UNITY
James Gilmer

THE BLACK BIRD perched easily on the corpse's chin. The thing pecked again and opened a fresh wound in the Imperial Guardsman's face, just below the left eye, and Tam felt Gesar's hand close around his wrist and force his pistol downwards. 'No noise.'
'We can't let a Guardsman lie like that. It's not right.'
The Astartes squared off in front of Tam and stared him down. Gesar's helmet had been lost in the fighting. Blood caked up around the cut along his chin and cracked open as he talked.
'It doesn't matter what he was when he was alive. He's dead now and we're not. We will push on for Emperor and Throne. Your job is to live and kill the xenos scum that did this. You will do your duty, not shoot a bird because it offends you for following its nature.'
The Raven Guard Astartes was harsh, but right. They'd been on the run for hours now, and had to be behind the advance of the fire warriors if not the human infantry and kroot shock troopers. Tam's regiment had broken at the battle of the communications hub, and the Astartes had been retreating when Tam had climbed down from his sniper's nest and met up with him.
'Sorry, my lord, it won't happen again. We're coming up on the farms. Maybe the farmers will give us shelter, or we can just take it.'
Tam knew he just had to stay close to the Space Marine. If there was one thing beyond the Emperor that he had faith in, it was of the holy vengeance that was the Adeptus Astartes. The Space Marines, living instruments of the Emperor of Humanity, would always see them through. Gesar would get him out alive. There was simply no other being that could stand against the Emperor's angels of death.
'Farmers can sell out, corporal, or be forced to reveal our location. There were human soldiers with the tau forces this time, do not forget that.'
The Tau Empire was a collective of races, ruled over by the caste-based tau, who sent their own fire caste into battle alongside other races, including mercenary human traitors. This had been Tam's first engagement with them and their member races. It was actually Tam's first battle against any xenos, and he counted himself lucky that he had survived to find the Raven Guard already on the move and plotting to escape or strike back at the invading horde.
Gesar hooked a thumb and pointed beyond the dead Guardsman propped up against the tree.
'At least he did his duty at the end of things. A blood trail leads away. The colour and scent is not human.'
Gesar stepped over the corpse and the black bird flew off as he swung the boxy bolter at it. Tam knew it'd be back, but it was a nice gesture anyway. The Guardsman had been dead some time, as the deep furrows in his chest weren't steaming in the brisk air, and his face had long gone purple in the cold.
'Kroot hound. One of the kroot's creatures, they set these things on us at the front of the comm station. I saw four of your regiment go down to one of these before I put a bolt through the thing's head.'
Gesar kicked at the corpse that he'd found. It was lightly dusted with snow, but Tam could see thick grey fur on the creature's back. Dried blood covered the muzzle and the claws. It was a huge thing, easily bigger than a man, although the Astartes was larger still, and from the blood trail that Tam could make out it had crawled off to die after having a few rounds put through it by the Guardsman.
'We still haven't come across any bodies from your regiment.' Gesar nodded back at the man's body. They hadn't found any of the other survivors who had broken and run when the line had collapsed at the uplink station. This was the first Imperial Guard corpse they had come across.
The Imperial Guardsman's unit badge was Coruna Imperial Guard, and showed crossed rifles behind a lupine skull. Tam's own badge showed a winged chainsword denoting the 3rd Tantulas Regiment.
'My lord, we've seen lots of skirmish sites, and everything from dead tau to dead kroot to dead traitors. Where the hell are our men?'
Gesar shook his head at the question and ran a hand through closely cropped white hair. The Astartes had the same albino skin and dark pebbles for eyes that all of the Raven Guard Tam had seen in paintings or on the pict-viewer possessed. At each battle site Gesar had done the same thing: surveyed the area, cursed under his breath and then exploded into motion again.
It was a struggle to keep up with the Astartes. Tam had even considered dropping his sniper rifle after the first hour of running, but he'd held on to it. It was a thing of beauty. Prayers to the Golden Throne and dirty poems inscribed in the stock, a telescopic sight he prayed over every night that he'd been chosen to carry in his role as a sniper, with a lovely bayonet for close-quarters work that his father had forged himself back on Tantulas.
'We need to move. If we make the farms we might find answers. The tau do not exterminate but turn those they can. If not willingly then they may use other methods to turn the population. We will either protect this world or cleanse it of traitors and xenos even if we must do it one at a time.'
Tam knew better than to question the Space Marine. The Astartes was not only his best bet of surviving this world, but he would also kill Tam himself if he thought the Guardsman faltered in his duty.
What little Tam did know about this Raven Guard and his Chapter had been the company gossip that had filtered down through the ranks after the Astartes had appeared at their camp. Gesar had been cut off from his battle-brothers and diverted to help hold the uplink station. Then it had been a bloody morning battle between tau energy weapons and the rush of human infantry, and the time for questions and rumours had given way to pulse blasts and bolter rounds shattering the crisp air.
The humans serving with the tau had worn blue and gold, not very different from the colours the tau fire warriors had their armour kitted out in. Ges'vesa was what Tam had heard them called over the vox-casts the tau's turncoat humans had made before landing. ''Human Helpers'' in the Tau language, and traitors who would find only death at the hands of those loyal to humanity and the Emperor's Divine Grace.
The pulse rifles the fire warriors carried had better range than most of the Guardsman weapons. They had held off taking shots at the comm station from the depth of the forest. The Ges'vesa had come in first. Two waves that broke against the combined defence of the Imperial Guard and Gesar holding the line. Tam had heard Gesar's voice, vox-casting at full strength, right up until the kroot shock troopers hit.
Taller even than Gesar, kitted out in animal pelts and hefting rifles they swung like clubs, the bipedal kroot were nasty close-quarter fighters. Tam had taken a few out, and not one had looked the same through his scope. The most he could say was that they were tall, lanky and fast.
The hounds had rushed in first. The howling that they raised sounded like wolves, and the things had crossed the clearing before Tam could sight in on any of them. Deadly-quick with long muzzles and nasty teeth, they were in among the squads before anyone could clear pistols or fix bayonets.
Tam knew Gesar had lost his helmet sometime around then. One moment Gesar had been at the head of the line, the next Tam had heard a chainsword rev and a cry to Corax, primarch of the Raven Guard, carry over the fighting.
Gesar had taken the time to clean the hound's blood off his chainsword after the fight, but his white and black armour was still spotted with blood and scarred by claw marks.
The kroot themselves, bipedal and vicious, had come next. A hail of high-calibre rifle rounds broke the ranks, and the hounds that were among them spread them out even further, and then the kroot hit the line.
The things had muscles like whipcord, and they twirled their rifles like clubs, smashing aside any Guardsman in their way Tam hadn't been able to get clear shots once they got in close. He'd earned a few kills, but often after a Guardsman had gone down from a rifle butt cracking open his helmet or a curved knife punching through a flak jacket.
Most of the kroot had looked somewhat avian. They had sharp, elongated features to their skulls, and while Tam had heard stories of xenos and what they looked like, the kroot unnerved him. A quick glace could confuse one for human. Right up until you saw the faces. Some of them were avian, some almost ape-like, and no two looked the same.
Tam had sworn most of them had black pools for eyes, but he knew he'd seen one look right towards his perch with the slit-eyes of a cat. Green flecks set against tan skin and black pupils.
He'd had to dive off the rock mound he'd been using as a position when the thing sent a volley of rifle fire his way. In this way he'd started his own, private retreat, from the battle of the comm station.
It wasn't a thing he was proud of, but he could hear the lines below him falling apart. A commissar had been screaming for discipline and shouting that he'd shoot any man or woman who ran right up until his voice had cut off with a scream and a hound's howl.
The only thing Tam focussed on was the distinctive sound of Gesar's bolter. It was unmistakable amongst the other sounds of the fight. He'd made his way down the ridge and past a few others running for cover. The kroot were circling the uplink building and the whole of the defence was breaking up and falling back.
He'd seen a kroot sweep a Guardsman's legs out from under him and almost ran on. The man's scream brought him back, and Tam drew his pistol and dropped into a firing stance he'd had drilled into him a hundred times during training. The double-tap dropped the first kroot, but two more were too close and he swore he felt the bullets pass by him in the chill air.
Bolter rounds had taken both of them from behind, and like that he and Gesar were in tactical retreat. There hadn't been much tactical to it in Tam's mind, but he wasn't going to argue with an armoured-up and pissed-off Space Marine. The ranks had broken too badly to rally anyone, and before Tam knew it there were just the two of them crashing through the trees down the mountain's slope.
They had held up as long as they could in a culvert at the base of the mountain. Rifle cracks and the hiss of energy weapons vaporising air carried on the wind, but they only found the scenes of fighting, and the only bodies were in tau colours.
Gesar was getting edgier as they moved through the forest. It didn't help that night was coming on, and the forest was starting to thin. They'd be out of cover and into the first of the farmlands that covered Coruna. With the frost on, there wasn't a lot of crop cover, and that meant a hike across open terrain with an enemy that had much better auspex devices than a helmetless Space Marine and an Imperial Guard sniper.
'My scope is kitted out for NV, if it comes to that.'
Gesar nodded and was moving with long strides again. Tam could tell the man was thinking hard on the scenes they'd found, and the distinct lack of Imperial bodies.
'My lord, excuse the question, but you don't think our people made it out, do you? You think they're prisoners or surrendered, is that it?' Tam was having nine hells' worth of trouble keeping up with the Space Marine, and he had no idea how the man, with that much armour on, could move so fast or quiet. It wasn't a natural thing, any more than the Astartes not stopping once for food or water. Tam had caught a drink from his canteen and a ration bar eaten between stops at battle sites. Gesar seemed to keep moving on pure spite.
'Blood all over the place. Human blood, even where there's not bodies, and too much for a normal man to walk away from. Your regiment is good, for Imperial Guard, but no one is that good. No blood trails from wounded either.'
It was the truth of the matter. Tam had thought that maybe the Imperials had carried their wounded off with them after the first couple of skirmish sites they found. There was just no way they could or would have been able to carry every wounded man off the field while under retreat from an enemy that was fielding things like the kroot hounds though.
'Your regiment was broken up on the opposite ridge and at the uplink station. The Coruna Regiment was supposed to be down in the farm land. If we got cut off we should have run into more tau by now. I need to find out where they went.'
Gesar was slowing down as they broke into more open ground. There was less and less cover with every step. They'd be hitting the edge of the forest in moments, and the sun was only just starting to go down.
'Hold up here.' Gesar stopped almost faster than Tam could register. One moment the man was in motion, a mass of armour plates and determination, and the next he was still as death and twice as ugly.
'We can't cross open fields during dusk. We'll wait an hour or two and you can employ the night scope to see if we're clear.'
'My lord, despite the strength of spirit that blesses this rifle, I'm afraid it's not as powerful as the auspex devices of your lost helmet or of the tau forces. If they have thermal viewers or anything fancy they'll pick us out immediately.'
Slate-black eyes caught him and Tam thought the Space Marine was death itself. The only colour on the man was the cut along his jaw that broke open in a thin red line, much smaller now than the open wound had been, against the white alabaster of his skin as he ground his teeth in frustration.
'You will follow your orders, Guardsman, and you will not make me repeat myself.'
Tam nodded quickly. The last thing he needed was an enraged Astartes on his hands. It was a rare thing to find one so willing to talk to a lesser soldier such as Tam, but for the Astartes to let Tam keep pace, to let him talk to the Space Marine as he had... Tam intended on staying either behind or beside the Astartes until they hooked up with wherever his regiment was or until they could find a way off this planet. He would also do his best to stay on the good side of the man's humour.
'Yes, lord. Do you think there are still Imperial forces in this sector?'
'Our only way to find out is to find a farm and see if they have any communication with the larger world. This is a farm planet: there isn't much but animal shit and crops most of the year. The cold season only lasts a few weeks standard. Most of the farmers will be sitting it out and waiting for the next planting cycle. The tau absorb their enemies into their empire, they will not simply kill but will find those who are willing to turn traitor and anyone who doesn't join willingly will be made to join their cause, their crusade for their Greater Good.'
'They were broadcasting that before they landed. Is it a religion?'
Gesar had set himself down on a log and was checking his spare bolter clip, lips moving in silent litany, and making sure the action on the weapon was still smooth. His jaw muscles rolled in the way that Tam had come to recognise as the man grinding his teeth in suppressed anger.
'It seems to be their belief system. The blue-skinned xenos always vox-cast. They swear that they mean no harm, and they preach a kind of tolerance. They poison minds with xenos lies and try to turn those who are weak in their faith to the alien cause. Sometimes cowards and traitors do throw their lot in, and then my brothers and I simply have more targets to shoot.'
Gesar had a rag out and was wiping the bolter down. The man moved in a prayer for a steady hand and he absently clicked the magazine in and out a few times and cleared a round through the chamber.
Tam had to admit that he didn't quite have Gesar's fire for the Imperium, but then any selected for the Adeptus Astartes gave themselves to the Emperor gladly. Body, soul and everything in between was transfigured to create humanity's angels of death. The look Gesar gave him seemed to see right through Tam's every thought.
'The Raven Guard hollows you out; they hollow you out and fill you with the Emperor's Will. They gave me certainty. These things speak our tongue, they field humans from dozens of worlds, and they hire xenos mercenaries to do their fighting.'
Tam started as the Space Marine snapped a round into the chamber and holstered his bolter. In the thin light the Space Marine bled into the background and was just another shadow among the trees.
'Stars are almost out, lord. Once the sun finishes going down I'll be able to move up to the border and take a look.'
Tam might as well have been talking to a granite statue. The Space Marine was a study in patience and potential violence. He was looking past Tam, and whatever he saw in the dark places was not the sort of thing Tam wanted to be meeting.
'You have shown yourself to be a loyal servant of the Emperor. Gather your strength and honour about you. Do not allow the xenos to take you. If it should come to that, it is better we both die than to let ourselves fall into their hands.'
Tam would put up a fight if it came to it, but the tau had said anyone who laid down arms would be welcomed as soldiers in a greater fight.
'I can see you thinking. Even with hardly any light, I can see almost as good as that scope. Had I my helm I could see better than that scope. I know what's in your head, and you do not want to throw down arms.'
'I'm not a coward, lord.'
Gesar's teeth stood out in the low light. A waxy moon was rising over the mountains, and the yellow light only added to the death's head ghost image of the pale Astartes.
'I'm not talking about courage; you have steel in your back, but you don't know what these xenos do. The tau spread their lies, but I've heard what they pay the kroot off with. The humans among them are traitors, and the tau are vile as any alien, but the kroot are another thing.'
'With respect, they die like anything else. I don't care if it's their dogs they want to send after us or if they come their own ugly selves. I'll shoot anything without Imperial colours on.'
'You still haven't caught on, have you? It is not from fear that I spoke of self-destruction. There is no greater sin that I could think of, except for allowing yourself to fall to these creatures. You have no conception of what alien means. There is a reason we do not suffer them to live. They are not even remotely like us, they do not think like us, and for all the traitors that march with them they care not for anything human.'
Gesar kept his voice down as much as he could, but Tam had no trouble hearing the menace in his words. Gesar shook his head and sighed. The cold was creeping in even worse, and Tam wondered if the Space Marine's armour was heated, or how well it protected him from the elements.
The Space Marines probably pumped coolant into Gesar's veins when he joined up. Tam had heard plenty of stories of what went into the making of an Adeptus Astartes. They were the Emperor's Will made manifest, and whatever the Apothecaries of their Chapters did to their bodies to make them into the protectors of mankind, it raised them to something greater than normal humanity.
The Space Marines held Chaos back from the Imperium. They faced down xenos and mutants and any traitor or madman who was stupid enough to defy the High Lords and the Emperor's Will. Tam allowed that the Astartes probably didn't think much of ground-pounding Imperial Guard snipers, but this Raven Guard didn't really have a choice of companions on this armpit of a planet.
Tam set his back against a tree and slid down to the ground. He had his rifle up and was checking the NV mode when Gesar spoke again.
'It's the traitors that turn my guts. These traitors are just toy soldiers those blue scum march out. Their talk of unity is nothing but lies; they would sacrifice every human they found if it meant something to their Greater Good.'
'They say they want to kill mutants and the damned too. Is there any quarter to be had with them?'
'He who is enticed by aliens will face the Emperor's vengeance.' Gesar's reply was automatic, the reply of rote and training, and Tam wondered if he had pushed the man too far.
'Do not suffer any alien to live, corporal. If you had seen a fraction of what I have among the stars, perhaps you would understand the truth of that.'
He was on dangerous enough ground simply talking to one of the Astartes, but it was another thing altogether to let your mouth run off in front of them. He could feel a cold fury in the flint-black eyes of the Astartes and thought it best to try to calm him.
'I'm not enticed by any damned xenos or fool. I just hear what the tau broadcast as sure as anyone. I'm not saying we shake hands with them and call it a day, but why are we pouring blood out over empty fields?'
'They were invited in.'
It took Tam a moment to understand what Gesar had said. The Tau Empire had been invited. Humans had offered up the whole planet as a welcome present for them, and the tau had given thanks and sent in a force to take it.
'Your regiment was deployed to make sure that the Coruna Regulars stayed loyal to the Emperor and humanity. There's every chance some of your brothers in the Coruna Guard turned traitor, and if that's the case it's a long walk to a spaceport occupied by xenos and traitors.'
There was no accusation in Gesar's tone. The Space Marines had their own heretics and warp-twisted Chapters, and Tam wondered if the Raven Guard had fought his former brothers in the past, although Tam would have been insane to raise the subject with the Astartes. However, the idea of Imperial Guard throwing down arms or taking up arms against their own was still a bitter pill.
The night turned from pale yellow to flecked green through Tam's scope, and he had enough ambient light to really kick the range up on it. If they were moving out, they could do it at any time.
'I've got my night eyes up, lord. I can make my way to the clearing and take a look around, but maybe you should hang back. Any auspex devices might pick you up before it would spot me.'
Tam had thought twice about using the scope to look back at the Space Marine. There was no sense pointing a gun anywhere in the man's general direction. Not when the Astartes was obviously working on a head of hate and ready to do some serious violence.
'Very well, you move up into the clearing and see if you can see down the fields. There should be some farms not far off the edge of the forest. I can see you against the moonlight. Signal if everything is clear.'
Tam nodded and moved off. Working his way through even the thinner woods with just an NV scope to guide him was not easy work, but it wasn't long until he broke into clear ground and saw bare fields stretching out in front of him.
Dimly, he heard a slight noise that could have been an animal, but Tam knew it was Gesar coming up to the edge of the forest. There were some sounds that you couldn't fully disguise, and an armoured boot on underbrush was one of them.
Tam panned back and forth a few times with the scope. The only thing that was showing was a light source down-range about half a kilometre. It was visible through the scope as a rough intrusion of white into the green static that filled his vision.
A farmhouse? It was the only thing that Tam could think would be out this far. There was something farther distant to the south that could have been a silo.
There was no telling for sure in these conditions. Tam had been born on the undeveloped side of Tantulas, and this sort of dark was second nature to him, with or without the night vision.
He waved Gesar up and the sounds of boots meeting frosted ground came closer and closer until he felt him standing off to his left. He couldn't even hear Gesar breathing, but he could feel the man towering over him.
Tantulas was a higher-gravity world than Coruna, and Tam could feel it with every step he took. He also knew that his shorter stature compared to the Coruna Imperial Guard and especially the Space Marine had been the topic of a helmetful of jokes and a half-dozen fights since the short Tantulasians had disembarked on Coruna a standard month ago.
'We will be exposed making that barn.'
'It's a barn?'
'Use your brain as well as that scope. It's not the main house. There are dozens of barns like that all over the edge of the fields for storage and animal pens.'
'Yes, lord, I wouldn't mind having some thermal imagers so we could get a look for body heat, but I don't see anything on the NV. Should we cross the field?'
'There is nothing to be gained by standing here, and should we encounter enemies you will have to use your NV to spot targets for me. My helm had thermal viewing, but the ruins of it lie back at the uplink station. I've only two clips left for the bolter, and then it's sharp instruments and small arms against Emperor only knows what.'
'Okay moving on my mark. One, two, three... mark; moving up!'
Tam felt his boots snag on a few twisted plants dinging to the frosted ground, and there was no way to cover the sound of Gesar moving across the field, but the soft crunch of armoured boots wasn't as loud as he feared. He kept his head on a swivel and panned the field as he moved directly for the barn.
As they closed in on it, the fact that it was just a barn became even more obvious. And from somewhere Tam heard the soft hum of refrigeration machinery.
'They have the coolers running in the middle of the frost?'
'Focus your mind, corporal. Some of these farms had livestock, so they might have freezer units to keep the meat fresh when they begin butchering them at the start of frost.'
It made sense, and so the two Imperials moved up slowly towards the main door. A single flight of steps led to a small door next to the larger main door that looked like it could readily accommodate vehicles.
Tam gently reached out and tested the door handle. To his surprise, it turned easily in his hand. 'Should we enter, lord?'
'It bears investigation, corporal, and it appears that there are lights on. You may want to switch to your pistol if the fighting gets close-in.'
Tam swung the sniper rifle back over his shoulder and drew his pistol carefully. Then he slowly pushed the door open and even the low light left green explosions in front of his eyes.
'That's my night vision gone for a few minutes,' he muttered under his breath, and from the sharp intake of breath he thought Gesar was reacting to the same thing.
Then his vision cleared and he saw the bodies.
It was a refrigeration unit, and hanging on hooks from the ceiling that would normally hold skinned animal torsos were at least a hundred Imperial Guard troopers.
Even in the chill of the refrigeration unit, Tam could see where pulse bolts, bullets and blunt force had killed many of them. Puckered wounds stood out in sharp contrast to the darker skin of the Tantulas Imperial Guard's bodies.
He flicked his eyes around but most of the bodies, the ones still dressed, were all clothed in the colours of his regiment. Some had already been stripped naked, but the shorter stature, larger muscles and darker skin marked them out as his brothers and sisters, and not the Coruna Regiment.
'What is this, lord? What the hell are they doing?'
'I've heard stories about the kroot. It's not just their hounds that have a bit of a snack on fallen prey. It's them. They have some deal with the tau. Those xenos pay them off in bodies and blood. This is what I suspected, corporal.'
The two Imperials slowly made their way into the abattoir. Tam could see the drain funnels cut into the floor where the blood could flow. There was surprising little given the number of bodies, and what was there had formed pink slurry in the frost.
'This is their Greater Good? They give over the bodies of good men to those things? What the hell for?'
'Remember your place, corporal, and harden your heart. This is hardly the worst I've seen from xenos scum, although the thought of the traitors that must have helped them do this sickens me.'
Tam's eye caught sight of something further on: a series of tables lining the far wall, and on them were slabs of meat. His eyes registered the general shape, but something about it wouldn't let his brain believe what he was seeing.
'They skinned them... they cut their clothes off and they skinned them. The thing over there, that thing on the trolley, it's-'
Tam turned away and gagged towards a funnel notch in the floor. It tore his stomach up to retch, and in the end he only brought up some bile and a few chunks of his ration bar. It didn't help him feel any better.
'We can't do anything for these men, corporal, we have to move on. It appears the Planetary Governor has made a deal with the tau, and from the looks of things their PDF units probably got the drop on your men as they pulled back towards the farms. I can see Imperial weapon marks on these bodies, not kroot or pulse rifle burns from fire warriors.'
It was unthinkable. Coruna Imperial Guard soldiers ambushing the Tantulas Regiment as they fled the comm station, and they would have helped the kroot take them. Anyone that resisted would have been killed like that Coruna soldier they had found in the woods. Or maybe that had just been a bit of blue-on-blue contact and the hound hadn't known any better.
There wasn't much comfort to be had in any case. There was a barn full of corpses and Tam was desperately trying to find some way to save them. The least he could do was make sure that the kroot didn't get them.
'Can we blow the building? A final mercy for them, my lord? Is there anything I can lodge these grenades in that would take out the whole damn thing?'
Gesar shook his head and gestured back towards the door with his bolter.
'We have what I needed to know. The only thing we can do is get this information into the right hands. If Coruna has fallen, there may yet be loyalists out there, and my battle-brothers are still out there. The Raven Guard was born for this. Corax guide me; we can find those remaining and tell them of this abomination, and we will cleanse the xenos from this planet even if I must do it all myself!'
'Wait, lord, we can't just leave these bodies. It's not right. What the hell do the kroot want with bodies? If they want meat they can just grab a farm animal, why do they need to skin and fillet an entire regiment?'
'Gravity.'
The two Imperials swung at once towards the voice. It was coming from deeper in the building, and Tam noticed that some of the bodies were swaying slightly, as if something had brushed past them.
'Identify yourself! I am a representative of the Imperium and the Throne, and I order you to identify yourself!'
Something like a laugh came from above them, and suddenly half the lights in the building switched off. It wasn't dark enough for Tam's NV sight to be of much use, but it did cast long shadows through the building.
'The Tantulas Regiment... their bodies are adjusted to higher-gravity worlds, and they all have excellent eyesight. It's why so many of them serve as snipers.'
The rest of the lights suddenly went out and Tam swung his rifle up with practiced ease, his thumb flicking the NV switch.
'Watch your eyes! Chem-glows out!' Gesar was moving as he spoke and Tam saw half a dozen green sticks fly from the man's hand to land in a semi-circle in front of him. The light was dim enough to not foul Tam's NV, but he also suspected that it gave Gesar enough light to see by. Behind them the red emergency light of the building's exit was also casting a pale glow.
'Conserve your ammo and work for the door!' Tam was already moving as slowly as he could, letting the rifle drift from right to left, but all he could see in the darkness were the bodies that hung from the ceiling.
'The tau would educate you, if only you embraced the ideals of the Greater Good and of unity! What you see are those who died from wounds or wouldn't surrender!'
Tam was trying to track the voice, which sounded human, and he thought he heard another voice out there as well, but it wasn't speaking in a human tongue. Gesar must have either seen or heard something because he fired a short burst which was followed by a shriek and a small mewling sound that trailed off in a final whimper.
'Very, very well done, Space Marine. You're going to be quite the prize yourself. So many of those lovely organs stuffed in you. So many genetic marvels handed down from your Emperor. Your blood holds many prizes. I want you to know that only the best warriors will take your flesh. Your body will be a singular honour for all who fight.'
'Corporal, prepare your explosives. I can hear them moving around us. They're going to try to rush us any second... For the Emperor and Throne!'
A second burst from the bolter, and this time Tam caught a glimpse of the kroot that Gesar hit. Explosive shells shredded a hanging body but through the green tint of the night vision Tam watched the head of the kroot turn to a smear as the body fell.
Then the kroot began their rush. Tam heard Gesar's bolter sound again and then the clack of the clip hitting empty.
'Changing mags! Cover me! Take! Take! Take!'
Gesar had moved in front of Tam and was now down on one knee. The empty clip clanged as it hit the metal floor, and as Gesar was slapping his last clip in Tam was firing over him.
There were at least a half-dozen kroot in the first wave, and Gesar had accounted for two with his last burst. Three more went down as Tam swept his rifle from side to side. Their alien faces filled the NV sight and the green tint made them all the more nightmarish.
Tam was pointing more than shooting, and suddenly there was a kroot above Gesar, about to swing its rifle down on him like a club. The kroot crumbled like flash paper under a burst from the bolter.
'Back! Back to the door! Keep moving!'
Tam was partly turned as Gesar gave the order, and saw the door swing open and a pulse rifle suddenly appear in the opening.
The face that filled his scope was human, and Tam's finger pulled the rifle's trigger again and again, and the only thing his scope showed was a dark stain on the wall as his rifle clicked on empty.
'Enemy at the door! Lord! We have Ges'vesa at the door!'
Tam was turning back as the bullet took Gesar in the neck. The Space Marine had been rising to his feet, another burst echoing from his bolter when his head jerked oddly and Tam felt a warm spray across his face.
Tam screamed the Space Marine's name, but he was making gurgling noises and had one hand up to his neck while the muzzle flash of the bolter left afterimages across Tam's line of sight.
If they could make the door they still had a chance. Tam tore one of his frags from his webbing and threw it into the open doorway. If there were more traitors outside they'd be in for a nasty surprise.
Even as he heard the grenade bounce through the door he moved forwards and tried to hook an arm around Gesar's elbow, trying to drag him back towards the door. A final burst from the bolter sounded and it clacked on empty.
There was an explosion and screams from outside the door, and Tam was still trying to find some way to lever the Raven Guard up, to get him at least stumbling towards the door. They could still try to fight their way out. Anything was better than being stripped and hung like a side of meat.
Gesar was making angry gurgling noises and Tam looked up just in time to see the kroot about to make a swing with a nasty hooked boning knife.
Tam thrust his rifle forwards and caught the alien, strangely lupine compared to the others Tam had seen, under the jaw and the blade slid in easily. Before he could pull back, the kroot had grabbed the barrel and dragged the rifle out of his hands.
Gesar had given up on pushing himself up, and drew his chainsword, determined to fight from his kneeling position. Tam drew his own pistol and fired off a few rounds at the shapes moving beyond the glow of the chemical lights. He heard the dull smack of rounds hitting dead flesh, but was rewarded by one grunt and what he supposed was a xenos curse from the darkness.
Then his world exploded in a flash as the indoor lights came on once more. He was too dazzled to pick targets but Gesar managed to lunge at one kroot who had taken the moment to charge in. The chainsword caught at the perfect angle just above the sternum and bit deep, the Space Marine's weight and strength carrying the toothed blade right down through the splintering clavicle and into the vessels of the kroot's heart.
Gesar was still trying to pull the blade free when another kroot came whirling in from the right. Tam didn't have time to bring his pistol around before the kroot's rifle butt connected with Gesar's skull above his ear. The wooden stock of the rifle cracked and blood washed down Gesar's face.
Tam emptied his pistol into the kroot's ape-like face and flicked the magazine ejector as he patted his webbing for another clip. He knew there was no way they would make it to the door, just as he knew there would be more soldiers waiting for them even if they did.
There was one way out now. The last fragmentation grenade. Tam didn't know how much it'd take out, but he was pretty sure at close-quarters the thing would turn him into bloody chunks and do for Gesar well enough.
'Lord, Emperor forgive me, I'm sorry, but they won't get you. I promise they won't get you!'
It was the most he could do for the Astartes who had at least kept him alive this long. Tam hoped that if the Emperor did take them to a better place that his last act of courage would be well received.
Just as he felt his hand touch the grenade, a bullet shattered the head of his humerus. His entire left arm went numb and flopped uselessly to his side.
Gesar landed on top of Tam's legs as he fell backwards. Tam could tell the Space Marine was badly concussed. If he wasn't dead yet the amount of blood pouring out of him meant that he didn't have much time. Which was a small mercy, but Gesar would never have wanted the kroot to have his body.
Tam flipped his pistol away from his working right hand and reached for the frag. There was suddenly a shadow above him and his hand exploded in pain as a rifle butt smacked it away from the grenade and fingers broke under the violent strike.
He screamed despite himself and looked up into a cat-eyed kroot. Green slits for eyes. The same eyes that had looked right up at him at the comm station.
The kroot spoke a harsh language that Tam couldn't understand. It was all hard explosions of words, strange pauses and rolling sounds deep in the thing's throat. Then a human voice joined the kroot's, and above him a man in the livery of the blue and gold worn by the human traitors stepped into view. His gaze on the kroot was almost beatific.
'You fight well. The tau like their little human helpers, but the ones here are too weak. You have strong meat, good bones and very good eyes.'
It was the voice they had heard earlier in the building. It seemed that this was the kroot's translator, and he listened carefully and repeated what his master said as the kroot stamped around Tam and examined him.
'Traitor... you betray our Emperor and your people. You are worse than the mutants who scuttle from the warp. A daemon is an abomination, a mutant a twisted thing, but you have damned yourself... for what?'
The traitor was obviously from Coruna, and Tam wondered if he had worn the garb of the Coruna Imperial Guard before he had taken to the kroot's side. There was no telling how far and how deep the treachery went.
'You have not seen the magnificence that is unity. You do not... cannot understand the glory of a Greater Good beyond our corpse Emperor. The tau have shown us truths you lack, the kroot have shown us the glory of unity.'
Gesar was gurgling and his arm rose weakly up as if searching for a weapon. Tam thought he heard a curse trembling on the Astartes' lips. Then he saw another kroot walk up and calmly thrust a blade under his chin, and Gesar's arm fell and was still.
'Why? Why the bodies?'
The kroot seemed to study him, and Tam looked around and saw the differences in colour, in height, in everything about the kroot. They were a melting pot of different physical attributes even more diverse than the multitude of humans scattered across the stars.
'Blood will tell. The kroot seek only unity, and your meat tells the kroot how to be. They give the gift of unity, and they become stronger. They will take your flesh in unity and become better fighters in low gravity. They will see better. They need fresh meat. Their only constant is change.'
'We're soldiers, we're not something churned out of the fabritoriums!'
The traitor continued to translate for the kroot leader as the xenos studied Tam through those alien cat-eyes.
'This is the way of all flesh. The tau don't care what happens to the dead, and they never check to see if humans could survive wounds, so we get as many bodies as we need, and it makes us stronger. They don't care because it serves their Greater Good.'
The kroot leaned in closer, and drew a thin knife from an arm sheath. He slid the tip carefully up Tam's face until the point rested under Tam's right eye.
'Your Emperor and priests fill their giant warriors with machines and organs to make them strong. Their meat is powerful, but the kroot need all kinds. Otherwise they would break down. You're saving their race. You should be proud. Instead of being flung away in the name of a dead Emperor you'll become one with the kroot, and in your unity you will bring them strength and help them survive to spread deliverance.'
'Don't... please, don't do this to me!'
The traitor was directly translating the kroot's words again, and Tam noticed that the man had backed up, away from the xenos who were gathering around him. Tam could hear a catch in the man's voice, and the traitor's eyes cast downwards.
'You will live on, human, isn't that what your kind like? Isn't that why they spread out among the stars? Isn't that why your Emperor puts his organs and blood in his Space Marines? You will live forever as part of the kroot, and someday a human will look at one of us and see your eyes... such good eyes.'
Tam screamed until the moment the rifle butt connected with his forehead, and dimly he felt rough hands and claws pulling at his clothing and lifting him up.
He thought he saw a light for one moment, and felt someone tugging at his eyelids, and he thought of the black bird, pecking at the nameless Guardsman in the woods, and then everything went black as the knives came down.