Astra Militarum

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

  The general was off to the right along the banks of the fens, taking personal control where the fighting was fiercest. Troilus kept looking that way.

  ‘Will they hold?’ Aldrad shouted.

  ‘They’ll hold,’ Troilus said. ‘Creed will make sure of that.’

  Fesk was lost. His head ached, the white motes kept dancing even when he closed his eyes, and when he opened them he was still lost.

  He locked the sentinel’s legs, threw open the top hatch and stood on the back of his seat. Smoke was billowing up from all around him. The whole planet seemed to be on fire.

  He dropped back into his seat and flicked on his auxiliary battery. It blinked red. He’d fired both missiles, and seemed to be the only sentinel from his squadron still standing.

  ‘Well,’ he said to no one in particular, ‘best keep going.’

  He unbraked the walker’s legs and turned towards what he guessed was the main battle. The sorghum was thinning. He lurched up out of the mud onto the ridge. A regiment was moving up ahead of him. They were dressed in the plain blue drab of penal legionaries. A group was sitting down, eating a meal.

  Of all the times, he thought. Didn’t they know there was a war on?

  The troops turned. They dropped what they were eating. He stopped. There was blood on their lips. They were hunched over a dead body. A human body. One of them pointed and shouted and suddenly the whole ridge seemed to sprout with standing men. A thousand faces were staring at him. Someone fired a lasgun but the beam fizzed overhead. Fesk desperately turned his sentinel around. It lurched dangerously as it splashed back into the mud.

  There was a thud and his walker swayed. The hatch was wrenched open. A heretic stared down at him, cheeks had been carved with sickening symbols. Fesk fumbled for his laspistol and fired. The heretic fell from the sentinel, but two more took his place. One grabbed Fesk by the chin, and a blade stabbed down.

  Blood poured down Fesk’s front. It was his own.

  With his last thought, he wished he’d managed to warn his fellows.

  Lina watched as Ibsic tore off his protective jacket and stood naked to the waist, head pressed to the targeting array. The Pride of Cadia III was hull down in a crater shell. The main body of Volscani were charging towards the centre. He wound the targeting wheel round a few turns.

  ‘Got them,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Pushing forward to engage,’ Gannesh said. The tank lurched as it came out of the crater.

  Ibsic focussed the view-port. ‘Charge the guns.’

  Their squadron was on the extreme left of the Cadian lines, facing back across the battlefield, fens in the far distance. Lina swung her sponson gun around, looking for a target, but all she saw was the centre tank of their impromptu squadron moving cautiously forward. Rex Augustus was Commander Erick’s Punisher. On the far side of her was the Demolisher, Celestine Inferno.

  ‘Keep flanking,’ Ibsic said.

  Gannesh cursed as a shell landed too close. ‘Taking us into another crater,’ he said, and Lina braced herself as the tank tilted forward and down.

  Callen cursed. ‘Have you seen how many there are?’

  ‘I can’t see them,’ Lina said.

  ‘Oh, you will,’ Callen laughed.

  As Gannesh brought the tank round to face the enemy, Lina whistled. ‘Holy Throne!’ she said, slamming her charge lever to full.

  Ibsic had his face still pressed to the targeting array. ‘Can’t miss,’ he said.

  ‘Tell that to Callen!’ Lina said. Rex Augustus’s gatling cannon span as it fired off a few short bursts to warm the mechanisms up. Ibsic had his eyes pressed to the range finder, comms unit on one ear. He counted down.

  ‘Let the frying commence,’ he said, and then the squadron opened up.

  Superheated globs of incandescent blue plasma arched towards more Chimeras than Lina had ever seen. They melted puncture holes through the turrets and side armour. Superheated shot fused the tracks, dripped through exhaust vents and filled engine mechanisms with liquid metal. Cramped driver cabins filled with poisonous fumes as plasma globules sprayed through stifling troop compartments and cooked the troops inside. Lina could see the Celestine Inferno from the corner of her eye. The gaping black demolisher cannon fired a rocket-propelled shell that tore holes in the enemy, while the air about her quivered with heat as its multi-meltas seared holes through man, metal and tank alike.

  She blasted a Chimera in the flank as it spewed las-bolts towards them. She hit a second, and watched it slew to a halt and the back ramp slam down. A heavily armoured Volscani squad came out at a run. She fired at them again, missed and cursed.

  ‘Meltas. Port side. Twenty degrees,’ she said. ‘Need me up top?’

  Ibsic didn’t look up from the targeter. ‘Not yet. Erick,’ he called across the vox. ‘See them?’

  She could hear the tinny crackle of Erick’s voice answering. Rex Augustus’ Punisher gatling cannon started up: thousands of metal slugs shredded the traitors, leaving a red mist hanging where they had once stood. She could picture Erick bracing himself against the back of the turret as he fired. Lina laughed. There was nothing like a Punisher gatling to strike fear into the enemy, except maybe a squad of Space Marines.

  Something exploded to her left. She threw back the vision slit.

  Black smoke billowed into the sky. The Celestine Inferno was a burning wreck. Callen threw the top hatch open to see. ‘Demolitions squad,’ he shouted down as he dropped back into the cabin. He dragged the heavy stubber out, and pushed it up through the cupola, slamming it into its mounting. He threw his body round. Something metallic hit the hull and Lina felt a sudden chill.

  ‘I can’t see them,’ she said.

  ‘Get them!’

  ‘I can’t see them.’

  ‘Gannesh?’

  There was an explosion. Callen was shouting. Everyone was shouting.

  ‘Shut up!’ Ibsic yelled as Gannesh reversed them out of the crater. ‘Lina, to the front!’

  She scrambled into the nose gunner seat and charged up the lascannon. She saw the demo squad and cursed as she panned the cannon round and opened fire.

  ‘Got ’em!’ she shouted, as she fried the last. ‘Where did they come from?’

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’ Gannesh slammed the tracks into reverse.

  ‘Stop!’ Ibsic said. ‘Keep pushing forward.’

  ‘Have you seen how many there are?’

  ‘Creed’s orders!’ Ibsic said.

  Gannesh swallowed and nodded.

  Pride of Cadia and two more squadrons kept firing and outflanking on the right. Firing, outflanking. Lina’s world narrowed to the view along her lascannon. Some time later – though she had no idea how long – the Pride of Cadia III was still pushing forward. They were all firing so fast there was no time for prayers. The plasma destroyer was glowing. The tank was like a sauna.

  Gannesh’s nerves were shot. ‘It’s going to blow,’ he shouted as they sighted more enemy armour.

  ‘Tanks,’ Callen said.

  Lina cursed silently.

  Ibsic found them. ‘Charge,’ he said. Linday locked the heat shields down.

  ‘It’s going to blow. You’ll kill us all!’ Gannesh shouted as the main gun fired again. The lights flickered.

  They were still alive. Lina grinned as she detonated an ammo container with a pinpoint shot and took a squad of Volscani out.

  ‘Good shooting, Lina,’ Ibsic said.

  She risked a glance. He’d taken a plasma burn to his shoulder. The flesh was raw and bloody. Sweat was running like a stream down his back. He started another cycle.

  Gannesh turned in his seat. ‘Let it cool!’

  Ibsic panned the turret for another target. ‘Ready,’ he said.

  Gannesh made the sign of the aquila and cursed as steam vented into the cabin. �
��Shut it down! It’s overheating.’

  Ibsic threw levers, pressed buttons and shut down the main gun. He counted to three, then charged it up again.

  ‘Don’t! It’s too soon!’ Gannesh squealed, pulling at his restraints.

  ‘Have you seen what’s out there?’ Ibsic said quietly. ‘We keep going. Either we fry them or we fry ourselves before they can kill us.’

  He panned the turret round again. Lina puffed her hair out of her face. The reactor wound up for another shot. Ibsic zeroed in on his target. ‘Say your prayers,’ he said. Lina did so. The lights went out.

  Someone screamed.

  Field commanders had given up trying to reach Excubitoi Castellum. They were all calling Creed directly now. He had seven vox-operators trailing after him as he gave out orders. He looked over at Kell.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Kell’s face was pale. He nodded. His neck had been grazed by a las-bolt meant for Creed. Targeted air strikes had silenced the Volscani snipers after that.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ Kell said, rubbing the blood from his fingers onto his webbing.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure,’ Kell said.

  Creed climbed up on a ruined sentinel and looked about. To the north, the Leviathans had moved into a great melee of monstrous behemoths. The air fizzed with void shields and ordnance. The Volscani landers loomed overhead and the legions were now dark on the plains before him.

  He looked behind their formation at another mass of Cadian troops. ‘That’s the Seventh?’

  Castor nodded. ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Get me Xander,’ he said.

  ‘Xander’s dead.’

  ‘Who’s their second?’

  ‘They’ve lost four of their commanders, sir.’

  ‘Careless,’ Creed said. ‘Well, get me someone who can speak for them.’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  He gave them orders. One by one, Creed spoke to the leaders of fragmented and confused units, and gave them direction and purpose. He made contact with a major named Benedict, of the Cadian 101st, an armoured company with a Stormsword super-heavy tank.

  ‘The Hammer of Mezanoid?’ Creed said. He started chuckling as he spoke. ‘Good! Bring her up, man! Bring her up with all speed! We need her holy strength with the enemy before us! Repeat,’ he shouted down the comms. ‘All speed!’

  Creed handed back the comms and lit his lho-stub. He looked about him and nodded, took a few puffs and stepped down from the Volscani sentinel. He felt his boot slip on something soft. He did not look down. Kell steadied him.

  Creed looked about at the faces of his men. Half an hour before they had been white and stunned. Now they were bloodied and dirty, but the fear and the shock had gone. They were staring at him, grim, determined, fearless. He looked each of them in the eye and gave them a brief nod.

  On the right, the Volscani armour was pinned down and being steadily picked and pounded along the fens. The division on the left was burning and being driven back towards the bulging central line. The Volscani Chimeras were running almost track to track. Cadian heavy weapon squads, dug into craters and behind wrecks, were already throwing the front runners back. On the right, Waylon’s siege breakers were advancing behind the barrage of Medusa shells; on the left a squadron of the 71st’s Hydras had lowered their quad-guns and were using them to hose high velocity autocannon rounds into the Volscani Chimeras.

  Creed’s grip was tightening on this corner of the battle. He could feel it. Piece by piece he was putting the fragments of the Cadian army together to form a workable defence.

  ‘Troilus!’ Castor said, handing him a vox.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Creed!’ Troilus shouted. ‘Penals. From the fens. Thousands of them.’

  ‘Can you hold them?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Troilus said. Creed heard his orders being relayed. His right wing was castling up in a tight defensive formation.

  ‘Do your best. I’ll find something.’ Creed closed the link. ‘Castor!’ he shouted. His equerry ran over. ‘We need ordnance. Got someone?’

  ‘Yes!’ He handed Creed a vox unit. ‘The 810th.’

  ‘This is General Creed. Cadian Eighth. Yes. I need fire support. Urgently.’ He cupped the comms unit with his hands. ‘Castor, what are our coordinates?’

  Creed repeated them down the vox. ‘Right. Ready. Give me a ranging shot.’

  From far back, a single Basilisk fired. The shell landed in the fens and a great gout of water sprayed up.

  ‘Too far to the left,’ Creed shouted. ‘Bring it back five hundred meters and go for it. Creeping barrage forward.’

  ‘Roger,’ the response came.

  ‘Troilus!’ Creed shouted. ‘Keep your heads down. We’re carpeting all about you, then we’re going ahead.’

  ‘Roger,’ Troilus said.

  Creed was already pointing and shouting. ‘Artillery!’ Castor handed him a vox link. ‘Right. Start moving forward from that position!’

  Commissar Aldrad paused to savour the moment as the drum roll of artillery started gathering pace till it was continuous roar, a single sound of terrible ferocity. He watched as the ground came to life, hundreds of flowers of earth blooming before him. It was a maelstrom of high explosives that tore the massed formations to shreds.

  The barrage began to creep forward. The Cadian 190th started pounding a division of Volscani armour that appeared on their extreme right. Creed re-established contact with six units of the 210th, whose Manticores were over forty kilometres behind the lines, and had their weapons zoning onto the foe. Their storm eagle warheads streaked the sky with white contrails that split and divided as they angled down, and then the ground exploded with great white puffs of smoke. The warheads plunged through the lighter top armour, and the crews inside were vaporised in the explosions.

  ‘Battle is all about the application of overwhelming force,’ Creed said to Kell and Aldrad. ‘We’ve hammered the Volscani wing into oblivion. Now a hole is opening up. And we’re about to tear it wide open.’

  The earth was still steaming as Creed led them forward. It stank of ash and high explosives. All about them were disordered shells of ruined armour, dead men, burning pools of oil and melted rubber. Rank upon rank of ruined Chimeras were joined by dead and dying Volscani, their bodies thrown about by the ferocity of the bombardment, crumpled, torn, ripped to shreds of meat that hung, still dripping blood, from the wrecks of their transports.

  As they came through the field of the dead, the Cadians sighted the stunned heretic survivors, forming a desperate circle around their banner.

  ‘There are the men who brought this hell to our planet!’ Kell raged, breaking into a run as he led the charge. Creed was beside him. A tight knot of kasrkin guards paused, aimed, fired.

  A wedge of Cadian ochre and green punched deep into the mob of Volscani. A flamer roared. Men screamed. Aldrad ran to keep up. His bolt pistol bucked as he emptied the magazine, punching the Cataphracts back off their booted feet. He pistol whipped one Volscani, shattering the man’s blast visor. Shards of plastek and sharpened teeth sprayed into the air. He plunged his power sword into the heretic’s chest and pulled it out to parry a serrated battle axe, then twisted the blade to slash open the attacker’s guts, spilling them in a stinking pink mess.

  The Volscani officer kept fighting, even as he stepped on his own insides, his fury knocking Aldrad back for a moment. The commissar ducked the first swing and the second, sidestepped a third and beheaded his foe. He shot another through the chest and strode on, hacking and cutting.

  Volscani berserkers threw themselves at Kell. The Cadian shock troopers surged around him like a wall of bodies. Creed fired both pistols as fast as he could pump the triggers, hotshot rounds searing holes through foe after foe. Stimms, heresy, hatred and madness drove the Volscani forward. The Cadians knelt and fired
until their lasguns glowed red, until the dead were piled one upon the other, a wall of twitching flesh.

  Through the confusion came a phalanx of armoured vehicles, the red banner of the Volscani flapping wetly from the lead Chimera, wet human scalps and faces hanging off it.

  One of the Chimeras spewed out a great gout of flame. Creed tumbled back as the nearest men took the full brunt of the torrent. A plasma shot from the Cadian ranks knocked out the tracks and the transport slewed to a halt before a meltagun shot tore the turret and flamer apart, and the promethium tanks exploded.

  The rear ramp slammed down and Volscani Cataphracts stumbled out, prayer cloths wrapped close about their faces. Behind them came a giant of a man, tall with a cape of white about his shoulders, his hood thrown back to reveal a hideous mask, his scalp crawling like snakes. He pointed towards Creed, his red eyes burning like fires.

  ‘Luciver Anckor!’ Creed hissed. He shoved Aldrad aside and stepped towards the enemy’s bodyguard. He raised his pistol to shoot the foe he had hunted for three years.

  Luciver Anckor lifted a hand and the air turned cold.

  ‘He’s a psyker!’ Creed gasped. He strained to fire, but his hand was turning back on himself. He felt his guts contract as the air was crushed out of him. Ice rimed the Chimera’s hull as the temperature dropped. Creed fell to his knees. He reached out with his other hand to pull the laspistol down, but it wouldn’t move. He could feel the cold circle of steel at his temple. Around him, he heard his men engage the Volscani, and felt pride.

  Fire,+ a voice in his head commanded, but his finger would not pull the trigger. Anckor’s eyes burned with hatred as he strode through his men towards Creed. At the edge of his perceptions, he heard Kell calling his name.

  Snow began to fall.

  Fire.+ The command came again. His finger tightened on the trigger as he desperately fought to drop the pistol.

  ‘For Cadia!’ a strangled voice called out. Commissar Aldrad pushed forward and sliced at Anckor with his blade, driving him back. The Chaos psyker hit Aldrad in the chest with a single thrust of his clawed hand and the force of the blow crumpled the commissar’s breastplate, flinging him ten feet back. He slammed against a ruined Leman Russ.