Kerne cocked the weapon and raised it to the face-grille of his helm in a reverent kiss. ‘My thanks.’ He knew what it meant to Malchai.
‘What squad is this?’ Their pauldrons were covered in dust.
‘Tertius, sir,’ one of the other Space Marines said. ‘Beta section. Brother-Sergeant Orsus sent us to reinforce you when he saw that the pod had crashed.’
‘Good work. Take us to him, brother. We will consolidate on his position before pushing out.’
‘Are you injured, captain?’ This was Passarion, looking over Kerne’s battered armour with professional enquiry.
‘I’m fine, Apothecary, though my vox systems are still down. What about yours?’
‘The impact knocked them all out, likewise. But they are trying to come back online.’
Kerne thought of Fornix – alive or dead? But that was not something he could dwell on now.
‘Move out. We’ll just attract another assault sitting here. We must get the drop-squads together and get back on comms.’
The Dark Hunters gathered themselves together and began moving through the broken shards of plascrete and rockcrete and good old-fashioned stone, flowing around the taller obstacles, climbing or jumping over others. Periodically one of them would fire a single bolter round, and a shriek would be sucked into the dust.
Gradually, something like normality began to return to Kerne’s auto-senses. Blinking on the vox sigils, he started to hear fragments of speech over the net. Most of them were the clipped commands and status report of his fellow Adeptus Astartes, but there were other voices audible too, fragmentary as ghosts, but undeniably present.
He skipped frequencies, trying to zero in on the strange voices, and finally, loud and clear through the clouds of static, a real, human voice was speaking in Low Gothic.
‘–you identify yourselves? This is General Pavul Dietrich, commanding officer 387th Armoured, leader of the Imperial resistance in the city of Askai. I repeat – will you identify yourselves and state your positions? This is coded Imperial Frequency five-seven alpha three, and you may speak in clear. I say again, this is Pavul Dietrich–’
‘General Dietrich,’ Jonah Kerne said. ‘I am glad you are still alive.’
The vox hissed. Finally Dietrich came back on it. ‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘I am Captain Jonah Kerne of the Third Company of the Dark Hunters Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. I have three squads on the ground in Sol Square, and the rest of the company will be assaulting within the hour.’
‘Adeptus Astartes… You are Space Marines?’ Dietrich’s voice thickened with emotion.
‘That we are. As soon as I am able I will forward our company comms frequencies to you. At present, we are rather busy.’
Dietrich cleared his throat. ‘My lord, you cannot know how welcome it is to hear your voice, or to know that the Adeptus Astartes themselves have come to our aid, at long last.’
‘Yes, yes – Dietrich, keep this frequency open and encrypted. I will be off it for some while to come, but will contact you again later to coordinate our efforts – just tell me quickly, where are the bulk of your forces and how many are they?’
‘My lord, we hold the citadel and about half of the Armaments District, and are scattered in a broken line between the two. My regiment has lost nearly all its vehicles and we have taken eighty per cent casualties. The Hanemite Guard is present in larger numbers, but is only lightly armed and much scattered.
‘We have been fighting for over three months in this city, my lord.’ The strain in Dietrich’s voice was palpable even over the vox. Kerne grimaced. He hoped the man still had some fire left in him.
‘What about the civilian population?’
‘Dead or fled. Thousands still subsist in the ruins, and there are at least fifty thousand more crammed into the citadel with us.’
Kerne grunted. ‘Very well. We plan to move north at once. Is the spaceport viable?’
‘Negative, captain. The pads are destroyed and it is covered by enemy fire.’
‘I will land my company wherever I can then. We will coordinate fireplans soon. Kerne out.’
He blinked off the vox. His party was approaching the main concentration point of the drop. The other drop pods were standing upright, cone-shaped shadows in the whirling dust – textbook landings by the look of them – and around them nearly forty Adeptus Astartes were spread in a rough ring.
Already, their midnight-blue armour was so powdered by dust that they blended into the broken rubble in which they crouched. He saw some of Novus company’s Devastator teams with their heavy bolters and meltaguns set up and firing.
But what lifted his hearts most was to see Fornix striding up to meet him, and behind him Elijah Kass.
Fornix’s armour looked even more second-hand than usual, but he had wiped his pauldron clean so that Kerne could see the blood-stripes of his rank. His power fist shimmered, the dust ionising as it landed upon it in continuous crackles.
‘We are all here at last then?’ Kerne said to his first sergeant.
‘Yes, captain. A few minor injuries, some equipment loss, but in the main we are intact and ready.’
Orsus was there, and Greynan and Kagan, the three veteran sergeants of the squads on the ground.
‘I have the Haradai out to our front some two hundred metres, captain,’ Orsus said. ‘They report scattered enemy positions ahead, some heavy weapons emplacements, but no armour. It looks like it’s no more than cultist trash ahead of us, from here to the outskirts of the Armaments District.’
Jonah Kerne took that in, looking around at the utter devastation of a once proud and populous Imperial city.
‘It wasn’t cultist trash that did all this,’ he said. He maglocked Biron Amadai’s ancient, beautifully crafted bolter to his thighguard.
‘Orsus, lead out,’ he said. ‘Three squads in arrowhead, command centre-rear, Haradai to scout ahead some five hundred metres of the main body. There are Imperial forces still holding positions to the north of us, so be aware there are friendlies ahead. As soon as we clear a path to the Armaments District, I will signal the Thunderhawks. Advance on a bearing of zero three six degrees. Questions?’
None. They were Space Marines, and this kind of thing they could do in their sleep. Kerne smiled inside his helm.
‘Lead off.’
Reports came filtering over the vox as the Hunters advanced. Kerne flicked between his own company net and that of the Thunderhawks who were cruising high above on overwatch. They monitored the advance of their brethren on the ground and the enemy positions ahead. There was a brisk, heavy fight in the skies as the gunships took on a flight of Doomfires that rose up to meet them, but every one of the Chaos craft were shot down without loss.
Brother Simarron came over the vox. ‘Captain, the enemy seems to have constructed an extensive airstrip outside the city walls, on the plains to the west. At least two dozen enemy craft are on the ground there, refitting and refuelling. Permission for the gunships to engage.’
‘Granted,’ Kerne said. ‘Destroy the airstrip and all enemy craft, then return to station.’
‘Artillery,’ Fornix said beside him. ‘Ours, I think. Heavy guns.’
They could see the flashes up ahead through the murk and smoke. They seemed to be up in the air.
‘It must be the citadel batteries,’ Brother Malchai said.
The Dark Hunters marched north across the broken wreck of Askai. They encountered shell-holes and trench lines full of the enemy, which were ruthlessly destroyed. At least a dozen heavy weapons emplacements were overrun. In some of them the Punishers were manning captured Imperial ordnance.
The Haradai went ahead of the main body in their cameleoline-painted carapaces and cam-cloaks, flitting from cover to cover, their sniper rifles dealing out swift and accurate death.
Before the line-squads even appeared, the Scouts had chewed up every enemy unit they had encountered. They were the light infantry of the Chapter, and every marine served his time in the Haradai until he was promoted into the line companies. But for some, who had a taste for it, the Haradai remained their home throughout their career.