by Dan Abnett
The troopers, led by Gilbear, dropped far further than Gaunt's unit had done. They impacted on the hull above the shelf Gaunt and the others occupied, and most slid down onto that safe landing. Some clung on where they found purchase on the slopes above. Two a Volpone and the Tanith scout Bonin bounced away like rocks down a mountainside and dropped past Gaunt, disappearing a hundred metres below under the lip of the hull. Gaunt looked away. If the sheer fall hadn't killed them outright, they were dead under the massive caterpillar carriage.
Gaunt signalled around and made contact with the remaining troopers. They were all rendezvousing on the shelf-lip. The Curtain Wall of Vervunhive was now only minutes away and their time was disappearing fast. Weapons ready, reaching out hands to steady themselves against the motion of the Spike, the strike team followed Gaunt down the shelf.
The difficult part remained: how to find a way inside this armoured monster.
The hull was solid. Domor pulled out the head of his sweeper kit and pressed it against the throbbing metal.
Dense no cavities, he growled disappointedly.
Gaunt sighed. They could blast or cut the hull open if there was a chance of accessing a hollow space within, but Domor was positive. It stood to reason a machine like this would be thick-skinned.
Two of Gilbear's Volpone returned along the shelf from scouting the far end. Gilbear heard their reports and edged along to Gaunt.
The main weapon ports along the forward face. They're open, ready for firing. It's that or nothing.
And if they fire while we're entering?
Then we're dead. You want to stay out here for the rest of the war?
Gaunt barked out a laugh at Gilbear's attitude.
No. I guess we won't know anything about it if they fire.
It'll be quick, certainly, Gilbear agreed.
Gaunt notified the squad leaders and led the single-file team along the shelf.
They were about to make the turn onto the forward face when the beam weapons fired again. The light flash was even more brutal out in the open and the sucking roar monstrous. The whole Spike shook.
How long since the last salvo? Gaunt asked Larkin as soon as his ears stopped ringing.
Eight minutes, just about, boss.
I'm working with the idea it takes a while for the batteries to recharge. We've got eight minutes to get inside.
It sounds so easy when you put it like that, snarled Rawne.
Shouldn't we be moving rather than debating? Kolea asked, shaming them all.
Gaunt nodded. Yes. Now. Go!
Always, always lead from the front. Never expect a man under your command to undertake an action you're not prepared to make yourself. It was one of Delane Oktar's primary rules, drummed into Gaunt during his years with the Hyrkans. He was not about to forget his mentor's advice now.
Gaunt led the way around the corner of the hull and hurried towards the huge, main-weapon recesses below him. Visor hatches the size of the Sondar Gates were pulled up from the ports like eyelids. The air was sweet and tangy with burnt plasma and fluorocarbons.
Gaunt reached the edge of the emplacement recess and grabbed hold of one of the shutter stanchions, a heavyweight hydraulic limb at full extension. His leather glove slid off the oiled, shining metal. He pulled the glove off and took hold with his bare hand, arming his bolt gun in the other.
Gaunt leapt and let himself fall, swinging down and around like an ape by one hand. Using his body weight's pendulum momentum, he threw himself in through the weapon hatch, letting go of the hydraulic limb at the same moment.
He fell, rather than jumped, inside the hull, landing and stumbling on a grilled cageway that ran alongside the massive snouts of the beam cannons. Rolling, he saw two black-clad Zoican gunners leap up from their firing consoles, and he shot them down.
Three Zoican soldiers in full battledress charged up onto the cageway, blasting at him. Gaunt lost his footing and fell, the las-shots screaming over his head. The shots blew apart the torso of the Volpone leaping in behind him and threw his corpse back and outwards so it fell away down the slope of the hull. Recovering, Gaunt resumed firing, aiming precise head-shots at the Zoicans, exploding their full-face helmets with high-explosive rounds.
Then Gilbear, Mkoll and three other Tanith had made it inside behind him. Mkoll opened up with his lasrifle, supporting Gaunt's fire-pattern, and Gilbear turned back to pull others of the strike force in through the huge awning.
Gaunt and Mkoll advanced with Crothe and Rilke, partly to secure the weapon deck and partly to make room. The commissar and his three Tanith troopers scoured the gun-control position, blasting dozens of Zoican personnel.
Within moments, the Zoican troopers set up a flaying return of fire. Crothe was blasted off his feet and Mkoll took a hit in his hip. He slammed back into the wall and fell, but somehow maintained his fire rate.
Now Gilbear and three of his elite Blueblood were coming in behind, laying down a field of fire with their hellguns. Behind them on the cageway, Haller and Kolea were dragging the other squad members in through the hatch.
Gilbear's fire team advanced and secured the gunnery deck behind the colossal beam emitters, slaying everything that moved. The air in the chamber was dense and rich with gunsmoke. The grilled deck was strewn with Zoican dead.
Somewhere an alarm began to wail.
Inside four minutes, Gaunt's strike team had entered the Spike via the gun-ports, all seventy-eight of them. Three had died in the initial engagement. Gaunt checked on Mkoll. His wound was superficial and he was already back on his feet.
The strike force spread out to cover all the exitways on the gloomy gundeck.
He led the way to a main blast door that gave access to the Spike's inner cavities. It was locked fast.
I can blow it, said Kolea at his side.
Gaunt drew the powersword of Heironymo Sondar, activated it, and sliced the incandescent blade through the hatch. A further three sweeps and a kick left the hatchway open, the cut section of metal clanging as it fell on the deck outside.
Move! cried Gaunt. Move!
The Spike's main weapon deck was linked to the primary command sections by a long, sloping accessway wide enough for a Leman Russ to drive along it. It was painted matt red, the colour of meat, and thick bulkhead frames stood at every twenty metres. The floor was a metal grille and in the underfloor cavity, pipes, tubing and feeder cables could be seen. Off to either side, just on the other side of the blast door, stood service elevators with metal cage frames, set in circular loading docks. The elevators were heavy-duty freight lifts designed to haul shells from the munition stockpiles deep in the belly of the Spike up to the artillery blisters on the upper slopes. The metal walls of the accessway were covered with intricate emblems, the curious, nauseating runes of Chaos. Gaunt realised they had been fashioned from bone that had been inlaid into the metal and then polished flat with the wall so they glowed and shone like pearl.
Human bone, he guessed. The Heritor would demand such details.
A team of Zoican heavy troopers in segmented ochre body armour greeted them in the accessway as they entered, firing up the sloping tunnel from cover at the far end. One of the scratches, a man whose name Gaunt would never know, was sliced apart by the initial shots. His blood sprayed the bone icons on the wall, and the symbols began to squirm and shift.
Larkin saw this and fell back in horror, his guts churning. The eldritch symbols were alive, excited by blood. He knew he was about to vomit with fear.
Taking a breather? Banda asked sourly as she pushed past him, firing down at the enemy position. The Imperials were hugging the walls and using the bulkheads for cover, edging down the accessway as far as the enemy fire would allow.
A breather? Larkin gulped. He was incredulous. No smirking girl from the hab looms would show him up.
Forgetting his fear, he knelt in cover, shook out his neck, raised his sniper-variant lasrifle and put a hot-shot between the eyes of a Zoican heavy twenty p
aces away.
Nice work, Banda growled from her position and blew Larkin a cocky kiss.
Larkin grinned and made another kill-shot. Either he was beginning to like this woman, or he'd kill her himself.
Another of the scratches fell, ripped open by the mauling heavy weapons the enemy had trained on them. They were caught too tightly between the hall and the entry point Gaunt had cut open. His men fanned round into the side loading docks, but they were packed in.
Rawne hurled a tube charge down the tunnel, but the Zoicans had enough cover to shelter from it.
Dremmond! Gaunt yelled.
The flamer-trooper was still trying to pull his bulky tanks through the narrow opening Gaunt's powersword had sliced. Las-rounds peppered the metal around him. A Ghost nearby, Lonner, collapsed with the back of his neck blown out.
Dremmond was dear. Gaunt and Kolea physically dragged the big Ghost to the front of the line and Dremmond braced his scorched flame-gun, ensuring the feed-pipe wasn't twisted and the igniter was sparking.
He squeezed the trigger grip and billows of white-hot flame sheeted down the tunnel, incinerating the Zoican heavies. The scourging flame bubbled the paint off the walls and the twitching bone-runes began to shriek.
He washed the hall with another gout to be sure, and then Rawne, Haller and Bragg led off to secure the hall. Bragg reached the position the enemy had been holding and he stepped over the black, fused corpses. There was another accessway to his left and he sprayed bursts of autogun fire through the door mouth.
Haller moved to the right and went over hard as a half-burned Zoican soldier threw himself at the scratch officer. The blackened thing, its ceramite armour part-melted into its flesh by Dremmond's flames, tore at him in a frenzy. Haller screamed out, frantic. Rawne grabbed the Zoican and threw it off Haller. It bounced off a wall and, before it could rise, Rawne had shot it four times with his lasgun.
I owe you, Ghost, said Haller, getting up.
No, you don't, habber. I don't like it when any one owes me anything. Forget it.
Haller paused, as if slapped in the face. He hadn't much liked the look of the Tanith major when they had all first assembled. Banda had whispered Rawne had toxic eyes. It seemed true. Even the haughty Volpone seemed to be making more of an effort to be comradely than this Tanith bastard.
Suit yourself, Haller said.
He always does, mocked Bragg. The big Ghost knew it was neither the time nor the place to bring Haller up to speed on Rawne's history, the fact that Rawne hated Gaunt with an inhuman passion precisely because he owed him.
Shut it and get soldiering! Rawne snorted to Bragg. Already there were noises from the side tunnels and fresh Zoican forces were firing on them.
The main strike force had moved up by then. Gilbear swung a party of Blue-bloods to the right and cremated a side-tunnel with grenades from their under-barrel launchers. MkVenner hurried right with four Tanith and a number of scratches, moving to secure their advance from enemy prosecution. A las-round hit him in the arm and spun him to the deck. Domor, right behind him, knelt over the injured scout and sprayed las-fire down at the hidden shooter, calling for a medic. Beside him, Vinya, one of the loom-girls, rebounded off the wall as a brace of las-shots caught her in the belly. Several troopers pushed past Domor to hold the side-tunnel, flaying las-fire down into the dark.
Gherran joined Domor, running low, holding a las pistol in one hand, the other hand curled around the narthecium kit to stop it jolting.
It's MkVenner Domor began. The medic dropped to his knees beside the scout. The las-shot had exploded MkVenner's left elbow and disintegrated his biceps. He was curled up, crying with pain, but he forced his voice to work.
Her first her! he said, nodding over at Vinya.
Let me look at it, MkVenner, Gherran said.
No! You know fething triage: serious cases first! She's gut-shot! See to her!
Give him this, Gherran told Domor, handing him a gauze-packed inoculator full of high-dose painkillers. He scrambled over to the sprawled scratch soldier. She was twisted like a broken puppet, her chin forced into her chest where she lay with the back of her head against the wall. Blood oozed out of her in a wide pool. The wound itself had self-cauterised in charred, knotty lumps, but the damage had shredded her insides, and she was bleeding out rapidly.
Oh, feth! Gherran spat. Someone give me a hand here!
Kolea was beside him. Tell me how.
Pressure: here and here. Hold it tight. No, tight like you mean it!
They were both sodden with her blood. She stirred, moaning.
Vinya s'okay Stay awake Kolea murmured to her, his hands damping hard on her ruined organs.
He looked around at Gherran as he worked frantically.
She's not going to make it, is she?
Major trauma, Gherran explained as he worked. I can stabilise her, but no, it's just a matter of time.
Kolea nodded. He let go and leaned down to whisper in her ear, You fought well, Vinya Terrigo of Hab 45/jad. Vervunhive will never forget your courage. The hive loves you for your devotion.
Then he reached down with huge, gentle hands and snapped her neck.
Oh, God-Emperor! Gherran cried, recoiling in horror.
There's a man you can save, Kolea said, pointing at MkVenner with a bloody hand. I love my people, and I will fight for them with every last measure of my strength, but this would have uselessly wasted the time of a good medic when there are better causes. Her pain is over. She has found peace.
Gherran wiped his mouth.
I he began.
If you were going to tell me you couldn't begin to understand what we habbers have gone through to get here, save it. I don't want your pity.
Actually, friend, I was going to tell you I do understand. And admire your courage, to boot. Our lives are all on the line fighting for your home. Me, I don't have a home anymore. So, feth you and that oh-so-noble crap. Gherran gathered his kit-pack and moved over to MkVenner.
Kolea picked up his lasgun and strode past, rejoining the fight.
Cocoer, Neskon and Flinn had made it to the corner of the right hand side access, and they drove the gathering Zoicans backwards. Gaunt, with Genx and Maroy, crawled up behind them.
Access? asked Gaunt.
Not a fething hope, sir! sang out Cocoer. The air was flickering with las crossfire.
Bloody bastard hell! Neskon cried as his gun jammed. He shook it. Gaunt grabbed him and yanked him down into cover just as laser blasts pummelled the wall above his head.
Never forget the drill, Neskon. Gun jams: duck and cover. Don't stand there playing with it.
No, colonel-commissar.
I like you better alive.
Me me too, sir.
Rilke, reckoned to be the best sniper in the Ghosts after Larkin, and the scratch woman Nessa moved up to flank them. Rilke wasted two shots trying to hit a Zoican in cover down the tunnel. Nessa, with her standard-issue lasgun, picked him off and the Zoican behind him.
Where'd you learn to shoot like that? Rilke protested, but she didn't hear him. She couldn't hear him.
Gaunt looked across at her, waiting until she saw his face. Good, he said.
She grinned.
A ceiling panel ten metres back slammed open and Zoican stormtroops began to drop down out of it like grains of sand through the neck of an hourglass. They sprayed shots in both directions. Four Ghosts, two scratches and a Blueblood went down. Bragg wheeled and decimated the spilling Zoicans, his withering autocannon supported by Haller, Rawne, Genx and a dozen others.
The Zoican dead lay in a heap under the ceiling drop. Bragg raised his muzzle and began to fire up into the roof, his heavy rounds punching smooth-edged holes through the sheet metal. Blood began to drip down through some of them.
We're bottled in! Mkoll yelled at Gaunt.
Gaunt knew as much. Gilbear had blocked the left-hand access, but the right was still thick with Zoicans. And now they were coming down through the ceilin
g, for feth's sake! At this rate, his strike cadre would exhaust themselves simply maintaining a perimeter. If they were going to do anything of note, they had to focus.
Mkoll? Gaunt called.
Mkoll knew what was being asked of him. Gaunt had always valued the chief scout's unnerving ability to find the right way. It wasn't a gift, really. Somehow, sometime back in the shifting, drifting forest ways of Tanith, he had come to understand the logic of structure, the underlying sense of any environment.
Mkoll's gut said straight ahead and down.
Through the blast shields, sir, Mkoll announced.
That was good enough for Gaunt. He crawled back, under heavy fire, to the shields. Rawne! Tube charges here!
What are you doing? bellowed Gilbear, moving up. That way will lead us off into the right hand side of the structure!
Gaunt looked at Gilbear, las-shots whizzing around them. After all we've seen, Gilbear, do you trust me?
Very probably, but
If you were constructing this Spike, would you put the main command deck in the dead centre where anyone would expect it to be?
Gilbear thought for a moment and shook his head.
Then humour me. I've learned to go with Mkoll's instincts. If I'm wrong, I'll stand you a case of wine. You can choose the vintage.
If you're wrong, we'll be dead!
Why do you think I made the bet?
Gilbear laughed out loud.
Cover and clear! yelled Rawne, hastening from the bundle of tube charges he had glued to the shield hatch.
The channelled blast tore the doors inwards like paper. Whatever else you could say about him, Rawne knew explosives. There was barely a Shockwave on the Imperial side of the hatch.
For Tanith! yelled Gaunt, hurling himself through the opening.
For Volpone! bawled Gilbear, right beside him.
For Vervunhive! mouthed Nessa to herself, close on their heels.
Guild Githran Agricultural had fallen. Corbec drove his Tanith back towards the base of the Main Spine with all hell following. Milo and Baffels guided their survivor company out of the ruins, chased by Zoican tank groups. Bray's mixed units wilted in retreat as divisions of Zoican stormtroopers drove up into the inner habs.
