Winterbourne's lip curled in distaste.
'Stingwings,' he hissed.
'They came out of nowhere,' said Mederic. 'One minute we were supervising the mobilisation, the next we were under fire. Two dozen of them dropped out of the sky and tore into us. We got them all, but not before…'
His words trailed off as he indicated the dead body of the 44th's second in command.
'Alithea will be avenged, captain,' said Winterbourne. 'Make no mistake about that.'
'I believe you, my lord,' said Mederic.
Winterbourne stood and drew himself up to his full height and addressed the Guardsmen around him with the full weight of his authority.
'Right, let's get this army ready to fight,' said Winterbourne. 'I want us ready to roll out of here and fit to fight within the hour. Is that understood? Now go!'
Mederic saluted as the Guardsmen of the Lavrentians rushed to obey Winterbourne's orders.
'What about the Administratum?' Mederic asked. 'We're still awaiting their authorisation.'
'To hell with that, son,' said Winterbourne. 'We're at war, and I'm not waiting for some damn pencil pusher to tell me I can march out with my soldiers. Now make it happen!'
THE FIGHT, AS it turned out, was brief. Chaplain Clausel's warriors had been thorough in their destruction, and only a handful of the flying discs and a single battlesuit had still been functional by the time Uriel and Learchus led their squad into the battle. With the last of the tau machines brought down, a curious silence fell over the battlefield.
Glass and bullet casings crunched underfoot, and the moans of wounded tau were the only other sounds to disturb the quiet. As Uriel's scouts secured the few alien prisoners, the assault troops gathered up their fallen brothers. Three Space Marines were dead, and Uriel stood aside to allow Clausel's warriors past as they were borne towards the Thunderhawk.
Uriel approached Clausel. The Chaplain's face was a mask of blood, red droplets falling from the eye sockets of his death mask like ruby tears.
'Well met, Chaplain,' said Uriel, gripping Clausel's wrist. 'Who did you lose?'
'Brother Phaetus, Brother Ixios and Brother Ephor,' said Clausel. 'They will be remembered.'
'That they shall,' Uriel assured him. 'I will carve their names myself.'
Clausel moved away, and Uriel turned his attention to the aftermath of the fighting, angered at the deaths of the three warriors. Stepping carefully through the detritus of battle, he saw half a dozen of the automated flying drones the tau employed lying scattered like dented silver mirrors. The drones lay amid the bloodied remains of a handful of Lavrentian Guardsmen, and, such was the destruction wreaked upon their corpses that Uriel found it next to impossible to tell exactly how many had died.
His anger built at the sight of their bodies. It was obscene that the lives of warriors should be ended by an enemy without feelings, emotions or a spirit. Machines that killed were anathema to the Imperium, and even the death-dealing technology fabricated by the priests of Mars was imbued with a fragment of the machine-spirit or crewed by a living, breathing human being.
Two skitarii, the ones Uriel had seen during the audience with Koudelkar Shonai, were also dead, their heavily augmented bodies burned and cratered by multiple gunshot wounds. Brutal and animalistic killers they might be, but they had died in defence of their master.
Uriel counted four destroyed battlesuits, their armoured casings broken open and leaking hydraulic fluids onto the bloodied stone of the terrace. Through the cracked plating, Uriel could see torn grey flesh, and he could smell the strange, musky odour of alien blood. He walked through the scene of slaughter, coming at last to the splintered doors and smashed glazing of a botanical hothouse.
'Looks like it was quite a fight before we got here,' said Learchus, appearing at his side.
'Aye, that it does,' said Uriel, 'but I do not see the body of the governor anywhere.'
'Maybe he got inside,' suggested Learchus. 'I think these doors were open before they were shot out.'
'Possibly,' said Uriel, his eyes narrowing as he spotted something out of place beneath one of the battlesuits. He stepped over a pool of congealing blood, and knelt beside the blackened shell of one of the tau armoured fighting suits.
'Over here,' he said. 'Help me with this.'
Learchus joined him, and together they heaved the wrecked battlesuit onto its side. The machine was startlingly heavy, a solid, immobile hunk of metal now that whatever power source drove it was inactive.
'Guilliman's oath,' hissed Learchus at the sight of what was revealed.
Beneath the battlesuit lay the body of another tau, but one that was clearly not a warrior. Its robes were stained with blood, though none appeared to be its own. Its robes were white and gold, embroidered with a shimmering multi-coloured thread. A high collar of polished gems and enamelled chips was crushed beneath its head and its eyes flickered with life.
'Looks like someone important,' said Learchus.
'Yes,' agreed Uriel, 'one of their leader caste. A diplomat or some kind of noble perhaps.'
The fallen alien groaned, and his chest rose and fell with breath now that the pinning weight of the battlesuit had been removed. Learchus took hold of the alien, his massive gauntlet easily able to encircle its neck. 'Do you think he's the one in charge of them?'
'Given that he's here at the governor's residence, that seems possible.'
'Then his death will greatly hinder them,' said Learchus, tightening his grip. The tau reached up with thin arms and weakly pulled at the sergeant's wrists.
'No, do not kill him,' ordered Uriel. 'Secure him and get him onto the gunship. If he is a senior commander, we could learn a lot from him.'
Learchus nodded and hauled the tau to his feet. 'I will personally keep this one secure. What do you want to do now?'
'Search the grounds and the house,' ordered Uriel. 'Find any survivors.'
IN THE END, the search of the house revealed fifteen servants, who had gone to ground when the fighting had started, but Governor Shonai was not amongst them. Of the survivors, none were of especial note save for Mykola Shonai, the governor's aunt, whom Uriel had previously seen on his last expedition to Pavonis at Ario Barzano's grave. The scouts had found her hiding in the shredded ruin of the arboretum, curled under a stone bench with her eyes closed and her hands pressed firmly against her ears.
Uriel was pleased Mykola was alive, but this pleasure soured as he saw the guilty fear in her eyes as she was brought before him. If Uriel had been shocked by the change in Pavonis, it was nothing compared to the change he saw in Mykola Shonai.
Gone was the confident, strong-willed Planetary Governor, who had faced down an Imperial inquisitor over the fate of her world, and in her place was a weeping, mud-stained woman with thinning grey hair and a deeply lined face. Tears and snot mingled on her face, and Uriel felt a stab of sadness that she could have fallen to such a level.
'Uriel…? Oh, Emperor protect me,' she whispered. 'Oh, no… I'm sorry. No, no, no.'
Mykola looked away, and dropped to her knees as she saw the bodies strewn across the bloodstained terrace. Uriel shot Learchus a confused look as she covered her eyes and wept.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry… I never meant for this to happen,' she cried. 'I didn't know they'd take them, I swear.'
Uriel dropped to one knee before her. Gently, he raised her head. 'What happened here, Mykola? Where is Koudelkar?'
Mykola shook her head. 'No, I can't. It's too much.'
'You have to tell me everything,' pressed Uriel, 'and you have to do it now.'
'They said they came to negotiate,' cried Mykola, 'to do business. They said they could help bring prosperity back to Pavonis, and that's what I wanted. That's all I've ever wanted.'
The implications of her words were clear, and Uriel's heart sank. 'You invited the tau here, didn't you? They approached you with offers of trade and you listened to them. That's what happened, isn't it?'
Mykola nodded. '
You don't understand, Uriel. We'd won our world back from the brink of damnation. We were saved, but it was being taken away from us piece by piece by bureaucrats who had never even heard of Pavonis, let alone knew how bad things had gotten. The tau offered us a way out.'
'That is not what the tau offer, Mykola,' said Uriel. 'They offer you slavery and call it freedom, a prison you do not know you are in until it is too late. They offer a choice that is no choice at all.'
Something Mykola had said earlier now registered, and Uriel gripped her shoulder tightly. 'Koudelkar, they took him. The tau have your nephew, don't they? Is that what you meant when you said, ''I didn't know they'd take them''?'
Mykola didn't answer at first, but she nodded between sobs. 'Yes. One of the battle machines took him and my sister. Another took Lortuen… I mean Adept Perjed.'
Uriel looked over his shoulder at the smouldering wreckage of the tau drop-ship, matching its shape and features with the knowledge he'd assimilated from the myriad briefing files and after-action reports collated by the Ultramarines in the wake of their battles against the tau.
Such drop-ships were designated Orcas by Imperial Lexicographers, and Uriel quickly ran its troop capacity against the number of tau corpses he'd seen. The numbers didn't add up.
'Learchus, count the number of enemy dead,' he ordered. 'All of them: warriors, battlesuits and drones.'
'What for?'
'Just do it,' snapped Uriel, although he feared he already knew the answer. Learchus turned to the task with alacrity, and within the space of a minute, he had returned.
'Well?' asked Uriel.
'Four destroyed battlesuits, twenty-four dead soldiers and eight drones accounted for. Looks like three crew on the drop-ship that were killed when the Thunderhawk opened up.'
Uriel swore. 'An Orca can carry six battlesuits. Are you sure there are only four here?'
'Absolutely,' said Learchus. 'I'd stake my honour on it.'
'Damn it, Mykola, where have they taken him?' asked Uriel.
'I don't know, I swear on my life! Once the shooting started, I didn't see much of anything. I saw one of the battlesuits, the one Aun'rai called El'esaven, lift Koudelkar and Pawluk. Then another one picked up Lortuen, but then I got inside the arboretum, and I didn't see anything after that!'
'Aun'rai and El'esaven?' said Uriel. 'Who are they?'
'Aun'rai was the envoy,' said Mykola, wiping her face with the hem of her robe, 'the lying bastard who set this all up.'
'A tau in robes, not armour?' asked Uriel.
'Yes, uh… creamy white robes and no armour,' agreed Mykola.
'And El'esaven?' said Learchus. 'Is he a warrior?'
'I think so,' said Mykola between heaving gulps of air. 'He was wearing a battlesuit. I never heard of him before today, but I got the feeling he wasn't happy about what was happening, like he wanted to just open up on us instead of talk.'
'Did you see where they took the governor?' demanded Learchus. 'It is imperative that we retrieve your nephew. The fighting forces of Pavonis need a figurehead.'
Mykola shook her head.
'I didn't see,' she said with complete and utter self-loathing. 'I was too busy keeping my head down.'
Uriel sighed, saddened to see a once-noble servant of the Emperor brought low by her own flawed character. Though Mykola Shonai was now a traitor in the eyes of the Imperium, Uriel could well understand how she had come to this place, having walked a similar path not so long ago. Any censure heaped upon her would be nothing compared to the crushing anguish she would be lavishing on herself, though that fact would carry no weight with those who decided her punishment.
Uriel wanted to hate Mykola Shonai for what she had done, but found he could not. All he felt towards her was pity. He nodded to the scouts. 'Take her onto the Thunderhawk and secure her with the rest of the prisoners for transfer to the Glasshouse.'
The two scouts lifted the distraught Mykola and dragged her away.
'We're not taking her to Fortress Idaeus?' asked Learchus. 'She needs to be interrogated.'
'Fortress Idaeus is now our base of operations for war,' said Uriel, 'and that is no place for prisoners. Judge Sharben's enforcers will undertake the interrogation.'
Learchus nodded. 'Very well. And the governor? What do we do about Koudelkar?'
'You are going to get him back,' said Uriel.
'Me?' said Learchus. 'Surely we should follow their trail in the Thunderhawk.'
'No. With the prisoners and survivors of this attack aboard, we don't have enough fuel to mount an aerial pursuit and get back to Brandon Gate. I need you to take the scouts and find the trail of this El'esaven. Machines that big should be simple enough to track. Follow them, find them and kill them. Then bring the governor back.'
'Very well,' said Learchus, slamming a fresh magazine into his bolter. 'What are you going to do?'
'I'm going back to Brandon Gate,' said Uriel. 'The fighting is only going to escalate, and the warriors of the 4th Company need their captain to lead them.'
Learchus smiled and said, 'Perhaps you did learn something on your Death Oath after all.'
'So it would seem,' agreed Uriel, gripping his sergeant's wrist.
'Courage and honour, captain.'
Uriel nodded.
'I want the governor back,' he said. 'Find him for me.'
'We will find him,' vowed Learchus. 'On my honour, we will find him.'
ELEVEN
THE FIRST ATTACK came at Praxedes in a blaze of light, and the first warning the port city's defenders had was the booming metallic cough of shells detonating above them. Sentries turned their gazes upwards, Hydra flak tanks swivelled their quad-mounted cannons to the heavens, and, a moment later, the warm glow of the sun was eclipsed by a sky-wide explosion of incandescent fire. Targeting auspex fused and shorted out, retinas were irreparably damaged, and delicate surveyor gear was instantly obliterated.
Where some enemies of the Imperium attacked under the cover of darkness, the tau came in the searing glare of a thousand stars.
A host of wedge-shaped craft flew in from the western ocean in the wake of the blinding detonation. Launched from floating platforms, brought to the surface in secret and concealed with alien technologies, they had awaited the execute order from El'esaven for many months. Caught unawares and blinded by the blazing skies, the air defences of the coastal city had no time to engage the attacking aircraft. The first wave began their attack runs as alert sirens roused the majority of Lance Command's Guardsmen from their bunks.
Twenty-five Barracuda air-superiority fighters of the Burning Star Hunter Coalition screamed over the airfields of Praxedes with their chin-mounted cannons blazing. It was the largest port facility on Pavonis, and the majority of its structures were built on the slopes of an ancient crater that was now open on its western edge to the vast expanse of the cold black ocean. Its sprawling landing fields and jib-platforms jutted out to sea like branches of a silver tree stripped of its leaves.
Some of these jibs were laden with freighter craft and bulk-lifters used to ferry cargo to orbiting mass conveyors, but many more were empty. Precious few of the city's flyers were combat aircraft, and those few that were able to get airborne were blown out of the sky within minutes of the first warning.
Explosions mushroomed skywards as fuel bays were hit, and stuttering pulses of light stitched across the vast hangars and container lines of the port. Panic gripped the city. Lance Command was based in a fortified enclosure on the side of the docks, and interceptor guns began opening fire as the Barracuda came in for another pass. Blazing tracer fire lit the sky, and a few tau aircraft tumbled downwards, torn in two, or their engines blown off by the barrage from below. No sooner had the tanks opened fire than invisible beams of laser light from teams of spotters concealed on the bluffs overlooking the city were painting their flanks.
Shoals of missiles detached from the wings of the surviving aircraft, and, like hunting hounds with the scent of blood, they roared t
owards the Imperial guns. Within moments, Lance Command was a scene of carnage as no fewer than four missiles slammed into the topside of each of its six anti-aircraft batteries.
Percussive detonations rolled over the base as each flak tank was silenced, and blazing plumes of thick, tarry smoke boiled skyward from the wrecks. Flames and explosions lit the night with a hellish orange glow as the Barracuda circled overhead like carrion birds.
With the city's air-cover stripped, four enormous aircraft with wide wings, like those of a great undersea monster that had forsaken the depths for the air, flew in low from the ocean. Flaring bow waves of frothing dark water travelled before them, rocking the platform jibs and throwing out great breaths of hot, magnetised air.
These giant aircraft were known and feared by Imperial forces as Mantas, monstrously powerful carrier aircraft that bristled with weaponry, and which could transport the equivalent of a battle company. Streaking bursts of explosive shells swept across the landing platforms, clearing them of any last defenders.
Each of the alien craft swooped in low over an empty platform and rotated on its axis before smoothly setting down amid sprays of ionised water and debris. A lower deck opened up, and each carrier disgorged four graceful skimmer tanks that moved on rippling cushions of anti-grav energy. The tanks were a mix of lightly armoured Devilfish, more heavily armed Hammerheads and missile-laden Sky Rays. No sooner were the armoured vehicles disgorged than ranks of battlesuits marched behind them. Each hulking war machine was heavily armed and followed the tanks as they swiftly pushed into the landing facility.
With their heavy payloads deployed, telescoping ramps slid down from upper decks, and squad after squad of armoured warriors hustled from the enormous bays. A handful of drones flew above the soldiers, hardened fighters from the world of Sa'cea, who called themselves Fire Warriors. The sensor spines of the drones tracked left and right, relaying their findings to each squad leader.