Six
The Coronado Tower, New Rynn Spaceport
An hour and forty-seven minutes had passed since they had blasted their way out of the work tunnel beneath the spaceport. The fighting had been almost constant since then, but, as Kantor had predicted, the sheer size of the spaceport and the maze of its halls, rooms, loading bays and elevator shafts had prevented the orks from launching any kind of coordinated purge against the Crimson Fists’ assault force.
Contact with Squad Victurix was difficult now, the voice of the Terminator sergeant faint on the comm-link. That, too, had been expected. Kantor, Cortez and the brothers accompanying them were hundreds of metres above the point where they had entered the spaceport. Beneath them were many floors of thick metal girders and steel-reinforced rockcrete and ferrocrete. Sooner or later, contact with the Terminators holding the lower floors would be lost altogether. Victurix had already reported further contact with the enemy. He also relayed word from the other assault groups. The battle for the rest of the spaceport grounds was ongoing. At least it seemed that most of the toughest orks were out there among the hordes surrounding the Silver Citadel. They thought that was where the action was.
To some extent, they were right. Even here, in the upper levels of the spaceport some forty kilometres south of the position of the nearest marching gargant, those thunderous, planet-trembling footfalls could still be felt, at least to senses as highly trained as those of a Space Marine.
Silently, Kantor prayed that the citadel’s void-shields would hold out long enough for the Legio Titanicus to land some of their Titans. The famed god-machines would make short work of their poorer ork-built rivals. But a lot had to happen before that was even a remote possibility. The spaceport had to be utterly secure.
He looked around.
Moments ago, he and his brothers had emerged from a narrow hallway filled with scrap and ork excrement, into this, a broad, semi-circular room that had once been a passenger lounge. Large windows ran the entire length of the curving outer wall, but every last one had been smashed, and a warm wind howled through them, lifting scraps of crumpled paper from the floor and tugging at the torn edges of posters still half-stuck to the walls.
Squads Daecor and Lician were covering two sets of double doors that led out of the room. Squad Segala was covering the rear, the door through which they had just come. The Techmarines, just as Kantor had commanded, were at his side. Their survival was everything. Without them, this was a lost cause.
Kantor turned his head, surveying the room. Behind him stood his old friend, weapons holstered for the moment as he, too, looked around.
‘Damned mess,’ said Cortez quietly.
The captain had not left Kantor’s side since they had entered the underworks back in the Silver Citadel. Kantor knew full well that Cortez had sought, perhaps even expected, command of the mission. He knew Cortez had wanted this all along, a chance to throw all caution to the wind and march out to meet the foe head on. It was his way. He wasn’t interested in the bigger picture. He was focussed on the here and now, on the enemy in front of him, and he gave his all in fighting that foe. It was both his strength and his weakness.
Kantor had momentarily considered giving Cortez command, but what would he have achieved by staying back there? Against the gargants, there was nothing he could do from the citadel walls to make a difference. Here, he could make a significant difference.
‘We’re getting closer,’ Kantor said over the link. ‘Above this lounge is another for high-ranking dignitaries. It leads out into a large atrium and, from there, we can access the landing plate itself. Once we cross it, we’ll enter the central spires. The air traffic control and defence control centres are inside.’
‘There are three landing plates,’ said Cortez. ‘What about the other two?’
‘First things first,’ replied Kantor. ‘I am not interested in the landing plates until the air defence grid has been secured. We can think about everything else once we have airspace control.’
Cortez suddenly held up a hand. ‘Listen!’
Kantor heard it now. The ceiling was thick, but, alerted by Cortez, he could now hear movement above. There was something very heavy moving above them.
Cortez sounded eager. Did he hope it was Snagrod himself?
‘That’s no gretchin,’ he said, half to himself.
‘We move,’ said Kantor. ‘Daecor has point. Beyond the doors, the atrium should have plenty of cover. If there are targets, do not let them dig in. The atrium is dominated by a staircase at its centre. The landing at the top goes east to west. I want that landing secured, Daecor on the east doors, Lician on the west. Squad Segala continues to protect the rear. Anais and Ruzco with Segala. All squads, confirm.’
‘By your command,’ said Sergeant Daecor.
‘Your will, my lord,’ said Lodric Lician, shortly followed with a similar affirmation from Segala and the Techmarines.
Kantor moved closer to the door Squad Daecor was covering, Cortez moving with him on his left, just a few metres behind. When they were in position, Kantor gave the order.
‘Go!’
Daecor kicked open the door, splintering the finely carved wood with his ceramite boot. In a flash, he was through it, leading the charge into the Coronado atrium. Immediately, stubber-fire and the bright burst of discharging energy weapons poured down on him from a gallery overhead.
Daecor and his squad sidestepped into cover on either side of the hall, taking shelter in the lee of defaced statues that had once represented Rynn and his acolytes.
‘Dorn’s blood!’ spat Daecor over the link.
Kantor barked out orders to Squad Lician, and the Devastator squad moved up to give covering fire. The gallery overhead was so packed with orks that they were almost spilling over the marble baluster. There were more on the floor of the atrium, too, half-sheltering behind the bases of the ruined statues at the far end. Others stood on the wide sweep of the marble central stair, spraying fire at the Astartes, brass casings falling to the thick red carpet and rolling from the steps.
Brother Morai was carrying a heavy bolter. Of all the heavy weapons the Devastators had brought, it was this that had the longest lethal range. Stepping out from cover, Morai hefted the massive barrel of his gun in the direction of the orks on the gallery and tightened his grip on the firing lever. The weapon began to shudder with incredible recoil as it poured a blistering torrent of bolter-shells on the clustered knot of xenos fiends. The marble baluster was chewed apart. With nothing left to resist the push of their fellows at the back, the brutish aliens in the front rows found themselves tumbling forwards into space, falling fifteen metres to the hard marble flagstones below. Scores of them fell, hitting hard, sustaining serious injuries. But these were orks, perhaps the most resilient species in the galaxy when it came to pain. They scrambled to their feet, discarding the dented and twisted ruins of their guns, and drew cleavers, swords, axes and hammers from the loops on their thick squiggoth-hide belts.
With a unified roar, they surged forwards towards the Astartes.
Morai stepped forward to meet them, strafing the muzzle of his weapon left and right in a tight arc as he moved. The muzzle flare of his weapon lit everything around him in bright strobing light. A shower of brass poured from the heavy bolter’s cartridge ejection port.
The orks at the front were almost cut in half as dozens of mass-reactive shells exploded inside their guts. They went down screaming, spittle flying from their razor-toothed mouths. Gore spattered the floor, the walls, the fixtures.
The ruined statues of Rynn and his fellows were dripping with blood, the deep red stark against the flawless white marble.
The orks at the back of the charge kept coming, iron-booted feet stomping on the bodies of their fallen kin, slipping occasionally on the spilled blood and intestines.
Sergeant Lician ordered Morai to fall back, to save his ammunition. His fusillade had been enough to buy Daecor and his squad a moment to prepare. They no
w leaned out from cover and poured bolter and plasma fire into the rest of the charging xenos, cutting them down in the middle of the hall. The orks on the stair and those behind cover at the far end of the hall continued to pour large-calibre metal slugs at the Crimson Fists. And then Kantor heard a new noise.
It was the stomping of huge armoured feet and, just before every footfall, the distinctive hiss and clank of piston-powered legs. The landing at the top of the stair shook. One of the hanging lights fixed to the underside came loose and fell to the floor, shattering into myriad pieces.
The orks on the stair stopped firing for long enough to look up, and Kantor thought he saw hints of fear on their slack-jawed faces.
A battle-roar so deep it shook the walls sounded, and lasted so long that, for a moment, the Chapter Master wondered if it would ever end.
The moment it did, the orks on the stair gave up their positions, bolting down to the bottom and dashing for the cover of the ruined statues at the far end, the same place from which their fellows were firing.
Daecor and his men did not stop to find out who or what had decided to join the battle. They kept pouring fire out at the orks, killing a dozen of them as they crossed the open hallway at a run. Then, with a temporary lessening of enemy fire, they moved out and raced to forward positions that would offer them a better line of sight on their targets. Kantor and Cortez moved a second later, leading Squad Lician into the cover that Daecor and his brothers had just abandoned.
From here, Kantor brought Dorn’s Arrow to bear. He had a good arc of fire on the orks still shooting from the second-floor gallery. He raised his left hand, turned Dorn’s Arrow level with the floor, and fired, ripping his targets to pieces.
The relic weapon’s rate of fire was almost as great as that of Morai’s heavy bolter, and it cut deep into the mob of orks, its bolts detonating messily in their bellies. Eviscerated bodies began tumbling from the edge of the gallery, smacking loudly, wetly, on the flagstones.
From the edge of his vision, Kantor saw Cortez and the men of Squad Lician giving suppressing fire to allow Squad Daecor to move from cover to cover once again. The sergeant was attempting to go around behind the great stair in the centre of the hall. He hoped to flank the enemy from the left.
Just as Daecor and his brothers had begun to move there was another deafening roar, this time from the very top of the stair. Kantor saw Daecor dive for cover, but the other four battle-brothers in his squad were just fractionally slower.
Kantor watched in horror as they were chewed apart before his eyes. Their armour should have protected them against greenskin slugs, even large-calibre ones, but this was different. Whatever stood at the top of the stairs was spewing so much firepower in their direction that there was simply no hope. Ceramite plates cracked and shattered under the deadly hail. Great gouts of blood fountained into the air. To Kantor’s eyes, it seemed to happen in slow motion. He knew this feeling. He had felt it before, many times. Why did time always grind to a halt like this when he was forced to watch good brothers die?
Four brave Crimson Fists fell to the floor like so much dead meat.
If the Chapter had a future, they would not see it now.
Then their killer, still blocked from Kantor’s view by the curve of the landing above, turned its lead-spewing heavy weapon on the statue behind which Daecor was now trapped. The shells began reducing the statue to rubble with terrible speed.
‘Shell-breakers,’ said Sergeant Lician on the link.
Kantor knew the sergeant was right. Only armour-piercing rounds could have done damage like that. It was fortunate, in some respects, that only the highest ranking orks ever seemed to have access to them.
Kantor heard Cortez roaring in rage from just behind him. He, too, had witnessed the deaths of his brother Astartes and it was too much.
Kantor instinctively knew what was going to happen next. He put out a hand to stop his old friend, but perhaps he should have known better. Nothing could stop Alessio Cortez when he had committed himself to a kill. Cortez raced forwards, moving with incredible speed, boltpistol in his right hand, his other, gloved in its massive power fist, pumping the air as he sprinted.
Ork fire from three directions pocked the marble flagstones at his feet, just a fraction of a second too late to hit him. As Cortez slid into cover beside Daecor, he raised his bolt pistol in the direction of the beast that had killed his brother Astartes… and froze.
Kantor heard his words as clear as gunshots over the comm-link.
‘I know you!’ shouted Cortez. ‘You killed Drigo Alvez!’
Footsteps shook the marble stairs now, and Kantor saw a huge armoured form come into view. As he had suspected from the noise of the piston-powered legs, the creature was covered head-to-toe in a blocky, massively-thick suit of ork power armour. One arm ended in a huge multi-barrelled stubber with twin ammunition feeds. The other arm ended in the long glittering, snapping pincers of an ork power claw sheathed in deadly energies.
Kantor realised that Cortez was right. He recognised this monster from the sensorium uploads of the Krugerport survivors. This was the beast that had ended Captain Drakken’s life. It was right here, right now, right in front of them, glaring straight at Alessio Cortez.
Urzog Mag Kull!
The beast laughed and clashed its pincers.
It had already killed one Crimson Fists captain. Now it wanted another.
Seven
The Upper Levels, Coronado Tower
Cortez watched Mag Kull take step after stair-shuddering step, its massive feet, encased in iron, almost too big for the broad stairs to support. The stone cracked. For a moment, it even looked like the whole stairway might collapse, but it did not.
Beside him, he heard Daecor.
‘This one is going to be a handful.’
An understatement, thought Cortez.
The beast turned and roared at its smaller kin. They were still firing in the direction of the Space Marines. When they heard the monster roar, they stopped.
To Cortez, the message couldn’t have been clearer. Like the ork in front of the Jadeberry Hill barricade, this one was laying down a personal challenge. Deciding to test his theory, he stepped slowly, carefully, out from behind the cover of the statue’s base.
A few stubber shells whined in his direction, and the massive ork roared again.
No other fire came his way.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Daecor. ‘Have you lost your damned mind, brother?’
Maybe I have, thought Cortez, but it didn’t change the course of his actions.
The ork monstrosity was at the bottom of the stairs now, and it turned to face him.
Cortez spoke to the others. ‘This is between me and the beast. Do you hear? Just get yourselves up to the roof. Time is running out. Get to the damned control centres and do what needs doing.’
The others looked to Kantor for guidance, for a sign of confirmation. They knew what honour demanded, but surely not here, not now.
‘You kill it, brother,’ Kantor told Cortez. ‘Do you understand? You kill it, and you catch up. That’s an order.’
Cortez nodded once, eyes never moving from his new greenskin nemesis.
Kantor addressed the others. ‘On the captain’s signal,’ he said, ‘we break for the stair and the landing above.’
‘My lord…’ protested Sergeant Lician.
‘By my command, brother-sergeant,’ snapped Kantor. ‘The captain wants this, and we need to break through.’
‘Then get ready to move now,’ said Cortez. ‘Because I’m going to rip this one’s head off!’
Whether Urzog Mag Kull understood the actual words or not, the beast recognised the aggression in Cortez’s tone. It spun and splayed its arms, once again giving vent to a blood-chilling battle cry. Great gobs of spit flew from its mouth.
Cortez holstered his boltpistol and drew his combat knife. He knew the blade wouldn’t pierce the beast’s bright yellow armour, but he had already identi
fied several areas where the blade might slip in to pierce flesh or sever the suit’s control cables.
Having issued its final challenge, the monster began sidestepping to the left, circling Cortez on the open floor at the base of the stair. It gnashed the pincers of its power claw, and Cortez caught a glimmer of light. Not only was the thing crackling with an energy field, it looked like it might have been treated with synthetic diamond, much like the blade of his own knife. If so, those pincers would be able to cut through his ceramite armour like it was wet paper.
This should be interesting, Cortez told himself.
With a battle cry of his own, he charged forward, and the air rang with the clash of blades and armoured fists.
It was not easy to leave his old friend there, locked in combat with a beast twice his size, but Kantor knew he would receive no thanks for interfering. Individual combat was a sacred thing, a thing that had to be respected. It seemed even orks could agree on that. So, while blows rang out again and again in the air of the atrium, and sparks flashed from ork and Astartes armour alike, Kantor made the best of the opening his friend’s life-and-death struggle had bought him. He and the others dashed onto the stairs and up to the landing above.
Stubber-fire from the orks on the gallery chased them as they moved, and shells struck ceramite, but they were standard ork shells and didn’t penetrate.
‘Keep moving,’ Kantor snapped as Squads Lician and Segala pounded up the marble steps behind him. Ferragamos Daecor ran at Kantor’s side, the two Techmarines just behind him. Without his squadmates, all of which lay dead, he no longer held a command. Instead, he had taken Cortez’s place as the Chapter Master’s second, at least while Cortez was otherwise engaged.
Together, Kantor, Daecor, Anais, Ruzco, and the two five-man squads from 2nd Company reached the top of the landing and immediately sprinted to the right. At the end of the hall, there was a large archway and, beyond it, the slope of a ramp that would take them up to the floor above. A grunting mob of ork footsoldiers gave chase, surging out from cover and up the stairs behind the Astartes. Squad Segala stopped, each battle-brother dropping to one knee in a tight line, and returned fire, putting a number of well-placed rounds into the skulls of the fastest pursuers. Sergeant Segala barked out an order and the squad was up again, running to catch up with Kantor and the others.
The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee Page 32