by Nick Kyme
Glaring at Chronus on his retinal lens display, the icon for Hera went from amber to crimson. As the tank commander brought the Rage of Antonius around for another pass, he saw several other war machines were flaring terminally on the tactical feed too.
Two Razorbacks had been eviscerated by heat beams, their lascannon fusillade seemingly ineffective against the shielding of the spider-like walker that had destroyed them both. A third had been cut in half, then rendered down by a focused beam from a second arachnid construct.
Four Rhinos were blazing wrecks, still burning despite the snowfall, and pluming oily smoke. It smeared the sky, and blackened Chronus’s already bitter mood.
But it was the Vigilant that had been the first to die.
Caught in the act of dismantling the pitiful necron infantry, the Ultramarines armour had been strung out and lacking cohesion when the phase shift manifested, bringing with it a vastly superior and more manoeuvrable war host.
How quickly triumph had turned to urgent desperation.
The Vigilant was a veteran war machine, a Crusader-variant Land Raider. It took three hits simultaneously, still turning as it tried to bring its guns to bear. The first tore up its steering then severed a track guard before finally wrecking the armoured tread itself. The second punched a hole into the Vigilant’s back, taking out any remaining motive power and damaging its secondary weapon systems. The third destroyed it, the grizzled old Raider mushrooming upwards with the force of its own internal detonation, only to crash down again seconds later in a fire-wreathed heap.
The two other engines in its squadron, Merciless Orar and Lord Protector, gave retaliatory fire but by then Chronus was ordering a full withdrawal to a more cohesive formation.
Engines fighting engines was bad. Without infantry support, especially against the anti-gravitic and hyper-manoeuvrable skimmers the necrons possessed, the tanks were at a distinct disadvantage. But even caught unawares, Chronus believed he could rally his forces back into some semblance of order and regain the upper hand.
It was only partially successful. As the tanks unleashed suppressing fire to try and stultify the swift necron assault and were forming up into a sweeping line breaker formation to scatter the enemy, a second force emerged from below.
The walkers were spider-like in aspect and came from under the ice. They broke up Chronus’s hastily restored order, appearing across the battlefield seemingly at will. It was as if some overarching consciousness commanded them, one that could perceive the entire theatre of combat and predict each of its unfolding acts before they transpired. Despite their less than robust design, the arachnid constructs were hard to kill, protected as they were by some kind of energy shielding.
Faced with the almost certain destruction of his forces, Chronus had little choice but to abandon formation and give the order for all vehicles to engage the nearest target and pray to the Throne the Ultramarines could weather the storm long enough to reassert dominance later.
As his battle tanks effectively duelled with the necron skimmers over several kilometres of churned snow and ice, a close-quarters encounter despite there being at least fifty metres between most of the vehicles, it was proving frustrating for Chronus.
‘All weapons!’ he snarled to Vutrius below, taking personal account of their lascannon turret. ‘Tear that thing apart.’
The Rage of Antonius shuddered, muzzle flare roaring from its side sponsons before Chronus cored out one of the arachnids with an accurate las-lance from the twin-link. They were moving at maximum combat speed, the Predator’s machine-spirit and advanced systems compensating for the continuous motion over the rugged ice. A flash of verdant fire made Chronus grimace despite his battle-helm. The larger skimmers were coming in again, not content with the destruction wreaked in their previous attack run.
Chronus slewed the turret around and fired across the necrons’ front arc, as Novus poured on more speed to get away from the floating, barge-like skimmers. As far as the tank commander had been able to discern during the sudden and unheralded enemy assault, there were two major necron engines involved in this armour skirmish. One was fashioned into a simulacrum of a scorpion, an ersatz tail rising from its rear aspect with its primary weapon location on its underside, encased in something approximating a metal ribcage or exoskeleton. Its single crewman was necron, of course, but appeared to be of a higher caste than the foot soldiers Chronus had been slaughtering before he had sprung the trap. The other engine was reminiscent of an anti-gravitic throne-barge, with a vast cannon array positioned above its two crewmen who were suspended in control cradles either side of the weapon’s power source. Whatever drove it, the effects were terrible to behold. A single blast had shredded open Hellhunter, but the Predator had survived and limped on.
These necrons, the ones driving their infernal vehicles, were much more advanced and tactically adroit. That lesson had been learned now, but had cost Chronus three major engines and six support vehicles.
Amidst the chaos of chattering shell bursts, whining beam weapons and energy discharge, Chronus opened up the vox.
‘Gnaeus, try to bring your flank together and put the heavier armour to your rear.’
The necrons were almost running rings around the slower Ultramarines vehicles, though the tanks could take more of a beating. As soon as it became clear they would not be able to regroup, Chronus had the company split into three separate battlegroups commanded by himself and his two sergeants.
Gnaeus’s affirmation rune flashed up on Chronus’s lens display, indicating he had understood and would proceed as ordered. Gnaeus had drawn together two of the Vindicators, The Ram and Glory of Calth, as well as Fury Unbound and Ceaseless Endeavour from the Whirlwind squadron. The other siege tanks had managed to disengage from the frantic melee on Gnaeus’s orders, putting some distance between themselves and the enemy so they could regroup and offer stationary bombardment. With the engagement so tightly packed, the opportunity had yet to present itself.
The two Land Raiders, Merciless Orar and Lord Protector, reduced speed and dropped back behind Gnaeus’s Destructor, Secutor Maximus, the last of his Predator squadron. At the brunt of the necron assault force when it materialised, Gnaeus’s engines had been the hardest hit but were digging in now and showing their mettle.
A beam flashed overhead, hot and angry, and Chronus was forced back down into the cupola.
‘Guilliman’s holy blood!’ he swore, checking his shoulder guard where the beam’s passage had seared it. The paint was stripped down to bare armour and even the outer ceramite layer was burned off. The vox-link was still open. ‘Egnatius…’
Chronus roughly held the centre, though the battlefield was ever changing and difficult to predict, leaving his sergeants to the flanks. Of the three officers, Egnatius’s battlegroup was the only one unscathed, aside from minor glancing hits.
His rune flashed up on a sub-screen on Chronus’s display, indicating they were in contact.
‘Pull your Predators wide, brother, and send the remaining Raiders to reinforce my flank.’
There was no answer at first, and Chronus was about to curse his fellow tank commander and the malfunctioning vox-link he had evidently failed to repair when Egnatius replied.
‘Manoeuvring now.’
He sounded preoccupied, but then they all were. This kind of fight, an enemy this quick and with advanced shielding and weapon technology… A human tank commander would have crumbled under the pressure. As it was, Chronus saw all. He knew the fight was still winnable. The necrons were swift and their war machines possessed phenomenal attacking power, but they lacked true grit and endurance.
‘Dismantled. Piece by piece,’ Chronus swore to himself beneath his breath. He would make it so.
A long-range autocannon burst from one of Egnatius’s Destructors slipped through a skimmer’s shielding, splitting the ark-craft in half and sending viridian energy coursing over its broken frame.
‘Ha!’ Chronus clenched his fist in a vicario
us expression of triumph as he watched the skimmer’s demise on the tactical display.
A second salvo went close to the Antonius, spurring alert runes in urgent warning.
‘Watch your firing solutions,’ Chronus snapped at Egnatius over the vox.
The sergeant did not respond, but his tanks were moving into a flanking position as ordered.
Chronus had little time to think on it, for they were headed right into the teeth of a necron formation – two of the throne-barges and a single ark. A pair of arachnid walkers scuttled either side, seen through the Antonius’s vision slits.
Vutrius unleashed their heavy bolters frontwards, ignoring the walkers who were stitching desultory heat beams across the Antonius’s battle-seared hull.
‘Keep that speed up, Novus,’ Chronus said to his driver, having to shout above the roaring din inside the tank. By maintaining combat speed, they were a tougher target. Thus far, three heat beams had connected but failed to penetrate their outer armour. Slow down and that would change fast.
Enthroned at his command station, Chronus pulled down the scopes that would give him a lascannon’s-eye view of the battle. Verdant gauss fire rippled from the approaching enemy skimmers. Eldritch lightning arcs flashed across the visual display, but Chronus kept the crosshairs steady, adjusting each time Novus slewed the Antonius aside from a coruscating beam.
‘Maintain heading,’ Chronus ordered calmly, as the necron ark slipped into his targeting grid. The whine in his ears told him the lascannon’s power coils were at maximum. Waiting another two seconds to bring the ark a few crucial metres closer, he seized the triggers.
Twin las-beams lanced from the turret, striking the ark midway along its spine before severing the scorpion tail. Not needing to see its destruction, Chronus swung the turret around incrementally for a second shot at one of the throne-barges. It tried to jink but the beam cut it a glancing hit, ruining its aim. The second throne-barge hit the Antonius square.
Novus roared, his cry of pain strangely muffled by his battle-helm and the interior noise, and a series of alert klaxons began sounding.
‘Can you drive, brother?’ shouted Chronus across the claustrophobic hold.
He saw Novus nodding, one hand clutching his upper chest, the other firmly grasping the steering control.
With both barges slipping beyond his immediate targeting arc, Chronus slammed the scopes back into the ceiling recess and disengaged the locking clamps on his command seat.
‘Pour on the power, punch us through!’ he said.
Throwing open the roof hatch, Chronus took up position in the cupola, swinging around as the Antonius rumbled past the necrons to get a first-hand look at the battlefield and the damage they had obviously sustained.
Smoke was billowing up from the Predator’s left track assembly and a section of armour plating was gouged open and bleeding fluid.
Chronus patted the hull, and muttered, ‘Sorry, old friend.’
He relayed orders down to Novus to decrease overall speed and reduce the strain on the damaged track.
Across the ice plain, skimmers and battle tanks were locked in a brutal armoured engagement. The contrast in tactics was stark. Where the necrons utilised their enhanced manoeuvrability, the Ultramarines relied on their ability to absorb punishment and return it with interest. Though the tesla-lightning and heat-ray weaponry was potent, it was better suited to the annihilation of infantry. Against heavy Space Marine armour it was not enjoying the same level of dominance. The necrons did have weapons in their arsenal that could hurt them, however. The smouldering wrecks of Hera’s Banner, Honour of Calgar and The Vigilant were testament to that.
Despite the ambush, some cohesion was returning to the Ultramarines forces. The three battlegroups, together with the pair of disparate bombardment vehicles, were beginning to work together and this was taking its toll on the necrons who could not hope to match the tactical agility of Guilliman’s sons.
The wisdom of a primarch, the scion of Konor and the Immortal Emperor, flowed in their veins – Chronus saw this engagement ending only in an Ultramarines victory. All of this he processed in seconds, whilst the other half of his strategic attention was fixed on the two skimmers the Rage of Antonius was embattled with.
The pair of necron barges were swinging around, lightning cannons charging. One took a stray hit from The Ram and detonated explosively from the siege tank’s heavy ordnance. The blast buffeted the second skimmer but it was intent on the stricken Antonius, which Novus was desperately trying to turn about, and did not deviate. An arc of tesla-lightning spat out, searing the Predator’s hull but causing no significant damage. One of the side sponsons came into firing range and Vutrius gunned the heavy bolter from below. Thick shells hammered against the barge but its shielding was practically inviolable.
Both tanks had fired their secondary weapons to no avail, and like jousting knights of old, came at one another to finish it at close quarters. Chronus had his lance, the turret lascannon turning with agonising slowness, whilst the necron barge primed its main destructor.
At the edge of his vision through his battle-helm, the intimidating forms of Galatan and Strength of Konor came into view. Lascannon sponsons on both the Terminus Ultra and standard pattern Raider were flashing deadly bolts of light across the field, cutting the legs from under the two arachnid constructs as the necrons’ shields were overwhelmed. For a moment the walkers floundered on the ice, attempting to retaliate with their deadly heat weaponry. In advance of the other two Land Raiders in its formation, the Shield of Iax put paid to that by rolling over both walkers and crushing them beneath its merciless tracks.
Revenge for the Vigilant, thought Chronus, believing engines of the same template were of kindred machine-spirit.
The barges seemed to sense the demise of their walker outriders, one peeling off to escape the certain destruction of the ruthless Land Raiders, while the other was locked into its course against the Rage of Antonius.
A cascade of tesla-lightning flashed across the Predator’s flank, tearing up a heavy bolter but otherwise leaving the tank intact.
Chronus smiled behind his battle-helm’s faceplate.
‘Too soon…’
Two more crucial seconds and the twin-link let out a shrieking las-bolt. Chronus drove his lance right into his enemy’s heart and vanquished it. Before the kill could be confirmed, he was on the vox to the Raiders curtly expressing his gratitude. Disappearing back down below, he switched channels to his squadron brothers.
‘Fabricus, Deneor, form up on the Antonius’s lead.’
Both The Vengeful and Hellhunter moved towards formation with Chronus’s Predator. A cursory examination of the battlefield showed that Ultramarines engines outnumbered necron two to one. The enemy were also down to just their skimmers, all the walker constructs having fallen back beneath the ice. Whatever anima drove these creatures, they clearly understood the value of self-preservation.
Once the hatch was closed above, Chronus moved through the hold to the driver’s location.
‘Vutrius,’ he said on the way, crouching down as he navigated the tight confines of the tank, ‘you have all weapons.’ Chronus’s tactical display switched out the twin-link and transferred it to his gunner. He laid his hand on Novus’s shoulder. The driver was shaking, blood seeping freely from a savage crack in his power armour.
‘Switch to automatic,’ Chronus told him. ‘Antonius’s machine-spirit will guide us until I can take the controls.’
Novus was a proud warrior, and Chronus knew he would not easily relinquish his station. ‘I can do my duty, commander,’ he said.
‘Of that I have no doubt, brother. But you’re wounded, and that’s a direct order.’
Reluctantly, Novus reduced speed to allow the other Predators in their formation to catch up to them and form a bodyguard. He disengaged from his driver’s position, and Chronus caught him as he nearly fell. ‘Rest easy, brother. Bind that wound. I’d have you back at the Antonius’s co
ntrols before this war is done.’
‘It would be my honour, commander.’ Novus saluted – it lacked some of his usual vehemence – and retreated to the back of the hold where they kept the Predator’s medi-kit.
Replacing him at the driver’s console, Chronus slaved all systems to his retinal display and opened up the company-wide vox.
‘Brothers,’ he said, ‘let us end this. Ultramar victoris!’
CHAPTER TEN
ICE CAVERNS
Standing on his vantage at the top of the ice ridge, Vantor and Brakkius looked distinctly small to Scipio. From on high, the Gladius appeared in worse condition than the sergeant had first believed. One of its wings had almost completely sheared off and the fuselage was battered. Brakkius was still sat up against the largely intact side, whilst the Techmarine worked at the other, sparks caused by his plasma-welder flashing in the gloom.
An hour, Vantor had said. The wing would be repaired, the glacis restored and hermetically sound, landing struts straightened and re-strengthened.
It had taken Scipio’s reduced combat squad almost twenty minutes to summit the ice ridge and, looking down now, he could not see how the gunship would be ready for flight by the time they returned.
He briefly tried the vox and got more static.
Brother Auris was consulting an auspex. ‘According to the scan,’ he relayed to the squad, ‘we are in the Vogenhoff region.’ Inputting some data, he then added, ‘It’s riddled with caverns and ravines. We are fortunate to have landed at all.’
‘Can you tell me where this one leads?’ Scipio asked, indicating the vast cave mouth yawning in front of them. Close up, it was even larger than it had appeared in the valley. Frost encrusted the rocky edge of the mouth that faced the elements, and fangs of ice protruded from the irregular arch at its apex. Superstitious men might have believed it to be the maw of some frost giant of old, entombed in the ice and asleep.