Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 159
Over the battlefield a tiny mote soared, passing unseen and unheralded by all. Through swirling dogfights of fighters and bombers it passed, picking its way past las-shot and missile. Auspex baffles it did slip past without challenge, arcane stealth technology allowing it to approach Nu Zantium as a suggestion of turbulence. Sable Pinion, stealing into the fight like a thief in the night.
Damchak sat in the pilot's seat, his lightning claw stowed by his chair so he could grip the control yokes with both hands. At his side sat Nizca, working the co-pilot's station while the rest of Umbral Flame was secured in the troophold. They had made great progress so far but Damchak was amazed at the violence several thousand metres below his feet. The Terran army was fully engaged, bringing apocalyptic destruction against the Novans. Yet Nu Zantium stood inviolate, the mobile city grinding over all resistance. A clash of legendary proportions, worthy of a saga. It seemed arrogance unbridled to think that one Prowl could make a difference, and yet that was Umbral Flames' path.
"Faces to the fore," Damchak called over his shoulder, "The final hour is upon us."
Tikal's voice came back, "Our eyes darken as the blackest night takes us in its arms."
"Creatures of the twilight are we, in our own dens we find ourselves," Damchak refuted.
"The Dusktide is upon us, its currents too mighty to fight."
Damchak lowered his eyes. Tikal the laughing youth was gone, and would not be coming back. The genic curse of Corax's bloodline had devoured his exuberant spirit as the rot of Nurgle was consuming his body. Tikal's doom was certain; the only question left was if he could turn it into noble purpose before the end came. Damchak expected no less for himself, the chances of surviving this hunt were so low even his Transhuman brain could not compute them.
Nizca interrupted his sour thoughts, "The Fire Lords beat a retreat with great losses."
"Proud, but not so proud as to die pointlessly," Damchak grunted.
"They will return," Nizca mused.
"Soon, but while they withdraw they pull all eyes to themselves," Damchak concluded, "They serve as our foil, while we ghost past unseen."
"Wait… an auspex sweep… the baffles are… Shades of Sedaxus, missile lock!"
Someone had seen them; somehow someone had penetrated their stealth. How such a thing was possible Damchak could not answer, but no cover was ever perfect. He threw the yoke over and Sable Pinion veered right, banking hard as he pushed the throttles open. He sought to evade their pursuer but a blaring alarum in the cockpit told him they had not succeeded. Friend or foe, Terran or Novan, it mattered not, whoever was on their tail was damnably good, and let loose a missile right up their tailpipe.
Damchak heard the shrieking wail of warning and heaved the yoke over, spinning the gunship wildly. The wild evasion was not enough to dodge the missile, but it did result in a clipping impact only, striking the port wing instead of the body of the gunship. The blast threw him hard against his seat's straps, and his hands lost their grip for an instant, as Sable Pinion's wailing became screams of mechanised torment. They were struck badly, they were surely crippled, and Damchak was suddenly fighting to keep the Shadowhawk in the air at all. The horizon spun over and over as the gunship dropped, an angel tumbling out of the heavens with its wings burning. All was beldam and woe, the shaking of the craft an earthquake and the screaming of the fuselage telling of dire torments wringing the aircraft's bones. Damchak clung tight to the control yokes, heaving right with all his might. The left wing was not responding at all, and a glance over the readouts showed it was shorn clean off at about a third of its length. Damchak had to increase thrust to the port engine and feather the right to compensate, finally making the Shadowhawk level out but losing altitude fast.
"Our wings are clipped," Nizca warned, "We must withdraw."
"Our path is set, our geas cannot be stymied," Damchak snarled.
"The distance to fly remains too great and our feathers are burning. Fuel bleeds from our veins, readouts tell fourfold ten and nine seconds remain!"
"Then withdrawal is beyond us," Damchak snapped, "To the end of all things we ride."
The fuel gauge was dropping alarmingly fast, quicker than the engines could possibly be consuming it. The missile blast must have severed a line, spraying vital lifeblood into the air. Nizca's hands were in constant motion, flicking switches and hammering buttons but he could not seal the leak, the damage was too extensive. Sable Pinion was slowing, Damchak could feel it in the sluggishness of the gunship and the lack of response from the controls. Moments remained till the Shadowhawk fell out of the sky, and there was yet far to go. He looked ahead and saw Nu Zantium rolling forward while surrounded by enemies. The exchange of shots was constant, the streaming fire from the twin Imperators on its summit awe-inspiring and Sable Pinion was drawing a trail of smoke and spilled fuel through the air a blind man could follow. If a single foe thought to look upwards they were done for, but there was nothing to be done save be bold.
Damchak pushed the control yoke forward and Sable Pinion's nose dropped. The Gunship yawned over and the ground became a solid wall, they were dropping fast but picking up speed, hopefully enough to cover the distance. Nizca did not say a word but desperation radiated off him. Damchak had not a moment to spare for worry, feeling his own guts lift and float weightlessly in his chest. Tumbling from the sky in a broken Shadowhawk, knowing death looked for them with hunger in its eye.
Nizca called out, "Altitude auspex proclaims one thousand metres!"
"Implore the Machine Spirits for their fullest efforts," Damchak growled through gritted teeth.
But a suddenly blaring alarum caused Nizca to cry, "Failure in starboard wing, the aileron is jammed!"
"My skill shall overcome!" Damchak lied, "Fuel?"
"Threefold ten and four!"
Damchak's hands were shaking as the yokes fought to break free. The left wing was gone, and the right was locked solid. They had become a projectile hurled at the ground, unable to steer, unable to right themselves. In scant moments they would slam nose-first into the seething battle below, striking like a missile. Umbral Flame would be ended in an instant and the death of Q'umarkaj would never be avenged. Damchak refused to accept that. He kicked his feet left and right on the rudders, causing the nose to sway as he jerked the yoke forward and then back. No effect, their headlong plummet was unchanged, doom barrelling at them like a juggernaut. Again he jerked the yoke, and again, all his strength applied to the control. He was convinced the yoke would snap in his hands, but then his efforts produced a result, the aileron freed, granting him a morsel of control.
Damchak heaved backwards and his guts dropped into his feet but he managed to bring the nose up, seeing the blessed horizon again. Sable Pinion was still losing altitude, but they had bought another morsel of life. He used it to scout the land, seeing how perilously low they had dropped. The battle outside was close enough to make out individual tanks and the dot of Nu Zantium was a growing anthill in his eyes. He was looking up at the city, actually having to gaze skyward so low were they. The shrieking passage of Sable Pinion caused Guardsmen to duck as it shot overhead, tilting perilously left, its death wails resounding over the grind of engines and shot. Damchak ignored it all, focused only on his goal.
"The prey cannot escape," Damchak hissed as he pushed the rudders with his feet to compensate.
"Our steed dies under us," Nizca warned.
"Through fire and darkness and death we trothed to walk," Damchak spat, "Fuel?"
"Twofold ten and three!"
Damchak could see their target, an impossibly thin slice between the city's baseplate and the shimmering void shield. Too low and they'd slam into the trundling Capitol Imperialis, too high and they'd plaster themselves across the energy field. Damchak was aiming for a target smaller than a gnat's wing, flying in a dying Shadowhawk, losing fuel and all while hurtling over a battlefield at insanely low altitude. At other times he would have thought it a glory for the ages, but right now his full attention was fixed on wrestling with the juddering controls.
"Altitude Auspex has failed; we are blind to the ground!" Nizca snapped, "Fuel onefold ten and eight!"
"Relit the cogitators, awaken the Auspex!"
"Failure abounds!" Nizca spat as his hands danced ceaselessly, "Fuel onefold ten and two!"
They had lost their auspex but Damchak still had eyes. He saw the distance to the ground shrinking, knowing there was nothing he could do to change that. They could not slow to bail out, not this low, even trying would see them plunge into the ground and break apart. He could not fight for more speed with his limited fuel, nor climb with the shattered wing. There was only one path left and they must walk it bravely, shutting out thoughts of failure, ignominy and extinction. Then a dull crump sounded through the cockpit door and Sable Pinion's screaming took on a new measure of agony.
"Fire in the rear compartment!" Nizca bellowed.
"Fuel?!"
"Zero and nine!"
"Call forth fire suppression!" Damchak snarled as he wrestled with the controls.
"Silence from the Machine Spirits. Fuel zero and four!"
Seconds left, the distance still too great to cross, the shells rising from tanks below threatening to hit their belly. Damchak had nothing to offer, no clever plan, no last-minute trick to pull victory from the jaws of defeat. He saw their rate of closure was too slow, the angle of their descent too steep, they would plummet into the ground and die in a fireball, short of their target by the smallest margin. So close he could taste it, yet denied by immutable fate. Umbral Flame had failed, he had failed, yet destiny was nothing when set against the capriciousness of luck.
"Fuel zero and two!" Nizca spat but Damchak did not hear for his eyes were wide. Above their dying gunship one of the Imperators had turned and fired, not at the tiny dot of the Shadowhawk but at the army around the city. A Doomstrike missile flew right under Sable Pinion and detonated, exploding amid a column of superheavy tanks. The explosion swept them aside with ease but the blastwave carried even further, rising high in a torrent of superheated air. It caught the Shadowhawk from below and hurled it upwards, the lifting body shape of the gunship given an enormous boost.
Damchak was kicked in the rear by a Titan and his head tried to implant itself in his sternum. Squashed by impossible weight he yet fought with the yokes, every last sinew bent on keeping the gunship flying straight and true. Shouted warnings passed unheeded, the blaring alarums were background noise and the coughing of the engines as fuel ran dry was but a murmur. There was only the target, only that narrow slice separating baseplate from void shield. Damchak fought to pass between the chained hounds guarding the fiery gates of hell, clinging to the tiniest beam of light betwixt them to offer salvation.
"Clench!" Nizca bellowed as Sable Pinion passed under the shield, then a tenth of a second later slammed nose-first into a Ferrocrete wall. Damchak was thrown forward as broken chunks of masonry deformed the gunship's prow, smashing into engine fans and tearing the battlecannon from its spinal mount. Armour was pelted by glassic shards and stone chips as the windows imploded and something metallic clanged off his helm. Bones were shaken, his hearts compressed into his ribs and his neck sought to separate from his shoulders. No mortal could have survived this, the crash would be instantly fatal, and even for a Transhuman it was almost so.
Sable Pinion skewed sideways as it tumbled into a warehouse, bodily crashing into stacked pallets of foodstuffs to feed the population. Over the Shadowhawk turned as it careened wildly, losing its last wing as the tail was ripped to shreds. Damchak knew only calamity and commotion as Sable Pinion turned over again, sliding along its belly till it crashed into a piled mountain of crates, coming to a halt at last as shattered wooden boxes rained down. Damchak hurt everywhere, his blood burned with pain and yet he was alive. Sun-Emperor be praised, he lived.
"Nizca?" he breathed in concern.
"I… live… though I wish I didn't," his Kinsman affirmed painfully.
"We passed through the blackest night unscathed," Damchak breathed in disbelief.
"Sable Pinion did not," Nizca groaned, "Its wings are torn, this gunship will touch the heavens no more."
"It served faithfully to the last," Damchak stated, "Tikal?"
From the troophold came the reply, "All Umbral Flame is counted among the living, though fire spreads. We vacate via a hole in the side, relinquishing this gunship to the flames."
"Meet us outside and release Magpyrs to confuse our foes."
Damchak released his straps and reached down to retrieve his claw. He slotted it over his gauntlet and then hastily connected it to his armour's fittings. The internal generator was intact, its spirit eager, this weapon would taste blood soon. Meanwhile Nizca was tearing at the deformed cockpit roof with his Obsidian Blade. The hatch leading out of the cockpit was mangled, they would need to cut their way free. Damchak spared a moment of silent gratitude to the gunship, it had given its life so Umbral Flame could continue. Its valour would be repaid, its sacrifice remembered. The roof split apart, revealing weak light and the First rose to pull himself out. The Smoke Jaguars were inside Nu Zantium, may their enemies remember what fear was.