Secret War: Warhammer 40,000 by Ben Agar (reading eggs books TXT) 📖

It'd allowed my friends to advance behind me, and withering hell gunfire strafed through the air followed by more screams.

I clenched my teeth and pushed my back against the wall. Three months! It'd taken the Space Marines three frigging months to finally give up searching for us in the solar system and leave into the warp. I knew they'd be tenacious but didn't expect it to take that frigging long. It was a harrowing, stressful game of cat and mouse we played; we'd almost been caught five times once a Space Marine craft had passed within two hundred kilometres of us. It was so close for void ships we may as well have been breathing down each other necks.

During that time, I'd tried to teach Adelana how to fight. Unfortunately, I didn't do very well at first, showing how to do techniques far too fast and expecting her to perform advanced fighting forms, which came to me as naturally as breathing. Still, for someone starting, it seemed almost impossible.

I'd tried to get teaching advice from Darrance, but he proved to be pretty damn useless in this regard. If he was upset, me a mere apprentice, was teaching someone, he didn't show it, and I hoped he'd keep it out of his report. I would've gone to Enandra, but she was busy with the whole business of keeping us alive.

Adelana had proven to be a pretty lousy close-quarters combatant, despite being surprisingly fit and robust. She was a Magistratum trainee, so she was used to a submission, grappling style. I used more of a striking style, so she'd had to start almost all over again. Adelana had also admitted privately she was thirtieth in her class, out of forty total.

Out of a moment's inspiration, a month in, I'd decided to used my father's teaching as a template. Despite his anti-social tendencies, he was a good teacher, and she'd improved more since then but was still far from being even below average.

But in contrast, thanks to her help, my marksmanship had improved somewhat.

Much to my surprise, Enandra's plan had gone exactly right. Once the Space Marines had left, we'd emerged from hiding, and as she'd expected, Torathe had been hiding as well, waiting for us. Finally, after a brief void battle, we'd been boarded.

We'd been ready; Enandra had briefed us fully before we'd dropped the stealth field, and we'd set up pre-built defences of shoulder-high flak board walls throughout the ship. The only danger was of Space Marines being on Torathe's craft, but Enandra had predicted there wouldn't. She'd believed that it was now personal between her and her former master, that his pride wouldn't allow their help in this fight. Also, he'd had the Astartes for so long they wouldn't agree to spare any more for any longer.

So far, that theory too had proven true; there were no Space Marines among the number of Imperial Guardsmen and navy personnel taking part in the fighting.

Vex had first hacked into their vox network and shut it down with some sort of virus or something. So, even outnumbered and took numerous casualties, we'd pushed them back into their ship, leaving countless corpses in our wake. Enandra had surprisingly put me in charge of a kill squad consisting of Adelana, Helma, Torris, Verenth and Vark. I'd expected everyone but Adelana to resent me for this, but they'd quickly fallen in, following my orders without complaint and hesitation. It seemed finally being able to take the fight to those responsible for Omnartus' fate had allowed them to put aside their dislike of me for now.

I'd at first been hesitant for Adelana to take part in the battle; her training was far from even beginning in my eyes, but she'd insisted on fighting with a passion and fire, I couldn't even begin to deny. Besides, what she lacked in close combat ability, she more than made up for in skill in a firefight. This was a boarding action, and even though I'd never taken part in one before, I knew it'd be mostly close range and brutal.

"Clear!" I heard Helma call, knocking me from my train of thought, and I slipped out of cover.

Wordlessly we continued to cautiously, silently, professionally advance, from outlet to outlet, shadow to shadow. I led the way, sword held at the ready, but the power field deactivated. It wasn't long before we heard more running footfalls from around the next corner, and quickly I calculated it to be at least twenty pairs of boots. Karmen and the other in incorporeal psyker had gone forth first, using their abilities to shatter and destroy the glow globes throughout the enemy ship.

I sent Torris, Helma and Vark back behind an outlet a few metres back with quick movements of my hands. While me, Adelana and Verenth slipped behind the nearest, all of us dissipating into the shadows behind our cameleoline cloaks. Over the past few months, almost everyone had been hard at work training to fight and everything in between. Adelana hadn't excelled at much, but she'd done well at stealth. The others were trained by one of Enandra's men, and he'd taught them frigging well. Although I was sure both Vark and Helma had first-hand experience in commando tactics anyway.

We waited for the enemy to storm down the corridor; they'd heard our firefight, they were on the losing side, and there was a strong camaraderie among them. So they wanted to go to their comrade's aid as quickly as they could; this made them almost reckless, predictable.

They barely check their flanks as they passed us by and went to check the bodies of their dead comrades. I was right; there was twenty total a full squads worth. I raised the replacement autopistol, given to me by Enandra's armoury and blew a hole through the back nearest guardsman's head with a manstopper round. Then, seeing it for the signal, it was the rest of my Kill team opened up, catching them in a crossfire. They wore thick, grey flak armour, but it provided them with no protection from the highly penetrative hellgun fire. It was a slaughter; within a few seconds, they were dead or grievously injured.

I finished the last screaming survivor by stabbing him through the heart, and Torris approached me.

"Can't believe that worked," he said.

I shrugged and pursed my lips. "One thing you can always rely on is the idiocy of humanity."

He smiled grimly. "Yes, of course," he said knowingly.

I smiled back, knowing he meant me, but didn't care, then waved us onward.

We found the next corner in silence, and I peered around carefully, the coast was clear, and I signalled this. As part of the briefing, Enandra had provided us with the schemata of Torathe's ship, The Imperial Crusher; from this alone, it seemed that she'd been planning a confrontation with her former master for a very long time. I'd studied it well and had the printout in my pocket. But I didn't need it now. I knew we were advancing along the port side, through the fifth level. There was going to be a staircase in another two turns about eighty-five metres away. The stairway zigzagged up to the tenth level. The bridge was a level above that; we had separated and scouted ahead of Enandra's main push, taking a long way around, the path least tried. They'd know we were here after that first ambush, there would be more of them coming our way, but the vast majority were distracted. Another kill team, led by Arlathan Karkin, was advancing along the starboard side; we were to converge together on the tenth level at 1800 hours.

I glanced at my wrist chron; it was only fifteen thirty-two. Until then, we were to sow chaos and confusion in their rear echelons.

This was my type of fighting; she'd chosen me well. I felt Arlathan was vastly under-qualified, but he'd seemed to have found great favour with Enandra. It was quite rare to see the pair not together over the past few months though both Darrance and Hayden were with him, so if he followed their advice, they should do pretty well.

We moved down the corridor unmolested, but we never lost our disciplined, zigzagging advance, checking every inch and every corner with our green hazed, low light gazes.

As we reached the next turn, I heard more footfalls; they were light but quick and disciplined. Quickly, I calculated they were walking down the stairs, about eighteen metres down, although I couldn't tell how many exactly.

I ordered us to fan out with deliberate hands, Adelana, Helma, and I to the left. Torris, Verenth and Vark, right. I signalled to let them past, then we wrapped our cameleoline cloaks around us again and waited.

It only took a few minutes for them to come around the corner, but it felt like forever; there were ten of them peering through a slight gap in my cloak. They had no lamps on their assortment of weapons, indicating they too had low light vision contacts. One of them carried an auspex, and I couldn't help but smile. We'd all gone light, wearing synskin bodygloves.

They were good, very good I figured they might've been some of Torathe's entourage, sent to stop whatever infiltrators had moved so far into their midst.

With bated breath, I watched as they walked right by us, expecting in any second for one of them to notice something, anything that'd give us away. One of them, a towering brute in carapace armour, even seemed to look right at me, but he saw nothing and moved on with the rest of his mates.

I changed my mind; these bastards were too good; they could wreak havoc on the main force. I indicated this with a tap of my vox link, and in an instant, we were up and firing into their backs at a practically point-blank range. Four of them were cut down, but the remaining six reacted with impressive speed, starting to spread out into cover a few, even managing to turn and fire back; one shot winged Verenth causing him to cry out and spin away. One clipped Vark's thigh, and he was forced back into cover, clutching at his wound with a pained growl.

I activated my sword in a blaze of blue and dashed in, decapitating one and kicked another in the ribs sending him smashing hard into his comrade and against the wall.

Another tried to swing out at me with the butt of his autogun, but I weaved away the kicked it from his hands so abruptly it took him a second to realise it'd gone allowing Adelana to bash in his face with the swing of her hellgun. The next tried to bring his gun upon us, but a point-blank shotgun shot from Torris exploded the side of his skull, then Helma converged on the last, taking out his legs with a sweeping kick, stamped on his face; which connected with a sickening, crunch! Then finished him by stabbing the tip of her knife into his neck.

I killed the last who was starting to get to his feet, cutting him horizontally across his chest.

I turned to the others and nodded my approval, especially at Adelana, genuinely impressed.

"They will be missed," hissed Helma, whipping the blood from her knife on her thigh.

I shrugged. "We'll worry about that later, check on Verenth and Vark, please," I said.

Torris and Helma nodded, then turned to help the injured.

"I am alright," said Vark, limping into view, gripping his thigh.

"You'd better head back," I said. "You're in no condition for-"

A flicker of movement caught my eye. The slightest thing but still made me slide to the side, so the slashing sword from the darkness at my back instead cut across my lower bicep.

With a cry of pain, I struggled to keep my balance. The dark corridor was suddenly alight with hellgun fire. Only a little more than a shadow, the figure laughed and, with breathtaking speed and agility, dodged