03 - Savage Scars (14 page)

The Space Marine medic added his strength to the effort, and the wounded
Ultramarine was dragged clear by their combined efforts. In another minute, the
two warriors had pulled another three clear, and more Space Marines had arrived
to aid the rescue effort.

“Do what you can, brother,” Sarik told the Apothecary before rushing back to
join Brother Qaja.

“Status,” Sarik said.

“Squads are deployed as per Pattern Nova,” Qaja said.

“Enemy?”

“None located, brother-sergeant,” Qaja said, not taking his eyes from the
terrain as he spoke.

“None?” Sarik growled. “These xenos and their trickery…”

A third fusion blast roared through the air, burning a searing orange wound
across the flank of one of the Whirlwind missile tanks further down the column.
The blast was hard to track, twisting and distorting the air as it was boiled by
nucleonic forces. Nevertheless, Sarik got an idea of the origin point.

The only problem was, he could see nothing there. A ripe Chogoran curse
escaped his lips as he scowled at the thought of yet more alien technology at
work against his Space Marines.

“All squads,” Sarik growled into the vox-net. “Suppressive fire, delta nine,
two hundred metres, wide.”

Every battle-brother deployed on the column’s left flank opened fire at the
kill zone. The air was filled with hundreds of mass-reactive bolts, the crops in
the target area ripped to shreds as the ground was pounded by exploding rounds.

“Cease fire!” Sarik called out, watching intently for signs of movement in
the kill zone. “Just wait…”

Then the sound of some kind of rotary gatling weapon powering up came from
further down the column and an instant later a storm of blue energy bolts
sprayed towards the Space Marines. Most struck the sides of the sturdy Rhino
transports without inflicting any damage, but a battle-brother of the Scythes of
the Emperor was thrown violently backwards as a bolt struck his shoulder plate.
The warrior was unharmed, but he was forced to discard the wrecked shoulder
guard and jettison the arm section as he stood to regain his position in the
firing line.

“Tau infantry,” Sarik said. “But they’re using the same stealth devices we’ve
seen in their elite flyers.”

“Orders, brother-sergeant?” Qaja said.

Sarik scowled as he scanned the surrounding terrain. It was dominated by low
rises and depressions, a patchwork of crop fields and fruit plantations receding
into the distance. The rise and fall of the land reminded him of the Baatarn
Lowlands, an area his nomadic tribe had passed through when he was a child. His
uncle, the tribe’s seersman, had told him a tale of the mist-spirits said to
haunt the place…

“Smoke…” Sarik muttered.

“Brother-sergeant?”

“Did you ever hear the tale of how the Tuvahks defeated the Kagayaga at
Baatarn?” Sarik said, a sly grin forming on his face.

“Of course, brother-sergeant,” Qaja replied. “Codicier Qan’karro related it
at the last Feast of Skies. I don’t see what—”

“All squad leaders,” Sarik said into the vox-net. “Have one of your men
gather smoke grenades from the Rhino launchers and stand by.”

Another burst of blue bolts sprayed through towards the Space Marines, this
time from further down the column still.

“They’re circling us like blood-sharks on a wounded mooncalf,” Qaja said
through gritted teeth.

Within thirty seconds the squad leaders had all reported back over the
vox-net that they were armed with smoke grenades taken from the multi-barrelled
launchers at the front of each carrier. “How did the King of the Tuvahks escape
the Kagayaga, brother?” Sarik said, a feral light gleaming in his eyes.

“He…” Qaja said, before realisation dawned. “He smoked them out,
brother-sergeant.”

“All squads, deploy smoke grenades. Wide dispersion, fifty metres. Now!”

As one, the battle-brothers of each squad armed with the smoke grenades
hurled them forwards. Upon striking the ground, each grenade detonated, creating
an instant cloud of white smoke that billowed out from the impact point. Within
seconds, a wide area fifty metres in front of the column’s left flank was
enshrouded in drifting banks of smoke.

“What now, brother-sergeant?” Qaja said.

“Wait and see, brother,” Sarik said. “All squads, maintain overwatch. Look
for movement in the smoke.”

Quiet settled the length of column as the Space Marines on its left flank
focussed their attentions on the drifting smoke. Clipped exchanges went back and
forth between the squad leaders as they coordinated their arcs, ensuring that
every quadrant was covered.

“Contact!” a battle-brother from a Scythes of the Emperor Devastator squad on
the extreme end of the line reported. “Zeta nine, transient.”

“Hold your fire,” Sarik ordered. “What did you see?”

“Movement, brother-sergeant,” the Space Marine said. “A parting of the smoke,
but nothing solid.”

“Your vigilance does you honour, brother,” Sarik replied. “Stand by. Qaja,
you have the squad.”

Sarik moved swiftly along the column, exchanging brief words with the squad
leaders as he passed them. As he reached the Scythes of the Emperor Devastator
squad, its sergeant indicated the battle-brother he had spoken to.

“Show me.”

The warrior lowered his heavy bolter, resting its gaping barrel across his
knee, and pointed into the drifting smoke bank with his free hand. “There,
brother-sergeant. The smoke parted for a moment, as if something were about to
emerge.”

“But nothing did.”

“Contact!” another of the Scythes of the Emperor hissed, bringing his missile
launcher to bear on a point to the squad’s extreme left. Sarik saw it too.

“They’re working their way around us,” Sarik said. “All squads. Ten round
fusillade, fifty metres, delta quad, on my mark.”

As the squad leaders signalled their acknowledgements and ordered their
firing lines ready to enact Sarik’s direction, the sergeant looked to the next
squad along, a Scythes of the Emperor tactical squad. Clapping a hand on the
shoulder of the Devastators’ sergeant, he said “Remain on station.” Then turning
to the sergeant of the tactical squad, he said, “Sergeant, I need five men.”

The squad leader selected five of his warriors and with a curt gesture sent
them over to Sarik. “Brothers, remove your helmets. Our foes are hidden to our
sight, but not to our other senses. With me!”

As the five Scythes stowed their helmets at their belts, Sarik turned and was
off, running towards the roiling bank of smoke. He crossed the fifty metres and
plunged into the mists, halting the instant his vision was swallowed up by
featureless white. A moment later, he heard the Scythes move in behind him and
likewise halt. Even at a range of two metres, the warriors were barely visible.
It was only their black armour that made them stand out at all, while Sarik’s
white armour would make him all but invisible even at that close range.

Sarik took a deep draught of the air, slightly overemphasising the action so
that the other Space Marines would hear it and follow his example. To Sarik’s
enhanced senses, the air tasted overwhelmingly of garlic, though in reality that
was the phosphorus employed in the smoke grenades. Sarik sensed his multi-lung
implant engage as it protected his kidneys from the toxic effects of the
chemical smoke. Taking another deep breath, he mentally filtered out the strong
odour of garlic, and detected something else, something sharp, like bleach.

“Ozone?” one of the Scythes of the Emperor whispered at Sarik’s side.

“Indeed,” Sarik whispered back. “Some sort of energy field. Follow me.”

Sarik rose and commenced a stooped run, breathing steadily as he followed the
sharp scent. As he moved, the smell grew in intensity, until his suspicions were
confirmed. The tau were nearby, and the energy fields they were using to shield
their movements were giving off the sharp smell of ozone as they reacted with
the atmosphere.

Sarik halted, and was joined a moment later by the five Scythes of the
Emperor.

“Follow my lead,” he hissed as low as possible. “And stay close and quiet.”

Then he was up again, the Scythes close behind. The smell of ozone grew
almost overpowering and Sarik could sense he was almost upon his prey. Then the
mist parted as if something just larger than a man was walking through it, and
Sarik dived forwards headlong.

Sarik’s dive was arrested in mid air as he slammed into something invisible.
The unseen form must have been substantially armoured, for the impact almost
took the breath from Sarik’s lungs. He went down, the invisible opponent beneath
him, and felt the figure thrashing wildly as it fought to escape.

The dark shadows of the Scythes of the Emperor passed by, and Sarik knew they
too were engaging more unseen enemies. None made a sound.

Sarik made a fist and punched down hard towards the smoke-shrouded ground.
His fist stopped half a metre from the ground, striking a hard surface. A
muffled grunt sounded, confirming that the tau warrior was clad in some form of
hard, but not invulnerable armour. Guessing where its head was, he made a grab,
and found its neck, clamping his fist around it.

Sarik used his free hand to draw his combat knife. The enemy struggled all
the more, and something blunt slammed into Sarik’s left shoulder plate. It could
only have been a weapon, for a moment later Sarik heard the universal sound of
ammunition being chambered. Knowing he had but seconds to prevent the enemy from
firing its weapon and at best giving his presence away and at worst blowing his
head clean from his shoulders, Sarik plunged the monomolecular-edged blade
towards where he judged the enemy’s chest must be.

The blade struck solid armour, but Sarik brought it downwards until it found
yielding flesh. With a brutal upwards thrust, Sarik plunged the knife deep
inside the enemy’s innards, feeling the tau shudder and thrash as he did so.

Then hot, purple blood spilled out of the invisible wound, staining Sarik’s
forearm. He withdrew the blade, and a shower of blue sparks, accompanied by the
overpowering stink of ozone, erupted in front of him. He stood, and before his
very eyes, his enemy faded into existence.

The warrior was wearing an armoured suit of matt black. The armour covered
most, but not all of its body, and Sarik saw that his knife had found the soft
joint between thigh and groin armour plate. The warrior’s right arm carried a
blunt, tube-shaped heavy weapon, and at its back was a device that Sarik judged
to be the generator that powered its stealth field.

A series of muffled grunts and impacts told Sarik that the Scythes had
encountered, and violently neutralised, more of the enemy stealth troopers. He
listened until all had gone quiet again, and a moment later the five Space
Marines reappeared.

“There are more of them, brother-sergeant. At least twenty, to the north.”

“Did they hear you?”

“Yes. They are inbound.”

“Good,” Sarik said, assuming a prone position on the ground. The smoke was
beginning to clear. “You might want to take cover, brothers.”

The Scythes of the Emperor took position beside the White Scar, and the six
warriors concentrated on the smoky depths where the enemy lay. “Come on then…”
Sarik whispered.

Then he saw it. The smoke parted as at least a dozen figures ghosted towards
the Space Marines.

Sarik opened the vox-channel. “Mark!”

The air erupted and the ground was churned as bolt-rounds hammered in from
the Space Marine gun line. Heavy bolters added their throaty roar to the sharp
staccato of the boltguns and the smoke banks sizzled as balls of plasma lanced
through. Though un-aimed, the fusillade could not help but strike the foe.
Sparks flew as rounds struck invisible bodies over and over again. Then the tau
attempted desperately to return fire and a stream of blue energy bolts spat out
from the invisible heavy weapons. But the tables were turned; the tau could not
see their targets, and they were cut down before Sarik’s eyes. As each fell,
their shattered forms resolved, broken armour and body parts scattered across
the ground.

The return fire died away, and within seconds ceased as the surviving tau
retreated in the face of the Space Marines’ overwhelming fusillade.

“Brother-sergeant,” a voice cut in over the vox-net. “Estimated fifty
contacts, closing in behind us.”

Lucian and his two subcommanders looked west through their magnoculars into
the setting sun. The skies had turned a deep turquoise the like of which Lucian
had never seen before, with a faint glimmer of stars appearing overhead. Below
the white sun, the distant towers of Gel’bryn glinted in the fading light,
tempting the rogue trader with the riches and opportunities to be found there.

The city was small by human standards. In the Imperium it was often
convenient to pack the multitudes in as tightly as possible, as near to their
workplaces as could be achieved, in order to control the means of production
with brutal but vital efficiency. The ultimate expression of this harsh reality
was the hive cities of such worlds as Armageddon, Ichar IV and Gehenna Prime,
each of which could equal the industrial output of any other planet in the
Imperium short of a forge world of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Instead of packing
their population into a relatively small number of massive cities, the tau
evidently preferred to establish thousands of smaller settlements across an
entire planet, and Gel’bryn was the largest of those on Dal’yth Prime. Lucian
suspected that each city was relatively self-sufficient too, if the surrounding
farmland was anything to go by. The use of advanced technology, forbidden or
simply lost in the Imperium, for such simple tasks as farming was beyond
anything he had seen in his decades of contact with all manner of xenos species.
It suggested a highly ordered society in which individuals were free of the
drudgery that was the reality of everyday life in the human Imperium.