Chapter 4

Karachna rolled over and looked at the beeping alarm. He realised that having his helmet on mute kind of made the alarm pointless and threw it into the bin. After getting up and dusting off his armour he proceeded to open the many locks on his front door. Most chapters would not have this problem and would not sleep in their armour, but The Spider Guard took extra precautions since one of the scouts had been ambushed by a slaaneshi cultist from the lower decks. None of them had heard of that many uses for a Rubik's cube before. When Karachna opened the door he came face to face with a paper brick wall. This was the most common prank on the ship and Karachna had learnt. He kept walking and attempted to walk straight through it, bounced off and landed on his hammer. A solid brick wall, not common. He picked up his hammer and casually flicked the on switch, sending it flying through the brick wall and out the other side, taking out two marines at the same time. He went through and removed the hammer from the marine's remains and shoved them under the ceramite floorboards. By pressing a button on his wrists he exposed the corridor's under-floor to the cold hard vacuum of space, sucking out the marine's bodies. No-one would worry, even carnifexes dwelled in the lower decks. He decided to look out of the observation decks on the higher levels and check on his domain. He hadn't done that for a while. He looked up to see his honour guard standing around in full battle gear with puppy dog eyes. Obviously they were waiting for battle orders; they would be waiting a long time. He walked past them and beckoned them to follow.

Karachna looked out upon Corathia Three. Something about it was odd but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Then he realised. At this time Corathia Three was in autumn so, as it was a forest world, should have been a red-orange colour, but right now it was a shade of green. There were only two reasons for this. One, global warming had caused spring to come early, two a claw beetle or ork incursion. Two was the most likely. He turned round to his honour guard who seemed to be rather occupied pointing out local landmarks on the planets and called them over.

"As my Honour Guard you must learn to understand the signs of problems with local planets." He started. "Now, what would you say was wrong with this planet?"

"Um... Spring came early?" ventured Charon shortly before a flying thunder hammer knocked him unconscious.

"Personally, I would say that it is an ork Waagh, or the local claw beetles have spread too far."

Mumbled Kharne quietly.

"Perfect answer Kharne." said Karachna. "This also means something else. Call the Devastators, the assault marines and two companies of tactical marines. Oh and bring the scouts too."

"Sir?" asked Kharne.

"Time for battle men... have fun."

Karachna paced back and forth in his bunker, swinging his thunder hammer in circles. It had been hours since the scouts had been dropped, by Thunderhawk and Stormbird into the dense forests ahead. It can't have taken this long for them to have found out what was going on. Suddenly, there was a series of ear-splitting screams over the vox and Karachna collapsed, holding his head. When the screams had stopped, Karachna straightened up and headed towards the bunker's entrance to see a large ball of smoke covering the horizon. Not smoke, he realised, but dust. A claw beetle stampede. Deadly to anything in its path, showing that their main nest must have collapsed... or been attacked.

Karachna opened the vox channel and ordered the men to fall back until told to stop. And to run for their lives. He turned round and looked for the clearest path possible. He then fired his jump pack and headed towards the smaller, defence base with the claw beetles snapping at his heels. He waited until he was at enough of a distance before he lifted his angle, performed a somersault over the charging swarm, landed painfully on his knees and collapsed onto his face. Karachna opened the vox link to the fleet and ordered them to send down his two Thunderhawks and his personal Stormbird to the main base. He would find his honour guard.

Karachna had found his honour guard scattered around the swarm's wreckage. By their own means they had all survived; Haren had survived just by standing there and letting the swarm run over him (twenty other terminators had survived this way), Sergio had been firing four missiles at a time, Kharne had climbed over, Charon had burned his way through and Nathan had followed him. They were waiting for the Thunderhawks with the two remaining squads of terminators. The rest of the marines had either been killed (like the entire devastator company), or had already taken off. Karachna stood up as his Stormbird landed and led his honour guard in, the terminators boarding the Thunderhawks at either side. While the pilots made the final checks Karachna decided to listen to the jokes his honour guard were sharing.

"What do you get if you dangle a steak in front of a tyranid? Eaten."

"What do you get if you cross a slaaneshi and a nurgle daemon? STD's."

"What do you get if you tie a spider to a Dark Eldar? The only known thing that beats itself to death."

It mainly continued in this way until Karachna fell asleep. He wasn't asleep long when a large explosion shook the ship. They had already taken off and were hundreds of miles into the atmosphere until a blast went through one side of the ship and bounced off the other before returning through the same hole. Unfortunately 'this side' was the reactor cable, causing the ship to lose power and fall through the sky. The vox revealed the two flanking Thunderhawks had also suffered damage and all were plummeting through the sky at extreme speed. Everyone braced themselves for the impact.

"Oh fuck it..." said Karachna, shortly before blacking out.

If i were you i would read the other stories or this next bit will make no sense. They are: The Forq Marines by Angry Kid130, Camion Lavair by Reedy180 and an orky tale by hell yer. Trust me. Worth the read.