Demon Core
Arahk Gahl the Demon-Core scratched the tip of a talon against the ceraplas glory plate fused into his shoulder and daydreamed of dismembering humans. They were so soft and weak, it would have been pitiful had his instincts embraced pity. Rrrh, he understood the concept from his training in human psychology, but it was foreign to his thinking. Weak. The Slonn had bred out such retrogressive feelings.
Around him his brothers crouched in the dropship hold. He smelled their musk and his heart swelled. They were an entire gregatim of Horde Maul's elite ferox reavers, the Strongest of the Strong, the spearhead of a great force travelling deep into the Hyperweb to eradicate the human maggots clinging to the back end of the galaxy. Demon-Core growled softly in anticipation. The slaughter would be very great. It would be a challenge to keep his position as the grigatim's leader in the number of kills. Prospects were bloody and bright.
It was not always so. Once his entire race had been slaves, animals in thrall to the soft humans. The BioDerms fought and died at human pleasure. They served, and even their plasm was in thrall to human biomanipulation. Then the Great One had risen, the Chainbreaker, a mutant BioDerm with the strength to shatter the human chains and free his people.
"I hear these humans are divided," muttered Grall Durgohlak, crouched to Demon-Core's right. "But I hear they are not like the Imperials. Hrah! They are strong, I hear, especially the ones who wear the Red Bird." Grall was a Runner, bred for speed and agility.
Demon-Core lashed out with a massive fist, smashing the lighter BioDerm to the floor. "They are not as strong as we are, Grall! Do not breed fear in the gregatim!"
Grall lay stunned, a shadow in the dim light of the hold. Chuckling deep in his throat, Rog Gedharhk Blood-Drinker hauled the smaller reaver up and slammed him back in his place. Blood-Drinker was a Goliath like Demon-Core, the heaviest of the reaver breeds.
The Goliath turned a huge head toward Demon-Core, the chipped horns carved with numerous kill marks. "The little one meant no harm, brother. He looks forward to these little 'tribes,' rrrh? They will test our strength."
Demon-Core nodded reluctantly. He had smelled a trace of fear on Grall, but the Runner would be tested against the humans. If he survived but was unfit, the Inquisition would send him to the vats for recycling.
He himself was eager. He enjoyed the feel of his armored carapace, as well as the thought of the mobility its jets would give him. The reavers had adopted the tactics and equipment of the "Tribes of Man," copying such things as their mobile armors, though without the strength augmentation. No reaver would dare admit his own body was not sufficiently powerful to accomplish what was needed.
He hefted a massive plasma gun copied from the latest tribal arsenals, approving of its solidity and capacity for destruction. The human targets he'd tested it on simply vaporized if hit directly. If not hit directly, rrrh, there were burnt parts left over, that was all. An enjoyable piece of hardware, yessss…. It would not be properly broken in until he had washed it in the blood of these Starwolf.
The Flaymaster, a beautiful specimen of the Plunderer breed, had briefed the grigatim earlier. She explained how they would fight humans called the Starwolf on a cold planet called Ymir. She said the humans were assembled there in great numbers for a war of their own, but that they did not expect to be attacked. They knew this because a human traitor gave them the data.
Humans were always treacherous, she told them. They had no Inquisition to keep their genes uncorrupted. After the Starwolf fell, there would be others. Many of the humans were meeting to talk about peace, but the leader of their strongest tribe, the Burning Ones, was old and weak, and his juices were dried up. He would lead no more.
This announcement caused much hilarity. After the laughter had died down at the thought of such a husk leading fighters, she continued. The fourth tribe, the Sword, had retreated to their hidden cities, so they would be the last to fall. It would be like rooting out worms, scut work for the lesser Hordes. Horde Maul had been given the pride of first blood, by the Bloodsoul, and the Flaymaster expected her feroxi to earn many glory plates and take much plasm! Her Inquisitor would keep the body count, she said. That was all.
The Flaymaster's Inquisitor, a thin, spidery creature that bristled with various cybernetic injectors and genesniffers, had followed her briefing with the customary warnings about weakness. Then it listed several traits it desired to find among these tribal humans, qualities of strength and durability that could be added to the Core Plasm.
Despite their holy role and the rightness of their task, Demon-Core hated Inquisitors. They themselves were not Strong. They served the Strong. Rrrh, but only the great Overlord was spared their probes and demands for tissue samples. Deep in his heart, Demon-Core knew he also feared the Inquisitors. They could unmake any of the Strong with their judgments.
They would not unmake him. He was Strong and had always been so. He clenched a massive fist and prayed silently to the Bloodsoul: May the seed of my plasm grind the slaver filth into the dust. May the shadows of our past vanish like smoke in the fiery wake of our passage and our vats spawn only blameless plasm. May a thousand suns shine on freedom for the Chainless, for the Chainless are the Strong who shall grasp the future and make it their own.
I am of the Chainless. I am of the Strong. I shall burn the slaver filth where I find them.
I shall show no mercy.[1]
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