The Emperor's Finest

SIX

AS SHE GOT her first sight of the xenos monstrosity, Mira screamed, as well she might; if I hadn't had an image to maintain I'd probably have done the same, but as it was, I took an ineffectual cut at it with the chainsword, diving to one side to get out of its way. By great good fortune, the movement got me closer to my real objective, but there wasn't any time to exploit the fact, as the creature turned, all four arms reaching out to eviscerate me. Mira pulled the trigger of her lasgun, unleashing a burst, and I flinched, anticipating falling to friendly fire; but she was aiming down the tunnel, from which another 'stealer emerged, seconds later, bearing down on her like a Chimera at full throttle. How many more of the things there may have been lurking in the depths below the city I've no idea, but fortunately the brood mind seemed to think that one each would be more than enough to implant the two of us with its taint[20].

'Drop your weapons,' the hybrid sergeant urged us. 'They won't harm you if you don't resist.'

'Yeah, right,' I said sarcastically, parrying the reaching limbs with my chainsword. It bit deep, shearing through chitin in a welter of flesh and ichor, which spattered liberally around the chamber, misting the faces of the nearest spectators. None reacted with the revulsion you'd normally expect, just continuing to watch in impassive silence, which in its own way was more unnerving than the creature in front of me.

'Just turn us into abominations like you[21].'

The creature flinched, withdrawing the injured limb, and I rolled under another just as its fist closed in a grab, missing me by millimetres. The one closing in on Mira momentarily checked its charge too, as a rash of las-bolt craters erupted on its thorax, then came on again as her lasgun fell silent, its powerpack expended. With a shriek which all but ruptured my eardrums she flung the empty weapon at the onrushing monstrosity, hoping to achieve Emperor knows what. The 'stealer swatted the mass of metal aside in an eyeblink and it clattered to the floor nearby, where the watching hybrids ignored it.

'You couldn't just have reloaded?' I asked pettishly, finding myself close enough to slash at its leg as I tried to make distance from the one attacking me, and doing so with enthusiasm. Again, the blade bit deep, and it stumbled sideways, crashing into the other 'stealer, which was still lunging desperately in my direction.

'He's carrying the spare powerpacks!' Mira snapped back, taking advantage of the ensuing confusion to slip past the entangled creatures, and glowering at the sergeant as she did so. The crowd of hybrids began to close, moving forwards to narrow the arena we fought in, and I cracked off a couple of shots from the pistol in my hand, dropping the two nearest to the tunnel the 'stealers had emerged from.

Of course he was, I thought irritably. Nobles never carried anything for themselves; that's what servants were for. 'Pick the bloody gun up!' I shouted, as she almost tripped over the thing, and she scooped it into her hand again without slackening her pace. If she'd been issued with it, she should damn well look after it, so far as I was concerned.

The purestrains were sorting themselves out and looking seriously hacked off by now, even more so than their kind usually did[22]. As one, they turned to stare at me, the brood mind no doubt perceiving me as the greater threat. Well, it had got that right, I'd seen bath sponges more menacing than Mira looked at the moment, and with nothing left to lose I did the one thing I hoped they wouldn't expect: charged both creatures, bellowing 'WAAAAAAAAGHHHHH!' as loudly and enthusiastically as the orks I'd seen far too much of on Perlia. As I'd hoped, it focussed all the hybrids' attention on the purestrains, so when I veered aside, leaving the pair of them leaping to attack the spot where I suddenly wasn't, and shot the sergeant instead, none of the creatures reacted for a crucial second, taken completely by surprise.

By the time the sergeant hit the floor, I was among the crowd hemming us in, swinging my chainsword in defensive patterns years of drilling and duelling had made so instinctive I was barely aware of them, reaping a rich and repellent harvest of severed appendages and spouting ichor. The newly implanted PDF troopers were still too dazed to react, going down without even trying to resist, and I felt a small qualm at that point, tempered with the reflection that it was not only my duty to purge them but a merciful deliverance too. As the vox op folded, his head flying off in a random direction, I let my pistol fall unheeded to the sodden rockcrete beneath my feet and grabbed the handset, praying to the Throne that it was still tuned to the same frequency as I remembered.

'Astartes! Help!' I just had time to bellow, before being borne to the moisture-slick floor by a tidal wave of malformed bodies. I did my best to resist, of course, kicking and flailing wildly with the chainsword until it was torn from my grasp, and probably biting too if anything came close enough, but it was hopeless; there were simply too many of them. For a moment I could see nothing but twisted faces, their expressions blank, still moving in eerie silence. No one screamed, shouted or swore at me, and that was the most disturbing thing of all. At least until they parted, and I found myself staring into the eyes of the genestealer I'd maimed.

There have been far too many times in my long and inglorious career when I've been convinced, with good reason, that my last moment had come, but few of them were accompanied by such a complete sensation of absolute helplessness. In almost every other instance I've at least had the illusion of being able to affect the outcome, seen some last, desperate gamble which ultimately paid off, but here there was nothing at all I could do, beyond writhing ineffectually and letting rip with a volley of profanity that would have made a Slaaneshi cultist blush. It didn't perturb the 'stealer, though; it just hissed through its thorax and opened its jaws unfeasibly wide, showing far too many teeth and adding a layer of sticky drool to the other unpleasant substances already ruining my coat.

Something moved in the back of its throat, and a thick, muscular tube emerged in place of a tongue. I flinched, anticipating the stabbing pain about to be inflicted on my chest, and, worse, the complete subversion of everything I was. Would I still feel like me at all in five minutes' time, and if I didn't, would I even care? I recalled the implanted troopers I'd known, and fought alongside, on Keffia. They'd seemed perfectly normal, giving no clue at all to their altered nature, until they'd revealed themselves by turning on us in the heat of battle against their brood mates. If I became like them, with the access I had to a Space Marine Chapter and the upper echelons of the Imperial Guard, the damage my altered self could do to the Imperium's interests would be incalculable. Rather more to the point though, I was perfectly happy with myself the way I was, and the prospect of being turned into a puppet of the tyranids by an overgrown cockroach was absolutely intolerable.

Abruptly, the creature looming over me jerked and shuddered, keening loudly, even over the stuttering crackle of a lasgun on full auto, as a rain of successive las-bolts chewed their way through its armoured carapace and began making an unholy mess of its innards. Taken by surprise once again, the brood mind lost its focus for a moment, and the myriad of hands and talons holding me slackened their grip.

That was the only chance I needed. Tearing free of them, I snatched up my weapons, which, praise the Emperor, still lay on the floor within easy reach, and turned to face my deliverer. I am, by nature, something of an optimist, but I'd never dared to hope that my message would be answered so quickly, if it even got through at all.

'What the hell are you still doing here?' I asked in astonishment, laying about me with the chainblade again and popping off random las-bolts, certain that in a crowd this dense they'd find some kind of mark.

Mira paused for a second, before ejecting the spent powerpack from her lasgun and snapping a fresh one in, whereupon she began firing short, precise bursts at the second 'stealer, presumably having discovered just how quickly staying on full auto would deplete it.

'Thank you for saving my neck, milady,' she said sarcastically. 'Oh, think nothing of it, commissar.' She was standing astride the sergeant's body, which at least explained where the reloads had come from. No doubt she'd carry her own from now on, if she still felt the urge to play soldiers.

'Run now, thanks later,' I said, cutting my way through to her side. 'But I'm definitely pleased to see you.'

'I'm flattered,' she said, backing towards the nearest tunnel mouth and continuing to pepper the purestrain with las-bolts. This one, however, was made of sterner stuff than its fellow and continued to advance inexorably, hopping awkwardly on its injured leg, no doubt aided by the fact that Mira kept having to shift her aim to keep the swarm of hybrids off our backs too. If the ones with weapons opened up we'd both be dead in seconds, but to my amazement and relief they continued to hold their fire, still believing that they had the advantage of numbers and could eventually take us alive, to become part of their conjoined mind. They were probably right about that too, closing in around us with a speed and precision I wouldn't have believed possible if I hadn't seen what they were capable of before, and as heedless of their own losses as the tyranids themselves. For every one that fell to our las-bolts and my whining chainblade, another would step in, and it could only be a matter of time before we were overwhelmed and brought down.

I shot another hybrid standing between us and the tunnel mouth, but even as I did so I could tell it was too late: that way out was blocked now, the silent crowd pressing in on all sides. For the second time in a handful of minutes, I was facing the imminent certainty of my own death - or at least the death of everything I defined myself by.

'It's been an honour to serve with you, colonel,' I said, feeling that my last act might as well be to boost Mira's morale. I'd hardly been a model commissar, Emperor only knows, but at least I could die like one.

'We both know that's a big fat lie,' she replied grimly, as her last powerpack ran dry despite her attempts to husband it, and she began to use the heavy lasgun as a club, 'but I appreciate the thought.'

'You're welcome,' I said, my laspistol giving up too, and swept the chainsword at the 'stealer. We only had seconds left now, but I was determined to take as many of the abominations with me as I could. Time slowed and stretched, as it generally seems to under this sort of circumstance, and I found myself suddenly aware of a rising shriek, which grew in intensity and volume. I flicked my gaze apprehensively at the nearest tunnel mouth, anticipating the sudden appearance of some fresh horror, a screamer-killer perhaps[23] - nothing would surprise me now... except for what actually happened next. With a rumble like thunder, and a sudden burst of ozone which left the hairs on my arms tingling upright[24], the roof over our heads vaporised in a burst of light so dazzling I was left blinking after-images from my retina for several minutes. Shards of carbonised debris pattered around us, but fortunately nothing of any significant size actually hit; the turbo laser must have struck the ground above us full on, to leave nothing larger than a few handfuls of gravel behind.

'What the hell was that?' Mira yelled, as the noise suddenly redoubled without the intervening layer of brick, earth and rockcrete.

'It's the Thunderhawk!' I bellowed back, recognising the distinctive silhouette as it flashed past overhead, its shadow momentarily eclipsing the open pit we now found ourselves in. A second later the screaming of its engine was suddenly punctuated by the distinctive staccato rhythm of heavy bolter fire, and the hybrids scattered, racing for whatever refuge they might find in the surrounding tunnels, while the genestealer exploded messily just before closing to contact with us. 'And the Astartes!'

The unmistakable bulk of the Terminators I'd seen taking the heretic artillery position apart were lumbering into position around the rim of the pit, pouring fire from their storm bolters into it, while the hybrids fled and died in droves. This was hardly a comfortable position to be in, even given the phenomenal accuracy of the Space Marines, but they picked off their targets without even coming close to us, and in any case the firing died away about as quickly as you might expect, given how rapidly they ran out of targets.

Mira and I stared at one another, grinning like idiots, not quite able to believe how narrowly we'd escaped with our lives and souls intact.

'It seems I owe you an apology,' she said after a moment, her generous decolletage heaving with emotion. 'I should have listened to your advice and stayed behind.'

'Under the circumstances,' I conceded, 'I can only be grateful that you didn't.' Now they'd run out of things to kill the Terminators were advancing into the pit, mainly by the simple expedient of jumping, which was creating a series of minor tremors in the ground. How they were intending to get up again, I had no idea[25].

Mira eyed me speculatively. 'I'm sure we can find some way of making it up to each other,' she said, in a manner which made it abundantly clear just what kind of reparation she had in mind. I nodded, the prospect seeming distinctly appealing at that point, and Emperor knows I felt I'd earned it.

'I'm sure we can,' I said, then turned to the Terminator in charge, easily recognisable by the powerblade he was carrying along with his storm bolter. 'Thank you, sergeant. Your intervention was most timely.'

'Your death while a guest of the Reclaimers would have been an affront to the honour of our Chapter,' he told me, the sepulchral tones of his kind issuing from the vox unit of his helmet. I was used to the timbre by this time, but Mira was clearly startled, flinching visibly as he began to speak. 'We made what haste we could to the source of your signal.'

'Then I'll do my best to keep your honour upheld,' I said, feeling oddly disconcerted by the dispassionate statement. The other Astartes were fanning out, weapons at the ready, poking at the fallen bodies of the genestealers and the hybrids. I gestured to the remains of the nearest, drawing the sergeant's attention to it, although I had no doubt that the voxes built into the Space Marines' helmets were already humming with the news. 'Especially now things have become a little more complicated.'

Editorial Note:

The Reclaimers' arrival on Viridia had proven to be as brisk and decisive as intervention by an Astartes Chapter generally is, and news of their coming spread rapidly. Though, in those first few hours, their presence had been confined entirely to the planetary capital, the effect on the rest of the planet had been profound; something Cain, as usual, doesn't bother to mention, any more than he does the rest of the retailing of Fidelis.

Since my readers cannot be presumed to share his lack of interest in the bigger picture, the following extract has been appended.

From The Virus of Betrayal: The Cleansing of Viridia and its Aftermath by Lady Ottaline Melmoth, 958.M41.

THE ARRIVAL OF the Astartes was as welcome to the loyal servants of the Emperor as it was startling, many of the faithful taking their advent as a sign of His special interest in our blessed world. Indeed, many services of thanksgiving were begun in temples and chapels around the globe even before their first battle was concluded. Not that this made any difference to the fervour of the celebrants: for them, the coming battle to cleanse Viridia of heresy and worse seemed little more than a formality, since the whole galaxy knows that His Space Marines are the strong right hand of the Emperor Himself, and that once they embark on a quest in His holy name, the task is as good as done[26].

The Astartes made their first landing in Fidelis, at the palace of Governor DuPanya, losing no time in breaking the heretical siege lines which had kept the Emperor's anointed custodian of the planet confined and powerless to intervene directly in the constant turmoil of civil strife which had done so much to mar the fair face of Viridia. This done, he immediately took up the reins of his interrupted stewardship, while the Astartes swept on to even greater victories. The cathedral, always a beacon of hope in those desperate times, and therefore under constant threat from the dissident elements, was liberated within the hour, as was the shrine of the Omnissiah, freeing the tech-priests to begin ministering to the city's wounded machine-spirits with the utmost dispatch.

Perhaps the most desperate battles were those to eliminate the artillery batteries which the rebels had set up to prevent a mass landing of Imperial Guard troops, which, if left in place, would have taken a terrible toll in lives and resources. The crucial importance of this assignment can be deduced from the fact that the mission to remove one was led by the commander of the Astartes expeditionary force and his personal guard, while the task of placing a beacon to guide the teleporting strike team which destroyed the other was entrusted to none other than Commissar Cain, accompanied by Colonel Mira DuPanya, the governor's youngest daughter and a formidable warrior in her own right.

It need hardly be said that both missions ended in unqualified success, with the complete destruction of the designated targets, although one was to have unexpected and serious consequences. DuPanya and Cain's reconnaissance en route to their destination had revealed the true nature of the enemy we were facing, and, for the first time, the full extent of the hideous conspiracy gnawing away at the fabric of our society (quite literally, it seemed) became clear.