Chapter Two
The weapon cracked, its beam connecting with the tallest heretic just below its neck. The las-bolt seared through its clothing, burning cloth and flesh alike. The skin bubbled and merged with the torched fabric, forming a viciously ugly wound to the left of its spine, swelling covering the elongated boney structure beneath its skin. It screamed in pain and rage as it wheeled from the man before it, its cries ripping at Alek's eardrums. Its eyes, which seemed like pools of space, infinite and terrifying, met Aleks, narrowing slightly as the mutant found its new target. The other heretics wheeled too, eyes converging on him as they did. Sadistic smiles came over what was still recognizably human in their faces (which admittedly was not a lot) as they recognized their prey. The second shot blazed out towards them, this time searing through the heretics' shoulder. The next las-bolts came in a flurry of cracks as Alek switched to full auto, his barrel turning red from the heat. The quartet of monsters bore down on him, crossing the clearing in great leaping strides. Their mutated limbs carried them with inhuman speed, claws and teeth reflecting the flashing light from Aleks shots. The fusillade of las-bots finally staggered the first one, opening a puffy crater where its chest had been. Its torso swelling up as the damage set in, bursting what lay below in a gruesome display of the heretic's anatomy. Whirling, the trooper took aim at the next horror, the one with the horn, and sent his next shots through its legs, causing it to fall, its comrade with the rivet gun barreling over it. The two tumbled to the ground in a heap, hissing and squabbling as both tried to use the other to get back up. The heretic in the mask side-stepped the pile-up, the unsettling grace of its movements clear even to Alek. He shifted, firing at the new threat. Two bolts passed through its gut and its left arm, fizzing away as they connected. Still, it maintained the charge, its momentum carrying it forward. Alek pulled the trigger again, soliciting nothing but a dull 'click.' The power-pack was dry. His weapon useless, the trooper stepped back, franticly searching his webbing for another power-pack. The hell of his boot snagged, caught on some unseen root or piece of foliage. Alek crashed backwards, the thick underbrush cushioning his fall a little. As luck would have it, the heretic chose to leap at the Guardsmen just a moment before and was sent careening over him as it very suddenly found its target had been replaced by thin air. The monster crashed down into a cluster of thornbushes, making a terrible racket as it tried to right itself once more. With his lasgun still in hand, Alek finally fished a fresh power-pack from a pocket in his trousers. He slammed it into the gun and levelled the weapon in the direction of his assailant. A few bursts of fire into the brush later, and the sounds of the enraged monster went silent. The silence was broken once again by a furious bellow from one of the two remaining enemies. Alek looked over his shoulder, his gaze falling upon a grizzly sight. The struggle between the two had turned into a full-on brawl, each one squabbling over who got to gut Alek with deadly results. The winning heretic pushed the decimated corpse of the horned abomination to the side, blood, viscera, and other less human components covering the survivor like some kind of war paint, its skin slick and shiny in the moonlight. It roared again, once more revealing row after row of knife-like teeth, glistening with the same fluids as its skin. Still holding his weapon by his hip, the guardsman fired, doing little more than angering the kin slaying combatant. It rushed him, taloned feet finding purchase in the earth despite the blood pooling around it. Alek grimaced and adjusted his aim, trying to shoot its head despite his shaking hands. The prayers he remembered from childhood spilled from his lips, pleading mercy from the Emperor as his imminent demise barreled towards him, dead set on turning his insides to outsides.
The Emperor is our guiding light, a beacon of hope for humanity in a galaxy of darkness.
His next shot impacted harmlessly into the beast's arm as it brought it up to deflect from its vitals.
As we serve Him, He is our greatest servant.
The heretic side-stepped his next shot, launching off a stump and into the air, its taloned hand reaching for Alek's throat.
As we pray to Him, His thoughts are only for us.
The next salvo of shots sprayed into its other arm as his attacker blocked the las-bolts with an appendage once more.
And in the dark when the shadows threaten, the Emperor is with us, in spirit and in fact.
The heretic exploded. Alek was blown backwards, slamming into a tree trunk back first. He sat there for a moment, stunned as stars filled his eyes and his head swam. After a brief fight to remain conscious, the trooper managed to will himself to his feet, stumbling over to the thing's corpse. Or at least what was left of it. Its left side was all but gone, replaced by a yawning hole that was quickly draining foul-smelling ichor and blood. He'd shot the things arm, igniting some twisted internal organ that the industrial tool-turned weapon's machine spirit used to operate. Or perhaps the rivet gun's machine spirit had saved him in one final bout of rebellion against its turned master. Either way, Alek was alive, and the heretic was dead; any further examination of the cause of his salvation was for someone far better versed in theological matters than he. Instead of pondering it any further, the guardsman thanked the Emperor, made the sign of the Aquila, and then stumbled off to see if the beast's captive had lived to thank his rescuer. Evidently, he had.