V3 Chapter 79: Guilliman! I! Will! Kill! You!
The instant Duvette realised that impact had come from the Daemon Primarch Angron himself, he issued orders at once to every Astartes unit still capable of receiving commands and repositioning.
Units converged on the perimeter of the impact zone, sealing off every passage Angron might pass through. Ordinary armed ratings were tasked with evacuating anyone in his path and closing blast hatches; no one else was to be left exposed to the Red Angel directly.
Duvette looked at his strategic map.
All thirty Terminator veterans, Tiberius Malkarion, Captain of the Novamarines First Company, among them, had vanished entirely from the board. From the moment Angron charged to the moment the fighting ended, less than ten seconds had passed.
"May your souls return to the Golden Throne."
Duvette murmured the words quietly, then opened a channel to the command deck at once.
Right now, Guilliman was the only one who could stand against an ascended Daemon Primarch head-on.
The moment the channel opened, though, all Duvette got from the officer still holding the deck was a single piece of news.
The instant Guilliman had confirmed Angron had struck the ship, he handed temporary command of the void fleet over to Admiral Villent, then left the command deck with his Honour Guard, already making for the point of impact.
Duvette swore under his breath before he could stop himself.
Could he at least wait for a buff before charging in.
There was no way he could win this alone.
But there was no time left for complaining now.
Duvette boarded a Legion personnel transport platform with the thirteen Shadow Wolves of Luna, and ordered the servitor to strip the speed limiter entirely. The platform surged forward along the ship's high-speed transit rail, tearing through one closing armoured hatch after another.
The final stretch of the line had already been wrecked by the impact.
Duvette leapt off the platform with Markus and the rest, sprinting at full speed down the still-shuddering corridor toward Angron's location.
Cassian Villanos, Captain of the Blood Angels Fifth Company, was the second-nearest Astartes commander to Angron's point of impact.
Duvette's warning had barely reached the comm channel before Cassian could already hear the sound of killing in the distance.
The roar of storm bolters.
Then the sound of power armour being torn open by immense force.
And at last, nothing but the Daemon Primarch's roar.
Cassian had more than forty Blood Angels with him, along with a group of armed ratings who had only just finished a shipboard clearance operation. They pushed forward fast down the corridor and soon reached the entrance to the heavy cargo transfer hall.
The fighting inside the hall had already ended.
Wreckage of Novamarines Terminators lay strewn across the deck, some of their power armour torn open completely. Dead World Eaters lay scattered among them, blood running slowly along the shattered cargo rails.
Angron stood at the centre of the carnage.
His massive body nearly reached the hall's upper platform, his tattered wings unfurling slowly behind him. The teeth of his massive chain-axe still spun, and blood dripped steadily from his daemon sword.
The Red Angel turned his head.
He saw the Blood Angels.
"Cassian, fall back!"
Duvette's voice came through the comm.
"Don't engage him head-on. Draw him toward the containment zone!"
But Angron moved faster than the words could carry.
The Red Angel let out a roar, and the deck buckled beneath his feet. His massive body surged toward the Blood Angels with tremendous force, smashing aside every piece of cargo equipment in his path.
The Blood Angels squad at the front raised their weapons.
Bolter rounds and plasma fire tore into Angron, ripping away broad stretches of skin and flesh. But the wounds closed almost as fast as they opened, and did nothing to even slow him down.
The chain-axe swept through.
Three Blood Angels were cut apart on the spot.
Two more tried to close in from the side; Angron backhanded his daemon sword through them, armour and all.
"Fall back!"
Cassian made his call at once.
[Iron Crusade] still covered them, and there was no fear of losing control anywhere in his mind. But centuries of combat experience told him plainly enough that staying in this hall meant watching the Fifth Company wiped out in short order.
The Blood Angels began falling back down the corridor.
A dozen or so battle-brothers held the rear, keeping up fire on Angron, buying time for the rest with their own lives. Armed ratings scattered into the side passages as well, sealing heavy isolation hatch after heavy isolation hatch behind them.
The first hatch dropped.
Angron did not slow.
The great axe crashed into the heavy plasteel hatch, driving the whole plate bulging outward. On the second blow, the hatch split down the centre, and the massive figure simply pushed straight through the gap.
The second hatch closed behind them.
This one lasted only a few seconds.
Angron gripped the hatch's edge with both hands and tore it clean off its mounting with a screech of shredding metal.
A third.
A fourth.
The Blood Angels kept falling back; every hatch bought only the briefest pause. Several decks nearby trembled under the repeated impacts, and the lighting flickered again and again with each blow.
The last blast hatch dropped shut in front of Cassian.
He turned and raised his chain-sword.
Only a little over twenty Blood Angels remained with him now. The rest were still holding the enemy back along the route, or had already died beneath Angron's weapons.
"Reinforcements are close."
Cassian activated his chain-sword.
"Prepare for battle."
The Blood Angels formed a line fast.
Bolters and plasma weapons trained on the hatch, still buckling further with every blow. Heavy impacts kept coming from the other side, and a visible crack had already opened across its centre.
One strike.
Two.
Three.
The final blow landed.
The entire plasteel hatch tore free of the wall and came hurtling toward the Blood Angels at speed.
Cassian had just opened his mouth to give the order to fire, when a figure in blue and gold surged past him from behind.
A burning greatsword swept upward in a diagonal arc.
The Emperor's Sword split the hatch clean in two down the centre, flame racing along the cut edges. Guilliman then drove his armoured shoulder into one half, sending it slamming into the wall to the left, while the other half sailed past the Blood Angels' line and crashed into the passage to the right.
"Lord Guilliman..."
Cassian called out his name, staring at the towering figure now standing between them and the enemy.
The Ultramarines Honour Guard arrived a moment later, moving at once to pull the remaining Blood Angels back with them. They set up a defence line along both sides of the corridor, but kept clear of the space between the two Primarchs.
Guilliman's full attention had already settled on what lay ahead.
Angron trod over the shattered hatch and walked slowly into the corridor.
Guilliman looked at that vast, warped body, at the Butcher's Nails driven deep into his brother's skull. That face, consumed now by fury and pain, still held some trace of the features it had carried ten thousand years before.
A flicker of grief crossed his eyes, brief and unmistakable.
Then Guilliman put every feeling away.
His face went blank as he raised the Emperor's Sword, its golden flame lighting the bulkheads on either side.
Angron came to a stop.
Whatever remained of his old self had been crushed nearly beyond recognition beneath endless rage, and yet he still knew the face before him. The face of the brother he hated most.
Guilliman.
The brother who still had his Legion whole, his homeworld whole, his empire whole.
That face gave the boundless fury the Butcher's Nails had wrought its first clear target.
"GUILLIMAN!!!"
Angron roared the name.
A gust of blood-stinking air tore down the corridor, shattering the lighting fixtures along the walls one after another. Angron raised Spinegrinder and charged forward, carrying the full weight of his fury with him.
Guilliman stepped forward to meet him.
The Emperor's Sword burned in his hand.
"Let's settle this, Angron."
The two Primarchs charged straight at one another.