by Guy Haley
The vox crackled. Exertraxes’s voice faded out for a moment. ‘…under heavy assault, we’ll attempt to support you if we can.’
‘Negative, captain, get yourselves holed up somewhere,’ Cortein said. ‘We can do it on our own, their infantry is disorganised now, they’re beginning to panic.’
‘“No armoured vehicle should proceed without infantry support”,’ replied Exertraxes, quoting directly from the Tactica Imperium.
‘Mars Triumphant is more than an armoured vehicle, Exertraxes, it is the wrath of the Emperor incarnate. There’s no need for you to throw your lives away.’ The vox buzzed loudly as another lance beam cut downwards into the surface town, its discharge playing havoc with the already tenuous vox signals.
‘We will proceed with you. Hannick warned me about you, Cortein. We will gladly serve the Emperor with our flesh and blood if need be. We’ll be with you in a few moments.’
Cortein grunted. ‘Very well. Epperaliant, find me that Titan.’
‘I’ve finally got a bead on it, damn thing was hiding in one of the ore towers. It’s heading away from us. We are going to have to take it before it gets to the main battle line.’
‘Lance strike?’ said Bannick.
‘I can’t get an accurate enough fix on it at this distance sir, and the lances aren’t that precise without ground-level targeting data,’ replied Epperaliant. ‘We’re going to have to get closer.’
‘Outlanner, follow Epperaliant’s lead,’ said Cortein.
‘Aye, sir!’
‘Sir?’ said Epperaliant, his eyes widening. ‘I’m getting an Imperial recognition signal. It’s… it’s Lux Imperator sir!’
‘Where? Where! Quickly, we have to get out of this square,’ Vorkosigen spoke up. ‘The orks, they take things, make them their own, defile the holy works of the Omnissiah. They will turn our own against us!’
‘They took Brasslock…’ began Cortein.
‘If they’ve prised the secret of how to make its volcano cannon work out of his tin head,’ said Radden, ‘we’ll be sitting ducks.’
Cortein leaned forwards into the internal vox horn urgently, ‘Outlanner, countermand my last. Get us out of this square by the shortest route possible and into cover.’
‘Aye, sir.’ The tank ground round slowly, heading towards a roadway next to the burning heavy walker factory.
‘It’s coming in from the west, sir.’
‘Exertraxes, stay out of the square, they’ve a looted super-heavy bearing down on us right now.’
Exertraxes voice came back sharply. ‘I know my business, Cortein, stay put. If what you say is true we’ll take it on together.’
‘Continue on your course, Outlanner.’
‘You sure, honoured lieutenant?’ the driver asked.
‘If we’re in this square when Lux Imperator arrives, we’ll be atomised. Our only hope is to get into the buildings where it will not be able to bring its volcano cannon to bear on us directly, and where we will be able to get within effective range.’
‘A deadly game of Missionary’s Search,’ said Bannick.
‘Exactly, you’re catching on quickly, lieutenant. Vorkosigen get all power rerouted to the engines.’
‘Lux Imperator is three blocks distant, sir,’ said Epperaliant.
‘Push it, Outlanner, as hard as she’ll go!’
The engine’s ever-present grumble became a growl, then a roar. The twitch stick interfaces for Bannick’s weapon systems went limp, their energy stolen away to feed the engine. There was a crack and a shower of sparks, Bannick smelled burning, another klaxon blared, adding its clamour to the host of chiming alarms. A handful of screens on the tac and comms stations flickered and went out; red lights flickered urgently on the tech console.
‘Report, Vorkosigen!’
‘Left augur bank’s burnt out again sir,’ said Vorkosigen.
‘Do we have fire?’
‘Not this time.’
‘Leave it then! Get everything you have into those engines.’
‘Exertraxes is entering the square, sir,’ said Epperaliant. On the gun augurs of his left side heavy bolters, Bannick saw the Atraxians marching into the square in good order, las-beams flashing out to topple orks hiding in buildings, Chimera turrets tracking rapid bursts of las-light in broad covering fire patterns as they drove alongside the dismounted troops. They made towards the Baneblade.
‘He’s hailing us sir.’
‘Put him on,’ said Cortein.
‘Halt, Cortein! Halt!’ yelled the captain. ‘You are disobeying a direct order. Damn you! Hannick warned me about this, I’ll have your whole crew court-martialled.’
‘Not very grateful is he?’ said Radden from the turret. ‘We saved his behind, if I recall.’
‘Sir, I repeat, get out of the square, Lux Imperator is bearing down on our position. Spread your men, and get into cover,’ urged Cortein.
‘Don’t order me, Cortein,’ came the captain’s reply.
‘Look!’ shouted Radden. From the flickering corner of his damaged lascannon display Bannick saw a tall building collapsing in a tumble of great masonry blocks, the picture maddeningly incomplete. A long barrel emerged, followed by the bulk of Lux Imperator, and it went out of his view.
‘Lux Imperator is here,’ said Epperaliant.
‘By the Throne,’ said Vorkosigen, making upon his brow the sign of the holy cog. ‘What have they done to her?’
Rubble bounced down from the building as the Shadowsword pulled into the square. An iron maw had been welded round the base of its main weapon and additional turrets sprouted along both sides like mushrooms. Bold checks and firespurts had been daubed on over a garish camouflage scheme. Crossed axes had been nailed to it in several places and the glyphs of the orkish language ran in broad stripes down its flanks.
Cortein drew in a sharp hiss of breath. ‘Epperaliant, get me magnification of the frontal armour.’
Cortein’s screen fizzed as the main turret periscope focused on the fore of the giant tank, fixed, magnified, blurred, and cleared. There was a man, a man reduced to a shattered torso, pinned to the vehicle’s hull below its squat, immovable command turret.
‘Is that Brasslock?’ asked Epperaliant.
‘Emperor save us all,’ said Radden.
Some of the orkish extras had been torn away by the vehicle’s entrance, the remains of their occupants smeared across the tank’s crude new colour scheme. The majority had not, and the multiple new guns it possessed opened up on Exertraxes’s Atraxians.
‘Idiot!’ muttered Cortein, eyes to the periscope mask. Images of dying Atraxians filled his command screens, while on the chart desk the icons signifying squads and tanks winked out. ‘They should have sent Strenkelios.’
They did not, because he was not as expendable, thought Bannick.
‘Twelve dead to that initial volley sir, one Chimera down,’ said Epperaliant.
‘Forces remaining?’ asked Cortein.
‘Thirty-one, five Chimera APCs operational.’
‘Have they seen us?’ asked Cortein.
‘Negative, we’re hidden by the debris in the square. Exertraxes has their full attention.’ Epperaliant looked up. ‘I’m getting an energy spike, Lux Imperator is charging its capacitors.’
The Baneblade’s turret had swung round as they’d travelled, keeping the main scope and pict augurs on the defiled super-heavy.
The Baneblade carried on its course, Outlanner keeping chunks of heavy walker, ork huts and piles of rubble between them and the Shadowsword. The captured super-heavy was to their right and rear, Exertraxes directly across the square from it. The Baneblade drew closer to the relative safety of the burning factory complex.
‘Sir, the Atraxians are getting cut to pieces,’ warned Epperaliant.
‘Outlanner, keep us on course, that
large structure, nearside of quadrant three, turn us round as soon as we’re out of Lux’s direct line of sight.’
‘Will do, sir.’
‘And get the fleet back on the vox! Feed them Lux Imperator’s coordinates, see if they can help. Radden, get ready to distract Lux Imperator as soon as we’re within three lengths of the factory.’
‘Sir!’ said Radden, and servo-motors whined as he kept the turret fixed on the captured tank.
Cortein bellowed down the vox, sharp and commanding, ordering the remaining Atraxians to hit cover round the square, while Epperaliant conducted frantic chatter over the uplink with the Navy. The sound of munitions and lance blasts howling in from high orbit could be heard over the din, but they were growing fainter, the Navy’s attention moving towards the second battlefront opened by the main battlegroup.
‘Capacitors charged!’ shouted Epperaliant.
Bannick, his weapons useless, turned to watch the battle on the comms and tac screens. The additional ork guns on the Shadowsword continued to fire. Lines of smoke and explosions erupted along its side as Chimera multi-lasers raked it mercilessly, but they were powerless to penetrate the super-heavy’s plasteel armour.
The volcano cannon discharged. Inside its body, four-terawatt capacitors simultaneously released energy rapid-charged by the vehicle’s engine. A linear sun burned through the Kalidarian air. There was a rush of noise, a sonic clap as superheated air burst outwards from the volcano beam. Dust and debris blew out in a brief hurricane. The sensors of the Baneblade were overloaded, screens blinking out, slit windows round the deck turning into slots of painful white, and Bannick threw his hands up to his eyes. A titanic explosion followed as rocks and metal were instantly vaporised.
A Shadowsword’s main armament was designed to punch through void shields; it had enough energy to the cut the limbs from a Titan, one of the great, planet-shaking engines of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Exertraxes’s men had no chance. A shockwave blasted out, toppling weakened structures round the square, followed by a giant ball of flame bellying from the impact site as the oxygen in the air ignited, setting everything in the square on fire. The Baneblade shuddered as the firestorm passed over it, more alarms ringing out from the damage-
control systems.
The fury of the blast died back. Fires burned everywhere. The Baneblade crunched through the destruction, debris on its hull ablaze.
‘Damage!’ barked Cortein.
‘Minimal,’ replied Vorkosigen. ‘We’ve lost half our augurs. Dynamo three is burnt out, but I should be able to keep energy levels up to normal.’
‘Main cannon functional, I think we lost the stubber.’ Radden.
‘We’ve lost both antennae sir, comms are offline, we’re onto short-range vox and signal laser only,’ said Epperaliant.
Ralt spoke. ‘Demolisher okay.’
‘Drive operating within optimal parameters,’ reported Outlanner.
Bannick spoke in his turn. ‘I’ve lost a lascannon, right sponson bank, the rest of the tertiary weapons are functioning. Ammunition at sixty-four per cent.’
Meggen’s voice buzzed over the internal vox. ‘No damage to the magazine, honoured lieutenant.’
‘Good. Did we get the fleet before we lost comms?’ asked Cortein.
‘I informed them of the super-heavy threat, sir, but they’re concentrating on the other front, and I can no longer send accurate telemetry to them, even if we had it,’ replied Epperaliant.
‘We’re on our own then. How long until the next blast?’
‘At least two minutes, sir, if their capacitors are operating at full capacity,’ said Vorkosigen. ‘Possibly more, we’ve no way of knowing what the orks have done to Lux Imperator’s main systems.
‘Very well. Gunner Ralt, time to let them know we are here.’
‘Yes, sir!’ motors purred. The main turret view adjusted itself as Radden drew a bead on the opposing tank. It was still facing away towards where Exertraxes’s men had been, oblivious to the Baneblade. Magnesium autocannon rounds drew lines in the air, ranging the shot for Radden.
‘You… you used Exertraxes as bait?’ said Bannick.
Cortein nodded. ‘He came into the square against all sense. When he did that, it was either us first, then him, or we could use them to buy us time.’ Cortein looked hard at him. ‘I cannot save everyone, Bannick, no one can.’
The main cannon barked once, the characteristic boom and roar of the rocket-assisted shells shuddering through the tank. The shell hit the ground by the Shadowsword’s right track, blasting a plume of rubble into the sky.
‘Damn it!’ shouted Radden over the vox. ‘I can’t get at it, it’s hull-down in the mess back there.’
Bannick squinted through his own rangefinders. The Shadowsword was lower to the ground than a Baneblade, its turret and command deck combined and set directly into the main hull. He could barely see its flat top over the debris choking the plaza.
‘As long as they know we’re here,’ said Cortein, and Bannick realised he was attempting to goad the orks to follow them into the maze of streets and wreckage around the square, where its volcano armament would be of far less use than the Baneblade’s battle and demolisher cannons.
‘Take us in and through the factory, Outlanner.’
‘Aye, sir.’
The Baneblade burst through a sloping, storm-proof wall whose few apertures gouted flame, and into the inferno.
Rockcrete boulders and girders clanged down on the tank. Everything inside the building was on fire, the walls, ceiling and machinery. Opposite their entry point, the far wall of the factory had collapsed. The top half of a heavy walker had fallen through it, its steel glowing in the heat. The temperature rose higher in the machine, and Bannick feared they would cook, but Outlanner slammed the right track off, executing a sharp ninety-degree right turn. Mars Triumphant burst through another wall, went up and over a pile of rubble choking the street beyond.
On the main turret screen, Bannick caught sight of the Shadowsword as it ground round on its wide treads. Radden loosed an opportunistic shot off at it. The shell went wide, bringing a wall down on the far side of the square.
‘That’s right Radden, keep them interested,’ said Cortein. ‘Any sign of the Titan?’
‘Negative,’ said Epperaliant. ‘Not much activity round here now, most of the orks have been drawn off by the main assault.’
‘We’ve done part of our job, at least,’ muttered Cortein. ‘Outlanner, take us on and round, broad sweep, drawing outwards, I want that tank in the mess with us, then get me behind it.’
‘Sir.’
The demolisher boomed and punched a hole in a sloping wall, the Baneblade battering its way through the gap and into the building on the other side of the street from the burning factory. Within, it was dark and quiet, scattered debris between ranks of autoservicers the only sign a war raged outside.
‘Redirect energy to tertiary weapons again, engineer,’ ordered Cortein.
Bannick’s twitch sticks came back to life.
‘Keep going, Outlanner.’ Cortein peered at the scope screens. ‘No sign of it. Have you got the location, Epperaliant?’
‘No, sir, wait! There!’
A wall caved in as the Shadowsword burst through into the building sixty metres behind the Baneblade. Ork cannon fire hammered into their rear, exploding one of Mars Triumphant’s auxiliary fuel drums, a burning slick of promethium spread behind them.
‘Damn them!’ shouted Cortein.
The view shifted as the turret tracked round to point directly backwards, cannon barrel automatically staying level as the tank went up and over a machine, turning it to scrap. Radden shot off a shell. It impacted square on the hull of the modified Shadowsword as it swivelled round to bring its volcano cannon to bear. Pieces of armour and orkish equipment smashed into the building’s machinery. Fire wa
s beginning to take hold in this building too.
‘Get us out of here!’ shouted Cortein.
‘I’m out of ammo!’ shouted Radden.
The shell lift rumbled up the central well by way of reply.
Bannick swung his remaining lascannon round to point rearwards. He had the chance to loose of one bolt of energy before Outlanner turned the tank to the right, obscuring his line of fire with the bulk of Mars Triumphant’s hull. He swung out the heavy bolters on the right flank, raking the Shadowsword with explosive bolts, concentrating on the weaker ork turrets ranged on top of the track units.
The Baneblade slammed through another wall, taking this one at a bad angle, jarring the tank and the crew. When Bannick recovered, they were outside on a broad expressway, on the upper of two levels, one curling round as it went to join the up road coming out of the hive’s central shaft.
‘Which way, honoured lieutenant?’ asked Outlanner. The road into the hive formed a four-lane chasm in front of them, running under the square, the higher road they were on once having taken traffic off it and into the factory complexes, although it was filled now with vehicle wrecks. ‘Down or back into the square?’
The square was nearer, but wide open, the expressway off-ramp worse – for a couple of hundred metres they’d be exposed.
‘Get us back into the square, Outlanner. We’re wide open up here. Stick to the rubble.’ Cortein pulled up a desk holo of the far side of the square and highlighted a tightly packed group of buildings. ‘Radden, we have got to paralyse that tank! If it can’t move, it’s helpless.’
‘Sir!’
Outlanner swung the tank round, the nose of it squealing against the off-ramp guard wall, pushing rubble and wrecked ground vehicles into the drop below as it turned right again and headed back towards the square. The tank crushed car after car, grinding their frames and their dead occupants flat. A large truck blocked their way. Ralt blasted it with the demolisher, and Mars Triumphant shunted its burning carcass sideways into the concrete canyon beside them.