“You can tell your fathers and mothers,” Hussari said, finally, “that you were protecting the men of the Banna tribe. The Turenags just happened to be hiding behind us.”
The men roared with laughter or nodded their appreciation. This pleased Hussari; they were ready.
“Many of you have participated in the desert races of Skakar or Harneel. This is no different. Your priority isn’t to engage the enemy; it’s to outrun them, while keeping them close enough for them to continue chasing you. Use your weapons to draw their attention or to save a fellow pilot. Do not stand your ground. Race, and race as a squadron. Use cross-patterns to draw enemies away from you and to create the mother of all sandstorms. The Aba Aba Mushira willing, I will see you when this is done.
“But,” Hussari added as a sombre afterthought, “if your bird is brought to the ground and escape is impossible… nobody will think less of you if you save the last shot for yourself, just don’t tell Commissar Rezail I said that.”
The men nodded, their enthusiasm dampened by the gravity of what lay ahead. But, they remained steady.
“Who do we war for?” Hussari shouted.
“We war for the Emperor, aya!” each man shouted back. Without a word, Hussari sank to his knees and faced east with his men. They prayed, opening their arms to the sky to receive the Emperor’s blessing, and kissing the ground where they believed His feet rested, in absolute submission to His will.
4
The venting gas from the snail-craft cooled the glass fields, solidifying them enough to support weight. Soon, more tyranids would emerge from the spawning chambers, and the horde would begin its spread across the planet, seeking out organic material to digest and add to their birthing factorums. The tyranids on the ground already seemed eager and skittish. They appeared to smell the air, drawing on some scent that drove them to a greater frenzy.
Major Hussari prayed they couldn’t smell the fear impregnating every drop of his sweat. The tyranids remained in their clusters, however, agitated but otherwise disciplined.
The opening salvo caught the tyranids by surprise. Six birds from the various squadrons Cadian-and Armageddon-pattern Sentinels, swooped over the lip of a dune and opened fire with their long-range guns. The air crackled with the energy fire of the lascannons, while the fast revolving chambers of the autocannons spewed out a steady chain of rounds. The Sentinels continued running along the dune’s ridge, their guns swivelled towards the tyranid mob and firing blindly with accurate devastation.
Tyranids exploded from the autocannon fire, the stream of shells stitching its path through their ranks and tearing craters in carapace, bone and glass. The lascannon unleashed steady beams into more creatures, vaporising smaller targets and punching searing holes through the larger ones. The tyranids were so tightly clustered, it was easy shooting. Almost every second drew its share of tyranid ichor.
Major Hussari could have stayed on the dune’s lip for a long while, strafing the enemy lines and venting the lethargy of the last few months, but the tyranids were reacting far too quickly for his taste. From the moment the first shots landed, the tyranids shrieked in a cacophony of voices, and began moving as one. The glass field cracked and broke under the combined weight of the tyranids moving with a united purpose. Some were already firing back with electrically charged rounds.
Many shots landed comfortably short of the birds, but a cluster of tyranids with simian-like swaggers and limbs carried mounted cannons on their backs, their ammo sacs pulsing and throbbing. They braced, and the tendon pistons on their organic cannons contracted. Blue electricity enveloped the cannon muzzles as the creatures fired clustered spores at the Sentinels.
“Scatter!” Hussari said into his micro-bead. A volley of electrified shots sailed through the air, almost lazy in their arcs. The birds broke formation down the dune slope, each of them scrambling to rejoin their squadrons for the mad run.
Hussari silently blessed each man for his skill as the birds half ran, half skated down the dune’s back. Pistons whined and contorted metal groaned as the Sentinels moved in ways they weren’t meant to move. They should have tripped and fallen, but the pilots were trained for desert combat, trained to stay on their feet in the most uneven of terrains.
Behind them, the spores hissed and popped. Hussari glanced backwards and saw the spore pods explode on their descent. They unleashed a sudden rain of long needles that peppered the sand, missing all but one Sentinel, a straggler that had reacted too slowly to the danger. Hussari watched in horror as the needles imbedded themselves into the steel chassis of Corporal Kadi Y’dar’s bird. Several shots breached the canopy and impaled Kadi’s flesh with fifteen centimetre-long needles. Even from where he was, Hussari saw the needles spinning, drilling through steel and skin.
Kadi screamed and contorted in pain inside his cockpit. His bird toppled end over end down the dune, towards Hussari and others.
“Move!” Hussari shouted as Kadi’s bird barrelled down on them. Hussari pushed his bird into a long stride and jumped down into the trough between the dunes. His actuators and pistons rattled hard, and Hussari was wrenched down tight by his safety harness. The birds scattered in tight turns along the trough, almost being upended in the process, but Kadi’s Sentinel rolled past them, kicking up sprays of sand, and barely missing the other pilots.
Hussari groaned with relief before yelling into his micro-bead: “Go, go, go!”
The Sentinels split to rejoin their squadrons. The dunes shed sheets of sand from the approaching tyranid stampede.
Corporal Elaph Cartouk, squadron leader of the Burning Falcons, lay on his stomach at the edge of the dune and stared through his magnoculars. He felt exposed outside his bird, so close to the snail ship, but as Major Hussari had promised, their attack was drawing the tyranid horde away. He watched as the swarm streamed over and around the dunes, in the opposite direction. Cartouk breathed a sigh of relief, and stared at the snail ship. Only a handful of the creatures remained.
“What now?” Private Dubar Iban Dubar whispered. He was a young man, barely a campaign old, but already familiar with fighting the tyranids.
“Emperor willing, Hussari will keep the tyranids busy long enough for reinforcements to arrive.”
“So we wait?”
“We wait.”
After a moment, Dubar whispered, “I never thought I’d be hoping for a Banna to succeed.”
5
To the untrained eye, the squadrons didn’t appear to be operating together, but then again, this wasn’t tank warfare. The Sentinels used their speed to their advantage, weaving around one another and hopefully raising enough dust to blind the enemy behind them. The Sentinels were in contact with each other, each squadron watching out for its own, and the squadron commanders answering to Hussari.
Sergeant Cortikas Iath’s squadron, the War Chasers, split to the east, taking a portion of the tyranid brood with them. He manoeuvred through the troughs of the dune sea, his general course already determined. At first the tyranids tried overtaking him by mounting the dune crests, but that slowed them even further. Eventually, the tyranids learned, and funnelled through the maze of furrows, following the squadron like the head of a flood.
“Sergeant!” a voice cried over the micro-bead. It belonged to Private Deeter Mohar, a spotty pilot with one campaign under his belt already. “They’re splitting off!”
Iath pivoted in his seat to look, the Sentinels moving and rattling too much for him to make use of rear-reflectors. Behind him, a group of creatures was veering off into a connecting channel. They were quick runners, their six legs barely touching the sand, their squat barrel bodies compacted with muscles. Every so often, they generated a burst of leaping speed that propelled them ahead of the pack.
“They’re trying to outflank us,” Iath said. “Mohar, on my left flank, and make ready.”
The three Sentinels shifted position, moving around one another with barely a break in their speed. Rounds whipped past their open canopie
s and slapped off their metal skins. Some shots looked jagged and barbed, and others consisted of super-heated matter. What distressed Iath were the splat sounds he heard as rounds struck his bird’s chassis. He knew they were organic in nature, and prayed they didn’t eat through the Sentinel’s plate, or remain volatile for long.
Fortunately, it took almost all their speed to keep pace with the Sentinels, so whenever a tyranid fired at them, it also fell back.
“Get ready, Mohar!” Iath shouted. “They’re going to flank us.”
The squadron was just about to intersect a channel to their left. The pack of runners emerged around the shrinking edge of the dune, their toothy maws open and their long red cartilage tongues whipping around in their open maws. They were almost on top of Iath’s squadron, their speed blinding, their piercing howls startling.
“Now!” he screamed, perhaps more loudly than he intended.
Mohar swivelled in his Catachan-pattern bird and opened up with his only weapon, his flamer, spewing out a gush of promethium fuelled flame. The gel fire washed over the runners and clung to their skin as it burned. They screeched and dropped to the sand, writhing in agony. One collided with another pack on the heels of the War Chasers, setting several of its compatriots ablaze. It writhed around momentarily, before a larger tyranid with cloven hooves and two scythes for upper arms sliced into the beast and dismembered it with a handful of blows.
The last thing Iath saw before turning his attention forward was the remaining tyranids devouring their dead compatriots. No living matter was left behind in battle. Everything was devoured, everything reclaimed.
6
Sergeant Umar Hadoori of the Heretic Slayers squadron played games with the tyranids, trying to keep them off balance. He had to continually remind himself that because of their hive instinct, the tyranids could transmit vital information to one another almost instantly. Any ploy he used would have to be quick… quick enough for him to fire a couple of rounds before veering away and running for dear life.
Private Damask’s death had already put him at a disadvantage, his squadron of three birds now down to two, but Hadoori prided himself on his cunning and quick wits. At his signal, the other Sentinel split from him around a dune. The two birds raced parallel to one another, straddling and flanking either side of the dune as it rose between them. They succeeded in shearing the tyranids into two groups.
At the next channel, as one dune tapered away and another began, the two Sentinels suddenly wove past each other. The manoeuvre was so sudden that the tyranids stayed on their targets and tried to switch over. The chasing mobs collided with one another, all manner of beast slamming into allies and tripping over each other. To their credit, only the front wave collided. The rear guard merely ran around or climbed over their companions, and began following the new targets.
Sergeant Hadoori was pleased. “Well there’s a trick that will never work again.” But it didn’t need to for the time being. The tyranid mob had fallen back, giving Hadoori the breathing space he needed to concoct some other plan.
7
“Not again,” Hussari moaned. He’d managed to pull up alongside Corporal Tanis “Mad” Maraibeh’s Sentinel. Mad was an apt description for the squadron’s maverick and unhinged pilot.
Maraibeh was driving with his bare feet, pushing both steering levers forward and making minute shifts in direction with skilled practice. Hussari knew better than to chastise the grizzled old man with his dark skin and thistle of tribal scars knotted on his face. He had a well-chewed cigar in his mouth, unlit. He enjoyed the taste of them, he said.
“How far behind us do you think they are?” Maraibeh asked over the micro-bead.
Hussari peered back and adjusted his running path so that he was clear of his own dust cloud in a moment. They’d entered a long, wide river bed, and the running was smooth. After checking the green auspex screen to confirm, “I’d say two minutes,” he responded, running close to Maraibeh again. “Set the timers for two-and-a-half.”
Maraibeh nodded, and cranked the screw timer atop his home-made pipe bomb. He tossed it out of the open-topped cockpit and primed two more tubes, which followed the first.
About two-and-a-half minutes later, the three charges detonated in fifteen second increments. Hussari was far enough away from the squadron’s dust trail to see the explosions blossom in the heart of the tyranid mob. Beasts were thrown into the air, and the remaining group spread out further across the river bed’s width.
“Did I get ’em?” Maraibeh asked over the micro-bead.
“Confirm that. You can probably shave ten seconds off the first timer, but they’ve spread out. You won’t snare as many next time.”
“Smart bastards,” Maraibeh grumbled.
“Too smart. How many bombs did you make?” Hussari asked.
“Eighteen… fifteen now.”
“Save them for when we really need them.”
“Yes, sir,” Maraibeh reported back. “That should keep them angry for a while.”
Hussari strode back into formation, the striding rumble of his squadron comfortably familiar. He noticed, however, that Maraibeh was still steering with his feet, cradling the back of his head with his hands.
8
Corporal Rawan led his Holy Striders through the uneven dune canyons. His auspex was a collision of topographical information, a mess of orbital resonance taken when they landed over three months ago and the current data streaming through auspex. With an angry snarl, he shut off the old intel; the dunes shifted quickly around here and the orbital scans were no longer valid. He’d have to rely on auspex to navigate through the maze of dunes, regardless of how limited its range.
More shots screamed by Rawan’s bird. He glanced back and realised that the tyranid swarms chasing him were only metres behind. The damn things were fast, and no matter what he did, his squadron couldn’t shake them. The beasts were relentless, and for the past couple of hours since this began, they’d been gaining steadily.
The collective shrieks startled Rawan as six-legged runners launched themselves at the Sentinels. Rawan watched in horror as two of the creatures latched on to the rearmost Sentinel, piloted by Private Elma Taris. One of the creatures tried to grab an exhaust stack and pull itself up, but burned its hand on the super-hot metal. It let go with an angry cry, but held on to the multi-laser cannon and its battery packs with its other three arms.
The second runner was already atop the canopy frame, unbalancing Taris’ bird. Taris fought for control, and the last thing Rawan saw before turning away was the creature atop the canopy plunging two spiked pereopods into the cockpit. A geyser of arterial spray followed. The Sentinel fell, and Rawan prayed that Taris would be dead long before the devouring horde swept over him.
Rawan’s auspex picked up more movement along the adjacent dunes. The tyranids were moving along the ridge crests, firing down at them. This time the pack consisted of larger creatures: cloven-hoofed, bone-crest swept brows, multi-jointed legs, upper arms that seemed to melt into scythes and pairs of lower arms that held bone-guns. What they lacked in speed, they made up for in range.
“No!” Rawan cried, giving voice to his worst fears. The Holy Striders were about to be overtaken.
The tyranids opened fire, peppering the Sentinels with a salvo of shots. Rawan managed to pivot his bird’s cabin in time, allowing the twin exhaust stacks behind his cockpit to shield him. Private Damous Obasra, in the Sentinel ahead of Rawan, wasn’t so lucky. He spun his frame around, but a round splattered against his canopy frame, and his face. He screamed as the acidic globules destroyed his oculars, and then attacked flesh and bone. Within seconds, his entire skull appeared to collapse, right before Obasra’s death spasms sent his Sentinel crashing to the ground.
Rawan tried to avoid the fallen bird, but he clipped the Sentinel on his way past, tangling his legs with Obasra’s. The steering levers whipped out of Rawan’s hands and his Sentinel fell hard. It crashed and rolled a couple of times before f
inally coming to a stop.
Despite the safety harness locking him in place, the fall knocked the wind from Rawan’s lungs. He was rattled and on his side. He knew enough to know that he was in trouble as he fumbled for the holster snap of his laspistol. The tyranids were bearing down on him, the critters running full bore on all six legs to reach him. They were a handful of metres away when Rawan managed to pull his pistol. Unfortunately, instinct took over when the creatures launched themselves at him, their mouths open wide and their cartilage tongues wet with clear mucus. Rawan fired two crackling las-shots that ionized the air with yellow beams. The first shot bounced off a beast’s exoskeleton armour, but the second shot caught it in the mouth. The dagger of light punched through the back of its skull.
A large tyranid landed atop the Sentinel, rocking it with its weight. Its scythe arm stabbed through the canopy frame, and through the meat and muscle of Rawan’s thigh. He tried to scream, tried to draw his pistol up to his temple, but the monster vomited on his arms. The yellowish mucus began to dissolve his body. Rawan’s hand fell off, dropping the pistol, the caustic bile instantly disintegrating the exposed bone. It was breaking him down into bio-soup. Rawan continued screaming as the tyranids arrived to lap up the remains of his dissolving body, their heads fighting to push through the frame of his exposed canopy.
9
They were over a dozen kilometres away from the snail ship when the small caravan of two Hellhounds and six Sentinels came to rest. The Hellhounds were modified troop carriers, each equipped with an inferno cannon and a turret-mounted heavy bolter. The two squadrons of Sentinels consisted of Catachan- and Mars-pattern birds, short-range vehicles designed to spread terror through the ranks of an enemy that felt no fear.
Corporal Cartouk was at the crest of the dune, staring out at the tyranid ship through his magnoculars, when the vehicles arrived in the dune trough below his perch. He slid down the sand slope, demanding, “Is this it? Is this our support?”
[Imperial Guard 04] - Desert raiders Page 10
