Purification Spread

Merrick had to limp along to keep up with the Kasrkin as they pushed deeper into the jungle. Even with the painkillers flowing through him, the scythe fragments lodged in his leg seared with every movement. But he kept pace. He wasn't about to prove that bastard Castor right, that he was just dead weight.

Merrick had fought alongside Cadians before. They were without a doubt the toughest guardsmen he had ever encountered. The Cadian 8th was legendary across the Imperium for having one of the longest unbroken service records of any Imperial Guard regiment. He was more than a little shocked to find them here, on Typhon; with news of the Black Crusade engulfing Cadia reaching the subsector, many Cadian regiments had tried to turn back to defend their homeworld. And yet here was a lord-general and a detachment of the finest soldiers in the Imperium, operating on a backwater, while their planet was under siege.

The sergeant major managed to limp his way up to the lord-general's side. Captain Mazzo tried to butt in between them, but Castor stopped him. "Enough, captain. I'm under no threat from a crippled waste. What is on your mind, sergeant major?"

"I'm curious what it is you are doing here, general."

Castor cocked an eyebrow, "I thought I had already explained that, trooper. Or has your hearing been impaired as well?"

"I meant here, in the subsector, sir. We don't get much news out here on the Eastern Fringe, but even we heard about the Archenemy assault on Cadia. How does a lord-general end up out here when faced with a Black Crusade?"

"It seems information that travels slow is also slow to be updated," Castor said, slightly irritated, "I've heard the same concerns from people everywhere we stopped on our journey here. Yes, sergeant major, Cadia is under siege, and it is very dire. Men die by the millions every week, and there is no sign of the conflict ceasing in the foreseeable future. I wonder, however, when did you receive this notification of our impending doom?"

Merrick thought for a moment, "It must have been about two years ago, maybe?"

"And would it surprise you to learn that the Thirteenth Black Crusade began over a decade ago, Merrick? Like I said, news travels slowly, and it is a big Imperium. The Lord Castellan knows that if Cadia falls, the Imperium will soon follow. Not in a year, perhaps not in a century, but it will fall. But Creed also knows that drawing our forces to repel the Eye of Terror naturally weakens us at our borders, so soldiers are still being released to other warzones so long as we are able to do so. The Imperium may crumble if we lose, but that has not happened yet, and will not happen as long as there are men and women willing to put down their lives for humankind and for their Emperor.

"To answer your question, however, I am here because the Lord Castellan asked me to be, and as a personal favor to another. Should you survive, you will meet her soon. She has a lot of pull with certain organizations, and she believes that the situation in Subsector Aurelia is severe enough to warrant proper Cadian intervention."

"And who is 'she', if I might ask?"

"That's not for you to know unless she wants you to," growled Mazzo.

"Fine then," muttered Merrick, "Bloody vague if you ask me."

"No one did ask you, Vendolander."

"Enough, Mazzo. He asked a question and I answered. I don't need you doing it for me."

"As you wish, lord-general." The captain sniffed and headed off to check with the scouts. When his back was turned, Merrick twisted his fingers at Mazzo, a rude gesture among the Vendoland regiments. Castor didn't seem to notice.

They continued on in silence for another hour. The signs of tyranid infestation were growing, until they were everywhere. Quivering, pulsating spines forced their way up through the ground. The wet swampland dried up around the base of the stalks, as if they had siphoned the ground clear of water. The natural foliage was sickly and dying, rapidly being overtaken by the alien vegetation. While the scouts ranged ahead in search of hostiles, the flame troopers occasionally flared their weapons, incinerating any toxic spores dangling in the air and lighting the way through the dark.

It brought back frightening memories for Merrick. He had been there, ten years ago, at Sicarus Plateau. A handful of space marines and a single regiment of guardsmen against untold millions of tyranids. As brutal as the years had been since, nothing compared to that fateful day. The screams of dying men and alien shrieks had stuck with Merrick ever since. Distracted by his recollections, he almost lost his footing on the ridged alien overgrowth jutting out of the ground.

The vox channel blipped. "Contact, contact!" cried one of the scouts. The Kasrkin immediately broke into a run, their hellguns raised and primed. Up ahead, Merrick could see flashes of lasfire, and he heard the sound of the xenos screeching as they died. Here we go again, he thought.

Castor chambered another round into his long barreled rifle. "Come along, sergeant major, let us see what you are made of!" He raised his power sabre in his right hand and advanced after his retinue. "Do try to keep up," he added.

Merrick took a deep breath and pushed himself forward. He could only manage a lopsided amble, now more painful than ever as the painkillers began to wear off. With his own hellgun primed, he followed as fast as he could, cursing Castor through his teeth.

The scouts were embroiled in a close range firefight with a pack of termagants. The creatures had appeared seemingly out of the ground. As Merrick got closer, he realized that the ground itself was moving. The slick chitin like plates he had taken for xenos plants were in fact more gaunts. The disturbance had startled the rest of the creatures, and soon the small pack had become a swarm, surrounding the Kasrkin.

To add to Merrick's shock, Castor seemed to be enjoying this turn of events. "Have at them, men! Get stuck in and show them Cadian mettle!" Holy Emperor, the man was smiling as he said that. Castor swung his sabre at a leaping hormagant, carving through its head and splashing fluorescent blood across the gloom. Not swayed, the aliens threw themselves at the Cadians with single minded ferocity.

The flamers set the jungle alight, torching the gaunts and forcing off other, more cautious creatures. Merrick, still hobbling, righted himself against a purple ridged tendril and snapped off a burst from his hellgun. Termagants exploded into chunks of bony exoskeleton, and flecks of blood hit Merrick's bare skin, burning through like acid. He stomached the pain, fighting fully on instinct now, and fired off several more shots. The tyranids were so dense that he barely needed to aim.

More tyranids were moving through the trees. Bigger ones, Merrick noted. "We can't stay here, general!" he shouted. They would be overrun soon, Kasrkin or not. The xenos were too many.

Still undaunted, the lord general calmly lowered his rifle and fitted a projectile grenade to the barrel, all the while covered by sustained fire from his retinue. "Captain Mazzo, point me at the largest creature, would you my good man?"

Mazzo obliged and directed his shots at the brood leader, a larger looking gaunt curiously standing back from the attack. Castor almost casually lined up the target. The spring loaded grenade shot forward and engulfed the brood leader in a burning liquid that rapidly spread to other nearby tyranids. The creatures scattered in the face of the expanding ball of fire.

Castor rested his long rifle against his mechanical shoulder. "First rule of fighting tyranids, sergeant major: shoot the big ones first."

"I've fought bugs before sir," Merrick said, arms folded.

"Really?" Castor raised an eyebrow, "How many, Merrick?"

"Sicarus Plateau, ten years ago, sir. Must have seen every kind known to man."

"Indeed. Be sure to point some out for me, then. I'm always looking for unique specimens for my trophy room. It is quite the collection, if I do say so myself."

"Lord General Castor's trophy collection is one of the largest in the Imperium," Mazzo said.

"I'll take your word for it," Merrick grumbled. He was tired of Mazzo's 'yes man' routine already.

"Let us not waste more time, gentlemen!" Castor, "The enemy knows we are here, and my target still awaits."

It took another twenty minutes slogging through the alien heartland before the company reached the compound. The jungle canopy stopped almost a half kilometer from the base, giving way to a flat clearing covered in creeping vines and alien flowers. The wall had rusted away in places and the gates had been rent open and left mangled. Despite the organisms growing all the way up to the depot walls, there was no sign of any Tyranid bioforms in the vicinity. It was as if they had sidestepped the ruin altogether.

Castor frowned, "I thought you said they had made this their hive, Merrick?"

"I thought they were here too, sir," Merrick protested, "Everything from the orbital scans to a damned flyover pointed to this base as the epicentre for the swarm. Where the hell are they?"

"They are nearby, no doubt, sergeant major. However, we shall proceed with your retrieval assignment and then disengage." Castor looked disappointed, "It seems my prey will need to wait."

Despite the wall's state of disrepair, most of the depot's buildings were intact. They Kasrkin scoured over each in turn, looking for anything valuable, but the place had been picked clean. The power generator was dead, so they had to pry the doors open by hand. Upon breaking open the outpost command center, they made a grisly discovery.

Human skeletons lay piled in a heap in the center of the room. The bones had been snapped and the marrow drained from each, and not a speck of old flesh remained. The floor crunched underfoot as the Cadians filed in. Captain Mazzo snapped off an old finger bone, which crumpled to dust in his glove. "Whatever happened here happened a long time ago," he said, wiping his hand on his trousers. "Absolutely nothing left of them."

Castor pointed his augmetic arm towards the comms station sunk into the far wall. "Check the cogitator banks for any information, men. It seems my hunt may be in vain, but I am loathe to leave here empty handed."

The Cadians sent two of their men to begin prying apart the cogitators and to download the data. The various firewalls and safeguards set in place by Mechanicus tech-priests meant that the process would take some time. Merrick looked around the room. Something was wrong, and it took him a moment to realize what they had missed.

"There's something else, sir," Merrick said. Captain Mazzo turned and looked at him expectantly. "That door was locked from the inside. You don't think the guardsmen here would have tried to run for it? No, the Tyranids got in here another way. We need to find a tunnel."

Castor agreed, "The Vendolander is right, captain. There are numerous records of burrowing tyranids. I should know, I've contributed my not insignificant knowledge on the beasts." He glanced sideways at the Merrick, "Do you have anything else to add, sergeant major, or do I need to get you another stimulant pack?"

"Actually, sir," said Merrick, "I was more worried about where those tunnels might lead. Like I said, everything points to this depot being the center of their hive."

Castor raised an eyebrow, "You are suggesting their hive is underground?"

"I'm not ruling it out, sir."

"Then we have no time to waste. Captain Mazzo, procure whatever munitions you can around this depot and find those tunnels. We'll seal the beasts in their lair."

"Aye sir," Mazzo acknowledged his commander and set off with a contingent to scour the depot. Merrick pulled a face and looked to Castor for an explanation. The Lord General just smiled.

"Something else on your mind, sergeant major?" Castor asked. His white teeth grinned hungrily.

"Yes sir, I was just wondering what the hell kind of stims you are currently on," Merrick limped towards the Cadian. "You realize that will bring the entire swarm bearing down on us, right?"

"Exactly, Merrick. And with them will come their Hive Tyrant."

"With all due respect, sir, I think that fighting a Hive Tyrant in the center of their swarm would be insanity."

"Duly noted, sergeant major. Death facing the Emperor's foes is no insanity. Only inaction can be seen as such. I do not intend to die this day, soldier. But I will not be denied my hunt."

We are all going to die, Merrick cursed his poor fortune. Saved from a slow death by a madman intent on facing down some of the deadliest xenos in the galaxy for some maligned trophy hunt. He thought he'd seen his share of crazy during his tour in the subsector, but it appeared fate was not finished toying with him yet.

He hunched over behind a bulkhead while the Cadians fired their shaped charges. The pressure exchange almost blew out his eardrums, and a cloud of dust blasted into the adjoining rooms. The Kasrkin moved onto the next hole to repeat the procedure. Closer inspection had revealed the entire depot was honeycombed with tunnels. Castor had named the creatures responsible raveners. Merrick vaguely remembered the name, but to him, a tyranid was a tyranid.

Merrick felt like a fifth wheel among the well drilled Cadians, not helped by the excruciating pain in his thigh. The chirurgeon had done his job well, and had saved Merrick's life, for now. It did not help his sense of uselessness, however. More than that, he wondered what had happened to the rest of the Daredevils. The last he had seen of them was Kippler and Serrt dragging Remer away before the sea of xenos had separated him from the squad.

Captain Mazzo leaned around the corner. "Will you be able to shoot that or are you just going to use it as a crutch?" he gestured to Merrick's rifle.

"I'll be fine," Merrick shot Mazzo a look, "sir," he added. "Can I ask you something, Cadian?"

"Depends on the question."

"What makes you follow a man like Castor? You have to realize this whole venture is crazy, right?"

Mazzo's face did not change. "I follow my commanding officer's orders. You'd be surprised by Castor. He knows what he is doing."

"I've yet to see any evidence of that," Merrick said with a huff. Mazzo raised an eyebrow.

"You don't believe me? Think about this, sergeant major: the Lord General has faced down every tyranid bioform known to man. I doubt there is a man in this subsector who knows more about the xenos than Castor. There is a strategy to his methods, just you see. Point your gun where he tells you and we will make it out of here."

"We'll see."

Mazzo rolled his eyes and drew a lho-stick. He attempted to light it, thought better of it and flicked it aside. "I've got five squads, sergeant major. Squad Sohner is covering the south wall and they could use some more firepower. Join them if you want to make yourself useful."

After Mazzo left to oversee the rest of the demolition work, Merrick set across the depot for the southern fortifications. As he limped across the muster field, purple alien lichen recoiled from his steps, leaving a trail of footprints through the growth. Squad Sohner was in place atop the ruined section of the wall. Two Cadians climbed down from their perch to help Merrick up the rubble.

Sohner was led by a young lieutenant named O'Frey, a fairly genial officer compared to the likes of Mazzo or Castor. He seemed to welcome Merrick's aid along the ramparts, and respected his experience. That surprised Merrick. "I thought the Kasrkin were experienced above all others?" he said.

O'Frey shrugged, "True, but only a fool ignores help when it is offered. And besides, this subsector is your playground, sergeant major. You know it better than we do. How can we be the best unless we learn from the best?"

"Now you're just patronizing me, sir."

The Cadian grinned, "Maybe a little. Listen, don't let Mazzo get to you. He owes Castor a lot, so he's loyal as an Ogryn, and he doesn't like people questioning the lord general's orders."

The set their sights on the jungle beyond. The dense canopy concealed all movement, but they could hear the alien shrieks from within. They were getting closer. O'Frey adjusted his vox bead, "Orders are to engage on sight, men. Sergeant major, what's your record for distance firing?"

Merrick thought for a moment, "About four hundred yards, maybe?"

"Well, if you're going to roll with us, you better get that up to five hundred. That's the Imperial standard clearing for entrenched fortifications. We checked the distance when we cleared the tree line to this base. Nothing gets beyond that boundary without facing a dozen hellguns."

With the tunnel system neutralized, the remaining Kasrkin took up firing positions on the wall. Contacts began to roll in from the vox channel, soon becoming a full swarm. Merrick saw thousands of eyes staring at him from the tree line. O'Frey primed his hellgun, dialing the setting to medium for rapid firing without sacrificing stopping power. A dull ache started to throb at Merrick's temples, and he noticed the same symptoms among the rest of Sohner as well.

"Synapse creature," Merrick explained. The psychic link between the Tyranids and their hive mind was both the xenos' strength and their weakness. O'Frey was immediately on the vox. "Lord General, be advised, we have synapse nodes among the swarm, priority targets."

"Understood, lieutenant," Castor replied. "Target at your discretion, men, but leave the Tyrant. He is mine."

Merrick still could not wrap his head around Castor's obsession. He glanced over to O'Frey, "How does he get away with this?"

"He's a lord general," O'Frey said as if that explained everything. Merrick realized it probably did. O'Frey readjusted himself, "Look sharp, men, here they come."

The Tyranids were on the move. The bleak sunlight reflected off the creatures' bony exoskeletons, glinting purple and white. The shrieks became a steady howl as the attack commenced. At five hundred yards, just as O'Frey had said, the Kasrkin opened up with a furious volley. Merrick found his own shots falling just short as he was taken aback by the Cadians' pinpoint accuracy. The entire front of the Tyranid wave simply crumpled under the sustained fire, and then the wave after it as well. Gaunts of all different genus met their end with hissing las bolts burning through their skulls.

That was just ten Kasrkin, out of fifty. Around the base, Merrick was certain the rest of Castor's detachment were achieving similar results. As the horde closed in, his shots began hitting their marks. The common misconception of professional soldiers was that they were stone faced and silent in the face of danger. The reality was quite the opposite. Squad Sohner was shouting constantly, pointing out synapse targets and redirecting their fire at the heaviest xenos concentrations. Merrick found himself joining in, acting as a spotter for the more accurate Cadian guardsmen.

"How many is that, sergeant major?" O'Frey's laughter was shaky, quivering like the rest of his body. The lieutenant was running on pure adrenaline. He unclipped his belt of grenades from his webbing and hurled it into the teeming mass. The bodies were piling up so high that the Tyranids had to scrabble over a wall of burnt chitin just to get a look at their prey. The last thing they saw were the steady flashes of sustained hellgun fire, adding them to the mounds of dead.

Merrick tuned his vox bead to the other squads individual channels. The walls were holding, but there was no end in sight to the swarm. Castor and Mazzo were holding down the north side with two squads, and were constantly calling for updates on the data retrieval process. They were still several minutes from extracting the last files. Minutes that the Cadians were rapidly running out of.

O'Frey ordered his flame trooper, Oengus, forward. The deceptively small soldier ducked under the hail of barbed quills and acid jets and let loose his heavy weapon on the Tyranids at point blank range. The flamer was a heavier model than the ones Merrick was familiar with, and Oengus showed just what a difference the extra power offered. The xenos not turned to ash by the intense flames were coated in burning promethium, spreading the unquenchable fire to the rest of the swarm. The backwash was so intense Merrick's eyes watered and the hairs on his neck prickled.

The vox suddenly chirped. It was Castor, "All units, all units, fall back towards the center of the compound. The data is secure, hold them at the landing pad!"

"You heard the man," roared O'Frey, "Go, go, go! Sergeant Major, with me! Oengus don't let up." O'Frey offered Merrick his hand and took the limping Vendolander's weight on his shoulder. The flamer continued to spout its burning liquid, slicking the bastion with an impenetrable wall of fire.

All around the depot, the Kasrkin was falling back in an organized withdrawal. Some men were being carried, but most were on their feet, covering their fellow squads as they moved from building to building towards the landing pad. Castor and Mazzo were waiting atop the raised platform with the data slicers, ordering the Kasrkin's fire. The psychic backlash from slaying the synapse creatures was in some instances so fierce that the subservient gaunts were thrown back by a shockwave. Those that did not turn feral simply failed to rise, their primitive brains fried by the blast. But for every gaunt killed, more took its place, and the Imperials were forced to give ground.

A roar bellowed over the noise of the swarm, which promptly ceased its advance. The Kasrkin, trapped on the platform, took advantage of the sudden hesitation and peppered the Tyranids with hellgun fire. But Merrick noticed that Castor was looking past the immediate front of the horde. Something big was coming. A grin tugged at the Lord General's scarred mouth. "Magnificent, isn't it, men?"

Mazzo shouted over his own gunfire, "You admire the creature, my lord?" he said sarcastically.

"Certainly! It will make an excellent addition to my trophy room," Castor laughed, and then added, "Aim low."

Towering over the rest of its brood, the nest's Hive Tyrant spread its razor sharp bone scythes in a show of force. The pulse at the back of the guardsmen's minds became a steady drumbeat, hammering at their senses at the Hive Mind's presence grew with the arrival of the swarm commander. The xenos were bolstered by the Tyrant, and they resumed their attack at the beast's roaring order.

"General, we won't hold out much longer," said Merrick. He was firing his hellgun on full auto, throwing shots so fast that the barrel glowed red hot. "I hope you thought this part through, you crazy bastard."

"Just keep firing, sergeant major," Castor said calmly, "Try to focus on the big one."

Merrick obliged, turning his fire towards the Hive Tyrant barreling down on the landing pad. The monster swept its scythes left and right, dismembering its fellow Tyranids, fighting towards the front of the pack. Castor stood tall, smiling at the creature. He raised his hand to his vox bead. "Pilot, are you still there?"

A new voice crackled over the vox, "On standby, lord general. Vultures ready."

"Commence bombing run, pilot, purification spread."

A low reverberation tugged at the edge of hearing, barely audible over the snap-hiss of lasfire and the snarling creatures. The Tyrant broke from its frenzy and looked to the sky. Flying low over the canopy, the Lord General's gunship escort rocketed over the base, followed by a trailing wall of fire from a promethium strike. A sonic boom cracked as the Vultures soared past, and the Tyrant's swarm was suddenly divided by the flame barrier.

"Now, Mazzo, now's your time!" Castor shouted. With a deft set of hand signals, Mazzo formed up half the Kasrkin into a firing line. The remaining troopers mopped up the Tyrant's brood with focused fire, and Mazzo's section opened up on the Tyrant. Merrick stopped shooting for a moment, astounded by what he was seeing.

He had witnessed the prowess of Space Marines in battle. Those gods among men fought with the Emperor's fury like none Merrick had ever seen. But these Kasrkin fought with a suicidal disregard for their own life. Normal men and women, facing down one of the deadliest xenos in the subsector without a second thought. Mazzo's section pummeled at the leg joints of the creature, chipping at the exoskeleton.

Someone scored a lucky shot on the exposed joint, and the Tyrant dropped to one knew, panting. It was not out of the fight yet. With its good leg and arms, the monster dragged itself towards the platform, pulling itself over the ledge with its long talons. The Kasrkin moved back out of reach, but some were too slow. The Tyrant swept its bone scythe across the rockcrete landing, catching three Kasrkin at knee level. Bone sliced through flesh and fabric, and the Kasrkin fell to the ground, clutching at their amputated limbs before the talons came down to end their suffering.

The weight of fire finally wore the monster down. Talons snapped off, burnt and pocked with impact holes. The beast's breaths became ragged, and the Tyrant finally collapsed. The Kasrkin kept their distance, unwilling to go forward after the tyranid had killed three men. Castor walked towards the beast, sword in one hand, rifle in the other. Green and red liquids spilled out of the gaping wounds in the creature. A fading eye moved to look at the Lord General, but limbs refused to respond to the threat.

Castor placed the barrel of his hunting rifle at the base of the Tyrant's neck. "Meet your end, Tyranid," he said, and fired. The head slumped to one side, lifeless. Castor hacked with his blade and lopped the xenos's head off in a shower of blood. Without another word, Castor wiped his blade down and sheathed it.

The depot was littered with tyranid corpses. A few stragglers, bereft of their synapse link, scattered back into the forests, now well ablaze with the unquenchable promethium. Castor wiped the sweat from his brow on his coat, and rejoined his men. "Well done, gentlemen!" he said with a large grin. "Could one of you be so kind as to collect that head?"

Whatever the answer was, Merrick didn't hear, as the whine of Valkyrie engines overhead drowned out everything.