by Nick Kyme
‘Take and hold the ground.’ Those had been his orders during the mission briefing. Thirty Ultramarines to keep a simple esplanade from the enemy. It had seemed like overkill; now, Iulus Fennion wasn’t so sure.
A swarm of beetle-like creatures droned out of the fog, mandibles champing.
The Immortals turned with battle-honed efficiency and cut them down. Brother Galvia cried out as one of the creatures clamped onto his forearm. Iulus stepped in and excised the mechanoid with his chainsword. A stamp of his armoured boot ceased the beetle’s squirming after it was removed. A bolter salvo exploded another with mass-reactive fury before it could refashion itself and attack anew.
‘They’re hard to keep down,’ breathed Galvia. ‘I’ve never seen such–’
A gauss-beam skewering his shoulder and upper torso cut him off. Iulus reached for Galvia, who grunted and slumped to his knee. Blood-stained slush spattered his armour viscerally as he fell hard.
The wounding preceded a fusillade of gauss-fire as the necron vanguard force tried to pin them. Enfilading beams streaked across the trio of Space Marine squads diagonally while more of the drone beetles pressed an assault from the front. Iulus had one arm under Galvia to support him; with the other he wielded a whirring chainsword with menace. He swatted the first scarab-like creature, cracking its carapace but not disabling it; a second he carved with a heavy downward swing. A third latched to his vambrace but he was able to shake it off and crush it under his boot.
Another dug into his back, gnawing at the power generator. Emergency icons flashed up on his retinal display warning of an imminent energy drain. Iulus reached for the creature but staggered when a pair of scarabs fastened themselves to his pauldron. He cried out as one attached itself to his battle-helm. Below, Galvia screamed in agony and frustration.
‘Aristaeus!’ The comm-feed was wretched with interference. The creatures were slowly disabling it.
The low whoosh of pressure-release and the acrid stench of promethium filled the air as Iulus and Galvia were consumed by fire. Aristaeus had kept the aperture of his flamer narrow. Both Ultramarines emerged from the conflagration blackened but otherwise unscathed. Smoking, burning scarabs writhed about on the scorched earth. Iulus crushed one underfoot before dispatching the others with a desultory burst from his bolt pistol.
He waved Aristaeus forwards. ‘Bring the heat.’
The Ultramarine had lost his battle-helm in the fight and wore a scarred grimace instead. His eyes became hateful slits as he unleashed the full fury of his flamer.
The swarm died in a nucleonic storm and Iulus was readying to advance when his retinal display was overloaded by a beam hit to his eye. He cried out, dropping his chainsword so he could rip his helmet off before it corroded through and the gauss-flayer started in on his face, but still held onto Galvia.
The battle-helm hit the ground with a dull thud and rolled, the right ocular lens partially dissolved, the ceramite around it bare and raw.
‘Set me down,’ Galvia mumbled. Even lying on his side, an unknown number of internal organs ruptured, he triggered his bolter. The swathe of shells found several marks and the scarabs exploded aerially like flak.
Iulus resisted the urge to touch his injured face. It hurt but pain-suppressing chemicals were already flooding his system to fight the pain and keep him fighting.
With the gauss-fire intensifying around them, forming an almost lattice-like web of emerald, any ordinary soldier would have retreated. Bolt pistol blazing as he stooped for his chainsword, Iulus’s order demonstrated that Space Marines were no ordinary soldiers.
‘Hold the line and return fire. In Guilliman’s name!’
The Ultramarines were dauntless, but so too were the implacable necrons. One side would have to break. The low booming voice, rendered through a vox-caster, decided which side that would be.
‘For Chapter and the Lords of Ultramar!’ The assault cannon of Brother Ultracius whirled into a blur of muzzle flare. Out in the cloying snow-fog, Iulus saw necron raider constructs torn apart. Instantly, the gauss enfilade lessened.
Ponderous but redoubtable, the Dreadnought had taken a little longer to reach the hold-point than the rest of the rearguard. It had been a long few minutes before his arrival but now the veteran warrior had arrived, Iulus knew the tide was with them.
‘Defend the line; maintain it until the veterans of the Second can join you.’ It had been a sound plan and one that suited the sergeant’s intractable nature.
What was more, Ultracius was not alone.
‘I am the warrior eternal of my Chapter. Long live Macragge and the Empire of Ultramar.’ Where Ultracius was bombastic and glorifying, Brother Agnathio was unshakable and pragmatic. He moved with the slow but inexorable purpose of a glacier, his multi-melta scything the distant raider formations with impunity.
‘Spread and engage,’ bellowed Iulus, taking advantage as the necrons faltered, ‘slow and exacting.’
He nodded to Agnathio who had pounded up alongside him.
‘Good to have you with us, Venerable One.’
‘I am the avatar of my Chapter’s will. I serve eternally.’ The Dreadnought’s mind was not as lucid as it had once been. Agnathio knew not what year, what conflict he was embroiled in, only that he fought for the glory of the Ultramarines. A part of Iulus relished the simplicity of that existence as much as another part pitied it.
‘For Ultramar.’
‘Aye, for Ultramar!’ The multi-melta sang its shrieking refrain again, spearing the necron constructs that were moving to engage them at closer quarters.
Tirian’s gravelly voice came over the comm-feed. ‘They’re adopting more aggressive protocols.’
‘They react,’ said Iulus, ‘as if directed. These shells are automatons with only hate and fell technology to animate them, but a will is at work here. Engage and destroy.’
Iulus felt his grip on the esplanade tightening. Despite the change in tactics, the necrons would not prevent him making a fist and holding the ground indefinitely. It was then, as the rearguard was fanning out and punishing the necron vanguard, that two things happened almost simultaneously to change the complexion of the battle.
First, the massive gates behind the Ultramarines opened and a human Guard force poured out, lasguns flashing. Second, a larger and much more densely packed necron cohort emerged from the fog ahead. They were bigger than the raider constructs and more heavily armed. Iulus was forced to reassess the internal boast he had made. His fist had become an open palm, clinging with fingertips. The tide had shifted again. Instinctively, the Ultramarines closed ranks. Even the Dreadnoughts paused in the face of this latest threat.
‘Bring them down,’ Iulus roared as the necron elites unleashed a gauss-storm of terrifying potency. ‘Give them nothing!’
Estimating thirty of the hulking necrons and factoring in the remnants of the raider constructs that were still operational, Iulus made a quick assessment of their odds. His conclusion was muttered defiantly. ‘We need more men.’
The sky above Kellenport was wracked with incandescent thunder. The city was a distant silhouette, leavened only by the flash of explosions.
Scipio wanted to be there, alongside his brothers Iulus and Praxor, but that was not his lot in this war. Instead, he was crouched in a slowly melting mire of slush and hard earth, peering through a pair of magnoculars.
‘How does it look, brother-sergeant?’ asked Largo, flat against the escarpment on his armoured chest.
Power armour didn’t really lend itself to stealth missions, it was too bulky and better suited to more direct engagements, but without any of the Tenth to reconnoitre the Thunderbolts were being used as de-facto scouts.
‘Busy,’ Scipio grumbled. He handed Largo the magnoculars for a look. He was bearing his earlier injury well, the sergeant noted. Barely a flinch when Scipio had forced him to twist and reach f
or the scopes.
‘Their picket lines look thick even without magnification,’ added Ortus, sighting down the barrel of his bolter. Despite the fact the Ultramarines assault force was still several kilometres away, he could tell that the war cells protecting the pylons and gauss-obliterators were numerous. He had a good eye for that. Ortus spent most of his training allocation on the firing ranges. He could deploy his weapon like a sniper rifle, so accomplished was his aim.
‘Find the leader and you have my permission to take the shot,’ replied Scipio, before shuffling backwards down the ridge on his stomach. Part of their scouting task, as well as assessing the level of resistance, was to find the necron hierarch commanding the force. Imperial tacticians, those that were privy to the threat of the necrontyr, had postulated that rather than being unfeeling automatons the necrons actually adhered to a series of ‘protocols’ not that dissimilar from a servitor’s. Their logic-engines were far more advanced, of course, but by removing the sentient will that guided it, a war cell would resort to secondary functions. Their tactics would become less adaptable and more predictable. Such a disadvantage made them easier to defeat and increased the likelihood of a full scale ‘phasal retreat’. These were all theories, however. There wasn’t enough battle-data yet recorded that allowed any firm conclusions to be drawn concerning potential necron weaknesses.
Tigurius obviously thought the reasoning was sound – Scipio agreed – and so charged his ‘scouts’ with finding the hierarch leading the cell defending the artillery. So far, they’d had little luck in doing so.
Largo was putting the magnoculars away when he asked, ‘How will we breach it?’
‘Not this way, that’s for certain.’ As he was returned to the present, Scipio brought to mind the densely thronged access routes through the hills to the necron artillery. As well as the ubiquitous raider constructs, there were larger elites and even semi-ephemeral ghosts patrolling the enemy picket lines. They’d formed concentric rings around the mass of heavy cannons in the centre. While the ghosts phased in and out of existence, the raiders and elites stood still and unspeaking like metallic sentinels. Scipio suspected they would wait like that until the galaxy burned and the universe itself ended, if commanded to do so. At least orks bickered, even the alien tyranid chittered and the Traitor hordes exalted and chanted: these soulless machines just stood in abject silence. Despite Scipio’s Adeptus Astartes hypno-conditioning, it was unnerving.
‘Perhaps a diversionary attack to draw out the bulk of their troops, allowing Strabo and Ixion to neutralise the guns.’
Scipio shook his head at Largo. ‘There’s too many and they won’t move. That’s a defensive force, whatever protocol it’s operating on will keep them from coming at us.’
He’d seen enough of the necrons, their mechanistic idioms, their logic-engine style tactics to know that they couldn’t be coaxed or goaded. Only a certain and direct imperative would force the mechanoids to alter their battle-routines. Somehow, the Ultramarines attacking the Thanatos Hills had to find it. If executing the necron leader was the key to that, there was still a lot of work to be done.
His eyes narrowed when he spied a rocky promontory overlooking the artillery. ‘How does that look to you?’
Largo went back to the scopes, magnifying to enhance the view. He scowled. ‘Impenetrable.’
‘No route through the terrain?’
‘We need gunships and speeders,’ Largo replied.
‘A pity they are locked down aboard the Valin then,’ added Ortus.
With the necron cannonade still in operation, not only was Kellenport subject to constant bombardment but Antaro Chronus could not deploy his tanks and any aerial support was denied to the Ultramarine spearhead.
‘What are your orders, sergeant?’ asked Largo after the silence started to become uncomfortable.
Scipio’s expression was foul with frustration. ‘Return to camp. Then we go deeper. There has to be a way through those pickets without taking them head-on.’
Scipio found Tigurius alone, looking out onto an ice expanse. Snow flurries chased each other across the barren tundra like arctic devils, whipped into sudden frenzy by the wind.
There was a rime of frost coating the Librarian’s cheeks, nose and forehead but he seemed not to notice. Though his eyes were open, he was locked in psychic trance. It took Scipio a few seconds to realise before he fell into respectful silence and waited.
‘The direct approach to the Thanatos Hills is denied to us,’ Tigurius said without even turning around, ‘and we have yet to locate the force leader.’
Scipio suddenly felt quite redundant in the face of the Librarian’s prescience. ‘Is it that easy to read my mind?’
Tigurius faced him, wiping at the crust of frost veneering his features. ‘Your mood anyone could read.’
‘Transparent too. I must attend to that upon our return to Ultramar.’
‘I admire your optimism, Brother Vorolanus. You think our victory here is certain?’
Scipio tried not to balk before the Librarian’s penetrating gaze. He didn’t think Tigurius was interrogating him psychically but couldn’t be sure. ‘Far from it. These creatures are like nothing we’ve ever faced. I also believe our sternest challenges are to come.’
Tigurius nodded. ‘Yes, I–’ He collapsed before he could finish.
‘Master!’ Scipio sprang to the Librarian’s aid. He was clutching his head and screaming in mental agony.
The air was filled with the scent of burning and Scipio noticed rivulets of arc-lightning spilling from Tigurius’s eyes. His power armour was hot with psychic energy. Tendrils of smoke were coiling off every plate of ceramite. Seizing his force staff, the Librarian tried to anchor himself and channel some of the energy away.
Even through his gauntlets, Scipio was feeling the heat. His fingers smouldered but he clung on to Tigurius in spite of the pain.
‘Master,’ he hissed through clenched teeth. Below them the Ultramarines assault force was readying to move out and unaware of the unfolding crisis.
Just as Scipio thought he could hold on no longer, the baleful energy that had gripped Tigurius slowly started to dissipate. In a few seconds it was over and the Librarian could stand unaided.
‘They know we are here,’ he gasped, a wisp of smoke escaping from his mouth into the cold air. ‘And what we intend to do.’
Scipio looked to the direction of the enemy cohorts, though they were far away. ‘How will they respond?’
Tigurius looked him in the eye. It disturbed the sergeant to see the obvious disquiet there. ‘Nothing. They will do nothing.’
Frowning, Scipio asked, ‘What?’
‘Because they believe our efforts are in vain, that there is no possible way for us to achieve victory.’ Tigurius licked his lips and for a moment Scipio thought he might stumble again when he gripped his shoulder. ‘I touched their minds. Fathomless, ancient, they think this world is their own. They want to reclaim it, to eradicate its population, to annihilate us. Damnos is doomed.’
‘You… you spoke to them?’
‘One of their number, part of the hierarchy, communicated with me. He called himself the Herald. But I saw something else, a fragment of the future.’ Tigurius’s respiration became elevated, and he clenched his fingers into claws as he fought for recall. ‘It’s like trying to grasp a wisp of cloud… The truth eludes me, brother. A dark pall is clouding my prescience. Another of their kind…’ The Librarian wrinkled his brow, seeking an appellation. ‘The Voidbringer. He is the one we are looking for.’
‘And this glimpse of the future,’ Scipio asked. ‘How does it bode for us?’
Tigurius’s voice rang with the forbidding timbre of prophecy. ‘Ill, brother. It bodes ill for all of us.’
Praxor was exultant. Fighting by his captain’s side, he felt empowered. His squad, the ‘Shieldbearers’, had fought
hard to stay within striking distance of the Lions. Praxor had never seen such purpose and fury from the Second’s pre-eminent warriors and Sicarius’s retinue. To be counted one amongst them, to become one of the High Suzerain’s inner circle, was one of the brother-sergeant’s most fervent desires.
‘Guard against pride, brother,’ Iulus had once counselled him. He sounded like Orad. But the Chaplain was long dead and Praxor’s ambitions very much alive. It wasn’t pride so much as idolisation and that fact – one the brother-sergeant was ignorant of – was precisely why the senators of Macragge, indeed the Masters of the Chapter, debated Sicarius’s tenure so furiously. His apparent growing cult of personality was regarded as vulgar by some, as Invictus reborn and a return to the glorious golden age of the Ultramarines by others. Some in the Chapter, the oldest campaigners, felt the sons of Guilliman had been diluted by the breaking of the Legions. The many subsequent Founding Chapters all held allegiance to Ultramar but were autonomous otherwise.
Agemman, as captain of the First and with therefore the largest number of veterans in his company, was in the ironic position of recognising the importance of heroes like Sicarius but at the same time being wary of his popularity. He wanted the old days, just not ushered in by the Grand Duke of Talassar.
‘Advance with all speed, stay with the captain!’ Praxor was running and his squad ran with him. They moved in a ‘V’ formation, bolters blazing. Kill-shots were few, but the objective was to bust through the packed necron vanguard and strike deeper into the mechanoid ranks like a spear.
They had bypassed the first defensive wall already. Sicarius had studiously ignored the pleas for help and deliverance from the stricken Guardsmen still battling to hold it, his face undoubtedly a mask of hard indifference, focussed on his mission. To do otherwise, to give in to compassion, would be the end for all of them. At least, that was what Praxor believed.
A necron construct sprang out the fog, seemingly materialising from the very air. It glided in tandem with three others; no, it wasn’t gliding, the moves were almost serpentine, like a snake reared to attack. It was supported by a long, segmented tail that ended in a broad barb like a scythe. Its torso was equivalent to the raider constructs Praxor had already dispatched on their charge through the breach in the first defensive wall, but its arms ended in razor talons. There was something incorporeal about it, as if it were only partially in the material realm or somewhere between solidity and necron phasal shift.