Easy Prey

[Spaced Hulk]

"Once I led warriors into battle, heroes of the Imperium one and all. The greatest soldiers our race could produce, to face the foulest terrors that lurk amongst the stars.

Now I herd monsters to the slaughter, abominations for whom a swift death would be the greatest mercy we could provide.

Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

- Attributed to Lucas Deth, so-called 'Warden of the Damned', former captain of the 23rd Assault Battalion, XIX Legion Astartes. Current commander of the Reborn Third Company, known within the Legion as 'The Black Guards'.

Easy Prey

Like a wraith in the darkness, Lucas Deth crept through the twisting warren of the Varn Orbital Manufactorum. Unseen and unheard, his ebon plate merged with the shadows as he effortlessly avoided servitor production teams and mortal work crews alike. As with the majority of Nineteenth Legion survivors, the newly promoted commander of the Black Guards possessed no supernatural ability to hide his presence. Indeed, very few of the fabled Mor Deython, inheritors of the Raven Lord's most unique gift, had returned from the killing fields of Istvaan. Instead, the warrior relied solely on skills honed during his youth in the mines of Lycaeus, utilising stealth and his surroundings to remain undiscovered. Residual heat from the foundries served to mask his thermal signature, whilst the constant roar of machinery drowned out the distinctive hum of his power armour. Once the Raven Guard had practised such tactics as a preference, now they were simply a necessity.

The Varn Orbital was a Grade IV production facility, independent but affiliated to the distant Forge World of Ryza. For nearly a hundred years, the artificial moon had provided arms and munitions for the armies of the Great Crusade, supporting their advance into the galactic North East. Now, those same factories were supplying the rebel armies of the Warmaster, fuelling his inexorable campaign back towards Terra. The Primarch of the Nineteenth had decreed that this supply must be terminated, and so the Black Guards had been tasked with returning the Orbital to the Emperor's light, by any means necessary. Unfortunately, even Corax himself would have to admit that it was far from an ideal mission for his Legion's most unconventional company. However, with their forces so sorely depleted, the Raven Lord had to utilise whatever assets were still available. And so Deth and his command squad had infiltrated the station, initiating a plan to remove the rebel's influence here once and for all.

An entire month of reconnaissance, observation and sabotage had led them to this moment. With the rest of his team dispersed throughout the factory complex, Deth made his way back towards their original insertion point. His designated ambush site was a simple access corridor, a long, twisting passageway that ran the entire length of the station's cavernous flight deck. Like much of the facility, the walls here were open and unfinished, a tangled web of thick pipes and exposed cabling that could easily hide even his heavily armoured form. The corridor itself saw little traffic, but as it connected all the primary loading bays, it would form an obvious escape route for anyone fleeing the hangers and freight terminal. Satisfied with the location, Deth mag-locked his power gloves to his torso, freeing his hands from the cumbersome weapons. As he swiftly made his preparations, he kept a close eye on his chronometer. Timing was critical now, and with the squad maintaining a strict vox-silence, he had to trust that the rest of his forces were in their assigned positions.

With his work complete, the Black Guard reattached his weapon gauntlets and slipped into the shadows once more, concealing himself amongst the pipes and machinery of the passage walls.

He would not have long to wait.

***

Veteran Sergeant Tomas Gorr, of the XIV Legion Astartes, prowled impatiently through the primary loading docks. Like a caged beast, he watched with growing irritation as the servitor teams ferried arms and ammunition into the waiting cargo haulers. Inactivity was the main cause of his worsening humours. Gorr was Astartes, but more than that he was Death Guard, a warrior bred solely for constant, unrelenting combat. He would never admit it, either to the men under his command or to his superiors, but he resented the nature of his mission here. Varn was an essential link in the Fourteenth Legion's supply chain, and following the Istvaan Campaign, Gorr and his squad had been dispatched to safeguard the facility. With civil war raging throughout the galaxy, such duties were now a necessity even for Mortarion's forces, but the sergeant still could not banish the thought that this assignment was a slight, or worse, a chastisement.

However, it was the Manufactorum's sheer inefficiency which was currently testing the sergeant's already limited patience. In the last month, the facility had been beset by technical problems of every kind, from catastrophic machine failures to unexplained data crashes. Production had dwindled to a mere trickle, and with the Legion's urgent need for a continuous supply of fresh war material, his commanders were now demanding that the situation improve, and swiftly. And so Sergeant Gorr and his men had begun to display a more obvious presence aboard the station, in the hope that trans-human dread could accomplish what the Tech-Overseers apparently could not.

As his patrol reached the South Terminal, Gorr suddenly became more alert, his customary irritation replaced with a strange sense of unease. There was no obvious reason for this suspicion, but a century of warfare, combined with a childhood spent amongst the grim hills and valleys of Barbarus, had led Gorr to trust his own instincts and intuition. With one gauntleted hand resting on his shouldered power maul, the Death Guard turned and slowly scanned the nearest loading bays.

At first, nothing appeared amiss. Like the rest of the flight deck, the scene here was one of constant, almost chaotic activity. Despite the apparent lack of order, Gorr knew that the work teams were operating under standard Mechanicum protocols, like a colony of insects where each individual knew their place and exactly what was expected of them. Cargo shuttles and light haulers were docked in every bay, each one surrounded by the same frenetic horde of servitors and bionically enhanced labourers.

All but one.

An unassuming, black hulled cargo shuttle sat still and silent in docking bay Ninety Four. Whilst every other craft in the hanger was a veritable hive of activity, this ship alone was untended, a strange oasis of calm amidst a sea of chaos. Even the shuttle's loading ramp was raised and closed, sealing the vessel off from the rest of the flight deck.

It was possible, the sergeant mused, that this particular shuttle was already fully loaded and was waiting to lift off. However, every ship that visited the facility had very specific instructions, to depart the moment that loading was complete, returning to the orbiting fleet of mass cargo carriers and allowing an empty shuttle to take it's place. In contrast, this particular vessel was seemingly inactive, giving no indication that it was preparing to either load or depart.

He was just about to vox an inquiry to the harbour master when the black ship's cargo ramp began to slowly lower, striking the deck of the loading bay with a dull, metallic clang.

Veteran Sergeant Gorr had spent a life time fighting the worst horrors the galaxy could throw at him, from massive, war bloated Ork Warlords to cybernetic Jorgall. At Istvaan, he had willingly committed fratricide against his own brothers, and assisted in the extermination of entire Legions of Astartes on the plains of black sand. There was nothing, he honestly believed, that could still cause him either surprise or shock.

Nevertheless, as the silent ship's cargo ramp lowered and the air was suddenly filled with unnatural howls and screams, unlike anything he had ever heard before, the Death Guard's blood ran as cold as the void itself.

***

First there was gun fire. Then, soon after, came the screaming.

Deth ignored the first wave that ran past his hiding place. Mortal labourers, breathless in their panic, fleeing the flight decks exactly as predicted. Easy targets certainly, but such traitorous vermin were not his objective.

Armed Skitari were next, the Mechanicum's slave soldiers following their retreating Tech Priest Overseers. Many of the bionically modified warriors bore terrible wounds, great gouges torn through flesh and steel alike, but even so there was no sense of fear or alarm. Their programming and neural control routines installed an unassailable sense of discipline, despite the monstrous adversaries unleashed against them.

Once again, Deth allowed them to pass, confident that his brothers would be able to deal with the escaping Mechanicum forces amongst the factories and workshops.

No, he was waiting for far more dangerous prey.

Another two minutes had passed before his chosen targets finally appeared. A demi-squad of Astartes: five fully armoured Space Marines, all clad in the white and steel of the Fourteenth Legion. The Death Guard fell back in good order, maintaining their squad coherency as they advanced down the access corridor towards him. Deth watched as the last two traitors turned to cover their retreat, firing on full auto against a still unseen opponent. A terrible howl, clearly audible despite the deafening roar of the boltguns, echoed briefly along the passageway before suddenly cutting out.

Deth waited until the last of the enemy squad had passed his position, then triggered the detonator built into the palm of his left power glove.

The melta charges and krak grenades he'd secreted in the walls and floor of the corridor ignited in unison, engulfing the Death Guard in a storm of pyrotechnic fury. In such an enclosed space, the intensity of the explosion was magnified considerably, tearing through the traitor ranks despite their heavy Mark III power armour. A blast wave of fire and shrapnel tore through the passageway, shredding the coolant feeds that lined the walls and adding great plumes of steam to the smoke. In less than a second, visibility in the corridor had become almost non existent.

Even before the blast had subsided, Deth was moving, activating his artificer helm's prey sight and extending the blades of his lighting claw as he strode purposefully forward.

The first two Death Guards he encountered were lying prone on the shattered ferrocrete, their armour crumpled like paper by the sheer concussive force of the explosion. As he stepped over their ruined, still twitching forms, another Space Marine emerged from the smoke, both arms burned away at the elbows by a melta blast. With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, the Black Guard decapitated the traitor, standing aside as the smouldering, head less corpse collapsed on top of his comrades.

A bolt pistol round thudded into Deth's chest as the silhouettes of another two heavily armoured figures appeared right in front of him. The range was too close for the mass reactive to detonate, but the force of the impact alone splintered the ceramite and pushed him back a step. As the first traitor adjusted his aim, looking for a clear head shot, the Black Guard lunged forwards with incredible speed, punching out with his left arm and activating the gauntlet's power field at the same time. His fist slammed into the warrior's chest plate like a thunderbolt, literally folding the traitor in two and sending him flying backwards, the mangled remains vanishing once more into the smoke filled corridor.

As fast as he was, the last Death Guard was faster. A brutal, two handed power mace, flaring with blue-white energy, smashed into Deth's left pauldron, pulverising the bones in his arm and throwing him bodily against the wall. As he tried to rise, the traitor kicked him viciously in the chest, putting him flat on his back on the burning floor.

“Time to die, little raven.” Tomas Gorr hissed through his vox grill, raising the power maul for the killing blow.

Suddenly a hideous screeching filled the air as a monstrous shape crashed into the traitor. With his vision blurred, Deth could barely see the Death Guard or his assailant, but before they disappeared completely into the smoke he could just make out sickly, pale white flesh and long sinuous limbs entwined around the enemy Space Marine in a deadly embrace.

Ignoring the pain lancing through his shoulder, the Black Guard climbed unsteadily back to his feet. As his armour dispensed pain suppressants into his blood stream, he realised that the screeching had stopped and, save for the crackling flames, the entire passageway had fallen eerily silent. Checking that his lightning claw was still functional, Deth advanced cautiously into the smoke.

He found the Death Guard slumped against the wall of the corridor, the massive power maul hanging limply from his left hand. The warrior's right hand was completely missing, sheered away cleanly at his forearm, and a pair of deep puncture wounds were clearly evident on his throat. Despite his Astartes metabolism, blood was running freely from the traitor's injuries, painting the white ceramite of his armour a rich, arterial red. The wounds must be envenomed, Deth realised, for the Space Marine's Larraman organ to be suppressed so effectively. More than any other member of the Nineteenth Legion, the commander of the Black Guards prided himself on knowing the abilities of his charges. Even so, they still retained the ability to surprise.

Somehow, despite his grievous wounds, the Death Guard reacted to his presence, slowly raising the power mace into a combat posture. Ignoring his own injury, Deth lunged forwards on instinct, spearing his lightning claws through the traitor's stomach, pinning him to the wall behind. As the maul tumbled to the floor, he stared into the cracked visor of his enemy's Iron helm, their face plates mere inches apart.

“What have you done?” Tomas Gorr whispered, blood gurgling in his throat.

“What we had to do in order to survive.” Deth replied simply, his own voice calm and clear through the Corvus face plate. “What you and your traitorous brethren forced upon us.”

“Abominations. Monsters.” Gorr mumbled, but he was no longer focussing on the Raven Guard. Instead, his vision seemed locked on something – or someone – behind the ebon clad warrior's back.

“Aren't we all cousin, aren't we all.” Deth sighed, then activated the power field of the lightning claws, pushing the energised blades effortlessly up through the traitor's torso until they reached his breast bone.

Sensing the presence behind him, the Black Guard retracted the claws back into the gauntlet's sheaths, letting the almost bisected corpse of his opponent fall gracelessly to the ground. Slowly, trying to avoid initiating a threat response, Deth turned around to face the being which had saved his life.

The creature watching him was taller than a fully armoured Astartes but only half as broad. Standing ungainly on its spindly hind legs, it's forelimbs were long and slender, belying a strength, Deth knew from personal experience, that was stronger than his own. Bones protruded from the pale, albino flesh, creating a protective exoskeleton around it's misshapen form. Shoulder blades, massively oversized due to the malfunctioning Ossmodula implant, turned the creature's upper body into a monstrous parody of a Space Marine's silhouette. However, it was perhaps the head which was most alien, and yet, at the same time, almost shockingly familiar. An elongated skull dominated by an immense, gaping jaw, filled with layer upon layer of razor sharp teeth, perpetually drooling acidic saliva caused by an over active Betcher's Gland. But it was the eyes – those dark, all too human eyes, which burned with both pain and sadness almost too terrible to witness – which the Black Guard always found the most disturbing.

Numerals and letters were laser etched onto the creature's exposed, shield-like rib cage. Personal Ident codes, designed both to identify the inhuman warriors of his Company, and, perhaps more importantly, to record their previous names. However, Deth had never needed the codes. He knew each of his charges, and remembered exactly what each had given up in the hope of saving their Legion. He owed them that, at least.

For a moment he wondered if the creature – Subject XXXIIIVI, or Neophyte Aran Kassus as he was once known – was going to attack. It was quite possible, his charges were unpredictable, especially in combat, and often failed to differentiate between friend or foe. With his shattered arm, Deth knew he would be easy prey.

As the two warriors of the Nineteenth Legion faced each other, black eyes and gleaming red visor locked together, the creature gave a slight, barely perceptible nod. Suddenly it dropped to all fours and sped away, disappearing into the smoke with unbelievable speed.

Releasing the breath he hadn't realised he was holding, Lucas Deth reactivated his lightning claw and began walking forward, following the creature into the depths of the Manufactorum.

Eliminating the Death Guard was just the start. Varn would fall in a single night.

His brothers would see to that.

[deathspectersgt7]

A Nice touch on the fluff Brother.

[Brother Excedis]

Fantastic fluff and a good mini to boot. Is this the begining of something new?

[HighGothic]

Please make a mini of the creature! I would love to see that