As Brother Ramos, third from the rear, passed a waist-high jumble of twisted metal and wires, the power cabling of his plasma cannon got snagged. Before Ramos knew what was happening, there was a sudden clatter as the junk lurched with his next step, striking and dislodging other debris from a nearby heap.
Immediately, the other Fists brought their bolters to bear on the doors at either side. The ork voices within those rooms had gone quiet, as if the aliens were straining to hear further noise that might warrant the effort of investigation.
Kantor was right next to a door of slightly dented black metal. He heard clumsy footsteps on the other side of it, footsteps that sounded as if they were getting closer. He flexed the fingers of his power fist and activated its deadly energy field. Seconds later, the door was yanked hard. A massive xenos with a black eye-patch and earlobes pierced with lengths of bone stood staring out at him, its brain taking a moment to process the message sent by its one red eye.
That moment was enough for Kantor. He darted straight towards the creature and brought his power fist down in a blistering hammer blow. The energy field cracked sharply and blue arcs of light flashed. One moment, the beast had a head, the next, it was erased. Twitching, the corpse fell backwards. A pistol fell from its meaty right hand.
The moment the weapon struck the ground, a shot rang out. The fat bullet struck the ceiling. The sound of the shot seemed deafening in the silence.
‘Dorn’s blood!’ cursed Kantor.
All along the hall, doors were flung open, disgorging greenskin warriors that roared as they came. They clashed with Squad Segala first, attacking with furious force, bringing their huge axes and cleavers down again and again. Segala and his men were far faster, far better trained, and they parried or slipped the orks’ blows again and again, driving the xenos to fight even harder, fuelled by anger and frustration.
‘Lician,’ barked Kantor, ‘cover the rear. Daecor, you and I move up in support. Anais, Ruzco, stay by me.’
The Techmarines, of course, were by no means helpless. They wielded massive power axes that could cleave an ork in two. Anything that came within range of them would die, but Kantor wanted them close so he could personally protect them. He had already decided to give his life if it would buy their survival in place of his own. One way or another, they had to reach the two control centres.
Sergeant Daecor was already moving, boltpistol high, firing in tight controlled bursts wherever his eyes found a viable target.
Kantor surged forward to join the battle and found himself next to one of Segala’s men, Brother Bacar, who faced an ork easily twice his weight. The beast had an iron grip on both Bacar’s wrists and was yanking him forwards, trying to draw him into a crushing bear-hug from which he could bite at the Space Marine’s less-protected throat.
Kantor’s hand flashed out, power fist connecting solidly with another sharp crack of energy. The far wall was sprayed red. Brother Bacar twisted out of the dead ork’s grip and kicked its body to the ground. ‘My thanks, lord,’ he gasped.
‘Do better,’ said Kantor.
He saw Segala surrounded by three orks wielding a mixture of hammers and axes. Another closed in hefting a huge spiked mace. ‘Damn it,’ cursed Kantor as he ran, already knowing he would arrive too late.
Segala was fighting hard, flowing from defence to counter-attack with all the speed and power one could rightly expect of a veteran Astartes. But, in the close confines of the hall, and with others fighting so close behind him, he did not have the space he needed. Kantor saw the sergeant was trying to use each ork’s mass against the others, trying to angle himself so that he need only face them one at a time, but it was too late. He was surrounded. Even as Kantor lifted Dorn’s Arrow to fire in support, he heard the ork with the mace grunt something. The orks on Segala’s left and right dropped their weapons and grabbed Segala’s arms tight. The sergeant was extremely strong – all Astartes were – but an ork was stronger, and the strength of two was impossible to resist. They bound his arms and held him in place while the mace-wielding ork hauled his weapon into the air.
Kantor fired, and a stutter of storm-bolter rounds took the left-side ork in the head, killing it instantly. But its headless body maintained its grip, its powerful hands obeying the last message from its tiny simple brain.
The mace crashed down on Segala’s head with helmet-splintering force. A great splash of blood painted the sergeant’s breastplate and pauldrons.
Kantor roared with rage and fired again, taking the right-side ork in the shoulder and back, but the ork with the mace had already raised its weapon for another swing. Even as the orks on either side of the sergeant finally toppled, the spiked head of the mace made contact again, battering what was left of the helmet down to the gorget. Segala’s legs buckled and he fell to the floor, very definitely dead.
Kantor strode forward with Dorn’s Arrow blazing, shells ripping into the ork warrior’s body in a hate-filled fusillade. The mace dropped with a heavy clang, and the broad, muscular body danced on the spot for a moment as the rounds detonating inside it ripped it apart.
Kantor growled and spun to find a new target. He was spoiled for choice. Fires of hate and anger burning within him, he waded into the melee, drawing his blade from the sheath at the base of his spine. ‘Tear them apart, my brothers,’ he yelled. ‘Blood for blood. Vengeance for the fallen. Let none survive.’
He let his emotions run through him unchecked now, drawing from them, allowing them to take control. He moved too fast, too surely, for conscious thought to play any role. His movements were the purest expression of all his training, his way of life, of all the enhancements and procedures he had endured. Here was three hundred and fifty years of martial mastery unleashed on those who had almost taken everything from him, those he now hated most in all the galaxy.
He killed without hesitation, twin hearts pumping, muscles moving in absolute unity. Anyone who had seen him then would have realised something important about him. They would have realised that Pedro Kantor was not Chapter Master by virtue of his intelligence and demeanour alone. He was one of the finest warriors the Chapter had known in ten thousand years.
Alessio Cortez would have been proud of him, but not surprised.
He had always known it to be so.
Squad Segala now became Squad Daecor. Kantor had little choice but to place Feraggamos Daecor in command. Segala’s squad-brothers accepted it. The mission was all that mattered right now. Though their hearts were torn in two at the loss of their sergeant, they would mourn him later, if they did not join him in death.
Despite their losses, what was left of the assault force managed to overcome the orks in the hall. By the time they reached the air traffic control centre, they numbered only nine, and one of those was the Chapter Master. Sergeant Segala had fallen in the hallway. So, too, had Brothers Gaban, Ramos and Morai, their heavy weapons impairing their combat skills in the maelstrom of close-quarters combat. Brother Oro remained on the Coronado Plate, or so Kantor hoped. He could not raise Oro on the link.
And Cortez?
Well, Alessio had always said he would meet his match one day. Kantor was trying not to think about it, but the possibility that the same creature had now killed both Drigo Alvez and Alessio Cortez was like a fire in him. He had to fight himself not to turn back and track the murderous beast down while there was still far more critical work to do.
The air traffic control centre dominated an entire floor of the northmost of the three narrow spires. It was a wide circular room with long curving windows that ran along its entire circumference. There had been orks in the room when the elevator arrived, twenty-three in all, but it seemed they had not been expecting any kind of attack, or at least had not prepared for it. Perhaps they were too busy to pay attention to any kind of alarm or warning the others had raised.
When the elevator doors slid open, Kantor had seen them seated in high-backed chairs, massive shoulders hunched forward, each wearing a set of headphon
es linked by coiled cables to the machinery of their consoles. They jabbered into microphones in that harsh, guttural tongue of theirs, barely a language at all. There were gretchin, too, dashing back and forth with various tools and inscrutable gadgets. They saw the Astartes first, and froze for a second, fear rooting them to the floor.
Kantor ordered his men to open fire, and the control centre became a bloodbath. The orks with the headphones barely had time to turn around in their chairs before Daecor and his men fired, punching wet red holes in each misshapen head.
The bodies slumped in their chairs. Some slid forward to collapse heavily on the floor.
‘Clear,’ said Daecor. Black smoke coiled upwards from the muzzle of his bolter.
Kantor crossed to the windows facing north, all smashed. The wind howled and pulled at him as if trying to drag him out into a deadly freefall. He looked down at the Coronado Plate about three hundred metres below. It was pitch-dark outside. He cycled the vision modes of his helmet. Visor-based infrared was unreliable at this range. He settled on low-light enhancement. He could make out the ruins of the ork fighter-bombers down there. The fires had burned themselves out now. Panning his vision a little to the right of them, he saw the access ramp which led to the atrium. He saw greenskin bodies lying in heaps.
There was no sign of Brother Oro.
Kantor knew what that meant. The Devastator would not have left his post.
Alessio must be dead, too.
He felt something inside him come dangerously close to breaking, something important, something that had to hold for just a little longer. Alessio’s memory would not be served by succumbing to it now. The survival of the Chapter had to be assured. There was still a chance, a slim chance, that a future remained, a future in which the Imperium could still call on the Crimson Fists as it had done so often in the past.
He looked further north, beyond the Coronado Plate, and saw the flash and flicker of artillery-fire far off beneath the horizon. There were bright pulses of green and purple energy, too. He strained his ears and thought he could just faintly detect the sounds of the battle for the citadel, but he was not sure. Sixty kilometres was a long way for those sounds to travel, and the wind howling through the shattered windows did not make it any easier for him.
How close were the gargants to the walls? The oddly-coloured flashes of light he had glimpsed suggested they had already started to employ the great clusters of energy weapons that bristled in place of their arms. The last few districts around the citadel had almost certainly fallen by now. Kantor had left orders for them to be evacuated by all but the defenders, but there were literally millions of civilians to be moved, and the Silver Citadel could barely contain them all.
It was impossible to predict how long the citadel’s void-shields would last. That all depended on the force the orks brought to bear. Kantor had seen gargants in action before. He had even helped to bring two down, each of those more than a century apart, by leading boarding parties that managed to destroy critical elements in their power cores. Such boarding actions hadn’t been feasible this time. When it came right down to it, securing the spaceport and hoping that the reinforcements were enough was the only chance they had, and it was pathetically slim, depending in large part on factors beyond his control.
Perhaps, he thought, but the things I can control, I will.
He looked down at the console in front of him. Clearly, the orks had recognised the value of not tampering with what they had here. Some of the equipment looked as if it had been taken apart, perhaps to see what made it work, but most of it looked unaltered, if not a little filthier than it normally would have.
Brothers Anais and Ruzco didn’t wait for any commands. They immediately lay down their weapons and began a critical systems assessment.
Kantor let them work without interruption. A moment later, Ruzco came to his side, lifted a black cable with a golden jack at its end, and asked if he might plug it into the Chapter Master’s gorget. There was an uplink socket concealed there. Kantor conceded at once, and Ruzco pressed the golden jack home with a click. Immediately, Kantor heard static inside his helmet. Ruzco turned a dial on the console in front of him, and began cycling through channels. There was nothing at first, and Kantor began to suspect the comms array on top of the tower had been damaged after all. But, if so, then why had the orks been sitting jabbering into their microphones?
Then he heard it, a snuffling, grunting transmission in the ork tongue. He recognised the voice. He had heard it many times since The Crusader had returned from Badlanding with news of Ashor Drakken’s death. It was the Arch-Arsonist, Snagrod, broadcasting his boasts and taunts, as always. As Kantor listened, the message ended, then began again. It was being played on a loop. The moronic warlord continued to broadcast in the orkish language, despite his messages being clearly meant for the ears of the loyalist forces. It would almost have been funny had the alien fiend not been personally responsible for the sickening pain, torture and deaths of so many.
Ruzco continued adjusting the dials comms station. He was in the higher frequency range now, and Kantor was close to losing hope, when he finally heard a human voice, or rather, the voice of a being that had once been human, that may still have been partly human.
It was the voice of a comms-servitor on one of the Imperial ships fighting above the planet. Kantor lifted a hand to halt Ruzco’s adjustments, and listened, but the stream of words from the servitor was intended for the ears of other servitors. It was a constant babble of systems status reports and energy readings. He waved Ruzco on, and the Techmarine turned the dial to the right a little more. Finally, they found what they were looking for.
‘I want all portside batteries on that ship,’ said a cultured voice in High Gothic. ‘And prime the lance batteries for when we come around. We shall want to lend assistance to the Manzarion and the Virago as soon as we’re clear of their fighters. See it done!’
Kantor waited until there was a pause, then he cut in, saying, ‘In the name of the Emperor, identify yourself.’
The well-spoken man spluttered. ‘What the bloody hell are you doing on this frequency? Do you know the punishment for interfering with Imperial Naval communications? Who is this?’
‘Standby,’ said Kantor, ‘broadcasting identicode now.’
There was a runeboard on the console in front of Ruzco. The Techmarine’s fingers beat a rapid tattoo on the runes.
The response was immediate.
‘That’s… that’s an Astartes code!’ stammered the Imperial commander.
‘It is,’ said Kantor. ‘This is Pedro Kantor, Lord Hellblade, Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists Space Marines. Now identify yourself at once.’
The naval commander paused to steel himself, then said, ‘My name is Arvol Dahan, Lord Commander of the Imperial Naval destroyer Adaemus. Forgive me, my lord Astartes, for–’
‘There is nothing to forgive, commander,’ said Kantor. ‘But you will assist me in contacting Lord Admiral Galtaire.’
‘At… at once, my lord. Galtaire maintains an open channel at all times, monitored by his senior commsman. Let me give you the frequency…’
Ruzco turned the dial as soon as he had the numbers. Kantor waited for him to finish, then identified himself to the commsman on the other end, adding, ‘I must speak with Lord Admiral Galtaire at once.’
There was the briefest pause, during which Kantor assumed his message was being relayed to the lord admiral. Seconds later, a gruff voice said, ‘This is Galtaire. I’m glad someone is still alive down there. Even gladder that it’s you, my lord. What’s your status? I can’t help you worth a damn without a secure air corridor and landing zone.’
‘I am working on that, lord admiral,’ said Kantor. ‘But time is running out. The gargants are assaulting the citadel. The void-shields will hold for a while, but no one can be sure how long.’
‘Gargants,’ echoed the lord admiral. ‘We’d best get the Martian priests and their machines down to you in the
first wave. I’ve got Astartes here who are most eager to demonstrate their skills, too. I see by the header on your transmission that you’re broadcasting from inside New Rynn Spaceport. May I assume that the facility is now firmly back under Imperial control?’
‘We have air traffic control and comms now. The spaceport defence grid is next. I’m leaving three of my Astartes here to hold communications open and keep this place secure. Your contact is Brother Ruzco. Keep him apprised of any changes. He will relay critical updates to me directly.’
‘Very well, lord Astartes,’ said Galtaire. ‘May the Emperor watch over you and keep you safe.’
‘And you,’ said Kantor brusquely. ‘We shall speak again soon.’
He plucked the golden jack from the socket in his gorget and handed it to Ruzco. Turning from the shattered windows, he marched towards the elevator. His fellow Crimson Fists eyed him anxiously, curious to know what was going on.
‘Two of you will stay with Brother Ruzco and hold this room at all costs,’ he told them. ‘Nothing, absolutely nothing, must be allowed to compromise our communications with the Imperial Fleet.’
‘Are you asking for volunteers, my lord?’ said Daecor.
‘No,’ said Kantor. ‘I’m not.’ His finger stabbed towards two brothers, one of which, Brother Lucevo of Squad Segala, had been wounded in the hallway battle, his side bitten by an ork axe. The other was the Brother Padilla of Squad Lician.
‘Lucevo, Padilla,’ said Kantor, ‘make oaths to me now that you will defend this place, though your very lives may be forfeit. Swear it on your left hands and on the blood of the primarch.’
Immediately, both men dropped to their right knee and clenched their left fists over their breastplates. Lucevo sucked in a hissing breath as his wound sang.
‘For the honour of the Crimson Fists, the primarch and the Golden Throne,’ they said together.
Kantor asked Ruzco if he needed anything else, and was told that he didn’t. He then ordered the others – Anais, Daecor, Lician, Verna and Bacar – into the elevator in which they had arrived. He entered last and closed the metal gate. Lucevo and Padilla watched the Chapter Master and the others descend out of sight.
The War for Rynn's World - Steve Parker & Mike Lee Page 34