The Ultramarines Omnibus

by Graham McNeill

  A giant crane groaned as it lifted off the main battle cannon, tracked lifter-servitors unloading the shells through the front ramp. Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priests worked atop scaffolding built around the cockpit to remove the fore-mounted heavy bolters, while below them a procession of enginseers stripped out every unnecessary fitting. Teams of welders surrounded the stricken gunship, blue sparks flaring as they replaced its heaviest plates of armour with thin sheets of lightweight metal.

  The sheets bent as augmented servitors lifted them into place to be welded and Uriel knew that they would be scant protection from even the most glancing of impacts.

  ‘It breaks my heart to see such a noble vehicle so cruelly treated,’ said Uriel. ‘We must make our obeisance to its war-spirit that it might know we only do this out of the direst of circumstances.’

  Beside him, Captain Bannon nodded in agreement. ‘Aye, but your Techmarine will ensure that the correct supplications are made and prepare us with the proper prayers to offer.’

  Crouched by the engine cowlings Harkus looked distraught at the drastic measures being taken to lighten his charge.

  ‘I wonder who he is more terrified of just now?’ wondered Bannon. ‘The war-spirit of the Thunderhawk or his Master of Forges?’

  ‘A little of both would be my guess,’ chuckled Uriel, thinking of the irascible Fennias Maxim back on Macragge who had balked at the idea of him forging his own blade when there were dozens of skilled artificers who could do a better job.

  Harkus rose from the engine and jogged around his wounded gunship, his distress plain to see. He waved a hand at the Thunderhawk.

  ‘These… these butchers are destroying my craft. Nine hundred years old, over two thousand campaigns and this is how we treat her. There will be words had when this is all over, mind. She can’t take this kind of treatment.’

  ‘How heavy is she?’ asked Uriel.

  ‘Too heavy,’ snapped Harkus, ‘she’s still over fifty tonnes.’

  ‘We need her at forty, Brother Harkus,’ reminded Bannon.

  ‘Don’t you think I know that!’ said Harkus in exasperation. ‘But I’m a Techmarine, not a miracle-worker: I can’t change the laws of aerodynamics. We can only take off so much before she’ll become unflyable.’

  ‘Find a way, brother,’ said Uriel gently. ‘Strip her down to her bare bones if you have to. Everything depends on you getting this honourable craft down to forty tonnes and still flyable.’

  Harkus shook his head. ‘I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee anything. I can feel her war-spirit’s anger and it won’t be easy to placate.’

  ‘I know you’ll do your best, Brother Harkus,’ said Uriel as the furious Techmarine returned to yelling at the cutting crews as yet another armour plate clanged to the landing platform.

  ‘Can he do it?’ asked Bannon. ‘Much depends on it.’

  ‘He was an apprentice of Sevano Tomasin, one of our finest who died on Thracia. If anyone can achieve the impossible, it is Harkus.’

  Bannon nodded. ‘Even if we succeed, we may not make it back. You know this.’

  ‘I know,’ said Uriel slowly. ‘But if we can end this, then it will be worth it.’

  Bannon nodded, then paused before saying, ‘You do not have to come on this mission, Uriel. We are the Deathwatch and this is what we are trained for.’

  ‘I have served in the Deathwatch also, and if you go, I go. Besides, Harkus will want another Ultramarine there to make sure the Deathwatch treats his gunship with proper respect.’

  SNOWDOG QUICKLY CHANGED power cells on his lasgun, his rate of reloading putting many veteran Guardsmen to shame. He fired over the barricade they’d built around the entrance to the warehouse, pitching another bladed killer backwards into the bloody snow. Jonny Stomp blazed away on full auto, and Silver blasted the aliens with carefully aimed shots from her twin pistols.

  He’d drafted perhaps a hundred or so of the most able-bodied refugees and stuck guns in their hands, before bundling them outside to the barricades to fight. Some had complained that since they were paying him for protection, they shouldn’t have to fight. Snowdog explained down the barrel of a gun that they didn’t have an option.

  Aliens poured from every street into the open ground before the warehouse, charging through the hail of fire that awaited them without fear or thought for their own lives. Before this had all gone nova he’d heard on some of the devotional vids that there were supposed to be large creatures that controlled the smaller ones, but thankfully they hadn’t seen any of them yet. Perhaps they were all at the front line, which, judging by the noises coming from the west, was getting closer every day.

  He wondered why no soldiers had come to their aid, but figured that they knew this was a Stank ghetto and that the

  city would be better off if the tyranids conveniently wiped out a few thousand Stankers. So it looked as though they’d have to do this on their own. So far, each attack had been sent packing by Snowdog and his gang, leaving more and more alien dead on the ground.

  What he couldn’t figure was why the hell were they so furiously attacking this place?

  Trask fired his shotgun into the midst of the charging aliens, and even with one eye swollen shut by the rash that covered half his face, he still couldn’t fail to hit something. A knot of aliens attacked that section of the barricade, and Snowdog opened up on full auto, cutting two in half and blowing another one’s legs clean off.

  Tigerlily, Rentzo and a dozen other members of the Night-crawlers waited at the doors to the warehouse in reserve, fear etched on every face.

  Another wave of screeching aliens poured into the square and now Snowdog knew he wasn’t imagining things: the attacks on the warehouse were getting more frequent and more ferocious. It seemed as though every alien in the city was coming for him. What the hell was the matter with these aliens? Did they resent him making some money of the back of their invasion or something?

  Silver crouched down to reload her pistols and raised her eyebrows. ‘Some day, huh?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, some day,’ he agreed.

  THE THUNDERHAWK WAS a dark shadow against the blackness of the night, the blue of its armoured hull visible only on the leading edges of its wings and tailfins, the rest having been stripped off to reduce its weight. Uriel and the members of the Deathwatch stood in a loose circle, their hands clasped in prayer. Each had made his peace with the Emperor and was prepared for the mission.

  Uriel had cleaned and repaired his armour as best he could, but its fabric was still beaten and in need of months in the forge. Teams of struggling lifter-servitors carried the last of the Thunderhawk’s cargo on board, the landing skids creaking under the strain.

  As they finished loading the gunship, Harkus emerged from within and gave Uriel a nod of affirmation. Everything was

  loaded and securely locked down. The Thunderhawk was going to be doing some hard flying and the last thing they needed was loose cargo spilling in the back. Looking at the thin panels on the sides of the gunship, Uriel knew that the cargo would go straight through it.

  ‘We are ready,’ said Bannon, slinging his weapon.

  ‘Aye,’ agreed Uriel, checking the action on his own weapon and ensuring his sword was secure in its scabbard. The remainder of the Deathwatch silently checked over their own and each other’s armaments with the silence of the elite soldiers they were. Satisfied, each man recited the first five verses of the Catechism of the Xeno before turning and marching aboard the gunship.

  Uriel took a deep breath and looked around the soaring peaks of the mountains. Distant specks spun in the starlit sky far to the west. He shook his head as a sudden premonition of doom passed through him and followed the Deathwatch into the gunship’s crew compartment.

  There was barely room for the Space Marines to move inside, with creaking pallets stacked to the roof and the gun-ship’s other passengers taking up a great deal of room. There were no armoured benches to sit on, their weight deemed unnecessary, so he crouch
ed with his back to the rumbling fuselage.

  The ramp whined closed, shutting out the starlight, and Uriel’s auto-senses took over.

  A screaming whine built as the engines spooled up to vertical take-off power and Uriel offered a quick prayer that Harkus had not let them down and that Lord Admiral Tiberius was near. He felt the Thunderhawk lurch as it lifted easily into the air, and turn on its axis as Harkus set their course. He was surprised at the ease with which the gunship had lifted off before remembering that the problem was not now its weight, but its range.

  It was all a question of whether they could reach their objective, carry out their mission and still have enough fuel to get them back.

  Uriel felt the acceleration of the gunship as the engines built up to full power, pushing them eastwards across the mountain tops. There was cloud cover higher up and while nap-of-the-earth flying might keep them safe from being spotted, it was hugely inefficient and burned up vast quantities of fuel.

  As the gunship sped eastwards, Magos Gossin, the most senior of their Adeptus Mechanicus passengers, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed through the vision port.

  ‘Even if we succeed here, will this world ever truly be ours again?’

  Uriel twisted his head to look outside.

  Purple clouds boiled in the distance and streamers of multicoloured smog hugged the horizon, reaching into the upper atmosphere like a smeared painting.

  Uriel wanted to lie, but felt he would choke on the words.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, it will not.’

  The Thunderhawk streaked through the night sky.

  THE VAE VICTUS was a far cry from the gleaming vessel that had set out from Macragge so many months ago. Her central nave was buckled and splintered, the polished timbers blackened and scorched. Many of her previously manned console stations sat empty, their systems damaged beyond repair without months of time in dock. Wisps of steam gusted from hastily sealed pipes and many of her weapons were unable to fire.

  Her surveyors were functioning at minimum capacity, most of the external auguries having been incinerated in the fiery blast of the refinery’s destruction. Much of her hull had been melted or stripped away in the explosion and her engines would only allow her captain to perform the most basic of manoeuvres.

  And Tiberius knew that they had escaped relatively lightly.

  They had lost the Argus, most of the local fleet and the Kharloss Vincennes would never launch fighters again. He had been forced to order all hands to abandon the Dauntless cruiser Yermetov, when it became apparent her warp drives had been damaged in the blast and would soon implode. Her crew had escaped to the Sword of Retribution and sent her into the warp on her last voyage.

  The two remaining vessels of Arx Praetora squadron and the Mortis Probati of the Mortifactors limped alongside the Vae Victus. Captain Gaiseric and his crew were eager to exact a measure of revenge against the tyranids.

  One Overlord battlecruiser, two battered Space Marine strike cruisers and a carrier that could not launch any strike craft was not much of a fleet to take on the full might of a hive fleet, but it was all they had.

  Tiberius ran a hand over his scarred, hairless skull and chewed his bottom lip.

  ‘Any word from Uriel?’ he asked.

  Philotas looked up from the cracked plotting table. Its slate was dark and his deck officer had rolled star charts spread across its surface.

  He shook his head. ‘No, lord admiral. The last message we were able to receive was over an hour and a half ago saying they were on schedule.’

  ‘I don’t like this, damn it. We could be sailing into a trap!’

  ‘Indeed we could.’

  ‘You’re sure there’s nothing from Uriel?’

  ‘As sure as I can be. Most of our vox-casters were smashed in the explosion or had their internal workings fried by the electromagnetic pulse. We were lucky to make contact at all.’

  ‘Then we’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way,’ said Tiberius.

  Philotas nodded and returned to his charts as Tiberius stared in anticipation at the viewing bay. The world of Tarsis Ultra spun gently before him, tainted with several bruised areas of colour that were spreading across its surface. He could see distant specks of tyranid organisms and felt his hate grow. Like parasites, they suckled on this world, draining it of its life without thought for the billions of creatures that called it home. Even as he watched them, several of the vanguard drone creatures altered direction to face the incoming Imperial fleet.

  ‘All ships, this is Tiberius. Battle stations. They’re coming.’

  He closed his eyes and muttered a prayer that Uriel was currently hurtling towards his objective.

  Whether he was or he wasn’t, there was nothing Tiberius could do about it.

  All he could do was lead his ships into battle and fight.

  SPOUTS OF MUD and water were thrown up as the Thunderhawk touched down on the upper slopes of the eastern mountains in a cloud of shrieking jetwash. Its skids slid

  briefly on the slippery ground before finally finding purchase. The front ramp slammed down into the mud and the five members of the Deathwatch and Uriel surged from its interior.

  Uriel jogged to a covering position and crouched low behind a jagged black boulder, resting his bolter on it as he surveyed the slopes below him for threats. A thick, viscous rain fell and Uriel could tell that the temperature here was many degrees higher than at Erebus. Already tyranid mutagenic viruses were working to raise the temperature of Tarsis Ultra for ease of consumption.

  The thick sheets of rain cut visibility dramatically and he could see no more than three hundred metres through it. Thunder rambled, followed shortly by jagged bolts of lightning that speared the sky, throwing patchy illumination onto the plains below: He cursed as he realised they would have little or no warning of any attack.

  He signalled to one of the Deathwatch to take his place and climbed the mud-slick slope to where Bannon coordinated the unloading of the Thunderhawk’s cargo. Another whip of lightning seared the sky and Uriel saw what they had come for, thrown into shadow by the bright atmospheric discharge.

  From the outside it was nothing remarkable, simply an oversized rockcrete bunker some thirty metres square, with an armoured blast door leading within. A hemispherical dome topped with eight long gun barrels squatted atop the bunker, its bronze surface streaked with oxides.

  Four lifter-servitors struggled under the weight of cargo pallets while Magos Gossin and his three drenched Adeptus Mechanicus tech-priests hitched up their robes and hurriedly made their way towards the bunker. Behind them, the servitors carried the precious cargo, fully charged capacitors to power the defence lasers, into the bunker with the utmost care.

  Bannon strode downhill to meet Uriel, his black armour glossy in the heavy rain.

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘No, but they could be right on top of us and we wouldn’t know,’ replied Uriel, having to shout to be heard over the rain and whine of the Thunderhawk’s engines.

  Another tense half an hour passed until eventually the last of the charged capacitors was unloaded from the belly of the Thunderhawk and taken inside the bunker. By now the Adeptus Mechanicus should be hooking them up to the main power grid. Silently Uriel prayed they would work fast.

  He slid downhill through the thick mud to his earlier vantage point and squinted down into the murk. Movement rippled below him, but was it incoming tyranids or a trick of the light and rain?

  Then a sheet of lightning flashed in conjunction with booming peals of thunder and the night was suddenly and vividly illuminated.

  The slippery slopes of the mountain teemed with tyranid creatures, swarming uphill in their thousands. Leaping hormagaunts led the charge, but in his brief glimpse he saw a trio of lumbering, crab-clawed carnifex and a great winged beast with a long, barbed tail and a huge bony crest that stretched high above its bellowing jaws. Giant blades on its upper limbs cut the rain and a steaming bio-weapon oozed f
rom its midsection.

  He scrambled back uphill, fighting through the thick, sucking mud.

  He opened a channel to the captain of the Deathwatch and Techmarine Harkus.

  ‘Bannon, ready your men! Harkus, get the Thunderhawk off the ground,’ he yelled.

  Seconds later, the gunship’s engines roared as it lifted off to assume a holding pattern until the Space Marines were ready for extraction.

  Uriel looked back down the slopes of the mountain.

  ‘And tell Gossin to work faster,’ he said. ‘They’re here…’

  ‘FIRE BOMBARDMENT CANNON!’ shouted Tiberius as the two pincered kraken moved slowly across the viewing bay. Without many of their targeting auguries, gunnery was a far from exact science and only his and Philotas’s experience gave them any chance of scoring hits on their foe.

  The bridge shuddered as the-ship’s main gun fired and Tiberius winced as a fresh batch of red runes began flashing on the damage control panels.

  ‘Hull breach reopened on deck six!’

  ‘Come to new heading, zero-five-seven,’ ordered Tiberius. ‘Flank speed. We’ve got to get past their cordon.’

  The entire bridge groaned as the battered ship forced itself into the turn, her buckled keel squealing in protest.

  ‘Come on, hold on,’ Tiberius whispered to the spirit of the Vae Victus.

  Sprays of ichor burst before his ship as the bombardment cannon’s shells impacted on the kraken’s hide, detonating in a giant fleshy burst of gore. An angular prow slid into view as the Mortis Probati crossed the bow of the Ultramarines’ ship. Her starboard guns hammered the listing remains of the kraken, blasting its thrashing body to expanding clouds of scorched flesh.

  The second kraken ponderously moved to engage the Mortifactors’ ship, its blade wings rippling as it changed course. Behind it, Tiberius could see the outline of one of the massive hive ships, limned in the glow of the planet’s atmosphere.

  ‘All ahead full,’ shouted Tiberius. ‘Twenty-degree down angle. Take us through the gap!’