The Beast Arises

Valefor’s auto-senses brought to him the insistent bellows of officers and the terrified shouts of dying Guardsmen. Many of the Astra Militarum infantry were breaking ranks, fleeing towards the distant lip of the basin. Commissars did their best to prevent the retreat becoming a rout — the Blood Angel could hear them exhorting their men to keep weapons and packs, ordering them to drag their heavy bolters and lascannons, autocannons and mortars through the undulating dunes of ash and dirt.

A slew of rocks and earth was building up against the walls of the hollow, forming a ramp for some of the vehicles to drive over while men clambered through the churning debris. Many disappeared beneath the surface, while others were bloodily crushed by rolling boulders or suffocated by erupting clouds of dust.

‘Our forces are clear, captain.’ Marbas was at Valefor’s shoulder, golden armour coated with dark grey ash. He waved a hand towards red-liveried Rhinos, Predators and Land Raiders just visible through the whirling dust-storm. ‘What are your orders?’

Valefor could see that the chasm was now nearly fifty metres wide. Several of his Land Speeder crews had already taken it upon themselves to act as lifeboats, skimming dangerously close to the rolling stones and earth, laden with Guardsmen clinging to every handhold. Valkyries and Vendettas in the colours of the Imperial Navy and the Coltain XV Air Dragoons skimmed to and fro, their hoverjets kicking up even more ash and soot. The men and women aboard hauled up as many fellow soldiers as they could, filling their troop compartments to bursting. Here and there brave pilots set their machines down so that wounded soldiers could be loaded aboard. Valefor saw a Vendetta crushed like a rations can as a boulder twice the size of a troop transport tumbled into it.

‘Get the Thunderhawks, rapid evacuation.’ Valefor watched as a ring of drop pods vanished into the depths. He had landed in one just a few hours earlier.

He turned and waded back down into the basin. His auto-senses flickered through various modes until they settled on thermal, picking out the fleeing men and women like flares at night. A gaggle of soldiers struggled towards him a few metres away. The swirling ash was like quicksand, dissolving underfoot. Valefor heaved the closest man out of the mire as easily as an adult lifts a child, almost throwing him towards the basin’s edge. Another cradled a broken arm, blood staining his light blue uniform.

Valefor saw the injury and knew that the soldier would not fight again. He stepped past, ignoring the man’s pleas for help. Other Blood Angels followed, advancing into the raging storm to help the beleaguered Imperial Guardsmen.

‘Concentrate on the uninjured,’ Valefor voxed to his companions. The mounting dirt was heaped up almost to his knees. The captain kicked himself free and looked around at the devastation. From the long-range broadcasts on the vox he knew that their predicament was far from unique. ‘We’re going to need every able-bodied soldier.’

Chapter Eight

Ullanor — low orbit

Once more, dear friend, once more. Now is the moment.

Nearly all of the Cult Mechanicus personnel were already on Ullanor or in atmospheric transit. Aboard the Cortix Verdana the eruption of surface defence systems burst across the sensors as a stream of alerts and surveyor spikes. With two-thirds of his divisible consciousness plugged directly into the assessor arrays to monitor the ongoing landings, Gerg Zhokuv felt it like a burning sensation racing through his being.

‘It is… astounding,’ said Laurentis, gazing at the images arranged on the visual displays. Hundreds of installations appeared, massive thermal plumes and energy signatures like celebration lights flickering on the screens. Around the cities the force fields gleamed, encompassing entire settlements. ‘Not an attack moon. An attack planet?’

‘Thousands of soldiers are dying,’ Delthrak snapped in response to his fellow tech-priest’s enthusiasm. ‘Our assault is crumbling before our eyes.’

The surge of signals from orbital and ground-based data-feeds crackled lightning-like through Zhokuv’s synapses, the equivalent to a blinding, deafening pulse. They emerged in a wave from a battery of outposts almost directly below the Martian ship’s orbital arc.

‘We are being targeted!’ the dominus roared across the vocal and sub-aural channels of the war-forge.

‘By what?’ inquired Delthrak, tapping into the data-stream.

Zhokuv did not have to reply.