Damocles

by Various

  Despite their lethal salvo, the walkers themselves had not slowed their charge. They crashed into the forest with the force of industrial wrecking balls. Jagged tree stumps were smashed to powder wherever their thick legs swung, fine white dust coating their heraldic colours up to the waist. Ion shields flashed as they were struck by a hundred projectiles and pulse bursts at once. Before even one could be taken down, the Knights of House Terryn fell upon the skimmer-tanks that had been trapped by their own close deployment. Reaper chainswords growled and juddered as they carved left and right, the chewed-up remnants of xenos skimmers flung far and wide. The khan’s eyes crinkled in approval. Nothing could mangle a tank quite like a reaper.

  With a great shout, the khan led his own charge into the forest. He stood up slightly in the saddle as he rode, jinking the bike around the desiccated stumps with twists of his hips as he scanned for xenos to kill. A pocket of shimmering dust appeared up ahead, a will-o’-the-wisp that would have been easy to miss. The khan squeezed Moondrakkan’s trigger bar and sent a volley of hand-engraved bolter shells streaking through the forest. He was rewarded by scarlet blossoms of blood and a chorus of thin shrieks that could only have come from alien throats.

  Djubali raced past him, hammering up the sloping wreckage of an alien tank and launching off the other side. Mid-flight, the White Scar twisted his hips and brought his bike’s rear wheel round so the whole vehicle flew sidelong. He barked a war cry as the heavy vehicle slammed through a slender trunk and ploughed right into a knot of kneeling tau snipers with blunt, crushing force. Djubali rode out the skid, revved his engine amidst a confusion of powdered stone and broken alien limbs. A couple of bolt pistol shots boomed as the veteran executed those victims he had not killed on impact.

  The khan blew out his cheeks, squeezing off another slew of bolt shells as he jinked left and right through the trees. Suddenly a trio of giant alien battlesuits loomed up ahead, and he drew the sword Moonfang crackling from its scabbard. Kor’sarro lopped the weapon-arm from the nearest battlesuit, sliding his bike low under the spitting plasma of the second before shoulder barging the last of them through a tree.

  The first battlesuit recovered quickly from the shock of its lost limb, boosting away from the khan on twin trails of fire. Missiles popped from its shoulder launcher and lanced out towards him. Instinct took over, and Kor’sarro leant over fully into the lee of his hurtling bike, just as the tribal riders of Chogoris used their steeds as shields against the arrows of their rivals. Letting the machine’s armoured bulk take the brunt of the explosion, he grabbed a krak grenade from his stowage rack and tore the pin out with blood-slicked teeth. Moondrakkan’s back wheel swung out wide as the khan flung the grenade high. Its detonation snapped a blinding burst right in front of the airborne battlesuit, ensuring his escape.

  Up ahead his men were engaged with the enemy. Some fired searing bursts of plasma into the rifleman battlesuits that were hammering solid shot into the rampaging Knights. Their shots tore great holes that fizzed with electric malfunction. Others swung chainswords and power swords at the skulking tau infantrymen shimmering in the trees, arcs of blood splashing red across the white tree trunks.

  Up ahead and to the right, a hovering skimmer tank loosed salvo after salvo of missiles at a Knight struggling to dislodge a wrecked battlesuit from its whirring chainblade. Djubali cut right across the khan’s path, sliding his bike sidelong into a wheels-first skid that was all but horizontal. Rider and bike passed right beneath the tank’s anti-grav field in a cloud of stone dust, emerging unscathed before righting and speeding off again. Kor’sarro mentally counted down – three, two, one. Right on cue, the sergeant’s krak grenades detonated with a deafening crump, flipping the tank over onto its missile turret.

  The tight formations that the tau had adopted, coordinated to avoid the big guns of the hive, were proving to be their downfall. The White Scars and their allies in House Terryn sowed mayhem in every quarter. The air filled with the acrid stink of burning circuitry, the stench of molten plastics and the tang of alien blood. The khan gave a great shout of exultation as he took the head from a fleeing tau infantryman. His war cry was echoed by his Chogorian brethren as they killed their way through the forest acre by acre.

  Through the vibrations of Moondrakkan’s handlebars, the khan could feel his response force closing in. The bass rumble of his Rhino and Razorback transports was underscored by the trundling thunder of the Catachan armoured division.

  The battle was as good as won.

  ‘Targets sighted,’ transmitted Shadowsun. ‘Switch to multispectral and pick them out. Bait units, leave the walkers for now. Avoidance tactics only.’

  Assent signals blipped across her command suite as her assault cadre closed in. The humans had struck hard, as was their custom. Predictable to the last, they were more concerned with the power of the deed than the thought behind it. Six bipedal war engines – five now, she corrected herself – and half a company of Space Marines. Fierce enough foes, but no match for multiple cadres of the fire caste’s finest.

  Close behind her was the Crisis bodyguard team that Aun’va had assigned her. All five of them were proven heroes in their own right, chosen for those occasions when concentrated force was needed more than subtlety and stealth. This was one of those times. Engaging their blacksun filters to pick out their prey from the clouds of wood-powder, the airborne battlesuits sent streams of plasma hissing down into the gue’ron’sha bikers. They incinerated a Space Marine or cored a bike with every shot.

  ‘Air support, occupy those walkers. All bait units to immediately embark and rise, maximum elevation. They’ve revealed their strength, now we rob them of it. Crisis team, with me. We have monsters to hunt.’

  Hidden by the clouds of white powder that the Imperial assault had thrown up from the desiccated forest, the surviving tau infantry mounted up into their Devilfish transports as fast as they could. The giants in their midst fought on, their stamping feet claiming the odd drone and crushing wrecked tanks into scrap. Shadowsun’s assault cadre closed in, announcing their presence with volleys of missiles and ion streams.

  The Imperial walkers turned to face the new threat, and the decimated bait cadre took its chance. By twos and threes the skimmer tanks began to hover upwards until they were out of reach even for Terryn’s Knights. Before a minute had passed, not a single tau remained earthbound. The Space Marine bikers and the vehicle-borne reinforcements roaring towards their position threw a smattering of fire into the air, and though the odd Piranha recon skimmer or light battlesuit fell smoking back to earth, it was not enough to prevent the cadres rallying and forming up above them once more.

  By withdrawing into the skies, the tau had effectively turned the tables on their foes. Shadowsun’s battlesuits arced through the dust-choked air until they were directly above the giant walkers, sending tight beams of plasma and fusion blaster fire into their emblazoned carapaces. The hatch atop one of the giant walkers popped open under the buckling heat that washed across it. Shadowsun landed deftly atop the walker’s broad back, pushing the muzzle of her own blaster into the cockpit and consuming the pilot in a blast of blinding light and molten metal.

  One by one, the four surviving Imperial war engines turned and stomped back towards the hive. The roar of bike engines dwindled in the forest, impossible to pinpoint in the white mist that fogged it from end to end.

  ‘No pursuit,’ transmitted Shadowsun. ‘All cadres, do not pursue. Stay in gold zones only. You may fire at will.’

  The walkers made their way back to the Gate Victorius, sullen giants denied a promised feast. The tau levelled as much fire at them as they could, but the walkers’ convex force fields now protected their riveted backs. The great gate of Agrellan Prime slid upwards once more, allowing the walkers to stamp their way back inside.

  In the shelter of the forest, Shadowsun checked her image banks and replayed a sample clip of the battle they ha
d witnessed. The Imperial forces had taken a heavy toll on the bait cadre, but the way of the Patient Hunter required sacrifice, and the tau did not begrudge lives spent to ensure victory.

  By luring the human armies to reveal their most potent assets, the tau had taken the measure of their foe, and would be all the more lethal when next they crossed swords.

  The great kill was so close Shadowsun could almost taste it.

  The khan stormed into the vaulted hall, his ceramite boots clacking loud against ancient flagstones. The shafts of light that angled from the stained glass wall-slits played across gore-spattered battleplate as he strode forward. A clutch of decapitated tau heads bounced at his waist, bound through the eye sockets by a hemp rope that was already stiff with dried blood. At his side were Djubali and Sudabeh, their faces masks of white powder streaked with sweat.

  The low hum of conversation in the vault ebbed away at the arrhythmic thud of their approach. It died altogether as the khan tossed a high-backed datathrone out of his path and loomed over the assembled delegates. He slammed his armoured knuckles onto the round oval table at the vault’s heart, and all but two of the dignitaries seated around it flinched backwards as if stung.

  ‘Where in the warp’s darkest hole were you?’ he growled at the assembly.

  ‘Huh. You Chogorians love a dramatic entrance, don’t you,’ drawled a tough-looking officer in the military vest and loose fatigues of a Catachan jungle fighter. The khan met his gaze, evaluating him in a single glance. A born warrior, and a veteran at that. One eye was hooded and unafraid, the other a bionic replacement that glowed dully in the gloom. Below the neck a knotted mass of muscle and tendon met extensive cybernetics that would have done a pit slave proud.

  ‘You test me, Catachan,’ said the khan, his teeth gritted hard. ‘Your regiment failed to make an entrance at all.’

  ‘You go racing off after glory and medals, there isn’t much chance us mere mortals are going to keep up,’ chuckled the officer, swinging his boots up onto the table and leaning back in the throne. He took a greasy lho-stick from behind a cauliflower ear and struck a match on the triumphal mosaic at the table’s edge. The stench of Catachan tobaccine filled the air.

  Fuming at the human’s tone, the khan strode around the long table towards the officer. As he bore down on the Catachan, an old man in a fur-collared greatcoat pushed his datathrone backward into Kor’sarro’s path. He reached up to lay a gloved hand on the gold eagle of the khan’s breastplate.

  ‘Captain Khan of the White Scars Chapter,’ he said. ‘Remember that we are your allies.’

  ‘Remove your hand, Patriarch Tybalt, or Moonfang shall remove it for you,’ said the khan, his voice the rumble of an oncoming storm.

  ‘Be not so hasty,’ admonished the white-haired elder, his strangely goat-like face twisted into something he presumably believed was a smile. ‘The tau would like nothing more than for our armour to be riven from within. We are here to deny them their prize, not to serve it to them on a silver platter. Please sit.’

  ‘I will not “sit”,’ the khan spat, making the very idea sound like the gravest of sins. ‘But you at least fought well, Tybalt. As you committed your strength alongside ours, I will listen to you as an equal. Perhaps you can explain your insubordinate friend’s failure to deploy.’

  The patriarch’s face turned sour as month-old cream. ‘Colonel Straken is no friend of mine,’ he said, casting a glance at his opposite number.

  The Catachan officer leered over at them both, tobacco-stained teeth yellow in the gloom. ‘You better find some patience, Space Marine,’ said the jungle fighter, pointing a metallic finger at the khan. ‘You can’t win this one by speed and brute force. They’re tau, the Damocles lot. Sure, they aren’t as fast as the eldar, but they are likely faster than you. Even on those lumpy battering rams you call bikes.’

  The khan’s nostrils flared wide, his breastplate rising and falling as a hot coal of anger burnt in his chest. Tybalt met his gaze out of the corner of his eye, and gave Kor’sarro an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

  ‘They’re beyond caring about ground taken, and there’s no way they’re dumb enough to try a frontal assault,’ continued Straken. ‘They aren’t idiot orks, or maniac zealots neither. They only care about the long game, this lot, and they’ll pull any trick they can to win it. Even then, they’ll happily die like fish if they think it’ll do their mates back home a favour.’

  The khan turned the full force of his glare upon the Catachan, his hand on the hilt of his sword. ‘You will address me with the proper respect, colonel,’ he said, his voice as cold as steel in the dark, ‘or you will not speak at all. I promise you that.’

  The Catachan took a long drag on his lho-stick before stubbing it out on the priceless Pluvian marble of the vault’s table.

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Like I said, you aren’t even waging the same war as this lot. They’ll run rings around you if you keep fighting them on their terms, nipping at the bait like a starving rippyfish. I know a good ambush tactic when I see one.’

  The Catachan’s tone was blunt but genuine, and the khan found his anger cool.

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ admitted the khan. ‘Patriarch Tybalt, where do you and your Knights stand on this matter? You fought against the tau on Voltoris, I believe?’

  ‘I fought them with words, not blades, I’m afraid,’ said the patriarch archly. ‘Today was the first time House Terryn has jousted with them on the field. These tau have formidable ranged capabilities, perhaps formidable enough to pierce our shields in a prolonged engagement. But they lack courage, and bladesmanship to boot.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the khan. ‘It’s the mind behind those weapons that is their deadliest weapon.’

  ‘Any idea who that might be, then?’ said Colonel Straken, the knotted scar tissue of his one remaining eyebrow raised high.

  ‘I have indeed,’ replied Kor’sarro. ‘My blade would have already taken her head if it weren’t for her xenos techno-heresy.’

  ‘Hmm,’ mused Tybalt. ‘A female, then.’

  ‘I believe so, by the way she moves,’ said the khan. ‘She wears a warsuit that can cast her invisible, though it is compromised by high speeds. She is adept in the use of melta-class guns, but has not might enough to fell our Thunderhawks. It was her that burnt your fellow noble in his command throne, Patriarch Tybalt.’

  ‘I saw only an ethereal shimmer before Gensen met the Emperor,’ said Tybalt, his eyes downcast. ‘But nonetheless I saw something atop his carapace. Was that her?’

  ‘She was there all right,’ said the khan, striding over to the stained glass window. ‘Her thermal signature was baffled, some xenos illusion hid her from sight, but it was her. I recognised the weapon discharge. If we are to win this war, she must die.’

  ‘Emperor help you with that, then,’ said Straken, flexing the fingers of his cybernetic arm. ‘She’ll be well out of it by now. Cautious lot, these grey-skins. I’ve got no air transport under my command, and we just found out the hard way that my Chimeras can’t reach her on the open plain. My lads’ll either have to lay a trap or chase ghosts for the rest of the war, and there’s enough of them crowding the vox-net as it is. A frontal assault just isn’t going to work a second time, even if Tybalt’s fancy walkers did give ’em a nasty surprise back there. Might as well try to run down the wind.’

  ‘You may be right,’ admitted the patriarch, stroking the tuft of white hair on his chin. ‘A foe borne on invisible wings, no matter how weak of limb he might be, finds it easy to stay out of blade’s reach.’

  ‘Set your traps, then,’ sneered the khan. ‘Wage your slow and costly war. I shall be waging mine on the open plain, as my primarch intended.’

  The captain looked out through the stained glass wall-slit, peering at the wasteland below with his jaw set firm. The flat landscape reminded him of his home world, Chogoris. A beautiful plane
t of stark wilderness and endless skies, where his brothers were likely giving their lives in battle even now. Where old friends were bleeding out and dying with each passing minute.

  Yet the khan had a duty to perform before he could return. He would not abandon it, not this side of the grave.

  ‘I’m coming for you, you xenos witch,’ he said to the world outside. ‘Surround yourself with the greatest warriors at your command, or cower in the deepest and darkest hole you can find. It matters not. I shall take your head, for the Great Khan and for the Emperor.’

  With her cadre hidden in the lee of a wasteland mesa, Shadowsun had taken a moment’s meditation in the midst of some shadowed boulders. Her drones keeping lookout, she played back the footage she had taken from the battle outside Agrellan Prime. At first she examined the giant walkers, paying particular attention to the perimeters of their force shields. Brutish things, powerful engines of destruction indeed but easily circumvented if necessary. Not so the speeding white bikers that had assailed them in the forest. They had a shocking turn of speed and the bravery to capitalise upon it. One mistake against this new breed of gue’ron’sha could be fatal.

  ‘- - - FATAL - - - FATAL - - - THEY SHALL BRING YOU PAIN - - -’

  There it was again, the whisper-hiss, somehow overriding the mute she had assigned it. Her back went ramrod straight as she realised the whispers had somehow responded to her thoughts. Was that even possible?

  ‘DEATH - - - DEATH - - - THE GRAVE OPENS FOR YOU - - - SHASERRA - - - LIE WITH US IN THE DUST - - -’

  ‘Commander!’

  Shadowsun’s jetpack engaged as she spun around in an aerial pirouette, all three drones whipping in close. Her fusion blasters gave a rising whine.

  ‘For the love of the Greater Good, Drai,’ she huffed, downpowering her guns. ‘Blip me first, or next time I’ll put a hole in you.’