Jed led his ragtag group of marauders through the dipidated tunnels and stairways towards the hull breach. During it, he had caught some iing information.

  Apparently, the Void Shields went to shit and a dozen or two smaller asteroids smashed into the reinforced hulls of every ship as they cleared the st stretch of the asteroid field.

  Annoying. Now he had to go and check whether there were any Orks or something hidden away on those asteroids and protect the few techies they had while they repaired the damages.

  He took in a deep breath, a manic grin tugging at the edge of his parched lips as the pinkish fog emanating from a nearby hall invaded his nostrils.

  Oh, how much more fun it would be if he could just stroll into that room and join his brothers and sisters in whatever they were doing. By the way his skin prickled and every tiny brush of air made itself feel on his overly sensitive skin, Jeb wagered they were doing something very fuher t some poor sod, each other, or just straight up having an y.

  That specifisitivity-enhang drug had many such uses, none of which was alien to Jed.

  As, he had a task. Grumbling to himself, he almost missed when some of his more idiotiions tried to slink away and join the debauchery.

  “Oh, no you fug don’t!” Jed whirled around with a furious scowl on his face. “If I ’t go, her you fuckwits. Get them!”

  That was all he had to say for the other marauders to grab the three adventurous fools ahem within an inch of their lives.

  “Okay stop,” Jed said, an order which took a few seds and smacked a few idiots lost ihrill of inflig pain. “Let’s go.”

  The three were left behind, though Jed khey had almost ehe beating they had gotten. They were moaning and groaning like a bunch of wenches getting their brains fucked out.

  Which was a distinctly disgusting sound ing from well-built, unwashed men like those three. In all hoy, Jed was expeg that whoever was going wild in that room would pull the three idiots in before t them to death.

  It took them half an hour to reach the viity of the breach they had been told to check out and a chill ran down Jed’s spine.

  The ship creaked around them, the old maery and the mass of metal groaning in agony. Light flickered in the halls, but there was no sound of life ing from further ahead.

  Jed frowned, sniffing like a bloodhound, and his frown turned into a scowl. Blood. Fresh blood. It wasn’t an alie and didn’t specifically mean anything out of the ordinary was going on, but this se of the ship was a crap pile.

  No one would willingly be here without an explicit order. The blood likely wasn’t spilled by one of their own enjoying themselves in some hidden away fun.

  No, Jed smelled something nastier.

  “Be alert,” Jed barked out, letting some of his goons take the front. “There could be something nasty that slipped onto the ship. Ready for bat.”

  A few bends ter, with the tension in the air growing so thick it alpable, they found something. A woman giggled nearby and Jed had to suppress the urge to smack her into a wall as he stared down at the corpse lying at his feet.

  Just by taking a single look at it, Jed k wasn’t done by one of his fellow worshippers. The corpse was too intact, the death too quick, and the expression frozen onto the dead woman’s face was not one of ecstatic rapture, but primal terror.

  A single pierg o in through the chest, leaving a gaping wound as wide as a fist. Someone had impaled the woman and crushed her heart before throwing her off their bde like a discarded piece of trash, which left her crumpled at the foot of a wall.

  Jed tried to check for footprints, but it was for nought. The surrounding morons had long erased any such track with their incessant roaming.

  “Something killed our sister,” Jed said, his voice grave and eg in the creaking tunnel. “That something is down here, with us, hiding in one of these dark tunnels. FIND IT!”

  Thankfully, the idiots Jed had collected to be his underlings were sane enough, so they didn’t just scatter in every possible dire with giggles and ughs. He had seen those sorts, and kheir like was more likely to throw themselves at the eo experiehe joy of an agonisih than to actually think and do their damned jobs.

  “AHE S OPEN!” Jed shouted after them as they separated into squads with eae led by a goon that had a bead in their ears. Jed had a dozen of them still behind him and he waved them forward, “Let’s get going.”

  He could hear the gs of boots oallic floor echh the tunnels evehe stant rumbling of some great mae resonating through the structure.

  “Jed!” The bead in his ears buzzed, and it took Jed a few moments to pce the voice. It was one of his eam leaders. “There is something in here! We found three corpses torn apart, limb by limb.”

  “Stay there,” Jed said, his hand snapping up to his ear. “Where are you? I’m ing to check it o-“

  “Boss!” Another -link buzzed to life in his ear, his oldest rade Hog’s panicked voiing through. “There is something here! It got one of the boys. One moment he was there, then he disappeared … all we found were cw marks oallic floor and blood.”

  “WHERE?!” Jed shouted, but before he could hear the answer a feminine shriek ing from one of the drugged-up women in his own team reached his ears a a shiver down his spine.

  Looking over, he saw it. A t creature shimmered into reality, its carapace rippling like a mirage as its baleful pair of dark eyes stared at him.

  It had the shrieking woman held in an enormous cwed hand with a talon impalihrough the stomach. As Jed watched, the beast squeezed and the screams of agony reached a higher octave before falling silent with a horrifyi squelch.

  Snapping out of his daze, Jed reached for the spistol holstered at his hip, but by the time he pulled it up the beast was gone. Jed blinked. He was sure he had kept his eyes firmly on its horrid visage, staring at those mass of tendrils writhing at the base of its head like some vile mockery of a beard.

  It was gone.

  “Shit,” Jed cursed. “ONS UP FUCKWITS! Light up the tunnel! Shoot anything that moves!”

  The -bead buzzed in his ear, but Jed couldn’t allow himself the distra at the moment. He clutched his pistol, staring into the dark tunnels illuminated only by sparse, flickering light with bloodshot eyes.

  His marauders skulked forward, jittery as they sheir sguns around and jumped at shadows. Then Jed heard a quick gasp from behind him, but by the time he turned all he saw was one of his men cut in half with his iines spilling onto the floor.

  Of the mohere was no trabsp;

  The en minutes were perhaps the most terrifying time Jed had ever spent alive, with his -bead stantly buzzing with frantic reports of his team leaders of their meing sughtered oer the other by unseen monsters with either brutal savagery or lethal precision while he himself had to watch his own group grow thin until he stood alone amidst the corpses of his rades.

  Then the -links started going dead. Sometimes he caught mutters of ‘they are all gone’ or cut-off screams before the link died, but more often than not, there was just statibsp;

  Then came silence.

  Only the dreadful creaking of the old ship’s metallic skeleton and the low rumble of distant maery kept him pany as he waved his spistol around, letting loose shots at shadows that grew and died with the flickering lights.

  He saw movement, a shadowy form dartiween doors uhe cover of darkness. Jed screamed in terror, his finger g down origger and his on spitting out sbolts that emitted a dim red glow as they raced down the hallway.

  They struothing, only the telltale sound of the sbolts spttering against metal reag his ears from the distance. Another shadow moved, right on the periphery of his vision and Jed whirled around, his pistol ing up to fire … but no sbolt came no matter how hard he squeezed.

  His hand shook, and his eyes widened in terror. The form moved, darting closer and disappearing into a serviere dozeres away from Jed who threw himself at the closest corpse, his hands already reag for the srifle his dead rade still held in a death grip.

  Jed tried to rip it out of the dead man’s rge mitts, but found his strength g. His heart thundered in his chest, his teeth gritted so hard he felt they might crack, but he didn’t care. He tore the sgun out of the corpse’s clutches, whirling around as he brought the rifle up to his shoulder and flicked the safety into full-auto.

  The moood before him, t over Jed. It was still as death, its dark eyes veying a malicious amusement at his terror.

  Jed squeezed the trigger, but before he saw what happehe front half of his sgun was just gone. A moment ter, pain blossomed in Jed’s gut and he looked down to find a gleaming bde impaling him. He stared at it dumbly, in utter disbelief.

  He was going to die.

  Before that realization could fully sink in, another bde went through Jed’s head and snuffed out his pathetic, brief life. Before his body even hit the floor where it would join his rades ih, the monster was gone.

  Off to find more prey. Off to gather intelligend sughter whatever living creature it came across for its Mistress.

  *****

  “Nasty,” I mused, my voiing out more amused than anything. “A Daemon Princ … -ess? Huh. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, are we? The others sent their strreater Daemons and the God of degees just sent me a newly-asded Daemon Pring. Ohat’s throwing her shitty worshippers my way instead of showing up herself.”

  “What are you going to do?” Selene asked.

  “Same as I nning,” I said, terminating the links to my droill onboard the ships below with a final self-destruand. “I know they have nothing I have to be afraid of onboard, so a few bio-ships will hahem. Unless either of you want to let loose?”

  “I’m good,” Selene said, having watched the first few minutes of my Lictor drones roaming the ship’s insides and apparently gotten more uanding of what Saneshi cultists did for fun than she ever wanted.

  “As much as it would please me,” Val said. “I’d not want to waste your precious energy, Mistress. I’m sure I’ll get the ce to indulge myself soon, when a proper oppo shows their face.”

  “Suit yourselves,” I said, shrugging. I was more than happy to be doh this rabble sooner rather than ter. It was time to take out the trash. With little fanfare, I sent out … five globules of writhing eldritch flesh which I moulded into bio-ships outfitted with about as muy stro psma-ons as I could reasonably fit on them.

  The passive Void Shields were up, but no active bat shields were activated despite five enemy ships appearing just a few thousand kilometres away. It seemed my drones exploding on the and decks or ihe captain’s rooms of each ship had torpedoed their capabilities for a quick response.

  Might as well make the most out of it.

  With a flex of my will, soul energy flooded my body and the five bio-ships disappeared, jumping through spad snapping bato existence right uhe enemy flotil with their ons already aimed at the underbelly of the enemy ships.

  The o off, and for a moment it seemed a new sun was born in the endless darkness of space, a bright supernova that flickered into a fleeting life, disappearing a sed ter.

  Three of the opposing ships remained in a state to still look vaguely intact, the rest had their shields torn to shreds and bsted into oblivion. Their remains now floating through space like melted sg, quickly cooling in the chilling ess of space.

  The barrage took care of the three remaining ships with little fuss, their shields having already been breached and disabled by the previous salvo.

  “Well, that’s that,” I said, theatrically dusting my palms off as I ahe bio-ships to gather up the remaining scrap metal and absorb whatever anic matter remained, just in case some of it was reusable. “Done. Wanna go back?”

  “Won’t you retaliate?” Selene asked. “Track dowhey came from and strike back at the source?”

  “Nah,” I said, shrugging. “No use. It’d be a waste of both time and energy to get there, beat them up, then e back. These are just humans, worse, they are cultists. They have nothing I really want.”

  “You could free the sves?” Seleried, her voice sounding uain, but it made me think.

  They had sves on the ships too … but I had felt their minds. Zara had been in a better state of mind after years of abuse at the asshole Inquisitor’s hand than some of those sves.

  Death had been a mercy to them, since I couldn’t heal their minds, but maybe if there was a whole p trolled by these degee cultists …

  “Hmmmm.” I thought. “I suppose that would be one way to get my first round of citizens, wouldn’t it? Why not? Let’s go bust some cults and free some sves!”

  P3t1