Storm of Damocles

by Justin D Hill

  Fireblade M’au led the counterattack on the hab-dome. The attackers were now trapped as his bodyguard of Crisis battlesuits worked with him – a deadly combination of formidable armour and destructive weaponry.

  M’au was impressed with the responsiveness of the XV8. The gue’la were armed with a kind of bolt-round he had not come across before. It had killed one of his guard in moments, so now he went first.

  His long shield saved him a number of times as he fought his way into the ruin of the hab-domes. His double-barrelled plasma rifle caught one gue’la full in the chest and left him a slumped ruin.

  ‘Vespid attack,’ he ordered, and the stingwing support swept in along the corridor, their leathery pinions flapping furiously, their neutron blasters making a mockery of the gue’la’s power armour.

  As the gue’la fired at the vespids, Fireblade M’au used his jump pack to leap closer.

  He could see the foe now – black-armoured gue’la.

  ‘For Ke’lshan!’ he ordered and, long shield held high, he fired.

  Leonas fired a salvo of hellfire rounds into the next battlesuit, and prayed that the bio-acids would slow it down at least. There was a moment’s pause in Nergui’s voice, and a low grunt as if the White Scar had just cut an enemy down, then Leonas could hear the metallic thud of a melta bomb being clamped in place. Nergui’s voice came back a few moments later.

  ‘Generator has been destroyed,’ he voxed on all channels. ‘The shield is down.’

  There was a pause, before a new voice joined the vox chatter.

  It brought hope and faith to the hearts of all the Deathwatch who heard it. The low growl was unmistakable. It was defiance in the face of darkness. Resolution in the shadow of the xenos. It was belief in their right to wrest the galaxy for mankind.

  ‘Thank you, brothers,’ Watch-Commander Jotunn whispered. ‘I am coming in.’

  Leonas counted the seconds.

  He felt the impact as Jotunn’s drop pod smashed through the armourglass dome, crashed down along the curved dorm windows, and finally landed in the hab’s sunken garden, half tilted against the walls.

  Two of the drop pod’s five ramps refused to open. But Jotunn only needed one. He was a blur of black Terminator armour as he stomped out, guardian spear lowered and already firing.

  The Lone Wolf was free among the enemy. With two great sweeps of his blade, Jotunn cut through a crowd of fire warriors who blocked his way. A smaller battlesuit leapt out into the air above him but he shrugged off its burst cannon shots. Despite the bulk of his Terminator armour the Space Wolf moved with a terrible speed. As the battlesuit landed in front of the sublevel doors, Jotunn lowered his shoulder and drove it into the tau’s waist. There was a crunch of struts as he crumpled it in two, then, with a casual swing of the guardian spear, he cut the battlesuit – and its pilot – in half.

  Jotunn knew the ways of the xenos. He was a whirlwind of death as he drove the tau back before him. He would not, he could not, be slowed. He feared nothing but failure, and as he battled into the sublevels the desperate fire warriors ran onto his blade in an effort to slow him down.

  ‘There’s an ethereal here,’ Jotunn voxed. It was simple. He could tell from the way that the enemy were dying. This was why they had been slowed down so much. Nergui’s intelligence had failed to locate this variable. It made the success of the mission even more precarious. When defending an ethereal, fire warriors fought with a stubbornness that was impressive to any.

  ‘Throne!’ Leonas said. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Do you doubt my word, Leonas of the Black Consuls?’ Jotunn was barely out of breath as he fought his way through. There was humour in his voice. ‘Domitian! Find where the ethereal is hiding.’

  There was a long pause before the Librarian’s mind touched his.

  I have found him.+

  ‘Do not kill him. Just show me where,’ Jotunn said. ‘I will do the rest.’

  Domitian’s mind was like a wall of fire as it threw the tau back, and behind the psychic bow-wave strode Jotunn – a giant of black fury. Domitian led him on the most direct route. Jotunn fought his way through the packed fire warriors. Their shots scoured the black paint from his armour, so that it was worn down to the bare ceramite in places. But nothing stopped the Space Wolf.

  He cut his way down the steps to the sublevel bunkers, and the further he went, the weaker Domitian’s mind became.

  This is as far as I can project.+ The Librarian’s mind was barely a whisper in his own. +The ethereal is within this chamber.+

  Jotunn glared at the bulkhead before him. He slapped a pair of melta bombs onto its seal.

  The blasts ripped a hole large enough for him to get his hands through, and he tore the edges of the doors open and pushed himself inside.

  Five Crisis battlesuits stood in defiant guard of their ethereal leader.

  The Space Wolf charged.

  This was the first time he’d seen one of this type of battlesuit in the flesh. The Lone Wolf sensed that he was facing the commander of the foe and looked forward with grim relish to the moment he could kill the enemy leader in battle.

  The guardian spear fired individually inscribed bolter shells that Jotunn himself had crafted. They punched through the armour plating of the Crisis suits and exploded inside, ripping their interiors apart with a hail of steel fragments.

  Two of the battlesuits fell before he even reached them. Two more were cut down by his ancient blade, and the last one tried to fire a fusion blast at him from point-blank range, but Jotunn twisted out of the path of the shot and rammed the guardian spear through its chest, killing the pilot within.

  The XV9 stepped forwards. It was armed with long shield and double-barrelled plasma rifle. Jotunn sidestepped the plasma shot as he charged.

  He drove the XV9 into the wall with such force he felt the armoured battlesuit crack. He drove again and again, then let the ruined suit slide to the floor. A hellfire bolt-shell killed the pilot inside.

  Jotunn strode to the sealed blast doors. They were marked with a vast Ke’lshan symbol. He hammered on it with his armoured fist.

  ‘Open in the name of the Emperor of Mankind,’ he roared and clamped a melta charge onto it. The door did not open. It exploded. Jotunn kicked the remains away and stooped to enter.

  Inside was a small meditation chamber, hung with scrolls of tau script. Jotunn growled as he smelt his foe. The ethereal had been knocked back into the corner of the room by the force of the blast. He paced towards it, fangs exposed. The ethereal shrank back. It was always thus. The xenos quivered before the judgement of mankind.

  The xenos had the temerity to speak. The Space Wolf did not know the words. He did not care. Learning the speech of the foe only opened you up to their lies – all within the Deathwatch knew that in understanding lay madness.

  As Jotunn stood over it, the ethereal held some symbol of office up towards Jotunn, as if warding the Space Marine off.

  Jotunn ripped it from him and flung it against the wall.

  The ethereal was still speaking.

  Jotunn answered with a roar. He let the twin barrels of his guardian spear speak for him.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The earth exploded beneath Batbayar Khan’s bike. He let out a low Chogorean curse as he found himself lying on the edge of a crater, Qorchi, his beloved mount twisted and scorched, both tyres burning. His armour runes were flashing in warning as he shoved himself up.

  The warriors of his honour guard lay dead around him. Only Ganzorig still moved; the eagle banner had almost slipped from his hand. Batbayar seized it from his equerry’s fist, but the dying Space Marine would not let go.

  ‘Be still, Ganzorig. It is I, Batbayar Khan, who takes this. You have done well. You did not allow the banner to fall.’

  Ganzorig held on for a moment, but Batbayar pushed his hand away.
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  ‘Your khan has it,’ he said. ‘Sleep well, my brother.’

  Ganzorig’s last words were lost as his broken body gave in to a score of fatal wounds and his twin hearts stopped.

  ‘Khulan!’ Batbayar shouted.

  As the smoke cleared, the Apothecary’s bike came into view. ‘Khan! We feared you were dead.’

  Batbayar laughed as he held the eagle banner high. ‘It takes more than these xenos to kill the khan of the Tulwar Brotherhood! Now give me your bike. Take their gene-seed. Our brothers fought well.’

  Batbayar leapt onto the Apothecary’s bike. A furious battle was raging overhead as the White Scars air support hunted the enemy craft down. He watched as Obos banked round in a wide curve and lined the Stormsurge up in its sights. It was standing on a low rise, its back to the burning hab-dome. ‘Leave the Stormsurge to me,’ he ordered the crew of the Fire Raptor. ‘For the Khan and the Emperor!’

  The Stormsurge fired twice more, but this time the White Scars had seen what it could do and they had learnt their lesson well. The bikers spread wide so that the blasts only killed a few of their number, and while the Stormsurge tried to get a bead on the khan, he was too fast and too wily for it, and the Stormsurge was alone.

  Batbayar led his warriors around wrecks and along defiles, playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the Stormsurge, which was being gradually hemmed in by the White Scars.

  ‘I am the khan,’ Batbayar ordered as he raced across the snow flats, ‘and I want that kill.’

  Ch’an knew they were running out of time. He could sense it as more and more systems started to flash with warning signals.

  H’an was oblivious. All the gunner focused on was the shot and the kill, but even as they fought, the gue’la fliers were taking their toll as they fired into the Stormsurge’s exposed flanks and rear.

  ‘Bring me around,’ H’an said.

  ‘Bringing you round,’ Ch’an told him.

  ‘Steady.’

  Ch’an gritted his teeth. He could feel the suit’s pain as it stumbled on a half-ruined leg. They were being hemmed in and there was nothing he could do about it. No way out.

  They did not train for this in the academy. This was not how battles were supposed to happen, but they had been hit in so many places, were shorn of all their advantages, at the same time and with such violence, speed, surprise and precision, that there was no way the hunter cadres could react in time.

  ‘They’re gaining,’ H’an said.

  They needed time to power up the railgun. Ch’an backed towards the hab-dome, but the Stormsurge had taken significant damage and as he took another step back the battlesuit stumbled.

  ‘Repelling assaulters,’ H’an reported. ‘Rocket clusters!’

  The Stormsurge rattled violently as the salvo fired.

  Ch’an saw gue’la through the smoke. If he didn’t get them out of there now, they were dead tau. He tried to step away but the systems failed and one of his generators shut down. He had to override the heat warning indicators.

  H’an’s voice became tense. ‘Assault imminent.’

  ‘I am trying,’ Ch’an voxed. He felt the suit groaning as the railgun’s electromagnetic drives began to whine. They were spent. ‘If you have anything left, fire it now,’ he hissed.

  H’an seemed to suddenly understand that they were doomed. The blastcannon was out. All he had left was the fragmentation projector. It fired off, filling the air with shrapnel. Some of it hit the Stormsurge. It rocked for a moment, and managed to stay upright, swaying drunkenly, like a prize fighter who has been beaten to the edge of the fighting pit, but will not fall.

  Batbayar trapped the Stormsurge on a low rise.

  The towering battlesuit rocked as Batbayar stopped his bike, swung his leg over the handlebars and stared up at it, fists on his hips.

  Across the battlefield his warriors were victorious as they drove surviving tau into the wilds and cleared the skies of any opposition. His honour guard were dead. His banner bearer had given up his gene-seed so that another might tread the path of the White Scars, but he had led and he had conquered, and victory was sweetest when it was bitterly won, like this. There was no dishonour in death. Death was the end for all of them. All that mattered was to win a glorious end that the White Scars might remember in poems, and that those poems might find their way back to Chogoris, and the yurts of his tribe, where his people might remember him and his deeds, and be glad.

  The bikes formed a crescent behind their khan as he handed the eagle banner to Sergeant Tenzig of the Second Squad. The Stormsurge’s systems were failing. Sparks flew from its groin pistons and as one of its legs gave way it sank to one knee, as if kowtowing before him.

  Batbayar stopped in front of the machine. He would do it the honour of killing it himself. He judged the places where the crew were encased, and he struck with impeccable pose – his sword a sudden blur leaving two neat holes in the Stormsurge’s torso.

  Blood trickled out from each, as the Stormsurge fell forwards.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Batbayar led the survivors of his company towards the Stormsurge production facility.

  Land Speeders and Stormtalons had already destroyed the last drones that refused to leave their assigned stations and the ice was littered with their burning remains, as well as those of a last flight of vespids who had fallen back to the tower. ‘This is the place,’ Scout Sergeant Törömbaater announced. ‘But there is no production facility.’

  Batbayar strode in through the open doors, hands on hips as he surveyed the insides. ‘Shadowsun?’

  ‘Nothing,’ the Scout sergeant reported.

  Batbayar paced forwards. There were long rows of suiting bays and in each one stood a Stormsurge battlesuit. They had a menacing air about them, even in their sedentary state, but there was nothing here that spoke of production. ‘There must be another level,’ Batbayar said. ‘Find it!’

  Törömbaater licked his lips before he spoke. ‘Khan. We have searched the place. There is nothing else here. No production facility. Nothing.’

  Batbayar spun about in fury. ‘I do not believe you. Why would the tau defend this place with such ferocity if there was nothing here worth defending?’

  As he spoke the khan had an unpleasant feeling. ‘Where is Nergui?’

  He looked at his warriors, but none of them knew.

  ‘Where is Nergui!’ Batbayar roared.

  A voice answered. ‘I am here.’

  The khan turned to stare as the Deathwatch captain paced through the empty hangars. His helmet was under his arm. His black armour was criss-crossed with the blood-splatter that came from close-up sword work. Batbayar smelt deceit. His eyes were wide with fury. ‘Have you killed her?’

  ‘Shadowsun?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘No. She is not here.’

  Batbayar strode towards him. ‘Not here? Will men say that she has made a fool of me, as she has Kor’sarro?’

  ‘No. She was never here.’

  Batbayar could barely believe what he was hearing. ‘Why then did we attack this place, when we could be winning glory for the Tulwar Brotherhood on Chogoris itself?’

  Nergui looked pained. ‘I cannot tell you,’ he said at last.

  ‘You cannot? Yet you led me to believe that she was here…! Are you fooling with me?’

  ‘No, brother.’

  ‘Don’t call me brother. If you are a White Scar then you call me khan!’

  Nergui was impassive. ‘No, Khan Batbayar of the Tangut Tribe.’

  Batbayar struck his brother with an open hand. Nergui stumbled back, but did not lift a hand except to wipe the blood away from his cheek. Batbayar turned on his heel and strode from the building.

  ‘You are no brother of mine,’ Batbayar spat, then turned to his warriors. ‘Melta bomb this place. And everythi
ng in it.’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Corvus Blackstar waited for the extraction as the hab-dome smoked. Konrad was the last to climb up from the sublevel. His joints were sticky with the congealing blood of the tau. They had found the cadets and they had massacred them all. They were so low on ammunition by then they’d had to finish the job by hand.

  Konrad had personally killed a hundred and thirty of them. Leonas was just behind him with over a hundred and ten. Hadrian had a kill count of only seventy-nine.

  ‘I was covering you both,’ he said. ‘Someone has to keep watch.’

  Moaz, the Raven Guard, was standing with one foot up on the ramp. He’d taken a couple of hits in his chest, and he was clearly exhausted. The surviving members of Faith were already inside.

  Konrad felt nothing. ‘You’re coming with us?’ he said to the Raven Guard.

  Moaz nodded.

  ‘What’s happened to the rest of your team?’ he asked.

  ‘They’ve gone back already.’

  ‘Domitian?’

  ‘With Zeal.’

  Konrad nodded and climbed aboard the Corvus. Sardegna and Elianus were leaning on their guns. Hadrian was resting. On the floor were laid out five Space Marines. He knew them from their Chapter markings.

  Ragris, Celebrant.

  Atilio, Ultramarines.

  Olbath, Aurora Chapter.

  Imano, Lamenters.

  Only the last one surprised him. ‘What happened to Sardegna?’

  The hole in his chest showed where the fusion blaster had cut straight through him.

  ‘His luck ran out,’ Leonas said. ‘When they made their last stand.’

  Konrad shook his head. It seemed a waste to have lost the Scion of Sanguinius right at the end of the battle.

  ‘All aboard,’ Leonas voxed Cadvan, the pilot, and slapped the side of the Blackstar.

  ‘I’m taking her up,’ Cadvan voxed back. ‘Hold on.’