, the pilot banked towards the hub districts of Corpora Mons. Soon the sulphur towers, ventscrapers and the endless landscape of wretched slave mills gave way to the baroque lines and Gothic majesty of the faith district’s tabernacles and cathedrals.

  ‘Approaching first drop zone, flight lieutenant,’ Benedict notified her.

  ‘Is he always like this?’ the major called, chomping down on a fat, stubby cigar. Rosenkrantz flashed him her eyes before returning her attention to the business of flying the aircraft through the narrower chasms of the new district.

  The major pulled himself up the companionway ladder and slapped the servitor co-pilot on his cold, pallid shoulders. ‘Lighten up, Navy boy. It’s the start of a brand new, action-packed day.’

  It was obvious that the storm-trooper was in his element from the cocksure grin and the veritable stink of adrenaline and testosterone in the cockpit. He came in beside Rosenkrantz to get a better look at the ground and snatched a headset from a canopy rack.

  ‘Drop zone is hot,’ reported Benedict as they banked into the space above an open plaza, ‘I repeat, the dropzone is hot.’

  Mortensen leaned in closer. ‘Not for long,’ he grumbled with concentration.

  Rosenkrantz peered over the nose cone at their designated landing zone, the one Mortensen had boldly claimed could be made secure. On every other day of the year it was a large ornamental esplanade and cactus flower garden preceding the entrance to an Omnissiah mechshrine. Today it was the sight of unprecedented slaughter. Black smoke was pouring from the shrine and the garden’s bloated ornamental cacti had been riddled with las-fire. Seditionists pelted the hallowed building with debris and bolts from their rifles. Ragged, beaten tech-priests were running for their lives down the length of the esplanade, pursued by posses of rebels wielding blood-splattered wrenches and lengths of noose fashioned from power cable. With the invaluable assistance of the Ferrus Lupus, this would have been nothing more than a plasma-bathed ghost town. There was little point in dwelling on that now, however, any more than worrying how Deleval’s convoy would make it through to the cathedra without the firepower of the Warhound to clear the way.

  ‘Blazer One, this is…’ Mortensen stalled. ‘What the hell is this bird called?’

  ‘Vertigo,’ Rosenkrantz enlightened him.

  ‘Blazer One, this is Vertigo. We have some hostiles crowding the dropzone. Would you be so good as to strafe those malingering sons-of-bitches and clear the way, so to speak?’

  Rosenkrantz watched as six Vulture gunships broke off from the main pack and streaked off in search of slaughter. Taking turns on rotational passes, the gunships tore through the esplanade peppering the murderous mobs with their multilasers.

  ‘Yeah, get that maggot in the hood,’ Mortensen buzzed. Rosenkrantz marvelled at the man. It was like he was watching a game of razorball. ‘No, the other one. And watch the cloisters; I thought I saw some mechhead with a rocket…’

  The sudden crack of a missile fire was instantly followed by a thunderous flash as Blazer Two took a rocket in the tail. Spewing smoke, the Vulture descended in a heavy spin, throwing its shattered tail section all around the plaza.

  ‘We have a confirm
ed hit on Blazer Two,’ Benedict reported helpfully.

  ‘Yeah,’ the major growled, his good mood evaporating fast. ‘Thanks for the update.’

  Rosenkrantz watched Blazer Two slam into the ground at the foot of the mechshrine steps. Her wings were alight and her hull shattered, but as far as the pilot could tell, her cockpit section was intact.

  ‘Blazer Two, this is Vertigo,’ Rosenkrantz announced. ‘Report casualties and status. Please respond.’ The vox gave a deathly crackle for a moment, before Blazer Two’s pilot called in.

  ‘Rig’s totalled. I think we might be on fire. I’m okay. Jesperson’s taken some flak in the back.’

  Pushing the microphone of his vox-set to his lips, Mortensen spat, ‘Vector One and Two, move in and offer cover fire. And don’t get clipped. Blazer One, would it be too much to ask to bag that munger?’

  The Vectors, the detachment’s four Valkyrie assault carriers, plunged into the maelstrom below, the heavy bolter door gunners giving a good account of themselves.

  The major proceeded to grumble orders down the vox as Blazer One and Three continued their strafing runs on the cloisters, their multilasers reducing the esplanade’s architecture to a pit-cratered mess. Despite the joint efforts of the Valkyrie gunners, a small horde of ragged seditionists closed on the downed Vulture, hacking at the cracked canopy with lump hammers and track irons.

  ‘Nash, get out of there!’ Rosenkrantz bellowed down the vox. The pilot had his Navy issue pistol out and was trying to scatter the mob, but it was thankfully just as difficult blasting out of the canopy as smashing in.

  ‘Can’t… move… Jesperson.’

  Vector One’s shadow suddenly passed over the gang and a hail of bolter fire tore several of the rebels off the aircraft and deposited them in a bloody heap on the plaza floor. Not before a scrawny runt of a seditionist slotted a grenade through the small opening the lump hammer had caved in the canopy armaplas, however. There were assorted wails of desperation from the vox before the inside of the cockpit lit up with the momentary blast of a frag firestorm.

  ‘Vrekkin’ animals!’ Mortensen roared, ripping the vox-set from his shaven skull. ‘Put this beast down on the deck, now,’ he ordered, shimmying down the companionway ladder.

  Throwing the Spectre into a nose-dive, Rosenkrantz was determined to come in high and fast, giving the rocket launcher little time to acquire the Vertigo as a target.

  ‘Benedict, prepare countermeasures.’

  ‘Affirmative, flight lieutenant.’

  Rosenkrantz altered the channel on her vox: ‘Chief, we’re going in. We’ll need plenty of cover fire, the zone is still hot.’ Nauls grunted affirmation back down the vox. As crew chief he would already have his hands full. Besides managing the Vertigo’s four door gunners, he also had the cramped conditions created by the presence of two fully loaded Imperial Centaur fire support vehicles stowed in the hold to contend with; this with the extra headache of the major’s storm-troopers, strapped into their bulky grav-chutes, sitting up forward. And now, with the Spectre packed to bursting point, he also had the morose Mortensen bouncing around down there to make his life even more miserable.

  With a screech of air brakes, Rosenkrantz pulled the Spectre up, just in time to avoid burying the aircraft under the esplanade. The assault carrier’s superstructure creaked in protest, but with Rosenkrantz at the stick it was used to such cavalier handling.

  ‘Lowering landing gear,’ the co-pilot droned.

  It wasn’t long before Rosenkrantz had given the crew something to do. All four heavy bolters sang an ode to death from the top of their barrels, sweeping the plaza of carefully advancing seditionists, intent on murder and mayhem. The Spectre came to rest gently on the esplanade.

  Benedict saw it first, his usual demeanour abandoned in favour of something more direct. ‘Starboard side!’

  Rosenkrantz picked out their bushwhacker, resting his rocket tube against a bolt-mangled pillar, aiming straight at the Vertigo.

  ‘Holy Throne. Brace for impact!’ she screamed down the vox. One of the Vultures unexpectedly swept side-on between them, a constant rain of multilaser fire driving their assailant further along the cloisters.

  If that wasn’t enough, Mortensen was out on the plaza, striding across the killing ground between streams of heavy bolter fire and ducking under Blazer One’s swooping hull. Rosenkrantz watched as the gunship rose out of the plaza for another run and the seditionist stepped out from behind a cloister pillar, ready once again to fire on the Vertigo with his rocket tube.

  Instead he came face to face with the Redemption Corps major, who was casually injecting a fresh magazine into the grip of his chunky autopistol. The two men looked at one another, the rocket launcher useless at that range and limp in the rebel’s hands. Mortensen flicked up the pistol, blasting the rebel almost point-blank. The first round lifted the seditionist’s flailing body from the ground and flung him back against the cloister wall. Closing on the rebel, the major unleashed further fury with the weapon as he blasted away with each sure-footed step, three, four, five times, before flicking to auto and riddling the mechhead’s body with the remainder of his clip. Kneeling by the tattered corpse Mortensen emptied his weapon in the seditionist’s lap before slapping another magazine home. Holstering the weapon, he scooped up the abandoned rocket tube, with its single rocket.

  A hammer-wielding maniac came at Mortensen from the left on his return to the aircraft, but one of the door gunners plucked him out of reach with a short burst of explosive firepower. Rosenkrantz heard him slap the side of the cockpit harshly.

  ‘Lower ramp,’ she instructed Benedict.

  The Spectre gave another creak as a Centaur fire support vehicle rolled out from under the aircraft’s beak and came to a standstill by the downed Vulture’s blasted remains. A begoggled Volscian popped out of the central hatch and got to grips with the pintle-mounted assault cannon.

  The Spectres and Centaurs combined gave the Redemption Corps and their Shadow Brigade compatriots just the speed and flexibility they needed for fast deployment in crowded battlezones. Chimera carriers were not only too large to be transported in the swollen hulls of the Spectre-class Valkyries, they were too wide and slow for the chaos of Illium’s narrow streets. Fire support Centaurs were super-charged for swift transportation under fire; they were also fully armour-encased, unlike their tow-tractor brethren and packed the punch of a small infantry support vehicle.

  Another slap and a wave from Mortensen. ‘Benedict, close ramp. White Thunder, you are cleared to begin your descent,’ Rosenkrantz assured one of the sister Spectres.

  ‘He’s in,’ the chief told her curtly down the vox. Feathering the stick, Rosenkrantz took the aircraft off the deck and cleared the drop zone. It wasn’t long before Mortensen was back in the cockpit.

  ‘As soon as the last Spectre’s cleared, have them go straight to the airstrip. Despatch the Vectors to establish hold points. Blazer One and Three to provide cover for the fire support vehicles; all remaining Vultures to escort the carriers and secure the evacuation. Clear?’

  ‘As the skies, sir.’

  ‘It’d better be,’ Mortensen warned, ‘I’m not losing any more birds to menials who get lucky with rocket launchers.’ He tossed Benedict the rocket tube. Picking the blood-bathed weapon up with his thumb and fingertips, Benedict deposited the launcher on the ledge above his hullside codifier panel. ‘Souvenir,’ the major told him, before stepping back on the companion ladder.

  ‘If you have any trouble I’ll be in the hold, suiting up,’ he called to Rosenkrantz, his good mood returning within moments, the prospect of diving head first out of a perfectly good aircraft appealing to the major’s sensibilities.

  The pilot pursed her lips, allowing the casual slur to hang in the air. She’d been wrong about carrying Mortensen, she mused. There would be a lot less trouble for her and her crew once the maj
or was off her bird. And that moment couldn’t come soon enough.

  III

  As Vertigo’s ramp rolled open and the full glory of the Illium warzone was revealed to Mortensen, Krieg’s warnings came back to haunt him.

  Corpora Mons and other periphery districts were overrun by heretics, defectors and infectious mayhem. The small-scale firefights and rioting mobs had found their way into every part of the city. The capital was turning itself inside out. The landing zone had been hotter than he’d expected, but he’d put that down to Sass and plain bad luck. Mostly Sass. From here the whole planet seemed ablaze with rebellion. Anything bearing the caducal helix of the Mechanicus or the Imperial aquila had been blown to pieces or razed to the ground. Thick smoke spewed from the urban nightmare below, the rough black lines carving up the sky like an insane tessellation. Vertigo cut through the pattern, her slipstream dispersing the stack so it appeared like the aircraft had snapped the threads of a giant spider’s web.

  For once Mortensen had to sympathise with the Shadow Brigade. Even with the 364th, it could take the best part of six months to retake the moon, street by street. Each district was a labyrinthine hell of gauntlets, sniper killzones and booby traps. This maelstrom had already swallowed the Adeptus Mechanicus skitarii forces that provided security for the installations and two companies of Spetzghast Mercantile Militia, scrambled from the subsector capital. Now it was going to swallow the Redemption Corps. More accurately, Mortensen and his fellow storm-troopers had volunteered to dive head first down the monstrous rebellion’s throat.

  Strapped into carapace and the chest-hugging grav chute, the major made preparations for the drop. Pulling his helmet on and slapping down the visor, he walked towards the opening ramp. The Spectre was high above the Cita-Cathedra of Artellus-Magna, the most magnificent of Illium’s many places of worship, glorifying the art and mystery of the Omnissiah and housing the Episcopal throne of the Imperator Fabricate. The cita-cathedra signified the heart of the capital, with Corpora districts segmentally radiating out from the centre: the spiritual quarters, administrative sectors, conurbation strips of Imperial tenement hab-blocks and, of course, the vast manufactorium zones of the city.