Walking in the Promethium
06/1/2021
For more than a Hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. His is the Master of Mankind by the Will of the Gods and Master of a Million Worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is the rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium, for whom a thousand souls die every day, for whom blood is drunk and flesh is eaten.
Human blood and Human flesh-The stuff of which the Imperium is made.
To be alive in such times is to be one amongst untold trillions and trillions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable; this is a tale of those times.
Kin Lee ducked down behind the smaller pipeline before raising his head and his newly acquired lasgun up to scan the area ahead. This junction and tank area looked like every other part of the Underhive; grimy, dusty, long unused but somehow still having power and his newly formed gang hoping they still functioned.
He did not see any activity or movement in the area but kept scanning has he raised his hand to signal the rest of the gang to come forward. As soon as he signaled he realized he had used the wrong one and changed it to the new one. Almost immediately the rest of the gang moved into positions all around him.
Do Pham placed himself next to Kin Lee. After a quick scan, the new gang leader said, "Idiot, you almost got yourself shot to pieces."
Kin Lee did not look at his new leader but answered him and said, "We would never have gotten this deal if not for me knowing about this place, so show some respect."
Do Pham now looked at Kin Lee and decided to try a different tack. He said, "Look we all appreciate that but when we merged the survivors of our gangs together we agreed to use my gang's signs. You need to remember that."
Kin Lee was still mad at himself for the mix up and knew Do Pham was right. Unconsciously he reached down and stroked the autopistol on his hip. Kin Lee felt himself calming down some. His mother had given him the autopistol on the day he had been accepted into his old gang. It had been his father's and she was so proud to see him carry on in his footsteps.
After a moment Kin Lee said, "Sorry about that. We do need to hurry up. It's quiet now but once we start the pumps the noise is going to attract those things for sure."
Do Pham nodded and said, "Right let's get this done and get our big payday."
Both of them moved out and the rest of the gang members followed. Kin Lee looked them over. Members of five different gangs all down here working together and doing a job being paid for by Upper Hivers. The events of the last few weeks had truly turned his world inside out.
Kin Lee's whole world was the Underhive. He did not even know the name of the Hive he lived in, much less what planet he was on. He lived the best life he could in the Underhive and then everything changed when war came to the planet and the Hive. He had heard stories of wars above, but this war was so fierce that Upper Hivers had fled to the Underhive seeking any shelter they could find.
Kin Lee remembered how at first the gangs tried to exploit the Upper Hivers. Then the gangs found out how well armed and trained their security forces were. Both sides worked out deals to coexist while the unpleasantness was sorted out. The Upper Hivers had access to credits and better-quality weapons but need shelter, food, and water. The gangs provided.
That was until the diseases started to spread. There were so many different ones and medicines were extremely hard to come by. Some of the Upper Hivers said it was all the fault of some mega, mega gang leader named Typhus. Kin Lee had never heard of him or his gang of Plague Marines before. They didn't sound like stand-up fighters, using sickness to win. Every gang in the Underhive had more honor than to stoop to that level.
Kin Lee slung his new lasgun and pulled out his portable cogitator. One look at the control panel told him the tanks were full and it would be an easy task to get the promethium flowing to where they wanted it to go.
He turned toward where Do Pham was positioning other gang members and called out, "Two minutes and the noise will start."
Do Pham did not answer him instead he called out to the rest of the gang, "Spread the word, two minutes and then they will start coming."
Kin Lee got to work on the control panel, but his mind tried to distract him with images of them. Once people started getting sick they started dying. Only they did not stay dead. The sick rose up and immediately tried to kill anyone around them, strangers giving aid or beloved family members all were fair game. Then they rose back up and tried to kill more people.
Things quickly fell apart after the first dead came back. Within a week everyone knew they had to abandon the hive. Not just go deeper but get out of the entire hive as the dead overran it. There were plenty of abandon transports to take everyone and people to pilot them. There just wasn't any promethium to power them. That was how Kin Lee had ended up trying to get the storage tanks of promethium to start flowing again.
The Upper Hivers had begged them to do go and start the pumps. They had even paid them more money and treasures up front then any of the gangers thought existed. There were not enough members of any one gang left to even try the mission which is why they were so mixed up. It was worse since to prevent a double cross from the Upper Hivers or any of the gangs they had to leave enough gangers behind to protect their transports and the friends and family counting on them to get the promethium flowing.
Before he knew he had done it, his finger flicked a switch and a slow steady thrumming sound started. The Underhive always had some background noise, air moving through ducts, liquids dripping off pipes, distant metal grinding or banging and the scurrying of vermin of many sizes. The sound of the pumps was not much louder, but it was steady. That is what drew the dead. Even deep down in the Underhive they all knew there were dead around that would come.
Kin Lee unplugged his portable cogitator and carefully packed it away. Moving to his place in the defensive line, he unslung his new lasgun. He also stroked his autopistol and said, "Yes mother you will get out. Your autopistol brought us the luck we needed."
As he took his place, their luck ran out. The first of the dead appeared. It shambled; you could never call it walking from one of the side air vents. This one did not moan which was a good thing. If the dead started to groan, they could rise it to such volume, that the resulting cacophony could damage not only your body but your soul. Some said this was how they spread their foulness.
Before it was even in range three gang members opened fire on it. Kin Lee watched as two shots missed while the third hit it in a horn growing out from between it breasts. If the dead noticed this wound, it showed no sign.
The three gang members and two more fired again, this time hitting it three times. This volley staggered the dead and allowed the gang members' next volley to all find their mark and bring the dead down for good.
Since there was no need to be quiet, Do Pham raised his voice and called out, "Good work people, remember space your shots and don't let your lasguns overheat."
Kin Lee reflexively checked his own large bag of power packs. This was something else he was not used too. In the old days, could he call them that, running out of ammo in the middle of a fight had always been a problem. Now each of them was carrying more ammo than their entire gangs had carried before. As he just saw he hoped it would be enough. The dead were ridiculously hard to make permanently dead.
Three more of the dead appeared from the same side vent. Before anyone could fire Do Pham called out again and said, "Call your target. Work together or we are not going to make it out of here."
Do Pham turned toward Kin Lee and called out and said, "How long do we need to hold here?"
Kin Lee called back and said, "Twenty minutes more and then I can switch to the other tanks. That will take ten seconds and then we are out of here."
He was not sure if the other gang members had heard him. They had started to fire on more of the dead who had appeared from the other side. He did not care, they had to hold otherwise not enough promethium would be pumped out and then there would be fighting in the transport fueling area and then no one would get out of the hive.
Two minutes passed, the second group had been put down and a third appeared with more than a dozen of the dead following right behind them. One was right in Kin Lee's line of fire. He sighted down his barrel and then hesitated. Despite the discolored skin and wart and horn growths he recognized the dead one. He had been in the Toxic Toads, a gang allied with his gang. The Toxic Toads had gone off to find a cache of medical supplies and none had returned. Until now.
The gang member next to Kin Lee called out, "Hey hacker let's take the one in front of you."
Kin Lee just barked a noise of agreement and sighted on his former ally. He did not know the gang member next to him, but he did know the colors he wore. The Singing Storks had been one of his gang's worst enemies. Always trying to take over their gambling and prostitution dens and introduce drugs into them. Now they had to work together.
Both of them got head shots in and the Toxic Toad member went down fast. Looking over his sights, Kin Lee could see there were now more than four dozen of the dead heading toward them. There were only thirty members of the ad hoc gang here. Fire discipline started to break down as each tried to take down only the one closest to them.
Do Pham started to move around and whack the gang members on the head and shoulders to get them working together. He almost succeeded in bringing them back in line. He would have if the dead had not started groaning at that moment. It wasn't, particularly load. It wasn't particularly sharp. It was barely a noise you heard with your ears. You felt their groan in every cell of your body as it tried to turn you into one of them.
Kin Lee did not try to cover his ears. He had seen before how that did not work. Instead he grabbed the hilt of his autopistol. He did not know why but holding it helped him fight off the groaning. With his other hand he aimed and fired at the dead. There were too many for him to miss, still the shots did not seem to do any damage to them. Even when one sliced off the leg of one of them it just fell down and kept crawling forward.
Something made him look to the Singing Stork next to him. The gang member was reaching into his pocket and pulling out a frag grenade. Kin Lee did not hesitate. He jumped up and tackled the Singing Stork. He had been quick enough to stop him before he could pull the pin and the frag grenade rolled away harmlessly.
Kin Lee held him to the ground and said, "Idiot, we are in the middle of kilometers of promethium pipes. You set that off and puncture any of them and this whole place goes up. It might even take down the rest of the Hive with it."
Realizing what he might have done, the Singing Stork relaxed and said simply, "Sorry."
The two of them scrambled up quickly and started to fire together. Several power pack changes later Kin Lee could see they had thinned out the dead and kept them at bay, but they were still coming. He had also seen three of their number change into the dead, succumbing to the groaning of the dead. He and the Singing Stork had put one of them down themselves.
Kin Lee made to change power packs in his lasgun again when a new sound came to his ears. It took him a moment to realize it was the warning tone that the tanks were almost empty. He sprang up and leap to the control panel. All it took was flicking a couple of switches and turning a dial to complete the transfer to the new tank.
Kin Lee called out in the loudest voice he had and said, "We can get out of here now and I really think we should."
Now that the main mission had been done, Kin Lee took a moment to look around. The rest of the merged gang were still firing the dead. He could see there were only a few of the dead left so maybe getting out of here would not be a problem. Then by the time they got back, the transports would be ready, and they could flee this dead Hive.
Do Pham turned to answer him and died before he could say anything. Kin Lee could only stare at Do Pham's death, not because he had never seen someone die before but because he had never seen anyone die the way Do Pham did.
One moment Do Pham was the leader of a merged gang who had succeeded in a difficult job. Then a dirty ball was lobbed at his feet. It did not explode but broke open when it landed. Out of it came a cloud of the foulest smelling brown gas and what Kin Lee could not believe but could only be the largest black flies he had ever seen, and Kin Lee lived in the Underhive.
As the brown gas rose and enveloped Do Pham he just rotted away. Not melted or sickened just rotting away like a fast time elapsed moving pict. Not just Do Pham the body but his boots, his clothes, his equipment, his new lasgun just started to bubble up, rot away and fall off in a moist dust. It took less than ten seconds for Do Pham to no longer exist except as a memory.
It did not stop with Do Pham. As the cloud expanded the metal flooring and surrounding pipes and the promethium in them also rotted away to an ashy sludge.
Kin Lee could only then turn to look in the direction the dirty ball had come from. He had been in hundreds of fights with everything from bare hands to heavy stubbers. He had fought and won against all kinds of enemies and not just Human ones. He had fought against Underhive mutants of all kinds, descriptions, and strengths. He had even fought against a couple of rogue psyckers. None of them had ever phased him for a moment.
What he saw standing there froze his blood. He hand went immediately to his autopistol as a gasp took all his breath away. There were only three of them or maybe thousands as each had a swarm of huge black flies buzzing around them. Kin Lee could see how each had started the same but now none of them looked close to being the same.
Each of them was monstrously large and wearing a full set of metal armor. Kin Lee had heard stories about such armor. Not just a covering them but a part of them and with magically advanced systems that helped them fight better. Only this armor looked to have become a living part of the monsters wearing it. The armor was corroded all over and even had holes in it where he could see the sickly flesh underneath. There were also growths on the armors similar to the growths the dead had on them. The two groups were somehow linked was clear.
One way they were not linked was their weapons. The dead did not use any. The three armored figures each carried a firearm. Two of them were armed with what he barely recognized as Bolt Guns, one a pistol and the other a full Bolt Gun. A weapon that he always wanted but could never afford. The one with the Bolt Pistol also carried a wicked looking blade that dripped corrosion.
It was the third one who had fired the gas ball. It, they were too monstrous to use gender, carried what vaguely looked like a grenade launcher. Kin lee did not know how the weapons could fire since all of them looked to be corroded and had growths and boils on them that looked organic on metal weapons. Still as he watched all three of the weapons were fired again and four more members of his merged gang died. Two caught in the cloud of rotting gas and two hit be the explosive shells of the Bolt Weapons.
It was to their credit the remaining merged gang members all opened fire on the trio of rotting monsters. Some of the shots connected with the buzzing flies which exploded like rotted fruit. The lasgun shots that did connect with the rotting enemy looked to do damage to them but if they hurt them at all they showed no sign of it.
The three new enemy moved forward at the same pace as the dead had walked. They also continued to fire and kill merged gang members. After another volley of fire from those still alive which still did not do any apparent injury to the armored enemy, as one the remaining gang members broke and started to ran away from the enemy as fast as they could in a dozen different directions.
Kin Lee did not run to far. Leaping back to the control panel he began hitting buttons and flipping switches to try and stop the flow of the promethium. He did not know how the grenades could rot promethium. Still having seen how the grenades rotted everything they touch he knew he could not let the rot infect the promethium those waiting on it for their salvation back at the fueling station. He knew at this point he was not going to make it back to the fueling station.
At this point he started to hear the screams of the other merged gang members. Risking a look what was left of his courage fled him as he saw dozens more of the dead shambling toward them from behind their position. The few remaining merged gang members had run straight into them. The merged gang members did not even make it to the line of the dead. The dead let out their groan. Kin Lee tuned his head as all of his now former merged gang members collapsed to the ground. He knew they would soon be rising back to join the dead.
His hand found its way to the autopistol and drew it out. Kin Lee did not want to become part of the shambling horde of dead and raised the autopistol to his temple. As his finger tightened on the trigger other fingers tightened on his shoulder with such pressure, Kin Lee almost dropped the autopistol.
Another hand spun him around and the voice attached to it said, "Now, now you cannot deny Grandpa Nurgle your body. He has such wonderful gifts to bestow on you."
He first could not figure how he had not smelled this thing coming. As soon as he thought that his nose opened up again and registered on his brain. A war between the stench of his captor and promethium fumes began and he tried to shut off his nose again.
Kin Lee looked up into what was left of his capturer's face and wished he could reach up and pull his eyes out. His captor's face was half armored helmet and half rotten skull, but no logical pattern was present. Some of it was whole and some of it was merged together. All of it was a slimy mess that he could not tell how it was held together.
His captor then said, "I think I shall save you for a special treatment. No not just one of Grandpa Nurgle's common little gifts but a special one for you. You did not run so I think you deserve it. Now let me see what I can give to you."
Kin Lee did not know who Grandpa Nurgle was but if he was at all responsible for all that had happened and the death of his Underhive then he knew he wanted to strike back at him. There was one thing he could do that would strike back at him. Forcing himself to look at his captor, he locked his mind on what he had to do.
His captor said, "Ah I think I have the right special gift for you. It will give you strength and let you use your brain, not ruin your brain like all the other children we have birthed here."
Kin Lee then said, "My mother would like that. But I have a gift for you first."
He then raised the autopistol his mother had given him and with a final thought of her fired the entire magazine into a partially ruptured and rotted pipe nearby. The resulting explosion and fireball were not too big since there was not much promethium left in the pipe. Still it was big enough that Kin Lee, his former merged gang members, the dead still walking and all three of the armored monsters were consumed in fire. The Plague Marine did not appreciate the gift he was given.