Canticle of Iron
Aboard the Valex — High Orbit
Suspensor fields hummed as the Alpha hung restrained above the adamantium slab, its shattered limbs bound in stasis manacles, its chitinous hide scored with burn marks and impact fractures. Incense and machine-oil mixed in the air, thick with binharic whispers and the click of data-tines.
Nine circled the specimen with measured steps, mechadendrites unfurling like steel serpents. Lenses irised and refocused as streams of data scrolled across his ocular implants.
"A fine specimen that you all have acquired," Nine intoned, his voice layered with vox-harmonics as he initiated the first auspex sweep. "Its genome confirms full divergence from baseline humanity."
One mechadendrite tapped against a fractured limb, eliciting a low, hate-filled hiss from the Alpha.
"However," Nine continued, tone flattening, "the damage inflicted upon it is… suboptimal."
He paused, turning a crimson lens toward the gathered figures observing from beyond the containment field.
"Well, if we didn't disabled it, do you truly think we can capture it?" Castil said. "Especially one that alive."
By her side is the Deathwatch Astarte, the Imperial Fists that command the Deathwatch kill-team that capture the Alpha, and now currently garrisoning the Canticle of Iron, a Mechanicus cruiser that Nine bring with him, to make sure that those Xenos that they and Nine capture won't break containment, and even if they break out, he and his kill-team can respond quickly before they overrun the cruiser.
A mechanical sigh issued from Nine's internal cogitators.
"Acceptable," he conceded at last, turning back toward the Alpha. "A living specimen—however damaged—is preferable to a cold corpse."
He extended several instruments at once, needles and probes hovering just short of the creature's flesh.
"So," the Imperial Fist rumbled, voice steady and unyielding, "what is it?"
Nine paused, as if savoring the moment.
"Though uncertainty remains," he said at last, "this creature aligns with your initial assessment—a leader-organism within the xenos hierarchy."
With a subtle gesture, a hololithic display blossomed into existence, glyphs and anatomical schematics rotating in layered projection. Fragments of genetic helixes, neural lattices, and comparative biometrics scrolled past in binharic precision.
"But what my team and I can state with certainty," Nine continued, his tone sharpening, "is that it is the source-vector of the corruption."
The display shifted—showing human genomic baselines being overwritten, strand by strand, replaced by something alien.
"This organism does not merely command," Nine said. "It initiates. Through genetic seeding and psycho-reactive transmission, it alters populations at the foundational level. The result is not infection, but transformation."
He turned one lens toward the Alpha, which writhed weakly in its restraints.
"The xenos born within the cities were not invaders in the traditional sense," Nine concluded. "They were the end result of a long, deliberate process—one that began with this creature's presence."
"So, this mean we only need to eliminate the Alpha, then the whole brood will fall by itself?" The Fists ask as he remember something. "According to the observation after the capture of the Alpha, the majority of the brood have fallen into disorder, with them regrouping under different individual."
Nine's mechadendrites stilled, instruments freezing in mid-air as the Imperial Fist spoke. For a moment, only the low hum of the stasis field and the Alpha's labored breathing filled the chamber.
"An understandable conclusion," Nine said at last, his vox filtered through layers of machine-cant. "But an incomplete one."
The hololithic display shifted again. What had been a single, dominant node fractured into multiple lesser nodes, linked by thinning strands of data.
"Eliminating the Alpha disrupts the brood," Nine explained. "It severs the primary command-genome and collapses centralized control. This accounts for the disorder you have observed."
A mechadendrite traced the lesser nodes one by one.
"However," Nine continued, his tone carrying a note of restrained amusement, "after reviewing your combat logs and conducting preliminary anatomical and neuro-organic analysis, the members of the Genetor Order have reached an… intriguing conclusion."
The projection shifted again, now displaying layered neural maps and bio-psycho resonance patterns.
"These xenos do not merely follow a leader," Nine said. "They function as a hive-mind—distributed, adaptive, and self-correcting."
The Imperial Fist said nothing, but his posture stiffened.
"This means," Nine went on, "that when the Alpha is disconnected from the hive-link, the brood does not simply collapse and die. Instead, there is a significant probability that a new Alpha-organism will emerge to replace it."
"The successor may not possess the raw strength or genetic purity of the original," Nine admitted. "But it will inherit something far more dangerous."
He turned one crimson lens toward the Deathwatch warrior.
"Experience."
"There is a high probability," Nine continued, "that the Alpha has already transmitted what it has learned about us to those closest to it." He paused, mechadendrites flexing slightly. "Closest in gene-essence."
The hololithic projector shifted again.
New images bloomed into the air—dissected corpses recovered from the hive, catalogued and tagged. Bodies twisted in subtle and grotesque ways: some indistinguishable from baseline humans save for faint cranial ridges and abnormal organ growths; others bearing a third limb, elongated spines, or hairless, waxen skin. And among them, smaller creatures—clearly xenos, yet unmistakably resembling the Alpha in form, though diminished in size and strength.
"As you can observe," Nine said calmly, "both in these samples and in the battlefield recoveries, the xenos present in multiple developmental states."
He gestured, and the images reorganized into a progression.
"Some hosts appear entirely human. Others show partial expression—vestigial limbs, dermal alterations, skeletal warping. And some," he indicated the Alpha-like forms, "are near-complete iterations, lacking only mass and authority."
Nine's voice grew colder.
"Our conclusion, based on the data available and the limited temporal window we have to study it, is this: the Alpha infects humans through an as-yet unidentified vector. The human then becomes a gestation host—one that gives birth to a hybrid organism carrying both human genetic material and xenos gene-code."
The hololith zoomed in on a spiraling helix, human DNA interwoven with something alien and aggressive.
"This process does not end there," Nine said. "The hybrids mature, adapt, and—given sufficient time, population density, and genetic convergence—one of them will inevitably develop into a new Alpha."
Silence settled over the chamber.
"It is a cycle," Nine concluded. "Self-sustaining. Recursive. And unless cleanse entirely, it will continue—world after world—until containment is no longer possible."
For a moment, the only sound was the hum of the stasis field and the Alpha's ragged breathing.
"Luckily," Nine continued, his tone shifting from cold analysis to measured neutrality, "we are no longer ignorant. We now possess partial understanding of their method of propagation, and—more importantly—the markers of deviation to watch for."
One of his mechadendrites retrieved a compact device and placed it into his organic hand.
It resembled an auspex in silhouette, but its design was more refined, more invasive. A narrow needle protruded from its crown, surrounded by micro-sensors and rune-etched casing. Soft binharic pulses rippled across its surface as it powered up.
"This," Nine said, raising it slightly, "is an early prototype, developed using the data recovered from the hive and from this specimen."
He angled it so Castil and the Deathwatch could see the scrolling readouts.
"It performs a rapid gene-scan and bio-resonance analysis. A single puncture is sufficient. The needle samples blood, tissue, and trace organics simultaneously, then compares the results against deviation thresholds we have identified."
His crimson lens flicked toward the Alpha.
"Hybridization. Dormant gene-expression. Latent hive markers. Even hosts who appear entirely human can be detected—before they reach the point of uprising."
Castil's grip tightened slightly on her power sword.
"And the margin of error?" she asked.
"Unacceptable for mass civilian screening," Nine replied at once. "But sufficient for targeted sweeps. Military personnel. Administratum officials. Hive enforcers. Any population deemed at risk."
The Imperial Fist studied the device in silence for a long moment.
"So," he said finally, "this allows us to cut the infection out before it festers."
"Yes," Nine agreed. "Or at the very least, to ensure that when it does surface, it does so under our observation—and our guns."
Nine lowered the cogitator fully, the device clicking as its runes dimmed.
"Or," he added slowly, his vox dropping into something almost… amused, "should you obtain authorization from the Lord of Camelarion…"
He let the silence stretch, mechadendrites curling faintly.
"…you could simply purge all those who bear the most obvious traits."
Castil's eyes narrowed. "You're suggesting collective execution."
"I am suggesting," Nine corrected, "a statistically efficient solution."
He gestured, and the hololith shifted again—images of early-stage hosts flickering into view. Slight skeletal asymmetry. Redundant organs forming beneath muscle. Subdermal hardening. Aberrant neural activity.
"The hosts that display overt deviations," Nine continued, "are not merely infected. They are past the point of recovery. Their bodies are already restructuring to support brood production or command-node evolution."
The Imperial Fist's grip tightened on his thunder hammer.
"You would have us execute loyal citizens on probability alone."
Nine turned one crimson lens toward him.
"No," he said calmly. "I would have you execute xenos incubators masquerading as citizens."
"But," Nine tone change back to normal. "I already begin the research for a new device that will be able to do test in a large numbers with a acceptable margin of errors."
"But, we need time." He continue as he put the prototype into Castil open hand. "So, do what you are task for, buy us some time, so that Lord Atharion will not return to a home that's infested with a xenos."
He then turn his back towards them both and continue his experiment on the Alpha with the other Magos.
Seeing this, Castil and the Fists begin to leave the chamber so that the Fabricator-General can do his job.
"Sergeant, I hope that you will inform the Watch Commander about this matter." Castil hestant for a bit before continue. "I.....will leave behind a thousand Scions to assit you in garrisoning the cruiser."
"Understood," the Imperial Fist replied with a single, solemn nod. "I will inform the Watch Commander immediately."
Castil turned away without another word and strode toward the embarkation decks. Her Valkyries were already warming their engines, crews moving with practiced efficiency. Beyond them waited her flagship—a Lunar-class cruiser seized from traitor hands, its scars still visible beneath fresh layers of sanctified plating and Inquisitorial sigils.
As Nine had warned, time was now the most valuable commodity in Camelarion.
And she intended to spend it ruthlessly.
By the time she reached the hangar, orders were already flowing through encrypted vox-channels. Every acolyte under her command—agents, informants, interrogators, sanctioned psykers—was being dispatched across Camelarion. Hive worlds, agri-worlds, manufactoria, void stations. Any planet of strategic or symbolic importance would be watched.
Quietly.
No proclamations. No public purges.
Not yet.
They would look for patterns. Behavioral anomalies. Genetic deviations. Entire families that "changed" without explanation. Administratum officials who rose too quickly. Enforcers who showed too much coordination, too much loyalty to something unseen.
And when those signs were found, Castil's agents would dig in—patient, ruthless, and unseen.
The Valkyrie's ramp lowered with a hydraulic hiss. Castil paused at its edge and looked back once more toward the depths of the Canticle of Iron, where the Alpha was being unmade piece by piece.
Buy us time, Nine had said.
She intended to do far more than that.
As the Valkyrie lifted away, banking toward her cruiser, Castil allowed herself a thin, humorless smile.
Valex would be cleansed. Every brood-root burned out, every nest collapsed. And once that was done, she would move on—world by world, uprising by uprising—until Camelarion was silent again.
The xenos had thought themselves hidden.
They had been wrong.
The hunt had begun.
"Is this what he have warn us about?"
"The possibilities is there."
"If what he tell us are true, then we truly have much to do."
"Indeed."
A new tool, i knew there's something special about you, especially when he try to hid you from me
what a good tools to bring me more skulls
what a good changes to this stagnant fate
what a good one to join my family
what a good boy to join my Palace