Astra Militarum

by David Annandale, Justin D Hill, Toby Frost, Braden Campbell (epub)

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Ten minutes.’

  Kell nodded and made his way to the back of the lander with one hand on the side to keep his balance. His power fist was stowed away in cargo, but he re-checked the charge of his power sword and slammed home a fresh battery pack into his hotshot laspistol. You never knew.

  Starport changed from strings of lights to roads, runways, landing zones, lines of parked landers and the disorganised mess of abandoned Chimeras and Taurox. Kell could see a crashed Arvus, then individual figures on the ground.

  There was a crackle of static. ‘It’s a hell of a mess down there,’ the copilot said. The roar of descent returned. Kell flipped his vox-bead to ‘on’. ‘Bring it down where you can,’ he said. ‘Are we announced?’

  There was a long pause as the lander banked slowly to bleed off entry speed. ‘I can’t get through,’ the pilot said. ‘Apparently it’s the cad-ore. Frekks the comms.’

  The ground was rushing up now, and as it did so a rabble of Guardsmen climbed the barriers. ‘They’re storming the landing zone!’ the pilot’s panicked voice said.

  Creed had not spoken the whole trip. He sometimes reminded Kell of an actor, sitting in the shadows, waiting to play his part. Now his time was fast approaching.

  Creed clicked on the vox. ‘Just put it down,’ he said. ‘The bright ones will work it out.’

  The engines flared one last time, driving the rabble back, before the landing gear scraped down and the back ramp thumped open and the hot desert air of Besana rushed in.

  Commander Nel, of the Leman Russ tank Pride of Aquaria hit the fuel gauge and cursed.

  ‘Can’t you get her to go faster?’ he yelled through the hatch.

  ‘I’m praying as hard as you!’ Jenks yelled back.

  Night was falling and the lead hunters of the Anckorites were a kilometre or two behind. The image of them kept appearing in his mind: hooded, scarred faces wrapped close with black rags, blood-red eyes rimmed with kohl, scraps of flak armour, laspistols in one hand and sickle cult blades in the other. Each time those eyes stared at him, a shiver went through him. He did not want to be caught alive. He’d seen what they did to men they caught. Faster, he urged. They’d been gaining all day and now they were at the ridge, but he didn’t know if they had enough fuel – or time – to get up it.

  ‘We’re slowing!’ Nel said as the engine started to judder.

  ‘I’m trying,’ said Jenks.

  Nel had never been much of a shrine man, but he prayed then, every catechism he knew, as the fuel tanks bled down to the dregs and the exhaust began to vent thick black fumes.

  They were on the causeway that lifted the road from the Long Dry to the top of the Incardine Ridge. Whoever had laid the road had decided not to zigzag up the slope but to stick to straight lines and build a three kilometre causeway to lift the road the three hundred meters to the plateau.

  The engine coughed and the Russ jerked. Nel rocked back and forth, as if he could will the tank faster. Dust started to whip up about him. The evening storms. He screened his mouth with his arm and squinted forward, but it soon became impossible. The winds blew fine blue crystalline dust straight up the hillside. He ducked down and slammed the hatch closed.

  ‘How are the filters?’

  ‘I emptied them this morning,’ Jenks said. ‘They should last.’

  The way he said ‘should’ did not fill Nel with confidence.

  Slowly, too slowly, they chugged up the last half kilometre and crested the top. Suddenly they slammed to a halt and the engine wheezed.

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Jenks said, as he rammed the pedals. ‘We’re stuck.’

  ‘Throne!’ Nel cursed, spinning the hatch lock and pushing it open.

  Dust swirled inside as he pushed himself up. It took him a moment to see what they had hit. ‘It’s a frekking Aegis,’ he said. ‘Someone’s left a defence line across the road.’ Nel shouted down to Jenks. ‘Swing us around this thing.’

  At that moment there was a whine from the engines.

  ‘Jenks!’ Nel shouted. ‘Filters!’

  Jenks cut the engine and pulled himself up.

  Nel was shouting at Jenks when a light came towards them through the blizzard. It was a man with a portable luminator. He acted as if he were a traffic officer on some military base. He had bushy grey eyebrows and a sweat patch where his belly strained against his fatigues. Nel stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘I am Major Luka of the Cadian–’ the officer started.

  ‘I don’t care who you are,’ Nel shouted back, his mouth full of cad-ore. ‘Get out the way!’

  ‘We have our orders to hold this ridge.’

  ‘And I have my orders to get off this planet,’ Nel told him, but then he looked about, and saw, in the light of the Russ’s searchlights, the dazed faces of soldiers appearing from foxholes dug on either side of the ridge.

  No, not soldiers. Boys. The white bands on their helmets marked them clearly out.

  ‘Gun-babies?’ Nel said and slapped the top of his tank. ‘You’re holding this line with gun-babies? Oh, Throne, I’ve seen everything now!’

  Creed marched down the rockcrete bunker corridor, wiping cad-ore dust from his hands. He paused at the half open ceramite blast door, spray-stencilled ‘Starport: Command and Control’, and stiffened as he heard the note of panic from inside.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Creed said as he stepped inside. There were a handful of hereditaries in the trim velvet dress jackets of various Mordax Prime regiments, a pair of sallow-faced officers from the Gudrunite Rifles with polished black webbing and boots, a couple of other minor planetary officers, an officer of Saint Percival’s Cavalry in full dress uniform and a couple of officers with the cap badges of the Aquarian Guard, 17th Armoured Company.

  ‘I am Lord General Ursarkar E. Creed. Who is in command here?’

  One of the Mordaxians stepped forward. He was a tall affable looking fellow with short-cropped hair and a golden cog symbol on his gold-trimmed jacket. He cleared his throat. ‘Lord General Travis–’ he started.

  Creed cut him off. ‘I have put General Travis into the custody of the Commissariat, on the orders of Warmaster Ryse. What I asked was who is in charge here in his absence?’

  ‘I am, sir. My name is General Stretto Balc.’ His manner was stiff and defensive. No doubt he resented a Cadian officer dropping in and pulling rank. Creed didn’t care what he thought, but stood before the man, waiting for him to finish. ‘No doubt you want a full briefing, but time is short. The Anckorites outnumber us ten to one, perhaps more. They are closing rapidly on Starport. Our situation is untenable. Evacuation will start as soon as the landers are loaded.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ Creed said. He felt the officers bristle. Regiments of lesser reputation resented Cadians turning up and telling everyone else how to do their jobs. ‘General Balc,’ Creed said. ‘Seventeenth Steward of the Mordax Cuirassiers. A hereditary position. You are… the fourth to hold the post, and the great grandson of a Marcharian Cross winner. Am I correct?’

  Balc nodded.

  ‘General Balc, did you become a general in the Astra Militarum of the Imperium of Mankind to cede planets to the enemy?’

  ‘No, sire, but…’

  ‘Good. On this we are agreed. The Imperial Guard has taken its last step backwards. I expect you to lead your men with exemplary courage and recklessness. Reckless courage, I tell you, underlined three times.’

  Balc’s voice quivered. ‘It would be suicide.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Creed was impassive. ‘But at least we shall go down with honour.’ Balc put up a hand but Creed cut him off. ‘You have shown extreme cowardice and incompetence in the defence of this planet. If you do not do as I ask then I shall report you to the commissars, who will lead you to the nearest wall and put a bolt-round through your head. Your family wi
ll lose their position, and they will curse your name for evermore. Now, which is it?’

  General Balc straightened up. ‘Fight, sir!’

  ‘Good.’ Creed looked each officer in the eye, one by one. ‘The Emperor is watching us all. There is to be no evacuation. We are holding this planet, gentlemen. Or we are dying here. Understood?’

  Creed swept his greatcoat over the back of a pearlwood chair. The fringes of the map had been weighted down with las-packs, an aide’s spent watch, a Gudrunite’s black helmet and a pair of matt-green scanners. ‘This is the Incardine Ridge, yes?’ Creed asked.

  A lean woman with close-cropped hair and an aquila tattoo across her left cheek stepped forward and put out a hand. ‘I’m Kemala,’ she said. ‘Besana militia. Yes. There are two causeways that lift the highway from the Long Dry to the Highlands. The ridge is the best place to stop the attack on Starport. Well, the only place really.’

  Creed took a long drag of his stub and let the smoke curl from his mouth and nostrils. ‘And that is being fortified and defended?’

  Kamala frowned. ‘I think so.’

  ‘By who?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Find out,’ he said.

  It took Kamala five minutes to find someone who knew. ‘I have the answer,’ she said. ‘But you won’t like it.’

  The dawn storm came just as predictably as the evening one, except the dawn storm blew in the opposite direction. It was whipping into the faces of the Anckorite vanguard as they came up the causeway, their crews squinting forward as the cad-ore crystals blinded them.

  They were halfway up the slope when Nel’s Pride of Aquaria broke the brow of the ridge, a little to the left of Fesk’s dugout. The loader was muttering the Blessing of the Righteous. Nel added the Rite of Destruction as well, just for good measure, as the first enemy vehicle appeared through the sheets of blizzard dust.

  ‘Half track soft-skin,’ Nel said. ‘Register gunner?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Frag round,’ he said.

  ‘Frag round,’ the gunner repeated.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Ready.’

  Sheeting dust hid the tanks for a moment, then the Pride fired. They speared the first, and the second slewed off-road, over the lip of the causeway, and turned over three times, throwing out bodies and crushing them in turn. A burning crewman was still screaming when the next vehicle – trying to ram its way through the wrecks – exploded. Then something larger rumbled up behind them.

  ‘They’ve got a Chimera,’ said Nel. ‘Register?’

  ‘Register,’ the gunner said. There was a clunk as he slid back the blast door of the top ammo crates. ‘Armour-piercing round.’

  ‘Acknowledged,’ said Nel. There was a long pause, then the Pride of Aquaria fired again, and blew the troops inside the Chimera out of the back door in a bloody spray of charred human remains.

  ‘Good shot,’ Nel said, a few moments later. ‘Two more incoming.’

  Lina touched the aquila tattoo on her left cheek for luck, then leaned into the rifle stock. She had been lying all night in her foxhole: sleepless, tense, ready and excited. She aimed as an open-topped half track revved between the wrecks. Lina let her breath out and saw the black-wrapped face of the driver through her scope. His eyes were black-rimmed and bloodshot. She felt instant revulsion and fired three shots in rapid succession.

  Two rounds knocked the driver’s head back. He didn’t move after that. His engine slewed to a halt. ‘I’ve done it,’ she said and turned to Darkins. ‘I killed one.’

  ‘I thought to prove you killed one you had to get his ear or something,’ Darkins said.

  ‘Yeah. You go get his ear. I tell you I shot him. He’s dead, no matter how many ears he’s still got.’

  ‘Lina’s got one!’ Darkins called out. There were scattered cheers.

  Lina closed her eyes and said a prayer. If she survived this, she would be a Cadian Shock Trooper.

  On the other side of the causeway, Fesk heard the news, and wanted to slap Lina on the back.

  ‘Let’s hope she lives long enough to be promoted,’ Yetske said as return fire slammed into the hillside. A storm of las, grenades and heavier rounds that threw up choking clouds of cad-ore. There were screams from the next dug-out. ‘Booth’s hit!’ one of them shouted. There was panic in the voice, and then Fesk heard, ‘Oh sh–’ and the voice stopped.

  After what seemed like an age, the Anckorites, black-wrapped shapes wielding sickle knives and lasrifles, fell back under cover of the storm.

  For that first hour after dawn the causeway was silent. Major Luka went from position to position, doling out water, ammo and medical supplies. Five Whiteshields had been killed. Three were badly wounded.

  As the storm cleared, Fesk pulled out a monocular. A dark line of vehicles and desert cavalry stretched back as far as the monocular would focus. They were all moving towards them, the lead units milling about in confusion at the bottom of the causeway.

  ‘Are there more?’ Yetske asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Fesk said.

  ‘Funny,’ Yetske said. ‘I thought for a minute that we’d beaten them.’

  Fesk watched as the hunched shapes of Anckorites began to part, and through the mobs came a file of Leman Russ. Fesk put the monocular down. He felt sick. He did not tell Yetske what he had seen hanging from the sides of the lead battle tank. He wasn’t going to die that way. No chance. No way.

  Fesk checked his grenade pack. He’d keep a frag for the end, he thought.

  The sound of revving engines drifted up to them, along with wild chanting voices and the background whine of chainblades in eager fists, and then, over it all, the voice of a demagogue shouting and raging in an unknown tongue.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Yetske said.

  From below came a great shout. A thousand – or it could have been ten thousand – voices lifted as one and then, with the roar of engines and gunning chainblades, the Anckorites started up the slope: a mess of tanks; half-tracks; mounted raiders with long charged lances, loping forward on shaggy, two-legged bighorns; four-wheeled assault speeders; bikers with revving chainblades; and hooded foot-sloggers scrambling up in their eagerness to spill Imperial blood.

  The Pride of Aquaria had the range on them. She took out the lead Russ with a lucky shot on the mounting that spun the turret ten metres into the air. Three more heretic tanks pushed past and began to fire back.

  The first shot missed, and then there was a sudden whoosh. Fesk pressed himself flat and shouted a curse as a shower of soil fell on his helmet and hands. He dusted himself off and looked up, watching a flash and the tank bucking backwards before he heard the boom of another round. He held his hands over his ears and prayed.

  The lead Anckorites were dodging up through the rock fields. Hundreds of them, low to the ground, zigzagging, firing up at them and chanting over and over. Fesk stepped up onto the firing step. Five shots and he got one, a skinny little thing – not much older than himself – with a chainsword who went down like a sack.

  There were sudden tears on his cheeks. ‘I did it,’ he said to no one in particular.

  And then from around the tanks came a charge of horsemen, and he could see the lance tips as they bobbed towards him.

  Major Luka ducked down behind the defence line, ejected the magazine from his pistol and jammed ten rounds in. Prendervil and Holden’s positions had been overrun already, and their heads were trophies in the hands of the lead horsemen. Major Luka cursed. His lads were being murdered and there was nothing he could do. ‘Nel!’ he shouted, but the tank had stalled again and Jenks was out kicking the filter casing open.

  Major Luka took up a new firing position, firing wildly at the mass of riders who were howling as they hacked down his lads. He saw one horseman go down, saw another punc
hed from the saddle and dragged along by the stirrup. Then he saw one with a Whiteshield’s head in his fist and he emptied the magazine.

  ‘Nel!’ he shouted, gesticulating wildly.

  The tank commander seemed to understand. He shouted at Jenks and the Pride of Aquaria bucked suddenly forward. There was a moment’s pause before the heavy bolter sponsors opened up. The deep clatter of bolt shells made the defence line vibrate. Major Luka put up his head to watch the ruin of the Anckorite horsemen. Mount and rider alike were ripped apart by exploding bolts. It was over in moments. The causeway was a charnel house of feebly kicking horses and men lifting a hand to salute their Dark Gods.

  Then the heretic tanks fired back. One round hit the Pride of Aquaria in the soft spot on the underside of her hull, and she went up like a firecracker, roaring flames and black smoke.

  No one climbed out. The Pride of Aquaria burned like a torch.

  ‘Frekk!’ Luka said simply. ‘Fix bayonets!’

  Fesk fired wildly. Rock by rock the Anckorites were coming closer, and their low chanting grew louder. ‘They’re all around us,’ Yetske said in panic, as he fumbled with his battery pack. He spun round, but above them was Kernigg’s firing pit, and Kernigg was still firing.

  There was an Anckorite hiding behind a rock about fifteen metres down and to the right. Fesk waited for him to come out, his barrel ready to nail him, but he didn’t appear.

  The sound of chanting grew louder and more insistent. Yetske started crying. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Fesk said, stealing a glance over to where he stood with the power pack in his hands. ‘Yetske, push the button and put it in, front catch first.’

  Yetske looked down at his rifle as if he was staring at some kind of strange puzzle. He started engaging the catch when he dropped to the ground.

  ‘Get up!’ Fesk said.

  Yetske lay on the floor. He was gurgling horribly. ‘Yetske,’ Fesk said, kneeling down. There was barely room in the firing pit. Yetske’s eyes rolled up to stare at him, begging for help. Foam and blood poured out of a hole in his neck. Fesk put his hand over the wound, as if he could hold back the flow.