S
tormherald hungered
.
It ached with each pounding step, its roiling plasma core burning in its chest as it reluctantly turned its back on the enemy and marched through the streets.
Its way was clear, its path already set. Buildings had been demolished earlier in the week - their foundations blown up and the hab-blocks themselves fallen to rubble - to make way for its passage.
The need to turn around and pour its hatred into the enemy was fierce, a hunter's urge, almost strong enough to overwhelm the Crone's whispers in its mind.
The Crone. Her presence was a savage irritant. Again,
leaned as it walked, seeking to turn with its ponderous, striding slowness. And again, the Crone's claws in its mind forced its body to comply with her intent.
she whispered,
rage faded at her voice. There was something new in her words, something its predator's mind clutched and recognised immediately. A fear. A doubt. A plea.
The Crone was weaker now than she ever had been before.
knew nothing of pleasure or amusement. Its soul was forged in ancient rites of fire, molten metal, and plasmic energy that churned with the ferocity of a caged sun. The closest it came to an emotion approximating pleasure was the rush of awareness and the dimming of its painful anger as enemies died under its guns.
It felt a ghost of that sensation now. It complied with her urgings now, still bound to her control.
But the Crone was weaker.
Soon, she would be his.
N
ightfall found
D
omoska
with her storm-trooper platoon holed up in the ruins of what had once been a hab-block.
Greenskin heavy armour had rolled through and changed all that. Now it was a tumbledown ruin of rockcrete and flakboard, and Domoska crouched behind a low wall, clutching her hellgun to her chest. Strapped to her back, her power pack hummed. The cable-feeds between her hellgun's intake port and the backpack were vibrating and hot.
She was glad the skull-faced Astartes and that prissy adjutant quintus had ordered them back to the city. She didn't want to admit it, but travelling in an Astartes gunship - even just in the bay with the racked jump-packs and attack bikes - had been a thrill.
She was less delighted with her platoon's assigned position in the urban war, but she was a storm-trooper, the Legion's finest, and she prided herself on her devotion to duty without raising a complaint.
With the bulk of Imperial forces in slow, fighting withdrawals and protracted holding actions, units across the city were tasked with lying in wait as the orks advanced, or stalking past undetected to take positions behind the enemy.
Across Helsreach, it was almost uniformly veteran outfits and storm-trooper squads tasked with these movements. Colonel Sarren was using his best soldiers to achieve the most difficult operations.
And it was working.
Domoska would have preferred to be safely crouched behind a barricade, with Leman Russ tanks in support, but such was life.
'Hey,' Andrej whispered as he ducked next to her. 'This is better than sitting on our arses in the desert, yes? Yes, it is, that's what I think.'
'Be quiet,' she whispered back. Her auspex returns were coming back clear. No enemy heat signatures or movement nearby. Still, Andrej was being annoying.
'The last one I gutted with my bayonet, eh? I am tempted to go back for his skull. Sand it down, wear it on my belt like a trophy. That would get me much attention, I think.'
'It would get you shot first, most likely.'
'Hm. Not the right kind of attention. You are too negative, okay? Yes, I said it. It is true.'
'And I said to be quiet.'
Miraculously, he was. The two of them moved on, keeping crouched and low, moving from cover to cover. Sounds of battle were coming from the adjacent street - Domoska could hear the guttural roars and piggish snorts of embattled orks.
'This is Domoska,' she whispered into her hand-vox. 'Contact ahead. Most likely the second group that passed us an hour ago.'
'Acknowledged, Scout Team Three. Proceed as instructed, with all due caution.'
'Yes, captain.' Domoska clicked her vox off. 'Ready, Andrej?'
Andrej nodded, crouched next to her once again. 'I have three det-packs left, okay? Three more tanks must die. Then I get that caffeine the captain promised.'
The holographic
table
told its tale with reassuring accuracy. Sarren could not look away, despite how staring at the flickering light-images stung the eyes after a while.
The wave was breaking.
His bulwark units were digging in and holding their ground. Already, the pincer platoons were moving into position behind the first horde of invaders, ready to drive them forward and crush them between the hammer and anvil.
Sarren smiled. It had been a fine day.
J
urisian had not
moved from his position in almost twenty-four hours.
He had said he would need over a week, and closer to two. He no longer believed this. This would take weeks, months… perhaps even years.
The codes that kept the impenetrable bunker doors sealed were beautiful in their artistry - clearly the work of many masters of the Mechanicus. Jurisian feared no living being, and had slain in the name of the Emperor for twenty-three decades. This was the first time he had loathed his duty.
'I need more time, Grimaldus,' he had spoken into the vox several hours before.
'You ask for the one thing I cannot give,' the Reclusiarch had answered.
'This might take me months. Perhaps years. As the code evolves, it breeds sub-ciphers that - in turn - require dedicated cracking. It breeds like an ecology, always changing, reacting to my intrusions by evolving into more complex systems.'
The pause had been laden with bitten-back anger. 'I want that cannon, Jurisian.
Bring it to me.'
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