Major Carren sat in his plush office chair, staring at paperwork and messages on his cogitator. Even on a deserted planet, his regiment packed away in a desolate station, administration still found a way to catch up to him. It had been three months since the colonel had left him in charge of Malin's Reach, having left for some political mission Carren had no care for. He puffed on a large cigar, the smoke hazing the room slightly. The haze made his tired eyes swim, eyelids slowly shutting. Then as always, before Carren could be embraced by sweet sleep, he saw the faces. The faces of heretics and loyalists alike, faces whole and broken. The faces of civilians and mutant monstrosities. They circled through his mind on a loop, flashing before his eyes before receding as he fought to bring them into focus or dispel the images himself. He brought a shaking hand to his temple and pushed his peaked cap off. He began his almost daily ritual. Carren rubbed at his temples, soothing the contractions there, willing the headache to go away. He puffed more heavily on the cigar, the grey smoke pouring from his mouth relaxing him. He focused on watching it fade, likening the smoke to the images assailing him. With a deep breath the feelings subsided. He felt his thoughts become sharper, once more turning to his tasks on hand. Reports regarding an incident in the cafeteria from the commissar, requisition requests from sergeants, updates from the motor pool, but not what he was looking for: The operation into the mine deep in the mud flats. Where was a report? Where was anything? They were two days behind projections, if they were suspended for any longer… Carren laughed, what could possibly be down there? There had not been heretic or xeno activity in the sector entire for decades, last reports of orks were years ago, and it had been a conflict easily handled by Ferax IV's PDF. He dispelled the worry like he dispelled the haunting pictures. Choosing to instead work on his belittling administrative work. He noticed with some annoyance Skali-45 had not responded to his requests for an update, guessing she was once again ignoring him. He chose not to dwell on that either. After all, nothing happened on this frakking planet.
Bassa's head throbbed in time with the recoil of his gun, the heavy weapon punching into his shoulder, making it feel like his brain was being bounced around. He wore his standard peaked cap, given his helmet's condition. The hard cloth itching his brow, adding to the sergeant's discomfort. Still, he stood and fought, and as such his squad rallied with him. Three hours after his fall, they had pushed out of the ancient reactor room and were fighting a running battle up the mine, using elevators whenever possible and thundering up stairs two at a time. They lost another man while making a dangerous crossing between two smelting rooms. They were so close to the tauroxes now, so close to freedom. Still the monsters dogged their heels. Faster ones making it impossible to let your guard down, even for a second. The slower ones soaking up las and bullet like blocks of thick glue. He brought three down with bursts to the head, the rounds ripping holes through cybernetic and organic parts alike. Solomon roared prayers as he bashed the head of a thin creature with his rifle butt. They hadn't stopped running for hours, running and fighting and running again, chipping away at the hordes chasing them before running for the closest exit Klinsten found.
Bassa snuck a look back at his friend and commander. The mans face dripping with sweat, brow wrinkled and mouth set into a dead grimace. Cold eyes regarding his data pad with a killing glare. He was about to shout to Klinsten when without warning a frail thing that used to be a human female dropped in front of Bassa, lunging at him with a curved knife melded to a thin arm. The thing gurgled and screeched as it collided with him, tiny arms batting his gun barrel away. It stood a head shorter than him, almost comically small, its size belying the strength the mutant hid beneath ragged skin. It might be unnaturally strong, but Bassa was a veteran, a soldier born to kill. He quickly recovered from the impact, snapping a left hook out into the creature. The punch missed its mark but succeeded in slowing the mutant. Long enough for Bassa to ram his knee into its chest, snapping a rib and eliciting a dry cough from degraded lips. Bassa brought his elbow down hard, flooring the mutant before putting a round through its head. He spat on its corpse and continued firing. "All squads on me, the end is in sight!" Klinsten shouted over the clamor. Bassa was praying the mad frakker had finally found a way out.
Trooper Wilk had killed his first man at twelve. He never told anyone about it. The crazed bastard had put his little sister in danger, what else was he meant to do? He still remembered the feel of his father's autopistol, the kick of the small slugthrower and the blood that spurted from the man's neck. The way his little sister cried in his arms that night, and the quiet respect in his father's hard glare after he found out what happened. His father had been an enforcer in Traxis hive. One of the first to fight the cult. One of the first to die. When his father's body came back, Wilk cried for several hours. Then the rage came, pure holy rage, was what the preacher at the confessional told him. Pure holy anger against the unclean, the sister of the holy order told him as he helped her unload a medical truck. Pure and just, the recruiter told him at the Militarum enlistment post. He felt it now, the hate and anger, the pure holy rage. He remembered his father, his little sister, his mother, all taken from him. Taken by those frakking heretics, those rat bastards with painted faces and stained robes. Those sick, awful, sons of dogs who dared destroy the beautiful, who dared spoil the grandeur the Emperor gave the Imperium. Wilk remembered the kind brown eyes of the sister, how beautiful she was, how she looked at him with such kindness. "You have the righteous faith of the finest preacher Wilk, your soul is untainted." She had said, placing a warm hand on his head. She moved him around with the joviality of an older sibling. "Not enough fine souls in this galaxy, I am blessed to meet one." She had said, before she too was taken from him. The anger rose more, with it a furious faith. He held the spear of the emperor in his hands, it spat red fire and burned away the unclean, it was His, Wilk was His. "I am yours, holy Emperor." He muttered as several yards away a mutant died. He killed his first heretic at twelve, he was now 18, and had no intention of stopping.
The kid was frakking possessed, there was no other explanation for it. It was as though a switch had been thrown in his mind, a baby-faced youth turned into a mindless killing machine befit of an elite soldier corps. His eyes blazed with a fury Bassa had never seen before, save in the eyes of – Bassa ripped his attention away, batting another mutant away. "Squad! Pull back!" Bassa bellowed, kicking the jaw off the flailing creature at his feet. He paused to pull Wilk from his firing stance and shove him into a stumbling run, covering the kid with chattering automatic fire. The barrel of his weapon was beginning to glow red hot, and his ammunition was running low. "Rainer, ammo up!" He yelled to Rainer, who tossed a magazine his way. Bassa caught it and shoved the box into his webbing, kicking a mutant aside as he jogged. The guardsmen ran and shot, sprinting to cover to turn and protect the backs of their fellows, those in front shooting down would-be ambushers. The creatures lumbered behind them, or squeezed their rotted bodies through vents and doors to grasp at passing soldiers. Adrenaline and training miraculously got them to another ascender with no casualties. It was then that their luck ran out, Klinsten's voice announcing a dreadful message. "Ten minutes for the ascender to get here, assume defensive positions and steel yourselves!" He roared with a strained command voice. He strode to stand at the fore of his men, plasma pistol whining in his hand. They fanned out around him, kneeling behind containers and piping, guns ready and faces set. "Come on you slimy frakkers!" Bassa shouted into the darkness, watching as the shadows danced in his pounding eyes. Throne his head hurt. He noticed slowly that this room was the room they had entered a day or so ago, the entrance to the section of the complex without power. The ascender was what brought them to this nightmare, and it would now deliver them. As he squinted in the darkness he noticed the shadows move, and suddenly the pounding in his head was overcome by the sound of buzzing in his ears. Then off to his right he heard a shout. "FLIES! FRAKKING FLIES!"
Trooper Fenix was a quiet man, he didn't talk much. He was one of Callisto's boys, and like everyone else he was scared shitless of the woman. He had nightmares about pissing her off, and it was this fear that drove him to act before anyone else. He watched as the shadows morphed into clouds of flies, lit by the dull red undertones of red emergency lights and the bright white of stab lights. He ripped the flamer from his back and hastily opened the gas valve, he had no time to offer a prayer to his weapon, instead simply hoping the machine spirit would not be aggravated by his haste. The pilot light flared with a small puff, Fenix's training kicking in as he widened his stance and squeezed the firing lever, his flamer began to shoot a wide fan of flame out, scorching everything. His aim was on point, the fat fountain of flame slammed directly into the flies. They dropped in their hundreds, those touched by the flame disappeared, those close to the promethium stream melted from the heat alone. Fenix was elated as his weapon washed the filthy room in brilliant orange light, not caring about how his hands felt like they were roasting. Fenix laughed in a shrill tone, pure excitement coloring his face, just as the flame painted his features.
Bassa watched as the trooper burned the flies from the air, struggling to look into the dancing flames for too long. "Frakking hell, these greenhorns are something else." He muttered, sparing a look at a very proud looking Callisto. Her teeth looked sharper in the light of the flamer, eyes looking more and more like those of a beast. "Might just be her." Ranx whispered from beside Bassa, before he could respond there was a howl of pain. The flamer bearing trooper went down to one knee, a shaft of putrid iron protruding from his shoulder. Bassa then felt an object whistle past his left ear, passing within centimeters of his head. "COVER!" he ordered as he rammed Ranx into a wall, both men dropping down behind a storage locker. The ascender was on the far wall of a vast container storage room. The rows spaced apart by several meters to allow sentinel powerlifters and servitors to access the boxy containers. The area they occupied was pockmarked with containers and other detritus, the workers moving things into the ascender having paused their duties or simply walked away. Pointed metal rained down all around them. One of the objects clattered down around his feet, revealing it to be some sort of arrow. "Frakking nails." Ranx said, chuckling. "What's so funny?" Bassa demanded before Ranx began to laugh harder. "The mutants are shooting nails at us sir. Not the least bit comical to you?" He asked. Bassa glared in response, Ranx just shrugged. "My guess is that they've jury rigged a Servitor or something to fire them out without the push safety." Bassa's eyes narrowed, Ranx chuckled again and offered another explanation. "The frakking mutants have a heavy weapon."
Callisto pulled her trooper behind a solid ferrocrete pillar. The metal had lost most of its velocity already, and as such was only slightly embedded into his shoulder. Patti joined her after a minute, the medic had her helmet on, lascarbine in her hands. Callisto left her man in the medic's care and braved a look past cover. The whistling projectiles streamed from a raised position, raining down on guardsmen in cover. The erratic nature of the metal forcing them to stay in cover. She watched as a guardsman tried to fire his weapon before his gun was scored deeply by a passing arrow. She let out a contemptuous sigh and ducked back behind cover. Fenix looked up at her with both fear and hope, practically begging for approval. She offered a kick to the ribs instead. "Don't get yourself hit next time." Fenix groaned and nodded, Patti shot her a look she ignored. Soft hearted bitch. Callisto wasn't a damned medic for a reason. She was a soldier. Her men watched from behind cover as she bolted out into the open, side stepping the stream of metal bolts that lazily tracked her. Before long she had crossed the space between rows of containers, the bolts scoring massive scratches into the container she used as shelter. After a minute or so her soldiers got their asses of their thumbs and started laying down sporadic cover fire, prompting the weapon pinning them down to start swinging from soldier to soldier. It forced them down with sheer volume of fire alone, the projectiles bouncing around and upsetting the aim of her men. "Come on you lazy frakks! Cover fire now!" She roared, watching as they started firing in earnest. Red las slammed into the dark like the spears of questing knights, seeking their hidden target. Callisto didn't wait to see if they hit anything, she was moving after the first salvo, jinking and dodging between neatly stacked boxes and powered down Sentinel lifters. She felt a deep heat in her leg, ignoring what was definitely a nick from her adversary. After a few seconds she sighted her enemy, a massive mutant servitor let out bellicose growls as an implanted nail gun was belting out a steady stream of iron. It was surrounded by a gaggle of skinny creatures, they rubbed the industrial tool down with fat and putrid oils, miraculously keeping it firing. They didn't notice as her Krak grenade affixed itself to the catwalk they stood on. Not until it exploded and the gang of corrupted workers fell in a heap. The servitor tried to stand, before Callisto's chainsword found its neck, severing the thick bastard's body from its head.
Klinsten watched as Callisto jogged back to her men, met with cheers that were quashed as quickly as they rose. The hard faced Sergeant roaring that they maintain some professionalism. A commander's eyes swept the battlefield, watching men fight off vanguard creatures. They had been pinned down by that frakking mutant tech heresy for too long, allowing the horde on their heels to shamble ever closer. They had speed, had range, and had anything but time. "Theres no frakking end to them." Klinsten mumbled, sighting as a trooper was pinned by another gangly creature. Saved by his fellows, who smashed the mutant to bits below boots and stocks. Dead creatures littered the spaces between rows of containers, guardsmen picking off stragglers ahead of the horde. Klinsten finally decided he had time to spare and glanced at his data pad. Grimacing at the results, this ascender, once programmed properly could get them high enough that it was only a dozen floors until the tauroxes. But the servo skull was struggling. In the ninth minute, he got frustrated. "Damned hells Skali! We need out!" He said, speaking directly to the skull. As if in petulant response the skull blurped and the ascender juttered into place.