More Warhammer 40,000 stories from Black Library

LORDS & TYRANTS
An anthology by various authors

SHIELD OF THE EMPEROR
An omnibus edition of the novels Fifteen Hours by Mitchel Scanlon, Death World by Steve Lyons and Rebel Winter by Steve Parker

HONOURBOUND
A novel by Rachel Harrison

CADIAN HONOUR
A novel by Justin D Hill

SHADOWSWORD
A novel by Guy Haley

BANEBLADE
A novel by Guy Haley

• GAUNT’S GHOSTS •
By Dan Abnett

THE FOUNDING
An omnibus edition containing books 1–3:
First and Only, Ghostmaker and Necropolis

THE SAINT
An omnibus edition containing books 4–7:
Honour Guard, The Guns of Tanith, Straight Silver and Sabbat Martyr

THE LOST
An omnibus edition containing books 8–11:
Traitor General, His Last Command, The Armour of Contempt
and Only in Death

THE VICTORY PART ONE
An omnibus edition containing books 12–13:
Blood Pact and Salvation’s Reach

BOOK 14: THE WARMASTER

BOOK 15: ANARCH

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

MEDUSAN WINGS

-01.0-

-02.0-

-03.0-

-04.0-

-05.0-

-06.0-

-07.0-

-08.0-

-09.0-

-10.0-

-11.0-

-12.0-

-13.0-

-14.0-

-15.0-

-16.0-

-17.0-

-18.0-

-19.0-

ACCEPTABLE LOSSES

STURMHEX

WRAITHBOUND

IN SERVICE ETERNAL

STORMSEEKER

THE EMPEROR’S GRACE

WRAITHFLIGHT

DOOM FLIGHT

ANCIENT HISTORY

RAPTOR DOWN

WINGS OF BONE

About the Authors

A Black Library Publication

It is the 41st millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that He may never truly die.

Yet even in His deathless state, the Emperor continues His eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

MEDUSAN WINGS

Matt Westbrook

The world of Medusa hung in the void like a sphere of knapped stone worn smooth by the aeons. Girdling its equator hung the blackened ruins of the Telstarax, the skeletal remnants of an ancient space station that encircled Medusa in a ring of dark iron. Vast tempests curdled its skies, spanning continents as they ceaselessly abraded the planet’s surface.

A star had once fallen through those storms, striking the harsh, unforgiving soil below. The child that had emerged from the star ten thousand years ago would shape the fate of Medusa for all time, as he rose to become the son of a god.

The child who became Ferrus Manus had rallied the disparate, warring clans that dotted Medusa’s storm-weathered flesh, joining them as one beneath his implacable will. After reuniting with his father, the Emperor of Mankind, Manus assumed command over a Legion of Space Marines. The primarch returned to the stars from which he had fallen to join the Emperor’s Great Crusade in the reclamation of the galaxy. He spread the light and order of the nascent Imperium of Man, binding worlds beneath his will as he had with Medusa, before betrayal and weakness destroyed him in the fires of the great Heresy.

And so, ten millennia hence, the sons of Ferrus Manus continue the work of their father in service to the Imperium of Man. They are the legacy of their primarch, crafted in his image and haunted by his failure. The fall of Manus drove them upon their own course, one that spurned the frailties of mankind in favour of the rigid bulwarks of logic and iron. They fought from beneath the shadow of their father, defending the realms of the Imperium and bringing annihilation to its foes in his place.

They were his Iron Hands.

-01.0-

The blackness of the void quivered as reality began to bleed. Pinpricks of tortured light winked into existence, pulsing and swelling as they coalesced. In a flash of weeping radiance, all the more eerie for its silence, the frothing knot of space ruptured. The wound in reality tore down its middle, a gash in the fabric of the material universe, suppurating with nightmarish illumination. A rift between the real and the unreal had been opened.

From the churning psychic miasma of the warp, a shape passed through the rift into reality. It was a slender blade, black against the roiling rift. Ribbons of disintegrating daemons, the ancient denizens of the warp, cleaved in vain to its hull as they burned at the sudden exposure to the reality beyond the chaos of their dominion. The ship was a city floating through deep space, though despite the tens of thousands of trained crew it bore, it was counted as one of the smaller of its sisters among the fleet. In the present instance, it plied the void alone.

The remainder of the vessel’s journey was brief, and it soon beheld its destination. As the ebon warship slipped closer to Medusa, hearth of the primarch Ferrus Manus and the bastion of the Iron Hands Chapter, a lone Space Marine returned to be reunited with his kindred.

Atraxii felt the changes rippling through the Corporeal Lament as it translated from the warp and entered real space. He understood it through the alteration of the vibrations in the deck plating beneath his boots, the deviation of the Gladius-class frigate’s reactor output as its protective Geller field was deactivated and real space plasma drives engaged, fluctuations of temperature and pressure, and exactly four hundred and eighteen other rapidly confirmable points of data.

A member of the Corporeal Lament’s mortal, unaugmented crew, or even Atraxii himself, in a past life, might have said that they had felt such a change occur. The conveyance of the information by such imprecise means rang hollow and inadequate to the Iron Hands Space Marine now, a frail attempt of the flesh to understand the world by means that paled in comparison to the boon of data collected by the machine.

Atraxii stood alone upon a rising lift platform, encased in thrumming power armour. Where his brethren marched to war in suits of matte-black, the curving ceramite plates of Atraxii’s wargear were lacquered in bright, arterial scarlet, gleaming from the worshipful application of lapping powder and sacred oils. In deference to the spirit that inhabited the armour, he still bore the deep midnight plate of the Chapter upon his left shoulder pauldron, bearing the laser-etched heraldry of the Iron Hands in the stark, uncluttered manner that so defined the sons of the Gorgon. Set in a disc of polished jet and pearl below his sternum was the cog and skull of the Machina Opus, the iconography of the Space Marines ordained as Techmarines by the Martian priesthood of the Adeptus Mechanicus.

From the bulk of the plasma cell generator mounted upon Atraxii’s back, a quartet of multi-jointed servo-arms gave him a spider-like appearance. The lower pair, folded beneath the arms of the Space Marine, ended in a grasping power claw and diamond-tipped industrial drill. Above his shoulders perched one armature tipped with a flamer, while the other mounted a plasma cutter, pulsing with the energy of a caged star.

Atraxii’s bare head was pale and hairless. Golden wire, finer than human hair, adorned his pallid skin, describing mechanical constellations across his face. His eyes, replaced by orbs of silver, gleamed with stark blue light.

Slowly, Atraxii lowered his helm over his head, sealing himself fully within his battleplate. The Space Marine’s retinal display linked with his bionic eyes, and panels of information leapt across his vision in screeds of pale blue. The vermillion brackets of targeting reticules flickered across the confines of the lift platform, tirelessly combing Atraxii’s surroundings for threats.

Taking a slow breath of the recycled air of the Adeptus Astartes warship, Atraxii flexed his grip upon the power axe held low across his hips – both a symbol of his sacred office and an exquisite killing implement. The Space Marine tightened his hold on its dark adamantium haft, feeling the energy of its spirit straining to be released in the form of its blistering power field. The name of the weapon, ‘Sufferentium’, was etched in silver across its cog-shaped ebon blade.

The vox-link in Atraxii’s helm chirruped as the lift neared its destination. He opened the link with a synaptic impulse, barely more than a reflex as he ignored the rumble of the machinery that echoed beyond the platform.

‘My lord,’ spoke a voice, a reed-thin and mechanical rasp.

‘I acknowledge,’ replied Atraxii to the human serf who served as the shipmaster of the Corporeal Lament.

‘High anchor has been achieved over sacred Medusa. Praise be.’

‘Praise be,’ Atraxii echoed, as the lift shuddered to a halt. The bulkhead parted, exposing a crowded corridor leading to a wide chamber. Robed adepts tending to machines genuflected as he strode between them and the hardwired servitors manipulating banks of keys and brass dials that lined the walls.

‘All is in readiness,’ said the shipmaster. ‘The rites and consecrations have been completed in preparation for your arrival.’

Atraxii said nothing. Such a statement was a redundancy he would not contribute to with reiteration. He had himself performed the blessings on the craft which he now beheld.

‘You are prepared, lord?’ the serf asked.

‘Affirmative,’ answered Atraxii. Mist rolled and coiled around his boots as the Techmarine approached the imposing avian form of a Stormraven gunship. Serfs scurried away from the Space Marine drop-ship, disconnecting fuel lines and applying sacred unguents to its weapons arrays. The Stormraven’s thrusters flexed and fired bursts of bright azure flame, sending tremors rippling through air that smelled richly of ozone and burning fuel.

‘Blessings of the Machine be upon you, lord.’ Atraxii could hardly hear the shipmaster’s voice, relegated to the outskirts of his focus as the Stormraven’s assault ramp rumbled down to admit him.

‘Medusa hails the return of its son.’

-02.0-

Atraxii had travelled via Stormraven gunship on two hundred and eighty-six occasions previous to this instance. His studied understanding of the sacred technology of the craft removed any mystery it might once have held as it bore him from the Corporeal Lament down to the surface of Medusa. Experience maintained his stoic calm as the drop-ship vanished into the churning tempests that veiled the planet. Minor turbulence shivered through the deck beneath his boots as he passed through the storm-ravaged skies of his home world. He had travelled between vast starships, onto exotic worlds and into the centre of raging warzones heaped with the dead and dying. Yet this, this single brief journey from orbit to surface, stirred something within the Iron Hands Space Marine. He experienced it fractionally, an unexpected caress lasting half of the time required for his hearts to beat. He spent another heartbeat in analysis to attain recognition.

Atraxii’s mind confirmed his suspicion in an instant. An elevated triggering of neurochemicals, brought about by accumulated memory and predictive stimuli, had resulted in the peculiar sensation.

He had experienced pride.

The momentous nature of his return was the likeliest provocation for it. He had departed from Medusa bound for the prized vaults and sacred forges of Holy Mars. He had stood upon the rust of its soil for thirty revolutions about the light of Sol, in apprenticeship to the priesthood of the Cult Mechanicus. Atraxii had been exposed to some of the most powerful teachings of the Omnissiah, harnessing the power to mend and appease the spirit that dwelt within the machine.

Atraxii returned now to Medusa to stand before his Chapter kindred, changed. He wore the crimson of Mars, upon which he bore the Machina Opus. He held secrets known only to a handful of souls across the entirety of the galaxy.

He was now ordained Frater Astrotechnicus. Techmarine. Among a Chapter who so venerated the machine, assuming such a mantle was prestigious indeed. Those who had taken the crimson were heavily represented on the Iron Council – the assembly of commanders and Iron Fathers from the clan companies who dictated the future of the Chapter. It was a destiny that might yet lie before Atraxii, should he prove worthy of it.

The prideful sensation evaporated as soon as it arrived. Atraxii was intrigued that his mind would incur something so quaintly biological.

Atraxii stepped down from the platform, looking across the pitted surface of the landing pad. A vast plate of dark iron stretched out around him, rumbling with the beating hearts of titanic engines that carried the fortress across the ever-shifting landscape of Medusa. Atraxii noted an icon of a white cogwheel etched into the walls, simple and without embellishment, encircling a white disc upon a field of black. It was the symbol of Clan Kaargul, the same symbol Atraxii bore as an electoo over his throat.

The mobile fortress of Atraxii’s clan was based upon the same schematics as the land engines that had roamed the surface of Medusa since the earliest eras of its history, raised to the scale required for a Space Marine clan company. Navigating the unstable environment of Medusa, where mountain ranges and oceans were abruptly birthed only to collapse again in an endless cycle of tectonic flux, the planet’s inhabitants were perpetually on the move. Even the Emperor’s superhuman warriors were subject to Medusa’s chaotic whims, which they weathered within the sprawling fortresses possessed by each of the ten clan companies.

A circular iris in the deck of the fortress spun smoothly open fifty yards from where Atraxii stood. As the metal plates slid back, a wide lift platform ground to the surface. Standing upon the platform in neat ranks was a squad of ten Iron Hands, bolters held tightly across their armoured chests. Their armour was bereft of ornamentation, save for the gauntlet icon of the Chapter upon their left pauldron, and the cog symbol of Clan Kaargul on their right. At their fore, striding from the platform at an even, metronomic gait, was an Iron Father.

The giant warrior paused half of the distance between his squad and Atraxii. He slowly spun the head of his double-bladed power axe to the ground, resting it against the weather-stripped deck plating with a dull clang. Segmented power cables hung from the haft of the weapon, linking it to his power pack, where a single thick servo-arm was poised like a serpent ready to strike. The eye-lenses of the Space Marine’s snarling helm glowed like smouldering coals, matching those of the squad standing behind him.

For a few moments, silence hung between them, interrupted only by the lashing howl of Medusan winds. When the words came, they issued low and solemn. The voice was clipped, altered by a bionic throat and rendered even more mechanical when heard via the warrior’s vox-grille. It was the voice of one who had embraced the machine, but who still carried a zealous fury that had reduced cities to ruin and scoured entire worlds of life.

‘Hail, Brother Atraxii,’ the Iron Father intoned, cutting through the gale of Medusa’s endless storms without effort. ‘You have returned to clan and Chapter with honour, a keeper of the secrets of the machine ordained on the soil of sacred Mars.’

The Iron Hands commander spoke in Ekfrasi, the blunt, economical dialect of the Medusan language spoken by Clan Kaargul. For the second time in as many minutes, Atraxii allowed himself a sensation of warmth.

‘Oblexus.’ Atraxii inclined his head. ‘Iron Father.’

Oblexus stepped forwards, and the two Iron Hands brought their fists to their chests in salute. The silver of their bionic left hands gleamed as they thudded against the ceramite of their armour. The Iron Father turned to walk with Atraxii back to the waiting squad of Iron Hands.

‘Your translation from sacred Mars?’ asked Oblexus.

‘Efficient,’ replied Atraxii.

‘The ascension has changed you, brother.’

Atraxii turned his head to regard the Iron Father, noting the elevated ratio of bionic augmentations to his form since he had last encountered him. ‘You are changed as well. The years have been laborious?’

Oblexus nodded, the armour of his collar purring with the motion of its fibre bundle musculature. ‘There have been many campaigns. Many have called for the blades of Medusa to aid in their strife. Flesh has been replaced with steel, brothers have departed. Brother Irimas fell seven years ago, Terran standard, in battle against the Archenemy.’

‘Interred?’ asked Atraxii, his thoughts lingering upon his deceased squad brother.

‘Negative,’ replied Oblexus. ‘He succumbed to the weakness of his flesh, and ended. His progenoids are to be implanted in neophytes within the next cycle.’

The Iron Father’s grim revelation did not break Atraxii’s stride. Amongst all of his squad kindred, Irimas had most yearned for interment within the hallowed sarcophagus of a Dreadnought, to experience the heightened union with the machine that came with such entombment. It was an aspiration of nearly all Iron Hands to one day commit themselves to the transformation, to join with such a relic of the Chapter.

That Irimas had lost the battle waged by each of the sons of Manus against the imperfections of the flesh disappointed Atraxii, but the Techmarine cast the thought aside as an irrelevancy.

The silent squad of Iron Hands parted for Atraxii and Oblexus, forming a ring around the perimeter of the platform as it lowered into the fortress.

‘Let us go, now,’ said Oblexus as the wan light of Medusa disappeared from over their heads. ‘The castellan would look upon you.’

-03.0-

The lift ground to a halt with a clank of perfectly aligned machinery. The wide plate of a doorway slid ahead and to the side into the wall, revealing the orderly expanse of the fortress’ hypogeum. Space Marines of the Iron Hands sat in silent contemplation, attended to their wargear and duelled in the shallow bowls of practice cages. The squad escorting Oblexus and Atraxii filed from the lift in silence, their duty done as the doorway sealed once again.

‘Much of the clan’s strength is here,’ remarked Atraxii.

‘Correct,’ replied Oblexus. ‘Patrols and system monitors are deployed, but the rest remain here. Clan Dorrvok arrives in twenty-six cycles to become sentinel, and soon Kaargul will return in full to resume its duties.’

Atraxii recalled the bustle of the hypogeum, the sense of eager tension like the moments before the breaking of a storm as brothers girded themselves for war. Kaargul was bound by oath to remain sentinel on Medusa while the other clans conducted campaigns across the Imperium.

‘Our brothers appear to be readying to depart,’ said Atraxii. ‘At least a portion of them.’

‘Keen, as you always were, my protégé,’ said Oblexus with as much warmth as his machine voice could convey. ‘A detachment is in readiness to depart, oath-sworn to aid the forces of the Astra Militarum in the Yandi Veil. I am designated to lead the expedition.’

The lift rumbled to a halt once more, admitting the Iron Hands into a corridor of dark iron. The bright glow of lumen strips bathed the passage in sterile light as the footfalls of the Space Marines reverberated from the walls.

‘Is there not concern that the other clans will learn of this?’ asked Atraxii.

‘The scale of the expedition is small, a brief engagement,’ Oblexus replied. ‘The portion of Kaargul remaining on Medusa is sufficient.’

‘It is unexpected for the iron captain to accept such hazard. I would expect acting upon such obligations to be delayed in accordance with the pact between the clans.’

‘Would that it were so simple.’

The voice boomed from the blunt boxes of speaker horns spaced at intervals along the corridor. It was a low, bass rumble, as much a physical sensation as an auditory one as it rattled the mesh beneath Atraxii’s boots. It issued from the core of the moving citadel. It was the voice of the fortress itself, its every spinning cog and plate of armour. Its every missile silo and weapons blister. It was the ozone-wreathed thrum of its void shield generators, and the roar of the captive sun harnessed within its reactor. It was the voice of the custodian of Clan Kaargul.

‘Brother,’ said Oblexus.

‘Come to me,’ commanded the voice.

‘Our arrival is imminent,’ replied the Iron Father.

‘Good,’ the voice spoke, like the synthesised collapse of a fleeting Medusan mountain. ‘I shall take the measure of this warrior returned from the Martian priesthood.’

The two Iron Hands stepped down the darkened passage. They stopped at fifty-yard intervals before reinforced bulkheads flanked with slaved weapons pods and tracking augur arrays which played red and green targeting lights over their armour. As they passed through the last of them, the corridor opened to reveal a large sealed gateway, inscribed with the icon of the clan. Servitor-manned autocannons ground smoothly along their housings as they tracked the approaching figures of Atraxii and Oblexus. A pair of hulking guardians stood vigil, resplendent in the imposing protection of Tactical Dreadnought armour. Still as statues, the warriors of Avernii exuded menace, their peerless excellence in combat elevating them to the chosen few of the Chapter’s veteran elite.

Atraxii understood awe at the sight of them. Terminator armour was desperately rare for the sons of Ferrus Manus. It was a treasure beyond any other, except for what the Iron Hands champions had been tasked to protect.

Oblexus halted before the gateway and its brooding guardians. An aperture parted within the dense iron of the doorway. The air tingled as a beam of scarlet light swept over the Iron Father, and then Atraxii. The light winked out, and the aperture resealed.

With the rumble of great oiled cogs, the gateway parted, slowly grinding along tracks within the walls. The Terminators remained silent and unmoving as their kindred passed through the doorway to the space beyond.

Atraxii stepped down a short series of wide onyx steps into a large decagonal chamber. Banners hung from the walls, borne by Iron Hands of Clan Kaargul in wars across the Imperium. The dense black cloth rippled in the cold air. Many were tattered, singed by fire or dappled with human or xenos blood. Ancient relics of the clan, weapons, fragments of armour and other myriad antiquities hung above plinths of simple black metal, shimmering within stasis fields.

At the centre of the chamber, blurred by void shielding and flanked by an additional four First Company veterans in Terminator armour, was a rounded shape of pale stone, larger than Atraxii’s helm.

Atraxii’s step faltered. It faltered. It took him the entirety of point eight six seconds to regulate his respiration and still his secondary heart from beating. Miniscule beads of perspiration glittered from his brow as his brain struggled to process what was before him.

What lay surrounded by the Chapter’s finest, protected against anything short of orbital bombardment, was not stone. It was a skull.

It was the skull of Ferrus Manus.

Atraxii dropped to his knees, his head low in the presence of the remains of the being that had led tens of thousands of Iron Hands in the days when the Emperor of Mankind walked among mortals. The Terminators snapped from their stillness, levelling the barrels of their storm bolters and assault cannons upon him. Oblexus genuflected beside the Techmarine, his movements born more of practised reverence and expectation than by the shock Atraxii displayed.

‘I am weak,’ gasped Atraxii. He dared not lift his eyes to the plinth the skull rested upon. Disquieting spikes of awe, anger and shame surfaced, warring with his resolve in the presence of the felled primarch. ‘I am unworthy to stand in the presence of the Gorgon.’

‘As are all who seek to expunge the weakness that would see us brought as low,’ a voice rumbled from the back of the chamber. ‘And yet you will stand. Present thyself, Atraxii of Clan Kaargul, and account for the sanction of Mars.’

Slowly, the Terminators lowered their weapons in snarls of fibre bundles. Atraxii looked up, beyond the sacred remains of his slain primarch. The far wall was dominated by an elaborate bank of whirring machinery. Cogs ground against one another in smooth order. Lightning flickered between buzzing diodes, and steam shrouded the floor to knee-height.

Set within the machinery, ensconced and united with the beating heart of the Kaargul fortress, was Venerable Lochaar. The deep sable armour of his Dreadnought sarcophagus was inlaid with a legacy of war in sharp Ekfrasi runes, etched in shining platinum. The chassis was exquisite, a priceless relic of the Iron Hands, millennia old.

Even without arms, slotted into the core of the fortress, Lochaar exuded threat and domination, his shell bulked with dense layers of armour plating designed to spearhead sieges and withstand incredible fury. The armoured plug of a primary sensorium bundle peered over the lip of a high collar, rendered by artificers into a simulacrum of a Space Marine’s helm. The eye-lenses of the Dreadnought blazed with a furnace’s crimson light, as Atraxii and Oblexus approached to stand before him.

Atraxii removed his helm with a hiss of air pressure, placing it before him as he lowered to one knee. It was customary within Clan Kaargul that a warrior reveal the flesh of his face when in the presence of the master of his clan, and while Lochaar was not an iron captain, Atraxii conducted the ritual nonetheless in deference. It was a symbolic submission, a presentation made not in disgust or shame for the biological material remaining, but as a solemn acknowledgement of what perfection the warrior had yet to achieve, and a vow that he would seek to remove the weakness from himself as he made war for the clan. Since the formation of the clan company, its commanders had watched as, with the procession of years, their warriors demonstrated the extent of their advancement towards union with the machine through the increasing levels of augmentation that replaced their flesh.

Oblexus knelt beside Atraxii, but did not remove his helm.

‘There is nothing for the Iron Father to remove, brother,’ boomed Lochaar, as if sensing the subject of the Techmarine’s thoughts. ‘That is his true face now.’

Atraxii processed the information. Oblexus’ augmentations had surpassed even his expectations. The Iron Father’s bionic ratio might be the highest within the Chapter, save for the ensconced Dreadnought looking down upon him.

‘Rise.’

The Iron Hands stood. Atraxii took his helmet, placing it in the crook of his arm as he looked upon Lochaar.

‘Brother,’ said Atraxii. ‘Where is the iron captain?’

‘Iron Captain Rumann attends to the Eye of Medusa,’ said Lochaar in reply, referring to the subterranean vault that served as the seat of the Chapter’s ruling Iron Council. ‘In his stead I guide the watch of Kaargul over Medusa.

‘It is the most sacred of duties performed by the clan who stands sentinel over fair Medusa to safeguard our primarch,’ rumbled the Dreadnought. ‘This is the sixteenth such vigil that I have undertaken among Kaargul, and your first, young Atraxii. I look upon our father during my meditations. I think upon his teachings, joined with the noble spirit of this bastion, and contemplate the primarch from within the tomb that once fought beside him during the Great Crusade.’

The armoured death mask that served as Lochaar’s head panned on grinding servos to regard Atraxii.

‘Much expectation has been placed upon you,’ intoned the Dreadnought. ‘When the name of your flesh was purged and your clan name chosen to take its place alongside the blessed iron, your moniker was indicative of the capacity we recognised within you, even then. Atraxii, in honour of the noble clan lost to the fires of the Great Failing, in the time when we stood as a Legion. You were destined to stand apart from your brothers, and now, returning from sacred Mars garbed in the crimson, you have fulfilled those expectations to my satisfaction.’

‘You honour me, Iron One,’ said Atraxii, his modulated flesh-voice seeming thin and fragile in comparison to the Dreadnought’s.

‘Let these words be spoken once, and never repeated. While you shall walk all the days until your end in the crimson of Mars, your core is of Medusan iron. Ascension to the mantle of Techmarine did nothing to change this, as nothing ever shall. Never forget that, as you carry your blade for the clan, as you bless and sanctify our machines of war and guide them into battle’s crucible. Your core is of iron, and it shall never be broken.’

‘Praise be,’ said Oblexus, making the sign of the cog in a bang of his gauntlets against his armoured chest.

‘Praise be,’ echoed Atraxii.

A low rumble issued from Lochaar, perhaps the mechanical equivalent of a grunt of approval.

‘Iron Father,’ said Lochaar to Oblexus. ‘How go your preparations to depart for the Yandi Veil?’

‘They are efficient, Iron One,’ replied Oblexus, with a slight inclination of his head. ‘The Medusan Wing stands in readiness to–’

The Iron Father paused. Atraxii flicked his eyes towards his mentor, who stood in silence for the entirety of three seconds.

‘There has been an unscheduled translation in-system,’ Oblexus stated.

‘I have detected it,’ replied Lochaar.

‘It bears the noospheric sigil of the Adeptus Mechanicus,’ said the Iron Father. ‘It is the Priori.’

-04.0-

The Adeptus Mechanicus frigate Priori translated from the warp like a knife withdrawn from a wound. It was a long, slender ship, its hull in alternating segments of bronze and rust-red. Its blunt, boxy prow angled towards Medusa as its plasma drives lit, the holy cog-and-skull icon it bore illuminated in the dim light of the system’s star.

The Priori was a slight vessel, small and lightly armed. It was such attributes that saw its class designated for reconnaissance and light escort duties. The bulk of the powerful drives at the rear of the vessel provided it with a nimble aspect and granted it the speed to excel at the swift transmission of emissaries and envoys from Mars.

As Adept Wyn’s ocular clusters whirred into life, pulsing with sharp emerald light, her limbs stirred from their prolonged inaction. She hung a few feet above the deck, on the command dais of the Priori’s bridge, suspended by dozens of her mechadendrites like a marionette twisted in its strings. The segmented cables slotted into interface nodes and input plugs, allowing her utter control of the starship as it plied the stars.

A small army of lobotomised servitors laboured around her in recessed pits and consoles built into the walls. A scarce handful of tech-priests prowled the unlit bridge, their crimson robes rendered the hue of dried blood as they shuffled about their tasks. It was silent, but for the muted clacking of runeboard keys and the muffled dialogue that passed between servitors and adepts in clicking bursts of binary.

Wyn parted the veil of noospheric chatter that encircled Medusa like a buzzing shroud. Defence platforms and system monitors lanced through to her consciousness, demanding that her progress cease and identification be transmitted. An Adeptus Astartes warship, designation Corporeal Lament, came about on an intercept vector. New data washed over Wyn in an urgent tide as she detected the frigate’s weapons acquiring the Priori and priming to fire.

The faint stirrings of what could have once been amusement whispered through the scant biological remnants of Wyn’s body beneath her voluminous robes. A section of her primary logic engine shivered for an instant. A surge of binary, bright and needle-fine, pierced the oncoming waves of menacing code. It would assail the ears of the uninitiated as nothing more than a blaring outburst of jagged, scraping noise. But to one joined with the noosphere, an elevated being with reverence for knowledge and the ways of the machine, it was something different entirely.

It was a song.

It was a magnificent symphonic clarion call, lighting the dark of the void with the history and nobility of hallowed Mars. It sang the praises of the Omnissiah, proclaiming the divinity and power of the Master of Machines who was the keeper of all knowledge. It was a beacon of wisdom amidst the desolate blackness of ignorance. It was a striking declaration of the prowess of the Cult Mechanicus, the equivalent of a rippling banner on the battlefield, or the godlike roar of the striding god-machines of the Titan Legions.

Wyn watched the complexion of the noosphere ripple with adaptation and change. The Corporeal Lament cooled its guns, altering its course to bear alongside the Priori and guide it to anchor at high orbit.

Wyn pulsed another message into the swirling clouds of information, as bright and clear as her proclamation of identity. It was a simple missive, easily translatable by any who wished to do so.

<In the name of the Omnissiah, blessed above all, Mars beseeches the Hands of Iron to take up their blades.>

Atraxii stood beside Oblexus upon the landing pad as the Adeptus Mechanicus shuttle approached. A howling gale ripped at the armour of thirty Iron Hands warriors who waited in silent ranks to admit the Martian emissary. Two columns of fourteen Space Marines formed a corridor leading into the fortress of Clan Kaargul, bolters clasped to their chests. At their fore stood Atraxii and Oblexus.

The newly appointed Techmarine watched as the shuttle broke through the turbulent layers of storm cloud. Atraxii’s attention locked to the pair of dark wedge shapes flanking it on either side.

The Stormhawk interceptor was a compact fighter craft of roughly avian aspect. Its main fuselage protruded from beneath angular, forward-swept wings, sandwiched between a pair of turbine propulsion drives that gave it the look of a pit hound, with shoulders packed with dense muscle. Twin assault cannons tipped the wings, and Atraxii saw missile tubes built into the fuselage, with a formidable las-talon slung beneath the cockpit. There was no armourglass on the fighter, no transparent canopy for the pilot to see through. In its place, a cluster of sensor nodes packed a narrow slit in the craft’s armoured prow.

The two Stormhawks peeled away to either side as the shuttle descended, their escort duty done. Atraxii glimpsed a silver icon, a cog with bladed wings, glinting in the wan light from their flanks.

‘Your squadron,’ said Atraxii, nodding to the Stormhawks as they rapidly shrank from view.

‘Affirmative,’ replied Oblexus, also watching as the pilots of his elite unit departed. ‘They are of the Medusan Wing.’

Engine wash buffeted the Iron Hands below, who remained impassive, still as statues. Thick landing claws clanked out from beneath the shuttle as it landed, sinking on hydraulics as they bore the small craft’s weight. Thick jets of steam hissed from the shuttle, its fuselage ticking as it cooled, souring the air with the acrid, scorched scent of atmospheric re-entry.

A narrow ramp unfolded from an aperture beneath the shuttle’s embarkation hatch. From the low vermillion light of the craft’s interior, a shadowed form emerged. Stepping out into the intermittent light of Medusa, a skitarii ranger surveyed the landing pad before her from the whirring optics of her enclosed rebreather mask. Soft exhalations hissed from the mask beneath the crimson robes she wore parted over her battle armour. After a handful of heartbeats, she hefted the long barrel of her galvanic rifle, cradling it in bionic arms as she strode down the ramp.

A tall, spindly figure appeared behind the skitarii ranger. Swathed in the same rust-coloured robes as her bodyguard, Adept Wyn followed her protector down to the waiting Iron Hands. Her gait was smooth, consistent and precise, as if she floated in the air. Nothing of her body, augmetic or biological, could be glimpsed through the concealment of her robes. All that could be seen were the clusters of optical sensors that glowed like shining chips of jade from beneath the darkness of her hood.

Adept Wyn glided ahead of the skitarii ranger to a short distance before Oblexus. The Adeptus Mechanicus sniper stayed a pace behind and to the right of her charge, her rifle low across her chest with the barrel to the ground.

<Sister of Mars,> Oblexus sent in a burst of binharic. <Be welcome upon Medusa, and the hub of Clan Kaargul.>

The tech-priest inclined her head fractionally. <Gaarum Oblexus,> she replied. <I am Wyn, Adept Tertius of the forge refineries of the fourth world of Halitus.>

Adept Wyn’s waif-thin form was a head taller than the Iron Father, even with her hunched posture. She bent down further, the lenses of her optical sensors ticking and rasping as they focused their lambent glow upon Oblexus.

<It is necessary that I entreat with the Voice of Mars and your master who directs your clan/maniple with immediacy.>

Oblexus’ posture shifted, his prior welcoming openness knit closed. <You are mistaken. The one among us who leads Clan Kaargul is my brother, not my master.>

<Contrition,> canted Wyn, spreading her ghoulish arms to her sides. <I seldom converse with entities beyond the forge refineries. But it is the leader of your maniple/clan with whom I must entreat.>

‘Then you shall do so,’ the voice of Lochaar rumbled. A lift platform iris opened, and the hulking form of the Venerable Dreadnought appeared. He stomped forwards on thick armoured legs, his gait pounding resounding clangs into the landing pad’s surface. Thick ribbons of chainmail hanging from plates of dense armour rattled with every step. The grasping fingers that made up his left fist clenched and unclenched with a whirr of servos. The storm bolter built into his wrist clunked as it fed ammunition into firing chambers.

‘We of Medusa hold the servants of sacred Mars in esteem, as we always have, and thus the Iron Council would grant you audience,’ said Lochaar as he came to a halt. Oblexus and Atraxii stepped away to either side as the Dreadnought loomed over the Mechanicus adept. ‘Tell me why you have come here unannounced. Now.’

-05.0-

The two parties stood apart, crimson and bronze against featureless black.

Lochaar looked down upon the Martian tech-priest, rendered in scarlet monochrome by the screeds of tactical data feedback that constituted his vision. He detected the adept’s skitarii protector shifting, ready to bring her galvanic rifle to bear upon him, should the command come from her ward. His augurs hissed as targeting locks brushed over his ironform, questing for points of weakness.

The sparse biological components left of him, shrivelled and folded as they floated in the brackish fluid of his cramped sarcophagus, gave a fractional twitch. It was not a reaction to the cold – he had endured the marrow-deep chill of his coffin ever since he was interred. Nor was it anger. He knew objectively that each of the Iron Hands upon the platform had done the same, in readiness to destroy the envoy should she attempt any treachery.

It was amusement.

The idea that the lone skitarii ranger could threaten an ironform touched by the Gorgon himself was objectively, definitively, humorous. Lochaar savoured the rare stimulus for a fraction of a second. He had never regretted the degree of separation from his flesh. His interment within the blessed sarcophagus had been, and continued to be, the foremost distinction of his existence. Yet, as it had been nearly one hundred and eighteen complete years, by the Terran standard, since he had experienced such a thing, he embraced the novelty of the sensation for a passing instant.

Adept Wyn raised the ticking lenses beneath her hood, as she finally answered the Dreadnought.

‘I have come,’ she said, her flesh-voice stilted and raw from lack of use, ‘in reference to the alloy between the sacred Adeptus Mechanicus and noble Medusa. Long has it been that the priesthood of the red forges has stood with the sons of Manus. Our forges have furnished the starcraft that bear your maniples. Our labours have armoured your warriors and crafted the weapons they bear to war.’

She regarded Atraxii. ‘We have passed our knowledge to your brethren, and allowed them deeper communion with the Omnissiah.’

Wyn turned back to Lochaar. ‘And in return, the Hands of Iron have stood in defence of the priesthood, and its labours, should circumstance demand it. Such a circumstance has arisen once again, and I have been dispatched to see that our convention remains solvent.’

A low rumble issued from Lochaar, like gears slipping.

‘Show me.’

Adept Wyn stepped within a pace of Lochaar, and raised a skeletal hand of brass. She did not touch the Dreadnought, her metal fingertips lingering just shy of brushing the ebon chassis of the ironform. Her eye-lenses flickered, and a muted squawk of binharic warbled from beneath her cowl.

A concentrated databurst passed through the noosphere between the two as Wyn delivered the message she had been carrying across the stars from Halitus IV. Lochaar’s data feeds swelled with new information as the burst unpacked, showing him what had caused the Adeptus Mechanicus forge refinery to dispatch their adept tertius with such alacrity.

Lochaar was silent for three seconds, before turning and striding back towards the lift.

‘Come with me.’

The journey to the Eye of Medusa lasted two days. In that time, Adept Wyn had not paused in conveying her displeasure with what she deemed an unacceptable length of transit. She had allotted an exact allowance for her time upon the surface of the Iron Hands’ world, and the time needed to reach the seat of the Iron Council had vastly exceeded her timetable. The Iron Hands had borne her vexation in silence, adhering to their routines and protocols as normal until they arrived.

Through monolithic armoured gateways, vast conveyors carried the Iron Hands and the Cult Mechanicus adept down deep below the surface of Medusa. After hours of slow, grinding progress, the conveyor platform halted before a bulkhead emblazoned with the icon of the Iron Hands. Noospheric blurts were transferred, identities were confirmed and concealed weapons arrays returned to standby as the newcomers were admitted within the Eye of Medusa.

They passed through several more heavily defended hardpoints before arriving at their destination, on a path similar to that taken to the core of Kaargul’s fortress but an order of magnitude more formidable. The Chapter had been defined by the death of its leader, and those who had built the Eye of Medusa had taken steps to ensure those who guided the Iron Hands would not fall to a similar fate within its walls.

The central chamber of the Eye was a sweeping space, built to gather the Iron Council who guided the Chapter. Comprising the captains and Iron Fathers from each of the clan companies, the council would convene to coordinate the labours of the Chapter, plot crusades and cement their rivalries amongst each other.

A dome of hewn onyx swept overhead, enclosing a space built to hold gatherings far grander in scale than the small party assembled there. The Iron Council would rarely gather in its entirety, save for the momentous conclaves where historic courses that would affect the future of the Chapter were decided, such as the Tempering, where the Iron Council met to guide the shattered Legion out of the ashes of Isstvan V after the death of Ferrus Manus. Forty-one thrones of brushed steel towered around the perimeter of the chamber, yet only six bore the weight of a Space Marine upon them.

Among their number was Iron Captain Rumann, leader of Clan Kaargul. Mechadendrites and segmented cables wound over the Space Marine’s artificer power armour, and though he sat as immobile as the others, the iron captain’s presence rippled out over the noosphere as the newcomers arrived.

<Kindred.>

<Iron captain,> replied Oblexus as he approached his own throne beside Rumann.

Adept Wyn glided to stand at one end of the chamber, before the Voice of Mars.

A triumvirate of senior tech-priests had maintained a permanent envoy with the Iron Hands since the days of the Tempering, a symbol of the entrenched covenant between the devotees of the Machine-God. The adepts hung within a vertical dais of writhing cables and thrumming brass cogwork, heads lowered as if in contemplation.

Flickering bursts of binary cant linked between Wyn and the Voice of Mars. All of the adepts lifted their right arms in perfect synchronicity. Mechadendrites flashed from beneath their sleeves, snaking towards Wyn and embedding into her slight frame. Her skitarii guardian stood beside her, silently observing the other occupants.

Oblexus sat at his appointed place within the chamber, neural connectors binding him to the throne with a series of sharp clicks, while Atraxii stood below him. Lochaar stood at the fore of his throne, the presence of his venerable ironform dominating all others as the neural interface cables embedded into his sarcophagus.

Adept Wyn turned in a faint rasp of bionics and extended one of her too-long arms towards the centre of the council chamber. A mechadendrite darted from the sleeve of her robe, plugging into an interface node with a muted click.

A hololithic projector built into the floor sprang to life, and a star chart leapt into the air, bathing the occupants of the Eye of Medusa in pale blue light. A section of the star chart pulsed amber and magnified, swelling to fill the entire projection. The chart enhanced again, and again, until a single orb spun slowly beneath the dome.

The planet was a gas giant, a sphere of dense rolling cloud intermittently riven with lightning storms. Blocky shapes were picked out in amber on the projection, with Adeptus Mechanicus designation sigils and accompanying screeds of data scrolling beside them.

<Halitus Four,> canted Wyn, addressing the Iron Hands in binharic once more. The remnants of her throat, atrophied and irradiated from a lifetime in the forges, were incapable of sustained function over extended periods of time.

<Six point eight weeks ago, Terran standard, the forge refineries came under attack by an element of the ork xenos.>

A cluster of red icons blinked into being, massing towards one of the refineries. The icons surrounded it, and its amber light faded. The icons then spread in all directions, a rolling, disorganised advance that swept over the closest installations like a tide. Two more refineries winked out.

<We have posited that the xenos have targeted our installations for the promethium being refined. They have absconded with no less than eighteen per cent of the stores of refined fuel within the facility, which we have tracked being transported to a starship beyond orbit, presumably to replenish their energy supplies. Deep augur scans and servo-probe dispatches confirmed a xenos starship drifting devoid of course or direction, lending credence to the aforementioned hypothesis that it does not have sufficient fuel to prosecute an orbital bombardment. The majority of their engagements have come via aircraft assaults and bombing raids, with limited deployment of ground troops.>

<Your defences?> asked Rumann.

<There is Skitarii Maniple Iota, of the Third Cohort, which has maintained sixty-two point nine per cent combat effectiveness as of my most recent data refresh. An indentured regiment of Vostroyan line fusiliers is present and in full deployment in addition, though their combat effectiveness has been lowered to forty-eight point seven per cent as of my most recent data refresh. The deployed forces are designated for internal security and counter-insurgency roles to maintain order and scheduled quotas. They lack capability to efficiently neutralise the aerial engagements instigated by the orks.

<Adverse impact upon efficient production has been severe. Quota achievement has failed. Delays have become unacceptable, and should the xenos presence continue, the entire facility risks being compromised.>

Adept Wyn withdrew the mechadendrite, which snapped back within the sleeve of her robes. The projection faded into motes of thin light.

Atraxii sensed a tremor through the noosphere as a secure binharic network channel opened.

<Iron captain,> canted Lochaar, his cranial sensor cluster tilting to regard Rumann. <What say you?>

<I am inclined to send a detachment in relief of the forge refineries, Iron One,> replied the leader of Clan Kaargul.

<We must be wary,> sent Oblexus, <that we do not overly weaken our watch over Medusa.>

<Quite so,> canted Rumann. <And if I should deem that the detachment be Medusan Wing?>

Oblexus was silent for a moment.

<Medusan Wing has already been tasked, brother-captain. We are in readiness to fulfil the oaths sworn to reinforce the Astra Militarum in the Yandi Veil.>

<That is so, Iron Father,> sent Lochaar. <But another element of Kaargul cannot be deployed without weakening the defences of Medusa. The Gorgon’s hearth must be our priority, and our covenant with Mars supersedes that of the Astra Militarum.>

<I go where the iron captain commands, but I would not easily forsake an oath made.>

<Nor should you.> Atraxii felt Lochaar’s smouldering eye-lenses settle upon him. <What of you, Brother Atraxii? What course would you elect?>

Atraxii responded immediately. <A statistical comparison of the calculated threat in both scenarios is valid. The escalating threat to multiple subsectors caused by the decommissioning or destruction of a forge refinery world supersedes the threat incurred by not intervening in the hive city revolts within the Yandi Veil. Such insurrections do not bear the wider effect that promethium deficits will cause. We must stand with Mars. As you have said, Iron One, upholding our ancient union with the Adeptus Mechanicus supplants any pact made with mortals.>

Another rumble issued from Lochaar. The Dreadnought looked back towards Rumann and Oblexus, who held his gaze from their own iron masks.

<Spoken as a true wearer of the crimson,> Rumann canted. <So be it. Medusan Wing will go to the aid of the Adeptus Mechanicus in the skies of Halitus Four.>

<Excellent,> Adept Wyn canted, comporting her body language in an expression of satisfaction. <I must express contrition a second time for clandestinely monitoring your communications, but due to the severity of present circumstances, it is necessary that your forces consolidate for deployment immediately. Shall we begin?>

-06.0-

The Corporeal Lament shuddered around Atraxii as it carved through the warp. His metronomic stride set the deck plating clanging as he turned down a junction leading to the primary hangar bay.

The Techmarine could hear the Geller field. He could differentiate its unique timbre from the countless other noises made by an Imperial warship as it squealed against the daemon tides slavering to engulf them. The relatively small contingent of mortals aboard the frigate, save the ship’s Navigator and a spare few others, had been sequestered upon translation to reduce the probability of warp-related madness. Such occurrences were common during prolonged travel within the ether, and this voyage had been no exception.

One of the gunnery thralls, a brutish vat-grown slab of a man, had cracked due to proximity to the warp. He had broken free of his confinement, butchering eight of his fellow ratings before the Iron Hands had hunted him down in the darkness of the ship’s lower decks.

Atraxii had studied the frenzied serf, imagining how the warp must appear to him as it ravaged his anaemic mind. The man shrieked, frothing from the mouth as he moaned about the nightmare realm of daemons where the screeching of tortured anguish and howls of enraged bliss overlapped and interwove, swelling and separating and joining in the obscenely endless fluidity of Chaos.

It was sickening. Oblexus had ended the thrall with the tightening of a gauntleted fist around his throat, crushing the man’s vertebrae with a series of wet clicks. The body had been incinerated without ceremony.

Atraxii pondered the dead man’s rantings as his flesh dissolved within the furnace. He dared not question the ways of the Omnissiah, but it was troubling that He should create beings of such power to forge a dominion for beings of such weakness. How could they do anything but squander the inheritance bought for them with Adeptus Astartes blood?

The Techmarine dismissed his banal musings, and made note to make penance for such flippancy later. He stepped forwards as the bulkhead at the end of the corridor rumbled open, and entered the hangar.

The aircraft of the Medusan Wing were spread out in an ordered chevron before Atraxii, and he canted a binharic psalm in humble reverence as he approached them. Five Stormhawk interceptors perched upon the hangar deck, forming an arrowhead of void-black armour. The hulls of the formidable fighter craft bore no trappings or pageantry, no sigils listing the foes slain by the venerable machines, no vain boasts of past victories. These were silent, noble war engines, craft that did their killing with ruthless, cold calculation, just like the pilots who flew them. Only the icons of Chapter and clan adorned their hulls, laser-etched onto the armour plating in bleached white.

A Stormraven gunship rested within the centre of the chevron behind the lead Stormhawk. It would be Atraxii’s honour to pilot the Stormraven, supporting the two squads of Iron Hands aboard the Corporeal Lament near Halitus IV’s forge refineries to engage the greenskins on the ground. Atraxii brushed his fingertips against the drop-ship’s flank, sensing the venerable machine-spirit within stir as he made direct contact.

Atraxii passed the Stormraven, finally coming to a halt beside the lead fighter. Whispered benedictions to the Master of Machines passed from his lips as he beheld it. The Stormhawk exuded the same silent menace as its squadron kin. The only differentiation was the silver lacquer that had been reverently applied to the fighter’s canopy and tail fins, in deference to its status as wing leader.

The fighter needed no sigils recording its conquests, for they were etched within the heart of every battle-brother in the Chapter. It had flown the skies of Mereglocious, scouring the skies of that world of the Archenemy. It was the scourge of the foul eldar, laying waste to their armies above Colocnoc. It had won victory upon victory, duel after duel, and had slain champions and foes of every stripe across the span of the Imperium.

Every son of Ferrus Manus knew the name Ironhawk.

Atraxii reached out towards the Stormhawk’s fuselage. He detected the slumbering machine-spirit within, felt it rouse as he drew close. His crimson fingertips touched the metal–

A tide of fury spiked through Atraxii’s mind. Ironhawk’s spirit lashed out at his intrusion like a caged beast. Its power was unbelievably potent, more so than any Atraxii had encountered before. It clawed at his awareness with a singular need. The entirety of its existence slavered for it.

Ironhawk needed to hunt.

Atraxii snapped his hand back, breaking the contact with the interceptor. He exhaled, feeling his heartbeat calm once more as the ancient spirit withdrew.

‘Ironhawk has a ferocious spirit,’ said Oblexus from behind Atraxii. The Techmarine turned, chastising himself for being so consumed by the legendary aircraft that he did not notice the Iron Father’s approach.

‘It is fierce,’ replied Atraxii, keeping his voice even. ‘I have known Titans with minds less savage.’

Oblexus gave a short bark in simulacrum of a chuckle. ‘I am certain it would like to think so. It is a proud machine.’ He ran a hand down its flank. ‘Volatile, yes. But harnessed properly by one who possesses logic and control, there is little that flies which can stand against its fury.’

The Iron Father nodded to the Stormraven gunship. ‘I remember how you flew a Thunderhawk as a neophyte. Your skill as a pilot elevated you to stand among those considered for the apprenticeship on Mars.’

‘To serve with such treasured relics of the Chapter so young was a great honour,’ replied Atraxii. ‘As was your decision that I should accompany you to Halitus Four.’

Oblexus nodded. ‘The iron captain shared my assessment that you would be efficient in service to the Medusan Wing. After all, it was your logical threat assessment that influenced him to delay the fulfilment of our oaths in the Yandi Veil. Words must be followed with actions for those who are of iron.’

Oblexus turned away to leave the hangar. ‘Come, the journey to Halitus Four may be brief and we must be prepared.’

Atraxii noted the contempt in the Iron Father’s words when referring to warp travel, even through the implacable calm of his machine voice. The erratic and immeasurability of the immaterium was a plague upon the ships that travelled its dismal tides, and for none more so than the Iron Hands. The Corporeal Lament could arrive at Halitus IV hundreds of years after they had entered the warp, or a decade before the plea for aid had been dispatched. The Iron Father’s ire was reflected in all of the Chapter. The inability to measure the warp, to control it, made voyages a hated trial for even veterans of Oblexus’ ilk. Atraxii looked back, sparing a final look at Ironhawk, and followed him.

Twenty-seven Iron Hands Space Marines filled a darkened chamber deep within the Corporeal Lament. The air was bitterly cold, and puffs of feathered breath hung before the hoods of the trembling serfs attending to the bulky cylindrical devices sunk into ornate alcoves lining the far wall, their gaunt faces lit by the spectral blue glow of electrocandles.

In contrast to the vast sepulchral chamber of the Eye of Medusa, the frigate’s briefing area was a cramped, industrial room. Banks of cogitators lined the walls around the cylinders, tended by droning servitors and robed overseers more oblivious to the frigid conditions. Planetary scans of Halitus IV, schematics of the Adeptus Mechanicus forge refineries and the limited intelligence concerning the ork insurgency was represented in floating hololiths and reflected on transparent panels.

Two squads of Iron Hands stood in the centre of the chamber. The ten warriors of Assault Squad Vladoc stood in pairs, their dark armour gleaming with fresh repair yet still bearing the faint scars of the relentless close combat they so excelled in. Their left greaves bore the cross icon of Assault squads, while on the right was a stylised number seven, showing their place within the order of the clan in chipped white enamel. The warriors shifted their weight from side to side, acclimatising to the absence of their turbine jump packs. Some wore their helms, and those that went without them showed extensive bionic reconstruction. While they embraced the replacement of their flesh as zealously as any other of the Iron Hands, those serving in Assault squads sustained the highest rates of grievous injury in battle, and thus often possessed the most augmentation.

Where Assault Squad Vladoc showed tension and eagerness to begin operations, the brothers of Tactical Squad Voitek were like statues. The left greave of each warrior was bare of any heraldry, while a three adorned the right in white enamel. All wore their helms, and remained unmoving and silent but for the thrum of their active power armour. These warriors showed significant bionic replacement as well, with gleaming mechanical arms and legs contrasting with the black of their armour.

Standing apart from the squads were the pilots of the Medusan Wing. Like Atraxii, the five Techmarines wore crimson armour, modified to allow increased flexibility within the confines of a craft’s cockpit. They stood behind Oblexus, while Atraxii stood a distance from the Iron Father on his left.

With a muted click, the cylinders within the chamber unlocked, their fronts swinging aside in a glittering tide of cracked ice that scattered over the deck plating. Atraxii stepped forwards with the other Iron Hands, and each Space Marine entered one of the cylinders. As they settled against the hardened plasteel and iron, a faint hum rippled through the devices as their machine-spirits were roused. Atraxii pulled down the restraint harness above him, locking it into place as interface needles and neural plugs entered connection ports along his spinal column.

Atraxii centred his mind as he began to enter the trance. The cylinder hatch swung closed, then the serfs secured it and bathed it with incense. It had been far too long since he had entered a simulus chamber, and he allowed himself a moment to enjoy the sensation as the machine absorbed him into its cold embrace.

Atraxii blinked, and with a sharp twitch of displacement he was beyond the Corporeal Lament. He found himself drifting among an indistinct swirl of racing code, riven with thunderheads of static and broken data. His form of flesh and iron was gone, replaced by an amalgamation of glittering runes of pulsing scarlet and non-reflective black. Fractals wound and branched over his being, springing to harden into being or disintegrate within the mathematical tempest that silently engulfed him.

Atraxii became aware of the others in a ring around him. Like him, his brother Iron Hands were gently shifting sheets of living data, black and silver and scarlet. Though they had no faces, Atraxii identified each of his brothers without effort. Their forms proclaimed their identities with a clarity that even their physical shells did not possess. Oblexus was an anchor, his form the least changing of the ring, while Vladoc and his warriors rippled with even waves of bladed code about their edges.

A remnant left from the Dark Age of Technology, the simulus chambers provided the Iron Hands with a means to quickly and efficiently upload vast quantities of data and disperse it to their warriors. Whether through the deployment and installation of mandated conditioning protocols, comprehensive debriefings following operations, or the provision of combat simulations, the apparatus allowed the Iron Hands to maintain an unrivalled consistency of doctrine throughout their Chapter.

For Atraxii and the warriors with whom he formed the ring, the chamber would prepare them as one being for the battle to come.

Oblexus’ dataform brightened slightly. With a jarring twitch, the light around the ring died, shifting to a simulacrum of the void. At the centre of the Iron Hands turned the ochre sphere of Halitus IV, its gentle rotation marred by occasional static and instability. Though the simulus chambers were powerful devices, the vast majority of their functionality was unknown to the Iron Hands, lost forever to ignorance in the battle against time’s relentless march. What the sons of the Gorgon managed to achieve through their use was merely scratching the surface of a potential that would, as with so much within the Imperium of Mankind, never again be achieved.

<The Corporeal Lament will move from the translation point and make anchor at low orbit with all speed.> Oblexus’ dataform pulsed with the sending. A likeness of the Iron Hands warship appeared, blinking into being and sliding to hang above Halitus IV.

<Once our strike force has launched, the Corporeal Lament will break off and maintain high anchor watching for signs of the xenos warships. It shall not engage unless fired upon or acting on my express orders.>

The view of the Adeptus Mechanicus planet swelled, and tactical diagrams displaying the primary forge refinery arrayed themselves before the communion of disembodied Iron Hands.

<The Vostroyan elements are unlikely to be combat effective by the time we translate in-system. We cannot depend upon their tactical viability, nor on the skitarii maniple present in theatre. Brother Atraxii will insert Assault Squad Vladoc here.> The Iron Father illuminated the foremost cluster of forge refineries, encroached upon by a crescent of pulsing red icons representing ork units.

<It will be as you have said, Iron Father,> Atraxii sent in reply.

<Assault Squad Vladoc will deploy across the front and conduct small-unit operations to disrupt xenos efforts on the surface and prevent them from mounting a massed assault. Tactical Squad Voitek will deploy behind them via drop pod and establish security around the primary forge refinery. You have leave to advance ten miles in any direction to provide fire support to Squad Vladoc, but no further.>

<Affirmative,> sent Squad Sergeant Vladoc, his and his warriors’ forms buzzing. Squad Sergeant Voitek pulsed his acknowledgement once in silence.

<The Medusan Wing will escort Brother Atraxii to the insertion point. Once the squads are deployed, the Stormraven will remain on station to conduct fire support. The Medusan Wing will coordinate with auspex returns from the Corporeal Lament to identify the largest enemy concentrations and probe for weaknesses in the deployment of their command and control elements. Once a principal flaw has been identified, the Medusan Wing will launch a concerted strike to exploit it. The xenos will be cut off from their leadership elements, and once that occurs, their summary extermination will be swift.>

<Will we not devise supplementary contingencies?> asked Atraxii.

<Unnecessary,> Oblexus replied flatly, his sending cold but without malice. <Given the tactical doctrine on engaging orks, exploiting and crippling their leadership to disrupt their unit cohesion is the paramount consideration.>

<Nevertheless,> said Atraxii, <what of the ork warship? What of unforeseen variables? Iron does not take a single form whilst forsaking all others. The strength of iron is in its flexibility, its capacity to adapt to suit any situation.>

The communion was silent, hanging in the flickering datastream. Dektaan, Oblexus’ lieutenant and wingman within the Medusan Wing, hardened his dataform with cold cubic fractals.

<Do not presume to instruct the Iron Father on the merits of Iron,> sent Dektaan, his transmission not as sanguine as Oblexus’ had been. <This tactic was the result of the Calculum Rationale. It has succeeded in eighty-nine prior engagements and was rendered successful within acceptable casualty margins in ninety-nine point nine-eight-two per cent of performed tactical simulations.>

<Your statement is valid,> sent Oblexus, communicating to both Techmarines before casting his focus upon Atraxii. <The wisdom of your training is not without application. However, the Calculum Rationale has considered all relevant variables, and deemed this stratagem to be the most logical course. We shall not deviate from it.>

Oblexus’ dataform flashed once, his judgement final. The ring echoed the spark of illumination, as the Iron Hands bound themselves to the doctrine. The datastream surrounding Atraxii became blurred and insubstantial. He experienced another pang of displacement as it fragmented, and his senses returned from his form of data and light to one of flesh and iron.

The translation bell sounded from the darkness in shrill, even chimes as the simulus chamber opened. Atraxii understood the sensations of the Corporeal Lament shivering beneath his boots as the vessel returned to reality from the warp once more.

‘Prepare yourselves, brothers,’ said Oblexus. ‘We will attack as soon as we reach low orbit.’

-07.0-

The pilot’s restraint harness locked around Atraxii as he surveyed the hangar bay of the Corporeal Lament through the armourglass canopy of the Stormraven gunship Vengeance of Santar. His hands danced over the control panels to ready the drop-ship for flight.

Within the crew bay of the gunship, the Iron Hands of Assault Squad Vladoc offered whispered benedictions to their wargear, made final adjustments to their equipment, or waited in silence. They donned their helms, their eye-lenses glowing crystal-blue in the darkness as the optics connected to the power supplies of their suits. As the assault ramp folded up and sealed, the Assault Marines split into pairs.

‘May my iron sharpen yours,’ the Iron Hands chanted to one another in Ekfrasi as they exchanged weapons. Chainswords, power axes and boltguns were traded, stowed by their new owners in the crew bay compartments or mag-locked to armour plates.

‘May its return find your iron sharpened,’ came the ritualised reply, promising the return of the treasured armaments once the mission had concluded, as the Iron Hands locked themselves into restraint thrones.

Crimson light strobed in the cockpit as Atraxii spooled the Stormraven’s engines into action. Their bass drone split the hangar, the noise muted to Atraxii by his armour and the thick hull surrounding him, and the craft hummed as the drop-ship’s venerable machine-spirit growled its readiness to begin.

Klaxons wailed in the hangar bay. Servitors and trained crew disconnected fuel lines, secured ammunition hoppers and offered final prayers over the blessed machines in their care as they hurriedly cleared the area.

It had been forty-eight years since Atraxii had piloted a Chapter aircraft into an active warzone, eighteen years serving with a Tactical squad, and thirty spent training upon the surface of Mars. Though it was not an insignificant amount of time, the intensive training and experience gained guiding a Thunderhawk gunship in combat flowed back to Atraxii in an instant. The Stormraven was a smaller craft, and lacked the heavy armour and the devastating battle cannon possessed by the Thunderhawk, but it made up for it in manoeuvrability, and the Techmarine recognised many similarities between the two gunships. The touch of the controls, the reassuring weight of the fuselage around him and the array of formidable weapons at his disposal banished any doubt that he would achieve his mission directives.

He would be efficient.

The deck shuddered as the Stormhawks sat in formation around Atraxii came online. The Techmarine had cherished performing the rites of awakening and calibration over the fighter craft of the Medusan Wing, consecrating their engines and anointing their weapons with sacred oils. Their blackened forms vibrated as the hangar bay doors of the Corporeal Lament ground open.

A vista of swirling ochre cloud revealed itself to Atraxii through the open bay doors. The gaseous sphere of Halitus IV spun serenely in the void before him, its storm-clotted skies rippling with intermittent webs of lightning and conflagrations. Atraxii could see the small blocky shapes of the Adeptus Mechanicus’ forge refineries hanging amidst the vast banks of orange vapour. He could not see any sign of the xenos, but was able to detect the wreckage of an Adeptus Mechanicus system monitor floating in orbit around the gas planet. He analysed the high degree of damage to the floating installations with his enhanced visor. While the central facilities were largely unharmed, the peripheral refineries surrounding them had sustained crippling damage, and the circle was growing smaller with each passing moment.

‘Medusan Wing,’ Oblexus’ voice crackled across the vox network from the cockpit of Ironhawk. ‘Convey your readiness.’

‘Medusan Two, affirmative.’ Atraxii recognised Dektaan’s harsh growl.

‘Medusan Three, in readiness,’ voxed Colnex, the longest-serving member of the Medusan Wing, save for Oblexus.

‘Medusan Four, at your command,’ said Enych, his voice even and without emotion.

‘Medusan Five, the flesh is weak!’ growled Severus, the most recent Techmarine inducted into the squadron.

‘Vengeance of Santar, affirmative,’ said Atraxii.

‘We embark, brothers,’ said Oblexus. ‘Our sworn allies of the Martian priesthood have called for our aid to overcome the xenos who have defiled the holy works of these machines, and we have answered their call. We shall honour the covenant made between the red planet and the blessed primarch. The Medusan Wing shall purge these greenskins and the obscenities they have built to oppose us. Their creations are abominations, affronts against the perfection of the Omnissiah. In the name of the Emperor and the Gorgon, let us visit annihilation upon all of their misbegotten kind. With wings of iron!’

‘No weakness shall bar us from our course!’ responded the Medusan Wing as one.

The hangar filled with the cacophony of screaming turbine jets, then the craft of the Medusan Wing lifted in unison, blasting out and away from the Corporeal Lament.

The blurred orange of Halitus IV rushed up to meet Atraxii as Vengeance of Santar plunged through its mesosphere. The gunship rattled and ribbons of flame flowed over the canopy as Atraxii guided the craft through atmospheric entry.

Atraxii checked his auspex, seeing the smear of the Corporeal Lament shrinking behind him, as well as the smaller outline of the Priori as it sheltered in the wake of the Iron Hands warship. The two vessels broke off almost immediately, rising to take up positions at high anchor. A small comet streaked down past Atraxii on the port side, as the drop pod bearing Tactical Squad Voitek slashed through the clouds to its landing zone. Atraxii and the Medusan Wing had conducted a wider circuit to remain clear of the drop pod’s path, and now swung tighter towards the target in its wake.

The rumbling flames ceased as the Medusan Wing passed through the atmosphere. The Vengeance of Santar bucked in Atraxii’s hands as the banks of swirling cloud and whipping air currents buffeted the gunship. Visibility for the unenhanced would be exceptionally poor, and Atraxii cycled through the vision filters of his augmetic eyes and retinal display in an attempt to pierce the tempest. Settling on a spectrum that rendered the cloud layers into a thin mist, the Techmarine watched as the principal forge refinery of Halitus IV swelled in his visor display.

A floating city hung amidst the ochre skies like a blister of dark iron. Towering smokestacks and exhaust columns vomited gouts of toxic smog into the air, which wrapped around the installation as a dark shroud of dense pollution. Sprawling industrial complexes were heaped upon one another in the fashion of an insect hive. Reinforced ducts and fuel lines threaded the installation, bearing the refined promethium from processing facilities through to massive reservoir bladders and silo tanks. An enormous network of anti-grav arrays crowded beneath the entirety of the forge refinery, their cowlings flickering with chains of lightning from the supercharged veil of ozone and industrial pollution that surrounded them.

As Atraxii drew closer, he saw that not all of the smoke billowing from the forge refinery was from fuel production. Fire ringed the fringes of the floating city, and the Techmarine could begin to make out tiny shapes weaving through the installation like flies over a corpse.

Orks.

Hatred, that all-too-human of emotions, boiled up in Atraxii’s heart at the sight of them. They had landed several war parties across the forge refinery city, which the Techmarine could just make out as they fought pitched battles against the Imperial defenders. There was no sign of the xenos warship that the aliens had issued forth from, but the skies were thick with their abominable, ramshackle aircraft diving through the sparking bursts of flak sent airborne by the facility’s defensive batteries.

Atraxii hated the abused metal and tortured mechanical blasphemy that the greenskins might have called technology, had the vile savages been capable of stringing that many syllables together. Volatile and unstable, the fighters and bombers sowing destruction across Halitus IV were as much a threat to the xenos using them as they were to the Imperium. The ork war machines seemed to function solely out of spite for the perfect order of the Omnissiah’s designs, and Atraxii had to devote a significant portion of his will to suppress the furious instinct to break formation and tear them out of the air.

The machine-spirit of the Stormraven sensed the ire emanating from Atraxii, feeding more fuel into the engines. It was an infinitesimal change, a nearly indiscernible increase in speed that would likely have gone unnoticed by Space Marines belonging to any other Chapter. Yet for a Techmarine of the Iron Hands, it was as apparent as the impatient growl of a leashed hound hunting beside its master.

‘Focus,’ Oblexus warned. Atraxii chastised himself – if he had noticed his lapse in discipline, then of course the Iron Father had as well. The communication was over a closed frequency, sparing Atraxii the shame of having his weakness exposed before all of the pilots of the Medusan Wing, though he was certain they had detected his imbalance just as Oblexus had.

‘By the Machine,’ voxed Severus. ‘Look!’

Atraxii saw it. There was nothing else that could have eclipsed it.

A chain of explosions rippled across a portion of the facility in a corridor of mushrooming flame. An entire segment of the forge refinery sagged. The lights went out in a wave across its sprawling maze of manufactorums and distribution centres. The anti-grav array keeping the section aloft shuddered and fell silent. In a deafening discordance of rending metal and snapping rockcrete, a fifth of the Adeptus Mechanicus city sheared away. Shrouded in a pall of dust and smoke, the island of disconnected cityscape tumbled down as if in slow motion, disappearing as it vanished within the clouds below.

‘Squad Voitek?’ asked Colnex.

Atraxii was close enough to pick up the ident-runes of the Iron Hands Tactical squad on his enhanced visor display. The ten silver icons blinked steadily from their position in the refinery as the Iron Hands aircraft swept over them, the Tactical Marines spread in a crescent across the deployment line set by Oblexus’ orders.

‘Confirmed,’ replied Atraxii. ‘They were not in that section of the facility.’

‘Then it changes nothing,’ said Dektaan.

‘Affirmative,’ said Oblexus. ‘Maintain formation. Atraxii, prepare Squad Vladoc for combat drop.’

-08.0-

Assault Squad Vladoc rose as one from their restraint thrones as scarlet warning lights flashed on within the crew bay of Vengeance of Santar, their insistent glow staining the dark armour of the Space Marines the hue of clotted blood. They took up their weapons in calm, practised grips, forming a column facing the rear assault ramp. They had leapt into hundreds of battles across hundreds of worlds, descending on columns of fire upon the enemies of the Chapter like the fist of the Gorgon himself. They were a devastating weapon, honed to a razor’s edge and ready to slip from their sheath.

Atraxii punched in adjustments across the Stormraven’s control panels as they neared the drop zone. He slowly bled power from the engines, slowing their approach as he edged the gunship down towards the industrial cityscape rushing up beneath him. He ran half a dozen diagnostics over various systems within the craft, ensuring that the array of weapon systems at his disposal were primed. The dorsal twin-linked lascannon turret behind Atraxii panned smoothly from side to side, the servitor hardwired within its cupola scanning the skies for inbound threats.

Alarm klaxons rang in shrill tones within the cockpit as the Stormraven’s auspex detected hostile contacts.

‘Iron Father,’ voxed Atraxii over the squadron frequency. ‘Multiple contacts approaching on intercept vectors, fighter-class.’

‘I see them,’ replied Oblexus. Atraxii looked to the dark form of Ironhawk ahead of him, its hull haloed in heat haze from its turbine engines. ‘Medusan Five, hold course and remain with the gunship. Link with us once you have escorted them to the drop zone. Medusan Two, Three, Four – with me.’

Affirmation runes blinked across Atraxii’s visor as the pilots of the Medusan Wing acknowledged their leader’s commands. Ironhawk dipped its starboard wing, peeling off towards the inbound contacts in a blast of engine flare. Three of its kindred broke off to join it, leaving a single Stormhawk interceptor holding the gunship’s flank.

A rune pulsed at the edge of Atraxii’s visor, displaying the Ekfrasi symbol for stormfall.

‘We have reached the drop zone,’ Atraxii voxed to Vladoc down in the gunship’s crew bay.

‘Affirmative,’ the sergeant replied, the fingers of his bionic hand clicking against the haft of his power axe. ‘Squad Vladoc is ready to destroy the enemy.’

Atraxii punched a command into a runeboard on his control panel. Runes lit up across the display as the rear assault ramp lowered on groaning hydraulics, and the warning lights in the crew bay shifted from scarlet to green.

‘You are clear to disembark,’ said the Techmarine.

‘Affirmative,’ came the sergeant’s calm reply.

The Assault Marines marched to the edge of the ramp in synchronised order, stepping off at intervals with the gunship fifteen thousand feet above the installation. A stream of black figures trailed out from behind Vengeance of Santar as Atraxii delivered his kindred to the war beneath.

Assault Squad Vladoc hurtled through the gritty toxic smog shrouding the forge refinery. The sergeant’s brethren analysed the industrial labyrinth that spilled out below them, the tactical data uploaded to their minds from the simulus chamber highlighting key junctions and choke points from which the Assault Marines would focus their efforts to fragment the xenos assault and prevent a massed attack. The Iron Hands transmitted amongst their squad, identifying individual assignments and ensuring that their sectors overlapped to provide support to one another if necessary.

The refinery below rushed up to greet the Space Marines. The ground was alive with greenskins, thronging the streets and thoroughfares of the installation in their hulking, roaring masses. They whooped and fired their amalgamated junk firearms into the air as they watched the Iron Hands fall towards them, revelling in the violence sure to come.

The squad hit like an artillery barrage. Firing their jump packs moments before impact, they ploughed into the braying mobs of orks like an ebon whirlwind of spinning blades and precision boltgun fire. The Iron Hands butchered the ferocious xenos in silence and spilled their foul gore over the paved streets.

A massive ork bellowed a challenge to Vladoc from a handful of paces away as the sergeant wrenched his axe free from the skull of a convulsing greenskin. Its smaller kin backed away as the hulking monster beat its axe against its barrel-chest and snapped at the Space Marine in an obscene collection of the guttural barks that passed for its mongrel tongue.

‘Sergeant,’ Atraxii’s voice crackled within Vladoc’s helm, ‘are you clear?’

The ork howled as it made ready to charge. Its thick lips rippled around its yellowed broken teeth, and Vladoc could smell the stink radiating off the xenos even from a distance. He drew his plasma pistol, snapped it up and fired. A miniature sun lanced into the ork’s face, reducing its head to a steaming glut of greasy ash that cascaded across its twitching shoulders as its headless body toppled back and crashed to the ground.

‘The squad has made contact with the enemy,’ Vladoc replied, his even tone sounding almost bored. ‘We are proceeding to secure our objectives.’

Atraxii toggled Vladoc’s vox-link to standby and banked the Stormraven in an arc as Severus broke from his flank to link back with the rest of the Medusan Wing. The control stick rattled in his hand as small-arms fire pinged from the gunship’s hull. Atraxii passed over a wide avenue choked with rampaging orks. Mobs of the brutish aliens were charging into a network of barricades. Walls of las-fire snapped out over the kill-zone from platoons of entrenched Guardsmen, and the streets were becoming carpeted with xenos dead.

Atraxii picked out the blocky forms of ork tanks rumbling towards the Imperial bulwark and angled the Stormraven down the avenue. He dipped the gunship low, and snapped a pair of switches over his head. Targeting reticules solidified over his visor display, tracking from the interface spikes linked to his helm and the ports that lined his spinal column. He popped the cover off the firing rune on his control stick with his thumb and punched down on it.

A withering stream of mass-reactive death slashed down onto the ork war party from the twin-linked heavy bolters mounted in the nose of the Stormraven. The pair of hurricane bolters mounted on each side of the fuselage fired, making a noise like thick paper tearing as twelve linked barrels fired in perfect unity. Spears of migraine-bright energy lanced from over Atraxii’s head as the lascannon turret targeted the greenskin armour.

The effect was devastating. Ork warriors were shredded, reduced to twitching ribbons of stinking flesh-mulch by the fusillade of bolter fire. Tanks split and detonated in mushrooming explosions as the las-bolts tore through their armour plating. The Stormraven carved corridors of ruin through the mob of howling xenos, the ship’s hull sparking with the erratic impacts of greenskin small-arms fire. The Guardsmen took the brief reprieve to bring up mortar teams and began shelling the disoriented orks with lethal barrages of airburst ordnance.

Atraxii brought up the Stormraven’s nose and banked to make another pass. His vox chirruped with a hail coming from the bunker network below.

‘That xenos armour was pushing for a breakthrough that would have lost us the city centre,’ a voice said, heavily distorted by the turbulent atmosphere and the volume of flak in the air. ‘In the name of the Omnissiah, you have our thanks, my lord.’

‘Identify yourself,’ Atraxii said flatly.

‘Colonel Galina Dionaki of the Vostroyan 498th Fusiliers,’ the voice replied. ‘Commander of the Remnant of Fire, indentured in service to the noble lords of Mars and guardians of Halitus Four.’

‘How did the xenos destroy an entire section of the installation?’ demanded Atraxii.

‘They didn’t,’ answered Dionaki bluntly. ‘We destroyed it.’

Atraxii blinked. He ran his targeting reticule over the cityscape, searching for the Vostroyan commander’s position. ‘Explain the wilful destruction of the installation under your province to safeguard.’

To her credit, Dionaki did not hesitate to answer. She kept her tone measured and cold, despite the apprehension she might have felt addressing one of the Emperor’s angels of death directly.

‘The sector was in imminent jeopardy of being compromised, my lord. Six platoons were deployed to hold it and draw the xenos to them while our sappers rigged key junctions with melta charges. Thousands of the enemy fell with my men when we cut it away, consolidated onto a region our forces would have inevitably ceded to their advance.’

Atraxii heard the deep breath pushed through Dionaki’s teeth as the colonel fought the fear assailing her composure. ‘When a limb becomes infected and draws risk to the body as a whole, we will not shrink from our duty, my lord. It is to be amputated.’

Atraxii was silent for a moment. Perhaps the Iron Hands’ prior estimation of the ineffectiveness of the local defences had been premature. Ident-runes representing the Vostroyan units were moving in disciplined order, conducting counter-offensives and holding key sectors with grim conviction. There simply were not enough of them to counter the swarms of orks smashing against them. He could not identify any elements of the planet’s skitarii legions anywhere near his vicinity.

‘Colonel, where are the skitarii maniples?’ asked Atraxii.

‘We have been requesting combined arms support from the skitarii for weeks,’ came Dionaki’s reply, tinged with bitterness. ‘They have not responded and have pulled their forces back around the primary forge temple.’

The Adeptus Mechanicus is concealing something of great value to them, thought Atraxii. Valuable enough to petition us and leave the Vostroyans to battle the orks alone to protect it. The Techmarine stored the thought in his memory for the debriefing aboard the Corporeal Lament once the operation had concluded, and focused on the task in front of him.

‘Keep your units clear, colonel,’ ordered Atraxii. ‘I am coming around for another pass.’

Atraxii’s vox pinged urgently. The Techmarine snapped a switch on his comms-unit.

‘Consolidate upon the Medusan Wing’s position at once,’ Dektaan growled, his voice distorted with interference and edged with anger and distraction. ‘Ready your magna-grapple. The Iron Father is down.’

-09.0-

Monolithic factories and smokestacks passed by Atraxii in a blur as he pushed the engines to their limits. Gauges flashed crimson as the systems they monitored ticked past acceptable tolerances. Continued output at the current level would result in catastrophic overload of the port engine at a probability of ninety-nine point zero-eight per cent. The probability of the starboard engine detonating and reducing Vengeance of Santar to a cloud of twisting fragments was even higher than that.

Atraxii uttered a prayer to the Stormraven’s spirit, beseeching the ancient consciousness of the gunship to hold a little longer. He bled power from any systems not immediately essential and fed it into the engines and their coolant modules. The fuselage rattled around him as the gunship tore through the industrial city towards the location of the Medusan Wing.

The Iron Father is down.

The very notion was unthinkable. It refuted statistical logic. Atraxii could not fathom a scenario where events would unfold in such a way. Oblexus was a veteran champion, a pilot without peer. Ironhawk was inviolate.

What could have arisen that would bring his master low?

Atraxii’s eyes snapped to his auspex as the augur display blared an alert. Inbound contact. A xenos fighter was closing behind him, an angular smudge ticking closer to him with each refresh of the auspex.

A sharp Ekfrasi invective hissed from the Space Marine as he opened a vox-channel to the Medusan Wing.

‘I have been engaged,’ said Atraxii. ‘I am making all speed to reach your location, and will arrive once the threat is neutralised.’

‘Do so quickly,’ Dektaan snarled. ‘We cannot afford to bide here while you tarry.’

The vox-link closed with a snap of static. Atraxii flicked his eyes back to the auspex screen. The ork was entering weapons range. As if on cue, a volley of tracer rounds scythed over the canopy of the Stormraven. The turret-mounted lascannons swung around to target the fighter as Atraxii banked sharply.

Atraxii looked through the perspective of the servitor gunner operating the turret, the feed beamed onto his left eye. The lascannons fired disciplined bursts, and Atraxii watched as the ork fighter deftly rolled and swayed aside of the deadly energy bolts. The vile creature within the junkyard fighter was a skilled pilot. Half a century of war had taught Atraxii that while he must hate the enemy, he should never underestimate them. Failure to respect the prowess of mankind’s enemies had sent more than one of Clan Kaargul to an ignominious end.

Atraxii stomped down on the rudder pedal as he neared an intersection. The Stormraven veered to port, narrowly avoiding smashing into the towering structures filling the area. The force of the manoeuvre crushed Atraxii against the control throne with enough force to liquefy the organs of an unaugmented human. The ork fighter hurtled past, missing the turn. Atraxii made a snap turn to starboard, bringing the Stormraven back on course.

The gunship raced between tall buildings resembling mechanical termite hives, approaching another broad intersection. Atraxii pushed forwards on the control stick as a rust-red blur screamed across his path. The Techmarine corkscrewed down around the ork aircraft as it hurtled past. The xenos pilot pushed his fighter into a steep dive, tipping the nose of the craft back towards the ground and rolling to starboard to bring it back behind the Stormraven.

The gunship bucked around Atraxii, and alarm klaxons wailed as a volley of cannon fire struck the fuselage. He weaved the Stormraven through the maze of buildings, cutting as sharply as the bulky craft would allow in the hope that the erratic greenskin pilot would hesitate for an instant and smash against one of the monolithic towers.

The ork fighter clung relentlessly to his tail. Rockets corkscrewed around Atraxii in contrails of dirty smoke, detonating against the facades of buildings and filling the air with smoke and clouds of obliterated rockcrete. The Techmarine jinked the gunship out of the path of another volley of missiles, hauling the Stormraven back out into the wide thoroughfare.

The Stormraven rocked as cannon fire stitched across its port wing, and the lascannon turret responded with a direct hit against one of the ork fighter’s engines. The xenos craft became sluggish as the damaged turbine vomited a trail of smoke and flame behind it.

Atraxii took the opportunity. He threw the Stormraven into a steep dive, simultaneously braking the main drives and firing the retro rockets in the gunship’s nose. Atraxii’s momentum hurled him forwards, snapping a strap of his crash webbing as the craft abruptly arrested its speed.

The ork fighter slashed overhead. Atraxii fired the engines, pulling the gunship up behind the xenos. Smoke from its damaged engine buffeted the Stormraven, showering the cockpit canopy with soot and flecks of scorched engine oil.

Atraxii activated the target designator for the Stormstrike missile pods mounted beneath the Stormraven’s wings. Scarlet brackets locked over the ork fighter. Atraxii depressed the firing rune, and a missile popped from the tube. Its internal engine screamed to life, hurling the missile at the xenos.

With an engine damaged, the ork pilot failed to avoid the missile. The warhead smashed into the spine of the greenskin fighter, detonating the craft in a ball of red flame and greasy smoke and sending wreckage lancing down into the throngs of orks below.

Atraxii chanted a prayer of thanksgiving to Vengeance of Santar’s spirit, and clicked open the vox-network.

‘Threat neutralised,’ said Atraxii. ‘Medusan Wing, I am inbound to your location.’

Sergeant Voitek blew an ork apart with a burst of fire from his boltgun. The Ekfrasi rune for starved pulsed on his visor display in insistent amber. His bolter’s slide locked back, the chamber hollow and issuing twisting curls of fyceline smoke. The Space Marine let the weapon fall, its sling binding it to his side as he drew his bolt pistol.

He fired twice. Two orks died, neat entry wounds creating horrific exits as the mass-reactive ammunition detonated within the xenos’ brainpans. A third ork bulled into him, smashing the bolt pistol aside with a spiked cudgel.

Voitek’s heart rate did not alter. In a single smooth motion, he pulled the combat blade from his hip, pushed it across his body and punched it up in a reverse grip through the ork’s jaw. The monomolecular edge lanced into the creature’s brain, bifurcating the pulsing grey matter into ruin. Voitek withdrew the blade as the hulking greenskin sank convulsing to its knees. He smoothly spun the stinking alien blood from the combat blade, returned it to the mag-lock hard point on his waist and slapped a fresh magazine into his bolter.

Voitek had responded to the Medusan Wing’s distress beacon, pulling two of his line brothers away from securing the perimeter to strike out towards the crash site with him. They had progressed efficiently, navigating through the forge refinery, only engaging the enemy when necessary and being swift in the extermination of the orks when they did.

The trio of Iron Hands arrived at the source of the beacon, moving silently through the ruins of the Adeptus Mechanicus city towards the crashed form of Ironhawk. The Iron Father had managed to bring the Stormhawk down in a controlled manner, and aside from a destroyed engine and the damage riddling its cockpit, the venerable fighter remained intact.

The Tactical Marines formed a triangular perimeter around the downed fighter. Voitek moved to the Stormhawk and pulled the Iron Father clear. Their commander was alive. His left leg was gone, much of the bionics in his torso were inoperable and the trauma of his flesh had driven him into sus-an stasis. The sergeant hauled Oblexus behind the cover of a mound of wreckage, feeling silent disdain that the noble Iron Father’s flesh had so subdued him. He made note to conduct penance for such insubordinate thought and returned to securing the perimeter around Ironhawk. That was when the orks came.

The greenskin advance was slight at first, nearby bands of roaming xenos happening upon their location as they tore through the streets. Voitek and his brothers dispatched them quickly, but now the small city square was beginning to fill with the obscene creatures. Second by second, the ring of greenskins surrounding the Iron Hands grew tighter and tighter.

The skies above Voitek burned with fire and wreckage as the Medusan Wing encircled their fallen commander. The Stormhawk squadron had driven off the xenos in the air, and Voitek hunkered down into cover as they awaited Vengeance of Santar to extract Oblexus and Ironhawk from the crash site.

Voitek snapped off single shots from his bolter, taking care to conserve his remaining ammunition. He pivoted behind the slab of rockcrete he was using as cover as a whistling rocket exploded against it, wreathing him in sparking smoke and dust. He pivoted back out and killed the ork who had fired the missile with a clean shot that tore its head from its shoulders in a puff of blood and skull fragments.

Gunfire stitched up Voitek’s side, throwing him off balance. He recovered, killing the pair of orks who had rounded on his flank. He saw Ibrov’s ident-rune blink amber, and then scarlet. The warrior’s biometric read-out flatlined on Voitek’s retinal display. He opened a vox-link to Kuurox, his remaining brother.

‘Ibrov has ended,’ said Voitek flatly. ‘Adjust formation primary, retrieval of his stillform secondary.’

Kuurox’s ident-rune blinked once as the warrior acknowledged the command, shifting his alignment to cover the one hundred and eighty degrees directly across from Voitek. The sergeant lobbed a frag grenade into a knot of charging orks, the blast scything down the aliens and rending their bodies into oozing chunks of broken flesh.

More took their place.

The machine is perfect, thought Voitek, but here, the flesh will soon see me ended.

-10.0-

Atraxii slowed Vengeance of Santar as it approached the Medusan Wing, and his eyes confirmed what his mind could not comprehend. Ironhawk had been brought low. The venerable Stormhawk interceptor had carved a furrow in the rockcrete of a square courtyard. A trio of ident-runes flickered around it, among them the Iron Father. Oblexus yet lived.

The Stormraven strafed over the closing mobs of orks assaulting the crash site. Mass-reactive death roared out from the barrels of its hurricane bolters. Atraxii squeezed a withering deluge of fire from his heavy bolters, blasting the hordes of xenos apart. The orks returned fire, but their junkyard firearms were incapable of piercing the gunship’s ebon hull. Their rust-armoured tide broke against the Techmarine’s wrath, and rolled back as the war parties began to break from the square or died where they stood.

Atraxii brought the Stormraven down in a hover, opening the forward assault ramp beneath his cockpit. He threw off his restraint harness and extracted himself from the spinal link with a series of deep clicks.

The crimson-armoured Techmarine stomped down the ramp, Sufferentium grasped in his fists. His servo-arms unfolded, twitching with Atraxii’s anger as they sought flesh to destroy. The scent of promethium in all stages of processing filled his nostrils from the surrounding refineries. The ochre sky of Halitus IV cast everything in a rusted orange hue. Targets resolved around him, his retinal display bracketing orks in haloes of dark scarlet.

Sufferentium swept out in a blistering arc. Three orks died, riven in half by the artificer-wrought cog axe. The weapon’s power generator flared as it carved through their vile flesh, the blood coating its edge popping as it cooked off the toothed blade. Atraxii felled another ork, splitting it from shoulder to groin. The xenos’ entrails slopped onto the broken rockcrete of the square, crushed under Atraxii’s boots. His servo-arms lashed out as extensions of his hatred. His claw collapsed ork skulls into pulp. Swathes of the howling brutes were immolated by his flamer or bisected by his plasma torch. His drill cored through alien heads and torsos, its mechanisms gumming with rancid xenos gore.

Sergeant Voitek approached, carrying Oblexus’ inert form upright with one arm and firing his bolt pistol with his free hand. A second of his squad, Kuurox, dragged a fallen brother behind him by the high collar of his Mark VIII armour. Atraxii recognised the ended battle-brother as Ibrov. A jagged hole pierced the warrior’s left eye-lens, and the back of his helm was blown out, the ceramite cracked and curled outwards like a broken flower in bloom.

Kuurox dropped Ibrov’s corpse with a dull clang as a pair of orks rounded on him. A burst of bolter rounds tore the legs from the first, and Kuurox raised his knee to deliver a brutal front kick to the chest of the second. The ork’s ribcage collapsed, pulping its internal organs and dropping it face first onto the ground without a noise. He took hold of Ibrov’s collar once more as the first ork seized hold of his boot with grasping claws. Kuurox levelled his bolter at the greenskin, shot it once in the head and carried on towards the Stormraven.

Voitek passed Atraxii, hauling Oblexus up the assault ramp and into the gunship’s crew bay. Kuurox did the same with Ibrov’s corpse. The Tactical Marine stripped the body of ammunition and grenades, and marched without ceremony back out onto the square.

Atraxii met Voitek at the foot of the assault ramp as the sergeant descended, while Kuurox took up a kneeling overwatch position nearby, his bolter panning for targets.

‘The Iron Father is in sus-an stasis,’ said Voitek over the percussive bang of Kuurox’s bolter. ‘Engage your magna-grapple and extract Ironhawk back to the Corporeal Lament.’

‘It will be done,’ replied Atraxii. ‘What of you and Kuurox?’

Voitek caught a fresh magazine from Kuurox and locked it into his bolter. ‘We will return to the squad, do not be concerned.’

Atraxii heard the strained rasp in the sergeant’s voice. He was unaccustomed to speaking so frequently.

‘Ibrov has ended,’ said Voitek. ‘See to it that his bionics are salvaged and his gene-seed extracted once you return to the Corporeal Lament. Do not dishonour his end by meeting your own getting there.’

Voitek did not wait for Atraxii to reply, turning away towards the heart of the forge city. Kuurox rose as his sergeant passed him, and the pair trotted away into the smoke until they were lost from sight.

Atraxii turned and hurried back up the assault ramp. As the ramp rumbled up behind him, the Techmarine spared a glance towards Oblexus, lying motionless on the deck of the crew bay. Atraxii ran a rapid diagnostic over the wounded Iron Father. The sus-an coma had stabilised him when the bionics that had replaced many of his internal organs had been crippled. An unwelcome thought materialised in Atraxii’s mind as he watched – it was Oblexus’ flesh that was keeping him alive.

A resounding detonation just beyond the Stormraven jarred Atraxii from his reflection. The Techmarine climbed up into the gunship’s cockpit and secured his crash webbing. He primed Vengeance of Santar’s engines as the spinal interface spikes snicked back into place. He raised the gunship up, bringing it to a hover over the prone Ironhawk. Atraxii lowered the Stormraven, just inches from the interceptor’s hull, and engaged the magna-grapple.

A marrow-deep thrum rippled through the Stormraven. The polished silver of Atraxii’s teeth ground together and his gums ached from the powerful magnetic field being generated. Ironhawk began to tremble, shaking the dust and debris from its hull. There was a sonorous groan of protesting metal, then the interceptor locked to the magna-grapple with a heavy thunk.

‘Medusan Wing,’ said Atraxii as he powered the engines to begin lifting the gunship. ‘I have Ironhawk and the Iron Father aboard. I require escort bearing them back to the Corporeal Lament.’

The vox clicked. ‘You shall have it,’ came Dektaan’s reply. ‘Medusan Wing, form up around Vengeance of Santar. Engage attack pattern Fortitude.’

The four Stormhawks of the Medusan Wing formed a box around the Stormraven. Atraxii struggled against the controls, fighting to keep the gunship from listing. The magna-grapple was designed to transport Dreadnought walkers and smaller armoured vehicles to and from warzones. Ironhawk’s weight was significantly higher, and the Stormraven’s superstructure groaned under the strain.

Atraxii lifted the gunship into formation, and the Iron Hands blasted towards the horizon. They passed through the dense bursts of flak thrown up by the forge refinery’s defences.

‘Brother Dektaan,’ Atraxii voxed on a direct channel. ‘What happened?’

‘The stratagem failed,’ growled Dektaan, his voice bitter and tinged with shame. ‘Their attack was erratic, unbound by logic even for the greenskins. They outnumbered us, and we came close to depleting our ammunition keeping the swarms from crashing into us. Their numbers and suicidal tactics broke our formation and scattered us. There was an ork pilot, one of their elite by the graffiti covering its fighter. While its cohorts attempted to ram our interceptors, it separated the Iron Father from us and defeated him.’

Atraxii had never known of an ork pilot in possession of such skill. An incredible thought presented itself. Could a greenskin be an ace?

‘Auspex return!’ called out Severus from the rear port corner of the formation. ‘Multiple contacts inbound on an intercept vector.’

Blips appeared at the top corner of Atraxii’s auspex, closing rapidly. How could they get in front of us?

‘Brother,’ voxed Colnex to Dektaan. ‘Their alpha is leading the formation.’

Atraxii detected the tense resolve rolling off the voice of the Medusan Wing’s de facto leader as he responded.

‘Vengeance of Santar, maintain course and speed to rendezvous with the Corporeal Lament,’ commanded Dektaan. ‘Medusan Three and Four, realign to attack pattern Vigilance. Medusan Five, with me.’

A chorus of affirmations rippled across Atraxii’s vox as the Techmarine pilots followed Dektaan’s orders. Colnex and Enych guided their Stormhawks to the forward port and rear starboard of Atraxii, while Dektaan and Severus accelerated away from the formation towards the oncoming ork fighters.

‘Weapons range in eighty seconds,’ said Colnex. Atraxii did not have visual of the ork squadron, still concealed by the lightning-riven clouds of Halitus IV.

‘Weapons range in twenty seconds,’ said Colnex. Dektaan and Severus’ Stormhawks plunged into the storm clouds and disappeared from sight.

‘Weapons range in three seconds,’ said Colnex. ‘Two seconds. One. Engage.’

The two Stormhawks unleashed volleys of fire from their wing-mounted assault cannons into the wall of seething cloud. Erratic chains of tracer fire slashed out towards them. Atraxii swung the Stormraven aside, narrowly dodging a salvo of cannon fire aimed for his cockpit, and opened up with the heavy bolters in the gunship’s nose.

The jagged red shapes of ork fighters breached the storm bank like deep-sea predators leaping from an ocean’s murky depths. Enych’s las-talon slashed out with a blinding energy beam. An ork fighter exploded, and shrapnel plinked against Atraxii’s canopy as he hurtled through the fireball.

The converging fighters rolled and weaved past each other at breakneck speed. Colnex and Enych held their formation around Atraxii, straying just far enough to fend off xenos pilots moving to attack the gunship. Atraxii pushed the engines to their limits, and sensed Vengeance of Santar’s spirit snarl as it fought to bear Ironhawk’s weight. He whispered a benediction to placate the weary animus and watched as a blast from the Stormraven’s lascannon turret split a greenskin fighter into a pair of fiery detonations haloed in oily smoke.

An ork rocket exploded just behind the Stormraven. Atraxii was thrown forwards in his control throne. The interface spikes ground against the ports in his spine, combining with the sympathetic pain he experienced while in union with the gunship’s machine-spirit. Atraxii snarled, hissing an ancient Ekfrasi prayer beseeching the Gorgon to grant him strength.

Klaxons wailed as an ork fighter closed behind Atraxii. He manoeuvred the belaboured gunship, evading the ribbons of tracer fire slashing over and around him. The superstructure rocked as cannon rounds struck the hull. One of the fuel lines was severed as a section of armour plating sheared away, leaving the tanks of promethium exposed to the maelstrom of flak scything through the air.

The ork fighter exploded as a stream of assault cannon fire blasted it apart from above. Severus dived his Stormhawk through the explosion in an ebon blur, rolling to destroy another fighter with his interceptor’s las-talon.

‘Stay sharp, Atraxii,’ called out Severus. ‘We are nearly clear of–’

The vox-link cut, and Severus’ biometric feedback vanished as the Stormhawk burst into a blinding ball of expanding flame.

A brutish ork fighter rolled aside from the cloud of spinning wreckage that was all that remained of the Iron Hands fighter. Its rust-red hull was decorated with jagged tongues of orange and yellow paint in a crude depiction of flames, while the emblem of a fanged sun adorned the black stripe running down both wings. A series of rough gouges were scratched into the side of the fighter in uneven rows, announcing the number of kills committed by the pilot. It was the ork ace.

‘Severus is ended,’ called out Atraxii.

‘We are near the atmospheric boundary,’ barked Dektaan. ‘Accelerate to maximum – they cannot follow us into the void.’

Atraxii pushed the rattling Stormraven harder as rockets and bombs exploded all around him. Dektaan shot down a pair of ork fighters and swept down above the rest of the Medusan Wing as they rocketed to the edge of Halitus IV.

A strobing rune pulsed on Atraxii’s visor. Missile lock. The ork ace flashed behind the Stormraven and unleashed a pair of missiles, lancing through the clouds on billowing contrails of greasy smoke. Atraxii’s hands ran over his console as he fired countermeasures.

The Stormraven discharged an arc of flares behind the gunship. One of the missiles curled towards the countermeasures and exploded. The second avoided the flares, its propulsion jets hurtling it unerringly towards Vengeance of Santar.

Alarms filled the cockpit with their shrill overlapping cries. Atraxii felt the gunship shaking itself apart as it launched into the searing blaze of Halitus IV’s atmosphere.

The ork missile trailing behind Atraxii was enveloped in the fire of the atmosphere and detonated. The greenskin fighters, not equipped for void war, were forced to peel away in frustration, their quarry denied to them. A handful barrelled on in reckless pursuit regardless. Their ships were vaporised as the heat of the planet’s thermosphere ignited their fuel tanks.

Atraxii zeroed in on the bladed silhouette of the Corporeal Lament, hanging dark in the void as he left the last of Halitus IV’s atmosphere behind.

-11.0-

With a low hum of coursing power and clicking cogwork, the eye-lenses of Oblexus’ iron mask flickered to life. The Iron Father’s hands flexed and slowly drew into fists before flexing again. A faint growl scratched out from the vox-grille of Oblexus’ matte-black death mask.

‘How long?’ came the question from the prone Iron Hands commander.

‘Fifty-six hours, twenty-two minutes and eighteen seconds,’ replied Atraxii from where he stood over Oblexus. ‘Per the Terran standard. The damage to your internal augmentations was substantial. Were we on Medusa, it would have fallen to the Iron Council to consider interment.’

‘You effected these repairs?’ asked the Iron Father.

‘Yes,’ replied Atraxii. ‘Apothecary Tarthix is on the surface of the forge refinery. The majority of your wounds were to bionics, however, which I was able to repair, or replace.’

Oblexus looked down at his left leg. It was no longer there. In its place was a lean segmented limb of dark iron, terminating in a broad claw at its base. He recalled the pain of its injury when Ironhawk had taken direct fire to its cockpit. Oblexus felt the chafe of raw flesh where the bionic meshed with his hip. He flexed the prosthetic, watching pistons and cogwork slide together in mimicry of a musculature to allow full range of motion. The design of the augmetic was familiar to him. He ran a brief self-diagnostic, satisfied with the functionality of his internal bionics and the extensive repairs Atraxii had made to them.

‘Your skill is exemplary,’ said Oblexus as he swung his legs over the edge of the slab. ‘You have my thanks, brother.’

‘Your thanks should be to Brother Ibrov,’ replied Atraxii. ‘The iron which has restored you was taken from his stillform.’

The Iron Father’s new bionic leg clanged against the medicae slab. ‘Ibrov is ended?’ he asked, and then was silent for a moment. A short growl, like gears slipping, issued from his mask. There was anger in the noise. Atraxii sensed it. Hatred, spiking with white-hot intensity but instantly subdued so as not to dull the Iron Father’s logic.

‘A grave loss to clan and Chapter. There was much iron in him.’

Atraxii hesitated.

‘Speak,’ said Oblexus.

‘Severus has ended as well.’

The Iron Father was silent once more, but for the overlapping thrum of his active power armour and bionics. Atraxii set about replacing the tools he had been using to repair Oblexus, his servo-arms placing complex probes and lascutters into cases spread about the chamber.

‘And Ironhawk?’

‘Recovered,’ replied Atraxii. ‘As I restored you, the pilots of the Medusan Wing labour to restore Ironhawk. It will soon be ready for you to take flight once more.’

‘No.’

Atraxii stopped. He abandoned his labours, turning to Oblexus.

‘I do not understand.’

Oblexus levelled the scarlet gaze of his death mask at Atraxii. ‘I will not pilot Ironhawk again.’

A muscle in Atraxii’s face spasmed involuntarily, causing a single, nearly imperceptible twitch in his left eye. ‘My ignorance remains unchanged, Iron Father.’

‘I have failed,’ said Oblexus simply. ‘The weight of the ends of our brothers rests upon my shoulders. My stratagem was rigid, unaccommodating for the disorder of the conflict here. The irregular nature of the foe had been accounted for during the Calculum Rationale, and I executed tactics according to what was the most logical course of action. Yet against this foe, logic failed.’

The Iron Father held Atraxii’s gaze. ‘It was you who spoke wisdom of the versatility of iron. In my intransigence, I refuted that wisdom, and now two brothers shall never witness the skies of Medusa again.

‘I speak not from melancholy or defeatism,’ said Oblexus. ‘We will prevail here. Our brothers shall be avenged. It is evident to me now that, when faced with an opponent that is by its very nature unpredictable, the most logical course is to be illogical. Where my logic failed, instinct may prevail, and my instincts tell me that it should be you, Atraxii, who pilots Ironhawk as the Medusan Wing returns to war.’

Atraxii questioned for a moment whether there had been a malfunction in the auditory systems of his helmet. He ran a flash diagnostic, but found no deficiencies. The Techmarine reached up, unclasped the seals at his collar and pulled the helm free.

‘Iron Father,’ Atraxii said as he knelt against the cold white tile of the chamber. ‘I am not worthy of such an honour. Surely there are others more deserving.’

Oblexus reached down and pulled Atraxii to his feet. ‘No. It must be you, brother. The Medusan Wing is broken, and you shall be the one to join with the others to mend it. Adversity does not call at the hour of our choosing, Atraxii, but it calls to you. And it calls now.’

Atraxii struggled to comprehend the enormity of what was transpiring. Ironhawk, a Chapter relic revered beyond measure, passed to him. The mantle of the venerable Stormhawk, the legacy it held, the ferocious spirit which dwelt within it.

Slowly, Atraxii lifted his eyes, meeting the lambent gaze of Oblexus’ death mask.

‘What will you do, Iron Father?’

Oblexus looked down at his bionic leg. ‘I will go to the surface, to our brothers fighting against the enemy there. I have a debt which I must repay.’

Dektaan could not understand the illogic assailing him. The Iron Father had forsaken the Medusan Wing, the entire squadron he had forged over a century of elite combat. He had abandoned Ironhawk, passing the mantle of its mount to the Techmarine Atraxii, mere moments returned to clan and Chapter after his ordainment on Mars.

It was not covetousness that motivated his ire. Nothing so lowly and organic as petulant envy. Dektaan had been given command of the Medusan Wing by Oblexus, as was his right, but he had no desire to pilot Ironhawk. He had spent decades in union with his own Stormhawk, and the bond he had forged with the fighter’s spirit was something he would not break away from.

No, it was not envy. It was duty.

A commander did not abandon his post. He did not step down when challenged in battle. A commander fought, and continued to do so until he was victorious or dead upon the field of battle. For all of the countless oaths Dektaan had sworn in service to the Iron Father, to follow him into the darkest reaches and carry out his orders without question, doubt had etched itself into his mind, and would not be dislodged.

Had the Iron Father fallen to the weakness of his flesh?

Dektaan allowed logic to sweep over his mind in calming tides. If the Iron Father was indeed compromised, then it was efficient that he assume command. If Oblexus were to survive this campaign, Dektaan would see that he stood before the Iron Council and accounted for the decisions he had made. It was not treachery, not in any overt sense, but it was counter to logic. It was weakness, and for the sons of the Gorgon, such a thing could be held as a betrayal.

But that eventuality must not dominate his focus at the expense of the moment, over which he could exert control. Succumbing to distractions that were beyond his influence was weakness. Dektaan stepped back from the gleaming hull of Ironhawk, repaired and eager to carve through the skies once more. The actions of the Iron Father could not deter him from the prosecution of this war. As logic’s soothing influence focused Dektaan’s mind to a razor’s edge, the Iron Hands Techmarine resolved that it would not.

-12.0-

Atraxii clambered up into the cockpit and lowered himself down into the control throne. He experienced an abrupt fluttering sensation which, if queried, he would have most accurately described as unease. The discomfort was not a response to physical stimuli – there were no defects in the dense padding and gel layers of the throne which cradled him against the crushing gravitational force that would assail him during flight, and it had been designed specifically to accommodate the bulkier power pack of his Techmarine armour.

The sensation, to his shame, was purely a fabrication of his mind. He breathed deeply, marshalling the will to banish the psychosomatic shivers that crept down his spine. Atraxii was sitting in Ironhawk for the first time, and the Space Marine made himself ready for his initial communion with the Stormhawk interceptor’s machine-spirit. It was another sort of gravity that beset the Techmarine, one which no amount of crash padding could alleviate.

Atraxii struggled to settle his mind as he secured his crash webbing. The cockpit was an utterly dark sphere with the control throne at its centre. As he aligned his armour with the interface sockets of the throne, Atraxii sensed the spirit of Ironhawk stirring.

The venerable Stormhawk had scarcely been brought up to efficient functionality when the command had come to scramble. Transmissions from Squads Voitek and Vladoc on the surface of Halitus IV had confirmed sightings of ork bombers massing towards the forge refinery. Dektaan, now bearing the silver of squadron leadership upon his own Stormhawk, had ordered the squadron to make ready for immediate launch. While the Iron Father would travel in Vengeance of Santar to join the surface forces, the Medusan Wing would intercept and destroy the xenos bombing raid before it could reach its target.

Atraxii had followed his brother’s orders without question. He had wanted more time to ease the transition of Ironhawk’s animus from union with Oblexus to union with himself before taking the fighter into combat. He had scarcely begun the prescribed litany of rituals to ease the burgeoning joining, and with their launch imminent, he had been forced to abandon the process before its completion. The Techmarine brushed aside the frustration of leaving a task unfinished, sealing it away beneath the implacable iron of his trained resolve. He knew that Dektaan did not approve of his elevation to the Medusan Wing, and viewed him as an outsider. Atraxii would not compound that view by challenging his authority during his first operation.

With a wave of icy clicks, the interface needles connected along Atraxii’s spine. He experienced Ironhawk awaken, a furnace heat of leashed rage that was powerful enough to be confused with physical sensation. It had been the same fiery spirit he had experienced for an instant when last he had made contact with the Stormhawk, but of a far greater magnitude. He sensed its anger at his intrusion curdling their union, but also, buried deep within the machine-spirit’s tides of rage, there was shame.

Shame at defeat. Shame at leaving the air in failure and being stripped of the silver lacquer that had signified its stature as alpha. Shame at glorious triumph, denied to it for the first time.

The sphere around Atraxii flickered to life as banks of viewscreens came online. Viewed from the banks of sensor node clusters throughout the Stormhawk, the hangar of the Corporeal Lament materialised around him, as if the control throne were hanging inert in the air above the deck. He saw the powerful plasma turbine engines on either side of him, and the short bent wings tipped with assault cannons. The fighter’s underslung las-talon protruded beneath him, like the lance of an ancient knight levelled to charge.

Atraxii’s console pulsed to readiness, auspex, fire control, and the myriad other systems monitored and subject to his touch. His visor refreshed, adding relevant diagnostics and vox frequencies to his retinal display in panels of transparent ice-blue. Engine read-outs glowed steady and green as the turbines spooled up.

‘Brothers.’ Dektaan’s voice carried the weight of command with ease as he addressed the Medusan Wing. ‘Be in readiness. Our brothers have called for us to cleanse the skies of the xenos filth encroaching upon them. We strike the abominable greenskins, who believe they will stop us, that our iron cannot withstand their repulsive plague upon the Imperium. Let us punish them for that error. Convey your readiness.’

‘Medusan Two, affirmative,’ reported Colnex.

‘Medusan Three stands ready, brother,’ Enych replied.

Atraxii gripped the twin control sticks of Ironhawk. ‘Medusan Four, in readiness.’

‘Let us bring down the retribution of Medusa upon this blight,’ said Dektaan. ‘With blades of iron!’

‘No weakness shall bar us from our course!’ chorused the Medusan Wing.

The hangar bay doors of the Corporeal Lament ground open and the Medusan Wing blasted out to descend upon Halitus IV once more.

Oblexus watched as the Medusan Wing launched into battle. The biological components remaining to him, scarce as they were, experienced a pang of forlorn sensation for a brief instant. The Iron Father guided Vengeance of Santar beyond the Corporeal Lament, streaking like a comet through the atmosphere of Halitus IV. He watched the ident-runes of the Medusan Wing blink off his retinal display as they passed beyond the grasp of his sensors.

As the Stormraven cleared the fires of re-entry, Oblexus rocketed down towards the Adeptus Mechanicus forge refinery. The vast floating monolith was shrouded in smog and lit by the brief flashes of exploding flak from the installation’s defence platforms and gun towers.

Oblexus zeroed in on the crescent of ident-runes representing the Iron Hands ground forces. They had established a perimeter outside of the primary Adeptus Mechanicus facilities, but as he drew closer, the Iron Father could see the hordes of xenos massing against their lines like a swelling tide of ochre-green flesh. There were fewer active ident-runes than before Oblexus had crashed. Both Squad Voitek and Squad Vladoc had sustained casualties. The Iron Father’s bionic leg ticked as he absently ground its broad claw into the deck plating of the cockpit.

With a significant effort, Oblexus passed over the lines of his brothers, quickly leaving them to shrink into the distance behind him. Atraxii had spoken with the Iron Father of the efficiency of the indentured Vostroyan units in combat against the xenos, and how the combat maniples of the forge refinery’s skitarii legions had withdrawn to around the forge temple primus and denied any support to their allies without pretence.

As the cyclopean shape of the Adeptus Mechanicus temple swelled in his view like a vast insect hive, the Iron Father made ready to seek out Adept Wyn. The Martian priesthood was hiding something of great value on Halitus IV, and if such secrets impacted the parameters of defeating the xenos, Oblexus intended to discover what they were.

The halls of the temple shivered with humming machinery. Silent queues of tech-priests padded to and fro in silent prayer, while techno-cherubs flitted about the rafters, filling the air with sugary incense from censer orbs held in tiny, consumptive hands.

The skitarii ranger strode down the centre of the hall, her boots clicking against the polished stone floor. Her robes rippled over her battleplate, torn and singed by a thousand wars upon a thousand worlds. The long, slender barrel of her galvanic rifle was held low across her chest in an easy, yet vigilant grip.

A bulkhead rumbled open before her as she was admitted into the chamber. The ranger looked up through the tinted goggles of her augmetic mask, through eyes that would never be closed, upon her master.

Adept Wyn hung suspended by her mechadendrites, much as she had when she had plied the void aboard the Priori. Her physical form was slack and inert, yet she did not rest. Much as she commanded the Adeptus Mechanicus starship, the adept exerted her influence over the forge temple, and the skitarii legions protecting it.

The ranger canted a short burst of binary to announce her presence.

<I know you are there,> replied Wyn. <Even you cannot stalk so well as to avoid my eyes, ranger.>

<The Adeptus Astartes commander designated Oblexus has arrived in search of you.>

The cluster of jade lenses pulsed to life beneath Wyn’s heavy red cowl. <Of this, I am also aware,> she canted in reply.

The ranger shifted slightly. Wyn focused her whirring eye-lenses down upon her guardian. Like all her kin, radiation haloed the skitarii huntress in a shroud that was invisible to the naked eye but easily detectable to the adept’s enhanced gaze. The energies that provided the ranger with the means to dispatch the enemy with such skill were slowly devouring her. She was an efficient guardian, thought Wyn. It would disappoint her when she finally succumbed.

<Is the knowledge that I have given unto you insufficient?>

<What does he seek?> canted the ranger.

Wyn tilted her head. It was rare to hear queries from her protector.

<It is of no consequence to you,> Wyn canted sharply. <The integrity of myself, and of this installation, are your paramount concerns. Your only concerns. The vaults must not be breached, by the xenos or the Adeptus Astartes, or we shall all be undone.>

-13.0-

Atraxii heard the soft creak of the control throne as it compressed under gravity’s crush. Ironhawk screamed through the skies of Halitus IV, its spirit slavering like a hound straining against its leash. Diving through the banks of boiling cloud, Atraxii was reminded of the endless rust storms that clawed over the surface of Mars. It was nearly impossible to pierce the veil swirling about Ironhawk, and the sphere of space around the Techmarine became dimmed by an accumulated film of grit and oily micro-droplets from the world’s polluted smog.

It had taken the majority of Atraxii’s focus just to keep the volatile Stormhawk in formation with the rest of the Medusan Wing. The Iron Hands pilots had adopted attack pattern Indomitable as they closed upon the projected flight path of the ork bombers. Dektaan led the squadron, forming the tip of a triangular formation with Enych on his rear port flank and Atraxii at starboard. Colnex held at rear starboard of Atraxii to complete the formation. It was a versatile pattern, able to quickly project a front of three fighters, or have Colnex peel away from his tailing position to offer support, should the situation call for it.

It was imperative for the formation’s effectiveness that Atraxii maintain consistent spacing from the other Stormhawks of the Medusan Wing. Yet Ironhawk’s machine-spirit railed against his influence. It could not wrest control of the fighter from Atraxii, but it bucked his hold, delaying responses by milliseconds or performing them in excess, making the Stormhawk jink and drift erratically.

‘Medusan Four,’ said Dektaan over the squadron vox. ‘Tighten your position and stabilise your flight pattern immediately. Contact with the enemy is imminent.’

Atraxii blink-clicked an affirmation to Dektaan and tightened his grip on the control sticks. The Iron Father had bound the spirit of Ironhawk to his command through ironclad logic and sheer force of will. The Techmarine resisted his temper’s rising call, suffocating it beneath logic’s glacial touch. He was of iron – cold, calculated and resolved. The animus of the Stormhawk would be brought to heel like a wild beast, and logic would be its muzzle.

Voitek sprinted through the packed rubble filling the street. The undisciplined gunfire of the mob of orks pursuing him buzzed past the Space Marine, sending up bursts of dust as the solid rounds struck debris and the pavement beneath his boots. There were nearly a hundred of the howling xenos as Voitek skidded around a corner, barking in their harsh mongrel tongue and waving their brutish weapons in the air.

Voitek increased his pace, his legs a dark blur beneath him as he charged towards a waist-high mound of rubble one hundred feet distant. The sergeant ate up the distance with his rapid tread. The orks filled the street as they charged after him. With three yards separating him from the mound, he leapt into the air, clearing the debris and rolling over his shoulder into a crouch.

‘Now!’ Voitek hissed. A pair of lights blinked on his visor display.

A battle-brother rose from beside Voitek, bracing in a wide stance as he levelled a heavy bolter at the oncoming xenos. The noise of the weapon was deafening. The roar echoed off the towering structures that surrounded the forge refinery’s centre. Greenskins ceased to be, reduced to puffs of stinking blood and gobbets of ragged flesh. The battle-brother swept the devastating chain of bolter fire across the front of the orks, who held their charge. The xenos whooped in harsh laughter at their kindred’s slaughter, before they joined them in decorating the pavement like an abattoir. Bits of meat and orphaned limbs carpeted the street, and beady red eyes stared vacantly at the Space Marine from the remains of blown-apart skulls.

The heavy bolter exhausted the last of its ammunition, and Voitek snapped up from cover. The handful of surviving orks leapt into the oblivion issuing from the barrel of his bolter, as precise shots cored torsos and obliterated heads. The last of them met its end from the veteran warrior’s combat blade, an efficient thrust through the eye and into the brain. Voitek whipped the blade free, and the ork dropped dead without a sound, its foul blood emptying out from where its eye had been in thick pulsing spurts.

Voitek’s comrade knelt, stripping the depleted belt of high-calibre shells from the heavy bolter and feeding a new one in. The sergeant glanced down.

‘Baanoth, ammunition?’ asked Voitek.

Baanoth did not look up. ‘This is the last for the heavy bolter.’ The Space Marine chambered a round into the bulky cannon and hefted its weight as he stood.

‘The smell,’ Baanoth said bitterly. ‘I shall never rid myself of their stench.’

‘Embrace its repugnance, brother,’ replied Voitek. ‘Let it bolster your devotion for the purity of the machine.’

Baanoth nodded sharply. The two Iron Hands could already hear the clamouring din of more orks advancing their way.

Voitek tilted his head slightly as his vox-bead clicked. He turned to Baanoth. ‘Vladoc is pulling his squad back to the Vostroyan lines. The xenos are extending on our flanks. We must withdraw before they encircle us.’

Baanoth turned back, hearing the growing alien howl that was coming, and shouldered his boltgun.

Voitek stepped forwards. ‘Logic calls for tactical withdrawal according to protocol. Do not repeat the Great Failing by sacrificing rationality upon the altar of pride.’

‘Affirmative,’ Baanoth replied, turning and lowering his weapon. The pair of Space Marines began to proceed back through the streets, but Voitek halted, tilting his head once again.

‘Brother-sergeant?’

‘It is the Iron Father,’ said Voitek, his bionic voice box failing to render the puzzlement in his words. ‘He is marching to our lines, at the head of a maniple of skitarii.’

Colonel Dionaki watched the procession of skitarii marching towards her forward operations bunker through the crystal-blue lenses of her magnoculars. After weeks of petitioning the Adeptus Mechanicus forge temple to reinforce her frayed and depleted ranks, her wish had been granted. In the end, all it had taken was the influence of the darkly armoured warrior striding at the head of their column.

Contact between the Iron Hands and the Vostroyan 498th Fusiliers had been minimal to the point of nonexistence. Aside from a brief exchange with the pilot of one of their gunships, the Space Marines had operated independently of Dionaki’s forces, engaging the xenos ahead of her entrenched positions. The effect the small number of transhumans had made upon the battleground was staggering, giving Dionaki time to reorganise units that had been cut to the bone from weeks of sustained fighting against the orks.

Dionaki strode to the bulkhead of her command bunker on black iron legs. She had lost both limbs on Quelx, when her command tank had been blown apart by the guns of eldar raiders. Her left arm was gone from the elbow down, amputated while quelling seditionists in the Fyrian Belt, replaced with further augmentation. She epitomised the Remnant of Fire, the unsanctioned name of her fighting unit. It was cobbled together from the ashes of dozens of regiments lost in combat. Lone survivors, handfuls of squads that were all that remained of the thousands they had once fought alongside, this was the substance of the 498th. Every one of them bore limbs of cold metal, a tangible representation of wounds that only existed behind their eyes. Sons and daughters of Vostroya, they revered Mars, and the exchange of high-functioning bionics for their service as defenders was mutually beneficial. They served with fanatical devotion, unafraid to face the death that they knew so intimately.

In spite of the loyal defence of Halitus IV by the Vostroyans, the Adeptus Mechanicus had refused to draw any of their skitarii from the defence of the forge temple. Dionaki’s troops had been ground to mulch by the crushing waves of xenos without the support of the Adeptus Mechanicus’ battle cohorts, pushed back across the forge refinery in a mass tactical withdrawal. It seemed as though the techno-magi were content to watch from their spires as the Vostroyans died.

Until the Space Marines had arrived.

Did the Adeptus Mechanicus now see that conditions on the ground were as critical as Dionaki had maintained all along, or was it the actions of the Iron Hands that compelled them to dispatch some of their forces? She did not imagine that the methods of negotiation employed by the Iron Hands had been congenial, even with the priests of Mars. Conviviality did not seem to be a priority for them.

Scaling the rockcrete steps of the command bunker, Dionaki walked from the squat enclosure and stood waiting. Columns of skitarii marched in perfect synchronicity, flanked by the tall, stalking forms of Ironstrider Ballistarii and Sydonian Dragoons. The ponderous bulk of Onager Dunecrawlers brought up the rear of their formation, resembling mechanical crustaceans. Bulky eradication beamers protruded from the sides of their chassis, rippling with caged energies. Their stalwart armour and devastating weaponry was sorely needed.

Activity buzzed around Dionaki. Sub-commanders hurried from station to station while directing their soldiers with shouted commands. Heavy weapons and ammunition crates were hauled into recessed firing pits. Trenches filled with the remaining able-bodied soldiers under her command, while the wounded were pulled back to medicae tents or given the Emperor’s Mercy if too far gone.

This was the final line. Dionaki and her troops had withdrawn again and again, each time their territory swallowed by the orks. The Adeptus Mechanicus forge temple rose behind the Vostroyans. If it fell, the entire installation would fall with it. If that eventuality did come to pass, Dionaki would not be alive to witness it.

The other Iron Hands emerged in silence from the smoking ruins, like revenants answering a call only they could hear. They came in pairs, their dark armour rent and pitted, their extensive bionics spraying sparks in flickering flashes. Their heavy boltguns were slung, starved of ammunition, and the blades they wielded in their place were blunted from mass killing at close quarters. Some came back alone. Some didn’t come back at all.

Sparing a glance at the Space Marines who gathered with their leader in silent congress, Dionaki turned back to the trenches, and heard the skies began to churn with the laboured buzz of xenos aircraft. Air raid sirens began to wail across the front, and Dionaki could see the dust churned by the plodding footsteps of thousands of greenskins rise in the near distance.

‘Air batteries, prepare to fire. All units stand ready,’ Dionaki ordered into the vox-bead taped to her throat. ‘Enemy contacts are inbound.’

-14.0-

The ork bombers were disgracefully ugly things. They bore some crude similarities in design with the fighters deployed by the greenskins, with long tubular fuselages and pairs of rattling, angled wings. The prow of each bomber was a gaping ramjet intake, rimmed with jagged scrap armour like broken teeth. The craft sagged and jinked sluggishly, weighed down with dozens of rockets and bombs that clung to the undersides of their fuselages like bloated ticks. Like their lighter kin, the bombers left trails of thick, caustic smoke behind them. This made their dishevelled chain formation, a dense smear of black across the sky, exceedingly simple to track, a tactical weakness their pilots were likely oblivious to as they charged headlong towards their targets.

The Medusan Wing hurtled towards the xenos formation, angling to strike them at their port flank. On Dektaan’s command, the Stormhawks had reformed into the Omniscience attack pattern. The fighters formed a row, wingtip to wingtip, presenting their full forward firepower to the crowded column of ork bombers. The Iron Hands would fire a barrage into the xenos, then break to weave through the enemy formation and curl back upon it to strafe again.

Atraxii tightened his grip on Ironhawk’s twitching control sticks, whispering Chapter maxims and battle meditation protocols to lock his frustration with the fighter’s intransigence away beneath logic and discipline. Its spirit was fighting him, still balking at his usurping of its reins from Oblexus. Read-outs flickered intermittently, and false returns blinked over his auspex.

Atraxii would not cede control to the spirit. He would not cast reason aside and perpetuate the failures that had defined his brotherhood. He aligned his thoughts with the tactical doctrines and protocols of the squadron. He measured distances between his comrades and Ironhawk, and calculated the projected inbound vectors of the xenos targets they would imminently face. His mind computed the algorithms effortlessly to divide the potential number of enemies with the ammunition remaining to him and the time needed to engage each foe, and adjusted his tactics accordingly to prescribed contingencies to balance his approach.

‘I have visual,’ said Enych. At that moment, Atraxii rattled through a dense bank of cloud, seeing the ork formation as a thin vibrating line ahead in the distance.

‘I do not see any fighter escorts,’ said Colnex. ‘Though the ground below us is heaving with enemy hosts.’

‘They are both targeting the forge temple,’ replied Dektaan. ‘The skitarii are moving to reinforce our lines – we must focus on the bombers.’

‘What was it that provoked the Adeptus Mechanicus into parting with troops now?’ asked Atraxii.

‘The Iron Father,’ replied Dektaan.

Atraxii frowned. He had told the Iron Father of his suspicions about the Mechanicus on Halitus IV, and Oblexus had shared the logic of them.

‘Approaching maximum weapons range,’ called out Colnex.

‘Begin lacing target locks on those bombers,’ ordered Dektaan. ‘Open fire as soon as we are in range.’

Had the tech-priests revealed to the Space Marine commander what they were hiding? The thought buzzed in Atraxii’s mind. Or were the skitarii they dispatched to support the Iron Hands on the surface a concession to turn him away? Knowing the zealous guard the adepts placed over their secrets, the latter seemed the far more likely scenario.

Ironhawk began to pull ahead of the formation.

Focus. Atraxii chided himself for his lapse in concentration. He levered down his engine output, falling back in line with the rest of the Medusan Wing. Targeting reticules crystallised over the nearest ork bomber, bonding one of Ironhawk’s krak missiles to each bloated aircraft. Screeds of data appeared beside each bracket, counting the range until the target locks solidified.

Ironhawk’s machine-spirit flooded Atraxii with a deluge of hot rage. The Stormhawk’s engines flared, blasting it ahead of the rest of the Medusan Wing towards the xenos formation.

‘Medusan Four, what are you doing?’ snapped Dektaan. ‘Reduce speed and return to formation immediately.’

Alarms cried in shrill tones as multiple auspex returns appeared on Atraxii’s scopes.

‘Multiple contacts,’ said Colnex as they appeared on his screen as well. ‘Enemy fighters coming in.’

‘They are above us,’ called out Enych.

‘Scatter!’ shouted Dektaan.

The craft of the Medusan Wing peeled apart as ork fighters dived into their midst. Flak and cannon fire filled the air with concussive blasts and streams of lashing tracers. Atraxii rolled aside as an ork fighter screamed past. He drew it in his sights and blew it apart with a searing blast from his las-talon. Another greenskin pilot rushed towards him like a missile. Atraxii punched Ironhawk into a dive as proximity warnings filled the cockpit with their urgent screams.

The ork hurtled overhead, and Atraxii hauled Ironhawk into a snap turn, doubling back to come up behind his opponent. Missile locks danced across the Techmarine’s visor.

‘No,’ he snarled, blinking the insistent runes away and bringing up the assault cannons. ‘We need them for the bombers.’

Atraxii opened up with the wing-mounted rotary guns, their high-velocity rounds lancing into the xenos fighter. The ork pilot lost its left wing, causing the aircraft to pinwheel and spin in a pall of smoke. Another burst from the assault cannons shredded the cockpit, leaving the wreckage to dive through the clouds and smash against the façade of a refinery station.

‘Medusan Four,’ said Enych calmly. ‘Enemy fighter has come in behind me. Move to assist.’

Atraxii spotted Enych’s Stormhawk far below, rolling and weaving to buck an ork pilot off him. Pulling Ironhawk in a swift turn followed by a dive, Atraxii swept down from above. He fired his las-talon. Withering streams of blinding energy slashed out, piercing the xenos fighter’s armour and cooking off the unstable energies within its fuselage. The craft detonated in a spray of fire and shrapnel.

‘Well met, Medusan Four.’ Enych’s vox transmission warbled with the interference of the debris between their Stormhawks.

Atraxii snapped his head around, searching for the ork bombers. They were entering maximum range of Imperial lines.

‘Squadron lead,’ said Atraxii. ‘The bombers.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Dektaan. ‘Go with Medusan Three and make your attack run. We will follow suit once these fighters are neutralised. Go.’

Atraxii and Enych sent their affirmations to Dektaan, and rocketed towards the chain of bombers. Clouds of stubber fire zipped past and clanged off Ironhawk’s hull as the bombers’ defensive guns angled towards them. Atraxii felt resistance in the control sticks. The Stormhawk’s animus wanted to continue hunting the fighters, seeking more agile prey than the slow-moving craft now framed in its crosshairs.

Atraxii dipped low, setting himself on an approach vector that placed him at an angle beneath the ork formation. He tagged a bomber for each missile he had at his disposal, targeting every other craft and transmitting the information in a databurst to Enych. Atraxii’s wingman reciprocated, locking on to the bombers between his own targets.

‘Missiles, then strafe the survivors with assault cannons,’ said Atraxii.

‘Affirmative,’ responded Enych.

The pair of Stormhawks ate up the distance between them and the ork flyers. The targeting reticules blinked as they entered missile range.

‘Firing.’ Atraxii depressed a rune on his control stick. Six krak missiles screamed out from pods mounted on each side of Ironhawk’s fuselage on contrails of silver exhaust. The projectiles peeled off towards their targets as Enych’s barrage joined them, twisting and spiralling as they arrowed towards the greenskins.

The bombers’ defensive guns clipped three of the missiles, their warheads detonating harmlessly in the air. The others found their targets. In a ripple of cacophonous explosions, a third of the bombers were vaporised. The others, alerted to the oncoming Stormhawks, began to dive and release their payloads.

Streams of high-explosive munitions fell down upon the surface of the forge refinery, tumbling through the bursting clouds of flak thrown up by Imperial weapons emplacements and Hydra anti-air tanks. They landed like whips of fire along the surface of the forge refinery. Bombs exploded with thunderous detonations, sending smoke and dust mushrooming into the sky. The ork gunners had released their bombs too early, and as a result, the majority of them landed amongst the greenskins advancing upon the Imperial lines. Hordes of bellowing orks were obliterated as their fellows dropped indiscriminate death upon their heads.

Those bombs that did reach the Imperial lines were equally devastating. Explosions blasted craters into crowded trenches, scattering waves of severed limbs and bits of flesh in all directions. One of the magazines storing shells for the artillery pieces was struck, annihilating everything within a three hundred-foot radius. Seeing their advantage, mobs of roaring orks punched through the smoke and ruin to exploit the freshly hewn gaps in the lines of the Vostroyan and skitarii defenders.

‘Prioritise the targets that have yet to begin their attack runs. Target their payloads,’ barked Atraxii, his veneer of logical calm cracking as Imperial casualties mounted below. He opened fire with his assault cannons, raking his aim across the ventral arming racks of the ork bombers still clustered with munitions. High-velocity rounds shredded the unstable ordnance clutched beneath the ork craft, destroying the bombers in blossoming fireballs. Stuttering fire from his las-talon obliterated another of the bloated ork flyers, filling the air with smoke and twisting scrap.

Atraxii broke off his strafing run, firing his engines in a quick burst to gain distance as stubber fire buzzed around him. He came about in a tight turn, the G-force compressing him against the control throne. Firing his las-talon, Atraxii sheared the wing off a bomber, and watched as the craft spun to the ground in cascading flame. The remaining ork bombers were peeling away after dropping their payloads, boosting towards the safety of their fighter squadrons.

‘Medusan Three and Four.’ Dektaan’s voice crackled with distortion over the vox. ‘Rally on my position. Priority target inbound.’

Oblexus swung his cog-toothed axe into the ork’s face. The ancient weapon’s disrupter field flared as it made contact, liquefying the greenskin’s skull with concussive force as the honed blade carved clear through from cheek to temple. The top half of the alien’s head was gone, the lower half a fused stump of gurgling black fluid.

The Iron Father barged the dead xenos aside, bearing down on another ork encased in primitive power armour. A pneumatic claw locked around Oblexus’ forearm, halting the downswing of his axe. The Iron Father primed his plasma pistol and jammed it into the claw’s elbow joint.

The blast sheared the limb in half in a sapphire sunburst that scorched the lacquer of Oblexus’ armour down to the bare ceramite. His arm came free, still clutched by the severed ork claw. As the greenskin howled in shock and pain, the Iron Father tore the claw loose and smashed it into the ork’s face. The alien crashed to the ground, and Oblexus struck it again and again until the scrap metal claw shattered. He dropped the broken tangle of metal beside the equally broken skull of the ork it had struck.

Chaos reigned all around Oblexus. He saw Vostroyan infantry valiantly holding strongpoints in the line. They blasted mobs of greenskins to ribbons of stinking meat, and then charged screaming into the throng with bayonets fixed or wielding lasrifles like cudgels once they exhausted their ammunition. Skitarii units performed coordinated manoeuvres orchestrated by neural commands from their primes and princeps, forming red-cloaked islands around Onager Dunecrawlers. The hulking walkers fired their eradication beamers into the ochre-green mass. Corridors were seared into the greenskin tide as whole swathes of the xenos simply ceased to be. The gaps were filled almost instantaneously, as more and more of the orks crushed their wounded to death in their blood-maddened desire to close with their enemy.

An ident-rune vanished on Oblexus’ retinal display. Another warrior lost. His command shrank to twelve, twelve remaining from twenty. Assault Squad Vladoc had borne the brunt of the casualties, smashing down like mailed fists into the densest knots of resistance before blasting back out again. The Assault Marines were reduced to half-strength.

Sergeant Voitek shouldered a rocket launcher, emptying the tube into the base of a nearby tower. The rocket’s blast set off the explosives the Tactical Marines had planted at the foundation of the structure prior to the battle. Smoke boiled out from the bottom of the tower as the building began to list.

A titanic groaning howl of rending metal filled the air as support columns snapped under the strain. The greenskins packed closer as they fought to reach the front line, oblivious to the leaning spire looming over their heads. The spine of the tower broke, and thousands of tons of rockcrete and metal came crashing down into the greenskin host.

The dust cloud from the collapsing tower blocked out the sky, and tremors shook the ground like an earthquake. Humans and orks were thrown from their feet, or disappeared into the gaping fissures that split out from the site of the crash. A wall of crushed rockcrete now separated the orks from the Imperial lines.

The Imperials seized the advantage, turning their guns upon the mobs of dazed greenskins trapped between them and the ruined tower. Heavy weapons fire mowed the xenos down, while precision barrages from siege mortars and short-range artillery pieces slaughtered the rest in exploding geysers of alien gore.

‘Rearm,’ ordered the Iron Father, receiving a chain of acknowledgement runes from his remaining brethren. He watched their ident-runes shift across his retinal display, consolidating on the ammunition caches he had dropped from Vengeance of Santar. Setting off towards the nearest cache, Oblexus whipped his axe through the air, shaking loose the ork blood cooking off on its power field. He thumbed the release on his plasma pistol’s exhaust vane, which shrieked as the weapon bled out the accumulated heat generated by sustained fire.

Voitek sat upon an ammo crate as Oblexus arrived, slotting bolter rounds into magazines.

‘Well met, sergeant,’ said the Iron Father, reaching for a bandolier of krak grenades. ‘That manoeuvre will stall their advance and give the mortals time to consolidate.’

Voitek inclined his head, accepting the praise in silence. The air was filled with the stench of spilled fuel and charred flesh, saturated by the ever-present reek of the greenskins.

Oblexus turned his head, hearing a low rumble in the distance. Voitek got to his feet, taking a step forwards to stand beside the Iron Father.

Thin columns of black smog began to snake up from behind the fallen tower as the rumbling grew louder.

‘Get back to your positions,’ Oblexus ordered over the vox-net. He blink-clicked a rune on his retinal display.

‘Colonel Dionaki.’

Static filled the channel for a handful of seconds, before the interference-laden voice of the Vostroyan officer replied.

‘We hear it too.’

‘Get your weapon crews ready immediately,’ said the Iron Father as the first blocky red shape leapt from the fallen tower on thick, screaming wheels.

‘Ork bikes are incoming.’

-15.0-

Atraxii rolled aside from the cluster of rockets that ripped past mere yards from Ironhawk’s hull. He banked, setting the Stormhawk on its starboard wing as the aircraft turned tightly. The ork fighter tailing the Space Marine followed suit, pulling the same manoeuvre and spraying at the Space Marine with cannon fire.

With chains of flickering tracer fire filling the air around him, Atraxii increased speed, tightening the loop as the two fighters spun around each other. Atraxii’s opponent, flying a craft that was larger and less manoeuvrable than his agile Stormhawk, began to lag behind, unable to keep the pace in its ramshackle scrap-iron fighter. The distance between the prow of the ork and Atraxii’s tail grew, and slowly Atraxii began to edge closer to pulling behind his assailant.

Whether it realised the attack was imminent or was operating under some bestial instinct, the ork pilot blasted out of the loop in a spray of fumes. Atraxii levelled out behind the greenskin flyer, and took aim with his assault cannons. The twin-linked weapons screamed as they spun, drowning the ork in a fusillade of high-velocity shells. Rounds perforated the wings of the xenos fighter. Twitching and fighting to stay airborne, the ork ship bucked as a volley lanced through the oversized ramjet that comprised its fuselage.

The chassis of the ork fighter glowed with internal detonations, and a broad tongue of dirty fire sprayed out from its nose, as though it were some mythical firedrake. The body of the aircraft peeled apart into a storm of fragments, which Atraxii dodged as he rolled beneath the explosion.

Warmth flooded Atraxii’s mind. He flinched, resisting the ferocious influence of Ironhawk’s machine-spirit. The fighter’s animus slavered for combat, pushing the Stormhawk beyond its mechanical tolerances to achieve victory. It savoured each sprinting blast of its thrusters, each defiant roar of its weapons systems, the acrid musk of a shattered foe as the Space Marine fighter soared through the fires of its prey’s demise.

Ironhawk loved this. It seeped into Atraxii’s mind, little by little. It manifested subtly at first, as his lips peeling back over his silver teeth. The Techmarine’s vision narrowed to the enemy in his crosshairs, blocking out all distractions. A feeling of savage triumph pulsed from his hearts and swept through his bloodstream as he left another xenos aircraft as wreckage tumbling from the sky.

No.

Atraxii gritted his teeth. He defied the obscene impulses of his biology, the anathema of the cold constancy of logic. He was in control, not Ironhawk’s primeval intelligence.

Yet, Atraxii’s mind expressed doubt. Not from his union with the volatile Stormhawk, but from experience. Logic alone had failed the Iron Father against these vile xenos. Oblexus had espoused that Atraxii rely on his instincts – not in place of his logic, but rather alloyed with it. It rankled the Techmarine, going against the doctrines of his clan, his Chapter, and the decades of rigorous training on Mars. How could he reconcile that which seemed so disparate?

A spike of adrenaline flashed up Atraxii’s spine. He wrenched the control sticks to starboard, narrowly avoiding the blazing wreck of an ork bomber as it tumbled into the forge refinery below. Miniscule beads of perspiration bloomed on the Techmarine’s brow as the sharp sensation withdrew.

Perhaps there was a place for instinct.

The greenskin bikes packed the narrow streets with their dishevelled bulk as they charged, throwing up curtains of dust and smoke in their wake. Their riders whooped and hollered in their croaking tongue, while gunners straddling buggies behind them opened fire with junk cannons and sent rockets corkscrewing into the air to fall well ahead of the Imperial lines they surged towards. More of the garish vehicles leapt down from the crumbling ridgeline formed by the collapsed tower, and bands of infantry began to pick their way through the rubble behind them.

Oblexus divided his remaining brethren across the front, stationing them where they would face the sternest attack and anchor the resolve of the mortals around them. Laden with grenades and ammunition bandoliers, the Iron Hands acknowledged the command of the Iron Father and marched to their positions.

The skitarii detachment fanned out in orderly firing lines above the trenches, clustered in crescent formations moored around their Dunecrawlers. Dust rattled from the vibrating hulls of the walkers as they continued to fire. The red-robed warriors of the skitarii Vanguard knelt in ready silence, plasma calivers and galvanic rifles locked to shoulders. From elevated perches, rangers steadied the long barrels of transuranic arquebuses on spikes sunk into the broken rockcrete, taking aim through the optics of the heavy, radiation-soaked rifles.

The Vostroyans slammed down against the walls of their trenches, taking aim with battered lasrifles. Blood and ash caked their faces. Men and women who had recently lost limbs still gripped laspistols, knives and grenades, dire resolve sketched across their weathered features. The Remnant of Fire had all died once before – they would not shrink from their duty with its return.

Oblexus leapt up onto the rampart, in full view of the Imperial forces spread around him. His scarlet gaze swept over the storm of xenos vehicles closing upon them, then across the patchwork of allies waiting to repel it.

‘Stand ready!’ the Iron Father roared, levelling his axe at the charging greenskins. ‘Reload and prime weapons. Maintain proper spacing. Consolidate overlapping fields of enfilading fire to ensure optimum kill-ratios.’

The ragged ranks of the Remnant of Fire readied themselves, grim resolve etched upon their weathered and soot-blackened faces. Hands of dark metal clicked against clutched lasguns. Bionic limbs ground and wept trails of sparks from damaged servos.

‘The Emperor does not issue salvation to those who forsake their duty,’ continued Oblexus. ‘Fight and survive, fight and die. Duty is the imperative. Nothing less is acceptable.’

The remaining Iron Hands, spread along the front line, stood upon the ramparts in union with the Iron Father. The skitarii remained silent, though Oblexus’ visor display blinked with affirmations from the Adeptus Mechanicus force’s princeps and primes conveying their readiness.

Oblexus thumbed the activation rune of his power axe, throwing a halo of stark illumination into the wan, dusty air as lightning shivered across its relic blade.

‘Fire!’

The air filled with the whistling hiss of artillery as the Imperials shelled the oncoming xenos. Bikes were upended as high explosives struck, spinning them end over end through the air before smashing down onto their fellows. Eradication beamers fired from the Dunecrawlers swept across their rumbling ranks, erasing the greenskin bikers in balls of fragmented light.

‘Bring those guns to bear, now!’ barked Oblexus to the crew of a Hydra flak tank.

The Hydra’s chassis groaned as its crew directed the vehicle’s quad autocannons down from targeting the skies to ground level. Vostroyan infantry scattered as the tank’s guns opened fire in a deafening roar. Brass casings the length of a man’s forearm streamed from the Hydra to clatter in a spread around it, while robed tech-priests swung incense over its pitted hull, oblivious to the din.

The Hydra sowed red ruin through the charging orks. Clouds of blood and smoke filled the path of the autocannons as the flak tank’s crew dragged their fire across the greenskin advance. Bikes were blown apart, their crews shredded. More vehicles took their place, bikes and four-wheeled buggies that were little more than iron cages studded with oversized weapons. The ork riders, their faces daubed in scarlet paint, roared with wild laughter amidst the pandemonium as they increased their speed.

Oblexus glowered at the xenos’ glee as they approached. This was the epitome of life to a greenskin, a savage melee with a hardened foe to fight, a sublime and rapturous act committed almost as worship to their heathen deities. Riding upon their godless, abominable machines, they were the antithesis of everything the Iron Father represented – uncontrolled, illogical and obscenely biological. The sting of combat stimulants flooded Oblexus’ remaining flesh, and his bionic fists clicked as he tightened his grip on his axe and plasma pistol.

By the Gorgon, he would savour their extermination.

-16.0-

From above and below, the central forge refinery of Halitus IV was a warzone. Aircraft twisted and dived through shrouds of smog and exploding flak, the defeated raining down broken onto the heads of the warriors wading through the churning melee beneath them. Vast stores of refined promethium burned in towering infernos, drowning the installation in caustic, combustible rain. Detonations ripped through entire sectors of the floating structure as storage facilities exploded. The banks of anti-grav arrays supporting the forge refinery laboured to keep it afloat, tilting the installation haphazardly as the immense plasma drives faltered and stuttered intermittently.

Carving through the tortured skies, Atraxii peeled away from an ork fighter as Ironhawk’s las-talon blasted it to splinters. The Stormhawk interceptors of the Medusan Wing hung close together in the battle sphere, combining their fire against enemies and coming to each other’s aid when they came under attack from reckless ork pilots. The airspace was filled with the xenos aircraft, and though the Iron Hands proved to be the superior pilots in their dogfights, the numerical advantage, as it had ever been when confronting greenskins, was strongly against them. The ebon hulls of the Stormhawks became pitted and scorched as the effects of sustained battle began to mount against the Medusan Wing.

Atraxii’s eyes flicked over a dozen read-outs as he blasted into a dense veil of fog, seeking to shake a greenskin fighter from his tail. Fuel was fast becoming a serious concern, as was his dwindling ammunition supply. The reserves for the assault cannons were down to twenty per cent, and the capacitor on Ironhawk’s las-talon was in danger of overloading from prolonged firing. If he pushed it much further, the energy cannon would burn itself to slag. He had a pair of krak missiles remaining, held back as a precaution.

Cannon fire slashed around Ironhawk. The ork fighter held steadily on Atraxii’s rear scopes, tenaciously clinging to him. The Techmarine scanned his forward auspex and, finding what he was searching for, broke to port. The greenskin followed suit, continuing to spray fire down at Ironhawk.

Once he had accepted the utility provided by melding his tactical doctrines with his natural instinct, the fiery defiance exhibited by the machine-spirit of Ironhawk had ebbed. Atraxii had ceded no control or influence to the savage animus, but allowing forces beyond logic to guide the Stormhawk in battle appeared to kindle a fledgling bond between it and the pilot. The fighter ceased to rail at Atraxii’s commands, giving him the focus needed to tear xenos squadrons from the sky.

Atraxii hauled back on the control sticks, pulling Ironhawk up into the path of a distant ork fighter. Spinning up the assault cannons, Atraxii fired a pair of short bursts at the greenskin. The volleys zipped over and around the xenos aircraft, but failed to score any damage other than a glancing hit against its prow. The Techmarine had succeeded in attracting the attention of its pilot.

The ork fighter rocketed towards Atraxii on a waving contrail of oily exhaust. The Space Marine could practically see the crazed pilot of the fighter slavering and barking challenges from the open cockpit as it hurtled closer. Fire blazed from its wing-mounted cannons, poorly aimed and erratic. Furious to have its prey set upon by a usurper, the ork behind Ironhawk redoubled its efforts, blasting closer.

A round skittered over Ironhawk’s starboard wing, bucking the fighter and tearing a deep furrow down the ceramite. Atraxii could not tell if the shot had come from the enemy in front of or behind him. The Stormhawk shivered, and urgent proximity alarms began to blare as the two aircraft blasted towards each other on a collision course. Atraxii loathed the greenskins. He hated them with every drop of his blood, every plate of iron. But his hatred did not blind him to what the xenos were capable of, or what they were going to do.

Atraxii was close enough now to see the ork ahead of him clearly. The brute had smashed the canopy of its cockpit open, punching a meaty fist through the gap to fire a crude pistol at Ironhawk. Atraxii’s eyes flicked to the proximity warning, watching the runes rapidly spool down in blinking ruby text.

0600.00 feet.

0450.00 feet.

Atraxii gritted his teeth, holding course as the ork fighter filled his entire viewscreen.

0300.00 feet.

The control sticks compressed, buckling slightly in his grip.

0150.00 feet.

Atraxii roared, punching Ironhawk down into a spiralling dive. The hull shuddered in the jarring wake of the xenos ramjet as it rocketed overhead, close enough to scorch the lacquer from the Stormhawk’s tail. So consumed with their frenzy to destroy the Space Marine, the ork pilots were blind to one another’s screaming, unstoppable advance, until the very last moment.

The ork fighters collided in mid-air in a blooming fireball of expanding shrapnel. The shock wave swept out in all directions, throwing Ironhawk end over end. Bits of jagged metal clawed across the hull, tearing tracks like silver tears down the matte-black armour. A section of Atraxii’s panoramic viewscreen blanked as a sensor cluster sheared away. He fought to regain control of the Stormhawk and pull it out of its tumbling dive.

‘Medusan Four.’ Atraxii could barely hear Dektaan’s voice over the disjointed chorus of conflicting alarms. ‘What is your status? Are you hit?’

Atraxii clenched his teeth hard enough to feel them shift in his jaw. He fired a burst from the Stormhawk’s thrusters, slowing his tumbling cartwheel. Wrenching the control sticks to starboard, he stomped down on the tail rudder pedals at his feet. Ironhawk blasted sideways, robbed of its momentum as it began to level off.

‘Medusan Four, respond.’

Atraxii pushed a breath through his teeth as he brought Ironhawk back under control. ‘I have not been seriously damaged.’

‘Confirmed,’ Dektaan replied. ‘Rally on my position immediately. Auspex is detecting a massed anomaly, closing fast.’

With a mechanical roar, Oblexus sidestepped the ork bike as it cleared the ground, simultaneously slashing down with his power axe in a two-handed grip. The energised blade sheared through the torso of the xenos rider, splitting it from collar to hip. Oblexus continued his follow through, driving the axe through the ramshackle chassis of the warbike and bisecting it into twin mounds of sparking scrap metal and spurting fuel lines.

The Iron Father flung himself to the side, rolling away from another ork biker swinging a rattling flail. He came up in a crouch and drew his plasma pistol. A precision blast vaporised the greenskin’s head. The bike careened on, smashing its front tyre down into a trench and pitching the headless corpse through the air to vanish amidst the calamity of the battlefield.

All semblance of order had disintegrated. The Imperial forces had mounted a ferocious defence of the trench line. The kill-zone before them was a scrapyard of broken ork vehicles and broken alien bodies. Disciplined fusillades of las- and solid-shot fire scythed down the pressing greenskins, making them pay dearly for each bloody yard they gained.

But onwards the orks came, frothing over yellowed tusks, and beady red eyes blazing with frenzy for the slaughter. The greenskins began to punch holes into weakened portions of the trench line. They flooded into the industrial earthworks of broken rockcrete. The Vostroyans began to separate, cut off into shrinking islands of defenders to be butchered by the xenos.

The skitarii commanders had altered their stratagems, dividing their forces and forming lines of warriors designated for close combat. The red-robed infantry engaged the xenos hand-to-hand, slicing their foes apart with transonic swords and pulping bodies with arc mauls. Rangers stood behind them firing volleys from galvanic rifles, coring torsos and blasting apart ork skulls.

Oblexus and the Iron Hands waded through the clash reaping a devastating tally but without the numbers to hold back the tide. He watched an Ironstrider struggle as a mob of greenskins crawled up its legs, dragging the spindly walker to the ground to disappear under the clamouring hordes. A crippling blast threw dozens from their feet as a Dunecrawler exploded, brought low by massed detonations from the bombs of ork sappers.

The ground beneath Oblexus’ boots quaked, and he turned his head as a deafening roar filled the air.

The banks of ochre cloud ahead of the battle glowed with a point of growing light like a miniature star. The light punched through the boiling cloud, arcing down towards the surface on a column of fire. Magnifying the image with his enhanced visor, Oblexus glimpsed a black dot at the centre of the light, and a shudder rippled over his remaining flesh.

‘Incoming!’ he barked, the words booming like a loudspeaker from his snarling iron mask. ‘Orbital round, incoming!’

The collapsed tower vanished in a blinding flash of nuclear fire. Hundreds of orks were incinerated in the searing blast, others further out crushed to ruin by the shock wave that followed. A colossal mushroom cloud the colour of bruised flesh unfolded from the blast crater, blooming into the ravaged sky on tendrils of irradiated smoke.

Oblexus’ visor tinted, and his audio systems dampened the din to compensate for the blast. The shock wave was strong enough to hurl men and xenos from their feet even where he stood at the fore of the trench line three hundred yards away, as dust and rock slashed against the battered ceramite of his armour.

The orks cheered in savage revelry as the fallen tower was blasted to dust and broken glass. They began to shout, a rhythmic, guttural bark that repeated again and again. The Iron Father realised that the orks were chanting, as a gargantuan shape slowly darkened the clouds above the battlefield, its prow still glowing from the ruin it had just unleashed. The tortured skies and atmosphere of Halitus IV had plagued long-distance scans and communications since before the Iron Hands had made planetfall, but could such distortion truly mask such a colossal arrival?

‘Brothers,’ said Oblexus over the Iron Hands’ vox-channel. ‘Withdraw to the forge temple. The xenos have brought their starship into the atmosphere.’

-17.0-

It materialised from the churning shrouds of toxic cloud like a deep-sea leviathan rising from the darkness of an ocean’s depths. Waves of incinerated atmosphere rippled out from it as it ploughed down from the void. A protruding prow parted the nimbus veil, fashioned into a scrap-iron jawline, as if come to devour the forge refinery hovering before it. The misshapen barrels of cannons filled the space between the warship’s jaws, the one at its centre a smouldering red from firing upon the installation.

Atraxii recognised the looming vessel as it edged over the forge refinery. He had participated in void skirmishes against its like before. Though he did not know the mongrel title given to this type of vessel by the greenskins, in the Imperium of Mankind, it bore a name.

Terror ship.

The Iron Hands Techmarine realised how the orks had been capable of fielding so many fighters. Where other ork warships were packed with as many weapons batteries as their crews could bolt and solder on to their superstructures, huge sections of the terror ship’s rust-eaten hull had been cut away, the space utilised instead to house squadrons of xenos fighters. The ship lumbered on flickering engines, drifting precariously over the lip of the forge refinery.

‘The ship barely reached the installation under its own power,’ said Atraxii.

‘The greenskins launched this raid for fuel,’ said Enych. ‘The promethium they stole was sent to power this monstrosity.’

‘Typical,’ scoffed Colnex. ‘They use the entirety of their pilfering to bring the warship into the fray.’

‘Look,’ called out Atraxii, skirting Ironhawk below the terror ship but keeping his distance from its guns and swarming fighter escorts. Ork landers were hurtling down upon a promethium storage facility. Thick lengths of segmented hose and piping trailed from the landers, connecting them to the terror ship like the strings of crude puppets. Teams of greenskins leapt from the landers, tearing through plasteel containment blisters and sinking the hose lines into the silos of fuel within.

‘One of the refinery’s primary reservoirs,’ replied Colnex. ‘The orks seek to siphon that promethium.’

Atraxii’s glowing eyes narrowed behind his helmet visor. ‘That is enough fuel for the xenos to launch raids against any of the surrounding systems.’

‘Then it must be destroyed,’ said Dektaan with finality. ‘Medusan Wing, form up on my lead. We are tearing that abomination out of the sky.’

Oblexus chanted a prayer to appease the spirit inhabiting his plasma pistol as he adjusted the weapon’s sizzling focusing rings. He swung out from cover, firing into a knot of roaring orks charging his barricade of broken rockcrete. Three died, their flesh blackened and seared away, shoved aside by their frenzied kin.

The Iron Father’s backpack-mounted pincer claw shot out, seizing one of the greenskins by the throat. The claw closed, snapping the ork’s neck with a series of wet pops. The claw flung the corpse into the alien’s howling fellows, bowling them to the ground. Oblexus leapt forwards, butchering the thrashing beasts with his power axe.

Oblexus’ visor display beeped twice in rapid succession. He turned, sprinting down the street. Orks pursued him, oblivious to the darkening shadow looming over them.

Vladoc smashed down into the orks, leaving a crater of shattered rockcrete and broken bodies. The Assault sergeant tore into the rampaging aliens as Oblexus reached the next cover point. The Iron Father skidded behind an overturned Vostroyan troop transport, and sent a databurst to Vladoc, who promptly blasted into the air, scorching nearby greenskins with the flames of his jump pack.

The Iron Hands had been engaged in running battles since the ork terror ship had bombarded the Imperial lines into ruin. They moved back in a staggered advance leading towards the forge temple at the centre of the floating refinery city, covering one another as they withdrew from the xenos. Looking up, Oblexus saw that the monolithic structure now hung over them, a colossal pyramid of brass and cogwork spires.

A thunderous detonation shook the ground beneath Oblexus’ boots, nearly causing him to stumble in spite of his armour’s stabilisers. Whipping tides of dust shot through the gaps between buildings as fire leapt up into the sky. The ork ship had continued its bombardment of the surface, firing a creeping barrage towards the temple. Whooping with cruel laughter in the shadow of their warship, the greenskins attacked with redoubled ferocity, despite losing swathes of warriors in each of the terror ship’s blasts.

Oblexus charged to the rallying point, twisting and firing his plasma pistol behind him at the pursuing xenos. Seeing a firing line of skitarii ahead, he broadcast his ident-burst across the noosphere. The skitarii re-aimed their weapons, allowing the Iron Father to pass.

Coming to a halt, Oblexus crouched next to Voitek, who was busily stripping a track of ruined, gore-gummed teeth from his chainsword. His other brethren knelt in firing positions around him, forming a crescent before the central avenue leading into the forge temple behind them. Nine were left standing. The tactical withdrawal to this position had cost much Medusan blood. Vladoc landed in a crunch of fractured rockcrete beside Oblexus, catching a spare bolt pistol magazine from a brother and reloading his weapon.

The Iron Father looked up as his vox crackled. The voice was distorted, thin and flawed by static, but Oblexus heard it clearly.

‘This is Dionaki, respond.’

Oblexus had not expected there to be any survivors from the shattered Astra Militarum lines. He had witnessed almost the entire force of skitarii obliterated by the terror ship’s bombardment and had assumed the mortals had shared their fate. This Vostroyan was more resourceful than he had anticipated.

‘Oblexus of the Iron Hands,’ he replied. ‘Acknowledging your transmission.’

‘My lord, I am moving my surviving elements to your position. Do not fire upon us.’

‘Colonel, do you require assistance?’

‘Negative,’ Dionaki replied flatly. ‘We can reach you without intervention.’

Oblexus shot a sidelong glance at Voitek, who shrugged indifferently as he laid a fresh track of teeth into the battered chainsword.

‘Acknowledged, colonel.’

Within the hour, Oblexus spotted a pair of ragged columns moving swiftly through the ruins towards them. The black fatigues of the Remnant of Fire were torn and clotted with dust and blood. The soldiers carried as much ammunition as they could salvage during their withdrawal, even managing to haul a pair of siege mortars with them.

Oblexus noticed that there were no wounded. Dionaki had been logical to leave them behind to stall the xenos advance, buying her viable elements a window to rendezvous at the forge temple. The Iron Father had seen many a commander lose their resolve under such conditions, and the stern efficiency with which the Vostroyan had conducted this war had earned her his respect.

‘Well met, colonel,’ said Oblexus, thudding a fist against his chest.

Dionaki ran a gloved hand across her face, wiping grime from the network of scars that covered it.

‘We are a shadow of our former strength, my lord. There is little we can do against a void ship, but we will hold until we fall.’

‘As if simply dying were your purpose,’ uttered a modulated voice from behind them.

Oblexus turned to see the cowled form of Adept Wyn striding towards them with her gliding gait. The clawing wind and smoke rippled across her heavy robes. The tech-priest’s ranger bodyguard followed in her shadow, the air around her thick with ozone as the skitarii’s internal auspex scried the area for threats.

Wyn’s optics panned to Dionaki, and the adept released what might have been the mechanical equivalent of a sigh.

‘I shall refrain from binharic communication,’ she rasped in her flesh voice. ‘For the sake of those incapable of comprehension.’

Dionaki made a show of unclipping the restraint strap on her holstered laspistol, before crossing her arms in a buzzing snarl of damaged servos. The adept’s ranger guardian twitched the barrel of her galvanic rifle in the Vostroyan’s direction, centring it over her chest.

Wyn continued, as if oblivious or simply above concern. ‘The forge temple and its vaults are now in jeopardy. Your inability to restrict the progress of the xenos is most unacceptable.’

‘What are you keeping here?’ Dionaki demanded. ‘What are you hiding that has drawn the greenskins here in such force?’

‘No,’ said Oblexus, stepping forwards to within a pace of the adept. ‘The xenos came here to steal promethium, that much is true.’

The Iron Father’s snarling mask turned to the hooded tech-priest. ‘Yet you are hiding something within these vaults.’ He pointed to the hazy gargantuan outline of the ork terror ship hanging in the blazing sky behind them. ‘Keeping your skitarii from engaging the enemy has cast our efforts to pacify this assault, and the survival of this installation, into jeopardy. Tell me what is here that would cause such illogic, or I shall take my brothers and depart this world. We can still withdraw to orbit, but you will burn with this temple.’

‘That course of action would not serve your interest,’ rasped Wyn.

‘Then we are in agreement,’ replied Oblexus, his eye-lenses like smouldering coals. ‘Take me to the vault. Now.’

The interceptors of the Medusan Wing burned their engines hot, reforming into the Indomitable attack pattern as they hurtled towards the ork terror ship. Atraxii snarled as he glimpsed the xenos fighters hovering around its bulk like flies circling a beast. Targeting reticules snapped into focus around them, tagging each scrap-fighter in scarlet brackets. As if sensing the target locks, the xenos craft peeled away from the terror ship towards the Medusan Wing on an intercept course.

‘Fighters, coming in!’ Atraxii called out. ‘Three marks at two-ten, six others behind them.’

‘Spool up assault cannons and las-talons,’ barked Dektaan. ‘Reserve missiles for the terror ship, designated Primary Target.’

Ironhawk’s spirit loosed a silent roar of predatory fury through its iron bones, prompting a rush of battle stimulants through Atraxii’s bloodstream. The ork scrap-fighters closed, already firing undisciplined volleys of rockets and cannon rounds that dropped ineffectually before the Medusan Wing. Atraxii silenced the chorus of chimes and alarms ringing through the cockpit, running scans of the airspace to his left to compensate for the blanked viewscreen caused by the destroyed sensor bundle.

The Techmarine’s focus shrank to a single craft at the head of the xenos squadron. The ork ace blurred towards him. It lacked the recklessness to fire its weapons prematurely, saving its payload for the dogfights rapidly coming its way as the two forces collided.

The air within the Adeptus Mechanicus vault was frigid. Breath feathered out from between Dionaki’s clenched teeth, and she shivered, clearly unaccustomed to the icy conditions after years amid the sweltering forges and refineries above. Oblexus registered the change in temperature via his armour’s diagnostics, though it had no perceptible impact upon the bionics and genhanced physiology of the Space Marine.

The catacombs lay deep beneath the surface of the forge temple, buried under thundering foundries resounding with the toll of a thousand hammers. The party passed through sealed bulkheads and past the unblinking gaze of robotic sentinels and automated laser turrets. As a final, densely armoured gateway parted before them on grinding tracks, Adept Wyn led the party into the vault proper.

They moved down an unlit corridor of dark metal, the vault’s walls sloping up at the sides to render it into a hexagonal aspect. The ceiling was threaded with thick, segmented cables, and a thin carpet of mist drifted lazily over the floor plating. The cog-and-skull icon adorned the walls in laser-etched bronze, and Oblexus detected the energy signature of stasis fields from concealed partitions behind the icon.

‘The majority of the treasures contained here are devoid of physical form,’ rasped Adept Wyn as she glided ahead of Oblexus and Dionaki. ‘Knowledge, greatest of the gifts from the Omnissiah, cannot be broken, or have its grandeur abraded away to dust by the relentless march of time. Only when it is forgotten is it truly, definitively lost.’

The wraith-like magi stopped, mist spilling around the hem of her robes like ripples over still water. The skitarii ranger clanked to a halt beside her. While the sniper may have seemed calm to the unenhanced, Oblexus could detect the heightened battle protocols buzzing through her and smell the acrid sharpness of stimulants racing through her base organics. She was tense, as much as a vaunted skitarii sharpshooter could be.

‘And yet, there are occurrences when relics are discovered across the void. This installation’s vaults have served on eighteen such instances since its inception, as a way station protecting such items for transit to sacred Mars, so that the secrets they contain may be unlocked.’

Slowly, Adept Wyn turned to face Oblexus, her movements so smooth and silent that it was as if she had no weight at all. ‘Son of Medusa, are you certain of the path you walk upon?’

Dionaki’s eyes flashed up at the Iron Father, her jaw set.

‘Events such as these have the potential to result in repercussions of adverse consequence. This bears your consideration.’

‘Enough posturing.’ Oblexus’ mechanical voice was rendered even harsher within the close confines of the vault. ‘Repetition of what I have said will serve no purpose.’

‘Very well, but regardless, the relic contained within is bound for Mars, and cannot be diverted from its course.’

The cowl of Wyn’s robes twitched slightly. ‘A commonality.’

Oblexus and Dionaki remained silent.

‘Contrition,’ said Wyn quietly after a moment. ‘An attempt at humour.’

The Cult Mechanicus adept raised a robed arm. A pair of serpentine mechadendrites slithered from the sleeve, undulating through the air before coming to rest over the cog-and-skull icon set into the wall beside them. A tiny aperture iris peeled open in the centre of the icon. The mechadendrites slipped into the aperture with a sharp click. Adept Wyn gave a brief shudder and drew them back within her robes.

For several moments, nothing happened. Dionaki flexed her hands, the metal fingers slipping against one another like dry leaves dancing over stone. Oblexus considered the bronze icon on the wall, before he detected a power surge from behind it.

With a gasp of thin vapour, the outline of a panel appeared in blue light around the cog-and-skull icon. With a muted clunk of concealed machinery, the panel opened outwards, exposing a rectangular stasis chamber behind it. The object within the crackling stasis field hung suspended in pale azure light. Oblexus took three full seconds to observe the object, to verify what it was.

Wyn took a gliding step forwards, freezing as the Iron Father’s power axe blurred into her path.

‘Take another step, adept,’ growled Oblexus, ‘and I will leave precisely enough of you alive to watch the xenos burn this temple to cinders.’

-18.0-

The air between the Medusan Wing and the squadron of ork scrap-fighters exploded with detonating ordnance. Fighters twisted through the burning pall, seeking each other’s ruin at blistering speed. Blazing chains of tracer fire linked them for heartbeats, before the fallen vanished in clouds of vaporised metal.

Atraxii wove through the chaos of the battle, pushing his skill as a pilot to the limit and relying on his burgeoning union with Ironhawk’s primal machine-spirit to sharpen his abilities. The Stormhawk interceptor flew faster, turned sharper and was more devastating with its weapons now that the craft and its pilot were in sync. It was clear to the Techmarine how the Iron Father had so dominated the skies with the venerable machine.

Through the blur of duelling fighters and curtains of exploding flak, the Techmarine sought out his target. The ork ace was easy enough to recognise from the garish flames crudely daubed on the hull of its scrap-fighter, but even such a provocative target was difficult to locate amidst the battle.

As he dived down to tail a xenos fighter from above, Atraxii’s bionic eyes traced the targeting reticule for Ironhawk’s underslung las-talon as he swung behind his target. The brackets weaved over the tail of the rattling aircraft, piercing through the thick plume of exhaust it left in its wake. Atraxii tightened his grip on the control sticks, thumb hovering just above the firing rune.

The reticule strobed, emitting a low chime as the weapon’s targeting lasers made contact. Atraxii punched down on the rune. A stuttered pair of energy blasts lanced out from the las-talon and into the ork fighter. The craft’s rust-eaten armour boiled away to slag as the bolts burned through its superstructure, detonating its fuel tanks with a krump. The fighter disintegrated, its wreckage spinning down through the dense clouds of Halitus IV.

‘Medusan Four.’ Dektaan’s voice filled Atraxii’s helm. ‘Rally on my location.’

The ident-rune representing the Medusan Wing’s lead fighter leapt up onto Atraxii’s retinal display. He pulled Ironhawk into a climbing turn in Dektaan’s direction, keeping his flight path serpentine to shake loose any enemy pilots. Atraxii saw the ident-runes for Colnex and Enych spin about his display, staying in close contact to support one another.

Atraxii pulled Ironhawk alongside Dektaan’s port flank, dipping his wing in salute.

‘Follow me in, Medusan Four,’ said Dektaan. ‘We are engaging Primary Target with an attack run while Medusan Two and Three hold its escorts.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Atraxii.

The two Stormhawks dived below the storm of battling fighters and blasted towards the massive ork warship. Atraxii’s eyes flicked over his scopes and auspex. For the moment, no enemy fighters had peeled off to intercept them.

‘We should come in low,’ called out Atraxii. He pulled up a hololith schematic of the ork vessel and the promethium reservoir it had moored itself to. ‘If we strike the fuel intakes, it may be enough to disrupt or potentially destroy Primary Target.’

‘Show me.’

Atraxii blink-clicked an icon on his retinal display, transmitting the hololith to Dektaan. The squadron lead was silent for a heartbeat as he analysed the data.

‘Granted. With our limited ordnance, it is the course with the highest probability of success. Prepare to engage.’

A freezing blade stabbed into Atraxii’s mind. He banked, rolling Ironhawk aside as a volley of rockets screamed past. A pair of missiles smashed into Dektaan’s Stormhawk, kicking the fighter into a flaming tailspin. The garish silhouette of the greenskin ace ripped past Atraxii, closing on Dektaan’s reeling fighter to claim its kill.

‘Brother!’ Atraxii broke from targeting the fuel lines tethered to the terror ship to come to the leader of the Medusan Wing’s aid.

‘No!’ Dektaan’s voice could barely be heard over a buzzing squall of distortion. ‘Stay on your target. I will draw it off as long as–’

The vox-link severed in a burst of static. Atraxii shunted down the snarl of rage bubbling up from his chest and hauled Ironhawk back on course for the attack run. His instruments strained to parse through the tempest of flak and exploding fighters filling the air, rendering his scopes and auspex effectively blind. He did not see Dektaan fall, but lost his ident-rune as it vanished from his retinal display. Neither could Atraxii see the ork pilot that had killed him.

Atraxii pushed a deep breath through his teeth. He blink-clicked away his overloaded instruments, leaving nothing in his visor but the targeting systems for his two remaining krak missiles. He glared down at the juddering fuel intakes connected to the xenos warship, sunk into the promethium reservoir to syphon its fuel. Atraxii laced the targeting reticule over the first of them.

Screeds of data from Ironhawk’s rangefinders scrolled beside the terror ship in neat lines of Ekfrasi runes. Atraxii pushed the engines to full power, rapidly closing to maximum range for a firing solution as the distance between them quickly evaporated. The brackets flashed into deep crimson, and the Stormhawk’s machine-spirit sang with a ringing chime. Atraxii fired.

The krak missile leapt free of the pod mounted on Ironhawk’s fuselage, roaring on a column of white-hot flame. It tore towards the ork warship, blistering the air around it into shimmering heat haze. Within the armoured nose cone of the missile, the weapon’s crude animus primed its explosive payload. It was ready to hurl itself into oblivion and drag the enemy down into the blackness with it.

A buzzing storm of metallic splinters tore into the krak missile from above. The warhead detonated, scattering flame and shrapnel harmlessly across the terror ship’s scrap-iron hull.

Fury pulsed in insistent chains down Atraxii’s spine as the ork ace intercepted the missile. Ironhawk’s spirit howled in silence. Atraxii blinked the targeting data for his last krak missile into transparency on his peripheral vision and spun up his assault cannons.

The Techmarine was finished playing games with the abominable greenskin pilot. The ork needed to die, and it needed to die now. He felt the spirit of Ironhawk howl its assent through the fighter’s bones as the engines burned hotter. Atraxii scanned through the miasma of smoke and dense cloud, and spotted his target.

The ork ace blasted past Atraxii, pulling its nose around in a skidding flip to come up behind him. Missile warnings blared in the cockpit as Atraxii fired the infernum halo launcher, catching the lethal projectiles in a cloud of blinding countermeasures that obscured him from his pursuer. The Techmarine blasted ahead of the trailing xenos scrap-fighter, gathering distance before executing a wingover.

Bracing for the G-force, Atraxii rolled Ironhawk’s wings as he banked the fighter into a sharp turn. The Stormhawk rattled as momentum clawed at its superstructure. Slashing through a cloudbank, Atraxii pulled the nose of the fighter around, now set head on against the greenskin.

Both fighters opened fire simultaneously. Assault cannon fire met the fusillade from the ork’s high-calibre guns to form a firestorm of high-velocity death. Atraxii swayed and rolled Ironhawk through the storm, keeping the ork in his crosshairs. Impacts hammered across the hull, bucking the craft and shearing away plates of ablative ceramite armour. Atraxii maintained his fire, dragging it across the greenskin’s left wing in a burst of flame and smoke.

The ork banked, fleeing for the security of the terror ship’s point defence guns. Atraxii surged after it, following the juddering trail of smoke the xenos left in its wake. He blink-clicked a rune on his retinal display, re-engaging the targeting system for his last krak missile. The targeting reticule danced over the ork fighter. Atraxii gripped the control sticks tighter, lacing the brackets over the labouring craft’s tail.

Alarms sang as balls of exploding smoke erupted in a wall around the fighters. Atraxii had entered the range of the terror ship’s guns. While inaccurate, the sheer volume of shots fired from the side of the ork warship guaranteed that staying this close would see Atraxii dead.

The missile lock chimed. A thin smile ghosted across Atraxii’s face. He fired the missile and peeled away, rocketing out of the range of the terror ship’s guns.

The krak missile smashed into the ork ace’s tail, sending the fighter tumbling end over end beneath the terror ship in a whirlwind of smoke and flame. Unable to control the scrap-fighter, the ork within was helpless as it rocketed straight into one of the pulsing fuel intake lines.

The fighter exploded, setting the promethium within the fuel line alight in both directions. Ignited fuel blasted from the cable like a chain of fire. The terror ship rocked as its fuel detonated, listing as if struck by a torpedo.

The fire raced down the intake line, burning everything in its path before it reached the promethium reservoir.

A blinding flash filled the sky. A searing column of screaming flame blasted up through the ork terror ship, splitting the vessel in two. Secondary detonations blasted up across the surface of the forge refinery for miles. A towering mushroom cloud bloomed as the severed halves of the ork warship fell away in ruin. Shock waves tore across the floating platform, thundering like the pounding fist of an enraged god.

The Medusan Wing raced from the blast wave, a trio of dark shapes darting away from the expanding ball of hellfire. Ork fighters were vaporised. The Iron Hands rode the edge of the concussion, their hulls jarred and rattled, but inviolate.

Atraxii released a breath and sensed the warm pulse of satisfaction from Ironhawk as its prey burned. He ran an auspex sweep and opened a vox-channel.

‘Medusan Wing, form up on me. We have cut the head from the beast. Now we must complete the purge.’

-19.0-

The greenskins watched the terror ship die in the skies above them, speared by a column of blinding fire. An ork exists to fight, to make war, and there is no other acceptable way for one to meet its end than in battle. The xenos arrayed across the surface of the forge refinery were no different, but as their flagship burned, their cohesion perished with it.

The hordes devolved into a senseless, directionless mob. Orks tore each other apart as fledgling tyrants fought to cement themselves and assume the mantle of control. The assault against the forge temple faltered, breaking like a filthy green tide against the last bastion of Imperial resistance.

Seeing their opening, Colonel Dionaki and the commanders of the skitarii battle-maniple launched a blistering counter-attack. Though their forces were reduced almost entirely to battered, exhausted infantry, the Imperials leapt upon their invaders with vindictive fury. Marching at the tip of the spear, implacable in scarred black armour, strode the Iron Hands. The Space Marines advanced in unison, their gait metronomic. They did not slow. They did not charge. They marched, even and silent, their boltguns bucking in bionic fists as they blasted the vile aliens into ruin. They would sweep across the face of the foundry city that hung in the clouds of Halitus IV, and they would not leave a single one of the greenskins alive.

Oblexus brought a hand up to the hull of Vengeance of Santar, brushing its ebon armour with silver fingertips. The sensors within his bionic limb detected the baking heat radiating from the dark plating. The Iron Father had taken to the skies in the Stormraven during the final cull of the xenos, purging their last remnants with salvoes of rockets and walls of mass-reactive death unleashed from the barrels of its hurricane bolters.

Oblexus watched Voitek stride down the gunship’s assault ramp, the plate ringing with his heavy tread. The Iron Father turned to the sergeant as he came to a stop at the ramp’s base.

‘It is secured,’ said Oblexus. It was not a question.

Voitek was silent, a simple fist brought to his chest all the answer needed. Oblexus nodded once.

‘Prepare our brothers. We are returning to the Corporeal Lament.’

The veteran sergeant turned, marching back up the assault ramp without a word.

Oblexus heard the thin rasp of bionic footsteps behind him. He turned to regard Colonel Dionaki as the Vostroyan commander approached. She came to a halt before him, standing straight yet still daunted by the Space Marine towering over her.

‘Well met, colonel,’ said Oblexus.

‘And to you, my lord.’ Dionaki made the sign of the aquila across her chest with a clinking of dark iron limbs. ‘The Remnant of Fire burns still, and for that we give thanks.’

‘Your warriors acquitted themselves efficiently,’ replied the Iron Father. ‘You have brought distinction to your world.’

‘We fight for the lost, my lord. We are but an echo of the dead, seeking their vindication until the last of us falls silent.’

Oblexus looked down at the Vostroyan for a moment. ‘I understand.’ The Space Marine turned away, striding up the ramp of the Stormraven.

<Son of Medusa.>

Oblexus stopped.

<You must deliver the relic to sacred Mars.>

The Iron Father pictured the slack form of Adept Wyn, hanging within her web in the darkness at the centre of the forge temple.

<Mars will know if you defy it.>

Oblexus marched up the ramp, punching a control panel at its apex, and it rose to seal on grinding hydraulics. Vengeance of Santar lifted from the landing platform, surging into the air above the forge refinery. A trio of black shapes swung down towards the Stormraven. With Atraxii in the vanguard, the Medusan Wing formed up around Oblexus as the Iron Hands departed Halitus IV.

<Mars will know.>

The Iron Hands gathered in a small reliquary deep within the heart of the Corporeal Lament and sealed the bulkhead behind them. The twelve Space Marines stood in silence, their gaze locked upon the shape hanging suspended within a humming stasis field. A barrage of sensations rippled through their biological components – shock, wonder, awe, anger, reverence and a dozen more emotions assailed the base flesh and blood of their organics. In any other circumstance, the assembled brothers would have crushed these reactions beneath logic and will, and placated their shame with ritual sacrifice and penance.

Here, the warriors allowed themselves the emotions rushing through them. For they stood in the presence of a treasure thought lost to oblivion for ten thousand years, never to be seen again.

To the unenlightened, the collection of chips of dark armour plate and webs of dense mail links did not appear significant. The utterly exquisite skill of its craftsmanship was plain to see, even broken away and abraded by the ravages of one hundred centuries. The mailed fist of the Iron Hands glittered in the pale light of the stasis field, proud and unbroken by the millennia spent in darkness.

‘You are certain?’ Atraxii whispered, cautious awe sketched across his porcelain features.

‘I am certain,’ answered Oblexus. ‘This is a fragment of the Medusan Carapace. The battle armour worn by the Gorgon himself, crafted by his own hand. It adorned him in his last days, during the Great Failing.’

Without a word, the Iron Hands sank to one knee. Helms clanged to the deck plating as the Space Marines bared their faces before the remnants of the armour of the demigod who had fashioned it and baptised it in the crucible of war when the Emperor walked among mortals. Armour that had failed to protect their primarch from his own passions. Oblexus knelt beside Atraxii, the light glinting dully from his iron mask. The words of Clan Captain Bannus echoed through the young Techmarine’s head as he thought of his mentor.

This is his face now.

The Iron Hands remained in genuflection for several minutes, contemplating the example of the primarch, their father’s weaknesses and strengths, before they stood as one.

‘Mars sought to keep this from us,’ said Atraxii.

‘Indeed,’ replied the Iron Father. ‘Even now, they demand its delivery to Mars, so that whatever knowledge it contains can be gleaned from it in service to the Adeptus Mechanicus.’

‘Will you surrender it?’ asked Atraxii, turning the shining sapphires of his eyes upon his mentor.

‘Mars does not suffer the forfeiture of such a relic to anyone, nor shall they, even to our Chapter. If we defy them, there will be a cost.’

‘It is logical,’ said Vladoc in the muted tones of his bionic larynx. ‘Surrendering the carapace to the Adeptus Mechanicus avoids strife with Mars, and its secrets would be used to strengthen the armies of mankind.’

Some of the Space Marines nodded at this.

‘In this,’ said Oblexus, ‘we must divorce ourselves from the emotions of the flesh, and the weakness they tempt us to succumb to. We must act according to logic, to the ironclad will of the machine.’

‘Must we?’

The Iron Hands turned. For an instant, confusion clouded Atraxii’s mind. He had not realised that the one who had spoken the words was him.

‘Brother?’ asked Oblexus.

Atraxii was silent for a moment, his eyes lingering on the Medusan Carapace hanging suspended at the centre of the chamber.

‘In our zeal to purge the weakness of our flesh, to be replaced with blessed iron, we must take care not to forsake the strengths of our blood.’

Atraxii looked to each of his brothers. ‘It is true, the flesh is weak – but not all of it. The machine, for all its power, cannot fashion courage, honour or loyalty. It bears no instinct, and it cannot hate our enemies. We must strive with every moment to plane away our frailties, but we must also seek to elevate the strength already within us, for such an inheritance cannot be replaced. Once this is alloyed with the machine, we will face no foe that can break us.’

Atraxii looked to the Iron Father. ‘Is the logical course to cede our primarch’s wargear to Mars? Perhaps. But has this war not shown us that there are eventualities where the most logical course is to be illogical? Carrying this sacred item, our father’s inheritance to us, back to the hearth of Medusa to be safeguarded by his sons may not be logical, but it is right.’

Silence reasserted itself within the chamber. The gathered Iron Hands cast their glances upon one another, and upon the treasure floating before them. Oblexus stepped forwards, feeling the eyes of his brothers settle upon him.

‘There is wisdom in your words, brother,’ said the Iron Father. He looked to each of his brothers. ‘We set course for Medusa.’

Across the Corporeal Lament, serfs and robed adepts hurried to their tasks, preparing the Iron Hands vessel for warp translation. Bridge crew attended to their stations, and servitors murmured in their hardwired sconces as they readied the warship’s Geller field. Standing upon the command dais, Iron Father Oblexus watched the void disappear as slabs of dense armour descended over the armourglass viewports.

Within the primary hangar bay, the spirit of Ironhawk snarled as it was coaxed into slumber by a flock of robed menials, locked securely into its cradle alongside the other Stormhawks of the Medusan Wing and Vengeance of Santar.

Alone in the chamber at the vessel’s heart, Atraxii knelt before the Medusan Carapace, hands raised as he chanted canticles in praise of Ferrus Manus.

As the fabric of reality tore to admit the Corporeal Lament into the warp’s dismal tides, the Iron Hands began the voyage to Medusa, bearing the mantle of the Gorgon back to its home.

ACCEPTABLE LOSSES

Gav Thorpe

‘Captain on the flight deck!’

The assembled aircraft crews of the Imperial cruiser Divine Justice moved as one. Captain Kaurl strolled into the vast hangar to the resounding clang of one hundred boots stamping in near-perfect unison on the steel-mesh decking. Walking two strides behind the stocky flag captain, Flight Commander Jaeger looked over his new comrades.

Most were dressed in regulation fatigues, standing smartly where they had been working or lounging before their commander’s arrival. Jaeger’s eye was drawn towards a particular crowd off to one side, towards the rear of the aircraft bay. There was something surly about their bearing: their uniforms were not quite so smart, their posture not so rigid as the other flight crews, their attention not totally focused on the newly arrived captain. Instinctively, Jaeger knew that they were Raptor Squadron, his new command.

That explained a couple of things, at least: Kaurl’s slightly amused look when he had greeted Jaeger earlier, and the glances from the other flight commanders during his initial introduction. So, the Raptors were in need of some discipline? Well, Jaeger would soon knock them into shape.

Jaeger realised that Captain Kaurl was addressing the flight crews and tuned his wandering mind into what his new commander was saying.

‘…and I expect every one of you to accord Flight Commander Jaeger the same amount of respect and cooperation you gave to his predecessor, Commander Glade. Proceed with your duties – we break from dock at zero five hundred hours.’

With a nod, the captain sent the gathered men back to work and turned to Jaeger.

‘I see from your look that you’ve already spotted Raptor Squadron,’ he said plainly.

Jaeger nodded slightly, keeping his expression as neutral as possible.

‘They’re not as bad as they might seem at first,’ Kaurl continued. ‘There are some damn fine pilots there, and with the right man in charge they’ll make a fine showing. I think you’re that man, Jaeger, and I’ll be watching your progress with interest.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Jaeger replied, pleased the captain had confidence in him. ‘I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about from Raptor Squadron.’

‘Go and meet your men then, I’ll see you later. Give them a chance and they’ll prove themselves worthy of the Emperor’s Navy.’

The two officers exchanged respectful bows before Kaurl turned on his heel and strode from the flight deck. Jaeger took in all the sights, sounds and smells of his new home. Although most flight decks had similarities, each always had a unique odour, a different edge on the lighting, variations in layout and a hundred other small details which made it special. The flight deck of the Divine Justice had space to carry, prepare and launch ten of the massive Marauder bombers, along with a complement of ten Thunderbolt fighters. All of the aircraft were currently in their docking bays, each nestling in its own arched alcove along the sides of the flight deck. Above the flight commander’s head, a labyrinthine criss-cross of gantries and steps hung in the distant shadows, centred around a pair of enormous cranes capable of picking up and transferring the planes to the launching bays. The chatter of the flight crews filled the cavernous chamber with a constant murmuring, and the fragrances of the tech-priests’ unguents and incense hung heavy in the air, mixed with the more mundane smell of oiled metal and human sweat. Taking a deep breath, Jaeger started towards his new flight crews.

As he strode across the flight deck, Jaeger quickly inspected his new men more closely. Despite Kaurl’s parting words, he was not impressed with what he saw. They slouched amidst a scattering of crates, idly passing the time arguing heatedly, playing with dice or just sprawling around relaxing. All but a few wore loose-fitting, light grey fatigues, presenting a drab, uninspiring sight. Some of them turned to look at the flight commander as he strode briskly over, and a couple managed to get to their feet. One of them, a gunner of Jaeger’s own plane judging by his insignia, pulled himself upright and snapped off a sharp salute.

‘Fine day!’ proclaimed the gaunt-looking gunner. ‘May I welcome you to the auspicious role that is flight commander of Raptor Squadron.’

One of the others, a burly-looking bombardier, shot a murderous glance at the man.

‘Shut it, Saile. The new commander don’t want to hear your creeping!’ the bombardier warned, his sweat-beaded brow knitted in a glowering scowl.

‘That’s enough from you both!’ Jaeger snapped, irritated by their indiscipline. ‘Let’s get something straight right from the start – I don’t like you, any of you.’ Jaeger made a point of looking them over slowly. ‘From what I’ve already seen, you are a bunch of shoddy, undisciplined, no-hoping slackers. Well, not any more!

‘You will address me as Commander Jaeger. Unless directly addressed by me, in non-combat situations you will only talk to me by first receiving permission, in the manner of “Permission to speak, Commander Jaeger?”. Are those two simple facts absolutely clear?’

The men looked at Jaeger in stunned disbelief.

‘I believe the words you are looking for are, “Yes, Commander Jaeger”,’ he prompted, eyebrows raised.

Their reply was quiet and faltering, but it was a start.

‘Ahm, permission to speak, Commander Jaeger?’ came a quiet voice from one of the men around them.

Jaeger looked at the flyer who was stepping lightly between the others to stand in front of him. He was swathed in the voluminous robes that marked him out as one of the tech-adepts, responsible for the mechanical and spiritual well-being of the planes, as well as the Divine Justice itself. The man’s neck was criss-crossed with wires and scar tissue, and an interface plug dangled from the back of his right hand. In battle, the tech-adept would literally wire himself into the Marauder bomber, monitoring any damage and prompting the plane’s repair mechanisms into action.

‘Granted,’ Jaeger said with a nod.

‘As I am principally a member of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and only aligned to the efforts of the Imperial Navy by secondary venture, I consider your treatment of myself and the other tech-adepts as subordinates in a very serious light,’ the tech-adept said, his chin raised proudly to look the tall flight commander full in the face.

Jaeger grabbed the man’s robe, pulling him up until he was on the tips of his toes. The adept’s hood fell back, exposing more bio-wiring. The coils of thin cable sprung from his shaven head like metallic hair, attached to his scalp through a hundred scabrous incisions in the skin. Some of the others stepped forward but were stopped in their tracks by a murderous glance from their new commander.

‘While you fly my planes, I am your commanding officer!’ Jaeger snarled. ‘I don’t care what rank you have in the worship of the Machine-God – on this flight deck and in the air, you answer to me! Make no mistake, I have every intention of turning this squadron into a respectable fighting unit. Cooperate and you may come through it with your lives and your rank. Go against me and I’ll chew you up and spit out the pieces.’

Jaeger let go of the adept and stalked off, cursing himself for losing his temper. But if there was one thing that Jaeger hated, it was sloppiness. He had seen too many good men die because of another’s carelessness, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Jaeger ordered the men to stand down, pleased with their performance during the training session. As they sloped off to their communal sleeping chambers, Jaeger headed back towards the bunkroom he shared with the other three flight commanders. Jaeger wiped the sweat from his face with the palm of his hand, and was glad to be leaving the heat of the flight deck, warmed beyond tolerance by the bombers’ engines. As he walked down the corridor towards the officers’ quarters, Jaeger heard the clump of boots on the metal deck and turned. Marte, one of his gunners and a veteran of many years’ service, jogged slowly up, saluting as he approached.

‘Permission to speak, Commander Jaeger?’ the man asked cautiously.

‘What’s on your mind, gunner?’

‘Excuse my saying, but I don’t reckon you’re as hard-edged as you make out, sir.’ The gunner was sheepishly inspecting the backs of his hands, avoiding Jaeger’s stare. ‘We – that is, the other lads and me – we were wondering how you ended up as our flight commander. I mean, what did you do wrong?’

‘What are you getting at, gunner?’ Jaeger rested his hands on his hips. ‘And look at me when I speak to you,’ he added, annoyed at having to address the top of the gunner’s bald head.

Marte looked up reluctantly to meet his gaze. It was obvious that the other crew members had put him up to this. ‘Well, getting stuck with Raptors,’ the gunner explained quietly. ‘I mean, you seem like you know what you’re doing, so why did you end up in this dead-end assignment?’

‘”Dead-end”? Raptor Squadron may not be spectacular, but you’re all competent, dedicated men. Why should this command be so bad?’ Jaeger asked, genuinely puzzled.

‘So you’ve not heard the stories, sir?’ The gunner’s face was a picture of incredulity.

‘I don’t listen to rumour, I deal with facts and my own experiences,’ Jaeger snapped, annoyed that the gunner considered the flight commander the type to listen to scuttlebutt.

‘Very wise, sir,’ the old gunner said quickly. ‘Look, Raptors get the worst deal, it’s that simple. If there’s some dirty work to be done, we’ll get it. You must have seen the records – we’ve got the highest loss rate for the last three tours. That idiot Glade didn’t help either, Emperor rot him.’

To Jaeger, the gunner was making no sense at all. ‘What about the other Marauders?’ he asked. ‘Devil Squadron?’

‘The Devils?’ The gunner laughed, a short and bitter noise. ‘They don’t know the meaning of hard work. Flight Commander Raf is Admiral Veniston’s nephew, if you take my meaning…’

The veteran gunner was shaking his head, as if his surprise at the flight commander’s ignorance had reached a new level. Jaeger had had enough of being treated like a naive youth who had just earned his commission.

‘You and all those other scurrilous gossips can rest assured that by the time I’m finished, Devil Squadron will be polishing our boots,’ he promised, his voice hard, his eyes boring into the gunner. ‘Remember, a crew is only as good as they think they are. Captain Kaurl is behind me on this – all you need is a morale boost and things will fall into place. Now go and get some rest!’

The old gunner hesitated for a moment, giving his commander a doubtful look, before hurrying back down the corridor, leaving Jaeger to his thoughts.

Raptor Squadron wasn’t inherently bad, the flight commander mused. They’d just started believing the things that were said about them. If it was true that the admiral’s favouritism for his nephew was costing lives, he’d have a few things to say about that. For now, all he could do was watch and wait. And hope that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.

‘Emperor’s blood! That’s a sight to set a man’s heart trembling!’ Admiral Veniston exclaimed. Only eight weeks into her patrol, the Divine Justice had run into serious trouble. Magnified on the main display screen of the cruiser’s bridge was a scene of utter destruction, the like of which the ageing officer had not witnessed for many years. The terrible wreckage of a Navy cruiser, what little remained, spun slowly across the stars. In the distance could just be made out the dark shape of an ork hulk, the source of the carnage. One of the command crew looked up from the glowing green read-out in front of him.

‘Surveyors identify her as the Imperial Retribution, admiral. Eighty per cent structural damage – she’s taken one hell of a pounding,’ the crewman reported.

Veniston nodded. ‘Aye, she has. And the question is, how do we avoid a similar fate?’

Captain Kaurl took a step forward, a glint in his eye. ‘I suppose dropping back into the warp and forgetting we found her is out of the question?’

As the command crew chuckled, Veniston directed Kaurl into the conference chamber with a flick of his head. Within the small wood-panelled room, the two were able to speak more freely.

It was Veniston who spoke first. ‘Seriously, Jacob. How the hell are we going to take out that damned hulk?’

‘The tech-priests made a long-range assay.’ The captain activated a comm-screen and brought up a rough schematic of the hulk. ‘The bulk of the weapon systems are located near the front. If we could come at it from the rear we could probably give her enough of a pounding while limiting the return fire.’ As he spoke, Kaurl drew his finger over the screen in a wide circle, to finish pointing at the hulk’s main engine block.

The admiral frowned. ‘There’s only us and the frigates – we can’t take her on from more than one direction without being taken apart piecemeal. If she can bring her guns to bear, even the Divine Justice won’t survive for very long. Just how do you suggest we get the greenskin scum on that hulk to sit still long enough for us to let rip with the torpedoes and batteries, Jacob?’

Kaurl rubbed his short-cropped beard. With the press of a rune, he imposed a series of arrows and notations onto the diagram of the hulk. ‘Well, now that you mention it,’ he said, ‘I have had one idea. The orks won’t have a problem hitting something the size of the Divine Justice, but that doesn’t mean they’re invulnerable…’

The order to prepare for launch had been issued an hour ago. Now the flight crews were hurrying to finish their last tasks. Jaeger’s second-in-command, Phrao, was leading the crew in prayer, kneeling with heads bowed beneath the fuselage of their Marauder, chanting hymnals with admirable concentration. Jaeger looked up to where Arick, one of the dorsal gunners, was clambering around on top of the Marauder’s fuselage.

‘What’s with them?’ Jaeger called up.

Arick looked down from where he was polishing the twin barrels of his heavy bolters atop the spine of the Marauder.

‘Do it every time. S’posed to bring the Emperor’s blessing,’ the gunner called down.

‘I guessed that, but why beneath the Marauder? Isn’t it more practical to do it in the open?’

Arick shrugged, although the movement could hardly be seen inside the thick folds of the vacuum suit he was wearing. ‘Meant to bring the Emperor’s power through the plane. You know the score, you must’ve seen other crews doing something like that before every flight, a special ritual. Like Jeryll reading out the Articles of War, and me polishing this damned big gun, though I know the maintenance crews have oiled it plenty since we got our orders. Surprised you don’t do something like it yourself.’

‘Yes… Yes, you’re right, there is something I nearly forgot,’ Jaeger replied distractedly.

Standing next to his massive Marauder, Jaeger called for his crew to gather in front of him, ready for briefing. His gaze turned to the nose of his craft and the gilded Eagle Rampant that shone from it. The design was repeated on the gloves of his dress uniform and printed on all of their helmets. It was the blazon of the Raptor Squadron. A fine name, but was it a fine crew?

As his crew congregated, he looked at each of them in turn. Over the two months that had passed since leaving the dock at Bakka, he had come to know the men better, although only real combat would show him their real mettle. There were the gunners, Arick, Marte and Saile; each had proved his accuracy on the simulation ranges, but word was that Arick lost his cool in the heat of battle, and Saile was basically a coward. Still, trust not in rumour, Jaeger’s old captain on the Invincible had taught him.

The tech-adept, Ferix, had been no problem since Jaeger’s rough treatment of his fellow Martian at that first encounter. Ferix was frowning, however, as he climbed down from the Marauder’s engine, obviously annoyed that his attempts to consecrate the Marauder to the Machine-God had been interrupted. Jaeger would give him time to finish his rituals before they launched; there were enough variables to worry about without offending the Marauder’s spirit with hasty ceremonies and hurried prayers.

The last over was Berhandt, the bullying, muscle-bound bombardier. For all his rough accent and large frame, the flyer had a shrewd mind. He’d have to be watched, however, Jaeger had decided, since much of the pessimism of the squadron seemed to originate from him, one way or another.

Once all five of his crew were present, Jaeger stepped onto an empty munitions crate that the servitors had not yet moved. Clearing his throat, he spoke out strongly and surely, wanting to instil his crew with the confidence that they demanded. If they didn’t believe in him now, their hesitation or doubt could get them all killed once they were in battle.

‘As you know, many bomber crews have certain customs to ensure the Emperor’s grace and no bad luck. Well, this is something of a tradition for me, a little ceremony I go through before my first combat flight with a new squadron, just to make sure nothing bad happens – to any of us. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take very long,’ Jaeger assured them, seeing their distracted gazes. They wanted him to get his little pep-talk over as quickly as possible, and he could empathise with that.

‘It’s an old tale from my home planet. I come from Extu, in case you hadn’t heard already – bit of a backwater by many of your standards, but we’ve a strong sense of honour and courage, so I’ll not be running away from any fights.’

Jaeger saw nods of agreement from Marte and Arick. The others shuffled their feet uneasily, embarrassed by being told a story. Not all cultures were like the one on Extu, Jaeger knew; in some societies tales were seen as childish rather than important teachings for adults and children alike. Though he sometimes cursed others for their ridiculous habits or customs, in his years of service in the Imperial Navy, Jaeger had learnt to accept all manner of viewpoints and outlooks on life.

‘Anyway, to my tale, as told to me by Faith-Sayer Gunthe. It tells of the great Emperor Eagle, whose claws are sheathed with fire and whose eyes are all-seeing – and of how he banished the Chaos Serpent from our realm. One day, the Chaos Serpent, the eternal enemy of the Emperor Eagle, steals one of the sacred eggs from the Emperor Eagle’s nest whilst he is away hunting. The Chaos Serpent takes the egg back to her lair, and wraps herself about the egg to keep it warm, to make sure it incubates. When the Emperor Eagle returns, great is his dismay to find one of the sacred eggs missing. He searches far and wide, but he cannot see the missing sacred egg.

‘Meanwhile, the egg hatches, and the young Eagle is welcomed into this world by the Chaos Serpent. “Greetings,” says the Chaos Serpent. “I am your mother, you will learn what I teach you and listen to my every word.” And the Eagle learnt the foul, twisted ways of the Chaos Serpent.’

Jaeger looked over his men, pleased to see they were all paying attention now, even Ferix whose own religious beliefs taught him to worship machines over human beings.

‘The young Eagle’s radiant golden feathers were tarnished with spite.’ Jaeger’s mouth twisted in disgust as he pictured the fallen Eagle in his mind. ‘His glistening eyes were misted with false hope and his claws were blunted by disobedience. All the while, the Emperor Eagle continued his search, seeking ever further for his lost sacred egg. At last, one day, he came across the Eagle, now fully grown, and at first the Emperor Eagle was glad. But as he spoke to the lost Eagle and saw what it had become, the Emperor Eagle became most displeased. He commanded the young Eagle to remain where he was and sought out the Chaos Serpent. He found the treacherous, false creature hiding in the shadows nearby, but the Emperor Eagle’s keen eyes still spotted her.’

Jaeger half closed his eyes, remembering the first time he’d heard the tale when he was a small child. The next part was his favourite and had served to inspire him all the way through his upbringing by the schola progenium and through his flight training at Bakka. It was this that had first given him the ambition to be a pilot, and when times had been hard, he’d told himself the story in his mind. Each time it gave him the strength to persevere through his hardships.

As the other flight crews had finished their preflight rituals, they had drifted over to listen to the flight commander’s speech. Now all twenty-nine of them stood in front of him, gripped by his words. Taking a deep breath, Jaeger continued.

‘Swooping down upon his massive pinions, the Emperor Eagle seized the Chaos Serpent in his flame-wreathed talons and swept the Chaos Serpent high into the air. For a long time they flew. “Why do you attack me so?” enquired the Chaos Serpent, in feigned ignorance and innocence.

‘“You have taken one of mine own from me,” said the Emperor Eagle, “and twisted it with your dark ways so that it is no longer tall and proud and fulfilling its righteous destiny. That is a crime for which there can be no mercy.” And the Emperor Eagle dropped the Chaos Serpent into the bottomless dark pit that is the Eye of Terror, condemning the Chaos Serpent to eternal imprisonment, agony and torment for what she had done to the young Eagle.’

Pausing for a moment for dramatic effect, he could see that the tale was having the desired effect on the assembled crewmen. The men were listening with rapt attention now, and for the moment would listen to, and more importantly believe, anything he cared to tell them. His own pride was inspiring them, giving them the confidence to follow him wherever he led them.

‘The Emperor Eagle returned to his offspring,’ Jaeger continued, his intense gaze meeting the stare of each of the men in turn. ‘“You have been done a great wrong,” the Emperor Eagle said, “made that much greater for I cannot correct it, but can only punish the guilty. There are no amends to be made. You are my child and yet I cannot suffer you to live now, twisted and malignant as you are.” The young Eagle looked at the Emperor Eagle and the nobility of his birth rose through the filth of the Chaos Serpent’s false teachings. “I understand, oh great Emperor Eagle,” and the young Eagle bent back his head to show his breast to the Emperor Eagle. With one sweep of his flame-wreathed claws, the Emperor Eagle tore out the young Eagle’s heart, burning it to ashes – for none can live that have been touched by the Chaos Serpent, not even the children of the Emperor Eagle.’

The sycophantic gunner, Saile, clapped enthusiastically; a few smiled in grim appreciation while the rest awaited his explanation with dutiful silence.

‘For we are the talons of the Emperor!’ Jaeger said, his voice deep and full of conviction, his right hand unconsciously making the shape of a grasping claw across his chest. ‘Just as this ship is named the Divine Justice, so too must we be the instrument of the Emperor’s vengeance. No mercy, no forgiveness, just the surety of swift justice and sure death!’

‘Swift Justice, Sure Death’ was the squadron’s motto, and hearing it spoken so confidently, with such emotion, had a startling effect on the crew. Jaeger could see their anticipation, eager for battle like they had never been before. They had pride in themselves, for the first time in years.

‘So, what are we?’ Jaeger yelled, his hand now raised in a fist.

‘Swift Justice, Sure Death!’ came the replying cry from twenty-nine throats. It echoed around the flight bay, making the crews of the other squadrons turn in surprise. Jaeger grinned, his heart beating fast.

‘Damn right! Let’s give the enemy a taste of the Emperor’s claws.’

Jaeger grinned as he gazed out of the cockpit’s canopy and saw the rest of the squadron flying alongside the ship’s hull, each pushed forward on quadruple tails of plasma. Beyond them, he saw the firing ports of the Divine Justice’s gun decks opening slowly, revealing battery upon battery of massive laser cannons, mass drivers and plasma projectors. Immense firepower, enough to destroy a city.

The comm-link in Jaeger’s helmet crackled into life.

‘Thunderbolt fighter squadrons Arrow and Storm ready for rendezvous.’ The familiar voice of Flight Commander Dextra, given a metallic grate over the long-range communicator.

Jaeger flicked the brass transmit rune on the comm-link panel to his left. ‘Good to hear you, Jaze. Take up a diamond-ten on the aft quarters.’

‘Affirm, Raptor Leader.’

As the smaller fighters took up their escorting position around the bomber squadron, Jaeger increased the throttle, taking his plane to the front to form a flying-V formation, with his Marauder as the arrowhead. The craft swept over the prow of the cruiser, looking like tiny flares of light against the backdrop of the immense torpedo tubes.

‘Bridge, this is Raptor Leader. Formed up and ready to attack. Awaiting target data, by the Emperor,’ Jaeger reported.

Berhandt gave a thumbs-up signal as the target information was transmitted from the Divine Justice. The bombardier’s gruff voice gave Jaeger the details over the internal communicator. ‘It’s a point at the rear of the ’ulk, in the engines somewhere. Can’t tell what it is exactly, this far out.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jaeger asked.

‘Just what I said, sir. It’s just some coordinates – no details of target type and a notation that says the attack trajectory is at your discretion.’

‘Very well. Inform me as soon as we get further details,’ Jaeger replied, before addressing the rest of the squadron. ‘Listen up, Raptors, this is the real thing. No bickering, no whining and no stalling. I am not going to let you get me and your flight comrades killed. We’re here to blow things up in the name of the Emperor, and that’s what we’re damned well going to do!’

Jaeger smiled as he heard the laughter of the other crew members come over his headset. Sitting back in the pilot’s seat, he began to relax. It would be a while before they were anywhere near within range of the hulk’s considerable defences, and being tense for two hours was sure to do his reactions no good, not to mention the nerves of his crew. To occupy his mind, Jaeger went through the pre-battle checks once again. He ran his eye over the cockpit’s interior to check everything visually. There were no chinks or scratches on the tinted armoured shielding of the Marauder’s cockpit. The snaking wrist-thick pipes that twisted from the control panel in all directions seemed to be intact, with no insulation breaks or kinks. The pressure gauges for the engines had their needles pointing comfortably in their green quadrants, and numerous other dials, meters and counters indicated that nothing was amiss. Jaeger tested the flight controls, worried by the stiffness he was feeling in the movement of the control column. A few gentle turns and rolls later and everything seemed fine, easing Jaeger’s suspicions.

Berhandt had told him that this Marauder had been almost cut in half by an eldar laser during its last mission. It had been then that his predecessor, Glade, had been sucked out into the void, never to be seen again. Jaeger cursed himself for such morbid thoughts and to calm himself he began to think of his home world. Unfastening a couple of catches, Jaeger pushed his helmet onto the back of his head and closed his eyes. With a thin-lipped smile, he began whistling a hunting chant from back home.

Veniston paced back and forth across the command deck of the bridge, watching the various screens that gave updates of the progressing battle. As the Divine Justice slowly moved in closer to the hulk, the smaller ork ships in its escort were trying to break through the cordon of frigates to attack the cruiser. They were having little success, and the one or two that managed to get within range were soon obliterated by the overwhelming firepower of the Divine Justice’s gun decks. The floor shook with regular throbs as the immense plasma drives pushed the ship towards the distant foe, bringing all on board ever closer to death or glory. One of the communications officers was muttering sharply to Captain Kaurl, while he glanced over his subordinate’s shoulder at a flickering screen, directing the efforts of the escorts and fighters.

‘Is there a problem, Mister Kaurl?’ Veniston enquired as he stepped up to the captain, trying to keep the tension from his voice.

‘Not really, sir,’ Kaurl answered, standing up straight to look the admiral in the eye. Veniston raised an eyebrow in query. ‘There’s a wave of ork fighter-bombers which has made it through the blockade. They’ll be intercepting the Marauders of Raptor Squadron shortly. But the fighter screen should be able to protect our bombers,’ Kaurl assured the admiral, rubbing the tiredness from his eyes and running a thick-fingered hand through his dark hair.

‘Send the Thunderbolts on an intercept course,’ Veniston decided, looking past Kaurl at the display screen. ‘If the orks get too close, the bombers will have to slow down, and timing is all-important. If the Raptors don’t attack in time, the whole plan will be off course and the hulk will still be fully mobile when we get within range. We can’t let that happen, Jacob.’ The admiral’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched tightly for a moment as he considered the prospect of the Divine Justice suffering the same fate as the Imperial Retribution.

‘What if a second wave of fighters comes up? They’ll be unprotected…’ the captain protested, his voice suddenly hoarse at the thought.

‘If that happens,’ Veniston stated coldly, ‘then we shall pray that the Emperor is watching over us.’

The admiral turned towards the main display again, indicating that the conversation was ended. Kaurl suppressed a grimace and looked to the waiting comms officer.

‘New orders for Arrow and Storm Squadrons,’ the captain began.

Their Thunderbolt escort had peeled away regretfully a few minutes ago, and now the Marauders were on their own. As Raptor Squadron thundered towards the hulk, more details of the battle ahead could be seen. A swarm of ork attack ships duelled with the frigates escorting the Divine Justice. Manoeuvring just outside range of the orks’ crude weapons, the Imperial ships were taking a heavy toll; the wreckage of at least five ork vessels was drifting lifelessly across the battlezone. Much closer now, the hulk seemed truly immense. Around it orbited a cluster of defence asteroids, floating bases crewed by the orks and bristling with rockets and gun batteries. Some were simply pieces of the hulk that had broken off but hadn’t escaped the pull of the hulk’s gravity. Others, Jaeger had been taught in command training, were deliberately captured by the orks, who used bizarre field technology to grasp on to asteroids and debris, purposefully creating a swirl of obstacles to protect themselves against attack. Whatever the cause of their orbit, and whether they were just floating chunks of stone and metal, or had been fitted out with rocket pods or gun turrets, throughout the Navy they were known simply as Rocks.

As Jaeger considered this glorious example of understatement, there was a sudden hiss of escaping gas and the control stick in his left hand started juddering uncontrollably.

‘Ferix!’ Jaeger snapped over the internal comm-link. ‘These damned controls are playing up. I need stability right now, if you don’t mind.’

The small tech-adept crawled into the cockpit and took the tool belt from his waist. Pulling a glowing, gold-etched device from one pocket, he set about the fastenings on a panel under Jaeger’s legs. As Ferix unscrewed the compartment beneath the control column he began a low-voiced chant: ‘To see the spirit of the machine, that is to be Mechanicus. To find the malaise of malfunction, that is to be Mechanicus. To administer the Rite of Repair, that is to be Mechanicus.’

Jaeger let the man drift from his attention as he looked through the armoured glass of the cockpit. The frigates had done a good job punching a hole through the ork attack ships, leaving the way clear for the Marauders. However, something wasn’t quite right. Jaeger’s spine tingled with some inner sense of foreboding. Looking at the approaching hulk, a sinister suspicion began to rise at the back of his mind.

‘Berhandt, can you get a fix on that Rock, five o’clock, about twelve by thirty-five?’ Jaeger asked the bombardier, his unease rising.

‘Got it,’ the bombardier replied, a question in his voice.

‘Plot a trajectory prediction, impose over our course.’

‘Okay, Commander Jaeger. Metriculator processing right now. Coming through… Damn! You were right to ask, sir. We’re heading straight for the damn thing!’ Berhandt exclaimed.

‘Avoidance course?’ Jaeger knew that there wouldn’t be one even as he asked.

‘No, sir. Not with the time we’ve been given. Emperor’s mercy, we’re gonna have to deal with the bloody thing ourselves…’ The bombardier’s voice was barely a whisper.

Jaeger pressed the long-range communicator. ‘Bridge, this is Raptor Leader.’ he announced. ‘We have a problem.’

The bomber squadron banked round slowly, shaken by the engine blasts of the vast rockets soaring past. Each of the ork missiles roaring from the Rock was larger than a Marauder, designed to blow apart a massive starship but equally capable of wiping out the whole squadron with one unlucky blast. Crude faces had been painted onto the tips of monstrous rockets, leering grins and sharp-teethed devils seeming to leap from the darkness on columns of raging flame.

Jaeger was listening in to the comm-net, his mood grim.

‘This is the Apollo, we cannot disengage currently.’

‘This is the Glorious, unable to reach your position in time.’

And so it went on, each of the fleet’s frigates too busy or too far away to attack the rapidly approaching Rock. Another flare erupted from the ork defence platform in front of the Marauders, hurling six more rockets at the incoming bombers. Jaeger switched to the inter-squadron communicator.

‘Split one-four, on my lead,’ he ordered, his voice low and abrupt. ‘We’ve only got time for one pass. Make it count.’

As an icon flashed green on the panel beside him, Jaeger switched frequency to listen to the incoming message.

‘This is Tech-Priest Adramaz of the Excellent,’ a tinny, unfamiliar voice reported. ‘We have surveyed your target and established a primary detonation point. Transmitting information now. It appears to be some kind of power source, which may destroy the target if you can hit it. I would make your departure as expeditious as possible though, we are unsure how large the resultant blast will be.’

‘Thanks, Adramaz,’ Jaeger replied, turning to see if Berhandt had received the information.

The bombardier gave a nod as the targeting data for the Rock’s reactor was received and with the turn of a dial and a flicked switch, he transmitted the details to the other Marauders. Berhandt swivelled in his seat to grasp the forked control stick that guided and fired the Marauder’s nose-mounted lascannons. One shot from those could punch through a cubit or more of reinforced armour and smash apart rock with equal ease.

‘Signature suggests it ain’t laser shielded,’ the bombardier said, smiling grimly. ‘A couple of good hits should do the trick.’

Jaeger broadcast to the rest of the squadron again. ‘Lascannons only on this one – save your missiles and bombs for the main target.’

Phrao’s voice came back first. ‘What do you mean “main target”? Ain’t this what we’re here to destroy?’

‘This is just incidental!’ Jaeger snapped back. ‘Our main objective is on the hulk itself.’

‘You’re joking! Five Marauders are going to have as much effect on that beast as a swampfly biting a grox’s backside!’ Drake chipped in.

Jaeger barely suppressed a growl before opening up the comm-channel. ‘We don’t make the orders, we just follow them. If you have a problem with that, we can sort it out back on the flight deck. We’ve got a job to do, so let’s just stay calm. We’ll deal with this Rock and then we’ll push on to our main objective.’

‘If we get that far!’ Phrao’s voice, even taking the hiss of the comm-net into account, was rasping and bitter. ‘Damned Raptor’s luck!’

Jaeger stabbed at the transmit rune. ‘Silence, all of you!’ he snapped. ‘Everyone listen to me right now. You all know your jobs, you’ve all flown combat missions before. So I’ll hear no more of this “Raptor’s luck”. Is that understood?’

A series of affirmatives were broadcast back and Jaeger nodded to himself. Doubt sows the seeds of fear, the abbot of the Extu schola progenium had taught him when he was young. Crush it at birth or suffer the growth of heresy.

Flicking his gaze over the control panels, Jaeger saw that all systems were working within acceptable levels. Everything was ready. He took a deep breath, his hand poised over the comm-link. Letting it out slowly, he touched the rune.

‘Raptor Squadron, this is Raptor Leader.’ Jaeger made his voice deliberately calm, even though inside his heart was racing and he could feel the excitement of combat beginning to surge. ‘Break and attack! Break and attack!’

A dozen small turrets swivelled into firing position and unleashed a torrent of shells at the Marauders as they screamed in towards the Rock, their engines at full burn. Dodging through the hail of death, now was the time for each pilot to prove his worth. Jerryl took the lead, followed by Jaeger then the other bombers. From his position, Jaeger had the perfect opportunity to see the magnificent Marauder in action.

They were huge metallic beasts, each weighing more than three battle tanks, with a wide wingspan. Designed for limited-range space combat as well as atmospheric missions, the Marauder manoeuvred with small vectoring engines along the fuselage and wings whilst in the void, and massive control planes and a quad-ramjet when they dipped into a planet’s atmosphere. Nicknamed ‘Big Brutes’ by the flight crews, each Marauder was a flying fortress. Its two dorsal twin-autocannon were capable of unleashing a hail of fire that could punch through the armour of enemy planes and tear apart crew and engines, while the tail gunner’s triple heavy bolters could fire a dozen shells a second at enemy interceptors or strafe soft ground targets. On the nose were the lascannons for precision targeting, and six Flail missiles hung from the wings, each with a plasma warhead capable of creating a crater over fifty feet in diameter or cracking the armoured hull of a spaceship. For more wholesale devastation, the Marauder’s hull also incorporated a spacious bomb bay which could deliver a payload of explosives or incendiaries.

As he contemplated the sheer destructive potential of just a single Marauder, Jaeger found his faith in the Imperium renewed. The Adeptus Mechanicus had designed this awesome fighting machine. The schola progenium of the Ministorum had given him the fervent faith to serve the Emperor. The Imperial Navy had taught him how to control this murderous creature of metal. And now he was here, once more about to deliver fiery judgement upon the heads of the Emperor’s enemies. For Jaeger, there was no finer feeling.

As Raptor Squadron roared closer to the Rock, the enemy response grew in ferocity. With stomach-churning suddenness, Jaeger pulled up from the dive towards the Rock, bringing the Marauder’s nose level with the horizon of the small asteroid. Where a second before he had been flying in open space, now there was ground beneath him. As always, it took a couple of seconds to fight off the disorientation, and while he took a few deep breaths, he subconsciously sent the Marauder into a series of short climbs, dives and banks to throw off the enemy gunners. Glancing hits ricocheted around the armoured hull, filling the air with sporadic metallic clangs. A close hit set the plane shaking, and warning runes flashed red across three of the control panels that covered every surface of the cockpit. Ferix’s voice sounded over the comm in alarm.

‘Armour breach! Check your vacuum seals and utter the Third Canticle of Protection, praise His name.’

Jaeger went through the routine of checking the fastenings on his helm, muttering under his breath: ‘Deliver me from the void. Protect me from the ether. Guard well my soul.’

The bombers were almost within firing range and the fire had slackened as some of the Rock’s gun turrets were blindsided by the mass of the asteroid. A surprise burst of fire engulfed Jerryl’s plane, stripping away great shards of metal. Phrao’s plane swept low, its lascannon blasting apart the ork gunnery turret, exacting instant revenge. Jaeger could see a gaping hole in the starboard wing of Jerryl’s Marauder, trailing sparks as severed power cables discharged their energy into the vacuum.

‘Raptor Three, what is your condition?’ Jaeger enquired urgently.

‘Lost starboard controls, handling shaky. I don’t think I can hold her, permission to disengage?’

‘Okay, Jerryl. Break off and return home,’ Jaeger said through gritted teeth.

Suddenly the comm-net icons flashed for a priority message. ‘This is Admiral Veniston. Do not disengage, Raptor Three – circle around and reform for attack on primary objective.’

Jerryl’s reply came through a hiss of static. ‘What the… Damned controls… Order received.’

Jaeger watched as the lead Marauder pulled up, taking it out of the attack run. Easing his control column left and right, Jaeger steered his craft through the shells screaming towards him. Guiding the Marauder over the steep lip of a crater, Jaeger saw the reactor housing for the first time: a crude conglomeration of twisting pipes and power relays. Berhandt gave a grunt as the orks’ power generator came within range of his lascannon. Bolts of laser energy flashed towards the Rock, sending up plumes of smoke and dust. Berhandt’s lascannon spat forth another volley of fire, tearing through metal and rock.

‘Emperor’s blood, missed!’ cursed Berhandt, punching his fist against the lascannon controls.

Twisting in his seat as he steered the Marauder away, Jaeger watched as Phrao’s bomber made its pass. As the craft swept towards its target, leaving a trail of swirling debris in its wake, two bolts of light struck the reactor full on, turning the generator’s armour into a molten slurry and punching through to the highly unstable plasma chamber within.

‘Spot on!’ Phrao shouted gleefully. ‘Pull away!’

Jaeger’s left arm ached as he wrenched the column back and right, pulling the Marauder into a spine-bending turning climb. Through the side-screens, Jaeger could see small eruptions breaking out across the Rock as a chain reaction spread from the reactor to the turrets and rocket batteries. Forks of electrical energy began to arc into the air and the reactor went into critical overload. A cloud of gas exploded through the Rock’s surface from an underground tank, sending shards of rock spinning dangerously close to the following Marauders, before the gas was eaten up by a shaft of blue flame. Raw plasma spewed from the molten remains of the generator, pushing the Rock off its trajectory, sending it spinning further away from the hulk. With an explosion that momentarily blinded the flight commander, the Rock burst apart, sending fragments of debris hurtling in every direction. The victorious cries of Jaeger’s crew and the other pilots rang in his ears.

‘Steady, Raptors, that was just the warm up,’ Jaeger chided them. ‘Now for the real target. Form up, Jerryl take the rear.’

‘Affirmative,’ Jerryl responded. ‘Where for now, sir?’

Jaeger grimaced to himself. ‘Not sure,’ he answered slowly. ‘We haven’t received full target information yet.’ Damn it, he thought to himself, the whole mission briefing was hazy. This whole thing was beginning to stink, but of what he wasn’t yet certain.

‘Let’s get this straight.’ Phrao’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. ‘We don’t know what we’re attacking, we’ve just got a deadline to meet. That’s it? We just fly in there, easy as you like, drop a few bombs, fire a few shots and go home? Somehow I don’t think it’ll be that easy.’

‘Cut the chatter!’ Jaeger ordered, his mood grim. He agreed with the other pilots, but he’d be damned if he was going to sow doubt on the command skills of Kaurl and Veniston halfway through a mission.

The Marauders roared onwards, the hulk growing ever larger through their cockpit windows. Its massive bulk blocked out a swathe of stars, looking like some lurking shadow waiting to swallow up the Marauders, luring them to their doom.

Captain Kaurl coughed gently to attract the admiral’s attention. The senior officer pulled his gaze from the monitoring station and turned round, one eyebrow raised in question.

‘We are in position to initiate the second attack wave, sir.’

The admiral rubbed one haggard cheek with his hand, gazing at nothing in particular.

‘Sir? Shall we proceed?’ Kaurl pressed.

Veniston’s eyes were flints. ‘Very well, Jacob. Launch Devil Squadron. Proceed with the attack on the engines themselves.’

With the debris of the Rock scattering slowly in their wake, the Marauders headed onwards towards the hulk. Pressing a series of runes above his head, Jaeger turned on a small viewscreen just above the front canopy, and a flickering, fractured image of the view behind the bomber crackled into existence. The flight commander watched as the Divine Justice moved in towards the hulk, its awesome plasma drives pushing it forward on twenty-mile-long trails of fire. The two surviving frigates formed up in front of the cruiser, ready to defend their capital ship against the few remaining ork attack ships.

Jaeger could picture the commotion on board the massive warships, as gun and torpedo crews scurried to and fro, readying their weapons for action. He imagined the gun decks bathed red in combat lighting, the gunners sweating and cursing as they heaved powercells into place or loaded shells the size of his bomber into the breeches. In the torpedo bays, hundreds of men would be bending their backs to the chains, hauling the massive projectiles, ten times the size of a Marauder, along the loading rails. In the engine room, ratings would be sweating heavily, the heat of the thirty plasma reactors permeating even through their thermal shielding and the crew’s protective suits. He didn’t envy them their task: hard work in very cramped conditions for little recognition or reward. Moreover, pilots were all volunteers, while many of the thousands of men who laboured in the depths of the fighting ships were criminals serving their penance to the Emperor, or simply unfortunate men taken unawares by the press gangs. And yet, he thought, everyone serves the Emperor, each in their own way. They will receive their due honours in time, whether in this life or not.

Something caught Jaeger’s attention from the corner of his eye, but before he had a chance to look properly, Arafa was screaming in his ear.

‘Incoming! Ork fighter-bombers, moving in on an intercept vector, closing fast. Where’s our damned fighter screen?’

Jaeger was transmitting even before Arafa had finished.

‘Storm Leader, Arrow Leader!’ he rasped, throat dry with sudden fear. ‘This is Raptor Leader, we need cover and fast! We have…’ Jaeger checked the display in front of him, ‘…eight fighter-bombers incoming!’

‘Okay, Raptor Leader,’ the fighter commander came through immediately. ‘We’re on our way. Arrow Leader out.’

‘Everyone, keep sharp!’ Jaeger ordered over the squadron comm-link. ‘Gunners, mark your targets, watch for the crossfire. Tight formation. Don’t let them get in amongst us. Drake, you’re uppermost – cover the blindsides.’

Jaeger forced himself to calm down, loosening his white-kuckled grip on the control column. He kept his gaze firmly on the slivers of light that marked the approaching orks. Now was the time to trust in the gunners.

The orks were jinking and swerving as they closed in on Raptor Squadron, surrounded by a cloud of tracer shells and pulses of laser light as the Marauders’ guns opened fire. Each enemy craft was different, haphazardly constructed from crudely cut and bent metal plates, pushed screaming across the stars by hugely oversized engines that spluttered multicoloured trails. Each was decorated differently too: some painted in bold stripes of red and black or red and yellow, others embellished with ork glyphs which were indecipherable to Jaeger, others still just a mess of jagged patterns and garish colours. Blazing cannons protruded from the nose of each interceptor and their wings were hung with bombs and missiles.

The Marauders were flying close in to each other, relying upon weight of fire to drive off the attack, rather than trying to evade the much more manoeuvrable ork aircraft. Their gunners covered each other’s blind spots, trying to keep up the almost impenetrable wall of bolt shells and las-beams that was needed to keep the fighters at bay until the Divine Justice’s interceptors could arrive.

‘Got one!’ Arick shouted from behind Jaeger, as an ork fighter exploded into an billowing cloud of shrapnel and rapidly burning fuel. Then the fighters screamed within range, raking along the length of Drake’s plane, sending splinters of metal flying. A few stray rounds ricocheted off the shield in front of Jaeger, causing him to flinch, but the armourglass held out against the impacts. As the enemy swept overhead, the dorsal guns on the Marauders swivelled to track them, spraying salvo after salvo of fire into the ork formation. Through the armoured view panel to his left, Jaeger saw one of the craft caught in a crossfire by Phrao’s and Drake’s gunners. The enemy’s cockpit shattered, causing it to tumble out of control towards Jerryl’s stricken Marauder. As the bomber laboriously swung out of harm’s way, its damaged wing twisted, until it sheared off completely. Lurching out of formation, the Marauder flipped madly out of control, and was suddenly in the centre of a devastating crossfire from the orks. Jaeger averted his gaze, but in his mind’s eye he could picture the lifeless bodies of the crew drifting out towards the stars.

With Jerryl’s covering fire lost, the ork fighter-bombers closed in on the rear of Raptor Squadron, twisting nimbly between the volleys of fire from the tail gunners. The situation was looking grim: the orks could simply pick them off one by one now that the formation was disrupted. If they just carried on flying straight towards the target they’d bee sitting targets and wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes more.

‘Break formation for dogfight!’ Jaeger ordered. ‘Drake, Arafa, circle round and get–’

Jaeger’s order was interrupted by a message from the Divine Justice. ‘This is Admiral Veniston. Maintain formation, proceed towards primary target without delay.’

Jaeger gripped the control column, trying to quell his rising fury. Was Veniston deliberately trying to get them killed? He stabbed at the comm-net button again. ‘This is Jaeger. Repeat, break formation – take out these damned orks, or we can forget about our target!’

As the Marauders pulled away from each other, Jaeger dragged his plane round in a tight circle, the control column juddering in his hands. Berhandt was crouched over the lascannon controls, staring intently through the firing visor for a target. Jaeger spotted a fighter expertly tailing Drake’s weaving Marauder. Jaeger brought his own craft down above the ork craft, glancing across to check that Berhandt was ready. The slicing beams of the bombardier’s lascannon were joined by Arick’s fire from above their heads. It tore through the tail of the ork fighter, sending it listing off uselessly, fountains of sparks spraying from its ruptured fuselage.

The rattle of shells against the hull snapped Jaeger’s attention to his left, where another enemy fighter-bomber was roaring towards him, its cannons blazing away. Something punched through the hull just behind the flight commander and he heard a muffled cry over the internal communicator.

‘What’s happening back there? Saile? Marte?’ he demanded.

He was answered by Marte’s deep voice. ‘Clean head shot, Commander Jaeger. Saile’s dead.’

Everything was anarchy. Jaeger watched the Marauders twisting and weaving, trying to shake off the much quicker ork craft. The enemy was everywhere, the fighter-bombers looping around the squadron, unleashing volley after volley of fire from their cannons.

Arick’s voice filled the internal link: ‘Come on, scum! Yeah, just a little closer… Take that! Damn, just winged him! Oh, you hungry for some as well, filth? Emperor, these scum are slippery…’

Jaeger pushed the Marauder into a steep dive, the mass of the ork hulk sliding across his field of vision through the canopy. He saw Drake’s Marauder being tailed by a trio of fighter-bombers and realised the first attack wave had been reinforced by more of the ork craft. Glancing down at the onboard scanner, he realised that the bomber’s sensor arrays were damaged and hadn’t picked up the new arrivals. The flickering amber and red lights across the whole panel showed that nearly all the plane’s systems were in need of serious repair. Glancing over his shoulder, Jaeger could make out Ferix clambering about in the gloom, frantically rewiring cables and sealing split pipelines, muttering prayers all the while.

Turning his attention back to the outside, he watched helplessly as a volley of fire from the orks shredded the tail of Drake’s Marauder. But then, without warning, the fighter-bombers tailing Drake exploded into widening blasts of twisted metal. A moment later, three Imperial Thunderbolts screamed through the cloud of burning gas, their engines at full throttle. The comm crackled into life.

‘This is Arrow Leader. We have them now. Break for your target.’

With a howl of relief, Jaeger opened up the engines to full and flicked the transmit rune on the comm-panel. ‘Just in time, Dextra! Stay lucky and I’ll see you back on board.’

The interceptors had punched a hole in the fighter-bomber squadrons, leaving the route clear for the bombers to proceed towards their destination. Jaeger banked his aircraft around to head for the opening, his eyes fixed on the huge ork vessel ahead.

‘Raptor Squadron, this is Raptor Leader,’ Jaeger announced over the squadron frequency, trying to keep his voice calm, despite his trepidation and pounding heart. ‘Follow me in.’

‘Check missile and bomb links,’ Jaeger ordered the squadron. Behind him, Berhandt touched a pair of runes and frowned as they failed to light up. Snarling, the bombardier brought his fist down sharply on the display and grinned cheerfully as his faced was bathed in green light. He looked towards Jaeger and gave a thumbs up.

‘This is Raptor Leader,’ Jaeger broadcast to the squadron. ‘Prepare for bombardment of primary objective.’

As a series of affirmatives came back across the comm-link, Jaeger gave a quick smile to himself. They’d got through. Not all of them, admittedly, but hopefully they’d get the opportunity to avenge Saile, Jerryl and the others.

‘Look at the size of that beast,’ Arafa’s awed voice came over the comm.

‘Less talk, men. Stay sharp,’ Jaeger interrupted ‘We’ve come too far to mess up now.’

Despite his stern words, Jaeger could understand the other pilot’s feelings. The hulk was truly massive, dwarfing even the majestic size of the Divine Justice. As the squadron moved closer and closer to their target, and the hulk grew larger and larger in their sights, Jaeger could make out more details. He could see where three or perhaps four different starships had been compacted together, forming outcrops of twisted metal, jutting at a bizarre angle from where innumerable other craft and asteroids had been compressed together by the tides of warp space to form the central mass of the drifting hulk. It looked like a gigantic wedge of crumpled and torn metal and rock, the size of a city, weighing untold millions of tons. How the orks managed to populate one of these randomly wandering behemoths, the Emperor alone knew. That they could was bad enough, but when the green-skinned savages managed to activate dormant engines or build their own immense drives, that turned an uncontrolled, erratic menace into a dire threat. The bulk of the ork vessel shimmered with the frozen particles that encrusted its hull. Billowing gases vented from unseen ports, creating a wreath of lazily moving smog around the hulk’s huge girth. It had a kind of savage beauty: a wracked sculpture of tortured metal that somehow seemed to be cleaving elegantly across the stars.

Jaeger’s thoughts hardened. Inside that bizarre, sprawling shell were thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of orks waiting to devastate some planet; to spill across continents in a wave of wanton destruction and killing. He remembered what had happened to the Imperial Retribution and pictured Saile’s corpse in the sealed gunnery chamber behind him. All thoughts of beauty slipped from his mind immediately. The hulk was a threat to the Emperor’s domains, a stain upon the galaxy. It was his duty to destroy it.

Checking the targeting data scrolling across a small, dull yellow viewscreen just above his head, Jaeger banked the Marauder in towards the hulk to assume the best attack trajectory.

‘Raptor Squadron, this is Raptor Leader,’ Jaeger growled, turning over the attack pattern in his head. ‘Praise the Emperor, it’s time.’

The Marauders sped across the chaotic hull of the ork hulk, diving low to swoop beneath ruined gantries, swerving around twisted columns. With the Marauders this close, the defence turrets had little time to react to their presence, sending up a harmless spray of energy bolts and shells seconds too late.

Jaeger started to chant the mantra that would ease his mind into union with the aircraft he controlled. He would rely solely upon instinct rather than thought, he and the bomber acting and reacting as a single entity. As he felt his mind slipping into the semi-subconscious state he required for total concentration, Jaeger glanced over to see Berhandt hunched over the targeting screen, his fingers instinctively adjusting the row of dials below it to get the focus and magnitude correct.

Guiding the Marauder across the hulk’s surface with one hand, Jaeger activated a series of runes and the canopy in front of him darkened slightly as it interfaced with the Marauder’s artificial eyes and ears. A false image of outlines and silhouettes imposed itself over the view through the shield, highlighting particular obstacles, bringing the twisted contours and angles of the hulk’s surface into stark contrast for ease of navigation. Patches of static or blankness showed here and there where the Marauder’s sensors were damaged or some interfering energy source was fluctuating within the hulk itself.

With Berhandt concentrating on the bombs and missiles, it was Jaeger’s task to take control of the lascannon. The flight commander reached overhead and pulled a lever. With a sudden venting of quickly dissipating steam, the lascannon controls slid forward from the control panel beside Berhandt, four clamps locking the whole control bank into its new position alongside Jaeger. Punching a pair of buttons on the weapon control panel with his right hand, still guiding the Marauder around the obstructions ahead with his left, the flight commander activated the lascannon and the canopy display in front of him was filled with a swirl of static. Quickly adjusting the weapon’s sensor array, Jaeger retuned the lascannon’s false eyes and the cloud of random specks coalesced into moving icons, highlighting possible target points. The blood-red rune of their primary target stood out like a guiding beacon, a procession of angles, estimated armour, trajectories and other information scrolling rapidly alongside it.

‘Raptor Squadron, sound off current status,’ the flight commander ordered.

‘Raptor Two, lascannon’s out, missiles and bombs online and ready to blow!’

‘Raptor Three, all systems acceptable, by the Emperor.’

‘Raptor Five. Everything’s in the green ’cept tail retros. She’s handling hard, but we’ll be fine.’

‘Okay. Assume attack vector Prime, standard diamond,’ Jaeger commanded. ‘Let’s not waste our chance.’

Jaeger slowed his breathing, realising that despite his prayers he was becoming agitated. In a few more moments they would pass over the jagged outcrop of an impacted cargo ship and would have a line to their as yet unknown target. A hum started in Jaeger’s ear through the internal comm, as Berhandt wakened the spirits of the Marauder’s self-guiding missiles and they set about seeking their target. As the bomber neared its objective and the missiles’ surveyors acquired the targeting point, the hum became ever more high pitched. Tilting the nose of the Marauder forward, Jaeger led the squadron over the wrecked cargo transport. The unidentified target came into full view.

Like a bolt of unholy wrath, a ball of plasma a hundred yards wide swept through the Marauder squadron, engulfing Arafa’s aircraft, leaving nothing more then a cloud of gas and globules of molten plasteel.

Drake was on the comm-link instantly ‘Emperor’s blood! It’s a damned gun battery! Why didn’t they tell us it was a damned cannon? What the hell were they thinking of? Aren’t we attacking the engines?’

Jaeger saw that it was true: a pair of immense guns, each a barrel wide enough to swallow a Marauder, were pointing directly at the attacking bombers. Jaeger shivered with dread as he saw the scanner’s read-out showing the energy building up for another blast.

‘Pull up!’ Jaeger cried out over the squadron frequency. ‘Break formation! Hit it from the other side!’ As he wrenched his own plane into a steep climb, he prayed that the others had reacted in time, as if he could make their aircraft move faster, make them react quicker, through sheer force of will.

As the Marauders dispersed, another volcanic blast of energy hurtled from the cannons, blazing a path through the space where seconds before the Marauders had been. Jaeger thanked the Emperor for His swift guidance, but inwardly he was cursing Veniston and Kaurl with all his might. Why hadn’t they told Jaeger that the target was a weapon battery? How the hell did they think he was going to plan an attack properly if he wasn’t made aware of all the dangers? Choking back his fury, Jaeger ordered the squadron back into an attack approach, fervently praying under his breath that the huge turret didn’t have enough time to traverse and get another shot at them. At this range it could hardly miss.

With agonising slowness, the turret tracked around towards the incoming Marauders. The message ‘Deviant Perceived’ flashed scarlet across the left window of the canopy and the whine of the missiles became an unbearable shriek.

‘Fly, sweet vengeance!’ came Berhandt’s voice, quoting the words he’d personally inscribed onto each of the missiles as they were loaded.

A salvo of fire from the other bombers joined Berhandt’s volley, a rippling wave of death that streaked towards its target on tails of flame, rapidly becoming distant sparks as the missiles sped towards the gun turret. They hit home with a deadly blossom of explosions and the viewscreen showed twisted chunks of metal being thrown in all directions. Escaping gases briefly caught fire in actinic fountains of flaring light.

The red target rune was still active on the canopy screen, shining bright just in front of Jaeger’s eyes. He realised with sickening dread that the turret wasn’t destroyed. It was still about to open fire once more.

‘Lascannons and bombs!’ Jaeger ordered, pressing the firing stud of his own plane’s weapons with his thumb, spewing forth a salvo of energy bolts. Debris and burning vapours exploded across the hulk’s surface as the lasers tracked towards their target, until the gun turret was at the centre of a storm of beams converging from the four Marauders. A warning sigil floated before Jaeger, showing the turret was in position to fire again. In his mind’s eye, Jaeger could imagine the huge barrels of the cannons glowing with the suppressed energy inside, waiting to spit forth destruction and damnation.

With a blast that flung Jaeger back in his seat, the turret exploded in a vast, searing storm of white plasma and billowing clouds of magnesium-bright vapour. Easing the controls back, Jaeger began to pull the Marauder out of its dive towards the hulk’s surface.

Suddenly, Drake’s voice was hammering in his ear: ‘Control’s lost, Raptor Leader. I can’t pull up.’

Jaeger watched as Drake’s Marauder sped below him, dipping towards the hulk’s hull, trailing sparks and burning fuel from its damaged tail.

Get out, Jaeger pleaded. Get to the saviour pod. He gave a heartfelt sigh of relief as he saw the midsection of the Marauder being punched upwards by emergency rockets, sending it spinning away from the hulk.

‘Lost Barnus and Cord.’ Drake’s voice was hoarse with sadness. ‘Their link to the pod was blocked.’

‘Raptor Squadron, this is Veniston.’ The admiral’s smooth voice cut through the comm-chatter. ’Excellent work, boys. You can come home now.’

Jaeger frowned to himself in confusion. How the hell did destroying one gun turret help the Divine Justice against this brute? As he raged, the answer appeared on the display screen far across the rear of the hulk. More Marauders were moving in on the behemoth’s engines: the Marauders of Devil Squadron.

Phrao hissed bitterly over the comm-link: ‘Trust those damned Devils. We do all the bleeding, they get all the glory!’

‘Not this time, Phrao.’ Jaeger answered. ‘Form up on my wing. Let’s give the Devils a hand.’

‘I hear you, Raptor Leader!’ Phrao replied happily.

As the bombs and missiles of Devil Squadron erupted across one of the hulk’s immense engines, the surviving two Marauders of the Raptors swept low, their lascannons picking out weak points in the armour, punching through buckled shields and twisted plates. Soon a dozen fires were blazing, and the engine ruptured with a swirling cloud of superheated matter. Explosions blossomed across the whole section of the hulk and one by one each of the massive stellar drives lost power and went dim, leaving the hulk drifting without control. As the Marauders sped back towards the Divine Justice, the cruiser was sweeping in victoriously for the kill. Wave after wave of torpedoes sped past; Jaeger adjusted the rear viewer to see the plasma warheads punching massive holes in the hulk’s armoured skin. Gun batteries exploded across the ork vessel in bright pinpricks of light. Fires began raging across the hulk’s midsection, becoming raging infernos as the atmosphere inside the hulk pushed out with ever-increasing pressure.

As he prepared to dock, Jaeger got one last glimpse of the hulk. Unable to manoeuvre without its main engines, and helpless to resist the Imperial cruiser raking it from the rear, the hulk was slowly deteriorating. Salvo after salvo from the Divine Justice’s gun decks pounded into the hulk, ripping off huge swathes with every broadside. Ancient reactors in the hulk’s depths began to overload, smashing open gaping holes from within. Then the bomber passed into the shadow of the Divine Justice and the hulk was lost from view.

Cleaned up and in his dress uniform, Jaeger hurried to the briefing chamber. As he entered, Admiral Veniston was debriefing the Devils. Kaurl was there too, standing silently behind the admiral, his face a blank mask. Jaeger listened to Veniston’s praise for Devil Squadron’s part in the day’s victory, and what he heard set his teeth on edge.

‘And I can say without doubt that the whole mission was a complete success,’ the admiral said, ‘and I am glad that it was achieved with acceptable losses.’

That was too much to bear. Jaeger stepped into the centre of the briefing chamber, blazing with fury. He’d already gone through too much, without having to stand around while the admiral praised the Devils’ conduct and said that the Raptors’ casualties simply didn’t matter.

‘”Acceptable losses”?’ Jaeger demanded, eyes ablaze. ‘What the hell do you mean, “acceptable losses”? I lost fifteen good men on that mission while these flyboys were sitting on their carefully polished backsides waiting for their orders! Fifteen men lost while thirty others watched and waited! If you had sent us out together, we could have handled ourselves better. Damn it, you didn’t even tell us what our target was, did you?’

Veniston and Kaurl stared at Jaeger in rank disbelief, which only served to fuel his fury. ‘Of course,’ he spat, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, ‘we’re just the Raptors, we don’t really count, do we? Well I’m sorry if we’re not related, admiral, but my life is worth as much to the Emperor as that of your own kin!’

Kaurl was beside himself. ‘What is the meaning of this, flight commander?’ the captain stormed, face like thunder. ‘How dare you speak to a senior officer like this! Call for the Officer of the Watch. Have Commander Jaeger taken to the brig immediately!’

Jaeger clamped his mouth shut with a snort, and bristled in impotent fury. Without a word or look, Veniston walked from the chamber, ignoring the icy glare that Jaeger shot him as the admiral walked past. Jaeger felt his arm grabbed just below the elbow and he spun round.

Lieutenant Strand was standing there, flanked by two ratings. ‘We’ve orders to take you down, Mister Jaeger,’ he said, face impassive. Jaeger nodded numbly and followed them out of the briefing room. After a moment, Captain Kaurl caught up with the group and dismissed the lieutenant and guards with a waved hand.

‘You went too far, Jacques,’ Kaurl started, his voice soft, his eyes meeting the flight commander’s gaze. ‘If you don’t have respect, then you don’t have anything.’

Kaurl led the flyer into one of the secondary hangars. Inside were the coffins of the dead, waiting to be ejected into space during the burial ceremony that evening. On each was an inscribed nameplate, even for those who had left no body behind: Gunner Saile, Raptor Squadron; Gunner Barnus, Raptor Squadron; Gunner Cord, Raptor Squadron; Commander Drake, Raptor Squadron – the row went on and on.

There were twenty-one coffins in all. When Jaeger read the nameplate of the sixteenth, he stumbled back a step in shock. It read Flight Commander Raf, Devil Squadron. He turned to Kaurl, his brow knitted in confusion.

‘I– I don’t–’ Jaeger stuttered, lost for words. His anger was gone; he felt empty.

‘The Devils’ attack wasn’t the “easy in, easy out” mission you seemed to think it was,’ the captain said tersely. ‘They still had to get through several ork attack ships, the roaming fighter-bombers. Raf was killed guiding his plane into the engines of one of the ork attack ships that was blocking the Divine Justice’s approach. He knowingly sacrificed himself for the completion of the task, and you’ll do well to remember him with pride.’

Kaurl stepped between Jaeger and the coffin, forcing the flight commander to look at him. ‘I devised the plan of attack on the engines, not the admiral,’ the captain went on relentlessly. ‘It was me who decided that two waves were needed: the Raptors in first to silence the engine defence guns picked up by the Mechanicus’ scan, then the Devils to finish off the whole mission. If you’d gone in together, would you have had any more chance of success? Would ten Marauders have had a better chance of destroying that battery. No, don’t reply. You know what I say is true.

‘There were two separate targets which required two missions. We couldn’t risk the orks fixing the gun turret while the Marauders were back on board rearming and refuelling. It had to be done this way. Neither of the two squadrons had it particularly good, let me assure you. And the reason I didn’t tell you it was a battery was to make sure you didn’t worry. Come, be honest, if you’d known it was a massive gun battery, would you have been so confident?’

Jaeger considered the captain’s argument, and he could see the logic. But that didn’t alter the fact that they were sent into a situation without knowing the full risks. ‘Taking on a massive gun battery isn’t as simple as blowing up defenceless engines, sir,’ Jaeger protested.

‘I knew it would be hard, and that men would die,’ the captain told Jaeger, his eyes showing that he understood the flight commander’s concerns. As they spoke, Kaurl led Jaeger out of the hangar and they continued down to the brig. ‘Don’t you think that every time I order an attack, I don’t consider the lives of my men? You had the cover from the Thunderbolts for that second fighter attack. Why do you think it took so long for them to arrive? They were supposed to be escorting Devil Squadron. I didn’t sign death warrants for your crews, I gave them a chance to prove themselves, to show what Raptor Squadron could really do. Admiral Veniston had the chance to overrule me, knowing that his nephew was going to be having just as much of a hard time as you were. But he did not.’

‘Why the hell not?’ Jaeger asked with a flick of his hand. ‘What the hell does Raptor Squadron mean to him? Raf was in the Devils, so surely his main loyalty lay there.’

‘That’s not for me to say. That aside, I know that the admiral was as keen as myself to give your squadron its chance for glory. Without your efforts, the Devils would have been obliterated by the ork cannons, and after that the Divine Justice would have been facing a fully operational enemy, instead of a sitting target. Everybody realises that – including Admiral Veniston.’

As they spoke, Kaurl led Jaeger into the brig, where Admiral Veniston was waiting silently. Jaeger looked at the admiral, and for the first time realised the pain and anguish he must be feeling.

‘You can leave the prisoner in my care now, captain,’ the admiral said, meeting Jaeger’s gaze for the first time. Veniston appeared as calm and collected as ever at first glance, with only the occasional twitch of an eyelid or lip betraying any emotion he might be feeling at his nephew’s death.

As Kaurl bowed and left, Veniston stepped up to Jaeger and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘While you are in here, think on what has happened today.’ The admiral’s voice was quiet but strong. He spoke with years of authority, and for the first time since arriving on the Divine Justice, Jaeger could hear what the admiral had to say for himself.

‘Your enthusiasm, your dedication, are laudable,’ Veniston was saying. ‘But you must expand your perspective, trust in your superiors. Remember always, the cause justifies the sacrifice. No mission I’ve ever flown or commanded in the Emperor’s name was ever a waste, and while I retain my mental faculties things will stay that way.’

Jaeger didn’t know what to say. His mind was fuddled with post-battle exhaustion and his thoughts were reeling, trying to make some sense of the unexpected sequence of events that had followed his outburst in the briefing chamber. ‘I’ll think on that, sir,’ he managed to mumble.

‘Just see that you do, lad,’ the admiral said. With a cursory flick of his head, Veniston directed the two attendant sentries to lead Jaeger into the small, sparse cell.

As the thick steel door closed behind him with an echoing clang, Jaeger’s thoughts were troubled. He sat down on the small bunk and hung his head in his hands. What did Veniston mean, ‘No mission I’ve ever flown’?

In his head, he could not shake a small detail, barely glimpsed as the admiral had taken his hand from Jaeger’s shoulder. Jaeger looked down at his black gauntlets, part of the flight commander’s uniform required by regulations. Veniston had been wearing black gloves too, each with a small insignia. Picked out in delicate gold thread on Veniston’s gloves had been an Eagle Rampant, the unmistakable symbol of Raptor Squadron.

STURMHEX

E J Davies

The Sturmhex incident still troubles me. Even now, a century after the events in that system, I am uncertain we chose the right path.

‘The veil was thinning,’ I was told. ‘Anahk’hir was the harbinger, a blanket of blight to shroud the system from our sight. The dying star naught but a doorway for the Despoiler and his legions to thrust their talons deep into our heart. He had to be stopped.’

I had stood alongside my brothers for years as we were honed into weapons against the daemon. Centuries more as Astrotechnicus. And for nearly a decade as squadron leader. I always understood why we were summoned. I always understood our methods of war. But I still struggle to understand why it ended in that manner.

– Extract from the personal journal of Aegir,
Techmarine of the First Brotherhood.

Long may he stand at the Emperor’s side.

‘Board the Stormravens!’ Brother-Captain Pelenas’ order was still fresh in his mind as Aegir pitched Kodachi down on his approach vector. The rapid deployment of a handful of squads behind enemy lines was an accepted stratagem. Airlifting the entire First Brotherhood on gunships was unprecedented.

Aegir took a lingering look at the blue dwarf star slowly collapsing under its own gravity. Its corona bled away to the void. Nucleons, ions and atoms of short-lived isotopes were spirited away on stellar currents, fouling the scrying arrays and teleportaria of the argent Castigator as it orbited Sturmhex Prime. Without scanning capabilities, long-range bombardment was impossible. Aegir winged the gunship into a tight turn, his brothers following suit, as the planet filled his viewport.

+It’s an ugly thing,+ Iocaste pulsed. Aegir smirked slightly beneath his helm before responding.

+We were ordered to undertake a silent incursion,+ he sent.

Iocaste was not wrong. Sturmhex Prime was an ugly rock. Dead, cold and grey. Its pockmarked surface was the legacy of collisions with meteors and asteroids. Stellar winds whipped dust across the planet’s surface. Aegir looked out towards the outer planets, no longer warmed by the system’s feeble sun, rendering them uninhabitable, while the penal colonies of the second and third planets mined ore beneath its dwindling light and the harsh atmospherics of retasked terraformers.

Aegir pulled his gunship into a tight loop, following his vector to the ingress point – a vast opening dug by some long-extinct species of gigantic insect. With one last look out at the blue Sturmhex star, he dived.

Kodachi’s assault cannon whined as it blasted rounds into the blight drone. The Bilecyst exploded in a mist of green-grey fire. It was snuffed instantly by the lack of oxygen, its existence ended. This was the eighteenth such drone to be ended in the tunnels that burrowed beneath Sturmhex Prime’s surface.

A warm sensation washed over Aegir from the First Brotherhood who were assembled on a wing of Stormravens. Exposure to the combined psychic might of Grand Master Vardan Kai’s Grey Knights was like being bathed in the glow of Sol’s radiance – warm and peaceful, and roiling with restrained power. Despite this, the Techmarine could not lose the leaden weight in his occipital lobe.

+On your guard.+ Thebe’s warning was a pinprick of ice in the back of Aegir’s skull. An image lanced into his consciousness – another drone, to the left and slightly below. Like the first, it was as large as a Dreadnought – a huge rust-mottled insectoid carapace attached to two corroded iron rotors. Aegir tasked the servitor. Turning the dorsal weapons array, he loosed a tight burst from the assault cannons. Bullets ripped through the drone’s armour, destroying it in a cloud of baleful fire. Its biomechanical corpse tumbled to the tunnel floor.

+This is an Emperor-forsaken place,+ Iocaste pulsed, his thoughts mirroring those of his brothers.

+The planet is too close to its star, Iocaste,+ Aegir replied.

+And so, like everything, it dies,+ Metis added.

Aegir allowed himself a half-smile beneath his crusader helm. He felt proud of the squadron he now commanded. They functioned well together, even when separated by miles of rock. He could feel each of them communing with their Stormraven’s machine-spirits, relaying binharic commands to the lone gunnery servitors.

+They are becoming more abundant.+

+Then perhaps, Iocaste, we might get a rest from your rambling.+

A psychic presence imposed itself on the collective. It felt like a lodestone: hard and magnetic, pulling the brotherhood to it with its very existence. And then, it was gone, and with it went the Grand Master.

For a fraction of a second, Aegir felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. The rapid appearance and disappearance of such a magnificent psyche disorientated him. He breathed, long and slow, reciting his catechisms and returning balance to his talon. He could feel each of them return: Iocaste’s childlike inquisitiveness, Thebe’s stoicism, Metis’ cold rationality, and Kalyke’s zeal. Through him, they focused their talents, and through them, he was a more potent weapon against the daemon.

+Company,+ Kalyke interrupted.

Aegir skimmed the surface of his ceramite-like mind, gleaning the information. Seven squads of Raptors lit their ancient jump packs, and streaked straight for the Stormraven.

+On your guard,+ he communed. +Renegade contact made. Engaging now.+

By the Raptors’ movements it was evident the planet still retained its gravity. They leapt from outcrop to outcrop, scurrying like flies over a carcass, searching for sustenance. Aegir could feel the hatred rising in him; his breath was hot, and his hearts beat faster.

Aegir recited litanies of warding as he pitched Kodachi downwards. Thumbing the activation stud on his control column, he sprayed the incoming renegades with rounds from the nose-mounted heavy bolters. He could feel the passengers below, and their hate magnifying with each second of inaction.

The Raptors spun, swooping to avoid the oncoming wave of mass-reactive shells. One shell exploded inside a Raptor’s torso, spattering his comrades with black-brown ichor and bone shards. Another Raptor erupted in mid-air as a shell punctured his back-mounted reactor, taking out two of his comrades in a miniature nucleonic mushroom cloud.

The rest of the Raptors threw their heads back and keened at the loss of their brothers. Screeching howls filled the air, and the sound waves fed on each other, building to a fevered scream in the honeycombed tunnels of Sturmhex Prime. The Raptors scattered, presenting too many targets for the gunship’s weapons. Aegir fired into the greatest cluster of them, taking down five more with the assault cannons.

+We need more guns,+ he pulsed.

+We have more guns.+ Brother-Captain Pelenas’ voice was low and deep, even in Aegir’s mind. +Open the door.+

Warning klaxons echoed through the cargo space. A red lumen globe flashed its warning as the front access door lowered. Aegir’s litanies changed as he tried to placate the belligerent machine-spirit, which baulked at this improper use of its body.

Aegir could feel his brothers communicating, selecting targets and shooting solutions through the void to maximise casualties. Utilising the egregore was among the very first talents the Grey Knights were ever taught.

+Fire,+ came Pelenas’ silver-edged command. Storm bolters chattered along with the Stormraven’s assault cannons, picking off Raptors as they weaved between the bolt shells, trying desperately to survive. In the close confines of the tunnel, they were no match for the Grey Knights’ guns. The Raptors were annihilated within seconds of sustained fire. The few survivors fled down the tunnels. Aegir felt the speed of the Stormraven pick up, the machine-spirit eager to press the advantage.

+Easy,+ Aegir soothed. +We will find them soon enough.+

Roga watched as seven figures in tattered robes knelt in a circle. Each chanted words long forgotten to the tongues of humans, and long forbidden in the halls of the eldar. For seven days, they had neither eaten nor rested, instead dedicating themselves to the completion of the summoning. Weeping sores covered their skin in triads – the sacred mark of the Grandfather, the blessing of the Great Master of rebirth, the bringer of despair. Words tumbled from bleeding gums that bared teeth the colour of tallow.

As the ritual finally came to its close, a wind rose in the cavern. Dust from the floor drifted, coalescing into clumps in the middle of the circle. The gusts grew stronger and the matter was drawn into a tight spiral, spinning ever faster with the hastening currents. A vortex formed, its column reaching high to the ceiling. The gale whipped at the figures’ robes, flapping them like battle standards.

The sorcerers’ voices swelled until they were screaming their incantations over the sounds of the vortex: a discordant howl, a mix of hatred and joy, a baleful melody to those who listened too closely.

Together, they threw back their heads. Sickly green light poured from their eyes and mouths, only to be pulled into the cyclone. Lightning crackled in the dust. Only now, it wasn’t dust. It was a swarm of fat-bellied flies. The sorcerers spasmed, their bodies jerking and twisting as if they were electrified. The tempest dropped, but the buzzing of a billion bloated, swirling insects remained.

An immense fork of lightning struck in the centre of the column of flies. The maelstrom of insects ceased its spinning. The carrion feeders scattered, landing on the spent sorcerers and consuming their rotten flesh, before disappearing into the porous rocks.

The herald emerged. It was as large as a Space Marine but had the body of a grotesque slug, glistening with moisture and maggots that rippled like a river of undulating flesh. Its head was the only part of its anatomy that was covered. A single horn protruded from beneath the cowl, and an ancient mechanical arm, ending in a simple grab-claw, had been grafted to its shoulder. Blood and pus oozed from the graft site. Skittering beetles played in its skin’s folds, while larvae emerged from the numerous triad pores.

Roga inclined his head towards the figure, his decaying armour protesting at such a movement. Flakes of white lacquer shed from the corroding ceramite. The ache in his temple magnified, though it had improved since he removed the helm. A trio of sores at the corner of his mouth constantly wept. He licked at them, drawing the corruption into his mouth, and delighting in the taste of so many virulent diseases percolating in his body.

‘Captain Roga?’ The herald’s voice was like a breeze through a valley of dead trees. ‘First Captain of the Lords of Decay, and honoured sire of the Great Plaguebearer?’

‘Yes, herald.’

‘His most Imperious Majesty, and chosen of the Grandfather, Anahk’hir.’ The herald swept his mechanical arm wide and shuffled to one side.

Captain Roga’s eyes widened. Despite his corroded armour, he dropped to one knee. The Space Marines and thralls behind him did the same.

‘My lord,’ he said. ‘My followers are yours to command.’

Anahk’hir bid the captain to stand. The daemon prince grinned, revealing yellowed teeth, a swollen tongue and a mouth full of larvae.

‘Then we should begin.’

Two things happened within a heartbeat: Grand Master Vardan Kai’s presence returned to the egregore, and the stench of death sprang forth in Aegir’s senses, then vanished just as fast.

+Brothers,+ Captain Pelenas interrupted, summoning those of Aegir’s level and above. +Tactical communion.+

Aegir closed off the part of his psyche open to the squad. In his imagination, the tactical communion took place around a large, circular wooden table aboard the Castigator – though no such table existed in reality. His mind’s eye painted the picture into which he projected his consciousness. As the others appeared in the shared psychic space, they took their seats at the table, devoid of armour and rank.

Brother-Captain Pelenas joined them, his presence larger than the others, manifesting as a broadening of the shoulders, and standing taller than the rest. Outside of the communion, Aegir had never seen the brother-captain without his armour, so could not gauge the projection’s accuracy. Grand Master Kai then entered, standing a clear head taller than even Pelenas, radiating with a faint golden light.

+Brothers,+ the Grand Master began, his voice reverberating around the communion chamber like thunder through Titan’s great valleys. +Sturmhex is dying. With that death comes a weakening in the barrier between reality and the warp. This is just the opportunity the Despoiler needed to launch a crusade against the Imperium. The Prognosticars have foreseen a great awakening that bathes this system in corruption.+

Aegir could feel the lodestone pulling at the edge of his consciousness. Something was there that he couldn’t quite identify.

+The Lords of Decay, brothers, occupy Sturmhex Prime. Where the renegades amass in number, surely the daemon is to follow.+

Aegir looked around the circle. It did not take a latent psychic talent to see the word ‘renegade’ ignite anger in a Grey Knight. He felt his own hands ball into fists and his jaw tighten.

+The Holy Inquisition has tasked us with destroying our enemy, and whatever Neverborn abominations they have allied themselves with. Agreed?+

+Agreed,+ the communion chimed as one.

+Land the brotherhood. Annihilate the enemy. Extract to the Castigator. You have your orders. Brother-Captain Pelenas, they are yours.+

+Thank you, Grand Master.+

Pelenas was the first to disappear from the circle, followed by the Justicars. Aegir was about to leave when he thought he saw a ripple of anger cross the Grand Master’s face. There was a slight pull at the edge of the image, a slight elongation of the table. Grand Master Kai disappeared, leaving Aegir alone. The mental turbulence of the last few moments left him with a slight sick feeling in his stomach, and a throbbing pain behind his left eye. He dismissed the communion, opening up his psyche to relay the intelligence to his squadron.

+Is everything in order?+ Metis asked, careful to shroud his words from the others. +I can feel something is unsettled.+

+It is nothing, Metis,+ Aegir replied, cursing himself for not closing off that part of his mind to the clairvoyant. +A slight headache that manifested when we translated in system.+ The throb remained, and the sound of buzzing crept in at the edge of his hearing.

+Dying stars will do that to some,+ came the reply.

Aegir angled Kodachi through increasingly tight turns. The tunnel opened out into an enormous domed cavern, the size of Deimos, with a thin, noxious haze hanging in the air. The rest of the squadron emerged from similar tunnels that perforated the cavern walls. Land Raider-sized flesh sacs the colour of flensed bone lay strewn across the ground. Tactical data scrawled across the weapon’s augur. It identified thousands of targets – Traitor Space Marines, thralls, acolytes and edifices in numbers to rival most fortress-monasteries of the Adeptus Astartes.

+By the Emperor,+ Aegir pulsed. +This is not just a simple warband. This is almost two Chapters’ worth of souls! Regroup. Now.+

The wing emerged from the tunnels into the hollow cavern of the planet’s core, and opened fire.

Roga turned his gaze from the approaching fleet to Anahk’hir. The bloated daemon’s skin was stretched thin – thin enough to see the myriad of tiny beasts that fed on his insides. Buboes wept viscous yellow fluids on which maggots and flies gorged. He was the epitome of the Grandfather’s blessing.

‘My lord?’

‘You heard me, captain.’ The tone in his voice was dangerous. ‘Engage the Sigillite’s puppets. Bring them in close. We shall draw him out and devour him. We will make his body a new garden for my children to play in.’

‘But what of the Black Lord’s orders? What of his campaign? Without this foothold, his crusade will falter before it begins.’

‘You swore your lives to me. Each one of you. They are mine to command, and mine to take away. You will commit your force as ordered. If we are driven back, the Despoiler’s plan is worth nothing.’ Anahk’hir chuckled. ‘I promised the Lord of the Black Legion this system, and he shall have it. I never said I wouldn’t use this day to pursue my own ends.’

Aegir banked hard left. The inbound missile strafed under the starboard wing, and exploded against the cavern wall. Aegir returned fire, stitching a line of bolt shells across the cavern. The havoc squad ducked, going to ground against the retribution.

+Thebe! Iocaste! Disembark your payloads.+

Kalyke unleashed his hurricane bolters, killing an advancing line of cultists, and halting their charge. Metis swept in low to Kalyke’s port, covering the western approach. He fired his weapons and drove the enemy to ground. Aegir circled overhead, keeping watch as Thebe and Iocaste landed. Two full squads of Terminator brethren emerged from the Stormravens’ holds.

Aegir’s hearts swelled with pride as he watched his brothers advance, their silver armour shining, and their weapons crackling with nascent psychic energy. All across the cavern, the action was being mirrored by the other gunships, each disgorging the First Brotherhood with a roar of storm bolters.

The taste of cold iron. The scent of burning flesh. Then they were gone. Two fragments lasting no more than half a heartbeat each. Aegir was shaken by the two great intrusions behind the wards in his mind. He was used to the gentle brushstrokes of his squad, and the heavier probing of the brother-captain. These were like hard punches, one after the other. He felt a bead of sweat drip down his face inside the armour.

+Aegir–+

+Not now, Iocaste,+ he clipped. +Switch with Kalyke.+

Captain Roga had joined his elite troops on the front lines. They fought on the eastern slopes as the Grey Knights advanced, bolters stuttering. Anahk’hir sat in a shallow cut into the cavern floor formed by his summoning. He surveyed the battle of his prized possessions, drinking in the death songs that filled the domed space. The daemon prince watched as the silver craft of the First Brotherhood tore through armoured Raptors and blight drones. As each fell, Anahk’hir gifted them with life anew, imbuing the hollow armour and machinery with daemonic children.

‘He is near, herald. I can feel him,’ Anahk’hir said, larvae spilling from his mouth. ‘I will take from his flesh the millennia I spent banished in his prison, unable to tend my gardens, unable to cultivate my children.’

Anahk’hir stretched his arms wide, his low voice chanting an ancient language. Bruise-coloured clouds formed in the upper reaches of the planet’s hollow core, and unnatural lights began to flicker behind his eyes. Anahk’hir smiled as the first of his beings materialised from nothingness.

‘Yes,’ the daemon prince said. ‘I shall lure him here, and then breed corruption in his body until the end of time.’

Aegir often marvelled at the manoeuvrability of the Stormraven. It did not look the most graceful of creations, but could be called upon to produce some sublime aerobatics with a talented pilot at the helm. Pulsing an order to his gunnery servitor, Aegir launched a Stormstrike missile. He watched the vapour trail until it penetrated the hull of the lead Rhino. The vehicle exploded from within, killing the occupants and leaving a smoking ruin in its stead. The second transport ploughed into the wreckage of the first, buckling its front blade, and bringing it to a complete halt. Its doors struggled to open, the squad inside trapped by the corrupted machine-spirit’s frustration, and the carcass of its brother. A squad of Grey Knights closed in with speed that belied their bulk. Heaving the doors open, they thrust their weapons into the troop hold and fired.

A third Rhino swerved into Kalyke’s firing arc.

+Now, Kalyke!+ Aegir pulsed.

The Grey Knight relayed the fire order, and unleashed the multi-melta. Intense microwave energy bubbled the ceramite shell of the Rhino, turning it to liquid in seconds. Kalyke pulled the craft to port, yanking the multi-melta blast across the flank, to aim at the engine block. The Rhino buckled, detonating in a plume of shrapnel and viscera.

As the Stormravens covered them, the Grey Knights on the ground charged. Storm bolters spat shells into the advancing line of the Lords of Decay. Their grey-and-white armour was coated in patinas of green mould and corrosion. Aquilae had been carved from the armour by knife or axe, leaving the ceramite wounds exposed. Some bore the triad mark of the Master of Decay, others bore a single horn, or a single eye. A number went without helm, their skin covered in boils and sores, with hair falling out from some virulent disease.

They moved like a disorganised rabble. But nothing could be further from the truth of it. Each warrior had a role. Where a gap opened up in the line, there was another waiting for an opponent to over-extend and step through it. Where lines weakened and crumbled, it was to pull in an impatient foe and crush him completely.

The sons of Titan were no fools. They struck hard and fast, countering each charge with a flurry of bolt shells, and spinning blades of psychic energy fuelled by hatred. They were as lethal as the diseases the Lords of Decay carried, and no less cunning than their foe’s master.

A corrupted Razorback, its pale green hull covered in rusted chains and gangrenous heads, advanced on the left flank, sweeping its lascannon turret along the lines. Aegir saw it approach, and communed with the battle-brothers on the ground to warn them. Metis swooped in low, his assault cannon chewing through the debased armour. The Razorback’s turret turned on the Stormraven, and fired.

+I am hit!+ Metis relayed. Aegir reached out with his mind, seeing the smoking hole left by the lascannon strike that had punctured the wing and tail section of his Stormraven. The pilot was doing his utmost to bring it in softly, struggling against aerodynamics and gravity. Metis continued firing, cutting through the Razorback’s armour until it exploded in a surge of flames. The Stormraven dipped, flying through the fireball.

+Emperor be with you, brother,+ Aegir said.

+And also with you,+ came the reply as the Stormraven ditched.

The Grey Knights were outnumbered, but that didn’t matter. Their martial skill and superior armament meant they rarely faced an enemy they could not defeat. The Lords of Decay had been caught unawares by the Stormravens’ approach, and the onslaught of the First Brotherhood drove them backwards towards their redoubts and fortifications. Although a few of their number had fallen, the warriors of the Six Hundred and Sixty-Sixth Chapter were undaunted.

The haze that pervaded the cavern was dispersed by hexagrammic wards inscribed inside each suit of armour, pushed away like dust in the wind. The Terminators spread as they advanced, forming a thin silver line – a delineation between Imperial space and the realm of the traitors.

+Something is amiss,+ Pelenas communed, detecting a flicker across his psyche.

At that moment, the traitor’s line fell back at the double, fading from combat. The Terminators seized on the opportunity, advancing unopposed further into the enemy’s territory.

+Hold!+ Pelenas bade.

In the clear zone between the two battle lines, corrupted lightning began to gather.

+Hold!+ Pelenas ordered again.

Seventy-seven individual coruscating spheres of energy appeared. They grew smaller and smaller until a concussive boom rang out from each. Dust whipped at the Grey Knights, battering their armour, making it rattle and ping. Seventy-seven lesser daemons – plaguebearers – now stood against the Grey Knights, each brandishing a rusty knife as long as its arm, and bearing all manner of skin sores and distended intestines.

+Charge!+ Brother-Captain Pelenas bellowed at last. The Grey Knights obeyed. Behind those daemons just summoned came scores more and scores more again; a stinking, rotting flesh tide to stand against the might of the Imperium’s finest warriors.

Force staves and halberds spun in expert hands, dancing beams of psychic energy, ice-blue against the necrotic skin of the plaguebearers. Blades bit deep into flesh, severing limb and neck, pulping rotten muscle and exposing internal organs. Pelenas chanted the words of the First Canticle of Banishment.

Nurglings, irritating creatures slightly larger than a human skull, swarmed the battlefield. Great slug-bodied beasts eagerly barged their way through the lines to investigate the warriors.

The daemons of Nurgle slowed the brotherhood’s charge. They stymied the Grey Knights, forcing them into an attritional campaign, making them fight for each step and each solitary inch they gained. But still they gained. One by one, each of the brotherhood took up the canticle, raising it as a battle cry through the vox-arrays in their helmets.

Overhead, the Stormravens battered the hunkered-down defences of the Lords of Decay. Havocs were driven behind casements and hastily constructed earthworks, then pummelled by bolter and cannon. Rhino transports were destroyed before they were given a chance to mount a counter-attack. Bikers revved angry engines, jinking and scything around incoming ordnance, only to be unseated by another of the attack wing closing from the opposite flank.

Raptor packs hunted the Stormravens, leaping from promontories and galleries to hound them. A number of the flyers bore crazed canopies, testament to the fervour with which the Raptors attempted entry to the cockpit, intent on murdering the pilots within. None had fallen.

The Grey Knights’ superiority over the forces of the Archenemy was absolute.

+This number of lesser specimens would be impossible for a traitor to summon without support.+ Pelenas’ voice was strained. +There must be a greater aberration out there somewhere. Find it!+

Aegir banked left to cover Iocaste’s strafing run across the renegades’ withdrawal when the brother-captain’s order was broadcast. Kodachi and Longsword were approaching from the opposite vector. Together, Thebe and Kalyke decimated the throng of summoned plaguebearers with concentrated fire. But where they fell, more were summoned.

The pilots began to recite the canticle, and the atmosphere buzzed. Wards on the inside of the Stormraven glowed a dull blue against the brushed steel of the Chapter’s livery. Aegir could feel the power coursing through his system. His hearts responded by beating faster and harder.

+Brothers,+ he communed. +Let us find their master, and ease the burden for the brother-captain.+

He felt the assent of the others as they gathered on his left wing. They flew over the battle lines, firing into the daemons with sanctified ammunition. With every daemon or traitor that died, another rose to take its place. The Grey Knights’ advance was faltering.

+Does this feel right to you?+ Aegir spoke just to Thebe.

+None of this feels right,+ Thebe replied. +But I do not ask why. That is not my purpose.+

+You have permission to speak freely.+

+I have never seen these foetid creatures employ this tactic. They were never ones for this kind of sapping warfare.+

Aegir’s mouth twisted slightly. +So what are they doing?+

Thebe paused for a moment. +If I was to guess, I would say they are trying to draw something out into the open. They are hunting.+

+Using themselves as the bait?+

+Precisely.+

‘He has still not shown himself,’ Anahk’hir mused.

‘Lord?’ The transfixed herald looked away from the battle lines.

‘He has grown cunning these last years.’

The herald returned to watching the bloodshed with a wry grin, realising Anahk’hir was talking to himself.

‘Perhaps the stakes must be higher for him to wield his own weapons. Very well. I shall be first onto the field of battle. Though I shall not be going alone. He may watch his pretty silver birds burn!’

The daemon hoisted himself to his tree-trunk-like feet. He flexed and incanted words that sounded like a thousand bones snapping in sequence. His arms began to flicker as they transformed into brutal weapons – a rusted blade in his right, and a tri-barrelled cannon grafted on the left. On his back, a tank of bilious fluid containing unspeakable corruption slopped as he clambered from the crease in the cave floor.

‘Herald,’ he hissed. ‘Unleash the Heldrakes!’

Aegir pressed the button, shredding the line of plaguebearers in his targeting reticle. He felt something familiar. A tickle on his palette, and the taste of salt against his tongue.

+Aegir.+ Metis was alive, and communicating.

+Metis–+

+There is no time,+ Metis interrupted. +I have found the locus of the interdiction. The brother-captain was correct. It looks as if it is taking to the field. On your–+

A yawping screech broke Aegir’s concentration. It was the sound of a diving hawk, or hunting eagle – though it was made by a machine a hundred times the size of either of those birds. Great clouds of flame to rival the refineries of the Scouring of Genye pillared through the haze towards the ground. Aegir thought he saw, just for a second, a glint of metal. Orbs glowed red then orange – twinned like a binary star.

The Heldrakes hiding in the gloom dropped from the cavern roof and screamed their battle cries.

Kalyke was the first to die, his Stormraven snatched by the lead Heldrake as it dropped. The mechanical daemon-beast clamped its jaws around the flyer. A tooth the size of a forearm pierced the gunnery blister. With the wards broken, and the psychic protection dissipated, the Stormraven began to corrode. Within seconds, the entire hull was rusted beyond reckoning, and when the beast released its quarry, Longsword flaked to the ground.

Eight more creatures joined the lead, unfurling their wings like bats emerging from their roost. Where the lead belched fire and flame, the others breathed smoke, insects or pestilence. They were big, their manoeuvrability hampered by their size, but they were fast – easily able to outpace the Stormravens.

Thebe was next to die. Caught by the tail and spun into the cavern wall, he was obliterated in a pyroclastic sphere as the ordnance ignited. Chunks of red-hot ceramite rained from the sky.

Losing one voice from his squad was painful, but to lose two was traumatic. Aegir felt like he’d been hammer-struck.

All across the cavern sky, Stormravens dipped and ducked between the breath weapons and autocannons of the Heldrakes. Some were fortunate, evading the incoming fire, or able to weather the storm of corruption loosed upon them. Others were not so lucky. They fell to the ground as balls of fire, or broken husks of the illustrious war machines they had been. Each Grey Knight taken was a glorious light lost to the void.

Justicars and battle-brothers across the brotherhood felt the losses, but none more keenly than Aegir. He tried to move his arms, but they would not comply. He felt like two-thirds of his brain had simply vanished without trace, or by some occult surgeries. His consciousness rose from his physical form, leaving his brain to swim freely in his skull, feeling like it was no longer attached to his brainstem. He was lost without his brothers and their stabilising influence.

Skeins of psychic energy emanated from Aegir, leaving Kodachi drifting in the sky, as the battle raged on around them.

On the ground, the loss was also taking its toll. For the first time since making planetfall, the Grey Knights began to pull back. Just a step at first, which became a second, then a third.

The air grew thicker as the haze returned. It seeped between the Grey Knights, thickening as it rose. Weapons boomed a fraction of a second slower. Storm bolters fired with an almost imperceptible delay. Pelenas felt that he was fighting through a viscous liquid, forcing his muscles to move faster than they ever were capable.

He had begun the Third Canticle of Banishment as the Heldrakes dived, the loss of his airborne brothers striking him like acid-tipped arrows. Yet one could not rise to the rank of brother-captain without accepting the inevitability of loss or sorrow. His chant rose clear from his vox-grille, echoed by those Grey Knights closest to him. But even their canticles could not shift the dense miasma that closed in around them.

As the miasma thickened, so the forces of the Lords of Decay became resurgent. The plaguebearers struck with their rusted knives, the blows turning away from the heavily warded armour of the Grey Knights. Breaths of acrid fumes and vinegar-soaked ashes cut through filtration systems, causing those affected to choke, or their eyes to stream.

The Traitor Space Marines attacked in force. Bolters thundered out in the murk, their ammunition exploding against the aegis armour of the brotherhood, sending deadly white-hot shrapnel flying out in all directions. A number of the brothers died. Shell fragments cut through armour joints, dispelling the sacred wards beneath, allowing the daemons’ weapons to bite down hard.

Each death only spurred the brother-captain to greater and greater action. His voice grew louder until the canticle occupied every known vox frequency. His blade whirled as fast as the fog would allow, severing limbs and banishing daemons to the warp. Burning blue with witch-fire, his hatred, and the hatred within all who stood with him, was channelled into it. The brotherhood dug in, repelling the daemonic advance.

The stench of decomposing bodies overtook the brother-captain. The screams of anguished souls echoed in his mind. He staggered. The ground shook as the waves of assaulting daemons and traitors parted to allow the daemon prince’s advance.

The Neverborn levelled his mighty weapon at the brother-captain. His face looked like it had been moulded from clay using a template from a child’s nightmare.

‘You will summon your master to face me, and I will grant you mercy,’ he yelled, spitting acrid liquids to the ground where they ate into the rock and gave off wisps of steam. He stood as tall and wide as a Dreadnought, his torso a bulbous mass of blubber. Great pectoral flabs hung low over his corpulent belly. His skin was a rancid green colour, and pale to the point of translucency. Scars, scabs and boils covered almost every inch of the daemon prince’s hideous flesh. Sores wept fluids that seemed like sustenance for the myriad parasites that crawled over it.

The enmity of the Grey Knights burned brighter. Sparks of power licked along their blades. Pelenas felt like he would be sick, his fury magnifying.

Anahk’hir’s mouth split his face in half as he spoke, revealing rotten teeth and a putrid black tongue. ‘Or you shall all fall beneath my weapons, and your corpses become playgrounds for my children.’

Pelenas drew breath behind his helm. A radiant energy uncurled itself from the gestalt. The brotherhood released the concealment, and the warrior standing at Pelenas’ side became Grand Master Vardan Kai. Pelenas looked into the bare face of the ancient warrior – his sapphire eye-lenses meeting the pale grey gaze of the Grand Master as they began the Fourth Canticle.

The daemon stilled. ‘No! You are not him. You are not who I wait for.’

Pelenas poured his hate into the gestalt. His brothers did likewise. Grand Master Kai drew on this well of emotion, crafting it. He spread his arms wide, forming a transparent bubble in the miasma. It surrounded the Grey Knights. Weapons swung more freely, bolters were brought to bear as before. The sanctuary in the miasma forced back the lines of the daemon.

‘My plans, my bargains, will not be for nothing. He is here, I know it.’ The daemon’s face leered in fury.

+Now, brothers,+ Grand Master Kai pulsed. +We make them pay for their very existence.+

‘Your lives are forfeit,’ Anahk’hir growled. The daemon lowered his cannon into the advancing line of Grey Knights, and destroyed them.

Iocaste ducked under the incoming Heldrake’s neck. His servitor fired the assault cannon into its metallic underbelly, as the craft looped over the creature’s thrashing tail.

Iocaste reached out with his mind, searching for Aegir, but he could not be found. Aegir had become isolated only once before. He had retreated from the group mind for a long time. Iocaste knew his brother did not have that luxury on this mission. If he didn’t awaken soon, he would perish.

Thuds of flesh against ceramite brought him back to the present, as scraping claws squealed against sacred metals.

‘Ugh!’ Iocaste spat. ‘Furies!’

Targeting the largest concentration, he pulled the nose cannons to bear, commanding the servitor to open fire. Pounding reports issued through the hull as the heavy bolter filled the sky with shells, blasting apart the daemonic carrion feeders. Those he missed with the guns he burned with superheated air as he angled the jet exhausts in his wake. Thumps and bumps through the bulkheads told him they still had company.

Iocaste suddenly felt Aegir’s presence in his mind. Slowing the throttle, he angled the Stormraven to starboard-down.

Two Heldrakes fought over the quarry they had snared in their mouths. Each was curled like an ancient eagle from an arcane heraldic device. They pulled against each other, wrestling over a silver gunship. Iocaste drifted his gunship alongside, scrutinising the markings, and felt a stab of relief to see it wasn’t Aegir.

Something sharp was tapping against Talwar’s skin, looking for a weak spot. Seeing the split-second window of opportunity open, Iocaste gunned the engine. He pitched the nose up and flew straight towards the captured flyer. The machine-spirit pulled back, baulking at the request. Iocaste fought the controls, winging the craft over in a loop as the two creatures yanked. The snared craft was growing ever closer in the window. The taps were getting louder, closer to the side hatch.

The creatures tore once more, ripping the captured Stormraven in half. Its promethium fuel ignited on contact with the red-hot engine cowls, and erupted into a fireball. The Heldrakes tumbled backwards. Iocaste, unsighted, entered the fireball at maximum velocity. The intense heat searing the furies from the hull, and setting off warning sigils on the console.

They emerged charred, but mobile, with a few minor scratches in the hull from the attention of the flighted daemons and wreckage. Iocaste pulled around in a tight pass as his servitor launched a brace of Stormstrike missiles – each targeted at the duelling Heldrakes, annihilating them in a conflagration of incendiary warheads and shrapnel from the thrice-blessed munitions.

‘Find me Kodachi!’ he said.

Anahk’hir unleashed all he possessed at the Grey Knights. Plaguebearers fell faster than they could be summoned. His nurgling pets could not penetrate the protective shell that had been cast, and his own attempts to counter the shield had failed. Even his beloved slug-beasts could not make a dent in the wall of silver. Two of his Heldrakes had fallen, their hearts ripped out by the irritating silver ships. Not even Roga’s troops could break through the line.

The Grey Knights’ canticles had worked their way under his skin, gnawing at his bones. They burrowed their way into his skull, distracting him, and ruining the summoning. His skin itched and burned like it had been doused in acid, but his rage was driving him to greater and greater risk.

The balance needed tipping. The more silver-clad warriors that were lost, the closer it brought his tormentor to the field. And then, Anahk’hir’s vengeance could be exacted.Anahk’hir closed his eyes. Summoning his will, fear and hatred, he merged them into a single invocation. He exhaled, manifesting a swarm of flies that covered the sky. The Land Raider-sized flesh sacs around the cavern writhed. Ripping open, they disgorged packs of rotflies, each one bearing one of the Grandfather’s chosen on its back.

The daemon raised his cannon and fired an ugly ochre viscera at the sanctuary. Around him, the summoned creatures lifted into the air on wings that hummed louder than a Chapter’s collected power armour.

The swarm spread through the cavern like oil across water, enveloping a lone Stormraven, choking its fan blades and air intakes. Smoke bellowed from the exhausts. The gunship’s nose pitched down. Kodachi began to fall from the sky.

Aegir floated on a kaleidoscope of stimuli. A riot of sound collided with every colour and shade known to the realm of men. Every nerve was supercharged with electricity. It coursed through his skin like a violent storm.

He drifted in the immaterium, past bloated things with distorted faces and distended limbs, past avian-faced scholars and writhing tentacled manifestations, and beyond countless unspeakable horrors of excess and blood. Finally, he saw emaciated bipeds wearing a mockery of his brother’s armour. As he looked closer, he saw their faces – the blistered, hollow-cheeked imitations of Kalyke and Thebe.

The corners of his vision began to fold in on themselves, and with that sensation came pain. With each fold came an increase in temperature; pain gave way to anger, anger gave way to hatred.

Aegir looked at his gauntlets and saw white light emanating from his armour’s joints. Rage burned through his veins, magnifying with each heartbeat. His face twisted, becoming a rictus mask of loathing. He balled his fists as his vision collapsed in on him.

For a fraction of a second, he hung inside the vision in a foetal position, his blood white-hot, his rage distilling into pure wrath. Aegir’s form exploded outwards with a primal scream.

He opened his eyes.

Iocaste felt the acrid tang on his palette before he saw the plummeting Kodachi’s fly shroud glow, red at first, then orange. The faster it fell, the brighter it got. The tang flushed over his tongue and dripped acid down his throat. A scream built in microseconds in his mind – from a distant shout to a deafening cry.

The flies detonated in a white ball of fire, carbonising the creatures, and turning them into pellets that rained harmlessly off Talwar’s armour. He could sense Aegir battling the controls as blue flames licked at the hull, searing anything that dared to get too close. The engines screeched as the last of the choking insects burned off, igniting from a growl of mechanical vexation.

Faster the Stormraven dived, and faster the ground came to meet it. Iocaste was willing the flyer to right itself. He could feel Aegir’s struggles against inertia, desperate to save the craft he loved.

Suddenly, the flames guttered and died at once. The suicidal dive of the gunship slowed, and it was pulled into a hover.

+Iocaste.+ The squadron leader sounded different. His timbre was still that of Aegir but deeper, more resolute.

+Your orders, squadron leader?+

+Stormraven wing,+ he broadcast, opening his consciousness to the pilots and gunners of the First Brotherhood. +We are outnumbered. We are outgunned. But we shall never be outmanoeuvred. Rendezvous point alpha-five, then take flight, brothers. Back to the tunnels at full speed. You have your instructions. Enact them,+ Aegir pulsed, closing down his communion.

A wide grin spread itself across Iocaste’s face.

Kodachi flew languid patterns while the remaining Stormravens disengaged to gather at the muster point. As the last Stormraven raced in ahead of its draconic pursuer, the wing split, scattering towards the tunnels through which they entered.

The Heldrakes turned their heads in confusion, unsure of which to pursue. The subsumed pilots tried to exert some control, but the daemons in the machines simply spat angry sheets of flame as the gunships scattered. Aegir took aim at the fire-breather, striking its maw with a few rounds from the assault cannon. It howled its displeasure and gave chase, accelerating at a rate far beyond that expected from a beast its size.

It was on Kodachi fast. Aegir dipped and snatched the craft out of the beast’s line of fire. Autocannon shells swept by, exploding in mid-air and scattering shot off the fuselage.

+Aegir,+ Iocaste pulsed

Aegir dismissed it with a shrug, shooting a few more shells at the creature’s face, shattering one of the carmine eyes. The Heldrake flinched against the attack. Shaking its head, it screamed again and increased its speed.

+Get out of there,+ Iocaste warned.

+Keep going.+ Aegir’s rage still burned beneath his skin. It was evident from his tone.

Another few shots, and the beast cried, its mouth wide. Kodachi shot into the tunnel at maximum speed. The Heldrake didn’t have time to realise its error, and it slammed hard into the cavern wall, erupting in a storm of fire. The flames that entered the tunnel lapped harmlessly against the wards of the Stormraven’s hull.

Images flooded Aegir’s mind from the remaining pilots – all witnessing the demise of Heldrakes in a similar fashion. He smiled.

The gunnery servitors and their pilots made short work of the fast but cumbersome Heldrakes, hitting them and retreating back through the tunnels, only to emerge in another part of the cavern to strike again. The daemons could not keep up with the Grey Knights. Once the gigantic Heldrakes had fallen, the rotflies came next. The Stormravens unseated the rotfly riders and destroyed them with multi-melta, bolter and cannon.

Daemon after daemon fell to the guns of the Grey Knights Stormravens, their corpses falling from the sky.

+Now, brothers,+ Aegir communed. +Let us aid those on the ground.+

Pelenas was into the Sixth Canticle. As the battle overhead shifted, he could feel his own rage adding to that of his brothers. Pure, unadulterated rage. He felt its power in him, its purity coursing through him, sending new energy through tired muscles and his aching sword arm. The wards inside his armour felt warm against his skin.

He channelled the emotion towards the Grand Master, as Vardan Kai intoned a counter-chant. Pelenas recognised it at once. The potential in each syllable resounded in every chest and every throat. The battle-brothers opened their souls to the collective, feeling each emotion as richly as their first, willing it towards their locus.

The Grand Master drank deeply from it. He reformed it around the words he sang, shaping it into something angular and sharp: a blade made of emotion and power, a seething mass of energy.

As he reached the final couplet, the Grand Master released the energy as a brilliant dagger aimed at the daemon’s heart. It lodged in the daemon’s chest. Anahk’hir staggered back a few paces, bent over at the waist.

‘I name you, Anahk’hir Terrigassimal Yarnick,’ Vardan Kai thundered. ‘Back to your birth realm. I banish you by the rites of the Emperor of Mankind.’

The daemon laughed, a sound that started in his belly and worked its way through his chest.

‘You should know that only a daemon’s true name holds any kind of power over them,’ he said.

Pelenas glanced at his Grand Master, catching a glimmer of uncertainty.

‘I sense perplexity in you, Grand Master. Perhaps Nicodaemus sold you a falsehood.’

Pelenas’ sword flashed, bisecting the daemon’s arm. As fast as the blow landed, ichor and muscle reknitted the wound. Kai’s own blade lashed out, only to be blocked by the rusting edge of the daemon’s weapon. Behind him, the ranks of the Grey Knights engaged in their own battles with the ranks of the Lords of Decay and the daemonkin.

+Nicodaemus?+ Pelenas pulsed to his superior.

+Focus on the canticles, brother-captain,+ came the clipped, steely reply.

Pelenas channelled his hate into every blow. Grand Master Kai ducked and weaved, firing bolts of coruscating energy from his fingers as the psychic might of the Grey Knights First Brotherhood coursed through them both.

As fast as Pelenas could land blows, Anahk’hir countered with his blade, blocking their swords and slicing at the two warriors. With each blow they landed, the daemon prince healed to strike back with greater speed. His plague cannon streamed disease and filth over the Grey Knights, engulfing warriors and consuming their sacred silver armour.

Pelenas could feel their psyches being snuffed out like candles in a windstorm. And with each light that dwindled, there came a distracting barb of loss and pain.

Grand Master Kai ducked under an arcing blow of the daemon’s sword. Pelenas took the opening to ram his sword deep into the daemon prince’s putrescent flesh, and ignited the psychic blade with a fragment of his energy. As Anahk’hir stumbled, Grand Master Kai drove his blade into the beast’s abdomen.

The daemon prince lurched backwards. A trio of Stormravens zipped past, strafing gunfire across the cavern floor and into Anahk’hir’s body.

The sounds of a thousand books being torn asunder accompanied Anahk’hir unfurling his wings. He beat the air with a sickening sound of pallid flesh tearing. The daemon lifted into the air, and a horde of his minions charged into the Grey Knights.

Aegir saw the daemon take off. Kodachi looped around, gathering Iocaste and the remaining pilots. They approached on a high-pass vector, all weapons firing. The daemon bellowed battle cries as cannons ripped fresh holes in his wings. Rounds were absorbed into his flesh without harm.

It incensed Aegir that such a being dared to exist. This particular specimen, and its legion, had robbed him of three of his squadron. It could not be suffered to live.

+Aegir,+ Iocaste pulsed, seeing the daemon alter his course to follow Aegir’s craft. But Aegir was too far gone. His emotion boiled over. Blue lightning played across the surface of Kodachi, and it caught fire.

Aegir willed the machine-spirit for just a fraction more power. It complied, pushing itself beyond normal operational tolerances. Kodachi, aflame with indigo fire, barrelled towards Anahk’hir. It collided with the daemon in mid-air.

+Brother-captain, do you feel that?+

+How can I not, Grand Master?+ Pelenas replied.

+Begin the Cleansing,+ he urged.

+Where?+

+On that Stormraven. Now, brother-captain!+

A pillar of pure white light crashed through the cavern, enveloping the fallen daemon. The cyclonic wind blasted Anahk’hir, and his form shrivelled. The cannon fell free from his atrophying body and fluids leaked from every pore. Lice, maggots and worms scuttled into the light, only to be vaporised.

Vardan Kai took out a small cube from a belt pouch and hurled it at the fallen daemon.

‘I’ll gift you anything,’ Anahk’hir said. ‘A life without dying. Without the burden of duty to an unseen spectre. Without service to masters with agendas and schemes. Without politicking or fear–’

The Grand Master did not hesitate. In a flash of unlight and unknowing, Anahk’hir disappeared. Grand Master Vardan Kai strode over to the cube; he stared at it where it lay on the ground. He picked it up in a gauntleted hand and brought it to eye level.

‘We are the Emperor’s might, and we know no fear.’

Iocaste landed on the cavern floor as the last of the Lords of Decay were dispatched. To treaty with daemons was heresy, and heresy begat death. As their patron vanished, so did their will to fight. Captain Roga’s corpse was incinerated, along with those of his traitor brethren.

Iocaste watched with a heavy heart as the reclaimators picked across the battlefield, salvaging armour and weapons from the dead, and eased the mighty Stormraven carcasses from the twisted wreckage of their crash sites. Every trace of the incursion was scoured from Sturmhex Prime.

Talwar and the remaining Stormravens flew repeated sorties back to the Castigator until what remained of the First Brotherhood was back aboard.

His task finally complete, Iocaste made his way through arterial walkways and connecting corridors, heading direct to the medicae. The salt tang, once tasted, had never left his mouth. He entered the observation gantry. The bitter stench of counterseptics and astringents dug through the filtration systems of his armour.

Aegir lay on a steel slab, his armour being carefully removed by a team of red-cloaked adepts and laid on a cot lined with sapphire silk. They removed a vambrace, revealing seared skin, patchworked in the brilliant red colour of regrowth. His armour sockets were ringed with black, charred callouses.

+Aegir,+ he pulsed, doubting he would even get a reply.

+I live, Iocaste.+

+How?+ Iocaste’s system flooded with relief.

+The Emperor protects, brother.+

Aegir opened up his mind, allowing Iocaste to see what he’d seen in the last moments leading up to the crash.

The pillar of light. The cube of xenos design in the Grand Master’s hand. The betrayal deep within Aegir’s soul. Aegir raised his head and stared at Iocaste.

Iocaste removed his helm, making direct eye contact with his squadron leader. For a fraction of a second, without speech or thought, they agreed and sealed a pact with a brief nod.

Eighteen decks below, in a sealed section of the Castigator’s foredecks known to only two, Vardan Kai strode on sandalled feet, having long since removed his armour. The grey robe he now wore swept along the ground.

‘Grand Master.’ Inquisitor Nicodaemus Quixos’ voice was cold as iron, but mesmeric. ‘You have the device.’ It sounded as if it should have been a question, but it felt more like a statement.

Kai held out the cube to the inquisitor, keen to distance himself from the xenos device and the daemon it contained.

‘The tesseract labyrinth is such an elegant device, do you not think?’ Nicodaemus Quixos spun the cube between his fingers as he spoke.

‘I do not, inquisitor. That daemon,’ he said, pointing at the inquisitor’s hand, ‘should have been purged, not captured.’

‘But those were not your orders, Grand Master.’

Grand Master Kai turned to leave the chamber. He thought of the warriors he’d lost in the battle, and the decades it would take them to return to their former strength. He knew that Quixos would be skimming his thoughts, and paused by the bulkhead hatch.

‘I hope the ends truly justify the means, inquisitor.’

When I felt the lodestone pull once more, it was many years later. Quixos had been declared traitor by then, sentenced to be captured, tortured for confession, and killed. His part in the demise of my brothers can never be forgotten, and will never be forgiven – even when he stands before the Golden Throne, and weeps.

– Extract from the personal journal of Aegir,
Techmarine of the First Brotherhood.

Long may he stand at the Emperor’s side.

WRAITHBOUND

J C Stearns

‘Prince Eidear has begun his attack run.’ Liosa’s voice echoed in Seoci’s head. Even the crystalline earpiece could not filter out the harsh, aggressive tone. All around them, engines whined hot. Seoci’s fingers tapped, and his interceptor’s voice joined the chorus.

‘Have you ever done this before?’ asked Padruic. There was apprehension in his voice. ‘Do we wait for her to accelerate first?’

Seoci sighed and gazed to his right. He couldn’t see Padruic, of course. The canopy of his companion’s fighter was shrouded from the outside, as was his own. The two of them hovered in the misty expanse of the webway, flanking and slightly trailing Liosa. It was good Padruic was speaking with him privately, for Liosa would have been displeased by the communication. Empathy was an emotion the exarch had left behind long ago.

‘War mask,’ Seoci replied. ‘It is time, brother. Focus yourself. There is time enough for thoughts of worries and fears. Let Khaine’s hot breath stir your blood, and carry such apprehension far away.’ Padruic had only recently come to their shrine after a long and successful walk on the Path of the Healer, and his relative inexperience still showed. That was the reason he was matched with pilots as experienced as Seoci and Liosa. Outside, in the cerulean fog, the roar of engines grew to a crescendo. They were not the only squadron, nor were the Crimson Hunters alone. Vypers hung in the air, along with clusters of Falcons and Fire Prisms. He could even make out a few Venom attack craft, clad in the vivid purple of Princess Isbeil, amid the sea of Lugganath orange. Around all of them hovered the Windriders in their dozens, motionless, engines straining to tear loose. So loud, the vibrations of the cacophony thrummed against Seoci’s ribs, even within the sound-dampened cockpit. Above it all, as if this section of the webway had been constructed with a sky, the massive curving keel of Isbeil’s personal void barque, its projected gravity anchor the only reason the assembly below did not crash into one another.

It would have been easier if Isbeil and Eidear could work as allies. The intricate carved spars of the portal they swarmed before were titanic in the scope they encompassed, their furthest reaches lost to sight amid the swirling mists of the webway. The Helheart Gate was large enough to accommodate not only the massed throng surrounding it, but the equally large force that was even now beginning its assault from orbit. The two arrogant Corsair leaders had petulantly refused to join battle on the same side, although they had eventually agreed to allow the craftworlders to split their efforts between both avenues of attack and to coordinate that.

‘But yes,’ said Seoci. ‘To answer your question, many times. From the webway and its thoughtless, formless oblivion to a world of screaming sensation the next. It’s much like being born, I imagine.’

Padruic’s only response was a grunt, and Seoci nodded in approval. The slight of having his turn of phrase snubbed was a small price to pay for the relief of knowing his companion had centred himself.

‘One,’ said Liosa. Seoci took a breath. It was time for the war mask.

‘Two,’ the exarch continued. Behind Seoci’s eyes, he could feel the change. So much further along the path than Padruic, Seoci could don his war mask as easily as slipping on a glove. The hot wind coursed through his mind, cleansing his thoughts. In the wake of Khaine’s breath, there was no room for trivial thoughts like fear, worry, or especially mercy. Replacing them came the memories of all the previous times he had slipped on the mask. Memories of bloodshed and lives extinguished. A parade of experiences that might have broken Seoci if he hadn’t forgotten them each time he cast the mask aside.

‘Now,’ hissed Liosa.

The gravity anchor flickered even as the webway parted before them, the titanic arching spars of the Helheart Gate flaring to life with brilliant violet energy to create a rippling portal, their entry to true space. Liosa howled in their earpieces as the Crimson Hunters burst forth, carrying wispy blue contrails behind them. Padruic howled as well, and Seoci became aware that he was screaming with them.

Florid or not, his description had been apt. If they had not trained for webway insertions just such as this, he might have been lost in confusion. The webway had been dark, but the planet was lit by a harsh white noonday sun, mitigated somewhat by a cover of toxic smog high in the atmosphere. The mass of eldar craft that had hung suspended around him in the mists of the webway was nothing compared to the clutter of the city they emerged into, with rickety buildings crammed together in cramped lines. Although the municipal square the portal opened onto was large by the standards of a being on foot, the supersonic interceptors could impact the palisade of rusted structures at its far border in less time than it took to blink. Even the ethereal grace and reactions that every eldar possessed would not have been enough to help them make the turn; only the razor-sharp training of the Hunters enabled their squadron to pull up in time, the thunderous force of their sharp ascent buckling the street beneath them.

Targeting sensors and tracking systems registered the enemy before Seoci even saw them. Pinpoint flares projected on the crystal canopy showed him the foe: a handful of slow, filthy ork aircraft, littering the skies only to compete against one another in pointless death races, or to fire their weapons into the air for the sheer thrill of it.

The white stabs of laser fire from the interceptors tore through the ork planes like tissue paper, the pilots and crew immolated in mid-air before they were even aware of the eldar attackers. Seoci didn’t need to hear the words to know that a cry went up among the greenskins below, who scrambled to meet the enemy suddenly upon them.

Liosa banked sharply, scanning the ground for optimal targets. There were many to choose from. It had only been a single orbital cycle since the orks had conquered the planet from the mon-keigh, but they had wasted no time in exploiting what resources it had. The primitive humans had long since stripped away any natural wealth, leaving the planet to serve them solely as a cluster of factory-cities separated by vast dry wastelands, good only for producing the components for their crude aircraft and laughable skimmer technology. Not that the planet had been without resources when the orks arrived; there would have been stockpiles of raw materials brought in from desolate mining worlds or asteroid extraction operations across the sector. Of course, the industrial resources were far more useful to the orks – the huge cities were filled from edge to edge with billions of machines, which could be disassembled and repurposed for whatever crude vision the orkish mind could concoct.

‘Sighted,’ said Liosa. Responding to the merest flick of his eye, the secondary visual display projected onto the canopy to show Seoci the ground below. They soared above the rooftops, high enough to avoid collision but still close enough to read the foul orkish graffiti on their banners, if any of them had ever wasted enough time learning orkish scrawl. Relaying data from Liosa’s instructions, the scores of highlighted targets beneath them began showing informative runes, one glowing brightly to command their attention.

Embedded in the top of a squat, square-edged building, the battery of guns was crewed not by full-grown orks but instead by the tiny, squabbling vermin known as gretchin. Seoci sneered in disgust. The enemy might be pitiful, but their guns were not.

‘Attend, brother,’ said Seoci, calling for Padruic’s attention, ‘those weapons are a particular danger. We’ve encountered their like before.’ The spitting capacitors attached to the artillery pieces were still building a charge, but once they reached capacity they could direct a powerful magnetic beam, capable of dashing aircraft against the ground with destructive force.

‘Confirmed.’ Padruic’s voice was calm, assured, economically answering both his brother and his exarch with a single word. His pulse laser hit the building first, followed a split second later by his companions’ fire. The thrum of their lasers was the rich, deep-throated growl of the great cat, confident and laconic, effortless in their destruction. Before them brick, mortar and plasteel vanished amid clouds of fire and superheated dust.

‘Confirmed destroyed,’ said Seoci, trailing just far enough behind Padruic and Liosa to track the number of enemy casualties. Across their communications network, they heard the mounting casualty reports confirming the destruction of any lingering anti-air support. Their arrival had been clean; in the time it would take to recite a single eight-line seada they had removed all non-eldar from the skies, and eliminated any anti-aircraft resistance.

‘Engage ground targets at your discretion.’ Princess Isbeil’s command over the network heralded the next phase of the attack. From the luminescent portal of the Helheart Gate the eldar began to pour: tanks and jetbikes, Vypers and Venoms, filling the air with hissing shuriken and sizzling energy lances.

Seoci smiled to himself. Banking away from his squadron, his eyes flickered across the targeting runes, seeking one that might strike his fancy. His console read the narrowing of his eyes, locking on to the chosen enemy unit and making velocity predictions. Seoci’s grin turned feral. He had no need for such projections. He’d walked the Path of the Hunter long enough to know how far he’d need to lead his shots.

Ahead of him, a squadron of three ork rotorcraft spluttered and belched thick black smoke, struggling to gain the altitude necessary to make strafing runs on the targets below. Seoci’s shots were as precise as surgical incisions, each strike clipping a rotor shaft away as neatly as shears snipping a flower stem, allowing Seoci to savour the image of the orks: the rolling descent, bellowing faces frozen, arms flailing wildly.

Seoci realised he’d composed a three line eado without meaning to. For the millionth time he thanked the gods that he’d been pulled away from the poet’s path at the last minute. Gritting his teeth, he surrendered himself to the war mask, banishing thoughts of yesterdays, his feet firmly on the today-path. Below him ork vehicles roared about on clattering wheels and grasping treads, their guns firing at random, trying to get a fix on a target. One mechanical abomination after another, the white columns of laser fire tore them apart, melting rusted plating to slag and vaporising any ork caught in the blast. The interceptor’s guns reaped a bloody harvest, the kill-poetry of a moment ago abandoned.

‘Bridgehead established,’ said Princess Isbeil. ‘Final emergence imminent.’

Through the wide streets of the conquered city, the orks fought a losing battle with the eldar. Caught completely by surprise, they were torn apart by the lightning attacks. Many groups of greenskins fled for the sanctuary of the ruined buildings, only to be cut down from behind by waves of razored shuriken, or to have their shelters collapsed by volleys of rocket fire. A few of the larger orks tried to rally their overwhelmed forces, but no sooner did they begin bellowing and posturing to impose order than they were riven apart by laser fire, the screaming figures making easy targets.

Banking to the left, Seoci soared low over one of the thoroughfares, following Liosa’s rune to link back up with his squadron. The chaotic fighting below was so thick that a pilot of any other race would have been unable to pick out targets for fear of hitting their own forces. Seoci’s weapons fired as fast as his eyes could highlight targets. White beams of laser fire slashed in-between the darting eldar shapes, sometimes so perilously close as to spray a passing Windrider with the ashen remains spurting from Seoci’s latest kill.

The orks in the main square, which had served as the arrival point, saw the white slash of the Helheart Gate begin opening a third time, and surged towards it. Having suffered two blistering waves of attack, the dim-witted brutes were at least intelligent enough to respond to this latest threat, and charged the webway portal in a headlong rush, intent on cutting down this newest attack and turning the tables on the eldar.

The front line of the greenskin horde collapsed without warning, the orks following behind them tripping over the sudden casualties. Soundless, the first of the wraithguard strode through the portal, hefting their distortion scythes for a second volley. More of the orks collapsed, each of them going from a frothing knot of unthinking fury to a lifeless slab of refuse in the space of a blink.

The advance of the wraithbone warriors was the stuff of nightmares: a long line of expressionless killers who gazed upon their targets without sight, fought without sound and killed with no wounds. Their unyielding bodies and chilling coordination might give the impression of automata, but there was always a subtle sign, from a curious pan of the head to gaze at a cowering foe to a cautious step around the body of a fallen ally, that spoke of a living mind and the unmistakable presence of a soul. The long orange limbs of the wraithguard carried them through the horde, heedless of the living orks that had tripped over their own dead, still thrashing to gain their feet. The second line of wraith constructs emerged from the open portal to solve the problem for them, ghostblades rising and falling in silent, brutal, relentless butchery.

Seoci could remember the dread such constructs instilled in him when he shed his war mask, and felt disgust. He beheld the smooth, silent killers, bemused by the horror such a spectacle would have been to him during his poet days. But as he closed in on the portal, he could hear the low psychic droning at the edge of his mind, the war chants of the dead warriors sending a chill up his spine that even the discipline of his war mask could not fully quell.

A column of energy nearly tore him apart. He saw the beam, as wide as his cockpit, smash to his left. Banking hard, Seoci ground his teeth and pushed his interceptor into a tight roll. The pillar of coruscating magnetic force swept after him like a spotlight, lurching drunkenly in a vain attempt to hit him. Seoci swept his plane in a tight turn around what was once a large manufacturing facility, and pitched sharply skywards.

‘We have sky guns,’ he snapped. With a whine his engines burst into overdrive, and he yanked the interceptor into a bone-crushing turn.

One of the gun batteries, the same ones they had targeted on their way in, was operational again, streams of energy scouring the skies for the nimble eldar attackers. One of the fingers of energy caught a Windrider, the magnetic force yanking the warrior from his bike and crushing him to a pulp.

At the apex of his trajectory, Seoci turned and fired at the building, but no sooner did his wild shots impact the masonry than one of the beams swept for his new position, sending him into a screaming dive. Forcing every bit of speed out of his engines, he angled towards the guns, hoping to rake them with close-range fire as he passed. In response to his intent gaze, his cockpit view zoomed closer, to the gleeful mob of screaming gretchin tilting their guns this way and that. He pulled his fighter up to fire, even as one of them pointed in his direction and started to swing the magnetic projector around.

The psychic thrum passed close enough to his fighter to tug at the edge of his psyche. Outside there was no sound as the wretched greenskins fell, flopping to the ground like discarded rags. But Seoci was close enough to hear the wail of the warp unleashed, and the agonised screams as the gretchin’s souls were wrenched from their bodies in an instant. Seoci’s secondary viewer displayed the sky behind him and confirmed what he already knew: a small knot of wraithfighters soared over the city, the portal closing behind them.

+Fear not, water len,+ said a familiar voice, eschewing the communication network to speak directly into his mind, +I would not let them harm you.+

Seoci’s mouth went dry, his whole body numb, even as he obeyed Liosa’s command to form up. Their planes punched forwards, leaving the cleansing of the city to the methodical ruthlessness of the wraith warriors.

Ailios? Could it be? There was no mistaking the sound of the dusky feminine voice, or the thin aroma of night-blooming aoifemint. His secondary viewer scanned the shaded canopies of the wraithfighters, wondering which one was hers. The cold pressure in his gut wasn’t fear but a kind of unbelieving surprise, the closest his war mask would let him come to the anguish he would feel when Seoci the poet learned this.

He shook his head and ground his teeth. Terror, anguish, these emotions had been scoured away by the hot wind of Khaine. Rage, however – that he could relish to his heart’s content. His eyes scanned for a target. The roadways below were largely deserted, save for scattered outcroppings of ork activity. It occurred to Seoci that they had seen no sign of any of the former human occupants, save for the bleached skulls decorating the ork flagpoles. He banished the thought just as quickly. The fate of the mon-keigh was irrelevant. Whether they had been driven into the wasteland to die, been ground to dust as slave labour for their greenskin conquerors, or butchered for the larders of the ork commanders made no difference. They were gone now, with only their body lice to mourn them.

The invasion had become a headlong drive, as swift as an onrushing storm, towards the planet’s former capital. The gravity-defying tanks and jetbikes of the eldar screamed forth like lightning, the jets above them providing escort, along with Isbeil’s wing of Corsair fighters. Prince Eidear, leading the combined might of the Corsair fleets allied to his cause, as well as whatever mercenary elements he had been able to persuade or hire from the seamy depths of the webway, rushed to meet them from the other side. Synchronised in their assault, the eldar forces would fall upon the horde of orks united underneath the warlord-engineer Gorkog Chrometeef in an unstoppable flood.

Gorkog Chrometeef. Even the very sound of the name disgusted him. Seoci had been there when Tearlan had foreseen the rise of the ork warlord. So had Ailios, of course; the two of them had walked the Path of the Seer together, and the Path of Service before that, their centuries entwined since she had saved him from himself so long ago. When Tearlan emerged from his trance and began casting runes, demanding the lesser seers confirm his findings, Ailios had been the one to take Seoci’s hand in hers, calming his fear with her presence. There had been much reason to fear, of course: the farseer had been correct. His prophecy verified, he had shared his vision with the rest of the seers, the most senior among them weighing the best course of action.

The destruction had been… unbelievable. Although more than a decade in the future, Seoci could taste the ash on the wind of the planets that Chrometeef would burn, and feel the tremors in his bones as the ground beneath his feet broke apart, as Lugganath tore itself asunder. For years a thorn in the side of shipping in the Rassemi Divide, the ork was part engineer and part pirate, but was considered a great threat by no one. Tearlan’s vision, however, told a different story. Although the closer the vision pressed to the origin of Gorkog’s rise the more obscure it became, devolving into a mass of tortured wails, the outcome was clear: he would become a menace to every world within his reach, and billions of humans would die at his hand. In the end, his wanton destruction would provoke a violent reaction from the corpse-worshipping mon-keigh: an anti-xenos crusade which would sweep through three sectors of space, culminating in Lugganath’s defiant last stand against the horde of filthy pink apes.

A target rune flickered to life on Seoci’s canopy. The host of aircraft that screamed around him, and the clouds of Windriders beneath them, zipped over the heads of scattered groups of orks, largely ignoring the lesser mobs of the brutes, at best peppering them with passing fire as they continued their fevered rush to where Gorkog had dug himself in. The only targets of any priority were the ramshackle ork vehicles that might have enabled the greenskin hordes to reinforce the city before the eldar had finished dealing with their leader. Seoci fired, his bright lance shot vaporising the driver’s-side wheel on the truck below. The vehicle jerked to the right and flipped into a violent roll, its crushed crew no longer a concern.

‘Fighters.’ Liosa’s voice drew his attention to the horizon, where a distant smattering of pinpricks marked an encroaching enemy squadron. Seoci banked right with his squadron, their three interceptors breaking away from the other Hunters without any further word. Seoci counted twelve enemy contacts. The eldar pilots could have flown on and easily outpaced the ork planes, but if not dealt with, the greenskins would just vent their rage on the lower, ground-skimming targets.

One of the wraithfighters drifted away from the main charge to follow them, falling into formation with the Crimson Hunters squadron as if it were just another of their brethren. A slight chill at the back of Seoci’s skull reminded him that in all likelihood this was precisely the case: the dead eldar hero whose tormented spirit animated the craft had probably been an exemplary pilot in life, possibly even a traveller on the Path of the Crimson Hunter. Seoci’s secondary display shifted to the wraithfighter, and he wondered if the ghost within realised it was no longer flesh and blood, or if the exhilaration of the chase, enemies in sight, fellow Hunters soaring by its side, was enough to impart the illusion of life, if only for a time.

+The former.+ The rich feminine voice in his mind answered his thought the moment it was formed, just as she had so many times before. Seoci regarded the wraithfighter, unsure of how to respond. +My ward was a pilot, but he walked the Path of the Mariner, not the Hunter.+

Liosa’s fighter began a sharp ascent, and Seoci followed dutifully. He had so many questions he wanted to ask Ailios, but conversation would have to wait. The interceptors vanished amid the thick, high-altitude clouds of smoke and polluted gas, well before the orks caught sight of them. Away through the smog, Seoci could see the cloud of ork targets closing, so far beneath them.

Ailios’ wraithfighter shimmered, blending in with the dirty grey background. Seoci caught the odour of night-blooming aoifemint, and knew she was in his mind again. He could feel a faint sense of amusement from her, and realised she’d found it easier to affect him than the dead soul in her plane. Seoci’s plane faded and dimmed as well, hidden from sight. A few moments later Padruic’s and Liosa’s interceptors followed suit. The squadron began accelerating, a gliding flock of Raptors just waiting for their prey to move into position.

Liosa dived first, the others following closely behind. Below them the ork planes chugged along, eager to reach the line of charging eldar. The first volley of fire tore three of the aircraft to shreds before the orks knew what was upon them. The ork pilots were far quicker to react than their land-walking kin at the Helheart Gate had been, and scrambled to evade the attack even as the squadron opened fire again.

The interceptors barrelled through the cloud of orks, as debris from two more casualties rained down onto the wasteland below. Padruic’s second target rolled at the last moment, evading the laser shots and sending a hail of rattling gunfire after the enemy planes, still visible only as blurry grey streaks. Seoci angled up sharply, sharper than any ork craft was capable of, and gutted another one of the ramshackle planes from below.

A melodic chime sounded, warning Seoci of enemy fire in close proximity. Automatically, his secondary view swung around to show him one of the ork jetfighters above and to his rear. The scrambling plane had managed to secure a prime position to strike at the eldar fighter, and the banks of guns along its wings were chattering away, throwing a blistering stream of fire at the interceptor. Only the cloaking effect of Ailios’ psychic invocation kept the shots from finding their mark. Seoci sighed and dived. Several of the shots pinged off the side of his plane as he sped away.

Above him, in the secondary viewer, Seoci could see the other members of his squad wheeling through the group of orks, evading the undisciplined shots with ease, waiting to line up their own killing blows. Even the primitive ork planes were too fast for the wraithfighter’s distortion scythes to lock on to, leaving Ailios to weave and dodge, concentrating on keeping all of her companions in range of psychic communion.

Liosa swept in behind an ork bomber, her lasers blasting away, such frequent use changing their rich purr to a harsh growl. The ork jerked and weaved, diving in wild arcing loops, but the exarch followed behind him as if attached with a tether. The greenskin pulled into a steep dive, plunging towards the ground at an alarming angle.

‘Anr-hyded!’ Padruic’s yell went ignored. ‘Pull up!’

Seoci had known Liosa long enough to know it was futile. The ork plane juddered and rolled, finally levelling out as the greenskin pilot frantically tried to pull up before his clumsy plane smashed belly-first into the ground. The moment he broadened his profile, Liosa fired. Her interceptor barrelled through the fireball, pulling up just in time to streak away along the ground, low enough to send great clouds of dust up behind her. Although their skill and reactions were extreme even for eldar, Seoci knew the truth: it was not skill which had preserved Liosa. As close as she had cut it, a variable as minute as a wind current or piece of errant debris could have spelled the difference between life and death. Only good fortune had kept her from pursuing her obsession unto her own death.

Seoci shook his head. That’s what it meant to be exarch. As the last rune vanished from the overhead portion of his canopy, indicating clear skies above, he realised he’d reached the same conclusion in the depths of his war mask that he’d come to without it. The same thing wouldn’t happen to him.

The interceptor’s hyperjets engaged with a hostile shriek. Even the gravity-stabilised cockpit struggled to mitigate the force slamming into him as the plane burst forwards. Seoci grimaced and yanked the plane into a hard ascent, rolling even as he cut the hyperjets to allow the plane to flip, only to engage them a moment later and race back towards the ork jet still firing at him.

Seoci had a moment to behold the ork’s face, frozen in shock. In the space it took him to drop his jaw in surprise, Seoci had gone from fleeing prey to vengeful predator. The eldar waited a touch longer than he absolutely had to, letting the reality of the situation sink in before his laser fire bored through the gaping maw of the jet, burning it out from tip to tail. Seoci dipped one wing, allowing the smoking wreck to pass beneath him as he soared back into the chaos of aerial combat.

Liosa had downed another plane and was sweeping wide to evade the roaring gunfire of the jet pursuing her. Padruic had arced above and behind a fat bomber, and raked it with a burst from his pulse laser. One wing burst into flames, and the plane began rolling onto its side. Padruic’s fighter veered away as the ork craft plummeted towards the ground. The younger pilot had no desire to re-enact Liosa’s reckless pursuit. Seoci tried to cry out and warn him, but it was too late.

The lurching bomber righted itself, the turret-mounted guns blazing away at Padruic’s underbelly. Seoci winced at the psychic squeal as the heavy calibre fire shredded Padruic’s cockpit, the moment of sorrow cut off by the war mask, replaced only by a cold rage in his heart.

Seoci banked towards the ork bomber, unsure if the enraged scream was only in his mind, or if he actually vocalised it. The only thing he was sure of were the lances of laser fire ripping into the cockpit of the ork vehicle, punching through like a trio of vengeful furies. The pinpoint intensity was so great that the ork pilot burst into flames, his blazing corpse a fitting match for the plane’s incendiary paint scheme.

Seoci’s interceptor pulled a tight turn. The two remaining ork pilots had seen enough. They’d disengaged from the aerial battle and turned towards their original target, their afterburners sending up great funnels of black smoke behind them.

There was no communication, because there was no need. He and Liosa dived and accelerated, synchronised in their ruthless intent. The ork planes had drawn eldar blood, and mere death would no longer satisfy for them. This was the culmination of a shrine’s life together, of months or years of training: a concord of thought that transcended directions or orders.

Their pulse lasers lit up the first fleeing plane, each of them clipping the outmost edge of the fighter’s wings. Buffeted by the supersonic impact of the air itself, the majority of the damaged airfoils wrenched free. The plane fell away in a slow, unstoppable plummet. The other jet spun and dipped in a desperate attempt by the pilot to foil his attackers with a corkscrewing dive. The Hunters’ bright lances fired again, shearing away his tail stabilisers. Ailios reached out to show them the second ork’s final thoughts: a brief sense of visceral triumph at having evaded the superior eldar fighters, and a sudden, dire panic when he realised he couldn’t pull up.

Gallafweldeic Tyofanhyn, or the Long Death: the sadistic and deliberate end reserved for those who had earned the Crimson Hunters’ ire. They had halfway caught up with the remainder of the force before Seoci felt Ailios’ amusement. Just as she could enter his mind as easily as slipping on a glove, she could scarcely keep her own thoughts private from him, not when they were joined. She was rolling his obsession of a moment ago over in her mind, the anger so profound he’d been able to taste blood, and thinking of the first time she had seen him weeping, reciting his compassionate daedo ‘Tears for the Fallen,’ mourning the enemies their race was forced to slay in order to preserve their own existence.

We walked a different path then, he thought.

+We walk a different path now,+ she replied.

How had it come to this? When he’d left the Fane of Prophecy, they’d both agreed to join the Searing Zephyrs, to walk the Path of the Crimson Hunter together. Linked this close to her mind, the question was no sooner formed than it was answered. He saw as she remembered, the pitched battle that had taken place after he had left, dozens of spirit stones returning to Lugganath in the hands of the survivors. He could see how each soul had to be comforted, incorporated into the spirit matrix with care and respect. The seers assisting out of necessity. All but one of them turning away, the task of speaking with the dead too great a burden to bear. He could recall her memories as if they were his own, how she promised herself each time she picked up a stone that this time would be the last, until there was no longer a question of leaving, the songs of the departed echoing too deep in her psyche to ever leave again. When his acceptance and training had concluded, he’d looked for her, but the other seers had told him his love was gone, and their cruel double meaning had never before occurred to him.

Lost on the path. Even in the throes of the war mask, there was enough of Seoci left to find the idea abhorrent. When the mask was no longer necessary he would feel sympathy for Ailios, mourn for her even, but in the heat of battle all he could feel was revulsion. Feeling her thoughts, experiencing her own memories of loss, only strengthened his decision: this was his last mission. When they returned after Gorkog Chrometeef’s demise, he would exit his interceptor for the last time. There was no longer any question of whether he would wait one battle more. The only uncertainty that remained was what path he would travel down next.

‘In the name of Vaul, what is that thing?’

The horrified cry from Princess Isbeil, coordinating her forces from her void barque, wrenched him from the memories. The interceptors could go no faster, but Seoci’s neck craned forwards, scanning for the faintest signs of what might have drawn such a response from the Corsair commander.

‘We are inbound,’ said Liosa. ‘What is happening?’

‘Chrometeef,’ spat a voice Seoci didn’t recognise, which meant a Corsair. ‘He’s… he’s making the city itself take off!’

‘Clarify,’ said Seoci. He frowned, at a loss as to what the pilot meant.

‘Explain, you hyperbolic child!’ Liosa’s rage spilled through the communication line, her patience for the undisciplined Corsairs now officially at an end. Nothing greeted their demands but a cacophony of screams and weapons fire.

The squadron blazed overhead, reaching the edge of the capital. The eldar ground forces below had crashed into the orks, and for the first time the greenskins had enough numbers to counter the superior eldar mobility. Seoci and Liosa raked the ork lines with their lasers, but with no time to pause and line up their shots, they had little tactical effect.

The wail came without warning. A wave of agony swept down from above, smashing into the orks from Ailios’ wraithfighter. Every moment of physical pain, emotional torment, or psychic agony experienced by ghost or pilot, all bound into one. Whole clots of orks pitched themselves to the ground, dying from phantom wounds that ripped open on their bodies, falling victim to torturous seizures that left them to their enemies’ mercy, or tearing at their own flesh as they wept tears of blood. The eldar were protected from the psychic wrath, but in such close proximity, they could not help but feel the edges of it. The mariner whose soul animated the craft had perished in a plasma fire, and Seoci could taste the harsh tang of the fire that had licked down his throat in his final seconds. In a moment of pure sorrow that even penetrated his war mask, he felt the instant that Ailios had realised she had lost herself, and would never join him on the next path.

+Carry on, water len,+ said Ailios. Her fighter broke formation and rolled away down the ork line, joining the other wraithfighters flying in grim circles above the enemy throng. Now too far away for the spiritual wailing to lap at the edge of his mind, he saw another mob of greenskins fall beneath her shadow.

‘Farewell, sorrowrose.’ He felt none of the heartache her leaving would bring when his war mask was gone. Instead, there was just a dull sense of loss upon hearing the pet names spoken aloud again, and the knowledge that she was right. The harvest she could reap among the ground forces was of far more use to their cause than the benefit she could provide their squadron in the air. He dispelled his secondary view, and fixed his gaze ahead.

The buildings of the capital told of a once-thriving metropolis, of steel and glass fingers scraping against the sky, before the industrialisation of the world covered everything in corrosive dust and soot, the population dwindling until the whole planet could be conquered by a single greenskin pirate and the horde he had gathered. It was hard to believe the orks had caused so much destruction, and so much vile creation, in but a single orbital cycle. Great collages of sheet metal had been welded together between buildings, the colossal leering faces they depicted meant as primitive homage to the foul greenskin deities. The buildings were missing vast portions of themselves, the raw material stolen away to be used by the ork engineers in their mad creations.

As a leader who had risen from the ranks of the deranged ork engineers, it only made sense that Gorkog Chrometeef would attract more likeminded followers, and their influence could be seen as well. Wires and cables had been strung haphazardly throughout, diverting power from one part of the city to another in no discernible pattern, each insane artisan working with no coordination with the others. Cannons, energy emitters and electrified coils littered the rooftops.

The fighting had reached the city. Ork planes careened above the spires, firing indiscriminately into the battle below. Eldar grav-tanks weaved through the streets, throwing spears of energy like the mythical heroes of old. Orks surged across the ground, fighting and dying by the hundreds. They lined the windows everywhere, their raucous gunfire falling like a deadly rain. As Seoci and Liosa swooped to rise above a bank of power generation facilities, a burning ork bomber sailed past them, and Seoci caught a surreal glimpse of one of the gretchin turret gunners abandoning his post, racing along the wing of the doomed craft with a stolen parasol tucked under one arm before leaping away, abandoning himself to the mercy of the sky.

‘Great blood-father,’ swore Liosa. ‘There it is.’

The city itself had not taken flight, but Seoci could see how the Corsair might have reached that conclusion. The craft, Chrometeef’s masterwork, was enormous. A dozen city blocks, large enough to rival small starships, were rising slowly from the ground, taking a huge portion of the city’s substrata with them as foundation for a single massive aircraft. Throughout the streets, weaving through walls and out of windows, the glowing blue lines showed Gorkog’s psychotic vision: hundreds, thousands, of skimmer units, linked together in a single mad choir of anti-gravitic force.

As the sky-monstrosity gained altitude, cresting the spires of the city that had birthed it, the true purpose of its bulk became clear. From the streets and lots of the surface, and the train tunnels and sewers beneath, planes began to pour out, sailing beneath great arcing streams of lightning as the power generators continued to build strength. Gorkog Chrometeef’s masterpiece was nothing short of an enormous and insanely armed aircraft carrier, capable of transporting an unprecedented number of attack craft across an entire planet. Seoci rolled his plane into a slithering, winding roll as the storm of fire stabbed at him from all sides.

‘What is this?’ Liosa’s interceptor barrelled through a squadron of ork fighters, blasting a pair of them as she passed, rolling gracefully to avoid the wrecks. ‘Where is the rest of our force?’

‘Prince Eidear has been delayed,’ snapped another voice on the net. ‘The ork forces along his run were thicker than foreseen.’

The communication network for the squadron devolved into a mass of ear-scorching profanity as the enraged Hunters gave voice to their ire. The arrogance of the Corsairs had turned to bite them all.

‘If Prince Eidear cannot follow a battle plan, then we hold,’ said Liosa, rallying their attention with a snarl. ‘Now, clear these skies.’

The word of an exarch had power. Seoci’s fingers danced, his interceptor firing at targets as fast as he could lock them. The Crimson Hunters fought with a teamwork the orks rarely employed; Seoci would bait a fighter into pursuing him, leading the jet closer to an unengaged interceptor before pulling up, allowing the other Hunter to vaporise the ork when he rose to follow. He eschewed the enemy targets locked on to him in favour of those locked on to other pilots. Each Hunter did likewise, trusting the overlapping fire of his companions to be his defence. Still, the ork numbers were inexhaustible. For each plane they shot down, another launched from the skyship, its spires blasting out huge columns of sparks as massive amounts of power coursed through it.

‘There’re too many.’ Seoci rolled beneath a missile as it soared past, his bright lance hammering the ork plane from the sky in retaliation.

‘The ones that run out of ammunition are landing,’ said the Corsair pilot, the same one Seoci had heard earlier. ‘They have to be rearming and refuelling.’

A line of bullets chattered against the nose of Seoci’s interceptor, scarring the surface but doing no damage. Chrometeef’s creation had to be destroyed, and they couldn’t wait for Prince Eidear’s reinforcements to do it. He scanned the runes on his canopy, looking for Liosa. He swooped in behind her. There was no need to communicate; she was already angled towards the massive skyship.

They swerved through clouds of ork fighters. As they closed in on the vessel, still ascending, Seoci could see hundreds of canvas sheets crudely sewn together into a single massive flag, so that the skull and curved horns of Gorkog Chrometeef’s clan could proudly stare from beneath jagged ork scrawl that spelled out the creation’s name, or some greenskin battle motto. Seoci unleashed a hail of laser fire at the ridiculous banner. To his surprise, the beams never connected, dissipating instead against an oily iridescence that flickered into being in mid-air. Liosa’s volley tore through the flag with no difficulty as the shimmering field vanished, only to appear again a moment later.

‘By the red hands,’ said Seoci, ‘he’s got void shields. They’re intermittent, but if he gets them working, he’ll be able to leave the atmosphere.’ This was the answer to the seers’ question, the method by which Gorkog Chrometeef would go from a planetary nuisance to become a threat to three subsectors. Unless he was stopped.

If the gunfire from the city had seemed intense, it was nothing compared to the firepower coming from the fortress of the warlord’s chosen followers. The fury of the ork weapons was rivalled only by their variety. Blistering streams of bullets spewed from barking ork gatling weapons. Huge spiralling blaster weapons recreated the power of the sun, hurling streams of incandescent energy skywards. Seoci saw a Corsair fighter enveloped in a spherical field of force, only to have the field collapse, crumpling the plane as easily as a dry leaf.

Seoci skirted the edges of the city, blasting at the glowing lines of the skimmer relays. There was no way to focus in on them before whole gangs of ork pilots swept by in their roaring fighters, forcing him away again. Trying to destroy all of the skimmer arrays before the void shields became fully operational was fruitless, but he could think of no alternative. He pulled away, looking for a better way in.

The bolt of blue-white energy smashed into his fuselage with enough force to overcome his inertial stabilisers. His head slammed into the canopy, bone crunching beneath the impact. Seoci pulled into a tight dive, struggling to clear his vision. Blood flowed down over his right eye, but he swiped it away. His runes showed heavy damage; the energy relays for his right bright lance had been destroyed. The impact had also buckled his fuselage and torn away one of the links to his restraint webbing. Cursing, he pulled up to rejoin the fight.

Liosa danced around the squadron that had shot him. The dual-boom jets harried her with energy weapon fire, the orks showing more cooperation than most greenskin pilots did. Executing a tumbling roll, she jerked around and fired at one of them. Seoci grimaced when her shot impacted a wall of static. His own laser fire punched straight through the crude force field, burning through the ork’s cockpit with far greater accuracy than the ork had shown.

The remaining two dived sharply for the city. Liosa’s interceptor turned nose down, following them with the same wrathful intensity that had overcome both of them when Padruic had been hit.

‘You are needed here, anr-hyded,’ yelled Seoci, knowing it was pointless. He had no choice but to follow.

Liosa closed the distance to the pair of fighters, the turrets swivelling to fire ineffectively at her. Unable to drive her off, the two jets split up as they reached ground level, going in opposite directions around a massive, squat building. From his vantage point so high above, Seoci could see what would happen, but his scream over the communication net went unheeded. Liosa’s obsession would not let her hear as she pursued one of the jets, chasing ever closer as if she intended to reach out and tear it from the sky with her hands. The jet banked around one corner, but before it could clear the next, her pulse laser shredded its tail. Even as it flipped and rolled, out of control, her bright lances tore it to pieces.

The other jet, coming in the opposite direction, roared through the fiery wreckage of its squadmate, energy blaster blazing. The explosive force rent one wing from her interceptor entirely, leaving the main body to plough into the ground. Seoci’s plane clicked automatically, runes transmitting to the rest of the eldar force the location of the exarch’s remains. The ork pilot’s victory was short-lived, however. Struggling to pull itself out of the reckless banking manoeuvre, it hit the side of a building in an explosion of glass and plasteel shrapnel.

Seoci felt a wail of sorrow building within him, but the war mask clamped down on the thought, filling him up with the now familiar rage instead. A glimmer of inspiration came to him, and he struggled against the mask to pull the idea from the murky distortion of anger.

‘All fighters form up,’ he said. ‘Reform squadrons.’ He started to climb back towards the carrier, which the chattering communication net was already calling the Beastmother, but a rattling string of gunfire banged against his canopy. He jerked his interceptor to the side, a squadron of four jets swooping in pursuit. He cursed again. The interceptors were too far away. There was little chance of returning to them.

The smell of blood and failure faded, replaced with the cool, powerful aroma of night-blooming aoifemint. He could feel his interceptor fading from view.

+Right behind you, water len.+

Seoci soared upwards again, leaving the mystified pilots behind him to chase shadows. The remaining Crimson Hunters above had reformed into squadrons, none complete. Their casualties had been heavy, and none of the friendly runes bore the extra ornamentation of an exarch.

‘Into the city,’ he said. ‘As close as possible. Find their power generators, and silence them.’ Throttling forwards, he led the charge into the guns of the Beastmother.

The gouts of white-hot blaster fire, and the waves of bullets from the myriad ork guns kept them from firing, instead intent only on their dancing, weaving flight patterns. Once through the initial defenders, they found themselves soaring through the streets of the former capital, screaming along the runways of the ork monstrosity. In the air, the ork fighters might have been nimble enough to evade some of the eldar firepower, but the fighters refuelling on the ground were not so lucky. Seoci couldn’t kill the stationary planes fast enough as he flew over, pulling one blazing right angle turn after another.

The destruction couldn’t go unanswered, and the orks who were already airborne followed their enemy into the tight confines of the avenues between buildings, desperate to stop the eldar before they destroyed too many of the orks’ toys. The Hunters split apart, dashing through the streets with a grace the orks could never hope to match.

Seoci let out a cruel laugh when the first enemy rune vanished with no accompanying weapons fire. He focused his gaze outside of his canopy in time to see another ork jet fail to execute the same turn its quarry had and plough into the side of a building, the fireball smashing clear through and out the other side. A proximity rune chimed and he dipped to the side, as the ork bomber diving towards him barrelled into the street, its payload detonating a second later and vaporising the surrounding rockcrete.

The Hunters’ laser fire flitted across the city, setting off explosions of superheated metal, but the damage they inflicted was minimal. The pilots themselves were doing the work, their bombs blasting holes in the carrier’s foundation, their clumsy vehicles smashing through buildings and exploding with even greater force.

The first building to collapse destroyed one of the interceptors as it fell, but the others began to use that new danger to their advantage. Laser fire was aimed at exposed and damaged girders instead of the too-numerous lines of the skimmer arrays. As the Beastmother’s ascent began to slow, finally grinding to a halt, the orks on the streets panicked. Seoci smiled. He remembered well the vision of his world’s destruction, and the sensation of the ground breaking apart beneath him. How fitting that Gorkog Chrometeef’s reward should be the very fate he would have brought down upon Lugganath.

‘All forces away!’ Seoci yelled over the communication net. ‘The mother of beasts perishes. Impact imminent.’

The eldar forces below scrambled to comply. Jetbikes flared into life, screaming for the horizon. Corsairs leaped aboard Venoms and clung desperately to the rails as the vessels shot away. In all directions the eldar fled, concerned only with escaping the blast zone of the coming destruction.

On the ground, the greenskins remaining in the city bellowed in triumph, firing their weapons in the air or doggedly trying to run the retreating eldar down on foot. Aboard the Beastmother, ork pilots dashed for their aircraft, frantically trying to gun the engines of the surviving planes to life before the doomed craft returned to the surface. Panic turned to desperation as the ground began to list, sending mobs of orks in a terrifying tumble along doomed streets and over the edge of a yawning abyss. Many of the greenskins in the remaining buildings tried to leap onto a passing plane, friendly or otherwise. More than a few of them even made it, only to have the supersonic impact rend them asunder in a spray of viscera.

The fall of the Beastmother was increasing in speed, and Seoci pulled away, having no desire to be caught if the ungainly aberration tumbled in mid-air. The other eldar pilots soared free as well, leaving the cityscape to plummet away.

The impact was catastrophic. The ground bucked and heaved beneath the force of the Beastmother’s fall, the waves of seismic reaction smashing the rest of the city to the ground as easily as a child kicking over a castle of blocks. The cloud of dust boiled out like an ocean wave rolling ashore, swallowing the ground for miles, enveloping even the fast-retreating forces of the eldar.

In the sky, the orks still held the advantage of numbers. They had no leader and no place to return to, but that did nothing to disperse their bloodlust. Seoci found himself focusing entirely on staying alive, rolling wildly through spins and loops, looking for any opportunity for retreat. Three more interceptors went down, one after another, unable to find their way through the labyrinth of overlapping lanes of ork fire.

The wraithfighters that had been engaging ground targets rejoined them, and their psychic concealment afforded the Hunters the edge they needed to stay alive. Gunfire was answered with lasers, and the air became a churning mass of weapons fire. Overuse had begun to tax the focusing chamber of the Hunters’ lasers, whose timbre had gone from a great feline growl to an anguished shriek, the sound of an animal fighting for its life. At last, Seoci saw the friendly runes appearing from the far direction, heralding the arrival of Prince Eidear and his fleet. The prince’s Vampire Raiders led the charge, barrelling towards them like the heroes of myth, a host of aerial cavalry riding to the craftworlders’ salvation.

Seoci angled for the edge of the aerial battle. The orks had spotted the approaching reinforcements, and many turned away from the hazy blurs they were struggling to hit in order to engage the new arrivals. His weaving path nearly clear of the enemy, Seoci dipped his interceptor to pass beneath a fat bomber without losing any speed. He had a brief sense of direst foreboding, but it was too late to manoeuvre. A bright lance fired up from beneath, striking the bomber directly in the wing. The plane detonated along with its remaining ordnance, engulfing Seoci in a wall of fire.

His life became a series of still images. First, white-hot flame, heat everywhere, the sky gone. Then a rushing wind, the crystal of his canopy shattered, his arms struggling to pull his interceptor from its lurching dive. Next, forcing the plane as level as possible, the last of the interceptor’s energy failing, its power core ruptured, desperately aiming towards a relatively flat expanse of the wasteland between cities. Finally, jarring force as the inertial stabilisers failed, the interceptor slamming into the ground on its belly, skidding sidelong, throwing Seoci from one side of the cockpit to the other like a clapper in a bell. Then, blackness.

Seoci opened his eye, the only eye that would respond. He had no way to know how much time had passed; his instruments were dead. Reaching to remove his helmet, Seoci found that it was already gone, shattered or ripped away in the crash. Where his fingers touched, they found his skull pliant and yielding, as if the bone beneath had been ground to meal. Blood coursed down the side of his face. Seoci coughed. With his restraint webbing only partially secured, the impact had injured him grievously. He placed his hand on his chest, feeling the call of the Tear of the Mother he wore there.

He dropped his hand, fighting the pull. If he were to die, it would be as a feeling, thinking being and not the cold, ruthless killer the war mask forced him to be. He struggled to discard it, but it was like trying to remove a ring from a finger that had grown too thick for it. Each time the war mask had been harder to remove, and for a moment he began to think he didn’t have the strength to do so again. Finally however, it occurred to him that this would be the last time he ever had to make this struggle, and with that thought the war mask slipped away as easily as shrugging off smoke.

The hateful wind of Khaine dispelled from his mind, Seoci took a ragged breath. He couldn’t remember the killing, the rage, the hate that must have consumed him to be able to go to war as he had. Unlike every other time he had discarded the war mask, he could see fragments, certain pieces. The joy of dancing upon the wind. The thrill of moving in concert with his fellow Hunters. The smell of night-blooming aoifemint.

Ailios. A sudden terror gripped Seoci. He had led the fight, rallied the fighters against… something. They would call him a hero, he knew that much. He fingered the Tear upon his chest. They would want to call him back. The wraithfighters could not be flown with a pilot alone; the ships of the damned needed a captain, a dead soul interred within their frames forever to give them their unlife. He thought of tearing the stone from his chest and smashing it against the cockpit.

He sighed. Closing his eyes, he let his senses slip away from the present. He needed to know what would happen. Seoci had been, at the best of times, a poor seer, but his desperation lent him clarity. Dimly, as though through a thick fog, he could see his plane lying upon the wasteland. From within the cockpit he stared up from the eyes of his own corpse as a shape leaned in through the broken shards of crystal. The horned helm of a wraithseer stared down on him. Nimble fingers closed over the Tear, and as they pulled his soul gem from his body, he caught the cool smell of night-blooming aoifemint.

Seoci closed his eyes, finally surrendering to the insistent pull. Once, when his path had threatened to consume him, she had pulled him away from obsession’s abyss. If he could not save her in return, then he could at least stay by her side, on the path that neither one of them could deny.

IN SERVICE ETERNAL

Matt Smith

It hung there unfeasibly in the foetid air, a black mark on the already ugly aerial landscape. A utilitarian city of giant towers, enormous power generators and vast manufactoria, all held aloft upon dozens of anti-gravity platforms, each the size of a battle tank. Its name was Gamma One and it was one of many of its kind that floated in the upper atmosphere of Antropia, a ball of noxious brown gas around a dense mineral core that sat isolated within the Artran System of the Segmentum Obscurus. The space around the city was in a state of constant flux. Its tallest towers forever inhaled the toxic gases around it, filtered and repurposed them on an atomic level and fed them into the ever-hungering generators. Slaved mining servitors swarmed around helix-shaped ports atop sprawling refineries in their thousands, docking only long enough to unload their meagre cargo of ore before returning once more to the planet’s uninhabitable core miles below. All to feed the Imperial war machine.

Far from the largest of Antropia’s floating cities, Gamma One was still of singular importance as it formed the centre of the planet’s deep-space communications and long-range augur.

Shapes emerged from the dull shadow cast by the city as it blocked what little light had found its way to Antropia from its distant star and fought through the cloying atmosphere. Mere pinpricks against the forge city’s vastness, they broke away from the city’s imposing presence and formed shapes of their own. Short, squat trunks carrying pairs of engines upon their backs. Angular sloping wings and long twin tails.

Valkyries.

Embarking on a final shakedown mission, they were flown by pilots of the 41st Antropia Aerial Testing Division, veterans no longer fit for the front lines but whose flying skills could not be left idle, their service to the Emperor still incomplete.

‘All systems green. Confirm,’ said Wing Commander Arden Graves from the pilot’s seat of the lead Valkyrie assault carrier. His voice was calm and confident. The sound of a man who knew exactly what he was doing through decades of experience.

‘Confirmed, commander,’ came the clipped response from his co-pilot, Corporal Ryker Ness, sat above and behind him in the Valkyrie’s second seat. Despite their physical differences they looked the same now, their features masked beneath helmets, dark visors and respirators, their bodies encased in grey flight suits that seemed to blend with the dull metal of the cockpit.

‘Get me status reports from the rest of the group.’

‘Yes, sir. Reports coming in now… Gryphonne Five reports sub-optimal power to primary armament. Still within acceptable mission parameters. All other craft report status green. We are ready to proceed, commander.’

‘Thank you, corporal,’ Wing Commander Graves said before opening the group-wide vox-channel. ‘This is Gryphonne One to all craft,’ he said, with a casualness born of years of camaraderie with those in the ships around him. ‘Let’s keep it tight out there today and stay alert. Mirehawk sightings are up fifteen per cent over last cycle. We don’t want to get caught out like Third Wing.’

Mirehawk was a generous nickname given to Antropia’s apex predators by the Navy pilots. There was nothing hawk-like about them. Leathery, scaled reptilian beasts the size of gunships with claws that could punch through a Valkyrie’s armour like paper. The pilots had become strangely fond of them. Their appearance lent some excitement to often otherwise dull test flights. No one knew where the name originally came from, but somehow it had stuck.

On the wing commander’s order, the Valkyries fell into formation. The nine craft were painted a plain dull brown, the same as any built in Antropia’s great forge cities. It served the dual purpose of camouflaging them from the world’s predators and showing the least of the sickly, sticky build-up that always formed upon the hulls after even the briefest exposure to the toxic atmosphere. On the front port side of the hull the insignia of the Antropia 41st Aerial Testing Division, First Wing, had been lazily applied in white, no concern given for markings that would be covered up as soon as the Valkyries were sent off to the front lines. These very craft were destined for Lord Militant Vanderbee’s holy undertaking to hold back the ork horde of Waaagh! Gutslasha in the neighbouring Torpral System.

‘We’re coming up on Waypoint Alpha,’ Corporal Ness dutifully reported.

‘I see it,’ Wing Commander Graves replied as his trained eyes picked out the beacon of flashing red and white lights through the dull haze. ‘Gryphonne One to all craft. Waypoint Alpha. Weapons live. Fire on my order.’

The Valkyries passed the beacon and Wing Commander Graves picked up targeting data ahead. More beacons, larger than the waypoint and enveloped in powerful refractor fields. They hung in threes, mirroring the formations of the Navy.

‘Second Squadron. Target’s dead ahead. Open fire.’ Graves watched out of the starboard side of his cockpit as the three Valkyries on his right flank opened fire, the multi-lasers mounted on the far side of their cockpits spitting streams of bright yellow light through the dull haze and striking the stationary beacons. The shields on the targets flashed wildly as they dispersed the energy of each hit, then faded.

‘Hits confirmed,’ Ness reported as the formation flew by the first targets and banked hard to the left to line up on a second set.

‘Third Squadron, fire.’ To his left side Graves watched Third Squadron open fire with their lascannons. The longer, brighter beams cut through the air, two of them striking ferociously against their targets.

‘You’re better than that, Gryphonne Eight. I don’t want to see you miss again, understood?’ Graves berated the crew behind the inaccurate shot, receiving fervent promises to do better in response. The Valkyries banked right and ascended to target the final beacons.

‘Message coming in from Gamma One, commander. It’s the Dominus,’ Corporal Ness said dourly, knowing that for the forge city’s Mechanicus leader to contact them personally and interrupt their flight could only mean bad news.

Arden Graves sighed.

‘Put him through.’

The vox crackled. ‘This is Magos Dominus Omicron-231 to Wing Commander Graves. Do you acknowledge?’ The voice had a flat metallic monotone that Graves knew would still sound as if it was spoken through an old vox-caster even if he had been standing face-to-face with the speaker. Projected through the Valkyrie’s own vox-system it bore a metallic edge that made the commander wince.

‘I read you, magos.’

‘Commander. We have just lost contact with seventy-eight of our mining servitors.’

‘Why are you telling me this, magos? I thought you had been losing servitors for some time,’ the wing commander asked impatiently.

‘Affirmative. Ever since we were able to penetrate to the third level of the planet’s core. However, the servitors in question in those circumstances were always working at that lowest level. These disappearances are occurring on all levels and are seemingly rising out of the core itself. You are required to perform reconnaissance and report back.’

‘I am in the middle of a test flight, magos. I don’t have time to–’

‘That is an order, wing commander.’

Beneath his respirator, Arden Graves clenched his jaw and ground his teeth. ‘Understood, magos. I’ll do a fly-by and report back. Commander Graves out.’ Graves abruptly cut the channel. He opened a new one to the group. ‘Change of plan. The Mechanicus need us to make a little detour. Stay on me. Do we have coordinates, corporal?’

‘Yes, sir. Transmitting to all vessels now.’

One by one, the nine Valkyries banked hard to port and dived, falling back into formation with experienced precision. As they descended closer to the planet’s core the air grew thicker and darker. A rancid smell like rotting vegetables seeped through into the pilots’ respirators, the air filtration systems unable to fully handle the increased weight of noxious fumes being forced through them. Behind him, Graves could hear Corporal Ness beginning to gag.

Lights across the wing commander’s control panel flared red as an imminent collision was registered by the Valkyrie’s targeting sensors, and Graves was forced to thrust his control stick forward hard to dive under the unknown object. He winced, as despite his efforts the object struck the top of his craft with a loud metallic clang that reverberated through the cockpit. Seconds later reports flooded in from the rest of the group as they struggled to avoid more of the floating debris.

‘Throne!’ Graves said, ‘What was that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ness replied, ‘but Gryphonne Four is reporting a direct hit to its starboard engine. Minor damage.’

‘Put me through to them,’ said Graves.

‘Yes, sir. Channel open,’ said Ness.

‘Sergeant Huddock, did you see what hit you?’ asked Graves.

‘Negative, sir, but Bates here insists… I’m sorry, ignore him, commander. He’s seeing things,’ reported Sergeant Huddock.

‘Spit it out, sergeant,’ said Graves.

‘Sir, my wingman insists he saw an arm and a head pass us by,’ said Huddock hesitantly.

‘Confirmed, commander,’ said Ness. ‘Reports coming in from Gryphonnes Five and Seven. Five claims to have been hit by a dismembered torso. Seven narrowly avoided what she thinks was a servitor cargo carriage.’

‘A torso?’ asked Graves.

‘Yes, sir. A direct hit to the cockpit. No damage,’ said Ness.

‘Well, it seems we may have found some of the magos’ mining servitors,’ said Graves.

‘What could have done this, sir? Mirehawks?’ asked Ness.

‘I don’t think so. They don’t come down this low. Tell Gryphonne Four to stay the course. We’ll be heading back soon. I don’t want to stay down here any longer than we have to. Let’s take it steady.’

The Valkyries levelled out and reduced speed. At this low altitude, visibility was drastically reduced and the group were forced to take regular evasive action as they encountered more parts of the sundered biomechanical miners.

‘This is strange, commander,’ said Ness.

‘That’s quite the understatement, corporal.’

‘No, well, yes, sir, but that’s not what I mean. The servitors, they should be falling to the core but they’re not. In fact, from the reported impact velocities they seem to be doing the opposite,’ said Ness.

‘You mean they’re going up?’ said Graves.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘How…? I don’t like this, corporal. Have we reached the magos’ coordinates?’ asked Graves.

‘Yes, sir. This is the spot,’ said Ness.

‘Do you see anything?’ Graves asked.

‘Only more broken servitors, sir. The atmosphere down here is interfering with our sensors, though. I’m having trouble getting a clear view of anything.’

Graves shook his head. ‘Me too – whatever it was though, hopefully it’s gone now. We’ll make one more pass then head back up.’ The Valkyries turned in a slow arc and passed over the target coordinates uneventfully for the second time. ‘I’m calling it. There’s nothing down here. Form up, we’re returning to Gamma One.’

Something exploded. Gryphonne One was thrown hard to port and Commander Graves fought to steady himself. A wave of heat flooded through the cockpit, emanating through the metal walls and threatening to cook both crewmen alive inside their flight suits. The internal lights turned red and warning signals lit up all over the control panel. ‘Throne! What just happened?’ Graves barked.

‘Second Squadron, commander. They’re gone,’ Corporal Ness replied in subdued disbelief.

‘Gone! What do you mean gone?’ Graves said. ‘Get Huddock on the vox.’

‘I can’t, sir. I can’t reach Four, Five or Six,’ said Ness.

Graves leaned forward to look out of the starboard side of the cockpit. Where moments before had been a trio of Valkyries, there was now just empty air. ‘How…?’

‘Hostiles! Rising from below!’ cried Ness.

‘All Valkyries, attack speed!’ Graves ordered, gunning his engines and lurching forward. He watched in disbelief as the space once occupied by Second Squadron was bisected by two unknown craft. They were the shape of crescent moons, their hulls a dull silver that seemed to shimmer beneath the unsettling green glow of alien runes. They shot past him in dangerously close formation and banked in perfect unison, coming about for a second attack run.

‘Gryphonne Three and Gryphonne Nine, form up. You’re Second Squadron now. Execute evasive pattern Gryphonne Aquila Two. Weapons free,’ Graves ordered, calmly and assertively. The six remaining Valkyries reformed seamlessly and broke formation, splitting off in pairs. The hostile craft opened fire, crackling green energy projecting from twin cannons slung beneath their scything hulls. Graves’ manoeuvre was already taking him away from the weapons’ path but still they glanced the end of his wing, shaking the Valkyrie violently.

‘Sir, what are those things?’ Ness asked, fighting to keep the fear from his voice.

‘I don’t know, corporal, but they just killed three of my pilots. I don’t intend on letting them get away with it,’ said Graves.

The enemy ships pulled an impossible turn that would have crushed a Valkyrie pilot under the weight of G-force, and fell in behind Third Squadron. Graves could only watch as another of his allies was struck by green lightning and exploded. With a low, primal growl he banked left, corkscrewed and shot straight down, bringing First Squadron directly above the enemy. He squeezed the trigger on his control stick and filled the air with multi-laser fire. He cursed as the aliens pulled sharply away and the las-bolts passed by harmlessly.

‘We’ve got them, commander,’ the cocky female voice of Sergeant Enzo flying Gryphonne Three said over the vox. The new Second Squadron looped around behind the enemy and opened fire. Streams of las-fire hammered into the xenos craft, punching scorched holes into their hulls. Second Squadron yelped victoriously, but all jubilation faded as the metal of the hulls shimmered, melted and reformed, unscathed.

‘More hostiles, commander!’ Ness reported.

‘Enzo! Below you!’ barked Graves.

Out of the impenetrable haze below emerged two more of the alien craft. Second Squadron banked wildly but Sergeant Enzo was struck, strange alien energy shearing off her port-side wing. The Valkyrie fell from the sky, trailing black smoke and spirally uncontrollably into the unknown. Only four Valkyries remained.

‘Gryphonne One to Gryphonne Two, arm Hellstrike missiles,’ Graves ordered over the vox. Pulling sharply out of his dive and quickly ascending, they rose from beneath the original attackers and fell into a wide turn behind them.

‘Missile locked!’ Ness reported. Graves depressed the button on top of his control stick and the high-powered missile slung beneath his left wing detached and speared towards the target. It struck true, tearing the rear of the alien ship asunder and engulfing it in fire, but as the flames dissipated the vessel was simply gone. ‘Where did it go?’ Corporal Ness asked.

‘Away from here. That’s good enough for me,’ Graves replied bluntly.

The second missile, launched from Gryphonne Two, flew wide and exploded harmlessly ahead of its target. The enemy ship banked right and avoided the blast.

‘Doran? What happened?’ Graves asked.

‘I’m sorry, commander. It’s the atmosphere. I couldn’t get a lock,’ Gryphonne Two’s pilot, Lieutenant Bo Doran replied mournfully. Graves growled with frustration.

‘We’ll be slaughtered down here. We’re falling back to Gamma One. Form up, evasive pattern Gryphonne Omega Five.’ The four survivors broke apart and rose quickly, turning in sharp unpredictable arcs.

‘Where did they even come from?’ said Ness quietly, murmuring to himself in disbelief.

Graves shook his head. ‘There’s not supposed to be anything down there but ore. Open a channel to the magos, maybe he’ll have some answers.’

‘I can’t, commander. We’re too far out.’

Lightning arcs from the alien ships triggered proximity alarms as fast as the commander could dismiss them. As the Valkyries rose and the noxious atmosphere thinned, the full extent of the threat became apparent. Sensors lit up with signals of twelve pursuing enemy ships. The air became a deathtrap of alien energy and the four gunships jinked and banked violently in their attempts to stay ahead of it. All thoughts of victory had been temporarily dismissed as survival instinct took over. As they closed the distance to the potential sanctuary of Gamma One, a green light blinked on Corporal Ness’s control panel.

‘Channel open, commander,’ Ness informed him.

‘Magos. This is Wing Commander Graves. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack,’ the commander reported desperately through the vox.

‘We know, wing commander,’ responded Omicron-231 in his machine voice. ‘We are detecting a massive non-human energy signature rising from the core. Appropriate countermeasures have been initiated. All available gunships are being scrambled. The full force of the 41st Division are already in the air. Form up with them and take command.’

As the distance closed, the hulking form of the Gamma One forge city came into view and for a moment Commander Graves’ heart soared as he identified the shapes of dozens of Valkyrie assault carriers and Vendetta gunships heading towards him, closing in attack formations. Surely there was nothing that could stand before such a weight of blessed Imperial firepower.

‘Commander. The sensorum…’ Corporal Ness trailed off.

Graves looked down. It had to be malfunctioning and the wing commander slammed his hand down onto the panel, hoping to jar the machine-spirit into functionality. Nothing changed.

‘That’s impossible,’ Graves murmured.

Over a hundred of the scything crescent xenos interceptors followed them. It was what came in their wake, though, that plunged the commander’s heart into his stomach. It was massive and drove forth a macabre debris field of scorched limbs and propulsion carriages from the depths. Easily the size of any Imperial warship, it even matched the colossal forge city above it for size. Shaped like the smaller craft around it, the harsh curve of its hull threatened to enclose and swallow anything that drew too close. It too was lit by hundreds of menacing alien runes that glowed with a deep green light. On its back were all manner of structures, tall square towers and wide-stepped ziggurats. At the centre was a monolithic pyramid, seemingly formed of obsidian. It absorbed all light that drew too close to it, surrounding the pyramid in a haunting, unnatural shadow. The only thing that pierced the darkness was a crystal at the pyramid’s base. Easily ten times the size of Graves’ Valkyrie, it was shaped like a flawless cut diamond and stood upon an ornate plinth, pulsing with the same green energy that ran throughout the enemy force. Even with his glare visor down Graves had to avert his gaze, as the sight sickened him.

The interceptors that had been harrying First Wing from the depths broke off their pursuit and there was a tense moment of calm as, for the first time since the attack began, the Valkyries were not under fire. The pursuing craft fell seamlessly into line with the rest of their brethren. At the same time the survivors of the wing commander’s group reformed and used their vectored engines to brake and turn sharply, almost on the spot. The Valkyries’ tails swung around in a wide arc, drawing pained groans from the ships’ hulls. Graves sneered with pious hatred beneath his mask as he once again faced his unholy enemy head on. Behind him the rest of the 41st Division caught up and, a short way behind them, Gamma One itself had prepared for war.

The high enclosing walls of the city bristled with servitor turrets slaved to the targeting systems of Hydra autocannons and batteries of lascannons. Further into the city, surface-to-air missile launchers rose from concealment on the roofs of manufactoria and refineries, every building constructed with thought to its own defence. From barracks, seemingly nestled amongst the grander manufactorum buildings, the fighting arm of the Adeptus Mechanicus flooded the streets. Hundreds of bionically augmented skitarii troops, supported by loping walkers and spider-legged tanks. A sea of deep crimson and glinting silver.

Commander Graves opened a channel to all of the 41st Division. ‘Warriors of the Imperial Navy. You are here today because you have seen too much, because you have seen more of the evil of the galaxy than any man or woman should be expected to face. You bear the scars of those days, we all do, but you are here because you have overcome. You have stared down evils that have driven men to insanity and you are still here, still fighting. You are pilots of the Imperial Navy. You are Valkyries. You are Vendettas. You are the masters of the Emperor’s skies and today He calls upon you. Once more face down the evil of this galaxy and banish it back whence it came! In His name! For the Emperor!’

The vox-channel filled with a roar of pride and defiance as the other pilots echoed the war cry of the Imperium of Man.

‘Second Wing, break left. Third Wing, break right. Try to envelop them, pattern Sky Wolf. First Wing, with me, attack pattern Alpha Two.’

The aircraft gunned their engines and broke into smaller battle formations. The aliens responded in kind, surging away from their capital ship to meet the human fleet. First Wing closed into range with the leading enemy ships and the sky was set ablaze. The space between them became a killing field. Beams of pale yellow light and the exhaust streams of missiles criss-crossed with crackling beams of green lightning. First Wing jinked, dived and rolled to escape the incoming fire but the weight of it left little room to manoeuvre. Graves saw a Vendetta explode to his left and bathe its wingman in flames. To his right Gryphonne Twenty-Six took a direct hit to its port engine and spun uncontrollably out of the sky. Graves struck what looked like the cockpit of an oncoming alien fighter with his multi-laser, but could only look on dissatisfied as the ship vanished, robbing him of the chance to witness its true demise.

The two lines collided with the force of a cavalry charge. Graves saw more green blips on his sensorum display disappear as more of his pilots were killed. Gryphonne Seventeen blinked out as Graves watched the Valkyrie shoot past above him, Sergeant Wreave engaging too fast and colliding with an alien ship, assuring their mutual destruction. The Imperial craft broke off into squadrons and rounded on the enemy ships.

The air between the gargantuan structures of the forge city and the xenos capital ship was like an angered beehive. Ships from both sides were diving and banking, stitching lines of bright fire in a swirl of barely contained madness. Gryphonne One and Gryphonne Two looped back from the initial charge and rolled to right themselves. Alien laser fire cut through the air ahead of them, narrowly missing the tips of their craft and striking the tail of a Vendetta to Graves’ left. The Imperial ship went into a shaky dive and fell out of view. The ship that had fired shot past them seconds later. The twin Valkyries threw themselves into a deep banking dive and dropped in behind them. The enemy were fast, as fast as anything Graves had encountered and he tried to hit them with his main weapon, but missed by frustratingly narrow margins.

‘Stay on him, Two,’ he said. Gryphonne One pulled up sharply and was buffeted on its underside by the flames bursting from another slain Valkyrie. As Gryphonne Two remained in dogged pursuit of the target, Graves watched from above like a hawk, waiting for his moment. As the enemy ship pulled a wide arc and came about, Gryphonne One dived. The pressure crushed the crew into their seats and the commander could feel himself on the brink of blacking out. The alien ship was caught mid-roll evading the fire from Lieutenant Doran and was too late to respond to the threat above. Gryphonne One hammered it with las-bolts and the enemy ship fell from the sky.

Graves noticed a group of alien ships break off from the main battle and head towards Gamma One. The city opened fire. Hydra autocannons filled the sky with a storm of flak. Graves watched as the aliens dodged and dived with unbelievable speed and passed over the city walls unharmed. More menacing green light emanated from beneath each of the alien craft, growing in intensity. They pulsed brightly then faded.

‘Gryphonne Two, form up and break off. I need to see something,’ Graves said. The two Valkyries split from the main battle and headed towards the city.

Where the alien ships had passed over the narrow city streets now stood an army of alien warriors.

‘Ness, bring up the vid-feed and magnify,’ said Graves.

A grainy close-up image of the city streets popped up on Graves’ console. Even with the poor image quality, Graves could make out the enemy as hunched, pseudo-skeletal forms of the same dull metal colour as the interceptors. Already the enemy ground forces had begun an implacable advance while the skitarii scrambled to redeploy against the new threat.

Commander Graves’ vox burst to life. ‘Magos Dominus Omicron-231 to Wing Commander Graves. We are already receiving reports of enemy ground forces on Gamma One. Confirm.’

‘Confirmed, magos. I don’t know how though. We haven’t let any of their craft land,’ Graves reported.

‘Then it appears our foes are possessed of advanced teleportation technology,’ said the magos.

‘But where are they coming from? The capital ship?’ Graves asked.

‘Currently unknown,’ Omicron-231 said.

‘I’m breaking off Third Wing to provide air support,’ Graves replied.

‘Negative, commander. We are going to end this before it gets any further. Deathstrike missile launch is in progress. We shall blast the capital ship to dust. Ensure that the missiles reach their target. The skitarii will deal with the invaders.’

‘Understood,’ Commander Graves replied.

At the centre of Gamma One stood the city’s primary forge shrine. It was a colossal tower, taller than any of the others. From above it formed the cog shape of the Adeptus Mechanicus, each spoke of the cog matching the size of the largest of the city’s exhaust towers. From its roof and the ground around it arose ten domed silos. They opened like the unfurling petals of a metallic flower and from within each arose a battery of five missiles. Deathstrikes. They rotated to aim towards the capital ship. Propulsion rockets roared and the missiles launched.

‘Deathstrike missiles in the air. First Wing, break off and cover them,’ Commander Graves ordered.

The wing commander rolled and fell in behind an enemy vessel pursuing Gryphonne Two. With a barrage of multi-laser fire the alien craft was broken apart. It began to lose altitude then vanished. The two Valkyries formed up with the rest of the survivors of First Wing, who had looped over Gamma One and taken up escort positions around the missiles. There were fewer craft than Graves had hoped.

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 the 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.

‘Two hundred yards.’

Twelve ships became eleven as an already damaged Valkyrie from Third Wing finally gave in. Its engines choked and shuddered as it began to lose altitude, its pilot guiding it into a pair of rising necron ships in a final act of defiance.

‘One hundred yards.’

Point defences from the tomb ship and the attack runs of the interceptors cut down more of the Imperial vessels, sending them spinning and crashing against the ship’s hull. Gryphonne One was struck again and again, glancing blows that shook the craft. A console blew out to Ness’ right and showered him in sparks. Graves’ knuckles turned white on the control stick as he fought to maintain his course.

‘Keep them off me!’ Graves barked into the vox.

The Imperial pilots now paid little heed to their own survival. Graves watched a necron interceptor come about, and Gryphonne One was a sitting duck until a Valkyrie trailing thick black smoke hammered into it. Graves had no doubt it was intentional. Even in death the pilots fought to protect their wards.

‘I didn’t think I would die today,’ said Ness.

‘Did you think you would live forever?’ asked Graves.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then know that the Emperor is watching you, and He will greet you with open arms,’ said Graves.

‘It’s been an honour, commander,’ said Ness.

‘And you, Ryker, and you.’

‘Impact in five, four, three… The Emperor protects,’ said Ness.

‘The Emperor protects,’ echoed Graves.

Gryphonne One struck the base of the crystal at full speed and exploded. Moments later the barrage followed. The first Deathstrike struck the exact point of the Valkyrie’s impact turning alien metal to molten slag. The next struck close to each side, destroying vast chunks of the crystal’s plinth. Another struck the crystal’s base, destroying its mounting and sending a thick crack snaking up its length. More punched through the holes created by the first and penetrated deeper into the ship, their detonations sending great plumes of fire bursting from the ship’s hull. Secondary explosions tore through the tomb ship, spreading out uncontrollably from the impact site. Another Deathstrike carved a large piece of the crystal free and the greater mass began to topple. The final missile hit the crystal head-on as it fell and split it down the length of the weakened fissure.

The crystal fell in two. From the break a vast ball of energy like a raging green star erupted. The front half of the tomb ship was engulfed and those few surviving fighters, human and necron alike, were disintegrated as forks of unconstrained alien energy plucked them from the sky. As quickly as the miniature star formed, it exploded. The shock wave hit Gamma One and more of its once-proud buildings crumbled to dust.

The runes across the tomb ship’s surface pulsed wildly then shattered. Green lightning arced across the hull, leaving flames and scorch marks in their wake. Then everything went quiet. The tomb ship fell from Antropia’s foetid sky, breaking apart as it did so, and disappeared back into the darkness of the core whence it came.

Magos Dominus Omicron-231 was dead. His body was slumped forward but was held up by a cradle of mechadendrites plugged all along his mechanical form that gave him the appearance of a grim marionette. All around him, Gamma One’s central control shrine lay in ruins. The floor was strewn with the bodies of dead tech-adepts and servitors. Consoles sparked and set fire to pools of sanctified oil. Antropia had been defended but at great cost. Even now one of its great cities fell from the sky to meet its foe in death.

On the magos dominus’ control panel a single screen still flickered with life. Numbers streamed across it, a packet of condensed binary code. A message, a warning no one would receive.

Waaagh! Gutslasha had reached the Artran System. The orks were coming to Antropia.

STORMSEEKER

Alec Worley

The huge wolf pelt hung like a rancid curtain. It was ragged and infested with maggots, the whole thing as moist as the day it had been peeled from the flanks of a dead Fenrisian wolf. Anvarr Rustmane unpinned the final rivet and the heavy pelt flopped into his waiting arms, unveiling the bulkhead that housed the sacred engine of his Stormwolf gunship. Pipes and cables pulsed like arteries, their junction box embossed with the emblem of a glowering wolf’s head.

The immense Iron Priest recited a memorial prayer of the Adeptus Mechanicus, folding the stinking pelt as reverently as if it were the banner of a Wolf Lord. As Anvarr had explained to those of his brothers who had grumbled about the smell, the Stormwolf’s machine-spirit had insisted the pelt remained untreated, so the trophy could better permeate the gunship with its feral aura.

The assortment of charms and relics that adorned Anvarr’s battered blue-grey power armour clinked in the darkness, the significance of these mementoes unfathomable to all but the Iron Priest himself. The matted ropes of rust-red hair that ran down his back presented a tapestry of fangs, spikes of bone, cogs, spent bolter casings and lengths of relay wiring tied in elaborate knots. Each braid offered a chronicle of battles past. Anvarr’s mane clattered as he bowed his head before the engine and raised the folded pelt before him, backing away and down the Stormwolf’s hold as he concluded his prayer. The Iron Priest glanced up as he reached the open ramp, and the embossed wolf’s head seemed to glare back at him from the gloom.

Anvarr frowned and handed the pelt to a waiting servitor before emerging onto the busy flight deck of the strike cruiser, the Ragnarök. His battle-brothers surged about him, the boots of their power armour clattering as they hurried between the docked aircraft that loomed like rows of monoliths either side of them. To Anvarr’s preternatural senses, the flight deck reeked of bio-enhanced adrenaline, as dozens of hearts pounded in anticipation of clashing with a hated foe.

Hailing from the Deathwolves Company, Anvarr and his detachment had been stationed in this sector to hunt a pair of elusive dark eldar pirates. The xenos had been raiding the vast mining cities located upon the sun-scorched death world of Vityris. Hardened by generations of crystal-mining beneath the planet’s blistering sun, the colonists had apparently proved to be durable material for the pain-farms of Commorragh, the degenerate stronghold of the dark eldar.

The Deathwolves had hunted for weeks without detecting any sign of their quarry. Then, less than an hour ago, a Scout pack had reported that one of these pirates, along with his entire raiding party, had captured a remote research station overlooking a network of canyons. It appeared the xenos were stranded there, although the Scouts knew not how. After weeks of frustration, Anvarr was eager to join his pack in combat, but knew the hunt could not commence in earnest just yet.

‘Brother?’ said a voice beside him.

It was Eadric, the youngest of the Iron Priest pilots in Anvarr’s assault wing.

‘This is all I could find,’ he said, presenting a handful of totems: bundles of bones, fangs suspended from strips of leather, and a huge severed paw bearing claws the size of ork cleavers.

‘Trinkets!’ spat Anvarr. ‘The machine-spirit requires a tribute of suitable magnitude! That pelt was torn from the beast’s back after I slew it with my bare hands! Have the Rune Priests nothing else for us?’

‘Nothing that can be prepared without the proper ceremony,’ Eadric said.

‘You’ll have to fly without, Anvarr,’ said another voice.

Anvarr turned, his braids clinking, as he faced his fellow alpha.

Skaldr Frostbiter mag-locked his chainsword and bolt pistol to his belt, the weapons having just received blessings from the Iron Priests Kaarle and Varg. Frostbiter, a pack leader of the Wolf Guard, was a fine Space Marine, a blond-bearded giant whose radiant charisma inspired all those around him, although he smiled far too much for Anvarr’s liking.

‘My Stormwolf’s machine-spirit has just told me the pelt is no longer a worthy tribute,’ Anvarr said. ‘I need a replacement, or else disaster will befall this hunt, I promise you.’

Skaldr exchanged a glance with Eadric.

‘I need a proper totem,’ Anvarr said impatiently. ‘A relic fragment. Anything! Perhaps you have a trophy I might borrow, brother…?’

‘Anvarr, we need to make planetfall within the next fifteen minutes. The Ragnarök has jammed the research station’s comms-relay. We must strike before the xenos hear us coming.’

Anvarr stared at him, incredulous.

‘But to fly without tribute is an invitation to disaster,’ he spluttered, his voice rising, spit flecking his beard. ‘An insult to the Omnissiah, neglect of the sacred mechanics of fate itself. To break with ritual is to break with faith, brother…’

Skaldr placed a calming hand on Anvarr’s shoulder.

‘And I have faith that you will honour the Allfather with your skill, Anvarr,’ he said calmly. ‘You are not one for boasts, Rustmane, which is why perhaps you need reminding that you stand among the finest pilots in our Chapter.’

A pack of Blood Claws approached them, reckless wild-haired whelps. They jostled and laughed as they filed into the hold of Anvarr’s Stormwolf.

‘It is time,’ Skaldr said, slapping Anvarr’s pauldron. ‘Fear not, brother,’ he said, departing with yet another smile. ‘Sometimes valour is tribute enough.’

Anvarr kept his curses to himself as he turned to the three Iron Priests under his command.

‘Very well,’ he growled. ‘I doubt compliments alone are honour enough for the Omnissiah, but the Deathwolves have xenos to kill. To your ships then, brothers.’

Eadric, Kaarle and Varg nodded and hurried to their ships as Anvarr looked away and whistled. From across the flight deck loped Cogfang, Anvarr’s cyberwolf. The hulking creature had once been a coal-black Fenrisian Ironpelt, whose pack had fought alongside the Deathwolves on several campaigns. After an invigorating clash with a horde of World Eaters, Anvarr had found the beast dying upon the battlefield, a chainaxe buried in its chest and a dead Traitor Marine still clamped in its jaws. Anvarr had taken his find as a sign from the Omnissiah that he should save the life of this valiant beast. Cogfang’s bionic front leg clanked as he ascended the ramp, saliva trailing from the serrated iron trap that replaced his lower jaw as he followed his grumbling master inside the Stormwolf.

The Blood Claws were cursing and arguing as they locked themselves to the walls of the hold. Anvarr shoved past them. When the Iron Priest reached the bulkhead, Cogfang sat on his haunches, his head almost level with his master’s shoulders. Anvarr produced a clay cup carved with runes and filled it with a pungent measure of mjod from a metal decanter built into Cogfang’s throat. The cyberwolf yawned – a strange metallic whine – and shook himself, rattling the cybernetic cables that wormed through his pelt. His bionic eye cast a bloody glow over the Iron Priest’s face as Anvarr murmured a prayer of contrition, dipping his fingers in the cup and painting runes around the engine bulkhead.

A hush had descended upon the hold and Anvarr felt the eyes of his young passengers upon him. It amused him to think of the stories that circulated around the feast halls on the many occasions he declined to attend, that Anvarr Rustmane communed as much with the voices in his head as with the spirits of the armoury. He concluded his ritual by raising his cup to the engine then tipping what was left of the Fenrisian liquor down his throat. The mjod scorched his tongue and warmed his chest, filling his nose with a perfume of fermented honey and frost-nettle.

He caught the eye of the nearest Blood Claw. Nudged by his fellows, the whelp looked as though he were about to comment but had thought better of it.

‘Mjod is a sacrament, little brother,’ Anvarr said, smiling to himself. ‘It helps me commune with the machine-spirits.’

As he downed another measure from Cogfang’s decanter, his ears twitched at the sound of an amused whisper.

‘Clearly he and the spirits have much to say.’

Anvarr paused as he ascended the ladder into the cockpit, casting his red-rimmed eyes over the two ranks of Blood Claws.

‘Aye, we have much to discuss,’ Anvarr said. ‘Flying this vessel without proper tribute to the machine-spirit is a heinous offence, tantamount to flying under a curse, some might say. Unless I can convince it that you are a cargo worthy of being borne into battle, it may allow a fan blade to snap or a fuel line to leak and we’ll die in flames before we reach the battlefield. And so your names shall go unheard in the sagas to come.’

The Blood Claws were silent.

‘But rest assured, little brothers,’ Anvarr laughed. ‘Should we burn, my guts shall be filled with drink enough to light our passage all the way to hel.’

Anvarr’s yellow eyes flashed like coins as the ramp lifted and darkness enveloped them all.

‘Fangs of Russ!’

Anvarr voxed the Blood Claws in the hold beneath.

‘Save your songs for the feasting halls, damn you!’

The whelps had been singing battle hymns ever since leaving the strike cruiser. Perhaps they were honouring the Stormwolf in their own crude way, but their howling distracted him from reciting his own murmured entreaties to the machine-spirit.

The hurtling Stormwolf emerged into the planet’s atmosphere, and the rippling sheet of fire that covered the canopy gradually disappeared, revealing the gunship’s long, shuddering snout and a piercing sun beyond. Canyons veined the rust-red mesa far below, cracking the landscape as though some waking behemoth strained beneath its surface. The sun gleamed viciously upon lakes of shattered crystal, the remains of countless glass bodies that formed in the upper atmosphere and rained upon the planet’s surface. Anvarr felt the engine behind him growl like a restless beast. He shifted uncomfortably.

The ship trembled and rattled as Anvarr continued his descent, shaking on his pilot’s throne as he absorbed a weight of acceleration that would have crushed the chest of an ordinary man. Atmospheric and positional data scrolled and flickered across the Iron Priest’s vision, the gene-implants in his brain feeding him a constant stream of information from the ship’s sensor array. Four arrowheads bleeped before his eyes in a steady diamond formation. Kaarle and Varg’s Stormfangs flew abeam on Anvarr’s flanks. They each carried a unit of Long Fangs, white-haired veterans all, as prodigious and majestic as the great lascannons they bore into battle. Eadric remained steady on Anvarr’s tail, his Stormwolf carrying another unit of eager young Blood Claws.

‘There’s Skaldr,’ voxed Kaarle.

The Iron Priest looked up to see four golden dots emerging like comets from the clouds ahead. Anvarr voxed the Ragnarök.

‘Drop pods sighted,’ he said.

‘Received, assault wing,’ the Ragnarök replied. ‘Drop pods will reach the target in thirty seconds.’

‘Too late, I fear, to save those poor wretches who were manning the research station,’ Kaarle voxed.

‘Indeed,’ Varg said. ‘Any the xenos have left alive will be welcoming death by now. May Russ guide us in granting them vengeance.’

Anvarr continued his dive, leading his assault wing towards a magnificent canyon, slowing to cruising speed as he levelled out high above a river of crystal shards that ran along the floor of the chasm. He leaned on the sticks and the canyon walls rose either side of him, the level mesa disappearing from view. With a blink-click, he dismissed part of his tactical display and snapped a row of switches above his head, activating the sensor relays in the Stormwolf’s prow. Anvarr’s helmet filled with the hot scent of the outside world, the smoky smell of arid rock, the hot tang of seared crystal.

‘Snouts to the wind, brothers,’ he voxed, accelerating slightly ahead of the pack and dipping low enough above the crystal river for his thrusters to carve a glittering spray as he passed. Although initiated in the mysteries of the Cult Mechanicus, Anvarr remained a Space Wolf, his Canis Helix gifting him with the senses of an apex predator. He read the land as it flowed beneath him, detecting every subtle pattern wrought by wind and sun, devouring every secret as he rode the curve of the canyon walls.

As the Space Wolves’ briefing had explained, the surface of this death world was beset with what the mining colonies called ‘shard-devils’. Stirred into life by columns of superheated air, these vast swirling towers guzzled loose rocks and crystal debris and spat them in all directions. Anvarr scanned the trail ahead for the telltale sign of whirling dust that heralded the arrival of such a maelstrom.

The Iron Priest led his pack down a fork in the canyon, following the buffeting wind like a wolf tracking prey. Streamers of smoke appeared ahead, lining the sky atop a sheer canyon wall. As Anvarr slowed, he detected not only the familiar musk of bolter fire, but also the sour, oily stench of the xenos. Acting as one, the Space Wolves assault wing angled their thrusters, their ships rising out of the canyon and looming over the smoking research station.

The four empty drop pods surrounded the station like the pinnacles of a castle. Skaldr and his Wolf Guard had broken into the various bunkers and would be deep in the underground tunnels by now, exterminating the cornered xenos with blade and bolter. Occasionally a lithe black figure would spring like a spider from an exit hatch and flee towards the outlying crags, crying out as it stumbled through ankle-deep drifts of razor-sharp crystal debris.

‘Ready yourselves, whelps,’ Anvarr voxed his Blood Claws as the rest of the assault wing fanned into position behind the drop pods.

‘Be grateful the machine-spirit has deemed you worthy of being carried into battle,’ he roared. ‘Now, destroy the xenos filth as your brothers drive them into your arms. Blood your blades and win yourselves honour enough for a ride home!’

The youngsters yelled and whooped in reply. Cogfang howled among them, his cry ringing through the Stormwolf’s hull like an alarm as a red warning rune flashed on Anvarr’s tac-display.

Something was closing in on him from behind, moving at unthinkable speed. The Iron Priest felt the engine judder beneath him, and could have sworn he heard a ghostly laugh.

Clad in elegant black carapace, Iruthyr Xynariis, Archon of the Kabal of the Forked Tongue, stalked towards the invading savages like a huge venomous insect. He was grateful for the opportunity to vent his displeasure. His raiding party’s webway portals had shattered upon entry to this world. Sabotaged. Agents of the Book of Sorrows, his rival Kabal, were the obvious culprits. As if this were not humiliation enough, he had been forced not only to abort his latest raid, but also to take refuge in this stinking human burrow.

Three armoured apes blocked his exit from the control room, their maskless faces grimacing amid flashes of booming gunfire. Iruthyr vaulted over an exploding control console and scuttled over toppled furniture as a trail of blasts chased him across the room, destroying an entire wall of surveillance monitors. A short while ago, Iruthyr and his exhausted raiders had been availing themselves of the humans that had been stationed here, feasting on their tortured screams. Then the apes’ assault pods had landed overhead, shaking the bunkers’ foundations and spoiling the meticulous flesh-peeling he had been performing upon a shrieking captive.

Iruthyr rose from behind cover and fired his splinter pistol twice and with seeming carelessness. Spikes of poisoned crystal punctured the eyes of the two bearded savages closing in on him. Iruthyr slithered between them as they toppled to the floor, their blue-grey power armour clattering as the bodies inside convulsed in agony. The dark eldar sidestepped another clumsy burst of gunfire and slid his huskblade into the shooter’s throat. Iruthyr shuddered with pleasure, feeling his muscles invigorated by the pain radiating from his victim. He watched the ape’s face shrink into a withered brown skull before withdrawing the blade and sprinting through the nearby exit, splinter pistol in hand.

The corridor outside rang with nearby bolter blasts as Iruthyr bounded through a set of double doors and into the elevated tunnel that led to the station’s hangar bay. Here his beloved Razorwing jetfighter sat undamaged, fully fuelled, its missiles unspent. Dust hissed against a porthole beside him as a booming shadow passed overhead.

He peered outside and saw a huge blue-grey vessel, a gunship by the look of it. Its ramp yawned in mid-air, disgorging several wild-eyed apes wearing bulky jump packs, each waving a chainsword as they leapt one by one from the gunship. Through the opposite window, Iruthyr saw another gunship circling nearby, flanked by two more, each with a huge ice-blue cannon embedded in its snout. Iruthyr felt a flicker of disbelief as he considered the possibility that his raiding party – veterans of countless incursions, selected from among the finest mercenaries and murder-artists of Commorragh – could actually be slaughtered by these brainless animals.

One of the gunships exploded in mid-air.

Iruthyr flinched as a ball of fire tore the vessel apart in a shower of debris and burning bodies. Three bat-like shadows streaked overhead as the shattered gunship sank, crashing to the ground with a boom that shook the corridor.

Iruthyr’s communicator crackled into life.

‘Brother?’ a familiar voice purred. ‘Are you there?’

‘Izabella,’ Iruthyr gasped.

‘You sound surprised.’

Iruthyr fumbled for an answer to the contrary as he watched the remaining gunships scatter, the streaking shadows driving them into the air with volleys of disintegrator fire. Clearly, the apes had not expected a rescue attempt either.

‘After all this time,’ Izabella said. ‘After everything we have built together, have you not yet learned that the Kabal of the Forked Tongue stands for the two of us, or it does not stand at all?’

Iruthyr heard approaching cries and ran down the corridor as more explosive rounds tore open the wall beside him. He turned to see another gaggle of apes pounding towards him.

Iruthyr ducked as he heard the familiar whine of an approaching monoscythe missile. The projectile pierced an overhead skylight and detonated in the midst of his enemies, bursting into a sizzling halo that decapitated the apes and destroyed the surrounding walls. Long-haired heads rolled for an instant on a dwindling shelf of energy, then dropped to the floor.

‘I have another present for you, brother,’ Izabella said as her twin scrambled to his feet. ‘Captured saboteurs of the Book of Sorrows. I have prepared them as part of a pain-feast to celebrate your return to Commorragh. But first, won’t you join me in this little appetiser…?’

Iruthyr laughed as he ran towards the hangar bay.

Another burst of disintegrator fire slammed into the Stormwolf’s snout, punching the ship into a spin that turned the world outside Anvarr’s canopy into a whirl of smoke and flashing gunfire. The Iron Priest grunted as he heaved at the sticks, arresting his turn in time to lance the air where he calculated his enemy would appear, but his las-bolts strafed nothing but empty sky. Another shadow screamed past him as Kaarle’s and Varg’s enraged curses crackled over the vox. The wreckage of Eadric’s Stormwolf smoked nearby as Anvarr struggled to dismiss the thought that his failure to honour the machine-spirit had not gone unnoticed by the Omnissiah, and that his brothers were now paying the price for his dishonour.

He voxed the two gunships as he saw a red arrowhead on his tac-display streak towards him from behind, preparing to fire upon his exposed tail.

‘They’re trying to scatter us,’ he said. ‘But they’re moving too fast to be accurate.’

He heaved his Stormwolf to one side, avoiding another blazing disintegrator beam as the crescent-winged jetfighter sliced past him. The craft was sleek and black, veined with green, its barbed fins like those of a venomous fish. Razorwings, the xenos called them, named after some predatory alien bird. Anvarr blasted after it with his heavy bolters, but the jet merely twirled aside, peeling away to commence another run.

Anvarr wheeled hard, the battleground rising into a wall beside him. The xenos were swarming now. Those that had escaped the bunker were leaping aboard open-topped skiffs, which must have arrived alongside the fighters. The skiffs’ crews helped their comrades aboard, handing them masks to protect their eyes from the crystal splinters churned into clouds by the aircraft that thundered above them. The rescued xenos took up position and fired their rifles at the bunkers where Skaldr’s Wolf Guard now crouched, pinned behind cover. Small-arms fire rattled upon the ceramite hide of Anvarr’s prowling Stormwolf as the Razorwing dived overhead.

He glanced at his tac-display. Every time Kaarle and Varg moved to deploy their troops behind the xenos’ skiffs, a Razorwing dived at them, seemingly out of nowhere, and cut them off. Even if the gunships could land, their troops would likely be cut down by the swooping fighters. His assault wing was being worn down and prised apart.

‘Abort deployment,’ Anvarr growled over the vox. He swung his Stormwolf hard to port. Kaarle’s Stormfang reeled into view on the other side of the station, dodging twin beams of disintegrator fire from the Razorwing above him.

‘Ignore the ground for now,’ Anvarr voxed. ‘Let us tear these three little birds from the sky first. For Eadric! For the Allfather!’

Anvarr charged towards the distant Stormfang, intent upon destroying the xenos fighter bearing down on Kaarle’s gunship, heedless of the other fighter the Iron Priest knew was closing on his own tail. The heavy snout of his Stormwolf dipped as he accelerated, the battleground rising to meet him, rifle fire sparking on his armoured canopy. His augmented brain engaged in myriad calculations, Anvarr felt the engine rumble beneath him. He commenced a prayer of invocation to the machine-spirit, surrendering himself to instinct as he corrected his approach, training his attention upon the area behind Kaarle’s Stormfang where the xenos fighter would appear. As he closed in, he realised he had not taken fire from the Razorwing behind him.

A shadow enveloped the cockpit. Anvarr looked up to see the fighter hovering upside down above him. Unlike the ships of its two wingmen, the fighter was not black, but a livid purple, its canopy wavering a few feet from his own. The dark eldar pilot was female. She wore no flight helmet, her red-and-black hair hanging in a ponytail as she gazed down at the Iron Priest, oblivious to the streaking gunfire that surrounded them. He was close enough to see that her hooded eyes regarded him with a mingled look of curiosity and disgust, as though he were a dead animal about to be dissected.

Anvarr concluded his prayer to the machine-spirit as he brought two sets of weapons to bear.

‘I’ll give you something to watch,’ he growled. The helfrost turret whirred into life above his head and he sensed the heavy bolters lock at his sides, feeling their weight as though he held them in his own hands.

He thumbed both fire buttons a split second before the xenos fighter appeared in his sights, expecting to hit the ship dead centre, destroying it with a single blow.

Both weapons stalled and the fighter flashed past unmolested. Anvarr cursed aloud, glaring in rage as the fighter released another burst from its disintegrators, destroying a rack of missiles in the flank of Kaarle’s Stormfang.

He commenced a prayer of entreaty as he pulled up after it, but the xenos fighter was faster and rose out of sight. The machine-spirit had refused Anvarr’s plea, allowing the ammunition feeds to become misaligned, or perhaps static to have impeded the targeting relays, denying him glory and perhaps costing his packmates their lives. Such was the price of his failure.

The purple Razorwing followed him, still hovering above his head. Anvarr punched the inside of his canopy, cursing with rage. The dark eldar woman laughed as she pulled back, dazzling Anvarr as sunlight flooded his cockpit. She corkscrewed into position behind him, chasing him as he climbed after the other fighter, which curved back to continue its attack upon Kaarle.

Anvarr bared his fangs as the speeding fighter wavered into his sights. He slowed enough to achieve a target lock, although he knew he would need to accelerate if he had any hope of evading the blast about to tear into his tail. Anvarr fired his heavy bolters and prayed.

Shuddering thunder answered him as the bolters pounded long lines of explosive rounds into the fighter’s path, stitching fire across its left wing as it zipped past. An explosion threw Anvarr forward in his seat. Warning runes glimmered on his tac-display as the ship dipped to one side. He had lost one of his thrusters. Another was badly damaged. As he pulled aside, he saw the fighter he had wounded roll directly in front of his packmate’s Stormfang. The vessel’s helfrost cannon spat a dazzling blast that enveloped the black Razorwing, freezing it white. The xenos fighter tumbled to the rocky ground where it shattered like porcelain.

Anvarr turned his helfrost turret to face the fighter behind him. He fired wildly, thanking the machine-spirit for not disabling the weapon permanently. The disintegrator bolts that lanced the air either side of him ceased as the purple Razorwing peeled away in search of easier prey. The Iron Priest gave chase as quickly as his shattered thruster array would allow.

‘My thanks, Anvarr,’ Kaarle voxed. ‘I shall sing your sagas louder than thunder.’

Anvarr grunted.

‘Deploy your troops to the south-west,’ he said.

Kaarle retreated, leaving Anvarr to cruise after the purple Razorwing. The Iron Priest fired his lascannons at the fighter’s rear, but the vessel dodged every volley, rolling aside each time as if pestered by insects.

‘Anvarr!’

It was Skaldr.

‘We grow lonely down here behind cover,’ he voxed. ‘Any chance of some company, brother?’

‘Kaarle’s sending you a bellyful of Long Fangs,’ Anvarr replied. ‘They shall bite the xenos’ flanks shortly.’

The purple Razorwing had joined its remaining wingman in attacking Varg’s smoking Stormfang, the two fighters like moths battering a dying flame.

‘Tell the elders to hurry,’ Skaldr voxed. ‘The xenos seem to think there are enough of them to take us alive. I would hate to have to prove them wrong.’

‘Give us time enough to kill the rest of these vermin,’ Anvarr said. ‘Just two of them left now.’

A third xenos fighter flashed before him, rocketing up from the station below, forcing Anvarr into a tight swerve. As he swung back to face Varg’s besieged gunship, he saw the purple Razorwing break away and race to meet the newcomer, another Razorwing of the same hue. Anvarr braced himself, expecting the pair to collide head-on, but the twin fighters snapped into a climb at the last second, spinning skywards in perfect unison. The other Razorwing joined the greeting display and the three ships peeled apart at the apex of their climb, curling backwards like the petals of a blossoming rose, then dived back down towards the crippled Stormfang.

Anvarr’s damaged thruster shrieked as he accelerated, firing madly at the three descending fighters. Kaarle joined the barrage, his own Stormfang closing at Anvarr’s flank, his cargo of Long Fangs safely deployed.

Together the Space Wolves ships lanced the air relentlessly, firing bolt after bolt of helfrost above their injured packmate, eventually scattering all three fighters, forcing them to flee like startled crows. A pair of missiles had already sizzled out from beneath one of the Razorwings, but the projectiles detonated either side of Varg’s gunship, exploding into haloes of energy that showered the wounded vessel with rocks and dust.

Anvarr and Kaarle had saved Varg’s Stormfang from complete destruction, but its thrusters were already ruined, leaking columns of smoke as the vessel lowered majestically. The Stormfang’s snout ploughed through the crags in the direction of the dark eldar skiffs, threatening to topple onto its side before eventually grinding to a halt on its belly. Anvarr and Kaarle circled the grounded ship, like wolves guarding a kill. Anvarr targeted the approaching skiffs as Kaarle prowled the air above him, protecting his alpha against the Razorwings’ next attack.

Anvarr saw Varg’s Long Fangs batter open the rear exit of the crashed Stormfang, their faces streaked with blood. Their life signs scrolled and glimmered in his tac-display. Varg’s did not.

The air above him suddenly streamed with heavy bolter fire as Kaarle drove off the weaving Razorwings. Anvarr pummelled the dark eldar skiffs with las-fire, covering the wounded Long Fangs as they limped and stumbled behind the cover of the rocks. His ship’s tac-display was a riot of warning runes, while Kaarle’s Stormfang appeared relatively intact. But the three Razorwings threatened to slip past them both and turn the advancing Long Fangs into a crater. A xenos skiff exploded amid bolts of heavy las-fire as the Long Fangs claimed their first kill. Anvarr felt a rush of battle-hunger and gained altitude to join Kaarle.

He prayed again, imploring the machine-spirit for forgiveness, turned and was blessed with the sight of the two purple Razorwings nearing his target lock. He fired helfrost cannons and bolters together, targeting both fighters at once.

His weapons seized once again.

Defiance and rage burned within the Iron Priest as he surged after the fighters. If skill and valour in battle was the price demanded by the machine-spirit, then Anvarr Rustmane, Iron Priest of the Deathwolves, was prepared to give more than suitable tribute.

He voxed his remaining wingman.

‘Our brothers on the ground look bored, Kaarle,’ he growled. ‘Let’s give them a display such as would inspire Russ himself!’

Kaarle howled down the vox in agreement, and the Space Wolves ships loped after the streaking Razorwings.

Skaldr Frostbiter broke cover, several of his packmates howling behind him. As he ran, the pack leader emptied the clip of his bolt pistol into the xenos pirates that clustered behind the spent drop pod. He beheaded the last of them with a backhand swipe of his chainsword as he skidded into cover behind the ceramite plating of the downed gunship. His packmates joined him as he looked up at the Space Wolves ships tearing after the xenos fighters above them. White bolts of helfrost and golden spears of disintegrator fire criss-crossed beneath the glaring sun as the Iron Priests fought to prevent the enemy from loosing their missiles upon the Space Wolves below.

More dark eldar pounced upon Skaldr’s men from the nearby crags, wearing horned masks and twirling strange two-handed swords that flashed in the sun. Skaldr’s chainsword sparked as he parried a sweeping blow at his neck, grabbing the creature and slamming his forehead into its mask, shattering the skull beneath. Another blow glanced off his pauldron and he charged at his attacker, aiming to drive his shoulder into the creature’s chest. But the nimble xenos dodged aside, spilling him onto the ground. Before the dark eldar blade could meet Skaldr’s neck, a thick las-bolt exploded from the xenos’ chest, spraying ash and blackened bone.

The pack of wounded Long Fangs who had clambered from the ruined Stormfang were crouched atop a nearby ridge. They pumped heavy las-fire into the retreating xenos swordsmen as Skaldr and his packmates recovered and ducked behind the drop pod, their advance momentarily secure. The Long Fangs turned and directed their fire at the xenos skiffs pinning the rest of the Wolf Guard within the bunkers. Their las-fire ripped into the jagged craft of the dark eldar, shattering their black carapace and scattering their screaming riders, each of whom was then calmly blasted into smoking pieces. The veteran Space Wolves held the line, shielding their flank with an outcrop of rock, their faces weary, almost bored by their own mastery of battle.

Skaldr needed to order the rest of his Wolf Guard forward to support the Long Fangs, before the xenos could regroup and overwhelm them with their superior weight of numbers. He went to vox his command when he was thrown to the ground by a blast of air. Silence fell for an instant and Skaldr assumed he had been deafened. Then the clamour of rifle and bolter fire returned as he got to his feet and peered through a cloud of glittering dust.

Where the Long Fangs had crouched seconds ago, a deep and immaculate bowl had appeared in the rock, its surface smooth and crackling with residual energy. One of his packmates was pointing at two flyers retreating in the distance. Skaldr’s tac-display magnified the image, revealing two black ships fleeing side by side across the shimmering mesa. They were narrower than the broad-winged fighters, with long sharp beaks like those of carrion crows.

Skaldr voxed Anvarr.

‘Voidravens!’

‘I see them,’ growled Anvarr, pelting a Razorwing with las-fire as he glanced at his tac-display. The two bombers were slowing into a climb, preparing to make another supersonic run across the battlefield. Anvarr and his wingman could barely contain three fast-moving ships, let alone five.

The Voidravens curled back towards the battlefield.

Apart from Skaldr and his Wolf Guard, the only other ground troops out in the open were the pack of Long Fangs whom Kaarle had deployed earlier. The veterans were plodding towards the crater to replace their fallen brothers and maintain the line. If the Voidravens hit them, the xenos ground troops would eventually overrun the Wolf Guard pinned inside the bunkers.

Anvarr’s Stormwolf shuddered as another blast smashed into his snout. It would be a miracle if there were any Blood Claws left alive in the hold. He returned fire, the fighter swerving to avoid his volley. Anvarr knew that attempting to save his brothers on the ground would mean abandoning Kaarle to the Razorwings. Not even a Stormfang pilot of his brother’s ferocity could prevent three agile xenos fighters from tearing him apart.

The Voidravens accelerated, commencing their run towards Skaldr and the Long Fangs.

Kaarle voxed him.

‘Save them, brother,’ he laughed. ‘And sing them the saga of Kaarle Greywing upon your return.’

‘I shall,’ Anvarr said. ‘Louder than thunder, brother.’

Kaarle’s Stormfang unleashed a stream of bolter fire, herding one of the Razorwings into a sharp turn, freeing Anvarr to plunge towards the approaching Voidravens.

Anvarr circled the research station as Kaarle fought to keep the Razorwings occupied. The bombers were still miles away, but their distance to the battlefield was shrinking faster than Anvarr believed possible. He scanned the rocks and bunkers before him with the eyes of a hunter, seeking any elevation or cover that might provide a tactical advantage.

He voxed Skaldr.

‘Do you have any Sky Claws left?’

‘One.’

‘Get him onto the roof of that high bunker to the north-west. And tell those Long Fangs to cover the airspace above that comms-relay on the other side.’

Skaldr directed his troops as the Voidravens closed in, hurtling low over the mesa, carving waves of crystal dust in their wake. Anvarr swooped low, grazing the ground as he hid behind a long wall of crumbled rock, rifle fire scuttling across his Stormwolf’s hide as he calculated the speed of his approach, matching it to the lunatic velocity of the oncoming Voidravens.

He was laughing now, drunk with feral adrenaline as he raced behind the rock wall to meet the bombers. When his Stormwolf lay a shattered wreck, perhaps then the machine-spirit would be appeased by his valour.

As the Voidravens reached the edge of the battlefield, Anvarr raised his Stormwolf from behind the cover of the rocks, spraying las-bolts at the two bombers screaming towards him, seconds from collision.

As the Space Wolves gunship reared into their path, the dark eldar pilots reacted with predictable precision. Performing a miracle of control and timing, they slowed from a scream to a shriek, Anvarr having given them just enough time to bank into a hard turn – one left, the other right. The Stormwolf redirected them like a stone diverting a stream.

Anvarr hit the tail of a fleeing Voidraven, clipping its fins with a stream of las-bolts. The other bomber banked above the station’s shattered comms-relay, where waited Skaldr’s Long Fangs. They caught the ship in a web of heavy las-fire, punching through its exposed belly and driving it into the rocks in a glorious bloom of flame.

Khanvir Marugaard heard his wingman’s ship detonate behind him. Khanvir was wrestling with the sticks of his own bomber, struggling to ride its momentum and slow the vessel enough to make another turn. He cruised low across the ground, past a high bunker and felt the bomber rock as if with an impact. He had taken las-fire from that gunship. Perhaps it had damaged a stabiliser.

Khanvir pulled into another turn, steering towards the apes on the ground that had destroyed his wingman. He went to arm his void-lances when something smashed through the canopy, impaling his chest and pinning him to his seat. The dark eldar stared in disbelief at the whirring blade protruding from his body and thought he could make out a face grinning down at him from the other side of the shattered canopy. Then the blade revved faster and a churning fountain of his own blood obscured Khanvir’s view.

Skaldr was reloading his bolt pistol when he saw the lone Sky Claw leap from the canopy of the second bomber before it crashed to the ground. The whelp cannonballed into the rocks, rolling several dozen feet before crashing to a halt. Skaldr almost laughed as moments later the battered warrior got to his feet, grinning through a mouthful of blood and twirling the pilot’s severed head above his own.

A second explosion bellowed overhead and a shrieking cheer arose among the dark eldar. Anvarr’s valiant wingman had finally fallen, his Stormfang a blazing wreck as it slumped into the crags below. The three Razorwings that had torn it apart now circled the battlefield, surveying their outnumbered prey. The replacement Long Fangs were still trudging into position on the rocks nearby, readying their lascannons.

Skaldr activated his chainsword as he voxed what remained of his warriors.

‘Advance, Wolves of Fenris,’ he howled. ‘Better to die with fangs bared than–’

Something struck him in the throat. He grunted and dropped to one knee, his body shivering uncontrollably. Skaldr knew he had been hit by a poisoned shard fired from a xenos splinter rifle. His face contorted into a grimace of agony as the arcane toxin boiled his nervous system. He watched, helpless, as his Wolf Guard scattered from the bunkers and ran towards the dark eldar, bolters blazing. The black-armoured xenos and their craft swarmed like beetles over the crags to meet them, their ghostly faces gleeful. One of the circling Razorwings despatched a missile that exploded amid the ragged Space Wolves vanguard, expelling a disc of energy that sliced their legs out from under them. The dark eldar still clearly hoped to take them alive. But the xenos were arrogant indeed if they believed a pack of cornered Space Wolves could be rounded up like cattle.

Skaldr rose to his feet, his head swimming, his every nerve aflame as his augmented biology fought the invading poison. A pack of Blood Claws trampled past him, hooting wild battle songs, chainswords in hand. Anvarr’s deployment. The Iron Priest’s Stormwolf surged into the sky behind them, hurling las-bolts at the circling Razorwings. He caught one of them, punching a black hole in its wing, as all three detached like bats from a cave roof and chased the Stormwolf from the battlefield with spears of disintegrator fire.

The pack leader went to murmur private words of thanks after the indomitable Iron Priest, but the words refused to form on his lips. The Stormwolf disappeared into the canyon with the three Razorwings in pursuit. Skaldr shook his head and staggered after his battle-brothers, resolved to meet his death among them.

Anvarr gunned the juddering Stormwolf down the canyon through which he and the rest of his ill-fated assault wing had entered, casting aside sheets of crystal spray as he veered down a fork in the path ahead. The Razorwings raced after him without slowing. The passage ahead was strung with natural arches, sculpted by the crystal-toothed winds. The Stormwolf’s damaged thrusters threaded a line of smoke through the rock formations as Anvarr dipped and dodged between them, occasionally scraping a wing or swerving clumsily to avoid a collision. Behind him, the Razorwings swooped and twisted with ease, flowing over the landscape like water.

A bolt of fire flashed past and destroyed a rocky bridge ahead of him. He swerved to avoid a curtain of tumbling stone, dodging deeper into the canyon network before his pursuers could fire again. Anvarr drank in the odour of baking rock cooled by the coursing winds, his mask feeding his predatory senses all the tactical data he required. The smell of hot stone intensified and he broke away down a slot canyon as spikes of fire exploded behind him. The Razorwings stood on their sides as they followed him, one after the other, relentless as the canyon winds that threatened to wrench the sticks from Anvarr’s hands and fling his Stormwolf into the rocks. The Iron Priest fled deeper and deeper into the rocky maze, chasing the scent of burning stone carried upon a gathering wind as the dark eldar closed in behind him.

Iruthyr cackled with excitement, nestling in the darkness of his cockpit as he chased the battered gunship down yet another canyon, this one cradling a wide river of crystal debris that sparkled beneath the blazing sun.

‘Sister, I’ll give you fifty slaves if you can shear off its wing,’ he laughed, his ghoulish features bathed green by the glowing runes on his console. He steadied his fighter against a strengthening wind.

‘Too easy,’ she replied. ‘I would prefer we destroy what is left of his thrusters and when he crawls from the wreckage, then we can play. Disintegrators only. Let’s say sixty slaves a limb…?’

‘As you wish, sister,’ Iruthyr said, his targeting icon hovering into place over the rear of the fleeing ship.

The ape’s gunship suddenly accelerated, the gathering wind snatching away the black smoke now churning from its thrusters as it vanished through a gap in the canyon wall. Focused only upon his prey, Iruthyr dived after it, his fighter shaking. He noticed an air pressure warning flashing on his console.

‘Pull up,’ Izabella screamed through the comm. ‘The savage has led us into a trap.’

Iruthyr pulled up, abandoning the hunt, his fighter convulsing now as a whirling storm of shards raked its fuselage like the claws of some ravenous beast, tearing into its hull. He struggled to follow his sister’s Razorwing as she accelerated into a steady climb above him, her wings also ragged with damage.

They rocketed from the canyon and soared side by side above the mesa as chunks of rock streaked across the sky amid a glittering mist of crystal shards. Their wingman’s black fighter was visible ahead, the mercenary evidently seeking to abandon the twin archons to their fate. As Iruthyr and his sister did their best to dodge the raining debris, a boulder crashed into the black Razorwing like an asteroid, smashing the fighter to pieces. Iruthyr ducked to avoid the oncoming slipstream of debris and saw the pilot himself tumbling towards him as the shard-infested wind whipped the flesh from his bones.

Gore sprayed Iruthyr’s canopy, blinding him, his fighter tipping as something smashed onto his wing. He fought to arrest his spin as dust and wind scoured the canopy clear, revealing sky and earth tumbling one over the other. He managed to level out, his sister still beside him. Together they climbed hard, their engines grinding, until they were free of the sucking wind. He gazed down at a vast twirling column of air, its tail wriggling through the canyon miles below as it rained destruction about the mesa.

Izabella snarled over the comm.

‘A curse on this world.’

Iruthyr glanced at his data display. His hull was in shreds, although both disintegrators remained functional.

‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘Enough games. Let us return to the field, finish the apes and be gone.’

Iruthyr and his sister followed the canyon back to the battlefield, leaving the hurricane far behind them. His tattered fighter trembled as he neared the station where the battle continued to rage. He armed his disintegrators, his sister abeam as they commenced a steady descent.

Las-fire flashed at his back. Checking what remained of his sensor read-out, Iruthyr saw the smoking gunship thundering close behind, as if the storm itself had followed them from the canyon.

Anvarr had followed his hunter’s nose back through the maze of canyons as surely as he had found his way into its boiling heart, luring his arrogant pursuers into the nearest shard-devil. But he had clipped several more rocks on the way back as he squirmed through the canyons, sheltering from the rain of stone and crystal fragments crashing overhead. Entire plates of ceramite had been prised from the Stormwolf’s hull, exposing pipes and cabling to the elements. He was down to two thrusters, one of which threatened to collapse every time he manoeuvred and spoiled his aim when he had tried to take out one of the Razorwings. The xenos fighters did not give him another chance.

As they reached the smoking battlefield, they peeled off either side of him, curling as smoothly as their damaged wings would allow, preparing to fire upon Anvarr from either side as he approached.

His damaged thruster finally surrendered and the Stormwolf slumped to one side, threatening to drop from the sky. The Razorwings fired, their disintegrators slicing the ground as they flew towards him, ready to cut the ruined Stormwolf in half.

The beams flashed before Anvarr’s eyes as he murmured a prayer to the machine-spirit, aiming his heavy bolters to the left, his helfrost cannons to the right. The engine purred beneath him as he fired.

The heavy bolters boomed at his flank as twin spikes of helfrost flashed overhead.

Anvarr Rustmane did not flinch as both weapons hit their marks and the shattered fighters screamed past his canopy, crashing to the ground behind him.

He ignored them and sped towards the battlefield, destroying a dark eldar skiff with las-fire and crushing a unit of squealing xenos beneath the belly of his Stormwolf as he ploughed the ruined gunship to a stop.

Anvarr detached his helm, sporadic rifle fire crackling against the buckled hull as he clambered down the cockpit ladder to the hold where Cogfang awaited him, his master’s thunder hammer held ready in his slavering jaws. Anvarr slung the weapon over his shoulder as he booted the malfunctioning ramp to the ground, then raised it over his head, announcing his arrival to the power-armoured warriors battling outside amid the sweltering dust.

‘For Russ! For the Allfather!’

He whistled three times at Cogfang, who comprehended his master’s instruction and bounded away. Anvarr dared a glance at the embossed wolf’s head on the bulkhead behind him, then pounded towards his brothers to join them in glory.

Iruthyr Xynariis limped towards his sister’s crashed Razorwing. He had driven his own crippled ship into a deep drift of crystal shards that had worked their way through the plates of his armour and chewed his flesh as he ran. Izabella still lay in her cockpit. He clambered onto the downed fighter and heaved open the broken canopy to find her looking up at him, breathing hard, her legs pinned and broken by the crushed console. He paused for a moment, invigorated by his sister’s pain, the shrieks of his dying raiders carried by the hot winds.

She seized him by the collar of his flight suit and yanked him towards her. Iruthyr realised she had a barbed knife at his throat.

‘The Kabal of the Forked Tongue stands for the two of us,’ she gasped. ‘Or it does not stand at all.’

‘Come, sister…’ he said, reaching for the huskblade at his belt.

A low metallic growl startled the twins. They looked up to see a massive half-mechanised wolf standing on the prow of the ruined Razorwing, saliva leaking from its iron jaw as it watched them.

Iruthyr and his sister faltered, uncertain whether to defend themselves or slit each other’s throats. The cyberwolf proved more decisive.

The sky darkened into a starfield with the Ragnarök visible a short distance away. Anvarr growled into the vox once again.

‘Throne of Earth! Cease your blasted singing, I said!’

The victory songs rising from the hold continued regardless, hardly improved by Cogfang’s piercing howls.

Skaldr laughed over the vox from the Thunderhawk that had been sent to pick him up.

‘You had better get used it, brother,’ he said. ‘Tonight the Deathwolves will honour Anvarr Rustmane with hours of song and oceans of mjod.’

The great blond pack leader had acquitted himself well this day. He had shaken off a dose of dark eldar poison to cut down scores of kabalite pirates, later joking that his half-drunken state had only served to improve his swing. Skaldr’s deeds would certainly be worth a mention in the sagas, no doubt something else for him to smile about.

Anvarr scowled as his passengers launched into another song. The Stormwolf’s makeshift repairs were holding up well, but hours more work awaited the Iron Priest upon docking. At least he had found a replacement totem that would properly honour the machine-spirit for today’s blessing.

In the hold below, the three surviving Blood Claws raised beakers of mjod to their grumbling Iron Priest, and to the slack-faced heads of the dark eldar twins pinned to the engine bulkhead by their long black hair. The eyes of the metal wolf’s head gleamed.

THE EMPEROR’S GRACE

Nicholas Alexander

The Grace’s engines screamed in protest and Mikal could feel their pain. It knifed through his ragged nerves and he gripped the control column of his battered aircraft with greater ferocity as the Marauder bomber bucked and lurched through the outer atmosphere. It seemed that the only thing holding the aircraft together was its indomitable machine-spirit. He doubted there was an undamaged structure in the airframe. The instrument panel had so many warning lights on that he had long since stopped looking at it. He needed no reminder of how close they were to catastrophe.

Mikal peered ahead through the fractured canopy at the guiding lights of the Implacable Advance, the carrier that was their ultimate destination and sanctuary. The auspex was no longer functioning and he was reduced to visuals by which to navigate. He felt like a mythical sea captain from Holy Terra, in an age when its long-dead seas had still existed, seeking the perilous entrance to a home port on a storm-ravaged night. Like his forebear, Mikal struggled to maintain a bearing as his vessel pitched and rolled in the turbulent elements. Each time the Grace yawed off line, he hauled her back, praying to the machine-spirit that the movement would not cause that final spar to break or hydraulic system to fail.

His arms ached with the effort, his neck muscles cramped with the physical and psychological stress he was under. It would be easy to give up the fight and accept the inevitable. It was far beyond what he thought he could have endured. But something inside him would simply not admit defeat. He would not show weakness. He would not. To show weakness was death. That was the lesson he had learnt from childhood, growing up on the tough streets of Vordrost, made tougher for him by the pox scarring that had covered the right-hand side of his face. His disfigurement had taught him there was no place for weakness in the Imperium. Adversity either broke you or forged you into something harder, physically and mentally. Iron will was the only thing keeping him and the Emperor’s Grace flying. For now.

The screaming from the starboard engine changed in pitch and he looked anxiously across to the massive engine cowling. He heard someone praying soothingly, ‘Steady, Grace. Steady. We know it hurts. Do not show weakness. Do not. Weakness is death.’

He looked around the cockpit for the source of the prayer. There was no one there.

He was alone. It had not always been so.

‘Stop, for Throne’s sake, stop,’ he heard someone whispering behind him. Mikal scowled and barked, ‘Shut it.’

There was a sudden thud and the screaming of tortured metal stopped immediately. The crew elevator doors snapped open with a hiss.

‘Time someone greased those cables,’ muttered Bernd Hawlek.

Mikal turned to see his bombardier looking straight ahead with a wry smile on his face.

‘You’re not wrong, Bernd,’ Mikal agreed. Behind Bernd stood the diminutive form of their navigator, Aleksander Jeronim.

‘Sorry, captain,’ mumbled Aleks, clearly embarrassed that his curse had been heard by the pilot. ‘That noise was getting to me.’

At times Mikal wondered how Aleks managed to get into the Navy; he looked barely old enough to shave. His pale complexion, the result of hours of studying charts and pict screens, gave him an unhealthy, undernourished look. He wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the streets of Mikal’s youth. Then again, a navigator needed a quick brain not quick fists.

‘Report the problem to maintenance,’ said Mikal. He found apologies difficult. They all knew that the maintenance crews had been pushed to the limits getting aircraft combat ready. Non-essential maintenance had been put on hold.

Aleks nodded, relieved. Mikal glanced at the rest of his crew standing rather stiffly behind them. Dudak, Krol and Jaworski looked back at him evenly. They knew enough not to say anything provocative when he was in his preflight mode. None of them wanted their captain’s critical eye locking on them.

‘We’re on Station Eight,’ said Mikal, and he stepped out of the claustrophobic crew elevator into the enormous expanse of the launch deck of the Implacable Advance. Before an operational sortie, an Imperial Navy carrier was like an amphitheatre in which a numberless host of Naval personnel performed a frenzied ballet of ordered chaos. Servitors and deck crew jostled and pirouetted amidst the blare of horns and warning sirens. Clouds of coolant and exhaust fumes created an eerie and disorienting sub-world beneath the cavernous superstructure, the true enormity of which was intermittently revealed by pulsating strobes of light from gantries and inspection rigs.

Mikal led his crew through the maze of moving and dissipating obstacles seeking out Station 8 and EMGR2243, the Marauder bomber to which they had been assigned for this, their first combat tour, and today, their first mission.

Mikal was so immersed in his thoughts that he almost knocked over a deck rating who had emerged from the gloom at the head of a line of servitors. The rating looked up, blanched and backed away.

‘Sorry… captain…’ he stammered. ‘My mistake.’

‘Emperor’s Grace,’ barked Mikal.

‘Sorry, sir?’ repeated the rating.

‘Where is Emperor’s Grace?’ repeated Mikal.

‘Oh… EMGR2243, you mean? The Grace, sir? She… She’s over there…’ babbled the harassed-looking rating as he pointed over to the brooding hulk of a Marauder silhouetted against the glow of arc lights. ‘We’ve just finished fixing the auspex.’

‘Auspex?’ asked Mikal. ‘What’s the problem now?’

The 1167th’s hasty deployment from Vordrost had created all sorts of logistical problems, including a shortage of trained technicians across the fleet. As a result, many of the squadron’s ground crew had been reassigned. With her new crew, Emperor’s Grace was one of the last to get attention, something which was a constant source of frustration for Mikal.

‘N… nothing, sir,’ said the rating.

Mikal sensed the hesitation in the man’s voice and stepped forward so that his disfigured face was unpleasantly close to the wide-eyed rating.

‘There had better not be,’ he said.

‘Easy, captain,’ murmured Bernd as he moved between his pilot and the cowering rating.

Bernd nodded to the rating to get on with his checks and the man scurried away, his posse of servitors snaking along behind him. Mikal scowled at the way in which Bernd had dealt with the situation. The bombardier’s easy-going manner and sense of humour was in sharp contrast to his pilot’s irascible attitude, and at times Mikal resented him for it. Deep down though, he knew Bernd was right. A pilot picking a fight with a deck rating? What was he thinking?

‘Get a grip,’ he muttered to himself and led his crew towards the imposing presence of the Marauder bomber.

Emperor’s Grace was the latest addition to Vordrost’s 1167th Bomber Wing. When the Imperial high command had received reports that Waaagh! Ugskraga, the massive ork incursion into the Segmentum Pacificus, had reached the Imperial world of Balle Prime, the 1167th had been deployed aboard the carrier Implacable Advance as part of an Imperial relief force despatched to bolster the desperately stretched defence forces. The 1167th had a reputation for getting the job done. This was in no small part due to the uncompromising leadership of the 1167th’s commander and squadron leader, Aaron Ryll. He believed that hitting the enemy hard with overwhelming force was the best way of limiting the number of missions needed to complete a tour. As a consequence, he insisted that all planes in the 1167th carry a full payload of bombs and missiles and that pilots maintain a tight defensive formation to maximise the number of bombers reaching the target. His brutal logic was compelling and the crews respected him for it. The message had been repeated at the briefing for today’s mission, designated Operation Arc Light.

The 1167th assembled in the briefing room, each aircrew already kitted out in pressure vest, flight suit and fur-lined flying boots. Mikal sat there quiet and sweating, wedged in between Bernd and Aleks and surrounded by other similarly clad officers talking with noisy familiarity around them.

‘Here comes Ryll,’ whispered Bernd as a short, broad figure stepped onto the raised platform at the front of the briefing room. The officer had close-cropped black hair, a flat nose and a button chin and stood with his weight balanced like a pit-fighter. Though not a big man, his authority was unmistakable and the 1167th rose from their chairs to acknowledge their squadron leader. ‘Looks a bit serious to me.’

‘He always looks serious,’ muttered Aleks nervously, craning his neck to peer over the shoulders of the ranks in front of them. Mikal said nothing as he waited for the squadron leader to speak.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, sit,’ instructed Ryll and the 1167th sat back down on their benches, attentive and silent, all eyes on their commanding officer.

‘The picture on Balle Prime is changing rapidly. The greenskins have captured the starport at Balle-Delta and are using it to land more troops and supplies to support their advance towards the planet’s capital, Balle-Major.’

Ryll looked out across the intent faces of his squadron. He had their full attention.

‘The orks have established a forward airbase at Balle-Delta where the bulk of their fighters and fighter-bombers are launching sorties against the retreating Imperial forces. Balle-Delta starport is of critical strategic importance to the fate of Balle-Major and ultimately the planet itself.’

Ryll paused to make sure his brief strategic summary had sunk in. All heads were steady and unwavering. He continued in a more aggressive tone.

‘Gentlemen. At zero five hundred hours, the 1167th will launch from the Implacable Advance, proceed directly to Balle-Delta and then pound the starport to rubble.’

There was a stamping of feet, which echoed off the plasteel bulkheads and reverberated around the room. This was the typically pragmatic means of signifying approval that the 1167th used in briefings when assembled officers held data-slates with mission details in their hands. Mikal found the hairs on the back of his neck rise at the sound as it rumbled up through the deck plates and shook the bench on which he and his comrades perched. He sat forward a bit straighter as Ryll continued.

‘At the far side of the starport, the orks seem to be constructing some sort of tower, the exact nature of which is unknown.’ He flicked up a pict screen that converged on a dark mark at one end of the starport. The perspective changed and from the side it was clear that the shape was an irregular but enormous construct, twice as wide as the airfield at its base and narrowing gradually as it rose skywards.

‘The images are unclear, as the construction is shrouded by thick clouds, caused either deliberately to screen what is being built, or more likely by the exhaust gases of the construction engines that are building it,’ said Ryll. ‘Either way, a huge effort is being made by the orks to build this thing. Whatever its purpose, we intend to destroy it before its construction goes any further. So once you drop your bombs, get a missile lock on this thing and take it down.’

‘Not going to be difficult to miss,’ said Bernd under the noise of stamping feet.

Ryll resumed his briefing when the noise had died down. ‘You will be pleased to know that we will not be going in alone. Thunderbolts of the 38th Fighter Wing will lead the first wave and target the starport’s air defences.’

There was a noticeable lack of stamping at this. Bomber crews knew from experience that whatever the fighters did, there would still be plenty of groundfire coming at them on the attack run. Ryll continued.

‘There are reports of significant numbers of ork flyers operating from the starport. So you’ll be pleased to hear that we have an escort of Lightnings from the 717th Imperial Navy Fighter Wing as well.’

This news was greeted with more enthusiasm. Any sort of protective screen would be a welcome distraction for the ork fighters, who often sought out personal duels with the Imperial fighters. Ryll wanted no complacency among his crews. It was going to get rough over the target, whatever support they had from the Navy.

‘As you know, greenskin pilots are reckless of their own safety and will seek any means of preventing us from reaching our target. It is imperative that we maintain formation and press on to the objective whatever they throw at us.’ He paused to make sure they heard his next few instructions clearly.

‘Do not, I repeat, do not break off from the rest of the squadron. Our strength is in our discipline and that is how we shall prevail.’

That and a curtain of bolter fire, thought Mikal as more stamping thumped through the deck plates.

‘So stay close, release your bombs and get out of there,’ he said as he looked out across the grim faces. Ryll decided it was time to lift the mood.

‘I have a particularly fine bottle of amasec for the crew that destroys that tower. Do not disappoint me. Dismissed.’

Chairs scraped back as the crews digested what they had just heard. The crew of Emperor’s Grace shuffled along amidst the hubbub.

‘I’m rather partial to amasec,’ said Bernd.

‘The first waves will get it for sure,’ said Aleks. ‘By the time we’re there the target will be scrap metal.’

‘We’ll make sure then,’ said Mikal, determined to keep them all focused on both objectives, although he privately thought Aleks was most likely right.

‘Someone had better get a target lock on that tower,’ said Bernd. ‘I have a bad feeling they’ll be sending us back there if it’s still standing.’

Mikal was certain of it.

Mikal adjusted his helmet straps, checked his instruments for the third time and took a deep breath. He turned to Bernd on his right and nodded.

‘Number off, crew.’

‘Nose turret, clear,’ said Dudak,

Mikal looked up at the twin-linked lascannons projecting from the Grace’s nose turret. It gave him some comfort to know that the most powerful defensive weapons on the Marauder bomber were facing forwards. He knew from intelligence briefings that ork fighter pilots loved nothing better than playing chicken with Imperial bombers. Fortunately the orks’ insane courage was not normally matched by their marksmanship. Mikal hoped that Artur Dudak, the Grace’s nose gunner, would be able to deal with anything coming straight towards them.

‘Upper turret clear,’ said Krol, calm and measured. Maciej Krol was a cool one thought Mikal. Never gave anything away. He had heard rumours that Krol was popular with female crew members. The hydraulics whirred behind Mikal as Krol pivoted the turret. Fine, thought Mikal. As long as Krol nailed those ork fighters, he didn’t care what targets he sought off-duty.

‘Tail turret, clear,’ said Jaworski, unable to hide the eagerness in his voice. Fyodor Jaworski seemed unperturbed at occupying the most vulnerable position in Emperor’s Grace. Survival rates for tail gunners in Marauders were appallingly low. Taking out a tail turret gave enemy fighters the chance of an easy kill. There again, Fyodor seemed to relish the challenge. Mikal could not work out if this was raw courage, martial zeal or a mental imbalance. Not that it mattered to him as long as Fyodor kept those heavy bolters firing.

‘Navigator, clear,’ said Aleks.

‘Bombardier, clear,’ said Bernd, steadily.

‘Emperor’s Grace clear for launch,’ confirmed Mikal, looking up to the control room above the huge blast door entrance.

‘Thank you, Emperor’s Grace, duly noted,’ came the mechanical voice of Flight Controller Danoz Borkowski. The former pilot sat hard-wired into the console of the control room, bathed in the green light which illuminated the auspex screens and glowed out through its reinforced glass panels. The glowing cupola gave the impression of an insect’s bulbous eye, surveying its hatching pupae before they flew out into the world beyond.

‘Another novice crew,’ Borkowski said to himself, ‘about to give their all for the Emperor.’

He could imagine the mixed set of emotions coursing through the bomber below him. Adrenaline-charged excitement, mind-numbing fear, hopeless optimism about a successful conclusion to their first mission. None, he thought, would be prepared for the brutal, chaotic reality of what they would experience over the combat zone. That, he could do little about. His job was to see them off and, with the Emperor’s grace, safely home. He checked the squadron manifest again and was surprised to see his words staring up at him. Emperor’s Grace. His augmetic vox-box grimaced into what might be interpreted as a smile.

‘Emperor’s Grace, you are cleared for launch.’

He heard the pilot’s acknowledgment, ‘For the Emperor.’

Four ramjet engines roared and Borkowski felt the glass panels vibrate as the Marauder bomber catapulted forward. Emperor’s Grace shot through the launch bay doors and out into the darkness of space.

Mikal tracked the path of the other bombers of the 1167th on the auspex while keeping a visual through the armourglass canopy. The auspex was a blur of hundreds of dots, each marking the location of a bomber or fighter, moving into position in their respective formations. He felt the control column move in his hands as the sensors adjusted his course to ensure their trajectory didn’t converge with the other flyers. The main formation of the 1167th had already formed up in the distance and looked like a grey cloud against the darkness of space. The cloud flickered as identification lights blinked on each of the aircraft and Mikal felt some comfort at the size of the formation. A full Navy squadron of Marauders was an admirable sight and he was reminded of what Ryll had said about combined defensive firepower.

‘Impressive,’ said Bernd, as if sensing Mikal’s thoughts.

Mikal ignored him.

‘Heading for our designated location,’ he said and checked the auspex again. He tracked the blip that signified his wing leader’s aircraft, adjusted the controls and headed towards the outer edge of the formation where the remaining aircraft were already forming up. He lined up on the nearest bomber and adjusted their trim so that they completed the outermost point of the diamond formation. He breathed out slowly, relieved that bit was over. Bernd looked as if he was going to say something but decided not to. He simply nodded instead. Mikal nodded back.

‘Emperor’s Grace in position,’ Mikal confirmed over the vox.

‘Divine Retribution. Acknowledged, glad to have you with us,’ came the reply from the nearest bomber.

Katarzyna Ostrowski, pilot of Divine Retribution, looked across at the Marauder.

‘Rookies,’ she thought. Katarzyna buzzed her tail gunner, Marek Zajac.

‘They’ll be below us on our starboard flank, Zajac. Keep an eye on them.’

‘You’re not getting all sentimental in your old age, captain, are you?’ said Zajac in mock surprise.

‘If they go down, you’ll be next in line for those ork fighters, Zajac. So make sure they are still there to soak up any punishment.’

Katarzyna tried to sound more callous than she felt. This was her third tour and she had seen more than enough novice crews downed on their first mission. She hoped that today there would not be another one. Besides, she rather liked the look of their upper turret gunner.

‘Makes sense to me, captain,’ acknowledged Zajac. He looked across to Emperor’s Grace. He could see the face of the pilot and bombardier through the cockpit window. He lifted his hand in greeting. The bombardier responded in kind. The pilot just looked at him, unmoved.

‘Rookies,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Emperor protect us.’

Mikal kept the crew busy with in-flight checks and mission protocols. Tension built as they descended through the outer atmosphere of Balle Prime. Above them the darkness of space receded as dawn rose on the far side of the planet, the system’s white sun casting strobes of light through the canopy and turret windows. Mikal dropped the visor on his helmet and peered down towards the deep blue of the ocean as they descended towards the planet surface. Clouds shrouded the main land mass but the large ocean regions were clear and featureless. Aleks updated them on their position at regular intervals, his voice sounding tighter with each announcement.

‘Fifteen minutes to target.’

Mikal scanned ahead as the rest of the squadron spread out to form a geometric cloud that would bring its own lethal rainfall to Balle Prime. In the far distance he could just about make out pinpricks of light that would be the engine trails of Thunderbolts from the 38th Fighter Wing leading the assault.

‘Dudak, Krol, Fyodor, any sign of the Navy fighters?’

Fyodor replied immediately from the tail turret. ‘Yes, captain, they are coming up behind.’

Krol confirmed the same from the upper turret. ‘Captain, I can see them now. They are climbing above our formation and look like they are holding position there.’

Mikal felt slightly more reassured, though he knew that feeling wouldn’t last long.

As the three squadrons descended, their formations tightened further. Vox traffic had dried up as each crew focused on the task ahead. They were coming in fast and low over the turquoise-blue ocean to the south-east of Balle-Delta. Mikal looked down at the tranquil beauty of the only part of the planet free of orks. Then he spotted patches of oil where Imperial vessels had been destroyed and it reminded him that ork flyers would be scrambling to meet this new threat coming in from the sea.

Ryll must have seen the same and his squadron leader’s voice cut in over the vox.

‘Expect ork fighters to be heading our way. They’ll know we are coming. Check guns.’

Mikal relayed the order.

‘Gunners, check guns.’

‘Emperor’s Grace shook as Krol and Fyodor pivoted their turrets and squeezed a short burst of bolter fire out over the ocean. The shuddering noise seemed to break the artificial peace of their approach. Dudak sent a pulse of energy down towards the waves from the nose-mounted lascannons and the smell of the energy discharge seeped back through the cockpit.

‘Ten minutes to target, captain,’ said Aleks.

‘Bernd, activate bombsight,’ said Mikal.

Bernd swung the viewscreen in front of him and adjusted the face rest, which covered his eyes like a rubber mask. Through this the Marauder’s forward sensors and pict-feeds would provide him with a digitally constructed image of the target, allowing him to guide his bombs’ trajectories onto the starport’s landing strip and hangars. Whatever smoke, obstructions or enemy countermeasures might impair the warzone, Bernd would ensure that their bombs found the target.

Mikal peered ahead and saw what looked like a severe weather system developing over the land mass of Balle-Delta. He frowned.

‘Navigator, I don’t remember a weather system being forecast over Balle-Delta?’

Aleks checked the briefing notes from his data-slate.

‘No, captain, nothing forecast.’

Bernd raised his head from the bomb site. Mikal heard Aleks leave his station and climb up to the cockpit to get a visual.

‘That’s odd,’ murmured the navigator, frowning.

Then Bernd spoke in alarm, ‘That’s not a weather system, it’s an oil cloud. Engine oil.’

As if on cue, a series of orange blooms appeared in front of the formation as a dozen Thunderbolts from the 38th exploded in mid-air. Out of the dark cloud ahead of them emerged a swarm of black-and-red dots with twinkling lights along their wings. The lights spat lethal cannon and stubber fire, which raked the first wave of the Imperial formation. The Thunderbolts responded immediately and a score of the approaching black dots disintegrated in fiery comets before the formations passed through each other.

Ryll came over the vox.

‘Ork fighters heading our way. Maintain formation and make your shots count.’

‘How come the auspex didn’t pick them up?’ asked Aleks, staring ahead at the carnage.

‘Never mind that,’ said Mikal, as he briefly remembered the frightened face of the hangar rating. ‘Get back to your station.’

Aleks needed no further encouragement and ducked below. Bernd, his bombsight forgotten, was scanning the scene in front of him.

‘Holy Emperor, there are thousands of them,’ he blurted out, all calm assurance gone.

‘Bombardier, bombsight, now!’ ordered Mikal.

Bernd buried his head back into the bombsight mask. Mikal stared ahead as the epic scale of Waaagh! Ugskraga rolled towards the 1167th. Some ork fighters had peeled off to pursue the Thunderbolts, but the rest seemed hell-bent on ploughing into the bigger bombers that followed. Imperial Lightnings swooped overhead as their fighter escort accelerated forward to meet the oncoming threat.

‘Dudak. Mind those Lightnings. Choose your target and wait for my command,’ said Mikal.

‘No shortage of targets,’ said Dudak aloud and his turret hydraulics whined as he adjusted aim on the fast-approaching ork fighters.

‘Five minutes to target,’ said Aleks, sounding more composed now that he was cocooned below with his familiar screens and charts.

The gap between the two opposing formations closed rapidly. They flew at each other like ranks of cavalry from the sagas of ancient Terra. Suddenly, lights flickered across the mass of ork aircraft and a score of the lead Marauders exploded. Immediately lascannons opened up from across the 1167th’s first wave, then the second wave and finally…

‘Fire!’ commanded Mikal. The flash and burn of Dudak’s lascannons announced the arrival of Emperor’s Grace to war.

A speck atomised in the distance, followed by another and another as Dudak fired and traversed his turret like a forge worker stitching a line of rivets into a plasteel wall. Then the Emperor’s Grace came within range of the ork guns and Mikal heard the whistle of hundreds of projectiles zipping past the Marauder like supercharged hornets.

He felt a shudder and flinched as a bang reverberated through the airframe. A red warning light immediately lit up on the starboard outer engine. Mikal glanced over Bernd’s hunched shoulders and saw orange flames streaking from the exhaust cowling above the wing.

‘Bernd. Starboard outer’s gone. Douse it.’

Bernd lifted his head from the bombsight wide-eyed. He looked to his right and swore. ‘Throne of the Emperor.’

He reached forward and hit a control switch and a white cloud instantly streamed back from the engine cowling, dowsing the flames and freezing the overheated turbine in seconds.

Mikal turned just in time to see what seemed like a huge black cloud expanding in front of the cockpit. He realised too late that it was another of Dudak’s kills exploding in a mass of burning promethium and smoke. Mikal instinctively closed his eyes as Emperor’s Grace flew straight through the firestorm and he heard sickening thumps as debris collided with their leading edges.

Emperor’s Grace shuddered again as Krol’s heavy bolters opened up, followed immediately by Fyodor’s. The lead ork fighters had screamed past them and come within the fire arcs of the Grace’s eager upper and tail turrets.

Mikal tried to track some of the ork flyers. He had never seen aircraft like these before. Bizarrely proportioned airframes were distorted by oversized engines spouting filthy flames and oily exhaust clouds. Crude black, yellow and red markings adorned rivet-strewn wings and fuselages. Most striking of all though were the ranks of guns chattering incessantly from cowlings to blunt wing tip. For the first time since joining the Imperial Navy, Mikal began to feel that the Marauder’s defensive armament may be, in fact, inadequate.

He was snapped out of this revelation by a sharp series of bangs that fractured the armourglass canopy in front of him. Through the cracks he saw an ork fighter hammering towards them, guns blazing. At the last moment the fighter moved out of their flight path and Mikal had a brief impression of a leering green face in goggles. It had a long white scarf trailing out of an open cockpit, like some sort of bygone fighter ace. The alien’s mouth, an enormous maw surrounded by tusk-like teeth, was wide in a roar of either anger or laughter as it flashed past them. Recoiling from this bizarre image, he stared ahead into what could only be described as a nightmarish vision of hell.

Marauders were plummeting downwards, pouring flames in their death spirals. The sky was full of dismembered wings and engines, separated from doomed airframes and cartwheeling through the air like macabre confetti. Dense clouds of black smoke marked the final catastrophic location of obliterated aircraft of unknown origin. Tracer and lascannon fire stitched the sky in all directions and he felt the Grace shudder as some of these found their mark whether by intent or by accident.

Mikal looked up to his left and was relieved to see Divine Retribution still there, its turrets spinning and firing like deranged eyeballs. The sight of another Marauder bomber flying straight and true helped him regain his focus and suppress the growing sense of panic that was bubbling up from his stomach. His composure was further strengthened by the urgent but continuous communication between the Grace’s gunners.

‘One coming port side, Krol.’

‘Dudak, tracking him… He’s yours, Fyodor.’

‘Got him.’

‘Fyodor. Watch out, there’s another, seven o’clock.’

Mikal could hear both Krol and Fyodor’s bolters hammering away as the Grace juddered with fresh impacts on his port side. Then there was a dull thump from somewhere behind them and Krol yelled in satisfaction. ‘Yes!’

‘Some help there from Divine Retribution’s tail gunner, captain,’ said Krol.

Mikal looked across at their sister vessel, glad that they were not alone.

Then from the corner of his eye he saw the port inner engine streaming oil and fluids from a jagged line of holes in its side. He checked his instruments and saw a blinking red warning light indicating a major fuel leak in that engine. Mikal turned to Bernd, whose head was buried in the targeting console, his hands on the joystick and release button. Before he could say anything, Aleks called out from below.

‘Two minutes to target.’

‘Bomb bay doors open,’ responded Bernd.

Emperor’s Grace lurched slightly as the opening doors created drag from below. Mikal gripped the control column more firmly and kept the Marauder flying true and level.

He glanced quickly to his left and saw that the port inner engine was now emitting wisps of smoke and knew he had no choice but to shut it down. He reached in front of the preoccupied Bernd to hit the engine shutdown switch.

‘Bernd, I’m shutting down the port inner engine, keep focused on the target.’

The Grace yawed slightly at the loss of thrust and Mikal adjusted the rudder pedals with his feet. As the bomber responded, Bernd called out.

‘Target identified, starting bomb run.’

Mikal peered ahead but all he could see was billowing black smoke rising that obscured the starport, the result of whatever damage the first waves of Thunderbolts and Marauders had done to the target. As they approached the dense black cloud, Dudak’s front turret was deprived of targets. Krol and Fyodor were still firing almost continuously from the upper and tail turrets. Bernd, hunched over the bombsights as if in prayer, started intoning over the vox.

‘Steady… Steady… Keep her there, captain…’

Mikal looked ahead and saw that Divine Retribution, with all its engines still operational, had pulled ahead. The Retribution’s bomb bay doors were open and its tail turret was twisting and spitting bolter fire at targets behind both aircraft.

‘Steady… Steady…’ continued Bernd, his back hunched and hands claw-like on the trigger mechanism.

Mikal saw tracer arcing up from the starport below them like a fountain of orange and red shooting stars. He knew he couldn’t dodge them even if he had wanted to, committed as they were to their bomb run.

‘Steady… Holy Terra!’ yelled Bernd as flak ripped up through the port wing.

Mikal fought with the controls and saw Divine Retribution drop its bombs.

‘I’ve got her, Bernd, just get those bombs away,’ he said, straining with the effort.

Bernd seemed to pause for a split second, frozen over the bombsight and then said, ‘Bombs away.’

Despite Mikal’s efforts, the Emperor’s Grace bucked upwards, not from any more hits, but from the release of three tonnes of high explosive ordnance that whistled down towards the primary target. The Marauder surged and so did Mikal’s spirits. First job done. Now for the secondary target: the ork tower. He peered ahead through the rising clouds of ash and smoke.

‘Bernd, switch to missiles and scan for that tower.’

Aleks called up excitedly from below. ‘By my reckoning it should be directly ahead.’

Bernd toggled the joystick as he scanned the targeting auspex seeking the new target.

Mikal watched Divine Retribution disappear through the rising column of black smoke ahead of them, and knew he would have to follow them through it blind.

‘Got a lock on that tower, Bernd?’ asked Mikal urgently.

‘Not sure, captain. I think the auspex is a bit shaken up,’ replied Bernd tersely.

Mikal cursed. ‘Keep looking. Dudak, can you see anything?’

Dudak’s nose turret had begun tracking an ork fighter that had raced across in front of them.

‘Captain?’

Before Mikal could reply, Emperor’s Grace was enveloped by the column of smoke. Soon after, all his guns fell eerily silent as Dudak, Krol and Fyodor were momentarily deprived of targets. Amplified by the relative silence, Mikal’s next question seemed unnecessarily loud.

‘Dudak, have you seen that ork tower yet?’

‘No, captain, not yet… Holy God-Emperor!’ yelled Dudak.

Emperor’s Grace emerged from the smoke and there immediately in front of them was the heavily damaged, but still standing, ork tower. Its monstrous and crude construction loomed over them like a huge tombstone about to mark their imminent demise.

In the moments that followed, time seemed to slow for the crew of Emperor’s Grace and several things happened at once.

Bernd convulsively pulled the targeting trigger and two Hellstrike missiles shot forth from the starboard wing mounts.

Mikal instinctively yanked the control column to port and kicked the rudder pedals hard to accelerate the turn.

The port wing dipped, the starboard wing swung to the vertical and yells of panic came from the remaining members of the crew. With spine-compressing G-forces, Emperor’s Grace banked away from the ork tower.

As she did so, an ork fighter with a white scarf billowing from its cockpit hammered past them and into the tower.

The combined force of two Hellstrike missiles and a promethium-laden ork airframe created a huge fireball around the tower. Emperor’s Grace was caught by the shock wave and catapulted away like a slingshot from the 1167th’s secondary target. As he hauled back desperately on the control column, Mikal heard Fyodor yell from the tail turret.

‘Captain, the tower! It’s falling.’

Mikal couldn’t spare a glance backwards as he fought to pull Emperor’s Grace out of her dive. Mikal righted the bomber slowly, his hands shaking with adrenaline. Then his brain processed the fact that they were still flying and not tumbling to their deaths in burning ruin. The Grace had responded sluggishly, as if, like him, she needed to catch her breath after their close escape from death.

Bernd looked up from the bombsight for the first time since he had started the bomb run. His eyes squinted as he adjusted to the kaleidoscope of colours that assailed his senses. Planes were still buzzing across the sky from all directions, bombers were burning, flak was bursting around them, and tracer fire criss-crossed the air like a multicoloured light show.

Mikal saw the look of shock and confusion on Bernd’s face. The normally composed bombardier struggled to digest the nightmarish world into which he had emerged. For the last two minutes he had been shielded from it by the comparative calm of the targeting screen. Was it only two minutes? It had seemed like two hours.

‘Bernd, check the port wing. I think we took a hit,’ said Mikal urgently but firmly. He needed to snap Bernd back fast. He needed his help to get Emperor’s Grace and her crew away from Balle-Delta fast.

‘What? Right, captain,’ said Bernd. He looked over Mikal’s left shoulder. His face went pale with shock. ‘Captain. The outer wing’s a mess.’

Mikal couldn’t help himself and twisted in his seat. Bernd was right. There was a jagged rip just beyond the port outer engine and nothing beyond that. That explained why only two starboard missiles had fired at the tower; the two port missiles had been lost with the rest of the wing. Mikal didn’t want to think about what would have happened if one of those missiles had exploded while still attached to the bomber. He tore his eyes away from the mangled airframe and spoke urgently but clearly to the crew.

‘Aleks, I need a heading to get us out of here and back to the Implacable Advance. Bernd, check how much fuel we’ve lost and whether we have enough to get us back into the upper atmosphere. Gunners, how are we doing on ammunition?’

‘I’m down to my last five hundred rounds,’ reported Krol.

‘Slightly less,’ said Fyodor.

There was no reply from Dudak.

‘Dudak? Are you there? Dudak?’

Static on the vox.

‘Bernd, get forward and see what’s happened to him,’ ordered Mikal.

‘Orks, captain,’ cut in Krol’s voice urgently. ‘Fighters, five o’clock.’

Almost immediately Krol and Fyodor’s bolters opened up. Mikal kicked the rudder pedals to starboard as tracer fire whipped past the canopy. Bernd was thrown against the fuselage as he attempted to get forward to Dudak’s turret.

‘Fyodor, seven o’clock!’ said Krol, all coolness lost from his voice. Bolters chattered in unison. Mikal hauled the joystick over to port to change direction again and heard Bernd groan as he was flung to the other side of the fuselage. A pair of flame-coloured rockets sped past, their greasy vapour trails spiralling over the Grace’s starboard wing.

‘Terra, that was close,’ said Aleks as he heard the rockets explode ahead of them.

Mikal banked the Grace again and Bernd staggered back into view, gripping the bombsight for support.

‘Dudak?’ asked Mikal.

‘Shock. That tower. Thought he was dead,’ said Bernd as he struggled back towards his seat. Mikal kicked the rudder hard again. Too late.

There was a huge bang behind the cockpit and Mikal instinctively ducked. The whole airframe shook and Krol’s bolters stopped firing.

Smoke and a cloud of shattered glass blew around the cockpit. Even through his respirator Mikal picked up the distinctive smell of cooked meat. Confused, he looked up and saw Bernd staring incongruously down at his flight suit. A fist-sized hole had punched straight through his chest and out through the front fuselage. Bernd turned his head slowly towards Mikal and, as the life left his eyes, he toppled forward onto the control column. Emperor’s Grace dropped her nose and fell from the sky. Bernd’s body pinned Mikal helplessly against the cockpit wall and he could feel the bomber begin to accelerate into a death spiral down towards the sea of Balle Prime.

‘Holy Emperor. Aleks. Get him off me. Get him off!’

Mikal wrestled with the dead weight of Bernd’s body as the control column lay jammed between them. The Grace’s remaining two turbines began to whine worryingly as their airspeed increased. Mikal felt desperate. This was not how he was going to die. Not this way. Not today.

He felt his ever-present rage build inside him and this time he did not attempt to contain it. He used years of frustration and anger and channelled them into this death struggle which he simply refused to lose.

‘You useless lump! Get off me!’ he screamed into Bernd’s lifeless face, inches from his own, and with an inhuman surge of adrenaline he hefted Bernd’s blood-soaked chest away from him. The body pitched across the cockpit and crashed into Aleks, who had struggled up from his station to help. The diminutive navigator was sent flying back down onto his chart table, with Bernd pinning him to it like a drunken lover. Aleks stared horrified at his friend’s flaccid features before rolling Bernd off him and onto the floor. He saw the gaping wound in his friend’s chest, pumping arterial blood in crimson fountains across his normally ordered workspace. Aleks screamed.

‘What was that?’ asked Fyodor over the vox. ‘Krol? Krol?’

Mikal had no time to respond. He had grabbed the control column, now sticky with blood, and wrenched hard, using the adrenaline still coursing through his body. He pushed hard on the rudder pedals and gradually Emperor’s Grace responded. Slowly the spin corrected. Mikal clenched his teeth and hauled the control column back into his midriff and the nose of the crippled bomber edged upwards.

‘Krol? Krol?’ continued Fyodor.

‘Shut it, Fyodor.’ Mikal barked.

‘Captain. Who’s screaming? Is it Krol?’

Mikal disengaged Aleks’ vox on the panel in front of him and the screaming was abruptly cut short.

‘Fyodor. The fighters? Where are the fighters?’

‘Fighter, captain,’ corrected Fyodor, ‘Krol got one. Before we got hit.’

The Grace was now flying level and so Mikal risked a look over his shoulder to see what had happened to Krol. He saw the shattered remains of the upper turret. Krol’s headless body was hanging in his harness straps. Mikal turned back to his instruments. Bernd and Krol. The Marauder’s interior was looking like an abattoir, he thought callously.

‘Fyodor, listen,’ he said firmly and clearly. ‘Krol and Bernd didn’t make it.’ He heard nothing from the tail gunner.

‘Fyodor,’ he said. ‘Ammunition status?’

There was a further pause.

‘Fyodor,’ he repeated, louder.

‘None, captain. I’m dry,’ said Fyodor.

Mikal wasn’t surprised. Fyodor had been firing almost continuously since they started their bomb run. ‘Right, I need you to keep alert. Report any orks that come stalking us,’ said Mikal in a measured tone.

‘Like that one, you mean,’ said Fyodor.

‘What? Where?’ said Mikal. He swung round in his chair and gaped. There, just off the shattered stub of the port wing, was an ork fighter. In it was an ork pilot, leering at him with fiery red eyes.

The ork aircraft was painted black with chequered trim around its huge engine nacelle. Beneath its wings hung empty missile racks. Its forward facing guns were silent.

‘Out of ammunition,’ said Mikal.

As if reading his mind, the ork pilot shook his huge head and broke into a wicked smile. He jabbed a clawed thumb back towards the rear of the fighter’s cockpit. Mikal looked at the rear of the ork’s grimy canopy and saw a diminutive greenskin manning a pair of rear-facing, heavy stubbers. The second greenskin was desperately trying to pivot the guns round to get a shot on the stricken Marauder. Mikal realized that the angle was too acute. Then the greenskin began jabbering to its pilot, who nodded and, with a belch of oily smoke from its multiple engine exhausts, the ugly aircraft started to pull ahead of Emperor’s Grace. Mikal knew that the ork pilot intended to get far enough in front of the Marauder to allow his gunner to get the kill shot. A mistake, as it turned out.

The twin-linked lascannons of the Grace’s nose turret burst into life, sending a blaze of energy straight through the fighter and out the other side. There was a blinding flash and the ork aircraft, pilot and crew vaporised in a shuddering explosion.

Mikal was momentarily stunned.

‘For Bernd and Krol,’ said a voice over the vox.

‘Dudak,’ said Mikal.

A laugh came from the tail turret. Or was it a sob?

Then there was silence on the vox and it dawned on Mikal that for the first time since the attack began they were alone in the air. They were clear of Balle-Delta and heading out to sea. And they were still flying. Barely.

Mikal knew he had to grip his remaining crew if they were to have any chance of getting back to the carrier. He looked over to the navigator’s section. Aleks was rocking back and forth on his chair, Bernd’s body face down at his feet. Aleks wasn’t screaming any more. Mikal reconnected his navigator’s vox.

‘Aleks. I need you to plot us a course for the Implacable Advance.’ No response.

‘Aleks? Can you hear me? I need a course from you,’ Mikal said. The navigator continued to rock back and forth.

Dudak responded instead. ‘Captain, I can see a Marauder ahead of us.’

Mikal peered ahead and sure enough he saw pinpricks of light from afterburners in the distance. It was Divine Retribution.

‘Good spot, Dudak,’ he said, relieved. ‘That’s our course.’ Mikal eased the control column back and pointed the Grace towards their wingman. He reached forward to wipe dried blood from the instrument panel in front of him and noticed for the first time that his hands had stopped shaking.

On the Implacable Advance, Ryll swung down from the forward hatch of his aircraft, Emperor’s Wrath, and headed across the launch bay towards the control bridge. Crews were disembarking from their battered aircraft, those who could still walk. Medicae units were scurrying from plane to plane, retrieving burnt and tattered bodies or in some cases clambering aboard to perform emergency procedures on crewmen whose injuries were too critical to allow them to be moved. Losses had been high, one aircraft in four. Of those bombers that had survived, most had taken a beating. Ryll was not happy as he strode up the gantry to the control room. There he found Borkowski, bent over auspex screens, checking off the returning bombers.

‘Borkowski, who’s still out there?’ he demanded.

Borkowski studied the auspex for the serial number of the last aircraft.

‘EMGR2243,’ Borkowski reported in a mechanical tone.

‘Who’s that?’ said Ryll as he came over to look down at the manifest.

‘Emperor’s Grace.’ Borkowski said.

‘The rookies?’ said Ryll, surprised. ‘I thought they had ploughed into the ork tower?’

‘It appears not,’ said Borkowski.

They both looked down at the landing bay to survey the clusters of surviving crews who stood waiting for the final aircraft to arrive. Some started pointing and both officers watched the launch bay entrance as Emperor’s Grace eased herself into view.

‘Holy Throne of the Emperor,’ said Ryll.

Borkowski’s steel jaw twitched but he said nothing.

Emperor’s Grace hovered uncertainly just above the landing bay deck on her two remaining engines before dropping a little unsteadily to land with a bump. All eyes around the landing bay were on her, transfixed by the appalling damage she had sustained.

The Marauder’s mangled port wing leaked hydraulic fluid like an amputated limb. Her two useless engines were blackened and blistered, flanked by their overworked, smoking twins. Her interior airframe was visible through the countless holes and tears in the bodywork and light shone through the multiple perforations of the tail section. The upper turret was shattered and there was the unmistakable stain of frosted blood trailing back along the fuselage. Little could be seen of the Marauder’s original paint scheme under the soot and scorch marks that covered most of its surfaces, the result of the fireball from the near miss with the ork tower.

In the landing bay, no one moved, no one ran forward to assist, as if none could imagine anyone was still alive inside the aircraft. They were looking at a flying coffin. Ryll left the bottle of amasec in the control tower as he headed for the landing bay.

Inside Emperor’s Grace, Mikal unstrapped his respirator and sat motionless for a few moments. From the tail turret, Fyodor broke the silence.

‘Permission to disembark, captain.’

‘Right,’ said Mikal. He didn’t know what else to say. He knew he should be relieved, glad even at surviving his first mission. Instead he felt ashamed. He felt ashamed of how he had felt towards Bernd when his shattered body had almost brought them to ruin. He could not bring himself to look at Krol’s corpse hanging like a broken doll behind him. The other member of his crew he had failed to bring back alive.

Dudak’s voice broke into his darkening thoughts.

‘The squadron leader, captain.’

Mikal looked out through the shattered window panel and saw Ryll emerging from the assembled crowd.

Not now, he thought.

He struggled up from his chair and sought out Aleks. The navigator was still rocking back and forth on his seat, his eyes tight shut.

‘Aleks,’ said Mikal leaning down into the navigator’s area. ‘Aleks.’

The navigator continued rocking back and forth.

Mikal reached over to rest his hand an Aleks’ shoulder. At that moment someone began opening the crew hatch from the outside. The tortured metal of the Grace’s fuselage screeched as the buckled housing was wrenched apart.

Aleks stopped rocking at the sound and opened his mouth wide. He began to scream.

Mikal gripped his navigator’s shoulders. ‘Aleks, stop.’

Aleks kept screaming. Mikal wrapped his arms around the hysterical navigator and lifted him down onto the Grace’s gory deck.

That is where Ryll found them, the pilot, navigator still in his arms, wedged next to the corpse of the bombardier. All were covered in dried blood. The pilot looked up at the squadron leader, his eyes cold as he repeated the same mantra from cracked lips.

‘We must not show weakness, we must not. To show weakness is death…’

WRAITHFLIGHT

Guy Haley

The wayseers sang their songs, songs that remembered days of glory and days of beauty. Sad songs that were never intended to be so, glad songs made sorrowful by their singing in these terrible times. The webway responded to these paeans of glory still, though the singers were of a diminished people. The membrane of reality split. The gold of the webway changed to the black of space. The Great Wheel’s cold embrace awaited the Iyandeni.

Iyanna Arienal reached out to the dead around her. To those within the infinity core of her ship, Ynnead’s Herald. To those in the Hemlock fighters, and in the cores of the battleships. To the ghost warriors crewing the ships of the Wraithborne squadron, to the spirits guiding the wraithbombers. There were many. In the fleet of Iyanden, the dead outnumbered the living.

+We go again to war,+ she told them.

The unliving shifted, their attentions turned from the things of the dead. The urge for revenge kindled in their slow thoughts. The escort of Ynnead’s Herald formed up about the cruiser, awaiting further direction, the Aconites of the Wraithborne, House Haladesh’s undying navy. Dozens of fighters waited behind.

The webway opened like a mouth and disgorged the fleet of Iyanden from its golden throat. On swift wings, craft after craft sped into real space, their yellow-and-blue livery bright against the black.

Before them was the world the humans called Krokengard, an ugly name for an ugly planet. An ash-grey atmosphere marbled with pollutant cloud obscured the surface. A dying world, infested with the human plague. And yet even this poisoned morsel appealed to the Great Dragon. The tyranids of Starving Dragon, that which the humans called Leviathan, attacked. Human ships fought them, desperate to keep their soiled den safe.

At the back of the bridge of Ynnead’s Herald, Iyanna Arienal lay upon a couch. She was surrounded by other spiritseers. The Angel of Iyanden was curled at the centre, the other seven arrayed about her like petals around the heart of the most perfect of flowers. From the point of view of those piloting the ship, the spiritseers were arranged on the vertical plane, but gravity’s constraints meant little to the eldar. Three living crew manned Ynnead’s Herald: two steersmen and their captain. Behind the spiritseers’ station stood wraithguard. A crescent of a dozen of them, still as tombstones, watched over the Angel of Iyanden. Many more of the dead passed as bright lights through the exposed infinity core of the ship, lending their power to the vessel, working its systems. Among them were mighty dead, those that had carried their strength and purpose with them through the gates of Morai-heg.

The helmets of the spiritseers were off. Their eyes were shut. Their breathing was steady. To an observer, Iyanna might appear to be a sleeper, albeit one with troubled dreams. A frown creased her perfect brow. Her eyes were agitated behind lids tinted a delicate blue.

She was not alone in her disquiet. The hive mind hurt the eldar. As the ships left the webway, it was a sudden weight that descended and threatened to crush their souls. Snared in the hive mind’s psychic shadow, their minds became as sluggish as those of the dead. So far out from the tyranid ships, and yet dread insinuated itself into their hearts. The hive mind had adapted. The roar of its composite soul had increased twentyfold since the Battle of Duriel. Where before it had brought pain and despair, to draw close now spelled death for sensitive eldar psyches.

Lesser eldar might quail and flee at this intimate violation; the Iyandeni did not. Bitter experience made them strong. Their anger outweighed their fear. The Great Dragon was not the only being capable of adaptation. The Great Dragon was not the only being that made use of the dead.

+Forwards,+ Iyanna sent.

The sails of the battle group filled, the engines of the attack craft flared blue. They picked up speed, and moved away from the main battlefleet of Iyanden.

The hive fleet of Starving Dragon stretched out in an elongated teardrop billions of lengths long. The vanguard was close to the planet. Beaked monstrosities and tentacled assault beasts were only several hundred thousand lengths from Krokengard. This front wave was being pounded by a line of human ships and orbital defences. A mist of organic detritus clouded the stars. But the humans could not win. Every living ship destroyed saw the Great Dragon gain on the humans’ position. Every one killed had a dozen replacements. More were coasting into the system with each passing cycle.

Iyanna had seen examples of artifice from many human cultures. At the height of their art, humanity had made ugly things, and in this age of the Corpse-Emperor they were far from their height. Their ships were an offence to the eye.

There were those philosophers who took grim delight in pointing out how the humans’ fate was unfolding as a cruder version of the Fall. Iyanna did not agree. Their fate was an inverse of the eldar’s. The humans’ god had been alive, and was dying a slow death. He could not save them. Her goddess Ynnead was yet to be, and undergoing a long birth. Her advent would restore the eldar. Yet the humans thought themselves masters of the galaxy.

The time of humanity was ending. In future ages historians would look back upon this interruption of eldar dominance and note the passing of mankind with disinterested diligence. For sixty million arcs the eldar had ruled the stars. They would do so again, and soon. What was ten thousand arcs of despair in the face of sixty million? This was an era of renewal. Humans were vermin infesting a closed-up home, unaware that the true owners would soon return.

The human ships, though unlovely, were holding their own. Iyanna was forced to admit that. But their defiance would not last; the teardrop was flattening, growing denser. Soon, all the voidspawn would arrive at the battlefront and the human fleet would be smashed, the world they protected devoured.

That could not happen.

Ynnead’s Herald rolled and swept from side to side, her steersmen making the ship dance for the joy of it. Behind her came dozens of eldar fighter craft. Nightwings and the Nightshade interceptors of Crimson Hunters, all piloted by living eldar, fanned out in three crescent-shaped attack wings. These split further into two squadrons of six each, each squadron guarding a similar number of Hemlock wraithfighters.

The ships of the living spun and jinked, surging ahead of one another as eager as dolphins in spray. In marked contrast, the craft directly behind Ynnead’s Herald flew steady on courses so straight they did not appear to be moving at all. These were wraithbombers, piloted solely by the dead. Through the tumult of the warp, they looked to Iyanna, lidless eyes fixed upon the glimmer of her soul. She was the beacon guiding them to their duty. Her mind was joined to them via the infinity core of Ynnead’s Herald; she was with them. A slender thread of fate separated her from them, and it could so easily be cut.

+Lord Admiral Kelemar, I am moving to engage.+ Her message was hard to send and harder to hear, a weak shout against the psychic roar of the hive mind. Only the large number of ghosts within her ship enabled it to be heard at all. Their energy impelled her thoughts, boosting the machines that conveyed her sendings. She considered switching to simpler technology, but the hive mind assaulted them on every level, and the electromagnetic interference was as bad as the psychic.

Kelemar responded. +The Great Dragon sees you through a billion eyes, and adjusts his coils. Be wary, spiritseer.+

Iyanna followed Kelemar’s mental impulse. Parts of the fleet were breaking away from the main swarm, setting themselves a defensive perimeter.

+Sweep them from the stars. Allow us safe passage through.+

+Shatter the web, and we will follow,+ responded Kelemar.

For the moment, the main body of the Iyanden fleet hung back away from the tyranids, at the edge of the hive mind’s well of pain. They could approach no closer. From this relatively safe distance, delicate war barques and sinuous battleships sent invisible blasts of energy into the tyranid vessels manoeuvring to block Iyanna’s attack. Shattered shells leaked lakes’ worth of fluid into the path of her battle group that froze or boiled away into clouds of icy gases.

The strength of the hive mind grew and grew as Ynnead’s Herald pressed on. The pressure was immense, even though Iyanna and her group were shielded from the worst of it. Her contact with Kelemar slipped away. She became apprehensive. Like all their encounters with the Great Dragon, there was an element of desperation to this gambit. Every battle brought new perils and new evolutions. Iyanna forced herself to relax. She must keep her mind clear so as not to confuse the wraithkind. They would win as they had won all their recent battles. It was preordained.

She pushed herself into deeper communion with the wraith pilots. The scales of mortality fell away from her second sense and she saw the world as the deceased did. The glittering shield projected by the multitudinous dead of Ynnead’s Herald extended before the cruiser, sheltering her attack group from the full power of the hive mind. The dead protected the living.

Beyond the shield she saw the Great Dragon’s true form. Not the hideous intrusions into the mortal realm that swam the black star sea, nor as a farseer might see it, as a great and braided cable of malicious fate dominating all the skein. The first was merely a part of the whole, the second psychic abstraction. What Iyanna instead saw was the reality of its soul.

It was a great shadow when seen from afar, a wave of dread and psychic blindness that preceded the hive fleet’s arrival. But the greatest shadows are cast by the brightest lights, and seen closely, the soul of the hive mind shone brighter than any sun.

She was so close now that she perceived the ridged topography of its mind, larger than star systems, an entity bigger than a god. It contemplated thoughts as large as continents, and spun plans more complex than worlds. It dreamed dreams that could not be fathomed. She felt small and afraid before it, but she did not let her fear cow her defiance.

Against this vista flickered the souls of eldar, their jewel-brightness dimmed by the incomparable glare of the Great Dragon. And this was but a tendril of the creature. The bulk of it stretched away, coils wrapped tight about the higher dimensions, joining in the distance to others, and then others again, until at a great confluence of the parts sat the terrible truth of the whole. She stared at its brilliance. Unlike her passionless dead warriors, who felt nought but the echoes of wrath at the sight, she was fascinated by the beauty on display. She thought, if only such a thing could be tamed it would drive out She Who Thirsts forever. If only its hunger was for things other than the meat and blood of worlds…

She ceased her speculation. Such an entity was entirely other, inimical to all life but its own, a giant animal intent only on its prey. There was no thought to its doings, no intellect. It was cunning. It exhibited signs of an emergent, mechanical intelligence, as evolution might appear to possess if sped to the rate of change the hive mind evinced. But there was no true intelligence to it. The hive mind was non-sentient.

As they came closer to the battle, human psychic sendings, crude and ill-formed as their craft, teased at her higher senses. She doubted another human could have caught these missives, overwhelmed by the roar of the Great Dragon. But she felt them, although to extend herself past the ghost shield to find them exposed her to the raw power of the hive mind and seared her inner being. She read the messages’ sense, and snatched herself back to safety.

They were inelegant poems, messages sketched in dull metaphor.

All were horrified pleas for help.

The infinity core of Ynnead’s Herald pulsed. Her captain spoke.

‘Lady Iyanna, the humans are attempting to hail us.’

+I know+ she sent. Her mind voice echoed from the fabric of the bridge. She thought a moment, wishing she had a farseer’s prescience. +Allow their transmission.+

A frantic human voice crackled into life. Their technology was no match for the fury of the swarm, and much fine tuning was required by Ynnead’s Herald before the words became discernable. ‘Eldar craft, please identify yourselves. Eldar craft, are you friend or foe?’ Whether this made any material difference was doubtful – her ships were too distant and swift for the humans to draw firing solutions even had they not been battling the Great Dragon.

Iyanna found humans disgusting and fascinating. The words were little better than the grunts of animals, slopped out of skilless lips, but the emotions behind them were pure if weak, and they betrayed something higher. Iyanden remembered them from before their first fall, when they had been something better. She could not truly hate them because of that.

‘Have you replied, Yethelminir?’ She spoke aloud, an alien and uncomfortable sensation while she lay in communion. Half wrenched from the perfect wrath of the dead, she was repulsed by her own flesh. Her body was a thing of clotted clay, her teeth rough stones set into it, her tongue a corpse-worm that writhed between the stones.

‘No. The humans are still requesting an audience,’ said Captain Yethelminir dreamily. He was also half lost to the craft’s infinity core, drowning in the comfort of the dead as she did. He was tall, beautiful, his robes as colourful as a rainbow, but his face was as grim and shaped by sorrow as that of any Iyandeni. ‘Shall we speak with them? They may be useful.’

Iyanna considered. She agreed.

‘I will speak with them.’ A channel was opened, attuned to the crass technology of the mon-keigh.

‘I am Iyanna Ariennal, spiritseer of Iyanden,’ she said. Human speech was so limited, incapable of conveying subtlety other than at great length. She was thankful for that. They would take what she said at face value. ‘We come to offer aid.’

There was a delay, messages restricted to the speed of light. A psychic impression came long before their reply. The sense of relief was palpable. These were creatures who would burn her alive simply for being what she was. How things were different when they were alone and afraid. The minds of the mon-keigh were blunt as pebbles.

Presently, a human male appeared in a vision bubble. The machines of Ynnead’s Herald perfectly reproduced his ugliness. His face and voice betrayed his suspicion.

‘I am Captain Hortense of the Glorious Conquest. We should consider coordinating our efforts. What are your intentions?’

Iyanna opened her eyes, and allowed her image to appear to him. ‘We kill their mind ships, then their mother.’

Another pause.

‘The great vessel at the heart of the fleet?’

Iyanna inclined her head slightly. To an eldar, this would have indicated an affirmative, although one layered with sarcastic approval at the other so obviously stating the correct option. Then she remembered with whom she was speaking. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘We are close. Your disruption of their flank will allow us to penetrate deep into the swarm. We will press forward and destroy them! We fight together?’

Iyanna winced at the rough barking of the human’s speech. Spit flew when he spoke. Eldar children had more control of themselves. ‘Yes. Together.’ She said it slowly, lest the human not understand. ‘Hold them from turning back, until we have disrupted their psychic network. Then you must press forwards without delay.’

He stared at her dumbly while her message winged itself on artless wave forms to his craft. Then he nodded, invigorated. She was help unlooked for. Relief ran with the sweat from his face.

‘Perhaps we might…’

‘I have spoken.’

She cut their chatter with a thought. The humans were tiring to listen to. She had deeds that must be done. Her attack group neared the outer limits of the swarm.

‘We approach our target, Lady Iyanna,’ said Yethelminir. ‘The psychic shielding is holding. The dead perform their task and shield us well.’

Iyanna was sorrowful at this news. The wraithkind expended much of themselves to protect her. They would be lesser because of it. Some would fade away, consumed.

‘In one half-tenth cycle we will be among their picket ships,’ continued Yethelminir. His eyes flicked back and forward, viewing some machine-projected display only he could see.

In the eyes of the dead, their target resolved itself from the glare of the Great Dragon as a knot in its complex being-web. One of the great hive ships, not the largest, but important nonetheless. The oppression of the hive mind was great so close to such a thing, and would grow worse the nearer they went. The dead had no such issues. There was no physical form their souls could be driven from. Iyanna led the ghosts of Iyanden to their vengeance so that the living might follow.

The shattered bodies of tyranid ships floated by. More were moving up to plug the gap. Already Nightwings and Crimson Hunters were engaged in quick battles with vermicular torpedoes and serpentine hunter-killer creatures that chased them on tails of bright green bio-plasma.

First the way must be cleared.

+Cut the crone’s cord,+ sent Iyanna.

At her command the Hemlocks raced forward, the escorts blasting away the anti-ship spines and grubs that came at them. They tore towards their targets, bringing their weapons to near range. Grappling tentacles on closing kraken ships waved in anticipation. Anti-laser ice fields puffed from spiracules. Flesh chaff belched from subsidiary mouths.

This kind of defence was useless against the weapons of the Hemlocks.

A howl built in the othersea, the outraged wailing and pain of the dead. It set Iyanna’s teeth on edge to hear it, and she was one well accustomed. She felt the anguish of the warlock pilots as they guided the fury of the dead into the weapons pods of their craft. These fashioned the essence of the dead into a scythe whose screaming edge cut the soul. Pain spiked every eldar mind within range, followed instantly by relief as the psychic weapon swept through the warp, severing the souls of the hive ships from the hive mind. Their pseudopods and chelae ceased to writhe, and their propulsion systems’ emissions puttered out. Bioluminescence flickered.

Dead shells were all that remained.

The minds of the ships guarding the psychic node vessel were gone. They floated lifeless upon the tides of battle. The oppressive pressure of the hive mind lessened a little. Iyanna grinned savagely.

+On! On!+ she sent, her triumph goading the dead further. They drew closer to the hive ship.

The firing tubes of unaffected tyranid craft spasmed, bursts of gas venting from their weapons exhausts. A shoal of anti-aircraft worms sped towards the Hemlocks.

The Hemlocks peeled aside in perfect formation. One was hit by a worm that ripped into its wing as straight as a spear. With the target reached, the worm lost its stiffness. It flailed loose then wrapped itself around the ship and squeezed hard. The fighter exploded in shards of glittering wraithbone. The psychic screams of its warlock pilot and wraith co-pilots were keen against the dull roar of the hive mind. Even there, in this space of light and shadow dominated by the fires of the Dragon, Iyanna heard the distant, insane laughter of She Who Thirsts.

Another craft exploded, smashed by a missile of bloody raw bone. A third ran foul of a cloud of tiny beetles who came alive upon its skin and chewed their way down in a frenzy. A fourth then a fifth exploded, consumed in plumes of plasma.

‘The Dragon is targeting the Hemlocks,’ said Yethelminir.

+Of course it is,+ sent Iyanna.

But the others were past, the Crimson Hunters escorting them weaving through the worms and serpents and tentacled things. They rent them to pieces with their bright lances. Others performed high-speed flicks of their wings to cast the worms off for their following squadron mates to eviscerate with laser fire.

It was done. An empty funnel of space lined by the soulless husks of defence creatures led directly to the node ship. Iyanna focused her witch-sight upon it, imparting urgency to the wraithbombers that flew in her wake. She dwelt upon her own memories of the Triple Woe, recalling the invasion of Iyanden by the tyranids. Domes shattered by organic weapons, gardens consumed by mindless beasts to make more mindless beasts with no thought for the sublimity of being. Eldar, quick and beguiling in life, ground to paste under the hooves of living tanks. Her own anger burned hot as a flame.

+Now,+ she thought to them.

The minds of the spirits were quickened by Iyanna’s memories. Their lust for vengeance dragged them out of their dreamworld and back, for a time, into the material realm. Howling with grief, the eldar wraithcraft sped at the hive ship, curving elegantly around the drifting bodies of its dead escorts.

Iyanna watched through the eyes of Ynnead’s Herald, temporal and psychic. In the Great Wheel, the ships cut across the blackness strewn with flesh chunks towards the slug-like hive ship. The size of it was impressive, as big as a large world dome upon Iyanden. It was too strongly linked to the greater part of the hive mind to be excised from it by the disruption scythes of the Hemlocks, and too invested with the Dragon’s might for the living to come close to. Physical destruction was the only option. Frost sparkled on gnarled skin pockmarked by aeons of void travel. A tentacled head, tiny in comparison to the astronomical bulk of its thorax and abdomen, writhed at the front. The other end terminated in a flat leech-like tail. Lesser creatures scuttled over its body, seeking firing positions for the enormous cannons grafted into their backs. Shell-plaques slipped open over firing orifices along the lateral line of the ship.

Glistening weapons ports emptied munitions into space. The hive ship quivered as it opened fire. The weapons beasts dwelling upon its carapace trained their parasitic cannons on the wraithbombers and vomited glowing plasmas.

Iyanna gritted her teeth. The wraiths were too slow to avoid the fusillade on their own. The ghost ships of the wraithborne supported their smaller brethren. Pulsar and plasma cannon fire annihilated swathes of the living missiles, but there were so many. Iyanna and her fellow spiritseers guided the wraithcraft as best they could. An agony of choices. There were too few spiritseers to guide them all, too many souls to save. Which vessel would it be that had their guidance? Which vessel would then be unguided, and blindly crash into the anti-ship fire? Iyanna chose which souls would return to the infinity circuit of Iyanden and which would suffer the worst of all fates without thinking. After the battle, she would be horrified by her choices, whatever they were. She had no time for that now. She put the anticipation of grief from her mind.

The wraithbombers closed on the head and the flank, those going aft seeking out the great ship-birthing canals on the underside. The wraithborne raked the hive ship with punishing pulsar fire.

+Release your revenge, dead of Iyanden,+ Iyanna thought. Her mind-sending was repeated seven times by her servants.

Missiles streaked from swept-forward wings. They swam the void sea as things born to it, swerving elegantly past anti-ordnance spines spat from the hive ship.

The missiles had been adapted, taking inspiration from the burrowing creatures of the hive fleet. They plunged into the surface of the vessel, fusion generators at their tips melting deep into the creature’s body. Seconds later, unlight bloomed. Iyanna looked away. She made the dead look away. Perfect globes opened a way into the warp, and for the briefest fraction of time, Slaanesh looked at them directly with ravenous eyes. How terrible, to be caught between two insatiable appetites.

The portals shut. The hive ship’s flesh was riddled with vast spherical spaces. It writhed in agony, its death scream horrible. As it faded, another built. The Great Dragon roared with fury as a part of its limitless spirit was obliterated. A black space appeared in the light of the Dragon’s soulfire. The pressure in the minds of the eldar lessened further.

Outside the cordon of living ships, Admiral Kelemar continued his bombardment. The hive fleet, still stretched thin as it entered the system, was engaged on three fronts. It bulged outwards towards the main body of the Iyanden fleet. They flitted away, pulsars sounding their invisible, soundless songs of death.

To the front, the Imperial fleet pushed forward towards the chief vessel of the Dragon, the norn ship. Several of their ships drifted, the beaks of tentacled kraken ships buried deep in their hulls. The remainder attempted to lumber into advantageous firing positions. They were heavily beset, but Iyanna’s strike near the core of the hive fleet was drawing away reinforcements from the front, and they were coming close to their prize.

Iyanna selected another vessel, a bloated thing like a leathery jellyfish surrounded by darting shoals of fighter craft. This was much smaller, not a main-line hive vessel, but a potent node nonetheless.

+Target the second,+ she sent.

Again the Hemlocks cleared the way, and again the wraithbombers delivered their deadly cargo. As the synapses were severed and the hive mind dwindled in potency, Kelemar brought his fleet in closer, sweeping over the swarm and raking it with deadly fire.

So it went, again and again, until a seventh great ship died under Iyanna’s attack.

The humans had penetrated into the heart of the swarm, where they pounded the great norn ship, where the tyranids’ terrible queen dwelt. The battle was won for the eldar.

+That is the last of them. Withdraw,+ Iyanna ordered. Instantly, her ships came about, and headed through the debris field they had created, back towards clear space.

+Casualties are light in the living and the dead. You are to be congratulated, my lady,+ sent Kelemar. With the synapses of the swarm destroyed, the hive mind was reduced to a background hiss, and they could communicate freely again.

+It is fated,+ sent Iyanna.

She began to ease her mind from the world of the dead. Before she was done, she sat up and stretched, letting her soul sit in two worlds. The sensation of her own body went from disgusting to glorious as she slid back fully into her physical being. The stretch of her muscles delighted her, and she smiled.

‘The humans signal us again,’ said Yethelminir.

Iyanna shrugged. Allow them to speak, the shrug said, but I do not care what they will say.

Captain Hortense’s face appeared again. It was clouded, his lumpen human features exhibited dismay, or some simple human feeling akin to it. ‘What are you doing?’

‘We have accomplished our task,’ said Iyanna. ‘The skein has shifted in our favour. The future conforms to our design.’

The pressure of the hive mind, already broken by their extermination of the hive ships, diminished further as Ynnead’s Herald sped back towards the webway gate.

‘You are leaving us to die! You are leaving our world to be consumed.’

‘Not so,’ said Iyanna. ‘Look.’

Upon the grey marble of Krokengard a flame was lit.

Hortense was distracted for a moment, his crew delivering information. Iyanna knew what it must be. Hortense’s face hardened.

‘This, it was all a ruse. You came to attack us!’ His mouth twisted. ‘Exterminatus! You have destroyed our world. “Perfidious are the eldar, trust them not!”’ He quoted some human religious text. ‘I should have known no kindness would come from you.’

Iyanna could have cut the feed, but she did not. Some feeling crept into her for this lesser creature. He had fought bravely. ‘A Fireheart,’ she explained. ‘A device to destroy this world so that the Great Dragon may not feast upon it. We kill you, yes, but it is better we do than the Great Dragon draw sustenance from your world.’ She paused. ‘You have my apologies.’

She surveyed the battle. The hive fleet remnants fought on, disunited but deadly still.

‘To attack these creatures and aid you further would result in unacceptable losses to my people,’ she said. ‘There are times coming when we will fight by your side. Today is not one of those occasions. The ship of their swarm-queen is dying. This world is dead. There is nothing for them to feed on but their own dead, and nothing to reconstitute them if consumed. This tendril is destroyed, and the way through here will offer no sustenance should the Great Dragon choose to force it in future. Surely this is worth your sacrifice? One world for many?’

She blinked, examined the human curiously. She pitied him. His own kind did the same elsewhere, and yet he was still appalled. How many others had he thoughtlessly condemned himself? One’s own extinction always seemed to matter more.

‘If you withdraw now you might save some of your ships,’ she continued. ‘You have, after all, nothing left to defend here.’

Hortense spluttered. She hoped he would heed her.

‘This is an ou–’

Her psychic impulse ended their conversation.

‘Take us home, Captain Yethelminir,’ she said. The captain bowed.

‘Yes, my lady.’

The webway gaped wide, and Ynnead’s Herald accelerated towards it. Behind them, the pyre of Krokengard’s destruction shone brightly.

Iyanna was triumphant again. Fifteen worlds had been denied to the ravening hunger of the Starving Dragon by the deployment of the Firehearts, funnelling it away from the eldar towards…

Something was wrong. A sensation at the back of her mind. The sensation grew teeth, became pain.

Her soul was gripped by agony.

Iyanna screamed, falling from the edge of the couch. The pain abated, then squeezed her anew. She vomited.

The dead were dismayed. The blow against her raced out across her attack group, leaping from mind to mind. Wraithbomber engines guttered out. The Wraithborne’s sleek cruisers turned viciously, wallowing in psychic swell.

Bright light burned at Iyanna’s soul. A long tunnel telescoped away, encompassing infinite distance. A tube stabbed through the fabric of the world. She felt its ripples in the warp. She felt its ripples in the webway.

She had the sense of an eye, slave to a great power. An intellect that dwarfed the Great Wheel of the galaxy. She opened her second sense, to find the Dragon looking at her with terrible regard.

For aeons it seemed it held her in its gaze. And there was fury in that examination.

The Dragon was angry, and it was angry with her. Not with the galaxy, or this sector, or her species. But with her personally. The promise of endless torment came from it, her very being enslaved to its ends and used against others, her body rebuilt over and again so that it might suffer the Dragon’s revenge.

Terror of a kind she could not have conceived of flooded her mind. She screamed again, and this time every eldar in the fleet screamed with her.

When she awoke later, Ynnead’s Herald was dark. She exhaled brokenly. Her legs were weak. She hauled herself to her feet by grabbing at a couch’s cocoon. Her fingers had no strength to them. The other spiritseers lay limp in their cots. Two, she was sure, were dead.

The steersmen were slumped over their control jewels and the captain was a crumpled peacock on the floor. The main viewing bubble glowed still. Through it she saw the eldar fleet was in disarray, drifting powerless. The humans fought on, however. The norn ship burned fiercely. Was this what had severed the connection between her and the Great Dragon?

Thinking of the contact made her nauseous.

As her mind reached out to the ship, the dead of Ynnead’s Herald woke too, creeping from their hiding places in the infinity core, shocked and timorous.

The lights came back on. A dull glow from the walls that grew until the ship looked as it should. Yethelminir groaned and rolled over. He stood shakily, struggling with his iridescent cape to free his arms. The steersmen and other crew came to groggily.

‘My lady?’

‘I am well, Yethelminir,’ she said. Her eyes were fixed on the desperate battle. The hive fleet was shattered. Even bereft of direction, the individual ship-beasts were still deadly, and the humans were outnumbered twenty times to one.

She watched as one of their light cruisers was snagged by a trio of kraken ships. It broke apart, its reactor dying with a bright plasma flare.

She came to a decision.

‘Lord admiral?’ She spoke aloud.

There was a long pause before Kelemar answered.

‘My lady?’ His voice was weak.

‘What is the status of your ship? Your fleet?’

‘They are undamaged. My crew are distressed. Some are dead.’

‘Rouse them.’

‘What was that?’

‘The Great Dragon,’ she said. She kept her voice cold, frightened her fear would creep into her words. If it did, she was sure she would lose her mind. ‘Bring your ships back into battle order.’

‘We do not return to Iyanden?’

‘We do not return to Iyanden. We remain to help the mon-keigh.’

‘That was not in the plan.’

‘Plans change,’ she said. ‘Every weapon will be needed in the coming fight.’

Slowly, the eldar fleet regained its prior order, and drove on back at the tyranids.

‘Tell the humans we are coming,’ she said.

Yethelminir nodded. His face bore lines it had not had before.

Iyanna slipped back into her couch and reconnected with the dead pilots of the wraithbombers, informing them of their new task.

They welcomed it gladly, for the vengeance of the dead knows no bounds.

DOOM FLIGHT

Cavan Scott

The city was ablaze.

Sergeant Kerikus pushed down on the stick and Wrath of Aquila dropped into a dive, the baleful roar of the gunship’s engines echoing through the blasted streets. Ruined buildings stretched up on either side like a canyon, debris from below whipped up in the Stormtalon’s wake.

Flying this close to the battle-ravaged streets was risky. The slightest miscalculation would bring certain death. A bank of burnt-out towers rushed towards him. If Kerikus didn’t pull up soon the Stormtalon would careen into their blackened shells. Even a split second of hesitation would be fatal. Behind his battle-helm, the sergeant’s cold grey eyes narrowed. He was a Doom Eagle. There would be no hesitation, no indecision. No second chance.

The hulking land transporter thundered ahead, thick barbed wheels churning up the already ravaged road. He’d spotted the dense smoke belching from its engine from a mile away, his mouth instinctively curling in disgust. He could almost smell the foul reek of the scum hanging from the rust-eaten plating, hear their stupid cries of alarm as his Stormtalon swung around behind them.

The orks were swarming over the truck now, trampling over each other to reach the oversized gun turret that was bolted haphazardly to the transporter’s uneven roof. Others had produced crude hand weapons, almost tumbling from the racing vehicle in their eagerness to bring him down.

‘Not this time.’

As stubber fire danced across the Stormtalon’s nose, an automatic rune flared on Kerikus’ helm-display: side-mounted lascannons locked and ready to fire. Kerikus thumbed the trigger and the transporter immediately erupted into a ball of incandescent flame. The Stormtalon tore through the sudden inferno, the heat of the blast scorching the Wrath’s silver undercarriage. Kerikus pulled up sharply, simultaneously rolling to the right. The gunship banked, rushing towards a gap between the oncoming buildings – an exceptionally tight gap. If Kerikus had belonged to any other Chapter he might have stopped to question the wisdom of running such a space. If Kerikus had belonged to any other Chapter he would be dead.

The Stormtalon sped through the gap with inches to spare.

No hesitation.

Kerikus only breathed again once the Wrath had climbed to a safe distance. The manoeuvre had been dangerous – foolhardy even – but it had also been necessary. The stinking creatures crammed into that transporter would have bolstered the ork defence. Some would argue that a few less greenskins wouldn’t make any difference, that the capital of Quadcana had already been lost. They would also probably misinterpret his determination for a death wish. While the Doom Eagles accepted, and even embraced, their mortality, they didn’t long for death and glory.

Death was inevitable. What mattered was your service to the Emperor in the years, or even seconds, before you breathed your last.

Kerikus came about, soaring above the city limits. He glanced at the tactical display, activating a status report with a blink. The entire squadron had been lost. On the screen, a solitary signal flared on the map of the city – Wrath of Aquila, the last ship in the air.

The battle had been swift and brutal, the outcome painfully predictable – signals blinking out of existence on the map with every fresh kill.

The sounds of their defeat replayed over and over in Kerikus’ mind, accompanied by a pict-feed of bitter memories that he wouldn’t soon forget.

He could still hear Malika’s curse as they dropped into Quadcana’s atmosphere to witness the scenes of total devastation on the surface, Captain Relyn reeling off the atrocities one by one across the vox.

‘Five billion dead. Defences completely routed. Temples desecrated. This cannot stand. Sergeant?’

Kerikus had picked up the briefing, even as the squadron fell into position, one hundred and twenty-five miles from the hive world’s capital city.

‘We are to take back Quadcana Prime,’ Kerikus had stated before Relyn’s voice had cut back in.

‘Or ensure that the city is utterly uninhabitable. Even for a hive world, the level of production here is astonishing. The weapon manufactories in Quadcana Prime alone would give the orks an advantage for years to come, decades even. While there is even the smallest chance of victory, we must fight.’

We will fight, Kerikus had thought automatically. He had given the command, even feeling a rush of pride as the Seventh Squadron had split into attack formations.

‘Can we expect reinforcements?’ Malika had asked as soon the captain’s group had broken off. Techmarine Tyrus had provided the reply:

‘Not for three days.’

‘So it’s down to us.’

‘Isn’t it always?’ Kerikus had snapped in response. They should have been focusing, not stating the obvious. When the call from the Quadcana central administration had reached the order, the surprise wasn’t that the orks had invaded the planet, more that it had taken them so long. Either way, the auspex was already bleating, ork fighters screaming in to meet them.

Kerikus had begun to give orders, when the captain’s voice has broken over the vox.

‘Enemy engaged. Never seen so many. Require immediate assis–’

The rest of the sentence had been lost in an explosion and an ear-splitting shriek of static. At that moment, Kerikus had become squadron leader. The operation was in his hands, the lives of his brothers in his hands.

Brothers that were now dead.

The Wrath continued circling the smouldering outskirts of the city. The skies above Quadcana Prime were still swamped with enemy fighters.

If he went back, he’d be shot out of the sky in seconds. A grim smile flickered across Kerikus’ dry lips.

We are Doom Eagles. We are dead already.

He opened the throttle, and Wrath of Aquila thundered towards the heart of the city.

Tracer fire strafed across the Wrath’s wings. Kerikus had expected to be picked up much earlier. It wasn’t as if the greenskins were mounting a citywide defence. He was but one gunship. And yet, the sergeant knew all too well the perils of underestimating xenos scum. What they lacked in intelligence, they more than made up in tenacity. They wouldn’t peel off until they had made the kill, or died in the attempt – sometimes both.

Kerikus checked the rear display, noting that his pursuer was gaining fast. The Wrath bobbed around burnt-out towers, weaving through masts and spires. There was no time to think, only act, to rely on the instincts that had kept him from joining the names in the Hall of the Fallen. Never stay level. Remain unpredictable. Leave the enemy guessing.

An unearthly wail of static burst through the cockpit’s speakers, disturbing Kerikus’ concentration for a microsecond – enough time to kill him. He pulled the Wrath into a skid, narrowly avoiding a jagged communication relay.

‘Dakkajet! Dakkajet! Dakkajet!’

The gruff voice ranted over the vox, accompanied by the percussive report of autocannons. Not taking his eyes from his flight path, Kerikus reached over, instinctively knowing where to find the operational runes without looking. His helm-display flashed up confirmation; the brute had somehow managed to hack into the Stormtalon’s vox-system, overriding the Imperial channel. Kerikus thumbed the control, attempting to shut off the ork’s manic chant, but to no avail. Rerouting the system would be fatally distracting, but there was more than one way to silence the infernal babble.

‘Dakkajet! Dakkajet! Dakkaj–’

Kerikus’ fist slammed into the vox-control, sparks flying over his clenched gauntlet. The ork’s cry distorted and was lost in a screech of white noise. Kerikus pummelled the dashboard until the speakers fell blissfully silent.

‘Better,’ Kerikus snarled as the savage unloaded another salvo into the Wrath. There was no precision in the attack, no finesse. The ork’s overriding strategy was to point itself at the Stormtalon and start firing. That’s what made it so dangerous.

All it would take was one lucky shot.

Switching to repulsor systems, Kerikus slammed on the air brakes, throwing the Stormtalon into a flat half-spin. It was an old trick, one of the first his flight instructor had taught on Gathis. Turn straight into the attack, putting your enemy on the defensive. Force them to react, to panic.

For a second, Kerikus thought he had made a mistake. The ork held its position, firing indiscriminately.

‘It’s going to ram me,’ Kerikus said out loud, realising the brute’s suicidal intent. He opened fire with the Wrath’s assault cannons, but still the ork didn’t pull away.

Then, at the last possible moment, the ork pilot threw its jet into a spiralling climb. Instinctively Kerikus yanked back on the stick, the Stormtalon vibrating with the unadulterated power of its twin thrusters as he gave chase, rocketing into the leaden sky. The ork was racing for the sanctuary of the storm clouds high above.

‘No escape for you that way, alien.’

Warning klaxons sounded as he hung on the ork’s tail, climbing almost vertically now, dangerously close to a stall. The question was what would cut out first, the engines or his brain? Despite the best efforts of his Lyman’s ear, the extreme pressure of the crushing G was almost too much. A human pilot would have blacked out by now, but even his enhanced physiology was struggling to cope. His peripheral vision was failing, what little colour he could still see bleached grey as the G-forces starved his brain of oxygen. He was shutting down, the scream of the repulsors flattening, losing their immediacy. Time was becoming elastic, stretching away from him. Seconds became minutes, minutes hours. He could hardly feel the stick gripped tight in his hand.

‘Give in to it,’ he yelled, hardly recognising his own slurred voice in his ears, ‘Why won’t you black out? Why won’t you–’

Metallic hail clattered against the Stormtalon’s armourglass canopy, forcing Kerikus to focus. The ork was drilling back down towards him, raining solid-shot from above.

‘Impossible.’

Kerikus pulled hard on the column. The gunship rolled to port, the horizon lurching back into view as the fighter zoomed past, inches from his rudder.

No time to consider how close that had been. Kerikus didn’t need the inclinometer to tell him how hard the Wrath was banking as he pulled her about, his eyes searching the sky.

‘Where are you?’ A beam of weak sunlight glinted off a canopy at three o’clock.

‘There.’

Unbelievably, almost miraculously, the ork had turned and was streaming back towards him. It was a wonder that thg accursed heap of metal could even fly, let alone pull off such an impressive manoeuvre. The jet looked as if it were about to fly apart at any second, ragtag iron plates bolted randomly across a seared hull, high-calibre cannons mounted where they had no place to be.

This would end now. Kerikus hadn’t survived this long to be outmanoeuvred by an ork opportunist.

Gunning the engines he closed in, crosshairs appearing on the canopy’s head-up display as the assault cannons locked on target. Armoured fingers squeezed around the trigger and cannon fire danced across the air, raking the side of the ork’s precious jet. There was a flare as one of his rounds found a bomb nestled beneath the jet’s blood-red wing, followed by the satisfying billow of inky, black smoke. The ork veered off to the right, trying to get away, but Kerikus wasn’t giving up that easily. He swung about, almost tasting the kill. All it needed was one more salvo to–

Kerikus’ head snapped up as sparks danced off the reinforced canopy, the Stormtalon’s auspex kicking in just a few seconds too late. A second fighter was bearing down on him, peppering his sensor array with stubber fire.

‘Two of you,’ he growled, realisation finally dawning, ‘Two of you all along.’ The second bird must have been waiting to swoop the moment the first had pulled up into a climb, taking advantage of Kerikus’ momentary disorientation. This wasn’t a newcomer – it was the plane he’d originally engaged.

‘Clever, clever greenskins,’ a grim smile played across Kerikus’ lips, ‘but not clever enough.’

Ruddering hard to the left, Kerikus wrenched the stick to the right, skidding out of the way of the diving enemy craft. The bomber passed so near Kerikus could almost make out every rivet in its grimy undercarriage.

Gambling that the fighter would struggle to pull out of such a violent dive, Kerikus looked for the other plane. It had peeled off, heading further into the city. Running for cover.The Doom Eagle opened his throttle and powered forward. More risk. The best time to take down an enemy? When they’re concentrating on blowing another target from the sky. He’d have to be quick, before the second jet came around.

Realising the targeting cogitator would take too long to lock on, Kerikus switched to lascannons and squeezed, his machine jolting as the weapon unloaded. Twin bolts of azure energy lanced forward, slicing into the fighter’s rear stabiliser, cleaving it away from the tail. The stricken craft immediately spun into a nosedive. Kerikus banked, craning his neck to see the kill. He would never understand orks. Even as it fell, the pilot opened up with every gun mounted on the craft’s snaggle-toothed nose, firing in desperation at the ground. Perhaps it was frustration or maybe the idiot actually believed he could blast the planet out of the way. Either way, the jet disappeared in a searing ball of orange heat when it made contact.

The crash had taken seconds, but by the time Kerikus had levelled up, the second fighter was back on him. The ork fired but was out of range, the hail of bullets dropping off before reaching his tail. Now was his chance. Pulling back on the stick, Kerikus forced the Wrath into a tight climb, gravity slamming him back into his harness.

‘Stay awake,’ he willed himself. ‘Stay alive.’ The Stormtalon inverted, the ground now beneath the cockpit. As he reached the zenith, Kerikus ruddered hard, rolling out. The perfect half-loop. The jet that had been tailing him was now in his sights, his genhanced eyes narrowing as he saw the ork pilot bellow in impotent fury as the Wrath came in to strike.

‘Dakkajet?’ Kerikus sneered as he reached for the trigger. ‘Dead jet.’

The Space Marine never made the shot. The auspex sounded a second before the gunship bucked, throwing Kerikus against his restraints.

The Wrath dropped into a dive, damage reports scrolling across his helm-display. A direct hit from below. No time to work out how. He needed to get the nose up, pull the Stormtalon out of its dive. Below him, wrecked Imperial tanks smouldered on the streets. He wouldn’t join them. Not like this. Not today.

Dense smoke poured into the cockpit, stinging his eyes. The acrid smell of electric fires followed a second later, so strong he could taste it, bitter against his tongue. Grating alarms clamoured for his attention, but he couldn’t risk the distraction. All he cared about was the stick, yanked back so far he feared it would snap beneath his fingers.

Slowly – too slowly – the ship began to respond, righting itself to the shriek of overreaching engines. Kerikus pushed himself back into his chair, as if a few more inches between him and the cracked roads would make any difference, and visualised roaring back into the sky. Nothing else mattered. Not the sound of the ground-to-air guns that had got a lucky hit and almost brought him down, or the ork fighter that was no doubt coming about to finish him off.

‘Not now,’ he hissed, his teeth clenching so hard they hurt. ‘Not. Now.’

Throwing up a bow wave of detritus, Wrath of Aquila streaked forty metres down the ravaged street and, finally, climbed back into the fray. Anti-aircraft shells whistled past the canopy as Kerikus screwed the Stormtalon into a spiral and the warning runes blinked out one after the other. He glanced at the auspex. No essential systems had been damaged in the strike. Internal fires extinguished. No fuel lost. The only concern was the port vector engine. It was only functioning at eighty-nine per cent efficiency, still within safety parameters, but a weakness all the same. He would have to adapt tactics on the fly, only attempt manoeuvres that favoured the starboard engine. Hardly ideal, especially with an ork that had tasted blood closing in.

Blazing shot streamed past the canopy like angry fireflies. The fighter was back and, according to the rounds zinging off the Wrath’s armour plating, close at hand. Kerikus slewed to the left, his opponent looming large on the rear display, every barrel emptying into the Stormtalon. Kerikus tried to shake it off, but the fighter clung to his tail, matching his every move. He would have been impressed, if his assailant weren’t a vile, stinking greenskin.

A warning rune flashed in the periphery of his vision. He was pushing the port engine too far, too fast. There was a real danger of failure if the chase continued much longer. It had to finish one way or another.

He pulled about, rolling back on himself, trying to force the ork to overshoot, but the maniac threw itself straight into the Wrath’s vector. It was going to ram him, to plough straight into his tail. He caught a glance of the pilot’s hateful face, its lips drawn back in a rictus grin against the rushing air.

The ork’s head exploded behind its cracked canopy screen and the fighter dropped, tearing past the Wrath, its stabiliser scoring the gunship’s undercarriage. The Wrath bucked with the contact but maintained course. Kerikus twisted to see another gunship screaming in from above, following the pilotless fighter down. Another Stormtalon, resplendent in the silver-and-red livery of the Doom Eagles. Instinctively, his eyes flicked to the status report. There was no identification rune on the map, no indication that it was in the sky at all – but Kerikus’ eyes didn’t lie. He had thought he was the last, and yet here was another survivor of the Seventh. No, Emperor be praised, two survivors. A second Stormtalon was dropping down from the clouds even as the doomed ork fighter tumbled out of the battle.

There were three of them. Doom Eagles fought to the end no matter what the odds, but the odds had just considerably improved.

The first Stormtalon, the one that had saved him, threw itself into a climb and came level, flying wing to wing. Kerikus reached for the vox-system, pausing only as he recalled his fist slamming into the controls. As the second Stormtalon dropped into formation, Kerikus tapped the side of his helm, miming that his vox was out. The pilot to his right waggled his wings, indicating he understood, and then gestured forwards, out of the city. The message was clear. Get out of the danger zone and regroup. Kerikus tapped his fuel gauge with a gloved finger. One fuel cell was already spent and he’d been in the air for over an hour. His battle-brother was right. Plans needed to be made.

Dipping his wing to show his agreement, Kerikus settled the Wrath into the skein and allowed himself a wry smile. The day wasn’t over yet.

The cloying stink of burning buildings hung heavy in the air – a sickening reek of charred rubber, plastek and meat. They’d found a disused airstrip on the edge of the city, weeds already sprouting through the cracks in its thick landing pads. A sweep of the area had told them that the vicinity was free from ork infestation. The greenskins were converging on the heart of the city. There was no sport for them this far out. No weapon factories, no supplies, no one left to slaughter.

In the distance, Kerikus could see infernos spreading unchecked. His stomach clenched at the thought of the thousands of corpses being engulfed in the flames, bodies blackening, souls wasted – slaughtered on the altar of war. So many pointless deaths. The sergeant raised his face to the heavens and closed his eyes, renewing his pledge to the Golden Throne for the thousandth time. When his death came it would count for something. It would make a difference.

Heavy boots crunched over the gravel behind him. Opening his eyes, he turned to see the imposing figure of Brother Malika striding towards him. Even for a Doom Eagle, Malika was formidable, a pocked scar stretched over his shaven head.

‘Brother Tyrus is nearing completion of his work,’ the Space Marine reported, his voice a deep rumble.

Kerikus glanced over to where the Techmarine was ministering to Wrath of Aquila. Clad in his traditional rust-red armour, Tyrus was standing stock-still, a hand pressed against the gunship’s plasteel skin, head bowed, as if in prayer, although Kerikus had seen the Techmarine perform the same ritual time and time again. A lifetime ago, when growing up on Coan, Kerikus’ uncle had claimed to be able to communicate with the horses by pressing his palm against their flanks, sensing what they were thinking from his touch. While he was sure his uncle had been deluded, he had no such doubts about Tyrus. The Techmarine was the best he had ever met. Solitary and taciturn he may have been, but his gifts were far more valuable to the squadron than his conversation. Kerikus knew many viewed the Techmarines with distrust, wary of their loyalties, but not he. When you spent so much of your service relying on a machine to survive, you blessed those who maintained your craft.

‘What is the verdict?’

A rare glint of humour flickered over Malika’s eyes. ‘Let’s just say that he wasn’t pleased with the way you treated your vox. What was the word he used? Blasphemy? I can’t remember.’

Kerikus half smiled. To Techmarines, equipment used in service to the Emperor was sacred, from a simple round of ammo to the largest warship. He could imagine Tyrus’ face when he seen the ruined controls on the Wrath’s console.

‘It was a necessary evil rather than a lack of respect. But is it fixed?’

‘The Wrath’s machine-spirit is appeased and – more importantly – communications have been restored. You’ll no longer be cut off from the world.’

‘I thought I was alone in the world,’ Kerikus admitted, still not quite believing he was standing talking to a battle-brother, ‘that you were lost during the second strike.’

‘We were outnumbered.’ A shadow passed over Malika’s dark face, the silver service stud above his right eye dropping into a crease with his frown. ‘Our formation smashed in the first wave.’

‘But you escaped.’

Malika’s eyes flared and Kerikus immediately regretted his choice of words.

‘I survived. Thanks to Tyrus. We regrouped and planned our next move. I wasn’t willing for our deaths to be meaningless. We needed to be sure that when they came, they cost the enemy dearly.’

Spoken like a true Doom Eagle. Kerikus acknowledged the sentiment with a sharp nod.

‘And the adaptations to your ship’s sensor readings... Impressive.’

‘Tyrus feared that the orks may try to bastardise equipment from one of the wrecked Stormtalons, to use the squadron reports to find us.’

‘So he removed your transponders. Silent running.’

‘We needed an element of surprise if we were to succeed.’

‘Your attack on the main munitions dump.’

‘According to intel, the orks have been gathering weaponry together in the centre of the city. We planned to take it out–’

‘Or die in the attempt,’ Kerikus interrupted.

‘If that was the Emperor’s will.’ Malika visibly bristled. ‘If we could reduce their stash before the reinforcements arrived...’

‘If reinforcements were coming they would be here by now,’ snapped Kerikus, unnerved by Malika’s naivety. The Space Marine had a century’s experience behind him. It wasn’t as if he were a Scout, new to battle. ‘Besides, the orks now control the best weapons manufactories in this sector. Do you really think they have ceased production just because they’ve salvaged more armaments than most Guard units see in a lifetime?’

Malika glared at his superior officer, but if he’d considered responding to the rebuke, his training at least told him to hold his tongue. This was not the time for argument. It was the time for action. Malika respected the chain of command enough to realise that.

‘Apologies, sergeant, I...’

Kerikus raised a gauntleted hand. ‘We have a new target. Come.’

He strode towards the Wrath, power armour whining with every step. Malika immediately fell in behind, although Kerikus could feel his glare boring into the back of his head. It didn’t matter. He knew Malika of old. The Space Marine would use his frustration, redirect it towards the enemy.

As they neared the gunship, Tyrus turned, fixing the sergeant with a glowing bionic eye.

‘Both your vector engines are fully operational,’ the Techmarine reported without being asked. ‘I have recalibrated your altimeter and repaired the vox-controls.’ The disapproval in Tyrus’ voice was impossible to miss. ‘Fuel cells are in a regenerative cycle, although power levels are seriously depleted.’

‘They’ll be enough for what I have in mind,’ Kerikus commented, hauling himself up to the cockpit and retrieving a data-slate from where it was stowed beside his flight seat.

Jumping back to the launch pad, he thumbed the slate. A map of the city appeared, glowing emerald against the obsidian screen. The sergeant rested the device against the Wrath’s gun housing and Malika peered closer.

‘This is our new objective,’ Kerikus declared, a statement, not a topic for debate. ‘The central power complex. Over one hundred linked plasma reactors powering every factory and domicile in Quadcana Prime.’

‘Control that and you control the city,’ Malika observed. Kerikus let the comment slide, zooming in on the power plant. Data scrolled down the side of the slate’s screen as the target was set. Shield generators. Entry points. Weaknesses in the defence grid. The complex was one hundred and twenty kilometres from here, to the west of the massive conurbation. No more than four minutes away, at top speed.

‘Expect heavy resistance, from the ground and the air. We need to fly in high and drop down. The orks’ ground defences are short range–’

‘They will have fighters patrolling the area.’

Kerikus nodded, his mouth a grim line.

‘Estimated enemy numbers at the target location?’ asked Tyrus, his one remaining organic eye scanning the complex’s schematics.

‘Unknown, but we cannot risk sending in a scout. With a full squadron an exploratory flypast would be an option, but...’

‘...there are only three of us,’ stated the Techmarine, his face betraying no emotion.

‘We stay together. When we are engaged, employ standard swarm tactics.’

Malika nodded. ‘Regularly switch targets in strict rotation.’

‘Never concentrating on one. Stay on top of them. We want them as low as possible so we have all the advantages...

‘...and they have none.’ Tyrus’ voice was as impassive as his aspect. Kerikus extinguished the data-slate. He knew he could trust this last remnant of their once proud squadron. In the midst of battle there would be no time to recall tactics anyway. In the theatre of combat, an aeronaut didn’t have time to think, just react. Malika and Tyrus would do their duty. They might even achieve their goal. If not, he knew what he had to do. Resting the slate on the cannon stack, Kerikus brought his hands up to his chest-plate, spreading his fingers to form the aquila.

‘The Emperor is our protection,’ he intoned, his brothers mimicking the gesture, Tyrus bending his fingers to make the sign of the cog favoured by members of the Cult Mechanicus.

‘The Emperor is our guide,’ they responded.

Kerikus let his hands fall back to his side. ‘And we shall be His teeth.’

Tyrus had done a fine job. Wrath of Aquila was responding well, even better than before.

Kerikus led the formation, the other gunships at his four and eight o’clock. A suspicion nagged at the back of the sergeant’s mind. Perhaps he should have outlined the entirety of his plan, taken the battle-brothers into his confidence, but would the knowledge have affected their decisions in the heat of battle? There was still a chance they could take the complex. That had to remain their primary objective. The alternative, no matter how inevitable, would remain just that until all other avenues were exhausted. A choice to be made when the moment arose. No doubts.

No hesitation.

The Stormtalons thundered across Quadcana Prime, staying at four thousand metres, the tortured cityscape stretching out in front of them.

‘Two minutes to target,’ Tyrus reported over the vox and Kerikus instructed the others to hold their positions. They had yet to be engaged but...

‘Sergeant, enemy at two o’clock.’ Malika’s voice was primed with eagerness, ever ready for combat. The sergeant turned to see a swarm of ork fighters flying in what laughably could be called a formation. While they were still forty kilometres away, they were closing fast, flashes already erupting from the front jets. Incredible. Even though they hadn’t a hope of reaching a target at such range, the gunners were already firing.

‘Turn into them,’ he commanded, banking towards the incoming storm, his battle-brothers mirroring his manoeuvre. They surged forward, crosshairs automatically picking out targets. The plan was simple. Appeal to the orks’ bloodlust, distract them from whatever loose strategy they were employing, encourage them to make mistakes.

Thirty kilometres.

Almost immediately the fighters fanned out, four – no, five – similar to the pair he had faced earlier. But they weren’t alone. In their midst a larger, more daunting craft hung in the sky. While the standard fighters were armed with simple stubbers, the crimson bomber’s wings were festooned with all manner of missiles and bombs. Emperor knew how it even got off the ground.

‘Death Deela,’ Malika all but snarled over the vox.

‘Who?’ Kerikus asked, switching his guns to lascannons and dropping the Wrath back into formation.

‘The scourge of the skies,’ came the response, Malika’s voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘All but worshipped by his kind. More kills than any other fighter.’

‘Let’s make sure he doesn’t add to his tally today. Defensive split on my mark. Three, two, one – mark!’

Twenty kilometres away all seven aggressors opened fire, screaming in for the kill. Malika and Tyrus immediately peeled off to the sides while Kerikus inverted, throwing himself into a loop. The gambit immediately paid off. The orks scattered, forced into chasing multiple targets, a couple of fighters almost smashing into each other in their haste.

The world turned upside down and Kerikus was rushing down at the overshooting fighters, negative G-forces pressing him back into his chair. An ork had veered up, but couldn’t match the Wrath’s vector. The Stormtalon’s las-fire sliced through its fuselage, finding a fuel tank. The fighter unfurled in a ball of flame and Kerikus barrel-rolled through the blast, bringing himself up, another target in his sights.

The scarlet fighter had mud-brown smoke flowing erratically from its wing and was being bombarded by Malika’s heavy bolters. As he sped past, Kerikus unleashed his cannons again, cutting into the enemy’s tail, but came about, leaving Malika with the kill. There was plenty to go around.

Ahead Tyrus was chasing a lone fighter, spiralling up to the clouds.

Kerikus scanned the horizon. ‘Where are you, scum?’ he hissed. They couldn’t afford to let him out of their sights. A missile shrieked across his line of vision, coming from behind. He glanced at the rear viewer. Two fighters coming in at four o’clock. Death Deela, flanked by a wingman.

‘There you are,’ Kerikus hissed, slamming on his air brakes and pulling starboard, flying straight across the ork’s path. The fighters overshot, Kerikus coming hard around, planning to pick up their tail until he spotted Malika was in trouble. He was chasing down a fleeing fighter but had another hanging off his tail, stubbers blazing.

Kerikus viffed his engines, levelling up, and toggled his guns over to assault cannons. On his helm display, the glowing crosshairs had already locked on to the pursuer. The ork had made a fatal error. It was so intent on bringing down Malika that it was flying straight and true – an easy target. The Wrath juddered as the cannons hammered the jet, shrapnel dancing up the aircraft’s hull towards the open canopy. The pilot jerked like a grotesque marionette in its seat as the shells ripped its body apart, the plane instantly screwing into a death-spin.

Kerikus pulled a crisp turn, coming up behind Malika just as a missile launched from his battle-brother’s port array and took out the fighter ahead.

That made four by his reckoning. The odds had evened, but what of Death Deela?

A flash overhead made Kerikus look up. Another ball of fire had illuminated the fast-darkening sky, but this time there was no cause for celebration. A blazing gunship dropped from a hundred metres above them, crossing their flight path. He heard Malika curse over the vox. That was no ork. Tyrus’ Stormtalon sprayed debris as it dived to its destruction, its engines burnt-out. High above, Death Deela threw its bomber into a celebratory roll, another scalp to add to its count. As it turned, Kerikus spotted marks scored into the jet’s undercarriage, one for every kill. How many were fresh, added on this very day? How many of them represented his own brothers?

Of the fighter Tyrus had been chasing there was no sign. Maybe he’d been successful, maybe not. Either way there was no time to honour his passing now. The fight had driven them off course and while Death Deela and its wingman were circling, Kerikus and Malika could press on.

Kerikus swung about, Malika falling back to his tail, and the twin Stormtalons soared back towards the east, towards the power plant. They opened their throttles, trying to put as much distance between them and the ace as possible, but they weren’t alone for long.

‘Targets at eleven o’ clock,’ Malika reported, ‘approximately eighty kilometres. Four fighters in two elements.’

Kerikus’ eyes flicked to the position, spotting the approaching aircraft, flying in two staggered rows. This time he didn’t have to give the order. They turned into them instinctively, gun batteries ready to fire.

‘Hold steady,’ came Malika’s urgent voice as they rocketed forwards. ‘I’ve got them.’

As soon as they were in range, a single missile shrieked over Kerikus’ port wing, slamming into the leading fighter. The ork didn’t stand a chance. The aircraft all but disintegrated, bathing its wingman in a blazing shower. The fighter tried to evade the wreck but was struck by debris, its starboard wing ripped clean from the fuselage. Two kills with one shot. Impressive by any standards.

As the fighter dropped, the rear flyers broke formation, peeling in opposite directions. Kerikus wasn’t about to let them swing around and retaliate. Dipping his wing, he curved away, taking after the fighter to his left, a glance at his rear view confirming that Malika was doing the same with the other. His eyes narrowed into slits behind his helm. This one would be for Tyrus.

Leaning forward against his straps, Kerikus came out of the turn to see the ork dropping two hundred metres to dive between the towers of the city below. Nose down, Kerikus dropped in pursuit. What was the ork thinking? Dip down to pick up energy and increase airspeed, or simply try to lose him in the artificial canyons of Quadcana Prime?

Either way, Kerikus wasn’t sure how well its fighter could perform this close to the deck. Its turn had seemed laboured, but now the ork was weaving between the buildings with ease. As the fighter dipped even lower, Kerikus saw flashes ahead. ork war trucks racing towards him along a long wide track of road, guns barking. A heavily armoured tank was bringing up the rear, the prodigious missile on its back being prepped to fire.

‘No you don’t.’ Kerikus thumbed the trigger, ripping up the road with his assault cannons. He pitched up as his shells found the missile launcher and the warhead ignited.

The fighter was still ahead, slinging itself around a half-ruined spar. Kerikus hit hard-right rudder, coming in front of the mask and running along a parallel block. As the building flashed by, the sergeant caught glimpses of the running fighter, saw it dip its wing and bank to the left.

The Wrath shuddered as Kerikus brought it hard to port, his slipstream shattering the windows in an abandoned tower that he only narrowly avoided. The ork was still bobbing and diving, settling on a long route out of the city. Kerikus glanced at the fuel gauge. His primary cell was almost exhausted. If he had any hope of completing the mission he needed to end this.

Gunning the throttle, Kerikus slammed forwards, closing to a hundred metres, fighting the turbulence generated by being so close to the ground. He squeezed the trigger but amazingly the ork dumped its nose further still, screaming closer to the ground than ever.

In an instant, it all became clear. The fighter was trying to lure him close to the deck, in the hope that he wouldn’t be able to control the Stormtalon and crash. Letting out a grunt of derision, Kerikus viffed the engines, gaining altitude before raking the ork’s engines with bolter fire. The fighter dropped, the pilot ejecting from its deathtrap before the craft broke apart against the ground. The body howled past Kerikus’ canopy, smashing into his starboard wing and slicing clean in two. Kerikus pitched up, roaring out of the gorge of buildings, his eyes already searching for Malika. While Tyrus’ stealth measures were clever, they didn’t exactly help identify each other in a hurry.

Turning back towards the complex, Kerikus saw another aircraft racing towards him. Large, menacing. His fingers hovered over the lascannons’ trigger.

The incoming plane wiggled its wings and Kerikus relaxed. Malika. His battle-brother’s voice crackled over the vox.

‘Target eliminated. Are we going to do this?’

Kerikus pulled left, as Malika banked in to join him on his wing.

According to the auspex they were two minutes away from the power plant. The end was in sight.

‘Affirmative,’ Kerikus confirmed, knowing that the moment had come. Full disclosure. He took a breath, but Malika cut in.

‘Excellent. And don’t try to tell me that we’re going to try to take the complex by force. Emperor knows you’re a good pilot, but...’

‘Our orders were to secure the city...’

‘Or to render it inhabitable. Sergeant, the former is untenable. It has been from the moment we took to the skies.’

Death is inevitable.

‘We cannot allow Quadcana Prime to remain an ork stronghold,’ instructed Kerikus, his hand gripping the stick. ‘Destroy the power complex and we can take out half the city. What the firestorm doesn’t incinerate...’

‘... the resulting radiation will cripple. Deny the enemy victory by removing the prize, I understand.’

Kerikus hoped that Malika would be remembered for his courage. He jabbed at the operational runes on his tactical display.

‘Transmitting schematics. There are three targets. Hit any of these with force and it will trigger a chain reaction that will detonate the plasma reactors. Everything within the blast zone will be–’

‘Targets sighted,’ Malika cut in, ‘Eight o’clock, high. Moving in fast.’

Kerikus spat an oath. They were so close.

‘Brother, it’s Death Deela.’

The sergeant craned his neck, seeing the crimson bomber swooping in, a fighter in its wake.

‘I’ll hold them off,’ came Malika’s voice, even as his Stormtalon banked between the Wrath and the incoming craft. ‘You follow the objective.’

Kerikus didn’t argue. He ruddered right, the complex finally in sight, priming his lascannons. He would come in low, fixing the target and give it everything he’d got. His engines roaring in his ears, he dropped down, the gravitational forces he was pulling pushing his helm tight against his face. Over the vox he heard an excited voice: ‘The fighter is done. Repeat, the fighter is–’

The rest of the sentence was lost in an explosion, Malika’s scream cut short as the vox-link severed.

Kerikus had started this mission believing he was alone. Now he knew it was true.

He gunned the engine, dropping his nose, powering towards the plant. He didn’t need the proximity alarm to tell him Death Deela had him in its crosshairs. A missile screeched past and detonated harmlessly against a nearby block. The next wouldn’t be so easy to dodge. Death Deela was firing from a position well out of range, but the moment he drew nearer...

Solid-shot clattered against the underside of the Wrath’s nose like the buzzing of angry swamp-wasps. The ground-to-air defences. Enemies to the front, a predator at his tail. He’d never make it flying head-on. Pulling back on the throttle, Kerikus turned wide, throwing the Stormtalon into a wide loop. He would circle the power complex, evading the ground-to-air missiles and swoop in from the east, coming in low and striking hard.

As he came about, black orbs dancing in front of his vision, the flaw in the stratagem became obvious. Death Deela was flying straight at him, incendiary missiles already away. Kerikus dipped his wing, a rocket passing so close the canopy shook, but couldn’t roll fast enough to avoid a second.

The missile smashed into his starboard engine, erupting into flame and ripping away the plasteel wing. The gunship spun, tumbling out of control, the horizon whipping out of sight. He was going down. There was no way of stopping it now. Reaching down to grab the chainsword he kept by his side, Kerikus slammed a fist against the canopy release.

The glassite enclosure shot away and the ejector rockets fired, propelling his flight seat through the now open gap. He couldn’t look up, couldn’t see what direction he was heading. All he knew was that it wasn’t up. Kerikus barrelled into something hard, his power armour hardly absorbing any impact. He barely noticed when his pilot’s seat disappeared beneath him. He hit the ground and rolled, every jolt fracturing another bone, paring off more battle armour, his world consumed by noise and pain. Use the pain, he told himself as he finally came to a stop, make it your anchor. Stay alive to finish the mission.

Even as stubber fire raked against his remaining armour, Kerikus yanked his smashed helm from his head, feeling the cold night air against the gash in his forehead. There were inhuman cries to his right, the thrum of an engine. An ork biker, barrelling towards him, a gunner on its backplate bringing a heavy stubber to bear. Bones scraping against each other, he rolled onto his feet, feeling strangely unsteady. His balance was off, his Lyman’s ear struggling to compensate. No matter, the Larraman cells swarming through his bloodstream would deal with that. The bike roared closer, shot ricocheting off his armour. He threw up an arm to protect his exposed head, looking around for a weapon, his chainsword lost in the crash. A twisted length of plasteel from the Wrath lay at his feet. His faithful craft would serve him one last time. He snatched it up, twisting his body around, swinging the plasteel like a club. The metal connected with the ork rider, knocking it howling into the gunner, the bike skidding out beneath them. The rider’s kinetic weapon flew from its hand and skittered across the ground. Kerikus scooped it up, falling back as he twisted towards the lumbering ork and squeezing off a volley. The biker’s head exploded in a spray of blood and gristle, the bolt slamming into the gunner’s shoulder, dropping both orks in one.

Kerikus didn’t wait to see if the greenskin got back to its feet. To the east, a bomber was flying in fast. Death Deela had overshot when the Wrath had hit the deck and was on the return, ready to complete the kill. There was one last chance.

Spinning around, desperate to gain his bearings, a bloodstained smile spread across the sergeant’s face. The cooling tower. Limping badly, Kerikus raced for a metal ladder bolted into the tower’s side. An ork appeared to his left, but was felled by a shot through its neck, foul blood erupting from the exit wound. All the time, the Doom Eagle could hear Death Deela’s throbbing engines draw ever closer, hear the report of its stubbers.

Not long now.

He half stumbled into the ladder, throwing up his left hand to grab a rung. The left hand that was no longer there. That was why gaining his balance was proving so difficult. His left arm had been ripped from its socket during the crash, the wound already closing, sealed by fresh scar tissue. His body would repair, but not even a Space Marine could grow back a limb.

Kerikus turned, facing the incoming bomber, the ground around him churning beneath stubber fire. At the end it all depended on how much Death Deela wanted the kill, how much it longed for glory, for another notch on its bomber’s undercarriage.

The sergeant hefted the ork’s cumbersome weapon and fired indiscriminately into the nose of the aircraft, praying that the last show of defiance would fuel the ork’s bloodlust.

‘That’s it,’ he muttered, never taking his eyes off the jet, ‘keep coming, keep coming, finish me off. Dakka dakka.’

A missile screamed forward, streaking past the cooling tower, detonating somewhere behind. Rubble and dust bloomed all around. The bomber filled Kerikus’ vision, the pilot – Death Deela itself – sat hunched over its controls, glaring hungrily down at the Space Marine.

There was no chance of pulling up now. The bomber was moving too fast. He doubted the idiot even realised what he’d done. It just knew it didn’t want to lose, to let the kill slip by. Kerikus prayed that the impact would be enough, that the resulting explosion would rip through the power station beneath his feet, trigger the plasma reactors. Make his sacrifice count.

The last round shuddered from the ramshackle gun and Kerikus tossed it aside. It was amazing it had lasted so long. He was truly blessed.

The scream of the engines filling his ears, Kerikus threw his remaining arm wide, staring straight into the widening eyes of Death Deela and embraced death as he always knew he would.

No hesitation.

ANCIENT HISTORY

Andy Chambers

Cross the stars and fight for glory
But ’ware the heaven’s wrath.
Take yer salt and hear a shipman’s story.
Listen to tales of the gulf,
Of stars that sing and worlds what lie
Beyond the ghosts of the rim.
But remember, lads, there ain’t no words
For every void-born thing.

– Shipmen’s labour-chant,
Gothic Sector, Segmentum Obscurus

Nathan ran down the stinking alley, panting and sweating. He could hear shouts and a scuffle behind him as they pounced on Kendrikson. His mind raced faster than his feet across the cracked slabs. Poor old Kendrikson. Still – better him than me. He leapt over a prostrate body almost invisible in the darkness as the irony of the situation struck home. At least that’s the last time he’ll try to get me killed.

At the corner he risked a glance back. A lone streetlume cast a pool of yellow light over a scene that looked suspiciously like one from some Ministorum morality play. Four burly, shaven-headed men in dun-coloured coveralls were hauling Kendrikson to his feet. He seemed unduly surprised, nay stunned, to be cast in the starring role of the eponymous incautious reveller laid low by local ruffians, cultists or worse – surely a punishment from the God-Emperor for his carelessness and self-indulgence.

The image was shattered when the officer stepped out from the shadows to congratulate the men on their catch. Nathan had never seen an Imperial Naval officer before but he had no doubt that he was looking at one now. Tall, poised, immaculately dressed in a tailored uniform coat and a pair of glossy black boots which had probably never trodden the dust of a planet for more than a few hours. He would surely be a junior officer to be in charge of a gang like that, trawling through the back alleys of Juniptown to fill out some labour team aboard his ship. Junior or not, he radiated the absolute assuredness that only generations of breeding and a lifetime of training engenders.

Nathan started to back away as his mind raced on. There were rumours that Imperial ships would come from Port Maw to Lethe, but everyone said that sort of thing when there was a war among the stars. Half the people hoped the fleet would come and save them from Sanctus-knows-what, while the other half were afraid that the fleet would bring the war to their doorstep. Nobody had ever thought that the Navy would come to steal a tithe of men and take them away on ships. Men who, if only half the stories were true, would never be seen again.

Kendrikson was off for a cruise and there was nothing Nathan could do about it. He certainly didn’t intend take on a press gang single-handed.

‘Well, well,’ said a finely cultured voice from behind him. ‘It looks like young Rae missed one – get him, lads!’

A blow struck his head, bright stars flashed before his eyes and he fell into waiting arms, which bore him off even as his consciousness slipped away.

Nathan woke to the sound of a voice speaking. It sounded deep, resonant and faintly amused. He was amongst a crowd, being propped up by a stranger. The voice rolled on through his confused awakening like martial music: proud and insistent.

‘…I could take this ship twice around the galaxy and wander the void for a hundred years if the Emperor wished it. One thing would bring me back to the hallowed worlds of humanity before we’d been out for more than a year! Crew! You lucky fellows have won the chance to serve aboard one of the sector’s finest ships, the Retribution. Remember that name with pride and affection and all else should come naturally.’

Nathan must have looked confused because the stranger, a thin, dark man with tired eyes, whispered to him: ‘It’s the captain. ’Ere to welcome us aboard – sez it’ll likely be the first and last time we see’s ’im.’

Nathan blinked and gazed about him.

A vast, curving wall disappeared out of sight above them. It was pierced by arches showing a night sky speckled with stars. Halfway up it a buttressed gallery swelled outwards and it was from there that the captain spoke. His voice must have been amplified somehow, because a normal man’s voice would have been drowned by a distant rumble which seemed to radiate from the worn stone floor they stood upon. A jolt of panic shot through Nathan as he realised they must be aboard some ship. No, an Imperial warship, he corrected himself. Even as he watched, the stars in the windows were sliding by almost imperceptibly. They were already underway.

Nathan was inducted into a gun crew: number six gun of the port deck, known to its crew as Balthasar. Him, Kendrikson, the tired-eyed man – who introduced himself as Fetchin – and five others were beaten, stripped, shaved, deloused, tattooed with their serial numbers and issued with dun-coloured coveralls, apparently tailored so that their one size would fit no one. The gun officer for Balthasar, a Lieutenant Gabriel, seemed decent enough and didn’t revel in their humiliation. He and his enforcers, his armsmen, simply crushed their individuality and made it clear that they were to obey orders and cause no trouble. He was even good enough to explain to them that men were a commodity on a warship, like food or fuel or ammunition. When the ship ran out, it came to a world to resupply. Simple as that. Even before the lieutenant had finished his little speech, Nathan had hardened his resolve to escape at the first opportunity.

They were set to work in a gunroom, a cavernous, hangar-like space which reeked of grease and ozone. It was part filled by cranes and gantries but dominated by the breech of Balthasar, apparently some sort of gigantic cannon as big as a house and nested at the centre of an insane web of power coils, chains, coolant pipes, wiring, hydraulic rams and less easily identified attachments. By the unspoken rule which applies to all new recruits, the old hands set them to work on the most mundane, laborious and unwelcome tasks in the gunroom. In this case that meant long, hard work-shifts scraping off corrosion – which an old hand named Kron helpfully pointed out bloomed like a weed in the moist, oxygen-rich air inside the ship – or chipping away frozen coolant from the branches of piping. They ate on the gun deck too, their food arriving on square metal trays through an aperture in the wall.

Food breaks were accompanied by the arrival of the crewmen the old hands referred to as armsmen. They came through one of the two heavy pressure doors that led into the gunroom, from the direction which Nathan had nominated as ‘south’. The armsmen wore leather harnesses over their coveralls and carried long clubs and stubby pistols or shotguns. They kept a respectful distance while the guncrew ate, but their attitude spoke of a readiness to do harm if necessary. Once the food was consumed and the trays returned to their slot, the armsmen left through the north door, presumably to perform the same, apparently pointless function in the next gunroom.

Again, it was Kron who explained the purpose of the armsmen’s vigil to the new recruits. ‘They’re here to make sure everyone gets their own share, lads.’ Kron told them. ‘An’ that nobody takes what isn’t theirs.’

Fetchin seemed shocked. ‘So yer can’t even keep a crumb for later? Or swap some wi’ yer mate?’

Kron’s answering grin was an ugly sight, particularly because he, like many of the old hands, had been patched with steel over old injuries. In Kron’s case the tech-priests had left him with a half-skull of polished metal and set with a red-glowing eye. ‘Not unless you want a few extra lumps to nurse, no,’ he chortled.

Seeing disbelief still written on their faces he added more quietly: ‘Was a time, years ago, when we had a… bad captain. He didn’t keep a watch, boys. Was all right at first – the bully boys didn’t take too much and no one starved. But then we were caught in a storm ’tween Esperance and the K-star for months. The ether was torn apart by cross-chasers and remnants so much that it was all the Navigators could do to keep us from being lost. Pretty soon men’s hunger made ’em desperate, an’ desperate men’ll do terrible things.’

Kron closed his real eye, blocking out bad memories.

Nathan had seen plenty of desperate men around Juniptown in wet season, when work was scarce or non-existent.

‘I’ve seen floors swimming with blood after fights over a husk of bread. The captain’s right to keep a watch,’ he said.

Kron looked at him curiously for a moment and then nodded. ‘That’s right, lad. Better to be harsh now than deadly later.’

Food was palmed and traded and fought over anyway, but in a quiet, cautious fashion which Nathan suspected the armsmen chose to overlook. Several times he tried to speak with Kendrikson but each time his old rival ignored him or, if Nathan pressed him harder, fled away from him. The old hands brooked no fighting so Nathan took it no further. He judged that the old hands were right: punishments for fighting were liable to be swift and brutal.

At the end of each work-shift the crew slept in a low bunkroom beneath the gun deck. Armsmen arrived to drive them below, although they needed little persuasion to drop their tools and find their way down into the gloomy, red-lit chamber. There were no exits from the bunkroom saving the hatch which led back up to the gunroom. Cleansing and purging was undertaken in ridiculously small metal cubicles off the bunkroom. Nathan watched and waited but opportunities for escape never presented themselves. Soon work-shifts and sleep-shifts rolled relentlessly past until all sense of time was lost, and there was only toil and rest from toil, and then toil renewed.

It was only after the ship had left the Lethe System and passed into warp space that Nathan began to understand why men were a commodity. The warp made everything different somehow. Even the cavernous gun deck felt claustrophobic and oppressive, as if immense pressures existed just beyond the hull. Then the dreams had started, nightmares which left the mind dark and full of half-formed images upon waking. Some men screamed and wept in their sleep without knowing why, and others just grew more and more introverted and silent. Fetchin was one of these and Nathan had seen a weird light coming into his eyes long before it happened.

It was the end of the work-shift. The crew was straggling down the hatch to the bunkroom, more reluctant now that the dreams had come. Fetchin was last of all, listlessly scouring at a corrosion spot long after the others had moved away. The armsmen stepped forward with hard faces and Fetchin backed away with a stooped, almost scuttling gait. Almost at the top of the ladder, Nathan stopped and turned, his mind fumbling for some encouraging words which might persuade Fetchin to go below.

Before he could speak Fetchin backed into another of the guncrew. The man cursed and roughly thrust Fetchin away. From there it seemed as if Fetchin was possessed by devils. He pounced on the man with a snarl and bore him down. A horribly throttled gurgle escaped the thrashing pair and Fetchin rolled away, his lips and chin bloody with the ruin of the man’s throat. Two men tried to pin the devil-Fetchin’s arms but he slipped through their grasp like an eel, raking clawed fingers across their eyes with a hysterical, wordless scream.

The armsmen came pelting up and the first to reach the scene swung at Fetchin’s shoulder with his long club, probably aiming to break his collarbone. The blow never connected. Fetchin grasped the downrushing arm with preternatural speed and swung the armsman away with a horrible cracking, popping sound which spoke of dislocated joints and snapping bones. The madman turned suddenly and bounded towards the bunkroom hatch. Men scattered as his last manic leap sent him hurtling straight at Nathan.

Nathan saw the animal fire in Fetchin’s eyes in the age-long instant as he leapt and felt his guts turn icy. There was not a scrap, not a hint of the mild, world-weary colleague he had come to know. All reason was lost in that glare, and Nathan was frozen in it.

Suddenly Kron was between them, so quick that Nathan didn’t even see him step in the way. Kron swept the flailing arms aside and punched two stiffened fingers into Fetchin’s windpipe before his feet had touched the ground. Fetchin was knocked sprawling by the impact and let out a low growl as he skidded across the deck plates. Nathan felt shocked; Kron’s deadly accurate blow should have left Fetchin dead or unconscious, he felt sure.

Click-clack BOOM.

The sound of the shot echoed around the gunroom. A frozen tableau was left in its wake. An armsman stood with shotgun levelled, smoke curling from the muzzle. Fetchin slid down the bulkhead leaving a bloody smear, a fist-sized wedge of raw flesh and entrails blasted from his midriff. Nathan, splattered with still-warm blood, not able to understand how Kron had moved so fast.

The armsmen drove them below with kicks and blows before another word was said. Kron was surprisingly kind and turfed out the old hand who bunked below him so that Nathan did not have to sleep beneath Fetchin’s empty berth. When they were brought up for the next work-shift a scoured spot on the bulkhead was all that was left of Fetchin.

Nathan woke to the sound of screaming. He lurched up with a half-strangled yelp, almost braining himself on the bottom of Kron’s bunk. He stared wildly about him, gulping for breath. The oppressive red light of the bunkroom still surrounded him, the cloying odour of sour sweat and grease still fought the sharp tang of coolant in the air down here. The room was quiet save for the drip of the condensers and the assurance of night noises made by forty sleeping men.

Nathan wiped a shaky hand across his eyes and peered over towards Kendrikson. If anyone had screamed it would have been Kendrikson; he had nightmares nearly every sleep-shift. They all did, but Kendrikson just couldn’t take it. Perhaps he had a guilty conscience, or perhaps he was just some dumb thief who was completely terrified by being shut up in one of the Emperor’s warships. But Kendrikson’s bunk was empty; he must have gone to relieve himself.

The scream came again, but it was tinny and distant, carried along by the conduits from another bunkroom. Pity the poor devils in there, thought Nathan, every one of them wide awake and praying the screamer didn’t go berserk and start clawing and biting at them. That he didn’t turn into a wild beast like Fetchin had.

Nathan lay back in the narrow bunk and tried to recapture sleep. He tried to imagine all the other shipmen doing the same. Start with this gun deck. Kron had told him there were forty guns with forty crews each, that’s sixteen hundred, another gun deck on the other side for three thousand two hundred. Then there were the lance turrets, port and starboard – nobody seemed to know just how big the crews for those beasts were, call it another sixteen hundred a piece. This was working well, his eyelids were drooping. That was six and a half thousand souls (give or take). The torps probably had a crew much bigger than a single gun but less than a whole deck – maybe a thousand. That made seven and a half… Engines must be at least two or three thousand more…

A rasping cough snapped him back to full wakefulness. A bittersweet cloud of smoke was drifting down from the bunk above. Nathan sighed. Kron, it was always Kron. ‘Ain’t sleeping too good?’

‘Nah. Bad dreams,’ Nathan replied. Kron was the oldest hand on the gun deck. Even Lieutenant Gabriel listened to him, sometimes, so it often paid to listen too.

‘Really? Not like Fetchin, I hope,’ Kron wheezed. It was a statement – or a cruel joke – not a question.

Nathan decided to take it as a joke and chuckled quietly. ‘No, not like Fetchin,’ he said. ‘Just more dreams of the ship.’

Kron harrumphed quietly and another cloud of smoke wafted downwards, the feeble breath of the recyclers apparently insufficient to even pull it up and away. ‘It’s lucky to dream of the ship,’ Kron said; his voice sounded a little wistful to Nathan, as though Kron were talking to himself. ‘I used to dream of it a lot when I was young.’

Nathan wouldn’t like to have to guess Kron’s years. Apparent age varied so much from one world to another that it was a long shot at best. Take into account all the warp-time Kron must have had and Nathan would be naming a figure somewhere between sixty and three hundred. In the time it took him to think that, a slithering sound came from above and suddenly Kron was there, pipe in hand, right beside Nathan’s bunk. The red light turned his polished skull, with its sharp nose and glowing eye, into a gargoyle’s head. His living eye twinkled.

‘Come walk with me, young Nathan. Let’s go up on deck.’

Nathan sat up and warily eased himself out of the bunk. ‘What about the armsmen?’ Nathan asked. Kron just snorted and started to pick his way, soft as a cat, to the hatch.

The gunroom was dark, its spars and columns rearing up with cathedral-like splendour into a gloom broken only by the jewel-like gleam of ready-lights and power indicators. They edged around to the far side of Balthasar over snaking cables, Kron sure-footed and Nathan trailing behind. As they rounded one of the pillars Nathan froze as he heard a squeak of oiled leather. Kron stepped on and virtually walked into an armsman.

The armsman brought up a torch and snapped it on, a little too quickly and awkwardly to have been lying in wait for them. Nathan slipped back round the pillar and out of sight so he didn’t hear what was said, but after a few muttered words the armsmen swung away, whistling a little ditty and heading for the far end of the gunroom.

‘Yeh can come out, lad,’ Kron called. ‘Ole Leopold won’t bother us.’

Nathan came forward. ‘I’d thought they would never stoop to fraternising with gunners, the armsmen I mean,’ he said.

‘Not while others’re about, but come sleep-shift they’ll talk and trade like anyone else – they’re crew just like us, just trusted enough to bear arms all th’ time.’ Kron seated himself on a stanchion and gestured expansively to another. Nathan took a last glance round before warily sitting also.

Kron gazed at him steadily while he got out his pipe again. ‘So what’s your story, young Nathan?’ he asked.

‘I don’t have a story,’ Nathan replied carefully. ‘If this is about Kendrikson, my business is with him alone and I’ll thank you not to intrude.’ That earned an arched eyebrow and Nathan suddenly felt he was mistaken, Kron hadn’t brought him up here to find out what was going on between him and Kendrikson.

‘No,’ Kron said, ‘I mean, tell a story. That’s how it’s done among shipmen. When we want to really talk we tells a story – that way we can tell our secrets without saying them right out so others might hear.’

When Kron said that, he looked meaningfully at the outer hull plates, which Nathan could see from here were covered with writings, layered one over the other, marching lines of faded Gothic script which continued up and out of sight towards the ceiling.

A sudden chill crept down Nathan’s spine. He was sure he heard a vague creak of metal up at the north end of the gunroom. ‘What do you mean? What “others”?’ he hissed.

Kron raised a hand to stop him ‘That’s jest what I mean. Let me tell you a story about how mankind got among the stars – a tale of ancient times.’

Kron began to speak clearly and surely, without the customary drawls and breaks in his speech. It was almost as if he were reading from a book, or reciting a tale told many, many times before.

‘Once, long ago, Man lived on just one island. The broad oceans surrounded him and he believed himself alone. In time, Man’s stature grew and he caught sight of other isles far off across the deep ocean. Since he had seen everything on his island, climbed every peak and looked under every stone, he became curious about the other islands and tried to reach them. He soon found the oceans too deep and cold for him to get far, not nearly a hundredth of the way to the next island. So Man returned and put his hand to other things for an age.

‘But in time food and water and air ran short on Man’s island and he looked to the far islands again. Because he could not bear the cold of the ocean deeps, he fashioned Men of Stone to go in his place, and the Stone Men fashioned Men of Steel to become their hands and eyes. And the Stone Men went forth with their servants and swam in the deep oceans. They found many strange things on the far islands, but none as strange or as wicked as the things that swam in the depths between them – ancient, hungry things older than Man himself.

‘But these beasts of the deep hungered for the true life of Man, not the half-life of Stone, so the Stone Men swam unmolested. At first all was well and the Men of Stone planted Man’s Seed on many islands, and in time Man learned to travel the oceans himself, hiding in Stone ships to keep out the cold and the hunger of the beasts. All was well and Men spread to many islands far across the ocean, such that some even forgot how they came to be there and that they ever came from just one island at all.’

Kron’s tale wound on, telling of how the Stone Men became estranged from humanity by their journeys through the void. This led to a time of strife when the Men of Steel turned against their stone masters and mankind was riven asunder by wars. A thousand worlds were scoured by the ancient, terrible weapons of those days before the Men of Stone were overthrown, and a million more burned as flesh fought against steel. Worst of all, the beasts arose and were worshipped as gods by the survivors. Once proud and mighty, Man was reduced to a rabble of grovelling slaves. Finally one came who freed man from his shackles and showed him a new way to reach for the stars. This path was forged from neither stone nor steel but simple faith. Faith guarded Man from the beasts of the void as steel or stone could never do.

Nathan came to himself with a start. Kron’s sonorous voice had lulled him into a strange, half-dreaming state. He looked back at the wall and its inscrutable scripture. Faith. Faith kept the beasts at bay. Beasts that turned men into creatures like Fetchin. Each line of script covering the wall was a prayer to the God-Emperor for protection. Centuries of devotion layered like stratified rock to keep whatever was out there… out there. He could feel Kron’s expectant gaze upon him, the red eye burning like a ruddy star in the gloom. Nathan uncomfortably tried to ignore the scratching noises he thought he heard coming from the gloom. Just nerves, he told himself, or rats, of course. Still, no harm in watching the shadows.

‘I don’t know many tales,’ Nathan hedged, trying to recall one about the Emperor or the Great Crusade. He felt Kron’s tale must be a parable of ancient times, set before the crusades. They were spoken of only through the preachings of the Ecclesiarchy. In the Lethe System, a legendary time of righteousness and purity recalled in the Ministorum’s most reverential sermons, usually as a comparison to the immorality and irreverence of modern times.

‘Tell us about you and yon Kendrikson then,’ Kron prompted.

Inwardly Nathan cringed, but he sensed that Kron could be a big help to his chances of survival, let alone escape, and he had told a tale first. Warily, Nathan began.

‘Me and Kendrikson don’t go back far, but in the short time I’ve known him I’ve decided that I need to kill him. My youthful prospects were not exceptionally good – truthfully they were much given over to petty crime and associating with undesirables. However, thanks to Kendrikson I’m now an unwilling recruit in the Emperor’s Navy. That appears to mean lifetime incarceration in a steel cube twenty paces across until death by insane shipmate, starvation, disease or enemy action intercedes. This wasn’t my first choice in life.’

Nathan stood suddenly. There was no doubt about it now, someone or something was creeping towards them as stealthily as it – or they – could manage. He gently lifted a steel hookbar from the deck and held it ready. Kron, seeing his look and actions, similarly armed himself with a long spanner. All the while Nathan kept talking, so as not to alert their stalkers. He told Kron about how he and Kendrikson had both served on the Pandora, an ageing lugger hauling ore and oxygen between the outer mines of Lethe. He even told him about how they had both actually been in the pay of a businessman dedicated to transporting goods of a rare, valuable and illegal nature with no questions asked.

Nathan had just got to their last voyage on the Pandora, and how Kendrikson had sold him out to the pirates when their skulking stalkers attacked. They came out of the shadows in a rush, three pale shapes and one dun-coloured one. Nathan made a two-handed swing at the first to reach him. The steel hookbar caught it on the side of the head with a meaty crack and it dropped as if poleaxed.

It was a man. Pale, near naked, with a matted beard and bloodied shock of hair. A second leapt forward, jagged blade swinging, while Nathan was still recovering from his initial blow. He managed an awkward parry with the hookbar and the man pulled his blade back for another hack. Nathan followed through with his block and crashed the end of the hookbar into the wildman’s elbow, making him yell and drop his blade. The third dived in between them and drove Nathan back with a flurry of blows.

He blocked a few strikes with the ungainly bar, but gave ground and almost stumbled on a trailing pipe. In desperation he ducked under a cable conduit as his assailant made an overhead cut. The blade sliced into the shoc-lines with a shower of fat sparks. The man convulsed and his face clamped into a rictus grin of agony as current flowed remorselessly between blade and deck through him. As Nathan dashed past him he was starting to smoulder, the blade glowing orange in his death grip.

The second man had retrieved his blade and made as if to strike as Nathan ran up, but the superior reach of the hookbar finally paid off. Nathan slammed it bodily into his ribs. The momentum of his charge skewered the man on its cruel head, splintering ribs and ripping open a gouting wound. Nathan abandoned the wedged bar and plucked the blade out of the man’s fingers, giving thanks that his enemies seemed disorientated and slow, as if they were half-starved or dim-witted.

Nathan sprang forward towards the last foe, a figure in shipman’s coveralls bending over the prone body of Kron. Nathan’s nape hairs prickled as the figure lurched up. Blue wych-fires writhed about his limbs like angry snakes and sparks poured from his fingertips. By some reflex Nathan ducked away from a hissing bolt of energy which lashed out from an outstretched hand. It still caught him across the left shoulder and sent fiery needles of agony lancing into his very bones.

If he could have shouted in pain he would have, but his lips only parted in a soundless gasp as a wave of numbness washed through him. Nathan fell to his knees on the deck and fought his unresponding body as it dragged him down, down. The figure stepped closer. Through blurring eyes Nathan could see the complex weaving of tattoos beneath his skin, glowing through it with lightning-brightness. Even the coveralls were rendered translucent by that glare, and bones stood out coal-black as he raised a spectral hand in a gesture full of menace.

With his final ounces of strength he struck back at his foe the only way he could, hurling the blade stiff-armed as he slid to the deck. Before he blacked out he felt a thunderclap of pressure and a wave of heat before blackness closed over him.

Nathan’s eyes flickered open. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and retched. Only moments had passed. Smoke was still rising from the corpse beside him and the sweet stench of cooked flesh hung in the air. The thrown blade protruded from the corpse’s larynx, and Nathan knew he should never gamble again after fluking that shot. But, despite the blade, the massive burns across the body looked like they had been just as fatal. Vagrant flickers of static still trailed along rigor-stretched limbs. Nathan mustered his courage and stared into the blackened face. It was Kendrikson, patently no mere smuggler after all. He stepped well clear of the corpse as he staggered groggily to where Kron lay.

Faint breath sighed from Kron’s lips and the burns on his body didn’t look fatal. Nathan paused at this, his head throbbing and mouth dry with fear, and considered how he might be able to judge such a thing given his lack of experience. Regardless, he could not simply leave Kron lying insensible so he decided to follow his instincts and attempt to revive him somehow. By shaking him and calling Kron’s name, Nathan was soon rewarded with a moaning and stirring. Seconds later Kron’s real eye flickered open; his red gem-eye remained dim.

‘Wh-wh-what? Wh-where am I?’ he whispered with trembling lips.

‘On the gun deck,’ Nathan replied. ‘There was a fight…’

He broke off. Kron had raised his hands and was touching his metal half-skull and dim jewel-eye. ‘It’s still on me!’ he suddenly yelped. ‘Get it off before it can crash-start!’

Nathan stood in shock. Kron’s voice was different and he was starting to thrash around in a most un-Kron-like fashion. Nathan snatched for his wrists in fear that he might injure himself and the strange voice grew shrill with panic. ‘No! Don’t let it take me… Don’t let it…’ Kron’s new voice trailed away and his body slackened in Nathan’s grip. As Nathan lowered him gently to the deck he noticed Kron’s jewel-eye was flickering back to life.

‘Ai, Nathan,’ Kron said, his voice normal. ‘Lost my way there for a sec. Ye were about to tell me how ye escaped from the pirates?’

Nathan stared at him. Kron seemed to have no recollection of the fight or his bizarre behaviour. Nathan squatted down, watching Kron carefully as he slowly looked about, taking in the carnage around him.

‘There was a fight,’ Nathan explained again. ‘Kendrikson and some new friends tried to kill us, well, perhaps just kill me and capture you.’

Kron stood with no apparent signs of pain or weakness, and walked over to Kendrikson’s corpse, where he bent down and retrieved a half-melted spanner. ‘I struck him with this,’ he told Nathan. ‘I didn’t realise he was a Luminen.’ Kron fell silent, staring down at Nathan with that red, cyclopean eye for a long, long minute.

Nathan had a greasy feeling of fear in his stomach as he gazed back. Kron was obviously not entirely whole or sane. He had called Kendrikson a Luminen, a word which stirred disturbing memories in Nathan’s mind. It might be best not to remind Kron of his equally disturbing words and actions. Better now to find out about the Luminen Kendrikson and his allies. Kron was holding Kendrikson’s scorched head in his hands now.

‘Why do ye think they were out to catch poor Kron?’ the old man asked. Kron turned away to hide the act, but his hands still made an ugly cracking noise as they crushed Kendrikson’s skull.

‘I have absolutely no idea who they were,’ Nathan snapped, ‘let alone what they wanted with you! Kendrikson was… was... I don’t know, possessed? What is a Luminen?’

Kron clicked his tongue a few times, a curiously mechanical sound like that of the Pandora’s clattering old logic engine. Before he could reply there was a flicker of lights at the south end of the gunroom; echoing shouts followed. Kron turned and scurried towards the north end without a word. After a second’s indecision, Nathan followed, struggling to keep sight of Kron’s disappearing back while not tripping on a cable or cracking his head on a stanchion.

He caught up with Kron as he bent over a thick pipe in a shadowed corner beside the script-marked outer wall. The pipe was made of many rings of metal half the height of a man. Kron pulled apart two of the rings and slipped inside, turning to hold the rings apart and jerking his head for Nathan to follow. He ducked within, realising as the rings creaked back into place that he had heard the same noise before Kendrikson and his allies had attacked.

They belly-crawled along the pipe in silence, the way lit only by Kron’s cyclopean eye. Bundles of wires ran along the bottom of the pipe, most filthy and blackened but some more recent, their bright colours encarmined by Kron’s unflinching gaze. Dozens of dog-eared labels clung precariously to the different bundles. Many were torn off or unreadable, others bore legends such as Lwr diff, aaz/3180 or Ar.ctrl 126.13kw in careful Gothic script.

The pipe gave out into a black crack, chasm-deep with cabling spilling off into its depths like a frozen waterfall. Kron led Nathan onto a short bridge of pipes that crossed to the other wall, which was splotched with bright blobs of enormous silver like soldering marks. At the far side Nathan stopped, unnerved by Kron’s continuing silence and the cold, lightless spaces he was being led into. Time for some answers.

‘Kron,’ he whispered, ‘where are we? And where do you think you’re taking me?’

Kron turned to face him before replying. ‘She’s an old ship, lad. She fought and sailed the void for nigh eighteen centuries in the Emperor’s fleet, an’ before that she slept in a hulk for another twenty. That’s where I–’ Kron clamped his mouth shut and his eye blazed. He gazed round warily before speaking again. ‘We’re between the hull plates here. Yon weld marks are from when she took a salvo in the flank during the assault on Tricentia.’

‘And where are we going?’

‘Somewhere that’s safe, where we can hide ‘til the armsmen finish their search – hide an’ talk in peace.’

‘Won’t the armsmen follow us down here?’

‘Nay, lad, wi’out a fully armed servitor crew an’ a tech-priest they couldn’a use their guns for fear of cracking somethin’,’ Kron said.

‘And where is this sanctuary of yours?’

‘Not ten strides yonder.’ Kron pointed.

Nathan took a long, hard look at the narrow ledge of rotting cables that ran along the wall from the end of the pipe bridge. His burnt and aching body already throbbed from the efforts he had forced it through after the fight. Now, as the flush of adrenaline left him and the icy chill in the air replaced it, he doubted his arms and legs could carry him on such a precarious path. He hesitated and swayed involuntarily on the bridge, which suddenly seemed rather precarious in itself now he came to think about it.

‘Kron, I don’t think…’

Too late, the old man was swinging off along the ledge with the agility of a monkey. With him, the wan red light that served as the only illumination was vanishing fast.

Nathan hesitated only a moment before a hot flush of anger drove him forward onto the ledge. He’d be damned if he would let this walking enigma disguised as an old man abandon him to the dark and potentially more of Kendrikson’s feral allies. He grasped a shoulder-high seam of wiring and pulled himself firmly over to get a foot on the cabling, trusting his weight to it as he pulled his other foot into place. Bloody-minded determination hauled him along three paces of the ledge. He made two more with his heart in his mouth and fingers fumbling blindly for purchase on the wires before his foot slipped off the cables.

His body swung out alarmingly, and only his recently gained handholds on the wiring-seam stopped him pitching off the treacherous ledge. He desperately scrabbled to get his foot back on it. His hands were as weak as water and his heart was thumping so hard his arms quivered. After a few seconds of naked terror he got his foot back on and hugged himself to the wall, teetering as his legs shook. He couldn’t let go of the wiring now, his legs were too weak to trust and his hands couldn’t hold his weight for much longer. He couldn’t go forward, he couldn’t go back. Every iota of his strength was necessary just to hold him where he was, with the blackness below sucking at his remaining scraps of vigour.

Nathan clutched closer still to the wall and plucked up his courage, carefully shuffling one foot along the cabling. He shifted some weight to it and shakily drew the other foot closer. With a supreme effort of will he unhooked one hand from the wires and reached out to grasp them further along. Then he rested and sweated before shuffling his foot forward again. So he went for the remaining five paces: slide, grip, shuffle, rest; slide, grip, shuffle, rest; slide, grip…

Nathan almost fell into the opening when he came to it. The horrible sensation that he might fall off just as he pulled himself to safety was almost overwhelming. Once inside the opening he sat trembling for only a moment, before summoning the energy to crawl further away from the edge.

The interior of the narrow space looked like the choir stall of some Ministorum chapel. Narrow seats crammed along either wall beneath gothic arches of tubular metal. At the far end a porthole of stained glass was lit fitfully from behind by swirling colours. Kron stood silhouetted against the glass. He turned to face Nathan and pressure doors rolled shut behind him, shutting the dank breath of the crevasse outside. ‘Well done, lad. I was thinking ye weren’t goin’ to make it.’ His voice sounded as smooth and calming as the raspy little goblin could make it.

‘What the hell did you leave me alone out there for?’ Nathan demanded.

‘To see if you’re as tough as I’m thinking ye are.’

‘Oh really, and do I pass muster?’

‘I’ll be needing to hear the end of your story to know that.’

‘That’s got nothing to do with this!’

‘Come, lad, I can tell by the look in yer eyes that you don’t think that’s true. “Coincidence” is just a name that fools use for events they don’t understand.’

Nathan blinked at Kron and gave a mental shrug. What harm could it do to finish the story if it gave Kron one less thing to be evasive about? ‘All right, but then you better give me some answers or I’ll crawl right back out of here and tell it to the armsmen.

‘As I said, I opened the inner hatch to the cargo bay. Once it was open I overrode the outer hatch controls and hung on tight. I knew the drums in the bay were badly secured because me and Kendrikson had been too busy watching each other to make a decent job of it. The outer hatch blowing was enough to break them free and dump them into the void between the Pandora and the pirates. I was almost crushed by the stampede of metal cylinders but by the Emperor’s grace and a strong grip I was able to keep a hold and stayed on the ship instead of being flung out among the cartwheeling drums outside.

‘A few seconds later the first drum connected with the docking thrusters of the pirate ship. I’d been playing for time, just hoping to upset their approach, but the drums were filled with liquid oxygen. The touch of the thrusters was enough to make them explode like bombs. Dozens of the cylinders exploded in slow, slow motion, the tendrils of fire reaching back further into the cloud and detonating the rest. The escalation scared me badly and I hauled myself within the inner hatch and closed it an instant before the expanding bubble of flames washed across the Pandora. The deck bucked and the handful of drums which had not escaped with their fellows rolled around and clashed angrily.

‘In a second the shock wave had passed and I looked out of the hatch to see the pirate ship spiralling off, fires clinging to it and debris leaking from it like a blood-trail. I went forward and up to the bridge where that slob Captain Lage was defecating in his britches. Lage claimed that Kendrikson had held him at gunpoint and forced him to cut the engines and wait for the other ship. Minutes before the explosion Kendrikson had taken a raft and left the ship. Naturally he had taken all of the archeotech we had been smuggling with him.

‘I was surprised when I heard Kendrikson had been seen in Juniptown on Lethe. I’d thought he was dead or long gone. I knew I could pick up a bounty for his head so I went hunting for him in the back alleys, which is home turf for me. But both me and Kendrikson were seized by men from the Retribution. And that is how I began my new career in the Imperial Navy…’

‘Ye never actually knew Kendrikson?’ Kron asked softly.

‘No, I knew of him, worked with him, but he avoided me and most people from what I heard – he was a guy so weird he didn’t even have a nickname. He was just “Kendrikson”, and that said it all. All right, I’ve told you my tale, now it’s time for you to give me some answers. No stories, just tell me the truth. Who were those men with Kendrikson?’ Nathan glared at Kron, daring him not to answer, to push him over the edge into screaming fury.

‘Them’s muties, shipmen that’s spent too long sailin’ the void an’ lost their faith. The beast song’s in their heart now and they live like lice on the innards o’ the ship – sometimes they’ll even grab compartments and feast on the poor shipboys if they can. Once in a century the captain’ll put the ship into port and flush her guts with poison to clear ’em out but ’tween times there’s always muties in the crossways and trunks. Seein’ as we’re in a big war right now there’s more than ever, and they’ll be lookin’ to call the beasts aboard all the time, invite ’em in as it were. Out there’s whole squadrons who’ve succumbed to the beasts in men’s hearts in past times, ones I reckon we’ll be fightin’ soon enough. Kendrikson probably pretended he were possessed to scare ’em into obeying him. The pirates’ ship ye saw, did it have a mark on it? A rune or sigil?’

‘Yes it did, most do. I don’t see–’

‘Did ye see it well enough to know it again?’

‘Yes, but I’m asking the questions now.’ Nathan had recovered enough energy to stand and hauled himself up to face Kron. ‘What’s a Luminen? I asked you before and you didn’t answer but now you’re going to tell me. What made Kendrikson a Luminen and how did that give him lightning in his veins and the power to melt steel like wax?’ Nathan took a step closer, looming over Kron in the narrow space. ‘Tell me!’

Kron grinned up at him before turning and pointing at the stained glass. ‘I bet the pirates’ symbol looked like that.’

Nathan gaped. The intricate, geometric designs of the window centred around a central icon. A halo of gold with rays so short and square that they looked like crenellations on a castle wall. In the centre was a grinning skull, picked out in loving detail with strands of platinum wire and swirls of crushed diamond. He snapped his gaze back to Kron. ‘What does it mean?’

‘It answers both your questions, lad. Kendrikson and yon pirates came from the same place. They made him a Luminen, took him an’ made crystal stacks of his bones an’ electro grafts of his brain, gave ’im skinplants and electros so’s he could summon lightning an’ channel it an’ much more. He was a war-child of the Machine-God, what the uninitiated call an electro-priest, though not one in a hundred can hide his power an’ look like a normal man like he did.’

‘The Machine-God – you mean the tech-priests of Mars, don’t you, the Adeptus Mechanicus?’

Kron nodded solemnly and Nathan suffered a painful insight into the awesome power that organisation wielded within the all-powerful Imperium. Tech-priests ministered to machines and engines on every civilised world, every interstellar ship. The Navy might man its ships but the tech-priests ran them. Their prayers and runes brought life to cold, dead metal and their forge worlds produced weapons in their billions for the Emperor’s eternal war against aliens, heretics and traitors. In theory, at least, killing Kendrikson made him one of the latter. A sobering thought indeed.

‘All right then, what’s this place? Those look like shuttle controls. Am I right in presuming that it’s an escape pod of some sort?’

‘Aye, lad, a cutter. Good for a planetary hop if ye don’t mind the waiting, as she’s a mite slow.’

‘Given what I’ve just heard I’d jump ship now if we weren’t in the warp.’

‘Death by fulguration if they catch ye,’ Kron muttered with an honest-looking shudder.

‘Well, we can’t go back. If they find out who Kendrikson was and who killed him I’d wager they’ll come up with something even more unpleasant.’

‘Nay, lad, if anyone knew who Kendrikson was he wouldnae have been in the gunrooms. Tech-priests only come to repair battle damage and such.’

‘So Kendrikson was originally out to get back the archeotech for the tech-priests and got press ganged accidentally, but why didn’t he tell the Navy who he was? They would have let him go for sure.’

‘Many times servants o’ the Emperor bury their real selves behind false memgrams and such, makes ’em hard to ferret out even wi’ soul-seers. Their real purposes run in the background, watching the puppet show through the eyes and ears until they’re in position to accomplish their mission. Then they become a whole different person. The Luminen part was just standing by for orders, but it must have decided that you needed killin’ to keep its past buried.’ Kron let that sink in for a few seconds before passing judgement on the matter.

‘No one’ll know we did for ‘im if we get back before roll call, ’cept Leopold mebbe and he ain’t going to say for fear o’ bein’ called derelict.’

Nathan was safe as long as Kron didn’t rat on him, but he had a feeling that Kron was happy to keep their secret for the time being. They were partners in crime. ‘I’m willing to bet that there’s another way back into the crew quarters without crossing the gunroom.’

Kron grinned.

‘Hajj.

‘Isiah.

‘Kendrikson.’

The sergeant-at-arms leant over and whispered something to Lieutenant Gabriel, who paused over the great ledger he had open before him. Nathan swallowed hard. This was where Kron’s theory came to the crunch. Getting back from the cutter had been easier than he had hoped. A narrow culvert led back from the crevasse into the cubicles by the bunkroom. Nathan had carefully memorised every twist of the trunking and was determined to go back and familiarise himself further with it in the very next sleep-shift. But for now he must see whether the Angel of Retribution was at Kendrikson’s side or not.

Lieutenant Gabriel gazed at the assembled company, eyes blinking as if he were struggling to recall Kendrikson’s face. He turned and murmured a question to the sergeant, who shook his head curtly in response. Gabriel made a small mark in the ledger and continued.

‘Krait.

‘Komoth.’

Roll call held an additional pleasant surprise: when Lieutenant Gabriel assigned the duty roster Nathan found himself placed on the Opticon crew. His momentary puzzlement was soon answered when it became clear that he was to be Kron’s apprentice. He stole a look at the old man, who looked blandly innocent of course, and made a mental note of the apparent influence he could wield. Nathan wondered what the role of apprentice entailed, and for that matter what the Opticon was. A dim memory floated forward that the Opticon was involved in observation outside the ship. He certainly knew that the Opticon crew usually worked high up on the main gantries above Balthasar’s breech on what amounted to an extra half-deck a good twelve metres up spiral steps of skeletal ironwork.

Whatever the duties, they could scarcely be as onerous and repetitive as the labours he was tasked with at present. As he ascended he could see other members of the guncrew moving to repair the damage he and Kron had caused in their desperate fight. The bodies were gone but charred cabling and slashed conduits were visible. Nathan wondered grimly how often they had repaired such damage without knowing its cause. The adage that ‘ignorance is bliss’ seemed to dominate shipboard life, but with good cause if what Kron had said about the muties was true. The grim pressures of warp travel became all the more nightmarish with the thought that there were malevolent entities clustered beyond the hull. Beasts that thirsted for human lives and souls, whose subconscious calls drove men mad. Nathan suddenly stopped climbing the steps as the thought struck him that he was going to help Kron observe those beasts and the empyrean, the alternate dimension that they swam in.

The curses of the men behind made him move on, accompanied by a perverse desire to see the sinister beasts. He had mixed feelings when he reached the raised deck and saw a row of five shuttered arches lining the hull wall. There were ten in the Opticon crew and the burly rating named Isiah placed two men at each shutter. At first Nathan and Kron busied themselves greasing the shutter runners and cogs at its head and foot. After a quarter watch or so Isiah received a message from the comm-box he carried and relayed an order to raise the shutters. Kron smartly threw a lever and the shutter rose smoothly up to reveal an expanse of black glass which rose higher than his head and as wide as his outstretched arms. As Nathan glanced around at the other crews he noted a sense of nervous anticipation behind their actions, as if raising the shutters was an act of hidden significance.

Nathan was still gazing expectantly at the black glass when the scream of a siren shocked him rigid. The titanic blast of noise seemed to make the very deck plates tremble and was followed by a booming voice which rang like the word of the God-Emperor: ‘ALERT STATUS ALL STATIONS!’

Kron turned and ran for a set of lockers at the side of the Opticon chamber, hotly pursued by the rest of the crew. The men started pulling on pressure suits which Kron dragged from the lockers. The significance of the situation was becoming readily apparent to Nathan by now. They were going into battle, very soon. Those ridiculously cumbersome-looking, heavy, rubberised pressure suits and thick-bowled helmets could be all that stood between them and the void.

To his surprise, Nathan managed to finish clamping himself into a suit before anyone else.

The helmet locked down onto a broad ring across the shoulders of the suit but had a visor made up of different layers, the last of which was little more than a slit in the armour plate. He slid back all the layers and saw Kron had done the same. Nathan felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to breathe the stale, sweaty air inside the suit just yet. ‘How long does this oxygen last?’ he asked Kron, tapping the dented brass cylinder plumbed into the side of the suit’s chest.

‘A watch or so for somun’ as big as ye.’

‘Just eight hours? They don’t want us to get any ideas about wandering off, do they?’

‘Ye can always get more air on the ship and if ye… part company wi’ the ship an’ ye’re not picked up they wouldnae be able to find ye anyway. Ye’d be drifted too far into the void.’

‘All right, what do–’

The deck lurched beneath their feet and there was a sickening sensation of falling for a second. Isiah shouted at them to get to their stations. Nathan noted that the rating now bore a pistol and what looked suspiciously like a shock maul and sprang to his post as best as the suit’s heavy boots would allow.

The monolithic siren blasted twice. A commanding voice spoke: ‘BATTLE STATIONS. BRACE FOR IMPACT!’

The deck shuddered and dropped again. This time the falling was longer. Nathan slid the visor down, grabbed a stanchion and braced his legs. He felt sick and hollow. The suit was stifling. He fought an urge to tear the helmet off and scream his lungs out. An insistent, intellectual part of his brain kept telling him to be calm and that the ship was simply preparing itself and surging majestically into battle. But the animal instincts of his body felt every jar and shake as an infernal choir of death screams.

The ship lurched and fell again. This time Nathan actually felt his feet leave the floor. He felt as though part of him was being torn away; all the roiling emotion in his body began coalescing into a tearing sense of dislocation. A tangible shock rang along the length of the ship and Nathan realised they had left warp space.

The black glass of the Opticon flashed white and then cleared to show a scene of awesome beauty. A night sky bisected by titanic thunderheads of cloud reared above a fiery sunset. Static lightning cobwebbed the depths and climbed up to blush the clouds with purple. Stars stood out sharp and clear, their own fires made to seem cold by their distance.

‘The void never looked so beautiful or terrible before,’ Nathan whispered, his fear drained away by the majesty of it all. Kron’s voice crackled in his earpieces.

‘That’s right, lad, ’cause through this glass ye see as the ship does – heat, light, magnetism, radiants and etherics are all clear to her.’ Kron slid out a large circular lens which was attached to the window frame by a system of brass rods and runners. The thick frame of the lens held two number counters and two raised icons. Kron expertly tracked it across the surface of the window. The numbered wheels of the counters spun in response, one horizontal, one vertical.

The ship shuddered again, and Nathan swayed against the window, his helmet ringing off the unyielding surface alarmingly. The sensation of almost being pitched out into the void was enough to make his palms sweat inside the cursedly thick gloves. As he straightened up, Isiah was barking orders to the crews to search different coordinates. Kron slid the lens across until the metriculators showed 238.00 by 141.00, their search area. At that spot the lens resolved a dark area which had shown occasional vagrant twinklings into an asteroid field, rolling mountains of stone lit by the star’s fiery light.

‘What are we looking for, Kron, just rocks?’ Nathan asked with shaky levity. The old man was tracking the lens back and forth across the field with deft, economical movements. Each time he reached its periphery he depressed one of the runes, and the tumbling stones shown in the lens were outlined in red with strings of numbers showing speed and distance which remained in the glass after the lens slid away.

‘Anythin’ that might show us where the foe’s a’lurkin – a glint here, or a bloom o’ heat there.’ Kron never took his eye from the lens as he spoke, Nathan slid back his topmost, armoured visor so that he could see better.

‘You mean engine heat trails like those?’ he stated, pointing to a set of needle-thin arcs which shimmered near the edge of the field.

‘CONTACT! MARK-TWO-FOUR-ZERO BY ONE-THREE-SEVEN!’ Kron roared, Isiah shouting it back, word for word, over the crackling comm.

The lens now showed broad, vaporous trails of red which curved back around the furthest asteroids. There looked to be four to Nathan, although they were already merging and dissipating.

‘They’re closing in, lad, I can smell it.’

Kron tracked the lens along the trails and cursed as they disappeared behind a glowing streamer of dust. Moments later an incandescent spearhead of heat blossomed out of the cloud, dust and lightning rolled off it in plumes as the lens starkly announced it as Enemy vessel [class: Unknown]. 51,000l. Closing.

A burst of activity on the deck below drew Nathan’s attention. Through the grilled floor he could see Balthasar’s breech had been swung open and the gunners were hauling flat plates covered in short spikes into the open maw. Even through his thick suit he could hear the gunners’ cheers as they slammed the sub-munitions home. On the lens light and shadow now etched out the enemy, showed the silhouette of crenallated battlements and barbed buttresses as the spearhead rolled abeam on the white-hot stabs of myriad thrusters. Grand cruiser, the display read, Repulsive-class.

A ripple of serried flames geysered from the Repulsive’s flank as she completed the turn, and a storm of black specks arrowed towards them. Nathan gasped in horror as a heartbeat later the specks started to explode in gouts of flame. At first they looked distant, small puffs of colour against the void, but the projectiles kept coming, surging forward through the fiery chains to detonate in turn. In moments their view of the enemy was obscured by a firestorm which was rippling ever closer. The flames filled every window in the Opticon by the time Nathan slammed his visor fully shut.

The Repulsive’s salvo crashed down on the ship itself with hurricane force. Nathan staggered as the deck rolled beneath him and a mighty, rushing wind roared beyond the hull. A lash of dazzling purple light blazed through the glass, cutting the incendiary cloud like elemental lightning. It was gone in an instant before it returned in a retina-burning sweep which slammed into the ship with a bone-jarring impact. Nathan’s spine crawled with the sensation of unseen energies straining and crackling before a rush of scorching heat washed over him.

At last he was glad of the suit’s cumbersome protection, though even with it he felt as though he had been suddenly cast into a great oven. The heat was a palpable thing, pushing down on him like a great hand and burning his throat as he tried to breathe. Nathan saw several of the Opticon crew collapse into pathetic heaps, one with flames licking about him. After what seemed like hours but could only have been seconds of heart-stopping fear the burning suddenly stopped, leaving a horrible tang of smouldering rubber inside his helmet. Sirens blasted and an almighty voice boomed over the chaos: ‘PORT WEAPONS PREPARE TO LOCK ON. TARGET MARK-TWO-SIX-NINE BY ONE-SIX-ZERO.’

Iron discipline drove the shipmen to their tasks, that and the grim instinct that to live they must fight and win. The ship had been wounded but it could still fight back. Fires were doused, the dead and injured dragged away. The firestorm was lessening and a moment later the decks ceased to rattle as the ship finally burst clear of the enemies’ salvo pattern. Kron’s breath rasped in Nathan’s earpiece as they slid the lens back over the grand cruiser contact. The Retribution was coming across the enemy’s bow, and the metriculator’s count showed the enemy as closing.

‘LOCK ON.’

Kron activated the second rune on the lens frame. A stylised cog superimposed by the Imperial eagle sprang into existence within the lens but the runners seemed to be jammed and Nathan had to help him drag the device over the target contact. The lens showed the ornate spearhead foreshortening into a shark-finned ziggurat of bronze as they pulled across the front of her. Where the icon rested the hull of the grand cruiser was illuminated as if by a ghostly radiance which played over shimmering walls of force.

‘FIRE MAIN BATTERIES!’

The lights dimmed for a moment as capacitors charged and then the ship resounded with the clamour of the guns. Nathan felt the pressure of unseen forces hit him like a slap as forty guns hurled their payloads across the void. A moment later he saw the spreading cloud of projectiles cleaving towards the enemy. No spreading storms of fire this time, the munitions detonated right beneath the enemy’s prow. Invisible walls fell beneath the onslaught and a rain of destruction crashed across the battlements of the ziggurat-fortress. Debris haloes puffed from it like smoke rings.

‘FIRE MAIN LANCE ARRAYS.’

Ravening white spears of pure power stabbed at the foe, tearing red-glowing gouges across its hull; globs of molten metal spun away and flames leapt from the wounds. The grand cruiser lurched visibly under the impacts, and began to twist away from the salvo. Even as it did so, two heat trails appeared from behind the grand cruiser, coming up fast to slash at its rear with a spiralling net of laser bolts. Nathan felt a flush of relief. The other two ships must be allies, and now their mutual enemy was caught between two fires. Below, the gunners were rushing to reload Balthasar for another shot, while a small team struggled to pin a whipping power line which sparked furiously. He looked back at the lens in time to see a swarm of bright flares pulling away from the enemy cruiser’s prow. Ominously the tiny heat trails curved to alter course towards them and it soon became apparent that although these new weapons were not as fast as the projectiles fired before, they were considerably bigger. Sirens blared.

‘ALL STATIONS PREPARE TO REPEL BOARDERS.’

The relief Nathan had felt rapidly evaporated. The enemy must have launched boarding torpedoes: simple attack craft packed with the troops, bombs, incendiaries, corrosives, nerve agents and other hellish weapons necessary to wreak havoc if they got aboard. It was bad enough to be caught up in the titanic duel between warships but now the enemy was coming to strike at them face-to-face, all the time with the prospect of being crushed like an insect by the pulverising contest going on outside. Isiah rapidly passed out weapons from an arms-locker: blades, shock mauls, stubby autopistols and chunky shotguns. Nathan found himself equipped with a worn-looking pump gun and a clip of shells. He risked a glance at the windows as he was fumbling to slot the shot-filled cylinders into the breech of the gun. They now showed finger-long missiles with beaked prows powering, as it seemed, straight for him on harsh coronas of light. The sirens blared a repeating four-tone alarm.

‘PORT TURRET STATIONS: OPEN FIRE!’

Nathan cursed as he dropped a shell onto the grating; his fingers felt like sausages in the thick suit gloves. Outside lasers sketched livid traceries across the void as the short-range turrets laid down their barrage; shells and missiles exploded in gouts of orange incandescence as the Retribution’s barbettes joined in. The first rank of the beaked projectiles were consumed or broken open and tiny, struggling figures spilled into the void as they spiralled away. But still more torpedoes surged through the barrage and angled in, cutting their flaring drives on a final approach.

Nathan slammed the last shell into place and carefully pumped the action to chamber a round. At the last instant before impact the torpedoes appeared to swell enormously, becoming as big as shuttles before they disappeared from view. A ringing impact threw Nathan to the quivering deck and an endless cacophony of screaming, tearing metal followed. It was so loud it made him quail at the bone-crushing violence of it, of the sheer force that was ripping through the metres of armour plate to breach the hull.

Finally the tearing slowed and stopped until only the screams of injured gunners and the hiss of escaping air penetrated Nathan’s helmet. The Opticon deck had twisted and now part of it sagged away towards the lower deck. Nathan crawled to the edge and saw there was terrible carnage below. A great crocodile-snout of steel and brass projected through the hull plates near Balthasar’s breech. Deck plates were twisted back; stanchions and pipes had been bent into an insane ironwork jungle with flowers of steam and spraying fluids. The surviving gunners were taking up defensive positions, aiming their assortment of shotguns and pistols at the invader.

As they did so, cannons coughed into life around the crocodile’s snout. Gun flashes strobed as the autoweapons hammered explosive rounds across the interior of the gunroom. Men were blasted asunder where the rounds struck and hot shrapnel whickered around the metal walls injuring others. The snout was grinding open now and a horde of nightmarish figures spilled out of it to add their fire to the fight. At first they appeared like men in the flickering light, but their insane glee marked them apart. They capered as the gunners’ pitifully few weapons tore into them, filling that crocodile maw with twitching bodies. They roared with mad laughter as they blazed back with their own guns and threw devilish bombs which burst into pools of hungry, incandescent flame wherever they landed.

Nathan sighted on a twisted figure as it pulled back its arm to throw. The pump gun crashed and the figure fell into a burning pool of its own making. The flames spread, engulfed the crocodile snout and the next two who tried to rush through it were eaten alive by the incendiary. Even so a group of the attackers were out in the gunroom now, dashing through the wreckage to hurl themselves on the gunners. Vicious hand-to-hand combats broke out all across the deck, the foes’ hooks and crooked blades clashing against the gunner’s pry bars and line gaffes.

The pump gun was useless now the melee had reduced all ordered fighting to a shambles.

‘We’ve got to help them!’ Nathan shouted to Kron.

Kron’s helm nodded ponderously back and they both slid themselves down the twisted Opticon deck to drop onto the gun deck. Isiah and two other survivors of the Opticon crew followed and they waded into the brawl in a loose knot. Nathan used his gun as a club, smashing the skull of a black-clad figure who was about to gut a fallen gunner. He winced as the gun crunched into its misshapen head, fearing the ageing weapon would fall apart in his hands.

He pumped the action to chamber a round to reassure himself it still could, just as two figures leapt at him out of the smoke. Their mad eyes glared from behind leather hoods, looking so like Fetchin’s that Nathan almost hesitated before he blasted one in the midriff with the shotgun. He pumped the slide to chamber another round but it jammed halfway. Cursing, he swung the gun up to block a saw-bladed knife as the other foe slashed at him, but he was borne back as his attacker leapt bodily onto him, pinning the useless gun between their bodies. Panic stole Nathan’s strength as he struggled against its maniacal attack. Drool spilled across his face as the creature tore away his helmet with its free hand and pushed him to the deck.

Nathan dropped his gun and scrabbled to keep a grip on the knife-hand as his foe leaned his weight against it, pushing it inexorably towards his exposed neck. For a long second Nathan saw every detail of the thing astride him with horrible clarity. Flames billowed behind a head made jagged by the short horns thrusting out through its leather mask. Cartilage-textured tubes twisted in and out of its flesh like parasitic worms. It was either naked or covered in human hides marked with brands and stigmata. It stank like a week-old corpse and it muttered mad, excited prayers as it bent to the task of murdering him. If what he had been told was true this thing must have been human once. Every shred of its humanity was gone now, eaten up by insane gods that had reduced it to living offal that worshipped its own butcher.

Sickness lent Nathan an awful strength, a burning desire to wipe out these horrors that had been unleashed on them. With a supreme effort born of revulsion Nathan shoved the creature back. Suddenly it convulsed, then slumped and its dead weight bore him back down again.

Nathan rolled free to see Kron pulling an axe from the abomination’s neck. Isiah and the others had disappeared into smoke. Only corpses surrounded Nathan and Kron. Nathan’s helmet visor had been smashed, rendering it useless. Without it he realised how thin the air was becoming. The flames all around were turning ghostly as they hungrily ate at what remained. Even the screams and sounds of combat were becoming subtly muffled.

‘We have to stop more of them getting aboard!’ Kron shouted to him through his own damnably intact helmet.

Nathan nodded his understanding. He grabbed up some firebombs from the corpse and found a short halberd from among the fallen before heading for the heart of the inferno. He felt filled with a kind of righteous fury at the turn of events, like things couldn’t get any worse and it was time for some payback. Somebody had to pay for him landing up in a situation as dire as this, and with Kendrikson already dead it was going to have to be their insane, murderous enemy.

The snout stood open as before. The flames were dying away in its maw and Nathan could see more twisted figures gathering to rush through. He fumbled to find an activation stud on the rune-etched bomb before giving up and simply lobbing it as the figures started to run forward. Then another, and a third from Kron, turning the entryway into a sea of corrosive fire as the bombs burst on impact. Nathan turned to shout to Kron an instant before an armoured giant burst through the conflagration with a brazen roar.

Before Nathan could react, the heavy pistol in its fist barked twice and Kron was thrown back with a flash and shower of blood. Nathan felt an icy bolt of fear trying to force his feet to run but it was already too late. The figure charged forward with nightmarish speed, an ironclad monster of myth, skull-helmed and laden with death, a screeching chainsword in its other fist slashing down at him in an unstoppable arc.

Nathan hurled himself aside and brought up the halberd to block the slash. It was a mistake. The power of the blow threw him back, jolting his arms as the shrieking teeth of the sword tore chunks from the halberd’s steel haft in a shower of sparks. The giant wielded its huge blade with ease, and in the blink of an eye its shrieking weapon circled and swept down at him again. Nathan leapt back but the sweep of the chainsword tore the head from the halberd and slid along the arm of his suit, chewing through it and tearing at his flesh. A cold flush of painlessness told Nathan that the injury was severe; his body was already trying to shut out the agony.

In desperation Nathan thrust the jagged end of the halberd haft into the thing’s barrel chest. It rang off an armoured plate and buried itself deep in a nest of cables beneath where its ribs should have been. The giant warrior didn’t even flinch as it sent him sprawling with a blow from its heavy pistol.

Death was close. One of his eyes was blind and Nathan felt an abnormal calm as he accepted that these were his last seconds of life. The world seemed to slow to an insect crawl as the armoured warrior stepped towards him, raising its keening sword for a killing blow. Nathan felt only a pang of disappointment that he would never know more of Kron’s strange wisdom; so much must have died with him. The pounding of Nathan’s last heartbeats sounded like a distantly thumping drum.

Thump. One armoured boot crunched down. Flecks of blood spun away from the motion-captured teeth of the chainsword as it soared upward. Nathan looked down at his right arm and saw it was crimson from shoulder to wrist. Everything wavered as he started to black out.

Thump. The other boot crashed down. The blade was raised almost to the top of its arc. Nathan was aware of movement where Kron had fallen, and a tiny spark of hope flared that he might still be alive, might save Nathan somehow if only he were quick and could defeat this unstoppable colossus. Logic sneered at his paltry hopes from the dark recesses of his brain.

Thump. The blade began to sweep down, gathering momentum. Nathan’s world was shrinking, the vision from his remaining eye darkening until he could barely see. Paltry hopes and all conscious thought were corroded away by the sea of agony raging through his arm.

Thump. Nathan saw the blade had entered his dimmed world and part of him welcomed it, teeth flashing bright as a shark’s hungry smile in the gloom. The pain would be over soon, that could only be good. A spectral hand seemed to be reaching over him to touch the blade, as if the God-Emperor Himself were placing a benediction on his slaughter. The hand was crawling with blue fires and sparks cascaded from its fingertips.

Thump. A flash of light leapt from hand to blade, and with it the chainsword exploded and was hurled away from the giant’s fist. The hulking warrior staggered and started to raise its pistol. Kron stepped forward into Nathan’s circle of vision and raised a hand.

Thump. A ravening bolt of brilliance crackled from Kron’s hand onto the warrior’s chest-plate and rent it asunder in a thunderclap. The mighty figure was thrown off its feet, its pistol sending explosive rounds flashing off wildly from its owner’s convulsing death-spasm.

Thump. The chainsword, molten and twisted rang down on the deck plates. Nathan clasped his left arm to his right shoulder and instantly felt warmth flood through his blood-slick wounds. The armoured warrior crashed to the deck beside its smoking sword. Nathan tried to breathe more deeply to clear his head but found he couldn’t. The orange flames all around were shrinking into bluish flickers. The air was nearly gone.

Kron squatted down beside him as the ship shook, as if from some internal explosion. Nathan could see the chest of Kron’s suit was shredded and bloody, a death-shot surely. Wreckage dislodged by the shock wave crashed down nearby with horrible clangour. Kron didn’t even flinch as he calmly removed his helmet. As the helmet came away, Kron’s eye blazed as never before. It was glowing with the fierce light of a furnace. Nathan tried to blot out the horrible intensity of that glare in his dimmed world but couldn’t. It bored into him, so that it seemed like Kron the man was shrunk to nothing more than a wraith, that the crimson brilliance trailed behind it like smoke.

Kron’s lips moved, but Nathan had to strain to hear their faint whisper through the rarefied air.

‘Don’t you worry, shipmate, Kron’ll see to ye.’

‘L-Luminen!’ Nathan gasped.

‘No,’ Kron whispered.

Nathan’s body was trembling uncontrollably as shock set in. His vision had almost dimmed completely, apart from a harsh, red light floating nearby.

‘Not that at all.’

A helmet clamped down over Nathan’s head, dimming the light and bringing a welcome darkness.

Nathan awoke on the floor of the hidden cutter. His arm was in a sling and a bandage covered one of his eyes but he otherwise felt rested and healthy. Kron was sitting in one of the narrow pews, watching him.

‘How de ye feel?’ he inquired with genuine concern.

‘Good,’ Nathan grunted as he sat up. ‘How long was I out?’

‘Five hours. I took time to fix ye up, an’ me too, and rest some ’fore we go back up to the gunroom.’

Nathan felt a sense of relief. He had feared Kron would ask him if he wanted to jump ship. The aftermath of a battle offered the best chance Nathan would likely get for an escape to go unnoticed. But somehow the prospect seemed a lot less appealing now he had seen what was out there waiting for mutineers and faithless men to fall into its clutches. In fact Nathan was feeling an unfamiliar amount of regard for the God-Emperor after his experiences, a craving for the protection the ecclesiarchs promised could be gained from the blessings of the Holy Master of Mankind.

But that left him in here with Kron, not-a-Luminen Kron who could defeat a champion of the mad gods with his own lightning. No ordinary gunner, for sure. A servant of the Emperor? Somehow Nathan didn’t think so. If anything he really did look like a gargoyle in this setting, a red-eyed piece of malevolence that had detached itself from the stonework and come down to blaspheme among it. Perhaps someone hiding out then, disguised among a faceless mass yet always moving from one world to another. It would be a superb cover. Unremarkable, beneath attention and yet guarded by the awesome might of an Imperial warship. Ultimately, whatever other misgivings Nathan might have, Kron had saved his life and that put him firmly in Kron’s debt. He began to say so but Kron waved his thanks away.

‘Don’t be too thankful, lad. I had to fix your eye with what was to hand down here. I’m ’fraid I might have made a terrible job out of it. Take the bandage off. Tell me if ye can see.’

Nathan knew what was coming even before his fingers brushed cold steel around his eye. The lens of it was hard and slightly curved to the touch. He bore the metal-sealed scars of his first engagement as part of the Emperor’s Navy, but his vision was perfect. Nathan shuddered as he recalled Kron’s unnerving personality shift after the fight with Kendrikson, when he had seemed like a slave desperate to escape his inactive bionic eye.

‘Kron?’ Nathan began tentatively. ‘Who are you really?’

Kron chortled. ‘A princeling who was stolen by gypsies.’

‘Don’t start that again.’

‘Very well, I’ll put it this way, lad… Cross the stars and fight for glory…’

RAPTOR DOWN

Gav Thorpe

The flight deck was a hive of activity. The murmuring of tech-priests resounded off the high gantries amongst the chatter of rivet guns and the clank of ordnance loaders. Welding torches sparked bright blue-white in the yellow glow of the standby alert lighting and figures hurried to and fro. The Marauders of Raptor and Devil squadrons were arrayed herringbone-fashion along the length of the maintenance bay as tech-adepts and servitors crawled across them, repairing battle damage and loading new ordnance. Flight Commander Jaeger stood and watched it all with a faint sense of satisfaction. Everyone was performing well today – the pilots, their gunners and bombardiers, and the bay crews were all operating like a well-oiled machine. He cupped his hands to his mouth to shout across the din.

‘Ferix, how are the repairs going?’ he bellowed across the decking to the robe-swathed tech-adept monitoring the maintenance on Jaeger’s own Marauder, Raptor One. Ferix hurried over with short, quick steps and nodded curtly. Over the adept’s shoulder, Jaeger could read the insignia that he himself had painted onto the nose of Raptor One after their last mission. It was the Raptors’ motto – Swift Justice, Sure Death – in bright white against the dark blue paint of the Navy colours. Underneath was the squadron emblem, an eagle rampant in shining gold. It was reassuring to Jaeger, the familiarity he now shared with Raptor One after their bloody baptism together a year and a half ago.

‘All craft are battle-worthy, Flight Commander Jaeger,’ Ferix told him, his hands concealed within the voluminous sleeves of his robes. ‘Raptor Three should be decommissioned for several more hours preferably, but is operational within tolerable limits.’

‘Good. Let me know as soon as weapons load and check is complete. I’ll be on the bridge.’ Jaeger dismissed Ferix with a wave of his hand and turned away. As he walked across the flight deck, he cast his gaze around him, looking at the bulky shapes of the Marauder bombers in the gloom and the smaller Thunderbolt interceptors in the launching alcoves on the far side of the massive chamber.

All this is my domain now, he thought, not for the first time. It had been eighteen months since Raf’s death had left Jaeger in charge, a year and a half of responsibility to command and lead nearly a hundred pilots and flight crewmen, to mould them into a fighting team worthy of the Imperial Navy.

He could see the men of his own squadron, the Raptors, taking a well-earned meal break at the battlestation mess tables on the starboard side of the flight deck. He saw the veterans – strong, disciplined men like Marte, Arick, Phrao and Berhandt. But there were too many new faces for the flight commander’s liking, men untested in the heat of battle until today. For a year the cruiser Divine Justice had continued her patrol, unable to replace the losses she had suffered at the hands of the orks. Only three months ago she had returned to dock and new crews were drafted in from the flight schools. Unlike the ratings, flight crews needed to be trained professionals; you couldn’t just send a press gang onto some Imperial world and see what you dredged up. For a year the Divine Justice had been home to only half the aircraft her holds could carry and launch. Jaeger was glad that they had seen no serious action during the rest of the patrol – a few skirmishes with outclassed pirates, the odd smuggler, but nothing like the baptism of fire and death that had been the duel with the ork hulk.

Jaeger realised he was at the lifter now, and stepped into the small chamber. He cranked the dial to ‘Bridge deck’ and slammed the grating shut. A moment later he was swiftly ascending amongst the clatter of chains and gears, the floor of the lifter shaking gently beneath his booted feet.

Untried boys! he cursed to himself. But for all his worries, the operation was proceeding with little difficulty. Having barely had time to refit and re-crew at Saltius, the Divine Justice and her three frigate escorts, the Glorious, the Apollo and the Excellent, had been despatched with orders to support the Imperial Guard invasion of the Mearopyis System. Even now, they were in orbit over the third world of the system, running escort to the drop-ships and making ground attacks against enemy supply bases and communications centres.

They were here to fight the noctal – spindly, insectoid aliens who had conquered Mearopyis and enslaved its human population several thousand years ago. Finally, the Imperium had arrived to take it back and once more bring the light of the Emperor to the people of the subjugated world. Casualties had been light so far. Admiral Veniston’s rites of engagement had been very specific. The noctal fighters were incapable of orbital flight, unlike the Thunderbolts and Marauders of the Divine Justice. The squadrons were hitting hard and fast, dropping from orbit, bombing and strafing their targets before powering back up to the ships waiting above, safe from harm. The enemy fighters were swift and agile, but they couldn’t be everywhere at once and only a single Marauder had been lost, and no Thunderbolts had yet been taken down. Jaeger had heard that the squadrons from the other ships of the fleet were having similar successes.

Perhaps this is not such a bad time to test out the new hands, Jaeger considered. No massed air battles, strict orders and a safe haven would allow his men to settle, with enough risk to keep them on their toes, but also safe enough that they’d survive to learn from the experience. Survival was the key, in Jaeger’s mind. No flight commander wanted a continuous draft of newcomers flying his craft; he wanted experienced, dedicated crews who would return time and again, their mission complete.

With a thunk, the lifter reached the top of its shaft, eighteen decks up from the flight bays. Jaeger pulled back the door and stepped out, swapping a salute with a gunnery lieutenant who stepped past him. He marched up to the double doors leading to the bridge and nodded to the shotgun-wielding armsman standing guard. The armsman turned and activated the comm-set on the wall behind him, announcing Jaeger’s presence. There was an affirmative and several seconds later the bridge doors swung back with a hiss of hidden pistons. Stepping through, Jaeger saw the bridge was in its normal state of organised confusion. Tech-adepts scurried to and fro, augur and surveyor servitors announced target dispositions in monotonous drones, officers snapped orders over the comm-net, and flunkies and menials of every description hurried here and there taking notes, making reports or simply repeating messages from one officer to the next.

In the middle of it all stood Captain Kaurl, like a rock amidst the swirl of a rising tide.

The stocky, bearded officer had his hands clasped behind his back, his feet spread as if braced on a buffeted drop-ship rather than a stately cruiser. He nodded as a lieutenant passed on some piece of data and then looked at the main viewing screen. It dominated the centre of the bridge, five metres high, and twice as long.

The main picture showed a duel between three Imperial cruisers and two noctal superdestroyers. Cannon fire and missiles streaked from the Emperor’s vessels, flaring into bright green flashes as they impacted on the energy shields of the alien ship.

Bright white las-fire erupted from one of the superdestroyers, a flickering coruscation of energy bolts that impacted on the void shields of one of the cruisers, their energy dissipating harmlessly.

Various sub-images charted fleet positions, drop-ship manoeuvres and sundry other details. In the bottom left, a tracker field flickered on and off in one of the Divine Justice’s docking bays, drawing a supply shuttle down onto the armoured deck, heat wash from its engines causing the image to waver on the screen. To the top right, a spread of torpedoes rocketed across the void. As they neared a noctal vessel the front of each peeled open, ejecting a storm of plasma and fusion warheads which rippled across its silver-grey hull in a riot of orange and red. Along the bottom of the screen, wings of Starhawk bombers manoeuvred between the las-fire of a superdestroyer’s defence turrets, the armoured surface of the alien ship splintering into a shower of shrapnel as their bombs punched deep inside before exploding.

Jaeger turned his attention back to the main image and watched as retro thrusters flared into life along the length of one of the Imperial cruisers. Slowed in its course, it began to sweep to starboard, turning slowly at first but gathering pace as its forward momentum slowed. Another jet of engines halted the turn and the main engines increased to full. Its broadside opened fire again and this time the noctal shields failed, missiles and plasma blasts raking into its engine decks.

Fires blossomed and spread, burning white-hot as air rushed out of the punctured hull of the enemy superdestroyer in explosive bursts.

‘Jacques!’ Kaurl called out, snapping Jaeger’s attention from the ongoing space battle.

‘Sir!’ he replied crisply, saluting formally. The captain responded with an equally formal nod.

‘How are things going?’ Kaurl asked, taking Jaeger by the arm and leading him into his personal cabin off the main bridge. It was fitted out in wooden panelling, a deep red grain that lent an air of calm. He sat beside the captain on a long sofa whose plush covers matched the rich décor of the room.

‘I have made post-mission reports, sir,’ Jaeger replied with a frown. ‘Everything is in there.’

‘Not everything, Jaeger,’ smiled Kaurl. ‘Numbers, yes, but nothing else. They don’t tell me how you feel the invasion is progressing.’

‘Everything seems to be going smoothly, exactly to plan I would say,’ Jaeger told the captain after a moment’s thought. ‘Better than planned.’

‘And that worries you?’ Kaurl seemed to read Jaeger’s thoughts.

‘Every plan is perfect until it makes contact with the enemy.’ Jaeger recited the line from the Navy battle dogma. ‘Then it usually falls apart – it doesn’t exceed expectation.’

‘Emperor’s blood, man!’ cursed Kaurl, standing up and glowering at his flight commander. ‘Are you never happy?’

‘No, sir, I’m not,’ Jaeger replied solemnly, looking back up at Kaurl, his face impassive.

That was slightly untrue, he thought; I’m happy when I’m flying. That’s the only time. A thought occurred to him then. There was someone he hadn’t seen over the past twelve hours since the attack had begun. ‘Where is Admiral Veniston, sir?’

‘Admiral Kright has been recalled to sector command. Veniston has taken command of the fleet and transferred his flag to the battleship Holy Dignity,’ Kaurl answered. ‘I’ve got my own ship back, thank the Emperor,’ he added with a conspiratorial grin.

‘Not meaning to be rude, sir, but the Raptors will be ready to launch any minute.’ Jaeger fidgeted with the collar of his flight suit and glanced at the chronometer that sat on the desk behind Kaurl.

‘Of course, Jacques, you get out there and bomb them to hell and back.’ Kaurl nodded towards the door. Jaeger nodded thankfully and hurried out on long strides.

‘I almost feel sorry for the noctal,’ Kaurl muttered to himself as the door closed behind the eager flight commander. ‘Almost.’

‘Targets all stored, weapons ready to go,’ Berhandt announced gruffly. Jaeger glanced to his right across the cockpit towards his bombardier. He opened the comm-channel to the rest of the Marauders. Both the Raptors and the Devils were in on this one, escorted by the interceptors of Arrow and Storm Squadrons.

‘Everyone has their orders, let’s make sure this one goes smoothly,’ he told them.

‘They won’t know what’s hit them!’ crowed Phrao’s tinny voice in Jaeger’s ear.

‘We gonna make a fireball so big they’ll see it back on board!’ chipped in Logan, squadron leader of the Devils.

‘Let’s cut the gossiping. Prepare for atmospheric entry. Let’s not lose our heads,’ Jaeger chided them. In the last twelve hours they had flown five missions with nine-tenths of their targets utterly destroyed. He wasn’t about to lose a craft because some hothead forgot their procedures.

‘Raptor Leader, this is Arrow Leader, moving ahead to intercept positions.’ Squadron Leader Dextra’s voice was quiet and distant over the comm-link.

‘Raptor Leader, this is Storm Leader, taking position on your rear quarter,’ Losark added as Jaeger watched the bright spark of the Arrows’ engines forging ahead towards the world below.

It nearly filled the cockpit: a yellowish globe swirled with orange-and-red dust clouds. Down there, three-quarters of a million Imperial Guardsmen were forging their way across the plains, in a massive strike determined to seize the noctal’s capital within a day. The Imperial strategy relied upon a single swift hammer blow that destroyed the noctal’s command before their reserves could react and bring superior numbers to bear on the Emperor’s soldiers. And so far it seemed to be working – resistance was scattered; the noctal seemed to have had no warning that the Imperium had arrived. The first the aliens had known of the attack, Imperial drop-ships had already touched down.

The Marauder began to shudder as it entered the upper atmosphere of Mearopyis. The control stick in Jaeger’s hand started to judder as the air resistance strengthened. Thermals and turbulence began to make the massive aircraft dip and weave as it streaked down towards the clouds. Ahead Jaeger watched the shapes of the Thunderbolts commanded by Dextra disappear into the cloud cover, slipping silently from view. As air pressure built, Jaeger disengaged the attitude jets along the Marauder’s wings; it would fly like a conventional aircraft now. As the first few wisps of cloud began to coalesce across the cockpit windows, Jaeger turned the comm-link dial to talk to the Divine Justice.

‘This is Raptor Leader. Entering cloud cover now. What’s the latest on enemy craft?’ he reported.

There was a pause, and Jaeger could imagine the bustle on the bridge as a lieutenant sought out the information and relayed it to the comms officer.

‘Raptor Leader, this is the Divine Justice. Small enemy interceptor patrol last reported one hundred and fifty kilometres to local west. Larger concentration, approximately fifteen craft seen over target area at zero eight forty-four ship chronology.’

Jaeger absorbed this news without comment. As the air campaign had continued, the enemy had responded and now there were fewer targets left, it was inevitable that they would receive better air cover. Jaeger had argued hotly that the noctal airbases were the target of the first strikes, but Kaurl had informed him that priority had been given to targets that stood in the path of the advancing Imperial army.

‘Time to target?’ he asked Berhandt. The bombardier glanced at a screen to his right.

‘About twenty minutes, depending on headwind,’ Berhandt replied with a shrug.

Jaeger thought this over in silence. The last report had been thirty minutes old, plus another twenty minutes until they arrived. Would the enemy aircraft still be there? Would there be more of them or less?

‘Divine Justice, this is Raptor Leader. Please inform me as soon as new data available on target’s air cover.’

As he made the request, Jaeger forced himself to relax. Adaptability was one of his greatest strengths, and he felt confident he could react to whatever situation developed.

But can the others? he asked himself sourly. This invasion was the first time many of them had been under fire. So far their orders had been simple to execute and had gone by the book. How well would they react under real stress, with Jaeger barking orders out over the comm-net; orders that might save them from being shot down if followed quickly and accurately? He had drilled them long and hard in the simulators and on training flights, mercilessly pushing them each time, berating them loudly for the smallest errors. They thought he probably didn’t know, but he’d heard they called him the Iron Tyrant for his strict, disciplined approach. He didn’t care; they could call him all the names in the Imperium if it meant they listened to him and learnt from his experience.

He had served under three flight commanders over nearly ten years as an Imperial Navy pilot. All three had impressed upon him the importance of duty and discipline, and it was a message he was determined to impart to his own men. He felt a responsibility to each of them, to give them the training and leadership they needed to excel, to become what the Emperor expected of them. It was why he was so hard on them, why he was the Iron Tyrant, because each small failure reflected on him in his own conscience.

‘Arrow leader, move ahead and see what’s waiting for us at the target,’ Jaeger ordered into the comm. ‘Storm Leader, remain in position ready to engage enemy from the west.’

He hated fighting blind; the memory of the attack on the space hulk was still burnt into his mind. Twenty-one men had died that day because no one had told them what they were up against.

Veniston had called it ‘acceptable losses’, but there was no such phrase in Jaeger’s head. No loss could be tolerated and already he felt guilty for the crew of Devil Five, which had been shot down by groundfire on the first mission over Mearopyis.

This time is different, he told himself, trying to build up some conviction. This time our orders are simple. We have rules of engagement written specifically to protect my men. In, attack and then out again. They were the rules and he was bound by his duty to the Navy and his men to follow them.

‘Raptor Leader, this is Storm Leader. We have enemy incoming from the west. Permission to engage?’

‘Go ahead, Losark,’ Jaeger replied, staring out of the cockpit window towards the west for some hint of the enemy aircraft, but nothing was to be seen yet.

‘Okay Storm squadron, let’s chalk up some more kills,’ confirmed Losark, making Jaeger smile inside his face mask. The Storm squadron leader was the best dogfighter on the Divine Justice, but Dextra was his senior by two years and was always just a few kills ahead in his tally. Jaeger had wagered extra drinks rations to the whole of Raptor squadron that Losark would surpass his rival’s total by the end of the campaign.

He watched as the Thunderbolts, eight of them, screamed overhead and banked to starboard. The squadron split into two wings of four craft each, one accelerating up towards the cloud base, the other dipping towards the ground. Jaeger saw a sparkle in the distance – the Mearopyis star glinting off metal as the enemy fighters closed in.

‘Maintain course to target,’ the flight commander ordered the Marauders. ‘Gunners prepare for interlocking fire, pattern omega.’

As he finished, he heard the whine of electric motors as Marte swung the fuselage gun cradle into position. Through the reinforced screen, Jaeger watched as missile trails ghosted away from Storm squadron, arrowing their way across the skies towards the noctal plane. A moment later a bright explosion lit up the sky, an expanding star of blue created by a missile’s impact. As the blast dissipated, a haze of white smoke was left drifting on the gentle wind.

‘One less alien,’ Berhandt muttered contentedly to himself from beside Jaeger.

The dogfight approached as the speedier noctal fighters burst between the two Thunderbolt formations, intent on the bombers. Jaeger saw vapour trails arcing across the sky as the Imperial interceptors banked round to follow the alien craft, but he knew they were too slow to catch them and the Marauders would have to look to their own guns for protection.

‘Power up the lascannon,’ Jaeger ordered Berhandt, who gave a satisfied grunt and swivelled his seat to grip hold of the nose-gun’s controls. Jaeger switched the comm-link to address all of the Marauders.

‘Hold your fire, wait for my order,’ he steadied them, knowing that if one trigger-happy soul started firing, the rest would join in and probably waste their limited ammunition.

He could make out the noctal planes more clearly as they streaked towards him at the front of the double arrowhead of Marauders. They were racing in fast, keeping a tight formation. That was good; the closer the aliens stayed together, the more chance the firing from the turrets would hit something. Another ten seconds trickled past as Jaeger watched the bright specks turn into distinct shapes.

A bolt of green energy erupted towards the bombers as the lead craft fired its laser, the flash passing comfortably overhead.

‘All crews, open fire!’ Jaeger bellowed into the comm-mic. An instant later Raptor One shook with the thunder of autocannons and heavy bolters firing, and a stream of tracer rounds soared across the shrinking gap between the two squadrons. More las-bolts blasted past, one so close it left a streak of after-image seared across Jaeger’s eyes for a few seconds.

‘Come on, up a bit… up a bit, you alien scum!’ muttered Berhandt, his face pressed down into the targeting visor of the lascannon. The noctal had dipped, trying to take the Marauders from below. But there was to be no refuge there either, as the guns of the lower squadron, the Devils, opened fire and the three sleek aircraft were surrounded by a storm of tracers.

‘Got yer!’ cackled Berhandt, pressing the firing stud. The lascannon burst into life, a beam of white energy lancing out to pass straight through the nearest foe. The enemy craft disintegrated, its triangular wings spiralling groundward until they were out of sight, the main fuselage utterly vaporised. As the noctal planes screamed past, Jaeger got a good look at their shape. They were like blunt darts, their stubby delta wings stretching from in front of the cockpit to the rear of the plane. Four tail fins surrounded bright blue jets as Jaeger tracked its course through the side screen, looking over his shoulder as it zoomed away.

Fire from Raptor Four, Phrao’s Marauder, caught one wing of the noctal fighter, shredding it into hundreds of shrapnel fragments that scattered in its wake. Control lost, the plane went into a wild, rolling spin, tumbling headlong through the rest of squadron, whose gunners easily tracked it and sent a fusillade of fire into it until finally it broke in half before exploding.

‘I’ll get the last one,’ Losark assured him over the comm.

‘How many kills behind now?’ asked Jaeger, laughing softly.

‘Three to go, Raptor Leader,’ came the squadron leader’s reply, his eagerness conveyed even across the crackling comm-net.

The Thunderbolts soared past just metres away, afterburners on full, the wash of their passing juddering the control column in Jaeger’s right hand.

‘Continue course to target, estimated time to attack is…’ Jaeger glanced up at the chrono-display in the top left corner of the cockpit window. ‘Thirteen minutes.’

‘Five minutes until target in sight,’ Berhandt’s rough voice reported. Jaeger glanced over towards the muscled bombardier, who was intent on his bomb targeter. The glowing green display under-lit his face as he stared into the aiming reticule, making final adjustments to the optics with a series of switches and dials on his control panel. He never took his eyes from the reticule. Instead his fingers danced over the controls as if powered by a will of their own – in fact they were driven by a familiarity only years of experience could develop.

If they survive, all of the crews will be as good as him, thought Jaeger as he watched the bombardier at work. It’s up to me to ensure that they do.

Jaeger knew that at times he was guilty of pride, but he had a dream that one day Raptor squadron and the Divine Justice would be recognised as the best across the whole segmentum. He wanted the admirals at Bakka to know he was there, to hear of his great work. It was a good ambition, he told himself.

The flight commander turned his attention back outside the canopy as the Marauders’ altitude dropped. They were to make a low-level attack first, dropping their massive payload of incendiary explosives on an enemy bunker complex. After circling around they would make a second attack run with missiles and lascannons, picking off anything smoked out by the firebombs. It was straight out of the tactics manual, performed in drills and simulated battles a dozen times by the pilots and bombardiers.

A subtle movement to Jaeger’s right caught his attention. Something was stirring in the yellow haze to the south-west. It looked to Jaeger like a dust cloud, quite a large one, several dozen kilometres away. Checking the gauges above his head, Jaeger noted a strong headwind, which would probably blow the dust storm in their direction. Concerned, he opened up the long-range comm-channel.

‘Divine Justice, this is Raptor Leader. Any reports of storm activity on our approach?’ he asked, still looking intently at the swirling cloud of ochre sand and dust.

‘That is negative, Raptor Leader. Strong winds, low cloud, no storm activity,’ came the reply after several seconds.

‘Okay, Divine Justice. Please monitor this channel, I may have found something,’ Jaeger told the officer in orbit, an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

Turning in his seat, Jaeger punched a few runes on the screen display and, after a swirl of static, a chart of the local geography was superimposed over the front canopy window. He focused the map onto his current recorded location and, glancing up again to check the direction towards the storm, placed its position. It seemed to be issuing from a long canyon complex that ran for hundreds of kilometres perpendicular to the axis of the Imperial attack, some twelve kilometres behind the forward Guard positions.

‘They would have checked it out,’ he muttered to himself. Berhandt looked up at him quizzically.

‘Somethin’ wrong?’ the bombardier asked, looking out of the cockpit to follow Jaeger’s gaze.

‘Ferix!’ Jaeger snapped, glancing over his shoulder down the length of the Marauder. The tech-adept emerged from his maintenance alcove, trailing a twist of cabling. ‘Talk to one of the missile auspexes, find out if it can see anything in that dust cloud.’

Ferix nodded, and ducked through a low hatchway into the maintenance crawl space that led to the starboard wing. His voice arrived in Jaeger’s ear direct through the Marauder’s internal comm-system.

‘Initiating activation sequence, aktiva cons sequentia,’ the tech-adept intoned, reciting the rites out loud. His voice took on a different timbre as his brain merged with the mechanical workings of the missile, feeling its spirit moving inside him, divorcing him from the world of the flesh. ‘Librius machina auroris dei. Contact established with machine-spirit of “Flail” missile, designate 14-56. Praise the Machine-God. Ignis optika carta mond. Invoking surveyor sweep over target area. Calculating… Calculating… Calculating… Targets present, multiple, unknown designation.’

‘Emperor’s claws,’ cursed Jaeger hotly. Something was inside that canyon, hiding from orbital surveillance. ‘Can you be more specific, how many is “multiple”?’

‘Unknown, target acquisition beyond recall capacity,’ Ferix replied. His voice lost its distant edge. ‘Flight commander, this missile type has a half-kilobrain of memory, capable of storing information on seventy-five separate targets.’

‘So there’s more than seventy-five possible targets down there?’ Jaeger demanded, the clenching sensation in his stomach moving up to his throat. ‘More than seventy-five armoured vehicles?’

‘That is correct,’ came Ferix’s dispassionate reply. ‘Smaller objects are disregarded.’

‘In all that’s holy–’ came Berhandt’s response, who had been listening in, eyes locked to Jaeger’s.

‘That’s enough to cut their supplies… We have to warn the Guard!’

‘You have very specific orders, flight commander,’ Kaurl’s stern voice told Jaeger over the comms network. ‘Proceed with the attack as planned.’

Jaeger glanced at the small display screen just to the left of the control stick. Ferix had remapped the wiring of Raptor One so that the artificial eyes of its missiles were directed towards that display. There were one hundred and twenty-three separate signals there now and still rising as they approached the canyon. Jaeger eyed the small blobs of green light with hatred. His two squadrons were enough to seriously dent the enemy force, but it would be risky. Added to that, the captain had specifically ordered him to ignore them.

If the counter-attack was allowed to continue, though, who could tell what damage it would do to the whole war effort? Speed was the basis of the assault, and if it was slowed down by an incursion into its supply lines, the whole invasion might falter. If it faltered, all would be lost as the noctal used the time to gather their armies from across the planet. Who could tell if they had more ships in the vicinity, each now warned and powering its way to raise the orbital siege of the alien-held world? And what of the humans below?

The noctal had been so shocked there had been no time for them to bargain or use them as hostages, but millions of lives could end in torment and death if the noctal regained the upper hand.

Jaeger felt torn in several directions at once. He had his orders, they were very specific and Captain Kaurl had said as much. If he attacked the enemy column – whatever else happened – he would have to face a court of inquiry for disobeying those orders. Also, this noctal army was bound to have defences against air attack; after all they had been suffering badly from airstrikes for the last twelve hours. If this counter-attack was as important as Jaeger thought it was, it would have every available protection. And that meant a lot of added risk. Risk to himself, his planes and their crews. Risks Jaeger was loath to take. Had he not, minutes before, been ruing the day he led Raptor squadron on that deadly attack against the ork hulk? And now here he was, contemplating disobeying a direct order to lead his men down a canyon full of the enemy, into Emperor-knew-what kind of trouble and bloodshed. Jaeger swallowed hard and made his decision.

‘Raptors, Devils, change of plan,’ he announced to his command through gritted teeth. His duty was ultimately to the campaign as a whole, and through that to the Emperor. He had no other course of action open to him. ‘Follow me to the enemy, free attack once you are in range.’

‘Let’s do some huntin’!’ came Gesper’s reply from Devil Two.

‘Behind you all the way, sir,’ agreed Phrao.

‘Come in low and fast, hit them with everything you’ve got, then make for the Divine Justice.’ Jaeger was talking quickly now, feeling adrenaline surge through him as he banked the squadrons towards the canyon and nosed Raptor One towards the ground. ‘No waiting around!’

‘Raptor One, this is Storm. We are on intercept course to enemy fighters over new target.’

‘Storm One, this is Arrow One, you’ll have to get there before me!’

Even as the message ended, Dextra’s Thunderbolt screamed across Jaeger’s field of vision, its jets at full burn leaving a brief after-image in the flight commander’s eyes. It was swiftly followed by the shapes of the other four Thunderbolts, spreading out in readiness for the coming battle. As Jaeger continued to bank, Storm squadron roared overhead, just seconds behind the Arrows.

‘We’ll be at the canyon in twenty-five seconds,’ Berhandt reported.

Jaeger nodded and levelled the Marauder, pushing up the engines to maximum as Raptor One powered towards the enemy a mere two hundred metres above the softly undulating dunes of Mearopyis.

‘Fifteen seconds to canyon,’ Berhandt informed him, bent once more over the aiming reticule.

Above him, Jaeger could see the fighters duelling in and out of the rising dust cloud. A moment later and the sand and grit was swirling around the Marauder, skittering off the windshield and obscuring everything past a couple of metres.

‘I hope those engine filters hold, Ferix.’ Jaeger glanced over his shoulder to the tech-adept in the maintenance bay.

‘I fitted them myself, flight commander,’ Ferix assured him coldly, bringing a smile to Jaeger’s lips beneath his air mask.

‘Ten seconds to target,’ came Berhandt’s coutdown. ‘Nine… Eight… Seven… Six… Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Target acquired!’

Jaeger felt rather than saw the ground drop away beneath him and banked the Marauder to port, heading north, and down into the canyon. Flickers of green las-fire illuminated the dust cloud ahead and to either side, but none was close yet. A hum started in Jaeger’s ear as Berhandt locked on to one of the Flail missiles, its warning tone rising to a screech as it became aware of its target’s location.

‘Fly, sweet vengeance!’ Berhandt spat, pressing down on the firing stud. A half-second later the missile streaked downwards and then levelled, disappearing into the dust on a trail of white fire. Jaeger felt his heart beat once, then again, then there was a bright patch in the storm and a moment later a muffled boom shook the canopy.

‘Fuel carrier, I think,’ Berhandt commented, not looking up from the sighting array.

The dust began to thin rapidly and soon Jaeger could see the bottom of the canyon, still half a kilometre below. No wonder the orbital augurs didn’t notice this, it’s as deep as the pits of hell, he thought. Another missile flared off towards the enemy, its vapour trail joined by eight more as the other Marauders opened fire. They jinked and weaved as strong eddies in the wind, caused by the funnelling effect of the deep canyon, forced them to adjust their flight path towards their prey.

A couple of seconds later nine explosions blossomed in rapid succession in a cluster across the canyon floor, but Jaeger still couldn’t make out what they were firing at. Now more groundfire was lancing its way along the natural trench towards them. Pulses of tracer fire combined with the green las-blasts he’d seen earlier, but the enemy were aiming too high.

Looking away at the target-screen for a moment, he saw a grouping of several dozen stationary vehicles ahead.

‘See that cluster?’ he asked Berhandt as a shell whistled past a few metres to his left. The bombardier nodded and adjusted a couple of dials on his visor.

‘Squadrons, assume formation Bravus for main payload drop,’ Jaeger ordered, directing the two squadrons into position to maximise damage from the bombing run. Without warning, he heard a detonation close behind, and twisting in his pilot’s seat he looked out of the side window. A Marauder was banking off, flames engulfing its tail and rear fuselage. Its uncontrolled descent took it into the canyon wall a second later, its fuel tanks and plasma chamber exploding in a shower of flames and debris.

‘Who was that? Who did we lose?’ Jaeger demanded over the comm.

‘Devil Three, Scairn’s plane,’ came the reply from Cal Logan, Devil Squadron’s leader.

‘Dammit! We’ve lost two engines!’ L’stin cursed, before Jaeger could answer.

‘Raptor Three, get back to orbit!’ snapped Jaeger, noticing that las-bolts were streaking down towards them as well as from the ground.

‘Arrow, Storm! Strafe enemy positions on the canyon walls!’ Jaeger’s voice was clipped, harsh, as he focused his mind on what to do next. ‘Raptor Squadron, continue with bombing runs. Devil Squadron, use missiles and lascannons to provide covering fire.’

A series of affirmatives sounded in the flight commander’s ear. Jaeger levelled out the Marauder’s course to prepare for the bombing run. He couldn’t afford to evade the incoming fire; it would make aiming almost impossible for Berhandt. A splintering crack appeared in the canopy between him and the bombardier as a las-bolt ricocheted off. Jaeger heard other impacts rattling along the length of the fuselage as green flashes of laser energy and yellow tracers converged on him, the lead plane.

He knew Ferix was now working at full stretch, monitoring any malfunctions, coaxing Raptor One’s own systems into repairing themselves, welding, cutting and binding where that wasn’t possible. He could hear the tech-adept chanting liturgies of maintenance and repair behind him. A red warning light flashed on the panel to Jaeger’s right – one of the engines was leaking plasma. Without thought, the flight commander shut down power to the damaged jet and boosted up the others, stabilising the Marauder’s flight path with small movements on the control stick.

‘Raptor Four is down, Raptor Three is down,’ reported Phrao heavily. ‘Storm and Arrow have broken off, they’re out of fuel.’

‘Emperor damn it all to hell!’ snarled Jaeger, looking back and up over his shoulder for a sign that any enemy fighters had survived the air duel. A sudden blood-curdling shriek over the inter-squadron frequency deafened him, forcing Jaeger to shut down the comm and switch off the pitiful cry. He adjusted one of the secondary viewscreens on his panel to display the rear camera shot. Another Marauder was tumbling groundwards, wreathed in smoke and flames, its wings spinning away on separate trajectories, trailing burning fuel. His chest tight with apprehension, he opened up the comm-link again.

‘Who was that?’ he demanded.

‘Bombs away!’ Berhandt called out, sitting up from where he’d been crouched over the bombsight. Jaeger’s head whirled as so many things clamoured for his attention.

‘It was Devil One, sir,’ came Phrao’s delayed reply.

Jaeger closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, steadying himself. Opening them again, he looked at the rear view to see massive red flames bursting over the dark shapes of the enemy attack column. The fireballs continued to expand, the special incendiaries igniting the air itself with their heat, filling the canyon from wall to wall with crackling, hungry flame.

Another massive detonation followed, and then another as the other Marauders dropped their devastating payloads. Jaeger saw secondary explosions along the ground as fuel tanks expanded and burst and ammunition was set on fire. Another blossom of brighter fire, in the air this time, showed where a tailing noctal fighter had flown straight into the inferno as it had attempted to close from below.

Berhandt was firing off the remaining missiles, as were the other Marauders. In front and behind, the canyon was a blaze of destruction. Burning wrecks littered the valley floor, while the firebomb damage continued to creep along the walls and into the air, slowing now, billowing black smoke rising thousands of metres into the clouds.

‘That should give the ships in orbit something to aim at, if nothing else,’ Berhandt commented gruffly, switching his attention to the lascannon controls.

Jaeger spied a group of vehicles along the east wall and banked the Marauder smoothly towards them. More ground fire sprung up to meet them, sporadic at first but building in intensity until once more Raptor One was banging and clattering with impacts, and the air became iridescent with multiple las-blasts impacting into her thick armour.

‘Just another couple of seconds,’ Berhandt told him, and Jaeger could hear the grind and whirr of motors as the multi-barrelled anti-tank gun swivelled in its nose mount. A movement to Jaeger’s right attracted the flight commander’s attention and he looked across, flicking his gaze between this distraction and the approaching canyon wall. It was a bright spark of blue, growing bigger very quickly. With a start, Jaeger realised it was an incoming missile.

‘Oh s–’ Jaeger’s curse was cut off by an explosion just to his right and behind him. He heard Marte bellow in pain and Raptor One dipped suddenly to starboard, smashing Berhandt’s head against his sighting array.

‘We’ve lost the whole wing!’ screamed one of his crew, the panicked wail making their voice unrecognisable.

‘Into the saviour pod!’ shouted Jaeger, punching free of his harness, and releasing the dazed Berhandt as the Marauder’s erratic lurch tumbled him across the bombardier’s chair. He could feel Raptor One plummeting down nose first and had to almost crawl his way up the fuselage. Ferix was there, ushering the others into the armoured compartment, and he saw Marte being bundled in by Arick, the old veteran’s flight suit ripped to shreds, blood pumping from half a dozen shrapnel wounds in his chest.

Pushing Ferix and Berhandt in first, Jaeger grabbed the door. As he swung it shut he saw the ground screaming up towards him through the canopy. A las-bolt shattered the front screen and the wind howled in, almost wrenching the door from his grasp.

With a wordless, bestial snarl he grasped the handle with both hands and slammed it shut.

‘Strap in, sir!’ Arick pointed towards the empty seat.

‘No time,’ Jaeger replied, punching his fist into the release button. Explosive bolts ignited around the base of the pod, hurling it outwards from the doomed wreck of Raptor One. As it tumbled in flight, Jaeger was thrown onto the wall then the ceiling, before the pod steadied on its retro jets and he fell to the floor, dazed, his leg twisted, sending flares of pain up his spine.

‘Are you–’ Arick began to ask, but red filled Jaeger’s vision and he heard rather than felt his head thump against the floor. The sound of his blood rushing through his ears filled his mind before unconsciousness swept through him.

Jaeger opened his eyes and winced as sunlight blinded him. He was sitting with his back to the saviour pod, out in the Mearopyis desert somewhere. Ferix was changing the bandages wrapped around Marte’s chest, while Jaeger’s own numb right leg was splinted, so he guessed it was broken. Arick noticed he was awake, and the young man crouched down in front of him, face solemn.

‘Raptor One, there’s nothing left of her.’ The youthful gunner was almost in tears.

Jaeger gulped and gathered his thoughts. He pushed himself to his feet, wincing at the pain in his leg, and looked around. Just on the horizon was a massive plume of dust.

‘Don’t worry, it’s the Guard advancing on the capital,’ Arick reassured him.

‘Other… other losses?’ Jaeger asked quietly, keeping his eyes on Arick’s.

‘Two-thirds of the Marauders are destroyed.’ Arick’s reply was hoarse, and this time there really was a glint of moisture in his eyes. ‘Half the Thunderbolts. Seven pilots dead. Losark won’t be getting any more kills, I’m afraid. Thirty-three other crew members dead. Fourteen wounded, including Marte who has shrapnel lodged in his spine, and you.’

‘So, almost the entirety of the Divine Justice’s flight complement destroyed,’ sighed Jaeger bitterly. ‘Was it worth it, Arick?’

‘I think so, sir. You saved thousands of lives, by my reckoning,’ Arick replied with a fleeting grin.

‘I doubt the Imperial Navy will see it that way,’ Jaeger answered with a heavy heart, already picturing his court martial. He sat down again and rested his chin against his chest for a moment, eyes closed against the harsh light. With another sigh he looked up at Arick, into his fresh, grey eyes. ‘They’ll hang me for this disaster.’

He gazed out at the distant army, rumbling towards the enemy capital, intent on recapturing this world. Was it worth it? Jaeger asked himself. He honestly didn’t know.

WINGS OF BONE

James Swallow

Aves liked to speak to Griffon. He made sure that the rest of the crew were not around when he did, lest their opinion of him sink any lower. The one occasion he’d been caught crooning to the machine, it had led – typically – to a punishment beating from Nilner. Aves thought about the hulking thug as he sat in the big gunnery officer’s chair, the same knot of impotent hate he always felt for the bully tightening in his chest.

He ran an oilcloth over the triggers of the twin heavy bolters, wiping away the accumulated sweat and grease. ‘Just right,’ he told Griffon. ‘Good enough for the Emperor Himself.’

Aves took the controls in his hands and placed his feet on the pedals. He felt at home there, nestled in the cupola across the shoulders of Griffon’s fuselage. To his left and right, the wings of the Marauder-class bomber extended away, blunt leading edges pitched like the blades of a double-headed axe. A white design of the plane’s mythic namesake was drawn there, close to a rendering of the double-headed eagle of the Imperium. The cowling of the engines made the bomber’s profile more muscular at the wing roots, the massive motors silent now, but powerful enough to lift the forty-tonne flyer and a full payload into high orbit.

Aves pressed a pedal and the turret made a slow circuit; he grinned as it rotated quietly and smoothly. Staring out past the upturned barrels of the bolters, Aves watched the stubby T-shaped tail swing by, and beneath it, Stoi’s posting. The albino tail gunner never told Aves if he was satisfied with the crewman’s maintenance on his station, preferring to hover on the edge of things, quiet and sinister. The flight crew nicknamed Stoi ‘The Ghost’, but Aves was convinced he was something far more sinister: an agent of the Inquisition, maybe. He smothered a flare of irritation, remembering Nilner’s braying laughter when he had voiced this fanciful suggestion.

The turret rotated over the prow of the bomber where Captain Vought’s cockpit was, with the twin lascannon turret beyond. Aves looked down at the captain’s acceleration couch with barely concealed desire. He wanted so badly to settle into that chair, to feel the potency of Griffon through the flight yoke in his hands, and the need was like a guttering flame inside him, forever burning. But the daydreams that had spurred him into volunteering for duty in the Imperial Navy had not helped him qualify for aircrew status.

Aves felt a familiar mood, black and dolorous, threaten to overcome him. He’d lost count of the number of times he had tried and failed the flight status exam, and it was his own awkwardness and clumsy nature that kept him forever grounded, forced to work as a maintenance hand on the flyers that captivated him. Naval Crewman Third Class Bryn Aves was doomed to remain grounded.

Unbidden, his hand strayed to the breast of his tunic, where a unit patch for the 404th Squadron was fixed. Aves coveted the bone-white wings that flight crewmen wore, and for the thousandth time, he wondered what it would be like to wear them himself.

A glitter of light in the sky distracted him from his thoughts. Low on the horizon a flashing dart moved closer, catching a flicker of orange light from the sunset. Aves licked his lips; he was positive that no aircraft was due to arrive at the base. Griffon and her squadron had returned a few hours ago, fresh from another in a line of inconsequential attacks on the heretic forces. In a rare piece of luck they had suffered no losses, so this was not some straggler limping back. He shifted the turret towards the approaching object – much nearer now – and Aves could identify it as a Lightning, a Naval fighter.

The crewman’s heart pounded as the turret’s auspex brought the fighter into blurry life on a targeting screen. The Lightning turned, hopping the line of trees at the base perimeter. It was too low to be detected by scanners, skimming the ground. For a moment, the flyer was fixed in the turret’s gun cues and Aves saw clearly where the Imperial aquila had been struck off its wings and daubed over by a many-angled star.

‘Heretic!’ The word almost choked him. The crewman’s mind whirled; it was clearly a suicide attacker, probably loaded with munitions, and most likely followed the 404th back from the battle to inflict some payback. On it came, and still the air raid siren did not sound. The captured Lightning powered over the runway.

Aves found his hands moving without conscious volition, instinctively flicking off the safety catches on the heavy bolters. The red glyph in the firing window appeared and Aves pulled the guns up to bead the target.

Words tumbled from his trembling lips, ‘Emperor guide me, I implore you.’

If the heretic pilot saw the movement from the parked Marauder, it was of no consequence, time seemed to slow to a crawl as Aves gripped the twin triggers and squeezed. The bolters crashed into life and spat thick rounds into the air, bullets as big as candlepins cutting through the sky, shell cases arcing away in a glittering fountain of brass. The Lightning flashed over the bomber and the bolts raked its belly like predatory claws cutting into prey. Aves spun in the turret chair to see the stricken fighter flip over and smash straight into the ground. The airframe crumpled like paper under the impact, detonating in a yellow flash.

Griffon rocked on its landing gear from the shock and Aves lost his sight for a few moments, flash-blinded. He heard voices and footsteps scrambling through the bomber. Blinking, he looked up to see a huge man shape towering over him. Nilner. It seemed a miracle that the big gunner could even begin to fit his massive frame inside the cupola.

‘I got him–’ Aves began, fear and elation mixing in his voice.

Nilner cut him off, grabbing a fistful of his tunic and tearing him out of the chair. Before he could protest, Aves was thrown down into the hull, landing hard on his back. Breath gushed out of him and he tried to lift himself back up. In the poorly lit interior of the bomber he saw only shadows as Nilner’s heavy boot struck him in the ribs. The gunnery officer picked him up again and pitched the crewman out of the egress hatch. Aves tasted blood in his mouth as he fell in a heap on the black ferrocrete runway.

Aves managed to raise his head, and there he saw Captain Vought and the rest of Griffon’s crew, breathless from running, framed by the burning wreckage of the heretic Lightning.

‘Sir?’ Aves managed.

Vought watched him with cold dispassion; then Nilner was there, hauling him up to his feet like a rag doll.

‘Don’t ever use my guns, dullard!’ Nilner growled.

Aves wanted to protest, but the next punch sent him reeling and consciousness fled. The last thing he saw was Vought, expressionless as he watched Nilner take the crewman’s impertinence out of his hide.

The medical corpsman gave Aves something for the swelling and told him to get lost. The infirmary had its share of real injuries and a crewman’s damaged face wasn’t worth more than a few seconds of care. Pressing a bandage to the cut on his cheek, Aves began the walk back to the barracks. Night had fallen, revealing a star-dappled sky. The crewman glanced up; bright dots overhead signified the positions of warships, moving slowly between the glow of stars. He liked the nights on Rocene. The planet seemed to grow more reverent and docile in the dark and he somehow felt safer there than in the brightness of day. Aves found it easier to hide at night.

He stopped at the service road to let a Chimera grumble past, following the vehicle with his gaze as it trundled towards the hangars. Beyond them, he could just make out the faint tracery of the perimeter fence; and beyond that was the horizon, lit with a faint glow.

The heretics were there. The vast mechanised army that the apostate rebels had created was rolling ever closer with each passing day, sacking towns and torching cities to the ground as they went. Aves had heard rumours from old Dolenz in the tower about how the beleaguered Imperial Guard was being forced to surrender kilometre after kilometre to the oncoming insurrectionists. The missions of the Marauder squadrons from here at Point November base were meant to support the Guardsmen’s efforts, but they seemed to have little success in halting the tide of the advance. The crews were sombre and terse and the failed suicide attack would not improve matters.

Aves passed the black scar in the ground where the Lightning had crashed. Whatever remained of the turncoat fighter had been hastily concealed under tarps, all of them emblazoned with the sigils of the Inquisition and dire warnings not to approach. He spotted Griffon’s navigator, Kheed, nearby in conversation with one of the Guardsmen standing post by the wreck.

Aves made sure he did not make eye contact with him. Although he and Kheed were the same age, the arrogant young officer was everything Aves was not. A high-born caste member from a hive world, the navigator looked down his nose at everyone but the captain, and strutted about Point November as if he expected a command of his own to appear by the Emperor’s grace. Kheed made no secret of the fact he thought of the crewman as less than a servant. Aves hated him almost as much as he hated Nilner.

Aves walked on past the fighter he had destroyed. The momentary elation he had felt at striking a blow against Terra’s enemies was gone now, faded like a distant memory. In its place remained only the dull pain from where Nilner had repeatedly struck him. It seemed that despite his actions, Aves still had no leniency to come after breaking the rules, and Nilner had been very clear on many occasions that Aves was not worthy to man a post aboard Griffon. The gunner seemed to have made it his life’s work to victimise him, and the other junior crewmen were content to let it happen, rather than risk being the target of the officer’s ire themselves. Aves kept to the shadows, hoping to avoid another confrontation with the gunner, slipping through pools of dark cast by the officers’ quarters.

‘–Aves.’

He froze as he heard his name spoken aloud. The voice came from Captain Vought’s private quarters. Aves moved closer and recognised the deep tones of Sorda, Griffon’s bombardier and Vought’s second-in-command. The crewman crouched down, afraid of discovery, but equally afraid of missing something vital in the conversation.

Inside the captain’s hut, Sorda was helping himself to a brackish local brandy from Vought’s private store. ‘You must admit he displayed quick thinking.’

Vought said nothing, and arched an aristocratic eyebrow in response. Sorda downed the drink in one jolt. In the half-light of the room, the bombardier’s bald head seemed to shine, the glow of the lamp glittering off the steel on his temple and his bulbous, bionic eye.

‘Crewmen are not trained to think,’ Vought said, his rich core-world accent adding gravity to every word. ‘Aves has ideas above his station. He must understand that the Emperor places His servants where they are needed, not where they want to be.’

‘You would rather he had let the heretic pass unchallenged?’ Sorda eyed the brandy bottle but thought better of it. ‘You may be correct, but why do you let Nilner treat the poor fool as a whipping boy? Aves does his job well, yet that thug berates and abuses him at every opportunity. And you allow it to go on.’

Vexation flickered on Vought’s face; he was not one to encourage the questioning of his orders. ‘Sorda, there are many other captains who would see your behaviour as insubordinate. Do you know why I tolerate your familiarity?’

The bombardier was not cowed. ‘Because you owe me your life twice over? Because we flew through hell together at the Tellus Marches and Ogre IV?’

Vought allowed himself the smallest of smiles. ‘No, Sorda. It is because that bionic eye of yours makes you the best bombardier in the squadron. But sometimes I wonder if you see a little too much with it.’

Sorda shrugged. ‘What I see is a poor wretch that the crew consider a joke of a man, a failure who lacks the spine to be a true soldier of the Emperor… And yet, when he serves the Imperium he is punished for it.’

The captain’s expression went cold again. ‘Griffon has the finest combat rating in the 404th, because I allow my men to do what they will as long as that battle record stays unblemished.’ He poured a little of the brandy for himself. ‘Nilner is a thug and a bully, but he keeps the gun crew in line. To maintain that, I’d let him beat Aves all day if need be. Only the mission matters, Sorda. If you ever lose sight of that, I’ll put you off my crew.’

Outside, Aves held his breath. Sorda had never spoken anything but clipped orders to him since he had been assigned to Griffon, and it surprised him to think the officer might actually show some compassion. He was still turning this over in his mind when a strident voice cried out his name, startling him.

‘What are you loitering around here for?’ Aves spun on his heel to confront Weslund, Griffon’s lascannon gunner. His sallow face was set with annoyance, and he gestured sharply at the crewman with his free hand, the other gripping a volume of Ministorium doctrine. Weslund advanced menacingly, the light of zealotry flaring in his eyes. ‘Spying, perhaps? Listening and skulking?’

Aves realised that the gunner must have just returned from his regular prayers at the base’s tiny chapel. Weslund was extremely pious and fervent in his devotion to the Golden Throne, given to seeing the taint of heresy in every corner.

‘I was just walking...‘ Aves fumbled at an answer, eyes downcast.

‘Lies trip off your tongue so easily!’ Weslund snapped.

The door to Captain Vought’s quarters opened, revealing Griffon’s commander and Sorda. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ Vought’s voice cut like an icy scalpel.

Weslund spoke before Aves could even think. ‘I discovered him hiding outside your door, sir, eavesdropping.’

Vought gave Aves a hard stare. ‘Is this true, crewman?’

Aves shook his head, his cheeks reddening, unable to speak.

‘Nilner was too lenient with him, captain. The fool is corrupted, I’m sure of it. He should be shot as a traitor!’

‘Weslund, Aves shot down a suicide flyer. He’s no heretic,’ Sorda said. The lasgunner’s manner exasperated the bombardier.

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. He may have been trying to silence–’

‘Enough of this prattle!’ Vought growled. ‘While I admire your zeal in searching for immorality, you will not find it among my crewmen, Mister Weslund. Understand?’

The gunner closed his mouth with an audible snap and nodded.

‘As for you, crewman,’ Vought flicked a glance at Sorda, ‘if you were listening at my door, you’ll take another hiding from Nilner in punishment.’

Aves felt the blood drain from his face, seeing Nilner in his mind’s eye, the big man grinning as he laid into him.

‘Captain, if I may,’ Sorda broke in, tapping his bionic eye. ‘If Aves had been loitering outside, I would have seen his heat trace with my optics.’ He made a show of looking around. ‘I saw no such trace,’ Sorda lied.

Vought gave the bombardier a measuring look, then nodded. ‘Very well. You men are dismissed. We have a mission at dawn and I expect you to be ready.’ The captain slammed shut the door of his cabin and Weslund took the cue to walk away, giving Aves a lingering sneer as he shouldered past him.

After a moment, Sorda addressed Aves in a quiet voice. ‘You did well today, lad, but take some advice. Keep to yourself. You’ll live longer.’

Aves nodded jerkily. Sorda’s were the first words of encouragement he could ever remember hearing from a superior officer.

The interior of Point November’s operations bunker was dingy and grim, an array of seated men gazing into auspex screens or buried in scanner hoods. In the centre of the room was a chart table sporting a map covering the whole of the peninsula around the base. Even from a few feet away, Aves could see that the red tide of markers denoting heretic forces was slowly consuming the Imperial-held zone. A tactical officer moved a set of symbols closer to the enemy line, the tags represented the 404th’s bombers.

‘Aves, lad,’ Dolenz beckoned him over. ‘Don’t stand in the way there.’

The crewman did as he was asked. Dolenz gave him a weak smile as he approached. Aves forced himself not to look below the old man’s waist; where his legs should have been there were two spindly bionic replacements. Their steel exteriors made them seem like arcane metal bones grafted from an iron skeleton. The sight of Dolenz’s disability always made Aves feel uncomfortable, but the old soldier seemed not to notice. He handed Dolenz a small jar of machine lubricant, secreted from the aircraft stores.

‘Here you are. Enough for another few weeks.’

Dolenz took the jar with a crack-toothed smile and daubed a little of the fluid on his leg joints. ‘Good boy. I’d have rusted stiff long ago if not for you.’

Aves looked around, listening to the mumbled litany of battle prayer and communications chatter. ‘How goes the mission?’

Dolenz nodded at his auspex screen, the green display shimmering like a tank of stagnant water. ‘Close now. Griffon is on target, with Basilisk in support.’

Aves took this in with a nod. Basilisk was Captain Marko’s Marauder, a good crew with a record almost equalling Griffon’s. He rubbed a hand over his brow; it was blood-warm in the bunker and the crewman was sweating.

‘I heard what you did last night,’ Dolenz said. ‘Terra be proud, you were sharp and no mistake.’

‘I was just lucky.’

‘Luck?’ The old soldier’s face screwed up in dismay. ‘No such thing. Some say I was lucky when I got shot down and lived to tell the tale.’ He tapped a finger on his metal legs. ‘I don’t call having these pieces of iron welded to me lucky.’ Dolenz gave a heavy sigh. ‘Matters little, anyway. We’ll quit this piece of dirt soon enough.’

Aves gave him a quizzical look. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You wouldn’t have heard, would you?’ The sensor operator looked around to see if any officers were listening to their conversation. ‘There’s talk, lad. A retreat is in the offing. We’ll give up this forsaken piece of turf and let the Adeptus Astartes take the lead instead.’

‘Space Marines? Here? But what about the base?’

Dolenz shrugged. ‘Probably be abandoned. If the rumours are true, mind.’

Aves tried to assimilate this new piece of information. The sudden idea of the unknown left him with a jumble of excitement and fear.

‘Here, lad, it’s starting,’ hissed Dolenz, as the comm-channels came to life. ‘They’re in sight of the mark.’

‘Point November base, Griffon,’ Vought’s voice issued out of the air. ‘Commencing attack.’

Clouds of flak thrown up from guns on the ground burst about Griffon in dark spheres of smoke, opening like deadly black poppies. Vought dismissed them, concentrating on steering the fully laden Marauder through streams of bright red tracer, spat into the sky from Hydra anti-aircraft batteries that had been captured by heretic units. Every few moments, a brilliant white flash on the ground signalled the launch of a massive Manticore missile, prompting the captain to trigger a flare shell or chaff cylinder from a control on his yoke. Vought could see the ground as a seething carpet of armoured vehicles and enemy soldiers, all of them pouring weapons fire into the bomber’s path. The air was his medium, and he was master of it, powering the massive tonnage of the Marauder through the flak and into the kill-zone.

‘Griffon, Basilisk. You’re three o’clock low,’ Captain Marko’s voice said in his ear. ‘I have the lead.’

‘Copy, Basilisk. We’ll follow you in,’ Vought replied, then switched to Griffon’s intercom channel. ‘Sorda, arm the weapons. Open the bay.’ A red indicator glyph on Vought’s console glowed, indicating the bombardier’s readiness, and across the ventral hull of the bomber, heavy metal doors yawned open revealing a tightly packed payload of ten spin-stabilised, gravity-assisted bombs. Each of the warheads contained two hundred kilos of dense high explosive compound and an iridium penetrator fuse, designed to pierce through enemy armour before detonating. From the nose turret, Weslund began to sing a hymn about blood and fire, his reedy voice carrying through the fuselage.

In the weapons bay Sorda gave the bombs a smile, like a proud parent about to send a child out into the world. He had chalked a devotional message on every one of the grey cases; the closest one bore the words ‘The Emperor’s Might Knows no Boundaries’ in his precise Gothic hand. He glanced down through the open hatch, watching shot and shell flash by beneath Griffon’s wings.

Vought saw a flare of power from Basilisk’s engines and the other Marauder dipped down towards the centre of the heretic army. Griffon shivered violently as a flak shell blew close by, spent shrapnel clattering off the wing. The aircraft commander sighted down over the nose, past the lascannon turret. For a moment, Vought thought his eyes had deceived him; there appeared to be a grounded starship down there in the mud, a flat expanse of hull like a beached steel whale. What he saw was the mobile command post of the heretics, a colossal land leviathan easily the size of an Imperial frigate. Great tracks and spiked wheels churned at mud and earth, labouring the vehicle forward, flattening hills and uprooting woodlands before it. And there at the very centre of it, beckoning Vought like a target on a range, was a hideous grinning skull set upon a star.

At the sight of it, Weslund spat a foul curse over the intercom and began to babble in dark, stentorian tones, breaking his litany every few moments with a discharge from his cannons.

Basilisk swooped down over the prow of the leviathan, jinking from side to side to dodge tracer spat from Hydra batteries. ‘Ready. Ready,’ said Marko. ‘Drop–’

The bomber’s commander never finished his sentence; a vibrant laser flare tore into Basilisk from the eye of the skull and cut down the middle. The aircraft’s fuel reservoir tore open and exploded, instantly flashing the bomber to ash.

‘Emperor’s blood!’ Weslund gasped.

Vought set his jaw and pushed the yoke forward, mirroring Basilisk’s attack run. All about him, he heard the bomber’s bolter turrets chatter as Nilner and Stoi raked the enemy with punishing salvos. He would only have seconds before the leviathan would be able to recharge the massive lascannon for another shot.

‘Ready. Ready,’ Vought called.

Sorda made a sign of supplication to the Golden Throne and gripped the release switch, pressing his eye to the sightglass.

‘Drop.’ The instant the captain’s command left his lips, Sorda slammed the knife switch down and with a well-oiled whirr of machinery, the clamps holding the bombs in place opened in perfect order. Each of the weapons shrieked as it dropped out of the bomb bay and into the fast-flowing air, the wind whistling through the fusing propeller and steering vanes. The bombs struck hard across the leviathan’s hull in bright flares of flame.

Vought poured power into Griffon’s engines and pulled back on the yoke, arcing the aircraft up and away from the target site. He allowed himself a sneer at the heretic’s expense as the laser cannon cracked through the air where the Marauder had just been. ‘Too slow,’ he whispered, from behind his breather mask.

As the flyer turned outbound, Vought’s concentration returned to threading the bomber through the storm of anti-aircraft fire. Almost as an afterthought, he toggled the intercom. ‘Stoi, report,’ he demanded from the tail gunner. ‘Target status?’

When the weapons officer didn’t reply straight away, Vought felt a flicker of irritation. ‘Stoi, wake up! What is the status of the target?’

Every crewman on Griffon was surprised when the gunner gave a terse, single word response. ‘Undamaged.’

Kilometres from the combat, Aves and Dolenz exchanged glances. ‘What does that mean?’ said the crewman. ‘The bombs misfired?’

Dolenz shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. That great bloody tank, I’ll warrant it’ll take more than standard ordnance and cordite to crack it.’

Aves fell silent as Vought’s commands echoed out from the faraway bomber.

The captain turned to call down into the fuselage below the cockpit. ‘Kheed, get down there and confirm Stoi’s sighting. I want to know if there were secondary explosions, anything.’

Without looking to see if his orders were being followed, Vought flicked to the main comm-channel and relayed a warning about the leviathan’s lascannon, but the remainder of the 404th were still caught in the flak, fighting to stay on course and bomb the living hell out of the heretics below them.

Kheed reached the hatch to Stoi’s turret and cranked it open. The albino gunner said nothing, and handed him a pair of ageing field glasses, stabbing one bony finger at the smoke-wreathed horizon below. The navigator searched for the steel deck of the land leviathan and found it. Smoke poured from massive chimneys along its spine, and tracer fire arced skyward from myriad guns along its armoured hide, but no flames or structural damage were evident, beyond a few pits and dents across the face of the grinning skull.

The navigator keyed the intercom and spoke in a flat, toneless voice. ‘Target remains, captain. Confirming, status is undamaged.’

Vought’s lip curled in annoyance and he pitched the Marauder round in a harsh wingover, determined to see the leviathan for himself. ‘A force field, Kheed?’ he snapped.

‘Negative. Sir, they must have armour as thick as a battle cruiser to shrug off a strike like that.’

‘Indeed,’ Vought fumed quietly. The intelligence reports from Imperial Guard on the ground had mentioned nothing of this, and now the squadron had lost aircraft in an attack that would have failed even if the enemy crew were blind or asleep. The captain decided that there would be harsh words spoken with his Guard counterparts on return to Point November.

‘Incoming!’ Nilner’s rough shout cut through Vought’s train of thought. ‘Lightnings, coming out of the suns!’

The pilot turned the bomber hard to port and flicked a glance upward. He saw a trio of bat-winged fighters vectoring in on their position. ‘Gunners, target and annihilate! Sweep the heretic scum out of the sky!’

Nilner pedalled his turret around to follow the lead fighter as it swooped down on Griffon. His big, sweaty hands enveloped the firing grips and squeezed. In answer, the heavy bolter screamed death into the flashing shape of the seized Lightning. The massive bolts tore through the engine cowlings of the flyer and shattered the glass cockpit, turning the interior into a red ruin. Nilner grunted his approval and turned the turret around, looking for another kill.

The gunner had been quick to spot the trio of interceptors, and true to the training doctrine that had been drilled into him, Nilner concentrated his attention on the most immediate targets. Consequently, he never saw the fourth Lightning, hanging back from the trio, as it emerged from the brightness of Rocene’s twin suns. As Griffon turned to avoid the laser trails from its surviving squadmates, the other fighter tore over the nose of the Marauder, triggering a long burst from the autocannon mounted on its chin. The first burst struck the number three engine, which blasted out a cascade of flame and broken turbine blades before choking into silence.

Vought saw nothing but a grey shadow as the heretic pilot passed by his cockpit with only a few metres to spare. Autocannon rounds crashed through the bomber’s hull at point-blank range, silencing Weslund’s songs for the Emperor forever as they ripped him apart. Part of the captain’s canopy shredded as shots grazed the air near where he sat, but left him unharmed.

Nilner fired blindly at the oncoming Lightning and tore off one of its wing-mounted engines for good measure; but in return, a hot shell from the autocannon, big enough to punch through a ceramite plate, took all of his left leg below the knee. The big gunner screamed and spat blood.

Vought swore a blistering curse that would have earned him a dozen lashes if it had been spoken in earshot of a commissar, hands rigid around the yoke as cold air howled through holes in his cockpit. He shouted into the communicator, not knowing if his voice would be carried back to the airfield.

‘Point November, this is Griffon. Mission failed. Returning to base.’

Aves was waiting by the runway when the first of the Marauders emerged from the clouds. Sentinel powerlifters and Trojan crawlers fitted for firefighting details were clustered by the ramp, ready to move at a moment’s notice if a bomber made a crash landing. The crewman squinted into the murky sky and his breath caught as he counted the steel-grey shapes as they closed in, many of them trailing smoke in black streams. By his count, only a quarter of the squadron had returned.

Aves saw Griffon then, the watery sunlight glinting off the shattered nose turret. One of the lascannons had been completely sheared away, and the broken spars of the turret sphere looked like ragged teeth in a howling, angry mouth. As he watched, the landing skids emerged from their hatches and locked into place. With the number three engine a shredded wreck, it seemed that Captain Vought was preparing to forego the more difficult vertical touchdown and attempt a runway landing. The fire crews saw this as well, and the Trojans started up their motors, rotating in place to tear after the bomber if the need arose.

Griffon turned into the wind at the end of the runway and trembled slightly. Aves found he could not take his eyes off the wounded flyer as it descended towards the ferrocrete airstrip. At the last second, Vought chopped the Marauder’s throttles and the heavy bomber touched down with an echoing scrape. The landing skids spat sparks and wisps of vaporised paint where they kissed the runway. The aircraft flashed past Aves, choking him with a lungful of smoke from the damaged engine. Two Trojans roared into life and made off after the Marauder; Aves leapt and grabbed a handhold on the second, clinging on as it rumbled towards the slowing bomber.

At the end of the runway, Griffon skidded to the right and almost left the paved airstrip, finally shuddering to a halt on the grassy abutment nearby. Guardsmen scrambled over to the flyer, wrenching open the hatchway, and Aves followed. Up close, he could see the myriad holes and scars from bolter impacts and laser burns that dotted the underside of the fuselage. The Marauder stank of spilled fuel, and dark puddles of lubricant were already beginning to pool beneath it where conduits had been severed by shrapnel. Griffon seemed to sag beneath her own weight, bleeding fluid into the mud.

Aves heard a strangled scream and turned to see Kheed and one of the Guardsmen moving Nilner out of the hatch. The gunnery officer’s uniform was slick with blood, the stark white of bone dangling from where his leg used to be; the leg he’d used to kick Aves savagely, gone now, torn to fleshy tatters. Kheed caught his eye and shouted.

‘Aves, get over here! He’s bleeding out and I can’t stop it.’ He nodded towards a small three-wheeled rover parked at the end of the runway. ‘Get him to the infirmary, fast!’

The Guardsman laid Nilner down on the flatbed and strapped him in. Kheed waved a blood-smeared hand at Aves. ‘He’s lost a lot of blood. If you don’t hurry, he’ll be dead, understand? So get going!’

‘Yessir!’ Aves replied nervously, but Kheed was already gone, rushing back to the bomber. The Trojan crews were squirting fire retardants over the wing, leaving him alone with his charge. Aves climbed into the saddle and gunned the engine, yanking the handlebars around in a tight turn. He heard Nilner wail as the rover bounced over a bump in the road.

Aves pushed down the accelerator and cut across the tracks between the runways. The direct route to the infirmary would take a few minutes, following the service road around the barracks and hangars. It would be quicker to thread through the alleys formed by the maintenance sheds. Aves made a tight turn and drove out of sight, into the shadows by the base wall.

Nilner was babbling something incoherent from the litter behind him, alternatively weeping and coughing as the trike skipped over the ferrocrete paving. Aves brought the rover skidding to a halt at a junction and hesitated.

‘Aves!’ the delirious gunner shouted. ‘You took my leg, you little bastard!’ The crewman watched Nilner thrash against the restraints. His eyes were unfocused as he raved. Aves realised that Nilner was completely unaware of his surroundings, maddened with shock and pain. ‘Worthless piece of excrement! You’re pathetic!’

He took his foot off the accelerator and watched Nilner silently. There was nobody around this part of the base, nobody to hear the gunner’s shouts. Aves watched the crimson patch of blood-soaked cloth on Nilner’s litter as it grew and grew, fed by the big man’s vital fluid. A cold, callous thought began to form in his mind.

‘If you don’t hurry, he’ll be dead.’ Aves spoke Kheed’s words out loud. It would be so simple to just wait, he mused. So easy to stay here and watch Nilner bleed out his last in agonised delirium. He studied the gunner’s tunic, the bloodstained wings on his uniform breast.

‘I hate you,’ Aves told him in a quiet voice. ‘You make my life a misery for your own sport and now I have yours in my hands.’ He leaned closer to Nilner’s sweaty face and recognition glimmered in the gunner’s eyes.

‘Aves,’ he rasped. ‘Help me!’

The crewman’s face twisted in anger; suddenly he wanted to make Nilner beg for his life, he wanted him to suffer. ‘It’s my choice now!’ Aves growled. ‘My choice if you live or die!’

Nilner seemed very small then, a wretched and feeble shadow of the thug that had tormented Aves for months. ‘Please…’ he whispered.

Sorda tapped Aves on the shoulder and the crewman gave a start. ‘Sir! Forgive me, I was just loading parts for the repairs on Griffon–‘

‘I know. The captain tells me that we have a replacement engine and spares for the lascannon.’ He paused. ‘This is not about Griffon.’

‘Sir?’

‘This is about Nilner.’

Aves looked away. ‘I followed my orders, bombardier.’

‘Yes. Yes, you did.’ Sorda gestured towards the infirmary. ‘He’ll live. The tech-priests will be able to give him a mechanical leg, just like Dolenz. The medics told me you got him there just in time. A few minutes more, and they would not have been able to save him.’

‘I followed my orders,’ Aves repeated.

‘And I can’t imagine why you did.’ Sorda stepped closer, lowering his voice. ‘Do you think that he will thank you for it or be grateful? That’s not his way, Aves. Nilner has no compassion in him, not a spark of it. If your places had been reversed, he would not have hesitated to let you perish.’

Aves spoke after a long pause. ‘I know, sir. But I’m not him. As much as I wish I could be sometimes, I’m not like Nilner.’

The officer gave him a measuring gaze and then nodded towards the load of equipment the crewman had been assembling. ‘Captain Vought has been summoned to the command post for new orders. Griffon will be airworthy before nightfall, yes?’

‘With the Emperor’s blessing, yes.’

‘Get to it then, and we’ll fly against these heretics again.’

Aves climbed out of the bomb bay, rubbing a cloth over his hands to wipe off the grease and muck. The fuel feeds for the replacement engine were now secured, and his job was done. Griffon would fly, if the Imperium so commanded it. The crewman noticed a train of ordnance carriers snaking across the service road. Dragged by a Trojan crawler were a dozen flatbeds, each dominated by the bulk of an Atlas bomb. Aves had never seen an Atlas up close before. They were like long, distended teardrops ending in a splay of winglets, heavy and threatening. Unlike the standard bombs the Marauders usually carried, Atlas warheads were so huge that only one could be taken aboard each aircraft. Aves knew little about ordnance but everyone in the Navy knew what an Atlas looked like. Concealed inside that oblate black cowling was an atomic charge big enough to crack a mountain.

Nearby, Sorda was speaking with the remainder of the bomber’s crew. ‘With Weslund dead, we’ll need someone to man the lascannon. Kheed, you can take that post. We won’t need a navigator to find that cursed leviathan again.’

Kheed’s face soured. ‘A gunnery post? I don’t think the captain would agree–’

‘Captain Vought authorised me to issue whatever orders I saw fit,’ Sorda interrupted. ‘You may feel that cannon duty is beneath you, Mister Kheed, but necessity overrides your personal feelings. Man the weapon, that’s an order.’

‘You won’t get your hands too dirty,’ said Stoi sarcastically. It was possibly the longest sentence that Sorda had ever heard the tail gunner speak.

‘What about you, then?’ Kheed sneered. ‘You’ll be leaving your precious bombs to stand at Nilner’s turret?’

Sorda shook his head, watching the Trojan approach. ‘We’ll only be carrying a single munition. I have to be the one to get it on target.’ But the Trojan rolled right past Griffon without stopping, taking the bombs to the other flyers on the ready line.

Aves’ face creased in confusion. Was the Marauder to be given a conventional load while all the others in the squadron would carry an Atlas? His answer came as Captain Vought strode out of the lengthening shadows of evening towards the assembled crew.

‘Captain,’ Sorda began, ‘those Atlas–’

‘We are to stand down,’ Vought said bluntly. A ripple of disbelief passed through Griffon’s crew. ‘Because of the shortage of personnel, we’re to remain on base and assist with the evacuation.’

‘Transport duty?’ Kheed said, his voice rising. ‘We’re fit to be nothing more than a common shuttle now?’

Vought ignored the interruption. ‘Command has ordered that Point November be abandoned and all Imperial Guard forces are to fall back. A full company of the Doom Eagles are on their way from Merron, and the remaining combat capable aircraft in the 404th will launch a final bombardment prior to their arrival.’

‘Griffon is ready!’ Aves blurted out. Normally, he wouldn’t have dreamed of speaking out of turn, but his heart was racing and his better judgement was forgotten.

‘The grease monkey’s right,’ snapped Kheed. ‘We can fly right now, captain. Command can’t brush us aside like this!’

Vought’s voice was icy. ‘Command can do whatever they wish, navigator. We go where the Emperor wills, and you would do well not to let your desire for glory tell you otherwise.’

‘But why, captain?’ Sorda pressed. ‘Did we work around the clock to reach flight status just so we could ferry boxes of paperwork up to orbit?’

‘I was informed by the wing commander that Griffon will not be granted battle-ready status without a replacement for Nilner.’ Vought was tense. He shared his crewmen’s anger at being denied a chance to avenge themselves on the heretics. ‘No one can be spared to take his place. The commander felt that in such an undermanned state, Griffon would be wasted on the sortie.’

‘I can take Nilner’s turret, sir,’ said Aves. ‘I can stand his post.’

Kheed made a face as if he had smelt something bad. ‘You can’t be serious. You’re a washout, a grounded weakling!’

Vought gave the crewman a hard stare. ‘Look me in the eyes, Aves. Convince me.’

Aves did as he was ordered, a powerful wellspring of surety surging up inside him. ‘It will be my honour to serve the Emperor.’

The captain felt a flicker of surprise as he saw something in Aves that he’d never seen before – a steely, unbending resolve. He gave him a brusque nod and turned to Sorda. ‘Get him outfitted and have the ordnance crew load an Atlas aboard. We’ll lift in fifteen.’

Aves never saw the looks of incredulity on the faces of the other men. He was elated, and it was all he could do not to whoop for joy and cry out thanks to the heavens; but then Vought was at his side and the captain was speaking in low, grave tones.

‘Mark me well, lad. If you blunder up there, you’ll be the death of us all, and by the Golden Throne I swear you’ll die screaming before I do!’

The crewman gave a shaky nod.

‘You should have been careful about what you wished for. Now you’re going to learn the truth about your dreams – those fantasies you have about wearing the wings, that’s all they were. The reality is enough to ruin some men for life.’ He paused, turning to study the darkening sky. ‘You’re in it now, lad. No turning back.’

‘I... I’ll do my best, captain.’

‘Yes. Or we’ll all die.’

Griffon dived into the battle on spears of orange flame, knifing through the sky amid the ragged remains of the 404th. Aves felt his gut knotting in fear. The sky, the perfect night sky of Rocene that he’d admired so many times from the safety of the ground, was gone now, replaced by an ominous void choked with explosions and spitting streaks of inferno. He gripped the dorsal heavy bolters tightly as the Marauder sank into a voyage through the footless hall of an airborne hell.

Off to port, he saw the eye-searing flash of a laser as it connected the ground briefly with another flyer that seemed to vanish in a cloud of ashes, disappearing like some twisted conjuring trick. Aves blinked furiously, his eyes watering as the bright beam remained imprinted as a purple stripe on his retinas. The thick air was a mix of turbulence and random thermals, hot gas and smoke rising upward from the ground where great swathes of city lay burning or Imperial forces died by the thousands in heretic-fuelled death pyres.

The crewman twitched as he glanced around inside the enclosed steel turret, frantically trying to scan every inch of the horizon at once, terrified that some enemy would approach from just the direction he hadn’t been looking. The triggers of the bolters were wet with sweat from his palms, and he found himself remembering the uncountable times he had wiped them down after a mission. Aves imagined Nilner, sitting where he was now, feeling the same fears, courting the same terrors.

The screeching chatter of Stoi’s tail guns brought him crashing out of his reverie and Aves spun the dorsal turret around to sight down the fuselage. The albino gunner was pouring rounds into the sky behind Griffon, but Aves could not see a target; then they appeared, bursting out of the funeral-black mist like two angels of death, twin Thunderbolt fighters each smeared with foul graffiti and Chaotic symbols. Stoi caught the leader with a well-aimed salvo that shattered the heretic flyer. The wingman reacted quicker and executed a sharp wingover, dancing close to Aves’ sights. The crewman shouted out a wordless cry and slammed the triggers home.

Bolt shells tore the flyer into ribbons and it collapsed in on itself, folding up into a burning knot of metal. Aves found himself grinning and panting as he realised he had just made his second kill.

White light flared out in the distance, casting stark, sharp-edged shadows in the turret. The crackle of static over his headset confirmed that one of the bombers had dropped its Atlas, immolating untold numbers of heretic troops in an instant atomic holocaust.

Something glittered in the clouds to starboard and he turned the guns to train on it. Through his auspex, Aves saw another of Griffon’s sister bombers, a Marauder Destroyer variant, spitting orange fire from ducts along the fuselage, and without warning one of the vessel’s wings broke away. Fragments of metal sliced though the air around the bomber and peppered Griffon’s wings, slicing through fuel lines and fluid channels. Aves’ heart leapt into his mouth as jets of combustion streamed from the engine cowlings. A large spear of broken metal clattered over his head and ricocheted off the tailplane, spiking through Stoi’s turret as it passed. The tail gunner’s bolters drooped and fell silent.

Griffon flew on, cutting through the sky, seemingly unaware that her lifeblood fuel was bleeding out behind her, that one of her crewmen had likely just been killed. All around him, Aves saw an inverted rain of bright fireflies lancing up into the darkness, streaking past in thin glowing trails. The bomber jinked wildly to port, slamming his head against the console, knocking sense into him.

‘Tracers!’ Aves trembled as cannon rounds from a massed battery of Hydras converged on the bomber. In places where the hull had been patched with thin, sub-standard plating, the flak cut through Griffon’s fuselage and ate into her vital systems.

‘Griffon, inbound to target. Terra, protect us.’ Vought’s voice, tight and forced, spoke from Aves’ comm-set, and he heard the grinding metallic noise of the bomb bay doors opening.

Still the tracers chewed and nipped at the Marauder as she turned into the wind. Aves glanced over his shoulder towards the nose and saw smoke streaming from the lascannon turret, the cupola ravaged by a direct hit from below. First Weslund, now Kheed; the devotional icons and prayer pamphlets Weslund had decorated the inside of the turret with had not stopped the cramped metal sphere from becoming the coffin for two men.

The clouds were thinning even as the raging storm of gunfire increased. The bomber dropped into the attack slope towards the heretic’s mobile base, and Aves could see where a near miss from an Atlas had run it aground. A second hit would kill the big machine once and for all, cutting out the heart of the apostate forces. Aves felt his fear wane as a cold, clinical calm came over him. The certainty, the rightness of purpose he had felt on the runway was in him once again, and he heard Captain Vought’s words echo in his mind: ‘He must understand that the Emperor places His servants where they are needed.’

Aves nodded to himself. This was where he had been destined to be. Griffon was shuddering all around him, electrical arcs jumping from component to component, the burnt tang of sizzling plastics mingling with the stink of hot metal; and then he heard the voice. A single word.

‘Aves…’ The captain poured a lifetime of agony into his name.

In an instant, the crewman had vaulted out of his seat and dropped into the fuselage; he dashed past the hatch to the bomb bay, barely registering Sorda’s body sprawled across the floor there, blackened shreds where his chest had been. Aves pulled himself up the ladder rungs and into the cramped cockpit. The handholds were slippery with liquid, and the crewman felt his gorge rise as he realised it was Vought’s blood.

‘Captain…’

Vought held one hand pressed to his throat, fingers wet around a knife of glass embedded in his larynx. His face was bathed in red light cast from a dozen warning glyphs on the console before him. ‘Boy. Listen.’ He spoke in ragged gasps. ‘Can’t launch… Atlas… Too much damage.’ Griffon bucked as a shell chewed a lump out of her wing. Vought nodded at him. ‘Take over.’

Aves did not question the order, quickly unstrapping the pilot from his couch. Released, Vought slipped to the floor of the cockpit, barely breathing. Aves took the captain’s place, feeling pools of vital fluid soaking into his flight suit.

Beyond the cockpit window, the land leviathan was growing to fill the horizon, the plume of smoke emerging from its cracked hull like an arrow in its side.

Aves reached forward and flipped the arming switch for the Atlas from safe to active setting. ‘Ready, sir.’

‘Good lad.’ With painful effort, Vought forced himself up and held out his hands. ‘Take this. Quickly, now.’

The captain placed a blood-stained emblem in Aves’ trembling hand, an age-yellowed skull framed with skeletal wings. The crewman ran his finger over them, caressing the careworn bone carving.

‘Earn them, lad. You know what must be done,’ Vought coughed. ‘Wear them with honour.’

The crewman turned Griffon into the face of the gunfire, pinning the bone wings to his chest; then he reached for the throttle and pushed the Marauder’s engines to the redline.

Griffon fell into the leviathan like a spear thrown by the Machine-God Himself, and in the glorious firestorm of her sacrifice, the heretics knew the wrath of the Imperium’s most steadfast souls.

About the Authors

Matt Westbrook has written The Realmgate Wars: Bladestorm for Age of Sigmar, and the novel Medusan Wings for Warhammer 40,000. He lives and works in Nottingham.

Gav Thorpe is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Deliverance Lost, Angels of Caliban and Corax, as well as the novella The Lion, which formed part of the New York Times bestselling collection The Primarchs, and several audio dramas. He has written many novels for Warhammer 40,000, including Ashes of Prospero, Imperator: Wrath of the Omnissiah and the Rise of the Ynnari novels Ghost Warrior and Wild Rider. He also wrote the Path of the Eldar and Legacy of Caliban trilogies, and two volumes in The Beast Arises series. For Warhammer, Gav has penned the End Times novel The Curse of Khaine, the Warhammer Chronicles omnibus The Sundering, and much more besides. In 2017, Gav won the David Gemmell Legend Award for his Age of Sigmar novel Warbeast. He lives and works in Nottingham.

E J Davies, currently of Ottawa, is a writer, reviewer and gamer. When not wrangling words, in the curling rink, or supporting the losing side – still not convinced it was the wrong one – E J can be found teaching chemistry or buried in one of his other diverse hobbies. ‘Sturmhex’ is his first story for Black Library.

J C Stearns is a writer who lives in a swamp in Illinois with his wife and son, as well as more animals than is reasonable. He started writing for Black Library in 2016 and is the author of the short story ‘Wraithbound’, as well as ‘Turn of the Adder’, included in the anthology Inferno! Volume 2 and ‘The Marauder Lives’, in the Horror anthology Maledictions. He plays Salamanders, Dark Eldar, Sylvaneth, and as soon as he figures out how to paint lightning bolts, Night Lords.

Matt Smith is one of Black Library’s newest authors, and the Warhammer 40,000 short story ‘In Service Eternal’ is his first. He is based in Norwich and spends his spare time working on his Raven Guard army and training in martial arts.

Alec Worley is a well-known comics and science fiction and fantasy author, with numerous publications to his name. He is an avid fan of Warhammer 40,000 and has written many short stories for Black Library including ‘Stormseeker’, ‘Whispers’ and ‘Repentia’. He has recently forayed into Black Library Horror with the audio drama Perdition’s Flame and his novella The Nothings, featured in the anthology Maledictions. He lives and works in London.

Nicholas Alexander has written the Astra Militarum short story ‘The Trophy’ and the Imperial Navy story ‘The Emperor’s Grace’. He lives and works in Cambridge, UK, and is a huge Space Wolves fan.

Guy Haley is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Titandeath, Wolfsbane and Pharos, the Primarchs novels Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, Corax: Lord of Shadows, Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia, and the Warhammer 40,000 novels Dark Imperium, Dark Imperium: Plague War, The Devastation of Baal, Dante, Baneblade, Shadowsword, Valedor and Death of Integrity. He has also written Throneworld and The Beheading for The Beast Arises series. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

Cavan Scott is the author of the Space Marine Battles novella Plague Harvest, along with the Warhammer 40,000 short stories ‘Doom Flight’, ‘Trophies’, ‘Sanctus Reach: Death Mask’, ‘Flayed’ and ‘Logan Grimnar: Defender of Honour’. He lives and works in Bristol.

Author of the Path of the Dark Eldar series and the related novella The Masque of Vyle, along with the Necromunda novel Survival Instinct and a host of short stories, Andy Chambers has more than twenty years’ experience creating worlds dominated by war machines, spaceships and dangerous aliens. He lives and works in Nottingham.

James Swallow is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Fear to Tread and Nemesis, which both reached the New York Times bestseller lists. Also for the Horus Heresy, he has written The Flight of the Eisenstein, The Buried Dagger and a series of audio dramas featuring the character Nathaniel Garro, the prose versions of which have now been collected into the anthology Garro. For Warhammer 40,000, he is best known for his four Blood Angels novels, the audio drama Heart of Rage, and his two Sisters of Battle novels. His short fiction has appeared in Legends of the Space Marines and Tales of Heresy.

A Black Library Publication

‘Raptor Down’ first published in Words of Blood in 2002.
‘Wings of Bone’ first published in Inferno! #40 in 2004.
‘Acceptable Losses’ first published in Let the Galaxy Burn in 2006.
‘Ancient History’ first published digitally in 2012.
‘Doom Flight’ first published digitally in 2013.
‘Wraithflight’ and ‘The Emperor’s Grace’ first published digitally in 2014.
Medusan Wings first published in 2016.
‘Stormseeker’, ‘In Service Eternal’ and ‘Wraithbound’ first published digitally in 2016.
This eBook edition published in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Adam Tooby.

On Wings of Blood © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. On Wings of Blood, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78999-440-7

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.