Cortez knew the Fists giving Daecor and Cassaves suppressing fire needed support, some kind of respite, a break in the fighting they could use to move into fresh cover. They had to do it now, before it was too late.
Cortez pulled a krak grenade from the belt around his middle and primed it. ‘Squad Daecor,’ he barked over the link, ‘be ready to move to better cover. Krak grenade coming in.’
Without waiting for confirmation, he leaned out from the side of the door, locked his eyes on the ork firing position, and hurled his grenade. He did not stay there with his head sticking out to see what happened. He knew the explosive would go off exactly where he wanted it to. He simply listened for the sharp boom he knew was coming.
Three…
Two…
The floor beneath his boots shook with the blast. One of the orks, wounded but not killed began roaring in agony. Cortez heard Sergeant Daecor shouting, ‘Close in!’
The orks that survived the blast quickly opened fire again, but Cortez could hear the difference in the rattle of their guns. There were two less of them now. He heard the stutter of only six greenskin guns.
From the other side of the doorway, Kantor leaned out to fire a short burst from Dorn’s Arrow. The weapon’s fire-rate was incredibly high. Kantor had to be careful to fire in extremely short bursts, otherwise he would burn through his back-mounted store of ammunition in less than a minute, despite the vast amount of shells he carried.
Daecor’s voice was on the link. ‘I have their left flank. Cassaves, are you in position?’
‘Almost there, brother-sergeant.’
There was a brief pause, then Cassaves spoke again.
‘I have their flank. Give the word, brother.’
Cortez leaned out and fired a round from his bolt pistol. It scored a black line in the top of a crate and ricocheted, missing the hideous snarling face of one ork by scant centimetres. The ork angled the heavy barrel of its weapon towards Cortez’s position and, with a growl, loosed a flood of shells his way.
Cortez both heard and felt the shells peppering the other side of the wall.
‘Now,’ said Daecor.
In the chamber, bolter-fire sounded from two new directions, and deep ork screams filled the air. Cortez heard heavy, armoured bodies fall to the ground with the sound of metal impacting on rockcrete. Then he heard the sound of metal clashing against metal. He leaned out and saw Brother Cassaves wrestling desperately against a black-armoured monster, trying to free his bolter from the beast’s grip so that he could fire into its face at point-blank range. Daecor was on the other side of the chamber, forced to take cover again now that other surviving orks had spotted him and opened fire.
Kantor saw it, too.
‘Lician and Segala, move in and support Daecor,’ he snapped. Then, with a nod at Cortez, he surged into the chamber himself, Dorn’s Arrow held straight out in front of him, the folds of his crimson cloak snapping behind him as he moved.
Cortez moved, too, barely half a second behind his leader. The moment he entered the chamber, he centred his pistol’s iron sights on the helmeted head of the ork wrestling with Cassaves and fired off a single bolt.
It struck the ork dead centre in the side of its head, but the creature’s helmet was solid, at least two centimetres thick, and the round detonated on contact, snapping the ork’s head to the side, stunning it for a moment, but failing to wound it. Of course, that had never been Cortez’s intent. He knew what he was doing. He was buying Cassaves the momentary advantage he needed.
As Cortez had known he would, Cassaves seized on the distraction. The ork had instinctively closed its eyes at the moment of the blast, desperate to protect them. The moment its gaze was removed from Cassaves, the Space Marine let his bolter drop from his right hand, drew his combat blade in a flash, and thrust it straight forward into the ork’s throat where the beast’s helmet offered no protection.
The tip of the blade slid in, severing the critical nerve bundle at the back. Any normal creature would have dropped dead right then, but, although the ork was technically dead already, its body continued to wrestle for another eight seconds. Its grip was incredibly powerful. Even when it sank to the ground in a heap, Brother Cassaves had to pry its thick, clawed fingers off one by one.
With only one ork left, the three squads swept straight in and cleared the room. Sergeant Lician slew the ork that was keeping Daecor’s head down, and soon the chamber was silent. Smoke curled from gun barrels and spent cartridges. Some of the ork bodies, each of which was easily three hundred kilogrammes in weight, twitched while their thick blood pooled around them. The air was thick with smells; cordite, blood, ionised air, the pungent stink of unwashed alien dead.
Kantor ordered his battle-brothers into the elevator cage, large enough for all three five-man squads, and stood at the control panel inside.
Cortez drew the cage’s gate closed.
The elevator floor shuddered and there was a sound of powered gears grinding into motion. The elevator rose past the ceiling and into the vertical shaft above it.
Cortez watched yellow lights flicker past. They were set into the smooth steel walls at regular intervals, each marking another few metres that he moved closer to victory or death.
Six
The Coronado Tower, New Rynn Space port
An hour and forty-seven minutes had passed since they had blasted their way out of the work tunnel beneath the spaceport. The fighting had been almost constant since then, but, as Kantor had predicted, the sheer size of the spaceport and the maze of its halls, rooms, loading bays and elevator shafts had prevented the orks from launching any kind of coordinated purge against the Crimson Fists assault force.
Contact with Squad Victurix was difficult now, the voice of the Terminator sergeant faint on the comm-link. That, too, had been expected. Kantor, Cortez and the brothers accompanying them were hundreds of metres above the point where they had entered the spaceport. Beneath them were many floors of thick metal girders and steel-reinforced rockcrete and ferrocrete. Sooner or later, contact with the Terminators holding the lower floors would be lost altogether. Victurix had already reported further contact with the enemy. He also relayed word from the other assault groups. The battle for the rest of the spaceport grounds was ongoing. At least it seemed that most of the toughest orks were out there among the hordes surrounding the Silver Citadel. They thought that was where the action was.
To some extent, they were right. Even here, in the upper levels of the spaceport some forty kilometres south of the position of the nearest marching Gargant, those thunderous, planet-trembling footfalls could still be felt, at least to senses as highly trained as those of a Space Marine.
Silently, Kantor prayed that the citadel’s void shields would hold out long enough for the Legio Titanicus to land some of their Titans. The famed god-machines would make short work of their poorer ork-built rivals. But a lot had to happen before that was even a remote possibility. The spaceport had to be utterly secure.
He looked around.
Moments ago, he and his brothers had emerged from a narrow hallway filled with scrap and ork excrement, into this, a broad, semi-circular room that had once been a passenger lounge. Large windows ran the entire length of the curving outer wall, but every last one had been smashed, and a warm wind howled through them, lifting scraps of crumpled paper from the floor and tugging at the torn edges of posters still half-stuck to the walls.
Squads Daecor and Lician were covering two sets of double doors that led out of the room. Squad Segala was covering the rear, the door through which they had just come. The Techmarines, just as Kantor had commanded, were at his side. Their survival was everything. Without them, this was a lost cause.
Kantor turned his head, surveying the room. Behind him stood his old friend, weapons holstered for the moment as he, too, looked around.
‘Damned mess,’ said Cortez quietly.
The captain had not left Kantor’s side since they had entered the underwor
ks back in the Silver Citadel. Kantor knew full well that Cortez had sought, perhaps even expected, command of the mission. He knew Cortez had wanted this all along, a chance to throw all caution to the wind and march out to meet the foe head on. It was his way. He wasn’t interested in the bigger picture. He was focussed on the here and now, on the enemy in front of him, and he gave his all in fighting that foe. It was both his strength and his weakness.
Kantor had momentarily considered giving Cortez command, but what would he have achieved by staying back there? Against the Gargants, there was nothing he could do from the citadel walls to make a difference. Here, he could make a significant difference.
‘We’re getting closer,’ Kantor said over the link. ‘Above this lounge is another for high-ranking dignitaries. It leads out into a large atrium and, from there, we can access the landing plate itself. Once we cross it, we’ll enter the central spires. The air traffic control and defence control centres are inside.’
‘There are three landing plates,’ said Cortez. ‘What about the other two?’
‘First things first,’ replied Kantor. ‘I am not interested in the landing plates until the air defence grid has been secured. We can think about everything else once we have airspace control.’
Cortez suddenly held up a hand. ‘Listen!’
Kantor heard it now. The ceiling was thick, but, alerted by Cortez, he could now hear movement above. There was something very heavy moving above them.
Cortez sounded eager. Did he hope it was Snagrod himself?
‘That’s no gretchin,’ he said, half to himself.
‘We move,’ said Kantor. ‘Daecor has point. Beyond the doors, the atrium should have plenty of cover. If there are targets, do not let them dig in. The atrium is dominated by a staircase at its centre. The landing at the top goes east to west. I want that landing secured, Daecor on the east doors, Lician on the west. Squad Segala continues to protect the rear. Anais and Ruzco with Segala. All squads, confirm.’
‘By your command,’ said Sergeant Daecor.
‘Your will, my lord,’ said Lodric Lician, shortly followed with a similar affirmation from Segala and the Techmarines.
Kantor moved closer to the door Squad Daecor was covering, Cortez moving with him on his left, just a few metres behind. When they were in position, Kantor gave the order.
‘Go!’
Daecor kicked open the door, splintering the finely carved wood with his ceramite boot. In a flash, he was through it, leading the charge into the Coronado atrium. Immediately, stubber-fire and the bright burst of discharging energy weapons poured down on him from a gallery overhead.
Daecor and his squad sidestepped into cover on either side of the hall, taking shelter in the lee of defaced statues that had once represented Rynn and his acolytes.
‘Dorn’s blood!’ spat Daecor over the link.
Kantor barked out orders to Squad Lician, and the Devastator squad moved up to give covering fire. The gallery overhead was so packed with orks that they were almost spilling over the marble baluster. There were more on the floor of the atrium, too, half-sheltering behind the bases of the ruined statues at the far end. Others stood on the wide sweep of the marble central stair, spraying fire at the Adeptus Astartes, brass casings falling to the thick red carpet and rolling from the steps.
Brother Morai was carrying a heavy bolter. Of all the heavy weapons the Devastators had brought, it was this that had the longest lethal range. Stepping out from cover, Morai hefted the massive barrel of his gun in the direction of the orks on the gallery and tightened his grip on the firing lever. The weapon began to shudder with incredible recoil as it poured a blistering torrent of bolter-shells on the clustered knot of xenos fiends. The marble baluster was chewed apart. With nothing left to resist the push of their fellows at the back, the brutish aliens in the front rows found themselves tumbling forwards into space, falling fifteen metres to the hard marble flagstones below. Scores of them fell, hitting hard, sustaining serious injuries. But these were orks, perhaps the most resilient species in the galaxy when it came to pain. They scrambled to their feet, discarding the dented and twisted ruins of their guns, and drew cleavers, swords, axes and hammers from the loops on their thick squiggoth-hide belts.
With a unified roar, they surged forwards towards the Adeptus Astartes.
Morai stepped forward to meet them, strafing the muzzle of his weapon left and right in a tight arc as he moved. The muzzle flare of his weapon lit everything around him in bright strobing light. A shower of brass poured from the heavy bolter’s cartridge ejection port.
The orks at the front were almost cut in half as dozens of mass-reactive shells exploded inside their guts. They went down screaming, spittle flying from their razor-toothed mouths. Gore spattered the floor, the walls, the fixtures.
The ruined statues of Rynn and his fellows were dripping with blood, the deep red stark against the flawless white marble.
The orks at the back of the charge kept coming, iron-booted feet stomping on the bodies of their fallen kin, slipping occasionally on the spilled blood and intestines.
Sergeant Lician ordered Morai to fall back, to save his ammunition. His fusillade had been enough to buy Daecor and his squad a moment to prepare. They now leaned out from cover and poured bolter and plasma fire into the rest of the charging xenos, cutting them down in the middle of the hall. The orks on the stair and those behind cover at the far end of the hall continued to pour large-calibre metal slugs at the Crimson Fists. And then Kantor heard a new noise.
It was the stomping of huge armoured feet and, just before every footfall, the distinctive hiss and clank of piston-powered legs. The landing at the top of the stair shook. One of the hanging lights fixed to the underside came loose and fell to the floor, shattering into myriad pieces.
The orks on the stair stopped firing for long enough to look up, and Kantor thought he saw hints of fear on their slack-jawed faces.
A battle-roar so deep it shook the walls sounded, and lasted so long that, for a moment, the Chapter Master wondered if it would ever end.
The moment it did, the orks on the stair gave up their positions, bolting down to the bottom and dashing for the cover of the ruined statues at the far end, the same place from which their fellows were firing.
Daecor and his men did not stop to find out who or what had decided to join the battle. They kept pouring fire out at the orks, killing a dozen of them as they crossed the open hallway at a run. Then, with a temporary lessening of enemy fire, they moved out and raced to forward positions that would offer them a better line of sight on their targets. Kantor and Cortez moved a second later, leading Squad Lician into the cover that Daecor and his brothers had just abandoned.
From here, Kantor brought Dorn’s Arrow to bear. He had a good arc of fire on the orks still shooting from the second-floor gallery. He raised his left hand, turned Dorn’s Arrow level with the floor, and fired, ripping his targets to pieces.
The relic weapon’s rate of fire was almost as great as that of Morai’s heavy bolter, and it cut deep into the mob of orks, its bolts detonating messily in their bellies. Eviscerated bodies began tumbling from the edge of the gallery, smacking loudly, wetly, on the flagstones.
From the edge of his vision, Kantor saw Cortez and the men of Squad Lician giving suppressing fire to allow Squad Daecor to move from cover to cover once again. The sergeant was attempting to go around behind the great stair in the centre of the hall. He hoped to flank the enemy from the left.
Just as Daecor and his brothers had begun to move there was another deafening roar, this time from the very top of the stair. Kantor saw Daecor dive for cover, but the other four battle-brothers in his squad were just fractionally slower.
Kantor watched in horror as they were chewed apart before his eyes. Their armour should have protected them against greenskin slugs, even large-calibre ones, but this was different. Whatever stood at the top of the stairs was spewing so much firepower in their direction that there w
as simply no hope. Ceramite plates cracked and shattered under the deadly hail. Great gouts of blood fountained into the air. To Kantor’s eyes, it seemed to happen in slow motion. He knew this feeling. He had felt it before, many times. Why did time always grind to a halt like this when he was forced to watch good brothers die?
Four brave Crimson Fists fell to the floor like so much dead meat.
If the Chapter had a future, they would not see it now.
Then their killer, still blocked from Kantor’s view by the curve of the landing above, turned its lead-spewing heavy weapon on the statue behind which Daecor was now trapped. The shells began reducing the statue to rubble with terrible speed.
‘Shell-breakers,’ said Sergeant Lician on the link.
Kantor knew the sergeant was right. Only armour-piercing rounds could have done damage like that. It was fortunate, in some respects, that only the highest ranking orks ever seemed to have access to them.
Kantor heard Cortez roaring in rage from just behind him. He, too, had witnessed the deaths of his brother Adeptus Astartes and it was too much.
Kantor instinctively knew what was going to happen next. He put out a hand to stop his old friend, but perhaps he should have known better. Nothing could stop Alessio Cortez when he had committed himself to a kill. Cortez raced forwards, moving with incredible speed, bolt pistol in his right hand, his other, gloved in its massive power fist, pumping the air as he sprinted.
Ork fire from three directions pocked the marble flagstones at his feet, just a fraction of a second too late to hit him. As Cortez slid into cover beside Daecor, he raised his bolt pistol in the direction of the beast that had killed his brother Adeptus Astartes… and froze.
Kantor heard his words as clear as gunshots over the comm-link.
‘I know you!’ shouted Cortez. ‘You killed Drigo Alvez!’
Footsteps shook the marble stairs now, and Kantor saw a huge armoured form come into view. As he had suspected from the noise of the piston-powered legs, the creature was covered head-to-toe in a blocky, massively-thick suit of ork power armour. One arm ended in a huge multi-barrelled stubber with twin ammunition feeds. The other arm ended in the long glittering, snapping pincers of an ork power claw sheathed in deadly energies.
Space Marine Battles - the Novels Volume 1 Page 96