carapace of flaking skin, no doubt fearing for his delicate stomach, not something which usually troubled him until we were well within a planetary atmosphere. His knuckles were white around the melta he carried across his lap, and I found myself hoping he’d remembered to leave the safety on: the last thing we needed at this stage was to vaporise a chunk of the fuselage by accident.
‘Sounds as if they’ve arrived,’ he said, craning his neck for a better view of the carnage beyond the viewport. The tyranid bioships were retaliating in kind, lashing out with tentacles to ensnare the smaller vessels, and spitting gobbets of something corrosive which burned and melted hulls from a safer distance. The Navy seemed to know what they were doing, though, I had to give them that. I caught a brief glimpse of the lance batteries of a cruiser slicing through the tendrils holding a destroyer in place, but before I could see the smaller vessel turn vengefully on its tormentor our Aquila lurched vertiginously, and began plunging towards the surface of the planet.
‘What was that?’ I asked, my sudden flare of alarm overriding my resolve not to bother the pilot unduly before we were once again standing on a solid surface.
‘Haven’t a clue, but it nearly got us,’ he snapped, and the starfield beyond the sheet of armourglass began to do somersaults. ‘We need to get into the atmosphere fast.’
Well he wasn’t getting any argument on that score, I can assure you. The tyranids were in space, and anywhere they weren’t was fine by me. The view outside began to steady once again, as the pilot angled the Aquila for atmospheric entry, and I took my last look at what I gather is now commonly referred to as the first battle of the Siege of Fecundia. I’d be the first to admit I’m no expert on the complexities of fighting in three dimensions, but I’d been involved in a fair few ship-to-ship actions over the years, and it seemed to me that we were more than holding our own. Most of the tyranid ships seemed relatively small, about the size of our destroyers or light cruisers, although I had no doubt that they had far worse in reserve; this was a scouting raid, meant to size up our defences in preparation for a stronger assault, a tactic I’d seen the swarms on the ground use innumerable times. Just my luck to be caught in the middle of it, in a light utility craft, liable to be swept from the sky with a single volley.
‘They’re launching fighters,’ Jurgen said, with an apprehensive glance at the nearest drone ship. I twisted in my seat, impeded by the crash harness I’d tightened a few moments before, and felt the breath catch in my chest.
‘Those aren’t fighters,’ I said, ‘they’re mycetic spores.’ I tapped my comm-bead, using my commissarial override code to cut in on whatever vox-traffic might be going on among the Imperial Guard units on the surface; bad manners to interrupt, of course, but under the circumstances I didn’t think anyone would object. ‘All ground units stand to,’ I broadcast, trying to sound appropriately calm and dignified, instead of frightened out of my wits. ‘Spores incoming. The tyranids are on their way.’
SIXTEEN
I had little enough time to concern myself with conditions on the ground, however, as it soon became clear that our chances of reaching it intact were diminishing with every passing second. I could see only two or three of the spiky bioships[114] from where I sat, although I had no doubt that many more were uncomfortably close. All were taking fire from every ship that could get a clear shot at them, and probably a few that couldn’t, judging by the frequency and violence of the evasive manoeuvres our pilot was making. By now the first faint tendrils of the upper atmosphere were reaching up to claw at our hull, so even the internal gravitic compensators weren’t enough to prevent us from being shaken about. Jurgen groaned audibly as we corkscrewed through what felt like a complete barrel roll, a spread of torpedoes passing all around us to impact on the closest of the spaceborne monstrosities, but fortunately for both of us managed to retain control of his breakfast.
‘It’s breaking up!’ he gasped, no doubt happy to have something to take his mind off the miseries of motion sickness, even if it was the prospect of imminent death. For a panic-stricken moment I