Helsreach (warhammer 40000)

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  CHAPTER XVII

  Into the Fires of Battle, Unto the Anvil of War

  The Sulfa Commercia district had been a bastion of militia reserves and a strongpoint for the docks' anti-air defences.

  The few turrets that remained atop buildings, both automated and manned, fell silent. Around them, the district burned. Above them, ork fighters and bombers dropped their payloads with abandon, barely held in check even when the defence turrets were operational.

  Sulfa Commercia, as a trading hub for the western docks that was always densely populated in times of peace, was home to a particularly large concentration of above-ground storm shelters, most of which were already broken by the besieging orks. The enemy advance was at a standstill in this section of the dockyards, not because of Imperial resistance, but because there was so much blood to shed, and so much to destroy. To leave the area devoid of life and in utter ruin meant the aliens had to linger here, slaying with wild joy in their feral eyes.

  When writing of the siege in a personal journal some years after the war, Major Lacus of the 61st Steel Legion lamented the ''unbelievable loss of life'' that occurred with the dock breaches, citing the destruction of the Sulfa Commercia as ''among the bloodiest events in the Helsreach siege, which no man, no tank battalion, no legion of Titans could have dreamed of preventing''.

  The trading concourse resembled little of its former grandeur. While warehouses were less in evidence here, the houses of the wealthy mercantile families of Helsreach burned just as well, and those citizens that had elected to remain in their homes rather than seek out the subterranean municipal shelters now fell to the same fate as the civilians trapped in the cracked-open storm shelters. The aliens descended without mercy, and no contingent of house guards, no matter how well-trained they were, were capable of defending their lords' estates against the xenos tide that swarmed the docks districts.

  The most notable defence - one that captured the spirit of defiance surging throughout the hive's stunted propaganda machine - was not, as might be suspected, the one that inflicted greatest harm upon the enemy. The estate defence that did the most damage numerically-speaking was performed by the House Farwellian Constabulary, employed for seven generations by the noble Farwell bloodline. Their extended survival wasn't quite the soul-lifting story that Commissar Falkov and Colonel Sarren were seeking, as the esteemed House Farwell were, in truth, considered decadent pigs in the public eye, and its various scions were no strangers to political scandal, financial investigation, and rumours of trade double-dealing. In short, they performed so well in this district war because they had shrewdly cheated their way to immense wealth, and had a standing army of six hundred soldiers at their beck and call.

  A standing army that, it was noted in Imperial records, the Farwells refused to lend to the defence of the docks or the city's militia.

  This sizable force was also their bane. As words flashed through the orkish ranks that there was a nexus of defence formed at the House Farwell compound, the aliens stormed it en masse, ending the tenacious resistance - and the bloodline itself.

  The most notable defence, as stated, was a far cry from this exercise in doomed selfishness. House Tarracine, with only five off-world mercenaries hired as protection, defended their modest estate through a series of guerrilla strikes and automated security traps for nineteen hours. Although their home was destroyed by the invaders, seven family members emerged unscathed in the days after the dock battle, leaving them in a relatively strong position for the rebuilding of the city, with Lord Helius Tarracine's four daughters suddenly pursued with great vigour by weakened and heirless noble bloodlines.

  At shelter CC/46, one of the few shelters still intact as the second day of the dock war stretched on, annihilation was averted at the very last moment.

  The first drop-pod came down with a thunderbolt's force, striking into the roadway leading to the front doors of the sanctuary dome. The ork rabble that had been clamouring in the street was thrown into disarray, and several of the beasts were incinerated in the pod's retro burst or crushed beneath its hammering weight.

  The pod's sides blasted open, slamming down into descent ramps which pulverised the beasts that had recovered enough to start beating their axe blades against the green hull.

  Across the docks, several more pods rained down, their arrival mirroring the destruction unleashed by the first.

  With bolters raised, crashing out round after round, and flamers breathing dragon's breath in hissing gouts of chemical fire, the Salamanders joined their Templar brothers in defence of Hive Helsreach.

  'We are seventy in number,' he says to me. Seven squads.

  His name is V'reth, a sergeant of the Salamanders' 6th Company. Before I speak, he says something both humbling and unexpectedly respectful. 'I am honoured to fight at your side, Reclusiarch Grimaldus.'

  This confession throws me, and I am not certain I keep my surprise from my voice when I reply.

  'The Templars are in your debt. But tell me, brother, why you have come?'

  Around us, my knights and V'reth's warriors stalk among the dead and the dying, slaying wounded orks with sword thrusts to exposed throats. The storm-trooper and his dockworkers follow suit, using the bayonets of their rifles.

  V'reth disengages his helm's seals and lifts it clear. Even having served with the Salamanders before, it is difficult to look upon one of the sons of Nocturne and feel nothing at all. The gene-seed of their primarch reacts to their home world's viciously radioactive surface. The pigmentation of V'reth's skin is the same charcoal-black as every unhelmeted warrior of the Chapter I've ever seen. His eyes lack pupils and irises. Instead, V'reth stares out at the world around us through orbs of ember red, as if blood has filled his eye sockets and discoloured his eyes in the process.

  His true voice is a low, aural embodiment of the igneous rock that leaves the surface of his home world dark, barren and grey. It is all too easy to see how these warriors come from a world of lava rivers and volcanic mountain ranges that turn the sky black.

  'We were the last of the Salamanders in orbit. The Lord of the Fire-born called us to him, and we obeyed.'

  I am familiar with the title. I have heard their Chapter Master referred to by this name many times before.

  'Master Tu'Shan, may the Emperor continue to favour him, fights far from here, brother. The Salamanders bleed the enemy many leagues to the east, and the Hemlock river runs black with alien blood.'

  V'reth inclines his head in a solemn nod, and his red-eyed gaze rises to take in the shelter dome at the end of this very street.

  'This is so, and it gladdens me to know my brothers fight well enough to earn such words from you, Reclusiarch. The Lord of the Fire-born makes his stand with the war engines of Legios Ignatum and Invigilata.'

  'So answer my question, for time is not our ally. Helsreach burns. Will you stay? Will you fight with us?'

  'We will not stay. We cannot stay.'

  I bite back the wrath that rises from disappointment, and the Salamander continues, 'We are the seventy warriors chosen to make planetfall here and stand with you until the docks are held. My lord and master heard of the assured civilian devastation in the fall of this city's coastal districts.'

  'Few messages reach the ears of our allies elsewhere in the world. Few messages from them reach us.'

  'The Salamanders were not blind to your plight, honoured Reclusiarch. Master Tu'Shan heard. We are his blade, his will, to ensure the survival of the city's most innocent souls.'

  'And then you will leave.'

  'And then we will leave. Our fight is along the banks of the Hemlock. Our glory is there.'

  This gesture alone is enough to earn my eternal gratitude. For the first time in decades, emotion steals the words I wish to voice. This is all we needed. This is salvation.

  We can hurt them now.

  I remove my own helm, breathing in the first taste of Helsreach's sulphuric air in… weeks. Months.

  V'reth inhales d
eeply, doing the same.

  'This city,' he smiles, teeth white against his onyx features, 'it smells like home.'

  The heated wind feels good on my skin. I offer my hand to V'reth, and he grips my wrist - an alliance between warriors.

  'Thank you,' I tell him, meeting his inhuman eyes.

  'If you are needed elsewhere,' V'reth matches my gaze with his own, 'then go to your duty, honoured Reclusiarch. We stand with you, for now. And together, we will not let these docks fall.'

  'First, tell me of the orbital war. What news of the Crusader?'

  'The deadlock remains. It grieves me to say this, but it is so. We are shattering the enemy, battle by battle, but it is like hurling fire at stone. Little is achieved against such an overwhelming foe. It will take weeks before your High Marshal dares a full assault to reclaim the heavens. He is a shrewd warrior. My brothers and I were honoured to serve with him in the fleet.'

  To hear his words is like a lifeline. A connection to existence beyond the broken walls of this accursed city. I press him for more.

  'What of Tempestus Hive? They suffered as we did.'

  'Fallen. Lost to the enemy, its forces in retreat. The last word from any remnant of command structure was that the city was being abandoned, and its retreating survivors were making their way overland to connect with the Guard regiments serving alongside my lord and master.'

  Scattered defence forces and Guard units, crossing hundreds of kilometres of wasteland. Such tenacity was to be admired.

  This world will never recover, that much is clear. Fatalism may not be bred into my bones, but there is no valour in living a lie. What we do here is defiance - the selling of life as dearly as possible. We are not fighting to win, but waging war out of spite.

  This Salamander, brother though he may be, has a destiny beyond this city. I relent to it.

  'Coordinate the dispersal of squads with Sergeant Bastilan. Focus your efforts on the westernmost districts, where the bulk of storm shelters are to be found. Bastilan will provide you with the required vox frequencies to connect with the storm-troopers leading the civilian defences. Do not expect clarity in communications. Many of the city's vox-relay towers have fallen.'

  'It will be done, Reclusiarch.'

  'For the Emperor.' I release V'reth's wrist. His reply is a curious one, betraying his Chapter's unique focus. 'For the Emperor,' he says, 'and His people.'

  Jurisian, Master of the Forge and knight of the Emperor, threw his head back and laughed. He had not laughed in many years, for he was not a soul given to humour. What he was seeing now however struck him as immensely funny. So he laughed, without meaning to.

  The sound echoed throughout the immense chamber, resounding off metal-reinforced walls of stone and the hulking adamantium shape that stretched for fifty metres into the darkness.

  The Ordinatus Armageddon. Oberon.

  Jurisian's armour had been the only sound in the chamber for hours, the overlaid ceramite plating clacking and whirring as he moved around the great weapon.

  He'd circled it several dozen times, staring, scanning, taking in every detail with his own eyes and his war plate's auspex sensors.

  It was, without question, the most beautiful creation he had ever laid his augmetic eyes upon.

  In aesthetics, perhaps it would not appeal to a poet or a painter. But that was hardly the point. In power, it would appeal to any general in the Imperium. It was a triumph of design and intent, a glorious success in mankind's quest to master a greater ability to destroy its enemies.

  The great construct consisted of a strong, three-sectioned base that held up a weapons platform on gantries and struts. Atop the platform was the weapon itself. Jurisian considered each aspect of the war machine in turn, silent in its deactivation.

  From the front, Oberon was as wide as two bulky Land Raider battle tanks side by side. Its length was fifty metres in total, giving it the appearance of a land train, long and segmented. Immense to say the least, it was of approximate size to a towering battle Titan lying on its back.

  The war machine's base was divided into three sections - a helm segment, the drive module, with a reinforced cockpit chamber; a thorax section next, pinned under the weight of massive metal stanchions; lastly, an abdomen segment, bearing the same weight as the section before. Each of these base sections was bulked up further by side-mounted power generators, shielded behind yet more armour plating. These, Jurisian knew, were the gravitational suspensor generators. Anti-gravitational technology on such a scale was no longer heard of in the Imperium, except for the deployment of war machines of this calibre.

  These generators' rarity made them the most precious thing on the entire planet, bar nothing.

  The stanchions and gantries supported the colossal weapons platform, which in turn housed dozens of square metres of energy pods, fusion chambers and magnetic field generators. It was as if an industrial manufactorum had been installed on the back of a column of tanks.

  These generators would, if active, supply power to the land train's weapon mount: a tower of a cannon forged of heat-shielded ceramite and joined to the forward power generators. Coolant vents ran the length of the cannon like reptilian scales. Like parasitic worms, nests of secondary power feed cables hung from the barrel, while industrial support claws held the weapon in place.

  A nova cannon. A weapon used by starships to end one another across the immensity of the void. Here it was, mounted on priceless and infinitely-armoured anti-gravitational technology from a forgotten age.

  'Titan-killer,' the Master of the Forge whispered.

  Jurisian reverently stroked his gloved fingertips down the drive section's metallic skin, feeling the thick armour plating, the chunky rivets… down to the miniscule differences in the layers of adamantium: the tiniest variations and imperfections from its forging process hundreds of years before.

  He'd withdrawn his hand, and that was when he'd laughed.

  Oberon, the Death of Titans. It was real. It was here. And it was his.

  He gained access to the forward command module through a ladder leading to a bulkhead that required opening manually. Once inside the powerless cockpit chamber, Jurisian spared a glance for the winches, levers and black, blank screens along the drive console. It was all new, all alien to him, but nothing he considered beyond his intuition and Mechanicus training. Another bulkhead barred his way to the second module. With the Ordinatus powered down, this one also required him to manually turn the iron wheel on its surface.

  The door squealed open with the reluctance of an unused airlock. Jurisian's gaze pierced the blackness beyond with aid from his helm's vision filters. It was confined and claustrophobic, despite there being little in the module beyond armoured pods fixed to the walls that housed the power generators for the anti-grav lifters, and crew ladders leading up into the main generatorium on the platform above. Jurisian ascended, opening another two bulkheads as he rose through the support gantries.

  The innards of the platform-top generatorium were familiar enough in their cluttered, industrial layout. He stood within the heart of a spaceship's weapon system, condensed to offer less range and power, but on a more manoeuvrable and manageable scale. The projectiles from this sacred cannon didn't, after all, have to travel across thousands of kilometres of open space to strike a target.

  It was, bluntly speaking, the sawn-off shotgun of nova cannon technology. The notion brought a smile to Jurisian's mirthless lips.

  It took a further three hours of investigation, feed-checks and generator testing to ascertain whether the Ordinatus Armageddon could be reactivated, and how such a feat could be achieved.

  The result at the close of the investigations was a bittersweet one.

  This weapon of war should have been crewed by dozens of specialist skitarii, magi and tech-adepts, born and raised for this purpose above all others. It should have been ritually blessed by the Lord of the Centurio Ordinatus and its newest duty inscribed upon its hull alongside the ninety-three pr
ayers of reawakening.

  Instead of the chanting and worship due to the spirit of such a war engine, the soul of Oberon awoke in silence and darkness. Its vague, reforming consciousness did not detect a gestalt host of abased Centurio Ordinatus minds supplicating themselves for its attention, but a single other soul in union with its own.

  This soul was strong: ironclad and dominant. It identified itself as Jurisian.

  In the drive module, his brain, spine and body armour linked via telemetry cables to the interface feeds in the princeps throne, the Master of the Forge closed his eyes. Around him, the systems flared into life. Scanners chimed as they began to see again. Overhead lights flickered and held at low illumination settings.

  With a great shudder and the accompanying thrumming of power generators coming back to life, all three modules shook once, twice, and jolted hard.

  In the drive section, Jurisian lurched in his seat. He hadn't jolted forward, but up.

  Five metres up.

  There the modules remained, cradled on a pulsing anti-grav field that distorted the ground below with something that was, and was not, a heat-shimmer.

  'Activation Phase One,' the war machine's voice issued from vox-speakers around the command module.

  Beneath the mechanical tone seethed a roiling, uncoiling hatred. Jurisian bowed his head in respect, but did not cease his work.

  'My brothers call me to Helsreach,' he spoke into the cold control pod, expecting no answer and receiving none. 'And though that may mean nothing, I know that war calls to you.'

  Through the interface connection, the spirit of Oberon growled, the sound inhuman and untranslatable.

  Jurisian nodded. 'I thought so.'

  Asavan Tortellius lingered over a single phrase.

  He had no idea how to describe just how cold he was.

  Around him, the deserted cathedral still bore more than its share of wall scars and battle damage. On a fallen block of masonry, the acolyte composed his memoirs of the Helsreach war, while the great Titan pitched slowly forward and back in the rough rhythm of walking. Occasionally, air pressure and gravity would exert themselves on his left or right side, as Stormherald rounded a corner. As he had done for years, Asavan ignored these things.