Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 67
Spectre of Woe tore across the barren landscape, tracks spraying clouds of grit in its wake. The Rhino fled the outpost at maximum off-road speed, angling along the shore of the Sulphuric sea. Where they went was of small consequence, all that mattered was they moved further away from the Bronze Beast. It seemed farcical, Smoke Jaguars fleeing before the wroth of a single foe, but this was no ordinary prey. The Legiones Cataegis had been made stronger than later iterations of Transhuman, built for a different kind of warfare altogether. One-on-one Astartes were no match for Thunder Warriors.
Aapo didn't dwell too much on this, more concerned with the cauldron of pain that was his broken wrist. Every jolt caused broken bones to grind against each other and the torment would have left a mortal screaming upon the floor. Sprawled in the Rhino's rear compartment the wounded lay, their injuries many and grievous. Takana nursed a hip reduced to powder and Xavaar dripped blood from the gaping rents in his chest. Dragging the pair of them out had been a unique torture for Aapo, even aided by Hanphu, the strain had tested the limits of his Hypno-indoctrination.
Currently he was rooting about in one of the underseat lockers with his good hand. He pulled out a pair of splints and cracked them in half with his fingers, then pulled out a length of mono-sided bonding tape, known to Serviles as Dract Tape for reasons that escaped Aapo. He opened up a length with his teeth, then wrapped the splints and tape about his shattered wrist. Again he looked into the locker, but did not find what he was looking for.
"K'oy, find me the armour paste," he called.
The cyber-simian was hanging off a door, but flipped a high locker open and pulled out a tube. "That's the one, pass it here."
K'oy responded by hurling it at his face, catching his eyeball most painfully and causing him to curse, "May a thousand jackals gnaw upon your toes!"
Muttering invective under his breath Aapo snatched up the tube and used his teeth to open the screw-top. He liberally coated his wrist in the ceramic paste, feeling intense heat as the chemical mix reacted to air. In moments he'd fashioned a crude cast about his arm, holding the broken bones in place. Pain remained an issue but he took a syringe of Morpha from his belt pouch and injected it into his neck. Blessed relief oozed through him, all he needed now was a day for his bones to heal and he'd be back to his full vigour. He wasn't going to get it.
"Illchosen," Hanphu called from the driver's compartment, "You are required!"
"It can wait," Aapo grunted as he lay back nursing his arm.
"I assure you it cannot," Hanphu argued.
Aapo snapped a quote from the Testimony, "Idle time is never idle, for the wise man readies himself for the challenges to come."
"If that is what you wish, then I'll just get out and ask the pursuing Troopers if they mind killing us later."
Aapo's jaw fell as he understood they weren't safe yet. Takana couldn't move and Xavaar looked to have left more blood in the outpost than he had still in his body, there was no help to be found here. Despite his swimming head and red-hot arm Aapo pulled himself upright and lurched to the driver's cabin. Hanphu was working the steering levers, peering out of the vision blocks, but the Auspex screen in the corner was bleeping alarums. Contacts, coming up from the rear, closing fast.
Aapo put a foot onto the firing step and reached for the hatch. He stuck his head out and was hit by a caustic wind, filled with stinging chemical taint. Sky currents broiled overhead, green lightning filling the world with emerald hues. Evil clouds hung low over the landscape, promising a storm of terrifying magnitude, but the weather was the least of their problems. Coming up on their rear were small vehicles, bouncing wildly on fat tires. PDF Troopers in sealed masks rode them, lining up gun barrels. Unwitting servants of the Bronze Beast, but their Heavy Bolters were deadly and their Quad-4's were faster than the Rhino.
Mass reactive shells flew past Aapo's head, making him duck. The range was long and their aim was hampered by the wild ride, mortal arms struggling to compensate for the random jostling, but they were putting out enough firepower to make up for it. This was a problem, Heavy Bolters weren't designed for penetration, but enough glancing hits could cripple a Rhino. One round into the tracks and they'd be immobilised, waiting to be cracked open and cut apart. It fell to Aapo to stop them.
He grabbed the pintle Storm Bolter and swung it about, aiming at the nearest Quad-4. He lined up the sights as he had been taught and squeezed the trigger. Incoherent shots flew high, missing completely as Aapo snarled in torment and grabbed his cast. The recoil was too much for his broken bones, his arm couldn't hold the gun, to try would be worse than keeping his hand in an open flame. A hail of rounds pinged off the Rhino's plating as he ducked low, tears forming in his eyes.
"You play the coward this day?!" Hanphu snapped.
"My wrist's broken," Aapo gulped, "The pain…"
"It's only pain!" Takana snarled in his vox-bead
"But…"
Xavaar's weak voice cut in, "Pain is but the ache of growth. Pain is weakness leaving the body. Pain is the forgeheat in which I shall be recast. I embrace pain and make it my ally, and from our union shall our enemy's terror be born."
The words of the Testimony, among the first truths taught to the Doans. Aapo had learned it well and the memory fortified his spirit and caused him to stand up and grip the handle once more. The Quad-4's had closed in the brief spell, more than enough for mortal gunners to land hits. Aapo was faster, he swung the Storm Bolter about and lined up another shot. A pair of Troopers, heads sealed in their rebreather masks, rubber gloves gripping their controls tight. They were lining up a shot at the left track, but a flurry of bolt rounds tore them to shreds. Quad-4's were open topped, the riders had no protection beyond a simple roll-cage, and their skin and bones made a merry shower of red ruin as the vehicle skidded wildly off to one side.
Searing agony consumed Aapo's left arm, cruel and brutal punishment, but he held true. Pain was no stranger to him, he would not yield. Pain or duty, in the grand scales of the universe there was no contest which tipped the balance. The noise was incredible, the roaring of engines, the hammering of bolters, mixed with his scream, part defiance, part suffering. Fired by conviction he swung the Storm Bolter about, blazing at anything that got too close. A Quad-4 to the right lost a front wheel, flipping over its frontage and crushing both riders in a tangled mess of wreckage. Another took a hit to a Promethium tank and exploded, becoming a brilliant fireball on wheels. A third lost steering and veered into the lapping waters of the Sulphuric sea. Both riders tried to flee but rubber boots dissolved as caustic chemicals chewed straight through, then their ankles were taken, leaving them to fall face-first into the noxious waters and flail in torments no man should ever know. Death was a mercy when it finally claimed them.
"Raaaaaagh!" Aapo screamed as his pain grew fiercer but he kept firing. Left, right, fending off Quad-4's to the rear and those trying to get ahead. He did not relent, no matter that his bones sang a song of agony, he refused to give up, he refused to lay down and die. It made no difference. The Quad-4's kept coming, a dozen of them, a score. The outpost must have had a full Platoon's worth of scout-vehicles and they hammered Spectre of Woe from all sides. Armour panels tore, layers of advanced protection shearing away as a torrent of shells nibbled the Rhino to death with glancing hits. Aapo's face was cut by flying shrapnel, the vox-antenna was torn clean off, one of the four exhaust stacks fell away and still they kept coming.
"The fox should not allow the hunting hounds to close!" Takana snarled.
"Their numbers grow!" Aapo screamed as he let off furious bursts left and right.
"They're pulling ahead, trying to cut us off!" Hanphu warned.
"I must keep them off our rear tracks!" Aapo wailed.
"Hanphu sighed, "If that be the case then I shall improvise."
Aapo was jolted hard into the rim of the hatch as Spectre of Woe turned into the closing foe. Aapo's jaw fell as he saw the Magpyr's intent. A single second to brace his boots against the sides, then the Rhino's dozer blade slammed straight into a pair of Quad-4's. Aapo was nearly thrown out of the hatch as the Rhino reared high, crumpling metal and flesh forced under its tracks. The world tilted one way and then the other as Spectre of Woe rode over the top of the Quad-4s, compacting metal, flesh ammunition and fuel into a greasy smear on the landscape.
Aapo's spine tried to vacate his body as the Rhino slammed into the gravel once more, his arm bathed in fire or so it seemed. Spectre of Woe tore off across the land, leaving the crushed remains of its victims behind. No safety was offered though, the other Quad-4's gave chase, hammering at the rear hatch with echoing drumbeats. Aapo returned to fending them off, but the drivers were getting wiser, they zigzagged, throwing off his aim, keeping far enough back to avoid his Storm Bolter's range.
"Escape is beyond us!" Aapo cried.
"If I could but walk I'd tear the hearts out of them all!" Takana snarled into the vox.
"Your legs are not required," Hanphu called out, "I have it all in hand."
"As if things weren't bad enough already," Xavaar's weak voice groaned.
"Trust the Magpyr," Hanphu laughed, "I see salvation ahead."
Aapo looked over his shoulder, "There's nothing out there but… oh no… Sun-Emperor's sake, tell me you aren't…"
Broiling black clouds surged towards them, promising to consume everything. No, it was they who moved, Spectre of Woe was driving headlong into a tornado of burning ethanol and seething ammonia. Aapo's eyes widened as he saw a typhoon of poison closing, dragged down from the stratosphere to scour the land bare. Nothing could survive that, nothing human at least. It seemed the Quad-4's agreed for the drivers broke off, fleeing for their lives, but the insane Magpyr steered right into it.
Aapo dropped to his knees, then cursed before bounding back up and grabbing the hatch lid. Acidic rain clawed at his cheeks as he heaved hard and swung the hatch closed. He desperately worked the catches, making the seal tight an instant before a hurricane of acid swept over them. Raw wind scoured the hull like nails on a pane of glass. A dreadful hissing arose as paint was seared from the armour and the engine dropped several octaves as clean air was replaced with ammonia. Aapo put his good hand on the wall and felt Spectre of Woe trembling. A Rhino was sealed against a hostile universe, but there were limits to its protection. Despite all the ancient sciences wrought into its making it wasn't made to drive through a hurricane of hydrogen cyanide, this was utter folly.
"Your insanity knows no bounds!" Takana spat.
"Freedom called and I answered," Hanphu laughed.
"They were shooting at us, the hull might be cracked for all you know!"
"We all have helmets," Hanphu dismissed.
"I don't!" Aapo snapped.
"Oh…" Hanphu frowned, "Did you receive your multi-lung yet?"
Aapo bit down on the urge to further berate the wit-addled fool, for they had greater problems. The engine was coughing sickly and the tracks were starting to grind in a most worrying fashion. Ceramite and plasteel were tough materials, but the oil on the cogs, the fluid links and hydraulics were delicate. The wind was gnawing Spectre of Woe apart one atom at a time and if they lost motive power then they would be stranded in this hurricane, left to count the hours it took the storm to eat through the hull.
The noise of sandpaper on iron made Aapo wince, "The front axle fails us."
Hanphu scoffed, "Merely the left-front exhaust deforming."
"And that's better?!"
"We can still drive with two," the Magpyr assured before another screech rang loud, "Make that one."
Aapo snarled, "No matter the depths you hell your soul sinks to, my shade shall find you and drag you deeper yet!"
His invective was cut short as the ground gave way. Spectre of Woe's weight had broken through a thin crust in the land, allowing them to drop ten metres straight down. Aapo's boot left the floor as breath fled his lungs, then he slammed down hard, making teeth sink into his tongue. Blood filled his mouth but the white-hot fire of his broken wrist swept that aside, not a fire anymore, a star, a supernova. He rocked back against the wall, cradling his arm, hissing in torment as he slammed the back of his skull into unyielding metal over and over grunting, "Gnh! Gnh! Gnnnhh!"
"Patience is of the moment," Takana snarled, "The Magpyr's death I shall make an eternity!"
"Wait…" Xavaar wheezed, "Listen."
"I don't," Aapo frowned.
"Listen!" Xavaar commanded.
Despite his pain Aapo realised that the wind had died down. He half crouched and peered through the armourglass slits around the hatch, seeing bleak walls in the headlights. A sinkhole, Spectre of Woe had dropped into a deep sinkhole, surrounding them in protective earth on all sides. Acid rain still pelted the roof, but the wind could not touch them, the essential engine and gears and tracks were safe. A Ceramite roof could withstand the rain till the storm passed over, then they could dig their way out. They were safe, they had evaded the Bronze Beasts' retribution.
Aapo sank back, relief warring with despair. They had escaped for now, but they remained alone against a Thunder Warrior and all the armies he commanded. Every soul on this moon owed fealty to Methuselah, the Smoke Jaguars were alone and no match for him in combat. Aapo could see no possible way they could survive another encounter, let alone win. So all he could do was collapse back and cradle his arm, waiting for salvation or death to find them.