Editing Tranch warfare for a noble (section)

==Chapter 11: Report of monstrosity==

Commissar Grenn was silent. He had not yet gotten a bionic replacement for his eye, but to him, it did not matter. There was work to be done.

The now twice-shamed recruits had returned empty-handed. Seven were left. No proper information on the possible survivors. They had all packed into a corner of their barracks and were just sitting there, shivering. Grenn would need to do the less savoury part of his duty, for these were incompetent cowards. But first, he would hear their excuses.

"Why did you abandon the mission? After the Space Marines bombarded the mutant base, there should not have been much resistance. Yet you ran from your chance to redeem yourselves. Why?", he asked.

No answer. One of the men looked at his laspistol longingly. Grenn did not understand these men. He pulled his pistol and pointed it at the man staring at it.

"You want this? What would you do with it?"

"End this... I can't live with what was burned into my mind..."

Grenn thought for a moment. Could he get more out of this man?

"I give you two choices: Explain yourselves and be executed, or be whipped and sent to penal legion", he said. These men wanted a fast death. He would use that to his advantage.

"It... It appeared suddenly. Horrifying, human-shaped thing... Crawling like a worm, with transparent, unnaturally stretching skin and joints terrifyingly malformed... Its eyes... Bottomless black pits... It was as if the world had gone dark, with only a dim, pale light illuminating it. Then came the whispers. It knew us. It mocked us. The voice was cold... Murderous. We panicked. The shadow never left. Every time we sleep, we see hundreds of its kind. They speak to us... Emperor forgive us, they speak to us with voices we know, voices we love..."

"Are you telling me you saw a daemon?", Grenn asked. He wanted to be sure he understood the situation. If a Daemon had manifested...

"No... Not a Daemon..."

"What? Was it Xeno, then?" A new xenos species would be bad news...

"No! It was a young woman! It... It WAS human... Emperor's mercy, it was human! It told us... It told us what is coming!" After that, the conscript started babbling incomprehensibly and crying, sobbing while tearing at his face.

Grenn executed the men quickly. This was something he could not ignore: Ten men went insane in moments, with three committing cowardly suicide before the first nightfall. He would need to personally look into this matter. At worst, the new threat could destroy entire bases by simply showing up, not to speak of the possibility of there being more of the things. But the description... How could a mere human cause such terror and hallucinations? Even psykers would need more time to affect a group of this size...