Iron vs. Flesh

[Iron Father Ferrum]

This is my entry for Praeteritis Historiam Belli: Adeptus Astartes.

 

IRON VS. FLESH

 

 

 

It was hard to ignore the freight-train scream of artillery rounds flying overhead, but Tyrrod Tekton, Iron Captain of Clan Haarmek, did so.  The hiss of overheated Thunderfire Cannon barrels, glowing red in the twilight; the throaty staccato of bolters and the stream of tracers that whizzed past his face; even the high-pitch screech of overcharged plasma bolts that passed so closely that their heat coronas scorched the black paint from his heavy plate: he ignored all of it.

 

His attention was focused solely on the living wave that approached his battle line.  Cannon rounds fell from the sky, atomizing flesh and hurling great bloody clods ten meters into the air.  A veritable wall of bolt shells slammed into the leading ranks, casting a fine red mist into the air as the mass-reactive rounds shredded flesh and bone and chitin like so much paper.  Laser beams, flashing a brilliant pearlescent blue, carved huge furrows into the front ranks as they sought the towering tank-beasts that huddled amidst the swarm.  The full firepower of an entire Clan Company, supported by no less than five of their honored ancients and the gathered might of the Armory's battle tanks, spat their fury at the tide of screaming killers that rushed at them.

 

Now, confronted by the sheer suicidal mass of this most terrible foe, Iron Captain Tekton finally understood how such storied fighters as the Ultramarines could have suffered so much woe at the hands of the Tyranids.  This was not an army.  This was death incarnate, willing to drive itself to destruction if only they could do the same to their opponents.

 

Thousands of bio-forms had fallen already, a kill-ratio to make even the sternest Scout-Sergeant beam with pride.  They had made hardly a dent; tens of thousands more crowded the valley below, all of them scrabbling up the scree-covered slope in the mad hope they could kill just one Space Marine.  The Haarmek were not without losses, of course.  Spore mines arced up from the masses to explode among his men, splashing acid and flame among their ranks.  His Techmarine pilots dueled with more winged forms in the darkening sky, diving in and out of cloud banks as the Stormtalons and Stormhawks fought desperately to prevent those hideous angels from falling upon his entrenchments from above.  He'd already lost two aircraft, and the day was young yet.

 

The seething mass was taking everything he could throw at it, and continued to advance.  Gaunts and Rippers formed the vanguard, the bigger Warriors and still larger tank-forms following in their wake.  The little ones died in their hundreds, but the Iron Hands were running out of space.  For every rank of Gaunts that blasted apart, another hurdled their fallen comrades and pressed forward.  The distance between the static Imperials and the advancing line of chitin shrank with each passing moment.  A hundred meters.  Seventy.  Fifty.  Twenty-five.

 

Tekton raised his weapon, the great thunder hammer Godsmote with its arcing head clenched in the silver gauntlet of his Chapter, and charged.

 

His tread was slow at first, his form weighed down oh so slightly by the hulking suit of Indomitus-pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armor that clad his cybernetic body.  What he lacked in speed or finesse, however, he made up for in mass and protection.  Return fire -- taking the form of gobs of acid, shards of bone-like needles, or impossibly fast flying beetles -- splashed against the energy field of his giant kite shield or else clattered harmlessly from his thick battle plate.  He might have charged quickly, but he would most certainly make it to his target and he was not alone.

 

To either side of him, a pair of Ironclad Dreadnought stomped forward barely quicker than his own tread.  Their grasping claws and piston-action hammers waved wildly in anticipation and as the leading edge of the swarm came into range their paired underslung flame throwers roared to life.  Orange fire spewed into the crowd, and another score of bio-forms died, shriveling in on themselves like spiders exposed to a candle-flame.  Even that could not stop them, though.

 

Tekton struck first, his hammer-swing pulping the skull of a Hormagaunt that leapt at him, its forward talons reaching for his helmeted face.  He shield-bashed a second, hammered a third, then stomped on the leg of a fourth that tried to trip him up.  A fifth was blasted backwards into its brethren by his backswing and a sixth exploded into mush as the hammerhead fell once again.  No skill was needed in a scrum like this.  His attack was almost mindless, almost mechanical.  Down-swing.  Back-swing.  Shield-bash.  Step forward.  Repeat.  Vaguely, he was aware of the icons of the ancients on his helm's heads-up display.  Brothers Domnall and Corrian still fought at his side, their armored hides tougher than even his own to pierce; the other three had followed them into the teeth of the assault, and now all five of his available Dreadnoughts formed a wedge, with him at the apex, driving into the horde.  They weren't forcing the Tyranids back; that was impossible.  But at least they'd halted the drive, sucked the army onto their formation, drawing them inward and stalling their onward momentum.  He'd bought time for the Clan to exact an even greater toll on the enemy with bolter and cannon.  Their only hope was to thin out the swarm enough that they'd have to fall back to regroup before making another attempt.

 

Down-swing.  Back-swing.  Shield-bash.  Step forward.  Down-swing.  Back-swing. . . and then he was in the clear.  Aliens guts covered his Terminator plate, the offal so deep on the ground that is squished up around his ankles with every step.  But the space around was clear, the Gaunts scattering before him.

 

Well, not before him, it would seem.  A tank-form, the so-called Carnifex, rose up to its full height before him.  Its jaw, easily large enough to fit around his bulky form, unhinged as it opened wide and spat out a roar so loud that his auto-senses squealed as they sought to dampen the sound.  Tekton didn't even bother to answer the obvious challenge; there was no logic in a boast to a creature as base as this.  He just took another step forward and whipped his hammer across his body.  The gilded head spat sparks as it collided with the Carnifex's still-open maw.  Bone and flesh exploded from the trauma, the swipe ripping the bottom half of the thing's head clean off.

 

It reared back, bellowing in pain and rage, but the fight was still in it.  It lunged forward, its pairs of scything talons and crushing claws desperately trying to eviscerate him.  A back-hand swing crumpled one claw and he ducked another; a talon came crashing down next, but he was able to twist out of the way.  The next talon arced down, but he caught that one on his shield, and the powerful force field flashed as it repelled the incredible force of the blow.  Tekton was falling back now, deflecting manic strikes with parries from his hammer or blocking them with his shield.  The Carnifex was insensate, at one point even trying to bite him despite the fact it couldn't actually seize him in jaws that weren't even there anymore.  He answered that particular idiocy was a back-hand blow to the creature's temple that knocked it back a step.

 

The Carnifex paused in its fury, its slitted, bloodshot eyes glaring at him with hate and hunger and instinctual cunning.  Tyrrod gave it no chance to rally, stepping back into the attack with a quick stabbing blow that tore a hole in the carapace on its lowered shoulder.  The broken claw came sweeping back in and Tekton parried it yet again, the hammerhead all but detonating the shattered chitin.  Another talon scythed down, but the creature's aim was off and Tekton was able to get inside the strike with another half-step forward.  The monstrous bone-blade buried itself in the dark earth behind him and stayed there.  It was at that moment that the Iron Captain realized he had made a mistake.

 

The second claw darted in, grabbing the top rim of his storm shield and pulling it away from his body.  The second talon struck, and Tekton -- pinned against the first talon -- had nowhere to go to avoid the blow.

 

The bone-blade sliced into his arm above the elbow, carving through ceramite and flesh alike.  He watched as his forearm, with its augmetic left hand that was the first such cybernetic that every Iron Hands ever received, was separated from his body and tossed casually aside.  His body and his plate alike reacted instantly, flooding his bloodstream with chemicals that pinched off the arterial spray and dulled the pain of the injury.  He gritted his square-cut titanium teeth and raised the hammer to strike again but the Carnifex was already moving.  It swung away from him, as if turning its back, and the giant spiked cluster of hardened bone that capped its tail hit him like a Demolisher shell.

 

The blow lifted him from his feet and literally threw him five meters back towards the Iron Hands' lines.  He slid through the bloody muck another meter before coming to rest.  His last thought was that the sky seemed so much darker as night closed in around him.

 

 

 

.

..

...

.

..

...

CARDIAC ARREST DETECTED.  PRIMARY PULMONARY SYSTEMS COMPROMISED.  PRIMARY POWER SYSTEM OFF-LINE.

.

..

...

SECONDARY POWER ON-LINE.  RELAYS COMPROMISED; RE-ROUTING.

.

..

...

.

..

...

POWER RESTORED.  ACTIVATING RESUSCITATION PROTOCOLS.  ADMINISTERING SUPERDRENALINE.  ADMINISTERING SHOCK TREATMENT IN 3.  2.  1.

 

 

 

The Carnifex reared back once again, its throat letting loose a ragged scream of victory through its ruined maw.  Six meters away, the prone form of Iron Captain Tekton lay still for a moment.  Then, a single spasm went through his prone form.  A second, the bionic fingers of his right hand clenching and unclenching on the haft of his hammer.  A third, and his eyes -- still flesh -- snapped open.  His breaths came rapidly, the potent cocktail racing through body driving his damaged hearts into overdrive.  He gritted his teeth through the pain and sat up, then used the hammer to push himself back to his feet with a barely-suppressed groan.

 

Pain is weakness leaving the body, he thought, the words of his Scout Sergeant reaching back to him from two centuries past.  And the flesh is weak.  His grimace became a grin.

 

Setting aside his hammer for a moment, he reached up and pulled his helm from his head, revealing his scarred face with the metal plating that replaced a good three-quarters of his cranium.  The Carnifex was still crowing its victory, and continued to do so until he pelted it in its ruined face with the helmet.

 

The beast gargled angrily and peered down at him, its eyes going wide as if in disbelief that he was back on his feet.  Smiling grimly, Tekton gave it no chance to recover from its shock.  He charged forward, hammer raised, and the towering bio-form took an uncertain step back.  He swung the hammer across as in a heavy strike that shattered a talon.  He ducked under a snapping pincer, his rising back-hand swing blasting a meter-wide hole in its chest.  The Carnifex mewled in pain as dark ichor splashed from the gaping wound.  It tried to disengage, but Tekton wouldn't let it.  His next strike crunched heavily into one shoulder, and its last good claw fell limp.  Desperate, the beast heaved itself up, intending to crush him, but the Iron Captain darted forward -- under its bulk -- to plant another heavy strike into its left knee. This blasted its leg out from underneath it, and the Carnifex, unbalanced, tipped and fell.

 

Its arms and legs kicked feebly, trying to fend him off, but Tyrrod Tekton would not be denied.  Carving handholds in its hide with hammer-blows, he climbed up its twitching form and stalked along its carapace until he standing on its neck.

 

He glared down at the beast, its eye rolling in crazed pain.  Looking back at his Clan, he saw that they had kept up their fire the entire time.  Two of the Dreadnoughts were still, their frames disabled, but the ragged remnant of the Tyranid wave was pulling back down the slope like the tide going out.  Raising his hammer high, he activated his vox.

 

"We are iron!  They are flesh!"  The rest of his Iron Hands, barely fifty meters away, finished the catechism with him.

 

"AND THE FLESH IS WEAK!" they roared together, and then the hammer fell.

[Pearson73]

Nice work brother, the imagery in the first paragraphs sets the scene but without overt "This is war!" exaggeration.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

Well done.