earth.
It also became clear to Cassius that the darkness that engulfed the highlands was not caused by a cloud of ash. In the far distance, their bases beyond the horizon, large spore chimneys were spewing swathes of gloom into the sky. Dark streamers of spores lay like tattered cloth on the wind, stretching for hundreds of kilometres to the south and east. The microorganisms carried across the continent would work in conjunction with the rippers, breaking down all biomass to make it easier to consume by the approaching swarm.
'Spore risk,' Cassius warned the column. 'Recheck ventilators and seals.'
Individual spores presented little danger to a person, especially a Space Marine, but an unarmoured human caught in a cloud would be slowly eaten away, skin first, then fat, then flesh, then bone, turned to a mushy pool of constituent elements. To breathe them in was agonising, even for a Space Marine, and the spores had a nasty trait of settling inside airways to replicate, choking their unfortunate host to death.
As at Cordus Via, the two Thunderhawks had been rotating combat air patrols around the column, ready to warn of any sizeable enemy force and engage distant targets if needed. On the ground, the spore cloud was still thin, but carried on volcanic updraughts into the upper atmosphere, the cloud was much, much thicker. The Thunderhawk pilots reported the filters on their engine intakes were becoming clogged with the tiny creatures, threatening their ability to fly. Rather than risk losing one of the craft, Cassius had to concede to the concerns of the crews and ordered the Thunderhawks to return to Fidelis to fit new filters and await further command.
Onwards the Ultramarines pushed, into the heart of the wilderness, into the dead land left in the wake of the Great Devourer. Kilometre after kilometre passed by with monotonous regularity, the only features left being the mound of a hill or the empty buildings of a farmstead. All vegetation had been engulfed, the land stripped to rock.
Night fell as the column passed one thousand and forty kilometres from Cordus Via. With no desire for comfort, their armour protecting them from bumps and bangs inside their vehicles, the Space Marines were able to advance at speed, their transport slowing only to negotiate some of the larger drainage ditches and irrigation trenches. The drivers turned off their lights, not wishing to attract attention now that they were approaching the heart of the tyranid drop-zone.
Two hours after sunset, Cassius was studying the scanner reports from Fidelis. The ground ahead was uncertain; the strike cruiser's scans had been affected by the volcanic ash and the growing spore cloud, which acted as a blanketing shield against some of the vessel's sophisticated surveyors. The Ultramarines needed to head further north, where there seemed to be the largest concentration of organic matter. He could be wrong - it might be some forest hidden from the tyranids in an ancient caldera, but Cassius's instinct told him that combined with the heat register that had been detected, he would find the norn queen amongst the spore funnels three hundred kilometres north.
He was broken from his thoughts by a loud crack and a vibration that ran through the hull of the Rhino. He first looked to the sweeping scanner screen to his right, but all it showed were the haphazard heat registers of rippers returning to the spore funnels to throw themselves into the digestion pools surrounding the norn queen.
The driver, Brother Exeletus, cursed suddenly and brought the Rhino to a sliding stop as another resounding detonation shuddered the vehicle from front to rear. The vox-net filled with inquiries as the column slewed to a halt behind the Chaplain's vehicle.
'Hatches open, ready weapons for quadrant defence!' Sergeant Dacia's voice cut through the noise, silencing all chatter. 'Locate source of attack.'
'I saw something, a thermal flicker just before the impact,' said
It also became clear to Cassius that the darkness that engulfed the highlands was not caused by a cloud of ash. In the far distance, their bases beyond the horizon, large spore chimneys were spewing swathes of gloom into the sky. Dark streamers of spores lay like tattered cloth on the wind, stretching for hundreds of kilometres to the south and east. The microorganisms carried across the continent would work in conjunction with the rippers, breaking down all biomass to make it easier to consume by the approaching swarm.
'Spore risk,' Cassius warned the column. 'Recheck ventilators and seals.'
Individual spores presented little danger to a person, especially a Space Marine, but an unarmoured human caught in a cloud would be slowly eaten away, skin first, then fat, then flesh, then bone, turned to a mushy pool of constituent elements. To breathe them in was agonising, even for a Space Marine, and the spores had a nasty trait of settling inside airways to replicate, choking their unfortunate host to death.
As at Cordus Via, the two Thunderhawks had been rotating combat air patrols around the column, ready to warn of any sizeable enemy force and engage distant targets if needed. On the ground, the spore cloud was still thin, but carried on volcanic updraughts into the upper atmosphere, the cloud was much, much thicker. The Thunderhawk pilots reported the filters on their engine intakes were becoming clogged with the tiny creatures, threatening their ability to fly. Rather than risk losing one of the craft, Cassius had to concede to the concerns of the crews and ordered the Thunderhawks to return to Fidelis to fit new filters and await further command.
Onwards the Ultramarines pushed, into the heart of the wilderness, into the dead land left in the wake of the Great Devourer. Kilometre after kilometre passed by with monotonous regularity, the only features left being the mound of a hill or the empty buildings of a farmstead. All vegetation had been engulfed, the land stripped to rock.
Night fell as the column passed one thousand and forty kilometres from Cordus Via. With no desire for comfort, their armour protecting them from bumps and bangs inside their vehicles, the Space Marines were able to advance at speed, their transport slowing only to negotiate some of the larger drainage ditches and irrigation trenches. The drivers turned off their lights, not wishing to attract attention now that they were approaching the heart of the tyranid drop-zone.
Two hours after sunset, Cassius was studying the scanner reports from Fidelis. The ground ahead was uncertain; the strike cruiser's scans had been affected by the volcanic ash and the growing spore cloud, which acted as a blanketing shield against some of the vessel's sophisticated surveyors. The Ultramarines needed to head further north, where there seemed to be the largest concentration of organic matter. He could be wrong - it might be some forest hidden from the tyranids in an ancient caldera, but Cassius's instinct told him that combined with the heat register that had been detected, he would find the norn queen amongst the spore funnels three hundred kilometres north.
He was broken from his thoughts by a loud crack and a vibration that ran through the hull of the Rhino. He first looked to the sweeping scanner screen to his right, but all it showed were the haphazard heat registers of rippers returning to the spore funnels to throw themselves into the digestion pools surrounding the norn queen.
The driver, Brother Exeletus, cursed suddenly and brought the Rhino to a sliding stop as another resounding detonation shuddered the vehicle from front to rear. The vox-net filled with inquiries as the column slewed to a halt behind the Chaplain's vehicle.
'Hatches open, ready weapons for quadrant defence!' Sergeant Dacia's voice cut through the noise, silencing all chatter. 'Locate source of attack.'
'I saw something, a thermal flicker just before the impact,' said
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