Early 36th Millennium, dawn of the Plague of Unbelief
Orbit over Abalus
Onboard the Artemis, voidship of the League of Black Ships
Locus Damnum Imperium
Two Terran standard hours later…
The Locus Damnum Imperium is one of the most crucial stations about any vessel due to its central role in both assessing damage a ship has received and controlling the delegation of resources to repair such damage. And, as in every repair availability, the Artemis' Locus was put into use for evaluating the vessel's repair…as well as a central hub for controlling its operations. Operations which, in the case of the Artemis, necessitated the capabilities of four Tech-Priests specialized in voidship repair, one Magos and three Enginseers. Each embedded within his own interface and attached to countless arcane devices, leaving the compartment alive with the sounds of humming cogitators and blinking lights.
"Prepare to unsecure doors to Null Bay Cells five hundred one through six hundred" said the Enginseer from his interface. He carefully verified the augurs to which he was ported into, reading the displays placed directly into his mind. "Interlocks relieved. Occluding Sphere deactivated. Doors open." After another moment of verifying his augurs, the Tech-Priest continued. "Prepare to unsecure doors to Null Bay Cells…"
"Cease the evolution, Enginseer Datsyuk," snapped the Magos from his interface. Datsyuk and the other two Enginseers immediately froze in response to the surprise outburst and turned to the Magos. He was even more heavily augmented, and armoured, than most Enginseers and Magos due to the constraints of the tasks to which he was assigned. He had an enormous servo arm protruding from his chassis as well as a number of powerful load-bearing mechanical arms in addition to his 'nest' of smaller mechadendrites, many of which were ported into various pieces of machinery or cogitators in the Locus.
"I do not understand, Magos Archaki," snapped the first Enginseer. "All readings have been verified and the mandated litanies conducted."
"The readings are in error, Enginseer Datsyuk," answered Archaki. "I received information that a particularly powerful psyker was stationed in cell five hundred sixty-seven, so I placed my own augurs on-site to monitor the release, including a pict-corder, and routed relays to transmit the data to me independently from the ship's pathways," he added. "My augurs indicate no change to cell five hundred sixty-seven."
"Are you certain?" asked Datsyuk. Archaki's barely human face registered disbelief at being challenged. "I installed the control runs myself, as well as the augurs. You…"
The closed hatch to the Locus blasted out of its frame and into Datsyuk's interface before uprooting the interface and sending the entire unit, Datsyuk and interface, across the compartment. The hatch remained embedded in the side of the interface, pinning the Datsyuk-interface unit between it and the far bulkhead. Sparks erupted from both the interface and the Enginseer. Smoke billowed out and up toward the ceiling. But none of that mattered to the Magos or the Enginseers beside Datsyuk.
Attalus emerged through the opening left behind when the hatch was blown across the compartment, Omnissian Power Axe swinging at Archaki in an overhand arc of blue haze. The Enginseer's body did not move but one mechanical arm intercepted the axe, itself lighting up in a blue haze an instant before impact, and stopping the axe cold. The Enginseer simply stood tall as a loud hum erupted from his chassis, and when he stood, Attalus rose up from the deck, suspended by a magnetic field Archaki had generated. For an instant, the other Enginseers stared in shock while the Magos and Attalus eyed each other. The laspistol mounted into Attalus' ballistic mechadendrite began firing away at the Magos and then the magnetic field hurled the Techmarine across the compartment and into the hatch, further weighing down Datsyuk.
"I destroyed your kind over Moyere and I will destroy you too today," Archaki snapped as two long tentacle-like mechadendrites shot forth to grab Attalus. But they never reached him. Two snake-like mechadendrites streamed through the open hatch and latched onto those Archaki had extended, freezing them in place.
Sergei stepped through the hatch-way, lascannon firing. His first shot hit the Magos to little effect but his second blasted an interfaced Enginseer in the head. Without standing up from their interfaces, the other two Enginseers fired at the Techmarine with laspistols mounted into their ballistic mechadendrites. Attalus ignored them and leapt to his feet, then swung his axe overtop the hatch pinning Datsyuk and burying it into the Enginseers cranium. He quickly turned round and chopped off the ends of the two mechadendrites Sergei had latched onto. But the humming grew louder again and Sergei was again pinned against the Datsyuk-interface unit.
Autogun fire from beyond the hatch impacted with Archaki but the Magos did not bother to move his bulk out of the line of fire. The two mechadendrites he had sent to grasp Attalus simply pulled back and drew Sergei toward him. Drew the Enginseer toward a great adamantium bulkhead-cutting saw that had emerged from Archaki's chest. Two streams of arcing electricity fired by the menials still outside flowed around Sergei and past the Magos, striking the Enginseers and immobilizing them.
"Such a pity to waste your implants," Sergei said, then waved a finger. As the Enginseer waved his finger, the hum generated by Archaki's chassis began to slowly decline.
A look of surprise and fear came over the Magos' face for a moment as he recognized his doom. "Die!" came the scream in the next moment. Archaki's head flew across the room, removed by a single swing of the axe in Attalus' hands after the magnetic field holding him failed. The Magos' two mechadendrites grappling with Sergei continued pulling the Enginseer to him in an autonomic effort, but it was meaningless, as Attalus did not stop swinging after the decapitation. Moments later, the former proud Magos, as well as the interface in which he had been embedded, was a pile of sparking debris lying in a pool of black oil that was spreading across the deck.
While the angry Techmarine regained his breath, two mechadendrites extended from Sergei's chassis, to one of the stunned Enginseers and he quickly removed the Potentia Coil and ruptured the Tech-Priest's heart. A moment later, he had completed the same task upon the sole remaining enemy. Sergei quickly ported into the chassis that held the second Enginseer. "We now have control of the Artemis, even though we have no crew to aid us, save the psykers operating the Occluding Spheres that enhance the Null Bays," Sergei said. "What now? Perhaps we should inform the other vessels of the League what happened here?"
"I thought you were smart," Attalus said with almost a laugh. "Do you think this was the only vessel where the Mechanicus from Vichka betrayed their oaths to the Emperor?"
"Point taken," Sergei answered. "These Mechanicus were mad," he added to which Attalus simply nodded. "They commanded the machine spirit of the Artemis to deactivate the vessel's Occluding Spheres as well as release the psyker levy from their cells. There are thousands of unsanctioned-psykers onboard her, as well as each and every Black Ship of the flotilla docked over Abalus."
Attalus simply stared at the Enginseer as he realized the scope and meaning of Sergei's words.