Kryptman turned to face the magos and nodded. 'I had suspected as much.'
To achieve our goal, it seems clear we will need to somehow obtain a gene sample that is as close to the hive's original structure as possible, one that has not been subjected to mutation at the behest of the overmind.'
'And how do you intend to obtain such a specimen?'
'Ah, well that I do not yet know,' admitted Locard.
'Find a way,' ordered Kryptman.
Uriel watched Learchus and Pasanius march along the front lines of the city's defences and fought the urge to join them. Little time had passed since he had been a veteran sergeant himself, and the old desire to check on the men under his command still came to the fore on the eve of battle. He had greater concerns now, he reminded himself, as he checked the data-slate to ensure that everything in his sector of responsibility was as it should be.
From above, the plain before the city walls resembled the top of a racetrack with curved trenches linking the two sides of the valley. Three entrenchments crossed it, progressively narrowing as they neared the city walls, but Uriel knew that these were nothing more than temporary defences. The first wave of tyranids would come at them from the air, pinning them down while the bulk of the tyranid army approached on foot. Sebastien Montante had assured him that the valley sides were well defended with enough guns to make any aerial attack unfeasible. Uriel had his doubts, knowing that the sheer scale of a tyranid invasion was beyond the comprehension of most people who had never seen one.
Seven thousand men occupied the first trench, six thousand the second and another two thousand the third. The remainder of the soldiers waited within the walls of Erebus itself, held in reserve until needed. Rumbling before the wall, its armoured flanks bristling with guns and its crenellated battlements swarming with soldiers, was the Capitol Imperialis of Colonel Octavius Rabelaq. Emblazoned with the heraldry of the Logres regiment, the massive rhomboid-shaped command vehicle rose nearly fifty metres from the ground. From here, Rabelaq could direct his soldiers and maintain command and control over the battle. Its tracks were wider than a road and four Leman Russ battle tanks could fit within the barrel of its main gun. It was a fearsome reminder of Imperial power and its might was plain for all to see. Smaller tanks surrounded the Capitol Imperialis, like ants around an elephant, passing through the gates in the wall towards the front line.
Those tanks that had already taken position idled in well-sited berms, with flared aprons of flattened snow behind them to allow them to reverse out and withdraw to the next line.
Soldiers in dirty overwhites huddled in their dugouts, clustered around plasma-wave generators, cooking their rations. The men clearly relished what might be their last hot meal for some time, and Uriel knew that little improved morale more than hot food and beverages. Here, Montante had excelled himself, handling the logistical nightmare of feeding and equipping tens of thousands of soldiers with the skill of a veteran quartermaster. He had organised vast kitchens to supply the soldiers defending his city with regular hot food and ensured that the commanders had a reliable supply train.
Everything had been organised with admirable efficiency and he could see the teachings of the Codex Astartes in the precise layout of the defences. Uriel was reminded of the schematics he had seen depicting the defences of the northern polar defence fortress on Macragge during the First Tyrannic War, though he hoped to avoid the outcome of that battle.
Satisfied that all was as it should be, he marched along the slush-covered duckboards of the trenches towards the front line. A thick, two-metre berm of snow had been built before the trench to absorb any incoming fire, since, rather than exploding away from projectiles like sand, snow would anneal under the impact and become a stronger, more effective barrier.
Buckets of water had been repeatedly poured down the slope of the snow barrier before the lip of the trench, making a glass-smooth surface that would hopefully prove extremely difficult for the aliens to scale.
'Any word on when we can expect to see them?' asked Pasanius, joining Uriel on the trench's firing step.
'Soon,' answered Uriel as Learchus marched over.
'You have done fine work, Learchus,' said Uriel, gripping his sergeant's hand in welcome.
Learchus nodded. 'The soldiers here are good men, brother-captain, they just needed reminding of the teachings of the Codex Astartes.'
'I'm sure you gave them a very pointed reminder,' noted Uriel.
'Where necessary,' admitted Learchus. 'I was no harsher than any other Agiselus drill sergeant.'
Both Pasanius and Uriel winced as they remembered the severity of their training on Macragge. Neither had any doubt that Learchus had put the soldiers here through hell in order to prepare them for the coming war. But if it made them better soldiers, then it was a price they should be thankful for.
'Where are the Mortifactors and the Deathwatch to be stationed?' asked Learchus.
Uriel pointed towards the southern reaches of the trenches, his brow furrowing at the memory of the confrontation with Astador and Kryptman in the orbiting space station. He had lost control and the shame of that lapse still burned inside him. He was a Space Marine in the service of the Emperor and was above such petty considerations as temper. But the death of so many innocents on Chordelis and the stain left within his soul by the Bringer of Darkness had overcome his normally unbreakable code of honour.
The thought of losing control and becoming little more than a killer without a conscience frightened him greatly. Briefly he thought of confessing to the growing darkness within him, but bit back the words, unsure of how to articulate his feelings. Such weaknesses were foreign to a Space Marine and he had not the humanity to reach out and express them.
The three Space Marines watched the boiling sky in the far distance with trepidation. None would ever forget the horrors they had witnessed on Ichar IV and the thought of facing such a foe again brought nothing but apprehension.
While they knew they could fight any foe and triumph, they were but a hundred warriors and, against such a numberless horde, there was only so much they could do.
The soldiers around them were numerous, though nowhere near as numerous as the tyranids. But where the defenders of Tarsis Ultra had the advantage over the alien horde was in their basic humanity, the courage that came from defending one's hearth and home.
The very thing Uriel and his sergeants lacked.
The Western Mountains writhed with motion. Thousands upon thousands of mycetic spores hammered the ground, each disgorging a mucus-covered creature that hissed and screeched in animal hunger. Swarms of beasts gathered in the shadow of the twisting, smoke-wreathed forests, the natural beauty of the ecology perverted into monstrous, alien flora that consumed the nutrients in the soil and spread a dark stain of necrotic growth across the landscape. Bubbling pools of acids and enzymes formed in sunken patches of ground, small devourer organisms plunging into the acid baths to give up the energy they had consumed to feed the voracious appetite of the alien fleet.
When enough creatures had gathered in a snapping, biting mass, the horde set off at some unseen signal, powerful hind limbs propelling the bounding swarm through the deep snow of the mountains and onto the plain below. Larger creatures stamped through the snow, their bestial jaws snapping and clawed hands sweeping aside the smaller aliens as they moved through the swarm. Tens of thousands of aliens charged down the mountains, directed to their prey by invisible cords of psychic hunger that connected them with thousands of flying gargoyles that swept ahead of the swarm and reeled them closer to their prey.