Angel of Fire

On the second day, curtains of heavy artillery fire descended upon us, smashing into our position, killing anyone who was not dug in deep. The soldiers brewing chai in the shadow of our tracks were reduced to a bloody smear on the stone. The outskirts of the factorum went from being an ordered, organised grid of plascrete walls to a smashed, desolate landscape as bleak and jumbled as the surface of some meteor-bombarded moon.

The Baneblade rocked on its treads as high-explosive shells rained down upon us. The noise was deafening and the sheer sound of the chaotic blasts would have driven you crazy. It was like being at the centre of an inferno of noise. A legion of devils beat on the armour with a thousand mighty hammers. Monsters roared outside the safe zone that the hull of the Indomitable represented.

A wall tipped on us, burying us beneath tons of shattered plascrete. It felt as if we were being trodden on by a giant. I put the drives into full reverse and the Baneblade shook off broken stone like a dog shakes off water as it emerges from a stream.

One by one, the towers surrounding us crumbled.

The first time it seemed impossible. One moment, there was a huge starscraper standing there. The next moment the earth shook and a cloud of dust erupted skywards. The whole huge structure slid into the ground – that’s the only way I can describe it. One moment the building was there and the next it had retracted into the plascrete leaving only a column of dust and a pile of rubble the size of a small hill.

The heretics were destroying the buildings with demolition charges, clearing the ground for a massive counter-attack on the factorum zone. They had infiltrated them with combat engineers from the hive below. It showed how desperate and fanatical some of them were that they would consider doing such a thing. Those towers had been the homes of tens of thousands of people and had contained shops and schola and medicae and all the other things that people need to live. All were flattened at the whim of some commander somewhere who had decided that they represented an obstacle to his great plan being accomplished.

Where before we had looked out upon rows and rows of skyscraper towers, now we gazed upon great dunes of rubble across which we knew our enemies would soon attack.

The lieutenant had one hand on his earbead and glanced down at his tac-grid. I was looking into the periscope. Over the huge mounds of rubble created by the collapsing towers an enemy army approached. In the lead were Shadowswords, the greatest tank killers on the battlefield of the newborn 41st millennium, an enemy vehicle that filled me with dread. Around the Shadowswords were hundreds of Leman Russes and thousands of Chimeras, and around them were hordes and hordes of infantry. They were packed very closely. It was like watching a bloody-red tide come in. Their crimson uniforms made the oncoming heretics seem like a lake of blood puddling out from the corpse of a giant.

‘Lieutenant! Lieutenant!’ I said. ‘We’re under attack.’

He looked up from the tac-grid and spoke rapidly to whoever was on the other end of the comm-channel. After a few seconds he began to give orders to the gunners and he told me to hold myself ready.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a larger force coming at me. I certainly had not up till that day. I had put the Baneblade hull-down behind what was left of the factorum wall. There was only a small stretch still intact. The rest had been reduced to rubble by the constant bombardments. It was not much but it was much more than many of our comrades had. Most of the other tanks stood alone in the rubble around the factorum, providing such cover as there was for many of our infantry. The smarter soldiers had already taken up position among the collapsed walls and buildings.

‘Steady! Steady!’ the lieutenant said. His voice was unnaturally calm. I could tell he was thinking exactly what I was; that there was no way that we were going to survive this. We were outnumbered and outgunned by those oncoming Shadowswords and all their support. The enemy general who had planned this attack had known what he was doing. This was probably the weakest part of our defensive perimeter, the softest spot in our defensive line. He had aimed a hammer blow at the most vulnerable point. It was unfortunate for us that we just happened to be there.

The Shadowswords opened fire. One of the tanks next to us was hit by storm of super-heavy las-fire. Its turrets were crippled immediately. A beam penetrated the side armour. I don’t know what happened next. Possibly there was an internal fire or one of the drive cores overloaded. There was an enormous explosion and the main turret lifted right out of its mounting before tumbling to one side.

I have never seen a Baneblade quite so comprehensively destroyed. The fusillade of fire was overpowering even for one of these ancient monstrous tanks. All I could do was offer up thanks to the Emperor that we were partially concealed by the tumbled-down wall. I knew that we were next in line. Our own guns opened fire. The shells fell among the enemy. The destruction was enormous in that closely packed formation. Unfortunately, it did not touch the Shadowswords but no Leman Russ could withstand the impact of our main batteries, not when they were fired by gunners as accurate as Ivan and Anton and the others.

The poor infantrymen surrounding the tanks had no chance whatsoever – they were simply reduced to bloody jam smeared on the plascrete.

The enemy did not stop coming. The Shadowswords kept firing.

I kept my hands on the control sticks. I offered up prayers to the spirit of our great tank. I felt useless and helpless. There was nothing I could do. Instinct urged me to unlimber my combat shotgun, for I felt certain that if I survived the next few minutes, I was going to have some use for it.

The New Boy groaned. The Understudy was probably wetting himself. I kept my eyes focused on the enemy, willing them to die. If terror and hatred could form a lethal beam, I would have killed a few hundred just with my gaze. The enemy were not impressed by my attempt to use psychic powers. The lesser tanks were firing now and even a few of the infantry. Las-bolts flickered in our direction.

Some of our own soldiers had started to respond in kind. I could see one of their commissars rushing around, dust covering his normally immaculate uniform, bellowing orders and gesticulating frantically as he sought to get them to hold their fire. An explosion bloomed on the spot where he stood and he went to greet the Emperor in the company of the men he had been trying to lead.

It let me know in no uncertain terms that the Emperor was not with us that day.