by Gav Thorpe
Thick blood spilling from the parted femoral artery, the ogryn reeled back, tearing its drill free in a fountain of ceramite shards and metal splinters. The one-handed ogryn slashed its saw again, but Belial’s iron halo burst into life, the power field absorbing the force of the blow, dissipating it harmlessly.
This unfortunately left Belial vulnerable to the magos’s plasma pistol. She opened fire, the ball of energy flickering between the two brutish bodyguards to slam into Belial’s already weakened left shoulder. The pauldron split apart, shattered by the bolt of plasma. The release of energy and sudden loss of weight on one side sent him reeling. He brought up his storm bolter and fired back out of instinct, the weapon’s targeter allowing him to aim at the tech-priest even though he was looking away.
The bolts ripped through her robe but seemed to blunt themselves on the armour underneath, their detonations charring the red fabric but causing no harm to the magos. Undeterred, Belial spent a second to analyse the situation of his squad. The Knights had almost wiped out the tech-priests and crewmen they had trapped against the energy exchange pipes, but they would have to come the long way around the gantry to assist their Grand Master.
Annoyed that he had not yet eliminated one of his foes, Belial reassessed his strategy even as he parried another swipe from a spinning sawblade aimed at his head. He slammed his storm bolter up into the chin of the ogryn, breaking the jaw and cracking tusks. This gave him half a metre of space to sidestep, using the brute’s body to block the angle of attack from the other.
One-on-one for a moment, Belial made good use of the time. The Sword of Silence carved deep welts into the ogryn’s flesh, the gleaming blue power sword cutting through the bone under skin as easily as it could part steel and ferrocrete. Four times he struck these scything blows, opening up the monster’s chest to expose its breastbone and ribs. Belial finished with a flourish, straightening his arm to plunge his blade through the ribcage and into the massive heart.
He wrenched the Sword of Silence free and barged his shoulder into the toppling ogryn, sending the dying monster staggering backwards into the magos who had been trying to get out of the conveyor.
Belial took a calculated risk, stepping to the left past the falling ogryn, into the confines of the conveyor. It left him with little room to retreat or manoeuvre, but granted him an extra second to surprise the magos. Two articulated iron tentacles sprang from her back, trying to seize hold of Belial’s weapons with grasping claws. He cut the mechanical claw from one and fired his storm bolter between the magos’s shoulder blades, hoping her armour was not as strong from the back. It was, and as before the salvo impacted on her without causing injury.
She turned, aiming the plasma pistol.
Belial closed the gap, slapping away the pistol with his storm bolter so that her shot pierced the side of the conveyor. He punched her in the face with his sword-hand, buckling a respirator implant across her mouth and nose. He saw her eyes widen in shock as her air supply was cut off, panic in her gaze.
Her momentary hesitation was more than enough time to smash his storm bolter against the side of her head, knocking the magos to one knee. A heartsbeat later, the Sword of Silence arced down, decapitating with a single stroke.
A gleaming hammer caught him full in the face, sending him staggering back across the conveyor cage. Sparing no glance for its fallen mistress, the surviving ogryn stepped into the cramped interior, its drill tearing through Belial’s tabard to skitter across the winged sword blazon on his chest.
There was barely room for Belial to swing his sword, and all he could manage was a raking slice across the shoulder of the ogryn. It grunted, perhaps in pain, perhaps anger. Scarlet eyes glared at the Grand Master from the depths of the bucket-like helm.
The ogryn seized Belial in a bear hug, lifted and smashed him against the rear of the conveyor. The attack did little actual harm, but his storm bolter was pinned to his side and his sword equally useless in his raised hand. It stepped back and rammed him into the wall again, buckling the metal.
The Grand Master kicked, driving his heel into the inside of the ogryn’s knee. The monster’s leg buckled as it twisted, giving Belial an opportunity to get his feet on the floor again, though the ogryn did not relinquish its desperate grip.
Thrusting with both legs, Belial managed to drive back his attacker, forcing it to trip over the corpse of its dead companion. The ogryn let go as it fell, unable to fight the instinct to put out a hand it no longer possessed. The drill was no help, deflecting from the hard deck as the ogryn pitched backwards.
Belial used his momentum to seize the ogryn’s neck in the crook of his elbow, broken chin locked between the thick plates of his armour. He twisted, trying to pull the monster’s head free, but could not gain enough leverage.
It rolled but Belial kept his hold, moving onto the ogryn’s back to pin it to the floor with the weight of his Terminator armour. With no proper hands to steady itself, the augmented brute could not push itself up and moaned helplessly, bucking like a stallion being broken.
Belial dragged the creature’s head back further and pulled his gleaming blade across its throat, sawing through metal-sheathed windpipe and reinforced tendons. Blood bubbled rather than sprayed, thick like oil.
The ogryn shuddered and collapsed underneath Belial.
‘Grand Master!’ The tone of warning in Galbarad’s voice caused Belial to instinctively switch his viewpoint to the Deathwing Knight’s.
Galbarad needed to offer no further explanation for his concern. A small mountain of dead crew and lower-deck slaves was heaped in the passageway leading back to the main concourse, but over the mound of mashed corpses Belial spied several heavily-armoured, bionically-enhanced figures, illuminated by the glow of plasma weapons.
‘Hold for two minutes,’ Belial told his rearguard. ‘Zandorael, Cragarion and Deralus, meet me at the entry to the plasma chamber.’
He switched back to his own view as he turned right and headed to rendezvous with the rest of the squad. A flicker of his right eye highlighted the strategic display. A schematic of the ship imposed itself over his view, several dark red runes marking target objectives for the other Deathwing squads. Most had a red slash across them, indicating they had been destroyed, but the void shield generators remained operational.’
‘Sergeant Caulderain, report assault status.’
‘Two casualties, already teleported back to the Penitent Warrior. Progress slow, regretfully report unlikely to achieve objective, enemy massing.’
‘Understood. Withdraw to the strike cruiser to prevent further losses.’ Belial changed the vox-channel to contact his Knights. ‘Zandorael, Cragarion and Deralus, reinforce the rearguard. We must secure the main concourse for teleportation, there is too much interference from the plasma containment field inside the dome to receive a lock signal. I shall join you shortly.’
He barely heard their affirmatives as he focused his attention on the three plasma reactors. The main containment vessels were heavily shielded, and even if he could penetrate the force fields the vessels themselves had walls two or three metres thick. He needed to interrupt the power exchange to the void shield generators without causing an instant meltdown that would most likely consume everybody aboard the ship, including more than two dozen warriors of the Deathwing.
His gaze returned to the exposed cables and shoddily-repaired coolant pipes that crisscrossed the middle part of the chamber. It was impossible to tell what conduit led where in the rat’s nest of tubes and wires. He fired the last three rounds from his storm bolter, punching several holes in one of the vents atop the closest plasma case. He reloaded and fired again, emptying a dual-magazine of bolts into the surrounding web of connectors and exchanges.
‘Penitent Warrior, can you monitor power flow to the void shields?’
Sapphon’s reply returned a few seconds later.
‘Yes, br
other, we are reading significant fluctuations in the recharge rate.’
‘Good. Initiate extraction sequence.’ He did not wait to hear a reply. A sub-vocal command changed the vox-transmitter to company address mode. ‘All squads prepare for immediate teleport extractions, in sequence as briefed.’
He checked the status of his Deathwing Knights. All had suffered some damage to their armour, Galbarad and Barzareon quite heavily, but it was only the latter that had been injured. Across the telemetry of the sensorium Belial could tell that the Knight had only partial use of his right leg.
‘Push forward to the teleportation point,’ Belial ordered, emptying another full magazine of bolts into the plasma energy system. He turned and broke into a lopsided run, the absence of his left shoulder plate and the damage to his chest plastron affecting his suit’s balancing systems.
The Deathwing Knights had retaken the archways leading to the main passage but a torrent of fire – plasma, lascannon and missiles – streamed down onto them from gangways to either side and the open archways leading to the engines.
‘Lock shields, advance ten metres,’ Belial barked as he joined them. He fed another magazine into his storm bolter and fired back at the rebel crew thronging the gantries above.
The Knights did as commanded, raising their shields to form a line shoulder-to-shoulder just a few strides onto the concourse. The fields of their storm shields overlapped, creating a shimmering wall of energy in front. Belial fell in behind them as they advanced in step, bullets and las-blasts flaring from the barrier of their shields in a constant thrash of released energy.
On the far left and right, Barzareon and Deralus slowed, allowing the shield wall to curve slightly and protect the flanks.
‘Penitent Warrior, do you have our signal?’ Even as Belial asked the question, a beam from a tripod-mounted lascannon sliced down from the walkway on the right, piercing the energy shield to burn through Deralus’s breastplate. The Knight fell sideways to one knee, his shield tumbling from his grasp before he toppled face first to the deck. Belial could see a hole in the back of Deralus’s war-plate.
‘Faint, intermittent signal, Grand Master,’ the crewman of the strike cruiser told him.
‘Do it!’ growled Belial as more enemy fire converged on the weakening shield line, stray rounds pattering from the armour of his brethren. ‘Activate extraction teleport!’
The inside of the ship glimmered with a purple aura, the Deathwing Knights at the centre of the glow. Belial felt himself sinking again, mind slipping free from mortal body. A brain-jarring moment passed and then the squad was deposited back aboard the Penitent Warrior, appearing on the teleportation plate arranged in a static tableau just as they had been aboard the flagship.
‘Grand Master, we need the teleporter for Squad Ardeon,’ announced the retainer at the controls.
Belial understood his meaning immediately and sheathed his sword. Barzareon was the quickest of the Terminators to comprehend his intent. He tossed aside his shield to grab the arm of Deralus while Belial took a leg. They dragged the badly wounded Terminator free of the platform so that the serf could recharge the cells and bring in the remaining Deathwing squad.
Leaning over Deralus, Belial inspected the damage and the wound beneath. It was severe, and the Knight’s suit was transmitting a faltering life signal.
It was not yet time to count the cost of the mission. First Belial needed to know the measure of success.
‘Brother Sapphon? Enemy status?’
The crackle of the activating teleport echoed around the room as Squad Ardeon reappeared. Belial noted that they too were carrying one of their brethren between them. He waited intently for the reply to his question, knowing that the Deathwing had paid a high price in its battles of late and could ill afford more casualties.
‘Severe damage to starboard batteries,’ Sapphon confirmed. ‘Void shields still inactive. Plasma drives partially functional. Congratulations, Belial, you’ve given us a sitting target. We are closing in for the kill.’
Annihilation
Clad in his Chaplain’s black armour, Sapphon stalked the command bridge of the Penitent Warrior like an all-seeing shadow. He simultaneously assessed three streams of information; from the Ravenwing assault preparations, the progressing teleport attacks by Belial and the Deathwing, and the ongoing duel of gun decks between the strike cruiser and the rebel fleet’s heavy cruiser flagship.
Though his particular strengths and aptitude had taken him into the ranks of the Chaplains, Sapphon was a Space Marine with centuries of battle behind him, and possessed more command experience than most general staff officers across the Imperium. He was perhaps not as adept as Belial or Sammael, but the fight with the heavy cruiser proved that he was far superior to the enemy’s captain in the absence of Anovel.
‘They should be pounding us with twice the rate of fire,’ he remarked to the ranking non-Space Marine bridge officer, Lasla Chirpet. ‘Poor discipline on the gun decks.’
‘True, Brother-Chaplain,’ said the deck-captain. ‘I am sure that a squad of Deathwing marauding through their batteries is also causing them some consternation, master. For all that, they still outgun us by a margin. It is taking nearly all of our firepower to simply keep their void shields overloaded.’
‘And they the same.’ Sapphon glanced at the mission chronometer that had started on the instigation of Belial’s teleport attack. The First Company warriors had been aboard the enemy ship for three minutes and twenty-four seconds. Sapphon and the crew of the strike cruiser were under orders to retrieve any Terminator whose signal they could detect at the five-minute mark. Any remaining aboard were to be presumed lost and Sapphon would evaluate whether to continue the starship battle or withdraw out of teleport range.
‘Helm, reduce inclination by four degrees,’ Sapphon announced, checking the relative positions of the ships on a battle schematic. ‘Starboard eight degrees. Keep us to starboard and below their guns, the Deathwing are focusing their attack on the lower starboard gun batteries.’
‘Aye, Brother-Chaplain,’ the three serfs at the helm controls chorused. One of them turned his head to confirm the order. A youth no more than seventeen or eighteen years of age by Terran standards, his hair was shaved to the scalp. His sleeveless green robe revealed one of his arms to be badly crippled, twisted almost to a ninety-degree angle at the elbow. A token of a mishap during his initial training. ‘Inclination minus four degrees, starboard eight degrees.’
A concentrated salvo of fire from several operational gun decks erupted from the opposing flagship. Lasla bellowed for the brace warning to be sounded before Sapphon opened his mouth. A second later, clarions rang the length of the strike cruiser, alerting the crew and the few Deathwing warriors that had remained on board.
Sapphon refused to grab the brace bars that were set behind each of the command positions. It was his duty to display implacable composure in the face of the enemy. He folded his arms and waited for the shells and rockets to strike.
It started as a rippling shudder towards amidships, moving in the direction of the prow. The vibration picked up speed and intensity as it travelled, becoming a growling rumble by the time it enveloped the command bridge situated atop the dorsal spar of the warship.
The Penitent Warrior rocked as attitude thrusters misfired during the bombardment, causing the strike cruiser to roll to port a few degrees. Damage warning sirens blared into shrill life around Sapphon as one of the communications stations fell blank from loss of power. The attendant at the console looked around, forlorn, at the row of empty screens and silent speakers.
‘Brother Nemeus, please attend,’ Sapphon said calmly. The Techmarine who had been standing at the back of the bridge came forward, his three servitors clumping across the deck behind him, faces slack, their extremities replaced with a variety of basic and powered tools.
Nemeus’s red armour was a st
ark contrast to the black of Sapphon and the dark green robes of the attendants. It matched the colour of alert lights that sprang into life as he inserted a diagnostic spike from his war-plate’s vambrace into an aperture in the communications station.
‘Primary relay overload,’ Nemeus reported, speaking more to himself than the Interrogator-Chaplain. Content that the Techmarine knew exactly what to do, Sapphon allowed Nemeus to drift out of conscious thought, along with the clank of ratchets and hiss of a solder torch.
‘Master Sapphon, the Implacable Justice is requesting permission to pursue the departing renegade battleship.’ Lasla showed no sign that he, or any of the crew, realised that the battleship he referred to was the Terminus Est, flagship of the despised traitor legionary Typhus. This much Sapphon had learned from Asmodai’s brief account regarding what had happened with Astelan. Nor did the deck-captain of the Ravenwing strike cruiser know the true nature of the enemy vessel, as evidenced by the request.
The presence of the Terminus Est added a new layer of intrigue to the plot of the Fallen that had been thwarted and Sapphon would have ordered the pursuit in a heartsbeat if there had been more vessels at his disposal. He would be tempted even now, with just two strike cruisers and a dozen or so system defence ships, but for the fact that the Penitent Warrior could not disengage from its duel with Anovel’s heavy cruiser.
As reminder, the bombardment cannon fired again, the projectiles racing across the display on the main screen. Magma warheads exploded across the hull of the enemy warship. A blaze of fire from the gun decks followed, shells slamming into the prow sections of the heavy cruiser.
To break away now would be to maroon the Deathwing aboard the opposing starship, an unforgivable breach of trust. Similarly, regardless of the hazards in pursuing the Terminus Est, the Ravenwing strike cruiser had engaged other elements of Anovel’s fleet – vessels that would be left free to target the Penitent Warrior.