Just Below the Surface: An Adeptus Arbites Story

by BladeMasterWolf

"They decide the guilty, they decide the punishment." The creed of the Adeptus Arbites, the police, jury and executioner of the Imperium's vast hives. On the hive world of Tercius, the Tercian Arbites will face a threat they never have before.

11. Down and Emergence

The great metal door gave way to the main platform of the old mining operation. The whole area was cleared completely of machinery. Lieutenant Jacob wandered in after Fourth squad radioed in that the area was clear. A thick layer of dust lined the steel floor; several prints unsettled the filth showing that people had been through this area.

Second Squad moved through with caution. The mutants had sharpened their collective wits. Jessie stayed next to the platoon commander. First and Fifth squads spread out to the sides of the great platform. The walls were built of solid rock of the mountain. The overheads of the hive proper were replaced by harsh glow-lamps that beat down on the guardsmen.

After a cursory glance around Jacob easily marked the main tunnel entrances, three set of pressure doors designed to seal in the event of emergency. The ravaged panels confirmed if any doubt remained that people had definitely gotten into to the vast labyrinth of tunnels.

The Chimeras idled outside with only the command vehicle entering the platform. As the engine turned over the smell of stale, dust-laden air took an aspect of the fumes of burnt promethium. Fifth Squad moved to a set of pressure doors without prompting after they completed their sweeps of the former Mechanicum facility if the great cog symbol drilled into the rock was any indication.

The sergeant looked to the lieutenant for the go ahead. Forth moved to another of the doors. Both of those teams would penetrate deep into the service access ways to facilitate the primary link up of regiments, the other two squads would branch off from the main route and secure the surrounding tunnels and remove any hostile presence, with a single squad hanging around the entrance to protect them from any sort of counter offensive from the gangers.

The one last door worried Jacob for no reason other than he had not known there had been a third, his briefing slate only mentioned two, doors alpha seam and beta seam, in reference to whatever they dug out the mountain. The third bore the obvious title of delta seam. The original plan didn't have much room for leeway so he was stuck looking at the door. The Veteran Sergeant stepped forward next to the officer. "The Command Chimera could just keep its turret locked on it; we could deal with it later after the main link up finishes." She said with a shrug. The Lieutenant looked to Jessie. He shrugged nonchalantly. He couldn't bring in more than one Chimera. In the event of a full retreat, if they had all their transports inside the main pavilion then there would be an almighty problem.

"After then." The Lieutenant accepted. He looked to the preparing squads. The guardsmen stood ready and willing to infiltrate, engage and defeat whatever the underhive would throw at them. At least, he hoped they would.

With a deft nod to the foremost sergeant, the plan began. The pressure doors hissed up and open to allow the guardsmen entry. They piled in two at a time, their lasguns raised and actively scanning for hostile movement. Luckily they found none as they began the long descent into the mountain on which Hive Lucius was built.

"Clear" The vox hissed over and over again as Jacob hauled himself back into the back of his Command Chimera. The simple auspex was trying to keep up with the movements of almost forty soldiers and was beginning to show its limitations, the screen flickered and minute distortions rippled across the image. Eventually, when the guardsmen got deeper, Jacob would have to give up on the auspex all together and rely completely on the vox. But by then, he thought, he would in following the troops to meet his counter-part.

"Squad halt" echoed a voice from the vox transmission of First Squad. Jacob turned his attention to it as clearly something had happened; the guardsmen of other squads were advancing as ordered with haste.

"Report" The squad sergeant asked his voice carried by the vox to the ears of the Lieutenant as well as the point man.

"Fork in the path, one goes straight, the other heads right and up at a slight incline." The point man answered as the Lieutenant immediately looked to his map. There was no fork on his map, the seam only went straight.

"The second path looks rough, recently made." The guardsmen added. "By what, can you tell?" The Lieutenant put in over the vox. A moment passed as the Lieutenant checked the map again. "I'm not sure sir, it's pretty dark up there, no luminators, definitely not drilled, looks... chewed, clawed or something. The walls look rough, uneven, looks like teeth marks."

"Chewed?" The Lieutenant sub-vocalised as he squinted at the map uselessly. "What could eat through solid rock?" Jacob rubbed his chin. "Fifth Squad, break off and infiltrate."

"Roger sir, Fifth squad redeploying" The sergeant confirmed as the icons broke off into uncharted territory. To the auspex screen, it seemed as if the soldiers were walking through solid rock.

"Fifth, keep me appraised" The officer said as his eyes darted to the other teams. Hopefully the relays laid throughout the main tunnels would keep contact with the split unit.

Time progressed agonisingly slowly. The Lieutenant felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand as second squad descended deeper into the rock.

... ... ... ...

"How much further" Desolta growled as his foot slipped again on the loose stones as second squad moved down a slope at an alarming rate. The passageway was cramped, hot and humid. The luminator on the bayonet lugs of his lasgun only seemed to go a few feet into the incredibly bad lit darkness before the trail twisted and he was faced with another wall of solid rock.

"Map says... fifty-nine feet." Kravan, the soldier behind the point man noted.

"Dead straight?" Desolta asked with a casual look over his shoulder.

"Yup" was the dull reply.

"So more like three-hundred adjusting for all the twists and – Emperor dammit! – turns." The point man cursed as he slipped again.

... ... ... ...

"Fezzo' keep it going man." The fifth squad sergeant shouted up to the point man as they pressed into unknown territory. Unlike the other squads that had nice detailed maps that told them exactly where to go. His men where almost literally touching their way through.

Whatever had cut this tunnel wasn't following any seam of promethium, or whatever they took out of the mountain. The path was winding and tight, just wide enough for a single guardsman to pass without scraping his shoulders.

"I'm trying sarge." The voice of the young man echoed back. "Gettin' real tight here."

Wonderful, the sergeant thought, he hoped to the Emperor above that they didn't get into a fire fight or even a light scuffle while in these unmapped tunnels. The only thing the sergeant could say for sure was that they were descending; his hive-boy instincts told him that much, other than that, his body was telling him that it was bloody hot in there.

... ... ... ...

Jacob rubbed his chin as the lights on the screen kept blinking and moving, the auspex was about at its limit, the rock of the mountain meant that he could barely see second squad's position any more. With each passing moment the squads got further and further in, eventually the stone alone would mean all attempts to track the squads would be useless save through the vox.

Now, if he could use the CACU (Command and Control Utility) built into the company command chimera, or the auspexes they put into the Leman Russ Vanquisher command tanks he had seen during training. Then he would be able to direct his squad's half-way across the hive. But, he had to make do with basic, general issue, underpowered version.

He felt the weight of the lasgun on its strap, a reminder that he would eventually have to go into those tunnels, those cramped, hot and almost suicidal tunnels.

... ... ... ...

"Patrol Five-Seven, entering area one under-level one." Felicia voxed as her bike dropped over the crest of a hill that occurred in the entrance to the grimy, tormented land of the under level. More than just a physical barrier, it represented the divide in the city itself, the place where the government and general populace would throw up their hands and cover their ears. This was the domain of the true humans that inhabited the hive, a fact mirrored on a hundred worlds within the Segmentum and thousands across the entire Imperium. Downtrodden, beleaguered, hopeless and lost people lived here, and it was here that their baser instincts arose in force, madness and chaos reigned down under the sweltering day lights. But out of the chaos arose a perverse form of order, the order of the gangs. They gave the discarded something to believe in, a place to belong. It would be a beautiful thing if they didn't break the laws of the Imperium and incur the wrath of the Arbites.

Detective Felicia rode with almost twelve other Arbites through the ground-car laden streets, the disenfranchised people watched in half-awe as the obsidian lawmen roared and rolled through the grime covered street, led by a blonde haired woman at great speed. Her skill with a bike matched only by her ferocious pace. She weaved expertly in between four separate lanes of traffic, slowing only slightly, the other rapid pursuit arbitrators were hard pressed to follow her. Perhaps it was her psychic ability allowed her to move so fluidly, or perhaps a skill born of years of experience that some of the arbitrators had only begun to accrue. Either way, they twelve arbites were making best speed to Mostatia plaza, the vox had been clear, the Imperial Guard had found something matching the description of the newly-named 'hybrid', and this was Felicia's case so she was the one who got the call.

In all fairness, Felicia wished to stay in the upper-level, despite the pomp and drawl of the inhabitants, her beginning conversation with the Representative and her Astropath had already revealed some disturbing facts.

As the report came through the vox, Felicia felt a very human chill creep up her spine as the report corroborated her own observations with the hybrid stored in the morgue.

Though part of her enjoyed the freedom that came from the road and the somewhat open air, the memories of past times as a simple Arbitrator pleasantly filtered through her thoughts, her brain automatically controlling the bike as if it were part of her own body, her cloak flowing out behind her as she rode. The auspex built into the mighty machine easily plotted a route and crackled the directions through her micro-bead. She eschewed a helmet partly because for one she didn't have one, and second of all she liked to feel the air as she went along.

Lieutenant Ruthann squeezed his way through the tight gaps in the rocks, his own hiver instincts guiding him aptly, the command squad around him were spread into a line formation, with the medic at the rear and one of the attached guardsmen leading. The veteran sergeant hung close to the officer as they pressed through the tighter gaps.

Jacob kept the lasgun at the ready, hanging loosely in his grip; two of his squads were still mapping the branch-off caves, their progress tediously slow through the even tighter passageways. His eyes kept locked on the luminator ahead of him and the light it reflected off the tunnel walls. Truly the tunnel itself was a sight to behold, a wonder of technology, to dug so far into a natural structure with little visible disturbance to the mountain above, save of course the sixty kilometre high hive, not including the upper spires, for the obscenely wealthy.

He was a few dozen metres out by now, but still another few minutes of careful turns and light steps. A few shards of fabric of the wall showed that some of the steps were more deceptive than they seemed. The heat was rising as the imperial guardsmen descended deeper into the mountain, Jacob could feel the first beads of warm sweat drip from his chinstrap as he advanced towards the meet point.

The officer emerged into the central station after a moment, the troopers of the two squads easily identifiable to the lieutenants' gaze. A soldier stood next to the second squad sergeant turned towards the approaching officer with a quick salute. "Sir."

"Lieutenant Ruthann, third co' Tercian five-oh-nine." Jacob returned the salute as he stepped onto the station proper, as the light from the overheads struck the sergeant, Jacob could see the features of the older man as he examined the young officer, the look of mild annoyance told Jacob what he needed to know.

"Sergeant Daniels, oh-seven, D company." The sergeant listed by rote as he approached Jacob,

"Excellent, where is your commanding officer sergeant." Jacob said as he glance around, aside from the ten troopers bearing 507th markings, the eight troopers of second squad and his own command squad, he could see no-one else. The silence lingered heavily, only broken by the light taps of the soldier's boots.

"In the couch of a Leman Russ Vanquisher sir." Daniels noted, "I am your contact."

"Excellent." Jacob said, slightly surprised, he gone down there expecting an opposite number, not a proxy.

"If I may sir." The mechanized sergeant started, his voice level, "Why is it my soldiers, trained mechanized soldiers, are tasked to hold these tunnels, and not the infantry regiment?"

Jacob chuckled nervously, Captain Corbal voicing the same thought earlier at the briefing. "Well," the lieutenant suddenly thought back to the excuse that the captain had passed down from the colonel, and by extension, the planetary PDF command structure that had put together this little operation. "This area is in fact well out of our operational area, but easily within yours, command must have simply allocated these jobs by location rather than by specialisation." He answered weakly. The sergeant sighed deeply, clearly unhappy with the statement, but not willing to push it any further. This was a mistake from the highest echelons of power, well out of the range for the lowly ground pounders to argue without fearing the men with red sashes, even though the two separate colonels had called the allocation useless, no doubt the 509th would have offered to take over the job had it not been for the fact that all their resources would be taken up with other duties.

The tense nature of the NCO grew slightly as Jacob started to turn towards his vox-operator to query the current status of his exploring squads. Up to this point no squad had reported so much as a peep out of these tunnels despite all intelligence labelling the area a gang centre, and that the infantry would have to literally burn them out to secure a firm path through. Jacob noted however, quite reassured, that the second squad flamer operator had stowed the weapon in favour of a standard issue laspistol, probably 'liberated' from the fifth armoury.

As Jacob gestured for the vox-horn, one of the troopers by the main tunnel shouted "Contact!"

... ... ... ...

"Stay where you are!" The guardsman roared down the tunnel mouth as his lasgun was pulled into his shoulder. Jacob turned towards the newly-developed hotspot, his own lasgun humming as he tensed his finger on the trigger and power setting. The mechanized sergeant mirrored the action with his las-carbine and immediately began a string of silent hand commands to his soldiers.

The guardsman was stood tall at one side of the mouth of the rail tunnel. His lasgun pointed straight down into the all-encompassing darkness that was the mine entrance. The luminator hung from the bayonet lugs sent a yellowy-white beam of light down into the entrance, beyond where the lieutenant could see. A second guardsman, opposite to the first soldier, brought his lasgun up and clicked on his own light. The other man by the entrance however kept his light doused as he skulked forward slightly, under the cover of shadow, to cover.

"Hands up! Stand into the light." The first guardsmen roared. Jacob shot a gaze to Mitchell, who was already crouching and brining his lasgun to shoulder in preparation. "Hands up! This is your final warning." The guardsman shouted for the prescribed last time.

"Suspect is incompliant." The guardsmen quickly quipped over his shoulder; he took his eyes off the suspect, a mistake. Before any of the guardsmen could blink, the guardsman was speared by a single ray of crimson light that punched through his chest, puncturing through the flak armour with ease.

The return fire from the second soldier, was almost instantaneously immediate, the harsh bark of the lasgun illuminated the darkened cave in murderous red.

"Sighted!" A soldier shouted from one of the side tunnels, a shout followed by another crack of las fire. One of the mechanized troopers fell as a red light scored across his dour armour. A long, disgusting black mark discoloured the armour from waist to shoulder, a testament to the soldier's reactions. His partner, who was stood on the opposite side of the smaller side entrance, retaliated with a badly aimed burst of fire up the incline, more for allowing time for his friend then any real attempt to kill the attacker.

"Return fire!" The mechanized sergeant roared uselessly as he sprinted towards the main tunnel, the gaping black and flashing crimson maw that loomed on the far wall from the officer and sergeant.

"Second Squad! Move and engage!" Mitchell shouted quickly as he followed his counterpart forwards. The flamethrower-wielding guardsmen, again thankfully eschewed the use of the weapon in preference for his las pistol, the flamer would suck the already swelteringly hot air right out of their lungs in these cramped conditions within seconds.

"Contact, right side!" Desolta cried out as a brace of autogun fire whipped past his head, chipping several fragments of rock and stone from the wall and causing them to fall of the trooper's shoulder.

Jacob made a grab for the vox-horn from the stricken vox-operator of second squad, she was unsure of whether to follow or stand, the lieutenant made that choice for her. "Third platoon, Command and Second squads, under fire, watch your flanks and engage on sight." Jacob hastily shouted into the network, his mind racing for a moment. The crackle of the vox carried the various sergeants' responses after a second but Jacob was no longer listening.

Jessie moved forward while the lieutenant drew up mental plans for counter the ambush. "Markson, Derringer, with me." She called to the special-weapons trooper and another of the command squad guardsmen respectively. The two dropped into step with ease. Jessie grimaced as she looked to the special weapon the platoon command squad had been issued, a standard issue grenade launcher, a weapon far less useful then the flamethrower in these conditions. A frag would probably kill as many guardsmen as hostiles if he wasn't careful, the only thing that made the grenade launcher a viable weapon in these conditions was the fact it wouldn't suffocate them if he used it.

The three reached Desolta after a second to find the point man already blazing away with his lasgun, filling the cramped tunnel with deadly bolts. The three passed the man as it seemed he had the situation there under control; Jessie fired a burst of her own weapon as they passed for good measure however.

"Lot of incoming!" The guardsman at the main tunnel entrance shouted an instant before a red needle burned through the simple steel box he was kneeling behind and passed through the soft flesh of his neck, killing the trooper instantly. The mechanized sergeant reached the tunnel first, throwing himself to the ground as he neared the deadly fusillade of fire that was erupting from the dark pits the descended away from the imperial guard position.

The third guardsman, the one who never used his light however, was alive and still fighting his position, unleashing great red waves of laser fire into whatever he could see moving in the impregnable darkness that seemed to pool further down into the mountain. The trooper gritted his teeth as a stray shot from the hostile skimmed the brim of his helmet, the rifle kicked and barked dutifully in his arms in response, he was sure that his collar was bruised by the rifle butt smashing into it every few seconds, but the area had become numb with the feeling so he kept on going regardless. "Come get some." The soldier hissed as another return shot dug into the rocky ground not two feet from in front of his prone position.

... ... ... ...

"Emperor Above." Arbitrator Carlson sighed as he edged into the gatehouse the mutants had formally occupied. The Guard had burnt the entire interior out. While all fine and dandy from a grunt or even an officer's point of view, but from an Arbite's point of view, it royally frakked things up.

"Ma'am, this place is ash." Another Arbitrator, Karen Ashe, remarked as a former table crumbled as she tried to lift it with the barrel of her shotgun. "I doubt the Technical teams are going to get anything from this place."

Felicia stood in the door while the three Arbites she brought along did the first rummage for anything. The report from the Guard of the mutants had set off a small chain reaction all the way back to the Detective, hence she broke her interview-come-meeting with the Representative. She stood with her arms crossed and a hard look on her face, she sighed loudly.

She glanced toward the entrance to the former mine. A set of Imperial Guard Chimeras were parked up in front with their engines still grumbling away and turrets whining left and right. The Arbites gave the Imperial Guard a good distance, some would say the less interaction between the two organisations the better. Whether by ignorance or purely because of the massive bureaucracy, this lack of communication had erased valuable evidence. Felicia felt a knot of frustration as she glanced over the crime scene again.

"Ashe, Carlson, Kasov, wrap it up, let the techies go over this place, we ain't going to find anything tangible." The Detective said sharply as she stepped out into the harsh lights of the under hive.

She stood again as the other Arbitrators piled out, overall there was about nine of them, all but two, rapid pursuit squad members, requisitioned by the detective for this ultimately pointless run into the underhive.

Felicia tsked as she deftly brushed a stray lock of golden hair from her brow; her sniffin' sense was on overdrive, the feeling of the powerful astropath's mind still lingering on her memory. The words said alone were enough to chill her.

She crossed her arms and sighed audibly. A dead end, another damned dead end. A set of strange wounds from the riot had peeked her interest until the Provost had locked the biological samples for use in prosecuting the riot-leaders. Thall and Cairn – her only two available leads other than the Representative – were reassigned to a patrol route and currently unreachable and she had cut her meeting with the Representative short.

She felt a headache coming on. She rubbed her forehead with a gloved hand and sighed again. She turned heavily toward her parked bike. The steel machine was sat still where the Detective had left it, with two Arbitrators' armed with shotgun nearby, keeping the locals at a decent distance. Felicia rubbed her eyes as the pain in her head increased quickly. Her head felt like it was trying to stop a freight train, her vision blurred and all sound filtered out. Felicia closed her eyes, the pressure on her mind doubled with each passing moment. She cursed silently as the world took on a single high pitched tone.

"Ma'am?" Carlson stepped forward as the detective stumbled slightly, her arm bracing her against her bike, the other two drawing up quickly, each with a concerned and confused look on their faces.

Felicia couldn't hear them, the noise in her head sounded like a million voices all screaming in agony and a dull thrumming roar. She pushed her mind into 'lock-down' as taught by her schola tutors. Her mental defences were clearly overwhelmed. As she whispered the rites and mentally went through the motions. While not traditionally soul-binded, the Psyker had undergone a similar, less deliberating procedure.

Her rites of tranquillity sent silence to the tempest of warp-noise. Her eyes closed, her ears deaf to the world and her thoughts silent.

"Detective!" Ashe shouted as the woman buckled by her mechanical steed, the Arbitrator dropped her shotgun as she reached out to grab the Detective. Her gauntlets gripped handful of raven cloak and her arms felt the weight of the older detective as she fell backwards. Ashe dropped onto her rear as she supported the locked down Arbite.

"Detective! Detective!" Karen shook Felicia as the other Arbitrators fanned out with their shotguns cocked and raised. The slight tremors returned a slight murmur from the woman. "What's wrong?" the worried Arbitrator questioned as she raised herself to a knee to better support the fellow Detective.

The Detective mumbled something as the rites of tranquillity wore off and the higher-brain functions kicked started once again. Though she was slight groggy, the million voices were gone. The rite of tranquillity was a hard, strong and immediate method but not advised as a repeat act, as it was always a shock to the system.

"Ma'am?" Ashe smiled beneath her mouth guard. She helped the Detective sit up while the other Arbitrators swept the nearby area methodically. "Are you hit?"

"Ima fine." Felicia breathed as she rubbed her eyes, the light of the underhive stinging at them for an instant. But the voices were gone. She immediately, sub-consciously replaced her mental defences, a metaphorical stonewall between her mind and the warp, her first line of defence against the malicious spirits that drifted through the ethereal currents, daemons by any other terms. "Jusa' littl' overload or sumet'." She slurred as she tried to stand up with support from Karen.

"An overload ma'am, it completely floored you if I may say." Karen helped the Detective to sit on the saddle of her bike.

"What 'da hell wasat?" Felicia groaned more to herself then Karen. Her head, though silent, was a little sore from the emergency lock down. She made a mental note to never do that again. She'd had some hangovers before but this took the ackenberry cake. The world, while finally still, didn't seem quite solid just yet, like it was two-dimensional though she knew perfectly well that it wasn't. Her vision however was clearing with each passing moment.

"Detective!" An Arbitrator, Carlson if Felicia remembered correctly, shouted to her. The loud noise stung her ears slightly but no enough to really deliberate her.

"I'm fine Arbitrator." She smiled at the black carapace armoured Arbitrator.

"Good to her ma'am, but it was something else ma'am." Carlson pointed to the vast entrance, where the Chimera's were parked. "Imperial Guard, and they have casualties."

... ... ... ...

Chaos gripped the tunnels. The walls flashed crimson and magenta as the Guardsmen battled the shadows themselves.

"Pour it on!" Mitchell bellowed as he ripped the empty cell from his rifle with a single hand, his other arm weakly lying on his lap with beads of blood dripping down it. An autogun round had punched through his flak armour and into his shoulder. The Veteran Sergeant kneeled beside the second squad leader, her own lasgun snapping at the half-lit figures at the mouth of the main mine tunnel. Out from the entrance came a torrent of las bolts and stubber rounds, filling the hall with strobe beams and thundering, raucous cacophony of conflicting fire.

"David!" Mitchell yelled with his voice hoarse from shouting too much already. "Put a base of fire of the left entrance, Kelly, support." As the two troopers whooped their affirmation, Mitchell looked for a second to the Veteran Sergeant, Jessie. Her face was set in a grim resolve, the lasgun kicking into her shoulder every other instant. Her eyes tensely locked to the sight of her weapon.

The Lieutenant stepped forward with his own lasgun tucked into his armpit, his mouth barking noise and orders but amid the chaos his words were lost to the roar of the guns.

Desolta fell backwards as a stubber round kicked the wind from his lungs, the kinetic force hitting him while the bullet was stopped by the flak armour. He bite back a curse as he brought himself up to his knee. Desolta brought his lasgun quickly, unleashing a flurry of crimson bolts into the side passage he was watching. The spears of red punctured into the figure hidden in the half-light of stubber fire. A muffled cry emanated from the smaller tunnel while Desolta threw himself around the steel edge as Kravan pushed himself against the stone-wall opposite, a frag grenade in his hand and a weary grin on his already grime and dust dirtied face.

'On two' Kravan signalled as per their training. Desolta nodded, bringing his lasgun up ready. The two troopers nodded together, mentally counting. On two the two guardsmen moved.

Desolta whipped his head and weapon around the corner, sharp, quick and presenting a smaller target. Immediately he saw the grisly remains of the previous shot, the half-lit figure was slumped against one of the grey walls with a gory splatter of deep red seeping down the craggy ridges and the fine detailing of nature.

However, in the dead man's place, stood another two figures. One enshrouded in the darkness, known only by the backlight of the hall lamps. A hideous figure of monstrous proportions, whether by the cast light or the quick, half-instant glance of Desolta, either way, his reaction was the same. The other was rearing over the dead comrade, the dark robes hid the gender of the wearer but the swirling markings and large bore combat shotgun in their hands.

"Mutant!" Desolta shouted, the report from earlier still raw in his memory. He pulsed the laser rifle in his hands, sending a hail of badly-aimed shots into the walls, the ceiling, the floor and slightly disturbing the robes of the shotgun wielder.

The primitive weapon was brought around as Desolta ducked away, Kravan span in an instant later. "Fire in the hole!" He roared as he whipped his arm around, throwing the dark green cylinder into the tight tunnel.

Desolta yelped as part of the stone beside him shattered into shrapnel and dust. The trooper ducked away instinctively as the razor sharp fingers of rock brushed his cheek. He cursed loudly as he tried to immediately zero in on the shooter. Tracers danced through the air. As Desolta ducked down the words of the drill sergeant echoed in his head when he watched the flickering rounds fly over head. 'Only fools think every bullet is a tracer, for every round you see, there is almost three other bullets you can't see'. Desolta moved quickly to knocked-over mine cart as he tried to find the shooter amid the utter chaos of the firefight, the report of dozens of firearms deafened his ears in the confined space. The detonation of the frag grenade an instant later overrode all of that for Desolta. The thunderous boom shook a fresh layer of rocky dust and shards from the walls and roof, showering the guardsmen – whether they noticed is disputable.

Jacob gritted his teeth hard as he dropped behind the soft cover of another mine cart, he'd spent two whole clips already, though he was pretty sure he had only hit stone and metal most of the time. The bastards were smart, keeping to the half-light or total darkness if they could. He quickly wiped a small waterfall of sweat from his brow as he quickly ran his mind over all his options.

"Vox!" Jacob shouted to his dedicated operator as he looked around, Jessie and Mitchell were on the opposite side of the tracks and in intense fighting. The second sergeant looked wounded but still fighting.

Colath, the Command Squad Vox-operator darted over, moving in a crouched run, from his position near a stack of carts. In a single motion he pulled the small black vox-horn from his webbing and handed it to the lieutenant.

"Charlie-Three-Five, this is Charlie Three Actual." The Lieutenant half-barked into it as his eyes flickered around, trying to make sense of everything in an instant.

"Three-Five here, ready for traffic." The Sergeant on the other end seemed disturbingly calm considering the firefight around the Lieutenant, indicating that his squad was not engaged.

"Where are you?" Jacob asked, bringing up a mental map of the tunnels.

"Currently moving through one of the chewed tunnels sir, we can hear something – deep notes."

"That'll be us, we are engaged with unknown – presumed ganger and mutant forces." Jacob mentally groaned, they were nowhere near.

"Roger that." The sergeant sounded surprised through the hiss of the vox.

"Sergeant, can you backtrack to ASR Rhino and vector to Point Omicron?" Jacob used the technical names for the tunnel path fifth squad had taken and the meeting area.

A moment passed in which the sergeant was silent. As Jacob desperately listened for the replay, a cry came out to the forward of the mine entrance. Jacob turned his head sharply to see one of the armoured fist troopers falling, most of his lower half ripped away by gunfire – spreading offal and a deep red smear across the ground. The fire walked up his chest – blowing out the left side, spraying the mechanized sergeant next to him with splatter and chucks of organs. The sergeant in question responded with a long burst of fire into one of the smaller entrances.

"Sergeant." Jacob hissed into his vox, the reply from the Fifth Sergeant not coming swiftly enough.

"Sorry sir, just lost my rearguard – Marty double back see if the bastard got lost – sir we are oscar mike, unknown time for arrival." And with that the vox clicked off, the lieutenant hearing all he needed to hear.

"Three-Actual to Charlie-Three-One." Jacob voxed Germaine. "Come in dammit!" he hastily added.

"Three-One here, we are engaged, unknown hostiles." The woman quickly responded.

"Dammit, so are we, what is your current position?" The lieutenant sighed heavily. The Vox operator beside him popped up over the makeshift parapet to utilise his lasgun, it barked loudly in the ears of the platoon commander as he tried to hear the response.

"Roger that." Jacob nodded as the First Squad gave a rough estimation as to their location, on ASR Furlong, about thirty metres above them in a sorting area, equally pinned by enemy fire. "Sergeant, make best speed to MSR Delta, disengage and withdraw, platoon must regroup, how copy?"

"Solid Copy Lieutenant, First Squad is en route." The sergeant sounded off in a hurried tone.

"Sir!" Mitchell shouted across the flashing hall to the officer. Jacob turned his head to look the sergeant in the eye. "We're trapped in a killbox here! I got two men down, one is whacked."

Jacob cursed under his breath, the sergeant was right. Still gripping the vox horn the Lieutenant started to turn it on as he shouted over to the Sergeant, "Standby sergeant." Mitchell nodded sharply as Jacob clicked on the vox. "Charlie-Three-Actual to all Charlie-Three foot mobiles, sound off."

The Lieutenant listened hard as the two other sergeants reported, the sound of lasgun and stubber fire making them hard to hear, but the responses were grim. The other two squads were engaged with at least one gunner in the twisting tunnels and Fourth Squad already had three men down, some spectre picking them off one by one.

Again the platoon commander swore. "All squads, hostiles have engaged in force, all Charlie—Three foot mobiles are to withdraw by fire down MSR Terra and ASR Furlong to Rally Point Epsilon. How copy all squads?"

"Wilco!" Mitchell shouted from his position a few feet away. "Second Squad! Withdraw, Kelly, get Mercion up and moving, Desolta! Find me a path out ASAP!" The Sergeant shouted to his troopers. The soldiers for their part seemed all too eager to disengage. The Flamer operator beside the sergeant immediately started to move backwards, his pistol barking with each step.

The mechanized sergeant slid back beside the lieutenant, his face splattered with the dark red remains of his squadmate. "You retreating?" He asked incredulously, "You've got more guys then us, break the hell through."

"Divide and conquer, simplest trick in the book, they hit all my squads at once, unless you can drive a chimera down here, in which case be my guest." The lieutenant remarked breathlessly. "We fall back and push through with a proper force."

The Armoured Fist sergeant growled his disapproval but was powerless to stop Jacob. "Roger that."

"Push push push! Get out of the killzone!" Mitchell barked to the troopers up ahead as he shouldered his way up the tunnel with the vox-operator behind him and the Lieutenant behind them.

"Roger that!" Kravan shouted back as his ears were assailed by the rapid lightning-esque cracks of the Desolta's lasgun as he poured fire down one of the adjoining tunnels.

"Frak them! Just move!" Kravan shouted into the ear of his friend, letting loose a burst as he did.

What was once a slow, methodical march down these tunnels became a mad dash out, Desolta was sure he had cut open his fatigues and was openly bleeding in his hurry to escape, the squad pushing up behind him meaning that the few instances he was forced to stop, to remember the path or empty a clip into a side passage filled with gangers and mutants, where short indeed.

As he dropped the empty cell unceremoniously and slapped home another, confident in the fact that he had either killed or driven them away, he turned and began the mad dash once again, slamming into the next corner as he did. He felt his already abused shoulder scream out as he did but he fought through the pain.

The walls and lights became blurs as Desolta pushed forward, his eyes tearing from the pain from his shoulder, his lungs drawing more breath then they had in years, but still he ran.

"Charlie Three Five, what's your status?" Jacob shouted into the vox horn, the operator running not a foot behind him, bumping into him every few metres.

All the Lieutenant got was the crackle of static.

"Three-Five, what's your status over!" He shouted again as he followed Mitchell up the twisting path.

"The sarge is gone!" The vox shouted back. "We're trapped, massive casualties." The trooper on the other end half-screamed in panic.

"What?" Jacob questioned the alarming news.

"They just came at us, first Carl, then Marty – oh sweet Emperor, Marty." The trooper lamented openly.

"Trooper! Calm down." Jacob hissed, his own nerves on edge and his mind racing in sheer panic.

"We're trapped, they cut us off but they're not advancing. We're trapped. We can't push through; they killed the sarge in a second when he tried." The trooper sounded like he was sobbing. "What do we do, we're trapped and we can hear them."

"Stay cool trooper, you are an Imperial Guardsmen. Do you still have your lasgun?" Jacob hurriedly tried to reassure the trooper, even as he himself was moving as quickly as he could away from the foe that chased them.

While the Lieutenant tried desperately to keep the soldier together, Private Ferris was at the rear, half-walking, half-trotting backwards, the sweat thick on his brow and the lasgun heavy in his grip.

Ferris gritted his teeth as he clamped his finger on the weapon in his grip. The discharge of the lasers turned the dark tunnel red. The crimson bolts were badly aimed; striking stone and rock more than the dark figures that lurked just out of the light. The stubber rounds were few and far between yet they were definitely better aimed then the guardsmen. The guardsmen already sported a deep crease across his cheek; the blood ran freely down his face, he also had another stubber round lodged deep in his left forearm. The arm felt ten times larger, numb and throbbing, Ferris merely bit down on his helmet's chinstrap. He unleashed another burst as the elusive foe. It was like they're waiting for something Ferris thought between instinctual actions.

Ferris backed straight into a rocky wall, yelping as his bloody arm bashed into the wall.

"Ahh frak!" he cried out, tears filled his eyes and his guard dropped for an instant. His face was covered rock-dust as a stubber round punched into the rock beside his head. A shard of rock cut across Ferris' temple, sending another intense stab of pain through the guardsmen. A fresh bead of bright red liquid down the side other side of the guardsmen's face, some seeping into his already tear-filled eye.

In a fit of desperation, Ferris raised his rifle and let loose a burst blind. He tried to move, which caused him to aggravate the wound, sending him stumbling to the ground. Ferris rammed his right shoulder into the rock to stabilise himself. He breathed ragged breaths. He let go of the trigger-grip with his right hand in order to help himself up, staggering up the rocking corridor. Agony racked the arm of the guardsmen as he pulled himself away from the danger.

As he made the second step, his left leg went numb, and a racing pain shook the trooper for a second. Moving the limb became a true effort as he tried to walk away. The momentum of his body didn't match the movements of his wounded leg, causing there to be no support for him when he pushed forward, causing him to fall uselessly to the ground. His throat gave voice to another cry of pain and agony.

Uselessly he tried to pull himself forward with his right arm, slamming against the floor and trying to gain a hold on the dirt, the weight of his gear made such an escape impossible and all he did was rake dirt as he broke down crying.

"Frak..." He breathed as he pulled uselessly on the ground. He could hear the echoing footsteps come like thunder up the rock-hallway toward him. He coughed another curse as he tried desperately to grip his rifle, faltering as his own body weight lay atop the weapon.

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Ferris cursed as he tried to struggle to his knees. The pain in his leg burned white-hot in his mind.

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

He coughed a wad of blood up; he spat it out as he stumbled forward again as his wounded leg gave way again.

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

He shouldered forward, aiding with his good leg kicking against the ground. His mind raced with a million different feelings at once.

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

They were right on him. He cursed again as he tried to move again before collapsing, his breaths were short and shallow.

He closed his eyes, his lips moving in silent prayer.

His ears, up still now were pre-occupied with the sound of his own heartbeat and the noise of the encroaching foe, were filled with the glorious noise, a perfect sound, to the wounded Ferris, it was the choir of angels. The crack of a lasgun on full automatic.

"On your feet trooper." Jacob growled as he kneeled beside the wounded soldier. Gripping the soldier by his fatigues and yanking him to his feet. "Jessie! Suppress!" He shouted to the Veteran Sergeant as she stood beside him, her weapon blazing away into the shadows.

"Roger that Lieutenant." Veteran Sergeant Cameron returned between bursts of las-fire and screams from her robed targets as they scattered into the multitude of alcoves and deep pools of shadows.

Jacob pulled Ferris' right arm over his shoulder and started to pull the wounded trooper up the tunnel. "Come on soldier, left follows right follows left." Jacob recited the adage the drill sergeant used to get the recruits marching.

"'Up... in... the...mornin''" Ferris replied weakly, as he struggled to keep hold of his lasgun.

"To the rising' sun," Jacob smiled as he continued the cadence. As Ferris struggled with his lasgun, Jacob reached over and pulled the weapon from the trooper's weak grip, slinging it over his own shoulder beside his own rifle. "Gonna' run all day 'till the running's done." He continued the marching chant.

The two moved foot by agonizing foot. Ferris was bleeding bad, already the Lieutenant's flak armour and fatigues were started to feel wet and warm as he hauled the soldier up the tight corridors.

The Veteran Sergeant was close behind the two, loosing tight bursts of fire into the shadowy figures that darted between the rocky alcoves, all the while keeping in step with the officer and wounded soldier.

"Almost there." Jacob reassured Ferris as he stumbled again, Ferris cast a gob full of phlegm and blood as he did. Jacob pulled him forward hard, just to keep Ferris going. "Come on Ferris, you can have a day off after this, I promise.

The Lieutenant guided the private through the tight turns, Jacob's own breathing heavy as he pulled the trooper forward. The act of helping hid the cold chill that ran up and down his spine like it was trying to do a marathon. He could hear the stubbers and autoguns barking behind him in between the report of the lasgun.

The Lieutenant turned a sharp corner, accidently bumping Ferris into the rock, who issued a cry of pain as his bloodied arm scrapped against the jagged stone. "Suck it up." Jacob hissed as he negotiated the difficult ground.

SCREEEEE!

"What the frak was that?" Desolta cursed as the inhuman scream seemingly reverberated off every stone and pebble. Stopping mid-step to look over his shoulder as he heard the call.

"I don't wanna' find out." Kravan hurriedly said to the pointman. "Go man go!"

Desolta did just that, he turned back and once again began to run. He burst out of the smaller ASR and onto the wider, better lit MSR Terra. Unlike the miner's tunnels, this area was paved with steel and lit with proper luminators, though most of them were either blown out, shot out or flickering on the edge of the first.

Desolta turned to face down into the long tunnel, his lasgun raised and his lug-mounted luminator lit. "Clear left!" He shouted.

Kraven darted out the tunnel an instant after him, he followed a similar action, only in reverse, "Right clear."

Mitchell came out strong, his lasgun held ready. The squad followed out sans Ferris, Soran and Razler of course. They fanned out as per their training. The men kneeled with their weapons levelled, their eyes watchful.

Mitchell looked at the tunnel entrance; he had heard the gunfire and the calls of pain. But he had barely noticed the lack of the lieutenant's voice in his own frantic attempt to get away. The sergeant took a moment to quickly wipe the pervasive layer of sweat from his brow as he watched the entrance.

His vox-operator stood nearby, the horn still blaring with the various reports of the squads of the platoon. It was chaos. The vox transmitted the reports of autoguns and lasguns more than voices now. Desperate calls for help the Lieutenant was unable to answer.

"Covus." Mitchell hissed over his shoulder. The flamer wielding soldier stepped forward, his weapon still off.

The trooper grunted something as he drew up to the sergeant in the half-light of the wider tunnel.

"You got a tank full yeah?" Mitchell asked hopefully, his eyes still locked on the darkness of the tunnel where he expected the lieutenant to come from.

"Yeah." The flamethrower operator nodded dutifully.

"Spark up." Mitchell ordered.

With a hiss and then a quiet roar, the flamer came to life; the nib at the end of the 'thrower' the soldier carried flickered bright orange and yellow. "When in doubt." Covus chuckled in his husky tone. "Burn 'em out."

"Oh good." Desolta grumbled as he heard the dull roar.

SKRAAAA!

"Oh crap." Marth, the man beside Desolta breathed.

"Stay steady." Desolta hissed to him, covering for his own feelings. "Remember, we got the better guns."

Marth chuckled nervously as the noise echoed up and down the tunnel.

Arnold looked less than impressed, kneeling as he was by the far tighter tunnel opposite to the tunnel they had entered through, his eyes staring into the blackness. He could swear he could see something moving.

"Stay frosty." Mitchell hissed to his squadmates as the noise bounced from wall to wall up the main corridor.

"Desolta, slow walk up." He added as he looked down the tunnel the Lieutenant was supposed to be following through. He could hear the echoing report of the lasgun but couldn't see the flashes.

Desolta was silent, but heard the order. He stood slowly, his weapon still trained down the long corridor. He turned swiftly and stepped forward. He treaded up the incline slowly; his eye hovered behind the sight of his rifle.

As the guardsmen pulled away, Mitchell grumbled slightly. "Kravan, slow walk up."

"Affirmative." The trooper noted by rote and stood, watching the darkness for a moment before turning and following his friend at a distance of three metres – Imperial Guard standard patrol walk distance.

"Charlie Three, Charlie Three, this is Charlie Three Two Actual." Mitchell tapped his vox stalk on. Though each fireteam leader, sergeant and lieutenant had one, they were ultimately short ranged and useless for contacting one of the other squads through the solid rock.

The vox hissed and spluttered before he heard the voice on the other end.

"Charlie Three Actual, send traffic." Jacob sounded hurried and tired. Even through the vox Mitchell could hear the bark of autoguns and the Veteran Sergeant's lasgun.

"Interrogative, we are held up here on MSR Terra. Where are you?"

"Standby, we are on our way." The Lieutenant responded and the Sergeant had to agree as the vox went quiet.

"Standby to move." Mitchell hissed to his squad as he shouldered his own rifle.

Silence fell, the inhuman screech seemed to dull and the las-fire seemed to go away.

It felt as if the air itself was trying to crush them. A heavy tension fell over the troopers. The silence was damning, Mitchell could hear the short, hard breaths of the soldiers. The footsteps of the two guardsmen rapped against the walls. Without looking, Mitchell wouldn't be able to tell where they were, the noises to chaotic to discern anything save the noise itself.

The troopers were less then calm themselves. Their eyes strained in the failing light, their rifles swaying to each side in a vain attempt to track the shadows as they flickered endlessly. Each sliver of steel, every sparkle of stone, any and everything drew the sharp-eyed attention of the guardsmen as each second passed painfully slow, like staring into the headlights of an oncoming ground-car.

Mitchell himself felt like his heart was trying desperately to burst from his chest. His mouth was dry and his eyes were jittery, even more then his soldiers. His twenty-one year old mind was racing, one part of him was shouting at him that he had forgot some basic thing about squad deployment but thankfully withholding what, another was desperately worried that his weapon was empty or faulty or would fail in the moment of need – despite the fact he knew it was fully loaded and well maintained. A tiny, insignificant voice hidden under a layer of drill sergeant-forced mental grooming was a meek prayer to the Emperor that He would return Mitchell to the welcoming arms of his sweetheart, a logistics guardsman within the Regiment's Headquarters and Service Company, the immense organisation behind the Colonel and Major.

Mitchell hissed another confidence booster to his troopers, though he didn't feel it himself.

"Possible movement, front!" One of the troopers called out. This caused the sergeant and the rest of the squad to snap forward. "Shadowed, sixty metres!"

The troopers watched desperately for a few moments. Each pair of eyes staring for any sight of the enemy. Six barrels twitched nervously from flicker of silver to speck of paint.

"Sixty metres?" Marth hissed to the reporting guardsmen, Karrie.

"Yeah." She hissed back, her eyes wide and her rifle tight into her shoulder, her finger tense of the trigger.

Marth cursed, "We can't see further than twenty with these frakking lights. They're useless."

"It was there." Karrie insisted. "The lights flicker you idiot."

Marth chuckled nervously unexpectedly. "It dips you up-hiver-no-brainer, we physically can't see past twenty five."

Karrie joined the private in the sudden crack of atmosphere. "I swear."

"Shut it!" Mitchell barked. "Flickering lights, you can't tell distance right, metal ceilings and floor – reflection, frakking it up even more."

"Wait." Marth stopped chuckling with some effort. "If...if...if Karrie, the up-hiver that she is."

"I lived on the same level as you!" Karrie retorted. "The same frakking block!"

"Yeah, well if she got it wrong." Marth continued. "Wouldn't they be twenty five metres away instead of sixty?"

Immediately the atmosphere whiplashed deeper into tension, the banter between Karrie and Marth evaporated.

"Karrie." Arnold whispered from his position by another tunnel entrance, looking nervously over his shoulder. "What did the hostile look like?"

"I only saw it in shadow." Karrie hissed back.

"Great." Arnold growled as he shone his luminator uselessly down the seemingly endless pit of blackness before him.

Every instant of seemingly inactive silence served only to ratchet up the tension. Mitchell himself almost wasted a falling dust mite when it dropped his field of vision. He swallowed hard and returned straining his eyes as he awaited the command squad.

A small voice crackled through the vox. "Sergeant." It was a weak and almost inaudible, the crackle ripping away the upper and lower frequencies making it difficult to hear. A symptom of the thick rock in the mines.

Immediately Mitchell pressed his finger into his ear to hear the weak signal. "Mitchell here." The sergeant tried to reply, unsure of his own voice was getting through.

"W- H-av- f—u-nd the se-m e-t-era-ne d—r." The message broke up horribly.

"You are weak and unreadable, standby." Though he couldn't hear the individual words, he knew from months spent cooped up with him that it was Desolta. Mitchell quickly gestured for the proper vox horn, the far more powerful version of the short-range transmitter on his belt. As he gripped the firm black plasteel he gave the frequency to the operator who dutifully programmed the set. "Sorry guys, prep' for feedback." Mitchell noted to the squad. The side effect of running the squad comms through the main vox would be that undoubtedly they would pick it up. "Desolta." He spoke into the vox-horn, his own vox-bead activating as he spoke. "Say again."

"Sergeant, we are – you sure? Ok – we are estimate-fifty metres from squad position. We have found the main seam entrance." Desolta reported quickly. His voice now clear and understandable – at least compared to its previous version.

"Roger that." Mitchell replied with a wistful glance up the grated path. "Can you open it?" He asked with a hint of hope in his voice.

"Err, standby sergeant. – Hey, can you see a console over there? Shwibby. – Sergeant, yeah, we got a access console over here. Should we open?" Desolta consulted with Kravan before returning to the vox properly.

"That is an affirmative, open it up and standby." Mitchell clicked the vox off as the point man sounded off.

"Finally, let's get the frak out of here." Marth said openly having heard the entirety of the conversation.

"Hold your frak together private, we've got to hold this stretch for the lieutenant and his command squad." Corporal Torson half-barked, the private shut up quickly.

All through the MSR a tremendous roar echoed, wiping out all other sound in a tidal wave of noise, washing out even the nerve shredding animalistic cries in the darkness and the thrum of autoguns. The walls shook and the floor shuddered, dust cascaded down like thick rain over the troopers and pretty much every think else.

"What the frak!" One of the troopers shouted though no one heard them.

As every calmed and the natural order was restored, the soldiers looked around frantically unsure of what happened.

"Sergeant – we've opened the door." Kravan voxed in, his voice somewhat happy. "We've also linked up with the Chimeras."

"Frakking A" Sergeant Mitchell half-laughed. "Good to hear, standby on overwatch."

The private sounded off his acknowledgment as Mitchell turned back to the squad, but before he could complete the rotation, another noise dragged his attention away.

"Sergeant!" A call cut across the air and the vox. The sergeant could almost see the ripple in the tension as the troopers heard the calls and the crack of a lasgun behinds it.

"Lieutenant!" Mitchell twisted toward the deep dark gaping hole in the otherwise steely corridor.

The voice of the Lieutenant was quick and near breathless. "Multiple friendlies pulling up the rear."

"Roger that." Mitchell launched a flurry of hand signals to a pair of troopers as he heard the dull footsteps approach through the side tunnels.

"Friendly. Hold fire!" A voice barked from the tunnel. The guardsmen from second squad didn't exactly back down however. A fatigued figure shuffled his way through the tight rocky opening. He stepped out into the twilight of the main hallway. The trooper nodded quickly to the fellow soldier before spinning on his heel to stare back into the tunnel.

Colath squeezed through afterwards, his rather large master-vox kit being a bit of a bother in the tight paths. The other command squad trooper reached forward, allowing his rifle to hang by it sling as he gripped a handful of fatigue and yanked hard.

"Hey! Hey! Watch the threads man." Colath chuckled loudly as he fell forwards out of the tunnel. "Frak man, you know how much these things cost?"

"Nothing?" Derringer grinned.

"Oh yeah." The vox operator laughed out loud.

With that the cheerful atmosphere dissipated instantly as the two unslung their rifles. While Derringer remained by the tunnel, Colath turned and kneeled, facing the deep, dark mine with his lasgun raised.

As the third command squad guardsmen barrelled through the tunnel, huffing and cursing alternatively with breath. His grenade launcher hung heavily in his grip as he fell to his knees, sucking in vast gulps of acrid, humid and foul tasting air. The copper tang of spilt blood stung at the guardsmen's noses.

"Frak me." The guardsmen belted out as he staggered to his feet.

"Yeah, frak you, now stand a post!" Derringer shouted to his teammate as the dull crack of lasgun fire drove closer.

SKRAAGRAAH

Marth sighed openly as the shadows themselves began to shiver and scream. "Oh that's not good."

"Movement! Twenty-five ahead!" Karrie shouted out as she tucked her lasgun harder into her shoulder.

"Contact! Rear!" Another guardsmen bellowed before his voice was replaced with las-fire.

Arnold whipped his head around, fear gripping his throat as he stared at what looked to be literal moving shadows. His eyes darted to the faces of his friends as they turned also, their weapons levelled and mouths giving voices to calls of movement.

He twisted back around, his weapon high as he heard a near-silent hiss. He stared wide eyed and a stalled cry in his throat. The rifle shivered with the private holding it. A bolt of crimson energy stabbed out, illuminating a set of razor sharp teeth. A yelp escaped the parched mouth as he glanced those sickly glistening daggers.

As he corrected his aim in a millisecond, his lasgun disappeared from his grip, ripped away by inhuman strength. He tried to yelp once again as his vision followed.

"Arnold!" Covus shouted out as he turned, the flickering, roaring flamethrower held out strong. Turning as he heard the blood-chilling cry. In the lasgun-assisted magenta chaos of lights, all the special-weapon soldier could see was a flailing body, held in the air by some seemingly invisible force. To his credit, Arnold seemed to be desperately trying to grab at the knife on his left thigh.

Covus half-roared as he brought the incinerator about, he tensed his finger on the trigger that would launch a violent stream of burning promethium into the tunnel – only the thought of the man who shared iho-sticks with him for five months being in the way of that gush of fiery death.

As his conflicted feelings hesitated his trigger finger. The squad opened up properly, unleashing a blistering hail of las bolts down into the dark mine. The world became a cacophony of lightning-like cracks and the beats of autogun fire. The walls were bathed in crimson and it felt as if the floor was pulsing with the seemingly unrelenting firepower.

Mitchell barked a sharp and concise order as he stepped forward to the line of the guardsmen, his rifle also pulsing burst after long burst of laser fire. Covus couldn't hear him. As he fought his own reservation, a strong grip took hold of his collar.

Covus tried to turn around, to see if Desolta and Kravan had returned to join the fight once again; instead he was thrust backwards, thrown to the ground sharply. The full tanks clanging loudly and his back feeling the contours of the harness as the wind left his lungs.

As his vision swam back, Covus was confronted with a visage of death. A hideous monster, a gaping maw of red-highlighted teeth and burning black eyes hovered over his. Fear made flesh, nightmares made real; death incarnate loomed large in the guardsmen's eyes. All he saw were those eyes, tight, powerful, unforgiving and pitiless. They burnt right into Covus, he felt his soul jerk and retreat in sheer terror. As globs of spittle splattered seemingly serenely like summer rain onto the dirtied face of the guardsman, Covus screamed, and in a spasm of unbridled terror, his muscles reacted. A Gout of flame danced out magnificently from the weapon, illuminating the beast's unholy features even more. The foul monstrosity seemed to cry out as the fire danced on the fringes of its beastly, elongated skull. It twisted it visage to the fire, as if surprised by the column of burning promethium.

The monster's numbing gripped loosened, if only slightly, and with his first cognisant thought, Covus wrenched madly, pulling himself away from that dreadful embrace. He rolled sideways to his knees. With the second thought, he pushed himself backwards, up, bringing the flamer with him.

This time his roar was near whimper as he pulled the trigger again, ushering forth another blazing arc of fuel. As the fire crashed like spilt water against the far steel wall, he saw the beast was no longer there, vanished, like a shadow banished by the first glimmer of light. Covus whipped his head from side to side, trying to track the monster. It was gone. Covus stared up and for the first time he noticed the shredded grates in the ceiling.

"Ventilation ducts." He whispered, his throat sore.

"Sergeant!" The tiny vox bead screamed in Mitchell's ear. Jacob, the lieutenant.

Mitchell replied in a flurry on grunts and half-yelps as he raked the shadowy things in front of him with laser fire. The roar of the flamer barely registering in his mind.

"Emerging!"

Jacob pushed his way through the tight entrance, Ferris still holding on for dear life. He came to see the vista of second squad engaging their ever elusive foe.

Jessie was a single step behind, her own lasgun barking incessantly. "Markson, one round, frag, cover on tunnel." She ordered quickly as soon as she was free of the tunnels embrace.

The command squad special weapon wielder turned with drill trained precision, his issued weapon rising as he did. With a dull [i]bump[i] it released its deadly cargo. The small oval projectile passed the Veteran Sergeant, clearing her by a good twenty inches over her right shoulder into the once again dark tunnel. "Fire in the hole!" He bellowed as he did.

Jacob threw himself away from the tunnel entrance as he heard, Jessie following his example.

The detonation thundered over the roar of the lasguns for an instant and the tunnel entrance vomited a torrent of light and shrapnel. The fragments thankfully pattered against the flak armour of Marth, who didn't react to the grenadier's warnings with haste, though the concussive wave that pushed through an instant before threw him sideways.

Jacob pulled the whimpering Ferris up, the blood of the wounded guardsman now flowing freely down both of them. Jacob now sporting a rather nasty gash on his forehead where he had miss-stepped a turn and rammed his face into the jagged rock. Though Ferris, other than the quiet whimpers, said nothing, Jacob was sure he had just wrenched the poor man's arm out with that little stunt.

Jessie stepped up to the impromptu line with her lasgun by her hip, spiting fire into the deep pools of shadow. A wisp of golden blonde hair escaped her helmet and hung by her face. The weapon kicked and rocked in her grip as she aided the soldiers beside her.

Jacob barked uselessly toward the sergeant, his words lost in the seemingly never ending tirade of gunfire. Thankfully Mitchell was turning at the time and saw the mouth of the officer move in the crimson half-light.

The sergeant disengaged from the fight momentarily to move toward the officer. Uselessly again the lieutenant tried to shout his orders but to no avail.

The sergeant rammed his head, ear first toward the officer in an attempt to hear him.

"Breakout to the rear, fall back to Chimeras." Jacob shouted into the sergeant's ear not five inches away.

Mitchell nodded enthusiastically as he tapped the comm-bead in his ear.

"Fall back to the entrance, move!." He bellowed to his troopers.

The guardsmen responded by acting. The second fireteam – the two soldiers covering the rear – stood, still firing and began to push, aided by the command squad troopers. Jacob still helping Ferris up the steadily increasing incline.

"Frakking A" Marth shouted out as he stood. "I thought this order would never come."

Covus stood, looking at the vent above him as the sergeant moved past him, followed by the lieutenant and the veteran sergeant.

Marth half-hopped half-trotted backwards past the flamer operator, his lasgun barking with each step. The private looked to the flamer operator with a confused look.

The eyes, all Covus could think about were those eyes, staring at him as he stared back. His heart was in overdrive as he thought of those unholy slits of vision. Deep, endless, terrifying, perfect.

"Covus! Trooper! We are leaving!" Marth yelled at the entranced soldier.

Covus snapped his head to Marth as if he didn't realise where he was for a moment or didn't recognize the voice of his squadmate. Then it all came flooding back. The situation seemed evident to the soldier with a few quick glances around. He nodded.

Covus began to walk backwards slowly, levelling the nozzle of his weapon as he did so. Those eyes still staring in his mind.

The burning fear in his heart was made real with a single pull of the trigger. The quiet pilot light became a near-deafening roar. The sharp crimson laser-lit light was replaced with a blazing orange glow.

The troopers retreated behind the wall of fire. Each fireteam running a few feet before turning and bringing their rifle to bear of the ever-flickering shadows, those that seemed all too solid or glistened with steely weapons.

"Where are these guys coming out from!" Karrie yelled as she ran up the hall, sucking deep gulps of air as she stumbled slightly. Each alcove carved into the jagged rock now seemed to hold a threat hidden in blackness.

"I dunno'" Marth gasped as he crossed beside her. "The walls?" He seemingly chuckled for a moment until a stray stubber round passed by his head. "Frak!" He called out as he threw himself to the ground as the round zipped past his ear. Karrie on the other hand span one-eighty degrees and unloaded a dozen bolts of energy toward the source of the tracers. "Thank frak." Marth spluttered as he scrambled to his feet. "I'll buy ya' a amasec when we get out of all this." Marth smiled slyly to the fellow soldier.

Karrie gripped the arm of the fallen soldier, hauling him up. "I don't know, gotta do my hair, all dirty." She replied completely deadpan. She pushed Marth's rifle back into his chest.

Marth took the gun and turned, blasting his own burst as he jogged up the incline. "Playing hard to get again eh?" He said quickly as he turned again and began to pound up the steel path.

"Hard to get?" Karrie huffed as she kept pace with Marth. The whoosh of the flamethrower close behind the two as they tried desperately to escape the encroaching shadows, completely oblivious to the visage of death that loomed large in the mind of their squadmate, desperately trying to follow orders out of the mine. The two laughed out as the adrenaline ran thick in their veins, they weren't hitting anything with their lasguns, though that didn't stop them from trying.

The two turned as one, bringing their gun to bear as they passed the Lieutenant and Ferris, and fired. The two raked laser bolts through the wall of fire that Covus laid down thick as he howled.

"Fall back! Fall back" Mitchell shouted as he trod backwards, gesturing wildly with one arm whilst the other held his lasgun. "Move it." He bellowed as he gripped the corporal's arm and threw them further up. The Veteran Sergeant was beside him, pulsing single shots at those flickers of silver and stamped steel she saw through the wisps of fire and pulsing red light. Her breath even more hurried than before, the tang-tainted air stung her nose but her mind forced her nose through it.

"Come on Ferris." Jacob hissed, blinking the drips of blood from his eyes, "Almost there." as he pulled the crippled soldier toward the seam entrance.

"Ugghh" Ferris groaned, his bloodied, broken, shot leg dragging behind him as he tried to limp away from the chasing heat and darkness.

Corporal Torson was ahead, leading the squad up to the mine entrance. Each step was laboured as his lungs failed to pull enough air, a sharp pain stabbed into his side as he gritted his teeth and push onwards. The lasgun was heavy in his grip; it felt as if he was carrying a white-hot iron bar. Tears blurred his vision as he blundered forward. His throat was dry and it ushered cracked, panicked cries.

A flash of motion and the blurred vision turned black.

AHHHGGGUHHH

Marth wrenched his head around to the noise, an ear-splitting, blood chilling stab of pain delivered via sound. The call was a pained, deathly cry. Marth turned to see the point man, Torson suspended from the ground by some shadowed force.

"Holy Emperor-loving frak." Marth whispered in a hush tone.

Jacob looked on in confusion as the soldier was lifted up toward the ceiling, Torson's lasgun clattered to the ground uselessly.

Karrie lifted her rifle toward Torson, yelling a warning to the trooper. She tried to sidestep around but the thrashing guardsman blocked her aim. "What the hell is it?" Karrie shouted to Jacob who stood in amazement.

Torson tried to scream as he thrashed, he madly punched the armoured carapace of the beast. It hissed and snarled in return as it sank those razor-like teeth into the soft flesh of the guardsman, biting through the flak armour with little trouble. As one set of claws gripped the soldier, a second pair tore into the trooper, stripping armour, fatigues, flesh, muscle and bone with each swipe. Blood splattered across the ground and over Karrie as she closed the distance. The crack and crunch of bone sent a gut wrenching noise through the hallway. Another swipe took Torson's jaw out, ripping the bone from the mooring and reducing the shrieking cries to bloody gargles.

"Move!" A voice bellowed. Karrie twisted her head around while not moving her rifle from the shadowed force that held the fellow trooper.

Covus barged forward, the flamethrower raised. "Move!" He shouted again. His anger burst forth as he looked to Torson, the image of Arnold and those eyes rendered raw in his mind. He would not hesitate this time. He roared as he triggered the weapon. The gout of flame mirrored his own rage, engulfing the trapped soldier in its fiery embrace.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jacob screamed, "Cease fire! Emperor-dammit!"

Covus didn't hear Jacob, only the inhuman hiss and the burning red visage filled his own vision. He held down the trigger even as the soldier fell with a thud to the ground, the beast trapped in the deadly embrace of flame. Still he poured on the burning promethium, dousing the charred, smouldering lump of burnt meat that was previously a fellow guardsman.

"Cease fire!" Mitchell cried as he sprinted forward, having heard the lieutenant. The Veteran Sergeant grabbed the carry handle of the flamer and wrenched it up, forcing Covus' hand from the trigger mechanism.

"He's dead!" Mitchell barked harshly as he reached the trooper. "And so is his attacker." He added afterwards with a glance to the smouldering black lump of carbon, easily as large as Torson, all detail removed with fire. The pressured sergeant took a quick glance around as the second fireteam laid down covering fire. "Who the frak gave you permission to stop! Move!" He ordered harshly before locking his flamer operator in a hard stare. Covus just stared back, his eyes wide and wild "We'll discuss this later" Mitchell nodded before turning to the officer.

Covus snarled as he turned again, bringing the flamer against the flowing shadows. Another billowing cloud of ignited promethium as second fireteam ran past him. Jacob grumbled something to himself as he struggled up the incline as passed Covus.

Colath and Markson sprinted beside each other as they followed their officer's orders. All semblance of a fighting retreat broken as Torson was roasted by Covus. Markson turned quickly, belted out a warning and thudded out another trio of grenades.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM

Another racket of explosions behind them as the grenadier loosed another volley, the walls shook and cracked under the repeated barrage but still he fired, laying down a rain of hate and discontent as he covered his fellow soldiers with a deadly payload of shrapnel of concussion blast upon their dogged followers. The black-robed mutant-cult-guys were cut apart by the barrage yet still they pressed on, heedless of the gore-slick walls or the relentless wave of laser fire searing past them, they pressed on, rifles, shotguns, pistols, anything they had raised and returning fire with a combat discipline the guardsmen had never seen.

As he sprinted from the deadly reports, Derringer's knee exploded, splattering the ground with deep red blood, as an autogun bullet punched cleanly through the thick fabrics of his fatigues. He yelped and cried in pain as the shin and thigh came apart, held together only by bloodied shreds of flesh. The pain was delayed; the sheer volume of adrenaline racing through his heart, muscles and mind stalled the incredible pain for an instant. Derringer was first aware of the injury as he fell to the ground, the metal walkway flying up toward him sharply, busting his nose wide open as he did. He screamed as the pain finally reached him, he desperately reached for the source and through his hands he felt where his knee ended. Probing fingers brought a new flush of agony to the young soldiers. Derringer yelped and cried out as he rolled himself onto his back and forced himself to stare at the grisly remains of his left leg.

"Frak." He breathed as he stared at the bloodied stump. His disbelief was quickly put out as another brace of stubber rounds found their mark, blowing the right side of his head apart, splattering another fresh layer of gore across the grey floors.

Jessie sprinted to her Lieutenant's side while he did his best to carry Ferris. Her once seemingly full webbing now ran thin of las-clips. She pulsed of another burst of shots into the flickering darkness – hoping against hope to suppress the multitude of hostiles that now snapped at their heels.

"Come on Ferris!" Jacob shouted to the wounded trooper as he stumbled, coughing up another wad of phlegm-lined blood. "This isn't your day off yet."

"I'm... serrry ser." Ferris slurred in return. His head was hung low by his chest, his breathing laboured and strength fading.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM

As Markson nailed out another brace of grenades, Colath kept running, the first beams of light from the underhive beginning to appear in the distance. He smiled as he saw it, almost there.

That smile became a brief laugh of exultation, from the darkness he was entering into the light, and more importantly the covering arcs of five heavily armed Chimera Armoured Personnel Carriers. He could swear he could already hear that divine sound, a firing line of heavy bolters opening up, and the equally lovely sound of a dozen whatever-they-were robed guys being reduced into fine red mist. As his mind lingered on the mental image of the robed dudes being chunked by high-calibre bolter rounds, the ground gave way beneath him.

He came to a dead stop with a huff. The ground ended suddenly, the rusty, old, abused metal floor collapsing as he trod on it. Thankfully he managed to grab onto the grating as he fell, stopping himself from falling through completely. His head was barely above the new opening in the floor. His lasgun was unfortunately lost, falling away into the dark pit below. Desperately Colath tried to scrabble his way back up but to no avail, the vox unit on his back weighed just too much, but to try and remove it would mean letting go with one hand, and he was sure he couldn't support the incredibly heavy weight with one arm. The clasps were teasingly close on his collars, he belted out a long stream of the virulent curses he knew as he tried to heave himself up. His legs flailed around uselessly, unable to gain purchase on any surface beneath him.

"Come on." He encouraged himself as he inched himself up, bit by bit he gained inch by inch, his own muscles screaming at him as he taxed the last iota of strength from them. "Come on." He bit out between clenched teeth. His mind wrenched from the images of the Chimeras to the drill sergeant stood over him in basic training, belting out curses for him to finish a similar obstacle. He had bested it then, albeit with some effort, but he would do it again.

But in basic training, he didn't feel a pressure on his ankle.

Suddenly Colath fell back, straining even harder just to hold on, like something was pulling. His entire lower leg went numb as something squeezed hard.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM

The waves of pressure didn't help Colath as he fought to hold on. A sharp pain lanced through him as something passed through the legging's fatigues and into the flesh underneath. "FRAAK" He yelped, his back arching backwards in pain and his eyes squeezing shut.

Marth skidded to a stop beside Colath as he screamed out. "Emperor damn man! Hold on!" Marth's own lasgun falling to its sling as he reached forward, gripping a fistful of fatigues.

"FRAAK!" Colath cried out again as Marth pulled, the pain this time in his left thigh.

"What up! Talk to me." Marth hissed as he struggled to pull the trooper and the vox unit. Karrie drew up beside the two, her lasgun swinging over him, trying to illuminate further into the hole.

"Sweet merciful Emperor!" She breathed as she saw what was holding into the fellow soldier.

It seemed to be made a dozen smaller interlocking plates of sickly purple and bone white. It was lithe and bony. But it was the things head, its gaping, bloodied maw, that made her do what she did next.

"Mutant!" she cried out as she fell backwards with shock, lasgun discharging as she did, spraying a wild barrage of las bolts into the pit.

The beast hissed and spat as a few of the laser singed its carapace, but still it hung on.

"Oh Emperor, what is it? Help me!" Colath pleaded as he desperately tried to hang on. He could feel it hanging into to him, gripping tightly up his hanging body as it weathered the attack. The incredibly sharp claws punctured the skin with each movement, splitting nerves and rending flesh, racking the trooper with pain.

"Hold on!" Marth shouted as he pulled with all his might, wedging his foot against a rent in the grating to try and keep the soldier above the edge. "Karrie! Shoot it!"

The Guardsman scrambled to her feet, desperately trying to bring her lasgun to bear for a clean shot. Her careful aim was disturbed by the roiling in her stomach and the shards of horror stuck into her mind. Her revulsion boiled over as her luminator caught a glimpse of the thing again.

Its maw was wide and poised against Colath's waist. It hissed menacingly as it opened it jaw, the razor-like teeth seemed to sharpen to the gaze of the luminator.

Then it struck. Colath screamed and he released his tentative grip on the metal grating. Suddenly Marth bore the entire weight of the soldier and his gear. The fatigues ripped from his grip and for an instant, Colath fell down as Marth fell backwards.

With a yell of effort, Marth rolled backwards, and as his boots felt solid floor once again, he lunged forward, hand outstretched to the quickly disappearing Colath. But to no avail.

Marth slid to halt with his head hanging over the edge, staring down into the abyss.

He could hear the howl of Colath, a blood addled cry of pain and terror.

Marth was still for a moment, his hand out, clenching at air uselessly.

Karrie, her head still swimming, gripped Marth by the shoulder. "Move soldier! You owe me an ackenberry amasec." She pulled hard as Marth seemed to stir. "Come on!"

Marth raised himself up, his response to Karrie's words were a near-silent prayer, one for the dead.

"'Actions are a soldier's prayer. Victories are his offerings.'" Karrie recounted as she thrust Marth's lasgun once again against his chest.

"Yeah." Marth offered meekly as he took the rifle.

Jacob pulled the near-death Ferris foot by slow foot. The tracer shots of a dozen barking autoguns and stubbers whipped past the two guardsmen as they moved on, only to be countered with the harsh cracks of lasguns. The Veteran Sergeant had slung her own rifle and relieved the lieutenant of his own lasgun, using its near-full power cell to fire back as she kept pace with the officer.

The weight of Ferris seemed to grow as Jacob went from helping to dragging quite quickly. The groggy murmurs drew silent as the drip of life was sapped away with each second.

As the rays of light brushed the cheeks of the officer, he turned to Ferris, ready to deliver some much-quoted inspirational saying, only to face Ferris, head low, not breathing. A telling wound indicated his end, his chest plate was twisted and malformed, it had stopped a round alright, but as it exited Ferris' chest. Deep red blood seeped from under the armour and stained the fatigues in a miserable display of gore.

Jacob held his breath for a moment as he looked at the corpse of a soldier under his command. As he let go of his arm, the body of Ferris fell simply and surely, with a dull thud as his head crashed against the floor.

Jacob stared for a moment at the lifeless body. A flurry of emotions smashed against him like a wave in the hive's water reclamation pools. This was his soldier, a member of his fifty man platoon, but he was more than that. He was a man, with friends, family and a girlfriend he regularly sent letters to. A seventeen year old boy that had been an ear to everyone for the last five months, he helped in the kitchens, helped the sergeants with their workloads and still had time to chat. Now he was gone. Snuffed out like a candle in a breeze.

Jacob felt his heart race as he took in the image. His lips curled into a scowl, he started to breath angry, hot huffs of air. The shouts of the Veteran Sergeant as she tried to get him to move seemed far away as Jacob snatched at his remaining lasgun, Ferris' lasgun, bringing it to bear in one swift movement onto the dark, almost hidden figures. The Lieutenant unleashed a burst of fury-filled laser fire. Crimson bolts stabbed out angrily into the steely walls inaccurately. One of the robed figures was caught in the barrage, ripping the flimsy fabric and penetrating the person within with pillars of red energy. The flesh underneath vaporised and flash fried in a second.

Jacob turned the rifle on another of figure in a second, loosing another burst of laser fire into the soft cover, chewing away stone, steel and flesh. As the raw energy touched the skin of the assailant, the walls were repainted a far darker shade. The officer dragged the still barking weapon across the front, the chamber stuttering as it super-heated in a few seconds. It kicked and trashed in Jacob's grip as he emptied the last of the cell into the foul mutant-cult maniacs. As the cell died, Jacob forced himself to release the trigger and with the encouragement of the Veteran Sergeant, start moving again.

Marth and Karrie were in the lead now, Covus, Markson, Marty – second squad's vox operator – and Mitchell not far behind with the Lieutenant and the Veteran Sergeant pulling up the rear. The second fireteam was summarily eliminated as Covus watched more of those beasts whip out from the ducts, alcoves, anywhere with deadly claws and a bone-chilling hiss.

Markson, jogging backwards up the incline, raised his grenade launcher, bringing it to hip against the figures shadowed in darkness below them. He growled a threat as he pulled the trigger of the weapon only to receive a soul-crushing chunk, something he had learnt meant that the weapon was either empty or jammed. "Frak, frak, frak." He hissed as returned to his full run while trying to pry open the grenade launchers casing to get at the feeding ramp to clear the blockage, he was sure it wasn't empty, he could feel the other grenades rattling around in the cylindrical magazine.

"WARNING." Belted a set of hidden vox speakers as the guardsmen continued up the ramp to freedom and Chimeras. "BIOHAZARD DETECTED IN MAIN MINE SHAFT ONE, SHAFT THREE, SECONADARY SHAFT SIX..." The vox droned on for a few moments, listing off what seemed to be every mine shaft in the entire complex.

"Frak no! Not now." Marth cried out as he heard the thunderous voice.

"Emergency Protocol Three Initiated."

"What's that?" Karrie asked allowed.

"Quarantine." Jessie shouted up to the private, her voice full of her feeling at that moment.

As if on cue an alarm wailed, droning on constantly and the lights started to flash red.

The great seam doors, the huge twenty foot solid plasteel blast doors the group was running to, started to close.

Marth could see Desolta and Kravan at the top, waving the squad up with calls and gestures. As they saw the giant doors begin to close, they freaked. Marth couldn't hear what they were saying but he saw what they did next. Desolta threw himself against one of the door, trying to hold it open futilely, the doors were designed with withstand unimaginable forces, explosions, floods, a single guardsmen wasn't going to stop it. As Desolta was pushed back by the hydraulic might if the door, Kravan began to work madly at the small console, stabbing at it with a finger and some quick-said prayers.

Each moment the guardsmen watched the only hope be closed to them, time seemed to slow to a drag, each footfall took an age to complete, each breath became a long drawn out process.

Dumm

Closed. No exit. The light that once seemed to offer so much hope was consigned them to a dark, shadowed death.

Kravan was still at the console as Marth drew up beside him. Marth looked wistfully at the door, as if praying was going to open it.

Mitchell on the other hand stood beside Kravan, looking over his shoulder. "Can you open it?"

"No sergeant." Kravan shook his head, "locked down tight."

Jacob stopped just short of the seam doors. As he looked at them, lasgun in hand with a fresh cell, a sense of finality came over him, he blinked a bead of blood from his eye as he turned again.

"Guardsmen!" He shouted, clear and true, he raised his lasgun, an action followed by the Veteran Sergeant and Covus immediately. "Hostile elements closing fast from the rear."

Jessie kneeled as she took aim, she calmed her breathing to a slow rate. She closed both eyes for a moment before reopening again, allowing all conflicting thoughts to melt away. They were trapped, no two ways about it. But she had a good half a clip left and she would be damned if she wasn't going to use it.

Marth laughed out of sheer nervousness as he turned. "Into the Eye with these guys." He took a fleeting glance at Karrie who was beside him. "So much for that drink."

"Yeah." She sighed as he shouldered her rifle and flicked it's fire selector to full auto.

Covus hefted his flamethrower up, pilot light still burning, toward the closing monsters. He swallowed hard and said a quick prayer to the Emperor.

Mitchell and Kravan joined their squad's example and raised their weapons, Mitchell kneeling to steady his aim.

Markson threw his jammed grenade launcher to the ground, spitting a curse as he did and drew his laspistol.

"On my mark." Jacob spoke softly as he watched the shadows move closer.

"Fire."

The guardsmen let loose. They filled the corridor with a symphony of lightning cracks and a blizzard of ruby-red lasers, each one enough to kill a man. The flashes were so many and so bright that they blinded the guardsmen to what they were aiming at, but it mattered not, they still kept firing. All noise other than the crack of their lasguns was eliminated swiftly; even the inhuman hiss of the monsters seemed dull and distant when compared to the cacophony of the lasguns and the roar of the burning promethium. Covus coated the entire area with flame, the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and the people attacking them. All burnt to ash and cinders in a few short moments. No bursts of flame, just one long continuous stream of rage and hatred. Covus bellowed a curse and a challenge but his words were lost as his flamer roared for him.

The guardsmen barely heard the alarm whine again.

Something leapt through the wall of fire, a beast judging by its hunched form. It darted forward with insane reflexes between the bursts of las-fire, even the best shot – Jessie – couldn't seem to hit the ignited beast.

It went straight for Marty, closing the distance with the vox-operator in an instant. A flash of claws ripped the flak armour from his chest even as Marty tried to hit it with his lasgun. He yelped in pain and fell backwards as the thing crashed into him.

"Dry!" Covus bellowed as he threw the empty tanks and flamethrower down, ripping his spare laspistol from his webbing as he did. He pulsed of a brace of shots, badly aimed ones, into the congregating shadows.

Marty felt the beast's claws dig into his stomach as he tried to fight back, but every blow seem to be ineffective against the carapace of the thing. All hope seemed lost when a fresh, new sound rang true in the ears of the rapidly-running out of ammunition guardsmen.

CLACK CLACK BUMPH!

The beast seemingly disintegrated into chunks of fibre and ichor, the vox-operator was instantly covered in foul smelling filth.

"Arbites! Engage!" A voice shouted.

The sound repeated itself several times over, throwing out slug after slug into the robed figures. Dropping easily five of them in as many seconds.

Another beast sprinted forward, sensing a lapse in the hail of fire. Jacob saw it bear right on him. He tried to bring his lasgun onto it but it was to late.

The upper chest of the beast detonated, reducing to little less than meaty chunks, spreading more ichor across the floor.

SIKREE!

The robed figures melted away seemingly into the shadows, they vanished as the second beast died.

Jacob twisted sharply, in the chaos he had missed the seam door re-opening, having accounting the streaming light for backwash from the flamethrower and the noise as his eardrums trying to compensate from the unimaginable concert of raging gunfire.

He turned to see a figure haloed in light, golden hair perfectly framing her face, a wonderful smile on her lips and a smoking bolt pistol in her hand.

"Felicia Calamar, Adeptus Arbites." She said serenely, "You seemed to be in a spot of trouble."