Armageddon Omnibus by Jonathan Green

Author:Jonathan Green [Green, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

TWO

THE DEVASTATION OF SOLEMNUS

Twelve years ago...

From the bridge of the mighty battle-barge Divine Fury, Marshal Brant of the Black Templars Chapter and the other assembled crusaders looked down on the cloud-wreathed world of Solemnus and at the orbital laser strikes igniting the atmosphere above the largest continent on the planet below. From the Divine Fury's position in high orbit, the coruscating explosions looked like blossoming crimson flowers amidst the dense white cloud cover, incongruously beautiful considering the abominable sacrilege to which they were a testament.

Through the armacrys glass of the oriel window the Space Marines could see the ugly, angular shapes of the alien vessels – no more than rusting conglomerations assembled from chunks of metal debris. They were circling the wrecks of orbital defence platforms like piranhas around a fresh kill.

Several of the larger predatory craft hung in geosynchronous orbit over the broiling cloud beneath them. Beams of rippling energy blasted from the gaping maws of their blunt, archeosaur-headed prows, piercing the cumulonimbus with their intense laser barrage and boiling the water-laden air around them.

Watching the ork assault, Brother-Apothecary Colber felt hatred burn in his heart. But behind the all-enclosing mask of his gleaming white helmet, his expression remained surprisingly impassive – thanks to the nerve-shredding wound dealt him by a manta-gaunt on the ocean-world of Eswulus twenty-seven years before, three years before he had been elevated from the rank of neophyte-medic to the status of full Apothecary initiate.

But righteous fury still blazed inside Colber. From the moment he saw the shark-ships dealing out death to the chapter world below, he made a personal vow that he would not rest until every last one of the vile aliens had been expunged from existence, whether by his hand or others.

'Sigismund's sword!' Brant roared, his cry of anger and heartfelt anguish reverberating from the cathedral nave of the battle-barge.

Every one of the marshal's senior officers and attendants aboard the bridge with him uttered their own disbelieving oaths at the sight that appalled them through the viewing port in front of them.

How had the orks been able to home in on the one place on the planet worth attacking so quickly and so accurately?

The greenskins were renowned for their lack of forethought. What power had allowed them to locate the site of the ancient chapter keep with such deadly speed?

Ultimately the alien armada would have found the keep, their own crude communications system picking up comm traffic from the ancient bastion, but the Divine Fury had been tracking the ships ever since the Lugnasad Crusade had dropped out of the warp at the edge of the Solemnus system. They had been only a matter of hours behind the invading xenos fleet.

What dread ability did the aliens possess? Had they looted some devastatingly powerful doomsday weapon from another vessel... perhaps one of the drifting derelicts they were prone to colonize as they drifted through space, dropping in and out of the warp at the whim of who knew what powers, carried unguided on the currents of the Sea of Souls?

'Helm, lock in an intercept course.

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