Calgar's Siege

by Paul Kearney

  ‘Brothers, we will flank them, come in from the left and take apart their leaders. Close combat – do not stop to fire but pitch straight in. Now follow me.’

  Calgar led them back out of the front line and then took off at sprint in a wide circle to the rear of the Ultramarine position. He opened up all the energy reserves in the artificer armour, and flew across the ground at enormous speed while the other three Space Marines of his entourage struggled to keep up behind him. He saw the power sigils flicker red in his helm display, but threw energy into every system regardless, especially the Iron Halo – he would need all the protection it could give, shortly – and charging up the Gauntlets of Ultramar.

  This assault had to be broken, or it would prove fatal to the company. It was larger and better equipped than any that had come before. The orks had finally become aware of the threat they faced in the depths of the Tagus and they were throwing a major formation at it.

  The four Adeptus Astartes covered the ground with unbelievable speed, slashing aside a few stragglers that appeared in their path. Finally, Calgar raised a gauntlet, and they halted. He could hear his brothers panting over the vox.

  ‘Now, move in with me, and keep close. We want the leaders, brothers – and ware those heavy weapons.’

  He lit up Avila’s sigil. ‘Brother-sergeant, we are coming in on the left. Be prepared to shift fire.’

  ‘Acknowledged.’

  Even with auto-senses engaged, the roar of gunfire was enough to stagger the ears. The orks were flooding forward, leaving dozens of dead in their wake, but closing their ranks and howling en masse and sending out a torrent of fire that was chopping up the forest before them, felling whole trees, bringing branches clattering down in shattered clouds. The Ultramarines and Guardsmen to their front hugged the ground or crouched behind fallen timber, shifting position after each shot to keep the orks guessing. But all around their positions the incoming ordnance ploughed the wet ground into a mire and filled the air with debris. They were close to being pinned down. When that happened, the orks would charge in to close combat, and it would be over – for not even Space Marines could match the strength and numbers now advancing.

  ‘Throne be with us,’ Calgar muttered. Then he plunged forward as fast as the ancient armour he wore could go. He let loose one devastating volley of storm-bolter fire that flayed a dozen of the enemy, then lit up the Gauntlets of Ultramar, and in seconds was right there in the midst of the ork ranks, in among the leaders, their heavy weapons a clumsy hindrance at such close range.

  He punched clear through the hide and entrails of the orks before him, ripping out their innards as he withdrew his fists. The Iron Halo that arced above his helm flashed and flamed as it deflected blow after blow, and he spread his fingers and chopped the enemy to pieces, the concussion of his own strikes running up his forearms and jarring his bones. He took apart six of the leaders in mere moments, felt a tug as one tried to wrench off his head, and tore that ork’s arm clear from its shoulder.

  He moved in a welter of slaughter, and behind him were Proxis and Orhan, wielding the axes of Ultramar, cleaving the foe into twitching pieces. Guarding their back was the terrible, black skull-faced figure of Mathias, who swung his crozius arcanum until it flew with blood that sizzled and steamed on the energy field that encased it.

  The four of them were as close-packed as the fingers in a fist, and they blew the ork leaders apart, killing them where they stood, their helms blank masks of Imperial hate, power armour whining with the workload, sigils lighting up in their displays, power-packs smoking at maximum yield. The ork host split around them, the lesser of its members drawing back and opening up with autogun fire, and a blast of flame that enveloped them all for a few seconds before they smashed their way clear of it. Still burning, the Ultramarine armour shrugged off the flames, and the four of them opened out. Calgar blinked on the storm-bolter sigil again and strafed the ork lines like a man scything wheat, the intense fire chopping down any group of xenos that was trying to stand and rally. He felt incoming rounds impact on the artificer armour, punching through the protective field of the Iron Halo, and saw a missile flash past his face.

  ‘Take out their heavy weapons,’ he said over the vox. ‘Sergeant Avila, advance by bounds. Let us finish this thing, brothers.’

  Avila’s squad came up to join them, the battle-brethren moving by twos, adding their fire to the slaughter, and behind them Janus’ Guardsmen followed, unwilling to be left out of the fight, awed by the example of their liege lord.

  The jungle caught fire and flamed up around them. The ground burst up in a concussive series of grenade blasts. Brother Orhan was knocked to his back and a great ork pounced on him, gargling hate. He plunged his fingers into the thing’s eyes and ripped the great bony skull in two pieces, then stood up and threw the shattered bone remnants of the ork’s head back at its fellows. Retrieving his axe, he leapt once more into the fray.

  The ork host was in a great crescent, and the Ultramarines were at the concave belly of it. The wings were closing in, about to surround the Ultramarines and Guardsmen who were all in a compact mass now, Janus’ men dodging nimbly between the struggling giants all around them. Just as the two horns of the crescent were about to close, the last gun servitor rumbled up, its tracks spraying muck, and let loose with a torrent of heavy bolter fire that broke off one horn of the crescent and sent it buckling back in on itself.

  With that, the fight finally began to leave the orks. While many still continued to charge forward, immolating themselves under the guns of the Ultramarines, and more sniped from a safe distance, a great mass of them began to back away, still howling.

  ‘Follow them up, brothers – with me!’ Calgar cried. The storm bolters cut down swathes of the enemy as he advanced, and finally clicked dry. He sprinted forward into the mass that was retreating before him and laid about himself like a prizefighter drunk with violence. Red sigils were flaming all over his helm display, but he did not hesitate. The thing was in the balance now – it could go either way.

  ‘Keep the pressure up!’ he heard Proxis shout. ‘Break them, brothers – they are almost there.’

  And then the orks could take no more. Even their mindless savage courage had its limits. They broke. Scores turned and ran, the stronger trampling the weaker, the unhurt shoving aside the wounded. Their formation was scattered and became a horde of running individuals.

  ‘Single shots,’ Avila said. ‘Conserve ammo.’

  ‘A home for every bullet,’ Mathias said, and there was laughter over the vox, the dark, hard laughter of men on the cusp of victory.

  Even the dampness of the jungle could not dim the flames. Gouts of promethium still blazed here and there, bright in the shadow of the rainforest, and in the air was the reek of fecund broken earth, while banks of smoke floated low above the roots of the trees, like a ground fog.

  The enemy lay in heaps. Here and there one wriggled and struggled under the body of its fellows, until a bolter barked out and took off its head.

  The Ultramarines reloaded what ammo they had left, saw to their own wounded and policed the battlefield.

  Calgar watched his brethren at their work. He was weary, he who rarely knew true physical tiredness, and his armour was injecting his mighty frame with analgesics and stimulants. The artificer armour had preserved his life in the thick of that mayhem, aided by the Iron Halo, but all the same he saw upon it the thick dents of bullet strikes, the deep scars of energy blades mere increments from his own flesh, sparks flashing and spitting out of several rents in the ancient ceramite. In his helm display several sigils still blinked red, while others had settled into steady amber. He reloaded the storm bolters with the last of their ammo and flexed his fingers.

  Proxis limped over, axe on his shoulder. Very little trace was left of honour-guard finery now. All the ornamentation that had once bedecked his power suit had been torn and blasted o
ff, and he was as mud-coloured as the bloody ground on which he trod. He doffed his battered helm and lifted his eyes to the canopy above, darkening now with the beginnings of night.

  ‘For a moment there, I thought we might be in trouble,’ he said, and grinned.

  Calgar set a hand on his friend’s shoulderplate.

  ‘For a moment there, I think we were.’

  Mathias joined them. The Chaplain’s skull helm was stained with ork flesh and viscera. ‘Emperor be praised. We do his work–’

  ‘And that is its own reward,’ Calgar and Proxis said together, finishing the proverb.

  ‘They fled north,’ Calgar said thoughtfully after a moment’s silence.

  ‘To what, I wonder,’ Proxis said.

  ‘Chapter Master, our injuries are minor, our losses light, all things considered. But we have no logistical back-up, no resupply,’ Mathias said. ‘In short, we do not have the means to fight another such skirmish.’

  ‘I am well aware of that, brother,’ Calgar said.

  ‘We’ve been using some ork rounds in the bolters, but they jam the firing mechanisms too often when used in automatic,’ Proxis said, a snarl flitting across his face.

  ‘Then we will fire single-shot from here on in,’ Calgar told him. ‘And we will gather what heavy weapons have been left in the hands of the enemy dead. I know that ork weaponry does not function well in the hands of others, but there is Imperial hardware lying around here too, brothers, looted during some older campaign of these xenos. We will make it work. We will break trail in the dark and make a camp off to the west of our route, and spend a few hours working on what weaponry and ammunition is worth scavenging.’ He paused.

  ‘We will fight on, brothers, for as long as it takes. I for one do not intend to end my days in this jungle.’

  ‘It is a tiresome spot,’ Proxis agreed with a crooked smile. Then he laughed again. ‘Picking over ork ammunition as though it were made of gold, scrabbling for a few rounds to cram into our bolters – my lord, I think of the massive arsenals of Hera’s Fortress on Macragge, and I do not know whether to laugh or weep.’

  ‘Whatever you choose, do it in your own time,’ Calgar said tersely. ‘For now, there is work to do.’

  They sat in a ring, in the darkness some five miles west of the battlesite, every Ultramarine surrounded with what looked at first glance like a mound of scrap metal, battered and ill-cared-for weapons and magazines, most of Imperial mark, all being gleaned for anything useful. For now, Janus’ surviving Guardsmen stood sentry over the industrious battle-brethren as they worked to scavenge what they could, while Calgar stood watchful with them.

  Lieutenant Janus had aged twenty years in as many days, but his eyes were still bright and hard, and he went up and down the thin line of his men with a word for every one of them. Calgar watched him approvingly. Such a soldier might have been worthy to become a neophyte in the Adeptus Astartes, if only he had been found young enough.

  Such were the massive genetic and surgical modifications made to a would-be Space Marine that only the young could hope to accept the process and bear it to fruition. It was rare indeed for anyone over fourteen years of age to survive that brutal initiation, and yet tens of thousands tried every year, volunteers from the great families of Macragge and hopefuls from all across Ultramar. Out of those myriads, perhaps a dozen finally managed to bear the Ultima sigil on their shoulder one day and took their place among the battle companies, gaining for their families everlasting honour, and for themselves, a life of discipline, endurance and endless warfare.

  ‘Your men are bearing up well. You should be proud of them,’ Calgar told Janus quietly as the Astra Militarum lieutenant came over and saluted him.

  ‘Thank you, my lord.’ The young man’s face lit up for a second, the exhaustion leaving it. ‘There are only eight of us left, but we will never let you down.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘My lord, may I speak freely?’ Janus’ face had settled into fear and stubbornness. Calgar knew what he was about to say.

  ‘The answer is no, lieutenant. Your men may not stay behind. We do not abandon our own. That is not our way.’

  ‘We are putting your survival in jeopardy, lord. None of us want that.’

  ‘You will obey orders, lieutenant. And for now, your orders are to fight side by side with the Ultramarines. There is no more to be said on the matter.’

  Janus saluted him again, and their eyes met. There was in the young man at that second such pride shining out that Calgar knew in his hearts he would have made a fine battle-brother. He knew also that Janus would not survive this campaign – his sort never did. Willing as horses, faithful as hounds, they would fight on until they died, and would do so without a word of complaint. As all soldiers should.

  Later on, Calgar stood alone and watched over the camp in the night. Everyone in the company had been ordered to sleep, even the Ultramarines. They needed only a few hours in as many days but had now been awake almost constantly for two weeks, and Calgar wanted everyone rested for what he was sure would be a hard day in the morning.

  The clouds had thickened overhead, and there was not a star to be seen. A hot heaviness was in the air, which even nightfall could not lift. There was a storm coming. He could feel it, smell it in every ion. The morning would bring it upon them, and he stood there alone and figured it into his plans. There might be a way to use it – to resort to stealth instead of this brute battering at a closing door.

  Calgar was not alone for long. The pale blue glimmer of the Librarian’s psychic hood came through the dark towards him, and he nodded at Valerian as the psyker approached, sensing in him a pent-up excitement.

  ‘My lord, I have news, perhaps good news.’

  ‘Then share it, brother.’

  ‘I have been monitoring the vox constantly since the crash. All I have been able to pick up thus far are the floods of gibberish the orks produce. They saturate the aether like sewage. But now and then I have gleaned some nuggets that make sense, and I have been building a picture of events across the planet. It is not detailed, or particularly coherent–’

  ‘Spit it out, Valerian, before I grow old standing here.’

  Valerian bowed slightly. ‘It would seem that there are many ork tribes involved in the invasion, and it has not yet metamorphosed into a Waaagh! – the psychic signature of such an event would be unmistakable. There is one supreme warlord who is directing operations, however. It has not yet made planetfall, but will soon – all the other ork tribes are in fear of it – and when that happens, I believe the momentum will be there for a Waaagh! to be created.’

  ‘And then things will become interesting indeed,’ Calgar said.

  Again, Valerian bowed. ‘There is more, my lord. Zalathras, principal city of this world, has been assaulted, but for now at least, it is holding. Fresh ork forces are on their way from orbit even as we stand here. The city is under siege, surrounded, but its defences are formidable for such a border world, and the orks are hard at work constructing siege lines and preparing for another assault, one to be made with overwhelming force.’

  Calgar stared out into the night, his bionic eye shining red. ‘Your information is invaluable, brother. I thank you for it.’

  ‘One last thing, the most important perhaps. The planetary fleet has been all but wiped out, as might be expected, but I have established intermittent contact with a psyker aboard a ship in low orbit, a vessel which has been evading the ork squadrons for some days now.’

  ‘What kind of ship?’ Calgar asked sharply.

  ‘A rogue trader, lord, of no military consequence. But the psyker – he is the ship’s Navigator, but he possesses minor telepathic ability – thinks that it may be possible for them to pick us up, if we can find a suitable landing site somewhere in the jungle. We could then be ferried to the capital in minutes, instead of…’ Valerian
trailed off.

  ‘Instead of fighting our way through fruitless battles, hundreds of miles from our goal.’ Calgar’s interest quickened. ‘Can this psyker be trusted, brother?’

  ‘I do not know, my lord. If it is a ruse, then it is one whose subtleties are beyond the usual brute cunning of the orks.’

  ‘You must have some sense of the man’s psyche.’

  ‘I do. It is troubled, damaged even. But I sense no taint of the Great Enemy. If I were to make a guess, I would say that he is genuine.’

  Calgar stared at the Librarian, hope flaring in his hearts. But it was heavily leavened with scepticism. In this universe, luck was more often bad than good, and he did not like the idea of committing his fate to such an unknown element.

  ‘If we go down this route, brother, then we risk everything.’

  ‘I know that, my lord. But, forgive me, are we not in a position of great risk as it stands?’

  Calgar said nothing for a long moment, weighing up the new information, plugging it into his map of events. Pondering on luck, both good and bad. And analysing the weather change in the air.

  They could not fight their way through to Zalathras. Even if they were able to break through the ork forces now massing in their path, by the time they made it to the city walls, the city would be a burning shell – he was sure of that now. It would take weeks, if it were possible at all.

  This new thing – it might be their salvation, it might be an attempt to flush them out of the jungle, but either way, it could not be ignored.

  The risk had to be taken. This time, he would chance something to luck, and the Emperor’s Grace.

  ‘Contact this psyker of yours tonight,’ he told Brother Valerian. ‘Give him our location and ask him to direct us to a suitable landing spot for his ship.’ He paused. ‘Does he know that I am here with this party?’

  ‘He knows only that there are Adeptus Astartes among us, lord.’