This was originally supposed to be my contribution to the Black Library story contest, but apparently I didn't even make it to round two.
EDIT: Apparently they changed the deadline to the end of June. I'm probably not gonna make it but I'll remove the stories just in case.
EDIT: Okay didn't make it (didn't think I would) so here it is all back:
Ash Heap of History
Emperors Young Martyrs
[WH40K] Two short stories in the WH40K universe
Moderator: LadyTevar
[WH40K] Two short stories in the WH40K universe
Last edited by Norseman on 2007-06-30 08:39am, edited 4 times in total.
Norseman's Fics the SD archive of my fics.
The Ash Heap of History
From orbit Pypen-11567c looked grey, very grey, there were no clouds, but large parts of it were obscured by enormous dust storms the size of continents. There were a couple of brownish-grey sludge seas, but they were as dead as the rest of the world.
Dionysus had spent the better part of the day sitting on the observation deck, a dark visor covered his eyes, and mounted on the side of it was a tubular pict-enhancer. Occasionally the pict-enhancer whirred, as it zoomed in or out, or Dionysus' right hand tapped his datapad, but other than that he'd been motionless for several hours. The ratings nervously avoided him, he was very peculiar, and an Inquisitors assistant, not someone you want to hang around!
What few people were there vanished when Inquisitor Eichel arrived, bit like pigeons fleeing the shadow of a hack.
"You've found something?" Eichel said.
Dionysus raised his head, "Sir, I didn't expect you to come yourself... I'm preparing a formal report."
"I needed the exercise, and tell me what you have so far," Eichel said.
"I delved through old historical accounts, reports, even local legends, but this area was suffered greatly during the Age of Apostasy, much was lost." Dionysus said.
Eichel nodded once, Dionysus was a wonder; if he dove into the sea of information he wouldn't come up again without some wriggling fact between his teeth.
"I think this world was destroyed during the late stages of the Age of Apostasy. At that point a naval squadron moved across this sector, and I do believe they passed through this sub-sector. It's hard to be certain because..." Dionysus begun, then he stopped himself from going into a longwinded explanation, "ah, the data is spotty. However there is a note describing a world similar to this one, and some navigational notes that suggest it was this one, and a single note about the fleets visit. It appears that they destroyed this world for badly explained reasons."
"Badly explained? What exactly did this report say?" Eichel asked.
"Well Sir, and I quote: B55-R43-D14 Heresy. End quote. It's fascinating Sir, so fascinating, I wonder how they did it," Dionysus said.
"Did what?"
"The exterminatus, I've spotted multiple impact craters, though heavily deteriorated, but not enough to account for the damage. I theorized a virus bomb, but that wouldn't account for the toxic atmosphere, unless it was doped but..." Dionysus said.
Eichel interrupted him, "Toxic atmosphere?"
"Yes, you'd die within a minute trying to breathe it."
"Well, I'm glad you remember to tell me these things," Eichel said, teasing Eichel a little.
"Ah, yes Sir, so sorry Sir."
"It's not a major issue, what about the source of the transmission?"
"From what I gather from the ship Transmechanics we can't isolate it precisely. It has to do with the atmosphere and the terrain, the best we can do is an approximate co-ordinate," Dionysus said.
"Well then, we'll just have to go looking won't we," Eichel looked at the grey dust world, "Once we land I mean."
*********
The sky was utterly grey, the whole place looked and smelled like an ashtray, but no one ever asked Private Johan Gregor what he thought. For a month now they'd been trudging through this dust desert, looking for the Emperor Knew What, and nothing.
Sticking out from the ash was a human skull, shiny white, maybe it'd been a kids' skull, he gave it a good kick and saw it fly through the air vanishing behind yet another ash heap.
Just about the only good thing about being out here was that they weren't around the Inquisitor, just thinking about the grey haired bastard sent shivers up Johans spine. Whatever it was they were looking for, it was important enough for an Inquisitor, which was another reason Johan hoped he wouldn't be the one to find it.
Clack, clack, the sound of a skull hitting a hard surface, and rolling a little. Johan trudged up to the top of the ash heap just to make sure that it wasn't anything important, like say a large hole in the ground surrounded by ferrocrete.
Marvellous, just frigging marvellous! He thought about walking away, and pretend he hadn't seen anything, but apparently the Commissar had spotted him, and now the bastard was coming right at him. So Johan started waving, and yelled "OI! I found something!"
The Commissar stopped at top of the ash heap, he stood there motionless for a while, the breathing mask hiding his face. Then all of a sudden he spoke, "The Inquisitor comes tomorrow, set up a perimeter now."
"YES COMMISSAR!"
It got cold that night, and slowly the grey sky turned pitch black. The soldiers huddled around their portable stoves, and tried to drink through tubes stuck under their breathing masks. It tasted like ash, like everything else on this world.
Given the glaring Commissar Johan decided to be extra careful, so he went to sleep. After all he who sleeps doesn't commit disciplinary violations. Well unless he sleeps on duty.
When he woke he felt like he was suffocating, his head hurt, and red blurs danced before his eyes. Everything was still dark, and for a moment he wondered if he was blind, but then he realised something was weighing him down.
Then someone kicked him, and he shot up, sending cascades of ash flying. Free of the dust he took several deep breaths, until he'd recovered from the headrush. Some of the others had gotten up already, but the rest were so covered with dust that they looked like shallow graves.
Sergeant Fields was walking among the sleeping Guardsmen, kicking them hard while he yelled "UP YA GO!" One of the shape's didn't stir, "OI! GREGOR GET HERE AND HELP DIG!" Johan knew better than to argue with a man with three stripes and three inches on him, so he hurried over and started digging.
It was Corporal Hill, he was quite dead, and there was a crack in his breathing mask. Johans' hands shook when he pulled the mask away; Hills face was white and pale, blood streaked vomit filled his mouth and nose.
"What's wrong here?" the Commissar asked.
"It's Corporal Hill Sir, he's snuffed it Sir," Sergeant Fields said.
"Bury him quickly, the Inquisitor will be here soon! Glory and Honour onto the first man who dies!" the Commissar said, while carefully watching the men for any signs of malingering or lamentable lack of enthusiasm.
Now Johan wasn't a fool, so he lifted his lasgun up in the air, pumping it up and down while yelling "Glory and Honour to those who die! Glory to the Blessed Emperor!" and soon the rest of the platoon joined him in chanting litanies.
The Commissar smiled, never a good sign, and placed a hand on Johans shoulder, "You're an excellent man CORPORAL Gregor! So YOU will take Hills place as the platoon pointman!"
Marvellous, just marvellous, but Johan saluted, "Yes Commissar! I shan't fail!"
"I'm quite sure you won't! Now go forth!" with that the Commissar left him alone.
"Fark! You're our new pointman! Congrats on the promotion too," said private Mark Roberts.
"Bite me!" Johan answered.
"Cheer up, I mean how bad can it be, being the point man going into an unknown underground bunker, filled with the Emperor Knows What, and doing so while an Inquisitor AND a freshly made Commissar is watching! Why, what could..." Marks little speech was interrupted when Johan held the standard issue twelve inch bayonet up in front of him.
"See this?"
"Yeah?"
"Believe it or not, this will fit up your arse! So fark off!" Johan said, before attaching the bayonet to his lasgun.
The Inquisitor and his retinue arrived ten minutes later in a Naval shuttle, the downwash threw up clouds of darkish grey dust, by the time it started settling the Inquisitor had already disembarked.
If anything he looked even more intimidating now, and that creepy assistant of his didn't make things any better. Johan could swear that he heard a whir from the pict-enhancer, but he couldn't be sure.
The Commissar saluted the Inquisitor, and they spoke for a few moments, then he went back to the Guardsmen, "Men, begin descent into the bunkers! Remember you are doing the Emperors Will!" the Commissar said.
Moments later they brought several big coils of rope to the opening, and started sending rope down the opening, the rope kept uncoiling, and uncoiling, going on seemingly forever. For a moment Johan wondered if the ropes were too short, but then they slacked a bit, and a moment later they tied the ropes to some big rocks.
There was no getting away, Johan stepped forward, looking as heroic as he could. He strapped his rifle to his back, his lamp-pack to his helmet, and then, when he had no other legitimate excuses for hesitating, he grabbed hold of a rope and began to rappel down the hole.
Mark, Sergeant Fields, and Recruit Bock, followed closely behind him, or above him. Further and further down they went, bits of dust fell down from above. The beam of the lamp-packs cut through the murk, there was so much dust in the air that it was like trying to see through particularly dense fog.
After rappelling maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty feet, they approached the bottom of the hole. The opening seemed very small all the way up there, a circle of bright grey in all the darkness. For the second time that day Johan felt like he was suffocating, the dust was so thick he thought it was clogging up his breathing mask.
At the bottom of the hole was a huge ancient grate, pitted and marred by the Emperor Knows how many centuries of neglect. They landed on it with a loud clank, beneath them, at the edge of their vision, they saw an enormous fan, and past that darkness. From here a tunnel reached into the mountain, and deep, deep into the tunnel, at the edge of their vision, they saw a large dark brown metal door.
"Take the lead," Sergeant Fields said, pointing at the tunnel, then he yanked the rope in the pre-arranged signal.
Johan, Mark, and Bock went into the tunnel, the lamp light moving up and down the ancient walls. When they reached the door Johan guessed that it was at least ten feet high, and twice as wide.
"How the blazes are we going to open that?" Mark said, he pushed the door as hard as he might, but it wouldn't budge.
"I don't know, but I'm sure we'll figure something out..." Johan said.
Fifteen minutes later, after the Commissar had joined them, Johan realised that the old saying was oh so true: where there's a whip there's a way!
You take forty Imperial Guardsmen, and a very long solid pole. Jam the pole into the door, and start cracking the whip, the Guardsmen pushed back and forth, and soon the screeching door began to open. The Commissar was worried, but fortunately the pole was as strong as a Guardsmans back, it took them ten minutes, but they got an opening big enough for a man to move through.
They found themselves in a stone chamber shape roughly like a silo. A spiral staircase in the middle of the room led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling, the trapdoor was round, with a big wheel in the centre.
While the rest of the platoon gathered in the room Johan had to run up the staircase with Mark, and Bock. He noticed that the staircase, and the top half of the room, was much cruder than the rest of the structure. Then again he wasn't an architect, and he was far more worried about the kind of thing that could hide in a place like this.
Xenos of course, or heretics, or ... well he'd heard rumours about the abominations that could lurk in ancient underground facilities. They were chilling indeed!
In fact he was so busy with his worries that he was nearly up at the top before he noticed that he was breathing much easier here. He didn't bother worrying about this, instead he did what any responsible Guardsman would, he ordered the recruit to open the door while he and Mark stood guard.
The trapdoor creaked open, a light shower of dust and rust fell on the guardsmen, then with a loud clang it fell down and dangled from the powerful metal hinges. Now they got a brief break, while the rest of the Guardsmen scrambled up, and improvised ladders.
Pushing up they were still in total darkness, except for the lantern the Inquisitors assistant carried. Strange writing covered the walls, but the paint was peeling, all he could make out was the word lyftloc whatever that meant.
"The air is clear!" Sergeant Fields said.
Johan eyed the chempatch on his uniform, sure enough it was a nice and pleasant green, as opposed to the black colour it normally had on this planet.
"It's an airlock, quite ingenious," the Inquisitors assistant said, "The heavy toxic elements cannot go up, it's like the water lock in..."
By then Johan had stopped paying attention, he had more immediate things to worry about, such as if there was anything still alive down here. At least now he could pull off his mask, even if the air smelled musty and strange.
They moved slowly down the tunnels, lit only by their own lamp-packs. More than once he thought he saw something, only to chide himself for chasing shadows. Then suddenly he spotted something real, at first he thought it was another shadow, but then he heard a cough. Everyone stopped.
A minute later the Commissar and the Inquisitor came forward, by now Johan was quite certain that someone was gathering down the tunnel, just out of sight. He hunkered down and checked his lasgun again, hoping that if the Commissar noticed him he'd look sufficiently professional.
The Inquisitors assistant stepped forward and yelled "Hwæt eart þu leof?"
There was a long pause before someone yelled back, "Ic nabban leof innan deorcnes!"
The Inquisitor and his assistant whispered for a moment, before the assistant shouted, "Ic ætcuman Cáserlic geáscunging..."
The moment he uttered those last two words the natives opened fire, the rattle of an ancient autogun, and the whoosh of crossbow bolts filled the tunnel. Both the Inquisitor and his assistant were struck by several bolts and rounds, before they hit the floor.
The Guardsmen opened fire, the bright red las-shots dashed down the tunnel. The beams dug fist sized holes in the wall, and made ancient pipes explode in a spray of liquid. The enemy also kept firing, and autogun rounds ricocheted of the walls, they couldn't pierce flak armour, but a couple of guardsmen were hit in the arm or the leg.
For a moment it seemed like they were stuck, even against primitive enemies a narrow tunnel is one fark of a chokepoint. Then the Inquisitor shouted, "GAN!" His forceful voice felt like an electric shock.
A half dozen shapes stepped into the light! Johan couldn't make out any details, but he saw enough to shoot them dead. Las-shots tore into half naked natives, who screamed as arms were torn away, leaving only cauterized stumps. The Commissars bolter was even worse; one of the shots struck an enemy in the guts, and exploded in a spray of boiling flesh and stomach juice.
The Commissar waved his bolter dramatically, and yelled "CHARGE!"
The Guardsmen rushed forward, bayonets reflecting the pale lamp-pack light. For the first time they got a chance to look at the enemy, they seemed human, with long hair and clothes made from strange materials.
One of them groaned, and clutched an injured leg, "Níðing!" he roared, and scrambled for an autogun.
Johan was too fast for him, and kicked him in the side, slamming him into a wall. Johan lifted his lasgun, he was about to slam the butt of his lasgun into the native.
"STOP!"
It was the Inquisitor, and even if it wasn't the order was so forceful that he couldn't even think about disobeying.
"Move aside soldier, this one belongs to the Inquisition!"
The Inquisitor absentmindedly pulled out a crossbow bolt, and let it clatter to the floor. That seemed to truly terrify the prisoner, Johan on the other hand just wished he had armour as good as that of the Inquisition.
Seeing as how he was the pointman Johan took the lead again, with Mark and Bock to the rear. The long tunnel seemed unused, and empty, but how could he be sure? Who knew what was hiding among the old pipes, little niches in the walls, and in the long flickering shadows?
Up ahead there was a room, with openings to three more tunnels, far down in one of them he spotted some chemical lights. It was the first time he'd seen any lights other than the ones they brought. He stopped and motioned for the others to do so as well, three tunnels, three men, "Recruit you cover the one with lights in it, I take the one furthest to the left, Mark, you take the ... ah... the one that's left. Got it?"
They both nodded.
"One... two... three..."
They ran into the room, each of them taking up position in front of a tunnel, the light of their helmet mounted lamp-packs shone down the tunnels. Johan wasn't sure, but his seemed empty, "Alright, lets wait for..."
"BLÓD AND ISEN!"
THUNK
"Whaaa?" Johan said as he spun around to face the sound, something wet slapped across his face. Then he looked into the snarling maw of some hairy brownish-orange beast, it reminded him of a mutated monstrous orangutang, but wwhatever that thing was it had a huge halberd bearing straight down on him!
It hit him in the stomach, smashing him against the wall, knocking the air right out of him. The creature lifted the halberd again, and Johan squirmed sideways while grasping for his lasgun. This blow hit him on the shoulder, forcing him down on his knees. Then it lifted the halberd again.
"Merciful Emperor..." Johan said, as he waited for the last blow.
Once more something wet, and hot, hit his face, and the thing had a new hole in it. A pretty big hole actually. Johan could see through it, and on the other side Bock was blasting away with his lasgun. The idiot was using full strength blasts, each blast tore bits of rock, pipes, and what not.
Scrambling for his own lasgun Johan noticed two things, first of all that the other Guardsmen were running to relieve them, and second that a group of humans came running up the lit tunnel. They carried autoguns, crossbows and spears. That couldn't be good.
"STOP!"
The natives kept coming.
"STOP!"
Suddenly he realised that they weren't all humans, a bunch of the shaggy creatures ran along with them. That clenched it, though he had bruises the size of dinner plates he raised the lasgun, aimed, and fired, guiding the rapid fire beam across the tunnel.
It was pandemonium, screams from men and creatures, long shaggy fur caught fire, and the screaming burning things rolled around trying to put it out. Some of them kept coming though, screaming wild battle cries, while shooting from their hips. The crossbowmen dropped their crossbows, and instead drew heavy chopping blades, that couldn't be good either! Then the beam touched them, tearing through primitive armour, and making searing hissing wounds in the advancing primitives.
They kept coming though, the men behind pushing the men in front forward, like a huge tidal wave of primitive savagery flooding up the tunnel.
Then another lasgun, and another, and another, joined his, cutting down the attackers, turning them into a pile of screaming, squirming flesh. The air filled with the scent of burning hair, burning leather, and flesh, the sweet pork like scent of human flesh mixing with the harsher rougher smell of the...
"What are those things?" Johan asked, he half turned, expecting to see Mark, or Bock. Neither of them were there, he rose a bit and saw Bock come around, but Mark... he lay in a bloody pool, his head partly severed so it hung on by a small flap of skin.
"They are Xeno filth!" the Commissar shouted, snapping Johan out of his reverie.
"They dropped down from the ceiling," Sergeant Fields said, pointing up, the room was unusually high, and up in the ceiling they saw lots of pipes and hand grips. Then he looked at the Guardsmen, "What did I tell you apes? Look up! Xenos LOVE coming down from the ceiling!"
Johan let out a whimper when he rose, the flak armour hurt like nobodies business, unfortunately the Commissar seemed very grim.
"ONWARDS!" the Commissar motioned with his bolter, and gave Johan a stern look.
Somehow Johan thought it'd be a bad idea to ask for a medic, so he ignored the pain, and the way the ground seemed to sway, and pushed on. The flak armour pressed against the bruise on his shoulder, and each breath he took brought fresh pain to his gut.
They descended into a warren of tunnels, some lit, were dark, some straight as an arrow, others twisted as if following the path of an enormous mouse gnawing its way through the rock.
On the way they heard drums, and shouts, the metal pipes following the walls shivered and sang, clang clang clang, the sound spread throughout the tunnel system. Whether the natives ran towards the Guardsmen, or away from them, Johan couldn't tell, but he kept expecting an attack.
The only thing that kept him going was a discrete sip from his hipflask, the sweet amasec eased the pain, but it made the tunnels sway even more.
Often they'd pass some dark tunnel, send long lamp-pack beams into it, and slowly move past it when they thought it was empty. Then all of a sudden some sneaky xeno or xenophile traitor popped out of a hidden niche, or from behind some pipes, and fired a bolt or an autogun round.
A second later a torrent of las-shots whined through the air, often followed by a snapping whip like sound when they hit something.
Johan wasn't sure where they were going, every now and again they'd stop, the Commissar would consult with the Inquisitor and his aide, and then Johan would be pointed in a new direction and told to go. The only thing he was pretty certain of was that they were going down, further and further down, while all around them the pipes rang from the signals hammered on them.
The deeper they got the more cluttered the tunnels were, the upper levels had been pretty bare really, stripped of almost everything that could be of use. Now they found rooms, in some of them there were spilled food, a still warm chem-furnace, a pile of clothes in a corner, signs that someone had fled in rather a hurry.
Deep, deep inside the tunnels strange signs began to adorn the walls, odd writing in a bizarre language. Johan couldn't make out more than a word or two. The Inquisitor on the other hand stopped, and placed his hand on the symbols, the odd runes, and read the words. He frowned, then he waited, while his assistant looked at the writing, the stubby metal tube whirred up and down, and a little to the side, an odd amber light glowed in centre of it.
Johan was too far away to hear what they said, and that was fine by him.
That was when the Commissar decided on a little pep talk, he held up his bolter and yelled, "Men of the Imperial Guard, you have fought long and hard today, against Xenos and their treacherous human allies! The Inquisitor requires you to go further into this warren, so that he can find and investigate the leaders! Your orders are to capture, not kill, any human in particularly ornate clothes, we need them for questioning! This is an inquisitorial order!"
"PRAISE THE EMPEROR!" Johan shouted along with the other Guardsmen, and mentally he added and dodge His benediction! There was nothing for it now but to keep going, and hope that his amasec analgesic would last till the end of the day!
There were more enemy snipers here, a couple of Guardsmen went down with wounds to their legs and arms, but so far only a couple had died. Nothing these primitives had could slow them down, their weapons could hurt the Guardsmen, but what could a primitive force do against the Imperial Guard?
Passing into a dark tunnel, with long flickering shadows, he realised what they could do: build a defensive wall, with firing slits, and a rather solid looking door. Human and Xeno skulls decorated the wall, and carved in stone over the door were the words "[i9Ceorlmann ealle.[/i]"
They slowed down, and started sneaking towards the wall, when all of a sudden a heavy stubber opened fire, the loud TAKKA-TAKKA-TAKKA filled the air, echoing across the tunnels. Johan had instinctively ducked before the first burst, but from the screams behind him he could tell that others weren't so perceptive, the slugger rounds passed over his head chewing up the rock wall at the end of the tunnel.
"Stay... really still, and crawl back, slowly," Johan said to the rest of the point team. Then he looked back, there was no rest of the point team, the heavy stubber rounds had punched through their flak armour. Bock lay on his back, gasping, the front of his flak armour was intact, but a pool of blood was gathering beneath him. Johan didn't turn him over, he didn't really want to see the wound, or figure out how bad it was, not now.
Instead he slowly crawled back, ignoring the aches and cramps in every part of his body, and the little pebbles that kept getting into his clothes. It was torment, but somehow he got back to the rest of the Guardsmen, when he finally moved sideways, out of the line of fire, and back to the his mates, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again he was staring down the muzzle of a bolter.
"WHY HAVE YOU COME BACK WITHOUT YOUR COMRADES?"
It was one of those questions without a good answer, and far inside the barrel Johan thought he could see the little cupalloy tip of the bolter round.
"ANSWER ME!"
"Wait..." it was the Inquisitor, with a single motion of his hand he made the Commissar stand back, "I am Adamus Eichel, Inquisitor, and I want you to answer some questions, what did you see?"
Johan described what he saw in some detail, including the legend above the door, and how they were cut down when they tried to sneak closer.
"This isn't good," Eichel said, then aside to his aide, "Dionysus, is there another route there?"
"Perhaps Sir, but, it'd be hard to tell, it would really be best to go through the door," Dionysus said, while the tube like pict-enchancer whirred.
Johan decided on a drastic course of action, since he was about to get shot anyway things could only get better, right?
"Sir, I know how we can make the approach," Johan said. For the first, and he fervently prayed the last, time in his life he had the attention of both his Commissar and an Inquisitor. The Commissar made a move, but Eichel motioned his hand, and nodded towards Johan.
Johan quickly continued, "Sir their stubbers can't pierce both sides of a flak vest, we can fashion shields and bolster them with flak armour, move right up and use the flamer Sir. Then we can blow the door open Sir."
"What do you think Dionysus?" Eichel asked.
"It could work Sir."
"Very well, get started then."
The Guardsmen got started, they tore loose pipes from the walls, and used their lasguns to weld them together in a rough rectangular shape. Then they reinforced the first rectangle a bit, until they had a big pavise style shield. A couple dozen Guardsmen pulled off their flak armour, looking quite a bit skinnier and nervous without it, but there was nothing for it they had to wrap a lot of armour around the shields since the stubber would soon wear down the outer levels.
"Who will volunteer to take the shields and a flamer up to the gate? Come forward! Glory beckons you!" The Commissar said, striking a heroic pose.
If this didn't work he was farked anyway, so Johan stood up, "Commissar! I volunteer!"
The Commissar held up his bolter, and yelled, "Corporal Johan Gregor has already volunteered! Who will join him! Remember that you are doing it in the Emperors service!"
Sergeant Fields stepped forward, "I'll go Commissar!"
"Stand proud! Either you will be Heroes for the Emperor or Martyrs for the Emperor!" the Commissar said encouragingly as the two men prepared to move up the tunnel.
"Run or walk?" Johan asked.
"Run," Sergeant Fields said.
They stood nearly shoulder to shoulder, their shields held up. Sergeant Fields had the flamer strapped to his back. Someone gave Johan a couple of sticky bombs to carry.
Just before they moved Sergeant Fields whispered, so low that the Commissar couldn't hear, "Why'd you volunteer? I know you... you're not the type."
"I'm farked anyway if this doesn't work, and if it does I'm out of trouble for a while, and you? Why you volunteer?" Johan asked.
"Wouldn't trust these apes with a flamer, they'd set themselves on fire," Sergeant Fields said, his eyes gleaned, and he half snarled half smiled, "Lets go!"
They ran up the tunnel, half blind, holding on for dear life onto their shields. At once the stubber opened fire, it felt roughly like running while holding a table top in front of you, and having a couple of maniacs hit the table top with bats. The shields shook and twisted, their metal frames creaked from the shock, but still they ran on.
Johans foot struck something, and he flew forward, stubber rounds went over his head, his foot was stuck in something and he squirmed like mad to get loose from it. Now the stubber aimed lower, bullets slapped into whatever it was he had stumbled in, it was kind of lukewarm, and suddenly he realised it was ... he couldn't recognise who, it was one of the Guardsmen with him earlier on.
Before the stubber could get him Sergeant Fields moved right in front of him, holding his shield up, "Get up!"
After Johan scrambled back up they inched a little closer, put their shields together, and then Sergeant Fields readied the flamer. A little spurt of fire rose as he tested it, he waited for a moment, and handed his helmet to Johan "When I say go, you stick it up over the top, got it?"
"Right."
"GO!"
The helmet lasted about a quarter of a second before it was blown to pieces, but that was time enough for Sergeant Fields to move around the side of the shields and squeeze the trigger.
Promethium burns like nothing else, none of the chemical concoctions of ancient alchemists comes close. When Sergeant Fields pulled the trigger the stuff burned as hot and bright as the sun itself, it struck the sides of the tunnel, and the wall, slathering both in white hot flames!
Naturally it also penetrated every slit and crack in the wall, screams of pain were cut short as the oxygen was sucked right out of their lungs, and then came the explosions, the pop-pop-pop as their stubber ammo went off from the extreme heat.
The heat washed over their shields, and Johan smelled burning hair, the Sergeant patted his head madly, and smoke rose from it.
"We got'em! Now chuck the bomb and lets get out of here!" Sergeant Fields said.
He didn't have to ask twice, Johan leapt up, the bomb ready under his arm, he ran through the fires, and threw the bombs right at the door. Then he turned around and hotfooted it back. Almost literally as his boots were actually on fire, and wherever he stepped he left behind fiery footprints.
They ran out even faster than they had run in, leaving the cumbersome shields behind. Even so they only barely got out of there before the bombs went off. Clouds of dust poured out of the tunnel, covering everyone and everything.
The moment the dust started to settle the Commissar yelled, "CHARGE!" and the platoon ran down the tunnel, screaming loudly, and blazing away with their lasguns.
They needn't worry, the door was torn from its hinges, and every defender was dead, whether by fire, suffocation, or concussion. The burned on bodies were a grizzly sight, but they had no time to dwell on that.
"ONWARDS!" the Commissar yelled.
There were no more walls blocking their route, and only a few scattered bands of fighters, mixed bands of humans and xenos. A couple of Guardsmen died, both of them had sacrificed their flak armour to make the shields. Fortunately the enemy seemed to run around like headless chickens, more than once they entered a room just in time to see the last civilian stragglers run out.
"They didn't expect us to get past that wall," Sergeant Fields said with grim satisfaction.
That gloat could have been a bit premature, a small group of natives had made an improvised barricade, and fought on with fanatical courage, forcing the Guardsmen to seek cover.
Then Inquisitor approached and yelled "Áblinnan! Ástandan!"
Johan felt the sheer power in those words, and to his astonishment the natives stopped shooting, and stood up, letting the Guardsmen gun them down.
Past the door the natives had been guarding was an enormous room filled with powerful chem-lights, and plants. It was amazing! Long roots hung from elaborate stands, reaching into the water, thin ropes bound up the foot plants, and an elaborate system of pipes and measurements circulated water between the plants. The room was half a miniature forest, and half a farm, with thick dense stands of short stalked grains.
*********
"This is their hydroponics chamber," Eichel said, he looked around the enormous room, eying the deep corners, and niches, "Pity if something were to happen to it."
"They obviously have others as well Sir, but these hydroponics chambers appear to be sacred to them, and quite possibly they'd have a minor famine if oen was lost." Dionysus said, he approached one of the stands of grain and zoomed in on it, "Fascinating, I think that some of these variations have come through selective breeding..."
"Skip that part."
"Yes Sir."
"Tell them, tell them that unless I get to see their leaders, and have a peaceful meeting with them, I'll burn this room to the ground." Eichel said.
Dionysus began repeating the message in Proto-Gothic, he did so over and over, loudly, while wandering around the huge hydroponics chamber. His voice seemed to vanish among the plants, at any rate there was no response. Seconds, minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, and no response, the Guardsmen shifted uneasily, every movement could be a prelude to an attack.
Then a small side door opened, and someone stuck out a stick with a white cloth on it, and yelled something in the local language.
"They want to parley," Dionysus said.
"Good, tell them I'll only speak to their leaders," Eichel said.
Dionysus interpreted, and then spoke to the natives for a while, "They won't let us see their leaders unless we come alone."
"I see," Eichel said, he removed a datapad from his pocket and made some quick notes on it, before he summoned the Commissar, and gave him the pad, "If I'm not back in an hour, burn this room to the ground, leave, evacuate, and give this pad to the Captain of the Frigate."
"Yes Sir!" the Commissar said.
"Then we'll be going," Eichel said, and much to everyones surprise the approached the door, with only Dionysus in his trail.
On the other side of the door was a group of confused humans in bizarre patchwork clothing, clutching ancient autoguns, and giving the Inquisitor the evil eye.
Eichel just smiled, "Lets go."
The small band escorted them through the inner tunnels, and for the first time they got a look at the civilian population, women and children peering curiously from side tunnels, and even huddled along the walls in the large rooms. Many of them looked very haggard, and clutched small bundles of belongings, quite possibly all they'd managed to grab hold of before they had to flee.
After a few minutes of brisk walking they came to another secure area, a last bulwark of sorts before you enter a sanctum. They passed through a pair of heavy doors, and then all of a sudden they were inside a medium sized, well lit room, with ancient paintings, and small niches filled with statues.
The paintings were mostly ancient landscape scenes, a hauntingly beautiful country, with enormous never ending forests stretching as far as the eye could see. Pypen before the exterminatus. Eichel easily recognised the statues too, they were of ancient gods and heroes, pre-Imperial ones, the people here were pagans, but it was a clean paganism. Nothing of Chaos, nothing that a good Ecclesiarch couldn't mould into a Saint Cultus with the Emperor on top.
So when he looked at the elders, old men with greying hair, and elaborate robes, embroidered with strange symbols and words, no doubt imitations of millennia old robes of office, it wasn't their religion that bothered him. It was the presence of the Xeno's, two of the elders were aliens, their fur greyish-orange, and they stood proud, as equals to the other elders.
Despite Dionysus interpreting the conversation was difficult, Eichel started with "We come in peace! In the name of the God-Emperor!"
The elders spoke among themselves, and then one of them answered, the same pattern repeated each time they had to give an answer, "You have slaughtered our men! And we remember well how your Emperor treated us the last time his fleets came!"
"That was the bad servants of the Emperor, acting without his permission... we give you an offer, accept the Emperor as your Lord, cast out the Xeno, and you will prosper."
Stunned silence, before the elders answered, "We will not cast out the Gruhlas, there is not a single tribe among us that don't count Gruhlas among their members!"
Then the Elders voice grew more peaceful, almost pleading, "Why should we cast out the Gruhlas when we have lived in peace? And why should you come here? There is nothing here but ashes and dust, nothing for your Emperor. Leave us in peace, I implore you, we shall not ask weregild for our dead if you agree to the same for your dead."
The discussion went on for a while, but it didn't get beyond that stage, the natives were quite firm. In the end Eichel nodded, there was nothing more he could do here, "I see, well then... I swear by the God-Emperor himself that if you let me leave unmolested then I shall write in my report that there are no threats to the Imperium here, and nothing of interest either!"
"You swear this?"
"I do."
"Then we accept! We shall send word that no one shall lift their hand against you as you leave, and may Mehlara preserve you!" the Elder said sounding positively ecstatic.
Dionysus seemed thoughtful as they were escorted back, but he kept silent. When they reached the hydroponics chamber Eichel informed the Commissar, "We have a truce, it's time to leave, tell the men not to shoot unless the natives shoot first."
For a moment the Commissar seemed surprised, but his Scholar Progenium training overcame any misgivings he might have, "Yes Sir!"
The trip back to the surface was uneventful, almost too uneventful, the natives had removed all the bodies, and anything else that the Guardsmen had left behind. It was eerie, no signs of the fighting remained aside from a few patches of drying blood, and the scent of burned flesh that still lingered in the air.
An hour later the shuttles rose up from the surface of the planet, taking with it the Guardsmen and all their gear. A strange glum mood filled the shuttle, but no one dared to question the Inquisitors decision.
*********
Brrrraaaddoooommmmm
The rumbling sound travelled through the ship, in half a second Johan was wide awake, and nearly leapt out of his bed. Then an orderly ran over to him, "Get back down there! You're injured!"
Johan leaned back in bed, "What was that?"
"It's just the Lances firing, relax, you're quite safe," the orderly said.
A smile spread on Johans lips, "Ah... good..." Suddenly the universe made sense again.
*********
From the observation deck Dionysus and Eichel could see the energy Lances darting out from the ship, long radiant beams of light, and far below on the planet surface rose dark clouds of dust. Every time the lances fired the frigate shook, as if to remind them of the enormous power of its armaments.
Finally the bombardment ceased, where the shelter had been there was now a deep crater, whose walls began to crumble down into the crater, filling it with gravel.
"You see Dionysus it's important to keep your word."
"Yes Sir, so it is."
Eichel smiled for the second time that day, "And now I'll write my report..."
Dionysus stayed behind, he casually called up the old note B55-R43-D14 Heresy, and added a final note Pypen-11567c sentence confirmed.
Dionysus had spent the better part of the day sitting on the observation deck, a dark visor covered his eyes, and mounted on the side of it was a tubular pict-enhancer. Occasionally the pict-enhancer whirred, as it zoomed in or out, or Dionysus' right hand tapped his datapad, but other than that he'd been motionless for several hours. The ratings nervously avoided him, he was very peculiar, and an Inquisitors assistant, not someone you want to hang around!
What few people were there vanished when Inquisitor Eichel arrived, bit like pigeons fleeing the shadow of a hack.
"You've found something?" Eichel said.
Dionysus raised his head, "Sir, I didn't expect you to come yourself... I'm preparing a formal report."
"I needed the exercise, and tell me what you have so far," Eichel said.
"I delved through old historical accounts, reports, even local legends, but this area was suffered greatly during the Age of Apostasy, much was lost." Dionysus said.
Eichel nodded once, Dionysus was a wonder; if he dove into the sea of information he wouldn't come up again without some wriggling fact between his teeth.
"I think this world was destroyed during the late stages of the Age of Apostasy. At that point a naval squadron moved across this sector, and I do believe they passed through this sub-sector. It's hard to be certain because..." Dionysus begun, then he stopped himself from going into a longwinded explanation, "ah, the data is spotty. However there is a note describing a world similar to this one, and some navigational notes that suggest it was this one, and a single note about the fleets visit. It appears that they destroyed this world for badly explained reasons."
"Badly explained? What exactly did this report say?" Eichel asked.
"Well Sir, and I quote: B55-R43-D14 Heresy. End quote. It's fascinating Sir, so fascinating, I wonder how they did it," Dionysus said.
"Did what?"
"The exterminatus, I've spotted multiple impact craters, though heavily deteriorated, but not enough to account for the damage. I theorized a virus bomb, but that wouldn't account for the toxic atmosphere, unless it was doped but..." Dionysus said.
Eichel interrupted him, "Toxic atmosphere?"
"Yes, you'd die within a minute trying to breathe it."
"Well, I'm glad you remember to tell me these things," Eichel said, teasing Eichel a little.
"Ah, yes Sir, so sorry Sir."
"It's not a major issue, what about the source of the transmission?"
"From what I gather from the ship Transmechanics we can't isolate it precisely. It has to do with the atmosphere and the terrain, the best we can do is an approximate co-ordinate," Dionysus said.
"Well then, we'll just have to go looking won't we," Eichel looked at the grey dust world, "Once we land I mean."
*********
The sky was utterly grey, the whole place looked and smelled like an ashtray, but no one ever asked Private Johan Gregor what he thought. For a month now they'd been trudging through this dust desert, looking for the Emperor Knew What, and nothing.
Sticking out from the ash was a human skull, shiny white, maybe it'd been a kids' skull, he gave it a good kick and saw it fly through the air vanishing behind yet another ash heap.
Just about the only good thing about being out here was that they weren't around the Inquisitor, just thinking about the grey haired bastard sent shivers up Johans spine. Whatever it was they were looking for, it was important enough for an Inquisitor, which was another reason Johan hoped he wouldn't be the one to find it.
Clack, clack, the sound of a skull hitting a hard surface, and rolling a little. Johan trudged up to the top of the ash heap just to make sure that it wasn't anything important, like say a large hole in the ground surrounded by ferrocrete.
Marvellous, just frigging marvellous! He thought about walking away, and pretend he hadn't seen anything, but apparently the Commissar had spotted him, and now the bastard was coming right at him. So Johan started waving, and yelled "OI! I found something!"
The Commissar stopped at top of the ash heap, he stood there motionless for a while, the breathing mask hiding his face. Then all of a sudden he spoke, "The Inquisitor comes tomorrow, set up a perimeter now."
"YES COMMISSAR!"
It got cold that night, and slowly the grey sky turned pitch black. The soldiers huddled around their portable stoves, and tried to drink through tubes stuck under their breathing masks. It tasted like ash, like everything else on this world.
Given the glaring Commissar Johan decided to be extra careful, so he went to sleep. After all he who sleeps doesn't commit disciplinary violations. Well unless he sleeps on duty.
When he woke he felt like he was suffocating, his head hurt, and red blurs danced before his eyes. Everything was still dark, and for a moment he wondered if he was blind, but then he realised something was weighing him down.
Then someone kicked him, and he shot up, sending cascades of ash flying. Free of the dust he took several deep breaths, until he'd recovered from the headrush. Some of the others had gotten up already, but the rest were so covered with dust that they looked like shallow graves.
Sergeant Fields was walking among the sleeping Guardsmen, kicking them hard while he yelled "UP YA GO!" One of the shape's didn't stir, "OI! GREGOR GET HERE AND HELP DIG!" Johan knew better than to argue with a man with three stripes and three inches on him, so he hurried over and started digging.
It was Corporal Hill, he was quite dead, and there was a crack in his breathing mask. Johans' hands shook when he pulled the mask away; Hills face was white and pale, blood streaked vomit filled his mouth and nose.
"What's wrong here?" the Commissar asked.
"It's Corporal Hill Sir, he's snuffed it Sir," Sergeant Fields said.
"Bury him quickly, the Inquisitor will be here soon! Glory and Honour onto the first man who dies!" the Commissar said, while carefully watching the men for any signs of malingering or lamentable lack of enthusiasm.
Now Johan wasn't a fool, so he lifted his lasgun up in the air, pumping it up and down while yelling "Glory and Honour to those who die! Glory to the Blessed Emperor!" and soon the rest of the platoon joined him in chanting litanies.
The Commissar smiled, never a good sign, and placed a hand on Johans shoulder, "You're an excellent man CORPORAL Gregor! So YOU will take Hills place as the platoon pointman!"
Marvellous, just marvellous, but Johan saluted, "Yes Commissar! I shan't fail!"
"I'm quite sure you won't! Now go forth!" with that the Commissar left him alone.
"Fark! You're our new pointman! Congrats on the promotion too," said private Mark Roberts.
"Bite me!" Johan answered.
"Cheer up, I mean how bad can it be, being the point man going into an unknown underground bunker, filled with the Emperor Knows What, and doing so while an Inquisitor AND a freshly made Commissar is watching! Why, what could..." Marks little speech was interrupted when Johan held the standard issue twelve inch bayonet up in front of him.
"See this?"
"Yeah?"
"Believe it or not, this will fit up your arse! So fark off!" Johan said, before attaching the bayonet to his lasgun.
The Inquisitor and his retinue arrived ten minutes later in a Naval shuttle, the downwash threw up clouds of darkish grey dust, by the time it started settling the Inquisitor had already disembarked.
If anything he looked even more intimidating now, and that creepy assistant of his didn't make things any better. Johan could swear that he heard a whir from the pict-enhancer, but he couldn't be sure.
The Commissar saluted the Inquisitor, and they spoke for a few moments, then he went back to the Guardsmen, "Men, begin descent into the bunkers! Remember you are doing the Emperors Will!" the Commissar said.
Moments later they brought several big coils of rope to the opening, and started sending rope down the opening, the rope kept uncoiling, and uncoiling, going on seemingly forever. For a moment Johan wondered if the ropes were too short, but then they slacked a bit, and a moment later they tied the ropes to some big rocks.
There was no getting away, Johan stepped forward, looking as heroic as he could. He strapped his rifle to his back, his lamp-pack to his helmet, and then, when he had no other legitimate excuses for hesitating, he grabbed hold of a rope and began to rappel down the hole.
Mark, Sergeant Fields, and Recruit Bock, followed closely behind him, or above him. Further and further down they went, bits of dust fell down from above. The beam of the lamp-packs cut through the murk, there was so much dust in the air that it was like trying to see through particularly dense fog.
After rappelling maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty feet, they approached the bottom of the hole. The opening seemed very small all the way up there, a circle of bright grey in all the darkness. For the second time that day Johan felt like he was suffocating, the dust was so thick he thought it was clogging up his breathing mask.
At the bottom of the hole was a huge ancient grate, pitted and marred by the Emperor Knows how many centuries of neglect. They landed on it with a loud clank, beneath them, at the edge of their vision, they saw an enormous fan, and past that darkness. From here a tunnel reached into the mountain, and deep, deep into the tunnel, at the edge of their vision, they saw a large dark brown metal door.
"Take the lead," Sergeant Fields said, pointing at the tunnel, then he yanked the rope in the pre-arranged signal.
Johan, Mark, and Bock went into the tunnel, the lamp light moving up and down the ancient walls. When they reached the door Johan guessed that it was at least ten feet high, and twice as wide.
"How the blazes are we going to open that?" Mark said, he pushed the door as hard as he might, but it wouldn't budge.
"I don't know, but I'm sure we'll figure something out..." Johan said.
Fifteen minutes later, after the Commissar had joined them, Johan realised that the old saying was oh so true: where there's a whip there's a way!
You take forty Imperial Guardsmen, and a very long solid pole. Jam the pole into the door, and start cracking the whip, the Guardsmen pushed back and forth, and soon the screeching door began to open. The Commissar was worried, but fortunately the pole was as strong as a Guardsmans back, it took them ten minutes, but they got an opening big enough for a man to move through.
They found themselves in a stone chamber shape roughly like a silo. A spiral staircase in the middle of the room led up to a trapdoor in the ceiling, the trapdoor was round, with a big wheel in the centre.
While the rest of the platoon gathered in the room Johan had to run up the staircase with Mark, and Bock. He noticed that the staircase, and the top half of the room, was much cruder than the rest of the structure. Then again he wasn't an architect, and he was far more worried about the kind of thing that could hide in a place like this.
Xenos of course, or heretics, or ... well he'd heard rumours about the abominations that could lurk in ancient underground facilities. They were chilling indeed!
In fact he was so busy with his worries that he was nearly up at the top before he noticed that he was breathing much easier here. He didn't bother worrying about this, instead he did what any responsible Guardsman would, he ordered the recruit to open the door while he and Mark stood guard.
The trapdoor creaked open, a light shower of dust and rust fell on the guardsmen, then with a loud clang it fell down and dangled from the powerful metal hinges. Now they got a brief break, while the rest of the Guardsmen scrambled up, and improvised ladders.
Pushing up they were still in total darkness, except for the lantern the Inquisitors assistant carried. Strange writing covered the walls, but the paint was peeling, all he could make out was the word lyftloc whatever that meant.
"The air is clear!" Sergeant Fields said.
Johan eyed the chempatch on his uniform, sure enough it was a nice and pleasant green, as opposed to the black colour it normally had on this planet.
"It's an airlock, quite ingenious," the Inquisitors assistant said, "The heavy toxic elements cannot go up, it's like the water lock in..."
By then Johan had stopped paying attention, he had more immediate things to worry about, such as if there was anything still alive down here. At least now he could pull off his mask, even if the air smelled musty and strange.
They moved slowly down the tunnels, lit only by their own lamp-packs. More than once he thought he saw something, only to chide himself for chasing shadows. Then suddenly he spotted something real, at first he thought it was another shadow, but then he heard a cough. Everyone stopped.
A minute later the Commissar and the Inquisitor came forward, by now Johan was quite certain that someone was gathering down the tunnel, just out of sight. He hunkered down and checked his lasgun again, hoping that if the Commissar noticed him he'd look sufficiently professional.
The Inquisitors assistant stepped forward and yelled "Hwæt eart þu leof?"
There was a long pause before someone yelled back, "Ic nabban leof innan deorcnes!"
The Inquisitor and his assistant whispered for a moment, before the assistant shouted, "Ic ætcuman Cáserlic geáscunging..."
The moment he uttered those last two words the natives opened fire, the rattle of an ancient autogun, and the whoosh of crossbow bolts filled the tunnel. Both the Inquisitor and his assistant were struck by several bolts and rounds, before they hit the floor.
The Guardsmen opened fire, the bright red las-shots dashed down the tunnel. The beams dug fist sized holes in the wall, and made ancient pipes explode in a spray of liquid. The enemy also kept firing, and autogun rounds ricocheted of the walls, they couldn't pierce flak armour, but a couple of guardsmen were hit in the arm or the leg.
For a moment it seemed like they were stuck, even against primitive enemies a narrow tunnel is one fark of a chokepoint. Then the Inquisitor shouted, "GAN!" His forceful voice felt like an electric shock.
A half dozen shapes stepped into the light! Johan couldn't make out any details, but he saw enough to shoot them dead. Las-shots tore into half naked natives, who screamed as arms were torn away, leaving only cauterized stumps. The Commissars bolter was even worse; one of the shots struck an enemy in the guts, and exploded in a spray of boiling flesh and stomach juice.
The Commissar waved his bolter dramatically, and yelled "CHARGE!"
The Guardsmen rushed forward, bayonets reflecting the pale lamp-pack light. For the first time they got a chance to look at the enemy, they seemed human, with long hair and clothes made from strange materials.
One of them groaned, and clutched an injured leg, "Níðing!" he roared, and scrambled for an autogun.
Johan was too fast for him, and kicked him in the side, slamming him into a wall. Johan lifted his lasgun, he was about to slam the butt of his lasgun into the native.
"STOP!"
It was the Inquisitor, and even if it wasn't the order was so forceful that he couldn't even think about disobeying.
"Move aside soldier, this one belongs to the Inquisition!"
The Inquisitor absentmindedly pulled out a crossbow bolt, and let it clatter to the floor. That seemed to truly terrify the prisoner, Johan on the other hand just wished he had armour as good as that of the Inquisition.
Seeing as how he was the pointman Johan took the lead again, with Mark and Bock to the rear. The long tunnel seemed unused, and empty, but how could he be sure? Who knew what was hiding among the old pipes, little niches in the walls, and in the long flickering shadows?
Up ahead there was a room, with openings to three more tunnels, far down in one of them he spotted some chemical lights. It was the first time he'd seen any lights other than the ones they brought. He stopped and motioned for the others to do so as well, three tunnels, three men, "Recruit you cover the one with lights in it, I take the one furthest to the left, Mark, you take the ... ah... the one that's left. Got it?"
They both nodded.
"One... two... three..."
They ran into the room, each of them taking up position in front of a tunnel, the light of their helmet mounted lamp-packs shone down the tunnels. Johan wasn't sure, but his seemed empty, "Alright, lets wait for..."
"BLÓD AND ISEN!"
THUNK
"Whaaa?" Johan said as he spun around to face the sound, something wet slapped across his face. Then he looked into the snarling maw of some hairy brownish-orange beast, it reminded him of a mutated monstrous orangutang, but wwhatever that thing was it had a huge halberd bearing straight down on him!
It hit him in the stomach, smashing him against the wall, knocking the air right out of him. The creature lifted the halberd again, and Johan squirmed sideways while grasping for his lasgun. This blow hit him on the shoulder, forcing him down on his knees. Then it lifted the halberd again.
"Merciful Emperor..." Johan said, as he waited for the last blow.
Once more something wet, and hot, hit his face, and the thing had a new hole in it. A pretty big hole actually. Johan could see through it, and on the other side Bock was blasting away with his lasgun. The idiot was using full strength blasts, each blast tore bits of rock, pipes, and what not.
Scrambling for his own lasgun Johan noticed two things, first of all that the other Guardsmen were running to relieve them, and second that a group of humans came running up the lit tunnel. They carried autoguns, crossbows and spears. That couldn't be good.
"STOP!"
The natives kept coming.
"STOP!"
Suddenly he realised that they weren't all humans, a bunch of the shaggy creatures ran along with them. That clenched it, though he had bruises the size of dinner plates he raised the lasgun, aimed, and fired, guiding the rapid fire beam across the tunnel.
It was pandemonium, screams from men and creatures, long shaggy fur caught fire, and the screaming burning things rolled around trying to put it out. Some of them kept coming though, screaming wild battle cries, while shooting from their hips. The crossbowmen dropped their crossbows, and instead drew heavy chopping blades, that couldn't be good either! Then the beam touched them, tearing through primitive armour, and making searing hissing wounds in the advancing primitives.
They kept coming though, the men behind pushing the men in front forward, like a huge tidal wave of primitive savagery flooding up the tunnel.
Then another lasgun, and another, and another, joined his, cutting down the attackers, turning them into a pile of screaming, squirming flesh. The air filled with the scent of burning hair, burning leather, and flesh, the sweet pork like scent of human flesh mixing with the harsher rougher smell of the...
"What are those things?" Johan asked, he half turned, expecting to see Mark, or Bock. Neither of them were there, he rose a bit and saw Bock come around, but Mark... he lay in a bloody pool, his head partly severed so it hung on by a small flap of skin.
"They are Xeno filth!" the Commissar shouted, snapping Johan out of his reverie.
"They dropped down from the ceiling," Sergeant Fields said, pointing up, the room was unusually high, and up in the ceiling they saw lots of pipes and hand grips. Then he looked at the Guardsmen, "What did I tell you apes? Look up! Xenos LOVE coming down from the ceiling!"
Johan let out a whimper when he rose, the flak armour hurt like nobodies business, unfortunately the Commissar seemed very grim.
"ONWARDS!" the Commissar motioned with his bolter, and gave Johan a stern look.
Somehow Johan thought it'd be a bad idea to ask for a medic, so he ignored the pain, and the way the ground seemed to sway, and pushed on. The flak armour pressed against the bruise on his shoulder, and each breath he took brought fresh pain to his gut.
They descended into a warren of tunnels, some lit, were dark, some straight as an arrow, others twisted as if following the path of an enormous mouse gnawing its way through the rock.
On the way they heard drums, and shouts, the metal pipes following the walls shivered and sang, clang clang clang, the sound spread throughout the tunnel system. Whether the natives ran towards the Guardsmen, or away from them, Johan couldn't tell, but he kept expecting an attack.
The only thing that kept him going was a discrete sip from his hipflask, the sweet amasec eased the pain, but it made the tunnels sway even more.
Often they'd pass some dark tunnel, send long lamp-pack beams into it, and slowly move past it when they thought it was empty. Then all of a sudden some sneaky xeno or xenophile traitor popped out of a hidden niche, or from behind some pipes, and fired a bolt or an autogun round.
A second later a torrent of las-shots whined through the air, often followed by a snapping whip like sound when they hit something.
Johan wasn't sure where they were going, every now and again they'd stop, the Commissar would consult with the Inquisitor and his aide, and then Johan would be pointed in a new direction and told to go. The only thing he was pretty certain of was that they were going down, further and further down, while all around them the pipes rang from the signals hammered on them.
The deeper they got the more cluttered the tunnels were, the upper levels had been pretty bare really, stripped of almost everything that could be of use. Now they found rooms, in some of them there were spilled food, a still warm chem-furnace, a pile of clothes in a corner, signs that someone had fled in rather a hurry.
Deep, deep inside the tunnels strange signs began to adorn the walls, odd writing in a bizarre language. Johan couldn't make out more than a word or two. The Inquisitor on the other hand stopped, and placed his hand on the symbols, the odd runes, and read the words. He frowned, then he waited, while his assistant looked at the writing, the stubby metal tube whirred up and down, and a little to the side, an odd amber light glowed in centre of it.
Johan was too far away to hear what they said, and that was fine by him.
That was when the Commissar decided on a little pep talk, he held up his bolter and yelled, "Men of the Imperial Guard, you have fought long and hard today, against Xenos and their treacherous human allies! The Inquisitor requires you to go further into this warren, so that he can find and investigate the leaders! Your orders are to capture, not kill, any human in particularly ornate clothes, we need them for questioning! This is an inquisitorial order!"
"PRAISE THE EMPEROR!" Johan shouted along with the other Guardsmen, and mentally he added and dodge His benediction! There was nothing for it now but to keep going, and hope that his amasec analgesic would last till the end of the day!
There were more enemy snipers here, a couple of Guardsmen went down with wounds to their legs and arms, but so far only a couple had died. Nothing these primitives had could slow them down, their weapons could hurt the Guardsmen, but what could a primitive force do against the Imperial Guard?
Passing into a dark tunnel, with long flickering shadows, he realised what they could do: build a defensive wall, with firing slits, and a rather solid looking door. Human and Xeno skulls decorated the wall, and carved in stone over the door were the words "[i9Ceorlmann ealle.[/i]"
They slowed down, and started sneaking towards the wall, when all of a sudden a heavy stubber opened fire, the loud TAKKA-TAKKA-TAKKA filled the air, echoing across the tunnels. Johan had instinctively ducked before the first burst, but from the screams behind him he could tell that others weren't so perceptive, the slugger rounds passed over his head chewing up the rock wall at the end of the tunnel.
"Stay... really still, and crawl back, slowly," Johan said to the rest of the point team. Then he looked back, there was no rest of the point team, the heavy stubber rounds had punched through their flak armour. Bock lay on his back, gasping, the front of his flak armour was intact, but a pool of blood was gathering beneath him. Johan didn't turn him over, he didn't really want to see the wound, or figure out how bad it was, not now.
Instead he slowly crawled back, ignoring the aches and cramps in every part of his body, and the little pebbles that kept getting into his clothes. It was torment, but somehow he got back to the rest of the Guardsmen, when he finally moved sideways, out of the line of fire, and back to the his mates, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again he was staring down the muzzle of a bolter.
"WHY HAVE YOU COME BACK WITHOUT YOUR COMRADES?"
It was one of those questions without a good answer, and far inside the barrel Johan thought he could see the little cupalloy tip of the bolter round.
"ANSWER ME!"
"Wait..." it was the Inquisitor, with a single motion of his hand he made the Commissar stand back, "I am Adamus Eichel, Inquisitor, and I want you to answer some questions, what did you see?"
Johan described what he saw in some detail, including the legend above the door, and how they were cut down when they tried to sneak closer.
"This isn't good," Eichel said, then aside to his aide, "Dionysus, is there another route there?"
"Perhaps Sir, but, it'd be hard to tell, it would really be best to go through the door," Dionysus said, while the tube like pict-enchancer whirred.
Johan decided on a drastic course of action, since he was about to get shot anyway things could only get better, right?
"Sir, I know how we can make the approach," Johan said. For the first, and he fervently prayed the last, time in his life he had the attention of both his Commissar and an Inquisitor. The Commissar made a move, but Eichel motioned his hand, and nodded towards Johan.
Johan quickly continued, "Sir their stubbers can't pierce both sides of a flak vest, we can fashion shields and bolster them with flak armour, move right up and use the flamer Sir. Then we can blow the door open Sir."
"What do you think Dionysus?" Eichel asked.
"It could work Sir."
"Very well, get started then."
The Guardsmen got started, they tore loose pipes from the walls, and used their lasguns to weld them together in a rough rectangular shape. Then they reinforced the first rectangle a bit, until they had a big pavise style shield. A couple dozen Guardsmen pulled off their flak armour, looking quite a bit skinnier and nervous without it, but there was nothing for it they had to wrap a lot of armour around the shields since the stubber would soon wear down the outer levels.
"Who will volunteer to take the shields and a flamer up to the gate? Come forward! Glory beckons you!" The Commissar said, striking a heroic pose.
If this didn't work he was farked anyway, so Johan stood up, "Commissar! I volunteer!"
The Commissar held up his bolter, and yelled, "Corporal Johan Gregor has already volunteered! Who will join him! Remember that you are doing it in the Emperors service!"
Sergeant Fields stepped forward, "I'll go Commissar!"
"Stand proud! Either you will be Heroes for the Emperor or Martyrs for the Emperor!" the Commissar said encouragingly as the two men prepared to move up the tunnel.
"Run or walk?" Johan asked.
"Run," Sergeant Fields said.
They stood nearly shoulder to shoulder, their shields held up. Sergeant Fields had the flamer strapped to his back. Someone gave Johan a couple of sticky bombs to carry.
Just before they moved Sergeant Fields whispered, so low that the Commissar couldn't hear, "Why'd you volunteer? I know you... you're not the type."
"I'm farked anyway if this doesn't work, and if it does I'm out of trouble for a while, and you? Why you volunteer?" Johan asked.
"Wouldn't trust these apes with a flamer, they'd set themselves on fire," Sergeant Fields said, his eyes gleaned, and he half snarled half smiled, "Lets go!"
They ran up the tunnel, half blind, holding on for dear life onto their shields. At once the stubber opened fire, it felt roughly like running while holding a table top in front of you, and having a couple of maniacs hit the table top with bats. The shields shook and twisted, their metal frames creaked from the shock, but still they ran on.
Johans foot struck something, and he flew forward, stubber rounds went over his head, his foot was stuck in something and he squirmed like mad to get loose from it. Now the stubber aimed lower, bullets slapped into whatever it was he had stumbled in, it was kind of lukewarm, and suddenly he realised it was ... he couldn't recognise who, it was one of the Guardsmen with him earlier on.
Before the stubber could get him Sergeant Fields moved right in front of him, holding his shield up, "Get up!"
After Johan scrambled back up they inched a little closer, put their shields together, and then Sergeant Fields readied the flamer. A little spurt of fire rose as he tested it, he waited for a moment, and handed his helmet to Johan "When I say go, you stick it up over the top, got it?"
"Right."
"GO!"
The helmet lasted about a quarter of a second before it was blown to pieces, but that was time enough for Sergeant Fields to move around the side of the shields and squeeze the trigger.
Promethium burns like nothing else, none of the chemical concoctions of ancient alchemists comes close. When Sergeant Fields pulled the trigger the stuff burned as hot and bright as the sun itself, it struck the sides of the tunnel, and the wall, slathering both in white hot flames!
Naturally it also penetrated every slit and crack in the wall, screams of pain were cut short as the oxygen was sucked right out of their lungs, and then came the explosions, the pop-pop-pop as their stubber ammo went off from the extreme heat.
The heat washed over their shields, and Johan smelled burning hair, the Sergeant patted his head madly, and smoke rose from it.
"We got'em! Now chuck the bomb and lets get out of here!" Sergeant Fields said.
He didn't have to ask twice, Johan leapt up, the bomb ready under his arm, he ran through the fires, and threw the bombs right at the door. Then he turned around and hotfooted it back. Almost literally as his boots were actually on fire, and wherever he stepped he left behind fiery footprints.
They ran out even faster than they had run in, leaving the cumbersome shields behind. Even so they only barely got out of there before the bombs went off. Clouds of dust poured out of the tunnel, covering everyone and everything.
The moment the dust started to settle the Commissar yelled, "CHARGE!" and the platoon ran down the tunnel, screaming loudly, and blazing away with their lasguns.
They needn't worry, the door was torn from its hinges, and every defender was dead, whether by fire, suffocation, or concussion. The burned on bodies were a grizzly sight, but they had no time to dwell on that.
"ONWARDS!" the Commissar yelled.
There were no more walls blocking their route, and only a few scattered bands of fighters, mixed bands of humans and xenos. A couple of Guardsmen died, both of them had sacrificed their flak armour to make the shields. Fortunately the enemy seemed to run around like headless chickens, more than once they entered a room just in time to see the last civilian stragglers run out.
"They didn't expect us to get past that wall," Sergeant Fields said with grim satisfaction.
That gloat could have been a bit premature, a small group of natives had made an improvised barricade, and fought on with fanatical courage, forcing the Guardsmen to seek cover.
Then Inquisitor approached and yelled "Áblinnan! Ástandan!"
Johan felt the sheer power in those words, and to his astonishment the natives stopped shooting, and stood up, letting the Guardsmen gun them down.
Past the door the natives had been guarding was an enormous room filled with powerful chem-lights, and plants. It was amazing! Long roots hung from elaborate stands, reaching into the water, thin ropes bound up the foot plants, and an elaborate system of pipes and measurements circulated water between the plants. The room was half a miniature forest, and half a farm, with thick dense stands of short stalked grains.
*********
"This is their hydroponics chamber," Eichel said, he looked around the enormous room, eying the deep corners, and niches, "Pity if something were to happen to it."
"They obviously have others as well Sir, but these hydroponics chambers appear to be sacred to them, and quite possibly they'd have a minor famine if oen was lost." Dionysus said, he approached one of the stands of grain and zoomed in on it, "Fascinating, I think that some of these variations have come through selective breeding..."
"Skip that part."
"Yes Sir."
"Tell them, tell them that unless I get to see their leaders, and have a peaceful meeting with them, I'll burn this room to the ground." Eichel said.
Dionysus began repeating the message in Proto-Gothic, he did so over and over, loudly, while wandering around the huge hydroponics chamber. His voice seemed to vanish among the plants, at any rate there was no response. Seconds, minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, and no response, the Guardsmen shifted uneasily, every movement could be a prelude to an attack.
Then a small side door opened, and someone stuck out a stick with a white cloth on it, and yelled something in the local language.
"They want to parley," Dionysus said.
"Good, tell them I'll only speak to their leaders," Eichel said.
Dionysus interpreted, and then spoke to the natives for a while, "They won't let us see their leaders unless we come alone."
"I see," Eichel said, he removed a datapad from his pocket and made some quick notes on it, before he summoned the Commissar, and gave him the pad, "If I'm not back in an hour, burn this room to the ground, leave, evacuate, and give this pad to the Captain of the Frigate."
"Yes Sir!" the Commissar said.
"Then we'll be going," Eichel said, and much to everyones surprise the approached the door, with only Dionysus in his trail.
On the other side of the door was a group of confused humans in bizarre patchwork clothing, clutching ancient autoguns, and giving the Inquisitor the evil eye.
Eichel just smiled, "Lets go."
The small band escorted them through the inner tunnels, and for the first time they got a look at the civilian population, women and children peering curiously from side tunnels, and even huddled along the walls in the large rooms. Many of them looked very haggard, and clutched small bundles of belongings, quite possibly all they'd managed to grab hold of before they had to flee.
After a few minutes of brisk walking they came to another secure area, a last bulwark of sorts before you enter a sanctum. They passed through a pair of heavy doors, and then all of a sudden they were inside a medium sized, well lit room, with ancient paintings, and small niches filled with statues.
The paintings were mostly ancient landscape scenes, a hauntingly beautiful country, with enormous never ending forests stretching as far as the eye could see. Pypen before the exterminatus. Eichel easily recognised the statues too, they were of ancient gods and heroes, pre-Imperial ones, the people here were pagans, but it was a clean paganism. Nothing of Chaos, nothing that a good Ecclesiarch couldn't mould into a Saint Cultus with the Emperor on top.
So when he looked at the elders, old men with greying hair, and elaborate robes, embroidered with strange symbols and words, no doubt imitations of millennia old robes of office, it wasn't their religion that bothered him. It was the presence of the Xeno's, two of the elders were aliens, their fur greyish-orange, and they stood proud, as equals to the other elders.
Despite Dionysus interpreting the conversation was difficult, Eichel started with "We come in peace! In the name of the God-Emperor!"
The elders spoke among themselves, and then one of them answered, the same pattern repeated each time they had to give an answer, "You have slaughtered our men! And we remember well how your Emperor treated us the last time his fleets came!"
"That was the bad servants of the Emperor, acting without his permission... we give you an offer, accept the Emperor as your Lord, cast out the Xeno, and you will prosper."
Stunned silence, before the elders answered, "We will not cast out the Gruhlas, there is not a single tribe among us that don't count Gruhlas among their members!"
Then the Elders voice grew more peaceful, almost pleading, "Why should we cast out the Gruhlas when we have lived in peace? And why should you come here? There is nothing here but ashes and dust, nothing for your Emperor. Leave us in peace, I implore you, we shall not ask weregild for our dead if you agree to the same for your dead."
The discussion went on for a while, but it didn't get beyond that stage, the natives were quite firm. In the end Eichel nodded, there was nothing more he could do here, "I see, well then... I swear by the God-Emperor himself that if you let me leave unmolested then I shall write in my report that there are no threats to the Imperium here, and nothing of interest either!"
"You swear this?"
"I do."
"Then we accept! We shall send word that no one shall lift their hand against you as you leave, and may Mehlara preserve you!" the Elder said sounding positively ecstatic.
Dionysus seemed thoughtful as they were escorted back, but he kept silent. When they reached the hydroponics chamber Eichel informed the Commissar, "We have a truce, it's time to leave, tell the men not to shoot unless the natives shoot first."
For a moment the Commissar seemed surprised, but his Scholar Progenium training overcame any misgivings he might have, "Yes Sir!"
The trip back to the surface was uneventful, almost too uneventful, the natives had removed all the bodies, and anything else that the Guardsmen had left behind. It was eerie, no signs of the fighting remained aside from a few patches of drying blood, and the scent of burned flesh that still lingered in the air.
An hour later the shuttles rose up from the surface of the planet, taking with it the Guardsmen and all their gear. A strange glum mood filled the shuttle, but no one dared to question the Inquisitors decision.
*********
Brrrraaaddoooommmmm
The rumbling sound travelled through the ship, in half a second Johan was wide awake, and nearly leapt out of his bed. Then an orderly ran over to him, "Get back down there! You're injured!"
Johan leaned back in bed, "What was that?"
"It's just the Lances firing, relax, you're quite safe," the orderly said.
A smile spread on Johans lips, "Ah... good..." Suddenly the universe made sense again.
*********
From the observation deck Dionysus and Eichel could see the energy Lances darting out from the ship, long radiant beams of light, and far below on the planet surface rose dark clouds of dust. Every time the lances fired the frigate shook, as if to remind them of the enormous power of its armaments.
Finally the bombardment ceased, where the shelter had been there was now a deep crater, whose walls began to crumble down into the crater, filling it with gravel.
"You see Dionysus it's important to keep your word."
"Yes Sir, so it is."
Eichel smiled for the second time that day, "And now I'll write my report..."
Dionysus stayed behind, he casually called up the old note B55-R43-D14 Heresy, and added a final note Pypen-11567c sentence confirmed.
Last edited by Norseman on 2007-06-30 08:35am, edited 2 times in total.
Norseman's Fics the SD archive of my fics.
The Emperors Young Martyrs
Planet Kalea, Day 40 of the Invasion
The mood was gloomy in the situation room, the flickering hololithic central table showed a real time representation of Treville. Tiny tyranids swarmed over tiny Guardsmen, dividing the Guards lines into small sections, islands in a sea of Xeno flesh! The Tyranids forced themselves into Treville proper, until they reached the Temple and City Hall where huddled refugees and Guardsmen made their last stand.
Everyone knew what happened next, everyone knew what the sterile figures on the table meant, the air of artifice let them keep their emotional distance.
The hololithic projection switched back to the area around Carahue. The flickering was gone, and they could study the defensive lines in great detail. With a touch they could contact any unit, punish, reward, and co-ordinate, all without leaving their secure bunker beneath the Ecclesiarchy building.
Colonel-Commissar Reuben Hirth never thought he'd be in charge of an operation as big as this, and now all his plans seemed to unravel before his very eyes! He'd served the Emperor for all of fifty years, and he couldn't see what he'd done wrong? He looked grimmer than usual, he hadn't slept or shaved in two days, and sometimes his temper flared.
Then the Magos Othywere spoke, an unmistakable voice, cold and metallic, "Sir, my brethren have intercepted a pict-cast of the final phase of the Tyranid attack. Quality is poor, but we're cleaning it up."
Hirth hesitated, the Magos' glowing augmentic eyes never blinked, or left him, adding even more pressure, finally Hirth asked "Is it there?"
"Yes Sir," the metallic voice sounded almost gleeful.
"Then show it."
The table hololithic display flickered again, the appearance changed to a regular, but poor-quality, pict-display. Hirth recognised the streets of Treville, the elegant colonnades, and the statues that were the pride of the city. Many of the statues lay shattered, so did many of the columns, smashed by the sheer mass of chitinous monstrosities forcing their way through the streets.
A sheer carpet of las-shots forced them back, the cobblestones, and the façades shone red from the sheer energies poured out. The Termegants were torn to pieces, the Tyranid ichor ran through the cobblestone streets like water after a torrent, the heat was so great that the disgusting fluid actually boiled in some places.
How could anyone defeat the Emperors forces when they could fight this well? A few of the younger officers smiled, and wished they could be there where the Emperors Foes were smitten!
Then something happened, the pict-recorder turned down for a moment, onto the cobblestone streets. The surface twisted and buckled like an earthquake, some of the Guardsmen aimed their lasguns low, and a Commissar yelled something. Then the street exploded, a dozen fountains of cobblestones and dirt rose up into the air, showering the Guardsmen with dirt and heavy cobblestones. Many of them raised their arms, or tried to duck, some of them were struck by falling stones. Only a handful stayed on their post to fight against what rose from the ground.
Raveners poured out of the crater like holes in the ground, filthy half snake, half ... half something out of the darkest places in the Immaterium! A white and black striped snake body and a pair of enormous scything talons! These creatures had no place existing in the same universe as human beings.
Before the last cobblestone struck the ground the Raveners attacked, they tore into the Guardsmen, swinging their arm-scythes. The Guardsmen stood as tightly packed as a field of grain, and harvest time had come. The scythes cut through flesh, sending arms and legs and heads flying through the air, slicing apart flak armour like tissue paper. Some of the Raveners grabbed Guardsmen, tore them apart, legs, arms and heads, and cloven torsos trailing entrails vanished into their maws.
The carpet of las-shots vanished, and the Termagaunts surged forward, running over the bodies of their brethren.
In the distance, in the corner of the pict-display, a huge red shape ploughed into the densest concentration of Guardsmen, and it didn't stop to pick up parts entire Guardsmen vanished whole into its enormous maw.
"STOP!" Hirth said, the display froze, "Othywere can you show me that one more clearly?"
Othywere nodded, and began chanting, while his hands moved strangely, the cybernetic hand seemed to whirr and click, as he drew faint runes in the air, they lingered there for a moment before slowly fading away.
There it was, shown reasonably clear, it looked much like the Raveners, except for four enormous scything talons, and instead of the sickly white colour of the Raveners this one was red like some Daemon out of the Æther! Even in a still picture you could see the slime drip from its open maw, and hear the sick clattering sound of its chitinous body parts.
"Yes... that's the one..." Hirth said, a sick feeling in his stomach, "The Red Terror!"
The elderly Savant Ikross coughed discretely, and Hirth nodded to him, so Ikross spoke, "Sir, this is most atypical for the Tyranids, the Raveners do not generally feed in combat... but these ones seem to have taken on qualities of the Red Terror, I've even heard that they sometimes eat before a battle, and then vomit the body parts onto the Guardsmen or Defence Force men. This causes great distress, and loss of morale."
"This particular batch, and the Red Terror, are intolerable! They are the reason our plans are failing, we must do something about them!" Hirth said, but they all knew that, the question was what to do?
"Play the rest," Hirth said at last.
The rest of the pict-recording was as depressing as what they'd seen before, the Termagaunts reached the Guardsmen and tore into them. A massacre ensued, and some gaunts pushed past the Guardsmen and into the Temple. Then suddenly one of the Termagaunts swarmed the position of the pict-recorder, the image began bobbing madly, almost as if the recorder was running away as fast as he could while praying harder than he ever had in his sinful life. Then everything went black.
"It's eight days until the fleet commits Exterminatus, six days until the last evacuation vessel leaves, but it's doubtful that Carahue can hold out for even four days. We may have to abandon the factories and facilities," Hirth said.
"That is unacceptable!" Magos Othywere said, his mechanical voice sounded strangely agitated, he pulled himself together, "Sir, the Adeptus Mechanicus have important factories here, and research facilities. They must be preserved for... the greater war effort."
"At this time, within four days, there isn't even enough freighter space for the workers and their children," Hirth said.
"We need the skilled workers as well! Good menials take years to train!" Othywere's whirrs and clicks grew louder.
"I see, then may I ask what sacrifices the Adeptus Mechanicus are willing to make to aid in the evacuation?" Hirth asked coldly.
The answer came after a moments hesitation, Othywere seemed calmer now, "Considerable."
*********
Understandably the people of Carahue were distressed when it was suggested that they be evacuated ahead of their children. For that matter the evacuating the factory workers first left the middle-class inhabitants rather cold.
The middle-lasses weren't Hirths concern though, the local Arbites could keep them under control, but the factor workers and Adaptus Mechanicus menials were often also parents. Unlike the normal inhabitants they had some clout, and if they put up a fight they could at the very delay him, and that would be bad. In short the usual approach was right out...
So he'd agreed to meet with them, to ease their fears, and to persuade them, without using any of the usual methods...
That had brought him to this cramped meeting room, and the frightened, but quite determined representatives of the workers. They leaned back whenever he leaned forward, his sheer bulk was intimidating, but his heavy coat with enormous shoulder boards, and tall peaked cap with the aquila emblem added to his menace. They were intimidated, but determined.
"It is imperative that you evacuate at once," Hirth said.
"Commissar, my lord," the factory representative Gi Haffel was nervous. He was a simple, but decent man, who had dressed in his finest dark green robes, and he had pinned every adornment he had on it; gold and silver medals, a Menial Manager seal, a step on the way to the priesthood. When he saw the rows of medals, ribbons, and seals decorating Hirths coat, and the uniform beneath, he felt inadequate.
"Yes?" Hirth said.
"Commissar, we cannot leave our children behind, we... we are good and loyal Servants of the Holy Emperor, if we must leave, we shall leave. If the world dies to prevent the Tyranids from owning it then we accept that, but... We cannot leave our children behind! Guardsmen are not child minders, our children would perish without us," Gi Haffel said. He had to fight the urge to babble, or to give in apologetically the moment the Commissars cold eyes landed on him, but on this he wouldn't budge!
"I see..." Hirth said, his voice gravely and dark, "Officially there is nothing that can be done, right now there isn't enough room in the shuttles for both you, and the children."
"Sir I must..." Gi Haffel begun, then his eyes widened slightly as he caught himself, "Commissar, I mean..." Murmuring rose from the table, no one dared say anything out loud, but they definitely agreed with Gi Haffel.
Hirth raised his hand, and both the murmuring and Haffel stopped, "I said there was no official way to solve our problem."
"Commissar is... is there an unofficial way?" Gi Haffel asked.
"Perhaps..." Hirth said. He looked at the doors, and at the others in the room. Then he casually threw a black box onto the table, it looked like a deck of playing cards made from black marble, but decorated with baroque gilding. For some reason the gold seemed to gleam with a light of its own. "Now we have some privacy... what I am about to say does not leave this room, or there will be consequences of a most severe nature, do I make myself clear?"
"Yes Commissar," Gi Haffel said nervously. On one hand he felt like someone was gripping his guts; on the other it seemed like he might actually, somehow, come out of this alive and with a solution!
"There are several old shuttles resting on Becket Field Aerodrome, the Adeptes Mechanicus have restored them to working order. If your children could get there in time, they would be evacuated, and be safe until the main convoy leaves in six days." Hirth let that sink in, let them feel the glimmerings of hope, and then his face turned hard again, "Now then... are you willing to co-operate with me? Without any nonsense?"
"Yes Commissar," Gi Gaffel said.
As Hirth looked down the table everyone else quickly assented, and tried not to look into those terrible cold eyes.
"Good, then it's settled."
*********
Dozens of huge busses filled the enormous square outside the Ecclesiarchy cathedral, normally it was used for solemn processions, or parades, but today it was a parking lot. A tall mobile chain-mesh fence surrounded the entire square. The only way in or out was either through the big gate reserved for the buses, or by passing through one of the four big trailers that had one end outside the fence and the other inside.
Emblazoned on the side of each trailer was the symbol of the Officio Medicae, the Red Cross and Skull. There were long queues in front of each trailer there was a long queue of children and worried parents. The children were dressed in their best travel clothes, clutching duffel bags or rucksacks, while their parents tried to give them some last piece of advice before they went into one of the trailer.
"Jonathan, are you listening?" Jayne Westby was another worried mother in her mid forties, desperately trying to make her fourteen year old son understand that this was serious.
"Yeah Mom," Jonathan said, a tall athletic youth, with overly long hair, and a slightly bored insolent look on his face. It went with his scruffy jacket, and his habit to play tablut for money.
"Don't yes Mom me!" Mrs Westby said, she looked at her two other children, then back at Jonathan, "You are the oldest, you have got to keep an eye on them!"
Jonathan tried not to roll his eyes, "Yeah Mom."
"Watch it young man!" Mr Roger Westby said, giving his son a stern look, while shifting his heavy eykwood lho-pipe in his mouth.
"Yes dad, I'll look after them, relax, if I get attacked by a Tyranid I'll hit him with that bread Aunt Frida gave me," Jonathan said.
"Don't joke about things like that!" Mrs Westby said, she nudged Tom and Jane closer to Jonathan, "Alright go now, but... be careful!"
"Yes Mother!" Tom and Jane said in near unison, they smiled together, looking like a pair of cherubs. The eight year old twins looked adorable, and almost cheerful, but secretly they were terrified.
"You're such brownnosers," Jonathan said when they walked into the trailer.
"We're not!" Tom said indignantly.
"We're just behaving," Jane said equally indignant.
All the children passed between two eight foot pillars in the middle of the trailer, they looked like enormous Caduceuses. Each time a child passed between the Caduceus pillars a sheet-printer clunked several times, before it spat out a parchment card with strange and cryptic information. A doctor would study it briefly, and most of the time he'd just wave the child on, to the next room in the trailer, only occasionally was a child pulled aside for further studies.
Tom and Jane looked a little spooked, and dragged their feet in front of the pillars.
"Come on, it's just a check-up," Jonathan said, sighing as he nudged his siblings on. Though he got a weird tingling feeling when he passed between the pillars, so he could see why kids would be scared.
Neither Jonathan, nor his siblings, were pulled aside, the doctor just checked their parchment cards and then waved them on to the next room.
"See, nothing to worry about," Jonathan said.
The next room was much smaller, a couple of Adaptes Sororitas stood there, dressed in authoritative looking armour. Jonathan felt kind of funny when he saw them, they frowned when he stared, and he wished he could sink into the ground. On the other hand, they were, well, it was wrong to thing of them like that but... he silently prayed to Saint Amadeus of Alturka to intercede, and explain to the Emperor that he didn't really mean it like that.
"Everyone will swallow a pill!" the Sister Hospitaler said, pointing at some big, oval pills in a huge bowl, "One pill for everyone, to keep you fit and healthy! Thank the Emperor that you get such good treatment!"
Each child got a glass of juice and a pill, and there was no hope of getting away from it. Sometimes a child tried to hide the pill away, only to have a hand grab it by the shoulder, "None of that now!"
"It's too big!" a little snot nosed brat complained.
"Swallow it or it'll get inside through the backdoor!" the Sister Hospitaler said, sternly, and giving the brat a look that could give him nightmares for a week of Sundays!
"You mean...?"
"YES!"
Surprisingly enough most of the children were able to swallow their pill, but a couple were indeed taken into a closet, and you could hear little yelps before some urchin came running out trying to hold his pants up.
Jonathan didn't want that so he swallowed, and got his siblings to come along with him to the bus. Along with the summons they'd gotten a ticket, and he carefully checked it, to make sure they got the right bus.
"There we are, come now, lets get inside," he said, pushing Tom and Jane ahead."
The bus was packed with children aged six to fifteen, a few of them were nice looking girls, but Jonathan tried to be adult and not look too much at them. Also the bus stank, it was that funny smell, kind of half way between vomit and diarrhoea, the kind you always get when you pack a bunch of children together into a tight area.
"Right..." he checked their ticket again, "This is where we sit down."
"I want to sit at the window!" Tom said.
"No! I want to sit there!" Jane said.
"So you want to sit right where the tyranids can see you?" Jonathan said mockingly. Then he heard some kid start sobbing to the rear, and Janes eyes began to fill up with tears.
"Nice going!"
It was an adult voice, when Jonathan turned his head he saw a man in a Kalean Defence Force uniform. It was a young private, who looked very tired, and not too happy.
"Just get into the seats!" the Private said, before moving back to the drivers seat.
Everyone scooted down in their seats, a few kids started throwing paper balls, and making sounds, but then a loud screeching sound filled the bus. A second later the driver started talking through the bus vox-com, "This is your driver private Nikolai Brunner, it's my solemn duty to get you lot in more or less one piece to the aerodrome. Please note that I said in more or less one piece, so don't push me."
The bus engine came to life with a pleasant growl, and then the convoy got under way. Dozens of buses moving through the streets of Carahue, past gawking crowds, and long lines of tired, desperate looking KDF men.
It was really weird to see the city like this, for the last time, in a few days there wouldn't be a city anymore. In a few days there wouldn't be a Kalea anymore. Jonathan found that hard to understand, he was pretty sure Tom and Jane didn't understand it at all, and now... he felt kind of funny, like a lump forming in his throat.
They drove past the big park where he used to hang around, and play ballgames, or just find a quiet spot and gamble a little. It was lovely, the tall trees, with wide green canopies that provided such lovely shade in the summer. He even felt weird about that stupid playground that he'd definitely outgrown.
Just outside Carahues' city limit they were joined by four Chimeras, angular armoured personnel carriers that easily kept up with the buses. Many of the boys pushed against the windows, gawping at the sight of the Chimeras, some of them waved to the commanders in the turret cupola, others pulled out battered magazines with lots of glossy pictures and compared these Chimeras to the ones in the magazines.
"AWESOME!" Tom said, then he pointed at the side of the Chimera, "Look!"
There were dozens of kill marks on it, most of them looking vaguely Tyranid like, and despite a couple of scrapes along the side the Chimera didn't look any worse for the wear.
"I wonder how many of them he's killed!" Tom said, feeling a little safer now, and it was fun seeing military things running at high speed instead of slowly crawling up a street in a parade.
"Plenty I'm sure," Jonathan said, glad for a small break.
Soon the novelty faded, and once more the kids started chatting, or squealing. Some of them started singing songs, very loudly, unfortunately they were mostly of the "Grock the Filthy Greenskin!" or "A hundred bottles of ale!" variety. Even if hearing them once or twice was fun the children liked singing the same songs, over and over in a ragged squealing chorus.
The further they got from Carahue the emptier the roads were, at first they regularly passed convoys of evacuating civilians heading away from the front, and Kalean Defence Force and Imperial Guard units heading towards the front. Now that they'd reached the smaller side roads they only spotted the odd civilian who was semi-legally trying to get away from the front. Then as the roads changed from firm rockcrete or asphalt topped surfaces, into gravel, or even dirt roads, the traffic died away to nothing.
Up ahead loomed Morkgrun forest, a long expanse of rolling hills covered in dense virgin forest. It seemed dark and threatening, like some relic of the old frontier days millenia past, when the first settlers had fought broken the land and fought against strange Xeno tribes.
On the way they passed by the remains of a small convoy. Remains was the operative word, a couple of them had caught fire, and looked like burned out wrecks. The others had clearly visible claw marks, doors were missing, a few roofs torn away like you'd tear open a tin can. A couple of cars were away from the rest, big ones, all terrain, one of them had flipped over, the other lacked wheels, all of them had missing doors and roofs.
The children fell silent for a moment, and Private Brunner suppressed a shudder. His eyes strayed to the lasgun resting next to the drivers' seat, but if it came to that it was pretty much game over already.
Up ahead the forest rose like a wall, surrounding it was shrubs, and long ivy like winding plants, the lower branches filtering together with the ivies hanging from them like curtains. This was virgin forest, the kind that's rare on most civilized worlds, there were no sign of logging or any other human activity.
In fact when they drove up the dirt road the forest stood as a wall on either side of them, with only the dirt road showing them that humans had ever gone here.
The moment the bus entered the woods it got darker, the long branches of the trees stretched out over the road, blotting out the sun, and leaving them in a greenish twilight. The shadows seemed to move, and the forest looked like it was alive, and filled with countless eyes studying these strange creatures who thought they could drive across it unhindered.
At least that's how Jonathan felt, more than once he thought he saw eyes, reflecting the light of the sun, or some big shadow moving slowly through the forest.
"There's something in there," Tom said.
"IS there?" Jane said, looking worried.
"Stop scaring her, there's nothing there," Jonathan said, but he wasn't so sure, something had destroyed those cars...
Suddenly the bus lurched, the wheels screeched as the driver stepped on the breaks, behind them the entire convoy came to a halt, and a hundred foot space opened up between them and the next bus.
A native deer leapt in front of the bus and ran across the dirt road, then a couple more, smaller deer ran as well.
Behind them the other buses honked their horns, and Private Brunner began working the gears.
The forest shifted again, the branches shook, and Tom and Jane pushed their faces against the windows expecting to see another deer, or perhaps some grool hogs run out of the woods. Sure enough more deers, some grool hogs, and a few jackalopes dashed across the road.
"Maybe there's a forest fire somewhere?" Tom said, then he knowingly added, "Our teacher says that if animals sense a forest fire they run away!"
"Or an Earthquake," Jane said.
Jonathan had always had his doubts about his siblings intelligence, but he bit back his remarks, "Uh, get away from the windows."
"No I... ah!" Jane squealed as Jonathan pushed them roughly from the window. Then both of them began fighting him and kicking to get back, "We wanna see! We wanna see!" Everywhere else the kids were making noise again.
"Look don't you..." Jonathan begun, then he felt a tremor run through the bus, "DOWN!" He showed his fist into Toms gut, making the eight year old double over, he felt like a total bastard for doing it, but there was just no reasoning with them! Then he moved to cover them.
Every child in the bus began to scream, and scream so loud that he thought his eardrums would burst...
Jonathan couldn't see it, but Private Brunner most certainly could, three huge creatures leapt out of the woods. One went to the front of the convoy, one to the back, and one right in front of the bus, in the middle.
"FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!" he roared at the sight of it, stunning some of the children who weren't used to foul language.
They were covered in green and brownish mulch dripping down from their chitinous carapaces, they'd even draped themselves in vines. They looked like some forest demon, but sticking out beneath the camouflage were sharp spikes and chitinous angles, a pair of enormous claws mounted on powerful arms, and beneath that another set of arms looking no less frightening.
LICTORS!
They were taller than the bus, enormous and deadly, now he knew what had wrecked that small convoy they spotted earlier.
"SACRED ARMINIUS!" he roared, and pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, aiming straight AT the creature!
The bus shook when he hit it, despite its weight, and its feet and claws burrowing into the ground, the bus was too heavy and had too much inertia to be stopped! The Lictors spiky feet dug deep furrows in the dirt road, while screeching aloud, and slashing out with its claws and smaller hands, tearing apart windows, tearing holes in the main window, but any moment now it'd recover its wits and...
They smashed into the second bus, the one a little over a hundred feet in front. Several children flew from their seats, striking the backs of other seats, or they got thrown onto the floor. Horrified screams filled the bus.
Private Brunner threw the bus into reverse, and pushed the pedal to the bottom again, pulling away as fast as he could.
The Lictor staggered forward, shaking its head, like a cat that just got bitten by a mouse. Its carapace had long hair thin fracture marks in it, but that wouldn't slow it down. Instead of standing still it leapt forward, moving impossibly fast for something that big, and leaped onto the roof of the bus!
A huge dent appeared, several feet deep, as it struck the plasteel roof, then a huge claw slammed down, it went through the roof, and struck the floor of the passenger compartment! Then it pulled down, tearing a flange in the roof of the bus, a screeching tortured sound of metal mixed with the screech of the terrified children.
Private Brunner drove forward again, but this time he twisted the bus sideways, hoping it wouldn't tip over as the back end skidded along the road. The dent in the ceiling grew bigger as even a Lictor had to hang on for dear life, but then another claw tore at the ceiling. Steering with one hand, and grabbing his lasgun with the other Private Brunner opened fire, punching fist sized holes in the roof, and hoping that somehow he hit it!
Then suddenly the Lictor screamed, thick ichor began to drip down from the holes in the roof, and the creature leapt of the bus. The children could see it now, bleeding ichor, it's mantis like arms held up hide, and its horrible maw spread wide as it looked for its enemy! Then a heavy bolter opened fire again, and shattered its head, the Lictor crashed to the ground, and twisted and squirmed, one of its legs struck the side of the bus hard enough to make it shudder and create a huge dent.
His vox-caster chimed, and he stuffed the plug in his ear, it was the commander of one of the Chimeras, "Private Brunner is it?"
"Yes Sir."
"Well done, well done, the Emperor was with you today!"
"You're the one that killed it Sir."
"I recommending you for promotion and a medal, I've seen those things shred a chimera in less time than you managed to keep that thing at bay! The Lady and the Emperor was with you, that's the only way you're still alive."
Even over the vox-caster Private Brunner thought he could feel the commander shaking his head with a mixture of astonishment and admiration. He felt like throwing up, or going to the bathroom, but he knew he couldn't
"Carry on! No time for chit chat, those were scouts, the rest of the army can't be more than an hour behind!"
The last bit was directed to the whole convoy, so Private Brunner dutifully drove forward, hoping there'd be no more unpleasant surprises before they reached Becket Field. Up ahead the forest began to thin out, the dense dark woods gave way to scattered copses, and then to scattered single trees as they entered the Merritt Plains.
Inside the bus the frightened children shivered and sobbed, for now they were too stunned to scream anymore, for which he sent thanks to the merciful Emperor!
For the first time since they entered the forest the trees they could see the sun, peering out from the black and ominous clouds to the east. They also saw flashes of light, some of them brief, others lingered, and twenty, thirty seconds later a long drawn out rumble reached the buses...
BOOOOOM-BOOOOOM-BBRRROORDOOOM
Then they struck a pothole, the bus shook, and he was once more in own personal warp hell, inhabited by squealing snot-nosed daemons whose mounts opened wider than their heads.
"SHUT UP!" he yelled.
No response, the children kept screaming, a couple of them began throwing things. For once he wished for a Commissar, one with a big whip, but instead he was the only adult on the whole damn bus!
Meanwhile further back he wasn't the only one with problems...
"You hit me!" Tom said plaintively, he pouted, and looked angrily at Jonathan.
"You were being an idiot! Forest fire my rear end! Did mom drop you on your head a lot as a child?" Jonathan asked.
"No fair!"
"I'll tell daddy!" Jane said, looking indignant on behalf of her twin brother.
"Hey! I saved you from something even worse! Fark! Talk about ingratitude!" Jonathan said angrily.
"YOU SAID F..." Tom snapped his mouth shut.
"You said the F word!" Jane said helpfully, "Mom will..."
"Knock it off! Come on! Be nice, seriously don't you little dorks have something more important to worry about?" Jonathan said, he couldn't believe it, they were nearly eaten by tyranids and now they were talking about a little punch to the gut and the f-word?
"Y-y-you," Tom took several deep fast breaths, looking very indignant, "We're not dorks! And you used the F word!"
Then some kid to the rear pointed out the rear window any yelled, "The trees are falling down!" Seeing that the driver didn't respond they started yelling "THE TREES ARE FALLING DOWN!"
"The trees aren't..." Private Brunner said. Then he looked into the rear view mirror. Behind him the forest shook like a storm passed through it, and indeed some of the trees were falling. "Merciful Emperor!" He stepped on it, and watched the speedometer slowly inch upwards.
The sudden lurch of speed made the bus shake madly, the gravel road was bad with many potholes. Some of the children fell in the aisle, a six year old smashed his nose, and screamed madly as a fountain of blood gushed out and seeped into his sweater.
With a rumble of caterpillar tracks and strained engines the lead Chimera drove off the road, and went to the back of the convoy. Every bus picked up speed, driving hard towards a hilly ridge visible some kilometres ahead, where they saw Imperial Guard trenches.
Jonathan held Tom and Jane's as tight as he could, trying to calm them down while they screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
From the forest monsters emerged! There was no other word for them, hideous creatures covered in chitinous armour, huge maws filled with needle sharp teeth, and dripping with ichor! They moved impossibly fast, several kinds of native deer escaped ahead of them, running with an insane fear! Even the large predators of the woods tried to get away.
It was all in vain: fast Raveners, an unholy mixture of four scythe like claws and a snakes body, dashed out of the woods so fast that they left a dust trail behind them. If they screamed or shouted during the attack no one heard, but they slither up to the fleeing animals, and the long scythe like talons lashed out slicing through rough skin and tendons, tearing the screaming deer and native pseudo-cats to pieces so blood and gore spread through the air!
Then some of them scooped up the remains, shoving the shredded but sometimes still living animals down their enormous maws, it didn't even slow them down!
The children screamed loudly, ear splittingly loud, tears ran down their faces, the older children, often terrified themselves, sometimes tried to comfort their screaming shivering relatives. Jonathan hugged Tom and Jane close, they shook so bad he had trouble holding them, and he felt something warm run down his leg. The air filled with filthy smells, the children, separated from their parents, and horrified lost all control of their bodies.
Then one of the Raveners exploded in a cloud of chitin, blood and gore, a spray of greenish goo rained around it. Its long tail waist kept flopping around, moving forward despite the fact that it wasn't attached to anything. Another Ravener fell, its' head torn apart, and its tail shredded by heavy bolter fire from the Chimeras turrets.
More and more Raveners died, but it wasn't much of an encouragement: the tyranids were so fast, and there were so many of them, a dark horde was gathering inside the forest, for all their terror the Raveners were just the advance guard!
Yet for a moment it seemed like the Imperial Guardsmen might prevail, the Tyranids died if they came too close, none of Raveners could stand up to four Chimeras! None of them until it appeared, its carapace as red as blood, four enormous claws, and it scrambled across the plan like the hosts of Chaos pushed it!
To its left and right heavy bolters tore up the turf, obscuring it in clouds of dirt, but then it reached the rearmost Chimera. It tore through the back, and stuck its head inside, tearing and swallowing, pulling out Guardsmen and devouring them! Then it leapt above the fallen Chimera and began flanking the rest!
Its fellows attacked from the other side, many of them died from the lasgun bolts, green bursts cutting into their tough chitin armour, or from the heavy bolter blasting away at them tearing through their unnaturally tough bodies. Suddenly one of them leapt, amazingly fast, and landed on the roof of a Chimera, its claws smashed down tearing through hardened plasteel, but before it could tear open the Chimera as a tin can, it was killed by a burst of bolter fire from the second Chimera.
A moment later another one took its place, and the Chimera was doomed!
In his seat on the bus Private Brunner kept one eye on the ridge far ahead, ten more minutes. So he prayed "St Arminius slayer of Xenos! Kindly intercede with the Divine Emperor, for me, a Soldier fighting in His name! Grant me ten more minutes! Hear my prayer!"
*********
Commissar Hirth studied the scene through his powerful binoculars, zooming in on this scene then that. Several of the Raveners dove into the soft thick soil, throwing up sprays of dirt as they vanished. They could dig almost as fast as they could run, in not too long they'd burst up in front of the Imperial Guard position.
He casually pulled from his pocket the black box with gold filigree décor, the same one he'd thrown onto the table in front of the representatives of the families.
"That one might make it Sir," Captain Rennert said, pointing at Brunners bus.
"I doubt it," Hirth said.
*********
For the first time since the Raveners broke out of the forest Private Brunner felt reasonably confident that they'd make it. They had to drive alongside the Imperial Guard positions, and then around the ridge, the trenches cut across the main road, but fortunately there was a side road. Also the Raveners had vanished, he suspected that they'd pop up soon, but at least they'd go after the Imperial Guard, giving him a chance to get away.
"Calm down! We're just about there!" he yelled as loud as he could into the bus vox-com. They didn't pay any attention, but he didn't care, he had a job to do!
In the rear view mirror he saw enormous fountains of earth rise up, bits of dirt clattered onto the roof of the bus, but the raveners attacked the imperial guard and not him.
Then all of a sudden he felt like it was raining, and a red film covered the rear view mirror...
Jonathan looked down in panic, he couldn't understand what was happening, suddenly his trousers felt wet, soaking wet and there was a funny smell. He was about to ask if one of the dorks had wet themselves when he saw blood...
Lots and lots of blood, everywhere, Tom lay back his mouth open, his eyes glassy, he was dead... no doubt about it, Jonathan could see his brothers spine. Jane wasn't dead yet, she gasped horribly, a rasping dreadful gasp, there was a huge hole in her stomach, and blood gushed out of it. Bits of cloth, and blood, and flesh was scattered all around the bus, colouring the interior red.
Like an Ecclesiarchy painting of the Æther and the Ruinous Powers in it.
Then he noticed that there was a big hole in his stomach, and that strange wormlike things came crawling out, he grabbed them and tried to fight them but they were slippery!
He didn't see any Tyranids, so he couldn't for the life of him understand why his guts would be pouring out!
His last thoughts, before he passed out from blood loss, were nooooo please I didn't mean it... mom will be so angry...
*********
Commissar Hirth casually removed his thumb from the black and gold detonator box, the raveners in front of the Imperial Guard lines were in their death throes, writhing and twisting while horrid ichor mixed with human blood sprayed from the openings blown in their bodies. Elsewhere several other large tyranids twisted and twitched madly, from having small explosives go off inside of them.
Only one of them survived, the Red Terror! IT survived to surged into the Imperial trenches, and devour whole the men defending them! Meanwhile the rest of the Tyranid horde surged on, many of them surged around the buses.
Hirth ran his thumb down a different spot on the detonator box, instantly the buses, and even the remains of the chimeras, exploded in gouts of flame. The fire surged out, consuming hundreds, possibly thousands of tyranids, and then the Imperial Guards opened fire.
The beast rampaging the trenches was forced back, and finally dove back into one of the holes the other Raveners had made... that was the last they saw of it, none of them knew if it had survived its injuries.
This time the Tyranid lacked the Raveners, and the surprise momentum that they had afforded. They pushed on though, like a mindless swarm, but were repulsed by massive barraged, and forced to retreat with heavy losses. Then they surged forward again, and once more the bolters, lasguns and lascannon of the Imperial Guard forced them back. For hours the battle raged back and forth, before finally the Tyranids were forced to retreat, at least for now.
When it was all over Commissar Hirth walked back to the waiting shuttles, he entered the biggest one, "Praise the Emperor! You have your six days!"
Magos Othywere "Good... I trust our devices worked as you desired?"
"Indeed," Hirth said.
"And how will you explain this?" Magos Othywere asked.
"Leave that to me..."
*********
Commissar Hirth had a wonderful view from his quarters on the Great Cruiser Conquest of Lugdanum, beneath him Kalea was burning...
The enormous forests were carpets of flame, the seas darkened before his very eyes, and thick black smoke shrouded the northern continent. An enormous firestorm consumed the entire world, and with it the enormous Tyranid host.
When the hive fleet came it would find slim pickings...
He looked up from his writing and spotted the black detonator box with its gold filigree work. A smile crossed his lips, it'd been so easy... once the Adaptes Mechanicus had agreed to provide him with an ample number of small explosive devices and a remote detonator.
Despite his usual dourness he'd made one telling remark in his report, when explaining why the Raveners were destroyed so easily 'perhaps they ate something that disagreed with them.'
But he had work to do, he had one last letter to write to the bereaved, letter number two thousand or so, but they were all the same...
"Mrs Westby,
It grieves me terribly to inform you of the death of your three children, Jonathan, Tom, and Jane. Despite the valiant resistance of the Imperial Guard and the Kalean Defence Force, the Tyranid Swarm was able to overrun the bus that your children were in. It may please you to know that your children resisted bravely, and that their deaths were quick.
They are now, at any rate, the Emperors young martyrs.
Signed,
Colonel-Commissar Reuben Hirth"
The mood was gloomy in the situation room, the flickering hololithic central table showed a real time representation of Treville. Tiny tyranids swarmed over tiny Guardsmen, dividing the Guards lines into small sections, islands in a sea of Xeno flesh! The Tyranids forced themselves into Treville proper, until they reached the Temple and City Hall where huddled refugees and Guardsmen made their last stand.
Everyone knew what happened next, everyone knew what the sterile figures on the table meant, the air of artifice let them keep their emotional distance.
The hololithic projection switched back to the area around Carahue. The flickering was gone, and they could study the defensive lines in great detail. With a touch they could contact any unit, punish, reward, and co-ordinate, all without leaving their secure bunker beneath the Ecclesiarchy building.
Colonel-Commissar Reuben Hirth never thought he'd be in charge of an operation as big as this, and now all his plans seemed to unravel before his very eyes! He'd served the Emperor for all of fifty years, and he couldn't see what he'd done wrong? He looked grimmer than usual, he hadn't slept or shaved in two days, and sometimes his temper flared.
Then the Magos Othywere spoke, an unmistakable voice, cold and metallic, "Sir, my brethren have intercepted a pict-cast of the final phase of the Tyranid attack. Quality is poor, but we're cleaning it up."
Hirth hesitated, the Magos' glowing augmentic eyes never blinked, or left him, adding even more pressure, finally Hirth asked "Is it there?"
"Yes Sir," the metallic voice sounded almost gleeful.
"Then show it."
The table hololithic display flickered again, the appearance changed to a regular, but poor-quality, pict-display. Hirth recognised the streets of Treville, the elegant colonnades, and the statues that were the pride of the city. Many of the statues lay shattered, so did many of the columns, smashed by the sheer mass of chitinous monstrosities forcing their way through the streets.
A sheer carpet of las-shots forced them back, the cobblestones, and the façades shone red from the sheer energies poured out. The Termegants were torn to pieces, the Tyranid ichor ran through the cobblestone streets like water after a torrent, the heat was so great that the disgusting fluid actually boiled in some places.
How could anyone defeat the Emperors forces when they could fight this well? A few of the younger officers smiled, and wished they could be there where the Emperors Foes were smitten!
Then something happened, the pict-recorder turned down for a moment, onto the cobblestone streets. The surface twisted and buckled like an earthquake, some of the Guardsmen aimed their lasguns low, and a Commissar yelled something. Then the street exploded, a dozen fountains of cobblestones and dirt rose up into the air, showering the Guardsmen with dirt and heavy cobblestones. Many of them raised their arms, or tried to duck, some of them were struck by falling stones. Only a handful stayed on their post to fight against what rose from the ground.
Raveners poured out of the crater like holes in the ground, filthy half snake, half ... half something out of the darkest places in the Immaterium! A white and black striped snake body and a pair of enormous scything talons! These creatures had no place existing in the same universe as human beings.
Before the last cobblestone struck the ground the Raveners attacked, they tore into the Guardsmen, swinging their arm-scythes. The Guardsmen stood as tightly packed as a field of grain, and harvest time had come. The scythes cut through flesh, sending arms and legs and heads flying through the air, slicing apart flak armour like tissue paper. Some of the Raveners grabbed Guardsmen, tore them apart, legs, arms and heads, and cloven torsos trailing entrails vanished into their maws.
The carpet of las-shots vanished, and the Termagaunts surged forward, running over the bodies of their brethren.
In the distance, in the corner of the pict-display, a huge red shape ploughed into the densest concentration of Guardsmen, and it didn't stop to pick up parts entire Guardsmen vanished whole into its enormous maw.
"STOP!" Hirth said, the display froze, "Othywere can you show me that one more clearly?"
Othywere nodded, and began chanting, while his hands moved strangely, the cybernetic hand seemed to whirr and click, as he drew faint runes in the air, they lingered there for a moment before slowly fading away.
There it was, shown reasonably clear, it looked much like the Raveners, except for four enormous scything talons, and instead of the sickly white colour of the Raveners this one was red like some Daemon out of the Æther! Even in a still picture you could see the slime drip from its open maw, and hear the sick clattering sound of its chitinous body parts.
"Yes... that's the one..." Hirth said, a sick feeling in his stomach, "The Red Terror!"
The elderly Savant Ikross coughed discretely, and Hirth nodded to him, so Ikross spoke, "Sir, this is most atypical for the Tyranids, the Raveners do not generally feed in combat... but these ones seem to have taken on qualities of the Red Terror, I've even heard that they sometimes eat before a battle, and then vomit the body parts onto the Guardsmen or Defence Force men. This causes great distress, and loss of morale."
"This particular batch, and the Red Terror, are intolerable! They are the reason our plans are failing, we must do something about them!" Hirth said, but they all knew that, the question was what to do?
"Play the rest," Hirth said at last.
The rest of the pict-recording was as depressing as what they'd seen before, the Termagaunts reached the Guardsmen and tore into them. A massacre ensued, and some gaunts pushed past the Guardsmen and into the Temple. Then suddenly one of the Termagaunts swarmed the position of the pict-recorder, the image began bobbing madly, almost as if the recorder was running away as fast as he could while praying harder than he ever had in his sinful life. Then everything went black.
"It's eight days until the fleet commits Exterminatus, six days until the last evacuation vessel leaves, but it's doubtful that Carahue can hold out for even four days. We may have to abandon the factories and facilities," Hirth said.
"That is unacceptable!" Magos Othywere said, his mechanical voice sounded strangely agitated, he pulled himself together, "Sir, the Adeptus Mechanicus have important factories here, and research facilities. They must be preserved for... the greater war effort."
"At this time, within four days, there isn't even enough freighter space for the workers and their children," Hirth said.
"We need the skilled workers as well! Good menials take years to train!" Othywere's whirrs and clicks grew louder.
"I see, then may I ask what sacrifices the Adeptus Mechanicus are willing to make to aid in the evacuation?" Hirth asked coldly.
The answer came after a moments hesitation, Othywere seemed calmer now, "Considerable."
*********
Understandably the people of Carahue were distressed when it was suggested that they be evacuated ahead of their children. For that matter the evacuating the factory workers first left the middle-class inhabitants rather cold.
The middle-lasses weren't Hirths concern though, the local Arbites could keep them under control, but the factor workers and Adaptus Mechanicus menials were often also parents. Unlike the normal inhabitants they had some clout, and if they put up a fight they could at the very delay him, and that would be bad. In short the usual approach was right out...
So he'd agreed to meet with them, to ease their fears, and to persuade them, without using any of the usual methods...
That had brought him to this cramped meeting room, and the frightened, but quite determined representatives of the workers. They leaned back whenever he leaned forward, his sheer bulk was intimidating, but his heavy coat with enormous shoulder boards, and tall peaked cap with the aquila emblem added to his menace. They were intimidated, but determined.
"It is imperative that you evacuate at once," Hirth said.
"Commissar, my lord," the factory representative Gi Haffel was nervous. He was a simple, but decent man, who had dressed in his finest dark green robes, and he had pinned every adornment he had on it; gold and silver medals, a Menial Manager seal, a step on the way to the priesthood. When he saw the rows of medals, ribbons, and seals decorating Hirths coat, and the uniform beneath, he felt inadequate.
"Yes?" Hirth said.
"Commissar, we cannot leave our children behind, we... we are good and loyal Servants of the Holy Emperor, if we must leave, we shall leave. If the world dies to prevent the Tyranids from owning it then we accept that, but... We cannot leave our children behind! Guardsmen are not child minders, our children would perish without us," Gi Haffel said. He had to fight the urge to babble, or to give in apologetically the moment the Commissars cold eyes landed on him, but on this he wouldn't budge!
"I see..." Hirth said, his voice gravely and dark, "Officially there is nothing that can be done, right now there isn't enough room in the shuttles for both you, and the children."
"Sir I must..." Gi Haffel begun, then his eyes widened slightly as he caught himself, "Commissar, I mean..." Murmuring rose from the table, no one dared say anything out loud, but they definitely agreed with Gi Haffel.
Hirth raised his hand, and both the murmuring and Haffel stopped, "I said there was no official way to solve our problem."
"Commissar is... is there an unofficial way?" Gi Haffel asked.
"Perhaps..." Hirth said. He looked at the doors, and at the others in the room. Then he casually threw a black box onto the table, it looked like a deck of playing cards made from black marble, but decorated with baroque gilding. For some reason the gold seemed to gleam with a light of its own. "Now we have some privacy... what I am about to say does not leave this room, or there will be consequences of a most severe nature, do I make myself clear?"
"Yes Commissar," Gi Haffel said nervously. On one hand he felt like someone was gripping his guts; on the other it seemed like he might actually, somehow, come out of this alive and with a solution!
"There are several old shuttles resting on Becket Field Aerodrome, the Adeptes Mechanicus have restored them to working order. If your children could get there in time, they would be evacuated, and be safe until the main convoy leaves in six days." Hirth let that sink in, let them feel the glimmerings of hope, and then his face turned hard again, "Now then... are you willing to co-operate with me? Without any nonsense?"
"Yes Commissar," Gi Gaffel said.
As Hirth looked down the table everyone else quickly assented, and tried not to look into those terrible cold eyes.
"Good, then it's settled."
*********
Dozens of huge busses filled the enormous square outside the Ecclesiarchy cathedral, normally it was used for solemn processions, or parades, but today it was a parking lot. A tall mobile chain-mesh fence surrounded the entire square. The only way in or out was either through the big gate reserved for the buses, or by passing through one of the four big trailers that had one end outside the fence and the other inside.
Emblazoned on the side of each trailer was the symbol of the Officio Medicae, the Red Cross and Skull. There were long queues in front of each trailer there was a long queue of children and worried parents. The children were dressed in their best travel clothes, clutching duffel bags or rucksacks, while their parents tried to give them some last piece of advice before they went into one of the trailer.
"Jonathan, are you listening?" Jayne Westby was another worried mother in her mid forties, desperately trying to make her fourteen year old son understand that this was serious.
"Yeah Mom," Jonathan said, a tall athletic youth, with overly long hair, and a slightly bored insolent look on his face. It went with his scruffy jacket, and his habit to play tablut for money.
"Don't yes Mom me!" Mrs Westby said, she looked at her two other children, then back at Jonathan, "You are the oldest, you have got to keep an eye on them!"
Jonathan tried not to roll his eyes, "Yeah Mom."
"Watch it young man!" Mr Roger Westby said, giving his son a stern look, while shifting his heavy eykwood lho-pipe in his mouth.
"Yes dad, I'll look after them, relax, if I get attacked by a Tyranid I'll hit him with that bread Aunt Frida gave me," Jonathan said.
"Don't joke about things like that!" Mrs Westby said, she nudged Tom and Jane closer to Jonathan, "Alright go now, but... be careful!"
"Yes Mother!" Tom and Jane said in near unison, they smiled together, looking like a pair of cherubs. The eight year old twins looked adorable, and almost cheerful, but secretly they were terrified.
"You're such brownnosers," Jonathan said when they walked into the trailer.
"We're not!" Tom said indignantly.
"We're just behaving," Jane said equally indignant.
All the children passed between two eight foot pillars in the middle of the trailer, they looked like enormous Caduceuses. Each time a child passed between the Caduceus pillars a sheet-printer clunked several times, before it spat out a parchment card with strange and cryptic information. A doctor would study it briefly, and most of the time he'd just wave the child on, to the next room in the trailer, only occasionally was a child pulled aside for further studies.
Tom and Jane looked a little spooked, and dragged their feet in front of the pillars.
"Come on, it's just a check-up," Jonathan said, sighing as he nudged his siblings on. Though he got a weird tingling feeling when he passed between the pillars, so he could see why kids would be scared.
Neither Jonathan, nor his siblings, were pulled aside, the doctor just checked their parchment cards and then waved them on to the next room.
"See, nothing to worry about," Jonathan said.
The next room was much smaller, a couple of Adaptes Sororitas stood there, dressed in authoritative looking armour. Jonathan felt kind of funny when he saw them, they frowned when he stared, and he wished he could sink into the ground. On the other hand, they were, well, it was wrong to thing of them like that but... he silently prayed to Saint Amadeus of Alturka to intercede, and explain to the Emperor that he didn't really mean it like that.
"Everyone will swallow a pill!" the Sister Hospitaler said, pointing at some big, oval pills in a huge bowl, "One pill for everyone, to keep you fit and healthy! Thank the Emperor that you get such good treatment!"
Each child got a glass of juice and a pill, and there was no hope of getting away from it. Sometimes a child tried to hide the pill away, only to have a hand grab it by the shoulder, "None of that now!"
"It's too big!" a little snot nosed brat complained.
"Swallow it or it'll get inside through the backdoor!" the Sister Hospitaler said, sternly, and giving the brat a look that could give him nightmares for a week of Sundays!
"You mean...?"
"YES!"
Surprisingly enough most of the children were able to swallow their pill, but a couple were indeed taken into a closet, and you could hear little yelps before some urchin came running out trying to hold his pants up.
Jonathan didn't want that so he swallowed, and got his siblings to come along with him to the bus. Along with the summons they'd gotten a ticket, and he carefully checked it, to make sure they got the right bus.
"There we are, come now, lets get inside," he said, pushing Tom and Jane ahead."
The bus was packed with children aged six to fifteen, a few of them were nice looking girls, but Jonathan tried to be adult and not look too much at them. Also the bus stank, it was that funny smell, kind of half way between vomit and diarrhoea, the kind you always get when you pack a bunch of children together into a tight area.
"Right..." he checked their ticket again, "This is where we sit down."
"I want to sit at the window!" Tom said.
"No! I want to sit there!" Jane said.
"So you want to sit right where the tyranids can see you?" Jonathan said mockingly. Then he heard some kid start sobbing to the rear, and Janes eyes began to fill up with tears.
"Nice going!"
It was an adult voice, when Jonathan turned his head he saw a man in a Kalean Defence Force uniform. It was a young private, who looked very tired, and not too happy.
"Just get into the seats!" the Private said, before moving back to the drivers seat.
Everyone scooted down in their seats, a few kids started throwing paper balls, and making sounds, but then a loud screeching sound filled the bus. A second later the driver started talking through the bus vox-com, "This is your driver private Nikolai Brunner, it's my solemn duty to get you lot in more or less one piece to the aerodrome. Please note that I said in more or less one piece, so don't push me."
The bus engine came to life with a pleasant growl, and then the convoy got under way. Dozens of buses moving through the streets of Carahue, past gawking crowds, and long lines of tired, desperate looking KDF men.
It was really weird to see the city like this, for the last time, in a few days there wouldn't be a city anymore. In a few days there wouldn't be a Kalea anymore. Jonathan found that hard to understand, he was pretty sure Tom and Jane didn't understand it at all, and now... he felt kind of funny, like a lump forming in his throat.
They drove past the big park where he used to hang around, and play ballgames, or just find a quiet spot and gamble a little. It was lovely, the tall trees, with wide green canopies that provided such lovely shade in the summer. He even felt weird about that stupid playground that he'd definitely outgrown.
Just outside Carahues' city limit they were joined by four Chimeras, angular armoured personnel carriers that easily kept up with the buses. Many of the boys pushed against the windows, gawping at the sight of the Chimeras, some of them waved to the commanders in the turret cupola, others pulled out battered magazines with lots of glossy pictures and compared these Chimeras to the ones in the magazines.
"AWESOME!" Tom said, then he pointed at the side of the Chimera, "Look!"
There were dozens of kill marks on it, most of them looking vaguely Tyranid like, and despite a couple of scrapes along the side the Chimera didn't look any worse for the wear.
"I wonder how many of them he's killed!" Tom said, feeling a little safer now, and it was fun seeing military things running at high speed instead of slowly crawling up a street in a parade.
"Plenty I'm sure," Jonathan said, glad for a small break.
Soon the novelty faded, and once more the kids started chatting, or squealing. Some of them started singing songs, very loudly, unfortunately they were mostly of the "Grock the Filthy Greenskin!" or "A hundred bottles of ale!" variety. Even if hearing them once or twice was fun the children liked singing the same songs, over and over in a ragged squealing chorus.
The further they got from Carahue the emptier the roads were, at first they regularly passed convoys of evacuating civilians heading away from the front, and Kalean Defence Force and Imperial Guard units heading towards the front. Now that they'd reached the smaller side roads they only spotted the odd civilian who was semi-legally trying to get away from the front. Then as the roads changed from firm rockcrete or asphalt topped surfaces, into gravel, or even dirt roads, the traffic died away to nothing.
Up ahead loomed Morkgrun forest, a long expanse of rolling hills covered in dense virgin forest. It seemed dark and threatening, like some relic of the old frontier days millenia past, when the first settlers had fought broken the land and fought against strange Xeno tribes.
On the way they passed by the remains of a small convoy. Remains was the operative word, a couple of them had caught fire, and looked like burned out wrecks. The others had clearly visible claw marks, doors were missing, a few roofs torn away like you'd tear open a tin can. A couple of cars were away from the rest, big ones, all terrain, one of them had flipped over, the other lacked wheels, all of them had missing doors and roofs.
The children fell silent for a moment, and Private Brunner suppressed a shudder. His eyes strayed to the lasgun resting next to the drivers' seat, but if it came to that it was pretty much game over already.
Up ahead the forest rose like a wall, surrounding it was shrubs, and long ivy like winding plants, the lower branches filtering together with the ivies hanging from them like curtains. This was virgin forest, the kind that's rare on most civilized worlds, there were no sign of logging or any other human activity.
In fact when they drove up the dirt road the forest stood as a wall on either side of them, with only the dirt road showing them that humans had ever gone here.
The moment the bus entered the woods it got darker, the long branches of the trees stretched out over the road, blotting out the sun, and leaving them in a greenish twilight. The shadows seemed to move, and the forest looked like it was alive, and filled with countless eyes studying these strange creatures who thought they could drive across it unhindered.
At least that's how Jonathan felt, more than once he thought he saw eyes, reflecting the light of the sun, or some big shadow moving slowly through the forest.
"There's something in there," Tom said.
"IS there?" Jane said, looking worried.
"Stop scaring her, there's nothing there," Jonathan said, but he wasn't so sure, something had destroyed those cars...
Suddenly the bus lurched, the wheels screeched as the driver stepped on the breaks, behind them the entire convoy came to a halt, and a hundred foot space opened up between them and the next bus.
A native deer leapt in front of the bus and ran across the dirt road, then a couple more, smaller deer ran as well.
Behind them the other buses honked their horns, and Private Brunner began working the gears.
The forest shifted again, the branches shook, and Tom and Jane pushed their faces against the windows expecting to see another deer, or perhaps some grool hogs run out of the woods. Sure enough more deers, some grool hogs, and a few jackalopes dashed across the road.
"Maybe there's a forest fire somewhere?" Tom said, then he knowingly added, "Our teacher says that if animals sense a forest fire they run away!"
"Or an Earthquake," Jane said.
Jonathan had always had his doubts about his siblings intelligence, but he bit back his remarks, "Uh, get away from the windows."
"No I... ah!" Jane squealed as Jonathan pushed them roughly from the window. Then both of them began fighting him and kicking to get back, "We wanna see! We wanna see!" Everywhere else the kids were making noise again.
"Look don't you..." Jonathan begun, then he felt a tremor run through the bus, "DOWN!" He showed his fist into Toms gut, making the eight year old double over, he felt like a total bastard for doing it, but there was just no reasoning with them! Then he moved to cover them.
Every child in the bus began to scream, and scream so loud that he thought his eardrums would burst...
Jonathan couldn't see it, but Private Brunner most certainly could, three huge creatures leapt out of the woods. One went to the front of the convoy, one to the back, and one right in front of the bus, in the middle.
"FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARK!" he roared at the sight of it, stunning some of the children who weren't used to foul language.
They were covered in green and brownish mulch dripping down from their chitinous carapaces, they'd even draped themselves in vines. They looked like some forest demon, but sticking out beneath the camouflage were sharp spikes and chitinous angles, a pair of enormous claws mounted on powerful arms, and beneath that another set of arms looking no less frightening.
LICTORS!
They were taller than the bus, enormous and deadly, now he knew what had wrecked that small convoy they spotted earlier.
"SACRED ARMINIUS!" he roared, and pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, aiming straight AT the creature!
The bus shook when he hit it, despite its weight, and its feet and claws burrowing into the ground, the bus was too heavy and had too much inertia to be stopped! The Lictors spiky feet dug deep furrows in the dirt road, while screeching aloud, and slashing out with its claws and smaller hands, tearing apart windows, tearing holes in the main window, but any moment now it'd recover its wits and...
They smashed into the second bus, the one a little over a hundred feet in front. Several children flew from their seats, striking the backs of other seats, or they got thrown onto the floor. Horrified screams filled the bus.
Private Brunner threw the bus into reverse, and pushed the pedal to the bottom again, pulling away as fast as he could.
The Lictor staggered forward, shaking its head, like a cat that just got bitten by a mouse. Its carapace had long hair thin fracture marks in it, but that wouldn't slow it down. Instead of standing still it leapt forward, moving impossibly fast for something that big, and leaped onto the roof of the bus!
A huge dent appeared, several feet deep, as it struck the plasteel roof, then a huge claw slammed down, it went through the roof, and struck the floor of the passenger compartment! Then it pulled down, tearing a flange in the roof of the bus, a screeching tortured sound of metal mixed with the screech of the terrified children.
Private Brunner drove forward again, but this time he twisted the bus sideways, hoping it wouldn't tip over as the back end skidded along the road. The dent in the ceiling grew bigger as even a Lictor had to hang on for dear life, but then another claw tore at the ceiling. Steering with one hand, and grabbing his lasgun with the other Private Brunner opened fire, punching fist sized holes in the roof, and hoping that somehow he hit it!
Then suddenly the Lictor screamed, thick ichor began to drip down from the holes in the roof, and the creature leapt of the bus. The children could see it now, bleeding ichor, it's mantis like arms held up hide, and its horrible maw spread wide as it looked for its enemy! Then a heavy bolter opened fire again, and shattered its head, the Lictor crashed to the ground, and twisted and squirmed, one of its legs struck the side of the bus hard enough to make it shudder and create a huge dent.
His vox-caster chimed, and he stuffed the plug in his ear, it was the commander of one of the Chimeras, "Private Brunner is it?"
"Yes Sir."
"Well done, well done, the Emperor was with you today!"
"You're the one that killed it Sir."
"I recommending you for promotion and a medal, I've seen those things shred a chimera in less time than you managed to keep that thing at bay! The Lady and the Emperor was with you, that's the only way you're still alive."
Even over the vox-caster Private Brunner thought he could feel the commander shaking his head with a mixture of astonishment and admiration. He felt like throwing up, or going to the bathroom, but he knew he couldn't
"Carry on! No time for chit chat, those were scouts, the rest of the army can't be more than an hour behind!"
The last bit was directed to the whole convoy, so Private Brunner dutifully drove forward, hoping there'd be no more unpleasant surprises before they reached Becket Field. Up ahead the forest began to thin out, the dense dark woods gave way to scattered copses, and then to scattered single trees as they entered the Merritt Plains.
Inside the bus the frightened children shivered and sobbed, for now they were too stunned to scream anymore, for which he sent thanks to the merciful Emperor!
For the first time since they entered the forest the trees they could see the sun, peering out from the black and ominous clouds to the east. They also saw flashes of light, some of them brief, others lingered, and twenty, thirty seconds later a long drawn out rumble reached the buses...
BOOOOOM-BOOOOOM-BBRRROORDOOOM
Then they struck a pothole, the bus shook, and he was once more in own personal warp hell, inhabited by squealing snot-nosed daemons whose mounts opened wider than their heads.
"SHUT UP!" he yelled.
No response, the children kept screaming, a couple of them began throwing things. For once he wished for a Commissar, one with a big whip, but instead he was the only adult on the whole damn bus!
Meanwhile further back he wasn't the only one with problems...
"You hit me!" Tom said plaintively, he pouted, and looked angrily at Jonathan.
"You were being an idiot! Forest fire my rear end! Did mom drop you on your head a lot as a child?" Jonathan asked.
"No fair!"
"I'll tell daddy!" Jane said, looking indignant on behalf of her twin brother.
"Hey! I saved you from something even worse! Fark! Talk about ingratitude!" Jonathan said angrily.
"YOU SAID F..." Tom snapped his mouth shut.
"You said the F word!" Jane said helpfully, "Mom will..."
"Knock it off! Come on! Be nice, seriously don't you little dorks have something more important to worry about?" Jonathan said, he couldn't believe it, they were nearly eaten by tyranids and now they were talking about a little punch to the gut and the f-word?
"Y-y-you," Tom took several deep fast breaths, looking very indignant, "We're not dorks! And you used the F word!"
Then some kid to the rear pointed out the rear window any yelled, "The trees are falling down!" Seeing that the driver didn't respond they started yelling "THE TREES ARE FALLING DOWN!"
"The trees aren't..." Private Brunner said. Then he looked into the rear view mirror. Behind him the forest shook like a storm passed through it, and indeed some of the trees were falling. "Merciful Emperor!" He stepped on it, and watched the speedometer slowly inch upwards.
The sudden lurch of speed made the bus shake madly, the gravel road was bad with many potholes. Some of the children fell in the aisle, a six year old smashed his nose, and screamed madly as a fountain of blood gushed out and seeped into his sweater.
With a rumble of caterpillar tracks and strained engines the lead Chimera drove off the road, and went to the back of the convoy. Every bus picked up speed, driving hard towards a hilly ridge visible some kilometres ahead, where they saw Imperial Guard trenches.
Jonathan held Tom and Jane's as tight as he could, trying to calm them down while they screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
From the forest monsters emerged! There was no other word for them, hideous creatures covered in chitinous armour, huge maws filled with needle sharp teeth, and dripping with ichor! They moved impossibly fast, several kinds of native deer escaped ahead of them, running with an insane fear! Even the large predators of the woods tried to get away.
It was all in vain: fast Raveners, an unholy mixture of four scythe like claws and a snakes body, dashed out of the woods so fast that they left a dust trail behind them. If they screamed or shouted during the attack no one heard, but they slither up to the fleeing animals, and the long scythe like talons lashed out slicing through rough skin and tendons, tearing the screaming deer and native pseudo-cats to pieces so blood and gore spread through the air!
Then some of them scooped up the remains, shoving the shredded but sometimes still living animals down their enormous maws, it didn't even slow them down!
The children screamed loudly, ear splittingly loud, tears ran down their faces, the older children, often terrified themselves, sometimes tried to comfort their screaming shivering relatives. Jonathan hugged Tom and Jane close, they shook so bad he had trouble holding them, and he felt something warm run down his leg. The air filled with filthy smells, the children, separated from their parents, and horrified lost all control of their bodies.
Then one of the Raveners exploded in a cloud of chitin, blood and gore, a spray of greenish goo rained around it. Its long tail waist kept flopping around, moving forward despite the fact that it wasn't attached to anything. Another Ravener fell, its' head torn apart, and its tail shredded by heavy bolter fire from the Chimeras turrets.
More and more Raveners died, but it wasn't much of an encouragement: the tyranids were so fast, and there were so many of them, a dark horde was gathering inside the forest, for all their terror the Raveners were just the advance guard!
Yet for a moment it seemed like the Imperial Guardsmen might prevail, the Tyranids died if they came too close, none of Raveners could stand up to four Chimeras! None of them until it appeared, its carapace as red as blood, four enormous claws, and it scrambled across the plan like the hosts of Chaos pushed it!
To its left and right heavy bolters tore up the turf, obscuring it in clouds of dirt, but then it reached the rearmost Chimera. It tore through the back, and stuck its head inside, tearing and swallowing, pulling out Guardsmen and devouring them! Then it leapt above the fallen Chimera and began flanking the rest!
Its fellows attacked from the other side, many of them died from the lasgun bolts, green bursts cutting into their tough chitin armour, or from the heavy bolter blasting away at them tearing through their unnaturally tough bodies. Suddenly one of them leapt, amazingly fast, and landed on the roof of a Chimera, its claws smashed down tearing through hardened plasteel, but before it could tear open the Chimera as a tin can, it was killed by a burst of bolter fire from the second Chimera.
A moment later another one took its place, and the Chimera was doomed!
In his seat on the bus Private Brunner kept one eye on the ridge far ahead, ten more minutes. So he prayed "St Arminius slayer of Xenos! Kindly intercede with the Divine Emperor, for me, a Soldier fighting in His name! Grant me ten more minutes! Hear my prayer!"
*********
Commissar Hirth studied the scene through his powerful binoculars, zooming in on this scene then that. Several of the Raveners dove into the soft thick soil, throwing up sprays of dirt as they vanished. They could dig almost as fast as they could run, in not too long they'd burst up in front of the Imperial Guard position.
He casually pulled from his pocket the black box with gold filigree décor, the same one he'd thrown onto the table in front of the representatives of the families.
"That one might make it Sir," Captain Rennert said, pointing at Brunners bus.
"I doubt it," Hirth said.
*********
For the first time since the Raveners broke out of the forest Private Brunner felt reasonably confident that they'd make it. They had to drive alongside the Imperial Guard positions, and then around the ridge, the trenches cut across the main road, but fortunately there was a side road. Also the Raveners had vanished, he suspected that they'd pop up soon, but at least they'd go after the Imperial Guard, giving him a chance to get away.
"Calm down! We're just about there!" he yelled as loud as he could into the bus vox-com. They didn't pay any attention, but he didn't care, he had a job to do!
In the rear view mirror he saw enormous fountains of earth rise up, bits of dirt clattered onto the roof of the bus, but the raveners attacked the imperial guard and not him.
Then all of a sudden he felt like it was raining, and a red film covered the rear view mirror...
Jonathan looked down in panic, he couldn't understand what was happening, suddenly his trousers felt wet, soaking wet and there was a funny smell. He was about to ask if one of the dorks had wet themselves when he saw blood...
Lots and lots of blood, everywhere, Tom lay back his mouth open, his eyes glassy, he was dead... no doubt about it, Jonathan could see his brothers spine. Jane wasn't dead yet, she gasped horribly, a rasping dreadful gasp, there was a huge hole in her stomach, and blood gushed out of it. Bits of cloth, and blood, and flesh was scattered all around the bus, colouring the interior red.
Like an Ecclesiarchy painting of the Æther and the Ruinous Powers in it.
Then he noticed that there was a big hole in his stomach, and that strange wormlike things came crawling out, he grabbed them and tried to fight them but they were slippery!
He didn't see any Tyranids, so he couldn't for the life of him understand why his guts would be pouring out!
His last thoughts, before he passed out from blood loss, were nooooo please I didn't mean it... mom will be so angry...
*********
Commissar Hirth casually removed his thumb from the black and gold detonator box, the raveners in front of the Imperial Guard lines were in their death throes, writhing and twisting while horrid ichor mixed with human blood sprayed from the openings blown in their bodies. Elsewhere several other large tyranids twisted and twitched madly, from having small explosives go off inside of them.
Only one of them survived, the Red Terror! IT survived to surged into the Imperial trenches, and devour whole the men defending them! Meanwhile the rest of the Tyranid horde surged on, many of them surged around the buses.
Hirth ran his thumb down a different spot on the detonator box, instantly the buses, and even the remains of the chimeras, exploded in gouts of flame. The fire surged out, consuming hundreds, possibly thousands of tyranids, and then the Imperial Guards opened fire.
The beast rampaging the trenches was forced back, and finally dove back into one of the holes the other Raveners had made... that was the last they saw of it, none of them knew if it had survived its injuries.
This time the Tyranid lacked the Raveners, and the surprise momentum that they had afforded. They pushed on though, like a mindless swarm, but were repulsed by massive barraged, and forced to retreat with heavy losses. Then they surged forward again, and once more the bolters, lasguns and lascannon of the Imperial Guard forced them back. For hours the battle raged back and forth, before finally the Tyranids were forced to retreat, at least for now.
When it was all over Commissar Hirth walked back to the waiting shuttles, he entered the biggest one, "Praise the Emperor! You have your six days!"
Magos Othywere "Good... I trust our devices worked as you desired?"
"Indeed," Hirth said.
"And how will you explain this?" Magos Othywere asked.
"Leave that to me..."
*********
Commissar Hirth had a wonderful view from his quarters on the Great Cruiser Conquest of Lugdanum, beneath him Kalea was burning...
The enormous forests were carpets of flame, the seas darkened before his very eyes, and thick black smoke shrouded the northern continent. An enormous firestorm consumed the entire world, and with it the enormous Tyranid host.
When the hive fleet came it would find slim pickings...
He looked up from his writing and spotted the black detonator box with its gold filigree work. A smile crossed his lips, it'd been so easy... once the Adaptes Mechanicus had agreed to provide him with an ample number of small explosive devices and a remote detonator.
Despite his usual dourness he'd made one telling remark in his report, when explaining why the Raveners were destroyed so easily 'perhaps they ate something that disagreed with them.'
But he had work to do, he had one last letter to write to the bereaved, letter number two thousand or so, but they were all the same...
"Mrs Westby,
It grieves me terribly to inform you of the death of your three children, Jonathan, Tom, and Jane. Despite the valiant resistance of the Imperial Guard and the Kalean Defence Force, the Tyranid Swarm was able to overrun the bus that your children were in. It may please you to know that your children resisted bravely, and that their deaths were quick.
They are now, at any rate, the Emperors young martyrs.
Signed,
Colonel-Commissar Reuben Hirth"
Last edited by Norseman on 2007-06-30 08:39am, edited 2 times in total.
Norseman's Fics the SD archive of my fics.
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Sidewinder
- Sith Acolyte
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- Location: Feasting on those who fell in battle
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The first one was okay. The second one was too grim for my tastes, but I guess such brutality against children isn't uncommon in the world of 'Warhammer 40,000'.
Please do not make Americans fight giant monsters.
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Those gun nuts do not understand the meaning of "overkill," and will simply use weapon after weapon of mass destruction (WMD) until the monster is dead, or until they run out of weapons.
They have more WMD than there are monsters for us to fight. (More insanity here.)
Indeed that was my thought too, which is why I'm rather upset that I didn't get the nod to the finalsSidewinder wrote:The first one was okay. The second one was too grim for my tastes, but I guess such brutality against children isn't uncommon in the world of 'Warhammer 40,000'.
Norseman's Fics the SD archive of my fics.
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Mr. Coffee
- is an asshole.
- Posts: 3258
- Joined: 2005-02-26 07:45am
- Location: And banging your mom is half the battle... G.I. Joe!
Honestly, I liked them both. The first, to me, captured the utter zeral of the Commisariate(SP?) in bringing the faith of the GEoM to the galaxy. The second showed me the lengths that they might go to destroy an enemy of the same.
Both were well written and enjoyable reads. The only fault I can find in either was the second being almost to "grim" for the setting. But still, thanks for the reading, Norseman.
Both were well written and enjoyable reads. The only fault I can find in either was the second being almost to "grim" for the setting. But still, thanks for the reading, Norseman.
I never would have thought I would wholeheartedly agree with Coffee... - fgalkin x2
Honestly, this board is so fucking stupid at times. - Thanas
GALE ForceCarwash: Oh, I'll wax that shit, bitch...
Using children as bait... that's really low. That's really *really* low. I'm not surprised that didn't make it.
Me: Nope, that's why I have you around to tell me.
Nitram: You -are- beautiful. Anyone tries to tell you otherwise kill them.
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" -- Leonard Nimoy, last Tweet
Meh... I sent in four proposals including the two you saw above, just for fun I wrote complete versions of those two. None of them made the cut :-/ Which kind of sucks.LadyTevar wrote:Using children as bait... that's really low. That's really *really* low. I'm not surprised that didn't make it.
Of course... I seem to have accomplished the impossible: Written a story that's too grim for WH40K / has the Imperium use too despicable tactics!
Norseman's Fics the SD archive of my fics.
