Hellsreach - Aaron Dembski-Bowden [52]
Silence met this statement. Barasath capitalised on it. ‘Their aerial capabilities will be butchered in a single hour. You cannot tell me, colonel, that such a victory isn’t worth the risk. This is how we must strike.’
He could tell the colonel wasn’t convinced. Tempted, yes, but not convinced. Tyro shook her head slightly, half in thought, half already preparing her advised refusal.
‘I have spoken with the Reclusiarch,’ Barasath said suddenly.
‘What?’ from both Sarren and Tyro.
‘This plan. I have discussed it with the Reclusiarch. He commended me on it, and assured me that city command would allow it.’
Of course, Barasath had done no such thing. The last he’d heard of the knight leader was that Grimaldus was evidently involved in some sort of difficult negotiation with the Crone of Invigilata. But it turned Tyro’s head, and that was all he needed. A wedge of doubt. A sliver of her interest.
‘If Grimaldus advises this…’ she said.
‘Grimaldus?’ Sarren arched an eyebrow. His jowly face was caught between amusement and alarm. ‘A trifle familiar of you to use his name like that.’
‘The Reclusiarch,’ she swallowed. ‘If he believes this is a sound plan, perhaps we should take that into consideration.’
Barasath was adept at hiding all emotion, not just the negative ones. He battled down the urge to grin now.
‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘and Adjutant Tyro. I can see why you wish to hold as much of our forces in reserve as is tactically viable. This is a defensive war, and aggressive attacks will play little part in it. But my pilots and I are useless once the walls are breached and the enemy floods the city. Even the hololithic simulations made that clear, did they not?’
Sarren sighed as he linked his fingers over his belly.
‘Do it,’ he’d said. And Barasath had. His squadron was airborne an hour later, tearing over the city streets below before powering low over the wastelands.
In the tight confines of his Lightning’s cockpit, he was more than just comfortable. He was home. Both control sticks in his hands were extensions of his own body. They said infantry felt the same about their rifles, but by the Holy Throne, there was no comparison. A rifle to a Lightning was like a spear to an angel of iron and steel.
The mass of the alien invasion darkened the ground beneath them.
‘Need I remind anyone,’ he said over the squadron’s vox, ‘that bailing out over this mess is extremely ill-advised?’
A volley of ‘No sirs’ was his answer.
‘If you’re hit – and by the Throne, some of us will be – then bring your bird down into one of their fat-arsed god-walkers. Take as many of the bastards with you as you can.’
‘Gargants, sir.’ That was Helika’s voice. ‘The orks call their Titans “gargants”.’
‘Duly noted, Helika. Fifty-Eighty-Twos, on my mark, you will break formation and open fire. The Emperor is with us, boys and girls. And the Templars are watching. Let’s show them how we earned the knights’ crosses painted on our hulls.
‘For Armageddon,’ he narrowed his eyes, breathing in a lungful of the recycled oxygen offered by his facemask, ‘and Helsreach.’
CHAPTER X
Siege
When the wall is first breached, it dies in an avalanche of pulverised rockcrete.
Dark powdery dust blasts into the air, thicker than smoke and expanding like a stormcloud, blinding in its density.
I watch this from hundreds of metres away, standing with my brothers and the soldiers of the Desert Vultures. At the end of the street, the wall is no more. Our defences are broken, and behind the dust cloud, the breach gapes wide.
The true siege has begun. On every rooftop, in every alley, on every street and from every window – for kilometres around – Imperial guns stand ready, clutched in loyal hands, ready to slay the invaders.
Road by road, home by home. This was always how the Battle of Helsreach would be fought, and it is what every soul in the city stands ready for.
The great figures of the Titans begin to withdraw. Their first duty is done; they stood at the walls and pounded the enemy forces with their immense artillery. Invigilata