Warhammer - Ultramarines 02 - Warriors Of Ultramar (McNeill, Graham)

by Graham McNeill

  A pair of the black clouds dropped through the air, looping downwards to fly parallel to the skiff, a third descending in a lazy spiral ahead of it. Officers watching through the roof periscopes shouted at their men to stand to, chivvying them to the windows and bellowing orders to fire at will.

  Blasts of freezing air filled the skiff as windows were forced open and barrels of lasguns pushed through. Lasbolts snapped upwards, punching into the black flocks that pursued the skiff. Occasionally, a twisted shape would tumble to the snow, but such precious victories were few, and despite the terrific speed of the skiff, the flocks drew nearer still.

  Cries of fear echoed along the length of the passenger compartments as the flocks began to overtake the skiff and the soldiers had their first glimpse of the enemy. Grotesque, membrane-winged creatures with leering, fang-filled maws and clawed limbs surrounded them. Lasbolts tore amongst the aliens, but for every one that was downed, a "hundred more remained. They swooped over and around the skiff, spitting black gouts from weapon orifices that peppered its metal skin like handfiils of thrown stones. Glass smashed and men screamed as the aliens' fire struck them, their armour cracking and dissolving under the impacts.

  Medics ran to the wounded, peeling off bloody flak vests and applying pressure to the ragged holes in the soldiers' bodies, then recoiled in horror as they saw clutches of writhing, beetle-like creatures boring deep into the men's flesh.

  Scrabbling claws tore at the skiffs roof, gouging long tears in the thin metal. The skiff swayed from side to side, throwing more sparks as the pilot fought to compensate for the additional weight and drag of the attackers. Soldiers fired through the roof, killing the flying beasts in their dozens, but unable to dislodge them all.

  Muscular taloned arms reached in and dragged a screaming soldier through a hole in the roof, his cries cut off as the rushing wind snatched away his breath. His coMisterades fought to pull him back, but another volley of the flesh-eating creatures slew the would-be rescuers in a hail of fire.

  The skiff screamed around another bend in the icy canal, only to be faced by yet another flock of the winged monsters, swirling in an impenetrable cloud and blocking the skiffs path with their bodies. The pilot reacted instinctively, slamming on the air brakes and wrenching the controls to one side. Barbed brakes deployed from the skis, throwing the skiff into an uncontrollable skid.

  The rear end of the skiff fishtailed, the passenger compartment slewing around until it was travelling sideways. Wider than the canal, its back end caught the edge of the mag-rails and flipped it over onto its side. At such high speeds, the impact ripped the passenger compartment open and tore the coupling to the engine with it, sending it spinning into the air to crash down onto the ice a hundred metres further down the canal where it exploded in a searing orange fireball.

  Flames billowed skywards as the wreckage skidded along the canal for another six hundred metres, the heat from the flames melting the ice as it slid. Amid the carnage of the crash, a few pitiful survivors crawled from the wreckage, battered, bloodied and dazed.

  Even before they had a chance to freeze to death, the winged gargoyles were upon them, biting and clawing at their helpless prey until there was no one left alive.

  The first victims of the land war of Tarsis Ultra had been claimed.

  From their perch high on the roof of their warehouse hideout, Snowdog and Silver watched the distant contrails of torpedoes as they climbed through the purple skies into the upper atmosphere.

  The devotional holos, normally full of nameless preachers demanding prayers to the Emperor, had been displaying a non-stop procession of warnings against the dangers of contact with xeno species, Snowdog didn't know what was happening with the war, but was pretty certain that there must have been a screw-up somewhere along the line, because you didn't start firing ground based weapons except to prevent an imminent invasion.

  'This does not look good.' said Snowdog.

  'Nope.' agreed Silver, 'It sure doesn't.'

  Lord Inquisitor Kryptman stood in an armoured viewing bay atop the Governor's Palace, watching the same scenes with a similar feeling. With the news that the fleet had been forced to disengage, his hopes that this invasion could be stalled before it reached the surface of the planet had been shattered. He cast his gaze across the landscape one last time, knowing that even were they able to defeat the aliens, this world would never be the same again.

  Orders had been issued to all officers on tactical doctrine and the proper conduct to be followed during conflict with the tyranids. Experience bought with uncounted lives was even now circulating amongst the soldiers of Tarsis Ultra and Kryptman hoped that the sacrifice of those who had died to gather that information would not have been in vain.

  As he watched the beginning of the tyranid invasion, Magos Locard joined him in the bay, hands clasped before him and mechadendrites swaying gently above his head.

  'So it begins again.' mused the inquisitor, watching the swirling, multi-coloured sky.

  'Indeed.' said Locard. 'Were it not such a monstrous thing, it might be considered aesthetically pleasing. It is nature driven into paroxysms of creation.'

  'Creation, yes, but there is nothing natural about this. It is creation designed to destroy and consume.'

  'An interesting dichotomy, yes?' observed Locard.

  'Yes, but one for another time perhaps. How goes your research?'

  'It progresses. The facilities here are lacking in some regards, but they are sufficient for my needs. The samples taken from the xeno creatures recovered from the Vae Victus have helped immensely, but their genetic structure shows evidence of mutation. Evidently, the tyranids have entered another iteration of evolution since the consumption of Barbarus Prime.'

  Kryptman turned to face the magos and nodded. 'I had suspected as much.'

  To achieve our goal, it seems clear we will need to somehow obtain a gene sample that is as close to the hive's original

  structure as possible, one that has not been subjected to mutation at the behest of the overmind.'

  'And how do you intend to obtain such a specimen?'

  'Ah, well that I do not yet know.' admitted Locard.

  'Find a way.' ordered Kryptman.

  Uriel watched Learchus and Pasanius march along the front lines of the city's defences and fought the urge to join them. Little time had passed since he had been a veteran sergeant himself, and the old desire to check on the men under his command still came to the fore on the eve of battle. He had greater concerns now, he reminded himself, as he checked the data-slate to ensure that everything in his sector of responsibility was as it should be.

  From above, the plain before the city walls resembled the top of a racetrack with curved trenches linking the two sides of the valley. Three entrenchments crossed it, progressively narrowing as they neared the city walls, but Uriel knew that these were nothing more than temporary defences. The first wave of tyranids would come at them from the air, pinning them down while the bulk of the tyranid army approached on foot. Sebastien Montante had assured him that the valley sides were well defended with enough guns to make any aerial attack unfeasible. Uriel had his doubts, knowing that the sheer scale of a tyranid invasion was beyond the comprehension of most people who had never seen one.

  Seven thousand men occupied the first trench, six thousand the second and anomer two thousand the third. The remainder of the soldiers waited within the walls of Erebus itself, held in reserve until needed. Rumbling before the wall, its armoured flanks bristling with guns and its crenallated battlements swarming with soldiers, was the Capitol Imperialis of Colonel Octavius Rabelaq. Emblazoned with the heraldry of the Logres regiment, the massive rhomboid-shaped command vehicle rose nearly fifty metres from the ground. From here, Rabelaq could direct his soldiers and maintain command and control over the battle. Its tracks were wider than a road and four Leman Russ battle tanks could fit within the barrel of its main gun. It was a fearsome reminder of Imperial power and its might was
plain for all to see. Smaller tanks surrounded the Capitol Imperialis, like ants around an elephant, passing through the gates in the wall towards the front line.

  Those tanks that had already taken position idled in well-sited berms, with flared aprons of flattened snow behind them to allow them to reverse out and withdraw to the next line.

  Soldiers in dirty overwhites huddled in their dugouts, clustered around plasma-wave generators, cooking their rations. The men clearly relished what might be their last hot meal for some time, and Uriel knew that little improved morale more than hot food and beverages. Here, Montante had excelled himself, handling the logistical nightmare of feeding and equipping tens of thousands of soldiers with the skill of a veteran quartermaster. He had organised vast kitchens to supply the soldiers defending his city with regular hot food and ensured that the commanders had a reliable supply train.

  Everything had been organised with admirable efficiency and he could see the teachings of the Codex Astartes in the precise layout of the defences. Uriel was reminded of the schematics he had seen depicting the defences of the northern polar defence fortress on Macragge during the First Tyrannic War, though he hoped to avoid the outcome of that battle.

  Satisfied that all was as it should be, he marched along the slush-covered duckboards of the trenches towards the front line. A thick, two-metre berm of snow had been built before the trench to absorb any incoming fire, since, rather than exploding away from projectiles like sand, snow would anneal under the impact and become a stronger, more effective barrier.

  Buckets of water had been repeatedly poured down the slope of the snow barrier before the lip of the trench, making a glass-smooth surface that would hopefully prove extremely difficult for the aliens to scale.

  'Any word on when we can expect to see them?' asked Pasanius, joining Uriel on the trench's firing step.

  'Soon.' answered Uriel as Learchus marched over.

  'You have done fine work, Learchus.' said Uriel, gripping his sergeant's hand in welcome.

  Learchus nodded. 'The soldiers here are good men, brother-captain, they just needed reminding of the teachings of the Codex Astartes.'

  'I'm sure you gave them a very pointed reminder.' noted Uriel.

  'Where necessary.' admitted Learchus. 'I was no harsher than any other Agiselus drill sergeant.'

  Both Pasanius and Uriel winced as they remembered the severity of their training on Macragge. Neither had any doubt that Learchus had put the soldiers here through hell in order to prepare them for the coming war. But if it made them better soldiers, then it was a price they should be thankful for.

  'Where are the Mortifactors and the Deathwatch to be stationed?' asked Learchus.

  Uriel pointed towards the southern reaches of the trenches, his brow furrowing at the memory of the confrontation with Astador and Kryptman in the orbiting space station. He had lost control and the shame of that lapse still burned inside him. He was a Space Marine in the service of the Emperor and was above such petty considerations as temper. But the death of so many innocents on Chordelis and the stain left within his soul by the Bringer of Darkness had overcome his normally unbreakable code of honour.

  The thought of losing control and becoming little more than a killer without a conscience frightened him greatly. Briefly he thought of confessing to the growing darkness within him, but bit back the words, unsure of how to articulate his feelings. Such weaknesses were foreign to a Space Marine and he had not the humanity to reach out and express them.

  The three Space Marines watched the boiling sky in the far distance with trepidation. None would ever forget the horrors they had witnessed on Ichar IV and the thought of facing such a foe again brought nothing but apprehension.

  While they knew they could fight any foe and triumph, they were but a hundred warriors and, against such a numberless horde, there was only so much they could do.

  The soldiers around them were numerous, though nowhere near as numerous as the tyranids. But where the defenders of Tarsis Ultra had the advantage over the alien horde was in their basic humanity, the courage that came from defending one's hearth and home.

  The very thing Uriel and his sergeants lacked.

  The Western Mountains writhed with motion. Thousands upon thousands of mycetic spores hammered the ground, each disgorging a mucus-covered creature that hissed and screeched in animal hunger. Swarms of beasts gathered in the shadow of the twisting, smoke-wreathed forests, the natural beauty of the ecology perverted into monstrous, alien flora that consumed the nutrients in the soil and spread a dark stain of necrotic growth across the landscape. Bubbling pools of acids and enzymes formed in sunken patches of ground, small devourer organisms plunging into the acid baths to give up the energy they had consumed to feed the voracious appetite of the alien fleet.

  When enough creatures had gathered in a snapping, biting mass, the horde set off at some unseen signal, powerful hind limbs propelling the bounding swarm through the deep snow of the mountains and onto the plain below. Larger creatures stamped through the snow, their bestial jaws snapping and clawed hands sweeping aside the smaller aliens as they moved through the swarm. Tens of thousands of aliens charged down the mountains, directed to their prey by invisible cords of psychic hunger that connected them with thousands of flying gargoyles that swept ahead of the swarm and reeled them closer to their prey.

  All across Tarsis Ultra, the beasts of the tyranid invasion closed on their targets.

  Guardsman Pavel Leforto of the Erebus Defence Legion nervously licked his lips, then wished he hadn't as he felt the cold freeze the moisture within seconds. He desperately needed to empty his full bladder, but the latrine pits were three hundred metres behind his platoon's section of the forward trench. He cursed the need to drink so much water. At his age, his bladder wasn't the strongest in the world, and the need to drink five canteens of water every day to stave off dehydration - a very real danger in this cold climate - was a constant pain.

  But the corpsmen of the Logres regiment were all humourless bastards when it came to cold weather injuries, and it was now a court martial offence to suffer from dehydration, frostbite or hypothermia.

  The trench was not as cold as it had been in the weeks previous to this, though high on the periscope platform, a cold

  wind chilled him to the marrow despite the many-layered thermal overwhites he wore. The presence of so many soldiers raised the temperature by several degrees and the tanks had become a magnet for cold soldiers who basked in the heat radiating from their engine blocks. This section of trench alone was home to over three hundred soldiers, a mix of squads from the Logres and Krieg regiments. None of the off-world soldiers were that friendly, and treated the majority of the Defence Legion soldiers like weekend warriors, amateurs playing in the big boys' arena. This combined with fraying tempers caused by the miserable conditions, had made relations between the defenders of Tarsis Ultra strained to say the least. The initial excitement of leaving his regular post in the Erebus smelteries had long-since evaporated and he missed the predictable monotony of his work.

  But more than that, he missed returning home to his wife and children at the end of the day and the cramped, yet homely hab-unit that they and three other families shared high on the north face of District Secundus. Sonya would be readying the evening meal about now and his two children, Hollia and little Solan, would be on their way back from the scholum. The ache of their absence was painful and Pavel looked forward to an end to this war when he could be reunited with them.

  Banishing thoughts of home and family, he pressed his face to the rubberised eyecups of the bipod-mounted periscope magnoculars and pressed the button that flipped open the polarised lens covers. He shifted his balaclava under his helmet to get a good look through the magnoculars. The heat from his skin momentarily fogged the glass before the image resolved into clarity before him.

  The bleak, unbroken whiteness of the landscape was empty as far as he could see, though he knew that the freezing temperat
ures reduced his depth perception and visual acuity. Still, he wasn't the only one watching this sector, so he wasn't too bothered that he couldn't see much. Seeing nothing was a good thing anyway, wasn't it?

  'Anything?' asked his squad mate, Vadim Kotash, holding out a steaming tin mug filled with caffeine towards Pavel. At forty-five years old, Vadim was a year younger than Pavel and together, they were probably the oldest men in the platoon.

  His friend's face was obscured by his balaclava and snow-goggles, a scarf wrapped around his mouth muffling his words.

  'Nah.' said Pavel, snapping the covers back over the mag-noculars. He took the mug and, pulling the scarf from his mouth, sipped his hot drink. 'Can't see anything worth a damn in this weather.'

  'Aye, I hear that. Con tells me that Kellis got taken back to the medicae yesterday. Snow blindness got him. The young fool kept taking his goggles off.'

  The provosts will haul him over the coals for that.'

  'I wouldn't mind being hauled over the coals, it might warm my old bones up.' chuckled Vadim.

  'It would take the furnace back in the smeltery for that now.' said Pavel.

  Vadim nodded as an officer in a long, mud-stained Krieg greatcoat and a thick, furred colback studded with a lieutenant's pips stalked down the trench. He carried his lasgun slung over his shoulder and he scowled in displeasure as he marched.

  'Uh-oh, it's Konarski.' hissed Vadim, tapping Pavel's shoulder, but it was already too late.

  "You!' snapped Konarski. "Why the hell aren't you watching for the enemy?'

  Pavel started at the sharp bark of Konarski's voice, spilling caffeine onto his overwhites.