The Beast Arises

With an alien roar, the big ork boss took the firing toggle of the Salamander’s pintle-mounted storm bolter and blazed at the Terminators as the vehicle beneath it filled the air with fumes. The cry was answered by something more palatable, but just barely.

They were human mouths.

Soldiers in what looked like local militia fatigues, with crossed axes daubed over their flak vests and unit identifiers branded into their shaven heads, charged over the broken wall after their tank. Las-fire lashed the rumbling production line and by sheer volume forced the Fists Exemplar into cover. A las-bolt scorched Galen’s faceplate and sent him stumbling behind a conveyer.

Tosque moved protectively in front of his brother, took aim at the Salamander and, with a furious blast of white heat, unleashed the single-shot plasma charge of his combi-weapon. The crackling discharge struck under the light tank’s armour skirt and shredded its tracks. Links flapping, it slewed off to one side and crashed into a giant steel hopper that fed one part of the conveyer network. The mistreated hopper split up the side and spewed thousands of litres of partially-cleaned bone fragments and flesh scraps over the revving tank.

Reoch growled some choice words of approval. Zerberyn did not register them. In his horror — no, in the white roar of his fury — he had not taken a shot since the arrival of the human troops.

More were running in behind the wreck. Battalion strength. Maybe more. They had no hair, no teeth and their bodies marked with brands and maltreatment. This was humanity’s fate. This was why the orks waited for Terra’s surrender rather than simply levelling the world as they had Ardamantua, Eidolica, and a thousand others. They did not want another conquest.

They wanted a client race.

A trillion times a trillion, the citizens of the Imperium were numberless beyond count. As individuals they were negligible, to a certain mindset disposable even, but as a whole they were humanity. They were the gene-seed of Holy Terra, where He dwelt in His incorruptible glory.

Unbidden, the image filled his mind of the xenos breaking Eternity Gate, sweeping through the Sanctum Imperialis, and hauling the Emperor from His Golden Throne.

No. No!

He would virus-bomb every last world more than a week from Terra if that was what it took to end this. He would do it personally.

With a wordless snarl he advanced into the las-storm, flipping his pistol’s shot selector to rapid fire and mowing armour-piercing rounds through the lightly-armoured troopers. Troopers? Traitors. The outcome was bloody overkill and better than they deserved.

Around him, meanwhile, the orks’ pincers closed.

Tosque and Antille stood back-to-back, rocks of rugged grey where reds, yellows and black-and-whites crashed over, and with Exemplar stubbornness refused to give ground. Inhuman voices bellowed. Servos screamed. Bolters were abandoned now in favour of knives and fists.

Reoch pulled Galen to his feet. The latter shook a jam from his bolter, then emptied what was left of the clip into the onrushing horde. The first to reach him went down with a boltgun smashed through the side of its skull, but after that there were too many mobbing in to be sure what was being done to whom.

The battle-brother’s rune in Zerberyn’s visor display went dark.

Only the Iron Warriors were still firing. The Terminators were mobile firebases, arms outstretched, wrist-mounted combi-bolters kicking out a remorseless torrent of firepower whether there was an ork in front of their tusked helms or not.

A jet of flame flooded over the Terminators, burning promethium lighting the Traitor Space Marines up like devils as the orks’ dreadnought stomped towards them.

Beating a gold-armoured ork into the ground with a downwards smash of his hammer, Zerberyn shoulder-crushed through the mob of traitor auxiliaries to peel off three shots into the advancing dreadnought. Mass-reactive rounds splashed across a barrier of rigid blue force an inch above the walker’s yellow-and-black plate.

His heart sank.

A void shield. How could something that size generate the power to sustain a void shield?

He was dully aware of the low-calibre hits stinging his armour. System alerts rather than true pain. His adrenal glands were working too hard to let him feel that. His multi-lung had taken over long ago, pumping furiously to purge the acidity from his muscles.

The orks had taken his world from him: he would rather be damned than let the orks take this one too. But, using his battle instinct and survival, he allowed himself to consider that there might be no victory. The orks were too overwhelming, too powerful, their advantages too great even for the Adeptus Astartes to overcome.

A massive fireball rippled over the ruptured skylight.