[Warhammer 40K - The Horus Heresy 35] - Eye of Terra by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military Fiction, Science Fiction, Warhammer 40K
ISBN: 9781785721953
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2016-02-05T15:53:56+00:00

With Spaal’s legs folded under him and his arms hyperextended, he scurries down the maintenance crawlspace on all fours like a hyena, yammering one word over and over.

‘Vorax! Vorax! Vorax!’

He can’t hear his own voice over the constant scream of metal. The lead battle-automaton is keeping pace with him in the passage beyond—tearing away panels, shearing through the bulkhead with its blades and pumping cannon-rounds through any obstacle it cannot rip aside with more than a moment’s work. Spaal’s 310-degree vision is getting glimpses of the second beast folding itself into the crawlspace and clawing its way along after him, somehow reshaping itself from a striding mantis to a terrifying armoured worm. The grippers pulling it along are wet with Arrys’ blood.

That brings a thought to Spaal’s mind but, in the instant it takes him to try and process it, the lead Vorax drags the slashed bulkhead open and exposes him, lunging in with no word and no pause.

Spaal pushes off the crawlspace wall in blind terror, and rolls forward under its lunge. Then he is crawling, crawling and skittering, finally scrambling through the hatch at the other end of the passage, howling the lock code in terror-corrupted binaric. But the blades lash out, blocking the hatch from closing, and the Vorax is already head and shoulders through.

It is right on his heels. Feedback fogs Spaal’s senses as a hooked blade takes one of his metal feet away below the shin and the power burst ripples through his systems.

He is choking with rage. Rage at himself—stupid, stupid—the one working driver-lock, of course it was a trap. They were waiting nearby like predators in the waterhole! He was supposed to be the predator here. They would regret thinking that they could just come and take him. He feels the heat and strain in his shoulder joints as his arms drag him onwards. It is only a matter of—

He is rolled over onto his face again as the floor plating booms upwards, the second Vorax bursting from the crawlspace where it had kept pace with him. Spaal felt the impact as he rolls away again, the point of its bladed gun-limb gashing his side, the first machine marching almost on top of him, its insectoid face staring down at him. Spaal leaves a trail of bright blood as he watches the gun muzzles come up.

It is only a matter of time.

Both machines step through the hatch and onto Arrys’ body, walking straight through his noospheric link—even as the link dies with Spaal. The children of his scrapcode infestation will be erupting in the Vorax like cancers and abscesses, cysts disgorging parasites and poison into their systems. It cannot be more than seconds away, now.

The code will have them. The Vorax will bow to him or they will burn. Even just to slow them for a few seconds…

As the two machines stand over him, Spaal runs a wrenching reconfiguration pulse through his external transmitters, and then pours all the power he can muster into the code blast.

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