BUSINESS AS USUAL

Graham McNeill

RIGHT AWAY, SNOWDOG could tell that these six, deadhead Jackboys were trying to pull one over on him. Sure, they talked the talk, walked the walk and apparently had some real heavy connections with the High Hive gangs, but his gut told him that this deal was going to hell. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was definitely wrong. Maybe it was the location the Jackboys had chosen for the deal, too close to the tyranid nests for Snowdog’s liking. Or maybe it was their attitude. They were too cocky, acting like he was some dumb squarejohn who didn’t know the score and Snowdog didn’t like that. Not one bit. It meant they thought they were holding all the cards.

Like all Jackboys, they wore plain grey boiler suits, pulled in at the waist with a broad leather belt. Every one of them had shaven heads, tattooed with crosses, guns and gang symbols. They wore knee-length, shining jackboots and two carried Arbites combat shotguns, no doubt looted from a couple of dead Bronzes. They looked a bit too ready to use them and if this deal did go ballistic, then he’d have to put those two down first.

‘Well?’ said one of the Jackboys. ‘It’s good stuff, yeah? Your boy looks like he’s pretty happy with it.’

Snowdog had to agree, the Kalma was top notch. Lex was smacked out of his damn eyeballs, sedated by the euphoric drug and grinning inanely, thick ropes of drool dangling from his chin. If some shooting action went down here, Lex would be frag all use in the fight. Thank the Hive Spirit he’d decided to bring Silver and Tigerlily with him. The girls could take on any hardcase and make him wish he’d never been born. He’d seen

their handiwork many times and was eternally grateful they ran with his gang.

Both were dressed in dark catsuits and pistol belts. Tigerlily kept her red hair cropped close to her skull in shaven stripes and wore a baldric of assorted throwing knives and daggers across her chest. Silver’s albino-white hair was tied in a long ponytail and she was armed with two gleaming autopistols, bolstered beneath a long, leather coat. The kind of firepower the Jackboys were packing was beginning to make him wish he’d brought Trask or Jonny Stomp along as well, but he’d wanted to make a point. He’d wanted the Jackboys to know he didn’t need big guns to prove how much of a player he was.

‘Yeah.’ nodded Snowdog, conceding the point, ‘it looks like good stuff, but Lex trips out on coffee and ain’t payiri for it neither.’

‘Hey, a free sample only goes so far, you know? You wanna deal or what?’ said a second Jackboy, irritation in his voice. Snowdog’s suspicions racked up a notch. They were too eager to deal. Jackboys usually felt the need to stmt like damn peacocks before getting down to the dealing.

They sat in a junked out factory unit, on the northern edge of the Stank, one of the lowest and most dangerous badzones in Erebus Hive. Not even the Arbites Enforcers would come here without damn good reason. A hab unit had collapsed on the factory a couple of months back, killing all the workers and flattening most of the machinery. It had been abandoned and left to rot; another stinking, sedimentary layer of metal and flesh. There were still tunnels and chambers left in the unit, areas that had escaped the violence of the hab’s collapse. The area they now sat in was low ceilinged and strewn with broken glass and twisted metal girders. The flattened hulk of a milling machine served as their business table.

A large, sealed petri dish sat on the machine, filled with tiny red capsules. Six hundred Kalma drops, worth a small fortune - enough to get some real heavy ordnance, haul themselves upwards and carve out some more stamping grounds.

‘So, you wanna deal?’ repeated the Jackboy.

‘Maybe.’ said Snowdog, nodding imperceptibly to Silver.

‘Don’t be giviri me no “maybe”. Yes or no, that’s all I wanna hear. I don’t give out nothing for nothing. Understand, boy? You take our Kalma, we want something back.’

‘Hey, I didn’t say I wasn’t gonna deal.’ soothed Snowdog, ‘let’s all just flat-line and be cool. We’re all here to do a little business, not bag ‘n tag each other.’

The Jackboys seemed to relax at this and moved their hands away from their pistols. They might be hardcases in the High Hive, but they didn’t know jack about how negotiations were handled down here in the badzones.

Snowdog glanced at the petri dish again. Six hundred Kalma drops. It looked pure as well, the best, not cut with chalk or rock powder. This stuff

would make you feel like the inside of your brain had been dipped in honey.

The cares of the world could all go to hell while you were on Kalma, at least for a while.

But the good stuff didn’t come cheap.

No. These boys were setting him up for something and he sure as hell didn’t like the feeling. He’d stayed alive in the Stank this long by trusting his instincts and right now there was a four alarm fire going off in his head. The Jackboys knew he had the connections and the hard cash to pay for this and he also knew they would probably try to keep the drugs and the money… which meant they wouldn’t let him leave here alive.

Snowdog was not an especially tall man, but his compact body was rangy and muscled and he could fight like a cornered hellcat. His skin had an unhealthy pallor to it, the result of living in the darkness of the underhive and his full features were rugged and careworn. His head was crowned with short, bleached blond hair that was backcombed in short spikes and his brown eyes suspiciously checked out the Jackboys. He wore a pair of black, tiger striped trousers, tucked into a pair of enforcer’s combat boots he’d pulled from a dead Bronze. At his belt hung a long bladed knife and a wire garrotte. His white shirt was printed with a faded holo-patch depicting a rippling explosion that expanded and contracted as he moved. Over this he wore a black leather waistcoat and shoulder holster containing a battered autopistol.

‘Look, how much you want for this?’ asked Snowdog. You got a lot of stuff here, probably more’n I can take in one go.’

‘Hey, man. It’s cool. We know we got a lot. But we need to get rid of it quick, you know?’ said the lead Jackboy, his pitted face right in Snowdog’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Jackboys with the shotguns quiedy ease the safeties off their weapons.

Snowdog sat back, folded his arms and, unnoticed, loosened the catch on his autopistol’s shoulder holster. He noticed Silver and Tigerlily tensing, readying their muscles for instant action. They knew the drill.

He locked eyes with the Jackboy and shrugged, ‘Like I said, how much you want?’

Ten diousand.’ snapped the Jackboy without hesitation.

Ten thousand-‘ said Snowdog, knowing what the next question would be.

You got that kinda cash?’

Yeah.’ said Snowdog, sliding his hand towards his holster.

Then I guess we’ll take all you got!’ shouted the Jackboy, snatching for his gun.

Snowdog was quicker.

He whipped out his autopistol and squeezed off a round full in the Jackboy’s face. The ganger screamed foully, tumbling backwards, the top of his head blasted clear. The Jackboys with the shotguns were moving. Chambering shells, they aimed and fired. Snowdog dropped, hitting the deck hard and rolling, firing off an entire clip of wild shots. Tigerlily leapt towards the second Jackboy and rammed her elbow into his throat. She spun low and hammered a slender-bladed dagger into his belly, slicing upwards in one fluid motion. The Jackboy gurgled and fell to the factory floor, dropping his shotgun and grasping his crushed larynx.

Silver calmly fired her pistols, double tapping the second shotgun-wielding Jackboy in the head. Snowdog slid another clip into the grip of his pistol and rose from behind his shelter.

Bullets stitched a path towards him. He spun quickly and fired twice towards a crouching Jackboy. The man grunted, shot in the chest and fell back, blood pouring from his wounds.

Snowdog felt a whipcrack sting to his cheek and dived forwards, reaching for the fallen shotgun. He scooped it up on the roll and rose smoomly to a crouch, firing off a succession of shots. The noise was tremendous and he whooped with excitement as the Jackboy who’d fired at him went down, his chest punched clean through by the close range blasts.

Silver and Tigerlily worked their way towards him, using every bit of cover available. Neither had even broken sweat. He smiled at them as silence descended on the factory.

‘Time to split, girls.’ he said.

‘Damn straight.’ said Silver. ‘Bound to be some more Jackboys nearby waitin’ for us.’

‘Figured as much.’

‘Only way outa here that ain’t gonna take us into more of these guys is down past the ‘nid nests.’ pointed out Tigerlily, ‘and that ain’t gonna be a barrel of laughs.’

‘Nope.’ Silver agreed. She glanced over the debris they’d sheltered behind and said, ‘What about Lex? We just gonna leave him for the Jackboys? They’ll bag’n’tag him for sure, man.’

‘Damn!’ said Snowdog. He’d forgotten about Lex. He’d still be lying there thinking that this was some Kalma related trip-out. He could hear the Jackboy talking on a comm-unit. More would be here soon, that was for damn sure. He checked his pistol and also took Silver’s gun, handing her the Arbites shotgun.

‘I’ll get Lex. You cover me with this. We’ll be out of here and high n’ dry before you know it.’

THE STANK DARKENED at their passing. The black, armour-clad warriors charged down the twisting halls, combat shotguns held at the ready across their broad chests. Dark cloaks trailed behind them, gusted by the sputtering oxy-recyc units. The six man Adeptus Arbites Enforcer squad, grim men in fully enclosed suits of carapace armour, cast a pall

of fear as they passed the stinking hovels and battered habs of the lower hive.

The leader of the squad, Captain Jakob Gunderson, scanned from side to side, alert for a Skum sniper, Wyldern snuff gang or any one of the many other dangers that lurked in this place. Travelling in such numbers and at this speed made such an attack unlikely, but in the Stank, if you wanted to stay alive, you never took things like that for granted.

The Wall of the Dead in the Precinct House was carved wim the names of those who had.

Gunderson was a feared man. His name was spoken in whispers by the denizens of the Stank. It was a name to quell the worst of riots, a reputation to tell over flickering fires by older, wiser heads which nonetheless glanced furtively over their shoulders as though the mere mention of his name would somehow conjure him from thin air.

At well over two metres, Gunderson was a giant of a man, radiating his authority and power like a threat. He was broad and powerfully built, with muscles like slabs of iron beneath his midnight blue carapace armour. He wore his non-reflective bronze captain’s badge over his left breast and was helmetless, tiny vox-comm beads attached to his larynx and the canal of his ear. A black, protective eye visor shielded his vision.

The ragged residents ducked out of sight of the Enforcers, pulling rusted iron doors shut and hauling tattered strips of clom over tears that served as windows in their prefabricated steel shacks. Children were dragged indoors, the adults fearing the soldiers of the Adeptus Arbites as much as the feral Stank gangs and tyranid monsters that roamed these regions of Erebus Hive.

They’d intercepted a radio call on an unlicensed frequency moments earlier as they patrolled the outskirts of District Quintus, almost half a kilometre away. Strictly speaking, mis area wasn’t within their patrol envelope, but a chance to nail that punk Snowdog was too good to pass up.

Snowdog had been a thorn in Jakob Gunderson’s side for longer than he cared to remember. Several times Gunderson had almost had the diminutive ganger in his sights, but each time the slippery little fragger had managed to escape him.

He was known to front for a couple of heavy hitters up in the refinery city of Desirata who synthesised Kalma, Spook, Slaught and Throne knew what else in secret factories, shipped it to every hive on the planet and, it was rumoured, off-world.

Snowdog was a major player in the odious underworld of Erebus Hive. He ran a fair sized piece of turf with his gang, the Nightcrawlers, and supplied drugs and guns to the ever-hungry population of the hive. What was even more of an affront to Gunderson was that they knew portions of Snowdog’s territory included his own Precinct House 13. As well as being immensely satisfying, a bullet in Snowdog’s head would put a sizeable dent in the drag traffic entering the lower hive from Desirata.

From the garbled communication his men had intercepted, it appeared that some kind of drag deal had gone wrong and there was a chance Snowdog was involved.

Gunderson carried his shotgun as though it were part of his own flesh, grasping it tight in a vice-like grip. It was set to fire Executioner rounds, hunting shells that would zero in on their target’s location. He was taking no chances that Snowdog would get away this time.

He and his squad of five Enforcers reached the collapsed factory their vox-comms had identified as the source of the signal and began climbing the rugged, metal slope of girders and debris towards the entrance, no more than a rusted iron cave mouth.

From inside he could hear screams and gunfire, heavy shotgun blasts and the smaller crack of pistol fire. He racked the slide of his own shotgun, turned to face his men and said, ‘No one kills Snowdog but me.’

SNOWDOG HOLLERED AND hurdled the crate, firing wildly. Silver rose with him and began pumping shells from the shotgun at the surviving Jackboy. He was well under cover and hopefully the fire she was laying down would keep it that way.

He’d almost reached Lex when he saw he’d made a mistake. A big mistake.

From his left, the light at the entrance to the factory was suddenly blocked as a team of Bronzes pushed their way inside. He swore to himself as he recognised the bulky form of their leader and twisted to snap off a couple of shots at him.

He saw them hit, but cursed as they were deflected by the Bronze’s heavy carapace armour. Gunderson turned at the sound of the shots and a feral grin spread across his face as he recognised his prey before him. Snowdog veered off to find cover.

Gunderson lifted the shotgun to his shoulder and squeezed the trigger twice.

Snowdog saw the distinctive flashes of Body-Chaser shells as their tiny motors ignited. He knew he was a goner. Bagged ‘n’ tagged for sure. He kept running anyway, suddenly changing direction as an idea came to him.

He dived forwards, pulling Lex’s doped-up body around and over him.

Sorry, Lex, it’s you or me, buddy.

And let’s face it. It’s you.

He felt the double thump as the ‘Chasers slammed into his human shield, blasting a plate sized-hole in him. Lex didn’t even make a sound, and Snowdog knew he was so doped up that he probably hadn’t even felt

the shells hit. Snowdog winced, thinking that if Lex lived, it was going to hurt like a cast-iron bitch when the Kalma wore off. He pulled Lex’s body closer as he heard more shotgun blasts. He tensed, expecting the agony of scatter shot flensing the flesh from his bones or a solid shot punching a giant crater in his chest.

But he felt nothing - then realised the shots had come from Silver’s direction.

‘Run!’ yelled Silver, firing again into the group of Bronzes, forcing them to find cover. She’d bought him time and he mentally chalked it up as one he owed her. He scrambled to his feet and crawled round the flattened milling machine, reaching up to grab the petri dish as he went.

Feeling pretty pleased with himself, he didn’t notice the last Jackboy until he almost crawled on top of him.

For a second neither moved until Snowdog launched himself forward, lowering his head and slamming his forehead into the shaven-headed ganger’s nose. The Jackboy roared in pain, hands flying to his face.

Snowdog sprang onto the squirming Jackboy and forced the barrel of his gun under his chin. He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The Jackboy’s head exploded, showering Snowdog with blood and brains, the crack of the gun’s discharge lost in a cacophony of shotgun blasts that erupted around him.

Splinters of concrete and glass showered him and he desperately attempted to squeeze himself into as small a target as possible. He could hear Tigerlily and Silver yelling colourful curses and threats at the Bronzes. He tried not to picture the images in his head.

It was clear this situation had gone way too far. Something drastic was required. He checked the clips of each pistol. Each had less than half a mag left. He slowed his breathing, getting ready to go for it. Death or a blaze of glory. Muscles tensed, he was about to move when he caught sight of a dark sheen of metal underneath the Jackboy’s bloodstained overalls. He grinned as he reached down and pulled out a leather bandolier with crude, homemade grenades hung along its length.

Some with his name on, he guessed. He was about to unsnap one of the grenades from the bandolier then stopped, smiling to himself.

To hell with it.

He quickly pulled the pins on all the grenades and rose to his feet, swinging the heavy belt round his head. Yelling an obscenity, he lobbed the bandolier towards the sheltering Bronzes.

The boom of a shotgun caused him to duck back behind the crate. But not before he had time to savour the cries of alarm as the Bronzes realised the deadly nature of what he’d thrown them.

The frag grenades simultaneously detonated in the midst of the Arbites troops. Razor-sharp pieces of white hot metal scythed out from the explosion and men died as the shrapnel shredded their bodies. Snowdog

covered his ears at the terrific blast as the pressure wave rolled over him, tumbling him from his hiding place. The echoes of the detonation rolled back and forth, mixed with the shrieks of the survivors and the dangerous groaning of tortured metal.

The roof now took on a noticeable downward bulge, water beginning to pour from rapidly developing cracks. With hundreds of tonnes of metal above him, that move with the grenades probably wasn’t the best idea he had ever had.

It was time to get greasy and slip away.

He stood and sprinted towards Silver and Tigerlily, sparing a glance at the carnage he’d caused. Three of the Bronzes were dead, a fourth on his knees, clutching his rained belly, vainly trying to hold in his bloody entrails. The leader he couldn’t see. It was too much to hope that Gunderson had been killed; that fragger was way too slippery for that.

Sure enough a black figure rose from behind the wreckage and levelled his shotgun at the running ganger. Silver fired on him, but he didn’t flinch. A fragger he may be, but he was a brave one, Snowdog admitted grudgingly. Silver’s shot impacted on his armour, but the thick breastplate deflected it. Snowdog ducked as Gunderson fired, feeling lashes of hot fire rake across his back as scatter shot scored through his leather waistcoat, shirt and skin.

His ears were ringing with gunfire, but not before he heard the metal ceiling of the factory give out one last hideous metallic scream of protest, chunks of plascrete and metal crashing to the floor. He saw Silver discard the empty shotgun then, following Tigerlily, dart into the corroded sewer entrance they had earlier tagged as their escape route if things went loco. With a wild yell, he lurched and skidded along the floor, following them into the darkness of the sewer entrance.

SNOWDOG BREATHED DEEPLY, then wished he hadn’t. The stench of the Erebus Hive sewer network was overpowering, shot through with the reeking odours of six million people’s waste.

He stood knee deep in foetid, rank effluent, sludgy with refuse. Man, he was never gonna get this off his boots! The darkness was absolute; a number of turns in the sewer had cut off the little light that filtered down into the waste pipe. Snowdog reached into his pocket, granting as pain razored up his back from the trails the scatter shot had blazed, and withdrew his lighter. He flicked off the brass cap and struck the flint.

Weak light flickered, revealing the full extent of their refuge. The steel pipe was perhaps one and a half metres in diameter and stagnant with filth. The murky liquid was unmoving, blocked further up the pipe by piles of trash and rubble.

‘You okay?’ asked Silver genuinely. ‘I was sure that Bronze had you tagged for sure.’

‘He almost did. He’s a stubborn one, that Bronze. He’s been lookin’ for me for Spirit only knows how long. Didn’t get me yet though.’ replied Snowdog.

‘I think we might be near the bug nests.’ said Tigerlily, the fear in her voice unmistakable. ‘We’re gonna have to step lightly, less we want to end up sliced and diced.’

Snowdog nodded. Ever since the Space Marines had kicked the tyranids off this world, the local boys of the Imperial Guard and Defence Militia had had their hands full hunting the remaining tyranid creatures that had gone to ground in the underhive. Despite their efforts there were still broods of the smaller beasts nesting in the moist darkness of the lower levels of Erebus Hive. When the ‘nids had attacked the hive, Snowdog had fought hand-to-hand in a militia unit as sickle armed beasts burst through every culvert and recyc unit, slaughtering hundreds of the lower hive dwellers. Snowdog had seen enough bugs to last a lifetime and certainly didn’t want to see any more.

But the war had been over for three months now and Snowdog had wasted no time in getting back to the serious job of dealing in illegal narcotics and guns. The devotional vids and posters might claim it was every citizen’s job to help in the eradication of the tyranids, but for Snowdog it was back to business as usual.

You get the Kalma drops?’ asked Tigerlily, a carefully hidden longing beneath her casually asked question.

‘Yeah, I got some. But nobody gets none ‘till we’re home free. Last thing we need is you smacked out if the bugs come for us.’ said Snowdog, stuffing the petri dish into the pocket of his waistcoat.

He grimaced and pointed down into the rank depths of the sewer tunnel. It sloped downwards at a shallow angle, descending into darkness.

Now that he had illumination, he noticed the walls were covered in a glistening ooze, a sticky residue that he didn’t like the look of at all.

‘Looks like we got a long walk ahead of us.’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go. I don’t wanna be hangin’ round here longer’n we got to.’

GUNDERSON THREW HIMSELF forward as tonnes of metal and concrete came crashing down. He yelled as a steel beam smashed into his back, slamming him into the ground and he rolled as blocks of stone and iron thundered around him, the noise drowning out his cries of anger and pain. He saw Enforcer Delano crouching next to him, blood streaming from his temple. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the sewer entrance he’d seen Snowdog go down.

The ceiling continued to groan in protest and Gunderson knew that to stay here was to die. Rubble was sure to keep falling around them

and it would only be a matter of time before they were crushed flat. Gunderson and Delano slithered their way towards the tunnel. Snowdog had a head start, but he wouldn’t be expecting any pursuit. Gunderson would make him pay for that lack of vision.

THE INTERIOR OF the sewer tunnel wasn’t the worst place Snowdog could remember being in, but it came pretty damn close. The stench was appalling and he didn’t want to think what the wriggling movements within the effluent were.

As escape routes went, he’d used better ones.

But any gunfight you walked away from in one piece and with a pocket full of Kalma was a good one, so he guessed he couldn’t complain.

At last the tunnel began to brighten slightly before emerging into a high vaulted chamber of dim light and dripping echoes. Tunnels branched off the chamber in all directions and without hesitation Snowdog dropped from the tunnel into the chamber. Picking an opening to his left, he began wading towards it.

They had travelled perhaps ten steps when they found the bodies.

Five Wyldern gangers, their skeletons picked clean of meat. The water around them was still stained with blood, so whatever had done this had reduced them to their bare bones in seconds. The underhive was full of creatures that could kill a man stone dead, but Snowdog didn’t know of any that could do this to a person so quickly. At least not ones of this world. The killing of the Wyldems reeked of tyranids and he knew they must be close to a nest. Time to get moving.

The Wyldern nearest to Snowdog still clutched a shotgun in a death grip and he grinned as he quickly bent to pick it up.

‘Don’t even think about it.’ snapped a voice from behind him.

He slid his hand towards his holster until the sharp click of a shotgun slide being racked convinced him that it would be unhealthy to continue. He slowly turned and raised his hands in time to see a pair of blood-streaked Enforcers emerge from the tunnel he and the girls had just come from. Gunderson dropped into the water-filled chamber while the second Enforcer covered them with his shotgun.

That weapon is Imperial properly.’ said Gunderson. ‘Touch it and I’ll blow you away’

‘You’d like that, huh?’

‘More than you know.’

‘So why haven’t you?’ asked Snowdog.

‘Oh no.’ replied Gunderson. ‘You don’t get off that easy, punk. I’m taking you in Snowdog. I’m going to chain you up like the animal you are and let the world see me drag you in.’

Snowdog looked over at Silver and Tigerlily, but, like him, they knew that reacting now would just get them all killed. The two Enforcers were

on the edge. Their blood was singing and it would only take the slightest hint of resistance to start them blasting. He’d have to play this one ice cool.

‘Listen man. You see these skeletons?’ said Snowdog, nodding towards the bodies. ‘These boys got their asses fragged by the ‘nids that went to ground after the war and my gut tells me there’s a nest nearby. You start firing that cannon of yours, you’re gonna bring a whole bunch of ‘em down on us, so what you say we all just keep calm, ok?’

You killed my men!’ shouted Gunderson. ‘Don’t you dare tell me to be calm! I am calm! Delano, get down here with the cuffs.’

A hoarse gurgling was the only reply to Gunderson’s order and he risked a glance behind him to see what the hell Delano was playing at.

Enforcer Delano still crouched in the sewer outlet, but a massively long talon now protruded from his body, just above his hip. A look of almost comic surprise twisted his features and he groaned in pain as blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

What the hell-‘ managed Gunderson as the talon was wrenched from Delano’s body and the Enforcer toppled into the water. Behind him, its claws stained bright red, was a lithe, muscled creature with a ridged body and lethal looking talons. The beast hissed, exposing glistening fangs and its pale eyes burned with alien malevolence.

Its powerful hind legs uncoiled like a spring as the creature leapt from the sewer outlet towards them. It exploded in mid-air as the solid shot from Gunderson’s shotgun blew it apart, the echoes of the blast ringing from the concrete walls. Hurriedly he chambered another shell and ran to help the struggling Delano to his feet as the sound of scrabbling claws and alien hissing came from all around them.

It seemed to issue from every outlet. And it was growing in volume.

‘Damn.’ whispered Snowdog as he tried to pinpoint the source of the noises. ‘Look what you’ve gone and done now!’

Another one of the creatures dropped from the roof of the chamber, landing with a splash just behind Snowdog. Its talons lashed out at his neck. He ducked and lowered his head straight into the second beast as it powered from the water, its bony skull smashing into his unprotected face. Blood burst from his nose and he yelled in sudden pain, splashing backwards into the water.

Gunderson’s and Delano’s shotguns fired again as the outlet pipes erupted with dozens of the horrifying beasts, an alien tide of rippling armour plates, chitinous blades and fangs.

Snowdog hauled himself to his knees as two of the creatures stalked through the foamy water towards him. The creatures were hunched over, the front pair of their limbs ending in long, scythe-like blades.

He recognised them almost immediately as hormagaunts, and he’d fought enough of these beasts during the war to know they were in serious trouble. Their bestial faces were drawn and pale, white, lidless eyes seeming to glow with a killing light.

The lead hormagaunt lifted its head, cocking it to one side, tongue darting in and out of its mouth like a snake’s. Snowdog put a bullet between its eyes as the second ‘gaunt launched itself at him. He threw himself flat and the creature sailed over him, landing in a thrashing pile of claws. As it picked itself up, Snowdog emptied the last of the clip into the back of its head.

More of the creatures dropped from the roof or rose from the sewage around them. The heavy boom of shotgun blasts echoed deafeningly around the chamber as Gunderson and Delano fell back towards Tigerlily and Silver, firing as they went. Tigerlily drew her daggers and hammered them through a ‘gaunt’s neck, almost severing its head, as Silver snatched her pistols from her weapons belt. Before she could fire, a pair of ‘gaunts leapt from the tunnel behind her and smashed into her back. She cried out and was knocked sprawling, face-first into the water. The beasts’ claws tore at her back, their talons raised to strike.

Snowdog slammed a fresh clip into his pistol and fired twice into the soft underbelly of one of the ‘gaunts, blasting it from Silver’s back. Gunderson slammed the butt of his shotgun into the second creature’s head, splitting it apart with a sickening crunch. He kicked the alien away as Tigerlily pulled the spluttering Silver to her feet. Snowdog stood and waded towards the girls. He could see more ‘gaunts emerging from the tunnels around them and counted at least a dozen. Suddenly his autopistol seemed scant protection.

Gunderson glared at Snowdog, his rage an almost physical thing. Snowdog grinned, knowing that the Enforcer now realised that he would need Snowdog’s help if he was to survive the next few minutes.

Delano propped himself against the concrete wall, his groin and legs awash with blood and his face ashen. A circle of hormagaunts surrounded them, at least twenty now. Snowdog hoped they had enough ammo left to deal with this number of aliens.

He dodged as a hormagaunt leapt at him, its talons slashing. He blasted its chest open and dodged as another pounced. He pulled the trigger and the hammer dropped on an empty chamber. He quickly snatched his knife from his belt.

The bug attacked wildly. Snowdog dodged, spun inside its guard and drove the blade deep into its neck, wrenching it upwards. They splashed into the water, the ‘gaunt spasming weakly as its lifeblood pulsed from the ruin of its throat.

Snowdog sprang upright, knife at the ready and slashed out at the ‘gaunts next to him. Silver tossed him a fresh clip for his pistol and he slid it home. Gunderson fired into the mass of creatures, each blast blowing a ‘gaunt into bloody shreds. ‘We got to get out of here!’ shouted Snowdog.

‘You think?’ Gunderson snapped

‘Head for the tunnel behind us, it’s the only one these things ain’t come from!’

Gunderson nodded and began falling back. The ‘gaunts surrounded them in a rough semi-circle, fangs bared and talons raised. The noose slowly closed, but the aliens held back, seemingly content just to watch their prey.

Why aren’t they attacking?’ whispered Silver.

‘Who cares?’ said Tigerlily. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’

‘Sounds good to me,’ agreed Snowdog, backing in the direction of the tunnel. The ‘gaunts closed in, moving in time with their beleaguered group. Why weren’t they attacking, he wondered? Almost as soon as he formed the thought, his question was answered as a terrifying screech echoed from the tunnel behind the circle of ‘gaunts and a monster from the darkest of nightmares pushed its alien bulk into the chamber.

Snowdog had seen some hellish monsters in his time fighting the tyranids and had paid close attention when the commissars had shown them the instructional vids detailing the various identified types of alien creatures and their horrifying abilities.

But he was still shocked by the hideous appearance of this creature.

Standing taller than a man, its spine was curved and ridged, with overlapping plates of chitinous, red armour. Its head was distended and burnt looking, with white orbs for eyes and a vast jaw filled with row upon row of needle-like fangs. Its rear legs were muscled like the ‘gaunts’ and, like them, its forelimbs ended in gigantic scythe-like talons. The limbs on its thorax bore clawed hands and the muscles there bunched and relaxed, the fingers flexing rhythmically in time with its foetid breath.

The beast’s chest was a wetly glistening mass of rippling tissue, pink and raw looking. Barbed hooks clicked on the exposed bone of its exo-skeleton, almost as though they had a life of their own. Perhaps it had once been a ‘gaunt like the others and the isolation from the hive fleet had driven its internal evolution into overdrive, producing this terrifying pack leader. However it had happened, Snowdog realised, it was bad news for them.

‘Emperor save us…’ whispered Gunderson. Silver hurriedly scrambled into the outlet behind them and reached back to pull Tigerlily up.

‘Come on!’ said Silver, extending her hand towards Snowdog. He gripped her wrist and hauled himself into the sewer tunnel as the monstrous beast took a thundering step into the water. Snowdog looked back as Gunderson and Delano faced the huge beast.

‘Well shoot the damn thing!’ he yelled.

Delano needed no further prompting and squeezed the trigger of his shotgun. At such close range he couldn’t miss and Snowdog watched as a blaze of purple energy flared around the beast simultaneously with the shotgun’s blast. As the searing afterimage of the flash dissipated, Snowdog saw that the creature was unharmed and knew that it was protected by a kind of naturally generated energy field. He’d seen some of the larger tyranid beasts protected by something similar during the war.

The creature’s chest suddenly spasmed, the pink folds of skin rippling and undulating with a grotesque peristaltic motion. Thick cords of tough muscle fibre whipped out towards Delano. The barbed hooks punched through the Enforcer’s carapace armour and snagged his ribcage, digging into the meat of his body. The flesh hooks retracted on powerful muscles and hauled the screaming Delano off his feet. Gunderson made to grab him, but wasn’t quick enough to prevent the beast from dragging him into its deadly embrace.

Delano slammed into the creature, his screams cut off abruptly as its upper talons stabbed repeatedly into his body. Soon the Enforcer’s body was reduced to a pulped mess of torn and bloody flesh, barely recognisable as human. While the beast destroyed Delano, Gunderson leapt for the sewer outlet as the beast dropped the mangled corpse into the water. Snowdog helped him up and they sprinted deeper into the sewers, the high pitched ululating screeches of the ‘gaunts telling them that the tyranid creatures weren’t far behind them.

Gunderson led the way as they moved further into the tunnels, a torch on his shotgun providing some illumination. Snowdog brought up the rear of their small group, casting nervous glances behind him as the screeching increased in volume.

‘Come on, come on.’ he hissed. ‘Let’s pick up the pace here people!’

His breath came in short gasps, and he could almost feel the creatures’ hot breath upon him. He threw a glance over his shoulder as he ran and swore as he saw the outline of the giant beast behind him. Too close, too close by half!

The tunnel turned and widened into a large inspection chamber, one with a corroded iron ladder at its centre leading up into darkness. The others were past the ladder, still running, but he knew that to keep going deeper into the tunnels wasn’t an option. The beast was too fast and there were more of the smaller ones than they had bullets left.

‘Woah!’ he yelled, skidding to a halt. ‘Up here!’

Snowdog scrambled up the ladder, fear lending his limbs extra speed. He climbed into a wider concrete tube, finally emerging into another tunnel, larger than the one they had just left, but with a sliver of light casting a weak glow from one end. Silver crawled from the hole and rolled to one side as Gunderson’s head emerged behind her. No sooner had he clambered out when Tigerlily hooked her arms around the manhole’s edge and began hauling herself free.

She screamed suddenly and Snowdog grabbed her wrists and pulled as powerful alien limbs began dragging her back down. Tigerlily continued to scream horribly as Silver and Gunderson leant their strength to holding her.

A horrifying ripping noise sounded, and at first Snowdog thought her clothes were tearing. Then, a scarlet gout of blood flooded from the girl’s mouth and the three fell backwards, still clutching the upper half of Tigerlily’s torso. The glimmer of life was still in her eyes and Snowdog watched in horror as the girl’s agonised shrieks trailed into a hideous gurgling.

With a deafening cry, the tyranid creature hauled its bulk through the floor of the tunnel and Snowdog howled his rage at the beast. He rolled to his knees and drew his pistol in one motion, aiming towards its head. He squeezed off several shots, but none were able to penetrate the creature’s energy field.

It lashed out with a taloned arm and sent him flying, slashed from hip to shoulder. Gunderson fired his last few shells at the creature as Silver snatched up one of Tigerlily’s fallen knives.

The beast towered over Snowdog and he knew that this was it, this was how he was going to check out of this world. Not exactly how he’d planned it.

Its powerful clawed hands, the ones it had used to tear Tigerlily in two, reached down and picked him up, raising him to its fanged maw. Snowdog heard Silver scream his name as he fired the last bullets from his pistol at point blank range into the beast’s face. It screeched in agony as one bullet somehow managed to defeat its protective field and blow out its left eye. Its grip convulsed, the claws digging further into Snowdog’s body, and he screamed in agony, blood streaming down his sides.

He scrabbled for another weapon, almost insensible from the pain as the claws dug further into his flesh. His hand closed over something in his pocket and he rammed it deep into the creature’s throat. He kicked backwards, powering free of the creature’s grip, its talons scoring bloody grooves in his body. He felt a bone-jarring impact as his face connected with the concrete and tasted blood as his teeth snapped.

He heard another boom of a shotgun discharge followed by the snap of a hammer slamming down empty. The beast lashed out again at Gunderson’s chest, its talon smashing through his armour and laying him open to the bone. The Enforcer tumbled back, unconscious, and dropped his shotgun.

It was all over now, Snowdog realised, and he waited for the fatal blow to land. But for long seconds nothing happened. Then he heard a tortured groaning and an alien hiss of incomprehension.

Snowdog felt a crashing thump beside him and closed his eyes. Eventually, he forced them to open and looked around. The tunnel was eerily

quiet, only the sound of ragged breathing and the gentle lap of distant water disturbed the silence. Then Silver laughed, a high pitched laugh of terrified relief and released tension. Snowdog pushed himself painfully to a sitting position and leaned back against the tunnel wall and stared, disbelieving, at the sight before him.

Flanks heaving slowly with its laboured breathing, the vast tyranid creature lay unmoving on the tunnel’s floor. Its fanged head was close enough for him to touch, thick saliva drooling from its jaws. He closed his eyes and replayed the last few moments in his head: Tigerlily’s death, the gunshots and him ramming something down the alien’s throat. It obviously hadn’t been a grenade as he’d hoped, but what had it been? Then he noticed a few red capsules trailing from between the creature’s jaws and suddenly knew exactly what he’d done.

Six hundred Kalma drops in one go!

As he watched, the alien’s chest hiked one last time and its heart finally gave out under the sedating effects of the drug. Its long, rattling death cough faded to a low hiss and Snowdog could feel hysterical laughter building inside him. The beast had overdosed on Kalma. Not really surprising, considering it had taken all six hundred doses of the powerful narcotic in one hit. Silver helped him to his feet and together they stared at the beast that had almost killed them all.

‘Some day, huh?’ remarked Silver.

‘Some day.’ agreed Snowdog.

Silver nodded towards the unconscious Gunderson and said, What you wanna do about him? You want me to finish him off?’

Snowdog shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

Why not? He’d kill you.’

‘Probably,’ conceded Snowdog, ‘but just think how much it’s going to eat at him, knowing we could’ve killed him, but didn’t.’

Silver shrugged and said, ‘Have it your way.’

Snowdog winced in pain as they limped towards the light at the end of the tunnel, dizzy from blood loss. But any battle with an alien monstrosity you walked away from in one piece was a good one, so he guessed he couldn’t complain.

Yeah, thought Snowdog, it was business as usual alright.