The first thing a good warrior always did was respect his enemy. He evaluated and assessed his foe, and woe betide him if he failed to appreciate what his opponent brought to the field. Slaughter had nothing but appropriate respect for the ‘veterans’. He’d seen them gut and dice enough of his shield-brothers that day already. The losses were going to be high. At least, he reflected, the damn lordlings and politicos would be pleased. The war against the Chrome advance was proving that serious threats still remained, and that military forces like the Imperial Fists were not expensive luxuries.

The second captain met the veteran’s approach with his blade, deflecting the scything claws of the upper limbs. The veteran was strong, and managed to smash the sword out of Slaughter’s grip.

He cursed and shot it through the brain case with his bolter. The entire front of his armour was sprayed an instant grey. Another lumbered towards him and he shot that too, blowing out its midsection and snapping its spinal membranes. Frenzy finished the next with his axe.

‘Getting tired, captain?’ Heartshot asked Slaughter.

Slaughter told him what he could do with his rotor cannon, and then retrieved his sword.

‘Anterior Six and Ballad Gateway are now in the nest with us,’ reported Frenzy, his voice a vox-buzz.

‘That’s good enough,’ said Slaughter. ‘Four walls should bring this place down.’

‘There are assault squads from Zarathustra in the upper levels too,’ said Coldeye.

‘We can close the book,’ said Slaughter. ‘By the next time the wretched local star rises, we—’

His words were drowned out. A sudden and deep noise boiled out of the guts of somewhere, out of space itself. It was brief, but it was immense. It shook the nest. It overloaded the frequencies of their vox-systems for a moment. It hurt their ears.

Slaughter’s visor display took a moment to reboot.

‘What in Throne’s name was that?’ he asked.

‘Contacting the fleet,’ reported Frenzy. ‘Checking.’

‘Some kind of transmission,’ said Chokehold. ‘Ultra-high frequency. Gross intensity. Duration six point six seconds. A new weapon, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Slaughter grudgingly.

They resumed their advance. After a few minutes, fleet tactical reported back that they hadn’t been able to identify the sound either. It had been picked up by Imperial forces all across the planet, and in orbit too.

‘A new weapon,’ muttered Chokehold. ‘I told you…’

There was another burst about half an hour later, duration seven point nine seconds. By then, Slaughter’s force was locked in a furious hand-to-hand war with dozens of veterans. The noise took them all by surprise.

When it ended, the Chrome veterans were slightly stunned, and then recommitted to the fight with renewed fury. As though they were afraid, and starting to panic.

Six

Ardamantua

The magos biologis’ name was Phaeton Laurentis. When the first noise burst occurred he was preparing to enter the blisternest behind the shield-corps advance. The blast of sound terminally damaged two of his six sensitive, audio-specialised servitors. Like Slaughter, he immediately contacted fleet tactical, and also sent direct vox-burst communiques to the staff of his own vessel, the survey barge Priam, which was in the vanguard of the Imperial Fists fleet.

‘Tell them I need at least a dozen more audio-drones shipped to the surface,’ he told his communication servitor. The servitor, a grinning bronze skull mounted on a cloak-swathed wire anatomy, chattered its teeth mechanically as its brainstem fired processed vox data-packets into the aether. Laurentis reeled off a list of other complex devices he would need: techno-linguistic engines, parsing cogitators, vocalisation monitors, trans-aetheric responder coils.

‘Permission denied for surface drop of requested material,’ the communication servitor replied after a minute. Its voice, which emanated from a mesh speaker cone fused into its verdigrised collarbone, was oddly that of a young woman. As the voice spoke, the bronzed skull clacked its teeth aimlessly and uselessly.

‘On what authority?’ asked Laurentis, offended.

‘Undertaking Command,’ the servitor replied.

‘Open me a direct link with the Chapter Master,’ said Laurentis.

‘Pending.’

‘Of course, he will be busy. Inform me when the link is open,’ Laurentis said, and strode off to mount one of the motorised carts that would convey, on their heavy, clattering treads, the magos’ survey staff into the alien habitat.

Smoke from the nest clambered into the sky as if trying to flee the warzone. The heavens above were black with filth, and embers rained down. Around the edges of the nest, which were cracked and splintered like the shell of an egg, the soil and vegetation were awash with draining bio-fluids from ruptured nest organics and the ichor of slain Chromes. There was a pervasive stink of rotten fruit.