Kerne’s heightened senses could also pick out the elusive fragrance of incense, the accompaniment of some prayer to the Machine God, and that scent immediately took him back to the Reclusiam on Mors Angnar.
A line of Thunderhawks sat on the deck plating like huge ugly birds, with their ground crews busy as a broken ant-heap all around them. A tracked servitor went past muttering in binary, dragging an ordnance sled piled high with missiles, the blunt, black-nosed armaments Space Marines called Rosaries, since they were fired in a chain of ten at a time.
The overheads glittered on long belts of brass-clad shells as they were wound into the armament cavities in the Thunderhawks’ noses. Many of the gunships had their innards and even their engines dismantled and set out on the slipways in front of the craft. They almost looked as though the ground crews were tearing them apart.
‘How many?’ Kerne asked. He knew, but Massaron might know differently.
‘Eight configured for troop deployment, eleven for close-in support,’ Massaron said. ‘We are short of spares,’ he added, frowning.
‘How many ready to fly right now, shipmaster?’ Kerne asked, his eyes narrowing.
The shipmaster gestured to a man in oil-stained blue overalls who had a multi-tooled prosthetic in place of his left hand. He was unshaven, red-haired, with sunken grey eyes.
‘Dinas, over here.’ And as the man approached, wide-eyed and saluting as something of an afterthought, Massaron demanded, ‘How many craft ready for immediate take-off?’
The man was staring up at the tall Adeptus Astartes captain, as were most of the crew behind him. He collected himself at once however, and the finger-tools of his prosthetic extended in what seemed a tiny shrug.
‘Three, shipmaster. One transport and two gunships. We are still taking in ordnance from the loading bays.’
‘This is Gerd Dinas, my deck chief,’ Massaron told Kerne.
Kerne reined in his temper. ‘When will the rest be spaceworthy?’
Dinas scratched his head with a thin finger-blade. ‘My lord, it will be several weeks.’
‘Be specific.’
The man went white under his greasy red hair. His eyes closed for a moment. He looked as though he had not slept in days.
‘Five weeks. We have yet to sort through the parts that the Forge-Master shipped up to us, and several of the Hawks are undergoing major maintenance – four have burned-out engines, and the machine spirits of two others have innate problems which are proving difficult to pin down.’
‘Would Space Marine pilots be of any use to you?’ Kerne asked.
The man flushed. ‘Why yes, my lord, their expertise would be invaluable.’
Kerne turned to the shipmaster. ‘I will second six flight-qualified battle-brothers to your people for as long as it takes to get these craft in battle order, Massaron. This is a priority.’
Massaron blinked. ‘The voyage to the Kargad system will take–’
‘Irrelevant. We have no way of knowing what awaits us on the journey, and the Thunderhawks are my brethren’s most effective close-support and resupply system if we are to fight off-planet. They must be made functional without delay.’
Massaron bowed wordlessly. Kerne realised that he had wounded the man by chastising him in front of an inferior. Well, that could not be helped.
‘Lead on,’ he said in the same harsh tone. ‘If we can make a path through this confusion, then I wish to look upon the drop pods; and I hope that I will find them in better repair.’
His cold anger subdued even Tomas Massaron, and the ground crews seemed to catch some hint of it also, because for a moment the din in the hangar sank down, and there was an apprehensive lull.
‘If you will follow me, captain,’ Massaron said stiffly. They set off again, leaving the deck chief standing in mid-salute. The crews about the Thunderhawks parted for Kerne like waves opening before a rock, and none of them dared look upon his face.
FIVE
Animo Moderari
‘Cease fire!’
The tearing crack of gunfire stopped at once. In the smoke, dark shapes shifted, darting in low and then leaping high.
Fornix blinked on his infra-red and the images steadied and clarified in his helm display. He switched to squad-vox.
‘Orsus, can you see the enemy?’
‘Affirmative, brother. They’re wheeling left.’
‘Very well. Primus, hold and cover. Secundus, go forward, at discretion. Tertius, go right, fast move. Squads move in three.’
A few moments, and then the gunfire started up again, the bolters bucking in the hands of the Space Marines. Ten stood firing steadily in short two and three round bursts. As their heads turned, so the bolter muzzles moved with them, as though the two were connected by unseen strings.
The brass alloy of cartridge casings clicked and shone as they tumbled out of the bolters’ chambers, a rain of gold. One battle-brother swept the massive shape of a heavy bolter back and forth as though he were hosing down the enemy with explosive fire, the belt clattering out of the tall pack grafted onto his generator.
Ten more Space Marines rushed forward. Despite their bulk they moved more swiftly than any human athlete. Five dropped to a crouch and added their fire to the cacophony, while five advanced, then went firm and took up firing as their squad members joined them.
Out on the right, over a hundred metres away, a further squad was sprinting through the smoke on the flank. They became looming shadows in the murk, and disappeared for only an instant; then the harsh crack and boom of grenades went off in a sequence of flashes which staggered the smoke.
‘Ambush,’ Fornix said calmly. ‘Tertius, report.’
‘Tripwires, first sergeant,’ a disgusted voice came back on the vox. ‘I have three down. More movement in front.’
‘Engage and grip them, Orsus. Primus and Secundus, alphas hold down base of fire, betas forward and make contact. Close fast, brothers.’
The first two squads split, half of each opening up again, the other half charging forward. Fornix heard someone shout ‘Umbra Sumus!’ over the vox and at once he snarled back, ‘Shut your mouth. Do your job without that caterwauling.’
The line of Space Marines closed with the darting shadows in the smoke. There was a final clatter of fire, and then the noise began to sink.
Fornix looked down at the counter he held in one gauntleted fist. The digits had been counting down all through the engagement, and now it was blinking zero.
‘Report.’
‘Primus in place, position secure. No casualties.’
‘Secundus in place, position secure. One casualty.’
‘Tertius in place, position secure. Three casualties.’
‘Hold fast. All battle-brothers, listen to me.’ He paused. ‘Unload!’
There was a metallic chorus as up and down the Space Marines clicked the magazines out of their bolters and then cocked the weapons so that the chambered rounds were spat out.
‘Pick up those rounds, brothers. Every one of them will count one day. All right, squads, on me. And lift your feet, Hunters – I’m getting old standing here.’
The deck of the training area trembled as thirty battle-brothers jogged back to surround the first sergeant. He turned to the maintenance servitor which had been standing silent beside him all this time. ‘End smoke. Retrieve all target servitors. Initiate repairs.’
‘Acknowledged,’ the creature said, and lurched away, chittering in tech-speak as it went.
High above, huge fans began to turn, stirring the acrid atmosphere. The air in the massive hangar began to clear almost at once. As it did, it revealed tumbled piles of debris and rubbish scattered in mounds and ridges all over the deck.