Chapter 259: Arrival at Baal (Patreon)

The Daughter of Tempests translated into the Baal system.

On the bridge, Chapter Master Phoros surveyed the system. Compared to the devastation of the Infernis System, the situation here was only marginally better. The blood-red sphere of Baal and its two moons, Baal Prime and Baal Secundus, were completely enshrouded by the Tyranid swarms. Unlike the dead and silent worlds of the Infernis System, however, Baal still showed signs of life, which suggested survivors yet resisted.

The ship’s augurs sent out a probing pulse, mapping Baal, Baal Primus, and Baal Secundus.

The results confirmed what they feared: the Tyranid numbers were in the billions. Every screen bloomed with crimson icons, a living sea of red that stretched across the system in suffocating density. Bio-ships of every hideous design, from kraken-like behemoths trailing tendrils through the upper atmosphere to sleek frigate-creatures that darted like predators through orbital wreckage.

Some bristled with symbiotic weapons, spore cannons, corrosive bile launchers, and bio-plasma throats, while others were living transports disgorging clouds of smaller organisms. Together, they formed an organic blockade around the system’s worlds, a wall of chitin, flesh, and hunger that strangled Baal like the coils of a cosmic serpent.

Yet unlike Infernis, this system was not lifeless. Nearly thirty thousand Adeptus Astartes and tens of millions of mortal auxilia forces still clung to survival.

These scattered defenders were entrenched across Baal and its two moons.

On Baal itself, all remaining Imperial forces had withdrawn into the great fortress-monastery known as the Arx Angelicum, its colossal bastions hewn into the planet’s stone like a crown of blood-streaked iron. A fortress-monastery was more than a stronghold, it was the heart and soul of a Space Marine Chapter, a place where their gene-seed was safeguarded, their relics enshrined, their warriors trained, and their fallen entombed.

The Arx Angelicum was the Blood Angels’ soul made stone, a cathedral-fortress that had endured since the days of Sanguinius himself. Its spires loomed over the wasteland like spears of crimson marble, each carved with angelic statues whose wings stretched toward the heavens, defying all darkness.

There the defenders made their last stand, bolters roaring in endless defiance as the swarms pressed them from every side.

What puzzled Phoros was that the Citadel was under simultaneous assault from above, from the ground, and even from beneath the surface.

“Baal has no void shields?” Tessa asked in disbelief, her hands tightening on the edge of the tactical console.

There should have been planetary void shields raised within the Arx Angelicum, the fortress-monastery of the Blood Angels, capable of shielding it from orbital bombardments. Baal, a world of immense symbolic and strategic importance, the home of the angel Sanguinius himself, should never have been left so vulnerable.

The sacred homeworld of the Blood Angels. To imagine it unshielded was unthinkable.

“There should be void shields,” Phoros admitted uncertainly. His knowledge of Baal was limited. “But void shields can be sabotaged. Perhaps the enemy infiltrated the Citadel.”

The thought of Tyranid infiltrators breaching the holiest fortress of the Blood Angels was sacrilege. Yet the augur returns left no doubt: the fortress fought naked beneath the storm. Whether treachery, sabotage, or simple exhaustion of Baal’s ancient systems, the effect was the same. The Angels of Sanguinius stood alone.

As he spoke, the fortress-monastery’s projection materialized in the bridge’s hololith, rendered in precise detail. Phoros and the company captains gathered around it, studying every angle.

The holographic walls of the Arx shimmered with red runes denoting breached defenses. Above, swarms of bioforms rained down in endless waves. Below, tunnels carved by bio-acid bored toward the very underhalls of the monastery. It was a siege from every direction, an anaconda’s grip on the throat of Baal.

The Daughter of Tempests continued its slow, brutal push through the Tyranid bio-ship cordon, closing on Baal.

They had little time to decide their strategy before she reached orbit.

“That’s the fortress?” one captain muttered in awe. “I thought it was a hive city.”

“It is both,” Phoros nodded gravely. “It is a fortress-monastery of the Adeptus Astartes.”

Without the void shields, the defenders faced attacks on all sides. The outer walls already buckled beneath the endless tide. The Blood Angels and their Successor Chapters’ mortal auxilia, the serfs known as the Blood Thralls, fought with lasguns and bayonets in desperate ranks, but they were butchered in droves outside the ramparts. Some Astartes tried to break through to save them, only to be drowned in the swarm themselves.

The outer defenses were clearly doomed.

Suddenly, the defenders within began to fall back in disciplined order toward the Citadel’s inner bastions. It was a calculated withdrawal, a clear sign of coordinated command.

The Tyranids, far from mindless beasts, adapted swiftly. Mycetic spores slammed down onto the Citadel’s central causeway, disgorging fresh swarms to block the retreat. Within seconds, the path became a killing ground, clogged with chittering Gaunts and hulking Warrior-forms bristling with bio-cannons.

“We’ll teleport in here,” Phoros said, pointing to the causeway. “Every Astartes must fight, no exceptions. The mortals can remain behind.”

The captains nodded as one.

Since their rescue by the Talon system, the Lamenters had been steadily reforging their broken Chapter. From the ashes of despair and near-extinction, their numbers had grown again under the strange technologies and gifts of their enigmatic ally. Now, with seven hundred battle-brothers clad in reforged war-plate, they could seize control of the central causeway.

The road was not, in itself, a linchpin of the defense. But if it could be held, Baal’s armored columns and massed mortal forces could retreat swiftly along its breadth into the Citadel rather than scatter piecemeal through side-streets, where they would be slaughtered.

“What of the flagship?” Tessa asked.

“Once we reach Baal’s orbit, deploy the defense platforms, then translate into the nearest system,” Phoros ordered, casting a glance at the tens of thousands of Tyranid bio-ships lurking in the system. “The Daughter of Tempests will not survive if it remains.”

Tessa gave a sharp nod and turned to execute his command.

The ship’s teleportariums began their charge. Breaking through the last ranks of the swarm, the Daughter of Tempests descended into orbit.

Its ventral bays yawned open, disgorging five massive orbital defense platforms into the void.

This was experimental technology, never before fielded by Talon fleet vessels, because Talon had never needed it. For the Lamenters, whose Chapter possessed but a single flagship, such platforms for gaining partial control of the orbits could mean the difference between survival and annihilation.

Once deployed, the platforms activated instantly, shielded domes shimmering as their weapon arrays spat torrents of fire into the swarms.

A bio-ship crashed toward them, its organic cannons spitting corrosive shells. One platform’s energy shield faltered, but arcs of blue energy surged between the others, redistributing power and restoring its protection.

The Hive Mind understood in an instant. Unless it annihilated all platforms at once, their shield nexus would be unbreakable. The swarm-ships withdrew, regrouping for a concentrated strike.

With its task complete, the Daughter of Tempests slipped into a shimmering dimensional rift, vanishing like a phantom, but not before casting the Lamenters down into the crucible of the Fortress-Monastery below.

....

Groundside

Captain Arenos Karlaen of the Blood Angels was overseeing the retreat. He had already unleashed a Death Company squad, brothers consumed by the Black Rage, against the Tyranids vanguard holding the central causeway.

Bereft of fear, consumed by visions of Sanguinius’ final moments, the Death Company hurled themselves into the swarm, roaring oaths of death as they hacked and tore. For a few glorious heartbeats they carved a path of ruin, until they were dragged down and devoured.

Karlaen watched them vanish beneath the tide and felt the familiar agony twist his soul. Every one of those doomed warriors had once been a brother, a comrade, a son of Baal. Now they were martyrs, their blood staining the causeway so that others might live.

A Hive Tyrant, the main battlefield commander of a Tyranid swarm, a synapse creature that stands above the rank and file Tyranids strode forward, bone-sword raised, roaring its alien challenge toward Karlaen in the distance.

The Blood Angel Captain noted the creature had descended in haste. It was guarded only by tens of thousands of Gaunts and sixty Tyranid Warriors.

A formidable host, the former cannon fodder, the latter elite combat units. But without its personal guard of Tyrant Guard elites, the creature was vulnerable.

Yet to break through to it was another matter. Tyranids swarmed above and below; if the Tyrant was not slain within minutes, the retreating forces would be surrounded.

Pragmatism overruled fury. Karlaen prepared to order his warriors down the narrow side-streets instead, abandoning the causeway. It would be slower, bloodier, but survivable.

But then, the impossible.

Tears in reality yawned wide behind the Tyranid line, warping the very air with auroras of blue-white light. From each portal strode warriors in gleaming Terminator plate.

“For Sanguinius’ blood, we endure!”

The warcry thundered across the causeway. Karlaen’s heart clenched as he watched the newcomers descend upon the Tyranids.

Their wargear was extraordinary.

Each Terminator squad comprised six brothers: three bore assault cannons, two carried meltaguns, and the last wielded a heavy bolter with an integrated cyclone missile launcher mounted on his backplate.

Alongside them came a command squad, their duty to guard their Chapter Master and Chapter banner.

The fire-support squads held their ground, saturating the swarm with missiles and shellfire. Gaunts died in droves, their tide halved before it reached the lines. Flamers and assault cannons reaped the survivors in burning heaps.

The command squad surged into the melee, chainswords and power weapons crackling, carving a path straight toward the Hive Tyrant. At their head, their Chapter Master advanced, the golden banner unfurled, its sorrowful heart sigil blazing like a star amidst the smoke.

Karlaen recognized the Chapter at once.

The newcomers were the Lamenters.