by Various
‘I have no wish to fight you,’ said Ulrik. ‘When we have the Great Wolf, we will leave.’
‘And then you will return,’ said the shas’el, ‘and exterminate us. This is the way of your Imperium.’
‘We will–’
‘You will leave,’ interrupted the shas’el. ‘You will not make demands of us. You will not be granted shelter on our world, nor a petition to our rulers or mercy from our guns. Turn your ship around, Space Wolf, and leave, or you will be blasted from the void. There is no need of the water caste’s words here. There is no need for negotiation. You will obey us or you will die. This is the Imperial way of diplomacy, is it not? You should know it well.’
‘Let us recover our dead,’ said Ulrik. ‘This is no more than you would ask of us.’
‘We would ask nothing of you,’ said the shas’el. ‘I called for this meeting so I could see you face to face, one warrior to another, and avoid more unnecessary bloodshed. If you possess any of the honour of which your Imperium likes to speak, you will preserve the lives of your people and swallow your pride, and leave this world to the Tau Empire that is sovereign over it. Were I water caste I would speak on, no doubt, but I am fire caste, and I see only war. So the talking is done.’
Shas’el Malcaon turned and walked back to the shuttle’s airlock, twin drones in tow.
‘Wait,’ said Ulrik. ‘You cross one Space Wolf, you cross us all. We are not like the humans of the Imperium you may have encountered in the past. We will swear an oath and pursue you to the end of the galaxy.’
‘You are at the end of the galaxy, Space Wolf,’ replied the shas’el. ‘And we can bear a grudge as well as you.’
The airlock door hissed closed.
‘They are telling the truth,’ said Shipmistress Asgir. ‘They can destroy us if they wish.’
‘This is one of the fastest ships in fleet,’ replied Ulrik. ‘Can we outrun them?’
Asgir looked between the faces of the Space Wolves assembled in her ready room. Their huge armoured bodies crowded the normally spacious room, which was hung with antique star charts and the accumulated trophies of a lifetime commanding ships in the void. Ulrik was accompanied by his force’s pack masters, Hef Sunderbrow and Tanghar Three-Finger, and the Blood Claw Lief Stonetongue.
‘We can outrun their capital ship,’ said Asgir. ‘But the rest of their fleet will get around us to block our path. Wherever we go, they can bring us to bear and hammer us with their weapons.’
‘Can we not shelter on the far side of Dactyla?’ asked Lief Stonetongue. The members of a Blood Claw pack were typically few in years, for the recklessness of a young Fenrisian was suited to the Blood Claws’ close combat method of war. Stonetongue was much older than his charges, for he had proven so proficient in up-close butchery that he had not moved on to the Grey Hunters as most Blood Claws did. The lower half of his face was tattooed blood-red, as was typical of the Stonetongue tribe, and he wore a jangling collection of enemies’ fingerbones from rings though his ear. ‘Redmaw’s flagship pulled that off in the Battle of Ghul Mar Reach.’
‘Redmaw wasn’t fighting the tau,’ replied Asgir. ‘We could get to the sensor shadow behind Dactyla, but we’re being constantly scanned from planetside. The tau have an installation down there that would be watching us every mile of the way. No one on the Canis Pax can make ordure without the aliens knowing.’
‘An installation,’ said Hef Sunderbrow, one of the Grey Hunter pack leaders. ‘Just one?’
‘The planetary scans say it’s a single command centre with several sensors covering all angles of the planet,’ replied Asgir.
‘A command centre we can destroy,’ said Lief Stonetongue.
‘Not from orbit,’ said Asgir. ‘Their fleet would shoot us down before we got close. And they’ll have the place covered with enough point defence to seal it up.’
‘Good,’ said Stonetongue. ‘It’s never satisfying to win a battle from orbit.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ said Asgir. ‘Vaporising xenos from a thousand miles away is what keeps me warm at night.’
‘Loath though I am to deny the shipmistress’ proclivities,’ said Tanghar Three-Finger, ‘I would be much aggrieved to leave Dactyla without wetting the rocks with some xenos blood.’ Three-Finger was solid and predictable, a Grey Hunter who bowed to the chain of command. He had no imagination, but he was trustworthy, which to Ulrik was as valuable a quality. His shaggy mane of red-brown hair hung down over the many honours pinned to his armour.
‘How long can the Canis Pax survive if the tau move against us?’ said Ulrik.
‘If they throw everything they have?’ said Asgir. ‘Twelve hours. After that we’ll be spent, and those flat-faced grox-rutters will be free to do whatever they want to us.’
‘Then we will make twelve hours enough,’ said Ulrik. ‘Three-Finger and Sunderbrow, remain on the Canis Pax to repel any boarders.’
‘And where will I be?’ asked Stonetongue, with a dangerous smile.
‘With myself and the Wolf Guard,’ said Ulrik. ‘On Dactyla.’
Dactyla was as bleak a rock as existed in the galaxy. Its dying star was a smouldering red eye that bled a painful light. The planet itself was a knot of broken rock jammed together into a jagged sphere. The world had once held a sizeable Imperial population, as evidenced by the husks of cities still clinging to its intact land masses. Some time after settlement the planet had been pushed and pulled by a sudden burst of conflicting gravities, shattering the surface and forcing its abandonment. Now it was dead and empty, the dried-out skeleton of a world scattered with ruins.
Njal Stormcaller’s rune-readings had brought Logan Grimnar to this place. Throne knew what was on this planet worthy of the Great Wolf’s attention. Ulrik knew that whatever it was, it was not the corpse of Leman Russ. Nevertheless there had to be something on Dactyla, something that pulled at the threads of fate strongly enough to have Njal’s runes point the way.
Perhaps Dactyla’s secret was the same thing that had stoked the tau’s interest here. Their structures dotted the rocky world, gripping the mountain peaks or floating anchored in Dactyla’s thin upper atmosphere. It seemed that even the industrious xenos were only just clinging to the planet, the spindly transmitters and scanners like scraps of spider web about to blow away on a solar wind.
One of the few stable points on the planet was the southern pole, where a broad plateau of rock was covered in shattered and fallen Imperial ruins. Once a mighty city had stood here, but now only ruins remained. It was here that the tau had set up the heart of their operations, a series of connected domes protected by drone turrets and a hangar of fighter craft. The Canis Pax’s scans had suggested a conventional gunship or shuttle landing would be suicidal, as the tau were a technologically adept race and their anti-air weaponry would swat such a craft out of the sky.
Thankfully, the Space Wolves did not do things conventionally. The Canis Pax’s complement of drop pods was prepped and loaded into the launching bays, and as the strike cruiser fled from the tau fleet past the disc of Dactyla, they were deployed.
Twelve minutes later, just beyond the predicted range of the tau air defences, they landed in a deep, black-shadowed valley, and the Space Wolves invaded Dactyla for the second time.
Lief Stonetongue crept back from the top of the ridge. His Blood Claws waited with uncharacteristic patience just below the ridge. The thin air of Dactyla necessitated the wearing of helmets, even though Blood Claws often showed their bravado by going into battle bare-headed. They had painted their faceplates with the black and red stripes they typically wore as warpaint.
‘Drone patrol’s passing,’ voxed Stonetongue. ‘But we can’t get in unseen. The xenos will be alert to us in a few minutes.’
‘Then we shall teach the tau how to fight,’ replied Ulrik. He was further down the ridge with the Wolf Guard, huge in their Terminator armour, beside him. ‘Lead the charge, Brother Stonetongue.’
Lief Stonetongue let out a long
, rising howl, amplified through the force’s vox-net. The Blood Claws joined in, and as the sound reached a crescendo Stonetongue lifted his power sword high and let its energy field leap to life. At the flash of the power field the Blood Claws pack sprinted up the slope and onto the plateau.
It would have been better to do this with the strike cruiser’s armoured vehicles. It would have been better to land the drop pods right on top of their target. But the tau had not given the Space Wolves either option, and so the Blood Claws led the way across the open ground towards the complex deemed most likely to harbour the tau command centre. The strike force could not even use the Stormwolf gunship for air cover – the xenos would bring it down in a heartbeat. This had to be done on foot.
‘Where are you, xenos?’ snarled Stonetongue as he ran. ‘My sword-arm will grow lazy without alien flesh to carve! Would you see my brethren grow fat and indolent, like overfed dogs? Present yourselves and let us teach our bodies discipline by sundering yours!’
The Wolf Guard followed, creating a formation around Ulrik. Their purpose was to protect him as much as it was to play their part in destroying the tau. A tau drone streaked towards the Space Wolves and Brok Oakenheart shot it down with a burst of fire from his assault cannon, the report of the gunfire a strange high thud in the thin air.
The closest dome, one of the smaller outlying structures, lay a short sprint from the Space Wolves. A section of the dome slid aside to reveal a cadre of tau fire warriors armed with long-ranged pulse rifles, flanked by a squadron of a dozen drones each equipped with a pair of automated guns. The tau squad leader activated a handheld device and a series of armoured panels sprang up along the ground around the dome, creating instant rows of cover behind which the tau took shelter.
‘Down!’ ordered Ulrik.
Lief Stonetongue had been on the brink of ordering his Blood Claws to charge in, heedless of the gunfire, to get to grips with the xenos. The tau had superior ranged firepower but up close they could crumble – Stonetongue knew it, and must have been slavering to reap his tally of death in hand-to-hand combat. But by the time his Blood Claws got there they would have been riddled with pulse rifle fire. They might win out, but at the cost of battle-brothers Ulrik could not afford to lose. Not here. Not like this. Every Space Wolf was worth a hundred of these aliens. Ulrik ordered them to seek the shallow cover of the plateau’s dips and scattered rocks, and they obeyed in spite of their instincts.
‘Wolf Guard! Open fire!’ Ulrik pointed towards the tau with his crozius, but the Terminator-armoured Space Wolves beside him did not need much instruction. Oakenheart spun up the barrels of his assault cannon as the other Wolf Guard took aim with their storm bolters.
The assault cannon hammered into the armoured barricades. Storm bolter fire spattered around the tau, who dived into cover as bolter shells burst in miniature explosions. Two drones fell, caught in the metal storm.
‘Now, Blood Claws! Break them!’
The fire had streaked over the heads of the Blood Claws. Now Stonetongue’s brethren leapt to their feet, following up with bursts of bolt pistol fire as they ran. Several of the Blood Claws hurled frag grenades which burst in glittering blasts of shrapnel. By the time the young warriors hit, the tau were barely back on their feet.
Most of the tau had not fired a shot. Gun drone fire fell among the Blood Claws, but there was nothing Ulrik could do about that. He had to trust in their wargear to keep them safe for these few dangerous seconds, and ensure that any who fell would live on as their gene-seed was harvested.
Stonetongue vaulted the barricade. He pounced upon the tau squad leader, who was distinguished by turquoise-coloured flashes on the panels of his red armour plating. Stonetongue crushed him to the ground and followed up with a downwards thrust of his power sword. In the flash of the sword’s power field, Ulrik saw the silhouettes of the other Blood Claws leaping into the fight.
It took seconds. The Blood Claws ripped through the tau. While each fire warrior was a deadly soldier when looking down the sights of his pulse rifle, he had no way to fight back when up close with the raging Blood Claws. Arms were torn from shoulders. Chests were carved open with chainswords. The squad leader’s torso was almost obliterated, leaving a lower trunk and the scorched stumps of his arms and head as the power sword’s field seared through flesh and bone.
The Wolf Guard did not join in the charge. They stayed beside Ulrik, shredding the hovering drones with bursts of fire. Armed with storm bolters and Oakenheart’s cannon, the Wolf Guard sported the firepower of many times their number of unaugmented soldiers.
With the drones scattered and broken, Ulrik joined the Blood Claws at the barricade. They had performed well. Tau blood was pooled liberally on the ground and sprayed across the walls of the dome entrance. Inside the dome, along with banks of alien technology with a purpose Ulrik could only guess at, was the sealed doorway into the covered passageways that connected the domes. The way in.
‘Un-bar the gate, Brother White Bear,’ said Ulrik.
Baldyr White Bear was armed with a chainfist, a massive power gauntlet with a chain-toothed blade extending from the back of the hand. He rammed the blade into the doorway, and the teeth and power field acted in unison to chew rapidly through the reinforced tau construction. In seconds a rectangle was cut away large enough for a Terminator-armoured Space Marine to move through.
Already Ulrik could hear alarms and orders in the tau tongue blaring across the base. The assault had begun scarcely two minutes ago, but the xenos were already reacting. The tau were swift and intelligent in the methods of war. They were adaptable and they possessed exceptionally advanced technology. Fenrisian fury would have to win this fight, fury and speed.
Ulrik felt the wolf inside him snarling at the back of his mind. It wanted to be loosed, to lead him rushing through the tau base killing every alien he found, dragging Stonetongue’s Blood Claws in his wake. But he could not open up the cage. He was the counterpoint to Stonetongue’s recklessness. Without him, the Space Wolves were nothing but headstrong dogs haring after every prey they found, running straight into the gunsights of the tau Fire Warriors.
Ulrik was first through the breach. The passageway was lined with pipes and cabling, and branched off into a web of connected tunnels. At the centre of the web, the scans had suggested, was the eye without which the tau would be ignorant to what was going on over Dactyla. Ulrik’s task was to blind it. If he could not, the Canis Pax would be destroyed and Logan Grimnar would stay lost.
‘They’re trying to get around us,’ voxed Baldyr White Bear. ‘I can smell them. They think they can corner us like vermin in a nest.’
‘Keep moving and do not let them funnel us into a crossfire,’ replied Ulrik. ‘They cannot match us in prowess. They seek to best us with cunning.’
‘There was never a xenos so cunning as my blade!’ snarled Stonetongue through the vox. Ulrik knew the tone in his voice well – his wolf was loose, guiding him headlong. A Space Wolf full of such fury could not be stopped.
Ahead of the strike force was a set of massive blast doors, sealed in response to the Space Wolves’ assault. They were near the centre of the complex now, and there was only one way forward.
Baldyr White Bear did not need ordering to set about the blast doors with his chainfist. These held up better than the previous doors and sparks showered as Baldyr ground his way through the armoured slab. The Space Wolves found what cover there was among the coolant pipes and crates of war materiel.
Ulrik glimpsed a tau warrior at the far end of the corridor behind them, ducking behind cover. This one was accompanied by a handful of drones armed with long-barrelled variants of the fire warriors’ pulse rifles. Its helmet had a set of glowing orange lenses on the front that looked like targeting or magnification equipment.
Mobile projectors were pushed into the corridor, and above the projectors sprang fields of a shimmering milky haze that obscured the tau moving into position. A pulse rifle shot punched through the
haze, boring through the wall beside one of Stonetongue’s Blood Claws. Another caught one of the Blood Claws in the shoulder and sent him sprawling, roaring in pain and anger, to the floor. Two shots hit the Wolf Guard Wsyr Flamepelt, one shearing through his greave. His dropped to one knee, grunting angrily through gritted teeth.
‘We are not trapped like prey,’ roared Stonetongue. ‘They have cornered a predator, and we will turn and devour them!’ He had his power sword drawn and the Blood Claws were making ready to mount a charge. ‘Blood Claws, Fenris’ fury, this floor is far too bare of alien heads!’
Ulrik grabbed Stonetongue by his collar and slammed the pack leader against the wall.
‘You will not charge into their guns,’ said Ulrik, his voice low but powerful. ‘We stay together. We fight as one. Let them string us out and we will be slain one by one. Bury your anger. We are not here to give your men’s lives for a few more alien dead.’
More shots hit home. Another of the Blood Claws was hit in the throat and clutched at where the shot had caught the join between helmet and collar. Flamepelt took a shot full on his shoulder pad – he was barring the way to Baldyr White Bear, shielding his fellow Wolf Guard with the wall of his armoured body.
Bolt pistol fire was stuttering down the corridor in return, but the tau were impossible to target properly through the light-bending field. Oakenheart’s assault cannon hammered bursts of fire, but they were random, too, and the sniper drones kept firing. Every third shot seemed to wound a Space Wolf – one sliced a good chunk from Ulrik’s shoulder pad, and sheared one of the vents from the backpack of his armour.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Baldyr White Bear shouldered aside a section of the blast doors. Ulrik led the way through, more sniper fire pinging and shrieking through the air behind him.
