The siege on the hive was taking too long. They needed to break the line, and soon. If they didn't, the traitor guardsmen and cultists would soon reactivate the stores of titans kept in storage in the hive. The tech-priests predicted they only had two weeks before the first of the newly-turned chaotic war engines would leave the hive.
Captain Marteus was the leader of the Kratanos 7th mixed infantry and armour division. He commanded over two thousand men, dozens of heavy transports, two full batteries of basilisk heavy artillery, and ten Leman Russ battle tanks. An impressive force, but much too small to retake the hive.
Another problem Marteus faced was the fact his men were used to fighting in open fields, not the close combat, urban warfare of a hive and its surrounding urban sprawl. When he heard the Kratanos 8th light infantry division was on planet, he hailed the captain immediately.
"Blakeo, you old bastard!" shouted Marteus as he firmly shook the other captain's hand, "How have you been?"
"Same old, same old. Put down a pretty big wuaagh on Vitrix Beta about two month's back. The regiment is as good as ever. Haven't lost a man in three years."
"Holy kart. How do you manage that?"
"Small regiment allows me to train each man personally. I didn't get to be fifty by not knowing how to handle a lasgun."
Though Captain Blakeo was 52 Terran years old, he looked and felt 25. Years spent in the warp and a bionic arm had slowed his aging down. He now expected to live to be well over 150, provided he didn't end up eating a lasbolt by then.
He commanded what remains of the 8th division after a bloody fight against dark eldar pirates. The once three thousand strong company was reduced to meager one hundred men. Blakeo, just a platoon commander at the time, reorganized the division into small combat groups and was able to annihilate the dark eldar forces. Ever since, he had been captain of the 8th division, which never numbered more than one hundred troopers.
Many planetary governors and generals found his men to be invaluable. They were all veterans, many with over five years of active service under their belts. They were experts at close, urban fighting. Over the twenty-five years that the 8th had been in command of Blakeo, they had only lost fifty men to fighting, although many others chose to retire. Anytime he lost men, Blakeo replaced with volunteers from local populations after the battle. This made the regiment a mixed bag of cultures and accents within the ranks, with only ten true Kratanos soldiers left.
"Listen, Blakeo, I need to ask a favor of you and your division."
"Who doesn't anymore? Whatever you need, old friend, just ask."
"We are trying to retake this hive, as you can see. We are barraging the suburban areas every chance we get, but there is still no sign of any kind of break in the enemy's line. We need to get to the hive itself. If we manage to take the hive, this will demoralize the enemy and drive them into the open plains where we can eliminate them."
"You aren't asking my men to take a whole hive, are you? You must be mad! We're soldiers, not miracle workers!"
"No, you won't take the hive. There is a tunnel roughly three klicks from the edge of the urban sprawl. The tunnel is housed in a walled subdivision, designed to store raw material for the construction of titans. The tunnel leads right to the basement of the hive. We have orders to eliminate the enemy by any means necessary, which included destroying the hive. There is nothing of import within the hive itself, as the titans and other war engines are stored off-site."
"We need you to take the subdivision, use the tunnel to get to the hive, and blow the supports for the hive out," Marteus continued, "We can provide you with flying transports, but you'll have to rope down as there is no area large enough for the transports to land in the subdivision."
"Why not attack the tunnel with your main army?"
"It will take days to reach the tunnels through the sprawls if we fight ourselves. We don't have enough flyers to transport enough of my men to take the hive by force. The enemy will know of our target days in advanced and we would face a very heavily reinforced subdivision by the time we arrive. I believe that your covert skills will allow you to ignore these problems and get the job done."
"I'll do it for, my friend."
"Good, good!" laughed Marteus, enthusiastically shaking Blakeo's hand. "We will drop you in at dawn."
Blakeo approached his ten sergeants in the common mess shared by the division. "Well, gentlemen, it seems like we have a battle on our hands." The sergeants nodded, expecting as much. There was very little peace in the life of a guardsman.
"We are dropping into a lightly fortified zone within the city. We are to take the subdivision we are dropped in and travel through the tunnel within the subdivision. Once there, we are to place over twenty melta charges on designated support beams holding the hive up. We will then return to the subdivision, blow the hive, and let the 7th take all the credit. Understood?"
"Sir, yes, sir!" they cried in unison. One man stepped forward from the group. It was sergeant Kin, from Galenia.
"Sir," he said with a thick accent, "I get the feeling that when you say dropping, you really mean we are to drop."
"That is correct. Tell your men to get ready for a rope drop from thirty meters."
"Sir, do we even have rope that long?" chuckled sergeant Balnard.
"If you don't think the rope is long enough, you are always welcome to try it with your neck," jested Blakeo, "Get your men ready. We ride at dawn!"
He began to walk back to his own quarters when Major Granis started to follow him. Blakeo loved Granis like a brother, though Granis was not from Kratanos. Granis had almost died for Blakeo on more than one occasion. One such event cost him the middle finger on his right hand, which he held in salute to the captain.
"Do you want something, Major?" Blakeo inquired.
"We're taking down a hive? By ourselves? Sir, with all due respect, despite our skill, I don't think we have the numbers for that."
"Remember, we aren't taking the hive, we are simply destroying its foundation and supports."
"Even so, sir, we are heading deep in hostile territory with no support. I don't like it."
"Granis, it wouldn't be the first time we were cut off from our main lines behind enemy lines."
"Back then, those were only orks, really stupid orks, even by ork standards."
"And what makes these foolish chaotic karters any smarter?"
"Despite their unholy allegiance, they are still human."
"At best, they have the intelligence of an underhiver. I don't fear them."
"Sir, there has been reports of fallen Astartes."
"Well, if we run into those, we're screwed over. Even if there is chaos space marines, I doubt they'll try to stop such an obviously idiotic and foolish attack."
"Sir, you believe this attack is foolish?"
"No, but the enemy will. I have complete faith in you, major. Now get your men ready."
The major gave Blakeo a salute, turned, and briskly walked back to the barracks to get the men riled for war.
They marched into the transport ships. The ships had a hollow space in the center with wide exits on either side. The men were in five lines of five on both sides of the ships. The front man held a spool of rope which was attached to the edge of the exit.
Blakeo leaned out of the left exit and saw the impressive hive. Even thirteen kilometers away, the hive looked incredibly, impossibly, enormous. It reached three kilometers into the sky and was four times the height in diameter. It used to house well over six hundred thousand mechanicus workers who built titans within its core. And now I have to topple it, Blakeo grimly thought.
Two klicks from the target now. Blakeo made his way into the center of the empty space. He turned on his vox and connected to Granis in the other ship. "Major," he said, "Get the men to sing a hymn."
"Alright, men," Blakeo shouted to his men, "Sing a song!" He knew the singing would be good for morale.
Slowly, the men began to sing.
From the vast oceans of Ilitar/
To the nalwood forests of Tanith/
We bear His guns and preach His word/
No matter whom we're with!/
We slay the filthy Xenos/
Heritics, mutants/
And everything that blasphemes Him/
And now we all will dance!/
Blakeo recognized the old guardsmen drinking song. Several of the men were indeed dancing. He looked at the view screen and saw the target was now a mere five hundred meters away. They would be there in under a minute.
"Stop!" he shouted, "Battle positions!"
Two hundred meters were left. The other ship was still a klick behind them, intended to be a second wave that would finish off the meager defenders of the subdivision.
The green light went on. There were at the target. Blakeo ran to his line as the men dropped the ropes and dropped onto the ground.
The enemy was too stunned at first to do anything. Only after the third man came down on each rope did the cultists open fire. Unfortunately for them, the Kratanos 8th had already opened fire, cutting down most of the cultists surrounding the drop zone.
Squads of five were already breaching and clearing the buildings when Blakeo dropped down. He took his squad and another to the entrance of the subdivision, to try and stop any enemy reinforcements. The squads found cover among scraps of raw material and began to fire upon the enemy at the other end of the walled entrance.
The enemy fell back and the subdivision was being captured faster than expected. The second ship arrived and it looked like everything was going to plan. They might be able to take the subdivision without any casualties. That's what scared Blakeo.
The ship stopped above the subdivision and the rope dropped from the side. Suddenly, dozens of autocannon shells tore at the ship. One hit the right engine and the ship began spiraling down. In his ear-vox, Blakeo could hear the screams of his men while Major Granis yelled at them to focus and get off the ship. That's when another shell struck the fuel tank.
The ship went up in flames midair. All the vox channels from the ship were cut off as the vox sets were melted. Debris from the ship scattered across the subdivision. A severed, burnt arm landed next to Blakeo. It was a right arm that only had four fingers, the middle one missing.
Blakeo found himself on his knees in front of the arm, tears streaking down grimy cheeks. That grief turned quickly to anger. He reloaded his lasgun, switch to fully automatic and turned to power setting on full. He turned to the enemy and unloaded the clip across their line. He cut down dozens and managed to scare the rest into a temporary retreat.
He composed himself and barked orders into his vox. "Squads one through six, finish securing the buildings. Squad seven, find and secure the tunnel entrance. Squad eight, join my squad and squad nine in guarding the entrance. Squads one through six, one you finish clearing the houses, begin constructing two defensive lines within the tunnel, the first two hundred meters from the mouth, the second five hundred meters from the first."
A series of affirmatives came through his vox. He turned to his own squad. "Ok, we'll start building a rough wall here to try and get us some better cover. Squad nine and eight will give us plenty of cover." He turned his vox on again, "Turn lasguns to quarter power. That should be just enough to punch through their armour and kill them. Use your clips sparingly, we have to save them."
The men in his squad began pushing and lifting hunks of raw metals and processed alloys into a ramshackle wall. The wall was three meters high with crude steps leading to a standing area one and a half meters under the wall's top. Great cover by any means. IT would take hours for the enemy's lasguns to get through it.
The buildings were soon clear and the other two lines of defense were constructed. Blakeo assigned guard shifts and told everyone that they could rest until dawn the next day. Then they would move and take out the hive.
In the building which Blakeo claimed as his own, he rolled out his sleep mat. He lay down on the mat and stared at the ceiling. 'Granis is dead. Half of my men, half of my friends, gone in an instant,' he thought. He would not allow himself to cry again. To cry is to show weakness and he could not allow his men to see him in such a state. It would demoralize them even more than they already are.
Granis was his best friend for over 15 years. Blakeo had rescued him from a planet falling to chaos. At the time, Granis was only seventeen, but Blakeo let him join the division anyway. Granis had shown a competence for strategies beyond his years and made the rank of major in a mere four years of service. He and Blakeo were very close, each risking themselves for the other numerous times. Blakeo figured that they would die in combat together. He had no inkling that Granis, along with forty-nine other close friends, would be killed in an instant.
Death was a harsh reality for any guardsman, everyone knew that. Most guardsmen didn't leave the service until they were carried out on a stretcher, if they were lucky enough to have enough of their body left to put on a stretcher. However, Blakeo had managed to keep death largely at bay from his troops. Now, it started to consume them, and Blakeo knew all too well that a meager sampling like that would only make death hungrier.
He fell into a dreamless sleep and awoke eight hours later. The night had passed and it was broad daylight again. He turned to his remaining sergeants and began to plan. He would leave three squads of ten here to guard the tunnel's entrance while he took the rest with the melta bombs to blow out the hive.
The thing that scared him and the sergeants were the anti-aircraft weapons. From the firing angles on the second ship yesterday, they could tell there were at least two rapid firing hydra AAA tanks in the area. They were armed with four autocannons capable of lobbing over five dozen 105mm shells a minute, more than enough to tear through the small, make-shift defensive walls his men had set up. Once the cultists got their acts together, they would be able to retake the subdivision without much trouble. Their only hope would be to take out the hive before then to get the cultists to flee.
Blakeo gathered his men and they set off into the tunnel. The tunnel was still well lit with glowglobes every few feet powered by an unseen emergency generator. Blakeo noted that his men did a great job building the two defensive walls. These walls looked like they could stand the onslaught of a hydra tank for a minute or two. Not long, but it would be something.
They passed the walls and began marching briskly to the hive.
Sergeant Mathis, now temporary major, was the leader of the defense force left behind. They had to buy time against any enemy attacks so that the charges could be set and blown. The captain had predicted that the hive would fall in five hours. It was now two hours later and there was still no sign of the enemy.
That unnerved Mathis greatly. Chaos was never known for patience, especially not the cultists. He would have greatly appreciated any kind of show of force from chaos, even a very underwhelming or overwhelming attack. This waiting made him nervous. It made him think about what horrible fate the enemy forces had in store for them.
He only had thirty men at his disposal, but he knew how to position them. He had served under Blakeo since the second founding of the 8th division. He was second in command until Granis showed up. He had a bit of a grudge against the boy. He had taken the position that rightfully belonged to the more senior veteran. However, he never wished to see the boy harmed, especially not to go in that way.
The loss of the ship greatly demoralized the men. He could practically taste the sour despair in the air. However, the men kept brave faces on and focused on their tasks. After all, if they didn't survive, no one could remember the fallen.
There was a slight buzzing in Mathis's ear. It was quiet, but at the right pitch to start grating on his nerves. It was becoming a nuisance. Now there were words to the buzzing. Words that Mathis didn't know and did not wish to know. The words were poison and felt like death. The air turned cold and the sky darkened.
Then, it was gone. The buzzing stopped, the day brightened, and the words no longer rang in Mathis's ear.
Then there was an ear splitting scream.
"What is it?" Mathis shouted over the vox.
"Trooper Kranik! He's dead sir!"
"Las-bolt?" Mathis inquired.
"Negative. He was torn open by some sort of bladed weapon, but there's no blood. It all just disappeared. His heart is gone too, and his organs are spread as eight points around a circle made from his skin. Oh sweet Throne, I can't look anymore."
Mathis knew the shape. It was the eight pointed star of chaos. "Did no one see the cultists that did this?"
"No, sir. No one saw anything. One moment Kranik was talking with us, the next, he was dead!"
"Keep your nerves soldiers. We need to focus on keeping the enemy out."
"Sir, what the flying kart are we supposed to do against that!"
"I'll bloody tell you what we'll do. We're going to frakking kill those thrice damned heretics and send them back to their false gods!"
"Of course sir. Of course we will."
Mathis turned off his vox. That's when the war drums began to sound.
Blakeo and his men were half way to the hive. The tunnel was still incredibly well lit and Blakeo couldn't have asked for better conditions. The tunnel wasn't sloped, which made marching a lot easier and faster. There wasn't even any rubble strewn about, giving the enemy no place to hide. Of course, this meant his men had nowhere to take cover if they were attacked, but they'd be able to see the attack coming.
The tunnel was interfering with vox chatter, however, preventing his from talking to Mathis. He was making good time. They would probably be at the target a full hour before he had expected. All in all, everything was going according to plan.
Then there was a quiet buzzing in his ear.
The cultists charged the wall. They were poorly armed, most only with knives, though a lucky few had autopistols or lasguns. Several volleys of disciplined lasfire silenced over two dozen and sent the rest running.
Mathis ordered his men to keep firing on the retreating cultists. They had to pay for their crimes against the Emperor, this planet, and his division. Firing on half power and with a sharp eye, every shot Mathis made killed another cultist.
Other troopers weren't quite as skilled and missed here and there, but largely, the fire was steady and sure. By the time the cultists ran out of range, the guardsmen had killed over one hundred and fifty.
This is damn easy, thought Mathis. Knowing chaos, Mathis knew that an easy wave meant a bigger one was coming up. Either way, he took his kills where he could get them.
Another wave of poorly armed cultists was forming. He loaded a fresh cell and opened fire.
Only three more kilometers to go until they would reach the hive. Only half an hour of brisk marching left until they could destroy the target and end the mission. Everything was fine and smooth. The men were chatty and the air was cool. Everything was perfect.
Except for the damn buzzing sound.
Every step brought them a meter closer to their target. Only two and a half klicks left. The men were a bit quieter and the air was a bit stuffier, but then again, they were 15 klicks down a tunnel. Blackeo couldn't expect it to be perfect the entire way. Either way, it was still an easy march.
Except for the damn buzzing sound and the inaudible chanting.
Only two kilometers left. The men had more or less ceased talking. This didn't strike Blakeo as particularly odd, but it did jar him a bit. Now the only sound was their footfalls. Otherwise, there was complete and total silence.
Except for the damn buzzing sound and the soft chanting.
Blakleo had a headache. Several of the other men here rubbing their forehead as well. The glowglobes seemed to be a bit dimmer now. The footfalls ceased to echo, making it even quieter, driving it to near silence.
Except for the damn buzzing sound and the poisoned chanting.
Only one klick left, Blakeo thought to himself. The chanting must be from the hive itself, he reasoned. What else could it be? He noticed the air was suddenly a lot colder now. Their feet ceased to make any noise. There was complete and total silence.
Except for that damn buzzing sou-
Trooper Lak fell to his knees. Two other troopes ran to his sides and tried to pull him up. He was crying in pain. Most of the other men started to back away. A few took out their lasguns. Blakeo checked his own before moving towards the now prone man.
"Lak! Lak! Can you hear me?" Blakeo asked.
Lak murmured something.
"What was that?"
Lak looked up at his with weak eyes and said in a raspy voice, "Blood….for the blood god."
Then Lak exploded. In his place stood a daemon, over two and a half meters tall. It was bright red with large, goat like horns protruding from its skull and hooves for feet. In its hand was a sword over one and a half meters in length.
"FIRE, DAMN YOU!" cried Blakeo.
"FIRE, DAMN YOU!" Mathis cried. The cultists had returned with a vengeance. There had to be at least three thousand charging the wall. The twenty-nine men felt puny in comparison, despite the number of casualties their steady fire was causing.
Even though they were poorly armed, the cultists were chewing through the make shift wall. They would breach in minutes. Mathis realized this and ordered for the men to retreat.
They fell back to the tunnel and closed the main steel door on the entrance as the first wall fell.
"Get to the first wall in here and reload. Eat something quickly and get some water. We may only have a few minutes."
The men began eating their rations and chatting. Mathis picked up on one conversation.
"Some last meal, huh."
"Don't be so negative, Krell. Look on the bright side. At least if they kill us in battle, then they can't torture us."
"Don't be so sure they'll kill us. Ever hear of what happened to Captain Caleb's boys? They we-"
"I would stop right there if I were you, Krell," Mathis said, pointing a laspistol at the man's head. "Morale is low enough as it is without you spouting daemon stories."
There was now a light pounding at the door.
"Chaos knocks, boys!" shouted Mathis, "Let's answer them!"
The men cheered, though Krell piped up, "Let them open the door themselves!"
That's when they heard the rippling explosions of 105mm shells pounding at the door.
"I swear Krell, if we survive this, I will rip your spine out through your mother's asshole," remarked Mathis.
The daemon raised it sword and plunged it deep into the belly of the nearest trooper. The rest of the men tried to fire at it, but its presence shook most of them and nearly all the beams of light missed.
"We have to get the bombs to the hive, now!" Blakeo shouted as he sprinted to the hive. The rest of the men started printing after him. The daemon jumped after them and cut down trailing guardsman, howling an evil shriek.
Blakeo stopped and turned his lasgun on the daemon. The rest of the men kept running as he fired at the thing. His entire clip emptied into its chest, but it barely flinched. He turned and kept running as the foul creature chased them down.
They were only half a klick short of the hive's base. "Arm your bombs now and throw them into the foundation as soon as you can! Then try to kill this thing!" Blakeo shouted, arming his own bomb.
The daemon leaped over head and landed square on the shoulders of trooper Maltin. Maltin fell forward as the sword entered the back of his neck. Blakeo threw his full weight onto the daemon, knocking it off of the already dead trooper and on its back. Blakeo charged the hive.
Most of his men were already in the hive. Several of the men had thrown their bombs at the front while a few more ran deeper in to spread the explosion. Blakeo ran into the foundation and threw his bomb in the middle of the rest. He joined the sixteen remaining men outside.
They opened fire on the charging daemon. The lasfire hit it, but it didn't even flinch. The men tried to turn their guns of full power, but that made no difference.
The daemon leaped and was upon them.
The cultists' hydra had punched through the door in less than two minutes. Mathis and his men fired steady las into the mob of cultists, but the hydra kept firing into the tunnel. Several of the men were torn apart by shrapnel while a few we blown up by direct hits. Mathis was down to nineteen men. He ordered a retreat to the second wall.
As the remaining men sprinted to the second wall, the sustained fire tore through the first one. Cultists flooded through, firing autopistols and lasguns. Trooper Krell was hit by three lasgun shots. Two more troopers fell with him.
The men reached the second wall and climbed up the rope ladders. Once the last man got up, they pulled the ladders up.
"Men, we stand and fight here!" shouted Mathis, "Here, we shall kill and die for the Emperor's glory!"
The men cheered and resumed firing into the massive mob. Dozens of cultists fell to the relentless fire. The mob still charged the wall and hit with the fury of a storm. The hydra was clear of the first wall and was firing onto the second. A series of shells hit the left flank which was destroyed by the volley, killing seven guardsmen outright.
It seemed hopeless.
The daemon was tearing through them like tissue paper. Already, seven men lay in pieces as the remaining either futilely fired on the daemon or ran in fear. Blakeo continued to fire, hoping against hope that the blasted thing would die. He had already lost too many men, far too many.
The daemon slew two more guardsmen, only leaving eight. The remaining guardsmen began running, Blakeo included. The daemon disappeared and reappeared before them, gutting the first guardsman. It turned and removed a man's head from his shoulder. A kick and a hoof penetrated the chest of a third.
The rest resumed firing. It continued to be futile. Two more swings of its sword and Blakeo was the only man left. He turned and ran into the hive's foundation.
The daemon ran close behind him. He could practically feel its stale breath on his neck. He was in the center of the hive and realized what he had to do. He took out his detonator and said a quick prayer. As the daemons sword entered his back, he pressed the button.
Mathis was the only one left. Cultists surrounded him and he fully expected to die in seconds.
Then there was a ground shattering explosion followed by as sustained rumbling as the hive fell to the ground. The cultists began fleeing in terror. Mathis laughed. They'd done it! They had completed the mission! He walked to the subdivision and waited for his captain to return.
Two days later, and the 7th division arrived. Mathis had realized Blakeo was dead after seven hours. Captain Marteus declared him to be captain of the 8th division now. Mathis then left the planet, looking for new recruits. He hoped he could be as strong of a captain as Blakeo.
In the warp, the daemon smiled to himself. The human perished and would no longer be a threat. Instead, his weak link, this Mathis, would be in charge of one of the most elite fighting forces the guard could offer. Proud Mathis, who's pride could turn him to jealously and be seduced to the dark powers.
All according to plan.