Legends of the dark ange.., p.35
Legends Of The Dark Angels, page 35
Searchlights and lamps broke the gloom of nightfall, giving Naaman a clear idea of exactly where the ork forces were in relation to his position. Some distance behind, other lights, including the flickering orange of fires, sprang into life across the East Barrens. Looking at the glow that lit the early night sky, he realised just how many orks there were: thousands of them. The bulk of movement was to the north, but the flash of headlights and the sporadic chatter of exuberant weapons fire betrayed a group of several vehicles almost directly behind Naaman’s line of advance.
He was still cautious about turning north; that would put him and his squad squarely in front of the main ork thrust. Heading south was not much of a better option: too far in that direction and the Scouts would come up against the kilometre-deep, near-vertical Koth Gorge. Even if they negotiated that obstacle, the route would take them to the coast rather than Koth Ridge. For better or worse, the only option seemed to be to keep heading west in the hope that orks following behind would stop or change course. Naaman resolved to himself that if the orks came within half a kilometre, they would dig slit trenches and take cover; the orks might miss them in the darkness and if they didn’t, at least the Scouts would have a rough position to defend.
Two hours after the sun had settled behind Koth Ridge and was nothing more than the slightest glow in the west, Naaman was feeling slightly vindicated. The orks coming up from the rear had gradually bent their course northwards to join the rest of their force, passing the Scouts more than a kilometre away. Though there was light and exhaust smoke far ahead of the Scouts, it seemed to Naaman that they now had a clear run to Koth Ridge. If they kept up their current pace – and there was no reason they could not – they would be amongst the rocks and gulleys before dawn.
The grasslands of the plains were thinning. Patches of heather and stubby bushes broke the swaying sea of long stems. The ground had started to slope gently upwards and Naaman judged it to be no more than another three kilometres to Koth Ridge proper. It was still dark; Piscina’s moons had set and it would be another two hours until dawn coloured the eastern sky. The air was chill but Naaman barely noticed, the cold registering as an abstract environmental factor rather than something he actually felt. It was the same with the fatigue from the constant running. His arms and legs pumped methodically, his limbs a separate entity from his conscious mind. There was no pain, no shortness of breath, no cramp or dizziness that a normal man might have suffered.
The Scouts were not so physically blessed, each feeling the strain depending upon his implants and development. Kudin ran as effortlessly as Naaman; Ras and Keliphon were breathing heavily but were keeping pace; Teldis and Gethan showed the worst signs of their exertions. Their faces were red, their strides short, perspiration soaking their uniforms. For all the hardship, neither had offered any complaint or asked for a rest. That was good, because the will to continue was every bit as important as the body’s ability to carry on.
Nobody spoke. Each watched his sector with gun ready, but there was nothing to report. It seemed that they had left the orks a kilometre or two behind. Naaman was unsettled by the quiet, particularly the silence of the comm. Although he was not within transmission range, he had expected to be able to receive command signals at this range from Koth Ridge, but he heard nothing. It occurred to him that Aquila might have done something foolhardy and allowed his squad to be cornered by the orks before sending the warning of the ork advance.
‘Sergeant!’ Keliphon’s hushed voice cut through Naaman’s thoughts. The Scout was at the rear of the squad and had stopped, sniper rifle raised to his shoulder.
‘Squad, halt here,’ snapped Naaman. ‘Keep watch. Make your report, Scout Keliphon.’
‘I thought I heard an engine, sergeant.’
Naaman walked back and stopped next to the crouching Scout.
‘You heard an engine, or you did not hear an engine?’ he asked.
‘I heard an engine, sergeant,’ Keliphon said with more confidence. ‘Behind us.’
‘Distance? Size?’
‘I do not know, sergeant. I can see a thermal haze in that direction.’ The Scout pointed towards a dip in the plains the Scouts had passed a few minutes previously. Naaman was pulling his monocular from his belt when the Scout continued, voice tense. ‘I see them! Three ork vehicles. Two flatbed transports. Single armoured battlewagon. No bikes or infantry. They are coming directly at us!’
Naaman could see nothing with his naked eye, even though the sight of a Space Marine was as good in low light as a normal man’s at noon. The orks were driving without lights. Were they deliberately hunting the Scouts? He looked through the monocular and confirmed what Keliphon had reported: three ork vehicles catching up with them, crammed full of ork warriors.
Naaman looked around for the best defensive position. There was a stand of low trees a few hundred metres to his right, and a narrow stream cut down from the ridge thirty metres to his left. The trees would take them further from the orks’ probable route of advance, and provide some visual cover, but the wiry, twisted trunks and branches offered little physical protection. The stream cut at least a metre deep and bushes lined the side, but it went directly across the orks’ projected course. Naaman made a last sweep with the monocular and assured himself that there were no other ork forces close at hand. If the Scouts were discovered, they would only face the three vehicles and their belligerent cargo.
Collapsing the monocular and stowing it away, he made his decision.
‘Into the stream bed, four-metre dispersal, snipers front and back!’
They covered the ground at a sprint and splashed into the brook, which was about three metres wide but barely covered the tops of their boots. Naaman led the squad a little further upstream, where the water curved around a boulder and cut to the south for a short distance, almost perpendicular to the ork advance.
‘We cannot allow the enemy to get between us and Koth Ridge,’ Naaman told his Scouts. ‘We will wait for the enemy to pass us and engage them from the rear. If the Free Militia on the ridge are paying attention, they may even see the fight and send assistance.’
The Scouts nodded, wide-eyed and filled with adrenaline. They took up their positions, using clumps of grass and bushes to conceal their weapons, crouched against the waist-high mud bank. Peering between the fronds of a plant, Naaman watched the orks, his bolter resting on the bank in front of him. The enemy were three hundred metres away and approaching at a reasonable speed. This was no reckless dash for Koth Ridge, this was a considered advance. The idea of orks showing this kind of circumspection unsettled the Scout-sergeant. Orks were dangerous enough without them actually thinking.
Naaman could feel the ground trembling as the vehicles came closer and closer. The heaviest was a slab-sided half-track with a driver’s cabin on the right-hand side, an open turret sporting a long-barrelled cannon on the left. There was a rickety gantry behind on which stood two orks holding guns strapped to a rail. Behind them, above the tracks, over a dozen more orks hunched behind the metal sides of the troop compartment, peering over the side, guns in hand. Smoke billowed from a cluster of exhausts along the far side, dirt sprayed from the tracks in the transport’s wake.
The other two vehicles were about half the size, with four balloon-tyre wheels that churned through the mud and grass. He could see the drivers hunched in a wide compartment at the front of each, a gunner beside them standing behind a pintle-mounted weapon. Ammunition belts trailed onto the open deck behind, where more orks squatted close together, their helmeted heads turning this way and that as they kept a lookout for enemies. As they came nearer he could hear the guttural chatter of the greenskins among the noise of engines.
The battlewagon crossed the stream bed about fifty metres upriver, crashing across the gap without halting. The trucks found it harder going. One driver revved the engine in a huge cloud of black smoke and tried to jump the gap. This met with mixed success: the truck surged into the river and smashed into the far bank, tyres ripping through dirt and plants, dragging the vehicle free as half the orks on board tumbled out of the back. The second truck approached more cautiously and bellied into the water with a loud shriek of tearing metal. It stayed there, smoke dribbling from the exhausts. Naaman guessed an axle had snapped.
There followed an argument punctuated by shouts, punches and kicks, which culminated in the orks deciding to abandon the vehicle and continue on foot. Naaman gave the order to open fire as the last of them were scrambling up the opposite bank.
Bolts screeched into the orks’ exposed backs, blowing out chunks of flesh, shattering spines and ripping off limbs. Naaman directed his fire onto the abandoned truck, stitching a line of explosions across its flank until something ignited. Flames crackled, and with an explosion that sent a ball of fire dozens of metres into the air, a fuel tank exploded. Pieces of armour and chassis scythed through the nearby orks. The waters of the stream swirled with thick blood.
It was difficult to see what had happened to the battlewagon: it was lost behind the pall of smoke streaming from the exploded transport. The other truck turned around and drove straight at the Scouts, skidding across the grass, the gunner spraying a hail of bullets at the bank.
Teldis gave a shout and flew back into the water, his right cheek and eye missing. He looked around desperately with his other eye, one hand flapping at the water, the other still holding tight to his bolter. Naaman blocked the Scout’s pained grunts and snorts from his mind and swung his weapon towards the fast-approaching truck. Heavy-calibre bullets ripped through the dirt and sang over the Scout-sergeant’s head. Naaman sighted on the driver through the cracked glass of the truck’s windshield.
He loosed off two rounds in quick succession, the first punching through the glass to explode in the ork’s chest, the second missing by the smallest margin to tear into the troop compartment behind. The ork wrestled for control of the vehicle despite the gaping hole in its ribcage, head lowered protectively.
Naaman heard a dull thud. Less than a second later a shell exploded on the stream bank behind the squad, showering the Scouts with dirt and water. He realised that Teldis had stopped making any noise, but did not break his gaze from the truck. More fire from the pintle gun sprayed along the bank and Ras ducked back with a cry.
‘Emperor’s hairy arse!’ the Scout yelled, waggling his hand fiercely, blood spraying from where a finger had been shot away.
‘Cease your blasphemy!’ snapped Naaman, firing another burst of shots, this time aiming for the gunner. The ork fell away from its weapon, head split apart by a detonation within. ‘Do not speak of the Emperor in vain!’
‘My apologies, sergeant,’ answered Ras, taking up his firing position again, altered blood already clotting his wounded hand. ‘I shall report to the Chaplains for penance when we reach our brothers.’
The ork slewed the truck to a halt a dozen metres away. The greenskin pulled a pistol from within the cab and started firing as its passengers spilled over the side. Naaman ignored the driver and directed his fire at those disembarking. Two orks were dead before they hit the ground, their bodies mangled by multiple bolt-round explosions. Four more dashed straight at the Scouts, cleavers in hand, pistols spitting bullets. A lucky hit caught Naaman across the right side of his head, smashing his comm-link and taking off the top of his ear. Out of the corner of his eye, Naaman saw the driver slump backwards, a neat hole in its forehead from a sniper round.
‘Good marksmanship, Scout Kudin,’ Naaman said, swapping his empty bolter magazine for a fresh one.
There was no reply. Naaman glanced to his right and saw Kudin doubled up in the stream, blood pouring from a vicious gash across the side of his neck. Gethan was using the wounded Scout’s rifle.
Naaman rose up to his full height and pulled out his combat knife as the orks lunged towards the stream. A greenskin tried to vault over him, but he slashed at its groin as it went past, opening up a cut along its thigh from pelvis to knee, slicing through muscle and tendons. The greenskin floundered to one side as it landed, unable to keep its balance on the ruined leg. Naaman turned and fired a bolt-round into its face.
The battlewagon opened fire again. This time the shell exploded in the stream, shredding what was left of Teldis and ripping apart two orks as they dropped down into the water. Gethan fired past Naaman as the last greenskin splashed along the waterway, the shot taking out its throat.
There came a brief pause. The orks from the first truck were all dead, those from the other were running along the bank to close with the Scouts. The battlewagon ground forwards slowly, smoke drifting from the muzzle of its cannon as the ork gunner clumsily reloaded.
‘One thing at a time,’ Naaman said to nobody in particular. He reached down to his belt and pulled free a perfect sphere of dull metal. There was a rune etched into it. The activation sigil glowed red as he rubbed his thumb across it. Pulling himself up the bank, Naaman took aim on the battlewagon, bullets zipping around him, and hurled the grenade. Upturned ork faces watched the globe arcing through the air until it sailed into the back of the battlewagon.
There was no explosion. Instead of fire and shrapnel, the stasis grenade erupted with a shimmering globe of energy, engulfing the battlewagon and everything within ten metres of it. Inside that hazy bubble, time slowed almost to a stop. Naaman could see the gunner with a hand on the breech lever of the cannon. He saw the scowling face of the driver, flecks of saliva flying from between its fangs. Bullets fired by the two pintle gunners on the gantry hung in the air, moving so slowly they had appeared to have stopped. Orks were frozen in mid-leap as they bundled out of the troop compartment, flecks of rust and sprays of dirt colouring the air around them.
He had only bought a little more time. The stasis field was already weakening, the sphere of energy slowly but perceptibly shrinking. Naaman felt Gethan come up beside him as the sergeant took aim at the mob of orks running towards them.
‘It’s just us, sergeant,’ whispered Gethan.
‘No it isn’t,’ Naaman replied, firing a volley into the orks, cutting the legs from beneath a greenskin.
The rumble of engines Naaman had first heard a few seconds earlier became a roar of throttles as the Ravenwing bikes leapt across the stream just behind the sergeant. Their bolters chattering, Aquila’s squadron drove straight at the orks, ripping a swathe through the unruly mob. Return fire rang from their armour and their bikes as they ploughed into the midst of the enemy, chainswords in hand, hacking and slashing.
With an audible pop of air pressure, the stasis field imploded. Bullets fired almost half a minute earlier suddenly screamed over Naaman’s head. The throb of an engine being gunned brought Naaman’s attention back to the functioning truck; gunner and passengers dead, the driver accelerated straight at the sergeant.
‘Down!’ he rasped, hurling himself into the stream, one hand dragging Gethan with him.
The truck hurtled over the bank and tilted to one side, front wheel catching on a rock, sending the whole machine cart-wheeling over Naaman and Gethan. It crashed in a plume of water and smoke, the driver hurled through the remnants of the windshield in a shower of glass shards. Amazingly, the ork was still alive. It dragged itself through the mud in Naaman’s direction, pistol clicking empty in its grip.
‘Kill it!’ Naaman told Gethan. The Scout raised the sniper rifle and put a crystal-tipped round through the wounded ork’s left eye. It shuddered for a few seconds as the sniper bullet shattered on the inside of its skull, releasing toxins through the alien’s bloodstream.
The distinctive crump of the battlewagon cannon echoed along the stream. A moment later, a shell exploded in the middle of Aquila’s squadron. Naaman saw two bikes and their riders flung high into the air, armour plates spinning, engine parts flying in all directions. The twisted remains of Space Marines and machines crashed to the ground trailing smoke as debris rained down into the burning grass.
‘Time to move on,’ Naaman said, pushing Gethan onto the bank. Scrambling up afterwards, Naaman saw the two pintle gunners on the battlewagon sighting in their direction. Even as a warning left Naaman’s lips, Gethan was shredded by the hail of bullets, holes punched through his armour and body.
The Scout fell backwards, red froth bubbling from his lips. Naaman spared a second to see if there was any chance of saving the Scout. There was none. Had Gethan received some of the later implants, his wounds might not have been fatal, but he was simply too young, his body too normal, to survive such punishment. Naaman put a bolter round into the youth’s skull to spare him any more pain and rounded on the orks with a fierce cry.
‘Death to the xenos!’
Though his body was filled with the fire of fury, Naaman directed his rage, siphoned it from a wild, uncontrollable flame into a white-hot focus. The orks that had spilled from the back of the battlewagon became the object of his wrath as he advanced with bolter levelled, every burst of fire hitting its mark, every salvo of rounds ending the life of an enemy.
Aquila and the surviving member of his squadron circled around the battlewagon, raking it with fire, but its armour was too thick for the explosive bolts to penetrate. Hunkered in its turret, the gunner was almost impossible to hit as the cannon fired again, this time missing the speeding Ravenwing by a considerable distance.
Aquila’s course brought him swinging around the battlewagon and up to Naaman from behind. The sergeant throttled down and came to a stop beside Naaman, and addressed him through his external speakers.
‘Head for Koth Ridge, brother,’ said Aquila. ‘I have sent warning to Master Belial, but what you have seen is far more valuable than my report.’
‘You have nothing to take on that battlewagon, brother,’ replied Naaman. ‘You should withdraw while you can. My life is not worth the sacrifice of yours.’
