‘Why the delay?’ Solaro asked, looking over his shoulder at Ort. The other legionary stood at an open power relay panel shaking his head.
‘Is this really necessary?’ asked Ort.
‘The primarch was specific,’ said Solaro. ‘Just shut it down.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ort, stepping back from the relay. ‘It’s one thing to take the Raven Guard out of the war. It’s another to wipe them out entirely. When Horus defeats the Emperor, we’ll need allies to rebuild the Imperium.’
‘You’re an idiot,’ said Nestil, pulling out a transformer switch. ‘The Raven Guard will never serve Horus now, not after Isstvan. Corax is too stubborn. When we win, they will just disappear like they always do, and continue fighting us at every chance. Do you want to spend years watching your back, wondering when the Raven Guard will come for us?’
‘We’ve all seen what that mutagen did to the Raptors,’ said Ort. ‘It’s tainted, unnatural. And the Word Bearers? We all saw them at Isstvan, and I saw them up close at Cruciax. I don’t think it’s Horus that’s behind this war, it’s something a lot worse. You know what I’m talking about.’
Nestil turned, a cluster of wires in his fist.
‘More fool them,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re talking about and we all heard Corax’s speech. This war was coming, like it or not, and we had to choose a side. Better that we are with the victors than the losers. The Emperor’s forces were crippled at Isstvan. That could have been us between the guns of the Word Bearers and Iron Warriors. Be thankful the twin primarchs made the right choice.’
‘It’s too late to have second thoughts,’ said Solaro. ‘What the Word Bearers choose to do is up to them, we don’t have to pay attention to them any more. Let them dabble in their sorcery. It’ll burn them in the end and we’ll be the ones left laughing.’
‘Besides,’ said Nestil, returning to his work, ‘with this gene-tech, the Alpha Legion will be the ones who will hold the balance of power. Us, not Lorgar, Angron or even Horus.’
Ort said nothing as he stepped back up to the relay panel and began to disconnect the cables.
‘What was that?’ said Nestil, glancing towards the door.
Solaro had heard it too, a shot ringing out against the background of the bombardment.
‘Maybe those stupid guilders have actually managed to get through the curtain wall,’ said Ort.
‘No, that was inside, close by,’ said Solaro.
Suddenly the bark of bolter fire filled the corridor outside.
‘Keep working!’ he snapped, moving towards the door.
The Alpha Legionnaires on watch were firing down the corridor to the right, blazing away freely. Bolt-rounds were screaming past them from the direction of fire. Drawing up his bolt pistol and power sword, Solaro stepped out and turned just as one of the legionnaires crashed to the ground, armour riddled with jagged holes.
From the direction of the infirmary, a group of misshapen warriors were attacking, taking cover behind the roof supports that jutted from the bulkheads every few metres. Solaro looked into dozens of fury-filled red eyes, in faces contorted with horns, fangs and tusks. Some of the attackers were covered in scales of red or green. Some were muscle-contorted monstrosities whose biceps and shoulders bulged under the fabric of their robes.
All of them were armed, the hail of bolter fire intensifying as more poured through the doors at the end of the passageway and emerged from the chambers connected to the infirmary. A round glanced from Solaro’s shoulder pad, sending splinters of ceramite flying.
‘Forget that!’ he snapped, ducking back into the vault’s entry chamber. ‘We’re too late. It’s time to leave.’
Ort and Nestil stopped what they were doing and snatched up the bolters they had set aside to work on the energy relays. They closed in behind Solaro, who stepped to the corner of the door and snapped off a few shots at the incoming Raptors.
‘We’ll cover you,’ said one of the Alpha Legionnaires, slamming home a fresh magazine into his weapon as bolt detonations erupted on the stanchion he was sheltering behind.
‘Run!’ Solaro barked, waving his power sword. ‘Before they cut us off.’
Pounding out into the passage, the three operatives turned and fled from the Raptors, not even pausing to fire a shot. Solaro glanced back as they reached the far doors, and saw that all but two of the Alpha Legionnaires had been taken down, selflessly putting themselves between the withdrawing operatives and the Raptors. They were making good account of themselves though – at least a dozen robed bodies sprawled across the floor of the corridor.
‘Make for the landing apron,’ said Nestil as the security door hissed open in front of them.
When they had passed through, Ort turned and fired into the lock control pad, bringing the door slamming down.
‘Let’s see them come after us now,’ he said.
‘You abandoned our legionnaires back there,’ said Nestil.
‘They’ll go down fighting,’ said Solaro, taking a turning to the right. ‘We have to get out of here.’
They sprinted through across the upper level of Ravendelve and made for the stairwell close to the main gate, which Solaro hoped was still in the hands of their comrades. Taking the steps three at a time, they launched themselves down the stairs, heading for the gatehouse.
Reaching the bottom, they paused and looked around. In the courtyard behind the gatehouse were several legionaries in the livery of the Raven Guard, but it was impossible to tell if they were sons of Corax or simply masquerading as such. Two gigantic praetorian servitors flanked the gate itself, along with a handful of the Mechanicum’s herakli warriors.
‘Through here,’ said Ort, gesturing with his bolter towards the east tower guard room.
‘Calmly now,’ whispered Solaro. ‘No need to rush.’
The defenders by the gate paid little attention to three Raven Guard striding into the gatehouse, though Solaro felt a small amount of relief once they were out of sight again.
‘How do we get out?’ said Nestil.
‘The gallery is in ruins,’ replied Ort. ‘Our Thunderhawks saw to that. We’ll be able to jump down easily enough.’
‘I’m not sure about leaving the gene-tech here,’ said Solaro. ‘What if the other operative can’t retrieve it?’
‘It’s too late to go back,’ said Nestil. ‘We have done as we were ordered. It’s time to extract.’
Solaro conceded the point with a nod and they made their way to the inner stairwell. The floor above was a rubble-choked ruin, the shards of the shattered gallery window scattered amongst the debris. The fog had thickened again, but standing on a pile of pulverised ferrocrete, Solaro could make out two bulky shapes out by the landing field.
‘The Thunderhawks are still here, as I thought,’ he said, sheathing his power sword and holstering his pistol. He grabbed hold of a twisted plasteel reinforcing rod jutting from the remains of the outer wall and swung out of the gallery. ‘Come on.’
They had to drop the last few metres to the ground, but there was no sign of any Raven Guard in the vicinity. The steady thunderous report of the surviving macro-cannon punctuated the whine and boom of falling artillery shells, but the guilders seemed to be targeting the other end of Ravendelve. Overhead, Stormbirds and Thunderhawks were diving through the clouds, their cannons and missiles raining fire down onto the guilder column. Solaro could see a plume of bluish fire dancing above the curtain wall, the leaking plasma reactor of a Warhound Titan.
As they approached the closest Thunderhawk, Solaro felt a creeping unease. He activated his vox-link, trying to hail the pilot, but received no reply. Approaching through the mist, he discovered that the cockpit canopy was shattered, and there were several smoking holes in the fuselage.