The city below was wreathed in a pall of black smoke and dull, coughing detonations from pockets of resistance still fighting the inevitable. His tanks and troops lined every street and, though he knew it was regrettable that these men would all die, it was a small price to pay for his impending godhood.
He patted the head of Forlanus Shonai and smiled, before hurling the bust as far as he could from his vantage point. He watched it spin down through the air, finally shattering into fragments as it impacted on the cobbled esplanade below.
LORD ADMIRAL LAZLO Tiberius followed the blip representing Uriel’s Thunderhawk on the surveyor plot table as it drew near the capital city of Pavonis. An air of tense expectation hung over the bridge and even the astropathic choir had fallen silent. The feeling gripping Tiberius was the same as that of going into battle, which he supposed was correct, even though they themselves were in no danger.
Captain Uriel Ventris was the one flying into harm’s way along with his warriors. The astropaths on the Vae Victus had reported powerful sigils and hexagrammic wards incorporated into the walls of the cells and this, combined with the energy shield that now enveloped the palace, ruled out a teleported assault.
With time against them, they were going to have to do this the old fashioned way.
‘How long?’ he asked tersely.
‘A few moments yet,’ answered Philotas.
‘The co-ordinates are dialled into the attack logister?’
‘Yes, lord admiral, everything is prepared. The firing solution has been confirmed.’
Tiberius caught the hint of restrained impatience in his officer’s voice and smiled, grimly. He already knew everything was prepared, but couldn’t help wanting to make double and triple sure. Almost time, thought Tiberius, praying that the anonymous transmission Uriel had received as he had flown towards Brandon Gate earlier that day had been genuine.
The Emperor help him if it was not.
Forcing himself to return to his captain’s pulpit, Tiberius gripped the edge of his lectern and addressed his crew.
‘Brothers, we come now to this gravest hour and it is to realise that there is only one way that we can triumph, and that is together as one. We have only determination, and single-minded desire. Not one amongst us has proven willing to give up or accept defeat and for that I commend you.’
Tiberius bowed his head as Philotas reported, ‘They are at the edge of the defence guns’ lethal envelope, lord admiral.’
The lord admiral nodded. ‘Gunnery officer,’ he ordered. ‘Fire prow bombardment cannon.’
LUTRICIA VIJEON’S HEART sank as she watched the incoming Thunderhawk gunship on her scope. The aircraft was flying nap-of-the-earth and the pilot was good, skilfully hugging the contours of the landscape.
But it was wasted effort. The command centre had been tracking them since they had entered the atmosphere and Vorens grinned with predatory glee as he paced the room, eagerly awaiting the gunship. She had seen his momentary fear as the three Space Marines appeared at the entrance to the command centre, but his mask of vicious arrogance had reasserted itself when they had vanished. Where had they gone, wondered Lutricia?
Most of the control centre staff prayed silently at their stations, only the servitors carrying on with their allotted tasks in the face of Vorens’ treachery. She made to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye, blinking as she saw something detach from the icon representing the Space Marines’ strike cruiser.
A second gunship?
No, the signal was too small and, as she looked closer, she saw that it was moving too fast for a gunship. Suddenly she realised what it was and where its trajectory would cause it to land.
A warning klaxon sounded as the aged defence cogitators came to the same conclusion, sounding the alert as a flurry of other blips fired from the cruiser.
Danil Vorens gripped the edge of his chair, rising to his feet with a look of pure terror creasing his features.
‘No,’ he hissed, watching as the salvo of magma bombs launched from the Vae Victus hurtled towards them, homing in on the precise co-ordinates provided by Lutricia Vijeon.
His knees sagged and Vorens collapsed back in the commander’s seat.
Lutricia watched the bombs speed their way towards them, slashing down through the atmosphere of Pavonis at incredible speed. They would impact soon, wiping this facility from the face of the planet, and not even the energy field would protect them.
Suddenly calm, she rose from her station and strode to the centre of the chamber.
Danil Vorens watched her. He wept openly at the prospect of death, but made no move to stop her as she picked up the laspistol beside him. Though she had never handled a weapon in her life, she knew exactly what to do.
Lutricia Vijeon shot Danil Vorens in the heart, letting the pistol fall from her fingers as the proximity alarms of the command centre began screaming.
She turned to the main viewscreen and sank to her knees.
Lutricia smiled, an enormous sense of satisfaction flooding her. She knew she had done the right thing and offered her thanks that she had been granted this chance to serve Him.
She extended her hands and said, ‘Come, brothers and sisters. Let us pray.’
The remainder of the control centre staff joined her in a small circle, weeping and joining hands as they prayed to the Emperor for the last time.
THE MAGMA BOMBS impacted within seconds of one another.
The first clutch hammered into the energy shield, overloading the field generators protecting this portion of the palace, and punching a hole. Subsequent bombs blasted through the wing the control centre was buried beneath, obliterating it in a thunderous detonation and hurling tank-sized blocks of stone high into the air. The next penetrated ten metres of reinforced rockcrete, blasting a crater almost a hundred metres in diameter.
Two bombs malfunctioned, the first corkscrewing wildly as it hit the upper atmosphere and landing at the edge of the Gresha Forest, immolating a sizeable portion of the Abrogas cartel’s country holdings. The second hit over nine hundred kilometres from its intended target, splashing down harmlessly in the ocean.
But the rest slashed into the crater and punched deep into the command centre, their delayed fuses ensuring they exploded in its heart. Firestorms flared, incinerating every living thing within and collapsing what little remained standing. A vast black pillar of smoke, pierced with volcanic flames rose from the destroyed command centre, the shockwave of its demise rippling outwards for kilometres as though an angry god had just smote the earth.
The aerial approach to Brandon Gate was suddenly wide open as servitor controlled batteries sat idle, awaiting targeting instructions that would never arrive.
URIEL LET OUT the breath he had been holding as he heard the pilot’s voice over the vox.
‘Guilliman’s oath! Look at that!’
He’d seen the flash of the magma bombs’ impact through the vision blocks, knowing that nothing could stand before the righteous fire of a starship sanctified by the Emperor himself.
‘No incoming ground fire,’ confirmed the co-pilot. ‘Commencing our attack run now.’
The message had been genuine then, and Uriel closed his eyes, offering a prayer of thanks and blessing upon the courageous servant of the Emperor who had managed to get the co-ordinates of the defence control centre to them, thus sealing its fate.
Lord Admiral Tiberius had wanted to level the entire palace with orbital bombardment, but Uriel had resisted such a plan, knowing that the vast forces the Vae Victus could unleash would level everything within fifty kilometres of the palace. The greatly reduced yield on the magma bombs had struck with precisely the correct force, and though there was certain to be some collateral casualties, Uriel hoped that that they had been kept to a minimum.
They were here to save these people, not destroy them. Leave such simple-minded butchery for the likes of the Blood Angels or Marines Malevolent. The Ultramarines were not indiscriminate killers, they were
the divine instrument of the Emperor’s wrath. The protection of his subjects was their reason for existing.
Too many of those who fought to protect the Imperium forgot that it was a living thing, made up of the billions of people that inhabited the Emperor’s worlds. Without them, the Imperium was nothing. With the Emperor to bind them, they were the glue that held His realm together and Uriel would have no part in their deliberate murder.
A chill passed through him as he remembered Gedrik’s words on Caernus IV.
The Death of Worlds and the Bringer of Darkness await to be born into this galaxy…
He now understood their significance and did not relish the prospect of what they presaged.
The Thunderhawk swayed wildly as the pilot circled the palace, swooping in low through the gap in the energy shield the magma bombs had blasted. Gunfire spat from the towers, a few shots even striking the speeding gunship, but its armour was untroubled by such pinpricks.
The gunship’s crew chief glanced out of the door and shouted, ‘Get ready brothers! Debarkation in ten seconds!’
Uriel tensed, tapping his breastplate and bolt pistol in honour of their war spirits. Bracing himself against the side of the gun-ship, he drew his power sword and watched the ground hurtle towards them.
The Thunderhawk slammed into the cobbled esplanade before the palace.
Uriel shouted, ‘Courage and honour!’ and leapt from the gun-ship.
The Ultramarines echoed his war-cry and charged after their captain.
BARZANO AND SHONAI stared fearfully at the roof of their cell as the massive shockwave of the magma bombs’ detonation rocked the prison level with the violence of an earthquake. Cracks snaked across the vaulted ceilings and dozens of archways collapsed, burying the cells’ screaming occupants beneath tonnes of rabble.
Stone split with the crack of a gunshot and steel groaned as millions of tonnes of rock spread its load over the blasted foundations. Barzano scrambled to his feet. The bars to their cell squealed in protest, bowing outwards under the compression as the archway sagged. . ‘About time,’ he muttered.
‘What’s happening?’ shouted Mykola Shonai over the rumble of collapsing stonework.
‘Well, to me that sounds like the opening strike in an orbital bombardment,’ replied Barzano coolly, reaching into his mouth and tugging. Shonai watched him, bemused, as the juddering tremors of the bombardment continued.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Getting us out of here,’ replied Barzano, finally pulling out a tooth with a grunt of pain. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth and the ivory coloured tooth he held before him.
He hurried to the cell door working the ‘tooth’ deep within the lock and checking for any guards. Shouts echoed up and down the prison, inmates screaming to be let out of their cells and guards yelling at them to shut up.
Barzano moved quickly from the door and grabbed Shonai, the pair of them hauling the bed with Jenna Sharben towards the rear of the cell. Barzano knelt, protecting their bodies with his own.
‘Mykola, close your eyes, cover your ears and open your mouth so the blast pressure won’t burst your eardrums,’ advised Barzano, pressing his face into Jenna Sharben’s shoulder
The governor ducked down as the compact explosive that had been secreted inside Barzano’s false tooth erupted,
blasting the lock-plate of the cell door across the corridor. The door itself didn’t move, pressed tightly into its frame by the lowering ceiling. Before the roar of the blast had even dissipated, Barzano rose to his feet and kicked his booted foot against the cell door.
It opened a handbreadth, but another kick slammed it wide and Barzano was through.
Holding his wounded shoulder, he turned back to Shonai, saying, ‘Stay here and look after Sharben. I’ll be back soon.’
‘Be careful!’ ordered Mykola Shonai.
‘Always,’ grinned Barzano, scooping up a fist-sized rock that had fallen from the ceiling and jogging cautiously down the corridor, keeping close to the walls. He reached a bend in the corridor, hearing panicked voices of the guards from around the corner. He could sense they were strung out, nervous and not thinking straight.
Hefting the rock, he affected his strongest Pavonian accent and shouted, ‘Quick! The prisoners are escaping from their cells!’
Seconds later three men sprinted around the corner.
Barzano hammered the rock into the first guard’s face, crushing his skull and dropping him to the floor. He leapt at the second man, cracking the rock against his helmet. The inquisitor threw himself flat as a lasbolt slashed the air above him, and rolled to his knees, driving his elbow up into the third guard’s groin. Barzano caught the man’s lasgun as he fell and cracked the rifle butt hard against his temple. The second guard tried to rise, but Barzano shot him in the face and he collapsed.
The inquisitor raised the rifle to his uninjured shoulder and scanned for fresh targets. His wound throbbed painfully and the dressing was leaking blood, but he didn’t have time to spare to redress it.
He heard fresh shouts behind him and dropped to his knees as a flurry of blasts vaporised the rock walls beside him. He spun, firing a wild volley of shots, and two guards dropped screaming to the floor. Over half a dozen remained though, and Barzano rolled around the corner his first victims had come from.
Swiftly rising to his feet, he sprinted down the corridor, the shouts of the prison guards hard on his heels. Ahead, the corridor split into two passageways and Barzano ducked into the left one as another shot plucked his sleeve, leaving a painful, burning weal across his arm. The corridor was chill and dark, the glow-globes dim and barely illuminating this section.
Cell doors punctuated the corridor’s length and at its end was a featureless door of rusted metal. Barzano’s empathic senses felt an overwhelming aura of despair emanating from beyond this door and the magnitude of it made him stumble.
He fought through the palpable horror and pushed on, knowing he had seconds to reach cover before being shot by his pursuers. He sprinted down the corridor and launched himself feet first at the door.
It slammed open and he rolled through onto his back, grunting as the wound on his shoulder reopened. He fired back into the corridor, hearing another scream and kicked the door shut, slamming the locking bar into place.
He rose to his feet and swung the rifle to bear on the room’s occupants.
The Surgeon stood beside a blood-soaked slab, working a buzzing saw into Almerz Chanda’s bones.
Barzano’s knees sagged and the rifle barrel dropped as he saw how the Surgeon had honoured Almerz Chanda’s flesh.
URIEL DIVED INTO the cover of some rubble and sprayed the rebels’ trench line with bolter fire. Explosions of red blossomed where his shots struck flesh and the screams of the wounded added to the din of battle. Despite the ministrations of Apothecary Selenus, the wound inflicted by the eldar leader pulled painfully tight with his every movement.
The entrance to the palace’s prison level lay at the far end of this wide area of open ground strewn with rubble and small fires. Two bunkers of rockcrete flanked the entrance, covering every possible approach, and a slit trench ran in a troop-filled line before them, protected by recently laid coils of razorwire. Roaring blasts of gunfire sprayed from the defensive position: bright stabs of lasguns and the crack of heavy bolters.
Ultramarines poured fire over their own makeshift barricades, peppering the thick walls of the bunkers with bolts. A pair of missiles lanced out, slamming into the bunkers’ thick walls, but they had been designed to withstand all but a direct artillery impact.
Concentrated bursts of heavy gunfire raked the Ultramarines’ position and Uriel knew that they were running out of time: the enemy were sure to bring up heavy armour and counterattack. As formidable as the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes were, they would have no option but to fall back in the face of such firepower.
He called over his sergeants and hurriedly outlined the situation.
‘Options?’ he asked.
Pasanius scabbarded his bolter and hefted his flamer. ‘Call in a limited strike from the Vae Victus, blow a hole in their line and fight through the gap.’
Uriel considered the possibility of an orbital strike. It was tempting, but unrealistic.
‘No. If the targeting surveyors are even a fraction out, we could find ourselves the target or if the yield is too high, the entire prison complex might be buried beneath hundreds of tonnes of rabble.’
‘Then I suppose we have to do this the hard way,’ said Sergeant Venasus grimly.
Uriel nodded. Venasus was not noted for his subtlety of command, but as he considered the options, Uriel knew that the sergeant was right. They would have to throw tactical finesse out the window. Superior training and faith in the Emperor was vital, but in any war there would always come a time when the battle would have to be won by taking the fight to the enemy through the fire and meeting him blade to blade, strength to strength. That time was now.
Another burst of heavy fire blasted along their line, the PDF gunners working their guns methodically left and right, turning the area before the Ultramarines into a murderous killing ground.
‘Very well,’ said Uriel at last, ‘Here’s how we are going to do this.’
BARZANO BROUGHT THE rifle up in time to block the upward sweep of the Surgeon’s bonesaw, the alien device hacking through the barrel in a shower of purple sparks. He ducked another sweep of the saw, barrelling into his slender opponent. The pair collapsed in a pile of thrashing limbs and Barzano screamed as he felt the whirring saw-blade slice across his hip, the screaming teeth scraping across his pelvis before sliding clear.
He slammed his forehead into the Surgeon’s face. Blood sprayed as his nose cracked and the alien screeched in pain. Barzano rolled as the saw blade swung again, scoring a deep gouge in the stone floor. He bent to retrieve what remained of his lasgun. The weapon would never fire again, but its heavy wooden stock would serve as a bludgeon.
He backed against the door, bracing his weight against it as he felt the repeated lasblasts impact upon it. It wouldn’t hold for long.