Crimson Fury

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Cade jammed his helmet on and called up Berde’s biometric scans.

“Nothing. He’s gone. May the Emperor protect his soul.”

“Sir, there is no priest around to perform an extraction, what will become of his blessed Geneseed?”

“I suppose it will be rot. The process has already started, accelerated by the fungal spores. I encountered something similar on a cursed hulk once, warp-spawned and twisted wreck. We must reach the manufactorum to warn the guardsmen and call for assistance. Leave the equipment. We leave now.” ++Hyte, Do you copy?++

++Yes Sir. Orders?++

++Report to my position immediately. We are moving.++

Cade grabbed a rifle from the pod and mag-locked it to his back, beside his jump pack. Hyte descended into the clearing in a burst of flame, impacting with the ground at speed, cushioned by his power armour.

“Sir! Ready to move.”

“Good. Damnation-pattern formation, Hyte and Gavla on each side. Kyrech, bring up the rear.”

“Sir! I have a lock on the manufactorum’s location. Patching it through now.”

“Got it. Let’s Move”

Cade triggered his pack first, hurtling into the atmosphere in a conflagration of dust and smoke, followed quickly by the rest of the squad, with Hyte and Gavla out to the sides behind him, and Kyrech forming the point of the diamond.

The ground flew past beneath them, their huge jet-assisted jumps covering ground incredibly quickly. Cade’s breathing tubes hissed as oxygen rushed through them, and his audio receptors crackled from wind as he fell towards the ground. He fired his jump pack once, twice in short bursts to slow his descent, and landed hard, bending his knees, his power armour absorbing most of the impact. He fired his pack again, in a sustained burn, and he shot up into the night sky, shot with the first blood-red streaks of dawn, the atmosphere itself reflecting the bloody condition of the planet. Cade reached the peak of his jump miles ahead of where he landed, Hyte and Gavla a mere 200 metres behind him, and began to fall again. The ground flew past beneath them.

The manufactorum became visible on the horizon as dawn broke across the sky, silhouetting the buildings against an orange backdrop. The squad kept up the pace, racing towards the manufactorum. As they drew closer, they began to see flashes of laserfire, and blossoms of flame as the guard held against the green tide. The squad rocketed into the air one last time, and this time triggered their jump pack so they shot towards the ground at high speed, rushing through the air towards the manufactorum and crashing into the back ranks of the orks with a force comparable to that of a falling freight shuttle. Chainswords roared, and a huge swathe of land was cleared before the orks even knew something had hit them, and then the slaughter began in earnest.

Cade threw himself into the melee, laying about him with his chainsword and ripping huge chunks of flesh off the creatures, splattering himself with blood. A larger ork swung at him with a huge axe, but Cade shrugged off the blow on his shoulder and ducked in below the ork’s guard and drove his chainsword double-handed up through the bottom of its chin, spraying the head’s contents across his head and chest, before wrenching his chainsword free out of the creature’s face and kicking it across the battlefield, disrupting some other orks as they ran to join the combat. He roared in savage fury and used the butt of his chainsword as a club, swinging it around and bursting the skull of one, and smashing another in the face, caving in its skull. He levelled the sword and swung, tearing off a head, and plunged it deep into a chest, covering himself with gore. The sword fell from his grasp as the body fell, and he pulled his plasma pistol and his bolt pistol from his leg holsters, and plugged away, one in each hand, spraying the orks with fire, his plasma blasts incinerating flesh and armour alike.

Kyrech rushed past, hacking and slashing at the creatures, sending gore and limbs flying. Cade roared in fury and let loose at the horde with his bolt pistol, saving his plasma shots for pinpoint hits on more heavily armoured orks. He holstered his weapons and drew a combat blade, charging once again into battle. His fist swung and connected with a chest plate, buckling it in and spurting blood over his arm. He used his combat blade to block an axe blow, and jammed it up into the gap between the chest plate and helmet, sending arterial spray flying, and pulling out huge chunks of red flesh when he removed it. His squad formed a perimeter, keeping the immediate area clear of orks, and Cade triggered his pack, launching himself back towards the Guard’s commissar, shaking himself out of his bloodlust.

“Commissar!” Commissar Gealt Yeiser looked around, and stood to attention, his sickly white face slack and unresponsive.

“Yes Sir.” He said in a flat tone.

“Call your men for one last push – we mean to drive these orks off and pursue them until none are left to attack.”

“Yes Sir” The flat tone repeated. “It will be done.” The commissar turned and walked off, not sparing a glance for the raging combat barely 50 feet from where he stood. Cade looked at the combat – actually looked, and realised that only a few guardsmen were actually using their holy lasguns, most seemed to be using combat swords, or even weirder, their bare hands. They fought with a savagery that he had rarely seen in guard. Few fell, they seemed to quickly evade the ork’s strokes and hit them in vulnerable soft spots, incapacitating them in only one or two strikes. Then what was missing occurred to him – none of them, not one, had cheered up, or even reacted when the space marines turned up, surely that should have incited at least recognition.

He opened a vox-link with the rest of his squad

++There’s something up with these guardsmen. None of them even noticed us. And do you see how they’re fighting – with their bare hands!++

++Sir, Do you think the spore wasn’t just a drifter?++

++After what happened to Berde?++

++Do you think they’re infected sir?++

++Unfortunately men, they seem to be.++

++What generation Sir?++

++Fourth. They’re already calling.++