Gianfranco Mancini’s Reviews > Death of Integrity > Status Update

They moved as quickly as they could, those with storm bolters providing covering fire when opportunity presented itself. They disentangled themselves from the genestealers.
The aliens pursued, snapping at them like dogs. They were shot down, only for more to advance. Threat indicators rang loudly in the helmets of the Terminators. Their visor maps were crowded with red telltales.

From somewhere behind them, a Thunderfire cannon opened up, raking the ceiling with heavy rounds. Nearly two hundred Terminators were in the cavern now.
The genestealers faltered. They fought on. Still deadly, still tenacious and cunning, but the tactical acumen and overall battle order they had exhibited before had gone.
Great was the slaughter of the xenos that day.

‘My lord, we must go on.’
Holos swayed on his feet. A flash of a leering face,
mocking him as it broke his wings. He screwed his eyes shut, bit the insides of his cheeks raw until it departed. ‘The Black Rage,’ he said, not knowing to whom he spoke, for surely he was alone, ‘It takes me. I do not have much time.’

With satisfaction he imagined the genestealers coming awake, fighting over one another to get away as their precious air was drawn away, scrabbling for the exits. Not all of them would make it; some would be sucked out into space by decompression where they would perish. Aresti wondered if the genestealers knew fear. He prayed it was the case, such wicked things should feel what their victims felt.

The other Novamarines joined him, emerging into the room and fanning out. Bolter fire rang out, muzzle flash whiting out their sensoriums’ various image compensators.
Voldo deactivated his heat vision and light intensification.
He watched genestealers smashed into pieces by the shortlived bursts of light from their guns. Azmael emerged fighting, lightning claws flashing. He wheeled and swung his arms, cutting down two.

The genestealer hissed at those accompanying it. Hard chitin rattled as the creatures unfurled themselves. The genestealer crept forward, driven by an intellect even greater than its own. The wishes of their broodlord were felt and understood by his family, they operated as one. The nearness of them, the touch of their minds on each other was their comfort and their strength.
They advanced silently in the dark.

‘Brother Luentes,’ Mazrael voxed the pilot. ‘Take us back to Lux Rubrum.’ ‘Yes, Lord Reclusiarch Mazrael,’ the pilot replied. The engines immediately kicked into life, building to a roar.
‘My brother, my lord, my son,’ said Mazrael. ‘Now, we shall pray together, pray to Sanguinius and the Emperor, for you shall soon be joining them both.’

‘Service! Death! Purgation!’ shouted the warriors of two Chapters.
Caedis smiled and nodded. He slumped a little, diminished by his effort. ‘Let us see to our souls and to our weapons.
The joy of battle awaits.’

‘Behold! The Death of Integrity, its secrets revealed to us,’ said Sorael. ‘And with its secrets revealed, so shall it fall!’ The Blood Drinkers shouted and stamped their armoured feet, raising a thunder in the room. The Novamarines looked to one another; such open fervour was not their way.
Instead the brothers of bone-and-blue hummed low and loud, the haunting sign of their appreciation.

Upon the gothic detail of the crushed Imperial ship were genestealers. Scores of them, curled into foetal balls, lying atop or embracing each other with their many limbs. They stirred fitfully as they slept, their fluted bodies moving sinuously against their fellows as they dreamed alien dreams, their tubular tongues sliding over black teeth.