Panic gripped the guardsmen as they abandoned what they were doing to try and find their fourth. The scouts held firm in their resolve but kept a tight grip on their weapons. Some of the guardsmen tried to call out, but nothing came of it.
"I-I thought he was with you sir." Dagger 3 shivered as their light swung wildly around the room, scanning the sinister cardboard and desolate concrete.
"Everyone keep calm and regroup on me towards the center of the room." the scout sergeant called out into the darkness.
Jumping across the ground and over loose junk on the floor, the guardsman instinctively rushed to the protection of the marines, even if they were just scouts. Weapons were drawn, carbines leveled as bowstrings were drawn. Cones of lights danced along the darkened surface, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary as everyone hoped they didn't.
"Wait, we're another man short." One of the scouts realized. Panic again gripped at the hearts of everyone in the room before they saw a stray cone of light coming from around a corner. Without a word, the sergeant sent three of his scouts and two guardsmen to investigate. They took deep breaths and moved in. Some of them had been raised in hive cities and would have been used to the shadows and their ambush potential, but there was too much open space for their senses, now hypersensitive to even the smallest changes. Every distant wind howl was picked up, every shift of the moonlight registered and every shiver down a spine taken as a sign.
Stacking up on the side of a box, the squad organized a breaching formation. One guardsman peaked around the corner, aiming his lascarbine down the alley while a second rolled across and did the same from the other corner. A scout marine drew his bow and faced down the same alley with an explosive arrow but nothing. The two remaining marines slowly marched down, blades in hand, and made their way towards the light source. It was a standard issue guard helmet, its light was still on. One of the guardsmen identified it as belonging to Dagger 5, noting one of the stickers on the side. Something scurried in the shadows ahead.
Just as the two marines nodded and prepared to investigate further, the garage door opened. Everyone turned around and the squad left behind pointed their weapons at the slim opening. The breaching squad decided that the door was a more pressing issue, picking up the helmet and carefully making their way back, trying to spot whatever came through the door. But nothing did. For what felt like forever, the crack in the door kept open, slowly swinging in, with nothing more coming out, even after the 8-man squad fully regrouped.
Suddenly, the sergeant fired a shot from his bow that went wide and detonated in the air. Everyone thought he missed or fired at a shadow until they all saw the flickering of a drone crashing into the cold hard ground. Tau stealth drones. A burst of fire followed in the general direction, only for a return volley to whiz by everyone's heads.
"Storm Clouds Maneuver! Snake-pattern! Now!" the sergeant called out as his scouts began to throw flash grenades and deploy smoke to cover the team's movements, "Look away gents!"
A series of blinding flashes lit up the massive garage as two trails of smoke curved out, a classic maneuver of distraction. However, once the dazzling lights faded, a dull illumination continued from the ground. The team first thought it was an after effect of their grenades, until a scout pointed out that their flash grenades didn't glow green.
The sergeant stopped in his tracks and looked back. All of those cracks and holes in the ground. They were starting to glow. He could barely make out the form of the Tau stealth team, still barely visible, suddenly shifting their fire toward the ground to the side of them.
"Sabre! Dagger! Where are you?" The vox network suddenly came back as the team climbed the ramp in front of the door, establishing a firing line just before the crack, "Vox's have been down, we thought something happened to you!"
"Command, Sabre Actual reporting. Requesting immediate evac. We have encountered a Tau presence and an additional unknown hostile force." The sergeant fired an unaimed shot into the smoke behind them as a guardsman did the same.
"We can't send evac, the Eldar are going to-"
"WE DON'T CARE!" Dagger 1 shouted into the vox as he saw some of the Tau's pulse shots suddenly veer into the ceiling. He had a sneaking suspicion that someone just got toppled, "We got enough information and unless you want to not have it, we need an evac!"
A period of tense silence fell on the network as some of the team could see figures moving in the smoke and many, many more green lights appeared. The remaining guardsmen reloaded their guns with bated breaths as the scouts checked their quivery. The smoke they threw hadn't dissipated and instead seemed to have just become part of the scenery. Frantic Tau could be heard along with wild pulse fire.
"This is Command. Valkyrie evac request has been accepted. Eagle 1 en route for pick up, stand your ground until they arrive."
=][= | =][= | =][= | =][= | =][=
Tech priests began to recite arcane binary litanies as they performed the Rites of Ignition, beseeching the Valkyrie's machine spirit as its pilots ran across the plastic catwalks of the Bedframe Plateau towards the landing frisbee. Holy incense was wafted around as the pilot began his preflight checks and the co-pilot recited a heavily shortened version of the Prayer of Flight in Low Gothic.
The commbead in their flight helmets lit up as they received official debriefings from the command box, "Pilots, sorry for the rude awakening. But we have a recon team requesting immediate extraction from an unidentified threat in the Garage Chamber. You are to land at the Laundry Chamber and extract them. There's no way of not being noticed by the Xenos and they will likely attempt to shoot you down.
"Sounds like there's going to be a hell of a diplomatic incident." the pilot snarked back as final preparations were made and the tech priests moved away, "If they ever manage to hit us sir."
"Your skill is exactly the reason why you're being picked for this. General Bragana says he'll deal with any political fallout, those scouts and that info is crucial to our future plans. Emperor Protects."
"Emperor Protects, sir. Eagle 1 preparing for liftoff."
The engines let out a roaring burst before shifting to a more appropriate level of intensity. The machine spirit either must have been very excited by this, or very annoyed having been awoken like this. Pulling up on the throttle, the Valkyrie ascended into the air, flying out of the guard's room and towards the stairs. Below them, anti-air crews were rushing to their posts as a precaution. Hydras were brought online and flak shells were rolled out from the storehouses to feed their guns.
As expected, the second the Valkyrie dipped below the top of the stairs and on to the first level, they were targeted. First it was just small arms fire, shurikens that peppered the top of the flyer like a heavy hail. These machines were made to fly through far worse, but some of the "luckier" shots that started to hit the cockpit canopy was mildly worrying.
A sudden blast slammed into the wing sending alarms blaring in the cockpit. Fire Dragons had finally got their Fusion Guns online and began blasting into the Imperial flyer as it zig zagged and darted across the floor at low altitude.
"Left wing just took a hit! Flaps are a little sticky, attempting stabilization." The co-pilot began to reroute power and adjust the flaps as stray shuriken shattered a tiny hole in the glass above him.
With some skilled flying and careful threading of the gap, the Valkyrie flew into the laundry room, flood lights cutting through the darkness as its side doors opened. The recon team, still mostly blasting at shadows in the smoke, wasted no time in running to their transports. Both squad leaders rushed their men into safety until Dagger 1 saw something else break through the smoke and come into the Valkyrie's flood lights.
"Wait! Please! Don't leave us!" a pair of Tau scouts panicked as they saw the Imperial flyer about to take off, something hot on their trail, "Gue'vesa! Please!"
The Dagger squad leader gritted his teeth and tried his best to ignore them. Without facing them, he knew exactly what kind of face those blue xenos were making. He could hear it in their desperation as under any other circumstances, they wouldn't be begging to be let on to an Imperial vehicle. Dagger 1 clenched his fist as he put a foot on the deck of the Valkyrie, but he couldn't board. This scene had played out so many times, too many times. He asked himself how many whiteshield rookies did he turn his back on when their trench got overrun? How many men did he leave behind with the lie that help was coming for them. How many more soldiers was he going to abandon to save his own skin? He hated to admit it, but sometimes on long travels through the warp, he could see all of their faces in his dreams asking the same question. Why?
"Graaahh! Dammit!" he cursed as he pushed off the side of the Valkyrie and ran back towards the fleeing Tau, "Cover me, I'm going back for them!"
As he spoke, something rose from the smoke and out of the crack in the door. Its serpentine body gave way to a pair of sharp talons and green eyes that lunged at the squad leader. Ripping into the camo cloak, Dagger 1 was thrown into the air as the monster was bracketed by fire from the Valkyrie. One of the guardsmen had manned the side gun and everyone else poured lasfire, pulse rounds and bolt arrows into its back.
"Dagger 1, what are you doing? Dagger 1!" a voice crackled through the squad leader's helmet. He felt woozy and weak, the right side of his body felt sluggish. Looking down, there was nasty gash in his side that burned, like the flayed bits of his flesh was being burnt. But he was so close to the door. That monster wasn't alone and more of its kind were going to come out.
"Harrack! What the hell are you doing?" one of the guardsmen dropped any sense of formality and called the squad lead by his name.
"Don't worry about me. Just keep that thing off my back." Harrack ripped off his holotags and threw them over to the transport before he pimped his way through the crack and into the garage, "I've got some friends to meet."
With all his remaining strength, the guardsman threw his body weight against the heavy metal door, nudging it close. He could hear something on his commbead but it was getting fuzzy, he wasn't paying much attention to it anyways. A beam of energy slammed next to him, leaving a melted hole in the metal. The chatter of the heavy bolter slamming against the other side and the engines firing up reminded the squad sergeant of the first time he saw the Cadian sunrise from orbit.
The door jammed, Harrack's strength no longer able to push the latch into place. He could hear more chattering on the voxnet and the sound of a lascannon being fired. That thing that threw him in must still be kicking. With no options left, he stepped back and threw himself against the door, trying to force it close. Looking back, he saw long, spindly strands of green energy spew from the cracks in the ground as a legion of eyes lit up the darkness. Gritting his teeth and clutching his bleeding side with his free arm, Harrack threw his body against the heavy metal, each blow a personal act of atonement for him.
Click
With a final blow, the door shut in place and Harrack slid down onto the floor leaving a dark red streak as he sank. Struggling to get his helmet off, he cast it aside as a figure emerged from the dark sea of green pearls. Distantly, the squad leader could hear the Valkyrie's engines firing back up for flight escaping from his helmet. His brow was slick with sweat and his hair damp with it. He let out a chuckle. He had seen hundreds of men and women die in their first battle and never did a thing. And here he was, dying for the sake of two xenos he didn't even know. Why did he do it? He never really paid much attention to the regimental chaplain's sermons. Maybe it was because he didn't want someone to die in this setting so different from their original? Here he was, shrunken down to the size of a regicide piece, bleeding out against a door on Holy Terra tens of thousands of years before he was even supposed to be born. His record was going to be interesting at least.
"Primitive..." a dark figure carrying a glowing emerald blade stepped in front of him halfway up the ramp, "Lay down your arms and surrender. Your efforts have been most valiant. Protocol demands I give an unarmed foe the opportunity to surrender once all action is completed."
"Sorry, but I still have one more thing I need to do." Harrack struggled to his feed, blood dripping from his side as he stumbled towards the darkness, trying not to trip over his own feet and collapse.
"And what would that be?" there was the slightest intonation of curiosity from the figure as Harrack approached him.
"To do my duty... And die standing." the guardsman pulled out his combat knife before lunging at the figure he could barely see. He swung his blade in a wide ark, aiming for what must have been the side of the thing's head.
Tink
The knife flew out of Harrack's hand, his grasp weak from blood loss, and landed on the cold ground below.
"Such a valiant display of duty, I must commend you." the figure shot out a boney, silvered hand and grabbed the human's neck, lifting him into the air, "I shall honor your request." With its free hand, the figure thrusted its blade into Harrack's stomach, it's unnatural glow illuminating the wound. Harrack spat out blood as he choked, but before he went limp, he reserved one final spat of blood between the figure's glowing green orbs.
"May you find peace in the Stars, primitive." the figure dropped Harrack's body, letting it collapse into a pile on the ground at his feet. With the same metal hand, the figure ran a skeleton thumb from its free hand across its forehead where Harrack had spat his last breath and rubbed the fluid between its fingers. Blood. How... natural. "Surely my lady can make use of this." the figure muttered to itself as it surveyed the legion arrayed before him, standing silent and deathless, waiting for his command.
"Final preparations must be made." the figure dragged the body of Harrack behind them as it melded into the darkness, "Her awakening is soon."
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone whose read this fic so far and favorited/followed it! I hope everyone has enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it. I know that the chapters are shorter than what's found in other stories, but I find this work count ends up working for me. This also marks the end of the first section, next time will start a new part of the story.
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