Chaplain Kylan walked away, shouting orders to the other squads, pointing out positions on the wall for them to take up. Imperial Guardsmen ran past them, openly staring, until a Kylan turned his rictus-masked face towards them, and they ceased. Erasmus frantically called out again, "Lord Chaplain, we need to retake the missile silos and get them working again!"
Kylan had his back turned to the Veteran Sergeant and stated, "We will not be retaking the silos, Sergeant Erasmus. You will take position over the Main Gate." Kylan gestured at the massive adamantine gates.
"Lord Chaplain, we must get the silos working again!"
"Sergeant Erasmus, you forget your place."
"Lord Chaplain!"
"Erasmus, if I send my Marines out there to retake the silos, they will be surrounded and wiped out. I have made my decision and get to your damn battle-position!"
Erasmus saluted, fuming inside and hustled over with his squad to aide the Imperial Guard and PDF troopers in holding the gate.
A senior Guard officer, most likely a Colonel, if Kylan was reading his pips right, ran up to the Chaplain.
"Lord, we are most honored that you have come to our help. If you wish, we can discuss my men's disposition and the cities defenses."
Kylan turned and gazed into the Colonels eyes, the Chaplains hard eyes causing the man to squirm uncomfortably.
"Yes, I do wish." The Chaplain said simply.
Erasmus was angry. If they could have retaken the damn missile silos, they could have slowed the 'nid attack and given the bloody Guard more time to prepare. An inner voice told him that the Lord Chaplain was right but he dismissed the thought when the flocks of gargoyles wheeled and plunged down the length of the wall, their foul bio-plasma screaming and their fleshborers pumping out swarms of flesh eating beetles.
"MORENAS!' he shouted at his flame gunner, 'cover east!" The Space Marine ran down the wide column that was the top of the wall and sent gouts of holy promethium into the gargoyles, immolating dozens. Shrieking, the flying 'nids wheeled away to find easier kills.
Looking back out over the wall, towards the gathering Tyranid swarms, his hearts beat faster with dread. He could no longer make out individual organisms; all he could see was a mass of scuttling carapace, broken by the occasion bulk of a larger organism, most likely the so-called synapse creatures the tactical briefing told them to kill on sight. The swarms were still a good distance away, far enough away that the artillery mounted on the wall could not reach it.
Mepesto's landing was not so smooth. He had taken the bulk of the Company, eighty Marines, to defend the capitol, Kresa. Well, the PDF troopers manning the Hydra batteries on the walls were not alerted to the fact that Space Marines would be coming to aide them and had almost shot down one of the Thunderhawks. Mepesto had a word with the PDF commander, and the over-anxious troopers were transferred to the front wall.
The swarms of Tyranids had amassed much faster around Kresa and within an hour of landing, Mepesto's detachment was in the thick of the fighting, attacked by swarms of spineguants, hormaguants and termaguants. Behind the masses of gaunts, organisms classified as 'Carnifex' and 'Warrior' advanced, their unholy screams drowning out another, more sinister sound. That sound was burrowing.
Mepesto was in the thick of the fighting at the first wall where a heavily mutated Carnifex had almost taken down the wall. Over the semi-destroyed section, gaunts leapt over, engaging the brave defenders in close-range firefights that only the Space Marines really excelled at. Standard Issue Imperial Guard flak armor was no defense against the terrible bio-weapons that the gaunts had, some firing showers of worms that ate flesh from the inside out, or spines coated in poison that left men frothing, broken wrecks.
"For the Emperor!" Mepesto shouted as he and his command squad joined the firing line, his storm bolter pumping out dozens of shells. Every one of the bolts struck home, not a shell was wasted. Next to him, Gunner Hemitez firing his multi-melta into a group that had formed up behind a pile of shattered bodies, melting every one of the foul zenos into a pool of liquid goo. Inspired by the Warhawks Captain, Guardsmen fought with renewed vigor, their las-guns sounding pitiful against the shrieks and screams of the bio-weapons of the 'nids. A gaunt with large, scything talons jumped at Mepesto, hissing like a daemon. The Captain sidestepped and slashed his lighting claw across the 'nids torso, cutting the beast into smoking chunks.
A Leman Russ of the Twelfth Cadian revved behind the firing line, using its dozer blade to push a mound of debris from a demolished building against the partially destroyed wall, blocking the gaunt attack. Twice more, the Leman Russ pushed more debris against the wall. The mass of twisted adamantine and ferrocrete was shorter than the actually wall, but it still stopped the damn gaunts and that was all that mattered. Mepesto raised his lighting claw in a salute to the quick thinking tank commander.
"Captain Mepesto,' a voice in his vox-bead squawked over the din of inhuman screams and gunfire, 'This is Sergeant Greavous, we have warriors on the wall and need your assistance…" the end of the Sergeants transmission was cut short. Mepesto quickly bolted up the wall via a covered stairway and charged towards the south-wall, where Greavous had been deployed. Emperor help them all if the Warriors took the wall there.
Chaplain Kylan hurried over the Main Gate, a towering, thirty meter tall, solid adamantine construction, where Erasmus had summoned him on a matter critical to the defense of the city. Seeing the Chaplain, Erasmus pointed towards the missile silos that the Sergeant had been so adamant about retaking. At first, Kylan could not quite make out what he was seeing, but his auto senses increased magnification. He snarled at what he saw. Dozens of gaunts were pouring into the silos, like sand through an hour-glass.
"Colonel Jendrax,' he spoke into the vox-link, transmitting on the Imperial Guard frequency, 'do the missile silos connect into the city?"
Hissing, the vox was silent for a moment, then the Colonel's voice cut through, "Yes, Chaplain, they connect through a series of sewers. Why?"
"Colonel, send your storm troopers into the sewers and tell them to hold until reinforced, damn it!" without waiting for a reply, Kylan turned to Erasmus, a sight smile on his masked face.
"Erasmus, since you wanted to retake those silos, you can counter-attack through the sewers. GO!"