‘Target destroyed.’
‘Sir, the Caracalla is dead in the air, out of command. No vox.’
‘Prepare to fire two.’
‘They’re too close, sir – they’re inside minimum range.’
‘Damn them!’
Enough of this. Kerne blinked the vox sigil again. ‘Shipmaster, I want clearance to launch for three Hawks. Send your targeting data to Hawk One. Do you read?’
Massaron’s voice was thick with... grief? Anger?
‘Roger, Hawk One. Data streaming now. We have two enemy destroyers on our port flank, manoeuvring astern. If they hit us in the engines–’ Massaron collected himself. ‘You are go for launch, captain. Priority targets are being uploaded.’
‘Acknowledged.’ He blinked in sequence. There was a series of dull thudding concussions along the outside hull.
‘Clear the deck – open launch doors – Hawks One, Two and Three, we are cleared for launch. You have targeting info. Hawk One will take the closest enemy, Hawk Two the next. Three, you will hold in reserve. Acknowledge.’
The pilots came back with brief squawks of static.
‘Brace for launch,’ their own pilot said. Brother Cayd Simarron, the best flyer in the Chapter.
A shunting crash, and then they were free of the ship’s gravity and floating in their restraints. Kerne keyed in the cockpit monitors to his helm, and instead of the red-lit interior of the Thunderhawk he now saw the spiralling star-spattered vastness of space.
The Thunderhawk wheeled, spinning, and the side of the Ogadai sped under them like the side of a grey-flanked mountain, going past at dizzying speed. Were it not for his cochlear implant, Kerne would probably have thrown up in his helm.
Ahead, the white globes of afterburners. They had sped past the Ogadai now and were astern of the cruiser. The enemy destroyers had found the sweet spot: the angle at which a capital ship can be attacked without being able to bring its guns to bear.
‘These scum know how to fly,’ Simarron murmured. ‘Captain, I will set down on the enemy hull in fifteen seconds.’
‘Acknowledged. Primus squad, make ready for boarding. Fornix, open the belly hatch. Chainswords out, mag-grips engaged.’
The enemy ships were light destroyers which had been upgunned with torpedoes. But even though they were not in the same league as the Ogadai, they were still the better part of two kilometres long, and they would have a crew of thousands. It would be up to Simarron’s skill to set them down somewhere they could do vital, instant damage, otherwise they could spend hours slaughtering their way through the length of the ship without seriously compromising her ability to damage the Dark Hunters cruiser.
‘Going for the bridge, captain. They’ve seen us now. We have las-fire and kinetic ordnance inbound.’
The Thunderhawk was hurled through space like a scrap of paper caught in a gale. Through the open belly-hatch they could see explosions of light and flame, all soundless, all instantly snuffed out by the airless void in which they detonated. Shrapnel rattled against the hull and came showering into the troop compartment in shards of red-hot alloy.
‘It’s raining, brothers,’ Fornix said on the vox. ‘How do you like this weather?’
‘Five seconds,’ Simarron said.
‘Prepare for boarding,’ Kerne told his brothers. ‘Release all harnesses. Ignite blades.’
‘Emperor be with us,’ Elijah Kass said. There was a throb of excitement in his voice.
His first boarding, Kerne thought. I must watch him.
A crash as they came down on the enemy ship’s hull. Grapnels and maglocks fired off and dug into the plating. At once, the Space Marines were out of the hatch, kicking themselves free of the Thunderhawk. Their momentum carried them through airless space until they came down on the hull below. Some of them grunted as they hit hard. The Librarian, Kass, stumbled, one maglocked boot coming free. Brother Passarion seized his arm and yanked him back down before he could fly off into space.
‘Squad in place,’ Kerne voxed. ‘Take her on overwatch, Simarron.’
‘Acknowledged. Good hunting, captain.’
The grapnels were blown out and their cables came snaking free to twirl and drift about the hull. The thrusters of the Hawk jolted them as the ship blew itself clear of the enemy destroyer and took off into the darkness, followed by streams of las-fire.
Fornix and Finn March were already sawing into the plates of the hull under their feet with their heavy chainswords. Sparks flashed, and nuggets of hot metal flew to tick against their armour. The rest of them stood ready, cocking their bolters. Kerne counted them all and was relieved to find everyone present. It was too easy in the moment of contact with an enemy ship for a man to go careering off into the void unnoticed.
Fornix and March were surrounded in clouds of venting gas now; they were through the hull. They paused to throw a few grenades in the slot they had made, and after the explosions they kept going. It took them several minutes to cut out a square of hull some metre and a half wide, and when they were done they levered the thick chunk of plating out of the hole they had sliced and threw it free of the ship. It drifted away trailing snakes of wiring, the conduits sparking with dying energy.
The chainswords were glowing red by the time they were done.
Fornix looked up and his voice came loud and clear over the vox. He sounded as though he had a wide smile on his face.
‘Umbra Sumus.’
Then he grasped the side of the hole and propelled himself into the enemy ship head first, his chainsword whirring and glittering in the glare of his helm-torch.
Finn March followed, pistol-arm extended. Kerne made as if to enter next but a hand on his chest stopped him. It was Passarion, his white armour unmistakable in the wheeling starlit gloom.
‘Forgive me, captain, but it is not your place.’
Kerne glared at the blank helm lenses of the Apothecary, but knew that the man was right. The company commander had to wait until he received the first report from the boarders.
‘Very well.’
He had to stand there in the silence as Primus Squad went in one by one. Last to enter was Brother Heinos, the company’s only Techmarine. The servo-arm on Heinos’s back caught on the side of the hole for a second, raising sparks – then he was inside.
Finally, only Kerne, Passarion, Malchai, and Elijah Kass remained standing on the exterior hull of the enemy ship. Already, Kerne wanted to get on the vox and demand information from those inside, but he knew from experience that in the first deadly minutes of a boarding it would be all his battle-brothers could do to stay alive. He could only listen to their voices on the vox.
Patience. It was a necessary and sickening virtue.
Fornix booted the bulky Chaos Space Marine in the knee and in the momentary waver of attention this won, he stabbed his chainsword into the vulnerable spot just under the chin of the helm. The whirring blade grated on metal and then slid freely inside the armour. From the gouged slit blood leaked and sprayed in black ribbons.
The enemy went to his knees, one hand going for his ruined throat, the other trying to bring up the bolt pistol. Fornix knocked that hand aside, and the pistol skittered away. Then he stabbed the blade downwards into the top of the foe’s helm with all his strength.
The weapon trembled and shuddered in his hands as it fought the ceramite, but finally plunged through the toughened alloys, the cabling and the fibre-bundles, and at last found the bone and brain of the enemy.
The abomination collapsed, and the sword went dead in Fornix’s fist as he pulled it free. He had asked too much of it.