The Beast Arises

It hadn’t been for three hundred years. The change had come upon it, the gods of Chaos visiting him with the gift of a string of grasping mouths from shoulder to wrist. He had taken his chainblade to the arm himself, amputating it in his quarters, taking the time to burn the offending limb while his blood poured onto the ship’s decking before he stormed off, still steady on his feet, to find the Apothecary. The left arm was bionic now, a thing of metal and barbed ridges. When he didn’t buckle, the ork looked surprised.

Kalkator swung his bolter around and shot the ork in the face. The top half of its skull disintegrated, showering the roof of the Olympia with blood and brain matter. The claw released Kalkator as the body slumped. He kicked the corpse off the tank and flexed his arm. It moved in jerks, but was still functional.

To the rear, the gunships were landing. Three of the twelve remained in the air, buying time with rockets and shells. The Vindicators slowed to a crawl. Kalkator looked back and saw the first members of the company embarking. He faced forward again and watched time stolen from them.

The huge walkers and the battle fortresses were close. The walkers redirected their fire at the Thunderhawks. To the autocannon bursts were added missile launches from their shoulders. The attacks vectored onto a single target. The gunship’s pilot tried to evade. Two missiles hit the starboard wing, shells slammed into the nose, and the gunship dropped.

As it fell, a torrent of flame shot from the jaws of the nearest walker and enveloped the cockpit. The Thunderhawk hit the ground with meteoric force. It collided with one of the battle fortresses, the impact fusing the two behemoths together. Embraced by flame, they became a mountain of clashing metal, a single being that was the madness and destruction of war. They lost shape. The blasts came, shaking the ground so hard that Kalkator was almost knocked off his feet.

Above, a second gunship was trailing smoke, though it still fought. The Olympia fired its cannon through the flames of the collision. It hit one of the walkers in the centre of its wide skirt, and the ork titan seemed to stumble, then rocked forwards and came on. Its arms reached towards the Vindicator. Kalkator looked up at the cluster of autocannons aimed at his head.

‘Off!’ he yelled.

He jumped to the right. So did Caesax. Varravo was a beat behind. The cannonade caught him. The Pyres of Olympia fired back — still operational, but its roof was slag. Some of the debris was just recognisable as Varravo’s ruined armour.

The Olympia’s engine whined, but the tank didn’t move. ‘We’ve lost guidance,’ Occillax voxed.

‘Continue the attack,’ Kalkator ordered. He cut his way through more ork infantry. The brutes were stunned by the walker’s bombardment. Kalkator and Caesax made quick progress towards the rear.

‘To what end?’

‘Hold them off as best you can, brother.’

‘This is pointless.’

‘Step outside and I’ll kill you myself. Follow your orders.’

Occillax cursed him, but obeyed. Kalkator and Caesax left the Vindicator behind. The slow beat of its cannon resumed. It hit the walker again, and this time the ork Titan responded with its hammer. It struck the Olympia hard enough to make the ground shake again. The ork machinery roared louder, in triumph and anger. Another blast from the cannon, another hit to the walker, but the orks crewing the monster were focused on victory, not on the casualties they suffered. The hammer came down again and again, and the third time was when Kalkator heard the shriek of compacting metal. The gun fell silent.

He was the last to reach the landing zone, a few steps behind Caesax. They ran up the ramp to the final gunship, the Meratara. Not all of the Thunderhawks had taken off again — the battle fortresses had demolished three of them on the ground. Kalkator didn’t know how many troops he had lost in each one. The reckoning would wait until later, if there was a later.

The ramp raised as he reached the top and the Thunderhawk took off. He made his way forward to the cockpit to witness the end. He saw the Barban Falk join the Olympia in destruction, and another gunship blasted out of the sky. Then they were in the clouds, and though the ship rattled through the turbulence of the atmosphere, there were a few minutes of calm.

They weren’t welcome. They gave him time to think, to feel the humiliation of the loss scrape at his pride.