The offspring lurched suddenly to one side and all of us, tyranid and Space Marine alike, were knocked from our feet. Hwygir and the ’gaunt bodies rolled away. I hefted the cumbersome gun and scrambled back where Cassios and the rest of the squad had regrouped.
“It’s accelerating,” Cassios said without a glance back towards where Hwygir had fallen. “We have to move faster.”
“Does it matter?” Vitellios asked. “We’re inside it now, it’s not getting away!”
“Every second we delay gives it time to call in more beasts.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” he jumped up, ever the fearless one, and smashed the butt of his shotgun against the next door-valve. The valve shrank back and he led us through. He made it a single step before a set of jaws within the valve snapped shut, razor-sharp teeth puncturing the length of Vitellios’ body from his ankle to his head. I grabbed his arm, wedged the barrel under his shoulder and fired into the darkness, into whatever monster lay beyond. The door-mouth rippled in pain and slid back into the walls. It was too late, though, for Vitellios. His face was fixed in an expression of surprise, no last witticism to give. The hive-trash fell and I felt the loss of a brother.
It was then that we truly understood that it was not just these ’gaunts: every single piece of flesh around us wished us dead. The wall algae blazed brightly as we came near to draw the beasts, bulbed stalks burst and covered us in spores that sought to burrow into our armour, cysts showered us with bio-acid, even the muscles of the floor rippled as we fired, to disrupt our aim. It would have been enough to stop any human warriors, but we are Astartes. The Angels of Death. And all the offspring’s efforts could not keep us from our quest’s end.
“We are close,” Cassios declared, as another ’gaunt lay in pieces at his feet.
“How close?” I shouted as I delivered another volley of fire against the creatures pursuing us.
“Can’t you hear it?”
I could hear nothing over the explosions of the bolt shells and the roar of the offspring’s progress. It must be close to birthing now, but I did not care. Gricole would see it as soon as it emerged, he would know to carry a message back to the fleet. Others would know, they just would not know what had happened to us.
“I hear it!” Pasan cried, and then I heard it too: a deep throbbing sound.
“Brothers!” Cassios announced. “I give you the heart of the beast!”
The single organ, if it was just one, filled the chamber beyond. It was a giant column, surrounded by red bloated chambers. From the top of each chamber split massive leeches that surmounted the top of the pillar and descended into the centre. It looked as though eight great Sothan phantine beasts were drinking from a pool. The entire structure constantly pulsed and shifted as gallons of fluid pumped through it each second. It was the energy cortex, and it was covered by tyranids. Smaller ’gaunts with bio-weapons, larger ones with great scything claws, a few at the top even had wings.
“It’s a trap,” Pasan gasped. “It let us get this far…”
“It’s not a trap if we know it’s coming,” Cassios told him.
No, it’s insanity. I glanced at Cassios again; his eyes were at peace. Perhaps he really had been tainted, perhaps all he had done was in service of some xenos impulse inserted into his brain. Perhaps all the while we had been inside the offspring, the offspring had been inside him.
“Why don’t they attack?” Pasan whispered.
“Maybe… maybe…” Narro’s mind raced, he was feeling the disorientation worst of all. “Maybe they did not wish to risk fighting here, risk damaging the cortex.”
But then the great thundering of the offspring as it climbed out the channel of its parent reached a crescendo and went silent. It was out. It was into space. My faith was with Gricole. He would do what needed to be done. It just remained for me to do the same, call this assault off, to save the lives I could. But Cassios was already advancing, a brace of mining charges in his hand. I stopped him and held one of the charges up.
“It’s set to instant detonation,” I told him.
“Of course,” he replied and we locked gazes for the last time.
“Then we stay here. They deserve the chance, Cassios. Give them that.”
He shrugged, uncaring. This was to be the epic of his death; whether others were with him did not matter. I looked at my last two wards—Narro quickly nodded agreement with me, and so too, slowly, did Pasan.
“Cover him,” I told them, as Cassios raised his power sword high and cried: “For Sotha! For the Emperor! Death! Death! Death!”
My wards and I fired in unison: heavy bolter, bolt-gun and pistol together, blowing holes in the ranks of the tyranid. The tyranids responded in kind, releasing a volley of borer-beetles, bio-acid and toxin-spines against Cassios as he charged. Cassios slammed to a halt and flinched, drawing his cloak around him. I saw his mighty frame collapse under the onslaught.
“No!” Pasan shouted and sprinted after him, spraying fire wildly as he went. The hormagaunts had already leapt from the energy cortex and were surging towards the downed commander. I did not call to bring Pasan back, I saved my breath, he would not come. I had lost him long before. Instead I trained the heavy bolter to clear his path. The first of the hormagaunt wave exploded as my shell hit home, the one behind stumbled and was knocked down by those behind it, pushing forwards, the third leapt and my next shell caught its leg and its body cart-wheeled away in pieces. The fourth readied Cassios and took the brunt of Pasan’s fire. The next rank sprang, arcing high to clear the bodies before them. Two fell to my shells, one to Narro’s, but three fell upon the son of Sotha. One sliced through his gun and then his arm, the second caught his knee and cut deep into his side and the third split his head straight down the middle. The son of Sotha fell and I felt the loss of a part of myself.
Then, in a crackling arc of light, the three ’gaunts were carved apart themselves. Cassios rose, his cloak dissolved, his armour cracked and scarred. Blood streamed from the split in his armour at the neck. He spun to face the approaching horde and threw himself into their midst.
He was beyond our help now. I might have only seconds to fulfil my oath and save who I could. I turned to Narro, the last of my wards, and told him: “I never thought it would be you. But it is best that it is.”
He looked at me, confused. I shook my head and pointed to our escape. This one at least I would save, I thought, the most brilliant of them. Perhaps, I thought, that would be enough. But I was not to be allowed even that. Above us, I heard a familiar bestial scream, first one, then a second. Without thinking, I brought the heavy bolter up straight into the ravener’s face.
The brutal claw carved through the heavy bolter even as I pulled the trigger. The round rocketing down the barrel suddenly struck bone and exploded. Shrapnel burst through the barrel-cover and flew at me. I stumbled back, dropping the useless heavy weapon and clutching my face. I pulled the ruined helmet off, blinking to catch the ravener’s next attack. I looked and saw it collapsed on the ground, its claw blown off, its face a mass of blood and bone. The second still held Narro’s body impaled upon its scythe-claws as it twisted towards me. I drew my falx. This was to be the end.
The second ravener leapt, its two scythe-claws high. I dove forwards. The scythes came down but I was inside their reach and they glanced off my shoulders. My falx was already embedded through its chestbone. Its mid-limbs plunged through my armour and unloaded its venom as I twisted and pushed it off my blade. I staggered back, holding my guts inside my body, I was still not dead. Neither was it. It flew at me in one last attack, my falx came up and caught its scythes as they came down and pushed them to one side. As its blades went down mine cut back across its gaping mouth and sliced its head open.
I felt its ichor splatter my face, I tasted it as my mouth opened to roar my defiance. At that moment, somewhere behind me, a dying hand released its grip upon the mining charges and the chamber was filled with the Emperor’s wrath.
/> I woke aboard a dead ship, a ravener my bedside companion. I rolled the corpse away. I dragged myself to my feet and began to search about the dark and lifeless chamber. Whether the tyranids had fled or died on the spot from the psychic shock I did not know. I was searching for something else. I found it.
I thought it impossible for any one, any Astartes, to live through that. I was right. The body of Commander Cassios was a shell. But I was not there for sentiment, I did not do that. I was there in the hope that something inside him survived. I grimaced in pain as I felt the bite of the ravener poison. A stronger dose this time, from a young beast, rather than a stale relic. I took the carnifex from my pack and placed it first against Cassios’ throat and then against his chest, and took from him the Chapter’s due.
My second heart finishes its beat. My recollection concludes, as it always does, with the memory of dragging myself into this hole and, even as the bio-poison burned its way around my body, focusing on my training, slowing my mind, suspending my system and halting the poison’s spread. It was too late for me; I know that. I will die when I wake. Pasan, Vitellios, Narro, Hwygir; Cassios had taken them in, but I will carry them out again. I know they are dead, their bodies lost, perhaps more bio-matter for the devourer, but their spirits live on. Two of them in the carnifex in my hand, in the progenoid glands of Commander Cassios from which new gene-seed and two new Astartes would arise. And two of them my own shell. The glands in my throat and in my chest that would bear two more. Cassios and I are lost, as we should have been long ago. These four are the future of the Scythes now, and I will live and bear the pain of poison until I deliver them back home.
* * *
“Sergeant! Over here!” the neophyte called.
Sergeant Quintos, commanding the 121st Salvation Team, strode over to his ward. The neophyte gestured down with his torch into a crevice in the floor of the dead bio-ship. Sergeant Quintos activated the light built into his bionic arm. He had lost the original years before when he himself had been a scout in a Salvation Team. Down there, glinting back in the light, shone the shoulder armour of a Space Marine. And upon that armour was inscribed the legend:
TIRESIAS
AT GAIUS POINT
Aaron Dembski-Bowden
I
The memory of fire. Fire and falling, incineration and annihilation. Then darkness.
Absolute silence. Absolute nothing.
II
I open my eyes.
There before me, outlined by scrolling white text across my targeting display, is a shattered metal wall. Its architecture is gothic in nature—a skeletal wall, with black steel girders like ribs helping form the wall’s curvature. It is mangled and bent. Crushed, even.
I do not know where I am, but my senses are awash with perception. I hear the crackle of fire eating metal, and the angry hum of live battle armour. The sound is distorted, a hitch or a burr in the usually steady thrum. Damage has been sustained. My armour is compromised. A glance at the bio-feed displays shows minor damage to the armour plating of my wrist and shin. Nothing serious.
I smell the flames nearby, and the bitter rancidity of melting steel. I smell my own body; the sweat, the chemicals injecting into my flesh by my armour, and the intoxicatingly rich scent of my own blood.
A god’s blood.
Refined and thinned for use in mortal veins, but a god’s blood nevertheless. A dead god. A slain angel.
The thought brings my teeth together in a grunted curse, my fangs scraping the teeth below. Enough of this weakness.
I rise, muscles of aching flesh bunching in unison with the fibre-bundle false muscles of my armour. It is a sensation I am familiar with, yet it feels somehow flawed. I should be stronger. I should exult in my strength, the ultimate fusion of biological potency and machine power.
I do not feel strong. I feel nothing but pain and a momentary disorientation. The pain is centralised in my spinal column and shoulder blades, turning my back into a pillar of dull, aching heat. Nothing is broken—bio-feeds have already confirmed that. The soreness of muscle and nerve would have killed a human, but we are gene-forged into greater beings.
Already, the weakness fades. My blood stings with the flood of adrenal stimulants and kinetic enhancement narcotics rushing through my veins.
My movement is unimpeded. I rise to my feet, slow not from weakness now, but from caution.
With my vision stained a cooling emerald shade by my helm’s green eye lenses, I take in the wreckage around me.
This chamber is ruined, half-crushed with its walls distorted. Restraint thrones lie broken, torn from the floor. The two bulkheads leading from the chamber are both wrenched from their hinges, hanging at warped angles.
The impact must have been savage.
The… impact?
The crash. Our Thunderhawk crashed. The clarity of recollection is sickening… the sense of falling from the sky, my senses drenched in the thunder of descent, the shaking of the ship in its entirety. Temperature gauges on my retinal display rose slowly when the engines died in exploding flares that scorched the hull, and my armour systems registered the gunship’s fiery journey groundward.
There was a final booming refrain, a roar like the carnosaurs of home—as loud and primal as their predator-king challenges—and the world shuddered beyond all sanity. The gunship ploughed into the ground.
And then… Darkness.
My eyes flicker to my retinal display’s chronometer. I was unconscious for almost three minutes. I will do penance for such weakness, but that can come later.
Now I breathe in deep, tasting the ashy smoke in the air but unaffected by it. The air filtration in my helm’s grille renders me immune to such trivial concerns.
“Zavien,” a voice crackles in my ears. A momentary confusion takes hold at the sound of the word. The vox-signal is either weak, or the sender’s armour is badly damaged. With the ship in pieces, both could be true.
“Zavien,” the voice says again.
This time I turn at the name, realising it is my own.
Zavien strode into the cockpit, keeping his balance on the tilted floor through an effortless combination of natural grace and his armour’s joint-stabilisers.
The cockpit had suffered even more than the adjacent chamber. The view window, despite the thickness of the reinforced plastek, was shattered beyond simple repair. Diamond shards of the sundered false-glass twinkled on the twisted floor. The pilot thrones were wrenched from their support columns, cast aside like detritus in a storm.
Through the windowless viewport there was nothing but mud and gnarled black roots, much of which had spilled over the lifeless control consoles. They’d come down hard enough to drive the gunship’s nose into the earth.
The pilot, Varlon, was a mangled wreck sprawled face-down over the control console. Zavien’s targeting reticule locked onto his brother’s battered armour, secondary cursors detailing the rents and wounds in the deactivated war plate. Blood, thick and dark, ran from rips in Varlon’s throat and waist joints. It ran in slow trickles across the smashed console, dripping between buttons and levers.
His power pack was inactive. Life signs were unreadable, but the evidence was clear enough. Zavien heard no heartbeat from the body, and had Varlon been alive, his gene-enhanced physiology would have clotted and sealed all but the most grievous wounds. He wouldn’t still be bleeding slowly all over the controls of the downed gun-ship.
“Zavien,” said a voice to the right, no longer over the vox.
Zavien turned from Varlon, his armour snarling in a growl of joint-servos. There, pinned under wreckage from the collapsed wall, was Drayus. Zavien moved to the fallen warrior’s side, seeing the truth. No, Drayus was not just pinned in place. He was impaled there.
The sergeant’s black helm was lowered, chin down on his collar, green eyes regarding the broken Imperial eagle on his chest jagged wreckage knifed into his dark armour, the ravaged steel spearing him through the shoulder guard, the arm, the thigh and the
stomach. Blood leaked through his helm’s speaker grille. The biometric displays that flashed up on Zavien’s visor told an ugly story, and one with an end soon to come.
“Report,” Sergeant Drayus said—the way he always said it—as if the scene around them were the most mundane situation imaginable.
Zavien kneeled by the pinned warrior, fighting back the aching need in his throat and gums to taste the blood of the fallen. Irregular and weak, a single heartbeat rattled in Drayus’ chest. One of his hearts had shut down, likely flooded by internal haemorrhaging or burst by the wreckage piercing his body. The other pounded gamely, utterly without rhythm.
“Varlon is dead,” Zavien said.
“I can see that, fool.” The sergeant reached up one hand, the one not half-severed at the forearm, and clawed with unmoving fingers at the collar joint beneath his helm. Zavien reached to help, unlocking the helmet’s pressurised seals. With a reptilian hiss, the helmet came free in Zavien’s hands.
Drayus’ craggy face, ruined by the pits and scars earned in two centuries of battle, was awash in spatters of blood. He grinned, showing blood-pinked teeth and split gums. “My helm display is damaged. Tell me who is still alive.”
Zavien could see why it was damaged—both eye lenses were cracked. He discarded the sergeant’s helm, and blink-clicked the runic icon that brought up the rest of the squad’s life signs on his own retinal display.
Varlon was dead, his suit powered down. The evidence of that was right before Zavien’s eyes.
Garax was also gone, his suit transmitting a screed of flat-line charts. The rangefinder listed him as no more than twenty metres away, likely thrown clear in the crash and killed on impact.
Drayus was dying, right here.
Jarl was…
“Where’s Jarl?” Zavien asked, his voice harsh and guttural through his helm’s vox speakers.
Legends of the Space Marines Page 38
