Storm of Damocles

by Justin D Hill

  Fireblade M’au would not let Sept Ke’lshan’s honour be besmirched. They would meet this threat and destroy it.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The Fire Raptor Obos led the Thunderhawks and escorts of the Fourth Company of White Scars in over the route that Moaz had created through the dead zone in the remote sensor fields. Inside the tight confines of their transports the White Scars warriors were exultant – even the machine-spirits seemed to sense the joyful mood among the warriors, as a Chogorean steed will sense the mood of its rider and stretch out her neck so that the mane flies free.

  Battle was in the souls of the White Scars. Few Chapters approached danger with such joy. It was a wild, dangerous and exultant thrill. They were weapons made flesh, and they were going to do what they lived for: kill the enemies of mankind. It made them laugh out loud as they waited inside the Thunderhawks.

  The Fire Raptor’s machine-spirit searched for targets. Behind the gunship the four White Scars Thunderhawks followed in formation, two carrying a load of Razorbacks and Predators, as a pair of Stormravens flew on the flanks and Stormtalons brought up the rear.

  The flight came in low over the snow, their engines kicking up a great tail of ice dust behind them. For the first twenty-five minutes they encountered no opposition beyond a heavy drone flight, whose targeting matrix immediately identified the craft as hostiles and tried to make a stand. Obos lined the three drones up and its twin-linked avenger bolt cannons fired. The ancient craft slowed for a moment with the backward force of her guns and the drones disintegrated before their internal logic systems could broadcast an alarm.

  Without their remote sensors to show them where the targets might be, the automated gun turrets sat idle and inactive as the White Scars roared overhead. The White Scars cut straight through the outer defences and were seven minutes from contact when they encountered the first fire team patrols. There were two Devilfish –their crews were dismounted and exchanging news when one of them saw Obos and shouted.

  The two crews were dashing back to their transports when a hunter-killer missile hit one of the craft halfway up the nose cone. It exploded in a shower of flaming debris at the same time as the second was hit in the rear port engine. The explosion knocked out the grav drives, and it slammed to the ice, rear first, hissing smoke from its fuel lines. The pilot bailed out just as a pair of well-aimed lascannon shots hit the main body and the inside exploded, sending a sheet of flame venting from the open hatches. Flaming bodies tumbled out. One of the fire warriors knelt to fire his pulse rifle.

  His shots seared the Fire Raptor’s ceramite plating. The shas’vre was desperately trying to raise the nearest pathfinder team when the avenger bolt cannon whirred. Brass casings rained down as it hosed the wreckage with fist-sized mass-reactive shells.

  A freezing mist of ice and blood rose where the tau had been. It billowed as the flight passed overhead, and slowly settled as they moved on, revealing a scene of utter destruction.

  They were five minutes from contact when a third Devilfish, racing to investigate the lost cadres, hastily turned tail having seen the assault flight coming in low. A Land Speeder cut it off as it tried to circle away, a multi-melta shot winging it and causing it to spin out of control and crash nose first into a fist of a black rock.

  Scout Sergeant Törömbaater jumped from the Land Speeder as it swung around for another shot. He approached to within ten feet of the burning wreck as the Thunderhawks roared overhead.

  ‘No survivors,’ he laughed and slammed his bolt pistol back into its holster.

  The Land Speeder came back round for him and he jumped and caught the foot plate, swinging himself up as the pilot raced after the other fliers.

  Two miles from the target, the Thunderhawk transporters lowered their landing gear and settled in the snow as their engines powered down for a moment. The Predators and Razorbacks disengaged from under the Thunderhawks’ fuselage, gun turrets already tracking for targets as they took up flanking positions. One by one the Thunderhawks’ front ramps slammed forwards and the white bikes roared out like steppe wolves eager for the kill.

  Payloads empty, the Thunderhawks roared back into the air, swinging back to retreat to a safe distance, while the Stormravens and Stormtalons positioned themselves in close support. Fifty bikers charged forwards, with Batbayar leading them, pennants flying from the banner-poles on the back of his bike, Qorchi. The vehicle was a steed as old as the Chapter itself, a thing of simple and elegant lines, the horse-shaped head at the front lowered as if in a charge, a melta gun jutting out from the prow. In his hand Batbayar carried a great single-edged cutlass, named Greenfire. It crackled with eldritch light as he powered his bike forwards, moustaches streaming behind him.

  He remained always ahead of his warriors, but right behind him came Ganzorig, the eagle banner held in his out-flung fist, riding one-handed. Around them both was the honour guard of the Tulwar Brotherhood, each one wielding an ancient power sword, and then came the squads of White Scars arranged in a great V formation, with Land Speeders, attack bikes and fliers roaring in behind.

  Batbayar raised Greenfire to the skies and roared a war-cry ten thousand years old.

  ‘For the Khan and the Emperor!’

  Batbayar Khan drove his columns onwards with relentless energy, always countering ambushers with squadrons of bikes and Land Speeders, and aerial attack runs.

  He was the khan of the Tulwar Brotherhood, and he would not be held back. At last he broke through a swarm of drones and the way to the production facility was open.

  Batbayar Khan was exultant as he led the charge straight towards the production facility. There was nothing better than the wind in your hair, the smell of promethium and the roar of chainswords, eager as hunting hounds.

  Ganzorig pointed to a stealth team trying to return to their transport. They were right in the path of the White Scars onslaught, and there was no escape.

  Their drones came straight towards the Space Marines in a futile effort to slow Batbayar down. They were barely a bump under the wheels of the bikers.

  The stealth team turned and realised they were never going to escape. Five of them formed up bravely. Batbayar drove one down as he shot another. Ganzorig speared a third, and the heads of the others were claimed by warriors in the first and sixth squads.

  The bikers crested a low rise, and there before them was the camp – already burning. Gun rigs were deploying in a line before the starport. The Tulwar Brotherhood were upon them before they could even deploy their stabilisers.

  They rode the first line down. The crews were beheaded, their gun rigs destroyed by melta fire. The second at least managed to get off a salvo of shots before Obos roared in. Her avenger bolt cannon made a sound like ripping steel as its mass-reactive fire strafed along the line of rigs, tearing crew and weapon chassis apart, while the accompanying Stormravens’ twin-linked lascannons blew holes through the armoured compartments as if they were wax.

  The third line of mobile gun rigs managed to get away. All three of them headed left, seeking to outflank the White Scars. They paused at a distance of half a mile to fire quick shots at the enemy. But the flankers had been outflanked. The White Scars spread the wings of their attack wide, and Scout bikers and Land Speeders caught the tau unawares, and destroyed them.

  It was only the charge of the kroot that saved the base from being overrun in the first minutes. While half of their three hundred warrior strength was out on patrol, the rest had reacted with alarm and were waiting in their camp for the attack, armed and ready.

  None had come, and kroot messengers that had been sent out to the base had not reported back, so until they saw an enemy their shapers had come together in council and decided to wait, and watch.

  The White Scars assault was the first enemy they had seen and their shapers had no doubt that the tau masters would want them to fight. They came out of their camp in a wild mo
b of white-pelted warriors, feathers streaming, rifles clenched in knotty fists, their heads thrown back in their wild and high-pitched war cries. About them loped the shaggy kroot hounds, while the krootox riders shook their spears as they held on to their beasts’ backs.

  Batbayar saw the kroot break out of their camp and knew that he could not leave them untouched on his flanks, so the khan led the charge straight into the heart of the kroot warband.

  He slew a great shaggy kroot that swung at him with its rifle butt, drove his sword through another and slammed at least three to the ground with the momentum of his bike. He must have killed fifteen of the kroot before his charge began to slow. The khan was suddenly surrounded by snapping beaks.

  Batbayar was exultant as the enemy’s jaws tore at him. His tulwar blade cut through three kroot braves in a single backswing. He punched a krootox so hard he could hear the crunch of bone inside its avian skull, and killed the second with a thrust straight to its cold-blooded heart.

  Batbayar gloried in his conquest. He roared out the battle cry of the Tulwar Brotherhood and Ganzorig lifted the eagle banner, and the sight of it filled the hearts of the Fourth Company with the righteous joy of killing.

  The charge of the Tulwar Brotherhood had slowed for a moment, like a chainsword catching on a bone, but as the banner was displayed Batbayar drove forwards once more, his bike splattered with blood, the wheels bucking as he rode over the bodies of their foes.

  Within moments they were through. Seven White Scars lay dead, as promethium fumes mixed with the red mist that hung in the air around their bodies.

  The charge of the kroot gave Fireblade M’au precious moments to redeploy his forces.

  Surviving strike teams used their Devilfish to take the high ground to the right of the space port. Their burst cannons threw enfilading fire into the squads of White Scars. Land Speeder Storms drove them off for a moment, before the first vespid flight repulsed them in turn.

  While Space Marine Scouts battled on the wings, Batbayar did not slow, but pressed the attack despite the withering fire from gun rigs and Hammerheads. Many of his guards about him were cut down as pathfinders brought in precision missile strikes with deadly accuracy.

  The leading companies of White Scars faltered under the combined firepower, before vanguard veterans led Assault Marines into the attack.

  There was a brief but stiff fight. Chainswords slashed through wing and bone. Lumps of xenos flesh rained down, while broken vespids hit the ground with dull thuds. Within less than a minute the vespids had broken.

  The route to the Stormsurge production facility was open.

  ‘Follow me, my sons!’ Batbayar roared, swinging his bike around and racing forwards. ‘Find Shadowsun and win the Tulwar Brotherhood eternal glory!’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ch’an slid into the pilot’s seat and buckled himself in as H’an scrambled to get the gun generators up to full power.

  ‘All charged,’ H’an reported as Ch’an plugged into the pict and voice feeds from the units around him.

  ‘Ch’an?’ Commander M’au spoke the name with his distinctive Ke’lshan nasal twang.

  M’au’s position flashed up on the holo-display before Ch’an. He was leading his battlesuits and vespids in a sweeping counter-punch from the east. Ch’an almost flipped the intercom to mute, but he drew in a deep breath and answered, ‘Yes, Fireblade.’

  ‘The hab-dome has been struck. I am leading my guard there. We shall hold them off until support arrives. Let them see you. Draw them off. I shall do the rest.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ Ch’an answered. ‘For the Greater Good.’

  ‘For the Greater Good,’ Fireblade M’au answered. Ch’an powered the Stormsurge out of the suiting bay.

  The battle looked so different from this high up. He could see so much more and his infrared night vision showed a massive gue’la attack from the south. Fires burned all across the space port.

  It was clear where the chief danger lay. Ch’an took three great strides forwards, bracing one foot on the wreck of a Manta as H’an scrambled to align the shoulder-mounted railgun.

  ‘Ready to fire,’ H’an told him.

  Alarms chimed within the cockpit as a gue’la flier dived towards them.

  ‘Take that out first,’ Ch’an told his gunner, and H’an switched to missile launcher and bracketed the flier in his targeting matrix.

  A missile arced out and hit the enemy aircraft straight on the nose. It exploded and veered wildly over the shoulder of the Stormsurge, crashing into the ice.

  ‘Moving left,’ Ch’an warned.

  H’an was already preparing cluster rockets. The Stormsurge rattled as the rockets fired off in a gathering storm, obscuring the gue’la for a moment behind an expanding wall of smoke. The gue’la leader was on his bike, emerging unscathed from the smoke cloud, swatting away a desperate pair of drones that pulled back and turned once more to fire.

  ‘Charging the main gun,’ he reported.

  Ch’an was always moving. A second and a third gue’la flier roared overhead. Something hit the Stormsurge in the thigh.

  ‘Full charge,’ he reported, as he assessed the damage.

  ‘We’re limping,’ H’an noted.

  Ch’an was intent on killing. ‘It takes more than that to bring this suit down.’ He redeployed the stabilisers. ‘Bracing for fire. Take them down!’

  H’an lined up the leader as the gue’las skidded round a burning gun rig. The Stormsurge’s shoulder mounted blastcannon swung about as the targeters locked on.

  ‘Full charge,’ he reported as he centred the gue’la leader within his targeting brackets. ‘Fire.’

  The Stormsurge shook as the blastcannon’s negatively charged induction fields accelerated a ball of superheated plasma out at blinding speeds. H’an’s targeting screen flared green as the superheated plasma struck, and when the flare had gone, all he saw was a smoking hole where the rock had been turned to glass.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Nergui’s plan had been to drive the tau down into the sublevels. Once the enemy were confined within a tight space, Jotunn’s drop pod would smash into the hab-dome and he would lead the others in wiping out the entire Stormsurge cohort. The plan, as so often happened, was starting to fray at the edges.

  Konrad just hoped that it was not going to come apart entirely.

  ‘This is all taking too long,’ the Black Templar cursed as he shook his chainsword to dislodge a piece of armour stuck between its teeth. He had led his team into the sublevels, but they were having to cut their way through the defenders, which wasn’t the plan.

  I can feel fear. I can feel excitement. It glows with their thoughts. It must be the cadets. It is not far now. We are closing on him.+

  Domitian’s presence was brief. His mind was involved elsewhere.

  Konrad ducked back as his armour took another salvo of enemy fire. Warning runes were flashing all over. Even his suit of the finest Mark VIII power armour was starting to fail.

  ‘Leonas?’ Konrad voxed.

  In his helmet he could hear the roar of bolters.

  ‘We’re getting there,’ Leonas voxed back. Though it wasn’t really true – they were stuck as well, halfway down the hab-dome’s stairs, trapped in a three-way junction with tau reinforcements pouring in behind them.

  ‘We can’t stay here!’ Hadrian, the Black Shield, voxed as he used his power sword to widen a hole in the staircase bulkhead. Harath had taken a plasma shot to the side. He could move, but not much, and their enemies were coming up behind them.

  ‘Battlesuits,’ Harath spat.

  Leonas risked a glance.

  One of the tau’s Crisis battlesuits was skimming down the corridor and pressed close behind it were squads of fire warriors. Leonas only had two krak grenades left. He lobbed both of them at the battlesuit and sprayed the
corridor with his bolter before he caught a glimpse of another battlesuit, this time firing burst cannons.

  ‘Domitian,’ he called. There was no reply.

  ‘Nergui?’ He voxed on the White Scar’s personal channel and when there was no response, he switched to open. ‘Where is Nergui?’

  The Librarian’s mind-voice was distant. +He is helping his gene-brothers.+

  ‘I didn’t know Batbayar needed help.’

  There was a touch of humour. +Batbayar does not know it either. I have had to help him.+

  ‘Nergui should be here,’ Konrad snarled.

  He will be. He is coming now. I feel his presence.+

  On the strike cruiser Nemesis, the Lone Wolf waited in the darkness of his personal drop pod. The doors were sealed. His braces were clamped shut. His fist was clenched on the shaft of his guardian spear. His eyes were closed as if sleeping, as the vox chatter from below filled his helm.

  There was a moment of stillness before a battle. The Lone Wolf exulted in it. It seemed endless and eternal. It was the quiet of the hunter before he strikes. It was the moment when a bow was drawn. It was the instant before the trigger was pulled. It was the pause before he struck.

  Jotunn could hear alarm in the voices of his warriors. He let it wash over him, as the sea washes over the hidden rocks. It could not be long now.

  Nergui’s voice was breathless when he picked up the vox chatter. He’d lost Imano to a sniper shot, and Elianus’ jump pack was malfunctioning so he was foot-slogging his way towards the hab-dome. He heard the voices of Konrad and Leonas’ teams. ‘You’re in the hab-dome?’ he asked.

  ‘Affirmative,’ Leonas voxed back. ‘There are hundreds of them. Battle­suits. Harath is wounded. Konrad is in the sublevels with Domitian. The attack is slowing…’

  ‘Understood.’ Nergui’s voxed message was clipped and short. ‘I’m on my way.’