by Gav Thorpe
A wave of incinerating fury from behind the knot of genestealers announced Zael’s arrival and Lorenzo barely managed to check his fire. The sergeant stepped out of the room and into the side passage in which he had sheltered before, allowing Zael to pass.
‘Cleanse and burn,’ Lorenzo said, not looking back into the room, not wishing to see its awful contents again. He stood guard behind Zael as the Terminator reached the door.
‘Cleanse and burn!’ roared Zael and his flamer poured purifying fire into the chamber, reducing Auletio’s remains to a charred heap within seconds. ‘Go to the Angel and be proud of your sacrifice, Brother Auletio. You will be received with glory and forgiveness.’
The drawn-out rattle of an assault cannon from the other side of the deck followed shortly after.
‘Objective terminated,’ Gideon grimly announced on the comm.
‘Objective terminated,’ replied Lorenzo, his voice quivering with rage. ‘Now, let us join the attack.’
00.15.55
At the heart of the space hulk, the creature that had newly surfaced to sentience flexed sinews and muscles that had been immobile for centuries. As strength returned to its body, so too did the numbers of the brood swell. More and more of its progeny awoke, spurred into consciousness by the imperative of the brood mind. It felt their presence and opened its eyes, recognising itself for the first time, understanding its purpose: Broodlord. In the gloom, thousands of eyes glittered in the light from the false stars far above. The prey had been goaded into action and came closer. Hundreds of the brood perished as the red-skinned hunters advanced. It did not matter. They existed to die for the life of their brood.
Not in this place would it lurk. The others of its kind needed space to awaken; its brood-presence suppressed their stirring minds. Unfolding powerful limbs, stretching thawing sinews, the Broodlord raised itself to its feet, towering above its progeny. Old recollections of dens and lairs, tunnels and pathways flickered into its memory. These were its hunting grounds, it knew their tangled web in every detail. Still stiff from its anabiosis, the creature stalked slowly across the chamber, its brood parting before it. Craning its neck to loosen tight fibres, extending joints long frozen by stasis, it compelled the brood to follow. It ducked into a hole rent into the wall and dropped to the ground below, its claws ringing on the metal deck. Ahead lay the warren of tunnels where it would strike. In the dark, the brood would wait. Their time was coming soon.
00.18.29
THERE WAS LITTLE chatter between the members of Squads Lorenzo and Gideon, the veteran warriors disturbed by what had become of the captured Techmarines. Only the occasional muttered devotional broke the comm silence as the two sergeants led their men back through the space hulk towards the main Blood Angels force.
‘Lorenzo and Gideon, this is Raphael,’ the captain’s voice broke through the quiet. ‘We are locating suitable target points for release of toxins. Expecting high resistance. We have to thin the numbers of the enemy. You have a new mission. I need you to perform a diversionary attack. There is a secondary cluster of inactive life signals near to your position, at grid four-theta. Destroy the dormant genestealers and trigger a counter-attack from the main group.’
‘Affirmative,’ said Lorenzo, and Gideon gave a similar acknowledgement.
‘Our moment of retribution approaches,’ said Raphael.
‘In the Angel’s eyes we shall know victory,’ replied Gideon.
The objective was clear on the sensorium - a mass of low-grade signals roughly two hundred metres away. Lorenzo detailed the squad into an attack formation and took a position in the middle of the group, ready to move forward to bolster the attack or fall back to defend the rear.
‘Zael, your heavy flamer will be best suited to the annihilation of the incubating genestealers,’ said Lorenzo. ‘Conserve as much ammunition as possible en route.’
‘Same for you, Leon,’ said Gideon. ‘Don’t get carried away.’
There were grunts of disappointed consent from both Space Marines.
‘What about this counter-attack?’ asked Omnio. ‘Direction? Strength?’
‘Strength unknown, but I’ve been studying the schematic,’ said Scipio. ‘There’s a long concourse that runs the length of the freight wreck where the main concentration in located. It comes up through what seems to be a series of collapsed elevator shafts. If we can gain the advantage of position we should be able to cut them down as they emerge.’
‘Good,’ said Lorenzo. ‘We don’t have time to destroy the dormants and then get to the defensive position. We’ll set up a perimeter while you annihilate the target.’
‘Understood,’ said Gideon. ‘We’ll reinforce as soon as the mission is completed. Let the Emperor spread our hatred of the foe.’
‘In his name we smite the unclean,’ replied Lorenzo.
The two squads took diverging courses through the bowels of an old warship’s gun batteries. Some distant reactor still trickled out a fitful stream of energy and red lights flickered overhead. Great arched windows of reinforced ferroglass were smashed and distorted, revealing a ruddy view of the tortured innards of another vessel.
While Gideon and his warriors cut into the depths of the frigate’s interior, Lorenzo led his squad to the left through immense shadows cast by misshapen, corroded guns. The war engines of an age gone past were encased in crumbling bunkers of masonry, rusted supports jutting from the cracked and flaking rockcrete. Magazines where shells the size of tanks had once been stored were now chambers filled with dunes of oxidised metal and inert grey propellant. The Terminators waded thigh-deep through these artificial drifts, alert for danger, their attention never wavering from the telltale displays of the sensorium.
Perhaps stirred into life by the nearing presence of the Terminators, a few of the life forms on the scanner surged in activity. Their signals brightened and began to move. They did not come straight at the Space Marines, as they had done in the first minutes of the battle. They coalesced into small groups and then the groups drifted together, gathering their strength.
‘Why don’t they attack?’ asked Valencio.
‘Would you?’ replied Deino. Valencio thought about this for a moment. ‘No,’ he conceded. ‘But I’m not an animal. I have reason and experience that tells me that attacking piecemeal is doomed to failure. These things have just woken, they cannot know what we are.’
‘They learn, right enough,’ growled Lorenzo. He shouldered open a door, the old metal screeching and disintegrating under the weight of his armour. Beyond lay a black corridor with doorless archways every few metres. ‘Those that survived learnt from the deaths of the others. They changed and adapted quickly. Quicker than we could…’
‘Psychic?’ said Valencio.
‘Very likely,’ Lorenzo said, pausing beside the nearest arch and turning his suit to direct its lamps into the darkness. The cones of light revealed seized gears and broken chains with links larger than the Space Marines. The ceiling was lost in shadows, the ancient mechanism concealed hundreds of metres above. Lorenzo turned back to the main corridor. ‘It does not matter how they do it. We must be ready, whatever their tactics.’
‘Victory is the reward of the vigilant,’ said Zael.
Footfalls muffled, their lights swallowed by the vastness of the gallery, the squad moved on towards the elevator shafts.
00.19.14
‘JUST LIKE TAR—’ began Leon, but Scipio cut across him.
‘Don’t say it!’ he hissed. ‘You said that about the orks and I lost a leg. Look, there’s movement on the sensorium.’
‘Weapons check,’ ordered Gideon, pressing the stud of his thunder hammer. Its heavy head glowed from within, sheathing the weapon with a blue aura. A test of his storm shield’s power supply had equal success. Around him, the squad calibrated targeter links and checked magazines. Leon brought the rotating barrels of his assault cannon up to full speed and loosed off a short burst of fire at a pile of leaking barrels at the far end of th
e passageway. They disintegrated into metal splinters and puddles of thick fluid.
‘Combat ready,’ Leon reported, echoed by the other squad members.
The genestealers’ nest was barely twenty metres away, across a narrow aqueduct-like bridge, with raised sides and a channel along its length through which trickled a thick green slime. The sensorium showed a concentration of more than thirty of the creatures just ahead, in a condensed mass of crushed rooms and contorted corridors.
‘Quick, across the bridge,’ said Gideon, waving Scipio forward. It was a sturdy structure, its plascrete piles covered with strange black moss but showing no damage. The gap below was shrouded in darkness and sensorium readings showed the drop to be approximately fifteen metres. Suspension cables creaked and groaned as the squad moved on to the bridge.
‘There’s something wrong with my sensorium link,’ said Omnio. ‘Brother-sergeant, I’m getting false readings.’
‘Mine also,’ said Leon.
Gideon checked his own sensorium and saw registered life forms barely ten metres away. That would put them on the bridge.
‘Overhead!’ shouted Scipio, turning and firing above the heads of the squad. A four-armed body plummeted from the shadows of the bridge’s suspension towers, trailing blood. Gideon looked up as best as his armour would allow and saw more shapes crawling across the ceiling and dropping onto the support pillars.
‘Spread out, cover each other!’ he shouted, raising his storm shield as a genestealer leapt the gap from pylon to bridge, landing a metre in front of the sergeant.
He smashed the creature from the aqueduct with a backhanded swipe of his hammer just as another genestealer landed behind him. Armour feedback warnings flashed red in his display as it gouged a long furrow though the back of his left leg. Turning awkwardly, he desperately fended off its next attack with his shield. All around, more aliens were dropping onto the bridge. The Terminators struggled to raise their weapons to the required elevation and were forced to resort to shooting their foes at hand-to-hand range and blasting the genestealers from each other’s backs.
More genestealers swarmed along the bridge, cornering the squad from the front, left and right. Scipio smashed a creature to a pulp with a single blow from his power fist. Leon was cursing constantly, unable to use his assault cannon at such close quarters. An ammunition pack on Omnio’s belt exploded, hurling a genestealer out into the void with a blossom of flame, Omnio lurching in the opposite direction. He stumbled against the retaining wall, the impact of his heavy suit crumbling the ancient plascrete.
As he righted himself, a genestealer landed on his shoulders and the wall turned to dust under their weight, sending the two of them sprawling into the shadows. Omnio’s lamps span crazily in the darkness, tumbling for a moment and then going dark.
‘Omnio!’ Gideon bellowed, shoulder charging a genestealer, his momentum lifting the alien off its feet and throwing it over the edge of the bridge.
‘Suit compromised, occupant intact,’ Omnio replied, his voice calm and clear. ‘Fell on some wreckage. Lamps damaged. System support integrity at eighty per cent. Power couplings intermittent to left arm and sensorium. Something has punctured my lower back. Injury not critical. Enemy… er… squashed.’
The sensorium was showing blips all around the squad, so close Gideon could not tell if they were above, below or right in front of him. Scipio had pushed through to the end of the bridge and was standing overwatch. There were a few more genestealers still on the bridge, wreaking havoc.
‘Can you see if there’s anything else down there with you?’ Gideon asked. He moved forwards, sweeping aside a genestealer clinging onto Noctis’s storm bolter arm. Noctis gave a nod of thanks and took up position back-to-back with Scipio. His disciplined fire strafed across the bridge supports, the bodies of more genestealers tumbling into the darkness amidst the bolt detonations.
Crunches of powdering plascrete and groans of grinding metal echoed from below as Omnio pushed himself to his feet. A fitful light announced his location, intermittently strobing across the tangle of fallen pylons and cables from another bridge that had once run alongside the aqueduct.
‘Nothing on infrared,’ Omnio reported. ‘Power unstable. Hard to walk. Going comm-silent to reroute power to sensorium. I’ll meet you at the nest.’
‘Affirmative, Omnio,’ replied Gideon. He glanced around and saw that the bridge was now clear of enemies. ‘The Angel watches you in the darkness.’
‘You too,’ said Omnio and then his link turned to static.
The constant fire from Scipio demonstrated that more and more genestealers were awakening. However, the attack was having an effect. Captain Raphael spoke on the comm.
‘Genestealer force breaking away from main concentration,’ he announced. ‘Good work, Gideon. Lorenzo, prepare for engagement. Estimate two thousand hostiles. No friendly forces in your area. Purge with freedom!’
‘Affirmative,’ said Lorenzo. ‘Our vengeance shall be written in the blood of the foe.’ There was a hiss as Lorenzo changed channel to inter-squad frequency. ‘Gideon, request termination of target with utmost haste.’
‘Affirmative,’ said Gideon. ‘We’ll be as quick as we can. Hold on and watch our backs.’
‘We will not fail,’ Lorenzo assured his battle-brothers.
00.20.99
Its progeny fought and died. Under its urging they had amassed their numbers. Now they attacked in force, seeking to overwhelm the armoured hunters. Fire and explosions filled the metal hole the brood were using to approach their prey. Many fell, but more were coming. The brood mind pulsed and grew and the creature could feel its powers reaching their zenith.
It sensed the minds of the hunters, beyond the throbbing instinct of the brood, their spirits armoured, like their bodies. Meaningless chatter filled their thoughts, but through the core of their beings blazed a harsh light, encasing their souls and protecting them. It probed harder, seeking a weakness. Their anger and their hatred were powerful, concepts it knew of only from others of their kind who had come before. Concepts like fear and horror. The prey that had come before had been weak. These were strong. It would need to look upon them to break their barriers.
Gathering a bodyguard of genestealers about itself, the broodlord began to ascend the shaft, clawing its way up the metal walls. More fire engulfed those ahead, their burning corpses dropping past into the depths. It climbed swiftly, urging on the brood to swarm forwards.
It laid its eyes upon the first of them, the fire breather. The prey paused for a moment, the reflective lenses of its eyes fixing on the broodlord. The moment of hesitation was all the broodlord needed to extend the will of the broodmind and touch upon the mind of its victim. The hunter fought for a moment, struggling against the alien will invading its thoughts. Rather than succumb to the psychic suggestion, its brain shut out all thought and the armoured creature fell into a coma, collapsing heavily to the ground. The broodlord considered this impassively. The creatures would not be controlled, but they could be rendered vulnerable.
As more of the flaming projectile grubs bit at its flesh, the broodlord turned its gaze upon the next victim.
00.21.64
LEON’S ASSAULT CANNON tore apart the dormant genestealers, ripping through their hunched forms in a storm of shells and gore. In long lines they lay upon the floor of a high, arched chamber, like grotesque, giant foetuses. Many were covered with patches of lichen and the webs of spiders. Clusters of insect eggs mottled their chitinous hide and whole streams of slick plant life trailed from crouched bodies. Some of the genestealers woke amidst the tumult but were quickly cut down. It was butchery, and it filled Gideon with righteous warmth as he watched the destruction of his enemies.
‘There’s more down here,’ said Scipio, pointing towards the shadows underneath the splitting remains of some gigantic pulpit.
‘Enjoy yourself,’ said Leon, turning the assault cannon onto another row of hibernating aliens. ‘I’m busy.’
> ‘Thank you,’ said Scipio, opening fire with his storm bolter. Screeches of pain echoed along the cathedral, stopped abruptly as Scipio continued to fire.
‘Squad Gideon, this is Laertes,’ a voice came through on the comm, another Terminator sergeant. ‘Verify position of Squad Lorenzo. They’re supposed to be guarding our flank.’
‘They are just to your…’ began Gideon, checking the sensorium and wondering why Laertes even needed to ask. He stopped because something was wrong. The life signals of Lorenzo and his squad were clear enough, but they were unmoving. Swarms of contacts were moving past their location. ‘I cannot confirm their status. Can you investigate? Objective almost complete, we will join you shortly.’
‘Affirmative, Gideon,’ said Laertes. ‘Remain on mission.’
‘Bring light to the places of shadow,’ said Gideon. ‘We bear the Angel’s flaming torch,’ Laertes replied.
00.22.37
DURING MORE THAN three centuries of war, Claudio had never encountered such reckless ferocity. Orks were savage and ill-disciplined, but their will could be broken. The cold frenzy and utter disregard of the genestealers meant that no matter how many he slew, they kept attacking. It was alien and unnerving, and that meant Claudio fought all the harder.
He slashed and swiped with his suit’s lightning claws, each fist armed with several blades as long as swords wreathed in arcing energy. Electricity spat and crackled as he carved open the ribcage of a genestealer, its blood hissing into vapour. Claws met claws as another alien attacked. The Terminator’s weapons sheared through its arms and he decapitated the genestealer with a purposeful flick of the wrist.
