The Last Ditch

by Sandy Mitchell

  As refuges went, it wasn’t much, but everyone piled in after me gratefully enough, and began to barricade the door. A final glance before we slammed it was enough to underline the seriousness of our predicament: the ’nids were closing in for the kill from both directions, blocking the corridor ahead and behind. Attempting to force our way through either group would be suicidal. Jurgen glanced up from the data-slate I’d given him to hold what felt like a lifetime ago. ‘The nearest parallel corridor’s that way, sir.’ He indicated the direction with a grubby thumb. ‘Through eight metres of rock.’

  ‘Never an ambull around when you need one,’ Drere remarked, the feeble jest raising flickering smiles from those of us who’d encountered the creatures on Simia Orichalcae, and remembered their remarkable tunnelling ability.

  ‘I’d settle for a flamer or two,’ Magot said.

  ‘Well, we’ve got what we’ve got,’ I replied, looking around the workshop for anything which looked potentially combustible, explosive, or at least sharp, and finding little of any immediate apparent value. Most of the tools looked as though they’d be equally at home in a medicae facility, and I was loath to try activating any of the pieces of equipment racked around the walls; the machine-spirits residing in them might wake up as cranky as I generally did, and there was no telling what they were supposed to do anyway. ‘Let’s get that bench wedged against the door.’

  We manhandled it into position, finding it reassuringly heavy, and not before time; almost as soon as we got it into position, the scrabbling of talons against the thin sheet of metal started echoing round the room. Genestealers would have torn through it like Jurgen with a sandwich wrapping, but, fortunately for us, the scything claws of the ’gaunts were meant for close combat and little else.

  ‘That won’t hold them for long,’ Grifen said, ripping the power cable from one of the strange devices and jamming the bare ends against the metal door. There was a fizzle of sparks, an eerie ululation from the corridor, then the lights went out. After a moment’s silence the scrabbling began again, its enthusiasm undiminished.

  ‘Worth a try,’ I said encouragingly, as everyone except Jurgen and I snapped on their luminators and began attaching their bayonets to the barrels of their lasguns. A moment later the lights flickered back on, a little dimmer than before, the presiding machine-spirit of the complex apparently continuing to take an interest in our welfare after all. ‘How close are we to the surface?’

  ‘Pretty close,’ Jurgen told me, after a moment’s hesitation while he worked it out. He pointed at the ceiling. ‘I think we must be under one of the shuttle refuelling points.’

  ‘Let me see that,’ I said, taking the slate. If I was reading it correctly, the pump control chamber was only a ceiling’s thickness above our heads. Using the melta so close to a fuel tank the size of a swimming pool would be an insane risk, but if we stayed where we were we’d be vaporised anyway; the only moot question was whether we’d end up as tyranid indigestion first. I pointed upwards at the whitewashed ceiling. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not, sir,’ my aide replied, aiming the melta upwards and pulling the trigger, while the rest of our party took cover beneath the workbenches. The actinic glare I’d become so familiar with since he’d acquired his favourite toy punched through my tightly closed eyelids, the backwash of heat singed the hair in my nostrils, and charred debris clattered and pinged off the gleaming metal surfaces above our heads. ‘Almost there.’ He fired again, then coughed, in evident satisfaction. ‘That ought to do it.’

  ‘Indeed it should,’ I agreed, looking up at the hole above our heads. The edges were still almost molten, but cooling fast, hastened by a blast of frigid air which could only be coming from the surface. The Valhallans looked at one another, visibly cheered by the chill, then turned to the door as something large and heavy rammed into it from the other side. The workbench quivered. ‘Time we were leaving, I think.’

  Despite the cooling effect of the breeze from the surface, the edges of the hole were almost too hot to touch, but that was the least of my worries. If we didn’t move fast, we were going to get a great deal hotter before long, and no one hesitated before jumping off from the much-abused benches, trusting to our gloves and heavy greatcoats to keep us from burning as we swarmed up through the hole.

  We found ourselves in a high-ceilinged chamber, most of which was taken up with a peculiar assemblage of piping, connected to a hose the thickness of my arm, which disappeared through a hole in the opposite wall. The whole contraption was mounted on a hydraulic platform, clearly intended to raise it to the level of the surface.

  After a moment I identified a faint whining sound as the engines of our Valkyrie, muffled by the layer of rockcrete still sealing us in, and exhaled with relief; the pilot, it seemed, had been as good as his word.

  ‘Target the main entrance,’ I voxed him, nightmare visions of being outflanked by the ’nids again rising up to plague me, ‘and take out anything that moves.’

  ‘Sir?’ The pilot sounded confused, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. ‘Won’t that put you and your squad in the firing line?’

  ‘We’re leaving another way,’ I told him, clambering onto the platform. A small control lectern stood near the welded metal steps, and I studied the controls as Jurgen and the others scrambled up behind me, crowding the narrow operating station far more than its builders had ever envisaged. Its most prominent feature was a large red button, so I prodded it hopefully.

  For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then, with a loud clunk!, a narrow band of daylight appeared above our heads, followed almost at once by a pattering of disturbed snow cover falling through the gap. As it continued to widen, the wind reached in to claw through my coat, and even a few of the Valhallans refastened theirs.

  ‘We’re rising!’ Drere shouted as the platform beneath our feet shuddered into motion and began cranking itself up towards the surface.

  ‘And not before time,’ I added, spotting a flicker of movement through the still-steaming hole in the floor. The ’nids had finally succeeded in forcing the door of the workshop; a moment later the first termagant scrambled up through it, raising its fleshborer as it came. Before it could fire, a volley of lasgun rounds tore it to pieces, but within seconds the riddled corpse had been shoved aside by another, and another after that as the newcomer met the same fate.

  Before the third could fire, the rising platform reached the surface, sealing our pursuers into a rockcrete tomb their weapons could never penetrate.

  A flurry of snowflakes battered into my face, driven with even more force than usual by the backwash from the engines of the Valkyrie hovering just above the pad. I sprinted for its boarding ramp, my eyes narrowed against the blizzard, which seemed to be blowing with undiminished enthusiasm.

  ‘I’ve got movement by the bunker,’ the pilot voxed, and I turned to look, a sudden flare of panic urging me to even greater speed. A swarm of close combat organisms was boiling from the entrance, their distinctive long, curved claws marking them out as hormagaunts, and I cursed my earlier decision to leave it open for a quick evacuation; although, to be fair, I could hardly have foreseen the situation we now found ourselves in. I cracked off a couple of laspistol shots, although if I actually hit any of the fast-moving targets through the obscuring snow at such extreme range I have no idea, trying to gauge if they’d reach the hovering Valkyrie before we did. So far as I could tell, it looked like being a dead heat: which would still be bad news for us, as we’d never be able to scramble aboard if we were too busy fighting for our lives.

  Then the pilot vectored his jets, scooting straight backwards, the open ramp raising a constellation of sparks as it skittered towards us across the pad.

  ‘In!’ I yelled, leaping aboard just before the thick metal plate ploughed through my ankles. The forward-mounted multi-laser triggered, scything through the onrushing ’nids with a sound like the sky being ripped in two, and I found myself gaping in astonishment at the pi
lot’s audacity. ‘Nice flying.’

  ‘Needed to open the range a bit,’ he responded. ‘Everyone aboard?’

  ‘All accounted for,’ Grifen assured me, and I smacked the closing mechanism with the butt of my chainsword, reluctant to let go of either of the weapons I held until I was convinced we were safe.

  ‘Go!’ I told the pilot, and was immediately obliged to grab hold of the nearest stanchion68 to prevent myself from being pitched straight back out of the closing hatch, as he put the nose up and kicked the main engines to maximum thrust.

  With the aid of Jurgen’s outstretched hand, I hauled myself over to the nearest viewport, looking down at the rapidly-shrinking huddle of buildings below. I strained my eyes for any further signs of the swarm, but if there was any movement on the surface other than the wind-blown snow, the blizzard obscured it.

  Abruptly, without warning, the aircraft shook, buffeted by a shockwave which threatened to tear it from the sky. A dense column of smoke and ash burst from where the Mechanicus shrine had stood an instant before, to be followed almost at once by a geyser of bright orange magma, its vivid colour even more shocking against the monochrome landscape. We lurched, our engine faltering as the dust from the explosion was sucked into the turbines, then began to claw our way back into the sky as the pilot brought us round upwind of the livid wound in the planet’s crust.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, and settled into my seat as our course steadied. The presence of the tyranids had been an unpleasant surprise, to say the least, but no doubt we’d get to the bottom of their sudden appearance soon enough. And, in the meantime, there were still the orks to be taken care of.

  ‘Commissar,’ Kasteen said, her voice unexpectedly cutting into my comm-bead. ‘Can you confirm a tyranid infestation at objective two?’

  ‘We can,’ I said. ‘Termagants and hormagaunts for certain; if there were any other bioforms present we didn’t encounter them.’ I took another look at the ash plume, diminishing in the distance. ‘Luckily there only seemed to be a small nest, and the explosion should have taken care of them nicely.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Kasteen said, her voice grim. ‘We’ve lost contact with Commissar Forres and the platoon she took in with her at objective one.’

  ‘Are Lustig’s people inbound yet?’ I asked, remembering the contingency plans we’d discussed before I’d set out on this unexpectedly perilous reconnaissance sweep.

  ‘They are,’ Kasteen said, ‘but you’re closer, and if objective one’s infested as well...’

  ‘They’ll need all the recon data we can give them,’ I agreed. Even though I was outside the chain of command, she could still ask for my assistance, and I was in no position to refuse it: my standing with the common troopers would be cut off at the knees if I let an entire platoon walk into the maw of a tyranid swarm blind. I sighed, and tried not to grit my teeth. ‘Diverting to assist,’ I told her. ‘Vox the coordinates to the pilot.’

  Editorial Note:

  Meanwhile, the campaign against the orks continued. As Cain rather loses sight of this, a failing for which, under the circumstances, he can hardly be blamed, the following, mercifully brief, extract is appended in the interests of presenting a slightly more rounded picture.

  From Like a Phoenix on the Wing: the Early Campaigns and Glorious Victories of the Valhallan 597th by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 101 M42.

  Their full might unleashed against the greenskin foe, the daughters and sons of Valhalla fell on the barbaric interlopers like the wrath of the Emperor incarnate, hewing their way to victory like the true heroes they were. First Company were, I’m proud to say, at the forefront of the campaign, striking the greenskins hard, and harrying their inevitable retreat, until they’d been driven back to the foothills in a series of hard-fought engagements which brought our forces to the brink of ultimate victory.

  Indeed, at the time, I thought we must truly have been blessed by the hand of Him on Earth, as our advance proceeded at a pace far beyond the most wildly optimistic forecast. Divine intervention appeared to be the only rational explanation for our success, and the manner in which the enemy seemed to melt away in front of us, notwithstanding the undoubted martial prowess of all those fortunate enough to have been called to the ranks of the 597th; chief amongst them, of course, Colonel Kasteen, a tactician without peer, and whose early lessons were far from lost on my younger self. Indeed, I may go so far as to say that the successful defence of Diogenes Gap69 was only made possible by the diligent application of the principles I observed her apply on innumerable occasions.

  If credit for our victories in the Nusquan campaign belongs to anyone, however, it must surely be Commissar Cain, whose inspirational leadership and unfailing dedication to the path of duty did so much to bolster the resolve of all. Though more pressing matters kept him from the front line for much of our campaign, I for one continued to let the simple question ‘What would the commissar do now?’70 guide my actions at every point I felt the burden of command beginning to weigh heavily upon me, and on every occasion the path of duty became instantly clear.

  It was while I was in my command Chimera, studying the maps of the foothills, and charting the route of our planned advance to minimise the risk of attack from ambush, that the order came to hold our positions. Commissar Cain had typically reserved the most hazardous assignment for himself, and while leading a recon team into the heart of an enemy-held area, discovered a threat beside which the surviving greenskins seemed but a minor irritation. Inspired by his selfless heroism, I too prepared to meet a new and terrifying foe, my faltering resolve bolstered as always by his shining and inspirational example.

  FOURTEEN

  In view of what we’d discovered at the power plant, you can be sure that the prospect of facing another tyranid swarm so soon (or, to be honest, ever again) was far from welcome. ‘How certain are we that the ’nids are responsible this time?’ I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

  A hope Kasteen dashed almost at once. ‘We can’t be sure of anything,’ she told me, her voice attenuated by the comm-bead’s tiny vox-receiver, and the muffled roar of the Valkyrie’s engine. ‘Forres and the Nusquans went in, and split up to search the caverns by squad. We picked up a bit of vox traffic at first, all routine, then someone reported a contact and everything went dead.’

  ‘It could still be the orks,’ I said, not really believing it myself. ‘The chances of two nests of tyranids going undetected for years must be vanishingly small.’

  ‘True,’ Kasteen said. ‘But given the sudden loss of contact, and their distance from the greenskins’ lines, my money’s on the ’nids again.’

  A cold hand seemed to take hold of my bowels, and squeeze slowly. ‘If there are two nests,’ I said, reluctant to verbalise the thought, ‘there could be more.’

  ‘So we need as much information as we can get,’ Kasteen added. ‘Movement, numbers, types of organism. It could just be an isolated outbreak, but if it isn’t, Throne help us all.’

  ‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ I promised, not bothering to add ‘and run like frak if I see anything’, as that wouldn’t exactly be helpful under the circumstances. ‘Maybe there’s a hive ship somewhere in system, licking its wounds after the battle for Periremunda.’ Several of the living starships had fled, grievously wounded, as the Imperial Navy broke the siege of that beleaguered world, and it was possible one such survivor had drifted into the orbit of Nusquam Fundumentibus71 undetected. I couldn’t think of any other explanation for the presence of so many ’gaunts, instead of the scout organisms which usually made up the vanguard of a tyranid invasion.

  ‘Objective in sight,’ the pilot voxed, cutting into my anxious speculation not a moment too soon.

  ‘Good,’ I replied, trying to sound as if I meant it. I switched frequencies. ‘Lustig, where are you?’

  ‘On final approach,’ the platoon leader assured me. ‘About twenty minutes behind you. If this head wind doesn’t ease off.’

 
; ‘We’ll be waiting,’ I assured him. Twenty minutes would be a long time if the worst happened and we needed reinforcing in a hurry, but it could be worse. At least that’s what I thought at the time: in the event, it turned out to be worse than I could possibly have imagined.

  As we circled the objective, I must confess to a strong sense of deja vu, not unmixed with apprehension. We seemed to be repeating the sequence of events which had preceded our ill-starred investigation of the power plant, and I couldn’t shake a formless feeling of dread that this time we wouldn’t be so lucky. The only positive thing that I could see was that the snowfall had eased again, so I was able to make out our destination in a fair amount of detail.

  Like the power plant, there were a number of low structures studding the snow-shrouded surface, affording sheltered access to the caverns beneath; but in this case, instead of clustering together, they were widely separated, spread out across an area roughly a kilometre across. Wanting to know as much as possible about the environment I’d be entering in a few moments time I’d requested a map of the cave system, which Kasteen had transmitted to my data-slate, and after studying it for a minute or two my knack for remaining orientated in complex tunnel systems kicked in as reliably as ever, leaving me sure I’d be able to find my way around with little difficulty. Now, looking down, I was able to match each surface feature to the underground passageway or cavern connected to it with complete confidence.

  ‘Where are their Chimeras?’ Jurgen asked, his curiosity giving me the full benefit of his halitosis as he leaned towards the viewport for a better look.

  ‘They must have taken them inside,’ I said. Several of the blockhouses on the surface were designed to admit the heavy cargo crawlers72 which carried the foodstuffs grown here to Primadelving and the other nearby settlements, so getting the much smaller Chimeras under cover would have presented little difficulty. ‘Keep the engines from freezing in the cold.’