Shroud of Night

by Andy Clark

  ‘Just “questioning and testing”,’ replied Haltheus, a smile in his voice. ‘I assumed you’d say something of that sort.’

  ‘Besides,’ said Kassar. ‘If we broke our word so easily, we’d prove ourselves no better than the rest of these degenerates. We’re better than that. We’re Alpha Legion.’

  Kassar continued with his checks, quietly reflecting upon the other, deeper reason for his determination to see this mission through. On the planet below, redemption waited, a chance for him to atone for the lives lost on Bloodforge. A chance for the Unsung to be their own masters once again. Kassar vowed to himself, there and then, that he would do whatever it took to win them that chance.

  Whatever came after, could wait.

  Chapter Four

  Engines fired in the darkness, spitting tongues of blue-tinged flame. Adamantium and ceramite accelerated, driven on by the mounting force from behind. Sluggish at first, but swiftly gaining momentum, the Stormbird swept down towards Tsadrekha.

  Ahead lay swarming masses of drop-craft, red-hulled murder ships filling the orbital approaches to the planet like wind-blown spores. They flooded from the launch bays of lumbering battleships and cruisers, which even now were hauling themselves closer to the planet, desperate to join the frenzied attack.

  ‘Warp, will you look at all this?’ said Haltheus as he guided the gunship towards the massed craft. ‘Kassar, if they’ve been losing ships at the rate we saw…’

  ‘Millions dead already,’ agreed Kassar from the gunner’s throne. ‘And doubtless millions more before they secure any meaningful beachhead.’

  ‘Khorne cares not…’ said Kyphas, leaving the old invocation hanging.

  ‘Evidently not,’ said Haltheus, fingers dancing over the controls. ‘Kyphas, choristry please.’

  ‘At once,’ said Kyphas, attending to his own instruments. Deftly, the spymaster isolated the voxponder signatures of a random string of Khornate gunships from the masses ahead. Working fast, Haltheus marked the signal’s key binharic beats and replicated them within the gunship’s onboard cogitator, before setting the data-hymnal to repeat. The Stormbird’s voxponder output was now masked by an agglomerate approximation of their enemies’, sufficient to fool all but the most determined auspex.

  ‘Unsung,’ voxed Haltheus. ‘A moment’s frenzied idiocy, if you please. Belligerence is key, try to make yourselves heard over Krowl.’

  In answer, the vox filled with the Harrow’s dutiful bellows.

  ‘Kill! Maim! Burn! Kill! Maim! Burn!’

  ‘Sufficient,’ said Kyphas, manipulating the gunship’s vox to broadcast the shout as a repeating mantra across every open vox-channel.

  Haltheus flared their gunship’s engines, coaxing more speed and dirty smoke from them even as he subtly adjusted his piloting to match the more aggressive, heavy-handed approach typified by the Khornate craft. Coupled with the crimson paintwork and Khornate runes applied by deck-servitors before the Unsung departed, it was everything they could do to camouflage their craft.

  The seconds ticked by. The Khornate armada swelled in the windscreens. Auspex chimes rang out as passive scans swept them. Cogitator guidance subroutines awoke. Haltheus found himself holding his breath as they swept over the gun-studded spine of a Carnage-class cruiser. They passed over the ship’s name, Murderer’s Fist picked out in scorched black letters larger than their Stormbird.

  ‘Kassar,’ said Haltheus, ‘are those turrets tracking us?’

  ‘Hard to tell,’ said Kassar, noting the spiked emplacements Haltheus had spotted. ‘Just stay on course.’

  Brutish cannons and lascannon arrays swung their way. Haltheus’ hands hovered over his instruments, ready to begin evasive manoeuvres, for what good they would do.

  Then they were past, the rumbling cruiser a looming cliff face at their backs, and a hurricane of attack craft ripping past on every side.

  Haltheus breathed out slowly.

  ‘First test passed,’ he muttered. ‘Now things get really challenging.’

  ‘Entering flight pattern, such as it is,’ voxed Haltheus, switching seamlessly to sixth cypher serpenta, the variant the Harrow used whenever staging a vehicular infiltration. ‘Infiltration successful. Welcome to the Blood God’s service, brothers.’

  ‘Do not even joke of it,’ growled Skaryth.

  ‘Good work Haltheus, Kyphas,’ said Kassar. ‘Stay alert, all of you. Prepare for drop. Krowl?’

  A low grunt came back across the vox.

  ‘The cultist is your responsibility. Keep him safe at any cost, understood?’

  Another grunt, indistinguishable from the last, but Kassar knew that Krowl would protect Syxx with his life.

  ‘The enemy have attack corridors flowing down on all five Tsadrekhan hives,’ reported Kyphas as stolen data streams filtered across his vid-screen. ‘They’re scattering secondary offensive waves to strike at island fortifications and orbital batteries, while roving hunt groups prowl in search of the hives’ promethium rigs, macrofactory fleets and air interdiction assets.’

  ‘We’re nestled in the trailing edge of the Hive Endurance attack corridor,’ informed Haltheus. ‘Ready for the descent.’

  A monstrous flash of light filled the cockpit. As the glare died away, Kassar checked the external feed and saw the Murderer’s Fist breaking gradually into two halves. Secondary explosions rippled through the cruiser’s superstructure, while around it dozens of craft drifted as blackened wreckage.

  ‘Defence lasers,’ said Kassar, squinting as the vid image washed out once again. A volley of mile-long energy bolts seared up through the planet’s atmosphere and struck a battleship to the Stormbird’s rear. The huge craft’s void shields held, and it began to pivot into bombardment position, lining its lance batteries up to return fire. Drop-ships still poured from its launch bays, adding to the endless locust swarm of attack craft.

  ‘Kassar,’ said Kyphas urgently. ‘Reports suggest Khordas is leading the attack on Endurance in person.’

  ‘Unfortunate, but not unexpected,’ said Kassar. ‘We’ll stay out of his path. Anything further?’

  ‘No,’ said Kyphas. ‘Nothing pertinent.’

  ‘Fifteen seconds to atmosphere,’ said Haltheus. ‘Brace, brace, brace.’

  Kassar tested his throne’s restraints one last time, checked his armour’s seals, and prepared himself for the violence of atmospheric re-entry. He reflected, not for the first time, that a doctrine of self-reliant godlessness was all well and good, until you found yourself powerless to affect your situation. As he always did at such moments, Kassar chose to believe in his brothers instead of distant, disinterested gods, and to draw strength from them.

  Then the Stormbird hit the upper atmosphere of Tsadrekha with an almighty jolt, and gravity took them in its merciless claws.

  Kyphas felt the force of their descent push him back into his throne, armour servos whining as they compensated. The armourglass of the windscreen filled with flame, and proximity warnings chimed as Khornate attack craft nosedived all around them. He held his controls steady, helping Haltheus to keep the craft within the approach vector shown on their cogitator screens.

  Kyphas’ mind whirled with possibilities. He should tell Kassar the rest of what he had seen in that data-transcript. Why had he not? This had a serious bearing upon their mission. It could cost his brothers their lives. Yet Kyphas felt his avarice for secrets strongly. Information. It was the lifeblood of the Alpha Legion and, until the last of his cultist spy networks had died out upon that cursed daemon world, it had been Kyphas’ greatest gift. The steady flow of secrets through his fingers had ensured his status in the Harrow.

  They had defined him, given him purpose.

  That loss had been a bitter blow. But the Unsung were no longer trapped on Bloodforge, and once again the information had begun to flow. It was his to give or to keep as he saw fit,
his to hoard until the opportune moment.

  And really, wasn’t he doing his duty by sparing his brothers from distracting information until it became truly relevant? Wasn’t he obeying his Legion’s old tenet? Gather as much as you can. Give none away.

  Yes, he thought as the fires flickered from the heat-shielded prow of their gunship, and the endless oceans of Tsadrekha spread out far below. These secrets were his, his power, and he would deign to part with them only when he was ready.

  With a gesture, Kyphas wiped his vid-screen, diverting the flow of information directly to his retinal display and hoarding it away detail by detail, word by word.

  Name by name.

  Strapped in the gunner’s throne, Kassar felt the descent as a constant, savage pressure from behind. Mag-locks held his shoulders and helm in place, preventing him from smashing forwards into his targeters, but still he was thankful when the Stormbird punched through into open sky and the pressure eased.

  ‘Kyphas, route external vidcams to all retinal displays,’ he ordered. ‘Brothers, surveillance and threat recognition.’

  The view outside their gunship was anarchic madness. Haltheus had guided them in on the far eastern edge of the Hive Endurance attack corridor, but still there were craft plunging down all around them. Troop transports, war engine landers and attack craft fell like bloody rain.

  Away to the west rose Hive Endurance, its towering enormity crowned by the gothic macrostructures of the convent prioris. A corona of fire surrounded the hive, millions of defensive guns roaring their defiance at the swarms of attack craft that hurtled towards them.

  Most of the Khornate craft were angling towards the hive, or turning their noses towards outer fortresses that clung to rocky islands and artificial rafts in the open ocean. The structures formed a loose ring around the hive, adding their substantial firepower to the defence. Lasers, missiles and shells filled the air. Wreckage fell, and the ocean waves teemed with floundering bodies and burning promethium slicks.

  ‘I can see why they’ve had no luck invading this place,’ said Haltheus through gritted teeth. ‘How do you even establish a toehold?’

  ‘Brute force,’ replied D’sakh over the vox. ‘Look.’

  An optic feed flashed in Kassar’s peripheral vision and he brought it forward with a thought. He saw a magnified view of an ocean fort, one flank of which had been smashed open by a drop-ship’s prow. The craft had broken in half with the force of the impact, and smoke billowed up from fort and drop-ship alike. Tiny figures moved amidst the wreckage. Daemon engines, Kassar realised, iron beasts hauling themselves from the devastation to fall upon the fort’s defenders.

  ‘Impressive,’ said Phaek’or, his voice lurching as Haltheus rolled to avoid incoming fire.

  ‘If they can succeed there, then given enough time and lives they can break into the hive as well,’ said Kassar. ‘Haltheus, it’s time we diverted.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Haltheus. ‘Deploying smoker.’

  Haltheus unclamped a handheld detonator from his belt and, piloting one-handed with Kyphas’ aid, he pumped the device’s pressure-plunger. On the third click, there was a muffled bang from the second port-side engine. In the external vidstreams, thick black smoke began to billow from it, accompanied by flickering flames.

  ‘Effective,’ said A’khassor. ‘We look winged.’

  ‘Switching to true attack heading,’ voxed Haltheus. ‘Expect a little chop, brothers. The smoker may have worked a touch too well.’

  Their craft lurched sideways, narrowly missing a hurtling squadron of Helblades as it arced away from the attack column. Their new heading took them out over open ocean, through a gap between two of the defensive fortresses and away west above the turbulent chop of the waves.

  Kassar could see flames still spilling from the engine cowling, while the Stormbird had developed a definite shudder.

  ‘I asked for the semblance of a direct hit, Haltheus,’ he said. ‘Not the real thing.’

  ‘Firstly,’ replied Haltheus. ‘I’m a little busy piloting us through an active warzone. Secondly, still not actually a Techmarine. You all ask an awful lot of me, Kassar, considering my expertise is in blowing things up, not repairing them.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Kassar, switching back from serpenta as the ocean forts receded behind them. No enemy forces were nearby, and the effort of conversing in serpenta became wearing over time. ‘But I ask a lot of us all, myself included. There’s not enough of us left to do anything but our best.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Haltheus, his voice stiff.

  ‘Can we still reach our destination with the engine compromised?’ asked Kassar.

  ‘Easily,’ said Kyphas. ‘This craft is resilient and powerful. Besides, its machine-spirit carries the taint of Slaaneshi corruption. It likely revels in the experience of battle damage.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Kassar, ‘how is the cultist?’

  ‘Conscious,’ replied D’sakh. ‘Mission capable.’

  Behind them, the warzone around Hive Endurance shrank until all that could be seen was the hive’s dark silhouette, wreathed in an ever-shifting veil of drop-craft and smoke.

  ‘So many ships,’ said Makhor. ‘This Khordas must be a warlord of incredible power to muster so many. I’ve not seen numbers like that since the ancient days.’

  ‘If this great rift is all that the Slaanesh worshippers claim, that may account for it,’ said Kassar. ‘Imagine, our forces able to move at will through the galaxy, while the corpse worshippers take their turn to be trammelled like dogs.’

  ‘The irony is not unappealing,’ said Makhor. ‘And you may well be right. Our numbers are likely greater within the darkened regions of the Imperium, than in those where the Astronomican shines.’

  ‘Destination coming up,’ said Kyphas. ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Ready yourselves, brothers,’ said Kassar, double-checking his bolter’s magazine. An old pre-battle ritual, though needless. Mortis was an exceptional weapon, and had never failed him.

  ‘What should I do, my lord?’ Syxx’s voice sounded firm on the vox, no hint of the nausea or shock that Kassar had expected.

  ‘What I told you,’ he answered. ‘Stay close to Krowl. Keep him between you and any gunfire.’

  ‘And what if he is killed, lord?’ asked Syxx.

  ‘If they’ve got anything that can kill Krowl,’ said Sha’dor, ‘then we’ll probably all be dead anyway. But in extremis, get behind Ges’khir.’

  ‘I am not a barricade,’ rumbled the Terminator. ‘Hide behind me at your peril.’

  ‘Three minutes out,’ said Haltheus. ‘Prepare yourselves for a rough landing, brothers. Auspex is reading a lot of firepower and… damn it, a combat air patrol.’

  Promethium extraction rig Bountificus Omnissium towered a thousand feet above the ocean waves. In the gunship’s forward feed it looked like an armoured behemoth, an ogre of plasteel and ferrocrete built to shrug off the most violent excesses of a Tsadrekhan hurricane. The Stormbird’s long-range auspex picked out the distinctive barrels of hydra batteries scanning the aerial approaches, while life signs were densely clustered throughout the rig’s chevron-painted industrial battlements.

  As he guided the Stormbird in towards its destination, however, Haltheus’ first concern was the pair of runic contacts showing in the rig’s local airspace.

  ‘Stormhawk interceptors,’ he said. ‘Our long-lost brothers in the Imperial Fists, extending the hand of welcome.’

  ‘They’ll assume we’re Khorne worshippers,’ said Kassar in sixth cypher. ‘My guess is they’ll swing out on our flanks, try to herd us into the teeth of the rig’s flak.’

  ‘It will be my pleasure to surprise them,’ said Haltheus.

  ‘Stormhawks moving away from the rig,’ reported Kyphas. ‘You were right, Kassar, auspex shows them breaking right and left. They’re
accelerating to combat speed.’

  ‘Perfect,’ said Haltheus. ‘Engaging right. Kassar, be ready with the guns and remember those starboard missiles.’

  ‘Last resort only, brother, understood,’ said Kassar, fingers dancing across the arming runes as enemy contacts flashed on his targeters. The Stormbird tilted around him as Haltheus took them into a tight turn, lining up on his target. On the vid-screens, a compact yellow and red interceptor swung into view, streaking low over the waves. The Stormhawk was far smaller than their Stormbird, but Kassar guessed that its firepower was wildly disproportionate to its size, and its armoured hull a great deal more resilient than it looked.

  ‘Engaging,’ said Haltheus, and the Stormbird leapt forward on full thrust. The enemy pilot, clearly surprised at having to face the larger craft alone, wavered for a moment, banking aside.

  Kassar depressed his firing runes, chasing his target with streams of bolts and sending a missile streaking away for good measure. A crackling halo of frag charges burst from the back of the Stormhawk, detonating in mid-air and triggering Kassar’s missile. The bolters did better, clipping the interceptor’s tail assembly. Smoke burst from the wounds, but the Imperial Fists craft stayed airborne, hauling itself out of the Stormbird’s attack path and fleeing back towards the rig.

  Kassar could already see the Stormhawk’s wingman sweeping around on their flank, gaining on them fast.

  ‘Can we drive them off long enough to land?’ he asked, sending thumping bursts of fire towards the enemy craft.

  ‘There’s a lot of flak down there, Kassar,’ replied Haltheus. ‘I’d risk it, maybe, if we didn’t have the baggage, but he’d never survive that sort of combat drop. Besides, that would leave the Stormhawks free to hit us from above.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said Kassar, working his fire controls as fast as he could, striving to trap the Stormhawk in a web of flak. It was still coming, though, straight at their damaged starboard side, spiralling around his shots.