by Dan Abnett
Author of the Black Library's superb 'Gaunts Ghosts' series of novels, Dan Abnett tells the tale of the last few days of the beleaguered world of Malvolion.
y his wrist-chronometer, it was not yet
noon, but the air was warm and clammy.
Trooper Karl Grauss of the Fifteenth Mordian Iron Guard let his las-rifle swing loose on its harness strap, wiped perspiration from his eyes, and pushed the angular nose of the wrench-bar into the rusty door lock.
He paused and glanced around at Major Hecht. The officer was tensed, his las-rifle pulled up tight with the butt in his armpit, ready to fire. Beads of sweat dotted his face too, and it wasn't just the heat.
"What are you waiting for?" he hissed.
Grauss shrugged. He didn't know, exactly. He didn't know anything except what Hecht had told him and the others of Zwei Company that morning: get out to that pump station in the delta and find out why they hadn't checked in for three days.
Grauss jiggled the wrench-bar until the tool locked against the latch mechanism, and then began to wind the ratchet so that the door release slowly began to turn manually.
Down the low hallway behind him and the major, six other men from Zwei hugged the walls and braced lasguns. This was the job at its worst, thought Grauss as he cranked the tool. Sneaking into a mystery and opening doors blind when you had no idea what in the name of the God Emperor lay on the other side.
But, dammit, they were Iron Guard! More disciplined, determined Imperial soldiers you couldn't find.
They'd reached the pump station early that morning. A cluster of machine-barns and modular habitats, it stood at a confluence of irrigation channels which watered the entire delta area and fed over a dozen farmsteads. The suns were low and cool. There had been no sign of life, not even the ever-present water birds that Grauss had seen everywhere in the marshes.
BY DAN ABNETT
And once they had got inside, with no answers to their voice or vox calls, it had been so damned hot and humid, like someone had set the environment controls to ‘tropical'.
The latch popped, and Grauss kicked the door inwards, swinging aside so that the Major could slide in, gun raised and aimed.
Before them lay some kind of hydroponic workshop, with a high, cera-glass roof and metal support pillars rusting in the steamy air. Samples of crops and yield-plants stood in labelled pots, trays and bins all around. The walkways between the bins were metal grills. Sappy moisture dripped from the transparent panes above.
The Mordians fanned out into the hothouse, dripping with sweat in their dress uniforms.
"What's this?" called Trooper Parnell. Grauss moved over to him, and the major joined them. Parnell gestured with disgust at a rack of culture-trays set under some daylight lamps. Nutrient feeder sprays intermittently misted what was in the trays with chemical washes.
Major Hecht cursed. The things in the trays looked like rotting, globular fungi; puffy, swollen, the size of human heads. They pulsed irregularly. None of the Mordians had any horticultural training, and none had been on Malvolion long enough to get a feel for the local flora, but they all knew this stuff just wasn't right.
"Burn it. Get a flamer in here and burn it all." Hecht looked away from the obscene crop.
Grauss was about to obey the command, when they heard the las-fire. Close by, two or three buildings away. Six short, frantic bursts, then a longer report made by several guns on auto, firing together. Zwei Company's vox-intercoms spluttered out an overlapping, unintelligible series of ear-splitting cries and yells.
The platoon turned and ran towards the sounds, Hecht in the lead. Platoon Two, scouting to the left of them, was in trouble.
Hecht's men burst into the chamber that had been P-2's last recorded position. It was a hanger barn, with several big-wheeled agricultural vehicles parked in it. The air was full of smoke from discharged weapons.
There were two bodies on the floor, both men from P-2, both looking like they'd been dismembered by industrial crop-reapers.
P-1 crept forward through the gloom, twitching for targets. Grauss found the headless corpse of another man from P-2 leaning against the wheel-arch of one of the agri-tractors.
Looking aside from the corpse in distaste, Grauss saw that the tractor was hitched to a big flatbed cargo truck, with something large and strange chain-lashed to it. Caked in the mud of the delta, it looked for all the world like some kind of ship: those bulbous projections at the rear could only be propulsion units. But... it was small, not large enough for anything more than a single human, and it made him sick to look at it. It wasn't made of metal. It wasn't technology as he understood it. It looked... organic. Fleshy, pod-like, akin to the things he had seen growing in the hothouse but many, many times larger. Was this something the station crew had found out there in the delta and hauled back for study?
There was a cry and a burst of las-fire behind him. Grauss spun around, in time to see Trooper Parnell's body sailing across the chamber in a welter of blood and torn flesh. Lasguns roared and flashed. Something was moving through the gloom with terrifying rapidity. Something with claws. Four sets of claws.
It sliced through Major Hecht at the waist, and his body fell in two, still firing.
It was right on Grauss now. He howled and started to fire.
Genestealer...
Grauss woke with a start. He was wet and slippery with night-sweat and his head pounded. It had been two weeks since that nightmare in the pump station, a nightmare that only he and three others from the Zwei Company detail had survived. And he could not shake it. He'd had battle-shock before, he was a veteran, but the sheer alien horror of what he had seen, and smelled, and felt... it haunted his sleep and his waking mind.
Genestealer...
Grauss got off his barrack cot unsteadily and pulled on a fresh uniform. Outside it was daylight, and he could hear men and vehicles. He needed to get active. If he was going to get over the trauma, he had to keep his mind and body occupied.
He went outside, into the raw suns-light, and watched the troop trucks and cargo-machines rolling past in the mud. Unseasonal, warm rain hosed the street. The modular roofs and towers of Malvolion Collective farm-plex 132/5 glistened and their gutters drooled.
The evacuation was under way.
As he crossed between growling heavy transports, he tried to reassure himself. He'd killed the thing, blown it apart with his lasgun. It and two more like it. Then he and the other survivors of the search detail had blown the pump station with krak mines. They'd kept their heads, true to the famed iron discipline of the Mordians. They'd got their report back to Guard Command and, thanks to them, the planet-wide advisory had been issued.
That had to make him feel better, didn't it?
Grauss spotted Colonel Tiegl supervising the loading of transports on a stretch of hardpan behind a row of produce barns. The Colonel looked hot and flustered. Settlers thronged around him, begging for more of their valuable agri-machinery to be included on the evacuation manifest.
Tiegl broke off from them as he saw Grauss approach.
"By the Golden Throne," he muttered under his breath to the trooper, "these people will be the death of me! I just want to get them, their loved ones and their basic possessions out of here, and they're all too worried about their damned cultivators and multi-ploughs! I've half a mind to let you tell them what you saw."
"And cause a mass panic, sir?" smiled Grauss sadly.
Tiegl sighed. "No, no..."
"Is there anything I can do?"
"I thought you were on sick-rest? Medic's orders?"
"Making me crazy, sir. Give me something to do, and it might take my mind off the... the things in my head."
The colonel nodded. "Good man. Well, we need d
rivers. Can you handle a truck-rig?"
"Pretty much," said Grauss.
Tiegl consulted his data-slate and pointed to a dirt-caked eight wheeler parked over by the side sheds. "Unit 177. She's yours."
"What's the program?"
"I want the main evacuation section out of here by 15.00. No excuses. Anything we haven't loaded by then is staying, and that includes these bloody farmers. Uplift point is the Nacine Plains, nineteen hours north of here. According to transmitted reports, we're expecting nearly sixty bulk transports to be waiting there to take us to the orbiting fleet units. There are eight other evac convoys like ours heading in from other collectives, so it'll pay to be on time. We want to get our place and, if things turn nasty, we don't want them leaving without us."
"What if it does come to a fight, sir?"
"Then we'll show these alien freaks what Mordian fighting spirit is. There are seventy thousand men from our regiment deployed planetside, not to mention thirty thousand from the Phyrus regiments. General Caen has informed me that armour units are a few hours from landing, and there's even talk of help from the Chapters."
"That's reassuring," said Grauss. "It may have been a little isolated outbreak we found down at the pump station, but it pays to be prepared."
"More than prepared now," said Tiegl, a little darkly. "The alert's moved up a notch. Didn't anybody tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Off-world astropathic communications went down five hours ago. The Shadow has fallen across us. They're coming, Grauss, they're definitely coming."
Like beached leviathans with screaming, wide mouths, the vast bulk transports squatted on the dry, stony flats of the Nacine Plain, disgorging rivers of armour amid clouds of churned, pale dust. Even from the high observation mast of the command ship, three hundred meters above ground, General Caen could hear the clank and grumble of the Paladian tanks and fighting vehicles. He swept his magnoculars around and then nodded in satisfaction. Colonel Grizmund was deploying his armour as fast as ordered, faster perhaps. A good, clean dispersal. The sky was a clear blue, and they had visibility to ten kilometres. They wouldn't be caught napping.
Caen let the magnoculars dangle against the crisp, pressed front of his immaculate Mordian uniform. Beside him on the ship's watch-platform, two servitors and three Mordian adjutants manned the supervision consoles and vox-caster sets. A steady stream of radio traffic crackled in the background.
Hanff, one of the adjutants, approached him across the metal grill and handed the general a data-slate.
"Reports in from all the evacuation points, sir. Most of the collectives are under way to us in convoy. Tiegl at Collective farm-plex 132/5 informs you they will be under way by 15.00."
"Why so slow?"
"That's where the outbreak occurred, sir. I think the Colonel is being especially careful."
Caen nodded. He knew Tiegl and trusted him well. The man would get the job done.
"And this?" he asked, pointing to the slate. "Collective 344/9?"
"They haven't embarked either, General. Men from the Phyrus regiment are there. I... don't know what the hold up is."
"Vox them. Find out. Tell them I'll skin them alive if they don't move soon."
"Sir."
The air trembled with subsonic, basso power. A shadow passed over them. Another ten thousand ton bulk transport swung down in to land on the plain, braking jets squirting blue flames.
"The Ariadne," said Hanff. "Right on time."
Boots clanged up the mast ladder and Colonel Grizmund pulled himself up onto the platform. He was a tall, thick-set man wearing the crimson battledress of the Paladian Armour brigade proudly. He saluted Caen.
"Reporting in person," he said. "We're ready to move out. Where do you want us, sir?"
Caen shook the Colonel's hand and showed him the chart table.
"We're playing watchdog right now, Grizmund. Some of my men down in the delta stirred up Genestealers two weeks ago, and blew the whistle. From the reports, it looks like the locals found some kind of Tyranid scout-drone or incursion probe and woke it up. Emperor alone knows how long it's been sending its beacon, but since the Shadow fell this morning, we can be sure it's been heard. I'd like you to move south. The evac convoy from the delta collective may need support if trouble starts there, and they're lagging."
"We'll embark at once, and meet them en route."
"Good, good..." Caen turned to look at Hanff. "Any joy with those damned Phyrus idiots yet?"
They'd been in Farm Collective 344/9 only six hours and Trooper Nink was already banging on that something bad was coming.
The Phyrus troopers were packing crates into the pack of heavy transports behind the main maize silo and the suns, a matched pair, were coming up hard and bright. Sergeant Syra Gallo tossed another crate up into Nink's hands and told him to shut the hell up.
"Of course there's something bad coming, you moron! That's why we're here! That's why we were diverted nine days ago with express orders to head for Malvolion! That's why we're busting our humps getting a bunch of dirt-scratchers onto transports and away to the uplift! Something bad! Something really bad!"
Nink looked down at him as if the sergeant had just broken awful news about his wife.
"Don't look at me like that," Gallo turned around to regard the other men of the Phyrus Fourth Regiment who had all paused in their work. "None of you!"
"For the Emperor's sake, you moon-eyed malcontents, we're Imperial Guard! We only go to places like this because something bad is coming! I mean, the Warmaster doesn't say ‘Oh, Malvolion... Nothing bad's gonna happen there... Let's deploy thirty thousand of our brave Phyrus boys immediately!' Does he? Eh? No, he damn well doesn't! We're here because we are the Imperial Guard and people give thanks and kiss our spotty butts in gratitude because we are there when that something bad arrives! Now get these crates stowed and tell yourselves this..."
Gallo dropped his voice and grinned at his men. "..we're the Phyrus Fourth. We're stone-killers to a man. It had better be something really freaking bad because when it gets here, it's gonna find us, and we are gonna kill it so many times it's gonna wish it had never been born!"
There were cheers. Even Nink cheered. The Malvolion colonists trudging past to the waiting trucks further down the evacuation convoy line were silent and looked far too scared for Gallo's liking.
Silently, he just wished he knew what was coming, what they were up against, and why they were here.
"Repeated signals from Nacine Plain Command," Vox-officer Binal called to Gallo.
"Yeah, yeah..."
"It's the General himself, Sergeant. He wants to know why we're not moving yet."
Gallo dropped a crate in contempt and turned to look at Binal. "We're not moving because
Major Hunnal hasn't given the order yet. Tell him that."
"I did, sergeant. He wants to know why not."
Wiping his sore, dusty palms, Gallo stalked away across the sunlit compound. "Tell him I'll
ask the major myself."
Gallo entered the main hall of the collective, a dirty, zinc-panelled prefab that creaked in the
heat. Air-scrubbers chattered fitfully. Gallo had seen the major and two other officers
disappear inside an hour before to discuss the final evacuation conditions with the collective's
selectmen.
"Major? Major Hunnal?"
Gallo checked a few rooms. The place was empty. Unnerved, he called in a squad to help him
search. Five men, all in heavy Phyrus
battledress, clattered in through the entryway to
join him. One brought Gallo his lasgun. "Spread
out," he told them.
Gallo and a trooper called Matlyg had the
pleasure of finding Hunnal, the other two
officers, and the six farm selectmen. What was
left of them anyway. Reduced to blood and
bone-meal, they coated the floor and walls of the
&
nbsp; cargo bay behind the hall.
Matlyg threw up and fell over in the mess of
bloody remains. Gallo tried to stammer into his
vox-link.
Something tall and still that he had taken to be a
roof support quivered and moved. Fast... so
freaking fast! A scything talon the size of a
grown man lashed out of the shadows and ripped
the vomiting Matlyg into ribbons of flesh and a
spume of airborne blood.
Gallo found his legs, retreating, screaming,
firing. Chitinous plates knotted with whitish
bone, iridescent green tendrils writhing
obscenely, the Mantis Killer ceased mimicking
the colour of the wall, and towered over him.
"Spook! Spook!" Gallo wailed.
His shots punched into the dark, bony plates of
the Lictor's belly and chewed off some splinters of chitin. Then he was in through the doors and running.
The vox-channels were alive with panic. Gallo ran into two of his searchers and pulled them down into cover, backs against the prefab wall.
He was trying to tell them what he had seen when two metres of talon sliced in through the wall and one of the troopers. Blood boiled out of the trooper's sagging mouth as the talon withdrew and let him slide free. Gallo threw himself away as another bio-blade slammed through the wall and decapitated the other trooper, splitting his skull lengthways.
It can see us! Even through the walls, it can see our heat!
Gallo ran. He reached the outside.
The evacuation convoy was where he had left it, still not under way. Now it would never get under way. Ever. Several trucks were overturned, and two were on fire. Phyrus troops ran in all directions, firing into the smoke. Farmers and their families stampeded in panic all around. Bodies littered the ground. None were remotely intact.
