Salim felt a shudder of self-hatred course through his body as he realised what he had done. He had led his sister here on the pretext of finding adventure, but... this is how it had transpired. After the intense pain of the manacles, he had been set free by the girl, and led to a high chambered room, decked in luxurious silks and plush tapestries. It was there that the girl and two others pushed him back onto a soft pile of cushions, and disrobed. He had thought he was in heaven, a real adventure - until he had glanced over at a huge windowed wall and seen Jenna in the adjacent room. She was buried under several male bodies, but he could see into her eyes and could read the terror and anguish contained within. His lust extinguished, Salim pushed himself to his feet and struggled into his robe, repulsing the bodies, so tempting before, with undisguised contempt. As he ran for the door, the girl with purple eyes stood and called his name once - softly, yet seeming to carry over every other sound. For a second, he faltered; seeing the disapproval in her eyes tore at his heart and he longed to return to her, and be forgiven for this transgression. Her eyes seemed to bore into his very soul, but he thought of his sister, and ripped his eyes away from hers, running through the archway and to his chamber.

He rifled desperately through the layers of bedsheets, knowing what he was looking for - and praying to whoever might be listening that these twisted sociopaths hadn't found it. But under one corner, just above the soft matress he found a small device only a couple of inches across. When they had set out, he had laughed at his sister's insistence of taking a tracking beacon, saying it was unecessary if they wanted a real adventure. But when Jenna had threatened to inform their father of his plan, he grudgingly agreed to take it; now he was never so glad of anything in his life. Thumbing the trigger switch, a small series of LEDs lit up, indicating a silent transmission on the encoded personal family frequency. Salim breathed a sigh of relief as he buried the tracker back under the corner of the sheets and knew that whatever happened now, it wouldn't be long until his family dispatched the authorities to reclaim them, and the worse that he had to face would be the wrath of his father. A noise behind him made him whirl around to see the girl with purple eyes, flanked by two thick set males. The girl was smiling again, but this time it chilled him rather than aroused.

Kalleq's mind swum with half-dreams of betrayal and intrigue before he was jerked awake with a flash of light. His mind fell back into his body and his eyes unsealed before slamming shut again to keep out the blinding glare of a lightbar held inches from his face. Kuarl Halorum stood over his seated form and swung the back of his fist into the corner of Zan's mouth with a meaty crack, wiping his knuckles on his thigh. "So, old man - have a pleasant sleep?" Halorum spat into Kalleq's face, saliva mixing with blood and running down Zan's face. Zan jerked his arm forward to wipe his face clean but his tied wrists caught and his elbows slammed against the tall backed chair.

"What in the name of the Emperor are you playing at, Kuarl?" Kalleq muttered through split lips. "We were on a job - Why are you doing this?". Halorum looked patronisingly down at him and giggled. "You just don't understand, do you? You think it was a coincidence we just happened to find this place just where we looked? You were a fool, Zan - always thinking you could ride whatever life threw at you and shape it to suit yourself." Halorum turned off the lightbar, letting Zan open his eyes and slowly focus to the dim light of the small room. Built like a cell, about ten standard cubits square - it was as bleak and grey as an airless moon and almost as forboding. Kalleq squinted to see that what before had looked like pillars in each corner were in fact human figures, dressed in the same white flowing outfits as the ones who had confronted him earlier. "But you're wrong, Kalleq, so wrong you can't see why you're wrong. You don't take what destiny hands you, you take it all and let destiny shape itself around you. This is the way of power, this is the way of the chosen!" Halorum had a glint in his eye that scared Kalleq, not because of the madness but because there was still sanity. He knew exactly what he was doing, and gleefully embraced his treachery as if it was the most natural thing in the galaxy. Halorum turned away for a moment, undoing the front of his tunic, then turned back with his torso exposed. On his chest were a series of cuts and weals from old burns, curving and sensuous designs that marked out a crude sigil in a rough human figure. Halorum grinned with his teeth. "You see, old man - it wasn't destiny that led you here. It wasn't fate, it wasn't luck or coincidence." He lent forward, close enough for Kalleq to smell sweat and the tang of blood on his breath. "It was me."

Zan had first met Kuarl Halorum in Ganymede Hive, when he was hunting a cult leader deep in the lower levels on behalf of the Vice-Governer of the upper dome. The Governer had been abducted - presumed dead - and more and more citizens were going missing. Bodies were found with all blood drained out of them, anaemic husks that even the hiverats wouldn't touch. That had been his first big job, until then he had only been a glorified bodyguard and delivery boy. But this one - he had resorted to seeking help and found it in a bar in the slums of Icthus Sector. Kuarl Halorum... at first Kalleq had been wary of just how useful an overweight hedonist could be, but he had proved his worth on that mission alright. Halorum had used what he referred to as "His people" to gain information on the movement of the so-called 'Exsanguinate Brotherhood'; He had provided movements, times, locations - everything that Kalleq needed to set up an ambush for the Grand High Demagogue and his rabble. What had impressed and surprised Zan in equal measures was the insistence that Halorum go along with him and see some action - He had claimed that an ambush would need two people to work, but the look on his face when he opened fire convinced Kalleq that there was a personal agenda against those blood cultists. Even when the last man alive had thrown down his arms and surrendered, Halorum raised his stubber and drilled him through the left eye. Since then, Halorum and Kalleq had agreed that they would work as a loose partnership, looking out for each other and contacting in the event of a juicy job... and it had grown from there into a solid business. But that was then, and this was now.

"Tell me, Zan my dear, have you ever heard of the Eternal Sleepers?" The name seemed to awaken memories in the back of Kalleq's mind, things that he knew but couldn't quite remember; the answer seeming to be just out of his reach, slipping from his grasp like an eel, when a dim recollection bubbled to the surface of his conciousness. The Eternal Sleepers, a name from years ago, when he was still escorting minor adepts and local government lackeys. He had heard rumours of a group of followers of some obscure religion, one that started as a band of hedonists and slowly but surely grew into a full-blown cult worshipping every vice and perversion imaginable. They were supposedly stamped out when a full scale siege had been declared by the hive arbitrators, action that had struck Zan as being strangly heavy handed for a local cult. And that symbol, it had been found daubed onto walls and cut into corpses found after terrible assaults, but as soon as an example was found the authorities went to great pains to have it eradicated, as if it's very presence was a crime. Halorum saw the realisation dawn on Kalleq's face and continued. "Ah, I see you're not a complete idiot. Yes, you do remember us, but I doubt if you really understand what we are. When I first discovered the glory of the Sleepers I was young, wild - everything was a new experience and all things were a window of sensual opportunity. All these years haven't dimmed my tast for the pleasures of life, but now I've come to understand the real meaning of the Sleepers. Power, Zan! As I said, power to take everything and make destiny your personal slave!" Halorum's voice, although not loud, had taken an excited and breathless quality. "Those fools who were killed by the pawns of the Emperor were weak, but some of us, we managed to escape and we became strong. Some of us recieved visions, dreams telling us how to serve our lord better; how to escape the authorities' next moves; where to run and when to fight. When I first worked with you, do you think I did it for the money? I had orders to wipe out that group of savages from the High Priestess, heathen scum that they were, and it was her that directed us, that provided you with your precious information. Just as I had to work alongside you to eradicate anyone who posed a threat to us... Ah, you look shocked, Zan? But of course those jobs you helped me with helped me, why else would I execute them? Dangerous officials, strayed flocks, the deluded followers of that repulsive blood tribe - you helped us with all of them, and I suppose that we all here owe you a vote of thanks," Halorum swept his arm across the room at the other figures, who laughed quietly "but you've outlasted your usefulness. You're not the kind to easily convert, and letting you go would be disasterous for us, so that leaves us with one choice." Kuarl Halorum's grin widened further as the door opened and the girl with purple eyes glided in.

The small craft passed through the empty vacuum with no resistance as it sped toward the signal being put out by the beacon. The family DeLocke hadn't wanted to alert Imperial Authorities for fear of their missing being formally charged with theft and whatever other ridiculous accusations the judges would impose, but they had a small garisson of guards, used for security purposes. The homing beacon from the missing DeLocke children had been picked up from the Light hangar and forwarded to the living quarters, where a tear stained mother and ashen father had given instructions to retrieve them at any cost. Those filthy hunters were already on the case, but now they weren't needed, so the guards would be able to persuade them to give up the case and forget about charging any expenses to the DeLocke household.

The transport broke orbit with a shudder, and the guards inside prepared for the impending disembark. They had been warned that the two bounty hunters had seemed unruly characters and might put up resistance at being relieved from duty - the fat one had probably attempted to attack Miss Jenna and caused the source of the distress signal in the first place. Sergeant Celan pressed a stud on the side of his light helmet, causing a mirrored faceguard to slide down, completely masking his face and rendering him somehow less than human. Strapped to his padded uniform was a small sidearm and a length of black plasteel tubing. As he grasped it and thumbed a small trigger on the handle of the shock maul, the core shot out to triple the length. He swung a few times with it as small sparks played up and down the striking end of the weapon, before flicking the retraction switch and clipping it to his belt. He watched as the five other guards lowered their visors and checked their armaments were in working order. The voxspeaker on the autoguidance informed that touchdown would occur in 30 seconds, the men strapping themselves into seats in preparation. The air outside began to whine, a hollow keening sound, as the outer shielding of the ship was ionised by the storm still raging on the surface, then a dull boom and a bone-jarring impact as the craft struck the ground. The bars over the seats retracted and the guards filed to the door as it began opening onto the night of Dolus Tertius.

The girl's eyes seemed to glow unnaturally, expanding into twin pools of light and flowing into each other until they alone filled Zan's vision. He felt his muscles relax, and a multitude of whispering voices conspire in the back of his hearing, entreating him to give himself over to the glory of the true power. Halorum untied his wrists, and watched gloatingly as Kalleq rose to his feet and shuffled unsteadily towards the girl. "I told you that you were weak, Kalleq," He spat at Zan. "You can't resist the merest temptation, can you? Just like you couldn't resist anything that could lead to a cheap Imperial in your pocket, and now you've sealed your own fate!" Halorum's words sounded to Kalleq as if they were spoken underwater, and the meaning was lost as they washed over his conciousness without being taken in. "You have to die, there's no other way... and the betrayal of trust, well - that's the sweetest pleasure of them all! I should be richly rewarded for this! It's time to join those other two fools!" Halorum wheezed with excited laughter that became a racking cough. Kalleq knew nothing of this, the girl was all. He was less than two standard cubits away from her when a sharp crack echoed from outside the room. All heads jerked in the direction of the doorway, the girl turning her head from Kalleq for a second. Immediately Kalleq's mind was clear; he charged the girl and struck her squarely in the midsection with his elbow, throwing her to the floor, before spinning and making a dash for the doorway as the girl struggled prone on the rough floor. The other three Sleepers finally lurched into action, launching themselves toward the doorway after Zan.

Kalleq ran as fast as he could, not knowing where he was going, anywhere but back. Behind him echoed the shouts and footfalls of at least three pursuers, maybe more had joined the chase, as he pounded along a low corridor lit only by sputtering torches and careered into the great hall he had been in before. Standing in the archway of the temple were six black and red clad figures, glassy mirrored face visors reflecting the flickering torchlight and clutching long crackling sticks and sleek handguns. One of them was holding his upper arm as if hurt, and lying on the floor was the body of a young man, about seventeen or eighteen, still clutching a long beam in both hands. The front of his white robe was stanied a deep crimson and several holes marked where the bullets had struck him. Kalleq threw his hands up and yelled at them not to shoot, then dived to the floor as the guards aimed their weapons at the approaching robed figures following. From his position on the floor he could see that several white figures were circling outside in the pouring night rain through the archway behind the guards. Zan tried to shout a warning, but it was drowned out by deafening reports of the gunfire. He dragged himself towards the group of guards just as one of the sodden cultists launched themselves onto the nearest with a bone-chilling scream of rage. The shiv in his hand, apparently fashioned out of a length of ceramite, sank deep into the stomach of the guard, leaving him breathing blood onto the marble floor and clutching his ruined gut. Celan drew his maul and swung it in a tight arc into the face of the killer, smashing teeth and cauterising skin. The youth went down, then dragged himself to his feet, an ecstatic, if bloodied, grin forced through his shattered mouth. Almost as one, the guards started to jog back to the archway, firing out into the darkness to clear the way as they did so; Kalleq stood up and bolted towards them before a wave of robed figures followed the guards out into the storm.

"Man down! We have a man down! Look sharp, to your left Dryxen!" Celan barked orders over the helmet commlinks as they struggled back to their ship. They'd need the heavy weapons for this one, this wasn't just two rogue hunters, this was a grakking cult! He heard a thump behind him, turning he saw that Keylar Sparton had tripped on an unseen root, and had gone down heavily. He started towards the fallen guard before seeing that two of the damned freaks had caught up with him and swung their crude weapons at his helmet. The strengthened Armaplex visor withstood the first impact, but then developed a hairline crack, then another, until the helmet seemed to be a web of cracks spreading over his face. With a sickening crunch one of the cultists brought a pipe down, shattering through the visor and on into the guard's face. Celan felt nauseous. He had seen two of his guards - his comrades, his drinking buddies, and above all his friends - left to die on this forsaken rock. He was thirty seconds sprint from the transport when he heard his name called, as clear as if it was being transmitted over the commlink next to his ear. He paused and looked over his shoulder to see a young lady clad only in a thin white robe, which had become almost transparent with the deluge. She shot him a dazzling smile, and he faltered - he would go back to the ship soon, he just needed a closer look at those eyes.

Kalleq ran over to the body of the fallen guard in the doorway. He was curled up in the foetal position, as if to hide the ugly wound that had been torn in his belly. The sluggun was still clutched in one dead hand, and hopefully still loaded; Zan prised it free and ran out into the storm after the guards seconds before another group of cultists thundered out of a side corridor into the great hall.

In the mud and darkness of the rain it was hard to see what was happening, let alone find anyone who might be an ally. He could dimly see the grey-white of dirtied and soaked robes, seemingly scores of them milling in the confusion. He ran as fast as he could in the cloying slurry, as far away from the temple as he could, until he saw a large shape in the middle distance. As he bolted towards it with renewed vigour, a figure loomed out of the darkness in front of him. She started to smile at him, and he could see her eyes taking on the strange glow again. "Join me in eternal ecstacy..." she murmured, a sweet, low voice that made Zan ache. Closing his eyes to shut out the vision, he muttered one word. "No."

Zan Kalleq raised his gun and fired.

Sergeant Celan was gone. The sergeant was gone. Celan was dead. The fact whirled around Syl Brandin's head as he tried to run as fast and as far as possible to get away from these madmen. Celan had gone back for something, which was suicide in Brandin's book. He didn't know why the sergeant had returned, but he thought he saw a woman standing next to him, the most beautiful woman he had seen. Then... he wasn't sure if he had seen what happened next, it was so dark he could have seen anything, but... The woman changed, one minute she was a lithe beauty, the next second she was - something else? He hair had receded, leaving her scalp completely bald; Her hands had grown enormous, like some monsterous landcrab; But her eyes, they were the worst. They had grown to at least ten times the size they should be, they were like huge glass balls, but they had glowed a sick purple colour, the colour of diseased organs. Celan seemed to not notice this, he even went to embrace it - Brandin shuddered at the thought - until it had attacked him. He seemed to be screaming in pleasure until it ripped his arm off.

A cracking noise in front of him alerted him to the presence of more of those damned cultists. He knew it wasn't any of the other guard, he had seen them all cut down as he ran from the abomnation that killed the sergeant. Dryxen had seemingly lost his mind, and ploughed into a group of four of them, swinging his maul manically, before they took his legs out underneath him and he went down under a mass of bodies. And Grensal, well, he still didn't know exactly what had happened. One moment he was right in front of Brandin, the next he was face down with a metal spike buried in the back of his neck, but no-one in sight to have thrown it. That was when he had run and kept running, just to find some way off of this accursed planet. He checked the clip in his slugger - three rounds left, not good. Emerging out of the gloom in front of him were at least six youths, all grinning at him in a way that made him want to scream out loud. Stumbling backwards, he snapped off one shot, then another, feeling a small surge of accomplishment when two of the cultists fell in a tangle of limbs and bloodied robes. With despair and fear clouding his mind, he aimed his gun at on cultist, then another, before thumbing the visor catch on his helmet. Putting the barrel of the gun under his chin, he mouthed a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, for both his soul and those of his comrades, then fired.

Zan looked down at the body of the girl as she lay down in the muck. Although it was a point blank shot, the bullet hole seemed remarkably small and bloodless, it should have punched a hole right through her. Alarm bells rang in every corner of his mind, and he decided to leave this place as soon as possible. He pelted towards the ship, splashing through puddles and vaulting over fallen bodies until the reached the transport door. Stepping inside, he glanced outside, and went cold as he saw the girl's body was gone, a deep puddle in the mud the only trace of it ever being there. A movement out of the corner of his eye made him whirl round with his gun held out, to see he was aiming at Kuarl Halorum. The fat man was without his tunic, the bizarre scarring on his chest standing out lividly like a tattoo. He was bleeding from several wounds on his upper arms and his breath came out in ragged gasps, but he still wore a grin on his mud-spattered face. "Going somewhere, Zan my boy?" Halorum reached behind his waist for his weapon, but Kalleq had already fired by the time he reached the handle. Halorum's eyes bulged in their sockets as he realised he had been shot in the shoulder, and stumbled backwards, falling over his own legs and ending sitting in a deep pile of slime. For the first time he had known Halorum, Zan could see fear in the man's eyes, rather than the cocky bravado that usually accompanied his chuckles. To Kalleq's suprise, Halorum turned his face to the heavens and made a strange noise, halfway between a scream and howl, forcing Zan to cover his ears. "Oh great one, I beseech you - provide me with power now so I may do your bidding! I am your servant!" Halorum was discordantly yelling a garbled prayer to the skies, babbling in shock for one last chance to redeem himself. Kalleq lowered the pistol to Halorum's face, then dropped it in shock as he saw the bullet hole in the fat man's shoulder knit up and heal instantly. Halorum laughed in triumph and dragged himself to his feet as the gashes in his torso closed and his muscles seemed almost to bulge through his skin. Without warning, the laugh became a shrill shriek of pain as the muscles were bulging, stretching Halorum's skin until it seemed it would snap. His tongue thickened and etruded from his mouth like an obscene serpent exiting a nest, and his fingers shrunk back into the flesh of his hand. Halorum fell to his knees in the mud, looking up at Kalleq before his eyes swelled and hung out of his face as if melting. With a sickening cracking noise, bulges along his ribs punched through his skin, barbed insectile legs extending from his body and whipping flagella poking from every facial orifice. There were sounds like a knife through meat as scores of tiny slits ripped open in his flesh, each one exposing minute rows of pointed teeth which ground on each other. Stumbling back in shock from this monstrocity, Zan raised his pistol and fired repeatedly into it, the bullets scoring deep furrows along the beast's back, but no blood flowed from the wounds.

The thing that once was Halorum bellowed an inarticulate roar or rage and swung a club-like limb at Kalleq, a single long claw extending from the end as it whistled inches from his chest. Kalleq feinted to the left, narrowly avoiding slipping on the now marshlike ground, before dodging to the right and toward the safety of the ship. The spawn swung once more, clipping his left shoulder and following through towards the hull of the ship. The single claw dug deep into one of the armoured panels set in the side, the beast ripping it clear with a grunt and taking a large section of the plating with it. The exposed circuitry fizzed and sparked in the pouring rain, and thick black smoke began to issue from a vent nearby. Kalleq fell through the doorway of the ship and punched the retract button, the heavy door slamming down with an resonating clang before the locks engaged. He staggered over to the control panel, clutching his wounded arm which seemed to cry out in pain with every movement he forced it through, and tapped a few controls. An authoritative female voice intoned from the voxspeakers set either side of him. "Cooling systems damaged. Essential repairs needed. Critical temperature attained in approximately three minutes." Zan cursed and forced himself to the technical readout monitor. It didn't look good - apparently the cooling circuits had been fried from exposure to the rain, and were ruined. He dared a look through the Armaplex door hatch, and came face to what remained of the face of Halorum. His eyes were now completely gone, replaced with more miniature mouths gnashing air in anticipation. Scales had formed on his hairless head and a long segmented tail stretched out behind him. Kalleq instictively ducked as the tail shot forward and smashed a network of cracks in the hatch. Looking around wildly, Kalleq set eyes on a large metal closet marked with danger symbols and stencilled with 'Ordnance'. Pulling hard at the handle, his arm was jarred as the door stayed resolutely shut, a small card reader to the side glowing an angry red. Again the scorpion's tail pounded the door, extending the cracks snaking their way across the window. Desperately searching through the small ship for anything to help, his stomach turned in terror as the ships female voice broke the monotonous seething of the rain once more. "Warning. Critical temperature attained in approximately one minute." Zan fell back against a door set in a small alcove, before spinning around and finding that it was he had hoped it was. He smashed the emergency activation button on the escape unit, feeling relief wash over him as the door slip noiselessly open to reveal a small pod with six seats. Taking his place in one of them, time seemed to move in slow motion as several things happened at once. The safety harness swung down over Kalleq's seat, firmly holding him in place. The window in the door finally gave in under the beast's incessant poundings. The voxspeaker warned that critical temperature had been attained. Kalleq flipped up the protective cap on the launch button, and hammered the large red button underneath as the spawn shambled through the remains of the shattered entrance. The pod door slid down moments before the twisted form reached the escape unit, sealing them apart and causing the creature to scream in unearthly rage. Kalleq felt the rumble of the launch tube and then was pushed down into his seat as the pod was propelled up at deorbitting velocity. The last thought he had was that he wouldn't be getting paid for this job, before he blacked out. He was unconcious when, on the planet's surface, the fusion cells in the ships engine overloaded and blasted the rear end apart, setting off the tactical weapons stored in the ordnance closet and causing a blast that scoured the planet surface in a radius of approximately 2 kilometres.

From: Cpl. Du'an Fleisch

To: M. DeLocke

Re: Incident dated 189935.M41

Message Starts:

My Lady

Despite extensive searching in the rubble of the unknown building, and scouring of the scorched earth surrounding it for some time, we have as yet been unable to locate any trace of Mastar Salim. There have been several bodies recovered, but almost all have been negatively identified. There are three that are being tested for dental and genetic records, due to extreme burns and/or mutilation. We will of course inform you if any tests prove positive.

Also note that we have found no traces of the bounty hunters hired several days before the incident. Again, no visual identification has proved positive, although more thorough testing is, as you can appreciate, impossible. May I suggest that if either of them did survive, the payment be waived and charges of fraud, deception, assault, theft and willful destruction of Imperial property be levelled against them.

On a more positive note, we have found who we believe to be your daughter, Miss Jenna. She has recieved quite extensive injuries and is currently unconcious but recovering well in medlab. We hope that this boon offsets somewhat the disappointing results of the incident, and indeed, Miss Jenna should be returned to you within a week, completely healed. Our medical chief is somewhat concerned about potential damage to her eyes, but he assumes that it was caused by exposure to fumes and extreme light condition, and that the purple discolouration will disappear in time.

Message ends.