Shield of Baal: Deathstorm

by Josh Reynolds

  And if they did not move fast, Karlaen knew that the rest of the squad would share his fate.

  The broodlord stalked through the mounds of human corpses and the bodies of its fallen children. Those bodies gave it pause, though it could not say why. There was no room for sentimentality in the gestalt mechanism of the Hive Mind – all were one and one was all. Nonetheless, the broodlord had been the leader of a pack long before it had been subsumed by the great, calming song of the Hive Mind’s singular will, and it sank down beside the body of one of its children. It hesitated, then reached out towards the ruined carcass with a claw. Gently, it stroked the body.

  All things died. All things were matter to be consumed, mass to be added to the whole, reshaped, reforged and repurposed. It knew this and it accepted it, for it could not do otherwise. But still, there lingered in its blighted soul some shard of something it could not name, a memory of another time, and of other dead which were not repurposed but were instead taken away to be interred in silence and darkness. Memories rose slowly over the gestalt hum, flowering and spreading and quickly fading, before it could fully examine them. It saw faces, and heard names, but no longer truly understood. Nor did it care to.

  It rose to its feet and stepped over the body. The wave of death which had accompanied the attack on the invaders had only served to stoke the rage that bubbled within the creature. This ambush had not gone as well as the others, and its quarry were escaping deeper into the ruins of the palace, bloodied but unbowed. Its massive claws clenched and relaxed constantly as it paced towards the struggling knot of genestealers.

  The red-armoured warrior who fought them did so even though his situation was hopeless. His weapons were gone or useless, and his armour had been rent and torn, its power cables severed and the exoskeleton twisted out of shape. Still he struggled against the churning mass of multi-limbed horrors that swarmed about him. The broodlord could not conceive of such an emotion as admiration, but it felt some faint stirring of something akin to it nonetheless as it hunkered down across from the stricken invader.

  It scraped the ground gently as it studied its enemy; a flurry of images from the other ambushes flowed through its mind, and it closed its eyes for a moment, indulging in the pleasure those images brought. A roaring, black-haired giant fired his weapon until it ran dry, and then was swarmed under; another, wreathed in pungent smoke emanating from gilded censers, was attacked from all sides. On and on the tide of images rolled, and when the broodlord at last opened its eyes, it did so with a hiss of fulfilment. The ambushes it had organised were going well, and though many of its children had died, the enemy was scattered and bloodied.

  Its children had managed to wrest the warrior’s helmet off, and ruined hoses spurted recycled air as the hunk of metal was tossed aside. It caught up the helm as it rolled past and held it, turning it over in its claws. It looked at the warrior, and crushed the helmet with a single flex of its segmented limbs. The metal buckled and popped with a shrill cry.

  The warrior spat and said something. The broodlord did not bother to listen to his words. Instead, it focused on his thoughts, plucking them out to examine one by one, as if they were the petals of some colourful flower. It needed to know why they had come. What did they seek, here, in its territory?

  Every thought tasted different, and as it consumed them, names swam through its mind… Bartelo… Alphaeus… Karlaen. The names of the surviving invaders. Names were useful, it knew. Names were like keys to the locks of the mind. With a name, it could pry away the will and strength of its enemy and render them helpless before the strength of the Hive Mind.

  That was how it had made Asphodex ready for consumption, though it had not been aware of the true reason for its actions at the time. It had weeded out the strongest minds from among the planetary aristocracy, and used the name it had been given by the fearful under-dwellers to strike terror into the very heart of Phodia. And it had done so gladly, for they were traitors, one and all.

  Yes, betrayal. That was the word for what it had felt, so many cycles ago, before it had heard the song of the Leviathan and found its true purpose. It had been betrayed, and now, it would exact the blood-price for that treachery. Asphodex would burn, as would every world that the Flaxian Dynasty had presumed to control. They would burn and be consumed.

  It hissed in growing frustration. The warrior’s mind refused to give up the one thing it needed to know above all others. It lunged forwards and grasped the struggling man’s head between its claws. The other genestealers released their grip on the captive and scuttled back as the broodlord loomed over its wounded foe. It stared down into his eyes, searching, as he pounded useless fists against its carapace. There was another name there, beneath the surface of its captive’s thoughts. It could taste his defiance, his blood-lust and… something else. Some strong desire… No, not a desire. Hope. Hope which was attached to one last name.

  Its eyes bulged in fury as it caught a whiff of that name. Alien muscle twitched and swelled, and genetically augmented bone cracked and shattered beneath a sudden, inexorable pressure. The dead man slid out of its grip, and his armour clanked loudly as it struck the ground. The broodlord’s throat sacs bulged and twitched as barely used vocal cords swelled, and a sound that might have been a name slipped from between its jaws as it threw back its head and screamed its anger to the dying sky.

  Four

  Karlaen heard the scream as it echoed through the palace. He knew no human throat had made that sound, and something in him could not help but shudder. It was a raw, animal cry, of something driven far beyond the limits of frustration. Whatever it was, part of him hoped that Aphrae had died before coming face to face with it.

  ‘Whatever it is–’ Leonos began.

  ‘–it sounds angry,’ Damaris finished.

  Karlaen looked back at the twins. Like them all their crimson armour was caked in gore, and many of the heavy ceramite plates had been cracked and scored by the claws of the genestealers. The barrels of their storm bolters still glowed hot. Neither appeared to be wounded however, which was a relief.

  As they moved down the corridor he looked around, taking stock of their surroundings as they put distance between themselves and the Tribune Chamber. The genestealers had not followed them directly into the spacious processional corridors beyond the chamber, but Karlaen could make out their shapes moving through the inky darkness of the ruins around them, and his sensors pinged relentlessly, alerting him to the presence of unseen foes. Occasionally, they would make as if to rush the slowly moving squad of Terminators, but would dart back into the darkness as the Blood Angels levelled their weapons.

  The corridors were wider than he had anticipated, shattered by the battle that had gutted the palace hours earlier. Whole sections of the dividing wall were missing, torn out by alien acids or heavy weapons fire. Ancient artworks, created by generations of Phodian craftsmen, and now reduced to scattered debris, crunched beneath the steady tread of Squad Alphaeus.

  ‘Aphrae is dead,’ Bartelo said, softly. It was the first thing he had said since they’d left the Tribune Chamber behind. Karlaen glanced at him in surprise. Bartelo was taciturn at the best of times, unless Aphrae was prodding him.

  ‘He died as the Emperor willed,’ Karlaen said. The words did not sound as comforting aloud as they had in his head, and he fell silent. Death was the companion of every Space Marine, for were they not the Emperor’s Angels of Death? Yet, even so, the Chapter was diminished by every death, and the loss of even one of their own cast a pall over the survivors.

  For Karlaen, particularly, that feeling was like an old companion, and one whose company he did not welcome. For a moment, he was somewhere else, not on a world, but within the vibrating innards of a space-going hulk, and he could hear the screams of the men who had followed him into the darkness as they died.

  He closed his organic eye and tried to banish the memories. But instead of fading, they clamoured more loudly, and his ears filled with a red hum. He want
ed to return to the Tribune Chamber and kill and kill and kill until there was nothing left alive. For a moment, the desire overwhelmed him. Then, Bartelo’s voice pierced the haze and he was once more himself.

  ‘We were inducted together, he and I,’ Bartelo said. He spoke steadily, as if in eulogy. ‘We journeyed to the Palace of Challenge together, across the desert, and fought back to back in the gladiatorial contests which awaited us there. He was uncouth, even then. There was too much laughter in him.’ He looked at Karlaen. ‘Captain, was he laughing as he died? I was not close enough to hear.’

  ‘No,’ Karlaen said. ‘He was not.’

  Bartelo was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. ‘Good. It is meet that a man should die with dignity. Laughter would only sully the moment.’ He sounded quietly pleased.

  Karlaen looked at the other Terminator for a moment, and then away. There were many in the Chapter like Bartelo – grim, unswerving and lacking in mirth. That he and Aphrae had been friends, of a sort, was obvious, but even so, almost inexplicable. Karlaen knew as much about the warriors under his command as a proper leader ought, but even so, some subtleties escaped him. He wanted to speak words of comfort to Bartelo, but was uncertain as to how to go about it. What was there to say?

  ‘Orders, captain?’ Alphaeus said, interrupting his train of thought.

  ‘We keep moving. According to the augur scans, there should be a security hub somewhere ahead of us,’ Karlaen said, grateful to turn his thoughts to his duty. ‘When we reach it, we might be able to use the security logs to track down our quarry.’

  ‘Good,’ Alphaeus said. ‘The sooner we’re out of here, the better. Listen to that racket – this ruin is crawling with tyranids.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘If I wanted to wade into that sort of mess, I’d have joined the main assault.’

  ‘I did not force you to come, brother,’ Karlaen said.

  ‘No, but who’ll keep you out of trouble if not me?’ Alphaeus said.

  Karlaen snorted. Though he would not say it out loud, he found the sergeant’s humour reassuring. ‘Keep moving, and keep an eye on your sensors. They’ve had a taste of our blood and I intend to see that they get no more than that.’

  He led them on, following the whispers of the augur readings towards the security hub. More than once they were forced to stop and form up as lean, monstrous shapes flooded towards them from out of side corridors, or plunged through the gaping holes in the close-set corridor walls. But as before, the genestealers would always retreat just before initiating contact, as if their harrying of the Blood Angels were no more than some demented child’s game. Then they would stalk above and below the squad, testing the limits of the Terminators’ patience before attacking again.

  In truth, Karlaen suspected that the beasts were attempting to entice them into wasting ammunition. Twice, he was forced to hold Bartelo back from simply filling a side passage with fire. While the promethium reserves of a heavy flamer were substantial, they were not limitless, and the genestealers seemed to know that. So they attacked again and again, heedless of casualties, trying to force the Terminators to expend valuable resources. A suicidal stratagem, but one that worked all too well.

  To Karlaen, that meant only one thing: there was a synapse creature close by – a commander of bugs and bio-beasts, a central node of the abominable will that guided Hive Fleet Leviathan. Tyranids were like any other feral animal, acting on instinct. But a synapse creature could turn those mindless beasts into a dedicated army with but a thought. That was what they were now facing – an enemy that would sacrifice a hundred for one without blinking, and seemed fully committed to doing so.

  That, in the end, was the greatest weapon at the Hive Mind’s disposal. Every world consumed only added to the incalculable number of bio-organisms that the hive fleet could employ in battle. Every fallen warrior was simply a bit more mass to be added to the bio-vats. And as the hive fleet swelled, more worlds fell beneath its expanding shadow.

  As that bleak thought hung heavy in his mind, he cycled once more through the vox signals, hoping to contact one of the other squads, or even elements of the forward invasion force. He knew, with an unerring instinct honed in a thousand confrontations with the tyranids, that he and the others would not be able to complete their mission without significant reinforcement. To think otherwise was hubris. Unfortunately, the only thing he could hear over the transmitter was the hiss of static and alien whispers.

  They pressed on, moving more quickly now. The palace occasionally shook, as if in sympathy with distant explosions, and the sound of talons scratching on walls and floors was omnipresent. The bio-sensors screamed warnings about foes that the Terminators could not see. Time was growing short.

  ‘Sounds like every beast in this part of the city is flooding into these ruins,’ Alphaeus murmured.

  ‘Good,’ Bartelo said. He hefted his heavy flamer. ‘More bodies for the pyre.’

  ‘Save your fuel,’ Karlaen said. He pointed at the reinforced security portcullis that blocked the corridor ahead with his hammer. ‘We’re here.’ He didn’t stop, but bulled into the portcullis, which was covered in hundreds of talon marks. The metal squealed as he peeled it open with his hands. When he had created enough of a gap, he used his hammer as a lever and forced it fully open. His sensors showed that the chamber beyond contained only one life form, if it could be called that. It was weak and thready, but Karlaen was determined to find it.

  ‘Survivors?’ Alphaeus asked.

  ‘I don’t think so. At least, not the kind you’re thinking of,’ Karlaen said. ‘Come.’ He forced his way through the damaged door and into the security hub, followed by the others. The space beyond the door was wide and filled with debris. It had seen hard fighting, despite the reinforced door. The walls and ceiling were badly damaged, and Karlaen took note of the toppled piles of sandbags and hastily erected barricades that marked portions of the chamber. Two parallel rows of statues marked the main drag of the chamber, and almost all had been knocked from their pedestals and shattered into unrecognisable lumps of marble.

  ‘They made a stand here,’ Alphaeus said, indicating the spent lasgun power cells and blood stains. He kicked at a crawling feeder-beast and sent it scuttling through a hole in the wall. He wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘These blasted beasts have already broken down the corpses. I can smell one of those digestive pools nearby.’

  ‘Not all of the corpses.’ Karlaen heaved a heavy chunk of fallen debris aside to reveal the twitching form of a servitor. The mindless drone of meat and metal flopped and sparked, its body broken beyond repair. Karlaen saw immediately what had befallen it. It had been caught by the debris and smashed to the ground, its limbs and spine pulped.

  He sank down beside it. There was something pitiable about the dull-eyed thing, and for a moment, he allowed himself to wonder who or what it had been before it had been converted to the mindless husk it now was. The ruined mouth tried to speak, and sparks flared from its burst larynx, spattering the front of Karlaen’s armour.

  ‘It’s not a combat servitor,’ Alphaeus said.

  ‘It is a holomat,’ Karlaen said. ‘A messenger. And it was likely on its way to deliver a message when it was caught in the attack.’ He tapped a finger against the curved mark that had been etched into the servitor’s pale expanse of forehead.

  He took the damaged servitor’s head in both hands and tore it loose from the damaged chassis with an effortless twist. Holding up the head by its cables, he examined it for a moment to make sure it was undamaged. Then he attached it to his belt. ‘I’ll extract the data when we have found a more defensible location. For now, we should–’

  He broke off as a lean, alien shape leapt over the gap above him, and Karlaen looked up. The others followed his gaze. Proximity sensors began to blare warnings to every Terminator in the chamber. He readied himself for an attack from above.

  Instead, the attack came from a section of acid-chewed wall, and targeted not himself, but Bartelo, who turned as D
amaris, the closest to him, shouted a warning. Something crystalline streaked out of the darkness and caught Bartelo as he turned, knocking him from his feet with a bright burst of heat and light that momentarily illuminated the area, revealing fallen statues and shattered debris. Karlaen and the others moved to aid their downed comrade as his attackers moved into the glare of the stab-lights.

  Three long-legged shapes, taller than any Terminator and just as broad, loped into view in a rattle of chitin plates and bio-armour. The trio of tyranid warriors were monstrous parodies of the human form, stretched and distorted into something nightmarish. The beasts charged towards the Terminators on flat, heavy hooves, smashing through the rubble as they came. They wielded bio-whips and bone blades with a precise, inhuman grace and filled the air with sub-sonic hunting calls as they lunged to the attack.

  Five

  Karlaen levelled his storm bolter and pumped shot after shot into the charging monstrosities. Alphaeus and the others did the same, as Bartelo began to struggle to his feet, a smoking rent in his armour. The tyranid warriors split up, moving swiftly. They were big beasts, with broad, wedge-shaped skulls and four arms. Powerful, jointed legs propelled them forwards and acidic bile streamed from their toothy maws as they exposed their fangs in anticipation.

  Karlaen shouted, ‘Get Bartelo on his feet.’ Then, hammer in hand, he moved to intercept the closest of their attackers. The creatures were the synaptic foot soldiers of the hive fleet, and Karlaen wondered if these were the source of the malign will behind the suicidal attacks of the genestealers. They were powerful and deadly creatures, and a match for any Space Marine, even one clad in Terminator armour. There would be more on the way, as well. Where there was one brood, there were many.