03 - Savage Scars (17 page)

As Sarik advanced at the head of his tactical squad, he saw another such
sign. The air would ripple just before the tau opened fire, as if their weapons
were bleeding power from whatever generator powered the stealth field.
Sometimes, if an observer was looking in their exact direction, a change of
light would cause the enemy to become visible for a fraction of a second, and if
they were not moving and the light remained unchanged, they might solidify and
become plain to see.

Most importantly, the Space Marines were learning how to predict the enemy’s
movements and where to look for them. The details had already been voxed to the
other Space Marine commands, and the stealthers were being driven back all along
the front.

“Contact front!” Sarik called out as he opened fire at the half-visible foe.
“Strike them down!” A line of small explosions stitched the ghostly figure and
its stealth generator failed with an eruption of blue sparks. The enemy resolved
into a black-armoured warrior, its helmet blank-faced and with blocky, segmented
armour plates across its chest, shoulders and thighs. Mounted on one arm was a
tubular heavy weapon, which it was raising to point directly at Sarik.

The sergeant shouted a warning to his squad and weaved sideways as he
advanced. The tau fired and a hail of blue energy bolts scythed the air where
the Space Marines had been advancing a fraction of a second earlier. The alien
stepped backwards as it fired, tracking its weapon left and right. The ground at
Sarik’s feet was churning with dozens of impacts as he powered on, and several
shots glanced from his shoulder plates and greaves, biting neat-edged scars
across the ceramite.

A grunt of pain sounded from behind Sarik as a Space Marine of the Scythes of
the Emperor went down, an energy bolt having clipped his cheek and torn off half
his face. The warrior went into a roll as he fell, and having barely lost
momentum was up again. His enhanced physiology caused his blood to clot the
instant it met air, his features a mass of scabby tissue with the inside of his
jaw visible through the ruined cheek.

Sarik’s warriors returned fire as they ran, the combined boltguns of his own
squad and the nearby Scythes of the Emperor hammering into the alien stealther.
The enemy lowered his heavy weapon and assumed a wide-legged stance. A second
later he leaped straight backwards, having activated a short-distance jump
generator on his back. This was the first the Space Marines knew of the
capability, and although it took them by surprise, the alien did not get far.

At the height of the alien’s powered leap, a missile streaked in over the
Space Marines heads, fired from one of the Devastator squads at the column’s
rear. The missile slammed into the alien with unerring accuracy, its war spirit
predicting its target’s trajectory and altering its course at the last possible
second. Both missile and alien exploded three metres up, showering chunks of
ruined armour and flesh across a wide area.

As Sarik approached the crest of the rise he saw another ripple in the air,
followed by a burst of blue flame. Three more tau stealthers resolved in the
air, their jump burners drawing power from their stealth generators. Sarik
opened fire and his squad followed his example, filling the air with
fin-stabilised, deuterium-cored bolter rounds. But the aliens were fleeing the
Space Marines and with their jump packs engaged were soon bounding down the
opposite side of the rise and away from the Space Marines.

“All squads,” Sarik said into the vox-net. “Let the cowards flee. Consolidate
on me.”

The squads of Sarik’s spearhead were soon in position near him, the sergeants
ensuring each was correctly deployed. There were obvious gaps in the line, where
squads had taken casualties. Most of the wounded were able to fight on thanks to
their genetically enhanced physiques, but the worst, in particular the
Ultramarines caught in the stealthers’ ambush, had been evacuated for treatment.

“Rhinos,” Sarik voxed the vehicle commanders further back. “Maintain position
and overwatch. All squads, form up on me for probing advance forward.” Sarik had
to remind himself not to use the White Scars’ battle-cant, which used context-
and culture-specific references that could not be deciphered should a
transmission be intercepted. But with warriors from more than just his own
Chapter under his command, Sarik was forced to use more standard battle-code.

“Brothers,” Sarik addressed the squads. “We advance around this rise.
Devastators,” he indicated the Ultramarine and Scythes of the Emperor heavy
weapons squads, “overwatch just below the crest. White Scars tactical squads,”
he nodded to his own squad and the other two of his Chapter, “right flank.
Remaining squads to the left.”

“Brothers,” he went on, conscious that the enemy stealthers were unlikely to
have withdrawn far. “This could be a trap.” Consulting his data-slate, which
displayed a grainy, low-resolution aerial reconnaissance image marked up with
numerals and symbols, he went on, “Limit of exploitation is Hill 3003, to the
west. Move out in one minute.”

As the Space Marines checked ammunition levels and swapped out depleted
magazines for fresh ones, Sarik consulted his data-slate for an update from
crusade command. Almost a hundred reports had been disseminated since the last
time he had checked, most of which he felt justified in ignoring as they related
to matters outside of his immediate concern. He skimmed reports on the enemy’s
aerospace strength, noting that the crusade had managed to land a small number
of its precious fighter-bomber wings. Understandably, these were being kept in
strategic reserve to be used only when desperately needed. The Imperial Navy
deployment officers and the Departmento Tacticae intelligence advisors
considered launching them into anything but totally empty airspace practically
suicidal.

Noting the fighter-bombers’ call sign, Sarik read on through the list of
reports. Space Marine spearheads to amalgamate—Captain Rumann of the Iron
Hands had ratified that order and the other Space Marine units were moving
towards the rendezvous point even now, meaning Sarik’s would be the last unit
there. The Titans were amalgamating too, preparing for a push further down the
line. The tau were massing beyond River 992, and the Rakarshans had encountered
resistance on its east bank.

At the mention of the Rakarshans, Sarik opened the report, knowing that the
unit was led by his friend Lucian Gerrit. The report was vague, having been
penned in a hurry, but warned that the tau were not the only xenos on Dal’yth
Prime. Lucian’s battlegroup had encountered a group of tall, agile and highly
aggressive alien savages. Tacticae had cross-linked them to troops encountered
on Sy’l’kell at the outset of the crusade, and concluded they were the same
group. Sarik’s gorge rose as he read the grisly account of the aliens consuming
the bodies of the fallen. He promised there and then he would not allow such a
fate to befall even one of the battle-brothers under his command.

Then a minute had passed and the squads were ready to move out. Sarik stowed
the data-slate and unlimbered his boltgun. He took his place at the head of his
squad, which would be the second to move through the low defile around the base
of the rise.

Checking that the two Devastator squads were in position to cover the Space
Marines’ advance, Sarik ordered his warriors forwards.

As Sarik rounded the base of the rise, the land ahead opened up into a dense
patchwork of fields and plantations. Hill 3003 rose from amongst the crops and
trees, and beyond it, glistening silver in the morning light, was River 992.

Beyond the distant river, made hazy and indistinct by the small amount of
vapour still lingering in the morning air, was the city of Gel’bryn. The city’s
towers shone bright in the full light of the sun, and each was revealed to be
gracefully curved in form, almost as if it had been grown rather than
constructed. The tallest of the towers must have been five hundred or more
metres in height, and a myriad of walkways connected each to its neighbour.
Small points of light glinted all around the city, and Sarik guessed that each
was an anti-grav flyer of some sort, or perhaps one of those fiendish,
thinking-machine drones.

Sarik tracked back from the city, locating the enemy troop build-up the
Departmento Tacticae had reported on the western side of River 992. There it
was, a dirty haze marking an area where the tau’s grav-tanks were gathering,
throwing dust up from the dry ground. From this distance, Sarik could make out
very little of the gathering, other than suggestions of multiple armoured
vehicles and the scurrying of infantry at the perimeters. No matter; he would
soon be facing that force, regardless of its strength.

“Sergeant,” Brother Qaja said, nodding towards the extreme left end of the
city. Sarik followed the gesture, tracking along the horizon and locating what
must have been a star port, the skies above it clustered with hundreds of
aircraft. Some were coming in to land, while others were departing, but all were
travelling to or from orbit.

“Reinforcements?” Qaja said.

Sarik studied the scene for several moments as he advanced, noting as best he
could from such a great distance the sizes and types of vessels. “I don’t think
so,” he said. “It looks to me like the tau are evacuating their city, brother.”

“Why would they do such a thing?” Qaja said. “Why would not every citizen
muster to defend his home?”

Sarik’s eyes narrowed as he considered the situation. Qaja was correct, but
only in so far as that was what most enemies would do. Rebels would man their
barricades with men, women and children, while most aliens made no such
distinction between the members of their population. Almost every foe Sarik had
ever fought regarded the defence of hearth and home as sacrosanct, holy ground
for which they would fight and die regardless of the chances of winning. Yet,
here was a tau army clearly gathering to defend the city, while others were
being evacuated rather than mustered to join the defence.

“They are truly alien,” Sarik said. “We cannot know how they will fight or
what drives them to do so. If they are evacuating non-combatants, then perhaps
they believe they have already lost and their warriors intend to make a stand
for the sake of honour.”

“You think they believe in honour, brother-sergeant?” Qaja said.

Sarik nodded as he walked. “I will grant them that, brother,” he said. “Until
or unless they prove me wrong.”

Brother Qaja made no reply, though he appeared less then convinced at the
notion of affording aliens anything akin to honour. The battle-brother merely
hefted his plasma cannon, and fell back into the line of march.

The lead squad, another group of White Scars, had reached a cluster of
boulders as the land ran down towards the distant river, and halted. With a
gesture, Sarik ordered the entire force to halt, and with another to take up
overwatch of the surrounding terrain. Crouching, he opened the vox-net and spoke
to the squad’s sergeant.

“Brother-Sergeant Cheren, report.”

“It’s one of the tau stealthers, brother-sergeant. It appears that he died of
wounds sustained before the rise and was left behind.” Sarik and Qaja shared a
glance at the idea of leaving the fallen behind, a concept that was anathema to
the Space Marines, and especially to the White Scars Chapter, whose people
practised highly ritualised funerary rites and afforded the dead great respect.

“Hold position, brother-sergeant,” Sarik said, before leading his squad
forwards from the column. He was painfully aware that the body might have been
left there as a trap, to distract the Space Marines while a tau force deployed
nearby. There was no honour in it, but he had seen such tactics used before,
especially amongst the mortal followers of the Ruinous Powers.

His boltgun tracking left and right as he advanced, Sarik crossed the open
ground, Brother Qaja at his back all the while, and soon stood over the alien
body. He thought it was the stealther he had hit minutes before, but had no way
of telling for sure.

“They were either fleeing, or it’s a trap,” Sergeant Cheren said. “Either
way, there is no honour in it.”

“Aye, brother-sergeant,” Sarik replied. “Or perhaps both. These tau have
proven tactically flexible. Even if the body was not left here to draw our
attention they may take advantage of the distraction. Get your squad moving, we
have a…”

Sergeant Cheren’s body erupted before Sarik’s very eyes. It happened so
suddenly Sarik saw it almost in slow motion. An entry wound appeared in the
centre of Cheren’s chest armour, the ceramite actually rippling and distorting
around the impact point. Then the sergeant’s power pack shattered outwards as
the projectile exited his body. So drastic were the forces exerted on the
sergeant’s body that it was liquefied inside his armour, reduced to a red gruel
which sprayed outwards from the exit point like a burst in a high-pressure
conduit. The Space Marine behind Cheren was standing directly in the path of
that fountain of gore and his pristine white armour was turned deep red as he
was covered head to foot in the sergeant’s pulped remains.

“
Kuk
…” the blood-splattered Space Marine cursed, reverting
instinctively to his native Chogoran tongue.

“Down!” Sarik bellowed, and the two squads of Space Marines nearby dived for
cover amidst the boulders.

The air was ripped apart as two more hyper-velocity projectiles passed
overhead in quick succession.

“Devastators!” Sarik said into the vox-net. “What do you see? Report!”

“Stand by, brother-sergeant,” came back the voice of the Sergeant Lahmas, the
sergeant of the Scythes of the Emperor Devastator squad. “Tracking contact on
Hill 3003.”

A deafening crack split the air and a hyper-velocity projectile slammed into
the opposite face of the boulder Sarik was sheltering behind. It must have
weighed ten tons, yet it visibly trembled and a jagged fracture appeared on the
rock face right before Sarik’s eyes.