Primary Instinct

by Sarah Cawkwell

Victory does not always rest with the big guns.
But if we rest in front of them, we shall be lost.

– Lord Commander Argentius, Chapter Master, Silver Skulls

The soaring forests of Ancerios III steamed gently in the relentless heat of the tropical sun. Condensation beaded and rose, shimmering in a constant haze from the emerald-green and deep mauve of the leaves. This was a cruel, merciless place where the sultry twin suns raised the surface temperature to inhospitable levels. The atmosphere was stifling and barely tolerable for human physiology.

However, the party making their way through the jungle were not fully human.

The dark Anceriosan jungle had more than just shape, it had oppressive, heavy form. There was an eerie silence, which might once have been broken by the chattering of primate-like creatures or the call of exotic birds. In this remote part of the jungle, there was no sign of the supposed native fauna. What plant life that did exist had long since evolved at a tangent, adapting necessarily to the living conditions. Everything that grew reached desperately upwards, yearning towards the suns. Perhaps there was a dearth of animal life, but these immense plants thrived and provided a home for a countless variety of insects.

There was a faint stirring of wind, a shift in the muggy air, and a cloud of insects lifted on the breeze. They twisted lazily, their varicoloured forms catching and reflecting what little smattering of dappled sunlight managed to penetrate this far down. They twirled with joyful abandon on the zephyr that held them in its gentle grasp, riding the updraught through to a clearing.

The cloud abruptly dissipated as a hand clad in a steel-grey gauntlet scythed neatly through it. Startled, the insects scattered as though someone had thrown a frag grenade amongst them. The moment of confusion passed swiftly, and they gradually drifted back together in an almost palpably indignant clump. They lingered briefly, caught another thermal and were gone.

Sergeant Gileas Ur’ten, squad commander of the Silver Skulls Eighth Company Assault squad ‘The Reckoners’, swatted with a vague sense of irritation at the insects. They flew constantly into the breathing grille of his helmet and whilst the armour was advanced enough and sensibly designed in order not to allow them to get inside, the near-constant pit-pit-pit of the bugs flying against him was starting to become a nuisance.

He swore colourfully and hefted the weight of the combat knife in his hand. It had taken a great deal more work than anticipated to carve a path through to the clearing, and the blade was noticeably dulled by the experience.

Behind him, the other members of his squad were similarly surveying the damage to their weapons caused by the apparently innocent plant life. Gileas stretched out his shoulders, stiff from being hunched in the same position for so long, and spun on his heel to face his battle-brothers.

‘As far as I can make out, the worst threats are these accursed insects,’ he said in a sonorous rumble. His voice was deep and thickly accented. ‘Not to mention these prevailing plant stalks and the weather.’

The Assault squad had discovered very quickly that the moisture in the air, coupled with spores from the vegetation that they had hacked down, was causing a variety of malfunctions within their jump packs. Like so much of the rediscovered technology that the Adeptus Astartes employed, the jump packs had once been things of beauty, things that offered great majesty and advantage to the Emperor’s warriors. Now, however, they were starting to show signs of their age. Fortunately, the expert and occasionally lengthy ministrations of the Chapter’s Techmarines kept the machine-spirits satisfied and ensured that even if the devices were not always perfect, they were always functional.

Gileas sheathed his combat knife and reached up to snap open the catch that released his helmet. There was an audible hiss of escaping air as the seals unlocked. Removing the helmet, an untidy tumble of dark hair fell to his shoulders, framing a weather-tanned, handsome face that was devoid of the tattoos that covered the rest of his body beneath the armour. Like all of the Silver Skulls, Gileas took great pride in his honour markings. He had not yet earned the right to mark his face. It would not be long, it was strongly hinted, for the ambitious Gileas was reputedly earmarked for promotion to captain. It was a rumour which had stemmed from his own squad and had been met with mixed reactions from others within the Chapter. Gileas repeatedly dismissed such talk as hearsay.

He cast dark, intelligent eyes cautiously around the clearing, clipping his helmet to his belt and loosening his chainsword in the scabbard worn down the line of his armoured thigh. The twisted, broken wreckage of what had once been a space-going vessel lay swaddled amidst fractured trees and branches. Whatever it was, it was mostly destroyed and it most certainly didn’t look native to the surroundings. This was the first thing they had encountered in the jungle which was clearly not indigenous.

Reuben, his second-in-command, came up to Gileas’s side and disengaged his own helmet. Unlike his wild-haired commanding officer, he wore his hair neat and closely cropped to his head. He considered the destroyed vessel, sifting through the catalogue of data in his mind. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before. Any markings on its surface were long gone with the ravages of time, and it was nearly impossible to filter out any sort of shape. Any form it may have once taken had been eradicated by the force of impact.

‘It doesn’t look like a wraithship, brother,’ he said.

‘No,’ grunted Gileas in agreement. ‘It certainly bears no resemblance to that thing we were pursuing.’ He growled softly and ran a hand through his thick mane of hair. ‘I suspect, brother, that our quarry got away from us in the webway. Unfortunate that they escaped the Emperor’s justice. For now, at least.’ His hand clenched briefly into a fist and he swore again. He considered the vessel for a few silent moments. Finally, he shook his head.

‘This has been guesswork from the start,’ he acknowledged with reluctance. ‘We all knew that there was a risk we would end up chasing phantoms. Still…’ He indicated the wreck. ‘At least we have something to investigate. Perhaps this is what the eldar were seeking. There’s no sign of them in the atmosphere. We may as well press our advantage.’

‘You think we’re ahead of them?’

‘I would suggest that there’s a good chance.’ Gileas shrugged lightly. ‘Or maybe we’re behind them. They could already have been and gone. Who knows, with the vagaries of the warp? The Silver Arrow’s Navigator hadn’t unscrambled her head enough to get a fix on chronological data when we left. Either way, it’s worth checking for any sign of passage. Any lead is a good lead. Even when it leads nowhere.’

‘Is that you or Captain Kulle speaking?’ Reuben smiled as he mentioned Gileas’s long-dead mentor.

The sergeant did not reply. Instead, he grinned, exposing ritualistically sharpened canines that were a remnant of his childhood amongst the tribes of the southern steppes. ‘It matters little. Whatever this thing is, it’s been here for a long time. This surely can’t be the ship we followed into the warp. It isn’t one of ours and that’s all we need to know. You are all fully aware of your orders, brothers. Assess, evaluate, exterminate. In that order.’

He squinted at the ship carefully. Like Reuben, he was unable to match it to anything in his memory. ‘I feel that the last instruction might well be something of a formality though. I doubt that anything could have survived an impact like that.’

The ship was practically embedded in the planet’s surface, much of its prow no longer visible, buried beneath a churned pile of dirt and tree roots. Hardy vegetation, some kind of lichen or moss, clung to the side of the vessel with grim determination.

The sergeant glanced sideways at the only member of the squad not clad head-to-foot in steel-grey armour and made a gesture with his hand, inviting him forwards.

Resplendent in the blue armour of a psychic battle-brother, Prognosticator Bhehan inclined his head in affirmation before reaching his hand into a pouch worn on his belt. He stepped forwards until he was beside the sergeant, hunkered down into a crouch and cast a handful of silver-carved rune stones to the ground. As Prognosticator, it was important for him to read the auguries, to commune with the will of the Emperor before the squad committed themselves. To a man, the Silver Skulls were deeply superstitious. It had been known for entire companies to refuse to go into battle if the auguries were poor. Even the Chapter Master, Lord Commander Argentius, had once refused to enter the fray on the advice of the Vashiro, the Chief Prognosticator.

This was more, so much more than ancient superstition. The Silver Skulls believed without question that the Emperor projected His will and His desire through His psychic children. These readings were no simple divinations of chance and happenstance. They were messages from the God-Emperor of Mankind, sent through the fathomless depths of space to His distant loyal servants.

The Silver Skulls, loyal to the core, never denied His will.

Prognosticators served a dual purpose in the Chapter. Where other ranks of Adeptus Astartes had Librarians and Chaplains, the Silver Skulls saw the universe in a different way. Those battle-brothers who underwent training at the hands of the Chief Prognosticator offered both psychic and spiritual guidance to their brethren. Their numbers were not great: Varsavia did not seem to produce many psykers. As a consequence, those who did ascend to the ranks of the Adeptus Astartes were both highly prized and revered amongst the Chapter.

Gileas knew that the squad were deeply honoured to have Bhehan assigned to them. He was young, certainly; but his powers, particularly those of foresight, were widely acknowledged as being amongst the most veracious and trustworthy in the entire Chapter.

‘I’m feeling nothing from the wreck,’ said Bhehan in his soft, whispering voice. The young Prognosticator hesitated and frowned at the runes, passing his hand across them once again. He considered for a moment or two, his posture stiff and unyielding. Finally, he relaxed. ‘If it were a wraithship, if it were the one we were pursuing, its psychic field would still be active. This one is assuredly dead. Stone-cold dead.’ He frowned, pausing just long enough for Gileas to quirk an eyebrow.

‘Is that doubt I’m detecting there?’ The Prognosticator looked up at Gileas, his unseen face, hidden as it was behind his helmet, giving nothing away. He glanced back down at the runes thoughtfully. The scratched designs on their surfaces were a great mystery to Gileas. However, the Prognosticators understood them, and that was all that mattered. An eminently pragmatic warrior, Gileas never let things he didn’t understand worry him. He would never have vocalised the thought, but it was an approach he privately felt many others in the Chapter should adopt.

Bhehan shifted some of the runes with a practiced hand, turning some around, lining others up, making apparently random patterns on the ground with them. A pulsing red glow briefly animated the Space Marine’s psychic hood as he brought his concentration to bear on the matter at hand.

Finally, after some consideration, he shook his head.

‘An echo, perhaps,’ he mused, ‘nothing more, nothing less.’ He nodded firmly, assertiveness colouring his tone. ‘No, Brother-Sergeant Ur’ten,’ he said, ‘no doubt. The Fates suggest to me that there was perhaps something alive on board this ship when it crashed. Any sentience within its shell has long since passed on. Subsumed, perhaps, into the jungle. Eaten by predators, or simply died in the crash.’

He gathered up the runes, dropping them with quiet confidence back into his pouch, and stood up. ‘The Fates,’ he said, ‘and the evidence lying around us.’ He nodded once more and removed his helmet. The face beneath was surprisingly youthful, almost cherubic in appearance, and reflected Bhehan’s relative inexperience. For all that, he was a field-proven warrior of considerable ferocity. Combined with the powers of a Prognosticator, he was a formidable opponent, something the sergeant had already tested in the training cages.

Gileas nodded, satisfied with the outcome. ‘Very well. Reuben, take Wulfric and Jalonis with you and search the perimeter for any sign of passage. All of this…’ He swept his hand around the clearing to indicate the crash site. ‘All of this may simply be an eldar ruse. I have no idea of the extent of their capabilities, but they are xenos and are not to be trusted. Not even in death. Tikaye, you and Bhehan are with me. Seeing as we’re here anyway, let’s get this ship and the surrounding area checked out. The sooner it’s done, the sooner we can move on to the next location.’ He grinned his wicked grin again and rattled his chainsword slightly.

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 it was 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 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.’

‘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 Adeptus 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 announced the impending arrival of the other three Adeptus 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.

‘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 eventually. ‘I propose that we regroup, head back the way we came, destroy the ship in case it is, or contains, what the eldar were seeking, and get back to the landing site. We’ll have time to kill, but I’m sure I can think of something to keep us occupied.’

‘Not another one of your impromptu training sessions, Gileas,’ objected Reuben with good-natured humour. ‘Don’t you ever get tired of coming up with new and interesting ways to get us to fight each other?’

‘No,’ came the deadpan reply. ‘Never.’

Bhehan allowed the Reckoners to discuss their next course of action amongst themselves, waiting for the inevitable request to see what the runes said. He kept his attention half on their conversation, but the other half was caught by something in the dirt beside the dead alien’s head. From his kneeling position, he reached over and scooped it up in one blue-gauntleted hand.

Barely five centimetres across, the deep wine-red stone was attached to a sturdy length of vine: a crudely made necklace. Bhehan’s brow furrowed slightly as he glanced again at the corpse. It had felt feral and not even remotely intelligent, but then most of its synapses had been shredded by Reuben’s bolter. Putting a hand back against its head yielded nothing. He was feeling more psychic emanations from the trees themselves than from this once-living being. Of course, the charm may not have belonged to the animal; perhaps it had stolen it. It was impossible to know for sure without employing full regression techniques. For that option, however, the thing needed to be alive.

The young Prognosticator brought the stone closer to his face to study it more intently, and another flash of memory seared through his mind. This one, though, was not the primal force of nature that he had felt from the dead xenos. This was something else entirely. Sudden flashes emblazoned themselves across his mind. Shadowy images wavered in his mind’s eye, images that were intangible and hard to make out.

A shape. Male? Maybe. Human? Definitely not. Eldar. It was eldar. Wearing the garments of those known as warlocks. It was screaming, cowering.

It was dying. It was being attacked. A huge shape loomed over it, blocking out the sunlight…

‘Prognosticator!’

Gileas’s sudden bark brought the psyker out of the trance that he had not even realised he’d fallen into. He stared at the sergeant, the brief look of displacement on his face swiftly replaced by customary attentiveness.

‘My apologies, brother-sergeant,’ he said, shaking his mind clear of the visions. He got to his feet and stood straight-backed and alert, the images in his mind already faded. ‘Here, I found this. It might give us some clue to what happened here.’ He proffered the stone and Gileas stared at it with obvious distrust before taking it. He held it up at arm’s length and studied it as it spun, winking in the sunlight.

‘I’ve seen something like this before,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘The eldar wear them. Something to do with their religion, isn’t it?’

‘In honesty, I’m not completely sure,’ replied Bhehan. ‘I haven’t had an opportunity to study one this closely. We, I mean the company Prognosticators, have many theories…’ Seeing that the sergeant wasn’t even remotely interested in theories, the psyker tailed off and accepted the object back from Gileas, who seemed more than pleased to be rid of it.

‘If this is an eldar item,’ said Gileas, grimly, ‘then it’s not too much of a leap of faith to believe that they’ve been present, or are present, on this planet. Increases the odds of that wreck being eldar and also that this planet may well have been their ultimate destination.’

The others concurred. The sergeant nodded abruptly. ‘Then we definitely return to the ship and we destroy the whole thing. We make damn sure that they find nothing when they get here. Are we in accord?’

He glanced around and all nodded agreement. They clasped their hands together, one atop the other. Gileas looked sideways at Bhehan who, surprised by this unspoken invitation into the brotherhood of the squad, laid his hand on the others.

‘Brothers all,’ said Gileas, and the squad responded in kind.

‘Fetch Wulfric back,’ commanded Gileas. Tikaye nodded and voxed through to his battle-brother.

There was no reply.

‘Wulfric, report,’ Tikaye said into the vox, even as they began heading in the direction he had taken, weapons at the ready.

They moved deeper still into the jungle.

It was rapidly becoming far more densely packed, the vibrant green of the trees and plants creating an arboreal tunnel through which the five giants marched. Despite the overriding concern at their companion’s whereabouts, the Adeptus Astartes welcomed the moment’s relief from the constant squinting brought about by standing in the direct sunlight. As they made their way with expediency through the trees, light filtered through to mottle the dirt and scrub of the forest floor. Parched dust marked their passage, rising up in clouds around their feet.

‘Brother Wulfric, report.’ Tikaye continually tried the vox, but there was still nothing. Bhehan extended the range of his psychic powers, reaching for Wulfric’s awareness, and instead received something far worse. His nostrils flared as a familiar coppery scent assailed him, and he turned slightly to the west.

‘It’s this way,’ he said, with confidence.

‘You are sure, brother?’

‘Aye, brother-sergeant.’

‘Jalonis, lead the way. I will bring up the rear.’ Gileas, with the practical and seemingly effortless ease that he did everything, organised the squad. They had travelled a little further into the trees when a crack as loud as a whip caused them all to whirl on the spot, weapons readied and primed. The first fall of raindrops announced that it was nothing more than the arrival of the tropical storm. The thunder that had barely been audible in the distance was now directly above them.

The vox in Gileas’s ear crackled with static and he tapped at it irritably. These atmospherics caused such frustrating communication problems. It had never failed to amaze Gileas, a man raised as a savage in a tribe for whom the pinnacle of technological advancement was the longbow, that a race who could genetically engineer super-warriors still couldn’t successfully produce robust communications.

More static flared, then Jalonis’s voice broke through. It was a scattered message, breaking up as the Space Marine spoke, but Gileas had no trouble extrapolating its meaning.

‘…Jal… found Wulfric… t’s left… him anyway. Dead ah… maybe… dred metres or so.’

Gileas acknowledged tersely and accelerated his pace.

Another crack of thunder reverberated so loudly that Gileas swore he could feel his teeth rattle in his jaw. The light drizzle gave way rapidly to huge, fat drops of rain. The canopy of the trees did its best to repel them, but ultimately the persisting rain triumphed. The bare heads of the Silver Skulls were soaked swiftly. Gileas’s hair, wild and untamed at the best of times, soon turned to unruly curls that clung tightly around his face and eyes. He put his helmet back on, not so much to keep his head dry, but more to reduce the risk of his vision being impaired by his own damp hair getting in the way.

The moment he put his helmet back on, he knew what he would find when he reached Jalonis. The information feed scrolling in front of his eyes told him everything that he needed to know. A sense of foreboding stole over him, and he murmured a prayer to the Emperor under his breath.

The precipitation did nothing to dispel the steaming heat of the forest, but merely landed on the dusty floor where it was immediately swallowed into the ground as though it had never been.

‘Sergeant Ur’ten.’

Jalonis stood several metres ahead, a look of grim resignation on his face. ‘You should come and see this. I’m afraid it’s not pretty.’

Jalonis, a practical man by nature, had ever been the master of understatement. What Gileas witnessed as he looked down caused his choler to rise immediately. With the practice of decades, he carefully balanced his humours.

Wulfric’s armour had been torn away and discarded, scattered around the warrior’s corpse. The Space Marine’s throat had been ripped apart with speed and ferocity, which had prevented him from alerting his battle-brothers or calling for aid.

The thorax had been slit from neck to groin, exposing his innards. In this heat, even with the steady downpour of rain, the stink of death was strong. The fused ribcage had been shattered, leaving Wulfric’s vital organs clearly visible, slick with blood and mucus. Or at least, what remained of them.

Where Wulfric’s primary and secondary hearts should have been was instead a huge cavity. Gileas stared for long moments, his conditioning and training assisting his deductive capability. Whatever had attacked Wulfric had gone for the throat first, rendering his dead brother mute. It had torn through his armour like it was shoddy fabric rather than ceramite and plasteel. The assailant, or more likely the assailants, had then proceeded to shred the skin like parchment and defile Wulfric’s body.

The details were incidental. One of Gileas’s brothers was dead. More than that, one of his closest brothers was dead. For that, there would be hell to pay.

‘Take stock,’ he said to Tikaye, who whilst not an Apothecary was the squad’s primary field medic. ‘I want to know what has been taken.’ His voice was steady and controlled, but the rumble and pitch of the words hinted strongly at the anger bubbling just under the surface.

The stoic Tikaye moved to Wulfric and began to examine the body. He murmured litanies of death fervently under his breath as he did so.

‘You understand, of course,’ said Gileas, his voice low and menacing, ‘this means someone… or something is going to regret crossing my path this day.’

The falling rain, evaporating in the intense heat, caused steam to rise in ethereal tendrils from the ground. It loaned even more of a macabre aspect to the scene, and the coils partially swathed Wulfric’s body as they rose. It was a cheap mockery of the tradition of lighting memorial pyres on the Silver Skulls’ burial world and it did little to ease their collective grief and rage.

Staring down at their fallen brother, each murmuring his own personal litany, the remaining Silver Skulls were fierce of countenance, ready for a fight in response to this atrocity.

‘Several of his implants are gone,’ came Tikaye’s voice from the ground. There was barely masked outrage in his tone.

‘Gone? What does gone mean?’

‘Taken, brother-sergeant. The biscopea, Larraman’s organ, the secondary and primary hearts, and from what I can make out, his progenoid is gone, too. I’d suggest that whoever or whatever did this knew what they wanted and took it. It’s too clean to be an arbitrary or random coincidence.’

‘You said they were animals, Prognosticator.’ Gileas couldn’t keep the accusation out of his tone. ‘That conflicts directly with what Brother Tikaye suggests. One of you is wrong.’ Bhehan shook his head.

‘The creature we found was an animal,’ he countered. ‘That was before I found the stone, however. It’s possible that it had been wearing it as some sort of decoration. I acknowledge that may potentially suggest intelligence. I–’

‘I did not ask for excuses, neither did I ask for a lecture. The runes, Prognosticator.’ Gileas’s voice was barbed. The sergeant had a reputation amongst the Silver Skulls as a great warrior, a man who would charge headlong into the fray without hesitation and also as a man who did not suffer fools gladly, particularly when his wrath was tested. Da’chamoren, the name he had brought with him from his tribe, translated literally as ‘Son of the Waxing Moon’. Gileas’s power and resilience had always seemed to grow proportionately to his rising fury.

It was a fitting name.

‘Yes, sir,’ Bhehan replied, suitably chastened by the change in the sergeant’s attitude. Without further comment, he commenced another Sighting. He felt a moment’s uncertainty, but didn’t dwell on it. At first, nothing came to him and he could not help but wonder if he was going to experience what his psychic brethren termed the ‘Deep Dark’, a moment of complete psychic blindness. Prognosticators considered this to be a sign that they had somehow fallen from the Emperor’s grace. Bhehan had tasted the sensation once before and it had left a bitter flavour of ash in his mouth. He firmly set aside all thoughts of failure and closed his eyes. The Emperor was with them, he asserted firmly. Had He not already communicated His will through His loyal servant?

Reassured, his mental equilibrium ceased its churning and settled again. Bhehan allowed the reading of the runes to draw him. The stones served well as a focus for his powers, helping him to draw in all the psychic echoes that flitted around this charnel house like ghosts. Each Prognosticator found their own focus; some, like Bhehan, chose runes whilst others divined the Emperor’s will through a tarot.

‘The perpetrators of this butchery… I sense that they want something from us. To learn, perhaps? To understand how we are put together.’ The Prognosticator’s eyes were still closed, his voice barely more than a whisper. ‘Why? If they were animals, they would have just torn the flesh from his bones. They have not. They have intelligence, yes, great intelligence… or at least… no. Not all of them. Just one, perhaps? A leader of sorts?’ The questioning was entirely rhetorical and nobody answered or interrupted him during the stream of consciousness. The rain drummed on their armour, creating a background rhythm of its own.

Bhehan’s hand closed around the eldar stone still in his hand. To his relief, a flood of warmth suffused him, a sensation he had long equated as the prelude to a vision. No Deep Dark for him, then. His powers were intact. The feeling of relief was quickly replaced by one of intense dislike as he sensed a new presence in his mind.

They know what you are because of us. Because of what we know. The gift unintentionally given.

The words were perfectly sharp and audible, but the image of the being who spoke them was not. Tall and willowy, the apparition shimmered before his closed eyelids like an imprint of the sun burned onto his retina.

They absorbed what we were, what we are. They seek to do the same to you through nothing more than a primitive urge to survive, to evolve. To change. Is this not the instinct that drives us all? Aspiration to greatness? A need to be better than we were?

Bhehan, made rational and steady through years of training, concentrated on the image.

You are eldar. He did not speak the words aloud. There was no need to.

I was eldar. Now I am nothing more than a ghost, a faint remnant of what once was.

I will not speak to you, xenos.

Such arrogance as this brought my own brothers and our glorious sister to their end. It will be your undoing, mon-keigh.

Bhehan sensed a great sigh, like the last exhalation of a dying man, and as rapidly as the spectre had materialised inside his mind, it was gone. With a sharp intake of breath, Bhehan’s eyes snapped open.

‘We should not linger,’ he said, slightly unfocussed. ‘We should take our brother and we should go.’

‘Is this what the Fates suggest?’

‘No,’ said Bhehan, hesitating only momentarily. ‘It is what I feel we should do.’

Gileas practically revered the majesty of the Prognosticators. Divine will or not, he would never question a Prognosticator’s intuition. He nodded.

‘The will of a Prognosticator and the will of the Fates are entwined as one. We will do as you say.’

Reuben stepped forwards. ‘Perhaps…’ he began. ‘Perhaps we should not. Not yet.’

‘Explain.’ Gileas shot a glance at Reuben.

‘We interrupted them. The aliens. We could lure them back out in the open.’

‘Reuben, are you suggesting that we use our dead brother as bait?’ Gileas didn’t even bother keeping the disgust out of his tone. ‘I can’t believe you would even entertain such a thought.’

‘Bait,’ echoed Bhehan, his eyes widening. ‘Bait. Yes, that’s it. Bait!’ He drew the force axe he wore across his back. ‘That’s exactly what he is.’

‘Prognosticator? You surely aren’t agreeing to this ridiculous scheme?’

‘No! For us, sergeant. He’s been left here to lure us out.’

Another echo of thunder rolled around the skies overhead in accompaniment to this grim pronouncement. The rain had slowed once again to a steady drip-drip-drip. It pooled briefly in the vast, scoop-like leaves of the trees and splashed to the ground, throwing up billows of dust before evaporating permanently.

None of the Reckoners other than Bhehan had psychic capability, but all of them could sense the sudden shift in the air, sense the threat hiding somewhere.

Just waiting.

‘Keep your weapons primed,’ snapped Gileas, his thumb hovering over the activation stud of his chainsword. ‘Be ready for anything.’

‘I sense three psychic patterns,’ offered the Prognosticator, his hands tight around the hilt of the force axe. ‘Different directions, all approaching.’

‘Only three?’ Gileas said. ‘You are sure of this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Three of them, five of us. It will be a hard fight, my brothers, but we will prevail. We are the Silver Skulls.’ Gileas’s voice swelled with fierce pride. ‘We will prevail.’ Jalonis and Bhehan pulled their helmets back on at the sergeant’s words.

With the squad at full battle readiness, Gileas turned his attentions to the reams of data which began scrolling in front of his eyes. He blink-clicked rapidly, filtering out anything not pertinent to the moment of battle, including the winking iconograph that had previously represented Wulfric’s lifesigns. The brief glimpse of that particular image served as a visible reminder of the desire for requital, however, and fire-stoked battle-lust raced through the sergeant’s veins.

‘They are coming,’ Bhehan breathed through the vox.

Gileas made a point to double-check the functionality of his jump pack at the Prognosticator’s warning. He diverted his attention to the relevant streams of data that fed the device’s information into his power armour, and was satisfied to note that it was at approximately seventy per cent. Certainly not representative of its full, deadly performance, but good enough for a battle of this size. He ordered the rest of the squad to do the same. If these animals were seeking a fight, then the Reckoners would willingly deliver. They would deliver a fight and they would deliver what they gave best and what had earned them their name.

A reckoning.

For most Space Marines, engaging an enemy was all about honour to the Chapter, pride in the company or loyalty to the Imperium. Sometimes, like now, it was about righteous vengeance. Occasionally, it was simple self-defence. For Sergeant Gileas Ur’ten it was about all of these things. Above and beyond all else, however, it was the thrill that came with the anticipation of a fight. The burst of adrenaline and increased blood flow as his genetically enhanced body geared up to beget the hand of retribution that was the rightful role of all the Adeptus Astartes.

Another moment of silence followed and then a tumult of screaming voices rose as one. It preceded the charge of a slew of enemies from the undergrowth, each as massive as the one they had already encountered. Gileas thumbed the activation stud of his chainsword and it roared into deadly life, the weapon’s fangs eager to feast.

The sudden appearance of so many of the xenos caused a moment’s pandemonium, but that was all it was: a single moment during which the Assault squad formed a tight-knit, ceramite-clad wall of stoic defence. There was vengeance to be taken and they were ready to take it.

Each of the xenos radiated a palpable desire to kill. They walked upright, although with a certain stumbling gait that implied they may not always have done so. It seemed probable that their hind legs hadn’t been used in this way for long. As though confirming these suspicions, three of them dropped to all fours.

As they prowled closer to the Adeptus Astartes, their movements became snake-like, a sinuous flow that allowed them to undulate across the uneven ground with hypnotic ease and disconcerting speed.

The skin of one creature’s mouth drew back to reveal a double set of razor-sharp teeth. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to work out how it was that the xenos had removed internal organs so swiftly and efficiently. Every single one of those teeth looked capable of tearing through flesh and muscle with ease. The attackers moved as a unit, almost as though they were as tightly trained and drilled as the Adeptus Astartes themselves.

A rapid headcount told the Silver Skulls that there were nine of them, and with determination every last one of the Assault squad entered the fray. Bhehan, his force axe at the ready in his right hand, raised the other, palm outstretched in front of him, ready to cast a psychic shield around his battle-brothers. The crystals in the psychic hood attached to the gorget of his armour began to pulsate as he channelled the deadly power of the warp, ready to unleash it at a moment’s notice.

Gileas and Tikaye both charged the alien on the far right with their chainswords shrieking bloody murder. Jalonis and Reuben levelled their bolters and began firing.

Fury descended on the previously silent jungle. Orders were shouted, and the cries of alien life and the indignant, defensive answering retorts of the squad’s weapons flooded the surrounding area in a cacophony of sound.

Gileas drove his chainsword deeper into the flesh of the alien he was fighting, putting all his strength into the blow. The thing lashed out at him, howling and chittering. Talons flashed like deadly knives before his helmet, but he ducked and weaved with easy agility, avoiding its blows. As far as he was concerned, as long as it remained affixed to the end of his chainsword, it was a suitable distance away from him and was dying at the same time. An additional bonus.

Reuben coaxed his weapon into life, discharging a hail of bolter shells at the onslaught. Beside him, Bhehan swept his hand forwards and round in a semi-circular arc, almost as though he were simply thrusting the xenos away from him. The one directly facing him stumbled backwards and howled its displeasure.

With a grunt of effort, Gileas yanked the chainsword out of the alien’s flesh and swung it round, almost severing one of the wicked, scythe-like talons from its hand. He moved in harmony with the weapon as though it was merely an extension of his own body. Watching Gileas Ur’ten fight was aesthetically pleasing; even in the heavy power armour of the Adeptus Astartes he was agile, lithe and, more than that, he was a master at what he did. He enacted his deadly dance of death with practiced aplomb.

Tikaye, engaged as he was with his own opponent, did not immediately notice that another was prowling towards him. It reached out with a clawed hand and swept it towards the Space Marine. It caught him between his helmet and breastplate, and with a sudden display of strength sent him flying backwards. He landed heavily with an audible crunch of ceramite at Bhehan’s feet. The Prognosticator, briefly distracted from gathering force for his next attack, glanced down at his battle-brother.

Within seconds, Tikaye was back on his feet, his weapon back in his hand, and he tore into the nearest enemy with a vengeance, letting his chainsword do the talking.

One of the three beasts that had been slithering towards the psyker leapt suddenly with a yowl of triumph. Instinctively, Bhehan trusted to the power of his force axe rather than his psychic ability and channelled his rage and righteousness into its exquisitely forged blade. The hidden runes carved deep into its metal heart kindled and throbbed with an otherworldly glow.

Years of training and dedication to the arts of war at the hands of the masters on Varsavia automatically took over and Bhehan planted his feet firmly on the ground, prepared for the moment of impact. The axe sang through the air towards its target, a low whine audibly marking its trajectory as it swept towards the enemy.

To his consternation, the force axe passed right through the alien’s body. The unexpected follow-through of his own swing unbalanced him and he fell to one knee. He scrambled immediately back to his feet, ready to resume combat, only to realise that the thing was gone, utterly vanished before his very eyes. All that remained was a strange psychic residue, streamers of barely visible non-corporeal form that were consigned fleetingly to the air, and then to nothing more than memory.

‘Something isn’t right here,’ he voxed, puzzlement implicit in every syllable.

‘Really, Prognosticator? You think so?’ The pithy reply from Gileas was harsher than perhaps it might otherwise have been, but given that the sergeant was locked in a bloody battle to the death with a creature seemingly quite capable of slicing through him like he was made of mud, it was understandable. ‘Any chance that you’d care to elaborate on this outstanding leap of logic?’

Clenching his force axe with an iron grip, Bhehan whirled to intercept another xenos which was catapulting itself at him. He swung the weapon again and once more his blow met with no resistance.

He had sensed three minds. No more, no less. With the two illusory attackers dispelled, they were now facing seven.

‘They are not all real, my brothers,’ he stated urgently. ‘Only three of them present a real threat.’

‘They feel real to me,’ responded Jalonis, who had just been viciously swept into the trunk of one of the vast trees. The armour plating across his back was cracked. His helmet flashed loss-of-integrity warnings at him and, ignoring them, he resumed his fighting. One of Reuben’s arms hung limp at his side as his body worked swiftly to fix the damage that had been caused to it.

Gileas and Tikaye had fallen into battle harmony with each other and were battering determinedly at one of the enemy. As one, they both fired their jump packs, performing a vertical aerial leap that caused the xenos to snap its head up sharply, its eyes fixed on the now-airborne targets. The range of the jump packs was severely limited due to the tree cover, but they remained aloft, well out of its reach.

It dropped its long body low, coiling like a spring and readying itself to launch. Bhehan, thinking swiftly, took the opportunity to blast a psychic attack into the creature’s mind.

It did not vanish.

‘That one!’ he shouted into the vox, gesticulating ferociously at the xenos and alerting his airborne brothers. ‘That one, brother-sergeant! It’s solid.’

The sergeant nodded brusquely. He had no desire to understand the whys or hows of the situation. Bhehan’s words were little more than meaningless background noise to him at this moment. Only the solution was of importance at this stage. Only the battle mattered.

In full synchronicity, Gileas and Tikaye both bore their full weights downwards to land on the xenos beneath them. Close-quarters combat was one thing. During such a pitched battle, a being could fight back and stand a chance of being a danger. Being crushed beneath the full might of two power armour-wearing Space Marines was something else entirely, and not something so easily eluded.

The alien, anticipating its own demise, wailed in murderous rage for a few seconds before both Space Marines plummeted solidly onto it. Bones crunched and arterial blood spurted from puncture wounds caused by the creature’s exoskeleton shredding through its flesh. Crude brutality, perhaps, but effective nonetheless.

Devoid of their source, two more of the psychic projections immediately melted into the ether. Gileas and Tikaye fired their jump packs again and blasted grimly towards the rest of the fray. Bhehan, witnessing the scene, paused momentarily as realisation bloomed.

It was suddenly so clear to the Prognosticator. So very, very simple.

‘They are manipulating your minds! Brother-Sergeant Ur’ten, you must listen to me! They have extremely strong psychic capability. My mind should be awash with all these things, but it is not!’ The Prognosticator bit down on the excitement and forced his mind to focus. He knew he was making little sense and that was no use to anybody.

He had removed two of the illusory aliens by passing his force axe through their psychically generated forms. With the death of one of the true alien forms, two more had dispersed.

From the nine who had attacked, the Silver Skulls now faced four. If Bhehan’s theory proved correct, only two of them were real. Kill those, his theory suggested, and their intangible counterparts would vanish; eliminate the phantasms and only the real xenos would remain. It seemed that whatever trick they were playing with the squad’s minds meant that they were unable to tell them apart. For them, the two decoy enemies were each as solid and real as the two who were weaving the illusion. They seemed immune to all but extrasensory attack. Only he could do anything about it.

His thought processes were lightning-fast and Bhehan began to gather his psychic might once more. The most decisive way he could think of to end this situation was to crush the opposing will of the xenos with a psychic flood of the Emperor’s righteous fury. Whilst the melee had been tight and kept largely confined due to the jungle’s enforced restrictions, it was still a reasonably large area. The desired result would be effective, but it would tax his constitution considerably.

It did not matter. His gift might temporarily be exhausted, but he was a fully trained battle-brother. He would never be totally defenceless. With an exultant cry, he flung both hands out in front of him. His voice carrying into the jungle with strident fervour, Bhehan called forth the powers of the warp.

With a fizzing crackle, a massive burst of energy lit his hood up in a flicker of blue sparks. The resultant shock wave not only targeted the xenos, but also caused the four battling Space Marines to pause briefly as their own minds were assailed from no longer one, but two directions. For them, a mental battle for supremacy took place as the will of the Prognosticator worked to force out the intruders.

Bhehan was trained, disciplined and strong. The aliens were clever, certainly, but they fought on instinct and did not truly know how to counter such a devastating blow to their defences. For a heartbeat, Bhehan could feel his advantage slipping as the barb of the aliens’ mental hooks worked in deeper. The silent struggle continued and then abruptly, he felt the fingers of deception release their hold and fall away.

Two of the attackers instantly disappeared. One screamed with fury and began to lope away into the undergrowth. Bhehan, staggering slightly from the sheer potency of his attack, automatically reached out for its mind. Instantly, he was filled with a sense of pain and, even better as far as he was concerned, of fear. It was injured, probably dying. It was unimportant. The final alien was also mortally wounded. It would be the work of but moments to end its foul existence.

Good work, Bhehan,’ said Gileas, his breathing heavy through the vox-channel.

The remaining creature slunk around the Assault squad, fluidity implicit in its every movement. Before any of them could open fire or attack, the xenos reared back, a crest-like protrusion standing up on top of its head, and emitted a screech that was staggeringly high-pitched. Had the auto-senses in the warriors’ helmets not instantly reacted, it would surely have ruptured eardrums. In the event, it achieved nothing.

The xenos clamped its jaws tightly shut and stared with renewed malevolence at its enemy as it realised the futility of its last defences. Without hesitation Gileas roared the final order, his voice like the crack of doom.

‘Open fire! Suffer not the alien to live!’

With resounding cries that echoed those sentiments most emphatically, bolter fire razored through the air and tore into the alien’s armour-hard exterior. Every last bolt was unloaded into it, spent shells rapidly littering the ground. Blood fountained out of the wounds in the xenos’s body, the sheer force of it suggesting they had successfully hit something vital, and Gileas found renewed vigour in the scent of its imminent demise. A sudden, desperate desire to eliminate this foul abomination once and for all took hold.

With a roar of determination, he took out his bolt pistol and aimed it with deadly, pinpoint accuracy between the thing’s eyes. Reuben discarded his spent weapon, taking his own pistol from its holster. Falling in beside his sergeant, he stepped forwards with him as they fired together.

Every bolt that burst against the alien’s skull caused its head to snap back and drew further eardrum-splitting screeches.

Bhehan responded with a psychic blow, although due to his exhaustion, the effect was greatly diminished. Heedless of this fact, he focussed all of his fury, sense of retribution and hatred, and flung it towards the xenos with a practised heft of his mental acuity. He was drained, but it provided a useful diversion. The enemy hesitated, crouching low, ready to spring at Reuben. It moved with uncanny alacrity, propelling itself with deadly grace for something that should surely have been dead by now towards the Space Marine, bearing him to the ground. It reared up, blood and saliva flying from its jaws as it prepared to strike.

‘No!’

Bhehan brandished his force axe. He urged a ripple of power across its surface and bounded the short distance to his fallen brother. With an easy, accurate swing, he buried the axe deep in the alien’s chest.

It stumbled back, licks of warp-lightning crackling across its carapace. It writhed on the ground in agony for a few moments and then was still.

A silence fell, disturbed only by the heavy breathing of everyone present.

Gileas lowered his pistol and nodded in grim satisfaction. ‘It is done,’ he said. ‘Status report.’

Apart from several light wounds and Jalonis’s fractured backplate, the squad had escaped almost completely unscathed from the encounter. Bhehan’s weariness showed in the Prognosticator’s posture and in his voice as he communicated via the vox, but he had expended a remarkable amount of energy in a very short space of time. The strength of will it must have taken for each of the xenos to maintain replicas had been quite the barrier for him to overcome. It gave him great satisfaction to acknowledge that not only had he overcome it but had also emerged triumphant.

‘Are you well, Bhehan?’ Gileas addressed the psyker directly, his tone brusque and formal. ‘Do you require time to gather yourself?’

‘No, brother! I do not “require time”. I am tired, but I am not some weakling straight out of his chamber. I am fine.’ The indignation in the young Prognosticator’s voice put a smile on Gileas’s face beneath the helmet. He might be young, but Bhehan already had the true fire of a Silver Skull with many more years of service behind him. The Emperor willing, the youth would undoubtedly go far.

‘Puts you in mind of yourself, does he, brother?’

At his side, Reuben murmured the words softly enough for only the sergeant to hear. The squad commander’s smile deepened.

‘Just a little, aye.’ Gileas leaned down slightly and wiped his bloodied chainsword on the ground. He stared up at the sky visible through the canopy. Daylight was beginning to give way to the navy-blue of what he had always known as the gloaming. The Thunderhawk would return just after dusk. For now, there was one thing only left to do.

‘Brother-Prognosticator,’ he said, turning to Bhehan. ‘Would you do us the great honour of claiming the squad’s trophy from this battle?’

Bhehan understood the largesse implicit in the gesture and was deeply flattered by the offer. He made the sign of the aquila and bowed his head in respect to the sergeant. He stepped up and raised his force axe above his head.

‘The honour would be mine, brother-sergeant. In the name of the Silver Skulls, for the glory of Chapter Master Argentius and for the memory of our fallen brother, Wulfric, I claim your head as my prize. Let those who walk the halls of our forefathers gaze upon your countenance and give thanks for your end.’ The axe flashed through the air and struck the neck of the dead xenos.

The moment the head and the body parted, there was a hazy shimmering and the unknown alien’s body was replaced by something entirely more recognisable. Bhehan realised it first, but the others were not very far behind him.

‘An illusion,’ the Prognosticator breathed. ‘It’s woven a psychic disguise around itself!’

‘No. No, that’s impossible,’ countered Jalonis, perturbation in his voice. ‘That can’t be correct. Kroot don’t have psychic abilities.’

Indeed, the headless body on the ground was most definitely that of a kroot. It had the same wiry, sinewy build and avian-like features that matched every image that had ever been pict-flashed at them through doctrination tapes and training sessions. Yet despite its instantly familiar form, there were subtle differences. It varied from what was presumably the norm in a number of ways, not least of which was the most obvious which Jalonis had just voiced.

It was imbued with psychic powers. Unheard of, at least in the Silver Skulls’ experience. Reports and research had never once suggested that the kroot, the fierce, mercenary warrior troops regularly employed by tau armies, were psychic. Moreover, this kroot wore no harness, carried no weapon. It was far more primitive than what they expected of such beings. An evolutionary throwback maybe, but one in possession of something perhaps far more deadly than a rifle or any other kind of physical weapon.

‘A feral colony home world?’ Jalonis made the suggestion first. ‘A breed of kroot who have taken a different genetic path to their brethren?’

Gileas frowned. ‘It is said that these things eat the flesh of their enemies, that they have the ability to assimilate their DNA. There have certainly been reports that this planet once sported animal life. It is surely not unreasonable to guess that the kroot have systematically destroyed whatever may have existed on this planet.’

He considered the dead beasts. ‘These things, at least… the things that look like they did before we exposed the truth… are all we have encountered.’ A thought occurred to the sergeant. ‘When Reuben shot that other one in the head, it did not change its shape or form, did it?’

‘The cerebral connection remained intact,’ Bhehan commented absently. ‘Brother Reuben obliterated its brain, yes. However, he didn’t disconnect the spinal cord. Nerve impulses continued to flow after death. The mental disguise it wove remained stable until full brain death. We didn’t stay there long enough to witness it change back.’

‘Aye,’ said Reuben, remembering the unnatural need to ignore the alien. Bhehan would have been better equipped to avoid that psychic shielding.

Something was niggling at the back of Bhehan’s mind, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It danced tantalisingly outside his grasp and he reached out for it.

‘Psychic kroot… This is a vital discovery for us. They cannot be suffered to live. This planet must be cleansed.’ Tikaye offered up his opinion.

Gileas glanced up at Bhehan and remembered the deep red stone that he had found. ‘Bhehan, you have a theory, I suspect. Tell me.’

Bhehan nodded slowly. ‘There are, to the best of our knowledge, no psychic kroot. Not any that we’ve met before,’ he hypothesised. ‘However, what if it were to assimilate a psychic species? Say… the eldar?’ He held up the red stone so that all the battle-brothers could see it. ‘What would stop it from killing and eating one of the eldar? What would prevent it from the freedom to filter out the required genetic strands that would give it the most useful result?’

‘Surely it must take several generations for a kroot to assimilate such powers?’ The query came from Tikaye, and the others considered his words.

‘We don’t know what constitutes a kroot generation. We have no idea how old that ship is. We don’t even know if it is an eldar ship. Perhaps it is a kroot vessel. Maybe they arrived before the eldar, maybe after.’ Gileas’s voice was grim. His patience was already strained to breaking point. ‘It is without question, brothers, that both those xenos races have tainted this planet one way or the other. There are far too many unknown variables, and I have little interest in philosophical postulation about which came first.’

He put his chainsword back into its scabbard and reloaded the chamber of his pistol.

‘Brother Bhehan,’ he said, without another glance, ‘collect the trophy. We will take Wulfric’s body to the predetermined extraction coordinates and we will leave. This must be reported to Captain Meyoran. I do not presume to second-guess his actions on hearing the news, but I would not want to be on this planet when he found out.’

The Prognosticator tucked the eldar stone into the pouch with his runes and moved to the dead kroot. The very thought of such a being filled him with passionate hatred: a foul crossbreed of two xenos races with the most lethal features of both. It was an atrocity of the highest order, an abomination that had no right to exist. Yet here it was, albeit not for much longer once the Silver Skulls returned to the Silver Arrow.

The sudden truth of what the murderer had wanted with Wulfric’s body hit the Prognosticator head-on. A kroot, with the psychic abilities and memories of an eldar, would have had some knowledge of Astartes physiology, even if only as a basic, barely recalled memory. Imagine, then, a kroot, with the psychic abilities and memories of an eldar… and the strength and resilience of a Space Marine…

Bhehan straightened his shoulders and bent down to pick up the head of the kroot. Thanks to the Reckoners, such a thing would never come to pass.

What heat remained in the day began to sap steadily as the suns continued their slow descent towards the horizon. The air was thick with heat stored by the trees and the rocks. This, coupled with residual moisture from the rainstorm, left the air feeling thick and greasy.

The squad trampled through the trees for several more minutes, all senses on full alert. They had barely arrived at the extraction point when the general vox-channel fizzed into life. The Thunderhawk would be in position in fifteen minutes.

Nocturnal life began to flood the jungle with a discordant symphony over which the approaching whine of the Thunderhawk could swiftly be heard. Once in situ, there was a hiss of servos and hydraulics and the front boarding ramp of the vessel opened, the light from within spilling out and bathing the jungle.

Gileas waited for the others to board before he joined them. He had always maintained that, as sergeant, it was his place to arrive first and leave last. He fired his jump pack, rose to the Thunderhawk and dropped to the floor with a clatter.

‘All on board, Correlan. Give us a few moments to ensure that our fallen battle-brother is secure.’

‘Understood. Good to have you back, sergeant.’

Gileas removed his helmet and ran his fingers through his hair. Already the words for his report to Captain Meyoran were forming clearly in his mind. They had been sent down to this planet for one thing and yet had found something entirely different and unexpected.

Bhehan remained standing at the edge of the landing ramp, staring down at the jungle. He reached into his pouch to draw a random rune and instead pulled out the eldar stone. Considering it thoughtfully, he indulged in a moment’s wild curiosity as to what sort of portent the Emperor was sending him.

As his hand closed around it, he became aware of a strong push against the wards he had set in place, wards that had no doubt gone a long way towards allowing him to see through the kroot’s duplicitous scheming. This mental touch was no wild and instinctual thing, though. This press against his defences was nearly as disciplined and practiced as his own. A sudden flicker of movement caught his eye.

At the jungle’s edge, barely visible in the dusk and what remained of the light cast by the Thunderhawk, Bhehan saw it. A solitary figure. Tall, seemingly all whipcord muscle and sinew, the huge kroot stood boldly in direct sight of the Thunderhawk. To all intents and purposes it was little different to its kin, but it was not difficult to surmise that it was a more powerful or at least a more evolved strain of these twisted xenos. A cloak of stitched animal hide was slung around its shoulders and in one hand it held a crudely fashioned staff, from which hung feathers and trinkets of decoration. A number of stones also dangled from the staff, stones that looked remarkably like the very one in the psyker’s hand.

He felt its vicious touch against his mind again and clamped the wards down tighter. The lesser kroot had been disorganised and fierce. This, though, was a calculated, scheming mind. This was a mind that would gladly extract the very soul of you and leave you to crumble to dust in its wake. It was barbed and brutal and uncannily self-aware.

The crystals on his psychic hood flickered, attracting the sergeant’s attention.

‘Brother-Prognosticator?’ He moved to stand beside the younger Adeptus Astartes and his sharp eyes quickly made out what the psyker had seen.

‘Throne of Terra!’ he exclaimed and drew his pistol, ready to fire it at the alien. But by the time the weapon was out of its holster and in his hand, the kroot had gone, vanished into the jungle. Gileas lowered his weapon, his disappointment obvious.

Bhehan turned to the sergeant. His young face showed nothing of the vile revulsion he had felt at the kroot’s mental challenge.

He felt one last, sickening touch on his mind and then the alpha, if indeed that had been what it was, let him go.

‘This place needs to be purified,’ said the psyker, fervently. ‘To be cleansed of this filth.’

‘It will be, brother,’ acknowledged Gileas with absolute sincerity. As the gaping maw of the landing ramp finally sealed off the last sight of the Anceriosan jungle, he turned to Bhehan. ‘It will be.’

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

Published in 2011 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

Cover illustration by Hardy Fowler

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