The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘You want to be first in, Alessio.’

  It wasn’t a question.

  Beneath his helm, Cortez grinned wickedly. ‘You know I do.’

  Kantor checked the chronometer display on his visor. The other assault groups would be in position within four minutes, explosives fixed to the access hatches and manhole covers they would rush from, bolters cocked and ready to rip their hated enemies apart. All across the spaceport grounds, the orks wouldn’t know what hit them.

  ‘Let’s get everyone onto the stairs,’ said Kantor.

  His visor now told him he had thirty seconds to go before the assault began.

  Behind him, his battle-brothers were coiled, ready to strike. He had brought three squads in standard MkVII aquila-pattern power armour, one in Terminator armour, and two Techmarines – Brothers Anais and Ruzco. He knew their blood was up, all of them, knew they were anxious to be in among the foe, tearing them to pieces.

  Twenty seconds… ten seconds…

  He looked at Cortez and said, ‘When you go in, brother, go in hard!’

  The captain barked out a laugh.

  ‘I always do!’

  The explosive charges they had placed on the inner surface of the access hatch exploded with a bang, and stone chips and smoke blew back over the Astartes.

  They didn’t wait for the smoke to clear.

  ‘Charge,’ roared Cortez as he burst forward.

  The assault had begun.

  All across the spaceport grounds – in the lower levels of the defence towers, in basements and hangars and fuel storage buildings and more – the Crimson Fists exploded up from the tunnels with armour shimmering and weapons stuttering.

  The spaceport had become a base of operations for the orks since the day they had overcome the small Crimson Fist and Rynnsguard contingent charged with defending it. Now, the tables were turned. The orks were the defenders and, in their confidence that this war was already won, they were completely unprepared.

  Thousands of greenskins died as the Space Marines swarmed the inner walls and retook the defence towers. Outside those walls, the orks were unaware that anything was wrong. Most of the alien horde had their eyes locked to the gargants and were following them as close as they dared. They did not want to miss the spectacle of their mighty metal monstrosities obliterating the final Imperial stronghold.

  The groups assaulting the spaceport’s main buildings – the landing towers and control spires – had it harder, but not at first.

  Cortez had burst into the basement of the Coronado tower to find scores of sickly-looking gretchin facing him, frozen in fear and confusion by the sudden explosion that had just interrupted their work. They had been hauling crates of ammunition onto elevators to be taken to the loading bays above. Now, most of that ammunition lay spilled on the ground, the shells rolling and clinking together.

  Cortez started picking them off with his boltpistol immediately. The first grisly death sent the others scurrying for cover, whimpering and shrieking as they scrambled, but a good number were too slow.

  Squads Lician and Segala, two of the four squads Kantor had chosen to go with him, were right behind Cortez, and their bolters began chewing the diminutive aliens apart.

  The basement level was a single broad, high-ceilinged room littered with boxes and heaps of metal junk. The roof-space was thick with cable-bundles and pipes that snaked between steel girders. Hanging underneath the metal supports, large arc lights threw out a harsh white glare. It was clear the gretchin didn’t like those lights much. They had smashed more than half of them.

  Still, the shadows offered no sanctuary. More Crimson Fists poured through the access hatch now until, finally, Victurix and four of his Terminator brothers stepped through, shaking the floor underneath their booted feet.

  ‘Clear and hold,’ barked Kantor, but he was glad to see his Space Marines already about the task.

  More gretchin screamed as mass-reactive bolts punched into their bodies and blew them open a heartbeat later.

  If there are gretchin here, thought Cortez as he killed, then there will be an overseer nearby, too.

  Gretchin were disinclined to do anything for the good of their race without a particularly sadistic and violent brute standing over them with a prod or whip.

  Sure enough, alerted by the sound of gunfire, a massive leathery brown-skinned ork with one eye burst through a metal door at the top of the stairway that led to the next floor up. Seeing the Space Marines surrounded by dead gretchin, the beast charged into the fray bellowing at the top of its voice. It hadn’t gone three metres down the stairs when an Astartes bolt detonated in its brain, spraying the metal steps dark red and causing the heavy body to tumble down them.

  Brother Gaban of Squad Lician found the last of the gretchin hiding between two tall stacks of metal crates. A short burst of bright fire from Gaban’s flamer turned the creature into a blazing puppet that danced frantically on the spot as its flesh was consumed.

  ‘Up,’ shouted Kantor to the others. ‘They know we’re here!’

  Cortez raced for the metal stair and pounded up it. Squad Daecor followed right behind him, boots ringing on the metal steps. At the top, Cortez and Sergeant Daecor took position on either side of the open door. The other four members of Daecor’s squad prepared themselves to rush through it, guns held ready, safeties off.

  Cortez nodded to Daecor, and the sergeant ordered his squad in.

  They rushed forward through the doorway, weapons firing on every target they saw as they moved. Once through the doorway, they immediately moved to the sides, two left, two right, and lay down a steady covering fire for all those that followed.

  ‘Go!’ Kantor ordered, and Squad Lician charged through next, adding their own lethal rattle of explosive rounds.

  Cortez was firing into the loading bay from his position by the frame of the door. He heard Brother Ramos’s plasma cannon, its steady low hum now increased to a threatening whine. The weapon’s glowing coils channelled powerful electromagnetic energies in preparation for a shot. Moments later, there was a roar like fire as a blast of superheated plasma streaked from the weapon. Cortez didn’t see it, nor did he see the result of the blast, but he heard an explosion and the deep howling of full-grown orks in pain.

  ‘Moving in,’ said Daecor, ‘keep to cover brothers. Oro, watch the gantry above you. Greenskins! Padilla, give him some support, damn it!’

  Cortez flexed his muscles and prepared to follow Daecor in. He felt his armour respond to every twitch and stretch he made. Beneath the thick ceramite plates lay a skin of synthetic fibres that acted much like human muscle, reacting to electrical impulses, to the motor commands sent by his brain. The response time was almost exactly that of his own body, making his armour feel like part of him, and he was part of it.

  His power armour responded no less swiftly now as he surged out from the cover of the doorway with his boltpistol kicking in his hand. Kantor was right behind him, Dorn’s Arrow spewing a torrent of death towards a trio of big orks firing down on them from a metal gallery above.

  ‘Segala and Lician, flank and eliminate,’ commanded the Chapter Master. ‘Anais and Ruzco stay by me. The rest of you, suppressing fire.’

  This was Loading Bay Epsilon, the main loading areas serving Coronado Tower. It was here that incoming shipments of Imperial goods had once been loaded onto trucks and driven out for distribution. There were orks and gretchin all over the place. The Crimson Fists’ assault had caught in the middle of loading their ugly armoured trucks. Like the basement, the ceiling here was high and girdered. The huge metal shutters in the curving north wall were up, and beyond them lay a vast rockcrete expanse of road and runway. The ork trucks sat idling noisily, but even their spluttering engines couldn’t compete with the noise of battle.

  Cortez saw movement to his left. Four barrel-chested greenskins were arming themselves from the back of one of the trucks. Inside, Cortez could make out ammunition crates stacked one on top of the other. He
turned with his boltpistol raised and loosed a tight, three-round cluster of bolts, firing, not at the orks, but at the crates just behind them.

  For half-a-second, his rounds had no effect.

  Then the truck exploded in a blaze of light and flame. The orks were blasted onto their bellies, backs studded with massive shards of hot shrapnel. Secondary explosions lifted the truck into the air before it slammed back down, nose first, into rockcrete.

  Cortez didn’t stop to enjoy his handiwork. All around him, the Crimson Fists slaughtered anything green and animate. He continued adding his own fire, making every shot a kill shot. This was what he trained for. He never missed.

  He saw a wretched-looking ork with a mechanical hand dash towards a doorway on the metal platform twenty metres above Squad Daecor. No doubt the ugly brute was racing to raise some kind of general alarm, but the Crimson Fists could not afford to get bogged down in a heavy firefight here. Their whole plan depended on their ability to stay mobile, and on the ork inability to coordinate a proper reaction. The spaceport control tower and defence grid control room were many floors above. Terminator Squad Victurix, slower than the other lighter-armoured squads, would stay here and hold this zone. Chapter Master Kantor was counting on them to keep the orks on the ground occupied while he, Cortez and the others climbed higher towards their two main objectives.

  Cortez was about to fire on the running ork when a burst of fire from his right ripped the creature to wet red pieces. Cortez glanced towards the shooter.

  ‘Sorry, brother,’ said Brother Talazar, one of Victurix’s Terminators. ‘My kill.’

  Cortez just laughed.

  Kantor was ordering Squad Lician, Daecor and Segala up onto the gantries overhead. From there, they would proceed towards the next room, where they would gain access to the upper floors.

  ‘Stand strong, brother,’ said Cortez to Talazar as he left his side.

  ‘And you,’ Talazar boomed after him.

  Barely two minutes later, Kantor and the rest of his force, minus the Terminators, were running along a black metal gantry twelve metres above the floor, moving towards an archway at the far end. Squad Daecor had point, and they mustered on either side of the opening, ready to go in strong. Ferragamos Daecor had once served a term as a member of a Deathwatch kill-team. Cortez could see it in the sergeant’s movements, in the cool surety with which he guided his team.

  After all this, thought Cortez, when we rebuild everything we have lost, I’ll wager that one makes captain.

  The fighting in the loading bay below was over for now, the rattle of the Terminators’ storm-bolters temporarily ended, but Cortez could hear a great commotion up ahead. The brothers of Squad Daecor gripped their weapons tight and readied themselves to surge forward.

  ‘There should be a large elevator cage in the centre of the next room,’ Kantor told everyone. ‘Entry points are south and east. Make sure you cover them. Do not damage the mechanism of the elevator. We need it. Are we clear?’

  Affirmative responses sounded over the comm-link.

  ‘Good,’ said Kantor, checking the bolt-feed for Dorn’s Arrow, then returning his attention to the opening ahead. ‘Squad Daecor, enter and clear. Lician and Segala, follow on my command. Daecor, go!’

  The battle-brothers of Daecor’s squad swung out from the cover of the arched entryway and sprinted forward. They slid back into the cover of a dozen metal crates just as a great hail of stubber-fire came their way. ‘Heavy-stubbers!’ Daecor reported as shells whined past him on either side. More shells smacked into the face of the crate he was crouched behind. ‘Keep to cover,’ he barked at his squad. ‘Suppressing fire front and centre. Brother Cassaves, you and I will flank them. Do not move until their attention is locked on the others.’

  ‘Clear, brother-sergeant,’ replied the gruff Cassaves.

  Kantor turned to Cortez and said, ‘You and I take cover on either side of the doorway. Supporting fire. Understood?’

  Cortez nodded. Kantor dashed for the right side of the doorway, Cortez for the left. Their pauldrons hit the wall at the same time. Cortez leaned out briefly and surveyed the scene before him. It only took an instant.

  The elevator cage was in the centre of the chamber, just as Kantor had said it would be. The orks beyond it were heavily armed and dressed in plate armour. Cortez did not see any powered suits among them, but the iron plate would be thick enough to stop a direct hit with a bolt. He saw Daecor and Cassaves moving around, following the line of the walls left and right while the other members of the squad kept the orks busy, but the torrent of shells the orks were pouring out presented a real problem. The greenskin heavy-stubbers were spitting out spent brass like water from a fountain. The floor around them was ankle deep in shell casings already and the cover behind which the rest of Squad Daecor was sheltering was rapidly being chewed away.

  Cortez knew the Fists giving Daecor and Cassaves suppressing fire needed support, some kind of respite, a break in the fighting they could use to move into fresh cover. They had to do it now, before it was too late.

  Cortez pulled a krak grenade from the belt around his middle and primed it. ‘Squad Daecor,’ he barked over the link, ‘be ready to move to better cover. Krak grenade coming in.’

  Without waiting for confirmation, he leaned out from the side of the door, locked his eyes on the ork firing position, and hurled his grenade. He did not stay there with his head sticking out to see what happened. He knew the explosive would go off exactly where he wanted it to. He simply listened for the sharp boom he knew was coming.

  Three…

  Two…

  The floor beneath his boots shook with the blast. One of the orks, wounded but not killed began roaring in agony. Cortez heard Sergeant Daecor shouting, ‘Close in!’

  The orks that survived the blast quickly opened fire again, but Cortez could hear the difference in the rattle of their guns. There were two less of them now. He heard the stutter of only six greenskin guns.

  From the other side of the doorway, Kantor leaned out to fire a short burst from Dorn’s Arrow. The weapon’s fire-rate was incredibly high. Kantor had to be careful to fire in extremely short bursts, otherwise he would burn through his back-mounted store of ammunition in less than a minute, despite the vast amount of shells he carried.

  Daecor’s voice was on the link. ‘I have their left flank. Cassaves, are you in position?’

  ‘Almost there, brother-sergeant.’

  There was a brief pause, then Cassaves spoke again.

  ‘I have their flank. Give the word, brother.’

  Cortez leaned out and fired a round from his boltpistol. It scored a black line in the top of a crate and ricocheted, missing the hideous snarling face of one ork by scant centimetres. The ork angled the heavy barrel of its weapon towards Cortez’s position and, with a growl, loosed a flood of shells his way.

  Cortez both heard and felt the shells peppering the other side of the wall.

  ‘Now,’ said Daecor.

  In the chamber, bolter-fire sounded from two new directions, and deep ork screams filled the air. Cortez heard heavy, armoured bodies fall to the ground with the sound of metal impacting on rockcrete. Then he heard the sound of metal clashing against metal. He leaned out and saw Brother Cassaves wrestling desperately against a black-armoured monster, trying to free his bolter from the beast’s grip so that he could fire into its face at point-blank range. Daecor was on the other side of the chamber, forced to take cover again now that other surviving orks had spotted him and opened fire.

  Kantor saw it, too.

  ‘Lician and Segala, move in and support Daecor,’ he snapped. Then, with a nod at Cortez, he surged into the chamber himself, Dorn’s Arrow held straight out in front of him, the folds of his crimson cloak snapping behind him as he moved.

  Cortez moved, too, barely half a second behind his leader. The moment he entered the chamber, he centred his pistol’s iron sights on the helmeted head of the ork wrestling with Cassaves and fired
off a single bolt.

  It struck the ork dead centre in the side of its head, but the creature’s helmet was solid, at least two centimetres thick, and the round detonated on contact, snapping the ork’s head to the side, stunning it for a moment, but failing to wound it. Of course, that had never been Cortez’s intent. He knew what he was doing. He was buying Cassaves the momentary advantage he needed.

  As Cortez had known he would, Cassaves seized on the distraction. The ork had instinctively closed its eyes at the moment of the blast, desperate to protect them. The moment its gaze was removed from Cassaves, the Space Marine let his bolter drop from his right hand, drew his combat blade in a flash, and thrust it straight forward into the ork’s throat where the beast’s helmet offered no protection.

  The tip of the blade slid in, severing the critical nerve bundle at the back. Any normal creature would have dropped dead right then, but, although the ork was technically dead already, its body continued to wrestle for another eight seconds. Its grip was incredibly powerful. Even when it sank to the ground in a heap, Brother Cassaves had to pry its thick, clawed fingers off one by one.

  With only one ork left, the three squads swept straight in and cleared the room. Sergeant Lician slew the ork that was keeping Daecor’s head down, and soon the chamber was silent. Smoke curled from gun barrels and spent cartridges. Some of the ork bodies, each of which was easily three hundred kilogrammes in weight, twitched while their thick blood pooled around them. The air was thick with smells; cordite, blood, ionised air, the pungent stink of unwashed alien dead.

  Kantor ordered his battle-brothers into the elevator cage, large enough for all three five-man squads, and stood at the control panel inside.

  Cortez drew the cage’s gate closed.

  The elevator floor shuddered and there was a sound of powered gears grinding into motion. The elevator rose past the ceiling and into the vertical shaft above it.

  Cortez watched yellow lights flicker past. They were set into the smooth steel walls at regular intervals, each marking another few metres that he moved closer to victory or death.