The oldest and most experienced council members had sided with Kantor. No matter how effective the blockade proved, orks would set foot on Rynn’s World. Even with ten times more ships available to the Chapter, the gaps in the defence grid would still measure many thousands of kilometres across. Such was the nature of war in space. The orks would get some of their ships through and, when those ships landed, they would spill out their savage cargo onto land that hadn’t seen such bloodshed in over a millennium. Kantor wasn’t about to let the Rynnsguard fight the greenskin ground forces alone.
It was critical that the true strength of the Chapter remain planetside to meet the invader wherever it landed. Any other approach was, in Kantor’s eyes at least, foolish to consider, and it bothered him that several of the captains present at the session had argued so vehemently. He could understand their desire for glory well enough. Boarding actions were some of the most intense and dangerous operations a Space Marine would ever face and success brought great honour. But this battle was less about glory and honour than it was about protecting their home. It was about preserving everything the Crimson Fists represented, both to themselves and to their people, in the face of a threat the likes of which few other Chapters had ever known.
‘You will have to trust me, Selig,’ said Kantor. ‘You know I would not lead our brothers astray. If I tell you we must concentrate our brothers’ strengths on a ground-based war, it is because I have considered all the alternatives. The orks must not gain any solid foothold here. Their spores, if left unchecked, will spread on the winds and blight our world for decades to come. By organising our squads into rapid-response units… you heard me last night. I’ll not repeat myself.’
Torres nodded, but said, ‘It is not that I doubt you, lord. Your word is law, and I would follow you into the mouth of oblivion, as you surely know. But I cannot shake my grave reservations about this course. It assumes a certain degree of failure from the start.’
Kantor nodded. ‘I am a realist, Selig. Orks will get through. How many, we cannot say, but they will. Even if we committed every last battle-brother to boarding actions, we could not change that. So we will fight on both fronts. The decision is mine, and it has been made.’
Torres looked far from satisfied, but he knew well enough when there was no more room to manoeuvre. Changing tack, he asked, ‘Have the Thunderhawks returned from New Rynn City yet?’
‘They will be here soon.’
‘And our brothers in the Crusade Company? When do you intend to call them back from their advisory missions?’
Kantor looked out over the vista of endless white cloud as he said, ‘They will be called back as soon as we have first sign of the foe.’
He turned his eyes skywards. High above the planet’s surface, he knew, the Chapter’s ships, along with the System Defence Fleet – an armada of warp-incapable battleships under the auspices of the Imperial Navy – would be slowly shifting into place, forming a battle-line that measured hundreds of thousands of kilometres.
‘I still cannot believe it has come to this,’ said Torres. ‘To have already lost Ashor Drakken… And to think that the same orks would dare to strike us here, on our own world…’
Kantor winced a little. He, too, still grieved for Drakken. Sooner or later, a successor would have to be named, someone from the Crusade Company, someone worthy of leading the Third Company into battle. For now, the survivors of the Krugerport fiasco had been fused with Drigo Alvez’s Second Company and were stationed with them in the capital, but the situation was far from ideal. The Third Company had an identity of its own, and a proud and glorious tradition to maintain. There just hadn’t been time to nominate a new captain before the men had been deployed. It would have to wait until after the orks were beaten back.
‘Ashor is with us in spirit, Selig. A proper tribute will be commissioned for Monument Hall once there is adequate opportunity. As for the Waaagh penetrating so deep into this sector so quickly, I have been thinking on that myself. I believe Snagrod’s forces are prioritising communications relays. It explains why no warning of the Waaagh has come from anywhere else but Badlanding, and yet we know they have overtaken a score of other systems already.’
Torres squinted. ‘You are suggesting, lord, that this Snagrod is employing an isolation strategy prior to launching his attacks?’
‘We’ve seen hints of it from ork warbands before, though never so well executed, I grant you.’
Across the Imperium, the vast Munitorum propaganda machine was relentless in presenting the orks as inferior, dull-witted, bestial foes with only the most rudimentary understanding of what it took to win a protracted war. The filthy xenos were driven by instinct, their tiny brains incapable of tactical analysis and response. For the most part, the propaganda was close to the truth. The average ork got by on muscle, resilience and raw savagery – little else. But Snagrod was clearly anything but average. He had already proved that. Centuries of fighting the greenskins had taught Kantor not to be hasty in underestimating those that climbed to the rank of warlord. The 41st millennium had seen increasingly disturbing proof that, out there among the millions of disparate ork tribes, there were increasing numbers of individuals that represented a threat unlike anything the Imperium had faced since the dark days of the Heresy. One need only peruse recent battle-reports from Armageddon, a key Imperial hive-world located in the Segmentum Solar.
In 949.M41, an ork warlord had led an unprecedented Waaagh against Imperial forces on that world. The greenskin leader was called Ghazghkull Mag-Uruk Thraka, and such was his rare ability for strategic thinking that he failed in his conquest by only the narrowest of margins. As further testament to his unusual military intellect, he had even managed to affect a massive greenskin exodus when the tide of battle had irrevocably turned against him.
If Ghazghkull Mag-Uruk Thraka was capable of effective strategy, then the Arch Arsonist of Charadon was, too. Snagrod was employing lightning-quick surprise assaults on every deep-space communications relay he came across. Then, and only then, did he send his forces in en masse to slaughter and pillage the isolated worlds.
But he would not do that on Rynn’s World. Kantor would not let him. Snagrod had made a great mistake in his choice of target, and another in announcing his intentions so overtly. The orks were coming in force, and their leader wanted the Crimson Fists to be ready. He wanted a fight he could consider worthy, a fight that would make him a legend, a fight that would bring greenskin tribes from all over the galaxy under one banner. If the beast succeeded in that, the Waaagh would be unstoppable.
Kantor realised that Torres was staring at him, face twisted in concern.
‘I have never seen you like this, lord. Never so… dour.’
Kantor did not insult his brother’s intelligence by affecting a false demeanour. Torres deserved more than that, and deception was not Kantor’s way. Lies rarely served honour. ‘We must not under–’
A hiss of static on the comm-link cut him off mid-sentence. Kantor pressed a finger to the bead in his ear and said, ‘Monitor.’
The voice on the other end was unusually frantic.
Kantor’s eyes went wide as he listened.
‘Impossible,’ he growled. ‘Check your instruments. There must be some mistake.’
A moment later, he added, ‘Then tell him to check his instruments, damn it!’
As Kantor continued to listen to the Monitor speak, he locked eyes with Torres.
When the message ended, he lowered his hand from his ear and muttered, ‘Dorn’s blood!’
‘My lord?’
Kantor gripped Torres’s armoured shoulder. ‘The orks, Selig. The Waaagh! It’s here. They’re already in-system!’
Torres shook his head. ‘Impossible, lord. They can’t be. How far out are they? Forty hours? Fifty?’
‘That’s the worst of it,’ said Kantor through gritted teeth. ‘Three.’
‘Three?’ gasped Torres. ‘That would mean…’
‘It’s
insane. Suicidal. Their entire force just burst from the warp only a hundred and fifty thousand kilometres from the planet. Our ships are already turning to engage. Get your company brothers to combat stations. I’m putting you in charge of the Laculum Bastion. Coordinate with the Technicarum. I want all missile and plasma batteries at full operational status at once. And be ready when I call you to the Strategium. There will be a final emergency session while we still have time.’ He turned to the technical crews finishing up on the corner batteries. ‘You Chosen,’ he said. ‘Finish quickly. You will be needed below.’
They bowed reverentially to him, turned and attacked their work with fresh urgency.
Torres was too stunned to salute as Kantor spun away from him and began marching at speed back towards the staircase at the edge of the north side. Already, sirens could be heard wailing from towers all across the expanse of the black fortress.
Damn it, thought Kantor as his ceramite-plated boots pounded flagstones. No Imperial fleet would exit this close to a major gravity well. It would tear half the ships apart.
Dare he hope that the same might be happening to Snagrod’s ships even now? It was impossible to believe they would come through such a reckless jump unharmed. Warp exits were impossible to stabilise this close to a star.
How many would make it through intact? How many would survive to bring death and torment down on Rynn’s World?
Eleven
New Rynn City, Rynnland Province
Grimm had been to New Rynn City only twice in his life and the last time had been forty-two years ago. It was rare for battle-brothers to be sent there. The Arbites and the Rynnsguard were enough to keep the peace, and there was little call for the war-mastery of the Space Marines in a capital so obsessively focussed on trade and commerce.
As the Crimson Fist convoy rolled on, through district after crowded district, he reacquainted himself with the place. Few things had changed in the outer wards. The habs were still mostly squat boxes of sandstone and corrugated steel. The middle districts through which he now travelled, boasted clusters of monolithic new towers fashioned from dark stone and steel, built to house the city’s burgeoning middle class. They rose high over the streets, casting them in shadow, but never rising as high as the shimmering spires and minarets at the city’s centre.
Up ahead, another of the city’s many interlocking curtain walls came into view, and another vast adamantium gate, its surface etched with ancient images of the city founders. This was the Peridion Gate, and beyond it lay the Residentia Ultris, the most expensive and exclusive residential zone in the city. It was in this district that the members of the Upper and Lower Houses maintained their mansion homes. On the far side of it, at its northmost extent, the convoy would cross the Farrio Bridge, a four-lane titanium and rockcrete structure that spanned the River Rynn. Beyond the Farrio Bridge was the convoy’s destination, the island on which sat the Zona Regis, also known as the Silver Citadel.
The Adeptus Astartes had made reasonable time from the spaceport, though the Rynnsguard troopers providing the corridor of passage had had their hands full with the jubilant crowds. There had been moments when the convoy had been forced to stop. In fits of zeal, a number of insane citizens, seemingly indifferent to the risk of being crushed, had leapt out from the crowd to kneel and offer praise before the rumbling chassis of Aegis Eternis. The local troopers had run forward and wrestled them out of the way, employing judicious violence when forced to. But no one had been killed. The Rynnsguard were not typically heavy-handed. They were well-practiced in dealing with their own people.
The Peridion Gate groaned loudly up ahead as its vast metal gears began turning. A gap appeared between the gate’s massive titanium teeth, and a widening zigzag showed Grimm the road and the buildings beyond. The gates were huge, impenetrable things. They had been constructed after the last ork assault on the planet, and built with another such attack in mind. Likewise, the ancient curtain walls had been upgraded by varying degrees, all with the aim of ensuring that the capital never fell to an invasion of any kind.
Grimm wondered just how soon the walls and gates would be tested. The city’s outermost defensive structures were simple stone affairs that wouldn’t survive any kind of sustained artillery fire. But the closer one got to the city centre, the sturdier the walls became. He knew, for instance, that the walls of the Silver Citadel, within which lay the Cassar, the governor’s palace, and the parliament buildings, employed void shields like those of Arx Tyrannus. And Arx Tyrannus could never fall. It was unassailable. Perhaps the Silver Citadel was unassailable, too. No doubt Captain Alvez would order the Techmarines attached to the company to do a full assessment. One had to know the limits of endurance of the place one was meant to defend.
Aegis Eternis rumbled through the archway of the Peridion Gate and into the Residentia Ultris, and the contrast with the other zones they had driven through was immediate. On both sides of the highway, exit ramps rose to offer access to elegant structures of white marble, their walls and rooftops adorned with fine statuary and bas-reliefs. The gardens around each were so verdant. Grimm turned his head to either side, scanning the trees and bushes by habit, noting the profusion of brightly-coloured blossoms, many of which were not indigenous to Rynn’s World and would have been imported and cultured at very great expense. Through gaps in the foliage, he saw the shadows of armed security personnel patrolling the grounds of each estate.
Captain Alvez kept his eyes forward, utterly disinterested in these statements of wealth and prominence.
Grimm wondered how the captain would deal with the members of the Upper Rynnhouse when it came time to address them. They would want to know why the Fists had come, but, when they found out about the approaching Waaagh, they would wish they’d never asked.
Still guiding the rest of the column, Aegis Eternis rolled over the Farrio Bridge, leaving the gleaming white estates behind her. On the far side, the last great gate, the Regis Gate South, was fully open to welcome them. Beyond it the government buildings glistened like mercury in the bright sunlight, putting the estates of the Residentia Ultris to shame. It was here that the business of ruling Rynn’s World was conducted. Here was the Spire, a towering, many-turreted edifice dripping with the finest architectural embellishments that the greatest artisans in Rynnite history had been able to produce.
At the top of the tower, in a dome of pure synthetic diamond, sat the council chambers of the Upper Rynnhouse, where decisions were made that often affected commerce across the entire Peryton Cluster. Just west of it, shorter by half, and nowhere near as splendid, though many times as valuable for the weapons, ammunition and support systems it housed, was the Cassar, a sturdy keep maintained by the Chosen on the Chapter’s behalf.
On the keep’s broad octagonal rooftop, long-guns and missile batteries sat pointed towards the sky. Grimm had no doubt that they were already loaded. The Chosen would have seen to that by now.
He was distracted from the sight of the Cassar by Alvez. The captain loosed a string of curses, and Grimm turned his eyes back to the road ahead to see what had prompted it.
There on the shining road, blocking its entire width, was a gaggle of Rynnite politicians, diplomats, religious figures and high-ranking military officers. They gleamed like the buildings around them, as if every last piece of clothing and adornment was absolutely brand new, purchased only moments ago for the occasion of greeting the Crimson Fist detachment.
‘I’ll not pander to them,’ growled Captain Alvez to himself.
The captain resented having to put up with anything that did not directly relate to his duties as a Space Marine. War was his business. He had no inclination to master the niceties of speech and manner that these fools thought so important.
He rapped a red gauntlet on the roof of the Land Raider and the driver, Brother Agorro, rolled it to a smooth stop, letting the engine idle rather than cut it off. Agorro knew Alvez well enough to be confident that the vehicles would be underway again with
in minutes.
Alvez turned to Grimm. ‘With me, sergeant,’ he said, and hauled himself out of the left cupola. He moved to the side of the vehicle and dropped to the ground, armoured boots clashing heavily on the surface of the road. Despite their reverence for the Space Marines, Grimm saw some of the dignitaries drop their smiles. It was impossible for them not to feel intimidated. The Adeptus Astartes were so much more than human, in every way. It was not just the physiological differences, though they were, perhaps, the greater part of it. Psychological differences served to widen the gap.
Grimm doubted any human could imagine what it was like to be Adeptus Astartes, save perhaps in dreams. The oaths, the sacrifice, the relentless conditioning, inuring oneself to agony in all its most brutal forms. No, these people could never understand, and what they didn’t understand, they feared, though it was often all that stood between them and the final darkness.
Grimm dismounted just as his captain had done, and strode forward to stand by his side. Together, the two hulking warriors looked down at their overdressed welcoming party.
Lady Maia Cagliestra, who was, judging by her warm, open smile, the least intimidated of the group, bowed her head before the captain and sank to one knee.
‘My lord,’ she said.
Drigo Alvez looked down at her, then turned his eyes to the others.
‘What is this?’ he demanded, his tone harsh. ‘Only the governor kneels? Are the rest of you above such obeisance?’
There was a sudden rush among the nobles to drop to the ground and obey the order, but some moved quicker than others. One, a skinny, bug-eyed man, seemed particularly unwilling to do as the situation demanded. An older, chubbier individual on his right tugged at the skinny man’s sleeve and hissed, ‘Kneel, Eduardo, for Throne’s sake!’
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 75