Battle for the Abyss by Ben Counter Read Free Book Online Page A

recovered.’
    ‘What of the rest of us?’ asked Antiges, barley registering the flying embers of sparks spitting across the chamber.
    ‘We’re going to save the dock.’

    36

    Ben Counter – Battle for the Abyss
    ‘YOU ARE NO Techmarine. How do you plan on shutting down the reactor?’ Brynngar shouted against the din, sparks showering him from cogitator cables above.
    Although the Space Wolf’s face was almost next to Cestus’s ear, the Ultramarine could only just hear him. The droning reactor was a thunderous pulse in the subterranean access tunnels. After verbally guiding the Astartes to an antechamber below the control hub and a reinforced access portal that would lead them to the reactor, Falkman had neglected to provide them with the necessary instruction to shut the device down, the fact of his passing out from shock a major contributing factor to the oversight.
    Usually, this area of the dock would be thronging with menials and engineers, but the rapid outflow of escape reactor radiation had prompted an evacuation alert. The Astartes had passed a number of fleeing tech adepts as they’d made their way down to the reactor. Those that were left were either dead or critically injured. The Astartes ignored them all, immune to their pleas for help with the safety of the entire dock at stake.
    ‘I am hoping a solution will present itself,’ Cestus replied as they made their way through the cramped tunnel. The corridor the Astartes were in spiralled around the main reactor shell down to the power source at the base of the station.
    ‘To think the Legion of Guilliman are regarded as master stra-tegists,’ said Brynngar with bellowing laughter.
    ‘Directness is a valid strategy. Space Wolf,’ Antiges reminded him, shouting to be heard above the horrendous noise of lurch-ing metal, as if an inner storm was at play within the conduit. ‘I would have thought one of the Sons of Russ would find it familiar.’
    Brynngar’s amused response was raucous and deafening.
    Shouldering past the last of the surviving crewmen and pa-nicked tech adepts as they fled, Cestus led the Astartes to the reactor chamber. Only one of the Emperor’s Angels, replete in his power armour, could hope to survive the reactor’s intense radiation at such close range. Like his battle-brothers, Cestus had donned his helmet before entering the tunnel. Extreme radiation 37

    Ben Counter – Battle for the Abyss
    warning icons flashed insistently in the lens display. Time was running out.
    Atmospheric pipes fractured and sprayed freezing gas across a pair of gargantuan blast doors closing off the interior of the reactor shell from the rest of the station. Doubtless, they’d been activated as soon as the psychic power surge from the astropaths had hit. The servos on the massive door had shorted and were a tangled mass of wires and machinery.
    ‘Prepare yourselves,’ cried Cestus, ignoring the subzero gas. He seized the edge of the blast door in an effort to prise it open.
    ‘Stand back,’ snarled Brynngar, using his bulk to muscle the Ultramarine aside. He hefted Felltooth with practiced ease, sweeping the rune axe around in a lazy arc.
    ‘No sport when the enemy stays still,’ he growled and split the blast door in two with one mighty swing, sparks cascading from the blade.
    Stowing the weapon, Brynngar peeled back the rent metal with both hands, making a space wide enough for the Astartes to enter.
    The reactor was a swirling mass of glowing blue-green energy, rippling in on itself as it drew in power from the plasma conduits looping around it like eccentric orbits around a star. It pulsed, streaked with black and purple, and chunks of scorched machinery tumbled into it. A hot blast of air, tingling with radiation, washed over them in a back-draught. More warning runes flickered against Cestus’s helmet lens, transmitted through onto the display from the acute sensor readouts on his armour.
    ‘Now what?’ shouted Antiges above the