Fulgrim Read Free Page A

alien missile had blown off its wing, and Solomon knew that it was a miracle the pilot had managed to coax the stricken aircraft to stay in the air long enough to reach the floating atoll. He shuddered to imagine their fate had they plunged to the vast planetary ocean below, lost forever amid the sunken ruins of the Laer’s ancient civilisation.
    The Laer had been waiting for them, and now at least seven warriors were down and would never fight again. Solomon had no idea how the other assault units had fared, but couldn’t imagine they had suffered any less. He risked a glance around the column, its height oddly distorted by the eye-watering curves and subtly wrong dimensions. Everything on this atoll jarred upon his sensibilities, a riotous excess of colour, form and noise that offended the senses with their sheer frenzy.
    He could see a wide plaza ahead, in which a flaring plume of searing energy was enclosed by a ring of bright coral that shone with a dazzling light. Dozens of such strange plumes were spread throughout the atolls, and the Mechanicum adepts believed that it was these peculiar devices that prevented the atolls from falling from the sky.
    With no major landmasses on Laeran, capturing the atolls intact was deemed integral to the success of the coming campaign. The atolls would serve as bridgeheads and staging areas for all further assaults, and Fulgrim himself had declared that the energy plumes keeping the atolls in the air were to be captured at any cost.
    Solomon caught glimpses of Laer warriors slithering around the base of the energy plume, their movements sinuous and inhumanly quick. First Captain Kaesoron had personally tasked the Second with securing the plaza, and Solomon had sworn an oath in the fire that he would not fail.
    ‘Gaius, take your men right and work your way through cover towards the plaza. Keep your head down. They’re sure to have warriors positioned to stop you. Send Thelonius on the left.’
    ‘What about you?’ Caphen shouted back over the din of gunfire. ‘Where are you going?’
    Solomon smiled. ‘Where else but the centre? I’m going to take Charosian’s lot, but make sure Goldoara are in position before I move. I don’t want anyone moving before we’ve set down a weight of fire so heavy I could walk on it.’
    ‘Sir,’ said Caphen, ‘without wishing to appear impertinent, are you sure that’s the right choice?’
    Solomon racked the slide on his bolter and said, ‘You fuss too much over making the “right” choice, Gaius. All we need do is make a good choice, see it through and accept the consequences.’
    ‘If you say so, sir,’ said Caphen.
    ‘I do!’ shouted Solomon. ‘We may not be able to do it by the book this time, but by Chemos, we’ll do it well! Now pass the word.’
    Solomon waited as his orders were issued to the warriors under his command, and felt the familiar thrill of excitement as he prepared to take the fight to the enemy once more. He knew that Caphen disapproved of his cavalier attitude, but Solomon firmly believed that only through such testing circumstances could warriors better themselves and so more closely approach the perfection embodied by their primarch.
    Sergeant Charosian edged up behind him, his veteran warriors gathered around him in the shadow of a Laer burrow complex.
    ‘Ready, sergeant?’ asked Solomon.
    ‘Indeed, sir,’ replied Charosian.
    ‘Then let’s go!’ shouted Solomon as he heard Goldoara squad open up with their support weapons. The bark and thump of heavy calibre shells thundering up the road was the sound he’d been waiting for, and he slid from the cover of the pillar and charged up the centre of the street towards the crackling energy tower.
    Bolts of deadly green energy flashed past him, but he could tell they were not aimed, the weight of suppressing fire keeping the aliens from showing themselves. He heard gunfire from either side of him and knew that Caphen and Thelonius were having to fight