Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 232
A pregnant hush swept across the plaza, the sudden cessation of debauchery stunning in its silence. The automatons froze, their ancient programming interrupted, then as one they turned and attacked. Vendrick saw the state change overcome them, some defence protocol from ages lost no doubt, but the reason mattered not. They were coming and the Censors had to react.
"Codex pattern-theta 7! Open fire!" Vendrick bellowed as his bolt pistol roared. Mass reactives boomed as they flew across the distance, smashing into Wraithbone bodies to blow craters into the machines. Physical impact knocked them back but none fell, they were solid-state constructs, no pistons or gears to break, no circuitry to shatter. Those struck staggered for a moment but then rallied, bringing their weapons to bear.
"Incoming!" Vendrick yelled as a hurricane of Shuriken rounds flew their way. He ducked back into cover but his Diceramite armour rang, the surface scored by microscopically thin discs. His plate was sound against small arms but the joints and flexible seals could be penetrated, one shot to an eye and he'd die. The towers they were huddling behind were pelted by shots, the torrent quick and lethal, but he knew this was just a distraction. The Eldar were no mad berserkers, or feral orks, to charge up the middle and meet gunfire with sheer stubbornness. No, they were elusive, wily and beloved of tricks, even these automatons followed the same tactical precepts. The flanks were the real danger.
Sure enough as the suppressing fire from the front claimed their attention a score of automatons came charging around the tower from the other direction. They raced with shimmering swords in hand and hook-pointed knives, intending to rend flesh and spill blood. The Censors however had drilled for such eventualities and the charging Automatons were met by a hail of fire. Belphian's plasma carbine took one in the centre mass, slagging its chest so thoroughly it collapsed. Dhulak's heavy bolter spewed rounds at a tremendous rate, the quad-barrel unleashing tongues of fire that hammered them into tiny bits. Other Censors joined suit, inundating the Automatons with sheer volume of fire. It was working, but even this too was but a feint.
"We can't stay here!" Vendrick bellowed, "Relocate by pairs, keep up the fire!"
"Which vector?!" Dhulak called.
"Back to the skyways, elevated positions will grant us superior tactical advantage."
"There's a frakking lot of them!" Belphian spat.
"Then move fast, and where do you think you're going?!"
Athra started, "I was only…"
"Save it!" Vendrick snarled, "Try to sneak off and I'll shoot you in the back, honour be damned!"
The Space Marines disengaged by pair, leapfrogging each other as they sought distance. Not a retreat, Vendrick would die before giving that order, but to face a numerically superior foe on open ground was stupidity incarnate. He would reposition his forces, extend the engagement and then engage on advantageous terms. There was no question of retreat in his mind, merely tactics. The broken automatons were laying in heaps but had taken a troublingly high number of rounds to put down. Vendrick gritted his teeth as he pulled his clip from the pistol and slid home a magazine of Chronoflux rounds. Rare beyond words, and he'd only brought a few reloads, but he'd need them.
The Smoke Jaguars and Censors linked up in the cover of one of the further away towers, the sound of heavy feet ringing behind. The crowd was chasing them, so there was not a moment to pause in their flight. Stray rounds clipped buildings and occasionally glanced off a helm, but the shots were poorly aimed. It seemed these automatons were not quite as accurate as their makers, nor as fleet of foot, else the Space Marines would have been overrun already. Vendrick intended to exploit that.
"Lose the trail do we!" Vitcos snarled.
"Worry about that later, concentrate on living!" Vendrick snapped.
"Face a world we cannot," Vitcos argued, "Disengage and seek better paths we should."
"You craven blood can run and hide if you want," Vendrick sneered, "I'm built for this!"
The Space Marines' flight was pulling ahead, but they could not run far when surrounded. From ahead a second mob of automatons veered into view, moving to cut them off. Vendrick's pistol fired a single round and a construct was hit dead centre. Unleashed temporal fields sheared outwards, each random in spatial and chronometric dimensions. Parts of the construct aged a billion years, others were scattered into the atoms of its forging and the machine shattered into dust. Another shot and another, Vendrick put them down with precise hits, but too many came at once and rushed the Space Marines.
Vendrick's maul was in his hand quick as thought, arcing about to meet the first construct with a roundhouse blow. When they met a blast of neural shredder energy was unleashed and Vendrick thought he heard the faint sound of a scream, but it could have just been the echoes ringing of the buildings. The construct staggered from the impact and he swung again, smashing its head in to send it to the floor in a broken heap. One down, but more remained to close in.
Vendrick shuddered as his armour was scored by a lashing diresword, his spine saved only by the stoutest nature of his plate. Another tried to gut him with a disembowelling stroke and another to take his legs off. Vendrick was beset but not beaten. He triggered his Apothex and the surge of vitality reduced their blows to treacle-slowness. He surged right and dodged the next sequence of blows, swinging his arm wide to smash a construct aside. The second he threw away with a thrust to an abdomen and the third he took both arms from with a pair of overhead strikes. His strength was amplified, his speed ferocious and he cleared space with swift attacks that left his enemies broken at his feet.
The others were doing well. Belphian was fighting hand-to-hand, his Apothex pushing him to the limit of potential. He seemed to blur as he punched and kicked and headbutted, driving the enemy back with sheer ferocity. Dhulak was encumbered by his heavy weapon but managed to batter an automaton down with one hand, using his strength to grind it to paste. The Smoke Jaguars were faring well too, their Transonic weapons tearing Wraithbone apart, leaving jagged wounds that cracked further as sonic devastation tore at matter on a molecular level. The ambush had been met and countered with ease, much too easily, Vendrick realised. These were not mindless Orks, to fling themselves headlong into the fray without a care, to send so few to engage could only mean this was but another feint.
A searing rupture in reality heralded the true closing of the trap. Brother Domfrain, of the Astral Knights, froze as space and time convulsed around him. His Censor armour glistened with unlight as the materium tore like parting cloth, revealing the nightmare beneath. He flung his arms wide as if trying to grab something to hold onto, but in a blink a warp rift yawned open around him and slammed shut, condemning him to an eternity of cruel torment at the hands of Daemons. Vendrick saw it happen in an instant and knew the threat had just magnified a thousandfold. One of the hated Eldar's most feared weapon, a D-Cannon, vortex weaponry, more deadly than anything humanity could produce on such a small scale.
Vendrick spun on his heel to see a trio of arrowheads bearing down, double-pronged and closing fast. In the compressed time of the Apothex he could see automatons sitting behind Crystal-flex windscreens, while a second stood on a platform behind, pointing a heavy weapon forward. Thin light glistened across their surfaces, sparking on runes and jagged icons. They were unknown models of vehicles but he recognised a precursor to Vypers when he saw one, two-man anti-grav attack bikes.
Vendrick opened his mouth to cry a warning but scatter lasers under their noses let rip, hammering at the embattled Space Marines. Vendrick took a direct hit to the chest and was sent flying backwards by the shock of thermal exchange. His armour held, by the Omnissiah's grace, but he slammed into a tower and bounced off. His back erupted in pain and his chest flared in protest as he hit the ground and rolled over. His face was to the sky as the Vypers shot past, screaming engine high-pitched and cruel as they tore off. They weren't gone, they'd be back in microseconds.
Vendrick pushed his pain aside and rose to his feet just in time to see the Vypers spin in midair, a manoeuvre that would tear out the eyeballs of any human who tried it, and come in for another attack run. The D-cannon swung to point his way and Vendrick had but an instant to react. His Apothex burned hot, pushing tolerance to the very edge as his sinews protested at the demands placed upon them. He felt ligaments tearing as he pushed to the very limit of possibility, his hearts thundering like a hummingbird and his veins boiling. Even a Censor had only so much to give but he risked self-immolation and was rewarded as the warp rift opened and slammed shut behind him, without claiming his life.
Vendrick had not a moment to sigh in relief as the Vypers shot past, only this time the other two unleashed their guns. Some form of sticky-netting erupted, spraying everywhere and dousing Space Marines and constructs in its strands. Smoke Jaguars, Censors, even Tvos and Athra, all ensnared in the quick-setting web. It clung to them like tar, dragging down their arms and legs, encumbering them in a net they could not escape. Some strange property meant the more they struggled the tighter it clung, their strength turned against them.
Vendrick saw all this mid-leap and also that he was diving headlong into a puddle of it. He tried to change his trajectory but it was too late, his momentum was committed and no amount of time-dilation could change inertia once set. He fell into the puddle and it instantly splashed over his arms and legs, binding him tight. He threw his body about, trying to wriggle free but the more he thrashed the more he was constrained. He was trapped, unable to break free and in a moment the Vypers would swing about and finish the kill.
"I'm trapped!" Vendrick cried.
"Don't fight it!" Athra called, "Go limp!"
"Frak that, Belphian, can you burn it off us?!"
"Not without killing us all!" Belphian snarled.
"Our Obsidian Blades find no firm surface to cut!" Vitcos gulped.
"I can't get free," Dhulak snapped, "What do we do?!"
Tachna barked, "Be silent and let our guide show the path!"
"Do what?!" Vendrick blinked.
Athra explained, "Shut up and let me save all our lives! You there, noble blood of Calan Gaeav, we are humble travellers come to petition the Wind King! We demand to be taken to the court of Trusitaan, as is the right and duty of all who pass through Calan Gaeav. By Dromlach the Cosmic Serpent you are bound to heed the call of all wayfarers, lest you earn the displeasure of Cegorach. The will of the Gods binds all Aeldari, so we demand you take us to your leader!"