Following the sound, Sarik looked southwards, and caught sight of a rippling
in the skies above the desert. Focussing on the sound, the source of which was
travelling rapidly from south to east, Sarik saw it again, this time far closer,
and knew what he must do.
Not taking his eyes from the subtle rippling in the air, Sarik went down on
one knee, and without looking located and picked up the missile launcher Brother
Qsal had carried. A moment later, the tube was at his shoulder, and he was
squinting through the sights as the whine increased in pitch and volume, growing
closer to the pylon as the seconds passed.
With a flick of his thumb, Sarik lifted the cover over the firing stud. Even
as he did so, the air before him rippled, revealing for a brief moment the
sleek, predatory form of a tau aircraft beginning a strafing run on his
position.
Even as Sarik pressed down on the firing stud, the tau aircraft opened fire.
The air was suddenly filled with a hundred blue energy bolts, stitching the
platform at Sarik’s feet or ripping through the air scant inches from his body.
The moment his missile fired, Sarik threw himself to his right, diving into the
cover of the base of the antennae mast as the platform disintegrated under the
relentless tide of fire.
With a deafening whine, the enemy aircraft passed by overhead, its form
fading again as it disengaged its weapons systems, shunting power back to
whatever xenos-tech cloaking system had previously hidden it from the eye.
The tau flyer might be invisible to the eye, but it was not hidden from the
senses of the machine-spirit guiding the krak missile that even now streaked
through the air in the aircraft’s wake.
The missile banked left, following hard on the heels of the invisible flyer.
Then it banked suddenly right and dived straight down towards the ground,
matching the invisible alien pilot’s desperate efforts to evade death.
And then the missile exploded in mid-air, and whatever alien technology was
hiding the flyer from view failed. Sarik voiced a feral war cry as the now
visible aircraft shuddered and began to disintegrate. At the last, the main
fuselage was torn apart as its drive section detonated, a thousand pieces of
flaming wreckage plummeting to the ground several hundred metres below.
Sarik howled an ancient Chogoran victory chant, giving thanks to his
ancestors that the human-forged weapon had bested the perfidious alien war
machine. “Command to Sarik,” the Space Marine’s earpiece suddenly barked,
interrupting his impromptu celebration. “We read multiple additional flyers
closing on your position, over.”
Glancing towards the melta charges at the base of the antennae mast, Sarik
replied “Understood, command. Detonation in three minutes.”
“Be advised,” Sarik added as he scanned the jade skies. “Enemy aircraft are
utilising some form of optical shielding. They’re invisible to the naked eye.”
“Understood,” the voice replied. “Disseminating to all commands.”
“The order is given,” announced General Gauge, the pict screen relaying the
top-down scene of a vast mushroom cloud climbing into the air, marking Sergeant
Sarik’s destruction of his objective. Addressing his chief of staff, Gauge said,
“Commence landing phase.”
Scores of Imperial Guard staff officers and Departmento Tacticae advisors set
about their preordained tasks, each relaying orders into vox-horns and putting
into motion the planetary assault on Dal’yth Prime. This was the moment the
crusade had been building towards for so long, from the earliest sessions of the
crusade council when all of this was little more than a dream. Countless
cogitation terminals lit up with rapidly scrolling lines of text, status reports
flooding back and forth, describing the drama unfolding in orbit above the tau
planet.
Lucian felt relief that his friend Sarik had completed his mission, though
two of his warriors had fallen during the assault on the sensor pylon. Of the
other Space Marine contingents undertaking their own missions against other
pylons, a handful of injuries and two more deaths had been reported, all of
which spoke volumes of their courage and dedication, and of the tau’s readiness
to defend their world. With the primary sensor pylons destroyed, however, the
landings could commence, safe in the knowledge that the tau would be blinded to
the true extent of the Imperium’s invasion.
Lucian was reminded of the deeds of a number of his ancestors, those bold men
and women who had earned the Arcadius Warrant of Trade and forged the clan’s
fortunes, carving its name into the annals of Imperial history for all time. The
name of one of his forbearers rang especially loud, that of old Abad Gerrit, the
hero of the Scallarn Pacification. As a child, Lucian had been enthralled by the
huge holochrome rendition of old Abad, depicting the scene of the rogue trader
leading an army of ten thousand followers against the orks that had enslaved the
entire Scallarn Cluster.
At that moment, Lucian realised that above all else, he desired to be a part
of such battles, to earn such glories for the Arcadius clan as had his
predecessors. As much as he tried to dismiss the notion, his mind raced as he
considered the possibilities. To join the crusade on the ground, to take part in
its battles, would have both the immediate effect of elevating his position on
the council, and of further securing the clan’s long-term fortunes. Maybe
someday someone would sculpt a holochrome of him, side by side with Sergeant
Sarik as they conquered tau space…
As the landing operation began in earnest, Lucian marvelled at the sheer
spectacle of the event. Dozens of screens showed fleet assets moving into
position as lumbering troop transports prepared to disgorge hundreds upon
hundreds of drop-vessels. These ranged in size from ships ferrying a single
squad or platoon to the surface, to those carrying entire companies of armoured
vehicles. The greatest and most impressive were those of the Adeptus Mechanicus,
by which the mighty god-machines of the Titanicus would be deployed to the
surface. For each man that would land on the surface, another hundred at least
supported the action, each forming a vital link in the chain. In truth, the
Damocles Gulf Crusade was a relatively minor undertaking in the grand scheme of
the Imperium’s wars, yet here and now, at the heart of the command centre, it
had all the grandeur of any of the great battles of the last ten thousand years.
General Gauge stood at his command postern, surrounded by his cadre of staff
officers, listening to a constant stream of reports and status updates. The
central pict screen now showed the view over the landing zone as seen by a
sub-orbital spy-drone a dozen kilometres overhead. Reams of data scrolled across
a dozen smaller screens, each contributing to the general’s picture of the grand
invasion.
A winged death’s head icon appeared in the centre of the main screen,
indicating the successful landing of the first wave. That force was made up of a
composite company of Space Marines drawn from several different Chapters. A
second such company landed, via two-dozen drop-pods, five kilometres to the west
of the first. It immediately deployed as a blocking force to intercept any tau
ground forces that attempted to counter-attack along the road network that led
to the western cities.
The operation unfolded over the following hours, General Gauge scarcely
needing to issue any further orders, for the landings had been planned in
meticulous detail. Regiment after regiment made the drop. While the elite Space
Marines landed in small, five-man drop-pods, the Imperial Guard deployed in far
larger drop-ships, each capable of ferrying an entire infantry company and its
equipment, a troop of Leman Russ tanks, or an armoured infantry platoon mounted
in Chimera carriers. The landings were not unopposed, however, for while the tau
pulled back what ground units were near the landing zone, they committed large
numbers of flyers to contest the landings, which General Gauge’s force was
hard-pressed to counter.
The tau air force launched sortie after sortie against the landing forces.
The initial attacks were directed against the two composite companies of Space
Marines, but that allowed the first wave of the larger transports to land
largely without incident. The Space Marines withstood dozens of attacks by enemy
flyers so fast that they stood little chance of engaging them. Nonetheless, the
Space Marines did manage to shoot down a handful of aircraft using their missile
launchers, each successful engagement being met with a hearty cheer from the
staff of the command centre.
With the tau flyers concentrating on the Space Marines, the Imperial Guard
were able to land several mobile air defence companies of Hydra flak tanks.
Though one transport was engaged as it plummeted through the atmosphere and shot
down with the loss of a dozen tanks and several hundred lives, the remainder
were able to deploy successfully. Within three hours the landing zone was
covered by an air defence umbrella that made it impossible for the tau to harass
subsequent waves. With the immediate airspace secured, infantry companies from
the Rakarshan Rifles and the Brimlock Dragoons pressed outwards to secure the
ground in all directions. The bulk of their number headed west to establish
dominance over the road network leading to the coastal cities.
At the last, satisfied that the landing zone was secure, General Gauge
ordered the deployment of the crusade’s heaviest units, the vast landers from
which the mighty engines of the Legio Thanataris would walk. With the
Deathbringers’ fastest moving machines, their Warhound Titans, pressing
forwards, the ground war could truly begin.
The view from the flat top of the rocky mesa was quite stunning, allowing
Sergeant Sarik to take in the awe-inspiring scale of the landing operation.
Several kilometres behind Sarik, the sensor pylon still burned, its once
pristine white form reduced to a twisted, blackened mass as a column of choking
smoke rose high in the atmosphere. The landings were well and truly under way,
the white sun of Dal’yth setting in the rapidly darkening jade sky.
Having destroyed the sensor pylon and ordered the tending of his dead and
injured battle-brothers, Sarik had linked his force up with the other Space
Marine contingents to assist in the securing of the landing zone. The tau units
in the area had swiftly disengaged, however, and mounted an impressively
coordinated withdrawal before the Space Marines could engage them effectively.
Sarik was forced to admit that the tau warriors were worthy opponents, and that
they fought with honour. The aliens’ fast-moving tactics reminded Sarik of those
employed by the nomads of his home world of Chogoris, whose use of swift mounts
allowed them to launch lightning raids before withdrawing in the face of enemy
counter-attack. Already, Sarik had disseminated this point to the other Space
Marine units of the crusade, and advised them how such tactics might be met, and
countered.
The flat desert below the tall mesa was now swarming with troops and armoured
vehicles. The first Imperial soldiers Sarik’s White Scars had linked up with
were the veteran light infantrymen of the Rakarshan Rifles. They moved quickly
to press into the surrounding desert, and had begun aggressive patrolling in
order to repel any enemy that sought to observe or interfere with the operation.
The Rakarshans were followed by the crusade’s more heavily armed and equipped
units, whose tanks, mobile artillery and armoured carriers were even now filling
the air with the roar of their engines, the grinding of tracks and the smoke of
their exhausts. As more and more heavy landers touched down, the first streams
of men and vehicles swelled to become rivers, until thousands of Imperial
Guardsmen and hundreds of tanks were pressing outwards.
All the while, the tau flyers continued to contest the landings, and though
few had penetrated the air defence umbrella the Hydra flak tanks had
established, those that had been able to slew scores of men with each strafing
run. Fortunately for the operation, only a handful of the flyers were equipped
with the stealth field Sarik had faced on the pylon. The Departmento Tacticae
advisors surmised that these were an elite wing of the tau air force. The
Imperium would be ready for them next time.
Sarik’s chain of thought was interrupted as he became aware of a deep,
rumbling drone sounding from above. The heaviest lander yet was descending upon
a column of fire and smoke. The vessel came ponderously in to land, and another
three followed in its wake. The roar of the vessel’s landing jets was deafening,
even from several kilometres away. In basic form the lander resembled the
drop-pod Sarik and the other White Scars had made planetfall in, yet its scale
was truly vast. The vessel was three or four times taller than its width, its
hull configured in a hexagonal form above the largest retro thruster Sarik had
ever seen on a ship capable of atmospheric operation.
As the lander descended, an invisible anti-grav field was projected below it,
an arcane and ill-understood system that would ensure the vessel’s precious
cargo was deployed with all possible care. The anti-grav field pressed down upon
the earth as the vessel neared the ground, the invisible forces crushing
everything beneath it flat, including a tracked cargo tender which failed to
evacuate the landing zone in time. The grav field dampened the area so
effectively that the clouds of dust that should have been thrown up by the
retro-thrusters were crushed downwards to form a carpet of sand across the land.
As the first lander touched down, Sarik felt the desert beneath his feet
tremble as millions of tons of steel and ceramite ground into the bedrock. It
felt to Sarik as if he witnessed a primeval contest of the elements: that
wrought in the forges of the Adeptus Mechanicus battling against the raw stuff
of Dal’yth Prime’s continental plates. The contest continued for long minutes,
until eventually the tremors faded away, leaving Sarik with the impression that
the world beneath his feet would remain scarred by the coming of the Titanicus
forever. Soon, a dozen of the landers had touched down, each towering a hundred
metres and more into air that shimmered with the residual heat of atmospheric
entry.