CxaGwHu6

1TWELVE
2Which didn’t stop me from trying, of course, but every reason I could come up with to palm the job off on
3somebody else sounded hollow even to me; and besides, Forres had been seen to be leading her
4contingent from the front, so I could hardly appear reluctant to do the same. I’d just have to go through
5with it, and hope the troopers with me would keep the greenskins off my back.
6Accordingly, I found myself in the passenger compartment of the antiquated-looking Valkyrie Broklaw’s
7friend in the PDF had found for us, battling our way through another of the blizzards so common on the
8surface of Nusquam Fundumentibus. The airframe groaned audibly as the seat beneath me lurched, and I
9checked my chronograph anxiously, hoping that Izembard had erred on the side of caution in his estimate
10of the time left until the power plant vaporised. Assuming we arrived at all.
11‘Are we nearly there yet?’ Jurgen asked, his face beneath its habitual patina of grime a little paler than
12usual, and I nodded grimly.
13‘We are,’ I reassured him, gripping the arms of my seat a little more tightly as the Valkyrie hit another
14crosswind. If the Leeward Barrens were supposed to be the sheltered part of the hemisphere, I shuddered
15to think what conditions would have been like on the far side of the mountain range. No wonder the
16Nusquans had so few aircraft.
17‘Good,’ Jurgen said, busying himself with the tenth unnecessary inspection of his melta since we’d taken
18off. Reassured that the powerpack was fully charged, and the emitters properly aligned, he began
19mumbling something under his breath that might have been the Litany of Accuracy, but which, knowing
20him as I did, I strongly suspected to be an inventively unfounded slander of our pilot’s abilities and
21antecedents.
22‘We have a visual,’ the pilot informed me, his voice echoing tinnily in my comm-bead, and I glanced out
23of the viewport, grateful that the movement took my nose as far away as possible from my aide.
24‘Take us round,’ I said, ‘wide and slow.’ I wanted a good look at the objective before we set foot in it,
25in so far as it was possible to get a good look at anything with visibility so drastically obscured by the
26flurrying snow. ‘And be prepared to suppress any sign of resistance.’ Given their indifference to physical
27hardship, it was more than likely that there were orks on the surface, and if there were they were bound to
28start taking potshots at us. Then, struck by another thought, I added, ‘Don’t use the Hellstrikes unless you
29have to. Stick to the multi-laser.’
30‘Roger that,’ the pilot responded, not quite managing to conceal his irritation at being told how to do his
31job. To be honest, I didn’t think the heavy missiles slung under the wings were all that likely to spark off
32the explosion we were here to prevent, but you never could tell. Even if it didn’t, I was pretty sure the
33Adeptus Mechanicus would take a dim view of their precious shrine being knocked about even more
34badly than the orks had already managed to do.
35But, as we continued to circle, no enemy fire rose to challenge us.
36‘They must be inside, out of the cold,’ Jurgen said, his airsickness apparently forgotten with the
37prospect of action so close, craning his head for a better look, and coming too close to my nose for
38comfort.
39‘We’ll warm ’em up,’ Magot said from the seat behind me, and snapped a fresh powercell into her
40lasgun with every sign of relish. ‘Right, sarge?’
41‘Right.’ Sergeant Grifen nodded, her clipped tones calmly professional. ‘When we hit the deck, secure
42the ramp. Team one with me and the commissar. Team two follow us inside as soon as the Valkyrie lifts,
43while we cover you. OK?’
44‘You’ve got it,’ Magot assured her, visibly pleased to have the first chance to take a crack at the orks.
45She and Grifen were close, personally as well as professionally, and could be relied on to anticipate one
46another’s moves in the heat of battle without any discussion, an easy rapport which had made them my
47first choice of squad leaders for this assignment.
48As we spiralled in, however, it looked as though Magot was going to be disappointed. There were no
49traces of occupying orks that we could see, just the communication and distribution towers
5060, and the
51squat bulk of the turbine sanctuary looming out of the flurrying snow like an image on a badly-tuned pictcaster. A snow-choked landing pad drew our attention to its presence with a ring of flashing lights, a
52small blockhouse on the periphery providing access to the bulk of the complex, which, like almost
53everything else on Nusquam Fundumentibus, had been hollowed out underground, away from the
54ferocious conditions on the surface.
55‘No obvious signs of damage,’ I reported, the vox-unit in the cockpit relaying my words to Izembard,
56listening in from the warmth and comfort of Primadelving, and the other squads in the platoon, who were
57supposed to be in position around the installation by now to intercept any greenskins making a break for
58it. (And come to our aid as fast as their transports could carry them if the barbaric xenos turned out to be
59there in greater numbers than we’d anticipated.) The palms of my hands tingled briefly as I spoke; if the
60orks had indeed invaded the complex, there should have been clear traces of their presence: scarring on
61the walls from the stray stubber and bolter rounds, which would have been shot off with their usual
62abandon, at the very least.
63‘No vehicles parked, either,’ Jurgen added. His face contorted for a moment with the effort of
64ratiocination. ‘Could they have come on foot?’
65‘It’s a long way to walk if they did,’ I said, although, given the hardiness of the average ork, that didn’t
66necessarily rule out the possibility. ‘And if they didn’t have vehicles, that would have made it a lot easier
67to slip through our lines undetected.’
68‘So we’ll only have a small group to worry about,’ Grifen said, with the assurance only a Valhallan
69could bring to a discussion of orkish strategy and tactics. ‘Bad news is that if they made it this far
70undetected, we’re up against infiltrators, and good ones at that. We’ll need to keep an eye out for
71ambushes and booby traps every step of the way.’
72I nodded in agreement. ‘So we go in cautiously, checking for tripwires.’ I took another look at my
73chronograph, and wished I hadn’t; the time to Izembard’s earliest estimate was far shorter than I would
74have liked, and if we had to waste time pussyfooting around instead of heading straight for the objective,
75our margin for error was going to be gobbled up rapidly. There was no help for it, though, so I voxed the
76pilot again. ‘Take us in,’ I said, hoping for the best, but bracing myself for the worst as usual.
77We grounded in the middle of the pad, the rear loading ramp dropping with a clang on the retro-blackened
78’crete, and the cramped passenger compartment suddenly became full of flurrying snow. Gritting my teeth
79against the razor-edged wind which billowed in with it, I took my place behind Grifen, and followed her
80hurrying form out into the blizzard. Magot’s team had fanned out around the ramp, peering over their
81lasguns at the snow-shrouded hummocks which surrounded the pad, and which for a moment my
82imagination insisted were greenskins lying in ambush. Then reason reasserted itself, and I realised they
83were nothing more threatening than fuelling points, their hoses retracted, waiting for shuttles to arrive
84with supplies and rotating staff.
85Which reminded me... ‘Weren’t we told there were seventeen people here when the orks attacked?’ I
86asked.
87‘We were,’ Grifen confirmed.
88‘And not one of them got to a vox.’
89Which was disturbing, to say the least. However stealthily the orks had approached it, the installation
90itself was too big to have been taken in a concerted rush, and most of the cogboys working there would
91have had several minutes to raise the alarm before falling to the barbarous invaders.
92‘The greenskins must have moved fast, then,’ the sergeant said in response to my vocalised musings. ‘Or
93there were more than we thought.’
94‘There are always more than you think,’ Magot said cheerfully, her enthusiasm for a target-rich
95environment as keen as ever.
96Grifen, a quartet of troopers, Jurgen and I double-timed it across the bare rockcrete, our bootsoles
97splashing in the refreezing slush where the covering of snow had been blown clear or melted by the
98Valkyrie’s landing jets, and made it into the lee of the blockhouse without attracting any incoming fire.
99Which wasn’t all that surprising, as any orks on the surface would have announced their presence by
100blazing away at the Valkyrie on its final approach, but by that point in my career I’d found it safest not to
101take anything for granted.
102‘The door’s locked,’ Grifen reported, with an air of surprise.
103It was true, as a couple of experimental tugs was enough to confirm, and I felt a shiver of unease
104displacing the one engendered by the bitter cold. The rune pad was intact, with no sign of the blast
105damage I’d have expected if the orks had succeeded in forcing an entry.
106While I was pondering the implications of that, the shriek of the Valkyrie’s engine rose to a pitch which
107threatened to strip the enamel from my teeth. I glanced back to see it rising from the ground, Magot and her
108troopers hunkering down against the scorching backwash, their eyes narrowed.
109‘We’ll keep circling,’ the pilot voxed, ‘in case the greenskins show themselves.’
110‘Don’t go too far,’ I cautioned, and the pilot chuckled.
111‘We’ll be there when you need us,’ he promised, and disappeared into the murk above our heads, the
112sound of his engine slowly blending in to the unending wind.
113‘So how do we open it?’ Grifen asked, looking at me with a puzzled expression on her face, no doubt as
114uneasy as I felt.
115‘I can get us in,’ Jurgen said confidently, raising his melta, and sighting on the lock.
116‘Wait.’ I raised a hand to forestall him. ‘They might have rigged charges to it.’ Not a problem if the
117melta vaporised them before they went off, of course, but very bad news if the thermal shock of a nearmiss made them detonate. I fumbled in a pocket for my data-slate, with clumsy, cold-numbed fingers. ‘The
118magos gave me a schematic. Maybe the codes are in the map keys.’
119Fortunately they were; I tapped in the numerals, and to my relieved surprise the runes on the pad
120suddenly changed colour from red to green, before being replaced by the words ‘access authorised’.
121‘It worked,’ I said, replacing the slate, along with an overly-generous portion of melting slush, in my
122greatcoat pocket, leaning against the door as I did so. To my surprise it suddenly moved, squealing aside
123on poorly-greased runners, sending me staggering into the corridor beyond.
124‘Commissar?’ Grifen said, almost as taken aback as I was. I held up a cautioning hand as I recovered
125my balance. Nothing had blown me up or shot at me, and no axe-wielding greenskin berserkers had come
126howling out of the darkness, so I might as well look as though I’d taken point on purpose.
127‘Wait a moment,’ I said, fumbling a luminator out of my pocket, and flashing it around. ‘Let’s just make
128sure it’s safe before anyone else comes in.’ I seemed to be in a tunnel, which was no surprise, angling
129gently downwards, wide enough for a pallet loader to trundle along, or for four people to walk in line
130abreast.
131‘Luminator controls are usually next to the door,’ Magot put in helpfully, and, directing the beam back
132towards the rectangle of daylight fringed with curious faces, I was able to pick them out with little
133difficulty.
134‘There you go, sir,’ Jurgen said, slapping the activation plate with the heel of his hand, and a line of
135overhead luminators began to flicker on ahead of us, lighting the way down into the heart of the complex.
136‘Want me to close it again?’ Magot asked, as she passed through the portal with the four troopers under
137her command.
138‘Better not,’ I said. We were as sure as we could be that there were no orks on the surface ready to
139follow us down, and my paranoia was always a little less acute for knowing we had a fast line of retreat
140open behind us; especially on this occasion, when, if something went wrong, we’d need to get out before
141the plant blew up. ‘The flyboys’ll pick off any greenskins who get near it anyway.’
142‘Works for me,’ Magot agreed, trotting past to take point, with her team at her heels.
143The rest of us followed, ever wary, our bootsoles ringing on the rockcrete floor despite our efforts to
144make as little noise as possible. We kept our eyes open for ambush or booby traps, checking every
145shadow, but seeing nothing, the absence of any concrete threat somehow even more disquieting than a
146charge of bellowing orks would have been. At least then we’d have known what we were dealing with.
147(Although, of course, if I’d really known what we were dealing with, I’d have been halfway back to the
148Valkyrie by now.)
149At length we came to another door blocking the end of the passage; I was about to consult the data-slate
150again when it slid smoothly aside, revealing a neatly whitewashed wall beyond, embellished with a frieze
151of miscellaneous machine parts, which no doubt meant something in the iconography of the Adeptus
152Mechanicus. We instantly raised our weapons
15361, seeking a target, but no one came through, and after a
154moment we relaxed again, seeing the unmistakable hand of the Omnissiah at work. Clearly the machinespirits of the power plant recognised us as friends, and were working to aid us, a realisation which
155heartened us all.
156‘Clear left,’ Trooper Vorhees reported, levelling his lasgun down the corridor, while Drere, his
157inseparable companion, aimed in the opposite direction, the faint click! hiss! of her augmetic lungs
158echoing eerily in the stillness.
159‘Clear right,’ Drere echoed a heartbeat later, and the rest of us followed, the map on the screen in my
160hand leading us ever deeper into the heart of the complex.
161‘Still no sign of any damage,’ Grifen murmured, clearly as perturbed by that as I was.
162‘Or of any of the cogboys,’ I agreed.
163‘Then the greenskins must have killed ’em all,’ Magot said, as though that were a foregone conclusion.
164‘Unless they took the survivors prisoner, so they could keep the plant operating,’ I suggested. Orks
165commonly enslaved humans who seemed to possess skills they could use, although the unfortunate
166captives seldom lasted long.
167‘Why would they do that?’ Grifen asked, and I shrugged, unable to find an answer.
168‘Found something,’ Vorhees reported from further up the tunnel, holding up a hand to check our progress,
169and glancing down at the floor a few metres ahead of where he stood. ‘Looks like blood.’
170‘A lot of it,’ Drere agreed, trotting up to join him.
171They were right, a large splash of it staining the grey rockcrete floor a rusty brown, around a still tacky
172centre, which shone with a sickly crimson sheen in the light of the overhead luminators. I scanned the
173walls, seeing no sign of any pockmarks or cratering; if someone had been shot here, it had been with a
174precision and accuracy completely foreign to the greenskins.
175‘Must have taken them down hand to hand,’ Grifen said, having come to the same conclusion.
176‘Then where’s the body?’ I asked rhetorically. Orks would have looted the corpse of their victim and
177left it where it fell, unless they were hungry, and in that case we’d have found a lot more mess than just a
178pool of blood.
179‘Dragged it away?’ Jurgen suggested, and I shook my head.
180‘Then there’d be a trail of blood on the floor,’ I pointed out. The stain was clear-edged, unelongated.
181‘Carried it, then,’ my aide said, unperturbed.
182That was possible, I supposed; an ork would certainly be strong enough to carry a cadaver, but what
183would be the point? ‘That seems remarkably tidy for an ork,’ I said, but Jurgen just nodded, his
184constitutional immunity to sarcasm serving him as well as it always did.
185‘There are scratches on the floor here,’ Drere reported, another handful of metres down the tunnel. The
186hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle, for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, as I squatted down to
187examine them. ‘Some sort of cart, you reckon?’
188‘Could be,’ I said, my old underhiver’s survival skills letting me read the faint pattern of blemishes on
189the floor as easily as a sheet of print. Innumerable trolleys or carts had been wheeled along the corridor,
190as you’d have expected in a complex like this. But something about the marks Drere had found looked
191familiar, and different from the rest. Faint parallel scratches, as though something large, with clawed feet,
192had strolled through here not too long ago.
193Vorhees spread his fingers, spanning the inner and outer scratches, finding his splayed hand fit
194comfortably between them. He flexed his fingers thoughtfully, and glanced at Drere, the two of them
195evidently coming to the same conclusion.
196‘Do they have ambulls on Nusquam Fundumentibus?’ he asked, which seemed like a perfectly
197reasonable question to me. The last time we’d been on an iceworld we’d come across a whole colony of
198the creatures, which definitely shouldn’t have been there
19962, and if it happened once it could probably
200happen again. Drere and Vorhees looked at one another, no doubt remembering that it was an ambull
201which had torn half her chest away on Simia Orichalcae, and that she’d been damn lucky to get back to the
202mining hab’s sanitorium fast enough to get the damaged organs replaced.
203‘Could be an ambull track,’ I agreed. It hardly seemed likely, but if they wanted to look out for ambulls
204as well as orks that was fine by me.
205As we moved on, I took a final glance at the faint parallel scratches, and found Jurgen doing the same,
206his brow furrowed. ‘Reminds me of something,’ he said, coughing raucously, and marking the spot with a
207generous deposit of mucus, ‘but I can’t think what.’
208‘No, me neither,’ I said, taking a firmer hold of my chainsword and laspistol. In the years we’d served
209together we’d faced so much that it was hardly surprising some of the details had got blurred along the
210way
21163. Nevertheless, we both kept our weapons readily to hand, and our progress, when it resumed, was
212even more cautious than it had been.
213We were to find about a dozen more of the disquieting bloodstains before we reached the heart of the
214complex, but no other signs of the tech-priests who were supposed to be manning the place. In a couple of
215instances the spilled blood had been adulterated by lubricants and hydraulic fluid, indicating that this was
216where some of the larger servitors had met the same fate as their masters; which sparked another echo of
217memory. Since it stubbornly refused to come into focus, however, I merely shrugged and let it go, knowing
218from experience that the more I tried to force it, the more elusive the thought would become.
219From time to time we came across more of the scratches in the floor, too, and ever since Vorhees had
220raised the matter, I’d found myself wondering if we ought to be looking for some kind of beast on the
221loose as well as the orks. Perhaps, in retrospect, this was why I didn’t recognise the true nature of the
222threat we were facing until it was almost too late; my mind running along predetermined pathways,
223instead of remaining open to the evidence around me.
224‘This must be it,’ I said at last, pausing outside a door which, unlike the others we’d passed through,
225refused to open at our approach. The temperature had risen steadily as we descended, so that by now I felt
226quite comfortable, and my Valhallan companions had opened their greatcoats to reveal the body armour
227beneath them, clearly wishing we were back on the surface where it was a nice comfortable thirty below.
228‘Looks like it,’ Grifen agreed, scowling at another runeplated locking mechanism.
229‘Hang on,’ I said, squinting at the data-slate again. But before I could find the codes I needed, Jurgen
230simply pushed the door open with his grubby fingertips, and poked the barrel of his melta through in
231search of a target.
232‘It’s unlocked,’ he said.
233‘Well it shouldn’t be,’ I said, recalling the instructions Izembard had given me. ‘The power core and the
234control chapel are the most sanctified areas of the entire shrine. Access is supposed to be restricted to the
235most devout acolytes.’
236The squad of troopers around me began to look at one another uneasily. It was one thing to be making a
237recon sweep through the main body of the complex, especially with the prospect of an ork or two to bag,
238but quite another to be trespassing on its most hallowed ground.
239‘And us,’ I added cheerfully, raising a few nervous smiles in response.
240‘Then let’s get in there, and get on with it,’ Magot said, looking a great deal happier.
241‘Quite,’ I said, with another glance at my chronograph. We had only a handful of minutes remaining
242before the short end of Izembard’s estimate expired, and I wanted to be in the control chapel well before
243it did. I have to confess to finding our slow progress to this point irksome in the extreme, but, under the
244circumstances, proceeding with caution had been the only sensible option; and now was hardly the time to
245abandon it. The enemy we’d failed to contact on the way in would almost certainly be in or around our
246objective: I could think of no other reason for them not to have engaged us in combat before now.
247We edged our way warily inside, me hanging back as much as I decently could, and looked around,
248orientating ourselves. I’d visited the inner sanctums of Mechanicus shrines on several occasions before
249now, almost invariably with equal reluctance, so I had some idea of what to expect; the burnished metal
250surfaces of control lecterns, reflecting the lights and dials which were supposed to tell their operators
251Emperor alone knew what, were all in place, but instead of the gleaming steel or brass walls embossed
252with the sacred cogwheel I’d expected, the chamber was bounded with naked rock, which had been hewn
253into a high-ceilinged cavern. (And into which the devotional icons of the tech-priests had been duly
254chiselled.)
255Magot grimaced. ‘Who let that one rip?’ she asked, with a pointed glance in Jurgen’s direction.
256‘The inner sanctum connects directly with the volcanic vents,’ I told her.
257Jurgen sniffed the sulphur-reeking air. ‘Smells like Hell’s Edge,’ he said, and I nodded, reminded all too
258strongly of the settlement beside the magma lake on Periremunda, and the unpleasant surprise which had
259awaited us there.
260‘Secure the section,’ Grifen ordered, and the troopers fanned out, one team to each of the tunnel mouths
261leading off from opposite sides of the chamber.
262‘Good idea,’ I agreed, shoving the door closed behind us. There was a lot of the complex we hadn’t
263covered on our way in, and the last thing we needed was to be taken by surprise by an ork or two
264sneaking up on us while we were engrossed in carrying out Izembard’s instructions. The thin slab of metal
265wouldn’t delay them for more than a couple of seconds, but the noise they made forcing it open would be
266all the warning we needed. ‘Jurgen, keep the exit covered.’
267‘Very good, sir,’ he replied, dragging a chair from behind the nearest of the lecterns. He subsided onto
268it, his melta aimed squarely at the door, resting comfortably on top of the abandoned control station.
269I handed him the data-slate, after paging down to the directions the tech-priest had given me. ‘I’ll need
270both hands for this,’ I told him, looking around at the instrumentation surrounding us. There were a lot of
271flashing lights and flickering dials, rather too many of them red or with the needles bouncing back and
272forth against their stops for my liking. ‘Where do I start?’
273‘Three lecterns on a dais, it says here,’ Jurgen told me, his forehead furrowing. ‘What’s a dais?’
274‘This is.’ I mounted the circular platform, around the circumference of which three lecterns were
275equidistantly spaced, so that their operators would be facing outwards across the room. They’d all
276remained at their posts with single-minded dedication or been taken by surprise at exactly the same time,
277judging by the amount of blood which had been spilled here, and I moved gingerly, the soles of my boots
278adhering unpleasantly to the still tacky floor.
279‘The one facing the door should have a dial on it,’ my aide continued, ‘saying “Flow Chamber
280Pressure”. Is the needle anywhere near the red bit?’
281I looked down at the dial in question. ‘If it was any deeper into it,’ I said, ‘it would be about to go round
282again.’ The indicator was hard against the stop at the limit of its display, and I didn’t need a tech-priest to
283tell me that things were looking grim. ‘Which buttons do I press?’
284‘None of ’em,’ Jurgen said. ‘It says here you need the emergency pressure vent, on the pumps
285themselves. Down the left-hand corridor.’
286‘Left as I’m facing, or as we came in?’ I asked, already on the move.
287‘As you’re facing,’ Jurgen said, and I abruptly reversed direction, heading for the opposite tunnel mouth.
288He rose to his feet as I sprinted past. ‘Should I come too?’ he asked, and I shook my head.
289‘Keep covering our backs,’ I told him, glancing back as I did so. ‘If this doesn’t work we’ll have to get
290out of here fast, and we won’t want any greenskins getting in the way.’ He was already out of sight by the
291time I finished, but our comm-beads relayed the rest of my words comfortably enough.
292Despite the urgency of my errand, I found my pace slowing as I entered the chamber, unable to prevent
293myself from glancing around in awestruck astonishment. I was in a huge natural cavern, the walls fissured
294and cracked, many of them leaking foul-smelling vapours; no doubt the removal of a sense of smell was
295high on the list of augmetic enhancements for the tech-priests who worked here. In the centre of it the
296pumps rose, three or four times the height of a man, pipes a metre or more in diameter driven deep into the
297rock beneath my feet, or cutting horizontally across the cavern to disappear into the wall. Several of them
298pointed in the direction of the turbine hall we’d seen on our way in, while others presumably carried the
299water from wherever it was collected, ready to be forced down into the bowels of the planet.
300‘Commissar!’ Sergeant Grifen waved to me from beneath the shadow of the nearest of the pumps. ‘I
301think you should see this.’
302‘So long as it’s quick,’ I said, acutely aware of every tick of the clock. But Grifen was a veteran, and as
303cognisant of the danger as I was; she wouldn’t divert my attention at so critical a juncture without
304excellent reason.
305‘We’ve found the bodies,’ she said, sounding oddly uncertain. ‘Bits of them, anyway. I think.’
306As I rounded the huge metal tree trunk, I could see the reason for her reticence. A tangle of blood-slick
307metal and glass was piled up against the cavern wall, glittering eerily in the light from the overhead
308luminators.
309‘Janni recognised them,’ Vorhees said, with a glance at Drere, who nodded.
310‘Augmetics. Believe me, I’d know.’ Her mechanical lungs punctuated her words with an even hiss!
311click! ‘Looks like someone ripped them clean out of the cogboys.’
312‘Or spat them out,’ I said, a peculiar crawling sensation moving up and down my spine as the memories
313of Hell’s Edge grew more vivid. The very notion was ridiculous, but I’d seen something almost identical
314then, and once planted the thought refused to go away. ‘Keep away from the fissures!’
315‘Commissar?’ Grifen looked at me quizzically, no doubt wondering if I’d taken leave of my senses.
316‘The fissures!’ I gestured to the cracks in the surface of the rock. The mound of grisly trophies was right
317beneath the largest, which certainly looked big enough to take a human cadaver; especially if it had been
318filleted of its non-organic components first.
319‘Have you pulled the lever yet, sir?’ Jurgen voxed.
320‘Just about to.’ Recalled to the matter of the moment I turned back to the bulkiest of the metal structures.
321As Izembard had assured me, a large control lectern was set into it, almost completely obscured by the
322number of prayer slips and wax seals adhering to its surface.
323Before I had taken more than a couple of strides, however, my attention was arrested by a faint echo of
324movement, almost inaudible over the steady rumbling of the mechanisms around us and the chugging of the
325pumps. I froze, listening intently, half convinced I’d imagined it.
326Then I heard it again, an unmistakable scuttling. ‘Pull back!’ I called, gesticulating wildly. ‘Get away
327from the walls!’
328Clearly still puzzled, Grifen and her troopers scurried to comply; she, Vorhees and Drere no doubt
329remembering our expedition through the ambull tunnels beneath Simia Orichalcae all too vividly. One of
330the troopers with them, a recent replacement we’d picked up on Coronus, was a little slower, aiming his
331lasgun down the dark cleft in the rock beside him from what he undoubtedly imagined was a safe distance.
332‘I can hear some...’ he began, before his voice choked off in a panic-stricken scream, as something dark
333and fast with too many limbs erupted from the fissure. He managed to get off about three shots before
334going down, torn to shreds in a flurry of blows from the creature’s razor-edged talons.
335‘What’s going on?’ Jurgen voxed urgently, alerted by the noise. ‘Are the orks attacking?’
336‘There never were any orks!’ I shouted, as the four-armed monstrosity rose from the corpse of the
337eviscerated trooper, absently licking his blood from its face with a tongue that seemed far too long, to
338stare speculatively in our direction. ‘The place is swarming with tyranids!
339THIRTEEN
340‘Tyranids?’ Jurgen echoed, taking the news as phlegmatically as he always did. ‘No one told us about
341them.’
342The scuttling noise was all around us now, and even as the ’gaunt launched itself at me with its powerful
343hind legs, more of the creatures began to emerge from the rents in the rocks. ‘Pull back!’ I yelled, clipping
344it with a round from my laspistol, but the hideous creature barely slowed, its slavering maw gaping as it
345bounded in my direction with single-minded ferocity.
346The troopers opened up with their lasguns, dropping several of the newcomers, but the swarm had been
347well and truly roused by now, and for every one that fell another came skittering out of the shadows with
348murderous intent, while reinforcements continued to pour through the clefts in the walls as though the rock
349itself was sweating tyranids. I parried the first slash of the oncoming ’gaunt’s scything claws with my
350chainsword, biting deep into its chitin-armoured thorax, and shot it through the brain as it opened its
351mouth to either scream defiance or attempt to bite my face off
35264.
353‘Can you still get to the lever?’ Jurgen asked, ever mindful of our mission. I looked again at the largest
354pump, with its prominent control lectern; a dozen ’gaunts were bounding across the intervening space, and
355more movement flickered in the shadows at the base of the great metal column, almost as if they were
356guarding it
35765.
358‘Not a chance,’ I told him, as a volley of lasgun fire took out the three leading ’nids, just as they began
359angling to cut us off from the tunnel we’d entered by. I’d be torn to pieces before I even got halfway to the
360controls, let alone begun the intricate rituals required to override whatever instructions the machinespirits within them currently had. I put a las-bolt through the thorax of another ’gaunt, which had hurled
361itself at me in the wake of the first, and turned back to the tunnel.
362‘Team two coming to assist,’ Magot voxed, to my heartfelt relief.
363‘Stay in the control chapel and be ready to cover us,’ Grifen responded. ‘We’re coming in with a swarm
364on our arses.’
365‘And get that Valkyrie back on the ground,’ I voxed the pilot. If we managed to make it as far as the
366surface, I didn’t want to go up with the power plant just because our ride was late.
367‘We’ll be waiting,’ the pilot promised, ‘with the ramp down.’
368Then my attention was completely taken up with the urgent matter of survival. The creatures clustered
369around the pumps had ranged weapon symbiotes fused to their forelimbs, the sinister hiss of their
370discharges almost lost in the general cacophony.
371‘Take out the gunners!’ I bellowed. The close combat bioforms were only a danger if they got within
372reach of us, but the living ammunition of the fleshborers would devour us alive from the inside out if their
373bearers managed to get off a lucky shot. Fortunately for us, the superior range of the troopers’ lasguns kept
374the ’nid gunners too far distant for accurate shooting, the deadly hail of tiny beetles they spat in our
375direction either falling short or going wide. But still they came, closing the distance every time we were
376forced to switch our aim to pick off a charging hormagaunt.
377‘We can’t hold ’em off for long,’ Vorhees commented, firing short bursts in an attempt to conserve
378ammunition, but which we both knew would drain the powerpack frighteningly fast in any case.
379‘Then don’t try!’ I urged, already running for the tunnel mouth. ‘We need to stay ahead of them!’ Lacking
380the powerful hind legs of their compatriots, which were bred by the hive mind to get into close combat as
381fast as possible, the termagants should be easy enough to outpace; or at least keep from getting into
382fleshborer range too quickly.
383I squeezed off a couple of shots at an outflanking hormagaunt, which was using its superior speed to try
384and cut us off from the tunnel we’d entered by, but the las-bolts ricocheted harmlessly from its
385exoskeleton; already committed to the attack, I ducked under a strike from its scything claws, felt the talon
386of one of its middle limbs catch for a moment in the fabric of my greatcoat, and rammed the tip of my
387chainsword up under its chin, tearing through throat and skull alike as I struggled to free the blade. A gout
388of vile-smelling ichor soaked my sleeve, and then I was clear, hurdling the carcass of another of the vile
389creatures, which had just been brought down by the lasgun fire of one of my companions.
390‘Grenades!’ Grifen called, as we broke through the tightening noose to gain the dubious sanctuary of the
391tunnel.
392‘Good plan,’ I agreed, turning to loose a couple of pistol shots at whatever was directly behind us, and
393finding that the entire width of the passageway was choked with bounding predators. I hit one in the leg,
394purely by luck, and it stumbled, impeding those behind it; which reacted by removing the obstruction in
395the most straightforward manner possible, slashing it to pieces in an instant. The only positive thing I
396could see in our situation was that at least the ’gaunts about to tear us apart were blocking the fire of their
397weaker broodmates with the ranged weapons.
398Grifen yanked a frag grenade out from beneath her coat, and lobbed it over her shoulder without
399breaking stride
40066. The troopers did the same, and, although it was probably my imagination, I could
401swear I heard the clatter of the canisters hitting the rockcrete over the scuttling and hissing of the brood
402behind us. Then the onrushing tide of chitinous death rolled over them.
403Just as I’d begun to convince myself that the fuses had been too long, and my shoulder-blades tensed in
404anticipation of a bone-shattering blow from behind, a quartet of overlapping explosions shook the
405corridor, jarring the floor beneath my feet. Unable to resist glancing back, I saw that the pursuing swarm
406had all but vanished, the walls and ceiling decorated with shreds of flesh and gouts of ichor; but before I
407had time to take in any more, the second wave surged into the passageway, flowing towards us with
408undiminished purpose. Once again the fleshborers hissed, and a clump of the deadly beetles they used as
409ammunition hit the floor a metre from where I was standing. The tiny creatures scurried around frantically
410for a second or two, in search of a host to burrow into, then mercifully expired.
411‘Termagants incoming!’ I voxed, then turned and sprinted for the relative sanctuary of the control chapel.
412‘We’re ready for ’em,’ Magot assured me, to my inexpressible relief; then we were clear of the tunnel,
413flinging ourselves aside to allow our companions a clear shot.
414The results were devastating. Magot had flicked her lasgun to full auto, and the troopers under her
415command had either followed her lead or been instructed to do so: a hail of fire scoured the tunnel,
416supplemented by a blast or two from Jurgen’s melta for good measure. When the noise ceased, the
417passageway resembled nothing so much as a butcher’s slab, the deadly organisms which had pursued us
418so relentlessly ripped apart by the merciless barrage as effectively as they’d threatened to do to us.
419‘That’s seen ’em off,’ Magot said, with a fair dose of optimism, considering she’d seen for herself just
420how implacable the tyranids could be during their abortive invasion of Periremunda.
421‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ I cautioned, and, sure enough, the unmistakable skittering sound of claws on
422rock were already forcing their way through the dying echoes of Magot’s massacre. ‘They’ll come after us
423again as soon as they realise we’re not defending the choke point.’
424‘Then let’s not hang around till they work it out,’ Grifen said, a sentiment I heartily agreed with.
425‘Why didn’t they attack us as soon as we arrived?’ Jurgen asked, falling into place at my shoulder, his
426melta reassuringly ready for use. ‘They’d have taken us completely by surprise.’
427‘I don’t think they realised we were here,’ I said. ‘They’d already killed everyone in the shrine.’ That
428much was a given; a swarm the size of the one we’d just encountered would have scoured the place
429before anyone had time to react.
430Jurgen nodded. ‘So they were sleeping it off when we arrived,’ he said, his brow furrowed with the
431effort of joining the dots.
432‘Essentially,’ I agreed, although some of the details of what we’d found continued to nag at me. It made
433sense that the swarm would make for the deepest part of the complex to digest its meal, the instinctive
434behaviour of its constituent organisms would ensure that, but how had so many of the creatures got inside
435in the first place? The main entrance had definitely been sealed when we arrived.
436‘At least we won’t have to worry about tripping any greenskin booby traps on the way out,’ Grifen
437commented, as we double-timed our way back towards the pad.
438‘That’s something,’ I agreed, straining my ears for the scrabbling of talons against the rockcrete floor
439behind us. I was just beginning to hope, against all reason and experience of the hideous creatures, that
440we’d succeeded in intimidating them so thoroughly that they’d given up the pursuit, when, faintly at first,
441almost drowned by the clattering of our bootsoles, I heard it.
442‘What is it?’ Grifen asked, seeing me tilt my head in an attempt to isolate the elusive echo.
443‘They’re coming,’ I said. ‘Behind us.’
444No sooner were the words out of my mouth than an agonised scream echoed down the corridor. Our
445point woman was down, a massive hole chewed through her torso by a fleshborer shot. As she flailed on
446the grubby rockcrete, innumerable tiny parasites continued to writhe inside the hideous wound, enlarging
447it, and burrowing ever deeper in an attempt to feed on the luckless squaddie’s vital organs.
448‘And ahead,’ Magot said, pausing only to grant the Emperor’s peace
44967 to her unfortunate subordinate,
450who was clearly beyond all hope of medical aid.
451‘How did they get ahead of us?’ I asked, opening fire on the small knot of ’gaunts which had appeared
452round a bend in the corridor. Then my own question was answered by the sight of an air vent further down
453the corridor, its metal mesh cover ripped and shredded by powerful claws. If they’d got into the utility
454conduits they could be anywhere.
455A storm of lasgun fire followed my lead, reaping bloody revenge for our loss. The leading tyranid lost
456its weapon and a large chunk of its carapace to Jurgen’s melta, but the survivors regrouped almost at
457once, bolstered by another group of new arrivals. I glanced back down the corridor behind us, seeing a
458flicker of movement in the distance, which could only be the main bulk of the swarm in hot pursuit.
459‘We’re blocked in,’ I told Grifen, hoping I didn’t sound as panicky as I felt. ‘We need another way out.’
460Spotting a door in the wall a couple of metres away I flung it open, finding a small workshop behind it,
461which, judging by the scattering of tools, lubricants and lumps of flesh floating in jars of some foulsmelling liquid, had probably been used for the repair and maintenance of servitors.
462As refuges went, it wasn’t much, but everyone piled in after me gratefully enough, and began to
463barricade the door. A final glance before we slammed it was enough to underline the seriousness of our
464predicament: the ’nids were closing in for the kill from both directions, blocking the corridor ahead and
465behind. Attempting to force our way through either group would be suicidal. Jurgen glanced up from the
466data-slate I’d given him to hold what felt like a lifetime ago. ‘The nearest parallel corridor’s that way,
467sir.’ He indicated the direction with a grubby thumb. ‘Through eight metres of rock.’
468‘Never an ambull around when you need one,’ Drere remarked, the feeble jest raising flickering smiles
469from those of us who’d encountered the creatures on Simia Orichalcae, and remembered their remarkable
470tunnelling ability.
471‘I’d settle for a flamer or two,’ Magot said.
472‘Well, we’ve got what we’ve got,’ I replied, looking around the workshop for anything which looked
473potentially combustible, explosive, or at least sharp, and finding little of any immediate apparent value.
474Most of the tools looked as though they’d be equally at home in a medicae facility, and I was loath to try
475activating any of the pieces of equipment racked around the walls; the machine-spirits residing in them
476might wake up as cranky as I generally did, and there was no telling what they were supposed to do
477anyway. ‘Let’s get that bench wedged against the door.’
478We manhandled it into position, finding it reassuringly heavy, and not before time; almost as soon as we
479got it into position, the scrabbling of talons against the thin sheet of metal started echoing round the room.
480Genestealers would have torn through it like Jurgen with a sandwich wrapping, but, fortunately for us, the
481scything claws of the ’gaunts were meant for close combat and little else.
482‘That won’t hold them for long,’ Grifen said, ripping the power cable from one of the strange devices
483and jamming the bare ends against the metal door. There was a fizzle of sparks, an eerie ululation from the
484corridor, then the lights went out. After a moment’s silence the scrabbling began again, its enthusiasm
485undiminished.
486‘Worth a try,’ I said encouragingly, as everyone except Jurgen and I snapped on their luminators and
487began attaching their bayonets to the barrels of their lasguns. A moment later the lights flickered back on,
488a little dimmer than before, the presiding machine-spirit of the complex apparently continuing to take an
489interest in our welfare after all. ‘How close are we to the surface?’
490‘Pretty close,’ Jurgen told me, after a moment’s hesitation while he worked it out. He pointed at the
491ceiling. ‘I think we must be under one of the shuttle refuelling points.’
492‘Let me see that,’ I said, taking the slate. If I was reading it correctly, the pump control chamber was
493only a ceiling’s thickness above our heads. Using the melta so close to a fuel tank the size of a swimming
494pool would be an insane risk, but if we stayed where we were we’d be vaporised anyway; the only moot
495question was whether we’d end up as tyranid indigestion first. I pointed upwards at the whitewashed
496ceiling. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’
497‘Of course not, sir,’ my aide replied, aiming the melta upwards and pulling the trigger, while the rest of
498our party took cover beneath the workbenches. The actinic glare I’d become so familiar with since he’d
499acquired his favourite toy punched through my tightly closed eyelids, the backwash of heat singed the hair
500in my nostrils, and charred debris clattered and pinged off the gleaming metal surfaces above our heads.
501‘Almost there.’ He fired again, then coughed, in evident satisfaction. ‘That ought to do it.’
502‘Indeed it should,’ I agreed, looking up at the hole above our heads. The edges were still almost molten,
503but cooling fast, hastened by a blast of frigid air which could only be coming from the surface. The
504Valhallans looked at one another, visibly cheered by the chill, then turned to the door as something large
505and heavy rammed into it from the other side. The workbench quivered. ‘Time we were leaving, I think.’
506Despite the cooling effect of the breeze from the surface, the edges of the hole were almost too hot to
507touch, but that was the least of my worries. If we didn’t move fast, we were going to get a great deal
508hotter before long, and no one hesitated before jumping off from the much-abused benches, trusting to our
509gloves and heavy greatcoats to keep us from burning as we swarmed up through the hole.
510We found ourselves in a high-ceilinged chamber, most of which was taken up with a peculiar
511assemblage of piping, connected to a hose the thickness of my arm, which disappeared through a hole in
512the opposite wall. The whole contraption was mounted on a hydraulic platform, clearly intended to raise
513it to the level of the surface.
514After a moment I identified a faint whining sound as the engines of our Valkyrie, muffled by the layer of
515rockcrete still sealing us in, and exhaled with relief; the pilot, it seemed, had been as good as his word.
516‘Target the main entrance,’ I voxed him, nightmare visions of being outflanked by the ’nids again rising
517up to plague me, ‘and take out anything that moves.’
518‘Sir?’ The pilot sounded confused, and I couldn’t say I blamed him. ‘Won’t that put you and your squad
519in the firing line?’
520‘We’re leaving another way,’ I told him, clambering onto the platform. A small control lectern stood
521near the welded metal steps, and I studied the controls as Jurgen and the others scrambled up behind me,
522crowding the narrow operating station far more than its builders had ever envisaged. Its most prominent
523feature was a large red button, so I prodded it hopefully.
524For a moment nothing seemed to happen, then, with a loud clunk!, a narrow band of daylight appeared
525above our heads, followed almost at once by a pattering of disturbed snow cover falling through the gap.
526As it continued to widen, the wind reached in to claw through my coat, and even a few of the Valhallans
527refastened theirs.
528‘We’re rising!’ Drere shouted as the platform beneath our feet shuddered into motion and began cranking
529itself up towards the surface.
530‘And not before time,’ I added, spotting a flicker of movement through the still-steaming hole in the
531floor. The ’nids had finally succeeded in forcing the door of the workshop; a moment later the first
532termagant scrambled up through it, raising its fleshborer as it came. Before it could fire, a volley of lasgun
533rounds tore it to pieces, but within seconds the riddled corpse had been shoved aside by another, and
534another after that as the newcomer met the same fate.
535Before the third could fire, the rising platform reached the surface, sealing our pursuers into a rockcrete
536tomb their weapons could never penetrate.
537A flurry of snowflakes battered into my face, driven with even more force than usual by the backwash
538from the engines of the Valkyrie hovering just above the pad. I sprinted for its boarding ramp, my eyes
539narrowed against the blizzard, which seemed to be blowing with undiminished enthusiasm.
540‘I’ve got movement by the bunker,’ the pilot voxed, and I turned to look, a sudden flare of panic urging
541me to even greater speed. A swarm of close combat organisms was boiling from the entrance, their
542distinctive long, curved claws marking them out as hormagaunts, and I cursed my earlier decision to leave
543it open for a quick evacuation; although, to be fair, I could hardly have foreseen the situation we now
544found ourselves in. I cracked off a couple of laspistol shots, although if I actually hit any of the fastmoving targets through the obscuring snow at such extreme range I have no idea, trying to gauge if they’d
545reach the hovering Valkyrie before we did. So far as I could tell, it looked like being a dead heat: which
546would still be bad news for us, as we’d never be able to scramble aboard if we were too busy fighting for
547our lives.
548Then the pilot vectored his jets, scooting straight backwards, the open ramp raising a constellation of
549sparks as it skittered towards us across the pad.
550‘In!’ I yelled, leaping aboard just before the thick metal plate ploughed through my ankles. The forwardmounted multi-laser triggered, scything through the onrushing ’nids with a sound like the sky being ripped
551in two, and I found myself gaping in astonishment at the pilot’s audacity. ‘Nice flying.’
552‘Needed to open the range a bit,’ he responded. ‘Everyone aboard?’
553‘All accounted for,’ Grifen assured me, and I smacked the closing mechanism with the butt of my
554chainsword, reluctant to let go of either of the weapons I held until I was convinced we were safe.
555‘Go!’ I told the pilot, and was immediately obliged to grab hold of the nearest stanchion
55668 to prevent
557myself from being pitched straight back out of the closing hatch, as he put the nose up and kicked the main
558engines to maximum thrust.
559With the aid of Jurgen’s outstretched hand, I hauled myself over to the nearest viewport, looking down
560at the rapidly-shrinking huddle of buildings below. I strained my eyes for any further signs of the swarm,
561but if there was any movement on the surface other than the wind-blown snow, the blizzard obscured it.
562Abruptly, without warning, the aircraft shook, buffeted by a shockwave which threatened to tear it from
563the sky. A dense column of smoke and ash burst from where the Mechanicus shrine had stood an instant
564before, to be followed almost at once by a geyser of bright orange magma, its vivid colour even more
565shocking against the monochrome landscape. We lurched, our engine faltering as the dust from the
566explosion was sucked into the turbines, then began to claw our way back into the sky as the pilot brought
567us round upwind of the livid wound in the planet’s crust.
568I breathed a sigh of relief, and settled into my seat as our course steadied. The presence of the tyranids
569had been an unpleasant surprise, to say the least, but no doubt we’d get to the bottom of their sudden
570appearance soon enough. And, in the meantime, there were still the orks to be taken care of.
571‘Commissar,’ Kasteen said, her voice unexpectedly cutting into my comm-bead. ‘Can you confirm a
572tyranid infestation at objective two?’
573‘We can,’ I said. ‘Termagants and hormagaunts for certain; if there were any other bioforms present we
574didn’t encounter them.’ I took another look at the ash plume, diminishing in the distance. ‘Luckily there
575only seemed to be a small nest, and the explosion should have taken care of them nicely.’
576‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Kasteen said, her voice grim. ‘We’ve lost contact with Commissar Forres
577and the platoon she took in with her at objective one.’
578‘Are Lustig’s people inbound yet?’ I asked, remembering the contingency plans we’d discussed before
579I’d set out on this unexpectedly perilous reconnaissance sweep.
580‘They are,’ Kasteen said, ‘but you’re closer, and if objective one’s infested as well...’
581‘They’ll need all the recon data we can give them,’ I agreed. Even though I was outside the chain of
582command, she could still ask for my assistance, and I was in no position to refuse it: my standing with the
583common troopers would be cut off at the knees if I let an entire platoon walk into the maw of a tyranid
584swarm blind. I sighed, and tried not to grit my teeth. ‘Diverting to assist,’ I told her. ‘Vox the coordinates
585to the pilot.Editorial Note:
586Meanwhile, the campaign against the orks continued. As Cain rather loses sight of this, a failing for
587which, under the circumstances, he can hardly be blamed, the following, mercifully brief, extract is
588appended in the interests of presenting a slightly more rounded picture.
589From Like a Phoenix on the Wing: the Early Campaigns and Glorious Victories of the Valhallan 597th
590by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 101 M42.
591Their full might unleashed against the greenskin foe, the daughters and sons of Valhalla fell on the
592barbaric interlopers like the wrath of the Emperor incarnate, hewing their way to victory like the true
593heroes they were. First Company were, I’m proud to say, at the forefront of the campaign, striking the
594greenskins hard, and harrying their inevitable retreat, until they’d been driven back to the foothills in a
595series of hard-fought engagements which brought our forces to the brink of ultimate victory.
596Indeed, at the time, I thought we must truly have been blessed by the hand of Him on Earth, as our
597advance proceeded at a pace far beyond the most wildly optimistic forecast. Divine intervention
598appeared to be the only rational explanation for our success, and the manner in which the enemy
599seemed to melt away in front of us, notwithstanding the undoubted martial prowess of all those
600fortunate enough to have been called to the ranks of the 597th; chief amongst them, of course, Colonel
601Kasteen, a tactician without peer, and whose early lessons were far from lost on my younger self.
602Indeed, I may go so far as to say that the successful defence of Diogenes Gap
60369 was only made
604possible by the diligent application of the principles I observed her apply on innumerable occasions.
605If credit for our victories in the Nusquan campaign belongs to anyone, however, it must surely be
606Commissar Cain, whose inspirational leadership and unfailing dedication to the path of duty did so
607much to bolster the resolve of all. Though more pressing matters kept him from the front line for much
608of our campaign, I for one continued to let the simple question ‘What would the commissar do
609now?’
61070 guide my actions at every point I felt the burden of command beginning to weigh heavily
611upon me, and on every occasion the path of duty became instantly clear.
612It was while I was in my command Chimera, studying the maps of the foothills, and charting the route
613of our planned advance to minimise the risk of attack from ambush, that the order came to hold our
614positions. Commissar Cain had typically reserved the most hazardous assignment for himself, and
615while leading a recon team into the heart of an enemy-held area, discovered a threat beside which the
616surviving greenskins seemed but a minor irritation. Inspired by his selfless heroism, I too prepared to
617meet a new and terrifying foe, my faltering resolve bolstered as always by his shining and
618inspirational example.
619FOURTEEN
620In view of what we’d discovered at the power plant, you can be sure that the prospect of facing another
621tyranid swarm so soon (or, to be honest, ever again) was far from welcome. ‘How certain are we that the
622’nids are responsible this time?’ I asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.
623A hope Kasteen dashed almost at once. ‘We can’t be sure of anything,’ she told me, her voice attenuated
624by the comm-bead’s tiny vox-receiver, and the muffled roar of the Valkyrie’s engine. ‘Forres and the
625Nusquans went in, and split up to search the caverns by squad. We picked up a bit of vox traffic at first,
626all routine, then someone reported a contact and everything went dead.’
627‘It could still be the orks,’ I said, not really believing it myself. ‘The chances of two nests of tyranids
628going undetected for years must be vanishingly small.’
629‘True,’ Kasteen said. ‘But given the sudden loss of contact, and their distance from the greenskins’ lines,
630my money’s on the ’nids again.’
631A cold hand seemed to take hold of my bowels, and squeeze slowly. ‘If there are two nests,’ I said,
632reluctant to verbalise the thought, ‘there could be more.’
633‘So we need as much information as we can get,’ Kasteen added. ‘Movement, numbers, types of
634organism. It could just be an isolated outbreak, but if it isn’t, Throne help us all.’
635‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ I promised, not bothering to add ‘and run like frak if I see anything’, as that
636wouldn’t exactly be helpful under the circumstances. ‘Maybe there’s a hive ship somewhere in system,
637licking its wounds after the battle for Periremunda.’ Several of the living starships had fled, grievously
638wounded, as the Imperial Navy broke the siege of that beleaguered world, and it was possible one such
639survivor had drifted into the orbit of Nusquam Fundumentibus
64071 undetected. I couldn’t think of any other
641explanation for the presence of so many ’gaunts, instead of the scout organisms which usually made up the
642vanguard of a tyranid invasion.
643‘Objective in sight,’ the pilot voxed, cutting into my anxious speculation not a moment too soon.
644‘Good,’ I replied, trying to sound as if I meant it. I switched frequencies. ‘Lustig, where are you?’
645‘On final approach,’ the platoon leader assured me. ‘About twenty minutes behind you. If this head wind
646doesn’t ease off.’
647‘We’ll be waiting,’ I assured him. Twenty minutes would be a long time if the worst happened and we
648needed reinforcing in a hurry, but it could be worse. At least that’s what I thought at the time: in the event,
649it turned out to be worse than I could possibly have imagined.
650As we circled the objective, I must confess to a strong sense of deja vu, not unmixed with apprehension.
651We seemed to be repeating the sequence of events which had preceded our ill-starred investigation of the
652power plant, and I couldn’t shake a formless feeling of dread that this time we wouldn’t be so lucky. The
653only positive thing that I could see was that the snowfall had eased again, so I was able to make out our
654destination in a fair amount of detail.
655Like the power plant, there were a number of low structures studding the snow-shrouded surface,
656affording sheltered access to the caverns beneath; but in this case, instead of clustering together, they were
657widely separated, spread out across an area roughly a kilometre across. Wanting to know as much as
658possible about the environment I’d be entering in a few moments time I’d requested a map of the cave
659system, which Kasteen had transmitted to my data-slate, and after studying it for a minute or two my knack
660for remaining orientated in complex tunnel systems kicked in as reliably as ever, leaving me sure I’d be
661able to find my way around with little difficulty. Now, looking down, I was able to match each surface
662feature to the underground passageway or cavern connected to it with complete confidence.
663‘Where are their Chimeras?’ Jurgen asked, his curiosity giving me the full benefit of his halitosis as he
664leaned towards the viewport for a better look.
665‘They must have taken them inside,’ I said. Several of the blockhouses on the surface were designed to
666admit the heavy cargo crawlers
66772 which carried the foodstuffs grown here to Primadelving and the other
668nearby settlements, so getting the much smaller Chimeras under cover would have presented little
669difficulty. ‘Keep the engines from freezing in the cold.’
670Jurgen nodded. ‘You’d want them to start again quick if you needed ’em,’ he agreed. ‘Especially if the
671shooting started.’ The Nusquan Chimeras were fitted with multi-lasers in their turrets, rather than the
672heavy bolters favoured by the Valhallans, and their powercells would swiftly become depleted without
673the engines running to recharge them.
674‘Well, we’ll soon know,’ I said as the pilot began his descent.
675‘Same orders as last time?’ he asked as we hovered over the flat roof of one of the blockhouses, which
676we’d selected as a landing point in the absence of any purpose-built shuttle pad.
677‘Almost,’ I replied. ‘Keep circling, and report any sign of movement. There are supposed to be fifty or
678so Nusquans around
67973, so don’t shoot unless you’re sure they’re ’nids or greenskins.’
680‘Will do,’ the pilot confirmed. ‘Multi-laser only.’
681‘Or the Hellstrikes, if you feel they’re warranted,’ I said. ‘I doubt the crops are going to explode.’
682‘Unless they’re growing those pod things Sergeant Penlan tripped over on Seigal,’ Jurgen added. ‘Took
683days to get the last of the goo out.’ He shuddered at the memory, or another spasm of airsickness, it was
684hard to be sure which.
685‘The demiurg got the worst of it,’ I reminded him. ‘They’d have overrun us if they hadn’t got mired in
686the stuff.’
687‘Can’t see it slowing the ’nids down,’ my aide said, shaking his head.
688‘Neither can I,’ I agreed, wondering, not for the first time, how conversations with Jurgen tended to
689become quite so tangential to the original topic.
690‘Nothing moving on the auspex,’ the pilot told us, although that was only of limited reassurance where
691tyranids were concerned, their ability to evade detection almost second to none. ‘No visible signs of life
692either.’
693‘Then let’s get to it,’ I said, unable to think of any reason to delay further, despite my best efforts. ‘Any
694vox traffic?’ Which was a pretty pointless question really, as if the crew had detected any they would
695certainly have mentioned the fact by now.
696‘None, sir,’ the navigator confirmed
69774, speaking directly to me for the first time. ‘Still scanning on all
698frequencies.’
699‘They could be too deep to get a signal out,’ Grifen suggested, clearly no more convinced of that than I
700was. The vox gear in the command Chimera should be able to punch a signal through the intervening rock
701with no difficulty at all, allowing us to monitor the comm-beads of everyone in the cavern complex.
702‘Maybe,’ I said, not wanting to consider the alternatives too closely. Before I could say anything else the
703Valkyrie lurched, its landing skids hitting the rockcrete of the roof, and came to rest a comfortable
704distance from the vertiginous drop to the snow below. We’d chosen the largest and most central of the
705blocky structures to set down on, not least because of the extra margin for error the scrumball pitch-sized
706area allowed the pilot, and because according to the data provided by Kasteen there was an access hatch
707to the building, which would allow us ingress with a minimum of difficulty.
708I was also fairly sure that this would have been the entrance to the agricaves the Nusquans would have
709chosen, as they could have fanned out from here most efficiently, and if we followed in their footsteps we
710were most likely to find out what happened to them; preferably in time to avoid sharing their fate. At least
711if there were tyranids here we’d know what to expect: the Nusquans would have gone in as blissfully
712ignorant of the true threat as we had at the Mechanicus shrine, and, lacking our experience of fighting the
713’nids, they’d have had no idea of how to prevail against them.
714Once again the somewhat battered boarding ramp clanged outwards, allowing full access to the razoredged wind, which howled across the bleak wilderness surrounding us. This time we disembarked more
715slowly, partly because we had no fear of being shot at, and partly, in my case at least, because none of us
716were keen to encounter whatever flesh-sculpted horrors might be lying in wait beneath our feet. I shielded
717my eyes as the Valkyrie took to the skies again, and began to circle the point at which we stood, feeling as
718reassured as possible under the circumstances.
719‘We’re down,’ I reported, as Magot’s team crunched across the snow which lay beyond the roughly
720circular zone cleared by the Valkyrie’s landing jets. After a short search of the roof they unfolded their
721trenching tools, and began scraping the area around the trapdoor free of the ice and snow hiding it from
722view. ‘Second wave ETA?’
723‘Still twenty minutes, commissar,’ Lustig voxed almost at once.
724‘We’re proceeding inside,’ I told him. ‘If you follow the same route, you should catch up with us soon
725enough.’ At least I hoped so. If the entire cave system was indeed riddled with tyranids, I’d need a lot
726more troopers to hide behind than a single squad, already depleted to almost three quarters of its original
727strength.
728By the time I’d finished speaking, the troopers under Magot’s command had managed to lever the heavy
729metal slab open, no mean feat considering how firmly it had been frozen in place, and a telling testament
730to how at home the Valhallans were in this hideous environment. Despite the reservations I might normally
731have had about moving into harm’s way, I was down the ladder after our vanguard with almost indecent
732haste, my eagerness to get out of the bone-biting cold no doubt being misinterpreted as impatience to enter
733the fray by those around me.
734The ladder descended to a narrow catwalk, some two and a half metres below the ceiling, apparently
735for the convenience of those artisans charged with the maintenance of the luminators; which left sufficient
736headroom to walk upright, although doing so encumbered with our weapons and equipment over a drop of
737ten metres or more was somewhat disturbing. The net result, in my case at least, was a curious
738combination of vertigo and claustrophobia, all the more unsettling for experiencing either so seldom75.
739Fortunately the catwalk terminated in a wider platform, from which a rickety staircase descended,
740affording us a clear look at the floor of the warehouse as we made our way down.
741‘We’ve found the Chimeras,’ I voxed. ‘Three of them, anyway.’ The vehicles were parked close
742together, near the middle of the huge structure, the rest of the space it enclosed empty and echoing.
743‘The others must have gone to different entrances,’ Grifen said, ‘to sweep the tunnels from the other
744end.’
745‘More than likely,’ I agreed. It was a tactic which would have worked well against the orks the
746Nusquans expected to find here, trapping them between squads advancing from both directions, and
747cutting off their lines of escape. It was fatally flawed against tyranids, though, simply allowing the swarm
748to pick off the intruders piecemeal, instead of being able to combine their firepower against it.
749‘Something’s not right,’ Jurgen said, as our bootsoles hit the rockcrete, and we glanced round orientating
750ourselves. His voice echoed in the wide, high space, unimpeded by anything other than the ominous metal
751shapes of the abandoned Chimeras. ‘Where’s all the food waiting to be loaded?’
752A good question. A line of empty pallets stood against one wall, their contents gone.
753‘Maybe the crawler just left,’ Vorhees suggested, ‘and they haven’t started stacking the next load up yet.’
754‘Not according to this.’ Grifen bent to pick up an abandoned data-slate, which had drawn her attention
755to itself by skittering across the floor in response to an accidental nudge from her boot. ‘Crawler’s not
756due for another three days.’
757I glanced at the manifest still displayed on the cracked and flickering screen. According to that, there
758should have been about two hundred tonnes of miscellaneous foodstuffs stacked up around us, awaiting
759dispatch to various destinations. The implications were disturbing, to say the least, although not as much
760as the smear of blood still visible on the keypad of the device.
761‘The ’nids must have eaten it all,’ Jurgen said, no mean trencherman himself, and clearly impressed. I
762tried to picture a swarm large enough to consume two hundred tonnes of food, and immediately wished I
763hadn’t; it would be orders of magnitude larger than the one we’d already faced and escaped today.
764‘The food stores in the warehouse have been cleaned out,’ I voxed for Kasteen’s benefit, before adding
765‘so move carefully. There must be hundreds of organisms around here,’ to the troopers around me.
766‘Let’s check out the Chimeras,’ Grifen said, beginning to walk towards them.
767‘Pity the command one isn’t here,’ I agreed, falling in at her shoulder. ‘We’d be able to read everyone’s
768positions on the auspex.’ As we moved closer to the abandoned vehicles, it became increasingly obvious
769that something wasn’t right. The thick armour plate was rent in several places, ripped apart by powerful
770claws, and Jurgen and I shared a look of grim understanding as we got our first clear view of the damage.
771‘Genestealers, you reckon?’ he asked, and I nodded, the picture of their powerful talons tearing through
772the Reclaimers’ Terminator armour aboard the Spawn of Damnation all too vivid in my mind’s eye.
773‘Too precise for one of the big ones,’ I agreed; the hulking monstrosities would have crushed and dented
774the hulls, tearing their way inside with far less finesse. As I studied the damage to the trio of vehicles
775more carefully my eye fell on the unit markings of the nearest, half obscured by a slash of parallel talon
776marks. ‘That can’t be right.’
777‘What can’t?’ Grifen asked, then her eyes narrowed as she made out the almost obliterated identification
778code. ‘That’s the command vehicle. But where are the vox and auspex antennae?’ They should have been
779obvious and distinctive, marking it out instantly to the naked eye.
780‘Sheared off,’ Drere reported, from the top of the crippled Chimera. She picked up a tangle of metal and
781threw it down for my inspection, raising a clangor of echoes in the vast space as it hit the rockcrete floor.
782A look of consternation crossed her face, as it dawned on all of us simultaneously that if there were any
783tyranids in the immediate vicinity she’d just announced our presence to them in no uncertain manner, and
784everyone tensed, readying their weapons; but, after an agonising wait of a minute or two, no tide of chitin
785came scurrying out of the depths to challenge us, and the tension began to ease.
786‘Sliced through cleanly,’ I said, somewhat reassured by the failure of the ’nids to slaughter us all
787instantly where we stood, and returning my attention to the ravaged vox array. The edge was straight, the
788metal bright, and faint indentations further up the strut betrayed where the ’stealer responsible had gripped
789it with a couple of its other limbs to steady the assembly before hacking through it. ‘They took out the
790comms on purpose.’ The reason for which was obvious; with the relay in the command vehicle down, the
791comm-beads carried by the Nusquans would be blocked by the layers of rock between the caverns,
792isolating the squads from one another, and making it impossible to coordinate them.
793Reminded, if I ever needed to be, that the hive mind was at least as cunning and capable of subtlety in
794its tactics as any other foe the Imperium faced, although it was all too easy to forget this when faced by the
795endless sea of bestial creatures it controlled, I looked at the solemn faces surrounding me. If Drere’s
796moment of carelessness had indeed attracted its attention, our only chance of survival was to be
797somewhere else when the genestealers returned; and hope our reinforcements arrived before they caught
798up with us.
799‘No signs of life,’ Drere reported, after a cursory look through the top hatch of the ravaged Chimera.
800She grinned mirthlessly. ‘Big surprise there.’
801‘The others are empty too,’ Magot reported, trotting back from investigating them with a couple of her
802troopers. ‘Unless you count a lot of bloodstains.’
803‘Then let’s get moving,’ I said. Well-lit ramps led off from each edge of the chamber, disappearing into
804the depths below, and I picked the nearest more or less at random. There was no telling which one Forres
805and her people had taken, so one tunnel was as good as another so far as I could see.
806‘Move out,’ Grifen said, as happy to follow my lead as anyone would be under the circumstances,
807which was not a lot, and we set off.
808To my initial surprise, my overriding impression as we made our way through the cavern system was
809one of space, although I suppose that shouldn’t have been all that unexpected, given the purpose to which
810it had been put. The tunnel we took was wide and high, about four metres by three, and well-lit; the reason
811for which became obvious soon enough.
812‘Is that a truck?’ Jurgen asked, in tones of surprise which quite accurately reflected my own.
813‘More or less,’ I agreed. It would have looked pretty much at home on the city streets of any world with
814a more equitable climate, although the open cab would have been inconvenient when it rained. It had
815crashed into the tunnel wall, crumpling the bodywork and breaking an axle, which was a shame;
816commandeering the thing would have moved us all a lot faster. ‘It must have been ferrying food up to the
817loading area.’
818‘Till the ’nids decided to eat here,’ Vorhees added, with a grimace at the rust-coloured stains disfiguring
819the ripped-up driving seat.
820I nodded thoughtfully. The driver had clearly been fleeing the swarm, losing control as it overwhelmed
821him; the suddenness and ferocity of the attack could have left no more eloquent a testimony. ‘Stay sharp,’ I
822admonished, quite unnecessarily I’m sure.
823‘I’ve got all the sharp I need,’ Magot said, running a thumb along the edge of her bayonet.
824‘Let’s hope you don’t need,’ I rejoined, eliciting grim smiles from most of the troopers around me.
825Though we found plenty of traces of the tyranids’ passing as we penetrated deeper into the cavern
826system, the creatures themselves remained worryingly elusive. Shortly after stumbling across the
827abandoned truck, we found ourselves entering the first of the agricultural caverns, a cathedral-sized space
828still displaying the cracked and fissured walls of a natural rock formation. The floor had been smoothed,
829however, and powerful luminators mounted on pylons spaced at regular intervals around it; finding my
830boots splashing in a thin film of water, I resolved to give them as wide a berth as possible, since a loose
831cable on any of them would turn the shallow pool into an instant deathtrap.
832There was no question of where the water was coming from; the whole cavern was filled with metal
833troughs, mounted on stanchions driven into the floor, and which had at one time no doubt contained it.
834Now they were bent and shattered, their contents spilling all over the cave.
835‘Hydroponics,’ Kasteen explained, as I reported what I’d seen for the benefit of the approaching
836platoon, and the analysts back in Primadelving. ‘We grow most of our food like that on Valhalla too
83776.’
838‘No sign of any plants,’ I said, my apprehension growing as the realisation sunk in of what that meant. I
839had no idea how much vegetation the cavern had contained yesterday, but if all these troughs had been
840full, it was a huge amount, and my already pessimistic estimate of the size of the swarm we were facing
841increased by another order of magnitude. If all the other caverns had been stripped too...
842‘Only one way to find out,’ Grifen said when I verbalised the thought, and I nodded reluctant agreement.
843My knack of remaining orientated in an underground environment proving as reliable as ever, we moved
844on, down another of the wide tunnels to the next cavern. This was considerably deeper, the subterranean
845road connecting them descending in a wide spiral, so that the open space was hidden from us until we
846were almost on top of it.
847‘At least our feet are dry,’ Jurgen said, moving his head slowly as he scanned the open space in search
848of a target.
849I nodded, taking in the panorama of ripped and shattered animal pens. I had no idea what manner of
850creature had been reared down here, but I was in no doubt of what had happened to them, butchered along
851with their keepers to feed the insatiable hunger of the hive mind. Even the dung had gone, the ’nids being
852fastidious when it came to garnering raw material for the creation of more of their kind.
853‘The animal pens in cavern twelve are empty,’ I reported, hearing only the faint hiss of static in my
854earpiece by way of reply. Our rapid descent down the spiral way had evidently taken us too deep for our
855comm-beads to remain connected to the vox-unit of the Valkyrie
85677, and I felt a brief surge of panic, which
857I fought down briskly. The important thing was to return to the higher levels as quickly as possible, where
858we could re-establish contact and join up with Lustig’s platoon.
859For a moment I debated going back the way we’d come, but as we’d fanned out across the open space
860we’d moved a fair way from the tunnel mouth we’d entered the cave by, and another pair in the far wall
861were almost as close. One led up upwards, I was sure, looping round through a couple of other nexus
862points, to bring us back to the entrance building we’d started from by another of the tunnel mouths leading
863off from it. Doing so would complete our recon sweep in a manner comprehensive enough to look as
864though we’d done our duty, and enable us to join up with Lustig’s command squad, which I had no doubt a
865soldier of his experience would leave where it was least likely to make contact with the enemy.
866(Something Lustig was never averse to personally, but I knew he took his new-found responsibilities
867seriously enough not to risk compromising his ability to coordinate the squads under his command by
868having to fight off hordes of ’gaunts at the same time.) No doubt Forres had developed the same idea,
869parking the Chimeras well behind where she expected the battle lines to be: but unlike her we knew what
870we were up against, and, more importantly, how to fight it.
871‘This way,’ I said, angling towards the tunnel mouth leading upwards.
872Magot glanced down the other, the gently inclined floor of which led even further into the bowels of the
873planet, and wrinkled her nose. ‘There’s that smell again,’ she said.
874Turning my head in her direction, I was able to catch a faint whiff of sulphur on the air currents wafting
875up from the cavern below. ‘This place connects to the volcanic vents too,’ I explained, as though I hadn’t
876just learned that myself from the information Kasteen had supplied. ‘They use the heat to warm the place
877and help the plants grow.’
878‘Should we check it out before we head back up?’ she asked, and I shook my head, trying to seem casual
879about it.
880‘Better get back into contact as soon as we can,’ I said, all too aware that if the ’nids followed the same
881pattern of instinctive behaviour as the ones at the power plant they’d be congregating in the lowest point
882of the cave system, and that our chances of survival if we disturbed a swarm as big as the one I’d inferred
883could be there would start at non-existent before growing rapidly worse.
884‘You won’t hear any argument from me,’ Grifen agreed, taking the path that led upwards, and we began
885our ascent as circumspectly as we’d descended, despite the urge to hurry that nagged at us with every
886footfall. I’ve often observed that fatal mistakes get made more often on the return leg of a recon mission
887than the outward one, no doubt because the simple fact of turning back creates the false impression that the
888worst is over; whereas the enemy is still as alert as ever. Most of the troopers with me were far too
889experienced in the ways of war to succumb to that fallacy, however, and we remained fully focused, a fact
890which was to save our lives before many more minutes were over.
891We’d almost reached the next cavern when I became aware that the faint wash of static in my commbead was modulating slightly, and before I’d taken many more paces the vague fragments of sound began
892to coalesce into voices. I still couldn’t make much sense of it, but I’d been in enough tight corners over the
893years to recognise the clipped urgency of orders being given and received in the middle of a pitched
894battle.
895‘What is it, sir?’ Jurgen asked, raising his melta, attuned to my moods by our long years of campaigning
896together. Picking up their cue from him, Grifen and Magot looked expectantly in my direction.
897‘Sounds like Lustig’s arrived,’ I said grimly, ‘and the ’nids have laid on a welcoming party.’
898No sooner had the words left my mouth, however, than the voice of the lieutenant himself sounded
899clearly in my earpiece.
900‘Commissar, do you read?’ Lustig asked, sounding remarkably calm for a man I’d presumed to be
901fighting for his life.
902‘Cain, go ahead,’ I said, my surprise no doubt evident in my tone. ‘What’s your status?’
903‘Just disembarked,’ Lustig said, sounding equally surprised, ‘and securing our perimeter. You think
904’stealers took out the Chimeras in here?’
905‘Positive,’ I said, stopping abruptly. We’d almost reached the entrance to the next cavern, but I was
906damned if I was going to take another step. ‘Because I’m looking right at them.’
907FIFTEEN
908My companions followed my lead, freezing in place instinctively, as the sinister shadows bounded across
909the cavern in front of us; there must have been a dozen at least, although under the circumstances I didn’t
910feel particularly disposed to making an accurate head count. Long, lolling tongues curled from their fangfilled mouths, while sinister highlights flickered from the talons tipping the hands on each of their four
911arms. For a heart-stopping moment I thought they’d seen us, but fortunately their attention appeared to be
912elsewhere; in an instant, it seemed, they’d crossed the flooded floor of a hydroponic chamber in no better
913condition than the first we’d found, their taloned feet kicking up a mist of spray from the thin film of
914water, to vanish down another of the connecting tunnels.
915‘That was lucky,’ Jurgen said, as though we’d just avoided nothing worse than a rain shower. ‘Another
916minute and we’d have run right into them.’
917‘We would,’ I agreed, hoping my voice wasn’t as shaky as the rest of me. The tunnel they’d come from
918was the very one I’d been intending to take back to the chamber we’d arrived in. Which reminded me...
919‘Lustig. The ’stealers were in the passage between your position and chamber nine on the schematic. It’s
920probably clear now, but advance with caution.’
921‘Acknowledged,’ Lustig said, sounding even more surprised than before. ‘Where did they go?’
922‘The exit for chamber sixteen,’ Grifen said, consulting her own slate
92378 with a frown of puzzlement.
924‘And fast. Maybe you spooked them.’
925I shook my head. ‘Genestealers don’t panic. Not like that. They were running towards something, not
926away.’ The faint echoes I’d noticed before were still in my comm-bead, and the realisation suddenly
927dawned. If it wasn’t Lustig’s platoon under siege, then... ‘It must be the Nusquans. The hive mind’s calling
928in reinforcements.’
929‘Say again, sir?’ Lustig requested, evidently still too distant to hear the faint vox traffic for himself.
930I gritted my teeth, already well aware of where this conversation was bound to lead. ‘We’re picking up
931faint vox signals,’ I said, ‘on Guard frequencies. If it isn’t you, it has to be be the Nusquans, what’s left of
932them. They must be holed up in sixteen, or whatever’s beyond it.’ Even as I spoke, my ever-reliable
933mental map filled in the answer; another exit to the surface. Presumably they were trying to fight their way
934through to their remaining Chimeras.
935‘Squads two, three and five are on their way to assist,’ Lustig said, effectively sinking any hope I had of
936palming a heroic rescue attempt off on someone else for a change. ‘Can you recce for them?’
937‘We’re on it,’ Grifen said, before I had a chance to come up with a good reason to refuse, or at least
938wait for another thirty troopers to catch up with us.
939‘Keep an eye out behind us as well,’ I cautioned, all too aware that if any more tyranid reinforcements
940turned up, we’d be caught between them and the main army. Our only chance of surviving the next few
941minutes was to avoid the notice of the hive mind altogether, which was a chancy proposition at the best of
942times; although I’d managed the trick on a few occasions before
94379, so I knew it could be done.
944Though still mindful of the need for caution, we picked up our pace as we began to follow the ’stealers,
945hoping that the swarm’s attention would be directed at the Nusquans it was trying to consume, rather than
946behind it. A risk, true, but a calculated one, and unavoidable if we were to intervene while there was still
947someone left to rescue.
948Before long the whispers in my ear had swelled to faint voices, growing steadily stronger, and I was not
949at all surprised to discern Forres’s clipped and self-assured tones prominent among them. I couldn’t tell
950how many survivors were left standing, but damned few by this time I’d wager, and if the voices I could
951hear were anything to go by they’d entered that strange state of mind where the certainty of imminent death
952brings complete clarity and a curious absence of fear. (A sensation I’d already experienced often enough
953in my own turbulent life to recognise at once.) Which is all very well in its way, the lack of any sense of
954self-preservation sometimes enabling desperate people to achieve extraordinary things, but if I was going
955to be forced to play the hero again I wanted there to be someone left to appreciate it.
956‘Commissar Cain to Nusquan unit,’ I voxed, knowing that the realisation that help was on its way would
957infuse the beleaguered survivors with fresh purpose. ‘We’re approaching with reinforcements. I need a
958sitrep ASAP
95980.’ The last thing we needed at this stage was to blunder into the middle of a pitched battle
960and get annihilated before we got the chance to achieve anything.
961To my complete lack of surprise, Forres answered, any astonishment she may have felt at this
962unexpected reprieve firmly suppressed. ‘Completely surrounded,’ she replied. ‘We’ve taken refuge on the
963catwalk, but they keep on coming.’
964‘You got as far as the blockhouse on the surface?’ I asked, impressed by her tenacity if nothing else, the
965memory of the narrow walkway we’d traversed from the roof still fresh in my memory.
966‘The agricave,’ Forres corrected, interrupting herself with the harsh bark of a bolt pistol, exactly the
967sidearm I’d have expected her to choose. Loud, ostentatious, and making a spectacular mess of its target, a
968lot of commissars favour them because they think they’re more intimidating
96981, although I’ve found the
970solidly reliable laspistol far better suited to service in the field. I’ve lost count of the number of times
971I’ve recharged it on the fly, when I’d have been long out of ammunition for a projectile weapon. ‘There’s
972a short one for maintaining the inlet pipes.’
973‘We’ll spot it,’ I assured her. In truth I hadn’t noticed any such arrangement in the caverns we’d passed
974through before, my sole interest in the pipework above us being the absence of any lurking genestealers
975poised to pounce.
976‘That’ll be where the ’stealers were off to in such a hurry,’ Jurgen said, never slow to point out the
977obvious. ‘Most tyranids can’t climb.’ Which wasn’t entirely true, but they were clumsy at best, having
978only their feet and middle limbs to do the job with, the weapons fused to their forelimbs only getting in the
979way. Genestealers, on the other hand, were perfectly adapted to swarming up near vertical surfaces, and if
980Forres and her people had sought refuge by climbing, the hive mind would have called in as many as it
981could to drag them down.
982As we got our first sight of the cavern, it was just as obvious where the Nusquans were as the junior
983commissar had promised. A huge, swaying pyramid of intertwined tyranids rose from the floor beneath a
984fragile-seeming catwalk, to which a dozen determined survivors clung grimly, pouring lasgun fire into the
985seething mass of flesh below. So far it was about three metres high, and growing inexorably, already well
986over halfway to its goal.
987‘Single shots!’ Forres shouted. ‘Pick your targets!’ Suiting the action to the word, she picked off a
988termagant teetering near the top of the pile, which was just bringing its fleshborer up on aim, with
989commendable accuracy. To be conserving ammunition in straits this dire they must be almost out, an
990impression reinforced a moment later by one of the Nusquan troopers, who gave up pointing his gun at the
991horde of horrors below, and began fixing his bayonet.
992‘I’m out,’ his voice crackled over the vox, confirming my deduction.
993‘Look up there,’ Jurgen said, and following the direction of his grime-encrusted finger, I was able to
994pick out a whisper of stealthy movement among the stalactites above our heads.
995‘Well spotted,’ I commended him, and activated the vox. ‘Forres, you’ve got ’stealers above you. Three
996groups, one, five, and nine o’clock.’
997The Nusquans redirected their fire towards the new threat, and a couple of the taloned horrors fell,
998bursting like foul and overripe fruit as they hit the floor and the hydroponic troughs, the impact raising
999small fountains of water and viscera. The water frothed where they’d hit, as uncountable writhing
1000serpentine forms swarmed to tear them apart, greedily devouring the still-twitching corpses with singleminded diligence.
1001‘Rippers,’ Vorhees said simply, in horror-struck tones, recognising the razor-fanged worms with a
1002shudder of revulsion. The flooded floor was carpeted with the foul things, as far as the eye could see.
1003‘We’ll need flamers,’ I voxed the approaching troopers. ‘The more the better. The whole cavern’s
1004infested.’ If we could advance behind those, and a solid barrage of lasgun fire, we might be able to force
1005our way over to the Nusquans and get them out before the tyranids recovered the initiative. Possibly. So
1006long as we maintained the element of surprise until we were ready.
1007‘We can’t target the genestealers from this angle,’ Forres told us, matter-of-factly. ‘The stalactites are in
1008the way. You’ll have to pick them off from the floor.’
1009‘If we do that, the hive mind will know we’re here,’ I pointed out. ‘As soon as we’re ready to extract
1010you we can...’ Before I could finish the sentence the ’stealers swarmed forward, charging as quickly and
1011easily as if they were running on solid ground; another second or two and they’d be on the swaying gantry,
1012carving their way among the troopers like kroot through a meat locker. ‘Frak it, fire!’
1013Our lasguns crackled, and Jurgen’s melta added its sinister hiss, wreaking havoc among the brood
1014clinging to the ceiling; more fell, riddled with las-bolts or baked by the melta, these last raising clouds of
1015steam where they hit the floor, or crashed into the flooded troughs. Not all were killed outright by the fall:
1016several stirred, trying to rise, while one in particular pulled itself to its feet with a grasping hand on one
1017of the troughs, despite the loss of a limb and a deep crack in its carapace through which some noisome
1018fluid seeped. It turned its head slowly, seeking the source of the unexpected interference, its eyes seeming
1019to lock on mine; then it began a lumbering charge, managing two or three halting paces in our direction
1020before the water frothed around it, and the serpentine scavengers closed in. Like the rest of its brood it
1021was torn apart and consumed in seconds.
1022‘Why did they do that instead of letting it attack us?’ Jurgen asked, but within a heartbeat we had our
1023answer; all round the cavern, ’gaunts and the hulking warrior forms which gave them volition were
1024turning, as though suddenly made aware of our presence.
1025‘Because the rest are about to,’ I said, preparing to run. We’d done our best, but there was no point in
1026allowing ourselves to be devoured along with the Nusquans. If we were fast enough, maybe we could get
1027behind the protection afforded by the flamers the troopers behind us were bringing up. A few gouts of
1028burning promethium would fill the corridor, holding the hideous creatures off long enough for us to make
1029it back to the Valkyries uneaten. I hoped. ‘Valhallans, where are you?’
1030‘Chamber nine, commissar,’ Jinxie Penlan told me, her voice overlaid with the unmistakable sounds of
1031combat. ‘There’s a whole swarm of them coming up from the lower levels. We’re holding them off with
1032the flamers, but we can’t get through to you.’
1033‘Just keep them off our backs for as long as you can,’ I said, cursing under my breath. No retreat that
1034way.
1035I glanced up at the Nusquans on their precarious perch, where a desperate struggle was going on against
1036the two or three ’stealers which had survived our intervention: Forres was engaging one with her
1037chainsword, and looked like getting her face bitten off, until she jammed the muzzle of her miniature
1038bolter under its chin and pulled the trigger, while a luckless trooper at the other end of the gantry was
1039slashed almost in two, and fell, flailing, to be torn to pieces by the waiting swarm the moment he hit the
1040ground. We’d get no help from up there, either.
1041‘Pick your targets,’ Grifen said, sounding oddly like Forres for a moment, before adding some rather
1042more pertinent advice, ‘and aim for the large ones every chance you get
104382. If we can disrupt the swarm
1044we might have a chance.’
1045‘If the little frakkers don’t rip our toes off first,’ Magot said, looking at the thrashing killer worms, her
1046face contorted with revulsion. It was no idle comment; under the influence of the hive mind, they were
1047abandoning the corpses and the remains of the crop which used to be here (some kind of root vegetable,
1048judging by the few partially intact examples I could see), and were already swarming towards us, while
1049the specialised combat forms began to untangle themselves from the ungainly circus act beneath the
1050catwalk, and trot in our direction behind them. The leading warrior aimed its deathspitter at us, and a
1051second later the water a metre or so in front of my boot began to bubble and hiss furiously as the ball of
1052acid it had fired started eating its way into the cavern floor.
1053‘Fire!’ I commanded, abruptly reminded that our sole remaining advantage was the superior range of our
1054weaponry, and that we’d almost squandered it already. ‘Before it can get another one off!’ The synapse
1055creature was promptly riddled, and went down, but instead of pausing to feast on the corpse the rippers
1056continued their remorseless advance, slithering towards us with malign intent. ‘Two more over there!’
1057‘One,’ Jurgen said, nailing the left-hand one neatly with the melta, reducing the devourer it carried to a
1058mass of charred meat, but the hideous creature rallied, and came on, clearly intent on dicing us with its
1059scything claws instead: in the unlikely event of the screen of smaller creatures it and its companion were
1060lurking behind leaving anything larger than mincemeat, in any case.
1061‘Full auto, take down the ones with the guns,’ Grifen ordered. ‘Before they get close enough to use
1062them.’ Our erstwhile companion’s gruesome death fresh in our minds, we needed no further urging,
1063unleashing a withering hail of fire as we retreated step by step up the tunnel, while the tide of slithering,
1064ankle-high fangs continued to snap at our boots as we went, the bloated serpentine bodies behind them
1065writhing over the wet footprints we left on the rockcrete floor.
1066At which point, belated inspiration suddenly struck, as I recalled my idle thought about the lighting
1067pylons in the first of the flooded chambers we’d found. ‘Jurgen!’ I shouted. ‘Can you bring down one of
1068those luminator rigs?’
1069‘No problem,’ my aide assured me, scanning the narrowing view of the chamber in front of us, which
1070each retreating step closed in a little further. ‘Any one in particular?’
1071‘The easiest to hit,’ I said, wanting to leave as little to chance as possible. Jurgen’s marksmanship may
1072have been exceptional, but so was his ability to take whatever I said to him literally, and if I was any
1073more specific he’d continue grimly plugging away at whichever one I’d designated even if that meant
1074having to bring down half the swarm to get a clear shot at it.
1075‘Right you are, sir,’ he responded, as if I’d asked for nothing more troublesome than a fresh bowl of
1076tanna, and I closed my eyes reflexively just as he pulled the trigger. ‘Frak it, get out of the way! Sorry, sir,
1077just winged that big one instead.’
1078He must have done more than just winged it, because the tide of squirming death at my feet checked its
1079advance for a moment, the cohesiveness of the hive mind disrupted; then, with the inconvenient
1080obstruction out of the way, he fired again.
1081As the supporting girder work flashed into incandescent vapour, the metal around it softening and
1082buckling, the metal pylon lurched sideways, and began to sag. ‘Again!’ I began, but before I could
1083complete the command, gravity overwhelmed the weakened structure and it toppled gracefully to the
1084cavern floor.
1085The effect was immediate, the luminators shattering, and the thick electrical cables supplying them
1086fizzling as they hit the water. The shallow pool began to froth, churned to foam by the agonised spasms of
1087the countless organisms infesting it, and jagged lightning arced between the metal surfaces of the
1088hydroponic troughs, electrocuting those tyranids which had the luck or quick-wittedness to be out of the
1089water just as effectively as those caught in it. The surviving warrior form staggered, roaring and
1090bellowing like a drunken ork, discharged its venom cannon in a final reflex (which fortunately failed to hit
1091anything other than a couple of expiring hormagaunts), and collapsed into the boiling pool. Silence
1092suddenly fell, broken only by the faint, sinister buzzing of the abused electrical system.
1093‘They’ve stopped moving,’ Magot said, prodding the nearest ripper cautiously with the tip of her
1094bayonet. Those closest to us were too far from the water to have been electrocuted themselves, but
1095deprived of the controlling influence of the hive mind, they’d simply become inert lumps of staggeringly
1096ugly meat.
1097‘Then we’d better collect the Nusquans and get out of here,’ I said.
1098‘Preferably without boiling us in the process,’ Forres said, stowing her weapons, and looking down at
1099us severely from her perch near the ceiling. ‘Which is something of a flaw in your otherwise impressive
1100stratagem.’
1101‘No “thanks for saving us from being ’nid bait,” then,’ Magot muttered. ‘Snotty femhound.’
1102‘Corporal,’ I reproved, but to be honest I pretty much shared her opinion, so stopped short of an outright
1103reprimand; an omission which, judging by her smirk, had not gone unnoted, nor my reasons uninferred.
1104Besides, Forres did have a point: so long as the cable was in the water, we couldn’t re-enter the chamber,
1105and the Nusquans couldn’t descend from their perch, without getting electrocuted just as thoroughly as the
1106’nids.
1107‘We’re being forced back here,’ Penlan voxed, just to crank the pressure up a little more. ‘We’ve laid
1108down a flame barrier between the swarm and your tunnel mouth, but it’s only going to burn for a few
1109minutes.’
1110‘Acknowledged,’ I said, acutely aware that another tidal wave of scuttling malevolence would be
1111bearing down on us as soon as the flames died, and that the only way forward was across the electrified
1112pool. If I didn’t think of something fast, we were going to be ’nid bait ourselves.
1113‘There’s a junction box on the north-west wall,’ Forres cut in, pointing at something I couldn’t quite see
1114from her elevated perch. ‘The cable from the luminator you downed seems to be plugged into it.’
1115I took the proffered amplivisor from Jurgen, and focused it. She was right. Taking it out should cut the
1116power to all the luminators in that portion of the cavern.
1117I turned to the troopers as my aide shrugged his bulky melta aside and unslung his lasgun, in anticipation
1118of my next order. If anyone among us was capable of hitting so small a mark, I was confident it would be
1119him, but under the circumstances the sooner the power was cut the better, and we didn’t have long to try.
1120‘Double ale ration for whoever hits that box thing on the wall over there first,’ I said, and stood back,
1121ready to leave them to it.
1122‘Allow me,’ Forres interjected dryly, casually putting a bolt through the box from the swaying catwalk
1123before anyone else could pull the trigger. The explosive bolt struck true, and detonated, ripping the target
1124to shreds, and plunging the entire cavern into darkness, relieved only by the light leaking from the tunnel
1125mouths on either side.
1126‘Nice shot,’ I said. ‘But perhaps a slight flaw in your stratagem?’
1127Magot snickered quietly as we kindled our luminators again, and began sloshing though the water,
1128picking our way as best we could through the innumerable dead horrors choking it. The larger creatures
1129had to be dodged around, and I kept my laspistol trained on each one as I did so, particularly the warrior
1130forms, having learned long ago that it took a great deal to kill a tyranid, and the jolt of high voltage
1131electricity might merely have stunned some of them.
1132‘We have to get moving,’ I said as we reached the vicinity of the dangling catwalk. ‘We’re out of the
1133hive mind’s awareness at the moment, but it knows something’s knocked a hole in its neural net, and right
1134where it happened; it’ll be sending more tyranids in after us as sure as the Emperor protects. Our only
1135chance is to be gone by the time it does.’
1136‘And how do you suggest we get down?’ Forres asked, with a touch of asperity. ‘We had to take out the
1137ladder with a krak grenade. You’ll need to get a rope from the Chimeras, bring it back, and...’
1138‘End up in a digester pool like the rest of the poor frakwits you led in here,’ I interrupted. ‘When we get
1139to the Chimeras we’re firing them up and driving them out. Come along now if you don’t want to get left
1140for the ’nids.’
1141‘They’ll be here any minute,’ Grifen added, with an apprehensive glance at the tunnel mouth we’d come
1142in by.
1143‘We can’t jump from up here, we’ll be killed!’ one of the Nusquans objected.
1144‘No you won’t.’ I swung my luminator round to spotlight the pile of tyranid corpses beneath the catwalk.
1145It wasn’t as high as it had been, but it would do. ‘If you hang by your hands first, it’s only a couple of
1146metres to drop to the top of the heap, and you can climb down that fast enough.’ The chitinous
1147exoskeletons wouldn’t exactly supply a soft landing, but they’d be a lot more comfortable than a five
1148metre fall to solid rock, that was for sure.
1149I expected more argument, but the Nusquans had evidently learned the lesson that a slim chance is
1150infinitely preferable to none as well as I had by this time, and followed my suggestion without further ado.
1151Forres watched them for a moment, then tucked her weapons away and simply jumped, her black coat
1152flapping like a gargoyle’s wings as she reached out for a hold among the mound of monstrous corpses, and
1153swarmed her way down them talon by tusk. ‘Are you always that inventive?’ she asked, and I shrugged.
1154‘Sometimes you have to be,’ I said. ‘The manual doesn’t cover everything.’ I glanced at the tunnel we’d
1155entered by, certain I’d heard the first faint scuttling of a new horde back in the throat of it. ‘Now let’s get
1156out of here, before the rest of them arrive.’
1157SIXTEEN
1158‘I can see them!’ Magot reported, her team having taken point as we scurried up the tunnel as fast as our
1159legs could carry us. Grifen’s team had taken the rearguard, leaving the Nusquans in the middle, as by this
1160point they’d expended so much ammo they had little to defend themselves with beyond withering sarcasm,
1161which in my experience tyranids were seldom bothered by. ‘Two Chimeras, still parked.’
1162Though my natural instinct was to run for the safety they represented as fast as I could, I’d dropped back
1163a little to confer with Forres; partly because it would be expected of me, and it was vital to pass her
1164report back in case we failed to make it out of here, but mainly because if the ’nids had managed to
1165outflank us and were waiting in ambush I’d rather not be the first one to find out.
1166‘They just came at us out of nowhere,’ Forres said, her voice steady, but her eyes still numb with the
1167shock of what she’d been through today. ‘We deployed for a sweep through the caverns, but as we’d found
1168no sign of the greenskins on the surface we assumed they must already have withdrawn. By the time those
1169creatures appeared, we’d got sloppy.’ Her jaw tightened. ‘I should have kept a tighter rein, kept everyone
1170up to the mark. But I got careless too.’
1171‘A dozen of the troopers with you survived,’ I said, partly because I’d got so used to boosting morale
1172over the years that an encouraging word at times like these had become almost second nature to me, and
1173partly because our conversation was being monitored and that was the sort of thing a Hero of the
1174Imperium was supposed to say, instead of ‘What the frak were you thinking, strolling around a war zone
1175like you were on leave?’ I had a reputation to consider after all, even if I didn’t deserve it. ‘Under the
1176circumstances, I’d say that’s a pretty strong testament to your leadership. Where did they come from?’
1177‘Up from the lower levels,’ Forres said, looking a little happier now that I’d thrown her a bone. I could
1178still remember my first assignment as a newly-inducted commissar, one which had also been interrupted
1179by the sudden appearance of a tyranid horde, so I suppose I may have felt rather more sympathetic
1180towards her than I might otherwise have done; although I doubted that her first impulse had been to head
1181for the horizon while the going was good, like mine had been. ‘We were deep enough to smell the
1182volcanic vents, but before we could descend any further they just started pouring out of the tunnels, and
1183we could hear the other units screaming over the vox. Lieutenant Caromort ordered the survivors to link
1184up with her command squad, but we couldn’t get through to join them, and the main group was wiped out.
1185I told Sergeant Lanks to pull back and return to the Chimeras, but the swarm caught up with us before we
1186could make it, and cut us off. I spotted the gantry under the pipework, and got everyone who was left up
1187onto it.’
1188‘Which saved their lives,’ I pointed out. ‘Well done.’
1189‘Not well enough,’ Forres said grimly. Some people you just can’t help, and now was hardly the time to
1190try and talk some sense into her, so I simply nodded formally, and moved up to join Magot, whose
1191fireteam had reached the floor of the blockhouse we’d been aiming for and begun to fan out across it.
1192‘Doesn’t look good,’ she greeted me, with a baleful glare at the Chimeras. I can’t say I was surprised to
1193find them in much the same condition as the ones we’d found on our arrival, but the disappointment was
1194profound nonetheless; as so often when things looked really dire, I’d clung to the shred of hope that they
1195might not have been quite as bad as they appeared.
1196I turned to look at Forres, who had moved up with the rest of the party and was staring at the wrecked
1197vehicles as though someone had just shot her puppy. Concerned murmuring began among the Nusquans,
1198incipient panic not far beneath the surface, and she rounded on them, her expression becoming severe and
1199unemotional as abruptly as the flick of a switch. ‘Stay focused,’ she snapped. ‘We’re getting out of this.’ It
1200was a good performance, but I’d seen enough to realise she was as terrified as any of them. Me too, come
1201to that, but I was even better at concealing how I felt than she was, having notched up many more years of
1202practice.
1203‘Did you know the crews were dead?’ I asked quietly.
1204‘I knew we’d lost contact,’ she said, not quite answering the question. ‘But I hoped we could get moving
1205without them if necessary.’
1206‘That’s not the problem,’ I said, pleased to note that Grifen and the sole surviving Nusquan NCO, Lanks
1207I imagined, were already setting up to cover the tunnel mouth as effectively as possible with the limited
1208resources at our disposal while we spoke. ‘Jurgen and Magot can drive Chimeras.’ After their own
1209idiosyncratic fashion, admittedly, but under the circumstances I wouldn’t quarrel with my aide’s
1210propensity to jam the throttle as wide open as possible, with a complete disregard for whatever else
1211might be in the vicinity. I gestured at the ripped and battered metal in front of us. ‘The problem is that
1212these heaps of scrap aren’t going anywhere, however many drivers we’ve got.’
1213‘It might not be as bad as it looks,’ Forres said crisply, before glancing into the driver’s compartment of
1214the nearest, the controls of which had been comprehensively mangled in the ’stealers’ attempts to wrinkle
1215out the morsels within. Her face fell. ‘Oh.’
1216‘“Oh” pretty much covers it,’ I agreed, looking round at the rest of the cavernous space. It was smaller
1217than the one we’d entered by, though not by much, and almost as empty. ‘We’ll have to get out through the
1218main door, and hope our pilot can pick us up from the open ground before the ’nids get too close.’ I was
1219no keener to face the bone-chilling cold of the surface than I’d been before, but given the alternative it
1220seemed positively inviting. Unfortunately, the Valkyrie which had brought us here was now providing air
1221cover for the retreating Valhallans, if the transmissions I’d been monitoring in my comm-bead were
1222anything to go by, and it would take several minutes to disengage, circle round, land, and embark us;
1223minutes I was by no means sure we had. I glanced hopefully at the ceiling, but there was no sign of a
1224trapdoor there, or anything by which we could have accessed one even if there had been.
1225‘There’s movement on the surface,’ the pilot added, as I heard the first unmistakable scrabbling in the
1226depths of the tunnel which meant the swarm beneath our feet was on the move again too. ‘Closing on
1227Blockhouse Four. Is that your position?’
1228‘It is,’ I confirmed, as the lasguns opened up again behind me. The external doors were solid, but they
1229wouldn’t hold an entire swarm back for long, and with another horde of drooling malevolence doing its
1230best to swamp us through the corridor, we couldn’t divert any of our rapidly-dwindling firepower to
1231defend against an attack from the outside anyway.
1232I walked round the Chimeras, which had blocked my view of the far side of the entrance chamber, then
1233stopped, staring, almost unable to believe the evidence of my own eyes. A cargo crawler was parked
1234there, its loading doors open, and its bodywork miraculously unmarred by the furrowing of genestealer
1235claws.
1236‘Jurgen!’ I called, sprinting towards it. ‘Can you get this thing started?’
1237‘Looks easy enough,’ my aide said, clambering up to the cab with remarkable agility, given that he was
1238still burdened with the bulky melta. ‘Why isn’t it ripped apart like the Chimeras?’
1239‘Nobody hiding inside it, I suppose,’ I said, not really caring. It was intact enough to run, and that was
1240all that mattered to me. I hauled myself into the cab after him, finding it a little cramped competing for
1241space with my aide, his body odour, and our mutual collection of weapons, but I’d take a little crowding
1242in preference to ending up as regurgitated biomass in a digestion pool any day.
1243Jurgen began poking around on the dashboard and I popped my head back out, cracking off a couple of
1244shots at the termagants in the shadows of the tunnel mouth. It seemed that the hive mind had learned to be
1245wary of us, and, unsure of how we’d managed to eliminate so many of its meat puppets in one fell swoop,
1246wasn’t keen to commit them to a massed assault just yet. The Valhallans, Nusquans and Forres had
1247hunkered down behind the wrecked Chimeras, and the two sides were exchanging largely ineffectual
1248potshots. From my elevated position I was able to pick off one of the termagants with a, frankly, lucky
1249head shot, before wondering belatedly if attracting their attention was such a good idea, but it raised
1250morale and, more importantly, made it clear that I was getting stuck in along with everybody else. A
1251second or so later, Forres, not wanting to be outdone, blew another apart with a shot from her toy bolter,
1252which neatly established her as a higher priority target in any case.
1253‘That’s done it,’ Jurgen said a moment later, and the crawler’s engine rumbled into life. ‘Just need to get
1254the outer doors open.
1255‘There should be a remote override somewhere in the cab,’ Lanks put in helpfully over the vox
125683.
1257‘Come on, then,’ I urged, cracking off another couple of covering shots as the Nusquans began running
1258for the rear cargo doors. It was going to be pretty uncomfortable back there with nothing to sit on, but
1259given the alternative I wasn’t expecting anyone to complain.
1260‘Pull back, by fire and movement,’ Grifen ordered crisply, and Magot’s team trotted after the Nusquans
1261who’d begun scrambling up behind us, while Grifen’s switched to full auto, laying down a barrage to
1262cover their retreat. Confident that I’d done enough to be seen to be participating, I ducked back inside the
1263cab and scanned the unfamiliar dashboard.
1264‘This, you think?’ I prodded a large button speculatively, and flinched as an ear-splitting klaxon
1265rebounded from the walls around us.
1266‘Try that one, sir,’ Jurgen suggested, indicating another, helpfully annotated ext. access. Slamming the
1267cab door behind me I pressed it, while Magot’s team and the few Nusquans left with an effective firearm
1268started laying into the encroaching swarm with commendable vigour from inside the cargo compartment,
1269and Grifen’s people ran for the crawler as if Abaddon himself was after them. After what seemed like an
1270agonising wait, but was probably no more than a handful of seconds, the great doors at the end of the hall
1271began to move slowly apart, with a grinding of frozen metal and a crackling of ice still dimly audible
1272through the metal and armourcrys enclosing the cab.
1273‘Here they come!’ Grifen called, and a torrent of tyranids burst from the tunnel mouth, as the coin
1274belatedly dropped that the prey they’d believed trapped was on the verge of getting away. A volley of
1275sustained fire met them, ripping into the front rank, and several of the creatures fell. The rest charged on,
1276their headlong rush barely checked as they trampled the fallen underfoot in their eagerness to get to us.
1277‘Go!’ I shouted, but Jurgen had already slammed the cumbersome vehicle into gear and was accelerating
1278away, leaving the hormagaunts which had broken free of the pack bounding fruitlessly in our wake. Howls
1279and cheers of relief and derision echoed in my ear, until Forres restored vox discipline with a few choice
1280words and some pious humbug about serving the Emperor to the best of our abilities. For a moment I
1281feared we wouldn’t make it through the still-widening gap, but Jurgen judged it to a nicety as always, and
1282our spinning tracks barely grazed the thick metal slabs on either side before finally biting down in the
1283thick snow for which they’d been designed. ‘Hang on back there,’ I voxed. ‘It’s going to be a rough ride.’
1284A prediction which, had I but known it, would turn out to be all too true.
1285‘Incoming,’ Jurgen said, pointing through flurries of wind-driven snow. A dark mass seemed to be
1286moving towards us, flowing across the frigid surface, and with a shudder that had nothing to do with the
1287ambient chill seeping through the insulation of the cab, I realised what it was. The swarm the pilot had
1288warned us about had arrived.
1289‘Can you avoid them?’ I asked, and Jurgen shook his head, gunning the engine to a pitch which would
1290have had our enginseers wincing in sympathy.
1291‘They’re moving too fast,’ he said, and I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. The tide of chitin seemed
1292endless, although as tyranid swarms went I suppose it was still on the small side, and it had already swept
1293round to envelop us. ‘I’ll have to punch through.’
1294‘Good luck,’ I said grimly, all too aware of how slim our chances were. I wouldn’t have fancied them
1295much even in a well-armoured Chimera, which had forward and turret-mounted heavy weapons to clear
1296the way and a reassuring amount of metal plate to hide behind; but the relatively fragile civilian vehicle
1297had neither. The minute we butted heads with a carnifex we’d be torn apart, even if we hadn’t been
1298slowed to a halt by the sheer mass of lesser creatures facing us, clogging our tracks with their pulverised
1299bodies. I’d seen Baneblades immobilised that way before now, so I didn’t give much for our chances of
1300forcing our way through in the lightly-built crawler.
1301‘We’ll keep the ticks off your back,’ our pilot’s voice assured us cheerily, and the Valkyrie abruptly
1302appeared from behind us, roaring in over our heads and opening fire on the frenzied mass of tyranids
1303scuttling towards us as it came. The multi-laser scythed through their ranks like a scalpel through flesh,
1304creating a carpet of downed and flailing monstrosities, while those on either side of the line of destruction
1305fell back, milling in confusion for a crucial few seconds as the surviving synapse creatures rearranged
1306themselves to re-establish the neural net and regain control of the others.
1307‘Hold on,’ I voxed through to the rear compartment, ‘it’s about to get bumpy,’ then the tracks were
1308mashing chitin and flesh into the snow, staining it colours which made the gorge rise to look at too closely.
1309‘Looks like someone threw up a seafood dinner,’ Jurgen said, displaying an uncharacteristically poetic
1310streak, and I nodded, not wanting to think about that too much under the circumstances. A hail of
1311fleshborer rounds rattled against the bodywork and windows, and a few gobbets of acid hissed their way
1312through the metalwork, but fortunately without appearing to damage anything vital.
1313‘Anyone hurt back there?’ I asked.
1314‘A few holes in the side,’ Grifen reported, ‘but no casualties.’
1315‘Stupid frakkers just gave us some firing points,’ Magot added, no doubt itching to poke her lasgun
1316through and start potting ’nids again.
1317‘No need,’ I assured her as the Vakyrie banked lazily in the distance, and came back for another strafing
1318run. ‘The flyboys are doing the job for us.’
1319‘All part of the service,’ the pilot assured us, a tone of amusement entering his voice. Then the nosemounted weapon opened up again, carving another swathe through the swarm and throwing it into
1320confusion once more. By the time he’d banked round for a third run the first of the Valkyries carrying
1321Lustig’s people to safety had joined in too, and the balance had tilted decisively in favour of the
1322Imperium. With too few of the hulking warriors left to coordinate the swarm effectively, the entire
1323formation began to disintegrate, the termagants scuttling off in search of a place to hide, while the
1324hormagaunts began devouring the carrion which littered the gruesomely-stained ice.
1325‘We’re clear,’ Jurgen said a moment later, slewing us round a little to bounce a fleeing termagant under
1326the tracks, where it expired messily.
1327‘I believe we are,’ I said, sighing deeply with relief, and realising rather too late that I was going to be
1328in a confined space with Jurgen for several hours. ‘Let’s hope we get a clear run back to Primadelving.’
1329My aide nodded, in his usual phlegmatic manner, his attention almost entirely on the snowfield in front
1330of us. ‘Powercells are charged, and the weather looks fair,’ he assured me. ‘We should get there without
1331too many problems.’
1332A prediction which was to prove a long way wide of the mark.
1333SEVENTEEN
1334I was no stranger to iceworlds, and to this one in particular, but I must confess to finding the long journey
1335back to Primadelving a rather enjoyable novelty. (At least until its premature and unfortunate termination.)
1336On most of the previous occasions I’d been driven across the surface it had been aboard a Chimera, from
1337which the view had been somewhat restricted to say the least; but the high, glazed cab of the crawler
1338afforded an unimpeded view of the icefields and undulating snowdrifts, which enabled me to appreciate
1339the rugged panorama in a manner which had previously eluded me. I’d been out there on foot, of course,
1340rather more often than I would have liked, but on those occasions I’d been a bit too preoccupied with the
1341immense discomfort of the cold, and the likelihood of something trying to kill me, to stop and admire the
1342view.
1343About half an hour after we’d left the agricave behind, the snowclouds which seemed to have blanketed
1344everything since our first arrival on the surface of Nusquam Fundumentibus finally parted, revealing a sky
1345of bright, translucent blue, against which the snow and ice glittered, dazzling the eye.
1346‘You don’t want to be looking too long at that,’ Jurgen said, manipulating one of the controls to polarise
1347the windscreen. ‘It’ll send you snowblind.’
1348‘At least I’m not the one driving,’ I said, picking out the bright moving dot of one of the Valkyries in the
1349distance; still searching for tyranids roaming about on the surface, although most of the remnants of the
1350swarm had long since retreated back into the depths of the agricave, safe from aerial bombardment, and
1351all but the most suicidal of attempts to dislodge them from their underground refuge. ‘I’m sure Magot
1352would take a turn if you needed a break.’
1353By way of reply he just snorted, and opened the throttle a little wider, sending us skimming across an
1354open ice sheet, the plume of powdered snow flung up by our tracks dissipating slowly in the air behind us.
1355‘Have you seen how she drives?’
1356‘Good point,’ I conceded, not wanting to wound his pride, and noticing that for once he seemed to be
1357moderating our speed. Not only that, he was adjusting our course seemingly at random, turning to the left
1358or right every few moments for no reason that I could see. ‘Is there a problem?’
1359‘Crevasse field,’ he told me, as though it were only a minor matter, which I suppose for an iceworlder it
1360may well have been. ‘The snow covers most of ’em, but the ice is riddled.’
1361‘Very deep?’ I asked, trying to sound casual, and Jurgen nodded.
1362‘Probably no more than twenty or thirty metres for a really big one,’ he said. ‘But there won’t be many
1363of those to worry about. It’s the small ones that’ll break our tracks if we hit ’em wrong.’
1364‘I see,’ I said, trying not to think about a thirty metre plunge any more than I could help, and glancing
1365around us for some sign of a distraction. A flicker of movement near the crest of a nearby ice ridge caught
1366my attention, and I fumbled the amplivisor into my hand for a closer look.
1367‘More ’nids?’ Jurgen asked, and I nodded, trying to focus the image despite the bouncing of the fastmoving vehicle.
1368‘Close combat forms,’ I said, finally getting a clear image. ‘About half a dozen, looks like. And one of
1369the larger warrior forms.’
1370‘That’s unusual,’ Jurgen remarked, changing our course towards them, just as the last of the group
1371disappeared behind the ridge. ‘They don’t normally bother herding so few.’
1372‘No, they don’t,’ I agreed, uneasily. ‘Perhaps I just saw the tail end of a larger group.’
1373‘Do you think we should check it out?’ Jurgen asked, and I nodded.
1374‘I think we’d better,’ I conceded reluctantly. In my experience, tyranids acting atypically never meant
1375anything good. If they had another little surprise to spring on us, I’d rather they did so where there was
1376plenty of room to see it coming, and from a vehicle which would allow me to outrun them easily. I voxed
1377the Valkyrie. ‘We’ve just sighted a small group of ’nids,’ I said. ‘Moving to intercept.’
1378‘Acknowledged,’ the pilot said, ‘and on the way. They should be easy enough to spot from the air. Just
1379got a few stragglers to mop up here first.’
1380‘I’m not sure these are stragglers,’ I confided to Jurgen. We’d seen several packs of ’gaunts wandering
1381aimlessly through the desolate landscape, or attempting to take refuge from the shadows of the gunships
138284,
1383but none so far had been under the direction of a synapse creature; whereas the ones we’d seen were
1384definitely moving with purpose. ‘Can you get close enough for a reasonable view, without coming into
1385range of their weapons?’ The warrior I’d seen only seemed to be carrying the deathspitter common to
1386such creatures, which made sense if it was leading a swarm of close combat organisms, but there could
1387easily be another I’d missed, with something longer ranged, and capable of making a mess of our vehicle.
1388‘Reckon so,’ Jurgen agreed, starting up the side of the ridge, heedless of the profanity echoing from the
1389cargo compartment behind us as the floor suddenly tilted without warning. ‘If I stop just short of the crest,
1390we can take a look over without them seeing us.’
1391He was as good as his word, as always, bringing the ungainly crawler to a halt in the lee of a cluster of
1392ice boulders, which the wind had sculpted into semi-transparent mirrors. Ignoring my bizarrely distorted
1393reflection, I trained the amplivisor down to the floor of the defile beyond the line of the ridge.
1394‘They’re just hitting the ice with their scything claws,’ I said, in some puzzlement. ‘Breaking it up into
1395small pieces.’
1396‘Are they trying to dig in?’ Kasteen asked, her voice buzzing in my comm-bead, and sounding almost as
1397bewildered as I felt. Tyranids never built fortifications, or anything else come to that; manipulating their
1398inanimate surroundings was as alien to their nature as horticulture to a necron. ‘Or trying to tunnel back to
1399the caves to get away from the aircraft?’
1400‘I don’t think so,’ I said. They were spread out too widely to be pooling their efforts, although each one
1401was making quite rapid progress in pulverising the ice in its immediate vicinity. ‘They’re not exactly
1402designed for digging.’ Though I had to concede that the long, curved claws seemed to make pretty
1403effective pickaxes.
1404‘Only one of the big ones I can see,’ Jurgen put in helpfully, and I nodded, more puzzled than ever. The
1405presence of the warrior implied a specific end in view, but what it might be continued to elude me.
1406‘Not for long,’ the Valkyrie pilot assured us, and began his attack run. Warned by the noise of the engine
1407and the shadow which swooped across them, the ’gaunts raised their heads and shifted uncertainly,
1408looking for something to charge, but their overseer kept their instinctive aggression in check, and they
1409began moving towards an overhang of ice at a rapid trot.
1410Before they could make it, the Valkyrie opened fire, strafing the group with its multi-laser. A line of
1411steam and pulverised ice swept across the scattered swarm, tearing several of them apart, and throwing
1412the rest into momentary disarray, but the warrior remained unharmed and rallied them, turning to fire its
1413deathspitter ineffectually at the harrying aircraft as it banked steeply and came round for another go. This
1414time all the creatures had managed to reach the refuge of the overhang, but it did them little good: the
1415whole ice face disappeared for a moment in a cloud of superheated steam, then, with a grinding roar
1416audible even through the bodywork of the crawler’s cab, it collapsed on top of them.
1417‘Job done,’ the pilot said, with every sign of satisfaction.
1418‘Let’s hope so,’ I said, having considerably more experience of the resilience of tyranids than he did.
1419Accordingly we remained where we were, the engine idling, while I kept the amplivisor trained on the
1420pile of frozen rubble, alert for any sign of movement; but after some minutes passed without so much as a
1421twitch, I began to breathe easier. (Or as easy as it was possible to do, sharing a small cab with Jurgen.)
1422‘Shall we go, sir?’ my aide asked, once it became clear that the ’nids weren’t about to pop up again, and
1423I nodded.
1424‘Might as well,’ I agreed, mindful of the pot of hot tanna waiting for me back in Primadelving, and
1425raised the amplivisor for one last look. An impulse I regretted instantly. ‘Do iceworlds have
1426earthquakes?’
1427‘Not really,’ Jurgen said, craning his neck to look in the same direction. ‘The ice shifts sometimes, or
1428you might get an avalanche...’ His voice trailed off, taking on an unmistakable tone of puzzlement. ‘That’s
1429not an avalanche.’
1430The ice was beginning to crack and bulge, right where the ’gaunts had been hammering away at it, rising
1431up and falling away, to reveal something vast and living beneath it. A roar of anger and frustration echoed
1432across the icefield as something huge and animate fought to free itself from the imprisoning ice.
1433‘Go!’ I shouted, slapping Jurgen on the shoulder in my eagerness to be anywhere but here; a desire he
1434evidently shared, judging by the speed with which he slammed the crawler into gear and took off, our
1435spinning tracks throwing up a glittering arc of pulverised snow in our wake.
1436‘What’s that noise?’ Forres voxed from the rear compartment, her voice overlapping with Grifen’s
1437somewhat calmer request for information.
1438‘One of the huge ones,’ I replied, glancing back to see a mountain of chitin rearing up to its full height,
1439its bloated body dwarfing our crawler, as it shook the last of the broken ice from an impossibly spindlyseeming leg.
1440‘Then we should stop and engage it,’ Forres said, ‘before it can join the main body of the swarm.’
1441‘If we do that, we’ll die,’ I snapped back, in no mood for any more of her head-on approach to warfare.
1442‘Our small arms can barely scratch its hide.’
1443‘Nevertheless,’ Forres said, audibly bristling, ‘our duty demands...’
1444‘Our duty demands we live to report this, so we can mount an effective defence and save this planet for
1445the Emperor,’ I said, in no mood for argument. I glanced back, seeing, to my horror, the vast bulk
1446scrambling over the ridgeline behind us, blotting out the watery sunshine as it came, clearly in pursuit of
1447our fleeing vehicle. ‘If you want to take a crack at it anyway, just open the rear door.’
1448‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Magot chipped in happily, and a second or two later the rapid crack of
1449lasguns became audible through the bulkhead separating the cab from the cargo compartment.
1450‘Sir,’ Grifen reported a moment later, ‘it’s started spawning. Just dropped a dozen or so of the gunners.’
1451‘Keep down,’ I advised unnecessarily. ‘If they get close enough to use their fleshborers...’
1452‘I know,’ Grifen said. ‘Can’t we outrun them?’
1453‘That’s the idea,’ I said, turning to Jurgen as I spoke. ‘Can we speed up at all?’
1454‘It’s risky,’ he replied, the thin furrows of grime on his forehead eloquent testament to the effort he was
1455having to expend to keep up our pace on the treacherous terrain. ‘The ground’s very broken here, and
1456there’s no telling what’s under the snow.’
1457‘I can tell you what’s behind us at the moment,’ I said acidly, then regretted it at once. Jurgen had an
1458almost preternatural ability to push a vehicle to its limits, which he exercised at every opportunity, and if
1459it was at all possible to be travelling faster he undoubtedly would be. ‘Just do your best. Under the
1460circumstances, there’s no one I’d rather have in the driving seat.’
1461‘Thank you, sir,’ he said, any offence he might have taken at my earlier offhand manner effectively
1462neutralised, and returned his attention to picking his way through the treacherous landscape. Our engine
1463roared as we lurched over innumerable cracks in the surface and metre-high ridges, every obstruction
1464costing us a little more of our precious lead. ‘If I can just get through this, we should be back in the clear
1465at any...’ Then the snow gave way beneath us, and the whole vehicle dropped.
1466For a heart-stopping instant I thought we were dead, about to plunge thirty metres to an icy grave, but
1467we turned out to have hit nothing more than a shallow trench, little different to the ones which had
1468impeded us before. This time, however, the angle had been bad, leaving us canted awkwardly; Jurgen
1469gunned the engine, but nothing happened, beyond a howl of protest from the abused mechanism and a short
1470burst of profanity from my aide.
1471‘That’s it,’ he said shortly, ‘the track’s frakked,’ and, sure enough, as I looked out of the side window, I
1472could see that it had been sprung from its guide wheels by the impact.
1473‘Can you ease it back on?’ I asked, with an apprehensive glance at the looming bulk of the onrushing
1474leviathan, bearing down on us like an ill-tempered storm front, its progeny skittering around its feet as it
1475came.
1476‘Not a chance,’ Jurgen said gloomily. ‘We’re wedged in.’ He grabbed the melta and flung open the cab
1477door, replacing his aroma with air so cold I lost the ability to smell anything almost at once. ‘Best get to
1478it, then, I suppose.’
1479‘I suppose we’d better,’ I said, following him out onto the snowy surface after a quick scramble up a
1480slope of broken ice. The Valhallans and Nusquans bailed out after us, still blazing away, as though it
1481would make any difference to the behemoth.
1482‘Place your feet carefully,’ Jurgen advised. ‘There are bound to be more crevasses about.
1483‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ I said, looking around for something to take cover behind, and almost bumping
1484into Forres, who was staring at the gargantuan creature bearing down on us as though still struggling to
1485take it in. (Which I suppose, in all fairness, she might well have been.) I smiled at her, but without much
1486amusement. ‘Well, commissar, it looks as though we’ll be trying it your way after all.’
1487‘Aim for its head,’ she told Lanks, pointedly ignoring me. ‘That’ll be where it’s most vulnerable.’
1488‘It’s not vulnerable anywhere to lasgun rounds,’ I said. ‘Concentrate on the termagants. Leave the big
1489one to Jurgen and the Valkyrie.’ The melta had been designed to knock out tanks, so it should be able to
1490get through the huge creature’s exoskeleton, although whether it would hit anything vital once it did would
1491be a matter for luck and the Emperor.
1492‘Sounds good to me,’ Grifen said decisively. Lanks looked at her, then me, then finally back to Forres.
1493After a moment the young Commissar shrugged. ‘Follow their recommendations,’ she said shortly.
1494‘They’ve fought tyranids before.’
1495‘And won,’ Magot added cheerfully.
1496I nodded, as if I shared her confidence, although truth to tell I was far from doing so. The frozen ground
1497was shaking beneath my feet, and the shadow of the oncoming leviathan seemed large enough to blot out
1498the sun. The crack of lasgun fire opened up again, still disciplined, I was pleased to note, and the
1499termagants scuttling round the feet of the gigantic creature flinched for a moment before the overriding
1500will of their dam drove them on.
1501‘Commencing attack run,’ the Valkyrie pilot voxed, and a moment later twin streaks of fire struck the
1502monster high on its flank, followed almost at once by a double explosion which tore open its carapace.
1503Viscera and noisome fluids gushed and fountained, and the towering creature staggered, bellowing in
1504anger and pain. It reared up on its back four legs, flailing at the swooping aircraft like a man bothered by
1505a fly, then staggered as its forelimbs crashed back to the ice. Its retinue began to mill around uncertainly,
1506failing to press the attack. ‘Lucky I hung on to the Hellstrikes like you told me to.’
1507‘It was indeed,’ I agreed. The two warheads had inflicted a hideous wound, but the tervigon seemed far
1508from out of the fight. It came on inexorably towards us, slipping occasionally in the spreading slick of its
1509own ichor, exposed organs and musculature pulsing as it came. It had slowed, however, and that alone
1510was reason enough to hope.
1511‘Get down!’ Grifen bellowed, having spotted the telltale quivering along its back an instant before I did.
1512The Valhallans and I hit the snow, Forres and the Nusquans following suit a moment later, without
1513stopping to argue or ask questions about it, which I suppose was progress of a sort. A salvo of cluster
1514spines hissed through the air, shattering into a storm of razor-edged flechettes as they hit the ground, which
1515pattered all around me like sinister rain, and felled a couple of the tardiest Nusquans.
1516‘Target the wound!’ I shouted, raising myself enough to crack off a few shots at the towering monstrosity
1517with my laspistol, and the troopers followed suit, Valhallans and Nusquans alike.
1518‘You said it was pointless firing lasguns at it,’ Forres said, her tone challenging, ‘and to concentrate on
1519the termagants.’
1520‘That was before. It’s vulnerable now.’ I continued to shoot steadily as I spoke. ‘If we kill it, the spawn
1521die too
152285.’
1523‘If they don’t kill us first,’ Forres observed, as the first fleshborer fusillade fell a few metres short of
1524our position, but she shifted her aim nonetheless, peppering the area around the gaping hole in the
1525behemoth’s armour with a flurry of bolts
152686; a couple detonated against the organs inside, and the flesh
1527mountain staggered again. The constant rain of las-rounds against exposed viscera must have been
1528agonising, which may have accounted for the loose control it appeared to have over its offspring; they
1529skittered nervously, firing individually, then scurrying back into the cover afforded by their parent’s legs,
1530instead of forming a skirmish line ahead of it as I would have expected.
1531‘Whenever you’re ready, Jurgen,’ I said, as my aide lined up a shot with the melta. ‘Take your time.’
1532The shot had to be a clean one: as soon as he fired, he’d mark himself out as the greatest threat among us,
1533and the tervigon and its offspring would react accordingly.
1534‘Almost there, sir,’ he assured me, shifting the cumbersome weapon a millimetre or two, then pulled the
1535trigger. I closed my eyes reflexively, seeing the bright flare through the lids, and blinked, afterimages
1536continuing to dance on my retina. ‘That ought to do it.’
1537‘I think you’re right,’ I said, in mingled surprise and relief. The shot had been a clean one, as I’d had no
1538doubt it would be, the ravening blast of energy penetrating deep into the monster’s body. With a keen
1539ululation it fell, legs scrabbling for traction, and crushing most of the termagants around it into the ice with
1540the weight of its own body.
1541‘Forward!’ Forres yelled. ‘Finish it off while it’s down!’ Brandishing her chainsword, she ran towards
1542it, while the rest of us looked at one another in astonishment.
1543‘Look out!’ I shouted, seeing its head turn, jaws which could bite a Chimera in half snapping angrily. I
1544had no objection to her getting herself killed – in fact it would probably save a lot of lives in the long run
1545– but just standing aside and watching it happen wasn’t the kind of behaviour expected of a Hero of the
1546Imperium. If there was any chance of saving this miserable iceball, we needed the Nusquans to be fully
1547committed to its defence, and convinced they could win, which unfortunately meant living up to my
1548unmerited reputation yet again. Cursing all over-enthusiastic idiots, I charged forward, intending to drag
1549her back; but she’d seen the danger, and her bolt pistol barked, just as the downed leviathan opened its
1550jaws. The explosive round detonated against the back of its throat, and the entire monstrosity convulsed.
1551‘That should put an end to it,’ she said, in a self-congratulatory fashion, holstering her weapon as she
1552turned to meet me.
1553‘It was dying anyway!’ I expostulated, catching a glimpse of movement behind her. It may have been
1554down, but it was certainly not out, spawning a fresh brood of termagants to take revenge on its behalf. A
1555small knot of them was moving out of the shadow of their parent, their carapaces still glistening with the
1556fluids of the nutrient sac they’d been cocooned in during their dormancy, fleshborers raised. I fired my
1557laspistol, turning to flee, then the snow gave way beneath my boot.
1558I pitched forward, falling free for a moment, then slammed into a steep slope of ice, down which I
1559slithered for a second or two, doing my much abused uniform no favours in the process. Above my head I
1560could hear the crackle of lasgun fire, and the distinctive hisssss crack! of Forres’s miniature bolter, then
1561everything abruptly went silent.
1562‘Commissar!’ Grifen’s voice echoed in my comm-bead. ‘Are you all right?’
1563‘I’m fine,’ I replied, after a second or two to make sure of the fact. Dim blue daylight reflected off the
1564ice all round me, so I was able to make out my surroundings with little difficulty. I was in an icy cleft,
1565some three or four metres deep and of indeterminate length, roofed over for the most part by a thick layer
1566of compacted snow. ‘Just found one of those crevasses Jurgen warned me about. What’s going on up
1567there?’
1568‘It just died,’ Grifen said. ‘And the termagants with it. Just rolled over in the middle of the firefight.’
1569‘Any casualties?’ I asked, because it never hurt to look as if I cared.
1570‘No fresh ones,’ Grifen assured me, ‘although one of the Nusquans is in a pretty bad way from the
1571cluster spine barrage. Can you climb out the way you fell in?’
1572‘Don’t think so,’ I said, taking out my luminator and shining it around in an attempt to get a better picture
1573of where I was. The slope I’d slithered down was too sheer and slippery to even think about trying.
1574‘There might be a cable or something in the crawler’s toolkit.’
1575‘Already on my way back to see, sir,’ Jurgen cut in, as reliable as ever, and, reassured, I began to make
1576my way along the crevasse. At least I was out of that damned wind, for once, and although it could hardly
1577be described as warm, at least I felt more comfortable than I had on the surface.
1578‘I’ll see if it gets any easier further along,’ I said, by no means certain that it would, but at least going to
1579find out would give me something to do while I waited for rescue. The reflective nature of the ice
1580surrounding me made the luminator appear much brighter than it would normally do, and I made good
1581progress, in spite of the treacherous surface underfoot.
1582As I went on, I began to notice occasional patches of discolouration in the translucent ice, and, moved
1583more by idle curiosity than anything else, I stopped by one which seemed clearer than most. There seemed
1584to be something solid embedded in it, and I held up the luminator, rubbing the smooth surface with my
1585glove as if trying to clear the condensation from a misty window. It achieved nothing, of course, beyond
1586making my palm wet, but as I moved the hand holding the luminator a little more to one side, the angle of
1587the beam shifted, throwing the entombed object into sharp relief.
1588‘Emperor’s bowels!’ I expostulated, with an involuntary flinch backwards. The serpentine form of a
1589tyranid ravener, twice my size, was coiled through the ice, seemingly poised to burst out and attack. A
1590moment later, as the hammering of my heart died back to more normal levels, I began to breathe a little
1591more easily. The foul creature was clearly inert, entombed like the tervigon had been. It might even have
1592been dead, but after what I’d seen earlier, I doubted that; it only needed the presence of an active synapse
1593creature to rouse and join the ever-swelling ranks of the tyranid invasion.
1594‘Say again, commissar?’ Grifen asked, with an air of puzzlement.
1595‘There are ’nids down here,’ I said, all too aware of the consternation my words would be causing back
1596in Primadelving. ‘Hibernating or dead, although my money would be on the first. If they all wake...’ I let
1597the thought trail off, unwilling to verbalise it.
1598Kasteen, however, had no such scruples. ‘We won’t stand a chance,’ she finished for me.
1599EIGHTEEN
1600‘Well, at least we know where the greenskins went,’ Broklaw said, with a typically sardonic grin. ‘The
1601’nids have been eating them.’
1602I nodded, although none of the other faces ranged around the conference table in a room adjacent to the
1603main command post seemed to find anything remotely amusing in the situation. Kasteen, Broklaw and I
1604were seated along one side of the polished wooden slab, while Colonel Brecca, her second-in-command
1605(whose name I still hadn’t managed to catch), and Forres faced us, looking fidgety and uncomfortable,
1606which I could hardly blame them for. At the rate things were going, they wouldn’t have a regiment left to
1607lead before too much longer
160887. Clothilde was at the head of the table, as protocol demanded, surrounded
1609by a small clot of advisors, who, for the most part, seemed well aware of how out of their depth they
1610were, and were sensible enough to stay quiet as a consequence. The PDF contingent was on the same side
1611of the table as the Nusquans, which seemed reasonable enough as it was their damn planet and they were
1612used to working together, which left the Adeptus Mechanicus delegation (headed of course by Izembard),
1613and the other Imperial institutions
161488 on ours.
1615‘Thus replacing one problem with another,’ Clothilde remarked, with a glance towards the PDF general
1616staffers, who for the most part looked as far out of their depth as she did.
1617‘We should be able to turn this to our advantage,’ Forres said, with the calm assurance of total
1618ignorance. ‘If we can manoeuvre the tyranids into directly confronting the orks, they’ll eradicate the
1619greenskins, and be weakened enough for us to pick off the survivors easily.’
1620‘Except that every ork they consume makes the whole swarm stronger,’ Kasteen pointed out
162189, ‘not to
1622mention their own casualties. Trying to use the ’nids against the orks is about as sensible as trying to hide
1623a scorch mark in the hearthrug by burning the house down.’
1624‘A colourful analogy,’ I said, to forestall any heated response from Forres, ‘but the point is essentially
1625correct. The orks are a sideshow now, and they’ll keep. We need to turn every resource we possess
1626against the tyranids, while we can still make a difference.’ Kasteen and Broklaw were nodding in
1627agreement, knowing all too well how big a threat the creatures posed compared to the one we’d been sent
1628here to deal with. To my relief Clothilde was nodding too, evidently convinced by our argument.
1629‘What I want to know is where the horrid things came from in the first place,’ she said. ‘Our auspexes
1630haven’t recorded any unusual activity in the system, have they?’
1631This last question was addressed to a woman with iron-grey hair, in the uniform of an admiral of the
1632System Defence Fleet; judging by the strain her girth imposed on the fastenings, her days of active service
1633in the cramped confines of a warship were long behind her.
1634‘Nothing,’ she responded at once, ‘although that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. Tyranid vessels are
1635notoriously difficult to detect at long ranges. The SDF is mounting a reconnaissance sweep of the inner
1636system, but that’ll take some time to complete.’
1637‘Especially as the entire fleet consists of two customs cutters and a courier boat,’ Kasteen muttered,
1638sotto voce
163990.
1640‘If there is a hive ship in system,’ I said, ‘it must be alone. Astropathic communication hasn’t been
1641disrupted by the shadow a fleet would cast in the warp.’ Something I was completely certain about,
1642having dispatched a brief summation of the situation to Amberley at the earliest opportunity, on the
1643assumption that the sudden appearance of tyranids far in advance of the oncoming hive fleets was bound
1644to be of interest to her particular branch of the Inquisition
164591. The chances of her turning up to sort out the
1646matter in person were unfortunately minimal, however, which left us on our own to deal with it.
1647‘That’s something, anyway,’ Clothilde said. ‘At least we can call for help.’
1648‘Already done,’ Kasteen said crisply, with a nod at the grey-robed astropath sitting at the far end of the
1649table. ‘Reinforcements should be on their way from Coronus. How long they take to arrive, though...’ She
1650shrugged expressively, all too familiar with the vagaries of warp travel, not to mention the inertia of the
1651Munitorum, and the pressing need for far more troopers in far more places than the Guard actually
1652possessed.
1653‘That’s most encouraging,’ Clothilde said, ‘but it still hasn’t answered my question. Why have the
1654tyranids suddenly appeared out of nowhere?’
1655‘Because they’ve always been here,’ Izembard said, his flat mechanical drone adding to the drama of
1656his announcement. ‘Preliminary analysis of the specimens found by Commissar Cain, and the depth of the
1657ice around them, would suggest that they were frozen approximately seven thousand years ago. Assuming
1658a relatively even rate of ice formation, of course.’
1659‘Long before the planet was colonised,’ Brecca put in, for the benefit of those of us from offworld.
1660‘They must have been stranded here,’ Izembard went on, unperturbed by the interruption. ‘Finding
1661nothing to consume, they returned to the dormant state in which they’d travelled between the stars,
1662becoming buried by the drifting snow.’
1663‘But people have been living here for millennia,’ Forres protested. ‘How come nobody’s stumbled
1664across one before now?’
1665‘Because it’s an iceworld,’ I said. ‘People stick close to the cavern cities or one of the outposts, unless
1666they absolutely have to. That’s how the orks disappeared so thoroughly after the invasion.’ Then, struck by
1667an even more unsettling thought, I added: ‘Besides, maybe someone has found a ’nid from time to time. If
1668one got roused by the presence of prey, it’d go dormant again after feeding, wouldn’t it?’
1669‘Perhaps,’ Izembard said, his artificial monotone failing to disguise his scepticism.
1670‘That still doesn’t explain why so many of them have woken up now,’ Broklaw objected, ‘right after we
1671arrived...’ His voice trailed off as a rather large coin suddenly dropped.
1672‘It was us,’ I said. ‘When our ship crashed, it melted the ice all around the impact site, and there must
1673have been a few tyranids close enough to be thawed out.’ All of a sudden the movement I remembered
1674spotting in the water, and in the snowstorm when Jurgen and I had found the abandoned ork vehicles, took
1675on far greater and more sinister significance.
1676‘Then why didn’t they just attack you while you disembarked?’ Forres asked, clearly impatient with so
1677wild a flight of fancy.
1678‘Because they’ve been biding their time,’ I said. ‘Picking off the orks for biomass, and digging out more
1679of the buried ones.’
1680‘So now we’re facing an army of the things,’ Kasteen concluded.
1681‘I’m afraid we are,’ I said. ‘The only good news is that we’ll be getting reinforcements and they won’t.’
1682‘We can’t just sit back and wait for the troopships to arrive,’ Forres said, making her first intelligent
1683contribution of the day. ‘The tyranids could have overrun us by then.’
1684‘We’re stretched pretty thin already,’ Brecca put in, ‘and there are hundreds of sites around the Leeward
1685Barrens we need to protect. If we pull our picket lines back, that’ll give us more units to redeploy, but the
1686rest of the orks can just rampage across the province.’
1687‘The orks are not the problem,’ I reiterated, amazed that she hadn’t seemed to grasp that yet. ‘If they do
1688advance, they’ll just keep the ’nids busy while we evacuate as many of the outlying settlements as we can,
1689and get on with reinforcing the garrisons in the main population centres.’
1690I exchanged an uneasy glance with Kasteen and Broklaw as I spoke. We all knew from experience that
1691concentrating the population in larger groups was doing little more than setting up a smorgasbord so far as
1692the tyranids were concerned, but at least it would mean fewer sites to defend.
1693‘That still leaves us stretched damnably thin,’ Brecca said, reasonably enough. ‘What we really need is
1694some way of predicting which sites are most at risk of attack.’
1695‘Magos?’ Clothilde asked, looking down the table at Izembard. ‘Have you any suggestions?’
1696‘We are working on a predictive algorithm,’ the tech-priest assured her, ‘but the variables involved are
1697both numerous and difficult to calculate.’
1698‘It might help if we knew why they attacked the sites they did,’ Forres said, which made two sensible
1699comments in a row, a record so far as I could see.
1700‘And how,’ I added. ‘The external doors to the power plant were all sealed when we arrived.’
1701‘Same with the agricaves,’ Forres said.
1702‘No mystery why they struck there,’ Broklaw put in. ‘All that biomass would seem like the motherlode
1703to a ’nid swarm.’
1704‘That doesn’t explain how they detected it,’ Brecca said. ‘Or how so many of them were able to get
1705inside without anyone noticing.’
1706‘They do have some specialised organisms bred for infiltration,’ Izembard put in helpfully.
1707‘But we didn’t see any of those,’ I replied. ‘Just ’gaunts and genestealers, with a few of the warrior
1708forms to keep them focused.’
1709‘That’s all we saw too,’ Forres confirmed. ‘When we arrived, the place seemed abandoned, then they
1710just started swarming up out of the lower levels.’
1711‘Which is where we found them in the power plant,’ I added, just as Jurgen leaned over my shoulder to
1712place a mug of recaff on the table. Given the sensitivity of the matters we were discussing, few of the
1713palace servants could be trusted to serve refreshments during the meeting, so Jurgen was standing in for
1714them, his status as my aide putting both his probity and discretion beyond question. As I moved to pick up
1715the steaming beverage, I caught a full strength whiff of his personal miasma, and a stray thought fell into
1716place. ‘Near the volcanic vents.’
1717‘There were vents in the agricave too,’ Forres added. ‘We could smell the sulphur, even though we
1718never got down to the deepest parts.
1719‘You’re surely not suggesting these creatures got in through the lava flow?’ Clothilde asked, incredulity
1720ringing in her voice. ‘They’d be burned to a crisp.’
1721‘They would,’ I agreed, the memory of the swarm advancing across the narrow isthmus of rock
1722surrounded by magma to attack Hell’s Edge still uncomfortably vivid, ‘if they fell in. But I’ve seen them
1723withstand incredible temperatures. And some of them can squeeze through gaps far too narrow for a
1724human.’
1725‘Warriors can’t,’ Kasteen objected.
1726‘It’s an interesting hypothesis, nevertheless,’ Izembard put in. ‘Many of the tyranid forms are adapted for
1727burrowing, and Commissar Cain himself witnessed hormagaunts digging in a manner most unusual for
1728their kind. With sufficient determination, the swarm might well be able to enlarge the natural fissures in
1729the rock enough to squeeze through.’
1730‘Then we’re frakked,’ Broklaw said flatly. ‘This whole area’s riddled with them, isn’t it?’
1731‘It is,’ Izembard confirmed, his mechanical drone imbuing the words with an air of inescapable doom.
1732‘However, the geological stresses would force any passages dug closed again in relatively short order.’
1733‘So the entire swarm can’t travel that way?’ Kasteen asked, and the magos shook his head.
1734‘Not in any great numbers, or for any appreciable distance. I would assume it to be a strategy for
1735circumventing defences, or striking without warning.’
1736‘That’s something anyway,’ Kasteen said, clearly determined to find something positive in the situation.
1737‘We just need to keep a look out for the main body on the surface, and rig up seismographs to warn us if
1738any are tunnelling in.’
1739‘They may not be entirely reliable,’ Izembard warned, ‘given the unstable nature of the Leeward
1740Barrens. Minor shocks and tremors are registering all the time.’
1741‘It’s got to be better than nothing,’ Kasteen said, triggering nods of agreement around the table.
1742‘Does any of this help your predictive algorithm?’ I asked Izembard, trying to purge the question of any
1743lingering trace of sarcasm, and he nodded thoughtfully.
1744‘It narrows a few of the parameters down,’ he said cautiously. ‘But there’s one target I can predict with
1745complete confidence.’
1746‘And that is?’ Forres asked, as though itching to march off at once to defend it.
1747An expression as close to surprise as was possible on a visage with so high a proportion of metal to
1748flesh flickered across the tech-priest’s face. He raised an arm, sweeping it to take in our immediate
1749surroundings. ‘Primadelving,’ he said, as though it was obvious.
1750I nodded, my mouth dry. ‘Biggest concentration of biomass on the planet,’ I agreed.Editorial Note:
1751In the interest of giving a wider perspective on the campaign, I have once again been forced to turn to
1752the most reliable and least readable of the eyewitness accounts. Those of my readers who feel that the
1753additional clarification it af ords is scant recompense for the labour of perusing it may rest assured
1754that nothing essential will be lost by omitting to do so, although it does fill in a few gaps in Cain’s
1755account.
1756From Like a Phoenix on the Wing: the Early Campaigns and Glorious Victories of the Valhallan 597th
1757by General Jenit Sulla (retired), 101 M42.
1758If any among us felt dismay or trepidation at the news of the tyranid presence here, among the pristine
1759snows and cloud-capped mountains of fair Nusquam Fundumentibus, no sign of it was evident among
1760the doughty warriors I was so privileged to lead. Instead, a spirit of grim determination suffused us
1761all, our resolve bolstered as always by the shining example of Commissar Cain. Despite enduring so
1762much to uncover this new and dreadful threat, Cain remained calm and resolute, his unfailing good
1763humour and unshakable confidence in our ultimate victory doing so much to steady the nerves of any
1764who might waver.
1765To my quiet pride, First Company was given the task of cleansing the cavern complex of the swarm
1766which had infested it, and from which the noble Commissar had so heroically rescued the beleaguered
1767survivors of the Nusquan First, his exceptional leadership and expertise in overcoming these
1768loathsome creatures proving as inspiring to the women and men of the fledgling local regiment as to
1769our own.
1770Having read and reread his characteristically self-effacing account of events, along with Sergent
1771Grifen’s after-action report and that of her Nusquan opposite number, I had determined our optimum
1772strategy to be a steady advance, cavern by cavern, with the flamers of our special weapons squads in
1773the vanguard, supported by the massed firepower of at least two infantry squads. This, I felt, would be
1774sufficient to blunt any attempt to overwhelm us by sheer weight of numbers, the favoured tactic of the
1775hive mind, but one which would be far less effective in the relatively confined spaces of the cavern
1776system, where the passageways connecting them would create choke points, restricting the number of
1777creatures able to engage us at any given time. In order to maximise this advantage, I proposed to block
1778the passages tangential to our advance with demolition charges, thus preventing the foul xenos spawn
1779from outflanking us.
1780In the event, however, the meticulously-planned operation proved something of an anti-climax; as our
1781Chimeras parked around the periphery of the complex, where their heavy bolters could create
1782overlapping fire lanes, either clearing the way for our advance, or, Emperor forfend, covering an
1783orderly retreat should the enemy prove more formidable than expected, we could detect no sign of
1784movement on the surface, beyond the picturesque swirling of the wind-driven snow. Our advance into
1785the complex went almost completely unopposed, only a handful of the unnaturally twisted organisms
1786remaining there, no doubt, to ensure that no speck of organic matter which might previously have
1787escaped their notice went unconsumed; these were dispatched as quickly and enthusiastically as one
1788might wish, and their cadavers incinerated to ensure that the tyranids would be permanently deprived
1789of the resources they contained. Of the great mass of the swarm there was no sign to be seen, the vast
1790majority of its members already having departed in search of fresh provender to consume.
1791In the days that followed, however, we were to see plenty of evidence of its further depredations, as
1792outlying settlements and installations fell victim to its relentless advance. Though the planetary
1793governor, following the sound advice of Colonel Kasteen and Commissar Cain, had ordered a general
1794evacuation of all such vulnerable habitations, the work took time, and the tyranids exploited every
1795delay. Almost as bad, in its way, was the advance of the orkish hordes, which took full advantage of
1796the redeployment of the Imperial forces to meet the greater threat by surging unchecked across the
1797icefields, looting and despoiling such luckless communities as fell into their hands before the tyranids
1798could reach them.
1799Inevitably the two xenos breeds clashed, buying valuable time for the evacuation effort, but we were
1800all aware that a battle for our very survival, and that of the whole planet, was imminent. When it
1801came, of course, Commissar Cain was to be at the forefront, his contribution decisive, as so often in
1802his illustrious career.
1803NINETEEN
1804As so often happens when facing the tyranids, we were thrown on the defensive, which is never a good
1805place to be. Just to make matters worse the tyranids had split into several smaller groups, which ranged
1806the Leeward Barrens more or less at will, striking small and undefended targets before they could be
1807evacuated or defended
180892. The only positive thing was that, so far, the infestation was still confined to the
1809Barrens; so the evacuated civilians were sent to other provinces, in the hope that we could contain the
1810situation before it grew to the point where they’d be back on the menu wherever they were.
1811‘We should be thinking about evacuating the capital too,’ I said, seizing the chance for a relatively quiet
1812talk with Clothilde which an invitation to dine in her private quarters had afforded. It was nothing unusual
1813for a planetary governor to host some kind of reception for the senior officers of a newly-arrived
1814regiment, which was generally extended to include the Commissar and any other advisors attached to the
1815command staff, but the guest list for such affairs normally ran into the low hundreds, all the local nobility
1816and their hangers-on jockeying for a chance to be seen with the defenders of the Imperium. Given the
1817swarms of inbred parasites which my inflated reputation seemed to attract, despite the presence of Jurgen
1818at my elbow, I generally sent my excuses, but in this case the governor had made it quite clear that it was
1819to be a small, informal affair; and given the culinary skills of the average palace chef, I’d felt it churlish to
1820refuse.
1821Even so, I’d been surprised to find that Kasteen, Broklaw and I would be dining solely with her, and
1822scarcely less so by the subsequent discovery that the reason was her desire to discuss the situation more
1823openly than she’d be able to do surrounded by her usual coterie of advisors.
1824‘Out of the question,’ she said. ‘Primadelving is the seat of government, and this palace the symbol of
1825Imperial authority. Abandoning it would send entirely the wrong signals to the populace.’
1826‘I’m not suggesting you go,’ I said, slicing into some kind of roast mushroom which almost covered my
1827plate
182893, ‘but there’s a significant civilian population here, which remains at risk for as long as the
1829tyranids are at large. They should be moved to a safer area as soon as possible.’
1830‘All three million of them?’ Clothilde asked, with a hint of amusement.
1831‘As many of them as possible, anyway,’ Kasteen said.
1832Broklaw nodded, chewing, and swallowed hastily before chiming in too. ‘Three million civilians is
1833three million pieces of ’nid bait,’ he said. ‘The hive mind will already have sensed such a large
1834concentration of biomass, and be preparing to assimilate it. If it hasn’t attacked yet, it’s only because it
1835can’t marshal a big enough force to be sure of breaking through our defences.’
1836‘Is that all my people are to you, major?’ Clothilde asked coolly. ‘Potential fodder for the tyranids?’
1837Broklaw flushed. ‘Of course not,’ he said, ‘but we have to remain aware of the strategic picture.’
1838‘Spoken like a true soldier,’ Clothilde said, with a smile, and Broklaw flushed again, realising for the
1839first time that she was pulling his leg.
1840‘Ruput has a point,’ Kasteen said, loyally coming to the rescue of her subordinate, ‘and so does
1841Ciaphas. We’ve all fought the tyranids before, and the lessons we’ve learned were hard won.’
1842‘I’m sure they were.’ Clothilde took a delicate bite of her mushroom steak. ‘But a mass evacuation on
1843that scale would be impossible with the resources we have to hand. We’re stretched to the limit as it is
1844just clearing the non-combatants from the Barrens.’ She paused to take a sip of wine. ‘And the last thing
1845we need at this stage is to spark a panic.’
1846I nodded, trying not to picture the effect an outbreak of civil unrest would have in the confines of a
1847cavern city, and the dire consequences it would have on our state of readiness.
1848‘Nonetheless,’ I pointed out, ‘the fewer innocent bystanders we have to protect when the las-bolts start
1849flying, the better.’ Izembard’s dire prediction was still fresh in my memory, and I could think of no reason
1850to doubt it. ‘If we could persuade some to leave of their own volition, that would be something.’
1851‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ Clothilde conceded, nodding thoughtfully, and leaning across to refresh
1852Broklaw’s wine glass. We were all here to speak frankly, and that meant doing without the servants who’d
1853normally take care of such niceties. ‘The newsprints and pictcasts are reporting the existence of the
1854swarm, but playing down the danger. I’ll suggest they start being a bit less restrained, emphasise that the
1855other provinces are safe, and let the proles work the rest out for themselves.’
1856‘That should persuade some to get out while the going’s good,’ Kasteen said. ‘And it might help if the
1857PDF start escorting the crawler convoys too. The last thing we need is the ’nids to massacre one while
1858we’re trying to convince the civilians to travel.’
1859‘Good point,’ I agreed.
1860‘Any word on the reinforcements yet?’ Clothilde asked, and Kasteen nodded.
1861‘Another three regiments are on their way from Coronus. Two more Valhallan infantry ones, and some
1862heavy armour to give the bigger beasties a hard time. If we can keep the outbreak confined to the Barrens
1863until they get here, we might just have a chance.’
1864‘There’s a Space Marine strike cruiser inbound too,’ I added, noticing the covert look which passed
1865between Kasteen and Broklaw, who were well aware of my association with Amberley, and no doubt
1866suspected I’d got her to pull some strings on our behalf; although on this occasion it appeared to be no
1867more than a fortuitous coincidence
186894. ‘From the Bone Knives Chapter. It seems they picked up our call
1869for reinforcements, and are responding.’
1870‘That’s excellent news,’ Clothilde said. ‘How soon will they be here?’
1871Kasteen shrugged. ‘In a month or so, Emperor willing.’
1872‘I see.’ The governor chewed another forkful of mushroom thoughtfully. ‘Then let’s hope we’re still
1873around to welcome them.’
1874As the following tension-filled days piled up to form a week, I began to hope that the governor would get
1875her wish after all. The evacuation continued to run as smoothly as could be expected, snatching
1876innumerable civilians, quite literally, from the jaws of death, while our forces fought a number of
1877skirmishes which we hoped would prevent the disparate segments of the swarm from joining up into a
1878single unified force. Our own troopers had fought the ’nids often enough to know the value of keeping the
1879neural net stretched thinly enough to knock the occasional hole in, and to my surprise the Nusquans
1880seemed to be learning the lesson too, having sufficient sense to copy the tactics the Valhallans were using
1881to such positive effect, instead of just charging in to get butchered as they had done against the orks.
1882Even more surprisingly, it seemed, we had Forres to thank for their change in attitude; though she was
1883still gung-ho to the point of psychosis, at least from where I was standing, our little run-in with the ’nids
1884in the agricave, and the scrap with the tervigon, seemed to have cured the delusion of immortality common
1885to youngsters fresh out of the schola progenium, and her hard-won pragmatism was transmitting itself to
1886the troopers under her care.
1887‘Every life wasted on the battlefield is a victory to the Emperor’s enemies,’ I counselled, when we met
1888one morning in the corridor leading to the conference room, in response to some fatuous platitude she’d
1889just quoted about the nobility of sacrifice, and she looked at me a little strangely.
1890‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ she said, then hesitated. ‘May I speak frankly, commissar?’
1891‘By all means, commissar,’ I replied, amused by her formality.
1892‘I believe I owe you an apology,’ she said, taking me completely by surprise. ‘In all honesty, when we
1893first met, I thought your reputation must have been greatly exaggerated.’
1894‘I knew we had to agree about something,’ I said, inflecting the truth like a joke, and thereby reinforcing
1895the impression of modesty that everyone seemed to have of me.
1896The corners of Forres’s mouth quirked, before she hastily erased any sign of amusement. ‘They used to
1897tell us all about you at the schola progenium,’ she said. ‘Making you out to be some kind of ideal we
1898should aspire to.’
1899‘I wouldn’t inflict that on anyone,’ I said, equally truthfully.
1900‘So when I met you in person,’ Forres ploughed on, ‘I suppose I was a bit disappointed. You just
1901seemed a bit...’
1902‘Human?’ I suggested, and she nodded gravely. ‘We all are,’ I said. ‘Guardsmen, PDF, civilians...’ I
1903broke off, to nod a courteous greeting to Izembard. ‘Even him, although he wouldn’t thank you for saying
1904so. That’s what makes us strong, and assures us of victory.’
1905‘Yes. Well.’ Forres shrugged. ‘Just thought it needed saying, that’s all.’
1906‘I appreciate the thought,’ I assured her. ‘And your candour.’ Which was all the more ironic, given the
1907rote platitudes I’d just fobbed her off with. It seemed to work anyway; she gave me a tight little smile and
1908went off to join the Nusquans in their corner of the room.
1909‘Magos,’ I said, as Izembard seemed to have interpreted my greeting as a desire for conversation, and
1910lingered in my vicinity instead of taking his own seat at the table. ‘Any developments that the rest of us
1911should be aware of?’
1912‘All in due time, commissar,’ he chided. ‘The Omnissiah reveals his secrets slowly. But one aspect of
1913our work concerns you, in a way, so I suppose you may have an interest.’
1914‘Me?’ I asked, feeling as bewildered as you might expect. ‘In what way?’
1915‘The frozen tyranids you found,’ Izembard buzzed. ‘Our preliminary estimate of the time they’ve been
1916entombed may have been in error.’
1917‘Fascinating,’ I said, trying to conceal my complete indifference to the topic, although had I realised the
1918significance of what he was saying at the time I’m sure I’d have listened with a great deal more interest.
1919‘How long have they been there then?’
1920‘Considerably longer,’ the tech-priest said. ‘Although we are still attempting a more accurate
1921determination, they could even pre-date the asteroidal impact which formed the geology of this region.’
1922‘Bully for them,’ I said. Rather more pressing from my point of view was the undeniable fact that the
1923swarm was becoming more cohesive, and the tactics it employed more sophisticated, and I lost little time
1924in saying as much as soon as the meeting started.
1925‘We’ve seen this before,’ Kasteen said confidently. ‘The hive mind analyses the tactics being used
1926against it, and modifies its own accordingly.’
1927‘I would be inclined to agree,’ Izembard said, ‘were it not for the speed with which these changes are
1928occurring. We’re beginning to see separate sub-swarms coordinating their efforts, which would be far
1929beyond the capabilities of the synapse creatures previously identified.’
1930‘Then how are they doing it?’ I asked, the familiar tingling sensation in the palms of my hands
1931forewarning me of serious trouble to come.
1932‘We hypothesise,’ the magos said, after what seemed to me to be suspiciously like a pause for dramatic
1933effect, ‘that some major node of the hive mind survived whatever catastrophe overwhelmed the lesser
1934creatures, and lapsed into dormancy along with them. Now the increased synaptic activity among the
1935neural net is causing it to revive, rallying the other bioforms.’
1936‘You mean the bioship which brought them is waking up?’ I asked, my stomach knotting at the thought.
1937Izembard nodded thoughtfully. ‘It’s possible,’ he said, ‘although if such a vessel were anywhere in the
1938vicinity of Nusquam Fundumentibus it would almost certainly have revealed its presence by now. It’s
1939more likely that some fragment of it accompanied the other organisms to the surface.’
1940‘Then we have to find it and kill it,’ Kasteen said, her face pale even for an iceworlder, ‘before it
1941wakes completely. If it’s that strong, it could start to call the fleet it originally came from.’
1942‘And if it does that,’ I concluded, ‘we’ll be facing a full scale invasion.’
1943We stared at one another, the full horrific implications sinking in. We knew from bitter experience that
1944even a small splinter fleet could annihilate a world in a matter of weeks. With its relatively low, highly
1945concentrated population, just a single fully functional bioship would probably be enough to lay waste to
1946Nusquam Fundumentibus before the reinforcements we were expecting had time to arrive.
1947‘Could it be lying low in the halo?’ Forres asked. ‘It would be almost impossible to find among the
1948cometary debris.’
1949Broklaw shook his head. ‘It would need to be a lot closer to maintain reliable contact with the swarm
1950on the ground,’ he pointed out. ‘Perhaps it’s in orbit, concealing itself somehow?’
1951‘Hive ships are notoriously difficult to detect on auspex,’ Izembard said, ‘but there are no records of
1952any managing to evade notice entirely at so close a range. The controlling intellect is almost certainly
1953somewhere on the surface of Nusquam Fundumentibus.’
1954‘If all the active ’nids are in the Leeward Barrens, then the hive node must be too,’ I speculated aloud.
1955Izembard inclined his head. ‘A reasonable inference,’ he agreed. ‘Although that still leaves a
1956considerable area to cover.’
1957‘Too big,’ Kasteen said. ‘We’re spread far too thin already to mount a search on the ground, even if we
1958knew what we were looking for.’
1959‘What about aerial reconnaissance?’ Brecca asked, and the senior PDF officer present shook her head.
1960‘All our aircraft are fully committed to the evacuation,’ she said. ‘We could redeploy them...’
1961‘No,’ Clothilde cut in, forcefully. ‘Getting the civilians out of danger has to be our highest priority.’
1962‘With respect, your Excellency,’ Forres said, ‘saving the planet should be our highest priority.
1963Collateral damage is regrettable, of course, but...’
1964‘Then I suggest you find a way to achieve that without feeding my citizens to the first tyranid organism
1965that happens along,’ Clothilde replied, in a voice which brooked no argument.
1966‘Aerial reconnaissance probably won’t help much in any case,’ I said, in my most diplomatic manner;
1967the last thing we needed now was to start bickering among ourselves. ‘Whatever this hive node is, it’s
1968probably buried just as deeply as the rest of the ’nids.’
1969‘Then we’ll just have to hope someone spots them digging a hole,’ Kasteen said dryly, ‘in time to call in
1970a bombing run.’
1971To my surprise, Izembard was nodding again. ‘That would probably work,’ he said. ‘Killing the
1972primary node would, at the very least, severely disrupt the swarm. If we were particularly fortunate, the
1973resulting psychic shock would incapacitate the majority of the subordinate organisms into the bargain.’
1974‘So how do we find it?’ I asked.
1975To my surprise Izembard shrugged, with the air of a man who only vaguely remembered how the gesture
1976was performed. ‘Blind luck is somewhat beyond the scope of the Omnissiah,’ he said.
1977‘Luck works best if you make your own,’ I replied, trying to sound confident, but in truth I was anything
1978but. If Izembard was right about the existence of a higher coordinating intelligence, then the swarm was
1979infinitely more dangerous than we’d believedEditorial Note:
1980While the Imperial Guard braced itself for further attacks from a foe which now appeared even more
1981formidable than they’d believed, the ef orts Governor Striebgriebling had initiated to persuade the
1982civilian population of Primadelving that it would be better of away from the firing line continued.
1983Though only a relatively small proportion of the total number heeded the carefully dropped hints, a
1984steady trickle of refugees began to make their way to other cavern cities; which, though relieving the
1985pressure a little in the capital, began to create administrative dif iculties of its own in the other
1986population centres.
1987This selection of extracts from the printsheets and other sources should give something of the flavour
1988of the ef orts to influence the most footloose among the citizenry to leave.
1989From The Nusquan Diurnal Journal, 373 942 M41
1990XENOS INCURSIONS INCREASE
1991Governor calls for calm.
1992Despite the best efforts of the planetary defence force and the recently arrived Imperial Guard units to
1993defend them, reports are continuing to come in of outlying settlements throughout the Leeward Barrens
1994falling victim to the depredations of the tyranids. Though efforts to evacuate the civilians most at risk
1995continues, further casualties seem inevitable before the xenos interlopers can be dispatched.
1996Noting that the vast majority of those rescued are being taken, not to Primadelving, as would seem
1997most reasonable under the circumstances, but to cities in other provinces, it is not hard to conclude
1998that the planetary capital itself is considered vulnerable to the xenos horde, speculation which
1999Governor Striebgriebling did little to play down in her most recent address.
2000‘We must all remain steadfast and vigilant,’ she told the Delegate Assembly, ‘even where safety seems
2001most assured. The tyranids undoubtedly pose a potent and terrible threat. We must not, however, allow
2002blind panic to dictate our actions, but proceed in a calm and rational manner to ensure our safety.’
2003From The Solar, 373 942 M41
2004THOUSANDS FLEE RAVENING XENOS!
2005The full horror faced by desperate snowsteaders
200695 became clear this morning, with the arrival in
2007Primadelving of the survivors of a tyranid attack on the village of Eastridge. Over half the population
2008were slaughtered by the ravening beasts, before a detatchment from the 597th Valhallan could respond
2009to their vox messages pleading for help.
2010‘It was a nightmare,’ ice filtration artisan Jezeba Cleff told us. ‘They were ripping people to bits and
2011eating them wherever you looked. All we could save of my gran was her specs.’
2012‘The Barrens aren’t a fit place to bring up kids in now,’ her husband added. ‘We’re moving on to
2013Polatropolis as soon as Jezeba can line up a job.’
2014(Exclusive picts, pages 3,5,6 and 8. Comment & cartoon, page 2.
2015‘Don’t panic,’ says Governor, page 7.)
2016From The Nusquan Diurnal Journal, 376 942 M41
2017WESTERMINE BOOM BRINGS JOB OPPORTUNITIES
2018Rapid growth in the economy of Westermine, fuelled by the recent completion of new starport
2019facilities second only to those of Primadelving, has led to a critical skills shortage in this burgeoning
2020metropolis. Wages have risen sharply as a result, with some skilled artisans seeing as much as a thirty
2021per cent increase in their incomes, making them noticeably better off than those doing the same job in
2022Primadelving. Despite the greater costs involved, many businesses remain desperate to take on staff,
2023and are pinning their hopes on a fresh influx of workers from the Leeward Barrens, where the tyranid
2024and greenskin incursions are causing some disruption to traditional patterns of employment.
2025Extract from a pictcast by Governor Striebgriebling, 387 942 M41.
2026The evacuation of the Leeward Barrens has been a remarkable success, with uncounted numbers of
2027innocent lives preserved from the tyranid menace. But let us not forget the heroic sacrifice of so many
2028members of the Imperial Guard and the planetary defence force which has made this possible. Even
2029now they are engaging ever-growing numbers of these obscene and deadly creatures, which, deprived
2030of the easy prey they had hoped to consume, must surely be seeking fresh victims.
2031Primadelving remains a well-defended refuge, but this is no time for complacency. Many of the
2032creatures among the swarm are skilled at infiltration, and must surely be testing our fortifications,
2033hoping to find a way in. Remain vigilant, and report anything out of the ordinary to the appropriate
2034authorities at once.
2035Remember, you are our first line of defence.
2036TWENTY
2037‘I think the troopers out on the ice might disagree with that,’ I said. ‘Surely they’re our first line of
2038defence?’
2039Clothilde had just made some remark in a pictcast which effectively told the civilians skulking in the
2040warmth and comfort of Primadelving that they were just as much in the firing line as the men and women
2041fighting for their lives in the frozen wilderness, and even allowing for the hyperbole I’d normally expect
2042in such a speech, that had struck me as a trifle inconsiderate. The governor looked at me across the
2043hololith in the command centre, as her projected image faded, a curious expression on her face.
2044‘I take your point,’ she said, ‘and I don’t mean to play down the heroism of anyone out there facing the
2045tyranids. But you know as well as I do that it’s only a matter of time before they attack the city.’ We all
2046glanced at the display, where a chain of contact icons formed an ever-tightening noose around our
2047collective neck. ‘It’s getting harder and harder to keep the crawler routes open; the more citizens we can
2048persuade to leave before they’re severed the better, and a little judicious scaremongering should help to
2049get a few more moving.’
2050‘Besides, it’s a fair point,’ Kasteen conceded, much to my surprise. ‘Sooner or later we’re going to see
2051a lictor or a genestealer brood sneaking past our defences, and when that happens we’re going to need all
2052the eyes we can get.’
2053‘There might be such a thing as too many,’ I said, turning back to Clothilde. ‘If we’re going to lose the
2054crawler routes soon, then we need to get a proper evacuation under way as quickly as possible. I
2055understand your reluctance, but...’
2056‘No,’ she said flatly, ‘I don’t believe you do. This may be an abstract tactical problem to you, but to me
2057it’s the lives and homes of millions of people who put their trust in the Emperor, and in me as His official
2058representative. Abandoning the capital would be like turning our backs on all the Imperium stands for.’
2059‘With all due respect, your Excellency,’ Forres said, chiming in equally unexpectedly, ‘we can defend
2060all the Imperium stands for far more effectively without millions of civilians blocking our fire lanes, and
2061being devoured wholesale so the tyranids can spawn Emperor knows how many reinforcements. Now the
2062Barrens have been cleared, and we have the resources available, we should begin evacuating the city at
2063once.’
2064‘Well said, commissar,’ I put in, happy to let someone else draw the ire of a hacked-off planetary
2065governor (which in my experience could be quite formidable, especially if they turned out to be a
2066genestealer hybrid, or a gibbering madman with a personal retinue of daemons, as had happened on a
2067couple of memorable occasions in the past).
2068Clothilde looked at Brecca, and the PDF contingent, no doubt hoping to find some support for her
2069position there, but found none; all were looking at Forres, clearly in complete agreement.
2070Kasteen coughed delicately. ‘If you feel unable to give the order,’ she said, ‘perhaps it would be a good
2071time to bring the province under the direct protection of His Divine Majesty’s armed forces.’
2072Clothilde looked at her in open incredulity. ‘Are you threatening me with some kind of coup d’etat?’
2073she demanded.
2074‘By no means,’ I said, as diplomatically as I could, which was quite a lot given the practice I’d had
2075over the years. ‘Colonel Kasteen is simply pointing out that the most senior Imperial Guard officer
2076present is entitled to declare martial law if a state of civil emergency exists, and if the planetary
2077authorities are failing to respond in a timely and appropriate manner.’ I inflected the phrase to sound as
2078though I was quoting, although the actual wording of the appropriate regulation was far more syntactically
2079mangled, and I couldn’t recall it in that much detail anyway. ‘Technically, that’s subject to ratification by
2080the most senior member of the Commissariat available
208196,’ I added as an afterthought, a requirement
2082presumably intended to rein in any Guard officers fancying a career change to governor, ‘but as the most
2083senior commissar on Nusquam Fundumentibus is me, and I trust the colonel’s judgement implicitly, we
2084can take that as read.’
2085‘But she isn’t the most senior Imperial Guard officer,’ Clothilde said, with the air of a regicide player
2086unexpectedly taking the king. ‘Colonel Brecca is of equal rank.’
2087‘Colonel Kasteen has several years seniority, which makes her the ranking officer nevertheless,’ I
2088pointed out. ‘And a gun. Both of which enable her to declare martial law right now, with, for the record,
2089my full approval, should she see the need.’
2090Kasteen caught my eye, signalling her gratitude for my support with a barely perceptible nod. ‘Are we
2091all agreed on the necessity of an immediate evacuation, then?’ she asked.
2092‘We are,’ Clothilde said tightly, after a fractional pause.
2093‘Then I’d say the civil authorities are responding appropriately,’ Kasteen said, looking distinctly
2094relieved. ‘For the time being, anyway.’
2095‘I’m not sure this is a good time to be making an enemy of the governor,’ Broklaw said, when we filled
2096him in on the events of the last meeting. His face was still reddened from the driving sleet on the surface,
2097where he’d been supervising the construction of a ring of new defences around the perimeter of the city,
2098and he’d clearly been enjoying the jaunt among the snowdrifts the job had afforded him. ‘But under the
2099circumstances, it doesn’t sound as though you had much choice.’
2100‘I’m afraid we didn’t,’ I said. ‘The last thing we need is... what was the phrase you used?’
2101‘“Three million pieces of ’nid bait getting in the way,”’ Kasteen supplied helpfully, while Broklaw
2102grinned at the good-natured leg-pulling.
2103‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I’m sure she won’t bear a grudge, once she’s had a chance to think things through.’
2104‘I hope not,’ Kasteen said, flinching a little as Jurgen passed close enough to hand her a steaming tanna
2105bowl. ‘It’d be a pain in the arse having to shift our command post at this stage.’ She glanced round my
2106office, paying particular attention to the opulent drawing room furnishings I’d found on moving in, and
2107which I’d promptly had pushed back to the walls to make room for my desk. Accepting the governor’s
2108hospitality had been convenient when we first arrived, but that could turn out to be highly problematic if
2109we fell out with her.
2110Broklaw took his tanna gratefully, warming his hands around it, before sipping the fragrant liquid. ‘I
2111don’t see the problem,’ he said. ‘If she gets difficult, declare martial law anyway, and let Ciaphas threaten
2112to shoot her again.’
2113‘I did nothing of the kind,’ I said, accepting my inevitable share of the ribbing
211497. ‘I just pointed out that
2115Regina was carrying a gun.’
2116‘Which could so easily have escaped her notice,’ Kasteen said dryly. ‘Anyway, we made our point. The
2117evacuation order’s been issued.’ She spoke with some relief, which I must confess I shared. Putting
2118Primadelving under martial law would have saddled us with innumerable responsibilities connected with
2119its governance, which in turn would have impeded our efforts to deal with the tyranid problem almost as
2120much as leaving the civilians underfoot.
2121‘Will that be all, sir?’ Jurgen asked, handing me the last of the tanna bowls from the tray he carried.
2122After a moment’s consideration, I nodded. ‘It will,’ I confirmed. The main reason for holding our
2123meeting in my office was the near certainty that we wouldn’t be interrupted once he resumed his post in its
2124anteroom, deflecting all but the most urgent petitioners with his habitual mixture of obstructive politeness
2125and near-lethal flatulence.
2126‘The big question is how many of the civvies we can get out before the overland routes become too
2127dangerous for the crawlers,’ Kasteen said. ‘Once we’re restricted to aircraft, we’re frakked.’
2128Broklaw and I nodded thoughtfully. The pitifully few aircraft the Nusquans had available would be
2129wholly inadequate for the task of moving so many people, even if the atrocious weather on the surface
2130didn’t keep them grounded half the time
213198.
2132‘We’ll need to requisition everything we can get our hands on,’ I said. ‘Cargo crawlers as well as
2133passenger vehicles.’ The memory of the steady stream of profanity which had accompanied our abortive
2134journey back from the agricaves flashed across my mind. ‘It won’t be comfortable, but it’ll be better than
2135ending up as ’nid rations.’
2136‘We’ll need to protect the convoys too,’ Broklaw pointed out. ‘They’re far too vulnerable on their own,
2137and as soon as the ’nids realise there are large numbers of people moving across the ice they’ll be down
2138on them like eldar reivers.’
2139‘I know.’ Kasteen looked troubled. ‘We can send a few squads along in Chimeras, but they’ll find it
2140heavy going in these conditions. If we’re not careful the crawlers will outpace them.’
2141‘The Sentinels might be better,’ I suggested. ‘They’re fast and agile enough to keep the convoy together,
2142and they’ve got enough firepower to bring down one of the really big ones if the ’nids decide they’re
2143going to play rough.’
2144‘They might,’ Kasteen agreed, ‘if we had enough walkers to do the job. But we’ll need a couple of
2145squadrons at least to protect just one convoy, let alone the number that’ll be leaving.’
2146‘I’ll liaise with the PDF,’ Broklaw promised. ‘They’ve got a lot of Sentinels for hit and run raids
2147against the orks. The Nusquans have a troop too, although how many of them are left by now is anybody’s
2148guess.’
2149Before I could formulate an adequate response to that, I became aware of raised voices from the
2150anteroom where Jurgen was now lurking; although, to be more accurate, I was able to distinguish one
2151raised voice in particular, unmistakably feminine, my aide no doubt responding in the same phlegmatic
2152manner in which he dealt with most attempts to get past him. His doggedly polite obstructiveness had
2153reduced generals to apoplexy before now, but this particular interloper was evidently made of sterner
2154stuff. With a ringing declaration of ‘Well, he’ll see me!’ the door to my office shivered on its hinges,
2155revealing the not entirely unexpected silhouette of a young woman in a Commissarial greatcoat.
2156‘Commissar Forres,’ I said, determined to appear unconcerned. ‘An unexpected pleasure. Jurgen, could
2157you find the commissar a tanna?’
2158‘Of course, sir,’ my aide said, hovering on the threshold, evidently relieved to find the problem
2159somebody else’s now, despite the glower he directed at Forres’s oblivious back as she strode into the
2160room. He dropped his voice. ‘I’m sorry sir, she just barged right past me. Nothing I could do to stop her,
2161short of opening fire.’ An option he found distinctly appealing, judging by his expression as he glanced in
2162the young woman’s direction again.
2163‘You weren’t to blame,’ I assured him. ‘I doubt the Emperor Himself could have slowed that one down.’
2164‘Probably not, sir,’ he agreed, somewhat mollified, and went off in search of refreshment for our
2165unexpected guest.
2166‘You need to see this,’ Forres said, without any preamble, and dropped a data-slate on my desk. Kasteen
2167picked it up and activated it, while Broklaw and I moved round to get a clearer view. ‘It went out on all
2168the pict channels about ten minutes ago.’
2169Clothilde’s face appeared, in mid-speech, and I glanced questioningly at Forres. ‘Shouldn’t we have
2170started at the beginning?’
2171The young commissar shook her head. ‘It’s just the usual platitudes,’ she assured me. ‘This is the
2172important bit.’
2173‘I have accordingly,’ Clothilde said, with exaggerated gravitas, ‘and with a heavy heart, decided to
2174transfer responsibility for this great and grave undertaking to those most capable of shouldering it.
2175Commissar Cain’s renown as a staunch defender of the Imperial virtues is too great for his advice to be
2176casually disregarded, however much it may go against my own inclinations. The evacuation effort will
2177therefore be carried out under the jurisdiction of the Planetary Defence Force, and I urge all loyal citizens
2178to cooperate fully with our gallant defenders.’
2179‘And so on, and so forth, ad frakking nauseum,’ Forres said, cutting off the recording, the first time I
2180could recall hearing her swear, or seeing her angry enough to do so.
2181‘She’s outflanked us,’ I said, torn between annoyance and amusement. ‘Regina can’t declare martial law
2182if she’s already done it herself.’
2183‘The difference is, she’s in charge of the PDF
218499,’ Forres pointed out. ‘She can drag her heels and
2185obstruct the evacuation all she likes now, and there’s nothing we can do about it.’
2186‘We may not have to,’ I said. ‘The PDF have been up at the sharp end enough to appreciate just how big
2187a threat the tyranids are. My guess is they’ll do the best job they can, whether the governor likes it or not.’
2188‘Which begs the question of whether their best will be good enough,’ Broklaw said, forthright as
2189always. ‘It’ll be a logistical nightmare, and they’re not exactly Guard calibre, are they?’
2190‘We could offer to assist,’ Kasteen said thoughtfully. ‘Sulla would keep them up to the mark. But if the
2191’nids attack, we’ll need her snowside more than we do shuffling data-slates.’
2192‘Sounds like a job for a commissar,’ I said, glancing meaningfully at Forres.
2193She nodded thoughtfully, beginning to calm down as she considered the implications. ‘That’s true,’ she
2194said, looking a good deal happier than when she’d come in. She even took the tanna bowl Jurgen
2195somewhat sullenly offered her without flinching. ‘And with you looking over their shoulders they
2196shouldn’t screw things up too much.’
2197‘Me?’ I said, surprised. ‘I thought with your experience of working with Nusquans, you’d be the
2198obvious choice.’ And too busy to get in my way for the foreseeable future, more to the point.
2199‘But you’re a Hero of the Imperium,’ Kasteen pointed out, not quite managing to hide her amusement.
2200‘Hearing you’re in charge will reassure the civvies far more than a commissar they’ve never heard of
2201before, and that means they’ll be a lot more inclined to do as they’re told.’
2202‘Good point,’ I agreed, considering the matter. My inflated reputation had evidently preceded me here,
2203as it tended to do pretty much anywhere I’d visited
2204100, particularly the part I was popularly supposed to
2205have played in the first campaign against the orks; it wouldn’t take much to turn that to my advantage in
2206dealing with the locals. Not to mention the fact that as long as I was herding as many of them as possible
2207on to the crawlers, no one could reasonably expect me to lead a do-or-die charge against the ’nids.
2208‘You’ll do it then?’ Forres asked, not quite concealing her eagerness to leave the job in the hands of a
2209dull old fogey like me, while she scampered off to save the galaxy from the terror of the hive mind. I
2210found myself wondering for a moment if I’d ever been that young and impetuous, before deciding that no, I
2211hadn’t; which was more than a little ironic, given the way trouble had insisted on following me around
2212regardless.
2213‘I suppose I’d better,’ I said, with as much reluctance as I could manage to feign. ‘Someone has to, and,
2214as you say, I seem to have something of a public profile already. We might as well make use of that if we
2215can.’
2216‘We’re agreed, then,’ Kasteen said. ‘Ciaphas herds the proles, while the rest of us get back to the war.’
2217‘Good luck with that,’ I said, quietly enjoying the stunned expression which had flickered over Forres’s
2218face at the casual use of my given name. ‘May the Emperor walk with you.’
2219‘And with you,’ Forres said, responding automatically, as though she was still in the schola chapel. At
2220the time I took it as a mere reflexive pleasantry, but in retrospect I was to find I needed all the help the
2221Golden Throne could give me.