LAST TIME ON "THE SUICIDE SQUAD!"

"I hope you know what you're doing."

"Relax, I've seen plenty of murders. Each one murder-er than the last."

"And what do we burn apart from heretics?"

"More hereti- ow!"

"How can anything evil taste so delicious?"

"Don't you see? That's how they get you!"

"Butter!"

"Why did you hire them, anyway?"

THIS WEEK'S EPISODE: "HERE COMES THE SUICIDE SQUAD!"

Inquisitor Len Haraz sighed with dread as he gave the order to his adjutant. "Send them in." The man swallowed audibly before making his way to the bridge's ship address system and giving the order. The tech-priests who were still human enough to have reactions shuddered at the mention of Cell Delta-Nine. And then it was done, in a few minutes they'd be standing before him, assembled in the same formation they'd assumed since he'd hired them two years ago, an order he would have dearly loved to see change every so often, but the stubborn fools abjectly refused to die.

It wasn't that they were incompetent, far from it. It wasn't the fairly high maintenance that their special weaponry required. It wasn't their propensity for needless violence. It wasn't even their obvious, almost blithering madness. What made Delta-Nine so infuriating was that they always so Emperor-damned happy about the whole thing.

No one else had ever actually dared to attack prisoners who'd surrendered. No one else considered subtlety and discretion to be anathema. No one else would have cut the head off a young boy who'd been abused by a Chaos cult "just to be sure." No one else would preach gleefully at the workers on the ship about the Emperor's purifying flame. And certainly no one else could have learned about the awful nickname that Delta-Nine had been given, and honestly believe that it was meant as a compliment.

The doors to the bridge elevator opened, and out stepped the collection of psychopaths that made up acolyte cell Delta-Nine, Inquisitor Haraz's notorious "Suicide Squad." Always in that same formation, since they day they'd all met, and always wearing those same smiles, so genuinely pleased to be of service. They didn't bother with a salute, they were far too informal for that. The occasional "sir" was the most he could hope for out of them.

Haraz repressed another sigh and took the time to tune his vox-caster unit. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered with them. "Gentlemen," he began, the bridge quieting as everyone strained to hear the inquisitor's words, "this next mission is of the utmost importance to our cause." It was barely even worth his time. "The life of the segmentum itself is at risk." It was a fairly minor cult, nothing to be worried about. "I have need of your specialized skills in eradicating the foul taint of heresy from the planet Onthic." This would keep them out of his hair for a while and give them something to kill to keep them happy.

Of course, it was then that Haraz looked a bit more closely at them, and noticed something amiss. Namely, he noticed a small, fluffy thing being cradled in the arms of one of Delta-Nine's psykers, Rhys. At first, he thought it was some kind of animal, but as he watched it, he realized that it was some manner of sphere with a fluffy animal-like tail attached to it. "Rhys," he said, feeling a headache coming on, "what is that?"

Rhys was mute, and spoke only through a vox-caster unit like his own. But for whatever reason, he mostly kept quiet anyway. In case of point, he looked down at the device in his arms (expression one of utter amazement, as though he was confused by its presence as well), looked back at Haraz, and shrugged.

"I found it," came a booming voice to Rhys' left. "He wanted it." Easily the most physically intimidating of the cell, Krek was pushing seven feet tall and had proportions that wouldn't have looked out of place on an ogryn. His Guard regiment, one of very few from his planet, were more than a little put off by how unbelievably amusing he found his autocannon, but Haraz knew that of this particular outfit, he was probably the most sane. Hell, at least he never fired on his own, which is more than you can say for some inquisitors.

"And...what is it?"

Krek shrugged, the mountain of a man seeming to ripple with the movement. At that point, the man next to Krek stepped forward, and from his expression, Haraz knew that he wasn't going to like what was coming up. Not that he had any reason to: "Brother" Adell was probably the craziest person in his employ, and one of the craziest he'd met in his life. He wasn't really a priest, had never been ordained by the Ecclessiarchy, but was instead a one-time member of the Cult of the Red Redemption. He didn't consider himself of their number anymore since joining the Inquisition, citing a conflict of beliefs. Namely, a true Redemptionist would have been trying to set Rhys and Conway on fire. "I believe," he began, the venom clear in his voice, "that the device is of a heretical nature!"

"You said the same of the last piece of archeotech we found," Haraz replied.

"Indeed."

"It was used to toast bread."

"It still is!" chimed in Conway, the group's biomancer, from Rhys' right. Haraz noticed now that Conway was cheerfully clutching about six pieces of toast in his hands.

Adell whirled on him and practically screamed, "And I don't trust it!"

"Brother, please," Haraz held up his hands placatingly, "I'll ask Mai to look at it, so please just let it go."

Adell grumbled and returned to his place in line. Conway passed a piece of toast down to him, which he accepted grudgingly.

"Right," Haraz began again. "So I'm sending you all to Onthic to dismantle a Slaaneshi cult taking root there."

"Slaanesh is..." Conway muttered, "the one with the skulls, right?"

"Slaanesh is the demon prince," Adell answered before Haraz, "the Despoiler and Prince of Pleasure. He tempts and corrupts subtly." For all his tiresome qualities, the man knew a thing or two. "Most of his cults are hedonistic, they like to trap people with drugs and sex."

It was then that Rhys chose to speak, looking up from his...whatever that thing was, and voicing the question on his mind. "Babes?" intoned the vox-caster. Haraz could almost hear the machinery inside the device working to accommodate the psyker's scattered thought process.

Adell glared at him. "Rhys, we're on a mission from the Inquisition! There will be no time for your childish ramblings!"

"And cultists have mutations," Krek added thoughtfully.

"And even if they didn't, they'd still be heretics," Conway noted between mouthfuls of toast.

Rhys pondered this for a moment, looking at the ceiling as though something interesting had captured his attention. Not bothering to look at anyone else in the room, he announced his conclusion. "Heresy is bad."

"Quite right," Haraz said, raising his voice before they started talking about fire. "And that's why you need to eradicate the heresy on Onthic before it's too late."

Krek raised a hand. "Can we bring some help?"

Haraz thought for a second. Though he'd regret it later, he shrugged. "I suppose so. Who do you have in mind?"

And thus it was that Adell, Conway, Rhys, Krek, Shira (a tech-priestess in training), and Cornelius disembarked onto the planet Onthic. Surveying the gritty majesty of the starport before them, the group could only bow their heads in wonder and try to avoid the splatter caused by Cornelius violently throwing up as soon as he stepped off the ship.

Krek patted him on the back. It looked surprisingly more like pounded him, but there you have it. "There, there, sire. The trip's over. Now we just need to find the people to kill."

Cornelius looked back at his subject meekly. Cornelius was, as far as anyone else knew, a prince of Krek's homeworld Soria. Unfortunately, his sickly constitution and mild manner made him a rather poor fit for the stressful life of a nobleman he was born to, and so he'd been sent into the Guard to toughen him up. Naturally, getting shot at doesn't do much in the way of improving one's health, and so he'd found a role as Krek's assistant, carrying the ammo and maintaining the smooth whirlwind of death that was Krek's autocannon. The rest of the Suicide Squad believed that the gun was named "Sasha," but hadn't been able to confirm this.

Rhys poked Adell to get his attention, and pointed enthusiastically at the inquisitor's ship as it made its way make into high orbit. "Really is incredible, isn't it?" Adell said. Rhys nodded happily in approval. "Not often we get to see it from the outside."

Conway squinted at the ship, growing fainter on the horizon. "What's that...writing on the side?"

"Ship's name," Krek replied, still rubbing Cornelius' back.

The ten year old tech-priestess chirped from beside Conway's leg where she stood, barely coming up to his shins. "The Inquisitorial starship, 'Set Shit On Fire In the Name Of the Emperor!'"

"'Our thoughts light the Darkness that others may cross through space. We are one with the Emperor, our souls are joined in his will.'" Adell intoned, and they bowed their heads in prayer. For about two seconds. It was basically reflex to bow their heads whenever Adell adopted his "prayer voice," and just as reflexive to ask what on earth he meant afterwards.

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Conway.

Adell glared at him. "It's about ships. And warp travel."

"What was that from?" asked Shira.

"Never heard it before," chimed in Cornelius, before another bout of sickness took up his attention.

"It's from the..." for a moment, Adell forgot to look angry, too busy looking confused. "...the...something to do with the Astronomicon."

"You said there was something in 'something to do with the Astronomicon' that gave you the right to take that one guy's food that one time," said Krek.

"That was in there too," Adell said as he looked away from them. Rhys was the only one that could hear the muttered addition of "somewhere." Fortunately, Adell had shared the food with him that time, so Adell said it was in that one thing about the Astronomicon, than by the Emperor, it was in that one thing about the Astronomicon. "He was guilty of something, anyway, lucky a little food was all we decided to take."

"Fire!" Rhys said happily.

"Fire," Adell agreed.

They walked on towards the hotel they'd been told to meet their contact at. The hive's smoggy atmosphere seemed to occlude them as they walked further away from the starport. Any casual observer would have lost sight of them quickly enough, but their pursuer was not a casual observer.

Finely tuned surveillance devices zoomed in to ascertain the physical threat each acolyte posed. Perfectly calibrated microphones picked up and recorded their conversation.

"Is that seriously the name of the ship?"

"Yeah! I helped the inquisitor choose it myself!"

"Wha...but you're only ten. The ship's thousands of years old."

"Well, the inquisitor wanted to give it a name better-suited to his needs."

"Ah."

A minute or so of silence.

"Credo. It was the Credo of the Astronomicon."

Oh yeah, thought the spy. He shook his head and turned off the surveillance devices. We are gonna murder the hell out of these idiots.

Will our heroes get the hell murdered out of them?

Just what was that thing that Rhys had?

Whose idea was it to have a ten-year-old girl on this mission anyway?

FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON "THE SUICIDE SQUAD!"