"Two minutes until contact."

The words came through the vox unit in Captain Lysator's helmet, garbled in static, but clear enough. The distortion was getting worse, Lysator thought. In the four months they had been fighting of Callas III, vox communication had been growing steadily more unreliable. Tech-Marine Prax had spoken with the remaining tech-priests on the planet, but they did not have much of an answer either. Speculation and theory. That's all they could offer Lysator. He despised it, and yet he knew that they were minor problems in the grand scheme of things. A small point he could not alter, drowned out in a sea of other threats and problems that he could do something about.

It was annoying though.

Lysator marched through the broken remnants of the hab unit; shattered walls and furniture covered in an ever growing layer of ash. It fell now, coming through the broken chunks of the ceiling and roof, clinging to the yellow armor Lysator wore. It hummed with power, its servos whirring and clicking with each step as he entered the further room of the hab block, nodding to the Lamenter standing guard at the entrance. The view was less than encouraging.

Glass pains had once lined this room, likely an communal gathering hall or food center. The glass lay all across the floor, shattered, and covered in specks of blood. Tables lay over turned, chairs were shattered, and cabinets clung to hinges ready to shatter at the slightest touch. The room overlooked dozens of other buildings, large, blocky structures like this hab unit in similar states of disrepair. The primary roadway into the city cut through the center of all the buildings, with small arterial roadways branching off into openings near the base of each structure. A great crevasse surrounded the city as far as the eye could see, spanned only by the main roadway and bridge. The dead landscape of Callas III spread out far beyond the edges of the city; a lifeless husk of a world with no greenery, no animal life or civilization left. Dark clouds lingered in the sky, obscuring what Lysator had heard was once a beautiful sky. The buildings, the world itself, that beautiful sky, all casualties of the war against the Great Devourer.

Ten space marines were spread out across the room. Unlike Lysator or the warrior standing guard at the entrance, they did not wear full power armor. They wore yellow shoulder guards and chest plate, as well as armored boots and grieves, but their hands and arms, as well as their heads, were exposed. Gray and black cloaks hung around their shoulders, and all but one were looking down the scopes of sniper rifles. They were unmoving, fully dedicated to their task of observation. Lysator let his eyes linger on them, the scout marines of the chapter, the future of the Lamenters. These warriors were some of the first to be recruited since the chapters penitent crusade had ended. They were a sight Lysator had almost forgotten.

"Come to gawk Captain, or are you here to see the end of the world with the rest of us?"

Lysator turned, looking at the approaching form of scout sergeant Talik. The veteran officer was a scarred figure, in every sense of the word. He wore no helmet like his charges and his battle armor was damaged from decades of ceaseless service in the harshest warzones. His shaved head was crisscrossed with ugly scars that even the Calix, the apothecaries of the chapter had been unable to heal fully. Green eyes glared out from beneath a heavy brow, and Talik flexed his mouth, the metallic replacement clacking with the motion. The warrior had lost his lower jaw, and parts of his throat, in battle against an Ork warboss. He had lingered long enough to kill his foe, claiming some revenge. Some within the chapter said that Talik kept the skull of that ork, though Lysator had he proof of that.

Lysator inclined his head in brief greeting as Talik came to a halt before him. "The world came to an end a long time ago Talik," Lysator said, folding his arms across his chest. "The damned tyranids saw to that. The rubble that is left is hardly worth gawking at, though it is a sight prettier than you."

A small grin, the most Lysator had ever seen Talik react to a barb or joke cross his face. Gesturing for Lysator to follow, Talik walked to the edge of the room, moving between two of his scout marines without disturbing their watch. Talik brought up a pair of magnoculars, the device emitting small clicking noises as Talik adjusted it. Once he had gotten the sight where he wanted, he turned to hand the device to Lysator.

"The leading edge of the horde will hit the perimeter in one minute. Their force is changing from a large front line into three spearhead thrusts, each one taking one of the main bridges towards the city. Seems like they are looking to hedge their bets."

Lysator reached up to remove his helmet, the hiss of escaping air deafening in the silence of the room. His blonde hair sat short cropped on his head, and blue eyes stared into the magnoculars as Lysator brought them up to his gaze. Talik was right. In the distance, growing ever closer was a dust cloud thrown up by the thousands upon thousands of tyranid bioforms rushing across the dead world towards the last bastion of Imperial control. Hordes of hormogaunts, tyranid warriors and dozens of other strains moved in a seamless wave. Lysator could not see beyond the first twenty or so ranks of the charging force, but knew there were likely many more that he could not see. He panned his gaze left and right, seeing gaps beginning to form in the advancing swarm, each one arcing like a loosed arrow towards one of the bridges spanning the cavern around the broken city.

"Well," Lysator said, lowering the magnoculars, "they don't seem to be holding anything back anymore."

Lysator handed the magnoculars back to Talik, and donned his helmet once more. As his suits senses flooded across the display, and Lysator adjusted once more to the encompassing security of his armor, he turned to look down at the main roadway. "What is the status of the Imperial Guard forces," Lysator asked, though he had been briefed minutes before by their commanders, he still wanted to hear the seasoned warriors view on things.

Talik grunted, folding his arms across his chest, the gene-crafted muscles just beneath the surface bulging from the motion. "They have each of the arterial roadways barricades. A full company of guardsmen with a squad of leman russ tanks to support them. The primary roadway is guarded by three times that force. I inspected the defenses myself during their construction. They will hold for a time, but a determined assault by the tyranids will overwhelm them. If our plan fails, they will be overrun."

"That is why it is vital the plan does not fail," Lysator said. "Evacuation efforts are still underway. Nearly twenty million civilians wait at the starport to be transported into orbit. We need more time to get them into orbit and away from this world. The Imperial Navy is buying us as much time as they can, but they are being overrun. If this plan fails, we will be unable to buy the civilians the time they need, and they will be slaughtered."

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Lysator spat the last words, the righteous wrath of the Great Angel Sanguinius pumping through his veins. Other chapters of the adeptus astartes would have long since abandoned Callas III. It was a lost war, there was no changing that. The planet was dead, its cities destroyed and the control of the Great Devourer without question. It was a suicidal gambit to remain, to dig in and defend one last city while mere mortals remain, civilians who were beneath the very attention of the noble angels of death. But the Lamenters were not like those chapters. They were the scions of Sanguinius, part of the Sanguinary Brotherhood all their brother successor chapters swore oaths to. Every life held value, and to abandon them to a tortuous death would bring shame to the memory of their Primarch. The Lamenters of Strike Force Lysator had held the line while other chapters fled the advance of the Great Devourer, and Lysator's men were even now spread among the defensive positions of the city. Yellow armored space marines moving among the ruined buildings and barricades of the Imperial Guard.

They would not fail.

As they watched the tyranids draw closer and closer to the engagement line, two small runes in the corner of Lysator's helmet changed from red to green. "Lieutenant's Sabriel and Marcello have finished work on their bridges," Lysator said. Talik nodded his head, though he did not look away from the approaching tyranids, the magnoculars once more in his hand. Lysator had deployed his strike force across the city to defend the three main avenues of approach. The majority of the force was drawn from the Third Company, and Lysator had tasked his two lieutenants with overseeing the Lamenters in their regions of the front line.

Both warriors were new to the chapter, though their combat experience could not be denied. Drawn from the Unnumbered Sons, the legion strong forces of Primaris Marines created by Belisarius Cawl, both lieutenants, and many of the warriors now under Lysator's command, once called those hosts their home. They had been reassigned to reinforce the Lamenters when they had encountered one another, and with the new breed of warriors came the technology to create new Primaris marines. With their forces depleted, the Lamenters had taken these new warriors eagerly, though as of yet none of them held high ranking positions within the chapter. They would be tested in battle under the eyes of their new brothers, and earn their place.

Lysator clenched his hand, the still new strength he had gained just waiting to be released. With the technology to create the Primaris marines, had also come knowledge of the Rubicon Primaris, the process for which a 'firstborn' space marine could become one of the new breed of warrior. Given the dire situation the chapter still faced, and a need to help bridge the gap, Lysator and a few of his brothers had undergone the process. There knew their were risks, but it seems that the curse in the Lamenters bloodline struck again. Casualty rates among other chapters undergoing the crossing of the Rubicon Primaris sat just above sixty percent. For the Lamenters, casualties sat at ninety percent.

Lysator had lived, while so many of his brothers had perished. The seasoned veterans of the chapter further diminished by seemingly unfortunate chance with statistical probability. He lived, and they had died. Unlucky the tech-priests had said.

Unlucky...

"Contact," Talik said, drawing Lysator out of his thoughts.

From scores of positions among the ruined buildings and roadway, basilisk artillery opened fire. Explosive shells arced high into the air hanging for the briefest moment, before beginning their descent. They hurtled towards the ground, a lethal rain that slammed into the advancing tyranid swarm. Explosions bloomed, illuminating charging bioforms in scarlet and orange light. Tyranids were incinerated in the initial detonation, shrapnel tore through more tyranids, littering the ground of the world the Great Devourer had killed with their broken corpses. The Artillery guns continued their barrage, pounding into the tyranid advance and cutting swathes through their ranks, but for every tyranid killed, five more rushed forward. As the tyranids drew closer, griffon artillery pieces opened fire, the heavy mortars they carried adding their shorter range fire to the assault.

"How many of them do you think the barrage will kill," Lysator asked, watching with idle interest as the growing plumes of smoke from the artillery, watching as each shell fired leapt into the air, and knowing each detonation meant the death of more tyranids.

"Thousands have already been killed," Talik said, "and I expect tens of thousands more will perish before they start crossing they get to the bridges. It won't matter though, you know that Captain. There will always be more."

"I suppose you are right Talik," Lysator said. "His work is never done, and so we shall never rest. For those we cherish, we die in glory."

They stood in silence for the next few minutes, watching the advancing swarm get battered in a ceaseless barrage. Thousands died with each passing minute, but the swarm advanced. Each meter was bought in the blood of their kind, yet the tyranids could not be stopped. They had begun their final advance, and both the Imperial forces, and the Great Devourer, knew that this was the final battle. No matter how many warrior forms they lost, victory would be theirs in the end. Of all the foes Lysator had fought in his long service to the Imperium, the tyranids alone were the only foe that he truly believed could not be stopped.

The tyranid forces drew closer to the bridges, the individual warrior forms becoming more distinguishable. The first of the tyranid warriors stepped foot on the bridge proper, signaling the next stage of the defense. A wall of light erupted from the defensive positions on the bridge as thousands of lasguns came to life. The combined firepower of the last defenders of Callas III tore through the front ranks of tyranid warriors, felling hundreds of smaller hormogaunts. Larger tyranid warriors stalked through the growing piles of dead, only to be brought down by the concentrated fire of Lamenter space marines, bolt rounds detonating and sending geysers of blood and viscera as the tyranid warriors collapsed. Those few tyranids that managed to slip through all of that were felled by the coordinated fire of the scout marines sniper rifles.

"It's time," Lysator said.

The scout sergeant nodded his head, lowering the magnoculars and withdrawing a remote detonator. The tyranids below continued their relentless advance, using the piles of their own dead as cover to progress further along the bridge. The bridge was kilometer in length, spanning the wide crevasse, and in minutes the tyranids were almost halfway along its length. There were hundreds of tyranids on the bridge, covering every inch of open ground. There was no cover, no going back. The tyranids had committed everything they had to taking the bridges, and pouring into the rest of the city.

"Destroy the bridges," Lysator said, his words heard by both those in the room, and by the lieutenants over the vox network, and as if hearing the orders of the captain, the bridge bent itself to his will.

Permacrete erupted upwards. Slabs of stone the size of tanks shot into the sky, the dead and living tyranid warriors hurtling skyward with them. Further explosions erupted at either end of the bridge, destroying the supports holding the bridge over the chasm from their foundations. Rock crumbled, and as the defenders of Callas III watched, the bridge, and thousands of tyranids on the far side of the crevice plummeted to their deaths. Cheers erupted from the defenders below as the tyranid charge floundered, with hundreds of tyranids running at full speed, unable to stop, flinging themselves over the edge of the crevasse.

As he watched the devastation unfold, Lysator turned his head to the east. A second massive detonation, more smoke and debris flying into the air. The second bridge was destroyed. He nodded to himself, preparing to redeploy his forces to ensure that no stragglers managed to find a way across the crevasse. He paused, turning his head to the west. The third bridge should have been destroyed by now. Talik was concerned as well, turning to face the same direction as Lysator. Lysator opened a direct channel to Marcello, but before he could say anything the voice of lieutenant Marcello came across the link.

"Captain, we have a problem."