Annihilation Squad, page 18
The ground is constantly shifting underfoot. Each step sees you sinking to your ankles into the orange and red ash. Our pace slows to a crawl. The Colonel pushes us on for longer than before so that we make camp only when the pre-dawn glow touches the horizon.
During the night, the temperature drops rapidly. Our sweat freezes on our skin, and our breath billows from our filters like tank exhaust fumes. It’s the only moisture there is – the ash underfoot stays just the same, because there’s no water in it to freeze. Occasionally we see explosions far off that we steer away from, or hear the roar of a jet passing low overhead. On the second night, a huge wave of Imperial bombers passed over us, attacking a position no more than ten kilometres away. We stopped to watch the display: cluster bombs and incendiaries lit up the sky for nearly an hour.
Each step is painful. I drag my foot from the sucking ash and plant it in front of me, hauling myself forward. The pack on my back seems to hold the weight of the galaxy. Breathing shallowly to conserve the air tanks, we claw our way up dunes on our hands and knees and the wind drags dust to obscure our tracks behind us.
Sometimes the ground is rockier, as we breast some ridge of escarpment, so we pick up the pace. Kin-Drugg is in almost constant agony, he is literally dragging his bad leg behind him towards the end of each night’s hike.
At other times the wastes are like an ocean. The ash has no substance; it is just thin dust that the winds slice through, creating constantly moving waves. Just like water, we wade through it, or swim across the top of it on our stomachs, craning our necks back so that the toxic dust doesn’t get into our rebreathers.
We almost lost Erasmus at one point. Crossing an ash lake, he forged forwards, with loops of heavy stubber ammo around his chest and waist and his malfunctioning servo-skull crammed under one arm. He lost his footing and slipped forwards. The weight of the bullets began to drag him under. Brownie managed to get his hands under Erasmus’s chin and hold his head free while the rest of us clawed at the dust, trying to scoop him out. As the ground shifted and settled, we ended up waist-deep in the ash, and floundered around for a few minutes until Oahebs found some sturdier ground a little way off. Now we use our lasguns to probe the ground ahead of us, checking to see how solid it is.
He was lucky we found him. Visibility is no more than a couple of metres in the darkness. It was thanks to his shouts and the clanking of his bullet belts that we could zero in on his position. Emperor alone knows how the Colonel and Oahebs lead us in the right direction. Except for first and last light, the sun’s glow is pretty much constant in all directions. We can only judge by the prevailing winds that come from ahead and to our left that we’re not travelling in circles. Well, I hope we’re not.
Each day as the light of the sun begins to glow through the clouds, we pitch our crude shelters to protect against the wind, each little more than a two-sided sheet held up on a pole. There’s nothing for the pegs to bite into, so we hold down the guy ropes with ammo cans and packs. After setting camp each day, we break out the rations and use one of the low-detection stoves that the ork hunters take into the jungle. A ration bar crumbled into a little boiled water makes a passable broth. We cluster around the heat from the plate with our gloves off, taking it in turns to bask in the relative warmth.
With the coming of the sun, the heat of the day steadily grows, until it’s like a furnace. We daren’t remove our protective gear, any pieces of exposed flesh are touched by the elements are raw and blistered. We wear tinted goggles for the most part, which shade our eyes from the glare reflecting off the rising mounds and ridges on every side. My cheeks are cracked and started bleeding yesterday. Only four days into the march, and my eyebrows have started falling out.
We slumber fitfully in our shelters, each of us exhausted from the day’s toil, but too uncomfortable to find solace in sleep. We don’t even pretend to be keeping watch. We can barely see twenty metres in the dust and heat haze. Nobody’s looking for us, and in any case they’d have to walk straight over us to spot us. Better that time is spent resting, digging into those reserves of energy for the next night’s march, our bodies slowly thawing as the morning turns to afternoon.
The constant temperature changes are playing havoc with the equipment. I’m pretty sure the barrel of my lasgun has warped and points slightly to the right now. I don’t think it’d be much use in a fire fight anyway, now that grit has got into the lenses and trigger mechanism. I make a point of remembering to tell everyone to clean and check their weapons before bedding down each day, so that if trouble does come along we might at least fire back.
When it’s time to break camp, we almost have to dig ourselves out. Ash and dust gathers on the shelters, and leaves a layer over our packs. Each of us spends several minutes excavating in the dying light to find hidden magazines or spare boots.
Seven days in and we’re all fit to drop. I’m so dog-tired I’m staggering from one step to the next, every fibre in my body, every moment of my concentration is focussed on taking the next step. I hear voices on the wind, but I know they can’t be real voices: I would only to be able to hear the others over the wind and through my thick hood if they stood right next to me and shouted. The wastes turn into an undulating morass of greens and oranges, deep reds and blackened ash. The laces in my boots have been eaten away by the corrosive dust, and my coat is frayed and torn in places.
My face burns, my eyes water constantly and my throat feels as if red-hot needles have been shoved into it. Even taking off my rebreather to take a gulp of water is an arduous task. We have to try not to breathe in the toxic fumes that swirl around us.
We pass a lake of oil that burns with a green flame. There are remnants of twisted machinery at its heart. The heat is welcome in the freezing night so we stay there for a short while, not caring that we can be seen silhouetted against the blaze. There’s nothing out here to see us. There’s nothing out here at all.
Or so I think.
We’re just getting ready to camp on the eighth dawn when shimmering figures appear in the gloom, about fifty metres away. I think I’m seeing things again, but they soon solidify into the shape of a small group of men riding on the backs of strange mounts. Despite our fatigued state and numbed brains, we react quickly.
I sling off my pack and drop to the ground, lasgun ready. Ahead and to my right, Erasmus hurries forward with the ammo for Brownie’s heavy stubber. The Colonel has his pistol in his hand and waves Kin-Drugg and Kelth to circle to the left. Lorii and Fenn have already broken to the right. Oahebs takes cover behind his pack a few metres behind me and to my left. He rests his lasgun across the pack, and squints through his goggles along its length.
The riders see us and halt. One of them comes forward, pulling a rifle from a sling that hangs behind his leg. The six-legged creature he’s riding is covered in long, shaggy fur, and has a pointed snout and heavy shoulders. Its broad, webbed feet step across the surface of the ash without sinking, and it tosses its head from side to side, snorting constantly. I can’t see any obvious eyes or ears.
The rider is swathed from head to foot in ragged cloth. Over this he wears heavy black robes, two bandolers cross over his chest. His legs are protected by a long quilted skirt split to the groin, under which are heavy trousers. Dark goggles glint from under the scarf across his face, but I can see nothing of his expression. He rides forward with his rifle pointing up, his other hand on the reins of his beast.
He stops about fifteen metres away, glancing left and right. I train my lasgun on his chest, my finger easing on to the trigger. I spare a second to use my sleeve to wipe grime from my eyeshades, before taking aim again.
To the right, there’s a stutter of autogun fire and muzzle flare in the swirling dust. The Colonel brings up his pistol immediately, but I’ve squeezed the trigger first. So too does Oahebs. The two las-bolts strike the rider almost simultaneously: my shot detonates some of the ammunition on a bandoler, and the other punches through his right shoulder.
The beast rears as Brownie opens up. The roar of the heavy stubber sounds over the wind and two of the riders further out pitch from their saddles. There’s more autogun fire from the right, replied to with the zip of lasguns. Suddenly every one of my senses works just fine. I fire off shots at the cluster of riders, as they’re turning their mounts to run. I catch one of their steeds in the flank and it jinks wildly, almost toppling its rider, before they both disappear into the gloom.
We continue to fire after them, not knowing whether we’re hitting anything or not. The lead rider is slumped across the neck of his mount, which just stands there dumbly until the Colonel puts a bolt into its skull. It falls sideways in a cloud of ash and dust. Brownie lets off another couple of bursts before everything falls silent again except for the hissing of the wind.
There are another few shots from the right and I think I hear a shout, but I can’t be sure. We wait to see if they’ve regrouped for another attack. A minute passes, then another, and another, and still we don’t move. After days of monotonous slog, the sudden action infuses my body, making me almost twitch with energy. I strain every nerve to stay calm.
We all turn as two figures emerge from our right, dragging something between them. We relax when we see Fenn and Lorii, bringing back a trophy of their own fight. With Oahebs, Fenn, Brownie and Spooge still standing watch, we gather around the dead rider. He looks like the others we downed: hidden beneath layer after layer of clothes. Kelth pulls the scarf from the rider’s head, to reveal a face pitted and worn with exposure; the skin thick and leathery. Scabs and boils are clustered around his lips, and his teeth are little more than blackened stumps. Lorii briefly pulls out her rebreather to speak, trying not to breathe in too much.
‘There were four more of them, trying to get behind us,’ she says, pausing to inhale through her rebreather. ‘One of them saw Fenn and opened fire.’
The Colonel nods before pulling out his own mouth-piece.
‘Nomad raiders,’ he says. ‘There could be more. We will move in case they return. Set watch during the day.’
I nod as he turns at me for acknowledgement. Placing his pistol in its holster, he waves for us to move out. His head turns from left to right as he scans for any sign of the raiders. Already the ash is covering up the bodies, and by the time we sort ourselves out and moved away in single file, the only evidence of them is a few dark mounds. As we slip away into the swirling dust, a distant, haunting cry carries along on the wind. It’s a signal, there’s no doubt. Clutching our weapons tighter, we cast nervous glances around us, and hurry off.
We press on as fast as we can for the next two nights. Finally, as dawn approaches on the tenth day, a darkness can be seen on the horizon to the north. The coming of daylight sees us taking shelter in the shade of an overhanging cliff, the red face soaring out of the dunes to a hundred metres above us. There’s been no further contact with the nomads, although occasionally one of us thinks we have glimpsed shapes in the distance, either ahead or behind us.
We find a small cave, half filled with sand and dust, at the foot of the cliff, and dig our way in. We find ourselves in a spacious cavern, high enough to stand in, and twenty metres across at its broadest. While the others make camp, the Colonel asks Oahebs and me to join him. Leaving the cave, we make our way along the cliff until it descends to a ridge that we climb up. With thick boots and gloved hands, the climb isn’t easy, but we eventually make it to the top. From here, we can see kilometres around, over the layer of dust-fog that sweeps across the wastes below.
And there, about twenty kilometres away, we can see the Hades-Acheron highway as it cuts across the wastes on high pillars; it is like a ribbon of grey against the orange and red. And slightly to the east, Averneas Forge sprawls out into the dunes and hills, a black oily cloud of soot hanging above it. It looks like Infernus Forge, only much more intact. Chimneystacks hundreds of metres high pierce the dark cloud and a tangle of dome-roofed Mechanicus factory-temples radiate out from a large, slab-sided structure at the centre. It’s impossible to make out any more detail from this distance.
The smoking remnants of a gargant – seventy metres of ruptured metal plates and jutting many-barrelled cannons – stand a few kilometres from the complex. There are swarms of movement around its base. Although it’s impossible to make out any details through the dust cloud kicked up, it’s obvious the orks are there in force. Flickers of light from the forges are accompanied a few seconds later by the tinny, distant thumps of heavy gunfire.
Oahebs points to the west of the forge, and there we can see the shadowy shapes of two Battle Titans; Warlord-class I’d guess by their size. They are standing watch over the industrial complex. Like huge sentinels, sixty metres tall; they stand immobile, their giant plasma reactors dormant and their huge weapons silent. A column of vehicles, tanks and personnel carriers is making its way along the highway in front of the nearest titan. They look like toys compared to the armoured titans; each is smaller than its head. I can imagine the crew in the carrier manning their stations, waiting for the order to unleash the destructive potential of their war machine.
Pulling out his map, the Colonel fumbles in his pocket. He produces a short pencil and makes a few notes on the map before passing it to Oahebs. I look over his shoulder as he traces a route under the highway west of Averneas, around the end of the ork lines and then into the complex itself. The Colonel nods, takes the map back and folds it away. We head back down the ridge to rejoin the others.
I don’t sleep at all well that day, thinking about ash wastes nomads finding us and knowing that a battle rages so close. We can hear the occasional explosion. We’re going to have to sneak in to Averneas, and the battle may actually turn out to work in our favour. Nobody’s going to give a squad a second thought as it hurries through the half-ruined complex – there are troops all over the place. The only concern is that we don’t get too caught up in the fighting itself.
As day turns to night, the dark sky is once again lit by detonations and muzzle flashes. We cut across the wastes towards Averneas. Our progress is slower than normal as we make sure we don’t run into anything unexpectedly. Myself, Lorii and Fenn each make regular forays ahead to scout out any enemy positions, but there’s nothing for the first hour.
The noise of the ork attack is loud now; it’s only a few kilometres away. We start to skirt west, away from the brightness of the battlefield. As we get closer, we can see lights from vehicles that move along the highway. They are the tanks and supply convoys that reinforce Averneas from other fronts. We pass under the highway itself between the huge supporting struts, and climb over mounds of debris and wrecks of vehicles. The rockcrete pillars are pocked with shell craters and bullet holes, and the tangled ruins of the combatants stretch out of sight to the left and right, testimony to the battles fought for control of the road.
We hear odd noises over the rumbling of vehicles above: the sound of scratching on metal, the skitter of a dislodged stone down a rubble pile. There are odd glimpses of movement in the gloom. They are probably just desert rats or solitary scavengers picking an existence from the ruin of war. Whatever it is, it knows better than to face us. As we clear the tangled wreckage, we make a quick sweep behind us, which reveals nobody following. Two kilometres ahead and to the east lie the outlying buildings of the forge complex. Its smokestacks jut from roofs, billowing fumes, and the glow of forges and furnaces spills out from shattered windows and shuttered doors.
With jets roaring above us and tracer fire crossing the sky, we sneak into Averneas, cutting our way through a battered mesh fence that surrounds a windowless building on the outskirts. We climb a wall on the far side into a dumping compound of some kind. Piles of warm slag smoke fitfully on the frost-hardened ground, illuminated by the flare of fire from an anti-aircraft gun on the roof of the nearby forge house.
A guardhouse stands at the gate into the accessway beyond the forge, and we slip around it, keeping to the shadows, before making our way along the surrounding fence. We duck into pools of darkness as a squad of Steel Legion troop past, following their Chimera APC along the road.
To our right, a spotlight springs into life; it points up into the air, and reflects off the clouds. It’s joined by others, and soon a dozen patches of light criss-cross the night sky, occasionally showing up the silhouettes of large ork bombers. Flak and tracer fire screams up into the sky as we cut through the fence and push through. But the bombers don’t attack; they disappear from view as they head eastwards towards Acheron Hive.
The Colonel points left and we hurry on, leaping over abandoned sandbag barricades into empty gun pits, into the heart of Averneas, skirting along gantries over dormant firepits. A misplaced shell explodes ahead of us, bringing down the wall of a brick outbuilding. We turn away as a fire crew appears on a steam-driven tender, and pick our way along another route to our objective. The Colonel leads us steadily north and east, taking a circuitous route to avoid contact with the defending forces.
About half a kilometre inside Averneas, a ruined refinery soars above the landscape, its chimneys and towers toppled, the maze of pipes and tanks now a dark warren of twisted metals and ruptured ferrocrete.
‘This is it,’ the Colonel says, voice muffled by his rebreather. He waves me to lead the way in.
Something crunches under my foot, and I look down to see a half-rotted ork skull. Other remnants lie close by, alien and human, and it’s obvious that the refinery has changed hands several times before. A twisted, spire-like pumping tower leans precariously onto a bent network of high-level gangways. The Colonel leads us towards it, signalling that we are to enter the shattered building at its foot.
