Rogue Trader

by Andy Hoare

  Checking that the two Devastator squads were in position to cover the Space Marines’ advance, Sarik ordered his warriors forwards.

  As Sarik rounded the base of the rise, the land ahead opened up into a dense patchwork of fields and plantations. Hill 3003 rose from amongst the crops and trees, and beyond it, glistening silver in the morning light, was River 992.

  Beyond the distant river, made hazy and indistinct by the small amount of vapour still lingering in the morning air, was the city of Gel’bryn. The city’s towers shone bright in the full light of the sun, and each was revealed to be gracefully curved in form, almost as if it had been grown rather than constructed. The tallest of the towers must have been five hundred or more metres in height, and a myriad of walkways connected each to its neighbour. Small points of light glinted all around the city, and Sarik guessed that each was an anti-grav flyer of some sort, or perhaps one of those fiendish, thinking-machine drones.

  Sarik tracked back from the city, locating the enemy troop build-up the Departmento Tacticae had reported on the western side of River 992. There it was, a dirty haze marking an area where the tau’s grav-tanks were gathering, throwing dust up from the dry ground. From this distance, Sarik could make out very little of the gathering, other than suggestions of multiple armoured vehicles and the scurrying of infantry at the perimeters. No matter; he would soon be facing that force, regardless of its strength.

  ‘Sergeant,’ Brother Qaja said, nodding towards the extreme left end of the city. Sarik followed the gesture, tracking along the horizon and locating what must have been a star port, the skies above it clustered with hundreds of aircraft. Some were coming in to land, while others were departing, but all were travelling to or from orbit.

  ‘Reinforcements?’ Qaja said.

  Sarik studied the scene for several moments as he advanced, noting as best he could from such a great distance the sizes and types of vessels. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘It looks to me like the tau are evacuating their city, brother.’

  ‘Why would they do such a thing?’ Qaja said. ‘Why would not every citizen muster to defend his home?’

  Sarik’s eyes narrowed as he considered the situation. Qaja was correct, but only in so far as that was what most enemies would do. Rebels would man their barricades with men, women and children, while most aliens made no such distinction between the members of their population. Almost every foe Sarik had ever fought regarded the defence of hearth and home as sacrosanct, holy ground for which they would fight and die regardless of the chances of winning. Yet, here was a tau army clearly gathering to defend the city, while others were being evacuated rather than mustered to join the defence.

  ‘They are truly alien,’ Sarik said. ‘We cannot know how they will fight or what drives them to do so. If they are evacuating non-combatants, then perhaps they believe they have already lost and their warriors intend to make a stand for the sake of honour.’

  ‘You think they believe in honour, brother-sergeant?’ Qaja said.

  Sarik nodded as he walked. ‘I will grant them that, brother,’ he said. ‘Until or unless they prove me wrong.’

  Brother Qaja made no reply, though he appeared less then convinced at the notion of affording aliens anything akin to honour. The battle-brother merely hefted his plasma cannon, and fell back into the line of march.

  The lead squad, another group of White Scars, had reached a cluster of boulders as the land ran down towards the distant river, and halted. With a gesture, Sarik ordered the entire force to halt, and with another to take up overwatch of the surrounding terrain. Crouching, he opened the vox-net and spoke to the squad’s sergeant.

  ‘Brother-Sergeant Cheren, report.’

  ‘It’s one of the tau stealthers, brother-sergeant. It appears that he died of wounds sustained before the rise and was left behind.’ Sarik and Qaja shared a glance at the idea of leaving the fallen behind, a concept that was anathema to the Space Marines, and especially to the White Scars Chapter, whose people practised highly ritualised funerary rites and afforded the dead great respect.

  ‘Hold position, brother-sergeant,’ Sarik said, before leading his squad forwards from the column. He was painfully aware that the body might have been left there as a trap, to distract the Space Marines while a tau force deployed nearby. There was no honour in it, but he had seen such tactics used before, especially amongst the mortal followers of the Ruinous Powers.

  His boltgun tracking left and right as he advanced, Sarik crossed the open ground, Brother Qaja at his back all the while, and soon stood over the alien body. He thought it was the stealther he had hit minutes before, but had no way of telling for sure.

  ‘They were either fleeing, or it’s a trap,’ Sergeant Cheren said. ‘Either way, there is no honour in it.’

  ‘Aye, brother-sergeant,’ Sarik replied. ‘Or perhaps both. These tau have proven tactically flexible. Even if the body was not left here to draw our attention they may take advantage of the distraction. Get your squad moving, we have a…’

  Sergeant Cheren’s body erupted before Sarik’s very eyes. It happened so suddenly Sarik saw it almost in slow motion. An entry wound appeared in the centre of Cheren’s chest armour, the ceramite actually rippling and distorting around the impact point. Then the sergeant’s power pack shattered outwards as the projectile exited his body. So drastic were the forces exerted on the sergeant’s body that it was liquefied inside his armour, reduced to a red gruel which sprayed outwards from the exit point like a burst in a high-pressure conduit. The Space Marine behind Cheren was standing directly in the path of that fountain of gore and his pristine white armour was turned deep red as he was covered head to foot in the sergeant’s pulped remains.

  ‘Kuk…’ the blood-splattered Space Marine cursed, reverting instinctively to his native Chogoran tongue.

  ‘Down!’ Sarik bellowed, and the two squads of Space Marines nearby dived for cover amidst the boulders.

  The air was ripped apart as two more hyper-velocity projectiles passed overhead in quick succession.

  ‘Devastators!’ Sarik said into the vox-net. ‘What do you see? Report!’

  ‘Stand by, brother-sergeant,’ came back the voice of the Sergeant Lahmas, the sergeant of the Scythes of the Emperor Devastator squad. ‘Tracking contact on Hill 3003.’

  A deafening crack split the air and a hyper-velocity projectile slammed into the opposite face of the boulder Sarik was sheltering behind. It must have weighed ten tons, yet it visibly trembled and a jagged fracture appeared on the rock face right before Sarik’s eyes.

  ‘It’s the same ordnance they use on their warships,’ Sarik growled. Come on Lahmas…

  ‘Sergeant,’ Lahmas’s voice cut in to Sarik’s chain of thought. ‘I have eyes on nine enemy heavy infantry. Each has twin shoulder-mounted weapons of unknown type. Range too great to engage.’

  Another projectile struck the boulder that Brother Qaja was sheltering behind, razor-sharp spall spraying from the opposite face and catching the battle-brother across one cheek. Qaja gritted his teeth, one eye remaining closed and bloody as he hefted his plasma cannon and shouted something at Sarik.

  The sergeant realised only then that the tremendous pressure wave of the impact had partially deafened him, but his hearing came back in a rush.

  ‘…I said,’ Brother Qaja repeated, ‘Breakout?’

  ‘Hold your fire, brother,’ Sarik said, and risked a look around the edge of the boulder. Though he dared only expose his head for a couple of seconds, in that moment he located the crest of Hill 3003. Atop the hill’s summit was a line of enemy warriors, clearly wearing some sort of heavy personal armour. The ground battle of Sy’l’kell came to Sarik’s mind, at the height of which he had fought a tau commander wearing a battle suit of similar design. Yet these were even larger, and bore weaponry akin to that of a battle tank.

  Sarik reached to his belt and un-st
owed his battle helm, placing it on his head and re-opening the vox-link to Sergeant Lahmas. ‘Seen. Lahmas, I want you to patch your sensorium exlink directly to my system. Keep eyes on, I’m calling this one in.’

  The Scythes of the Emperor sergeant signalled his understanding, and a few seconds later Sarik’s vision froze, then dissolved into static. A moment later a rune blinked into being, and then the view was replaced by the scene from the other sergeant’s point of view.

  ‘Machine communion established, brother-sergeant,’ Lahmas said. Are you receiving?’

  ‘Aye, brother,’ Sarik replied. ‘Stand by and hold still.’

  Sarik had to focus his thoughts and concentrate hard to control the other’s sensorium system, but after a moment he made the view magnify as much as it was able without the aid of magnoculars. The scene zoomed in on the summit of Hill 3003, where the enemy heavy infantry were clearly visible. Each was half as tall again as a Space Marine, their blocky armour reminding Sarik of one of the mighty Space Marine Dreadnoughts, though it was not quite so bulky. Like the Dreadnought, however, the battle suit was more piloted than worn, for the large torso must have housed the operator, who viewed the battlefield through the armoured sensor block mounted atop the body.

  A flash of blue from further down the line of battle suits caught Sarik’s attention, and Lahmas tracked across to it, guessing correctly that Sarik would wish to see more clearly. Before the movement was complete another boulder nearby was split in two, the Space Marine behind it only just managing to dive clear, and coming up near Sarik. Then the sound of the discharge rolled across the landscape, giving Sarik some idea of the speed the projectile must have been travelling to exceed its own report. He re-called the sensorium archive, re-playing the last few seconds at ten times slower speed, his eye on the timestamp as the projectile came in. He estimated that the enemy projectiles must have been travelling at between eight and ten times the speed of sound.

  No wonder Sergeant Cheren’s body had been liquefied inside his armour.

  Sarik opened the crusade command channel. ‘Sarik, beta-nine, zero-delta,’ he said, the call sign and context routing his transmission straight through to the fighter command duty officer.

  There was a brief pause, overlaid by machine-chatter as vox-exlink systems authenticated the identity of sender and receiver.

  ‘Fighter command, go ahead, sergeant,’ the duty officer replied. The channel was distorted, for the signal was being routed back to the more powerful vox-unit on board one of the nearby Rhinos, and then through hundreds of kilometres of atmosphere and orbital space to the Blade of Woe.

  ‘I need a fighter-bomber fire mission, urgent, my authority.’

  ‘Sergeant,’ Sarik knew by the man’s voice he was about to attempt to haggle. ‘We have only…’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Sarik interjected. ‘I know assets are scarce, but you can’t keep them hidden away like your daughters at the victory feast, I need…’

  ‘Repeat last, sergeant…’ the duty officer said.

  ‘Never mind,’ Sarik said. ‘I need a fire mission, right now, and if you can’t process it I’ll have to speak to General Gauge directly. Do you understand?’

  There was a brief pause before the duty officer replied ‘Understood, sergeant. Call it in.’

  ‘Better,’ Sarik growled. Before he could continue, the enemy battle suits opened fire again, blue pulses rippling up and down their firing line. Viewing the scene from another’s point of view was faintly disconcerting, but Sarik focussed on the task at hand.

  The channel clicked several times as the transmission was shunted through multiple relay and encryption conduits. The background whine of powerful jets cut in, telling Sarik he was through to a fighter pilot. ‘This is Silver Eagle leader, holding pattern east of your position. Go ahead, sergeant.’

  ‘Good to hear you, Silver Eagle leader,’ Sarik said. ‘I have multiple hard targets atop Hill 3003. Heavy battle suits. I want a rapid-fire pass, full effect, from one-sixty, over.’

  ‘Understood, sergeant,’ the squadron leader replied, the background sound changing pitch as his fighter dropped five thousand metres in mere seconds. ‘Splash two-zero,’ the pilot said, his voice strained by the g-force inflicted on his body by the rapid dive. ‘Keep your heads down, and good luck.’

  Splash two zero. Twenty seconds to attack.

  Sarik disengaged the sensorium link to Sergeant Lahmas, his vision locking for a moment before being replaced by a wall of static. After a few more seconds his armour’s war spirit awakened and his vision was returned to his own perspective.

  Craning his neck upwards, Sarik searched the eastern skies for the Thunderbolt ground attack squadron. Within seconds a distant roar filled the skies, but the fighters were travelling too low and too fast for Sarik to make them out.

  The sound grew in volume, until it was almost upon the Space Marines. Four dark shapes appeared to the east, diving in low and following the undulating terrain, lines of bright shock diamonds trailing behind their engines. The tau heavy infantry turned towards the oncoming fighters, some raising their twin hyper-velocity projectile weapons towards the oncoming threat. But none fired; there would have been no point with the fighters travelling in excess of fifteen hundred kilometres per hour.

  In the final seconds, the tau battle suits took a ponderous step backwards, evidently lacking the short-burn jump jets that made the smaller stealthers so agile.

  The roar of the fighters’ turbofans became a deafening scream, and then the Thunderbolts opened fire. The first shots were from their nose-mounted lascannons, lancing out towards the tau in an incandescent blast.

  One battle suit was struck square in the torso, vanishing in a pulsating explosion and leaving just shrapnel scattered across the ground. Another las-bolt struck its target a glancing blow to one of its arm-like appendages, its end terminating in a boxy weapons mount that must have been some sort of short-ranged, anti-personnel multiple missile launcher. The missiles in the weapon’s tubes detonated spectacularly, causing the battle suit to stumble sideways as the one next to it was peppered with shrapnel. The last two beams split the air between two of the battle suits, setting the scrub behind them alight.

  But the lascannon blasts were just the beginning. As the Thunderbolts screamed onwards they came within the range of their nose-mounted autocannons. The relentless hammering of multiple rounds split the air and the tau were caught in a storm of metal as thick as driving rain. Though many rounds churned into the ground around the battle suits’ mechanical feet, so heavy was the torrent of fire that dozens struck their targets. Smoke and dust was thrown upwards, small white flashes of incandescence shining through, each sent up by an autocannon round striking its target and turning for a brief instant into a small, superheated ball of plasma. Sarik’s helmet autosenses activated, momentarily darkening his field of vision so that his eyes were not damaged by the searing white lights that flickered up and down the entire crest of Hill 3003.

  Before Sarik’s vision had entirely cleared, he felt the sharp impact of a metallic object rebounding from his shoulder plate to patter to the dry ground at his feet. It was a brass shell casing, ejected from the first of the Thunderbolts as it screamed overhead, and it was followed by hundreds more raining down on Sarik and the other Space Marines. In a split second, all four Thunderbolts had passed overhead and were already gaining altitude as they banked east in the jade skies.

  Sarik readied himself to issue the order to press on and assault the hill, for nothing could have survived that hail of autocannon fire. Sarik studied the distant crest as the smoke and dust was caught on a gust of wind and drifted clear, revealing the destruction the Imperial Navy fighter squadron had unleashed on the tau.

  As the scene cleared, it became evident that somehow, at least three of the tau had survived. Sarik had seen even the fell war machines of the followers of Chaos reduced to smoking
wreckage by such attacks and could scarcely believe that the tau battle suits, even as heavy as they were, could be so well armoured as to survive. Though each of the surviving battle suits was visibly damaged, the ochre yellow of their armour blackened and dented by numerous impact scars, two of them were regaining their feet and levelling their heavy, shoulder-mounted hyper-velocity weapons on the Space Marines.

  ‘Silver Eagle leader to Sarik,’ the squadron leader’s voice came over the net. ‘Report status, over?’

  ‘Silver Eagle leader,’ Sarik called back. ‘Multiple effective survivors, over.’

  There was a pause, then a crackle on the line before the squadron leader replied, ‘Understood, sergeant. Remain in position. Returning to previous heading for full-effect bomb drop.’

  The four Thunderbolts continued their wide bank towards the east, dropping low as they came about for a second pass.

  A whip-crack report split the air not three metres from Sarik’s position as the first of the tau opened fire again. Sarik guessed that whatever fire control systems they used must have been disrupted by the Thunderbolts’ attack, for it was the first shot to have missed the boulders behind which the Space Marines waited. And a good thing too, for the huge boulder near Sarik was fractured in several places and would not provide cover for much longer.

  Two more shots cracked the air, sounding like a steel cable at full tension suddenly cut. Sarik opened the vox-channel to address his force. ‘All squads. The navy are going to flatten that hilltop. The second the bombs are down I want all units moving, tactical dispersion delta delta nine. I want that hill taken. Out.’

  ‘Silver Eagle leader to Sarik,’ the squadron commander’s voice came over the vox-net again. ‘Beginning attack run. Be advised, this is going to make a mess of everything within half a kilometre of that hill. Good lu…’

  ‘Repeat last, Silver Eagle leader?’ Sarik said.

  ‘Stand by, sergeant…’

  The squadron came in low across the eastern plains, then split into two pairs, one piling on the G’s as it sped south, the other executing a tight turn that brought it on an approach vector back towards Hill 3003.