Post by Darko on May 23, 2022 5:07:57 GMT
Tech Priest Alvus, his maroon and silver robes fraying at edges blackened from burns, had descended more than halfway down the citadel before he even registered Lucinda behind him. They shared a silent journey - for that is what it felt like as the minutes passed on the chronometer - into the darkness far below. Ancient llumo globes fizzeled with energy, momentarily illuminating them at every stage as they plummetted underground before deactivating to conserve energy as the next circle ignited around them like a halo. The walls were solid and sheer metal, yet there was the sense of hidden power just behind them. Aside from the distant sounds of gunfire and screams which echoed in their heads as much as the vast vertical chamber, finally it was quiet enough that Lucinda could hear herself think.
+++I calculate chance of our survival: zero-point-zero-three percent+++ droned Alvus, umprompted.
"Is that the mathematical equivelant of a miracle?"
Alvus wasn't sure how to answer that. +++Omnissiah willing, the probability of succeeding in our mission is eleven percent+++
Lucinda supposed that counted as optimism - for a machine. There were worse fates than to be a martyr for the likes of her, she reflected. Besides, as Alvus himself pointed out, a miracle was statistically possible.
The elevatus reached the bottom with a clunk that reverberated through the walls. Lucinda followed Alvus as the doors slid open with a hiss, revealing a chamber filled with ancient servitors plugged into the walls. They hung there, indifferent and cold, either idly monitoring the incessant readouts spat forth by a cogitator bank or swinging sparsely decorated censors of holy unguents with a functionally limitless reserve provided by tubes snaking into the floor. A blast door with no less than twenty combination locks - each the size of a space marine's boot embedded with symmetrical precision across its width, loomed over them. A faint electrical hum and slight shimmer in the air around it belied some form of protective field. The impeccable security of the vault, virtually unbreakable without either the intelligence of a machine or the firepower of a macro cannon, now worked against them. Time was not on their side. Alvus hunched over the cogitator bank, spewing a constant stream of binary. With a magnetic whine, the energy field flickered visibly for a second before dissipating.
+++Void shield deactivated+++
Next, he approached the humongous door. Lucinda stared in disbelief as the Tech Priest suddenly moved with surprising haste, his chrome hands cycling each lock in what looked like a totally random sequence. He did not unlock them one at a time, instead going back and forth from one to another.
"I would not question the ways of the Machine Cult, but wouldn't it be faster to finish one at a time?"
+++Each lock requires exactly one-hundred numerical inputs in a non-linear sequence in under ten minutes to prevent failsafe measures. This vault was constructed to be opened by exactly twenty Priests linked to a primary coordinator to input the numbers with absolute precision+++
"Failsafe measures... meaning?"
+++The servitor censors will dispense gaseous acid+++
"Oh. Great."
+++followed by a burst of gamma radiation+++
Lucinda fidgeted with her hands and gulped. They weren't fucking about when they built this place.
+++finally this room will seal and become a vacuum in under nine point six seconds+++
"Couldn't we just... you know... let that... that unholy thing trigger these traps?"
+++the vile abominations of the warp are an unquantifiable variable to be eradicated on sight. Clinical trials have not been performed for this outcome. Even the crude weapons of the orks may eventually penetrate this vault. I calculate even a ninety-nine percent removal of ork infestation will not suffice. Each of the billions of corpses will release hundreds of spores allowing them to repopulate in under six months and result in the same outcome before Imperial forces can retake the world. Exterminatus of Caedis V unavailable and unacceptable: production loss of this forge world will result in seven sub-sectors consuming their munitions stockpiles in approximately fifty years according to ongoing rates of attrition in all current conflicts. One-hundred percent extermination of all xenos on the surface and the destruction of the Daemon's physical vessel is the only acceptable outcome+++
The Tech Priest did not pause for even a moment as he worked. Lucinda was humbled. Growing up on a forge world gave a person great reverence for the ways of the Machine Cult, but to see them first-hand at this level of technical precision was simply extraordinary. Even so, it was entirely unbelievable that a single mid-level Tech Priest was able to accomplish such a task.
"Alvus, the Omnissiah is with you. I pray the Emperor is too." She made the sign of the cog once more.
+++Correction: the unit designated Alvus no longer exists. When I was destroyed by the abomination, I downloaded a backup cache of my collected data into this body while you were en-route+++
"You mean... You're Archimandrite Novus?"
+++Correct+++
Foul-smelling blood splattered across Lucinda's face. Her heart skipped a beat and she jumped in surprise, blinking rapidly, mouth agape in confusion. To her left was a puddle of guts and green hide that used to be an ork. She looked up just in time to leap out of the way as dozens more rained down from the impenetrable darkness above. Skulls shattered sending tiny splinters of bone like shrapnel and limbs split into pieces, flopping across the floor and walls. More and more came like bloody hailstones. Not a one of them had been alive to scream as they fell.
+++It is done+++
Novus took a reverent step back. The cogitator blinked green. A resounding clunk like the step of a warlord titan shook the entire chamber. Spinning hazard lights bathed them in an amber glow as a screeching klaxon rhythmically blared from the distorted vox chords of every servitor. Unspeakably ancient gears turned within the walls producing a disconcerting rattle. For the first time in centuries the vault doors scraped open inwardly.
The room beyond, if you could call it that, suddenly justified how far underground it was buried. Its sheer scale rivalled the grandest cathedrals of the Ecclesiarchy. Lucinda held a hand in front of her eyes as she was momentarily blinded by the most magnificent light. For but a moment she thought she had gone to the afterlife. She squinted and peeped through fingers, dumbstruck by what she saw. At the centre of the chamber was a cylindrical beam of light at least fifty meters wide and a hundred tall. It was contained by barely visible rings suspended one on top of another by adamantine struts and seemingly nothing else. She stumbled one foot after the other after Novus and gazed in awe left, right and then up. The design of it was like nothing she'd ever seen. It looked... almost alien... and yet something about it felt familiar. Everything appeared to be constructed from materials she knew well yet everything was so much sleeker. No hard edges or brutal gothic emblems. It was all so shiny and smooth. Numerous walkways criss-crossed around the cylindrical beam of raw warp energy, linking at a multitude of platforms filled with sensor nodes or clusters of machinery - she couldn't even guess the purpose. Hundreds of stairways and ladders, all wrought of the same seamless silver stone of the steps behind them, connected the endless gantries. Curved monolithic spires reached out from every wall, glowing tips touching the column of energy like the hesitant fingers of a god.
After ten footfalls from the entrance, the floor disappeared. Only a single silver walkway extended before them to a semi-circular platform at the edge of the light. Lucinda made the mistake of looking down and felt sick. The column of energy continued further into the planet than it did to near the surface. The network of platforms continued all around from ceiling to... well, if there was a bottom, she couldn't see it. Novus wasted no time in crossing the distance over the abyss, chanting in code again as he rushed to perform yet another mysterious machine ritual. The bizarre elegance of everything was somehow unsettling and yet breathtakingly magnificent. The closer Lucinda got to the heart of Salvator, the more she became aware of the magnitude of unimaginable power it held. Every hair on her body stood on end and she felt light headed. She stumbled as her balance failed and her life flashed before her eyes as she swayed dangerously close to the edge, instinctively throwing her weight backwards, falling awkwardly sideways onto the cool stone floor. She hugged the ground as she caught her breath, never so grateful to feel solid metal beneath herself. Turning over and pushing back onto her feet, she faced away from the light lest she go blind.
Novus was surrounded by an amalgamation of Mechanicus technology and terminals built into the mismatching framework of what was already there. The original control station of the warp reactor had been incompatible and unsanctified when it was first discovered. Despite this, the machinery had been compatible - although the sealed records of that momentous time showed it was a millennia before a way to control and harness the incalculable power was completed. With the utmost care, he placed the artifact into another perfectly matching indent on the central console. The crystalline core rang with energy and was imbued with the same light of the reactor itself.
+++As our precursors are forgotten in the annals of history, so must we all in service of the Omnissiah that those who follow us may continue to divine the auspicious will of the machine+++
Novus felt the vague pang of surprise for the first time in fifteen hundred years. Maybe it was the remaining weak flesh of Alvus' body affecting him. It was illogical to hesitate with the fate of uncounted trillions at stake and yet, the Lord of Caedis V took a moment to contemplate his own words. He felt his own mortality for the first time in a long time. Death was simply the inevitable logical conclusion of existence. Despite that, he felt strangely satisfied. He felt ready. Service to the Omnissiah had always been its own reward but only now at the end of it all did he truly appreciate it. There was not enough time to run a probability matrix of his very, very long life to determine if the random causality of the universe had led to this moment or if the Omnissiah had indeed ordained this specific purpose for Novus from the very beginning. In that moment, Novus chose to believe this was his true purpose.
Anyone else would have gotten it wrong.
On board the second elevatus hurtling through the dark, Korina stood apart from the rag-tag group of soldiers as they conceived a desperate plan to blow the abomination back to the hell it came from. She checked her last magazine with a sigh: only four bolt shells left. Not that it would make a difference at this point. She returned it to the holster at her side and placed her other hand, blood still dripping from her wound, onto the hilt of her force sword. She knew conventional weapons would be near-useless against this foe, but her blade was imbued with sacred wards and a psi-focus through its length amplified psychic powers tenfold. Her empty fist clenched as she reached deep into the warp, deeper than was safe. She had to be ready. Her skin grew cold and her breath turned icy as she summoned as much power as possible. It was building inside, coursing through her entire being, barely held in check. She would only get one shot to unleash everything she had on the Daemon and she knew full-well it would probably destroy her. Even then, it might not be enough. A faint blue light pulsed from the sword's sheathe in time with her heartbeat. The human half of her face became as ice cold as the metal cybernetics grafted over the other half. In her peripheral vision she noticed Veyda knelt with her twin power swords crossed over her lap, whispering the words of her Death Cult. That woman hadn't even flinched when she saw the Daemon. In complete contrast, Quinn was curled up on the floor blubbering unintelligibly. Admittedly, Korina hadn't even realised the adept was still alive until just that moment. That said, she wasn't really alive any more; her mind broken, overwhelming trauma and fear response reducing her to a dribbling shell of a person waiting for the end.
In the short time since they'd got on board the late train to hell, sergeant Balalaika Vladislava Danilovna had stripped her long-las, meticulously checked every part and reassembled it without even looking. She had held her first rifle before she learned to read. She still remembered the look of pride in her father's eyes the first time they'd gone hunting. She'd bullseyed a wild Grox on her first try, clean through the eye. They skinned the beast and cooked steak over an open fire in the woods that night as he told the story of his first hunt. Balalaika's lips curved at one end, the faintest hint of a smile lingering for less than a second. Her last las-pack was half empty, only enough for maybe three-score shots if she hadn't just overcharged it.
That was fine. She only needed one.
Stepping away from the first and last Alterran company he would command, Rook leaned against the wall next to where Yorck was working on the servitor.
"We've survived arse-brained officers dropping artillery on our own men, waded through a metric feth-tonne of piss and shit, looted a warboss' battlewagon, outlived two inquisitors and nearly killed each other over a Throne-damn box what we didn't even know had inside," said Rook incredulously, "and now there's a big bastard with wings trying to have our guts for breakfast."
"Is your plan to talk the Daemon to death? Because you're just killing me with suspense... Emperor willing is there a point coming?" Retorted Yorck.
"My point is somehow you still manage to surprise me after all that."
"Between the Schola and my years of experience with Favro, I've learned a lot of useful skills like this. The common infantry might resent stormtroopers, but the reason you're still alive and this plan has a chance is thanks to me. So forgive me if I'm not that interested in your boyish astonishment, Rook. I am an instrument of the Emperor and I will use every last ounce of my knowledge and strength to get this done."
Rook snorted. "I'm not impressed you can hot-wire a servitor. I'm amazed that after everything we've been through you're just ready to die like it's... I don't know, like it doesn't matter."
"You really think any of us is going to make it out of this alive?"
"Well, I might," chuckled Rook half-heartedly. He shook his head solemnly. "No, probably not. I'm just saying, everything we've survived and done since our valkyrie went down... either the Emperor has a sick sense of humour watching over us this whole time just to let us all die horribly in this forsaken pit... or we have the one thing that skitarii, space marines and even you glory boys all get trained out of you."
"Please, enlighten me," Yorck groaned as he finished recoding the servitor.
"Hope. The hope that somehow, some way, no matter how impossible it is, that we'll live to see another day. What keeps the guard charging over the trenches even as they're slaughtered over and over by xenos and chaos all across the galaxy? Not just the fear of a commissar, Yorck. The hope that they will somehow be the one to make it through the day. I don't expect to see the sun rise ever again, but if some part of me didn't want to keep going just in case, I'd probably have put the barrel of my lasgun in my mouth right out of basic."
"Unlike you, Rook, I'm not afraid to die doing my duty. Better to die for the Emperor than live for yourself. In any case, if we did survive this - and if we somehow don't simply starve to death trapped underground on an irradiated planet - the Inquisition or the Mechanicus will just mind wipe us or turn us into wall ornaments like this sorry bastard here." Yorck tapped the servitor with the back of his hand.
"You know what Yorck? You say I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, but if it wasn't for me you'd have martyred yourself days ago in some very noble and heroic last stand against the fucking orks anyway. We'll probably die down here, no one will ever know our story. Either way the truth is... Emperor strike me down for saying this... we've made a hell of a team. If there's a way out of this, we'll find it and drinks are on me. If we're gonna die, well, I hate to admit it but you are a damn fine soldier. It was good to fight by your side you miserable bastard."
Rook extended his bionic hand. Yorck glanced at it.
He clasped the offered hand with his own. "Die well, Rook."
A loud bang above them drew everyone's eyes. There was a whistling noise as mangled corpses whipped past the elevatus, leaving bloody smears as they bounced off the walls.
Falk stared forlornly through the open frames in the wall as more ork bodies tumbled down silently.
"By the Emperor... they just keep coming," he stammered.
"I have never heard an ork die quietly," said Wulf, a tremor in his voice.
More misshapen bundles of dead xenos dropped past them.
"That thing up there... it just wiped them out," muttered Mendez. "Just gone all at once."
"Get a grip guardsmen!" Korina snapped. "It's time."
With a wet squelch the elevatus finally reached the bottom, crushing gore beneath its weight. The doors slid open and the soldiers double timed it with nervous glances upwards. Their fear was quickly overridden with shock and awe at the view into the vault.
"Move, move, move!" Barked Rook, snapping his brothers in arms out of their reverie as he pushed them toward the light. "There's no time for sightseeing boys, get into firing positions now!"
Korina sprinted into the vault, drawing her force sword. Even she was taken aback at the grandiosity of what they were seeing. She scanned the room and saw the Valhallan sniper had already climbed halfway up a ladder to find a makeshift crow's nest. Veyda stepped out of the elevatus last, one of her swords covered in fresh blood to the mid-point. Quinn's lifeless arm hung awkwardly out of the doorway, auto-sensors repeatedly opening and closing the doors due to the blockage. It was a mercy.
+++Standby. Going... up+++ declared the servitor.
With a creak of straining servos the elevatus began to carry its deadly cargo to its final destination.
There was a sudden gust of wind that spread into the vault, whistling in their ears. Wulf was blown clear off his feet.
Falk's eyes widened in realisation and he bolted shoulder-first into Rook, throwing them both through the vault doorway.
Nanoseconds later the elevatus smashed into the ground, its ceiling caved in by the gargantuan weight of the Greater Daemon on top of it. Veyda no longer existed.
Balalaika squeezed the trigger. A lance of bright crimson energy whipped over the Daemon's shoulder and hit the melta bomb.
Lucinda was seeing triple of everything. The ringing in her ears was so loud she thought she might never hear again. She felt herself being pulled up to her feet by fridgid metal hands. The world was just a blur and she could see several Tech Priests shaking her... no, just one, she realised. Novus was starting to come back into focus. He was repeating himself over and over until she understood what he was saying.
+++I have set the warp reactor's power levels triple maximal output. Terminus level radiation will be released into the atmosphere+++
Lucinda was still too stunned to respond.
+++The final safety override control is located... There+++
She shook her head until things cleared up and followed where Novus was pointing. He was pointing up. Really up. The very apex of the vault.
+++I must remain here to keep the power flow regulated. Status of escorting combat units unknown. Someone must reach it or all is lost+++
The significance of this final task steeled Lucinda's mind and she nodded quickly, turning to sprint across the walkway. Only now did she register the black smoke pouring out of the entrance toward her. Was the fate of seven sectors really on her shoulders alone? She gritted her teeth and kept running. As the smoke slowly began to clear ahead, she could make out a few figures lying prone on the ground. The closest was one of the Alterrans with an eye patch, she didn't remember his name. With a grunt she pulled him upright.
"What... where..." Wulf mumbled. His legs ended in bloody stumps where his knees used to be.
She let him go. Her eyes darted across to the half-crumbled wall where the thirty-inch thick adamantine door had been blasted from its mounting. Two figures were picking themselves up there, shielded from the blast. It was Rook and Falk.
"Thank the Emperor!" Yelled Lucinda. They either couldn't hear her or they were still stunned from the explosion. There was another body halfway between her and them, its entire front burned to a crisp. There was no way to tell who it was without prying the melted dog tags from its charred corpse.
"Fuck... Fucking..."
She looked over the edge, past the legless man. A single hand desperately grasping the edge. Lucinda peered over and found a mangled face staring back up at her: Korina. What was left of her face was badly burned, but the bionic side stared up with cold fury. She hauled the interrogator up over the edge and was amazed that she had kept hold of her sword. It burned white-hot with psychic energy.
"We have to get to the top to finish this!" Lucinda yelled, much louder than she even realised with her ears still ringing. The others were stumbling over the scorched metal ground toward them.
Rook limped, half dragging Falk with him. The man had saved his life, but had gotten scorched for it. His flak armour had melted into his back and he groaned with agony, using his lasgun like a crutch. He fumbled at his belt as Rook set him down. He unlatched a pouch and pulled out a syringe. Rook had seen one before. Rare, usually reserved for officers and the like who didn't particularly fancy dying for the Emperor. Rook didn't care to imagine where he picked that up - they'd all gone through hell and taken anything that might just give them an edge along the way. It was a powerful cocktail of adrenaline, painkillers and combat stimms designed to keep the human body going when every natural instinct demanded it drop dead. Falk grit his teeth and slammed the needle into his leg, writhing in pain as Rook held him.
"We need to do what?!" He yelled over Falk's screaming.
"Get to the top! Someone's got to get up there."
"That's a tough climb," said Yorck. The others whipped around in surprise. The stormtrooper was wrenching his smouldering carapace armour off his chest and arms, forsaking it on the ground. He was singed, but still alive.
Falk shot upright, eyes bloodshot. "Fuck me, I feel brand new!"
His drug-induced moment of euphoria was interrupted by a gutteral growl rumbling in the smoke.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me," said Mendez, his voice cracking. He stopped dragging the unconscious form of Crow over the bridge and collapsed to his knees in despair, tears falling from his eyes. He was done.
A piercing red eye glowed through the dark accompanied by the screech of rent metal tearing as claws as big as autocannons pierced through it effortlessly. The eye grew closer.
There it was. The Daemon. It crawled its way out of the smoke, its entire lower body missing. Humongous unnatural entrails slopped across the floor behind it, oozing black blood and shredded black wings twisted loosely on its back. Using its four arms like legs, the dragon-faced monstrosity clawed its way closer. Putrid demonflesh sleuced down one side of its head like day-old steamed broth. It snarled through jagged teeth, pitched its head back and howled with rage. Purple balefire rippled into the air, destroying several overhead platforms. Rook prayed Balalaika wasn't still up there when it disintegrated. Behind them, the energy from the warp reactor flared even brighter still as the pure fabric of the empyrian began to overload its containment field. The Daemon set its eye on the bridge straight into the heart of the world and the tiny humans in its way.
Five of them were all that stood between the Daemon and the end of this side of the Imperium.
Korina Roedder. Jace Rukowski. Nathaniel Gregorious Yorck. Lucinda Harper. Daryn Falk.
Five people with nothing except their faith and fury.