Graham McNeill - Courage and Honour

'Aye, good indeed,' agreed Learchus, 'but save your heartfelt gratitude for later, we're on the hunt!'

'He is here?'

'He is here,' confirmed Learchus, pointing through the maze of barrack buildings.

Uriel ducked his head around the corner of the building in time to see Koudelkar Shonai being dragged towards the Orca drop-ship he had seen earlier. A bloody-faced Fire Warrior held a knife to the governor's throat, and hurrying alongside him was a figure Uriel recognised immediately. The tau noble they had captured after the battle at the Shonai.

The tau leader whose Orca drop-ship the Vae Victus had tracked to Praxedes after his escape from the Glasshouse. 'Let's go,' said Uriel.

Colonel Loic blinkedaway the afterimages of the missile's explosion, and coughed up a mouthful of blood and dust. His ears were still ringing from the deafening bang, and he felt warm wetness on his face. He rolled onto his side, dislodging the timber, stone and flakboard that covered him in a mini avalanche. Dust and smoke obscured his view, but sparks fizzed from broken cables. The solitary data-screen that remained unbroken hissed with glowing static.

He groaned in pain, feeling as though he'd been run over by Lord Winterbourne's Baneblade. He coughed another mouthful of blood, and felt a twitch of concern as he noted its brightness. Had he punctured a lung or nicked an artery somewhere inside?

It didn't feel like he'd been too badly hurt, but you never knew with combat injuries.

He looked around, waving a hand in front of his face to clear some of the dust. Ahead was a wall of bright daylight, which was odd considering there had been a solid barrier there only moments ago. What little that remained of the roof groaned ominously, and dust drifted down from cracks in the ceiling.

The rest of the bunker was a slaughterhouse, the remaining walls coated in blood from the ruptured corpses that lay in mangled piles of shredded limbs. Data-servitors still sat at their posts, or at least pieces of them did. Bloody flesh and cybernetic augmentations were scattered around the bunker's wrecked interior like torn rags.

'Oh Emperor's mercy,' he hissed, seeing Captain Gerber and Commissar Vogel buried in a pile of cracked rockcrete and roof timbers. The sound of explosions and gunfire still came from beyond the bunker, but it was muted, as though coming from the bottom of a deep chasm, and Loic wondered if his eardrums had burst. Probably not, he surmised, thinking that he'd be in a lot more pain if they had.

Strange what random thoughts were coming to him now. Was it shock? Some post-traumatic reaction to a near-death experience?

'Pull yourself together, man,' he chided himself, clambering over piles of debris to reach the fallen Lavrentian captain. He stumbled over a collapsed roof spar and fell onto all fours. His hands landed on something soft and warm that gave way beneath his weight. Loic recoiled, horrified as he realised that his hands had landed in the ruptured stomach cavity of Lieutenant Poldara. The young man's face was peaceful and serene, youthful again, and Loic felt a terrible, wrenching grief. Poldara was dead, and he would never have to worry about the ravages of war and time.

'Age shall not weary you, nor the years condemn,' he whispered, the words clearly audible even over the faraway crackle and boom of gunfire and explosions. He wiped his hands on his greatcoat, leaving long crimson smears on the cream fabric. Watching for any more gory pitfalls, he finally reached the two Lavrentian officers.

Vogel was clearly dead, half his skull missing and his brains leaking out over the debris-strewn floor. Loic reached out and placed his fingers on Gerber's neck, and was rewarded with a pulse, weak and thready, but indicative of life.

Carefully, he removed the debris covering the captain, tossing chunks of smashed stone and sandbags to the floor. Gerber coughed and groaned in pain, his eyelids flickering open as he felt Loic's ministrations.

'What… what happened?' asked Gerber.

'I'm not entirely sure, captain,' said Loic, 'but I think we were the target of a well-aimed missile barrage.'

Gerber tried to push himself onto his elbow, but he fell back with a yelp of pain.

'Don't move,' advised Loic. 'I think your arm's broken.'

'I've had worse,' said Gerber. 'Help me up.'

Loic helped Gerber into a sitting position, both men struggling with pain and the sight of so many dead comrades around them. They had thought themselves secure in the bunker, but within moments of the initial tau barrage, the world had exploded in noise and fire.

'Are we still in the fight?' gasped Gerber, his eyes clenched shut with pain.

'I don't know,' said Loic, looking out into the hellish maelstrom of battle beyond.

Gerber took a moment to get his breath, wiping dust and blood from his face with his free hand. A fresh rain of dust and rubble fell from the ruined ceiling as an explosion rocked the Imperator Bridge nearby.

'We need to get out of here,' said Loic. 'Re-establish command and control of what's left.'

'Agreed,' hissed Gerber through gritted teeth as he tried to stand.

Loic bent to help him, and hooked Gerber's arm over his shoulder.

The rear door of the bunker was blocked with tangled steel beams and slabs of fallen masonry, so the two soldiers limped and hobbled towards the open front of the bunker. The dust was settling, but the view from outside was not encouraging.

The tau were all over the defenders, Fire Warriors swarming the outer defences and pushing hard for the second line as heavy tanks provided covering fire and destroyed the redoubts and bunkers one by one. The Imperial lines were bending backwards, and it was clear to both men that they would break in moments.

'It's over,' said Gerber.

'Surely not,' protested Loic. 'We can still win this!'

No sooner were the words of out his mouth than a towering battlesuit slammed down on the rubble before them. Its armour plates were scarred and its head unit was pale blue with a striped pattern on its left side.

A flaming sphere was painted in the centre of its chest panel and upon one shoulder-guard. Two other battlesuits landed a second later as the first raised its weapons, a huge cannon with multiple barrels and a thick tubular device with a hemispherical muzzle.

'It's over,' repeated Gerber.

Uriel bolted fromcover with Learchus right behind him. The scout sergeant, whose name Uriel remembered was Issam, ran alongside Learchus, coagulated blood patterning his shoulder where a shell had clipped him. Their quarry was making a swift retreat to the Orca drop-ship, and Uriel cursed as he saw that they would probably make it before the Ultramarines could catch them.

Koudelkar Shonai was being dragged without ceremony by a single Fire Warrior, while the tau noble jogged alongside him.

'Hurry,' said Uriel. 'All this is for nothing if that noble gets away.'

'You think I don't know that?' hissed Learchus.

A flurry of shots engulfed the three Space Marines as a group of eight Fire Warriors ran from between one of the barrack houses and opened up with a volley of close range fire. Uriel felt the impacts, and pain flared in his midriff as the coolant coils below his breastplate ruptured. He dropped to one knee as howling gales of sonic energy and a swirling blast of light erupted before him. His auto-senses fought to filter out the aural and sonic assault, but it was impossible to filter out the hash of interference completely.

Something smashed into his helmet, and he felt a sharp object stab into his side. The blow didn't penetrate, but Uriel rolled away and came to his feet in one motion, sliding his sword from its sheath as his vision began to clear. The tau warriors threw themselves into the Ultramarines, attacking in a frenzy of clubbing blows and point-blank shots of their stubby carbines. Uriel killed the first with a powerful lunge, dragging his blade back and decapitating another as he came at his flank. Another alien ran at him, and Uriel saw that these tau wore a lighter armour variant to the others.