Dark Hunters: Umbra Sumus

THIRTEEN

Ira in Caelum

When he unhelmed, there was a new element to the air on the flight deck. The familiar heavy reek of lubricants and sweat and the tang of bare metal and exhaust now had added to it the carbonised burned bitterness of battle damage, the thin acridness of cordite and the static aftertaste of las-fire.

And blood. His senses picked up the blood of his wounded brethren over all, that coppery, familiar element common to every fight he had ever known.

A low-loader drew near, and on it were six Space Marines, their power armour dented and broken and torn as though it were made of clay. He knew all their names, and they all raised their heads as it approached. They had that light in their eyes he knew well, and it heartened him to see it.

When a man looks into the sun, the after-image of that brightness stays with him. So it was with combat. These men who were more than men had been bred and trained for war, and now they had taken a taste of it.

They were Adeptus Astartes, and it had barely whetted their appetite. He saw it in their eyes, and it gladdened him. It was as it should be.

‘Try not to get shot next time,’ Kerne said to them. And looking at young Brother Gad and the blackened flesh of his face, he added: ‘Or burned either.’

‘This one is too eager,’ Finn March said, coming up behind him and gesturing towards Brother Gad. ‘Thinks that now he’s out of the Haradai and into some real fighting, he can just charge ahead and bull his way through. He’ll know better next time.’

‘I will,’ Gad said, and he grinned, the burned lips pulling back in a ghastly rictus from the blackened gums.

‘Get to the apothecarion before I give you all extra duties for carelessness,’ Kerne said, and he touched Gad on the shoulder.

The low-loader sped on down the echoing, busy deck, fleet crew scattering before it.

‘Brother-Sergeant March, I want a full report from you and Nureddin before the hour is out,’ Kerne said quietly.

‘You shall have it, captain.’ March cocked his head to one side. Another low-loader was trundling past driven by a servitor. Upon it were two massive prone shapes, mangled but recognisable as Dark Hunters. Apothecary Passarion was walking alongside, his white armour gleaming.

‘Brothers Arrimos and Gascan,’ Passarion said. ‘Infinius’s body could not be recovered.’

‘You know what to do, brother,’ Kerne said. ‘You and Brother Malchai must consign them to the stars with all reverence. But time is short. The main operation is about to begin.’

‘Understood, captain.’

Passarion was a cold fish, but as he spoke he set one hand on the broken body beside him with something like tenderness.

‘Their genes will live on. They will come again.’

‘Other faces, other names, but the flesh abides,’ Kerne said, in the ancient ritualistic proverb of the Dark Hunters.

These dead were only the first. There would be many more to follow; he felt it in his bones.

They were gathering around him now, the sergeants of the company, along with Fornix of course, and Brother Laufey of the Scouts and Nieman Stahl, the senior sergeant of the detachment from Novus.

The trio of March, Nureddin and Orsus were the most senior, but Primus and Secundus had been hollowed out by casualties. Until the wounded Space Marines were back with their squads, the two senior sergeants would take a back seat during the assault.

It went through his mind in a smooth succession of calculations, as it had a thousand times before.

‘Tertius will lead the next operation,’ he said, and big Orsus grinned like a dog just given a bone; if he had possessed a tail he would have wagged it.

‘Brother Laufey, you will attach three of the Haradai to Tertius, Quatris, and Quincus squads. Brother-Sergeant Stahl, you will do the same with your Devastators. Heavy plasmas and meltas, for preference – they’re more flexible. We do not yet know what we are about to face on the surface, whether it will be armour or infantry-centred.’

‘With respect, captain, I would much prefer to keep my warriors together. A full squad of heavy weapons–’

‘I have thought this through. You will be left with one squad intact, which you will command as company reserve. The others will serve with the line-squads.’

‘Sixteen-man squads, that will be,’ Fornix said and he pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.

‘For the first three, yes,’ Kerne said. ‘We must go in as hard as we can, brothers. It has been weeks – nay, months – since anything has been heard from the Imperial forces on Ras Hanem. There may be none left, or it may be that enemy jamming has stymied their attempts to communicate. In any case, we must be prepared to reconquer the entire planet from scratch if need be.’

They all nodded at that. He saw their faces harden, if faces so marked by decades and centuries of warfare could be said to have hardened further. He saw the anger in their eyes. That was good.

‘The drop pods are prepping as we speak,’ he said. ‘Brother-Sergeants Orsus, Greynan and Kagan, see to your commands. I will be dropping with you. The fleet personnel have been briefed and prepped.

‘We have wiped out their sentries, brothers – now we will descend upon them like the Emperor’s Wrath. To your posts.’

The knot of sergeants broke up at once, and the huge armoured figures trooped down the deck to the waiting lines of Dark Hunters, shouting commands, the ordinary humans of the fleet scattering before them like lambs before wolves. The next wave of Thunderhawks was already being prepped, gunships as well as troop-transports this time. But it was the drop pods which would strike first.

‘Fornix, walk with me. I go to the command dais.’ They marched off without a further word, and it was only when they were ascending on one of the great cargo elevators that Jonah Kerne said:

‘First sergeant, where are my Chaplain and Librarian?’

Fornix scratched the side of his head. ‘The moment they came back, they went off somewhere together. I believe Malchai wanted a quiet word with our young epistolary. Elijah looked as though he was about to puke bullets. I think his first encounter with the Great Enemy scrambled his wits a little.’

‘Find them,’ Kerne snapped. ‘I do not have time to track down my command squad through the guts of the ship.’

‘Yes, brother-captain,’ Fornix said, watching his friend closely. Then he added: ‘Jonah, it was not your place to be at the head of a boarding party – you know that. You command Mortai.’

‘And you are my second, and yet you charged in there like some glory-hunting recruit fresh out of the Haradai.’

‘Ah, that’s me – ’twas ever thus.’

Jonah Kerne stared at his old friend. ‘Mortai needs its first sergeant as much as it needs its captain, Fornix. You should have let Finn March lead the way onto the enemy bridge.’

‘Well, you know me–’

‘Enough. You hear what I have said. Apply it. I will not say it again.’

Fornix’s face went carefully blank. ‘Yes, brother-captain.’

For the first time, Jonah Kerne’s arrival in the command centre of the Ogadai caused no comment or reaction. The crew were all too busy, and the red lumens of battle stations were still glowing like sullen coals around the command dais.

Kerne climbed the stone steps of the dais with his helm cradled in one arm, and waited, knowing better than to interfere with Massaron and his work.

‘Fire one,’ the shipmaster said, and there was the long slow shake under their feet as the massive Voidsunder in the bow erupted. It was three kilometres away from where they stood, and yet the power of that salvo echoed through the entire ship like a far-off earth-tremor.

‘Direct hit amidships,’ the flag lieutenant said. ‘Sir, she’s breaking up.’

A hum of satisfaction ran through the servitors on the dais, though they did not pause in their work for a second.

‘Enemy is breaking formation,’ Enginseer Miranich ticked out in that metallic grate of his.

‘Arm torpedoes, notify broadside batteries,’ Massaron said. He stood with his arms folded, seemingly imperturbable. ‘Fire two when firing resolution is locked.’

‘They’re running for it, sir,’ the lieutenant said.

‘I see that, Gershon. Configure torpedoes for that other Dauntless cruiser. I don’t want it to get away.’

‘Torpedoes launched, wide spread,’ a servitor said tonelessly, the binaric data-speak underlying his words like a secondary mutter. ‘On target.’

‘He’s evading, coming round to port at one three five mark twelve,’ the lieutenant barked, excitement raising his voice. ‘Sir, he’s turning right into–’

‘I see it. Fire two.’

A moment’s pause. Out in the emptiness of space, the Ogadai had just launched a vast spearhead of immense energy.

‘He’s hit–’

Jonah Kerne looked up. In the viewports high above his head there was a momentary flash of white light.

‘Target destroyed,’ Miranich reported without emotion. ‘Five torpedoes have gone wide. Three have made hits. Two more enemy ships are now out of command.’

‘Come to starboard ninety degrees,’ Massaron said. He unfolded his arms and his hands were now clenched into fists at his side. Under their feet, the hundreds of thousands of tons that were his ship wheeled in the void.

‘Now, port batteries, open fire as they bear.’

Kerne could hear the rumble and hiss of the lasburner batteries that lined the ship’s sides open up. It was too faint for the hearing of a normal human, but to the ears of an Adeptus Astartes, the sound was like carbonated liquid fizzing out of an opened bottle.

‘Targets destroyed,’ the flag lieutenant said, triumph lighting up his voice. ‘The rest of the enemy fleet is powering out of high orbit at maximum speed. Sir, shall I signal Arbion and Beynish to pursue?’

‘Negative. Signal them to remain astern. I want no more surprises.’ Here, for the first time, Massaron looked at Kerne, and there was something like shame in his face.

Then he turned back to the banks of monitors that towered above him.

‘Resume course for low orbit. I want continuous augur-sweeps of the planet, and scan for all vox-emissions. Recharge all weapons and stand by.’

A murmur of assent across the dais.

‘Lieutenant Gershon, you have the con. Captain Kerne, I expect you would like a full report.’

Kerne nodded curtly.

‘I have a ready room below. Please join me there.’

Kerne’s silence seemed to unnerve the shipmaster slightly. He poured water from a metal flask and drank off a tankard of it.

The Space Marine captain dominated the small room, and a faint smell of ozone rose off his armour. A shining dust speckled him: the residue of vacuum combat.

‘The enemy picket-line of destroyers was led with some skill,’ Massaron said, looking at the empty flagon he held in one fist. ‘There were six of them, light destroyers reconfigured for use against capital targets. Four, we obliterated – two more were taken out by your warriors.’ He paused. ‘I was distracted by the fate of the Caracalla, and let two of them slip past us into an ideal firing position, at our stern. It will not happen again. I apologise.’

‘What of the Caracalla?’ Kerne demanded harshly.

‘Gone. Some two thousand of the crew took to lifeboats and were picked up. The rest perished when the drives overheated and exploded.’ He poured himself more water. ‘Seven thousand men and women.’

He held the flagon up, and looked at it as though it were an artefact from an unknown world.

‘Shipmaster Miraneis was a fine officer. She did her duty.’ He drank deep, as though the water were something stronger.

‘She was my daughter.’

Grief gnarled his face. He faced the tall Space Marine squarely. ‘I made a mistake, distracted by sentiment. It will not happen again.’

‘See that it does not,’ Jonah Kerne told him coldly. ‘The boarding action should not have been necessary, and it has forced me to modify my plans for the planetary assault scant hours before it is due to begin. We do not have the resources or the time to permit such mistakes, shipmaster.’

‘Agreed, captain. I will submit a report on my error to Mors Angnar, and am ready to accept whatever sanction the Chapter Master sees fit to inflict.’

Kerne shook his head. ‘Belay that. We do not have the time for it, and there is no one else to whom the Ogadai can be trusted – you know that as well as I. Tell me of the situation as it now stands.’

Massaron blinked, and a low breath escaped him, as though he had been holding it in all this time.

‘We are two hours out from low orbit. The Punisher fleet has been scattered and is fleeing. We have destroyed two Dauntless class light cruisers and a total of eleven destroyers, plus at least six transport vessels. The way is clear for the ground phase of the operation to begin.’

‘You are to be congratulated, shipmaster.’

‘I lost seven thousand men today, captain, and placed this flagship in extreme jeopardy. I do not warrant your congratulations.’

‘You are only human.’ Kerne smiled slightly. ‘Any word from the ground?’

‘Now that the enemy fleet is dispersed, vox transmissions to and from the surface should begin to filter through.’

‘Very well. If any do, have them forwarded to me on the flight deck at once. Phase two is about to begin. I will take Mortai down onto Ras Hanem in the next two hours, the first wave in drop pods, the second in the Thunderhawks. I want your destroyers detailed to assist with orbital bombardment as soon as I am on the ground and able to identify viable targets. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly, captain.’

Jonah Kerne looked down on the tight face of the human before him.

‘Your daughter died well,’ he said.

Massaron looked away. ‘Yes, she did.’

‘Be worthy of her life, and death,’ Kerne told him. Then he turned and left the shadowed room, and strode out into the grandeur of the Ogadai’s nave without a backward glance.

The flight deck was frantic with activity. Jonah Kerne strode along it like a dark titan. The Thunderhawks were on their sleds, already warming up their engines, and the din was ear-splitting. Steam from the coolant systems hazed the air, and low-loaders piled high with shells were still pulling up to the rear of some of the gunships; Space Marines and human personnel alike were working steadily to pile more ammunition within the square-bellied craft.

There was no telling when they would be resupplied, once they were on the ground, so every Thunderhawk was carrying extra pallets of shells and ammo and energy-packs as well as its flight crew and a squad of Space Marines. Safety procedures were being quietly ignored. A small gamble, amid much bigger ones.

Kerne found Nureddin of Secundus supervising the loading of the transports. He was in a foul humour, having missed out on a place in the first wave because of the boarding casualties. Kerne thumped his shoulder-guard to get his attention. He had to shout to be heard above the clamour of the packed, echoing deck.

‘Wait for my word before you put down, brother – remember!’

‘I remember, Jonah. Try to land on your feet and not flat on your back.’ Nureddin grinned, and twitched his grey scalp-lock out of his eyes.

They shook hands in the ancient warrior grip, grasping each other’s forearms, the metal of their armour clinking together.

‘Good hunting, brother,’ Kerne said.

‘Good hunting, Jonah. Leave some of the killing for me.’

‘Always.’

He walked on down the deck. Out of the chaos, there was order coming. He nodded to Sergeant Rusei of Sextius, and Corvo of Septus, and they thumped their fists against the aquila on their breastplates. They had over a century in Mortai between them, and yet they looked as eager as new recruits.

Down the dank shaft of the elevator, to the drop pod holsters below. Here, it was darker, and the noise was cut off. This part of the ship was newer than the rest, the result of a refit some fifty years before. The Ogadai had been reworked and repaired so many times that Kerne doubted there was much of the original four-thousand year-old metal remaining. Like the Chapter itself, the composition of the thing changed, but its function remained.

The three lead squads of the assault had already embarked, and only the command pod still had one of the tall, leaf-shaped hatches open for entry. He clambered inside, thumping the door controls, and the ramp reared up and then hissed shut.

Pods, he thought. They were well named. Inside, there was little room for manoeuvre, and the light was a low red glow. He found his place at the central stanchion, the spine of the teardrop-shaped craft, and snapped himself into the restraints, finding the vox-link and plugging it into his helm.

They were all here. Heinos the Techmarine in his specially adapted harness. Fornix, his armour marked by the scabs of hasty repairs. He had never been vain about his appearance, but Kerne noted that his first sergeant had procured a power fist from somewhere and now his right hand ended in a mass of metal almost a metre across. No more chainswords then.

Passarion was there in his white armour, and next to him Jord Malchai in his sinister skull-helm. And lastly Elijah Kass, the psychic hood above his own helmet glowing faint blue.

Kerne touched the leather pouch he had strapped at his side. In it was a tattered rag upon which was woven a skull and weighing scales. Cerebrum et Haliaetum: Mortai’s banner since time immemorial.

He would unfurl it on the ground. The Dark Hunters did not have specified banner-bearers. As the battle unfolded, the company captain would single out a battle-brother he thought worthy of the honour and bestow the company symbol upon him, to carry for as long as he was able.

Kerne himself had carried that flag; it had been given to him by Al Murzim more than two centuries before. And Fornix had carried it through the first half of the Phobian battles, until promoted to sergeant. Then it had gone to three more Space Marines, all of whom had died carrying it.

More would die carrying it in the days to come. But the banner would rise up again every time, as it always had.

It endured. Mortai endured. The Dark Hunters remained, despite all the crises and wars of the last three thousand years.

Umbra Sumus, Kerne thought. We are shadows.

Nothing more than shadows and dust.

‘Launch in thirty seconds,’ the vox spoke into his ear.

‘Acknowledged.’ He raised a fist with three fingers out. The others strapped into the pod saluted him.

Lord, in Thy glory and Thy goodness, send me worthy foes to kill.

‘Ten seconds.’

The green light flicked on, and there was a tremendous jerk and crash as the drop pod was ejected from the hull of the Ogadai like a grape pip being spat out of a man’s mouth. Gravity faded, and Kerne rose in his restraints.

Three seconds later, the onboard nav systems kicked in and the thrusters fired. The Space Marines within were jolted once more as the tapered craft was nudged towards the atmosphere of Ras Hanem. The details of the descent were fed into Kerne’s helm display, and he watched as the numbers changed almost too quickly to be read. The blinking sigils of the other three pods were steady and green.

Then a series of other cursors flashed up on the display. The Thunderhawks were launching now. All of Mortai was in the air.

Jonah Kerne was taking ninety-eight Adeptus Astartes to the planet below, and they were bringing hell with them.