Part 13
Whatever it was, it was fast. Junt put its ETA at around twenty three seconds. Not good.
"Junt," voxed Victor, "You got that Valkyrie back?"
"On its way sir."
"Good." He checked the entrances to the square. Nothing yet. "Contact Tactical Control. Give them a full sitrep."
"Sir."
He turned to Garek. The bulky Skitarii was crouched beside him, his hellgun braced on the makeshift barricade. "Ready?"
"There's only one, sir," Garek replied. "And it's mine." He cocked his hellgun's power setting up to maximal.
Then the building opposite disintegrated.
The top two floors exploded outwards in a storm of dust and stone, and something massive blasted from the debris. It stopped almost on the spot, thrusters fading as it came to rest on its feet. Its armour was the colour of sandstone. It was humanoid, standing well over ten meters tall, and carried a huge rifle in its hands.
Victor activated the vox. It's not a Titan it's not a Titan it's not a Titan-
"Fire."
Garek was the first to get a shot off, his hellgun flashing as it discharged. The shot cracked off the enemy's thigh armour, doing little visible damage, and then the others opened up. Eight other flashes fired, and eight other tiny cracks did nothing.
The enemy craft reacted with frightening speed, bracing itself and firing into the building to its left. Victor winced as its rifle spat a bolt of glowing energy into the building's center, vaporising stone and sending it tumbling to the ground in a heap of shattered masonry. Hylar and Rox were gone; either buried or incinerated.
Drex's heavy stubber finally found itself, and tracers snapped out from his top-floor vantage point. The shots – solid slugs rather than the auto-reactive explosive bolts of the heavy bolter – were heavy enough to penetrate light vehicle armour, and they didn't disappoint. The machine staggered as the slugs pierced its shoulder armour and tracked up with a tearing groan into the side of its head.
The thrusters on its back flared up, and it boosted sideways, crashing heavily into Kraff and Xeth's building. It smashed through the walls, tearing the building down through sheer momentum, and taking it out of Drex's line of fire
"Junt!" shouted Victor through the vox, "Get that damn Valkyrie back here now!"
"Working on it!" replied the Skitarii. "ETA thirteen seconds!"
The enemy machine burst from the rubble with a deafening crash, firing as it rose. The shots pulverised the far side of the government building, punching blocks of stone into the alley beside it. Victor hoped Vann and Loxx had gotten out of the way.
"Fire!" he shouted, and followed his own command. He aimed up at its face, hoping its sensory feeds would be more vulnerable than the armour. He switched the hellgun up to auto fire, and watched as the stream of shots put a spiderweb of cracks in the large, square view-screen in the centre of ifs head. Beside him, Garek fired slower, his hellgun set to the highest power, but the slowest fire rate. He placed his shots like a trained sniper, putting one in every opening he could find.
Drex opened up again from the top floor, his heavy stubber thudding slugs into its chest. The dust-brown armour buckled, perforated under the fire, and the enemy staggered back. Its head swayed out of Victor's line of fire, and he released the trigger. Wasting ammunition was punishable by death.
It righted itself, crouched low, its footfalls shaking the ground, and swung its gun up towards Drex's spot. The barrel glowed for a second, and then fired.
The shot went wide, blasting a crater out of the street beside the building. The shots to its head must have damaged its sensors. It corrected its aim, staying steady despite Drex's fire tearing into it.
And then a screaming shape dove from the sky, its flank spitting death down towards the enemy. The Valkyrie banked hard, keeping its heavy bolter mount facing towards the enemy walker. Explosive bolts stitched a ragged pattern across its shoulders and chest, blasting the armour open where they hit.
It fell to one knee under the onslaught, weapon trying in vain to track the circling Valkyrie gunship. A succession of bolt hits ripped its right leg off at the knee, perhaps a dozen of the deadly munitions striking the joint in the space of a second, and its rifle clattered to the ground as one arm snapped down to hold itself upright.
The Valkyrie straightened, its path carrying it away from the stricken enemy. Victor watched as it tried to rise, and then the screaming of the Valkyrie returned. The gunship was on an attack run this time, its nose pointed directly towards the enemy machine. The lascannon mounted there flashed an eye-hurting white, and the enemy's head was ripped apart with a loud, snapping scream.
The walker crumpled, and the Valkyrie circled twice. Victor raised his hellgun out of the doorway in salute, and the gunship departed. He keyed his comm. "Junt?"
"Sir?" answered the Skitarius.
"Get in contact with command. Let them know we've encountered enemy resistance, and that they're using perversions of the Titans' holy technology. Convey my recommendation that the Titans land as soon as possible – this looks to have been just a garrison force, but we have no way of knowing how quickly other units can be brought in. We can hold them off, maybe even drive off a concerted attack with the help of the praetorians servitors, but we really need an edge over them. Something to make them think twice before trying anything."
"Got that sir. Deus Mechanicus."
Deus Mechanicus indeed, thought Victor. He knew that they had only driven off the enemy because the Valkyrie had arrived in time. Without it, that thing that looked sickeningly like a Titan would have killed the entire squad, damage or no.
He was just lucky it didn't have shields. If it did, they wouldn't have even been able to do what little damage they had done, and the Valkyrie would probably have arrived to find a crater. Techno-heretics. They could never approach the true greatness of the machine.
"Lieutenant?" called Junt.
"Go ahead," Victor answered.
"I've sent your recommendation. Praetorians should be here in the next minute or two – estimates put them at fifty-eight seconds out, but that's without manoeuvring and landing times."
"And the Titans?"
Victor could practically hear Junt's smile in his voice. "As soon as they can be loaded and dropped."
"Nearing the enemy. Drop in two hundred."
Wufei closed his eyes, smiling grimly to himself. Two hundred seconds, and Altron would be free of this carrier. A few more short minutes after, and he would be face to face with the enemy.
They had killed Quatre. His smile turned into a grimace. They had killed Quatre; killed Noin; killed Howard; killed everyone who hadn't deserved death. And today, he would make them pay.
Again.
He opened his eyes and pressed the switch to activate Altron. The cockpit lights lit up, and his visual sensor panels blinked on, showing him the interior of the carrier plane. Around him, five other Mobile Suits were strapped down ready for the drop. They were Virgo II's, developed from the Gundams themselves, the best that Treize had. They were still inferior, though. Weak. Maybe too weak.
He tried to block away the apprehension. He was at the head of the most powerful Mobile Suit force ever assembled, and the enemy would be disorganised, directionless in the wake of their landings. It was impossible to make a fully ordered and coordinated ground landing of that magnitude. It had to be. There were too many opportunities for individual weakness to get in the way.
"Twenty seconds until drop."
He reached up and flicked a series of switches. Altron's internal and external sensors came online, giving him detailed analysis of both Altron's running capacity and the environment outside. His fingers danced across the array of keys in front of him, and Altron's generator came online.
"Five."
He unclipped the beam glaive from its holder on Altron's thigh, readying it.
"Four."
The thrusters whined as they charged to capacity.
"Three."
The claw on Altron's empty right hand snapped closed and open again.
"Two."
He made final adjustments to the thrusters' alignment.
"One."
His hands slid over the control levers, gripping them with the calm that always came over him before a battle.
"Drop."
"Princeps Xanax to the main hold. Repeat, Princeps Xanax to the main hold."
Silas looked up at the voxcaster, frowning. Why would he be needed so urgently? Then he remembered the girl, and set off for the hold at a quick jog. If she was discovered, there would be little future for Princeps Xanax. The very best he could hope for in that case would be to be mind-scrubbed and made into a servitor. The worst would be months, even years, of torture, followed by a very slow, very agonising death. The Adeptus Mechanicus did not look lightly on those who allowed heretics into their midst.
He pushed past menials and servitors, eliciting a few short-lived complaints. Once they saw his rank insignia they quietened down. Insulting a superior, especially one so far up the command chain, carried the penalty of death. There was nothing more precious in a battlefleet as order, and it would be maintained through the blood of the crew if needed.
When he reached the hold, it looked as if someone had flooded it with people. Red covered the entire hold; red robes, red uniforms, red containers, red everywhere. The cogwheel icon was in a hundred different places, in a hundred different sizes. Here and there, the Imperial Aquila could be glimpsed.
He shoved through the menials thronging around Mors Mortis' feet, and hurried inside. The only thing he could think about was the girl. Had she been discovered? Was he, even now, going to his own death? Or was she still hidden?
The command chamber was empty. His Moderatii had not arrived yet. He strode over to the compartment he had hidden the girl in, and ripped it open.
She was still in there. Looking dishevelled and annoyed, but still in there.
He pulled her out. "What-" she began.
He cut her off. "Silence. You will not speak, is that clear?" He flung an arm out at the rear corner of the chamber. "You will stand in that corner doing your best to look like you have every right to be there, and you will not, under any circumstances, utter a single word that would lead anyone to believe the contrary. Is that clear?"
She glared back at him, jaw set.
"Too smart for your own good," he muttered. "And keep that robe on, and the hood up," said, louder this time. "That damn dress you're wearing doesn't help anything."
He shoved her into the corner just as the door slid open. His Moderatii Primus, Uriel Prandis, walked in. He glanced at the girl, took a pace towards his station, then stopped. He looked at Silas.
"Who is she?" His voice was flat, blank, the same as his face. Not a good sign.
Silas schooled his features to calmness. "An observer," he said. Not necessarily a lie; the girl would be observing.
Uriel's blank look broke into a frown. "Are you saying we aren't trusted? That the Archmagos Veneratus needs to send someone to keep an eye on us?"
"Not exactly. I can't explain more, Uriel."
Uriel grunted, and went to his station. Silas fought to hold in a sigh of relief. The strict hierarchy of the fleet, and the secrecy that went with it, worked to his advantage more times than not.
He dropped into his chair, acutely conscious of the girl behind him. He just hoped she wouldn't jeopardise the mission. The comm clicked as he activated it. "This is Princeps Xanax. What is it?"
The reply was a few seconds in coming. They had probably expected him to take longer to arrive. "Drop schedule has been moved forwards due to unforeseen ground encounters. Prepare for drop as soon as the Honourblade arrives in position."
Unforseen ground encounters? What kind of enemy was down there that could necessitate the immediate deployment of the Titans? "When will we be in position?" he asked.
"Five hundred and forty standard seconds."