On Wings of Blood

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘You mean engine heat trails like those?’ he stated, pointing to a set of needle-thin arcs which shimmered near the edge of the field.

  ‘CONTACT! MARK-TWO-FOUR-ZERO BY ONE-THREE-SEVEN!’ Kron roared, Isiah shouting it back, word for word, over the crackling comm.

  The lens now showed broad, vaporous trails of red which curved back around the furthest asteroids. There looked to be four to Nathan, although they were already merging and dissipating.

  ‘They’re closing in, lad, I can smell it.’

  Kron tracked the lens along the trails and cursed as they disappeared behind a glowing streamer of dust. Moments later an incandescent spearhead of heat blossomed out of the cloud, dust and lightning rolled off it in plumes as the lens starkly announced it as Enemy vessel [class: Unknown]. 51,000l. Closing.

  A burst of activity on the deck below drew Nathan’s attention. Through the grilled floor he could see Balthasar’s breech had been swung open and the gunners were hauling flat plates covered in short spikes into the open maw. Even through his thick suit he could hear the gunners’ cheers as they slammed the sub-munitions home. On the lens light and shadow now etched out the enemy, showed the silhouette of crenallated battlements and barbed buttresses as the spearhead rolled abeam on the white-hot stabs of myriad thrusters. Grand cruiser, the display read, Repulsive-class.

  A ripple of serried flames geysered from the Repulsive’s flank as she completed the turn, and a storm of black specks arrowed towards them. Nathan gasped in horror as a heartbeat later the specks started to explode in gouts of flame. At first they looked distant, small puffs of colour against the void, but the projectiles kept coming, surging forward through the fiery chains to detonate in turn. In moments their view of the enemy was obscured by a firestorm which was rippling ever closer. The flames filled every window in the Opticon by the time Nathan slammed his visor fully shut.

  The Repulsive’s salvo crashed down on the ship itself with hurricane force. Nathan staggered as the deck rolled beneath him and a mighty, rushing wind roared beyond the hull. A lash of dazzling purple light blazed through the glass, cutting the incendiary cloud like elemental lightning. It was gone in an instant before it returned in a retina-burning sweep which slammed into the ship with a bone-jarring impact. Nathan’s spine crawled with the sensation of unseen energies straining and crackling before a rush of scorching heat washed over him.

  At last he was glad of the suit’s cumbersome protection, though even with it he felt as though he had been suddenly cast into a great oven. The heat was a palpable thing, pushing down on him like a great hand and burning his throat as he tried to breathe. Nathan saw several of the Opticon crew collapse into pathetic heaps, one with flames licking about him. After what seemed like hours but could only have been seconds of heart-stopping fear the burning suddenly stopped, leaving a horrible tang of smouldering rubber inside his helmet. Sirens blasted and an almighty voice boomed over the chaos: ‘PORT WEAPONS PREPARE TO LOCK ON. TARGET MARK-TWO-SIX-NINE BY ONE-SIX-ZERO.’

  Iron discipline drove the shipmen to their tasks, that and the grim instinct that to live they must fight and win. The ship had been wounded but it could still fight back. Fires were doused, the dead and injured dragged away. The firestorm was lessening and a moment later the decks ceased to rattle as the ship finally burst clear of the enemies’ salvo pattern. Kron’s breath rasped in Nathan’s earpiece as they slid the lens back over the grand cruiser contact. The Retribution was coming across the enemy’s bow, and the metriculator’s count showed the enemy as closing.

  ‘LOCK ON.’

  Kron activated the second rune on the lens frame. A stylised cog superimposed by the Imperial eagle sprang into existence within the lens but the runners seemed to be jammed and Nathan had to help him drag the device over the target contact. The lens showed the ornate spearhead foreshortening into a shark-finned ziggurat of bronze as they pulled across the front of her. Where the icon rested the hull of the grand cruiser was illuminated as if by a ghostly radiance which played over shimmering walls of force.

  ‘FIRE MAIN BATTERIES!’

  The lights dimmed for a moment as capacitors charged and then the ship resounded with the clamour of the guns. Nathan felt the pressure of unseen forces hit him like a slap as forty guns hurled their payloads across the void. A moment later he saw the spreading cloud of projectiles cleaving towards the enemy. No spreading storms of fire this time, the munitions detonated right beneath the enemy’s prow. Invisible walls fell beneath the onslaught and a rain of destruction crashed across the battlements of the ziggurat-fortress. Debris haloes puffed from it like smoke rings.

  ‘FIRE MAIN LANCE ARRAYS.’

  Ravening white spears of pure power stabbed at the foe, tearing red-glowing gouges across its hull; globs of molten metal spun away and flames leapt from the wounds. The grand cruiser lurched visibly under the impacts, and began to twist away from the salvo. Even as it did so, two heat trails appeared from behind the grand cruiser, coming up fast to slash at its rear with a spiralling net of laser bolts. Nathan felt a flush of relief. The other two ships must be allies, and now their mutual enemy was caught between two fires. Below, the gunners were rushing to reload Balthasar for another shot, while a small team struggled to pin a whipping power line which sparked furiously. He looked back at the lens in time to see a swarm of bright flares pulling away from the enemy cruiser’s prow. Ominously the tiny heat trails curved to alter course towards them and it soon became apparent that although these new weapons were not as fast as the projectiles fired before, they were considerably bigger. Sirens blared.

  ‘ALL STATIONS PREPARE TO REPEL BOARDERS.’

  The relief Nathan had felt rapidly evaporated. The enemy must have launched boarding torpedoes: simple attack craft packed with the troops, bombs, incendiaries, corrosives, nerve agents and other hellish weapons necessary to wreak havoc if they got aboard. It was bad enough to be caught up in the titanic duel between warships but now the enemy was coming to strike at them face-to-face, all the time with the prospect of being crushed like an insect by the pulverising contest going on outside. Isiah rapidly passed out weapons from an arms-locker: blades, shock mauls, stubby autopistols and chunky shotguns. Nathan found himself equipped with a worn-looking pump gun and a clip of shells. He risked a glance at the windows as he was fumbling to slot the shot-filled cylinders into the breech of the gun. They now showed finger-long missiles with beaked prows powering, as it seemed, straight for him on harsh coronas of light. The sirens blared a repeating four-tone alarm.

  ‘PORT TURRET STATIONS: OPEN FIRE!’

  Nathan cursed as he dropped a shell onto the grating; his fingers felt like sausages in the thick suit gloves. Outside lasers sketched livid traceries across the void as the short-range turrets laid down their barrage; shells and missiles exploded in gouts of orange incandescence as the Retribution’s barbettes joined in. The first rank of the beaked projectiles were consumed or broken open and tiny, struggling figures spilled into the void as they spiralled away. But still more torpedoes surged through the barrage and angled in, cutting their flaring drives on a final approach.

  Nathan slammed the last shell into place and carefully pumped the action to chamber a round. At the last instant before impact the torpedoes appeared to swell enormously, becoming as big as shuttles before they disappeared from view. A ringing impact threw Nathan to the quivering deck and an endless cacophony of screaming, tearing metal followed. It was so loud it made him quail at the bone-crushing violence of it, of the sheer force that was ripping through the metres of armour plate to breach the hull.

  Finally the tearing slowed and stopped until only the screams of injured gunners and the hiss of escaping air penetrated Nathan’s helmet. The Opticon deck had twisted and now part of it sagged away towards the lower deck. Nathan crawled to the edge and saw there was terrible carnage below. A great crocodile-snout of steel and brass projected through the hu
ll plates near Balthasar’s breech. Deck plates were twisted back; stanchions and pipes had been bent into an insane ironwork jungle with flowers of steam and spraying fluids. The surviving gunners were taking up defensive positions, aiming their assortment of shotguns and pistols at the invader.

  As they did so, cannons coughed into life around the crocodile’s snout. Gun flashes strobed as the autoweapons hammered explosive rounds across the interior of the gunroom. Men were blasted asunder where the rounds struck and hot shrapnel whickered around the metal walls injuring others. The snout was grinding open now and a horde of nightmarish figures spilled out of it to add their fire to the fight. At first they appeared like men in the flickering light, but their insane glee marked them apart. They capered as the gunners’ pitifully few weapons tore into them, filling that crocodile maw with twitching bodies. They roared with mad laughter as they blazed back with their own guns and threw devilish bombs which burst into pools of hungry, incandescent flame wherever they landed.

  Nathan sighted on a twisted figure as it pulled back its arm to throw. The pump gun crashed and the figure fell into a burning pool of its own making. The flames spread, engulfed the crocodile snout and the next two who tried to rush through it were eaten alive by the incendiary. Even so a group of the attackers were out in the gunroom now, dashing through the wreckage to hurl themselves on the gunners. Vicious hand-to-hand combats broke out all across the deck, the foes’ hooks and crooked blades clashing against the gunner’s pry bars and line gaffes.

  The pump gun was useless now the melee had reduced all ordered fighting to a shambles.

  ‘We’ve got to help them!’ Nathan shouted to Kron.

  Kron’s helm nodded ponderously back and they both slid themselves down the twisted Opticon deck to drop onto the gun deck. Isiah and two other survivors of the Opticon crew followed and they waded into the brawl in a loose knot. Nathan used his gun as a club, smashing the skull of a black-clad figure who was about to gut a fallen gunner. He winced as the gun crunched into its misshapen head, fearing the ageing weapon would fall apart in his hands.

  He pumped the action to chamber a round to reassure himself it still could, just as two figures leapt at him out of the smoke. Their mad eyes glared from behind leather hoods, looking so like Fetchin’s that Nathan almost hesitated before he blasted one in the midriff with the shotgun. He pumped the slide to chamber another round but it jammed halfway. Cursing, he swung the gun up to block a saw-bladed knife as the other foe slashed at him, but he was borne back as his attacker leapt bodily onto him, pinning the useless gun between their bodies. Panic stole Nathan’s strength as he struggled against its maniacal attack. Drool spilled across his face as the creature tore away his helmet with its free hand and pushed him to the deck.

  Nathan dropped his gun and scrabbled to keep a grip on the knife-hand as his foe leaned his weight against it, pushing it inexorably towards his exposed neck. For a long second Nathan saw every detail of the thing astride him with horrible clarity. Flames billowed behind a head made jagged by the short horns thrusting out through its leather mask. Cartilage-textured tubes twisted in and out of its flesh like parasitic worms. It was either naked or covered in human hides marked with brands and stigmata. It stank like a week-old corpse and it muttered mad, excited prayers as it bent to the task of murdering him. If what he had been told was true this thing must have been human once. Every shred of its humanity was gone now, eaten up by insane gods that had reduced it to living offal that worshipped its own butcher.

  Sickness lent Nathan an awful strength, a burning desire to wipe out these horrors that had been unleashed on them. With a supreme effort born of revulsion Nathan shoved the creature back. Suddenly it convulsed, then slumped and its dead weight bore him back down again.

  Nathan rolled free to see Kron pulling an axe from the abomination’s neck. Isiah and the others had disappeared into smoke. Only corpses surrounded Nathan and Kron. Nathan’s helmet visor had been smashed, rendering it useless. Without it he realised how thin the air was becoming. The flames all around were turning ghostly as they hungrily ate at what remained. Even the screams and sounds of combat were becoming subtly muffled.

  ‘We have to stop more of them getting aboard!’ Kron shouted to him through his own damnably intact helmet.

  Nathan nodded his understanding. He grabbed up some firebombs from the corpse and found a short halberd from among the fallen before heading for the heart of the inferno. He felt filled with a kind of righteous fury at the turn of events, like things couldn’t get any worse and it was time for some payback. Somebody had to pay for him landing up in a situation as dire as this, and with Kendrikson already dead it was going to have to be their insane, murderous enemy.

  The snout stood open as before. The flames were dying away in its maw and Nathan could see more twisted figures gathering to rush through. He fumbled to find an activation stud on the rune-etched bomb before giving up and simply lobbing it as the figures started to run forward. Then another, and a third from Kron, turning the entryway into a sea of corrosive fire as the bombs burst on impact. Nathan turned to shout to Kron an instant before an armoured giant burst through the conflagration with a brazen roar.

  Before Nathan could react, the heavy pistol in its fist barked twice and Kron was thrown back with a flash and shower of blood. Nathan felt an icy bolt of fear trying to force his feet to run but it was already too late. The figure charged forward with nightmarish speed, an ironclad monster of myth, skull-helmed and laden with death, a screeching chainsword in its other fist slashing down at him in an unstoppable arc.

  Nathan hurled himself aside and brought up the halberd to block the slash. It was a mistake. The power of the blow threw him back, jolting his arms as the shrieking teeth of the sword tore chunks from the halberd’s steel haft in a shower of sparks. The giant wielded its huge blade with ease, and in the blink of an eye its shrieking weapon circled and swept down at him again. Nathan leapt back but the sweep of the chainsword tore the head from the halberd and slid along the arm of his suit, chewing through it and tearing at his flesh. A cold flush of painlessness told Nathan that the injury was severe; his body was already trying to shut out the agony.

  In desperation Nathan thrust the jagged end of the halberd haft into the thing’s barrel chest. It rang off an armoured plate and buried itself deep in a nest of cables beneath where its ribs should have been. The giant warrior didn’t even flinch as it sent him sprawling with a blow from its heavy pistol.

  Death was close. One of his eyes was blind and Nathan felt an abnormal calm as he accepted that these were his last seconds of life. The world seemed to slow to an insect crawl as the armoured warrior stepped towards him, raising its keening sword for a killing blow. Nathan felt only a pang of disappointment that he would never know more of Kron’s strange wisdom; so much must have died with him. The pounding of Nathan’s last heartbeats sounded like a distantly thumping drum.

  Thump. One armoured boot crunched down. Flecks of blood spun away from the motion-captured teeth of the chainsword as it soared upward. Nathan looked down at his right arm and saw it was crimson from shoulder to wrist. Everything wavered as he started to black out.

  Thump. The other boot crashed down. The blade was raised almost to the top of its arc. Nathan was aware of movement where Kron had fallen, and a tiny spark of hope flared that he might still be alive, might save Nathan somehow if only he were quick and could defeat this unstoppable colossus. Logic sneered at his paltry hopes from the dark recesses of his brain.

  Thump. The blade began to sweep down, gathering momentum. Nathan’s world was shrinking, the vision from his remaining eye darkening until he could barely see. Paltry hopes and all conscious thought were corroded away by the sea of agony raging through his arm.

  Thump. Nathan saw the blade had entered his dimmed world and part of him welcomed it, teeth flashing bright as a shark’s hungry smile in the gloom. The pain woul
d be over soon, that could only be good. A spectral hand seemed to be reaching over him to touch the blade, as if the God-Emperor Himself were placing a benediction on his slaughter. The hand was crawling with blue fires and sparks cascaded from its fingertips.

  Thump. A flash of light leapt from hand to blade, and with it the chainsword exploded and was hurled away from the giant’s fist. The hulking warrior staggered and started to raise its pistol. Kron stepped forward into Nathan’s circle of vision and raised a hand.

  Thump. A ravening bolt of brilliance crackled from Kron’s hand onto the warrior’s chest-plate and rent it asunder in a thunderclap. The mighty figure was thrown off its feet, its pistol sending explosive rounds flashing off wildly from its owner’s convulsing death-spasm.

  Thump. The chainsword, molten and twisted rang down on the deck plates. Nathan clasped his left arm to his right shoulder and instantly felt warmth flood through his blood-slick wounds. The armoured warrior crashed to the deck beside its smoking sword. Nathan tried to breathe more deeply to clear his head but found he couldn’t. The orange flames all around were shrinking into bluish flickers. The air was nearly gone.

  Kron squatted down beside him as the ship shook, as if from some internal explosion. Nathan could see the chest of Kron’s suit was shredded and bloody, a death-shot surely. Wreckage dislodged by the shock wave crashed down nearby with horrible clangour. Kron didn’t even flinch as he calmly removed his helmet. As the helmet came away, Kron’s eye blazed as never before. It was glowing with the fierce light of a furnace. Nathan tried to blot out the horrible intensity of that glare in his dimmed world but couldn’t. It bored into him, so that it seemed like Kron the man was shrunk to nothing more than a wraith, that the crimson brilliance trailed behind it like smoke.

  Kron’s lips moved, but Nathan had to strain to hear their faint whisper through the rarefied air.