Of course, it was only a matter of time before the heretics realised what was happening. Someone in the turret of a passing Leman Russ tank noticed us and turned the heavy bolter on us. We barely had time to duck back out of sight. Sparks flashed off the edge of the hull. Then I heard shouts below us and I knew that the enemy were starting to clamber up the side of the Baneblade again.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ I said. I sounded just like my father at that moment. The pair of idiots had known my old man and they flinched at my tone. My father had been a famously violent man in his day and some of that came out in me sometimes.
We scuttled away across the command chamber, jumping over the loader’s corpse, trying to find some cover from the attack that we knew was incoming. There was no place to hide in the corridor and the smell of burning was becoming more intense. We scuttled back along the way Anton and Ivan had come and clambered up the metal ladder, making our way to the top of the Baneblade.
I’m not exactly sure why we did it. There was no escape. The heretics would eventually catch us. Perhaps it was pure instinct, trying to keep ourselves alive for just that little bit longer. Or perhaps it was simply part of the childish game that Ivan and Anton were playing, sort of like hide and seek, forcing the enemy to come and find us, wasting their time as much as possible. It was probably some mixture of the two.
Eventually we clambered up through the topside hatch and emerged on the roof of the Baneblade. We were a long way above ground, out of the arc of fire of the heretics. There was plenty of cover along the top of the tank.
‘We can drop grenades on them when they try and climb up,’ said Anton. He smiled again and there was madness in his smile. He was like a child being too clever. On the other hand, I could not think of anything else to do.
‘And then what?’ I asked. Anton shrugged.
‘And then we die,’ Ivan said.
‘At least we’ll take a few of them with us,’ Anton said. ‘And that’s all a soldier of the Emperor can ask for!’
He had read too many prop-novs. Still, I could not fault his logic. I heard voices below us. I smelled smoke. Looking out from the top of the tank, all I could see was enemies as far as the horizon.
It was like standing on top of a huge durasteel cliff looking down on a sea of hostile flesh. I took a deep breath, offered up another prayer to the Emperor, checked my shotgun and, for a mad moment, considered throwing myself off the edge of the tank with a live grenade in each hand. After all, what did it matter whether I did that now or got fried by lasgun fire in a few minutes? The desire to live for those few extra minutes stopped me but it was touch and go.
Ivan looked at us both. He scanned from face to face. There was no expression on his ruined metal features but I thought there was a certain sadness in his glance. ‘Well then, I guess this is it. You’re a pair of sad bastards but I’m glad to have known you.’
Anton gave him a salute and then looked up and squinted at something in the sky. ‘What the hell is that?’ He asked.
I followed Anton’s gaze. Hundreds of objects dropped out of the sky. I was not exactly sure what they were. They did not seem connected in any way to what was going on round about us. I noticed something else. In the distance, behind us, absolutely monstrous figures were striding out from behind the skyscraper towers that our forces still held.
‘What in the name of the Emperor?’ Ivan said. There was awe in his voice.
‘Are those what I think they are?’ Anton asked.
‘I’m pretty sure they are,’ I said. They were like animated statues, perhaps a hundred times the height of a man, made of dura-steel and ancient alloys. They moved with a massive, lumbering grace. They were ancient god-machines produced by the Adeptus Titanicus, perhaps the most powerful war engines ever built and I wondered where they had come from. It was only then that the size and power of the force that Macharius had assembled really began to sink in. And that was not all; the things dropping out of the sky began to hit the ground all around us and what was in them broke out in a whirlwind of violence.
They were drop-pods and within them were Space Marines of the Death Spectres Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. They were massive, armoured men, moving almost too fast for the eye to see. They smashed their way through the oncoming heretics and it did not matter that they were facing tanks and were outnumbered perhaps ten thousand to one. Where they struck, their enemies died. Bolters coughed in their hands and blasted holes in heretics. Chainswords decapitated enemies two or three at a time.
We did not have long to watch the violence. Our own enemies were coming closer from below.
‘It was all a trap,’ I said, thinking out loud. Ivan saw it at once. Anton, as ever was a bit slower.
‘They left this part of the line weak,’ Ivan said. ‘They knew the heretics would attack here in force.’
It was easy enough to understand and even quite admirable if you did not happen to be the bait in the trap. A massive enemy force had been drawn into the counter-attack. It overextended itself as it came on, certain of victory. It punched a salient out of our line and then once it was entrapped, it was encircled on both flanks by our armour and the Space Marines dropped on it from above. I worked it all out as I stood there. It was typical of Macharius or those who had studied his methods like Sejanus. There were feints within feints, traps within traps. We had walked into what looked like a trap ourselves only to draw our enemies into a bigger one. Maybe Macharius had not been quite so open with us as I had thought back when he was giving his speech from the side of the Indomitable.
Suddenly Anton shouted, ‘Look out!’
A grenade arced up through the open hatch and we dived for cover. I scrambled into place behind an anti-personnel turret and heard shrapnel ping off the metal. When I looked up I could see heretics scrambling out of the hatch. One was already up. Another had just popped his head out. I blasted with the shotgun. I took the top heretic’s leg off at the knee and put multiple holes in his friend’s head. Ivan and Anton’s lasgun made sure of them.
‘Shit,’ I heard Anton say and looking up I saw why. While we had been busy at this hatch more of the enemy had emerged from the other topside hatches. We shared the roof of the Baneblade with at least a dozen heretics, and more and more were emerging all the time. Our situation had gone from bad to worse.
I hunkered down behind my cover and pumped the shotgun. Anton lay flat behind a small raised seam of metal. Ivan raced across the duralloy, las-bolts burning at his heels, and dropped into place beside me.
‘They’ve fallen into our trap,’ he said. His voice was flat because of his metal jaw-work and his metal-plated face had no expression but there was a grim humour in the set of his eyes.
‘Yeah, we’ve got them where we want them now.’
A grenade dropped into place between his feet. Without the slightest hesitation, he picked it up and lobbed it back. It must have been at the end of its timer because it burst while it was still in the air.
Heretics screamed.
I popped up and blasted with the shotgun. The enemy were closer than I had expected. At that range it was impossible for me to miss. The leader went down, his chest a bloody ruin.
A grenade landed among them. Half a dozen of them were caught in the blast. The nearest ones fell clutching ruined faces and chests. One or two had been shielded by their comrades’ bodies. They kept coming. In one glance I took in the sheer number of heretics. There were just too many of them to be overcome.
And then it happened.
Something big landed on the hull of the Baneblade. It was huge and not unlike an egg and it crushed half a dozen heretics beneath its weight. Even as it began to slide off the hull, its sides burst open like one of those magical mechanical toys shops used to sell when I was a child. Massive armoured men erupted out of it. They moved much too fast for me to follow them. Bolters fired, weapons far larger than any mortal man ought to be able to carry. Where the shells hit, and they always hit, the target seemed simply to explode in a welter of blood and bone and flesh. Chainswords swung. The great egg fell off the Baneblade but I know for a fact that none of the men who had ridden it down from orbit were still in it. They were all with us on the Baneblade.