The world was a desert of ash and black rock, lit only by the cold glow of a dead moon. Shadow reigned supreme, an almost absolute darkness that only cybernetic or perverted eyes could pierce. It was the perfect hunting ground.
Two Drukhari Archons, Xylos and Nyrith, had united their Kabals for this "harvesting" expedition. Their warriors, the Kabalites, moved with spider-like agility, their dark armor absorbing the faint light. Their Ravager vehicles, like mantas of metal and pain, hovered silently above the ground, their disintegrator batteries seeking targets. Their goal was simple: surprise, strike with surgical precision, and vanish into the night with their bounty of flesh and souls. Their style was a deadly dance of speed and cruelty, punishing the slightest mistake with instant agony.
But tonight, the hunters had become the prey.
Facing them, scattered among the rocks and craters, were the Yautja. They were perfectly calm, their silence a violent contrast to the stifled sneers of the Drukhari. Their forms, camouflaged by their optical technology, were only slight distortions in the air, deadly mirages. Their leader, the veteran Kra'Thar, observed the scene through the thermal vision of his mask. He did not see enemies, but prey. Dangerous, fast prey, but prey nonetheless.
The battle began without a cry.
A Ravager suddenly exploded into a silent fireball, its core pierced by an overheated plasma projectile fired from a hidden plasma caster. The first blow was struck.
The Drukhari reacted with their characteristic speed. The Kabalites opened fire, a deluge of poisoned needles hissing through the darkness, riddling the rocks where a Yautja had just been. But he was already gone.
The Yautja did not hold a line. They hunted. They used their camouflage to move silently, appearing briefly to launch an energy net that immobilized a Drukhari before decapitating him with a wrist blade, then vanishing again. They learned. A younger Yautja, impatient, leaped at a group of Kabalites, his roar of defiance shattering the silence. He cut down two before a concentrated volley of disintegrator fire tore through him. He fell, but before dying, he activated his bio-mask's self-destruct, taking three of his attackers with him in an explosion of plasma and metal.
This sacrifice was not in vain. Kra'Thar, observing the scene, noted the Drukhari's vulnerability to close-range suicidal attacks. He issued a silent order via his communicator. Henceforth, dying Yautja would seek to get as close as possible to enemy concentrations.
Xylos, the Archon, roared in frustration. "Where are they?! These beasts are hiding!" His strategy of rapid strikes was ineffective against an enemy who refused to hold a fixed position.
Nyrith, more cunning, tried to use their stratagems. She ordered her warriors to feign a retreat, hoping to lure the Yautja into a trap. But the predators were not fooled. Their thermal vision allowed them to see the heat signatures of the ambushers. They ignored the feint and attacked the exposed flanks of Nyrith's Kabal.
The Drukhari, accustomed to terrorizing, were themselves being hunted. Their units, designed for lightning strikes, found themselves locked in a war of attrition against more resilient and equally deadly adversaries. A Kabalite found himself face to face with Kra'Thar. The Yautja, taller and more massive, parried his shot with his gauntlet and, in one fluid motion, severed his head. He hung the still-screaming skull from his belt.
This was the essence of the conflict. The Drukhari sought to capture, to mutilate, to enslave. To them, a live Yautja would be a trophy of inestimable value, a subject for exquisite torture.
But the Yautja preferred to die. To die with honor, taking as many enemies as possible, rather than suffer the fate worse than death offered by the Dark Ones. A severely wounded Yautja, surrounded, activated not his self-destruct, but the overload of his backpack reactor. The detonation cleared an entire section of the battlefield, leaving a smoldering crater.
The battle in the shadows was not a war of conquest. It was a clash of philosophies. On one side, refined cruelty and enslavement. On the other, brutal honor and a chosen death. And in the darkness of this forgotten world, it was honor, however ruthless, that was winning the victory, one bloody trophy at a time.