Assault on Black Reach by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 1844167186
Publisher: The Black Library
Published: 2009-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

PHASE FOUR

SLAY THE BEAST

IULUS CRANKED A round into the breech of his bolt pistol and smiled grimly at his battle-brothers.

His squad, the Immortals, were sitting around their sergeant, secured in their battle-harnesses in the troop hold of a Rhino APC. The bulky, slat-nosed vehicle ground on thick tracks over the shifting Black Reach sands at full throttle. Engines gunned to maximum bellowed through the metal hull, the troop hold rattling vigorously with the resonance. The Space Marines exhibited no distress, having undertaken numerous similar hell-for-leather deployments before.

They had left Ghospora Hive four hours previously and were hurtling at full speed as soon as they’d passed the gate. Once the message that Sulphora was under attack had been conveyed to Captain Sicarius, Iulus and his squad were ordered to the defence of Ghospora’s sister hive immediately. Praxor, as the officer in charge and with all the siege deterrents in place, was to remain behind, much to the sergeant’s chagrin. It seemed to Iulus that Praxor’s views about their captain were changing too.

Iulus gave them no heed; to him, one battlefield was much the same as another.

‘How close are we to the gate, Brother Glavius?’ he asked the driver through the Rhino’s internal comm-feed.

The response was crackly and fraught with static. Glavius sounded slightly preoccupied. ‘Approximately three thousand metres, sir.’

‘How far are the greenskins from the wall?’ Iulus continued, amber strip lights washing his bald pate and limning his armour.

‘Approximately two thousand three hundred metres.’

‘Then we had best make haste.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Iulus cut the link and turned to his battle-brothers. ‘Are you ready for hell again, my Immortals?’ he asked them.

‘Aye!’ the response was resounding and in unison.

‘Courage and honour,’ Iulus growled, and his warriors echoed him.

Disengaging his harness so he could stand and reach for the fire point in the roof, Iulus muttered, ‘Let’s see what we’re facing…’

The sergeant threw open the Rhino’s top hatch, allowing light, air and dust to flood in. Squinting as he hooked up his rebreather mask, Iulus stood up fully and emerged from the fire point.

Over two kilometres out, Sulphora loomed like a jagged, black knife rammed into the crust of the planet. The sun was high in an ochre sky and threw harsh red light onto every facing surface, casting it in the hue of blood. Defence lasers and battle cannons emplaced on the walls shrieked and boomed in unison, the tremors reaching the Rhino all the way across the sand plain. Small-arms fire and heavier support guns rippled along ramparts and atop watch towers.

Though smaller than its neighbour, Sulphora was almost a carbon copy of Ghospora Hive, flash moulded into existence by an unimaginative engineer or mason-artisan, pock-marking Black Reach’s surface just like all the others.

An immense gate loomed ahead, stark and prosaic. The flat, black slab of buttressed metal was grinding open slowly on immense gears. The Rhino would only need a crack to slip through.

‘Magnoculars,’ Iulus ordered, reaching down into the troop hold and coming up with the device in his hand. He surveyed the upcoming battle theatre through the scopes.

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