Vials and beakers littered the Haemonculus' workstation, glittering in the artificial light. Earlier today some once-servant of the Mon-Keigh false god boarded The Scytherunner. That single thought wormed its way into Zhrysha's brain, distracting her from which fluids she planned on mixing. Sweeping a hand across the table, she flung them all to the ground. Beside her, the mandrake jumped, dodging whatever fluids spilled across the floor. Standing, she rifled through a stand that carried more of her poisons. She had a special punishment lined up for the armless Kriegsman.
Precisely measuring the green and purple fluids into a new container, the substance swirled around before taking on an unhealthy green hue.
Heating it over a burner, she smiled to herself. So far, she'd been rather kind to the synthesized men in the hold, keeping them at the brink of death at the behest of the Shipmaster. Perhaps if she killed one of them on accident, he wouldn't mind so much. Tipping a blue soulution into the bubbling green fluid, it hissed and spat before turning steel-grey. Removing it from the fire, she poured the special poison into a syringe where it thickened into a sludge. Placing it away from the edge of her workstation, she smiled to herself.
Lesaka fidgeted uncomfortably in the light, eyes darting every which way. Snapping her fingers, the Haemonculus drew the mutant's attention her way. "Bring me one of the prisoners in the hold. We should have something special to show to the Shipmaster's new guest, don't you think?" Mute as always, the Mandrake nodded, stepping into X'ltan's shadow and vanishing. Scant minutes later, she emerged with a mewling, scrabbling Guardsman. This one had not yet lost his will... but she would break him today. Just in time for the Inquisitor to see. Smiling wickedly to herself, she went to work.
M'kai ghosted behind the Shipmaster's guest. Some soft, slow Mon-Keigh. If the jetbiker knew Tyran dealt with humans, he would have moved sooner. Too late to undo the shame Alloth already visited on The Scytherunner's crew, M'kai could at least destroy him. At first, he'd planned to wait until he could convince more of the crew beyond his own team to side with him. The Haemonculus worried him the most. If she sent her pet mandrake after him, he would die.
The idea hit him with force. Another Imperial ship recently entered the system. If he sabatoged the mimic engines and their means to access the Webway, the Imperials would do the killing for him. Staring daggers one last time at the filthy human aboard his ship, M'kai headed for the engineering room.
After a suggestion from the Shipmaster, Inquisitor Rylas fumbled his way through the ship until he met the Haemonculus. At first, she seemed no different from the rest of them. Spikes festooned the blue carapace armour she wore, and her flesh held an unearthly white pallor. The blue vent grille over her mouth dripped constant drool. He chose not to comment on it, but instead simply watched her work.
The body on the table in front of her looked less like a human and more a pile of rancid meat. His connective tissue laid on the table, strewn about haphazardly. Each of his organs, still attached to every system they powered, sat in different trays, wobbling and glistening in the false light of the ship. A smell like rot assaulted Rylas' nose and he did his best to ignore it. The sacrifice he provided for these xenos would all meet the same fate as this man, whoever he was. Smiling, he thought to himself how worth it it would be. To be a free human, walking the streets of the Dark City. What secrets he could learn...
An odd shudder passed through the ship, then things went silent. While the engines of the smaller Dark Eldar craft didn't match the bass rumble of Imperial ships, the slight humming of the deck completely stopped. The Haemonculus paused in her work, standing up straight for the first time since Rylas met her. She cocked her head to the side and spoke.
"It seems we'll be delayed, human." Her voice slithered out of the grille, snaking its way into Rylas' brain and leaving a risidual slime that made him shiver. "I've got a special event planned for one of our prisoners. You will watch." Clear that it was not a question, he looked around for somewhere out of the way to stand. Zhrysha, as she'd introduced herself, quickly tossed all the organs back into the man's body and sewed him back up. Grabbing something vaguely beetle-shaped, she dropped it into the man's nose and it crawled inside. With a nod to her black-skinned Eldar companion, the mandrake grabbed the comatose prisoner and vanished with him.
A moment later, she re-appeared with a different prisoner. While Rylas couldn't tell who he was, the look on the Guardsman's face was pure, unadulterated confusion. Looking over what remained of his uniform, he saw the garb of the Death Korps of Krieg. One of the sacrifices he'd used to bait the xenos into allowing him aboard. The man who had been Inquisitor Rylas smiled.
Rage built up in Sael's body, threatening to burst him at the seams. Right in front of him, a servant of the Imperium, the Inquisitor in charge of him and his allies, prepared to watch this monster do Emperor only knew what. The iron-firm grip of the mandrake kept him from throwing himself at the traitor, but his mouth remained unrestrained. He spit on the Inquisitor. Rylas simply wiped the spittle off his jacket and raised a brow. A one-armed Guardsman posed no threat to him, and Sael knew that he couldn't stand up to the ex-Inquisitor, even if he was free.
Strapping him to the operating table, that freakish Haemonculus grabbed a large syringe filled with a gunmetal grey substance. She poked at it once before squirting just a bit out of the needle. Tasting the odd grey sludge, she nodded to herself. Positioning the needle above his shin, she paused in thought. Absently, she stabbed downwards, injecting the semi-solid straight into his bones. After what else he'd lost already, Sael hardly noticed it. Quickly, his leg became stiff and the odd feeling travelled up his leg, crawling across to the other side of his body, freezing his other leg in place. Over beyond his field of vision, the Dark Eldar clinked together glasses, doing Emperor only knew.
That stiff, paralyzing feeling crept from his waist up, immobilizing his spine. Panic began to set in as he realized whatever she'd injected him with robbed him of the ability to move. Soon, he would stand as still as any of the silent, tortured statuary in the room. The grey sludge seeped through the bones of his remaining arm, and up his neck before the Haemonculus returned. Stabbing another needle through his scalp and into his skull, he felt another liquid seep into the bones there. Blindingly hot pain shot through his jaw, concentrating just behind his eyes as whatever poison she'd injected him with did its work. Where it burned, the steel-grey in his bones moved no further.
The Inquisitor finally spoke up, but addressed the Haemonculus with his question. "What did you do to him, Zhrysha?" Zhrysha. Sael would remember that name. The haemonculus turned from her table, large hammer in hand. The scathing look she sent the Rylas' way bounced right off.
"The substances I injected into his bones serve two purposes. The grey causes them to grow very, very brittle, and paralyzes all the joins. That red fluid counteracts it. We need you alive, don't we Sael? Yes we do." Behind that vent, her sideways mouth twisted and slobbered. The very thought of it revolted the Krieger. She turned towards him and removed her vent-grille. She smiled at him, her lips curling to the right in a lopsided C shape.
She grabbed the hammer and smashed it into Sael's chest. Pain far worse than anything he'd ever felt before radiated from the point of impact. Far away, he could hear a crackling noise. Shockwaves of agony radiated through his bones, and the jagged tips of the shattered skeleton stabbed up through his skin. Blissful darkness hovered just within his reach. Before he could reach for oblivion, Zhrysha jabbed another needle into his neck. Clarity assaulted his mind, dragging him back from the comforting black and red of unconsciousness. Every breath shifted the ruptured bones, working them deeper into the ravaged muscles.
By his side, the Eldar flipped a short, thin blade through her fingers. Sliding its edge up against the Krieger's cheek, she let the metal warm on his face. Pressing down, she sank the knife just beneath the skin and blood welled up around the monomolecular blade. Dragging it out to the side of his face, just shy of his ear, the Eldar began humming to herself. Plunging the small knife into the thin layer of flesh by his ear, the Haemonculus dragged it upwards. Small, white-hot bursts of agony shot through him, and Sael twitched on the table. At every movement, the remnants of his skeleton ground against his insides, bleeding him dry. Sael looked around wildly; his eyes finally settled on Inquisitor Rylas. Then, the gun at Rylas' hip. After a moment, the Inquisitor noticed, and followed his gaze. A cruel smile lit at the edge of his lips.
"No, not today, I think." The Dark Eldar's blade cut across the top of Sael's forehead. Her humming grew a bit louder, and the henious "statuary" began their whispered screaming once more. Two more slow drags of the knife, and Zhrysha returned to her original position. Digging her fingers underneath the incision, Sael had only an instant to realize what she planned before the Haemonculus tore upwards with all her inhuman strength.
As she began to peel off his face, Sael writhed against his bonds, the grinding, scraping of his bones secondary to the animal terror thick in his veins. The raw red of his detatched skin leered at him as more and more surrendered to the insistent pressure. His bonds still held fast, though his thrashing increased in ferocity. Once more, that insistent blackness pressed at the edges of his mind. Sael grabbed it, and his body shut down.
Pain crushed the air from Sael's lungs, and the shallow breaths he took seared through his lungs. Eyes snapping open, he tried to look at himself. Restraints kept his head in place, but the sheer, mind-melting agony pounding into his skull told him all he needed to know. Even trying to twitch back and forth seemed murder. Slowly, he became aware of more than his own body. On his right, Zhrysha waited with a knife in hand, her Scissorhand Gauntlet firmly affixed around the other.
Her knife dragged down his leg, and she came up with a thin strip of his skin. Dangling it in front of his nose, she giggled to herself. "Awake now? Good, we've almost finished with the preparations." Reaching up, she undid the strap holding his head to the table. Though the rest of his body refused to respond to his commands, Sael's neck still worked fine. Looking downwards, he gave a pained moan. Red, skinless flesh pulsed angrily at him, the throbbing of blood in the arteries and veins matched the tattoo beating across the backs of his eyes. Glancing further up, then to the side, he realized the rest of his body had followed suit.
He wished nothing more than to die. Some arcane horror kept him firmly alive, stuck and grounded in the Haemonculus' plans. Bone stuck through his flesh, ripping through muscle and gouging into the meat of his body with each breath. Where his skin had been, he felt nothing but fire, tearing away at him. The Haemonculus' terrible smile heralded more.
To his left, a large tank he'd never noticed before had been filled with a greenish liquid. Sael briefly wondered what purpose it served before a fresh wave of torment erased any attempts at coherent thought. As the spots faded from his eyes, Sael felt the Eldar pour a cold liquid across his chest. His eyes fixed on her, and from seemingly nowhere she produced a flame. Touching it to the cold liquid, it lit aflame, drenching him in an inferno.
He screamed. Fire snatched its chance, propelling into his lungs and searing them to a crisp. Muted, but not stopped, the weakened screams shook some of the statues on their pedestals. They vibrated and screamed in sympathy, creating an all-new chorus of voices. Just under the cracking of the flames, Sael could hear the Haemonculus laughing.
The Krieg ship Defiance plodded slowly through orbit. Inquisitor Friia comandeered the ship to chase Rylas. What little evidence she'd found on the snowy planet suggested he would still be in orbit, somewhere around the planet. A few hours after they'd returned to the planet, they only picked up the signature of a small frigate passing through the area.
Unless they found Rylas before he left the planet's orbit, tracking him down would prove nearly impossible. Even finding the remnants of his base hinged on pure luck. With the stealth of an Eldar ship, they stood little to no chance of finding him. Never before had Friia cared to know what sorts of technology they would be facing. No unusual emissions tainted the planet's immediate presence, and no warm energy saturated the areas. It seemed as if the ex-Inquisitor never visited the planet at all.
One of the servitors jerked in its station. "Xenos presence detected. Xenos presence detected." It droned on and on. Immediately the Captain's vox blared static, followed by a series of orders. Connected to the ship as he was, he did not need to see the readouts, he simply knew them. Within moments, he double-checked through all systems that it was a xenos ship signature, and a Dark Eldar one at that. Close enough to reach under fifteen minutes.
Friia bolted into action. Hours before, she'd set up a raiding team and put them on standby. Though her choices had mostly been random, as the Kriegers seemed faceless and interchangable, she did request the one who found Rylas' base accompany them. The journey to the hangar bays gave the ship enough time to close in on the xenos signal. Though its sudden appearance worried her, the chance to catch the traitor outweighed the risks.
Ten minutes after the initial call, Friia stood among the assembled troops. Unlike the Cadians or the Elysians, the Kriegsmen did not banter. Each checked his weapons silently, made certain his gear was in place, and prepared for whatever dangers the boarding entailed. Without comment or joke, they made peace with the Emperor, and prepared to send the corrupt xenos straight to whatever hell they first emerged from. The two squads she'd convinced the Death Korps Legion to lend her loaded into two of the dropships in the hangar. Interrogator Gregor hopped onto the dropship's ramp and ran to the Inquisitor's side. He handed her a pict-slate as the ramp closed up and sealed behind them.
Vague, incomplete schematics of what appeared to be some sort of Dark Eldar frigate covered the screen. The information they contained didn't help at all, even if it was accurate. Opening a ship-to-ship communication link, she addressed the squads following her as they started the engines. "This is a search and destroy objective is to kill any and all xenos aboard the Dark Eldar vessel, and locate Inquisitor Rylas. Kill him." With that, she closed the link.
The dropship engine's whine rumbled into a roar, and it took off. Without windows to see outside, Friia had no way to tell when they would hit the Eldar frigate. Strapping into one of the seats, she waited for the tell-tale shudder of first contact. Under the helmet of her battle gear, she smiled. Even if they didn't find the Inquisitor aboard the vessel, every one of them would send a few more of these bastards straight to hell, wiping them from the God-Emperor's sight. That made it all worth it.