Ortega grimaced, wondering why he’d let Sandefur pair him up with this cretin. If Loomis was the only backup they could spare then Ortega would have preferred to do this alone. The fellow made him physically nauseous.
‘Please follow my lead up there,’ he said, indicating the landing pad. Loomis nodded vaguely, bobbing his head up and down like a skull on a rubber stalk.
‘It’s an all-fired grox shoot!’ Dix hollered as the last of the skitarii fell. There hadn’t been many guards in the Eye and surprise had given the attackers an edge.
‘They’re coming up the corridor now!’ Roach shouted from the hatch.
‘So shut the fragging door, breed!’ Dix called back cheerily. He and Tuggs were on the far side of the chamber now, chasing down the last of the operators. ‘Hey, we got us some blueskins back here!’
A fusillade of plasma hissed down the corridor towards Roach. He ducked back from the threshold and peered at the strange sigils on the keypad, trying to make sense of it. More fire sizzled past him and he heard the hum of an approaching combat servitor. Crouched by the doorway across from him, Mister Fish frowned and gestured urgently.
‘I know, man!’ Roach snapped. ‘I’m on it…’
To the Hells with this crap! He slammed his fist into the keypad and the hatch swung shut. That was usually the way with security – get things wrong and stuff just shut down. At least until somebody came along with the right codes...
‘We’ve got to move fast…’ Roach trailed off as he saw a pair of tech-priests sweep from a shadowed recess on the far side of the room. They glided across the floor like wraiths, their faces and limbs lost in billowing swathes of crimson fabric. Roach knew there was no telling what was under those robes. Some tech-priests were just human relics kept alive by augmetic implants, but others were souped-up killing machines packed full of nasty surprises. Something told him the Diadem’s priests weren’t going to be the easy kind.
‘Take out the cogboys!’ Roach shouted as he opened fire. Moving in perfect harmony the wraiths leapt away from his volley and latched onto the ceiling like shrouded bugs. As they scuttled overhead he caught a glimpse of chitinous metal tendrils swarming amongst the red robes.
‘What you talking about?’ Tuggs called as he gunned down a cowering blueskin tech. ‘I don’t see no–’
One of the priests dropped from above and engulfed him in a red swathe. His scream was cut short by a churning, cracking cacophony that made Roach’s hair stand on end. Scant seconds later Tuggs was spewed out in a dozen glistening pieces. Some of them hit Dix, who’d been standing right beside him. With a snarl of hate the Badlander yanked his EMP dagger from his belt and plunged it into the priest. There was an electronic howl and the cyborg’s robes erupted into a forest of spines as its tendrils went rigid with terminal shock. Caught in the priest’s death throes, Dix was impaled a dozen times over.
Overhead, the second tech-priest raced towards Roach and Mister Fish, dodging past the frantic bursts of their carbines. Desperately the scout dived for the deranged combat servitor and swung a plasma-spitting arm towards the priest. As it leapt towards him three bursts found their mark and brought it crashing down in flames. The smouldering robes were still squirming with life when Roach and Mister Fish unloaded their carbines into it.
‘Well, I guess that could have gone down a lot worse,’ Roach said. His Saathlaa friend raised a quizzical eyebrow, for once unable to muster a smile. Roach figured he was finally getting cynical.
The landing pad was a massive platform built from moulded rockrete. Spiderwebs of scaffolding and fat metal feeder pipes formed a wall around it, broken by a ramp wide enough to take a tank. Ortega felt horribly vulnerable as he marched up the slope and the ‘comrade’ at his back wasn’t helping his nerves at all. He could hear Loomis babbling away behind him, giggling occasionally, as if at some private joke. Pushing the idiot from his mind, Ortega waved at the janissaries waiting by the shuttle. There were six of them, all young and fired up by the distant alarm.
‘How goes it, Friends?’ he greeted them jovially.
‘What’s with th’alert?’ the eldest janissary said in a low, liquid cant. Like his comrades, his swarthy face was riddled with tattoos and scars, betraying his ganger origins.
‘They didn’t tell you about the drill?’ Ortega asked, feigning surprise.
‘Didn’t say no-t’ing to us, grandpa.’
‘Well, take it from me, it’s just an exercise.’ Ortega stepped towards the cargo ramp, but the leader blocked his path.
‘Where you t’ink you going, oldster?’
‘Evidently they didn’t tell you about us either!’ Ortega sighed with exaggerated weariness. ‘We’re cover crew for–’
The janissary shoved him back. ‘You t’ink we dumb fraks jus’ ‘cause we don’t talk fancy like–’ His lips were still moving when his head spun through the air, hacked clean off by Loomis’s machete.
Snarling like a wolf the rangy greyback laid into the other janissaries, moving so fast Ortega could barely follow his lethal jig of chops and swipes. Half the men were dead before they knew what hit them, the other half died seconds after, their faces twisted with terror. Loomis was left standing over a pile of butchered corpses. He had his back to Ortega, but the pilot could tell he was shaking badly.
‘Loomis…’ the words dried up in Ortega’s mouth as the maniac’s head swung round to look at him. The pilot was sure a man’s neck shouldn’t swivel so far.
‘They wasn’t going to let us in,’ Loomis said hoarsely. His eyes gleamed with delight. And they weren’t skewed anymore.
‘No…’ Ortega agreed uncertainly.
‘I guess we ought to stash ’em.’ Loomis pointed at the cargo hatch.
‘Yes…’ But suddenly Guido Ortega was quite certain he didn’t want to enter that dark space with Verne Loomis. In fact it was the very last thing in the world he wanted to do.
Jakob Dix was a mess. Skewered on the dead tech-priest’s rigid, razor-sharp tendrils, he hung suspended in the air like a bug caught in a pincushion. Roach couldn’t work out how he was still breathing.
‘Wreck whatever you can,’ Roach ordered Mister Fish. The Saathlaa nodded and hurried over to the nearest console while Roach stepped into Dix’s field of vision. The Badlander’s surviving eye rolled to fix on him. He gurgled around the spine piercing his throat, his breath coming in raw, wet rasps. Roach raised his carbine and Dix nodded, almost imperceptibly. Then Roach remembered Ricardo Alvarez and all the others Dix had killed so cheerily.
‘Hey, you saying you’re okay, man?’ Roach said, slinging his carbine over his shoulder. Dix’s eye widened and he groaned, pleading incoherently. Roach nodded. ‘Well it’s your call. You just hang in there then, brother.’
He turned away – just in time to see a blueskin engineer creeping up on him. Clad in a plain grey body stocking it was shorter and stouter than the Fire Warriors he’d seen, with a square-jawed face and big, workman’s hands. Big hands holding a laser cutter… Roach flung himself aside as the xenos lunged at him. It was an awkward attack with a device intended as a tool rather than a weapon, but the beam was lethal at close range. He screamed as it sheared through his right hip and thigh, slicing and cauterising the flesh in the same instant. As he fell, the engineer loomed over him and jabbed at his face with the cutter. Desperately Roach lashed out and caught its wrist, knocking the beam off course. The tau hissed through its nostrils, its flat face puckered with hatred as it fought for control of the tool. Despite its size, the xenos was surprisingly strong, while Roach was in bad shape. The laser inched towards his head…
I thought these Earth Caste boys weren’t meant to be fighters!
The engineer’s head disappeared in a spray of purple mist. Roach threw the corpse aside as Mister Fish knelt beside him.
‘You took your time,’ Roach chided, then grinned at the Saathlaa’s hu
rt expression. ‘Hey, I’m just kidding, friend.’
Gingerly he examined his wounded leg and found there wasn’t much of it left. When the Fish tried to haul him up, Roach shook him off.
‘No, I ain’t going nowhere. You finish up and get out if you can.’ His comrade hesitated and Roach slapped him on the shoulder. ‘They’ll be through the hatch any time now. Go!’
The Fish nodded and rose. Roach watched him blast away at the remaining control panels, finishing up the job they’d come to do. He was pretty sure the rig’s comms array would be down long enough for the 19th to make orbit without the Sky Marshall getting wind of things. Despite his doubts and the screaming pain in his leg, the thought felt good. This wasn’t the path he’d have chosen, but at least he’d seen it through. He felt consciousness slipping away and hauled himself back with a brutal effort.
‘You done enough,’ he called to the Fish. ‘Get out of here!’
His friend nodded and hurried over to the turbolift that served the beacon tower. Their exit strategy had always been hazy, Roach remembered. Just like his head was now… Something about abseiling down the outside of the tower…
Mister Fish paused at the lift doors and threw him a crisp salute. ‘For Phaedra and the Imperium,’ he said in perfect Gothic, grinning at Roach’s incredulous expression. Then he was gone.
‘Well sh–’ Roach’s words were cut short as the entrance hatch whooshed open and the first combat servitor glided in. Its cataract-filled eyes locked on him unerringly and it chattered something in harsh, nonsensical scrapcode.
‘Yeah… and you too…’ Roach answered with a grin. Offering up a prayer to a God-Emperor he didn’t believe in, the scout drew his EMP dagger and prepared to walk his Thunderground. He figured it might be something worth seeing.
The Last Day: Diadem
Our convoy is almost halfway to the centre of the dead lake. I can’t see the refinery yet, but its beacon light slices through the smog every minute or so, throwing the predatory shapes around us into stark brilliance. Devilfish and Piranhas – the tau vehicles could not have been more aptly named. They shadow us relentlessly, scenting for the blood of deceit. Though our passwords have been given and accepted I sense they do not trust us. Soon we shall fight. It is only a question of when. Bierce nods his agreement. Whatever he is, we are in concord now.
Iverson’s Journal
Up in the gunboat’s wheelhouse Iverson saw the Diadem rise through the mist like a titanic, scrap-metal octopus. The old rig was screeching – a wail of klaxons that told him the infiltrators had made their move. Some of them would be dead by now, perhaps all of them. Maybe they’d done what needed doing and maybe they hadn’t. Either way, the Arkan were committed.
Wintertide will die. The Sky Marshall will die. Together we’ll stand. Together they’ll fall.
Iverson glanced to either side, appraising the captured transports chugging along beside the Triton. Both were badly battered and wouldn’t take much more punishment. He’d packed as many men onto his own ship as possible, but the gunboat wasn’t built for transport so most of the force was on the barges.
‘How much further, Iverson?’ Machen called over the vox. There was a strain in his voice that went beyond impatience.
‘Not far,’ Iverson replied. ‘We’re through the first wave of checkpoints. Maintain vox silence until I signal you, captain.’
Machen signed off with a grunt. Nominally he was in command of one barge, Vendrake the other, but neither captain was in a position to offer much leadership since both were sealed up inside their machines, playing dead along with the rest of the Arkan armour. Dispersed across the convoy, the Sentinels and Zouaves were powered down and sheathed in tarpaulin, as if in storage. It was a gamble, but the tau drones would have sniffed them out if they’d hidden below decks, so they’d hidden in plain sight instead. Likewise, the infantry were wearing the insignia of dead janissaries, giving them the appearance of rough and ready new recruits. The tau had bought the deception so far, but Iverson could almost taste their suspicion.
The blueskins don’t know how to trust their instincts, Iverson decided. They’re too orderly and rational to go with a gut feeling. Maybe that will be the death of them.
A Devilfish pulled up alongside the Triton and disgorged a pair of drones. The saucers flitted over to the gunboat and began to sniff inquisitively around the deck. It was the third search since they’d entered the lake.
But their instincts are screaming.
Machen felt like he was locked inside an iron coffin with a rabid dog chewing at his leg. The wound left by the Fire Warriors hadn’t impaired his control of the Thundersuit, but the pain was shockingly insistent. For all he knew the limb might be gone from the knee down. Perhaps he was bleeding out inside his suit and he’d be dead before the battle even began. Hadn’t something like that almost killed Wade once? Yes, a loxatl flechette to the femoral artery… in that ambush, so long ago now… but Wade had survived… only it hadn’t made much difference in the end, because he was dead now. Daniel Wade, the last of his Zouaves. Machen would be damned if he didn’t reap a measure of vengeance for the man.
Damned if you do or don’t. Die if you will or won’t. All’s one in the love of hate…
‘Get out of my head, Templeton!’ Machen snarled, knowing full well the lost captain would shadow him to the end.
Vendrake sat in the lightless cockpit of his Sentinel with his eyes wide open. The darkness was preferable to the things he might see if he closed them. He’d taken another draught of the Glory and the need for action pulsed through his veins like liquid fire. He should have waited until the battle started, but this vigil in the dark had seemed intolerable without the drug. The nightmares were too close now. She was too close.
She isn’t real. It’s just this damned planet playing with my head – something in the air or the water. I know I’m not the only one who’s haunted…
But he’d glimpsed Leonora’s Sentinel stalking his barge from the riverbank, keeping to the shadows but never falling far behind. Perhaps he’d be safe on the lake. Surely she couldn’t follow him onto the water without a ship?
She can’t follow me anywhere because she’s dead! But if she’s dead how will water stop her? The thoughts spiralled around in his head, reason chasing away superstition, superstition chasing away reason. Perhaps that’s the curse of the Providence-born, he decided. We all think too bloody much.
The waters around the convoy were seething with tau hover tanks and speeders now. Iverson could feel Bierce glaring at his back, urging him to commit. Almost unconsciously he reached for the ship’s loudhailer.
‘Wait,’ the witch said at his shoulder. ‘We must get closer.’
‘The sentries are getting jumpy,’ Iverson said. ‘We have to strike before they do.’ He noticed her eyes were locked on the rig and guessed she was thinking of Cutler. Vendrake had said that there was something between them.
‘Wait a little longer,’ she urged.
The convoy was about five hundred metres from the rig now. Iverson saw platoons of augmented skitarii warriors lined up along the iron promenade of the pier.
Waiting for us.
‘Just a little closer…’
Somewhere nearby a buzz saw roared into life.
‘What the…?’ Iverson’s face was thunderous as he yanked down the alarm lever and yelled into the loudhailer, ‘Go! The Counterweight is go!’
Audie Joyce knew he was meant to hold fire until the commissar gave the order, but he’d waited and waited and nothing had come and all the while the xenos tanks had circled the Triton like big, angry fish. The drone had been the last straw; it had circled him suspiciously, then stopped right in front of his hidden visor, trying to get a look inside. That was when the Emperor’s righteous rage had lit Joyce up – and it must have lit up his armour too, because the next moment his buzz saws were scream
ing and the drone was falling out of the air in two pieces. Then the alarm went off and he heard the commissar hollering over the hailer, telling them the fight was on, so Joyce reckoned he’d done the right thing after all.
‘Man the sides!’ Lieutenant Hood bellowed and the greybacks surged to the gunwales, blazing away with carbines and pulse rifles. They couldn’t dent the tanks so they targeted the drones, swatting them from the air like flies. A moment later the ship’s autocannons opened up on either side and battered the tau skimmers with armour piercing rounds. A Devilfish crumpled and a couple of Piranhas whirled away in flames. And then the lake caught fire. The scum of crude promethium coating the water sizzled and popped as it burned, turning grey smog to black smoke.
‘Rebreathers!’ Hood shouted. Choking men fumbled for their masks as the air turned caustic.
‘Wake and burn, brothers!’ Joyce voxed, knowing full well his knights were already powering up. He sang them a canticle of faith as he leapt to a firing platform and let rip with his heavy stubber. Behind him a Sentinel whirred into life and hopped over to the port side, firing intermittent bolts of energy from its lascannon. Its rate of fire was almost painfully slow, but the heavy weapon compensated with its sheer stopping power. Through the smoke Joyce saw a similar pattern playing out on the barges to either side of the gunboat, but the tau skimmers had been wary and many swept away untouched. Joyce longed to launch himself into the molten lake and give chase.
Yea, though I walk upon the Lake Infernal, my flesh shall not wither if my soul burns in His name!
He steadied himself as the Triton surged forward, steaming for the refinery at full tilt. It shamed Joyce to let the tau sentries go, but the plan was to stop for nothing until they reached the shuttle.
‘Watch out to port!’ someone yelled as a Devilfish darted up alongside the Triton. Spinning to face its prey, it strafed along sideways with its rotary gun blazing. Men screamed as they were raked from the gunwales. A blast grazed the edge of Joyce’s shoulder pauldron and almost threw him from his perch. Cursing, he returned fire but his gun barely scratched the tank’s white patina. As if irritated by the affront, it swivelled to target him. As its burst cannon spun up the Sentinel loomed over Joyce and spat incandescent light. The bolt from its lascannon punched through the Devilfish’s nose and hurled it backwards. Long seconds later a second bolt struck an engine nacelle and the tank exploded.
Fire Caste Page 29