by Gav Thorpe
Reaching over the shoulder of his assailant, Telemenus drove his gauntleted fingers down into the power plant strapped across the warriors’ back. The casing buckled and split and Telemenus closed his fingers and pulled, ripping out the mangled remains of the motor. Fuel ignited, swathing both fighters in a bloom of fire.
Though the inward pressure had stopped, the Divine’s power frame was locked in position, fastened to Telemenus like a limpet. Two more enemies dropped over the balcony to Telemenus’s left, the curved blades in their hands gleaming. Unable to move, Telemenus would be cut apart by the power swords.
Boosting as much power as possible to the muscle bundles of his armour, Telemenus seized hold of the Divine and lifted. His vision faded as energy was shunted from his autosenses, giving him just enough strength to rip the man’s left arm away, flesh and exoskeleton together. The augmented man moaned as blood poured from his ravaged shoulder, a sound more of pleasure than pain.
Telemenus pivoted, twisting at the hips to hurl the Divine into his two companions, impeding their advance. In the moment this bought him, Telemenus raised his bolter and fired on full automatic, shredding the two warriors in a hail of small explosions.
‘These bastards do not die easily,’ said Daellon, coming up beside Telemenus. The other Dark Angel’s flamer spat fire up into the gallery, promethium sticking to the balustrade and walls. ‘Time to fall back.’
Telemenus reloaded and backed towards the doorway. The rest of the squad were pulling back, the fire of the Divine following Amanael as he jumped down from the altar dais and ran to rejoin the others.
‘We must secure the entrance to the accessway,’ said the sergeant, turning to snap off several shots from his pistol at the Divine still firing from the gallery to the left. ‘Apollon, Nemeon, push forward.’
The squad emerged onto the concourse in quick succession, moving away from the door swiftly. Telemenus noticed that Achamenon had not moved from where he had been left. He glanced at Amanael, but the sergeant’s attention was elsewhere, directing the squad to concentrate their fire on the enemy above an armoured door on the opposite side of the concourse. A missile from Nethor streaked past Telemenus’s shoulder, exploding amongst the Divine protecting the portal.
Apollon and Nemeon reached the armoured door as the rest of the squad fanned out across the concourse. Daellon stood guard at the shrine door in case the enemy within decided to follow, his flamer shedding droplets of burning promethium to the floor.
Glass shattered behind Telemenus as more shots from the Divine erupted through the windows of the metriculator chamber. The enemy had entered from another doorway and taken up firing positions using the cogitators for cover. Telemenus shouted a warning as he spied the distinctive muzzle and barrel of a lascannon protruding between the casings of two of the cogitating engines. He brought up his bolter to fire as a beam of red energy stabbed from the lascannon, passing centimetres from the Dark Angel’s head. More glass splintered and consoles exploded as he returned fire, bolts from his squad-brothers screaming past him as the others added their fire to the attack.
‘Entranceway is sealed,’ said Nemeon. ‘Brother-sergeant, we need your melta bombs.’
Telemenus could spare no attention to the actions of the rest of the squad. Surrounded on three sides, his armour already much battered from previous engagements, he made a dash for the cover of a long, marble-topped counter facing the cogitator room. Splinters from the stone surface shattered into his armour as a foe opened up on Telemenus with a heavy stubber, the perforated barrel of the machine-gun spitting fire.
The Divine were no more than forty metres away, bobbing up and down from their cover. It was almost like the firing range on the strike cruiser. Telemenus pushed aside everything else, focusing on the targets in front of him, responding only with a grunt to acknowledge the assurance from Menthius that his back was covered. He became aware of the other Dark Angel beside him, firing up at the galleries.
Selecting single-fire mode, Telemenus targeted the lascannon first. The man wielding it was sheltering close to the doorway of the terminal room, not so well that he was completely hidden from view. Seeing a knee and lower leg poking around the edge of the cogitator, Telemenus fired. The Divine’s shin shattered, toppling the warrior into view. Telemenus ignored him and fired his next shot into the lascannon that was still in the enemy’s grasp. The bolt detonated the lascannon’s energy cell with a bright flash.
Firing again, his next bolt punching into the shoulder of a warrior moving from one console to another, Telemenus heard a dull crump behind him: the sound of a melta-charge. He did not move, adjusting his aim through the console room to the doorway, where more Divine were arriving. Three shots in quick succession took down the next two enemies to appear, the bolts hitting their targets in the shoulders and throat where their armour provided no protection.
Something large and black sped into Telemenus’s view. The Ravenwing Land Speeder strafed sideways across the concourse, its underslung assault cannon unleashing a blur of shells into the console chamber. Databanks and cogitators turned to spinning, lethal fragments. The Land Speeder gunner added the fire of his heavy bolter, the salvo chewing through the flimsy walls, tearing flesh and armour to pieces.
‘Telemenus!’ The Dark Angel realised it was the third time Amanael had called his name, so fixated had he been on his targets.
‘Yes, brother-sergeant?’ He tore his gaze away from the destruction being wreaked by the Land Speeder as it made another pass, bringing down the ceiling of the cogitator room with another two-second assault cannon burst. Telemenus saw that the rest of the squad were moving out through the molten remains of the entranceway doors, heading into the passage beyond.
‘Fall in, brother,’ the sergeant said, standing at the threshold of the ruined portal. ‘More Ravenwing forces will be here presently. Time to push on.’
Telemenus crossed the open space at a full run, still under fire from their attackers on the galleries above, though the weight of the enemy firepower was much diminished. As he plunged into the smoke-filled passageway after his squad-brothers, he detected the echo of roaring motors approaching behind.
The accessway ran straight to grid-east for three hundred metres, bare plasteel walls and mesh decking, a continuous light strip running its whole length. Thick stanchions every few metres supported the roof, and from behind these several dozen Divine were resisting the Dark Angels advance. Telemenus moved into position, reloading his bolter as he took cover behind one of the ferrocrete supports on the opposite side of the passage to Daellon.
Just ahead of him on his left, Nethor fired the missile launcher. The missile sped through the blaze of bullets filling the corridor to exploded against a stanchion halfway along the corridor. Though it filled the passage with smoke and shrapnel, the missile did not appear to have caused any casualties.
‘Tracking is off,’ complained Nethor, lowering the missile launcher from his shoulder so that he could inspect the boxy sighting array on its side. He gave the weapon a thump with the heel of his hand, shaking his head.
‘Or perhaps just your aim, brother,’ said Telemenus.
‘Your wit is as sharp as your blade, brother,’ replied Nethor, ‘and used even less.’
Advancing two at a time, the squad moved along the passage, stanchion by stanchion, the rest of the squad unleashing suppressive fire before each pair moved. The Divine held their ground rather than fall back, and the corridor quickly filled with bodies and wounded.
When the squad had advanced nearly a hundred metres, the noise of engines grew louder and Telemenus felt the decking shake under his feet. He fired at a woman straight ahead of him, sending her ducking back into cover, and turned his head in time to see four black bikes of the Ravenwing speeding into the entranceway from the main terminus.
‘Stand aside.’
Telemenus barely had time to obey the co
mmand from the Ravenwing biker before the squadron flashed past. The moment they were beyond the squad, the Ravenwing opened fire, their bike-mounted bolters leaving a trail of holes and bodies along both walls as they raced on without pause.
‘You missed some!’ Daellon shouted after the squadron as they continued towards the far end of the corridor, heedless of the Divine who had avoided the fusillade. The enemy fighters concentrated their fire on the retreating backs of the riders until they disappeared from view.
‘Press on!’ urged Amanael. ‘Attack before the enemy recovers.’
‘Squad Amanael, hold position.’ The command from Sergeant Seraphiel came across the comm-net just as Telemenus stepped out of cover. ‘Secure the entranceway but do not move forward. Ravenwing forces will secure the objective.’
‘By the Lion’s balls, they will!’ snarled Daellon. The Dark Angel stormed from his position, flamer in both hands. Gunfire sparked from his armour as he pounded towards the enemy. ‘Vengeance for Achamenon!’
Telemenus and Nemeon followed, ignoring the shout of Amanael as they ran past.
‘You are blocking our fire,’ shouted Nethor.
‘Stand your ground!’ Amanael’s command was a roar across the comm, stopping Telemenus in his tracks.
Distracted, Telemenus saw too late a piston-boosted warrior rising up from the shadow of a stanchion behind Nemeon. The enemy warrior had a large axe in both hands. The edge of the blade shone with some form of energy field. As though time had slowed, while he brought up his bolter to fire Telemenus watched the axe swinging towards Nemeon. His shot left his bolter just as the axe head slashed into the back of Nemeon’s helm. The bolt sped along the corridor as the power axe crackled, flares of light erupting from the blade as it carved into the skull of Nemeon.
Nemeon and the Divine went down at the same time; the former with half his head missing and the latter with heart and lungs blown out through splayed ribcage.
Daellon’s flamer filled the passage ahead with a wave of fire, incinerating more than a dozen foes. Telemenus had no time to spare to check on Nemeon as he fired again, cutting down another enemy warrior.
‘That is why you obey orders,’ snarled Amanael, coming up beside Telemenus.
‘I would spend a year in the penitentium rather than fight my way across this bloody station only for the Ravenwing to get the glory and honour,’ said Daellon, firing again as he continued to advance down the corridor.
‘Very well.’ Amanael’s quiet reply almost went unheard amidst the zip of las-beams and the crack of bolt-rounds.
‘Really?’ Telemenus glanced at the sergeant in surprise.
‘As a squad,’ Amanael continued, his voice an angry growl. ‘We will settle this matter later. Show some discipline. Telemenus, suppression on the right. Menthius, on the left. Nethor, have you fixed that missile launcher yet?’
‘Yes, brother-sergeant,’ came the reply.
‘Good. We are not Ravenwing, dashing about as we please. Let us show these glory-hounds the mettle of the Fifth Company.’
Mission Accomplished
It caused Annael some misgiving to ride past his former companions of the Fifth Company but the Grand Master’s orders had been especially clear. While the Divine were occupied with the defence of the terminal hubs and accessway, Squadron Cassiel was to secure the chambers at the end of the jutting spar. They were to hold against counter-attack until Sammael arrived with other Ravenwing elements.
After rejoining the squadron, punching through the enemy perimeter had been straightforward enough. The Fifth Company had secured the ground well, leaving minimal resistance to oppose the Ravenwing as they had made their final push. In fact, so effective had Squad Amanael’s suppression been, Annael and his brothers gained entry to the suspected enemy command area two minutes ahead of schedule.
The communications and control pod at the end of the accessway was a hexagon nearly two hundred metres across, on three levels. The squadron split as they left the accessway, Annael and Araton heading left while Zarall and Sabrael turned right. An outer corridor the height of the whole pod ran the circumference of the housing, the outer wall broken every few metres by slit-like windows, while sets of steps accessing the upper and lower levels ran from the inner side. At right angles to the accessway, blast doors sealed the central chamber.
From the open stairwells, Divine warriors fired at the incoming bikers. Araton was forced to make an emergency evasion as a missile sped from a set of steps leading down, passing between the two bikers before crashing into the outer wall.
Annael steered his bike to the right, directing his machine into the stairwell. He plunged down the steps, punching through the huddle of fighters like a bullet parting flesh. One of the Divine was nimble enough to avoid being crushed by Annael’s mount, throwing himself aside as the Space Marine roared past. The Dark Angel turned in the saddle and fired his bolt pistol into the warrior’s chest, holding tight to the handlebars as Black Shadow crashed down into the tunnel below.
Reaching the next stairway, Annael came face-to-face with half a dozen enemies piling down the steps to confront him. Black Shadow’s bolters cut down two and his pistol slew another before rider and mount reached the group of warriors. Strength bolstered by his lifting harness, one of the Divine leapt at Annael, landing awkwardly on the front faring of his machine, a pistol pointed into the face of the Dark Angel.
Annael braked and wrenched Black Shadow to the right, sending the Divine flying across from his perch to slam loudly and painfully into the inner wall. Something hit Annael from behind, pinging from the right heat exchange vent of his backpack. Ignoring the two warriors behind him, Annael gunned the engine and ran over the man in front as he pushed himself to his knees. Black Shadow bucked as the bike bounced over the reinforced harness of the enemy fighter, smearing tracks of blood from its tyres as Annael powered away. A few metres on, Annael slung the bike into a tight turn, bringing the mounted bolters to bear as the two surviving Divine took cover behind the open steps of the stairway. The sanctuary of their position proved false as a hail of bolts flew between the steps, scything down both men in a single salvo.
Completing a circuit of the pod, Annael cleared away one more group of foes before returning to the main level to reunite with the rest of the squadron. Araton and Zarall had taken up position to either side of the entranceway, ready to gun down any foes that broke away from Amanael’s squad to follow the Ravenwing. This left Sabrael and Annael to guard their backs against any enemy concealed within the main chamber or upper rooms who might sally forth; the scanners detected no life signs but interference from the power lines and communications systems was affecting the sensor readings.
Annael waited patiently, keeping an eye on the stairwells a few metres in from of him, gaze flicking between the steps and the corner of the outer corridor ahead. Now and then bolter fire from the Fifth Company echoed along the accessway and occasionally the complex shuddered slightly as the boom of a missile explosion reverberated along the passage.
‘Why do we not make the breach ourselves?’ he asked. Growing swiftly bored of the inactivity, he switched the scan on Black Shadow to thermal. The energy grid stood out in stark yellow lines on the display, but it was impossible to tell if the darker red smudges in the closed rooms were people or activated terminals. ‘There would be no risk of attack if we cleared every room.’
‘The Grand Master has ordered that we secure only this area.’ This seemed sufficient reply for Araton.
‘I understand, brother, but why can we not fully secure the facility?’ Annael persisted, turning in the saddle to address the rest of the squadron, occasionally glancing at the scanner screen. ‘He has already confided in us the possible renegade nature of the enemy commander. What harm is there in conducting a full search?’
‘We guard against undue discovery by other forces,’ said Araton. Almost as if summoned by t
he squad leader’s words, figures in dark green armour strode into view at the end of the accessway. ‘Halt, brothers, proceed no closer.’
‘We are here to secure the objective,’ said one of the Fifth Company warriors. Annael recognised the voice from when he had been in the company.
‘Telemenus, you should not be here,’ he told the Space Marine.
‘Brother-sergeant, this area is off-limits until Grand Master Sammael arrives.’ Araton spoke formally, with no hint of anger. ‘Return to your positions and defend the accessway.’
‘If it is just the bloody same to you, we will wait at the objective,’ the squad brother with the flamer announced, continuing forwards. Araton edged his bike into the Space Marine’s path, blocking his progress.
‘This area is not secure,’ said Zarall. ‘Your disobedience shames your company, and the whole Chapter.’
‘We just wish to complete the mission,’ said Telemenus. ‘We have lost two brothers to get here, and we are so close it – makes no sense to guard an empty passageway.’
‘Deepest respect to your fallen brothers,’ said Zarall, ‘but you cannot pass this point. Our honour would be stained if we did not enforce the command of the Grand Master.’
‘Run along and do as you are told.’ Annael felt himself tense as soon as Sabrael spoke. ‘With speed and precision, this area has been seized and secured by the Ravenwing. We do not need you here.’
Annael knew that even Sabrael was not being deliberately dismissive of the squad’s losses, but his tone verged on contempt. The flamer-armed Dark Angel turned, moving his gaze from Araton to Sabrael.
‘Is that so? You have a damned loose tongue, brother.’ Annael finally worked out that it was Daellon, who was known across the Fifth Company for his coarse language and forthright manner.
‘Make apology, brother,’ instructed Araton. ‘Assure our brothers that no offense was intended.’