The sandstorm continued. It was a confusing sandstorm, a blinding sandstorm, a threatening and aggressive sandstorm. It was an exhausting, never-ending and playful sandstorm that disappeared for a precious instant, letting a bright violet light flood into the gap, before swallowing the sky again and submerging us in sticky sand.
It was a sandstorm to dwarf all sandstorms, a sandstorm that submerged the whole planet.
It became a limitless expanse, an endless sea of tiny stinging rocks, a whirlpool of dust, an intimidating vortex of sand, dust, rock and glass.
"Rackle stop daydreaming" snapped Lars.
Rackle looked round "Sorry Sarge" she said her voice barely audible over the wind.
"That's ok" he said gruffly. "Just pay attention. We need those sharp eyes of yours in this storm"
She nodded. Rackle had the best eyes in the regiment and she knew it, but even she could barely see her companions in the hauntingly beautiful purple light.
To her left she could see Asher Comet, the highly flammable promethium tanks strapped to his back covered in protective cloth and the flamer in his hands ready to be used at the first sign of trouble, his eyes searching the surrounding cliffs of the gorge behind his protective mask and goggles.
Behind her came a curse "Keck this sand!" she smiled. Joe "Nubby" Velum had tripped over again, being unable to see his feet over the massive heavy bolter he carried. He was a massively tall man but seemed very skinny, except for the gigantean muscles trailing across his upper body like taunt cords.
In front of her she could see Lars, the trademark camo-cloak of the Sentinels slung over one shoulder, revealing his hard face and the deadly pair of hellpistols and body armour of a sergeant under his webbing. Next to him crouched the medic Edward. The man had recently joined the regiment from one of the Vostroyan first-born company's, and was extremely arrogant. His once glorious moustache now sagged, like the man as he Lugged his medic-kit along the desert floor.
She patted her gun fondly, it was a lasgun sniper rifle, and it had a longer nozzle than a normal lasgun for flash suppression and fired Hotshots, lasgun cells pumped up the maximum charge. They were only one or two shots but they could punch through anything, tank armour, walls or even three or four bodies.
"It" thought Rackle "probably had the best kill record in the regiment, the amount of heretic heads me and this gun have blown up."
"Rackle! Stop bloody daydreaming" Lars hissed in her ear.
"Ok ok" she muttered sulkily.
Up above them on a ridge a dark figure watched this interchange silently trailing behind them.
The figure moved across a natural rock bridge, to the other side of the ravine as it slowly manoeuvred itself dropping silently into the middle of the group.
"BOO"
They all started.
"Damn it Sep" exclaimed Joe "stop doing that".
Septimus grinned evilly. Sep Troger was a sneaky man who, it was rumoured, used to be an imperial spy before he was conscripted into the guard and from there the sentinels. The only way to describe Sep was medium. He had a medium build, medium height and an unremarkable face. He was strapped around with half a dozen different knifes, daggers and a shotgun strapped across his back.
"Oh gezz nubs I didn't mean to scare you" he murmured, his sincerity ruined by the sarcastic tone of his voice and toothy grin on his face.
"Like hell you did"
Lars came up.
"Shut up Joe, Sep what did you find?"
Sep took out one of his many knives and drew a diagram in the dirt.
"We're here" he drew an X on the map.
"And here" he pointed to the other end of the ravine," is an abandoned imperial bunker."
"Defendable?"
"Looks it, but I didn't go inside so it might have a breach I don't know about."
"Some scout you are." Joe Muttered.
"I thought I told you to shut up Joe." Lars Said.
"I'll go guard the rear." Joe Suggested.
"You do that Nubs"
Joe trundled off and Lars turned to Sep again.
"Any signs of the enemy?"
"I dunno could be, but the tracks I found were too blurred to make out properly. Could just be the local wild life, but…"
"but what?"
"Some one must have taken out those barricades. but it even might have been an planet wide civil war or something"
"on this hole?"
Sep shrugged "it 'could' happen"
"Sep stop joking around you know I'm terrified of bugs. ALL bugs." Asher said glancing around nervously.
Sep grinned. "I know and I'm not joking, there could be Tyranids out there."
Rackle chuckled; Septimus was a theatrical sort of person. He loved to build tension and Rackle suspected that if he wasn't in the guard he could make a good living as an actor or writer.
"Hey look at it this way ash, if we do find one we'll have the joy of comparing Sep and his long lost kin." Joe shouted over from the back of the column.
"Shut your trap Joe" sep shouted back "or I'll shove this knife right between your hairy ass che…. "
"Can't we shelter in the bunker until the storm lets up?" interrupted Rackle.
Lars snorted "until the storm lets up? On this world the storm NEVER lets up. Its always here, it never lets up. The only constant thing on this planet is this storm"
"Well we could shelter in it for the night?"
"why?" interrupted Edward an arrogant sneer on his face. "will we be driven off by a little sand in the face?"
Lars thought about it.
"How far is it?" he asked Septimus, completely ignoring Edward.
Sep considered it for a moment, also ignoring Edward.
"Hmmm, about two standard miles"
Lars turned to Rackle and grinned.
"Looks like we've got a place to stay tonight"
"So we will let this storm best us?" yelled Edward frustrated at being ignored.
"All right you lot" he suddenly shouted "move out. Sep forward scout, Nubs rear guard, Rackle with me, and Asher?"
"Yes sarge?"
"Please do try your very hardest not to cook this gorge if we happen to see a large cockroach."
Asher went very red. It was well known how heavy handed he could be with in his flamer, and this didn't improve when he was nervous.
They trooped through the sand swept gorge for the rest of the day and reached the bunker just as the sun was going down.
It was a plasteel lump at the end of the gorge, clinging to it like a giant wart on the bottom of some unlucky soul's foot, and stunk just as bad, surrounded by abandoned barricades and rotting bodies.
They approached the massive, 3 inch thick, steel door sunk directly into the middle of the mound swinging on its hinges and creaking wearily.
"I don't like the look of this" said Rackle quietly.
"Nether do I, but I want to find out what happened here" said Lars
Lars turned to the rest of them and said "ok let's clear it"
They moved in, Edward, still sulking, staying outside ready to treat injuries if they should occur.
There was a short hall with two rooms on ether side and one at the end.
Rackle moved into position with Asher on the right with Sep and Joe on the left and Lars taking the end room.
"3, 2, 1, GO." Shouted Lars and they all charged into their rooms.
Rackle found herself in a deserted old kitchen it had cobwebs hanging all over the place and what looked like a half eaten meal on the table.
"Clear" she shouted behind her.
"Clear" shouted Joe.
"Clear" shouted Lars.
"Clear" shouted Asher.
"Not clear!" she heard Sep scream, then a gunshot.
They all rushed into the room Sep had stormed and saw him grappling with a Genestealer.
Rackle stood in the door and stared. She had heard stories but even those didn't compare with this, this monstrosity.
It had four arms each ending in three massive, razor sharp talons able to cut through almost anything, its body covered in a bug like exoskeleton, with a head containing more teeth than an Adlantian Shark, and a brain capable of receiving telepathic instructions from the massive hive mind buried deep beneath this worlds crust.
And Sep was holding it off with his shotgun.
As Rackle watched Joe tossed a grenade to Sep who shoved it between the monsters slobbering jaws.
It paused for a moment as if confused, allowing Sep to scramble out from underneath it taking the pin with him.
The thing turned to them and gave a pitiful whine before the grenade detonated in its mouth, covering the room and everything in it in red-green goo.
They all walked out slowly.
"There's a bathroom over there" volunteered Asher shakily then turned around to vomit all over the floor.
"Ok everybody get cleaned up and get to bed, I'll take first watch." Lars said.
Edward rushed in "what happened?" he asked anxiously. "Genestealer" Rackle muttered to him as she went past.
After cleaning off the sticky glop, still blanking Edward's demands for an explanation, they all trooped of to bed
She awoke to the sound of Asher screaming.
She quickly grabbed her gun and hurried out side to see him squirting a searing blue inferno onto a horde of Tyranids that were pouring out of a new hole in the left side of the gorge, about 20 feet away.
The others were coming out behind her and setting up defensive positions at the barricades under cover from Asher's flamer and Joe's heavy bolter.
Rackle set up next to Joe. She felt safe next to this massive hulk able to spit fifty, inch long steel bullets a second into whatever stood in his way.
She turned back to the problem at hand, the scale of this assault astounded her. There were hundreds of Genestealers, Hormagaunts and Termagants. Termagants are Genestealers equipped with ranged weaponry firing mud with tiny worms in them that could eat through armour and flesh alike, and even a trio of Carnifex, tank like creatures with four massive arms, the top two holding huge scythe like blades and the bottom two holding a gigantean
bio-cannon.
"Well well well, we are in trouble" she heard Sep say vaguely.
"Sep" she heard the big form next to her rumble "shut the keck up for once and start bloody shooting!"
Joe emphasised this sentence by throwing a grenade at the nearest carnifex blowing it and almost a dozen of the smaller Tyranids to whatever hell they believed in. Ducking globs of wriggling mud, Rackle made a few pot-shots over Joe's shoulder taking out a few Hormagaunts. Looking over her shoulder Rackle saw Edward cowering in the corner, head in his hands. She shook her head in disgust, he was supposed to be a veteran, and returned to shooting.
"Nubby" Lars screamed over the noise "take out that overhang!"
'Nubs' needed no more direction than that he turned and started pumping grenade after grenade into the hole collapsing the overhang into the hole stopping the tide of death.
But there were still hundreds of Tyranids already out of the hole that they had to kill, but just then the huge form of a Vulture gunship emerged out of the sand and landed next to the dome.
A hatch in the side slid open showing a shadowy figure gesturing wildly.
"Get in there!" Lars shouted.
They all scrambled through the hatch, Rackle dragging Edward.
As she climbed into the hatch Edwards weight suddenly disappeared. Looking back she saw Edward looking dazed at the Tyranids surging towards him, his hand being eaten away by worms.
"Edward get in!" Rackle screamed. Edward just stared at her as a dozen mudballs hit him. The Vulture took off. Rackle overheard the pilot saying something into his mike.
"Marauder fighter 214 to starship thane" she heard him say "we are clear, I repeat we are clear, fire lance battery omega at coordinates 409, 234, 1003 to eliminate Tyranid threa…"
At this Rackle fell asleep and dreamed.
She dreamed of her briefing, why they were there and what they were there for.
"Warmaster Wilby wants to know whether or not the enemy is on this planet" Commissar Nerven spoke into the mike in his hand. "and he has chosen this platoon, MY platoon for this mission, this signifies a massive amount of trust placed in me, and indeed this regiment." He looked around at the assembled squads "AND YOU WONT DISSAPOINT ME, WILL YOU?"
"no Commissar Nerven!" the assembled platoon roared back at him.
He smiled quietly "I know you won't, because you're my men" with a look at Rackle he added "and women, and you ARE the best."
"Rackle, RACKLE" she woke up to Sep's smiling face.
"Emperor save me is a Tyranid!" she said in mock terror.
"Oh no I see you got your sense of humour back quickly." Sep observed dryly "Lars said to get your behind in the cockpit now."
"Why?"
"Because he doesn't like looking at ugly people, like Joe, for too long."
"Oi, what are you saying about me back there?" Joe asked from the other end of the plane.
"Nothing, honest" said Sep, winking conspiratorially at Rackle.
She smiled no matter what the situation Sep always had a comment for everything.
Rackle hauled herself up and went to see Lars.
As she entered the cockpit Lars turned around.
"Glad to see your awake" he said he turned around and gestured at the windscreen in front of him "I thought you might be able to appreciate this."
Rackle's breath caught, the sight in front of her was breathtaking. The Vulture was hovering a hundred feet above the sand storm right on the edge of orbit. The sun was setting for gyros III, and the sight of the constantly shifting sand below reflecting the pale purple of the sun's light was glorious. Suddenly a red light started flashing in the cockpit and at the same time a voice came over the vox.
"Marauder fighter 214 this is starship thane, you have five gargoyles on your tail I repeat five…" the vox trailed off into static. Suddenly something jumped onto the nose of the marauder, it looked like a termagant but it had wings, a gargoyle. A gargoyle could spit a short range plasma and survive the freezing confines of space. Rackle watched in fascination as it spewed glowing green slime all over the window melting through it in seconds.
"Rackle watch out!" Lars screamed knocking her aside just as the glob of plasma flew through the pilots head , past her face and began eating the wall behind her. The last pilot stood up and drew his laspistol and blew the things head off just as the plasteel window came down to pressurise the cockpit.
"Marauder fighter 214 this is starship thane, the remaining Tyranids have turned back, repeat they have turned back."
Rackle collapsed into Lars arms.
"You know what" he said grinning hugely "sometimes, I bloody love this job."