Karras had seen it, too.
“Chyron,” barked the team leader. “What in Terra’s name are you doing?”
The Dreadnought was standing right in front of the beast, fending off blows from its tail and its jaws with his oversized fists.
“Stand down, Lamenter,” Sigma commanded.
If Chyron heard, he deigned not to answer. While there was still a fight to be had here, he wasn’t going anywhere. It was the tyranids that had obliterated his Chapter. Hive Fleet Kraken had decimated them, leaving him with no brothers, no home to return to. But if Sigma and the others thought the Deathwatch was all Chyron had left, they were wrong. He had his rage, his fury, his unquenchable lust for dire and bloody vengeance.
The others should have known that. Sigma should have known.
Karras started back towards the Dreadnought, intent on finding some way to reach him. He would use his psyker gifts if he had to. Chyron could not hope to beat the thing alone.
But, as the seconds ticked off and the Dreadnought continued to fight, it became clear that something was wrong.
From his high vantage point, it was Solarion who voiced it first.
“It’s not stopping,” he said over the link. “Sigma, the damned thing isn’t even slowing down. The neurotoxin didn’t work.”
“Impossible,” replied the voice of the inquisitor. “Magos Altando had the serum tested on—”
“Twenty-five… no, thirty seconds. I tell you, it’s not working.”
Sigma was silent for a brief moment. Then he said, “We need it alive.”
“Why?” demanded Zeed. The Raven Guard was crossing the concrete again, back towards the fight, following close behind Karras.
“You do not need to know,” said Sigma.
“The neuro-toxin doesn’t work, Sigma,” Solarion repeated. “If you have some other suggestion…”
Sigma clicked off.
I guess he doesn’t, thought Solarion sourly.
“Solarion,” said Karras. “Can you put another round in it?”
“Get it to open wide and you know I can. But it might not be a dosage issue.”
“I know,” said Karras, his anger and frustration telling in his voice. “But it’s all we’ve got. Be ready.”
Chyron’s chassis was scraped and dented. His foe’s strength seemed boundless. Every time the barbed tail whipped forwards, Chyron swung his fists at it, but the beast was truly powerful and, when one blow connected squarely with the Dreadnought’s thick glacis plate, he found himself staggering backwards despite his best efforts.
Karras was suddenly at his side.
“When I tell you to fall back, Dreadnought, you will do it,” growled the Librarian. “I’m still Talon Alpha. Or does that mean nothing to you?”
Chyron steadied himself and started forwards again, saying “I honour your station, Death Spectre, and your command. But vengeance for my Chapter supersedes all. Sigma be damned, I will kill this thing!”
Karras hefted Arquemann and prepared to join Chyron’s charge. “Would you dishonour all of us with you?”
The beast swivelled its head towards them and readied to strike again.
“For the vengeance of my Chapter, no price is too high. I am sorry, Alpha, but that is how it must be.”
“Then the rest of Talon Squad stands with you,” said Karras. “Let us hope we all live to regret it.”
Solarion managed to put two further toxic rounds into the creature’s mouth in rapid succession, but it was futile. This hopeless battle was telling badly on the others now. Each slash of that deadly tail was avoided by a rapidly narrowing margin. Against a smaller and more numerous foe, the strength of the Adeptus Astartes would have seemed almost infinite, but this towering tyranid leviathan was far too powerful to engage with the weapons they had. They were losing this fight, and yet Chyron would not abandon it, and the others would not abandon him, despite the good sense that might be served in doing so.
Voss tried his best to keep the creature occupied at range, firing great torrents from his heavy bolter, even knowing that he could do little, if any, real damage. His fire, however, gave the others just enough openings to keep fighting. Still, even the heavy ammunition store on the Imperial Fist’s back had its limits. Soon, the weapon’s thick belt feed began whining as it tried to cycle non-existent rounds into the chamber.
“I’m out,” Voss told them. He started disconnecting the heavy weapon so that he might draw his combat blade and join the close-quarters melee.
It was at that precise moment, however, that Zeed, who had again been taunting the creature with his lightning claws, had his feet struck out from under him. He went down hard on his back, and the tyranid monstrosity launched itself straight towards him, massive mandibles spread wide.
For an instant, Zeed saw that huge red maw descending towards him. It looked like a tunnel of dark, wet flesh. Then a black shape blocked his view and he heard a mechanical grunt of strain.
“I’m more of a meal, beast,” growled Chyron.
The Dreadnought had put himself directly in front of Zeed at the last minute, gripping the tyranid’s sharp mandibles in his unbreakable titanium grip. But the creature was impossibly heavy, and it pressed down on the Lamenter with all its weight.
The force pressing down on Chyron was impossible to fight, but he put everything he had into the effort. His squat, powerful legs began to buckle. A piston in his right leg snapped. His engine began to sputter and cough with the strain.
“Get out from under me, Raven Guard,” he barked. “I can’t hold it much longer!”
Zeed scrabbled backwards about two metres, then stopped.
No, he told himself. Not today. Not to a mindless beast like this.
“Corax protect me,” he muttered, then sprang to his feet and raced forwards, shouting, “Victoris aut mortis!”
Victory or death!
He slipped beneath the Dreadnought’s right arm, bunched his legs beneath him and, with lightning claws extended out in front, dived directly into the beast’s gaping throat.
“Ghost!” shouted Voss and Karras at the same time, but he was already gone from sight and there was no reply over the link.
Chyron wrestled on for another second. Then two. Then, suddenly, the monster began thrashing in great paroxysms of agony. It wrenched its mandibles from Chyron’s grip and flew backwards, pounding its ringed segments against the concrete so hard that great fractures appeared in the ground.
The others moved quickly back to a safe distance and watched in stunned silence.
It took a long time to die.
When the beast was finally still, Voss sank to his knees.
“No,” he said, but he was so quiet that the others almost missed it.
Footsteps sounded on the stone behind them. It was Solarion. He stopped alongside Karras and Rauth.
“So much for taking it alive,” he said.
No one answered.
Karras couldn’t believe it had finally happened. He had lost one. After all they had been through together, he had started to believe they might all return to their Chapters alive one day, to be welcomed as honoured heroes, with the sad exception of Chyron, of course.
Suddenly, however, that belief seemed embarrassingly naive. If Zeed could die, all of them could. Even the very best of the best would meet his match in the end. Statistically, most Deathwatch members never made it back to the fortress-monasteries of their originating Chapters. Today, Zeed had joined those fallen ranks.
It was Sigma, breaking in on the command channel, who shattered the grim silence.
“You have failed me, Talon Squad. It seems I greatly overestimated you.”
Karras hissed in quiet anger. “Siefer Zeed is dead, inquisitor.”
“Then you, Alpha, have failed on two counts. The Chapter Master of the Raven Guard will be notified of Zeed’s failure. Those of you who live will at least have a future chance to redeem yourselves. The Imperium has lost a great opportunity here. I hav
e no more to say to you. Stand by for Magos Altando.”
“Altando?” said Karras. “Why would—”
Sigma signed off before Karras could finish, his voice soon replaced by the buzzing mechanical tones of the old magos who served on his retinue.
“I am told that Specimen Six is dead,” he grated over the link. “Most regrettable, but your chances of success were extremely slim from the beginning. I predicted failure at close to ninety-six point eight five per cent probability.”
“But Sigma deployed us anyway,” Karras seethed. “Why am I not surprised?”
“All is not lost,” Altando continued, ignoring the Death Spectre’s ire. “There is much still to be learned from the carcass. Escort it back to Orga Station. I will arrive there to collect it shortly.”
“Wait,” snapped Karras. “You wish this piece of tyranid filth loaded up and shipped back for extraction? Are you aware of its size?”
“Of course, I am,” answered Altando. “It is what the mag-rail line was built for. In fact, everything we did on Menatar from the very beginning—the construction, the excavation, the influx of Mechanicus personnel—all of it was to secure the specimen alive, still trapped inside its sarcophagus. Under the circumstances, we will make do with a dead one. You have given us no choice.”
The sound of approaching footsteps caught Karras’ attention. He turned from the beast’s slumped form and saw the xeno-heirographologist, Magos Borgovda, walking towards him with a phalanx of surviving skitarii troopers and robed Mechanicus acolytes.
Beneath the plex bubble of his helm, the little tech-priest’s eyes were wide.
“You… you bested it. I would not have believed it possible. You have achieved what the Exodites could not.”
“Ghost bested it,” said Voss. “This is his kill. His and Chyron’s.”
If Chyron registered these words, he didn’t show it. The ancient warrior stared fixedly at his fallen foe.
“Magos Borgovda,” said Karras heavily, “are there men among your survivors who can work the cranes? This carcass is to be loaded onto a mag-rail car and taken to Orga Station.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Borgovda, his eyes taking in the sheer size of the creature. “That part of our plans has not changed, at least.”
Karras turned in the direction of the mag-rail station and started walking. He knew he sounded tired and miserable when he said, “Talon Squad, fall in.”
“Wait,” said Chyron. He limped forwards with a clashing and grinding of the gears in his right leg. “I swear it, Alpha. The creature just moved. Perhaps it is not dead, after all.”
He clenched his fists as if in anticipation of crushing the last vestiges of life from it. But, as he stepped closer to the creature’s slack mouth, there was a sudden outpouring of thick black gore, a great torrent of it. It splashed over his feet and washed across the dry rocky ground.
In that flood of gore was a bulky form, a form with great rounded pauldrons, sharp claws, and a distinctive, back-mounted generator. It lay unmoving in the tide of ichor.
“Ghost,” said Karras quietly. He had hoped never to see this, one under his command lying dead.
Then the figure stirred and groaned.
“If we ever fight a giant alien worm again,” said the croaking figure over the comm-link, “some other bastard can jump down its throat. I’ve had my turn.”
Solarion gave a sharp laugh. Voss’ reaction was immediate. He strode forwards and hauled his friend up, clapping him hard on the shoulders. “Why would any of us bother when you’re so good at it, paper-face?”
Karras could hear the relief in Voss’ voice. He grinned under his helm. Maybe Talon Squad was blessed after all. Maybe they would live to return to their Chapters.
“I said fall in, Deathwatch,” he barked at them; then he turned and led them away.
Altando’s lifter had already docked at Orga Station by the time the mag-rail cars brought Talon Squad, the dead beast and the Mechanicus survivors to the facility. Sigma himself was, as always, nowhere to be seen. That was standard practice for the inquisitor. Six years, and Karras had still never met his enigmatic handler. He doubted he ever would.
Derlon Saezar and the station staff had been warned to stay well away from the mag-rail platforms and loading bays and to turn off all internal vid-pictors. Saezar was smarter than most people gave him credit for. He did exactly as he was told. No knowledge was worth the price of his life.
Magos Altando surveyed the tyranid’s long body with an appraising lens before ordering it loaded onto the lifter, a task with which even his veritable army of servitor slaves had some trouble. Magos Borgovda was most eager to speak with him, but, for some reason, Altando acted as if the xeno-heirographologist barely existed. In the end, Borgovda became irate and insisted that the other magos answer his questions at once. Why was he being told nothing? This was his discovery. Great promises had been made. He demanded the respect he was due.
It was at this point, with everyone gathered in Bay One, the only bay in the station large enough to offer a berth to Altando’s lifter, that Sigma addressed Talon Squad over the comm-link command channel once again.
“No witnesses,” he said simply.
Karras was hardly surprised. Again, this was standard operating procedure, but that didn’t mean the Death Spectre had to like it. It went against every bone in his body. Wasn’t the whole point of the Deathwatch to protect mankind? They were alien-hunters. His weapons hadn’t been crafted to take the lives of loyal Imperial citizens, no matter who gave the command.
“Clarify,” said Karras, feigning momentary confusion.
There was a crack of thunder, a single bolter-shot. Magos Borgovda’s head exploded in a red haze.
Darrion Rauth stood over the body, dark grey smoke rising from the muzzle of his bolter.
“Clear enough for you, Karras?” said the Exorcist.
Karras felt anger surging up inside him. He might even have lashed out at Rauth, might have grabbed him by the gorget, but the reaction of the surviving skitarii troopers put a stop to that. Responding to the cold-blooded slaughter of their leader, they raised their weapons and aimed straight at the Exorcist.
What followed was a one-sided massacre that made Karras sick to his stomach.
When it was over, Sigma had his wish.
There were no witnesses left to testify that anything at all had been dug up from the crater on Menatar. All that remained was the little spaceport station and its staff, waiting to be told that the excavation was over and that their time on this inhospitable world was finally at an end.
* * *
Saezar watched the big lifter take off first, and marvelled at it. Even on his slightly fuzzy vid-monitor screen, the craft was an awe-inspiring sight. It emerged from the doors of Bay One with so much thrust that he thought it might rip the whole station apart, but the facility’s integrity held. There were no pressure leaks, no accidents.
The way that great ship hauled its heavy form up into the sky and off beyond the clouds thrilled him. Such power! It was a joy and an honour to see it. He wondered what it must be like to pilot such a ship.
Soon, the black Thunderhawk was also ready to leave. He granted the smaller, sleeker craft clearance and opened the doors of Bay Four once again. Good air out, bad air in. The Thunderhawk’s thrusters powered up. It soon emerged into the light of the Menatarian day, angled its nose upwards, and began to pull away.
Watching it go, Saezar felt a sense of relief that surprised him. The Adeptus Astartes were leaving. He had expected to feel some kind of sadness, perhaps even regret at not getting to meet them in person. But he felt neither of those things. There was something terrible about them. He knew that now. It was something none of the bedtime stories had ever conveyed.
As he watched the Thunderhawk climb, Saezar reflected on it, and discovered that he knew what it was. The Astartes, the Space Marines… they didn’t radiate goodness or kindness like the stories pretended. They were not so much
righteous and shining champions as they were dark avatars of destruction. Aye, he was glad to see the back of them.
They were the living embodiment of death. He hoped he would never set eyes on such beings again. Was there any greater reminder that the galaxy was a terrible and deadly place?
“That’s right,” he said quietly to the vid-image of the departing Thunderhawk. “Fly away. We don’t need angels of death here. Better you remain a legend only if the truth is so grim.”
And then he saw something that made him start forwards, eyes wide.
It was as if the great black bird of prey had heard his words. It veered sharply left, turning back towards the station.
Saezar stared at it, wordless, confused.
There was a burst of bright light from the battle-cannon on the craft’s back. A cluster of dark, slim shapes burst forwards from the under-wing pylons, each trailing a bright ribbon of smoke.
Missiles!
“No!”
Saezar would have said more, would have cried out to the Emperor for salvation, but the roof of the operations centre was ripped apart in the blast. Even if the razor sharp debris hadn’t cut his body into a dozen wet red pieces, the rush of choking Menatarian air would have eaten him from the inside out.
“No witnesses,” Sigma had said.
Within minutes, Orga Station was obliterated, and there were none.
* * *
Days passed.
The only thing stirring within the crater was the skirts of dust kicked up by gusting winds. Ozyma-138 loomed vast and red in the sky above, continuing its work of slowly blasting away the planet’s atmosphere. With the last of the humans gone, this truly was a dead place once again, and that was how the visitors, or rather returnees, found it.
There were three of them, and they had been called here by a powerful beacon that only psychically gifted individuals might detect. It was a beacon that had gone strangely silent just shortly after it had been activated. The visitors had come to find out why.
Victories of the Space Marines Page 25
