His Will rumbled loudly, the massive engines at the rear sending powerful tremors the length of the ship. It groaned as it nosed upwards away from the hulk. All around the ork ship, the rest of the fleet was doing the same.
‘Keep your shields up, captains. Any vessel with limited shield capacity fall back immediately. Anti-munitions cannons to full alert. Interceptors, prepare for debris. Escort squadrons, withdraw immediately. Stand by…’
‘I see no sign the hulk is ready to explode, admiral,’ said Quarist.
‘And that is why I keep you around, flag officer, so that I can constantly be proved correct. Observe.’ Parol gestured at the oculus
Without warning, the Harbinger of Disaster died. There was no great display of fire and fury; it simply split down the middle like an opened seed pod, spilling a million grains of matter into space. Most of which, Parol thought with satisfaction, were orks. Flash-frozen gasses surrounded the wreck in a shimmering bloom of ice.
‘And there you have it, Quarist,’ said Parol.
‘Yes sir. All ships, break off! Break off! Victory is ours,’ said Quarist.
Polite clapping resounded around the command deck. Parol bowed graciously. ‘Thank you. Someone get me a drink. And hail High Marshal Helbrecht before he can go dashing off again. I wish to welcome him back,’ he said. ‘And by that, Quarist,’ he added as an aside to his aide, ‘I mean ask him where by the Emperor’s Throne he’s been these last months.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Malevolent Dread
From the underside of the Eternal Crusader, two dozen drop pods rushed towards Armageddon, Thunderhawks following. A cordon of destroyer squadrons and light cruisers kept the enemy at bay. Two minutes later, after the Eternal Crusader had progressed three hundred kilometres further around the world, and a similar number of craft burst out in a second drop. Glinting in the star’s unfiltered light, they fell fast, accelerated by bursts of flame stabbing from their upper surfaces. They were unassuming teardrops of metal, each carrying a cargo of death – Marshal Ricard’s men going down to war upon the surface.
‘Ash Waste Crusade fighting companies one and two away, my liege. Ash Crusade away!’ relayed the embarkation deck command liaison.
‘All craft have attained atmospheric insertion, my lord. We may begin withdrawal,’ spoke the Master of Landings, an Initiate this one.
‘Praise be!’ shouted the Master of Sanctity. A chorus of thrall-monks sang it back at him.
‘May the Emperor bless them and guide them,’ said Helbrecht. ‘How is our other task?’
‘Long-range augur has captured the energy signature of the Malevolent Dread, my liege,’ said a senior auspex officer. ‘It has taken the bait.’
‘What other ships of the greenskins are in close range?’
‘Three battlegroups, my liege. Adeptus Astartes strike force one is engaging with two of those, fifty thousand kilometres out. Night’s Vigil reports successful rendezvous and is bolstering the Sons of Guilliman and Silver Skulls interdiction groups. The third approaches from the nightside. Admiral Parol’s Battlegroup, Gloriana, is moving to intercept. Further ork forces are approaching, but are at best estimate seven hours away from our position. The Virtue of Kings has withdrawn and is responding to requests for assistance from the Celebrants and Mortifactors combined forces near Chosin.’
‘And the Malevolent Dread?’
‘Three hours, my liege. It will find us isolated and apparently vulnerable.’
‘Send back our escort group to shadow the Virtue of Kings. Have the Light of Purity maintain position in the debris field. Whatever green tyrant rules aboard the Malevolent Dread has set his eyes on Sigismund’s vessel, and I want this ship to remain too tempting a prize to ignore. I will depart for the Light of Purity in three minutes to prepare our boarding parties. Brothers, that I have asked the Eternal Crusader to run will have kindled the flames of anger in your hearts. Do not see our feint as shameful – it is the surest path to victory. Today, the Malevolent Dread will die. You know your orders. Now, to your stations.’
‘It shall be done, my liege,’ said Gulvein.
The group of Sword Brethren and Initiates bowed their heads and left the command dais.
‘Now for ruin, and the pulling of this thorn from our side,’ said Helbrecht to Theoderic. He took a final look around the command deck of his flagship. Well pleased by what he saw there, he departed, heading for the embarkation decks and his own transport.
Three hours passed.
Five thousand kilometres away, a subgroup of Battlefleet Armageddon were efficiently dismembering a shoal of ork cruisers.
Through the glare of Armageddon’s atmospheric albedo, Parol watched the Eternal Crusader turning away from the approaching Malevolent Dread, giving all appearance of flight. Encouraged by this apparent display of cowardice, the ork craft’s engines burned brighter, sending it quickly towards its prey.
Parol kept half an eye on this other engagement. The Eternal Crusader was nimble for its size, and was slipping away; engines pointing towards Armageddon, prow pointing up away from the planet’s axis, it pushed out from the system’s ecliptic plane. The Malevolent Dread was closing fast, coming at the battle-barge abeam as it travelled parallel to Armageddon’s orbital track. Primitive engines bolted to the surface of the two ships that comprised the hulk burned with dirty yellow fire. The Malevolent Dread’s blunt-fronted prow lofted ‘upwards’ – Parol found it useful to think of any gravity well in his area of battle as ‘down’. In a slow parabola, the ship curved from its current heading, meaning to intercept the Eternal Crusader closely when they intersected, perhaps even ram her. An elegant move, he mused. Mathematics invested even the ships of orks with grace.
‘Forty-seven cruisers and another hulk are moving to attack the Black Templars fleet, my lord,’ reported an augur officer.
‘Shall we engage, sir?’ asked Quarist.
‘Sector?’ asked Parol.
‘Thirty, my lord. Coming in at twelve thousand kilometres per hour, thirty-seven degrees toward rotational plane, widespread. No formation, sir.
‘Hold steady. I’ll not commit until the orks have taken the bait,’ said Parol. ‘Finish this rabble.’
There was little need for Parol to direct his battlegroup in smashing the remaining ork cruisers, and so he watched the hulk until it passed over the debris field cluttering Armageddon’s orbit; the shattered hulls and fragments of the many vessels destroyed in months of fighting formed a shining, ragged halo about the world. Once this war was done, it would take months of expensive effort to render Armageddon’s near-space safe for shipping. For the moment, it provided the perfect cover for the Light of Purity. The battle-barge floated like any other giant piece of junk, engines dark. There was always a risk in this kind of venture; a clever ork might scan the vessel and note that its reactor was fully functional. Parol snorted at the thought. There were terrifyingly intelligent orks, of that there was no doubt; probably one of them was doing exactly that, right now. But what they lacked was organisation – if such an ork existed, he would not be heeded, and there was no overcoming that.
The Malevolent Dread passed over the Light of Purity. Focused on exchanging long-range fire with the retreating Eternal Crusader – all of which, being aimed directly at the battle-barge rather than where it would be, missed – it did not react when the other battle-barge’s engines flared, sending it quickly up to intercept the hulk.
With one devastating close-range salvo, the Light of Purity collapsed layers of power fields in strobes of sheet-lightning flashes. The hulk was wide open to assault.
Parol’s oculus and augur officers relayed teleport energy surges from the Light of Purity. Two minutes passed, then three. The hulk was firing at the Light of Purity, and this time it had a bead on its target, but the hulk, unprotected by shields, was taking the worst of it. Meanwhile, the Eternal Crusader was altering its heading to come about in a long arc. Turning a ship of that mass was no trivial matter, bu
t within a few hours it would be upon the Malevolent Dread, trapping it between itself and its sister.
When four minutes had passed, the silvery streaks of assault rams and boarding torpedoes crossed the space between the Light of Purity and the Malevolent Dread. Anti-attack-craft fire streamed towards them, but all but two of the assault craft made it through to converge on three distinct points.
‘Helbrecht has sprung his trap,’ said Parol. ‘Let us give him enough time to see it to success. Fleet, new heading. Prepare our second interception of the day.’ He began ordering the complex dance of spacecraft combat.
The assault ram banged as it penetrated the already weakened section of the hulk wall, vibrating fit to burst as its twin prows scraped against metal. The doors slammed down. Helbrecht was first out, his men following him into a large, open area about twenty metres across, the same in height and width. Three winding corridors led off opposite the ram’s breach point. Perhaps it had once been a cargo loading bay, but the ship that made up this half of the hulk was of unknown xenos make and therefore Helbrecht could only hazard a guess what the space had been intended for. The floor was tilted at an angle to the pull of artificial gravity. The walls bore the signs of the ship’s original impact with the second vessel comprising the agglomeration, being wrinkled with collision stress. The smooth, alien contours of the ship had been further defaced by the orks’ ‘improvements’. Huge, badly cut girders braced the ceiling randomly; pointless reinforcement had been riveted in ugly patchwork all over parts of it, leaving other stretches untouched. Ork filth coated the floors, and ork graffiti was daubed on the walls. Moisture dripped freely from the filthy roof. There was little illumination, and it stank.
Air howled through the breach around the ram’s front as the hulk depressurised, a distant moan through Helbrecht’s auto-senses. Dead orks were scattered everywhere. The snap of gunfire came from down all three corridors, its source masked by the decompression gale. Sword Brethren Terminators had teleported in and cleared the landing zone of orks, and now held the perimeter for the crusaders’ landing.
A second boom heralded the arrival of a boarding torpedo, followed by a second. The inner hull glowed as their melta-drills burned their way inside. Their grub-like noses of molten metal ran onto the floor and pushed their way into the vessel. The metal hadn’t cooled before the doors gaped wide and more Black Templars deployed.
‘Castellan Ceonulf, report,’ Helbrecht voxed.
‘We have purged many xenos, my liege. More are inbound. We hold the perimeter, but tenuously,’ Ceonulf replied.
‘Squads five, nine and four, reinforce Terminator boarding parties. Squad six, with me,’ ordered Helbrecht. His Initiates thundered out in good order, dispersing down the corridors to join the Sword Brethren teleport attack parties.
‘Void Crusade group two reporting safe breaching,’ said Praeses-Sword Brother Gulvein.
‘Void Crusade group three aboard,’ came Chaplain Theoderic’s voice.
‘Two ships lost, my liege. Three squads. Anyone else take a hit?’ said Gulvein.
‘No,’ said Theoderic. ‘We are all aboard. Praise be for our safe delivery.’
‘Praise be,’ they all said.
Gunfire rattled over Gulvein’s vox-feed. ‘Atmospheric pressure has stabilised here. I’ve multiple hostiles.’
‘I too,’ said Theoderic.
‘To your targets, knights,’ said Helbrecht. ‘With the Emperor’s blessing, I shall see you at the final objective. Praise be.’
‘Praise be,’ his subordinates replied.
In the meantime, Helbrecht’s men had debarked and spread out. Last was Champion Vosper. He walked out of one of the boarding torpedoes and drew his sword. The hesitant neophyte of a few days before had gone, replaced by a graceful killer.
‘Where does the Emperor guide you, Champion?’ asked Helbrecht.
‘This way.’ Vosper’s voice had changed; it was quiet, imbued with divine power. Vosper pointed his sword down the middle of the three tunnels branching out from the breaching site.
Helbrecht unswathed the Sword of the High Marshals. ‘I shall go with you. Where the Champion walks, there the fighting is thickest.’
‘Praise be!’ his men shouted.
Helbrecht and Vosper battled hard against an endless horde of howling xenos. They killed and killed, until the ground was slick with ork blood and the ship reeked like an abattoir. The fabled swords of the Black Templars rose and fell together, each swing slaying another of the creatures. Pace by pace, Helbrecht had his men push their way deeper into the hulk.
The orks were fierce. Black Templar zeal was matched by unthinking ork ferocity. By the time Helbrecht’s group had reached its first objective – an erratic ork power source feeding the ship’s grav generators – three of the nine Terminator-clad Sword Brethren had been killed or incapacitated, and seven of the fifty Initiates Helbrecht had brought aboard would fight no more. His group’s Apothecary was all too busy harvesting gene-seed, his reductor bloody. Many others had sustained wounds; Helbrecht himself sported three, the rents in his armour closed up by interlayer sealant foam and his own fast-clotting blood.
More and more orks were swarming towards them. Gulvein and Theoderic reported mounting casualties as groups separated from the strike forces to pursue multiple objectives. The further they went in, the less sense the hulk’s interior made. Hand-to-hand fighting became the norm as secure fire lanes were abandoned in the chaotic layout of the alien ship, and more deaths came as a result.
It took half an hour of hard fighting before Helbrecht’s group were sufficiently clear of their first thermal charge to detonate it. Helbrecht interrupted his battle hymn to order his men to engage their boot maglocks. A thunderclap of overpressure blasted up the corridor, ripping at the robes and oath papers of the Space Marines, followed by the hollow, whistling howl of fire instantaneously consuming all the oxygen available to it.
‘Gravity generatorium disabled,’ reported Techmarine Hexil.
‘Praise be!’ roared Helbrecht.
The going became easier. The orks were severely disadvantaged by the lack of artificial gravity. After the first group were sent bouncing from the walls by their guns’ recoil to be easily picked off by bolter fire, they ceased coming, resorting to a variety of equally unsuccessful tactics – strange creatures strapped up with explosives, or snivelling examples of their slave races walking hand over hand down the rough wall surfaces carrying bombs. Neither of these worked, and so the orks resorted to throwing grenades down the corridors, but the twisting nature of the xenos’ ship made this difficult, and when the grenades did explode among the Space Marines, their explosives were insufficiently powerful to break through Adeptus Astartes battleplate.
These attacks, too, ceased, when Theoderic’s group successfully blasted a series of holes in the hull, venting much of this section’s atmosphere.
‘Orks are tough, brother, but they need air to breathe,’ said the Chaplain with grim delight. ‘The Emperor guides us. Praise be.’
Each group battled onwards, detonating key parts of the ship’s systems. Occasionally, they were frustrated by multiple redundancies, but these had been randomly applied by the orks’ mechanicians. What would have been critical systems aboard an Imperial ship often proved to have no backup at all, whereas items of secondary interest to the Space Marines might have several. Other thermic charges were rigged for later remote detonation, part of the chain reaction that would tear the Malevolent Dread in two once the Space Marines had withdrawn to the Light of Purity.
Gulvein’s group fared worse than the other two. Under strength, they struggled to beat back the assailing orks. One subgroup was cut off, finding itself fighting a desperate defence in a cavernous room full of junk. Their joyful death hymns provided inspiration for their brothers as they pushed on.
Three hours in, Helbrecht’s group reached the end of the final corridor. Brother Hexil reached out his hand to lightly touch the wall.
&n
bsp; ‘This is the skin of the ship, my liege,’ said the Techmarine.
Helbrecht leaned on his sword a moment. His body buzzed with combat stimulants and counterfatigue drugs. His muscles were tired, but when his Apothecary attempted to examine his wounds, Helbrecht pushed him back and stood tall.
‘Leave me!’ he snapped. ‘On the other side lies our final objective. Blow it wide, brothers, and let us bring the fury of the Emperor down on these alien savages!’
Helbrecht’s command squad went through first, protecting the High Marshal as he emerged into the vast space between the two starships that made up the Malevolent Dread. It was a metal cave many hundreds of metres high, the walls a mess of crevices and room-caves where the hull fabric had given way. The ship opposite Helbrecht was noticeably of human make, an early Imperial ship approaching the Eternal Crusader in age. The cavern floor had been planed off into a number of levels by platforms and catwalks; similar structures had been bolted to the sides of each ship.
All were crawling with orks. Many hundreds more were flooding in from the ship opposite.
‘There,’ pointed Helbrecht to a part of the cave that appeared like any other, ‘that is where the last charge must go.’
His men deployed in a line, Terminators and Helbrecht’s command squad at the centre. Nearby, Theoderic’s group emerged also, the edges of his line joining with Helbrecht’s. The Black Templars silently waited until their lines were ready, unconcerned by the sea of orks bounding up the cavern’s floor towards them. They marched in perfect unison to the bomb site, and halted while Brother Hexil directed his slaves to position the bomb.
‘Forward!’ screamed Helbrecht. ‘No remorse! No pity! No fear!’
Gunfire erupted all along the Black Templars battlefront, a withering hail of bolter fire that dropped hundreds of orks like rows of reaped corn. Still they came charging onwards. Behind Helbrecht, Hexil and his servitors prepared their last thermic charge. Helbrecht roared orders, directing the fire of his knights to weak spots on the ork line one moment, switching them to thin out stronger groups the next. The Black Templars marched forwards in time to their guns, singing their doom-laden songs of devotion to the Emperor. The orks came nearer and nearer, until they broke upon the Black Templars in a great green wave. A mob of huge orks in thick powered armour smashed into the centre of the conjoined fighting companies with an almighty crack, bowing it back. Against the odds, the line held, and the Black Templars sang louder as they unhitched their chainswords.
The Eternal Crusader - Guy Haley Page 10
