The trio of marines returning from the Comm-Tower can now only hear their own laboring respiration and the repetitious crunch of snow underfoot as they sprint downhill toward the battle. Skirting the edge of an icy defile, they begin a loping descent along the edge of the glacial moraine, trying to temper their haste with the risk of sliding the rest of the way down the hillside.
Hrothgar sees them with his naked eye, for Brother Emeric they are a quick series of chimes, followed by a shining blip on his internal augur overlay. Glancing skyward they can both see that a flight of the winged xenos at the fore of the massive swarm are beginning to turn as one, pinioned wings folding inward to re-orient themselves toward the southern plateau. As the brother-marines watch, the black blot begins to resolve itself into dozens of individual gargoyles, the larger, wasp-like outlines of at least four shrikes dwarfing their smaller kin in the flock.
They begin their steep dive, the lesser Tyranid firing their bio-weapons while the shrikes plummet for the chaotic fray atop the southern plateau.
Brother Sepheren kicks and cuts at the tide with his chainsword, the hormagaunts scuttling over their own dead to reach the apothecary.
Brother Sepheren is simply overwhelmed as the skittering 'Nids clamber over him, scratching and prying relentlessly at his armor, he feels the barbed spines on one of the creatures legs dig deeply into his skin, even as he slashes the chainsword through the throng.
Even as the massive talon rakes across his armor, the Dark Angel must contend with the clicking mouthparts and scrabbling claws of the hormagaunts surging across his legs. Kicking at them as he tries to back away to more defensible ground, he cuts several in half that move too close, but they continue unabated just the same.
The barbed-winged gargoyles wheel about, aiming their grotesque fleshborers at Brother Hrothgar and Brother Emeric as they ramble down the icy slope.
Hrothgar easily bounds ahead of the horrid projectiles as they slam, wet and hissing into the snow behind him, the acidic stench of their impact filling his flaring nostrils even beneath the helmet.
The bio-weapon rakes across the techmarine's armor, scoring the pitch-black enamel and leaving a viscid trail of spattered living ammunition across the breastplate, but otherwise leaving him unharmed.
Upon seeing the winged devils I pause and bring the flamer to bear in addition to the bolter and open up on the the first mass with the larger one lurking behind. Maybe I can get the other one as well.
I swing at the Ravenor as it poses the more immediate threat. Unfortunately a gaunt tearing at my arm pulls my swing short, and I miss with my force sword.
The bio-weapon rakes across the techmarine's armor, scoring the pitch-black enamel and leaving a viscid trail of spattered living ammunition across the breastplate, but otherwise leaving him unharmed.
The vile projectile fails to find full purchase in my chest-plate and deflects away. The fleshborer round hits a rock wall and spasm to an unfulfilled standstill. As I look down and see an acidic wake steaming from my armor and tabard, my helmet's visual receptor field turns a shade of red. Ferocitas is angered by this affront.
Praise be to the Forges of Mars! Thank you, Ferocitas! Your surface shall be mended!
Moving into position beside Brother Hrothgar, who quickly charges past the Storm Warden, Brother Caledonii fires his bolter, sending a wide burst of frangible rounds toward the swooping shrike, the explosions of the sub-munitions perforating the smaller gargoyles as they fly in its wake.
I swing at the Ravenor as it poses the more immediate threat. Unfortunately a gaunt tearing at my arm pulls my swing short, and I miss with my force sword.
Brother Vex swings his force sword at the lunging xenos' center mass as he sidesteps the swarming mass of hormagaunts.
The blade comes within inches of cutting the Tyranid's carapace open, but at the last moment it interposes the very tip of one its long talons in front of the weapon to deflect it.
In an effort to aid the beleaguered Dark Angel Librarian, the elements of the Karlack 2nd bunkered in the tracked hauler open fire with their lasguns on the swarming hormagaunts surrounding him.
As their Commissar waits for his plasma pistol to rechare, he extolls his men to keep up their fire, adding his own las-pistol's precise fire to the barrage.
With another permafrost juddering blast, the mole mortar fires again from inside the hauler.
Rolling damage, , with Penetration, enough to exceed AP and TB for the Vanguard Horde. Vanguard Horde #1 sustains 5 Magnitude damage (4 for Blast (4) +1 for the Explosive Quality).
Another large and distant explosion erupts under the massed vanguard hordes getting ever closer to the plateau, blowing apart several of the clustered gaunts that comprise them.
After rotating in place on his listing maglev generators and then hovering slightly southward, Magos Vyakai takes imprecise aim with his infernus pistol at the ravener assailing Brother Quintus.
A searing melta-beam of intensely focused, Forge-world generated heat bursts through the ravener's hide, punching a wide hole in the rear of its segmented carapace.
As Brother Quintus continues to backpedal, he draws his bolt pistol, readying to fire on the huge xenos engulfed in the halo of scorching flames.
The Ultramarine steadies his aim as the ravener raises both talons high overheard again for a killing blow, finally unleashing still more burning pain for the vile xenos as he fires the hellfire rounds from his bolt pistol.
The powerful bolts shells full of concentrated mutagenic acid puncture the ravener's thickly armored hide with ease, ripping the Tyranid apart from within. It slithers to a halt, dropping to its back before seizing in thrashing agony and finally dying.
His target destroyed, Eli shifts his aim to the monstrosity attacking Brother Vex.
Absolutely deadly when ensconced in a set position, Brother Syne's fire is both uncannily accurate and superlatively destructive, punching fist-sized holes in the rearing ravener just as its talon-tip blocks the Librarian's blade, killing it mere seconds before it can counterattack Brother Vex. It falls forward into the seething swarm of hormagaunts, the Dark Angel deftly sidestepping the xenos' corpse, grateful for his brethren's perfect aim.
The apothecary continues to slash at the hormagaunts surrounding him, sending more of the relentlessly clawing creatures to their deaths on the edge of his chainsword.
The wings of the massive shrikes seem to buzz in the cold air as they alight, one by one, the leathery barbs on their pinions trailing a falling line of rime-frozen icicles.
The Storm Warden's weapon has barely ended its burst when the xenos barrels into him, slashing with one massive talon, the weight of its huge form nearly bowling him over with the impact.
Allowing his momentum to continue carrying him down the frozen hillside, Brother Caledonii ducks under the shrike's blow, rolling across the ice-packed ground and regaining his feet again.
The second shrike to land crunches into the snow beside the tracked hauler, its impact shaking the frozen entrenchments and rocking the heavy vehicle as one great wing sweeps against it as it is folded in. The Tyranid jabs a massive appendage at the Magos as it passes, trying to impale him out of the sky where he hovers.
The blow just misses Magos Vyakai, and the automated subroutines controlling his augmented body turn it to face this new threat.
I put down my bolter seeing that the Ravener has been dealt with, take out my shield and sealance and move to help brother sepheren.
The hulking shrike fills my targeting auspex as it lands between me and the Space Wolf. My visual array is further clouded as Ferocitas floods me with additional telemetry data. Yes, hard to miss this one! Although I have precious few Kraken rounds left, I choose to use one here.
Seeing the shrike plunging toward him, the Storm Warden looses another, well-aimed round, the acidic bolt exploding through the serrated plates of the shrike's leg, ripping it clean off. Through some bizarre eccentricity of the xenos' indomitable, hive-mind driven endurance, it actually attacks the space marine upon landing awkwardly on one leg, only falling over dead when the nerve-impulses of the dying body catch up to its relentless neural ganglia. Purplish ichor pumps out of the severed limb on to snow-covered ground as Brother Caledonii rises to his feet again.
I put down my bolter seeing that the Ravener has been dealt with, take out my shield and sealance and move to help Brother Sepheren.
A cloud of powdery snow plumes up from the trembling ground as the huge xenos lands between the two marines, shrieking a predatory alien cry, but it is not enough to obscure Ferocitas' targeting array, and Brother Emeric fires a well-placed bolt at its center mass, the Kraken round exiting the bolter with an echoing crack.
With no time to react, the shrike looses a sizable chunk out of its barbed forearm as the Omnissiah-blessed armor piercing munition does its sacred work.
Sealance and combat shield in hand, Brother Decius rushes to Brother Sepheren's aid, stabbing downward repeatedly into the mass of scuttling hormagaunts, hurling them aside as fast as he slays them.
I fire-select to regular bolt-rounds and continue to fire into the Shrike looming over me.
Ferocitas' impact alarms positively growl with satisfaction as he each round shot from the bolter impacts the looming shrike. The xenos' armor is cracked and shorn away with each hit, ichor spraying from the massive scythe-like fore-limb and barbed torso. It staggers as it turns toward Brother Emeric, and the techmarine is certain he has harmed it, but how gravely he cannot be sure.
It staggers as it turns toward Brother Emeric, and the techmarine is certain he has harmed it, but how gravely he cannot be sure.
Through my amplified vox-grill: "Hrothgar! Finish him!"
Hearing Brother Techmarine Emeric's shout, the Space Wolf pivots to flank the shrike, and then begins to blaze away with both bolt pistols, expertly alternating their fire.
For the most part, Brother Hrothgar's aim is well wide of the creature, but one of the rounds manages to strike true, piercing the hulking Tyranid's armored thorax with a sharp, cracking impact. As the hideous xenos detects the new threat, the Space Wolf takes careful aim and fires again.
The xenos loses the barbed claw at the end of one of its rending pincers to the shot, and begins listing drunkenly from the cumulative effect of the many wounds the two battle-brothers have inflicted in such short order. Even so, with a spasmodic twitch of its massive body, it screeches and continues to charge headlong for the techmarine.
The hormagaunts continue to swarm the marines of Kill-team Umbra holding position around the perimeter of the tracked hauler, slashing and leaping upon them in a tireless effort to overwhelm.
And again for possessing Swift Attack:
Agilely dancing from one icy rock to another, Brother Librarian Vex manages to hold his own remarkably well, smiting down whatever hormagaunt draws too near to his force blade.
********************************************
Although the full press of the swarming hormagaunts has diminished somehwat as a result of the apothecary and Brother Decius' brutal handiwork, a great many still scuttle about, rippling over and through the hastily excavated trenches, attacking from all sides relentlessly.
And again for possessing Swift Attack:
The monsters swarms over Brother Sepheren, clinging to his armor, talons scything and scissoring back and forth on the couplings and reinforced plating, but not penetrating. The apothecary has taken to crushing them in his gauntlets, or hurling them off bodily as he continues to saw through their ranks with the chainsword.
And again for possessing Swift Attack:
Brother Decius wades into the remaining throng fearlessly, skewering them on his sea lance as he goes, cutting a path to his fellow marine, all while ignoring the bruises and battering his body sustains beneath his armor with each suicidal leap of xenos creatures on to him.
Rent by shrapnel, their numbers falling from the air like game-birds shot with a hunter's flechette rifle following the Storm Warden's barrage, the nearer flight of gargoyles circles wide over the battlefield, before looping around behind Brother Caledonii.
As they fly by, the wet hiss of their fleshborers firing fills his ears.
The squirming insectile ammunition slams into the frozen hillside all around Caledonii, the organic acid from within the foul beetles spattering his armor in dozens of places, but none of the hideous parasites actually strike him.
***************************************
Flying in low over Brother Hrothgar and Brother Emeric where they stand locked in mortal combat with the wounded shrike, the second wing of foul harriers fire their own weapons, their screeching cries filling the air.
The barrage is immense, and it is impossible for the two members of the Deathwatch to avoid the entire rain of borer beetles. Brother Hrothgar escapes the worst of the fire, but some cling to the Black Templar's armor and begin their grisly work.
Already faced with the daunting task of finishing the frenzied shrike, Brother Emeric grits his teeth as he begins to feel the lick of acid on the remaining skin of his partially augmetic face, hidden underneath his helm, as those fleshborers that have penetrated work through his armor plating like molten raindrops.
Jumping from rock to rock trying to keep the gaunts from overwhemling me I begin to slip on a patch of ice. I pull my swing short with the attempt to maintain my balance.
After seeing the shrike fall I turn toward the Magos and I see that he is confronted with an other. I bring my bolter to bear still with the hellfire rounds selected and fire a barrage of shells into it.
"Brother Quintus if you could take out these gargoyles with that flamer we can concentrate on the shrikes."
As the Librarian makes a misstep, the hormagaunts quickly converge, sensing through their predatory cunning and hive-mind attuned synapses that their prey is vulnerable. Fortunately for the Dark Angel, the men of the Karlack 2nd have his back, and the gunports of the fortified tracked hauler again erupt with las-bursts.
Hormagaunts are picked off one after another as they scramble to scale the chunk of ice that Brother Vex has partially ascended, and the Librarian can even make out the formerly near-catatonic Munitorum adept, Roge Halis, adding his panicked fire to the loyal Imperial troopers.
**********************************************
As the hauler ceases swaying from the impact of the landing shrike, Commissar Sander recognizes the threat to the injured Magos, and pops one of the the upper hatches on the vehicle. Taking careful aim with his plasma pistol, he fires, the topmost snow evaporating to hissing water beneath the path of the superheated beam.
The well-placed shot blasts a sizable chunk out of the chitinous armor of the shrike's leg, nearly knocking it over as it lunges at the Magos again.
***********************************************
This time when the hauler rocks, it is the mole mortar firing again, the spotters largely unfazed and intently focused on their task despite the nearby horrors.
.
Rolling damage, , Damage = 5, with Penetration, enough to exceed AP and TB for the Vanguard Horde. Vanguard Horde #1 sustains 5 Magnitude damage (4 for Blast (4) +1 for the Explosive Quality).
The guardsmen continue to indirectly attack the vanguard horde's with their subterranean artillery, but it seems to be doing little to diminish the massed hordes of Tyranid that draw ever nearer.
With a perfect command cadence, the spotter shouts new orders to the well-trained crew to adjust the angle of fire to better find range on the enemy.
As the shrike vainly reaches for his hovering form, Magos Vyakai's automated subroutines calculate the probability of retreating successfully from such a deadly adversary as being minute enough to necessitate a final stand. Centering his infernus pistol on the shrike again from just overheard, he fires.
With mechadendrites twitching randomly, and dark fluid still seeping from his ruptured form, the tech-priest's upraised arm is jarred by the tip of one slashing talon as he fires, the scorching melta-blast incinerating a nearby spar of frozen rock instead.
Tantalus Sub-Arctic Zone, Grid Zone Omicron-Upsilon-07
Pyroclast-Gamma-9 Southern Expanse
241.817.M41
Chrono Reading: [0:9:41]
As powerful, pain dampening stimm courses through his bloodstream to offset the agony of the wounds afflicting him, Brother Emeric glances at his chron and then hears with the aid of his Lyman's ear and associated augmetics a rising tone of atmospheric feedback coming over the vox caster, followed by a pronounced burst of static. Realizing it could be the Vengeful Lightning attempting contact, he tries to buy himself time to isolate the signal by adjusting the vox-caster controls on the fly in combat.
...Brother Emeric glances at his chron and then hears with the aid of his Lyman's ear and associated augmetics a rising tone of atmospheric feedback coming over the vox caster, followed by a pronounced burst of static. Realizing it could be the Vengeful Lightning attempting contact, he tries to buy himself time to isolate the signal by adjusting the vox-caster controls on the fly in combat.
<<<mmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep>>>
Auditory anomaly detected... attempting identifi-
<<<SSSSSHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK>>
cation. *cogitation complete with 78.5611% probability* Vox-cast transmission / Origin: atmospheric / Oscillation rate: 30-300 MHz
As more flesh-borer rounds strafe the ground around me I back-pedal slightly, attempting to keep the airborne xeno in my visual field. I reach back, grab hold of the vox-caster hand-set, and try to hone in on the correct band.
Blast... No time for the proper litanies. Omnissiah, forgive me