Hammer and Bolter Presents: Xenos Hunters

by Edited by Christian Dunn

  ‘Sigma knew,’ said Zeed, breaking in on the link.

  ‘Aye,’ said Karras. ‘Knew or suspected.’

  ‘Karras,’ said Solarion. ‘I’m moving to high ground.’

  ‘Go.’

  Solarion’s boltgun, a superbly-crafted weapon, its like unseen in the armouries of any Adeptus Astartes Chapter but the Deathwatch, was best employed from a distance. The Ultramarine broke away from the charge of the others. He sought out the tallest structure in the crater that he could reach quickly. His eyes found it almost immediately. It was behind him – the loading crane that served the mag-rail line. It was slightly shorter than the cranes that had been used to lift the entombed creature out of the pit, but each of those were far too close to the beast to be useful. This one would do well. He ran to the foot of the crane, to the stanchions that were steam-bolted to the ground, slung his rifle over his right pauldron, and began to climb.

  The massive tyranid worm was scything its tail through more of the skitarii, and their numbers dropped by half. Bloody smears marked the open concrete. For all their fearlessness and tenacity, the Mechanicus troops hadn’t even scratched the blasted thing. All they had managed was to put the beast in a killing frenzy at the cost of their own lives. Still they fought, still they poured blinding spears of fire on it, but to no avail. The beast flexed again, tail slashing forwards, and another dozen died, their bodies smashed to a red pulp.

  ‘I hope you’ve got a plan, Scholar,’ said Zeed as he ran beside his leader. ‘Other than kill the bastard, I mean.’

  ‘I can’t channel psychic energy into Arquemann,’ said Karras, thinking for a moment that his ancient force sword might be the only thing able to crack the brute’s armoured hide. ‘Not with that infernal beacon drowning me out. But if we can stop the beacon… If I can get close enough–’

  He was cut off by a calm, cold and all-too-familiar voice on the link.

  ‘Specimen Six is not to be killed under any circumstances, Talon Alpha. I want the creature alive!’

  ‘Sigma!’ spat Karras. ‘You can’t seriously think… No! We’re taking it down. We have to!’

  Sigma broadcast his voice to the entire team.

  ‘Listen to me, Talon Squad. That creature is to be taken alive at all costs. Restrain it and prepare it for transport. Brother Solarion has been equipped for the task already. Your job is to facilitate the success of his shot, then escort the tranquilised creature back to the Saint Nevarre. Remember your oaths. Do as you are bid.’

  It was Chyron, breaking his characteristic brooding silence, who spoke up first.

  ‘This is an outrage, Sigma. It is a tyranid abomination and Chyron will kill it. We are Deathwatch. Killing things is what we do.’

  ‘You will do as ordered, Lamenter. All of you will. Remember your oaths. Honour the treaties, or return to your brothers in disgrace.’

  ‘I have no brothers left,’ Chyron snarled, as if this freed him from the need to obey.

  ‘Then you will return to nothing. The Inquisition has no need of those who cannot follow mission parameters. The Deathwatch even less so.’

  Karras, getting close to the skitarii and the foe, felt his lip curl in anger. This was madness.

  ‘Solarion,’ he barked. ‘How much did you know?’

  ‘Some,’ said the Ultramarine, a trace of something unpleasant in his voice. ‘Not much.’

  ‘And you didn’t warn us, brother?’ Karras demanded.

  ‘Orders, Karras. Unlike some, I follow mine to the letter.’

  Solarion had never been happy operating under the Death Spectre Librarian’s command. Karras was from a Chapter of the Thirteenth Founding. To Solarion, that made him inferior. Only the Chapters of the First Founding were worthy of unconditional respect, and even some of those…

  ‘Magos Altando issued me with special rounds,’ Solarion went on. ‘Neuro-toxins. I need a clear shot on a soft, fleshy area. Get me that opening, Karras, and Sigma will have what he wants.’

  Karras swore under his helm. He had known all along that something was up. His psychic gift did not extend to prescience, but he had sensed something dark and ominous hanging over them from the start.

  The tyranid worm was barely fifty metres away now, and it turned its plated head straight towards the charging Deathwatch Space Marines. It could hardly have missed the thundering footfalls of Chyron, who was another thirty metres behind Karras, unable to match the swift pace of his smaller, lighter squadmates.

  ‘The plan, Karras!’ said Zeed, voice high and anxious.

  Karras had to think fast. The beast lowered its fore-sections and began slithering towards them, sensing these newcomers were a far greater threat than the remaining skitarii.

  Karras skidded to an abrupt halt next to a skitarii sergeant and shouted at him, ‘You! Get your forces out. Fall back towards the mag-rail station.’

  ‘We fight,’ insisted the skitarii. ‘Magos Borgovda has not issued the command to retreat.’

  Karras grabbed the man by the upper right arm and almost lifted him off his feet. ‘This isn’t fighting. This is dying. You will do as I say. The Deathwatch will take care of this. Do not get in our way.’

  The sergeant’s eyes were blank, lifeless things, like those of a doll. Had the Adeptus Mechanicus surgically removed so much of the man’s humanity? There was no fear there, certainly, but Karras sensed little else, either. Whether that was because of the surgeries or because the beacon was still drowning him in wave after invisible wave of pounding psychic pressure, he could not say.

  After a second, the skitarii sergeant gave a reluctant nod and sent a message over his vox-link. The skitarii began falling back, but they kept their futile fire up as they moved.

  The rasping of the worm’s armour plates against the rockcrete grew louder as it neared, and Karras turned again to face it. ‘Get ready!’ he told the others.

  ‘What is your decision, Death Spectre?’ Chyron rumbled. ‘It is a xenos abomination. It must be killed, regardless of the inquisitor’s command.’

  Damn it, thought Karras. I know he’s right, but I must honour the treaties, for the sake of the Chapter. We must give Solarion his window.

  ‘Keep the beast occupied. Do as Sigma commands. If Solarion’s shot fails…’

  ‘It won’t,’ said Solarion over the link.

  It had better not, thought Karras. Because, if it does, I’m not sure we can kill this thing.

  Solarion had reached the end of the crane’s armature. The entire crater floor was spread out below him. He saw his fellow Talon members fan out to face the alien abomination. It reared up on its hind-sections again and screeched at them, thrashing the air with rows of tiny vestigial limbs. Voss opened up on it first, showering it with a hail of fire from his heavy bolter. Rauth and Karras followed suit while Zeed and Chyron tried to flank it and approach from the sides.

  Solarion snorted.

  It was obvious, to him at least, that the fiend didn’t have any blind spots. It didn’t have eyes!

  So far as Solarion could tell from up here, the furious fusillade of bolter rounds rattling off the beast’s hide was doing nothing at all, unable to penetrate the thick chitin plates.

  I need exposed flesh, he told himself. I won’t fire until I get it. One shot, one kill. Or, in this case, one paralysed xenos worm.

  He locked himself into a stable position by pushing his boots into the corners created by the crane’s metal frame. All around him, the winds of Menatar howled and tugged, trying to pull him into a deadly eighty metre drop. The dust on those winds cut visibility by twenty per cent, but Solarion had hit targets the size of an Imperial ducat at three kilometres. He knew he could pull off a perfect shot in far worse conditions than these.

  Sniping from the top of the crane meant that he was forced to lie belly-down at a forty-five degree angle, his boltgun’s stock braced
against his shoulder, right visor-slit pressed close to the lens of his scope. After some adjustments, the writhing monstrosity came into sharp focus. Bursts of Astartes gunfire continued to ripple over its carapace. Its tail came down hard in a hammering vertical stroke that Rauth only managed to sidestep at the last possible second. The concrete where the Exorcist had been standing shattered and flew off in all directions.

  Solarion pulled back the cocking lever of his weapon and slid one of Altando’s neuro-toxin rounds into the chamber. Then he spoke over the comm-link.

  ‘I’m in position, Karras. Ready to take the shot. Hurry up and get me that opening.’

  ‘We’re trying, Prophet!’ Karras snapped back, using the nickname Zeed had coined for the Ultramarine.

  Try harder, thought Solarion, but he didn’t say it. There was a limit, he knew, to how far he could push Talon Alpha.

  Three grenades detonated, one after another, with ground-splintering cracks. The wind pulled the dust and debris aside. The creature reared up again, towering over the Space Marines, and they saw that it remained utterly undamaged, not even a scratch on it.

  ‘Nothing!’ cursed Rauth.

  Karras swore. This was getting desperate. The monster was tireless, its speed undiminished, and nothing they did seemed to have the least effect. By contrast, its own blows were all too potent. It had already struck Voss aside. Luck had been with the Imperial Fist, however. The blow had been lateral, sending him twenty metres along the ground before slamming him into the side of a fuel silo. The strength of his ceramite armour had saved his life. Had the blow been vertical, it would have killed him on the spot.

  Talon Squad hadn’t survived the last six years of special operations to die here on Menatar. Karras wouldn’t allow it. But the only weapon they had which might do anything to the monster was his force blade, Arquemann, and, with that accursed beacon drowning out his gift, Karras couldn’t charge it with the devastating psychic power it needed to do the job.

  ‘Warp blast it!’ he cursed over the link. ‘Someone find the source of that psychic signal and knock it out!’

  He couldn’t pinpoint it himself. The psychic bursts were overwhelming, drowning out all but his own thoughts. He could no longer sense Zeed’s spiritual essence, nor that of Voss, Chyron, or Solarion. As for Rauth, he had never been able to sense the Exorcist’s soul. Even after serving together this long, he was no closer to discovering the reason for that. For all Karras knew, maybe the quiet, brooding Astartes had no soul.

  Zeed was doing his best to keep the tyranid’s attention on himself. He was the fastest of all of them. If Karras hadn’t known better, he might even have said Zeed was enjoying the deadly game. Again and again, that barbed black tail flashed at the Raven Guard, and, every time, found only empty air. Zeed kept himself a split second ahead. Whenever he was close enough, he lashed out with his lightning claws and raked the creature’s sides. But, despite the blue sparks that flashed with every contact, he couldn’t penetrate that incredible armour.

  Karras locked his bolter to his thigh plate and drew Arquemann from its scabbard.

  This is it, he thought. We have to close with it. Maybe Chyron can do something if he can get inside its guard. He’s the only one who might just be strong enough.

  ‘Engage at close quarters,’ he told the others. ‘We can’t do anything from back here.’

  It was all the direction Chyron needed. The Dreadnought loosed a battle-cry and stormed forwards to attack with his two great power fists, the ground juddering under him as he charged.

  By the Emperor’s grace, thought Karras, following in the Dreadnought’s thunderous wake, don’t let this be the day we lose someone.

  Talon Squad was his squad. Despite the infighting, the secrets, the mistrust and everything else, that still meant something.

  Solarion saw the rest of the kill-team race forwards to engage the beast at close quarters and did not envy them, but he had to admit a grudging pride in their bravery and honour. Such a charge looked like sure suicide. For any other squad, it might well have been. But for Talon Squad…

  Concentrate, he told himself. The moment is at hand. Breathe slowly.

  He did.

  His helmet filtered the air, removing the elements that might have killed him, elements that even the Adeptus Astartes implant known as the Imbiber, or the multi-lung, would not have been able to handle. Still, the air tasted foul and burned in his nostrils and throat. A gust of wind buffeted him, throwing his aim off a few millimetres, forcing him to adjust again.

  A voice shouted triumphantly on the link.

  ‘I’ve found it, Scholar. I have the beacon!’

  ‘Voss?’ said Karras.

  There was a muffled crump, the sound of a krak grenade. Solarion’s eyes flicked from his scope to a cloud of smoke about fifty metres to the creature’s right. He saw Voss emerge from the smoke. Around him lay the rubble of the monster’s smashed sarcophagus.

  Karras gave a roar of triumph.

  ‘It’s… it’s gone,’ he said. ‘It’s lifted. I can feel it!’

  So Karras would be able to wield his psychic abilities again. Would it make any difference, Solarion wondered.

  It did, and that difference was immediate. Something began to glow down on the battlefield. Solarion turned his eyes towards it and saw Karras raise Arquemann in a two-handed grip. The monster must have sensed the sudden build-up of psychic charge, too. It thrashed its way towards the Librarian, eager to crush him under its powerful coils. Karras dashed in to meet the creature’s huge body and plunged his blade into a crease where two sections of chitin plate met.

  An ear-splitting alien scream tore through the air, echoing off the crater walls.

  Karras twisted the blade hard and pulled it free, and its glowing length was followed by a thick gush of black ichor.

  The creature writhed in pain, reared straight up and screeched again, its complex jaws open wide.

  Just the opening Solarion was waiting for.

  He squeezed the trigger of his rifle and felt it kick powerfully against his armoured shoulder.

  A single white-hot round lanced out towards the tyranid worm.

  There was a wet impact as the round struck home, embedding itself deep in the fleshy tissue of the beast’s mouth.

  ‘Direct hit!’ Solarion reported.

  ‘Good work,’ said Karras on the link. ‘Now what?’

  It was Sigma’s voice that answered. ‘Fall back and wait. The toxin is fast acting. Ten to fifteen seconds. Specimen Six will be completely paralysed.’

  ‘You heard him, Talon Squad,’ said Karras. ‘Fall back. Let’s go!’

  Solarion placed one hand on the top of his rifle, muttered a prayer of thanks to the weapon’s machine-spirit, and prepared to descend. As he looked out over the crater floor, however, he saw that one member of the kill-team wasn’t retreating.

  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 neuro-toxin 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?’