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With a powerful movement, Corporal Leire Pyrshank's throat was ripped out. As the Marauder bomber began its steep dive towards the gathering storm clouds and mountain peaks below, the Katharte kicked away from the aircraft, leathery wings beating hard.

'Shall we engage them, First Acolyte? They are within bolter range,' said a warrior-brother by vox transmission.

'Not yet,' said Marduk. 'Wait until they are closer. Conserve your bolts.'

'As you wish, First Acolyte,' replied the man.

The aeronautical barrage had, if anything, intensified. They were trying to make them keep their heads down as the Guardsmen below advanced, Marduk reasoned. But then moments ago it had ceased entirely, just as the Guardsmen below were almost in position. It didn't make much sense, but then Marduk had long stopped trying to make sense of the Imperium. He would never understand those who chose to worship the shattered corpse of an Emperor whose time was long past rather than embrace the very real gods of Chaos.

From the reports coming in, it looked as if somewhere in the realm of a hundred aircraft had been confirmed destroyed. Around ten bombers had fallen from the darkness of high atmosphere, crashing to earth. Marduk had smiled as he felt the Kathartes kill.

He could see the Guardsmen clearly, their faces all but covered by their grey-blue helmets and dark visors. Sheets of rain drove against them.

Bolter fire barked suddenly, and Marduk turned with a snarl to see which champion had allowed his coterie to open fire.

'Ware the sky,' came a vox from the Warmonger, and Marduk cursed again. He looked up into the heavens to see hundreds of dark shapes dropping like stones. He raised his bolt pistol and began to fire.

Colonel Boerl held his arms clasped tightly to his side as he plummeted through the darkness out of the storm clouds towards the flashes of gunfire marking the target ridge below. Icy cold air and rain whipped at him as he fell, and his heart raced with the thrill.

Forty-two thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven drops, and over three hundred combat drops, the most of any Guardsman within the 72nd. And still it gave him an adrenaline rush like nothing else he had ever experienced.

He and the other drop-troopers had launched themselves from their Valkyries at extreme high atmosphere, around forty kilometres above the ground, higher even than Marauder bombers operated when unleashing their deadly payloads. It was necessary to jump from such a height in order to avoid detection. Breathing through respirators, their bodies enclosed in tight-fitting jumpsuits beneath their reinforced carapace armour, the storm troopers had been free-falling for well over five minutes, reaching terminal velocity within the first thirty seconds of the drop, and leaving the cracking sounds of sonic booms in their wake as they hurtled towards the ground at phenomenal speed.

The ground was rising up with astounding swiftness and Boerl made ready. The arms of the grav-chute were automatically timed to unfold and engage at the last possible moment, and he watched the click counter in his visor drop as he neared the ground.

Pulling his arms out and splaying his legs suddenly, he slowed his descent fractionally and spun himself expertly in the air. The grav-chute engaged, barely five metres above the ground, and his descent dropped in an instant to a safe speed.

His hellpistol was already in his hand, and Boerl rolled expertly as he hit the wet ground, rising to one knee and blasting the over-charged laspistol into the back of a towering, power armoured figure. With a flick of his hand, he nudged the release button on his bulky grav-chute, and it dropped to the ground behind him. His storm troopers landed around him, rolling smoothly to their feet, and began laying down a blanket of fire with their hell-guns. Super-heated air hissed as Sergeant Langer unleashed the power of his meltagun, the white-hot blast scything through the ceramite armour of another enemy.

The other Guard units would be pushing up at the enemy from below, just entering range as the drop-troopers landed. They were well drilled, and he knew that the timing would be perfect. The micro-bead in his ear confirmed this expectation and he made his commands, short and clipped, as he ordered the platoons to converge. The enemy were strong, but they were vastly outnumbered. The Elysians would have the position within the hour.

He was leading one contingent of the 72nd storm troopers, the other two arms of the elite regiment landing at the other main targets.

Tearing the respirator mask from his face, it retracted automatically into the chest unit of his carapace armour. 'For the Emperor and the 72nd!' he bellowed, his powerful voice carrying over the frantic sound of battle.