Katarzyna tried to sound more callous than she felt. This was her third tour and she had seen more than enough novice crews downed on their first mission. She hoped that today there would not be another one. Besides, she rather liked the look of their upper turret gunner.
‘Makes sense to me, captain,’ acknowledged Zajac. He looked across to Emperor’s Grace. He could see the face of the pilot and bombardier through the cockpit window. He lifted his hand in greeting. The bombardier responded in kind. The pilot just looked at him, unmoved.
‘Rookies,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Emperor protect us.’
Mikal kept the crew busy with in-flight checks and mission protocols. Tension built as they descended through the outer atmosphere of Balle Prime. Above them the darkness of space receded as dawn rose on the far side of the planet, the system’s white sun casting strobes of light through the canopy and turret windows. Mikal dropped the visor on his helmet and peered down towards the deep blue of the ocean as they descended towards the planet surface. Clouds shrouded the main land mass but the large ocean regions were clear and featureless. Aleks updated them on their position at regular intervals, his voice sounding tighter with each announcement.
‘Fifteen minutes to target.’
Mikal scanned ahead as the rest of the squadron spread out to form a geometric cloud that would bring its own lethal rainfall to Balle Prime. In the far distance he could just about make out pinpricks of light that would be the engine trails of Thunderbolts from the 38th Fighter Wing leading the assault.
‘Dudak, Krol, Fyodor, any sign of the Navy fighters?’
Fyodor replied immediately from the tail turret. ‘Yes, captain, they are coming up behind.’
Krol confirmed the same from the upper turret. ‘Captain, I can see them now. They are climbing above our formation and look like they are holding position there.’
Mikal felt slightly more reassured, though he knew that feeling wouldn’t last long.
As the three squadrons descended, their formations tightened further. Vox traffic had dried up as each crew focused on the task ahead. They were coming in fast and low over the turquoise-blue ocean to the south-east of Balle-Delta. Mikal looked down at the tranquil beauty of the only part of the planet free of orks. Then he spotted patches of oil where Imperial vessels had been destroyed and it reminded him that ork flyers would be scrambling to meet this new threat coming in from the sea.
Ryll must have seen the same and his squadron leader’s voice cut in over the vox.
‘Expect ork fighters to be heading our way. They’ll know we are coming. Check guns.’
Mikal relayed the order.
‘Gunners, check guns.’
‘Emperor’s Grace shook as Krol and Fyodor pivoted their turrets and squeezed a short burst of bolter fire out over the ocean. The shuddering noise seemed to break the artificial peace of their approach. Dudak sent a pulse of energy down towards the waves from the nose-mounted lascannons and the smell of the energy discharge seeped back through the cockpit.
‘Ten minutes to target, captain,’ said Aleks.
‘Bernd, activate bombsight,’ said Mikal.
Bernd swung the viewscreen in front of him and adjusted the face rest, which covered his eyes like a rubber mask. Through this the Marauder’s forward sensors and pict-feeds would provide him with a digitally constructed image of the target, allowing him to guide his bombs’ trajectories onto the starport’s landing strip and hangars. Whatever smoke, obstructions or enemy countermeasures might impair the warzone, Bernd would ensure that their bombs found the target.
Mikal peered ahead and saw what looked like a severe weather system developing over the land mass of Balle-Delta. He frowned.
‘Navigator, I don’t remember a weather system being forecast over Balle-Delta?’
Aleks checked the briefing notes from his data-slate.
‘No, captain, nothing forecast.’
Bernd raised his head from the bomb site. Mikal heard Aleks leave his station and climb up to the cockpit to get a visual.
‘That’s odd,’ murmured the navigator, frowning.
Then Bernd spoke in alarm, ‘That’s not a weather system, it’s an oil cloud. Engine oil.’
As if on cue, a series of orange blooms appeared in front of the formation as a dozen Thunderbolts from the 38th exploded in mid-air. Out of the dark cloud ahead of them emerged a swarm of black-and-red dots with twinkling lights along their wings. The lights spat lethal cannon and stubber fire, which raked the first wave of the Imperial formation. The Thunderbolts responded immediately and a score of the approaching black dots disintegrated in fiery comets before the formations passed through each other.
Ryll came over the vox.
‘Ork fighters heading our way. Maintain formation and make your shots count.’
‘How come the auspex didn’t pick them up?’ asked Aleks, staring ahead at the carnage.
‘Never mind that,’ said Mikal, as he briefly remembered the frightened face of the hangar rating. ‘Get back to your station.’
Aleks needed no further encouragement and ducked below. Bernd, his bombsight forgotten, was scanning the scene in front of him.
‘Holy Emperor, there are thousands of them,’ he blurted out, all calm assurance gone.
‘Bombardier, bombsight, now!’ ordered Mikal.
Bernd buried his head back into the bombsight mask. Mikal stared ahead as the epic scale of Waaagh! Ugskraga rolled towards the 1167th. Some ork fighters had peeled off to pursue the Thunderbolts, but the rest seemed hell-bent on ploughing into the bigger bombers that followed. Imperial Lightnings swooped overhead as their fighter escort accelerated forward to meet the oncoming threat.
‘Dudak. Mind those Lightnings. Choose your target and wait for my command,’ said Mikal.
‘No shortage of targets,’ said Dudak aloud and his turret hydraulics whined as he adjusted aim on the fast-approaching ork fighters.
‘Five minutes to target,’ said Aleks, sounding more composed now that he was cocooned below with his familiar screens and charts.
The gap between the two opposing formations closed rapidly. They flew at each other like ranks of cavalry from the sagas of ancient Terra. Suddenly, lights flickered across the mass of ork aircraft and a score of the lead Marauders exploded. Immediately lascannons opened up from across the 1167th’s first wave, then the second wave and finally…
‘Fire!’ commanded Mikal. The flash and burn of Dudak’s lascannons announced the arrival of Emperor’s Grace to war.
A speck atomised in the distance, followed by another and another as Dudak fired and traversed his turret like a forge worker stitching a line of rivets into a plasteel wall. Then the Emperor’s Grace came within range of the ork guns and Mikal heard the whistle of hundreds of projectiles zipping past the Marauder like supercharged hornets.
He felt a shudder and flinched as a bang reverberated through the airframe. A red warning light immediately lit up on the starboard outer engine. Mikal glanced over Bernd’s hunched shoulders and saw orange flames streaking from the exhaust cowling above the wing.
‘Bernd. Starboard outer’s gone. Douse it.’
Bernd lifted his head from the bombsight wide-eyed. He looked to his right and swore. ‘Throne of the Emperor.’
He reached forward and hit a control switch and a white cloud instantly streamed back from the engine cowling, dowsing the flames and freezing the overheated turbine in seconds.
Mikal turned just in time to see what seemed like a huge black cloud expanding in front of the cockpit. He realised too late that it was another of Dudak’s kills exploding in a mass of burning promethium and smoke. Mikal instinctively closed his eyes as Emperor’s Grace flew straight through the firestorm and he heard sickening thumps as debris collided with their leading edges.
Emperor’s Grace shuddered again as Kr
ol’s heavy bolters opened up, followed immediately by Fyodor’s. The lead ork fighters had screamed past them and come within the fire arcs of the Grace’s eager upper and tail turrets.
Mikal tried to track some of the ork flyers. He had never seen aircraft like these before. Bizarrely proportioned airframes were distorted by oversized engines spouting filthy flames and oily exhaust clouds. Crude black, yellow and red markings adorned rivet-strewn wings and fuselages. Most striking of all though were the ranks of guns chattering incessantly from cowlings to blunt wing tip. For the first time since joining the Imperial Navy, Mikal began to feel that the Marauder’s defensive armament may be, in fact, inadequate.
He was snapped out of this revelation by a sharp series of bangs that fractured the armourglass canopy in front of him. Through the cracks he saw an ork fighter hammering towards them, guns blazing. At the last moment the fighter moved out of their flight path and Mikal had a brief impression of a leering green face in goggles. It had a long white scarf trailing out of an open cockpit, like some sort of bygone fighter ace. The alien’s mouth, an enormous maw surrounded by tusk-like teeth, was wide in a roar of either anger or laughter as it flashed past them. Recoiling from this bizarre image, he stared ahead into what could only be described as a nightmarish vision of hell.
Marauders were plummeting downwards, pouring flames in their death spirals. The sky was full of dismembered wings and engines, separated from doomed airframes and cartwheeling through the air like macabre confetti. Dense clouds of black smoke marked the final catastrophic location of obliterated aircraft of unknown origin. Tracer and lascannon fire stitched the sky in all directions and he felt the Grace shudder as some of these found their mark whether by intent or by accident.
Mikal looked up to his left and was relieved to see Divine Retribution still there, its turrets spinning and firing like deranged eyeballs. The sight of another Marauder bomber flying straight and true helped him regain his focus and suppress the growing sense of panic that was bubbling up from his stomach. His composure was further strengthened by the urgent but continuous communication between the Grace’s gunners.
‘One coming port side, Krol.’
‘Dudak, tracking him… He’s yours, Fyodor.’
‘Got him.’
‘Fyodor. Watch out, there’s another, seven o’clock.’
Mikal could hear both Krol and Fyodor’s bolters hammering away as the Grace juddered with fresh impacts on his port side. Then there was a dull thump from somewhere behind them and Krol yelled in satisfaction. ‘Yes!’
‘Some help there from Divine Retribution’s tail gunner, captain,’ said Krol.
Mikal looked across at their sister vessel, glad that they were not alone.
Then from the corner of his eye he saw the port inner engine streaming oil and fluids from a jagged line of holes in its side. He checked his instruments and saw a blinking red warning light indicating a major fuel leak in that engine. Mikal turned to Bernd, whose head was buried in the targeting console, his hands on the joystick and release button. Before he could say anything, Aleks called out from below.
‘Two minutes to target.’
‘Bomb bay doors open,’ responded Bernd.
Emperor’s Grace lurched slightly as the opening doors created drag from below. Mikal gripped the control column more firmly and kept the Marauder flying true and level.
He glanced quickly to his left and saw that the port inner engine was now emitting wisps of smoke and knew he had no choice but to shut it down. He reached in front of the preoccupied Bernd to hit the engine shutdown switch.
‘Bernd, I’m shutting down the port inner engine, keep focused on the target.’
The Grace yawed slightly at the loss of thrust and Mikal adjusted the rudder pedals with his feet. As the bomber responded, Bernd called out.
‘Target identified, starting bomb run.’
Mikal peered ahead but all he could see was billowing black smoke rising that obscured the starport, the result of whatever damage the first waves of Thunderbolts and Marauders had done to the target. As they approached the dense black cloud, Dudak’s front turret was deprived of targets. Krol and Fyodor were still firing almost continuously from the upper and tail turrets. Bernd, hunched over the bombsights as if in prayer, started intoning over the vox.
‘Steady… Steady… Keep her there, captain…’
Mikal looked ahead and saw that Divine Retribution, with all its engines still operational, had pulled ahead. The Retribution’s bomb bay doors were open and its tail turret was twisting and spitting bolter fire at targets behind both aircraft.
‘Steady… Steady…’ continued Bernd, his back hunched and hands claw-like on the trigger mechanism.
Mikal saw tracer arcing up from the starport below them like a fountain of orange and red shooting stars. He knew he couldn’t dodge them even if he had wanted to, committed as they were to their bomb run.
‘Steady… Holy Terra!’ yelled Bernd as flak ripped up through the port wing.
Mikal fought with the controls and saw Divine Retribution drop its bombs.
‘I’ve got her, Bernd, just get those bombs away,’ he said, straining with the effort.
Bernd seemed to pause for a split second, frozen over the bombsight and then said, ‘Bombs away.’
Despite Mikal’s efforts, the Emperor’s Grace bucked upwards, not from any more hits, but from the release of three tonnes of high explosive ordnance that whistled down towards the primary target. The Marauder surged and so did Mikal’s spirits. First job done. Now for the secondary target: the ork tower. He peered ahead through the rising clouds of ash and smoke.
‘Bernd, switch to missiles and scan for that tower.’
Aleks called up excitedly from below. ‘By my reckoning it should be directly ahead.’
Bernd toggled the joystick as he scanned the targeting auspex seeking the new target.
Mikal watched Divine Retribution disappear through the rising column of black smoke ahead of them, and knew he would have to follow them through it blind.
‘Got a lock on that tower, Bernd?’ asked Mikal urgently.
‘Not sure, captain. I think the auspex is a bit shaken up,’ replied Bernd tersely.
Mikal cursed. ‘Keep looking. Dudak, can you see anything?’
Dudak’s nose turret had begun tracking an ork fighter that had raced across in front of them.
‘Captain?’
Before Mikal could reply, Emperor’s Grace was enveloped by the column of smoke. Soon after, all his guns fell eerily silent as Dudak, Krol and Fyodor were momentarily deprived of targets. Amplified by the relative silence, Mikal’s next question seemed unnecessarily loud.
‘Dudak, have you seen that ork tower yet?’
‘No, captain, not yet… Holy God-Emperor!’ yelled Dudak.
Emperor’s Grace emerged from the smoke and there immediately in front of them was the heavily damaged, but still standing, ork tower. Its monstrous and crude construction loomed over them like a huge tombstone about to mark their imminent demise.
In the moments that followed, time seemed to slow for the crew of Emperor’s Grace and several things happened at once.
Bernd convulsively pulled the targeting trigger and two Hellstrike missiles shot forth from the starboard wing mounts.
Mikal instinctively yanked the control column to port and kicked the rudder pedals hard to accelerate the turn.
The port wing dipped, the starboard wing swung to the vertical and yells of panic came from the remaining members of the crew. With spine-compressing G-forces, Emperor’s Grace banked away from the ork tower.
As she did so, an ork fighter with a white scarf billowing from its cockpit hammered past them and into the tower.
The combined force of two Hellstrike missiles and a promethium-laden ork airframe created a huge fireball around the to
wer. Emperor’s Grace was caught by the shock wave and catapulted away like a slingshot from the 1167th’s secondary target. As he hauled back desperately on the control column, Mikal heard Fyodor yell from the tail turret.
‘Captain, the tower! It’s falling.’
Mikal couldn’t spare a glance backwards as he fought to pull Emperor’s Grace out of her dive. Mikal righted the bomber slowly, his hands shaking with adrenaline. Then his brain processed the fact that they were still flying and not tumbling to their deaths in burning ruin. The Grace had responded sluggishly, as if, like him, she needed to catch her breath after their close escape from death.
Bernd looked up from the bombsight for the first time since he had started the bomb run. His eyes squinted as he adjusted to the kaleidoscope of colours that assailed his senses. Planes were still buzzing across the sky from all directions, bombers were burning, flak was bursting around them, and tracer fire criss-crossed the air like a multicoloured light show.
Mikal saw the look of shock and confusion on Bernd’s face. The normally composed bombardier struggled to digest the nightmarish world into which he had emerged. For the last two minutes he had been shielded from it by the comparative calm of the targeting screen. Was it only two minutes? It had seemed like two hours.
‘Bernd, check the port wing. I think we took a hit,’ said Mikal urgently but firmly. He needed to snap Bernd back fast. He needed his help to get Emperor’s Grace and her crew away from Balle-Delta fast.
‘What? Right, captain,’ said Bernd. He looked over Mikal’s left shoulder. His face went pale with shock. ‘Captain. The outer wing’s a mess.’
Mikal couldn’t help himself and twisted in his seat. Bernd was right. There was a jagged rip just beyond the port outer engine and nothing beyond that. That explained why only two starboard missiles had fired at the tower; the two port missiles had been lost with the rest of the wing. Mikal didn’t want to think about what would have happened if one of those missiles had exploded while still attached to the bomber. He tore his eyes away from the mangled airframe and spoke urgently but clearly to the crew.
On Wings of Blood Page 29