Damocles

by Various

  ‘No,’ said the khan, turning on his heel. ‘Mobilise and deploy all air units,’ he voxed to his men. ‘I want both Thunderhawks with a full complement and in the air immediately. Two outriders at all times.’

  A series of terse acknowledgements crackled in response from the Third Company’s sergeants and Techmarine pilots.

  Sudabeh sighed heavily, picking up his totemic staff and making his way after his captain on his way to the Kisma’s launch deck.

  ‘It’ll be good for them,’ said the khan over his shoulder, loosening Moonfang in its scabbard.

  The Kisma, the Imperial drop-ship that had seen the White Scars to their landing site, was a fat-bellied whale of a craft. It had been built to withstand direct barrage from warships a size category larger than itself. Just as well, for its sides were still buckled and burning from its terrifying journey planetside.

  The Kisma’s ablative armour robbed it of a great deal of potential speed, a fact that had gnawed at the patience of the White Scars within just as acid eats at metal. Yet after communing with the Emperor’s Tarot, the Stormseer Sudabeh had ordained the Kisma the safest vector of approach. Given that the Imperial fleet was being torn apart by a lethal assault from tau airspace, the khan had been ill-disposed to argue with him.

  The Kisma had done her job well enough, bearing them safely if inelegantly to the planet’s surface. It was no longer the time for caution. Now was the time for speed.

  The Thunderhawks Khan Spear and Headseeker roared out from the underflank launch bays of the drop-ship like missiles from the wings of an immense fighter plane. Burning upwards on trails of refined promethium, they raced around the basin’s inner mountainsides, keeping to the smoking clouds as they banked parallel to Hive Acacia Primus.

  In theory both of the assault gunships had firepower enough to take on a scout-class Titan. In the case of Khan Spear, the fact was indisputable. The long-barrelled turbo-laser destructor mounted atop the Spear was powerful enough to punch through one side of a hive spire to the other. During the Tarotian Suppression, the khan had seen it obliterate half a kilometre of plasteel, ferrocrete, and adamantium in one searing, blinding blast. It was one of the khan’s most favourite weapons in all the galaxy. Though it greatly irritated the Spear’s dour Techmarine pilot, Debedian, Kor’sarro would often shout out targeting solutions during an aerial engagement, claiming the credit if the subsequent kill shot hit home.

  Even shorn of its dorsal cannon the Thunderhawk could still embarrass a battle tank. Under its primary wings were sets of Hellstrike missiles whose individual payloads could collapse a hab-block. Lascannons graced its secondary wingtips, and twinned heavy bolter arrays swivelled on gimbals under the frontal stabiliser fins. White as snapped bone and marked by the lightning-split ingot of the White Scars, the Thunderhawk was the pride of the company’s armoured elite. Its opposite number, the Headseeker, was just as formidable a sight. These were no mere aircraft, but deadly and sacred relics released from their sanctums to wage the bloodiest of wars.

  As the Thunderhawks set a breakneck pace, two pairs of Stormtalon gunships came alongside them. Each craft was a balled fist of stub-nosed guns and powerful engines. The Techmarine pilots at the helm of each escort craft levelled long-range auspex scans at the plains, binding their findings together in a lattice to better inform their charges of the tapestry of battle.

  The Khan Spear’s engines flared as it pushed ahead of Headseeker, arrowing round the lee of the hive in a tight arc. Inside its passenger holds three squads of White Scars grinned as G-forces pulled hard at their flesh. The valley shook with raw sound as the Thunderhawks came hurtling into full view of the tau ground forces, the element of surprise made manifest. Up ahead the tau vehicles had formed a series of dense wedges, their deployment seemingly at random. The tip of each formation pointed towards the hive.

  ‘Why in the Emperor’s…’ said Kor’sarro. Suddenly it hit him. ‘Sudabeh! They are in the blind spots of their prey!’

  ‘I can believe it,’ voxed back Sudabeh. ‘I told you they were cunning.’

  ‘Ha. Not cunning enough,’ said the khan, leering as the Spear lanced towards the nearest of the tau wedges.

  For a split second the Thunderhawk’s turbo-laser destructor stabbed out in a boiling, blinding column. The Spear hurtled past, leaving behind a smoking gulley where a quartet of tau hover-tanks had been moments before. Leaning over Debedian’s shoulder the khan chuckled darkly, already tapping the next targets on the Techmarine’s screen.

  From the smoky gloom up ahead, dull flickers of light turned to hammering cylinders of force as the next tank wedge’s railguns took pot shots at the approaching Space Marine craft.

  ‘Headseeker, attend us,’ voxed Kor’sarro, ‘stop skulking in our slipstream and make your presence felt.’

  In answer the heart of the tau wedge up ahead was wrenched into the air by a blossoming black explosion, thick pieces of xenos tank spinning off in all directions.

  The Headseeker’s primary weapon was not a laser like its brother the Spear, but a heavily modified battle cannon. No ordinary breach gun, this was a piece of ordnance longer than a Leman Russ tank. When passing over dense urban environments, the weapon was difficult to use in anything other than a suppression role. Out in the open, the full force of its destructive power could be brought to bear.

  Another shell hammered into the scattering tau tanks, and great plumes of toxic earth flew upward. Within them were more ochre hulls, entire squadrons sent spinning into the smoke. As the Headseeker launched its Hellstrike missiles with a chain of whooshing roars, the skimmers on the edge of the formation backed away. They were too slow. A triple detonation blasted into the gun-tanks at the tip of the wedge, two of them flipping over before their burning remains crunched to a halt.

  ‘Better shoot sharp, Debedian,’ said the khan, leaning in so close the Techmarine could smell the raw meat on his captain’s breath. ‘The Headseeker’s catching up.’

  Then the world turned black.

  Hive Acacia Secundus had finally taken the shot it had been waiting for, and a shell the size of a maglift had detonated amongst the tau tanks scattering at the Thunderhawks’ attack. Mort-signals blaring, the Spear bucked and rolled as the macrocannon shell’s blast turned the air tornado fierce. Debedian’s helm chattered machine code as he fought not only to appease the ship’s machine-spirit but also to wrestle its steering array at the same time. A century of dutiful maintenance had bought the dour Techmarine some leeway with the Thunderhawk, and the gunship allowed itself to be brought back under control.

  The Spear pulled back up alongside its brother the Headseeker, both soot-streaked gunships ploughing out of the black wall of smoke and angling towards the next wedge of tau armour. Though one of their Stormtalon escorts had been caught in the hive’s vengeful strike, the other three escort craft burst from the billowing clouds intact.

  They were not alone.

  Commander Shadowsun’s frown was lit by a wildfire of flashing red icons. The gue’ron’sha had revealed themselves, their giant gunships soaring through the air high above. They were most definitely making their presence felt.

  ‘Primary threat denoted,’ Shadowsun transmitted. ‘All units at hives one and two, continue apace. Hive three units relocate, staggered pattern southward, seventh wedge first. Watch your gold zones. Once the strike passes, resume serrated echelons. Hammerheads continue destruction duty, Skyrays cover the air. For the Greater Good.’

  Symbols of assent flashed in instant affirmation, blinking everywhere around the crescent of tank wedges that surrounded the hive.

  Shadowsun’s command suite blipped audio. ‘This is Team Vre’Esta reporting a pair of direct seeker hits on the primary target. Damage minimal. Requesting optimised targeting solution.’

  ‘Continue to occupy their attention, Vre’Esta,’ Shadowsun transmitted back. ‘The air caste will deliver
the kill. Admiral Li’men Ka, proceed immediately.’

  ‘Affirmed, commander,’ transmitted the air caste admiral. ‘Razorsharks inbound. Air superiority will be secured in a matter of minutes.’

  Two triangular sets of blue-grey darts appeared on Shadowsun’s sensor screen, falling in behind the gue’ron’sha gunship icons as they curved towards the next armoured wedge.

  ‘They have taken the bait, Drai,’ said Shadowsun to the ghostly shimmer next to her. ‘Stay alert.’

  Shas’vre Drai had known his commander a long time. The moment before the kill was always the same.

  Under her rapid commands and cold demeanour, a smile was waiting to pounce.

  The khan was not pleased.

  ‘You let three enemy craft on your tail? Get rid of them!’ he shouted, hammering his fist onto the pilot throne right next to Debedian’s russet helmet.

  The Spear banked right with surprising agility for such a massive craft, then left and up, roaring high before plunging down into the smoke. Though the Stormtalon gunships struggled to stay close to their charges, three blunt-nosed, T-shaped craft hung right behind each Thunderhawk as if mindlinked to their machine-spirits.

  ‘Shake them off or kill them, Techmarine,’ said Kor’sarro, ‘unless you want me to do it for you.’

  Debedian merely inclined his head slightly before throwing his craft into more evasive manoeuvres. The T-shaped xenos craft stayed the course, the energy cannons underneath their long tails spitting blue-white pulses of ionic energy. Mort-signals flared on the control panel as the Thunderhawk’s engines took several direct hits.

  Suddenly the two Stormtalon gunships were back, bursting out of the smoke banks beneath to interpose themselves between the Spear and its pursuers. Incredibly, both of the one-man escort craft flew after the Thunderhawk whilst facing backwards, the rotary engine pods on their flanks canted a full half-circle so their pilots could see the foe.

  The paired assault cannons underslung beneath each Stormtalon whirred, spitting bullets in a stream so solid it forced one of the xenos fighter craft to peel off. A moment later the first escort craft’s skyhammer launchers sent a volley of air-to-air missiles streaking out, smashing into the retreating pursuer and blasting it apart in an explosion of purple flame.

  The other two xenos craft came in close, missiles of their own rising up from hidden compartments on their wings and lancing out to follow the Thunderhawk’s powerful heat signature. One seeker whooshed under the Spear’s wing, but the other three detonated amongst the Thunderhawk’s engines. Smoke plumed and flames coughed as the Spear lost speed, the upper spires of the hive blurring past within arm’s reach of the wing.

  The second of the two Stormtalons suddenly dropped into the smoke below, its engine pods twisting as its opposite number laid down suppressing fire. The two remaining xenos fighters closed in, quad turrets panning stuttering ion streams towards the flaming ruin of the Thunderhawk’s engines.

  With a tight lateral swerve, the first Stormtalon hurled itself into the path of the deadly blue-white energies spitting from the closest xenos craft. The ion streams hit home, burning right through the armourglass of the gunship’s canopy and coring its pilot in his seat.

  As the gunship’s wreckage spiralled downwards, the second burst upward from the smoke banks right behind both of the T-shaped fighters. Assault cannons blazing, the Stormtalon’s typhoon launchers filled the sky with blossoming flak. Its wrath was all but indiscriminate, for though its pilot scored several inadvertent hits on the Thunderhawk, he knew the Spear could shrug off the threat of solid shot firepower without incident.

  Not so the xenos craft pursuing it. The barrage tore gaping holes in the fuselage of both tau fighters, sending them veering out of control. First one fell, then the other, spiralling away to crash headlong into the hive city below. The victorious escort came alongside the Spear, voxing the all-clear as the gunship banked around for another killing pass.

  Shadowsun watched the last of the Razorsharks wink red and disappear on her sensor suite. Though one of the giant Imperial craft had been trapped in a crossfire of seeker missiles and forced to disengage, the other, despite taking severe damage to its engines, had been bought a reprieve by its ugly little escort. The gunship’s symbol pulsed white and active on her screen as it veered around the hive’s largest spire for another attack run.

  She would make it suffer for its tenacity.

  ‘I must affect direct intervention. Oe-nu, electrofield lock onto my back, please. Maximum shield, or at least what you feel you can part with. Drai, please take care of Oe-ken and Oe-hei down here. I cannot let that vulgar craft up there take another chunk out of our armoured comrades.’

  ‘Affirmed, my commander,’ said Drai, his tone rueful at the thought of his commander fighting alone.

  Shadowsun saluted briefly with her fusion blasters before rocketing up from her command position at the edge of the hive, battlesuit jets flaring white. Knowing well that her stealth cells struggled to cope at extreme velocities, she ordered the nearest Skyray gunships to mask her approach by firing seeker missiles parallel to her coordinates. From a distance her ascent looked much like a set of munitions arcing towards the human gunship as it came about for another attack run.

  Shadowsun broke off her headlong charge as the seekers detonated harmlessly upon the Imperial gunship’s underside, instead cutting in horizontal to match the giant gue’ron’sha vessel’s velocity. Once her suit had synched its speed with the gunships, she touched down with both feet on the broadest part of its primary wing and blink-pushed the electrofields that would lock her steady. Maniac winds wrenched at her armour as the hive’s spires blurred past at dizzying speed. As she had known it would be, her battlesuit was up to the task, and held her in place.

  It was a constant danger to the battlesuit pilot that within their control cocoon they felt danger only as a removed, academic emotion. One wrong step up here, Shadowsun reminded herself, and she could be twisted in half by the torque of the Thunderhawk’s aerial rampage.

  ‘Intercept phase complete,’ she blipped to Drai, aiming her deadly fusion blasters at the middle of the giant craft’s wing.

  Twin beams of molten white light blazed out, scoring through the skin of the wing and leaving a finger-wide furrow across its length. Shadowsun blink-pushed a memogram in disbelief. She checked her gun readouts; they were still practically at full charge. Fusion blasters were designed to cut through bulkheads. They should have taken the wing clean off.

  A side panel on the Thunderhawk’s prow clanged open, and a towering, armoured beast of a human burst out.

  For a split second, Shadowsun was impressed.

  The giant in the ornate white armour had pulled himself up onto the frontal stabiliser fins with an athlete’s agility. He crouched, leapt, and smashed bodily into the secondary wings jutting from the gunship’s hull barely five paces from her. Even through her suit she felt the dull thud of his exosuit’s mag-clamps fastening his boots to the fuselage, locking him fast before the tumultuous forces that roared around them could tear him off. She raised her fusion blasters and fired, but the gue’ron’sha had already ducked behind the secondary wing.

  The figure came out the other side hard, an archaic sword glimmering in his double grip. His mag-clamps thudded on the wing as he closed the distance. With the exaggerated slowness of a dream, she knee-folded to the left and aimed into the Space Marine’s midsection. The square barrel of her fusion blaster was tugged by a sudden surge of turbulence, and the deadly energies went wide.

  Shadowsun had already muted the raging wind and the craft’s screaming engines, every sense bent towards her attacker. Her sensor suite’s autotrans picked up the figure’s battle cry as he barrelled forwards, blade raised.

  ‘- - - FOR THE GREAT KHAN - - - DIE XENOS WITCH - - -’

  There was a brilliant flash as the Space Marine’s glowing swo
rd arced down, only to strike the invisible shield of force that Oe-nu was projecting around Shadowsun. Taking her chance, the commander lifted her right boot and kicked out hard, blink-setting its plates to maximum repulsion. Her kick struck the Space Marine in the knee just as her electromagnetic push broke that leg’s mag-clamp grip. Reeling, the human turned his one-legged stagger into a pivot, raised his great blade in one hand, and brought it down in a powerful diagonal slash. The air crackled in a confusion of light as the gue’ron’sha’s powered sword fought Oe-nu’s shieldsphere.

  A split second later a volley of mass-reactive shells spat from the heavy bolters beneath the Thunderhawk’s stabiliser fins. The bolts slammed into Shadowsun’s side and detonated with violent force, blasting her clear from the Thunderhawk’s wing and sending her spiralling down towards the hive below.

  Alert signifiers blazed across Shadowsun’s coresystem as she plummeted towards the jagged spires, a dozen critical readings fighting for her attention on her damage control hub. Panic gripped her, panic and the unbidden sensation of whispery laughter.

  Only with total focus can we avoid the falling blade.

  Shadowsun exhaled slowly, eyes wide as she processed and enacted several subroutines at the speed of thought. To her left hive levels flashed past, scattered lights and sneering gargoyles blurred by her spiralling descent. She rerouted power from her weapons, from her command suite, even from Oe-nu’s shields. All of it, every iota, she poured it into her battlesuit’s damaged jetpack.

  It coughed once, twice, and then caught.

  She felt relief spike through her, eclipsing the searing pain in her lower back as a fantail of flames billowed out from her armour. The heat was unbearable. She released as much sealant gel as she could as her vertical plummet levelled out and then turned into a wobbly ascent. As she climbed, she narrowly avoided the sainted colossi that bracketed the hive’s postern gate.