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'Crap, can you believe this? One moment I was spending the night with that dancer, the one with the sweet moves and all that glittering dancing jewellery. The next we’re all stuck out in a field looking for something that fell from the skies. This is nothing but a ghost hunt most likely.' Trooper Radek bemoaned his current situation yet again, while maintaining a vigilant look ahead of him as he advanced in a fanned out line with the rest of his squad members belonging to the Cadian 114th Rifles.
'Something fell from the skies, we just don't know what as of yet.' It came from one of the locals assigned to the regiment, a corporal by the name of Judith Kerman, a local scout seconded by the PDF to help the off-world forces get along more with the locals. From the sound of her voice she was sure of the unidentified object and that the suggestion that it was bogus nothing short of insulting.
'Sure thing darling, something fell from the skies. You bumpkins take everything way too serious.' Radek's tone was a mocking attempt at emulating the local accent and though botched in execution it drew chuckles from the others who shared Radek's sentiment. Just as it seemed as if the corporal was rising to take the bait she decided against it, instead scanning the ridgeline ahead through her night vision goggles.
Whereas the Cadians wore their regular khaki uniforms with green armour along with a minimum of packing and equipment, Kerman wore a long cameleoline cloak over a simple shirt and brown fatigues along with worn toughened boots that made no sound wherever she walked, making the cautious Cadians sound like cumbersome oafs in comparison. Pulled over her eyes was an advanced set of night vision goggles shipped in from some other system far away, a faint green glow emanating from the two lenses. This gave her an edge over the Cadians, who had to rely on their own eyes for seeing in the dark.
'Anything corporal?'
Lieutenant Black slowly stepped in line with her, his sword and pistol at his belt, a pair of binoculars in his hands. It was a futile gesture, but he wanted to be of use anyway, scanning the darkness ahead for anything. He was a good man, Kerman concluded not long ago. He was a career man who did not go over bodies and a competent leader who was not desperate to climb the career ladder two rungs at a time, using his own men as stepping stones. She liked him for that, probably also because he valued her skills as a competent scout, not just as a negotiator between him and the local populace. His men respected him immensely for some reason, maybe he earned it in past campaigns. Though a young man he already wore the scars of war with pride. He was close to earning her personal respect, he was a competent and capable soldier, plus an overall nice guy who did not use his rank as much as a barrier to hide behind as other officers from his regiment.
After a while Kerman saw something in the eerie green distance and punched her fist up in the air, ordering a halt. One by the one the Cadians in tow halted. 'What is it?' whispered the lieutenant at her ear. She pointed to a pockmark in the field not far from them. Something heavy had hit home there. He raised the binoculars to his eyes but couldn’t see a thing, making Kerman realize that her night vision goggles allowed her to see that further ahead. She decided against taking the goggles off and handing them to them lieutenant, some things were too valuable to lend to others, no matter how capable they might seem. Instead she tried describing it.
'About eighty meters ahead I can see an unnatural rise in the field. Looks like a crater. I'll crawl ahead and check it out. If all is clear I'll shine a torch, good with you sir?'
Another thing she liked about the lieutenant: He was open to suggestion and didn't see it as an attack on his authority. He listened to the people and was not afraid of letting others do it. He agreed and ordered his men to stay low. Kerman took a torch from the lieutenant and slithered forward slowly, knowing that her cloak was even now doing its best to keep her concealed as much as possible. Several things crossed her mind, foremost being what could be in that hole? A rock? A meteorite of sorts? Or maybe something metallic? A satellite maybe? Or a probe from ages gone by? She had heard about how sometimes lost probes crashed on planets already inhabited by mankind. Some of those probes were claimed to contain vast riches in form of archeotech, even a small bit of it was worth a fortune. She suppressed a smile at the thought that it could bring her fame and fortune, maybe a few front page picts to the local papers. A nice big stack of cash slips would be a nice added bonus to her meagre pay as scout.
On the other hand, it could be something hostile. An alien probe with a scout in it. She had heard from the Cadians that a race of aliens called the Tau were making aggressive attempts at colonizing human worlds and that her own world possibly was in their sphere of interest. What would those Tau look like she wondered? Lieutenant Black certainly didn't know. Just to be sure she flicked her thumb across the safety, waiting a moment to muffle the soft whine of her charging lasgun with her body.
One thing that struck her as odd when she closed in the final stretch was the smell, or rather stench. It was as if something was rotting, she wasn't sure what, but something was rotting. Maybe dead cattle was nearby? Or was it the dead inhabitant of the crashed object? With a slow and muted sigh she waited at the edge of the crater for a moment before moving on. Slowly she slithered onto the lip of the crater, glancing from side to side before finishing her crawl up. She peered down and saw what was producing the grotesque smell: a large deflated sac of sorts made from what looked like an organic material. It was blackened and charred as if exposed to extreme heat for some time and looked as if it had burst open upon impact with the ground. Kerman carefully prodded it with the barrel of her lasgun several times, not sure what to make of it. 'Hm, squishy' was her scientific evaluation. She looked round the crater and saw nothing threatening, so she flashed the torch several times before turning her attention back to the thing at the bottom of the crater.
Could it be that something had been in it? But what could be in such a thing? In a strange way it reminded her of a placenta she had seen after her sister gave birth a few years ago. If so, one hell of a big baby had to be in that thing. She twisted her head and looked at it in a different angle, now it reminded her of a seed pod from a flower or plant. Big plant she mused to herself.
She didn’t even notice that the rest of the squad had moved up to her, standing at the foot of the small crater, not daring to clamber up. The lieutenant looked up at her with concern, the binoculars still grasped in white knuckled hands. Kerman simply shrugged and beckoned the lieutenant up to join her. 'Sir, I got something here. Not sure what it is, maybe your off-world knowledge can be of use.'
While a military man to his core, Kerman did gleam from being around the lieutenant that he took quiet pride in the fact that he was also an educated man, he had been to an actual academy other than a military one for some time. So if someone knew something about the galaxy outside of her own little world or that of the common Cadian, it would be him. The lieutenant clambered onto the lip of the crater and looked down with his torch lit, blinking several times, his mouth dropping open and almost doing a comical double take. He clamped his mouth shut, shook his head and seemingly lost it all. 'No. No. No! Oh gak. Oh frag. Oh gak. Frag! gak! Frag!' The rest of the squad looked up in surprise at their lieutenant as he repeated the same two expletives over and over again, shaking an angry fist at the stinking pod of mucus and what seemed to be charred flesh. Kerman wondered if the discovery was something significant, maybe meaning a great deal to an educated man such as the lieutenant? After a moment however he stomped down and over to the squad vox operator, angrily yanking the horn from the device, dialling in to the main network and central command back in the city, whispering a coded message into the receiver.
'Go ahead lieutenant,' crackled the voice of Colonel Green after several moments of static. Even though he was miles away and the link had a constant soft hissing background noise, he sounded as friendly and cordial as he always was.
'Sir,' the lieutenant inhaled and exhaled several times, thinking of what best to say about the discovery. In the end he simply shook his head and said it: 'We are screwed big time sir, we got a mycetic spore here by the looks of it. Contents are missing, I say again contents are missing.'
A long moment of quiet static filled the horn before a reply came. 'Are you sure son? Not just some abnormal growth of local crop? Or a malformed local critter hit by a small meteor on the way down?' It was a mad suggestion, but anything was better than the harsh reality.
'No sir, I could ask the local scout attached to my command for another look-see but I hate to say it sir, this is the real deal. We are so screwed. I hereby put in an immediate request for backup, as much as can be spared. We need to hunt it down as soon as possible.'
'Understood, I'll rustle up support now. I can have Kasrkin at your current position in less then twenty minutes. Mark the place with something bright and keep your eyes open, out.'
'Something bright, understood sir.' The lieutenant switched the vox to squad level and contacted their dedicated transport. 'Sipper? You managed to fix that track yet? Good! Home in on our position now, we need you fast. When here get ready to pop flares.' He didn’t even wait for a reply as he shoved the horn back to the operator, pulling his own pistol from his belt. He turned to his men. 'Load and lock you damned fools, we’re in a combat zone as of right now.'
Without question or doubt they did as they were told, nine lasguns humming into life along with the ignition of the pilot flame of the squad flamer. Only Kerman stood out from the sudden activity, keeping her already charged lasgun under her cloak. She pushed the goggles from her eyes and turned to face the lieutenant. 'Sir, what are we hunting for?'
'A bug corporal, a big bad bug from outer space.'
Corporal Kerman struggled to understand what he was on about or what could provoke such a reaction in the otherwise cool and collected officer she had been working with for some time now. Judging from the way his men reacted to his behaviour it was something foreign to them as well. But the term bug got them to fan out a bit more, keeping an even sharper eye out for their surroundings.
'The less you know the better corporal.' He said when he saw her staring at him, the questions burning in her eyes. The lieutenant wiped his forehead with the cuff of his jacket, checking the load of his bolt pistol. 'All you need to know is that we are on a spook hunt as of now.'
'Spook hunt sir?' Another term that made no sense to her in any way. Bug? Spook? Were they hunting a ghost now? Or a monster? What was it? Damn these Cadians and their damned jargon!
'Yes, an Emperor damned Lictor classed Tyranid is on the loose out there. If we can kill it we might be able to avert a complete disaster and save a whole lot of lives. If not,' he let it linger at that, implying something really bad.
Kerman wanted to ask more, wanted to know what a Lictor was, what a Tyranid was, what the disaster might be, but a roaring Chimera drained out all silence as it closed in from the distant darkness, a worried gunner training the pintle-mount into the darkness as it rolled up. The lieutenant ordered his men to surround the vehicle, forming a loose circle around it.
In the back of the lieutenant's head a tiny voice was shrieking. Actually several voices. But one particular was shrieking the loudest. He knew that the voice was right, even though he was always trained to deny the thought of defeat. Yet somehow, he knew the shrieking voice was right, for once he couldn't deny it: They were all already dead.
"Too late!" the voice shrieked over and over again.
'What's the plan sir,' one of the troopers nervously asked, not daring to look away from the darkness surrounding them. He was, like the others on edge, all thought of the local girls banished. Only Kerman seemed at ease with her night vision goggles, having clambered on top of the crater and making slow circles to sweep the area surrounding them. She hasn’t seen anything yet. Quietly she wondered why the men were all so on edge. Was she simply naïve or were the men overreacting?
'We wait for those reinforcements, they got the kit to see in the dark, scour the area for that thing. Maybe we-' the whisper of the lieutenant was cut off as something roared into the night. It was a surreal roar of the kind unheard of by the squad and their local guide. As one everybody looked into the direction of the sound.
'Please tell that was something local!' One of the troopers, probably Radek hissed up to Kerman.
Kerman was scanning the direction the sound came from, her goggles giving her increased range. She thought she saw something moving through the edge of a distant patch of woods but after a moment it was gone. She studied the spot a moment longer before replying to the trooper. 'No, that was not the cry of a Grey Wolf or Tusked Boar. I thought I saw something just now, moving by the edge of that forest, but it’s gone now. Maybe just the mist.' She immediately caught herself, the mist? What kind of explanation was that? Forecast showed no such thing. No, it wasn't the mist, it was something else.
'No, it's that thing alright.' The lieutenant said with a weary sigh as he turned to the gunner of the Chimera. 'Sipper, contact HQ and tell them we made contact and are going in pursuit. Be ready to pop those flares when those birds are inbound.'
'Get ready men, mount your torches on your weapons and prepare to move out.' He activated his own torch and held his bolt pistol in his other hand. 'Stay close together and stay calm, these things are known for having cloaking abilities. So if you see a large shimmer, call out and open fire. Be sure though when you open up, I don't want us to jump at every shadow.'
Kerman slid down the crater and took point of the reluctant squad, even the lieutenant was reluctant to take up point with her. 'This is going to be really dangerous.' He whispered to her, careful as to not let the rest hear him. 'We must kill it at all cost, we simply must. No matter the personal cost, for the sake of this world, it has to die, even if it means we all die in the process of doing so.'
It was a confusing thing to hear, but Kerman nodded and headed off towards the edge of the woods. As they neared it Kerman slowly looked round, the green glow of her goggles showing nothing but a quiet forest at peace. She alternated her view between the ground and the area ahead of her, carefully to look for tracks of any sort left behind by the thing.
'What is that smell?' One of the men hissed, covering his face with a hand in an attempt to keep the smell away. The squad approached a slain animal lying against a tree, a recent kill. It's belly torn open, the guts sprawled across the ground. Kerman prodded the shape of the dead boar. It was a big one, a challenge to some around here when hunted the old fashioned way. It was a recent kill, the bowels from the torn open torso still glistened. Kerman was about to comment on this when something whipped past her head making the lieutenant cry out in pain, someone else giving a shriek that abruptly ended in a wet gurgle. The others let out shouts and cries of their own, someone fired a weapon, the harsh crack of a lasgun echoing across the night. Heavy "swish" and "whoosh" sounds were heard as the men were silenced one by one. It ended with a bang and a bright light. Kerman threw herself clear as pitiful screams filled the night as the dying cried for the Emperor, their mothers or mercy. As she scrambled to her feet she saw what was left of the squad was a scene from the slaughterhouse, limbs and bloodied bodies lay strewn around. She saw Radek give a final whimper before expiring, his lower body missing and his intestines thrown about. Three men were ablaze, the fuel from the flamer turning them into small pyres. Instinct taking over Kerman kept low and below her cloak, her goggles torn from her head the moment she saw the painfully bright images of the fires. She noticed the lieutenant on the ground, his left arm ending in a blooded stump, his severed limb still holding the torch lying not far from him. The rest of the squad lay dead, cut and hacked apart by the unseen predator.
'Kerman, thank the Emperor you're still in one piece. You need to reach the Chimera while you still can, get Sipper to order command to do something about, about this all! Oh Emperor forgive me.' He seemed less coherent with every passing moment as he spoke, confusion apparent in his voice as shock started to set in. She tore a strap from his buckled armour and tied it around the mess that was his left arm, making sure that the wound was clamped down. She then helped him to his feet, half dragging, half carrying him back to the Chimera. They would be safe there, that armoured vehicle was their best bet as of right now.
In the distance something exploded, followed by the pop of dozens of smaller explosions. 'Oh Emperor no,' the lieutenant whimpered, going into complete shock from his wound. 'That b*****d got the Chimera, we are doomed now. No way of getting out now. Might as well lie down here and-' Kerman clamped her hand over his mouth and pulled the cloak over them both as she dragged him into a hole by the roots of the tree where the slain boar lay. She hoped that the cloak would be enough to hide them from the beast.
'Be quiet, please.' She whispered, not daring to remove her hand lest he completely lost his marbles and starting rambling even more. She felt moisture on her hand, the man was probably crying by now. She felt her own teeth chatter as they waited. Somehow she could sense that it was out there, searching for them. She tried to imagine the beast, the monster she never did see, it was probably sniffing the air right now, looking for their trace. She strained her ears, trying hard to hear something over the panicked breathing of the lieutenant and the crisp and pop of the fires. It was probably close now. She bit down and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. The lieutenant had thankfully passed out, his body limp and his eyes closed.
The dead boar shifted and a sickening noise of flesh parting could be heard. It was right on top of them by now! Kerman tried to stay calm but a wave of desperate paranoia seemed to be overtaking her, her hand moving to the grip of her lasgun on its own, gripping it tightly. Tears ran down her own cheeks as she tasted blood in her mouth, having bitten her own cheeks to stop her teeth from chattering.
A new shrieking sound was hear in the distance, making Kerman shake. More of those monsters? Oh Imperator help us! Oh Emperor..
The high pitched scream of laser weapons tore through her fears, followed by tersely barked commands over a vox-enhanced speaker. The creature screamed from close by and stomped off. The lasers screamed after it, as from the sound of it a dozen large men stomped past the tree, their heavy footfalls thundering through the undergrowth.
Kerman didn't dare to do anything at first, fear locked her in place. But after several moments she carefully peeked from under the roots and saw several heavily armoured troopers scouring the clearing. She had heard of these men before, the lieutenant and the other Cadians spoke highly of them, these Kasrkin? They were the Cadian elite and considered the final answer to just about any problem the Imperium might face. The moment she exposed her face three bright beams of light flashed into her face, blinding her. She covered her face with her free hand. Someone bellowed with a vox amplified voice that she was to identify herself.
She screamed her name and rank in terror, throwing her hands up in the air, the cloak falling away to reveal the wounded lieutenant. 'I'm with him, I'm a local scout. Please help him, he needs help now!'
The lights did not go away, instead two men stepped forward, roughly pulled Kerman aside and dragged the lieutenant from the hole. He was carried in between two Kasrkin who took him off into the darkness. After a moment the remaining Kasrkin stepped away and disengaged their lights, allowing an armoured officer to step forward, his helmet and breather replaced by a field cap and headset plugged into a bulky backpack. He politely nodded to Kerman and stuck out his hand to her, helping her up from the ground.
'Bit too close for comfort eh? Sorry for the scare, can't be too sure with these bugs. I'm captain Pickman, pleased to meet you. And sorry for the rough treatment but hunting something like that has some of the lads a little high strung. Come, let’s get you out of here as well.' He set off at a leisurely pace, Kerman numbly following in his wake, her mind racing to catch up with what just happened. In Pickman's hands was an auspex, a device she had heard about in her training, making it possible to see enemies normally not seen. He was speaking again, seemingly half to himself as he fidgeted with the device. 'You two were very lucky, very lucky indeed. That dead animal near the tree probably masked your scent, paired with your fancy cloak you can praise the Emperor you got away alive. It's a miracle that the beast didn't smell all that blood.' He indicated a bloody trail and the blood on Kerman's uniform.
'Did you get it?' That felt more important to her right now. Was that thing dead or did it get away?
'Oh we got it. Bugger tried to make a run for it, made us work for once, but we got it. Blown to messy little pieces by precision laser fire, but we have the chunks to show for it.' He fidgeted with his auspex for a moment more, banging his fist against the side of the device. He muttered something under his breath, waving the device around rapidly as if it were wet. 'Damn this piece of Martian crap, top of the line my arse.'
A shudder went through Kerman as she remembered what the lieutenant told her before the ambush: a complete disaster. The idea of that made her shiver, pulling her cloak tightly around her frame. 'What happens now? Are we safe from the beasts?'
'Now? Safe? I..' Pickman sighed and looked up at the starry sky for a moment. 'Now we send out a general distress, call for help, dig in and beg for deliverance. The Beast is coming most likely, it knows we are here now, it will come to us. All we can hope for is that it will not be in our own lifetimes. This was just the beginning girl, the nightmare is about to begin. One you cannot hope to imagine as the sky fills with millions of those pods, each filled with merciless soulless monsters bent on killing us all.' He looked up from his auspex with a sincere look of pity. 'In short, we are doomed unless a miracle happens sometime soon.'
That wasn’t a comforting thought, not at all. It all seemed too much, too overwhelming. There were more of them out there? Enough to attack entire planets at once? Pickman led her back to the burning Chimera, several aircraft were hovering around it, their searchlights scanning the area beyond.
'Best get on the Valkyrie Judie, get you back to the city. Command would like to hear your account of this all.' Pickman stuck his fist in the air and waved it to the forest, several of the aircraft broke off and went that direction. Numbed Kerman let herself be guided to one of the waiting Valkyries, the still unconscious lieutenant strapped into a stretcher on one wall, a medic doing his best to keep him stabile and alive. Outside she could see several Kasrkin armed with flamers march into the dark forest, probably off to burn the remains of the beast. She also saw two medics and several orderlies pull on long white gloves and white smocks over their uniforms, a stack of green bags nearby, probably ready to begin the gruesome task of body retrieval.
The engines screamed into life and the rear ramp slammed close, shutting Kerman in from the outside world. The medic shuffled over to her and ran a damp cloth along the side of her face, wiping off the lieutenant's blood.
'Don't worry about the LT, he's just asleep. I'm just going to give you a cursory check up, to see if you are okay.'
She nodded but ignored the gentle wiping and rubbing of the medic, feeling for the first time in her adult life that she was fearing something she did not know what it looked like.
She was doomed..
'Something fell from the skies, we just don't know what as of yet.' It came from one of the locals assigned to the regiment, a corporal by the name of Judith Kerman, a local scout seconded by the PDF to help the off-world forces get along more with the locals. From the sound of her voice she was sure of the unidentified object and that the suggestion that it was bogus nothing short of insulting.
'Sure thing darling, something fell from the skies. You bumpkins take everything way too serious.' Radek's tone was a mocking attempt at emulating the local accent and though botched in execution it drew chuckles from the others who shared Radek's sentiment. Just as it seemed as if the corporal was rising to take the bait she decided against it, instead scanning the ridgeline ahead through her night vision goggles.
Whereas the Cadians wore their regular khaki uniforms with green armour along with a minimum of packing and equipment, Kerman wore a long cameleoline cloak over a simple shirt and brown fatigues along with worn toughened boots that made no sound wherever she walked, making the cautious Cadians sound like cumbersome oafs in comparison. Pulled over her eyes was an advanced set of night vision goggles shipped in from some other system far away, a faint green glow emanating from the two lenses. This gave her an edge over the Cadians, who had to rely on their own eyes for seeing in the dark.
'Anything corporal?'
Lieutenant Black slowly stepped in line with her, his sword and pistol at his belt, a pair of binoculars in his hands. It was a futile gesture, but he wanted to be of use anyway, scanning the darkness ahead for anything. He was a good man, Kerman concluded not long ago. He was a career man who did not go over bodies and a competent leader who was not desperate to climb the career ladder two rungs at a time, using his own men as stepping stones. She liked him for that, probably also because he valued her skills as a competent scout, not just as a negotiator between him and the local populace. His men respected him immensely for some reason, maybe he earned it in past campaigns. Though a young man he already wore the scars of war with pride. He was close to earning her personal respect, he was a competent and capable soldier, plus an overall nice guy who did not use his rank as much as a barrier to hide behind as other officers from his regiment.
After a while Kerman saw something in the eerie green distance and punched her fist up in the air, ordering a halt. One by the one the Cadians in tow halted. 'What is it?' whispered the lieutenant at her ear. She pointed to a pockmark in the field not far from them. Something heavy had hit home there. He raised the binoculars to his eyes but couldn’t see a thing, making Kerman realize that her night vision goggles allowed her to see that further ahead. She decided against taking the goggles off and handing them to them lieutenant, some things were too valuable to lend to others, no matter how capable they might seem. Instead she tried describing it.
'About eighty meters ahead I can see an unnatural rise in the field. Looks like a crater. I'll crawl ahead and check it out. If all is clear I'll shine a torch, good with you sir?'
Another thing she liked about the lieutenant: He was open to suggestion and didn't see it as an attack on his authority. He listened to the people and was not afraid of letting others do it. He agreed and ordered his men to stay low. Kerman took a torch from the lieutenant and slithered forward slowly, knowing that her cloak was even now doing its best to keep her concealed as much as possible. Several things crossed her mind, foremost being what could be in that hole? A rock? A meteorite of sorts? Or maybe something metallic? A satellite maybe? Or a probe from ages gone by? She had heard about how sometimes lost probes crashed on planets already inhabited by mankind. Some of those probes were claimed to contain vast riches in form of archeotech, even a small bit of it was worth a fortune. She suppressed a smile at the thought that it could bring her fame and fortune, maybe a few front page picts to the local papers. A nice big stack of cash slips would be a nice added bonus to her meagre pay as scout.
On the other hand, it could be something hostile. An alien probe with a scout in it. She had heard from the Cadians that a race of aliens called the Tau were making aggressive attempts at colonizing human worlds and that her own world possibly was in their sphere of interest. What would those Tau look like she wondered? Lieutenant Black certainly didn't know. Just to be sure she flicked her thumb across the safety, waiting a moment to muffle the soft whine of her charging lasgun with her body.
One thing that struck her as odd when she closed in the final stretch was the smell, or rather stench. It was as if something was rotting, she wasn't sure what, but something was rotting. Maybe dead cattle was nearby? Or was it the dead inhabitant of the crashed object? With a slow and muted sigh she waited at the edge of the crater for a moment before moving on. Slowly she slithered onto the lip of the crater, glancing from side to side before finishing her crawl up. She peered down and saw what was producing the grotesque smell: a large deflated sac of sorts made from what looked like an organic material. It was blackened and charred as if exposed to extreme heat for some time and looked as if it had burst open upon impact with the ground. Kerman carefully prodded it with the barrel of her lasgun several times, not sure what to make of it. 'Hm, squishy' was her scientific evaluation. She looked round the crater and saw nothing threatening, so she flashed the torch several times before turning her attention back to the thing at the bottom of the crater.
Could it be that something had been in it? But what could be in such a thing? In a strange way it reminded her of a placenta she had seen after her sister gave birth a few years ago. If so, one hell of a big baby had to be in that thing. She twisted her head and looked at it in a different angle, now it reminded her of a seed pod from a flower or plant. Big plant she mused to herself.
She didn’t even notice that the rest of the squad had moved up to her, standing at the foot of the small crater, not daring to clamber up. The lieutenant looked up at her with concern, the binoculars still grasped in white knuckled hands. Kerman simply shrugged and beckoned the lieutenant up to join her. 'Sir, I got something here. Not sure what it is, maybe your off-world knowledge can be of use.'
While a military man to his core, Kerman did gleam from being around the lieutenant that he took quiet pride in the fact that he was also an educated man, he had been to an actual academy other than a military one for some time. So if someone knew something about the galaxy outside of her own little world or that of the common Cadian, it would be him. The lieutenant clambered onto the lip of the crater and looked down with his torch lit, blinking several times, his mouth dropping open and almost doing a comical double take. He clamped his mouth shut, shook his head and seemingly lost it all. 'No. No. No! Oh gak. Oh frag. Oh gak. Frag! gak! Frag!' The rest of the squad looked up in surprise at their lieutenant as he repeated the same two expletives over and over again, shaking an angry fist at the stinking pod of mucus and what seemed to be charred flesh. Kerman wondered if the discovery was something significant, maybe meaning a great deal to an educated man such as the lieutenant? After a moment however he stomped down and over to the squad vox operator, angrily yanking the horn from the device, dialling in to the main network and central command back in the city, whispering a coded message into the receiver.
'Go ahead lieutenant,' crackled the voice of Colonel Green after several moments of static. Even though he was miles away and the link had a constant soft hissing background noise, he sounded as friendly and cordial as he always was.
'Sir,' the lieutenant inhaled and exhaled several times, thinking of what best to say about the discovery. In the end he simply shook his head and said it: 'We are screwed big time sir, we got a mycetic spore here by the looks of it. Contents are missing, I say again contents are missing.'
A long moment of quiet static filled the horn before a reply came. 'Are you sure son? Not just some abnormal growth of local crop? Or a malformed local critter hit by a small meteor on the way down?' It was a mad suggestion, but anything was better than the harsh reality.
'No sir, I could ask the local scout attached to my command for another look-see but I hate to say it sir, this is the real deal. We are so screwed. I hereby put in an immediate request for backup, as much as can be spared. We need to hunt it down as soon as possible.'
'Understood, I'll rustle up support now. I can have Kasrkin at your current position in less then twenty minutes. Mark the place with something bright and keep your eyes open, out.'
'Something bright, understood sir.' The lieutenant switched the vox to squad level and contacted their dedicated transport. 'Sipper? You managed to fix that track yet? Good! Home in on our position now, we need you fast. When here get ready to pop flares.' He didn’t even wait for a reply as he shoved the horn back to the operator, pulling his own pistol from his belt. He turned to his men. 'Load and lock you damned fools, we’re in a combat zone as of right now.'
Without question or doubt they did as they were told, nine lasguns humming into life along with the ignition of the pilot flame of the squad flamer. Only Kerman stood out from the sudden activity, keeping her already charged lasgun under her cloak. She pushed the goggles from her eyes and turned to face the lieutenant. 'Sir, what are we hunting for?'
'A bug corporal, a big bad bug from outer space.'
Corporal Kerman struggled to understand what he was on about or what could provoke such a reaction in the otherwise cool and collected officer she had been working with for some time now. Judging from the way his men reacted to his behaviour it was something foreign to them as well. But the term bug got them to fan out a bit more, keeping an even sharper eye out for their surroundings.
'The less you know the better corporal.' He said when he saw her staring at him, the questions burning in her eyes. The lieutenant wiped his forehead with the cuff of his jacket, checking the load of his bolt pistol. 'All you need to know is that we are on a spook hunt as of now.'
'Spook hunt sir?' Another term that made no sense to her in any way. Bug? Spook? Were they hunting a ghost now? Or a monster? What was it? Damn these Cadians and their damned jargon!
'Yes, an Emperor damned Lictor classed Tyranid is on the loose out there. If we can kill it we might be able to avert a complete disaster and save a whole lot of lives. If not,' he let it linger at that, implying something really bad.
Kerman wanted to ask more, wanted to know what a Lictor was, what a Tyranid was, what the disaster might be, but a roaring Chimera drained out all silence as it closed in from the distant darkness, a worried gunner training the pintle-mount into the darkness as it rolled up. The lieutenant ordered his men to surround the vehicle, forming a loose circle around it.
In the back of the lieutenant's head a tiny voice was shrieking. Actually several voices. But one particular was shrieking the loudest. He knew that the voice was right, even though he was always trained to deny the thought of defeat. Yet somehow, he knew the shrieking voice was right, for once he couldn't deny it: They were all already dead.
"Too late!" the voice shrieked over and over again.
'What's the plan sir,' one of the troopers nervously asked, not daring to look away from the darkness surrounding them. He was, like the others on edge, all thought of the local girls banished. Only Kerman seemed at ease with her night vision goggles, having clambered on top of the crater and making slow circles to sweep the area surrounding them. She hasn’t seen anything yet. Quietly she wondered why the men were all so on edge. Was she simply naïve or were the men overreacting?
'We wait for those reinforcements, they got the kit to see in the dark, scour the area for that thing. Maybe we-' the whisper of the lieutenant was cut off as something roared into the night. It was a surreal roar of the kind unheard of by the squad and their local guide. As one everybody looked into the direction of the sound.
'Please tell that was something local!' One of the troopers, probably Radek hissed up to Kerman.
Kerman was scanning the direction the sound came from, her goggles giving her increased range. She thought she saw something moving through the edge of a distant patch of woods but after a moment it was gone. She studied the spot a moment longer before replying to the trooper. 'No, that was not the cry of a Grey Wolf or Tusked Boar. I thought I saw something just now, moving by the edge of that forest, but it’s gone now. Maybe just the mist.' She immediately caught herself, the mist? What kind of explanation was that? Forecast showed no such thing. No, it wasn't the mist, it was something else.
'No, it's that thing alright.' The lieutenant said with a weary sigh as he turned to the gunner of the Chimera. 'Sipper, contact HQ and tell them we made contact and are going in pursuit. Be ready to pop those flares when those birds are inbound.'
'Get ready men, mount your torches on your weapons and prepare to move out.' He activated his own torch and held his bolt pistol in his other hand. 'Stay close together and stay calm, these things are known for having cloaking abilities. So if you see a large shimmer, call out and open fire. Be sure though when you open up, I don't want us to jump at every shadow.'
Kerman slid down the crater and took point of the reluctant squad, even the lieutenant was reluctant to take up point with her. 'This is going to be really dangerous.' He whispered to her, careful as to not let the rest hear him. 'We must kill it at all cost, we simply must. No matter the personal cost, for the sake of this world, it has to die, even if it means we all die in the process of doing so.'
It was a confusing thing to hear, but Kerman nodded and headed off towards the edge of the woods. As they neared it Kerman slowly looked round, the green glow of her goggles showing nothing but a quiet forest at peace. She alternated her view between the ground and the area ahead of her, carefully to look for tracks of any sort left behind by the thing.
'What is that smell?' One of the men hissed, covering his face with a hand in an attempt to keep the smell away. The squad approached a slain animal lying against a tree, a recent kill. It's belly torn open, the guts sprawled across the ground. Kerman prodded the shape of the dead boar. It was a big one, a challenge to some around here when hunted the old fashioned way. It was a recent kill, the bowels from the torn open torso still glistened. Kerman was about to comment on this when something whipped past her head making the lieutenant cry out in pain, someone else giving a shriek that abruptly ended in a wet gurgle. The others let out shouts and cries of their own, someone fired a weapon, the harsh crack of a lasgun echoing across the night. Heavy "swish" and "whoosh" sounds were heard as the men were silenced one by one. It ended with a bang and a bright light. Kerman threw herself clear as pitiful screams filled the night as the dying cried for the Emperor, their mothers or mercy. As she scrambled to her feet she saw what was left of the squad was a scene from the slaughterhouse, limbs and bloodied bodies lay strewn around. She saw Radek give a final whimper before expiring, his lower body missing and his intestines thrown about. Three men were ablaze, the fuel from the flamer turning them into small pyres. Instinct taking over Kerman kept low and below her cloak, her goggles torn from her head the moment she saw the painfully bright images of the fires. She noticed the lieutenant on the ground, his left arm ending in a blooded stump, his severed limb still holding the torch lying not far from him. The rest of the squad lay dead, cut and hacked apart by the unseen predator.
'Kerman, thank the Emperor you're still in one piece. You need to reach the Chimera while you still can, get Sipper to order command to do something about, about this all! Oh Emperor forgive me.' He seemed less coherent with every passing moment as he spoke, confusion apparent in his voice as shock started to set in. She tore a strap from his buckled armour and tied it around the mess that was his left arm, making sure that the wound was clamped down. She then helped him to his feet, half dragging, half carrying him back to the Chimera. They would be safe there, that armoured vehicle was their best bet as of right now.
In the distance something exploded, followed by the pop of dozens of smaller explosions. 'Oh Emperor no,' the lieutenant whimpered, going into complete shock from his wound. 'That b*****d got the Chimera, we are doomed now. No way of getting out now. Might as well lie down here and-' Kerman clamped her hand over his mouth and pulled the cloak over them both as she dragged him into a hole by the roots of the tree where the slain boar lay. She hoped that the cloak would be enough to hide them from the beast.
'Be quiet, please.' She whispered, not daring to remove her hand lest he completely lost his marbles and starting rambling even more. She felt moisture on her hand, the man was probably crying by now. She felt her own teeth chatter as they waited. Somehow she could sense that it was out there, searching for them. She tried to imagine the beast, the monster she never did see, it was probably sniffing the air right now, looking for their trace. She strained her ears, trying hard to hear something over the panicked breathing of the lieutenant and the crisp and pop of the fires. It was probably close now. She bit down and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. The lieutenant had thankfully passed out, his body limp and his eyes closed.
The dead boar shifted and a sickening noise of flesh parting could be heard. It was right on top of them by now! Kerman tried to stay calm but a wave of desperate paranoia seemed to be overtaking her, her hand moving to the grip of her lasgun on its own, gripping it tightly. Tears ran down her own cheeks as she tasted blood in her mouth, having bitten her own cheeks to stop her teeth from chattering.
A new shrieking sound was hear in the distance, making Kerman shake. More of those monsters? Oh Imperator help us! Oh Emperor..
The high pitched scream of laser weapons tore through her fears, followed by tersely barked commands over a vox-enhanced speaker. The creature screamed from close by and stomped off. The lasers screamed after it, as from the sound of it a dozen large men stomped past the tree, their heavy footfalls thundering through the undergrowth.
Kerman didn't dare to do anything at first, fear locked her in place. But after several moments she carefully peeked from under the roots and saw several heavily armoured troopers scouring the clearing. She had heard of these men before, the lieutenant and the other Cadians spoke highly of them, these Kasrkin? They were the Cadian elite and considered the final answer to just about any problem the Imperium might face. The moment she exposed her face three bright beams of light flashed into her face, blinding her. She covered her face with her free hand. Someone bellowed with a vox amplified voice that she was to identify herself.
She screamed her name and rank in terror, throwing her hands up in the air, the cloak falling away to reveal the wounded lieutenant. 'I'm with him, I'm a local scout. Please help him, he needs help now!'
The lights did not go away, instead two men stepped forward, roughly pulled Kerman aside and dragged the lieutenant from the hole. He was carried in between two Kasrkin who took him off into the darkness. After a moment the remaining Kasrkin stepped away and disengaged their lights, allowing an armoured officer to step forward, his helmet and breather replaced by a field cap and headset plugged into a bulky backpack. He politely nodded to Kerman and stuck out his hand to her, helping her up from the ground.
'Bit too close for comfort eh? Sorry for the scare, can't be too sure with these bugs. I'm captain Pickman, pleased to meet you. And sorry for the rough treatment but hunting something like that has some of the lads a little high strung. Come, let’s get you out of here as well.' He set off at a leisurely pace, Kerman numbly following in his wake, her mind racing to catch up with what just happened. In Pickman's hands was an auspex, a device she had heard about in her training, making it possible to see enemies normally not seen. He was speaking again, seemingly half to himself as he fidgeted with the device. 'You two were very lucky, very lucky indeed. That dead animal near the tree probably masked your scent, paired with your fancy cloak you can praise the Emperor you got away alive. It's a miracle that the beast didn't smell all that blood.' He indicated a bloody trail and the blood on Kerman's uniform.
'Did you get it?' That felt more important to her right now. Was that thing dead or did it get away?
'Oh we got it. Bugger tried to make a run for it, made us work for once, but we got it. Blown to messy little pieces by precision laser fire, but we have the chunks to show for it.' He fidgeted with his auspex for a moment more, banging his fist against the side of the device. He muttered something under his breath, waving the device around rapidly as if it were wet. 'Damn this piece of Martian crap, top of the line my arse.'
A shudder went through Kerman as she remembered what the lieutenant told her before the ambush: a complete disaster. The idea of that made her shiver, pulling her cloak tightly around her frame. 'What happens now? Are we safe from the beasts?'
'Now? Safe? I..' Pickman sighed and looked up at the starry sky for a moment. 'Now we send out a general distress, call for help, dig in and beg for deliverance. The Beast is coming most likely, it knows we are here now, it will come to us. All we can hope for is that it will not be in our own lifetimes. This was just the beginning girl, the nightmare is about to begin. One you cannot hope to imagine as the sky fills with millions of those pods, each filled with merciless soulless monsters bent on killing us all.' He looked up from his auspex with a sincere look of pity. 'In short, we are doomed unless a miracle happens sometime soon.'
That wasn’t a comforting thought, not at all. It all seemed too much, too overwhelming. There were more of them out there? Enough to attack entire planets at once? Pickman led her back to the burning Chimera, several aircraft were hovering around it, their searchlights scanning the area beyond.
'Best get on the Valkyrie Judie, get you back to the city. Command would like to hear your account of this all.' Pickman stuck his fist in the air and waved it to the forest, several of the aircraft broke off and went that direction. Numbed Kerman let herself be guided to one of the waiting Valkyries, the still unconscious lieutenant strapped into a stretcher on one wall, a medic doing his best to keep him stabile and alive. Outside she could see several Kasrkin armed with flamers march into the dark forest, probably off to burn the remains of the beast. She also saw two medics and several orderlies pull on long white gloves and white smocks over their uniforms, a stack of green bags nearby, probably ready to begin the gruesome task of body retrieval.
The engines screamed into life and the rear ramp slammed close, shutting Kerman in from the outside world. The medic shuffled over to her and ran a damp cloth along the side of her face, wiping off the lieutenant's blood.
'Don't worry about the LT, he's just asleep. I'm just going to give you a cursory check up, to see if you are okay.'
She nodded but ignored the gentle wiping and rubbing of the medic, feeling for the first time in her adult life that she was fearing something she did not know what it looked like.
She was doomed..
