Half the sky appeared to have been swallowed by a gigantic pulsing maw of multicoloured light. Annael’s auto-senses flickered with static as they tried to interpret the impossibility of the scenes playing out beyond the split veil between reality and the warp. It almost blinded him with nonsensical swirls and flashes of black and white, forcing him to look away.
The closest enemy vessel looked like an armoured comet with jutting spines of gun batteries and pylons that crackled with unnatural energy. It was at the centre of a circling line of strike cruisers and battle-barges – their colours marked them out as coming from the Dark Angels and Consecrators. A quick glance at the scanning array confirmed that the Implacable Justice was amongst the ships tackling the immense foe. Annael spared a thought for the brothers and serfs aboard the Ravenwing’s strike cruiser.
With it were several light cruisers, cruisers and battleships, and complex, interlaced lines of battle were forming as the vessels of both sides joined the fight, each trying to bring their greatest weight of guns to bear on the enemy. Salvoes of torpedoes glittered between the closing fleets, accompanied by the small sparks of interceptor engines and gunship plasma drives.
A second wave of renegade ships were circumnavigating the Space Marine fleet, ignoring the vessels attacking the doom-star and its flotilla to head directly for the Rock. An immense warship led this next attack, dwarfing the battle-barge of the Knights of the Crimson Order that moved to intercept with its attendant strike cruisers.
Obviously the enemy flagship, this vessel reminded Annael more of the daemon-city on Ulthor than a spacefaring craft. Though here and there he saw expanses of tarnished metal and cracked ferrocrete, the bulk of the battleship seemed to be swathed in an impossibly thick green-brownish-grey hide puckered with scars and lesions. Weapon batteries sprouted like fungal growths, and atop its dorsal ridge was mounted a turret like the bombardment cannons sported by many Adeptus Astartes vessels.
Most striking was the prow. It was split like the tusks of a gigantic beast, the launch bay between gaping wide in a rippling mouth lined with fangs, lit by a ruddy glow from within. Annael was sure he saw impossibly vast eyes squinting from wrinkled sockets above the opening, but his attention was quickly drawn back to the ruddy maw as something that appeared as a cloud of flies issued from its hellish interior.
Following the battleship was a line of cruisers of various sizes and designations, many of them as perverted as the ship that led them. They broke from their line-astern formation, spreading out behind their flagship, a few launching torrents of torpedoes towards the Rock. The flight bays on several others spewed out fighters, as yet too distant to make out individually, looking like sprays of bright spores unleashed into the void.
The Knights of the Crimson Order turned to face this threat, disgorging their own torpedoes, flights of Storm Talons and Thunderhawks issuing from their bays. Looking to the left and right, Annael saw other Dark Angels craft jetting across the void with the Black Knights – Nephilim fighters and Dark Talons piloted by his Ravenwing brethren, supported by Thunderhawks in the bone-white livery of the Deathwing and the dark green of the battle companies.
Everything the assembled Chapters could put into space was now converging on the approaching enemy fleet.
The initial waves of enemy fighters bypassed the escorts at the periphery of the fleet, as intent on the Dark Angels fortress-monastery as the ships that launched them. Tybalain signalled for the Black Knights to assemble in a delta formation, a spearhead with the Huntmaster at the tip, separated by just a few kilometres.
As they closed with the leading edge of the incoming cloud of enemy craft, Annael saw that there seemed to be a mix. Some were more like drop pods, roughly spherical with ribbed bodies, trailing streamers of flesh-like entrails. Spurts of gas from flexing valves and puckered orifices manoeuvred the craft, albeit poorly. The clusters of blister-like protuberances at the tip of each pod put Annael more in mind of a bomb or torpedo than a fighter.
The other craft were definitely more akin to interceptors, although rather than thrusters and jets they had four splayed reflective panels shaped in the likeness of fly wings, their bulbous bodies striped red and black like enormous wasps. Scintillating Chaos energy propelled these craft, leaving glistening trails across the void like slugs.
‘Attack order remains,’ Tybalain told them. ‘Follow my lead.’
The Nephilim were more suited to the interceptor role and sped past the squadrons of Dark Talons, missiles streaking from their wing mounts, lascannons flaring, Avenger bolters spewing rounds across the void.
Following Tybalain, the Black Knights climbed and rolled, avoiding the first clash of craft that erupted in bursts of purplish warp energy and the detonation of rockets and bolts. Glittering wings shattered and armour splintered as the squadrons swept past each other with a deadly exchange of fire.
‘Target the pod-missiles,’ Tybalain commanded, pitching down towards the wave of ordnance following the Chaos fighters.
The spore-torpedoes were not very manoeuvrable, each seven or eight times larger than a Dark Talon. It was simple enough for Annael to pull in behind one of them and target the hurricane bolters. He let loose a short salvo and watched the bolts disappear into the tangle of tentacles and flanges that flailed from the pod-bomb’s tail. The scanner registered the detonation, but there was no visible effect. A few pieces of shell-like carapace bounced from the canopy, leaving mucus threaded across the armourglass.
Drawing a long breath, Annael powered up the rift cannon. He could feel the heartbeat of the warp chamber increase from its steady pulse to a bass throbbing. It felt as though the Dark Talon wanted to open fire, trembling with anticipation for the moment.
Adjusting his attitude to rise above his target by a few dozen metres, he modified his aim towards the front of the pod-missile.
‘Imperator protectiva,’ he muttered and pressed the rift cannon firing stud. ‘Judicio magna Leo.’
He felt a jolt surge through him as the warp chamber opened, flooding the focusing array beneath the nose of the aircraft with unnatural power. A scintillating beam of energy surged from the crystal-lensed muzzle of the rift cannon and shot across the void. Where it struck the spore-bomb a warp rift several metres across sprang into being. The impossible intersection of real and unreal dimensions shredded the crusted growths, tearing out the tip of the projectile.
Annael was already pulling up when a ripple of black fire exploded from the rift, growing into a cloud of purple flame that consumed the rest of the spore-missile and threw out a shockwave that reached the Dark Talon in less than a second. The expanding sphere of fire engulfed Annael briefly, throwing his craft into a yawing spin to port. Attitude warnings wailed while he wrestled with the column, the fire’s passing wiping the debris from the canopy and leaving a greasy smear in its place.
A few seconds later and pieces of shrapnel-like shell clattered against the hull and wings, leaving centimetre-deep gouges in the ceramite that hissed as if burning with acid.
The other Dark Talons were thinning the number of projectiles streaming towards the Rock, but more flycraft were closing in, launched by the more distant Chaos ships. The iridescent detonation of rift cannons lit the void with flashes of blue and green and red, followed by the sickly detonations of the spore-missiles.
Annael’s surveyor systems were warning him of the incoming enemy but he focused on the task at hand, targeting one spore-torpedo after another, firing the main cannon and moving on to the next target. Around the Black Knights, the Nephilim and flycraft duelled while Thunderhawks smashed through the swirling dogfight, their lascannons, heavy bolters and battle cannons scything through fighter and ordnance alike, thick armoured plates sparking with shell impacts and sorcerous energies.
In a brief lull while the sides parted and he searched for a fresh target, Annael checked on the whereabouts of the enemy capital ships. He lo
oked up with concern as the gargantuan bulk of the enemy flagship blotted out the stars just a few hundred kilometres away. Smaller turrets that lined its necrotic flank like clusters of bristles opened fire with shells and plasma blasts.
‘Break away!’ snapped Tybalain. The jets of the Huntmaster’s Dark Talon slid him away from the flagship with bursts of cobalt flame.
Annael did likewise, the vectored engines hurling the Dark Talon into a steep turn as he slammed a steering pedal, his power armour protecting him against the inertial forces pulling at the aircraft. The battleship’s fusillade streamed towards the Black Knights and other craft of the Ravenwing as the squadrons split and peeled away from the incoming storm of fire.
A rocket almost as big as his aircraft sped past Annael, passing just a hundred metres from his port wing. A second later he realised that its course took it directly towards Nerean.
‘Nerean! Evasive action! You…’
The warning died on his lips as the proximity sensor of the anti-craft projectile activated, detonating its plasma warhead. Nerean’s Dark Talon was engulfed by a flash of pale blue energy, the brightness of the miniature star darkened to a grey by the dampening of Annael’s auto-senses.
In an instant it was gone, leaving half of Nerean’s craft spinning away, its warp chamber fitfully spewing white and red sparks, sheared almost cleanly down the middle with the molten edge still glowing. Of the pilot, Annael saw shattered pieces of war-plate tumbling from the breached cockpit.
More projectiles were incoming. There was no time to mourn for their lost brother as the Black Knights powered their craft away from the vengeful cannons and missile launchers of the enemy battleship.
‘Orders incoming from Chapter Master Dane,’ Tybalain warned them. There was a pause of several seconds and then an unfamiliar voice crackled across the vox.
‘All starside assets are to withdraw to close defence positions. The Rock is under attack. Defence of the prima monasteria is paramount. Show no relent!’
Rolling his Dark Talon so that he could see the fortress-monastery, Annael looked up and saw that several cruisers from the death-comet’s fleet had broken through the line of the Consecrators. The Gorgon’s Aegis was a crackling ovoid of crimson around the Tower of Angels as lance beams and macro-shells slammed into the energy shield.
Following close behind a wave of torpedoes, he could see the glimmer of landing craft and drop pods.
Only In Death
Belial had not exaggerated when he had warned Telemenus that he would see action again soon. It had not been four days since he had regained consciousness in his new armoured form and now the Rock was under full assault.
He stomped into the main sally gate on the southern wall – it occurred to him only now that it seemed odd to refer to the Rock’s original facings now that it was adrift in the void – and joined a contingent of two Predators in the livery of the Third Company, and a Redeemer-pattern Land Raider in the colours of the Deathwing. It felt strange to be considered part of an armoured counter-attack, though his new war-plate boasted defences the equal of a battle tank.
The inner gate slammed shut behind them, plunging them into a ruddy gloom. Telemenus would have drawn in an apprehensive breath had his lungs not been a maze of pumps and pipework controlled by the Dreadnought armour’s automatic systems. The lack of physiological response left him feeling calm, almost aloof.
Moving the focal point of his visual array to the left he raised his lascannons in a salute to the Land Raider crew. The sponson gunner on the near side saw the gesture and replied in kind, dipping the flamestorm cannon.
Telemenus felt the rumble of the outer portals splitting open and started to move forward. Light spilled through the widening gap, bright and flickering, stark shadows dancing across the cracked ferrocrete roadway that led out of the ancient fortress.
He stepped out beneath a sky of red lightning. The Gorgon’s Aegis was an almost solid wall of power, rippling and buckling as the fire of half a dozen warships poured down onto the fortress-monastery. Banks of defence lasers unleashed searing white beams in reply and silos spat forth missile after missile, filling the sky with contrails. Anti-air turrets pounded out a steady beat of shells, the detonation of airbursts like black blossoms against a dawn horizon.
Dark blurs against the ruddy heavens fell fast through the vacuum. New constellations appeared as dozens of drop pods fired their retro rockets, their claw-like forms heading for the main citadel while slab-sided drop-ships descended steeply towards the barren ground surrounding the Tower of Angels.
The Predators sped past on the left, moving off the flat course of the rock, bumping over the rocky ground, their weapons tracking distant targets. The Land Raider peeled off to the right, heading to bolster the defence of the outer fortifications where its close-ranged weapons would provide invaluable support to the Devastator and Tactical squads holding the line.
Telemenus’s role was very different. He headed along the road for half a kilometre, to where he found Sergeants Caulderain and Arloch with thirteen more Terminators waiting for him. The Deathwing warriors turned and raised their storm bolters and assault cannons to acknowledge the presence of the Dreadnought.
‘A timely arrival, venerable brother,’ said Arloch. Telemenus still felt slightly ashamed at the title, thinking it unearned, but it was as much an address to the Dreadnought suit as its occupant.
‘A welcome return,’ added Caulderain. The sergeant pointed with his power blade towards a jagged breach in the outer wall ahead, a hundred metres from the peripheral gate at the far end of the road. ‘The enemy are moving on this point. We will defend it to the last. Frater fidelis ad morbidum.’
‘Well met, brothers. I did not think I would see the day the Rock itself suffered the insult of enemy assault. It is our task to set right the affront and admonish the offenders.’
‘The enemy are almost upon us,’ said Arloch. ‘Such sentiments of reunion can wait for quieter times.’
‘They can, brother-sergeant,’ said Telemenus. The automated guns on the towers of the gate ahead opened fire, slicing lascannon beams down into an unseen enemy beyond. ‘The enemy are hasty for their punishment.’
The Dreadnought and Terminators made all speed for the breach, leaving a cloud of dust drifting in their wake as they lumbered up to the breached wall. The defence line was almost twenty metres thick, the storerooms and guard chambers within exposed by some catastrophic blast ten millennia ago.
The edge of the Rock was no more than a kilometre and a half away. The empty plain, that might once have been fields or training grounds, was alive with warriors and vehicles. Burning wrecks of drop pods and landers lit the scene with the glare of flames. Traitor Space Marines in livery of tarnished white formed squads and advanced on the Tower of Angels, their filth-encrusted vehicles lumbering from the holds of drop-ships beside them.
Telemenus’s scanners told him that the sky above was relatively clear of objects. Chapter Master Nakir had been wise enough to order the close-defence turrets to secure the area behind the wall, destroying anything that entered the few hundred metres closest to the citadel. At least the Dark Angels only faced the foe to their front and did not have to fear an enemy dropping onto them or behind.
While the Terminators entered the ruin of the wall, seeking some means to ascend to the upper battlement, Telemenus strode into the breach itself. A crater several metres deep provided obvious cover, and he moved to the lip closest to the enemy, placing a broken piece of wall several metres long to his left, protecting his flank from attack in that direction.
His targeters were already filling his mind with an array of potential marks, both infantry and vehicles. Nakir’s last orders had been to hold the line and buy time for the Chapter to muster. Telemenus mentally prioritised all armoured targets and suddenly his vision changed, the lascannon and missile launcher aiming reticules concentrated
on the vehicles he could see.
He spied two enemy Dreadnoughts, each disgorged by its own drop pod three hundred metres away, slightly to his right. One was armed with a pair of heavy bolters and a crackling siege hammer, the other with a single multi-barrelled cannon and a flail that sparked with purple lightning as it swung back and forth. They would be the first into the breach if allowed, able to traverse the rubble-strewn crater to clear the way for the transports.
He fired both weapons at the cannon-armed Dreadnought. The lascannon struck instantaneously, slashing into the left leg of his target. The joint buckled and it swayed for two seconds before the limb gave way entirely. The anti-armour missile hit as the Dreadnought toppled forward, splitting open the armour of the enemy’s cannon mount.
More missiles flared from above and to Telemenus’s right – some of the Terminators had cyclone launchers mounted across the carapace of their battleplate and were sending streams of rockets into the advancing legionaries.
The enemy did not return fire, but concentrated on closing the distance as swiftly as they could. A spearhead of Dark Angels vehicles burst from the gate to Telemenus’s right, their autocannons, assault cannons and lascannons concentrated on the Traitor Space Marines converging close to the road. The gates closed behind them and they formed up as a mobile fortification of their own, two Land Raiders acting as towers to the wall of Predator tanks between them.
It occurred to Telemenus that, but for Belial’s intervention, he might have been interred into one of the gun mounts of that forlorn squadron. After a moment he corrected himself. He watched their firing patterns and realised that there were no crews aboard. The vehicles’ machine-spirits had been left to operate independently.
He understood why as the weight of the enemy attack came to bear. Anything on or beyond the wall would be sacrificed for time. There would be no retreat. His auspex systems were overloaded with the number of signals – more than four hundred power-armoured warriors were advancing on this front alone, and the sky was still lit with stars of descending ships and drop pods. He felt rather than saw them, like prickles on his skin, an instinct of where his enemies were as natural as feeling the direction of the wind.
The Unforgiven - Gav Thorpe Page 25
