Grand Master Vangorich had expressed the uniqueness of the mission — rarely was an operative of the Assassins despatched to slay a non-human target. Their purview was far more concentrated on the rogues and rebellions within the Imperium.
In fact there was almost nothing about the orks at all in the archives, and Vangorich had drawn in favours from the Inquisition to supplement their records.
Krule stepped over a corpse, past two other dead orks that had been lounging by their armoured wagon. The complacency of the aliens — the sheer casualness they showed in the face of a massed human attack — worried him as he pulled himself up into the driver’s position. Settling into the bucket seat, he looked over the crude pedals and controls, working out where throttle and gearing systems were located.
He heard a dull, distant thunder that he instantly recognised as the retort of a large cannon. It continued for some time, many guns firing not quite in unison. He waited to hear the corresponding explosions in the city but nothing came, yet the fusillade continued.
Perplexed, he stood up, the better to see over the corrugated iron and broken plastek rookeries of the ork shanty piled up on the foot of the mountain that was Gorkogrod. The haze of the force dome gave everything beyond the city’s borders a greenish cast. Streaks of shells disappeared into the cloud. Looking left and right the Assassin saw the flashes of other weapons — beams and blasts and oscillating green waves from emplacements somewhere beyond the city’s semi-derelict outskirts.
He had seen drop-ships descending all afternoon, accompanied by the occasional shower of artificial meteors when the Adeptus Astartes had made secondary drops. The Assassin had paid it no mind. He had been expecting floods of alien warriors to pour from Gorkogrod to fend off the attacks, and had hoped to use such activity and confusion to slip through the ork city. Now the lack of response from the orks was explained. He had seen no defences as he had brought his commandeered aircraft down, but could see that the firepower being unleashed into the sky and towards orbit was devastating.
Dropping down into the seat, Krule started the engine. Its throaty roar accompanied a cough of oily smoke from the pierced exhausts flanking the machine. He slammed his foot onto the throttle pedal and sped out of the courtyard and into the street beyond, crashing through a crowd of greenskins that had emerged from their hovels to stare at the anti-orbital attacks. One bounced from the large iron buffer on the front of the battlewagon; another went jolting under a wheel.
Ignoring their death-cries, Krule powered the vehicle uphill, heading as fast as he could towards the inner city.
Chapter Nine
I dared what others could not. I knew what awaited me in the inferno and I stepped willingly into the flames. No other could. As above, so below, the fight without and the battle within. Endless torment, unending perseverance. Not one of my brothers could have done it, in body or in mind. It was my agony alone to suffer.
For what? For maggots to erupt from the corpse of greatness, devouring blindly the very thing that sustains them, consuming all until is spent. The Imperium is a husk; even the rot has eaten itself.
The city was ringed with fire. Devastation caused by crashing ships and burning debris spread far into the wastelands that surrounded the ork capital — wastelands that had not been empty of life, but concealed a profusion of orks beneath rock and ash.
‘Be thankful for small boons,’ said Vulkan. Thane looked from the Thunderhawk at the fires and wreckage. The primarch spoke from the main compartment, making the already over-filled space even smaller with his bulk. Thirty-five more Space Marines had managed to fit into a space intended for thirty, even with the primarch. Similarly laden, every drop pod, gunship and shuttle on the Alcazar Remembered had been despatched within minutes of the first ork attack.
‘Small boons, lord primarch?’ asked the Fists Exemplar Chapter Master.
‘Our fall from grace has killed no small number of orks as well.’
‘Forgive me, my lord, for taking little comfort in that fact.’ Thane activated the powerful vox of the Thunderhawk to contact his battle-barge. The signal was surprisingly clear when Shipmaster Weylon Kale responded. Evidently much of the vox-clutter had been deliberately created by the orks to mask their anti-orbit weapons.
‘Substantial damage, Chapter Master,’ Kale reported in response to Thane’s inquiry. ‘But we have attained higher orbit. It seems that the initial attack was a massive drain on the power grid of Ullanor and their targeting systems are having trouble tracking us at this distance.’
‘How much of the fleet has survived?’ asked the Lord Commander, sat next to Thane.
‘Half of the warships, barely any transports. We are also detecting increased activity from the ork vessels in the system. It seems they will try to pick over the scraps. Admiral Acharya has taken command for the Imperial Navy. He assured me that they can cope with the void threat for the time being.’
‘Low orbit is out of the question,’ said Thane. ‘We cannot risk any more ships even for the benefit of orbital firepower.’
‘Agreed,’ said Koorland. ‘We have perhaps one more opportunity to strike with everything — we cannot waste it.’
‘You have a strategy, Lord Commander?’ Vulkan shifted his bulk and looked through the door into the command deck.
‘I do, Lord Vulkan. What I said before still holds true. We must attack as swiftly as possible. Our mission has become threefold. We must determine the exact location of the Beast for an overwhelming concentration of force. We cannot be tricked into thinking a whole world is arrayed against us. It will take time for the orks to mobilise any force of note from the other cities and move them to our battlezone. We must use what strength we can to break into Gorkogrod and destroy the Great Beast before we are overwhelmed.
‘In order to do that we must first disable the force fields and weapons protecting the city against orbital support. Also, we need to disrupt the gathering ork armies so that both of the previous objectives can be achieved before the massive weight of ork numbers can be brought to bear.’
Vulkan nodded his approval.
‘A sure course of action, Lord Commander. The warriors of the Adeptus Astartes must bear the brunt of the assault on the city. As much as it seems counter to your ethos, I would spare the Chapters the brunt of the fighting before then.’
‘I can think of several commanders that will not like the idea of holding back,’ said Koorland.
‘Bohemond, for one,’ said Thane. ‘And there will be others of similar thought. Those that supported his pre-emptive strike spring to mind.’
‘What happened was unavoidable,’ Koorland replied, staring out of the canopy. Night was falling, the darkness lit by plasma fires and the occasional jade glow of defence beams and scarlet of missile trails, the sunset obscured by columns of black smoke. ‘Whether today or tomorrow or the day after, we would have landed and the orks would have revealed their intent. Perhaps the High Marshal’s attack was not so rash. Had the orks had time to prepare even further for our landings we might not have the period of relative grace we have now. There has been little sign of enemy movement on the ground to exploit our predicament.’