Eisenhorn Omnibus - страница 122

Distances closed. The near-space of 56-Izar was awash with fire patterns and the streaking comets of missiles. Now the ferocious, high-velocity small ship phase began as waves of interceptors and light bombers from both fleets met and buzzed around each other like rival swarms of insects. The tiny lights whirled and danced in the void, faster and more numerous than the unaided eye could follow. Even the tactical displays overwhelmed the senses: pict-plates flickering with thousands of type markers and flashing cursors, spinning, overlaying, vanishing and reappearing.

The heretics had seeded a buffer zone behind their deployment with mines, and the Emperor's Hammer, spurring forward in a fleet intruder role, suffered heavy damage and was forced to break away. Heretic interceptors fell upon the stricken ship like carrion flies on a dying beast.

The Will of Iron moved past the Emperor's Hammer and began to sweep a path through the mine zone with its specialised clearing devices. Triggered by probing force cones, the floating weapons began to detonate in their thousands.

Spatian's intent was to cut a wedge into the enemy's wide formation and bring at least some of his ships within range of the planet's surface. Once that bridging objective was achieved he could begin to unleash the planetary assault, confident of providing the dropships with some covering fire.

The Saint Scythus was first to secure such a position. Its main guns mercilessly disposed of the heretic cruiser Scutum and forced the carrier frigate Glory of Algol into a desperate retreat.

Hundreds of dropships rushed like a blizzard out of the battleship and the two frigates and the Inquisitorial black ship that had moved in behind it.

Most of the dropships were the grey landing boats of the Imperial Guard, jets firing as they hammered down into the cloudy atmosphere of 56-Izar. But scattered among them were a handful of scarab-black landing craft and drop-pods of the Deathwatch chapter.

The counter-invasion had begun.

* * *

Within the first hour of the war, we managed to land more than two-thirds of our one hundred and twenty thousand Mirepofx Light Elite Infantry on the surface of 56-Izar, almost half of the motorised armour brigades, and all sixty Adeptus Astartes warriors of the Deathwatch.

Sensor sweeps showed 56-Izar to be a bland, unremarkable world beneath its heavy veil of atmosphere. Vast, low continents of inorganic ooze punctured by ranges of crystalline upland and surrounded by inert chemical oceans. The only signs of advanced life – of life of any kind, indeed – were a string of city-sized structures arranged in a chain along the equatorial region of the main continent. The nature and composition of these structures was virtually impossible to read from orbit. The heretics had concentrated their invasion efforts on the three largest structures, and Admiral Spatian was targeting these areas, judging that the enemy would not be wasting time invading unviable sites.

Losses were high. The approaches were thick with enemy interceptors, micro-mines and the fire of surface to air defences. All of this was human warfare. There was no sign or hint of any saruthi participation at all.

Behind the main landing force came the Inquisitorial squads, five specialised assault units designed to follow the military in through the opening they made and oversee the primary objectives: the capture or destruction of the heretic conspirators and the obliteration of any further Necroteuch material. I had control of one squad; the others were led by Endor, Schongard, Molitor and Lord Inquisitor Rorken himself. Voke was too ill to command a squad, and his emissary, Heldane, accompanied Endor's party.

My own force, designated Purge Two, was made up of twenty Gudrunite riflemen, Bequin, Midas and a Deathwatch Space Marine called Guilar. A member of the Astartes had been seconded to each inquisitor. Fischig had demanded to accompany me, but he was still weak from his injuries and surgery and I had turned him down with a heavy heart. He remained on the battleship with Aemos, who was, by any standards, a non-combatant.