In the end, only about six of them were brave enough to accompany us on the mission to sabotage the Communications Jammer. In another life, in another time perhaps, I would have executed those who chose to stay behind as traitors and heretics, cowards who turned their backs on the Imperium. After all, death in service was expected for all who served the God Emperor. Their lives were forfeit to the machinations of the greater Imperium, mere cogs to serve and spin in the God Emperor's mighty engine of war. Death was expected. Death was a necessity. A part of me wished to kill them for their cowardice. How dare they turn down my offer to push back against the xenos? How dare they hide in the shadows, awaiting only the slow, cowardly death reserved for traitors?
The worst part was that their chances of survival were far from zero. In fact, if everyone in the group executed their parts well, then none of them had to die. I would plant the Poor Man's Rose on the Communications Jammer and retreat to a safe distance before detonating it.
My soul burned. Every fiber of my being raged at the thought of letting them live. In their place, I would not have hesitated. I would have jumped at any chance to push back against the enemy xenos, even if it meant my certain death. I had died for the Imperium once already, and I would gladly do it again.
But then... what good would that do?
When I truly stopped to consider everything and asked the question: why? I found that there was no real answer.
I glanced over my shoulder as we trekked through the rocky, uneven terrain of the mountain range, wondering why they were afraid. Why weren't they as quick, as eager, to throw away their lives as I would have in their place, as I would be now if the God Emperor asked me to? Were they not raised in the same church as I was? Were they not taught the same sermons? Did they not sing the same songs and pray the same prayers? Perhaps not. Perhaps they simply were not taught to be faithful, to be... fervent in their belief in the God Emperor and his glorious plan for mankind. But did that make them any less? Did that make them worthy of death? Ultimately, fear is a human trait. It can be trained and tempered with discipline, but it is forever embedded within humanity, our instinct to survive, to live.
Was that truly wrong? Were they simply acting as their humanity dictated? They wanted to live. I noted that those who journeyed with me were elderly, even if they were still fit for combat. Their time was coming. Those who stayed behind were the young, the men and women who might build a future if only they lived long enough to do so. Was that truly so cowardly? Did they deserve death because they wanted to live?
I... didn't know.
It wasn't my place to judge them, I realized. In the end, they were humans—cowardly, perhaps, but no less human than the brave, no less worthy of their own lives. As long as they did nothing to actively jeopardize the greater Imperium and its servants, and stayed their tongues from speaking heretical ideas and spouting blasphemous nonsense, then I suppose there was no real reason to persecute them for cowardice. A Commissar might say otherwise, but I was not part of the Commissariat, and I had no right to judge. Even then, if a Commissar were here now, ready to kill them, I realized that I might argue; I might defend those who stayed behind.
Cowards, after all, could grow to become greater than their fear; within each and every human being was the potential to become truly fearless. As long as they steered their thoughts and actions away from heresy and treachery, within them was the chance to become great men and women. Or, if nothing else, the chance to become good, honest, and productive citizens of the Imperium, provided they lived long enough to retire or return to their old lives.
"Keep your eyes sharp," Markus Wolfehart, the former leader of the survivors, declared as we walked into a deep, dark chasm. Markus, I recalled, was the one who had spoken to me and declared his intent to join me on my mission, convincing a few others to join us as well. He might not have been terribly successful, but six heavily-armed survivors with little to lose wasn't a terrible company to have. Sure, they were grumpy old men who'd seen too many days, but they were headstrong and brave. And Markus was their leader. I just happened to be the one to point the way. "There are fouler things than Orks in the deep places of this planet."
I wasn't sure if he was just addressing me, but I nodded nonetheless. The other members of our group nodded as well, likely already aware of the hidden dangers. One of them, a white-haired woman with only one eye, wielding a withered lasgun, turned to me. "There's a reason why the Orks don't venture into the caves, Perry. Before they came, this place was home to foul, man-eating mutants. They usually kept to themselves. But, every once in a while, a child or a pregnant woman would go missing, fools who thought the mountains were safe."
I nodded. I was no stranger to the existence of mutants. But, admittedly, I found it odd that the Government of Sylvia hadn't eradicated the beasts before the Orks came. As we stepped into the darkness and my enhanced eyes adjusted without the need for optics, I asked, "Why haven't they been purged already?"
"The Haunters are elusive creatures," Markus explained, turning on the flashlight of his lasgun. "They make their homes deep in the underground caves and subterranean tunnels. Several expeditions have been sent to try and purge them, but all have failed. Not because the Haunters are fearsome predators, but because their home is far too deep. Bombs would risk collapsing the tunnels and, with it, the cities on the surface. The planetary government deemed such actions unsafe. And so, the mutants were allowed to prosper."
"How dangerous are these... Haunters?" I asked. Mutants didn't concern me overly much, after everything I've fought and defeated. In fact, because no one cared for their lives, I was free to devour as many of them as I could, to sate my growing hunger. The [Curse-Shift] granted me powerful abilities, true enough, but they came at a cost. And that cost grew heftier with every passing hour that I wasn't eating our foes. Still, at the moment, at least, my reserves were high; it'd probably take several days to reduce my biomass to zero, and even then, this planet was crawling with Orks. Sooner or later, I'd run into enough of them to feast on.
"They're not so dangerous as to be considered a serious threat," Markus said. "But they're a nuisance. They steer clear of those who seem dangerous, like guardsmen. They hunt in packs and pick off the weakest or the youngest. If enough of them gather in one place, however, and they choose a Blood Haunter, then they become something of a problem. Individually, Haunters are swift and strong, but they're afraid of light and fire. When they gather in the hundreds of thousands, however, they become almost fearless, rushing out and attacking the surface, until the Blood Haunter is killed, after which they disperse back into their caves."
That sounded... familiar, actually. My home world once had a thriving population of bloodthirsty mutants, horned men and winged women, who lived high up in the mountains, beyond the cities, deep in the woodlands, where the light of civilization struggled to reach. They were annihilated a decade before I was born, but the story remained the same: vicious and bloodthirsty mutants venturing out to ambush the weak and the vulnerable, before retreating into their hideaways. As I recalled, the local administration burned all the forests and leveled all the mountains that supposedly housed these mutants, likely killing them all in the process.
"When was the last time they rushed out to war?" I asked, idly noting the features of the cave walls around us. Primitive paintings adorned the walls, patterns of dark colors that were too vivid and complex for nature to have created. The mutants must have painted these. It dawned on me that the Haunters were very likely humans who, during the Age of Strife, regressed into troglodytes and, after many generations, became the Haunters.
My ears perked up at the sound of sudden movement to our left, where a pale, hairless humanoid creature scurried into a dark hole. No one else noticed. No one else could. It moved too fast and too silently for anyone here to perceive. Interesting. It moved almost as fast as a Space Marine without Power Armor, which was still the sort of speed that would appear almost like a blur to most people. In this darkness, even with all the flashlights, none of my teammates were fast enough to react to the Haunters if they decided to attack—no one but me.
"A long time ago," Markus answered. His voice boomed and echoed in the dark of the cave. Above us, the Haunters looked down, borne aloft by ridges and plates of stone. They were excellent climbers, then? They observed us but did not seem interested in attacking. For a moment, I contemplated firing my weapon, but caves, in my experience, were often filled with pockets of flammable gas. I was wary of the possibility of pulling the trigger of my lasgun and accidentally setting fire to this whole place, potentially killing me. I couldn't inform them, either, because exposing my abilities to other, mundane humans felt... uncomfortable. I was fine with unleashing them before Custodians and Space Marines, but when I stood by my fellow guardsmen, fought with them, I wanted to do it as a man—just a man. "Before I was born. The Haunters flattened the city of Torianis and devoured its people, made a bloody mountain of their corpses. A few brave men and women escaped, gathered up the surrounding cities, and formed an army of their own."
Mutants... their fates were all the same. No matter what world they appeared in or what state they were in, sooner or later, they were purged by fire and death, and forgotten.
"I think you can guess what happened next," Markus said. I could only nod. Truth be told, I'd rather be fighting the Orks than former-human mutants, who were now little more than rabid beasts. When all was said and done, mutants did not choose the fate that befell them, nor did their ancestors. It wasn't like killing heretics, who chose to turn their backs on the God Emperor and his divine Imperium, or xenos whose very presence plagued the galaxy. No, mutants were innocent. Yes, many of them deserved to be killed to preserve peace and maintain order, but I'd take no pleasure in exterminating them.
"How deep does this cave go, anyway?" I asked. We'd been walking for a while now, and fortunately, none of the Haunters had attacked us. There were easily thousands of them up there, watching us from above. Why they chose not to attack, I didn't know. Markus did mention, however, that the mutants preferred to pick off the weakest first, and none of us were weak, myself least of all.
"There are many exits," Markus answered. "The one we're looking for isn't far, maybe a hundred meters at most. The other tunnels can easily stretch hundreds of miles underground."
"What can we expect on the other side?" I asked, and at that, the others laughed.
"A whole bunch of Orks," Markus answered, chuckling. "Many of their major cities are on the other side of the mountain range. It's brutal out there, and our only saving grace is the fact that the greenskins are too stupid to realize they're killing each other for us."
"Near as we can tell," One of the other, older guardsmen continued. "The Orks are fractured. They had a leader when they first got here, but some lucky son of a bitch killed it by charging it with a suicide vest. I'm pretty sure that's the reason why they still haven't invaded Remus and Romulus."
"I'm guessing their leaders are chosen based entirely on strength and size?" I confirmed, despite knowing that for a fact. Orks respected one thing above all else and that was strength. Their whole hierarchy was built around the concept of the strongest taking positions of power. I knew that because I used to be one of them. But, honestly. even during my time as an Ork, I could scarcely imagine a single Ork growing powerful enough to cow every other Ork into submission.
"Right you are, lad."
The rest of our journey went by relatively smoothly. None of my allies really noticed the Haunters right above our heads, searching for even the slightest weakness, but finding nothing. A thought came to mind, however, and I wondered if I could, somehow, use my [Flesh Shaping] to revert these abominations back into the glorious and divine shape of humanity? I... never tried that before. But, in theory, it was possible. I had control over the whole body, down to individual cells and the DNA held within them. It should be easy enough to make small alterations to rid the mutants of their unwanted attributes.
Could I do the same to Chaos Astartes? After all, what great humiliation would there be for them to be reduced back into a mere human, their powers taken away. I could almost imagine the look on their faces when they realized that everything that made them who they were was suddenly gone.
In fact, could I forcibly turn an Ork into a human? I had all the genetic templates I'd need, after all.
Could I turn any xenos into a human? I turned to one of the mutants and smiled.
Oh, I was definitely going to test this.
Not yet and definitely not now, but definitely soon.
Chapter 51 is up on (Pat)reon!