Jenna had failed, and the weight of that failure stole what little strength remained to her. Her head dropped to the concrete floor, and she could feel its coldness against her clammy skin.
The tau leader knelt beside her and placed a hand against her forehead. His skin felt smooth and warm to the touch. It was comforting and the pain retreated, yet Jenna wanted to pull away from the alien.
'My name is Aun'rai, and I can ease your suffering,' said the tau in flawless Imperial Gothic. His pronunciation was perfect, though there was a lilt common to dwellers on the Eastern Fringe.
'You have an accent,' said Jenna, her voice faint.
The tau looked puzzled. 'I do?'
'Yes,' nodded Jenna. 'Whoever you learned from had one, and now you do too.'
'That is likely,' agreed the tau with an amused glint in his eye, as though only just coming to the realisation. 'Raphael's pronunciation seemed often to not match his written words. Still, it is not important.'
'If you're going to kill me, do it and go,' hissed Jenna. 'Or just let me die.'
Aun'rai shook his head. 'Kill you? I am not going to kill you. I heard what you said to the gue'la who was intent on wreaking agonising pain upon me. I wish you to know that we are not what he thinks we are. I want you to know that we are not your enemies.'
'You killed my enforcers,' spat Jenna. 'That makes you my enemy.'
'That was regrettable,' agreed Aun'rai, 'but it was necessary. Now we must be away before your aerial forces respond to the presence of my drop-ship.'
Aun'rai spoke a few words in his own language to La'tyen, who looked surprised and almost offended by them, but knelt to obey the tau leader's command nonetheless.
'What are you doing?' gasped Jenna as La'tyen lifted her onto her shoulder. Unimaginable pain flared briefly in her leg, but once again Aun'rai's touch lessened the agony of her wound. As much as she was repulsed by his alien touch, Jenna was pathetically thankful for the absence of pain. Her eyes fluttered and she felt her consciousness fading.
'My healers are going to make you whole again, gue'la,' said Aun'rai, 'and then I am going to offer you a place within the Tau'va.'
SEVENTEEN
FOR THREE MORE days, the defenders of Olzetyn endured punishing attacks against their lines, tau missiles falling like rain on their fortified positions and gradually breaking up the defences. After the first attacks had been beaten back, the alien commander quashed thoughts of rash heroics, and every assault was planned with a thoroughness that would have made Roboute Guilliman proud.
The front lines of battle became a meat grinder where men and machines were chewed up in the constant storm of fighting. 'Stratum, once the jewel in the Administratum's bureaucracy, was now little more than a shelled ruin. The dwelling places of the adepts were flattened by tau missiles, and the debris hauled to the front line to build barricades. On the third day of the fighting, the Tower of Adepts was brought down, the austere structure collapsing into the gorge, taking with it thousands of years worth of tax and work records.
Perversely, its destruction gave rise to a huge cheer from the ranks of the defenders, proving that even faced with alien invasion, there were few more hated individuals than those who levied taxes.
The tau continued to attack along the length of the defences, but the twin bastions protecting the end of the Imperator remained impervious. For all that the tau continued to send tanks and missiles against the bastions, the main thrusts were intended to take the Diacrian Bridge. It was clearly the weak point in the western defence, and drew the lion's share of tau attention.
By such logic are battles won, but what an attacker can reason, a defender can anticipate.
Tau aircraft attempted a bombing run along the length of the Imperator Bridge, but Uriel had foreseen such a manoeuvre, and staggered lines of interceptor guns blew them from the sky with their payloads undelivered.
A massed cadre of battlesuits launched an aerial drop on the Midden to seize the rear defences of the Diacrian Bridge and open the flank of the Imperator. Five hundred tau warriors armed with the latest and deadliest weapons their armourers could provide dropped from the night skies amid the reeking shanties of the Midden, only to find seven squads of the 4th Company waiting for them. Supported by Land Raiders and Thunderfires, the Ultramarines turned the landing zone into a killing ground. Lavrentian heavy mortars pinned the survivors in place while Imperial forces withdrew to allow the massed squadrons of Basilisks on the eastern banks of the river to fire.
As though a thunderstorm had been plucked from the heavens and dropped on the Midden, the Spur promontory vanished in a firestorm of such epic proportions that when the sun rose, it was as if the conurbation had never existed. Few bemoaned its demise, for it had long been evacuated and its cramped, over-populated streets had been rife with disease, poverty and crime.
Colonel Loic was proving to be a more than capable soldier, a man who fought with the heart of a warrior and the mind of a scholar. Even the battle-hardened soldiers of the 44th, men to whom the PDF were little more than dangerous amateurs, came to regard the stocky commander as a true comrade-in-arms.
The tau were having the worst of the battle, but each day saw the Imperial lines forced back towards the bridges. Casualties on both sides were horrific, with thousands wounded and hundreds dying every day. Neither force could break the other, yet neither could afford to pull back from the relentless killing. Both defenders and attackers were fighting bravely, but Uriel knew the outcome of the tau attack was as inescapable as it was inevitable.
The defences of Olzetyn were holding, but the defenders were at breaking point.
It would take only the tiniest reversal for the balance of the war to change.
URIEL WIPED A hand across his forehead, smearing the blood he hadn't had time to clean from his face. He saw Chaplain Clausel looking at him and shook his head.
'It is not mine,' Uriel said, marching through the controlled anarchy of the Imperator Bridge. Damaged tanks were drawn up to either side of the street, Lavrentian and PDF enginseers working side by side to get them operational again. Supply clerks and lifter servitors thronged the thoroughfare, ferrying ammunition, food and water to the troops fighting to defend the bridges.
'I know,' replied the Chaplain, moving aside to allow a flatbed truck laden with Guard-stamped crates to pass. 'The colour is too dark. Where did it come from?'
Uriel thought back to the last attack on the rapidly shrinking defence lines, sorting through the strobing images of killing filed in his memory, the stuff of nightmares yet to come.
'I am not sure,' he said. 'Maybe the Guardsman whose head exploded next to me during the last assault on the trenches thrown out before the Diacrian Bridge? Or maybe the Fire Warrior I gutted when he leapt from a crippled Devilfish?'
Clausel nodded in understanding. 'Battles like this blur together into one seamless horror of blood and killing. It is war at its most brutal and mechanical, where the skill of a warrior counts for less than where he happens to be standing when a missile impacts.'
'I am bred for battle, Chaplain,' said Uriel. 'My every muscle, fibre and organ was crafted by the Master of Mankind for the express purpose of waging the most brutal war imaginable, yet this unrelenting, daily carnage is alien to me. We should not be here, yet we cannot abandon the men giving their lives to defend this place.'
'Look to the Codex Astartes and you will find your answer,' advised Clausel. 'We Astartes excel at the lightning strike, the dagger thrust to the heart and the decisive, battle-winning stratagem, not this prolonged, static slaughter. For us to leave Olzetyn will almost surely mean its fall, yet might we not be better employed elsewhere?'
'We must be able to do something that will serve this war better, but I do not yet know what it is,' said Uriel. 'All I know is that it sits ill with me to stay and die here, where a hero's life can be ended by something arbitrary. It is anathema to me.'
'Indeed,' agreed Clausel. 'Every Space Marine hopes for an hon
ourable death in battle, one the Chapter's taletellers will speak of for centuries to come. To face death holds no fear for us, but to meet it without honour is something to be dreaded.'
'Then what do you suggest?'
'It is for you to say how we fight, not I,' said Clausel, 'but I suspect you already have a plan in mind, do you not?'
Uriel nodded. 'The beginnings of one, but our allies will not like it.'
'Their likes or dislikes are immaterial to us,' said Clausel. 'You are a captain of the Ultramarines, and the decision of how best to defend Olzetyn and Pavonis is yours to make.'
'I know,' said Uriel.
URIEL AND CLAUSEL emerged into the widest section of the Imperator Bridge, which currently served as the triage station for the Imperial wounded. Uriel could never get used to the scale of the bloodshed endured by the Imperial Guard. Row upon row of body bags covered in long tarpaulins awaited removal, and long pavilion tents were filled with screaming men and overworked medicae as they tried to keep the number of dead from growing even larger.
In the aftermath of battle, Space Marine dead could normally be counted on one hand, but the dead of the Guard ran to thousands. It was a scale of slaughter that horrified Uriel, and served, once again, to remind him of the mortal soldier's courage and the honour he earned just by standing before the enemy with a gun in his hand.
Colonel Loic and Captain Gerber were already here, and the two Astartes warriors marched towards them as they conferred over a series of makeshift maps chalked on the side of a ruined structure.
The two soldiers turned at the sound of their armoured steps, and Uriel was struck by how much they had changed in the last few days. He and Clausel were still functioning at the peak of their abilities, but for mortals the strain of battle was all too evident. Both men were exhausted and had slept little since the fighting began. Loic had shed weight, and looked like a solider now, not like an adept playing at being a soldier.
Uriel had only met Gerber briefly before the first attack, but the man's no-nonsense attitude and charismatic leadership had impressed him. Both officers had served their men faithfully, and Uriel was proud to have led them in battle.
'Uriel, Chaplain Clausel,' said Loic by way of a greeting, 'good to see you again.'
Uriel acknowledged the greeting with a short bow and turned to Captain Gerber. 'Any news from the other Commands?'
Gerber nodded, absentmindedly rubbing a fresh scar on his neck. 'Yeah, but they're patchy and hours old, so who knows how up to date they are. Captain Luzaine reports that Banner Command have Jotusburg under control, and that his forces are ready to ride out.'
'Excellent,' said Uriel, glad to hear some good news, 'and Magos Vaal? She claimed the supplies of weapons and ammunition would be flowing in three days, and that time has already passed.'
Loic looked uncomfortable and shrugged. 'She says they're still not ready,' he said, 'something about the machine-spirits of the forge hangars being difficult or being interfered with by some heretical tau wizardry, I'm not sure.'
'We need their ammunition and we need it now!' snapped Uriel. He took a deep breath to calm his rising anger. 'Does Vaal not realise that if she fails to get those supplies to us we may lose this world?'
'I rather think the Adeptus Mechanicus see that as secondary to offending the machine-spirits. Rest assured, Uriel, I have expressed our need in the most strenuous language.'
'Tell me of Sword Command,' said Uriel, nodding towards the maps. 'Tell me that Lord Winterbourne fares better than we do.'
Gerber pointed with the tip of his sword to one of the maps and said, 'Lord Winterbourne and Sword Command are currently engaged in the Owsen Hills. The tau have been halted for now, but they're pushing hard for a breakthrough.'
'Learchus took a great risk in breaking vox-silence behind enemy lines,' said Uriel.
'Good thing he did. His warning came just in time,' said Gerber. 'Thanks to him, our flanks are safe for the moment.'
'That's something at least,' said Uriel, looking at the map of Olzetyn the two men had been studying. 'Now to the matter of our own situation.'
'Of course, Captain Gerber and I have come up with a plan we believe is workable.'
'Tell me,' said Uriel.
'Of course,' said Loic. 'We believe that if we re-task men from the Imperator bastions, we can hold the Diacrian Bridge for at least another week.'
'It's possible,' allowed Uriel. 'Then what?'
'Then we think of some other way to stymie them,' put in Gerber. 'Do you have a better idea?'
Uriel decided there was no point in wasting breath and time with pointless softening of the blow, and said, 'We will not be re-tasking anyone from the Imperator bastions. The bastions will be reinforced and every other bridge will be destroyed. If we try and hold the southern bridge we will fail and the flank of the Imperator will be turned. The tau know the other bridges are the key to the defence of Olzetyn. Truth be told, we should have destroyed them as soon as the fighting started.'
'Destroy the bridges?' said Loic. 'But they have stood for centuries. We can't!'
'The decision has already been made, colonel,' said Uriel. 'I am not here to debate the point, merely to inform you of your new orders. We cannot continue fighting like this. We need this to happen now or we are lost.'
'But with the extra week we could buy, who knows what might happen,' protested Loic.
'The Ultramarines do not make war on the basis of what might happen,' said Clausel. 'Only on what will happen. If we continue this fight as it is, we will lose, and that is not acceptable.'
'Of course not,' said Loic, 'but there must be another way!'
'There is not,' said Uriel in a tone that brooked no disagreement.
Gerber glanced at the map chalked on the wall, and nodded. 'Honour has been satisfied, Adren, and we have shed enough blood for this city. The time to make the hard choice is here and we cannot be afraid to follow it through.'
Loic saw that he had no allies in his attempt to prevent the destruction of the bridges, and Uriel saw the resignation in his eyes.
'Very well,' said Loic. 'You're right, of course, it's just hard seeing great landmarks of your homeworld destroyed in order to save it.'
'We are like the surgeon who amputates an arm to save his patient,' said Clausel.
'I understand that,' said Loic, 'I just worry what will be left of any worth on Pavonis if we destroy it all to defeat the tau.'
Loic's words were like a light of revelation in Uriel's mind, and a plan that had been nothing more than half-formed ideas in his mind suddenly crystallised.
'What?' asked Loic, sensing that he had said something important.
'I know how we can win this war,' said Uriel.
THE CHASE WAS over.
Hot bolts of pulsing energy stitched a path towards Learchus, and he hurled himself behind a boulder as the two remaining scout skimmers streaked past and arced around on another strafing run. He rolled, and slammed his back against the boulder, bringing his bolter to bear in case the opportunity for a snap shot presented itself.
It had been a risk, sending the vox-signal bearing news of the tau flanking move, and Learchus only hoped that Uriel had made use of the information. Xenos electronic surveillance equipment had clearly detected their brief transmission, and criss-crossing teams of scout skimmers gradually tightened the net on Learchus, Issam and the scouts.
Their pursuers knew there was prey nearby, and had swiftly cut off all avenues of escape, hounding them towards the very edge of the coast. With Praxedes achingly close, it was galling to have to forsake their mission, but the time for stealth was over.
It was time to fight.
They had waited in ambush for their pursuers, and downed one of the skimmers with their first volley of bolter-fire. A second was blown from the air by a lethally accurate missile from Parmian's launcher. The remaining skimmers broke left and right, streaking up and around at amazing speed. They dived back down, pulsing energy weapons rip
ping through the scouts' position before they could find fresh cover.
Two of Issam's scouts were killed instantly. One died as his head vaporised in a superheated mist of blood and brains when the white heat of the skimmer's fire caught him full in the face. The second was cut in half at the waist by a rapid series of shots that sawed through his torso. Parmian took a hit on the shoulder, and cradled his mangled arm as he took shelter in a cleft in the rocks. Twisted molten metal was all that remained of the missile launcher, and now the last two skimmers dived back down to finish the kill.
'Why only two teams?' wondered Learchus as he watched them separate. An answer presented itself a second later. The tau obviously thought the transmission had come from a spotter team in their rear echelons, two or three men at most, and certainly nothing that required the attention of more than a handful of scout skimmers. Not for a moment had they suspected that the enemy in their midst was far more dangerous than that.
Once again, the tau had underestimated their foes, and they would pay for that mistake.
Behind Learchus, the ocean spread out like a dark mirror, while, to his right, the rocky landscape fell away in a series of graben-like shelves for three kilometres towards the ancient crater in which lay the port city of Praxedes. Learchus heard more shots and saw Sergeant Issam running for cover, firing from the hip as he went. He had no time to aim, and the scout skimmers were moving too fast for such hasty shots.
'Issam! Down!' shouted Learchus.
The Scout-sergeant dived to the side and darted between two tumbled columns of bleached rock as the second of the two skimmers streaked over his place of concealment. They were nimble vehicles, dart-shaped with what looked like a curving roll bar running from the engine nacelles at their prows to their tapered rears. Two tau warriors sat in the cockpit, only their shoulders and heads visible.
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