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The cultist’s war cry died on his tongue as Procyon’s power scythe bisected him. The crackling energy field cleaved cleanly through the mutant’s midsection, spilling his entrails on the rusted floor of the outpost. The cultists had done something Procyon had thought to be impossible: spring an ambush on a team of vanguard marines. It was-or should be-impossible, because three of Procyon’s squad members were Incursors, equipped with high powered auspex scanners. Ordinarily, these devices could detect an enemy ambush with ease, picking up on seismic readings, heat signatures, and even heartbeats.
The impossibility of the situation mattered very little to Procyon. He had been on this planet for over a month now, performing raids against cult strongholds, severing supply trains and rooting out hidden enclaves. But now, they were finally onto something. The outpost Procyon and his squad were currently assaulting housed a relay station for the planet’s water supply. Millions of gallons flowed through this checkpoint from the northern ice caps. Here, the water would be monitored for contaminants, its purity levels adjusted to the acceptable standard, then sent off to the various hive cities that dotted the planet’s barren landscape.
But this station hadn’t sent reports to the planetary government in some time. What’s more, reports of mutations and aberrations in childbirths had increased tenfold in the nearest hive city, ever since the station went quiet. It infuriated Procyon how long the planetary governor had taken to put two and two together. He let that frustration stew in the back of his mind as he pivoted on his heel, the blade of his scythe splitting the elongated skull of a particularly gruesome hybrid.
The creature had crept up on him during the battle, thinking to take him from behind. It clutched a bulky, rudimentary auto pistol in one of its three alien arms, and a wicked, serrated knife in the other. But it was its third arm that gave Procyon a reason to worry. The chitinous appendage terminated in a three digit claw, sporting gleaming black, diamond hard talons. Talons that Procyon knew could cleave straight through power armor, if swung with proper force and angle. He gave the creature no such chance, sidestepping as its momentum carried the lifeless mutant crashing to the floor beside him, brains spilling messily across the flooring.
The sounds of a running skirmish echoed through the facility around him. The familiar double-thud of a bolt being fired, finding its target, then detonating inside a ribcage or abdomen. The frantic, sporadic bark of autogun fire, sprayed in retaliation at Procyon’s strike team. Through the uproar, Procyon heard a report over the squad vox from Nassius, the sergeant of the Incursors attached to his squad.
++Lieutenant. My auspex scans are picking up dust trails several clicks out and closing. Cult reinforcements likely. Perhaps we should pick up the pace.++
Procyon sighed, ramming the barrel of his bolt pistol into the face of a cultist that had been rushing him with a pickaxe. He took the slightest of moments to relish the feeling of the cultist’s nose crumpling messily under the weight of the blow, before pulling the trigger and painting the far wall of the ruin with skull fragments and grey matter. Nassius was right.
Their objective lay inside the main building of the facility, dwarfing the other ruined structures with its monolithic silhouette. Procyon and his team formed up around the entrance, after cleaning the blood and grey matter off of their combat blades. The squad went through a headcount and ammo check, quickly and efficiently reloading bolt pistols and carbines. An auspex scan of the structure showed there were two additional entrances, one on each flank of the building. Procyon motioned silently to his team, and two groups broke off, ghosting their way through the rubble and debris. Now, it was down to Procyon, Nassius, and one remaining Reiver to breach the main door.
On Procyon’s order, the team of astartes launched their assault. The Incursors threw smoke grenades into the building, filling the room with a choking haze. Seconds later, they burst through the doorways, visors lowered over their eyes. Connected directly to the auspex systems mounted on their armor, the Incursors were able to see the enemy clearly through the smoke. Immediately, they began to cut down the confused cultists, pinpoint barrages of bolter fire clearing the room in seconds. The whole breach took less than a minute.
Once the main room was deemed clear of hostiles, Procyon and Nassius made their way inside. The large building housed equipment and machinery meant to monitor water purity, yet even to the untrained eye, the facility had clearly been repurposed by the cult. Elaborate and sinister chemical mixing equipment was set up all around the room, some of it smashed to pieces by the recent assault. Near the access to the main water pipe, multiple steel barrels marked with the cult’s symbol lay empty. Procyon’s brow furrowed. It seemed the cult had already made its move.
Before the lieutenant could begin to give commands to his squad, a deep, bellowing roar echoed from somewhere inside the facility. Immediately, the marines snapped into formation, covering every possible entrance with overlapping fields of fire. In the darkness, a thundering set of footfalls could be heard amidst the roaring.
Thinking back, Procyon imagined all the ways that ambush could have played differently. If Nassius had been positioned against a different wall, or maybe if his auspex had detected the enemy even half a second earlier, maybe he could have been saved. But when the mutant beast burst through the facility’s wall, the Sergeant’s fate was sealed.
First, a huge, muscular, grotesque arm burst through the metal plating of the wall, inches away from Nassius’s head. Moving with inhuman speed, the arm grabbed Nassius by the helmet and lifted the marine up into the air. With a sound of shrieking metal, the abhorrent beast tore into the room, the flailing marine still in his grasp.
What lurched out of the rent in the wall could only be described as a mockery of humanity. Taller even than a Primaris marine, yet hunchbacked, with a plodding, crippled gait. Its flesh was the deep purple of a nasty bruise, and it was partially covered in thick chitinous plates. The largest of these plates grew over the creature’s back, and down over its face, so that only one misshapen eye was showing. That eye glowed a dull yellow, brimming with inarticulate fury. One of the beast’s misshapen claws clutched a heavy, powered sledgehammer. The other grasped Nassius’s lifeless body, the marine’s helmet crumpled and leaking blood.
The surviving members of the squad sprung into action, pouring bolter fire on the creature while retreating to a more defensible position. Ordinarily, bolters were exceptionally useful for slaying unarmored targets. Their mass-reactive rounds were designed to penetrate armor and flesh, then detonate inside torsos and skulls, causing massive and-more often than not-lethal damage. However, the mutant’s skin seemed to absorb the impact of the rounds, the detonations only seeming enrage it further.
Dashing the fallen marines’ body to the ground, the beast bellowed, charging headlong into a storm of bolter fire. Procyon’s squad maintained accuracy even with the abomination bearing down upon them, and he found himself taking a certain satisfaction in that. They were astartes, after all. However, most of the rounds were shrugged off as the creature plowed through aged cogitator arrays and rusting control stations, steaming towards another squad member with hatred glowing in its single yellow eye.
The Incursor slowly retreated as the mutant advanced, firing measured shots at the charging beast. Bolt rounds that would have slain a lesser foe outright found little purchase on the thickly corded, grotesque muscles of the Abominant. Before the marine had time to react, the monster’s charge slammed home.
Knocked out of his firing stance by the impact of the Abominant, the incursor had no time to prepare for what came next. Whipping its powered sledgehammer around like it was made of paper, the creature landed a powerful swing on the marine’s chest plate. With a sickening crack, the hammer’s power field discharged, shattering the marine’s armor and flinging him through the air. His broken body landed with a crash, only a few meters from where Procyon was standing.
The mutant bellowed its fury at the remaining astartes, casting around for its next victim. Looking down at his fallen brother, Procyon quickly formulated a plan. He sent a signal to the rest of his squad over their shared vox-network.
++Retreat, secure escape route. Leave this one to me.++
Confirmation signals chimed from each of the other marines as they quickly exited the building, leaving both Procyon and the Abominant alone. While the beast was distracted trying to chase after the retreating Astartes, Procyon quickly retrieved a weapon from the fallen marine at his side: a haywire mine.
Originally, the haywire mine was intended to allow Incursor squads to engage enemy armor and disrupt formations. However, the mine’s lethal discharge of electricity is equally effective at incapacitating enemy infantry. Quickly thumbing the activation rune, Procyon tossed the device into the center of the room, where it settled into place before priming.
Raising his bolt pistol and gritting his teeth, Procyon began firing at the Abominant, turning its attention to him. Bellowing with frustration, the mutant rounded on the lieutenant, barreling towards him, clearly eager to vent its incoherent rage. Positioning himself so that the mine was between him and the charging brute, Procyon drew his power scythe, activating the lethal field of energy.
As soon as the Abominant’s misshapen foot landed on the haywire mine, the look on its face quickly shifted from rage, to surprise, before twisting into a visage of agony. The mine activated, sending blinding blue arcs of crackling electricity dancing across the unfortunate mutant’s frame. The smell of spent bolt propellant was quickly replaced by the foul odor of seared flesh. Unfortunately, the mine did not have the strength to slay the beast outright. All it could do was hold it in place for a few precious seconds.
Procyon broke into a thundering dash towards the beast, pounding through the dust and corpses, scythe in hand. At the last second, he shifted his weight, spinning on one heel and whipping his scythe around in a murderous arc. The powered blade whistled through the air before burying itself deep in the twisted skull of the Aberrant. Giving the handle a firm twist, Procyon pulled his weapon free of the beast’s head, and watched with contempt as the creature dropped heavily to the floor.
Wasting no time, Procyon unsheathed his reiver knife and began to saw away at the mutant’s neck. He had heard tales of misshapen beasts not unlike this one, able to quickly recover from wounds that would prove fatal on any other foe. This monster would slay no more Scythes. With a quick yank, he pulled the creature’s malformed head free from its massive shoulders.
Rising to his feet, the Lieutenant glanced at the broken bodies of his fallen brothers. More loyal sons of Sotha, dead at the hands of alien beasts. Procyon tapped new orders into the comms device on his wrist.
++Call for extraction. We’re done here.++
With his power scythe in one hand and the Abominant’s head in the other, Lieutenant Procyon of the Scythes of the Emperor exited the building, striding out into the harsh light of day.