Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [127]
The scrap-Titan was capable of a merciless amount of firepower. None of Stormherald’s command crew had seen anything like it before, let alone suffered on the receiving end. Only a few minutes into the god-machines’ duel, and the Imperator was wreathed in flame, temperature gauges whining and warning lights flashing throughout the confined corridors threading through the giant’s steel bones.
The multitude of layered energy screens that served the Titan as void shields had been torn apart with insane, laughable speed by the ork walker.
‘I’m ready,’ Carsomir announced. ‘Firing.’
‘Wait for the stabilisers to come back online!’ Lonn yelled. ‘They only need another minute.’
Carsomir thought his fellow pilot’s faith in the tech-crews working in the shoulder joints was admirable, but unbelievably misguided given the circumstances. He blinked once, wasting precious seconds to even think about listening to Lonn’s plea.
‘The arm isn’t badly damaged. I’m taking the shot. I can make it.’
‘You’ll miss, Val! Give them thirty seconds, just thirty more seconds.’
‘Firing.’
‘You son of a bitch!’
Stormherald’s knees locked in preparation and the plasma annihilator tower that served as its left arm began its air-sucking inhalation of coolant.
‘You’ve killed us,’ Lonn breathed, watching the enemy Titan through the steamed-up view windows. An unremitting torrent of incidental fire rained against Stormherald’s shields, turning them violet with strain.
‘Void shields buckling,’ one of the tech-adepts called from a side terminal.
‘Enemy engine making ready to fire primary weapons,’ another said.
‘They’ll never get the chance…’ Valian Carsomir smiled with a wicked light in his eyes.
Lonn’s shouted protest was drowned out in the roar of discharging sunfire. A beam of plasma – roiling, boiling and white-hot – vomited from the cannon’s focusing ring, blasting across the four hundred metres separating the two Titans. Stormherald stood rigid, defensive, no longer advancing after the first two minutes of punishing exchange. Godbreaker had not stopped its thunderous, slow charge.
‘You bastard!’ Lonn yelled. Carsomir had missed. The jet of plasma blanketed the ground to the left of the closing ork gargant, where it began to dissolve everything it touched in a vast pool of acidic corruption.
Lonn had been right. The arm-weapon had strayed despite targeting locks, as the supreme force of its own firepower sent it veering off-centre.
‘I had the shot,’ Carsomir shook his head.
‘Void shields failing,’ the tech-adept announced without any emotion whatsoever.
‘I had the shot,’ Carsomir repeated, unable to look away from the wreck-Titan bearing down upon them. Behind the moderati thrones, Zarha floated in her suspension tank, slack and unconscious.
‘No, no, no…’ Lonn worked at his console, his brow furrowed. ‘This can’t be.’
The Titan began to shudder around them as the void shields died again, the Imperator’s dense armour taking the brunt of the alien attack.
Lonn had never worked like this before in his life. It was a flurry of effort, performed half in the flesh and half with the mind. He could feel the Titan falling into slumber, and its dimming consciousness dragged at his thoughts, slowing them to a crawl. Where he met resistance like this in the mind-link, he compensated by overrides on his command console.
The command deck grew dark as he worked. The enemy gargant eclipsed all outside light, looming before the idle Stormherald.
‘Why hasn’t it fired?’ Carsomir worked as Lonn did, cooling essential systems, ordering repair teams to afflicted joints, feeding power from the coughing shield generators to the