Shroud of Night

by Andy Clark

‘Warp damn it,’ cursed Kassar. ‘This one’s a born dogfighter.’

  The interceptor’s guns roared, lascannon blasts and cannon shells ripping into the Stormbird’s wing and flank as it streaked overhead. The gunship shook furiously, and sparks showered from overloaded systems.

  ‘Damage report,’ demanded Kassar.

  ‘We’ve lost an engine,’ said Haltheus. ‘Luckily the one the smoker damaged already. We’re also shedding fuel.’

  ‘Kassar,’ voxed D’sakh. ‘Ges’khir’s dead. Lascannon rounds punched through the hold and nearly tore him in half.’

  Fifteen, said a cold voice in Kassar’s head. Fifteen left, and their last Terminator-armoured brother fallen.

  ‘Understood,’ he said, his voice cold. ‘He’ll be avenged.’

  ‘If so, we need to do it quickly,’ said Haltheus. ‘We’ve maybe ten minutes in the air before we’re running on fumes. And that bastard has linked up with his wingman.’

  On Kassar’s targeter, the two designator runes for the Stormhawks had converged out beyond the rig. They were coming in for another run, the damaged interceptor flying top cover for his comrade. Lumbering on three engines, the Stormbird was swinging around to meet them, but not fast enough. Kassar sent a broadside of bolt rounds whipping towards the incoming craft.

  ‘Haltheus,’ he said. ‘Bank away from them. Lower the rear ramp.’

  ‘She’ll handle like orks built her, and it’ll take us in towards the rig’s flak umbrella, but all right,’ replied the pilot. ‘We’re already outmanoeuvred, what’s a little more handicap?’

  Kassar continued to spray fire, and grinned savagely as he managed to clip the wing of the already damaged interceptor. It wobbled, and tried to climb away. Kassar hammered its underbelly with bolts, ripping the Stormhawk open and scattering its wreckage across the waves.

  ‘Harrow, out of your restraints and find cover,’ he barked. ‘Ramp opening. Thelgh, you know what to do.’

  A single vox pip was Thelgh’s acknowledgement.

  Kassar switched his vid feed to show the interior of the hold, and the Unsung scattering to take cover behind bulkheads, stanchions, anything that would shield them. Power armour provided magnificent protection, but it wouldn’t stop a lascannon blast. Krowl stood firm behind a plasteel support, Syxx crouched at his back.

  Only Thelgh remained in the open, walking calmly towards the lowering ramp with his sniper rifle Somnolence in hand. He had taken that weapon from one of the Raven Guard’s elite Mor Deythan during the madness of the Scouring, and had slain hundreds of enemies with it since. Perhaps thousands.

  Ignoring the blasts and shells spitting from the closing Stormhawk, Thelgh mag-locked his boots to the decking, swept his cameleoline cloak back, and took careful aim. A lascannon blast spat directly over his shoulder, searing a line across Thelgh’s armour and causing a violent explosion to blossom beyond the vidcam’s view. Kassar was thrown sideways in his seat by the force of the impact, but Thelgh swayed with it, utterly focused.

  Kassar switched his view to the pursuing craft in time to see a small, crimson dot slide up its nose, across its canopy, and settle on the thin, armoured vision slit of the Stormhawk.

  More shots hammered the Stormbird as the rig’s flak batteries awoke. Haltheus cursed as he fought to break right.

  Kassar’s hearts skipped a beat as Thelgh’s aim swayed with the sudden manoeuvre, and the Stormhawk’s lascannon barrels seemed to yawn like caverns.

  Then Thelgh fired.

  A slight, almost silent thump as the round left the barrel.

  A muted flash from the suppressed muzzle.

  The Stormhawk wobbled, and Kassar’s superhuman vision picked out a spatter of blood painting the inner surface of its vision slit. Then the Imperial Fists interceptor listed off course and fell away. Its nose guns clipped the waves, and the aircraft flipped head over heels before becoming a tumbling, cartwheeling fireball.

  Kassar slammed one fist against his throne’s armrest in triumph, hearing the shouts of his more bellicose warriors ringing across the vox. Thelgh calmly chambered another round, shrouded his weapon, and returned to his seat.

  ‘Bring the ramp up, and prepare for a combat landing,’ ordered Kassar. ‘And Thelgh, that was masterful.’

  On Kassar’s retinal display, Thelgh gave a slight nod.

  ‘Don’t celebrate yet, brothers,’ said Haltheus as he closed the Stormbird’s ramp. ‘That last hit displeased the machine-spirit mightily. I’ll do what I can, but we’re going down.’

  Kassar’s jubilation evaporated, replaced by steely focus. Calmly he checked the Stormbird’s ammunition counters, recalibrated its targeters, and readied himself as Haltheus hauled the shuddering gunship’s nose around.

  ‘We have one chance at this,’ he voxed. ‘For the sake of all those we’ve lost, for our chance at a future, make it count.’

  Haltheus climbed as much as he dared, getting breathing space between his stricken craft and the merciless ocean. He checked his instruments, silently cursing the powerful westerly wind that had risen during the dogfight. Black clouds were rolling in from the deep ocean, lit by forked tines of lightning. The waves were rising, white froth cresting them. Unless Haltheus missed his guess, the storm would be on them in minutes, but that didn’t trouble him too much.

  By that time, they would be on the rig, or they would all be dead.

  ‘I’m going to bring us in on the rig’s left flank,’ he voxed. ‘I’ll try to keep our most intact armour turned towards their guns. We’re going to take fire, its unavoidable, but I’ll do what I can to minimise it. Stay in your restraints, but keep your weapons to hand, brothers. I’ll swing us around the back of that guard tower at the rig’s far corner and ditch in the storage hangar at its feet. That should give us a few moments to take position before they can mass on us.’

  Privately, Haltheus had his doubts, and a quick glance at Kyphas’ hunched posture told him his brother felt the same. But Haltheus’ natural pragmatism was shot through with a strong vein of optimism, and a fierce determination that he was the master of his own destiny. He wouldn’t give in without a fight.

  ‘Rally point is here,’ said Kassar, blink-clicking a designator onto the Harrow’s retinal displays on the edge of the storage hangar. ‘Fall-back position is here.’ Another click, another rune lit on their auspex maps at the foot of the guard tower. ‘Look to your wargear, and your brothers.’

  ‘Not for gods. Not for warlords,’ said his warriors as one.

  ‘For the primarchs, and the Harrow,’ Kassar replied. It was an old battle mantra, adopted on Bloodforge, and it had served them well.

  The shuddering of the Stormbird had become a violent shaking. Runes flickered from amber to red across its cockpit instruments, and warning chimes sounded through the craft. Its electro-sconces flickered to deep crimson, and the smell of smoke filled the air.

  Hydra barrels swivelled and began to thump, streams of shells converging on the gunship as it thundered in over the waves. Kassar heard Haltheus curse, and gripped the arms of his throne as the Stormbird executed a wallowing series of evasive manoeuvres. The clang of impacts suggested they weren’t entirely successful.

  ‘Coming up on the rig,’ said Haltheus. ‘Give me what cover you can, Kassar.’

  Kassar was already sweeping for targets, the auspex flickering across armoured turrets, humming vox-nests and rearing battlements that thronged with warriors. Selecting his victims with veteran skill, he sent multiple warheads streaking away from the port wing.

  The first missile punched through a plascrete redoubt and into the magazine behind, detonating a flak battery and a score of Imperial Guardsmen. The second was clipped by flak, tumbling off course into the rig’s towering industrial superstructure. It exploded amidst a cluster of fuel tanks, and flames lit Kassar’s screens as an almighty fireball bloomed skywards. The last
shot struck the supports of an armoured vox-tower. It fell, wreathed in electricity, to crush another Hydra battery and scatter the Adepta Sororitas hunkered in its shadow.

  Then the missiles were gone, and Kassar was down to heavy bolters. He played his targeters across the enemy positions, raking them with explosive rounds, but the rig was huge and their enemies many. Bodies tumbled in bursts of blood. A third flak battery burst into flames.

  Engines howling, hull aflame, the Stormbird floundered around the flank of the rig, taking more hits as it went. A section of the cockpit cowling tore away, and suddenly the wind was screaming around Kassar, the sky yawning overhead.

  The rig’s superstructure hurtled past, their dropsite approaching fast. The guard tower loomed up before them, its guns spitting fire.

  ‘Kassar!’ D’sakh’s voice, barely audible above the scream of the wind and the roar of engines and gunfire. Whatever the vexillor’s message, Kassar didn’t have to hear it. At precisely that moment another stream of flak raked them, and he was slammed into his seat by an almighty explosion.

  On his instruments, everything pulsed angry red, then cut in a shower of sparks.

  ‘Starboard fuel tanks,’ shouted Haltheus. ‘Forget what I said, Kassar, get those war-damned missiles away!’

  ‘My controls are dead,’ Kassar shouted back, amplifying his voice over the cacophony of battle. ‘I can’t.’

  Kassar’s world filled with light and fire as the fuel tanks touched off the gunship’s trapped missiles. The Stormbird jolted sideways with bone-breaking force. Kassar felt a terrible wrench as the deck buckled and tore. Then everything turned upside down, the rig raced up to meet them, and the sound of impacts and explosions melded into a deafening bellow cut off by sudden, silent darkness.

  Chapter Five

  Consciousness returned, a sharp transition from nothingness to mayhem. Kassar’s eyes opened, and his mind engaged.

  He was upside down, hanging from his throne’s restraints. The roar of flames filled his ears. Amber alert runes flashed in his peripheral vision, his armour warning of damage and minor injuries. A quick check confirmed that Mortis was still mag-locked to his thigh, and Hexling remained in its sheath at his hip.

  Kassar uncoupled his restraints and dropped from his throne, landing in a fighting crouch on what remained of the cockpit roof. A quick glance showed that the gunship had slammed into a building, probably the guard tower, punching through into the structure’s interior. The explosion had torn open the Stormbird’s hull, and the subsequent crash had ripped the craft apart, segments of it smashing through chambers and corridors. Kassar stood, fires burning all around, choking smoke obscuring wreckage and rubble on every side. There was no sign of anyone else.

  ‘Unsung,’ he voxed. ‘Report.’

  Rubble shifted to his right, lumps of ferrocrete tumbling down to clang on the metal decking. Kyphas hauled himself free, jade eye-lenses burning amidst the dust. Wordlessly, the spymaster unholstered his bolt pistols.

  ‘Kassar,’ came a shout from amidst the smoke. Haltheus’ voice, no cypher.

  Kassar and Kyphas hurried through the wreckage towards the source of the shout. On their way, they all but tripped over the sprawled body of Reskh, his armour scorched and his head nowhere to be seen.

  Fourteen left, thought Kassar grimly.

  They found Haltheus pinned under the wreck of the gunship’s nose. Together, Kassar and Kyphas hauled the mangled metal aside, and Haltheus clambered to his feet. Blood leaked from a rent in his side, but otherwise he looked uninjured.

  Kassar’s vox pinged now with a steady stream of clicks and hisses, the Unsung confirming that they still lived. Quickly, efficiently, they rallied on their leader.

  ‘The baggage lives,’ said D’sakh as he limped from the smoke. ‘Krowl took a stanchion through the chest, still hasn’t managed to rip it out, but the cultist? Barely a scratch. Something’s watching over him.’

  Kassar felt a tightness unlock in his chest as he saw Syxx stumble into the firelight, rebreather clamped to his face. Krowl loomed alongside him, both gauntlets wrapped around a jagged spear of metal driven into his breastplate. With a grunt, he wrenched the offending spar from his flesh and threw it aside. Brackish blood spattered after it, but through the crack in Krowl’s armour his flesh could be seen reknitting.

  ‘Several minor injuries and flesh wounds,’ reported A’khassor as he moved from brother to brother, his narthecium flashing. ‘Makhor has a broken arm. Skarle’s secondary heart is punctured.’

  ‘Sha’dor? Ulkhur?’ asked Kassar, seeing that both were missing. D’sakh shook his head.

  ‘They were closest to the starboard ordnance when it blew,’ he said. ‘I saw them both die.’

  Twelve left; the voice sounded again in Kassar’s mind like a death-knell. Angrily, he drove it away.

  ‘We could have suffered far worse,’ he said. ‘And we are still mission capable. But the enemy will be on their way.’

  ‘The crash will have weakened the tower, also,’ said Haltheus. ‘We don’t want to be in this structure any longer than we have to.’

  ‘Skarle, Thelgh, spread out and stand guard,’ said Kassar. ‘I’ll join you. Krowl, watch over the cultist, stay near me. Skaryth, scout our location and find me a route out of this place before it burns to the ground. The rest of you, strip the wreck and the dead. Follow Haltheus’ lead. Two minutes.’

  Flames roared. Waves of heat rolled over Kassar. The structure of the tower groaned and settled around him, rivulets of ferrocrete dust trickling from the ceiling. Somewhere above, a string of secondary explosions rattled like gunfire, causing him to snap his bolter up in search of targets. As his brothers laboured to gather ammunition, armour segments, serviceable weapons and supplies, he felt the tower shudder.

  The building was mortally wounded. It wouldn’t live long.

  Haltheus came to his side. The Coffer was mag-locked to the underside of his armour’s power pack, and belts of tools, explosives and miscellaneous devices festooned his armour. The rest of the Unsung had spread out into a guard formation, crouched amidst fire-lit rubble and wreckage, awaiting orders.

  ‘We’ve got everything we need, Kassar. The rest we can leave.’

  ‘Good–’ began Kassar, only to be interrupted as bolt-rounds whistled past him to detonate amidst the wreck. At the same moment, strong, clear voices were raised in hymn, the Emperor’s Battle Sisters voicing the words of their faith.

  ‘Enemy contact,’ he voxed. ‘Switch to second cypher. Formation gorgon.’

  At once, his warriors readied their weapons and pushed outwards, hunting for targets of opportunity amidst the smoke and flame. Knowing that thermal vision would be useless, Kassar instead called up a wireframe motion-filter. Several targets lit up with designator runes, the outlines of Battle Sisters suddenly visible, crouched behind a half-collapsed wall.

  Using serpenta, Kassar issued his orders.

  ‘Krowl, get the cultist into cover then draw their fire. Haltheus, flank right. I’ll go left.’

  Even as his warriors acknowledged, and Krowl’s bolter barked, Kassar was moving. He bent low, loping through rubble and ruin. Off to his right, more self-propelled bolts cut through the smoke to burst against Krowl’s armour.

  Kassar spun around a demolished column and raised Mortis, sighting on the nearest Battle Sister. The woman’s hair was bleached white and cut in a severe bob. Her bolter was flaring as it spat shells at Krowl. Her armour was half onyx black and half bone white, and her cheeks boasted jewelled ruby tears.

  The beautiful adornments vanished in an eruption of blood as Kassar placed a bolt neatly through the woman’s cheek and blew her head apart. Shouting, her two Sisters spun towards him, only for the furthest to stagger as a foot-long silver blade burst, point first, from her jugular. Blood jetted, and the Battle Sister pawed weakly at the blade, then crashed forwa
rd onto her face.

  The last Sister spun again, spraying shots at D’sakh where he crouched, ready to hurl his second knife. Kassar charged in from behind and hacked the Battle Sister’s head from her shoulders.

  Tasting blood, Hexling squealed with delight and writhed in his grip. Teeth gritted, Kassar rode out the blade’s demands for more, crushed down its sibilant hissing in his mind, mastering it with his will as he always did.

  Bolter-fire sounded throughout the crash site, muzzle flare marking where the Unsung were engaging. Plainsong echoed across the battlefield. Nearby, Kassar caught the tell-tale phut, phut, phut of Thelgh’s sniper rifle, a moment before Phaek’or’s heavy bolter kicked in with a bombastic roar.

  ‘Kassar,’ voxed Skaryth. ‘Exit secured. Transmitting.’

  A rune flashed up on Kassar’s retinal display, four hundred yards to his right.

  ‘D’sakh, Phaek’or, Phalk’ir, Thelgh, covering fire. Everyone else, gather on Skaryth then cover their retreat. Haltheus…’

  ‘I’ll leave them a gift,’ said Haltheus, unclamping several explosive charges.

  Kassar spotted another group of enemies moving in through the smoke. He lobbed a frag grenade into their midst before falling back with his bolter roaring.

  Forging through the smoke, ignoring the bolt-rounds bursting around him, Kassar found the rest of the Unsung – minus their rear guard – gathered around the entrance to a pneumo-lift shaft. Its doors had been forced open, mechanisms still drizzling sparks.

  ‘Lift’s inoperable, and I wouldn’t trust it anyway,’ said Skaryth. ‘But there’s a service ladder. Looks to lead right down into the inner structure of the rig.’

  ‘Good work,’ said Kassar. ‘We won’t follow it that far though, too obvious. Skaryth, take point. Krowl, carry the cultist and keep him safe. Get down as far as ground level then make us an exit onto the outer decking.’

  Around him, his brothers’ guns roared. Kassar’s rear guard backed away through the smoke, firing as they went. With less than ten yards to go, D’sakh was punched off his feet by a direct hit to the helm. The vexillor shook his head and hauled himself upright, blasting his assailant and blowing her apart.