Only war stories from th.., p.16
Only War: Stories from the 41st Millennium, page 16
‘Coordinates locked,’ Vi screamed down into Anarchy’s End’s command deck. ‘Shoot it, Beadle, shoot it!’
The turret started rotating, metal grinding against the carapace of dead tyranids. Vi held off as many of them as she could, keeping the auspex locked on the tyrant while firing her bolt pistol at any of the swarm that came too close. The turret stopped, the tyrant in sight. It was moving towards them, its brutish guard hustling around it like a shield of living flesh.
‘Fire, gunner!’ Vi shouted again as she squeezed off another couple of shots, felling a beast that slithered along the ground like a snake with bladed arms. ‘Shoot it now!’
Nothing. Vi knew then, with a sickening certainty, that Gunner Beadle had succumbed to his wound. She would have to fire the cannon herself.
A tyranid warrior leapt up onto the turret. Taller than even a Space Marine, and covered in spines and talons, the creature flung itself at Vi. She fired three shots, each one blowing a hole in the monster’s skull, but it slammed into her and she felt a talon pierce her flesh, driving into her shoulder and pinning her against the hatch. The warrior slumped, dead, but Vi couldn’t move. Trapped in place, all she could do was wait for the next monster to come for her. In a vain hope, she kept the auspex sensor in place, locked on the tyrant. A pitiful fate for the Anarchy’s End and her final crew.
‘In the name of the Emperor,’ Vi said, tears of pain rolling down her cheeks, ‘somebody kill that thing!’
The Baneblade cannon fired and Anarchy’s End rocked with the force of it, shaking the warrior loose. Vi slumped forwards and watched the shell strike the tyrant with such terrible violence that it ripped the monster in half, killing it instantly.
The swarm faltered. Many of the tyranids turned and fled, while others slowed to a halt as though they couldn’t remember what they were doing. Beneath her, Vi felt Anarchy’s End give a final shudder as the engine went cold for the last time, then the tank fell deathly still.
She slumped there, bleeding from her shoulder and unable to summon even the energy to move. Without orders, the swarm continued to fragment or fall dormant. The remnants of the Imperial Guard forces gave chase, lasguns blasting apart xenos flesh as they slaughtered as many of the monsters as they could. Vi saw brutish ogryns leaping upon confused tyranid warriors, hacking them apart with monstrous bayonets. A unit of Guardsmen led by a screaming commissar charged towards the remains of the tyrant, and lasgun fire turned the dead monster’s guards into smoking husks. A trio of Leman Russ tanks, all that was left of the 416th mechanised unit, trundled past, cannons roaring, crushing the smaller tyranids under their tracks.
All around them the Imperial Guard forces surged past the fallen Baneblade that had won them the battle. Its armour was dented, scorched, buckled and broken. And it was dead. Anarchy’s End was dead.
The pintle hatch opened and Adept Verman clambered out. Her servo-arm was broken, hanging limp by her side, and she was bleeding from her head wound again. She helped Vi climb up onto the turret of the tank and they collapsed together next to the body of the warrior that had come so close to killing her. The battle was beyond them now, and Guardsmen were pouring past. They would need to flag down a medic and soon, before she bled out from the gaping hole in her shoulder.
‘Gunner Beadle is dead?’ Vi asked.
The enginseer nodded.
‘Did you fire the cannon?’
‘I was below, keeping the engine alive for as long as I could.’ Her vox crackled with static as she spoke.
‘Then how…?’ Vi asked, exhaustion and pain making her voice crack on the words. ‘How did it fire?’
The enginseer was silent on the matter, her bionic eye flickering on and off, her human eye fixed on the battle lines in the distance.
Vi sighed, remembering a passage from the Mechanicus Primer she had been given on her first day of duty aboard Anarchy’s End. She gave the thought voice.
‘Those who serve the machine-spirit are, in turn, served by the machine-spirit.’
THE JAGGED EDGE
MARIA HASKINS
At midwinter, there is scant light and no warmth to be had in the Northern Reaches. The gleam of stars on snow might brighten the darkness to a gloom, but no more than a thin, bloody sliver of sun will cut through the horizon before it fades again beyond the white mountain peaks of the Jagged Edge.
That faint light is long since gone when Sergeant Aurelia Shale falls to her knees in the snow with the barrel of a bolt pistol pressed against the nape of her neck. It’s not the first time Aurelia has had a gun aimed at her head, but it is the first time the weapon has been wielded by her sister.
I don’t understand the reasoning behind this order, Theo.
As soon as the errant nickname slipped from her lips, Aurelia knew the blow would follow, and it did.
She grimaces at the metallic taste of blood in her mouth. Theodora always had a wicked right hook, even when they were kids, fighting other street rats for food or clout, and the ten years they’ve spent apart have not softened Theo’s knuckles nor diluted her righteous sense of purpose.
All fine qualities for a commissar.
‘Sergeant.’ Theo’s voice is as sharp and unforgiving as a shiv. ‘Henceforth, you will address me appropriately as Commissar Shale at all times. Understood?’
Aurelia knows what she must say. And yet the words are hard to speak. Other words, left unsaid for ten years, burn on her tongue, eager to be spoken. But Captain Bain is glaring at her, and behind him in the shadows lurk nine Scrappers of the Keplerian 23rd. Aurelia’s squad. Her family. Her life, such as it is. And, since her surprise promotion a month ago, her subordinates.
The four newbloods she can barely name yet, but five of the Scrappers – Thorne, Henryk, Steen, Daveed and Helvia – she’s served with long enough that they’ve all saved each other’s lives more times than she can count. All nine are waiting uneasily in the snow. Waiting for their sergeant to get off her knees.
Aurelia bites down hard on her anger, well aware that whatever authority she’s gained since her promotion could well be slipping away. She releases a ragged breath, the mist of it twisting like a wraith in the frosty air.
‘Understood, Commissar Shale,’ she says, clipping her voice to eradicate any hint of emotion it might accidentally contain.
The gun lingers for a moment before Theo lowers it.
‘Good,’ Captain Bain growls. His mouth is grim and set, the long scar running down his left cheek from eye to lip forever pulling his features into a scowl. ‘Now. You had something to say, sergeant?’
Aurelia looks at Bain, away from her sister.
‘What I meant to say when I misspoke, is that I do not understand why we cannot use vox in the tunnels. If we get separated…’
Bain shakes his head. ‘As the commissar explained, the range would be limited, and our transmissions might be detected. Stealth is of prime importance.’
‘Follow orders, sergeant,’ Theo says, ‘don’t waste time questioning them. Now get your unit ready.’
Aurelia inclines her head. ‘Yes, commissar.’
Thorne and Helvia have already moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Helvia sports her usual glower, blue eyes scanning the surroundings, while Thorne is busy, closing up his pack.
‘You’re supposed to be geared up, Guardsman Thorne.’
He flashes an apologetic smile. ‘Just making sure the detonators are secure, sergeant. Was worried they might’ve got wet when we crossed the river.’
‘Everything in order?’
Thorne shoulders his pack. ‘It is now, sergeant.’
Aurelia scoops up a handful of snow to ice her throbbing jaw. She’s known Helvia and Thorne since the day the three of them joined the Astra Militarum. A month after her promotion, it still sounds strange when they call her sergeant.
No stranger than calling your own sister commissar, though.
‘Never thought I’d be eager to head inside that mountain,’ Helvia grumbles, stamping her feet in the cold, ‘but standing in the open like this is making me twitchy.’
Aurelia nods. Since the grav-chute drop from the Valkyrie late last night she’s watched for sentries, scouts, patrols, any kind of enemy movement, but the landscape has remained silent and empty. And yet her unease has grown.
She looks around. They are standing near a partially ice-covered river at the bottom of a deep ravine, the ground strewn with snow-covered rocks. Beyond the river, the steep wall of the ravine plunges down from the plains beyond. Aurelia shivers. The long slog through the snow after the grav-chute drop was hard. Climbing down that frozen cliff like spiders on a wall, following a trail that was more like a vertical drop, was worse.
In front of them, a spur of the Jagged Edge mountain range juts into the ravine, like the pointed prow of an enormous starship, bending the river around it. Two hundred feet above the river, sprawled over the summit of that prow, looms the Manufactorum Primus, the largest weapons-making facility in the quadrant.
There is a dull, low-frequency throb in the air, the kind you feel in your bones rather than hear. It’s the sound of the machines inside the manufactorum, working ceaselessly, churning out the tools of war. The factory used to be the Imperium’s greatest asset on Kepler-Gamma, the perfect complement to the mines and smelters in the Northern Reaches. But since cultist infiltrators claimed the manufactorum in a brutal battle half a year ago, it has become an acute liability, threatening to tilt the balance of power not just on Kepler-Gamma, a planet ravaged by war since the insurrection fifteen years ago, but in the entire sector.
‘Listen up, Scrappers.’ Bain barely raises his voice, but every head turns towards him. ‘The traitors holding the manufactorum think they’re safe. They trust the forbidding terrain we already traversed to protect them from us, and until now, it has been enough. Because until now, no one has tried to infiltrate this place from below.’ A grin makes his craggy face look predatory and gleeful all at once. ‘Some of you might have preferred being part of a battle rather than a sabotage mission, and I don’t blame you. I’d prefer an army at my back. I’d like to march into this place across that steel bridge downriver, busting down the gates. But that’s what the enemy expects. Something big and loud, like Operation Hoarfrost last year.’ Bain looks up at the cliff. ‘We won’t linger on that failure. We’re here because we cannot spare the troops needed to retake this facility. We’re here because we cannot allow the enemy to keep it, either. We’re here because what the heretics don’t expect is sacrifice. That we’d be willing to set off an explosion that ignites the reactor core and blows this place to smithereens rather than try to recapture it.’
Gazing up at the manufactorum, Aurelia barely believes it either. The building looks as eternal as the mountains, and the thought that the explosives in their packs will be enough to bring it down seems laughable. And yet high command has ordered it, even sending them a commissar, and the legendary Captain Bain, to get the job done.
‘Think the story’s true?’ Thorne asks, in a hush, as the unit gets moving. ‘Did the captain really kill a Chaos Space Marine with his bare hands during the invasion?’
Helvia bares her teeth in something that is almost a smile. ‘I wouldn’t bet against him in a fight.’ She gives Aurelia a look. ‘Wouldn’t bet against Commissar Shale either, if it came to that.’
Aurelia pretends she’s not listening. Pretends, as she’s tried and failed to do for the last two days, that the presence of the new commissar does not bother her. She glances at Theo. In the gloom, the blue commissar uniform with its ornate gold trim, polished gold buttons and finely woven silver sash seems to glisten. Otherwise, Theo looks much the same as she did ten years ago: a taller, rangier version of Aurelia herself. Broad shoulders, green eyes, cheekbones sharp enough to cut your knuckles on, posture as steely-straight as always. Aurelia can almost hear Father’s voice in the cold: ‘Walk straight and tall, like the Emperor is watching.’
He’d be proud of Theo, she thinks, shrugging off the memories clinging to that thought: of Father, alive and dead; of him teaching Theo how to shoot while Aurelia was only ever allowed to watch; of him smiling as Theo’s hand closed around the weapon’s grip, as she cocked her eye and hit every mark set before her.
Father’s smile was always just for Theo. The good daughter. The good student. The good fighter. The commissar.
‘Get inside,’ she orders the unit, voice gruff, and the Scrappers file past, bowing low to enter the mountain.
‘Stay to the left when you head inside,’ Thorne cautions. ‘Loose rocks on the right. Don’t want anyone to slip.’
Aurelia ducks her head and steps into the dark, snapping on the new nightsense goggles they’ve been issued. Leaving the snow and night sky behind, she considers the immense structure of rock and darkness looming above them and has a sudden vision of the manufactorum as a beast crouched at the foot of the mountains, the tunnel its maw, devouring them.
From the cramped entrance chamber, several passages lead further into the rock. Aurelia has studied the maps. She knows the mountain is a warren of tunnels, carved by the river and miners before the factory was built. She knows only one path leads to the sub-chamber beneath the reactor core, and she has spent the last two days committing every twist and turn of that route to memory.
‘Don’t fire your weapons unless the need is dire,’ Captain Bain cautions, his voice a hollow echo beneath the rough-hewn vault of stone.
With Thorne beside her, and the squad following behind, Aurelia heads into the rock, the sting of Theo’s fist still lingering on her jaw. Ten years without a word, two days of her sister barely acknowledging her presence, and then a bolt pistol aimed at her head. Some family reunion.
‘Sergeant.’
Thorne’s voice holds a warning. Aurelia stops. She’s seen it too. A furtive movement stirring the heavy shadows ahead. She sniffs the air. It smells damp and vaguely rank, like a cellar where something has been left to rot. As she takes a step forward, a hulking shape heaves up from the tunnel floor. Thorne stumbles as something barrels into them, knocking Aurelia off her feet, scattering the unit. Henryk and Helvia go down hard, cursing as they fall, and Thorne is grappling with something big and heavy enough to shake the ground.
‘Hold your fire!’ Aurelia barks as she gets up, drawing the long knives from her belt.
Of all the equipment she was issued when she joined the Scrappers, the knives are what she prizes most. They are the finest blades she’s ever wielded, prime Keplerian alloy steel – the kind that keeps its edge and does not tarnish, sharp enough to slice you open before you even notice you’ve been cut – and she loves the weight and heft of the black hilts resting in her hands.
Even with the nightsense goggles, shadows and bodies bleed together in the muddled fight. Aurelia stabs at the first limb she finds, expecting a uniform or armour; instead there’s muscle and fur beneath her hand as the blade makes a glancing blow.
Fur.
Aurelia ducks and parries before she strikes again, the blades shivering as they hit bone, the left one sticking hard, eliciting a howl that reverberates through the tunnel. Stepping back, she wrests the right knife free before the attacker goes for Thorne again.
He is backed up against the wall, but Aurelia has a firm grip on her remaining blade now and steps in close, stabbing up and in, relishing the satisfying quiver of steel, the warm gush of blood over her hand, as the knife sinks deep. There’s a groan and shudder, then stillness.
So much for stealth, Aurelia thinks, pulling her knife free and crouching into a defensive stance between Helvia and Bain, Theo and the others at her back. Hunched together in the dark, they hold position, waiting, listening, but the only noise is the distant drip of water and the ever-present hum of the manufactorum.
After the noisy fight, the silence is unbearable. A shiver runs through Aurelia’s spine into her right arm, making the knife tremble. She adjusts her grip, dragging a sleeve across her blood-smeared goggles, peering into the darkness, but there is nothing.
An eternity seems to pass before Bain calls the all-clear, his voice a raspy whisper, and Aurelia breathes out in relief. Around her, the other Scrappers do the same, cursing and adjusting their packs and weapons.
‘Is that… an ork?’ Daveed asks as they gather round the carcass on the floor.
Thorne shakes his head, his flak armour etched deep by a vicious slash of claws. ‘No. A cudbear. Not even a full-grown one by the looks of it. My grandpa always said they lived in the old mining tunnels up north.’
Aurelia takes in the creature’s long fangs, the dark violet fur matted with blood.
‘Blasted thing nearly sheared my head off,’ Helvia grumbles, blood running down her neck from a cut across her ear.
Captain Bain picks up Aurelia’s knife from the floor, wiping the steel clean before he hands it back. ‘Impressive set of knives, sergeant. Impressive knife work, too.’
‘Thank you, captain.’ Aurelia sheathes the knife and tries not to look at Theodora. ‘I learned from the best.’
But if Theodora remembers any of their back-alley practice fights, where they would feint and slash with the shivs they’d fashioned from old scrap metal in order to survive, she doesn’t show it.
There is no Theo any more, Aurelia reminds herself when they get moving. There is only the commissar. Whatever she was before is done and gone.
The tunnel curves as it steadily climbs upward, and still they walk on, the darkness erasing Aurelia’s sense of time. Outside it was cold enough to freeze your breath, but here the air is warm, stale, dense, foetid. They halt at the first junction where the tunnel splits in two. One path continues upwards, the other is narrow, littered with rocks, sloping down.
