[Gaunt's Ghosts 02] Ghostmaker by Dan Abnett

Author:Dan Abnett
Language: hu
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction. warhammer 40000
Published: 2011-09-28T19:22:57+00:00

NINE

A SIMPLE PLAN

Engines screaming, the imperial troop carriers fell upon the ocean world, Sapiencia.

Like swarms of fat, black beetles shrilling in over the edges of a pond, they assaulted the Bay of Belano. Their combined down-draughts boiled the choppy surface water into foam mist, an embankment of steam three kilometres long and two hundred metres high that stormed forward across the beach rocks and blinded the island’s outer defences.

It entirely hid the merciless wall of solid water driven up under the spray by the concussive force, and this tidal wave exploded across the western sea-fall emplacements of Oskray Island twenty seconds after the steam cloud choked them. Rock and metal and flesh were pulverised, blasted into the air, then sucked back into the basin of the bay as pressures equalised and hydraulic action righted itself. A spume haze hung over the island, clogging the beaches and masking the final, slow approach of the gargantuan troop-ships.

The heavy emplacements higher on the cliffs of Oskray spat fierce salvos down into the mist, or up into the striated clouds where further formations of troop-ships were beginning their final approaches to the island shore. The fire from the batteries, blue and flickering, danced like luminous damsel flies amongst the beetle-like ships. Some craft burst as they were touched, and burned; some dropped, bleeding smoke and trailing lines of debris.

The twenty kilometres of Oskray Island was only partly rock. It was, in point of fact, a cluster of islets, linked as one by the massive industrial fortification built up upon the shoulders of submarine mountains. Behind ocean-blocking walls of stone a hundred metres thick, pump structures, drill towers, flame-belching waste stacks and pylons rose against the sky. The primary target, the great refinery hive of Oskray Island One.

Red hazard lights flashed and hooters started their deafening caterwaul as the jaw-hatch locks of troop-ship Lambda disengaged with a massive leaden thump. Dim light began to pour in from outside as the jaw-sections hinged open. Caffran, tensed tight and ready, knew they were assaulting a sea-bound target, and that the way in for the infantry was up the beach That was the plan. But as the troop-hatch opened, he believed for a moment they had come in too low and it was translucent torrents of water that were spurting into the dispersal deck. He gulped in his breath, held it, but it was only steam and pale light that rushed over him.

The yells of men, of boots racing on metal decking, and of the hooters, were overwhelming.

With fifty others, lasguns raised, he charged out of the hatch mouth, for a second, on the ramp, the dispersal deck noises were swamped by the greater volume of the thundering drop-ships all around.

Caffran could see nothing beyond the men closest to him and the solid atmosphere of mist and smoke. He could smell salt and ozone, oil and thermite.

Then nothing. Rushing silence, roaring dullness, a coldness all over him, enveloping him, dark grey blurs in his eyes.

He was underwater, floundering

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