Tarkhan

Armored fingers gripped, tightening on the thick steering handles. As the final security codes barked their clearance, the last colossal gate of the security tunnel into the Arterial began ratcheting up to the ceiling some thirty meters above. A thought sparked deep in his brain, traveled along his nerves to the Black Carapace nodes implanted throughout his body, thence to the plugs connecting his body and armor, from armor to machine spirit and engine of the growling steed he rode upon, igniting into explosive action from the assault bike as it leapt to life beneath him.

Tarkhan grinned with savage abandon as the bike rocketed forward on its robust tires. Leaning low and to one side in his saddle, he roared out beneath the rising gate with bare centimeters to spare. In a second he was clear, banking west onto the Arterial highway filled with cargo and service vehicles of all sizes. He threaded between transports with a finesse that belied the power and bulk of both rider and machine, pushing to gain speed with every gap that opened before him. Even in the midst of the choking pollution he yearned to unclasp his helmet and mag-lock it to the bike, to feel the air blast across his bare skin as he sped down the motorway.

He was of the White Scars, a son of the nomadic tribes that hunted the sweeping plains of the planet Chogoris. The Scars referred to themselves as the Horde of Jaghatai, in honor of the inscrutable Primarch from whom they were descended. Born to the saddle, born to the speed of the hunt, they were the lightning bolt striking from a clear blue sky, devastating and vanishing just as quickly. In terms of rapid strike capabilities they had few equals amongst their cousin chapters. Within the Horde there were perhaps a handful of warriors that could match Tarkhan's prowess upon an assault bike, nor indeed many powered craft. He had dabbled in piloting nearly every vehicle of war the chapter possessed, from the rarely used Predator tanks that allowed armored formations to pack a heftier punch when needed, to the airborne Stormhawk Interceptors, capable of both void and atmospheric combat. It was generally assumed that once his duty of service had ended with the Deathwatch his ascension to the ranks of the Keshig, the Great Khan's personal honor guard, was all but guaranteed.

Even if not one of the Iron Khans, the chapter's Techmarines, each warrior in the Horde also made it a point to learn the mechanical knowledge needed to perform repairs and modifications to his own bike. Such an act was strictly against doctrine, even deemed heretical by the followers of Red Mars, but the Scars were nothing if not free spirited and self sufficient. Too often a rider could find themselves in dire straights near enemy front lines with no access to one of the followers of the Machine God. Survival and prudence were deemed more important than doctrinal differences. The Deathwatch were even more independent in their freedoms and as such the assault bike Tarkhan sat astride was a marvel of unorthodox efficiency, power, and reliability. The usual armament of twin-linked heavy bolters mounted on the forward armor cowling was replaced with a snub barrelled plasma cannon, the lack of range being offset by the ability to engage heavily armored foes with extreme prejudice. So too had the internal workings been modified, eking out every last scrap of power, sometimes at the cost of system redundancies. The armoring was even stripped down, providing cover to essential components, but reducing the weight of the vehicle significantly.

Marines of other chapters might fret over the safety of such procedures, balk at the possibility of offending the revered machine spirit within the bike with such unsanctioned changes to its holy construction. Tarkhan did not labor under such illusions. That he and his steed had shared countless battlefields across the span of his two centuries of service without a hint of displeasure from the latter was proof enough for him. The two were a formidable force, mission after mission had cemented the fact undeniably. He was glad for the work he had done prior to this deployment in preparing the bike for the rigors of maneuvering within the confines of a hive city. So different from sailing across open plains, or even dodging between trees in thick overgrowth, a hive presented many obstacles to swift mobility. Thinking back, the addition of the much sturdier braking system had been a wise forethought, enabling him to bring the thundering bike to a stop in less than a meter despite the combined weight of bike and marine. When colossal chunks of ferrocrete could come smashing down into a road at any time, it behooved him to be able to stop as quickly as possible.

Glancing at the tactical update displayed in his visor, he was pleased to see the two markers indicating Diocledes and Ruskvar making their way towards him along the wall of the Arterial, presumably using one of the mostly empty servitor maintenance tunnels that ran the length of the continent spanning byway. He began angling through the condensed cargo traffic, coming closer to an entrance of the tunnels, when a crackling vox message broke through on the emergency channel.

"-.-kha--.. - rgent nee- -... -. -istance ....-- klicks due east-.....- They have us p--.. ---. d .-..-- - -.- ...-s down, we're providing cov- -... - --.. now!"

Tarkhan reacted instantly to the voice of their comms expert, Buteo. He'd heard enough. Standing high in the saddle, he hauled the front of the bike into the air, gunning the engine to bring the back tire underneath him, and twisted his body around its center of gravity. Rider and steed spun one hundred eighty degrees before righting themselves, front tire dropping back to the ground with a mighty thud. Heedless of the traffic that now flowed against him, he pushed the bike's rumbling power plant to the absolute limit. He depressed a small key rune on the left steering handle, causing inbuilt systems to begin blaring Inquisitorial passcodes and distance-orders at nearby traffic, forcing many transports and service crawlers to put as much space between them and the armored assault bike as possible. It wasn't perfect but it gave him the room he needed. Moving at breakneck speeds, he blink-clicked through the tactical data, attempting to find any sign of the location the garbled voxcast had been sent from. He grunted, glancing off a cargo hauler that wasn't fast enough to change lanes in front of him, then steadied as more of the Arterial became open to him, the passcodes propagating through onboard systems of surrounding vehicles, creating a partial corridor down the great byway.

Another series of subtle eye blinks and movements brought up the crash trajectory of their Thunderhawk and overlayed it on the city map he was already observing. His suit's machine spirit had logged all the data it could before the pilot had dropped the rear hatch for the team to attempt to evacuate. Tarkhan was one of the last to jettison. Mounted on his assault bike, he had narrowly avoided an early meeting with The Emperor while motoring out of the hatch into midair, aiming recklessly for the roof of an industrial spire some ten meters below. Crunching through the roof and floor beneath that, he'd come to a grinding halt two floors in. Mostly undamaged but for pride and dignity, he'd found a supply elevator and descended to the ground level intending to connect with the only two indicator runes still blinking on his visor, Diocledes and Ruskvar. Try as he might, he could raise no response from either on his vox. Possibly it had been damaged in the fall, or more probable, the enemy had some form of jamming in place.

Now, it was abundantly clear that the enemy was in fact jamming communication throughout the hive, likely in an effort to keep the current uprisings and attacks from being broadcast to other hive cities across the planet. Without direct comms, Tarkhan could only trust the other two marines would follow his lead. They had clearly seen his mission marker and begun to close the distance, as he had seen theirs, the transponders operating off separate systems than communications for events just such as these. Troublingly, no other transponders were showing, leading him to conclude that the source of the interference lay somewhere to the east, where Buteo's vox message had indicated, and where most of the team had ejected. Closer to the source more systems within their armor were likely to become jammed. That a message had come through at all was a testament to the Raven Guard's prowess in the areas of battlefield communication.

Tarkhan drew level with the security gate he had entered the Arterial from originally and sped through the open tunnel, the passcodes having already cleared his path of such obstructions. Breaking hard to the east, he began following a frontage street that followed along the byway on the outside of the void-shielding. He had traversed barely a kilometer when a flicker from the tactical update caught his eye. The briefest of instances, but he'd seen it. Buteo's mission marker, and two others. He recognized the runes of Mortimer Lund, their Techmarine, and that of Captain Esteban Haniel.

To his dismay the Captain's rune was indicating severe structural damage to his battle plate.

He had their location, some eight kilometers to the southeast. Now, he unleashed his steed. He would become the thunder, the lightning, the purging storm.

He was no longer grinning.