Attack from the Rear

Just as Old John's squad was reeling from an attack deep inside the Blackstone Fortress, trouble struck behind them.

The atmosphere was equally tense in the docking area aboard House Canary's merchant ship, which served as their forward base.

Charles Fettman stood behind a makeshift barricade of sandbags and metal plates, gripping the ornate Staff that symbolized his family's authority. The sapphire at its tip glimmered faintly beneath the dim emergency lights.

At first, there was only that maddening, ever-present rustling.

Then a new sound began to drift from the darkness of the long passage leading into the Blackstone Fortress.

It was a low, inhuman growl.

The sound seemed to bore straight into the skull. Every armed crewman and family soldier who heard it felt his scalp prickle and a chill run down his spine.

Some of the less experienced young soldiers gripped their guns so tightly their knuckles turned white. Their breathing quickened.

On the heels of the growl came a harsher sound that set their teeth on edge.

It sounded like hard, sharp metal claws slowly scraping across the deck, again and again.

It came and went, drawing steadily closer. Whatever lurked in the darkness seemed to be making noise to torment the defenders—or perhaps testing their defenses for a weak point.

"Hold formation! No retreat! You are House Charles's sword and shield!"

Fettman's voice trembled slightly, but he fought to keep it steady. He struck his Staff against the metal floor with a sharp crack, trying to bolster their courage.

He knew that in this enclosed darkness, spreading fear could prove deadlier than any enemy.

The veterans needed no further orders. They had already taken their positions.

Boltguns were cocked with a chorus of clicks.

Lasgun capacitors charged with a faint hum.

Several Techmarines set up heavy but powerful Tarantula automated turrets, securing their weighty bases at key chokepoints.

The twin-mounted heavy weapons trained their barrels on the passage, red indicator lights gleaming. They would be the first Defense Line against whatever came.

Every gun barrel pointed into the light-devouring darkness ahead.

The soldiers stared down their sights toward the source of the noise, every muscle taut.

Sweat slid from their temples and into their collars, but no one dared raise a hand to wipe it away.

The air reeked of gun oil, sweat, and an unfamiliar stench of decay.

The scraping grew louder and clearer. The unsettling growls multiplied.

There wasn't just one of them. There was a whole pack!

Fettman felt a faint vibration through the deck beneath his feet.

He drew a deep breath and raised the family Staff high. Its jewel caught the reflected glow of the weapons' indicator lights, tracing a resolute arc.

"For the glory of House Charles! All units..." Summoning every ounce of strength, he gave the order. "Fire!"

The word struck like a spark in a powder keg!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The three Tarantula turrets at the front roared first.

Their four heavy boltgun barrels unleashed a devastating storm of metal into the darkness at more than a thousand rounds a minute.

Hot shell casings poured from the ejection ports like waterfalls, piling up beside the turrets.

Then dozens of armed crewmen opened fire with their Lasguns and Boltguns.

In an instant, scorching beams and bursts of flame lit the once-dim passage like daylight.

The deafening gunfire, the boom of exploding Bolts, and the shriek of Laser beams cutting through the air merged into a roar that threatened to make ears bleed.

In those brief, violent flashes, the figures hidden in the darkness were finally laid bare.

They were several gaunt, humanoid creatures with pale blue skin—the same Xenos called Ughul that had attacked Old John's squad.

The heavy fire checked their charge for the moment. Bolts burst against them in sprays of blood, and Laser beams scored their bodies with burns. But the creatures could endure terrible punishment. Unless struck in a vital spot or caught under concentrated heavy fire, they staggered onward.

"Aim your shots! Go for their heads or joints!" a sergeant shouted himself hoarse, firing short bursts from his Boltgun at an Ughul's legs to knock it off balance.

Amid the chaos, one unusually agile Ughul pushed through the hail of bullets and broke past the turrets' field of fire. It shrieked as it lunged at a firing position on the left, its claws poised to tear through the soldier at the front.

"Watch out!"

At that instant, an armed crewman on the position's flank shouted a warning. He was operating a dangerous Plasma Gun.

The coils of the large weapon in his hands had heated to a white glow, radiating fierce heat and a perilous blue-white light.

"Get down!" he roared. He turned and aimed, then pulled the trigger while the Ughul's attention was fixed on the soldier ahead.

Hiss!

A blinding pale-blue bolt of Plasma, packed with energy like the heart of a star, struck the Ughul square in the chest.

There was no explosion. No scream.

Only a brief sound as matter vaporized in the heat.

On contact, the heat—tens of thousands of degrees—vaporized the Ughul's dark blue skin, tough muscles, and hard bones.

Its upper body and ugly head vanished before their eyes as though erased. The lower half took two more steps on momentum before collapsing. Its severed stump was charred black and gave off a sickening burnt smell.

The sight brought the tense battlefield to a momentary standstill.

"We got it! We killed it!" The soldier who had narrowly escaped death could not help cheering, his face bright with triumph.

But that joy lasted less than two seconds.

As if answering their paltry victory, more shrieks rose from the endless darkness deep in the passage—louder, denser, and wilder.

The sound surged toward them like a tidal wave, and every heart sank.

"Emperor... what... what is that..." A soldier pointed into the darkness, despair in his voice.

Between the flashes of turret and rifle fire, countless pairs of faintly gleaming sensory pits appeared in the dark.

Then came a second Ughul, a third, a tenth...

Ughul beyond counting poured out like a breached flood—from every shadowed corner, every ventilation shaft, even the ceiling.

Their gaunt forms gathered into a tide of death. Driven by a frenzy to tear everything apart, they hurled themselves against the fragile Defense Line.

"Fire! Fire! Don't let them through!" Fettman's shouts sounded feeble beneath the shrieking and gunfire.

The defenders fired at full force. The Tarantula turrets' barrels began to glow red with heat, and crimson Lasgun beams filled the passage.

The Ughul at the front were blown to pieces under the barrage, but more monsters charged on without hesitation, trampling their companions' remains like unfeeling killing machines.