handful of loose coins in a large jug. The other Sentinel squadrons were already on picket duty, with
instructions to help base camp for as long as they could before falling back to the caves. Major
Hussari, however, had sworn to remain and help the defences. This was no time to hide behind rank,
not that he ever had.
Major Dashour jogged up to the Sentinel as Major Hussari turned the engine off and
dismounted. He offered a sharp salute before asking the question everyone was too afraid to ask.
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“How far behind are they?”
“An hour,” Hussari replied, casually. He handed Dashour a data-slate. “Their direction hasn’t
changed from the information here. They’re coming straight for us.”
Dashour nodded. “Yes, sir. The Fire Direction Centre team can put this intelligence to use. We
should be able to drop a few shells on them before they get in range of the wall emplacements and
mortars.”
“Good,” Hussari replied. “We’ll have plenty to shoot at when the time comes.”
6
The first sign of their arrival was the dust cloud that slowly devoured the horizon. Long-range
auspex picked up the tyranids next, the approaching horde like a solid storm front. If they didn’t
know what they were facing, the operators might have mistaken it for a thick storm, but they knew
what was coming, and they trembled at the magnitude of the signal.
That’s when the Basilisk began to thunder, firing off a deuterium macro-shell every few
seconds, the sweats crew working feverishly to shove shells into the loader that automatically fed
the breach. Each shot shook the courtyard and buildings, and sent out a Shockwave of dust, but the
soldiers ignored the deafening crump of artillery fire. They all wore ear-guards fitted with microbeads
to hear and relay orders, though this was a weak rejoinder compared to the artillery fielded in
most other engagements.
Guardsmen gathered along the northern wall and watched as the distant desert grew dark with
bodies. The Basilisk’s shells registered in the approaching mass as impact clouds that flung pinprick
bodies into the air and darkened the mass with plumes of black smoke. Only later, what felt like an
eternity afterwards, did the air echo back the hint of soft impacts. But, the fire seemed
inconsequential compared to the approaching mass, like using a pin to stab at the body of a wolf.
Dashour let the men watch for a moment before sending them back to their positions. The
heaviest defences were along the western wall, where a dune created a natural ramp to the plateau
and the main gate. While it did not face the approaching tyranids, it would probably be the most
heavily exploited avenue up to the walls. Dashour also placed men along the other walls to handle
the tyranids that scaled the plateau. But, between the abatis thicket of metal lances and the thin lip of
plateau between the compounds walls and the cliffs, Dashour hoped fewer men would be needed to
hold those positions.
Major Hussari was in the command bunker, instructing the squadrons engaging the edges of the
tyranid legions. Nobody was to venture closer than autocannon range; the tyranids reacted too
quickly to risk sending them in closer. As it was, the enemy was sending out harrying parties to go
after the squadrons, overtaking some and scattering others. This was a flood, and they were but a
lone rock hoping to break the back of the storm, but Hussari continued to direct his squadrons,
hearing them die one at a time. He doubted whether more than a handful of birds would ever reach
the caves.
Kortan, meanwhile, was regretting his decision with every fibre of his being, but he stood his
ground along the northern wall. He tried to ignore the thunder of the approaching mob, the
undulating sea of bone-grey, turquoise, blood-red and black carapaces. The pressure of them seemed
immense. How they didn’t crush one another with their bodies, Kortan did not know. For each
artillery shell that cratered a hole in their ranks, the horde surged to fill it again; there was no sign of
their numbers thinning. They were endless. Kortan was on the verge of collapse when a steady hand
found his shoulder. It was Dashour. He handed him a remote device with a single switch mounted
on its face.
“Is this the magic button to make them go away?” Kortan shouted, nodding to the tyranids.
“In a manner of speaking,” Dashour said, missing the joke. He said something else that was
swallowed by the explosive artillery shot. The air was already thick with the smell of cordite from
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the propellants. “I said, once the tyranids draw in close, the Basilisk will be useless. This is one of
four triggers to detonate the ammo sheds that are filled with deuterium shells.” He paused, waiting
for another salvo to be fired. “When the camp is overrun—”
“Don’t you mean ‘if’,” Kortan said, half in jest and all in hope.
“When,” Dashour said. “It will be up to Major Hussari, Captain Abantu, me or you to detonate
the ammo sheds and take as many of these bastards with us as we can.”
Kortan nodded, his head swimming with the truth of their situation. In most operations, he was
well behind the front lines. He saw combat rarely, if ever. Today, however, was another matter
entirely. The Basilisk fired again. This time, it was joined by mortar fire from the trench below, and
by the gun emplacements on the wall.
The tyranids had reached the base of the plateau.
The battle was an ugly, desperate thing. The tyranids struck the base of the plateau and melted
around it, the way water flows to find cracks. They surged up the ramp, the air filled with their
insect-like chatter and their war howls. In moments, the base camp stood alone in a living sea of
enemies, the desert forgotten. The tyranids nimbly scaled the cliff sides, using one another for
purchase before leaping up higher, their claws and blade arms sinking into the rock wall. Others,
reminiscent of centipedes and cockroaches with faces, scurried up the cliff and defied gravity with
no effort. A few fired up at the Guardsmen, but they seemed frantic, eager to reach the humans
within and kill them with their bare hands.
The swell of tyranids reached the compound’s walls. The first wave crashed into the abatis
spikes and skewered themselves deliberately. The almost suicidal run caught the Guardsmen off
kilter, until they realised that the tyranids were using their bodies to cork the spikes. Others used the
dead to scramble higher up the wall, but the Guardsmen fired down into the mob. The skirmish was
in desperate and full swing. The whistle of mortars was as constant as the weapons fire, and every
shot was promised a hit.
Dashour stood with his men on the western wall, certainly more composed than they with their
desperate battle cries, but fighting just the same. With bolt pistol in hand, he chose his shots, aimed
and fired. The mob on the ramp below was packed together and blinding in their uniformity, but
Dashour fancied he understood the tyranid… respected their strengths, and capitalised on their
perceived weakness. The tyranids were hive-minded, and each pack possessed an anchor to that
unifying intellect. It was usually a larger beast, better armed and armoured than the rest. Dashour
sought them out with his sharp eyes, firing grenade shell rounds into their bodies. The rounds
detonated inside them and sent out a hail of shredding fragments into their closest allies.
Kortan kept his head low as he ran along the various walls. The oversized packs strapped over both
his shoulders were heavy, but were quickly becoming lighter as soldiers grabbed frag and krak
grenades from him. The grenades went over the walls quickly, and detonated with muted whumps
somewhere below. Kortan did not linger, however, and focused on keeping his head down.
Hussari was on the eastern wall, the one with the highest cliffs. The tyranids were clustered far
below, with swarms of them trying to scale the rocks. He aimed down the scope of his M-Galaxy
lasgun, picking off the highest climbers with a mid-range charge setting. Too little power and the
shot might bounce off the carapace, but too strong a charge would deplete the power pack.
The major sighted, and sliced through the tentacle arm of a climbing beast with a mouth set in its
chest, when someone next to him screamed. Hussari turned in time to see the man on the ground,
writhing in agony, his shirt torn open, and the blood blisters on his chest exploding; beetle rounds
were burrowing into his skin. Nothing could be done for him. The major turned the lasgun on the
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poor soldier and shot him through the head. That was the only triage any of them could expect
today.
He was about to fire at another enemy when another soldier was hit: a shot to the face that
rocked him off his feet and sent pin-sized beetles running in and out of the crater-like wound.
Sniper, Hussari realised. They have a sniper.
Hussari peered over the edge of the wall for a one-second count and whipped his head back
again. A shot screamed past him, the sniper quick with his aim. Unfortunately, there were too many
opponents below for him to see the sniper, but that didn’t matter to Hussari. He pulled three frag
grenades from his webbing, adjusted them to a short fuse, pulled the pin on each and dropped them
in different directions. The grenades exploded above the tyranids, the shrapnel dispersing over a
wide area. Hussari moved to a different spot on the wall and peered over again for a one secondcount.
The mob below was devastated: carapaces split open, bodies spitting jets of ichor and yellow
and red organs unravelling from bodies. No shots followed, but Hussari could also see the press of
tyranids rushing in to fill the gaps and devour their own dead.
Back along the western wall, over the main gate, the fighting grew more intense. With no cliffs to
scale, the tyranids were at the compound’s walls. Soldiers along the battlements fired directly down
into the mob below them. The Guardsmen were efficient in their killing, but, unfortunately, were
stacking a wall of corpses for the others to climb. Dashour continued to pick his shots, aiming at
those tyranids that seemed unique among the throng of runners, leapers and warriors. He wasn’t sure
if his plan was working, but he liked to pretend it was.
Suddenly, something caught Dashour’s eye: a row of simian-like tyranids. They were well
armoured, with long, muscular arms and giant, clawed fists, the sharp knuckles of which they used
to drag themselves forward. Biomechanical cannons grew from their backs, while under each body
was the weighted udder of their ammo sac. Dashour’s eyes widened; he remembered these creatures,
remembered the horrors they could inflict within the ranks of their enemies.
“Gunbeasts! Shoot them!” he cried, pointing. A few of the soldiers looked confused, unable to
distinguish one tyranid from another in these conditions. Those that understood Dashour’s orders
aimed and fired, but their shots fell short.
Dashour ran up to the autocannon gunner sheltered behind sandbags and pulled him off the
weapon. He planted his shoulders into the recoil braces and fired at the tyranids, stitching round
after round into the targets. Shots bounced off the heavy bone moulding of the cannon mounts and
the heavily plated arms and legs, but Dashour kept his finger heavy on the trigger, his tracer rounds
bringing all ranged fire along the wall to bear against the gunbeasts. Two went down, telling hits
scored along the creatures’ necks and heads.
It was too late. Three gunbeasts strained, their cannons flaring with electric sparks and heavy
muscle contracting. They fired their spore clusters.
The first cluster sailed over the wall and struck the mortar trench. The spore exploded on impact,
generating a cloud that engulfed four mortar crews and sent the others scrambling from the pits.
They screamed, their pained howls a piercing cry that stabbed the heart. Dashour knew the effects:
instant haemorrhaging, destruction of the soft connective tissues, disintegration of the internal
organs. They died as their organs and arteries melted into pudding, and their skin, muscles, bones
and tendons detached from one another. They turned people into bags of soup and bone.
The second spore struck the wall and caught two Guardsmen in the splatter. They didn’t even
have time to scream as the liquid melted their heads and upper bodies. They fell to the ground, their
organs spilling out of the exposed cups of their chests. The fast acting molecular acids also ate
through the wall, opening a large crater, but not eating its way through.
The third spore struck the upper wall, this time exploding out in a web of filament threads
covered in filleting micro-hooks. The threads wrapped around three men and instantly contracted.
They tore through their clothing and sunk into their flesh until stopped by bone. One soldier died
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with a gurgle on his lips, the threads having cut through his throat and wrapped around his spinal
column. The other two cried out for help, the wires embedded half-way through their stomachs,
arms and thighs.
Dashour ignored the screams for help and the pandemonium. He continued firing at the
gunbeasts, raking them with the autocannon to stop them from firing again.
“Major!” he cried into his micro-bead, “watch out for gunbeasts… the ones with the cannons on
their back. Take them out first.”
“Will do,” Hussari cried back, “but we have our own problems.”
Quickly switching channels, the major backed away from the ledge of the battlements and contacted
fire-direction centre while staring through his magnoculars.
“They’re approaching from the north-east. They’re the only things in the air,” Hussari said. He
was staring at what appeared to be several flights of the creatures, what Dashour had called fliers.
“I see “em,” Captain Abantu reported.
“Take them out. We can’t afford to have them drop in our laps or skip us and find the caves
before the others are ready.”
“Yes, sir,” Abantu replied.
Abantu was relatively safe inside the fire-direction centre, but the action was no less heated. They
held a commanding view of the western slope and the base of the northern wall, while anything they
saw to the east was out of range of their autocannons. Still, gunners waited at the three gun mounts
that lined each of the four walls, either firing at the enemy they could see and reach, or waiting to
