The Pride of the Emperor did battle with tactics straight from a naval strategy textbook, Captain Lemuel Aizel commanding with methodical precision if not flair. The rest of the Emperor's Children fleet followed his example and engaged the foe in perfect attack patterns, destroying the enemy in efficient, elegant dissections.
In contrast, the ships of the Iron Hands fought like the Iron Wolves of Medusa, tearing their enemy apart in daring hit and ran attacks that saw them destroy many more vessels than the ships of the Emperor's Children.
Through the heart of the firestorm, the Firebird soared like the most graceful of birds, its fiery wings leaving vortices of flaring gasses in its wake. Like a twisting comet trailing streamers of flame behind it, the assault craft seemed to glide easily through the explosions and streaking lines of deadly gunfire that painted the raging inferno of the star's corona.
As though realising the danger the fiery assault craft represented, a pair of Diasporex cruisers altered course to intercept it, and as the web of guns and lasers tightened around the Firebird, its doom seemed assured. The primarch's craft twisted desperately to avoid the storm of fire, but it was running out of room, and each explosion burst ever closer to it.
Even as the cruisers closed in to unleash the coup de grace, a monstrous shadow enveloped them, and the Fist of Iron sailed between them, a series of ruinous broadsides rippling from its dozens of gun decks. At such close range the results were devastating. The first cruiser was torn apart as a chain reaction of explosions bloated its superstructure from within, and it broke up in a shower of burning plasma and foaming oxygen. The second ship survived long enough to return fire at the Fist of Iron, killing hundreds of its crew and inflicting terrible damage on Ferrus Manus's flagship, before it was crippled by a second broadside that obliterated it in a huge explosion.
Saved from destruction, the Firebird hurtled through the crucible of battle towards the hybrid command vessel that Solomon Demeter's warriors had secured. Close in defence turrets desperately tried to engage the Firebird, as though the vessel's crew sensed that their doom came towards them on these wings of fire, but none came close to Fulgrim's craft, such was its deadly grace and manoeuvrability.
Like a great bird of prey settling on its quarry, the Firebird swooped in over the bridge section of the hybrid vessel and its landing claws descended to clamp firmly onto the upper hull of the ship. Searing blasts of melta fire bored through the outer hulls of the enemy vessel, and clouds of crystalline oxygen billowed from the ship's inner skins.
No sooner had the armoured plates of the outer hull been penetrated than a docking umbilical punched through the softer inner hull of the ship, creating a pressurised passageway that would allow the Primarch of the Emperor's Children to wreak bloody havoc on the Diasporex.
Julius followed his primarch and hammered down onto the deck of the enemy vessel in time to see Fulgrim draw his shimmering silver blade. His commander rose to his full height, as a hundred or more enemy soldiers, humans and loping beasts that went on all fours, rushed towards them. Julius felt his heart surge with excitement and battle lust as weapons blazed, but Fulgrim threw up his sword to send the bolts of energy skidding across the walls and ceiling.
Lycaon and more of Julius's warriors dropped from the belly of the Firebird, and he watched in awe as the living avatar of battle that was his primarch charged into his enemies. Fulgrim's magnificence still had the power to make him catch his breath, and the honour of going into battle with such a god-like figure was beyond measure.
Fulgrim raised his pistol, a weapon with the power of a caged sun, which had been crafted in the forges of the Urals, to unleash a hail of molten bolts. Blazing light filled the hallway, the gleaming silver of its structure reflecting the brilliance of his shots as they tore through meat, bone and armour.
Men and aliens screamed as the primarch's shots tore through them.
'Spread out! Open fire!' he shouted, though his warriors needed no orders.
The first volleys of bolter fire were unleashed, sawing through the ranks of the aliens. Return fire felled one of the First, but by then it was already too late, as yet more of the Astartes poured from the Firebird and began the slaughter.
'Captain Demeter!' cried Fulgrim over the vox, laughing at the sheer joy of being in battle once more. 'You have my position. Join me! This will be my finest hour!'
Solomon led his warriors from the cavernous space the boarding torpedo had punched into, setting a brisk pace through the halls of the enemy ship to join his primarch. He could hear the sounds of gunfire from all around, as the other members of his company fought their way to link up with him. Sporadic battles erupted as the ship's defenders attempted to prevent the assaulters from gathering their strength, but it was a hopeless task. The torpedoes had struck widely enough, so that they could not contain the threat without spreading themselves dangerously thin.
Warriors of the Second punched through enemy defensive positions, and the more Astartes that joined the fighting wedge he had aimed at the ship's bridge, the more inevitable the victory became.
He could see the blue glows on his visor that represented Fulgrim and Julius, knowing they would also be heading for the bridge. In any assault where warriors had to board an enemy ship, the key was to get in and out quickly, before any counter-attack could be launched. Solomon knew that missions to attack the bridge of a starship were always the bloodiest, for such an objective was always the most heavily defended.
Whether it was blind luck or the skill of Gaius Caphen at the torpedo's controls, he didn't know, but they had boarded much closer to the bridge than he would have believed possible, circumventing the bulk of the ship's defensive architecture. More troops would be racing to intercept them, but with the force led by the primarch and Julius converging on the bridge as well, it would be too late to stop them.
Solomon slowed his advance as he approached a four way junction and saw yet more Astartes in the colours of the Second coming from the passageway opposite.
Until now, he hadn't realised how much it had rankled missing the final fight on Laeran.
If there really were gods of battle, then they had offered him an incredible opportunity for glory. Solomon laughed as he sent them a playful nod of thanks. He reached the edge of the crossroads and ducked his head around the corner, seeing a defensive position at the end of the narrow passageway. Perhaps a dozen or so enemy soldiers held a strongpoint formed from white steel barriers, though there were sure to be more men out of sight. An automated gun turret was fixed to the ceiling and the barrel of a heavy rotary cannon protruded through a firing slit in the barricade.
Solomon ducked back as a deafening hail of shots roared down the corridor, and blazing traceries of fire ripped into the steel next to him. Sparks and shards of metal flew.
'Well,' he said, 'they're ready for us.'
He turned and waved Caphen forward, handing him his bolter as he said, 'Gaius, someone's going to have to go up the centre.'
Even though both warriors were helmeted, Solomon could sense Caphen's reaction.
'Let me guess,' said Caphen. 'You?'
Solomon nodded and said, 'I'll need cover.'
'You're serious?' asked Caphen, pointing to the torn metal at the corner of the junction. 'Didn't you see what happened?'
'Don't worry,' Solomon said, 'it'll be fine if I have all of you covering me. Just tell me when you're going to fire, eh?'
Caphen nodded wearily and said, 'I know I want command, but not through you getting yourself killed to prove a point.'
Solomon drew his sword, flexing his shoulders in preparation for the brutal ferocity of close quarters combat. 'You'll get command,' he promised, 'but I'm not planning on dying here.'
'Can we at least use grenades first?' asked Caphen.
'If it will keep you happy, then yes.'
Seconds later a trio of grenades arced up the corridor. Solomon waited until he heard the clatter of them landing. Defensive corridors that led
to the bridge of a starship were designed to be too long to hurl grenades the length of, but this vessel had been designed in an age before the advent of Space Marines, and all three were hurled with a strength easily able to reach the barricades. The grenades detonated simultaneously with powerful concussive booms that engulfed the defenders in smoke and flame.
Even as the sound registered, Solomon ducked around the corner and ran as fast as he could towards the maelstrom of smoke and screams that boiled at the end of the corridor. His superior senses made out the whirring of the automated gun as it prepared to open fire, and he pistoned his arms to get as far along the corridor as he could before it tore him apart.
'Down!' shouted Caphen behind him, and he hurled himself forward onto his front, skidding along the floor and slamming into the steel barricade.
Bolter fire echoed from the narrow walls, and he felt the whip of the passing shells as the air above him was filled with lethal gunfire. He heard the explosions of their detonations and the screams of dying men. Caphen shouted for another volley and this time Solomon heard the crack and clang of splintering metal as the automated gun was torn from its mount.
Solomon pushed himself to his feet and activated the blade of his sword in a roar of whirring teeth. The screams of injured men sounded over the crackle of flames and the echo of the bolter rounds. Solomon placed his free hand on the scarred barricade and vaulted over it. A burned soldier ran through the smoke as he landed, and Solomon swept his sword down, cleaving the man from collarbone to pelvis.
He roared in fury as he chopped the blade through the torso of another man, giving his enemy no time to regroup or recover from the shock of his sudden appearance in their midst.
His blade was a cleaver, hacking through his enemy's flesh and primitive armour, the teeth of his weapon shrieking as he killed. Shots fired at point blank range ricocheted from his armour, and a press of bodies surrounded him, the Diasporex soldiers' ignorance of an Astartes' lethality empowering them with doomed courage. Solomon struck out with his elbows and fist as well as his sword, smashing skulls from shoulders, and crashing ribcages with every blow.
In seconds it was over and Solomon lowered his bloody sword as the rest of his warriors advanced along the corridor towards him. His armour was streaked with blood, and the bodies of nearly fifty soldiers lay strewn around him, torn and bludgeoned to destruction in his fury.
'You're alive then,' said Caphen, waving warriors forward to secure their advance.
'Told you I didn't plan on dying here,' he said.
'What now?' asked Caphen.
'We push on. We're nearly at the bridge.'
'I knew you were going to say that.'
'We're so close, Gaius,' said Solomon. 'After getting shot down on Laeran don't you feel the need to win back some glory? If we can take the bridge before anyone else, then that will be what everyone will remember, not that we missed out on Laeran.'
Caphen nodded, and Solomon knew that his lieutenant was as hungry for glory as he was.
Solomon laughed and shouted, 'We move on!'
Julius stumbled as a silver bolt of energy, like liquid mercury, struck his shoulder guard and ripped through the ceramite. The creature before him reared up on its hind legs, its powerfully muscled forearms reaching out to him as it fired its wrist mounted weapon once more. He spun away from the shot, feeling the icy cold of it slash past him.
Its yellowed skin pulsed a ruddy red on its underbelly, and Julius thrust his blade towards the alien's body as it attacked. Its speed was phenomenal and its clawed forearm smashed into his helmet, cracking it open from chin to temple. His vision dissolved into static, and he rolled away from the blow, ripping his helmet off as he rose to his feet with his sword extended before him.
The beast before Julius slashed at him again, and he grinned in pleasure at the thrill of fighting an opponent that truly tested his skills. The sounds of battle rang in his ears, and he could hear the blood pounding in his veins as he danced away from the beast's lethal talons. He spun around another slash of the alien's claws and brought his sword down on its neck, shearing its head from its body.
A spray of bright, arterial blood drenched Julius as the creature toppled to the deck. The blood was hot on his lips, the alien reek of it thick in his nostrils, and even the ache in his head felt wondrously real, as though he was experiencing pain for the first time.
All around him, the warriors of the First struggled with the loathsome aliens as they fought through the silver halls of the ship to reach the bridge. He saw Lycaon struggling with another of the mighty quadrupeds, and cried out as his equerry was smashed to the ground, his back clearly snapped in two at the impact.
Julius forged his way through the battle towards Lycaon, already knowing it was too late for him as he saw how limply he lay. He dropped to his knees beside his equerry, allowing the grief to come as he removed Lycaon's helmet. His warriors finished the slaughter of the ship's defenders.
Their surgical strike had been blunted by the counter-attack of the eyeless alien beasts, but with Fulgrim at their head, there could be no stopping the Astartes. Fulgrim killed aliens by the dozen, his white hair whipping madly around his head like smoke as he fought, but they cared not for losses, surrounding the primarch and his Phoenix Guard in an attempt to overwhelm them through sheer mass.
Such a feat was impossible, and Fulgrim laughed as he clove through the aliens with his shimmering silver sword without difficulty, slaying them as easily as a man might crush an insect. The primarch forged a path through the alien defenders for his warriors to follow and their advance continued.
Though Julius had felt great pride in his abilities as a warrior before, he had never felt such a physical joy in combat, such a vivid sensation of the brutality and the artistry of it all.
Nor had he felt such excitement in grief.
He had lost friends before, but the grief had been tempered by the knowledge that they had died warriors' deaths at the hands of a worthy foe. As he looked into Lycaon's dead eyes, he felt loss and guilt churning within him as he realised that, as much as he would miss his friend, he revelled in the sensations his death had stirred within him.
Perhaps this awareness was a side effect of the new chemical that had been issued to the warriors of the Emperor's Children, or perhaps his experience in the Laer temple had awakened hitherto unknown senses that allowed him to reach such dizzying heights of experience.
Whatever the reason, Julius was glad of it.
The hatch that led to the bridge blew out with a hollow boom, the shaped charges taking a large portion of the superstructure with it. Smoke billowed like blood from a wound as Solomon plunged through the gaping tear in the fabric of the ship. He had retrieved his bolter, and fired from the hip as he charged. His warriors followed, fanning out behind him as a desultory volley of gunfire reached out to them.
A stray bullet caught him on the shin, and he dropped to his knee as he lost his balance for a second. The bridge of the hybrid ship resembled the bridge of the Pride of the Emperor insomuch as it retained the basic ergonomics of a starship's command centre, but where Fulgrim's ship was a perfect marriage of functionality and aesthetic, the Diasporex flagship was clearly from a time when such considerations were deemed irrelevant. Dark arches of iron comprised a series of domed enclosures in which the ship's crew worked and from where the captain commanded his vessel. The glow of the Carollis Star and the flares of the ongoing space battle could be seen through the armoured glass of the domes, sporadic flashes lighting up the bridge like a fireworks display.
Ancient consoles winked with a multitude of warning lights, and Solomon could see that such technology was crude in comparison to that employed by the Imperium.
A mix of deck crew and soldiers in mesh armour fired from behind hastily assembled barricades, but Solomon's warriors were already overwhelming them, pistol shots and bolter rounds slaughtering the last of their resistance. Solomon stood as the noise of battle faded and his w
arriors spread out to secure the bridge.
The remainder of the crew stood helplessly by their consoles, hands raised in surrender, though their faces bore expressions of resigned defiance. Most were unarmoured, though Solomon saw that the officers wore what looked like ceremonial breastplates, and were unarmed save for ornamental foils and light pistols.
'Take them,' ordered Solomon, and Gaius Caphen formed details to secure the prisoners.
The bridge had been taken and the ship was theirs. His, he thought with a mischievous smile as he lowered his bolter and took a moment to explore this strange ship, a vessel that had left Old Earth thousands of years before his birth.
A great, high-backed command chair sat on a raised platform below the central dome, and Solomon stepped onto it, seeing one of the strange quadruped creatures they had fought earlier strapped into the chair. Hundreds of cables, wires and needles pierced the creature's body, and as its eyeless face turned to look at him, he felt a creeping revulsion steal over him.
Blood coated its upper body, and Solomon saw that a stray round had taken off the top of its skull. Blood oozed from its shattered cranium, and he was amazed that it could still be alive.
Had this… thing been the ship's captain? Its pilot? Its Navigator?
The alien creature let out a low moan, and Solomon leaned in close to hear its valediction, though he had no idea whether he would be able to understand it.
Its mouth moved, and though no sound issued from its gullet, Solomon could hear its words as clearly as if they had been planted directly into his brain.
All we wished was to be left alone.
'Step away from that xeno creature, Captain Demeter,' said a cold voice behind him.
Solomon turned and saw the towering form of Fulgrim standing in the smoke wreathed hole he had blown in the bridge wall. Behind the primarch, he saw Julius, his face a mask of blood, and Solomon felt a shiver of unease at the expressions of glacial anger he saw in both their eyes.
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