The xenos immediately responded to the emerging threat – Arden could tell because their attack patterns changed simultaneously. They broke off their pursuit of the Imperial gunships and dived towards the missiles. Enemy interceptors were destroyed as Vendetta gunships, free from their dogged pursuit, turned and hammered them with lascannons. There was no doubt in Commander Graves’ mind, though, that this had all been calculated by whatever intelligence controlled the xenos force. For every ship destroyed, two more were free to open fire. Graves watched as alien weapons punched through the first of the escorting Valkyries. Gryphonne Twelve was blown to pieces, shards of its shattered body tearing through the cockpit of its wingman, and Gryphonne Thirteen tumbled lifelessly from the sky. Gryphonne Nineteen was attacked from above and bisected by alien fire, breaking apart in two jagged halves. An alien ship banked close in front of a Vendetta directly ahead of Graves. The gunship blasted the xenos ship with lascannon fire that sent it into a wild spin. The tip of its crescent form slammed into the port side of the Vendetta’s cockpit, crushing it in on itself and slamming the gunship into one of the missiles it was trying to protect. The Deathstrike and Vendetta fell out of formation together until the missile detonated and claimed them both in searing flame.
‘We are losing missiles,’ Corporal Ness reported, drawing an angry growl from the commander.
The Imperials were outnumbered and the missile barrage was wide reaching, aiming to shatter the capital ship across its extensive hull. Too many of the human ships could do little more than fight for the next second of life as they were systematically isolated from their allies and picked off with precision bursts from the terrible xenos weapons.
While First Wing fought to cut off the enemy’s attack runs, driving them away before they could account for more of the incoming ordnance, they were too few and the enemy too many. One by one, missiles were blasted from the sky, the alien weapons eating holes through their outer shells and leaving them to fizzle lifelessly.
‘Nearly there. Fifteen missiles remain – no – fourteen. Impact in T minus twenty, nineteen…’ Ness began the countdown.
‘Stay close,’ Graves ordered the escorts. Closing on the capital ship, a feeling of unnatural dread threatened to overcome him. He knew the others felt it, too, as once-brave pilots defied his orders and broke formation, wheeling away and fleeing from the target. Graves swore and promised that when this was over each of them would pay for their cowardice. Even so, the desire to give up welled inside him too. This close the true magnitude of the ship became apparent. The Deathstrike missiles seemed mere gnat bites on the hide of a grox, not the instruments of the Emperor’s divine fury that they were. Point defence batteries on the capital ship’s surface opened fire.
‘This is futile, wing commander. I’m not dying here,’ said Airman Dux in Gryphonne Twenty over the vox.
‘Dux! No!’ barked Graves. The wing commander looked down just in time to see Eighth Squadron abandon their missile, only to be blown from the sky by precision fire from the enemy turrets seconds later, their undefended missile following shortly after.
The display threatened to break Graves’ resolve and thoughts of fleeing this place, abandoning the battle and flying as far as his craft could carry him filled his mind.
‘Six, five!’ Ness yelled behind him, snapping him from his despair.
‘Break off!’ the commander ordered, and the survivors of First Wing peeled away. With seconds until impact alien interceptors threw themselves in front of the ordnance, sacrificing themselves for the safety of the capital ship, but they could not stop everything. The remaining missiles struck within seconds of one another. Where each impacted, the ship’s hull was torn asunder. Great smoking black craters pockmarked its surface. For a moment the nauseating alien runes seemed to fade and Commander Graves allowed himself a moment of hope as the capital ship began to list heavily to starboard. His hope was dashed, though, as swiftly as it had formed, as the runes returned to their painful brightness and the ship righted itself. For all the Deathstrikes’ destructive power, there had simply been too few left. As the smoke and flames dispersed, few signs of the damage wrought upon the ship remained.
‘Magos Dominus Omicron-231 to Wing Commander Graves. Damage report.’
‘Minimal damage, I repeat minimal damage. Hostile capital ship is still active,’ he said dourly.
‘But…’ said Ness.
‘It is not ours to understand the alien, corporal. Only to destroy it. We fight on,’ Graves replied, steel returning to his voice.
‘Wing Commander Graves, return to Gamma One,’ the magos dominus blurted through the vox. ‘Skitarii forces are being overrun.’
‘You heard him, corporal, signal the division. All Valkyries to return to Gamma One and support skitarii ground forces. They know the city. Tell them to use it to their advantage. Vendetta gunships are to maintain aerial supremacy,’ said Graves.
‘Yes, sir. Relaying your orders,’ Ness replied, buoyed by his commander’s resolve.
As they fell back, the surviving Valkyries formed up into ad-hoc formations. Even from range, the magnitude of the attacking force now deployed to the surface of Gamma One was clear, their dull metal bodies advancing in an unrelenting tide. Large, spider-like walkers, floating coffin-like barges and swift serpentine constructs now supported the pseudo-skeletal forms of the xenos foot-soldiers. In the early stages of the battle the alien ships had flown solo; now they attacked in large, precise formations. Defensive fire from the city had slackened as turrets were systematically destroyed by the invaders, leaving wide gaps in the defensive grid for them to slip through unopposed.
Graves watched as five alien aircraft weaved their way through feeble defensive fire. The runes on the hulls of the escorting interceptors faded together, while those of the leading craft brightened. More of the spider walkers appeared on the ground, their terrifying beam weaponry immediately slaying a squad of Mechanicus automata that had been defiantly holding a narrow side street. They stayed standing but slumped lifelessly and were swept away by the uncaring force of the alien advance.
Commander Graves and the Valkyries that had formed around him passed over Gamma One’s outer walls and into the close confines of the city. The immediate transition from high-to-low altitude flying was hard to get used to, but it was a part of the testing of every craft built within any of Antropia’s cities. From within, Gamma One was imposing and claustrophobic. Its tall towers and narrow streets threatened to envelop and crush, punishing the slightest of mistakes. Every pilot of the 41st Division, though, had been stationed upon Gamma One for at least a year, most of them for many more. They had flown through it hundreds of times. They knew every street and alleyway and every twist and turn of their city like hive-world orphans.
Alien ships chased the humans into the shadows. The attackers were picked off as hovering Valkyries emerged from side streets in storms of fire. Others were baited into ambushes or forced into turns even their alien agility could not manage, leaving them crashing through walls of reinforced rockcrete. Slowly, and for the first time, the battle was swinging in the Imperium’s favour.
Gryphonne One turned sharply around the next bend and rolled ninety degrees to slip through the narrow alleyway, barely avoiding another volley of fire from a pursuing enemy craft. Below, Commander Graves registered the position of entrenched skitarii armour through his sensorum. Instantly plotting a return route in his mind, the commander drew his pursuer through the streets, mere nanoseconds ahead. Swooping back towards the skitarii position, he passed over the armoured force. Graves watched with satisfaction as the Onager Dunecrawlers turned their weapons to the air and blasted the alien down in a burst of energy. Freed, Wing Commander Graves reformed with Lieutenant Doran in Gryphonne Two.
‘Commander, I’m picking up a distress signal. Skitarii troops pinned down by snipers, two hundred yards ahead,’ reported Ness.
‘Acknowledged. Moving to engage,’ said Graves.
From a swift fly-by overhead, Graves could see that the xenos had placed themselves in the high windows of a hab-block built for the Adeptus Mechanicus’ indentured workers. Their precision fire had accounted for dozens of the skitarii troopers; red-robed augmented bodies littered the street below. The remaining skitarii were hunkered down behind scraps of fallen rubble, only moving to loose off bursts of ineffectual return fire. Locating the enemy, the Valkyries switched to their vectored engines and strafed the hab-block with multi-laser fire. Alien warriors were punched off their feet and crushed as the inner floors collapsed beneath them.
Throughout the battle Graves was fed constant updates from Ness as his co-pilot gathered scattered reports and bursts of vox-chatter. Gryphonnes Ten and Eleven had plucked two squads of skitarii Vanguard from certain death in a dead-end street with a daring extraction landing. Attack runs by Valkyries from Second Wing had allowed forces from Sigma Maniple to reform their lines and redouble their defence. Omicron-231 fed Graves reports of turrets brought back to life, his tech-priests returning to work, relieved from deadly storms of incoming fire by the strafing runs of guardians overhead.
Together Gryphonne One and Gryphonne Two strafed the rear armour of a hovering alien weapon platform, drawing its attention and that of its escorting warriors. The Valkyries narrowly avoided the return fire until a column of Ironstrider Ballistarii emerged from hiding in a nearby alleyway, cutting the attacking force down in a hail of fire from their heavy cognis cannons. Steadily the enemy on the ground were destroyed, each vanishing from sight, leaving only the destruction they had wrought as evidence of their existence. With their superior knowledge of the terrain, the skitarii and their Navy allies enveloped pockets of the xenos assault, cutting them off from their support and overwhelming them with fire from rad weapons, multi-lasers and all manner of other esoteric Mechanicus weaponry until even the survivors disappeared too. The enemy were broken down, piece by piece and inch by inch as the Imperium reclaimed Gamma One.
‘You’ve done it, commander,’ came Omicron-231’s voice over the vox. ‘We are receiving reports from across the city. The alien forces are withdrawing. Emergency repairs are being conducted on defensive systems. The rites to unleash a second Deathstrike barrage are almost complete and both Gamma Two and Beta Four have estimated they will be in range within seventeen minutes. We shall destroy this menace together.’
‘I didn’t do it alone, magos. We’ve lost a lot of good pilots today,’ said Graves. He let out a deep breath and relaxed. His body was sore from the tension and forces imposed upon it since he first left the city and he let out a low groan of relief.
‘The Omnissiah shall remember them, wing commander,’ said Omicron-231.
‘And may the Emperor welcome them with open arms,’ said Ness.
Graves turned in his seat to see his co-pilot make the sign of the aquila across his chest and bow his head. ‘The Emperor protects,’ Graves added.
The air changed. Graves felt it first as a vibration through his chest, as though he were standing too close to a large vox-caster. Then his skin tingled under his jumpsuit and the hairs on his arms stood on end. Peering back over his shoulder he could tell Corporal Ness was feeling it too.
The city was struck a blow like the wrath of ancient gods. A single lancing, crackling beam of green lightning, sparking white with its intensity, punched clean through Gamma One, leaving a jagged hole wide enough to swallow a Valkyrie several times over. Even without seeing its source it was clear where the destruction had begun. Only one thing could have borne such a weapon. The capital ship. The weapon narrowly missed Gryphonne One, but Two had not been so lucky. Caught on the edge of the blast the beam hit the left side of the Valkyrie. Lieutenant Doran and his co-pilot were killed instantly as they were atomised along with half their vessel, the remains left to plummet to the ground and explode. The city listed heavily as the anti-gravity plating responsible for holding it up failed, either directly destroyed by the catastrophic blast or giving out as its power was cut.
Graves saw skitarii troops thrown to the ground as the world shifted beneath them. They were crushed as buildings weakened by the fighting collapsed on top of them. Secondary explosions were already ripping through Gamma One. The lights of the power plants were fading. The defensive turrets that had still been active moments before were falling dormant again. Arden Graves could only look on in despair as the place he had called home for the past five years crumbled beneath him.
The vox came to life again.
‘This is… Magos… Dominus… Omicron-231. Are you out there Wing… Commander Graves?’ For the first time in all the years he had known him Arden could detect emotion in the magos’ voice. It was pain, as the city’s leader struggled for every word.
‘I’m here, magos.’
‘It seems… that I… spoke… too soon.’ The magos’ mechanical voice was broken by bursts of harsh static that Graves could only interpret as coughs. ‘I have been… analysing battlefield… archives. I believe what we are facing are called… the necrontyr.’
‘Do you know how to defeat them, magos?’ asked Graves.
‘Negative, wing commander. Imperial records on them are… incomplete. However, I believe in destroying us… the necron ship, a tomb ship… has given us… hope,’ said Omicron-231.
‘There are too few of us remaining to form a worthy defence. I will lead the survivors back to Gamma Two. There we can–’ said Graves.
‘No… There is no time. The necrons must be destroyed, here… now. If they escape…’
‘We cannot fight them.’
‘You can. I was attempting to analyse the… tomb ship when it attacked. I was able to see… glimpses of its power network. If I am correct, its central power nexus is the crystal at the base of the primary… structure. Rites of launching for a second Deathstrike barrage are complete.’
‘But the barrage was useless.’
‘The ship is weak now… I believe it has not reached its full strength and… firing its main weapon has left it… vulnerable. Our previous attack was unfocused. Its targets too broad. We will focus our second barrage on… the nexus. My analysis returns a sixty-three point four-nine-one per cent chance that a strike of sufficient force will… trigger a chain reaction that will cripple the vessel. There is, however… a problem,’ said the magos.
‘What is it?’
‘Our… higher sensorum was damaged in the attack. I cannot precisely target the nexus from here. I am afraid, wing commander, I must ask… a great deal of you.’
‘Anything, magos,’ said Graves.
‘You must… activate your Valkyrie’s emergency homing beacon. I shall target you with the missile strike. You, wing commander… will have to… show them the way.’
‘That’s suicide!’ said Ness.
‘Quiet, corporal. Activate the beacon,’ said Graves.
Ness paused for a moment. ‘Yes, sir. Activating now.’
‘Beacon active, magos.’
‘I see it, wing commander. Targeting… Go now. You will not be able to outrun them… for long. Omnissiah guide you. Omicron-231… out.’
Gryphonne One gunned its engines and emerged from the shadow of the dying city.
‘Sir, I think if we deactivate the beacon late enough we will be able to escape the blast zone without compromising the attack. I’m calculating now only a ten per cent margin of error if we disengage within–’ said Ness.
‘No, corporal,’ said Graves sternly. ‘There can be no margin of error. We will see this through to the very end.’
Ness paused. ‘Understood, commander.’
Where once had been a cyclone of aerial combat there was now little more than sporadic dogfights. Commander Graves estimated the 41st Division had taken seventy per cent casualties. He knew, though, that those who remained would fight to th
e very end if he asked them to. That was what he was about to do.
‘Signal all surviving vessels to form up on us,’ said Graves.
All the ships fell in around him. Each was scarred by the burn marks of overheated weapons or the scoring of glancing enemy fire, or was trailing thin streams of black smoke from injured engines. Of a force of near eighty craft, now only seventeen remained.
‘Our target is the capital ship’s main power source, the crystal at the base of the primary structure. Deathstrike missiles are incoming, targeting me. I will lead them to their target but I need you all to keep both the missiles and I flying. If you wish to pray, now would be the time.’ Behind him Graves could hear Corporal Ness quietly reciting the Litanies of Faith.
The formation turned in a wide arc that brought them into line with the tomb ship, and from behind them the second barrage of Deathstrike missiles was launched from the crippled city. Fewer in number, where before they had launched in a wide-reach fan, now they flew in a tight cluster chasing Gryphonne One at the centre of the formation of Imperial gunships.
The necron interceptors outnumbered them two to one and the target was still hundreds of yards away. The surviving Vendetta gunships ranged ahead as necron craft turned on them. The twin beams of heavy alien weapons fire from beneath their metallic hulls cut the first Vendetta from the sky, only to be cut down in turn by retaliatory lascannon beams. More of the interceptors swarmed, coming at the Imperials from all angles. A damaged Valkyrie to Commander Graves’ right was cut to ribbons by arcing green lightning from below. Another ship beneath him fell away as its engines exploded, and Gryphonne One’s wing tips were caught in the blast.
‘We’ve just lost Gryphonne Eleven and Eagles Six and Twelve. Two missiles have been disabled,’ reported Ness.
‘Just give me the range, corporal.’
‘Three hundred yards and closing, commander.’
Fourteen ships remained. A trio of necron ships came at them head-on. Graves could only watch as their massed firepower destroyed another Vendetta and the Valkyrie behind it as the second craft collided with the burning wreckage of the first, the commander only narrowly able to avoid being caught himself.
On Wings of Blood Page 24
