Transfixed by the blade, Ghalan was powerless as Nullus stepped before him.
‘You sought a clean death,’ Nullus sneered. ‘You sought to avoid justice.’
The slightest of grins appeared at Ghalan’s blood-flecked lips, but it vanished as Nullus continued. ‘Your soul is mine, fool.’
As the remaining palace guards looked on in stunned horror, Ghalan’s face became pale. Within moments, his skin began to shrivel and his muscles to collapse in upon themselves. As the vile process continued, Ghalan’s entire body convulsed and twisted around the point of the halberd. A distant, mournful cry echoed, seeming to emanate from the very blade of Nullus’s weapon. At the last, Ghalan’s body was reduced to a shrivelled husk, and Nullus withdrew his blade.
‘He who would share this fool’s fate,’ Nullus addressed the remaining guards, ‘let him fail me again.’
The guards remained stoically silent, none daring to look towards the desiccated corpse behind Nullus. With the tip of his halberd, Nullus lifted Ghalan’s remains high, and with a scornful flick cast them over the precipice to crumple to the ground in front of the bunker.
As the Alpha Legionnaires herded the palace guards away, Nullus addressed the corpse below, the insignia on the shoulder pad clearly visible. ‘I think the point is made.’
‘Khula,’ said Scout-Sergeant Kholka, his voice low but clear. ‘Take position here. I want overwatch at all times. Concentrate on the gully due south.’
Kholka watched for a moment as the Scout lowered himself into a dip in the volcanic rock and arranged his camouflaged cloak so he blended seamlessly into his surroundings. Only the barrel of the Scout’s sniper rifle was visible, and that only from close up.
Confirming that Khula was in position, Kholka took one last look around. The enemy had departed, but the entire scene could still have been a charade to draw the attention of anyone watching. The Alpha Legion might be hidden nearby, ready to launch a devastating ambush against the small group of White Scars.
But Kholka was a veteran of the celebrated Four-Two-Two patrol and had survived everything that the death world of Canak had thrown at him. He had served an entire year deep in enemy territory whilst fighting the dreaded Saharduins. He had even stalked lictors across the great cobalt reefs of Ayria-12-Tsunami, and had the honour scars to prove it. Kholka had not done all of these things by allowing himself to fall prey to enemy entrapment, and he was determined to pass such wisdom on to those under his tutorship.
‘Our strength,’ Kholka addressed the Scouts, ‘is not arms. Our strength is guile.’
Satisfied that the Scouts were ready to learn and, if necessary, to fight, Kholka led the squad out of the cover of the rock formation and into the open wastes. Though old even for a Space Marine, Kholka moved with the fluid grace and stealth of a steppe-born predator. Indeed, as a savage son of proud, wild Chogoris, he was exactly that.
His silenced boltgun raised, Kholka made use of every scrap of cover as he approached the seemingly abandoned bunker. Every few minutes the sergeant would duck down behind cover, observe the bunker and ensure that his Scouts were deployed correctly. Several times he glanced back to the position high atop the rocks, where he knew that Scout Khula was hidden. The neophyte had concealed himself well.
Kholka had timed the advance carefully, ensuring that it was only as the sun set that the squad reached the point where the rocks thinned out. The ground became flat where a clear fire zone had been levelled in front of the bunker.
‘The gaze of midnight,’ Kholka whispered, and the Scouts all lowered their night vision goggles over their eyes. He squinted down his boltgun’s sights and scanned the bunker. The low, squat structure appeared deserted, but the sergeant engaged the sight’s heat-sensitive function just to be sure. When no telltale heat signals were revealed, he waved his charges forwards, one at a time at ten-second intervals. The Scouts covered each other as they ran forwards into the spreading gloom.
As the last of the Scouts departed, Kholka counted to ten before setting out across the open ground himself. Minutes later, he was at the bunker, finding that his Scouts had spread out to cover all approaches with their boltguns.
‘Brother-sergeant,’ hissed Scout Borchu. ‘Over here.’
Kholka stalked silently to the source of the whisper. He found the Scout by the bunker’s slab-sided armoured fascia, looking down at the man they had witnessed being flung over the wall. In the shadow of the bunker the corpse was little more than a deeper patch of gloom against the black volcanic ground. He squatted down, and judged it safe to engage the lamp set into the barrel of his boltgun at its lowest setting.
The sergeant drew a sharp intake of breath at the sight that greeted him. The man’s body was little more than a skeleton, parched skin stretched tight across its bones. The face, or what little remained of it, was locked in a rictus leer, the shrivelled eyes staring in a sightless terror that seemed to transcend death itself.
‘What happened to him?’ Kholka heard Borchu ask, the boy’s easy mirth now entirely gone.
‘Nothing I would have you learn of,’ the sergeant replied. ‘Not until you have to, at any rate.’
‘The armour,’ Borchu continued. ‘Is that the–?’
‘Yes, boy,’ Kholka interjected. ‘That is the confirmation we seek.’
‘Then we have them?’ Borchu asked.
‘Yes, neophyte,’ Kholka replied. ‘We have them.’ Even as the sergeant spoke, he knew things were not as simple as they might have seemed to the inexperienced Scout. To Kholka’s seasoned, hunter’s instinct, it was all too contrived, all too convenient.
‘Squad,’ Kholka whispered, standing as the Scouts gathered before him in the dark. ‘We return to the insertion point.’
‘For extraction?’ Borchu enquired.
‘No,’ Kholka replied grimly. ‘We have a report to make. We need to reach secure ground and set up the tight-beam transmitter. Kor’sarro Khan must hear of this.’
Kholka looked up as the transmitter device emitted a sharp tone. A steady stream of figures scrolled across his auspex, the code informing him that the machine’s spirit was prepared to commune with another of its kind in high orbit overhead.
The sergeant gave the signal to Gharn that he should set the now aligned projector unit down and return to watch duty. The projector, linked by a snaking cable to the unit in front of Kholka, was just visible atop a nearby rock formation. Its sharp form was silhouetted against the massive disk of Quintus’s moon, which was now rising above the horizon and staining the jagged landscape an unearthly, sickly green.
The march to the pre-arranged location from which the signal would be sent had been carried out in record time. The sergeant had forced the pace, knowing that the signal must get through at all costs. Kholka had reviewed the findings as he had led the march, going over the mission and its conclusion time and time again. He knew that the specially shielded Thunderhawk would only be overhead for a minute, for to linger any longer would be to invite detection by Voldorius and his Alpha Legion sorcerers and heretic tech-priests.
Kholka gazed up into the black sky, its southern fringe stained with the angry purples and reds of the receding warp storm Argenta. Somewhere up there, a vessel crewed by his brethren passed. They were taking a great risk, even though they would have shut down all non-essential systems and would be propelled by momentum alone lest even the slightest power usage be detected. Only the tight beam receiver would be operating under power, and that would be so heavily shielded that an enemy would need to be right on top of the ship to detect it. Nevertheless, the enemy were possessed of methods of detection that far surpassed what machines could achieve. A sorcerer, casting his supernatural gaze across the Thunderhawk’s flight path, might ruin everything. Such a thing had happened before, the sergeant recalled. In a previous mission, twelve battle-brothers had died and twenty Scouts, including himself, had been stranded on the rogue planetoid Sigma-Rokall for three long months when their extraction vessel had b
een intercepted.
Shaking his head to clear the centuries-old memory from his mind, Kholka activated the transmitter device and began his report.
‘Scout-Sergeant Ultas Kholka, ident zero zero digamma, seven nine two zero qoppa.’ He watched the transmitter’s softly glowing screen as his words were digested, processed and encrypted. Satisfied that all was functioning as it should, he continued, ‘Reconnaissance mission report follows. Enemy presence confirmed. Primary identified: Nullus. Secondary: Alpha Legion. Tertiary: Mankarra Household Guard. Confirm item zero alpha: four-starred insignia. Observation follows. Quintus is firmly under the traitors’ control, and as expected, we have discovered evidence of numerous atrocities. I suspect that the majority of the remaining defence forces are under Alpha Legion control, and those not are no longer viable.’
Seeing from the numbers counting down on the data-slate’s screen that he had a few seconds of transmission time left, Kholka added an addendum. ‘My khan,’ he said. ‘I must counsel that the four-starred insignia was left where we could find it. It may be a snare, or it may be that the enemy harbour a traitor in their ranks. I advise caution, and await your orders.’
The transmitter unit emitted a sharp tone, its machine-spirit indicating that the link had ended as scheduled. Kholka proceeded to break the unit down, and then glanced south, towards the rising moon. The mission would proceed, whatever, or whoever, awaited the Scouts.
Chapter 6
Death in the Night
‘Wait,’ the Space Marine captain hissed into the vox as he watched the dark landscape below. ‘Let them enter the gully.’
He stood at the very peak of a jagged spire of black rock, the night sky at his back. His power armour was black too, and was hung with dozens of small, avian-bone charms. The column of traitor militia vehicles picking its way through the wastes below had no chance of detecting him or his warriors.
Not, that is, until it was too late.
The column consisted of half a dozen armoured personnel carriers, a pattern of vehicle manufactured on a number of nearby worlds, but lacking the armament of the Chimera transports used in the armies of the Imperial Guard. At intervals along the column larger, tracked carriers travelled, bulky cargo units loaded with heavy weapons destined for a defence complex only ten kilometres distant. The captain’s company were peerless when it came to mounting devastating campaigns of terror and disruption, but their own numbers were few and the enemy’s control over the traitor militia complete.
As the captain waited on his lofty perch, the column ground on, manoeuvring around a large rockslide that had settled at the base of an outcropping. His men had caused the slide, a single, expertly placed krak grenade bringing tons of black volcanic spoil across the column’s path. As a result, the transports were even now entering the gully into which they had been so deliberately funnelled.
The lead vehicle slewed around as it entered the gully, the arc beam mounted at its forwards hatch scanning left and right across the ground ahead. Inside his helmet, the captain’s mouth assumed a nasty grin and his eyes narrowed.
The transport lurched on, and was followed a few moments later by the second, the beam of its own searchlight lancing into the darkness to its flank.
‘Just a little bit…’ the captain said.
The lead transport ground to a sudden halt, and an angry shout cut the air from far below. The shout had come from the driver of the second vehicle, his head visible as he rose from his hatch, and had been voiced in response to the lead vehicle’s unanticipated stop. The call was answered by a colourful response from the commander of the lead vehicle. Though spoken in the local dialect, the captain could well understand the meaning, and his grin widened.
‘…further,’ he mouthed, as the lead vehicle’s arc light swung suddenly upwards. The bright shaft of light cut through the night. But to the captain, who had positioned himself so that he would be silhouetted against the swollen moon as the lead vehicle entered the gully, it was blinding, for it shone directly into his eyes.
‘Kill them,’ he growled into the vox. ‘Let none escape.’
The lead transport erupted into livid flames as a melta charge hidden in the gully floor detonated. For an instant, the night was dispelled as twisted hunks of flaming wreckage were propelled in all directions. The scream of suddenly activated jump packs sounded as Assault squads leapt into the air, to descend upon columns of fire towards their prey.
With a thought impulse transmitted through the systems of his power armour, the captain activated his own jump pack, launching himself forwards and upwards, high into the night sky. Behind him the battle-brothers of his Command squad followed, flames glinting from the long talons of their lightning claws.
Even as he began his descent, the second transport was attempting to reverse out of the killing zone. It ground against the bow of the following vehicle. A second explosion ripped through the night as the last vehicle in the column was struck in its engine deck by a well-placed krak missile. The stricken vehicle lurched, and the fuel in its thinly armoured tank spewed across the ground. As the surviving crew attempted to fling themselves clear, the flames ignited, turning each man into a flailing human torch that collapsed into thrashing heaps as the fire consumed them.
The captain landed atop the upper deck of the second vehicle, the sound of the heavy impact resonating loudly. The driver, standing upright in his hatch, turned his head and looked directly into the face of death. The captain activated his talon-like lightning claws and made a bloody ruin of the man’s upper body. He located a second, larger hatch under his feet, and stepped backwards.
Punching his talons straight through the hatch, the captain ripped the doors clean away and flung them into the fire-chased night. A dozen faces looked up at him, and a second later he was amongst them. The interior of the transport was so cramped that no finesse was possible. He merely lashed out, tracing a web of death all around him. Within seconds, the traitor militia were reduced to chunks of smoking meat, which was seared to ashes as he reactivated his jump pack and rose from the back of the vehicle atop a pillar of fire.
The vehicles of the column had all by now halted, their drivers realising that they were trapped and unable to manoeuvre with the lead and trailing transports destroyed. The initial shock was passing, and squads of militia inside each vehicle were deploying from hatches which dropped loudly to the ground at the rear of each tank.
‘Left flank.’ The captain spoke coldly into the vox-net as the members of his Command squad swooped down to land beside him. ‘Engage the enemy from third carrier. Centre group, the fifth.’
The Assault Marines arrowed through the night towards their targets. The desperate militia unleashed a fusillade of bullets, but even those few shots that struck a Space Marine failed to penetrate their power armour. Within seconds, the Assault squads were in amongst their foes, the screams of chainswords and men blending into an almighty clamour of death and destruction.
‘Right flank,’ the captain said. ‘Suppress the third transport.’ A torrent of boltgun fire hailed down upon the vehicle and the militia attempting to muster at its rear. The two Tactical squads had been well concealed amongst the rocks on the column’s right flank. Those militiamen not cut down in the opening salvo sought desperately for a target to return fire at, but all they saw were muzzle flashes. For most, that was the last thing they ever saw.
‘All other squads,’ the captain continued. ‘Assume reserve stance delta-rho. Command squad, with me.’
Leaping down from the transport’s upper hull, his Command squad following a step behind, the captain passed the front of the next vehicle in the column. It was a huge, lumbering, grey-painted transport, twice the size of the carriers, its form dominated by a huge cargo bay at its rear. A low pounding accompanied by a muffled roar of anger sounded from the vehicle, audible even over the gunfire. Slowing as he passed through the shadow of the hauler, the captain realised that the sound was emanating from within the vehicle’
s cargo bay.
Cautiously, he rounded the back end of the vehicle. Something very large pounded repeatedly on the inside of the vehicle’s rear loading hatch whilst bellowing an incoherent stream of primitive invective.
‘Melta?’ asked one of the Command squad.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘We leave the haulers intact. Whatever is inside, we deal with it. Get ready.’
The captain’s talon shot out, lacerating the hatch’s locking mechanism. The remains fell to the rocky ground, and then both hatches were flung open. A savage bellow rang from the dark interior and a massive ogryn lumbered forth.
A stable strain of human mutant evolved or bred on high gravity worlds, the beast was a mountain of sinew and muscle. Its face was a bestial mask of imbecilic fury, spittle frothing from its broken-toothed mouth. The ground shook as the ogryn stepped out. Its beady eyes scanned the Space Marines and it shouted a word that the captain could not understand. An answering bellow sounded from within the hauler’s cargo area and a second ogryn appeared at the hatch. At least two more waited within the cargo bay’s shadowed depths.
‘Kill them,’ the captain snarled as the ogryn gave voice to a war cry of his own. Both sprang forwards at the same moment, and launched their attack.
Applying a burst to his jump pack, the captain powered his feet from the ground. Even as the captain leapt, the ogryn’s massive arm pistoned forwards, its clenched fist striking him squarely in the stomach. So powerful was the piledriver punch that warning icons flashed across his vision, his armour’s machine-spirit warning of micro-fractures in three separate locations.
Even as the punch struck home, the captain’s own attack was arrowing downwards, his lightning claw slashing towards the ogryn’s head. But the punch had offset his momentum, and the talon struck not the beast’s head, but its left arm, just below the shoulder.
The ogryn roared in savage pain and anger as the captain’s talon parted muscle and seared through bone. The arm was torn away in a welter of blood, so much dead meat striking the ground with a wet thud. A fountain of blood gushing from the stump of its left arm, the ogryn threw itself at the captain as the Space Marine’s armoured feet touched the ground. Behind it, two more of the massive brutes dropped from the vehicle’s hatch.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 12