THE GUARD’S VISOR shattered inwards, sending shards of reinforced transpex into the man’s eyes. He fell back, howling. Corvus drove his fist into the screaming man’s chest, silencing him in an explosion of bone fragments and pulped organs.

The rattle of automatic weapons fire sounded behind him and he felt a stinging sensation across his back. Looking over his shoulder, Corvus saw three men at the outpost rampart, a jutting defence position that overlooked the approach from Wing Two to the vehicle compound. More gunfire chattered and another hail of bullets pattered from his pale flesh, flattened rounds tinkling to the floor around him.

The rebel leader reached down and took the rifle from the dead guard’s hands. The finger guard was too small for his huge digits, so he wrenched it off. Though in reality a large calibre weapon, the rifle felt like a child’s toy in his hands. Lifting his arm, he turned and sighted on the men in the guard post. They were about two hundred metres away and he adjusted his aim a fraction to account for the poor charge in the rifle’s bullets. The muzzle of the rampart gun flared again, ripping chunks from the pockmarked wall behind Corvus, rattling against his left arm.

He pulled the trigger.

The man firing the rampart gun sagged across his weapon, a hole punched through his left cheek just beneath the visor. His finger tightened as he died, sending a burst of bullets into the ground as the gun swung on its mounting.

Firing again, Corvus put his next shot through the throat of the loader, exposed by the swinging of the weapon. The third man turned to run. He was pitched from his feet as Corvus placed his third shot between the man’s shoulder blades, shattering his spine.

‘Here,’ said Corvus, seeing Delpha running past without a weapon. He handed the youth the rifle. The rebel leader jerked his head towards the body. ‘There are spare magazines in the guard’s belt.’

The first wave had nearly reached the gate. The guards had sealed it from inside, believing themselves to be safe behind three interlocking layers of steels and ferrocrete. They were wrong.

Corvus lifted the radio transmitter from his belt.

‘Constantin, enact the override.’

‘Yes, Corax,’ came the tinny reply. The word meant ‘saviour’. Corvus had asked his followers to call him by the name he had already been given, but more and more of them insisted on the honorific. If that was their attitude, he was determined to prove them right and live up to their expectations.

Seeing a discarded shotgun, Corvus strode forwards and snatched it up. The fighting was about to get close and brutal. He pulled his knife – in fact, it was a security colonel’s parade sword – from his belt and quickly caught up with the front of the mob streaming down the wide corridor towards the gate. If they could secure the garage facility, they would have enclosed vehicles to cross the airless wasteland outside. The strategic advantage of being freed from the confines of the prison buildings had made the compound one of Corvus’s priorities.

‘Override in five seconds, Corax,’ reported Constantin.

‘Press on!’ the guerrilla leader roared, waving his shotgun towards the gates.

He was only a dozen strides from the blank surface of the portal. If the charges he had placed within the mechanism during his last unseen infiltration had been discovered, he was about to look very stupid.

A ripple of tiny pops rang through the metal. Corvus reached the lockdown lever a few seconds later – the corpse of the man who had pulled it lay crumpled at the rebel’s feet. If all had gone as Corvus planned, the lockdown was anything but secure. He pushed the lever up, feeling no resistance. In that moment he knew he had been right.

Sirens blared and warning lights spun along the top of the gate as the massive portal ground open.

‘Ready weapons!’ Corvus bellowed over the deafening rumble of immense gears.

The door had lifted no more than half a metre from the ground when a hail of bullets erupted from beyond it, ripping through knees and shins. More than twenty men and women fell screaming, clutching at their ruined legs. A swathe of the inmates turned and ran to avoid the same fate.

Corvus’s eye was drawn immediately to Lensa. She lay on her right side, left leg pulled up, her foot hanging off by a few scraps of sinew. Her young eyes met Corvus’s and she relaxed. Her shrieking stopped and she smiled.

A second later, another hail of bullets thudded into her body, tearing off half her face and punching great holes through the rest of her body.

With a snarl, Corvus dropped to the floor and rolled under the ascending door. He came to his feet in front of two men standing behind a heavy stubber, its tripod lowered as far as possible. The shotgun roared in Corvus’s hand, ripping through the protective vest of the closest guard. The second fumbled for a pistol, pulling it free from its holster at his hip just as Corvus pumped another round into the chamber.

The guard frantically pulled the trigger, sending bullets bouncing off Corvus’s chest. The gun clicked empty several times and the man’s face fell in horror. A hail of shot tore through his arm and shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground in a fountain of ruddy droplets.

The other gun crew was trying to turn their weapon towards the rebel leader. Tossing aside the shotgun, Corvus heaved the stubber from its mounting, kicking the tripod aside. He slung the belt of ammunition over his arm and brought the weapon to bear on the remaining men. Three short bursts were enough to kill them, the shots carefully placed not to damage the other heavy stubber.

The gate was now about a metre and a half off the ground and more rebels were pouring through. Corvus directed Branne, Agapito and Starken to take possession of the heavy weapon.

‘Keep moving!’ Corvus shouted. ‘Keep moving!’

THIRTEEN

Corax’s Hope

Hydra Contact Two

The Path to Victory

THE LINE TOOK one pace forwards, winding along one side of the corridor and back down the other. Navar Hef glanced to his left through the open doorway to see what was going on. The recruits – they weren’t allowed to call themselves Raptors yet – were filing past Commander Branne. Next to him was Sergeant Nestil with a box covered with black cloth. Each recruit dipped his hand into the box and pulled out a hexagonal nut. Some were black and some were white.

Those who pulled out white nuts sighed and slipped away. Those lucky enough to produce a black nut – about one in three of the recruits – stepped into the room. They were the ones who would be next in line for the transformation.

Navar had seen the new Raptors training in the hall. They were an inspiration, more so even than the legionaries that Navar had looked up to for his whole life. He could remember each and every one of the First Nine when they had been like him, just a few weeks ago. Now they were sparring with the legionaries and practising fire drill with bolters and heavy weapons.

It was so close. If Navar could pick out a black nut, he would be one of the next cadre of recruits to become Raptors. The wait was agonising, taking one step at a time away from the door and then back towards it. When he had turned at the end of the corridor, by the double doors that led to the mess, Navar had realised how close he was to the back of the line. There were fewer than twenty other recruits behind him.

His hands were shaking with the excitement and his mouth was dry.

There were only five more recruits between Navar and Commander Branne. The next drew out a white nut: failure. Four more to go. The recruit who stepped forwards was Navar’s squad leader, a fair-haired youth a couple of years older than him called Molo. Navar could barely breathe as Molo reached into the box, one eye closed as if fearful of seeing what he brought out.