Malkor’s second star drooped just above the horizon, spilling hues of orange, purple and crimson onto the tree-ridden surface of the planet. In this prelude to night the forests were singing. Birds rustled and fluttered as the trees swayed softly in the breeze. Soon night would come and the forest planet’s inhabitants would grow quiet. With the night came the fog and that meant absolute stillness until dawn.
Lars Jenko’s mutterings were lost in torrent of twilight noise. He had snuck out of the bunker for a smoke and was struggling with the lighter. Each flick of the igniter produced a small flame that was snuffed out in a blink. Jenko continued to grumble curses as he cupped his hands around the defiant spark. With all the force of his lungs and a brief drop in the wind he was successful. He smiled and closed his eyes as he took a long, slow draw. The smoke was thick and pungent and Jenko took a few steps further from the bunker. A soft crack in the nearby woods made him start.
His shoulders slumped with relief as a small mammal scampered through the brush to his left.
Jenko was always fearful of his coworkers discovering him. Being a soldier bred repugnant habits and they were discouraged in the corporate militaries. A snarl curled on his face as he thought of his position. Babysitting a pioneer planet and its one-hundred-and-sixty-seven-God-Emperor-serving-moronic-gaks.
“Emperor damn this hunk of trees,” Jenko spat.
There always seemed to be something moving. Even if the wildlife was motionless the fog would sweep through, swirling and rushing like an ethereal tide. Jenko always felt nervous here, that something was indescribably and fundamentally wrong. He had laughed more than once at his own superstitions, but he never put them to rest. The guardsman had seen a century of violence in a decade.
He had seen men die of seeping, disfiguring diseases and toxins in the steaming jungles of Terlax. He had seen men ripped out from under themselves in the minefields on Kalar, a world scarred with trenches and shell-holes from two centuries of constant warfare. He had seen a thousand thousand men die in an instant during the campaign to retake Yahtun from separatists. Ships were ripped open by planetary defenses, spilling men and steel like the bowels of a great beast. He had seen entire cities burn from orbit, lit like candles on a cake. He had seen—
Too much, he sighed.
Jenko had to physically shake himself to cast aside those memories. Checking his chrono, the old soldier realized he had been gone for a long while now. Commandant Yuhl would have his head if he knew how long he'd been gone from his post. Yuhl was a professional soldier, younger than Jenko by almost twenty years, but he had friends in high places allowing for him to secure a comfortable, cushioned job behind a desk on an uneventful planet. Despite the jokes Jenko and the other men often made about their position, Yuhl was too proud to accept he had been sidelined to an insignificant post. He treated the security detail of Facility 238 as if he were guarding the Golden Throne itself.
Maybe he'd quit. Sell off what little he owned and settle somewhere for good. Yes, a nice little apartment on some soft paradise planet. Possibly Talris. Jenko had always been awed by the sea. Just as he began to dream of warm, ivory beaches gentle, sapphire waves, and some booze, obscura and girls to go with it a sharp cracking sound from somewhere in the fog made him snap to attention. Fumbling to maintain his grip on the smoke, Jenko swung his lasgun up one handed, the sling taut on his shoulder.
He remained that way for a long moment before finally convincing himself it was just the drugs, a critter in the woods or some other harmless cause. A small part of him though remained uneasy, convinced there was something out there. Jenko shivered, not from the cold, but from the sudden feeling he was being watched. This was more than enough to convince him he'd best head back to his post if not for avoiding a reprimand, but for his own safety.
And the fog rolled in behind him.
***
Behind one of the many glowing screens at Security HQ in Facility 238, a technician worked furiously to bring the auspex and thermal imaging cameras back to their normal status. Interference from atmospherics and the fog left the station practically blind and for that Yuhl was more overbearing than usual.
