The tech-guard soldiers arrayed upon the plains were created specifically for the arena of war. Amputated arms had been replaced with heavy weaponry, and targeting sensors and arrays filled the sockets where fleshy eyeballs had been plucked. Power generators were built onto the shoulders of some, and they stood immobile beside gun-servitors, cables and wiring trailing between the pair. Others had single, large servo-arms replacing one or more of their removed limbs, giving them an ungainly, limping gait as servos struggled under the weight. These mechanical arms were as easily capable of ripping a man’s head from his shoulders as lifting heavy equipment, and some bore oversized rotary blades or power drills that could cut or punch through the heaviest of armour.
Amongst the phalanxes were smaller contingents of heavier, tracked servitor units. The lower bodies of these servitors had been removed so that they had become one with their means of conveyance. These bore heavier payloads of ammunition that spooled into the large, multiple barrelled cannons that replaced the organic right arms of the servitors.
In between the ranks of Martian foot soldiers were tracked crawlers, one for every phalanx. They were Ordinatus Minoris crawlers, and each was the length of three Leman Russ battle tanks. They had two, wide track units, one at the front and one at the rear, and between these was supported the mass of the war machine. Heavy girders and steel struts supported huge weapons, and each crawler had dozens of red-robed adepts and servitors as crew. Steel ladders rose to the control cabins that were offset from the main guns. Laron did not recognise the weapons that these behemoths of steel and bronze bore, but the massive, steaming couplings and humming generators upon their backs spoke of immense contained power.
But these were as nothing to the sheer scale of the crawler that was emerging slowly from a lander of truly giant proportions.
‘Emperor above,’ said Elias. ‘Would you look at the damn size of that thing!’
It bore a resemblance to the Ordinatus Minoris crawlers in the way that a fully grown adult bears a resemblance to its mewling newborn. It rolled forward on what must have been sixteen tracked crawler units, led by a stream of tech-priests. The size of the smaller tracked crawlers were rendered insignificant next to the immense vastness of the Ordinatus machine.
It was the size of a city block and was protected with thick layers of armoured plating. More than ten storeys of platforms rose up around the massive central weapon that the Ordinatus supported, a weapon the size of a small cruiser that ran down the entire length of the immense machine. Criss-crossing lattice works of steel supported gantries running around the circumference of the weapon, and a pair of quad-barrelled anti-aircraft guns rotated atop the control cabin above the highest deck level. Giant, claw-like, spiked arms were held aloft on either side of the Ordinatus, and Laron guessed that the huge piston engines behind them would drive them into the ground when the Ordinatus was readying to fire, to give the machine additional stability. That a thing that size needed stabilising legs was testament to the awesome power that it could unleash.
‘Impressive,’ said Laron somewhat reluctantly.
The sergeant put a hand to his ear as his micro-bead clicked.
‘The Valkyries are ready and waiting, captain. They fly on your say-so.’
‘Good. Colonel Boerl will be joining us on the drop.’
‘I feel safer already.’
‘Cut the crap, Elias,’ snapped Laron. Even with Elias, he had his limits. The colonel of the 72nd was a hardened veteran, and he would hear nothing against the man.
‘Let’s go take those damn highlands.’
He raised his crozius before him. Blood hissed along the length of the hallowed staff of office, boiling and spitting under the surging electricity coursing up the haft. Once it had represented faith in the Imperium, belief in the Emperor and the optimistic confidence that the Crusades pushing out from great Terra would bring enlightenment to the galaxy.
Spitting, he sneered at the pathetic sentiment. Now he stood on Terra once more, as the greatest battle in the history of mankind was unfolding.
His crozius was dedicated to beings of far greater power than the deceitful Emperor. It represented faith as it always had, inspiring devotion and fervour in the Legion as it smote the non-believers, but this was a far more pure faith than merely a shallow belief and optimism that looked to a bright future for mankind.
This was true faith. The Emperor had been wrong. There were omnipotent gods in existence, and they wielded power beyond imagining. No cold, distant deities that watched the plight of their followers from afar, these gods were active and could affect a very real physical presence in the galaxy.
His crozius had been consecrated in the blood of those sacrificed to these great powers, ignorant fools who would not accept or embrace the true powers within the universe.
And now he fought on Terra, alongside holy primarchs, mighty heroes and noble warriors who had embraced the true faith.
The eager young Captain Kol Badar looked at him, passion and fervour in his eyes. His First Acolyte, the clever Jarulek, looked to him for the word to engage. Raising his sanctified crozius of the true faith high into the air, he incanted from the Epistles of Lorgar. With a fiery roar, the Word Bearers of the XII Grand Company launched themselves once more into the bloody fray.
The Warmonger was stirred from his thoughts of battles long past as his receptive sensors picked up faint reverberations in the air from over the horizon to the east.
‘The enemy approaches, First Acolyte Marduk,’ he intoned via vox transmission. ‘The brethren wait in readiness.’
BOOK TWO: CONTENTION
‘Victory attained through violence is victory indeed. But when the enemy turns on itself – that is the essence of true, lasting victory.’
– Kor Phaeron – Master of the Faith
CHAPTER NINE
The night was lit up with hundreds of lancing beams of lascannons and super-heated streams of plasma. Flames coughed from the barrels of autocannons, and fast burning missiles hissed across the sky, leaving spirals of smoke in their wake.
Storm clouds rumbled overhead, the sound all but drowned out by the din of battle. Rain began to fall over the mountains in driving sheets.
Massive, eight-legged daemon engines strained at the chained restraints locking them in place, each infernal machine overseen by a dozen attendants. They roared into the night sky, metallic tendons bulging, and blazing comets of deep red fire burst from the daemonic hell-cannons built into their carapaces, screaming up towards the Imperial aircraft as they strafed in once more.
Lascannons speared up through the darkness. Flames burst over one of the low-flying Imperial fighters as a wing was shorn off, and it spiralled down into a ravine where it exploded deafeningly. The cockpit of another was ripped apart as lascannons punched through it, and the fighter exploded in mid air, debris and flames raining down along the ridge top. The cover of night did nothing to hamper the warrior-brothers of the Legion, nor the daemons that infused their deadly war machines. The darkness was pierced equally well, whether it was due to genetic modification and acute auto-senses or daemonic witch sight.
A nearby ridge erupted in a series of rising explosions as a stream of bombs struck, and Marduk swore. The enemy had brought in far more air support than even Kol Badar had expected. The fool had not predicted this.
Arcing beams of spitting multi-lasers strafed along the ridge, accompanied by the resonant, barking thud of rapid-firing heavy bolters. Rock and dust were kicked up, and one of the daemon engines was obliterated in a screaming inferno. The fiery explosion rose high into the air, but was sucked back down sharply as the daemon essence of the machine was returned to the warp.
Marduk growled as bullets ripped up the earth less than a metre from where he stood, rocks ricocheting off his ancient, deep-red armour, but he continued to stare angrily down towards the broken ground below his vantage point. While the enemy occupied Marduk’s forces, holding the high ground with strafing runs a
nd bombing attacks, other aircraft had hovered briefly beyond the range of the Word Bearer’s fire and disgorged their human cargoes. With his targeters at full zoom, Marduk had seen the Guardsmen rappel from these hovering aircraft, disembarking onto the rough ground. He had lost sight of them as they traversed the massive cracks and faults, but he knew that they were climbing slowly towards him in a vain attempt to take the commanding location. Doubtless, hundreds of similar aircraft had dropped their cargoes of Guardsmen all along the rough ground behind the ridges occupied by his warriors, and were even now climbing up. Fools, he thought. No matter how many of them there were, did they really think that mere mortals could dislodge Astartes? Their arrogance was astounding.
‘We have engaged the enemy, First Acolyte Marduk,’ came the vox transmission from the Warmonger.
‘Acknowledged,’ returned Marduk as yet another strafing run of aircraft screamed overhead, peppering the Legion with gunfire. ‘Take them down, havoc teams,’ he snarled into his local vicinity vox.
‘Movement,’ said Burias, his witch sight keener than the eyesight of the other Chaos Space Marines.
‘Where?’ barked Marduk, squinting his eyes where the Icon Bearer pointed.
‘There, lord. Looks like around… eight Imperial platoons, plus heavy weapon platoons.’
‘Bah, the wretches won’t get anywhere.’
Burias lowered his head deferentially, rainwater running down his pale face. ‘With respect, lord, their mortars could prove… vexing. If they make the rocks there,’ he said, indicating a crop of sharp boulders, ‘they could lob their shells over the lip of the ridge, and it would be… irritating for us to remove them from the position. And they bear lascannons as well, First Acolyte.’
‘You fear their guns, Burias?’ asked Marduk.
‘No, First Acolyte, I am merely making an observation.’
‘It sounded weak to my ears,’ growled Marduk, but he saw the sense in what his Icon Bearer had said. ‘Choose a small team from one of the coteries. Get around behind those mortars and clear them out of the rocks, if they make it that far.’
Burias’s face split into a feral grin. ‘I will take members of my brethren, if it pleases you, First Acolyte.’
‘Fine. Go.’
‘Thank you, First Acolyte,’ said Burias, handing his icon to Marduk. Its bulk would merely hamper his mission.
‘Take out the guns, and then move to the rear of these weaklings. If there are any of them left,’ remarked Marduk.
Burias dropped to one knee swiftly, before stalking off through the gunfire to gather his warriors.
‘Good hunting, Burias-Drak’shal,’ the First Acolyte said.
Corporal Leire Pyrshank held the controls of the Marauder bomber tightly in his gloved hands as he guided the massive aircraft through the darkness. The dark clouds far beneath the aircraft crackled with lightning, and the massive red planet Korsis hung in the black sky overhead, so close that he imagined he could land the heavy bomber there if he wished.
He also wished that he couldn’t hear a thing over the roaring drone of the four turbine engines, but unfortunately he could.
‘You’d think they were the High Lords of Terra, the way they acted,’ said Bryant’s incessant voice in his ear. The navigatius operator seemed incapable of remaining silent for more than a few minutes at a time. ‘Bit on the dim side, though. All brawn and light on the brain matter. Still, the way they held themselves, looking down on us Marauder crewmen, I was happy to clean them out. The stupid frakker couldn’t have had nothin’! But he stayed in. I think it was only ’cos he was a damn glory boy storm trooper, didn’t want to fold to the likes of me. He didn’t say a word when I won, neither. One of his eyes just sorta twitched, and he stormed away from the table, taking his muscle-bound cronies with him. Five ration packs, a bottle of amasec and five lho-sticks I took off them. Oh, you missed a great game, Pyrshank, a great game indeed.’
‘How far to the target?’
‘A while yet. Man, it was good. Ended up drinking the whole bottle of amasec with Kashan, you know, that bomber-tech girl from the 64th? Did I show you the scratches she left on my back? That girl,’ said Bryant, ‘she’s really something.’
‘How about you cut the damned chatter and concentrate on your screens, huh?’
Bryant merely laughed. ‘Thirteen five to target.’
The navigatius operator leant up against the side window of the cockpit and whistled in awe. ‘Damn, I’m glad I’m not down there in that mess. I haven’t seen a firefight like this since Khavoris IV, and the Guard units there suffered something like eighty percent casualties. The whole mountain range is lit up. ’
‘It happens in times of war, Bryant,’ said Pyrshank. ‘I can’t see a damned thing out here.’
‘Just use the nav-screens. You don’t need to see a damn thing. Ten five to target.’
There was a moment of blessed silence. If you could call the deafening noise of four “ear bleeders” silence. That was when he felt the cockpit rock, as if with a sudden impact.
‘What the hell was that?’ asked Bryant.
‘I dunno,’ said Pyrshank. ‘Could have been some bird, I ’spose.’
‘Pretty damn high for a bird,’ replied Bryant. ‘Have you seen any birds on this salt heap of a planet?’
‘No,’ said Pyrshank. The entire breadth of indigenous wildlife of the cursed planet seemed to consist of the brine-flies that thrived in vast clouds along the banks of the salt lakes, and the tiny grey lizards that ate the brine-flies.
The cockpit shuddered once more, and there was a tearing sound of shearing metal.
Bryant released the clips of the harness crossing his shoulders and removed his rebreather mask. He pressed himself against the cold side window, trying to look down the side of the bomber’s fuselage.
‘What in the Emperor’s name was that?’ he asked.
‘Herdus, can you see anything out there?’ said Pyrshank into his comm unit. There was no response from the front-gunner, who sat in the forward facing turret just below the cockpit.
‘Herdus, can you see anything?’
Bryant swore, and Pyrshank looked over at him. His eyes widened as he saw the skinless creature grinning in at him from outside the cockpit window.
‘Throne!’ he uttered, recoiling from the hideous visage. Bryant fell back from the window, a cry of horror and shock escaping his lips.
The creature began scrabbling at the corners of the cockpit window, its long talons scratching at the edges of the clear panels. Finding no opening, it reared its skinless head back and slammed it into one of the panels of the window with sickening force.
Pyrshank swore as he realised he had turned the bomber into a dive, and he pulled sharply at the controls. He saw motion behind him and turned his head to see Bryant, a laspistol in his hand. Before he could shout, the navigatius operator fired, and a neat hole was seared through the window and into the creature. It screamed horribly, but the sound was lost amidst the roaring of the air rapidly evacuating the cockpit. The roaring died as quickly as it had begun and Pyrshank saw that the horrifying creature had inserted a long, bloody talon into the neat hole.
A second later, the entire window panel was ripped clear and the skinless daemon crawled into the cockpit.
Without his harness, Bryant was ripped out of the bomber instantly, sucked out into the icy, airless night. Pyrshank struggled frantically with his own harness, escape from the hideous creature his only thought.
He felt his stomach heave and he vomited inside his rebreather unit. But it didn’t matter. The daemon grabbed his neck, talons biting deeply.
With a powerful movement, Corporal Leire Pyrshank’s throat was ripped out. As the Marauder bomber began its steep dive towards the gathering storm clouds and mountain peaks below, the katharte kicked away from the aircraft, leathery wings beating hard.
‘Shall we engage them, First Acolyte? They are within bolter range,’ said a warrior-brother by vox transmission.
>
‘Not yet,’ said Marduk. ‘Wait until they are closer. Conserve your bolts.’
‘As you wish, First Acolyte,’ replied the man.
The aeronautical barrage had, if anything, intensified. They were trying to make them keep their heads down as the Guardsmen below advanced, Marduk reasoned. But then moments ago it had ceased entirely, just as the Guardsmen below were almost in position. It didn’t make much sense, but then Marduk had long stopped trying to make sense of the Imperium. He would never understand those who chose to worship the shattered corpse of an Emperor whose time was long past rather than embrace the very real gods of Chaos.
From the reports coming in, it looked as if somewhere in the realm of a hundred aircraft had been confirmed destroyed. Around ten bombers had fallen from the darkness of high atmosphere, crashing to earth. Marduk had smiled as he felt the Kathartes kill.
He could see the Guardsmen clearly, their faces all but covered by their grey-blue helmets and dark visors. Sheets of rain drove against them.
Bolter fire barked suddenly, and Marduk turned with a snarl to see which champion had allowed his coterie to open fire.
‘’Ware the sky,’ came a vox from the Warmonger, and Marduk cursed again. He looked up into the heavens to see hundreds of dark shapes dropping like stones. He raised his bolt pistol and began to fire.
Colonel Boerl held his arms clasped tightly to his side as he plummeted through the darkness out of the storm clouds towards the flashes of gunfire marking the target ridge below. Icy cold air and rain whipped at him as he fell, and his heart raced with the thrill.
Forty-two thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven drops, and over three hundred combat drops, the most of any Guardsman within the 72nd. And still it gave him an adrenaline rush like nothing else he had ever experienced.
He and the other drop-troopers had launched themselves from their Valkyries at extreme high atmosphere, around forty kilometres above the ground, higher even than Marauder bombers operated when unleashing their deadly payloads. It was necessary to jump from such a height in order to avoid detection. Breathing through respirators, their bodies enclosed in tight-fitting jumpsuits beneath their reinforced carapace armour, the storm troopers had been free-falling for well over five minutes, reaching terminal velocity within the first thirty seconds of the drop, and leaving the cracking sounds of sonic booms in their wake as they hurtled towards the ground at phenomenal speed.
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