Living Weapon

The animal froze, crouched on a ledge high above the ground. The scents of sweat and gun oil wafted on the gentle breeze, betraying the presence of the prey ahead. The animal dropped from the ledge, twisting its body in the air to land silently, and melted into the shadows.

It was dusk, the blood red sun falling below the horizon, dampness rising from the ground, the cold of night setting in. The animal raised its face, sniffing the night air, the smell of humans bringing back distant memories. The animal had once been a person. It had once had a family, a life, but all that was long ago, long before the training. Now the animal was stripped down to the bare essence of being, and it had forgotten many things, forgotten the language it had spoken, the things it knew; whole chunks of its life gone, missing from memory. It remembered the people clearly enough though. The people it had killed, faces rising from the mists of the past, each one a death mask as the animal squeezed the life from them.

The prey was noisy, the chattering of incomprehensible language carrying clearly through the silence of the night. The animal dropped to all fours and crept forward, every sense alert. There – two of the prey standing together, oblivious to the animal as it stealthily moved ever closer. It was close enough now to reach out and touch them, and the stupid humans didn't even realise, too softened by civilisation to sense death stalking the night. The animal rose, grabbed one of the prey by the throat and struck the other in the face, stiffened fingers tipped with metal claws punching through the eyeballs and into the soft spongy tissues of the brain. The prey spasmed violently then subsided limply to the ground. The other prey whimpered, the stink of faeces filling the air as it lost control of its bowels. The animal studied it for a moment, then tightened its grip, crushing the prey's throat, and dropped the body to the floor.

The next one was more alert; it saw the animal coming and even managed to raise its weapon before the animal thrust its claws clean through the prey's chest. A high pitched squealing ruptured the silence, and the animal whirled to see a horde of prey burst from the building, beams of coherent light stabbing towards it through the night air. The animal dived, rolled, and rose to its feet, a pistol in its hand. Loosing off a hail of shots, the animal felt something click inside its skull, and suddenly the world seemed to slow down. The animal ducked a laser blast and then it was among them, the prey moving so slowly, dying left and right as it lashed out with claw, fist and foot.

Inside the building now, and there was the quarry; a corpulent mass of quivering flesh cowering on the floor, the air thick with fear as the animal approached. The animal paused for a few moments, then leaned in close to the prey, staring into its eyes, which were glazed over with utter terror. Never moving it's gaze, the animal struck, claws slicing through flesh and bone, opening the ribcage and tearing the still beating heart from the prey's chest.

As the light faded from the quarry's eyes, the animal suddenly dropped to its knees, panting as waves of heat crashed over it. The animal's head snapped back, eyes wide as convulsions wracked its body. The world took on a sanguine hue, then blackness abruptly descended.

+++

High above the planet, aboard the cruiser Emperor's Vengeance Tech-adept Ransorn turned to his commanding officer

'Objective achieved, Commander, the Heretic Governor has been eliminated.'

'And the Eversor?'

'Dead, Sir, telemetry suggests his metabolism went into meltdown after the combat drugs kicked in.'

'Praise the Emperor. We'll be able to rest easy now, knowing that soulless monster's no longer in the hold.'

'Amen to that, Sir.'