‘You moved ahead,’ said Eadwine. ‘We cannot cover each other if we are too widely spaced.’
‘There are matters to attend to,’ Sar Af relied. ‘They will not wait.’
‘They will wait forever if you are dead,’ replied Eadwine. ‘The creatures defending this site are reacting with surprising speed to our attack.’
‘If your throat is cut,’ said Sar Af, ‘it does not matter how fast you react. We must get on and cut the throat.’
Sometimes, there was no arguing with brothers of the Fifth. Holofurnace, still locked in close combat behind them, seemed determined to methodically kill every single Archenemy in Salvation’s Reach one by one. The White Scar, however, appeared quite content to leave them all standing provided he could cut ahead and decapitate their command structure.
Both were respectable combat ethics. They were entirely incompatible. That was why Eadwine had charge of the mission.
‘We move ahead,’ he said. ‘We stay together.’
Sar Af nodded.
Eadwine activated his helmet link.
‘Strike Alpha lead to Guard formation. Are you deployed?’
‘Confirm, lead.’
‘Who speaks?’
‘Major Kolea, Tanith First.’
‘Where are you, Kolea?’
‘Scaling the breach now, advancing into the depot compartment.’
‘You need to close the gap. We are pressing forwards. Be advised, a high density of loxatl mercenaries are present. Are you familiar with loxatl, major?’
‘Yes, lead. We’re just a few minutes behind you and progressing rapidly.’
‘Very good. Lead out.’
Eadwine and Sar Af turned to the hatchway. The White Scar had just finished two more loxatl. Alien blood spattered his pearl-white plate.
Charges took out the hatch. In a fog of blue smoke, Sar Af and Eadwine advanced, shields raised, bolters propped over the right-angled corners. Holofurnace was closing at their heels.
They moved into a hallway, a main access way. There was blood and wreckage on the floor where personnel had fled the ram strike and sealed the hatch behind them. The structure and age of the walls and ceiling, and the machine components fixed into them, was such that it looked like the corridor had been built from scrap cannibalised from several different starships.
Shots started to snap at them. Holofurnace had joined them, his spear at his shoulder, his bolter back in his fist. They formed a line, three abreast, shields up. A moving wall, resilient and formidable, they advanced, almost filling the corridor from side to side.
The gunfire smacked into their rigidly held shields. It wasn’t xenos fire from some exotic flechette blaster. It was las-shot.
Up ahead, the first human defenders appeared, blasting down the smoky corridor with lasrifles and helguns.
Shields up, the Space Marines walked into it, blasting as they came. The mass reactive rounds streamed away from them and cut the hallway apart. Bodies fell. Wall panels blew out. Parts of the ceiling caved in.
The firefight exchange grew more intense.
The Space Marines didn’t slow down for a second.
The Ghosts of Strike Alpha pushed forwards across the depot through a jumble of burning debris. Zhukova reported that her company had engaged with some loxatl and were in the process of subduing them, though the bulk of the loxatl force had been wiped out by the Space Marine spearhead.
Kolea wondered if there would be more. He wondered what other wretched things lay in wait in the junk habitat.
He heard the heavy .30 crank up and start to fire. Bool and Mkan were getting busy. What the gak had they seen?
‘Hostiles!’ Caober yelled over the link. The scout had pushed forwards to the left-hand edge of the chamber. Kolea hefted his shield up and started to run. The shields had barrel slots cut in the top right-hand corner of their shapes, so the wearer could carry the shield on his left arm and brace the weight of his lasrifle barrel across the slot. Effectively, he could fire from behind cover. Kolea hadn’t used a boarding shield in combat before, but they’d been training hard en route. He still believed they were cumbersome and ineffective.
He was running forwards with five or six other Ghosts, leaping blazing debris. A crippled loxatl flopped out of hiding into their path and ratcheted off two shots with its flechette. Kolea’s shield stopped the first, and the second blew up against the deck. Derin’s shield saved his legs and groin from the deflected splinters of shrapnel. Firing from behind his shield, Kolea slew the loxatl with a burst of shots.
His attitude towards the boarding shields warmed slightly. In the enclosed space of boarding action, the danger of deflection shots was dramatically increased.
More gunfire streaked their way. Kolea saw what Caober had spotted. Sally ports had opened on the far side of the depot chamber: heavy trapdoor hatches concealed along the welded line where the bulkhead wall met the deck. Archenemy troops were clambering out of them, firing as they came. Kolea wasn’t sure if the hatches had been deliberately designed for defensive actions, or if the enemy was making smart use of engineering crawl spaces.
All he was sure of was that they were suddenly taking heavy fire against their left flank.
The enemy troops were big, human males. Their battle dress was not uniform, but it was all the same general mix of richly ornamented armour plate and yellow breeches and coats. Boots, gloves, belts, armour clasps and bindings, along with packs and webbing, were made of a dark, rich leather, polished a caffeine brown like mahogany. The leatherwork, especially the wide and heavy waist belts, was interwoven with purple silk bindings and silver wire stitching. The yellow of the material under the brown leather wargear was hot and acid, like a fusion beam. The warriors had tight, buckle-on metal helmets covered in brown leather that had incorporated visors: narrow, single-lens oblong frames that covered both eyes and emitted a dark blue glow. The buckled chinstraps of the helmets, fashioned from the same dark brown leather as the belts and webbing, were oversized, and designed in the form of life-sized human hands that covered the entire mouth area below the nose.
Kolea knew what he was seeing. Servants of the wretched anarch, whose voice ‘drowns out all others’, demonstrated respect for their master by covering their mouths.
These warriors were Sons of Sek.
EIGHTEEN
The First Cut
The shrieking of the Hades drill was becoming unbearable. Gaunt felt as if his teeth were about to shatter. The atmosphere in the lateral holdspace was thick with exhaust fumes and the reek of burning metal and oily water. A fine vibration, transmitted through the deck by the drill, was making everything tremble.
He retreated to just outside the hold hatchway so he could hear Beltayn over the vox.
‘Major Baskevyl reports six companies deployed at the primary zone,’ Beltayn said. ‘More coming in, but it’s tight.’
‘Have they kicked the door in and made a lot of noise?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Beltayn.
‘Opposition?’
‘Loxatl. Now Major Kolea reports contact with what he believes are Sons of Sek.’
Gaunt took a deep breath. Loxatl made his skin crawl, but Sons of Sek were something else. The anarch’s rumoured response to Gaur’s Blood Pact. Sworn soldiers, cult devotees of the Ruinous Powers, yet disciplined and organised. Zealot warriors. Gaunt felt a particular type of fear whenever the Archenemy appeared to operate with intent. Their unpredictable insanity was bad enough. But for the Blood Pact, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade would have been prosecuted and done years before.