Captain Gabriel Angelos of the Blood Ravens Third Company stood back to back with Ragnar Black-mane, Youngest Wolf Lord in the history of the Space Wolves chapter, battling for life against the vicious onslaught of foul Tyranids with not only with their own forces of marines and Planetary Guardsmen but with those of a large, Kroot assisted, Tau battle force.
Both companies had received a distress signal form the Agro-worlds of Lessnom and Lessnon. Both planets nearly the same orbit of the system's sun. It took roughly 3-minutes to each the other from either and was near identical in landscape and exactly the same in atmosphere.
The twin worlds were being sieged by Tau, as said in the message the Blood Ravens' ship the Litany of Fury from Lessnon, while the Space Wolves had gotten a distress message from Lessnom, dating one day later then the Tau message, telling of a Tyranid attack.
What had been discovered was that one-day into the siege by the Tau a Slinter fleet of Hive Fleet Kraken had destroyed the majority of the Tau fleet, forcing them to the planets' surfaces.
They were forced to work with the Tau to repel the merciless Tyranids off the Lessnon and now they fought over Lessnom.
A tyranid warrior sent a guardsman to flying into the face of the cliff that formed the near circle wedge where they fought. Ragnar lifted his bolter and fired the pistol's bullets into one of the warrior's eyes, blinding it one side.
The beast turned and roared a challenge, lifting its large scything talons into the air. Ragnar returned the roar/challenge with his own wolf howl, bringing his large spear, a smaller copy of the spear of Leman Russ that wounded the chaos primarch Magnus the red in the hands of the Ancient wolf lord Garm, up to eye level as his own space wolves howled after him.
They circled one another, talons and spear waiting to strike the other. The tyranid charged, slashing at anything that got in its way. Ragnar came in fast as a pair of Tau gave the tyranid a pounding with their pulse rifles. The tyranid warrior decapitated on and killed the other with a swipe of its rendering claws.
This gave Ragnar the chance to plunge his the spear into the warrior's chest before he was sent sprawling by the scything talons with three diagonal cuts in his chest plate. The tyranid tried to pull the spear from his chest as the mystic energies in the spear pour holy power through its body. Ragnar aimed his bolt pistol at the head as it screeched in pain. He fired squarely into the open mouth, the explosive bullets detonating, blast the head from the inside out.
Ragnar continued to fire his bolter as he sprinted for his spear. He ducked as a pair hormagaunts leaped at him, letting a hail of bolter fire rip them apart. He reached the tyranid corpse and yanked his spear out of the body.
Meanwhile Gabriel continued fighting the smaller, swarming tyranids. He swung his chain sword into a termagaunt's neck as it clung to a space wolf's back. Suddenly a group of rippers pushed through a group of guardsmen. Gabriel cried a warning as the beasts approached.
Sergeant Ckirus and his squad of Marines turned as one, releasing a torrent of bolter fire into swarming 'Nids.
Soon the Tau and Space Marines had driven the foul xenos back with disciplined volleys of weapon fire and the viscous close combat power of the Marines and large gathering of Kroot kindreds surviving the surviving Tau.
But they all knew that death was inevitable. The Tyranid swarm had a near limitless supply to its army and the ordnance from Tyranid Bio-Vores was taking a toll on its the dwindling opposition.
Then striding through the bugs, flanked by four Tyranid Guards and a pair of floating Zoanthropes, came a Tyranid Hive Tyrant, said to be the physical embodiment the Hive Mind.
"Captain, I can't fight both Zoanthropes at once." Warned Pasko, the new Librarian for the Blood Ravens' Third company after his predecessor, Isador Akios, stole a powerful gem after being controlled by the chaos Sorcerer Sindri and was killed by his closest friend, Gabriel Angelos.
Suddenly the Tyranid Tyrant looked skyward, just a second before the space wolves not wearing their helmets caught the scent of drop pods.
In an instant the Tyranid forces fired into the sky, tyring to blast away the falling drop pods filled with Space Marines.
The pods were either bright blazing orange or dark catachan green with black markings. One orange pod was heading straight for the Tyrant, but just before it hit two of the pod hatches facing the Marines burst open and a pair of blazing orange space marines sprung out, landing squarely in front of the wolf lord and Captain.
One marine stood tall, wielding a mighty power sword of crystal identical in colour to the warrior's armour in his right, crystal clawed Terminator hand. He had a rare pre-heresy Terminator helm with a row of long, red crystal spike on top, runes etched across it. His armour was covered in runes, designs and other Terminator parts. What appeared to be a medium flamer was built into right should pad with metal tubes connecting it to his back pack while something that resembled a large set of heavy rapid-fire plasma cannons was built into his left shoulder pad, which also was connected to his back pack. To finish it off his left Terminator hand had a heavy quad storm bolter in it.
The other was a black and orange Techmarine. He possessed four mech arm/tentacles, one over his right arm and one beneath with the same on his left. A heavy flamer tipped the upper left tentacle while the lower left was a many taloned claw designed to assist in repairs but equally good for slicing up opponents. The upper right was a heavy multi-melta and the last was a large, thick gripping claw. In his hands he held a long mechanical staff topped by a silver version of the twin headed imperial eagle. Its other end was a humming power blade.
"CHARGE!" The order roared from the figure with the crystal blade as his warriors charged from their pods at the Tyranids as the Hive Tyrant slowly began regenerating and lifted itself from the crater as it roared its rage, bringing the massive power of a Tyranid swarm into play.
The slaughter was really about to start.