Tartika II

[Red Angel]

Verik had rested and slept for days it felt like, and he had been asked hundreds of questions and he had provided what he could. now, he was back in the frontlines. the frontlines that was assualted by every single creature the tyranid swarm had. or so it seemed. there was billions of more tyranids, theese few million creatures was just the vanguard, a first probing attack.

firing his lasgun again and again, he witnessed Irontread blast away with much more fearsome firepower. the 537 years old Baneblade tank was firing all guns on the horde ahead, and its crew did their work better than many others. the heavy bolters tore apart all gaunts they fired at, while the lasbeams tore asunder the warriors that tried to shoot their green slime guns, as they were nicknamed from the green dropping goo they expelled.

the main gun turned a few degrees, and a carnifex was doomed. the blastwave shock the ground as the gun fired, and the enormous shell drove straight into the carnifex, and exploded, detonating the carnifex, 10 warriors and hundreds of gaunts that was swarming atop each other to reach the humans. a zoanthrope fired a purple light at the tank, but the blastlight was just a scrath against the thick plating of the Baneblade. it turned a heavy bother around and fired at the zoanthrope, and some random autogun along the trenches helped, and the zoanthropes mighty warpfield was destroyed, and the shells tore the creature apart in tiny fragments, never to bother anyone ever again

[Red Angel]

"impact in 20 seconds, all pods maintaining course"

Belgor watched his brothers check their weapons, for the 11th time he thought, and he felt so alive in the pod as it smashed down into the ground where Lutars orbital bombardment guns had just fired, creating a zone of peace in the middle of the tyranid swarm. Belgor and his bodyguard was the most senior units in this drop, and when the doors to their pod opended, their guns blazed with fire, destroying gaunts everywhere, tearing warriors apart and even a carnifex buckled down under the weaponry of the bodyguard.

as they moved, more pods dropped down around them, smashing into the creatures, turning them into nothing close of their former selfs, and the marines inside the pods ran out of the doors, smashing into the xenos and killing hundreds of them with their weapons. all around them, the tyranid swarm suddenly faced a new threat and it could not react well enough. few warriors survived their attempts to close into melee range with the intruders, and the gaunts around thoose became confused and were mere lambs awaiting the butcher. and Belgor was happy to be a butcher today. he looked over towards the guardsmen holding the line just ahead, and he saw what he suspected. surprise and dazzled faces were staring into the horde where the tyranids were faced with a threat they could barely contain.

[Red Angel]

Verik was in the part that was most prepared. there was sandbags, bunkers, tank bunkers, firesupport sections, mortar units... everything that could be had was there, and he fought with thousand others to try and stop the swarm ahead. mines that had been placed in advance of the horde still detonated now and then, making the progress slower since the gaunts needed to clear out the minefield first, all while they were gunned down by the defenders.

the artillery had been firing too, giant basilisks shot their shells high up and then they came screaming down, until they detonated above the horde, showering them with fragments and fire, killing scores of xenos with every shot. but as always, Verik saw, the horde did barely notice such carnage.

the gaunts had eventually cleaned the field of mines, almost, and the entire horde had started swarming over the defenders, leaping into the trenchline trying to kill any human they found, but very few creatures got past the killzone despite their numbers. it looked like they would be stopped, but Verik knew better. this was just one single part, out of many, that were attacked. if one was breached and overrun, the others would follow... and sooner or later, some line would fall to the unrelenting horde, and the line would be broken down.

[Red Angel]

as he struggled with a gaunt trying to bite his face off, they both rolled around in the trenchline. the jaws of the xeno snapped at him, while its claws hang at its sides, useless for a reason or another. they wrestled, even combatants. he finally got a arm free, and punched the gaunt in its face, and it felt like punching bone, but he kept punching anyway, and the gaunt eventually got so dazzled by the concussion it just stopped fighting back, and Verik quickly snapped up a bayonett from the ground and plunged it into the throat of the gaunt, ending its short life.

he stood up again, picked up his lasgun that was knocked out of his hands, and resumed firing again into the horde ahead, but it was too late. the horde was upon them, and his lasgun was knocked out of his hands again when another gaunt leaped for him, slashing with its claws against his face, but only managed to land a glancing blow on Veriks helm. then it tumbled onto Verik himself, and for the second time in just a few seconds, he was back in the trench wrestling with a gaunt.

while the sky became much brighter...

[Red Angel]

as the pods prepared to launch from Lutar, so did its weapons designate targets. the same thing had happend thousands of times before: the ship fired a very small barrage at a very concentrated area, and destroyed anything standing. when the guns fired down towards the planet, the drop pods launched from the ship and they travelled next to the beams of the Lutar, racing down to the surface.

this always ment that pods could be hit by th gunnery crews, and that they would accidently shoot the men they were ment to protect. there could also be so that the pods arrived too early, and when the marines inside spread out, the orbital firing would begin, so that the marines would be right in the target zone. this, however, did not happend this time, as the Lutars crew started the bombardment while Belgor and his brothers, inside their drop pods, quickly closed in on the planet.

the gaunt tried to stab Verik in the face with its claws, and it was just pure dumb luck that kept him alive when he threw his head back and forth as the gaunt kept smashing the ground. then suddenly a bright flash ran right through the gaunt and it seized to live, as a guardsman further away had accidently fired his lasgun and saved Veriks life. he scrambled onto his feet, and he caught sight of a gaunt flying through the air towards him, and he quickly threw himself forward, and the gaunt flew over him, landing behind him and spun around, and got a helmet in its face, and it quickly lost control of the surrindings, and Verik picked up his lasgun and shot it point blank in its face, and then turned around.

[Red Angel]

what Verik saw was amazingly beautiful but also, he realised, deadlier than anything this battlefield could offer. the bright beams with the colors of a rainbow almost vaporized everything it struck, and many more were wounded beyond healing by its blasts. the tyranid swarm took heavy casualties by the orbital bombardment guns, and then came the distinct sound of drop pods. they smashed into the horde of xenos on the ground, crushing many to a pulp and then they released their cargo of veteran marines, made for and in combat.

the marines carried their weapons with confidence, and the number of xenos that died suddenly soared, as the marines cleansed the area of the creatures. numerous as they were, the tyranids quickly moved most beasts towards the small marine force that had arrived, and suddenly the guardsmen of the line could fire again, and the swarm came under a heavy, two pronged assualt of space marines inside their horde, and the mass firepower of the guardsmen line.

and within seconds of the first pods came more pods, and more still. it looked like a entire chapter had arrived to save Tartika from being consumed. and with this reinforcements, the guardsmen charged. hundreds of men all around Verik climbed the trenchline and started a slow firing advance, shooting as they moved forward one step at a time. lasguns bruned hundreds of gaunts and many warriors by the second, and soon the horde of tyranids buckled under the assualt by the sudden turn of events.

Tartika II was saved. for now.

[Red Angel]

with the marine drop in their midst, and the push of the guardsmen, the tyranid horde disintegrated. their warriors were killed and so most gaunts became less effective and more beastlike, proving no match for the Imperial counter attack. the Xenos were quickly defeated, and they suffered a major blow in the fact that most of their higher creatures like the zoanthropes were there, and was killed by the surprise attack.

once the battle ended, Belgor stood knee deep in bodies of aliens, covered in pink and purple goo as a result of his chainswords rage. he had almost overheated his plasma pistol, and he had noticed that most of his marines were out of ammo overall, as they were all using melee weaponry, or perhaps they had just thought it better to fight in melee than with ranged weaponry. whatever the case, they were victorious this day and the guardsmen around them cheered as they celebrated the victory, and the feeling to be alive.

Belgor raised his chainsword and roared the victory praise, and his brothers joined him and all around the battlefield praised the Emperor for delivering them to victory. some, though, praised him as part of their charade act. and they played it well.

[Red Angel]

days, weeks, months passed... with the majority of the higher strains of tyranids gone, the rest were spread too thin to control all swarms there was, and the hive fleet desperatly produced more and more warriors and other higher strains to make up the lack of the leadership the swarm needed. despite all its attempts at changing tactics, the fact that most synapse creatures were dead ment that the horde slowed down and all tyranids acted a bit feral, which made the biological changes in them less responsive to the signlas triggerd by the hive fleet and the remaining synapse creatures.

whole swarms were destroyed outright as they lacked leadership, and each synapse creature lost was heavier loss than the last one, making the tyranid swarm on Tartika II less and less effective. in the end, the winter struck full blown, and while the habitants of Tartika was used to such temperatures, the tyranids, without guidance, froze to death in uncountable numbers.

the swarm of xenos were destroyed by the winters fury and the imperial attacks after the winter had passed away. while the ships carrying Captain Kiron, from the famous Iron Hands Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, sailed the void towards the Tartika system...

[Red Angel]

"Tartika system... my people have never had the requirement to visit this place, but now we finally do."

"Is that a bad thing, my lord?"

"It do not have to be a bad thing, there are billions of routine controls, and people claim they find thoose i hunt every day, but very few times they are real, just exaggerated things like being away for a week without telling anyone means they consort with something evil. childish fears"

"How do we find out the real threat from the imaginations?"

"Quite simple, my friend. There will be many places we are told to look, but i will look in thoose places forgot to be mentioned to me. The real threat always lure and trick and decive our followers, to spread confusion. That is where we will search, were nobody says any harm is."

"Look at the last place first you mean?"

"Quite so, captain Kiron, quite so..."

with thoose words, Colban Nolen sat down on his chair and looked through the viewing port towards the planet ahead.

[Red Angel]

"I just hope theese people are innocent and to be spared, it never does me good when the situation is otherwise." Kiron whispered

"If they are, they will be spared, but if they are not..." Colban left the rest of the thought to be unsaid, and he leander over to the table at his left and picked up his notebook and wrote down what he had said to Kiron.

he then signed it with Inqusitor Colban Nolen of the Ordo Hereticus.

and as the ship closed further to the planet, the people on the ground were celebrating the victory over the alien foes. and among them, something else was being achived in the dark, behind all spying eyes. and thoose that saw what was happening was to see nothing more ever again.

[Red Angel]

Captain Kiron had fought hundreds of wars by this time. he had served under various Inquisitors, he had fought against Chaos in the 13th Black Crusade.

Kiron was one of the most decorated captains of the Iron Hands, and he was known among his chapter as a man of drama. he often clenched his iron fist constantly, making it look like he had lost patience when he infact was testing the courage of others with it. someone who kept their point of view against a Adeptus Astartes was truly brave. or foolish.

as the ship carrying him and his unit of Deathwatch marines approached Hellion, or what was left of it, multiple tyranid organisms hatching on and inside the wrecked starport raced out to defend their new hive, and as the crew was not prepared for a attack of tyranids from the station, the xenos easily entered the ship and launched boarding parties on all decks. something the Deathwatch was trained to counter.

[Red Angel]

a squad of stormtroopers fired a flamer into a pod and cleansed it from both living and not so living xenos. the smell of the victims inside was horrific, and the squad soon moved on and found a pod that had already empited the passengers. then the screech came.

the troopers turned around on the spot and watched several dozens of gaunts approach them, and they all brought their hellguns to bear. they fired and slowly backed up while the gaunts quickly rushed across the hallway, scrambling over their dead siblings in their effort to rip the prey ahead to pieces.

as Devont pressed the trigger his hellgun kicked back but he held it steady, firing across the hallway towards the gaunts. he glanced to his side and saw the exit to the upper level. be closed off. he then reloaded and spun around and realised they were trapped at the hallway end. there was no retreat, and a small feeling of panic came into his heart, only to be dismissed by his mind. if he was to die in the service of the Emperor, then fighting his foes would be the best way to die. and he turned around again and brought up his hellgun and once more started firing.

[Red Angel]

Kiron saw ran along a deck floor, firing his bolt pistol and swung his chainsword quickly and with accuarcy enough to cut through the alien scum that he fought. he did not need any help, not with just a handfull dozen of gaunts and a few warriors. he was the cause of 7 carnifexes deaths, and some pity warriors and gaunts were not going to bring him down.

he kicked a gaunt as it lurched towards him, and its head was smashed from the impact, and sent it flying backwards against the wall where it was impaled on a lever which was pointing outwards. Kiron swung around the chainsword and cut a warriors two talons off clean, and then severed multiple gaunts in the same strike. he had himself made the chainsword he wielded, and it had been built with a much more powerful engine inside, making it cut through tougher material or more enemies than a regular chainsword.

he brought up his bolt pistol and shot the warrior he had maimed in the face, and the head detonated as the shell inside it ignited. the warrior toppled over and fell back, pinning a gaunt to the floor which was the killed by a stomp on its head with the armored boot of Kiron. he rolled forward and sliced off a gaunts head and drove it straight up into a warrior and killed it by headbutting it, and then fired a bolt shell into a gaunt that jumped at him from the side.

[Red Angel]

Kiron kept slashing through tyranid after tyranid, and then it was just one warrior left. it jumped high into the air and Kiron met it in mid air, impaled it on the chainsword, and they both flew towards the wall and landed atop a clump of metal which was stuck in a hole somehow. how it got there Kiron did not reflect on.

as the warrior and space marine captain both landed on the metal clump, it broke free from the sudden impact, and they both fell down a level. Kiron landed on the floor and the warrior somehow managed to land on top of him, and had its talons already raised to kill him. what 7 carnifexes could not do, one random warrior would now accomplish. Kiron gripped for any of his weapons, but could not catch either, and he looked up as the talons were brought down to pierce his helmet and head.

[Red Angel]

Devont heard some crashing sound close by over the gunfire he and his squad were pouring on, and he had just time enough to look up to see the metal clump that blocked the  ladder earlier, a space marine of the deathwatch and a warrior coming falling. his body reacted on the instinct that metal clump+space marine+ tyranid warrior coming falling down towards him was not going to help him achive his goal of staying alive.

he had enough time to roll to the side just as the space marine smashed down where he had been, and he almost got stabbed in the back by the warrior coming after, as the talons pierced the floor just a decimeter away from where he was. he sat back up when he found his footing again, and he raised the hellgun in the same instant, and fired away at the warriors head, blasting it to pieces as the body slumped down onto the space marine.