Corax

by Gav Thorpe

  ‘True,’ said Aloni. He stared at the dispersing clouds that were all that remained of the obliterated transports. ‘Nor can they supply Carandiru. It would have been good to capture one or two, though. We’re not without our own supply issues, but that will have to wait for another day.’

  ‘Just as well we’re used to fighting with fists and sticks, eh?’ said Shaak. His tone turned grim. ‘Give me a company of real warriors over the gang-brats of Cthonia. Thought they could take us out and flit off to Terra in glory, did they? We’ll make these bastards regret not finishing the job on Isstvan.’

  ‘We certainly will, lieutenant. We certainly will.’

  Nine

  Carandiru

  [DV -30 minutes, adjusted Terran standard]

  The golden flash of the Stormbird a few kilometres to the west drew Sergeant Chamell’s eye for a moment. It did the same for the crews manning the anti-air turrets around the target zone, drawing their attention away from the lone Whispercutter gliding silently towards the power station concealed by the moonless night. Flak erupted across the clouds into which the drop-ship had disappeared, followed by traces of las-fire seeking the Stormbird in the gloom.

  Clinging to the side of the anti-grav drop-craft, loosed twenty minutes earlier by the same Stormbird, Chamell looked down at the energy plant. Searchlights played across the night clouds, seeking signs of the gunship, never once moving towards the east where the Mor Deythan were approaching. Men lined the outer walls and filled the guard towers; defences erected to guard against an uprising by the planet’s prisoner population that would, in a few minutes, be proved totally worthless.

  It amused Chamell to think that ‘heightened security’ often had the opposite consequence. The Raven Guard attack had brought guards spilling out of their barracks, heading to their embedded guns and defence positions, staring out at the burgeoning night full of fear and trepidation. Cannon turrets and energy fences had sprung into life, ready to ward away an offensive on the ground.

  Patrols were doing their rounds along some of the alleys and streets between distribution hubs and barracks, turbine halls and wind farms. The complex was easily seven or eight square kilometres in size and the men guarding it woefully few for such a task. As more soldiers in red-and-black fatigues spilled up from an underground bunker towards the wall, Chamell smiled.

  So busy, yet so ineffective.

  It was good for the Mor Deythan. The more the enemy looked outwards and hurried about, the more they emptied the heart of their defence. Already overstretched – who would waste resources on guards for a power station that was all but impregnable to the locals? – the garrison made up in haste and bluster what they lacked in diligence and discipline.

  They had small reason to be fearful of airborne attack. The outlying defence cannons certainly put up an impressive amount of firepower, enough to dissuade anything but an orbital approach. And that would prove troublesome thanks to the ring of defences arranged around the central complexes of the prison itself a few kilometres away; guns and missiles capable of firing into orbit, powered by the stations the Mor Deythan were looking to eliminate. Huge turbine stacks and overhead cables sloping up to towering pylons that led out into the wilderness made landing difficult.

  Difficult but not impossible.

  Senderwat was one of the best pilots in the Shadowmasters and he guided the long, slender form of the Whispercutter along the line of pylons and cable, never more than a few metres above one hundred thousand volts of electricity. The electromagnetic output of the energy network provided further insurance against the tracking devices of the power plant’s scanners. It was the Raven Guard way of war, to turn a hostile environment and the enemy’s own defences into an advantage.

  ‘Hot zone in thirty seconds,’ Senderwat warned. He spoke through his armour’s external vocalisers, avoiding any vox-signal that might be detected.

  Banking to the right, the Whispercutter moved out from the covering aura of the power lines, circling towards one of the central control buildings, away from the generators and curtain wall.

  It would have been a relatively simple task to annihilate the station with an orbital blast, even with the defence lasers close by – reflex shields were better than void shields in such a situation – but there were several power plants supplying the main guard complexes and each would have to be taken out in turn. Instead, a well-planned legionary strike against one station would provide the means to overcome the whole prison’s power structure.

  The Whispercutter levelled, just a few hundred metres from its destination. Immense cooling towers surrounded the five-storey central control building, itself a target no more than a dozen metres square. Narrow walkways and roads sprawled beneath the descending Raven Guard, far too small for the craft – or a confident jump pack landing. Jump packs would also restrict them once they were inside the station control tower.

  Senderwat guided the silent craft unerringly between the rising edifices around them, broad wingtips skimming centimetres away from disaster. Not once did Chamell entertain the thought that they might crash. Senderwat pulled the Whispercutter to a sharp stop above the control terminus. The gleam from windows splashed across bare ferrocrete and metal just a few metres below them. Chamell could see patches of shadow as people moved around inside.

  ‘Power up,’ he ordered. His display sprang into life as the other legionaries allowed power to flood through their battleplate. ‘Drop!’

  The five Mor Deythan – Chamell, Fasur, Senderwat, Korin and Strang – let go of the Whispercutter and fell to the roof, landings cushioned by their specially augmented armour; as well as the normal fibre bundles inside the suits, additional calliper bracings and microservos boosted the joints, allowing for smoother, quieter movement.

  Above them the Whispercutter’s auto-guidance systems lifted it away, heading after the departing Stormbird.

  Chamell motioned towards an access door off to the left in the corner of the building. Fasur led the way across the flat roof, pistol loaded with silent gas-powered bolts in one hand, combat knife in the other. For this mission the Shadowmasters had left behind their heavier weapons to maximise stealth and speed. The mission would be decided at close quarters.

  Fasur stopped beside a numeral keypad on a pedestal a short distance from the door. He looked back at Chamell, who shook his head and made a cutting motion across his throat. Fasur nodded and waved Strang to the door.

  Strang’s slender power fist shone only a little more than the lenses of his helm as he found the plated hinges of the door and pushed, separating each quietly from the frame. He lifted the door away carefully, and placed it against the wall.

  Stairs led down into the control complex.

  Chamell took the lead, descending to a hallway at the bottom of the steps. There was no glass panel in the door, so he checked the auspex display on his wrist. No life signs within five metres on this level.

  He eased open the door onto a landing with more steps and an elevator, as well as a passageway leading onto the rest of the floor. Energy signals indicated a swathe of network and power lines – unoccupied maintenance and database chambers. The sergeant signalled for the others to follow and headed down the stairs again, moving slowly and quietly.

  Detailing Senderwat, Strang and Korin to secure the lower levels and the ground floor entrance, Chamell moved out into the corridor on the fourth floor with Fasur at his side. Bare windowless wall stretched along the right; two sealed doors, a branching passage and an open door to the left. The corridor continued for the length of the building, turning left at the far end.

  Pistol ready, Chamell advanced to the first door. Fasur continued past to the next, and stopped.

  The tiniest of vibrations from the wrist-mounted monitor alerted Chamell to an approaching signal. He glanced down to see two returns on the display, about to turn into the corridor at the far end.

&n
bsp; Chamell moved across to the other side of the passageway so that he could see past his fellow Shadowmaster. Fasur had noticed the approaching threat too and stood stock still against the door, pistol raised.

  Chamell froze, allowing himself to become one with his surroundings. He sensed the flicker of the glow strips along the ceiling, the tiniest dimming and brightening. He felt the moments of dimness and latched onto them, feeling them stretch out, pulling them into an eternity.

  There was no real shadow in the corridor but the two warriors of the Mor Deythan did not need to remain hidden for long. In the few moments their extraordinary powers granted them, two uniformed human soldiers had rounded the corner, utterly oblivious to the two massive warriors ahead.

  Fasur fired, his pistol coughing gently as a gas-propelled round sped towards the guard on the right. Her eyes were just beginning to widen with surprise as her brain registered the two intruders, a moment before the bolt took her in the throat. It detonated quietly, ripping out windpipe and spine, and almost severing her head.

  The other had half a second to move the muzzle of his autogun a few centimetres before Chamell’s silenced bolt pierced his upper chest, punching through breastplate and flesh. It exploded, buried inside lungs and heart, shredding both with a fountain of blood.

  Both soldiers collapsed, guns clattering to the floor.

  Chamell crossed back to the door and eased it open, finding himself in a small storage lockup. Coming back out he saw Fasur exiting the room ahead. The legionary looked back at his leader and shook his head.

  The two of them moved on. Fasur held position at the corridor, currently empty, while Chamell investigated a signal in the last room coming off the passageway.

  Augmented hearing and suit auto-senses picked up heavy breathing as the sergeant stopped beside the open door. He rounded the frame with pistol ready, but held his fire. Chair tipped back against a file-laden set of shelves, a guard lay asleep, the peak of his cap drawn over his eyes, feet up on the monitor desk. Two vid-screens showed static-broken images that flicked through various pict-feeds on rotation.

  Sheathing his knife, Chamell grabbed the man by the throat, gauntlet encompassing his whole neck. A simple twist detached the man’s vertebrae before he was even fully awake. Chamell left the corpse to sag, easing the chair back onto four legs. He checked the vid-monitors but there did not seem to be anything to indicate that there was another security station. This was, after all, just a power station – not the prison itself, or the commandant’s keep.

  He rejoined Fasur and they followed the short corridor across the middle of the storey, which had a door to either side, facing each other, and a heavier portal at the end. Chamell motioned for his partner to go left while he headed for the right-hand door.

  The augur showed multiple signals behind both doors. Fasur looked to the sergeant for instructions and received a series of gestures indicating that they would go in hard and fast. Fasur nodded and braced himself next to the door.

  From his belt Chamell palmed two small, disc-like detonators. One was an electromagnetic pulse grenade, the other a blind-screen device. He primed both with his thumb and slammed into the door, smashing it open.

  The two discs left his hand at the same moment. He stepped out for an instant while the two grenades detonated. Electricity sparked and blackness shrouded the air.

  Into this whirling gloom stepped the sergeant, pistol moving from one target to the next, imprinted into the memory-coils of the auspex moments before and now displayed through his auto-senses. He fired twice at each glowing apparition, moving blindly through the darkness but placing two rounds into every enemy with unwavering accuracy. He could see and hear nothing for several seconds, pacing to the right to fire two bolts into the last of the sensor-targets writ in glowing yellow in his vision.

  The blind field collapsed, allowing sight and sound to return with a snap. Auto-senses dimmed the bright lights to a dusky glow to protect Chamell’s eyes against the sudden change. He quickly surveyed the room. Eight technicians and guards littered the floor, each with two gaping wounds in their torso. All were dead.

  The pulse grenade had been set to its weakest level; just enough to interfere with any automated systems and prevent an alarm signal. As it was, the banks of dials and readouts displaying the feed-through energy of the station were already flickering back into life.

  ‘Entrance secured,’ reported Senderwat. Strang and Korin followed with news that the lower floors had been cleared of the few men and women on duty.

  Fasur joined Chamell.

  ‘Main controls are in here,’ said the Shadowmaster. ‘The other chamber is secondary cooling systems for the reactors. All of the grid data comes through these consoles.’

  ‘I want every spark of power unleashed across the grid. Overload it,’ said Chamell. ‘Let there be night.’

  Ten

  Carandiru

  [Day of Vengeance]

  Crouched on the ramp of the descending Stormbird, Corax had a perfect view of the unfolding battle for the main city of Carandiru. With the exception of a few buildings containing isolated emergency generators, the city was swathed in darkness. Fiery meteors carved trails against a violet sunset as the remnants of crashing orbital cannons and missile platforms burned up; weapons that had, until the Raven Guard strike, been pointed at the surface rather than into space.

  Across the city below, encircled by its kilometre-high wall, las-fire sparkled across streets and rooftops. From several kilometres up it looked like glitter thrown onto a dark pool. Here and there fires raged from more substantial weapons. Soukhounou had done his job well though and such outbreaks were contained; a fire raging through the confines of the prison-city could kill thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. It was impossible to protect everybody and many would die in the uprising, but they were not here to liberate charred corpses.

  Around the Stormbird the dark shapes of Whispercutters and Shadowhawks carrying more of Corax’s Mor Deythan cut through the darkening sky. The Shadowmasters were splitting up, dropping towards selected targets throughout the conurbation. Further up, Thunderhawks and Stormbirds ploughed down, heading towards outlying work settlements and smaller security facilities – mineheads and mills surrounded by kilometres of razor wire, minefields and defence turrets. Columns of smoke rose from anti-air silos, removed by pinpoint strikes from the Raven Guard fleet in orbit over Carandiru.

  There were other groups attacking across the world, targeting supply depots and military barracks, led by Raven Guard veterans but made up from warriors drawn from across the other Legion groups. It was the perfect training ground to teach the Raven Guard method of war. Small attack groups numbering only a few dozen warriors linked up with resistance cells rapidly raised by Soukhounou and existing dissidents.

  Two kilometres up, it was time for Corax and the main attack to go their separate ways. The primarch glanced back at Arendi in the Stormbird compartment. The bodyguard lifted a fist in acknowledgement, the gesture duplicated by the legionaries around him.

  ‘Remember, I want the wall guns silenced and secured,’ the primarch said over the vox. The reminder was probably unnecessary but as with so many Raven Guard operations timing was paramount. ‘Rendezvous in three hours.’

  ‘Good hunting,’ Arendi replied.

  Unfurling his flight pack wings, Corax jumped off the ramp, a combi-weapon gripped tightly in his right hand.

  A thermal immediately caught the primarch, lifting him above the plunging drop-ship. He angled left and down, diving towards the wider streets and squares towards the centre of the city. Even from this height he could see the people thronging the streets, a mass of humanity converging on the fortress-palace that covered a hill in the northern reaches of the city.

  There would be casualties. Few worthwhile endeavours could be accomplished without sacrifice, but it was not Corax’s desire to see th
e blood of the oppressed shed needlessly. He would not incite rebellion and then leave others to face the bloody consequences. Taking the city would not be a straightforward task and the people of Carandiru would need help whilst the Raven Guard established control. Corax had assigned himself the duty of staving off the first counter-attacks against the people while the rest of his force secured vital defence points.

  Corax had wondered whether the Sons of Horus and other Space Marines would try to quench the uprising with the blood of the non-Legion soldiers acting as guards, but the legionaries left as garrison were responding strongly. Until now the Raven Guard presence had been hidden and the traitors looked as though they were seeking to quell the rebellion before it had established itself, not understanding the full extent of the forces now ranged against them. It made them vulnerable, as the primarch had planned.

  Circling a kilometre up, Corax saw a Mastodon troop carrier leaving one of the depots close to the main watch keep. Its appeared to be heading for the central plaza. The Mastodon was capable of carrying forty Space Marines within its hull, slow but well armed and armoured. As a mobile command point it would be ideal for coordinating the suppression of the uprising and, if fortune favoured the primarch, a high-level officer or perhaps even the facility commandant himself might be found within.

  The primarch furled his wings and dropped, arrowing towards the city like a black meteor. A few hundred metres up he started to angle towards the Mastodon, opening his wings a little to slow his descent as he soared over the rooftops. Ahead scattered marksmen had taken up positions in garrets and walkways overlooking the advance of the surging populace. The cold-hearted killers were sniping at will, gunning down unarmed civilians in the streets below. Corax adjusted his flight path, curving to the left and right, a flicked wingtip or fist decapitating and disembowelling the exposed guards as he swept past.

  The Mastodon’s size limited it to the main thoroughfares, making its course easy to predict. Gaining a little more height, Corax turned and came at the armoured carrier from the front, dropping almost to street level.