"Time to objective, six-zero seconds," The baritone voice of Brother Horatius echoed over the vox network. Sergeant Buteo clicked his vox twice in acknowledgement. The Tributors had deployed three full companies to combat the Tyranids Hive Fleet Cerastes. Currently, the bulk of the Chapter's Battle Brothers were engaged in a fighting withdrawal from the southern continent. The remnants of the Fourth Company, including Squad Buteo, had become cut off by a tendril of the main Tyranid swarm. Captain Varus ordered the Fourth Company to rally at the Isthmus of Lamna.
"Confirmed Mycetic Storm inbound," The Battle Brother piloting Gideon's Wrath, the mighty Land Raider attached to the Fourth Company, reported.
Buteo connected his armor's display to the Rhino's external cameras. The skies of Fontaine II were tortured by falling husks of destroyed space ships and ion storms. Buteo zoomed onto a flash of light and watched as dozens of ugly and misshapen pods burned with the heat of reentry. The ancient sergeant felt a grim smile form on his scarred lips. Squad Aculeo's Razorback transport was scything down the incoming living capsules with unerring lascannon fire.
It wasn't enough. Over two dozen Mycetic spores successfully made planetfall.
"Disembark!" Buteo shouted the order through artificial vocal cords. The Astartes had not used the voice of his birth in six decades. A Traitor Marine of the Red Corsairs had torn Buteo's throat out with unnaturally sharp teeth. Buteo responded by tearing the traitor's jaw from his skull with his own hands.
The Rhino Armored Personnel Carrier ground to a halt and the ten Tactical Marines emerged from its thrice-blessed hull. They were greeted by the symphony of combat. Squad Ulpius was pouring Bolter fire into an angry tide of Hormagaunts. The needle-fanged and scythe-armed soldier-forms advanced heedless of losses. The lithe killing machines were driven by the Hive Mind's imperative to feed and destroy. Buteo paid the creatures no heed. Brother-Sergeant Ulpis and his squad could triumph easily over a few hundred Hormagaunts.
No, Squad Buteo had other prey.
"Brothers, the blood of our foes will be our tribute to the Emperor!" Buteo roared and activated the energy field of his Powerfist. The Sergeant felt his brothers take up the Chapter's Battle Cry. A trio of Pyrovores was emerging from a shuddering orifice of a Mycetic Spore. "Brother Dento, cleanse them."
Dento nodded and brought his Plasma Cannon to bear. A single pull of the trigger unleashed the equivalent power of a small star. The Pyrovores died without a sound as the magnetic shell collapsed and the full fury of the weapon was unleashed.
The Space Marine counterattack had repelled the Tyranid assault. In fact, the Tyranids had been defeated far too easily. It was a feint. The Hive Mind had wanted the Space Marines to disembark. The only question was, why.
Buteo was an Astartes. He was the pinnacle of humanity's lost mastery of genetic technosorcery. The Tributor's had conditioned all of the Chapter's Battle Brothers to be immune to fear. That single fact was all that kept him from crying out as his an alien presence tore into his mind. Buteo felt an incredible numbness overwhelm his body. Three of his Brothers collapsed in heaps. The Sergeant couldn't contain his shock as Brother Dento was levitated by foul Tyranid sorcery before being snapped in half.
Buteo felt winded. It was an incredibly rare experience. Space Marines were genetically and physically engineered for superior endurance. An Astartes warrior could fight for three days straight without rest. The fatigue was as unnatural as the smell of ozone that seeped through the filters of Buteo's helmet.
'A Synapse Creature,' the Space Marine thought. His hypothesis was seemingly validated when a Zoanthrope subspecies hovered into visual range. The Tyranid was hideous even by the standards of the Hive Fleets. Zoanthropes were little more than a massive brain barely constrained by a skull that rested on an atrophied body. Any natural creature would be immobile under such conditions. Tyranids, however, were anything but natural. The Zoanthrope used its incredible psychic might to move.
Buteo drew his bolt pistol and fired. The rocket-boosted explosive rounds found their mark, but the Tyranid monstrosity was protected by a force field of pure thought. The Tyranid psyker withdrew the field of thought. The unfathomable will of the Hive Mind shaped the raw matter of thought into a coherent beam of power. Gideon's Wrath was bisected by the lance of energy. The mighty Land Raider had survived the horrible power of Necron Gauss Cannons, heretic lascannons, even Eldar Bright Lances. The Tyranid psychic attack utterly ruined the ancient and proud war machine. Generators and ammo magazines erupted. Gideon's Wrath died in fire.
Buteo roared in righteous anger as the image of four battered and torn Terminators flashed on his helmet display. Four proud Battle Brothers had met an inglorious end. They had not died on their feet defiantly holding back a tide of enemies. Instead, the First Company Veterans had fallen to an overloaded generator.
The sergeant exploded forward with a surge of adrenaline and rage. The surviving members of his squad followed in his wake. Buteo was swearing oaths of vengeance and retribution over an open channel. He would stoke the fires of hatred in his Battle Brothers.
Suddenly, the ground gave a tortured cry. The survivors of Squad Buteo were tossed aside like the toys of an angry child. Buteo twisted in midair and landed in a crouch. He flexed the fingers of his Powerfist as he watched a stream of Tyranid Raveners emerge from the tunnel. Buteo knew this was his final moments.
"I will die as a Space Marine!" Buteo bellowed and charged the serpentine Tyranid creatures. The enhanced strength granted by the Powerfist ruined the first Ravener to reach him. There was absolutely no chance of a glorious triumph. The sergeant had no hope. Buteo's sole goal was to kill as many of the xenos abominations as possible.
Buteo's last stand would have been the stuff of legends on many primitive worlds. Fontaine II would have no such legend. Tyranids have no concept of honor, heroism, or even hate. There is only the need to consume. Buteo would not receive an honorable burial. His pallbearers would be a mass insectoid scavengers. His grave would be a foul smelling digestion pool. There would be no remembrance of his bravery in the face of overwhelming odds or of his loyalty to his brothers.
Buteo was simply another dead hero in a galaxy of a billion such mortals.
Author's Notes: A quick Warhammer short based off a game I played tonight. My force was the Tyranids, but it is nearly impossible to write from the perspective of an ancient and unfathomable alien intelligence whose sole focus is 'I'm hungry. Oh, look food.'