On Wings of Blood Read online

  ‘Yes, sir. Channel open,’ said Ness.

  ‘Sergeant Huddock, did you see what hit you?’ asked Graves.

  ‘Negative, sir, but Bates here insists… I’m sorry, ignore him, commander. He’s seeing things,’ reported Sergeant Huddock.

  ‘Spit it out, sergeant,’ said Graves.

  ‘Sir, my wingman insists he saw an arm and a head pass us by,’ said Huddock hesitantly.

  ‘Confirmed, commander,’ said Ness. ‘Reports coming in from Gryphonnes Five and Seven. Five claims to have been hit by a dismembered torso. Seven narrowly avoided what she thinks was a servitor cargo carriage.’

  ‘A torso?’ asked Graves.

  ‘Yes, sir. A direct hit to the cockpit. No damage,’ said Ness.

  ‘Well, it seems we may have found some of the magos’ mining servitors,’ said Graves.

  ‘What could have done this, sir? Mirehawks?’ asked Ness.

  ‘I don’t think so. They don’t come down this low. Tell Gryphonne Four to stay the course. We’ll be heading back soon. I don’t want to stay down here any longer than we have to. Let’s take it steady.’

  The Valkyries levelled out and reduced speed. At this low altitude, visibility was drastically reduced and the group were forced to take regular evasive action as they encountered more parts of the sundered biomechanical miners.

  ‘This is strange, commander,’ said Ness.

  ‘That’s quite the understatement, corporal.’

  ‘No, well, yes, sir, but that’s not what I mean. The servitors, they should be falling to the core but they’re not. In fact, from the reported impact velocities they seem to be doing the opposite,’ said Ness.

  ‘You mean they’re going up?’ said Graves.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How…? I don’t like this, corporal. Have we reached the magos’ coordinates?’ asked Graves.

  ‘Yes, sir. This is the spot,’ said Ness.

  ‘Do you see anything?’ Graves asked.

  ‘Only more broken servitors, sir. The atmosphere down here is interfering with our sensors, though. I’m having trouble getting a clear view of anything.’

  Graves shook his head. ‘Me too – whatever it was though, hopefully it’s gone now. We’ll make one more pass then head back up.’ The Valkyries turned in a slow arc and passed over the target coordinates uneventfully for the second time. ‘I’m calling it. There’s nothing down here. Form up, we’re returning to Gamma One.’

  Something exploded. Gryphonne One was thrown hard to port and Commander Graves fought to steady himself. A wave of heat flooded through the cockpit, emanating through the metal walls and threatening to cook both crewmen alive inside their flight suits. The internal lights turned red and warning signals lit up all over the control panel. ‘Throne! What just happened?’ Graves barked.

  ‘Second Squadron, commander. They’re gone,’ Corporal Ness replied in subdued disbelief.

  ‘Gone! What do you mean gone?’ Graves said. ‘Get Huddock on the vox.’

  ‘I can’t, sir. I can’t reach Four, Five or Six,’ said Ness.

  Graves leaned forward to look out of the starboard side of the cockpit. Where moments before had been a trio of Valkyries, there was now just empty air. ‘How…?’

  ‘Hostiles! Rising from below!’ cried Ness.

  ‘All Valkyries, attack speed!’ Graves ordered, gunning his engines and lurching forward. He watched in disbelief as the space once occupied by Second Squadron was bisected by two unknown craft. They were the shape of crescent moons, their hulls a dull silver that seemed to shimmer beneath the unsettling green glow of alien runes. They shot past him in dangerously close formation and banked in perfect unison, coming about for a second attack run.

  ‘Gryphonne Three and Gryphonne Nine, form up. You’re Second Squadron now. Execute evasive pattern Gryphonne Aquila Two. Weapons free,’ Graves ordered, calmly and assertively. The six remaining Valkyries reformed seamlessly and broke formation, splitting off in pairs. The hostile craft opened fire, crackling green energy projecting from twin cannons slung beneath their scything hulls. Graves’ manoeuvre was already taking him away from the weapons’ path but still they glanced the end of his wing, shaking the Valkyrie violently.

  ‘Sir, what are those things?’ Ness asked, fighting to keep the fear from his voice.

  ‘I don’t know, corporal, but they just killed three of my pilots. I don’t intend on letting them get away with it,’ said Graves.

  The enemy ships pulled an impossible turn that would have crushed a Valkyrie pilot under the weight of G-force, and fell in behind Third Squadron. Graves could only watch as another of his allies was struck by green lightning and exploded. With a low, primal growl he banked left, corkscrewed and shot straight down, bringing First Squadron directly above the enemy. He squeezed the trigger on his control stick and filled the air with multi-laser fire. He cursed as the aliens pulled sharply away and the las-bolts passed by harmlessly.

  ‘We’ve got them, commander,’ the cocky female voice of Sergeant Enzo flying Gryphonne Three said over the vox. The new Second Squadron looped around behind the enemy and opened fire. Streams of las-fire hammered into the xenos craft, punching scorched holes into their hulls. Second Squadron yelped victoriously, but all jubilation faded as the metal of the hulls shimmered, melted and reformed, unscathed.

  ‘More hostiles, commander!’ Ness reported.

  ‘Enzo! Below you!’ barked Graves.

  Out of the impenetrable haze below emerged two more of the alien craft. Second Squadron banked wildly but Sergeant Enzo was struck, strange alien energy shearing off her port-side wing. The Valkyrie fell from the sky, trailing black smoke and spirally uncontrollably into the unknown. Only four Valkyries remained.

  ‘Gryphonne One to Gryphonne Two, arm Hellstrike missiles,’ Graves ordered over the vox. Pulling sharply out of his dive and quickly ascending, they rose from beneath the original attackers and fell into a wide turn behind them.

  ‘Missile locked!’ Ness reported. Graves depressed the button on top of his control stick and the high-powered missile slung beneath his left wing detached and speared towards the target. It struck true, tearing the rear of the alien ship asunder and engulfing it in fire, but as the flames dissipated the vessel was simply gone. ‘Where did it go?’ Corporal Ness asked.

  ‘Away from here. That’s good enough for me,’ Graves replied bluntly.

  The second missile, launched from Gryphonne Two, flew wide and exploded harmlessly ahead of its target. The enemy ship banked right and avoided the blast.

  ‘Doran? What happened?’ Graves asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, commander. It’s the atmosphere. I couldn’t get a lock,’ Gryphonne Two’s pilot, Lieutenant Bo Doran replied mournfully. Graves growled with frustration.

  ‘We’ll be slaughtered down here. We’re falling back to Gamma One. Form up, evasive pattern Gryphonne Omega Five.’ The four survivors broke apart and rose quickly, turning in sharp unpredictable arcs.

  ‘Where did they even come from?’ said Ness quietly, murmuring to himself in disbelief.

  Graves shook his head. ‘There’s not supposed to be anything down there but ore. Open a channel to the magos, maybe he’ll have some answers.’

  ‘I can’t, commander. We’re too far out.’

  Lightning arcs from the alien ships triggered proximity alarms as fast as the commander could dismiss them. As the Valkyries rose and the noxious atmosphere thinned, the full extent of the threat became apparent. Sensors lit up with signals of twelve pursuing enemy ships. The air became a deathtrap of alien energy and the four gunships jinked and banked violently in their attempts to stay ahead of it. All thoughts of victory had been temporarily dismissed as survival instinct took over. As they closed the distance to the potential sanctuary of Gamma One, a green light blinked on Corporal Ness’s control panel.

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nbsp; ‘Channel open, commander,’ Ness informed him.

  ‘Magos. This is Wing Commander Graves. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack,’ the commander reported desperately through the vox.

  ‘We know, wing commander,’ responded Omicron-231 in his machine voice. ‘We are detecting a massive non-human energy signature rising from the core. Appropriate countermeasures have been initiated. All available gunships are being scrambled. The full force of the 41st Division are already in the air. Form up with them and take command.’

  As the distance closed, the hulking form of the Gamma One forge city came into view and for a moment Commander Graves’ heart soared as he identified the shapes of dozens of Valkyrie assault carriers and Vendetta gunships heading towards him, closing in attack formations. Surely there was nothing that could stand before such a weight of blessed Imperial firepower.

  ‘Commander. The sensorum…’ Corporal Ness trailed off.

  Graves looked down. It had to be malfunctioning and the wing commander slammed his hand down onto the panel, hoping to jar the machine-spirit into functionality. Nothing changed.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Graves murmured.

  Over a hundred of the scything crescent xenos interceptors followed them. It was what came in their wake, though, that plunged the commander’s heart into his stomach. It was massive and drove forth a macabre debris field of scorched limbs and propulsion carriages from the depths. Easily the size of any Imperial warship, it even matched the colossal forge city above it for size. Shaped like the smaller craft around it, the harsh curve of its hull threatened to enclose and swallow anything that drew too close. It too was lit by hundreds of menacing alien runes that glowed with a deep green light. On its back were all manner of structures, tall square towers and wide-stepped ziggurats. At the centre was a monolithic pyramid, seemingly formed of obsidian. It absorbed all light that drew too close to it, surrounding the pyramid in a haunting, unnatural shadow. The only thing that pierced the darkness was a crystal at the pyramid’s base. Easily ten times the size of Graves’ Valkyrie, it was shaped like a flawless cut diamond and stood upon an ornate plinth, pulsing with the same green energy that ran throughout the enemy force. Even with his glare visor down Graves had to avert his gaze, as the sight sickened him.

  The interceptors that had been harrying First Wing from the depths broke off their pursuit and there was a tense moment of calm as, for the first time since the attack began, the Valkyries were not under fire. The pursuing craft fell seamlessly into line with the rest of their brethren. At the same time the survivors of the wing commander’s group reformed and used their vectored engines to brake and turn sharply, almost on the spot. The Valkyries’ tails swung around in a wide arc, drawing pained groans from the ships’ hulls. Graves sneered with pious hatred beneath his mask as he once again faced his unholy enemy head on. Behind him the rest of the 41st Division caught up and, a short way behind them, Gamma One itself had prepared for war.

  The high enclosing walls of the city bristled with servitor turrets slaved to the targeting systems of Hydra autocannons and batteries of lascannons. Further into the city, surface-to-air missile launchers rose from concealment on the roofs of manufactoria and refineries, every building constructed with thought to its own defence. From barracks, seemingly nestled amongst the grander manufactorum buildings, the fighting arm of the Adeptus Mechanicus flooded the streets. Hundreds of bionically augmented skitarii troops, supported by loping walkers and spider-legged tanks. A sea of deep crimson and glinting silver.

  Commander Graves opened a channel to all of the 41st Division. ‘Warriors of the Imperial Navy. You are here today because you have seen too much, because you have seen more of the evil of the galaxy than any man or woman should be expected to face. You bear the scars of those days, we all do, but you are here because you have overcome. You have stared down evils that have driven men to insanity and you are still here, still fighting. You are pilots of the Imperial Navy. You are Valkyries. You are Vendettas. You are the masters of the Emperor’s skies and today He calls upon you. Once more face down the evil of this galaxy and banish it back whence it came! In His name! For the Emperor!’

  The vox-channel filled with a roar of pride and defiance as the other pilots echoed the war cry of the Imperium of Man.

  ‘Second Wing, break left. Third Wing, break right. Try to envelop them, pattern Sky Wolf. First Wing, with me, attack pattern Alpha Two.’

  The aircraft gunned their engines and broke into smaller battle formations. The aliens responded in kind, surging away from their capital ship to meet the human fleet. First Wing closed into range with the leading enemy ships and the sky was set ablaze. The space between them became a killing field. Beams of pale yellow light and the exhaust streams of missiles criss-crossed with crackling beams of green lightning. First Wing jinked, dived and rolled to escape the incoming fire but the weight of it left little room to manoeuvre. Graves saw a Vendetta explode to his left and bathe its wingman in flames. To his right Gryphonne Twenty-Six took a direct hit to its port engine and spun uncontrollably out of the sky. Graves struck what looked like the cockpit of an oncoming alien fighter with his multi-laser, but could only look on dissatisfied as the ship vanished, robbing him of the chance to witness its true demise.

  The two lines collided with the force of a cavalry charge. Graves saw more green blips on his sensorum display disappear as more of his pilots were killed. Gryphonne Seventeen blinked out as Graves watched the Valkyrie shoot past above him, Sergeant Wreave engaging too fast and colliding with an alien ship, assuring their mutual destruction. The Imperial craft broke off into squadrons and rounded on the enemy ships.

  The air between the gargantuan structures of the forge city and the xenos capital ship was like an angered beehive. Ships from both sides were diving and banking, stitching lines of bright fire in a swirl of barely contained madness. Gryphonne One and Gryphonne Two looped back from the initial charge and rolled to right themselves. Alien laser fire cut through the air ahead of them, narrowly missing the tips of their craft and striking the tail of a Vendetta to Graves’ left. The Imperial ship went into a shaky dive and fell out of view. The ship that had fired shot past them seconds later. The twin Valkyries threw themselves into a deep banking dive and dropped in behind them. The enemy were fast, as fast as anything Graves had encountered and he tried to hit them with his main weapon, but missed by frustratingly narrow margins.

  ‘Stay on him, Two,’ he said. Gryphonne One pulled up sharply and was buffeted on its underside by the flames bursting from another slain Valkyrie. As Gryphonne Two remained in dogged pursuit of the target, Graves watched from above like a hawk, waiting for his moment. As the enemy ship pulled a wide arc and came about, Gryphonne One dived. The pressure crushed the crew into their seats and the commander could feel himself on the brink of blacking out. The alien ship was caught mid-roll evading the fire from Lieutenant Doran and was too late to respond to the threat above. Gryphonne One hammered it with las-bolts and the enemy ship fell from the sky.

  Graves noticed a group of alien ships break off from the main battle and head towards Gamma One. The city opened fire. Hydra autocannons filled the sky with a storm of flak. Graves watched as the aliens dodged and dived with unbelievable speed and passed over the city walls unharmed. More menacing green light emanated from beneath each of the alien craft, growing in intensity. They pulsed brightly then faded.

  ‘Gryphonne Two, form up and break off. I need to see something,’ Graves said. The two Valkyries split from the main battle and headed towards the city.

  Where the alien ships had passed over the narrow city streets now stood an army of alien warriors.

  ‘Ness, bring up the vid-feed and magnify,’ said Graves.

  A grainy close-up image of the city streets popped up on Graves’ console. Even with the poor image quality, Graves could make out the enemy as hunched, pseudo-skeletal forms of th
e same dull metal colour as the interceptors. Already the enemy ground forces had begun an implacable advance while the skitarii scrambled to redeploy against the new threat.

  Commander Graves’ vox burst to life. ‘Magos Dominus Omicron-231 to Wing Commander Graves. We are already receiving reports of enemy ground forces on Gamma One. Confirm.’

  ‘Confirmed, magos. I don’t know how though. We haven’t let any of their craft land,’ Graves reported.

  ‘Then it appears our foes are possessed of advanced teleportation technology,’ said the magos.

  ‘But where are they coming from? The capital ship?’ Graves asked.

  ‘Currently unknown,’ Omicron-231 said.

  ‘I’m breaking off Third Wing to provide air support,’ Graves replied.

  ‘Negative, commander. We are going to end this before it gets any further. Deathstrike missile launch is in progress. We shall blast the capital ship to dust. Ensure that the missiles reach their target. The skitarii will deal with the invaders.’

  ‘Understood,’ Commander Graves replied.

  At the centre of Gamma One stood the city’s primary forge shrine. It was a colossal tower, taller than any of the others. From above it formed the cog shape of the Adeptus Mechanicus, each spoke of the cog matching the size of the largest of the city’s exhaust towers. From its roof and the ground around it arose ten domed silos. They opened like the unfurling petals of a metallic flower and from within each arose a battery of five missiles. Deathstrikes. They rotated to aim towards the capital ship. Propulsion rockets roared and the missiles launched.

  ‘Deathstrike missiles in the air. First Wing, break off and cover them,’ Commander Graves ordered.

  The wing commander rolled and fell in behind an enemy vessel pursuing Gryphonne Two. With a barrage of multi-laser fire the alien craft was broken apart. It began to lose altitude then vanished. The two Valkyries formed up with the rest of the survivors of First Wing, who had looped over Gamma One and taken up escort positions around the missiles. There were fewer craft than Graves had hoped.