Free Engines of War by Steve Lyons Page B

sights to survey the ground ahead of them. The battle was going the Imperium’s way there too; more slowly, but just as surely.
    The one-eyed daemons had, for the most part, been dispensed with and Imperial casualties, while not exactly minimal, so far had been comparatively light. The Ultramarines certainly had the advantage of numbers now. Most of their remaining foes, however, were Plague Marines, and Arkelius knew better than to underestimate their strength.
    The Scourge ’s missiles were of no use in this situation. There was no way the Hunter could fire into the melee and not take out more friends than it did foes.
    For the first time in a while – since before the destruction of the first daemon engine – Arkelius felt a familiar itch. He longed to be out there, fighting alongside his brothers. He longed to feel the trembling of a chainsword in his palm as it bit into a stinking traitor’s armour. An irrational part of him felt unworthy, even, watching from inside his plasteel and ceramite bunker while others put their lives on the line for him.
    He threw open his top hatch again. He stood up on his seat and levelled his bolter across the Scourge ’s roof. He squeezed the trigger whenever he had a clear shot at an enemy, which wasn’t nearly as often as he would have liked. At least he was doing something useful.
    In between shots, Arkelius prayed that the Emperor would lend strength to his battle-brothers’ arms and precision to their weapons. He prayed that for each brother cut down by a Plague Marine’s sword, his gene-seed at least might be rescued.
    The Death Guard were outnumbered, yes, but each one of them fought to the last breath in his festering body, refusing to surrender even a centimetre of ground.
    Once again, Arkelius wondered just what it was they were fighting for. What was it that made Fort Kerberos a prize worth the having, even as it lay in ruins?
    The battle seemed to rage forever, Arkelius’s enforced inactivity making every second seem to stretch into a lifetime. Then, the field in front of him began to clear at last, and Captain Numitor’s voice came over the vox-net again.
    The Imperial tanks started forward on Numitor’s order. The Scourge was still out a short way ahead of the pack, so, as Arkelius dropped back into his seat, he told his driver to give the other vehicles a second or two to draw level.
    It was just as well. Corbin had switched off the engine while they were stationary, giving it a chance to cool down. It took him three tries to restart it, and, when he did so, warning lights flashed across the instrument banks again and Arkelius smelt something burning.
    Corbin voxed him, anticipating his commander’s question, ‘I can hold it together, if we take it slow and steady.’
    For the first time he sounded stressed, and, as the Hunter ground into reluctant motion, Arkelius felt it pulling insistently to the left.
    They rolled past a Plague Marine, still on his feet and holding his own against four Ultramarines. Then, suddenly, another traitor emerged from the smoke in front of them. His face was hidden by a rash of vile mutations and grafted-on augmetics.
    He saw the Scourge bearing down on him, and braced himself as if to halt it with the strength of his own arms. Arkelius had Iunus train the hull-mounted storm bolter on the Plague Marine, and they blasted him with explosive rounds.
    Then the Plague Marine leapt, a jump pack on his back firing, and he landed with a thump, spread-eagled across the Scourge ’s prow. He was holding a death’s-head grenade, and Arkelius realised that he was trying to jam it down the Skyspear missile launcher’s barrel.
    He was dragged from his perch by a pair of Ultramarines and shot at point-blank range in the head until he stopped twitching. Arkelius recognised one of the slayers – recognised the markings on his sealed armour, anyway – as Valerion, a former squad-mate.
    The Scourge rolled over something its weight couldn’t crush