Through the tumult rode Ultramarine Kallos, of Kill Team Zeal, his cape of tyranid hide flapping out behind him as he raced his bike along the lines of craft, picking out any that had escaped destruction. In his ear he could hear all the vox chatter of the Deathwatch kill teams as they fulfilled their missions.
Cadmus and Corith and the teams that had attacked the orbital station were racing planetwards in their Corvus Blackstar. Moaz had found a good place to hunker down and pick key targets off with his stalker-pattern bolter. Hadrian was somewhere on the other side of the space port directing the drop pods of Kill Team Faith. They were inbound already. Nergui had taken two of their brothers and they were falling from low orbit with their jump packs, ready to block any enemy counterattacks.
Kallos skidded to a halt by a Tigershark, slammed on a melta charge and kicked the bike around. You could not take something as large as a Manta or Tigershark with a single melta bomb, unless you knew exactly where to place them. Kallos had learnt much from fighting the Great Devourer, where only precision shots at eyes or into the mouths of carnifexes could hope to bring the creatures down. The Deathwatch specialised in such information. Kallos had found the Deathwatch libraries full of precise observations. He had spent years learning the anatomy of harpies and tervigons, where a Tigershark’s gravitic drive was situated, and how the xenos had tried to mask this fault in the AX10 model. It took him bare moments to pick his spot.
With the first he blew out the power cables that linked the cockpit to the steering thrusters. With the next he lit the port-side fuel tank, knowing it would soon bleed through to the main generator casing. The main generator whined as it failed and overheated, and the secondary explosion ripped through the vast craft as he accelerated along the lines of parked fliers, setting more charges. He passed a Deathstorm drop pod and heard the assault cannons reload as the machine-spirit identified him as a friendly target. He did not pause. He targeted a fuel tank behind him and it detonated as the first rounds hit it. Black smoke roiled skywards. Kallos was already swinging round the base of a burning Tigershark. Two Mantas were burning. He locked a melta bomb to the next. A shadow fell over him. A Manta was rising to the left. Smoke billowed about it as it displaced the air. He cursed and kicked his bike round a cylindrical fuel-hub, the engine screaming as he accelerated towards it.
He flicked a melta charge from the bandolier hung over the front of his bike and lobbed it up, but it failed to attach. A drone disengaged from the Manta’s right wing and swung its twin-linked guns towards him as he reared up on the bike’s back wheel and fired his front-mounted combi-plasmas into the Manta’s belly.
At this range he couldn’t miss. Both shots exploded on its underside, but it seemed almost unaffected as it rotated in the air above him. He cursed again and fired his bolter one-handed. A hellfire round hit the drone square on and its systems failed in rapid succession as the acids did their work.
‘One Manta has got away,’ he voxed.
For a moment there was silence. Then from the inbound Corvus, Cadmus spoke. The enmity was clear. ‘You let one go, Kallos?’
‘I hit it,’ the Ultramarine said as he swerved to avoid a second drone’s fire. ‘But it was too large.’
As a drone laced the ground with incendaries, Kallos drove one-handed, ducking under the Tigershark, round the observation tower and behind a fuel float, where an earth caste technician’s grey face peered out from under the wheels.
Kallos shot him in the chest, clamped a melta charge to the square fuel carriage and paused. ‘The Manta is flying south. The White Scars must be warned.’
Nergui’s voice suddenly crackled in their helmets. His voice faded in and out, but Kallos got the gist of what he was saying.
‘Yes, a Manta,’ Kallos hissed as he kicked his bike round a corner and met a pair of tau air caste pilots running in a strangely weightless bounce towards their crafts. They shouted something as they saw him. He slammed the first with his bike, tripped the second with a foot, skidded his bike round and put two bolts into its head.
Nergui’s voice was suddenly loud in Kallos’ earpiece. He looked up and could see the flames of the White Scar’s jump pack as he began to slow his descent.
‘I see it.’ Nergui’s voice was indistinct for a moment. ‘Throne,’ he cursed. ‘It’s almost in range.’
Nergui had never lost the White Scars’ love of the pinpoint strike. He had carried this method of war through to the Deathwatch, where he had specialised in the use of the jump pack to deal the foe a crushing blow. He named it the Eagle Strike: it was unseen, unstoppable, deadly. He had perfected it through ceaseless practice, falling like a stone and then firing his thrusters at the very last moment. He had spent years stationed at Talassa Prime, training others in this art. Moaz had been one of his first pupils, and was perhaps the only one who had bettered Nergui at it.
Today the White Scar stood with Elianus of the Howling Griffons and Imano, the Lamenter, in the black Thunderhawk. The rear ramp shuddered as he led them out. They were more than a mile above the ground. For a moment they stood facing into clouds.
‘Ready?’ Nergui voxed.
The two answered in affirmative. Nergui stepped off the end, and was gone.
Elianus jumped straight after. Imano, the Howling Griffon, always went last. ‘So I can clear up your mess,’ he liked to say.
They fell head first, locking on to the homing beacons set by Hadrian, senses honed and alert, weapons ready. Halfway through the fall the columns of black smoke cut off visual contact. It was then they heard the reports from the ground that a Manta was aloft.
‘This should not have happened,’ Nergui cursed, but there was no time for arguments. He switched to the personal channel with Imano and Elianus as he changed his angle of flight. ‘Follow me.’
As they came through the smoke, they could see the target below them and the Manta swinging round towards the south. It was wider than a Baneblade was long, and yet it moved with a strange speed and grace typical of these xenos. It started to accelerate. The distance made it look slow at first, but as they fell towards it they could see it moved at speed.
‘It’s going too fast,’ Elianus hissed as he struggled to change his angle of attack.
Nergui did not respond. He was an eagle in the sky above Chogoris, falling towards its prey. All the world was the Manta, the roar of the air passing his helmet, and the fury of the righteous.
The Manta’s wing lifted as it banked. He fired his jump pack too late and the vast wing slammed his knees against his chin. Something cracked in his jaw. His retinal display froze for a moment as he caught a wing strut and dragged himself out along the central fuselage.
The wing-mounted drones spun in their sockets and fired. ‘With you!’ Elianus voxed, but the Manta was rolling side to side in an effort to dislodge them, and he mistimed his jump pack’s thrust, slammed down the length of the Manta’s flat top, and scraped along the wing as he scrabbled for purchase. He managed to catch a hold of the engine intake, but as the Manta accelerated with punishing force, his fingers were wrenched free, and he tumbled back and out in its wake.
Imano came in higher. He hit the Manta just behind the port drone. His mag-locks slammed onto the Manta’s wing and held, and he grunted in pain as he was body slammed backwards along the craft’s surface. It took a moment for him to turn to the side to engage a melta bomb, only to find that his charge had been thrown clear by the force of his landing.
The port-side drone swung about and fired. Imano felt the impacts across his chest-plate as he grabbed a krak grenade from his belt. The explosive blew a hole deep enough to reach the Manta’s core.
Rounds struck his pauldron. A drone had swung about and was firing at him at almost point-blank range. Warning runes began to flash red.
He put three hellfire rounds into the front of the drone. The bio-acids fizzed as they burned through metal plating.
Only Nergui was left, hanging precariously from an engine inlet on the central fuselage. He snarled as he forced himself along it. The acceleration of the Manta made it an effort just to drag himself forwards. Fire was coming from all directions. There was a stab of pain in his left side, but it only made him more determined. He pulled himself to the front of the craft. ‘Suffer not the alien to fly,’ he hissed as he slammed three melta charges onto the top of the pilot’s cabin, disengaged his mag-locks at the same time, and tumbled off into the Manta’s slipstream.
The Manta roared into the distance. Three seconds after Nergui had disengaged, the melta charges blew. The force of the blast struck straight down into the main chamber of the Manta, killing the shas’vre and half his hunter cadre instantly. It crippled the craft’s gravitational drive and filled the pilots’ cabin with beads of molten steel.
Both air caste pilots were killed in moments, and as the gravitational field upon which the great craft floated began to fail, its nose tilted down and it slammed straight into the ground, skidding for three hundred yards before tipping over and exploding in a great fireball.
Nergui switched back to broadcast mode on his vox. ‘Manta down. The skies are clear.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Shas’vre Ch’an woke with a start.
For a moment he was back on Mu’gulath Bay, the dust of the cinderplains clogging up his ventilation ducts, surrounded by burning Imperial tanks, thick billowing smoke, shots and screams of the dying. Through the smoke he saw a new Imperial division charging towards them, alarms sounding in his battlesuit as the enemy began to fire.
And then he was in his dorm. In bunk Y-445.
The dream was over, but the alarms were still sounding.
His heart was racing as he pushed himself up. There was sweat on his leathery brow.
H’an slid down, eyes puffy with sleep. ‘What is it?’
Ch’an was already moving towards the door. ‘Quick! We’re being attacked.’
The dome’s corridors were already filling up as the secure doors slammed down. Ch’an and H’an pushed past the rushing fire warriors to the lift. They were herding everyone down to the sublevels. It had been locked down.
‘The stairs,’ Ch’an said.
He should have brought his stick. Ch’an cursed himself and put a hand to the wall to help himself along.
Something exploded outside. The hab-dome’s shields were still up, but the complex shook, and the lights flickered out for a moment. H’an steadied the older warrior. ‘We’re supposed to stay inside,’ he said.
‘Don’t be stupid!’ The retort was stinging. ‘Do you want to die here, like this?’
‘But Fireblade M’au… The Most Honoured One…’
Ch’an nodded. ‘Yes. They were wrong! The gue’la have found us. If we can get to the suiting chambers, we can get into a Stormsurge.’
The building rocked again. The shields were still holding, though the room shook violently. Ch’an dragged himself up the wide stairs. The air smelt of cordite and plasma. The lights flickered as the ground trembled with the low thuds of explosions.
Tracers wound up into the darkness. A Riptide briefly strobed the night as its railgun fired. A drop pod landed beyond the void shield. As it hit the ground the petals slammed down, and then the yard was full of shooting as a flight of piranhas swept overhead, destroying it in moments.
At the exit there was a crowd of warriors trying to push past the guards at the door. The shas’vre was a serious young Ke’lshan. His voice did not carry. He kept repeating, ‘You must stay inside. Here we can protect you. Here you will be safe. Please do not try to push past us. The attack will be repelled. All our forces have been mobilised. Sept Ke’lshan is honoured to have this great duty. Down to the sublevels!’
He had twenty guards with him, half of them facing outwards, their fingers pressed to their ear-beads, engaged in a tense conversation. Ch’an cursed. There was no way out here. They had to trust to Sept Ke’lshan, but survival had taught Ch’an one thing: it was sometimes better to work alone.
His fingers were tight on H’an’s sleeve. ‘We have to get out there. We have to fight. Is there another way?’
H’an thought for a moment. ‘There’s an exit through the kitchens. It opens out behind the generators.’
‘Let’s go!’
They turned and pushed through the warriors who were coming up the stairs. One of them was Sham’bal. He grabbed Ch’an’s arm. ‘Any idea what’s happening?’
‘The gue’la have found us!’ Ch’an shouted back. ‘The Ke’lshan won’t let us leave. We’re going through the kitchen. We have to get out. We have to fight them.’
They took the back spiral to the kitchens, Sham’bal bent low as he hurried down the corridor. A rocket went off just overhead and the explosion rocked the building. Two more followed, each one impacting in the air above them.
‘Shields are still up,’ Sham’bal shouted.
Ch’an looked up for a moment. The shields could not hold indefinitely. He pushed the cadets and pilots before him. The food sharing hall was scattered with the remains of half-eaten meals that had been abandoned. The kitchen doors were open. Ch’an led them into the darkened room. The hum of refrigeration units was drowned out by the noise of approaching battle. They pushed past and one of the running warriors knocked a fridge door open. Its contents spilt out in a shower of tins. Ch’an tripped and H’an fell with the weight of him.
Ch’an let out a moan. The pain in his leg was excruciating. He felt sick. It was as if his bones had broken once more.
‘Are you well, master?’ H’an said.
Ch’an pushed himself up. He could not speak for a moment. He swallowed, drew in a deep breath and nodded. ‘You landed on my leg,’ he managed to say. H’an was appalled. ‘It’s fine. Just help me up.’ Ch’an was unsteady on his feet and threw an arm over H’an’s shoulders.
‘Gently,’ Ch’an managed to say. He felt nauseous. He blinked to try to clear his head. He had to find a battlesuit. He had to fight for his people. His sept. His civilisation.
Sham’bal’s mind was already ahead of him, in his Stormsurge suit, starting up the systems. His mind ran through all the checks, slammed the generator on and stomped out, weapons primed.
‘Come!’ he hissed to the others. ‘Come!’
The kitchen service doors were shut, only the thin crack of light showing where the two portals met in the middle. A Vas’talos pilot was already at the door, punching in an access code as the others bunched up in anticipation. Sham’bal turned. Ch’an had fallen behind. He had an arm draped over his cadet’s shoulder, and the two were moving slowly about the sharp edges of the cutting counters.
Ch’an saw his friend waiting and forced a smile. ‘You lead them!’ he said. ‘But don’t let them take all the suits. Leave one for us!’
Sham’bal nodded. The sept code was recognised. As the doors slid upwards the cold air rushed in. It stank of battle. Flames guttered bright against the night sky and the first warriors were ducking through the opening when someone shouted a warning.
‘Shut the doors!’ Sham’bal shouted, but it was too late.
Silhouetted against the light were the giant shapes of gue’la warriors.
‘Back!’ Sham’bal shouted. ‘Back!’ The doors slid wide open, and the room was full of sparks and fury as rounds ricocheted about them.
Sham’bal found himself lying under a table, his neck at a sharp angle, his head pressed down onto the soft black tiles. He did not feel any pain, but he knew he had been hit. He could see the hole in his chest, could see the long black smear that he had left down the
white wall.
His mind flickered back to being in a Stormsurge suit. He loved the height the suit gave him, looking down on the world as he bent the suit’s legs and prepared to fire. As his eyes opened, he saw a shadow. It was three times his height, eye sockets lit with a dull red light as they turned towards him.
He saw the gun muzzle point, saw the flash of a round being fired, and the flare that followed it.
Shas’el Sham’bal closed his eyes and felt himself inside the Stormsurge… and then his fantasy ended as the snub-nosed hellfire and its payload of bio-acids ripped through him.
The shooting went on for what seemed like an age, slowing from a storm to an irregular patter. H’an lay on the floor of the kitchens with Ch’an under him.
‘Master,’ he hissed.
Ch’an squeezed his arm in response to show that he was here and alive. They scrabbled behind the fridge door, drew their legs up tight to their bodies and tried not to breathe.
The gunshots came closer. H’an realised with a chill that the gue’la were moving inside, executing each warrior. Someone cursed the gue’la. Another shouted the name of her sept. Ch’an put a finger on H’an’s arm.
The cadet turned. He was bonded to this veteran warrior, and the look in Ch’an’s face – flat, solemn, impassive – calmed him for a moment.
There were harsh alien voices, the unmistakable sound of a fresh magazine being slammed into a gun and another shot rang out as the footsteps came closer. The look in the older warrior’s eyes was of warning. H’an understood. There could be no sound or they would both die.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Last’ Leonas had been tense as the kill teams assembled for the briefing on the Nemesis, but there was no need. All of them had known that there was only one Space Marine who could lead the attack on the hab-dome – and it had to be him.
He was the only surviving member of Kill Team Primus. He had been captured and tortured. He had many grievances, but most of all, he had a lot to prove.
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