Blades of Damocles

by Phil Kelly

  As if on cue the Imperial warriors below opened fire, muzzle flashes picking out not only the cobalt blue of the Space Marine vanguard but also orange and black armour emblazoned with sigils of the hammer and gauntlet. Farsight’s threat sensors blipped insistently as the tiny armour-piercing rockets favoured by the enemy warriors shot up towards them. He turned his shield generator downwards and set it to maximum, noting with satisfaction that O’Vesa’s optimisation program was still functioning smoothly. There was a triple burst as the mass-reactive bolts detonated one after another, their heat-yield swathing the invisible disc of protective force in strangely beautiful ripples of fire.

  Farsight checked the icons of his battlesuit cadre with a quick scan of his left eye even as his right circle-noosed a priority marker over heavy weapon troopers arrayed in the lee of a dome. Almost all of his cadre’s icons were still gold. As per his instructions, those whose icons had downgraded to bluesteel or even copper had peeled back with their team to be swiftly replaced by direct equivalents from the second wave behind.

  ‘Now,’ said Farsight. A microdec later, a sleeting storm of plasma hurtled from the skies, throwing the figures below into stark monochrome. Most of the stabbing bolts struck a Space Marine gunner from above, some impacting at an angle, some near vertical. Each direct hit burned through armour, flesh and bone before emerging sizzling from the other side. Channels of molten flesh and metal cut through the gue’ron’sha warriors, wide enough for a kroot broadspear to plunge through and not touch the sides. Some of the stricken Space Marines staggered and fell, some were caught by their comrades, while others toppled into the detritus of the shattered tau domes they were using for cover.

  Incredibly, many of the fallen returned fire without a second’s hesitation.

  This time the mass-reactive volley was far thicker and took a greater toll. Battlesuits came apart in bursts of purple flame, shattered limbs and scything shards of jump jet flying in every direction. Farsight’s eyes widened as he saw a Space Marine, halved at the waist, claw himself upright against the body of a dead comrade, raising his sidearm to send a pair of explosive bolts right at him. So surprised was the tau commander that one of the bolts got under his shield generator and struck home with a loud bang. There was a sharp kick of impact, spinning him around in mid-air and causing his damage control display to flash bright. He righted himself, sweeping his fusion blaster low to take the warrior’s head in a puff of vapourised blood.

  A moment later Farsight’s force shield blazed bright as a lancing beam shot from the ruins to the west. The shield’s data array registered it as laser cannon discharge. If these gue’ron’sha weapon teams were anything like those the tau encountered on Vespertine, solid shot projectiles would be close behind.

  Almost as soon as the thought had crossed Farsight’s mind he saw a missile shooting towards him on a plume of white smoke. He arced out of its path and flicked a pulse from his shield as it went past. The kinetic discharge sent it veering into the central bulk of an open-sided drop craft that had fired moments ago, and the detonation that followed toppled the contraption into the dirt.

  Aiming carefully as he sped back into position, Farsight took a stabbing shot at a wounded Space Marine hammering bolts up into the airborne ranks of the battlesuit cadre. The stream of plasma caught him in the chest, ending his life in a spitting cascade of blinding energy. As Farsight pulled away he saw a gue’ron’sha in white armour race from the shadows to his fallen comrade, only to plunge a forearm-mounted drill into his throat.

  Intrigued, Farsight boosted upwards, scanning for similar sights. He soon found another white-clad warrior within sensor range, engaged in much the same ritual. He had long ago realised the medics of the Imperium wore white, but if anything these strange specialists seemed to be delivering something more like the final mont’ka.

  There was a secret here. He could feel it. Some niggling instinct told him it was key to understanding the gue’ron’sha mindset, and perhaps, therefore, to winning the war.

  Swinging his legs back in his cocoon to move his battlesuit into a sharp dive, Farsight swooped down towards the nearest white-armoured gue’ron’sha and prepared to land.

  Apothecary Antaloch fought the rising urge to join the battle raging around him. The Hammers of Dorn had always been sticklers for the Codex Astartes, but in this case their armoured assault tactics had been outmanoeuvred with daunting ease. The xenos were all over them, and their weapons… their weapons were devastating.

  Eyes scanning the field, Antaloch crouched low and ran over to a fallen battle-brother. The Space Marine had a smoking hole in his chest that the Apothecary could have fitted his fist through. Releasing the ravaged armour’s cuirass with a practised movement, Antaloch plunged his reductor deep into his comrade’s neck. A thick churning sound grumbled under the roar of battle as Antaloch extracted the warrior’s progenoid glands and stowed them with dozens of others he had flasked thus far. He memorised his fallen brother’s name and honours before moving a few feet to the next of the fallen, a sprawling corpse with a stump in place of a head.

  There was a crack of impact as a crimson xenos warsuit thumped down in front of Antaloch. It pressed the muzzle of its energy rifle to his helmet. The Apothecary froze. The alien assassin filled his vision, huge and lethal. Thin pennants fluttered from its armour like elongated purity seals. The figure would have dwarfed a Terminator, perhaps even a Centurion.

  ‘It is unclear,’ stated the giant in stilted Low Gothic, its hidden speakers giving it something uncannily like a real voice. ‘You must know this one does not live, ministrator-medic-equivalent.’

  ‘Aye,’ growled Antaloch, ‘and yet his due must be given.’

  ‘Despite the high percentile chance of sustaining lethal damage during your ministrations.’

  ‘Just so,’ said the Apothecary. He fought a strong urge to put his hand over the precious gene-seed flasks at his waist. Even as the din of battle thundered around them, a moment of stillness passed between the two warriors.

  ‘Your stance is defence-oriented, yet not indicative of self-preservation,’ stated the xenos warsuit. Before Antaloch could reply, a pair of bolter shells detonated behind the giant figure, staggering it for a moment. It whipped a square-barrelled blaster around to obliterate the Space Marine running in behind it in a storm of searing light. Despite the distraction, its energy rifle did not move one inch from Antaloch’s helm.

  ‘A theory. During the death ritual, you recover a substance and-or information code that your warrior caste considers vital.’

  Antaloch stared up at the towering figure, but said nothing.

  ‘Interesting,’ said the xenos giant. ‘Proceed then, by all means.’ Raising its rifle in brief salute, the battlesuit shot up into the skies on twin tongues of flame.

  The Apothecary watched the alien’s departure for a second, blinking in disbelief before patching into his command squad’s private vox-net.

  ‘Captain Sevelliac? When this is over, we need to talk.’

  ‘Stay out of reach,’ transmitted Farsight across the cadre-net. ‘Engage at maximum plasma rifle range. No closer.’ With their heavy weapons troopers taken out in the first volley, the Space Marine counter-attack was fierce, but containable. Those battlesuits compromised by the foe’s boltguns withdrew, keeping behind their comrades until shield drones could dart in to shore up their defences. The ebb and flow of his warriors was a thing of beauty, like the lapping of the tide. Farsight had envisioned a battle fought almost entirely on the vertical, a fitting counterstrike to the dramatic planetfall launched by the Imperials in the first hours of the war. And it was working.

  Ahead, Commander Brightsword and his saz’nami bodyguards were moving forward to engage a knot of Imperials – officers, by their baroque armour and the elaborate standard one was carrying in their midst.

  ‘Feel the fire caste’s fury, unworthy ones!’


  As he flew, Brightsword pivoted in mid-air to avoid two gouts of plasma sent boiling in his direction. The salvo narrowly missed one of his bodyguards’ gun drones to splash across the ruined dome behind. Farsight knew his student well enough to realise what would likely come next – a spectacular kill worthy of Puretide himself, and then an overextension that would land Brightsword in the teeth of the enemy guns. The commander recalibrated his thrust/vector suite and set off in close pursuit.

  Pulling his battlesuit’s arms in close, Brightsword let his saz’nami take the rest of the Space Marines’ interceptor fire and hurtled off wide, veering around a dome shattered like an eggshell by an Imperial drop craft. As he came in towards the enemy command group he fired his fusion blasters simultaneously and swept his arms outwards, drawing a broad X of superheated force. It not only sliced one of the gue’ron’sha in half at the waist but also bisected the standard, sending it toppling towards the debris strewn below. A killing blow tactic, perfectly executed – and yet he had slain only a champion, not the warlord he protected.

  Farsight soared in close. The standard bearer dropped his gun and lunged, deftly catching the upper section of the banner’s shortened pole to hoist it upright once more – only for Farsight’s own fusion blaster to carve a diagonal across his centre mass. The scything beam took his right arm and most of his shoulder. The Space Marine let his gun fall away and grabbed the standard with his left hand instead, ensuring it did not touch the ground. It was a feat of stamina and stubbornness that typified the gue’ron’sha mindset. Yet it was the crested officer with the turbine unit – a captain, judging by the metallic crown signifying his rank – that had O’Shovah’s attention. Just as Brightsword roared overhead the Space Marine leaped backwards and fired his jet pack, rocketing up at an oblique angle with his two-handed greataxe carving around in a crackling arc.

  ‘Below you!’ shouted Farsight. His protege turned mid-leap, cutting one jet engine and boosting the other so he flipped in a spiral – but the Space Marine was still close behind. The greataxe thunked into Brightsword’s engine unit just as he planted his feet upon a disabled gunrig platform and sprang skyward once more. Farsight’s reaction shot went wide. The gue’ron’sha rode the sudden change of direction with a blast from his own jet pack, ripping his greataxe free with a twist of his body.

  Brightsword tucked into a somersault and brought his fusion blasters slashing under and up. The Space Marine tried to twist away, but one of the swipes of superheated energy burned right through his wrist, cauterising the wound in the process. The greataxe flew wide, the disembodied hand still gripping tight near the end of its haft. The enemy warlord did not cry out, but instead pulled a pistol from his belt and smacked a shot into Brightsword’s sensor array, sending his battlesuit reeling. The young commander fought to regain control as the gue’ron’sha retrieved his axe, severed hand and all.

  Farsight touched down on a ruined drop craft and sprang away, a blast of force bringing him on an intercept course. Brightsword tended to break left under pressure. If the gue’ron’sha went after him Farsight would be waiting to capitalise, firing solution ready.

  A ruby red beam of light stabbed out in Brightsword’s wake, missing him by a fraction of an inch. More laser cannon fire. The young commander had escaped death by a heartbeat.

  Farsight heard the Imperial warlord shout something, his staccato barks unintelligible over the din of battle.

  ‘– – NO – – DO NOT SHOOT – – HE IS MINE – –’ spooled Farsight’s autotrans as the battlesuit made sense of the alien words.

  O’Shovah watched as the Space Marine and Brightsword veered left, coming into his battlesuit’s gunsights. Charging, the enemy warrior shoulder-barged Brightsword away to leave himself in open sky. A ninety-four percentile kill probability flashed gold on Farsight’s target lock.

  A moment before eye-flicking the shot, O’Shovah dissolved his firing solution. The autotrans was never wrong. If the Space Marine considered it an honour duel, so be it.

  Brightsword span in a tight spiral, the air burning around him as he slashed and stabbed with his fusion blasters. Somehow the gue’ron’sha captain evaded them, twisting and boosting out of harm’s way where the fusion beams cut in close. Brightsword slashed his signature X, the tail of the latter beam catching the Space Marine only to dissolve in a blazing flare of light. An Imperial force field, inefficient but effective.

  The Space Marine was hurled back by the energy discharge, but pivoted to brace feet-first on the sheer wall of a transmission tower. He pushed away hard to boost over the curving transmotive sweeprail ahead. Focused on attack as ever, Brightsword’s careening trajectory forced him to go under the arch rather than over it.

  Farsight saw the gambit a moment too late. In nudging Brightsword towards the sweeprail arch, the gue’ron’sha captain had ensured where the young commander would emerge. There was a blur of blue as the captain dropped from the other side of the curving arch and disappeared from sight, axe flaring lightning in an overarm swipe.

  Farsight’s breath caught in his throat, the alert signals of his bio-monitor station spiking in response. Running three steps up the spar of a fallen transit spire, he bounded over the transmotive sweeprail. Numbers and trajectories raced through his mind, the destiny of his young prodigy sliding along a knife edge of probability.

  Brightsword’s battlesuit had crashed headlong into the scree of a half-demolished youth training facility. The Space Marine warlord’s crackling greataxe was embedded deep in the XV8’s plexus hatch, its broad blade sunk over a foot into the armour. Though his disembodied hand was still uselessly gripping the weapon’s haft, the Space Marine had proven lethal even when crippled.

  On Farsight’s distribution array, Brightsword’s icon turned the charcoal grey of death.

  Farsight crunched into the rubble, his vision clouded with grief. He had a clear shot on the captain’s back for the second time that day, and this time the kill-shot probability was in the ninety-ninth percentile.

  Still he did not take it.

  The gue’ron’sha captain planted a foot on his kill, tore one-handed at the axe, and it came free in an arc of crimson, unbalancing him for a moment. Blood fountained from Brightsword’s torn battlesuit, pulsed, and then stopped.

  The captain turned, tau gore spattered across his regal blue armour, to stare down the barrels of Farsight’s guns. The lifeless red vision slits of his helm were writ large upon the commander’s target lock.

  Now, the killing blow would fall.

  ‘– – YOU’RE NEXT ALIEN WRETCH – –’ spooled the autotrans. Then the Space Marine leaped into a shoulder charge.

  He was not quick enough. Farsight fired both weapons systems at once, and the gue’ron’sha captain’s chest exploded in a cloud of superheated blood.

  Chapter Four

  ELEVATION/SHELTER IN THE STORM

  ‘Listen, brothers,’ said Numitor, crouching at the side of a rubble-strewn street. ‘A low hum. Isolate it and tell me what you find.’

  ‘Engines,’ replied Duolor. ‘Perhaps four, five separate.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ said Numitor. ‘Look to the skies. We have incoming.’

  As soon as the words had left the sergeant’s mouth the purr of distant engines grew to a loud, insistent roar. A squadron of ochre xenocraft arced from behind the largest of the bio-domes fringing the plaza. They flew towards Eighth Company even as the Assault Marines sprinted towards the coordinates sent by their sergeants.

  Underslung beneath each of the aircraft was a crackling sphere of energy, so bright it forced the photolenses of those viewing it to dim it to bearable levels.

  ‘Bombers,’ said Numitor, his tone urgent. ‘Seek cover!’

  No sooner had the words left Numitor’s lips than a squadron of aircraft sped over the nearest hexodome. They passed overhead, flickering red beams panning across the Space Marines
in the open.

  A moment later, three miniature suns fell from the skies, burning bright arcs that left white trails in the air.

  ‘Scatter!’ shouted Numitor.

  The payloads dropped into the midst of the Assault Marines as they careened headlong for cover. The initial explosion sent gouts of plasma that carpeted great swathes of the plaza with burning, fizzling energy. Those caught in the blast found ceramite, flesh and bone melting away into bubbling ruin.

  Brother Antec gave a bellow of pain, raising the stumps that were all that remained of his arms. The molten length of his chainsword draped over the wreckage of his left leg. Golotan covered his face with his forearm as he staggered, lit with white fire, to slam hard into the wreckage of an unrecovered drop pod. He rolled in the indigo foliage until the flames were extinguished, ceramite flaking as he struggled to get up.

  ‘The operational parameters of our jump packs are exceeded,’ voxed Veletan. ‘They are simply too high to intercept. Without support, our best hope is escape.’

  ‘No,’ growled Sicarius. ‘Glavius, uncouple your pack. I have need of it.’

  Stunned, Glavius slowed his pace and looked to Numitor. Sicarius clanged the hilt of his tempest blade from his squad-mate’s pauldron. ‘I said uncouple your pack, brother!’

  The tau aircraft were already coming about for another pass, the spinning generators beneath each craft already spinning incandescent energies into spheres of killing plasma. Drones peeled off from their wings, firing afterburners to hurtle back around for a strafing run.

  Glavius mag-locked his pistol and chainsword to his belt, releasing the chest clip of his jump pack’s bandolier straps and swinging the entire apparatus over to his sergeant. Sicarius took it without a word, holding it under his arm and blasting straight upwards on stuttering columns of flame to land on a twisted spar of metal jutting from a comms tower above.

  Numitor grimaced. Veletan was right; without dedicated anti-air firepower they were at the mercy of the Tau bombers until they could find a way underground. Yet Sicarius was intent on more heroics, likely risking more Space Marine lives in the process. His intent was obvious enough; he was already swapping his own pack, finally drained of fuel, with the pack he had requisitioned from Glavius. Clearly he intended to engage the tau aircraft no matter the cost.