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Fearful Symmetries - Rob Sanders

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Fearful Symmetries

Rob Sanders

‘Fidus Kryptman,’ the inquisitor spoke into the identi-vox. ‘Three thirty-two thirty-four. Ordo Xenos.’

The security lamps in the passage flashed an urgent amber.

‘Kryptman,’ the tinny voice of the logic engine returned. ‘Inquisition. Clearance: Tetra-Denticus. Admission granted.’

The adamantium security gate to the dungeon vivisectorum scraped slowly to one side. The young Kryptman waited. Taking off his spectacles, the inquisitor proceeded to clean their infrared lenses with the edge of his hooded cloak. ‘After you, arch-genetor,’ Kryptman offered. ‘After all, this is your world.’

Behind him, garbed in rich carmine robes, stood the master of the Opus Ersaticus forge-world – Arch-Genetor Zillicus Vandrasarc, also a celebrated organicist, had long maintained working relationships with the holy ordos and the Adeptus Astartes as well. The genetor’s scalp was threadbare and his cantankerous mask of a face gnarled and ancient. Kryptman spied the faces of liver-spotted cherubim peeking out from miniature hoods in the ample folds of Vandrasarc’s robes. It was these homunculi familiars, growing from the arch-genetor’s own flesh, which kept Vandrasarc alive, assuming for him some of the cancers and dilapidations of his extreme old age. Each pair of eyes fixed the inquisitor with their withered gaze; Kryptman couldn’t begin to imagine what the venerable priest made of his ear-bauble, brow studs and eyeglasses.

‘And of course, this is your facility, magos,’ Kryptman acknowledged as a female tech-priest followed the arch-genetor into the vivisectorum. Magos Lisbex Orm was Kryptman’s ordo contact on the forge-world. A magos xenobiologis of great skill, Orm had been invaluable to Kryptman in his recent investigations. From the back of her augmented skull hung slender mechadendrites that slithered about her like protective serpents.

‘And this, your highly irregular request, inquisitor,’ Vandrasarc carped back in a chorus of voices, from the many mouths adorning his ungainly body. ‘We do not ordinarily sanction the vivisection of living xenos specimens here on Opus Ersaticus. It’s reckless! You won’t be satisfied until you’ve infected us all.’

‘This is a maximum security compound, and the subject has been transported in perfect stasis. Magos Orm has taken every precaution, I assure you.’

‘You can assure me of no such thing,’ Vandrasarc replied crabbily.

‘I can,’ Kryptman returned, ‘and I can say with confidence that despite the dangers inherent in this xenological research, there is no facility safer, nor more secure, in this entire sector.’

‘We shall see, sir,’ the arch-genetor cautioned, ‘we shall see. What you fail to appreciate is that I am responsible for every one of the Omnissiah’s subjects on this planet, and–’

‘And I for the God-Emperor’s across the Imperium,’ Kryptman told him. ‘Your concerns are duly noted. You are welcome to observe this procedure, as your rank and responsibility allows, but I must now give my full attention to my work. So, if you will excuse me…’

Kryptman entered the high security vivisection pit. The large chamber had been partitioned into two concentric sections: a sealed outer observatorium dominated by pict-recorders, auspectra, gun servitors and thick armourglas screens providing views of a secured inner section. Though the secure section was empty, the walls were adorned with arrays of servo-arms, mechadendria, automaton restraints and surgical toolery. Sentinel weaponry watched over the chamber. Armour-plated flooring and a vaulted roof section of darkened lancet ports, constructed from the same tinted armourglas as the observatorium screens, rose over and above the pit.

‘All security protocols observed,’ Orm reported. ‘All counter-measures employed. Containment is ready for us, inquisitor.’

Donning a vox-thief headset, Kryptman spoke with confidence. ‘Confirmed. All pict, vox and auspex set to archive. Magos, you may begin the procedure.’

The observatorium trembled as a floor section of the inner chamber parted to admit a rising platform from the containment-tomb below. The platform supported four crackling colonnades, between which a large organic specimen resided.

Kryptman felt the bile rising at the back of his throat.

The xenos organism was a living testament to revulsion: a large, bulbous pod, alien in its fleshiness and oozing a mucous coating. Shaped like a fat, tapering bullet, the thing was raw and repulsive.

‘Subject is Specimen Phi-Delta two-seven-four-five-six,’ Kryptman narrated into the headset. ‘Recovered from the orbital path of the planet Tyran, on the Eastern Fringe; classification Rho, tithe grade Aptus Non. Cross reference Technis file zero-zero-one-zero-one-zero.’

Kryptman nodded at Orm, and the sizzling colonnades shimmered before settling to an inert stillness. The stasis field – the integrity of which the colonnades had maintained – collapsed through its chronometric dilations until, finally, the xenos organism became one with actuality. Mucus dribbled and glopped to the pit floor. The pod-flesh began to move, rippling and bubbling beneath its membranous surface.

‘Specimen is rated as Inquisition clearance Beta-Major and a Class-Four threat,’ Kryptman continued. ‘Designated as “Mycetic Spore”, specimen was recovered by the explorator supply tanker Gorgus en route to Tyran Primus and placed in stasis-quarantine. The Gorgus failed to deliver its promethium shipment, because the research outpost on Tyran had been destroyed. The ocean world itself has suffered a catastrophic event. Every microbe of life – floral and faunal – has been wiped from the face of the planet, including the benthic and atmospheric medium. The Gorgus found a dead world. A sterile ball of rock. My own investigations on the devastated planet revealed a data-codex secreted deep below the outpost by explorator personnel. It detailed not only a pattern of other dead worlds on the Eastern Fringe, presaging the progress of an extragalactic invasion fleet, but also the outpost’s record of Tyran’s own alien invasion. It seems that these spores were instrumental in bringing a new and previously undocumented xenos species down to the surface – an organic drop-pod, if you will. To honour the first known casualties of this alien threat, I have designated these monstrosities Xenos horrificus and their breed “the tyranid”.’

‘Permission to simulate aerodynamic heating, inquisitor?’ Orm asked.

‘Initiate,’ Kryptman replied.

Two hydraulic servo-arms extended from their wall-anchors to present the scorched nozzles of mounted flamer appendages. Fat tanks of promethium percolated at the servo-arm’s base as the pilots were ignited. Under the deft control of the magos’s tendril mechadendrites, the pit appendages bathed the mycetic spore in chemical fire.

‘The data-codex demonstrates the tyranids to be a highly hostile and adaptable race – an alien swarm made up of many different forms, each engineered for a specific purpose. Their aggression seems not to proceed from cultural prejudice or territorial concerns. They exist only, it seems, to assimilate encountered life into their bio-matrix. The building blocks of such life are then employed to propagate the tyranid species further. The gene-harvesting of victim-species assists in the engineering of further organism types and convey upon the alien swarm various environmental and aggressive advantages. A genetic arms race, if you will, in which the tyranid grows stronger with each new conquest.’

As the flamers withdrew and the inferno dwindled, the roasted, steaming surface of the pod was revealed: gone was the mucous layer, and in its place was a blackened shell.

An awful cracking sound filled the chamber and the spore – still burning in places – began to morph into a different shape. As the organism’s muscular carapace proceeded to reorganise itself beneath the cauterised shell, splits and seeping cracks appeared. The thing changed from streamlined ghastliness to the foulness of a ruptured organ.

‘Mucus film removed,’ the inquisitor continued, one finger on the headset’s earpiece. ‘Spore appears to have changed its outward form, perhaps to reduce aerodynamism and slow what it senses to be atmospheric descent. Augur scans confirm the presence of multiple life forms within the spore.’ Kryptman looked up, watching thin wisps of smoke rising towards the darkened gallery above. ‘The first thing that always strikes me about the tyranid is the efficiency of their design and economy of their purpose. They waste nothing, not even energy. It is my belief that the creatures, demonstrated to be so hyperactively hostile in the data recovered from the Tyran Primus outpost, remain in a dormant state until primed. Heat generated by rapid descent through a planetary atmosphere might act as a trig–’

Even Kryptman was shocked by the speed of the attack.

Tentacles erupted from the scabbed pod and whipped their sinewy lengths around the flamer-equipped servo-arms. Orm attempted to retract the arms but the spore had entwined its barbed tendrils through their gears, pistons and fluid lines. The remote appendages groaned as the cogs in their motorised joints fought and slipped. If anything, the spore’s grotesque appendages seemed to be winning the tug of war.

‘Do you want me to use the incinerators?’ Magos Orm asked Kryptman, who remained fascinated by the conflict. ‘Inquisitor?’

The pod suddenly relaxed its grip, allowing the servo-arms to lurch back towards the wall. As they did, the ripper hooks on the tentacles slipped through both the fuel and hydraulic lines, spilling promethium and fluid onto the pit floor and turning the weaponised appendages into shuddering, sputtering wrecks. The tendrils writhed and coiled across the metal floor about the pod, sampling the featureless decking before being steadily retracted into the disgusting blob.

‘Hostilities re-established with an attack on the apparatus,’ Kryptman related calmly into the vox-thief. Stepping to one side, he briefly took in the runescreen bank in front of Magos Orm. ‘Scans still show dormant life-signs within. Hypothetical diagnosis: the spore could be defective, carry a genetic design flaw or simply may have been mis-launched. This could explain the limited payload and the location in which the wayward spore was discovered.’ Kryptman nodded to himself. ‘Let’s reduce the magnitude of the threat. Lisbex, you may begin Stage One of the surgical vivisection.’

Moving in past the twitching flamer appendages, a surgical mechadendrite closed with the fleshy surface of the pod. The prehensile limb was adorned with heavy-duty clamps and retractors, within which a selection of surgical saws, las-scalpels, suction lines and a plasma torch resided. Anchor-clamps thudding into the rippling surface of the pod, the arm proceeded to cycle through its toolery and ignite the blinding tip of the torch.

‘Orm has selected the major axis, about the equatorial bulge of the oblate spheroid,’ Kryptman identified. ‘This being a site of previous appendage eruption, we might reasonably expect to incise between protective layers of sub-dermal carapace.’

As the plasma torch cut a sectional path down through the spore’s surface, flesh bubbled and spat. Retractors moved in and prised the thick membrane aside with hydraulic determination. At this, twin surgical saws closed in to slice and burn their way through the alien sinew beneath.

Ichorous fluids of different colours and consistencies began gushing down the side of the spore as Orm’s handiwork ruptured something within. Suction lines siphoned off the worst of the bleeding ooze but still a clotted pool of discharge began to collect on the floor beneath the pod.

With the same sudden reflexive rush, tentacles shot out from the incised area and grappled the mechadendrical toolery. Magos Orm even flinched at her control-bank.

‘Magos. Initiate safeguards,’ Kryptman ordered.

The vivisection pit flashed briefly with the crackle of electricity. Bolts of energy arced between the surgical tools and across the metal of the mechadendrite arm. The alien tendrils recoiled and shot back into the body of the pod, trailed by steam and smoke.

Kryptman regarded the thing coldly for a moment. ‘Introduce prey specimens.’

The floor at the opposite end of the chamber began to part and another platform rose in its place. Tethered to the platform with ankle chains was an adult grox, with a juvenile cowering between the thick, reptilian legs of its mother. A gossamer net of wires trailed from needles in the grox’s tough hide, monitoring the animal’s biological functions. All horns and scaly hide, the beast of burden let its forked tongue slither out to taste the air.

The response was instantaneous. The grox let out a fearful snort before bellowing and heaving its rugged head, legs and swollen belly away from the mycetic spore – a deep and primal fear. Two of the restraints snapped immediately, leaving the beast to heave against the remaining manacles. The juvenile, knocked around between the adult’s straining legs, sensed its mother’s panic and began to wail.

The final two chains snapped and the grox ran at the reinforced screens, and Arch-Genetor Vandrasarc gasped with all of his mouths before backing away. The grox struck the screen with bestial force, but the thick armourglas held, forcing the animal to slink its knotty flank along the screen in dazed fright.

‘Fear not, arch-genetor,’ Kryptman reassured the Adeptus Mechanicus overlord. ‘Magos Orm has built us a facility which is completely specimen-proof.’

A trill of pure animal terror drew their attention back to the pit: the juvenile grox had been following in its mother’s thunderous footsteps, only to be seized from the rear by the explosive tentacled grasp of the spore. The mother grox stamped its feet and snorted, refusing to approach the alien horror even in the face of its infant’s struggles. The juvenile’s awful cries were suddenly silenced as the pod’s writhing tendrils enveloped it.

Mummified in the slick sinew of the feeler swarm, the animal was dragged rapidly across the length of the vivisection pit. The mycetic spore petalled open like a germinating pod, forming a horrified semblance of a fleshy, dribbling mouth which swallowed the struggling creature whole.

‘Fascinating...’ Kryptman murmured.

With the mother grox’s terrified bellows filtering through the section wall, Kryptman watched as the spore once again assumed a spasmodic throbbing. Rather than muscular morphage, the movement appeared more like hatchlings swarming within the stomach of a pregnant serpent.

‘I see that our guests are no longer dormant,’ the inquisitor murmured to Orm. The magos didn’t respond. She didn’t need to.

The thrashings of grox butchery within the mycetic spore soon moved to the spore itself. The floor about the disgusting thing had become a small lake of acidic ichor which blistered the deck. Criss-crossed slashes started to blotch the pod’s fleshy dermis, while the blob itself seemed to shrivel and contract like a piece of giant fruit rotting at speed. The spore husk rocked this way and that. Something was fighting within. Fighting to be free.

‘Any time now,’ Kryptman spoke into the vox-thief.

Moments passed. The mycetic spore withered and died.

Without warning, scraps of carapace, sinew and flaccid flesh were sprayed in every direction by an internal jolt. Like a lurid blur, a succession of vicious organisms launched from the pod’s remains at the mother grox – spindly, chitinous horrors, visited one after another upon the beast of burden and latching onto its hide.

The animal roared its fear and ran for its life, stomping its way around the exterior of the vivisection pit and running its scaly side along the screens and wall in an attempt to dislodge them. Orm was forced to raise some of the larger mounted servo-arms as the animal crashed around the chamber perimeter in raw terror.

Everything about the things upon its back was predatory: their arachnoid speed and mantid gait; their frenzied limbs; their whipping tails; the glistening reach of their scything talons and their rows of needle-like fangs. They were at once gristle-boned and powerful, ungainly athletic and raptorial. Things of loathsome perfection.

The grox crashed to the pit floor, the bone-blades of the attacking horrors slipping effortlessly through the animal’s thick, scaly hide and plunging straight through its innards. The creature emitted one last high-pitched cry as the killers drooled and thrashed their stabbing appendages through its ruined torso.

‘Assimilation of first prey specimen is complete,’ Kryptman began again, without taking his eyes off the latest attack. ‘The tyranids are a highly economical species. Nothing is wasted. Everything is biologically reinvested and reassigned. The spore has delivered its payload and has been sacrificed to fuel the hostilities of a vanguard xenoform – a sub-species I recognised from the Tyran Primus data-codex, although the tyranids seem to be immeasurably varied and in a state of constant hyper-evolution. This particular genus I have designated Gaunti and this sub-genus Gaunti gladius. There are many strains but I think it fair to indicate that, despite their abundant lethality, the gaunts are one of the smaller and less powerful tyranid forms. They are swarming predators that attempt to overwhelm their prey, with a combination of numbers, relentless aggression and almost surgical artistry.’

Kryptman watched as the xenos went to work on the grox carcass. The three monsters buried their chitinous heads in the beast’s flank, the raw musculature of their bodies twisting and arching as they rent and gobbled prey-flesh in a chugging, instinctual motion. It was disgusting to behold.

‘From observing the attack on the second prey specimen, we can confirm that each strike – although appearing mindless – is in fact precisely targeted. All major organs required for life have been punctured or ruptured, with the exception of the rather primitive brain. Predator specimens are now attempting to ingest tissue and complex proteins to drive their demanding metabolism.’

Gore-smeared, the beasts started to wander from the decimated carcass, their movements twitchy and inquisitive. Their tongues swung from their skulls like obscene, slimy eels and their dead alien eyes were everywhere. One approached the screen and seemed to regard Kryptman, who stared back at it through the transparency of the viewport.

‘It is... worse than I had initially thought,’ the inquisitor confessed. ‘The information from the data-codex was suggestive of a single driving consciousness directing the invading tyranid swarm. Reports seemed to indicate that certain larger monstrosities – acting as a form of cellular node – prompted the lesser creatures to attack in disciplined patterns and powerful concentrations. Without these synaptic nodes, localised swarms were less effective and prone to discombobulation.’

Kryptman watched the beast as it tongued the armourglas. It wasn’t thinking. Something far more alien was taking place in the creature’s mind. The inquisitor felt its bottomless desire, simultaneously empty like the void yet more intense than the light from the brightest star.

It didn’t just want to kill him; it wanted to assimilate him. To absorb his flesh and craft atrocity from it. To become one with his essence, the building blocks of his existence, and rob him not just of his life but of the future of his entire race.

‘This construct, not unlike the documented xenos species Corporaptor ymgarli, demonstrates a congregative brood-communion. Here in the vivisection pit, having no synaptic contact with their tyranid kindred, these gaunts are operating on a pre-engineered, aggresso-cooperative instinct. This makes them perfectly designed for front-line, advance deployment, making the gaunt sub-species the most likely encountered in the early stages of a tyranid invasion. The data-codex confirms this.’

While the beast continued to watch the inquisitor, its kindred had wolfed down the remains of the grox. Now they proceeded to systematically test their confines, picking at the metal and armourglas with their scythes. They lashed out at the servo-arms and mechadendrites, and tore the stasis field colonnades out of the floor.

‘The tyranids employ a myriad of biological weaponry,’ Kryptman resumed his commentary. ‘Reports show that the Gaunti alone has been engineered to deploy both ranged and close combat armament. This includes symbiotic ballistic weaponry that launches live, parasitic organisms. Conversely, a typical Gaunti gladius – if such a thing exists – favours the simplicity of face-to-face killing with razor-edged claws. More than a match for plasfibre, carapace or even power armour. Add to this the powerful bounding motion and flesh-tearing jaws and you have a lethal xenos predator.’

Kryptman turned from the screens. The gaunt still peered through the armourglas at him.

‘Magos Orm, please begin Stage Two.’

The xenobiologos manipulated the controls, guiding robust servo-arms and restraint-appendages at the monsters. They began to retreat with skittish suspicion, hissing and spit-snarling at the cage of heavy-duty claws and hydraulic pincers closing in on them, bounding off the walls, screens and floor plates in an effort to remain out of reach.

‘Initiate a threat protocol,’ Kryptman instructed.

Orm brought the largest and most threatening servo-claw aggressively in on one of the beasts, prompting the monster to slash out with its own scything talons. Leaping up between the closing pincers, the gaunt perched on the claw and began slashing at the compression pistons and power lines.

‘Increase.’

Two smaller adamantine grapplers came at the attacking beast, clamping it about the fore-scythes. At the gaunt’s furious glottal hissing, its kindred killers launched themselves at the mechanical restraints – mounting the reinforced arms on the tips of their claws whilst anchoring themselves with their whip-like tails, the horrors began to snag the servo-appendages with their needle-filled maws.

‘Maximal threat, magos, if you please,’ the inquisitor said to Orm, prompting the tech-priest to manoeuvre a tertiary set of mechadendrite restraints out from the nearby wall.

Snatching the three beasts from one another, the remote arms dangled the xenos above the pit floor and soon supported them by auxiliary servo-shackles and clawed fetters. Kryptman watched as the magos expertly rearranged the purchase of the restraints and spread each of the alien beasts out above the vivisection pit floor.

The tyranids heaved with all their alien might but the armature held them in place. As they rasped and spat their inhuman frustration, cranial block restraints moved in to keep their thrashing heads still.

Kryptman resumed his narration. ‘Gaunti gladius operates on the individual instinct to hunt and kill, although brood methodology dictates that this instinct yields greater dividends when employed in large numbers. The data-codex suggests that under certain circumstances, individuals might cooperate or even “strategise”. Presumably, this effect is further enhanced at the level of a full swarm in the presence of the larger synaptic relay organisms.’ He nodded to Orm. ‘Magos, commence Stage Three: the surgical vivisection.’

‘Proceeding, inquisitor,’ Orm replied as her machines went to work. ‘Also, deploying ballistics for ranged weapons testing,’

With the predator specimens splayed, a servo-arm bearing a multi-barrelled apparatus moved into place above the first. A targeter on the arm zeroed in on the beast’s exposed shoulder carapace.

‘Ballistics in three, two, one. Mark.’

With a brief flash, the automaton weapon fired its foremost barrel upon the restrained monstrosity. A las-bolt ricocheted off the shell-like carapace, prompting the gaunt to hiss its displeasure. The servo-arm descended to almost point-blank range and fired again, resulting in a small explosion of burned chitin and a squeal from the tyranid creature. The servo-arm retreated above the beast to reveal that the second shot had barely penetrated the creature’s organic armour plating.

‘Having already detailed the construct’s devastating physical capabilities, it seems ranged combat is our best option against these xenos beasts,’ Kryptman extrapolated. ‘By far the most common weapons available in the Imperium are las-based in their technology, but as we can see, strikes in the nineteen to twenty-two megathule range struggle to penetrate the fused, chitinous plates sported by many bio-constructs. Even successful penetrative blasts would be fortunate to hit an essential organ in Gaunti gladius’s sparse physiology.’

As Kryptman spoke, the weapon-arm cycled to present one of the chunkier barrels in the attachment. The targeter guided the automaton in on the snapping beast’s other shoulder.

‘More effective is the 0.998 calibre boltgun. Standard issue within the Adeptus Astartes, although rarely employed elsewhere within the Imperial military. Observe.’

The attachment on the servo-arm blazed away, chugging mass-reactive shells at the creature. They impacted and shredded the gaunt’s talon arm from its body almost as an afterthought; the scything blade-limb clattered to the deck as the alien obscenity screeched in instinctual fury rather than pain. Its shoulder was nothing more than a ruined stump of spurting gristle.

‘Beyond the greater penetrative and overall stopping power of bolt weaponry, the large bore explosive ammunition has the advantage of being able to amputate – and therefore neutralise – the tyranids’ integral weaponry. Recent advances in the development of bolt ammunition have led to variants that prove even more effective against such engineered breeds.’

Kryptman watched the barrels cycle once more and reposition above the monster’s straining abdomen. The servo-arm bucked as it put a single high-velocity bolt into the beast’s abdomen. There was no detonation, yet the screeching intensified.

‘Hellfire rounds, in which the uranium core of a standard shell has been replaced with a mutagenic acid found to be effective against certain xenos species.’

The ragged hole left behind by the shot continued to grow as the edges melted away to create a cavernous crater in the thing. Its cries became choked gargles.

‘Still, we may note, the predator specimen lives.’

The servo-arm cycled back to the previous barrel that cleared and locked with an automated click. The targeter brought the boltgun attachment in above the creature’s spitting maw, and it fired once, blowing the monster’s ugly head from its carapaced shoulders.

‘Kill-shots with standard mass-reactives should therefore be restricted to the cranial casing.’

Another mechadendrite manoeuvred in past the weapon-arm and positioned itself above the gnarled chest of the second test subject. Instead of barrels, the automaton limb mounted an arrangement of thick needles and helix-hypodermica.

‘Proceed,’ Kryptman ordered.

Rather than rotating, the arrangement shot forward with hydraulic force, ramming the nest of reinforced needles down through the creature’s breastplate. Plungers and siphons pumped various liquids and gases through, and Kryptman waited a moment but the gaunt continued to snap and seethe in its restraints.

‘We have tested a wide range of state-diverse toxins, Adeptus Mechanicus-engineered poisons and over one hundred naturally occurring venoms. Almost all have demonstrated little or no effect on the tyranid corpus-chemistry.’ Kryptman took a step back from the armourglas screens. ‘Magos, you are authorised for the deployment.’

Warning klaxons blared, and green lights on the hypodermica arm changed to red.

A larger needle shot out from the centre of the arrangement on a pneumatic carriage. It brutally punctured the gaunt’s chest, prompting it to shriek.

The effect on the creature was instantaneous – it began to tremble within its restraints but the tremors soon turned to spastic jerking. Venting steam from its cracked dermis, chunks of the beast dropped to the floor, its macabre organics disintegrating into both gaseous and liquefied residue that splattered to the pit floor in a sludge-pool of wasted flesh.

‘The only real success we have enjoyed was with the introduction of the Inquisition’s own biological weapons. This is a weakened derivative of the Life-Eater virus, typically deployed during a planetary Exterminatus order – a tactic that even the holy ordos do not employ lightly. Not even the xenos can withstand the Life-Eater.’

While Kryptman had directed the ballistics and toxicological experimentation, a multi-attachment surgical limb had been busy at work on the third predator specimen, under Orm’s expert control. Las-scalpels, surgical saws and field blades had worked up through the tyranid creature, amputating limbs and harvesting internal pseudo-organs before depositing the remnants in stasis caskets for further study. Magos Orm had worked swiftly with her remote toolery to excise and dismember the bio-construct from its clawed feet all the way up to its truncated neck. With the rest of the creature variously in pieces and in stasis, somehow it still managed to work its needle-fanged jaw in an instinctual snapping motion.

‘The living surgical vivisection of the third xenos subject has been a success,’ Kryptman announced, producing a data-slate and scanning down it, ‘with the complete specimen recovered for further analysis, documentation and testing. The creature has demonstrated... a considerable resilience to shock and biological commitment to its genetically-engineered purpose. The chitin-carapace and skeletal structures stand up well to conventional blades, necessitating the use of chain- and power-tools.’ The inquisitor grinned. ‘The close combat equivalents of these tools would be expected to stand the best chance of wounding tyranid constructs at close quarters on the battlefield.’

Orm brought a rotary bone saw up behind the gaunt’s head, cutting open the cranium from the rear. The beast’s maw continued to snap even as she cranked open the skull and went to work on different parts of the thing’s horrid brain.

‘Psi-occulus augury has previously revealed dissipating fields of a psychic presence,’ the inquisitor narrated, ‘suggesting that certain parts of the brain might be responsible for the synaptic connection indicated earlier. This might be our first evidence of a grand insect-style agglomeration or gestalt consciousness, connecting all tyranid creatures by way of a single “hive mind”.’

The beast’s eyes burned with the blankness of alien hatred. As Orm removed the final and most primitive part of the brain, the monstrosity’s jaws fell slack.

‘One final surprise was the discovery of a birthing tract,’ Kryptman noted with a mixture of technical enthusiasm and despair. A bionic appendage holding an open stasis casket rose to display a collection of fleshy, vein-threaded sphericles. ‘This means that the predator subjects are able to reproduce independently once they have made planetfall, replacing expected losses and fortifying the vanguard swarm. We shall endeavour to raise these specimens to adulthood under laboratorium conditions in order to facilitate further testing.’

He placed his palm upon the slate, imprinting and closing the file.

‘This concludes the investigation.’

Kryptman turned to find Arch-Genetor Vandrasarc looking at him with unbridled horror. Screwing up his ancient face, the priest shook a trembling finger at the vivisection pit.

‘Get those specimens off my world,’ the arch-genetor said bluntly, before trudging from the chamber.

Kryptman looked to Magos Orm, who merely shrugged.

‘Amphitheatre lights,’ the inquisitor muttered.

Above the secured inner chamber, lumen strips snapped into life, illuminating a crowded observation terrace that looked down upon the vivisectorum. The lancet screens were filled with rows of power armoured figures – hundreds of them, helmetless, standing in sombre silence. Space Marines, all, in battle plate of midnight black, polished to light-swallowing oblivion. Each bore the Chamber Militant symbol of the Deathwatch upon their pauldron.

A grim officer with scarred face and a neat, silver beard stepped forward and activated the observatorium vox-hailer.

‘Very educational, inquisitor,’ the veteran said in a voice of stone. ‘Now you have shown us the specifics of this xenos contagion, tell us where we may find this foul species so that we can end them.’

‘Here,’ Fidus Kryptman replied, with equal gravity. ‘Soon.’

The Deathwatch officer nodded in solemn satisfaction. Kryptman clasped his hands behind his back and stared up at him.

‘But captain – understand that should you fail to halt the tyranid advance, they will soon be everywhere.’

‘The Deathwatch do not fail, inquisitor.’

About the Author

Rob Sanders is the author of The Serpent Beneath, a novella that appeared in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy anthology The Primarchs. His other Black Library credits include the The Beast Arises novels Predator, Prey and Shadow of Ullanor, the Warhammer 40,000 titles Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and Tech-Priest, Legion of the Damned, Atlas Infernal and Redemption Corps and the audio drama The Path Forsaken. He has also written the Warhammer Archaon duology, Everchosen and Lord of Chaos along with many Quick Reads for the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in the city of Lincoln, UK.

A Black Library Publication

‘Fearful Symmetries’ was first published in ‘Deathwatch: Xenos Hunters’ © 2012, Games Workshop Ltd.
This eBook edition published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-703-0

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