782.68 41M
2400/3000
System- Adulon
Planet- Dragus
Sector- Baddeus
Somewhere near Faldas Hive
"Medic! Medic!"
"Here!" trooper Crast leapt over the sandbag perimeter and ran quickly over to wherever the screams he heard were loudest, hunched over to prevent any stray fleshborers from digging into his uncarapaced flank. Sounds of the battle at Baddeus sector 3 drifted on the spore-choked wind to his position, screaming and explosions and occasionally an unearthly, bestial roar. Dragus was a plains world, so nothing obstructed the noises from the small outpost a few kilometers away.
"You took your damn time getting here," said a young PDF trooper bent over the body of a thrashing soldier with a vicious hole in his side. His blue eyes glanced momentarily at Crast's from underneath a dirt-stained helmet. Blood covered the ground around him, and more slowly spurted from the gash in the wounded trooper's side. His face screwed up in a grimace of pain, he ranted and raved, not paying much attention to anything around him. "It BURNS, doc, get it the frak out!" "It's probably dead by now, son." Crast had to yell over the boy's screams. Scarred hands and hard eyes rummaged through the bag. "Fleshborers live for about five seconds after contact with skin." While Crast tore a pair of tweezers from his medkit, the man continued his raving. "I don't frakking CARE, by the Throne, it BURNS! AUGH!" The boy was lucky. The thing spent most of its energy burrowing through the thin PDF-issue antiriot armour before it reached the skin. It was only a flesh wound.
After injecting the PDF trooper with morphine and removing the dead bioweapon from his flank, the hardened medic took a moment to review the situation. He was situated in trench two, one of three medics in sector four of the massive battle line. No, that didn't sound right- a beaten-up-almost-gone-to-shit battle line. Almost everyone around him was wounded or dying. In fact the trooper bent over the unconscious man was the only other person who was currently not lying on the ground. Crast turned his hard grey eyes in the other trooper's direction (Mik, the small ident tag on his chest read), and inquired roughly, "Who's in command here, trooper?" Before Mik could answer, he added, "And don't give me any of the cliché bullshit like 'Oh, guess I'm the only officer here.'" The trooper looked around for a moment, and with a grin shot back, "Well, actually I believe I am. Least until I find someone else of higher rank to unload my troubles upon." Crast surveyed the grim spectacle, and flinched as an enormous boom shook the ministratum building the sandbag barricade was situated behind. "Howzit over in this little corner? You guys have any fun yet?" Mik grinned wider and retorted "Bit too much, patch-man. Some of us might have OD'd a bit on it." Crast sighed. It was like this in the last hole he left, blood-drenched ground, pieces of (thankfully) unidentified flesh, small whimpers of pain on occasion. That was what really scared him- the silence. No screams of pain like he was used to. Everyone had seemed to have given up on living, and just lay there, despite the pain, waiting for the Emperor to come floating down to relieve them of their agony.
A thought struck him. He looked up suspiciously at Mik, and asked, "What happened to the last patcher?" The grin fell from Mik's face, and he was about to reply when he was interrupted by the characteristic unearthly, alien screeching of gargoyles that had found a nice haven to make a mockery of. The ridiculous position behind a ministratum building had found itself suddenly besieged by a cloud of the swooping, flapping terrors. Cries of dismay rising about them as wounded troopers caught sight of the xenos, and the few soldiers with limbs enough to do so began dragging themselves along the ground in a pitiful attempt to find something to hide behind. The minority of troopers with any kind of weapon in their bloodstained hands raised them pitifully, and fired a few fleeting shots into the air, to no avail. Two gargoyles, closer and sharper than the rest, dove down and dragged a trooper into the air. You would expect the grotheads to squabble over it like carrion birds over meat, but these two things operated in perfect synchronisation that was even more frightening to behold- it reminded everyone that all of these things had the same brain. The wounded trooper was dragged, wailing, out of sight. Crast and the young trooper Mik glanced at each other momentarily, before rushing to find some kind of cover under the 'nid's assault before those scything talons could find their heads. But before the shrieking creatures could consume their helpless prey, a heavy stubber from a position within the building noticed that uglies had found their way into its territory. It growled and spat its displeasure at the beasts, downing four of them. Green-tinted gore fell in a rain upon the wounded and dead alike. Dismayed, and too far from the hive mind to regroup, the remainder scattered. Fortunately, the terrors had been bred purely for close combat, or they would have been dead already. The young PDF glanced over the overturned munitions cart they had been fortunate enough to get behind, and looked back to Crast, grinning. "Lil' shits." He scanned the sky for more of the horrors, and told him "Coast's clear." They quickly ran back to the wounded troopers, many of which were weeping in relief of their close encounter, and resumed their grim work. They began stitching up a trooper who got too close to a wounded gaunt, and had a scything talon rip up the flesh on his leg. He took the pain well. Tears spilled from his eyes, and his face reddened, but his mouth could have been stapled shut for all that came out of it. As they worked, Mik told Crast that the medic had been carted off by another screecher from above. "I was his escort for a while, and I learned a trick or two from that ol' patcher. So instead of breaking down like a pussy and whining about how useless I am, how much PDF suck, and how much shit I'd gone through, I actually tried to help." The grin resumed its place on his face, and Crast thought he could see a touch of hysteria in it. His hands shook as they administered one of the last vials of painkiller into the trooper's leg. Crast looked down at it, and suddenly grew uncomfortable. He leaned over to the soldier, who, he realized, was shivering slightly. "Son." He asked quietly. "You alright?" Mik twitched slightly at the question, looked at Crast, and forced out "Yeah, sure, I'm fine." He gave a nervous grin, which, despite its validity, appeared strained. Crast told him in an undertone keeping his voice steady, "Now, I want you to back off. Take a rest. Can you do that?" "No," Came the immediate reply. "I can deal with myself just fine." Crast, keeping his eyes on the boy, reached into his pack and found some lho-sticks. "Will these help?" Mik took one with a shaking hand, and lit it with the PDF-issue matches retrieved from an unseen pocket. Breathing out greenish smoke, he sighed.
"Yeah, patch, that really helped. Was on the verge of frotting myself, wasn't I?"
Crast nodded. He had seen one nutcase who had succumbed to shellshock. Had to put the man down himself; weren't any comissaars around to help. The man made a mess going down, but at least gave Crast something to do. Crast looked back down, feeling safe enough to concentrate on the man with the gash. He administered a shot of dreamland, before sitting down and pulling out a lho-stick himself and lighting it. He pulled out his medikit and sorted through the assorted tools and gadgets, some he had never even used.
"Patch?" Came the voice again. It was calmer, at any rate- he wasn't going to pull the pin on a pineapple in the middle of a makeshift infirmary, or shoot the people around him in order to 'spare their souls'… probably. "Yeah?" Came the reply.
Mik was leaning back against the remains of a secretarial desk, looking into the sky, smoke steadily trickling through his lips. A small puddle of blue sky was visible directly above them through the spores over outpost 3-B, the first bit visible for two months. "Nice for once, ain't it?"
Crast didn't say anything. Mik's head turned to face him. "When they coming, Patch?"
Crast still didn't look up from his sorting. Never, his mind said. "Soon," his mouth said. Mik asked again. "Nice. Ain't it?"
Looking up this time, Crast had to agree.
The Dragus PDF established a foothold in the Baddeus region as quickly as possible as word of the hive fleet swept into the system. Initial establishment was difficult, as most info broadcasted by voxcaster tended to be filled with static, excepting those messages run through the most basic channels. 'Stealer infestations cropped up early on after the news first reached PDF officers, and lictor sightings became frequent in the suburbs. The first attempts to establish some sort of a defence against the hive fleet were literally torn to shreds, the 'stealers thwarting any attempt. The insurgents became more and more confident, striking deeper and into juicier prey. Things began to look hopeless, until the presence of an inquisitor in Acrum hive became known. Soon after that Inquisitor Xenos Magenty had firm defence systems established in Acrum, or at least as firm as a PDF force could make it. He directed counterattacks at the 'stealer cults lurking in the under hives, and torched any lictor that dared expose even a single talon. He evacuated the hive of minors and civilians, leaving only himself, his retinue, and the local PDF troopers garrisoned within. Just before the shadow in the warp overtook the planet, almost all warp-capable ships from almost all hives, carrying all the civilians they could, managed to get away, broadcasting distress signals. To this day, no-one on Dragus knew the fate of the ships. Despite gene-screening, somehow 'stealers always find their way on board.
Nobody really questioned why there was an inquisitorial presence on Dragus, either, but nobody really cared, either. They all thought he was there to save them from the 'nids, and to them, that was all that mattered.
In about a week, responding to the distress signals, the first reinforcements will be sent to the three (so far) threatened systems- aid in the form of a full space marine chapter and four guard companies from the Scyllan Stormkillers. Magenty established control and soon had crude but effective message systems set up between major hives, reinforcing strategic locations, pulling PDF to more important locations. It had been established that Dragus was the unofficial base-of-operations against the tyranid threat in the Adulon sector.
The first escort drones from the as-of-yet unnamed hive fleet arrived soon after Acrum had been cleansed. Before the orbital defence batteries were destroyed, more than half were eradicated. Spores soon rained down in the plains around major hives, and tyranid protozoae clogged the skies within half a day. But the atmospheres around the hives, for now, remained clear. The PDF were hard-pressed when the first spores hit, but hopeful that they would survive in time to catch their first glimpses at the fabled astartes of the Hurricanes chapter.
The planet of Gados, due to its rapid rotation, is buffeted near-constantly with winds, occasionally reaching gale force. The few mountainous regions near bodies of water are pockmarked with holes, as a result of the winds eroding and drilling through the stone. The warriors of the Hurricanes are not only adapted to extremely unstable terrain, their aim seems preternatural, even amongst astartes standards. Their aim coupled with their preferred weapon, the heavy bolter, and their ability to fortify any position, allows them to defend almost any location indefinitely from almost any enemy. They were sent as they were the closest chapter available to send assistance.
The guardsmen of Scylla have a whole librarium dedicated to tyranid warfare- they single-handedly eradicated three splinter fleets of hive fleet kraken, and fought alongside the astartes chapters the Ultramarines, the Hurricanes, and the Iron Fists in the clearing of hive fleet Leviathan from the Turtle stars. Their knowledge came at a bitter price- in their last engagement against a splinter fleet, their home planet was overrun and cleared for exterminatus. However, though the tyranids were eradicated by the cyclonic torpedoes, the Scyllans survived- they had taken refuge in sealed, underground tunnels and underneath fallen hive buildings that had been converted into airtight fortresses. Astounded by their resilience, the Administratum sent mechanicus envoys for terraforming and atmospheric reconstruction, and discovered the Scyllans had survived in their sealed bastions through a combination of hardiness and makeshift atmospheric generators. The Scyllans have earned their reputation thrice over, and would prove it again in the Adulon, Selim, and Corous systems.
Two days later, Crast, Mik, and the rest of the men stationed at outpost 3-B were annihilated when Faldas hive was overrun.