An alien of unknown origin. Born from the cold dark of the outer void.
The Kryptos have no fixed physical form. To the naked eye, they appear as irregularly shaped clouds of gas, constantly emitting a faint green shimmer. In this gaseous state, they can penetrate any solid material without resistance: bulkheads, hull plating, the thick external armor of void ships — none of it slows them.
If that were all, the Ordo Xenos would not classify them as it does.
The Ordo Xenos designation for the Kryptos is unambiguous: destroy on contact, without exception. Since the founding of the Imperium and the Emperor's Great Crusade, multiple human cities and planets have been burned in response to confirmed Kryptos presence. Their numbers are low enough that they have never been able to organize military resistance against Imperial force, but the reason the Ordo Xenos fears them has nothing to do with conventional military threat.
The Kryptos can seize a human body and parasitize it completely.
Once inside a host, they replicate the host's knowledge, motor patterns, and even personality with sufficient accuracy to pass casual scrutiny. They do not announce themselves. Operating in small groups, they infiltrate quietly, taking control of key leaders first, then using those leaders' authority to issue orders that progressively condition the remaining population. Over time, humans subjected to long-term Kryptos influence become cooperative puppets, and those puppets work to create safe environments where the alien can operate without detection.
What makes this more disturbing is that the Kryptos have no particular ambition for conquest. To a race that does not die of age, humans are something closer to livestock: useful, replaceable, not especially interesting. Standard exorcism methods are useless against them because they are not Warp creatures. They are a true alien species, and the tools developed to drive out daemonic possession do not apply.
This is why every alien race, large or small, draws the same response from humanity: bombs and blades. Because the cost of learning the lesson any other way is measured in lives.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
Nolan crossed the ship corridor at a dead sprint, Starfire Glory driving him forward like a battering ram with a skull for a face.
The Lamenter ahead had lost control of his limbs. The parasitized warrior's arm was already rising, storm bolter sweeping toward the battle-brothers standing beside him, finger tightening on the trigger.
The Ten Rings left Nolan's vibranium fist in a blur.
One ring hit the ceramite arm at the elbow. The arm came off in a spray of blood and broken plate, tumbling away from the body. The storm bolter discharged into the deck as it fell, and the weapon and the severed arm landed together on the metal floor.
The other Lamenters responded immediately. Without hesitation, they raised their own storm bolters and fired at close range into the parasitized warrior's legs and remaining arm — controlled, deliberate, targeting joints. The ceramite cracked and shattered. The heavy Terminator body pitched forward and hit the floor with the full weight of the suit behind it, limbs no longer functional.
Nolan had arrived by then.
"Back! Everyone back, now!"
The Lamenters pulled behind Nolan in a tight group, bolters still trained on the body.
Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.
Through the skull helmet's visor, Nolan watched it happen. Wisps of green-tinted cloud seeped upward from inside the downed Lamenter's armor, pulling free from the body in slow tendrils. Nolan stepped forward and brought the Warscythe through the emerging cloud form in a fast flat arc.
The blade passed through it. The green cloud parted around the weapon and reformed without resistance.
"Physical attacks have no effect."
The Kryptos did not retreat. It came directly at Nolan.
"Fool."
He was already moving backward, the Heart of the Furnace clear of his hip before the thought completed. His thumb armed it.
Plasma spheres erupted from the muzzle in rapid succession, azure-bright, burning through the passage air and driving through the cloud body of the Kryptos again and again. The extreme heat and energy impact did what the Warscythe could not: the cloud form struggled under the repeated strikes, unable to reform cleanly, the green shimmer fragmenting and dimming with each hit.
The plasma tide expanded and spread through the corridor. When it faded, the metal floor where it had pooled was half-melted, still glowing at the edges.
No green shimmer remained in anyone's eyepiece.
Nolan lowered the Heart of the Furnace.
"Get someone to assess the battle-brother's condition immediately." His voice was level and moving fast. "Vox all teams inside the ship right now — describe the Kryptos: green cloud form, no fixed shape, parasitic capability. Tell them physical attacks are ineffective. They need plasma weapons, melta, or anything that can deliver significant heat or electrical energy. If they cannot find those aboard, they improvise."
He turned.
"Vox Kahurangi: effective immediately, nothing leaves this strike cruiser without my direct authorization. Anything that departs without clearance is to be engaged with lance batteries and torpedoes at once."
He closed his hand around the Heart of the Furnace again.
"And make sure every team in this ship understands: except for those of us already confirmed, any unknown target gets shot first. No warnings. No hesitation."
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