'Understood.'
The vox crackled with gunfire. 'Commander!' came Chaplain Iktinos's voice. 'The heathens have assaulted with armour. We are engaging.'
Iktinos was cut off before Sarpedon could reply, the sky past the facility flashing scarlet with Tyren-dian's psychic lightning.
Sergeant Luko's voice came over the vox a second later. 'Tellos is counter-attacking, sir. We can't hold him back, we're advancing to give his men covering fire.'
'Do it, Luko. Just don't get cut off, they're coming in everywhere.'
'Understood.’
So battle was joined. Sarpedon knew the Hell would be little use against the mindless hordes at the forefront of the attack. He let the psychic circuit die down to a faint dull glow against his skin and holstered the force staff on his back.
'Dyon, bring your men forward and engage. We'll throw them against the men behind them. Pass the order on, give me solid rapid fire and cover the assault squads.'
Dyon ran forward through the growing storm of las-fire, his Marines snapping bolter shots off at the hordes that were even now breaking into a run as they began to charge.
Sarpedon followed, cycling through the vox-traffic, ready to intervene when a flashpoint erupted. He could feel the psychic feedback like a million buzzing insects as Gresk started to quicken the reactions and thought speed of the Marines around him and Tyrendian continued to fling mental artillery at the forces charging the rear of the facility.
This was where the future of the Soul Drinkers would be won or lost. He checked the magazine in his bolter, and drew the Soulspear.
TETURACT'S SHIP WAS a ragged skeleton around him, sheets of hull flapping uselessly like torn skin, the inner decks exposed like the cells of a beehive, bleeding the living dead into the upper atmosphere. The ship was shedding its last few scales, and Tetu-ract willed his wizards down to the surface one by one where they could direct the battle and lend the power of their minds to the vastness of his horde.
There was a sudden flare of power far below, right in the heart of the growing battle. It coincided with a flare of hatred and grim determination as the two sides met, tinged with a delectable joy as someone who loved bloodshed charged into the fray. But the flare of power remained, hard and bright, something old and powerful and tinted by the taste of humanity A relic, a weapon, the presence of which suggested that someone down there could be powerful enough to put a dent in Teturact's glorious army.
That could not be allowed. And furthermore, it was in itself a disadvantage. Because Teturact could see it, a bright black light on the surface of Stratix Luminae, and if he could see it then he could deal with it personally.
His brute-mutants, drifting aimlessly since the ship's gravity had given way, were drawn to him to act as bearers once more. They lifted Teturact's wizened body onto their broad shoulders and with a thought he willed them downwards, through the disintegrating body of the ship, and into the upper atmosphere of the planet.
The freezing, thin air whipped around him as he descended, extinguishing the fear flickering in the bovine minds of his brute-mutants. His senses flowed out and he saw the tiny force, just a few hundred Marines, surrounded by the legions of his loyal worshippers. Where the two forces met combat blazed and the hot, spicy taste of lives lost flooded the wreckage of the battlefield. The Marines could fight, but the fire of that combat would eventually consume them. With the wizards even now landing amongst their flock, Teturact had more than enough raw manpower to make it happen.
The hard nugget of raw power shone directly beneath him. Teturact smiled, if it could be called a smile, and plummeted downwards.
TWELVE
MUTATION HAD RUN unchecked through the stores of sample tissue for ten years. The lower basement had been full of refrigeration units containing sheets of cultured skin and cylindrical slabs of artificial muscle and, when containment broke down the unleashed half-humans absorbed it all. Now there was barely any difference between the individual organisms - several had joined into huge gestalt creatures and, aside from the strongest who had left them so long ago, they thought with one mind.
They had been starving for some time. Now, they were hungry. In the lab floor just below the surface, many were loose, and at last they had some new game on which to prey.
Sergeant Salk hacked down with his chainsword and severed a long, articulated tentacle-limb as it tried to wrap itself around Techmarine Solun's throat. The beast reared up twice as tall as a Marine, its head a writhing knot of tendrils surrounding a round muscular lamprey's mouth, its body a pulsating column of oozing muscle. Its head touched the low vaulted roof of the dark, nightmarish laboratory before it bellowed and crashed down on the spot where Solun had lain a moment before.
Salk dragged the techmarine aside just in time. Both Solun's legs were gone, chewed off by the same beast that had swallowed half of Salk's squad. The beast thundered in rage as it lumbered forward - Salk jabbed at the gaping maw and stabbing tentacles, keeping the thing at bay as Solun tried to fend off the claws of its lower limbs.
The lab floor was a nightmare. The vaulted ceiling was crusted and discoloured. Banks of corroded machinery and shorted-out command consoles provided scores of hiding places for mutant creatures and obstacles for the Marines. Bolter shells were zipping across the room and globs of brackish mutant blood spattered from gunshot wounds and chainblades. Salk's own chainblade was so clotted with gore that its motor whined and smoked angrily. The lights were out and the gauze of filth and corruption that lay over everything cut down the visibility like fog, so that all Salk could see were huge mutant forms looming all around and glimpses of his battle-brothers in muzzle flashes and the detonations of grenades. The din was terrible, gunfire and bestial howls, the crack of fractured ceramite and the cries of the dying.
It was all but impossible to keep cohesive. The vox I was distorted and near-useless. Salk's own squad was scattered, many of them dead, others wounded. Brother Karrick would be lucky to keep the arm that had been mangled by something unspeakable that struck from above. Salk knew that any of them would be lucky to get out alive.
There was a flash of white armour and Apothecary Pallas was diving onto the beast from behind, punching his carnifex gauntlet through the mutant's hide. The array of chemical vials emptied through the gauntlet's injector spike and a black stain of necrotic tissue spread. The huge mutant convulsed, forcing Pallas to hold on to avoid being thrown across the room. Salk ducked forward and drove his chainblade into the mutant's head, again and again, feeling the weapon's motor straining under the weight of tissue clotted around its teeth.
The beast stopped thrashing. Pallas rolled off it and landed beside Solun, the white sections of his armour now dark and slick with corrupted blood.
Thank you, brother.’ gasped Salk.
'Don't thank me yet,' replied Pallas. 'We still have to get onto the containment level. That's where the samples will be kept.’
'Where's Karraidin?'
'Down. He and his squad are making a stand but they're trapped. Graevus is holding the way down but he can't make it without help. Lygris is with them, trying to get the blast doors open.' Pallas used one of his few remaining vials to inject Solun with powerful painkillers and coagulants, restricting the blood flow to his ruined legs.
'I'll take what men I can and help out Graevus.’ said Salk. He looked down at Solun.
'I'll do what I can here.’ replied Pallas.
'They'll need you down there.’ said Solun, his voice weakening. 'There isn't much you can do for me, Pallas.’
'I can stabilise you so we can pick you up on the way out. We need you alive.’