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  WHITEOUT

  Andy Clark

  Crimson light bathed Lothar Redfang as the drop pod plummeted through Atrophon’s atmosphere. He grinned fiercely around at the rest of the Deathwatch kill team as their craft juddered and shook.

  ‘The fires out there would roast us in a heartbeat, eh? We’re in the hands of the Allfather now!’

  The Ultramarine, Sergeant Cantos, didn’t respond. Sor’khal, the White Scar, scowled.

  ‘We trust our lives to a damned machine, Fenris. That’s all.’

  Lothar’s reply was overridden by the grinding voice of the Iron Hand, Brother Gorrvan.

  ‘I have advised on seven previous occasions, Brother Sor’khal. Statistical chance of drop pod mechanical failure is less than zero seven two. You have virtually no cause for concern.’

  Sor’khal snorted.

  ‘Virtually, he says.’

  Oblivious to the irony, Gorrvan continued.

  ‘Brother Redfang, this vehicle is a device of the Omnissiah. If you fear for your safety, pray not to your Allfather but to Him.’

  ‘A Space Wolf fears nothing!’ barked Lothar. ‘Hot Fenrisian blood in these veins! Not like that sump-oil you got in you!’ The Space Wolf’s brash laugh faltered as he realised none of his brothers were joining in. Gorrvan stared blankly, and Sor’khal’s scowl deepened. Brother Kordus, of the Raven Guard, merely tilted his head slightly and regarded Lothar askance.

  ‘What?’ muttered Lothar. ‘None of you got a sense of humour?’

  ‘Battle is no laughing matter, Brother Redfang,’ declared Sergeant Cantos, ‘and before us lies a fierce one. Brothers, three minutes to impact. Make ready.’

  Immediately, the kill team began checking equipment while muttering benedictions to the machine-spirits. Helms were locked in place. Sor’khal’s narthecium clicked and whirred as he tested its functionality. Kordus reached across to where his jump pack was mag-locked to the drop pod’s central column, fingers dancing over the pack’s activation runes. As they worked, Cantos ran through a final brief, reiterating the key points of his squad’s strategos briefing with the typical thoroughness of a veteran Ultramarine.

  ‘As you know, the orks of Waaagh! Dregsmasha invaded Atrophon eighteen months ago. Atrophon militia were reinforced by the Catachan Jungle Fighters. However, extreme wintry conditions on the planet have worked against them.’

  ‘Worse,’ he continued, ‘the orks have deployed a string of super-weapons, to their great advantage. They carried Frostclaw Ridge with volleys of gravity bombs, deployed super-heavy war effigies in the fight for Honorium, and undermined the Ironfields with tunnelling machines.’

  ‘Strategos link these inventions to an ork mechanic named Badklaw,’ put in Gorrvan. ‘Their augur-skull probes have ascertained his location amid the factorums of the Strakendorf Peninsula.’

  ‘However,’ continued Cantos, ‘that information is useless to the Astra Militarum. Eighteen hours ago, the greenskins staged a push on the Strakendorf front. The Catachans and Atrophons fell back over the River Strakk, demolishing its primary bridges behind them. This has bought the defenders time to marshal their forces. However, it has cut them off from the orks.’

  ‘Cowards,’ grunted Sor’khal.

  ‘Just men,’ offered Brother Kordus quietly, ‘but not us.’

  Sergeant Cantos nodded. ‘Correct. The Emperor has blessed us with the ability to take the fight to our foe. Judging by pattern matching of rising energy signatures within the ork’s factorum stronghold, it has been estimated we have approximately six hours until Badklaw’s latest device reaches completion. Then our target likely moves up to join the attack on the Strakendorf front.’

  ‘Then we kill him first, eh?’

  Sor’khal shot Lothar a humourless grin.

  ‘First sensible thing I’ve heard you say, Fenris.’

  Lothar grinned back, baring his canines.

  The next moment, the drop pod’s electrosconces pulsed and an urgent chime rang from its vox-casters.

  ‘Collision warning!’ barked Cantos.

  ‘Not buildings,’ gritted Sor’khal as he gripped his restraint harness, ‘we’re still in clear sky!’

  ‘Then what…?’

  Lothar never finished his question as, with a sudden, shocking bang of metal on metal, the pod was slammed sideways. The lights went out, and Lothar felt gravity crush him back into his harness as the drop pod spun wildly. Alarm tones pinged and whooped, and Lothar let out a groan of effort as he braced against the forces clamping him like a vice.

  There was a thunderous impact and everything went black.

  Lothar’s vision swam as it returned, light and shadow churning in a sluggish, nauseating ballet. Pain pulsed in his skull. For several heartbeats, disorientation tried to drag him back down into unconsciousness. With a defiant growl, Lothar forced his eyes to focus. The Space Wolf’s helmet chron told him he had only been unconscious for a handful of minutes. The fact that he was still breathing told him that, whatever else had happened, he was still alive.

  Lothar sat up, grimacing, and realised he’d been staring up into a thick snowstorm. Sor’khal was crouched next to him, checking readings on his narthecium.

  ‘Ah! Fenris lives.’ The White Scar stood, extending a gauntlet to help Lothar up. As Sor’khal hauled him to his feet, the Space Wolf took in his surroundings. The two of them stood shin deep in a snowdrift, engulfed by the shadow of a ruined hab-block. Snow fell thickly, dragged this way and that by gusting winds that Lothar’s auto-senses warned were well below freezing. Through the murk, the Space Wolf could see more skeletal ruins all around. Blasted habs loomed over the snowy streets like ghosts.

  ‘The crash landing knocked you senseless,’ said Sor’khal. ‘Our pod came down in this ruin and we dragged you clear. Damn machine managed to fire its retros just in time to stop us being smashed to bits. By the Emperor’s grace we all came away in one piece, more or less.’

  ‘Was it the Iron Hand’s impossible failure?’

  Brother Sor’khal shook his head and turned away, jogging off through the snow with his bolter ready. Lothar followed, drawing his own weapons as he went.

  ‘No failure,’ said the White Scar over his shoulder, ‘Gorrvan was right about that. Something hit us, ork aircraft most likely. Emperor knows no Imperial pilot would be aloft in this mess.’ They crunched across a road junction, picking their way around the half-buried wreckage of a Chimera and its slain occupants.

  ‘Mess?’ scoffed Lothar. ‘On Fenris we’d spar in this without armour!’

  Sor’khal glanced back at him. ‘In that case, on Fenris you must all be deficient.’

  Lothar’s booming laugh was swallowed by the muffling shroud of snow.

  ‘Hah, remind me to bash your teeth in for that sometime, eh?’

  ‘You’re welcome to try, Fenris. If Laedas couldn’t take me, you don’t stand a chance.’

  ‘Laedas?’

  ‘Our former squad mate. The Imperial Fist who got torn apart by genestealers just so we could enjoy your sorry company. I liked that big bastard – we all did. And he was twice the warrior you are.’

  Lothar’s rejoinder was drowned out by the howl of a jump pack as Brother Kordus dropped from the sky in front of them.

  ‘The sergeant is in the cathedrum up ahead. Problem.’

  Sor’khal gestured around.

  ‘You mean, besides being stuck in a snowstorm on the wrong side of an uncrossable river?’

  Kordus paused for a moment.

  ‘Yes.’

  With that, he turned, fired his pack, and soared away into the falling
snow.

  ‘All talk, that one,’ grumbled Sor’khal as they pressed on. Lothar chuckled, then pulled up short.

  ‘Wait. Wrong side of the river?’

  ‘Did I not mention that? Vox is shot to hell with all this stuff in the air – we can barely reach each other, let alone anyone useful. Come on, Fenris, the sergeant will have a plan.’

  They found their battle-brothers in the blasted ruin of the cathedrum of the Emperor Resplendent. Shattered figures in stained glass stared down at them with cracked and sorrowful eyes. Snow fell through rents in the domed roof and had piled in drifts across the nave. The kill team’s briefing had indicated that, while the orks had not yet made it across the River Strakk on foot, their aircraft had been pounding the city for days. It seemed they had been thorough. Lothar frowned as he took in the tangles of fire-blackened bodies strewn around the cathedrum’s ruined interior. Many of the Atrophon citizenry would have gathered here to pray for salvation, now finding only death as the bombs fell. Lothar felt anger surge hot in his chest at the pitiful sight. These people would be avenged.

  Cantos, Gorrvan and Kordus were at the far end of the building, staring out through a hole in the cathedrum’s east wall. Sor’khal and Lothar moved up to stand alongside them.

  ‘It is good that you are unharmed, Brother Redfang,’ grated Gorrvan, his voice echoing through the ruin.

  ‘We Space Wolves are made of sterner stuff, Iron Hand,’ said Redfang. ‘Needn’t worry about me, eh?’

  ‘My concern was not for you,’ responded Gorrvan. ‘If your inability to endure the crash had left you compromised, that weakness would have negatively impacted our chances of mission success.’

  Sor’khal snorted, but his amusement died as he followed Sergeant Cantos’s gaze.

  ‘Oh…’

  Before them, the fire-blackened city dropped away steeply, marching down to the banks of the River Strakk. Through the tattered snowfall, they could see the river churning with breathtaking fury, great white crests of foam boiling upon its surface. The far bank was obscured, but from their briefing they knew the Strakk to be more than a kilometre wide and extremely fast-flowing. Even a Space Marine wouldn’t survive an attempt at crossing it. Yet the river was not the problem.

  ‘Is that…?’ Sor’khal began.

  ‘Indeed,’ Cantos cut in.

  ‘Didn’t they…?’

  ‘Evidently not.’

  ‘So we should…?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Sor’khal blew out a breath.

  ‘Well. Let’s get going then, eh?’

  Cantos nodded.

  ‘Brothers, we move. Twenty-foot spread to maintain visibility, assume hostile contact as possible. Kordus, stay high. Gorrvan, see if you can get a vox-link to Atrophon High Command. They need to know about this.’

  As the Space Marines clambered through the rent in the cathedrum’s wall and set off at a jog, the snow swirled about them. Ahead, the river thundered along beneath the un-demolished span of Strakkendorf’s third primary bridge.

  The bridge was enormous, a plasteel and ferrocrete monument to the might of the Imperium of Man. It consisted of three roadways, each wide enough to accommodate a trio of Baneblades driving abreast, and separated by jutting, armoured barriers. At intervals, towering support columns rose from the churning waters of the Strakk to bear the bridge’s weight. From what the kill team saw as they advanced from the west bank towards the bridge’s mid-point, each support was a substantial building in its own right, studded with access hatches, snow-choked gantries, stairways and ladders. Thick steel cables stretched between the supports, the wind singing a cold dirge between them.

  As they reached the centre of the bridge, the kill team were confronted by the most imposing structure yet. Here stood a mighty fortress, a bastion wall of armoured ferrocrete that incorporated the central support columns and stretched the entire width of the bridge. A vast marble aquila spread its wings across the fortress’s imposing facade. Heavy gun emplacements and banks of darkened floodlights studded it. At its feet, the three roadways plunged into darkened tunnels, and it was here, within the blackened maw of the central tunnel, that the Deathwatch found a code-locked door leading into the fortress proper.

  Cantos ordered Gorrvan to gain access, reasoning that such a structure would boast hardened vox-relays and military-grade augurs. The survival of a bridge across the Strakk changed the wider strategic picture enormously, and the sergeant was determined to gain access to up-to-date intelligence before his kill team made their next move. Leaving the Iron Hand to work on the code-lock, the rest of the squad spread out to scout their surroundings.

  Lothar stepped from darkness into murky, snow-curdled daylight. He stared east, along the span of the bridge, scouring the swirling snow for signs of movement. The immensity of the fortress loomed above him, lights dark and guns mute and inactive.

  ‘This is Lothar. I’m at the eastern mouth of the central tunnel. Not seeing anything.’ He waited for a few moments, the hiss of the vox underpinning the moan of the wind through the tunnel.

  ‘Kordus,’ came the Raven Guard’s quiet tones over the vox. ‘Eastern mouth of left-hand tunnel. The auspex is showing some unusual energy spikes nearby.’

  ‘I’ve got the same on the right,’ came Sor’khal’s gruff voice.

  ‘Elaborate.’ Cantos’s clipped tones cut through the background static. ‘What are you seeing, brothers?’

  ‘One signature, approximately two hundred metres to the east,’ reported Kordus. ‘Large, constant and concurrent with a shield generator or sizeable weapon system.’

  ‘Again, same,’ added Sor’khal. ‘Doesn’t look orkish, sergeant. Too steady.’ For a few moments, the vox was quiet, then Cantos’s voice came again.

  ‘Understood. Hold your positions, brothers. We’ll know more once Gorrvan gets this door open.’

  Lothar gritted his teeth in frustration, snapping a quick glance at his helmet chron. Four hours and forty minutes remaining. He checked his own auspex, banging it against his armoured thigh when its readout remained annoyingly neutral. The device flickered, then a stuttering signature appeared on its screen.

  ‘This is Lothar,’ he voxed. ‘I think my auspex got damaged in the crash. It’s just picked up another signature. The fix can’t be right, though.’

  ‘Explain,’ replied Cantos.

  ‘Looks like I’m stood right on it, more or less,’ replied Lothar, scowling at the flickering readout. Exasperated, the Space Wolf gave up on the damaged device and peered out along the bridge once more. He narrowed his eyes and increased his helm’s magnification as he caught the suggestion of a large, humped shadow a little way east. Something he had missed amidst the swirling snow. Lothar raised his bolt pistol and chainsword, readying for a fight, but the shape wasn’t moving.

  Curious now, the Space Wolf decided to investigate. He crunched forward with a hunter’s caution, wolf-tail totems whipping in the wind, until the shape resolved itself into a wrecked, snow-buried vehicle.

  Still wary of potential foes lurking in the snowfall, Lothar moved up to the blackened wreck. It was a Taurox, lying stricken on its side in a snowbank like the corpse of some slain beast. The vehicle had clearly been gutted by fire, its hull torn open by what looked to have been forceful explosions against its rear armour. Lothar took in Catachan regimental markings on the wreck’s scorched hull and, as he dug out the snow around it, he found several of its ill-fated passengers. Fire-blackened mummies in the tattered remains of Catachan uniforms, the dead men had been twisted by the agony of their deaths and then frozen solid by the sub-zero conditions. Once more, Lothar found his anger stirring at the sight of proud soldiers of the Emperor so diminished and defiled. He looked away from their clawing hands and screaming, black-fleshed skulls, and rose to his feet.

  ‘Cantos,’ he voxed, ‘I’ve found something. About a hundred feet east of the tunnel. It’s a wrecked Catachan Taurox and what’s left of those riding in it. Coming this way
at speed, I’d say, then took a few rockets to its arse and went up in flames.’

  ‘Brother Redfang,’ came the reply, ‘you were ordered to hold position.’

  ‘Aye, but then I saw this mess.’

  ‘Evidently,’ came the dry response. ‘Well, as you’re there, what’s your assessment?’ Lothar thought for a moment, eyes roving across the bleak and empty roadways of the bridge.

  ‘Not part of the evacuation,’ he responded eventually. ‘If the orks had disrupted then there’d be wrecks everywhere, not just this one. Stragglers, maybe?’

  ‘Or sappers?’ voxed Sor’khal. ‘Trying to blow the bridge? The greenskins might have caught them before they could finish the job. They tried to run and… boom.’

  Lothar nodded slowly as he stared at the wreck. Perhaps. Just then, Gorrvan’s monotone cut across the vox.

  ‘Brothers, the machine-spirits have been rendered compliant. We have access.’

  ‘Good work, brother,’ responded Cantos. ‘Kordus, keep watch. If the orks know this bridge is open, they may be on their way. The rest of you, regroup with Brother Gorrvan. We shall find our answers inside.’

  Minutes later, the kill team, minus Kordus, stood around Gorrvan in the stronghold’s cavernous command chamber. Cantos and Sor’khal had removed their helmets. The Iron Hand, meanwhile, knelt in data-communion with the fortification’s cogitator bank. The kill team had found the fortress’s systems powered down and its hatches locked tight, rendered inert by the garrison during their retreat. Now, Gorrvan was restoring power one system at a time, lumin globes and data-banks flickering back to life all around. Mechadendrites stretched from the Iron Hand’s gauntlets into the cogitator’s ports, and every few moments he twitched, or emitted a blurt of binary.

  Sor’khal grimaced with distaste. Sergeant Cantos clapped a gauntlet against his comrade’s shoulder guard.

  ‘I know you mistrust machines, brother. But this is necessary. We need to know why the bridge wasn’t demolished. We need to know if it’s a viable route of advance.’

  Lothar stopped pacing and turned.

  ‘Advance?’

  ‘Yes, brother. You disagree?’