by Gav Thorpe
‘We need maximum firepower and close assault punch with as few warriors as possible,’ Lorenzo told them. ‘Brother-Librarian Calistarius will guide us and I will lead the squad. Zael and Leon, your heavy weapons are coming with me. The main force will suffice with storm bolters. Gideon, Noctis, Deino, Valencio and Scipio, return to the staging area for repair and rearmament. Gideon, form an execution squad and report to the captain for the sweep pattern. Claudio, I need you to come with me.’
None questioned the veteran sergeant’s judgement. As those who were not coming on the hunt turned to leave, Gideon stopped next to Lorenzo. The others paused and gave such salutes as their damaged armour and grievous wounds allowed.
‘You make us all proud to be Blood Angels, brother,’ Gideon said with a nod.
‘I am proud to serve the Chapter,’ said Lorenzo. ‘It is an honour to fight alongside such courageous and unflinching brothers. This day you have healed a wound left too long. Whatever happens, fight no more with shame, but with hearts dedicated anew to the glory of the Angel.’
‘You also, Lorenzo,’ said Gideon. The sergeant looked at the rest of his ad hoc squad. ‘What is your duty?’
‘To serve the Emperor’s Will!’ they chorused in reply.
‘What is the Emperor’s Will?’
‘That we fight and die!’
‘What is death?’
‘It is our duty!’
Still chanting, they marched away.
00.50.80
‘COMMS CHECK COMPLETE, sensorium check complete,’ Lorenzo announced. The signal bar in his helm display was weak but constant, and the steady pulsing of the scanner was clear in his helm display, showing the positions of the other Terminators. He turned towards the Techmarine who had fixed his helm. ‘Thank you, brother.’
‘You can repay me with a simple service,’ said the Techmarine. He held up a strange claw-like device, much like the reductor Apothecaries used to extract the progenium glands from fallen Space Marines. It was connected to a vial coiled with thin piping. ‘Before you destroy these unidentified life forms, we want you to take a tissue sample for analysis. We need to determine their origins and vulnerability to the toxins unleashed. It is self-working. Simply activate the rune whilst holding the claw against the creature’s flesh.’
Lorenzo took the device and placed it in one of the containers on his armour’s belt.
‘And those?’ the sergeant asked, pointing towards five cuboid machines servitors had placed along the wall of the corridor. The top side of each cube had a dish-shaped hollow punctured by a lens at its centre.
‘Portable power field generators,’ the Techmarine explained. ‘One for each of you. They will bar all movement, should you need to contain the target before tissue extraction. Each has enough charge to last several minutes but they are not impregnable. A determined foe will break through the field in less than a minute.’
‘I understand,’ said Lorenzo.
‘They will also block your own movement and lines of fire, so position them wisely,’ the Techmarine warned.
‘Affirmative,’ said Lorenzo, eager to get moving. ‘Anything else?’
‘The Angel blesses your endeavour,’ said the Techmarine. He gave a thumb up signal and stepped away.
Lorenzo turned to Calistarius and waved a hand towards the Librarian. ‘Lead on, brother.’
00.51.23
THEY HAD PASSED the elevator shaft where Lorenzo’s squad had first been subjected to the psychic attack and the sensorium was strangely clear. Worryingly clear, Lorenzo admitted to himself. Since the gas attack, the genestealers had dispersed across the inhabitable parts of the space hulk and squads were erecting power field barriers and hunting down the scattered survivors. The only thing that showed on the scanners was an indistinct blob, registering the dormant life signs of the creatures Calistarius had detected. It seemed inconceivable that more of the aliens had not found their way to this area.
‘We must hurry, brothers,’ said the Librarian. ‘I feel the consciousness of these beasts rising to wakefulness.’
The squad pressed on as quickly as their damaged systems would allow, passing across the ruptured hold of a large cargo ship. Claudio was in the lead, Calistarius directly behind him. As soon as the pair stepped through the huge double doors of the storage bay, the sensorium gave a warning tone. There was movement on the periphery of the scanner.
‘I hear their call,’ said Calistarius. ‘Though they are not yet awake, the creatures beckon to their offspring. It is a beacon, and a warning. They know we are here.’
The unidentified life signals were barely two hundred metres away, but there was no straight route to them. The layout of the ship ahead was a confusing mess of overlapping corridors and gantries, pocked with void spaces and interlaced with narrow crawl-spaces and ventilation pipes. Lines of fire would be short and there were numerous entry points for the genestealers to attack. The aliens’ numbers were gathering again, converging from other parts of the space hulk.
‘Clear fire lanes,’ ordered Lorenzo.
Leon took the lead. As he advanced, he opened fire on a sealed door ahead, blowing it from its rusted hinges. He unleashed another burst of assault cannon shells at the next door as he stepped through the wreckage of the first. Something moved in the darkness and he gunned it down without hesitation.
‘Zael, secure the left. Brother-Librarian, stay close to Claudio,’ the sergeant commanded, assimilating the data from the sensorium. The genestealers had learnt well and no longer rushed headlong into the guns of the Terminators. They waited around the corners of junctions and behind the closed doors of rooms sprouting from the network of passages.
‘Sealing left flank,’ announced Zael. A blue glow lit the corridor as he placed his power field generator on the floor and activated it with his comm-link. ‘Power field in place.’
‘Push on, clear a path,’ said Lorenzo, following closely behind Claudio and Calistarius.
At once, four groups of genestealers rushed forward, closing on the Terminators from every direction. One group was halted on the sensorium and the corridors echoed with the crackle of the power field as the aliens hurled themselves at the barrier placed by Zael. Chain lightning erupted from Calistarius’s sword as more genestealers hurtled through a doorway ahead, disintegrating their alien bodies.
As a group, the genestealers fought their way forward. Halfway to the alien life signals, they broke through Zael’s power field and a swarm of them surged through the corridors behind the squad. Zael turned and took up a rearguard position, using his heavy flamer to beat back the onrushing tide of aliens.
‘I think I see them,’ Calistarius announced. ‘Yes, there they are, just ahead.’
Lorenzo could spare no time to look for the moment. He let loose bursts of fire at the genestealers coming at the squad from the right, while Leon’s assault cannon reaped a harvest of aliens attacking from the opposite direction.
‘Swap position, Claudio,’ Lorenzo said. A few seconds later, Claudio was by his side. Lorenzo threw down his power field device and activated it, a shimmering wall of blue energy springing up in front of the other Terminator. Content that the rear was protected, the sergeant turned and followed Calistarius.
The Librarian led Lorenzo into a dark room, little more than a storage space between thick pipes that glowed with heat. They were plasma relays for the reactor somewhere below, their warmth sustaining the aliens huddled next to them. The creatures were just like the one that had attacked Lorenzo, giant and obscene. Their limbs were folded against their chests, their ridged heads bowed between the bony plates of their shoulders.
While Calistarius covered the door, alternating between fire from his storm bolter and bursts of psychic lightning, Lorenzo stooped to retrieve the tissue sample needed by the Techmarines. He placed the extractor against a fleshy hump at the base of the nearest creature’s neck and activated the device. Its claw flickered out, tearing free a piece of tissue before disappearing int
o the cooled vial.
At the same moment, one of the creature’s clawed hands snapped out and grabbed Lorenzo’s arm. It slowly turned its head towards him, its eyes glowing with psychic power.
00.52.62
CLAUDIO FLEXED HIS arms, loosening the fibre bundles in his armour as if they were muscles. A cluster of genestealers clawed and bit at the power field just in front of the Terminator, separated from his wrath by less than a metre’s thickness of energy wall. The genestealers were possessed of a manic vigour, literally throwing themselves at the barrier to get at Claudio.
‘Don’t be so eager to die,’ Claudio growled at the aliens. ‘I’m ready and waiting.’
With an explosion of light, the genestealers burst through. In a wave of blue and purple flesh they fell upon Claudio. His lightning claws sent arcs of energy tearing through them even as their blades sliced through flesh and chitin.
00.52.70
ZAEL CHECKED THE load readout on his heavy flamer and saw that he had enough promethium left for two more full bursts. He backed along the narrow corridor as more genestealers clawed their way up through a grille in the floor about twenty metres ahead.
‘Not yet,’ he muttered to himself.
More genestealers were bursting up through the grating, rushing towards the Terminator.
‘Not yet,’ he repeated. The first genestealer was barely three metres away when Zael pulled the trigger. White hot fire filled the corridor, the backblast scorching Zael’s armour, his helm display alight with red icons as the armour’s cooling systems attempted to compensate. Even so, he felt a sweat break out on his brow.
As the flames licked along the walls and ceiling, and the bodies of the genestealers popped and cracked, Zael considered his deadly handiwork and smiled.
‘One more shot,’ he told himself.
00.52.76
LORENZO’S SWORD WAS in its sheath at his waist so he fired his storm bolter point blank, the detonations in the creature’s body spattering him with chunks of steaming flesh, his auto-senses almost blinded by the proximity of the muzzle flash. The creature’s grip remained tight as he tried to pull his arm away and he fired again, blasting apart its skull. Tearing free from its dead grip, Lorenzo turned back towards the doorway.
One moment he was looking at the back of Calistarius’s armour as he stood watch, the next moment the Librarian was hauled through the air, crashing against the wall. Something ancient and monstrous unfolded itself in his place, a glimmer of recognition in its alien eyes.
Lorenzo’s bolter jammed as he tried to fire, its mechanisms stuck with gory residue from his close range shot into the bowels of the dormant genestealer. The sergeant raised his sword protectively.
The creature bent down through the doorway, its gaze moving to look at the bloodied remains of the creature Lorenzo had killed. Lips curled back to expose fangs as long as combat knives. The creature hunched, its muscles bunching and cording like thick rope under its dark skin.
Lorenzo braced himself for the creature’s attack, even as he sensed movement from the other beast behind him.
A jet of fire engulfed the alien in the doorway, a purifying blast from Zael. The creature shrieked, lunging against the doorframe, buckling the metal with its weight. Promethium was stuck to its body and head, eating away at the flesh. With another scream, it turned and bounded out of sight. A second later Lorenzo heard noises that set his teeth on edge: shattering ceramite, tortured metal, Zael’s agonised bawl. Lorenzo had never heard a Space Marine cry out in such a way and he raced to the door.
Zael’s remains were scattered across the decking, his blood dripping down through the grillwork. The alien leader was still on fire, lurching from side to side, crashing against the walls of the corridor, leaving dents in the metal bulkheads.
Lorenzo followed it, trying to clear his jammed storm bolter. Ejecting several unfired rounds, he managed to get it working again and raised the weapon to finish off the alien. Some of the promethium had burnt itself out and much of the creature’s back and face was a charred mess. Bone and pulsing flesh could be seen through rents in its skin and carapace.
It reached the stop of a stairwell, hunched and limping. Lorenzo fired, the bolt exploding in the creature’s lower back. It fell forwards, the metal guard rail of the stairway twisting under its weight.
The creature tipped out of sight, trailing flames, and Lorenzo followed it to the lip of the stairway. The steps descended into darkness for several hundred metres, the creature’s body a dimly flickering fire far below.
Reloading his storm bolter, Lorenzo turned around and strode back towards the plasma exchange pipes. There was one more of the beasts to destroy.
00.53.58
‘COMMAND, THIS IS Lorenzo. Request plotting of an exit route.’
Lorenzo, Calistarius, Leon and Claudio were advancing along a narrow walkway that ran around the perimeter of a deep well-like drop. In a haze of red light below the sergeant could see the bulky shapes of plasma reactors. Electricity occasionally arced between damaged generators and leaking gas spumed spasmodically from ruptured conduits.
The sensorium was full of signals, on levels above and below. The genestealers that had been gathering to protect their leaders had now formed into a solid mass, cutting off the squad from the route back to the rest of the Terminators. Now the Blood Angels had to find a way to escape the aliens hunting them through the winding corridors.
‘Sergeant Lorenzo,’ Captain Raphael’s voice cut through Lorenzo’s musing. ‘Exit point located. External egress, through a venting shaft two hundred metres from your position.’
‘External egress, brother-captain?’ asked Lorenzo.
‘The duct will bring you out onto the surface of the vessel,’ Raphael explained. ‘Despatching Thunderhawk to your exit location for retrieval. Primary objective is to ensure delivery of the alien tissue sample.’
‘Understood, brother-captain,’ said Lorenzo. He looked at his sensorium and saw route marker icons flash into view. ‘Exit point located.’
‘The Angel shall guide your steps, brothers,’ Raphael said before cutting the link.
The route took them down two levels and through a network of criss-crossing passageways surrounding the reactor chamber. The genestealers were closing fast on the Terminators’ position and Lorenzo calculated that the squad would not reach the venting shaft without contact.
‘Leon, rear guard,’ he ordered. The taciturn Space Marine responded by lifting his assault cannon in acknowledgement and fell back to the rear of the squad.
They picked their way over a snarled mass of collapsed gantries and ladders and found themselves overlooking another artificial abyss. The venting tunnel was only fifty metres away, down one further level. Escape was close, but Lorenzo allowed himself no thoughts of victory just yet.
00.54.24
Pain. Pain encompassed all of the broodlord’s being, body and mind. Physical agony from the burning. Mental torment from the death of its brood. So many killed, the broodmind was but a shadow of its former power. It was spent, a dying force. The broodlord considered hiding, the instinct to survive strong. Reason overruled instinct. The hunters would seek out and slay all of the brood. Survival was not an option.
Blackened skin flaking and cracking, burnt flesh falling in lumps from its bones as it lifted itself to its feet, the broodlord turned its face upward. Its progeny still stalked the hunters. It knew where they could be found. Created as a passionless biomachine, it felt something for the first time since its strange birth. It was a corrupting thought, an emotion that had lurked inside ever since it had contacted the minds of the hunters.
Now it came to the surface, boiling up through the pain, fresh and strong. It was invigorating and for the first time the broodlord understood why the hunters had fought so fiercely. It shared their thoughts. The broodlord clenched and unclenched its claws as it thought about the destruction of its brood and felt this new emotion: hate.
00.54.61
THE BLOOD ANGELS fought a coordinated retreat towards the exit point. Calistarius and Claudio in the lead, Lorenzo and Leon following behind. They alternated firing and overwatch, cutting through the genestealers ahead and gunning down those that followed behind. They were less than fifty metres from the shaft and safety. Though tough, even the genestealers could not follow the Terminators into the freezing vacuum of space.
The deck ahead had collapsed and piles of crumbling plascrete littered the floor below. The floor they were on was unstable too, and shook every time Leon opened fire. Two ladders led down onto the rubble-strewn deck. Calistarius was the first to swing his weight out onto the corroded rungs bedded into the wall. One snapped under his tread and fell as a small bar of rust into the rubble below. The Librarian lowered himself down while Lorenzo provided covering fire from above. Genestealers were swarming in from behind the squad, above and below, and Lorenzo kept up a steady stream of fire into the exposed corridors beneath him until the Librarian was safely on the ground again.
Calistarius then took up the fight, blasting with his storm bolter, cutting down with his force sword those genestealers that came close enough. Weapons deactivated, Claudio lowered himself clumsily after the Librarian while bolt shells screamed past, picking off aliens waiting below. Once he had a sure footing again, his claws blazed into life and he joined Calistarius to protect the base of the ladders so that the others could descend.
‘You first, brother,’ said Leon. ‘Only one hundred and fifty rounds remaining.’
Lorenzo did not argue and instead sheathed his power sword and hung his storm bolter from his belt. The ladder creaked under the weight of his armour but held strong until he had reached the lower level. The sergeant backed up until he had a view of Leon’s position on the upper floor.
