Honour Imperialis - Aaron Dembski-Bowden

by Warhammer 40K

‘I…’ Krieg began, but there wasn’t time for explanations or regrets. Mortensen shook his head at the commissar.

  ‘Trap,’ he said with conviction. He didn’t have to wait long for confirmation of his suspicions.

  ‘Footsteps. Large number this time: closing with caution,’ Sarakota announced.

  Mortensen spun around, taking a fleeting three-hundred and sixty degree glance at the surrounding darkness. He re-primed the hellgun. ‘Remember we’re looking for friendlies in here.’

  ‘I see ’em!’ Greco cried out, demonstrating none of Sarakota’s self control. The muzzle of his hellgun flashed as he let off a stream of fire into the empty gloom. Conklin, Kynt and several others joined in, the master sergeant’s bolter in particular, puncturing holes in the darkness.

  When nothing appeared Mortensen ordered, ‘Stand fast!’ The automatic fire died but Greco’s hellgun was still dribbling short bursts at the shadows and Uncle had to thump him in the shoulder to get him to stop. ‘What’d you see?’ the major demanded as soon as the corpsman had finished.

  ‘S-S-Skins, I think,’ the spire breaker told him.

  ‘You think?’ Vedette marvelled.

  ‘They were vrekkin’ green. I don’t know.’

  ‘Kota?’

  ‘Still closing.’

  Krieg was still on the floor with the dead Volscian commander, flashing his lamp in the direction of the sighting. Mortensen snatched the fat arc lamp straight out of Krieg’s outstretched hand and falling into a crouch himself, skimmed the lamp across the chamber. The light travelled far, carried along by the viscous brown tar coating the walls and floor. Suddenly it struck something and flipped, bathing the area in a moment of radiance.

  Damn.

  The chamber was full of creatures. Armoured and huge, they were all claws and tusks, arms outstretched like fast-moving crustaceans. And green.

  Mortensen’s mind shot back to his encounter in the darkness of the Mortis Maximus. What he’d glimpsed for merely a second on the artillery deck of the Titan was staring him in the face now, intent on ripping it off with tooth and claw. Long experience had prepared the major for first contact with many heinous alien races, but these creatures seemed neither one thing nor another. They were brawny and muscular like orks, but moved with an alien dexterity and grace that shot fear into the heart of every man and woman in the chamber.

  ‘Flamer! Now!’ Mortensen roared.

  When the blast didn’t come, the major turned, half expecting Eszcobar to have fled. He wouldn’t have blamed him. The sketch the lamp had painted in the deep darkness of the chamber was enough to strike cold fear into the chests of all who had witnessed it.

  As it was, he was still having difficulty priming the gas reservoir and setting the regulator. The deathworlder had been so preoccupied with the drama on the deck that he hadn’t noticed the pilot flame flicker and die in the unimpeded draught of the chamber. As the storm-trooper fingered the flamer furiously, it let out an angry chugging sound, followed by a whining hiss.

  Rounds ricocheted off green carapace as Vedette and her master sergeant attempted to lay down suppressing fire. The creatures came forth in a wave and seemed completely undeterred by the Redemption Corps assault.

  ‘Get that weapon operational, trooper!’ Krieg yelled at the stunned Eszcobar, but the weapon merely churned promethium. Mortensen hammered the advancing line of monsters with everything his hellgun had to offer before hastily adjusting the power setting and giving them some more.

  Kynt shot past him, eyepatch askew, squinting with his good eye and peppering the green horde with automatic fire from his pistol. Mortensen grabbed the back of his master-vox and tore the comms-officer back, burying a salvo of fire in the encroaching left flank.

  The cadet-commissar was suddenly beside him, the steaming barrel of his hellpistol resting across one shoulder and lancing the mob with bolts.

  ‘We’re not going to find anyone in this,’ he managed between blasts, giving the major the moments he needed to re-orient his weapon. Mortensen nodded bitterly and went back to work with the angry hellgun.

  ‘Fall back!’ he bellowed. ‘Back to the bulkhead.’ Between them, Krieg, Mortensen and Conklin pushed the storm-troopers back. Vedette and Minghella were already supporting a gutted Uncle between them, one of the creatures having bounded impossibly at them, ripping into the demolitions man with its dagger-like claws. Golliant messed the beast up with a close-range hammering from the autocannon, leaving the blasted creature twitching on the deck as the hulking adjutant retreated.

  The autocannon was singing over the storm-troopers now, keeping the worst of the swarm at bay with the two snipers adding to the mayhem with crashing fire from their Hellshots.

  Sweeping the darkness with his rifle the major turned and pushed Sass and a pistol-reloading Kynt into the retreat, only for all three of them to come face to face with more monsters, who’d scuttled up behind them. ‘Close quarters!’ Mortensen bawled, but before he knew it one of the barbed bastards was among them, slicing through armour and slashing Sass across the face as the adjutant swung his rifle around to bear. It snapped wildly at Kynt as the comms-officer struggled to wedge in a new clip in his autopistol. Mortensen swung his rifle at the creature like a bat, but the stock simply bounced off the alien’s plated skull. A ribbed hand found its way to the makeshift club and snatched it free of the major’s grip. Before he could blink the green fiend had slashed it in half with the sabre claws on another limb, the one piece falling uselessly to the deck – the other sparking and trailing from his hellpack powerline.

  The major kicked the heel of one booted foot at the beast but it merely retreated, sweeping its jaws past the still struggling Kynt, ripping out the trooper’s throat. Mortensen’s furious face was sprayed with warm blood from the fountaining wound.

  Demonstrating a stone cold understanding that Kynt was finished, the armoured, puce-green thing was coming at him again, without the comms officer’s body even having chance to reach the slick floor. Mortensen was ready for the beast also, having sloughed off his hellpack and pitched it at the monster with both hands.

  The alien menace shrugged off the impact, talons flashing forward, but the pack had provided Mortensen with the opportunity to slip a storm blade from his thigh-sheath and he batted the wicked claw aside. Another came and Mortensen spun into the creature’s embrace, grabbing its outstretched wrist with his gauntleted hand and lopping its appendage off at the trunk.

  Again the monster retracted, retreating behind its barbed grapplers. Light and brains suddenly erupted from its forehead, the green monstrosity shuddering and falling. Commissar Krieg was standing behind, the shimmering muzzle of his hellpistol aimed along the length of his tensed arm. Krieg seemed to notice something, squinting into the darkness, and shot off through the mayhem. There was little time for celebration.

  Golliant’s arc of explosive death swept by, driving back the closing gauntlet of alien bodies. Several determined slayers braved the shower of slugs and sparks, vaulting at the throng of storm-troopers, instinctively exploiting opportunities and holes in the fire pattern.

  Uncle’s high-pitched shrieks echoed around the ancient vastness of the chamber, the demolitions man dragged off into the darkness and run through with razor-sharp claws. Clutching his own gushing belly wound Eszcobar was now dragging Greco: one of the creatures had done something terrible to his back and the trooper could no longer walk unaided. Green carapace was suddenly all over them, monsters leaping above the autocannon’s hailstorm and landing on top of the unfortunate corpsmen.

  Vedette and Conklin had been carrying a mauled Sass but had been forced to lay both hands on their weapons during the unrelenting assault. The two of them beat the armoured forms with the protrusion mags and grips of their autopistols but as the malformed faces emerged from the armoured shell of torsos swamping Opech, it was clear the tribesman had been savaged a
nd was dead.

  ‘Back!’ Vedette ordered.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Greco agreed, grimacing at the agony lancing through his back. But there was nowhere to go. The aliens were all around them and around the aliens was cold, harsh darkness. The shadows just kept spawning wave upon concentric wave of monsters.

  Mortensen buried his storm blade in the armoured skull of a passing alien, but the thing barely seemed fazed, shaking the survival knife free. Reaching for his autopistol Mortensen brought the fat side arm level with the creature’s disturbing face. The weapon bucked as it disgorged its explosive package, taking the alien’s head with it into the darkness. Feverishly plugging green bodies left and right, Mortensen blasted a path through to Pontiff Preed.

  Unarmed, the gargantuan priest had been able to contribute little to the suppression fire that had so far kept the full weight of the mob from swamping them. Up close and personal the huge ecclesiarch came into his own. A red mist had descended on Preed’s contorted features. Charging like a cannonball he blasted into a throng of the vicious creatures intent on overwhelming a withdrawing Minghella on a pistol reload.

  The green tide parted, alien bodies and limbs flying this way and that. Several went down under the priest’s pummelling fists as he thundered into the enemy line. Sarakota redirected his merciless fire to re-establish the distance and capitalise on Preed’s insane assault. Golliant would have joined them but the steaming autocannon had feed-jammed and the aide was forced to use the ungainly weapon as a club, swinging it in a wide arc and keeping the monsters away from the open bulkhead they’d used to enter the fuel chamber. Krieg was already there, holding the exit with blinding fire from his hellpistol and directing blank and bloody corpsmen through the opening.

  One savage beast sailed over Mortensen in one impressive bound, landing squarely on Preed’s fleshy back. His white robes tore and streaked red as the monster dug in with its talons and brought its horrific maw in for the kill. The snaggle-toothed alien opened its jaws and shot an ovipositor at his face. The ecclesiarch strained, desperate that the muscular, eel-like appendage not reach his bloodied lips. Rage burned in his eyes and the priest finally opened his own mouth and chomped on the length of the alien thing with his own teeth. Snapping the horrible appendage free of the monstrous mouth from which it came, Preed spat out the ovipositor and wrenched the creature over one shoulder, bouncing its thick skull twice off the deck before flinging the thing up into the air.

  Mortensen had been slamming a fresh magazine into the grip of his chunky pistol when the thing landed in an untidy heap in front of him. Snapping back the autoslide, he blew the thing off its feet as the monster tried to scramble up off the oily deck. Two further storms of shot peeled another pair of green gargoyles from the ecclesiarch’s limbs.

  ‘Pontiff!’ the major yelled, slapping the priest on one sliced-up shoulder. The giant turned on him, his teeth clenched and his eyes unthinking. ‘Preed!’ Mortensen tried again, before breaking off to blow a hole through the shoulder plate of another monster attempting to scale the man-mountain before him. The alien went somersaulting back into the bloodthirsty crowd. The priest barely noticed. Mortensen leaned in close: ‘Father, we have to leave. Now!’

  Grabbing a fistful of bloody robes Mortensen tugged at the giant, leading him towards the bulkhead and the hands and gaunt faces picked out in the shadow of the opening, gesturing wildly at them to hurry. Sarakota had only just abandoned his post and was manhandling his long Hellshot through the doorway, leaving Krieg and Golliant either side of the heavy maintenance duct entrance, the commissar cutting into the hordes with supercharged las-bolts, his aide pounding into the deck anything that got past with the jammed autocannon.

  Preed followed, gradually returning to his senses, and even picking up the pace a little to get there ahead of the major, providing enough time to cram his corpulent bulk through. Golliant and Krieg followed, leaving the major alone in the chamber with the bulbous hordes. Mortensen turned for the final few metres, emptying the pistol as fast as he could into the converging masses.

  ‘Ready?’ he called to the corpsmen waiting in the entrance.

  ‘Ready,’ Conklin bawled back and Golliant’s tree trunk arms shot out of the bulkhead opening and latched onto the back of the major’s carapace suit. Mortensen shot backwards through doorway and found himself in the cramped passage surrounded by shocked and shivering storm-troopers. Conklin had Greco on the door controls, the spire breaker somehow managing to re-route power and breathe new life into the door mechanism. The bulkhead shot across on its rail and sealed the encroaching army of savage creatures on the other side.

  The entire squad went limp, the relief visible on every man and woman’s face. Minghella quickly went to work on a quietly groaning Sass and Vedette secured the passage ahead with her blood-splattered hellgun.

  Mortensen expected the hammer of blows on the maintenance bulkhead, but they never came. His eyes flickered around the dim compartment before resting his sweat-beaded brow on the cool metal of the door.

  From behind came a strange whoosh and the sigh of lock clearance. Mortensen lifted his head slightly, straining to hear. Suddenly the metal in front of him rolled aside revealing the full horror of alien jaws. Panic swept the passage with Preed and Golliant lending their weight to the rapidly opening door.

  ‘Greco…’ Conklin began.

  The spire breaker swore. ‘They must have severed the hydraulics,’ he blurted in amazement.

  The creature’s head vaulted out of the darkness and through the growing opening, snapping at the stunned major. Mortensen brought up his autopistol with a growl and yanked on the trigger. The unsatisfactory click of an empty firing mechanism filled the compartment. With sudden urgency the major re-worked the slide and tried again but the pistol was spent.

  Claws and fingers from the chamber beyond filled the aperture, intent on forcing the door open. Mortensen pounded on the alien digits with the grip of his weapon but made little impression on the armoured knuckles. Conklin and Greco – who was fading fast and slumped against the wall – were arguing about the door mechanism, the corpsman professing that there was nothing he could do with it now. Meanwhile it took all of the strength of the huge pontiff and Krieg’s aide combined just to hold the bulkhead where it was.

  A sudden hiss at the back of the compartment grabbed the major’s attention. As Krieg and Sarakota parted he saw Eszcobar with his back to the wall of the compartment, the pilot flame burning victoriously at the end of the deathworlder’s flamer. Pushing Conklin back away from the door and shielding his face, Mortensen told him: ‘Burn it.’

  The Autegan came forward, sticking the barrel in through a space between the gnashing alien jaws and grasping claws and bathed the bodies beyond in a raging stream of thick flame.

  The response was instantaneous. Claws and faces disappeared, as did the weight on the door. Pulling back the deathworlder allowed Preed and Golliant to slam the bulkhead shut once again. Beyond, the inferno raged.

  Heavy breathing and involuntary smiles filled the passage.

  Greco put into words what everyone else was thinking: ‘What the vrekkin’ hell were they?’

  ‘They’re genestealers,’ Krieg answered coldly.

  It took a moment for the corpsmen to soak up the concept with their adrenaline-addled brains.

  Mortensen nodded: ‘Hybrids.’

  ‘Ork-genestealer hybrids?’ Greco echoed, racing to catch up. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘Unfortunately not, my son,’ Preed rumbled from the back, back to his old bookish self. ‘Why, we’ve known for a long time that genestealer races use human hosts to pass on genetic material. Why not other races? Orks are amongst the most widespread races in the galaxy.’

  ‘The genestealers could have already been on board the hulk, when it came out of warpspace in a greenskin system,’ Krieg hypothesised. ‘A greenskin salvage team w
ere probably infected when they tried to get the ship operational again. It’s not that hard to imagine.’

  ‘It explains everything,’ Mortensen admitted grimly. ‘System infiltration. The cultists on Illium. The roks and teleporters… Greenskin tech is notoriously unreliable – but imagine the brute hordes guided by the cold logic and singular purpose of genestealers. You’d have the best – or very worst – of both voidspawn species.’

  ‘And Spetzghast,’ the cadet-commissar added. ‘Cross-species infection. The psionic fields produced by the different races would play havoc with one another. Add humans to the mix and well, no wonder you’ve got spree murders and general mayhem across the system.’ Krieg shook his head. ‘The orks and their allies have been importing reproductive pods with common agricultural freight. Even without the orbital bombardment, this system’s doomed.’

  ‘Not just this system,’ Preed interjected. ‘This isn’t a greenskin warlord on a roll here. The cold alien discipline of the ‘stealers combined with greenskin resilience and numbers. Think of the systems that could already have been infiltrated.’

  ‘Sir,’ Vedette addressed the major; the Mordian, as always focused on the mission and less on the trivia. ‘What about the targets?’

  Mortensen bit at his bottom lip. He was thinking of Voskov and what they must have done to him and the mind-aching discipline it must have taken to do what he did.

  Decided, Mortensen announced: ‘We’re leaving them.’

  ‘Sir,’ the Mordian continued with undying professionalism. ‘The commodore wasn’t far–’

  ‘You can’t help them,’ Krieg told her.

  ‘With all due respect–’

  ‘They’ll be infected, my child,’ Preed assured her with paternal benevolence.

  ‘Boss,’ Conklin said with his ear to the compartment wall. Mortensen joined him at the door. More strange noises were emanating from beyond, this time something bigger than a clearing door mechanism. Eszcobar’s flamer had driven the monsters back and hopefully had fried a couple in the process. What Mortensen was hearing, on the other hand, equated to hundreds of mournful alien shrieks swallowed in the boom of a full-scale inferno. There was also some thrashing.