Baneblade

by Guy Haley

  ‘Fire!’ yelled Bannick.

  The Leman Russ unloaded everything into the heavy walker. Two shells went wide of the head, one missing, one impacting into a shoulder. The others struck home, lines of lascannon fire seeming to guide them in. The heavy walker’s head exploded with great violence. With the screech of metal upon metal, it fell onto the larger machine, sagging against it, falling onto the Titan’s foot and dragging its armoured skirt into the sand. Engines roared as Greeneye tried to move, the whole thing shuddering with mechanical effort, but to no avail. Greeneye was pinned fast.

  Bannick permitted himself a deep breath of relief. ‘Well done men, now, let’s get out of here. All ahead full! Fall back! Fall back!’

  Tank engines roaring, the Leman Russ tracked round and made their getaway. Stood in the turret, Bannick watched Greeneye recede, the lesser ork engine leaning against it like a drunk back home in Aronis city. Pinned in place, the Titan spat green fire at the withdrawing Imperials. He couldn’t tell how many of the force gathered round the Baneblade had made it away, but surely some of them had.

  The energies spurting from the Titan ceased. Its horned head turned to the screech of unoiled bearings, round eyes blazing with the unclean light of witchcraft. They fixed themselves on Bannick and stared unblinking, locking with his own, boring deep into his very soul. The machines became an outline, then a shadow, still the green eyes glared after him, then they too were gone into the anger of Kalidar’s storm.

  Bannick slumped down into the tank’s turret chair. He was filthy and tired, and his head rang. Adrenaline receded, leaving him nauseous and weak. The loss of his men, held at bay by the thrill of battle, hit him like a shell – Arlesen, Kurlick, Brevant, Tovan, Patinallo – men he’d trained with for two years. He was thankful he’d not known any before the raising; that would have made it worse. Dead so far from home, most likely their families would never know what had happened to their sons. He added their deaths to his burden of guilt. He’d been responsible for their safety, and he had failed, more blood on his hands.

  He’d survived. There was that, and he’d done his duty. Perhaps he had redeemed himself.

  He wasn’t sure if he cared. He was too tired.

  He coughed and felt wetness under his mask. He reached up under it, holding his breath as he lifted the mask in a manner that had become instinctive. He pushed his fingers under the stinking rubber, wiping them at his mouth, scratching his skin with the dust layered upon it.

  He pulled his hand out. Blood, blood on his fingers.

  Pity flicked across the small portion of the gunner’s features visible between rebreather and cap. They both knew what that meant.

  Dustlung.

  INTERSTITIAL

  ‘Only blind fate saved me.’

  ‘Fate is far from blind, my son.’

  Astropath Valle speaking with unnamed trooper after the

  Kostoval Rout, M41

  Chapter 6

  Helwat City Landing Fields,

  The Sixth Moon of Paragon VI

  2259395.M41

  Bannick walked down the long carpet to the drop-ship, shoulder to shoulder with the other officers of his newly raised tank regiment, the Paragonian 42nd. He tried to keep his eyes forwards as instructed, but he couldn’t keep them from sliding to the side, scanning the crowd of faces in his clan’s viewing stand, looking for the old man’s face.

  Of course his father wasn’t there.

  Bannick had wrecked the old man’s carefully constructed plans to tie Clans Bannick and Turannigen together. He’d cost the clan a 0.3% reduction in gross material costs in interclan trade, and his father a great deal of face. He would not come. Because, according to his father, the Chief Auditor of Clan Bannick, Colaron Artem Lo Bannick wasn’t supposed to be there either. He was supposed to be playing politics by his father’s side, but he wasn’t. After what had happened with Tuparillio, his father had had no choice but to agree to Bannick’s request to sign up. His uncle had arranged the rest. But that was that between them. He might have allowed his eldest son to go to war, but he did not have to like it, and the old man had publicly disowned him.

  He’d expected it, knew it, but Bannick had hoped that he’d come, prayed for it.

  Even now, he was still hoping to lock eyes with the stern gaze of his father, some measure of reconciliation before he left. The clan stands, cantilevered out from the embarkation terminal, flowered high above the heads of the lesser classes of Paragon, gathered in their thousands to see their sons and daughters off to war.

  The crowd was immense, a sea of faces round the gothic cliffs of the embarkation building. Forty drop-ships in neat ranks filled this part of the landing apron, sequestered from the endless plain of rockcrete that was Paragon’s main spaceport, needfully huge to accommodate the ships that came and went from the planet daily, bringing in raw materials from the rest of the system, carrying away the world’s manufactured goods to the stars. All non-essential traffic was suspended for the week of the departure. This raising was costing Paragon dearly.

  Bannick marched along a rich carpet laid over the rockcrete especially for the officer cadets of the regiment. His new uniform was uncomfortable in its unfamiliarity, tight and stiff where his old clothes were loose and soft, and his head felt cold where it had been shaved down to blue stubble. The haircut of the penitent, he thought. He and the other officer cadets of the regiment walked together, nearly a hundred would-be lieutenants and others, from where they’d heard the service from the chapel inside the embarkation building and enjoyed drinks at the expense of the Unified Clan Council and Planetary Commander Gondanick Lo Materiak. Theirs was a comfortable send-off, not like the enlisted men, who’d already begun basic training in the swamp outside the spaceport.

  He felt lightheaded from both drink and apprehension. This was only his second time in a spacecraft, and this time he would not be coming back. He looked from the corner of his eyes for reassurance from Kalligen, but his friend wore an uncharacteristically serious expression, face set resolutely forwards.

  He thought his father might have come because of that, that they’d not meet again. Most men who joined the Guard never came home, falling on some foreign field light years away, or, if surviving, granted land on untamed worlds where they could fight some more. Those that did contrive to return could find themselves arriving centuries later, travel across the galaxy being slow, the strange energies within the immaterium warping time. That Bannick’s uncle had come home, along with the three veteran regiments accompanying the two fresh raisings to Kalidar was a near miracle, simply because their homeworld lay en route from one warzone to the other, and they needed reinforcing. Good also for morale, his uncle had confided in him. The Imperial Governor had somehow arranged it, to take people’s attention away from the scandals rocking court, or so the rumours went.

  If he did come back, it would no longer be home. The veterans who marched alongside the enlisted men up from the swamps had been recruited at three different points over the last century. None of them had ever been back home before, none of them had ever expected to come home, and now, after only three weeks on their birthworld, they were leaving again and they would never be back again. Their faces were grimmer than when they’d disembarked, the world and people they’d known lost to warp-born time distortion.

  He’d realised that, at least intellectually, from the moment he had put his mark on the recruitment paper, but now the thought of never seeing his father or mother or the rest of his family again filled him with panic. For the briefest moment he wanted to dash off, to say he had changed his mind, to go back to his father and beg forgiveness, but it was far too late for that. Perhaps that’s why the carpet was lined with Navy ratings – they were large men, heavily muscled under their uniforms. The charged belaying pins they carried would put second thoughts out of anyone’s mind, and not merely figuratively.

  He tensed as
the knot of cadets passed by the stand reserved for Clan Bannick. The faces above were proud but free of emotion, as befitted members of the ruling class. There was a large gap in the stands. It looked like the entire fiscal stem of Clan Bannick had been ordered to keep away. He tried to feel angry at his father for that, one last bout of fury at the old man. Although he’d managed it so many times before, often with little encouragement, today it came harder than usual.

  He felt ashamed of his doubts. This was not the Bannick way; he might have ruined his life here, but he would not spoil this new one. He tried to hold his head higher.

  Still he wished his father had come.

  The carpet went in a sweep around the elephantine landing legs of the drop-ship, bringing the officer cadets into line with the column of enlisted men. Ahead of him lay his future, the ship’s great square ramp lowered like the jaw of some predator, waiting to swallow him whole and spit him out as living ammunition in one of the Emperor’s wars. Even if they made the perilous warp journey intact, he’d probably not survive long, something his uncle had repeated time and time again to him, but Bannick would not be swayed, and his uncle had relented and pulled the requisite strings to free him from the clan exemption. If he died, so be it, it was no less than he deserved. No doubt Tuparillio would agree.

  He walked towards the yawning black door to the future, each step taking him one further pace away from a planet he’d never tread again. Paragon. He looked up. The gas giant they called the Mater Maxima crowded the lower half of the sky. The long eclipse was over, the Long Winter it brought done with, warmth returned to Paragon. The first Growth season of the Glory was in full blush. Another thing he’d never see again, among all the people he’d never talk to and things he’d never do. Skating on the canals in the Long Winter, holidays on the plains during Little Summer, drinking nights away with his friends in the city… The list went on as Bannick bade farewell to his privileged childhood.

  So be it. He had only himself to blame. Through war he would find atonement.

  Cheers went up from the crowd as huge tractors came crawling across the rockcrete apron towards the drop-ships, each pulling a long, treaded trailer crowded with newly minted fighting vehicles made in Paragon’s industrial zone, equipment for the new regiments. Everything was festooned in purple-and-white bunting, the colours of Paragon. The celebration would surely become wild and raucous once the brave children of the world had departed. A double raising was rare here, and to see men return home almost unheard of. The crowd was suffused with pride; Paragon was surely amongst the most loyal of the Emperor’s worlds, and for that they were blessed. Transporting the twenty thousand men to the transport barges in orbit would take the rest of the week. The celebrations would last all that time.

  The lines of soldiers marched up the ramp into the drop-ship, soft carpet giving way to the ring of plasteel. The ramp was enormous, and led into the hold of the ship, a massive space with room enough for a company to deploy into the heart of battle.

  ‘Company, halt!’ bellowed a senior sergeant, resplendent in the vermillion of Paragonian dress uniform, a uniform the recruits would not be able to wear until they had finished training and been formally inducted into the Guard. ‘About turn!’ The sergeant was one of the few veteran officers that Bannick had met who was actually from Paragon. The rest of the staff were drawn from other units from the same warzone the Paragonians had shipped from, members of depleted regiments merged with the Paragonians, fit to provide a seasoned command structure for the raw recruits.

  Bannick and the others turned and looked upon their home for the last time. The crowd shouted, the large band playing to their cheers. The ramp began to rise. It closed slowly, huge cogs in the gloom high above cranking round and round to bring the ramp home centimetre by tortuous centimetre.

  Little by little, Bannick’s world was shut from view. The landing apron went, then the crowds, then the stands of the clan leaders, where Bannick’s father would have stood had circumstances been different.

  All went, swallowed by the black of the door. The embarkation building’s towers disappeared, as did the smokestacks of the industrial zone about the spaceport.

  The last thing Bannick saw of his home were the mountains far to the south of Helwat City Landing Fields, the pregnant bulk of the Mater Maxima filling the sky above them.

  The door of the drop-ship shut with a hollow boom. Bannick was captive in the belly of the windowless craft.

  A shocked silence prevailed over the recruits. Loss was heavy in the air. It was a second of limbo, a space between one life and another.

  ‘Right then!’ bellowed the sergeant. ‘You young gentlemen have four hours, fifty-three minutes before loading of this rotation is complete, and I am afraid to say you will not be relaxing! Prepare yourselves for months of unending pain which I have the sorrowful duty of dishing out to turn you young popinjays into proper soldiers and officers worthy to wear the uniform of the Emperor!’ He sounded happy at this prospect. ‘You are going to hate me, my young gentlemen, but that is of no account! I will turn each and every one of you miserable dung beetles into warriors, or you will die trying!’ He laughed at his own joke. ‘Aw, come, come now, no sad faces. You’re in the Imperial Guard now!’

  INTERSTITIAL

  We suffered a grave blow yesterday.

  The 42nd advance was turned by orkish cunning. Several (8? Unconfirmed at this date) heavy walkers and a medium-class Titan were deployed by the enemy, resulting in the destruction of fully three companies of the regiment. Many more casualties were suffered by Atraxian and Paragonian mechanised forces. Somehow the Savlar managed to get out in one piece, more or less.

  Losses:

  Main Battle Tanks (destroyed/ unrecoverable): 19

  Main Battle Tanks (damaged – light): 7

  Main Battle Tanks (damaged – severe): 4

  Main Battle Tanks (operational): 70

  Other vehicles lost or rendered inoperable (support, etc): 37

  Casualties sustained: 149 (98 dead, 38 wounded, 13 MIA)

  Further losses were sustained early this morning when a regimental recovery team came under attack by ork reconnaissance forces. Two apparently salvageable Leman Russ proved to be booby-trapped. The detonation of these by the recovery crew brought down a demi-company of ork fast-attack vehicles. One Atlas lost. Enginseer Rankoun killed, plus four Munitorum tech-adepts.

  That I should lose so many of my men at our first engagement is a source of grave shame for me. That they are not my people matters little. Today I attempted to tender my resignation, but General Ban Lo Kism Verkerigen would not countenance it. I am to attempt to rebuild the regiment with the meagre resources to hand.

  I fear our attempts at reinforcing the war effort here on Kalidar have come to little. Our journey here overran by twelve months, delaying our deployment by three seasons, and allowing the orks to consolidate their gains. Several of high command are pressing to petition Castellan Evenius of the Black Templars Adeptus Astartes for further aid, but I am not hopeful. The Angels of Death know no master but our lord the Emperor. They are few in number here, and what forces they have are heavily invested in clearing remaining ork nests from the far side of Kalidar in conjunction with the second battlegroup.

  I fear this conflict goes ill. I shall continue to pray daily for victory.

  Extract, Colonel Gueptera Assis Sholana’s personal diaries,

  Commander-in-Chief, 42nd Paragonian Armoured Regiment.

  Chapter 7

  Kalidar IV, Adeptus Ministorum Medicae Facility, Hive Modulus

  3283397.M41

  ‘So this is him?’ Cortein peered through the thick plex window to the room beyond, lurid with ultraviolet light, at the young lieutenant. He lay upon the gurney of an auto-chirurgeon, clan tattoo visible on his right shoulder, a tattoo that matched Cortein’s own. Metal limbs were busy about him, pulling pipes depending fro
m tanks of liquid and pushing them into his mouth, forcing his jaw painfully wide. Cortein thought it a kindness the boy was unconscious. He stared for several minutes, watching the chirurgeon. The wards he’d come through to get here were full past capacity of dead and dying men, the medicae personnel overwhelmed. The stench of burnt flesh and suppurating wounds still clung to his nostrils. The shouts and moans had been the worst, men on the edge of extinction, calling for the Emperor’s final benediction, finding mercy nowhere.

  The viewing room was blessedly quiet, aseptic. Here important men were treated for dustlung by lungwash, a process too complicated and time-consuming to be given to the lower ranks. A commissar stood in one corner, overlooking the lungwash room, his job to oversee the treatment given to the battlegroup’s senior officers. The look on his young face made it clear he was indifferent to Bannick’s fate, and he did not so much as acknowledge the presence of Brasslock and Cortein.

  ‘He doesn’t look like much,’ Cortein said finally.

  ‘I would not underestimate him. This is the one,’ said Brasslock, ‘whose actions aided your escape from the Kostoval Flats debacle.’

  Cortein snorted. ‘Not my debacle, enginseer. These idiots have no wit at all when it comes to the ork. They read the first passage on the greenskins they find in the Tactica Imperium, go no further and are blinded by dogma to what’s in front of them. Orks are not stupid. Whoever first committed that to paper was deluding themselves and those that followed. If only they’d read further in the Tactica, they’d know.’

  ‘Nevertheless, no matter where fault lies, a debacle it was, and it is thanks to this lieutenant that you lived to see this day at all.’ Brasslock’s flesh voice caught in his throat, his artificial lungs clicking as they forced air over neglected vocal cords.