Chapter 1: Xenos

The soft clunk of the marines' boots echoed on the steel mesh floor. The harsh beams of their suit lights struck the eerie darkness, illuminating smears of blood and filth on the corridor walls. The near-silence was terrifying: normally the complex would hum with the sounds of machinery, the tap of keyboards and the buzz of humanity busying itself with archaeological research. That was all gone, leaving a dead husk supposedly infested with the silent shadows of mankind's nemesis. Somewhere, water dripped, probably from a severed supply pipe. Fluorescent, alien goo squelched underfoot and partially decayed bodies cluttered the doorways of adjoining passages.

What the hell happened here, Brother Dene thought. He glanced about at all the carnage. Clearly something had taken a severe dislike to Scylla IV Research Station. Rumours abounded that the team of scientists had awoken a nest of serpents and that the entire base had been compromised. The evidence definitely supported that theory. Dene stepped over a rotting human arm and gritted his teeth.

'Looks like these…aliens don't like being disturbed.'

'On the contrary,' Brother-Sergeant Bilius muttered over the vox-caster, 'I think the bastards were waiting for this to happen. Hell, if I were locked underground for a thousand years…'

'So, are we talking Tyranids? Or a completely different species?' Brother Paulos hefted his heavy plasma gun.

'By the look of that blood, I'd say it was the spawn of the Hive Mind,' Bilius spat. 'Be wary, brothers.'

'The Emperor watches over us,' Paulos replied.

'The might of the Crimson Fists will purge the xenos!'

Bilius approached the room at the end of the corridor.

The doors had been wrenched off their hinges and lay in metal shards on the floor. All manner of debris and wreckage was scattered around the room, from smashed data slates to battered and scarred computer monitors. Wires and cords tangled across the broken remnants of the furniture, intermingled with shattered lab equipment. The stench of death hung heavily in the dank air.

Brother-Sergeant Bilius led his ten-man squad through the room, the marines fanning out and sweeping the walls with their bolters. Dene glanced at the ceiling just before a glob of purple goo descended near his boot. He froze, realization gripping his heart with a claw of ice.

'Brothers…it's still here.'

Suddenly, a dark form dropped from the airshaft and started flaying about in the marines' midst. Razor sharp talons bit through power armour like a knife through paper and two marines went down, blood pumping from where their heads had been moments before. Bilius' commands were drowned out by the chatter of boltgun fire. A massive tail, or that's what Dene thought it was, swung out of the confusion and sent him flying through the air. He crashed into the wall and fell. As Bilius and the other marines fought for their lives, Dene struggled to rise. Something had cushioned his fall and as he turned to look, a human skull leered at him from the pile of mouldering rags and bones. Fumbling around, he discovered the corpse's ID badge and ripped it off for identification. But that only mattered if they got out of here alive. Of course they would. The Emperor willed it.

Alien blood was spraying everywhere and already three more marines were down, their bodies sliced by chitinous claws in a variety of grisly ways. With an inhuman shriek and a flurry of black, slimy appendages the creature fled back up into the airshaft and vanished. Dene breathed a prayer to the God-Emperor and slammed a new clip into his bolter.

'Die you slimy bastard!' Rounds of ammunition bit into the ceiling as the holy weapon spoke, chewing into the Tyranid above. There came a series of deathly screeches as the bolts tore into its hide and exploded, literally tearing the beast's innards apart. Shrapnel sprayed downwards.

'Ease up, brother!' Bilius grasped Dene by the shoulder. 'It's dead already!'

'Is it? Better get up there and take a look,' Dene panted, his bolter smoking with exertion.

Paulos put aside his plasma gun and dragged a bench across. Clambering up, he pulled out his bolt pistol and shone its small light about. Alien ichor dripped from the top of the airshaft.

'It's dead all right.' He looked down the shaft, which faded off into inky blackness. 'I reckon we can use this shaft to reach…'

'To hell with that!' Bilius was getting edgy. 'Time to pull out.'

'Brother-Sergeant, we are space marines, we do not pull out,' Dene stated. 'Our primary objective is to…'

'Is to investigate and destroy any threat. That son of a whore took out five of my marines! I say we come back with reinforcements and purge this hellhole.'

'I agree with Bilius,' Paulos growled. He got down and picked up his weapon. 'When it comes to the Tyranids, it should be Exterminatus.'

'Emperor's Light, do you read me?' Bilius raised the Thunderhawk pilot on the vox-caster. 'Emperor's Light, this is Brother-Sergeant Bilius, of Squad Brutus. Do you read me?'

'Confirmed, Brother-Sergeant,' the reply crackled with static. 'Standing by.'

'We have a code red Hormagaunt infestation. We're heading back to give our report.'

'Acknowledged, Brother-Sergeant. Preparing docking sequence.'

As the five remaining space marines marched back the way they had come, their boots clunking on the steel mesh flooring, black eyes slid open in the darkness. Cat-like in their stealthiness, and silent as the most skilful predator, the three aliens unfolded their bodies from the shadows and followed their prey.