"Right hand! Fire with your right hand!"
A mont of hesitation.
Five Ogryns, towering in their power armor, exchanged bewildered glances as though their Commander had just asked them to recite catechisms of the Emperor backwards. Then, almost in perfect codic unison, they all raised their left hands.
One of them slapped himself squarely in the face with his oversized gauntlet, blinking in confusion as the impact rang like a church bell.
"No, not the left—right! It's the right hand that fires!" the Regint Commander bellowed, his voice cracking with the strain of holding together discipline in a squad that stretched the very definition of 'discipline.'
Another Ogryn, smaller than the rest but no less stupid, imdiately pointed at his left hand and shouted proudly, "This one?"
The Commander's eye twitched. "No! That's still your left, Throne damn it!"
Lute, the largest Ogryn of the group, his armor adorned with a crude drawing of a smiling sun or perhaps a skull, the interpretation was debatable and not worth arguing over, grunted with the slow pride of a child eager to prove himself.
"I knows my left from my right," he bood.
He then raised both arms and stared at them like they were puzzle pieces.
"This one's left," he muttered, flexing a massive sausage-fingered fist. "Other one's… also left?"
The Commander stord over, smacking away armored hands like he was swatting flies. He stopped in front of the particularly defiant Ogryn, Lute who had earlier insisted, with so wounded pride, that hewasn't dumb.
The Commander jabbed a finger at the Lute's right arm. "This one. That's your firing arm. Not the other. Not both. Not your face. This one."
Lute blinked slowly, his thick brows creasing like tectonic plates grinding together. Then, finally, the light of comprehension flickered and then he grinned. "Ohhhhhh.You shoulda said so, boss!"
The Commander resisted the urge to slam his head into his own breastplate. At least comprehension had finally dawned.
Finally Lute clenched his right hand.
Only then did the first salvo begin.
Mounted twin cannons on the backs of the Ogryn-pattern Power Armor roared to life, delivering a barrage comparable in output to that of a Thunderborn pattern cannon, only with longer range and greater area of effect.
With each charge cycle and salvo, a swath of buildings within the settlent was vaporized by concentrated energy beams. Heretics hiding inside never stood a chance. They were obliterated in the initial strikes, incinerated alongside the structures that once gave them cover.
By the ti the second salvo struck, panic had already taken root.
The heretics who could still move tried to flee the settlent. But most of them were barely more than rotting husks, so collapsed as their legs gave out after only a few steps, others sprinted before their heads burst like overripe boils.
Those who managed coherent movent were picked off by the Ratling sharpshooters, their lasrifles precise and unerring.
The Ratling-pattern Power Armor enhanced vision clarity, highlighting target silhouettes in real-ti. Firing vectors, angles, and lock indicators were all displayed inside their HUDs in real ti. Their natural accuracy, now augnted by machine-precision, made them lethal.
As the Ratlings gunned down fleeing heretics, Phoros moved among the corpses, administering coup de grâce shots with his boltgun.
Each impact sent a geyser of bone and rot spraying into the air.
This behavior quickly drew attention.
"Why waste bolter rounds on corpses, my lord?" one Ratling asked, lowering his rifle and tilting his head to peer up at Phoros.
The height difference ant the diminutive sniper had to crane his neck as far back as it would go just to see the Astartes' helm.
Phoros crouched slightly, pointing to a body nearby that hadn't received a follow-up shot.
The corpse shuddered… then began to rise again.
Unflinching and silent, it lurched forward toward the Ogryns and Ratlings, who were still laying down fire. Though it showed no signs of fear, its movent was sluggish, accompanied by a low, eerie moaning.
"Uuurrrgghh... hhhkkk... mmnn..."
"Poxwalkers," Phoros said grimly. "Reanimation isn't common... but it happens. I've seen entire platoons consud by their plague. A single infected body can bloom into a horde within minutes if left unchecked." Check latest chapters at novel~fire~net
One of the Ratling imdiately raised his rifle and fired a burst into the creature's chest, center mass.
The shot punched clean through, but the abomination kept advancing, unfazed
Only when Phoros raised his boltgun and blew the upper torso apart did the creature finally slump, motionless.
"They feel no pain," he said. "They don't stop. The only way to be certain is destruction of the brainstem. Or vaporize the whole mass."
He turned to the other sharpshooters.
"Use heavier weaponry," Phoros instructed. "Flars, preferably, If you have them purge them with fire."
Just then, Grey reappeared, stepping over corpses with practiced ease. In his gauntlet, he held a vial filled with twitching bio-organic matter.
"Mission accomplished," he said flatly. "The enemy has been purged. We're heading back."
Phoros eyed the vial. "Just one sample? There could be mutations in their tissue. Strains we haven't catalogued."
Grey said nothing. He rely turned and opened a compartnt on his jump pack. Inside sat dozens of identical vials, each filled with twitching, preserved samples.
Phoros stared, puzzled. When had he harvested so many?
Behind them, the settlent smoldered. Entire blocks had been flattened by Ogryn bombardnt. The combat data from both the Ogryn-pattern and Ratling-pattern Power Armor suits had already been logged and transmitted to the central datavault.
With their objectives completed, the strike team regrouped, boarded their dropships, and ascended into orbit, leaving behind only ash, and silence.
....
One Hour Later
Once Grey returned the samples, Qin Mo began his analysis without delay.
Grey stood quietly nearby, watching him manipulate the contaminated biomatter across a range of analytical cogitators and instrunts.
The chamber was a cathedral of machinery. Holographic rune-screens projected chemical breakdowns. Servo-arms danced above the operating slab, their tools buzzing with ritual precision. Each hiss of sterilizing mist, each spark of dissecting light, felt more like a rite than science.
The sll was nauseating, a vile stench that was only marginally less repulsive than the foul cargo bay that once held an entire squad of Ogryns during their descent into the hiveworld Talon I.
Aside from Qin Mo and Grey, two others were in attendance. Tech-Priest Vick of the Adeptus chanicus, and the unsanctioned Inquisitorial agent, Chak.
Vick stood silently beside Qin Mo, overseeing the procedures with the reverence expected of a senior mber of the Cult chanicus.
Chak, on the other hand, kept his distance, retreating as far from the samples as the room would allow. His expression twisted in visible discomfort, nose pinched tightly.
During the intervals when the experint required rely waiting, Qin Mo maintained a steely composure, staring intently at the diagnostic screens. The monitors replayed the earlier combat footage of the Ratlings and Ogryn warriors clad in power-armour, the very data that Qin Mo deed most valuable, not the samples, but the effectiveness of his troops.
That was what he cared about most.
"Your Governor is one tough bastard," Chak whispered to Grey. "To handle that filth without flinching… Emperor save , I can barely stand to look."
"Then why are you here at all?" Grey asked flatly. He found it odd, and frankly inappropriate that Chak was present at all.
Only Tech-Priest Vick had been officially cleared for accessto Hive Tyrone.
"This plague ca too quickly, too anomalous," Chak replied. "We need to trace its origin. I don't need to go into infected zones. I'm just here to receive and review your Governor's findings."
"So I'm guessing soone else is doing the fieldwork?" Greypressed.
To his surprise, Chak gave a direct answer without hesitation.
"Indeed. That task falls to Lord Horst."
Grey blinked. The na ant nothing to him. He stared atChak, puzzled.
"Lord Horst… the Undying Lord Inquisitor," Chak elaborated, almost as if leaking the information deliberately. "The official report is that he's investigating the plague, but between you and ..." He glanced aningfully at Qin Mo, raising his voice ever so slightly. "I believe he's really here for matters tied tothe Talon System."
Grey still didn't know who Horst was, but Qin Mo did.
He turned and looked directly at Chak.
"Your Inquisition only has one nad Horst, doesn't it?"
"Don't speak his na so casually, Governor," Chak said with a half-smile, brows raised in feigned alarm. Then, more soberly, he nodded "Yes. There's only one. And if you know to ask… then you already know who he is."
Qin Mo gave a short nod and turned his attention to Vick, whose chadendrite-mounted optics returned the gaze.
It all clicked.
Chak had only been granted clearance because Vick had vouched for him, guaranteeing that the Inquisitor bore no Horstility toward the Talon System and that he'd provide critical intelligence in return.
And now, Qin Mo realized, Horst's arrival was that critical intelligence.
His brow furrowed as he ntally sorted through everything he knew about the man.
Phaedus Falconet Horst.
Known across multiple Ordos, feared and revered in equal asure. A sanctioned psyker of prodigious talent. A senior Lord Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus. Veteran of the Gothic War and the Thirteenth Black Crusade. He had led purgations against daemon princes, navigated warp-torn frontiers, and survived direct confrontation with Alpha Legion warbands, and more than once, erged with intelligence no one else could have survived to deliver.
But more than that… he was one of the few confird living minds to have studied theHand of Darknessand survived the knowledge it conveyed.
A relic of terrible and obscure origin, the Hand was said to be a xenos weapon or device, possibly Necron though its capabilities remained locked behind theories and redacted archives. Rumors whispered that it was able to manipulate space-ti itself, or pierce the veil of the Immaterium in ways even the Eldar feared.
Its existence had been erased from most official records.
Except Horst hadn't erased it. He had kept it.
He was, in essence, a living repository of classified data, a vault in flesh,sanctioned to carry truths that would shatter lesser minds.
When Primarch Roboute Guilliman returned, Horst had been among the few called into high councils. His words had carried the weight of centuries. His silence even more.
He had lived for over a millennium and, barring catastrophe, would live for centuries more.
And now he was walking into Qin Mo's territory.
"Horst…" Qin Mo murmured. "Now there's a heavy hitter."
.....
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