by C. L. Werner
The proof of that lay in the near total absence of the Air Cohort. Almost from the start, the presence of Skylord Morax’s fighters and bombers had been negligible. For the past two weeks, however, the orks had complete control of the skies, their crude planes and gyrocopters roaring over Gamma Five with impunity and keeping the janissaries bottled up inside the settlement.
Taofang bit down on a curse as something solid slammed into his back, flattening him into the dust. The taste of Gamma Five’s polluted dirt filled his mouth, sizzling against his teeth as it reacted to his saliva. The soldier thrashed about beneath the weight. Then he felt the cold touch of sharp metal against the back of his neck.
‘If one of us is getting thrown out of here, it’s going to be you,’ a voice as hard and cold as the blade pressing against his flesh threatened.
Taofang froze, holding himself as still as the artillery barrage would allow him. He turned his head slowly, finding himself staring at a black boot and a camouflage legging. Whoever his assailant was, they were a janissary. ‘Taofang, Dirgas XX Division, Scorpion Brigade,’ he introduced himself, trying to keep any element of panic out of his voice.
‘Mingzhou, Ossuarian Jackals,’ the other soldier replied, removing the knife from the base of Taofang’s neck.
Slowly, with careful deliberation, Taofang rolled onto his side. The Ossuarian Jackals were hunters and trackers especially recruited from the scattered outposts deep within the desert wastes of the Ossuarium. Trained to the exacting standards of Lord Gamgin, they were some of the hardest fighters on Castellax next to the Iron Warriors themselves, capable of tracking an escaped slave across the toxic quagmire of the slag-moors and the poisonous desolation of the Mare Ossius. With such a killer holding a knife at his back, Taofang was amazed to still be alive. Almost sheepishly, he lifted his gaze to regard the fearsome desert haunter.
He wasn’t quite prepared for what he saw. The camouflage tunic and fatigues clung to a lithe, lean body in which every trace of excess had been burned away, leaving only hardened muscle behind. A bandolier of ‘hot-las’ cartridges straddled the swell of the soldier’s breast, locking into a second ammo belt which circled a slender waist. The ugly snout of a suppressed lasrifle jutted over one shoulder, secured to the soldier’s back by a weathered leather strap. The face that stared back at Taofang was as hard and weathered as her gear, high-cheekbones framing a slim nose and slender mouth. Eyes of deep blue stared from beneath a subdued brow. A wild mass of long hair, burned crimson by the pollutants of the Ossuarium, fell about the woman’s neck.
Taofang swallowed anxiously as he felt Mingzhou’s icy eyes study him, evaluating him like a plate of contaminated protein paste. Instantly, he felt the sting of the toxic dirt in his throat. He pressed himself against the side of the trench, hacking a mix of mud and mucus onto the motorman’s boots. It took the better part of a minute for the fit to pass and most of the dirt to be purged from his mouth. Ignoring the slurs thrown at him by the motorman, Taofang shifted himself into an upright position and turned his attention back to the other soldier.
Mingzhou’s attention was no longer fixed on the janissary. She had unlimbered her rifle and was squinting through the scope, watching the desolate streets of Gamma Five. Taofang moved closer to the woman, flinching as another barrage of shells slammed into the hills beyond the settlement. One shell, falling short or lacking the same amount of propellant as the rest of the salvo, smashed into a nearby hab-pen, sending a sickening shower of cement and body parts spraying into the air.
The hunter kept her focus on the scope of her rifle, not even noticing when a fist-sized chunk of cement glanced off the lip of the trench only a few centimetres from her head.
‘Are you crazy?’ Taofang hissed at the woman. ‘Get your head down!’ He tugged at the camouflage legging when she ignored him.
‘Want to keep that hand?’ Mingzhou asked, her eye never leaving the rifle-scope. There was something about the tone of her voice that made the question so much more than a threat. Chastened, Taofang relented and slipped back against the wall of the ditch. Another cannonade sounded from the ork position, shells and rockets screaming overhead. This time, the detonations were much closer, landing solidly within the confines of the settlement. Taofang expected Mingzhou to duck down, but she maintained her vigil. Cursing under his breath, the janissary removed his helmet and, stretching to his utmost, held it behind the hunter’s head to shield her from any flying debris.
‘D’spawn!’ Taofang swore. ‘Are you trying to get killed?’
‘Far from it,’ Mingzhou said, keeping her eye fixed to the scope. ‘If there’s one thing I intend to do, it’s getting out of here alive.’
‘You have an interesting way of doing it,’ Taofang grumbled. ‘Most people have brains enough to keep their head down during an artillery barrage.’ He glanced over at the motorman and the tech-adept. ‘Even these wretches know better.’
‘They know nothing,’ the hunter hissed back. ‘Neither do you,’ she added. ‘How will your brains look spattered across an ork’s axe?’
The image sent a shiver through Taofang, then his mind rebelled at the thought. ‘Even the orks wouldn’t drop a barrage on their own troops,’ he protested.
‘You think so?’ the woman sneered. ‘Do you think their artillery is that accurate? They’d probably do it deliberately if it seemed amusing to them.’
Taofang shuddered. After his experience in Dirgas, watching the orks teleport straight down from orbit by the thousands, heedless of their own ghastly losses in the process, he knew there was nothing beyond the aliens.
A moment later, he had a demonstration of just how little he understood the invaders. Mingzhou shifted slightly, swinging the muzzle of her lasrifle to the right. Her finger slowly pulled the trigger. A soft glow erupted from the weapon as the concentrated energy beam sped away, most of the flash and sound consumed by the dampener fastened to the lasrifle’s muzzle. Somewhere, in the dust-choked gloom of Gamma Five’s streets, the deadly charge struck its target.
Without changing her position, Mingzhou motioned for Taofang to stand. Gripped by a feeling of dread, the janissary rose and stood beside her. When the sniper leaned her face away from the rifle, he pressed his cheek against the warm barrel and squinted down the scope. The filters built into the device cut through the confusion of smoke and dust, the magnification revealing a clear view of the street. Sprawled at the end of the lane, its forehead burned clear through, was the hideous bulk of a massive ork. Beyond the corpse, Taofang could see other aliens creeping through the murk.
Hastily, Taofang withdrew. Mingzhou smoothly leaned her head back against the rifle. Almost at once, her finger was pulling at the trigger again. ‘Their eyesight is poor,’ she said. ‘While the smoke lasts, they’ll never know we’re here.’
Taofang gripped his own lasgun and stared dubiously into the brown cloud of dust. ‘What about when it clears?’ he wondered aloud.
Mingzhou fired another shot, then looked away from the scope to direct a sharp look at Taofang. ‘It would be best not to be around,’ she said, punctuating the statement by nodding towards the cowering tech-adept and motorman. ‘Keep an eye on those two,’ she advised. ‘The only way out of here is by train. The colonel won’t be able to take everyone out when he sounds the retreat. We keep those two close and we won’t be left behind.’
The janissary nodded grimly and turned his weapon towards the motorman. ‘I think I can guarantee our new friends wouldn’t think of deserting us.’
As each slave was marched out from the subterranean hab-pens cut into the corroded mountainside, he stared in awed terror at the crenellated rooftop of the processing centre. The once fearsome aspect of their prefect, an only semi-human mutant called Spyder, now seemed absurd and inconsequential beside the monsters who stood beside him. Encased in their armour of ceramite and plasteel, the Space Marines exuded an aura of brutality and tyranny far beyond anything the mine-workers had imagined. After a single glance,
they hurriedly averted their eyes lest they draw down upon themselves the notice of such terrifying manifestations of Evil. Until this day, the slaves had laboured in the dark of the mines, allowed themselves to forget that theirs was simply a small piece of a greater whole. The knowledge that Epsilon Station was only a small cog in the great machine of Castellax had become inconsequential to their daily allotment of toil and suffering. Now, as they marched past the processing centre towards the rail yard, they were reminded of their place in the world and the superhuman devils to whom their lives, their thoughts and their souls belonged.
The Iron Warriors.
Prefect Spyder rubbed his scaly hands together in satis-faction as he watched the slaves being herded towards the rail yard, a sadistic smile splitting his broad face every time one of his overseers set a whip cracking against some slow-moving wretch. ‘The evacuation is going more quickly than I anticipated,’ he chuckled into the ruff of fur which circled his neck. Immediately, he regretted the comment, cringing against the battlements as he felt the eyes of his masters turn upon him. There was a promise of death in those optic-lenses, none more so than in the red eyes which glared from either side of Captain Rhodaan’s Corvus-pattern helm.
‘Acceptable,’ Captain Rhodaan’s voice growled at the prefect, ‘only if one makes allowances for the Flesh. Five seconds for their eyes to adjust to the sun. Three more for them to note our presence. Five more seconds for their craven minds to slip from fear back into obedience.’ The demi-organic wings on the Iron Warrior’s jump pack quivered in a spasm of psycho-sympathetic irritation. ‘The Legion does not make allowances for weakness. All resources from this outpost are being transferred to Vorago. The timetable will not be adjusted.’ The snarling beak of Rhodaan’s helm tilted to stare down at the column of emaciated labourers. ‘If the Flesh threatens that timetable, they are no longer a resource but a liability.’
Spyder’s scaly face recoiled into the shadows of the leathery hood he wore. ‘But Dread Lord, these men have worked all night! The order for evacuation reached us only this morning…’
‘Obedience does not offer excuses,’ Rhodaan growled, threat dripping from each word. ‘In five minutes, the rest of the Flesh will embark. Whatever must be left behind will be herded back into the pens.’
‘But… the mines have been rigged to…’ The mutant’s protest died on his lips, his beady eyes bulging as he understood that the Iron Warriors had already made that calculation. Such deliberate destruction offended Spyder’s sense of materialism, years of overseeing Epsilon Station had given him a very keen appreciation of how much each slave was worth, the correct expenditures of provision which would keep the mine operating at peak efficiency. To see that thrown away so readily and callously offended him on a spiritual level and sent a chill of fear rattling through his soul. Like the slaves, he had learned a new appreciation for who the masters of Castellax were.
‘The Warsmith has ordered scorched earth,’ Rhodaan declared. ‘Nothing is to be left that may be of use to the enemy. The mines will be destroyed. Any resources that cannot be removed will also be destroyed.’
Rhodaan’s demi-organic wings flittered with a touch of annoyance. It was a waste of breath to explain these things to this creature. The prefect’s duty was to obey, not question. He had learned long ago it was the way of such base animals, the dregs that called themselves humanity. They lacked the vision to see beyond their immediate needs, the strength to endure the travails demanded of them. If there was one thing the False Emperor had done correctly, it was to engineer something better than mankind. His mistake was failing to recognise that what he had created were not guardians of mankind but their replacement.
The Iron Warrior turned and regarded his fellow Space Marines. He could see at a glance that they shared his annoyance. This task was beneath them, watching over a rabble of slaves as they were herded into transport carriages. The strategy of stripping the entire region of resources was one that grated on Rhodaan’s sensibilities. However sound the tactics, it offended his martial pride to concede anything to an enemy so base as the orks, even a land made desolate and barren. Pride in the Legion was the ultimate purpose in an Iron Warrior’s heart. Take that from him and you took his very soul.
Rhodaan strode across the centre’s roof, the optics in his helm adjusting as they focused upon the rail yard. He could see Spyder’s militia forcing the slaves into the box-like transport carriages, compelling them to lie flat so they could be stacked in staggered tiers across the bed of the car. Those on the bottom were gradually crushed as the mass of Flesh was packed ever tighter into the car. More would be smothered to death once the doors were shut. Nine out of ten would have expired by the time the train reached Vorago, but it was of small consequence to Rhodaan. His orders were clear: remove all portable resources from Epsilon Station and send them to Vorago. Whatever condition the Flesh arrived in, his job was done.
The Raptor swung back around, glaring out across the polluted wasteland beyond Epsilon Station. He could see the mire of slag spilling across the crevasses which snaked through the blighted earth, watched the eerie shimmer of toxins radiating from the scummy surface of chat mounds. Somewhere, beyond the desolation, were the orks. How he longed to find them, every molecule in his body cried out to give battle to the invader. It was only the discipline of his conditioning and the loyalty of his training that restrained him, kept him from leaving Spyder’s wretched little outpost and leading his troops to the battle they sought.
Dirgas, that should be their objective. Strike down the orks in their filthy nest, not slink away and wait for the aliens behind the Witch Wall! Warsmith Andraaz was wrong to concede even a millimetre of ground to the xenos vermin. The honour of the Third Grand Company was crumbling under the burden of inactivity. They should strike, fast and swift and with merciless brutality. Teach the aliens the meaning of fear.
Duty silenced the thoughts raging within Rhodaan’s mind. His first obligation was to the Legion and his commander, not the dictates of his own heart. There would be battle enough when the time was right. Andraaz was no coward, whatever else he might be. However hard for him to stomach, Rhodaan had to trust the Warsmith’s strategy.
‘Pazuriel. Baelfegor,’ Rhodaan called out. The two Raptors snapped to attention, fists slamming in salute against their breastplates. ‘Span out. Ensure the bombs are in place and armed. The train will be departing. Our orders are to leave nothing behind.’
‘I obey, lord captain,’ the two Iron Warriors growled back, their voices drowned out by the roar of their jump packs as the enormous thrusters launched them from the surface of the roof and flung them across the sprawl of Epsilon Station.
Rhodaan watched the two Space Marines until they landed near the base of the mountain. The long column of Flesh froze as the Iron Warriors approached. It took only a flourish of their weapons for Pazuriel and Baelfegor to turn the slaves around and send them fleeing back into the darkness of the mineshaft.
‘All those workers…’ Spyder grumbled, watching as the Iron Warriors ruthlessly pressed the slaves towards their doom.
In a single motion, Captain Rhodaan swung around, the snarling mouth of his plasma pistol thrust towards Spyder’s hideous face. A blaze of brilliant light, the sizzle of super-heated power-coils, the stench of vaporised flesh, and the mutant’s headless body collapsed. ‘The prefect would have taken two minutes to board the train,’ Rhodaan told the other Raptors. ‘Embarkation is to be completed in one. No intact resources are to be left for the enemy.’
‘I obey, lord captain,’ the Iron Warriors said again as they launched themselves from the roof.
Rhodaan gazed at the rail yard. It would be a ridiculously short massacre. There were barely five hundred slaves and overseers still waiting to board the train. Hardly worth Squad Kyrith’s attention, really. But orders were orders and obedience was what separated an Iron Warrior from the lesser orders of humanity.
Obedience, Rhodaan reflected with a grin, and ambit
ion. Today had called for the one. Tomorrow might very well belong to the other.
Gamma Five’s station was a scene of complete panic. A monstrous mass of reinforced ferrocrete, it had withstood the worst of the ork shelling, though some of the tracks hadn’t been so fortunate. Teams of slaves and soldiers worked frantically to repair the damage, slapping down magnetised plates that would conduct the current where the rails had been smashed. It was a temporary fix; the plates would be ripped from their fastenings as soon as the train passed over them, dragged along by the magnetic pull of the last car. There would be no second train following after the first.
Janissaries were already destroying the other engines in the station, demolishing their controls and propulsion rods, exorcising their machine-spirits with flame and profanity. Gangs of slaves pushed ore-cars into position behind the only engine remaining, coupling them into a long line of titanium and plasteel. Even before the cars were in place, packs of terrified humanity were clambering aboard, abandoning weapons and equipment in their frantic haste.
Taofang watched the spectacle with a feeling of contempt. Many of these men were comrades in arms, but their lack of perspective disgusted him just the same. Any janissary who threw down his gun was no better than a slave, forsaking the ability to fight for the dubious promise of safety. He hugged his own weapon tighter against his chest. Beside him, Mingzhou kept her sniper rifle at the ready, frequently looking down the sight and staring across the station into the streets beyond. From their perch on the roof of the fifth car, they had a good view of the mining settlement and the fierce fighting raging in its outskirts.
The ork scouts had penetrated Gamma Five in significant numbers, launching their attack in the midst of the barrage. But for the efforts of Mingzhou and the other Jackals, the aliens would have overwhelmed the entire settlement. As it was, the orks had been contained to the southern perimeter, hemmed in by such armour as Colonel Nehring still possessed. While the xenos were pinned down, the colonel ordered the withdrawal.