Dark Imperium Read online

  His jets roared furiously against the drag of the planet. Justinian slowed only a little, but his course altered, and he was sent hurtling laterally towards the tower.

  They avoided firing their jets until the last second of a drop. When the Inceptors had first been deployed, the enemy had mistaken their squads for falling debris or stray munitions. In the chaos of battle, they had been paid little attention until it was too late. Lately, the foes of the Imperium had become wise to Inceptor drop tactics. The sky filled with a storm of flak moments after their jets finished burning.

  Justinian fell through a wash of fire. Shrapnel pinged off his armour. The thunder of atmosphere lessened. The demi-company’s attack spread widened, the dots that denoted each warrior perfectly positioned in three clusters, one for each defence tower.

  The target went from a child’s toy to a towering edifice in a matter of seconds.

  ‘Fire jets, prolonged burst,’ he ordered. ‘Decelerate to engagement speed. Rouse the spirits of your weapons.’

  He hefted his own guns, eager to unleash them upon the enemy. His jets ignited again, and this time they stayed burning. The fuel gauge in his display rapidly fell from full to a third as he braked. He was no longer falling but flying, and that ate up his fuel quickly. In a graceful arc, he and his squad thundered towards the upper battlements of the tower. The bastion was ludicrously embellished with screaming daemonic faces, its crenellations tall and fashioned into unnecessary spikes, but it was well armoured, and four quad flak cannons squatted in heavy turrets at each corner, banging off shots at the attacking Space Marines. Heretic Astartes opened fire as the Inceptors approached, and their fire was more worrisome than the flak cannons. A bolt round spanked off the cowling of Justinian’s left jet nozzle, staggering his flight. More bolts came, then a flurry of them.

  Cordus’ ident signifier blinked to red and fell away from Justinian’s display. Justinian risked a glance back. Smoke and explosions hid Cordus’ fate, and he did not see his comrade die.

  Another bolt smacked into his breastplate, cracking the outer casing and fracturing the power cabling beneath. Smoke blew from the crack and his jump pack engines coughed. A lurching drop made his stomach flip. Icons blinked, alarms squealed. Justinian prepared to fall to his death while he sought a solution to his power failure. At his urging, the cogitator in his suit rerouted power. The jets roared again, and he surged on with renewed speed. Sealant foam bubbled up to plug the breach in his armour.

  The enemy would have to try harder to stop him than that.

  Justinian dropped down then burst upward and over the battlements, Aldred beside him. Half a dozen members of the Iron Warriors lined the parapet. Boltguns flashed, revealing horned helms and faceplates cast with daemonic visages. They were terrifying foes, made Adeptus Astartes by the Emperor and granted greater vigour by their Dark Gods. Once, they were the mightiest warriors in the galaxy.

  They were the mightiest no longer.

  ‘Your death has been too long coming!’ Justinian roared, his voxed shout blasting from his helm as he descended on pillars of fiery smoke. ‘Prepare yourselves for the Emperor’s judgement!’

  He came down with a bone-jarring thump hard enough to crack the ferrocrete of the tower, guns already blazing fire. Assault bolters were powerful weapons, but if used unwisely they would run through their ammunition stores in seconds. Justinian checked his fury. The resupply pods had yet to land.

  Even utilised with care, the assault bolters fired at a terrifying rate. Flames blazed from the weapons’ exhaust slots. Explosions smashed the Iron Warriors from their feet, hurling them backwards with a force that a standard bolter could not hope to emulate.

  Bjarni came over the side, howling joyously, his warriors following him. Then came Sergeant Rusticus’ squad, of which Solus was a part. The Primaris Space Marines looked almost as daemonic as their foes, with their varicoloured liveries scorched and smoking from the heat of their descent. Caught between the murderous crossfire of eight Primaris Inceptors, the Iron Warriors were cut to pieces. One of them came at Justinian through the fire storm, a chain axe raised. Justinian leapt back from him with a controlled burst of his jets, retargeting one of his guns on the warrior as he flew. He could not let the enemy get close.

  The Inceptor load-out’s only real weakness was a lack of melee weaponry. The guns he held in his gauntlets, however, meant it wasn’t much of a weakness at all.

  Justinian’s bolts hit the traitor square in the chest. The Iron Warrior’s antique armour burst apart, spraying his ancient innards in a red slick across the ramparts, and his chain axe fell to the ground. Its teeth bit on the ferrocrete, and it span madly before the motor cut out with a muted growl.

  ‘For the Emperor! For Guilliman! For mankind!’ Justinian shouted, stamping across the bastion’s roof. He was taller than the Heretic Astartes. Shock-absorbent calipers around the lower part of his legs and feet granted him more height, and he fired over the heads of his enemy as they dropped dead.

  The last of the traitors fell. They had not been caught by surprise; they had seen the Inceptors coming. It did not matter. None could stand before the Primaris Space Marines, the new sons of the Emperor.

  Sergeant Rusticus’ warriors went to the flak cannons, raised their assault bolters and riddled the firing mechanisms. Bolts exploded inside the guns, setting off their shells. The cannon barrels fell away from popping detonations, clanging from the ornate tower sides and falling down to the wall ramparts far below. Soon all four cannons were smoking ruins.

  ‘Primary objective achieved. Anti-air guns are silent,’ voxed Justinian, his feed going to Lieutenant Sarkis and the command cadre of his Primaris Chapter simultaneously. ‘Pursuing secondary objective.’

  With Aldred’s garish Imperial Fists yellow at his side, Justinian stormed down the stairs into the lower levels. His guns banged out death to everything he encountered. There were an insignificant number of Traitor Space Marines within. That had been the pattern these last few years. The armies of Chaos were legion and everywhere, but it was arguable that they were losing their best to Guilliman’s relentless crusading. Most of the tower’s defenders were born thralls, or deluded mortals from conquered worlds who had thrown in their lot with evil for the chance at a few more weeks’ life. They came at him in hordes, dirty faces branded and tattooed, twisted into desperate snarls. Justinian cut them down without mercy.

  ‘Death to the traitor, who in weakness denies the supremacy of the Emperor,’ he said emotionlessly.

  They died messily, their frail bodies blown to pieces by his assault bolters’ mass-reactive shells. More took their place, coming so quickly that Justinian ceased firing to conserve his ammunition and commenced clubbing them down. The tower soon ran with blood, and his armour’s colours were obscured.

  Justinian and Aldred fought their way further down the stairwell, passing through several levels. Bjarni’s squad was close behind them. At the sixteenth level they parted ways, Bjarni singing loudly as he led his squad mates toward the power core. Justinian and Aldred headed for the bastion’s fire-control centre, whose machine banks and slave minds directed the vast array of artillery projecting from the lower reaches of the building. The occasional vox-blurt came through to Justinian: status updates, or requests for reports from Lieutenant Sarkis or from his Unnumbered Sons of Guilliman line commander. Nothing higher tier than that. Sarkis and others like him bore that responsibility.

  Their guns spoke less often. The bravest of the thralls were dead. A few still threw themselves hopelessly at the Primaris Space Marines. Most sank to their knees and begged for forgiveness. All died.

  ‘There is no forgiveness. Better to die twice than betray the Emperor. You made the wrong choice.’ And Justinian’s assault bolters would bark, or his fists would swing, leaving red ruin where men had knelt.

  Battle was replaced by a fragile calm for a time. The building evi
nced little of the touch of Chaos, being fairly made of plasteel plating upon a ferrocrete core of near indestructible thickness. The sheer mass of it dulled the thunder of battle outside upon the plains, so that the worst of it was felt only as gentle tremors, and the rest they did not notice at all. Machines hummed in the fabric of the building. Although the decoration was barbarous – the grisly trophies nailed to walls and set upon spikes told of the Iron Warrior’s bloodier proclivities – the warp was absent.

  When they reached fire control, that changed. A large room of three stepped tiers, the tower’s fire-control centre was similar in design to those in Imperial fortifications. The two had the same origin, so that was to be expected, but what occupied the fire-control centre here would never be found in any Imperial facility.

  Where ranks of tech-thralls and servitors should sit guiding the weapons of the fortress to the commands of their masters, there was instead a thick organic mess. Tendrils of noisome matter linked wall to wall. This filthy mass grew thicker in the middle, somehow coming together to make a living thing, though at its edges it was nothing more than a set of flimsy, folded membranes. At its thickest part, pulsing veins made the whole thing quiver. A soft keening sounded from somewhere, and an intolerable sense of suffering pressed at the Primaris Space Marines’ minds.

  ‘Emperor preserve us,’ said Justinian.

  Exposure to warp-born horror did nothing to lessen his revulsion. Countless times he had seen creatures made of the pressed flesh of men, mutant weavings of corrupted genes, and daemons trapped in machine and mortal form. No matter how often he saw these things, they never failed to disgust him.

  ‘If any pure machine exists here, then I commend your spirits to the god of Mars,’ he said loudly. He meant it sincerely. Though he had no belief in the Emperor-as-Omnissiah, he respected the machines’ own beliefs.

  He raised his gun and opened fire. Aldred joined him, raising both guns and filling the rotten mess with explosive rounds. The keening became a scream. Gunfire blew huge holes in the organism, opening its innards to the smoking air. Hot yellow liquid slopped from it in amounts the thing could not possibly contain. The scream grew so loud it made the noise-suppression equipment of their helmets thrum. When it abruptly cut out, their aural equipment squealed with relief. The oppressive nature of the room disappeared along with the creature’s death cry.

  ‘Whatever that was, it is dead,’ said Aldred. Fyceline smoke wisped from his guns. Heat bloom discoloured their muzzles.

  A moment later, the lumens died, and the few machines in the room relying on more natural forms of power flickered off.

  ‘Bjarni has fulfilled his role,’ said Justinian. He switched to a direct vox link to Lieutenant Sarkis. ‘Tower Beta is neutralised. Flak batteries are down. Central fire control destroyed.’

  ‘Affirmative. Notification heard,’ replied Sarkis. ‘We are done here. Rendezvous with the others. Await further instruction.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Justinian to Aldred. ‘We shall wait upon the roof. We can jump free if the enemy decide to bring the building down around us.’

  By the time they rejoined Bjarni and Rusticus’ squads on the parapet, drop pods were plummeting down from the sky like fiery rain. They touched down behind the wall, untroubled by flak thanks to the Primaris Inceptor squads. Similarly, the army outside now advanced free from the attentions of artillery fire.

  Bjarni peered down over the parapet, then turned his grey helmet towards Justinian and Rusticus.

  ‘It is boring up here.’

  ‘We are awaiting orders,’ said Rusticus.

  ‘We are awaiting orders,’ parroted Bjarni dismissively, mocking Rusticus’ grave voice. ‘Well, fine for you. I am not missing the battle. Are you two honestly going to stand here and watch?’ He ignited his jump pack, its throaty roar deafening in such proximity. Heat wash battered Justinian as Bjarni’s squad mates followed suit.

  Rusticus cursed. ‘Savage,’ he said, but meant it fondly, more or less.

  Justinian laughed drily.

  ‘I would hurry if I were you,’ voxed Bjarni. His assault bolters made long pealing reports under his voice. ‘I will save you some, but there are not that many left.’

  ‘He is right,’ said Justinian.

  ‘He is not following protocol,’ said Rusticus.

  ‘Lieutenant Sarkis, this is Sergeant Justinian, notifying immediate reengagement in combat. Tower is clear, we move to aid landing forces.’ Justinian activated his jets, slowly – slamming them into action like Bjarni had done shortened the lifespan of the jet rotors. ‘There, brother sergeant,’ he said to Rusticus. ‘Protocol satisfied.’

  Justinian opened up his jet throttle. Aldred followed him over the parapet. His fuel indicator was blinking madly, the tank close to exhaustion. It added to the exhilaration of dropping into combat. The ground rushed up at him so fast in comparison to his stately freefall from orbit, he barely had time to process the sprinting figures and explosions before he was in the thick of battle.

  He shut his jets off ten metres above the ground, letting his impact dampeners take the jolt of falling. He landed in a crouch, stood with the grumbling purr of his armour soothing his ears and strode into battle.

  The fighting was ahead of him, the lee of the tower quiet. No drop pod or gunship could land close by it, and no foes remained to pour from the bastion’s armoured gates. The sun was on the other side of building, and the shadow it cast coincided with this minor dominion of calm. As soon as Justinian and Aldred were out into the full weak light of 108/Beta-Kalapus-9.2, the battle seemed to notice them and gather them enthusiastically to itself.

  Drop pods filled the space behind the wall, doors blowing open with violent shouts and allowing out their cargoes of power-armoured angels. Several pods had been hit close to the ground, and listed, blazing, hazing the air with thick towers of black smoke. More numerous were the shattered wrecks of traitor fighting vehicles. What had been a wide-open killing space had become a tightly packed maze of broken armour. Within it, age-old foes hunted one another, intent on hatreds born at the dawn of the Imperium.

  Loosing off tightly controlled shots, Justinian strode into the broil of war. The traitors had become fragmented. Many were trapped on the wall tens of metres above. There they made their last stand, assailed by Space Marines coming at them from the towers either side and by the greater forces arrayed outside the walls. Others were falling back firing, using their armoured vehicles to cover their retreat back to their fortress. Their great castle of steel loomed in the near distance, more brutal and over decorated than the wall towers.

  ‘Where is Bjarni?’ asked Justinian.

  ‘We will never find him in this,’ said Aldred.

  ‘Then we shall count those we kill and shame the wolf brother when we return to the Rudense.’

  ‘Rusticus,’ said Aldred, pointing to the sky. The other squad’s three members hurtled down from above, disappearing into the cauldron of battle.

  ‘More rivals for the battle tally, as our Fenrisian friend would have it,’ said Justinian.

  ‘You spend too much time with him. Warfare should be more considered.’

  ‘You sound like Rusticus.’ Justinian and Aldred were so massive in their heavy drop armour that they had no chance of stealth, and so they pounded through the tangled wrecks relying on speed to shield them.

  ‘Rusticus speaks sense,’ said Aldred. ‘But I concede Bjarni’s manner of war can be entertaining.’

  They rounded the canted hulk of a heavy drop pod, its paint scorched to bare metal and the lower thruster assembly pushed up into the passenger compartment by force of impact. The main stanchions were rumpled with spent forces, and the lower parts of the jammed door buckled like card. A precise cluster of las burns had drilled the side. Fire roared from the top, and a whiff of cooking flesh penetrated Justinian’s breathing filters. The maze thinned out h
ere and the field opened up again. Only a few wrecked tanks, all blazing ferociously, stood between them and the foe.

  There were more of the enemy than Justinian expected, and well supported with armour. ‘Brother!’ Justinian voxed on their closed net. He held up one of his hands, almost encased by the assault bolter’s bulky firing mechanisms. ‘A chance to aid our cousins.’

  Close to their position, five enemy Predator battle tanks were rolling backwards, firing as they withdrew, their thicker armour presented towards the main press of the Imperial forces. Their heavy bolters had pinned a squad of Space Marines from the Silver Skulls Chapter behind a burning wreck, and a squad of Heretic Astartes were moving in to flank their position.

  ‘There. To the left,’ said Justinian, his cogitator canting over his intended target to Aldred.

  ‘A good choice,’ said the yellow-clad son of Dorn.

  Together, the Primaris Space Marines jumped, sailing over the heads of the embattled Silver Skulls. Bullets whined past, bolt shells roaring by on the hot blades of rocket motors, and lasbeams cracked the air with miniature thunderclaps. While skyborn, the two Inceptors briefly became a favoured target. Death of various kinds knocked upon the thick plating of their armour, but none could gain entry to the soft meat within.

  Justinian heeded a rising shriek from his inbuilt tacticarium, swerving out of the way to allow the rocket it had detected to pass between him and Aldred. Then they were down, and their would-be killers found other things to fire at.

  They landed off to the right of the Iron Warriors skulking round through the piles of wrecked machines. Justinian and Aldred had not been seen by their prey, and they took shelter behind a broken-backed Knight carcass. Blasphemous sigils covered its carapace, and its cockpit was cracked open, revealing an ossified melding of man and machine where a human pilot should have sat.

  ‘They have not seen us,’ said Aldred.

  ‘They will,’ said Justinian.

  He stepped out, both arms at full extension, and opened fire.