03 - Savage Scars (22 page)

As the crisis team came in to land, the source of the firing came into view.
In the ruins of an outlying agricultural building the heavy bolter sprayed death
in a wide arc. The stream of tracers followed the tau as they bounded forwards,
several rounds clipping the battle suits. The command centre resounded to the
harsh metallic thuds and clangs, but the tau pressed on, unharmed.

The next sound was that of Cali’cha issuing last-second orders to his
teammates. Brielle could not understand his words, although their meaning was
universal.

The view from the battle suit as it closed towards the enemy position jolted
and swung crazily as the tau evaded incoming fire. Then the crisis team was in
range, and a targeting reticule appeared in the centre of the projection,
hovering just above and behind the spluttering muzzle flare of the heavy bolter.

A missile streaked out from behind the crisis team leader’s field of vision,
and rose rapidly into the air. Within a second it was streaking downwards, its
predicted trajectory etched in the glowing line through the air of the command
centre. Then it struck, and the gun position disappeared in a blinding flash.
Seconds later the heavy bolter’s ammunition started to cook off, filling the
ruins of the building with whip-crack flashes.

The crisis team pressed onwards, swooping in amongst the ruins as the last of
the heavy bolter’s rounds crackled and fizzed across the ground. The view point
tipped downwards as Cali’cha looked down at the dead gunner, evidently keen to
afford the command staff a view.

The breath caught in Brielle’s throat as the gunner’s ruined body resolved in
the air in front of her. He wore power armour, painted white with red detailing
in what could only have been the livery of the White Scars Chapter. His face was
almost entirely gone, just blood-smeared bone and hair visible as dead eyes
stared upwards at the Space Marine’s executioner.

“You see, Mistress Brielle?” Aura said sadly. “The Space Marines are far from
undefeatable…”

The envoy’s words were cut off as the air was filled with the unmistakable
sound of massed boltguns being fired from nearby. Rounds clattered loudly from
Cali’cha’s battle suit and sparks danced across the field of vision. The view
point swung across to the left towards a second ruin, where a line of
white-armoured figures was advancing on the tau, weapons blazing.

The battle suit pilot issued a calm order, and the team leaped backwards, the
energy weapons mounted on their rigs’ arms spitting incandescent beams of
blinding blue fire towards the enemy. One went down, and several others appeared
to have been wounded, but still the line came on, the night air filled with
rapid-fire death.

Then the command centre was filled with a savage war cry, several dozen of
the tau manning the control stations visibly flinching before the terrifying
sound. Cali’cha panned further left, in time to see a chainsword-wielding,
white-armoured figure emerging from the darkness. The warrior’s screaming blade
lashed outwards and severed the arm from the battle suit of one of Cali’cha’s
team mates, before leaping forwards to drive the weapon straight into the square
sensor block atop the armoured torso.

The channel howled with the sound of the chainsword’s teeth grinding through
the battle suit’s systems, and an instant later the death scream of the pilot
joined it. Then the channel went abruptly silent. Brielle could not tell whether
the pickups had been destroyed or the tau below had severed the connection in
order to spare the viewers from the terrible sound.

“Savages…” Aura said, glancing sideways towards Brielle. “So callous, and
brutal.”

Brielle made no reply, her eyes fixed on the projection. The crisis team had
been caught in an anarchic melee, and were desperately seeking to back away from
their enemy. The field of view swung back to the right, showing the first line
of white-armoured Space Marines charging in to join the fray. A second member of
Cali’cha’s crisis team was pulled down as he attempted to engage his suit’s
thrusters, one Space Marine gripping a mechanical leg while another used a bolt
pistol to hammer shot after shot into the jet’s innards.

The battle suit’s propulsion system erupted in seething energies as a
bolt-round bored through to its generator. The Space Marine pulling the suit
downwards towards the ground was thrown clear by the explosion, though his
armour was visibly damaged by the energies, his left shoulder plate torn off as
he came upright again. The second Space Marine backed away, but continued to
pump rounds into the writhing battle suit until finally its torso split wide
open under the relentless barrage and the pilot inside was pulped to a bloody
mess.

“Mon’at…”
Aura said sadly, as Cali’cha finally broke clear and the
scene of devastation receded below him.

“He is alone,” Naal said. “His team is reduced to one. It is a sad fate
indeed for a servant of the Greater Good.”

Brielle nodded, though in truth she had no sympathy for the surviving
warrior. His commanders had drastically underestimated the Space Marines if they
thought them so easily defeated. She had even tried to warn them…

“Reinforcements,” Aura said, and the projection was filled by the scene of a
dozen more battle suits swooping in to join Cali’cha. The air filled with the
Space Marines’ war cries and the deafening report of boltguns, and battle was
joined again.

Sergeant Sarik loosed a feral grunt as he yanked his screaming chainsword
from the torso of the ruined battle suit, bracing an armoured boot against its
groin as he pulled the weapon clear. The blade was coated in purple fluid and
its teeth almost clogged with small chunks of the pilot’s flesh. Raising the
chainsword to a guard position, Sarik looked around for another foe.

A sharp explosion sounded from nearby as Sarik’s battle-brothers finished off
the second of the battle suit team, and a third was lifting high overhead on
hissing blue jets.

“Regroup!” Sarik bellowed. “On me!”

Within moments, Sarik’s warriors had gathered at his side and Sergeant
Tsuka’s squad was inbound, loosing a hail of fire at the retreating battle suit
as they came. The scene was one of utter devastation, the Imperial Guard’s
bombardment of the settlement on the nearside of River 992 having ruined every
structure and cast flaming debris over a wide area.

“We’ll need more squads moved up fast, brother-sergeant,” Tsuka said when he
reached Sarik’s side. “It appears the enemy are attempting to probe the Guard
lines.”

It was only by repeated Space Marine combat patrols throughout the area
bordering the northern loop of River 992 that the tau had been held at bay.
General Gauge knew that the Imperial Guard’s possession of the area beyond the
river was by no means secured, and it would take only a determined enemy thrust
to disrupt the entire area of operations. Captain Rumann had approved the
patrols, which had been in action throughout the night. Significant progress had
been made, the patrols keeping the enemy away from the Guard as they moved their
heavier units forward.

“Sergeant Rheq,” Sarik said into the vox-net as he opened a channel to the
Scythes of the Emperor contingent leader. “Sarik. What is your status?”

Sergeant Rheq’s reply was half drowned out by the sound of gunfire in the
background, the Space Marines’ bolt-rounds competing with the tau’s energy
rifles. Then the hissing streak of a missile cut across the channel, a muffled
explosion sounded, and the tau weapons fell silent. “Grid three-alpha-nine
secure, Sarik,” the Scythes of the Emperor squad leader replied. “Enemy probe
neutralised.”

“Good,” Sarik replied. “Sergeant Rheq, can you spare two or perhaps three
squads?” Although technically Sergeant Rheq’s superior under the terms of the
Space Marines’ contribution to the Damocles Gulf Crusade, Sarik knew diplomacy
would get him a lot further than rank in multi-Chapter operations.

“I can spare two tactical and two Devastator combat squads,” Sergeant Rheq
replied. “That’s including three heavy bolters and two tubes. Is that
sufficient, brother-sergeant?”

Sarik’s eyes scanned the dark skies above the river, where he caught sight of
another group of battle suits zeroing in on his position. “I am sure it will be,
Rheq,” Sarik said. “My thanks.”

Closing the channel to the Scythes of the Emperor leader, Sarik opened a
transmission to all Space Marine squad leaders in the area. “All commands,” he
said. “Enemy heavy infantry multiple inbound on grid seven-theta-nine.”

A ream of acknowledgements came instantly back from the Ultramarines and Iron
Hands squad leaders operating in adjacent grids, each promising immediate
reinforcement of Sarik’s section of the front.

There was time for one last batch of brief orders to Sarik’s squads before
the enemy battle suits touched down in the lee of a ruined building one hundred
metres to the south-east. Bitterly won experience had taught Sarik that the tau
battle suits preferred to keep their distance, bounding into weapons range,
unleashing a torrent of fire and then retreating to cover before a
counter-attack could be staged. But they could be beaten, as Sarik had
discovered. The tau were highly accomplished technically, but they displayed an
almost paralysing fear of close assault that could be used to blunt their
advances and counter their technological trickeries.

Leaving a Devastator squad to cover the dead ground, Sarik led his warriors
into a wooded area that ran down to the river, passing the ruin the battle suits
had touched down behind.

“The third moon at the false dawn,” Sarik said. Both of the squads
accompanying him were of the White Scars Chapter, meaning he could use the
battle-cant to impart information far more efficiently, and secretly, than he
could with the larger, composite force.

Following Sarik’s battle-cant order, the White Scars spread out into two long
columns. Such a formation afforded rapid movement through the dark, dense
terrain within the plantation, and allowed for superior arcs of fire. Though the
White Scars were born of the nomad tribes of the plains of Chogoris, they were
superior warriors even in the dense, wooded plantation. Their white-armoured
forms took on the aspect of ghosts moving implacably through the dark woods,
backlit by the occasional explosion or streak of tracer fire from beyond.

The sounds of artillery and gunfire receded as the White Scars pressed into
the plantation, though the vegetation caused the sounds to echo unpredictably.
Something caused Sarik to slow down, some inkling that something was not quite
right. He halted, and gestured for the silent order to be passed down the line.
Within seconds, the two squads had stopped moving, each Space Marine stood
motionless against the night.

Then Sarik realised what it was that was niggling at his subconscious mind.
To his enhanced senses, the complex but entirely natural aromas of the fruit
trees tasted somehow… tainted, as if some other substance had been mixed in with
them. Or, he realised, as if the juices of the fruit were being used to mask
something else…

Sarik made a hand-gesture warning to alert the battle-brothers of a potential
ambush. He took another deep breath, and this time he was sure. The fruit scents
were being deliberately employed to mask something entirely different, something
oily and alien.

Sarik raised his bolter and scanned the ground up ahead. The plantation was
well tended, so there was very little in the way of ground cover in which an
ambusher could conceal himself. Sarik tracked first left, then right, seeing no
sign of an enemy using what little cover the tall tree trunks would offer. Then
a gentle gust of wind sighed through the plantation, carrying with it a cocktail
of smoke, cordite, blood and…

Sarik froze, forcing every muscle in his body to remain still. Though he kept
his eyes locked on the path ahead, he knew that his enemy was directly above,
suspended in the canopy.

Sarik breathed again, and this time there was no mistaking the oily scent of
alien skin. It could only have been the alien savages his friend Lucian had
reported. His gorge rising, he recalled the promise he had made himself when he
had first read of these aliens’ repulsive practices. Not a single one of his
warriors would suffer such a fate.

Not wishing to give the alien ambusher any clue that he was aware of its
presence, Sarik continued tracking his raised weapon across the ground up ahead,
but his eyes were not scanning the ground, but the tree canopies. It was only
when an air-bursting explosion half a kilometre distant cast the entire scene in
a brief, flickering glow, that he caught sight of a mass of bodies suspended
high up in the trees to the right.

Guessing the alien in the canopy directly above him was a sentry for the
larger ambush group up ahead, Sarik made his decision. In a single, fluid motion
he bent his arm at the elbow and fired a burst directly into the air. The bolts
struck flesh, and exploded an instant later, showering Sarik with a fine rain of
oily gore.

Proceeded by the snapping of branches and the rustling of leaves, a ragged
mass of limbs and quills slammed to the ground in front of Sarik. He had no time
to waste with an examination, but a brief glance confirmed that this alien was
not a tau. It must be one of the carnivores Lucian had faced the previous night.

“The night-howler!” Sarik bellowed in battle-cant. “Swooping from the peak!”

He had never used that particular phrase before, but the beauty of using
battle-cant was that his warriors could infer his meaning with reference to the
culture of Chogoris. Night-howlers were creatures of legend. According to the
old tales, they had once lurked in the equatorial mountains, waiting for passing
travellers whose bodies they would drag away to consume in their caves.

Sarik was up and firing as his warriors pounded forwards to his side. His
shots slammed into the canopy up ahead, and without needing to be told his
warriors followed his example, adding the weight of their fire to his own. The
throaty
thump thump thump
of a heavy bolter opened up from the right
flank, and an entire tree was torn to shreds, along with the three aliens that
had waited in its canopy.