It was cold enough on the Delos mountains that Tanlon had to pop a meal warmer from his foot kit and hold it in his hands. The fact that it had been raining for five hours did not help with the sensation of cold fluid drenching every uncomfortable part of his body. It was so bad that he did not understand how Mad and Snell could keep yucking it up underneath the small bit of shelter that they had found from the rain. Trees, their green fingers reaching toward heaven, had reclaimed swathes of land that had been cleared away for the giant communication dishes installed on the mountain peaks. Tanlon and his entire regiment had been assigned as auxiliary support for the stormtroopers again, so most of the time they had spent on this uneventful jump had been lugging ammo crates and setting up weapon emplacements. Five squads of heavily armed stormtroopers had entered the underground bunker control center that was built directly under the satellites and so the rest of them had been waiting for hours since then.

And waiting had a tendency to loosen lips.

"What do you think is in there?" Ernst whispered, his teeth half chattered.

"Where?"

"The bunker, Mr. Tanlon."

Mad broke off from his bawdy conversation with Snell and replied, "Probably something big, mean, and ugly."

"Sounds like a perfect description of you, Mad," Snell snickered.

"Shut up."

Whatever reply Snell was going to make was cut off by Mad's radio sputtering to life. A guttural voice growled on the other side of the line, "Ammo. Bring more ammo."

Mad got serious real quick and picked up the radio. His squad had been assigned to resupply the infiltration teams in case they needed more supplies. Other than a few status checks made by the Commissars, this was the first time the stormtrooper teams had made such a request.

"Uh, can you repeat that?" Mad spoke with a considerably softer tone.

"Ammo. More ammo. Now."

"Aye sir, uh, which squad is this?"

"Now." The final command came out like an animal's bark and further attempts to get clarification on Mad's end were met with radio silence. The squad awkwardly looked around at one another, no one really wanted to get up from the only dry space they had found on this forsaken planet, but orders were orders. Mad took the initiative and with his fire team leaders' help, organized the expedition to take a box of small arms ammunition into the Delos bunker. As they started tromping through mud that stained their boots white, Commissar Gourke of all people stopped them in the middle of the rain.

The commissar had an umbrella, even though his black power armor would have protected him from the elements, and he had no reservations about making them stand in the pouring rain as he pelted Mad with questions.

"Where are you troopers going? Why aren't you setting up weapon emplacements? Who is your company commander?"

Mad tried answering one question at a time. Tanlon could tell the short man was having difficulty not swearing at the commissar and he admired the obvious effort he was putting into not snapping. When Gourke stopped streaming questions and Mad had answered to his seeming contentment, Gourke snapped his fingers and said, "Very well. I will accompany you lot. See to it that you don't slack in your delivery."

"Thank you, sir." Mad sounded anything but thankful, but Tanlon was relieved that they were getting going again. Gourke was probably just bored from watching troopers set up defense systems, so Tanlon empathized with that at least. Plus, the trooper was also kind of glad to have the power armored man with them, prima donna jerk or not.

Entering the bunker complex was eerily similar to their excursion on Paradise, save the main difference was that monsters were not shooting at them with lasers that could boil their eyes out this time around. Snell must have had the same thought, since Tanlon heard him mutter, "Not again."

There was not a trail of monster bodies to guide the troopers' way deeper into the Delos Complex, a thankful lack of violence for them. Instead Mad had a tracking device he was following. A red blip on the chunky handheld guided them in the direction of the stormtrooper squad that had requested more ammunition. Gourke kept hovering over Mad's shoulder and demanding to know if the trooper knew where he was going. Mad's tone was civil, but quiet whenever he had to reply to Gourke's questions, a sure sign that the rural trooper was getting to the end of his rope.

A loud crashing noise from the ceiling overhead made the squad stop and point their rifles upward, but nothing else happened. Gourke waved a hand and started moving forward again, "Eh, it must be the rain."

Ernst whispered to Tanlon as the troopers followed the commissar, "Rain? Aren't we underground, Mr. Tanlon?"

That they were, but Tanlon did not want to think of what that noise could otherwise be, so he warned the One to keep his head on a swivel and be prepared for anything. Their trek through the dusty and empty halls eventually found them in a side room that expanded into a larger space that could have fit several hundred men easily. The standard bits and bobs of heavy machinery, now dead and lifeless from ages of disuse, littered the room, but otherwise, there was nothing else in there. Mad went in with the first fire team and the rest of the squad fanned out behind him. Gourke once again opened his mouth and asked, "Well, why did you take us in here?"

Mad looked at the commissar and then back at his tracking device. "Well, it says they should be here."

A bright blob of plasma punctuated Mad's statement and soared over their heads. Every trooper hit the deck and as if on cue, chaos was unleashed. Stormtroopers popped out from around the scattered machinery and started firing on the troopers. Their aim was erratic and mostly went over their heads, but Tanlon guided his fire team behind a thick-looking piece of metal junk for safety anyway.

"Hold your fire, hold your fire, we're friendlies!" Mad's voice barely rang over the din, even with the voice amplifier squad leaders had upgraded into their masks. Yet the incoming fire did not stop, but intensified, with another bright blue blast from a plasma caster lighting up the room and melting the walls behind them.

Commissar Gourke stood up from where he was kneeling by Mad and said, "You men are firing at a commissar! Cease this at once!" Gourke's demand was answered by yet another bolt of plasma that he narrowly ducked. He answered with the large handgun he usually kept strapped to his hip. Now they could make fun of Gourke as much as they wanted back at the squad bay, but Gourke impressed the watching troopers with the accuracy with which he handled such a large pistol. Its bark was almost as loud as the entire stormtrooper squad's weapons combined and when it shouted, an attacking stormtrooper's head disappeared.

"Well, what are you Imps waiting for?" Gourke continued firing and shouted, "Do your job and kill these traitors!"

The squad hesitated, even under fire from them, it was still another squad of the Emperor's soldiers. Mad broke their stillness by following up after Gourke. "Third fireteam! Cover fire, first and second, frog leap advance!"

Hearing his orders as third fireteam leader, Tanlon kicked Ernst out of his glazed expression and checked on Snell. His friend was on a nearby machine and had already started firing back at the stormtroopers on Mad's orders. Ernst yelped when Tanlon applied a boot to his rear, but it caught his attention.

"Stay low, pressure the enemy," Tanlon grabbed Ernst and pointed him toward the enemy. "Just don't hit our other fire teams." Ernst gave an affirmative and started firing downrange.

Seeing that his fire team was intact and no one was injured, Tanlon readied his own weapon. A lump caught in his throat for a split second, a seizing terror that threatened to freeze him in place. If he poked his head over the edge of the machine he was using as cover, then it would get blown off. The mental image of death played in his head a thousand times in the span of his heartbeat, but he pushed it down and gripped his weapon. He had a duty to perform, whether to die or deal death, that was what they trained for.

So it was, when Tanlon sighted downrange, he saw one of their opponents' black forms just standing up without using the cover next to him. It was strange watching the stormtrooper fire his automatic weapon from the hip, though the spray of the bullets were no less deadly for their lack of aim, a man with so much training should know how to fire a weapon better. Tanlon surely did as he lined up his target and aimed for the center mass. He did not hesitate, the time was past that now, and exhaled as he pulled the trigger. Tanlon's IM-3 kicked against his shoulder, but were it not for the recoil, he would not have guessed that his target had been shot. The enemy stormtrooper staggered back with one foot, but he kept his weapon leveled and spraying. Stormtrooper armor was tough, able to resist claws, teeth, and shrapnel, but it surely shouldn't have blocked a direct rifle shot.

Tanlon fired twice more and the result was the same, save now some of the erratic fire was being sent in his fire team's direction.

"Sir, they ain't going down!" Ernst had pulled back down and was reloading his rifle. The One's hands shook, but they guided a fresh magazine in well enough.

"TANLON, GIVE US COVERING FIRE!" Mad boomed from halfway across the room. The still forms of several other troopers illustrated the price that Mad had paid to even get that far to the enemy position, but now they were pinned down by a hail of lead.

"Sir, what do we do?"

"TANLON!"

"Sir?!"

It was too much, Tanlon blocked their voices out of his mind and resighted his aim. Switching from the torso, Tanlon aimed at a stormtrooper's head. The target was smaller, but this time so was Tanlon's anxiety. He had turned off and in that moment only a narrow crosshair comprised Tanlon's entire world. With another kick of the rifle, Tanlon was snapped out of it and this time his aim was rewarded.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The stormtrooper was hit in the neck, rather than the head as Tanlon had aimed, and for the first time, his fire had some effect on the enemy. The targeted stormtrooper stumbled back, his head only hanging on by a few threads of tendon and flesh. It should have been a mortal wound, but the other man stayed on his feet like some ghastly puppet hanging on by a few strings. Tanlon put three more rounds into its chest, convinced that they were no longer fighting mortal men, but the possessed creature's reaction was disturbing enough to make him pause the fruitless shots.

A grey hand was shoving its way out of the stump of the stormtrooper's neck. It flexed its clawed phalanges before a second hand ripped out of the ruined meat suit and a pale beast, impossibly too large to fit inside the man it was exiting from, slithered from the stump hole like a twisted newborn. The Mylock rose from the floor and snapped its jaws at the ceiling, a guttural cry challenged the humans before it.

The troopers happily obliged to answer the challenge as a hail of lead scattered the Yabanchi onto the floor into a pile of limbs and whimpering gore.

"What in the Emperor's name was that?!" Ernst yelled.

"It's a friggen 'Banchi!" Tanlon replied, "We aren't fighting our own! Aim for the head!"

Something clicked for the Vanguard Troopers, both pinned down and providing covering fire. Whereas previously they had been unconsciously holding back, now that they knew the truth about their foe, their comrades degraded to meat suits piloted by inhuman monsters, they drove forward with cold bloodlust. Even Gourke set aside his hate for Imperials and attacked with newfound determination. In the face of an alien enemy, old hatreds can be temporarily forgotten.

Even with better weapons and armor, the Mylocks were just beasts ill-trained to use the tools that they had stolen, and worse yet, they did not act as a team, but fought like atomized units without cohesion or interlocking fields of fire. As the possessed stormtroopers fell, one by one, the momentum swung in the Vanguard's favor, and before Tanlon even realized it, the only sound was Mad shouting orders at the rest of the squad to secure the room and take covering positions. The enemy had been ruined, their corpses were mangled piles of human and Yabanchi limbs. Some of the possessed stormtroopers had been dispatched so quickly and brutally that the Yabanchi living inside of them did not have time to even evacuate their hosts and had died coming halfway out, the corpses a gross tableau of lanky Mylock limbs sprouting from human torsos.

Tanlon's limbs started to feel the hit, a slight trembling taking over, but he still had to keep his head on. When Mad called him over, he kept his eyes scanning, despite the 360 cover from the rest of the squad and dashed over by his squad leader's side.

"What's your fireteam's status?," Mad asked.

Checking on Snell and Ernst had been one of the first things Tanlon had done and he quickly confirmed for Mad that his team was still fully operational. The second and third fireteam leaders confirmed that they also did not suffer casualties and Mad sighed, "Thank God. Well, this resupply mission is dunked. We're going to wedge out of here."

"What about outside? Can't we radio in backup?"

"Jammed. Filthy monsters must not want the cavalry rolling in too soon."

"No wonder we never heard from the advanced squads," Tanlon muttered.

"Doesn't matter. If those things want to stop us from leaving, then we'll barrel over 'em and send them back to the void."

"Excuse me, trooper, but who said anything about leaving?" Gourke had strolled up to the team huddle and loomed over them, arms folded across his breast.

"We need to warn our forces outside, sir."

"I can do that. You lot need to stay here and secure this area for further insertion."

Mad just stared at the commissar, part because he was so stunned by the other man's arrogance and part because if he spoke, he was afraid he would say something nasty. Tanlon on the other hand felt something twinge in his temple and spoke.

"So you can ditch us like you did back on Paradise?"

"How dare you, trooper! I can have you shot for that insubordination."

"I don't know where you were the last year, but one of the new updates to the Imperial Code of Justice was that a trooper may only be summarily executed in the field when he is under suspicion of Yabanchi influence. Otherwise, all capital death matters must be brought to a board of review headed by the Lord Commissar himself." Tanlon waved his arm around. "Last I checked, he's not here."

"Don't quote the code at me, I helped write it!"

"Squad leader, arrest this man!" Gourke pointed a finger right in Tanlon's face and none of the other troopers made a move.

"Uh, sir. If we arrest him, where will we keep him?"

"He's to be brought back to the fleet for his precious board of review, immediately."

Mad did not bring up the fact that this contradicted the commissar's previous order for them to stay in place, but took advantage of the situation. "Right, uh, Trooper Tanlon, you're under arrest."

Tanlon could tell that his friend did not like saying those words, but it was not lost on him either that this would allow the squad to return back to the surface without them all getting in trouble with the commissariat. So, Tanlon nodded. "I submit myself to your custody."

Mad nodded. "Right then. Snell, you're fire team leader now. Second fireteam, secure the hatch, third recover the stormtrooper weapons, first, I want you…"

"Excuse me."

Mad twitched and barely stopped from grinding his teeth as he asked, "Yes, Commissar?"

"Aren't you going to confiscate the prisoner's weapons? It's proper procedure."

"Trooper Tanlon," Mad lowered his voice, but Tanlon knew it was not him that Mad wanted to punch. "Give Trooper Ernst your firearm."

Ernst took Tanlon's IM-3 and the rest of the squad did their jobs cleaning up the weapons from the fallen stormtroopers and getting weapons pointed at the closed hatch they had come in from. Tanlon felt a twinge of jealousy seeing that everyone else in the squad got their hands on automatics and Mad himself hefted the plasma caster. That sleek weapon was capable of belching out three gouts of plasma per fuel rod, which Mad changed out with a pump of the weapon's slide.

As he slapped in a fresh glowing rod, Mad pumped the weapon with one hand and ordered, "Alright. Let's blow this stack. Snell, take point."

Snell approached the only door in the room and stopped when he reached it. It should have opened automatically when he reached it, but the thick metal slab remained in place.

"It's not moving."

Mad came up from behind Snell and slapped the door as if smacking it would do something, yet it did not budge. Tanlon looked around the dark room, thousands of feet underground, filled with the corpses of men and monsters, and a new fear started creeping up his spine.

They were trapped and there was no other way out.

----------------------------------------

Several blasts from the plasma caster later and the only door out of the room was still locked tight and unyielding.

"This is ridiculous, how could you let this happen?" Gourke berated Mad while the rest of the squad fanned out and looked for other escape routes in the room. Tanlon helped in the search too but was accompanied by Ernst, supposedly his guard by order of Gourke, yet the One was still asking him questions like he was still the fireteam leader.

"This situation is kind of gorked sir, how are we going to get out of here?"

"Gorked?"

"It means frigged up." Ernst lowered his voice, "The lads came up with that during training. Everybody heard about what he did on Paradise, ditching you guys and all."

"Hm."

"I think it's unfair, him ordering you arrested and all. He wouldn't even be here if he didn't have a chip on his shoulder to prove he ain't a coward."

Hearing Ernst air his theory aloud made sense of why the Commissar Gourke would voluntarily join them on coming down to the bunker. The normally pompous man usually preferred staying in the rear than leading from the front. It must have been a big blow to his ego when Tanlon and the rest had actually come out of Mount Hemlock alive with the witches, not to mention the man probably got his ears ripped off by Lord Schultz. Now that Gourke was feeling belittled from all sides, it was no wonder that he wanted to knock down the troopers that he saw as ruining his reputation. Whatever the poisonous fat man thought, Tanlon forgot immediately when he found a ventilation grating on the ceiling. Tanlon called Mad over and the rest of the squad joined him and Enrst underneath the slate gray beacon of hope that probably had a century of dead rats and dust inside of it.

"Nice work, Tan." Mad gave Tanlon a pat on the back, which earned a poisonous eye from Gourke, but the squad leader either did not see or did not care. "Alright, I need a volunteer to go up there, find a way to the other side of that locked hatch, and get it open."

Predictably, no hands went up.

Gourke snorted and pointed at the trooper closest to him. "You, get up there."

"Me?!" Ernst cried and looked at Tanlon.

"Yes you, don't go looking at the prisoner like he's going to overrule me. Get up there and do your duty."

Tanlon felt a little pity for his fire team member, Ernst looked like he wanted to do anything but what the Commissar asked, so he stepped up and said, "I'll go up there."

Gourke's reply was so fast, it was like he anticipated Tanlon volunteering. "As if, prisoner. You are going to stay here under guard until we get you surface side for a trial."

A hand on his shoulder stopped him from further arguing with Gourke, Ernst replied, "Thank you, sir, but I, I got this. We all have to do our duty for the Emperor. Forward for the future. Isn't that right sir?" Ernst asked the last part to Gourke.

The Commissar did not even look the One in the eyes and just said with a half-hearted machismo, "Right, of course, forward for the Emperor."

From there, several troopers had to give Ernst a lift to the ventilation hatch on the short ceiling. Tanlon had the unfortunate experience of being one of the men lifting him and so felt the ten thousand pounds of dust drift down and settle down his neck and through his uniform's blouse. Despite that though, it was Ernst who had it the roughest, since he had to crawl up and into the yawning maw of the ventilation shaft. The poor trooper wasn't even able to bring a rifle since it would not have fit inside with him.

As Ernst's feet lifted off their hands, the rest of the squad watched his flashlight disappear into the dark and waited.

"You make it up there?" Mad yelled up the shaft.

"Yeah!" Ernst's voice came back, but muffled. "I can't hardly move!"

"Just keep going forward soldier," Gourke laughed. "It's all you can do now."

It was all Tanlon could do, to not strike the Commissar down for that smug comment, so he focused on Ernst instead. "Hey, Ernst, brother, talk to me!"

"I'm still here," Ernst replied. "I think I found the way to the other side of the door!" A bumping noise started traveling along the ceiling in tandem with the noise coming from the shaft, Ernst was definitely making progress.

"It's real dusty up here!" Ernst cried.

"Well, it's a good thing you're wearing a mask then," Tanlon replied. They were in the middle of a hostile environment and it was certainly not the place for jokes, but it was the right time. Leaving a man to his own thoughts in a tunnel of darkness was not something Tanlon was going to do, despite the looks Gourke was giving him.

As the noise of Ernst's journey in the ventilation corridor reached halfway across the room, the crawling trooper said something else. It was hard to hear, given how far he was now, but the echo of his words reached the listeners' ears and made them tremble.

"Hey, do you hear that?!"

They did. The sound of wind picked up in a ventilation shaft thousands of feet beneath the ground. It sounded distant, but from moment to moment, the room started to shudder from the incoming sound.

"Ernst, come back here, now!" Tanlon screamed, but his voice was quickly getting drowned out by the noise coming from the shaft. The deep roar of something like a trumpet blared, followed by a chorus of some horrendous high-pitched noise.

"I'm trying! I'm trying, but I'm stuck!" Ernst replied, his panicked voice coming one last time over the din of the other sounds and when Tanlon heard them both at once, so similar in pitch and tone, he realized what the other sound was. It was the sound of a multitude of people screaming.

"Ernst!" Tanlon shouted again, but he could not even hear his own voice now as deafening whispers manifested in his mind.

"Another one. Another one. His eyes, take his eyes. Get him. Welcome. Rip, rip, rip. Please. It's your fault. Die. What's the point? What did you do with her? Let me go! Stop, stop, stop! Crack and snack, crack and snack. You shouldn't be here. Come back. Please stop. Please. Another. Another. One of us."

More dust rained from the ceiling, and something in the middle of the room was banging around in the ventilation shaft. Tanlon grabbed Mad and screamed above the howling deafness that they needed to rescue Ernst, but Mad was frozen in place like the rest of the squad, eyes fixed on the ventilation shaft that had become a mouthpiece of Hell.

"MAD!" Tanlon's volume came back all at once and he was shocked by the return of blissful silence. A few scatterings of dust still rained down, but no more noise emanated from the ventilation shaft.

"What, what was that?" Mad was not looking at Tanlon, even though his friend was gripping his shoulders.

"Ernst is up there, we need to help him!" Tanlon let go of Mad and ran back under the vent shaft. "Ernst! Ernst!"

Tanlon cried in vain to the sky and prayed that he would hear the other young man's voice call back. Yet he heard neither the voice of God nor Ernst reply, and only the silence of the grave answered.