by Nick Kyme
Sweat beaded the master scout’s forehead. Telion clenched his fists as he continued to probe, to ransack the genetic matter he had ingested, manipulate the chromosomal information implanted there and convert it into something he could use and understand.
After what seemed like many long minutes had passed, but in actuality was only a few seconds, Telion exhaled a calming breath and relaxed. When he opened his eyes again, he allowed himself a rare smile.
‘Make contact with Captain Sicarius at once,’ he told Scipio. ‘Tell him we have found the beast’s lair.’
PHASE FOUR
SLAY THE BEAST
IULUS CRANKED A round into the breech of his bolt pistol and smiled grimly at his battle-brothers.
His squad, the Immortals, were sitting around their sergeant, secured in their battle-harnesses in the troop hold of a Rhino APC. The bulky, slat-nosed vehicle ground on thick tracks over the shifting Black Reach sands at full throttle. Engines gunned to maximum bellowed through the metal hull, the troop hold rattling vigorously with the resonance. The Space Marines exhibited no distress, having undertaken numerous similar hell-for-leather deployments before.
They had left Ghospora Hive four hours previously and were hurtling at full speed as soon as they’d passed the gate. Once the message that Sulphora was under attack had been conveyed to Captain Sicarius, Iulus and his squad were ordered to the defence of Ghospora’s sister hive immediately. Praxor, as the officer in charge and with all the siege deterrents in place, was to remain behind, much to the sergeant’s chagrin. It seemed to Iulus that Praxor’s views about their captain were changing too.
Iulus gave them no heed; to him, one battlefield was much the same as another.
‘How close are we to the gate, Brother Glavius?’ he asked the driver through the Rhino’s internal comm-feed.
The response was crackly and fraught with static. Glavius sounded slightly preoccupied. ‘Approximately three thousand metres, sir.’
‘How far are the greenskins from the wall?’ Iulus continued, amber strip lights washing his bald pate and limning his armour.
‘Approximately two thousand three hundred metres.’
‘Then we had best make haste.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Iulus cut the link and turned to his battle-brothers. ‘Are you ready for hell again, my Immortals?’ he asked them.
‘Aye!’ the response was resounding and in unison.
‘Courage and honour,’ Iulus growled, and his warriors echoed him.
Disengaging his harness so he could stand and reach for the fire point in the roof, Iulus muttered, ‘Let’s see what we’re facing…’
The sergeant threw open the Rhino’s top hatch, allowing light, air and dust to flood in. Squinting as he hooked up his rebreather mask, Iulus stood up fully and emerged from the fire point.
Over two kilometres out, Sulphora loomed like a jagged, black knife rammed into the crust of the planet. The sun was high in an ochre sky and threw harsh red light onto every facing surface, casting it in the hue of blood. Defence lasers and battle cannons emplaced on the walls shrieked and boomed in unison, the tremors reaching the Rhino all the way across the sand plain. Small-arms fire and heavier support guns rippled along ramparts and atop watch towers.
Though smaller than its neighbour, Sulphora was almost a carbon copy of Ghospora Hive, flash moulded into existence by an unimaginative engineer or mason-artisan, pock-marking Black Reach’s surface just like all the others.
An immense gate loomed ahead, stark and prosaic. The flat, black slab of buttressed metal was grinding open slowly on immense gears. The Rhino would only need a crack to slip through.
‘Magnoculars,’ Iulus ordered, reaching down into the troop hold and coming up with the device in his hand. He surveyed the upcoming battle theatre through the scopes. Sable Gunners regiments were thin here, too. There were many gaps along the walls, gun emplacements unmanned and abandoned. But there was something else too; something that Ghospora had not had during its initial time of need – Space Marines. The brilliant blue armour of the Ultramarines shone as they moved along parapets, organised the native troops or made ready with cannons of their own. It would be good to rejoin the company, Iulus thought. He hoped to fight alongside Scipio again.
Panning to the east, Iulus saw the foe at once. The greenskins had massed a sizeable force, their own artillery spitting back against the Sulphoran guns. Brutish bikes and ramshackle wagons conveyed the horde, more ork dreadnoughts and the ubiquitous footsloggers marching in their wake.
‘Alien scum,’ Iulus cursed. ‘You just don’t know when you’re beaten.’
The sergeant ducked down again, handing back the magnoculars, and sealed the fire point hatch. ‘Brother Glavius…’ he said into the comm-feed once he was back in his battle-harness.
‘Eight hundred metres, sir.’
Iulus cut the link again, addressed his battle-brothers. ‘Thirty seconds.’
Thirty seconds, he thought. It was going to be tight.
THE RHINO SCREAMED through the gate of Sulphora Hive and slewed to halt. Smoke was still issuing off the track axles when the rear and side hatches opened and Iulus and the Immortals piled out.
The heavy gate thundered shut behind them, the sentry crews working double time on the gears to seal it before the ork assault hit.
The hive interior was frantic with activity, ammunition couriers scurrying back and forth with manual haulers brimming with shells and belt feeds. Sable Gunner officers shouted orders from ramparts. Regiments of troops mustered up stairways and along battlements. Watch towers and emplacements were manned and made ready.
Amidst it all, Iulus watched as a Thunderhawk gunship descended from the sky, a gunmetal landing pad clearing for its descent.
Iulus approached the vessel while its turbofans were still whirring to a halt. The embarkation ramp lowered and Chaplain Orad stepped out with Squad Octavian.
‘Report to Veteran Sergeant Daceus,’ he barked at Iulus when he saw him, before marching off to marshal another part of the defence.
‘Brother-Chaplain…’ Iulus ventured.
Orad turned and fixed the sergeant with a glare through his skull-helm. To anyone other than Iulus, the effect would have been disconcerting.
‘Sergeant Vorolanus – is he with the muster at Sulphora?’
‘Your brother has been seconded into Brother-Sergeant Telion’s service.’ The Chaplain offered no further explanadon as he continued about his business.
At least he is still alive, thought Iulus to himself, and went off in search of Daceus.
‘LOWER QUADRANT WALL,’ said Veteran-Sergeant Daceus, shouting to be heard over the assault. ‘The Sulphoran defenders are weakest there.’
Iulus saluted and was about to get on his way when an urgent message came in through Daceus’s comm-feed. The veteran-sergeant had a finger to his ear, opening the feed, and crouched behind the battlements to better block out the surrounding clamour.
‘Belay that order, Sergeant Fennion,’ he barked.
‘Sir?’
‘Convene at the landing pad immediately,’ he said. ‘We are taking the Gladius and the Pilium.’ A look of belligerent satisfaction grew over the Ultramarine’s features. ‘By Guilliman, Telion has found the beast’s lair.’
THE GREENSKIN SENTRY struggled and then went limp as its life-blood oozed from its severed jugular vein.
Scipio hooked his arms underneath its brawny body and dragged the creature out of sight behind a scattering of boulders.
Flying their land speeders in low, the scouts had reached the submersible’s destination swiftly. From the air, they had traced the long oily line of the Blackwallow until reaching its terminus at the edge of the granite cliff. From there the river peeled off into a wide and thrashing waterfall. Grey foam erupted where the falling water pooled in a shallow basin below, surrounded by a black boulder field wretched with harsh scrub and other resilient desert foliage.
The cliff face it
self was almost sheer. There were few holds and the rocks were smooth and slick with pressure erosion. In places ragged spikes thrust out like rotten teeth, sharp enough to shear carapace. Any climb would be perilous. Telion, on his stomach as he had peered over the edge, had mapped a route in less than a minute. On his advance reconnaissance he had also counted four sentry points, viewed in detail through the magnoculars, set around the base of the waterfall. The orks were well hidden, spread in pitted craters and had scopes of their own. Runtish greenskin slaves carried messages back and forth across the boulder field like pendulums between them. Telion’s suspicions had been raised when he saw one disappear behind the flowing curtain of water, only to remerge a few moments later on the other side.
The speeders had touched down a kilometre out, approaching from the south, out of the greenskins’ immediate line of sight. The scout squads, one led by Telion, the other by Scipio with half of the Thunderbolts, had trekked over the boulder-strewn sand on two divergent routes. They’d reached the edge of the concealed ork camp at opposite ends of the waterfall and proceeded to stalk their way through the boulder field, taking out the sentries as they went.
The greenskin warlord had kept his outer guards light. Just three orks and six gretchin occupied each of the four vantage points. Any more would have been too difficult to conceal effectively and would be more likely to arouse suspicion. Zanzag was cautious as well as cunning, it seemed.
The scouts worked through the sentries systematically, neutralising them covertly with blades and silenced rounds. They moved swiftly, like shadows along the narrow passes through the rocks. Only when they reached the very edge of the falls and the last of the sentry points did an ork see them approaching. It was about to alert its kin when it realised they were already dead: one choking on its own blood with a combat blade lodged in its neck, the other face down in the dirt with an oozing head wound.
Telion put a round through its throat at fifty metres, closed and put two more through its head at twenty whilst at a run.
The two scout squads were reunited at the final sentry point before the ork had hit the ground. Now close to the bottom of the cliff face, the scouts could clearly see a wide crevice, large enough for an aircraft, concealed by the black torrent.
The crash of the waterfall blotted out sound as effectively as an engine baffler, so Telion battle-signed for them to enter in single file.
Scipio reciprocated the order to his squad and, with bolt pistol readied, they penetrated the curtain of water and went into the gloom beyond.
THE SCOUTS ENTERED a vast natural tunnel. Thin rivulets of dark liquid flowed along the ground between them as they hugged the walls either side, using natural alcoves for cover. Now they were further away from the waterfall it was easier to detect noise and commotion coming from ahead. Light issued through a roughly hewn aperture at the tunnel’s end. Two large ork bodies cradling custom cannons were framed in it. Scipio could smell their foetid stink on the air.
Telion battle-signed for the scouts to stop. They obeyed immediately, keeping to the shadows, as unmoving as statues. The master scout then went ahead, treading silently.
There was a distance of fifty metres between the ork guards and the waiting Space Marine scouts. Scipio lost sight of Telion after five. The next time he saw him, the master scout had stabbed the first greenskin in the neck and loomed before the second. Upon seeing the vengeful form of Telion, the ork was about to cry out but was prevented by a savage punch that snapped its hyoid bone. Enraged, the beast swept a meaty fist at the Ultramarine, but Telion ghosted from the blow’s path and landed one of his own to its jaw. Spitting blood and sputum, one claw clutching its ruined neck, the ork went for its custom cannon. The master scout stepped within its reach, disarming it, before reversing his attack and slipping his blood-slick combat blade through the creature’s chin and up into its brain. It shuddered once before slumping dead. Grimacing with the effort of carrying the brute, Telion laid the ork down then moved over to the other and double-tapped it with his silenced bolter through the skull, just to be sure. His work done, he beckoned the scouts onward.
The tunnel opened out in a massive cavern. The rock here, much like that of the cliff, was worn smooth by the constantly trickling rivulets of water peeling down the sides. They collected on a massive field of stalactites protruding from the vaulted ceiling and dripped downwards like reluctant rain. The runoff gathered in craters that pock-marked the raised sedimentary platforms around the edges of the cavern. Ambient light refracted from luminescent mineral deposits, veining the rugged rock like streaks of marble.
Scipio could see further mineral strains flashing farther back into the gloom that suggested unseen depths, possibly even a cave system. The cavern was the major organ of that system, its tunnels its arteries. And it was immense, easily large enough to hold an entire fighter squadron from a strike cruiser – large enough, in fact, to hold an army.
Scipio guessed that the vast cavern had been formed naturally, drained over time and then expanded by orkish ingenuity. The Blackwallow flowed over the cliff face and into this very chamber before wending eastwards to the Sable Sea. It collected in a vast, dark lagoon in front of them.
It was deep, much deeper than the Astartes had first realised. The orks had directed it into six parallel channels, a crude concourse of ferrocrete alongside each one. Scipio balked when he saw what was moored in each of the channels: submersibles. Some underground channel must link the lagoon to the main stretch of the river, its pervasive tributaries allowing unparalleled and clandestine access to most of the planet.
A fat promethium line stretched down one side of the chamber and ran on into the unknown darkness beyond. The orks had tapped the subterranean reserve and must be using it to fuel their vehicles. It appeared that the Morkilus was just a sixth of the greenskins’ maritime strength.
Scipio used his magnoculars to survey the vessels more closely.
They were all of a similar basic design with the usual anarchic flourishes the greenskins favoured. Each one bristled with guns and had names like Orktober, Dak Bork, Gorkliath, Tinteef and Sharky written in glyph script. It appeared the orks were creative in their madness.
The half-dozen subs were arrayed in a busy docking station where scores of bent-backed gretchin loaders bustled back and forth with tools, drums and crates. Scipio panned the magnoculars further up the cavern, and saw that larger greenskins moved amongst the runts, low-slung stubbers draped over their broad shoulders. Scipio recognised the cigar-smoking ork from the previous night’s surveillance. It was inspecting a cache of weapons in a steel ammunition crate marked with the Imperial eagle: weapons “liberated” from the defeated hives no doubt.
Beyond the docking strips, the cavern opened out still further into a huge expanse of ferrocrete. Here was where the bulk of the greenskins gathered. There were thousands: drinking, brawling, gambling; some throttled their runtish cousins out of sadistic pleasure, others discharged weapons into the air seemingly at random, bellowing and roaring with bestial mirth.
More racks of weapons and munitions crates stacked at the fringes of the ferrocrete plaza were being tested and tinkered with by what appeared to be some form of orkoid mechanic or engineer. The greenskins were obviously planning a major offensive. The architect of it all, their grand warlord Zanzag, sat at the very end of the chamber.
Numerous ammo crates and fuel drums had been lashed together to form a makeshift throne. There, Zanzag presided over his charges like a king. Gretchin slave runts hurried around him, fulfilling his every whim, whilst an ork in a blood-stained smock and carrying a fat syringe performed some kind of brutal surgery upon the warlord. The beast’s broad back, criss-crossed with two black belts festooned with knives and cleavers, obscured Scipio’s view, but the Ultramarine thought he caught the flash of a razor-saw before he lowered the magnoculars.
Crude sodium lighting rigs had been erected in the chamber, thick cables looped from each unit pressure-bolted into the v
aulted cavern ceiling. They spat sparks intermittently, and offered feeble illumination.
The scouts used it to their advantage, making their way stealthily into the cavern. Silently, they slid into the lagoon, navigating around the raised edges split into two squads. With just their eyes and the tops of their heads above the waterline, the scouts arrived at the busy dock, climbed up onto the ferrocrete and took cover amongst the clutter.
Every scout carried a belt of six krak grenades.
Scipio eyed the nearest submersible, the Orktober.
They wouldn’t have long before Sicarius and the rest of 2nd Company arrived – they had to work quickly.
SCIPIO RETURNED SILENTLY to his hiding place with an empty grenade belt. He secured a tiny palm-sized detonator in his webbing and waited. The ork surgeon had finished its ministrations and, as it stepped back, Scipio saw Zanzag clearly for the first time. The warlord was massive. Huge armoured guards full of spikes were strapped to his brawny shoulders. A jaw plate was bolted over his maw; the crude stitching overlaid old scar-tissue and was still visible running down the beast’s neck. Its red eyes were set into a mutilated face wretched with rings and studs, and narrowed with malign intelligence.
It appeared the warlord had given up its power axe, as one of its arms was now encased in some kind of power claw, not unlike the one carried by the dreadnought Scipio had fought on the fields of Ghospora. The device snapped impatiently, pneumatics hissing, as if eager for blood. In his other hand, the beast clutched one of the customised cannon, though this one was larger and more unfathomably elaborate than the others Scipio had seen. The warlord rested the gun on his lap like a favoured pet, whilst a gretchin with unfeasibly large ears held up a polished piece of scrap like a mirror so that Zanzag could inspect the surgeon’s handiwork.
The warlord regarded its reflection for a few moments before snarling and cuffing the runt to the ground. Zanzag was about to kick it when the entire cavern started to shake. Clods of grit and rock cascaded from the ceiling and the sodium rigs flickered intermittently as if in warning.
