by C. L. Werner
Baelfegor returned fire, dropping an ork with each burst from his bolt pistol, the mangled aliens hurtling from the walkways to smash against the street far below. Uzraal withdrew a frag grenade from the dispenser on his belt, throwing it at the centremost of the gantries. The explosive ripped through the packed orks, killing dozens outright and sending the wounded stumbling back inside the fortress. The aliens on the lower gantries took cover as a rain of debris and torn bodies came crashing down on them, while those above the explosion were blinded by an oily cloud of smoke.
‘Down,’ Rhodaan ordered. Taking advantage of the brief respite, the three Raptors withdrew into the muzzle of the cannon, using their mag-clamps to climb down the bore of the gun. The hearts of each Iron Warrior pounded inside his chest, as they wondered if one of the ork gunners would take it into its mind to fire the cannon while the invaders were inside. Rhodaan was gambling that their communication wasn’t that efficient. By the time the xenos relayed such a command, the Space Marines would be at their objective.
Near the base of the barrel, Rhodaan fired his plasma pistol, unleashing a full charge of superheated destruction into the side of the gun. For an instant, the metal turned white hot, then crumbled into blackened ash. The Iron Warriors didn’t hesitate. Gripping in both hands, Uzraal deactivated the mag-clamps in his boots. Half falling, half leaping, the Raptor lunged through the smouldering hole Rhodaan had made.
Uzraal found himself in the arming chamber of the immense gun, shells bigger than railway cars stacked and piled throughout the mammoth room. it was occupied by a small army of wiry aliens, wizened little dwarfs barely a quarter the size of their hulking ork masters. Stricken with amazement by the strange injury to the gun, the gretchin were still watching in stupefied awe when Uzraal came lunging into the room. They barely had opportunity to scream before the Iron Warrior’s flamer was turned on them, streams of burning promethium engulfing the nearest of the grots and transforming them into living torches.
The survivors scattered, throwing down tools and supplies as they scrambled for cover. The few orks in the arming chamber, brutish runtherds and hulking artillerists, barked jeers and curses at the frightened gretchin, then dragged a motley assortment of pistols and blades from their belts. Before the orks could join the battle, they found themselves beset by new enemies.
Leaping through the gap in the cannon, Baelfegor threw himself into a rolling dive, his bolt pistol firing as he skidded along the floor. A one-legged runtherd, its face a maze of tattoos and hair-squigs, wilted under the barrage. The orks near him ducked behind shells and loading gantries in a desperate effort to avoid their comrade’s fate.
From beside the cannon itself, a hulking ork clad in thick layers of flak armour and tool belts took aim at Baelfegor, squinting down the sight of a blocky weapon that appeared to be a confusion of spare parts, muzzle brakes and powercells. The mekboy barked with laughter as its combi-weapon belched into life, hurling a concentrated beam of energy at the Iron Warrior. The brute’s own laughter spoiled its shot, giving its target just enough warning to realise his peril. Flinging himself across the room, Baelfegor crashed behind a stack of spent shell casings, the back of one of his boots reduced to molten slag by the glancing shot.
The xenos wasn’t to get the opportunity to fire again. Even as it swung around to follow Baelfegor’s flight, the mekboy’s head evaporated in a sizzling mess of steam. Rhodaan scowled at his overheated plasma pistol, hoping the sensitive power coils hadn’t been compromised from over-use. Sliding the smoking weapon into its insulated holster, he activated the thrusters of his jump pack, rocketing across the arming chamber to where the rest of the gun crew had taken shelter.
The orks were just recovering from their initial shock when suddenly Rhodaan was among them, his chain-sword lashing out in a vicious dance of dismemberment and death. Pistols, axes, swords and bludgeons, the entire brutal arsenal of the bellowing aliens was unequal to the murderous precision of the Iron Warrior. The howling mob of xenos killers disintegrated into a tangle of severed limbs and mangled bodies, blood and spattered brains.
The massacre of the fearsome orks threw the surviving gretchin into complete panic. Shrieking in terror, the greenskins ran from their hiding places, fleeing in complete disorder down entry hatches and loading bays.
Uzraal and Baelfegor didn’t waste their time on the fleeing monsters. The moment Rhodaan engaged the orks, the other Raptors converged upon the gun, removing melta bombs from their belts and slapping the magnetic charges against the breech of the gun.
‘Why do we waste time with the gun?’ Baelfegor grumbled. ‘With a little time we could rig the entire arsenal to detonate. Blow this abomination back to Dirgas!’
‘That would stall the ork attack,’ Uzraal agreed, stuffing the last of his charges into the shell extractor. ‘Give the miserable flesh-maggots more time to run.’
‘Follow orders,’ Rhodaan told them. He paused a moment, listening to the sound of more orks rushing down the corridors of the battlefortress. From the sound of it, they’d been momentarily blocked by the fleeing herds of gretchin. He didn’t expect that obstacle to delay them long.
‘Set the charges and get out,’ Rhodaan ordered. Leaping from the raised loading platform, his demi-organic wings snapped open, dropping him to the base of the cannon in a twisting glide. He lost no time climbing back into the barrel, or engaging the thrusters of his jump pack once inside. The confined space magnified the force of the engines, shooting him from the cannon with a velocity that would have shattered the bones of a mere human. Even as a legionary, the experience tested his endurance almost to the limit. He could feel blood vessels burst, the softer tissues of ear and nose tearing as he thundered out into the sky. Using his wings, Rhodaan turned his ascent into a spin, allowing him to watch as the rest of his squad came shooting from the cannon one by one.
An instant later, the belly of the battlefortress shuddered. Thick black smoke belched from the cannon and the hull around it. The detonation of the melta bombs was the signal Pazuriel and Gomorie had been waiting for. Rocketing from their positions on the towers, the final members of Squad Kyrith rose from the stricken xenos behemoth.
It would have been easy to destroy it, Rhodaan mused. Baelfegor had been right about that. The ork warhost in Aboro would have been crippled by such a loss. But Gamgin’s plan called for the elimination of that warhost, not its temporary debilitation.
The melta bombs provoked a response from the rail terminus, the last stronghold of human resistance in Aboro. Every siege gun and missile battery left in the city opened fire, the barrage crashing down all around the battle-
fortress. The impossibly thick hull withstood even the worst of the barrage, a field eerily similar to the void shield of a Titan crackling into life and blunting the attack. Ork gun crews returned the barrage and Rhodaan fancied he could hear the ork warlord howling in frustration over the loss of its main cannon.
The orks would be mad now, mad enough to forget anything except revenge. Mad enough to forget what little their primitive minds understood about logic and strategy.
Captain Gamgin’s trap was baited. Now all that was left was to reel the prey in.
Chapter IX
I-Day Plus Sixty-Five
The pict screens turned black one after another as the armoured train sped away from Aboro and beyond the transmission range of the Steel Blood. Captain Gamgin stayed beside the terminals, watching as the last view from the city began to flicker and distort. Through the eyes of the cybernetic skull, he watched as a vast swarm of buggies and battlewagons raced out from the ruins. A cold smile formed as he saw the immense bulk of the
battlefortress, smoke still rising from its sabotaged cannon, lumber down the tracks. The core of the ork warhost, every vehicle and piece of armour the xenos could assemble, was tearing across the desert in vengeful pursuit of the humans.
The janissary officers had been horrified by Gamgin’s decision to retreat in broad daylight. It
had taken four messy executions to silence their pleading. Terror of the ork air supremacy had overwhelmed their discipline. They should have known better than to question an Iron Warrior.
By standard logic, the exodus would have been suicidal. The ork planes would have strafed and bombed the exposed train into oblivion. It was a sound strategy any rational commander would adopt. Fortunately an enraged ork was far from rational. Lifting the artillery barrage before the city was fully subdued had given Gamgin an understanding of the ork warlord’s mentality. The beast was selfish, it wanted the credit for destroying the enemy for itself personally. It wouldn’t suffer its underlings to steal that achievement.
During the first hour out from Aboro, the train had been bombed and strafed repeatedly. Those attacks had been barely fended off by the weapon emplacements mounted on the carriage roofs. Doubt had started to creep into Gamgin’s own mind, for who could say with any certainty how a xenos brain might think? Then, through the eyes of the Steel Blood, he had watched that moment when the ork flyers peeling off from one of their runs had flown over the alien ground forces. Plane after plane was blasted from the sky by their own troops in a vicious storm of rocketry and cannon-fire. The crippled squadrons had fled southwards, keeping well away from their crazed comrades. The message had been clear enough even for orks. Since the fratricidal exchange, not a single ork plane had appeared overhead.
The warlord was going after the bait, but Gamgin was becoming worried. Only the lightest and fastest elements of the warhost were keeping pace with the train. He wanted more than that before he sprang his trap. He needed more than that to atone for his failure at the Witch Wall. Like the alien warlord, there was revenge to be satisfied. Only destruction of the battlefortress would bring that satisfaction.
Gamgin turned away from the pict screen as it finally went dark. The walls of the command car echoed with the impact of heavy calibre bullets, the chatter of a stub gun or large bolter. Human technicians and officers cowered behind their work stations each time a fresh salvo crackled against the train’s heavy armour. The towering Iron Warrior marched past them, his face dripping with contempt. Was there anything in the universe so weak as man?
The Space Marine’s gauntlet closed about the shoulder of a technician cringing in his chair. It took the barest exertion to tear the man from his station, his chair’s straps and buckles shredding into frayed ribbons beneath the Iron Warrior’s strength. The man landed in a screaming heap on the floor, several of his ribs snapped like twigs by Gamgin’s assault. The legionary didn’t glance at the broken man, the Flesh dismissed from his calculations as soon as he was no longer in the Iron Warrior’s way.
The casual mutilation of the janissary turned every eye in the command car to Gamgin. Horrified men watched as the giant lifted a slender communication wand from the terminal, the device looking puny and toy-like in the Space Marine’s hand. ‘Gamgin to engine,’ he snarled. ‘Reduce speed.’ His face pulled back into an expression of inhuman malevolence. ‘Do not question. Obey.’
Gamgin turned away from the terminal, dropping the communication wand. Before the stunned gaze of the officers, the Space Marine strode to the armoured wall and peeled back one of the titanium shutters. Silently, he gazed upon a desert swarming with scrap-work machines and murderous aliens. A stub gun stitched a tattoo of death across the armour, several rounds punching through the armaplas window and deflecting from the inner wall before finally embedding themselves in the floor. Fresh screams sounded from the men unfortunate enough to be caught in the fire.
The Iron Warrior remained at his post, no emotion crossing his features, his attention fixated upon calculations of speed and proximity. He watched the ork buggies and bikes swirling around the train, swarming like angry insects. They were less than vermin to him. It was bigger prey he wanted, prey that had fallen too far behind. The crew in the mag-engine would make the necessary adjustments. He had made that clear to them.
A palpable tension filled the command car, every mind but one gripped by terror. The janissary officers had been under no delusion that their superhuman overlords were beneficent, but until now they hadn’t stopped to consider that the Iron Warriors were insane. Digging deep inside himself, drawing upon reserves of courage he hadn’t believed possible, a young captain squirmed out from beneath a fire control station. Rising to his feet, he looked into the eyes of his fellow officers, trying to bestow upon them a small part of his own courage.
All he found was fear. The others were too in awe of the Iron Warriors to act, clinging to the fragile belief that through obedience they could earn their own survival. For an instant, the young captain knew the contempt the Iron Warriors felt for lesser humanity. Grimly, he drew his laspistol, holding it behind his back as he approached the comms station and the wand dangling from its tether.
‘They are reducing speed, captain. No need to repeat their orders,’ Gamgin’s booming voice declared, freezing the janissary officer as he reached for the wand. His head snapped around, staring in horror at the armoured giant. The Iron Warrior hadn’t moved, his gaze still upon the battle outside.
Superstitious terror closed its icy fingers about the officer’s heart, beliefs about the near-divinity of the Space Marines rising unbidden from ancient childhood. It was the gleam of broken armaplas that restored the captain’s boldness. There had been no magic in Gamgin’s intercession, simply his reflection in the glass.
‘The orks will overwhelm us if we slow,’ the officer shouted. ‘Our troops are barely keeping them off now!’ He raised his laspistol, pointing it at the giant. ‘I was there at Gamma Five. The only way we can escape is to cut loose the rear cars and leave them to the orks!’
Slowly, the Space Marine turned, his cold eyes boring into those of the captain. ‘Who said we are trying to escape?’ he snarled.
A beam of sizzling energy leapt from the laspistol, searing across the command car. For a brief moment, the officer dared believe he had accomplished the unthinkable. He dared believe he had achieved that secret dream locked inside the heart of every human on Castellax. He dared to imagine he had struck down an Iron Warrior.
Like all dreams, the captain’s was nothing but shadow and fog. He had aimed at Gamgin’s unprotected face, and his aim had been true. But he hadn’t factored the superhuman reflexes of a Space Marine into his shot. Instead of burning a hole in the Iron Warrior’s forehead, the las-beam had seared across the giant’s cheek, exposing the gums and teeth beneath the skin. The maimed flesh contorted in a sneer.
In a blinding flash of speed, Gamgin drew his bolt pistol and aimed it at his foe. ‘Pain,’ he growled as his finger depressed the trigger. The janissary captain shrieked as the explosive round struck him in his gut, detonating with an impact that split his body in two. The screaming torso struck the wall and slid to the floor.
Gamgin’s roar of frustration boomed from his armour’s vox-casters. He could feel the train picking up speed. The craven little human had countermanded his commands, the cowards manning the engine were going to outpace the ork warhost!
Gamgin marched to the armoured door of the carriage. It took six men to lock the massive doors in place. The Iron Warrior’s effort was made even harder by the fact that he was trying to open the doors against the velocity of a speeding train, bypassing locks and safeguards set in place by a dozen security cogitators. Sweat dripped down his forehead, his muscles burned with strain, the servo-motors in his armour groaned in protest, threatening to seize up and freeze his limbs in place.
Pride. Duty. Honour. Like a religious mantra, the three words formed a cadence in Gamgin’s mind, refusing to allow him to relent. Gritting his teeth, the Iron Warrior redoubled his effort.
With the scream of broken metal, the armoured door swung open, slamming against the side of the train before it was torn away completely by its own weight. The smoke which had a moment before filled the carriage was sucked away in an instant, consumed by the raging windstorm of the train’s passage. Stunned men scr
ambled for handholds as the wind tore at their uniforms and whipped across their faces. The few who had managed to don their goggles hastily turned to the exposed doorway, searching for some evidence of their murderous overlord.
There was no trace of Gamgin.
Not inside the command car.
Gamgin’s armoured fingers closed about the lip of the command car’s roof, the optics of his helm cycling through different magnifications as he alternately directed his gaze at the fast attack swarms circling the train and the heavier ork machines steadily receding further into the distance.
The Iron Warrior ducked his head against the roof as the gunner in the back of a scarlet war buggy sent a barrage of metal flechettes clattering against the command car. Screams rose from the carriage beneath him, telling Gamgin that the orks had disposed of at least a few of the simpering Flesh.
Dismissing the officers and the orks from his thoughts, Gamgin focused instead upon the mag-engine ahead of him. At the train’s present velocity, the slightest misstep would smear him across the desert, his body smashed to pulp inside his armour. It was not the sort of death an Iron Warrior would seek. Gamgin knew of a far better one, one that would blot out the shame of his failure and make his name a legend.
Mustering his superhuman body’s tremendous strength, Gamgin flung himself from the roof, clearing the five metres between the car and the mag-engine. The Iron Warrior’s gauntlets scraped against the curved surface of the engine roof as the train’s momentum dragged him backwards. For a moment, it appeared to be a vain effort, but at the last instant the Space Marine’s fingers closed about the leaden nub of a purity seal. Years of exposure to the pollutants of Castellax had hardened the seal and endowed it with incredible tensile strength. For a second, it was able to arrest Gamgin’s momentum. It was all the time a Space Marine needed.