“Courage and glory!” “For Guilliman!
For Ultramar!” Captain Slox raised the company banner high and roared the Emperor’s wrath through the bolt pistol in hand.
Countless flesh-creatures were shattered beyond the defensive line.
Bolts screamed through the air like blades, tearing apart anything that drew near.
Captain Slox fired the last round from the magazine and drew the power sword at the hip.
BANG BANG BANG!
The deafening thunder of bolts and the roar of melta fire rolled across the vast land, as though the entire planet shook beneath it.
Captain Slox stood on the high ground, looking out over the flesh-creatures blanketing the hills and fields below.
Revulsion and dread rose, a feeling that had no words.
These creatures were grotesquely, wrongly built.
They appeared to have been assembled from the corpses of local PDF troops and the colony’s civilians.
Faces that might once have been recognized had been twisted into hideous shapes.
The sight made the skin crawl.
And within that tide of flesh, Captain Slox could still pick out the armor of mortal auxiliary forces and the distinctive styling of Aeldari wargear mixed among the mass, which made the origin of these things all the more bewildering.
Their outward appearance was as though the flesh of living beings had been melted down and haphazardly reassembled into a nauseating chaos of tissue and bone.
The stench rolling off their bodies was enough to make a man gag.
Yet despite how terrible they looked, Captain Slox had found one fact that offered a small measure of comfort: these things seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the flesh of Space Marines.
“Hold the line!
Ultramarines!” The words had barely left before Captain Slox charged, battle standard in one hand and power sword in the other.
The flesh-creature bearing down looked to be built from the corpses of a dozen mortals and the carcass of a single Grox.
It shrieked as it came.
HMMM— The creature had several meters on him.
Captain Slox raised the power sword and activated the Disruption Field along the blade.
The cold-gleaming steel swept through.
The flesh-creature’s body shattered in an instant.
Captain Slox followed through without pause, reversed grip and drove the broad blade down into the monster’s skull.
Blood drenched the blue armor.
For a moment, Captain Slox looked no different from the enemies being fought.
“Soldiers!
For Guilliman!” “For Guilliman!” The remaining hundred Space Marines roared, fury and fierce exhilaration together, as bolts erupted from their muzzles and shattered flesh-creature bodies on impact.
RRRRRRRR!
When the ammunition ran dry, the Space Marines cast aside their weapons, drew their chainswords, and drove toward the nearest enemies.
“Die, xenos!” Chainsword engines screamed.
Teeth shredded through flesh in an instant, then sawed a head clean from its rotting body.
“For the Emperor!” A legionary of the Ultramarines Legion, buried under a tide of flesh-creatures, pulled the grenade from the hip.
The explosion tore outward in a heartbeat.
Dozens of flesh-creatures that had been ripping at the legionary’s body were reduced to a mist of blood.
“Come on!
Come on!
Come on!” “For the Emperor!
For the Emperor!
For the Emperor!” The legionaries roared within the tide of flesh, a single vessel holding against a raging storm.
“Watch out!
Above!” An Arvus Lighter plunged from the sky, its hull sprouting wings like the limbs of some great dragon.
The steel of the craft was wrapped in flesh, and countless masses of organic tissue had formed around it, reshaping it into something like a living body.
“Heavy weapons!
Use the heavy weapons!” The legionaries carrying melta weapons broke for the high ground and trained their weapons on the thing descending through the sky.
The melta weapon is a formidable instrument.
It either agitates its target at the subatomic level — effectively cooking it or causing it to melt — or it generates a small-scale nuclear fusion reaction and discharges a shockwave capable of igniting almost anything, its effect growing markedly stronger the closer one is to the target.
Range is shorter.
Rate of fire is slower.
But against armored vehicles, the melta weapon’s power is without equal.
It is also considered an excellent alternative to plasma weapons, which are unreliable and perfectly capable of killing their own users.
Aside from the sharp detonation caused by the shockwave vaporizing moisture within a target’s body, the melta weapon itself produces almost no sound when fired.
That quiet efficiency is exactly why infiltration units can complete their battlefield objectives before ever pulling the trigger.
The massive flesh-creature nosed into its dive.
The Space Marines armed with missile launchers struck first.
Missiles cut across the sky.
A ball of flame erupted from the creature’s rear.
“Now!” The moment the flesh-creature dropped to within a dozen meters of the ground, the legionaries with meltas pulled their triggers.
The steel of the transport ship at the creature’s core melted in an instant.
Its flesh vaporized along with it.
“Well struck, Brother Angrod!” The words had barely left Captain Slox’s mouth when a colossal silhouette appeared on the horizon.
A giant.
Dozens of meters tall.
It looked like something assembled from tens of thousands of corpses and over a dozen tanks fused into a single lurching mass.
“Emperor above!” Captain Slox cried.
The creature charged their position.
Bolters hammered into it hard enough to raise sprays of blood and did nothing to slow it.
Captain Slox held the power sword upright before the chest.
The helmet had been cast aside.
Eyes fixed on the enormous shape bearing down, and peace had been made with death.
Then the thunder of missiles rang out from above the clouds.
Dozens of impacts, all at once.
The creature let out a shriek and was swallowed by flames.
A dozen Storm Eagle Tactical Gunships bearing the markings of the Word Bearers Legion appeared in the sky.
The Storm Eagle gunship was, during the era of the Space Marine Legions, one of the most widely fielded gunships across Legion fleets, designed specifically for tactical assault missions.
Its primary mode of operation was orbital insertion: deliver Space Marine infantry forces fast and hard to the ground, then provide close air support from low altitude.
By design it is rugged and reliable.
For an aerial vehicle, it carries exceptionally heavy multi-layered armor and a weapons loadout far heavier than its size would suggest, though this costs it speed and maneuverability compared to other Imperial aircraft.
In the field, the Storm Eagle has proven outstanding flexibility.
Beyond its assault role, it serves as a long-range transport, orbital shuttle, reconnaissance platform, and can take on interceptor duties when called upon.
➤ Next: Rescue Arrives