Ambush At Sludge Water Gorge

by: V & Remmy

The Thunderbolts came over the mountains like artillery shells with wings.

Twin turbofan engines howled beneath Lieutenant Halwood's feet, shaking the armoured fuselage of Noble Spirit as the heavy Imperial fighter skimmed beneath Kallistan's permanent ceiling of dirty cloud. Grey vapour boiled only a few hundred metres above the peaks, stained brown by refinery exhaust and generations of promethium fires.

Below lay a world that seemed to have been built from rust.

Mountains of ochre stone shouldered against one another beneath them, their slopes scarred by excavation pits, derricks, pipelines and the skeletons of long-abandoned processing stations. Great iron spillways plunged through the valleys, carrying black refinery sludge toward distant reclamation reservoirs. Promethium towers rose from the wasteland like cathedral spires erected by some mad sect of the Machine Cult.

Halwood disliked flying this low.

The Thunderbolt was not some delicate atmospheric interceptor. It was a slab-sided war machine, almost brutal in its construction, designed according to the same uncompromising philosophy that governed so much of the Imperium's arsenal.

Armoured cockpit.

Reinforced fuselage.

Twin engines.

Redundant control systems.

Enough firepower in its nose to rip another aircraft apart in a heartbeat.

Its wings were thick and broad, designed to carry weapons, armour and fuel rather than satisfy the aesthetic sensibilities of some aeronautical artisan. Paired lascannons and autocannons sat in the nose of Noble Spirit, their housings blackened from repeated firing. Additional hardpoints beneath the wings carried ordnance for ground attack missions when required.

Thunderbolts could take punishment that would have reduced lighter fighters to tumbling debris.

But they were still aircraft.

And mountains did not care how much armour a machine possessed.

Halwood eased back on the control column.

"Keep your spacing."

His voice sounded flat through the respirator mask strapped over his face.

A crackle answered through the vox.

"Maintaining formation."

Pilot Officer Mina Eisen flew behind him at his four o'clock.

Halwood glanced right.

There.

Twilight Hammer.

The Thunderbolt hung against the mountains like a predatory bird, its patched hull still showing subtle differences in colour where Mechanicus crews had rebuilt damaged sections of armour plate. The fighter had only recently returned to operational status.

So had its pilot.

Mina was the newest member of the squadron.

Rookie.

Halwood hated the word.

It encouraged pilots to think experience could be measured by something as simple as flight hours.

Experience was measured by how many mistakes you had survived.

If you survived enough of them, people eventually stopped calling you rookie.

"Anything?" Mina asked.

Halwood looked down.

The gorge widened beneath them.

Vehicle wrecks littered the valley floor.

Imperial cargo haulers.

A Chimera.

Something that might once have been a Salamander reconnaissance vehicle.

All burned black.

All stripped.

The Orks had taken anything useful and smashed most of what remained.

"They've been here."

"No kidding."

Halwood almost smiled.

Almost.

Then the auspex chimed.

Four returns.

His expression hardened immediately.

There.

Fast-moving.

Low altitude.

Closing.

Halwood's left hand tightened around the throttle.

Four contacts.

Two Thunderbolts.

He looked upward.

Cloud cover.

They could climb.

Disappear into the murk.

Break contact.

Get Mina home.

For half a second, Halwood considered it.

Then the first contact accelerated toward them.

He knew what that meant.

"Contacts. Four."

"I have them."

Halwood drew a slow breath through his mask.

The respirator tasted faintly of rubber and machine oil.

He pushed the throttle forward.

"Noble Spirit engaging."

There was silence over the vox.

Then Mina answered.

"Twilight Hammer copies."

Halwood shoved the control column forward.

The Thunderbolt rolled onto its nose.

Both Imperial fighters dropped.

The first Ork appeared between the mountains.

Red.

Of course it was red.

The aircraft surged through the gorge trailing greasy exhaust, a brutal wedge of armour plate, exposed pipes and badly aligned wings that looked as though they had been hammered together from the remains of half a dozen different machines.

Which, Halwood thought, it probably had.

An Ork Fighta.

There were countless patterns.

If such machines could even be said to have patterns.

No two seemed identical.

Some carried oversized engines bolted onto airframes that should never have supported them. Others bore huge gun housings strapped beneath their wings. Steel plates overlapped one another like the scales of some diseased reptile, covered in glyphs, checkerboard markings and crude clan symbols.

The lead Fighta was painted almost entirely crimson.

Its nose displayed a jagged mouth filled with white teeth.

Behind the canopy sat a huge engine housing covered in exhaust stacks belching smoke.

Halwood could already imagine the greenskin inside.

Grinning.

The Ork opened fire.

Far too early.

Tracer shells tore through the sky.

Heavy-calibre rounds passed hundreds of metres wide of Noble Spirit, smashing against the mountainside in violent blossoms of dust and stone.

The Ork continued firing anyway.

"Dakka," Halwood muttered.

Three more Fightas burst from behind the hills.

Red armour flashed through the gorge.

Mina saw them immediately.

One climbed.

Another banked.

The third hesitated, apparently unable to decide which Imperial fighter it wanted to kill first.

That indecision bought Halwood several seconds.

Enough.

He held his dive.

The lead Ork continued firing.

Tracer streams converged around him.

Halwood did not move.

Closer.

Closer.

The Ork pilot must have thought him suicidal.

Perhaps Halwood was.

The firing solution rune stabilised.

Halwood squeezed the trigger.

Noble Spirit spoke.

The Thunderbolt's autocannons hammered first.

The vibration travelled through Halwood's seat and spine as solid shells ripped across the gorge.

Then the lascannons fired.

Two brilliant beams stabbed through the polluted air.

The first autocannon rounds struck beneath the Ork's nose.

Metal vanished.

Armour plates tore loose.

The lascannons punched through the forward fuselage.

For an instant Halwood could see the Ork fighter disassembling itself in front of him.

One beam sliced through the engine cowling.

The second crossed the cockpit.

The canopy exploded.

Glass.

Metal.

Blood.

Chunks of green flesh.

The Fighta pitched violently sideways.

Halwood banked left.

The dying Ork screamed past beneath him, trailing flame.

"One."

He barely had time to say it.

Two Orks came straight at him.

Their guns opened fire.

"Noble Spirit breaking left."

Halwood rolled.

The Thunderbolt groaned under the manoeuvre.

Autocannon shells flashed past close enough for him to hear impacts against his slipstream.

Both Orks overshot.

Halwood pulled hard.

His vision darkened around the edges.

Two Fightas banked after him.

Good.

Let them.

He checked his auspex.

Mina's icon was moving east.

The fourth Ork was following.

"Mina."

"I'm on him."

That was not what Halwood had been about to say.

He stopped himself.

Let her fly.

Mina Eisen watched the burning wreck of the first Ork spiral beneath her.

For one terrible second she nearly followed it with her eyes.

Training took over.

Never watch the kill.

Find the next threat.

Her auspex showed it immediately.

One Ork.

Right side.

Climbing toward her.

Mina swallowed.

Her hands felt slippery inside her gloves.

She tightened her grip.

"All right."

She wasn't sure whether she was talking to herself or the Thunderbolt.

Twilight Hammer vibrated around her.

The machine had been rebuilt almost entirely forward of the wing roots after its previous damage. Tech-adepts had spent weeks stripping the fighter apart, replacing shattered control lines, armour panels, weapon feeds and portions of the engine assembly.

Some pilots distrusted rebuilt aircraft.

Mina did not.

Machines survived.

People survived.

Sometimes neither came back exactly the way they had been before.

That did not make them useless.

The Ork came toward her.

Red.

Broad wings.

Ugly.

Fast.

Mina fired.

Too soon.

The autocannon rounds passed beneath the Fighta.

The lascannons flashed wide.

"Frak."

The aircraft passed one another so quickly that Mina barely saw the Ork pilot.

Green face.

Goggles.

Teeth.

Then it was gone.

She looked down at the auspex.

Halwood was moving west.

Two contacts behind him.

She looked up.

The Ork was already climbing.

Then rolling inverted.

It began a great looping turn.

Mina banked away.

"Come on."

The Ork completed its loop.

Tracer fire came down around her.

Mina rolled.

The Thunderbolt twisted between streams of fire.

Rounds snapped past the canopy.

One struck somewhere behind the cockpit.

CLANG.

The entire aircraft shuddered.

Warning runes flickered.

Nothing critical.

Yet.

The Ork was diving after her.

Good.

Mina shoved the throttle forward.

"Let's see how stupid you are."

Twilight Hammer descended into Sludge Water Gorge.

The walls closed around her.

Stone became steel.

Steel became pipework.

The gorge had been transformed centuries before into a vast industrial artery carrying promethium by-products from mountain refineries toward the southern lowlands.

Pipelines crossed overhead.

Maintenance gantries clung to cliffs.

Great cylindrical conduits ran beside the canyon walls.

Some were intact.

Some hung broken.

Some leaked black sludge into the valley below.

Mina skimmed above them.

Altitude warning runes flashed angrily.

The Ork followed.

Of course it followed.

Rounds filled the gorge.

A pipe exploded behind Mina.

Promethium vapour erupted in a cloud of orange fire.

She rolled left.

A maintenance platform disappeared beneath Ork gunfire.

Mina pulled right.

The Thunderbolt's wingtip missed a support tower by metres.

Her breathing had become too fast.

Slow down.

Not the aircraft.

You.

She forced herself to breathe.

In.

Out.

The gorge narrowed ahead.

Mina remembered the reconnaissance map.

There.

The spillway junction.

The main channel split around a rock formation.

The western branch narrowed drastically before opening into another basin.

She pushed lower.

The Ork kept firing.

"Come on."

Tracer rounds tore apart a gantry above her.

"Come on."

She saw the split.

Now.

Mina hauled right.

Twilight Hammer rolled almost ninety degrees.

The Thunderbolt slid between two pipe towers.

For one horrifying instant the right wingtip seemed certain to strike the canyon wall.

Then she was through.

The Ork was not.

The Fighta screamed past the junction.

Its pilot had too much speed and too little discipline.

Mina saw it vanish down the main gorge.

She waited.

One second.

Two.

Three.

Then she pulled back.

Twilight Hammer climbed violently.

G-forces crushed Mina into the seat.

The Thunderbolt burst from the canyon.

Clouds filled half the sky.

She banked.

There.

The Ork had climbed as well.

Probably furious.

Mina could almost feel the greenskin rage from hundreds of metres away.

She turned toward him.

The firing rune crossed the target.

Mina squeezed.

Autocannons hammered.

Lascannons flashed.

The Ork jinked.

Too late.

Rounds struck the rear fuselage.

Metal erupted from the Fighta.

One engine housing began vomiting black smoke.

Mina grinned beneath her mask.

"Got you."

Then the Ork did something absurd.

It slowed.

Violently.

Mina's eyes widened.

"Oh—"

She pulled up.

The Ork passed beneath her.

Mina saw its canopy.

The pilot looked upward.

Even through the goggles she could see the greenskin's enormous grin.

The Ork had baited her.

Mina swore.

The auspex screamed.

The Fighta was climbing behind her.

She rolled.

The Ork followed.

Now the engagement became ugly.

No elegant manoeuvres.

No textbook patterns.

Two aircraft trying to force the other into a mistake.

Mina climbed.

The Ork climbed.

Mina rolled.

The Ork rolled.

She pulled into a descending turn.

The Ork remained behind her.

Fine.

She changed tactics.

Mina began bleeding speed.

Carefully.

Not enough to make it obvious.

Just enough.

The Ork closed.

Closer.

Closer.

Mina entered a shallow dive.

The greenskin followed eagerly.

She imagined him leaning toward the gunsight.

Seeing prey.

Seeing the kill.

Not seeing what she was doing.

The Ork overshot.

Mina slammed the throttle forward.

Twilight Hammer dropped behind him.

"Mine."

She fired.

Short bursts.

Controlled.

Exactly as training demanded.

Autocannon shells walked across the Ork fighter.

The greenskin jinked right.

Mina corrected.

Another burst.

The left wing exploded.

Not completely.

Just enough.

The wing folded.

The Fighta rolled uncontrollably.

The Ork fought it.

For perhaps three seconds, stubbornness nearly overcame physics.

Then the fighter dropped.

It struck the mountainside.

The explosion threw flaming debris hundreds of metres into the air.

Mina stared.

Her first kill.

Her actual first—

The threat warning screamed.

Mina looked at the auspex.

Red contact.

Behind.

Close.

Too close.

"Oh, Throne."

Gunfire struck Twilight Hammer.

The fuselage shook.

Something exploded beneath the left wing.

The cockpit filled with warning tones.

A round struck behind Mina's head.

The canopy crazed.

White fracture lines spread across the armoured glass.

Mina screamed involuntarily.

The Ork behind her kept firing.

One of Halwood's two.

It must have broken away.

She rolled hard.

Tracer fire followed.

Mina dropped into a steep dive.

The Ork stayed with her.

Rounds struck the rear fuselage.

Another impact.

Then another.

The Thunderbolt's armour saved her.

But armour was finite.

Mina dragged the fighter toward the spillway.

Maybe she could repeat the trick.

The Ork apparently had other ideas.

Its fire shifted ahead of her.

Tracer rounds smashed against the canyon entrance.

It wasn't trying to hit her.

It was blocking the route.

Mina understood.

"Smart bastard."

She pulled left.

The Ork followed.

She climbed.

The Ork climbed.

Mina jinked.

Rounds struck the wing.

Warning runes multiplied across the instrument panel.

Hydraulic pressure fluctuating.

Port armour damaged.

Engine temperature rising.

The Ork fired continuously.

It should have run out of ammunition.

Apparently no one had explained that to the Ork.

Mina pulled harder.

The world narrowed.

Her muscles screamed.

Darkness crept across her vision.

The Ork stayed behind.

She could almost feel its guns walking toward the cockpit.

Then the auspex showed another return.

Ahead.

Fast.

Imperial.

Mina's heart stopped.

"Noble Spirit?"

No response.

The Thunderbolt came straight toward her.

Mina saw it.

Grey armour.

Imperial markings.

Scarred wings.

Halwood.

He was coming directly at her.

"Lieutenant!"

"Nose down."

"What?"

"NOW."

Mina shoved the stick forward.

Twilight Hammer dropped.

Noble Spirit filled her canopy.

For an instant the two Thunderbolts seemed certain to collide.

Then Halwood passed overhead.

Mina saw him inside the cockpit.

He wasn't looking at her.

He was staring past her.

At the Ork.

The greenskin had less than a second to understand what had happened.

Halwood fired everything.

Autocannons.

Lascannons.

The full forward battery of Noble Spirit erupted.

The Ork Fighta disappeared.

Not exploded.

Disappeared.

The nose disintegrated first.

Then the cockpit.

Then one wing tore free.

The engine became a spinning mass of flaming machinery.

What remained of the aircraft tumbled through the air, breaking into hundreds of burning fragments that rained down into Sludge Water Gorge.

Mina heard herself breathing.

Nothing else.

Then Halwood's voice came over the vox.

"Twilight Hammer."

She swallowed.

"Here."

"Status."

Mina looked across her instruments.

Damaged armour.

Hydraulics stable enough.

Engines functioning.

Canopy compromised but holding.

Her hands were shaking.

"Still flying."

"Then form on me."

Mina looked out.

Noble Spirit banked away.

Its armour was scarred.

One wing showed fresh impact damage.

Halwood's two pursuers were gone.

She didn't ask how.

Not yet.

Mina eased Twilight Hammer around and slipped into formation at his four o'clock.

Where she had been before.

Except everything felt different now.

The mountains passed beneath them.

Burning Ork wreckage marked the gorge behind.

Four contacts had appeared on the auspex.

None remained.

Halwood began climbing toward the dirty cloud ceiling.

Mina followed.

After several seconds his voice returned.

"Pilot Officer Eisen."

"Sir?"

A pause.

"You fired too early on the first pass."

Mina stared at Noble Spirit.

Of course.

"Yes, sir."

"You let the second aircraft overshoot you. Good."

"Thank you, sir."

"You also flew a Thunderbolt through refinery infrastructure at combat speed."

Mina glanced down at the maze of pipes disappearing beneath them.

"Yes, sir."

"Don't do that again."

She smiled despite herself.

"No, sir."

Another pause.

Then Halwood said quietly:

"One confirmed kill."

Mina's smile vanished.

Something warmer replaced it.

Pride.

Fear.

Relief.

All twisted together.

"Understood."

Halwood turned Noble Spirit toward home.

Above them, the clouds opened just enough to reveal a sickly patch of daylight.

Behind them Sludge Water Gorge burned.

And Pilot Officer Mina Eisen climbed after her squadron commander with Ork blood on the guns of Twilight Hammer.

She had gone into the gorge a rookie.

Whatever happened after that, no one could take her first kill away from her.