Other wolf packs were dealing with the macrocannons, spiking them with krak grenades tossed into the breaches. Gun barrels blew out into petalled rings with flat, musical bangs. In a few moments, the VI Legion had turned a functioning cannon gallery into a ruin. Corpses were mounded in piles. Blood dripped from the walls. Any machine that dared voice a protest was riddled with bolts. Burning wads of fibrous baffling and insulation whirled around the room, casting off embers that were pulled into tight vortexes by struggling air cyclers.

'Our brothers are having too much fun,' said Bror, as another cannon died. 'Let's be useful. Take these sleds out! Stop them reloading the neighbouring battery.'

'I'll do it.' Himmlik took a krak grenade from each of them, bundled them together and set one for a timed detonation. The next time the sled came past, he casually tossed the grenades atop the fresh shells.

'I'd get back, if I were you.'

A hundred metres up the runnel, the grenades blew, setting off the explosives in the shells. The tensioned chain broke, and came scything back down the runnel so close to the Space Marines their wolf pelts rippled. Fire followed, the explosion forcing it down the runnel like a blowtorch. Temperature warnings rang in Bror's ears as the firestorm rolled past them and then sucked back, as a powerful decompression gale snatched it towards the hole the explosion had made in the hull. The winds quickened as other members of the Rout targeted the power units and control boxes for the atmospheric shielding, and blew out the pistons for the blast doors that closed when the shielding failed.

The entirety of the room's air blasted out in a terrific gust, turning to ice on the edges of the gun port apertures. Mortal corpses tumbled out. They spun away into the battle, human flotsam in an ocean of fire.

Bror maglocked his feet and leaned into the wind. When it was done, he turned to Gren.

'See?' he said by unit vox-net. 'Wear your helmet,' Lufven Close-Handed voxed his Great Company.

'Targets onn and twa taken. Target gallery tra's guns will not speak for long. The hunt goes to plan. Great Company to disperse as per prior orders. Fenrys hjolda!'

The vox cut out. The wolf packs split. Already the sounds of battle sounded over the company vox from the next gun gallery.

'Our next kill is the munitions hold,' said Bror. 'A big prize for worthy warriors.'

'Ha, you flatter us, you dog!' said Enrir. 'They only chose us for that because you've been here before. It's the deepest target.'

'I didn't make it that far last time,' admitted Bror.

'We should have left the sleds active,' said Gren miserably.