The Cult Abides

[Pictors Studio]

"The feed says our target is dead ahead," Sgt. Reims said after checking his wrist-mounted data slate.

"That is what my eyes are telling me too," says Brother Oscar, "they are forming up 10 deep at the intersection ahead."



The marines moved at double time seeing their targets in view.

Oscar ran right up the middle, his bolt gun kicking out death as he moved forward.  Even shooting from the hip the Crimson Fists' fire was deadly as cultist after cultist exploded, coating their comrades in a film of blood and offal and making the dusty rubble they trod upon slick with various fluids.

While the majority of the squad raced up the street, brother Renaud and Hetrick moved to the right to try to go straight towards the ventilation stack through the ruined administration building. 

The cultists surged forward, their loses did not deter them.  Among the ranks of the variably mutated men slipped purestrain genestealers, their razor sharp claws capable of slicing through even the ceramite armour of their Astartes enemies.

The aliens were impossibly fast, dodging even some of the rounds the marines sent flying their way.  Three of them jumped on Oscar as he moved forward. 

The lead one raked his claws down the Space Marine's pauldron but the thick armour managed to stop the attack. 

Oscar smashed his bolt gun down  on the head of the next one, cracking its skull open and leaving it inert on the ground.  He grabbed the rib cage of the one that had slashed at him and smashed it into the third and last Genestealer.  They tore at his armour and blood seeped from wounds as the razor sharp claws rent the ancient ceramite.  Pinning one with his knee he fired his bolt pistol into the other, blasting it apart. Claws were reaching for the weak points behind his knee when he slammed his fist into the head of the last genestealer repeatedly, until there was nothing atop its neck but a bloody, pulped mess. 

Standing he fired back at the mass of cultists as Jimenez moved into the ruins of the refinery to his left.  Cultists were punched off of their feet as they tried to advance, some of them falling back from the fusillade the space marines flung in their direction.


And explosion erupted in their ranks and bodies were sent flying and for the first time the crowd of enemies was thinned enough that Oscar could see through it. 



He could hear them coming all around.  The rattle of metal underneath them as the adherents of the cult moved up underground gantry ways to reach the surface and stop the righteous destruction the Astartes had planned for them.

To his left Oscar was aware of Hetrick and Renaud being fired upon by more cultists in the ruined administration building.  Vivar was quickly moving into the building to help them and Oscar heard the screams of the cultists as the Crimson Fist's flamer covered them in a stream of burning promethium.

Botler rounds quickly finished off the few that were left and the trio of marines moved forward through the wreckage of desks, pipes and filing chiffonier.

Oscar fired to his right where Jimenez was being overwhelmed by more of the Genestealers.  Sgt. Reims pushed past and charged straight into the mass of the cult.  His chainsaw described bloody arcs through their ranks, parting the mining suits of the cultists as easily as their flesh and bones, pieces of gristle and cloth clung to the blades of the weapon. 



Soon Reims was face-to-face with the cult Iconbearer and he thrust the chainsword forward.  The tip of the blade caught the mutant in the belly, ripping a hold wide enough to fit a new-born baby.  The weapon continued through until it left an equally big hole in the creatures back and the creature hung limp and lifeless on the blade, one clawed hand now resting on the gauntlet of the marine where it had gripped it ferociously before.





The Genestealers had cut down Jimenez in the meantime and now burst from the refinery. 

Oscar stood in their path.

"Reynold, go!" he yelled, "I'll hold them here."

Reynold paused only momentarily, seeing that the main duty was to bring down the ventilation stack that they had been sent to destroy. 



He fired at the construct as the Genestealers pounced on Oscar.  His bolter ripped chunks out of the metal tower but soon more cultists emerged and charged him.  A device cut through his armour and left a big bloody wound in his side as the mutants surged around him.  Swinging with reckless abandon Reynold brought down cultist after cultist with his combat knife and his fist.

The first Genestealer to meet Oscar came face to fist with him.  The sharp teeth of the creature rained on the rubble below them like a spilled container of Chiclets.  The second one moved to Oscar's right and then flung itself at his flank, the blade-like claws sliced into the marines power pack and Oscar could see multiple systems go off-line as fuel spilled out behind him.  The third genestealer used the back of the first as a ramp and buried its claws in the marine's shoulders, partially pinning his arms in place. 

Oscar fell back with it and used his momentum to kick it across the street and crushed the one behind him with the same move.  The trick had left him vulnerable though and he felt pain, which was quickly deadened as analgesics flooded his system, but he also registered that he was now left with a left leg that ended at the knee.

One genestealer jumped on his right arm and another on the left while the one that had crippled him worried his helmet off with its claws. 

Then the Genestealers paused. Oscar managed to throw his body to the side causing all of the genestealers to land in a pile with the one on his right slamming into the one on his chest and both then into the one on his left.

He glanced around him.  Sgt. Reims continued his slaughter, as did Reynold, but the cult were not fighting back.  The dull thudding that had been in his head was gone.

Then a massive pain swelled up inside of him and despite himself Oscar screamed.  The psychic force that had just flowed through him debilitated the other marines as well.  As he pulled his head together he looked over and the ventilation tower still stood. 

The cult had sent their message.  The marines had failed.  The Tyranids would come to Onando.