Chapter 2 - Dark Clouds

The next morning dark clouds approached from the sea and heavy rain started pouring down on the soldiers.
The Hawkeye Sisters sat back-to-back under an umbrella and tried to peer through the rain. Captain Sirrus was on the walkway with his soldiers, trying to see farther than a few feet into the mist.
The entrances to the parts of the tower which lay below the ground had been sealed so they wouldn't be flooded and the integrated pumping system was working at it's max capacity to keep the courtyard from drowning
Nothing moved in the rain.
 
Dirt turned into mud turned into a waist-deep swamp.
Suddenly a soldier on one of the towers in the corners started to wave and point out into the field. Sirrus leaned forward and steered into the direction the man way indicating. Something was stirring up the water out there, sending small waves towards the fortress.
He turned his head and looked up to the sniper tower to check if the sisters had seen it too. They had and were peering through their scopes, trying to get a closer look.
There was definitely something huge out there, approaching them. The waves got bigger and every soldier clenched his weapon and waited.
 
Then the waves subsided and the water calmed down again. Everyone exchanged glances, wondering what just had happened out there.
Riza looked at her sister. “What the hell was that? And why did it just stop?”, she wondered loudly. Lucia shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno. Whatever it was, it was rather big, judging by the waves it caused.”
Captain Sirrus stared at the rain, the mud and the mist in front of the stronghold. “Well, I'll be damned if that thing wasn't a tyranid.” He holstered his weapon, turned around and walked down into the slowly drowning courtyard.
He was halfway down when the screaming  began.
 
Lucia focused her sight on the screaming soldiers and for a moment she froze in horror and disbelief.
One of the men was desperately clawing at his own throat where something that looked like a snake had curled around his neck. One second later she recognized this 'snake' as Ripper, one of the smallest organisms of the tyranids. The creature was chewing, ripping and shredding it's way through the flesh of the man.
Blood was running down the body of the soldier and turned the water beneath him into a pink pool of diluted blood. Other soldiers were trying to get the ripper off of the soldier but it refused to let go. The only way to get it off, was to shoot it, but that would kill the guardsman as well.
While Lucia feverishly tried to find a solution, her sister lifted her rifle, focused on her target, held her breath and squeezed the trigger.
The shot was muffled in the rain, but the bullet found it's target.
Blood flew trough the air as the ripper exploded. The guardsman collapsed in the rain, blood flowing out of his mutilated throat.
 
“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY, BITCH!?”, Sirrus yelled as he ran towards the downed soldier..
As he approached to man others were already there, checking if he was still alive. One looked up towards Sirrus and signaled him to hurry, a look of disbelief on his face.
“Captain! You're not going to believe this, but he's still alive! She just killed the ripper. We can still save him.”
Sirrus stared at the man who was lying in the rain, breathing flatly but still alive. Others were stopping the blood flow with bandages and parts of their uniform.
While two soldiers carried the injured man down towards the medic ward Sirrus looked up towards the tower.
Riza lowered her rifle and looked back.
There was a hint of a smile in Sirrus face as he nodded his head, showing his appreciation for her action.
 
Riza nodded back and then turned to her sister.
Lucia looked at her, her mouth open and a look of amazement on her face. “What?”, Riza asked and couldn't help but to laugh.
Then suddenly her sister jumped up, held her face with her hands and gave her a kiss. “That was amazing! I never knew you were that good!”, Lucia said with excitement in her voice.
“Y-you're welcome...”, Riza stuttered. That kiss had caught her off guard and she blushed.
The sight of her sister blushing made it clear to Lucia what she just had done. “Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I was just...I dunno. Happy? Excited? I dunno.”
“It's okay. You're my sister, so it's okay.”, Riza said. “Just give me a warning next time you get excited like that.”
 
Sirrus had turned around only seconds before Lucia had kissed her sister. He was looking out into the mud. “Where did that thing come from?”, he yelled. “We're not sure, sir. It was just there, all of a sudden.”, a soldier next to him answered.
Some others were taking a closer look at the remains of the ripper. “Sir, come over here and take a look at this.”, one of them yelled suddenly.
Sirrus walked to them, while digging his pockets in search of a cigar. He found one and lit it with a matchstick. “So what did you find?”, he asked as he flung the used stick into the rain.
“Look here, sir”, the soldier said and pointed at the head of the ripper. There were small openings on the side of the head that looked like... “Gills, sir. And here...”, he pointed at the other half of the ripper. “The claws have some sort of membrane between them and the tail is flatter and much broader than normally. If I wouldn't know better I'd say that this ripper...” ”...was made to breath and move underwater.”, Sirrus concluded. “Yes. And with this tail it would be able to fling itself out of the water and long distances through the air, sir.”
Sirrus stared out at the water that surrounded the fortress. “Emperor protect us!”, Sirrus whispered as he realized what this meant.
“All soldiers back away from the edge, now!”, he barked into his radio. The soldiers almost jumped backwards, away from the marshland.
 
Out in the water, a pair of eyes were hovering just an inch above the surface and staring towards the wall. Slowly the creature submerged again and disappeared.
 
The remaining day all soldiers kept a nervous distance to the water outside the walls. But nothing moved out there or attacked them and in the end the tension started to claim it's price. Several men had to take a break or even a nap.
Even the Hawkeye Sisters requested permission to take a break from sniper duty. Sirrus, still pleased by Riza's shot, granted their request and posted some others up there for the time being.
 
“God, that feels sooooo good.....”, Riza moaned. Hot water was running down her back and her slender thighs.
“Could you keep it down?”, Lucia asked from outside the shower. “It sounds like your having an orgasm in there!” “Maybe I'm having one, thought about that?”, her sister replied.
“You don't look like it, so I'm guessing 'no'.” Lucia's voice directly behind her made Riza spin around. Lucia stood behind her, the curtain moved aside so she could get a look at her sister.
In a flash of panic Riza tried to cover herself, but then she realized how stupid that was.
Lucia grinned and motioned her sister to either move aside or get out of the shower. "Come on, I want some of that warm water too." Riza slowly nodded, left the shower and started to dry herself off. She was glad, that her sister hadn't noticed that some of the wetness between her legs was not from the shower.
She shook her head, trying to focus on getting her clothes back on and not on her sister naked body.
 
Outside on the walkways trouble began anew, as one of the men suddenly dropped his rifle and collapsed.
The guardsman lay on the ground, his hands pressed against his ears, screaming and his eyes burning with pure horror.
“What the fuck is going on?!”, Sirrus barked as he approached the soldier. Another looked at him and shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno, sir. He just suddenly started screaming and then he fell to the ground.”
“Hold him!”, Sirrus ordered and two of the soldiers grabbed their comrade and tried their best to keep him still. Sirrus knelled beside the frantic soldier, grabbed his chin and forced him to look at his face. “What's going on?”, he asked with a loud and clear voice while looking directly into the soldiers eyes.
The mouth of the soldier opened and closed, like a fish on dry land. But then words started to dribble out. “...them,...head...” “What?!” “I can hear them...”, the soldier whispered. “I can hear them...in my head...scratching, chittering, laughing...They say...we can't win...” Sirrus stared into his eyes and the only thing he could see, was the shattered soul of a man, terrified and broken. With a deep sigh he reached for his gun, slowly put the barrel to the man's head and then pulled the trigger. The soldier didn't even try to stop him.
Blood splattered across Sirrus' face, but was quickly washed away by the constant rain. “Put him in the morgue.”, Sirrus muttered in a monotone voice. “If any other soldier starts behaving this way, you are authorized to shot them if they do not stabilize within a few moments.”
He holstered his gun and went into the central guard tower without looking back. “And someone get our snipers back on that tower.”
 
On a nearby hill, hidden by the constant rain, something was watching the fortress and the things happening there. Slowly it turned around and faced another creature. Then this one nodded and quickly left in the direction of the mountains.
 

The rest of the day nothing happened and finally the rain stopped. The pumping system of the fortress was able to quickly drain the courtyard of the water that had gathered.
During the next days the water outside of the compound slowly dried up and left nothing but plain dirt.
Still nothing 'exciting' happened, not even the regular attacks by gaunts and warriors resumed and the constant alertness was beginning to take it's toll. Soldiers started to doze off, their brains simply shutting down to get a pause from all the mental stress.
Every day the hours passed uneventfully and the Hawkeye Sisters took turns napping while the other stood watch.
Instead of rain the sun was now shining down on the fort and scorching the earth. One day, around noon, one of the guards peered through the haze and rubbed his eyes. Something was slowly approaching the fort, but he could not identify it properly. He called captain Sirrus and every soldier clutched his weapon as they watched the object come closer.
Even with his binoculars, Sirrus was unable to make out what exactly was wandering out there.
Riza had woken her sister and both were starring at the blur. "It's a human, I think....", Lucia murmured and peered through her scope. "A human? That's impossible!", both her sister and the captain answered at the same time.
But as the thin got closer they had to agree with Lucia. It was indeed a human woman, wearing a dirty cloak and stumbling towards the gates.