They had come from the deep, shuffling out from the shadows like a bizarre parade, a carnival of what was once human. Klinsten was leading his men in a conjoined search when Bassa reported contact. Rapid weapons fire had echoed all throughout the complex seconds after. Then the noises. Those horrible noises, the marching of dozens of mechanoid and organic feet. The groaning and mumbling, the laughing and chittering and coughing. Klinsten had frozen when he heard it, all his training screaming for a pinpoint location. But it seemed to come from the walls themselves. "I want firing lines and covered sectors." He yelled, his men consumed by a flurry of activity. They rapidly formed up and had stablights pointing in every direction within a few minutes. Klinsten's trained eyes ran along the lines of his men, judging the terrain like every other battlefield. They were in another of the hundreds of processing facilities. A wide rectangular chamber with high ceilings dominated by crisscrossing conveyor belts. The floor was covered in smelters and other industrial equipment, still there was space enough for the task force to have solid fields of fire. "Contact Malin's Reach, get me the major." Klinsten watched the gloom beyond his men's lights before the vox operator shook his head. "Can't get through sire, too deep." The man said, furiously scrabbling at the buttons and dials on his equipment. "Keep trying Silas." Klinsten said before putting a finger on his vox bead, "Bassa, get your old arse up here!"
"Trying my best sir." Bassa yelled into the vox bead, trying to be heard over the roar of his autogun. After killing the first infected they had come in droves, bloated and huge infested bodies had broken through the ferrocrete walls of the hab unit to swarm him. Ranx's plasma gun spat white hot fire from his right, the bolts of fire boiling flesh and melting metal. The mutants were a disgusting mixture of corrupted workers, slaves, and servitors. All united in a horrible purpose to rip them apart, they reached with tentacles or mechanical limbs pitted by rust and filth. Bassa kicked a gangly worker back, pumping its prone form with solid shot. Solomon shrieked prayers while firing from behind Bassa. Together the three men slowly walked back through the dust covered hab unit.
"Ranx! Pop a frag!" He yelled, shoving a brute with goats' feet back. He watched something fly and land at the back of the group. Something far larger than a grenade. Bassa sprayed the front of the horde and began to sprint. Stopping only to drag Solomon with him. The explosion and subsequent smoke chased the men as they ran, then fire consumed the hallway and hab unit. The shockwave shoved them all to the ground, all of them crumpled on the cold floor outside the hab entrance. Bassa pushed himself up and smacked Ranx as he stood. "What the frakking hell was that?" He asked, Ranx chuckled and shook his head. "Sorry sarge, I must've grabbed a demolition charge." Bassa glared for a second, then smacked his helmet again. "Stupid frakker! You're lucky it worked, otherwise I'd be ripping you a new one in front of the Emperor's throne."
Ranx looked back into the hab unit now belching smoke. "What were those? I've never seen poxxers or cultists that big. Or that nasty." Bassa slapped his shoulder and hauled a kneeling Solomon up, "Doesn't matter, we need to get back to the Lieutenant." Bassa began to jog while holding his auspex in one hand, closing in on the dots in a loose formation ahead of him. But something caught his eye, the mass of signatures beginning to close in on them. From all sides, including the winding passages in front of him. "Frak! We're cut off." He yelled back, Ranx joined him and spat on the floor. Bassa began to fiddle with the auspex before Ranx slapped his shoulder, pointing up. "There sir, conveyor belt, we can use that to reach them from above." Bassa nodded and began to frantically search for a stairway or attaching conveyor. "Here sir!" he heard from above, seeing Solomon perched on a conveyor that went straight up. "Good eye lad, help me up." Bassa took Solomon's hand and hauled himself and then Ranx up. Slowly they crawled along the conveyor, hearing the sounds of las fire in the distance.
Klinsten's pistol spat heat all over his gloved hand as it vented air from its ports. His target, a corrupted servitor, collapsed with a hole burned through its swollen head. All around him weapons fire speared out into the gloom, and all around him the shadows stumbled forward. Horribly bloated and mutated workers stumbled forward with toxic slowness. Faster and gangly shapes skittered and scrambled towards his lines, met by mercilessly accurate las fire. His men were holding, but they were surrounded, and being pressed in by more and more creatures. Patti kneeled over a man that had been lashed by a tentacle, his right eye was leaking and his face was split by a wide cut. Klinsten prayed for him before turning to his left flank. "Hilo! Retreat ten paces and start policing accuracy, for fraks sake your men are missing too much! Callisto, get your squad farther up!" Klinsten roared over the constant cracking of las fire. He shot a glance back a Silas and his vox, the man's face pale and strained, still trying to get through the interference. "Bassa! Where the frak are you?" Klinsten yelled into his vox, blasting another mutant. His pistol vented heat as its bloated fellows clambered over it's smoking corpse, closing in on him fast. The troopers in front pumped las fire into the creatures, desperate to protect their officer. Klinsten watched as the heavy brutes ran through a hail of ruby red, their diversion allowing space for the other malformed infected to close in. Suddenly the lead brutes, who were once servitors, began to shudder as heavy rounds rammed into them, chunks dissipating into fine red mist as the bullets tore through soft flesh. "Miss me sir?" Bassa's gravely voice asked from above. "Frakker." Klinsten breathed, smiling ever so slightly.
Bassa snapped off precise bursts, bisecting slack jawed rictus grins and dead expressions plastered onto dead faces. The beasts slowly moving on the men below were tough, ridiculously so. The guardsmen were forced to shoot around mechanical limbs and heavy iron welding masks as well as other scavenged protection. He saw them shrug off shots that would put any normal man down, charging through blizzards of las fire before collapsing scant yards from their firing lines. "Lieutenant? It's looking bad from up here." He watched as Klinsten melted a mutated servitor into slag, the man paused and nodded up at him. "Find us a way-out Sergeant, be quick about it."
Bassa sighed and began to creep along the conveyor, veteran's eyes scanning the battlefield. He alighted on a large circular door, one of three at the far back of the horde. The fat bodies of the mutated industrial workers were pushing through a breach in the ferrocrete beside the last door. As of right now, it was his best hope. "Ranx, think you can blast your way through that big frak off door there?" Bassa yelled over the gunfire. Ranx took a look and grimaced. "That's a blast door sir, them caution and power markings say it's a reactor housing room, powers at least a hundred of these floors." Bassa glared at him until he spoke again. "Aye sir, if our boys give me a hole, I bet I can make it through." Then he paused and growled, "Frak. I'll need Marbian."
Five grenades soared from the entrenched guardsmen to land among the horde coalescing around the reactor room doors. The explosions tore flesh and metal apart, leaving steaming ichor and shattered plasteel everywhere. Ranx and Marbian charged out from their respective positions. Marbian quickly caught up with Ranx as he dropped from the conveyor belt, sliding off a smelter's pipe to land on the ground. Together they charged the reeling horde as las fire put down anything close to them, still, lashing tentacles and other limbs whipped after them as they bulled through broken bloated bodies. Ranx ripped his last explosive charge from his pack and affixed it. Marbian began to string thermite grenades and other scavenged explosives together. His hands worked quickly; the man's eyes closed as he felt his way around the heavy steel. To Ranx it looked as though the expert was a conductor for some great orchestra, his arms moving up and down to some strange tune. "Anytime now!" Ranx shouted as he discharged his plasma gun into the face of a rising beast. Finally, Marbian slapped the door and turned to begin jumping through the throng of bodies and outstretched arms. Las fire rippled around him as he ducked and weaved through the horde. "Frakking billy goat." Ranx groaned before followed suit, far from the agile demolition expert, he rammed his shoulder into anything that stood in his way. Knocking the smaller creatures over and ducking the larger ones. His plasma gun whined as he fired it almost point blank, melting arms from their sockets and legs from bodies. When he was finally clear, blackened blood and offal steamed as it slid down his armor. He leaped over a series of pipes the other guardsmen were using as shelter, and collapsed behind a smelter. In seconds Patti was on him, wiping boiling blood from his eyes and fussing about potential infection or septic shock. All eyes not occupied looking down a weapon watched the door, and the blinking indicator lights affixed to the heavy explosives Marbian had rigged. At the slight nod from Klinsten, Marbian detonated his masterpiece.
Bassa ducked down, feeling a huge piece of shrapnel whistle past his head. He watched as the shambling brutes and gangly creatures all but disappeared. The shockwave stripped flesh from bone and pulverized it. The flames that followed turned fragments of organic matter into ash, it was as though witnessing a direct artillery hit on a populated city market. Nothing remained of those in the immediate blast radius, and those outside of it were torn apart. Bassa felt the shockwave slam him with the force of several pounds of industrial and military explosives. The mineral dust on the belt flew up in a cloud of black, raining down on the guardsmen below. Bassa felt himself begin to slip, he felt his heart shoot up into his throat and his gut move uncomfortably up. Oh, throne! His mind screamed as his feet lost purchase. Then he fell, watching as the cold metal ground flew towards him at impossible speeds.
When he awoke, he was propped up against a locker of some sort. His helmet and respirator lying beside him. His helmet had a very distinct dent in it, and the respirator's right filter was cracked. His head hurt like never before, the pain equal to a dozen hangovers. It throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and it clouded his vision. Slowly his eyes focused on Patti's blurry face, his ringing ears struggled to make out her words. He knew the gist though. "I'm frakked aren't I?" He mumbled, the words spilling out in a drunken mumble. She paused and stabbed a syringe into his left arm, the pain subsided and his vision cleared. The ringing abated as well, but he still felt like battered shit. "You took one hell of a tumble Sergeant, Reuband had to drag you out." She said in a gentle voice, loud enough to be heard over the las fire in the background. He saw the ruby light flash in from the doorway, Bassa's eyes widened and he tried to stand. A firm hand pushed him down, another hand placed a heavy object in his lap. "No. Sit here and keep me covered while I work on your head. You're lucky you didn't crack open like an egg. The piping broke your fall for the most part, but you still landed pretty heavy on your side. Two cracked ribs and serious bruising to your head." Patti's gentle voice instantly soothed his disoriented mind. Bassa fumbled with the autogun in his lap, unlocking the safety and brushing dust off the casing. It was his, as battered and bruised as it's owner.
Sluggish fingers and aching arms fought to rack the weapon and bring it to his shoulder. "What happened after I fell?" He asked, voice clearer and stronger. She grimaced and nodded towards the door. It was then he noticed they were in a storage room populated by rad suits and lockers. "We made it into some sort of reactor room, the big door led into a rail sector with fuel carts and other shit." She paused to tighten the bandage on his head, the bandages were soaked in warm water and felt like the touch of a saint. Even quietening the headache for a while. "The things followed us in, got two of us. Greenhorns, kids." She frowned and looked back at the door. "Klinsten and the others are holding the main reactor room right now, we were trying to get the blast door closed last time I checked."
Klinsten roared orders as he rammed his power sword through a mutant's gut, the scampering thing had charged him with a heavy rusted axe. He had severed the weapon's head from the handle, now he bisected its owner with ease. The dead creature crashed to the floor, and Klinsten stepped forward. Letting loose a plasma bolt into another mutant's shoulder. He spared a glance at the servo skull blurting binary while attached to an input port. The heavy rectangular door that separated reactor from rail system began to lower again before stopping at chest height. Klinsten gritted his teeth and moved back, the men behind him arrayed in a firing line followed suit. Las fire scorched holes into dead flesh as smaller and larger creatures tried to push themselves under the door. After a few moments of furious fire the door lowered again, the motors that powered in groaned from the stress of the bloated bodies hampering it's movement. In the end the old machinery prevailed, and the heavy steel door cut the bodies in two as it closed. Klinsten spat and signalled the task force's flamer to the front. The weapon sparsely used because of the flammable materials and minerals all over the complex. The guardsman who toted it holstered his las pistol and began to burn the bodies, Klinsten watched as flesh blackened and bubbled. He offered a silent prayer of thanks and turned away.