Gav Thorpe - 13th Legion

I taste blood in my mouth and realise I've been biting my lip, biting so hard that it's bleeding. The taste brings me back to my senses. I'm still alive, and I owe it to them as much as to myself to survive, so that this is remembered, that whatever happens, this sacrifice and misery doesn't die with us. I turn on my heel gripping the bolter tight once more, filled with purpose again, and start jogging after Striden.

* * *

'It's down here!' Striden argues, taking the turning to the left.

'Straight on/ counters the Colonel, pointing along the main corridor.

'I remember the map/ the Navy officer insists, walking on without looking back at us. Somewhere behind us I hear another emergency bulkhead slamming down. I guess it must be an automatic response, I can't imagine any of the Typhons hanging around long enough to close all the blast doors. Not that it'll do any good either, as far as I can tell. Another clang makes me look around and I see the last tunnel behind us to the right is sealed off now. The Colonel plunges after Striden and grabs him by his collar. A moment later and the bulkhead closes, a wall of metal sliding down from the corridor ceiling, cutting me off from the pair of them. I stand there dazed for a moment, not quite believing they've gone.

The sudden pounding of boots tears my attention back down the corridor and I watch seven guardsmen come running into view. None of them look in my direction as Uiey sprint away from me. I guess the shuttles are that way, and run after them. The constant sound of the siren is making my ears ache, a shrill tone that cuts straight into your brain. I almost run head first into a pair of Typhons as they come barrelling out of a door to my left. I smash one of them, a young man with a long nose, across the jaw with the bolter. The other glances at me in con­fusion before I pull the trigger, the bolt tearing into his chest, the recoil almost wrenching off my arm. His round face stares at me horrified for a moment before he slumps back against the door. I grind the heel of my boot into the face of the first one, crashing his head against the floor with the sound of crunching bone.

The distraction means that I've lost the men I was chasing, and I pause for a moment, listening out for them. Walking along for a couple of minutes, I think I can catch the sound of their running from the next corridor to my left. Hurrying for­ward, I suddenly notice something moving out of the opposite tunnel. As I look over, my fingers go numb and the bolter clat­ters to the floor. Staring straight back at me is the genestealer. Just like the ones on Ichar IV. Its black eyes, set in its veined, wide dome of a skull, meet mine, and there's death in that gaze. It stalks quickly towards me on its long double-jointed legs, slightly hunched over. Its four upper limbs are held out for

balance, one pair tipped with bony, dagger-like claws, the lower with more hand-like talons that slowly unclench as it approaches.

My eyes are drawn back to its alien gaze and I feel all the life leeching out of my body. They're like two pits of blackness and I feel as if I'm falling into them. I dimly note that it's standing right in front of me now. But that seems unimportant, all that really registers are those eyes, those pits of shadow.

It opens its long jaw, revealing a mass of razor-sharp teeth. So this is how I die, I dimly think to myself. It leans even closer and I notice its tongue extending out towards me, some kind of opening on the end widening. It's strangely beautiful, this killer. There's a sleekness about the deep blue plates of chitin over its sinewy purple flesh. There's a perfection of purpose in the claws and fangs which I can admire.

Heart of the Jungle.

The thought just pops into the back of my head, and it stirs something within me. It's like another voice, prompting me to remember feelings of alien influence. Memories of helpless­ness. Fighting for control of myself.

Ichar IV.

This time the memory is more vivid. Piles of bodies, torn apart by the same kind of creature in front of me now. Forests stripped to bare rock, even the dirt consumed by the tyranid swarms. A massive bio-titan strides across the ruins of a water recycling facility, crashing buildings underfoot, horrendous weapons unleashing sprays of bio-acid and hails of flesh-eating grubs.

Typhon Sector.

In an instant my brain multiplies the horrors of Ichar IV by fifty. This is what will happen.

I snap out of the hypnotic trance just as the genestealer's tongue brushes my throat.

'Frag you!' I snarl, acting on instinct alone, lashing out with my fist, the knuckles of my right hand crashing against its jaw in a perfect uppercut. Taken completely by surprise by the blow, the genestealer stumbles backwards, clawed feet skidding on die hard metal floor, scrabbling for purchase before it topples over. It stays down for just a moment, before springing to its feet, muscles tensing to lunge at me with the killing attack. I'm strangely calm.

The wall beside us explodes in a shower of metal and the genestealer turns and leaps away. More detonations ripple along the floor just behind it as it dashes for safety and then disappears with a flick of its tail through an air vent.

Thanks Colonel/ I say without turning around.

'Not this time/ Inquisitor Oriel replies, walking past me, a smoking bolt pistol in his right hand. 'I stopped the abomina­tion getting out of the city, but it eluded me yet again. I almost had it this time.'

I'm still dazed, and the inquisitor picks up my bolter and places it into my unfeeling hands.

This will be as sure as I get/ Oriel is saying, more to himself than me, I think. 'I will not let it get away from me again. It dies in Coritanorum.'

I just nod, my body quivering with aftershock. A genestealer was two metres from me and I'm still alive. Still alive. Oriel has forgotten me, walking up the corridor towards the shattered vent muttering to himself.

The sound of nearby engines rumbling into life draws my attention back into the real world and I start stumbling towards the shuttle pad. About a hundred metres further down the cor­ridor I hear the whine of jets to my right. Following the noise, I come across a huge set of double doors and stumble through them. Inside are twenty or so Typhons, fighting with each other as they try to scramble up an access ladder to one of the two shuttles still left in the hangar. Those at the top are trying to push the others back so they can open the hatch. The rest of the vast open space is filled with scattered barrels and crates, hastily tossed out of cargo holds to make room, by the looks of it. The air shimmers from the heat haze and smoke left by the departed shuttles. No one is paying me any attention whatsoever.

"That's my shuttle/ I say to myself, pulling the last of the frag grenades from my belt and tossing it to the top of the boarding steps. The explosion hurls men into the air, sending them tum­bling down to the gridded metal flooring, some of them raining down in bloodied pieces. The bolter roars in my hand, shells punching into the survivors, pitching them over the handrails, tearing off body parts. None of them is armed and the execution takes a matter of seconds.

Racing up the steps, wounded men groaning as I step on them, I'm filled with fresh vigour. Only a few minutes from

freedom now. Only a short journey to the rest of my life. I plunge through the hatchway and head into the cockpit. The shutde pilot turns in his seat and shouts at me to get out. He gives a cry of alarm when I pull one of the knives from the sheaths across my chest, and flails madly for a moment, unable to fight properly within the confines of his gravity harness. His hands and arms are torn to ribbons by the blade as he tries to protect himself, a constant shriek coming from his throat. The shriek turns to a wet gurgling when I manage to find an open­ing and plunge the knife in.