Valiant Beyond Fear: The Battle for Life and Destiny in the 22nd Century

The Necron’s black body, like a shadow, slipped through the undergrowth.

The Deathwatch Space Marine squad was waiting while their warrior leader, Sergeant Aethan, crouched in the bushes with his bolter cocked and ready to fire. The forest of this planet was full of odd animal noises and the crackling of dry branches. The Necron passed by perhaps thirty feet from their position and moved on.

Aethan signaled the squad to move out into a flanking position. They edged along the ground, moving slowly, so as not to alert any other Necrons in the area until they were in position. Aethan signaled them to stop and then moved forward on his own. He had spotted a Necron corpse just ahead that he needed to investigate.

He crept forward quietly and when he was only a few feet from the necron’s body, another one rose up behind him! No time for thought. Aethan spun around and fired his bolt pistol without hesitation into the creature’s head. It fell down almost immediately.

No time for celebration either, however. There may be more nearby and Aethan heard movement in the bushes behind him. He whirled around again but saw nothing but leaves waving gently in the breeze. He held his bolter ready for several seconds but there were no further movements or sounds that might indicate another ambush so he turned back to the necron corpse at his feet.

It was definitely dead – it wasn’t breathing or moving at all. He examined it carefully looking for signs of damage that would indicate how it had died but could see nothing that looked like bullet holes, lacerations or anything else that might identify what had killed it. Yet he knew that these things were hard to kill – even a single shot from an assault cannon might not kill one outright and yet here lay a corpse with no visible wounds whatsoever that must have been killed by something smaller than an assault cannon shell, such as a plasma grenade – yet there were no scorch marks on the nearby plants either, nor signs of burning flesh or smoke! Yet it certainly wasn’t just lying there peacefully in death, because its limbs were rigidly tensed up as if it had died fighting! So how? What? He looked harder at this strange corpse hoping it might tell him something but still could find no answer to these questions.

Suddenly several more of them began to rise up out of the dead grass nearby! No time for bolts now though – he turned and ran back towards his warriors waiting in ambush, shouting urgently over his shoulder “They’re alive! Be careful!” as he went. As he approached them he slowed enough to shout “Fire on my signal!” and then rushed into their midst firing his bolt pistol again and again at every necrons head that came into view until finally they stopped rising up out of the grass altogether and they could cease shooting safely once again without wasting ammo if they didn’t need to use it anymore. But they still couldn’t relax – they could hear more Necrons moving around further off in the forest somewhere close by so they stayed alert while Aethan tried to figure out what exactly had happened here.

After ten minutes he shouted “Leave two men on guard duty here but we need to follow those Necrons before they get away too far into the forest – keep an eye out for any others but otherwise we must go after them now before they can hide again! Once we are past this area we can stay safe enough from ambush by spreading out or even better making some kills first so we know where they are before we move too far into unknown territory but let's go quickly now while we have their attention!” They jumped up and followed him cautiously through this area of dense undergrowth with its thick trunks standing close together overhead blocking out much light except for occasional beams shining down between them onto patches of moss-covered ground beneath them where small insects lived among the trees' roots being fed by nutrients drawn up from deep underground by those roots in a cycle perhaps dating back hundreds of millions of years long before humankind ever walked on Earth...