Stormseer - David Annandale by Warhammer 40K

Author:Warhammer 40K [40K, Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857875013
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

‘Are you sure?’ Temur asked Kusala over the vox.

‘I am. The zadyin arga will destroy the teleporter. We have the rest of the ork heavy armour before us. We don’t have long. Several vehicles look battle-ready. Even if the teleporter is destroyed…’

‘They can still travel here,’ Temur finished.

A cannon shell landed a few metres in front of him. He swerved around it, then turned for another run at the newest tank. The two recent arrivals were sticking close to each other, less for mutual protection, more to use each other as bait for the foe. The main cannons were blasting apart the Mordians from a distance. The side guns were punching into the White Scars as they tried to cripple the vehicles.

The White Scars and the Iron Guard were fighting five tanks again. The main body of the ork infantry would not be long in arriving. And now Kusala was telling him that the number of Battlewagons could easily double. Perhaps in a few minutes. At best in a few hours.

His bike raced towards the tank. His bolters fired at the side gunners. In the space between seconds, Temur weighed his decision.

If he took the brotherhood at desperate speed to the manufactorum, they would be leaving the Iron Guard to a fate that was anything but uncertain. The mortals had courage, tenacity and skill. None of that mattered in the long run against the ork machines. By the time the White Scars returned, the bastion could well be a smoking ruin.

And if he stayed? By Kusala’s own estimation, the Scouts were not strong enough to cripple the ork facility. There would be delay, and there would be losses, but more ork tanks would arrive, and the end would be even more certain.

Closer to the tanks now. He made rapid corrections left and right. Ork bullets screamed overhead. A few struck the front armour of his bike. He kept to the course.

There was no real choice. To stay would result in the further consolidation of ork strength. The White Scars had come to find the manufactorum, destroy it, and from that blow, destroy the orks on this moon. The bastion was here for that purpose too. So it would have to play its role.

He wondered what the difference was between his forced hand and Ghazan’s sense of fate.

Temur and his brothers shot past the left flank of the Battlewagon, strafing it with shells. They killed the side gunners and a handful of orks clinging to the roof of the tank. But the vehicles had arrived with the greenskins covering them like ticks, and the gunners were replaced in an instant.

Temur contacted Meixner. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘the successful prosecution of this war will require sacrifice.’

‘Ours?’

‘Yes. The heart of the greenskins’ operation here is about to be exposed to us. The Khajog’s Stand and the assault squad will remain to assist.’

‘You did warn me of this eventuality.’ There was no bitterness, no irony in Meixner’s voice. He understood. ‘We will hold the orks here,’ he said.

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