Lord Zee
CycloneEvent Name: Purging of the Soilis System.
Location: Outpost YZ-202, Soilis Prime, Soilis System, Segmentum Pacificus.
Date: 7.821.952.M30
Parties Involved: Chapter Detachment of the Steel Sentinels; Kynazar remnants.
“This is Soilis Prime, Transmission Post Y -Y-205. I repeat, Post Y - Y-205, coordinates -” the next words were lost in a burst of Warp disturbance of the sort that occasionally plagued long-range vox transmissions from field casters. “-rime to Soilis Secundus. Hostile activity detected at Outpost YZ-202 today at -” another static burst, “-trol from Outpost YZ-200 sent to investigate, all contact lost. Auspex scans ineffective, hostiles believed to be using jamming devices. Requesting reinfo-” The message cut off again, this time for good.
The communications rang through the ship, alerting the Chapter Master, that was staring into the void, that some pitiful welps required aid. The Chapter Master looked to a helmsman and ordered, “Clean up that transmission and prepare a response.”
The helmsman silently did his job, merely nodding to the Astartes to notify him that he was transmitting to Soilis Prime, “This is Chapter Master Arikiba of the Steel Sentinels to Soilis Prime, if you can hear me, we are en route to reinforce. Respond, if you can acknowledge this transmission.”
The Sentinel ended the transmission before looking over to one of his brothers, ordering “Prepare first company to prepare for battle, all other companies shall await until we know what threat we face.”
Arikiba looked over the void once more as the crew silently changed the ship’s course to bring them to Soilis Prime at full speed. He expected nothing more than some treacherous mortals wanting to break free from the Imperial hold, knowing that the mortals would want nothing more than to betray their master. The thought sickened him, filled him with anger even, yet he was under Father Usriel’s orders to protect them so long as they remained loyal. The chapter master adjusted himself as he walked out of the bridge, moving to the armory to pray to the machine spirits of his weapons.
[APPROXIMATELY ONE AND A HALF HOURS LATER]
With the radio silence of Soilis Prime, Chapter Master Arikiba took another attempt at communication to the planet that was now below them after the ship had exited warp travel. He decided to relay his message to the planetary capital in an attempt to get some form of confirmation that some mortal may be paying attention. His voice this time sounded in frustration, “Chapter Master Arikiba to Soilis Prime, does anyone acknowledge?”
Some moments passed in silence before a reply broke through the vox.
“This is Overseer Medejal of the Planetary Directorate. Welcome to Soilis, my lord. It is an honor to speak with one of our Imperial Excellency’s great legionaries.” Despite the rote formality of his words, the man at the other end of the transmitter had a sharpness in his voice that seemed unusual for a high official. Then again, the roughness of the galactic frontier often bred equally rough temperaments. “I understand you caught our vox to Secundus. We would be immensely grateful if an officer of your stature considered the situation worthy of his precious time.” He paused for a moment. “It might be a matter of Imperial security.”
“Report on the nature of the transmission, mortal,” the Chapter Master ordered, speaking in a tone of near blatant disgust that had become all too common for the Steel Sentinels when they talk to one the unaugmented humans.
“Reinforcements, my lord,” Medejal cut to the heart of the matter. With the preambles out of the way, his speech became even more crisp and businesslike. “We keep a limited defense force, to manage lapses of discipline in our workers and suppress resurgences of the - alien menace, from a few decades ago.”
“Orks?” Arikiba questioned.
“Kenazir, your excellency.” Though mangled by the Overseer’s accent, the name of the Kynazar, the alien horrors that had swept through the Segmentum until broken four decades prior, was recognisable enough. “Stray packs somehow emerge from the wilds to raid our quarries to this day. Filthy beasts, but nothing our militias can’t handle. The outpost in our transmission, however, it sounds like it’s been overwhelmed. We don’t know how it could be possible, but a threat like that is beyond our forces, and your fellow esteemed legionaries have not responded to our calls for assistance.”
“Fellow legionaries?” The Sentinel master asked, his tone shifting into genuine curiosity over the vox. He mulled over the possibilities of who could be patrolling these fringe spaces. Arikiba continued, “Surely, it couldn’t be the Daughters of Iron, their kind would have swarmed your planet like a plague at the first sign of a child’s complaint.”
“Not daughters, excellency. They were men - I think.” For the first time, Medejal’s voice gained a tinge of uncertainty. “I never saw their faces, or heard their voices. They barely acknowledged us when they arrived some two local months ago, just showed us a chart of where they’d be setting up, off the coast in that quadrant. Their heraldry, it was an animal, like a… A kanker. They would be in an ideal place to intervene now, but we don’t know if they’re receiving our communications at all.”
Arikiba took a moment, thinking through the words of the overseer’s voice as the connections came into his mind. “The Abyssal Lurkers?” he questioned absentmindedly, a slight uncomfortable feeling coming over him at that thought. The chapter master knew next to nothing of the legion, nothing that would even point to why they would be at the fringe planet outside of the Obscuris Segmentum. For whatever reason they were here, it was beyond the Chapter Master.
“Regardless of what the Abyssal Lurkers are doing, you’d be happy to know that we had come and not them. Relay us the coordinates and set all of your militia to battle readiness,” Arikiba ordered, looking over and nodding to a brother who spoke into his own vox.
“We are greatly thankful that our mighty Imperium’s finest are ready to come to our aid,” came the obsequious reply. Moments later, a mechanically precise recitation of a set of surface coordinated followed through the aether.
“Chapter Master Arikiba, out,” The Astartes said, ending the transmission and marching off to join some of the First Company. Thunderhawks were ready for them at the hanger, loaded with fortification supplies and their forces. Two full squads would deploy with them, along with the veterans who guarded the Chapter Master, adding to their firepower was a heavy weapons group, an Achilles Land Raider, and one of the venerable ancients. It would be more than enough to secure the outpost, so long as they could get their own landing site secured then they could drive away this xenos menace. Of course, should Arikiba believe that the situation may be untenable, then what is another dead planet to the Imperium’s records?
The thunderhawks silently flew through the vacuum of space, making its way to the coordinates of the outpost. The neophytes looked to each other, the blue hum of the plasma guns illuminating the inside of the ship as the silence overtook them. Their leaders inspected them, putting the proper precautions into place and making sure they were ready for the trials ahead of them. Within those minutes the doors to the thunderhawks opened and the squads rushed into the snow filled outpost, erecting a line of aegis and quickly welding together a bunker with the help of a Tech-marine. Some dug a trench into the earth, hastily, but enough.
Arikiba, stepped out and inspected the work neophytes, marching along the inside of their hastily erected post just next to the outpost. A fine example of what the Sentinels were known for, yet, he noticed that there was no stirring from inside of the outpost throughout the minutes of them erecting their post. It was silent, no soul to match their own presence.
“Where are the mortals of this station?” Arikiba asked himself.
“Perhaps eaten by the xenos, chapter master?” the tech-marine speculated as he walked up behind his leader.
“But then where are the xenos? Surely they would have torn down the outpost in its entirety? There isn’t any sign of blood nor even a true conflict for the area isn’t touched by weaponry or supply,” Arikiba answered, crossing his arms as he walked into the outpost proper.
As if on cue, the bitter wind blowing from the direction of the not too distant sea stirred with a new sound among the light churn of the waves. It was a howl, a roar, a screech of an impossibly large locust, fused together in a chilling echo. As it wound through the curious arcuate stone formations that stood at the edge of the outpost, it splintered and resonated among the rocks, turning into a terrible chorus. And, seconds later, a true chorus followed. Scores of snarls, hisses and chitterings washed over the Sentinels’ position, together with a pungent, sickening smell, a stench that did not resemble anything a human tongue could name.
Arikiba froze in place and looked in the direction of that abominable noise, seeming that the xenos had not quite abandoned the area quite yet. Yet, they could see a small form walking to them from behind an arched rock, bearing a black suit and a skull with a massive lens on its side. The tech marine raised his rifle, though the Chapter Master motioned for him to lower it, knowing that this being was no foe, even though a feeling of unease washed over the Astartes.
“You have disturbed them, Astartes,” the form called out, stopping a few paces from the Steel Sentinel positions. The human looked them up and down, before continuing to walk towards them, “Luckily, I need something to draw the beasts out.”
“Who are you, mortal?” Arikiba asked.
“A hunter,” the human said simply before continuing, “I am here for the same reason you are, but know that the Kynazar are trying to call out to something.”
“Call out to what?” The Astartes questioned in a condescending tone.
“I know not, all I know is that I must kill their psychic bio-forms before they can,” the assassin stated, looking over his shoulder as another chorus of animalistic screeches filled the air. Walking past the Astartes, he continued, “I will help you, Astartes.”
The chapter master watched as the human walked past the trench and stood behind an outcropping of rocks between the bunker and trench, silently watching the center of the outpost before Arikiba barked orders for the Sentinels to ready themselves. Veterans took up the center, the heavy weapons mounted themselves in the bunker, a squad of marines took up their positions in the trenches whilst another braced against the left wing of the aegis defense line. The tech-marine shuffled over to the Land Raider, praying to the machine spirit within it whilst the venerable dreadnought stood just outside the formation, in front of the marines at the aegis line.
“Steel yourselves, for we shall hold until the eagle’s death,” the Chapter Master called out his mind surveying the possibilities of what could come rushing at them. However, his mind focused on the now silence, no animalistic roars or distant snarls were heard in the air.
The xenos would be upon them.
In a moment, the ground around the stone arch was astir with movement. It was not clear where the creatures had come from - such was the suddenness of their appearance that it seemed as though they could have burst out from the earth itself. A veritable tide of chitin-bound horrors surged forth towards the Astartes’ position, hideous beings leaping like locusts upon their six legs, but each as large as a man and bristling with organic blades that were little more than extensions of their limbs. There was something reptilian in their snarling, wide-mouthed snouts, but their eyes were not those of mere beasts. Eerily incongruous with the gnashing maws over which they sat, they shone with a cunning and awareness too great for such base beings, as if they were driven by an inner will utterly disproportionate to their frames.
Trudging in their wake, other, more menacing aberrations towered over the alien throng. Three massive xeno-beasts, each half as large as the Land Raider itself, pawed hungrily at the ground and drooled corrosive ooze from mouths like forests of teeth. Many-limbed, encased in bastions of living carapace and snapping great scything claws, there was a vague air of familiarity about them, as if they were a grotesque perversion of an innocuous shape the Sentinels had seen more than once, but whose details were buried under a mass of overgrown flesh. Similar intimations of recognition hovered about those monstrosities that stood upright on two or four legs, smaller yet imposing enough to rival a space marine. Only glimpses of them could be seen as they slunk into cover behind the deserted buildings, but their dark organic armour and their bearing as they wielded their outlandish weapons of bone and muscle gave them the look of nightmarish reflections of the enhanced warriors of mankind.
It was thus all the more jarring when the last wave of xenos came into sight. There was nothing in these beings, evidently the leaders of the horde as the lesser brutes smoothly parted before their advance, that ever so remotely resembled the human form. More than anything, they were like brains, cancerously bloated clumps of neural matter suspended over larval, atrophied bodies and held aloft by sheer psychic might. Some were about the size of an Astartes, their heads triangular masks of bone ending in sneering jaws, while others, far larger, had no features but a mass of writhing tentacles, and breathed out pale-green clouds of noxious spores that rolled across the ground, obscuring vision. A sense of unnatural weight and dizziness washed over the Sentinels as the creatures hovered closer, the emanations of their psionic force instilling a palpable wrongness into the energies that underlay the material universe that could be felt even by unawakened minds.
Yet the worst was still to come, for the oppressive mental presence only grew stronger as a massive shape emerged among the xenos’ rear ranks. Little could be seen of it through the noxious fog, but it was clearly enormous, perhaps twice as large as a Terminator. Like the more humanoid alien warriors, it walked upright, though the similarities with the Terran form ended there: it had four arms, bearing an arsenal of blades and living cannons, and its head was crested like that of the psyker-beasts.
The giant abomination motioned forward with one of its swords and bellowed, and the horde sprang ahead like a single body. Swarms of the loping vermin rushed against the center of the barricades, lashing out with a hail of talons. Skulking monsters raised their grisly weapons and fired long, lethally sharp bone shards that unfolded steering membranes in mid-air and converged towards vulnerable openings as if possessed of minds of their own. The clawed juggernauts levelled barrels of their own and spewed hails of writhing worms oozing with acidic slime. Behind the first wave of the assault, the lesser floating horrors inched forth, firing barrages of azure bio-lightning, as they sought to gain a slight elevation at the center of the encampment.
The small beasts had been upon the center in an instant, the veterans unable to even get a volley off and only being able to throw a grenade out as the others braced against the Aegis to prevent the xenos from breaking their line. Their forms crashed into the walls, their talons attempting to reach the Astartes, but unable to breach their armor. Meanwhile the veterans, still bracing against the Aegis, pulled out their combat knives and stabbed through the creatures only managing to kill a few while the xenos that did not die regenerated their wounds. Luckily, the lightning met only the outside of the aegis.
Yet, not all conflict was bloodless for the Sentinels, as those in the hastily dug trench found two of their own paled into the ground they dug by spines as tall as them. Two neophytes were instantly dead, not knowing their deaths would have come so quick into the conflict.
But then, the Sentinel force unleashed their hell onto the monstrous forms behind the first tide of vermin, plasma cannons hitting the side of the great lumbering ones and laying one low. One of those that spewed the dark, obscuring cloud found itself reduced into nothing more than a pile of viscera by the amount of fire it sustained. Only then, did the hunter strike, peeking from behind the rocks to open his baleful eye and unleash a wave of anti-psyker energies at those that leisurely floated closer to them.
Despite the dents carved into their numbers, the xenos showed no signs of relenting. The lurking warriors spat their living projectiles again and again, and though some glanced off the heavy armour of the Astartes’ emplacements, more continued to strike down among the trenches. The second great horror, uncaring of the fate that had befallen its twin, charged the earthworks on the right flank, sweeping its monstrous claws through the assembled neophytes with astonishing swiftness for something so heavy.
Though enfeebled by the assassin’s exotic device, the lower psy-beasts managed to gain ground, shrouded from the Astartes’ fire by a field of invisible force. Their leader, marked by jagged bone ridges on its back, suddenly diverted its attention from the foe. The waves of energy emanating from it grew fainter, as though they were no longer turned ahead but outward, towards the heavens. Its subordinate organisms gathered around it to form a living barrier, all while keeping their gazes on the foremost swarm, whose wounds continued in places to close as quickly as they were struck.
Those in the trench fell quickly, being ripped apart by the combined fire of the spines and the living weaponry of the massive beast, yet, they held. Firing back against the beast, along with the devastators within the bunker, quickly rendering the beast nothing more than a pile of slag. The dreadnought fired a volley into the swarm rounding the buildings on their left flank, cutting them down as they ran before firing a heavy plasma cannon into the floating abominations. The cannon’s mechanism hissed and clicked before letting loose a gout of steam sprayed back against the dreadnought, damaging some of its optical sensors in the process.
“Asmodel! You dishonor the legion by overheating you weapon,” the chapter master screamed over the torrent of the battlefield before ordering the veterans to shoot the abominations on the aegis.
The veterans followed their orders, pulling up their plasma rifles and firing point blank into the tide of vermin, cutting many down, though some regenerating their wounds and even more still pouring to the aegis. Meanwhile the squad behind them fired into the floating beasts, along with some from the Achilles and the assassin, many of their volleys impacting on invisible shield but all the same the volume of fire focused solely upon them.
Under the barrage, the creatures’ immaterial defenses began at last to yield. The shroud of warped space shuddered for a second, and one of the lesser neuro-larvae was immediately incinerated by a plasma bolt, chitin and swollen flesh crumpling to ash under the cleansing flame. Another was struck by a glancing bolt, leaving a scorched mark in its side. Yet it was a lapse of but a moment, and the surviving horrors raised their barrier once anew. Behind them, the greater psy-beast’s focus could almost be physically felt, the all-pervading sense of unease rising to a harrowing pitch as its mental emissions reached their peak.
More and more of the monstrosities fell, but it was by now evident the will driving them was beyond that of any foe encountered by mankind. Heedless of their own survival, they leapt and trampled over their own corpses, like instruments directed at the singular task of inflicting as much damage as possible before their inevitable demise. Though Asmodel’s fire had thinned the pack that attempted to circumvent the Sentinels’ main defenses, the rest of it came charging from behind the deserted buildings all the same, swiftly closing the space between themselves and the ancient. Behind them came trudging a maniple of the armoured warrior organisms, who unleashed a salvo of living projectiles and crystallized venom. Fortunately, the barricades held, and the brunt of it was broken by well-positioned armour.
Near the center of the outpost, a third wave of the locust-like swarmers began to pour out into the open, seeking to gain the already ravaged trench. Behind them, the gigantic leader of the horde was finally coming into view. It truly was a chilling vision, ghoulish, insectile, reptilian, yet in a way sinisterly human in spite of its many limbs and snarling visage.
And all the while, the bombardment of arcing bone shards continued unabated, denting armour and spilling blood.
Seeing the beasts close upon the flanks, the Chapter Master spoke into his vox, “Ordering Orbital Strike on coordinates 4QFJ 12345 67890.” The plasma fire and screeches of dying aliens and neophytes alike filled his vox to a degree near unheard. The neophytes at the barricaded wall of the left flank fired upon the trudging masses behind the wall of snarling teeth, while the dreadnought attempted to fire upon that moving wall.
The Achilles, having its machine spirits awoken, pointed all its secondary weapons at the psychic beasts that formed a wall, pouring shot after shot of endless fire into their forms while the automated weaponry of the defenses finally engaged them as well. All the while the pouring fire of the devastators and the gaze of the assassin continued to pour into that psychic wall.
Then, a roaring noise shook the ground as the bombardment of the ship in orbit finally came down, killing some of those who hid behind the buildings, nearly destroying them in the process with how close the bombardment came. Caught by surprise at first, the xenos however were quick to rally. As bombs whistled through the air, the carapace-armoured warriors stopped in their tracks, sending out a psychic surge that seemed to galvanize the rushing pack ahead of them. The creatures’ movements became a blur, blindingly fast yet perfectly coordinated. Ineffably aware of where exactly the blasts would erupt, they scattered and regrouped like quicksilver, so that of the great swarm only a handful perished before closing in on their foes. The warriors were less fortunate - having remained still to issue their mental imperative, one was obliterated by the orbital strike, and several others bled foul ichor from shrapnel wounds.
At the heart of the outpost, the tide of the battle had begun to turn in the Sentinels’ favour. The chief psy-beast, gunfire blooming around it, had reached the culmination of its focus, and a shadow of alien thoughts briefly tore through the minds of the nearest marines as it unleashed a soundless scream into the ether. Yet after that a portion of the psychic weight clouding the entire battlefield was lifted, and the creature’s purpose seemed to be spent. Its force barriers faltered, and it fell smouldering to the concentrated fire, its scions following soon after.
Seeing this, the behemoth that guided the xenos force began to advance in person, snarling and shaking the ground with every step. The mass of leapers that swarmed ahead of it crouched down, preparing for a bounding charge across the battlefield, though leaving itself exposed for a moment.
Then, the wave that had crashed with the veterans fell with a final volley from the plasma rifles leaving no allies close enough to reinforce the vermin that engaged the ancient one, who was stomping upon them as they tried to get through its armor. More shots rang, focusing upon the vermin at the feet of the behemoth. From behind the great beast, a light shimmered as the forms of Terminators came through, stepping out into the battlefield already firing upon the floating beast that spewed cloud who lingered behind a building.
As more of the larger beasts were felled and scattered, the psychic presence that covered the xeno ranks faded further, and the thronging locusts began to waver. Those surrounding the dreadnought seemed to have lost their unnatural courage, and with nothing to direct them fell into the savagery of wild animals. Some continued to fruitlessly snap and lash at the sarcophagus in blind rage, but others wavered and turned away, disappearing into the snowdrifts or being cut down by the gunlines as they fled. The last of those ramming themselves against the barricades were swept away by a concerted volley, the final wave scrambling to take their place all while more bodies dropped among it.
A surge of mental command radiated from the colossal abomination, who was now gaining upon the center, and the cannon-wielding horrors ceased to harrow the entrenched Astartes to instead turn their weapons against the Terminators. In spite of their armour, some were struck. The last remaining great clawed monster, who was trying to round a building, abruptly turned about and trampled back, gathering momentum for a charge against the newly arrived reinforcements.
The Chapter Master raised his sword aloft at the sight of the Terminators, “The time is now Sentintels! Charge, in the name of the Omnissiah!”
The Astartes let out a cry of battle as they surged forwards with newfound confidence, their weaponry sweeping away the rest of the rodents with ease as the rest of their heavier weaponry focused between the great beast on the remaining psychic one. A great cacophony of explosions rang out as the plasma cannons met their marks and the lascannons fired. Missiles from one of the Terminators fired out to the great beast as they marched to ensure the beast had no escape.
By then few of the xeno horrors were standing besides the giant itself, and under the barrage of fires from all directions it too began to bleed. Projectiles were turned aside by its living armour, and plasma blasts dispersed against its psionic barrier, but it could not fully stem the flow. Burns and gashes on its body faded as its flesh reknit itself through unnatural force of vitality, but not fast enough. As the last of the psychic brood was disintegrated near it, the colossus likely sensed that its own end was near. With a frightful roar it charged at the Chapter Master himself, and power sword locked with blades of bone as it sought to slay the greatest of its enemies in a final act of fury.
The Chapter Master steeled himself, readying himself to face the great beast until he saw a dark form running up upon the rock face. A bright, iridescent light shown from behind the tyrannical beast and its own psychic power went against it, until it let out a terrible shriek as it attempted to meet the Chapter Master in battle only to fall at the feet of the Astartes. As the light dimmed, the form of the assassin became clear as the eye of his mask closed, looking upon his query. Before the Astartes could do anything, the assassin hopped off the rock face and began walking off. Then, the beasts that had remained back let out a multitude of roars and screeches, running off now that the head had been cut down.
Arikiba looked at the dreadnought, “Hunt them down in recompense for treating your weaponry in improper fashion, venerable one.”
“As you wish, Chapter Master. They shall die a thousand deaths,” the voice of the dreadnought boomed, stomping off to follow the beasts.
“Begin searching the outpost for information,” Arikiba ordered, looking to the Techmarine, who silently nodded and walked towards the main outpost building, his servo-arm whirling behind him as the Chapter Master looked upon the survivors, an entire squad nearly wiped out and the Terminators, now walking towards him, had suffered dearly.
“They ran off, Chapter Master. We are sorry for allowing them to run. We underestimated their capabilities,” the Sargeant stated, bowing his head in disappointment.
“Worry not, the beast would have fled had you not cut it off,” Arikiba said, stepping past them and allowing the others to take a moment of respite before he followed the Tech-Marine.
Though the outpost’s buildings had suffered from the engagement, most of the damage was at a superficial level, and the auspex and data systems within were still mostly operational. The rudimentary security safeguards, based on systems widely in use by the Imperial Army, were not difficult to bypass. Most of the information within was of little interest: garrison records, meteorological observations and the like. However, some entries made within the period that coincided with the last two local months mentioned by the Overseer leapt to the Techmarine’s senses. They were logs of a nearby supply line that seemed to have been established by a not better identified Legio Astartes complement, purpose undisclosed. The dutifully compiled records showed that the unnamed detachment had, with servitor assistance, been transporting cargo from a nearby orbit-ground landing zone to the coast. First construction materials, then unmarked sealed crates. No clear destination had been marked, but an estimated set of coordinates placed the convoys’ endpoint in the sea itself.
Besides that, no further clues shone any light over what had happened at YZ-202, or what connection the Ninth Legion may have had to any of that. Nothing, that was, until one of the Sentinel roving parties examined one of the smaller outlying buildings, likely an equipment depot. There, sprawled on the floor, was a suit of powered armour painted in the colours of the Abyssal Lurkers, with the markings of a tactical marine. It was undamaged, yet missing its helmet, and empty save for some fresh stains of blood and viscous ichor, disturbingly similar to what had spilled from the xenos’ wounds during the battle.
“Have that brought back to the ship,” The Chapter Master ordered to the techmarine before speaking into his vox, “I want a full thunderhawk search over the eastern seas and contact made with the Abyssal Lurkers, immediately.”
The Astartes Master walked out of the building, where he stood with his sword pointed into the ground, hands resigning upon the hilt where he waited for his transport. There were many questions that were going in his mind, though his mission had been completed and after the investigation had been finished they would leave this planet. That of course barred any abnormalities that they would have found. But it seemed that the world had yielded its full share of strangeness for that day. Nothing emerged above the waves, neither at the marked point nor anywhere nearby, nor was there any response to the repeated vox-hails. Whatever the warriors of the Ninth had been doing there, it was evident they had carried that secret to their untimely graves.
[TIME UNKNOWN - NO LINK WITH VERIFIED SOURCES FOUND]
The atmospheric cargo transporter touched down upon the snowy ground with a crunch. Had it arrived earlier - by days? weeks? - its rugged, weathered brown hull would not have seemed out of place on the rocky terrain, exposed by the venting and radiating thermal force of copious plasma fire. The winter was stiff, however, and such traces of the battle had been once again buried beneath a cold white shroud, against whose surface the vehicle stood out like the intruder it was. It was not uncommon for craft such as these to be employed by prospectors as they searched for more veins of the ores in which Soilis Prime was rich, and none had questioned its presence as it crossed the skies; yet it was undoubtedly strange that a crew which had just recently arrived planetside would travel here of all places.
The rear door opened with a clang, and a throng of figures spilled out. They had clearly not come unprepared for the planet’s inclement weather, draped as they were in heavy coats, scarves that concealed most of their faces and padded hats and helmets. Less readily explainable were the welding and engineering goggles that many of them wore, and the fact that each of them carried a stubber or simple lasrifle, wielded with a hunched and circumspect air that made them look more like heavily armed underhivers than soldiers. They spread in a semicircle around the transport, warily scanning the area, then one of them nodded and made a gesture at the interior of the aircraft as if to give the all-clear.
More shapes emerged from the cargo doors, but if the ones that had come before were to all appearances human, these seemed to have come from a different world altogether. They crawled across the ground on four or all six limbs, sharp tongues probing the air. They bore no weapons, but it was evident enough that they needed none. Their claws looked as though they could shred through the most robust of armour, and indeed as they moved the tracks they left in the snow dug deeper to leave small gouges in the rocky soil.
Behind them came a single tall, lean shadow, which as it stepped into the grey daylight resolved itself into an imposing man clad in sumptuous robes of purple. Despite his monstrous entourage, there was nothing in him that suggested he was anything less than human, besides perhaps a hint of a bony ridge at the fore of his perfectly bald head - but such a minuscule detail could easily be overlooked, for there was a subtle air in him and his bearing which instinctively induced trust and reverence. In his hand he bore a staff intricately adorned with spiraling patterns of silver, a great amethyst stone resting at its tip.
His hypnotically deep, dark eyes ran over the abandoned outpost. No forces had yet moved to reclaim it, not had any attempt been made to paint over the scorch marks left by stray blasts, nor restructure the building whose walls had been partly blasted open by the orbital strike. Mounds of snow had begun to form in its exposed interior.
“It’s here,” the man spoke in a commanding, yet almost reverent voice, like a priest raising a solemn invocation before the altar of his temple, “The Saviors have touched this place, I can feel it. The vision was true.” He turned his gaze up to the horizon, where the sea rustled and breathed just beyond view. “There’s still something echoing that way. Follow me.”
He set off at a brisk pace, holding his staff aloft to lead the way rather than leaning upon it. The armed troop walked in a circle around him, glancing around them and holding their weapons at the ready, while the xeno creatures crept and loped by his side. They crossed the trenches where, unbeknownst to them, Astartes had held back the rage of the outer void, paused at the spot where the psy-beast had issued its call, then walked away from the outpost at its opposite end, cresting the mild hills that lay beyond it.
The sea was there, at the foot of a low gravelly slope, grey and opaque like a rippling, flowing mirror. It splashed lazily against the shoreline, as if, like life on the planet, it was weighed down by the cold. The leader of the group imperiously pointed forward, and one of the creeping monsters sauntered down to the water before smoothly diving into it with barely any sound, uncaring or impervious to the chill altogether. All was quiet for one, two, five minutes, the armed escort looking nervously over their shoulders all the while, even as their leader remained untroubled and placidly stared ahead at the leaden waves. Then a surging wave, and the xeno resurfaced, clambering back onto the shore. It shared a glance with the leader, wordless meaning passing between the two, then crouched and turned back towards the sea.
Something else was emerging from the waters. A crest of sharp ridges, tubular pillars of chitin surmounting a domed spiny shell. Underneath it, a head like an oblong skull, bony and membranous, tapering into hungrily grasping tendrils. Pulsing sacs and bladed limbs, marked by scorched wounds of battle. Below it all, a long, wormlike tail. The creature utterly dwarfed the group as it stood suspended above the gently stirring sea, held aloft by no visible force.
Without so much as an exclamation of awe or surprise, the armed guards fell to their knees, eyes fixed upon the thing as it slowly writhed in place before them. The xenos slightly lowered themselves upon their limbs, but they made no such overt gesture of obeisance. The leader bowed his head reverently, murmuring something in an indecipherable language, then gingerly extended his left hand forward, fingers reaching towards the being. It continued to twist and oscillate for a moment, then raised the lower end of its tail, bringing its tip to touch against the proffered digits. Thoughts passed from a mind that was alien to one that was not quite human, and both slowly withdrew.
“The Star Saviors have been here,” he whispered, confident that his acolytes would hear him - and so they did, “The ignorant cattle of the Imperium struck them down, except for this shard. But they didn’t come of their own will, they were brought forth from the dead - no, not by our brothers. The Imperium’s primes, the legionaries. Why, I don’t know. The Gods absolved them of their sins, let them become one. Now they too are dead, but the call we heard has gone to their brethren. Like us, they will follow it. We must warn the Grandsire, our brothers. Let’s go.”
He turned about sharply and began to stride back towards where he had left the aircraft. The Kynazar creature was already ahead of him, drifting smoothly through the air as if it knew perfectly where it had to go. The guards rose to their feet in haste and hurried behind, and the xenos bounded after them, quickly outpacing them on their many limbs.
The sea was left behind, breathing and murmuring as though naught had happened out of the ordinary. It had seen many things over the aeons.
Elsewhere…
Veryan’s eyes opened as the fragmentary images subsided in his mind. It was not the custom of his forays into the deeper reaches of the consensus to bring him dreamlike visions, indeed quite the opposite, for the Lord Progenitor, long may his aeon be!, had seen to devising the Path so that it would rid its aspirants of such frivolities. Yet he was not in the least surprised when his immersion into the unmoving stygian pits of spiritual truth had been invaded by flashes of sight and muted sound. It was not difficult for him to recognise the intrusion for what it was, not a heretofore unknown burst of enlightenment, but a message, a summons through the immaterial from a mind far away.
The nature of that mind was more than a riddle. The animus of a Herald of Silence was warded against the clumsy, unclean touch of such spirits that were not attuned to the intrinsic purpose that was revealed through introspective discipline. It could thus have been no one else than one of his brothers, one of his very disciples. And yet, at the same time, the thoughts that had brushed his own were tinged with a peculiar shade, a depth, coldness and multiplicity he had never felt in the human-born. He let his gaze sink into the abyssal blackness visible beyond the mouth of his cave, his inner senses converging onto the question as the outer ones were untroubled by any stimulus.
There was something of the xeno in the psychic call, that much was unmistakable. Still, the thought did not incite the revulsion that would have been natural at such a realization. Not only of the xeno, but something that had been absorbed into it, something familiar. He reflected on what beings he knew that were capable of such subjugation. The Slaught were different, their touch viscid and verminous. The Khrave were awning pits of querulous, insatiable hunger. Not so this focused, ominous chorus-within-one. The more he pondered, the more he grew convinced that there was nothing like it he had ever met that he had not consigned to oblivion once its source was vanquished. Except perhaps… Yes. It could only be that.
The Grand Herald rose from his meditative posture and heavily strode out of the small cavernous chamber. With the hand of the ocean ever pressing upon one’s limbs, there was no room for haste in the depths. Every step, every motion had to be methodical, reasoned and deliberate. He rested his foot on the narrow ledge outside the entrance, the only thing separating the cave from the immeasurable chasm that opened beyond the sea-mount at whose edge he now stood and reached down to one of the deepest points of Carcinus’ waters. It was always sobering to know that he was but a misstep of an inch away from being forever claimed by the sightless trench. With a practiced movement, he rotated his body, bringing both his feet onto the outcropping, and began to descend the gently sloping path it formed around the tip of the rock wall. Time had no meaning in the deep, and thus it was maybe soon, maybe long before he at last rounded the ledge fully and came into view of that most familiar span of seafloor.
Dotted with thickets of kelp and small reefs, the Plains of Erebus stretched to the distant foot of the looming sea-shelf slope far in the distance, like an ensorcelled land under an eternal starless night. Jagged forms on long, spindly legs roamed about in the darkness, sifting through the lower murk or nibbling on the algal growths. Among them roamed armoured figures with staves of office, herding them with mere exertions of will or sitting on the ground, practicing the art of subsuming the lesser consciousnesses into their own. Off at the further end rose the basalt spires of Dis, the mighty fortress-monastery, yet he would not have to walk so far. The one he sought should have been out upon the Plains at that time.
With the same steady gait, Veryan made his way among the pillars of coral and forests of seaweed, among stalking charybdes and faceless acolytes. None gave a sign of having so much as seen him, absorbed as they were in their duties. Guided by memory more than by his withered psychic intuition, he parted a cluster of thick-stemmed growths and approached an Astartes hunched over a swarm of scavenger shrimp that darted around the carcass of a large seawurm. This was a place where currents carried many a dying beast, and, when outside his Apothecarion, Terech Ormis could often be found there, puzzling over the carrion-feeders of the abyss.
Sensing his movement through the water, the Fleshweaver half-turned over, his insectoid mask glancing over his shoulder.
Another of your seeds has given fruit, Veryan signed, Maybe not how you wanted.
Ormis spun about fully. Which? he asked with his needled fingers.
The Herald made a curious gesture that was not part of any code, a semicircle slightly angled to the side and ending in a loop. Awoken. Outcome unknown.
Come, you must tell me. The Fleshweaver, having wholly lost interest in the shrimp, began to walk in the direction of the distant citadel. Veryan fell into step behind him.
We will need eyes on place. Eyes, and hands.
Location: Outpost YZ-202, Soilis Prime, Soilis System, Segmentum Pacificus.
Date: 7.821.952.M30
Parties Involved: Chapter Detachment of the Steel Sentinels; Kynazar remnants.
“This is Soilis Prime, Transmission Post Y -Y-205. I repeat, Post Y - Y-205, coordinates -” the next words were lost in a burst of Warp disturbance of the sort that occasionally plagued long-range vox transmissions from field casters. “-rime to Soilis Secundus. Hostile activity detected at Outpost YZ-202 today at -” another static burst, “-trol from Outpost YZ-200 sent to investigate, all contact lost. Auspex scans ineffective, hostiles believed to be using jamming devices. Requesting reinfo-” The message cut off again, this time for good.
The communications rang through the ship, alerting the Chapter Master, that was staring into the void, that some pitiful welps required aid. The Chapter Master looked to a helmsman and ordered, “Clean up that transmission and prepare a response.”
The helmsman silently did his job, merely nodding to the Astartes to notify him that he was transmitting to Soilis Prime, “This is Chapter Master Arikiba of the Steel Sentinels to Soilis Prime, if you can hear me, we are en route to reinforce. Respond, if you can acknowledge this transmission.”
The Sentinel ended the transmission before looking over to one of his brothers, ordering “Prepare first company to prepare for battle, all other companies shall await until we know what threat we face.”
Arikiba looked over the void once more as the crew silently changed the ship’s course to bring them to Soilis Prime at full speed. He expected nothing more than some treacherous mortals wanting to break free from the Imperial hold, knowing that the mortals would want nothing more than to betray their master. The thought sickened him, filled him with anger even, yet he was under Father Usriel’s orders to protect them so long as they remained loyal. The chapter master adjusted himself as he walked out of the bridge, moving to the armory to pray to the machine spirits of his weapons.
[APPROXIMATELY ONE AND A HALF HOURS LATER]
With the radio silence of Soilis Prime, Chapter Master Arikiba took another attempt at communication to the planet that was now below them after the ship had exited warp travel. He decided to relay his message to the planetary capital in an attempt to get some form of confirmation that some mortal may be paying attention. His voice this time sounded in frustration, “Chapter Master Arikiba to Soilis Prime, does anyone acknowledge?”
Some moments passed in silence before a reply broke through the vox.
“This is Overseer Medejal of the Planetary Directorate. Welcome to Soilis, my lord. It is an honor to speak with one of our Imperial Excellency’s great legionaries.” Despite the rote formality of his words, the man at the other end of the transmitter had a sharpness in his voice that seemed unusual for a high official. Then again, the roughness of the galactic frontier often bred equally rough temperaments. “I understand you caught our vox to Secundus. We would be immensely grateful if an officer of your stature considered the situation worthy of his precious time.” He paused for a moment. “It might be a matter of Imperial security.”
“Report on the nature of the transmission, mortal,” the Chapter Master ordered, speaking in a tone of near blatant disgust that had become all too common for the Steel Sentinels when they talk to one the unaugmented humans.
“Reinforcements, my lord,” Medejal cut to the heart of the matter. With the preambles out of the way, his speech became even more crisp and businesslike. “We keep a limited defense force, to manage lapses of discipline in our workers and suppress resurgences of the - alien menace, from a few decades ago.”
“Orks?” Arikiba questioned.
“Kenazir, your excellency.” Though mangled by the Overseer’s accent, the name of the Kynazar, the alien horrors that had swept through the Segmentum until broken four decades prior, was recognisable enough. “Stray packs somehow emerge from the wilds to raid our quarries to this day. Filthy beasts, but nothing our militias can’t handle. The outpost in our transmission, however, it sounds like it’s been overwhelmed. We don’t know how it could be possible, but a threat like that is beyond our forces, and your fellow esteemed legionaries have not responded to our calls for assistance.”
“Fellow legionaries?” The Sentinel master asked, his tone shifting into genuine curiosity over the vox. He mulled over the possibilities of who could be patrolling these fringe spaces. Arikiba continued, “Surely, it couldn’t be the Daughters of Iron, their kind would have swarmed your planet like a plague at the first sign of a child’s complaint.”
“Not daughters, excellency. They were men - I think.” For the first time, Medejal’s voice gained a tinge of uncertainty. “I never saw their faces, or heard their voices. They barely acknowledged us when they arrived some two local months ago, just showed us a chart of where they’d be setting up, off the coast in that quadrant. Their heraldry, it was an animal, like a… A kanker. They would be in an ideal place to intervene now, but we don’t know if they’re receiving our communications at all.”
Arikiba took a moment, thinking through the words of the overseer’s voice as the connections came into his mind. “The Abyssal Lurkers?” he questioned absentmindedly, a slight uncomfortable feeling coming over him at that thought. The chapter master knew next to nothing of the legion, nothing that would even point to why they would be at the fringe planet outside of the Obscuris Segmentum. For whatever reason they were here, it was beyond the Chapter Master.
“Regardless of what the Abyssal Lurkers are doing, you’d be happy to know that we had come and not them. Relay us the coordinates and set all of your militia to battle readiness,” Arikiba ordered, looking over and nodding to a brother who spoke into his own vox.
“We are greatly thankful that our mighty Imperium’s finest are ready to come to our aid,” came the obsequious reply. Moments later, a mechanically precise recitation of a set of surface coordinated followed through the aether.
“Chapter Master Arikiba, out,” The Astartes said, ending the transmission and marching off to join some of the First Company. Thunderhawks were ready for them at the hanger, loaded with fortification supplies and their forces. Two full squads would deploy with them, along with the veterans who guarded the Chapter Master, adding to their firepower was a heavy weapons group, an Achilles Land Raider, and one of the venerable ancients. It would be more than enough to secure the outpost, so long as they could get their own landing site secured then they could drive away this xenos menace. Of course, should Arikiba believe that the situation may be untenable, then what is another dead planet to the Imperium’s records?
The thunderhawks silently flew through the vacuum of space, making its way to the coordinates of the outpost. The neophytes looked to each other, the blue hum of the plasma guns illuminating the inside of the ship as the silence overtook them. Their leaders inspected them, putting the proper precautions into place and making sure they were ready for the trials ahead of them. Within those minutes the doors to the thunderhawks opened and the squads rushed into the snow filled outpost, erecting a line of aegis and quickly welding together a bunker with the help of a Tech-marine. Some dug a trench into the earth, hastily, but enough.
Arikiba, stepped out and inspected the work neophytes, marching along the inside of their hastily erected post just next to the outpost. A fine example of what the Sentinels were known for, yet, he noticed that there was no stirring from inside of the outpost throughout the minutes of them erecting their post. It was silent, no soul to match their own presence.
“Where are the mortals of this station?” Arikiba asked himself.
“Perhaps eaten by the xenos, chapter master?” the tech-marine speculated as he walked up behind his leader.
“But then where are the xenos? Surely they would have torn down the outpost in its entirety? There isn’t any sign of blood nor even a true conflict for the area isn’t touched by weaponry or supply,” Arikiba answered, crossing his arms as he walked into the outpost proper.
As if on cue, the bitter wind blowing from the direction of the not too distant sea stirred with a new sound among the light churn of the waves. It was a howl, a roar, a screech of an impossibly large locust, fused together in a chilling echo. As it wound through the curious arcuate stone formations that stood at the edge of the outpost, it splintered and resonated among the rocks, turning into a terrible chorus. And, seconds later, a true chorus followed. Scores of snarls, hisses and chitterings washed over the Sentinels’ position, together with a pungent, sickening smell, a stench that did not resemble anything a human tongue could name.
Arikiba froze in place and looked in the direction of that abominable noise, seeming that the xenos had not quite abandoned the area quite yet. Yet, they could see a small form walking to them from behind an arched rock, bearing a black suit and a skull with a massive lens on its side. The tech marine raised his rifle, though the Chapter Master motioned for him to lower it, knowing that this being was no foe, even though a feeling of unease washed over the Astartes.
“You have disturbed them, Astartes,” the form called out, stopping a few paces from the Steel Sentinel positions. The human looked them up and down, before continuing to walk towards them, “Luckily, I need something to draw the beasts out.”
“Who are you, mortal?” Arikiba asked.
“A hunter,” the human said simply before continuing, “I am here for the same reason you are, but know that the Kynazar are trying to call out to something.”
“Call out to what?” The Astartes questioned in a condescending tone.
“I know not, all I know is that I must kill their psychic bio-forms before they can,” the assassin stated, looking over his shoulder as another chorus of animalistic screeches filled the air. Walking past the Astartes, he continued, “I will help you, Astartes.”
The chapter master watched as the human walked past the trench and stood behind an outcropping of rocks between the bunker and trench, silently watching the center of the outpost before Arikiba barked orders for the Sentinels to ready themselves. Veterans took up the center, the heavy weapons mounted themselves in the bunker, a squad of marines took up their positions in the trenches whilst another braced against the left wing of the aegis defense line. The tech-marine shuffled over to the Land Raider, praying to the machine spirit within it whilst the venerable dreadnought stood just outside the formation, in front of the marines at the aegis line.
“Steel yourselves, for we shall hold until the eagle’s death,” the Chapter Master called out his mind surveying the possibilities of what could come rushing at them. However, his mind focused on the now silence, no animalistic roars or distant snarls were heard in the air.
The xenos would be upon them.
In a moment, the ground around the stone arch was astir with movement. It was not clear where the creatures had come from - such was the suddenness of their appearance that it seemed as though they could have burst out from the earth itself. A veritable tide of chitin-bound horrors surged forth towards the Astartes’ position, hideous beings leaping like locusts upon their six legs, but each as large as a man and bristling with organic blades that were little more than extensions of their limbs. There was something reptilian in their snarling, wide-mouthed snouts, but their eyes were not those of mere beasts. Eerily incongruous with the gnashing maws over which they sat, they shone with a cunning and awareness too great for such base beings, as if they were driven by an inner will utterly disproportionate to their frames.
Trudging in their wake, other, more menacing aberrations towered over the alien throng. Three massive xeno-beasts, each half as large as the Land Raider itself, pawed hungrily at the ground and drooled corrosive ooze from mouths like forests of teeth. Many-limbed, encased in bastions of living carapace and snapping great scything claws, there was a vague air of familiarity about them, as if they were a grotesque perversion of an innocuous shape the Sentinels had seen more than once, but whose details were buried under a mass of overgrown flesh. Similar intimations of recognition hovered about those monstrosities that stood upright on two or four legs, smaller yet imposing enough to rival a space marine. Only glimpses of them could be seen as they slunk into cover behind the deserted buildings, but their dark organic armour and their bearing as they wielded their outlandish weapons of bone and muscle gave them the look of nightmarish reflections of the enhanced warriors of mankind.
It was thus all the more jarring when the last wave of xenos came into sight. There was nothing in these beings, evidently the leaders of the horde as the lesser brutes smoothly parted before their advance, that ever so remotely resembled the human form. More than anything, they were like brains, cancerously bloated clumps of neural matter suspended over larval, atrophied bodies and held aloft by sheer psychic might. Some were about the size of an Astartes, their heads triangular masks of bone ending in sneering jaws, while others, far larger, had no features but a mass of writhing tentacles, and breathed out pale-green clouds of noxious spores that rolled across the ground, obscuring vision. A sense of unnatural weight and dizziness washed over the Sentinels as the creatures hovered closer, the emanations of their psionic force instilling a palpable wrongness into the energies that underlay the material universe that could be felt even by unawakened minds.
Yet the worst was still to come, for the oppressive mental presence only grew stronger as a massive shape emerged among the xenos’ rear ranks. Little could be seen of it through the noxious fog, but it was clearly enormous, perhaps twice as large as a Terminator. Like the more humanoid alien warriors, it walked upright, though the similarities with the Terran form ended there: it had four arms, bearing an arsenal of blades and living cannons, and its head was crested like that of the psyker-beasts.
The giant abomination motioned forward with one of its swords and bellowed, and the horde sprang ahead like a single body. Swarms of the loping vermin rushed against the center of the barricades, lashing out with a hail of talons. Skulking monsters raised their grisly weapons and fired long, lethally sharp bone shards that unfolded steering membranes in mid-air and converged towards vulnerable openings as if possessed of minds of their own. The clawed juggernauts levelled barrels of their own and spewed hails of writhing worms oozing with acidic slime. Behind the first wave of the assault, the lesser floating horrors inched forth, firing barrages of azure bio-lightning, as they sought to gain a slight elevation at the center of the encampment.
The small beasts had been upon the center in an instant, the veterans unable to even get a volley off and only being able to throw a grenade out as the others braced against the Aegis to prevent the xenos from breaking their line. Their forms crashed into the walls, their talons attempting to reach the Astartes, but unable to breach their armor. Meanwhile the veterans, still bracing against the Aegis, pulled out their combat knives and stabbed through the creatures only managing to kill a few while the xenos that did not die regenerated their wounds. Luckily, the lightning met only the outside of the aegis.
Yet, not all conflict was bloodless for the Sentinels, as those in the hastily dug trench found two of their own paled into the ground they dug by spines as tall as them. Two neophytes were instantly dead, not knowing their deaths would have come so quick into the conflict.
But then, the Sentinel force unleashed their hell onto the monstrous forms behind the first tide of vermin, plasma cannons hitting the side of the great lumbering ones and laying one low. One of those that spewed the dark, obscuring cloud found itself reduced into nothing more than a pile of viscera by the amount of fire it sustained. Only then, did the hunter strike, peeking from behind the rocks to open his baleful eye and unleash a wave of anti-psyker energies at those that leisurely floated closer to them.
Despite the dents carved into their numbers, the xenos showed no signs of relenting. The lurking warriors spat their living projectiles again and again, and though some glanced off the heavy armour of the Astartes’ emplacements, more continued to strike down among the trenches. The second great horror, uncaring of the fate that had befallen its twin, charged the earthworks on the right flank, sweeping its monstrous claws through the assembled neophytes with astonishing swiftness for something so heavy.
Though enfeebled by the assassin’s exotic device, the lower psy-beasts managed to gain ground, shrouded from the Astartes’ fire by a field of invisible force. Their leader, marked by jagged bone ridges on its back, suddenly diverted its attention from the foe. The waves of energy emanating from it grew fainter, as though they were no longer turned ahead but outward, towards the heavens. Its subordinate organisms gathered around it to form a living barrier, all while keeping their gazes on the foremost swarm, whose wounds continued in places to close as quickly as they were struck.
Those in the trench fell quickly, being ripped apart by the combined fire of the spines and the living weaponry of the massive beast, yet, they held. Firing back against the beast, along with the devastators within the bunker, quickly rendering the beast nothing more than a pile of slag. The dreadnought fired a volley into the swarm rounding the buildings on their left flank, cutting them down as they ran before firing a heavy plasma cannon into the floating abominations. The cannon’s mechanism hissed and clicked before letting loose a gout of steam sprayed back against the dreadnought, damaging some of its optical sensors in the process.
“Asmodel! You dishonor the legion by overheating you weapon,” the chapter master screamed over the torrent of the battlefield before ordering the veterans to shoot the abominations on the aegis.
The veterans followed their orders, pulling up their plasma rifles and firing point blank into the tide of vermin, cutting many down, though some regenerating their wounds and even more still pouring to the aegis. Meanwhile the squad behind them fired into the floating beasts, along with some from the Achilles and the assassin, many of their volleys impacting on invisible shield but all the same the volume of fire focused solely upon them.
Under the barrage, the creatures’ immaterial defenses began at last to yield. The shroud of warped space shuddered for a second, and one of the lesser neuro-larvae was immediately incinerated by a plasma bolt, chitin and swollen flesh crumpling to ash under the cleansing flame. Another was struck by a glancing bolt, leaving a scorched mark in its side. Yet it was a lapse of but a moment, and the surviving horrors raised their barrier once anew. Behind them, the greater psy-beast’s focus could almost be physically felt, the all-pervading sense of unease rising to a harrowing pitch as its mental emissions reached their peak.
More and more of the monstrosities fell, but it was by now evident the will driving them was beyond that of any foe encountered by mankind. Heedless of their own survival, they leapt and trampled over their own corpses, like instruments directed at the singular task of inflicting as much damage as possible before their inevitable demise. Though Asmodel’s fire had thinned the pack that attempted to circumvent the Sentinels’ main defenses, the rest of it came charging from behind the deserted buildings all the same, swiftly closing the space between themselves and the ancient. Behind them came trudging a maniple of the armoured warrior organisms, who unleashed a salvo of living projectiles and crystallized venom. Fortunately, the barricades held, and the brunt of it was broken by well-positioned armour.
Near the center of the outpost, a third wave of the locust-like swarmers began to pour out into the open, seeking to gain the already ravaged trench. Behind them, the gigantic leader of the horde was finally coming into view. It truly was a chilling vision, ghoulish, insectile, reptilian, yet in a way sinisterly human in spite of its many limbs and snarling visage.
And all the while, the bombardment of arcing bone shards continued unabated, denting armour and spilling blood.
Seeing the beasts close upon the flanks, the Chapter Master spoke into his vox, “Ordering Orbital Strike on coordinates 4QFJ 12345 67890.” The plasma fire and screeches of dying aliens and neophytes alike filled his vox to a degree near unheard. The neophytes at the barricaded wall of the left flank fired upon the trudging masses behind the wall of snarling teeth, while the dreadnought attempted to fire upon that moving wall.
The Achilles, having its machine spirits awoken, pointed all its secondary weapons at the psychic beasts that formed a wall, pouring shot after shot of endless fire into their forms while the automated weaponry of the defenses finally engaged them as well. All the while the pouring fire of the devastators and the gaze of the assassin continued to pour into that psychic wall.
Then, a roaring noise shook the ground as the bombardment of the ship in orbit finally came down, killing some of those who hid behind the buildings, nearly destroying them in the process with how close the bombardment came. Caught by surprise at first, the xenos however were quick to rally. As bombs whistled through the air, the carapace-armoured warriors stopped in their tracks, sending out a psychic surge that seemed to galvanize the rushing pack ahead of them. The creatures’ movements became a blur, blindingly fast yet perfectly coordinated. Ineffably aware of where exactly the blasts would erupt, they scattered and regrouped like quicksilver, so that of the great swarm only a handful perished before closing in on their foes. The warriors were less fortunate - having remained still to issue their mental imperative, one was obliterated by the orbital strike, and several others bled foul ichor from shrapnel wounds.
At the heart of the outpost, the tide of the battle had begun to turn in the Sentinels’ favour. The chief psy-beast, gunfire blooming around it, had reached the culmination of its focus, and a shadow of alien thoughts briefly tore through the minds of the nearest marines as it unleashed a soundless scream into the ether. Yet after that a portion of the psychic weight clouding the entire battlefield was lifted, and the creature’s purpose seemed to be spent. Its force barriers faltered, and it fell smouldering to the concentrated fire, its scions following soon after.
Seeing this, the behemoth that guided the xenos force began to advance in person, snarling and shaking the ground with every step. The mass of leapers that swarmed ahead of it crouched down, preparing for a bounding charge across the battlefield, though leaving itself exposed for a moment.
Then, the wave that had crashed with the veterans fell with a final volley from the plasma rifles leaving no allies close enough to reinforce the vermin that engaged the ancient one, who was stomping upon them as they tried to get through its armor. More shots rang, focusing upon the vermin at the feet of the behemoth. From behind the great beast, a light shimmered as the forms of Terminators came through, stepping out into the battlefield already firing upon the floating beast that spewed cloud who lingered behind a building.
As more of the larger beasts were felled and scattered, the psychic presence that covered the xeno ranks faded further, and the thronging locusts began to waver. Those surrounding the dreadnought seemed to have lost their unnatural courage, and with nothing to direct them fell into the savagery of wild animals. Some continued to fruitlessly snap and lash at the sarcophagus in blind rage, but others wavered and turned away, disappearing into the snowdrifts or being cut down by the gunlines as they fled. The last of those ramming themselves against the barricades were swept away by a concerted volley, the final wave scrambling to take their place all while more bodies dropped among it.
A surge of mental command radiated from the colossal abomination, who was now gaining upon the center, and the cannon-wielding horrors ceased to harrow the entrenched Astartes to instead turn their weapons against the Terminators. In spite of their armour, some were struck. The last remaining great clawed monster, who was trying to round a building, abruptly turned about and trampled back, gathering momentum for a charge against the newly arrived reinforcements.
The Chapter Master raised his sword aloft at the sight of the Terminators, “The time is now Sentintels! Charge, in the name of the Omnissiah!”
The Astartes let out a cry of battle as they surged forwards with newfound confidence, their weaponry sweeping away the rest of the rodents with ease as the rest of their heavier weaponry focused between the great beast on the remaining psychic one. A great cacophony of explosions rang out as the plasma cannons met their marks and the lascannons fired. Missiles from one of the Terminators fired out to the great beast as they marched to ensure the beast had no escape.
By then few of the xeno horrors were standing besides the giant itself, and under the barrage of fires from all directions it too began to bleed. Projectiles were turned aside by its living armour, and plasma blasts dispersed against its psionic barrier, but it could not fully stem the flow. Burns and gashes on its body faded as its flesh reknit itself through unnatural force of vitality, but not fast enough. As the last of the psychic brood was disintegrated near it, the colossus likely sensed that its own end was near. With a frightful roar it charged at the Chapter Master himself, and power sword locked with blades of bone as it sought to slay the greatest of its enemies in a final act of fury.
The Chapter Master steeled himself, readying himself to face the great beast until he saw a dark form running up upon the rock face. A bright, iridescent light shown from behind the tyrannical beast and its own psychic power went against it, until it let out a terrible shriek as it attempted to meet the Chapter Master in battle only to fall at the feet of the Astartes. As the light dimmed, the form of the assassin became clear as the eye of his mask closed, looking upon his query. Before the Astartes could do anything, the assassin hopped off the rock face and began walking off. Then, the beasts that had remained back let out a multitude of roars and screeches, running off now that the head had been cut down.
Arikiba looked at the dreadnought, “Hunt them down in recompense for treating your weaponry in improper fashion, venerable one.”
“As you wish, Chapter Master. They shall die a thousand deaths,” the voice of the dreadnought boomed, stomping off to follow the beasts.
“Begin searching the outpost for information,” Arikiba ordered, looking to the Techmarine, who silently nodded and walked towards the main outpost building, his servo-arm whirling behind him as the Chapter Master looked upon the survivors, an entire squad nearly wiped out and the Terminators, now walking towards him, had suffered dearly.
“They ran off, Chapter Master. We are sorry for allowing them to run. We underestimated their capabilities,” the Sargeant stated, bowing his head in disappointment.
“Worry not, the beast would have fled had you not cut it off,” Arikiba said, stepping past them and allowing the others to take a moment of respite before he followed the Tech-Marine.
Though the outpost’s buildings had suffered from the engagement, most of the damage was at a superficial level, and the auspex and data systems within were still mostly operational. The rudimentary security safeguards, based on systems widely in use by the Imperial Army, were not difficult to bypass. Most of the information within was of little interest: garrison records, meteorological observations and the like. However, some entries made within the period that coincided with the last two local months mentioned by the Overseer leapt to the Techmarine’s senses. They were logs of a nearby supply line that seemed to have been established by a not better identified Legio Astartes complement, purpose undisclosed. The dutifully compiled records showed that the unnamed detachment had, with servitor assistance, been transporting cargo from a nearby orbit-ground landing zone to the coast. First construction materials, then unmarked sealed crates. No clear destination had been marked, but an estimated set of coordinates placed the convoys’ endpoint in the sea itself.
Besides that, no further clues shone any light over what had happened at YZ-202, or what connection the Ninth Legion may have had to any of that. Nothing, that was, until one of the Sentinel roving parties examined one of the smaller outlying buildings, likely an equipment depot. There, sprawled on the floor, was a suit of powered armour painted in the colours of the Abyssal Lurkers, with the markings of a tactical marine. It was undamaged, yet missing its helmet, and empty save for some fresh stains of blood and viscous ichor, disturbingly similar to what had spilled from the xenos’ wounds during the battle.
“Have that brought back to the ship,” The Chapter Master ordered to the techmarine before speaking into his vox, “I want a full thunderhawk search over the eastern seas and contact made with the Abyssal Lurkers, immediately.”
The Astartes Master walked out of the building, where he stood with his sword pointed into the ground, hands resigning upon the hilt where he waited for his transport. There were many questions that were going in his mind, though his mission had been completed and after the investigation had been finished they would leave this planet. That of course barred any abnormalities that they would have found. But it seemed that the world had yielded its full share of strangeness for that day. Nothing emerged above the waves, neither at the marked point nor anywhere nearby, nor was there any response to the repeated vox-hails. Whatever the warriors of the Ninth had been doing there, it was evident they had carried that secret to their untimely graves.
[TIME UNKNOWN - NO LINK WITH VERIFIED SOURCES FOUND]
The atmospheric cargo transporter touched down upon the snowy ground with a crunch. Had it arrived earlier - by days? weeks? - its rugged, weathered brown hull would not have seemed out of place on the rocky terrain, exposed by the venting and radiating thermal force of copious plasma fire. The winter was stiff, however, and such traces of the battle had been once again buried beneath a cold white shroud, against whose surface the vehicle stood out like the intruder it was. It was not uncommon for craft such as these to be employed by prospectors as they searched for more veins of the ores in which Soilis Prime was rich, and none had questioned its presence as it crossed the skies; yet it was undoubtedly strange that a crew which had just recently arrived planetside would travel here of all places.
The rear door opened with a clang, and a throng of figures spilled out. They had clearly not come unprepared for the planet’s inclement weather, draped as they were in heavy coats, scarves that concealed most of their faces and padded hats and helmets. Less readily explainable were the welding and engineering goggles that many of them wore, and the fact that each of them carried a stubber or simple lasrifle, wielded with a hunched and circumspect air that made them look more like heavily armed underhivers than soldiers. They spread in a semicircle around the transport, warily scanning the area, then one of them nodded and made a gesture at the interior of the aircraft as if to give the all-clear.
More shapes emerged from the cargo doors, but if the ones that had come before were to all appearances human, these seemed to have come from a different world altogether. They crawled across the ground on four or all six limbs, sharp tongues probing the air. They bore no weapons, but it was evident enough that they needed none. Their claws looked as though they could shred through the most robust of armour, and indeed as they moved the tracks they left in the snow dug deeper to leave small gouges in the rocky soil.
Behind them came a single tall, lean shadow, which as it stepped into the grey daylight resolved itself into an imposing man clad in sumptuous robes of purple. Despite his monstrous entourage, there was nothing in him that suggested he was anything less than human, besides perhaps a hint of a bony ridge at the fore of his perfectly bald head - but such a minuscule detail could easily be overlooked, for there was a subtle air in him and his bearing which instinctively induced trust and reverence. In his hand he bore a staff intricately adorned with spiraling patterns of silver, a great amethyst stone resting at its tip.
His hypnotically deep, dark eyes ran over the abandoned outpost. No forces had yet moved to reclaim it, not had any attempt been made to paint over the scorch marks left by stray blasts, nor restructure the building whose walls had been partly blasted open by the orbital strike. Mounds of snow had begun to form in its exposed interior.
“It’s here,” the man spoke in a commanding, yet almost reverent voice, like a priest raising a solemn invocation before the altar of his temple, “The Saviors have touched this place, I can feel it. The vision was true.” He turned his gaze up to the horizon, where the sea rustled and breathed just beyond view. “There’s still something echoing that way. Follow me.”
He set off at a brisk pace, holding his staff aloft to lead the way rather than leaning upon it. The armed troop walked in a circle around him, glancing around them and holding their weapons at the ready, while the xeno creatures crept and loped by his side. They crossed the trenches where, unbeknownst to them, Astartes had held back the rage of the outer void, paused at the spot where the psy-beast had issued its call, then walked away from the outpost at its opposite end, cresting the mild hills that lay beyond it.
The sea was there, at the foot of a low gravelly slope, grey and opaque like a rippling, flowing mirror. It splashed lazily against the shoreline, as if, like life on the planet, it was weighed down by the cold. The leader of the group imperiously pointed forward, and one of the creeping monsters sauntered down to the water before smoothly diving into it with barely any sound, uncaring or impervious to the chill altogether. All was quiet for one, two, five minutes, the armed escort looking nervously over their shoulders all the while, even as their leader remained untroubled and placidly stared ahead at the leaden waves. Then a surging wave, and the xeno resurfaced, clambering back onto the shore. It shared a glance with the leader, wordless meaning passing between the two, then crouched and turned back towards the sea.
Something else was emerging from the waters. A crest of sharp ridges, tubular pillars of chitin surmounting a domed spiny shell. Underneath it, a head like an oblong skull, bony and membranous, tapering into hungrily grasping tendrils. Pulsing sacs and bladed limbs, marked by scorched wounds of battle. Below it all, a long, wormlike tail. The creature utterly dwarfed the group as it stood suspended above the gently stirring sea, held aloft by no visible force.
Without so much as an exclamation of awe or surprise, the armed guards fell to their knees, eyes fixed upon the thing as it slowly writhed in place before them. The xenos slightly lowered themselves upon their limbs, but they made no such overt gesture of obeisance. The leader bowed his head reverently, murmuring something in an indecipherable language, then gingerly extended his left hand forward, fingers reaching towards the being. It continued to twist and oscillate for a moment, then raised the lower end of its tail, bringing its tip to touch against the proffered digits. Thoughts passed from a mind that was alien to one that was not quite human, and both slowly withdrew.
“The Star Saviors have been here,” he whispered, confident that his acolytes would hear him - and so they did, “The ignorant cattle of the Imperium struck them down, except for this shard. But they didn’t come of their own will, they were brought forth from the dead - no, not by our brothers. The Imperium’s primes, the legionaries. Why, I don’t know. The Gods absolved them of their sins, let them become one. Now they too are dead, but the call we heard has gone to their brethren. Like us, they will follow it. We must warn the Grandsire, our brothers. Let’s go.”
He turned about sharply and began to stride back towards where he had left the aircraft. The Kynazar creature was already ahead of him, drifting smoothly through the air as if it knew perfectly where it had to go. The guards rose to their feet in haste and hurried behind, and the xenos bounded after them, quickly outpacing them on their many limbs.
The sea was left behind, breathing and murmuring as though naught had happened out of the ordinary. It had seen many things over the aeons.
Elsewhere…
Veryan’s eyes opened as the fragmentary images subsided in his mind. It was not the custom of his forays into the deeper reaches of the consensus to bring him dreamlike visions, indeed quite the opposite, for the Lord Progenitor, long may his aeon be!, had seen to devising the Path so that it would rid its aspirants of such frivolities. Yet he was not in the least surprised when his immersion into the unmoving stygian pits of spiritual truth had been invaded by flashes of sight and muted sound. It was not difficult for him to recognise the intrusion for what it was, not a heretofore unknown burst of enlightenment, but a message, a summons through the immaterial from a mind far away.
The nature of that mind was more than a riddle. The animus of a Herald of Silence was warded against the clumsy, unclean touch of such spirits that were not attuned to the intrinsic purpose that was revealed through introspective discipline. It could thus have been no one else than one of his brothers, one of his very disciples. And yet, at the same time, the thoughts that had brushed his own were tinged with a peculiar shade, a depth, coldness and multiplicity he had never felt in the human-born. He let his gaze sink into the abyssal blackness visible beyond the mouth of his cave, his inner senses converging onto the question as the outer ones were untroubled by any stimulus.
There was something of the xeno in the psychic call, that much was unmistakable. Still, the thought did not incite the revulsion that would have been natural at such a realization. Not only of the xeno, but something that had been absorbed into it, something familiar. He reflected on what beings he knew that were capable of such subjugation. The Slaught were different, their touch viscid and verminous. The Khrave were awning pits of querulous, insatiable hunger. Not so this focused, ominous chorus-within-one. The more he pondered, the more he grew convinced that there was nothing like it he had ever met that he had not consigned to oblivion once its source was vanquished. Except perhaps… Yes. It could only be that.
The Grand Herald rose from his meditative posture and heavily strode out of the small cavernous chamber. With the hand of the ocean ever pressing upon one’s limbs, there was no room for haste in the depths. Every step, every motion had to be methodical, reasoned and deliberate. He rested his foot on the narrow ledge outside the entrance, the only thing separating the cave from the immeasurable chasm that opened beyond the sea-mount at whose edge he now stood and reached down to one of the deepest points of Carcinus’ waters. It was always sobering to know that he was but a misstep of an inch away from being forever claimed by the sightless trench. With a practiced movement, he rotated his body, bringing both his feet onto the outcropping, and began to descend the gently sloping path it formed around the tip of the rock wall. Time had no meaning in the deep, and thus it was maybe soon, maybe long before he at last rounded the ledge fully and came into view of that most familiar span of seafloor.
Dotted with thickets of kelp and small reefs, the Plains of Erebus stretched to the distant foot of the looming sea-shelf slope far in the distance, like an ensorcelled land under an eternal starless night. Jagged forms on long, spindly legs roamed about in the darkness, sifting through the lower murk or nibbling on the algal growths. Among them roamed armoured figures with staves of office, herding them with mere exertions of will or sitting on the ground, practicing the art of subsuming the lesser consciousnesses into their own. Off at the further end rose the basalt spires of Dis, the mighty fortress-monastery, yet he would not have to walk so far. The one he sought should have been out upon the Plains at that time.
With the same steady gait, Veryan made his way among the pillars of coral and forests of seaweed, among stalking charybdes and faceless acolytes. None gave a sign of having so much as seen him, absorbed as they were in their duties. Guided by memory more than by his withered psychic intuition, he parted a cluster of thick-stemmed growths and approached an Astartes hunched over a swarm of scavenger shrimp that darted around the carcass of a large seawurm. This was a place where currents carried many a dying beast, and, when outside his Apothecarion, Terech Ormis could often be found there, puzzling over the carrion-feeders of the abyss.
Sensing his movement through the water, the Fleshweaver half-turned over, his insectoid mask glancing over his shoulder.
Another of your seeds has given fruit, Veryan signed, Maybe not how you wanted.
Ormis spun about fully. Which? he asked with his needled fingers.
The Herald made a curious gesture that was not part of any code, a semicircle slightly angled to the side and ending in a loop. Awoken. Outcome unknown.
Come, you must tell me. The Fleshweaver, having wholly lost interest in the shrimp, began to walk in the direction of the distant citadel. Veryan fell into step behind him.
We will need eyes on place. Eyes, and hands.