Shadowsword

by Guy Haley

  ‘Are you well, honoured lieutenant?’ The movement of the enginseer’s mechadendrites slowed, until they hung in the air and pointed at Bannick, giving him the uncomfortable sensation that they were watching him with eyes of their own.

  ‘Yes, yes, too much to do. Always nervy before an engagement.’

  ‘Cortein often was too,’ said Brasslock kindly. ‘Do you know what he used to do? He would go down to the Wall of Honour and–’

  A deafening bang interrupted the conversation.

  ‘What by the Emperor was that?’ said Bannick. He went to the cupola and thrust his head out.

  The night sky was ablaze. The storm of fire overhead between the two fleets had intensified. A number of booms and strange whooshing noises rolled out from the position of the fleet – atmospheric disturbance from falling munitions and debris. Bannick climbed out onto the tank roof, followed by Meggen and Epperaliant.

  ‘That’s it,’ Hannick said from the centre of the marshalling yard. ‘The enemy have finished their landing. The fleet is pulling back, as predicted. The situation should be a little easier for the rest of the night.’

  They watched as tiny dots, no bigger than bright stars, retreated from geosynchronous orbit over the city. They flew towards the camp, and the exchange of orbital fire became more furious. Where stars should have shone was instead a riot of flashes and brilliant, intersecting hair-thin beams of the lance batteries. The short-lived blooms of atomic torpedoes and the brief stars of nova cannons brought instant dawns to the plains, then faded, leaving the men night-blind. The camp stopped what it was doing to watch the spectacular display.

  ‘Like Zero Night back home,’ said Kalligen.

  ‘People don’t die from fireworks,’ said Epperaliant.

  Balls of fire arced down from space.

  ‘They’re bombing us as they leave,’ said Meggen.

  ‘Our boys will get it,’ said Epperaliant.

  Heavy ordnance burst far above, intercepted by fleet cannon fire and interdiction missiles. They exploded prettily, showering burning debris into the atmosphere that burned up to nothing as it fell.

  ‘They’re coming in for an intercept in retreat,’ said Hannick, walking over to Lux, his eyes fixed on the heavens. ‘See, they’re coming in for their close pass.’ He pointed with his stick. ‘Then they’ll be pulling back into the void as they cross over our fleet.’ Hannick sounded excited. ‘This is a taste of victory to come. If the Traitor Space Marines are not numerous enough to tackle the fleet, then they will not prevail in a ground war either.’

  But it was not over. The sky sheeted white, and men threw up their arms to cover their eyes. A globe of nuclear fire shone in the sky, brighter than a sun. Geratomro basked in a brief, violent noon.

  ‘Ship death!’ someone shouted. Bannick blinked, his eyes full of glaring dots.

  ‘But whose side?’ said Meggen.

  The ship’s remains fell out of the sky. A fiery trail bigger than any comet fall burned across the heavens. The ship had been broken into five or six major pieces, and they spread out as they plummeted. Smaller chunks of debris came loose, peeling off on their own parabolic trajectories as gravity and friction pulled at them. The ship fell rapidly, burning brighter. As it got halfway to the southern horizon, a mighty roaring emanated from it that drowned out all earthly sound. A series of booms crashed across the night as the ship burned its way onwards towards the horizon, and disappeared.

  They watched. Two minutes, three. The blaze of fire in orbit was abating, the traitor fleet breaking off for interplanetary space. Bannick doubted there would be a pursuit. If the Navy gave chase, they would leave Geratomro wide open to bombardment.

  The sky rumbled. There was a sound like thunder and a flash as the falling ship hit the planet a thousand miles away. The ground shook gently. The southern horizon shone with the fires of impact.

  ‘And that is why the Navy will not fight close in to an inhabited world, given a choice,’ said Hannick. ‘Wherever that landed will be an inferno.’ He looked southwards, where a giant column of smoke and dust was unfurling towards the heavens. ‘Tomorrow will be a dark day.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Titan hunt

  MAGOR’S FIELDS

  GERATOMRO

  087498.M41

  The tanks of ad-hoc unit Ultra rumbled out of camp under dark and churning skies. A mixed unit from two worlds in three liveries. The Atraxian tanks were standard grey. Lux Imperator bore the angular tan-and-green camouflage pattern that it shared with the rest of the Seventh. The Stormlord Righteous Vengeance bore similar colours in a different pattern. All identification was obscured by the thick, black rain that poured from the sky, bringing with it the ejecta thrown up by the crashed spacecraft: a slurry of ash, earth and atomised bodies. Curtains of it cut down visibility to a few hundred yards, and the tanks could proceed only with the aid of their augur systems. Their headlamps were masked to prevent their detection, and the slitted covers lit only a slice of the rain. Upon the fighting deck of Righteous Vengeance, Bannick could just make out the shapes of huddled soldiers. They’d thrown up a tarpaulin to protect themselves from the toxic downpour, but Bannick doubted it would do them much good. Jonas was up there, somewhere.

  Further towards the front, the ground became a hellish, war-blasted wasteland. Their maps were useless. Orbital ordnance and artillery fire had ripped up the once flat plains into a miniature mountain range of heaped earth and broken stone. Metal fragments from downed projectiles smoked in their craters. Brittle glass paved the areas hit by lance fire.

  ‘We’re approaching mission point,’ voxed Honoured Captain Parrigar. ‘Anywhere you think appropriate to stage the ambush, Lieutenant Askelios?’

  ‘The ground is broken here. We should proceed a further hundred yards. Augur scans suggest the pressure ridge of a crater. We can gain a good field of fire from there and establish a defensive position,’ replied Askelios.

  ‘Understood,’ said Parrigar.

  Askelios’ tank, World Burner, turned and began to climb up a slope of loose soil. The Shadowsword sank up to its guards in the soft material, but it dragged itself upwards, volcano cannon nosing at the sky.

  ‘Shoam, twenty degrees left. Take the ridge to the left of World Burner’s tracks,’ ordered Bannick.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ breathed Shoam.

  Rain drummed on the roof, muted by armour but audible nevertheless. Between Bannick and Leonates, the volcano cannon’s refraction unit buzzed threateningly. Thick bundles of cables snaked up from holes in the floor and plugged into units all over it, radiating a palpable static. Lights blinked all over monitoring panels affixed to the back. It dominated the cramped command floor. Bannick kept knocking his elbow on it. The cannon put out a lot of heat, making the tank even hotter and stuffier than Cortein’s Honour.

  ‘Starstan, how is Lux holding up?’ he asked, for no better reason than he wanted to hear a human voice. He got an electronic facsimile instead.

  ‘The tank is belligerent, ready for war. All signs of previous spiritual trauma are minimal. Hail the Omnissiah.’

  Bannick regretted his desire for conversation. The crew spoke infrequently. Three commissars watched over their efforts. Suliban was with Jonas as always – he had yet to get to the bottom of why – while two others had appeared as if from nowhere, and taken up silent station. One aboard his tank, the other aboard Askelios’ World Burner. Theirs was called Chensormen, a little vulture of a man, who seemed to be composed solely of a beak-like nose and perpetual disapproval. He had set himself up at the back of the command deck, where he was jammed in behind the refractor. Bannick felt the man’s gimlet stare boring into the back of his head when he spoke, so he kept his orders minimal, aware everyone was being scrutinised.

  ‘Here is a good spot,’ voxed Askelios. World Burner came to a halt on the rim of the crater. ‘Lux Imperator, deploy
to my left. Indominus to the right.’

  ‘Looks good to me,’ voxed Parrigar. ‘Support tanks, begin preparing positions. Everyone off,’ Parrigar ordered the Paragonians riding his tank.

  Bannick imagined his cousin leaping down into the muck, ordering his men to fetch their shovels. When he thought of the filthy rain and he safe in his tank, he understood why Jonas might bear a grudge.

  Lux Imperator came to a halt. Bannick toggled switches on his command station, altering the view projected by his tiny pict screen. The assault would not begin for a few hours, after dawn. He glanced out of the tank’s vision slit and corrected himself. After when dawn was supposed to be. There would be no sunrise today.

  Emperor’s teeth, Chensormen’s staring was beginning to grate. He turned his chair round. ‘Are we ready?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ replied Epperaliant. ‘Not much to do but wait.’

  ‘The capacitor is ready for charging, Starstan?’

  ‘At your will, honoured lieutenant, I shall disengage the motive force from the reactor coupling and redirect its holy power through the focusing mechanisms of Lux Imperator so that it might wreak havoc upon the enemies of men and machines at safe yet optimal distance.’

  Yes would have sufficed, thought Bannick. ‘Well then,’ he said with forced lightness. ‘No point hanging around in here. I am going to help the others prepare the positions.’

  Almost before he had finished speaking, Bannick was reaching to fetch his rain poncho from the netting hanging around the cabin.

  ‘I’ll come too, if I have your permission, sir,’ said Meggen.

  ‘I have little to do,’ said the Savlar, clambering out from his driver’s station.

  ‘Me also,’ said Leonates, giving the commissar a sidelong look.

  ‘Is this wise, honoured lieutenant?’ said Chensormen, who showed no sign of going out into the rain.

  ‘Why would it not be, commissar? We are all wearing our vox-sets. We will not be going far. It is in the furtherance of the Imperium’s better interests that we go to show solidarity with our comrades.’

  Meggen hid a smirk behind his hand.

  ‘Very well,’ said Chensormen. ‘A good sentiment.’

  ‘I’ll stay here then, shall I, keep the commissar and Starstan company?’ said Epperaliant. He said it sharply as if he felt he had no choice, but Bannick could tell he did not wish to go out and work in the dirt.

  ‘Inform us if anything changes,’ said Bannick.

  He clambered out of his turret. The black raindrops that evaded him fell down the cupola to stain the decking and his seat. Meggen, Leonates and Shoam clambered out of the wide hatch at the back of the command floor, not-so-accidentally knocking the commissar with their boots and knees.

  ‘Emperor, it is grim out here,’ said Bannick, regretting leaving the tank. The rain had a heavy, chemical smell, and the air tasted of metal. Thunder vied with the rumble of the artillery bombardment. Strangely coloured lighting chased itself across the low clouds.

  ‘Better be out here with this deluge than in there being judged for crimes we are yet to commit,’ said Leonates.

  ‘Officious basdack,’ agreed Meggen.

  Shoam slid down the front of Lux Imperator and began unclipping digging tools from the track guard top and handing them out.

  Bannick pressed his vox-piece close to his mouth and shouted over the rain and the noises of war. ‘Epperaliant, put me through to Jonas’ platoon.’

  ‘Aye, sir. Done.’

  Bannick spoke with Jonas’ commsman. A moment later his cousin spoke over the vox.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jonas, it’s Colaron. We’re coming to help you.’

  ‘That’s a... surprise, but thanks,’ replied his cousin. ‘Fifty yards out, to your left.’

  The crew waited for an Atlas tank fitted with a dozer blade to pass to World Burner’s front, where it began to heap up a protective berm. Two others worked around them, building defences around the perimeter.

  ‘Thing about Titans,’ said Meggen, ‘is that they’re tall. Aren’t they just going to fire over this?’

  ‘Do you have to be so facetious all of the time?’ said Leonates.

  ‘It’s called being laconic. Dark humour in the face of danger. It cheers me up. Do you have to be so miserable?’ said Meggen.

  ‘Stop that, you two,’ said Bannick.

  They trudged through the rain. Somehow Shoam managed to pull ahead of the other three while they were pulling their boots from the sucking mud.

  ‘He walks like a man born to this hell,’ said Leonates.

  ‘He is,’ said Meggen. ‘I’ll bet this is pretty nice territory compared to Savlar.’

  Jonas’ platoon were suspicious of why the tankers would want to come out into the vile weather, but welcomed their help just the same. Alongside his cousin, Bannick and his men spent the next few hours digging foxholes and squaring off the berms pushed up by the Atlas tanks. Bannick found himself digging next to a man in a greatcoat, and was surprised to see it was Suliban, his immaculate uniform caked in filth. The rain never let up and soon penetrated their ponchos and chilled them to the bone. By the time Jonas called a halt, everyone was soaked, freezing cold and unhappy.

  ‘And I thought it was wet on Genthus!’ he said. The men who had been with him there laughed. ‘Thirty minutes until the assault commences,’ said Jonas, looking at his chronometer. Bannick instinctively checked his own. ‘Got time for a cup of gleece? I’ll have it warmed, just like back home.’

  ‘I’m surprised you’ve any left.’

  ‘I didn’t have, but your uncle’s bar proved very generous to a man with quick hands. I bagged three bottles, all told.’

  ‘I should get back,’ he said, meaning to sound businesslike, although his head was full of how warm and dry his tank was.

  ‘Hey, I’ve spent the last eighteen months bad-mouthing you to anyone who will listen. I feel I owe you a drink, although I don’t want you to think I’m not still angry – I’m just angrier with the Unified Clan Council now than I am with you.’

  ‘I appreciate the sentiment.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I thought I should voice it without your uncle staring me down and half the top brass of the army group standing behind us, just so you know it’s sincere. Come on. I promise it’s drier in here.’

  They went into a newly built dugout roofed with a sheet of pressed plasteel scavenged from the battlefield. The rain drummed off it, running from the front to make a beaded current of black droplets over the firing slit. Jonas’ men crammed inside, raising the temperature with their body heat. Bannick shuddered gratefully at the slight increase in warmth.

  Jonas introduced his command squad to Colaron. ‘This is my ensign Bosarain, vox-operator Anderick,’ he said. ‘Lin is my medic. This is Killek, who I basically promoted to my squad so I could keep an eye on him, and this sorry looking dog is Micz.’ He pointed out a scarred, squash-nosed man hunched over a meltagun. ‘Probably the most dangerous man in the whole of the Four Hundred and Seventy-Seventh.’

  Micz gave an ironic salute.

  ‘And Suliban, you already know.’

  The commissar dipped his head. Bannick returned the gesture, still on his guard. He introduced his own men. Shoam and Micz appraised each other a little too long for comfort.

  ‘Now, Bosarain, about that gleece?’ said Jonas.

  ‘Coming right up, sir,’ said Bosarain. He put a pan so large it must have been purloined from the mess in front of Micz, then he pulled out a bottle from his pack and held it up. ‘There’s only one left after this.’

  ‘Put them both in.’

  ‘You sure, Jonas?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Jonas. ‘I’d rather go into battle knowing I’d drunk it than die regretting I hadn’t.’

  Bosarain pulled out another bottle and uncorked them t
ogether. The bitter-sweet smell of the gleece brought memories of home back to them all as it glugged into the pan.

  ‘This is the tricky part. Micz?’

  Micz unfolded his arms from around his weapon, rested it on his knee, and pointed the slot end at the pan.

  ‘What the–?’ said Meggen.

  ‘I know what it looks like,’ said Jonas. ‘But he’s good at this.’

  ‘You gotta get the setting right down,’ explained Micz, twisting knobs on the gun’s control panel. ‘Get it right and we get nice warm gleece.’

  ‘Get it wrong and you’ll kill the lot of us! A fusion gun like that will turn us all to steam,’ said Bannick. He glanced at Suliban, but the commissar was looking impassively out at the downpour.

  Micz shrugged. ‘I better get it right then, hadn’t I?’

  Shoam crouched down, right by the pan.

  ‘Here goes,’ said Micz.

  The meltagun gave off a faint hiss. A warm draught rose from the end of its slotted muzzle. Heat shimmer rippled the air between gun and liquor.

  ‘Steady!’ said Jonas.

  ‘Steady as she goes and no more, sir,’ said Micz. ‘That should do it.’ He released the trigger and set the melta down. The muzzle radiated a warmth that relaxed them all. With so many men packed into the tiny dugout and the melta giving off heat, steam rose from their uniforms, and the chill retreated from their limbs.

  Jonas poured the gleece and handed it out in enamelled mugs. Shoam unbuckled his rebreather, revealing a sly yellow grin. Bannick looked to Suliban.

  ‘Is this...?’ he ventured.

  ‘Allowed? Do not look to me, honoured lieutenant. I see the virtue in these little vices. You will hear no complaints from me. These men serve the Emperor well. What do I care if brave men drink together and do not shine their buttons?’ He took a mug from Jonas.