Defenders of Mankind - David Annandale & Guy Haley

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘All demolition teams!’ Galt’s words rang out across space. ‘Prepare to vent atmosphere in three, two, one, mark!’

  At five places, three differing methods of breaching the hulk were activated. The explosives were the most rapid. Sheets of metal peeled away in short-lived fire bursts and wheeled into space. Then the laser-cut hull sections. The result was the same, white geysers of flash-frozen gas rushing into space.

  The officers of the Adeptus Astartes watched as their auspexes detected a burst of sudden movement in the roosts.

  Captain Aresti’s forward group was stationed in a large chamber at the head of the corridor leading down to the roost designated ‘Perdition’. At their post, they felt the rumble of the detonation through the ceramite of their Terminator plate and their minds sharpened. At first, there was no sign the breaching had been a success. Then scrips attached to their armour wafted as the air in the hulk stirred. The current rose quickly to a howling gale. The noise of it was muted within Aresti’s Terminator armour, its sensorium warning him of the air’s flight with a persistent pinging.

  On the auspex, the roost chamber came alive with red motion indicators.

  ‘Roosts are active,’ he said. ‘Prepare.’

  With satisfaction he imagined the genestealers coming awake, fighting over one another to get away as their precious air was drawn away, scrabbling for the exits. Not all of them would make it; some would be sucked out into space by decompression where they would perish. Aresti wondered if the genestealers knew fear. He prayed it was the case, such wicked things should feel what their victims felt.

  Further alarm chimes sounded in his helmet.

  ‘They come!’ shouted Brother Lucello of Squad Blazing Dawn.

  ‘Stand ready!’ ordered Aresti. The auspex showed a crowd of red dots coming up the corridor leading down to the roost. ‘Wait until they are in the corridor before opening fire!’

  The Terminators formed into a line. They raised their weapons. The whine of assault cannon barrels rotating up to firing speed cut over the roar of escaping air.

  The genestealers came out into the corridor, as sudden as bats scared from their cave. Bowed, crooked backs crested with high knobbles jostled one another as the genestealers stampeded, their multiple arms held up protectively under their bellies. They turned as one, like a flock of birds in flight, down the corridor leading to the cavern. They came on and on, an endless flood of shining blue chitin and lurid, purple flesh.

  ‘Fire!’ ordered Aresti.

  Nine storm bolters and two assault cannons gave voice. The howl of the wind was lost under a storm of explosions. A swathe of genestealers were cut down, falling as crops fall before the harvester. Craters the size of men’s heads marred their exoskeletons, their innards burst outwards as if as desperate to escape as the genestealers were. Lines of bright fire stabbed out from the assault cannons as tracer rounds helped their bearers draw a bead on their targets, although in truth this simple aid was not required, and nor was that of the suits’ sensoriums. There were so many genestealers that it was impossible to miss. But as many as the Terminators mowed down, twice as many fled down the corridor.

  Something changed. A portion of the flock turned, peeling off from the mass of their comrades. Hissing, their long tubular tongues waving in the air, they rushed the Terminator line, claws snapping.

  Ten, then twenty, then three dozen fell. The stream of genestealers escaping the roost had split in two, half going down the tunnel to the killing zone, the other charging the Terminators. It was a good thirty metres across the chamber to the Terminator line. The genestealers tumbled headfirst, heads exploding, limbs blown free. A few took the bolts and did not slow. They came closer, though their wounds were terrible. Not a single one made it within grasping distance. Their bodies piled up so high that they were forced to clamber over one another, and still they died.

  Suddenly, the second stream ceased. A wall of dead xenos lay across the chamber, blocking the Terminators’ line of fire to the fleeing aliens.

  Almost as if they planned it, thought Aresti.

  He ordered his adepts forward, but by the time they had reached the pile of dead and pushed their way through, the stampede had become a trickle of stragglers. His squads loosed shots after these as they fled, killing some. The auspex’s motion detector feeds calmed. The rash of red spots moved off down the corridor.

  ‘Squad Novum’s Expanse, head into the brood chamber and eliminate any remaining genestealers,’ ordered Aresti. ‘Squad Blazing Dawn, finish off any wounded and prepare to follow me. Phase two of our mission is done.’

  Aresti checked the datafeeds from the other squads in Strikeforce Hammer, and called up the squad sergeants under his command one by one. All reported similar experiences – genestealers in flight, some diversionary or protective tactics at all roost entrances, many dead xenos. Strikeforce Hammer had sustained three casualties, only one dead, and they were being recovered without incident. He looked around the chamber at the piles of aliens. His sensorium highlighted each corpse in bright green as it counted them. Fifty-nine dead or dying.

  Squad Novum’s Expanse pushed on into the roost chamber. Blazing Dawn’s warriors went from alien to alien, caving in the heads of those that still twitched with their power fists.

  Reports came in from elsewhere. Altogether they had slaughtered one hundred and thirty-six of the genestealers, not counting those that had been annihilated in the venting episode, or that were wounded and had fallen further on. Only the entrances to the upper three roosts had been so covered. The other two were too far into the hulk’s body. Space Marines deployed there would potentially have been caught between two forces of genestealers. Those roosts had been mined, but they had been allowed to empty without the numbers of aliens being thinned by direct fire. The full brunt of those roosts would fall upon Anvil.

  ‘The genestealers come,’ Aresti signalled to Galt and Mastrik. ‘A good tally has been made here. We advance.’

  ‘Lord captain.’ Sergeant Kallat of Novum’s Expanse spoke. He was close by the reactor the roost had been warmed by, and his vox signal suffered. His voice broke up.

  ‘Say again brother,’ said Aresti.

  ‘…signs of hundreds of genestealers… I…’

  The emissions of the reactor killed the transmission, but Aresti understood.

  ‘Brother Lucello, give me an estimate of overall numbers killed or fled from this roost.’

  ‘Around one hundred and fifty, lord captain.’

  Kallat came back online. ‘Captain, take a look at this.’ The sergeant’s suit feed sprang up in a box on the captain’s visor. Suit light played over the inside of the roost, lines of interference tracking over it. The ragged breach led up into space above. Genestealer corpses floated past and banged into the walls. There was a muzzle flash in the background. Kallat’s suit pict-feed revealed another round hole in the wall.

  ‘An altern… exit…’ said Kallat. The picture jumped.

  ‘That was not there when the soundings were taken,’ said Aresti. ‘Brother Galt, come in, Brother-Captain Galt.’

  ‘Brother-Captain Aresti.’

  ‘Brother-captain, something is amiss, Sergeant Kallat found this alternative exit from roost Perdition.’ He sent a recording of Kallat’s feed with a thought. ‘This is a new channel, not present on the…’ A rush of static blasted Aresti’s ears. He winced, and thought the volume down. ‘Brother Galt? Brother Galt?’ The loud interference of the sun had returned.

  ‘Brother-captain?’ Chaplain Odon, assigned to Strikeforce Hammer, and stationed by roost ‘Vile Nest’, spoke. His signal crackled explosively. ‘What occurs?’

  Aresti could not answer for a moment. Only one answer presented itself to him, and it was unpalatable. ‘The relay net. It is down.’

  ‘Brother Voldo, we have lost the booster signal,’ said Eskerio. ‘We are no longer in contact with Hammer or Anvil. We are not close enough to reactor five yet for that to be the explanation.�
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  ‘A malfunction of the Adepts of Mars’ equipment then,’ said Alanius. ‘We are fools to rely on technology where our own strength alone will prevail.’

  ‘Aye!’ shouted Tarael and Azmael.

  ‘Be on your guard!’ said Voldo harshly. ‘Not all is as it seems.’

  ‘Surely you do not suggest the genestealers have the wit to sabotage the booster network?’ said Azmael. ‘You tell us not to underestimate these xenos, and that is fairly said. But surely it is you who is now at error and overestimate them. Be careful cousin-sergeant, your caution will make you timid.’

  ‘Will it now?’ said Voldo levelly.

  ‘Brother Azmael, you will address the sergeant correctly and treat his wisdom with more respect,’ rebuked Alanius.

  A pause. ‘I am sorry, brother-sergeant.’ Azmael sounded far from sincere.

  ‘Group, halt,’ said Voldo. The Terminators came to a stop, strung out in a long line in a narrow passageway.

  ‘Look to the map. Quadrant forty-seven, coordinates 72.3.46.’

  They checked the auspex feeds.

  ‘There! Contacts! Our prey flee us, we should be on our way,’ said Tarael.

  ‘Are you so sure this is the group who assailed your Brother Azmael?’ said Voldo.

  ‘Who else would it be?’ said Azmael.

  ‘No, he is right,’ said Alanius. ‘I do not see how that is possible. They move obliquely from us, and at speed. If they have been travelling so quickly since the combat, they should be far ahead of us by now.’

  ‘You are correct, brother.’ Eskerio sharpened the auspex focus. Without the booster relays, the image was spotty. ‘I have multiple contact groups. These are those we pursue.’

  ‘A second band?’ said Tarael.

  ‘And a third,’ said Azmael. ‘And a fourth.’ He pushed his auspex as wide as it would go. The map, generated from the Imagifer Maximus’s data, held firm, but new motion detection data was erratic at best without the boosting signal of the relay system. ‘Even accounting for over half being false signals, they are many.’

  ‘I calculate there are at least one hundred and eighty of them,’ said Eskerio.

  ‘Look! These tunnels were supposed to have been sealed,’ said Militor. The tunnels he spoke of flashed amber.

  ‘They were,’ said Voldo. ‘The genestealers are advancing through passages we thought sealed or impassable. They evade our trap.’

  ‘How is this possible if they do not think, brothers?’ said Alanius.

  ‘And if they think, is it then inconceivable that they might not have destroyed some of the relay network?’ said Voldo.

  ‘Where do they go?’

  ‘An ambush!’ said Tarael. ‘Our brothers are in danger.’

  ‘We should inform Captain Galt,’ said Alanius.

  ‘I cannot,’ said Eskerio. ‘The reactor is scrambling our vox signals, and without the relay poles we are many hundreds of metres from a viable broadcast point.’

  ‘We press on, kill them from behind,’ said Voldo.

  ‘This is a trap,’ said Alanius.

  ‘Yes, but not for us,’ said Voldo. ‘With good fortune we can disrupt their outflanking manoeuvre before they have a chance to harm our brothers.’

  ‘Brothers!’ said Eskerio. ‘A fifth group.’

  Eskerio directed their sensorium displays to a part of the hulk where red dots sparkled over the wireframe map.

  They were heading right for Squad Hesperion and Squad Wisdom of Lucretius.

  ‘And now it appears it is a trap for us also,’ said Alanius. He activated his lightning claws. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘Here they come! Stand ready!’ Mastrik tensed as he gave the order. His fingers tightened on his storm bolter trigger. ‘Today we write our names into our Chapter histories in fire and glory!’

  The genestealers came in a great rush, two of the tunnel mouths vomiting them out into the cavern. They spilled forth in a boiling mass. From Mastrik’s position, the genestealers were made small by distance, their six limbs further making them seem like insects. Fire blossomed around them as missiles and bolter fire poured into them from above Mastrik’s head. The aliens were lofted high by each explosion, slamming into the roof and walls. The air was filled with body parts and shrapnel in short order, clouding targeting sensors and spoiling the aim of the Adeptus Astartes. The genestealers ran on. In the wider space, they dispersed rapidly, groups of them leaping upward. The wind dragged back at them as it rushed from the cavern, but the gravity was so weak they made good progress against it through the air, unerringly heading towards the Space Marines’ heaviest guns. Many died as they flew, blasted to pieces. The genestealers were without fear, uncaring of their colleagues’ deaths, and the few that got through fought savagely. Genestealers bounded from ledge to ledge, or scuttled insanely fast, disappearing behind cover as shots raked the uneven cavern floor behind them. They covered the distance between the closest Space Marine units and the tunnel with preternatural speed, and fire patterns were disrupted as more and more of them made it into close assault. They targeted the power armoured brothers, their lethal claws ripping hard into them, so fast they stepped around the most skilfully placed blows, landing their own deadly replies.

  The cavern was a three-dimensional battle zone. Space Marines had been deployed all around it in order to maximise their firepower. But they had underestimated the speed with which the genestealers would emerge from the tunnels, and how quickly they would close. Fire criss-crossed the room, slamming into the metal dangerously close to emplaced brothers as squads tracked their fire after their targets. Casualties from friendly weapons were becoming an uncomfortable possibility. An explosion shook the ledge near to Mastrik. ‘Squad Blood of Ramillies, check your fire!’ he shouted.

  ‘There are surprising few of them, brother,’ said Ranial. ‘And I do not see our pursuing squads. I cannot sense them either.’

  The Epistolary was right. The numbers of genestealers pouring out of the tunnels was thinning, and there was no sign of pursuit.

  ‘They dwindle too rapidly,’ said Mastrik. ‘And why are there none coming from tunnel two?’ He pointed at the tear in the spacecraft hull. ‘Brother-Captain Aresti, reply.’

  Nothing.

  ‘The booster relays are down!’ shouted Mastrik. ‘Captain Galt, we have lost contact with Hammer.’

  ‘This is Galt, there has been a booster malfunction, stand firm, I repeat stan–’

  Galt’s voice cut out suddenly.

  ‘A second malfunction?’ said Mastrik incredulously.

  Ranial looked all around the cavern. ‘No, it is something more than that. The presence I felt. It grows. It watches us. The genestealers are being directed. This is not the play of mindless animals panicked into a stampede.’

  Mastrik swore in the rich language of Honourum as he watched a squad of Blood Drinkers Devastators abandon their position and jump into combat with a party of genestealers running at another unit, the low gravity seeing them among the foe rapidly. ‘All squads, stand firm! Maintain positions!’

  ‘Lord captain! Above!’ A brother pointed up.

  Mastrik span on his heel, craning his neck as well as his restrictive Terminator cowling would allow him. ‘Above’ was a relative concept, but the Space Marines had designated an up and down to help them make sense of the maelstrom of fire and flying bodies of battle.

  ‘There!’ he followed the pointing finger. Genestealers were emerging from a crack between two crushed spacecraft, crawling down the wall stealthily upon a Novamarines Devastator squad.

  Mastrik called out to them, but too late. The genestealers fell upon them, and the squad’s fire ceased.

  ‘More! There are more coming!’

  The air was alive with frantic vox chatter as sergeants gave orders to their squads, and the captains gave orders to the sergeants. The hubbub grew deafening as the various units scattered around the room became aware of genestealers coming from cracks all around them.

 
The tone of the battle changed. The concentrated fire patterns they had so carefully planned disintegrated as the squads turned to face the infiltrating aliens. The fight splintered into a number of uncoordinated squad-on-alien actions.

  The genestealers of tunnel two took the opportunity to emerge, shielded by the confusion sown by their kin. A stream of them came rushing into the cavern, unmolested by the Space Marines’ bigger guns.

  ‘Throne!’ said Mastrik. ‘Squads Fidelis, Ultramar Remembered, Holos’s Price, Gideon, Wallbreaker and Five Lords to the tunnel mouths!’ he shouted. The squads of Terminators responded quickly, lumbering their way through the battle towards this new force of genestealers.

  ‘More lord captain, coming Sorael’s way!’

  ‘I have them,’ said Sorael. The distance to his position was a mere fifteen hundred metres, but without the boosters, his vox was a rattle of interference. ‘We will contain them here, but you cannot rely upon our assistance.’

  ‘Lord captain,’ Ranial’s voice was firm and quiet in the chaos. ‘I have sent a telepathic message to Lord Astropath Feldiol, apprising him of our situation. But without him focusing his attention on our location, I cannot guarantee he will receive it.’

  ‘Thank you, Brother Ranial.’

  ‘You may honour me for it later,’ said the Epistolary drily. ‘There is more. I reached for the alien mind directing this attack. It is powerful, and turned me aside. But while I did so, I chanced upon a glimmer in the warp – Epistolary Guinian of the Blood Drinkers. He is near the source. And if he is there, then so might Lord Caedis be.’

  Mastrik raised his gun and filled a genestealer forty metres distant with bolts. The creature ran on before exploding as the miniature missiles detonated, sending globules of blood and flesh out in every direction.

  ‘Then let us pray that Caedis is the end of this mind, or it will be the end of us.’

  Radioactive fog swirled around Aresti and his two squads. It had appeared from nowhere, drawn along with the escaping atmosphere. It came unevenly, in rags and billows or twisted helices. The radioactivity of it was intense, and hot. Lucello speculated that it might have come from a breached coolant unit from a nearby reactor, only two decks away. Whatever its provenance, it clouded all their senses. Their eyes could not see well, and their sensoriums fared little better. The heat of it confused their infravision, the radioactivity scrambled many of the sensoriums’ other functions, while its rapid movement prevented the less esoteric aspects of the motion detectors from operating correctly.