Sounds of desperate fighting came from all around him, and even as he watched, more Laer warriors spat from their burrows like coiled springs, deadly bolts of energy slicing through the air towards them. Coral and fragments of armour ricocheted around him.
'Squad, make ready!' he shouted, as another trio of Laer appeared behind them, weapons spitting fire and light. Screams sounded from nearby and he raised his bolter to fire on this new threat when the ground shifted violently underfoot and the entire atoll took a sickening lurch downwards.
Gaius dropped to one knee, grabbing onto a nearby spur of coral as more Laer emerged from burrow holes. A spray of bolter fire from above him cut one practically in two, and it thrashed in pain as it fell. Deafening reports echoed, and the Laer that had been set to overrun them were obliterated in volleys of precisely aimed gunfire.
He looked up to see where the shots had come from and laughed in relief as he saw a host of Astartes dropping from above, the trims of their shoulder guards marking them as warriors of Marius Vairosean's Third Company.
The captain himself dropped down next to Caphen, the muzzle of his bolter flaring as he gunned down a Laer warrior that had somehow survived the initial volleys.
'On your feet, sergeant!' shouted Vairosean. 'Which way is Captain Demeter?'
Caphen pushed himself erect and pointed towards the end of the street. 'That way!'
Vairosean nodded as his warriors cut down the last of the Laer defenders with grim efficiency.
'Then let's go and link up with him as ordered,' said Vairosean.
Caphen nodded and followed the captain of the Third.
Another six of his warriors were down, torn apart by the energised blades of the Laer or with whole segments of their bodies rendered molten in the furnace heat of their ranged weapons. Solomon was beginning to regret casting off his helmet with such a cavalier disregard for communication, knowing that now more than ever he needed to know what was happening elsewhere on the atoll.
He had seen no sign of Sergeant Thelonius or Gaius Caphen's flanking forces and though the warriors of Goldoara had attempted to punch through to them, they were not equipped with the weapons to fight in such brutal close quarters and had been forced back by the Laer.
They were on their own.
Solomon drove his sword through the stretched mandibles of a Laer warrior, the blade punching out through the back of its skull, and felt himself being dragged down by its weight. He fought to withdraw the blade, but its madly whirring teeth were lodged in the dense bone of the alien's skull.
A screeching cry of pleasure sounded nearby and he dropped flat as a searing bolt of light flashed over him and gouged a furrow in the ground. Solomon rolled as the Laer slithered over the bodies of its fellows with horrifying speed and launched itself towards him. He rolled onto his back and hammered his feet into its face, feeling is mandibles snap with the impact.
The alien reeled, its whipping tail thrashing on the ground and a cry of pain gurgling from its ruined mouth. The sound of bolter fire echoed through the plaza as Solomon scrambled over the uneven ground and smashed his fist into the Laer's face. The force of the blow burst one of its eyeballs and drew another screech of pain from it. His other fist slammed into its armoured chest, the bloodstained metal buckling under the assault. It spat a froth of hot blood and mucus into his face and he roared in anger, a red mist of fury descending on him as he grabbed its glistening flesh in both hands and slammed its head into the ground.
The creature kept up its keening screech and Solomon slammed its head into the ground again and again. Even when he was sure the creature was dead, he kept pounding its skull until there was nothing left but a ragged mess of sodden skull and brain matter.
He laughed with savage joy as he picked himself up from the ground, his armour covered from head to toe in the dark blood of the Laer. He staggered over to the first alien he'd killed and wrenched his sword clear as the noise of bolter fire intensified. It took a moment before the fact that he and his warriors had run out of ammunition could penetrate the red fog that had engulfed him as he fought the Laer.
He turned to the source of the gunfire and punched the air as he saw the unmistakable form of Marius Vairosean leading the warriors of the Third into the plaza with merciless perfection. Gaius Caphen fought alongside him and the Laer reeled from this fresh assault, their ranks thrown into disarray as Marius's warriors cut them down.
Seeing their fellows, the Second redoubled their efforts, and tired limbs fought on with fresh strength. The Laer attack faltered and even though their features were utterly alien, Solomon could see the paralysis of indecision tear at them as they realised that they were surrounded.
'Second, with me!' he shouted and set off in the direction of his fellow captain. His Astartes needed no further encouragement or orders, falling in behind him to form a fighting wedge that carved through the stunned Laer like a bloody knife.
None of the Emperor's Children were in the mood to offer mercy and within minutes it was all over. As the last of the alien warriors was slain by the overwhelming force of Vairosean's veterans, the atonal howling of the rearing coral towers finally ceased and a blessed silence fell over the battlefield.
Cries of welcome passed between the Astartes who had survived as Solomon sheathed his sword and bent to retrieve his bolter from the carnage of the plaza. His limbs were stiff and aching from numerous wounds he didn't remember receiving.
'You went up the centre again, didn't you?' asked a familiar voice as he straightened.
'I did, Marius,' replied Solomon without turning around. 'Are you going to tell me that was wrong?'
'Maybe, I don't know yet.'
Solomon turned as Marius Vairosean removed his helmet and shook his head to clear the momentary disorientation of returning to the employment of his own senses as opposed to those of his Mark IV plate. His friend wore a stern expression, but then he always did, and his salt and pepper hair was slick with oily sweat.
Unlike many of the Astartes, Marius Vairosean had a narrow face, its features sharp and inquisitive, his skin dark and lined like old wood.
'Well met, brother,' said Solomon, reaching out and gripping his battle-brother's hand.
Marius nodded and said, 'A hard fight by the looks of it.'
'Aye, it was that,' agreed Solomon, wiping some blood from the fascia plates of his bolter. 'They're tough bastards, these Laer.'
'Indeed they are,' said Marius. 'Maybe you should have thought of that before you went up the centre.'
'If there was another way to have done it, I would have tried it, Marius. Don't think I wouldn't have. They plugged the middle and I sent men around the flanks. I couldn't have let someone else lead the attack up the centre, it had to be me.'
'Luckily for you Sergeant Caphen seems to agree with your assessment of the battle.'
'He's got a good eye on him, that one,' said Solomon. 'He'll go far, maybe even make captain someday.'
'Maybe, though he has the look of a line officer about him.'
'We need good line officers,' noted Solomon.
'Maybe so, but a line officer does not seek to better himself. He will never attain perfection by simply doing his job and no more.'
'Not everyone can be captain, Marius,' said Solomon. 'We need warriors as well as leaders. Men like you, Julius and I will lead this Legion to greatness. We take our strength and honour from the primarch and the lord commanders, and it is up to us to pass on what we learn from them to those below us. Line officers are part of that, they take their lead from us and communicate our will to the men.'
Marius stopped and placed his hand on Solomon's shoulder guard. 'Even though I have known you for decades, you still have the power to surprise me, my friend. Just when I think I need to reprimand you for cavalier tactics, you give me a lesson on how it behoves us to lead our warriors.'
'What can I say? Julius and his books must be having an effect on me.'
'Speaking of Julius,' said Mariu
s, pointing into the sky. 'It looks as if he has secured the order to commence the campaign.'
Solomon looked up into the crystal sky and saw hundreds of gunships descending from the upper atmosphere.
With the capture of Atoll 19, the opening stage of the campaign had been won, though the ferocity of the fighting and the brittle knife-edge upon which it had been won would never be known except by those whose words would one day be reviled.
Interceptors descended alongside the gunships and circled in figure of eight patrol circuits above Atoll 19 in case the Laer counter-attacked, while fat army transporters brought anti-aircraft guns and detachments of Lord Commander Fayle's Archite Palatines, who spread through the atoll in their crimson tunics and silver breastplates.
Wide bodied Mechanicum loaders landed in screaming clouds of grit, disgorging silent, red-robed adepts who hurried to study the blazing energy plumes that kept the atoll aloft. Massive earth moving machines and teams of cutters and drillers rumbled onto the atoll, their sole purpose to level entire swathes of it before laying honeycombed sheets of metal to serve as runways for assault and supply craft.
Atoll 19 would be the first of many bridgeheads established before the Emperor's Children were finished with Laeran.
Serena had returned to her quarters, claiming tiredness, but Ostian had decided to remain on the observation deck to watch the planet below. The beauty of Laeran was enhancing and Serena's talk of the landscapes of alien worlds had kindled a desire in him he had not known existed. To stand on the surface of an alien world beneath a strange sun and feel the wind blown from far-off continents, never before seen by man, would be an intoxicating thrill, and he longed, ached even, to see the surface of Laeran.
He tried to imagine the sweep of its horizon, a featureless curve of endless blue that swelled with enormous tides and clung to the surface of the world by the slenderest of margins. What manner of life might thrive in the depths of its oceans? What calamity had befallen its lost civilisation that had seen it submerged beneath thousands of metres of dark water?
As a native of Terra, a world whose oceans had long since boiled away in ancient wars or environmental catastrophes, Ostian found the idea of a world without land hard to picture.
'What are you looking at?' asked a voice at his ear.
Ostian hid his surprise and turned to see Bequa Kynska standing behind him, her blue hair pulled tight in an elaborate weave on the top of her head that Ostian guessed must have taken many hours to achieve.
She smiled at him with a predator's grin. Ostian guessed that her scarlet corset gown was supposed to be more casual than her recital dress, but the overall effect suggested that she had just stepped from one of the Merican ballrooms.
'Hello Ms Kynska,' he said as neutrally as he could.
'Oh please, call me Beq, all my dear friends do,' said Bequa, linking her arm through his and turning him back to face the thick glass of the observation deck. The fragrance of her scent was overpowering and the cloying aroma of apples caught in the back of his throat. The front of her dress was scandalously low, and Ostian found himself sweating as he felt his eyes drawn to the barely contained curve of her breasts.
He looked up and saw Bequa staring right at him, and a fierce heat built in his cheeks as he knew she must have noticed exactly where he was looking.
'I'm… uh, sorry, I was…'
'Hush, my dear, it's quite all right,' soothed Bequa, with a playful grin that reassured him not at all. 'No harm in it, is there? We're all grown ups.'
He fixed his gaze on the gently spinning world below, trying to keep his mind on the swirls of ocean and atmospheric storms as she leaned close to him and said, 'I must admit that I find the prospect of war quite stirring, don't you? Gets the blood pounding and sets the loins afire with the sheer "maleness" of it all. Don't you find that, Ostian?'
'Um… I can't say I'd thought of it that way.'
'Nonsense, of course you have,' scolded Bequa. 'You're not a man if the thought of war doesn't wake the animal within you. What kind of person doesn't feel the blood fill their extremities at the thought of such things? I'm not ashamed to admit that the thought of the thunder of guns and the crash of fighting gets me all hot and bothered, if you know what I mean.'
'I'm not sure I do,' whispered Ostian, though he had a very good idea of exactly what she meant.
Bequa playfully punched his arm with her free hand and said, 'Don't be obtuse, Ostian, I shan't stand for it. You're a dreadful boy to tease me so.'
'Tease you?' he said. 'I don't know—'
'You know exactly what I mean,' said Bequa, releasing his arm and turning on her heel to face him. 'I want you, right here, right now.'
'What?'
'Oh don't be so prudish, have you no sense for the sensual? Haven't you heard my music?'
'Yes, but -'
'But nothing, Ostian,' said Bequa, jabbing him in the chest with a long, painted fingernail and pushing him back against the glass. 'The body is the soul's prison unless all five senses are fully developed and open. Open your senses and the windows to your soul fly open. I've always found that when sex involves all five senses it's a quite mystical experience.'
'No!' cried Ostian, squirming free of her grip.
Bequa took a step towards him, but he backed away with his hands held out before him. His body palpitated at the thought of being Bequa Kynska's plaything and he shook his head as she advanced towards him.
'Oh stop being such a silly boy, Ostian,' she said. 'It's not as if I'm going to hurt you. Well, not unless you want me to.'
'No, it's not that,' gasped Ostian. 'It's just…'
'Just what?' asked Bequa, and he could see she was genuinely confused. Perhaps no one had ever refused her advances before and he struggled to think of an answer to her question that wouldn't offend her, but his mind was as blank as the marble in his studio.
'It's just… that I have to go,' he said, inwardly cringing at such a pathetic answer and hating the wretched, snivelling creature he was. 'I have to meet Serena. She and I have… an appointment.'
'The painter woman? You and she are lovers?'
'No, no, no!' said Ostian hurriedly. 'I mean… yes. We're very much in love.'
Bequa pouted and folded her arms, her entire body telling him that he was now less than sump scum to her.
He started to say something else, but she cut him off, saying, 'No, you can go away now, I'm quite finished talking to you.'
Not knowing what else to say, he meekly obeyed her and all but fled from the observation deck.
FOUR
The Speed of War
A Longer Road
Brotherhood of the Phoenix
In many ways, the cleansing of Laeran represented the epitome of Fulgrim's quest for perfection. The battles waged on the ocean planet were savage and merciless, each victory won only after fighting that was as bloody as any in the Legion's history, but won with a speed of war that bordered on the miraculous. The extermination of the Laer and the bringing to its knees of their entire world was being bought with the dead of the Emperor's Children.
Each atoll that was captured was swiftly transformed into a base of operations to be held by the Archite Palatines, while the Space Marines prosecuted their primarch's relendess campaign. Though the Laer were a technologically advanced species, they had never fought a foe as dedicated to their utter destruction as Fulgrim's Legion. Such was the primarch's exquisite planning and prescient thoroughness, that nothing the Laer could do was enough to halt or even delay their inevitable fate.
Living and dead specimens of Laer warriors were brought aboard the Pride of the Emperor for study under strict quarantine protocols, and were dissected by Legion Apothecaries to glean as much information about the foe as was possible. Specimens varied from the warrior breed that had defended Atoll 19, to avian creatures with barbed wings and poisonous bites, and aquatic monsters with genetically modified lungs and harpoon like barbs instead of tails. To see such varieties in o
ne species was fascinating, and more and more were brought on board for study.
With each victory, the renown earned by the Legion's captains and warriors grew, and Fulgrim commissioned hundreds of new works of art in their honour. The vessels of the fleet soon resembled immense galleries, with exquisite paintings hanging on their walls and sculpted marble sitting on pedestals of gleaming onyx. Libraries-worth of poetry and entire symphonies were written, and it was even whispered that Bequa Kynska had begun a new opera to commemorate the imminent victory.
First Captain Julius Kaesoron, denied a place in the initial assaults of Atoll 19, was granted the honour of leading the front line troops under the overall command of Lord Commander Vespasian. Though Eidolon held seniority of rank, he had led the forces that had rendered Twenty-Eight Two compliant and thus the honour fell to Vespasian.
The war for Laeran was fought across many varied battlefields, the warriors of the Emperor's Children fighting on floating atolls and through the ruins of ancient structures that reared from the oceans, while foaming breakers crashed against walls that had once stood thousands of metres in the air.
Underwater cites were discovered within days of the campaign's opening and detachments of Astartes took the fight to the abyssal darkness of undersea trenches, smashing into structures that had never known the touch of sunlight, in specially modified boarding torpedoes fired from cruisers hovering above the sea.
Solomon Demeter led the Second against the first of these cities, subjugating it within six hours, his plan of attack garnering praise from the primarch. Marius Vairosean fought numerous actions against Laer orbitals that had previously escaped detection, fighting boarding actions on alien vessels, controlled by pilots telepathically linked to their ships in a loathsome parasitic manner.
Julius Kaesoron coordinated the attacks on the Laer atolls, discerning a pattern in their movements that had hitherto been perceived as random. At first, the atolls had been thought of as independent entities that forged their own destinies through the skies of the planet, but as he analysed the patterns, Julius had seen that each travelled within the orbit of one particular atoll.
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