The Lightning Struck Tower - Part 4

Sergeant Gwynlais Treharne and his team descended into the pitch black bowels of the bunker, feeling that of all the teams that had descended into this abyss, his was perhaps the best suited towards this task. While it wasn’t exactly uncommon knowledge that the Silver Basilisk’s hearing was supernaturally good, even when compared to other Astartes, very few actually understood the extent that some of their brothers had taken that unique ability. Some called them Shriekers, or Bats, but Sergeant Treharne knew what they called themselves: Geists. Only those who had psychic potential could hope to push their sense of hearing to the limits that these men had, and even fewer of those had the dedication to do it. The end result, however, spoke for itself: These men did not need their eyes to function in the dark. Gwynlais had no illusions about his own abilities, he could not navigate in the murk like these men could, nor could he target a foe without first seeing him; and he also had his own private doubts if he was fast enough to survive a close combat ambush from a Custode. However, if the Geists could detect their foe with enough time for Gwynlais to strike, he would see their foe fall.

As they set out, the layout of the tunnels leading to the reactor did not inspire confidence of their eventual success. Blind corners and side tunnels were ever present as expected, but the ventilation was also uncommonly extensive for a structure this size; a bevy of potential places for an ambush in three dimensions. There was nothing for it though, and the 15th were some of the best combatants in the Imperium when it came to thinking and fighting in a three dimensional space.  They had barely made it past their first turn indicated by their helmet displays before their foe made his presence known.

“Traitors,” the word echoed through the tunnels, the deep bass voice following Gwynlais and his squad as they moved deeper. “As you burrow into the bowels of this facility like the vermin you are, you need to be made aware of the lies that have been told to ensure your compliance. You may have heard that the Custodes started this conflict. You may have heard that Your Imperial Sovereign, The Emperor of Mankind, has turned against you without provocation, and you must fight against your own destruction. You may have heard that your struggle is not in vain, that victory is still within your grasp.”

Gwynlais and his squad froze as shrieks, oaths, and screams of dying men echoed through the tunnels, the speakers crackling from overload and intermingling with the actual echoes of the massacre taking place elsewhere in the tunnels, before finally going silent as the voice returned.

“These are not truths. Use whatever weaponry, armaments, or sorcery, you have available to you and turn it to a useful purpose. End your misbegotten, traitorous, and ultimately irrelevant existences,” the voice stopped once more as another cacophony of death howled through the passageways. “And save me the chore of ending them for you.”

Gwynlais' squad increased their pace to the limits that stealth would allow, while inwardly Gwynlais grieved for his fallen brothers. He could feel similar emotions radiating from the Geists before their emotions, almost simultaneously, turned to rage. Ten brothers gone in a matter of minutes; after this task was done, there would be a reckoning. The Geists led the way, their weapons held at the ready, before the foremost held up a fist, head cocked. Gwynlais halted as the others stood, almost statuesque, save for the sudden quick turns of their heads, and he started gathering more primal energies to release if necessary, his hands trembling while they held the incredible forces in complete silence. Suddenly, the Geists’ heads turned abruptly, in unison, to a corridor to their left, their weapons booming in nearly the same instant. One Geist went down in the milliseconds it took for Gwynlais to unleash a cascading wave of force down the tube, a vapor cone rapidly condensing as it presaged the wave’s passage before an enormous sonic boom shook the confined space. For a brief moment in the explosion Gwynlais saw the silhouette of a large figure darting up into the vent system above them.

“Grenade the vents!” he roared, gathering his energies for another strike, pyroclastic in nature this time, as the Geist to his left pitched a grenade with such force that it pierced through the steel ductwork, where it exploded a moment later. “Down!”

The Geists immediately dropped to the floor and Gwynlais unleashed gouts of blue-violet flames that sucked the air out of his lungs even as they leapt into the opening the grenade had created, effectively purging the vent system. He briefly heard a curse of fury, then a retreating bellow of pain over the roar of the flames’ fury before the sounds started to die down; eventually only the clattering sounds of from the remnants of the once intact tunnel, and the creaking groans of superheated metal from what remained of the vent system, as the molten material started pooling on the floor. Two of the three remaining Geists looked to their fallen brother, while the one who had thrown the grenade stood looking at the vents with Gwynlais.

“Do you think you got him?” he asked, his voice sounding quite young despite its roughness.

“I really rather doubt it,” Gwynlais replied, turning to look at the two Geists who had returned to their positions, the fallen  battle-brother remained unmoving on the floor.

“Damn. I was really hoping I was wrong.”

They inspected the wreckage as they passed weapons at the ready, and the Geist at the fore took a long rod of metal that lay discard from Gwynlais’ previous blast, and plunged it into the molten metal debris, rummaging around for a moment before flicking a still flaming chunk out onto the floor. Gwynlais had to look at it for a long moment before he realized what the misshapen lump was: a gauntlet.

“You got a piece of him, Brother,” said the Space Marine who had spotted the increasingly melted armor as the psychic fire consumed it. “Brother Merion did not die in vain.”

“We need to get him out in the open somehow,” Gwynlais said as he waved the squad forward.

“Best place for that is the generator room itself, Sergeant,” replied the younger sounding Geist. “We will get you there, and you can tell Primarch Artellion himself our names when he arrives.”

“With honor, Brother, but I hope I do so with company.”

The group fell into silence once more, the oppressive darkness punctuated by the faint mechanical clicks and whirrs of idle marchines attempting to power up again. No further sounds of combat filtered through the tunnels, and according to Gwynlais read-out they were roughly halfway to their destination. A small, perhaps overly optimistic, part of him was beginning to wonder if he had in fact seriously injured the Custode when the Geists froze again.

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