by Mark Clapham
Strank looked down the tube, and saw that the breach had grown wider.
Hand over hand, he threw himself up the tube towards the main arm of the dock. The airlocks had automatically slammed shut, and when Strank reached the airlock he had to punch a security code into the control panel to open it.
He tumbled out of the airlock into a wide corridor ribbed with the girders that formed the frame of this arm of the dock. He needed to get to the central hub of the dock, which was robust enough to survive any impact.
The dock was shaken by further explosions as Strank ran. What he found as he entered the central hub was an ongoing bloodbath. The great open spaces of the central hub were overrun with heavily armoured giants, spreading throughout the dock and gunning down anything in their path.
The attackers’ armour was blood red and emblazoned with skulls and other grotesque symbols. Some had simple helmets, domed with grilles and eye-lenses, while others had horns or other formations protruding from their heads. They were humanoid, but also monsters, moving faster than humans, wielding huge weaponry that spat death.
Strank was so frozen in shock he didn’t see where the shot that killed him came from; he just felt a searing pain in his chest, and looked down to see a scorch mark on his uniform and blood seeping through. Then the pain was replaced by a spreading numbness.
He looked up again, but all he could see was the terrifying giants still advancing, destroying everything in their path. Strank’s last thought was that the orbital dock was as doomed as he was.
Five
Rotaka and his squad were in a drop pod falling towards the surface of Laghast. Malinko, a flamer-wielding brute in scorch-blackened armour, expressed his understanding of the situation to his commander.
‘Do I understand this correctly?’ Malinko said, leaning forwards, his finger jabbing at Rotaka. ‘You have volunteered us to take part in the first strike against an unknown number of enemies in an uncertain situation, probably a boxed-in kill zone, with the forces of an entire planetary system set against us?’
‘Yes,’ said Rotaka.
Malinko withdrew his accusative finger, and patted his gauntleted fist against the chestplate of his power armour in a parody of emotion.
‘Truly, this is a kind gift, captain,’ he said. ‘Is it the anniversary of my birth, or my ascension to these hallowed ranks? Either way, the rest of you should feel fortunate that I am allowing you to share this with me.’
‘You’re too kind,’ said Wuhrsk, voice level as ever. His armour stripped of ornamentation, Wuhrsk rarely raised his voice, preferring the silence as he did the shadows. ‘I hope to repay you with equal generosity some day.’
Verbin laughed, a deep hollow sound. A brute who liked to get his hands dirty, his armour was stained with dried blood, and he strained his fingers in his gauntlets as he chuckled.
‘It is no laughing matter,’ said Hulpin, not looking up from his chainfists as he gave them a final inspection. ‘What we do we do for the gods. It is ritual, not leisure.’
Pious as ever, thought Rotaka. Both Verbin and Malinko seemed on the verge of replying to Hulpin, but they were cut off by the sudden, massive jolt of the pod hitting the ground. Rotaka felt the full body shock wave pass through him, then reached out and pulled the pod’s release handle, the lever twisting down in his hand. As the pod opened there was a low hiss, and light seeped into the dark pod around the edges of the hatch.
Emerging onto the outer surface of Laghast, Rotaka could not miss their target. The Hellward Dock was a metallic scar across the land, a sprawling space port built on an uninhabitable, algae-covered waste. The outer surface of Laghast was completely airless, so the facility was airlocked, and most of it was made up of landing pads and blocky, anonymous buildings. Without a nearby sun the surface of Laghast was illuminated only by starlight, and the artificial light from the Hellward Dock blazed out across the dusty plains on which the Red Corsairs drop pods were landing. Many of the buildings were already wrecked by the assault from Huron’s fleet, flame bursting out then guttering away with the lack of air. Rotaka could see the skeletal remains of ground defences silhouetted against the flames, the barrels of burned-out gun emplacements black against the raging fires.
All around, drop pods continued to land, and above their heads landers and shuttles could be seen drifting downwards. Rotaka saw Becaro leading his squad out of a drop pod, his bolter glowing green with the ‘blessing’ coming from his hands. Looking ahead, Rotaka could see a great dome covered the Pit, the great shaft into the centre of Laghast, their target.
‘We know where we’re going,’ said Rotaka over the vox, pointing towards the dome. ‘Let’s get there before Becaro.’
A mortar exploded nearby. Ahead, atmosphere-suited humans were emerging from a scorched bunker, firing on the advancing Space Marines.
‘How rude,’ said Malinko, firing up his flamer. A small gout of fire came out of the nozzle, but was extinguished by the lack of oxygen. ‘Also rude,’ he added, switching to his bolter.
‘Cease your chatter,’ shouted Hulpin over the vox, as he opened fire on the humans, ‘and kill something.’
‘I second that order,’ said Rotaka, raising his bolter and firing at one of the mortals emerging from the bunker before they could take cover behind one of the many boulders on the rock-strewn plain. Another mortar shell flew into the air, then dropped close to the empty pod, missing the Red Corsairs.
Rotaka mentally tracked the flight of the mortar shell to a ridge of rock near the bunker entrance.
‘Kill anything that comes out of that bunker,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
Ducking low, Rotaka ran towards the ridge, weaving around large rocks in his way, until there was only a lumpy boulder half his height between him and the ridge. He ran straight at it, jumped right foot first, caught the top of the boulder with his boot and propelled himself over the ridge. As he fell towards the atmosphere-suited mortals manning the mortar, it fired; a shell powerful enough to crack open power armour sailed narrowly past his shoulder.
Rotaka opened fire with his bolter, killing two of the mortals manning the weapon. There was a third attempting to raise a lasrifle, and as Rotaka landed he kicked the mortar out of its base, the barrel of the weapon smashing into the chest of the third mortal and knocking him off his feet.
Knowing that no ordinary human would come back from a blow like that, Rotaka ignored the mortal and instead aimed his bolter at the ones advancing on his squad, running between cover. Now Rotaka had broken their line he was behind them, and shot three mortals in the back in quick succession. A little further away he could see Malinko and Verbin starting to fire on enemies they hadn’t realised were now dead.
‘All down,’ voxed Rotaka. ‘You’ll need to be quicker than that.’
As his squad emerged from cover and advanced on the bunker, Rotaka ignored Verbin’s colourful suggestions regarding his leadership.
Raising the blast shutters to look out upon the barren surface of Laghast, Kardon had seen the drop pods falling to the west of her control centre.
Her view in the other direction was obscured by the curve of the central dome. Communications were still down. For all Kardon knew, there could be more pods landing to the east as well, but she could see pods landing to the west, so that was where her Jandarme would make their stand.
The weapons batteries were ablaze, enemy ships filled the sky, and they had no way to call for help. Lieutenant Kardon was determined to meet their enemies, face to face, regardless of how briefly, and meet them with force.
‘They’re coming from the west,’ Kardon ordered, looking at the atmosphere-suited men and women gathered in the control centre. As all communications beyond the most local helmet-to-helmet vox had been consumed by eerie, nightmarish white noise, all nearby Jandarme had reported to the control centre. There were three dozen or so of them now, arm
ed and waiting for orders. ‘They’ll have to get through Docking Bay Theta. We’re no use here, so we move out and meet them there.’
There was a chorus of ‘ayes’ and nodding visored heads, a defiant raising of weapons, and they moved out. Although none of them had faced anything like this before they were a disciplined force, spreading out to cover the corridors leading towards Docking Bay Theta.
They entered the docking bay to find it still secure, an open area with many layers of gantries around the edge of the central space. Kardon ordered the men and women under her command to take positions in cover. She herself took a position at the rear of the bay, away from the towering doors that opened out onto the surface. From there, she had a view of the entire bay. It was a dimly lit space, loading equipment and crates scattered around from work disrupted by the attack, eerily quiet. She could see Jandarme positioned behind loaders and other equipment, lasrifles held tightly, while up on the gantries sharp-shooting positions were taken.
While atmosphere held within the bay, the Jandarme were all fully suited, rebreathers pumping air into their helmets. The bay was designed to open out onto the airless outer surface of Laghast, and Kardon was certain the invaders would not take safety precautions when they breached the bay.
Behind her, she knew preparations were being made to further secure the corridor into Laghast’s interior. A squad had been dispatched to make the descent and alert the interior. Kardon and her troops were just the first of many lines of defence that would stand between the attackers and the rest of the Hollow Worlds. Kardon knew there was a good chance they would all die here, but she was damned if she wouldn’t make the enemy fight for every step. For an enemy to actually make planetfall on Laghast’s surface was an unprecedented affront, and it was happening on her command. The least she could do was stand with the men and women of the Jandarme who she had ordered to face this threat.
Corporal Tusc was nearby, sheltering behind the same loading vehicle as her. Kardon knew that he would fight to the last, though with his history, probably die first. Kardon was struck by the pathos of that, but any further ruminations on the nature of life and death were interrupted by the far wall of the bay being blown to pieces.
Rotaka’s intention to get ahead of Becaro and his squad had not gone to plan. The two squads had converged, along with others, as they fought against waves of atmosphere-suited mortals through the outskirts of the Hellward Gate.
Ahead, they could see a lander hovering over the central dome of the gate. The Tyrant’s personal shuttle, taking him straight to the heart of the action. That was where Rotaka needed to be – he just had to clear the way through the throng of human scum first.
They entered the Hellward Gate complex via a loading bay to the west of the main dome, one of Becaro’s squad firing a krak missile right into the great shutters that sealed the bay from the airless world outside. The explosion was followed by an outrush of air and debris as the atmosphere seal broke.
‘Charge!’ shouted Becaro. Rather than dispute the chain of command, Rotaka set an example by breaking from cover and running directly at the breach in the doors. Becaro, crackles of energy running from his gauntlets and over the bolter he was wielding, kept pace and they leapt through the breach together, their squads on their heels.
Rotaka landed within the bay to find himself in a drab industrial space with scattered loading equipment. He also found himself under fire, las-beams cutting through the air at all angles. Rotaka and Becaro instinctively separated, heading in different directions. Rotaka fired in the general direction of the bay’s defenders, to provide covering fire as the rest of his squad entered the bay. The first couple of bolts he fired were shots in the dark, but that was all it took for him to identify that the enemy were gathered at the other end of the bay. Mentally tracing the las-fire back to its source, Rotaka fired tightly directed shots in that direction. Even as he did so, his focus was beyond his current targets, past this docking bay and towards the Pit, and glory.
‘Push ahead,’ Rotaka ordered, restricting the vox-channel to his squad only. ‘Let Becaro deal with this scum – we’ll take the Pit for Lord Huron.’
Malinko didn’t need to be told twice. He ran into the centre of the docking bay, racing ahead of the other Corsairs, making himself a target.
A volley of las-fire came from a group of mortals concealed behind a row of barrels – Malinko turned and released a single, long gout of fire from his flamer, enough to ignite whatever volatile substance was in the containers. The humans ran screaming, spatters of burning, toxic slime eating through their atmosphere suits into the skin beneath.
Before he could pick another target, Malinko was nearly blown to pieces by a rocket, exploding against the rockcrete floor near enough to reverberate through his power armour, blurring his vision and disrupting his hearing.
Half-blind and deaf, Malinko could not have been happier. This was battle, raw in its madness and fury!
Letting his flamer hang at his side, useless now the last of the oxygen had drained from the docking bay, Malinko drew his bolter to take out the two men reloading the rocket launcher on a high gantry. Even with his senses befuddled it was a simple, instinctive task to track the rocket back to its point of launch and eliminate the problem at its source. His aim was true and the two men collapsed, one clutching a gaping wound in his chest and the other losing his head from the chin up. Malinko appreciated the effort they had put into trying to kill him. The distortion of his senses was the most interesting thing to happen to him in years.
Hopefully the next explosion would be even closer.
Advancing rapidly across the docking bay, Rotaka saw his squad tearing through the enemy from different approaches. While Malinko was recklessly barging around the bay at ground level, Verbin had taken a run straight for the lowest level gantries, and was fighting his way hand-to-hand up the levels. Where he went, bodies fell, and the floor beneath was reddened where corpses had fallen.
Wuhrsk was taking out targets steadily, while Hulpin had let his chainfists lie idle for once, joining Rotaka in a steady advance across the floor of the bay, gradually forcing the mortals further back towards the rear of the bay, whittling down their numbers as they went. As they pushed forwards, Rotaka and Hulpin had to step over or kick aside more and more corpses brought down by the Corsairs’ bolter fire.
Over the command vox-channel Rotaka heard Becaro order his squad to secure the area and eliminate any resistance. This first strike would be over soon – the Lastrati fought well enough, for spineless humans in thrall to a hollow corpse-god, but they were grossly outgunned.
However brave they might be, they were mortals and the Red Corsairs were gods.
Rotaka eyed the other end of the bay.
‘This is our chance to leave Becaro behind,’ he told his squad. ‘Get ready – charge on my word.’
Although the series of explosions that hit the Hellward Gate had seemed like a worst-case scenario, Tusc’s nightmare had truly begun in Docking Bay Theta.
The bay had been overrun with monsters, ferocious giants whose armour was scarred with hideous symbols and festooned with grotesque trophies. They moved faster than anything he had ever seen, and their weapons spewed death across the loading bay, tearing through the flimsy crates and barriers that the Jandarme were using as cover, exploding in the bodies of their enemies.
By this time the air had fully drained from the bay. They were fighting in a vacuum, and though Tusc could see the carnage, he could not hear a thing. He mutely fired his lasrifle at targets who either shrugged off the shots or were somewhere else altogether by the time the shot cut through empty space. Huge though these creatures were, they were quick, rolling across the floor and onto their feet in seconds, leaping a distance three times taller than Tusc to land on a gantry above.
Nearby, he saw Lieutenant Kardon dodging between cover, slapping Jandarme on the shoulder and givin
g pointed orders. With verbal communications badly compromised, they were left with gestures to provide commands. As Kardon sprinted back towards his position, running in front of an airlock door leading to the Pit, Tusc provided defensive cover, raising his lasrifle to fire on the approaching giants.
As he shot at the enemy moving towards him, Tusc didn’t even notice the one coming from above, jumping off a gantry to land on him with both boots, crushing his spine and killing him instantly.
Rotaka barely noticed the two Jandarme ahead of him as he made for the airlock. He was vaguely aware of two atmosphere-suited figures, but Verbin landed on one as he jumped off the gantry, and cut the other in half with a swipe of a chainfist.
Running to the airlock, Rotaka jumped over the corpses without a thought. Pausing only to unleash some suppressing bolter rounds at a group of humans who foolishly considered that, away from the main body of Corsairs, they had him and his squad trapped, Rotaka slapped a magnetic charge onto the locking mechanism of the airlock’s door, and stepped back.
The charge blew that part of the door to pieces, chunks of smouldering metal scattering across the floor, and left a hole that didn’t quite reach the sealed interior of the airlock. It did, however, give Rotaka a handhold, allowing him to manually pull the door aside, albeit with a grunt of effort.
The interior door of the airlock snapped shut as Rotaka ripped the exterior door away. He punched the button to open the inner door, knowing already that safety mechanisms were clicking into place to secure it. Doors like this were the same across the Imperium, and Rotaka simply punched through a plasteel panel above the door, seized the override lever, and pulled it hard.
The door opened with a hiss of escaping atmosphere. Rotaka stepped through, let the rest of the squad in, and manually forced the door shut – any atmosphere difference would cause every bulkhead in this section to drop down, delaying progress.
