Cadia Stands

by Justin D Hill

  Being small had never been a problem for Belagg Grakk. No taller than a human child, the ratling could clamber through holes that no man could ever get through. He pulled himself up, floor by floor, to a bedroom in what had been a well-appointed hab-block on the southern side of Statue Square. The broad pale wood floorboards were strewn with pages of books. There were clothes – grey with ash and dust – lying beside a split drawer. There was a hole in the wall where a missile had impacted, and a charred stink of explosives. He threw himself down on the floorboards by the window, crawled forward, breathing heavily, and pulled his long-las up beside him.

  Below him, the streets as far as Euphrates Street were filled with columns of heretic fighters. He used his scope to find a target. An enemy tank commander, at the back of a column, standing in his turret, signalling to the driver behind him.

  Belagg then pulled in three long, slow breaths to steady his aim. He lined up the man’s head in the centre of the target. The distant torso bucked forward as the round hit him. The column slowed as the troops scanned for the sniper.

  Belagg picked out a sergeant, marching alongside the tanks, gesticulating wildly to his men. He fired again, a head shot that dropped the heretic in an instant. The column had stopped now and he picked another. And fired.

  Taavi was up and out in a moment, crouching in the entrance hall of a hab-block. There was a shape in the darkness where the doors used to be. He fired twice. Heard a low grunt of pain, pulled the grenade free. Kept moving.

  Shots rang out in the street outside. A shadow leaped at him. He was on the fallen man in a second, smashing the butt of his gun into the heretic’s face. Bones and teeth shattered under his blows.

  Taavi ducked shots that hit the plaster above his head. Heretic voices were harsh and foreign. He threw himself against the hab wall and stole a glance through the empty window. Lasrifle shots sprayed the wall outside. Wooden splints flew up as the frames smouldered. Taavi felt the impacts through the wall at his back. He bit the pin and counted to five, tossing the grenade out into the street.

  ‘Krak!’ he shouted an instant before the explosive went off, filling the street with shrapnel.

  Taavi leaped through the window and landed in the street. He fired one-handed, hitting a heretic full in the face. He ripped the autogun from the dying man’s fingers.

  Taavi was a Cadian. He’d learned to strip a gun before he was tall enough to reach a door handle. Children on Cadia did it blindfolded. He knew what it was from the weight and the balance.

  Auto-rifle. Modified M40, Armageddon pattern. Round magazine. Thirty solid slugs. Heavy hitter.

  Taavi’s finger was already on the trigger as he swung round. He fired short bursts, knocking three heretics back against the far wall. A body shot took one out, a head shot slammed another sideways.

  Taavi kept low, firing as bullets and las-bolts stitched the air about him.

  A red-uniformed fighter appeared round the corner and ran at Taavi with an axe. Taavi let the auto-rifle buck in his hands as the solid slugs slammed into the heretic’s chest. The heretic danced like a puppet on its strings. It was a glorious moment of excess.

  The heretic fell dead a few feet away, black-spiked helmet ringing out against the rockcrete floor. Taavi crouched down and pulled the body over. The collar badge was stitched with two entwined letters, VC.

  ‘Rath,’ he hissed into the vox-bead. ‘Contact. Guess who’s in town?’

  ‘The Sisters of Our Martyred Lady,’ Rath said.

  ‘You wish. Volscani Cataphracts.’

  Rath laughed humourlessly. ‘Great. Now get back here.’

  Taavi bundled his men to the sewer opening.

  Theo was last back in. Taavi was about to follow when he felt vibrations through his boots. At the far end of Imperial Procession, the distinctive shape of a Leman Russ appeared from a side street, exhaust puffing black promethium fumes. It turned for a moment on its tracks and faced the street. Then another tank appeared, and another, their banners of human skin flapping wetly as they accelerated towards him.

  ‘They’ve got tanks,’ he voxed.

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Well, I saw six.’

  Rath cursed. ‘This will be fun.’

  At the south-eastern corner of Statue Square stood the ruins of a hab-block. The rest of the row was made up of monumental edifices: the vast hulk of the Veterans’ Hall, and next to it the Museum of Resistance, with the inbuilt chapel to St Hallows. The buildings looked out onto the square, and up the triangular pediment of the museum the white marble figures of Cadian soldiers marched in step.

  The vast buildings had given the Cadians a solid hundred and fifty yards of wall to defend, but it was different resisting tanks. The high ceilings and massive blocks would offer little defence against ordnance. One shot and the weight of the walls would crash down. That did not hold them back; the defenders scrambled for position as the Volscani armoured columns came on.

  Minka ran up the broad steps of the Museum of Resistance. The inner hall of the museum was dark and empty and scattered with paper, ration boxes and chips of stone. From each of the three doorways, galleries opened up ahead and to either side.

  The exhibits of tanks and equipment and medals had been locked away in the cellars or scavenged for the battle. All that remained were the empty pedestals, the uniformed mannequins – now bundled up against the wall – and the battle-scarred banners of Kasr Myrak’s home regiments.

  She could hear the shouts from the rear of the museum, where loop-holes and windows gave fine fields of fire south, towards the Volscani attack. She took the Castellan Hall, where two of Konn’s squad were loading a missile launcher. The rest had taken up position at the barricaded windows – standing to fire, then ducking back again.

  Geran was at the far end of the hall, hunched over the heavy stubber, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated on loading a new ammo belt into it.

  ‘Need help?’ Minka shouted, but the ogryn growled as he finally got the fiddly shells to load. He held the stubber one-handed, hosed the street with rounds and grinned. ‘You stand with me?’

  Minka nodded. She took the opposite side of the window and risked a quick look. Volscani tanks were coming down the road in single file. At the head was a Chimera, its multi-laser turned forty-five degrees to the left. Shots flared out in short bursts of red bolts. The tank commander was standing in the cupola. Minka fired three times. Her aim was out. She cursed and fired once more, but her charge was running out.

  Frekk, she cursed. But as she fumbled for a new battery pack a missile arced out from the museum windows and hit the Chimera on the nose.

  There was a blast of white smoke, and then a pause before the turret of the Chimera was ripped off with a roar of yellow flame. Minka slammed a new las-battery into place as the burning Chimera was pushed aside, and the distinctive shape of a Demolisher-pattern Leman Russ filled the street.

  The tank turned for a moment on its tracks, swivelling its fixed gun towards the back wall of the Museum of Resistance. Volscani squads started to charge. Geran unloaded his ripper gun in a furious fusillade of lead. There was a ping! as the magazine ran empty. Geran looked down confused and then there was a low roar as the Leman Russ fired. The shell hit the St Josmane wing. Through the open galleries, Minka saw the shoulders of the building seem to shrug for a moment before the whole facade collapsed into the street beside them.

  The smoking Demolisher barrel swung towards where Minka stood as the Volscani started to scramble up into the museum. She had to grab Geran’s arm with both hands. ‘Come on!’ she shouted. ‘Quick!’

  Four

  The Museum of Resistance

  Belagg knew he should be falling back, but the Volscani standard-bearer was oblivious, and the oblivious made the most satisfying targets. He aimed and fired, and paused to watch the round hit. The banner fell behind the ra
gged silhouette of the ruins.

  There was a girder walk between this building and the next. He put one arm out to balance as he crossed the brief patch of open sky, then fell back behind cover into the next building. He carried on, dropping down two more floors into a ruin across the road from the Veterans’ Hall.

  He was walking quickly now, through a long hallway deep with papers as a forest in autumn is with leaves. Below him, he could hear the roar and shouts of battle. It didn’t concern him. A sniper was separate from all that. He killed from a distance. He was barely seen, and then he was moving once more.

  Belagg suddenly felt that he was being watched. He turned – nothing but the long empty hallway, open to the sky. There was a staircase that led down to street level, but the Volscani were making good progress, and he decided to take another high-beam walkway back into Hab Tyrok.

  That feeling again.

  He turned – quicker this time – nothing.

  But Belagg had instincts, and now his heart was beating. He wiped the sweat from his palms, crouched down and looked all about him. He started forward and ran straight into a giant boot, in smooth blue-black plate. How anything this large and heavy had crept up on him, he could not guess, but he had seen enough of the Imperium of Man to know power armour when he saw it.

  He had witnessed the Adeptus Astartes once before, fighting on a world named Hargal Prime, when he’d been lying in the upper branches of a coral tree as the sky filled with burning contrails. A drop pod had landed fifty feet to his right. It had smashed its way down through the stone branches of the forest and scored a long black line down the trunk of the coral tree. One door would not open, but the rest had slammed down and ten golden armoured Space Marines were out in a moment, splitting into two squads, and killing.

  Belagg had watched in awe. The Adeptus Astartes had shrugged off the impacts from axe or crude ballistic weaponry. He had almost cried watching the beauty of their warfare. Then one of the warriors had turned towards him and pinpointed his position, bolter already raised to fire.

  Belagg had gone stiff with terror, knowing that he would die. But the Space Marine had paused and nodded towards him as if to say, you and I are on the same side, little warrior.

  That memory passed through Belagg as he looked up at the vast shape before him, from greave to knee plate, groin, piping, chest and head. Images were carved there that were hard to see, but he saw the pale wet skin, slapped over one pauldron, and knew from the holes therein that this thing had once been human. When his gaze reached the warrior’s face Belagg immediately wished that he had not looked.

  The Volscani Cataphracts swarmed through the holes in the museum wall, clearing each hall with flamers and grenades before storming on to the next. Minka was with Konn’s squad and Geran as they retreated back through the galleries towards the entrance hall.

  Geran used the stubber as a club, but he was bleeding from a dozen wounds as he brought up the rear. The last Minka saw of him he was standing in the ruin of a double doorway when suddenly the room was filled with long plumes of flaming promethium. The Volscani were only yards behind.

  A shot grazed her shoulder armour. She threw herself through a doorway. The dark shape of a Volscani trooper was silhouetted by flames. Minka ducked and ran at him. Desperation drove her harder than she had ever thought she could fight. She rammed her bayonet into his chest. If he cried out she did not hear it.

  A grenade skittered towards her. Konn was shouting at her.

  She threw herself down on the ground as the explosion went off. The pain was sudden and hot and sharp. She put her hand up and saw her own blood.

  A low whoosh and then a titanic explosion in the gallery she had just been standing in. There were flames and dust. Minka had no idea which way was forward or back. A figure came through the smoke. It was Rath. He pulled her close and shouted into her ear. ‘Get back across the square!’

  Another shell impacted thirty yards to the right. She was down again, spitting dust from her mouth. Rath dragged her back up. She hung in her oversized uniform as Rath held her in one hand. He looked her in the eye to make sure that she understood. ‘Get back! Go!’ he shouted as another shell hit the museum walls.

  The Space Marine stared down at Belagg. The giant wore a blunt blue helmet, with ornate brass fittings, wheezing pipes trailing off to either side and flickers of light playing over the dark blue armour. Its eyes were red, the red of coals in a darkened room – intense with the heat of hatred and cruelty. Belagg’s hands began to shake. He dropped his long-las and desperately scrambled back.

  He knew that he was trapped. He had a better chance of survival throwing himself off the building than staying here with this monster. Bestial, primary instinct told him that his impact would be a swifter and easier death.

  The giant reached out towards him, but Belagg was small. He twisted and turned away and flung himself from the building.

  He had a brief glimpse of Chapel Street rushing towards him. Parts of his life flashed through his mind as he fell. He regretted that he had not killed more heretics in his time. He regretted many things. But more than anything Belagg felt triumph that he had escaped death at the hands of this terrible monstrosity.

  From eight storeys high, impact with the ground below should be brutal and instant. For a lowly member of the Astra Militarum, the prospect of a clean death was almost the best that a warrior could hope for.

  That fact consoled Belagg in the seconds as he fell. He was oblivious to the physics of his situation. He did not care that the density of a planet’s atmosphere determined how fast you fell. Speed was determined by the mass of an object and its resistance to air. Heavier objects fell faster than lighter ones.

  All this was of passing interest to the ratling. In moments, he would be dead.

  Speed was determined by the mass of an object and its resistance to air.

  It was a lesson that the Night Lord, Asseb Krieg, had learned thousands of years in the past.

  He was waiting for the ratling at the bottom of the building, as a child would wait to catch a toy that was dropped from a high window. He caught him in one hand and held him up, close to his face.

  Inside the helmet, his Night Lord’s lipless mouth smiled.

  ‘No,’ Asseb Krieg said as the ratling screamed. ‘You’re not dead.’

  There was a long, delicious pause, as the Night Lord added, ‘Yet.’

  Taavi drew in a deep breath as the hab-block wall exploded outwards into the street. The Volscani armour was smashing its way towards them from three directions at once. Through the cloud of dust and debris came the blunt, scratched and heavily armoured front plates of a Leman Russ Demolisher, the turret traversing towards the bunker. His squad didn’t have anything that could hurt this beast.

  Not unless…

  ‘I’ve got it working,’ Guardsman Rawlin hissed. He had a meltagun in his hand. It was one they’d found, but some heretic had done a frekk-job on it with a Ryza ammo charge that was never going to fit.

  ‘You sure?’

  Rawlin pulled a face. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘I’m with you,’ Taavi said. From above there came the patter of heavy bolter fire starting again. Short, precise salvos. Conserving ammo.

  The Demolisher’s blunt snout appeared again. Rawlin threw himself down onto the ground, aimed, and fired. The air rippled as the super-charged beam raced out. Taavi felt the heat on his cheeks. It melted a small, neat hole in the armour plates, throwing molten slag into the cramped interior.

  The explosion blew the wall down on top of them. Something slammed into Taavi’s leg. It felt like he’d been hit by a sledgehammer. Throne! He tried to pull free.

  There were footsteps, struggling through the rubble.

  Volscani. Taavi scrabbled for his lasrifle. Of all the ways to die, he thought. Pinned to the ground.

  The hunter stood ove
r him. ‘You staying there?’ a voice said.

  ‘Rath? Where did you come from?’

  ‘I couldn’t let you leave this, could I?’ Rath held up the meltagun.

  ‘Rawlin?’

  ‘Dead. Can you get out?’

  ‘If you move this,’ Taavi said.

  Rath put his shoulder under the metal spar and lifted. Taavi dragged his leg free.

  ‘Broken?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Taavi said.

  ‘Good,’ Rath said. ‘Here, take my shoulder.’

  Rath’s company fell back across the square as best they could. Some of them picked their way through the side streets, others tried to use the avenues of blackened tree stumps for cover.

  Sergeant Taavi limped back. He took shelter halfway across the square with about fifteen other troopers, in the ruins of a public latrine. He kicked a loop-hole through the wall to give him a view up to the south-east corner of Statue Square. Volscani were picking their way through shell holes and barbed wire, over dead bodies and blackened, half-buried tanks and transports, sand-bagged windows, doorways and sewer outlets. Taavi fired a brief salvo of shots as the Volscani started to charge across the square.

  They let the Volscani come on into the killing zone then opened fire with everything they had. For a few hundred fighters, the firepower they put out was devastating. Statue Square was alight with las-bolts, autocannon shells, heavy bolter shots and grenades.

  The combined firepower ripped through the Volscani, mowing them down in heaps.

  The Volscani foot-sloggers came on twice more, and each time they were punished. Rath’s company had known that they would be driven back across the square and had prepared for just that eventuality, so as the Volscani tanks pushed into Statue Square they were ready. The lead tanks were ripped apart with lascannons and demo charges, and after a furious firefight the armoured columns ground to a halt.

  Next morning the front lines had been shunted up to the north side of Statue Square.