No, Thane thought, despairing. The worst was unfolding. His wounded brothers thought they had come under attack and were responding.
The Mechanicus answered. The Dunecrawlers lowered their guns and fired towards the rear. Overhead, the canopy of destruction descended.
No room to manoeuvre now, no avoiding the worst. No more pretence. No more hope.
‘Open fire!’ Thane commanded.
Fists Exemplar and skitarii struck at each other in the same instant. The close quarters worked in favour of the Space Marines — their armour was stronger than that of the skitarii. Their mass-reactive bolt-shells shattered breastplates and helmets, blowing up the circuitry and flesh within, and the first ranks of the vanguard went down. Radium carbine bullets hammered against Thane’s armour, but his plate held against the poisonous rounds. His auto-senses warned of a massive increase in airborne radiation; if he had not been wearing his helm, his skin would already have begun to cook.
The Fists Exemplar had the momentum of the first seconds, but the Mechanicus had the overwhelming numbers. The temptation was to drive forwards while they could, but Thane knew better. The Space Marines could not depend on their power armour to see them through the enemy cohort before the heavy guns came to bear. The wrong push now would be disastrous.
Or more disastrous. He pushed the thought away, focusing on the need to survive the next few seconds, and to fight for the completion of the mission. He could not afford to consider the wider consequences of what was unfolding.
‘Fall back,’ he ordered the company. ‘Tanks, take the lead. Punch our way through.’ He swept his bolter back and forth as he started to walk backwards. The Fists Exemplar’s hail shattered Mechanicus warriors. Clouds of metal shrapnel erupted. The tanks drew level with the Space Marines. Their cannons roared simultaneously with the shriek of the enemy’s energy blasts. The Predator Roma’s Cry blew a hole through the centre of a Kataphron Breacher with its autocannon, and the servitor’s head jerked backwards in a memory of mortal agony. It was avenged a moment later when Roma’s Cry was hit by a Destroyer’s plasma culverin and a Dunecrawler’s eradicator. Energy crackled. Metal melted and evaporated. Roma’s Cry surged forwards, its fate and that of the battle-brothers within already determined. It crushed skitarii beneath its treads before it exploded. The fireball was huge, power plant and munitions destroyed in the same instant. Thane used the wall of flame as cover and moved to the right side of the avenue.
‘On me,’ he called to his brothers. ‘Flank them.’
The tank battle became a firestorm of shells and energy blasts. The explosions were continuous, filling the street. Behemoths of war hurled destruction at each other from ranges no greater than a few dozen metres. The Fists Exemplar moved through a storm of flame, smoke, convulsing energy and whirling shrapnel. The foot soldiers of both forces made way for the tanks, and the vehicles picked up speed. Even at such close range, some shots went wide, devastating the manufactoria on both sides of the avenue. Thane led his company towards a structure that was more avalanche than shelter.
‘Thamarius,’ Thane voxed to the sergeant leading the drop pod landing. ‘What is your situation?’ He called twice more before Thamarius answered, barely audible over the raging interference.
‘The Gate is holding strong, Chapter Master. We’re trying to break through with melta bombs, but it will take time. Our position is vulnerable.’
‘Hold fast, brother-sergeant. We will approach from the eastern flank.’
‘We may need more desperate means to defeat this barrier.’
‘Understood. But we are not there yet.’
If Thamarius answered, his words were lost in the static.
A Kastelan robot loomed out of the smoke. It fired its incendine combustor and a flood of ignited promethium washed over Thane’s company. Raalega took the brunt, the high-powered stream burning through the seams of his armour. It filled his helmet. Flesh and metal turned molten. As he fell, he hurled a krak grenade at the robot, slagging the behemoth’s left foot. The robot staggered, the sudden swing of its gait almost crushing the datasmith at its side. The priest died by bolter fire a moment later but the robot still advanced. Deprived of the guidance of its datasmith, it was governed by the last instructions programmed into it. It would walk and burn all before it until it was destroyed or ran out of fuel.
Bolter fire pummelled the robot. The impacts made it jerk as it walked, but its attack was untroubled. Thane ran through the flame, his heat and rad sensors shrieking red. He stepped around the robot’s heavy tread, wiping burning promethium to clear his vision, and trained his bolter on the barrel of the combustor. The gun burst. Its fuel ignited at once, shot skywards, and blew up the robot’s power pack. Thane jumped back, away from the worst of the incinerating flood. The robot burned in its own life force, stopped walking and slumped forwards, arms hanging limply. Immobilised, it became a metal silhouette in a lake of fire.
The company passed through an archway and into the manufactorium. Two of its huge chimneys had fallen, crushing the upper storeys of the central structure. The Fists Exemplar entered a ruin of iron and rockcrete, the ground level a shattered jumble. Some columns still held up the vaults for a few metres, while others had snapped like bone, and the space between the floor and thousands of tonnes of rubble was less than two metres. Shattered pipes sprayed superheated steam and burning gases through the space. Torn electrical cables as thick as Thane’s arm sparked and twisted like agonised snakes. Forges thirty metres high, cracked open, spilled molten slag across the floor. The manufactorium was a death planet in miniature, and it offered the best route to break through to Thamarius and the interior of Pavonis Mons. The heavy weapons of the Mechanicus could not enter here.
‘This complex is highly unstable,’ Aloysian said.
‘I don’t plan on staying,’ said Thane.
‘And Van Auken could decide to bring it all down on our heads.’
‘More reason for speed. And to keep him distracted.’ Thane voxed the gunship pilots. ‘We must escalate, brothers. Keep the focus of the Mechanicus on the street.’
‘Acknowledged,’ said Preco, from among the answer clicks.
The Thunderhawks screamed over the avenue, unleashing streams of heavy bolter and lascannon fire, and flights of hellstrike missiles. The tank battle raged on. The roar of destruction was unending, the curtain of flame from the explosions impenetrable. Thane led the way through the burning and the wreckage of the manufactorium. The Fists Exemplar climbed over and under rubble, battering their way through iron doors knocked askew in their frames and through walls crumbling under strain. Behind them, collapses multiplied. A mountain was settling over their heads.
They advanced well beyond the level of the Mechanicus’ front lines in the avenue. Thane estimated less than a hundred metres separated them from the final approach to the Tharsis Gate.
There was no resistance.
As they reached an open space whose floor was covered in congealing metal, Aloysian said, ‘Chapter Master, where are the skitarii?’
It was too much to expect all the infantry to be caught up in the struggle in the road. ‘Auspex?’ Thane called.
‘Nothing…’ Kahagnis voxed from midway down the phalanx.
Thane did not like the hesitation. ‘Why are you uncertain?’
‘The readings are erratic. The interference is severe. When we—’
And then nothing descended. Nothing was white noise on the vox, white noise on the optics, and a shrieking howl. Blood filled Thane’s mouth and ears. Pain stabbed into his eyes with the thousand shards of a broken mirror.