Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘…firmed. Primary threats sighted. Lockwood’s Chimera was… No survivors… I saw Crayce die myself. Frag grenade. Barely anyth… left of him, sir.’

  ‘Transmit exact coordinates immediately. Damn it, where are you all? Reval?’

  ‘…opy that, captain. Transmitting. Sir, the casualties are…’

  ‘Are what? Reval? The casualties are what?’

  ‘Lost the link,’ said Janden. ‘I’ve got the coordinates, though. Only six kilometres to the direct north. We can meet them on the way back to headquarters.’

  ‘We’ve got to link up with them. Or they’ve got to link up with us.’ Neither option seemed likely. Six kilometres wasn’t far, but it became a nightmare trek when it was through enemy-held territory. It may as well have been a continent away.

  ‘You think we can convince the inquisitor that we need to link up with the colonel?’

  ‘I’m not sure I care what the inquisitor thinks at this stage.’

  ‘But the inquisitor’s mission–’

  ‘Will have to wait,’ snapped Thade. ‘The Reclamation is over.’

  All around him now, Thade could see his men being forced into hand-to-hand fighting. The Remnant was on them, vaulting the low walls and running among the gravestones. Thade geared his chainsword up and rejoined the fight. Blood of the Emperor, if he was going to die today, he was going to slaughter a hundred of these bloody heretics first. Rax ran at his heels, its Litany-etched jaws opening in readiness.

  Chainsword growling, Thade carved through a Remnant soldier from behind. The man howled as Thade’s sword hammered into his lower back and churned his guts to soup in a whirr of grinding teeth. The captain tore the blade free and ran at the next closest heretic – a filthy, skinny bastard with a blood-spotted lasrifle in his grimy hands. Thade sprinted at him, leaped from a tumbled gravestone, and snapped the heretic’s neck with a flying kick that pounded into the traitor’s throat. His bolter sang as he landed, banging out a thunderous refrain and slaying three more Remnant in showers of gore.

  Rax leaped at a nearby Remnant soldier, jaws snapping shut on the traitor’s throat in a vicious clamp like a bear-trap closing. The cyber-mastiff landed before the decapitated corpse even hit the ground, its polished jaws smeared with blood.

  Zailen, hefting his steaming plasma gun, joined the captain. So did several other soldiers, rallying to Thade and lending their las-fire to his fury.

  Thade’s vox-bead chimed. The signal was poor, but there was no chance to head back to Janden to use the vox-caster now. They were surrounded. Pistol in one hand, blade in the other, the captain moved from wall to wall, killing the Remnant that came within reach. The voice in his ear was muffled beyond comprehension. His pounding heartbeat added to the maelstrom of noise all around.

  ‘Thade,’ he breathed, tearing his chainsword free from the chest of a Remnant soldier. ‘Speak to me.’

  ‘…link up…’

  Thade’s bolt pistol roared, cutting the voice off again. The soldier that had been running at him, bayonet lowered like a spear, collapsed without a head.

  ‘Repeat.’

  ‘This… quisitor Caius. We’re being overwhelmed. Plague-slain and Remnant forces. We must retreat, Thade.’

  Thade laughed. He actually laughed. As the inquisitor demanded he abandon this doomed mission and his chainsword stripped the face from a howling heretic, Captain Thade laughed. He’d never expected to die like this, and now the time came, he found it inexplicably funny.

  ‘We’re Cadian, lord. It’s not called retreat, it’s called consolidation. I already gave the order: fall back to regroup. Otherwise, we die here.’ The trooper next to him took a hit in the belly and dropped like a sack. Thade and his shattered squad took a moment’s refuge behind a row of tombstones.

  ‘Captain Thade. Give me a full tactical assessment of–’ Caius started.

  ‘Not now!’ the captain barked. He looked back at the downed trooper. It was Zailen. ‘Cover me, gentlemen,’ he said to the three soldiers crouched with him. And then he started running. ‘Rax. The gun!’

  It was only fifteen metres, but he felt shots whickering past his body as he covered the short distance. Thade’s gloved bionic hand gripped Zailen’s collar, knuckle-servos closing with silent, inhuman strength. Bolter up and firing, Thade dragged the bleeding man behind the insignificant cover of a large gravestone. Rax was at his heels, jaws clamped on the grip of Zailen’s priceless plasma gun, moving backwards as he dragged the weapon.

  ‘Sir,’ said Zailen, unsuccessfully holding in a gush of bright blood from his stomach. Even if he survived the gut-shot, which was unlikely if he remained in the field, the chances of infection in Kathur were almost one hundred per cent. All Reclamation troops were issued with anti-infection gel to fight the increased risk of wounds turning foul on this fallen world.

  ‘I’m here, I’m here.’ Thade gunned down another Remnant soldier that was too close for comfort, and turned back to Zailen. ‘Still with me, Zailen?’

  ‘You have no idea how much this hurts.’ Bright blood oozed between his fingers, soaking his uniform. ‘Wasn’t this sector supposed to be almost clear? The Vednikans cleared it, they said.’

  ‘Shut up and stop dying,’ Thade said. He pulled his blood-wet gloves off, taking his anti-ague gel pack from his hip webbing. He was out of bandages. ‘Tasoll, get over here!’

  A nearby trooper made a break for Thade’s limited cover, throwing himself prone to clear the last few metres. Tasoll was clutching a laspistol in each hand, which he holstered as he knelt up next to the captain. He also removed his dirty gloves, reaching for the medical narthecium pack at his hip. Syringes and bandages were packed neatly within.

  ‘You got shot, Zailen?’ Tasoll said. He had a gentle voice, totally at odds with his hulking form.

  Zailen hissed through clenched teeth. ‘Looks like it. The Vednikan 12th said they’d cleared this place. What is this, then? I’ve – ow, that hurt, watch your fingers – I’ve been shot in the bloody stomach.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, life in the Guard. They don’t give medals for getting shot, boy.’

  ‘Boy? I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘And I’m forty, so shut your mouth, boy. On three, move your hands. Understood?’

  Zailen made a teeth-gritted noise approximating an affirmative. Thade tapped the anti-ague gel and tossed it on the ground next to Tasoll. The medic acknowledged it with a curt nod and started counting.

  Then the feeling hit Thade. A skin-crawling feeling, like a wave of insects under his armour, a million legs tickling his sweating flesh. The yells started from just ahead. Something was coming.

  ‘Thade?’ A voice in his ear. The inquisitor again.

  ‘Copy,’ Thade was already moving, his eyes flickering through the flashing las-fire and duelling groups of men, seeking the source of unease.

  ‘We’re falling back to you. Is that understood, captain?’

  The source of Thade’s unease was almost three metres tall, clad in ancient armour, and swollen with disease. An oversized bolter chattered in its greenish fists. And it was not alone. From the spire ahead, more Death Guard marched slowly, bolters held at the hip. He had no idea if they walked because their ruined bodies made them unable to run, or if it was just another intimidation tactic, but they fired and Cadians started to die. Soldiers were hammered to the ground all around him. The Death Guard’s volley scythed down Imperials and heretics alike. The Traitor Astartes cared nothing for butchering their own minions.

  ‘Understood, inquisitor. The faster, the better,’ Thade said, throttling his chainsword. ‘Primary threats sighted. ’

  ‘The Fourteenth Legion?’

  ‘In the flesh. And lord, we absolutely don’t have the men to win this.’ Thade ducked back into cover, firing his pistol at nearby Remnant soldiers before they could run into close combat with his men. The
Death Guard were still a distant threat, out of the range of his bolt pistol even as they cut down his soldiers.

  ‘General order, Cadian Eighty-eighth. Consolidate all force on Venator’s vox-caster coordinates. Vox back acknowledgement.’

  Miraculously, every platoon leader voxed back.

  Caught in the jaws of the Archenemy, the 88th abandoned its objectives and now fought just to survive. The squads fell back, metre by metre, in an organised retreat. Like a flower closing its petals, the scattered elements of Thade’s forces came together in unity. They were bloodied, beaten, and suffered losses each step they took.

  Above the ash-grey clouds, the Imperial fleet burned. Vox-casters on the surface picked up stray screams from the men aboard those dying ships.

  Chapter XI

  Consolidation

  Solthane, Yarith Spire Graveyard, Monastic sector

  Tech-priest Enginseer Osiron swept his metal fist in a gentle panning motion, from east to west. The signum in his hand pulsed its electronic signal to his attendant servitors, and the half-living drones followed the path of their master’s hand, unleashing a withering hail of fire. Heavy bolters surgically attached to the servitors in place of their left arms chattered and blasted. The graveyard vista before Osiron cleared as the few Remnant left alive after the volley sought shelter.

  ‘Ammunition depleted,’ said one of the servitors in its dead voice. The heavy bolter that formed part of its body clanked as the auto-loaders linked to the slave’s backpack cycled through empty chambers.

  Away from the other officers, Osiron couldn’t have cared less about Kathur Reclamation protocol regarding the sanctity of the architecture. His servitors were armed with heavy weaponry. He was going to use it.

  In the wake of the assault, the moans of wounded Remnant reached Osiron’s ears. Although it would have been a pleasant vindication to remain and finish the heretics off once and for all, the tech-priest was obeying Thade’s fall back order.

  Without a word, he turned from the scene of carnage he’d wrought, and his servitors followed in similar silence. The 88th squad with Osiron’s unorthodox squad was a group of Whiteshields, under the command of Squad Leader Farren Kel.

  Kel was a Whiteshield himself, just turned fourteen years of age. His black helmet was marked with the central white stripe denoting his membership in the Cadian Youth Legion, though a badge of minor rank was evident on his shoulder pad. Bylam Osiron, the Honoured Enginseer, made him nervous. And it wasn’t the slaughter the machine-man was capable of. Seeing the tech-priest’s servitors gun down over a hundred Remnant was nothing. The Cadian boy was almost fifteen; he’d already killed that many men himself.

  ‘Lord tech-priest?’ Kel asked, as the Whiteshields – all under sixteen years old – fell back in smooth formation, each squad providing covering fire for the others. The Remnant was already retrying its rush at the Cadians.

  ‘An unnecessary honorific,’ Osiron murmured.

  ‘Sir, the captain’s orders are to proceed to his position.’ Kel tightened his helmet strap, his blue-violet eyes fixed on the black depths of Osiron’s hood.

  ‘I heard them,’ Osiron said. Kel just nodded to Osiron’s words. No sense asking how the Mechanicus holy man had news the squad had only just picked up on their vox-caster.

  ‘Forward for Cadia,’ Kel called out, pointing his own newly-issued chainsword towards the distant figures of the embattled Vigilant platoon. He still felt faintly ridiculous shouting out battle cries like that. He felt like he was doing a bad imitation of Captain Thade, but his troopers followed his every word without any laughter.

  They made good time, moving swiftly through the graveyard. Osiron and the servitors were forced into an awkward forward-tilted walk to keep up. Kel heard the tech-priest’s breathing coming in harsh metallic rasps, and not for the first time he wondered just how old Osiron was. Was this laboured breathing natural for one of the Machine Cult?

  Commissar Tionenji met them on a small rise. A dozen of his men were still alive, the rest lay strewn around the hill. Flanked by Dead Man’s Hand, the survivors were enjoying a momentary respite as they readied to fall back to Thade. The tanks that had been assaulting their position were burning husks some distance away, shattered and wrecked by the fury of the five Sentinels’ autocannons. Kel stared at Tionenji for several moments.

  ‘Squad Leader Kel,’ Tionenji flicked gore from his chainsabre. ‘Never seen a commissar before?’

  ‘No, sir. Never, sir.’ This was a lie. Kel had seen plenty, but this was his first time off-world. He was staring because he’d never seen a man with black skin before. ‘Courage: Broken, sir,’ Kel added.

  ‘Ah.’ Tionenji noted the Whiteshields had only a few casualties. Their success was the tech-priest’s doing, no doubt. Or perhaps the children had simply been sent to a section with less intense fighting. But why had the boy said ‘Broken’? He smiled as he gestured to the men preparing around him. ‘Vigilant,’ he said, ‘in bad shape, but Unbroken.’

  Kel forced a smile. It must have looked awkward, because the commissar straightened his cap and frowned. ‘Something wrong, squad leader?’

  ‘It… doesn’t mean that, sir.’

  ‘Hm?’ Tionenji turned as one of Dead Man’s Hand opened fire once again, the heavy bang-bang-bang of its autocannon echoing across the graveyard as it pounded a distant group of what looked like plague-slain. ‘What doesn’t mean what?’

  ‘Unbroken, sir. It’s just slang. Code for “able to complete mission objectives”.’

  ‘Then we’re all Broken, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How very uninspiring that thought is.’ Tionenji signalled the move-out with a short blast of the whistle around his neck. ‘Thank you for the tip, young man.’ He made to move, then turned back to Kel. ‘Tell me something else, if you would.’

  ‘Anything, sir.’

  ‘The Sentinel squadron. Why are they called “Dead Man’s Hand”?’

  Kel grinned. It made him look even younger. ‘Named after the captain, sir.’

  ‘Named after his lost hand?’ asked Tionenji. A trifle grim, even for Cadian humour.

  ‘Ha! No, sir. Have you ever played Black Five? It’s a card game. We play it back home. If you get dealt all five black cards in your first turn, it’s impossible to win. We call it a dead man’s hand.’

  ‘And the captain…’

  ‘…is the worst card player you’ve ever seen, sir. Adar – that is, Scout-Lieutenant Vertain, sir – he named the squadron after he won three months’ wages from the captain. They’re the captain’s elite scouts, there’re five of them, and the name stuck.’

  The two platoons fell back together, closing on Thade’s position. Tionenji made a promise to himself then: if he survived this, he was going to do his damnedest to make some money off Thade at a card game.

  The Second Shadow stood alone. The Chaos fleet closed in, and only now did the strike cruiser turn to face its oncoming attackers. The wreckage of enemy fighters drifted around the black ship like a corona.

  The half-human creature at the Terminus Est’s void shield console writhed in the Herald’s direction. It tried to speak for the first time in months, but the taint within was so rich, the creature could barely recall human speech. Instead it psychically projected its message in a burst of panic.

  Typhus, still standing, turned his colossal armoured bulk to the nearest Death Guard warrior.

  ‘We have been boarded. Assault pods have breached…’ the Herald paused, reaching out with his powerful sixth sense, sending his consciousness throughout the halls of the diseased ship. He felt the intrusion as wounds in the flesh of his beloved vessel.

  ‘…decks nineteen, thirteen and six. Starboard. Sections twenty to twenty-four.’ Strange, he thought. No sense of intruding life. ‘The Raven Guard have not left the pods, yet. Slaughter them as they emer
ge. Slaughter them all. Bring me their skulls so the lowliest of my slaves will have new pots to piss in.’

  The Destroyer Hive stirred with the Herald’s anger. The hollow, bony protrusions jutting from the archaic Terminator armour began to expel flies from their openings. Fat, blood-wet insects thrummed around the bridge, released from the Herald’s innards. His god’s greatest blessing, contained within a once-mortal shell.

  Terminus Est had been boarded. This was not amusing. This was an affront.

  Seth.

  Seth.

  Seth.

  Seth screamed. Psychic lightning raged from his outstretched fingertips, enveloping the Death Guard warrior in tendrils of coruscating energy. Its armour blackened and cracked under the psychic onslaught, and the reek of burning flesh was made far worse by the foul stench of cancerous diseases cooking within the superheated power armour.

  The sanctioned psyker broke off his attack, suffering a savage cough that brought blood to his lips. As the destroyed Traitor Astartes collapsed in a heap of ruined armour and burned flesh, Seth cried out at the headache heating the insides of his skull. His brain was boiling. He was sure of it, his brain was boiling. He’d pushed himself too far.

  Ban Jevrian pistol-whipped him. It was an ungentle blow that made a loud crack as it connected with the psyker’s skull. Seth cried out again, but forced the sound to burst quieter from his lips this time.

  ‘Keep it down, warp-touched freak.’

  Seth nodded dumbly, blood streaming from his tear ducts, ears and nostrils.

  Jevrian’s Kasrkin unit, like the rest of the 88th, was falling back to Captain Thade’s position. They were under the graveyard, deep within an underground mausoleum, with Seth seconded to them for support. They’d been exploring until a squad of Death Guard had emerged from the shadowed corridors adjoining a large burial chamber, opening fire. The Kasrkin had taken the two Traitor Marines down with a blistering volley of hellgun fire aimed at the Astartes’ armour joints, thirty grenades, and Seth’s psychic fury.

  Jevrian knelt by the still form of a black-armoured Cadian. He’d lost three of his men to the Traitors’ bolters. Three. Three Kasrkin, the elite, the best of the best. He could scarcely fathom the loss. And now he had the warp-touched mutant dribbling and weeping. To hell with Thade’s pet wizard; Jevrian was tempted to shoot the bastard now and have done with it.