Nemesis

“They’ve moved on,” said the sniper, sweeping his gaze over corpses of soldiers

and civilians who lay where they had fallen. It was difficult to be sure who had been

shooting at who; Dagonet was in the middle of a civil war, and the lines of loyalist

and turncoat were not yet clear to the new arrivals. A blink of laser fire from inside

one of the massive terminals caught his eye and he turned to it as the crack of broken

air reached them a moment later. “But not too far. They’re fighting through the

buildings. Lucky for us the place is still contested. Leaves us with less explaining to

do.”

He shouldered the rifle as Tariel ventured a few wary steps down the ramp.

“Vindicare? How are we to proceed?”

Kell walked back up a way. The rest of the Execution Force were gathered on the

lower deck, watching him intently. “We need to gather intelligence. Find out what’s

going on here.”

“Dagonet’s extrasolar communications went dark some time ago,” noted Tariel.

“Perhaps if you could secure a prisoner for interrogation…”

Kell nodded and beckoned to Koyne. “Callidus. You’re in charge until we get

back.”

“We,” said Soalm pointedly.

He nodded towards the Garantine. “The two of us. We’ll scout the star-port, see

what we can find.”

“Ah, good,” said the Eversor, rubbing his clawed hands together. “Exercise!”

“Are you sure two will be enough?” Soalm went on.

Kell ignored her and moved closer to Koyne. “Keep them alive, understand?”

Koyne made a thoughtful face. “We’re all lone wolves, Vindicare. If the enemy

come knocking, my first instinct might be to ran and leave them.”

He didn’t rise to the bait. “Then consider that order a test of your oath over your

instincts.”

Sabrat’s longcoat whirled as the horror coiled, leaping into the air towards Hyssos.

The operative heard it snapping like sailcloth in a stiff breeze and recoiled, firing

shots that should have struck centre-mass but instead hit nothing but air.

The thing that called itself Spear landed close to him and he took a heavy blow

that threw him off his feet. Hyssos slammed into a tall pile of Balthazar bottles that

tumbled away with the impact, rolling this way and that. Pain raced up his spine as he

twisted and tried to regain his footing.

Spear tossed the coat away and then, with care that seemed strange for something

so abhorrent in appearance, deftly unbuttoned the white shirt beneath and set it aside.

Bare from the waist up, Hyssos could see that the creature’s flesh was writhing and

changing, cherry-red like tanned leather. He saw what looked like hands pressing out

from inside the cage of the monster’s chest, and the profile of a screaming face. Yosef

Sabrat’s face.

119

The bare arms distended and grew large, their proportions ballooning. Fingers

merged into flat mittens of meat, grew stiff and glassy. Hands became bone blades,

pennants of pinkish-black nerve tissue dangling from them.

Hyssos aimed the gun and fired at the place where a man’s heart would have

been, but down came the arms and the shot was deflected away. He smelled a

slaughterhouse stink coming off the creature, saw the sizzling pit in the limb from the

impact as it filled with ooze and knit itself shut.

The body of the thing was in chaos. It writhed and throbbed and pulsed in

disgusting ways, and the operative was struck by the conviction that something was

inside the meat of it, trying to get out.

As the eyeless face glared into him, the distended jaws opening wide to let

droplets of spittle fall free, Hyssos found his voice. “You killed them all.”

“Yes.” The reply was a gurgling chug of noise.

“Why?” he demanded, retreating back until he was trapped against the fallen

bottles. “What in Terra’s name are you?”

“There is no Terra,” it bubbled, horrible amusement shading the words. “Only

terror.”

Hyssos saw the shape of the face again, this time pressing from the meat of

Spear’s bloated shoulders. He was sure it was crying out to him, imploring him. Run,

it mouthed, run run run run—

He raised the gun, shaking, his blood turning to ice. Hands tightening on the grip,

aiming for the head. In his time, Hyssos had seen many things that defied easy

explanation—strange forms of alien life, the impossible vistas of warp space, the

darkest potentials of the human character—and this creature was first among them. If

hell was a place, then this was something that had been torn out of that infernal realm

and thrust into the real world.

Spear raised its sword-arms and rattled their hard surfaces off one another. “One

more,” it intoned. “One step closer.”

“To what?” The question was a gasp. It came at him again, and Hyssos shot it in

the face.

Spear shrugged it off. The first downward slash cut away Hyssos’ right hand

across the forearm, the gun falling with it. The second stabbing motion pierced skin,