Cain whispered to Amberly, "We are truly lucky."
Amberly raised an eyebrow, looking at him with slight confusion: "How so?"
"When they attacked, they charged more towards the T'au than us."
Amberly responded thoughtfully, "Are you surprised by that?"
Cain nodded, recalling his past experience fighting Gretchin on Kofia:
"The Gretchin I encountered before never picked targets; they just attacked the closest enemy. Venita and I almost ran ourselves to death back then, thankfully Li Feng and the Battle Sisters gave me cover."
Amberly frowned slightly upon hearing this, because she had just heard a woman's name... Venita... which didn't sound quite right to Amberly's ears... "But I should remind you, ever since the fuel tank exploded, they could only attack the T'au."
Cain said, "But it was the same before that; they showed this selectivity from the very beginning. They only seemed to pursue us after we started retreating."
"You think this isn't typical Genestealer behavior?" Amberly continued to ask thoughtfully.
"Not in my experience, no," Cain affirmed.
Amberly nodded slightly, her gaze returning to Yugen with a pensive expression. Perhaps... Yugen, the Untouchable, was having an effect?
They advanced along the gradually ascending pipe. Although the flashlight's beam provided the necessary visibility for the team, Cain still felt uneasy.
He suggested turning off the flashlight to avoid exposure, but Amberly insisted on making haste.
So, Cain only turned off his own flashlight, retreating to the back of the team, using his comrades' light to avoid becoming an obvious target.
His palm throbbed slightly from an earlier injury, and his scalp tingled with tension. Cain couldn't help but recall his past encounters with Gretchin, the creatures' ability to conceal and ambush was alarming.
In contrast, while hybrid Gretchin, with their human genes, were easier to detect and kill, Pure-Strain Genestealers would hide in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity like true Tyranids, making them especially dangerous.
"So far, so good," Amberly whispered.
However, every time she said that, it made Cain uneasy. Although they had been quite lucky so far, Cain knew that good fortune couldn't be relied upon forever.
He whispered a reminder, "They won't be far from us now." He secretly wondered why, given their speed, they hadn't caught up earlier... Suddenly, Cain realized the problem! The Gretchin didn't need to search the labyrinth step by step to find them. They only needed to place sentries at key entrances and exits, waiting for them to walk into the trap.
Cain suddenly stopped, "Wait! We might be walking into an ambush."
He quickly calculated their current position and the point where they had broken through enemy lines in his mind. They hadn't gone far, but... Suddenly, a Las-fire explosion sounded ahead, shattering chunks of the wall next to Treibek. Cain's thoughts were interrupted, and he instantly realized they were already surrounded by the enemy.
"Fall back! Stick together!" Cain shouted.
Treibek crouched down, immediately returning fire towards the front. In the flashlight's beam, a young Soldier in a Planetary Defence Force uniform fell.
For a moment, Cain worried if they had accidentally hit friendly forces, but he quickly noticed that many of the approaching figures were hybrid Genestealers.
A woman emerged, her once beautiful face made grotesque by a third Genestealer limb with sharp claws growing from her right shoulder. She used this eerie appendage to push aside her hair, a surprisingly elegant motion.
Then, with her other two hands, she pulled up a heavy machine gun. Before Cain could shout a warning, Sorel, with his usual precise shot, put a hole in her head.
Another Planetary Defence Force Soldier, with a blue towel tied around the upper part of his uniform arm, cried out in pain, dropping his Laser Gun and cradling the body.
"Political Commissar, we are surrounded."
Yugen was as calm as ever, looking as unconcerned as if he were asking Cain to approve some routine paperwork.
"They're behind us too."
He was right; the sound of running footsteps echoed in the pipe from the direction they had come.
"We have to charge through," Amberly said decisively.
Velarde and Hollanby exchanged serious nods, then began firing at the Heretics to support Treibek, sticking close to the walls for maximum cover.
"Better make it quick!" Cain yelled. He shone his flashlight deeper into the pipe, his heart almost stopping.
It wasn't ugly Heretics; the narrow passage was packed with Pure-Strain Genestealers, their gaping maws dripping with saliva, charging at a speed comparable to a high-speed sports car.
Cain drew his Bolter Pistol and fired a futile shot at them.
The lead one fell, but was quickly trampled by its comrades behind, the shattered chitinous shell and crushed soft tissues making Cain nauseous.
"We're out of time!"
Yugen fired a melta shot into the passage, but it barely slowed them down; for every one that fell, there seemed to be an entire army to replace it.
"We're doing our best."
Treibek shouted, aiming and firing smoothly. With every pull of the trigger, she took down a Heretic, and her torso's flak armor was covered in bullet impact marks.
Whatever crimes she had committed on the wrath of justice, they had long been repaid, and Cain felt a surge of satisfaction for having defended her and saved her from execution, almost dispelling the fear brought by this tide of death with chitinous carapaces.
Suddenly, Treibek took a shot to the chest, exploding shrapnel piercing her ribcage and splattering her internal organs onto the wall beside her.
A flicker of surprise crossed her eyes, then they lost their light.
"No!" Hollanby dropped his hellgun and fumbled for his medical kit, wanting to save the first love he had met and befriended in prison.
Cain grabbed his shoulder and shouted, "Keep firing! She's beyond saving!"
If they didn't keep firing, they might suffer the same fate in a few seconds, if they couldn't break through.
Hollanby, his face streaked with tears, nodded, picked up his gun, and continued to aim, reflexively pulling the trigger.
The roar of Amberly's Bolter Pistol echoed, and another former Planetary Defence Force Soldier was torn to shreds, falling like Treibek.
"Maybe this is it."
Cain whispered, feeling a strange fatalism that often struck when death was inevitable. He tightly suppressed his fear, replaced by a calm certainty that whatever he did, the outcome wouldn't matter, but he would take down as many of these damned bastards as he could.
"I really wish... I could go to Li Feng's yacht for another 'three-temperature' sauna..."
Amberly turned to respond to Cain, but she couldn't say anything as a Las-fire exploded by her head.
"Amberly!" Cain shouted. To his surprise, she suddenly vanished without a trace, leaving only air to fill the vacuum of her previous position with a thunderous roar.
"What in the..."
"Cain!" Her voice suddenly came through Cain's comms.
"Tell Yugen to fire at the wall, about three meters behind him. Quickly!"
Suddenly, Cain saw a glimmer of hope. He followed her command, though he had no idea what had happened to her or why she was giving such strange orders.
Yugen executed the command quickly and effectively, and to Cain's surprise, a large hole, about a meter wide, immediately appeared. The wall was only as thick as Cain's forearm, and before the opening had even cooled, he quickly squeezed through.
"This way!"
Cain shouted, and Velarde and Hollanby began to retreat, while Sorel fired one last shot at the Pure-Strain Genestealers.
Yugen turned back and did the same, unleashing all the energy his melta gun could release, and the stones around the opening began to collapse.
"Get in!"
Cain shouted, but it was too late... With a loud crash of falling stones, the wall opening collapsed behind him, raising a suffocating cloud of dust, sealing Cain's comrades and the creatures together...
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