Abathar had landed on the top of one of the secondary power sources. He was fifteen metres up from the floor of the enginarium, and six from the nearest catwalk. Heaps of tangled, metre-thick power cables sheltered him from sight. A few steps to his right, in the direction of the catwalk, was the base of an energy coil, ten metres high, which leaned out over the edge of the generator. The angry red power spiralled along its length.
Yes, he could do what needed to be done here.
Abathar removed the teleport homer from his back. He looked at the device differently than he had in the attack moon. Then he had been carrying untested technology, whose workings and morality were unclear. Now he saw the machine for what it truly was. It was a weapon, one whose use put more than its target at risk.
He had said nothing during the debate on the boarding torpedo. He agreed with Forcas, though. There were weapons that should never be deployed except by the Deathwatch. They must be kept within the confines of that structure, belonging to none of the Chapters, usable only in very specific circumstances. He distrusted the device, yet he would use it now for the Imperium, and in its destruction remove its unclean being from the sight of the Omnissiah.
Abathar moved towards the power coil. He was more exposed here, but the coil would have the energy concentration he required. The plan was not to teleport a moon this time. He did not have to tap into the full strength of the ship’s engines. Even so, an enormous level of energy would be unleashed. He stayed low and in the shadows, a machine among machines. There was a serpent’s nest of cables attached to the base of the coil. He scanned the radiation with the auspex until he found those that were drawing power from the coil rather than feeding it. His servo-arm claw yanked one after the other from the base.
A warning klaxon sounded a harsh, animalistic braying across the enginarium. Up and down the walls and the deck below, lightning flashed from wounded machines. Overloads and short circuits took more orks by surprise. Greenskins shrieked and burned. Others roared with alarm and raced to regain control of the unravelling systems.
Abathar’s actions were having an impact. He was on borrowed time now. The orks were seeking the source of the malfunctions. They would find him soon. He disconnected one more cable, then began the process of linking the teleport homer to the power coil.
He was finishing the first connection when a trio of orks ran down the catwalk towards his platform. They scrambled over the wall of cables and spotted Abathar where he crouched over the homer. They were just out of range of his plasma cutter. He trained his boltgun on them, and shot two into pieces before they could move. The sound of gunfire disappeared in the chaos of the klaxon and the booming beat of the engine. For a moment, Abathar thought he had gained another few seconds for his task.
The third ork jumped from behind the falling bodies, onto a cable heap, then launched itself at Abathar. He fired, catching the greenskin in the shoulder, knocking its flight to the left. The ork went over the side of the generator. Spraying blood, it tumbled end over end. It dropped twenty metres and landed head-first, snapping its neck. But it howled a warning all the way down.
Other orks heard. They saw the fall. They shouted, pointing, and the alarm spread. From across the enginarium, the orks abandoned their stations. The horde closed in on Abathar.
The rest of Squad Gladius followed the seismic pounding of the cannons. There was no time for stealth, and no need for it. Thane wanted the orks to know they were under attack, and he wanted them looking at the wrong threat.
The Deathwatch warriors tore through the halls and up the levels of the battleship at a run. Orks fell before them, leaves in a storm. Gladius struck with such speed that no warning could be issued. The orks were not prepared for battle on their own ship. Their weapons were sheathed. Their guard was down. They died by the score. The Deathwatch left a wake of shattered bodies and decks awash in xenos blood.
The cannons were two levels up from the boarding torpedo. The chamber was cavernous. Colossal guns, their barrels six metres in diameter, moved back and forth in the upper space above the Space Marines’ heads, pistoning with each recoil. The blasts rang through Thane’s bones. The chamber vibrated, blurring before Thane’s eyes with the steady drumbeat of the bombardment. Beneath the monstrous cylinders, gunnery crews worked the controls. The stations were bulky, grotesque complexes, spitting steam and sparks. The air roiled, thick with the stench of struggling bodies, ozone and spent explosive.
Thane, Straton and Warfist charged the nearest crew. Through a gap between Thane and Straton, Forcas unleashed a storm of crimson lightning. The warp energy hit the greenskins and their controls with explosive fury and both burned. Their station blew up, hurling shrapnel and fire across the chamber. Flames licked along cables and ignited pools of fuel. Black, choking smoke spread through the space, cutting visibility. The surviving crew turned on the rushing squad. Warfist reached them first. A greenskin managed a quick burst of its gun, the shells bouncing off the Space Wolf’s armour, before Warfist impaled it through the eyes with his lighting claws. Then he was speeding towards the next position.
Thane strafed the remaining orks with bolter fire while Straton climbed the ruin of the controls, up articulated scaffolding. He affixed a melta bomb to the cannon, then dropped down. Thane and Forcas had already moved on, catching up with Warfist.
The Deathwatch used speed against the orks. The surprise of the attack, the explosion of the station and the spreading fire had them off balance. Their retaliation was clumsy. They rushed, and missed.
Speed. Precision. Purpose.
Four Space Marines charged hundreds of orks, and the orks were on the defensive.
Thane and Forcas provided covering fire for Warfist as he closed with the second position. He gutted the orks that blocked his path, and jumped onto the scaffolding. Straton added his bolter fire to the hail, holding down the crew until Warfist had placed his melta bomb.
Then Warfist leapt away from the cannon and joined Straton and Forcas in giving Thane the cover he needed to sabotage the third cannon. Forcas lit up the chamber with more bolts of warp energy, spreading fires and ripping orks apart with eldritch lightning, but now he avoided destroying the controls. Bolter fire, too, no longer hit the stations.
His bomb in place, Thane jumped down from the scaffolding. The rush had stopped. There were more cannons ahead, but the orks had rallied. The crews clustered around the next station, a barrier of rage, and their gunfire had the volume now to be effective.
‘Well enough?’ Warfist asked.
‘Well enough,’ said Thane.
The Deathwatch retreated. The Space Marines laid down bursts of bolter fire behind them, but that was the lure. The true weapon was speed. The orks pursued, perceiving triumph as their enemy fled. The greenskins were fast, but the shells slamming into their bodies slowed their charge. The gun crews wore no armour, and the mass-reactive ammunition shredded their bodies. For the first several seconds of the chase, the orks died faster than they could charge. Then their numbers told, and they advanced on the wings of hate.
As Thane had planned.
The orks reclaimed the gunnery stations on the run. Crews resumed firing while the larger body continued the pursuit.
This too, was as it should be.
Thane brought up the rear, looking back, waiting for the moment. It came when the third cannon, having recoiled after its shot, moved outward once again. The second cannon was crewed once more, and about to roar back to life. ‘Now!’ Thane yelled. He pulled the trigger on his detonator. A moment later, so did Warfist.