by Various
The Rhinos and Razorbacks broke into a loose pack and accelerated hard, their biker escorts swerving and kinking in a loose perimeter around them. The Land Speeders, still harrying the strike force descending on the right flank, wove interlocking patterns that made it all but impossible to settle cross hairs upon them.
Then Agrellan Hive spoke, a single word of death that shook the earth.
One of the giant tau warsuits was blown to scrap in an instant, its internal reactor sending a mushroom cloud high into the air as the hive’s ordnance hit home. The other three suits rocked back in surprisingly human stances, their discus shields flaring as their force fields soaked up the worst of the baleful energies.
Turning back to the White Scars, the warsuits opened fire once more, as intent on the kill as any true hunter. The multi-barrelled rotary cannons of the foremost warsuits perforated the Steelsteed in half a dozen places, and the khan ducked low into the cupola as the vehicle shuddered like a frightened beast. Yet the stout machine kept going, carving a zigzag path into the shadow of the hive walls.
The same could not be said for the men inside. Three of the runes corresponding to the khan’s command squad flickered red in his helmet display.
‘Apothecary Stebekh, tend to those hit by that last volley,’ snapped the khan, the medic in the Steelsteed’s hold voxing acknowledgement.
‘Solarus Gate, harken all stations!’ shouted Kor’sarro, watching in envy as the surviving Raven Guard triggered their jump packs to bound effortlessly over the perimeter wall. ‘We require immediate entry! We’re under heavy fire out here. We request entry!’
The vox-net crackled, but there was no response.
Behind him, another blaring tzonng was followed by the dull crump of a vehicle detonation. In the distance, two more explosions erupted from the transports at the rear of the column. Orange death-fires illuminated the cloud of smaller battlesuits hovering above them like a host of predatory angels.
‘By the Emperor’s holy throne, Solarus, give us an open port or I’ll cut my way inside and kill you myself!’
‘Quite impossible,’ came the gatemaster’s reply, his prim tone failing entirely to conceal the panic beneath.
Then, in a blaze of light, an opening appeared in the great Agrellan wall.
But it was not the warriors of the Imperium who had made it.
The yield capacitors of Shadowsun’s fusion blasters blipped gold. She dropped down from the flickering skies towards the column of boxy Imperial vehicles and triggered another full shot, twin beams of destructive energy spearing vertically downwards. She hit one of the lumpen things full on, an olive-hued tank that was little more than a mobile box filled with gue’la troopers. The transport exploded with a satisfying thump, and its passengers spilled out, grabbing for rebreathers or rolling out the fires that clung to their disgusting porcine flesh.
Yelling in defiance, the gunners in the cupolas of the other transports pivoted their pintle-mounted weapons towards the source of the killing shot. Shadowsun swung her hips back and her chest forward, her battlesuit smoothly boosting away from the chattering streams of slugs sent in her direction. Even a raw recruit could have avoided the ill-timed volley fired by the human soliders, and her stealth cells made her all but invisible against the flickering clouds above. Such poor warriors did not deserve to face the might of the XV104s. As if to prove her point, Drai’s team came alongside her, levelled their burst cannons, and tore apart the cupola gunners in a storm of blood and plasma.
This really is too easy, thought Shadowsun. There was little honour in shooting a fleeing foe, especially one as dull of wit as the Imperial Guard. Even their name was ridiculous. She was almost regretting ordering the Riptides to engage the gue’ron’sha instead of tackling them herself. Still, she reminded herself, Aun’Va had other duties in mind for her.
It was time for the killing blow to fall.
‘Counterstrike cadres,’ she transmitted, her tones clipped and sure. ‘Neutralise as many of these transports as possible. Firststrike cadre, I want that wall breached immediately. Approach on appended vectors, Riptides at the fore. Full nova, then sentinel protocols. Oe-ken-yon, use the dronenet to get high-yield footage. Skystrike cadre – your Riptides have the honour of being the first inside. Prepare a path.’
The assent symbols of the Riptide wings flashed gold, their size and unfamiliarity filling Shadowsun with quiet pride. To have such warriors at her command, to be the first in the empire to wield them as her blade… it was an honour beyond measure.
She could feel the pull of Mont’ka tugging at her soul. With weapons such as these…
‘- - - YES - - - KILL - - - SEND THEM TO THEIR GRAVES - - -’
Shadowsun felt a hot prickle of unease cross her skin. She could have sworn she had turned the autotrans off when she was mustering the cadres in the cloud cover, to prevent… to prevent unnecessary distractions. Mont’ka required total focus.
Ahead of her the Riptides she had claimed for her Firststrike cadre dropped out of the clouds above the hive’s wall. Their nova reactors thrummed to a crescendo as they hovered to a halt in front of the gate’s towers. Suddenly, blue-white spheres shot from their energy cannons, hitting home with such force they chewed a wide breach in the eagle-emblazoned gate. The walls around the opening were riven by a web of cracks, tumbling rubble carrying those Imperial Guardsmen that had been manning the gate’s battlements to a rocky demise.
The XV104s had blasted open the human fortress in a single devastating salvo. Behind the breach, the hive’s sprawling innards were laid bare. An iron-grated perimeter road met a cliff wall of pipes and platforms across which hundreds of ant-like citizens scurried, desperate to escape. Imperial Guard troops pushed their way through the teeming hivers to take up positions on landing pads and crenulated defence stations.
Shadowsun flew in close to the hive’s outer wall, blasting the face from a statue of an Imperial saint as she passed by. The paired Riptides that had ripped open the city’s wall bracketed her like armoured giants escorting an airborne goddess. Behind her, the three surviving Riptides that had mauled the gue’ron’sha tanks hovered towards the breach at speed, boosting over the postern gate on contrails of blue flame. They unleashed a hail of heavy burst cannon fire as they came back down in the perimeter streets, splayed metal feet landing with a rockcrete-shattering crunch.
The other two Riptides stood guard, interposing themselves between the oncoming armoured column and the safety beyond the breach. Shas’vre Drai’s stealth teams were already inside, sowing confusion and distraction amongst the gue’la troopers rushing to reinforce the breach. This would be the battle that the tau empire demanded of her – loud, spectacular, and bloody in the extreme.
‘The way has been opened, master,’ she transmitted on a secure frequency. ‘My teams are securing it now.’
Aun’Va’s grey face flickered large.
‘Not before time, O’Shaserra. I shall begin my descent.’
‘Acknowledged, master,’ sent Shadowsun, her heart beating hard. Soon she would fight alongside the Supreme Ethereal himself.
If their plan succeeded, a scene of timeless glory would blossom on every screen and hologram across the empire.
And if it failed, she would die in utter disgrace.
The Riptides of Shadowsun’s Firststrike cadre blocked the breach completely, the towering XV104s standing shoulder to shoulder as they discharged accelerated ionic blasts into the scattered gue’ron’sha below. Too brave or stupid to seek cover, the enemy still came on, despite over two-thirds of their number lying dead or dying across the cratered battleground outside the hive.
Though she could not directly see the three Riptides of the Skystrike cadre, their symbols glowed gold on her command suite as they strode impervious along the perimeter walls. Those enemy warriors ensconced in the hive’s bulk were firing upon them with missiles, large-
calibre bolts, even plasma fire of their own. Yet not one of the three battlesuits showed anything other than a healthy gold of full operative capacity.
Shadowsun watched a double string of heavy burst cannon fire pulse white across the battlements. Wherever the plasma bolts struck, the human soldiers manning the walls were reduced to a fine red mist. Those who had hidden from the Riptides’ cannonades were torn apart by the smart missiles fired by the launchers mounted atop their shoulders, contrails snaking through the crenulations to double back hard and detonate with killing force.
These beautiful new machines were a vision made real for the fire caste. Shadowsun felt sad that Commander Puretide was not here to witness them.
With the enemy reeling, the rest of the commander’s Counterstrike cadre had approached the walls in their skimmer transports and were deploying in a tight guard formation. So far so good, thought Shadowsun. The next stage was already upon them.
Soaring out from the flickering clouds over the plains was the pride of the air caste’s sub-orbital fleet, the Manta missile destroyer Burning Hope. Red lightning played across its splayed wings, but even the mind-science of the gue’ron’sha shaman had no hope of stopping such a massive craft. Shadowsun smiled thinly. Tau technology, in sufficient measure, could overcome any challenge.
The Burning Hope soared over the plains, coming in so low that the flattening force of its engines bowled over the human warriors darting amongst the wreckage beneath. As it bellied in close, the gunship’s rail cannons let loose a volley with a deafening whip-crack, shattering one of the hive’s artillery domes before it could fire and blasting the proud statuary above the secondary gate to powder. Burst cannons on the edge of the Hope’s graceful hull poured plasma into the ruined battlements around the breach, forcing the black-armoured gue’ron’sha taking position there to dive for cover.
Then, as the rear portal of the Burning Hope irised open and his escort cadre deployed in parade formation, the Supreme Ethereal Aun’Va entered the fray.
Aun’Va’s fire warrior escort marched determinedly towards the breach, their pulse rifles levelling volley after volley at those Imperial troops disrespectful enough to look upon their leader. In the centre of the formation came the spiritual leader of the tau empire, seated comfortably upon his disc-like gravity throne. An expression of grim serenity radiated from his stately features as he intoned words of inspiration and conquest to his men. How Shadowsun wished she were one of them, a rank and file trooper shorn of the burden of command and free to drink in the heady sensations of the Supreme Ethereal’s presence. Drink it all in as she killed in his name.
The Riptides standing sentinel on either side of the breach knelt in respect at Aun’Va’s approach, stabiliser pistons thunking out from their thighs as their ion accelerators hurled yet more glowing spheres at the oncoming gue’ron’sha. Oe-ken-yon hovered high amongst a swarm of fellow drones, his networked artificial intelligences recording every angle of Aun’Va’s glorious entrance into the city.
Then, with an ear-splitting screech of tortured metal, a giant chainsword blade burst out from the chest of the leftmost Riptide and juddered through its torso in a shower of sparks.
A twisting burst of feedback roiled out, an artificial death cry that rang in every tau ear as the indomitable Riptide fell in crackling halves to the rubble-choked ground.
Shadowsun cried out and boosted in close, her cadre’s Crisis battlesuits behind her. Behind the dying Riptide stood a hunchbacked Titan clad in the matt black of the grave. Skulls were emblazoned on every flat plane of its riveted armour, and red eye-sensors glared out from the vision slit of its impassive metal helm. The apparition’s upper half twisted around with an oily scream, its tapering cannon-arm brought to bear upon the head of the second Riptide.
The battlesuit, its shield arm lowered to protect Aun’Va instead of itself, took a close range battle cannon shell right to the head. The blast sent it reeling backwards, violet sparks fizzing from its decapitated torso to crackle from the rubble of the breach.
The Riptide staggered upright, its systems whining hypersonically as it struggled to recalibrate. Shadowsun darted in close and levelled a double shot at the helm of the metal monster bearing down upon her battlesuited comrade. Her fusion blasts fizzled harmlessly across the thing’s ion shield. The iron beast ignored her and stomped across the breach, contemptuously kicking a spray of rubble at the fire warriors loosing ineffectual volleys at its flank. It raised the giant chainblade that formed its left arm and brought it slashing down at the stricken Riptide just as the battlesuit triggered its jetpack. The obsidian Knight’s chainblade caught the ascending Riptide’s leg, ripping it bodily out of its hip socket. The monster’s battle cannon clank-pumped shell after shell after the fleeing machine, a grating machine-sound coming from its mask that sounded uncannily like laughter.
‘A worthy adversary,’ transmitted Aun’Va over the open channel. ‘Commander Shadowsun, allow your blade to fall.’
‘Yes, master,’ she replied. ‘Skywing cadre, engage and neutralise that beast.’
Before she could finish her command a third Riptide shot horizontally across the breach on twin trails of fire, bodily smashing into the rear of the black-armoured walker and wrapping its arms around the thing’s waist. Twisting hard, the Riptide yanked the obsidian machine onto one foot, causing its massive shoulders to smash into the perimeter wall with such force that several black-armoured gue’ron’sha toppled from the battlements, guns blazing as they fell. The gue’la walker fought to right itself. Its chainblade slashed the air as a second Riptide ran past just out of reach, heavy burst cannon stitching plasma blasts across the monster’s ion shield.
The Imperial troops pouring into the breach had taken heart from the black-armoured Titan’s attack. The Space Marines amongst the rubble cut down fire warriors left and right with their bolt-spitting sidearms, several of their number even causing Aun’Va’s personal forceshield to flash bright. Shadowsun darted a horrified glance at the ancient’s image on the command screen, but she was greeted only by a serene mask.
‘None can shrink from sacrifice in the name of the Greater Good,’ Aun’Va boomed, his gaze directed at the c-link drone that hovered above.
Around him, the fire warriors were being forced back by the renewed assault of the black-armoured gue’ron’sha and the supporting infantry that overlooked the battle from the platforms high above. More bolter fire hammered in, this time from outside the hive’s walls. Shadowsun felt her mouth go dry as she realised the Supreme Ethereal was in danger of being caught in a lethal crossfire.
The shield can often be more dangerous than the sword.
‘Full defence upon the Supreme Ethereal’s escort!’ she shouted. ‘I want a shield over Aun’Va immediately! All Firststrike units, enact now!’
The tight-knit teams of her cadre hastened to obey, coming in low to the side of the breach where the Supreme Ethereal was hovering forward. They flew in dense formation, guns bristling outwards to shred anything that got close.
Shadowsun jetted in close to her master, her tanks and battlesuits closing in tight as a turtle’s shell. She blipped a symbol of strength and stability to her cadre, but inside, she was dying. One stray shot is all it would take. One random, senseless bullet, and the flame that lit the heart of the tau empire would be extinguished forever.
Trailing smoke, the Steelsteed careened across the cratered earth, making haste for the section of the breach that was not choked with tau bodies. In the Rhino’s wake came the battered remnants of the armoured column, bouncing and slewing through the rockcrete that was scattered around the breach.
‘Ha! Looks like Severax’s little surprise has caught them unawares,’ laughed the khan. Sudabeh harrumphed in disapproval from the opened top hatch behind him. ‘Stop gloating and get us in there, Kor’sarro,’ he said.
‘Aye,’ replied the khan, nodding and opening the vo
x-channel to his men. ‘We have our chance, brothers,’ he said, ‘By the Emperor’s grace, let’s take it.’
The drivers of each Rhino and Razorback ground their tracked vehicles through the dense rock of the felled wall as fast as they dared. Incredibly, the heavy concentration of tau sheltering at the side of the breach let them past, firing only at the Raven Guard that were moving in to harass their position at close quarters. The remnants of the Catachan regiments followed close behind the khan’s company, their olive armoured Chimeras grinding rubble to dust as they covered the last few metres into the hive.
The khan grabbed the storm bolter and swung it around to point at the tau cadre’s defensive huddle, but he did not fire. There was no sense in kicking that particular hornet’s nest when salvation was within reach.
‘Solarus Gate!’ he voxed. ‘Drop a macrocannon shell onto that nest of xenos cockroaches and all is forgiven!’
Static crackled, but nothing more. High up in the artillery domes, the snap-crack of xenos plasma weaponry gave the khan the impression the only thing dropping from their positions would be human corpses.
A tremendous clang of metal on metal rang out, and the titanic black walker that Corvin Severax had set upon the tau staggered into view, locked in a wrestler’s clinch with one of the massive xenos warsuits. Both were fighting for a clear shot. Although the Knight was clumsy in comparison to the tau machine, it was far stronger. Levering a limb between itself and its assailant, the obsidian walker pushed the xenos warsuit into its line of fire with the flat of its whirring chainblade. The khan watched the black-iron walker blast its tau assailant backwards with a well-placed cannon shot. Stepping forwards into the space it had cleared, the Knight brought its whirring chainblade down in a coup de grâce that chewed its victim apart from shoulder to hip.
As the obsidian Knight’s war-horns boomed in triumph, another massive xenos warsuit descended from on high, smashing feet first into the Knight’s back and pitching it forwards into the sparking remains of its kill.