A.N.: Chapter fourteen! Man, this is rapidly getting close to being my longest fanfic ever written. I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and I will see you for chapter fifteen!
A yell of rage echoed through the empty room as he threw a chair into the wall. The metallic piece of furniture simply bounced off with a dull clunk, only further adding to his incensed mood, making him reach out and kick it in petty fury, his foot ringing with a dull ache that helped distract from the numbing pain in his chest.
Of over two hundred ships that had participated in the engagement, fifty had been lost outright, and a hundred more damaged more or less severely. Of the sixty battleships they'd had, twelve had been of those destroyed, and only his own ship had been spared from any damage. And for all of that, they had inflicted no crippling damage on the behemoth ship. Oh sure, they'd hurt it. They'd wounded the creature for sure, it had lost some of its armour and there was a large amount of biomatter floating in space that it had lost. But it was still moving, still capable of getting closer to the world. And if it was doing so, it meant it still had the means to start the invasion.
They'd lost. And he'd sacrificed Admiral Jane and her fleet for nothing but to bloody the enemy's nose. He snarled, grabbing at his hair.
"FUCK!" He kicked the wall, this time hard enough to hear a small crack in his foot.
"Lord Commander. I must ask you to control yourself before you end up injuring yourself too badly." The voice of his lieutenant brought some of his fury down as he turned, eyes still blazing in anger. The man staring back at him had a neutral expression, seemingly bored with the events. "The tyranids have entered orbit with the world. The rest of the fleet is awaiting your command." He stared.
"I..." He shook his head.
"Enough self-pity sir. The assault was a failure. Now what do you plan to do to defend against the invasion?" The lieutenant reached out, grasping his forearm. It anchered him in the moment. "Sir. Please. We need your orders." He stared into the eyes of his assistant, before letting out a deep, weary sigh.
"Emperor damn it all. Prepare the anti air defenses to take down as many of the transport spores as possible. Keep the fleet back, the last thing we want is to lose any semblance of orbital control to the xenos. Keep us out of reach of the ship's bio-plasma attack." He shook his head. "Last thing we need is the capital ship getting blasted out of the sky. Tell the men to brace themselves." Marques' eyes narrowed as he exited his chamber, heading for the war room. "We will not be able to prevent the majority of them from reaching the ground. The best we can do is force them to avoid landing in our defensive zones and force them to come to us.
"Understood sir."
"Grab everyone else. You all have your assigned squads and battalions. The plans are in place." He entered the war room. The others were already there. Good. He felt a stab of shame at the fact they had been preparing for the invasion whilst he threw a temper tantrum in his room. "How is morale?"
"Morale is good sir, the few cowards and dissenters have already been executed." The callous words did not bother Marques. He had long since become comfortable with the disciplinary standards of the Guard. "Our troops have been running drills in waiting for the swarm."
"Excellent." Something going right at least. "Then, we shall..." An alarm sound sounded within the room. The holographic representation of the world suddenly found itself dotted in red warnings.
"God Emperor save us..." One of his aides whispered, horrified at the sheer number of red dots spotting the sky.
"It begins." Marques said grimly. "Transmit order to anti air. Pieces designated as 'marksman-class' are to prioritize eliminating the larger pods. Everyone else...fire at will. Swat the bastards out of our skies!"
Down on the world, the ground lit with flame and light as a thousand cannons, artillery pieces and hydra-class anti air defense systems opened fire at once on the masses of biological pods descending from the massive organic ship.
Great meteors of flesh, chitin and organic matter were torn to shreds with lead and gunpowder. Lasers streaked the sky and burned gaping holes in them, great clouds of shrapnel turned them and their occupants into mincemeat. But for every one the anti air defense could take down, three more would come in and make it through the barrage. The air was too saturated with ammo for any aircraft to take to the air, keeping the Guards' aviation pinned to the ground, waiting for their turn to come and dominate the skies.
The first pod that hit the ground, was turned into bloody chunks before it could even unleash its monstrous cargo by a well placed artillery strike, the crew of the basilisk not taking the time to celebrate as they already reloaded their cannon, the batteries around them opening fire in turn as more and more pods landed on the planet.
In the first minutes of the invasion, millions of tyranids died before they even hit the ground.
The world of Earia Quintus was composed of three great continents separated by vast oceans once filled with wildlife, now turned to nothing but a space to maintain vast fisheries. Each continent grew a different crop in massive amounts, in order to somewhat reduce the impact of disease striking at one particular crop. The fields were dead now, turned to ashes days in advance to the invasion. The guard simply did not have the numbers to cover every single inch of all three continents with saturated fire; and so it was that in various places on each continent, pockets of pods managed to land unharmed, releasing swarms of gaunts. Larger command organisms such as warriors and tervigons quickly followed in their suit, gathering in great numbers before converging in dispersed groups onto the nearest artillery or anti air defense position they could find, carefully avoiding the more entrenched fortifications placed to bleed out the swarm as it would seek to advance.
Soon enough, reports started to stream through the communication networks of attacks on artillery emplacements, of tyranid swarms showing terrifying coordination already despite the seemingly dispersed nature of the synaptic network. Worse of all was the horrible resistance reported from the creatures; even the smallest possessing some level of regenerative capacity necessitating far more overkill than was desirable when facing such a numerous foe.
On the surface of the world, a thousand battlefields opened at once, each of various scales. Some were of simple patrol groups engaging an isolated pod's worth of gaunts, hunting them down before they could regroup with larger forces. Others were truck convoys, escorted by large armoured contingents, being hit with probing attacks by larger tyranid groups. Others still saw the less fortified defensive emplacements hit hard as the tyranids sought to reduce the capacity of the guard to swat out pods from the sky or blast them on impact.
The invasion of Earia Quintus had begun.
Darkness.
She couldn't see anything. Couldn't feel anything.
Was this...was this death? Had she died when the maw of the great beast had closed down onto her?
If so...where was the Emperor's great golden light? Where was the shining beacon she was told would take her into its bosom, keep her safe from the predations of the horror that lurked in the afterlife? There was...nothing. Nothing but the endless darkness around her.
She felt fear start to creep in her. She wasn't doubting. She wasn't! Of course the Emperor would come for her. The God Emperor was flawless. Perfect! He...he wouldn't...leave her. She had served him faithfully, had fought the enemies of mankind for so long! So why was she left alone in the dark?! She'd had her moments of doubt, but surely, surely that wouldn't be enough to see her forsaken? Mere instants in the heat of battle where she thought herself abandoned. But this couldn't be it. There was no way. She was no traitor, no foe of mankind. She had...she was... she wanted to sob, but she couldn't. She couldn't even feel her body. Did she still have one?
...she was alone.
She was unsure how long she stayed like this, the whispers in her mind slowly breaking her down. Each thought of the possibility the Emperor had abandoned her making her cower in fear of the consequences of such traitorous a line of thought this was. Each moment of doubt poisonned by a cloud of terror. Until finally, finally...she saw a light.
Her eyes opened slowly, struggling to adapt to the light, no matter how dim after so long in the dark. She blinked at the soothing yellow glow around her, letting out a content sigh. Her doubts had been for nothing. Her fears were unjustified. And yet...she had thought the Emperor's light would be of gold. Was it meant to be this sickly yellow?
"You are awake." The words, whispered softly, sent a flow of ice through her veins. She whimpered as her eyes finally adapted and took in the sights around her, dread and despair taking hold of her very soul. A large chamber of pulsating flesh , chitinous growth creating a solid floor on which she currently found herself lying on. And before, a human looking girl with white hair and glowing yellow eyes. They were not the source of the light however; if anything, it seemed to be generating from the very walls, a strange glow emanating as if some light was smothered behind them. It was powerful enough to comfortably see the entire room.
"Oh God Emperor save me..." She muttered, scrambling backwards from the girl in front of her, her back hitting a wall of flesh. She shrieked as she jumped away from it, finding her legs weak under her as she fell to the floor unceremoniously.
"He won't." The words sapped at her strength, making her eyes fall onto the girl looking at her. She hadn't moved, unbothered by her attempts to get away. Perhaps because there was no visible exit to the room. She couldn't escape, even if she wanted to. The realization prevented her from trying to get up again, sitting down with wide eyes as she stared at the child. "I don't understand why you still ask him to. It's not like he can."
"S...silence your blasphemous tongue xenos!" She stuttered, doing her best to keep her trembling from her voice. "You know n...nothing! The God-Emperor is...is perfect!"
"He really isn't either of these things." The child frowned. "Honestly, it's probably a good thing for humanity he isn't a god. From what I've gathered of the gods from the Network, they aren't exactly the best people around." She tilted her head. "What I find weirder is calling him perfect. I mean, even you can't be that delusional." She continued on. Jane wasn't sure if it was fear or horrified fascination that prevented her from interrupting. "How many of the people who died during your attack prayed for the Emperor for salvation? How many did he answer?" She shrugged. "It can't have been many of the later from the amount that ended up eaten."
"He...he rescued their souls! You would not understand, xenos, but the death of the body is but the beginning of our true salvation!" She cried out, finding confidence in being able to retort.
"Rescued huh? That's...one way to describe it." The child replied. "I mean, how do you know?" Jane startled.
"Well...the Ecclesiarchy preaches this truth."
"It does, doesn't it? And the Ecclesiarchy would never lie." The child smiled sweetly. "It has no reason to, no incentive..." Jane shook her head.
"I know not why you seek to shake my beliefs xenos, but it will not work. My faith is strong." The child stared at her for some time, the same sweet smile on her face. It slowly faded, leaving instead a more natural smile on her lips.
"My name is Anya. Not xenos." She took a step closer to Jane. "And I wonder. Why is it so strong? Where does your conviction come from? Is it from proof, from irrefutable evidence?" She lost her smile, a haunted look coming to her face. "Or is it that you simply accept the consensus, never having been made to face true hardship? Never had to be in a situation where you were forced to confront the fact that the Emperor does not love you, does not care...or simply cannot? That even if he does want to help, he cannot, and you are left to depend on yourself?" The child's eyes burned with yellow light. "Had I kept my faith, I would have been yet another corpse in the ditch. Another body to dispose of, anonymous, unknown. Never to be remembered. And for what?" She snarled. "If the soul is what is truly important, why even live? Why not just kill every infant born before they can suffer the risk of corruption? Why even allow us to breathe, if we are meant to return to him anyways? And if life does have meaning...why do they say it has so little when we lose it?" She shook her head. "Something doesn't fit. Someone is lying."
"I..." Jane wasn't sure where to even answer that. She was no theologian, she had faith in the Emperor as many did; a fact of life that one simply accepted and lived with. "I do not... do not question the Emperor. He knows better."
"Have you met him?" Jane looked at the child confused. "Have you ever talked to him, heard his word for yourself?" Jane shook her head.
"Of...of course not!" Anya grinned.
"I have met mine. Not a god, although you could call it that if you wanted to. That which saved me, which taught me to save myself. Which made me strong and gave me purpose. Which fed me at my weakest, and asked for nothing but to help feed it back in return." She looked at Jane with pity. It hurt more than the mocking of her faith. "It is with me at every moment. Every instant. I can always feel its presence, looking out for me, a reassuring presence that reminds me I am not alone." She kneeled down in front of Jane, her eyes gazing into hers. "Can you say the same for your Emperor?"
Jane wanted to say yes. Wanted to cry out with confidence that the Emperor was with her with every breath, that she could feel his golden light and warm embrace even now. And yet, when faced with the pure confidence of the child before her...she found herself silent. Anya gazed at her for a few more seconds. Then, she asked, softly.
"I could show you, if you want. The Hive-Mind is...well. It is not a god, not really. But if anything, I think that makes it better. Greater. A true being of collective thought."
"You...you wish to corrupt me?" Jane asked, half in horror, half in curiosity. Anya shook her head, a grimace on her face.
"No. No. I...I've done some pretty horrible stuff, and I don't regret it. But I wouldn't force someone to be part of the Hive against their will. Not me. I just..." She sighed. "The Imperium and the Emperor took my parents from me. They gave me suffering, starvation and had I done nothing to change it, death." A soft smile spread on her face. "The Hive gave me strength. A family. One that cares, even if it is in a more alien way. And above all...it gave me honesty. The Hive is brutal, but honest. Deception and trickery is to be used against prey, but never amongst each other." She grinned. "One cannot lie to oneself after all, not here at least." Anya rose, standing above Jane, hallowed in the gentle glow of the walls, sending strange shimmers of light through her hair. "It is not perfect. Not even close. But...this...xenos form? This abomination, as you call it?" She turned a look of such genuine sorrow to Jane that she could barely stand to be subjected to it. "It is a far better life than any I had under the Imperium. I am a monster. But I am a happy one." She turned away. "I will leave you to it. You will be fed and kept alive. I wish to discuss more with you. It's nice to have some human conversation as well." The walls opened themselves to the child as she walked away from Jane. As they started to close back, Jane could held but call out:
"How does it feel?" The child stopped, looking back at her. "To be...to feel your god."
"It is no god." Anya smiled, genuine warmth spreading on her face. "And it feels like home."
"SHATTER THEIR SKIES!" The artillery officer screamed, his shout deafened by the roaring of the cannon as the basilisk fired another round towards the distant hordes of xenos. Sector four had been receiving a steady increase of the creatures, kept only at bay by the relentless barrage of artillery and numerous defensive positions installed in overlapping patterns of fire. The situation had been stable until the convoy meant to resupply the third emplacement had been ambushed by a combined assault of gaunts, warriors and carnifexes, the ammunition of the fort getting drained by wave after wave of hormagaunts until the defenders ran out and were overwhelmed, leaving the anti-air emplacement they were defending to be destroyed by the abominable xenos. This caused a hole in the barrage of metal flying in the air, allowing a pocket of space where pods would fly through unharmed to deliver their nightmarish payload.
"Sir!" The comms sub-officer called out to him, managing to make himself heard over the sound of constant artillery fire around them through sheer exertion of the throat. The man's voice would be dead by the end of the day, no doubt about it. "The Magos Biologis has confirmed the reports of the Seventh and Thirteenth sector! The enemy's deployed exocrines!"
"Is that so?" Internally, the officer was already thinking. He'd attended every briefing, read every document he'd been given in preparation for the invasion. It wasn't often you could prepare for your enemy. Exocrines meant counter artillery fire. This was bad, but it could be worse. "Well then lads. Let's teach those bugs that you don't out-artillery the Hammer of the Emperor!"
"HAH!" The shout echoed from each and every member of the artillery crews, a thousand men and women shouting in unison.
"INCOMING!" A blast of bioplasma streaked through the sky, followed by a dozen others soon after. Two of the basilisks were hit, their frames melting or exploding on impact, the blast of superheated matter turning the crews into little more than molten slag. The officer was unaffected. Losses happened in every conflict, and he had seen far worse on other battlefields.
"Garrison! Get me the coordinates of that attack!"
"Sir yes sir! Already on it! Sending them now!" The coordinates appeared on the screen of the artillery piece the officer commanded personally. He grunted.
"Alright. Fire an earthshaker round!" The powerful munition was loaded into the cannon, the crew holding it carefully as they put it in. A deafening explosion rocked the ground as the basilisk fired, a colossal explosion rocking the earth as the shell hit its target.
"Pasted sir!" A woman holding a pair of binoculars called out. "Wait, something's...fuck, there's more, grid seventeen five five!" Something sailed in the air, landing right next to the officer. He blinked at the fact he wasn't dead, before turning to the impact behind him.
Only to find himself staring at a floating orb of flesh with tentacles.
His stomach sank. He closed his eyes, and whispered a prayer to the emperor as the spore mine detonated.
Hails of las-fire descended upon the hordes of termagants. Autocannons fired into them, tearing bloody chunks into the mass of xenos. Lascanons fired into the bulk of massive creatures the size of tanks, carnifexes screaming in rage as massive burning holes were carved into their bodies.
"COME GET SOME XENOS!" The man next to her yelled. She gritted her teeth as she activated the tank's main weapon, the leman russ' main cannon firing into an approaching warrior and ripping it to shreds. She heard the driver swear as the tank was hit by another hail of projectiles, one particularly nasty heavy venom cannon shot shaking the entire frame of the tank heavily. It was a miracle the armour had held so far, and she whispered a quiet thanks to the machine spirit. She rotated the turret, looking through the optics of the vehicle for her next priority target, only for her eyes to widen.
"They're retreating!" She exclaimed, firing a round into the fleeing crowd. The explosion tore two dozen of the smaller gaunts into pieces, half of a warrior blasted away at the same time. More explosions rocked them, and she turned the optics, a wide grin splitting her face. Through the radio, she heard:
"*ELEVEN BARRELS OF HELL!*" The baneblade's weapons fired all at once, unleashing a torrent of devastating power onto the fleeing xenos horde. The main cannon fired, creating a large crater of bloody chunks and corpses where its projectile landed, the auto-cannons at its side cleaving through the aliens with ease. "*Cavalry's arrived, cadia's finest! We'll lead the way, follow us! To sector seven!*"
"HAH!" She cried out, replying with the rest of her tank column as the driver whooped, turning the engine to max power, following the baneblade as the massive tank passed by them, dozens of leman russ' trailing behind it with murderous intent.
It did not take them long to reach their next battlefield. A besieged fortress, serving as protection for a system of anti-air defenses. If it fell, the entire sector would be swarming with tyranids within the hour. Thousands of creatures were attacking the defenses, carnifexes rampaging through the beleaguered defenders as they desperately held back the tide.
"*Now's our time! Show them the might of the Imperial Guard!*" The tank column opened fire in response to the call of the improvised leader, carving bloody trails into the horde which as one turned to face them. She grinned, wiping away the sweat on her forehead.
Let them come.
"DRIVE FASTER!" Leon screamed to his friend.
"IT CAN'T GO FASTER! WE'RE GOING AS FAST AS WE CAN!" Ulda screamed back.
"IT'S RIGHT BEHIND US!" A powerful road shook the vehicle as the sound of thundering footsteps got closer and closer to the truck.
"WHERE THE HELL IS THE ESCORT!" A whizzing sound flew past them, an explosion splashing against the bulk of the beast chasing them down. To their horror, whilst the creature was clearly damaged from the smoking creature in its chest, it was already regenerating the wound. A leman russ, one of the few remaining from the carnage that had befallen their logistic convoy, emerged from the tree line, firing another round at the beast and charging forth, ramming into it in an attempt to keep it from catching up to the speeding truck; Only for the beast to grab it by the turret and lift it up slowly, its maw glowing with purple energy. Leon stared in shock as the creature fired a bio-plasma shot point blank into the tank, blowing it up in a powerful explosion.
"Is...is it dead?" Ulda asked shakily, still going as fast as he could. As if in answer to his trembling question, the beast emerged from the smoke, charred and wounded but still very much alive, slowly regenerating from the damage inflicted to it.
"OH FUCK ME WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PUT ONE OF THOSE DOWN!" Leon cried out hysterically. "Come on, come on!" He tapped at the radio. Still unresponsive. That earlier shock they suffered when a warrior rammed the front of their truck must have put it out of service. "Fuck's sake!" Purple light started to shine in the rearview mirror. He looked to Ulda, who now had a resigned look to him.
"For what it's worth, I regret nothing."
"I regret a lot." Leon admitted. "Still, it ain't so bad dying with y..." His last words were cut out in a brilliant light as the bioplasma of the screamer-killer carnifex detonated the truck.
In the war room, reports kept coming in with machine-like regularility. A sector lost to the onslaught. A logistic convoy hit. A successful counter-offensive, allowing for the resupplying of a defensive position. The appearance of a new strain of organisms, requiring a change to the local tactics and overall strategy.
It had been an exhausting six hours since the initial attack, and the bio-ship showed no sign of stopping its endless bombardment of organic pods. Tyranocytes and more. The fleet had managed to move some of its smaller vessels down into the atmosphere to serve the role of stratosphere interceptors, high enough to not have to worry about the anti-air defenses, but it was a bandaid over a missing limb. The tide would not be repulsed so easily.
At least there was some good news. In sector seven, a successful armoured offensive had managed to regroup multiple brigades into one powerful thrust, cutting off one of the xenos' landing sites and allowing the reinstallation of hydra batteries that once again secured the air above the zone. The constant harassment of the logistic convoys and the inability to provide sufficient escort to every single one of them was putting a stranglehold on them however; every soldier and tank escorting a truck was one not serving to hold the front, but every truck that did not arrive was an autocannon who ran out of shells, a tank with no fuel. A soldier with no spare lasgun.
They were holding. But the first line of defense was doomed from the start, that was expected. Their collapse would happen sooner or later. The problem was what came next.
In many places, the xenos were consolidating their advances. Larger organisms were being sighted in greater and greater numbers, concentrations of troops were amassing ready for devastating offensives. Strange organic structures were being created from the numerous corpses of guardsmen and tyranid alike. More creatures were being reported on the ground than should have been possible with the amount of pods that had landed, leaving only one option. They had started spawning creatures on the ground. This could not be left unanswered. Thankfully, there were only so many places where the tyranids had enough of a presence and control that the guard would not have noticed such a thing happening.
"Coordinate the AA. I want corridors to the following positions." A grim smile illuminated Marques' face. "Carpet bomb the fuckers."
"Maurauder five, do you copy?" The static filled voice filled Remy's ears. He tapped the mic button of his cockpit.
"Aye, copying loud and somewhat clear."
"Status of operation whirlwind?" Remy grinned.
"Bug nest squashed. We've cleared the enemy landing zone of their presence, though they could send more later."
"You got the infrastructure they were putting in place, that's good enough for us. We're gonna ask you to keep pushing through, giving you a new target. Coordinates and air corridor coming through now." Remy looked on his screen as the new set of instructions came in. That was about half an hour of flight from where they currently were; Those xenos bases were increasing in numbers.
"You got it command. I'll take the burning wing for a ride."
"Roger that marauder five, good hunting." Remy flipped the coms to the internal circuit between his own squad.
"Alright kids, we've got new orders. Before refueling for the next run, we're going to swat a few more cockroaches from our world." He tilted the bomber, his rear gunner adjusting his optics as the rest of the air wing followed his lead, over a hundred bombers and their escort of three hundred thunderbolt fighters heading for the new target.
It was only when a strange cloud appeared on the horizon that Remy started to get worried.
"Hey...Frank? Mind checking that out? I don't think we were bound for stormy clouds today."
"Aye boss." Silence. "Oh fuck."
"Frank...talk to me."
"That's not a cloud." Remy paled. He flipped his coms once more.
"Command. We're about to be engaged. Be advised...the enemy has an air force." The cloud was closer now, and he could easily see for himself that this was no cloud. No. It was a mass of flying creatures, from gargoyles to harpies and even worse, hive crones. He swore loudly. There must have been tens of thousands of the creatures headed their way. No way were they surviving that.
"We're backing off! Marauders, back to base! We're going to get blasted!" He gripped the commands tight. "Command, you need to close the corridors!"
"We're seeing what you're seeing marauder five. Get the hell out of there." Command instructed back, their voice filled with static. "Corridors are going to be closed, however we're running into some difficulties. Seems the bugs took the chance to dig themselves in with some heavy bastards. " Remy clenched his teeth.
This was going to be a tough one.
Manfa knew he was going to die.
He'd known since he'd been given a gun, a superior officer, a squad and a single order: go take down the enemy artillery position. Except the artillery position was a collection of five massive creatures, each easily capable of crushing him by just stepping on his fragile body, capable of vaporizing a tank with its living cannon, each guarded by a myriad of creatures. Even with a thousand men, it had been a suicide mission. A desperate push to prevent the tyranids from slowly grinding the defenders until nothing was left. And yet, he had obeyed. They all had.
And now, he was one of twelve remaining guards, standing before the living artillery. They had killed the creatures guarding the massive beasts, but they had lost all their heavy equipment, all their explosives and almost all of their squadmates.
Their lasguns did nothing to the beasts, who casually kept bombarding the far away fort they had emerged from. They shot, and shot, and shot, but the lasgun fire would either be absorbed harmlessly by the armour, or whatever little damage they did inflict was outpaced by the creature's monstrous regeneration.
"Die!" One of his squadmates cried out, desperately, weakly, as he rammed his bayonet over and over into the thick leg of the beast, failing to even pierce its hide. "Die! Stop...stop killing my friends, you monster! Die! Why won't you..." The creature casually lifted its leg up, above the man's head, before bringing it down with a sickening crunch, squashing the man as one would a bug. Manfa simply stared in shock, as the rest of his squadmates similarly tried futile attempts to kill the beasts, only attracting their attention to themselves. His hand shook. What was the point? They weren't even doing anything to them. Barely gaining a second perhaps, if even that. So why...Why was he raising his pistol at the beast?
Well, his lasgun was out of ammo, for one. But even then, he knew it was futile. He knew he would not change anything.
But he refused to stay there and do nothing. Just stand by whilst his comrades were slaughtered, whilst these abominations spread misery and death across the world. He would stand! He would fight, no matter how little it changed things! His gun fired, hitting the creature's eye. It grunted in annoyance as the appendage regenerated, turning its gaze on him, slowly trampling towards him. He was trembling as he fired again, the shot fizzling out on the beast's armor as the ground shook.
"COME ON YOU BIG PIECE OF SHIT! COME TASTE MANKIND'S FURY!" He screamed, voice shaking in fear.
He grit his teeth and braced himself for the impact, keeping his eyes open in defiance as the beast prepared itself to stomp him flat.
The roaring sound of something descending reached his ears a second before the drop-pod itself did, smashing into the creature and crushing it into the ground. His eyes widened in shock at the sight of the metallic pod as it opened, a large, metallic figure stepping out of it on strange, stumpy yet robust legs. It had a boxy appearance and two massive mechanical hands with which it grabbed at the head of the creature stuck under the drop pod, ripping it off with contemptuous ease.
It turned to the guardsmen, and in a booming mechanical voice, announced:
"EVEN IN DEATH, I STILL SERVE."
Brother Domenus was an experienced devastator of the black templar. A role not particularly sought after, for the chapter relished far more in melee combat, it was nonetheless often a painfully necessary one.
Today proved to be one of those days.
The moment he was out of his drop pod, he and his squad were set upon by hordes of the disgusting tyranid xenos. His heavy bolter scythed through them as if through wheat, cutting them down in droves. His brothers wielded other such heavy weaponry, heavy flamers and rocket launchers carving a bloody path through the outmatched xenos. To his side he could see his assault brothers descending upon the foul alien, massacring them by the hundreds as they landed in the hordes of gaunts. He saw one clash with a tyranid warrior, power sword against bone sword, the snarling face of the xenos staring down at the helmet of the black templar. They exchanged blows as more such engagements erupted, the moment of surprise gone. Shock and awe did not work as well against a hive mind linked opponent like the tyranid, but it had been enough to create a beachhead of sorts that they could use to push through the xenos and get to their real target.
The armoured column of the seventh sector. It had made some amazing progress from what they had been told, but got pinned down by a mass of gaunts and warriors, and carnifexes now threatened to overwhelm them. Even worse, reports of screamer killers had been received. The mighty baneblade leading the charge was strong, but it was not invulnerable. As such, when the black templars had entered orbit, it had been designated a priority target for rescue.
They did not need to kill every single tyranid here. They merely needed to drag enough attention away from the armoured column that it could resume its lightning offensive on the tyranid hives. All across the world similar actions were taking place, as drop pods filled with black templars and dreadnoughts were soon followed by thunderhawks dropping down predator tanks and even land raiders.
For any other chapter, this would have been their entire chapter force.
For the black templars, this was a crusade force.
A thousand space marines was not an impressive force when compared to the hundreds of millions of guardsmen present on the planet, but their ability to strike crushingly overwhelming force in pinpoint areas of the battlefield allowed them to alleviate much of the pressure grinding down the Imperial Guard, freeing up much needed manpower and vehicles for the various fronts they were fighting on. The breaking point had been pushed back.
Victory was still possible.
"Marshall Gerern. An honour to fight by the Emperor's angels." Marques gave a respectful nod to the transhuman warrior, standing tall in full terminator armour. The bald, heavily scarred man snorted.
"Spare me the theatrics. What's your plan?" Marques had to admit himself a little nervous. There was always a bit of fear standing so close to a space marine…let alone a black templar Marshall.
"Well, the main issue we have is that we cannot engage the enemy capital ship, so we're focused on trying to shoot down as many of the bastards as we can, and then crush them once they're on the ground before they can group. The lack of orbital supremacy is making this…difficult."
"Hm. We have brought two battle barges with us, along with some strike cruisers, however if your own fleet was not enough to engage this creature…"
"The issue is boarding crafts. They send waves of them to us, and we just do not have the point defense systems to take them all down." He sighed. "Our troops are good, but fighting against tyranid boarders is beyond them. Even a few can cause devastation in our ships."
"Ah. Well, I see two ways I can change that. For one…you said they are sending billions of organisms on the surface, correct?"
"Yes."
"Well then. There should be far less available for those boarding parties, and less available to defend the insides of the ship." Marques' eyes widened.
"You can't be suggesting..."
"We are launching our own boarding operation." The templar's stone face stretched into a cruel grin. "Time to show those xenos how it is done."
She was grinning as she stepped out of her tank. The arrival of the black templars had saved the armoured column from imminent demise, allowing them to regroup, push back and scatter the foe. Now they took a well deserved break, refueling the vehicles and taking some fresh air. She sighed as she stretched. Having an extra set of articulations in her fingers made the act extra satisfying. She jumped down to the ground, seeing the rest of the tank crews mingle among each other, a few trying and failing to strike conversation with the templars. She gathered her courage at the sight of the Emperor's angels, and decided to do the same. They had just saved them after all, the least she could do is try and say thank you.
Before she could make a move, she saw another tank crewman walk up to one of the devastators astartes. Her eyes widened, as a relieved smile came to her. Her brother. She'd lost track of his leman russ during the last battle, but here he was, a few bruises from his tank having been roughed up but otherwise alright. She considered calling out to him, but she could see from his slight trembling he was barely holding back the nervousness of going up to the armoured giant to talk to him. She sighed fondly. Her brother shared her extra joints in the fingers, and he'd always admired the space marines for proving their alterations from the regular human form could be a strength. She could see her brother's friends watching as well, silently cheering him on with wild grins on their faces as the marine turned towards him.
"U...um! He...hello!" Her brother held out his hand. "My name is Fabe, I wanted to thank you for..."
"Mutant." Her heart stopped as the marine raised a bolt pistol to her brother's hopeful face. A single gunshot rang out. Her brother's head vanished into a thin red mist.
And her world came to an end. Screams rang out as the other tank crews scrambled away from the marines, some crying out in shock and fear whilst others raged at the marines, reaching for their weapons. She just stared in utter horror as her brother's headless corpse fell to the ground, the life snuffed out of him in an instant. Her ears were ringing as another marine walked up to her, raising his bolt pistol at her; the other marines holding the tank crews at bay by raising their weapons to them.
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!" The raging voice snapped her out of her shock, staring wide eyed at the gun barrel not ten centimetres from her face, her breath coming ragged and too fast. She was hyperventilating, she realized, as the tank commander of the baneblade climbed out of his vehicle, walking with determined strides towards the marine.
"You have mutants amongst your ranks, commander." The marine said in a hard voice. "We are purging the taint." The commander's face went red, his dark skin flushing deeply.
"Purging the ta... that was one of my men! A good pilot, who helped his crew and the rest of the column survive! Who did more than his part in helping defend this world! And you just..." The commander pointed to the body. "You executed him! For what, an extra joint!"
"Deviation from the divine human form is betrayal of the Emperor. It is heresy." The templar replied mechanically. "This one shares the taint. She will be purged." She almost fell to her knees, so hard she was trembling. It was all too much. The commander pulled out his own side arm, pointing it at the marine, ignoring the three other marines that immediately took him in their sights.
"You pull that trigger and I swear to the God Emperor himself I will kill you myself." The astartes finally looked away from her, the red eyed helmet looking down at the furious commander.
"Those are traitorous words, commander." The sound of mechanical motion caught the attention of those stuck in the tense face off as the baneblade's weaponry lowered themselves to aim at the space marines. She could see, even through her panic attack, how the space marines tensed. Even their power armour would not offer enough protection to survive if the colossal tank opened fire on them.
"I am not the one who killed one of the Emperor's servants with no trial." The tense standoff was plunged in silence, only the sound of nervous shifting from those witnessing it being heard. Then, slowly, the space marine lowered his weapon.
"There will be consequences for this, commander." Far from intimidated, the commander snorted.
"Oh trust me templar, I do not intend to let this matter go." The space marine grunted, turning away and walking back to his waiting squad. As the commander put his sidearm back into his holster, he called out: "Oh, and you might want to be careful going around calling people mutants. You're further from the human form than he ever was. People might get ideas of killing a few mutants themselves." The space marine tensed, but did not turn back. Once he joined his squad, the marines walked away, presumably to their next assignment. The commander watched them leave with weary eyes, sighing deeply as they walked out of sight, his entire body posture sagging. He looked at her with eyes full of compassion. "You alright there soldier?" She ignored him, walking up to the body of her brother, falling to her knees as she reached down to him. She grabbed him by the shoulders, staring at the vacant spot where his head had once been, before bringing his body against her, hugging him desperately. She ignored the blood running down her body armour as she started to shake, tears welling in her eyes. She clutched him tighter, memories of her brother and herself playing in the slums back on their homeworld. They would never get to go back. Because of an extra joint. She wailed in grief and pain, the other crews either looking at her with discomfort and respectful solemnety, or back in the direction the marines had gone with murderous intent. Angry mutterings filled the air, but she did not hear them. Could not. Her vision was blurred by the tears, her ears ringing with the sound of her own sobbing. She would never talk to him again, never get to see him smile that bright smile of his. All because some space marine took offense to him.
And in the ashes of her grief, an ember of hate was born.
Ayna knew something was wrong the moment more ships had entered the system. The fact those very ships were now headed towards them was a concern. Her sister was focused on her creation, tweaking and changing things to it. Ayna had to admit she was curious what it was exactly Anya was making; her sister had revealed herself to be far better than expected at genetic manipulation. Her little obsession with taking prisoners to talk was...well. Ayna didn't mind so long as it didn't put her sister in danger. If she tried taking a custodes prisoner, Ayna will have some strong objections. A regular human was fine at the end of the day.
Back at the concern at hand. She wasn't sure what they were planning, but it couldn't be good. Were they going to open fire on them again? The progenitor could blast any of the ships in a single attack, but it took some time to recharge. Still, with only the seven ships approaching, they would not have the firepower to seriously damage it before going down, so what...
She cursed as the ships suddenly opened fire. But those weren't the enemy batteries.
Boarding ships. They were sending space marines on the ship. This...this could be bad.
"ANYA!" She called out through their psychic link. "WE'RE GOING TO HAVE COMPANY!"
"Oh?" Her sister answered immediately. "Neat! I'll go greet them then."
"Oh my god please take this seriously Anya." She asked with a groan, raising to her full height, calling on the various creatures in the ship. Termagants and tervigons. Useful against usual boarding parties, but against astartes...this wouldn't be enough. The ship was not made to defend itself. The only ones who would be able to fight effectively against the enemies were her sister and herself. No matter what, the astartes could not be allowed to reach Nornie and her sisters. "Those aren't PDF or guardsmen. Those are space marines, and if they're boarding they're going to send their best."
"Are they as strong as Occ?" Anya asked. Ayna did not like the excitement in her voice.
"I doubt it, but there are going to be a lot more than him."
"Oooooh..." Ayna groaned. Damnit. So much for making her sister focused. "Oh come on sis. You know I take this seriously. Nothing wrong with having a bit of fun at the same time."
"Ugh. You're lucky I love you."
"Love you too sis." Down in the genetic pool Anya had been playing in, the white haired girl hummed. "I wonder what space marine tastes like."
Anya: "Welcome everyone to my cooking show! We're making black templar stew today!"
Ayna: "There aren't any black templars here."
Anya: "...huh. Did they get lost?"
Black templar, lost in the middle of the flesh ship: "EVERYTHING LOOKS THE FUCKING SAME IN HERE!"
