by Guy Haley
Through the brief day of the dying war machine, the Shadowsword crept backwards up the hill. Every few feet, the tracks slipped on mud so soft it was little better than slurry. For those moments, they held their breaths as Shoam delicately manoeuvred until the tracks bit again.
He was standing inside the hatch, feet braced against his seat’s reinforced armrests, exposed to the foul air, hands caked in the mud he had scooped off the ranging augur. Rain ran off his greatcoat, streaking it with its load of dirt and ash. More mud rolled off the Shadowsword in ripples as thick as dough. Flashes and bangs, almost lost under the ongoing roar of the god-machines’ conflict, drew nearer to their position. Frantic bursts of short-range vox told him the story. Traitor Space Marines in hideous armour were attacking the left where Jonas was stationed. Out of sight on the other side of the pressure ridge, Righteous Vengeance roared into action, heading to where the fighting was fiercest.
None of that could concern Bannick. Not even if the enemy were feet from his tank. ‘Mute my vox, Epperaliant, but keep me informed if anything important happens. We’ve one shot. We need to concentrate.’
The tank rolled further up. The flashed reflections of explosions playing on the black water in the crater receded. Flickering lights like sideways candles were bolts streaking through the air, betraying the Space Marines’ positions. The brightest of the weapon’s discharge lit them up in stark whites, running giants in horned helmets and armour adorned with leering gargoyles and cruel barbs. Their attention seemed to be on his cousin’s position, not on the tank inching its way backwards. The orbital strikes had ceased. Only rain fell from the sky. Far away, at the heart of a concentration of flashing detonations, he thought he saw the second enemy Reaver marching through the lead echelon of tanks seemingly without harm towards the heart of the Imperial advance. The damage it could do there...
He checked himself. He could not think like that. The first Titan had fallen to the concentrated firepower of an Imperial tank regiment. They could do it again. He could not consider how many had died in stopping the first.
Slowly, slowly, Lux Imperator crawled out of the crater. Bannick upended his full canteen over the glass of the ranging eye and scrubbed at it with his sleeve.
‘Meggen?’ he voxed.
‘I can see fine now, Colaron,’ he said. ‘But we’re three degrees off getting a clear shot.’
The volcano cannon had a very limited range of elevation and traversal. In some of the more primitive patterns of the tank, the weapon had none at all.
‘Come on!’ he growled. Filthy water ran down his face, its acrid taste polluting his lips. They drew level with the empty shell of Indominus. Its paint was scorched around every aperture. Melted armourglass had reset in cloudy pools around its sightless viewing slits. The main cannon hung limply, bent to one side.
‘Nearly there,’ voxed Meggen.
The three Titans were firing mercilessly on each other at point-blank range, like wooden ships from a primitive world unleashing cascades of shot at their enemy, regardless of the damage inflicted on themselves. The Warhound was agile, evading the ponderous swings of the Warlord’s right arm, and harrying its right with blazing spears of tracer shot from its vulcan mega-bolter and the blinding flash-blast of its plasma cannon. Despite the awesome destructive potential of these weapons, they posed little threat to the Warlord on their own. Perhaps for this reason, the enemy princeps spared only the right arm for the task of keeping the Warhound at bay, and perhaps only because the Reaver was out of the fire arc for that arm. Its other three armaments, twin carapace lasers and the terrible focused energy weapon that made up its left arm, concentrated fire on the Reaver. The energy unleashed was awful, enough power to fuel a city for a year expended in moments. The Reaver responded in kind. The amount of effort the Imperium could spare for destruction was boundless, when there seemed so little for peace.
The Reaver’s final shield was close to failing, its displacement aura very low in the spectrum, a flickering violet he could only just perceive. Princeps Yolanedesh edged further and further to the left of the immobilised Titan, hoping to get behind it. This would have been the best way of ensuring the Reaver’s long-term survival, had they more time, for there was a blind spot to the very rear and the torso could not turn further than sixty degrees. With the Warlord’s knee crippled, Yolanedesh could destroy the enemy engine at leisure. In reality, it was too far to go. Without bringing down the enemy Titan’s void shields again soon, the Shadowsword’s shot would be wasted, and they would all perish. Yolanedesh evidently knew this, for he went slowly, all weapons firing, rather than making a dash for the rear. It was a ploy, one designed to give Bannick a chance.
‘There!’ shouted Meggen.
‘Halt!’ commanded Bannick. The tank lurched to a stop.
‘Charge capacitors. Engage cannon charge,’ commanded Bannick. ‘Set refraction index for minimum range. Prepare to fire.’ He could go back down, he would be safer there. But the spectacle of the machines warring kept him where he was. A series of clunks came from beneath his feet as the engine reactor’s drive was engaged with the tank’s dynamo. A whine built.
A streak of light burned itself onto his eyes. Lascannon burst, right to the glacis. The score of its impact glowed redly.
‘Traitor Space Marines to the front! Shoam, man the bolter. Leonates, sponson bolters and lascannon on roving fire. Put a spread out, keep them back.’ Even Space Marines would keep away from such firepower. Little else would stop them.
‘Cannon fifty-five per cent charged,’ said Starstan.
The last void shield on Ultimate Sanction flickered out, low and blue as burning brandy. It staggered as the full force of the Warlord’s fire tore into it. Glowing chambers on the Warlord’s left arm lit in sequence, and it spat a lightning-white shaft of light at the smaller engine, smashing its right arm off in a spray of molten metal. The Reaver’s war-horns let out an anguished wail, and it staggered to its left, bringing it into the fire arcs of all four of the Warlord’s weapons.
‘How close?’
‘Ninety per cent,’ said Starstan emotionlessly.
‘Can you not pray more or something?’ said Meggen. ‘Our Titan is getting torn to pieces.’
The second arm cannon came around to target the Reaver, showing the enemy princeps’ disdain for the Warhound nipping at its heels. Four beams of light intersected on the Reaver’s midriff, burning through its chest armour and burrowing into the reactor behind. The cannons snapped off. Bannick threw up his arm just in time to prevent himself being blinded as Ultimate Sanction’s reactor detonated.
A hemisphere of energy engulfed an area five hundred yards in radius, annihilating everything it touched. Blinding light seared the battlefield. Static discharge earthed itself in metallic objects hundreds of yards further out. Clouds of billowing steam boiled skywards. Scorching shock wind buffeted Bannick.
He lowered his hand as the bubble of energy sank in on itself and vanished, leaving a broad, glowing circle of glassed earth as the Titan’s grave marker.
‘One hundred per cent,’ said Starstan.
‘I’m ready. Should I take the shot?’
‘Epperaliant. Is the last shield down?’
‘I can’t tell! All my instruments are scrambled.’
Bannick blinked. War’s Gift still darted about, miraculously evading the larger Titan’s blows. Ponderously, the Warlord’s torso swung about, carapace weapons angling down. Defiantly, the Warhound opened fire. A stream of glowing mega-bolter shells spattered off the big Titan’s armour.
‘The shield! The last shield has come down. Ultimate Sanction did it! Meggen, open fire!’
A thrumming burr preceded the volcano cannon’s discharge. Bannick averted his eyes from the muzzle as it spat white light at the Titan, bright plasma exhaust bursting from the sleeve vents as its beam shot out in a perfect ray of super-aligned photons.
The shot hit home on the weakened knee, shearing right through. For a second the Titan stood tall, and Bannick thought their last effort had been in vain, but then, as its torso continued to track the Warhound, it fell to the right. The severed lower left leg stood a moment longer, then toppled backwards.
The Warlord fell face-first into the mud. Sluggishly, it tried to move, but could not.
War’s Gift jogged to the front, levelled its guns at the command deck, and sent a stream of mega-bolt-rounds into the head. The Warlord shuddered, and lay still. Execution done, War’s Gift let out a triumphant howling from its war-horns, turned and ran back towards the main advance.
‘They’re leaving it?’ said Leonates.
‘They will attempt to capture it, purify it and resanctify the engine in the name of the Emperor and Omnissiah,’ said Epperaliant. ‘A Warlord for a Reaver, not a bad exchange.’
‘Omnis sancta omnia,’ intoned Starstan.
‘Meggen, get on the heavy bolters. Let’s keep the enemy back while we drag ourselves out of this mire,’ said Bannick. He bent to lower himself down into the tank, but a hand grasped him hard by the back of his coat and hauled him into the air.
‘It is a little late for that,’ said a silky voice.
Bannick looked up into the respirator grille of a Space Marine. Casually, the warrior tossed a grenade down the open hatch. Bannick had time to see the yellow flash and dull crump of detonation before the warrior threw Bannick off the top of the tank, and jumped down after him.
The warrior locked his bolter to his thigh and advanced upon Bannick.
Jonas and his men fired downwards, the beams from their lasguns doing little more than scorching the enemy’s battleplate. Jonas’ mouth ran dry. As soon as the Traitor Space Marines made it to the top of the slope, they would kill everyone in the dugout. There was nothing that could prevent that.
To their left, giants appeared in the storm, their bolters flashing with muzzle flare as they gunned down Jonas’ men in the slit trenches yards from his position.
‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’ shouted Bosarain, right before a bolt took him in the chest. The explosion took the entirety of his left side and his head with it. The banner of Jonas’ platoon fell bloody into the earth. The man next to him screamed, turned and ran, abandoning his heavy bolter.
‘Halt! You defy the will of the Emperor!’ shouted Suliban, but his gun was already levelled, and the round left the barrel microseconds after the words left his lips. The soldier sprawled forwards, a crater in his back. Other men close to flight returned to their weapons. The autocannon coughed twice and one of the monsters staggered back at the impact. Cheers died on men’s lips as the monster righted himself, drew his pistol and recommenced the slaughter.
‘It’s no use,’ said Jonas, lowering his gun.
‘Stand firm, Lieutenant Bannick,’ said Suliban.
‘I am standing, commissar, but it is still no use.’
Lin Coass Lo Turneric, dressing the stump of a man whose arm had been blasted off at the elbow, caught Suliban’s expression and gave Jonas a warning look. Jonas ignored it.
‘Look! We can’t hurt them. We can’t...’
A terrifying screaming filled the dugout.
‘Down!’ yelled Suliban, tackling Jonas around his midriff. He bore the lieutenant into the mud as the thunderous noise of a heavy bolter loosing shot at close range obliterated every other vestige of sound in the dugout. Jonas rolled onto his back to see a giant standing on the edge of the dugout. Rain poured down in streams through the shattered plastek roof.
There was a bolt lodged in the Space Marine’s torso, the last few seconds of its propellant charge fizzing to nothing. The Space Marine gurgled out a laugh, raised his outlandish axe. The bolt exploded. Stinging shards of ceramite peppered Jonas’ skin. The Space Marine fell forwards, smoke pouring from his neck seal and the black hole in his chest. Jonas scrambled out of the way of the falling body just in time. It landed hard in the mud, sinking under its own weight.
‘Suliban! We have to fall back.’
Another Space Marine clambered over the lip of the trench. Micz caught him full in the face with a blast from his meltagun, and he tumbled backwards, headless.
‘We’re not going to stay this lucky. We need Parrigar.’
Suliban’s eyes narrowed. Then he nodded. ‘Very well.’
Jonas grabbed at his vox-bead. ‘Parrigar, come in. We require immediate extraction. We’re being overrun.’
‘I still can’t raise him,’ said Anderick.
‘He can’t be dead!’ said Jonas. If Righteous Vengeance was gone, they had nowhere else to run.
From the ridge some yards to their right and above them, the glaring blast of Lux Imperator’s cannon bathed the hellish scene in bright light. For a second, the world seemed to stop. Moments later, the Titan collapsed, and the howling confusion of combat swept back into the void left by the Titan’s fall. Jonas’ men were too occupied to cheer the engine’s death.
The vox crackled.
‘I’m inbound,’ said Parrigar. ‘Coming right up behind you. Stand ready for extraction.’
‘Fall back!’ ordered Jonas. ‘Mission accomplished!’ he shouted. ‘Platoon, fall back!’
Jonas had not expected an orderly retreat, and he did not get one. In a scrambling run the tattered remnants of Jonas’ platoon fled their trenches and dugouts, abandoning their heavy weapons. Bolters barked as the Space Marines crested the ridge in numbers. Burning bolts buzzed past Jonas’ head, burying themselves in the earth and exploding. Clods of mud blew into the air, further obscuring sight. He and Suliban sprinted side by side. Men fell all around them. Then searchlights were stabbing through the gloom, and the black shadow of Righteous Vengeance roared out of the night, streaming filthy rain from its plating.
‘Part either side of the tank! Stand clear of the weapons!’ ordered Parrigar through the tank’s vox-hailer. It was as if the tank itself gave voice. ‘Stand clear!’
The barrels of the mega-bolter began to turn, burring as they built up to firing speed. Jonas threw himself to the side, then ducked low as he saw the heavy bolters mounted in Righteous Vengeance’s sponsons tracking targets behind him. They opened fire, blades of flame stabbing from the muzzles. He ran on, the space between his shoulder blades itching in anticipation at the explosive death he was certain was coming. Bolts whistled overhead in both directions, their rocket trails crisscrossing the sky. Then he was past the sponsons, following in the footsteps of exhausted, terrified men up the access ladders to the fighting deck of the great tank. Men pushed each other up from below, while others leaned down, hands grasping for the slippery arms of their comrades. Rain hissed in the beams of the meltagunners. Streams of plasma lit the scene more brightly than flares.
He had been wary of the order to concentrate his special weapons in one squad, but now he whispered silent thanks to the Emperor for Parrigar’s insistence. Space Marines were closing in from the sides. Bolts spanked off the thick armour of the tank, but the men scrambling to get aboard were torn apart, and it was through chunks of their flesh and their spilled entrails that Jonas scrambled upwards.
Hands reached for him. From below someone pushed, and he hauled himself over the armoured parapet encircling the fighting deck. He leaned back out, reaching for Suliban. The commissar shook his head, instead taking charge of the men below, who were panicking as more Space Marines came out of the downpour.
‘There!’ shouted Jonas, slapping one the meltagunners on the shoulder and directing his fire at a Space Marine advancing with his bolter tucked into his shoulder, methodically shooting Jonas’ men. The first roaring fusion discharge missed, but the second was good, obliterating the Space Marine’s torso. The reactor in his back-pack exploded, and the traitor fell into the mud as a collection of smoking limbs.
‘Well d–’ began
Jonas. The mega-bolter opened up, rendering speech pointless. His ears rang at the fury of the weapon. Men were still running for the tank. A couple fell, one shot from behind, one caught by the tank’s secondary weapons as he ran at it in blind fear. The mega-bolter cut out, leaving a cone of shattered enemy before it. Lux Imperator was coming down from the top of the crater ridge towards the Stormlord, bolters blazing. A score of huge, armoured figures were illuminated by its spotlights advancing towards the tanks. Flames and explosions were everywhere. Rain glittered in the light.
‘Jonas Bannick, this is Parrigar. We are going to have to leave. Augur scans indicate dozens more of the enemy closing in on our position.’
‘My men–’
‘Are good as dead. I am sorry. I cannot risk Righteous Vengeance. I have tarried longer than I should.’
The engines growled, and the tank began to roll backwards. Those men not already aboard stumbled onwards after it. The machine went at no great pace, but soon it was up to a man’s running speed, and none of them could run well in that mud.
‘Suliban! Suliban! Take my hand!’ shouted Jonas, leaning down over the parapet. The commissar looked around, and abandoned his efforts reluctantly. He pulled himself up onto the track guard, other men grasping at his ankles. Jonas grabbed him by both hands and dragged him into the back.
The tank was firing constantly now. Bolter fire came in from all sides, rattling off the tank’s thick hide. When one of his men firing over the side took a bolt in the chest, he ordered the rest to get down.
‘Sound off!’ he bellowed over the roaring chug of the mega-bolter.
Fourteen men replied. He had set out into this war with forty. Around half of them were veterans from Gulem. Once again, his platoon had been savaged.
‘We live to fight another day,’ said Suliban, and patted Jonas with one dirty glove. Then he stood tall, ignoring bolt-shells whistling by.
‘Men of the Imperium!’ he shouted, his voice pitched perfectly to cut through battle’s roar. ‘Today you fought well against a foe that would best most warriors. We have many dead, but out there, in the dark, lie the shattered bodies of dozens of traitors, traitors of the blackest sort, the very sons of the Emperor Himself, who, despite the gifts given them by their father, our God, chose to betray Him. For each of the dead lying there, the Emperor thanks you, and be sure that now He sheds tears upon His Golden Throne for every one of His loyal servants who have perished today upon this dire field.’ The men were intent on him. ‘Think and be satisfied that, through your efforts directly, one of the great god-machines of the enemy has been brought low into the dirt. Few men can claim such an act of valour. Hold your heads up high, sons of Paragon. You have performed your duty well.’