James Swallow - The Flight of the Eisenstein

doleful droning dirges of the enemy. Crossing a shal­low incline, the captain deliberately stepped out of line and stomped on a fallen speaker horn where it had fallen from a support pole. The device sparked and fell silent.

There, lord/ said the officer.

It was a flat hexagon set deep in the grey mud, the clean shade of ferrocrete not more than a few years old. Pits were being dug in the facia of it from bolt rounds as Death Guard sharpshooters sniped from cover. As the young Astartes had said, the wicked bar­rels of the quad-guns were spitting an endless stream of tracer out over the approaches. A handful of bro­ken bodies in the killing zone showed where battle-brothers had advanced and died in the attempt. Temeter frowned. 'Shot and shell won't do the deed. Bring up the men with flamers and plasma weapons.'

The order was relayed and a troop of Death Guard carrying inferno guns came forward. Temeter tossed his combi-bolter to the young officer and beckoned another man closer. 'Your torch, give it to me.' The captain took the warrior's flamer and shook it, hear­ing the satisfying slosh of a near-full tank of liquid promethium. 'Bolters, draw their attention. Flamers, give them the heat.'

The Astartes opened fire and as Temeter expected, the heavy quad-guns inched around to track on them. His men understood the plan without the need for him to lay it out in detail. The moment the quads were depressed, the Death Guard with flamer and plasma weapons crested their cover and sent jets of superheated gas and burning fluid washing over the sides of the bunker and into the interior. The defend­ers couldn't range the guns back fast enough, and

within moments, Temeter had led his men to the very wall of the low blockhouse. For good measure he had a sergeant toss a fist of krak grenades through the aiming slot and then projected himself up and over the bunker roof.

Temeter ran and dropped down into the S-shaped entry tunnel, smashing a hooded trooper into the fer­rocrete with an ugly crack of bone. He heard the confusion inside the dugout and waded into it. Within, black smoke and licks of guttering fire clung to the walls and the heat radiating from the thrum­ming quad-guns was thick. The captain triggered the borrowed flamer and hosed it across the space before him, a hissing red whip of flame carving through the air at chest height. Men became torches and boxes of unspent ammunition in compartments below cooked off in blaring detonations. One of the Isst-vanian soldiers ran at him, shrieking and aflame, and pulled Temeter into an embrace. The captain let the flamer drop from his grip and ripped the man in two, tearing him apart. He beat out the flames and gri­maced as the rest of his troop waded in and finished the task.

The bunker silenced, Temeter glanced into the tun­nel mouths that branched downward from it. 'Seal all of these,' he ordered. 'We don't want rats popping up behind us after our line advances past this point.' Without the roar of the cannons, once again the cap­tain became aware of the reedy caterwauling issuing from a vox-speaker. He punched it into pieces with his fist. 'Destroy those repeaters wherever you see them,' Temeter continued. That oath-forsaken noise is damaging my calm.'

'Sir!' called one of the men, pointing out through the gun slit.

Temeter saw a huge shadow dropping towards the horizon on pillars of retro-rocket fire, and then felt the earth tremble like a struck bell. Every Astartes in the bunker left the floor for a split second, and he heard the ferrocrete roof crack with the Shockwave. The cap­tain peered out and saw a massive cylinder standing upright in a shroud of steam, some distance beyond the zone where the drop-pods had put down. It was easily the size of a hive-city habitat block, guidance fins still glowing cherry-red with the heat of re-entry. There came a mighty moan of stressed metals and the sides of the cylinder fell away, trailing flexible pipes and streams of white vapour. From inside the monstrous drop-capsule came the hooting call of a battle-horn, and then planes of steel and iron emerged from the smoke to become a colossus bristling with armour and guns. The ground resonated with each thunderous footfall as the Imperator-class Titan strode out towards the Choral City.

'Dies Irae', said Temeter, naming the massive war machine. 'Our cousins from the Legion Mortis have decided to join our outing.' He allowed himself to marvel at the huge battle construct, then shook it off. 'Signals/ he called, 'contact the Irae's princeps and update him on the battle situation.'

The young Astartes officer handed Temeter back his combi-bolter and frowned. 'Lord, there is a concern with the vox.'

'Explain,' he demanded.

'We're having difficulty making contact on some channels, including the feed to the Titan and our ships in orbit.'

Temeter glanced up. Are the locals jamming us?'

The Astartes shook his head. 'I don't believe so, cap­tain. The drop-out is too selective for that. It's as if…

Well, it's as if certain vox frequencies have just been switched off.'

He accepted this with a brisk nod. 'We'll work around it, then. If the problem gets worse, then inform me. Otherwise, we proceed with the attack plan as determined.' Temeter bounded out of the cloying air of the dead bunker and strode forward. 'On to the Choral City,' he called. A vast shadow hove above him and the captain looked up to see the underside of the Dies Irae's foot as it passed over him, descending to fall upon another bunker some dis­tance ahead. The heavy impacts of artillery were starting to converge, coming down in twists of smoke. 'Death Guard!' he called, shouldering his bolter, 'we'll let the giant take the brunt of the big guns. Into the trenches, brothers. Sweep the ground clean of these rebellious scum!'

Carya looked up as the brass leaves of the bridge iris whispered open to admit Garro and his two warriors. The man shot a quick, nervous look across at the woman Vought and then put up the mask of sullen authority that he had worn in the landing bay. 'Battle-captain on the bridge,' he intoned, and saluted.

Garro accepted the honour with a nod. 'Ceremony was appeased down below, Master Carya. Let's not overburden ourselves with it here, and stick to the necessities instead, yes?'

As you wish, captain. Are you going to take the conn?'

He shook his head. 'Not wfthout good reason.' Garro took in the layout of the ship's command chamber. It was unornamented, as was fitting to the lean and spare intentions of a vessel in the service of the Death Guard. Unlike some starships, where

decorative panels of wood or metal covered the walls, the Eisenstein's conduits and workings were bare to the eye. Twisted snarls of cables and piping ranged around the bridge space, clustering around cogitator consoles and viewports. They reminded Garro of the gnarled roots of ancient trees.

Vought seemed to catch on to Garro's train of thought. 'This vessel may not be pretty, but it has a strong heart, captain. It's been an unswerving servant of the Emperor since the day it left the Luna ship­yards, before I was born.' He noticed how she was careful not to look directly at his injured leg. Even under his power armour, the stiffness in his gait made the aftermath of his recent injury obvious.

Garro put a hand on the central navitrix podium, studying the etheric compass enclosed in a sphere of glass and suspensor fields. A discreet gunmetal plaque fixed to the podium's base showed the ship's name, class and details of the frigate's launching. Nathaniel read it to himself and felt amusement tug at his lips. 'Fascinating. It seems the Eisenstein took to space in the same year I became an Astartes.' He glanced at Vought. 'I have a kinship with her already'

The deck officer returned his smile, and for the first time Garro felt a moment of genuine connection with a member of the crew.