by Nick Kyme
‘Good,’ hissed Ankh, myriad plans already forming as he focused on the image of a many-limbed walker. ‘We shall begin with the Triarch.’
A barren ice plain stretched before Chronus through his magnoculars. Riding in the cupola of the Rage of Antonius, hatch thrown back, he barely felt the bite of the ice and the scything hail hammering against the Predator’s armour.
Somewhere in the storm, his enemy was lurking. From all the intelligence he had gathered, the necron force was still numerous and growing. But it also consisted solely of infantry, and slow-moving, tactically inert infantry at that. Chronus did not consider himself an arrogant man. He was logical and tried to base his assumptions only on fact, but a laborious host of foot soldiers would not last long against an Ultramarines tank company. They would be easily defeated, and he suspected there were more forces held in reserve somewhere, sterner opponents.
But he had to engage the remnants first, and goad whatever else was waiting for them out of the ice. He had seen the reports of the phasic generators, large-scale teleportation devices that had moved entire phalanxes from the battle zone to an unknown regrouping point in the northern polar wastes. If engaging the necrons was the primary mission, then finding and destroying the generator was next.
Of course, that was assuming he could even find the necron remnants left after the Kellenport siege.
Setting the scopes down on the hull, he took the auspex from his belt. The backlit screen still returned an empty scanner pulse. Since leaving Kellenport they had continued north, following the map coordinates he had given the sergeant who had contacted them earlier. Chronus led the line, a column of twenty-four battle tanks with fourteen other armoured carriers advancing along either flank. He kept them in file until engagement was imminent; it was easier to conceal their martial strength that way.
Taking up the scopes again, he first ranged left and then right, checking on formation dispersal. It was wide, just as instructed, and the column was also spread. If he was riding into a trap, if the necron reinforcements were closer at hand than gathered intelligence suggested, then the wide spread across the length and width of the formation would give those not caught directly in the ambush a chance to counter, or regroup.
He was just about to despair of ever making contact with the enemy to run such a risk when a blip came through on the auspex. A pair of markers, they flashed red against the screen and then returned a second later.
He recognised the origin of the markers. They were Ultramarines.
Chronus called down into the hold.
‘Novus, I have the Gladius and the Thunderstorm.’ He sent the markers to the driver’s retinal display.
‘Affirmative, commander.’
Chronus switched channels through his comm-feed to his sergeants leading the other two squadrons.
‘Be advised our guides are inbound.’
‘I have them on auspex, Commander Chronus,’ replied Gnaeus.
Egnatius’s comm-channel remained silent.
Chronus tried the link again. ‘Sergeant Egnatius, respond.’
Still no answer. He went back to the other sergeant.
‘Gnaeus, are you experiencing any comms interference?’
‘Nothing unusual, commander.’
‘What about between vehicles in Sergeant Egnatius’s squadrons?’
‘I’ve not had vox contact with Sergeant Egnatius since we left Kellenport.’
Egnatius’s formation was second in column. Chronus cut the link to Gnaeus and opened up a channel to the next battle tank in the line, The Vengeful.
Fabricus answered his hail.
‘Brother Fabricus, take front of column.’
‘Commander?’ asked Fabricus, nonplussed.
‘That’s a direct order, driver.’
Chronus shouted down for Novus to peel off the column and double back along the flanks, then voxed the nearest Razorback and Rhino outriders with the brief change in the order of march.
‘Novus,’ Chronus shouted down into the hold. ‘I want you to bring us right alongside the Stormwarden,’ he said, referring to Egnatius’s Predator Destructor.
The Rage of Antonius rode down the line, running against the churning tide. Ice cracked and snow was ground to slush before the ruthless advance of the armoured column. Exhaust ports plumed grey smoke that was quickly caught on the wind and dispersed. Frost hugged the flanks of every vehicle and ice rimed their turrets where thick snow squalls had built up and then solidified.
Rolling close to combat speed, engines spitting out a throaty rumble as if grateful for the sudden run-out, the Rage of Antonius came up alongside the Stormwarden in a few minutes.
Hail and ice were slamming down hard now, chipping paintwork, and Chronus donned his helmet before the storm got bad enough to cut flesh or take an eye.
‘Vutrius,’ he called down to his own gunner. ‘Put the searchlight onto the Stormwarden.’
Novus had expertly brought them around and alongside the Predator Destructor so they were rolling with the column again, directly adjacent to the Stormwarden. The automated lamp attached to the Rage of Antonius’s turret swung around and, with a heavy chank of activation, blazed into life. Magnesium-bright, it lit up the side of the Stormwarden and flooded its vision slits.
When Egnatius did not respond, Chronus unholstered his sidearm and fired off a single shot at the Destructor’s front arc, leaving a dent but no permanent damage. It barely registered outside in the storm, but he knew that inside it would resonate.
A few seconds later, the turret hatch disengaged and Egnatius emerged from the cupola. Though it was difficult to tell with him wearing his helmet, Chronus could tell his sergeant was angry. When Egnatius looked over and saw the commander his ire cooled almost immediately.
Chronus tapped the side of his helmet.
Egnatius’s channel came online, indicated by a single glowing Ultima rune on Chronus’s retinal display.
‘Why did you not respond to my hails, brother-sergeant?’
Egnatius’s reply was chopped with static and bad signal return.
‘Apologies, commander. We are… periencing… issue… ith… comms.’
‘Find a solution. Our Thunderhawks have just made contact and will be guiding us in. We are about to rendezvous. I want you and your squadron back in vox contact before that happens.’
‘Yes, comm… der. It… ill… be done.’
‘See it is, Egnatius.’
Chronus went down below, sealing the hatch behind him. Disengaging the holding clamps, he removed his helmet to drink in the atmosphere. It was louder inside the Predator’s hold, the engine noise exacerbated by the close confines, and every contour of the rough terrain could be felt through the shuddering hull. Though during combat there was no better place to be than riding in the cupola and seeing the destruction wrought by his war machine first-hand, Chronus had always found the interior of the battle tank calming.
It was dingy and cramped inside, the majority of the hold taken up with machinery and munitions. Novus sat up front, surrounded by instrumentation. A control panel was lit up dully next to him, providing a slew of information including fuel, speed and acceleration. The forward vision slit was open. Hands on the steering column, Novus peered intently through the gap. Internal auspex and sensorium were proving patchy on account of the adverse weather, so Novus preferred the evidence of his own eyes as opposed to the Predator’s on-board systems.
The only other crewman of the Antonius, Vutrius, sat at the back of the hold and nodded to the commander as he descended and joined them both in the shadows.
‘Are we battle-hungry yet, gunner?’ Chronus asked as he took up position midway down the cramped crew compartment.
‘Running final readiness procedures now, commander,’ replied Vutrius without much of the hunger his commander had asked for. Chronus was unconcerned. His gunner might be cold but his aim was deadly and unforgiving.
Arrayed around Vutrius’s gunnery seat were three moni
tors, one for each of the Annihilator’s main weapons. Ammunition counts were at maximum, though they also carried two additional drum mags for the heavy bolters and a spare power generator for the twin-linked lascannon. According to his readouts, all weapons were at acceptable temperature levels and currently running at full efficacy.
‘Could it have been environmental interference?’ suggested Vutrius.
‘Could be.’ Chronus did not sound convinced. ‘I want you to send them a hail every three minutes until they’re back on comms.’
Vutrius nodded, his attention still on the Predator’s arsenal. He was not wearing his battle-helm, none of them did once inside the tank, and Chronus could see his gunner’s lips moving in silent litanies of accuracy and function.
Satisfied, he called up to Novus.
‘Get us back to the front of column. I want to meet our aerial support at the tip of the spear.’
Novus increased speed and the drone within the hold grew to a roar.
Chronus recalled his earlier words to Agrippen and the others.
‘It’s the reason we were forged.’
He smiled, knowing he was not just referring to the tanks.
CHAPTER SIX
ARMOURED FURY
The tank column slowed to within approximately three kilometres of the enemy and began to fan out. Its concomitant elements, formerly alloyed together in a long line of tracked steel, dispersed into their smaller squadrons.
Twenty-four battle tanks with additional armoured support faced off against six infantry cohorts. From the air, Scipio gauged each necron formation was roughly fifty warriors strong. None of them were the more advanced constructs he and his brothers had fought during the siege and the assault on the Thanatos Hills. Despite the obvious enemy threat, the necrons still appeared sluggish, but had begun to adopt some approximation of a firing line as they advanced into the teeth of Chronus’s armour.
The tank commander rejoined his sergeants, forming a twelve-engine-strong phalanx of Predators. Judging from the formation Scipio could see emerging from his vantage point in the Gladius, he assumed Chronus would attack in two waves.
On a shallow ridge that overlooked the vast ice plain where the necrons were marching, Chronus had positioned his preliminary bombardiers. At the rear, a trio of Whirlwinds cycled their launchers and adjusted for precise trajectory. To the front of them and a little further down the ridge were the formidable Vindicators, their massive Demolisher cannons angled to maximum elevation. It was clear to Scipio that Chronus meant to soften the necrons up before he committed to closer engagement.
Six hulking Land Raiders were ranged on the opposite flank to the Predators. Pre-eminent troop transports, the tank commander had deployed them as mobile weapon platforms, a trio each of the standard and Crusader-pattern variants.
Last were the armoured outriders, the Razorbacks and Rhinos that would run interference for the larger, more destructive battle tanks.
‘He’s creating a killbox,’ said Brakkius unnecessarily, competing with the howling gale ripping through the gunship’s open side-hatch. ‘The necrons will engage the obvious threat, the tanks on the ridge, and they’ll be outflanked by the farther ranging engines to their right and left.’
From the air, Chronus’s stratagem was obvious but, against a slow-moving infantry force, also deadly. The necrons would be destroyed, but Scipio still frowned.
‘This cannot be all that is left of them,’ he said, ‘these rudimentary, half-functioning constructs.’
‘We can only fight what’s in front of us, brother-sergeant,’ replied Largo, ever the philosopher.
‘And that is precisely what concerns me. That this is all there is in front of us. We fought an enemy ten times more potent than this. Not all of those necrons were destroyed in the rout at the gates. Some endured, they must have.’
Garrik pointed down to the kilometre-spanning battlefield unfolding below, his missile launcher shouldered and ready.
‘Whatever their mettle, Sergeant Vorolanus, we are about to see it tested.’
The last of the battle tanks and their attendant outriders were moving into position. The order to commence bombardment was about to be given.
The Gladius and the Thunderstorm remained at the edge of the battle zone for now. Both gunships were tooled for war with dorsal-mounted battle cannons, a payload of heavy ordnance and several reserve weapons that would still be ruthlessly effective against the necrons.
Scipio was about to raise Sergeant Vandar on the vox to discuss potential attack-run vectors when something fast bolted across the skyline and shot between them. A thunderous boom shook the air and the hold, resonating down the Gladius’s hull.
A pair of vessels cruising at supersonic speed had just arrowed between them, making the gunships look slow and cumbersome by comparison.
‘Guilliman’s sacred blood!’
Brakkius tried to follow their flight path through the open side-hatch, but it was impossible.
Vandar’s voice crackled over the vox.
‘Did you see that, Vorolanus?’
‘A pair of flyers. Sickle-shaped, I think,’ said Scipio, tracking a rapidly disappearing smudge through his magnoculars. ‘Extremely fast.’
‘They’re headed for Kellenport. I’m going to pursue in the Thunderstorm. We might not catch them but we’ll sure as Hera take them apart if they are bound for the city.’
‘Two birds against one, Vandar. We can guard your wing for you.’
‘Appreciated, but we’ll have plenty of support when we arrive. Stay with Chronus. I don’t believe this is all there is of our enemies.’
Vandar cut the link. A few seconds later, the Thunderstorm streaked past on full engine burn.
There was little time for the warriors aboard the Gladius to watch their fellow gunship depart because, below them, a storm was about to break.
Chronus watched the bombardment commence from the Rage of Antonius’s cupola. The Whirlwinds fired in strict and regimented succession, one missile per salvo. Their rocket-fuelled payloads streaked into the air on thick contrails of white smoke, their perfect telemetry bringing the combined barrage down amidst the necrons with destructive results.
Vengeance-class missiles were solid-fuel, fragmentation ordnance. Not tank-busters by any gauge, but against densely packed infantry they were devastating. Necron bodies were blasted apart under this aggressive and sustained barrage. Three salvos went out, nine missiles in total, shattering one region of the ice plain into craters and gouging a cleft in the enemy ranks.
Through his raised scopes, Chronus saw the telltale flashes of multiple phase-outs. On a tactical screen slaved to one lens of his retinal display, the entire tank formation was arrayed and lit.
‘Cease barrage,’ he uttered into the vox, speaking directly to the gunnery crews of Fury Unbound, Ceaseless Endeavour and Scion of Talassar. ‘Resupply, Castellan load-out.’
He smiled grimly, all his good humour faded as the aspect of war came upon him. ‘You think that hurt,’ he muttered, watching the dogged necron advance. ‘That didn’t hurt.’
Returning to the vox, the icons of Glory of Calth, The Ram and Wrath of Invictus glowed brightest on the right lens retinal display as Chronus opened his command channel to their crews.
‘Vindicators advance fifty metres and engage.’
A string of affirmation runes flashed across Chronus’s display as the three battle tanks ground forwards in unison. At the fifty-metre mark, the hull-mounted Demolishers jutting belligerently through each Vindicator’s siege shield spoke.
Their combined voice was terrifically loud and roared with captured thunder that shook the earth as far as the Rage of Antonius. Chronus laughed loud and wrathfully as his Predator shuddered with the awesome resonance of the siege tanks. Three wide and impossibly powerful explosions erupted to the front of the necron ranks. Amidst the flying limbs and other body parts, Chronus witnessed over a score of phase-outs. After the smoke cleared and the few surviving
necrons had managed to crawl from the trench dug by the Vindicators’ ordnance, there was almost nothing left of the first phalanx. He had done it to prove a point, to show the mechanoids that the Ultramarines yet had weapons in their arsenal that could dismantle them, just as Chronus had vowed to his comrades.
Five more fully intact phalanxes advanced after the necron vanguard, the broken remnants slowly to be absorbed into the larger formations. Their weapons were fixed forwards, intent on the artillery squadrons occupying the ridge.
Chronus watched the necrons enter the killbox and gave the order for the flanking forces to circle around and entrap them.
‘All gunners on the ridge,’ he voxed, as Novus got the Rage of Antonius moving steadily in concert with the other Predators. ‘Sustained barrage until flanks reach within two hundred metres. Commence with extreme prejudice.’ He leaned into the hatch to speak directly to his driver. ‘Bring us in, Novus. I want to vent the guns. Vutrius?’
‘We are weapons-ready, commander.’
‘Good. The turret is mine, brother.’
Vutrius responded with a clipped affirmative, switching control to Chronus.
Heavy thunder was rolling down off the ridge, turning the ice plain into a wrecker’s yard and the necrons into a distant memory. If he had not wanted to taste some of that righteous fury himself, Chronus would have gladly watched the faultless display of his battle tanks and revelled in its perfect destruction.
Overhead in the Gladius, Scipio marvelled at the superlative tactical display being orchestrated by Chronus. A sizeable contingent of almost three hundred necrons had already been reduced to two-thirds that number, and they were but casualties of the bombardment. Chronus had yet to even engage with his flanking forces.
