The entire group moved onwards, aware of a shift in the weather. A storm front was rolling in. It told
in the increased ozone in the air, the faint tingle of electricity that heralded thunder. Following his unit
commander, Bhehan absently dipped a hand into the pouch at his side and randomly selected a rune. The
tides of Fate were lapping against his psyche strongly, and the closer they got to the craft, the more
intense that sensation became.
He briefly surfaced from his light trance to stare with greater intensity at the rune he had withdrawn
and he stiffened, his eyes wide. He considered the stone in his hand again and tried to wind the rapidly
unravelling thoughts in his mind back together. As though a physical action could somehow help him
achieve this, he raised a hand and grabbed at his fair hair.
Noticing the sudden movement, Gileas moved to the Prognosticator’s side immediately. ‘Talk to me,
brother. What do you see?’
A faint hint of wildness came into the psyker’s eyes as he turned to look up at the sergeant. ‘I see
death,’ he said, his voice notably more high-pitched than normal. ‘I see death, I smell corruption, I taste
blood, I feel the touch of damnation. Above all, above all, above all, I hear it. Don’t you hear it? I hear
it. The screams, brothers. The screaming. They will be devoured!’
He pulled wretchedly at his hair, releasing the rune which fell to the floor. A thin trail of drool
appeared at the side of the psyker’s mouth and he repeatedly drummed his fist against his temple. Gileas,
despite the respect he had for the Prognosticator, reached out and caught his battle-brother’s arm in his
hand.
‘Keep your focus, Brother-Prognosticator Bhehan,’ he rebuked, his tone mild, but his manner stern.
‘We need you.’ He’d seen this before; seen psykers lose themselves to the Sight in this way.
Disconcertingly, where Bhehan was concerned, the Sight had never been wrong.
It did not bode well.
‘We are not welcome here,’ the psyker said, his voice still edged with that same slightly unearthly,
eerie, high-pitched tone. ‘We are not welcome here and if we set one foot outside of the ship, it will spell
our doom.’
‘We are outside the ship…’ Tikaye began. Gileas cast a brief, silencing glance in his direction. The
young psyker was making little sense, but such were the ways of the Emperor and not for those not
chosen to receive His grace to question. The sergeant patted Bhehan’s shoulder gruffly and gave a grim
nod. ‘The faster this task is completed, the better. Double-time, brothers.’
He leaned down and picked up the rune that Bhehan had dropped, offering it back to the psyker
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without comment.
THE OTHER PARTY, led by Reuben, had skirted the perimeter of the clearing. At first there had been
nothing to suggest anything untoward had occurred. Closer investigations by Wulfric, a fine tracker even
by the Chapter’s high standards, had eventually revealed recently trampled undergrowth.
Reuben took stock of what little intelligence they had gathered on this planet, far out on the Eastern
Fringe of the galaxy. There had been suggestions of some native creatures, but as of yet, they had
encountered none. Worthless and of little value, the planet had been passed over as unimportant and
uninhabited with no obviously valuable resources or human life.
Just because there were no previous sightings of any of the indigenous life forms, of course, did not
mean that there were none to actually be seen.
Reuben waved his bolter to indicate that Wulfric should lead on and the three Space Marines
plunged back into the jungle, following what was a fairly obvious trail. They did not have to travel far
before they located their quarry, a few feet ahead of them, in a natural glade formed by a break in the
trees.
The creature seemed totally ignorant of their presence, affording them a brief opportunity to assess it.
An overall shade of dark, almost midnight-blue, the alien was completely unfamiliar. Without any frame of
visual reference, the thing could easily be one of the presumably indigenous life forms. Muted
conversations amongst the group drew agreement.
A slight adjustment to his optical sensors allowed Reuben a closer inspection. The thing had neither
fur, nor scales or even insectoid chitin covering its body. It was smooth and unblemished with the same
pearlescent sheen to its form that the insects seemed to have. Its limbs were long and sinewy; the
musculature of the legs suggesting to Reuben’s understanding of xenobiology that it could very probably
run and jump exceptionally well. The arms ended in oddly human-like five-fingered hands. Frankly,
Reuben didn’t care about its lineage or whether it had ever displayed any intelligence. In accordance with
every belief he held, with every hypno-doctrination he had undergone, he found it utterly repulsive.
He reacted in accordance with those beliefs and teachings at the exact moment the alien turned its
head in their direction, emitting a bone-chilling screech that tore through the jungle. It was so piercing as
to be almost unbearable. Reuben’s enhanced auditory senses protected him from the worst of it, but it
was the sort of noise that he genuinely suspected could shatter crystal. Unearthly. Inhuman.
Alien .
Acting with the intrinsic response of a thousand or more engagements, Reuben flicked his bolter to
semi-automatic and squeezed the trigger. Staccato fire roared as every projectile found its target. It was
joined, seconds later, by the mimicking echo of the weapons in his fellow Space Marines’ hands.
At full stretch, the xenos was easily the size of any of the Space Marines shooting at it. It showed no
reaction to the wounds that were being ripped open in its body by the hail of bolter fire. It was locked in
a berserk rage, uncaring and indifferent to the relentless attack. As the explosive bolts lacerated its body,
dark fluid sprayed onto the leaves, onto the ground, onto the Silver Skulls.
Still it kept coming.
Reuben switched to full-automatic and unloaded the remainder of the weapon’s magazine. Wulfric
and Jalonis followed his example. Eventually, mortally wounded and repelled by the continuous gunfire,
the abomination emitted a strangled scream of outrage. It crumpled to the ground just short of their
position, spasms wracking its hideous form, and then all movement ceased.
Smoke curled from the ends of three bolters and the moment was broken only by the crackle of the
vox-bead in Reuben’s ear.
‘Report, Reuben.’
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‘Sergeant, we found something. Xenos life form. Dead now.’
Reuben could hear the scowl in his sergeant’s voice. ‘Remove its head to be sure it is dead, brother.’
Reuben smiled. ‘We’re coming to your position. Hold there.’
‘Yes, brother-sergeant.’
Not wishing to take any chances, Reuben swiftly reloaded his weapon and stepped forwards to
examine the xenos. It had just taken delivery of a payload of several rounds of bolter fire and had
resisted death for a preternaturally long time. As such, he was not prepared to trust to it being completely
deceased. His misgivings proved unfounded.
Moving towards the alien, any doubt of its state was dismissed: thick, purple-hued blood oozed
stickily from multiple wounds in its body, pooling in the dust of the forest floor, settling on the surface and
refusing to soak into the ground. It was as though the planet itself, despite being parched, rejected the
fluid. The pungent, acrid scent of its essential vitae was almost sweet, sickly and cloying in the thick,
humid air around them. Wrinkling his nose slightly against its stench, Reuben moved closer.
Lying on the ground, the thing had attempted to curl into an animalistic, defensive position, but was
now rapidly stiffening as rigor mortis took hold. Reuben could see its eyes, amethyst-purple, staring
glassily up at him. Even in death, sheer hatred shone through. The Astartes felt sickened to the stomach at
its effrontery to all that was right.
Just to be on the safe side, he placed the still-hot muzzle of his bolter against its head and fired a
solitary shot at point-blank range into it. Grey matter and still more of the purplish blood burst forth like
the contents of an over-ripe fruit.
Reuben crouched down and considered the xenos more carefully. The head was curiously elongated,
with no visible ears. The purple eyes were over-large in a comparatively small face. A closer look,
despite the odour that roiled up from it, suggested that they may well have been multi-faceted. The head
was triangular, coming to a small point at the end of which were two slits that Reuben could only presume
were nostrils.
Anatomically, even by xenos standards it seemed wrong. In a harsh environment like the jungle, any
animal would need to adapt just in order to survive. This thing, however, seemed as though it was a
vague idea of what was right rather than a practical evolution of the species. It was a complex chain of
thought, and the more Reuben considered it, the more the explanation eluded him. It was as though the
answer was there, but kept just out of his mental grasp.
For countless centuries, the Silver Skulls had claimed the heads of their victims as trophies of battle,
carefully extracting the skulls and coating them in silver. Thus preserved, the heads of their enemies
decorated the ships and vaults of the Chapter proudly. However, the longer Reuben stared at the dead
alien, any urge he may have had to make a prize of it ebbed away. Forcing himself not to think on the
matter any further, he turned back to the others.
Wulfric had resumed his search of the surrounding area and even now was gesturing. ‘It wasn’t
alone. Look.’ He indicated a series of tracks leading off in scattered directions, mostly deeper into the
jungle.
Reuben gave a sudden, involuntary growl. It had taken three of them with bolters on full-automatic to
bring just one of these things to a halt, and even then he had half-suspected that if he hadn’t blasted its
brains out, it would have got back up again.
‘Can you make out how many?’
‘Difficult, brother.’ Wulfric crouched down and examined the ground. ‘There’s a lot of scuffing, plus
with our passage through, it’s obscured the more obvious prints. Immediate thoughts are perhaps half a
dozen, maybe more.’ He looked up at Reuben expectantly, awaiting orders from the squad’s
second-in-command. ‘Of course, that’s just in the local area. Who knows how many more of those''
things are out there?’
‘They probably hunt in packs.’ Reuben fingered the hilt of his combat knife.
Unspoken, the thoughts passed between them. If one was that hard to put down, imagine what half a
dozen of them or more would be like to keep at bay. Reuben made a decision and nodded firmly.
‘Good work, Wulfric. See if you can determine any sort of theoretical routes that these things may
have taken. Do a short-range perimeter check. Try to remain in visual range if you can. Report anything
unusual.’
‘Consider it done,’ replied Wulfric, getting to his feet and reloading his bolter. Without a backwards
glance, the Space Marine began to trace the footprints.
The snapping of undergrowth announcedthe impending arrival of the other three Astartes.
Straightening, Reuben turned to face his commanding officer. He punched his left fist to his right shoulder
in the Chapter’s salute and Gileas returned the gesture.
All eyes were immediately drawn to the dead creature on the floor.
‘Now that,’ said Gileas after a few moments of assessing the look and, particularly, the stench of the
alien, ‘is unlike anything I have ever seen before. And to be blunt, I would be perfectly happy if I never
see one again.’
Reuben dutifully reported the incident to his sergeant. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but Wulfric believes
there could be anything up to a half-dozen other creatures similar to this one in the vicinity. I sent him to
track them.’
Gileas frowned as he listened, his expression darkening thunderously. ‘Any obvious weaknesses or
vulnerable spots?’
‘None that were obvious, no.’
Gileas glanced at Reuben. They had been brothers-in-arms for over one hundred years and were as
close as brothers born. He had never once heard uncertainty in Reuben’s tone and he didn’t like what he
heard now. He raised a hand to scratch at his jaw thoughtfully.
‘These things are technically incidental to our mission,’ he said coolly, ‘but we should complete what
we have started. It may retain some memory, some thought or knowledge about those we seek.’ He
turned to the Prognosticator, who was standing slightly apart from the others. ‘Brother-Prognosticator,
much as it pains me to ask you, would you divine what you can from this thing?’
‘As you command.’ Bhehan lowered his head in acquiescence and moved to kneel beside the dead
alien. The sight of its bloodied and mangled body turned his stomach – not because of the gore, but
because of its very inhuman nature. He took a few deep, steadying breaths and laid a hand on what
remained of the creature’s head.
‘I sense nothing easily recognisable,’ he said, after a time. He glanced up at Reuben. ‘The damage to
its cerebral cortex is too great. Virtually all of its residual psychic energies are gone.’ His voice held the
slightest hint of reproach.
Gileas glanced sideways at Reuben, who smiled a little ruefully. ‘It was you who suggested I remove
its head to be sure it was dead, Gil,’ he said, the use of the diminutive form of his sergeant’s name
reflecting the close friendship the two shared. ‘I merely used my initiative and modified your suggestion.’
The sergeant’s lips twitched slightly, but he said nothing. Bhehan moved his hand to the other side of
the being’s head without much optimism.
A flash of something. Distant memories of hunting…
As swiftly as it had been there, the sensation dwindled and died. Instinctively, and with the training
that had granted him the ability to understand such things, Bhehan knew all that was needed to be known.
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‘An animal,’ said Bhehan. ‘Nothing more. Separated from the pack. Old, perhaps.’ He shook his
head and looked up at Gileas. ‘I’m sorry, brother-sergeant. I cannot give you any more than that.’
‘No matter, Prognosticator,’ said Gileas, grimly. ‘It was worth a try.’ He surveyed the surrounding
area a little more, looking vaguely disappointed. ‘This is a waste of time and resources,’ he said
