Assault on Black Reach: The Novel
Page 10
Zanzag stooped, hoisted the big-eared gretchin by its neck and thrust it forwards, barking some unintelligible command.
The creature listened intently, shrugged and opened its mouth to speak when its head exploded, spattering the warlord with gore.
Zanzag threw the headless gretchin to the ground, roaring to his followers.
Too late.
Gladius surged into the cavern like a blade, hull dripping water from where it had cut through the waterfall. Heavy bolters spoke, and the word was death. Ripping up orks as they clambered for weapons and for cover, the gunship launched a payload of Hellstrike missiles. A group of ork dreadnoughts mobilising at the back of the chamber was destroyed in the ensuing conflagration.
Hovering over the lagoon, the down thrust of its engines whipping the water into foam, the Gladius scattered greenskins with its guns, making a landing zone on one of the ferrocrete strips. The orks tried desperately to retaliate, firing off their custom cannons with abandon, but their crude science had not reckoned with the armour of a Thunderhawk, and the shots ricocheted away harmlessly.
As if in response, the artillery mounted on the submersibles cranked around noisily, trying to draw a bead on the deadly Astartes vessel. Before a shell was expelled, the six submarine war engines exploded, the krak grenades secreted about their hulls detonated by Scipio and his unseen brothers. The monstrous vehicles went up in a chain of explosions, spitting shrapnel like hard-edged rain in all directions as fire swept voraciously through and over them.
Confusion pervaded as the orks struggled to fight a foe that seemed to be everywhere at once. In a few short but frenzied seconds, the gunship had landed and its ramp was down. Roaring the name of the Chapter Master, Captain Sicarius surged out of the hold with his Ultramarines, bolters blazing. They rushed the concourse and gained an instant foothold.
Scipio ran from cover, adding his own shots to the unfolding battle, as more scouts emerged from across the cavern.
Zanzag was bellowing madly for order. The warlord shot three fleeing orks dead before the rest got the message and turned to fight. He grunted to his captains, and a mob of rocket-toting greenskins emerged out of the throng. Their ordnance whooshed on coal-black contrails and exploded around the Gladius, leaving the gunship’s hull smouldering. Having disembarked its cargo, the Thunderhawk withdrew out of the cavern.
‘Death from above, brothers!’ bellowed Sicarius as he charged up the lane of ferrocrete, the burning wrecks of submersibles either side.
From the flickering gloom the warriors of Strabo descended and fell amongst the ork heavy weapons, slaying with chainswords and pistols. The sergeant himself gutted one beast with his power sword, whilst shooting into the face of another. The corpses slid off the concourse and into the inky void of the lagoon below.
With the fall of the rocket launchers, a second wave of greenskins bullied its way forward – more of Zanzag’s scar-veterans with their custom cannons.
Strabo and his warriors took flight, jump packs pluming fire and smoke. Through the grey-black miasma emerged the Terminators of 1st Company, led by the indomitable Arcus Helios.
‘In the name of Agemman and the Chapter,’ he bellowed metallically through his battle helm as the orks let rip with their weapons. The Terminators were engulfed in a veritable storm of bullets but emerged unscathed, shots deflecting off their formidable armour like tin hail. In return, Squad Helios unleashed their storm bolters and cut a swathe through the greenskins. The orks desperately increased their rate of fire but to no avail. By the time they realised their weapons were ineffectual against the thickly armoured Astartes, dozens of greenskins were dead.
Balking at the indestructible warriors, many of the orks began to flee. Some dived into the black lagoon; others ran into the guns of their kin as they tried in vain to save their own miserable lives.
Arcus Helios and his brothers forged ahead, unstoppable.
Sicarius pressed the advantage. With most of the custom cannons eliminated, he signalled a full attack.
Scipio caught a glimpse of Iulus, urging his Immortals on as he joined the push with the captain. The orks were shaken but still numerous and met the charge with fury. Blood washed across the concourse as the two bitter enemies fought, paying for every metre won with pain and death.
Scipio found his way to the front, chainsword singing a bloody chorus as he killed.
‘You truly walk amongst heroes, Sergeant Vorolanus,’ said a familiar voice that could only be Iulus’s, from alongside him.
‘Aye, Sergeant Fennion,’ Scipio replied, blasting an ork off the concourse with a controlled burst of fire, ‘you amongst them.’
‘Indeed, I am,’ Iulus returned, shredding a kamikaze gretchin in mid-flight with his chainsword and coating his armour with its chewed up viscera.
‘And a modest one at that.’
Overhead, the heavy chunk of Brother Ultracius’s assault cannon could be heard as the dreadnought tore up the hapless greenskins with impunity.
Iulus laughed, wiping away a swathe of blood from his face with the back of his gauntlet. ‘For the primarch!’ he roared suddenly, in unison with his battle-brothers.
The orks were breaking.
Punching through a meagre rearguard, the Ultramarines emerged onto the ferrocrete expanse. Isolated mobs of greenskins remained, taking snap shots from behind crates and drums. Ultracius eviscerated one group, tearing apart their cover and igniting it in a fiery explosion. Assault Squad Strabo plunged on top of another, crushing runts beneath their armoured boots, whilst cleaving their orkish masters with their bolts and blades.
Captain Sicarius was heedless of all of it. He barrelled headlong across the ferrocrete. Solid shot pinged off his clanking armour as he made for an opening at the rear of the chamber. Scipio followed him with Iulus and his Immortals close behind.
Zanzag had fled again, using the network of caves at the back of the vast cavern to make his escape.
Twice now the beast had eluded the Ultramarines in one fashion or another. There would not be a third.
‘FACE ME, BEAST!’ yelled Sicarius, his challenge echoing sternly throughout the subterranean tunnels. ‘Come forth and meet death at the point of my sword.’
Greenskin blood swathed the captain’s noble face, drying slowly and forming a crust that reminded Scipio of the tribal markings of their forebears from the earliest days of Macragge.
They had been searching the darkness of the cave system for almost an hour, but as yet their quarry had not been sighted. Orks lay in ambush – those that had managed to elude Arcus Helios’s vanguard of Terminators – waiting with blades and guns behind corners and in pitch-black alcoves. The auto-senses of the Astartes alerted them to every danger. Their blood was up, and the greenskins were cut down before they got a chance to move.
Scipio probed the blackness just behind the captain and his Lions, Iulus alongside him. The sergeant was tight-lipped and tense as he panned his bolt pistol slowly across the width of the tunnel. Behind them the rest of the Immortals brought up the rear, dousing secondary tunnels with bursts of promethium from their flamer to burn out any potential ambushers.
Scipio felt the collective agitation rising amongst his brothers and knew that none felt it more keenly than Sicarius. The longer Zanzag evaded them, the greater the chance the ork warlord would escape their wrath completely.
A crackle from the comm-feed on the open channel released the tension.
It was Sergeant Octavian. ‘Brother-Captain, Squad Helios is reporting sunlight from the opposite side of the caves, five hundred metres west of your position, and they have found a passage wide enough for Brother Ultracius to negotiate.’
‘Muster the battle group,’ ordered Sicarius, breaking into a run. ‘Do it at once.’
SUNLIGHT STREAMED IN through the wide cleft in the tunnel wall. Sicarius stalked out and was bathed in the glorious daylight beyond. His armour gleamed despite the blood, his sword blade shimmering with captured fire.
Scipio was barely through the breach in the wall with Iulus when the bestial cries of greenskins filled the air.
Zanzag was here with the remnants of his shattered force. The orks had gathered at the summit of a sloping, steep-sided ravine, baring their tusks and bellowing defiance. All his cunning, the tricks and the decoys had failed the warlord; now all he had left was brute force. In a final gambit, he charged the Ultramarines vanguard, intent on taking down its leader.
‘Ultramarines, engage and destroy!’ roared Sicarius.
A brief volley of bolter fire staggered the mob of scar-veterans surging forward with their warlord, before blades were drawn and the battle became close and dirty.
A metallic scream of pain hammered Scipio’s senses, and from the corner of his eye he saw a Terminator from Squad Helios fall, slain by Zanzag’s power claw. The massive warlord stepped over the corpse, grinning madly as he closed on Sicarius.
The captain rushed in, Tempest Blade upraised, Guilliman’s name on his lips.
The battle rushed by in a blur of blood, steel and smoke. Acrid burning flesh filled Scipio’s nose as he fought side-by-side with Iulus; Ultracius venting his flamer to their flank. The dreadnought stomped forward, crushing the still-burning ork carcasses, before unleashing its assault cannon.
Greenskins were mown down with terrible bursts of fire, chewed apart in their armour. Together with the fury of Arcus Helios and his warriors, smashing the scar-veterans apart with their power fists in retribution for their dead battle-brother, the dreadnought had gouged a clearing in the horde.
Scipio took a moment in the brief lull to gather his bearings. One sight dominated all: Sicarius fighting the ork warlord at the ravine’s peak.
Lightning cracked overhead, and thunder rippled downward as a dry storm broke in the heavens as if in empathy of the titanic struggle unfolding below.
Astartes purity and courage matched against greenskin brutality and savagery. One must break before the battle was done.
Iulus stormed up the incline in support of his captain and Scipio followed him, bolt pistol screaming. Through the melee, he saw the crackling energy of the Tempest Blade as Sicarius rained blows like chained lightning upon his foe. Zanzag replied, battering the captain’s defences mercilessly with his power claw. In the end, willpower proved the deciding factor. Scipio had overtaken Iulus, tearing through the greenskins with brutal efficiency. His fellow sergeant was just behind him when Scipio saw Sicarius cut Zanzag’s power claw off at the shoulder. It was a mammoth blow, two-handed, and left the captain open to a counter. But the attack didn’t come. Zanzag staggered, dark blood gushing from the ruined stump of the partly cauterised wound.
Sicarius stepped in close. ‘I’ve already killed you once, beast,’ he spat. ‘This time I’ll make it stick.’
He rammed the Tempest Blade through the creature’s eye-socket and impaled its bestial skull with a grunt of effort. Withdrawing the blood-slick sword, Sicarius watched Zanzag keel over and lie still in the sun-scorched sand.
The captain’s victory proved decisive. As happened at the stronghold, the greenskins lost all heart with the death of their leader. What paltry ork forces remained were quickly rounded up by the Space Marines and slaughtered. Sicarius took no further part in the combat. He merely stood atop the summit of the ravine and raised his bloodied sword in salute.
The Ultramarines cheered as one, raising weapons aloft. Scipio added his voice to the belligerent chorus and exhaled with relief.
Zanzag was dead at last. Black Reach had been saved.
THE CAVERN WAS destroyed. Copious amounts of charges were rigged throughout and threaded along the tunnel complex beyond. Any greenskins that might still have been lurking inside would be buried alive under tons of rubble.
Sicarius even instructed the Valin’s Revenge to bombard the site thoroughly with plasma torpedoes in order to be certain. In a strange way, seeing those deadly falling stars, it was as if the campaign had come full circle.
It had been a great victory, one that would be retold time and again from the prestigious annals of Ultramarines’ military history. But it was not without cost. Many battle-brothers had lost their lives to the green tide, and their laurels would array the honour wall back on the strike cruiser. It would take a little time to replenish the dead, though Apothecary Venatio had performed his duty well and no warrior slain would go into the halls of honour without his gene-seed paving the way for a successor for the Chapter. Many amongst the 10th, the brave-hearted scouts who had infiltrated the warlord’s lair with Brother-Sergeant Telion, would earn their black carapace for their part in the campaign and become full battle-brothers.
With the death of Zanzag, the orks had capitulated. Other warlords, seeking to exploit the power void, had stepped forward only to be crushed by a relentless Sicarius in a series of punitive strikes against the remaining greenskins. His wrath had been swift and merciless. In three short, blood-filled days, the orks had been all but scoured from the planet and the Ultramarines were recalled to the Valin’s Revenge, leaving the Sable Gunners to reclaim the rest of Black Reach from the scattered ork forces that still remained.
SCIPIO WAS KNEELING in the strike cruiser’s reclusium, head bowed in reverence with his bolter laid out before him. It was good to be clad in his power armour again, to feel its heft. Re-sanctified by Chaplain Orad, the MkVII suit was part of him, a venerable ally. Scipio had missed it.
‘Seeking solace, brother?’ a voice asked, echoing through the darkness.
‘Solace seems in short supply whenever I venture to the reclusium,’ Scipio answered. ‘I am thinking perhaps it should be renamed the colloquium. Either that or I will perform supplications on the engineering deck with the serfs.’
Iulus’s laughter betrayed his position as he approached through the shadows.
‘My apologies, brother,’ he said sincerely, his face cast in the light of votive candles. Iulus looked to the honour wall where Scipio was genuflecting. Gilded laurels, awards for valour, were pinioned there in remembrance of those who had fallen on Black Reach.
The granite in his expression softened slightly with a sudden change in mood. ‘A prayer for battles won?’
‘For brothers lost,’ Scipio replied. ‘My benedictions are done, anyway,’ he added, getting to his feet. ‘What news of the company? Have you seen much of Praxor since our return to the ship?’
‘He is engrossed in battle drills and training. I don’t think he has left the gymnasia for six straight days.’
‘The duelling cages will be broken into submission by the time we visit them again,’ Scipio remarked, following Iulus as he led them out of the reclusium. ‘He still feels slighted,’ he asserted, once they were in the corridor beyond.
‘Perhaps…’ Iulus replied. ‘But then Praxor Manorian has always favoured glory over duty.’
‘And what or whom do you favour, brother?’ asked Scipio.
Iulus’s face darkened. ‘I was wrong,’ he admitted. ‘Whether or not our captain seeks the right hand of Calgar over Agemman, I do not know. In truth, I no longer care. I favour the Chapter and it alone. I witnessed a hero wrest Black Reach from those xenos scum. A hero, Scipio.’ Iulus stopped and faced him, briefly blocking Scipio’s view into the reclusium. ‘To besmirch his name, however meant, is at odds with that. Black Reach will be forever remembered. It will go down in history as a great victory.’
Scipio maintained his silence.
‘You think differently?’ ventured Iulus.
Scipio could see past the sergeant’s shoulder and back through the reclusium’s arch. His gaze fell upon the many laurels on the honour wall, the posthumous medals awarded to the dead. Hekor’s name, as well as many others, was amongst
them.
Scipio’s face hardened. ‘No. It was a great victory, brother.’