The Warmaster

Twenty-Two: The Tulkar Batteries

The sea was close, less than half a mile away, but all Rawne could smell was the rank promethium smoke blowing in from the south. Vast banks of black smoke were making the night air opaque, as though a shroud lay over the city. Ten kilometres south of his position, a zone of mills and manufactories along the edge of the Northern Dynastic Claves became an inferno. The horizon was a wall of leaping orange light that back-lit the buildings nearby. There was a steady thump of artillery and armour main-guns, and every now and then a brighter flash lit up the flame belt, casting sparks and lancing spears of fire high into the darkness.

The Ghosts were waiting, silent. Rawne had eighteen of the regi­ment’s twenty companies with him, a complement of over five thousand Guardsmen. The Tanith First had advanced south from K700, moving fast, and had entered the Millgate quarter of the city under cover of darkness and rain. There, they’d ditched their transports and hefted the heavy weapons and munitions by hand.

The area was deserted, and the Ghosts companies had fanned out across a half-mile front through empty streets, advancing fire-team by fire-team down adjacent blocks. Rawne knew they were tired from the fast deploy, but he kept the pace up and maintained strict noise discipline. The Ghosts had melted into the zone, pouring down the dark streets, one company flanking the next. The only sounds had been the quiet hurrying of feet.

At a vox-tap from Rawne, the regiment had halted in the neighbourhood of Corres Square, a few streets short of the batteries. Rawne knew the five thousand ready Guardsmen were in the vicinity, but they were so quiet and they’d hugged into the shadows so well, he could barely see any of them.

Marksmen from all companies had drawn in around the southern edge of the square. They’d fitted night scopes, so they had the best eyes. Rawne heard a tiny tap, barely louder than the rain pattering on the rockcrete. His microbead.

‘Rawne,’ he whispered.

‘Larkin,’ the response came. ‘They’re coming back.’

Rawne waited for the scouts to reappear. Mkoll was suddenly at his elbow.

‘Hit me,’ Rawne whispered.

‘The batteries are manned,’ Mkoll replied quietly. ‘But the main guns aren’t firing.’

‘Why?’

‘Waiting for a clear target is my guess,’ said Mkoll. ‘They won’t risk depletion. There’s a brigade of Helixid dug in to the east of the batteries.’

Mkoll flipped out his lumen stick, cupped his hand around the blade of light, and showed Rawne the relative positions on the chart. ‘The avenue here, to the west of the batteries, that looks wide open.’

‘Between the batteries and the sea?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s this?’

‘Maritime vessels, industrial units. They’re moored together in a large block from the harbour side all the way down the coast. I think they’re junked. Decommissioned. They effectively extend the land about half a mile from the shore.’

‘Enemy units?’

‘We spotted a few at a distance. And there are dead along the avenue, so the batteries have repulsed at least one assault. I think another rush is imminent.’

‘Gut feeling?’ asked Rawne.

Mkoll nodded. Mkoll’s gut feeling was good enough for Rawne.

‘We’ll advance and stand ready to hold the avenue west of the ­batteries,’ Mkoll said. He looked at Oysten.

‘Get the word to the company leaders.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Rawne glanced back at Mkoll.

‘I don’t want to risk open comms. Can you get runners to the ­batteries and the Helixid, and inform them we’re coming in alongside them to plug the hole?’

Mkoll nodded.

There was another furious ripple of distant artillery, then it abruptly stopped.

‘Move,’ said Rawne. ‘Here they come.’

The Tulkar Batteries were a cluster of heavy, stone gun emplacements raised on a steep rockcrete pier overlooking a broad esplanade. Their gun slots, like the slit visors of ancient war-helms, were angled to cover the bay, and Rawne presumed they had once been sea forts for coastal defence. But they had enough traverse room to cover the shorefront and the esplanade, and defend against any ground attack that came from the south west along the coastal route.

Though the Ghosts were on the edge of the Great Bay, the sea was invisible, merely a concept. The rolling banks of smoke had closed down any sense of space or distance, and choked out the view over the water. What Rawne could see, beyond the rockcrete line of the esplanade, was a rusty mass that seemed like a continuation of the shoreline. This was the junk Mkoll had described.

In better days, the city, like much of Urdesh, had employed fleets of mechanised harvester barges and agriboats to gather and process the weed growth of the shallow inshore seas as a food staple. War, Urdesh’s long and miserable history of conflict, had brought that industry to a halt. The huge agriboats had been moored along the bayside and abandoned. The machines were big, crude mechanical processors, some painted red, some green, some yellow, all corroded and decaying, their paintwork scabbing and flaking. They had been moored wharf-side, and around the jetties of the food mills and processing plants that ran along the seawall on the bay side of the avenue. The long, rusting, rotting line of them extended as far as Rawne could see, right down to the coast, hundreds if not thousands of half-sunk barges, chained five or six deep in places. It was a graveyard of maritime industry. Rawne could smell the festering sumps of the old boats, the pungent reek of decomposed weed, the tarry, stagnant stench of the mud and in-water ooze the agriboats sat in. These were the first scents strong enough to overpower the stink of smoke.

The esplanade, wide and well maintained, was also well lit by the flame-light of the distant mills. The horizon, more clearly visible now, burned like a hellscape. Rawne could see the black outlines of mills as the fires gutted them.

In half-cover, he stared at the open road. The obvious route. Fast-paced armour could flood along it in a matter of minutes. There was little cover, but if the enemy had enough mass in its assault that would hardly matter. The sea road was a direct artery into the southern quarters of Eltath. If the Archenemy opened and held that, they’d have their bridge into the city.

Via Oysten, he issued quick orders to Kolosim, Vivvo, Elam and Chiria. They scurried their companies forwards, heads down, and set up a block across the road under the shoulder of the batteries. Old transports and cargo-carriers were parked on the loading ramps of the mills along the sea wall, and the Ghosts began to roll them out to form a barricade. Rawne heard glass smash as Guardsmen punched out windows to enter the cabs and disengage the brakes. Fire-teams worked together, straining, to push the vehicles out onto the road and lug prom drums and cargo pallets to the makeshift line. He moved his own company, along with A and C, into the narrow streets under the batteries on the south side of the avenue. This was another commercial zone, an extension of the Millgate quarter formed of narrow streets and packing plants. Curtains and rugs had been strung between buildings to deter snipers.

Rawne kept a steady eye on the dispersal. This was his game, and he wasn’t about to feth it up. Oysten was almost glued to his side, passing quick reports from the company leaders. The tension in the air was as heavy as the smoke, and there was almost no sound except the thumps and quick exchanges from the teams forming the barricade. The Ghosts seemed to be as efficient as ever. That was a small miracle. They were down two commissars, three if you counted Blenner, which Rawne never did. With Kolea, Baskevyl and Domor missing, Daur off at the palace with Gaunt, and Raglon still away in the infirmary, five companies were operating under the commands of their seconds or adjutants: Caober, Fapes, Chiria, Vivvo and Mkdask respectively. It was Tona Criid’s first time in combat at the head of A Company. That felt like a lot of new faces to Rawne, a lot of Ghosts who had proven themselves as good soldiers but had yet to go through the stress test of full field command.

That applied to him too, he reminded himself. He’d commanded the Ghosts, by order or necessity, many times, but this was different. He was named command now, Colonel fething Rawne. The reins had been handed to him, and he had a sick feeling he would never pass them back again.

‘What are you thinking?’ Ludd whispered to him.

‘If I had armour, I’d drive up the road,’ Rawne replied quietly. ‘Do it with enough confidence, and you’d get momentum. Break through, and circle the batteries from behind.’

He glanced at Criid, Ludd and Caober.

‘But if I was using the Ghosts,’ he said, ‘I’d come up through this district, off the main road. Push infantry up into Millgate. You could get a lot of men a long way in before you were seen.’

‘And if you had both?’ asked Criid.

Rawne smiled.

‘They have both, captain,’ he said.

‘So… snipers and flamers?’ asked Caober.

‘Yes. Spread them out. Cover the corners here. All cross streets. If infantry’s coming this way, I want to know about it, and I want it locked out. Oysten?

‘Sir?’

‘Signal up J and L Companies. Tell them to move in behind us and add a little weight.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Wes Maggs came running up.

‘Word from Mkoll, sir,’ he said. ‘The battery garrison and the Helixid are aware of our deployment. The Urdeshi commander of the batteries sends his compliments and invites us to enjoy the show.’

‘Meaning?’

Maggs shrugged.

‘The batteries have the road locked tight. We are apparently to expect a demonstration of Urdeshi artillery at its finest.’

Rawne glanced at the massive batteries that loomed behind them. He could hear the distant whine of munition hoists and loading mechanisms. Artillery was a principal weapon of ground warfare, and could be decisive. But for all its might, it was cumbersome and unwieldy. If the tide of a fight moved against it, artillery could be found wanting. It lacked the agility to compensate fast and counter-­respond. It was a superb instrument of destruction, but it was not adaptable.

And war, Rawne knew too well, flowed like quicksilver.

‘I wish the Urdeshi commander success,’ Rawne said. ‘May the Emperor protect him. Because if He doesn’t, we’ll be doing it.’

As if hurt by the thinly veiled cynicism in Rawne’s voice, the Tulkar ­Batteries spoke. There was a searing light-blink, and then a shock wave boom that hurt their ears and made them all wince. Two dozen ­Medusas and Basilisks had fired almost simultaneously. The ground shook, and windows rattled in the buildings around them.

‘Ow,’ said Varl.

The batteries fired again, hurling shells directly over them. This time, past a hand raised to shield against the glare, Rawne saw the huge cones of muzzle flash scorch out of the gun slots. He heard a more distant thunder, the staggered detonations of the shells falling a mile or so away.

‘Positions!’ he yelled, and ran for the nearest building, kicking in the access shutter. Oysten, Ludd and Maggs followed him through the old packing plant, up the stairs and out onto the low roof.

The batteries continued to fire overhead. They could hear the almost musical whizz of shells punching the air above them. Fyceline smoke descended like a mist across the streets, welling out of the ­batteries’ venting ports. It had a hard, acrid stink, familiar from a hundred battlefields.

The concussion pulse from the bombardment made Rawne shake. He could feel each punch in his diaphragm. He kept his mouth open to stop his eardrums bursting, and took out his field glasses with fingers that tingled with the repeated shock.

In the distance, two kilometres away, the shells were dropping on the mill complexes and the western head of the sea road. Each flash was blurred and dimpled by the shock-force it was kicking out. Rawne saw buildings flattened, outer walls cascading away in avalanches of burning stone. Some buildings just evaporated in fireballs. Others seemed to lift whole, as though cut loose from their foundations and gusted up on boiling clouds of fire-mass before disintegrating. He saw vast steel girders spinning into the sky like twigs.

There were tanks on the sea road. Urdeshi-made AT70s, rolling hard, lifting fans of grit, thumping shells from their main guns as they ran. They were emerging from the firezone of the mills in the Clave district. SteG 4 light tanks scurried among them. A fast armoured push right down the artery. Just what Rawne had predicted.

That’s what had woken the batteries up.

He kept watching. Artillery shelling continued to drop on the mill complexes. Some hit the sea road too. He saw an AT70 light off like a mine. He saw two more annihilated by direct hits. He saw a fourth get hit as it was running, the blast lifting the entire machine end over end and dropping it, turret down, on a speeding SteG 4. Munition loads inside the wrecked vehicles cooked and blew.

‘It’s not enough,’ he said. No one could hear him over the thunder of the bombardment. He looked at Maggs, Oysten and Ludd, and signed instead, Verghast-style.

Not enough. They’re moving too fast.

The enemy armour was taking brutal losses. They were driving through a hellish rain of heavy, high-explosive shells. But they had an open roadway, and they were pushing hard, as fast as their drives could manage. A dozen tank wrecks burned on the ruptured highway, but the majority of shells were falling behind the heels of the leading machines. The Urdeshi commander was traversing and adjusting range rapidly to stop the armour force moving in under his fire-field, but the distance was closing. How short could the long-range guns drop their shells? How far around to the north west could they traverse? It was a simple ­matter of angles. There would come a point at which the gun slots of the massive battery fortress would simply not be wide enough to allow a main gun to range the road and sea wall to its extreme right.

That moment was coming. By risking the open highway, and accepting brutal losses, the enemy armour had forgone safety in favour of speed.

Maggs grabbed Rawne’s sleeve and pointed. Less than a kilometre away to the south west, SteG 4s and stalk-tanks were breaking out of Millgate quarter onto the sea road. Smaller and faster than the main battle tanks, these war machines had moved up under cover through the streets of the district. The big tanks of the main road assault had been a misdirection. The lighter machines were already onto the open highway, and were coming in under even the shortest drop of the ­batteries’ cone of fire.

Pasha, Rawne signed to Oysten.

At the roadblock line, Major Petrushkevskaya had already spotted the sleight of hand. SteGs and stalk-tanks were rushing her position. She, Elam and Kolosim had got their tread fethers un-crated and in position, and crew-served weapons were set up along the roadside and among the line of trucks.

‘Steady!’ she ordered calmly over her link. The weapon mounts of the advancing enemy had greater range than her infantry support weapons. She wanted no wastage, even if that meant they had to take their licks first.

Shells from the .40 cal cannons of the SteG 4s began to bark their way. Some went over, others blew craters out of the road surface short of the line. The light tanks were rolling at maximum speed to reach their target, and that made them unstable, imprecise platforms. The stalk-tanks, scurry­ing like metal spiders, were spitting las-fire from their belly-mounts. Shots struck the line of trucks, puncturing metal and blowing out wheels. A round from a SteG 4 howled in, and blew the cab off a transport in a cloud of shredded metal.

Men went down, hurt by shrapnel. Pasha took her eyes off the road to shout for medics, but Curth and Kolding were already on the ground.

‘Do you need help?’ Pasha called to Curth.

‘Free a few bodies from the line to help us carry these men clear, please!’ Curth shouted back.

‘Squad two!’ Pasha yelled. ‘Work as corpsmen! Take instruction from Doctor Curth!’

Her troopers slung their lasguns over their shoulders and hurried to help Curth. The medicae officers started pulling the injured clear with the help of troopers seconded as corpsmen. Pasha looked back at the approaching armour.

‘Hold steady,’ Pasha said.

‘Sixty metres,’ Kolosim voxed.

‘Understood,’ she nodded. Another few seconds…

She raised her hand. At her side, her adjutant Konjic was watching as if hypnotised, his thumb on the vox-tap switch.

Another shell tore at them, and flipped one of the trucks, scattering debris. Two more shells ripped in, punching clean through the body­work of barricade transports, killing Ghosts sheltering in their lee.

Pasha dropped her hand. Konjic sent the tap command.

At the left-hand end of the barricade line, Captain Spetnin led two teams out of the roadside culvert. He had shouldered a tread fether himself. Trooper Balthus had the other. Kneeling, they lined up and fired. Each tube weapon gasped a suck-whoosh, and anti-tank rockets spat out across the road. Spetnin blew one of the leading stalk-tanks apart. Balthus stopped a SteG 4 dead in its tracks. It slewed aside, on fire, a gaping hole under its engine case. A SteG directly behind it tried to steer out and cannoned into the wreck, shunting it forwards and twisting its own chassis violently.

The men loading Spetnin and Balthus were already slotting in fresh rockets. From the midline of the vehicle barricade, Venar and Golightly fired their tread fethers. Venar’s rocket burst a stalk-tank, flinging it around hard, toppling it into a burning pool of its own fuel. Golightly hit an oncoming SteG so square and low it flipped as if it had tripped over something. It tumbled and blew up.

On the right-hand flank of the barricade, Chiria’s company fired its anti-tank weapons. More rockets streaked across the open highway. One made a clean kill of a running SteG, the other ripped the turret off a second. The crippled tank kept going, trailing fire in its wake, but either its crew was dead or its steering was ruined. It veered off, headlong, hit the rockcrete sidings of the seawall and overturned, its six oversized wheels spinning helplessly.

A second and third wave of rockets spat from the roadblock line. More of the advancing tanks exploded or were brought to a standstill. The road was littered with wrecks. Big AT70s could have piled through, but the light SteGs and the delicate stalk-tanks had to slow down and steer around and through the burning hulls. The Ghosts’ support weapons opened up, punishing the slower targets with .30 cal hose-fire. Armour shuddered and buckled under the sustained hits. Melyr swung the spade grips of his tripod-mounted .30 and poured a stream of fire into the body of a stalk-tank, ripping it open and shredding the pilot. The stalk-tank remained upright, but began to burn: spider legs frozen, supporting a fierce ball of flame, one leg lifted to take another step that would never come. Seena and Arilla focused their .30 on a SteG that was trying to turn past a blazing wreck, and shot out its engine. Fuel loads and hydraulics gushed out of the punctured hull like blood, and the vehicle shuddered to a halt. Its turret was still live, and it traversed, pumping two shots in the direction of the roadblock.

Arilla, small and scrawny, tried to retrain to finish the job, then cursed. Her weapon had suffered a feed-jam. Seena, twice her size and all ­muscle, reached in and cleared the jam with a fierce wrench of her fist, then fit a fresh box to the feed.

‘Go!’ she roared.

Arilla squeezed the paddles, and the weapon kicked into life. Her torrent of shots mangled the SteG’s turret, and sheared off its gun mount. The impact sparks touched off the fuel gushing out of its ruptured tanks, and it went up like a feast day bonfire.

On the roadway, Archenemy crews were dismounting from ­damaged and burning vehicles, and trying to advance through the smoke and billowing flames. The Ghosts on the makeshift line now had human targets their rifles could take. Las-fire rattled from the ­jumbled row of trucks, chopping down men before they could move more than a few metres.

Smoke and haze from the killzone blocked any decent view.

‘Advise!’ Pasha yelled into her mic.

‘Another pack of SteGs about two minutes out,’ Kolosim voxed back. He had a better view from the right-hand edge of the sea road. ‘We can hold them off with the launchers. Major, stand by.’

Kolosim scurried along the line of the sea wall to get a clearer angle. He could feel the heat on his face from the burning tanks.

He touched his microbead.

‘Pasha, I think at least two of the big treads have got past the bombardment. They’re coming in, four minutes maximum.’

Pasha acknowledged. AT70s. They would swing things. The big tanks were robust and heavily armoured. They could shrug off the support fire and only the luckiest hit with a launcher would make a dent. Chances were the big treads would blow straight through the wreckage belt, and they’d have the meat and firepower to punch through the roadblock too.

Pasha had fought in the scratch companies during the Zoican War. Far too many times, she and under-equipped partisan fighters had been forced to hunt big enemy armour and woe machines that had massively outclassed them.

‘Remember Hass South?’ she asked Konjic.

‘Is that a joke?’ Konjic asked.

‘No. Grenades. Fast. Not loose, boxes.’

‘Gak!’ said a young trooper in her first squad, ‘Which unlucky bastard gets to do that?’

Pasha grinned. ‘For that remark, Trooper Oksan Galashia, you do. But don’t worry. I’ll come teach you how we did it in the People’s War.’

Galashia, a very short, thick-set young woman, turned pale.

Konjic returned with six men lugging metal crates of grenades.

‘All right, lucky ones,’ said Pasha, ‘you’re with me.’

She led them out, past the roadblock and onto the open road. Rockets whooshed over them, striking from the line at the next pack of SteGs.

Heads down, they began to run towards the burning enemy wrecks.

‘Feth!’ said Rawne. ‘Is that Pasha? The feth is she doing?’

The batteries had fallen quiet. There was nothing left they could hit. From the roof of the packing plant, Rawne had a good view of the sea road and the resistance line of the roadblock. He could see figures – Ghosts – sprinting out from the cover of the roadblock into the open.

‘Criid’s calling, sir,’ said Oysten.

Rawne cursed again, put away his field glasses, and hurried back into the street.

‘You were right,’ said Criid. ‘Obel’s scouts have spotted enemy infantry moving up through Millgate.’

‘Let’s go welcome them,’ said Rawne.

They started to move through the narrow streets, fanning out in fire-teams.

‘Marksmen in position?’ Rawne voxed.

‘Affirmative,’ Larkin replied. ‘Main force seems to be coming in along Turnabout Lane.’

Still moving, Rawne found it on the map.

‘Can we box them in, Larks?’ he asked.

‘We can try, but the locals have proofed this area against snipers.’

Rawne frowned. Overhead, carpets and drapes hung limp over the street in the smokey air.

‘Varl!’ he said.

Varl came up. Rawne showed him the map.

‘This is Turnabout Lane. We want to clear back to about here. Here at least. Give each long-las as much range as possible.’

‘We’ll be giving them range too,’ said Varl.

‘Yeah, but they’re moving and we’re dug in. Get to it.’

Varl nodded.

‘Brostin! Mkhet! Lubba! Shake your tails!’

Varl and the three flame troopers moved ahead, with Nomis and Cardass in support.

‘Are we gonna burn something?’ Brostin asked as they hurried along.

‘Yup,’ said Varl.

‘People?’ asked Brostin.

‘No,’ said Varl. ‘Fething carpets.’

Over by the sea wall, at the right-hand end of the roadblock, Zhukova found Mkoll staring out at the graveyard of rusting agriboats.

‘Signal from Cardass,’ she said. ‘Confirmation – enemy infantry extending up Millgate towards Rawne’s position.’

Mkoll glanced across the broad road towards the dark maze of habs and mills south west of the batteries.

‘Sir?’

‘Rawne was on the money,’ he said quietly. ‘Armour push on the road, infantry in the cover of the streets. That would have been my call too. The armour’s the distraction.’

‘The tanks are still coming,’ said Zhukova. ‘They’re going to be more than a distraction.’

‘To an extent, but the infantry’s the big problem, if there’s enough of them, and there will be. In those streets, it’ll be the worst kind of fighting. House-to-house, tight. With numbers, they could break, force an overrun. Maybe even take the batteries.’

‘Rawne’s on it, sir,’ she replied.

He nodded. He kept looking at the flaking metal waste of the industrial barges.

‘You seem distracted,’ she said.

He looked at her, surprised by her frankness.

‘Just thinking,’ he said.

‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m trying to think like an etogaur,’ he said. ‘Like a Son of Sek.’

Her expression clearly showed her alarm at the idea.

‘They’re not stupid, Zhukova. They are the worst breed of monsters, but they’re not stupid. And that fact makes them even worse monsters. This isn’t an opportunist assault. It’s been planned and coordinated in advance. There is strategy here, we just can’t see it.’

‘So?’

‘So if the Sons of Sek are working to a plan–’

‘If the Sons of Sek are working to a plan, then we define their scheme and deny it.’

He nodded.

‘An opportunist assault is hard to fight because it has no pattern,’ he said. ‘This has a pattern. So, you put yourself in their boots, Zhukova. If you were at the other end of this road, what would you be trying to do?’

‘Uh… blindside the main obstacles. Get around them. The Ghosts, the Helixid, the batteries.’

‘Right.’

‘Isn’t that what they’re doing? Pushing troops up through the packing district, the hardest area to defend?’

‘Yes,’ said Mkoll. He didn’t sound sure.

‘What are you thinking now?’ she asked.

‘I think we should take a walk,’ he said.

Pasha led her crew through the fires and wreckage of the SteGs and the stalk-tanks. On the wind, through the crackle of flames, she could hear the clattering rumble of the big treads moving towards them. Despite the cover of the smoke, she felt exposed. She felt nostalgia. She felt the edge-of-death rush she’d known as a young woman at Vervunhive.

‘Move fast,’ she ordered. ‘Keep those crates away from the fires or they’ll torch off.’

‘They’re about a minute away,’ called Konjic.

‘How many?’

‘Two. AT-seventies. They’re not slowing. They’re going to pile through here.’

Pasha knelt down with one of the crates, opened the lid, and took out a grenade.

‘Do what I do,’ she told Galashia. Konjic was already working on the third crate. ‘Slide the lid shut,’ she said, working steadily and with practised hands. ‘Wedge the grenade upright at the end. Slide the lid in tight to hold it in place. Now, fuse wire or det tape. You’ll need about two metres. Loosen the pin of the wedge grenade. Not too loose! Tie the wire tight to the pin. Now play it out, back under the box. Leave a trailing end.’

Galashia watched what Pasha and Konjic were doing, and tried to copy it as best she could. Her hands were shaking.

The clatter of the advancing tanks was growing louder.

‘All right!’ said Pasha. ‘One man to a box, grenade towards you. One man on each wire, keeping it under the box. Don’t gakking pull. Lift them up, keep them steady. The real trick is placement.’

Pasha hefted her box up. Trooper Stavik held the end of her wire. Konjic lifted his box, with Kurnau on the end of the wire. Galashia got her wire wound in place, and lifted her box. Aust took up the end of her trailing thread.

‘All right,’ said Pasha. ‘This is how this madness works…’

The two AT70s were approaching the burning wreckage clogging the highway. They were moving at full throttle, one ahead of the other. Neither slowed down. They were going to ram their armoured bulks through the wrecks, and charge the roadblock. No amount of small-arms or support fire would be able to slow them then.

The first AT70 smashed into the wreckage. It crushed the ­flaming ruin of a stalk-tank under its treads, then shoved a burned-out SteG out of its path in a shiver of sparks. Visibility in the smoke and flames was almost zero.

Pasha and Stavik ran out in front of it, Pasha struggling with the weight of the box. They had been waiting behind another wrecked SteG, concealed by the fires spewing out of it. This close to the front of the speeding battle tank, they were outside the driver’s very limited line of sight. Both were sweating from the heat, and they were covered in soot.

Timing and placement were everything. Too hasty and you missed the line. Too slow, and the tank simply ran you down and churned you to paste.

Pasha slammed the box down in front of the advancing tank’s left tread section. Stavik kept the wire straight so when the box came down, the wire was trapped under it and lying in a line running directly towards the whirring tracks. To do this, he had to keep his back to the tank about to run him down. The roar of it was deafening. The ground shook. It was as if it were falling on him.

Pasha and Stavik released, and threw themselves clear. The tank crew didn’t even know two people had been in their path for a moment.

The left tread section rolled over the wire. The weight of the tank ground the wire between track and road, and pulled on it, drawing it back and dragging the box with it. Less than a second later, the track met the back of the placed box and began to push it forwards.

Less than a second after that, the track assembly would have crushed the box or, more likely, smashed it out of the way.

But by then, the draw on the wire and the pressure on the end of the box had combined to pull the pin from the wedged grenade.

The grenade exploded, detonating all the other grenades in the box. By placing the box in front of the treads, Pasha had made sure that the violent blast was channelled up under the tank’s armoured skirts and into the wheel housing, instead of bursting uselessly under the armoured treads. The box went off like a free-­standing mine.

The searing explosion rushed up under the skirt, shredding drive sprockets and axle hubs. The blast actually lifted the corner of the AT70 for a second. Torsion bars, segments of track and parts of the skirt armour went flying. With one tread section entirely ­disabled, the tank slewed around hard, driven by its one, still-working, track. It crashed headlong into a wrecked SteG and came to a halt, coughing clouds of dirty exhaust.

The second AT70 was on them. Glimpsing its partner lurching aside through the flames, the tank slowed slightly, opening up with a futile burst of its coaxial gun. The shots chewed up empty roadway. Konjic and Kurnau dropped their box in its path, and sprinted clear, but the tank was turning to evade. Its tracks chewed over the wire sideways, yanking out the pin, but the box was still clear of the track and the blast, an impressive rush of dirty flame, washed up its skirt armour without doing any damage.

Galashia and Aust ran through the flames and smoke. Galashia had never been so scared in her life. This was the behaviour of lunatics.

She was screaming as she got the box in place. The tank was starting to turn and accelerate again, but she’d made a good line.

Aust tripped. He went down on his face, and the tank’s right treads went over him before he could even yell for help. His death, though swift, was the most horrible thing Galashia had ever seen. He was ground apart with industrial fury.

Facing it, she saw it all. She fell backwards. She could evade neither the blast nor the onrushing tracks.

The tank suddenly lurched into reverse. Fearing mines or sub-­surface munitions, it backed out hard, smashing a burning SteG wreck out of its way. It left Aust and the box behind it. Nothing remained of Aust except a grume of blood and his spread-eagled arms and legs. The box was intact.

The tank halted and began to traverse its turret with a whine of servos. The .30 mount started coughing again.

Pasha reached Galashia, and hauled her to her feet.

‘Grab it! Grab it, girl!’ Pasha yelled.

They scooped up the box. Pasha had to peel the wire out of the jelly slick of Aust’s remains, carefully, to stop it sticking and pulling the pin.

Together, they ran behind the tank. Pasha kept so close to the tank’s hull she might as well have been leaning on it. It was counter-­intuitive to be so close to such a terrifyingly indomitable enemy object, but staying tight kept them out of sight and out of the line of its coaxial fire.

‘Here! Here!’ Pasha yelled.

They placed the box behind the right-hand tread.

‘It’s stopped moving!’ Galashia yelled.

Pasha bent down. Holding the wired grenade in place, she slid the lip open, and fished out one of the other hand-bombs.

‘What the gak are you doing?’ Galashia screeched.

Pasha ignored her, and slid the lid shut, bracing the wired grenade.

‘Come on,’ she said.

They started to run. Pasha pulled the pin on the grenade she’d lifted, and hurled it high over the tank. It landed on the road in front of the AT70, and went off with a gritty crump.

‘What–’ Galashia stammered.

Pasha threw her flat.

The AT70 driver assumed the grenade blast in front of him was evidence of a frontal attack or another mine. He threw the transmission into reverse. With a jolt and a roar of its engines, the tank backed over the box-mine.

The blast took out its back skirts and wheel-blocks. Galashia felt grit and debris rain down on her. Shrapnel from the blast penetrated the tank’s engine house, and in seconds, the rear end of the massive vehicle was engulfed in fire.

Two members of the crew tried to escape, bailing from the hatches. Pasha was calmly waiting for them, pistol in hand. She cut them both down.

‘Let’s get clear,’ she said, hurrying Galashia away from the burning tank. ‘The fire will reach the magazine.’

The first AT70, crippled and immobile, was trying to train its main gun on the roadblock. Konjic, Stavik and Kurnau rushed it. Konjic fired his lasrifle repeatedly into the armoured glass of the gunner’s sighting slot, blinding the machine. It fired the main gun anyway, but the shell fired wild, wide over the roadblock line.

There was no way to crack the hatches from the outside. Konjic hoped that the commander would pop the hatch to get a target sighting. If that happened, he’d be ready to hose the interior with full auto. But then tanks often had auspex. It didn’t need to see in order to aim. They’d stopped it, but they hadn’t killed it.

‘What do we do?’ asked Kurnau frantically.

‘Get the feth clear,’ said Chiria.

She had run from cover at the roadblock to join them, her tread fether over her broad shoulder.

‘Shit!’ said Konjic.

‘Can’t miss at this range,’ said Chiria, and didn’t.

Even AT70 hull plating couldn’t stop a tread fether at less than six metres. The rocket punched a hole in its side, and there was a dull, brutal thump from within. The tank didn’t explode. It simply died, smoke gusting from the rocket wound, its crew pulverised by the overpressure of the blast trapped inside the hull.

Chiria turned and grinned at the others.

She was about to say something when a colossal blast knocked them all off their feet. The second AT70’s magazine had detonated.

Debris and burning scraps fluttered down on them. They got up, coughing and dazed. The centre of the road where the second AT70 had been was a large crater full of leaping flames. Pasha limped towards them, her arm around Galashia’s shoulders.

She was smiling.

‘Back into cover, lucky ones,’ she said.

Varl’s flamers were at work, at the head of Turnabout Lane. Loosing jets of fire, they were burning down the makeshift drapes and rugs strung up by the Urdeshi to block line of sight. Lubba and Mkhet burned out the ropes securing the top corners of the hanging sheets so that they dropped away, and fell, limp and smouldering, against the fronts of the buildings supporting them. Brostin seemed to prefer to hose the drapes, decorating the streets with flaming banners that slowly disintegrated.

‘You only have to burn the ropes,’ Varl said. ‘Just bring them down.’

‘Where’s the fun in that?’ Brostin asked.

Nomis and Cardass ran up.

‘Enemy sighted,’ Cardass told Varl. ‘Two streets that way, advancing fast.’

‘Infantry?’

‘Yes.’

‘A lot of infantry?’

‘Far too many,’ said Cardass.

Varl checked his microbead.

‘Larks?’

‘I hear you.’

‘Can you see better now?’

‘Much better, thank you, ta.’

Varl turned to his squad.

‘Fall back. Come on, now.’

Lubba and Mkhet made their flamers safe. Brostin looked disappointed and reluctant.

‘There’ll be more to burn later,’ Varl reassured him.

‘Promise?’ asked Brostin.

‘Cross my heart.’

Larkin had taken up position in a third floor room in one of the plants on Turnabout Lane. He had a commanding view down the thoroughfare. Nessa and Banda were in position in adjacent buildings, and other Tanith marksmen were on nearby rooftops on the other side of the street.

He settled his long-las on the sill and clicked his microbead.

‘Larkin,’ he said.

A crackle.

‘Rawne, go.’

‘We’ve made ourselves a kill-box, Eli,’ he said. ‘They’ll be on us in a ­matter of minutes. We’ll take as many as we can, but–’

‘Don’t worry, Larks. You’ve got full companies either side of you and capping the end of the street. Once it gets busy, you’ll have serious support. Let’s just walk them into a surprise first.’

‘Happy to oblige,’ said Larkin. He shook out his old shoulders, and took aim. The street was clear and empty. The smouldering rags left by Varl’s flamer squad had all but gone out.

He waited. He was good at waiting.

‘They’re not coming,’ Banda said over the link.

‘Shut up, girl.’

‘They’ve gone another way.’

‘Just wait. Keep your shorts on and wait.’

A minute passed. Two. Three.

Larkin saw movement at the far end of the lane. A figure or two at first, furtive. Then more. Assault packs, advancing by squad, weapons at their shoulders, drilled and disciplined. Big bastards too. Sons of Sek. There was no mistaking the colour scheme or the brutal insignia.

‘Feth,’ he heard Banda say. ‘Look at the bastards.’

‘Keep waiting,’ he answered, calmly.

‘There are hundreds of them, you mad old codger.’

There were. There were hundreds of them, close to a thousand, Larkin figured, advancing urgently down the commercial lane. And many more behind that, he reckoned. This was their way in. This little, dark, undistinguished street was their route to victory.

‘Do we take shots?’ Banda asked.

‘Wait.’

‘For feth’s sake, they’re almost on us.’

‘Wait.’

He paused, sighed.

It was time.

‘Choose your targets and fire,’ he said into his microbead.

He lined up. Who first? That one. That one there. A big fether. An officer. He was gesturing, barking orders.

Larkin lined up his sights. The man’s head filled his scope.

‘Welcome to Eltath, you son of a bitch,’ he breathed, and pulled the trigger.

The agriboats were huge and old, but now they were on them, Zhukova could feel them shifting slightly underfoot in the low water.

Mkoll led the way, making so little noise it was inhuman. Zhukova felt like a clumsy fool as she followed him. They went from deck to deck, crossing from one rotting barge to the next, following old walkways and scabby chain bridges. The derelicts were just rusted hulks. In places, hold covers and cargo hatches were missing, and she saw down into the dark, dank hollow interiors of the barges, hold silos that contained nothing but echoes. The place stank of cropweed, a vile smell that had the quality of decaying seafood. The reek of bilge waste and shoreline mud made it worse.

Mkoll stopped at the side rail of the next barge and peered down between the vessel and its neighbour. Zhukova joined him and looked down. She saw shadows and, far below, the wink of firelight on the oil-slick water.

‘What do you see?’ she whispered.

He pointed. Ten metres below them, near the water line, there was some kind of mechanical bridge or docking gate connecting the barge they stood on with its neighbour.

‘The agriboats are modular,’ he said quietly. ‘They could work independently, or lock together to operate as single, larger harvester rigs.’

‘So?’

‘I guess they could also dock to transfer processed food cargos,’ he mused.

‘So?’

He beckoned. They went to an iron ladder and descended through the rusting decks into the darkness. The barge interior stank even worse. Slime and mould coated the walls and mesh floor. It was as black as pitch.

Mkoll jumped the last two metres of the ladder, and landed on the deck. Zhukova followed.

He led her to a large open hatch, and she saw they had reached the rusting bridge linking the two vessels. She looked into the darkness of the neighbouring agriboat.

‘They connect,’ he whispered. ‘They connect together. Docked like this, mothballed, the chances are all the agriboats in this graveyard are hitched to each other, all connected. Most of them, anyway.’

‘That’s several miles of junk,’ she said.

He nodded.

‘All connected.’

Mkoll knelt down and pressed his ear to the deck.

‘Listen,’ he said.

Zhukova wasn’t sure she was going to do that. The deck was filthy.

‘Listen!’ Mkoll hissed.

She got down and pressed her ear to the metal flooring.

She could hear the creak of the ancient hulls as they rocked in the low water, the thump of rail bumpers as the tide stirred one boat against another.

And something else.

‘You could walk all the way from the west point of the bay to the ­batteries without being seen and without using dry land,’ he whispered.

‘If you went through the hulks,’ she replied, horrified.

‘The armour push wasn’t the only distraction,’ said Mkoll. ‘The infantry surge in Millgate is a feint too.’

Zhukova listened to the deck again. The other sound was clearer now. Quiet, stealthy, but distinct. Movement. A lot of people in heavy boots were stealing closer through the bowels of the graveyard ships.

‘They’re using the agriboats,’ said Mkoll. ‘This is the main assault. They’re coming in this way.’

‘We have to warn Colonel Rawne,’ said Zhukova, her eyes wide.

‘No fething kidding,’ said Mkoll. He tried his microbead.

‘It’s dead,’ he said. ‘Try yours.’

Zhukova tried, and shook her head.

‘They’re jamming us,’ he said. ‘That buzz? That’s vox-jamming.’

‘What do we do?’ asked Zhukova.

‘Get Rawne,’ Mkoll replied.