Space Hulk: The Novel, Page 2

  The passage he was on intersected at a T-junction with the corridor covered by Valencio. In the glow thrown out by patches of flickering promethium.

  Goriel saw one of the creatures coiling its muscles, ready to spring towards Valencio’s location. Goriel fired on instinct, his storm bolter roaring before the conscious thought had entered his mind. The alien beast was thrown aside, its legs ripped away.

  Another appeared at the junction ahead and bounded off the wall and around the corner, changing its direction of attack towards Goriel. It made no attempt to hide, relying on its breakneck speed to close the distance. The tactic failed as a slew of bolter rounds from Goriel’s weapon blew apart its head and body.

  ‘Jam cleared!’ announced Valencio and a moment later the burning trails of bolter rounds sped past the junction and the crump of detonations sounded along the metallic maze.

  ‘Push forward,’ said Lorenzo. ‘Regroup at grid point thirteen-delta.’

  With Lorenzo and Goriel leading the way, the squad headed onwards into the darkness. The genestealers attacked haphazardly, dashing from the shadows and bursting from pipes and vents singly and in pairs. The disciplined fire of the Blood Angels easily cut them down. More blips on the sensorium showed that others were rapidly closing in on the Terminators’ position.

  As they came to a double cross junction, Valencio swung around and covered the rear while Goriel and Deino spread out to guard the other approaches. Lorenzo advanced towards the objective highlighted in his helm display, his storm bolter spitting rounds into a heavy door at the end of the corridor. The thumb-sized rockets tore apart the metal barrier, revealing the room beyond. Dimly lit screens glowed in the chamber atop banks of keyboards and buttons.

  It was the launch control chamber for the saviour pods: the objective. The squad’s orders were to destroy the controls beyond any hope of repair, ensuring that none of the lifeboats could be launched.

  ‘Brother Zael, purify,’ the sergeant said. He stepped into a side corridor as Zael readied his heavy flamer. Bursts of storm bolter fire from Goriel and Valencio announced the arrival of more enemies.

  Promethium scorched into the launch room and glass-panelled data displays exploded. Sparks erupted from melting cables as Zael emptied the tank of his weapon. Thick black smoke poured from the room, billowing along the thermals created by the inferno, swathing the squad in gloom. Lorenzo’s auto-senses flickered through the spectrum of options and settled on a heat-capture image. In the reflected glow of the burning control room, the sergeant could see through the smog as if it was not there. He stepped back into the corridor and analysed the damage done by Zael’s flamer.

  Metal cabinets had been reduced to slurry and molten gobbets of metal pinged and cooled on the rockcrete floor. Ancient circuits had been irreparably scorched and millennia-old pistons sagged like sodden paper.

  ‘Control, objective complete,’ Lorenzo announced.

  ‘Affirmed,’ a voice replied. ‘Return to perimeter for orders.’

  Lorenzo turned away from the control room and looked at the sensorium display. Green flickers warily circled ahead, growing in number. The genestealers were now trapped aboard the space hulk with the Terminators. The true battle would begin.

  It was several hundred metres back to the breach head, and dozens of foes now lay in front of the Terminators. Lorenzo ejected the magazine from his storm bolter and slammed in another.

  ‘Vengeance shall be ours, my brothers.’

  00.06.99

  NEARLY HALF A kilometre behind Lorenzo, Sergeant Gideon nodded to himself as he listened to the reports over the comm-net, his Terminator armour whining in protest as it failed to replicate the movement. All was proceeding as expected. The breaching zone was well established and the support and reserve units had moved on board. The veterans of the Blood Angels 1st Company were preparing to press onwards into the space hulk’s depths.

  ‘Squad Gideon, secure point eighty-omega,’ Captain Raphael’s orders came through terse and clipped. ‘Prevent enemy reinforcements from passing the junction.’

  ‘Affirmative, point eighty-omega,’ replied Gideon. ‘Attack pattern diablo, advance.’

  He raised the thunder hammer in his right hand and signalled for his squad to move out. Scipio took the point position, his storm bolter raised and ready. Brother Leon fell in behind him, the six barrels of his assault cannon rotating slowly as if in anticipation of the battle to come. Gideon stepped into position next, Omnio not far behind. Noctis brought up the back of the short column, turning occasionally to cover the approach to the rear.

  ‘Has it been confirmed that these are the same creatures that were encountered before?’ asked Scipio.

  ‘Lorenzo and the other survivors are convinced,’ said Gideon. ‘That’s good enough for me.’

  ‘Truly we have been blessed with this opportunity for vengeance,’ said Scipio.

  ‘They are the same species of alien,’ Omnio clarified. ‘Not the actual life forms our predecessors encountered.’

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said Scipio. He swayed to the left and pointed to an alcove in the wall. ‘Possible entry point.’

  Leon’s assault cannon swung towards the offending space but the alcove was devoid of any hole or other route of attack. The Terminator grunted in disappointment and continued after Scipio.

  ‘It is hard to believe these are Ymgarlian genestealers,’ said Scipio. ‘So many creatures from such a small moon.’

  ‘It does raise some difficult questions about our understanding of the genestealer species,’ admitted Omnio. ‘But as the Angel once said, “There are more things in the darkness than man can ever count”. It is arrogance to presume we know everything.’

  ‘We should torpedo the entire hulk and be done,’ said Noctis as he rejoined the back of the squad from where he had been standing rearguard.

  ‘That would be an opportunity missed,’ said Omnio. ‘Some of these vessels might be Dark Age. Who can say what secrets they hide?’

  ‘And what dangers,’ added Gideon. ‘Keep vigilant.’

  The squad had advanced the perimeter by some two hundred metres. Roughly the same distance ahead a cloud of contacts was registering on the Terminators’ scanners. At this distance it was impossible to discern individual life forms, but Gideon estimated there to be a hundred or more. They were moving, but not in any purposeful sense that he could recognise.

  Gideon pushed the squad onwards. They came upon a tangled mess of gantries and chambers where the hulls of two ships had been compacted together by the strange tides of the warp. Like a fault line in a planet’s bedrock, the line between the two ships was clear and distinct. An unidentifiable rocklike material replaced metal and the colours changed from greys and silvers to greens and blues. Doorways were wider and higher and the distorted walls and floors allowed more space for the Terminators. Gideon picked up the pace, aware that every moment before the squad was in position was an opportunity for the Blood Angels’ alien adversaries to attack the perimeter.

  ‘Command to all squads, mission update,’ announced Captain Raphael. ‘Cyber-Altered Task unit deployed for deep recon. Enemy force estimate now at excess of forty thousand. Ninety-five per cent dormancy and falling. Remember your fallen fore-brothers and fight with honour.’

  ‘Angel’s mercy, that’s a lot of targets,’ said Scipio.

  ‘Enough to go around,’ said Leon.

  ‘Leon, move ahead and cover the junction,’ Gideon ordered, ignoring the squad’s chatter. ‘Noctis, take up flank protection position to Leon’s left. The rest of you, disperse pattern deimos, guard the approaches.’

  On the sergeant’s command the squad split, each warrior disappearing into the darkness to take up his assigned position. Having extended the breach head by another three hundred metres, they settled into overwatch and awaited the enemy. On the sensorium, the green blurs separated into distinct signatures as the foe converged on Squad Gideon from three directions.

  00.07.12 />
  THERE WAS MOVEMENT right at the edge of the light from Leon’s suit lamps and he resisted the urge to open fire. The motor of his assault cannon growled like a beast ready to pounce and Leon waited expectantly for a clear target. The sensorium showed a score or more of creatures in the darkness of the tunnels ahead. They circled for a short while, seeking some other route towards the Blood Angels’ positions. Evidently this endeavour met with failure. One moment the corridor was empty, the next a horde of blue and purple bodies hurtled along its length towards Leon like water bursting through a hole in a dam.

  He opened fire, the barrels of the assault cannon rotating up to speed in a heartbeat, a torrent of shells screaming down the passageway in another. Leon’s auto-senses had kicked in the audio dampeners the moment he had pressed the trigger, but even through the immense plasteel plates armouring his body the Terminator could feel the concussive shockwave that filled the room.

  In a two-second burst half a dozen creatures were shredded, their bodies vaporised by the fusillade. Leon paused for a moment, allowing his weapon’s barrels and motors to cool, and then opened fire again. Each devastating burst obliterated everything in front of the Terminator.

  Virtually hypnotised by the carnage he was wreaking, Leon almost failed to notice a group of sensorium contacts moving down a corridor parallel to the one he was covering. He began to back away from the door to the room, giving himself more time to fire. He was too slow. With a scream of rending metal and a clang the genestealers smashed through a door just around a corner ahead and within a second they were inside the room with Leon.

  ‘Die!’ he bellowed, unleashing the fury of his assault cannon in one long burst. Tracing an arc with his weapon, Leon cut down the first swathe of attackers, but more were following quickly in their wake. The trigger still locked down, Leon turned the blaze of shells upon the next wave of aliens. Fire and gore and splinters from the ruined walls filled the corridor for a moment.

  With an explosion that hurled Leon from his feet, the assault cannon’s barrels burst. The white-hot metal scythed into his armour, leaving steaming shreds of alloy smoking across his shoulder and helm. Clawed hands and feet gouged further rents in his suit as the beasts streamed through the room. One blow caught a plasteel-sheathed cable under Leon’s left arm, paralysing his armour on that side and rendering his power fist inert.

  ‘Point position down!’ he snarled over the comm as the genestealers raced past. There was nothing else he could do.

  00.08.04

  ‘TIME TO PROVE yourselves once again, my friends,’ Gideon muttered to his thunder hammer and storm shield, Leon’s warning still ringing in his ears. ‘Destroy your foe and protect your bearer!’

  He and Omnio had linked up and had moved towards Leon’s position when the first attack had begun. Their only hope of holding back the growing tide of aliens was a bottleneck up ahead, where the twisted plascrete tunnels converged into a single room.

  The room itself was barely fifteen metres wide, the walls heavily pitted and cracked. It had been some kind of pumping station in a past age. Broken pipes jutted from the angle of wall and ceiling. Globulous strings of thick fluid hung from their shattered ends and occasionally dripped into oily puddles at the base of the walls. The remnants of ancient valves and wheels seized with rust covered the ceiling.

  Omnio positioned himself facing the open door, opposite the predicted approach of the enemy, storm bolter loaded and aimed. Gideon waited to one side of his squad-brother, ready to step forward and attack should any creature get past Omnio’s fire.

  It was not long before the first genestealer appeared, dropping down from a shattered duct in the ceiling of the corridor ahead. It was up and running in a moment, spring-jointed legs pumping fast as it sprinted towards the Terminators. Its claws raked chips of stone from the tiles underfoot. The alien’s eyes shone in the dull yellow glow of ancient lightstrips. There was no emotion in that gaze, only the lethal intent of a predator.

  ‘Maybe it isn’t as illogical as I first thought,’ Omnio said, firing a brief burst down the corridor.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Gideon.

  ‘You, carrying that hammer… and shield even… though you’re no longer… in an assault squad,’ explained Omnio, pausing every few words to open fire. ‘In close confines… such as these, the added… potential at close quarters, when… combined with a ranged weapon-armed comrade… provides a tactical advantage… not possible by the standard sergeant’s wargear.’

  Gideon snorted.

  ‘Tactical advantage?’ said the sergeant, raising the large hammer and shield to a guard posture. ‘I carry these weapons to honour my armour.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Omnio, still firing, his attention fixed on the aliens running and leaping out of the room at the far end of the passageway.

  ‘When I first transferred to sergeant, I abandoned my trusted friends here for the traditional sword and storm bolter,’ said Gideon. ‘In the next battle, a stray shot from an ork penetrated the sub-thorax pipes and immobilised my left leg. I know when my armour is telling me something. I’ve carried these since.’

  ‘A wise m—’ Omnio’s reply was cut short as a genestealer launched itself through the door, having scuttled its way along the ceiling of the corridor. With incredible speed, twisting in the air, it landed on Omnio, sword-like claws sending up shards of ceramite from the Terminator’s breastplate. Omnio lurched backwards under the impact, the artificial muscles of his armour straining but holding firm.

  Gideon stepped forwards and brought his thunder hammer down onto the creature’s back. The power field around the hammer’s head exploded in a blue flash as the blow landed. Spine shattered, carapace cracked, the genestealer flopped to the stone floor like a grounded fish.

  Gideon had no time to admire his deadly handiwork. Two more aliens were in the room, claws outstretched, fanged jaws gaping. The first lunged for the sergeant. Gideon brought up his storm shield to ward off its attacks. A flare of energy illuminated the room and the genestealer was hurled into the wall. The other beast ducked beneath the swing of the sergeant’s hammer and, with a jarring screech of chitin on metal, punched two sets of its claws into Omnio’s leg.

  The alien that had been repulsed by Gideon’s storm shield sprang forwards again, one arm hanging loosely at its side. Even wounded it was astoundingly fast, dodging Gideon’s block with his shield, yet not so skilful that it could avoid the thunder hammer aimed towards it. In one sweep the glowing weapon smashed the creature’s head clean off.

  Omnio toppled to one side, the reinforced struts inside his leg armour buckling under the pressure of the genestealer’s powerful grip. The Terminator grabbed an arm in his power fist and yanked it from the socket, yellow ichor spraying across his armour. Fist shimmering with energy, Omnio dug his fingers point first into the genestealer’s neck, snapping vertebrae. As the genestealer twitched in its death throes, Omnio tried to prise off the creature’s corpse but only succeeded in mashing it into small lumps with his power fist. The genestealer’s claws had jammed the knee joint in his leg. To all intents and purposes, the Terminator was now immobilised.

  ‘Combat potential negated,’ Omnio announced disconsolately. ‘I need a Techmarine.’

  Gideon stepped protectively between his fallen battle-brother and the doorway, thunder hammer ready. On his sensorium, more blips raced towards the room.

  00.09.56

  A GENESTEALER DUCKED into a side corridor before Lorenzo could open fire. The one behind it was not so fortunate and the sergeant blew it to pieces with a burst from his storm bolter. Checking his sensorium, Lorenzo noted that their foe was approaching more cautiously than before. They gathered in small groups out of sight and then launched themselves at the Terminators in short waves. Though it showed more intelligence than the suicidal charges the genestealers had been employing in the first phase of the battle, the tactic was still crude and easily countered.

  Lorenzo suppressed a moment of unease as he
recalled the massed attacks of the genestealers during his last encounter with them. On that occasion they had gathered in their hundreds, clawing and leaping over their fallen to overwhelm the Blood Angels with sheer weight of numbers. So far only a small fraction of the foe was awake, but Lorenzo knew that as more rose from their hibernation the attacks would get deadlier.

  Despite the sergeant’s concerns, none of the aliens had yet broken through the cordon of Squad Lorenzo, though the Terminators were expending a considerable amount of ammunition to defend their positions. The Techmarines had resupplied the squad once already, but Zael had reported his heavy flamer tank was half-full and the rest of the squad each had only a few magazines remaining.

  The next supply run was due in three minutes. Lorenzo knew other squads were being pressed harder elsewhere along the line and resisted the urge to request that their own re-equip be brought forward.

  ‘Squad Lorenzo, this is command.’ Captain Raphael’s voice was calm and measured, though Lorenzo could guess at the many decisions straining his attention. ‘C.A.T. signal is erratic, information upload incomplete. I need you to physically locate the unit and retrieve for data analysis. Squad Gideon will join from omega grid, co-ordinate the search with Sergeant Gideon.’

  ‘Affirmative, brother-captain,’ Lorenzo responded. ‘Last known C.A.T. position?’

  ‘Somewhere in theta grid, directly ahead of your location,’ the captain told him. ‘Transmitting frequency signature to sensorium net.’

  The display superimposed onto Lorenzo’s vision flickered as the update came through. A haze of flashing red appeared over the map layout some fifty metres from where he was. Somewhere in the sprawl of corridors ahead, the Cyber-Altered Task unit was wandering in circles. Having been teleported into the heart of the space hulk for deep scans and reconnaissance, the automated unit was evidently malfunctioning or damaged. The data it had collected was essential to Captain Raphael and the C.A.T. needed to be recovered quickly.