Chapter 77: The Purple Tsunami
Over the hours that followed, the last trace of daylight on Macragge's polar defense line was extinguished.
This darkness was not the product of any natural cycle. The loss of close orbital control above Macragge had consequences at the surface level that no defensive briefing had adequately prepared anyone to witness. The Tyranid hive ships were releasing spore pods in numbers that could not be accurately counted, and those organisms were beginning to alter the atmospheric conditions around them. The sky was turning red. Then it was simply full.
The Tyranid drop pods descended into the anti-aircraft fire in a density that approached the absolute. Each one was a tumorous mass of biological material hurtling downward with something close to suicidal disregard for what waited below, and there were so many of them that the sky above the defense line had effectively ceased to exist as empty space. It had become a biological curtain, falling.
The anti-aircraft response was total and furious. On this ridge of ice and rock, the Imperial defenders did not need to aim with any particular care. The quad-barrelled Icarus batteries built into the mountain faces at the rear of the position ran at full output, their barrels producing muzzle flares meters long, the combined roar of them vibrating everything in the surrounding terrain continuously. The Hydra Flak Tanks deployed on the flanks fired without pause, their auto-cannons sweeping and re-sweeping the approach vectors.
Every burst that connected tore a momentary gap in the falling mass, high-explosive fragmentation and heat clearing the approach directly overhead, converting whatever organisms had been inside those pods into a rain of reeking fluid that fell across the ice.
The gaps lasted no longer than it took to register them. The next wave was already through.
Stroud stood rigid at Duvette's shoulder, not bothering to pull his face away from the cutting ice fragments in the wind, his head tilted back at a fixed angle. The veteran who was known across the regiment for his sharp intelligence and his refusal to take anything entirely seriously was standing with his mouth open, staring at the crimson-violet mass descending toward them with the mindless pressure of a collapsing sky.
"What in the... what is that," Stroud said, very quietly, the words nearly lost in the surrounding thunder.
In every trench and emplacement within sight, the other soldiers' reaction was a version of the same thing. They had pressed themselves against the blast walls, fingers white on their lasrifle grips, and the weapons that had been extensions of their confidence an hour ago were doing nothing for them now.
The sheer volume of what was descending was sufficient to push any reasoning organism into a very dark place. In either of his lives, Duvette had never actually seen this. The virtual representations he carried from his previous existence had not prepared him for the reality at any level that mattered. This was a thousand times worse than any screen had suggested it could be.
A thick spray of reeking bio-fluid hit the surface of the blast wall directly in front of them, carried down from an explosion in the approach overhead, and immediately began eating into the material with a thin white smoke and the sharp chemical bite of corrosive acid.
Duvette reached out and hit Stroud hard on the shoulder.
"Close your mouth and stop staring," Duvette said, his voice cutting clean through the noise to reach the veteran's ear. "If any of that fluid gets in there and you're careless enough to swallow some, I'll have to waste a bolt round dealing with you personally. Pay attention to the bridge."
Stroud pulled his chin down and shut his mouth. The unflattering image performed its function. His eyes moved from the sky to the wide industrial ice bridge extending directly in front of their position, and the professional soldier came back online.
Duvette pressed his vox bead and switched to the short-range command channel.
"Kleist. Stand ready." His voice was clipped, quick, no wasted syllables. "All armour, barrels on the far end of the bridge. Establish a fire block across that approach. Don't reach out further than that and do not put rounds into the valley targets. Every shell counts."
He paused for a breath, then continued.
"All infantry, switch to semi-automatic and fire single shots. Watch your power pack levels. Hold until they are on the bridge surface, then use volley fire and plug the crossing. Let them close before you fire."
He changed channels.
"Finn. Anderson. Your sniper teams and heavy weapons sections cover the sectors the main guns cannot reach. Eyes on the swarm at all times. Synapse Creatures are your only priority. Everything else waits. If I give you a direct fire order on a single target, everybody concentrates. Understood?"
"Understood!"
The distant ice plain had been transformed.
The mountain peaks that had stood white under polar snow were now almost entirely black. What was coming down those slopes was not a charge in any conventional sense of the word. It was a torrent, the dark mass of tens of millions of organisms pouring off the high ground and down through the terrain toward the defense line like a geological event that had decided to move at speed. The wind was already carrying it to them, the particular organic reek of the Tyranid swarm, sharp and foul, pushed across the ice by the polar gusts.
Then movement at the edge of his tactical monocular's field caught Duvette's attention.
Thunderhawk gunships. Several of them, painted the deep blue of the Ultramarines. They were threading the fire corridors through the anti-aircraft coverage, cutting a path through the falling organisms and the streams of defensive fire simultaneously. Around them, Tyranid Gargoyles were swarming in pursuit, dozens of the flying organisms throwing themselves at the gunships' engine intakes with no apparent consideration for their own continued existence.
The density of Cold Steel Ridge's anti-aircraft fire did the rest. Under the coverage provided by the Icarus arrays, the Thunderhawks cut through the line and came down intact on the elevated command platform at the rear of the position.
Duvette lowered the monocular.
Marneus Calgar and his Honor Guard had arrived.
He let out a long, slow breath that was visible for a moment in the polar cold before the wind took it.
In the same moment, without announcement, a voice cut into his command channel. Not through any frequency he had selected. The channel simply opened and the voice was there, layered over everything else, the quality of it carrying an authority that straightened every spine it reached.
"I am the Lord of Ultramar, Marneus Calgar."
Even with the full weight of the battle's noise, the Chapter Master's voice arrived without distortion.
"Hold your ground, sons of the Imperium. These alien creatures came to invade our home. Let them bleed out the last of what they have on this steel and ice. For Ultramar! For the Emperor! We do not fall!"
The channel closed.
In the same instant, the first wave of the swarm crested the far end of the ice bridge with a sound that traveled through the soles of the feet before it reached the ears, a screaming that scaled upward without stopping.
Duvette's chainsword came out of its scabbard. The motor engaged with a savage roar.
He drew every last gram of air his chest could hold and put it behind one word, directed at every soldier on the line.
"Open fire!"
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