by Nick Kyme
Muted celebration greeted the tank company as it rolled through Kellenport’s western gate. Despite the improved fortifications, the city was still a ruin. Its walls carried the legacy of the previous siege, still breached in dozens of places. Many of the outer districts had been abandoned, allowing the Capitolis Administratum and the spaceport adjacent to it to be bolstered. Gun emplacements lined these walls, and Ultramarines manned strategic points along them to better support the failing Damnosian courage.
Chronus rode up in the Antonius’s cupola, Novus having recovered enough to drive. He did it not to appear the conquering hero, he was anything but that, but to see their faces for himself. Antaro Chronus prided himself on knowing the measure of a soldier by the strength of conviction he saw in his or her eyes. What he saw in the downtrodden Guardsmen and militia that circled the city gates or gathered in packs around what few monuments still stood, was defeat. These were a broken people. He did not know if it had happened during the terror raid Sergeant Vandar had apprised him of or if it had been growing ever since that first day when Damnos’s lord governor had been slaughtered with his entire staff. It did not matter.
What he did know, what he had experienced first-hand, was that the necrons were a resourceful and insidious enemy. They could harness immense legions, far in excess of the Ultramarines’ ability to defeat with their current strength.
After Chronus had entered the shell of the city, driven past the drum fires and the hollow ruins thronged by hollow men and women, and reached the end of the roadway, he learned of Agrippen’s war council. Few strategies remained, but it seemed the veteran wanted to consider them all.
They gathered in the Capitolis Administratum’s debating chamber. It was a large, oval room that could better accommodate the Adeptus Astartes and their Dreadnought commander. It would also serve to keep the Ultramarines officers and the delicate nature of their council away from the prying eyes and ears of the populace.
‘It is hard for me to admit this,’ Tigurius began. ‘Upon Commander Chronus’s arrival, I dared to believe we could resist. But now we must all acknowledge that Damnos is lost.’
A few high-ranking Guardsmen, here to represent the natives, tried to stand a little straighter or show steel in the face of adversity, but Chronus could see the light had already died in their eyes. Tigurius had just given word to the fear they had all been living with ever since the invasion began, and made it real.
No Ultramarines officer present gainsaid him. Even Agrippen bowed his armoured form slightly at this admission of defeat.
A sergeant, Chronus recalled his name was Praxor, spoke up.
‘So what recourses are left to us? We cannot abandon these people.’
Like all the wall guard, Praxor Manorian bore the scars of battle upon his armour. Evidently, he had been caught in the fighting during the now infamous terror strikes by the necron flyers.
Tigurius met the gaze of each and every warrior in the room, be they Adeptus Astartes or Guardsman.
‘Evacuation is our only option now.’
‘You want to abandon Damnos?’ asked a tremulous Ark Guard captain who was trying to hold it together, his despair of the plan overriding his fear of the Chief Librarian.
Tigurius tried to be sympathetic. ‘I want to save its people.’
‘Doom has come to your world, captain,’ Agrippen told him in his deep, mechanised voice. ‘I am ashamed for my Chapter that we have been unable to turn back this tide, but we must now be pragmatic.’
‘Evacuating the city will take time,’ said Scipio, having joined the council whilst the Gladius was undergoing repairs. He had also been summoned for his report about his squad’s encounter in the caverns at Vogenhoff and the necron forces amassing there. ‘Yet the necrons are advancing with purpose and in numbers from every direction.’
‘Can we stall them?’ asked Praxor. ‘Slow them down enough so we get the people out?’
‘The Valin’s Revenge and its frigates are at anchor in low orbit,’ said Tigurius. ‘Lighters from the surface have already begun to ferry the population to them, but we have had casualties.’
Since the re-emergence of the necron forces, some of their ground-to-air weaponry had resurfaced and was keeping a steady stream of gauss fire aimed at the skies above Kellenport.
‘Our forces on the wall are depleted,’ offered another, a bald, grizzled-looking sergeant with a face like a granite cliff. ‘I should be back there now, keeping an eye on them.’
‘They can endure without your presence for a short while, Sergeant Fennion,’ said Tigurius. ‘You were present during the attack on Infirmary Seven, were you not?’
Fennion nodded. ‘It has left morale extremely low amongst the Guard cohorts, and we will be in need of them if we are to mount a significant defence. Many are still suffering the psychological after-effects of the attack.’
‘And what would you deem as significant, Iulus?’ asked Scipio. Evidently, the two knew each other fairly well.
‘One that doesn’t capitulate after the first assault. But my assessment, for what it’s worth–’
‘The same as everyone else’s in this chamber, Sergeant Fennion,’ Agrippen advised him.
Iulus Fennion nodded in appreciation. ‘I do not think defence is even tenable at this point. If we can slow them down, if… then I’d suggest a series of fall-backs. We try to hold the walls and they will not hold. We draw the necrons into the city, behind several carefully engineered firebreaks, then we might retard their progress enough to make a difference.’
Agrippen activated a hololith of revolving blue light that described Kellenport in exact detail.
‘This is from an orbital capture of the city,’ he began. ‘As you can all see, the outer defences are abandoned, leaving our forces concentrated on the walls around the Courtyard of Thor and the capitolis building in which we now debate. Our third strongpoint is the spaceport, which must be protected at all costs. Points of ingress for the necrons are the north and west gates. That is where their strength will likely be focused.’
‘Your problem is not the overwhelming force the necrons will bring to bear on Kellenport.’ Having listened to all good counsel thus far, Chronus finally spoke up. All eyes turned to him at the sound of his voice. ‘It is the rapidity with which our enemy can deploy. Twice, I was outmanoeuvred on the ice plain. Vast forces simply teleported in, surrounded us and would have destroyed us had I not ordered the retreat.’ This last part was hard for the tank commander to say, spoken as it was through clenched teeth.
‘You refer to the necron phasic generators,’ Tigurius replied.
‘I do. We must destroy them first if we are to stand any chance of evacuating a significant amount of the population and wresting something from this disastrous campaign.’
For a few seconds no one spoke. Chronus had just said aloud what they had all been thinking. That did not mean it stung their pride any less.
‘Ever since Sicarius fell, we have struggled,’ he went on. No one denied it. Chronus meant no disrespect, he was merely stating facts at this point. ‘So then, show me where the generators are and I’ll try and buy us some time.’
Agrippen broadened the hololith’s scope so it encompassed the much larger continental region around Kellenport and Damnos Prime.
‘Thanks to your efforts out on the ice, commander, we have been able to track the position of three crucial phasic generators. The Valin’s sensorium places them in these locations.’
Three nodes flashed up on the display in hazy red.
‘We’ll secure a drop-zone with low strafing attacks from Gladius and Thunderstorm,’ Agrippen continued.
‘Why not just destroy the generators in a series of bombing runs?’ Praxor asked the obvious question.
Chronus answered. ‘Because they’ll be shielded just like their walkers and skimmers. We’ll need to get in close, on the ground, penetrate their defences first.’
‘Indeed,’ said Agrippen. ‘If you’re looking for ven
geance for Egnatius and the others, this is it. But choose your formations carefully, commander.’
Now Chronus smiled like the true lion of Macragge he was.
‘I have just the warriors in mind.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ACTS OF SABOTAGE
Fabricus had accepted the field promotion with all the solemnity and humility Chronus had come to expect from the warrior. Someone needed to take Egnatius’s place. Gnaeus had wholeheartedly supported his brother’s elevation.
They had left Kellenport far behind and were bound for one of the phasic generators. A pair of Thunderhawk transporters ferried both the Rage of Antonius and Triumph of Espandor, as well as a Rhino transport bearing Squad Atavian. Two similar forces led by Fabricus in The Vengeful and Gnaeus in Secutor Maximus were headed for the other sites. The remnants of Egnatius’s battle tanks, their crew having been cleared by Techmarine Vantor of any technological contagion, had been split up amongst the new command structure.
Ahead of all three forces were Gladius and Thunderstorm, who would scorch the earth heralding the armoured squadrons’ arrival.
Three primary objectives: two to be hit simultaneously, the third, slightly more remote, to be attacked a few minutes later. Chronus had opted for the third and more difficult target, feeling it was his responsibility and risk as commander to do it.
A voice crackled over the vox inside the hold of the Antonius. Though the vision slits were sealed, the passage of air as their transporter cut through it at speed buffeted the sides of the Predator loudly and made the hull shudder. The effect was disconcerting for someone used to fighting all of his battles on terra firma with the grind of tracks, not the whipping of air, as his combat refrain.
So Chronus was a little agitated when he responded to the hail.
‘Speak.’
‘We are two minutes out,’ came the voice of Scipio from Gladius. ‘You sound perturbed, commander.’
‘I’ll be glad when we’re on the ground, sergeant.’
‘Resistance is fairly thick around all three generators. You’ll need to go in hard and fast once you hit the ground.’
‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Scipio. Burn me a path and we’ll roll right up it and tear that generator apart.’
‘Affirmative, commander.’ Sergeant Vorolanus cut the link.
Chronus addressed his crew. ‘Make all final preparations and adjust mission chronos. We disembark in under two minutes.’
‘Any word on Gnaeus or Fabricus?’ Vutrius asked from the gunner’s seat.
‘They should be engaging now. Focus on our part of the mission, brother. We’ll know of its greater success as soon as we return to the city. Courage and honour.’
Chronus’s crew echoed him.
Across the vox-link the transporter pilot issued a time warning. They were vectoring in on Gladius’s designated drop zone coordinates now.
Chronus opened the feed to the entire battlegroup.
‘Make this for Egnatius, and the engines we lost,’ he said.
The three battle tanks landed hard, tracks already whirring. They hit the fire-black earth running, spitting up clods of dirt and the accumulated slush that had somehow survived Gladius’s immolating missile strike.
Partially destroyed necron skeletons crunched and phased out under their treads. Chronus ignored them, heedless of the smoking ruins of skimmer-tanks and the hollowed-out remains of anti-gravitic weapon platforms. There was only one enemy weapon he was interested in as he drove at the front of the spear. It loomed before him on his retinal display, its crackling energy signature like a comet flare.
During the few hours they had spent in the city, the Antonius’s heavy bolter load-out had been replaced with a pair of lascannons. The full Annihilator-pattern was better suited to taking down a static emplacement. The Triumph of Espandor was equipped with identical armaments, while Atavian’s Devastators, dubbed ‘the Titan Slayers’, earned their honorific thanks to their armour-busting heavy weapon configuration.
The phasic generator was immense. Riding up in the turret’s cupola, Chronus regarded it with his own eyes. An extension of the necron form, it reminded him of a gigantic claw, albeit with three identical talons all cradling a jade crystal of energy at its centre. Alien sigils were embossed in gold upon the generator’s base, and three clawed feet extending from it provided stability. And flickering at the periphery of the foul machine was its shield.
From fighting the walkers and skimmer barges on the ice plain, Chronus knew this defence could be overwhelmed with force. Riding in hard and fast as Sergeant Vorolanus had advised, he gave the order to do just that.
Lascannons bristling from the turrets and side sponsons of the Predators, a sustained salvo broke against the generator’s shield. It endured this punishment for almost a full minute before collapsing under the strain. Vented power coils still charging, Chronus signalled Sergeant Atavian.
Disembarking in short order, the Titan Slayers unleashed their heavy weapons against the vulnerable necron machine and destroyed it.
It was swift, brutal and tactically exemplary.
Chronus allowed himself no satisfaction in the deed, however, as he recalled the Thunderhawk transporters. As the two massive drop-ships appeared in the sky above them and the magna-grapnels were descending, he reminded himself that they were merely delaying the inevitable.
‘A successful mission, commander,’ said one of the pilots by way of congratulation.
Chronus remained grim.
‘We have bought them days, if that.’
Leaving the wreckage of the phasic generator behind them, they made course back to Kellenport.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BATTLEMENTS
Standing sentry at the walls surrounding the Courtyard of Thor, Iulus Fennion looked out at the legions marching implacably across the ice towards Kellenport.
It had been days, days, since the successful sabotage mission conducted by Commander Chronus and the Ultramarines armour. The destruction of the phasic generators should have crippled the necrons – it barely broke their stride, and now here they were again, a few hours from the gates.
‘How many do you think are out there, Brother-Angel?’
At his own request, Iulus had taken up a position on the wall nearest the Ark Guard fighters, and dispersed his Immortals to do the same. Men needed courage at times like this. He resolved that they would find it in his example, and that of his warriors.
‘More than we have shells and bullets for, Sergeant Kolpeck.’
Iulus knew, of all the Guardsmen and militia who fought on Damnos, he need not lie to this one. Falka Kolpeck had survived the initial assault, he had lived through the first siege, he had even endured when others lost their minds during the attack on Infirmary Seven. He was a hard man, as hard as the Damnos ice he used to cut with his rigging tools. It did not make him a better soldier, but it did make him tough and that was something Iulus found he could respect.
‘You saw off her transport?’ asked the Ultramarine, watching the distant skeletal hordes. Perversely perhaps, the storms had abated in the last few hours. Behind the drifts and whiteouts, a vast arctic landscape had emerged, and upon it legions of necrons.
Kolpeck nodded and checked the iron sights of the heavy stubber he was charged with manning.
In the wintry skies above, Arvus lighters and a host of other atmospheric craft comprised a steady stream of traffic coming from the spaceport. Thousands had been evacuated already, but there had been losses in the hundreds too. Verdant gauss fire from the distant necron cannons, entrenched in the northern wastes, maintained a constant barrage that gave the Damnos night the illusion of pyrotechnics on Founding Day. It was, of course, much deadlier than that and not remotely celebratory.
Every ship sent from the port, its gunwales brimming with refugees, was directed on an easterly course first. They went low to the ground, beneath the lattice of enemy fire, until rising and striking for the Valin’s Revenge o
r one of its flotilla.
Iulus had heard from Vandar on the northern gate that an entire graveyard of destroyed vessels now languished out in those wastes. It was a cynical, if necessary, measure. The last thing the fragile courage of the Damnosian soldiery needed was falling skies.
‘She did not wake before her medi-casket was taken aboard,’ Kolpeck offered, ‘but I believe she knew I was there.’
Iulus gave the facial equivalent of a shrug. He had seen how Kolpeck had been willing to give his life to protect this woman. It was a form of brotherhood, he supposed. He chose not to disabuse him of the notion that she would survive the journey to the Valin’s Revenge, or warn him that she was most likely to be in a coma forever and the chances of them ever being reunited were remote in the extreme. That would dishonour this man, and Iulus had no desire to do that when he had earned so much more for his life.
‘You could have joined her,’ said the Ultramarine, turning to look at the ex-rig-hand, ‘but you chose to remain.’
‘How is it any different to your brothers staying behind for us?’
Iulus sniffed, incredulous. ‘We are Adeptus Astartes, much hardier than mortal men. It is our duty. Our honour.’
Kolpeck met his gaze, but had to crane his neck. ‘The oaths I have taken, the ones I swore to Jynn as she lay in her coma, are not so different. It is my world. I want to fight for it, even if it means my death.’ He turned back to continue his weapons check.
Iulus regarded him silently for a few more seconds, before deciding he had no answer to that. But as he returned to watch the metallic horde coming down on Kellenport, he vowed to do everything in his power to save this man. To Iulus’s mind, he had earned that much.