'If I die, monster,' he seethed through clenched teeth, 'I won't die alone.'
Thule twisted his wrist as far as he was able, straining with pain, bringing Wisdom's blade around, its point aimed directly at the crater-pocked area of the tyranid's carapace. Then, ignoring the throbbing pain of the impaling claw, feeling his strength ebb from him as the toxins coursed through his system, Thule wrenched his sword-arm inwards, bracing himself with his other hand on the warrior's carapace, and buried Wisdom halfway to the hilt in the tyranid's body.
ARAMUS WATCHED THE tyranid warrior shove the tendril-wrapped body of Captain Thule off its claw. As the captain crumpled to the ground, the tyranid reached down with one of its forelimbs and yanked the power sword from its side with an inhuman screech, and then tossed Wisdom away to the farthest corner of the warehouse.
Aramus rushed forward, bolter firing, but then the tyranid let out a final ear-splitting cry and toppled forward onto the still body of Captain Thule, and it was all over.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HIS OWN ENHANCED strength augmented by the servos of his power armour, Sergeant Aramus strained as he lifted the massive bulk of the felled tyranid warrior from off Captain Thule, and with a grunt of effort shoved it aside. Having already confirmed to his satisfaction that the tyranid was no further threat, Aramus knelt by Thule's side as soon as the warrior flopped lifeless onto the cold rockcrete of the warehouse floor.
The captain's wounds were grave, perhaps even fatal, but it appeared that he was not dead yet. He lived, if only barely. Aramus lacked an Apothecary's expert knowledge of Astartes physiology, but it seemed to him that the rending claw of the tyranid warrior appeared to have done some serious damage to Thule's internal organs, and perhaps even to the implants that made him an Adeptus Astartes.
If Thule were to survive, he would need the attention of Apothecary Gordian. Assuming Gordian had followed Thule's orders, he would have already withdrawn to the extraction site, awaiting the rest of the team to arrive so the Blood Ravens could quit Calderis once and for all. There was little to gain from summoning Gordian here, though, Aramus knew; better that Thule should be brought to him, so that the captain could be returned to the Armageddon where he might receive better treatment than battlefield conditions would allow.
There was little time to waste. Aramus spent a precious few moments attempting to locate the captain's power sword, but after searching amongst the toppled crates and containers where the tyranid had thrown it with its dying movements, Aramus could not locate it.
Wisdom, it appeared, had been lost.
Holstering his bolter, Aramus bent and, straining with the effort, lifted Thule up and over his shoulder, and then hurried from the warehouse.
SERGEANT THADDEUS AND the remains of the First and Seventh Squads were fighting their way through the massed orks, both the ferals native to Calderis and the well-armed members of Gorgrim's horde who goaded them on. They were working their way west towards the extraction point, but it was beginning to look doubtful that they would reach the space port before the appointed time.
The fourteen survivors had cut, blasted, and punched their way through the main line of Gorgrim's horde, and now found themselves making only slow progress, with the barbaric feral orks before them and on their right flank, and the more sophisticated forces of Warlord Gorgrim at their rear and on their left flank. Had Thaddeus only had the members of his assault squad to consider, they could have made faster progress by employing their jump packs, leaping over the vast numbers of orks which they were now obliged to battle their way through. But the surviving members of the late Sergeant Merrik's First Squad were not equipped with jump packs, and since there was simply no way that eight Astartes with jump packs could carry with them six fully armed and armoured Space Marines, the brutal calculus of their situation dictated that a hastier withdrawal for the assault squad would mean that the tactical squad would need to be left behind to fend for themselves. And since Thaddeus had already vowed to leave no Blood Raven behind, that meant that they would all extract together - or not at all.
The sheer overwhelming numbers of the feral orks in their path were slowing them down, giving the elements of Gorgrim's horde behind the opportunity to catch up and attack from the rear. But even the enhanced senses and keen tactical mind of an Adeptus Astartes was hard pressed to constantly monitor threats from all directions, and it was only by acting together as a well-oiled machine that the Blood Ravens had even survived this long.
'Thaddeus!'
Sergeant Thaddeus heard the voice of Battle-Brother Loew calling over the vox. Loew had been tasked with covering their rear, while Thaddeus was among those concerning themselves with the enemy before them.
'To your rear!' Loew shouted again.
Thaddeus dealt a blow to the feral ork before him with his chainsword, lopping the ork's left arm off at the elbow. The ork scarcely seemed to notice, but swung with his right, and Thaddeus was forced to lunge to one side to avoid the ork's next strike. Then he unleashed a stream of bolt rounds from his bolt pistol at the ork's head, and danced back out of the way as the ork's body gradually came to realise it was no longer receiving signals from its brain.
Finally free to see what Loew had been warning him about, Thaddeus turned just in time to see a massive figure, more machine than flesh, thundering towards him. One of Gorgrim's shock troops, a large percentage of the ork's body had been replaced with crude cybernetics - the top half of the ork's head was hidden behind an inverted bowl of tarnished metal, with the red glow of augmetics where his eyes would have been, and his shoulders on either side ended in massive metallic joints from which swung a pair of bionic arms, both terminating in gargantuan power claws.
Thaddeus began to raise his chainsword, but the cyborg ork was already barrelling forward too quickly for him to take an appropriate defensive posture, and was already too close for Thaddeus to get clear of its charge. His only option was to face the cyborg's attack as best as he was able, and look for a shift in advantage in which to regain the upper hand - provided he survived the initial attack.
Then a Blood Raven rammed into the cyborg ork from the side, knocking him to one side and diverting him from the collision with Thaddeus.
'Thought you could use some help,' Brother Loew voxed, as he fired his bolter at short range into the cyborg ork's body. Thaddeus could almost hear Loew's taunting grin as he spoke.
Loew's bolter rounds ricocheted ineffectually off the grimy metal of the ork's bionics, as the cyborg ork regained his footing and turned to deal with the Space Marine who had diverted his path.
'Loew, look out!' Thaddeus shouted, but the cyborg ork moved impossibly fast, belying its ungainly appearance.
With a mechanical buzz of outrage, the cyborg ork swung its two massive power-clawed fists together, taking hold of Loew's arms at either elbow.
Loew shouted in defiance, but the cyborg ork held his arms pinned to his sides, the grip of the power-claws tightening all the while, threatening to crack the Blood Raven's ceramite armour like an egg's shell.
Thaddeus was already in motion, chainsword whirring as he rushed to Loew's aid, but before he reached the pair the damage had already been done.
'Knowledge is power!' Thaddeus cried as he drove his chainsword up to the hilt into the ork's back. The chainsword sent up curls of smoke as its teeth bit and chewed into the cyborg ork's body, ripping into metal and flesh alike, but it wasn't until Thaddeus had yanked the chainsword free and taken another swipe at the linkages between the cyborg ork's shoulders and bionic arms that the power-claws finally loosened their grip on Loew's arms.
Still howling in buzzing rage, the cyborg ork toppled over, sparking and bleeding green ichor, legs twitching and cybernetic eyes flashing. Thaddeus leapt over the bionic greenskin's flailing body and landed at Loew's side.
'It looks bad, I know,' Loew said, voice laced with pain as he raised his eyes from the mangled ruins of his arms on either side. The armour had broken, large chun
ks of it falling away, and the flesh and bone within had been pulped, so that the arms hung from Loew's shoulders uselessly. 'But you should see the other combatant.'
Thaddeus snarled, but didn't waste a moment either in unnecessary sympathy or pointless self-recrimination.
'Those arms of yours weren't good for much, anyway,' Thaddeus said, as he sheathed his chainsword temporarily, and hauled Loew's moaning form over his shoulder. 'And you never could manage to use your punches effectively when we sparred.'
'When my arms are back,' Loew said, his voice scarcely above a whisper, 'I'll make you eat those words.'
'Perhaps,' Thaddeus said, drawing his chainsword once more and turning back to the fray. 'But don't think this means that I'll go easy on you in the sparring hall until they do.'
Thaddeus motioned the other twelve Space Marines forward.
'Come on, Blood Ravens! I don't want to carry all of you, so let's keep this train moving!'
The First and Seventh Squads fought on. It looked doubtful that they would reach the extraction point in time, but they weren't about to stop trying.
'SERGEANT,' SCOUT XENAKIS said as he jogged to the edge of the landing pad. 'Scout Jutan reports that Thunderhawk Three will be ready for takeoff in another ten minutes.'
Sergeant Cyrus stood on the pitted ferrocrete, looking east at Argus Township. Pillars of black smoke curled up from several points in the city, where the firebombs lobbed by the feral orks had made it over the wall and found fuel down below. If left unchecked, the fires might consume the township whole before the orks were able to claim her.
'And the aspirants?' Cyrus asked, not taking his eyes off the Argus skyline.
'Scout Muren has all twelve of them belted-in on board Thunderhawk Two,' Xenakis answered in clipped tones.
Twelve aspirants. All of these weeks of fighting and bleeding - and dying, Cyrus reminded himself - and all they had to show for it were twelve aspirants. Would even a single one of them survive the Blood Trials that would follow, much less the examinations and initiations required to become a Blood Raven?
And at what cost? Cyrus had brought ten Blood Raven Scouts with him to art as Captain Thule's retinue. Now, only five were left. Five Scouts, neophytes that stood on the precipice of becoming full Adeptus Astartes themselves, their lives snuffed out on the unforgiving and uncaring sands of Calderis.
'And Watral has Thunderhawk One ready for liftoff?' Cyrus asked.
'Yes, sergeant.'
'Tell him there may be a change in plans, and to be prepared for lift-off at any moment.'
It came as small consolation to remember that the five Scouts who survived would be the better for their experiences here. Battle-hardened, tried and tested, when they joined the ranks of the Blood Ravens as full battle-brothers, they would carry with them the lessons they had learned on this Emperor-forsaken world, and would be the better warriors for it.
Cyrus hoped that they remembered the other lessons he had tried to teach them, as well. For the better part of two centuries Cyrus had served as sergeant to a squad of Blood Ravens Scouts, doing his best to burn out any hunger for glory they might still harbour, and to impart the martial skills and mental toughness which any warrior needed in order to survive in a hostile galaxy. It was not, after all, arms and armour that made an Astartes, but a tactical mind and a trained body. That was why Cyrus opted not to wear the power armour of an Adeptus Astartes, unlike some other Scout sergeants, but instead wore only the lighter gear of a Scout, as a symbol to the neophytes whom he led of what truly mattered in combat.
'Dismissed,' Cyrus said, glancing over in Xenakis's direction.
Scout Xenakis nodded, and rushed off to fulfil his orders.
Cyrus turned from Argus and surveyed the space port. Aside from the three Blood Ravens Thunderhawks, there were scant few craft in evidence. The last of the Imperial Navy vessels had left some time before, ferrying away the last few Calderians with the political clout to demand safe passage off-world. Most of the civilian craft had departed, as well, with only a single ship left, which was parked, it seemed, as far from the Thunderhawks as practicable.
As Cyrus glanced in its direction, he saw a pair of figures hurrying from Argus towards the civilian ship. One was a rogue trader in a brocade coat with an augmetic eyepatch, the other a man in the robes of a Calderian merchant, and between them they straggled to carry a heavily-wrapped object about as long as a man was tall. They scurried aboard the ship, evidently eager to depart without any contact with Cyrus and his Scouts.
It hardly mattered to Cyrus whether the rogue trader and his passenger wanted to exchange pleasantries with him. He had already been forced to harden his heart to the countless thousands of Calderians they would be forced to leave to their fate. As he had always striven to impress upon the Scouts in his charge, there were grim realities of war that could not be altered, only accepted, and it was a wise Space Marine who concentrated on his duties and on those aspects of the war that could be altered.
At the moment, it was just such an alterable aspect of war that occupied Cyrus's thoughts. What he intended for Thunderhawk One was contrary to Captain Thule's orders - in the letter, if perhaps not the spirit - but nearly two centuries of experience in battle had given Cyrus a certain flexibility in regards to orders, in particular, and to the precepts of the Codex Astartes in general. So long as he served Emperor and Chapter faithfully, Cyrus reasoned, the occasional lapses in strict adherence to commands could be overlooked.
He only hoped his superiors would agree, when all was said and done.
SERGEANT AVITUS FIRED one last burst from his heavy bolter down into the scrambling ranks of feral orks at the base of the city walls before giving the signal. The appointed hour had arrived, and it was time to pull back from the city walls.
'Barabbas, Philetus!' he voxed to the battle-brothers he'd set up as team leaders. 'Pull your teams back to the rendezvous point.'
With the whole of the city walls of Argus Township to man in these last hours, and only eight Blood Ravens of the Ninth Squad at his disposal, Avitus had opted for a divisional tactic, splitting the squad into two teams, one centred around the north-east corner of the Argus wall, the other around the south-east corner, each with operational autonomy. Avitus, heavy bolter firing so often the barrel scarcely had time to cool down between magazine reloads, had roamed between the two strongpoints, overseeing the operations.
'Acknowledged,' Barabbas voxed back.
'Do we have to leave so soon?' Philetus replied, chuckling ruefully.
'Silence, Blood Ravens,' Avitus barked back. 'Keep nonessential vox to a minimum.'
'Acknowledged,' a chastened Philetus responded.
Avitus would have to have a talk with Battle-Brother Philetus onboard the Armageddon, provided they both returned alive. He knew that other squad leaders allowed some degree of levity in their commands - others, like Sergeant Thaddeus, even seemed to encourage jocularity among their battle-brothers - but Avitus saw no place for such levity in combat. Battle was a deadly serious business, and a light heart and a laughing spirit were no asset in an environment in which death might come screaming towards you at any moment. If the Space Marines under his command deigned to waste their time in banter and jibes back in the barracks, that was their business - though there, too, it was a pastime which Avitus was always quick to discourage - but in combat he would allow no such nonsense.
The runes on Avitus's visor display showed green for each of the seven Space Marines in his Devastator squad, and his auspex showed that all seven had withdrawn from the wall and were moving towards the west, the two teams angling together, one northwest and the other south-west, so that their paths converged somewhere near the city's centre.
Avitus remained on the wall, covering their retreat, firing his heavy bolter first to the north along the Argus wall, then along to the south, and then north again. He succeeded in keeping some of the orks back, but the quicker-witted among the greenskins had already worked out tha
t the fire from above had abated somewhat, and had redoubled their efforts to construct siege towers from the bodies of their fallen brothers. And the makeshift catapults further out continued to fling ork after ork into the air, and without the whole of the Ninth Squad on hand to shoot them down if they happened to overfly the wall, they began in small numbers to catapult successfully into the city behind Avitus, some even managing to survive the fall.
It was time for Avitus to follow his squad in withdrawal. Once he had left the wall, there would be nothing stopping the rest of the orks from climbing and catapulting over, and then Argus would be all but lost. But Avitus cared nothing about that. He had been given his orders, and he had carried them out. If the citizens below fell to claws and jaws of the ork horde once he'd quit his post, what did it matter to him?
Avitus fired another burst of bolter shells into the greenskins scaling the wall, then leapt down on the city side, hitting the ground running. He would catch up with his squad in a matter of moments, and then they would double-time to the extraction point and get off this world at last. And none too soon for Avitus's tastes.
'THE DEVOURER IS at hand,' Librarian Niven intoned for the hundredth time. 'We must make ready.'
Apothecary Gordian led the Librarian out onto the landing pad. It was not uncommon that Space Marines who had been in states of suspended animation for prolonged periods often had a period of disorientation upon revival. The mind of an Astartes was a highly trained tool, but one that had to be kept properly honed in order to maintain full functioning. The catalepsean node, one of the nineteen organs implanted in the Space Marine's body during the process of initiation, regulated the body's circadian rhythms and responses to sleep deprivation, and with it an Astartes was capable of remaining awake for long periods while at the same time getting the benefits of slumber by switching off different regions of the brain sequentially. It could not substitute for proper sleep entirely - even a Space Marine had to sleep eventually - but it meant that a Space Marine could survive long periods in the field while never losing awareness of their surroundings.
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