Astra Militarum

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

  Aldrad ran through Imperial doctrine. Dereliction of duty deserved the most stringent punishment. He could hear his Schola Progenium master beating the blackboard with the butt of his bolt pistol. Command without doubt. Obey without question. Punish without hesitation.

  ‘Who’s second in charge?’ he asked.

  ‘Major Troilus.’

  There was the roar of an incoming squadron. Aldrad guessed they were Thunderbolts, from the deep note of their twin engines.

  ‘Are those friendlies?’ he shouted, but he could tell from the way they came in on the attack run that they were not.

  ‘Fire!’ he shouted, but the men manning the autocannons were too slow in responding. The ground erupted about him as the fighters opened up with their nose-mounted quad autocannons. All about him were the shouts of wounded men. He stood alone, defiant, his black leather stormcoat flapping angrily about his legs.

  He cursed. Where the hell was Creed?

  Sacramentum’s void shields finally fizzed into place and Creed felt the hair on the back of his neck stand. A table had overturned, spilling bottles of Arcady Pride and pre-filled crystal shot glasses across the viewing platform. They crunched underfoot as he waded through the uniformed administrative staff, thrusting them aside as they gaped. He parted the squads of masked kasrkin who rushed along the corridors.

  ‘We have to reach the flight deck!’ Kell shouted.

  Kell was right behind him, but he could barely hear what he was saying.

  ‘Brace for boarding!’ the command sirens blared. Creed shoved his way through the panic, up to the top deck. Smoke filled the corridors. The whole Leviathan shook.

  The last flight of metal stairs brought them at last to the armoured roof batteries. There was pandemonium. Gunnery sergeants were bawling into the comms for the ordnance bays to be manned and the ammo lifts loaded, while pilots were rushing to their craft, still shoving their arms into their flight jackets, pulling their comms sets over their heads.

  Creed grabbed a naval officer by his flying jacket.

  ‘I need a Valkyrie,’ he said and thrust him towards one of the waiting craft.

  ‘We’ve got to get her loaded!’ a gunnery officer shouted, but Creed shoved the loading servitors out of the way and as soon as the pilot’s hatch closed, he climbed up and banged on the inside panels. ‘Up! Up! Up!’

  Within moments the engines fired up, the missile cradles fell away, and the world tilted and banked. ‘Take me up high!’ Creed shouted into the comms bead. ‘I need to see what the hell is happening!’

  The Valkyrie corkscrewed above the battlefield.

  Creed felt sick. Sick from last night. Sick from the stimms, and sick at the sight of the destruction below. Companies were pouring out of the Volscani vehicles – already one of the Cadian war machines was gone, and another was smoking dangerously.

  ‘I’ve got him!’ Castor shouted triumphantly as artillery shells starting raining dangerously close to their left flank. The Cadian Eighth’s tanks had formed a protective barrier to the left and sentinel squadrons were scouting forward. One of the tanks was hit. It burned. No one came out alive.

  Aldrad seized the comms as another Thunderbolt roared overhead. Its quad autocannons rattled as it wheeled after an enemy fighter.

  ‘Creed!’ Commissar Aldrad shouted. ‘Creed! Where are you?’ He had been full of fury and frustration, but now, as he heard Creed’s voice – calm, assured, confident – he felt his panic lessen.

  ‘Good,’ he said at last. ‘Yes. I will. As quick as you can. Your place is here. We need you here!’

  There was another pause.

  ‘I shall,’ Commissar Aldrad said, and returned the comms set to Castor. His training reasserted itself. Command without doubt. Obey without question.

  ‘One last time,’ Creed shouted.

  ‘Roger,’ the pilot said, and they swung round for a third time.

  Creed had to see it with his own eyes. Heresy on Cadia.

  Kell stood at Creed’s shoulder, his hand on the door-rail above his head. The wind was full of cordite, ozone and thick black promethium smoke. All they could hear was the roar of the engine and the wind in their ears. Neither of them spoke. They were the still centre of a raging inferno. A battle of titanic proportions, fought here, on the most sacred soil in the segmentum.

  All about them, fighters of the Imperial Navy – loyalist and heretic alike – were strafing, diving, pitching, rolling, dying. On the ground, the Volscani landers released ravening hordes of traitors as their Leviathans and companies of hardened veterans charged towards the Cadian lines.

  Willelm Dux was already being boarded. Sacramentum’s weapons were the first to return fire, crippling one of the enemy Baneblades. Volscani armour had been landing for days. A division was already swinging about their left flank. The fens, where penal legions had been camped, were aflame.

  Here and there, as individual Cadian units regrouped, the ground was lit with ferocious las-battles: the criss-cross stitching of searing bolts created almost continual light. A flight of Vendettas made a desperate attack on the lead Volscani Leviathan. The last one was still firing as its wings were torn away by flak batteries mounted on the brass beast’s sides. Void shields flared as its carcass crashed in a ball of flaming promethium. A heretic Thunderbolt, rolling in for another attack on Excubitoi Castellum, misjudged and hit Claves in the exposed upper deck, just as the crew had brought an earlier blaze under control.

  The fireball disappeared behind them as the Valkyrie banked. The earth below exploded as an artillery battery opened fire.

  All across the battlefield Creed could see similar vignettes. Tank squadrons blundered forward, firing on friendly forces, artillery captains shouted for a position, and infantry fixed bayonets and charged. Brave but futile, uncoordinated and easily crushed. Confusion – that ragged imposter – reigned on Cadia. The men looked to the Excubitoi Castellum for leadership, but there was none. The ancient warhorse of Cadia was burning. The governor of Cadia was silent.

  ‘Take us down,’ ordered Creed. ‘I’ve seen enough. It’s time to turn the tide.’

  ‘Creed!’

  Aldrad strode towards the Valkyrie as it touched down, nose first. Castor was right behind him. ‘Creed!’ Aldrad shouted. His head was lowered, his cap pulled low, his bolt pistol drawn.

  ‘Later!’ Creed told him. He took Aldrad’s rehearsed words away. ‘Castor, get the comms teams to me now!’

  ‘Sir!’ Sergeant Agemmon came forward, vox-caster in hand. ‘Major Barker.’

  Creed made a face. ‘Barker? Listen. Cadia’s survival depends on you. Get through to the 190th. Creeping barrage. My man will give you the coordinates. As soon as you start I will strike straight forwards. We must throw the enemy off balance.’

  Creed stood with a vox in each hand, relaying orders, giving instructions, keeping control, spreading calm through the Cadian officers. ‘Are the 210th near you? Well tell Klude to get his men firing. At what? At the Volscani!’

  One by one Creed gave commands, picking up the scattered regicide pieces and starting a fresh game.

  ‘They’re coming,’ Kell shouted. Creed looked up. He could see a dark line of Volscani making their way towards them, sentinels at the fore, crimson banners marking the commander of this assault.

  ‘Right. Let’s go!’

  Agemmon shouldered the vox-unit as Creed strode forward to where the Cadian Eighth had formed up in battle lines. Six thousand Guardsmen with tanks, sentinels and heavy weapons teams, all ready, all looking to Creed as the dark mass of heretics slowly took shape, moving towards them at assault speed.

  Creed looked back at them. His men, his brothers. He had no words, but took them all in with a steely glance, knelt, and pressed an open palm to the ground. His planet, his home soil. Cadia. It spoke to him. It shook like a weeping body. He could feel the vibration
s of shells exploding, the dull rumble of the Volscani Leviathans as they pressed forward. The hateful press of the traitors’ landers on her soil. The bloody tramp of heretical feet. The spiked tracks of their armour.

  Each shell that landed, each footstep on Cadian soil, was like his own body was being torn, plundered, violated.

  ‘We are Cadia,’ he said quietly. ‘Cadia is us.’

  ‘They’re coming,’ Kell hissed.

  Creed stood abruptly. ‘Fix bayonets!’

  ‘Fix bayonets!’ Kell repeated through his parade-speaker. In a magnificent display of dress discipline, the Cadian Eighth moved as one. Their banner was brought forward and presented to Kell. He took it in his power-fisted hand and raised it high.

  ‘For the Eighth! For Cadia!’ Creed shouted.

  ‘For Cadia!’ the roar came back, and the Cadian Eighth turned together. A loudspeaker started up the tune Imperium Gloriam, and the men all started to sing as one. Sentinels leading, tanks on either wing, they plunged into the smoke and fire of battle.

  In the distance, Lina could see massive war machines knocking chunks of burning armour off each other. But here, where it was kill or be killed, she couldn’t see anything but smoke and wreckage.

  ‘Still no damn targets,’ she reported.

  On the other side, Callen’s plasma cannon was close to overheating. There was no shortage of targets on his side. He was cursing Gannesh’s driving.

  ‘Stay calm,’ Ibsic said.

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  Something went just over their heads. It whined as it passed and they could all hear the air being sucked through the vents.

  ‘What was that?’ Callen hissed.

  Gannesh and Linday spoke at the same time: ‘Krak round.’ ‘Contact!’

  ‘Where did that come from?’ Ibsic hissed.

  Lina felt a wave of fear as the others scrambled to get the main weapon charged. Something hit the tank on her left. It was a Vanquisher, Imperialis X. Lina knew the crew. They were a tight bunch. The commander, Jovian, had looked out for her since she joined the company.

  ‘They’re hit,’ she hissed. ‘It’s smoking.’

  She willed them to disembark. ‘Yes!’ she shouted as a sponson hatch was thrown open and Oleg and Luord fell out. Luord was burning. ‘Come on. Get out!’ she croaked. ‘Get out!’

  Luord rolled on the ground. Oleg bent to pick him up. He ran back to the hatch. Jovian was still inside. Come on! Just get the frekk out.

  Imperialis exploded and Lina slammed the front of her sponson hatch. The Vanquisher’s turret spiralled up into the air. Vents blew out and roared with furnace flames as the ordnance chambers ignited within the confines of the tank. She slammed the inside of her sponson again. ‘Damn it!’

  ‘No survivors,’ Ibsic reported a few moments later.

  Lina slammed the panel before her again. She wanted to kill now. ‘Swing me round,’ she said. ‘I want to get whatever killed them.’

  ‘No time,’ Ibsic said. ‘Main gun. Charge.’

  ‘I want to kill it,’ she said.

  ‘No time. Charge!’

  Lina slammed the heat shield down and pulled her sponson about as far as it would go, straining for a target. They chanted the prayers together, and then Ibsic fired the main gun. Lina turned her head as the enemy tank gouted flames and the glare washed her screens out. Gannesh slewed the tank round. Lina saw a line of Volscani armour, track to track, battlecannons flaring.

  ‘I’ll take the cannon,’ said Linday. He dropped into the front gunner seat and charged the lascannon. It sapped energy from the plasma destroyer, but this needed something with a bit more penetration, as Linday liked to say.

  ‘Need heavy support,’ Ibsic reported back to whoever was commanding this mess.

  ‘Got one!’ Linday laughed. He turned to Lina. She winked.

  ‘Good work,’ Ibsic said. ‘They’re bringing in fire support. Tank hunter heavy weapons. Lascannons.’ There was a pause as Gannesh pulled them round. Ibsic whistled through his teeth. ‘Fire at will,’ he said.

  Lina was already recharging her plasma cannon. She could see a group of Taurox transports trying to outflank them. She sighted, prayed, slammed the heat shield down and fired. The plasma shot went straight through the transport’s driver’s slit. It lit up from the inside, liquid plasma shooting out of the top hatch and the side vision ports.

  Gannesh pushed forward. Lina lost count of how many times she had fired. Suddenly there were troops all about them. Friendlies. Lina saw them setting down their lascannon tripods. Someone climbed onto the back of the Pride of Cadia III and rapped the Eighth’s motto on the hull: three short taps, two long. Ibsic unlocked the turret. A head blocked out the light. He wore the uniform of the Cadian Eighth.

  ‘Creed says we can’t stop. Push forward,’ he said. ‘Keep outflanking them.’

  Gannesh let out a long breath.

  ‘You heard him,’ Ibsic said.

  Gannesh slammed the gears and they started forward again. ‘Say your prayers,’ he muttered.

  Fesk’s sentinel was hidden in the fringes of the fens, the thick sorghum heads brushing gently against his cabin. He risked a brief look up, and his augmetic retina flashed red as his lascannon locked on: five squadrons of sentinels pacing along the fen margins, looking in the other direction.

  He fired a short burst of lascannon shots. One kill, he noted as his mount’s left foot dragged out of the mud and lurched forward. His retina flashed red again.

  Two more shots. Two more kills.

  ‘Forward!’ Fesk said, his sentinel lurching again. ‘Achilles Squad forward. Keep in the fens. We’ll keep pounding anything we see.’

  It had been a few minutes since he had had any response from Achilles Squad, and he had the feeling that there was no one else left, but it reassured him to still be giving orders.

  A warning ping made him look up as a Leman Russ in field brown appeared through the smoke on his right, autocannons blasting. The vox erupted as a sentinel that had strayed too close to the dry land exploded.

  ‘I’m hit!’ someone shouted. Fesk was too busy staying alive to notice who. Everyone was talking. The leg gears crunched as he swung his sentinel round, searching for better cover. The rough landscape was funnelling the enemy into a tight mass so dense that everything was a target.

  Fesk listened. He couldn’t tell what the hell was happening. He counted to twenty then moved his sentinel forward. He could feel his walker’s legs sinking deep into the mud. The sentinel swayed dangerously as the leg mechanisms laboured.

  ‘I’ve gone over,’ someone reported over the vox. He thought it was Garret, from the Kasr Gallan accent.

  Fesk kept moving. He could feel the rumble of the approaching Volscani armour. They were getting dangerously close.

  ‘I can see them,’ Macrinus said.

  The shooting started and the vox chatter was like a sudden storm. Someone was whooping. Someone was dying. ‘Leave some for me,’ another voice called out. Fesk kept contact with his own squadron, screened the others out. He kept moving. He could feel the ground grow firmer. He could smell the ozone now. Stray rounds whizzed overhead.

  ‘Heading out, Achilles Squad. Cover me if you can,’ he called out.

  The vox unit crackled back.

  Searching, his targeter read.

  He came out near a burning Chimera. A rough picket of tank hunter sentinels were moving through the margins of the water, ducking into cover, positioning to get rear and flank shots, picking off Volscani armour. From the chevrons on the hatches it looked like Trewin, Karma and Longe Squadrons.

  As the smoke cleared he caught a glimpse of a Leman Russ, its rear to him. His targeter blinked red.

  Fesk fired as the turret swung towards him. He missed, swore and felt his palms slip as he gripped the joystick trying to get a targeting
fix. He stepped to the right as the tank opened up and the autocannon rounds whistled through the sorghum stalks. Fesk ducked his sentinel down and could not believe that he was still alive.

  Fesk flicked a switch and engaged his auxiliary weapon before standing the walker up again. His system pinged: lock on. The sentinel’s cabin rattled as the hunter-killer missile ignited and launched. It seared a white spot in his retina as it wound out from the tall stalks towards the tank. He blinked too late and cursed as his vision flared white with the explosion. He reversed his sentinel and felt the left leg plunge deep into the one of the sink holes. His fingers scrabbled for the smoke launchers.

  Rounds rattled against his front armour. He kept the smoke launchers pumping and started to pray.

  The Cadian Eighth were drawn up in ranks: there was a skirmish line flat on the ground, behind them were special weapon squads, their tank-busting plasma and grenade launchers primed and ready, then came the massed body of heavy weapons and infantry squads. In the middle of the formation, black stormcoat flapping, Commissar Aldrad stood with Major Troilus.

  Tracers lanced out. Explosions ripped through the enemy lines as the Eighth opened up with multi-lasers, spitting out streams of livid red light. Sergeants shouted, pointed, slapped men’s backs, and urged them to fire faster. The air was thick with grunts and the click of magazines being fixed into place, with empty clips being discarded and new ones brought forward.

  ‘More ammo!’ someone shouted.

  ‘Get it here!’ came a sergeant’s voice. ‘What are you waiting for? The Emperor himself?’

  Aldrad marched up and down, exhorting the men with texts that inspired them. Each regiment had their favourites.

  ‘Be strong in your ignorance!’ he shouted. ‘By your death shall we know you. Soldier, you and I are sons of one faith, and it is the lasgun, the ammo pack, the dead heretic.’

  Commissar Aldrad stopped, held firm his faith against the foe. The ground was thick with brass autocannon cartridges. Similar piles showed where the heavy weapons teams had fired and moved forward. Constantly forward. ‘A sitting duck is a dead duck,’ as Creed liked to say.