Shadowbreaker - Steve Parker

by Warhammer 40K

  As the missiles closed fast, Broden cut in front of the Dreadnought, placing himself directly in their path.

  A hail of rounds from his assault cannon cut two of the missiles from the air. They bloomed into bright fire just thirty metres away.

  The remaining missiles got through.

  Broden braced.

  His Terminator armour was struck dead on, each missile smashing into his massive breastplate.

  As powerful as the tactical Dreadnought armour was, the Black Templar would certainly have been killed outright were it not for the power of his storm shield. The barrier took the full impact of both missiles and turned it aside. Then it overloaded and died.

  Broden had been lucky. A third missile would have slain him.

  Copley’s people had thrown themselves to the ground.

  Rounds ripped into the rockcrete all around them. Then the strike fighters, screaming so low on the strafing run that their passage almost pulled Copley into the air, angled up and climbed away.

  Broden had steadied himself by then. He turned and fired furiously at the rearmost of the t’au jets. It was moving too fast. His rounds fell short.

  ‘Get to that t’au ship,’ he ordered all members of Scimitar and Spear Team Three. ‘Now! Before they turn!’

  Copley’s body ached all over. It didn’t want to move. The sickness had almost done its work on her.

  Fight! she told herself. Get up and run!

  She screamed through a clenched jaw as she pushed to her knees, then from knees to feet. She hefted her hot-shot lasgun and turned to the others.

  ‘Up, all of you! We’re almost there.’

  Only Triskel rose. The others, all seven, lay unmoving.

  Copley stared, her eyes roving from one inert body to another. She noted the blackened edges of limbs blasted away, the deep, charred craters cut into smoking torsos.

  No.

  Triskel stepped in front of her.

  She looked up, eyes wet.

  ‘No,’ she said, barely a whisper.

  ‘Warrior deaths, ma’am,’ said the corporal, hardening his expression against the emotions that were warring inside him. ‘Well-earned peace. They’ll be waiting for us when we’re done here.’

  He had dark rings around his eyes. His skin was yellowing. He didn’t have much time either.

  They turned and looked at the t’au ship. Black Eagle’s great metal carcass burned fiercely beside it, the Thunderhawk’s prow speared straight into the side. The port-side engine of the xenos ship was dead.

  The other engine could still be heard, its tone rising.

  T’au infantry were blasting away at bulky black forms in hard cover.

  Talon Squad!

  Coldwave’s Riptide was once again standing boldly on the back of his ship, looking for a clear shot at the members of Karras’s kill-team.

  ‘Tarval has bought us a few more minutes,’ said Copley. She coughed. Her breathing was becoming ragged.

  Triskel nodded. ‘He has that.’

  ‘The mission objective is still aboard that ship, corporal. What say we join the rest of the task force and…’

  And what? Even if they secured Epsilon, there was no way to exfiltrate her now. Black Eagle, gone. Reaper flight, gone. The t’au had total air control. Epsilon was surely beyond reach now.

  Still…

  Copley looked at Triskel and gave a weak, tired smile. ‘You know, corporal, I think I’d just like to see what the bitch looks like in person.’

  Chyron and Scimitar Squad were back on the move, storming towards the ship again, eager to get to cover before the remaining t’au jets banked for another attack.

  Copley and Triskel starting running.

  They were almost at the ruin of the Thunderhawk, with t’au pulse and plasma fire arcing out to meet them, when Coldwave’s Riptide strode to the edge of the spaceship’s starboard wing, locked sights on Chyron and unleashed the t’au commander’s boundless fury.

  Fifty-seven

  Space Marine senses are unlike those of mortal men.

  To an Adeptus Astartes, the world is sharper, more vivid, more vibrant in every way. A normal man would be overloaded and overwhelmed.

  Even while all his conscious focus fixed on the deadly knife fight with Khor Kabannen, Androcles’ back brain was registering and processing the storm of battle all around him.

  He heard the screaming approach of the Razorsharks. He registered the bright explosions as they clashed with the Imperial gunships in the air.

  He and Kabannen were almost caught in the blast when the dying Thunderhawk rammed herself into the t’au ship.

  They parted from their duel momentarily, stepping back from the heat of the flames and the hail of hot metal debris. The impact and explosion shunted the t’au ship almost a full quarter-turn anti-clockwise.

  Androcles noted the cessation of heat and light from the engine. One down. That will stall them, but not for long.

  He tracked the movement of the massive Riptide battlesuit as it thundered across the top of the ship. For a moment, he thought the lethal machine would turn its ion weapon towards them and eliminate him and Kabannen both. But Coldwave seemed content to let them fight it out.

  The shas’o had other foes in his sights.

  So the knife battle resumed – a hate-fuelled blur of stabbing, slashing, parrying and slipping.

  Androcles already had two deep gashes on his free arm and one high on the shoulder of his knife arm. His Larraman’s Organ, implanted over a century ago when he had still been a mere aspirant, was already stemming the flow. Healing cells gathered at each wound, forming thick scar tissue.

  It was no easy thing to kill an Adeptus Astartes with a blade.

  Kabannen had not gone unscathed. Androcles had managed to clinch with him momentarily, long enough to get purchase on the Iron Hand’s storm shield and, finally, rip it from its mount.

  The price of that was the wound on Androcles’ shoulder, the result of a whip-like slash from Kabannen as he pulled back out of range, but it was worth it to remove the energy barrier that was protecting the dishonourable cur.

  Eyes locked, they circled each other again.

  ‘You fight well, brother,’ said Kabannen, ‘but you are outmatched. You know it now.’

  Androcles snorted. ‘So you wish it, but I am as fresh as when we started, oath-breaker. You overestimate your advantages. I’d be dead already if it were within your abilities. And you’re running out of time.’

  ‘Your assault on Kurdiza has failed, fool. You’ve lost the air. Your forces are dwindling. I have all the time in the world.’

  As this was said, Androcles caught a flicker of something in Kabannen’s eye.

  Instinct moved him faster than thought. He spun, but it was too late.

  Lucianos was there behind him, his face mere inches away. He dipped, cinched his arms around Androcles’ waist and hoisted the Son of Antaeus up into the air.

  Androcles grunted as the traitor’s grip forced all the air from his lungs. He glared down at Lucianos and was surprised by the sadness he saw in the traitor’s eyes.

  Then Kabannen’s knife punched deep into his back, right between two vertebrae, severing the nerves.

  Suddenly paralysed, knowing that this was his end, Androcles could only watch. He saw Lucianos’ eyes become wet with tears, saw his lips move.

  ‘Forgive me, brother.’

  Kabannen ripped the knife free, then thrust again, this time up under the fused ribcage and into Androcles’ secondary heart.

  There was no pain. Androcles registered his murder as if he were a spectator only, disconnected from all feeling, reduced to watching it play out, helpless to act.

  Tears spilled over Lucianos’ cheeks as Kabannen’s knife struck home a third time, cleaving Androcles’ primary heart, ending
the life of a Space Marine who had been hero and champion to his Chapter brothers, chosen by the Deathwatch, a paragon of honour and integrity.

  He deserved a far better death, but Fate and the universe care little for what a man deserves.

  Kabannen tugged his blade free and stepped back, flicking the blood from it.

  ‘Drop him,’ he told Lucianos.

  Lucianos laid the limp body down gently on the ground and straightened, staring at it, guilt and sorrow writ clear on his face.

  ‘I wonder if he was right,’ said Kabannen.

  Lucianos looked up, eyes narrowing. ‘What?’

  ‘I was trying to kill him from the start. It should have been a simple thing. But it wasn’t.’ He thrust his chin at the cooling body. ‘I did not beat him while his feet touched dry land. Had you not lifted him up, brother… But we’ll never really know.’

  Lucianos turned away, scowling. ‘Sometimes, brother, I think I hate you.’

  Kabannen sheathed his knife and gestured for them to make for the t’au ship.

  Something whined in the air like a mosquito.

  Lucianos’ skull exploded.

  His headless body dropped to its knees, then pitched forward, dark blood pumping from the open neck.

  Kabannen whirled, but could see no attacker. Talon Three. The Ultramarine! Solarion’s prowess with a sniper rifle was said to be unmatched. Where was he? Kabannen had to get to cover.

  Before he could move, his senses twitched. On impulse, he threw his mechanical left hand up in front of his face.

  There was a buzz and a crack.

  The hand shattered into a thousand metal pieces. Shrapnel bit into Kabannen’s cheeks and forehead.

  He shook off the pain and steadied himself. Damned sniper coward!

  When he looked up, he saw brother Striggo barrelling towards him like a bull rhinox.

  He leapt for his bolter where it lay on the rockcrete, swept it up and levelled it at the Carcharadon.

  Two hundred and thirty metres away, the Ultramarine’s rifle coughed again. Kabannen’s bolter was smashed from his hand. It hit the rockcrete and skidded out of reach.

  Striggo was almost on him now. Kabannen saw the razor-lined grin on that ugly, pasty, barely human face.

  He met those all-black eyes and saw death in them.

  Striggo was his death. He tried to reject the thought, but it insisted on him, refusing to be denied.

  Ironic.

  It had always been Striggo whom Kabannen had enjoyed the most.

  To me, then, Carcharadon. But it will not be easy.

  Kabannen drew his knife one more time.

  For Manus and Medusa!

  Fifty-eight

  Zeed felt searing pain in his left thigh.

  He looked down at his cuisse. The ceramite and adamantium had been scored away. The edges were smooth, like melted wax hardened. The coating of stealth cells and ablative resin had bubbled away.

  Coldwave had been about to fire on Chyron. With Scimitar and the Dreadnought still on open ground, Zeed had acted in desperation, leaping out to fire his bolt pistol with his left hand while his right hurled a krak grenade.

  Had the grenade struck, it would have dealt a solid blow to the battlesuit. Instead, with boosted reflexes, Coldwave had managed to bat the grenade away with his Riptide’s ruined shield arm. It exploded harmlessly some forty metres away.

  Zeed’s gambit had worked, however. The shas’o turned his attention to the closer threat and fired, punished the Raven Guard for his interference.

  Zeed, with his jump pack restored to forty per cent efficiency, had barely managed to evade the shot.

  The loss of its shield should have made the Riptide a much easier kill. Instead it seemed only to have jolted the pilot awake.

  Chyron fired on it and missed. Broden’s assault cannon chewed armour from its left shoulder, but the massive machine boosted laterally and the Terminator-suited Templar lost line of sight.

  Zeed was back in cover beside Voss now, cursing under his breath. ‘Omni, we have to lock him down.’

  ‘If he didn’t have so many damned infantry…’

  ‘Prophet, can’t you get a bead on him? Shoot out his jets?’

  There was a grunt over the vox. ‘If he keeps–’

  A spear of light scored one of the cargo containers north-east of the ship, cutting it almost in two. It collapsed. The containers stacked atop it slid and tumbled.

  ‘Prophet!’ shouted Voss.

  ‘Damn!’ hissed Solarion. ‘That one was for me. Relocating.’

  Zeed saw the Riptide appear on the starboard wing of the t’au ship, gaining line of sight on him and Voss.

  ‘Omni! Watch yourself!’ he called out, and boosted forward, surging into the cover of the ship’s curving fuselage.

  Voss turned and immediately began blazing away at the battlesuit. A dozen bolter rounds hit, biting fist-sized chunks from frontal armour. The Riptide weathered the storm and raised its ion accelerator to return fire.

  Voss lunged, barely in time. The cover behind him collapsed into glowing slag.

  He felt the heat of the blast through his armour before temperature control systems compensated and shunted the excess away from his flesh.

  He was in plain sight now. Nowhere to hide, nothing to shield him. The next shot would bring a quick death.

  Defiantly, he planted his feet wide and swung the muzzle of his Infernus around. ‘Let’s have you then, xenos bastard! I die with Dorn’s eyes upon me!’

  From his cockpit, Coldwave looked down at the bulky Space Marine and grinned. Here was a bold one, and his boldness would cost him his life. There was great pleasure to be had in obliterating one of the gue’la Imperium’s foul-smelling death-bringers. He would remember this moment, relive it in his mind.

  Voss saw the ion accelerator glow and thumbed his own trigger. He would die fighting back, as a Space Marine was meant to die.

  He had honoured the primarch and the Chapter.

  Few Deathwatch ever made it home.

  Glowing particles clustered at the muzzle of the Riptide’s weapon. Bolter rounds rattled on the battlesuit’s front armour again, doing damage but not nearly enough.

  The ion glow reached its peak.

  A black shape shot into the air. There was a glint of sunlight on shimmering blades.

  The glow of the ion accelerator winked out. The weapon’s barrel fell away, cut through at an angle.

  Zeed’s boots and the severed barrel struck the top of the t’au ship as one.

  Voss’ features broke into a broad grin. ‘Audacious ass. I’ll never hear the end of it.’

  Alarm glyphs flashed red on Coldwave’s retinas. The shas’o snarled with rage and kicked out savagely at the jump-packed Space Marine.

  Such speed and ferocity.

  The Raven Guard took the full force of the kick, dead centre.

  From the ground, Voss saw the battlesuit’s leg flash out, connecting hard with his brother. He saw Zeed launched from the back of the t’au ship, straight out into the air, fragments of power armour breaking off, falling away as he arced towards the ground.

  He hit hard, skidding a dozen metres, sparks flying from jump pack and heels where they raked the rockcrete of the landing field.

  The Riptide turned back to Voss. He and Coldwave regarded each other for a moment.

  The battlesuit crouched. No weapons left, no shield, but still with full mobility and massive physical power. Still deadly.

  It leapt from the back of the t’au ship and struck the ground just in front of Voss.

  Before he could fire again, the Riptide kicked him straight in the chest, just as it had the Raven Guard.

  Voss tore through the air and smashed into a stack of metal containers twenty metres behind him, making a deep dent before
he tumbled to the rockcrete.

  Emergency runes and armour alarms screamed for his attention. He tried to push himself to his knees. Power armour functionality was down sixty per cent. Servos whined and grated at shoulder and elbow. He scoured the ground for his heavy-bolter. It lay four metres away, the ammo feed ripped apart and the flamer nozzle hopelessly crushed.

  He looked up.

  Coldwave’s battlesuit had jumped again, back to the spine of the t’au ship where it was now striding towards the stern.

  From above Voss, there was the sound of a single suppressed round.

  The Riptide’s angular head exploded. It staggered, lost balance, dropped to a knee.

  Voss grinned a bloody smile. ‘Hell of a shot, Prophet.’

  Lascannon beams blazed, smacking into the battlesuit’s left shoulder, shearing off the whole arm.

  The Riptide braced itself on the shorn stump of its ion accelerator. It looked certain to tumble from the top of the ship.

  Instead, it righted itself and rose to full height.

  ‘Saints’ blood!’ hissed Solarion. ‘What does it take to kill this damned thing?’

  The whine of the t’au ship’s remaining engine rose to a deafening roar. The craft began to rise.

  The Riptide leapt to the ground and turned.

  ‘He’s going inside,’ growled the Ultramarine.

  ‘Damn it,’ voxed Zeed, coughing. ‘I think the bastard broke half my bones!’

  Voss watched helplessly as the t’au ship lifted higher into the air.

  A fusillade of fire raked its underside and wings. Scimitar and Chyron were unleashing a withering storm, everything they had, but to no effect. The hull was crafted from advanced t’au ceramics designed for atmospheric re-entry. It soaked up everything they threw at it.

  Voss saw a formation of Razorsharks racing in from the east, the sun behind them. With the t’au ship in the air and the vast majority of blue-skin ground forces dead, dying or falling back, the xenos jets had little need to consider collateral damage or friendly fire. They would devastate anything and everything left on the ground.

  ‘Death Spectre,’ raged Solarion, ‘where the hell are you? What are you doing in there?’