Steel Daemon by Ian St. Martin

Author:Ian St. Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 2018-09-28T09:21:28+00:00

Part 3

The source of the keening metallic scream made itself known to Crown and the crew of Imperial Son. The side of a hab block exploded in an expanding cloud of dust and rockcrete splinters. A shadow darkened the centre of the cloud, rapidly resolving into a firm shape.

Spiked armour plates covered its every surface, from the corroded cube of black iron at its core to the tips of its six insectoid legs. The foremost of the legs ended in a pair of massive snapping claws raised before it, emitting shrieks of shearing metal as they ground open and closed. It strode through the smoke with an abominable animal grace no machine could possess, fuelled by the essence and infinite fury of the Neverborn.

‘Defiler!’ Jayne called out over the vox.

‘Hatches,’ ordered Crown. ‘Let’s go, lock and engage seals!’

At the centre of the daemon engine, a face of rippling mercury released another blood-curdling scream, its wailing maw stretching wider and wider as the twisting barrel of a battle cannon extended between its misshapen fangs.

‘Incoming!’ Lochna shouted.

Crimson smoke rippled off the Defiler as it fired. A shell forged by means known to none within reality hurtled into Butcher’s Block, ripping a gouge through its right side and shearing the sponson completely away.

‘Right sponson’s gone,’ Jayne breathed. Crown saw smoke billow from the cabin of Butcher’s Block, thinning as its crew fought the fire with suppressant foam. The wounded Leman Russ reversed, angling back to the left to protect its fractured side armour.

‘Morningstar,’ said Crown over the vox. ‘Harvick, I need you to shift and move up on its left. We’re moving right. Let’s split its fire. Butcher’s Block, you’re in this fight so throw some high-ex its way!’

‘Moving,’ replied Harvick. ‘Engaging left side.’

Butcher’s Block fired its battle cannon as it slewed sluggishly backwards. The shot went wide of the Defiler, smashing into the ruins of the hab block behind it. The daemon engine howled, propelling itself forward with incredible speed. Foul warp energies shivered over its body, melting the ground beneath it into steaming black slurry.

‘Let’s go right at it!’ Crown rapped her fist against Zevsin’s back. ‘Load, high-ex. Zev, get me a clear shot on it, no mistakes.’

‘Identified!’ Zevsin called back, manipulating the elevation of the Vanquisher cannon to centre it on the Defiler.

Brydl slammed a high-explosive shell into the cannon’s breech. ‘High-ex up!’

‘Fire!’

‘Sending!’

The shell fell short, skipping up and over the daemon engine as it charged.

‘Damn,’ snarled Crown. She fired the lascannon, knocking the Defiler’s shoulder back but doing no damage. ‘Repeat, get it up!’

‘Clear!’ bellowed Brydl as the shell clanged into the breech.

‘Sending!’

The Defiler lunged to the side, ducking clear as the shell screamed past it.

‘Reload,’ said Crown, checking her periscope. ‘Eyes up, we’ve got more infantry inbound!’

Chaos shock troops spilled into the square from the ruined hab block the Defiler had emerged from. They fired as they moved, careful to keep their distance from the blood-maddened machine. Cultists in battered and mismatched armour leapt forward, firing their weapons and hurling grenades towards the tanks and the squad of Tempestus Scions.

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