Tyrant Hunter
.011 M42, Typhon Primaris
"Five minutes out from target, lord-general," the valkyrie pilot's voice crackled over the troop bay vox speakers. "Encountering minor air resistance, nothing our escort can't handle."
Lord-general Castor grabbed a handhold and hoisted himself upright. Through the troop bay's transparent windows, the Cadian commander could see two portside valkyries that comprised part of his strike force, mirrored on the starboard for a total of five. Small, winged creatures with barbed tails buzzed around the transports as they came in low and fast over the central continental jungles of Typhon Primaris. The valkyrie rattled as three vulture gunships cut across and over Castor's craft, guns blazing. The gargoyles scattered to the winds, like flies avoiding a swiping hand.
"ETA, three minutes," said the pilot.
"Understood," replied Castor. He switched his vox to the flight's frequency. "All team leaders, make ready. I want this done hard and fast. When we hit the ground, I want a perimeter established immediately."
"Yes, lord-general!" came the staggered response. Castor turned to face the ten men accompanying him. He didn't need to speak, one simple nod and the masked troopers rose to their feet, doing a final weapons check with the efficiency of a lifetime of drilling. Castor himself strode to the back of the bay, and with his augmetic left arm, he selected his prized sniper rifle from the weapon rack. Upon contact with his hand, the lord-general's bio implants activated; a targeting overlay ran across Castor's retinas, linking the long las's scope with his own augmentations.
Five valkyries, fifty men. Fifty Cadians, Castor corrected himself, each one a member of the esteemed Kasrkin. Their mission: a rescue and retrieval operation for a Vendoland patrol reported missing and presumed dead. Data retrieval was the priority; the chances of any of the patrol surviving were next to none.
"Thirty seconds out, sir!" called the pilot one last time. "Last chance to call this off!"
Castor laughed, a hearty yet sophisticated sound appropriate of a person of his status. "I wouldn't call this off if the Eye of Terror itself opened up in front of me. My trophy room is still lacking, pilot."
That didn't seem to reassure the man. "Setting down now, sir," he said uneasily. The valkyrie flight hovered over a small jungle clearing, vector thrusters blowing down the grass and underbrush like a gale force wind. Castor pulled his breath mask on and tightened his officer's cap. The airship touched down with a solid thump, and the whine of the engines simmered to a low idling.
The pressurized bay opened with a hiss, exposing the Cadian soldiers to the toxic, tyranid infested glade. Castor cupped his rifle under his arm and brandished his curved power sword. "Come on men, the hunt is afoot!"
They were set upon by the enemy the moment the Kasrkin disembarked. Shrieking, hissing monsters slithered in the undergrowth, bearing down on Castor's retinue. Hellguns primed, the Kasrkin opened fire, not wasting a single shot. Their training, their augmentations and their equipment made the Cadians the finest human soldiery the Imperium had to offer. Hormagaunts exploded under their precise firepower.
Fifty Kasrkin versus five hundred tyranids. The xenos never stood a chance.
Castor ordered the squads to deploy their heavy flamers. The flame troopers moved to the front, dousing the jungle with blazing liquid promethium. The swarm was undeterred, even when tongues of fire seared their carapaces. The Cadians showed them no mercy, not letting up their sustained shots for a second.
Castor eyed a much larger creature beyond the inferno. It stood half again as tall as a human, and it's head was dominated by a large triangular crest. A tyranid warrior, Castor realized. No, a synapse creature. It looked wounded already; the left side of the crest looked as though an explosive had shorn off several inches of bone plate.
The Warrior Prime leapt over the wall of fire, swinging its scything talons at the Kasrkin. Without grace, but with ruthless efficiency, the commandos dodged out of the way, rolling and diving. With expert manoeuvring, they encircled the monster, staying just outside the range of its talons while pounding it with hotshot rounds. Castor leveled his sniper rifle at the beast, lining it up with his implanted targeter. He fired one shot, and the Prime's head evaporated in a shower of bright green ichor.
The psychic shock was too much for the remaining gaunts. Removed from the synapse field, they reverted to their base animal instincts. The fear of fire returned, and they broke, fleeing the clearing to seek refuge deeper in the glade. In under two minutes, the Cadians had purged the clearing of all xenos, without a single casualty to their force.
Castor waved to the valkyrie pilot, gesturing for them to take off. The pilot nodded and gave a thumbs up. The transports' engines roared, and the vector thrusters pushed off from the ground. "We have a two hour loiter time sir," said the pilot, "If you're out here any longer, you'll be on your own until we refuel. Good luck, lord-general." The valkyries pointed skywards and rocketed off into the clouds.
Castor propped up his rifle and shifted his weight to his right leg to balance himself. He watched the Kasrkin gunning down the stragglers. It had been a text book insertion, brought about through the Cadian's high standard of excellence. He grinned, brimming with pride. There was no greater force known to the Imperial Guard.
"Captain Mazzo, front and center!" barked Castor. Mazzo jogged over to the lord-general and snapped off a salute. "Auspex, captain. Let us see if this damned swamp air is breathable."
The short captain pulled the small scanner from his belt pouch and linked it to his helmet's filtration system. After a moment, he snapped the auspex shut again. "Air's clean sir. Permission to pull this bloody thing off?"
Castor smiled under his own mask. "By all means, captain." The lord general peeled off the rebreather to reveal his face, ruggedly handsome and dominated by a magnificent black moustache. A long band of scar tissue ran along the left side of his face, from the bottom of his eye to his jaw line. Castor breathed deep, and exhaled with a contented sigh, "There is nothing better than a breath of fresh air after the recycled atmosphere of a troopship, isn't there, Mazzo?"
"What, the smell of swamp gas, promethium and burning xenos, as well sir?" Mazzo said, unbuckling his own rebreather. The captain of the Kasrkin pulled off his helmet and ran a hand through his close cut, sweat drenched hair."Smells worse than Chaos rot mixed with a ratling's special stew."
Many years younger than the lord-general, Silenus Mazzo was still a hardened veteran, and it showed on the scars etched across his broad face. When he leaned forward to smack an insect aside, Castor caught a glimpse of the Cadian skull helm tattooed into the base of his neck. Though years and appearances apart, both Mazzo and Castor shared the Cadians' piercing, violet eyes.
"Perhaps, captain," said Castor. "But still, to me, the fresh air is an invitation. Something is out there, waiting for us. Surely you could indulge me in one more hunt, could you not?"
"That, I can agree with you on, sir," Mazzo grinned, dialing up his hellgun's power discharge to maximum. One shot, one kill. Cadian style. "Let's go bag another trophy."
"Took the words right out of my mouth, Mazzo!" laughed Castor. "Men, fall in and move out!"
They had been forging through the jungle for almost thirty minutes. The ground was soft, mud squelching and sucking at each footstep. The lead scouts, draped in camo-cloaks, were invisible to the naked eye under the heavy tree cover. The lord-general's retinue followed using their helmets' inbuilt infrared optics. Oddly, they only encountered sporadic tyranid activity, despite the entire region being infested with the devils.
That was the problem when dealing with xenos. Unless every single trace of their presence was eradicated, they always seemed to come back, like weeds. These tyranids were the resurgent traces of the Leviathan splinter fleet that had struck subsector Aurelia ten years earlier. While extinct on Meridian and Calderis, Typhon Primaris offered ideal breeding grounds for the aliens, lurking in the swamps and jungles of the equatorial belt. With the massive wars raging across Typhon's surface, the Imperial forces had neglected to keep an eye on the tyranid threat. It had cost them.
Enter lord-general Castor, commander of a special detachment of the Cadian 8th infantry, the Lord Castellan's Own. It was immediately clear to the Cadian that the Guard stationed across the subsector were of poor quality. Whether it was simple incompetence and neglect, or blatant heresy, they had utterly failed to secure the systems. It was left to proper soldiers like the Cadians, and the subsector's own Blood Ravens space marines, to restore order and clean up the Imperial Guard's mess. And even then, there was word that several Cadian regiments already deployed to Aurelia had turned traitor as well.
The thought disgusted Castor. Cowardice bred despair, which turned to heresy and treason. As soon as the situation on Typhon was reigned in, he would bring holy retribution down upon those who would forsake their duty to their Emperor and their Imperium. Cadians do not turn traitor, he told himself. To do so is to defy all that Cadia stood for.
The bulwark of the Imperium, the Cadian Gate alone stood against the horrors that lurked within the Eye of Terror. Besieged by the hosts of Abaddon the Despoiler, champion of the Archenemy, Cadia stood firm, weathering the storm of the 13th Black Crusade. Even now, the planet was caught in a precarious balancing act, both sides fighting to a stalemate. But the Imperium still controlled the space lanes, allowing the continued passage of troops and materiel to and from the planet. It was how Castor had been able to pull his detachment out from Cadia in the first place.
And all to retake control of a mere outpost on the borders of the Eastern Fringe. An utter waste of the Cadian 8th's prowess and Castor's command ability. But, he had accepted without question. One did not argue when the Castellan spoke. The hero of Tyrok Fields was a master strategist, and he knew better than to let the Imperium's borders fall. If Cadia survived at the expense of the outer Segmentae, the Imperium would still die.
The lead scout stopped. The company halted and crouched down between the roots of the trees. Castor nodded to Mazzo, who hurried quietly up to the front. "What is it, Foyt?" Foyt, the scout, pointed to a gap between two gnarled mangroves up ahead. "In there? What do you see?"
"There's someone up there, sir," Foyt whispered. "I heard moaning."
"Think it's one of the Vendolanders?"
Foyt shrugged, "Could be."
Mazzo nodded, "Alright. Take two troopers with you and check it out. We'll hold here. Two signal taps on the vox if you get into trouble, got it?"
"Understood, sir," said Foyt. The scout selected two Kasrkin from the company, Grecks and Adrick, and the three men vanished into the undergrowth. Mazzo returned to the waiting lord-general.
"What is the holdup, captain?"
"Foyt says he heard someone out there. I sent him and two others up to investigate."
"Vendolanders?" asked Castor.
"We'll soon find out, sir."
Stop moaning and do something about it, dammit, he told himself. He coughed out a bloody laugh. What the hell was he supposed to do? As far as he was aware, the bonescythe impaling his leg and pinning it to the ground was the only thing keeping him from bleeding out. The owner lay dead at the guardsman's feet, a tyranid warrior beast. The guardsman had had a few objections to the alien's choice of diet.
Oh, who was he kidding? The sarcasm and poor jokes were a waste of time. He was dying, he knew that. He just never thought this was how it was going to end; surrounded by piles of dead xenos and the torn apart remains of his last patrol. What a pathetic way to die.
With a monumental effort, he twisted his neck around to look at the body lying next to him. He had to bite his lip to keep from screaming. His leg was on fire, what parts hadn't been hacked up and doused with acidic blood. The trooper next to him had been dead for several hours now. He'd been dead since before the guardsman had carried him here and laid him against the tree trunk. He figured he'd soon be joining him.
He sighed, shoulders slumping as he slid down the trunk into the festering, muddy water. "Well, Borik Vornas, this is it, isn't it? This is where the ride stops. Like you'd probably say: fuck."
Sergeant major Gerard Merrick began to close his eyes, one last time. He felt tired, so bloody tired. Time to sleep, now. Time to go.
He vaguely thought he heard voices as he drifted off into unconsciousness. Black figures pulled at the corner of his fading vision. So very tired...
He was awake, and he was screaming. Someone shoved something into his mouth to muffle his cries, and strong arms held him down. Merrick felt a needle being retracted from his leg. A wave of heady relief passed over him as the painkiller numbed his right leg. Someone, he still couldn't tell who, injected another dose into his thigh. A clotting agent, he realized; the bonescythe was rapidly scabbing over, stopping the blood flowing out of the wound. Merrick wasn't sure who these people were, but he was glad to see them.
The chiurgeon working on him took a small laser cutter and sliced into the bonescythe until he'd shaved it down enough to twist a gauze wrap around Merrick's leg. "Well, I can't remove the rest of it until we get you back to a medical ship, sergeant major, so this'll have to do."
"Thank you," Merrick said, still woozy from the painkillers flowing through his system. He tried to ease himself upright, but had to be helped by the two men who had held him down. He started to get his bearings again. They were still in the jungle, obviously. The dank mangroves were all around them. He was sitting on the roots of one to keep him out of the water while the medic did his work.
It was too dark under the canopy to tell who exactly had rescued him. There were several of them, though, and they looked extremely well armed. A tall, imposing man with a sniper rifle nearly as long as himself strode forward. Merrick squinted in the gloom to get a better look. He noted the glint of metal on the man's cuirass. Medals. So this was a general. Great.
The general looked him over, the disdain clear in his eyes. Here was a trooper, head shaved and covered in black and green camo-paint, smelling like he hadn't showered in days. Castor cocked an eyebrow. "Normally, trooper, a sergeant would salute a superior officer."
Wrong move. Despite barely holding back the need to vomit, Merrick was having none of this general's lip, "And normally, a sane person wouldn't expect perfect discipline from someone just brought back from the goddamn dead. And it's sergeant major. Merrick's the name."
Castor was taken aback at the guardsman's insolence, but he didn't let it show. He settled on a stern glare, "Sergeant major Merrick, a soldier says sir when addressing a superior."
"Oh, I am getting rusty, sir, please do mind my manners, sir. Permission to speak candidly, sir?"
"I very much doubt I could stop you, Merrick."
Merrick propped himself up against the tree roots. "I've known too many generals and brigadiers and jumped up colonels who come to this Emperor forsaken subsector who think they've got it all worked out. I've been fighting across these hellholes for over ten years now. I've burned up any goodwill I have for 'superiors' who think they automatically deserve respect because of their rank."
Castor folded his arms, still unimpressed with Merrick's attitude. Captain Mazzo sidled up beside the lord-general. "He's very chatty for a dead man, isn't he, sir?" he remarked.
Merrick tilted his head over at the pile of tyranids and guardsmen. "That there? That's what you 'superiors' do. You send us out on suicide missions like this, and when we don't come back, you do it again to some other group of poor sods."
"What exactly was your mission, sergeant major?" asked Castor.
"What does it matter to you?" Merrick sneered.
"Sergeant major, if you could stop with this insubordination and cooperate for a few moments, there is the possibility that you will make it out of here alive. Why do you think I am here? My forces received the distress signal from Vendoland Command, we are here to retrieve you and complete your mission."
"And you boys being who?"
"We being the Cadian 8th Infantry, Merrick," said Mazzo. "So you'd best show the lord-general some respect soon, or you won't live to regret what an ass you're being."
"That will be all, captain," said Castor. Mazzo backed off. "Now, I believe you were going to tell me about your mission, sergeant major. Speak."
Merrick grudgingly gestured in the direction he figured was north. "There is an old supply depot up ahead. It was abandoned about two years ago. Probably nothing left there, now. 4th company was supposed to investigate it for anything we might have left behind before we pulled out of the sector. The tyranids beat us to it. That depot is a deathtrap, general. They've made it their hive."
Castor's eyes gleamed. "You are in luck, then, Merrick. It seems our goals match this day."
"They didn't already?" Merrick asked, confused.
"If that supply depot is indeed the hive of these xenos, then that is where I am headed. Where the tyranids make a hive, a Tyrant is nearby. That is my objective. We will eradicate this infestation by attacking it at its source."
Merrick laughed, even though it hurt to do so. "You? That's a fucking hive. You have, what, thirty guardsmen? You don't stand a chance. It took thousands of guardsmen and whole companies of space marines to kill a hive."
"Fifty men, sergeant major," corrected Castor. With a hand signal, several more troopers rose from cover. "And we're not mere guardsmen, Merrick. We are Kasrkin."
Author's Note: I'll assume most of you are already reading Dark Eldar's main Dawn of War 2 story. If you haven't read the most recent chapter as of this posting, spoilers: Merrick is presumed dead. Now, if you've read this, you know that isn't true. Both of us have agreed that I will cover the Imperial Guard campaign from Retribution while he focuses on the Blood Ravens. So treat this as a side story to the current arc of his story.
I will still be continuing with the Daredevils shorts, so don't worry. This story likely won't be updated as often, though that is subject to change depending on how quickly dark Eldar and I write.