by Mike Lee
Nemiel leapt to his feet and charged at the warrior who’d killed Ephrial. A plasma bolt shot past his head, close enough to sear the skin on the side of his face, but he scarcely felt the pain. He raised his crozius, and the rebel seemed to sense the blow at he last moment. The warrior spun about, bringing his power fist up in a ponderous arc that nevertheless managed to deflect Nemiel’s attack. The rebel spun on his heel and, quick as a viper, brought up a plasma pistol and loosed a bolt at Nemiel, but the Redemptor anticipated the move just in time and dodged to the side. The shot missed his shoulder by centimetres, flashing past and striking someone behind him. He heard an agonised scream, but had no time to see whether friend or foe had been hit.
He lunged forward before the traitor could fire another shot, and smashed the pistol’s barrel with a jab from his crozius. The Astartes hurled the ruined weapon at Nemiel’s face, following behind the feint with a sweeping blow aimed at the Redemptor’s abdomen. Nemiel dodged to the right, narrowly avoiding both attacks, and brought his crozius down on his enemy’s left shoulder. The warrior’s pauldron shattered beneath the impact and broke the traitor’s shoulder along with it. The Son of Horus was driven to his knees. Before he could rise again the Redemptor crushed his skull with another blow from his power weapon.
Nemiel whirled about, taking stock of the battle even as his last foe toppled to the ground. Everywhere he turned he saw pale-armoured figures pressing in on his warriors from all sides. Bodies of friend and foe alike littered the ground, but he could see at once that his warriors had suffered the worst in the exchange. There were less than a dozen left, including Brother-Sergeant Kohl and Brother Cortus. The Dark Angels were instinctively drawing together into a tight knot, standing back-to-back in a classic defensive formation that had its roots on Caliban. They were outnumbered more than two to one, but they refused to yield a centimetre to their foes.
For the first time in his life, Nemiel truly felt that he was about to die. A strange peace settled over him at the thought, and as he joined his brothers he prepared to give his life for the Emperor.
Then, suddenly, a shout went up from the Sons of Horus, and the entire mass of enemy warriors recoiled away from the Dark Angels. Stunned, Nemiel whirled about, searching for the source of the enemy’s retreat.
Lion El’Jonson fell upon the rebels with a fierce cry, the Lion Sword blazing as he carved through the enemy ranks. The rebels fell like wheat before a scythe, cut down before they scarcely had a chance to move, much less strike at their foe. Jonson was a vengeful god, a whirlwind of death and destruction, and the Sons of Horus retreated before his wrath.
The enemy fell back to their Rhinos, firing their pistols to cover their withdrawal. The Dark Angels traded shots with them until the enemy had disappeared inside their transports and the Rhinos turned and sped out of range. Only then did Nemiel turn and take stock of their losses. With dawning horror, he saw that only eight warriors besides him were still standing. Fifteen of his brothers lay dead upon the permacrete, surrounded by the bodies of a dozen of their foes. They had turned aside the enemy attack, but the reserve force had been decimated.
If the Sons of Horus launched another attack, there would be little left to stop them.
THE DARK ANGELS had taken a terrible toll on the enemy, but they had paid an equally terrible price in return. The Sons of Horus had slain many of their battle brothers, but even worse was the horror of spilling the blood of fellow Astartes, something utterly unthinkable just a few scant months before. Out beyond the perimeter they could hear the rumble of engines, and sensed that the enemy was re-forming for yet another attack. Jonson took stock of his remaining forces and reluctantly ordered his remaining warriors back to the inner defensive line.
Nemiel was summoned by the primarch as he and his squad were helping carry the most gravely-wounded brothers into the assembly building. There were only sixty warriors still standing; Force Commander Lamnos lay in a coma, his primary heart and his oolitic kidney ruptured by an autocannon blast, and Captain Hsien had been killed when his position had been struck by a battle cannon shell. The Tanagran Dragoons had died to a man fighting the Sons of Horus; Nemiel had found the body of Governor Kulik surrounded by his troops, his sword gripped in his hand.
‘I have a task for you, Brother-Redemptor Nemiel,’ the primarch said. Beside him, Brother Titus stood sentinel beside the assembly building’s open doors. A plasma bolt had fused the barrels of his assault cannon, but his deadly power fist still functioned.
‘What are your orders, my lord?’ Nemiel replied calmly.
‘It’s absolutely vital that the siege guns do not fall into Horus’s hands,’ Jonson replied. ‘Do you agree?’
Nemiel nodded. ‘Of course, my lord.’
‘Then we must take steps to ensure that they are destroyed in the event that the Sons of Horus break through,’ the primarch said. ‘I want you to find Techmarine Askelon and instruct him to prepare a demolition device that will destroy the assembly building and everything within it. According to him, the siege guns’ ammunition sections are fully-loaded. If he can rig the shells to detonate it should devastate everything within a five kilometre radius.’
The Redemptor nodded sombrely. The order wasn’t unexpected. Once he’d heard a full tally of their losses he knew that their odds of victory were growing slimmer by the moment.
‘I’ll see to it at once,’ he said.
He left the primarch and hurried into the assembly building. On the way he caught sight of Brother-Sergeant Kohl and the rest of the squad taking their place with the rest of their brothers at the inner line. For a moment he and the sergeant locked eyes, and Kohl seemed to understand what the grim look on the Redemptor’s face signified. Nemiel gave the veteran a knowing nod, and the sergeant saluted him in return.
There were close to a hundred seriously wounded Astartes laid up inside the assembly building, their conditions monitored by the ground force’s Apothecaries. Nemiel searched among the unconscious or comatose figures, looking for Askelon and frowning worriedly when he could find him.
‘Up here,’ echoed a familiar voice. Nemiel looked up to find the Techmarine standing atop the dorsal hull of the lead siege gun. Askelon pointed to the rear of the huge vehicle. ‘There are ladder rungs back at the ammo section.’
Nemiel hurried back to the rear section of the war machine and scrambled up onto the dorsal hull. The armoured deck stretched for a hundred metres from one end to the other, nearly as long as an Imperator Titan was tall. He jogged down the length of the huge machine, joining Askelon by the open hatch where they’d watched Archoi’s technicians work just a few hours before.
‘What in Terra’s name are you doing up here?’ Nemiel asked. ‘Brother-Apothecary Gideon said you should be resting. Your internal organs and nervous system were badly damaged when you tapped those power conduits.’
Askelon waved such concerns away. ‘I’m not doing us any good sitting down there on the permacrete,’ he said hoarsely. Burn sealant had been spread across his burned face, giving the charred skin a synthetic sheen. ‘So I thought I’d climb up here and see if I can get this monster running.’ Nemiel’s eyes widened. ‘Is that possible?’ Askelon sighed. ‘Well, in theory, yes. The engine is functional, the weapons fully loaded, and the void shields – all four of them – check out as ready for activation. The problem is that there aren’t any manual controls!’
The Redemptor frowned. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Even a Titan has a crew to assist its Princeps.’
Askelon nodded. ‘And these vehicles were built with supplementary crew stations – but Archoi’s tech-adepts took out all the controls and welded the hatches shut!’ The Techmarine shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make any sense. I can’t imagine what Horus thought he could use to operate these machines – the systems aren’t quite as complex as a Titan, but they’re close.’ He spread his arms and gave a frustrated sigh. ‘So here we are with the firepower of an army in our hands, and no way to use it.’
The Redemptor scowled down at the open cockpit. A thought niggled at him. ‘Is there any way to rig a basic set of controls to the machine – even just to operate one of its void shields?’
Askelon shook his head. ‘Actually, operating the void shield is one of the most complex operations to manage – just ask any Titan moderati. Rigging an effective set of controls would take hours, possibly days.’ He shook his head. ‘Unless you have a spare MIU sitting around, there’s nothing we can do.’
Nemiel glanced up at the Techmarine, his eyes widening. Askelon frowned. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘We do have an MIU,’ Nemiel said. ‘It’s been right under our noses all along.’
THE ENEMY LAUNCHED their eighth and final attack an hour and a half later.
Lion El’Jonson listened to the approaching sound of engines and readied his sword. ‘Here they come,’ he said to Nemiel. Around them, the surviving Astartes checked their weapons. At the Redemptor’s urging, they had extended the perimeter of the inner line outwards another two hundred and fifty metres, stretching their coverage almost to the breaking point.
‘Askelon is working as quickly as he can, my lord,’ he said to the primarch. ‘We have to buy as much time for him as we can.’
‘This is a terrible risk we’re taking,’ Jonson replied. Amid the mounting tension, the primarch managed a faint smile. ‘If we fail to hold them back and somehow we aren’t both shot to pieces in the process, I’m going to hold you personally responsible for this.’
Nemiel nodded. ‘Duly noted, my lord,’ he said in a deadpan voice that would have made Brother-Sergeant Kohl proud.
The enemy vehicles advanced from three sides, nosing their way through the maze of close-set buildings and closing in on the assembly building. By careful planning or sheer, diabolical luck, most of the enemy vehicles emerged from cover at the same time. Nemiel counted ten Rhino APCs and, directly ahead, a patched-up battle tank. A square metal plate had been bolted over the crater blasted in its glacis by a lascannon bolt, and the rebels’ technicians had jury-rigged enough of its wrecked controls to get it back into action. The tank shuddered to a halt as the rest of the APCs surged forward. Its turret tracked fractionally to the left and the battle cannon fired.
The heavy shell howled through the air towards the Dark Angels and struck Brother Titus’s armoured torso. The Dreadnought vanished in a thunderous blast, hurling bits of its arms and chest high into the air. Shrapnel rained down on the defenders, the metal fragments pinging off their armour.
Jonson straightened in the wake of the blast, his expression tense. Twenty metres away, the Rhinos came to an abrupt halt. Assault ramps dropped to the ground as ten squads of pale-armoured Astartes disembarked and took shelter behind the cover of their vehicles. Farther back, the tank traversed its turret to the left, taking aim on a Dark Angels squad.
‘This won’t work,’ the primarch snarled. ‘That tank will sit back there and shoot us to pieces, and then the Sons of Horus will sweep in and mop up the survivors.’ He drew the Lion Sword and held it aloft. Sunlight shone on its razor edge. ‘Forward, brothers!’ he cried. ‘For honour and glory! For Terra! For the Emperor! Forward!’
All sixty Dark Angels rose to their feet in a single, fluid motion and advanced towards the Sons of Horus, a thin line of black against a waiting phalanx of white. The battle cannon boomed again, but the gunner failed to adjust for the sudden enemy advance, and the shell blasted a gout of dirt and permacrete into the air behind the Astartes. The rebel warriors rose from cover and opened fire as well. Plasma bolts and shells stabbed out at the advancing Imperials, and the Dark Angels returned fire. The two formations drew inexorably together. Nemiel clutched his crozius tightly and prepared for one final battle.
A tremor rippled through the ground beneath their feet – very faint at first, but growing in strength with each passing moment. Nemiel felt it through the soles of his boots and turned to Jonson, who had felt it, too. A throaty roar filled the air behind them, swelling outwards in a solid wall of sound as one of Horus’s mighty siege machines rumbled slowly onto the battlefield.
The war machine rose like a plasteel and ceramite mountain over the Astartes, its Hydra flak batteries and mega-bolter turrets along its flanks traversing to bear on the enemy ranks. The multi-barrelled laser batteries opened fire, unleashing a torrent of bolts at the stationary battle tank. The tank all but vanished in the glare of hundreds of detonations as the laser bolts pounded the armoured hull. Individually, each shot lacked the power to penetrate the mighty tank’s reinforced ceramite plates, but one among the hundreds of impacts landed a direct hit on the plate steel bolted hastily over its former wound and burned straight through. Smoke billowed from the tank’s open ports as the thermal effects of the bolt incinerated the crew in a split second.
A pair of mega-bolters roared to life next, sending a stream of heavy calibre shells over the heads of the Dark Angels and into the enemy’s ranks. Rhinos shuddered beneath dozens of hits and were torn apart in seconds; the Astartes standing alongside them fared little better. The Sons of Horus recoiled under the storm of shells; dozens of the warriors fell, their armour riddled with holes. The rest wavered for a moment more and then broke, retreating swiftly back into cover among the surrounding buildings. Mega-bolter shells pursued them the entire way, slaying a dozen more before the rest could escape.
The Dark Angels stood in the shadow of the immense war machine, wreathed by wisps of fyceline propellant from the barrels of the mega-bolters and numbed by the awesome roar of the guns. Alone among them, Lion El’Jonson turned to the enormous engine and raised his sword in salute.
‘Well done, Brother Titus!’ he called over the vox. ‘You could not have arrived at a more opportune time.’
‘Techmarine Askelon deserves your accolades, my lord, not I,’ replied Titus’s synthetic voice. ‘It was no small feat merging my MIU with the war engine’s interface without access to the original STC blueprints; only the specialised tools and equipment in the assembly building allowed him to modify the vehicle’s interface with my neural connectors. I regret that I am still unable to access the vehicle’s shield array, and my locomotion is still very slow and clumsy, but all weapons systems are fully functional.’
Jonson stared up at the mountain of metal. ‘Brother Titus, can your surveyors detect the star port to the south?’
‘The unit is in need of calibration, but yes, I am registering it on my array,’ Titus replied. ‘I am detecting twelve heavy transports and numerous small vehicles.’
The primarch nodded. ‘Load a shell into your siege gun and destroy the site.’
Titus hesitated for only an instant. ‘At once, my lord,’ he replied. With a ponderous moan of heavy-duty motors, the giant cannon barrel began to elevate. ‘Loading will complete in five seconds,’ Titus said. ‘I advise that you take cover behind me. I cannot adequately gauge the effect the gun’s concussion will have when it is fired.’
As primarch and war machine spoke, Nemiel cast his gaze upon the devastation that Titus had wrought. Scores of Astartes lay dead, surrounding misshapen metal hulks that were functioning APCs just a few minutes before. Behind him, heavy plasteel machinery rattled and groaned as the siege gun’s auto-loading mechanism fed a magma shell into the cannon’s breech. Recalling what such shells had done to the forge, he felt a deep sense of dread. What horrors could a warlord wreak with such weapons at his command?
The Astartes withdrew a hundred metres behind the huge machine, nearly to the entrance of the assembly building itself. Nemiel glanced over at Jonson, and saw the primarch staring off to the southwest, towards the unsuspecting star port.
The air blazed with a flare of orange and yellow light as the cannon fired, rocking the massive war machine back against its drive units. Nemiel felt the concussion of the blast like the fist of a god striking his chest; several of the Astartes staggered beneath the blow, while downrange the pressure wave hurled the wrecked Rhinos about li
ke broken toys. The magma shell roared skyward, flaring like a shooting star until it was lost from sight behind the planet’s thick overcast.
They waited in silence, counting the seconds as the shell reached its apogee and began to fall to earth once more. Two minutes after the shot there was a flash of searing white light on the southern horizon, followed by a furious rumble that shook the earth where the Astartes stood, more than thirty kilometres away. A hot breeze wafted against their faces, smelling of molten steel and ash, and a slowly-rising pillar of dirt and debris climbed portentously into the sky. With a single stroke, the enemy ground force had been utterly destroyed.
‘Such is the fate of all traitors,’ Lion El’Jonson said. The implacable look in the primarch’s eye made Nemiel’s blood run cold.
TWENTY
THE CONQUEROR WORM
Caliban
In the 200th year of the Emperor’s Great Crusade
FOR THE THIRD time in twenty-four hours, Zahariel found himself locked into the jump seat of a Stormbird, his ears full of thunder and his eyes brimming with dark thoughts.
The angels of Caliban’s deliverance descended on the Northwilds arcology clad in fire, smoke and burnished iron. Luther had ordered a ballistic approach for the assault forces, so the drop ships literally fell from the sky upon the beleaguered city. To the panicked Jaegers securing the landing platforms on the arcology’s upper levels it was like a scene from a mythical Armageddon.
The command squad went in with the first wave. Zahariel’s stomach leapt as the transport pulled out of its dive less than a thousand metres over the arcology and the Stormbird’s pilot gave full power to the thrusters scant seconds before touchdown. His gauntleted hands tightened on the haft of the force staff resting between his knees as he counted down the seconds until landing. Around him, the other members of the squad made final checks to their wargear with swift, practised movements. The atmosphere in the troop compartment was electric. Even Brother Attias seemed unusually animated, his steel-plated head turning left and right as he spoke words of encouragement to the Astartes at his side. The words of Luther’s speech on the embarkation field still rang in their ears, calling them all to glory.
