Doom Flight - Cavan Scott
Page 3
Gunning the throttle, Kerikus slammed forwards, closing to a hundred metres, fighting the turbulence generated from being so close to the ground. He squeezed the trigger, but amazingly the ork dumped its nose further still, screaming closer to the ground than ever.
In an instant, it all became clear. The fighter was trying to lure him close to the deck, in the hope that he would not be able to control the Stormtalon and crash. Letting out a grunt of derision, Kerikus viffed the engines, gaining altitude before raking the ork’s engines with bolter fire. The fighter dropped, the pilot ejecting from its deathtrap before the craft broke apart against the ground. The body howled past Kerikus’s canopy, smashing into his starboard wing and slicing it clean in two. Kerikus pitched up, roaring out of the gorge of buildings, his eyes already searching for Malika. While Tyrus’s stealth measures were clever, they did not exactly help identify each other in a hurry.
Turning back towards the plant, Kerikus saw another craft racing towards him. Large, menacing. His fingers hovered over the lascannon’s trigger.
The incoming plane wiggled its wings and Kerikus relaxed. Malika. His battle-brother’s voice crackled over the vox.
‘Target eliminated. Are we going to do this?’
Kerikus pulled left, as Malika banked in to join him on his wing.
According to the auspex they were two minutes away from the power plant. The end was in sight.
‘Affirmative,’ Kerikus confirmed, knowing that the moment had come. Full disclosure. He took a breath, but Malika cut in.
‘Excellent. And don’t try to tell me that we’re going to try to take the complex by force. Emperor knows you’re a good pilot, but–’
‘Our orders were to secure the city–’
‘Or to render it uninhabitable. Sergeant, the former is untenable. It has been from the moment we took to the skies.’
Death is inevitable.
‘We cannot allow Quadcana Prime to remain an ork stronghold,’ instructed Kerikus, his hand gripping the stick. ‘Destroy the power complex and we can take out half the city. What the firestorm doesn’t incinerate…’
‘…the resulting radiation will cripple. Deny the enemy victory by removing the prize, I understand.’
Kerikus hoped that Malika would be remembered for his courage. He jabbed at the operational runes on his tactical display.
‘Transmitting schematics. There are three targets. Hit any of these with force and it will trigger a chain reaction that will detonate the plasma reactors. Everything within the blast zone will be–’
‘Targets sighted,’ Malika cut in. ‘Eight o’clock, high. Moving in fast.’
Kerikus spat an oath. They were so close.
‘Sir, it’s Death Deela.’
The sergeant craned his neck, seeing the crimson bomber swooping in, a fighter in its wake.
‘I’ll hold them off,’ came Malika’s voice, even as his Stormtalon banked between the Wrath and the incoming craft. ‘You follow the objective.’
Kerikus did not argue. He ruddered right, the plant finally in sight, priming his lascannons. He would come in low, fixing the target and give it everything he had got. His engines roaring in his ears, he dropped down, the gravitational forces he was pulling pushing his helm tight against his face. Over the vox he heard an excited voice. ‘The fighter is done. Repeat, the fighter is–’
The rest of the sentence was lost in an explosion, Malika’s scream cut short as the vox-link severed.
Kerikus had started this mission believing he was alone. Now he knew it was true.
He gunned the engine, dropping his nose, powering towards the plant. He did not need the proximity alarm to tell him Death Deela had him in its crosshairs. A missile screeched past and detonated harmlessly against a nearby block. The next would not be so easy to dodge. Death Deela was firing from a position well out of range, but the moment he drew nearer…
Solid-shot clattered against the underside of the Wrath’s nose like the buzzing of angry swamp-wasps. The ground-to-air defences. Enemies to the front, a predator at his tail. He would never make it flying head on. Pulling back on the throttle, Kerikus turned wide, throwing the Stormtalon into a wide loop. He would circle the power complex, evading the ground-to-air missiles and swoop in from the east, coming in low and striking hard.
As he came about, black orbs dancing in front of his vision, the flaw in the stratagem became obvious. Death Deela was flying straight at him, incendiary missiles already away. Kerikus dipped his wing, a rocket passing so close the canopy shook, but could not roll fast enough to avoid a second.
The missile smashed into his starboard engine, erupting into flame and ripping away the plasteel wing. The gunship spun, tumbling out of control, the horizon whipping out of sight. He was going down. There was no way of stopping it now. Reaching down to grab the chainsword he kept by his side, Kerikus slammed a fist against the canopy release.
The glassite enclosure shot away and the ejector rockets fired, propelling his flightseat through the now open gap. He could not look up, could not see what direction he was heading. All he knew was that it was not up. Kerikus barrelled into something hard, his power armour hardly absorbing any impact. Kerikus barely noticed when his pilot’s seat disappeared beneath him. He hit the ground and rolled, every jolt fracturing another bone, paring off more battle armour, his world consumed in noise and pain. Use the pain, he told himself as he finally came to a stop. Make it your anchor. Stay alive to finish the mission.
Even as stubber fire raked against his remaining armour, Kerikus yanked his smashed helm from his head, feeling the cold night air against the gash in his forehead. There were inhuman cries to his right, the thrum of an engine. An ork biker, barrelling towards him, a gunner on his backplate bringing a heavy stubber to bear. Bones scraping against each other, he rolled onto his feet, feeling strangely unsteady. His balance was off, his Lyman’s Ear struggling to compensate. No matter, the Larraman cells swarming through his bloodstream would deal with that. The bike roared closer, shots ricocheting off his armour. He threw up an arm to protect his exposed head, looking around for a weapon, his chainsword lost in the crash. A twisted length of plasteel from the Wrath lay at his feet. His faithful craft would serve him one last time. He snatched it up, twisting his body around, swinging the plasteel like a club. The shard connected with the ork rider, knocking it howling into the gunner, the bike skidding out beneath them. The rider’s kinetic weapon flew from its hand and skittered across the ground. Kerikus scooped it up and fell back as he twisted towards the lumbering ork, squeezing off a volley. The biker’s head exploded in a spray of blood and gristle, the bolt slamming into the gunner’s shoulder, dropping both orks in one.
Kerikus did not wait to see if the greenskin got back to its feet. To the east, a bomber was flying in fast. Death Deela had overshot when the Wrath had hit the deck and was on the return, ready to complete the kill. There was one last chance.
Spinning around, desperate to gain his bearings, a blood-stained smile spread across the sergeant’s face. The cooling tower. Limping badly, Kerikus raced for a metal ladder bolted into the tower’s side. An ork appeared to his left, but was felled by a shot through its neck, foul blood erupting from the exit wound. All the time, the Doom Eagle could hear Death Deela’s throbbing engines draw ever closer, hear the report of its stubbers.
Not long now.
He half stumbled into the ladder, throwing up his left hand to grab a rung. The left hand that was no longer there. That was why gaining his balance was proving so difficult. His left arm had been ripped from its socket during the crash, the wound already closing, sealed by fresh scar tissue. His body would repair, but not even a Space Marine could grow back a limb.
Kerikus turned, facing the incoming bomber, the ground around him churning beneath stubber fire. At the end it all depended on how much Death Deela wanted the kill, how much it longed for glory, for another notch on its bomber’s undercarriage.
The sergeant hefted the
ork’s cumbersome weapon and fired indiscriminately into the nose of the bomber, praying that the last show of defiance would fuel the ork’s bloodlust.
‘That’s it,’ he muttered, never taking his eyes off the jet. ‘Keep coming, keep coming, finish me off. Dakka dakka.’
A missile screamed forward, streaking past the cooling tower, detonating somewhere behind. Rubble and dust bloomed all around. The bomber filled Kerikus’s vision, the pilot – Death Deela itself – sat hunched over its controls, glaring hungrily down at the Space Marine.
There was no chance of pulling up now. The bomber was moving too fast. He doubted the idiot even realised what he had done. It just knew it did not want to lose, to let the kill slip by. Kerikus prayed that the impact would be enough, that the resulting explosion would rip through the power station beneath his feet, trigger the plasma reactors. Make his sacrifice count.
The last round shuddered from the ramshackle gun and Kerikus tossed it aside. It was amazing it had lasted so long. He was truly blessed.
The scream of the engines filling his ears, Kerikus threw his remaining arm wide, staring straight into the widening eyes of Death Deela and embraced death as he always knew he would.
No hesitation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cavan Scott has written novels, audio dramas, short stories and comics based on such popular series as Doctor Who, Judge Dredd, Highlander and Blake’s 7. Recent short stories have appeared in Titan Book’s Encounters of Sherlock Holmes and Snow Book’s Resurrection Engines anthologies. He is currently working on a new fantasy trilogy.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
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Cover illustration by Pedro Nunez
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