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Mission: Annihilate

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Mission: Annihilate

Gav Thorpe

‘And you didn’t think it was worth checking the signal before starting the countdown, brother-captain?’ Haryk Thunderfang’s bass rumble was tinged with disappointment rather than anger. The Space Wolf looked around the chamber, the glow from his eye lenses reflecting off cobalt-like stone, glittering along silvery circuitry inlays that covered every surface.

‘The mission is more important than our survival, Haryk,’ replied Artemis, brother-captain of the Deathwatch, leader of the kill-team. ‘The necron tomb complex’s destruction is our only concern.’

‘I find it more problematic that we were capable of teleporting in with the cyclotronic detonator, but are now incapable of getting out. How could we be blocked from teleporting one way?’ The question came from Lavestus, seconded to the Deathwatch from the White Consuls.

‘I don’t think we were a threat until we teleported in,’ said Sekor. The youngest, he was often left behind to pilot the Thunderhawk gunship, but on this occasion they had teleported directly from their ship, Fatal Redress.

‘Another explanation is that this part of the tomb complex is shielded from teleporting, which is why we landed half a kilometre from our target coordinates. We head back to the landing point.’ Artemis strode back towards the trapezoid doorway through which they had entered, the door turned to steaming slag by a melta bomb a few minutes earlier.

‘Let’s get going then,’ said Haryk, hefting his plasma reaper.

Ahead of the Space Wolf, Artemis took a step into the passageway and then stopped. A scratching sound echoed down the triangular corridor. Something glittered in the distance just as a noise like a rusty blade being pulled down a metal plate assaulted the ears of the Space Marines.

‘Scarabs!’ Artemis had only time to bark the warning before a tide of small, multi-limbed metal beetles, each the size of his hand, poured towards him, scuttling along floor and walls with equal ease.

Opening fire with metal storm rounds, the kill-team blew away the first swathe of necron constructs, but more followed, their metallic mandibles clicking open and closed, compound-lensed eyes glowing green with alien energy. They advanced into the swarm, weapons spitting destruction.

‘We’re going to run out of time,’ said Sekor. The chrono-display had counted down below three minutes.

‘Attack! Cut through them!’ Artemis combined command with action, drawing his power sword to slash through a handful of constructs. He stepped into the gap he had cleaved, firing his bolt pistol to destroy more scarabs.

Haryk joined the brother-captain and opened fire with the plasma reaper. A storm of blasts streamed along the passageway, each tiny star miniscule compared to the bolt of a normal plasma gun, but still enough to punch through the armoured carapace of a scarab with ease. The whine of energy cells recharging replaced the skittering of metal claws.

‘Quickly, they will return soon enough,’ said Artemis, breaking into a run along the empty corridor.

The walls started to shine, a sickly yellow glow streaming along what Artemis had thought to be veins in the rock. By this dim light he could see mechanoid skeletons entombed within the material itself, rictus-faced skulls grinning at him from the depths.

‘We were wrong,’ said Sekor. ‘This pyramid complex isn’t guarding a subterranean tomb. It is the tomb!’

‘Even better that it will soon be nothing more than a cloud of ash and particles, Emperor be praised,’ replied Lavestus.

They burst into the octagonal hall where they had first teleported into the tomb. It was nearly a hundred metres across and fifty high. One wall was dissolving. The blue stone slewed away to reveal shaft after shaft filled with scarabs. Awakening artificial eyes bathed the black armour of the Deathwatch warriors with a jade glow.

Artemis tried to lock on to the teleport signal again, but his attempt was met by a dull growl from the teleport homer and a smear of nonsense across the display affixed to his right wrist. He took a moment to gauge what was happening as the others opened fire on the swarm of constructs pouring out of the wall towards them. Past the flicker of plasma charges and metal storm bolts, Artemis noticed something was amiss. The scarabs were not trying to attach themselves to the Deathwatch members. From past records, he knew that scarabs often clung to their victims and detonated themselves, destroying both. Why were they not doing the same?

‘Does this seem at all familiar?’ said Haryk, blasting apart half a dozen scarabs with a burst of plasma. ‘I mean, a countdown that is going to destroy us all, fighting against an alien terror waking up around us?’

‘Shut up, Haryk,’ said Artemis, trying to concentrate.

He noticed that many of the constructs were not attacking, but were slipping past the Space Marines to disappear down one of the other corridors. A few were heading towards the cyclotronic device.

‘Keep them away from the detonator, I have a theory,’ Artemis told his companions, setting off after the errant scarabs. The small constructs ignored him as he pounded past, crushing them underfoot.

Less than a hundred metres long, the passage opened up into another tomb chamber. The scarabs hurled themselves at a wall, blowing themselves up to shatter the azure blocks. Amongst them was something a lot larger, several times the mass of Artemis. It floated just above the ground, six bulky legs curled up beneath it, two more limbs extended towards the far wall where green energy beams sliced through the stone-like substance.

Looking past, Artemis saw something within the structure of the tomb, taller and wider than the necron warriors they had passed earlier. Through the diminishing layers of protective cobalt, his gaze met a trio of glowing eyes. He felt a strange moment of connection to the ancient buried thing; they despised each other in equal measure.

Checking his teleport homer, Artemis realised that the jamming signal was emanating from the spider-like construct, which was continuing to ignore him in its efforts to cut free the necron commander. He ejected his bolt pistol’s magazine and slammed in kraken penetrator rounds. Lining up his shots, he fired six times, every bolt punching into the mechanical arachnid between head and body. Sparks flew as it fell to the ground, smaller eruptions jerking its body from within.

‘The signal!’ crowed Sekor. ‘It’s back.’

‘Fatal Redress, evac teleport, now!’ barked Artemis.

With shards of stone crashing to the floor around it, the necron lord erupted from its sarcophagus. Artemis fired his pistol. The bolt clanged from the forehead of the necron commander, leaving a bright scar in the living metal.

‘Stay dead this time,’ he growled. A moment later, a soul-wrenching sickness churned in his stomach and the world disappeared.

As Artemis was deposited on the strike vessel above Norantis XIX, the tomb complex was engulfed by a sphere of plasma and nuclear fire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gav Thorpe is the New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Lion’, a novella in the collection The Primarchs. He has written many other Black Library books, including the Horus Heresy novel Deliverance Lost and audio drama Raven’s Flight as well as fan-favourite Warhammer 40,000 novel Angels of Darkness and the epic Time of Legends trilogy, The Sundering. He is currently working on a new Dark Angels series, The Legacy of Caliban. Gav hails from Nottingham, where he shares his hideout with the evil genius that is Dennis, the mechanical hamster.

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