up with their lasrifles than
we returned
fire with our bolters,
cutting them down. Van Dam tried to contact
the
fleet
but
our
comm-links
were
being
jammed.
and
we
could
not
teleport
out. There was nothing
for it. We had
to fight our way to the
planet's
surface
and
hope
that
a dropship
could
reach us.
"It seemed as
if the
whole planet
had
turned
against
us,
and
that
was
more
or
less
what
had happened.
Two
hundred of us
fought
our way out
of
the
audience
room.
We
were
met
by
armed
men,
unarmed
children
and
their
mothers.
All threw themselves
against
us
with insane
ferocity. As
we cut
them down, they
showed
no fear
-
only
a
strange,
unholy joy. The whole world had
been
infected.
"Our
trip
to
the
surface
was
a
nightmare.
We
battled
along
dark
corridors,
crawled
up
access
ladders
and through narrow hatches
never
meant for Marines.
I saw Steel Fist tumble back headless
from one
hatchway.
Van
Dam
lobbed
a handful
of crack grenades through
and
we were spattered
with the
remains of a full-grown Stealer"
"My
brother
Red Sky was pulled down by a wave of feral children with explosives
in their hands.
They
detonated
them as
they
crawled over his body.
He did not
live.
"Twice
in
the endless
corridors,
we
were
almost
overrun.
It
came
to hand-to-hand
combat
with
purestrain
Stealers. Twenty
of our brothers
were cut
down before Two Heads
Talking's force axe and
Cloud
Runner's
power
sword
carried us
clear.
"It
was
while
guarding
the
final
hatchway
that
I
lost
the
use
of
my
leg.
A
Stealer
cut
right through
the
floor
and grabbed
me, trying to pull me down. I blasted
frantically at it. The last thing
I remember was its horrid,
leering
face
as
it pulled me down toward it. Around
it was a group
of' Thranxians who stroked
and
pushed
against
it fondly.
"The others
told
me
what
had happened
when
I
woke
up
in
the
medical
bay
of
the
ship
with
a
new
bionic
leg.
Two Heads
Talking
and
Cloud
Runner
had
pulled
me
clear
and
carried
me
to
the
roof
of
the
world.
where
the
dropship waited.
"There
was only one
thing
to do: order
the
Exterminatus.
The
whole
place
was
sterilised
from
orbit
with
virus
bombs. Later,
inquisitorial investigators
ascertained
that
the
whole
business had begun
only
sixty
years
before,
when
an unrecorded space
hulk had
swung through
the
system.
"It
had
taken
only
three generations
for
the
Stealers
to
infect
a
whole
world.
For
that
is
how
they
reproduce
-
by turning
people
into hosts
for their offspring.
Their victims endure
this
willingly, due
to the
Stealers' hypnotic
powers.
'Many nights
I
have
lain
awake
wondering
whether
we
could
have saved
the
world
if
only
we
had
arrived
sooner. Perhaps
if we had
been
able to eliminate the
Stealers before the
cancer
had
spread,
we would not
have
had
to
order
the Exterminatus.
Cloud Runner
could
see
that
the
warriors
had
been
swayed
and
angered
by
Lame
Bear's
tale.
He
could
tell
that
they were considering
the
assimilation of their People as
breeding
stock
and
the
possibility
that,
by swift
action,
they