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The trail was cold. But, given the remarkable speed of the beast that was being hunted, the bodies were not. What was once a shopping district reserved for the astronomically wealthy had been transformed into a charnel house. White walls were now painted red brown with gore whilst shattered windows and scattered merchandise mingled with severed limbs and looping intestines on the ground.
Nine figures crunched their way through the foetid mire of commerce and lifeblood. No one spoke, no one retched, no one muttered a prayer for the departed. This was not an uncommon sight for them. But it was an uncommon task. Where standard operating procedure would have them deployed for retrieval; this time they were being deployed to hunt. The notion was disconcerting. Though they knew the nature of the beast, none could hope to imagine what they were going up against. Except for one.
Torik Saresh had hunted these fiends before.
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“Vitals are stable. Cryogenics are... holding up. He’s about to hit atmosphere.”
“It” barked Torik at one of the strategium’s many young science officers. “It is about to hit atmosphere.” Torik growled to himself as he stalked away from the biometrics station and back to the command throne where his master sat.
“These whelps grow more attached to their monsters every time. Something ought to be done” Torik snapped.
“You’re master of security, Commander Torik not master of this ship” came the softly spoken but sternly directed reply. The top of the command throne was hidden in shadow but Torik was familiar enough with the shipmaster to know he wasn’t smiling.
“As you say, my lord” Torik bowed and turned back to the bridge crew. The deck’s main pict screen was alight with hundreds of statistics, graphs and gauges. It was mostly gibberish to Torik who consistently failed to grasp the delicate science behind forging a man into a weapon. But the one readout he did keep an eye on was the digital polygraph that scrawled away at the bottom of the pict caster. It measured a steady flow of zero activity for the moment but Torik was all too aware of how quickly that could change.
“Subject 37 is within the atmosphere, my lord” called a junior lieutenant with comically oversized glasses.
“Excellent” returned the shipmaster as he stood up and descended the command throne. “Begin the awakening process. I want to be on mission as soon as the pod lands.”
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Stalking through the ruins of high society left a bad taste in Torik’s mouth. The low-born gutter snipe in him almost relished the sight of the mighty brought low. But there was no escaping the inhumanity of the wholesale slaughter that Torik and his team were wading through. It wasn’t that there were murdered children strewn across the dining halls. It was that they were unnecessary statistics. This mission would earn a mark of shame and even a successful hunt would not be able to change that.
“Watch your sectors, boys and girls. Just because you weren’t targets in it’s psycho-indoctrination programming that doesn’t mean it isn’t tracking us now.” Torik kept his voice as steady as he could whilst he instructed his security team. Technically they had been trained for this sort of situation but there really wasn’t any way of actually preparing a team for the eventuality short of putting them through the real thing and praying some of them survived to learn the lesson.
“Our first order is to confirm the mission kills” Torik continued. There had been no time for a proper briefing and this had only increased the tension of the task. “After that our only concern is bringing in the subject. Alive.”
Torik spat. Asking them to face one of these fiends down with nothing more than a tranquiliser gun was near enough a death sentence but the orders were explicit and disobedience was not an option. The walking murder machine was far more valuable than a handful of uniforms.
His team was prowling through what used to be a pristine food court, gleaming with phosphorous light and bustling with activity. But Torik was met with the sort of devastation only one kind of monster could wreak and the sparking strobes of the malfunctioning light rig duly served to underline the horror of what had occurred here.
They had begun their search at the pod’s landing point on the Spire’s 9th commerce district. The hope had been to follow the trail of bodies to its maker but when their boots hit the ground they found corpses everywhere they turned with no real way to tell what order, if any, they had fallen in.
“This would be a damn sight easier if the fugger’s auspex jammers shut down on time” muttered a disgruntled security officer.
“Maintain noise discipline!” Torik hissed. “Tech breaks and we clean it up. If you can’t hunt with your eyes you’re useless to me.”
He needed the team sharp but Torik couldn’t expect them not to be nervous. They weren’t new recruits but even veterans get jittery when the system breaks down.
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“Mission clock is running, transmitter array encryption is activated and weapons are armed.” The science team was abuzz with excitement as they ticked off the operational elements of their creature.
“Cry havoc...” muttered the shipmaster. “Activate the final phase injection protocols.”
Torik drew a deep breath as he watched the stimulant counters begin to empty. All told there were twenty two different chem injectors to monitor and that was just for the final stage of the awakening process. A single imbalance could send the creature into a biochemical meltdown and scupper the entire mission. Or worse...
“Subject 37 is active” smiled the bespectacled lieutenant.
“Wipe that grin off your face, Lieutenant” Torik sighed with mounting dejection. It seemed impossible to convey the gravity of unleashing such a weapon to the wide-eyed fools that watched over it.
“A... Aye sir!” the Lieutenant stuttered before turning back to his console. “Subject is on the move and beginning its aggression spike.”
Torik started to breathe a little more heavily as he watched the polygraph start to make jagged arcs across the pict screen. He knew this was routine. But he also knew what it felt like to see the rage on it’s face instead of monitoring it on a readout.
“You’re uncomfortable, Torik?” The shipmaster enquired quietly enough to ensure that the crew didn’t overhear them.
“Just professional concern, my lord” he replied somewhat taken aback by the question. “The auspex jammer and transmitter encryptions are, of course, a necessity for this sort of work...”
“But you don’t like not knowing exactly where its hiding?” Finished the Shipmaster. He placed a hand on Torik’s shoulder in imitation of the comforting gesture seen on so many holo-dramas. “It is a common trigger for fear in the human mind. I faintly recall it being a prime reason for the inordinate amount of people with a fear of arachnids.”
“As you say, my lord” Torik replied with mounting unease as he looked over at the shipmaster. “But, to clarify, it is concern I feel. Not fear.”
“Have you forgotten who you are speaking to, Torik?” The Shipmaster retorted with a sudden edge of authority before oozing back into his somehow more unsettling conciliatory tone. “You of all people are allowed to be afraid when it comes to these furious nightmares.”
“My Lord” Torik swallowed with an almost imperceptible nod.
“But if you let your fear unman you I will, obviously, have no more use for your services... Except perhaps as a servitor.”
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When they reached the predicted killzone there were few surprises for Torik. He’d been on over thirty deployments and the beasts never failed to catch their prey. The remnants of Hive Primus’ ruling family had been massacred at their dining table; all twenty-three of them. Gaius Sonteros, the head of the household and de facto planetary governor had died with a smile on his face. He was still smiling, sat bolt upright in his gilded chair with a needle round protruding from his forehead. His family had been far less fortunate. Judging by the distance that some of the corpses were found from the banquet and the horrified expressions on the severed heads the majority of the dinner table had seen their deaths coming. There was a sordid irony to the fact since the reason they were condemned to die in such a gruesome manner was due to the crimes of the man who probably didn’t even realise he was under attack before he died.
“Leave the poetry to the marksmen, eh?” muttered Torik as he ran the retinal scanner over Sonteros’ vacant eyes.
“What was that, sir?” asked one of the security officers as he trampled over a disembodied spinal cord.
“Just griping, armsman. Keep your eyes on and your safety off.”
The retinal scanner read a match and that was good enough for Torik. There were some that would have tried to confirm the whole slaughterhouse but he knew better than to try and find every eyeball in the room. He’d seen what a neuro-gauntlet could do first hand and you didn’t need to be a tech adept to know that you wouldn’t get a reading off of boiled vitreous humour.
“Okay its him” Torik signed the affirmative for those of the team out of earshot. “Lets get the security footage and we can call in the primary.”
There were two basic phases to the civilian mission template. The Shipmaster referred to them as ‘the operation’ and ‘the proclamation’. The operation was strewn around the banquet hall in ribbons of flesh and cracked bone fragments. The proclamation would be making sure a suitably edited selection of still images, or in some special cases pict recordings, were disseminated into local circulation. But with the devastation that the monster had wrought amongst the lower levels Torik wasn’t convinced they were going to need any kind of proclamation.
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“We’re seeing predictable reactions to the Frenzon release.” The science team were reporting their figures without taking their eyes from their consoles. “Slaught dispensers are emptying. Subject must be approaching target.”
Torik watched the polygraph judder back and forth in wild bursts of erratic activity and felt his hands clench into fists.
“Uhh, its probably not a problem... probably. But I’m reading a mild discrepancy in ... well, no its well within acceptable bounds.”
Torik’s jaws clenched at the hint of doubt in the science officer’s voice but the Shipmaster continued to sport his crooked smile. He never used to feel his gut tighten when operations began to play out. Before the 12th deployment; before he was made security chief. These days it was a different story. Torik told himself it was only common sense, an appreciation for the gravity of the situation. But squirreled away in a dark corner of his mind he sometimes wondered if his survival should have earned him a trip to a psyche institution rather than a damned promotion.
“Subject is spiking on all aggression protocols, he’s operating at peak efficiency! That’s a combat high ladies and gentlemen!” Cheers and whoops erupted from the science team as they confirmed the subject’s endorphin injectors were signifying primary mission goal achievements.
“Probably never even seen it in the flesh” muttered Torik while shaking his head in disbelief.
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The security footage was something Torik made sure none of his team laid eyes on. The last thing they needed to see was a combat performance of the creature they had been asked to capture alive. The notion ran counter to every special operations training doctrine but there was no denying that watching one of these beasts kill was an exercise in fear. It was a blur for the most part. Torik was only able to follow some of its movements by the trail of blood spatter that marked it’s momentum. But the initial entrance was clear enough. A black shape descending from the ceiling in a wrathful freefall with its arms outstretched to the governor. A single shot to Gaius Sonteros’ head hit a second before the fiend crashed onto the dinner table and began to dart, furiously, into the panicking onlookers.
Kill the primary. Make an example of the rest.
“Did you get what you need, sir?” Asked a tall, Valhallan armswoman who had poked her head into the security office. Torik had distanced himself from other security personnel after his first team was massacred. As a result he knew very few of their actual names.
“Yes” Torik replied as he hastily shut the feed off. “Assemble the team; we’re beginning retrieval as soon as I call this in.”
“Sir...” The armswoman hesitated.
“Speak.”
“Its just... we were wondering how you completed the retrieval the last time something like this happened... sir.”
Torik saw the anxious look in her ice blue eyes and knew the rest of the team were thinking the same thing. “I followed protocol and kept sharp. You’ve been trained for this every bit as much as I was so just check your sectors, stay calm and carry out your orders. The brass has planned for these sorts of things.” He forced an encouraging nod as she ducked out of the room.
He didn’t want to lie to her but the truth was hardly a comfort. He couldn’t lift any spirits by telling them that he was the only survivor of his first security team. That the monster they hunted had ripped three of his comrades apart before he could even fire off a round or that no one in the entire squad had been able to land a shot.
He could hardly let them know that the brass’ standing orders for a ‘beast off the leash’ were to attempt a recapture with expendable assets then proceed with summary detonation after the retrieval inevitably failed.
They weren’t conscripts. They probably wouldn’t mutiny if he went out there and told them the truth. Probably... But Torik Saresh was a hunter and he wanted his soldiers with guns up and aggression in their eyes. At least for as long as he could keep them that way.
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“Is your team ready?” The Shipmaster enquired.
“Suited and booted, my lord” Torik replied, almost resenting the question. “As soon as I’m aboard the retrieval boat we’ll be ready to launch.”
“Outstanding. Standby, Commander; we should be getting the ‘all quiet’ about now.” The Shipmaster was leaning close but Torik was looking past him at the mounting activity coming from the bull pen of science officers.
“What’s the problem down there?” Torik barked as he swept past the Shipmaster and barrelled towards the technicians.
“Uh, the subject hasn’t begun the cool down procedure yet... but we’re sure he’s about to!” Squeaked the junior lieutenant heading up the science team.
“How long have you been waiting Lieutenant?” Torik asked after grabbing the Lieutenant by the collar and pointing him at the rapidly scribbling polygraph reader.
“Its been near seven minutes since we predicted the cool down should have taken effect. But we’re working on kick starting the procedure from here!” The officer squirmed in Torik’s grip until the security chief shoved him back onto his console.
“Holy throne! Seven minutes...” Torik tried not to imagine how many people the beast could manage to eviscerate in that amount of time. “Have you primed the killswitch?”
“The killswitch is only to be activated on my command, Torik.” The Shipmaster interjected.
“They’ve exceeded their limit on attempting a manual shutdown, my lord. The beast is off the leash.”
“That may be so, commander but we aren’t just going to disavow an agent after seven minutes of difficulties. I’m sure the science team can discover the correct drug combination to bring the subject down softly.”
“Actually my lord,” the Lieutenant chimed. “We have the chemical combination ready but we can’t remotely dispense it whilst the subjects jamming array is still operational.”
“I see” The Shipmaster sucked his teeth.
“Well Gak” Torik replied.
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With potentially the entire Spire to hide in a less capable sweep team would need months to hunt down the creature on its rampage. But the Shipmaster’s scanning arrays were more sophisticated than the standard Imperial fare. Even so the best that the science team could do was point out the area of the spire that contained the matching sort of auspex interference to the jamming array they had built. Managing to trace it to a single spire district wasn’t exactly a comforting level of accuracy but it was a start. At close range the jammers scrambled a standard auspex into displaying hundreds of contacts in a full arc from the scanner. It was an effective terror tactic but a well prepared and cunning warrior might use this as an early warning system. Fortunately for the brass, no enemies of the Emperor would ever know that the walking nightmare was coming for them until it was too late.
Torik was, praise the throne, no enemy to mankind and he was ready to make use of whatever advantage he could. So as he led his team into spire district 16 he had an auspex scanner set to display on his left wrist so that he could keep two hands on his weapon and one eye on the scanner.
“Stay tight. Watch every corner, every crossbeam and every shadow.” Torik wasn’t supposed to be the point man but the team needed to see someone out front and in control. He prowled out of the elevator quietly before cursing at the size of the complex they were walking into. District 16 was a habitation dome that had previously housed near a thousand families and the steeped ranks of domiciles rising away from the transport hub offered a myriad of ambush sites and kill boxes.
“Never thought I’d see one of these” an armsman whispered.
“Silence, damn you!” Torik hissed, although he couldn’t help agreeing with the nervous youngster. Torik made a note to speak to the shipmaster about recruiting from guard regiments in the, frankly hypothetical, future. He’d asked for Catachans and got a motley collection of survivors from various regiments. All combat veterans and perfectly capable of carrying out a sweep and clean operation but there was no substitute for death-worlders if you were insane enough to try and hunt something as dangerous as one of these things.
“Torik” the vox crackled in the commander’s ears and he fought the impulse not to jump at the sudden noise.
“My lord” Torik returned with a hand on the vox mic clipped to his collar.
“Status report. You’re overdue by twenty minutes and we’re beginning to risk exposure.” The Shipmaster was growing impatient and ever more irritable.
“Apologies my lord but the Spire is a large place to search and we can’t rush this” said Torik.
“I understand you are concerned for the well being of your team but you’re on a timer, Commander. I’ll scuttle the mission and egress before I let word of this get out. We are the silent blade, Torik. There can be no mistakes on record.”
“Understood, my lord. There will be no unintentional evidence, I assure you.”
“Get it done” The Shipmaster clicked off before Torik replied and saved himself from the stream of curses that the security chief muttered.
The Shipmaster was talking about a lance strike on the hive spire. In what was technically peace time the hive’s void shields were powered down and a concentrated battery from the orbiting vessel would likely shear the top off of the hive. From the sounds of things Torik was going to be around when it happened if he didn’t call in some good news soon.
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“You’re going down there and you’re going to administer the tranquilsers yourself, commander. This mission can still be salvaged as long as we can bring the subject home.” The Shipmaster had begun pacing back to his command throne as soon as he was assured the chemical concoction could be weaponised for a needle rifle.
“My lord, I request operational control over the killswitch whilst I’m on the ground” Torik returned as he rounded on the command throne and left the science team to their frantic calculations.
“Denied, Commander. You’re concern is noted but I will retain control of the killswitch. The lieutenant has assured me that if you carry a relay transmitter I will be able to be detonate the subject remotely.”
“But not calibrate the chem Dispensers...” Torik finished.
“Its more complicated than flipping a switch...” the lieutenant interrupted but caught himself when Torik turned back to face him down. ...“sir!”
“You were recommended to this command on the basis that you had operated under these circumstances before, Torik. Perhaps my superiors received a falsified report...” The Shipmaster mused.
“Your superiors were told the truth, my lord. The truth is that bringing a subject in alive is next to impossible and I activated the kill switch after my entire team was slaughtered, my commander decapitated and my own belly had been ripped open.”
“Nevertheless... protocol dictates a capture must be attempted before a kill is authorised. Join your men and brief them in transit. Non-lethal weaponry only. I will decide if the team’s safety is compromised and detonate the killswitch from here.”
“Compliance, my lord” Torik replied through gritted teeth.
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“Alright, listen in” Torik began with mounting bitterness. “We need to cover this ground and do it fast so we’re going to have to split into fire teams.” The team shared a few glances with each other but didn’t erupt into panic. “I’ll lead Alpha through the lower concourse whilst Bravo will loop around from the other direction. Charlie will stay here and guard the transport hub in case the damned thing tries to make for another level.”
Silence.
“I don’t like this any more than you do but risk of exposure is getting too close for the shipmaster’s liking so we need to speed this operation up. Anybody makes contact and the other two fire teams will converge to provide enfilading fire. We’ll have it in our net. Understood?”
“Sir” they chorused weakly.
“Alright, move out. You all know the drill.” This is no drill came the voice from the back of Torik’s mind.
Alpha fire team began its sweep in silence but for the pounding drum beat of Torik’s heart. They fanned out towards a row of luxury habs and tried not to trip over the mangled corpses that littered the streets. They had either fled from their homes or been dragged from them but with so few recognisable remains it was difficult to tell. Torik noted the shredded military equipment scattered amongst the dead and pictured the futile attempts at defence the guardsmen must have attempted. A glint of metal caught his eye near a twisted and flickering lamp post. It seemed the streetlight was sporting a headless corpse that dangled from its cabling. He padded quietly over to the remains of what appeared to be a law enforcement officer of some kind and reached down to wrap his hands around the grip of a stub revolver. It wasn’t much and there were only two rounds left but at least it was still lethal.
His auspex wasn’t showing any sort of interference so Torik waved the team away from the first set of houses and repeated the sweep along the next row of habs. The same sorry story played itself out across a dozen streets without a single survivor being found and Torik was beginning to think that the beast had clawed its way into another dome through one of the maintenance ducts. But to his dismay the auspex started to crackle with activity.
Immediately he tensed up and brought his fire team in to form a tight perimeter in the centre of the street. What they needed more than anything was enough open ground to see the monster coming.
“Stay calm and call your shots” said Torik with his eyes darting from shadow to shadow. Everywhere he turned he half glimpsed an oily black shape on the move. Twice he could swear he saw glaring red lense flares piercing through the darkness. With his back pressed up against the two other armsmen he could feel them shaking with fear. One of them was quietly whimpering and Torik had to fight to keep from shutting his eyes and praying for a miracle. The Emperor wasn’t watching this corner of the galaxy tonight.
Then the auspex suddenly began to buzz with activity as hundreds of contacts flared up on the display forcing Torik to drop to one knee in order to maintain a steady firing position and stay combat effective. It won’t help he kept telling himself. It won’t help.
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“We’re what!?” Asked one of the armsmen from his seat on the dropship. Their grav-harnesses were already in place so the security team had little choice but to sit there and suffer whatever bad news was coming their way. Compliant or not they were heading to the surface.
“We’re going in to bring the rogue subject back alive. Your weapons are being collected because we’ve only been given the green light for a non-lethal takedown. Rest assured that if our position is compromised the Shipmaster will detonate the killswitch and we will be back on a straightforward clean-up operation.” Torik recited the speech he had practiced on the way to the hangar bay feeling every bit as stupid as he thought he would. “I don’t need to remind anybody the penalty for desertion but, since we’re short on time and I don’t want to have to deal with any mewling malcontents once we’re downrange, anyone who doesn’t want a part in this mission is free to resign now. Of course anyone who resigns will no longer have the authorisation to remain aboard this ship and will have to collect their gear, report to the air-lock and walk home.” Torik paused to look his troopers in the eyes. “Anyone? Good. Let’s just get this over with.”
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Torik blinked at his auspex to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating as it gradually faded back into inactivity. When the runes finally went quiet he relaxed the tension in his muscles and took a calming breath; the whole fire team was drenched in sweat and still rattling with adrenaline.
“All teams, we’ve confirmed its in the dome and just passed by our position. Maintain your orders.”
Torik clicked off and hoped he had sounded calmer than he felt. The hand he used to open the vox channel was still shaking and he couldn’t get it to stop. He was so focused on regaining his composure that he almost didn’t hear the scream.
“Commander its Charlie! Bravo is on the move to intercept!” Came the call from Bravo’s team leader, the tall Valhallan girl. Torik was on his feet almost instantly but had to lift his fire team to theirs before they would get moving.
“Charlie needs us. The Emperor needs us, boys. On your feet and into the fray!” Torik yelled and sprinted back towards the transport hub. As he ran he focused blindly on the beat of his boots hitting the ground and forced every other dark thought out of his mind. Until his vox opened up again.
“Emperor preserve us!” The Valhallan cried. Evidently bravo had got to the hub already. Torik was still precious seconds from getting a clear line of sight to the fight but he could hear them being torn apart over the vox.
When Torik Saresh rounded the final corner and looked into the spotlights illuminating the transport hub’s landing platform he saw death. He saw the living incarnation of death and his bloody work resplendent before him.
Standing over two metres tall in a ridged, black body glove the beast was finally revealed in its chilling glory. A masterpiece of murderous intent; it’s neuro gauntlet gripping the hair of a struggling arms woman whilst it thrust a power sword through her chest, hissing as the blade’s energy field boiled the Valhallan’s insides. The rest of Bravo were laying lifeless on the ground and the brutalised remains of Charlie team were scattered around the elevator doors, where they had presumably tried to claw their way out.
When the grinning skull of an Eversor Assassin slowly turned to regard Torik it was as though the killer’s death mask had transfixed him to the spot. There was nowhere he could run.
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“You’ve done this before right, sir?” One of the troopers asked as the drop ship hurtled to the surface.
“Of course. Every security team does this at least once” Torik lied. When he had survived an encounter with an Imperial assassin he had become a member of one of the smallest groups of humans in the Imperium of Man.
“They’re not so tough when you can see them coming, lad. Just keep your eyes open and you’ll be fine.”
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The eyes of the skull mask flashed red as the Eversor bellowed a primal roar and flung the Valhallan girl away. The security chief had just enough time to hear the footsteps of his fire team catching up to him before the Eversor erupted in a blur of howling movement and surged forwards. Torik had his hands on the vox mic and was screaming at the shipmaster to activate the killswitch. But all too quickly he saw the assassin reach for his executioner pistol and was forced to roll out to the side as the barrel of the weapon came up. But the two armsmen behind him had no such wits and were blasted apart in a hail of bolt rounds. The explosive ammunition detonating with muffled thuds inside their chests and spraying gore into the air.
Torik had rolled into a firing position with his needle rifle set to full-auto but by the time the stock was at his shoulder the Eversor had disappeared. His auspex was going crazy and the Shipmaster was refusing to respond. Torik tried again to hail the ship but as he lifted his rifle to get a grip on the mic a bolt round seared out of the darkness and sent him to the ground. The bolt had made a mess of his needler and showered him in shrapnel but the last minute shift of position had saved his life. Or what was left of it.
The shockwave from the bolt detonation had Torik’s head swimming. He could barely hear anything over the incessant ringing of pressure induced tinnitus and his vision was refusing to focus. As he struggled to prop himself up against a bulkhead, slipping in the gore of his comrades, he cursed fate for seeing him through the first nightmare encounter with an Eversor only to have him die at the hands of another. It felt like an eternity before his vision began to refocus but when it did Torik was far from relieved.
He saw a dark shape drop from the ceiling and stalk towards him, sword drawn. His legs wouldn’t carry him more than a few feet and his vox caster was a wreck. So Torik reached for the only weapon he had left and fired a round from his stolen stubber at the assassin. But the Eversor batted the round aside with a sweep of his power sword as though it were nothing.
“Damned fast” he whispered as the grinning skull began to come into focus. He didn’t object to a death in the Emperor’s service but Torik had always imagined he would be on his feet. In his delirium he felt he had earned a pious death in combat but this was just an execution.
The Eversor didn’t waste any more time with theatrics. It sheathed the power sword and activated its crackling neuro gauntlet whilst raising Torik into the air with its free hand. For a moment the world went silent.
Then a slow whine began to emanate from the assassin’s mask, gradually building up into a piercing shriek. Torik stared aghast as the beast began to tremble violently until the jarring spasms sent the creature howling to its knees. He had just enough sense left to struggle free of the Eversor’s quivering grasp and skitter back to the elevator doors. He knew what was coming next.
The brute was convulsing as its toxin dispensers administered the necessary drugs to induce a bio-meltdown. The killswitch had been activated and as soon as the chemicals ran their course the beast would explode in a shower of acidic gore. Except the reaction was only making the assassin more furious and in its death throes it lashed out hungrily to take every living thing with it into oblivion. Drawing its power sword the Eversor stumbled at Torik with a wild roar.
But robbed of its speed the psychopathic killer was no longer the terror weapon that Torik so feared. It was clumsy now, wrong footed and swinging near blind. Left to its rabid desires the Eversor would undoubtedly attempt to butcher anything that moved within a fifty metre radius before it finally self immolated. But here at the end of its lifespan the beast was finally vulnerable. Torik had no idea why the Emperor had spared him at the moment of his execution but he certainly had no intention of letting the assassin finish him off now.
So Torik Saresh, chief of security and serviceman of the Eversor temple raised his revolver and put the final round through the skull of his nightmare.
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“That was quite a report, commander.” The voice woke Torik with a start. “Easy there. I suppose I should have knocked.” The stranger walked towards Torik’s cot in the otherwise empty infirmary and offered a hand. “You’ve been out for some time. The Shipmaster’s given me the operational details but I wanted to speak with you face to face.”
“Who are you?” Rasped Torik as he rubbed his eyes and got his bearings.
“We’ll get to that. First I need to know that you’re cognisant.” The stranger produced a dataslate and began tapping away at it. “Your name, number and rank, soldier?”
“Torik Saresh, Commander and security chief, un-numbered, classified posting.” Torik replied, sitting himself and looking over the room.
“I assure you my clearance is appropriate, Torik. But that was the correct answer. What do you remember about your last deployment?” The stranger asked.
“You’ll get nothing more from me until I know who’s asking” Torik folded his arms and winced at the pain in his ribs.
“Very well, commander. My name is Heinrich Zartosht and I’m with the Ordos.” Heinrich produced his rosette and smiled quietly as Torik recognised it with a grimace.
“And I thought I had problems before...”
“Now, now commander we aren’t all monsters.” Heinrich inclined his head with another smile.
“No” Torik grunted as he rolled on to his side and away from his visitor. “I’ve seen monsters. You Inquisitors are far worse.”
“You wound me commander. Were I anything like the boor you so decry I might take my leave and let your Shipmaster have his way” Heinrich replied.
“I suppose he’s looking for someone to take the fall for all of this” Torik sighed.
“You survived. He needs a scapegoat.”
“If he’s man enough to blame me for that mess he’d better be able to look me in the eye when he...”
“Striking your superior officer would not be the correct course of action here” Heinrich interrupted. “Technically speaking he did save your life. He’s been very talkative about that particular subject but after I examined the mission data it appears he only activated the killswitch after your lifesigns had failed.”
“Lucky me” Torik coughed.
“Quite. It seems the Eversor’s jammers clouded your transmitters. He must have gotten pretty close?” Heinrich asked, still tapping his dataslate.
“Close enough” Torik turned back to face Heinrich. “Just what is it you’re doing here anyway? Look around will you? All these other beds are empty because the armsmen that came down with me got butchered on my watch. What does it matter what I tell you when we both know I’m going down for incompetent command?”
“Well I think you’ve told me enough, Torik.” Heinrich replied as he stood up. “You’re not a gibbering mess and the physicians tell me you’ll be back to fighting shape soon enough although you do exhibit some, admittedly understandable, problems with authority.”
“No gak” Torik stared.
“I’m here to offer you a job. To my knowledge you are currently the only living human that has survived two encounters with a hostile Imperial assassin. You have some talent, Torik.”
“I get myself cut open twice and you want me to become an Ordos Sicarius rat... I should have known.” Torik sank back into his bed.
“Considering the circumstances of your recent hospitalisation I would have thought you would relish the opportunity. Not to mention the fact that if I walk out of here without you you’ll be going straight to the gallows.” Heinrich took a breath and packed away his dataslate. “Well? Can you walk?”
“Aye” Torik grunted as he swung himself out of his cot. “That I can.”
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