Death or Glory, page 27
The buggy, which had been the last vehicle of our detachment to enter the compound, almost made it out again before the driver went down to a hail of typically random small-arms fire. This time, however, it was so dense the greenskins could hardly avoid finding a target. The vehicle spun out of control, mowing down several of its attackers as it did so, before crashing into the grey stone wall of one of the buildings. Grenbow and his team just had time to stagger from the wreckage before a horde of howling, axe-wielding greenskins descended on them.
They gave a good account of themselves, all things considered, managing to get off a few shots as the enemy closed, but they never had a chance against so many. A couple of the onrushing greenskins staggered, las bolts impacting on the crude armour they wore, but that was all the militia team was able to achieve before being overwhelmed. In a frenzied display of bestial savagery, my men were literally hacked apart before my horrified eyes.
‘Piers! We need extraction now!’ I voxed.
‘Sorry commissar, we’re a bit bogged down here ourselves,’ Piers replied after a moment. ‘We’ll get someone back there as soon as we can disengage.’ By which time I’d be another collection of bloodied chunks, probably. The orks were turning now, and would have swarmed all over us there and then if one of Grenbow’s still-twitching subordinates hadn’t somehow managed to trigger a grenade he was carrying, in a last desperate act of posthumous vengeance[104]. The sudden explosion took them completely by surprise, blowing a couple off their feet (although I had enough healthy respect for their resilience not to take it for granted that they wouldn’t be getting back up again) and sending them turning back to face this sudden and unexpected apparent threat, with the speed of striking serpents.
That brief moment of distraction was my salvation, or so it seemed at the time. Before I even knew I was moving, I was out of the hatch and running, keeping behind the barrier of burning promethium, and heading for the shelter of the nearest wall. It was only as I gained it that I realised I’d put the crippled Chimera, the raging inferno, and the bulk of the ork host between me and the gate.
At least that afforded me some concealment, however. So long as the orks concentrated on the visible targets, I might be able to slip away unobserved. Tayber had evidently decided to remain behind the armour plate, potting away with the hull-mounted lasguns, while the gunner did whatever damage he could with the heavy stuff. Not enough, in my judgement: it could only be a matter of time before the immobilised vehicle was destroyed. Even as I watched, a party of orks ran forward, carrying demo charges little smaller than the cover of the hatch I’d so recently vacated. Just as it looked as though they were going to clamp them to the hull, they went down, the roar of Demara’s autocannon audible even over the howling of the greenskins and the crackle of the burning fuel.
Engine screaming, the ungainly ork vehicle we’d commandeered so many weeks before charged towards the stranded Chimera, the two gunners laying down fire all around them, clearly intent on reaching the survivors inside. For a moment I felt sick. It seemed my reflexes had betrayed me, and that I’d impulsively put myself beyond the reach of rescue.
That impression lasted no more than a moment, however. Two more of the crude rockets struck the onrushing truck, and a fusillade of bolter and stubber fire clattered off its roughly welded armour plate. Demara pitched backwards, a bloody crater where the tattoo on her cheek had been, most of her brain following the projectile out through the back of her skull. Tamworth seized the trigger even as she fell, attempting to keep up the rate of fire, only to be cut down in turn, what looked like a bolter shell ripping his ribcage apart. I have no idea what happened to the driver, but I strongly suspect it was nothing good. The abused truck flipped over and rolled, crushing a few greenskins as it did so, but not nearly enough for my liking.
‘Look out, sir.’ A lasgun cracked behind me, and I turned, my nose already registering a familiar odour. Jurgen stood there, his lasgun raised, and a greenskin with a large hole through its head was lying face down in the dirt a few paces beyond him. ‘That one nearly had you.’
‘Thank you, Jurgen,’ I said, inexpressibly pleased to see him. No doubt seeing my feet disappear through the hatch he’d simply followed, reasoning that his place was at my side, and under the circumstances I wasn’t about to argue with that. If you’re going to find yourself surrounded by screaming, blood-maddened orks, take my word for it, there’s no one better than a Valhallan to have at your shoulder, and there was no Valhallan I’d rather have than that particular one. Jurgen nodded, glancing at the carnage I’d just witnessed with his usual expression of bovine placidity.
‘You’re welcome, sir. Bit of a mess, isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid it is,’ I said, drawing my chainsword with as much of an air of resolution as I could muster. My laspistol, I noted absently, was already in my other hand, no doubt drawn by reflex as I sprinted from the doomed APC. I glanced around, but there was no sign of any help. The beleaguered Chimera continued to act as a fire magnet, the only thing, I have no doubt, which prevented the surrounding greenskins from charging forwards and swamping it. As it was, ork marksmanship proving just as much of an oxymoron as ever, they seemed to be doing more damage to one another than to the sturdy armour plate, misses and ricochets taking almost as great a toll among their number as the steady and disciplined fire of the besieged defenders. There was no sign of the modified Sentinel, so I was able to hope that Felicia had made it to safety at least.
As so often when death seems inevitable, I found a curious sense of fatalism beginning to overcome me; something I’ve noticed on many occasions, and which I’m certain is a facet of the acute survival instinct which, against all odds and expectation, has left me sitting here almost a century later in a quiet study with a glass of amasec and a data-slate to record these memoirs for posterity. (Not that posterity will ever actually read them, of course, Amberley or someone like her will make damn sure of that, so Emperor knows why I’m even bothering; but since I’ve not been near a confessional since the schola turned me loose on the galaxy all those years ago, and entering one now would probably give Nute[105] an embolism, it’s one way of trying to make sense of it all I suppose.[106]) Anyhow, time and again I’ve noticed that when your chances of living through the next ten minutes seem problematic at best, you tend to shorten your perspective, looking for ways to survive the next few seconds, and if that works the few after that. That probably accounts for the fact that my next move might have seemed counter-productive in the wider context of where we were and what was happening around us, but unquestionably bought us the next few seconds of safety in which to look around for another strategy to prolong our lives by another instant or two.
‘This way,’ I said, heading for the dubious cover of a pile of gutted machine parts, and glancing back at the one-sided battle raging behind us. We scurried along behind the nearest building, and emerged in a relatively quiet space between two more, on the fringes of the open area where the ork vehicles had been parked. Something seemed different about them compared to the examples we’d seen (not to mention blown up or appropriated) in the last few weeks, and I looked a little closer, trying to make out what it was. They were certainly no better maintained than the average, or cleaner, but the armour plate seemed heavier, and most of them had been ornamented in some way. Gaudy banners or grisly trophies hung on poles, or were draped around the weapon mounts, and most of them carried crudely daubed sigils like the ones I’d noticed above the gates. I pointed them out to Jurgen, who, after all, was probably the nearest thing to an expert on these creatures and their customs in the immediate vicinity. ‘What do you make of that?’
My aide shrugged. ‘Nobs,’ he said, as though that explained it. After a moment I recognised the orkish word he’d used before in trying to explain their system of command and organization (which basically boils down to the biggest and nastiest one gives the orders, and everyone else agrees or gets eaten[107], which I suppose isn’t that different to a lot of human institutions when you come to think of it). He pointed to a couple of the banners. ‘There seem to be several different ones here.’ My bowels clenched as the implications of that seemingly casual remark began to sink in.
‘You mean we’ve blundered into the middle of some kind of command post?’ I asked.
My aide nodded. ‘Looks that way,’ he agreed. Before he could elaborate, the door in the building we were standing next to burst open, violently enough for the wood to split, and the biggest, meanest ork I’d set eyes on since landing on Perlia charged out, bellowing, clearly intent on taking on the humans who had been rash enough to invade his headquarters in person. Fully a head taller than the bodyguards flanking him, who were themselves larger and more muscular than any other greenskins I’d yet seen, he loped forward like the vicious predator he was. A formless sense of recognition flickered in the rear of my terror-numbed cortex for a moment, and then everything fell into place.
‘Oh nads,’ I said. ‘It’s bloody Korbul.’ Perhaps it was the sound of my voice, or maybe he scented Jurgen, but that huge, tusked head snapped round to glare in our direction, and with a bellow which shook my very bones, the biggest and nastiest ork in the entire sector charged straight at me.
Time slowed, seeming to stretch every second, as it so often seems to when my combat reflexes kick in. Had I not got my chainsword already in my hand, he might well have overwhelmed me by the power and ferocity of that rush, but all the practice I’d put in aboard our lifepod and the combats I’d been through since we got here came to my aid, and I evaded that first attack by what seemed at the time to be a miracle. I even had time to put a few shots into his torso with my laspisol, and Jurgen managed to crack off a few as well, but for all the good it did, I might just as well have been throwing rotten fruit. The las bolts expended themselves harmlessly against the grinding plates of scrap metal encasing his limbs and torso, and I just had time to register that however crude the armour he was wearing seemed to be it was undeniably effective, before he was on me, striking out with a mechanical claw apparently grafted to one arm of his metallic carapace.
It was only as I ducked away from it, my counterstrike eliciting nothing more effective than a stream of sparks, that the full implications of that hit home. With a thrill of horror even more acute than those I’d experienced so far, I realised that the armour was powered, like something the astartes or the sororitas might wear, and that the other arm boasted a built-in cannon of some sort with a barrel which looked to my panic-stricken eyes large enough to have poked my head inside[108].
If Korbul had summoned up the wit to fire at me, it would all have been over in seconds, but perhaps fortuitously he’d been so overwhelmed with rage and bloodlust that the thought had clearly not occurred to him. So I continued to dodge, hewing away futilely with my shrieking chainsword, searching desperately for a vulnerable point, while the metal-clad behemoth darted after me with a speed and precision completely at odds with its bulk, its metallic claw snapping and slicing like a tyranid lictor, bellowing curses and threats in harsh gutturals which made me very glad I didn’t speak orkish.
‘Jurgen,’ I shouted. ‘For the Emperor’s sake shoot the frakker!’ Not that it would have done the slightest bit of damage of course, but I might have been able to take advantage of the momentary distraction to find an opening or an avenue of escape.
‘I can’t sir.,’ My aide had us both in his sights, and I was certain I could put Korbul’s bulk between us so he could get a clean shot, but something about the way he spoke forestalled me from repeating the order. He would do so if I did, I was certain, but he knew these beasts, and if he thought it was a bad idea… ‘The others will rush us if I do.’
It was only then that I realised the warboss’s entire entourage was hanging back, watching the combat like gamblers around an underhive fighting pit instead of piling in as I’d come to expect their kind to do. Clearly they were reluctant to interfere, although for the life of me I couldn’t see why[109]. That wasn’t really the issue at the time though, the only thing that mattered was winning, and then getting the hell out of there before our audience got bored with passing round the caba nuts and took a hand themselves.
Just about the only thing I could see that wasn’t armoured was his face, so I struck at it, aiming a thrust right between his bloodshot little eyes, deflecting my aim at the last possible moment towards the vulnerable point Jurgen had shown me just above the bridge of his nose. Fast as I was, Korbul was faster, his inhuman speed and ferocity boosted even more by the powered armour he wore, and he blocked the strike easily, grabbing the shrieking blade with the claw thing, actually bellowing with laughter as the sparks flew around us as whirling adamantium teeth met whatever alloy the claw was composed of.
Slowly, despite every iota of strength I could pump into my arm, he began to push the blade back towards me. I flinched, as though ducking away reflexively, and he came on, putting his whole weight behind it, enjoying his sadistic little game like the hate-fuelled scumsucker[110] he was. His face leered into mine as he closed the distance, cloacal breath making me gag, thick strands of drool slithering from the corners of his mouth with each bark of merriment. His hangers-on echoed the sound, although whether from genuine amusement or self-preserving sycophancy I couldn’t have said[111].
‘That’s right. Get a good close look!’ I encouraged him, suddenly slackening my arm and pivoting out of the way of the descending blade, as I’d intended to all along. With my other hand, I rammed the barrel of my laspistol deep into his eye socket as hard as I could, bursting the orbit and spattering myself with mingled blood and goo.
Korbul howled in rage and pain, but before he could even begin to react I pulled the trigger several times. The las bolts ripped through his brain, what there was of it, and burst against the thick metal meant to armour the back of his skull, pureeing the contents in a most satisfactory manner. Not wanting to be crushed to death in the moment of victory, I leapt out of the way, while what felt like a quarter of a tonne of meat and scrap metal subsided to the ground in front of me with the ponderous inevitability of an avalanche.
Silence descended, apart from the crackle of gunfire in the distance, which indicated that, despite all the odds, Tayber was still making a fight of it. If anything, the noise in that direction seemed to have increased. A score of ork faces stared across the handful of metres separating us, all bearing identical expressions of imbecilic astonishment, even by greenskin standards. I began to shuffle backwards.
‘Hold your ground, sir,’ Jurgen advised, following his own counsel. I retrieved my sidearm with a moist sucking sound, and did so. He knew more about greenskins than I did, and he hadn’t steered me wrong yet. ‘If we run now they’ll be on us like fleas on a hound.’
‘And if we stay put?’ I asked grimly.
I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. One of the onlookers, bigger and meaner than most, but still noticeably less impressive than Korbul had been, bellowed what sounded like a command, and pointed in our direction. My aide never moved, however, so neither did I, just flourishing the chainsword a little to clear the detritus off it, and pointing the laspistol at the shouter, hoping it wasn’t too badly gummed up with bits of warboss to fire properly.
‘I’m not sure,’ Jurgen said, which was far from encouraging. ‘But my dad always said–’ His voice was drowned out by another bellow, from a different ork, clearly none too keen on taking orders from this upstart. Within seconds, the whole bunch of them were arguing like juvies in the playzone, and being greenskins it didn’t take long for the dispute to become physical. The first shot was fired a moment or two after that, and within seconds the squabble had become a vicious free-for-all.
‘Ciaphas. Over here!’ a familiar voice called, and I suddenly became aware of Felicia’s power lifter idling near the corner of the building. One of its handling claws was gone, the other bent, and she was grinning wildly. Hosing down the squabbling greenskins with the flamer just for good measure, she stalked across to us, and waved cheerfully from inside the cockpit. ‘That was a pretty good trick with the pistol there. I thought he had you.’
‘So did he,’ I said, trying not to think about how close I’d cut it. ‘That was the whole point.’
‘I’ll show you the picts later,’ she said, the first indication I had that she’d rigged up a data recorder in the cockpit along with the vox, although I suppose being a tech-priest it was pretty much inevitable. And quite handy too when it came to verifying our story, although if I’d known just how far those picts would end up being disseminated, and how much unwelcome attention it would draw to me in the long run, I’d probably have wiped them myself[112]. A thought seemed to occur to her. ‘Those flames seem to be getting rather close to the vehicles. Perhaps we should move.’
‘Perhaps we should,’ I agreed, as the first of the parked buggies detonated behind us. I gestured towards the gate, where the chatter in my commbead suggested Piers had finally arrived with reinforcements and got Tayber out of his box. Despite this welcome intervention, there were still a few stray greenskins wandering around, and the Sentinel was a great deal more bullet-proof than I was. ‘Ladies first.’
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