[Your power armor carries you toward a Raider anti-grav skiff, its hull shaped like a flattened diamond. Even from a distance, you can see what decorates its sides.]
[Men, women, children. All naked. All pierced through torsos and limbs by gleaming iron hooks, hung from the gunwales like trophies. Like meat.]
[You gesture to one of the Dark Angels who's been following you. Together, you approach the skiff cautiously, scanning for traps or surviving xenos. Finding none, you begin the grim work of cutting down the captives.]
[The Dark Eldar's cruelty and this planet's merciless sun have done their work thoroughly. The bodies are stiff, skin cracked and leathery, eyes filmed over with death. Hook after hook, you lower corpses to the ground with as much dignity as you can manage.]
[Out of fifty-three civilians, only three still draw breath. Barely.]
[Even these survivors won't last long without medical treatment. Not in this environment, where day and night bring fifty-degree temperature swings that would kill a healthy person, let alone these broken souls.]
[You stand at the edge of the mass grave you've just finished digging. At the bottom, among the other bodies, lie two children. A boy and a girl, perhaps six or seven years old. Their hands are still clasped together, fingers interlaced. They died holding each other.]
[Your jaw clenches behind your helmet. Your teeth grind hard enough that you hear it. The hatred that surges through you isn't new, but it burns fresh and hot. The Dark Eldar. Always the Dark Eldar.]
[The Dark Angel veteran standing beside you doesn't speak. He seems to understand what you're feeling. His ceramite hand rises and settles on your shoulder armor, a brief, solid weight. Then it's gone. He walks away without a word, because what words could possibly help?]
[You force your fingers to relax their white-knuckle grip on your power sword's hilt. You turn away from the grave and stride toward the veteran sergeant who's assumed temporary command.]
["How do we evacuate the survivors?" you ask, your voice flat and hard.]
[You focus on the sergeant, deliberately tuning out Asmodai's low, manic chuckling somewhere behind you.]
["Recruit, there's nothing we can do," the veteran sergeant says after a moment's hesitation. His tone is matter-of-fact, but not unkind. "The nearest human settlement is hundreds of kilometers away. We have one Land Speeder Vengeance and one attack bike. To continue tracking the pointed ears, and to protect other settlements from them, we cannot turn back."]
[You have no answer to that. The logic is sound. The mathematics of war are always cruel. You shake your helmet slowly and turn away.]
[Your power armor carries you back to where the three civilians lie in the shade of a boulder. You look down at them. Their breathing is so shallow you can barely see their chests move. Dehydration has turned their skin papery. Blood seeps from cracked lips.]
[You draw your broad power sword slowly.]
[One of them, a woman whose face is more skull than flesh, seems to sense the movement. Some final spark of awareness flares in dying neurons. Her head lifts slightly, barely an inch. Her eyes, purple and clouded, track the rising blade.]
[Her cracked lips move. The words come out in a rasp, barely audible.]
["Thank you... please... help me..."]
[You expected begging. Pleading for mercy, for water, for rescue. Not this. Not gratitude.]
[Your arm freezes mid-swing. The power sword trembles in your grip. Your breathing comes hard and fast, fogging the inside of your helmet.]
[You take a long, shuddering breath. Your helmet shakes once, a minute denial of nothing and everything.]
["May your souls return to the Throne," you say quietly, "and find eternal peace."]
[The power sword descends. Once. Twice. Three times. You are efficient. You are merciful. You are thorough.]
[You bury them beside the others.]
[None of the Dark Angels stop you. They watch in silence, waiting. When you finally rise and turn back toward the vehicles, your power sword is still wet with blood. You don't clean it. Not yet.]
["Tsk tsk tsk." Asmodai's voice cuts through the silence like a rusted blade. "This is why I hate recruits. Too soft. Too fragile. Complete waste of time. We shouldn't have bothered trying to save these civilians in the first place..."]
[He might be talking to himself. He might be talking to you. It doesn't matter.]
[Your magnetic boots skid to a halt, kicking up a spray of dust. Your entire body pivots. The bloody power sword comes up, point aimed directly at Asmodai's dark green helmet.]
["Asmodai." Each word drops like a stone. "Do you want to die?"]
["Recruit! Lower your weapon!" The veteran sergeant's voice cracks like a whip. "That ancient blade represents honor and faith! It must never be pointed at a battle brother! And you, Asmodai, shut your damned mouth!"]
[The moment stretches. Then your arm lowers, slowly, the blade dropping to your side. You turn away from Asmodai without another word and stride toward the attack bike.]
[You swing your leg over the bike, power armor servos adjusting automatically for the weight. The engine roars to life under your hand.]
[The Dark Angel veteran climbs into the sidecar. As the engine settles into a rumbling idle, he leans toward you and speaks quietly.]
["Recruit brother, Asmodai is insane. The better you perform, the more it eats at him. Jealousy, envy, resentment. If he didn't somehow pass the Chaplains' Chaos corruption tests every single time, I'd swear he'd already fallen."]
[He pauses, checking that the others are out of earshot.]
["Just ignore him. Focus on what matters. We're going to hunt down those xenos bastards and make them pay for every civilian they've killed. That's what counts."]
[You adjust your helmet slightly, keeping your eyes forward. "If Asmodai just needs a beating, then the Dark Eldar simply need to die."]
[Your ceramite hand twists the throttle hard. The bike's three heavy tires shriek against the dry ground, throwing up clouds of dust. The engine's roar drowns out everything else.]
[Above you, the Land Speeder Vengeance carrying the other three Dark Angels screams past, its anti-grav system leaving shimmer trails in the scorching air.]
[The first month passes in endless travel across this dying world. The tactical squad pushes forward day after day, following the Dark Eldar's trail.]
[The planet itself is a study in extremes. Daytime temperatures soar to fifty or sixty degrees Celsius, the sun beating down like a hammer. At night, the temperature plummets to minus twenty, frost forming on your armor in minutes.]
[The days last thirty-five hours. The nights last even longer, stretching out in frozen darkness that seems to have no end.]
[And yet, somehow, human settlements survive here. Scattered across this hostile rock, people endure. They adapt. They persist.]
[But if the environment is an enemy that can be fought with technology and stubborn human will, the Dark Eldar are different. The locals call them the "Black Catastrophe." They come without warning, slaughter without mercy, and vanish like smoke. For the people of this world, the pointed ears are a nightmare that never ends.]
[A nightmare you intend to end, one dead xenos at a time.]