Post by inquisitorkurlin on Feb 23, 2007 22:26:54 GMT -5
Inquisitor Lord Kurlin had never cared for the dissection centers offered up by the Ordo Xenos. He admired their dedication in constant study of the enemy, a study performed with slicing scalpels, precise sutures and the disquieting stink of preservatives. Whereas some servitors read books, the Xenos read flesh.
It wasn’t that the aging Inquisitor Lord found exception to death. Quite the contrary. He dispensed it ruthlessly and without a shred of mercy upon all of those writ to be the God Emperor’s enemies. But once the heart stopped, the blood pooled and the twitching halted, his work was done. A masterpiece of divine justice, each and every corpse he left behind. Picking at the dead afterward seemed too unclean, even for a man who was mostly cybernetic.
The dissection room was hexagonial with a rusting grate floor. Two round lights casting an amber glow orbited a bloody steel table on two servoarms. Two deathwatch space marines were nearby, one with the shoulderpad of the Ultramarines, the other wearing the icon of the Imperial Fists. Two mutlilimbed, gray skinned servitors wheeled about on large treads. Inquisitor Sierveron was peering over the table in a shining white lab coat splattered with wet green, one cybernetic eye whirring as it focused on the specimen.
“This is interrupting my prayer,” Kurlin said, but not with warning. He knew that the Ordo Xenos never bothered him with anything insignificant.
“This is worth the interruption,” Sierveron told him. “Approach, please.”
Kurlin motioned with his glistening left hand, and the two battle sisters that escorted him took a position at the arched doorway he’d entered. His two Sister Hospitallers remained closer, charged as they were with maintaining his reconstructed body’s life support systems.
“How much do you know of the Tyranid threat?” Sierveron asked.
“I have studied Kryptman’s dossier.”
“Then you know at least our basic concerns about these predators. A small force seems to have landed here on Triol 7, as it were. The Deathwatch was able to bring this specimen back.”
On the table was a dead genestealer, its flesh split open and pinned to different points of the surgical table with anointed magnets. Its organs still had a wet shine.
Kurlin studied it. “Seems to be a conventional specimen of Corporator Hominis. Often referred to as a sewerstalker, genestealer, clawfiend.”
“This one has the feeder tendrils, you see, so it’s technically Corporator Ymgarli. But its genus is actually a secondary concern. I want you to see something.”
Sierveron pulled away the green stained cloth concealing one of the four limbs. The limb ended at the elbow, but terminated in a smooth, fleshy stump.
“A malformity?” Kurlin asked. “But, no. The hive mind does not generate malformities. All of its creations are perfectly engineered killing machines. Such flaws don’t exist in their breeding pools.”
“Correct. This is something that happened well after the fact. However, I can tell you also that this is not a case of regeneration, as seen in the carnifex breed. Whereas that comes as a result of accelerated metabolism and quick response growth to traumatized regions stimulated by flaring nerve endings, the curious thing about this is how the cellular structure simply stretches, then ends.”
“Stretches and ends?”
“No less. The tissue distends and then abruptly terminates. Simply stated, it’s as though the entire limb, all of the matter associated with it, was pulled off the same way a child might pull the limb off a clay figure. And the most interesting thing?”
“Yes?”
“This was done after the genestealer was dead.”
Sister Tripsis and Chordis, sisters dialogous who were assigned to Kurlin as part of his personal retinue, had spent hours scouring every library fragment, medical record, and inquisitor case file looking for the cause of the aberration. Capable of processing information faster than normal humans, they were still unable to find any solid leads on the strange event.
Kurlin sent for Solan Vacht, captain of the Deathwatch on Triol 7.
“What are we dealing with here, Captain? Even my research has come flat here.”
“A rare thing, I’m sure.” Vacht was the veteran of several campaigns with the deathwatch, a former black templar who had the scars on his face to prove his competence. His blonde hair, swept back, was going gray now. “We gutted a genestealer cult on Metas Thuron V. We found a man who’d lost his mind in the undercity, wearing rags and malnourished. Smelled like the inside of a Nurgling’s anus. He was blubbering on, ‘he eats the eaters, he eats the eaters.’ We killed him on the spot, but he kept patting his arms as he chanted.”
“He eats the eaters.” Kurlin’s vision drifted a moment. “Whatever the case, this is a startling question that needs an immediate answer. I don’t like questions, Vacht. Take a kill team and search a twenty square kilometer area where this specimen was found. Kill or capture any xenos as intact as possible for Inquisitor Sierveron. Any deviant foliage or native life is to be brought in for examination. Then, sterilize the area in the name of the God Emperor.”
Vacht bowed, made the aquila sign, and marched out of the chamber.
Finally undisturbed, Kurlin returned to his prayers.
It wasn’t that the aging Inquisitor Lord found exception to death. Quite the contrary. He dispensed it ruthlessly and without a shred of mercy upon all of those writ to be the God Emperor’s enemies. But once the heart stopped, the blood pooled and the twitching halted, his work was done. A masterpiece of divine justice, each and every corpse he left behind. Picking at the dead afterward seemed too unclean, even for a man who was mostly cybernetic.
The dissection room was hexagonial with a rusting grate floor. Two round lights casting an amber glow orbited a bloody steel table on two servoarms. Two deathwatch space marines were nearby, one with the shoulderpad of the Ultramarines, the other wearing the icon of the Imperial Fists. Two mutlilimbed, gray skinned servitors wheeled about on large treads. Inquisitor Sierveron was peering over the table in a shining white lab coat splattered with wet green, one cybernetic eye whirring as it focused on the specimen.
“This is interrupting my prayer,” Kurlin said, but not with warning. He knew that the Ordo Xenos never bothered him with anything insignificant.
“This is worth the interruption,” Sierveron told him. “Approach, please.”
Kurlin motioned with his glistening left hand, and the two battle sisters that escorted him took a position at the arched doorway he’d entered. His two Sister Hospitallers remained closer, charged as they were with maintaining his reconstructed body’s life support systems.
“How much do you know of the Tyranid threat?” Sierveron asked.
“I have studied Kryptman’s dossier.”
“Then you know at least our basic concerns about these predators. A small force seems to have landed here on Triol 7, as it were. The Deathwatch was able to bring this specimen back.”
On the table was a dead genestealer, its flesh split open and pinned to different points of the surgical table with anointed magnets. Its organs still had a wet shine.
Kurlin studied it. “Seems to be a conventional specimen of Corporator Hominis. Often referred to as a sewerstalker, genestealer, clawfiend.”
“This one has the feeder tendrils, you see, so it’s technically Corporator Ymgarli. But its genus is actually a secondary concern. I want you to see something.”
Sierveron pulled away the green stained cloth concealing one of the four limbs. The limb ended at the elbow, but terminated in a smooth, fleshy stump.
“A malformity?” Kurlin asked. “But, no. The hive mind does not generate malformities. All of its creations are perfectly engineered killing machines. Such flaws don’t exist in their breeding pools.”
“Correct. This is something that happened well after the fact. However, I can tell you also that this is not a case of regeneration, as seen in the carnifex breed. Whereas that comes as a result of accelerated metabolism and quick response growth to traumatized regions stimulated by flaring nerve endings, the curious thing about this is how the cellular structure simply stretches, then ends.”
“Stretches and ends?”
“No less. The tissue distends and then abruptly terminates. Simply stated, it’s as though the entire limb, all of the matter associated with it, was pulled off the same way a child might pull the limb off a clay figure. And the most interesting thing?”
“Yes?”
“This was done after the genestealer was dead.”
Sister Tripsis and Chordis, sisters dialogous who were assigned to Kurlin as part of his personal retinue, had spent hours scouring every library fragment, medical record, and inquisitor case file looking for the cause of the aberration. Capable of processing information faster than normal humans, they were still unable to find any solid leads on the strange event.
Kurlin sent for Solan Vacht, captain of the Deathwatch on Triol 7.
“What are we dealing with here, Captain? Even my research has come flat here.”
“A rare thing, I’m sure.” Vacht was the veteran of several campaigns with the deathwatch, a former black templar who had the scars on his face to prove his competence. His blonde hair, swept back, was going gray now. “We gutted a genestealer cult on Metas Thuron V. We found a man who’d lost his mind in the undercity, wearing rags and malnourished. Smelled like the inside of a Nurgling’s anus. He was blubbering on, ‘he eats the eaters, he eats the eaters.’ We killed him on the spot, but he kept patting his arms as he chanted.”
“He eats the eaters.” Kurlin’s vision drifted a moment. “Whatever the case, this is a startling question that needs an immediate answer. I don’t like questions, Vacht. Take a kill team and search a twenty square kilometer area where this specimen was found. Kill or capture any xenos as intact as possible for Inquisitor Sierveron. Any deviant foliage or native life is to be brought in for examination. Then, sterilize the area in the name of the God Emperor.”
Vacht bowed, made the aquila sign, and marched out of the chamber.
Finally undisturbed, Kurlin returned to his prayers.