Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [42]
‘But it’s sealed!’
‘It will not be sealed for long.’
‘It’s Mechanicus territory!’
‘I do not care. If I am right in my suspicions, there is a weapon there. I want that weapon, Cyria Tyro. And I will have it.’
She pulled her greatcoat tighter around her body as the storm intensified.
‘If it was something that would help with the war,’ she said, ‘the Mechanicus would have deployed it by now.’
‘I do not believe that, and I am surprised that you do. The Mechanicus has committed a great deal in the defence of Armageddon. That does not mean they have the same stake in the war that we do. I have battled alongside the Cult of Mars many times. They breathe secrecy instead of air.’
‘You can’t leave the city before dawn. The enemy–’
‘The enemy will not break the city walls in the first day. And Bayard, Emperor’s Champion of the Helsreach Crusade, will command the Templars in my absence.’
‘I can’t allow you to do this. It will enrage the Mechanicus.’
‘I am not asking for your permission, adjutant.’ Grimaldus paused, and she swore she could hear a smile in his next words. ‘I am asking if you wish to come with us.’
‘I… I…’
‘You informed me upon my arrival that you were here to facilitate interaction between the offworld forces and those of Armageddon.’
‘I know, but–’
‘Mark my words, Cyria Tyro. If the Mechanicus has reasons for not deploying that weapon, they may not be reasons that other Imperial commanders will find acceptable. I do not care about those reasons. I care about winning this war.’
‘I’ll accompany you,’ she almost choked on the words. Throne, what was she doing…
‘I thought you would,’ said Grimaldus. ‘The sun is rising. Come, to the Thunderhawk. My brothers already wait.’
The gunship shuddered as its boosters lifted it from the landing platform.
The pilot, an Initiate knight with few honour markings on his armour, guided the ship skyward.
‘Try not to get us shot down,’ Artarion said to him, standing behind the pilot’s throne in the cockpit. They were set to fly above the clouds anyway, and take a course over the ocean and the coast before veering inland once they were clear of the besieging army and its fighter support.
‘Brother,’ the Initiate said, watching the city falling below as he applied vertical thrust, ‘does anyone ever laugh at your jokes?’
‘Humans sometimes do.’
The pilot didn’t reply to that. Artarion’s answer said it all. The gunship gave a kick as its velocity boosters fired, and through the cockpit window, the toxic cloud cover began to slide past.
CHAPTER VIII
Oberon
Domoska muttered the Litany of Focus as she looked through the sight of her lasrifle. She blinked behind her sunglare goggles, then raised them to look through the gunsight again without the tinted lenses darkening her vision.
‘Uh, Andrej?’ she called over her shoulder.
The two soldiers were at their modest camp on the perimeter of D-16’s boundaries. Sat on the desert sands, cleaning their rifles, the fact they were away from the main base also set them apart from the other forty-eight Steel Legionnaires assigned to this pointless, suicidal duty.
Andrej didn’t look up from his lap, where he was wiping laspistol power cell packs with an oily rag.
‘What is it now, eh? I’m busy, okay?’
‘Is that a gunship?’
‘What are you talking about, eh?’ Andrej was from Armageddon Prime, on the far side of the world. His accent always made Domoska grin. Almost everything he said sounded like a question.
‘That,’ she pointed into the sky, close to the horizon. Nothing was visible to the naked eye, and Andrej groped on the coat laid out on the ground, reaching for his detached gunsight.
‘Listen, okay, I am trying to respect the spirit of my weapon, yes? What is this you want? I see no gunship.’ He stared through his sight, squinting.
‘A few degrees above the horizon.’
‘Oh, hey, yes that is a gunship, okay? You must report it at once.’
‘This is Domoska, at Boundary Three. Contact, contact, contact. Imperial gunship inbound.’
‘That is the Black Templars,